Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Roadway Protection by Roof-Cutting in the Support Removing Channel of the Long-Wall Mining Face

Aiming at strong mining pressure and large deformation of surrounding rock in the main roadway, a mechanical model of the advanced abutment pressure distribution in the long-wall mining face was established. The main reason for the large deformation of the surrounding rock in the main roadway was found to be unreasonable position of the stop line, which brings the main roadway under the influence of mining operations. Therefore, on the premise of an unaltered stop line, the technique of cutting the roof and use of pressure relief to protect the main roadway were proposed. The technique will form a weak surface along the stop line, blocking the rock layer from transmitting the abutment pressure. Engineering practice shows that by using the advanced roof cutting and pressure-relief technique, the abutment pressure on the long-wall mining face is reduced and the main roadway is protected.
Rank-Rankl-Opg Axis in Multiple Sclerosis: The Contribution of Placenta

Women with multiple sclerosis (MS) can safely become pregnant and give birth, with no side effects or impediments. Pregnancy is generally accepted as a period of well-being in which relapses have a softer evolution, particularly in the third trimester. Herein, we hypothesized that the placenta, via its “secretome”, could contribute to the recognized beneficial effects of pregnancy on MS activity. We focused on a well-known receptor/ligand/decoy receptor system, such as the one composed by the receptor activator of nuclear factor-kB (RANK), its ligand (RANKL), and the decoy receptor osteoprotegerin (OPG), which have never been investigated in an integrated way in MS, pregnancy, and placenta. We reported that pregnancy at the term of gestation influences the balance between circulating RANKL and its endogenous inhibitor OPG in MS women. We demonstrated that the placenta at term is an invaluable source of homodimeric OPG. By functional studies on astrocytes, we showed that placental OPG suppresses the mRNA expression of the CCL20, a chemokine responsible for Th17 cell recruitment. We propose placental OPG as a crucial molecule for the recognized beneficial effect of late pregnancy on MS and its potential utility for the development of new and more effective therapeutic approaches.
Factors Affecting Women’s Career Advancement: Open and Distance Learners’ Prespective

According to World Bank Report, female population in Malaysia was reported at 49.3% in 2016. Women play prominent role in today world because they carry variety of roles in the family, community and society levels. In the 1st Malaysia Plan (1966-1970), Malaysia government has incorporated women in the development of the country. Following the 5th Malaysia Plan (1986-1990) and the adaptation of National Policy Women in 1989, the role of women in development have been increasingly reflected. It is undeniable that women made significant contribution in the business industry; however gender inequality still exists in the labour force around the world. Nevertheless, the women’s position in the labour market is much more disadvantageous than that of men. Women have smaller chances to be employed, starts a business or advancing in the career ladder. A total sample of 213 open and distance learning (ODL) learners in several private and public education institutions in Malaysia were collected in this study. This study aims to investigate the learners’ perception on the factors affecting women’s career advancement using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The results of this study would be able to assist educators to fulfill their responsibilities to help all learners to develop their abilities and skills to create supportive industry environment for women. The results showed all the factors; character, lack of support, treatment and family issues in this study has significant impact on the respondents’ perception. Meanwhile, educators will be able to review the course curriculum to better prepare graduates for the realities of gender empowerment in the workplace.
Recent Advances in Treatment Options for Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Simple Summary Acute lymphoblastic leukemia is the most common blood cancer in pediatric patients. Despite the enormous progress in ALL treatment, which is reflected by a high 5-year overall survival rate that reaches up to 96% in the most recent studies, there are still patients that cannot be saved. Treatment of ALL is based on conventional methods, including chemotherapy and radiotherapy. These methods carry with them the risk of very high toxicities. Severe complications related to conventional therapies decrease their effectiveness and can sometimes lead to death. Therefore, currently, numerous studies are being carried out on novel forms of treatment. In this work, classical methods of treatment have been summarized. Furthermore, novel treatment methods and the possibility of combining them with chemotherapy have been incorporated into the present work. Targeted treatment, CAR-T-cell therapy, and immunotherapy for ALL have been described. Treatment options for the relapse/chemoresistance ALL have been presented. Abstract Acute lymphoblastic leukemia is the most common blood cancer in pediatric patients. There has been enormous progress in ALL treatment in recent years, which is reflected by the increase in the 5-year OS from 57% in the 1970s to up to 96% in the most recent studies. ALL treatment is based primarily on conventional methods, which include chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Their main weakness is severe toxicity, which prompts dose reduction, decreases the effectiveness of the treatment, and, in some cases, can lead to death. Currently, numerous modifications in treatment regimens are applied in order to limit toxicities emerging from conventional approaches and improve outcomes. Hematological treatment of pediatric patients is reaching for more novel treatment options, such as targeted treatment, CAR-T-cells therapy, and immunotherapy. These methods are currently used in conjunction with chemotherapy. Nevertheless, the swift progress in their development and increasing efficacity can lead to applying those novel therapies as standalone therapeutic options for pediatric ALL.
Isolation of obligate anaerobes from clinical samples received for routine bacterial culture and sensitivity: a cross sectional study

Background and Objectives: Obligate anaerobic bacteria are known to cause various infections in human beings. We aimed to determine the prevalence and spectrum of obligate anaerobes encountered in pus aspirate, sterile fluids and tissue samples received for routine bacterial culture and sensitivity. Materials and Methods: A total of 160 samples including tissue, sterile body fluids and pus aspirate were collected, analysed for prevalence and spectrum of obligate anaerobes. Identification of obligate and facultative anaerobes was done by automated MALDI-TOF and Vitek 2 method. Results: Among 160 samples, 75 samples (46.8%) yielded obligate anaerobes out of which 41 samples (26%) yielded obligate anaerobes along with facultative anaerobes which was significant (p value=0.031) and 34 samples (21%) yielded only obligate anaerobes. 90 obligate anaerobes were isolated from 75 samples among which only 34 (37.7%) samples yielded only obligate anaerobes and 56 (62.2%) yielded both obligate and facultative anaerobes. Gram stain with polymicrobial appearance (p value 0.02) was found to be significantly associated with growth of obligate anaerobes. Clinical conditions where obligate anaerobes were commonly associated were appendicular abscess, empyema, fournier’s gangrene, diabetic foot, ludwigs angina and deep abscess. Out of 75 positive samples 30 (40%) patients had predisposing conditions like diabetes mellitus, hypertension etc. Total of 90 obligate anaerobes and 49 facultative anaerobes were isolated. The common obligate anaerobes were Bacteroides fragilis 18 (20%), Prevotella spp. 20 (22.2%), and Clostridium spp. 8 (8.88%). Facultative anaerobes like Escherichia coli 25 (34.7%), Klebsiella species 15 (20.8%), Enterococcus faecalis 19 (26.3%) were isolated. Antibiotic sensitivity was performed for facultative anaerobes by Kirby bauer disc diffusion method. Out of 15 Escherichia coli isolates resistance was commonly seen for ampicillin 13 (86.6%), cephalosporins 11 (73.3%), ciprofloxacin 10 (66.6%) and Piperacillin tazobactum 8 (53.3%). In Klebsiella species resistance were commonly seen to Ampicillin 6 (100%), cephalosporins 2 (33.3%) and ciprofloxacin 2 (33.3%). Conclusion: There was significant isolation of obligate anaerobes along with facultative anaerobes in clinical samples received for aerobic culture and sensitivity. There is a need for isolation of these bacteria routinely and a scope for doing antibiotic susceptibility testing, which will help in evidence-based medicine and a better clinical outcome by giving appropriate therapy.
Elastic-Plastic Finite Element Analysis for Zhongwei--guiyang Natural Gas Pipeline Endangered by Collapse

Through the establishment of rockfall impact force is applied to the mechanical model of cover soil of buried pipeline, for the finite element simulation and calculation of different pressures and different depths within the pipeline was carried out. When the buried depth of pipeline is fixed at 2m, with or without internal pressure were simulated; 10MPa pressure in the work, the depth of 1m and 3m in different conditions were simulated. According to the curves between rockfall impact force and maximum Von Mises stress of the pipeline, the results show that the presence of pressure in pipeline will reduce the carrying capacity, and increasing the depth of the pipeline will increase it. The results in this work have provided a theoretical basis to ensure the safe operation of the buried pipeline and the prediction and prevention potential collapse disaster.
Nrf2-Mediated Ferroptosis Inhibition Exerts a Protective Effect on Acute-on-Chronic Liver Failure

Although massive hepatocyte cell death and oxidative stress constitute major events of acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF), the relationship of ferroptosis with ACLF has yet to be explored. Nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) is a key regulator of ferroptosis. However, if Nrf2 modulates ACLF through ferroptosis remains unknown. Here, the liver tissues of ACLF patients were collected and murine models of ACLF using carbon tetrachloride, D-galactosamine, and lipopolysaccharide as well as an H2O2-induced hepatocyte injury model were established. Upon ACLF, livers exhibited key features of ferroptosis, including lipid peroxidation (increase in malondialdehyde whereas a decrease in glutathione and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate), and increased mRNA expression of prostaglandin-endoperoxide synthase-2 (PTGS2). Ferroptosis inducer RSL-3 treatment aggravated liver damage, while ferroptosis inhibitor Ferrostatin-1 administration alleviated ACLF severity, manifesting with improved liver histopathological lesions and reduced serum ALT and AST. Compared with normal liver tissue, Nrf2 was upregulated in ACLF patients and murine models. Pharmacological activation of Nrf2 (Bardoxolone Methyl) attenuated liver damage, prevented lipid peroxidation, upregulated PTGS2 mRNA expression, and improved ferroptosis-specific mitochondrial morphology in vivo. In contrast, Nrf2 inhibitor ML385 exacerbated lipid peroxidation and liver injury. Collectively, Nrf2 plays a protective role in ACLF progression through repressing ferroptosis, which provides promising therapeutic cues for ACLF.
ERα36-High Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts as an Unfavorable Factor in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

Simple Summary The tumor microenvironment, as an important constituent of neoplastic tissue, has been a promising target for cancer therapy. Triple-negative breast cancer accounts for around 10–20% of invasive breast cancers. This study describes a new cancer-associated fibroblast subtype characterized by high ERα36 levels that secretes HGF, which can impact triple-negative breast cancer. The data enlighten the importance of the stromal effect on the disease course and underlines the significance of further research on the tumor microenvironment and its role in the progression of cancer. Abstract Background: Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) are the most abundant cell type in the tumor microenvironment (TME). Estrogen receptor alpha 36 (ERα36), the alternatively spliced variant of ERα, is described as an unfavorable factor when expressed in cancer cells. ERα can be expressed also in CAFs; however, the role of ERα36 in CAFs is unknown. Methods: Four CAF cultures were isolated from chemotherapy-naïve BC patients and characterized for ERα36 expression and the NanoString gene expression panel using isolated RNA. Conditioned media from CAF cultures were used to assess the influence of CAFs on triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) cells using a matrigel 3D culture assay. Results: We found that ERα36high CAFs significantly induced the branching of TNBC cells in vitro (p < 0.001). They also produced a set of pro-tumorigenic cytokines compared to ERα36low CAFs, among which hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) was the main inducer of TNBC cell invasive phenotype in vitro (p < 0.001). Tumor stroma rich in ERα36high CAFs was correlated with high Ki67 expression (p = 0.041) and tumor-associated macrophages markers (CD68 and CD163, p = 0.041 for both). HGF was found to be an unfavorable prognostic factor in TCGA database analysis (p = 0.03 for DFS and p = 0.04 for OS). Conclusions: Breast cancer-associated fibroblasts represent distinct subtypes based on ERα36 expression. We propose that ERα36high CAFs could account for an unfavorable prognosis for TNBC patients.
Bio-Inspired Propulsion: Towards Understanding the Role of Pectoral Fin Kinematics in Manta-like Swimming

Through computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of a model manta ray body, the hydrodynamic role of manta-like bioinspired flapping is investigated. The manta ray model motion is reconstructed from synchronized high-resolution videos of manta ray swimming. Rotation angles of the model skeletal joints are altered to scale the pitching and bending, resulting in eight models with different pectoral fin pitching and bending ratios. Simulations are performed using an in-house developed immersed boundary method-based numerical solver. Pectoral fin pitching ratio (PR) is found to have significant implications in the thrust and efficiency of the manta model. This occurs due to more optimal vortex formation and shedding caused by the lower pitching ratio. Leading edge vortexes (LEVs) formed on the bottom of the fin, a characteristic of the higher PR cases, produced parasitic low pressure that hinders thrust force. Lowering the PR reduces the influence of this vortex while another LEV that forms on the top surface of the fin strengthens it. A moderately high bending ratio (BR) can slightly reduce power consumption. Finally, by combining a moderately high BR = 0.83 with PR = 0.67, further performance improvements can be made. This enhanced understanding of manta-inspired propulsive mechanics fills a gap in our understanding of the manta-like mobuliform locomotion. This motivates a new generation of manta-inspired robots that can mimic the high speed and efficiency of their biological counterpart.
More Female Manager Hires Through More Female Managers? Evidence from Germany

This paper investigates if there is state dependence in the gender composition of managers in German establishments. We analyze whether the number of hired female managers (respectively the share of females within hired managers) depends on the past hiring decisions of an establishment. Using administrative data, we apply dynamic linear models and dynamic tobit models accounting for unobserved heterogeneity and the endogeneity of lagged dependent variables. We find that an increase of female manager hires in present leads to more female hired managers in the future. Similarly, the number of male manager hires also exhibits state dependence.
Physical Activity among Italian Adolescents: Association with Life Satisfaction, Self-Rated Health and Peer Relationships

The aim of this study was to describe physical activity, both moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and vigorous physical activity (VPA), in a large nationally representative sample of Italian adolescents, aged 11, 13 and 15, and to evaluate if Italian adolescents were in line with the 2020 WHO recommendations. In order to assess the possible impact of physical activity on adolescent psychological and social wellbeing, the associations between MVPA and VPA with life satisfaction, self-rated health and peer relationships were also explored. Data from the 2018 Italian Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey on 58,976 adolescents were analysed. Logistic regression analysis was used to investigate the association between physical activity and self-rated health, life satisfaction and peer relationships. The association of the Family Affluence Scale with self-rated health, life satisfaction and peer relationships was also studied. The results showed that the majority of Italian adolescents did not meet current physical activity WHO guidelines on MPVA. The prevalence of adolescents claiming to be involved “at least four or more times per week” in VPA was 29%. Overall, our findings highlighted a positive association between MVPA and VPA and life satisfaction, self-rated health and peer support. Data from this study underlined the need to encourage physical activity, especially among older adolescents and girls, who claimed lower levels of MPVA and VPA.
CLINICAL OUTCOMES OF IVERMECTIN IN COVID-19 TREATMENT: AN EVIDENCE-BASED CASE REPORT FROM SYSTEMATIC REVIEWS AND META-ANALYSES

Background: Ivermectin has demonstrated beneficial results on clinical outcomes in COVID-19 patients. Several countries have included ivermectin in their guidelines, though WHO recommended against its usage. Therefore, this study was aimed to establish the clinical outcomes of ivermectin in COVID-19 patients by an evidence-based method. Method: Article searching was completed in PubMed, Cochrane, and Scopus from July 9 - 10 2021. The results were limited to only systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Hand searching was conducted to obtain relevant studies from external resources. The results were evaluated using inclusion and exclusion criteria. The full texts were obtained and critically reviewed using Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine critical appraisal tools. Result: Three systematic reviews and meta-analyses were selected and critically reviewed. All three studies were considered valid, important, and applicable. However, the quality of these studies varied from low to high. Conclusion: Overall studies showed that ivermectin has the potential to improve clinical outcomes in COVID-19 patients.
Parkinson’s Disease Symptoms Associated with Developing On-State Axial Symptoms Early after Subthalamic Deep Brain Stimulation

Background: The relationship between axial symptoms in Parkinson’s disease (PD) and subthalamic deep brain stimulation (STN-DBS) is still unclear. Purpose: We searched for particular clinical characteristics before STN-DBS linked to on-state axial problems after surgery. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed baseline motor, emotional and cognitive features from PD patients with early axial symptoms (within 4 years after STN-DBS) and late axial symptoms (after 4 years). We also considered a group of PD patients without axial symptoms for at least 4 years after surgery. Results: At baseline, early-axial PD patients (n = 28) had a higher on-state Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale III (15.0 ± 5.6 to 11.6 ± 6.2, p = 0.020), higher axial score (2.4 ± 1.8 to 0.7 ± 1.0, p < 0.001) and worse dopaminergic response (0.62 ± 0.12 to 0.70 ± 0.11, p = 0.005), than non-axial PD patients (n = 51). Early-axial PD patients had short-term recall impairment, not seen in non-axial PD (36.3 ± 7.6 to 40.3 ± 9.3, p = 0.041). These variables were similar between late-axial PD (n = 18) and non-axial PD, but late-axial PD showed worse frontal dysfunction. Conclusions: PD patients with early axial symptoms after DBS may have a significantly worse presurgical motor phenotype, poorer dopaminergic response and memory impairment. This may correspond to a more severe form of PD.
ATTEQ-NN: Attention-based QoE-aware Evasive Backdoor Attacks

—Deep neural networks have achieved remarkable success on a variety of mission-critical tasks. However, recent studies show that deep neural networks are vulnerable to backdoor attacks, where the attacker releases backdoored models that behave normally on benign samples but misclassify any trigger-imposed samples to a target label. Unlike adversarial examples, backdoor attacks manipulate both the inputs and the model, perturbing samples with the trigger and injecting backdoors into the model. In this paper, we propose a novel attention-based evasive backdoor attack, dubbed A TTEQ -NN . Different from existing works that arbitrarily set the trigger mask, we carefully design an attention-based trigger mask determination framework, which places the trigger at the crucial region with the most significant influence on the prediction results. To make the trigger-imposed samples appear more natural and imperceptible to human inspectors, we introduce a Quality-of-Experience (QoE) term into the loss function of trigger generation and carefully adjust the transparency of the trigger. During the process of iteratively optimizing the trigger generation and the backdoor injection components, we propose an alternating retraining strategy, which is shown to be effective in improving the clean data accuracy and evading some model-based defense approaches. We evaluate A TTEQ -NN with extensive experiments on VGG-Flower, CIFAR-10, GTSRB, CIFAR-100, and ImageNette datasets. The results show that A TTEQ -NN can increase the attack success rate by as much as 82% over baselines when the poison ratio is low while achieving a high QoE of the backdoored samples. We demonstrate that A TTEQ -NN reaches an attack success rate of more than 37.78% in the physical world under different lighting conditions and shooting angles. A TTEQ -NN preserves an attack success rate of more than 92.5% even if the original backdoored model is fine-tuned with clean data. It is shown that A TTEQ -NN is also effective in transfer learning scenarios. Our user studies show that the backdoored samples generated by A TTEQ -NN are indiscernible under visual inspections. A TTEQ -NN is shown to be evasive to state-of-the-art defense methods, including model pruning, NAD, STRIP, NC, and MNTD. We will open-source our codes upon publication.
New resistor-less tunable floating and grounded FDNR simulators

ABSTRACT This article proposes new electronically tunable simulation configurations of synthetic grounded and floating frequency-dependent negative resistances (FDNRs) without using any resistances. The presented simulators have been realised by using two voltage differencing transconductance amplifiers (VDTAs) along with two capacitances. As per the knowledge of the authors, the depicted VDTA-based simulator circuits are the most compact configurations as compared to any other VDTA-based pure FDNR simulator reported so far. The circuits possess the feature of electronic tunability which means that the realised FDNR value can be controlled by using bias currents of employed VDTAs. Moreover, the reported structures simulate ideal FDNR behaviour without any requirement of fulfiling the parameter-related conditions. An analysis has been presented and discussed to find the behaviour of the presented circuits under non-ideal effects. The operation of the simulated FDNRs has been checked by constructing higher-order CDR filters. The working of the designed circuits has been shown through the simulation results generated using PSPICE with 0.18 um CMOS technology. Finally, the experimental results using commercial IC have been discussed.