Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Probing the loss origins of ultra-smooth $\mathrm{Si_3N_4}$ integrated photonic waveguides

On-chip optical waveguides with low propagation losses and precisely engineered group velocity dispersion (GVD) are important to nonlinear photonic devices such as soliton microcombs, and likewise can be employed for on chip gyroscopes, delay lines or Brillouin lasers. Yet, despite intensive research efforts, nonlinear integrated photonic platforms still feature propagation losses orders of magnitude higher than in standard optical fiber. The tight confinement and high index contrast of integrated waveguides make them highly susceptible to fabrication induced surface roughness. Therefore, microresonators with ultra-high Q factors are, to date, only attainable in polished bulk crystalline, or chemically etched silica based devices, that pose however challenges for full photonic integration. Here, we demonstrate the fabrication of silicon nitride (Si3N4) waveguides with unprecedentedly smooth sidewalls and tight confinement with record low propagation losses. This is achieved by combining the photonic Damascene process with a novel reflow process, which reduces etching roughness, while sufficiently preserving dimensional accuracy. This leads to previously unattainable mean microresonator Q factors larger than 5×10 for tightly confining waveguides with anomalous dispersion. Via systematic process step variation and two independent characterization techniques we differentiate the scattering and absorption loss contributions, and reveal metal impurity related absorption to be an important loss origin. Although such impurities are known to limit optical fibers, this is the first time they are identified, and play a tangible role, in absorption of integrated microresonators. Taken together, our work provides new insights in the origins of propagation losses in Si3N4 waveguides and provides the technological basis for integrated nonlinear photonics in the ultra-high Q regime.
Lack of APLP1 leads to subtle alterations in neuronal morphology but does not affect learning and memory

The amyloid precursor protein APP plays a crucial role in Alzheimer pathogenesis. Its physiological functions, however, are only beginning to be unraveled. APP belongs to a small gene family, including besides APP the closely related amyloid precursor-like proteins APLP1 and APLP2, that all constitute synaptic adhesion proteins. While APP and APLP2 are ubiquitously expressed, APLP1 is specific for the nervous system. Previous genetic studies, including combined knockouts of several family members, pointed towards a unique role for APLP1, as only APP/APLP1 double knockouts were viable. We now examined brain and neuronal morphology in APLP1 single knockout (KO) animals, that have to date not been studied in detail. Here, we report that APLP1-KO mice show normal spine density in hippocampal CA1 pyramidal cells and subtle alterations in dendritic complexity. Extracellular field recordings revealed normal basal synaptic transmission and no alterations in synaptic plasticity (LTP). Further, behavioral studies revealed in APLP1-KO mice a small deficit in motor function and reduced diurnal locomotor activity, while learning and memory were not affected by the loss of APLP1. In summary, our study indicates that APP family members serve both distinct and overlapping functions that need to be considered for therapeutic treatments of Alzheimer’s disease.
Improving Body Mass Index in Students with Excess Weight through a Physical Activity Programme

The obesity epidemic among young people can be tackled through regular physical activity. For this purpose, we developed and implemented a physical activity programme (PAP) that we carried out in students’ free time during the school year 2018–2019. The target group consisted of 79 students with excess weight, aged between 12 and 15 years, selected from an initial sample of 495 students from 5 pre-university education units located in an urban area. That group followed a differentiated PAP for 26 weeks. The impact of the programme highlighted the following points: the average physical activity/week for the entire sample of subjects was 3.67 physical activities, with an allocated time/week ranging from 1 h 30 min to 3 h; in terms of effort intensity, 7.70% of the activities were performed at low intensity, 75.07% at medium intensity and 17.23% at submaximal intensity. At the end of the programme, out of 79 subjects who were overweight/obese at the initial testing, 37 improved their body composition at the final testing, with a healthy BMI. It was also found that there is a negative correlation coefficient (r = −0.23) between the time spent performing physical activities and the BMI of the subjects.
Takotsubo Syndrome and Its Genetic Relationship: Case Report and Narrative Literature Review

Introduction: Takotsubo Syndrome (TTS) is presented as a temporary loss of systolic function, it is usually associated with emotional or physical stress. However, its pathophysiology is not well defined. Thus, this article seeks the relationship between the genetic factor and the development of Takotsubo Syndrome. Methodology: The study is about a narrative review and two case reports on TTS. Results: TTS is related to the excess of catecholamines, and its genetic linkage is strongly considered due to recent studies where occasionally it has been noticed its hereditary connections, such as: increased cardiac sensitivity to catecholamines and cardiac vulnerability to adrenergic stressors, impaired regulation of norepinephrine release, syndrome fragile X, and CD36 deficiency. Discussion: There is still no conclusion of the leading factors to TTS. However, being female, being in the postmenopausal period, and exposed to stressful conditions are some of the risk factors that can develop the disease, and which are better accepted by the scientific community. Conclusions: Although TTS is a disease of low prevalence, it is increasingly present in the routine of the cardiologist. The great difficulty lies in its diagnosis as it does not present a pathognomonic symptom and it is similar to other diseases, such as ACS. This causes it to pass absent-mindedly during the emergency primary investigation. Thus, there is a need to expand studies related to this disease and to investigate its genetic association.
Time-dependent behaviour of Lyman α photon transfer in a high-redshift optically thick medium

With Monte Carlo simulation method, we investigate the time dependent behavior of Ly$\alpha$ photon transfer in optically thick medium of the concordance $\Lambda$CDM universe. At high redshift, the Ly$\alpha$ photon escaping from optically thick medium has a time scale as long as the age of the luminous object, or even comparable to the age of the universe. In this case, time-independent, or stationary solutions of the Ly$\alpha$ photon transfer with resonant scattering will overlook important features of the escaped Ly$\alpha$ photons in physical and frequency spaces. More seriously, the expansion of the universe leads to that the time-independent solutions of the Ly$\alpha$ photon transfer may not exist. We show that time-dependent solutions sometimes are essential for understanding the Ly$\alpha$ emission and absorption at high redshifts. For Ly\alpha photons from sources at redshift 1+z=10 and being surrounded by neutral hydrogen IGM of the $\Lambda$CDM universe, the escape coefficient is found to be always less, or much less than one, regardless of the age or life time of the sources. Under such environment, we also find that even when the Ly$\alpha$ photon luminosity of the sources is stable, the mean surface brightness is gradually increasing in the first 10^6 years, and then decreasing with a power law of time, but never approaches a stable, time-independent state. That is, all 1+z=10 sources in a neutral Hubble expanding IGM with Ly$\alpha$ luminosity L have their maximum of mean surface brightness ~ 10^{-21}(L/(10^{43}erg/s)) erg s^{-1} cm^{-2} arcsec^{-2} at the age of about 10^6 years. The time-dependent effects on the red damping wing profile are also addressed.
Coulomb explosion of CO2 in an intense femtosecond laser field

The Coulomb explosion of CO2 into multicharged atomic ions is investigated following the ejection of up to 9 electrons by an intense femtosecond laser field. The identification of several fragmentation channels OZ++CZ'++OZ+ is performed from triple ion correlation experiments. As already observed for the Coulomb explosion of N2 by a strong picosecond laser field. the measured kinetic energy releases are 50% weaker than the Coulomb repulsion energies calculated at the equilibrium internuclear distances. In addition, there is evidence for bending of the molecule during the explosion around the average linear structure. This experimental observation is tentatively assigned to bending vibrations arising from the violent laser-induced alignment of the molecule along the laser polarization direction before the explosion.
Far-from-equilibrium dynamics with broken symmetries from the 1/N expansion of the 2PI effective action

We derive the nonequilibrium real-time evolution of an O(N)-invariant scalar quantum field theory in the presence of a nonvanishing expectation value of the quantum field. Using a systematic 1/N expansion of the 2PI effective action to next-to-leading order, we obtain nonperturbative evolution equations which include scattering and memory effects. The equivalence of the direct method, which requires the resummation of an infinite number of skeleton diagrams, with the auxiliary-field formalism, which involves only one diagram at next-to-leading order, is shown.
Optimal control for a fully parabolic singular chemotaxis model with indirect signal consumption in two space dimensions

This paper deals with a distributed optimal control problem to a chemotaxis model with the indirect signal consumption. We first explore the global-in-time existence and uniqueness of a strong solution. Then we define the cost functional and establish the existence of the optimal solution of control problem. Finally we derive the first-order necessary optimality conditions.
A magnetohydrodynamic model for multiwavelength flares from Sagittarius A⋆ (I): model and the near-infrared and X-ray flares

Flares from the supermassive black hole in our Galaxy, Sagittarius~A$^\star$ (Sgr A$^\star$), are routinely observed over the last decade or so. Despite numerous observational and theoretical efforts, the nature of such flares still remains poorly understood, although a few phenomenological scenarios have been proposed. In this work, we develop the Yuan et al. (2009) scenario into a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) model for Sgr A$^\star$ flares. This model is analogous with the theory of solar flares and coronal mass ejection in solar physics. In the model, magnetic field loops emerge from the accretion flow onto Sgr A$^\star$ and are twisted to form flux ropes because of shear and turbulence. The magnetic energy is also accumulated in this process until a threshold is reached. This then results in a catastrophic evolution of a flux rope with the help of magnetic reconnection in the current sheet. In this catastrophic process, the magnetic energy is partially converted into the energy of non-thermal electrons. We have quantitatively calculated the dynamical evolution of the height, size, and velocity of the flux rope, as well as the magnetic field in the flare regions, and the energy distribution of relativistic electrons in this process. We further calculate the synchrotron radiation from these electrons and compare the obtained light curves with the observed ones. We find that the model can reasonably explain the main observations of near-infrared (NIR) and X-ray flares including their light curves and spectra. It can also potentially explain the frequency-dependent time delay seen in radio flare light curves.
Prediction of typhoon tracks using a generative adversarial network with observational and meteorological data

Tracks of typhoons are predicted using a generative adversarial network (GAN) with observational data in form of satellite images and meteorological data from a reanalysis database. Time series of images of typhoons which occurred in the Korean Peninsula in the past are used to train the neural network. The trained GAN is employed to produce a 6-hour-advance track of a typhoon for which the GAN was not trained. The predicted image favorably identifies the future location of the typhoon center as well as the deformed cloud structures. The errors between predicted and real typhoon centers are measured quantitatively in kilometers. 65.5 % of all typhoon center predictions have an error of less than 80 km, 31.5 % lie within a range of 80 - 120 km and the remaining 3.0 % are above 120 km. The overall error is 67.2 km, compared to 95.6 km when only observational data are used as input. The cloud structure prediction is evaluated qualitatively. It is shown that the GAN is able to predict trends in cloud motion. It is found that adding physically meaningful meteorological data to satellite images improves the sharpness of predicted images.
Exosomes from Human Omental Adipose-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells Secreted into Ascites Promote Peritoneal Metastasis of Epithelial Ovarian Cancer

Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) patients frequently develop peritoneal metastasis, especially in the human omentum. However, the mechanism underlying this propensity remains unknown. A previous study found that human omental adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells are potentially involved in ovarian cancer growth and metastasis, but the results were inconsistent and even contradictory. In addition, the underlying mechanisms of visceral adipose metastasis remain poorly understood. Here, our goal is to clarify the role and mechanism of human omental adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (HO-ADSCs) in EOC cancer growth and metastasis. We first found that human omental tissue conditioned medium (HO-CM) enhances EOC cell function. Subsequent coculture studies indicated that HO-ADSCs increase the growth, migratory and invasive capabilities of ovarian cancer cells. Then, we demonstrated that exosomes secreted by HO-ADSCs (HO-ADSC exosomes) enhanced ovarian cancer cell function, and further mechanistic studies showed that the FOXM1, Cyclin F, KIF20A, and MAPK signaling pathways were involved in this process. In addition, subcutaneous tumorigenesis and peritoneal metastatic xenograft experiments provided evidence that HO-ADSC exosomes promote ovarian cancer growth and metastasis in vivo. Finally, our clinical studies provided evidence that ascites from ovarian cancer patients enhance EOC cell line proliferation, migration, and invasion in vitro. The present study indicated that HO-ADSC exosomes are secreted into ascites and exert a tumor-promoting effect on EOC growth and metastasis, providing a new perspective and method to develop future novel therapeutic strategies for the treatment of ovarian cancer.
Dynamics of Subarcsecond Bright Dots in the Transition Region above Sunspots and Their Relation to Penumbral Micro-jets

Recent high-resolution observations have revealed that subarcsecond bright dots (BDs) with sub-minute lifetimes appear ubiquitously in the transition region (TR) above sunspot penumbra. The presence of penumbral micro-jets (PMJs) in the chromosphere was previously reported. It was proposed that both the PMJs and BDs are formed due to a magnetic reconnection process and may play an important role in heating of the penumbra. Using simultaneous observations of the chromosphere from the Solar Optical Telescope (SOT) on board Hinode and observations of the TR from the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, we study the dynamics of BDs and their relation to PMJs. We find two types of BDs, one that is related to PMJs, and another that does not show any visible dynamics in the SOT Ca ii H images. From a statistical analysis we show that these two types have different properties. The BDs that are related to PMJs always appear at the top of the PMJs, the vast majority of which show inward motion and originate before the generation of the PMJs. These results may indicate that the reconnection occurs at the lower coronal/TR height and initiates PMJs at the chromosphere. This formation mechanism is in contrast with the formation of PMJs by reconnection in the (upper) photosphere between differently inclined fields.
6Li in the Atmosphere of GJ 117

We present high-resolution VLT UVES observations of the active K dwarf GJ 117. 6Li enhancement has been shown for energetic solar events, one chromospherically active binary, and several dwarf halo stars. Our analysis reveals the detection of 6Li on this source with 6Li/7Li = 0.030 ± 0.010. We found no significant contribution from other lines, including Ti I, in the Li profile of GJ 117 and a template star of similar spectral type and metallicity. We discuss the possibility for 6Li production by spallation and find it to be consistent with the activity levels of the object.
Agricultural Parameters and Essential Oil Content Composition Prediction of Aniseed, Based on Growing Year, Locality and Fertilization Type—An Artificial Neural Network Approach

Simple Summary The artificial neural network (ANN) model was developed to predict and optimize the aniseed parameters including: plant height, umbel diameter, number of umbels, number of seeds, 1000-seed weight, yield per plant, plant weight, harvest index, yield per ha, essential oil yield, germination energy, total germination and essential oil content; as well as the content of obtained essential oil, such as: limonene, cis-dihydro carvone, methyl chavicol, carvone, cis-anethole, trans-anethole, β-elemene, α-himachalene, trans-β-farnesene, γ-himachalene, trans-muurola-4(14),5-diene, α-zingiberene, β-himachalene, β-bisabolene, trans-pseudoisoeugenyl 2-methylbutyrate and epoxy-pseudoisoeugenyl 2-methylbutyrate), according to growing year, locality and fertilization type. Abstract Predicting yield is essential for producers, stakeholders and international interchange demand. The majority of the divergence in yield and essential oil content is associated with environmental aspects, including weather conditions, soil variety and cultivation techniques. Therefore, aniseed production was examined in this study. The categorical input variables for artificial neural network modelling were growing year (two successive growing years), growing locality (three different locations in Vojvodina Province, Serbia) and fertilization type (six different treatments). The output variables were morphological and quality parameters, with agricultural importance such as plant height, umbel diameter, number of umbels, number of seeds per umbel, 1000-seed weight, seed yield per plant, plant weight, harvest index, yield per ha, essential oil (EO) yield, germination energy, total germination, EO content, as well as the share of EOs compounds, including limonene, cis-dihydro carvone, methyl chavicol, carvone, cis-anethole, trans-anethole, β-elemene, α-himachalene, trans-β-farnesene, γ-himachalene, trans-muurola-4(14),5-diene, α-zingiberene, β-himachalene, β-bisabolene, trans-pseudoisoeugenyl 2-methylbutyrate and epoxy-pseudoisoeugenyl 2-methylbutyrate. The ANN model predicted agricultural parameters accurately, showing r2 values between 0.555 and 0.918, while r2 values for the forecasting of essential oil content were between 0.379 and 0.908. According to global sensitivity analysis, the fertilization type was a more influential variable to agricultural parameters, while the location site was more influential to essential oils content.
A Combined Bioassay and Nanofractionation Approach to Investigate the Anticoagulant Toxins of Mamba and Cobra Venoms and Their Inhibition by Varespladib

Envenomation by elapid snakes primarily results in neurotoxic symptoms and, consequently, are the primary focus of therapeutic research concerning such venoms. However, mounting evidence suggests these venoms can additionally cause coagulopathic symptoms, as demonstrated by some Asian elapids and African spitting cobras. This study sought to investigate the coagulopathic potential of venoms from medically important elapids of the genera Naja (true cobras), Hemachatus (rinkhals), and Dendroaspis (mambas). Crude venoms were bioassayed for coagulant effects using a plasma coagulation assay before RPLC/MS was used to separate and identify venom toxins in parallel with a nanofractionation module. Subsequently, coagulation bioassays were performed on the nanofractionated toxins, along with in-solution tryptic digestion and proteomics analysis. These experiments were then repeated on both crude venoms and on the nanofractionated venom toxins with the addition of either the phospholipase A2 (PLA2) inhibitor varespladib or the snake venom metalloproteinase (SVMP) inhibitor marimastat. Our results demonstrate that various African elapid venoms have an anticoagulant effect, and that this activity is significantly reduced for cobra venoms by the addition of varespladib, though this inhibitor had no effect against anticoagulation caused by mamba venoms. Marimastat showed limited capacity to reduce anticoagulation in elapids, affecting only N. haje and H. haemachatus venom at higher doses. Proteomic analysis of nanofractionated toxins revealed that the anticoagulant toxins in cobra venoms were both acidic and basic PLA2s, while the causative toxins in mamba venoms remain uncertain. This implies that while PLA2 inhibitors such as varespladib and metalloproteinase inhibitors such as marimastat are viable candidates for novel snakebite treatments, they are not likely to be effective against mamba envenomings.
Real-space structure of the impurity screening cloud in the resonant level model

We present a detailed investigation of the impurity screening cloud in the resonant level model. The screening is visible in the structure of impurity–bath correlators as a function of distance from the impurity. We characterize the screening cloud through scaling analyses of impurity–bath correlators and entanglement entropies. We devise and study several situations where the screening cloud is destroyed or modified: finite temperatures, energetic detuning of the impurity from the chemical potential, and the situation of an unconventional bath with diverging density of states.