Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Chronotherapy: Circadian Rhythms and Their Influence in Cancer Therapy

Simple Summary Living organisms present rhythmic fluctuations every 24 h in their behavior and metabolism to anticipate changes in the environment. These fluctuations are controlled by a very complex molecular mechanism, the circadian clock, that regulates the expression of multiple genes to ensure the right functioning of the body. An individual’s circadian system is altered during aging, and this is related to numerous age-associated pathologies and other alterations that could contribute to the development of cancer. Nowadays, there is an increasing interest in understanding how circadian rhythms could be used in the treatment of cancer. Chronotherapy aims to understand the impact that biological rhythms have on the response to a therapy to optimize its action, maximize health benefits, and minimize possible adverse effects. In this review, we explore the role of chronotherapy in cancer therapy improvement using different approaches and analyze the effect of administering a therapeutic treatment at a specific and optimal time based on the person’s circadian rhythm. Abstract Living organisms present rhythmic fluctuations every 24 h in their behavior and metabolism to anticipate changes in the environment. These fluctuations are controlled by a very complex molecular mechanism, the circadian clock, that regulates the expression of multiple genes to ensure the right functioning of the body. An individual’s circadian system is altered during aging, and this is related to numerous age-associated pathologies and other alterations that could contribute to the development of cancer. Nowadays, there is an increasing interest in understanding how circadian rhythms could be used in the treatment of cancer. Chronotherapy aims to understand the impact that biological rhythms have on the response to a therapy to optimize its action, maximize health benefits and minimize possible adverse effects. Clinical trials so far have confirmed that optimal timing of treatment with chemo or immunotherapies could decrease drug toxicity and increase efficacy. Instead, chronoradiotherapy seems to minimize treatment-related symptoms rather than tumor progression or patient survival. In addition, potential therapeutic targets within the molecular clock have also been identified. Therefore, results of the application of chronotherapy in cancer therapy until now are challenging, feasible, and could be applied to clinical practice to improve cancer treatment without additional costs. However, different limitations and variables such as age, sex, or chronotypes, among others, should be overcome before chronotherapy can really be put into clinical practice.
Spatially Continuous Mapping of Forest Canopy Height in Canada by Combining GEDI and ICESat-2 with PALSAR and Sentinel

Continuous large-scale mapping of forest canopy height is crucial for estimating and reporting forest carbon content, analyzing forest degradation and restoration, or to model ecosystem variables such as aboveground biomass. Over the last years, the spaceborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) sensor specifically designed to acquire forest structure information, Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI), has been used to extract forest canopy height information over large areas. Yet, GEDI has no spatial coverage for most forested areas in Canada and other high latitude regions. On the other hand, the spaceborne LiDAR called Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) provides a global coverage but was not specially developed to study forested ecosystems. Nonetheless, both spaceborne LiDAR sensors obtain point-based information, making spatially continuous forest canopy height estimation very challenging. This study compared the performance of both spaceborne LiDAR, GEDI and ICESat-2, combined with ALOS-2/PALSAR-2 and Sentinel-1 and -2 data to produce continuous canopy height maps in Canada for the year 2020. A set-aside dataset and airborne LiDAR (ALS) from a national LiDAR campaign were used for accuracy assessment. Both maps overestimated canopy height in relation to ALS data, but GEDI had a better performance than ICESat-2 with a mean difference (MD) of 0.9 m and 2.9 m, and a root mean square error (RMSE) of 4.2 m and 5.2 m, respectively. However, as both GEDI and ALS have no coverage in most of the hemi-boreal forests, ICESat-2 captures the tall canopy heights expected for these forests better than GEDI. PALSAR-2 HV polarization was the most important covariate to predict canopy height, showing the great potential of L-band in comparison to C-band from Sentinel-1 or optical data from Sentinel-2. The approach proposed here can be used operationally to produce annual canopy height maps for areas that lack GEDI and ICESat-2 coverage.
Anomalous broad dielectric relaxation in Bi1.5Zn1.0Nb1.5O7 pyrochlore

The complex dielectric response of Bi 1 . 5 Zn 1 . 0 Nb 1 . 5 O 7 cubic pyrochlore ceramics was investigated between 100 Hz and 100 THz by a combination of low-frequency capacitance bridges, a high-frequency coaxial technique, time domain transmission THz spectroscopy, and infrared spectroscopy. The data obtained between 10 K and 400 K revealed glasslike dielectric behavior: dielectric relaxation is observed over a wide frequency and temperature range, and the dielectric permittivity and loss maxima shift to higher temperature values by almost 200 K with increasing measuring frequency. The distribution of relaxation frequencies broadens on cooling and can be described by a uniform distribution. The high-frequency end of the distribution at ∼10 1 1 Hz is almost temperature independent and its low-frequency end obeys the Arrhenius Law with an activation energy of ∼0.2 eV. The relaxation is assigned to the local hopping of atoms in the A and O' positions of the pyrochlore structure among several local potential minima. The barrier height for hopping is distributed between 0 and 0.2 eV. Such an anomalously broad distribution may have its origin in the inhomogeneous distribution of Zn 2 + atoms and vacancies on Bi 3 + sites, which gives rise to random fields and nonperiodic interatomic potential. Frequency independent dielectric losses (1/f noise) are observed at low temperatures, which seems to be a universal behavior of disordered systems at low temperatures.
Coping strategies to predict the psychological well-being of college students during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia has forced college students to undergo online learning. Various problems that arise due to this pandemic, especially those related to academic achievement, can disrupt the students' psychological well-being. This study investigated coping strategies' role in predicting college students' psychological well-being during the pandemic's first wave. Two hundred eleven students participated online in this quantitative study and completed the shortened version of the Psychological Well-Being Scale and the Brief Cope Inventory. The regression analysis results show that problem-focused coping strategies, such as planning and the use of instrumental support, significantly predict the increase in female students' psychological well-being. In contrast, only active coping positively predicts psychological well-being in male students. Dysfunctional coping strategies, such as behavioral disengagement and denial, significantly predict the decline in female students' psychological well-being. On the other hand, venting showed a significant role in predicting the increased psychological well-being of female students. Emotion-focused coping strategies do not significantly predict psychological well-being in female and male students. Therefore, regarding the psychological well-being of college students during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, coping strategies, especially problem-focused and dysfunctional strategies, contribute differently to female and male students.
Aerodynamic Simulation of Ice Accretion on Airfoils

This report describes recent improvements in aerodynamic scaling and simulation of ice accretion on airfoils. Ice accretions were classified into four types on the basis of aerodynamic effects: roughness, horn, streamwise, and spanwise ridge. The NASA Icing Research Tunnel (IRT) was used to generate ice accretions within these four types using both subscale and full-scale models. Large-scale, pressurized windtunnel testing was performed using a 72-in. - (1.83-m-) chord, NACA 23012 airfoil model with high-fidelity, three-dimensional castings of the IRT ice accretions. Performance data were recorded over Reynolds numbers from 4.5 x 10(exp 6) to 15.9 x 10(exp 6) and Mach numbers from 0.10 to 0.28. Lower fidelity ice-accretion simulation methods were developed and tested on an 18-in. - (0.46-m-) chord NACA 23012 airfoil model in a small-scale wind tunnel at a lower Reynolds number. The aerodynamic accuracy of the lower fidelity, subscale ice simulations was validated against the full-scale results for a factor of 4 reduction in model scale and a factor of 8 reduction in Reynolds number. This research has defined the level of geometric fidelity required for artificial ice shapes to yield aerodynamic performance results to within a known level of uncertainty and has culminated in a proposed methodology for subscale iced-airfoil aerodynamic simulation.
Antioxidant Activity of Lignocellulose Pyrolysis by-Products after Levoglucosan Separation

Fast pyrolysis of pre-treated lignocellulose gives a high yield of levoglucosan and other anhydrosugars, which are considered as the main product. However, the chemical composition of the liquid pyrolysis products is a complex mixture of hundreds of individual compounds. To implement the biorefinery principles, it is important to find applications for the side-streams which arise during levoglucosan production. First, we separated the anhydrosugars by eluting the pyrolysis product water solution through an anion exchange resin column. The anhydrosugars were eluted, but the aromatic by-products were adsorbed on the resin. The by-products were desorbed from the resin with a mixture of methanol/water/acetic acid, and the chemical composition of the obtained by-products was analyzed by UHPLC-UV, and the Folin-Ciocalteu method. Alternatively, the pyrolysis products were separated by crystallization, which yielded levoglucosan with >90% purity, and a mother liquor enriched with aromatic chemical compounds. The antioxidant activity in all samples was evaluated by the DPPH method with corrections to compensate for the color of the by-product samples, which interfered with the UV/VIS spectrophotometry readings.
Performance of Ladle Furnace Slag in Mortar under Standard and Accelerated Curing

This research preliminarily investigated the suitability of a locally available ladle furnace slag (LFS) as a partial replacement of cement in mortar. The raw material was first characterized to obtain its chemical and physical properties through particle size distribution, X-ray fluorescence (XRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Later, the raw LFS was classified into two categories: (i) raw LFS and (ii) sieved (passing through #200 sieve) LFS and incorporated in mortars as a partial replacement of cement. Mortar prisms with 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 50% LFS (raw and sieved) were prepared and cured under normal temperature (NTC) for 7, 28, and 56 days. Additional mortar prisms (with raw and sieved LFS) were prepared by curing them under high-temperature accelerated curing (HTAC) for 7 days. The characterization tests suggest that CaO, SiO2, MgO, and Al2O3 are the main compounds of raw LFS used in this study. The mineralogical phases present in the raw slag are calcio-olivine, akermanite, α -quartz, merwinite, magnetite (Fe3O4), and calcium-aluminium oxide. Both raw and sieved LFS-blended mortars yield good consistency up to 25% cement replacement in mortars. The compressive strength of NTC mortar suggests that 5% and 10% replacement of cement with raw and sieved LFS yields higher strength than the control mortar. Seven days strengths of raw and sieved LFS blended mortars obtained for HTAC are closely comparable to that of 28 days under NTC. This study recommends that LFS could be a sustainable supplementary material to use as a partial replacement of cement in mortar, preferably up to a level of 15% for standard works.
Effect of Gender in SLA, Inspiring Gender Roles SLA Research

Gender has been proved to play crucial roles in SLA (second language acquisition) . While there remains controversary in gender effect on SLA. More and more empirical findings suggest the similarities between the two gender outnumber differences, which has shifted the view on gender SLA from nature to nurture. The present literature review will first compare most recent studies focus on metacognitive strategies and foreign language anxiety. Then, suggestions on gender role research that can provide extra explanations on previous contradictory gender SLA will be made. This leads to richer understandings of the relations between gender and language learning across societies and communities. Present review can also provide suggestions for understanding the mechanism that sex roles shape language acquisition.
Compassion focused therapy for pain management: ‘3 systems approach’ to understanding why striving and self-criticism are key psychological barriers to regulating activity and improving self-care for people living with persistent pain

Background This paper describes the development of an eight-week Compassion Focused Therapy for Pain Management (CFT-PM) group. This group was specifically designed for ‘strivers’ a sub-group of people with persistent pain who tend to engage in over-activity and resist making reasonable adjustments to their activity levels to accommodate their persistent pain. ‘Strivers’ tend to cope by ignoring their pain and pushing on through, in the shorter term leading to ‘boom and bust’ activity-related exacerbations of their pain. They also risk the development of additional persistent fatigue and burnout in the longer term. Method 117 people completed the CFT-PM group; The group was delivered in person (n = 84) but in online format from July 2020 (n = 33). 162 people started the CFT-PM group but 45 dropped-out (27.43%). Results There was a significant effect for time across all measures: significant improvement was found for depression, self-compassion, pain-related disability, pain-related anxiety and pain self-efficacy. Pain numeric rating scores were approaching significance. There was a significant main effect of diagnosis; post-hoc t-test analysis found significant improvement for all diagnoses on all measures with the exception of spinal. There was also a significant interaction between time and format: post-hoc t-test analysis found greater improvement for virtual format on self-compassion and pain-related anxiety. Discussion Findings suggests that CFT-PM may be a clinically effective group intervention with virtual format showing superior improvement. This approach might be less suitable for certain diagnoses; the spinal group may benefit more from traditional CBT-based PMPs. Limitations include the lack of random selection or allocation to treatment group. Future studies should adopt an experimental design to be able to draw firm conclusions regarding causation and efficacy. Despite these limitations, present findings suggest that CFT-PM may be an effective group intervention worthy of further investigation and clinical application.
Cancer Patients First Treated with Chemotherapy: Are They More Likely to Receive Surgery in the Pandemic?

Due to the ramping down of cancer surgery in early pandemic, many newly diagnosed patients received other treatments first. We aimed to quantify the pandemic-related shift in rate of surgery following chemotherapy. This is a retrospective population-based cohort study involving adults diagnosed with cancer between 3 January 2016 and 7 November 2020 in Ontario, Canada who received chemotherapy as first treatment within 6-months of diagnosis. Competing-risks regression models with interaction effects were used to quantify the association between COVID-19 period (receiving a cancer diagnosis before or on/after 15 March 2020) and receipt of surgical reSection 9-months after first chemotherapy. Among 51,653 patients, 8.5% (n = 19,558) of them ultimately underwent surgery 9-months after chemotherapy initiation. Receipt of surgery was higher during the pandemic than before (sHR 1.07, 95% CI 1.02–1.13). Material deprivation was independently associated with lower receipt of surgery (least vs. most deprived quintile: sHR 1.11, 95% CI 1.04–1.17), but did not change with the pandemic. The surgical rate increase was most pronounced for breast cancer (sHR 1.13, 95% CI 1.06–1.20). These pandemic-related shifts in cancer treatment requires further evaluations to understand the long-term consequences. Persistent material deprivation-related inequity in cancer surgical access needs to be addressed.
Central Limit Theorem for linear eigenvalue statistics of the Wigner and sample covariance random matrices

We consider two classical ensembles of the random matrix theory: the Wigner matrices and sample covariance matrices, and prove Central Limit Theorem for linear eigenvalue statistics under rather weak (comparing with results known before) conditions on the number of derivatives of the test functions and also on the number of the entries moments. Moreover, we develop a universal method which allows one to obtain automatically the bounds for the variance of differentiable test functions, if there is a bound for the variance of the trace of the resolvent of random matrix. The method is applicable not only to the Wigner and sample covariance matrices, but to any ensemble of random matrices.
“Flower Power”: Controlled Inhalation of THC-Predominant Cannabis Flos Improves Health-Related Quality of Life and Symptoms of Chronic Pain and Anxiety in Eligible UK Patients

In November 2018, the UK’s Home Office established a legal route for eligible patients to be prescribed cannabis-based products for medicinal use in humans (CBPMs) as unlicensed medicines. These include liquid cannabis extracts for oral administration (“oils”) and dried flowers for inhalation (“flos”). Smoking of CBPMs is expressly prohibited. To date, THC-predominant cannabis flowers remain the most prescribed CBPMs in project Twenty21 (T21), the first multi-center, prospective, observational UK cannabis patient registry. This observational, prospective data review analyzes patient-reported outcome measures (PROMS) collected by T21 associated with the inhalation of KHIRON 20/1, the most prescribed CBPM in the project. PROMS collected at baseline and at subsequent 3-month follow-up included health-related quality of life (HRQoL), general mood, and sleep. Condition-specific measures of illness severity were performed with the Brief Pain Inventory Short Form (BPI-SF) and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-Item Scale (GAD-7). Participants (N = 344) were mostly males (77.6%, average age = 38.3) diagnosed mainly with chronic pain (50.9%) and anxiety-related disorders (25.3%). Inhalation of KHIRON 20/1 was associated with a marked increase in self-reported HRQoL, general mood, and sleep (N = 344; p < 0.001). Condition-specific assessments showed significant improvements in pain severity (T = 6.67; p < 0.001) and interference (T = 7.19; p < 0.001) in patients using KHIRON 20/1 for chronic pain (N = 174). Similar results were found for patients diagnosed with anxiety-related disorders (N = 107; T = 12.9; p < 0.001). Our results indicate that controlled inhalation of pharmaceutical grade, THC-predominant cannabis flos is associated with a significant improvement in patient-reported pain scores, mood, anxiety, sleep disturbances and overall HRQoL in a treatment-resistant clinical population.
A Medical Resident with a History of Alcohol Abuse and Suicidal Ideation: A Challenge for Both Psychiatry and Occupational Medicine in the Context of the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic

This case study draws attention to the hazards of physicians with a history of alcohol addiction and a particular psychopathology framework in the context of occupational health surveillance, particularly during the challenging working conditions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. The case involves a hospital resident in her thirties, with a previous history of addiction and attempts at suicide, who was assigned to a COVID-19 unit of an Italian hospital. In this case study, we discuss the preventive intervention put in place in order to protect physicians' health and work. What emerges is the key role that rapid substantive communications between specialists play in formulating an effective strategy for dealing with these conditions. We believe this case is noteworthy for the lessons that can be learned for tailoring prevention and treatment pathways for health care workers with addiction.
Longitudinal Dyadic Associations between Depressive Symptoms and Life Satisfaction among Chinese Married Couples and the Moderating Effect of Within-Dyad Age Discrepancy

Family systems theory defines the family unit as a complex social system in which individual members influence and are influenced by each other. The current study aimed to investigate the longitudinal dyadic associations between life satisfaction and depressive symptoms among a sample of Chinese married couples and the moderating effect of within-dyad age discrepancy. The current sample included 5773 married couples who completed three waves of assessments of the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) in 2012, 2016, and 2018. The sample was categorized into two groups based on the within-dyad age discrepancy: the younger-wife–older-husband dyads (n = 4280, 74.13%) and the older-wife–younger-husband dyads (n = 1493, 25.86%). The longitudinal actor–partner interdependence models with multiple-group analysis were used to analyze the data. The results showed that a majority of actor effects were significant across time, and the two groups exhibited the same pattern among the actor effects. The older-wife–younger-husband dyads showed fewer significant partner effects than the younger-wife–older-husband dyads, and most partner effects indicated mutual rather than unidirectional influence. These findings yielded support for the statement of family systems theory that family members interconnect and that the development of one’s well-being needs to be understood in the context of the spouse’s well-being.