Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Plasma-Derived Extracellular Vesicles Reveal Galectin-3 Binding Protein as Potential Biomarker for Early Detection of Glioma

Gliomas are the most common type of the malignant brain tumor, which arise from glial cells. They make up about 40% of all primary brain tumors and around 70% of all primary malignant brain tumors. They can occur anywhere in the central nervous system (CNS) and have a poor prognosis. The average survival of glioma patients is approximately 6–15 months with poor aspects of life. In this edge, identification of proteins secreted by cancer cells is of special interest because it may provide a better understanding of tumor progression and provide early diagnosis of the diseases. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) were isolated from pooled plasma of healthy controls (n=03) and patients with different grades of glioma (Grade I or II or III, n=03 each). Nanoparticle tracking analysis, western blot, and flow cytometry were performed to determine the size, morphology, the concentration of glioma-derived vesicles and EV marker, CD63. Further, iTRAQ-based LC-MS/MS analysis of EV protein was performed to determine the differential protein abundance in extracellular vesicles across different glioma grades. We further verified galectin-3 binding protein (LGALS3BP) by ELISA in individual blood plasma and plasma-derived vesicles from control and glioma patients (n=40 each). Analysis by Max Quant identified 123 proteins from the pooled patient exosomes, out of which 34, 21, and 14 proteins were found to be differentially abundant by more than 1.3-fold in the different grades of glioma grade I, pilocytic astrocytoma; grade II, diffuse astrocytoma; grade III, anaplastic astrocytoma, respectively, in comparison with the control samples. A total of seven proteins—namely, CRP, SAA2, SERPINA3, SAA1, C4A, LV211, and KV112—showed differential abundance in all the three grades. LGALS3BP was seen to be upregulated across the different grades, and ELISA analysis from individual blood plasma and plasma-derived extracellular vesicles confirmed the increased expression of LGALS3BP in glioma patients (p<0.001). The present study provides LGALS3BP as a potential biomarker for early detection of glioma and improve survival outcome of the patient. The present study further provides the information of progression and monitoring the tumor grades (grade 1, grade II, grade III).
COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Among Chinese Population: A Large-Scale National Study

Globally, vaccine hesitancy is a growing public health problem. It is detrimental to the consolidation of immunization program achievements and elimination of vaccine-targeted diseases. The objective of this study was to estimate the prevalence of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in China and explore its contributing factors. A national cross-sectional online survey among Chinese adults (≥18 years old) was conducted between August 6, 2021 and August 9 via a market research company. We collected sociodemographic information; lifestyle behavior; quality of life; the knowledge, awareness, and behavior of COVID-19; the knowledge, awareness, and behavior of COVID-19 vaccine; willingness of COVID-19 vaccination; accessibility of COVID-19 vaccination services; skepticism about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccine; doctor and vaccine developer scale; and so on. Odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were used to estimate the associations by using logistic regression models. A total of 29,925 residents (48.64% men) were enrolled in our study with mean age of 30.99 years. We found an overall prevalence of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy at 8.40% (95% CI, 8.09–8.72) in primary vaccination and 8.39% (95% CI, 8.07–8.70) in booster vaccination. In addition, after adjusting for potential confounders, we found that women, higher educational level, married residents, higher score of health condition, never smoked, increased washing hands, increased wearing mask, increased social distance, lower level of vaccine conspiracy beliefs, disease risks outweigh vaccine risk, higher level of convenient vaccination, and higher level of trust in doctor and developer were more willing to vaccinate than all others (all p < 0.05). Age, sex, educational level, marital status, chronic disease condition, smoking, healthy behaviors, the curability of COVID-19, the channel of accessing information of COVID-19 vaccine, endorsement of vaccine conspiracy beliefs, weigh risks of vaccination against risks of the disease, making a positive influence on the health of others around you, and lower trust in healthcare system may affect the variation of willingness to take a COVID-19 vaccine (all p < 0.05). The prevalence of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy was modest in China, even with the slight resulting cascade of changing vaccination rates between the primary and booster vaccination. Urgent action to address vaccine hesitancy is needed in building trust in medical personnel and vaccine producers, promoting the convenience of vaccination services, and spreading reliable information of COVID-19 vaccination via the Internet and other media.
Digital Health Coaching for Type 2 Diabetes: Randomized Controlled Trial of Healthy at Home

Digital health coaching is an intervention for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) that has potential to improve the quality of care for patients. Previous research has established the efficacy of digital interventions for behavior change. This pilot study addresses a research gap in finding effective and accessible behavioral interventions for under-resourced individuals with T2DM. We examined the impact of Healthy at Home, a 12-week phone and SMS-based (short message service) digital health coaching program, on insulin resistance which is an upstream marker for T2DM progression. We compared this intervention to usual diabetic care in a family medicine residency clinic in a randomized controlled trial. Digital health coaching significantly improved participants' calculated Homeostatic Model Assessment for Insulin Resistance (HOMA2-IR) by −0.9 ± 0.4 compared with the control group (p = 0.029). This significance remained after controlling for years diagnosed with T2DM, enrollment in Medicaid, access to food, baseline stage of change, and race (p = 0.027). Increasing access to digital health coaching may lead to more effective control of diabetes for under-resourced patients. This study demonstrates the potential to implement a personalized, scalable, and effective digital health intervention to treat and manage T2DM through a lifestyle and behavioral approach to improve clinical outcomes (http://clinicaltrials.gov, NCT04872647).
The Mechanical Design Process

1 Why Study the Design Process? 2 Describing Mechanical Design Problems and Process 3 Designers and Design Teams 4 The Design Process 5 Project Definition and Planning 6 Understanding the Problem and the Development of Engineering Specifications 7 Concept Generation 8 Concept Evaluation 9 The Product Design Phase 10 Product Generation 11 Product Evaluation for Performance and the Effects of Variation 12 Product Evaluation for Cost, Manufacture, Assembly, and other Measures 13 Launching and Supporting the Product Appendixes A Properties of 25 Materials Most Commonly Used in Mechanical Design B Normal Probability C The Factor of Safety as a Design Variable D Human Factors in Design E TRIZ F Belief Map Masters
A Way Forward: Assessing the Demonstrated Leadership of Graduate Civil Engineering and Construction Management Students

The year 2007 was a year for visionary change in the field of civil engi- neering in the United States. This vision did not go unnoticed in the Caribbean. At the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the University of the West Indies, the M.Sc. programs have been restructured to meet the U.K. Joint Board of Moderators requirements for academic accreditation and to fulfill the mandate of the vice chancellor to develop 12 desired attributes, with leadership being among them. A model was devel- oped in a course, Practical Team Project, to measure the learning outcome of leadership by combining the Project Management Institute body of knowledge areas and the Insti- tute of Civil Engineers (ICE) development objectives. The course prepares students for professional review at the Incorporated Engineering (I.Eng.) level with the ICE and gives them similar standing in other Washington Accord signatory countries. This new initia- tive for the university required innovative assessment techniques, such as 360-degree feedback and zero tolerance, to evaluate the demonstrated leadership of the graduate students. Analytical tools such as ANOVA and t-test were used to justify the effectiveness of the chosen model.
Language Assessment in Multilingualism and Awake Neurosurgery

Multilingualism has become a worldwide phenomenon that poses critical issues about the language assessment in patients undergoing awake neurosurgery in eloquent brain areas. The accuracy and sensitivity of multilingual perioperative language assessment procedures is crucial for a number of reasons: they should be appropriate to detect deficits in each of the languages spoken by the patient; they should be suitable to identify language-specific cortical regions; they should ensure that each of the languages of a multilingual patient is tested at an adequate and comparable level of difficulty. In clinical practice, a patient-tailored approach is generally preferred. This is a necessary compromise since it is impossible to predict all the possible language combinations spoken by individuals and thus the availability of standardized testing batteries is a potentially unattainable goal. On the other hand, this leads to high inconsistency in how different neurosurgical teams manage the linguistic features that determine similarity or distance between the languages spoken by the patient and that may constrain the neuroanatomical substrate of each language. The manuscript reviews the perioperative language assessment methodologies adopted in awake surgery studies on multilingual patients with brain tumor published from 1991 to 2021 and addresses the following issues: (1) The language selected for the general neuropsychological assessment of the patient. (2) The procedures adopted to assess the dimensions that may constrain language organization in multilingual speakers: age and type of acquisition, exposure, proficiency, and use of the different languages. (3) The type of preoperative language assessment used for all the languages spoken by the patient. (4) The linguistic tasks selected in the intraoperative setting. The reviewed data show a great heterogeneity in the perioperative clinical workup with multilingual patients. The only exception is the task used during language mapping, as the picture naming task is highly preferred. The review highlights that an objective and accurate description of both the linguistic profile of multilingual patients and the specific properties of the languages under scrutiny can profitably support clinical management and decision making in multilingual awake neurosurgery settings.
Mode-Locked Ytterbium-Doped Fiber Lasers: New Perspectives

Abstract In this article, we discuss recent advances in ultra-short pulse generation with ytterbium-doped fiber lasers. We discuss the fundamental properties and technical challenges of mode-locked single-mode fiber lasers operating in the 1-μm range, and the methods to achieve high peak-powers. We demonstrate a high-power passively mode-locked fiber laser based on a photonic crystal fiber featuring large-mode-core and short absorption length that greatly exceed the power limitation of single-mode fiber oscillators. Multi-watts average powers in sub-picosecond pulses are obtained. This open new avenue to new performance levels of ultra-short pulse solid-state lasers.
Provider views on rapid diagnostic tests and antibiotic prescribing for respiratory tract infections: A mixed methods study

Background Respiratory tract infections (RTIs) are often inappropriately treated with antibiotics. Rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) have been developed with the aim of improving antibiotic prescribing but uptake remains low. The aim of this study was to examine provider knowledge, attitudes and behaviors regarding RDT use and their relationship to antibiotic prescribing decisions across multiple clinical departments in an urban safety-net hospital. Methods We conducted a mixed methods sequential explanatory study. Providers with prescribing authority (attending physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants) who had at least 20 RTI encounters from January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2018. Eighty-five providers completed surveys and 16 participated in interviews. We conducted electronic surveys via RedCap from April to July 2019, followed by semi-structured individual interviews from October to December 2019, to ascertain knowledge, attitudes and behaviors related to RDT use and antibiotic prescribing. Results Survey findings indicated that providers felt knowledgeable about antibiotic prescribing guidelines. They reported high familiarity with the rapid streptococcus and rapid influenza tests. Familiarity with comprehensive respiratory panel PCR (RPP-respiratory panel PCR) and procalcitonin differed by clinical department. Qualitative interviews identified four main themes: providers trust their clinical judgment more than rapid test results; patient-provider relationships play an important role in prescribing decisions; there is patient demand for antibiotics and providers employ different strategies to address the demand and providers do not believe RDTs are implemented with sufficient education or evidence for clinical practice. Conclusion Prescribers are knowledgeable about prescribing guidelines but often rely on clinical judgement to make final decisions. The utility of RDTs is specific to the type of RDT and the clinical department. Given the low familiarity and clinical utility of RPP and procalcitonin, providers may require additional education and these tests may need to be implemented differently based on clinical department.
Ceramic synthetic substrates using solid freeform fabrication

Three-dimensional (3-D) printing techniques were used to create lost molds for advanced inhomogeneous materials made of ceramics. The utility of this process is the ability to manipulate low-loss materials, such as alumina illustrated here, into precise, fine features as periodic macroscopic inclusions in a larger host material or air. Three periodic structures were formed using solid freeform (SFF) fabrication techniques; a two-dimensional (2-D) all-dielectric electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) substrate, a 2-D metallo-dielectric substrate filter, and a 3-D woodpile EBG structure. The design of these structures is discussed and the fabricational steps are presented in detail. This process has been utilized to develop a simple two-pole filter embedded in a substrate at 10 GHz, a single resonator at 30 GHz, and a 3-D bandgap structure from 88 to 115 GHz. The wide range of features and structures that can be accurately fabricated are highlighted.
Spectral and random telegraph noise characterizations of low-frequency fluctuations in GaAs/Al/sub 0.4/Ga/sub 0.6/As resonant tunneling diodes

The origin of low-frequency noise in resonant-tunneling diodes is investigated through spectral and time-domain characterizations over a wide range of temperatures and biasing conditions. The experiments were conducted on devices fabricated on GaAs/Al/sub 0.4/Ga/sub 0.6/As material system. Detailed analyses on the temperature and bias dependences of the random telegraph noise and Lorentzian structures in the noise power spectral densities showed that the low-frequency excess noise arises from hopping conduction of electrons from the emitter to the quasi-bound states in the quantum well. The capture of an electron by a trap in the energy barrier causes fluctuations in the transmission coefficient of the electron due to the modulation of the barrier potential. >
Development of a Kilometer-Based Rewards System to Encourage Safer Driving Practices

Interest is growing in the use of kilometer-based financial mechanisms to encourage safer driving practices and reduce accident claims. The rationale behind such an approach is that, in addition to driver characteristics such as age and gender, crash risk is intrinsically a function of both the kilometers driven and the circumstances under which those kilometers are driven (e.g., time of day, day of week, road type, speed). Using recent accident data and travel survey data collected in the Sydney, Australia, greater metropolitan area, options were explored to design a kilometer-based reward scheme that incentivized drivers to reduce their kilometers traveled, nighttime driving, and speeding. Results show that young drivers (17 to 30 years old) would be hardest hit by the proposed scheme, and middle-aged drivers (31 to 65) would fare best. The impacts of the rewards system were assessed hypothetically by using evidence from 125 motorists who completed 5 weeks of driving in which their kilometers traveled, nighttime driving, and speeds were monitored with the latest Global Positioning System technology. Various charging scenarios and hypothesized behavioral changes were implemented to assess both their incentive for change and the overall financial impact of the project. These results were used in conjunction with the theoretical and empirical justification outlined in this paper to set the final charging regime rates on the basis of the overall study budget.
A MULTIPLE LINEAR CORRELATION FOR DIFFUSE RADIATION FROM GLOBAL AND SUNSHINE DATA

Several years of measured data of global and diffuse radiation together with sunshine duration, for five locations in Spain are used to establish empirical relationships to connect monthly mean daily diffuse irradiation with clearness index and relative sunshine duration. A correlation connecting sky radiation with both clearness index and percent possible sunshine together is found to be most accurate for locations in Spain and Portugal. When clearness index and relative sunshine duration are combined together, it is observed that the accuracy of the estimated diffuse radiation data is better than when they are used separately.
Effect of nano-calcium carbonate on early-age properties of ultra-high-performance concrete

In this study, the effects of nano-calcium carbonate (CaCO3) addition on the early-age properties of ultra-high-performance concrete cured at simulated cold and normal field conditions were investigated. The nano-CaCO3 was added at rates of 0, 2·5, 5, 10 and 15% as a partial volume replacement for cement. Similar mixtures incorporating chloride- and non-chloride-based accelerating admixtures were also tested for comparison. Results indicate the high potential of nano-CaCO3 to accelerate the setting and hardening process of ultra-high-performance concrete through providing nucleation sites, increasing contact points and increasing the effective water-to-cement ratio. Although nano-CaCO3 exhibited a comparable or slightly lower accelerating effect to that of the chloride- and non-chloride-based accelerating admixtures, it brings a number of benefits to concrete production. These include the development of low-maintenance structures through eliminating the risk of steel corrosion induced by chloride-based ac.
Household Travel, Household Characteristics, and Land Use: An Empirical Study from the 1994 Portland Activity-Based Travel Survey

How a household’s travel behavior is influenced by its socioeconomic and land use factors has been a subject of interest for the development of travel demand forecasting models. This study investigates the relative importance of these factors based on the number of household daily trips and vehicle miles traveled (VMT). The travel data used in the study come from the 1994 Portland Activity-Based Travel Survey. In addition to income, vehicle ownership, and household size, other significant factors in household travel have been identified, such as the presence of car phones, dwelling type, home ownership, and even the length of resident’s time in the current home. Most important, this study has qualitatively revealed that land use makes a big difference in household VMT, whereas its impact on the number of daily trips is rather limited. After controlling for the land use variables, such as density and land development balance, it appears that there is little difference in household income distribution among three different land use areas. The household life stage/lifestyle appears to be more relevant to the residence location. And the land use development of the residence location imposes the greatest impact on the household daily VMT. The results from this study provide some empirical evidence to the development of travel forecasting models. Especially by examining the relationship between land use and household travel, the results shed light on how to incorporate land use factors into comprehensive travel demand models that can be used by policy makers in evaluation of alternative land use policies. This study serves as a step toward more comprehensive studies on transportation and land use. The results presented represent a preliminary analysis of an extensive data set; considerable additional analysis is already in process.
Anxiety and Depression Status and Influencing Factors of MSM in the Post-COVID-19 Epidemic Period: A Cross-Sectional Study in Western China

This study aimed to explore the psychological status and influencing factors of men who have sex with men (MSM) during the stable period of the COVID-19 epidemic, to provide a reference for the mental health counseling of MSM, and to provide a scientific basis for this group to actively respond to public health emergencies. A cross-sectional survey was conducted on the demographic characteristics, epidemic experiences, risk perception, and COVID-19-related attitudes of MSM in western China, and MSM anxiety and depression were assessed by using the Anxiety Self-Rating Scale and the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression (CES-D) Scale. The incidences of MSM anxiety and depression in the post-COVID-19 epidemic period are 21.7% and 38.0%, respectively. Logistic regression analysis showed that in terms of anxiety, high controllability of the epidemic (OR = 0.7616) is a protective factor. Thinking that they are more susceptible to COVID-19 (OR = 1.6168) and worrying about another outbreak of the epidemic (OR = 1.4793) are risk factors. In terms of depression, being able to protect themselves from being infected with COVID-19 (OR = 0.6280) is a protective factor. The role of anal sex as “0”/“0.5,” and believing that they are more susceptible to COVID-19 (OR = 1.3408) are risk factors. The sudden outbreak affected the psychological state of MSM and even caused negative feelings of anxiety and depression. These findings suggest that prevention and education should be strengthened, and effective intervention measures should be taken as soon as possible, to improve the mental health of MSM.