Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CRISPR interference interrogation of COPD GWAS genes reveals the functional significance of desmoplakin in iPSC-derived alveolar epithelial cells

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified dozens of loci associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) susceptibility; however, the function of associated genes in the cell type(s) affected in disease remains poorly understood, partly due to a lack of cell models that recapitulate human alveolar biology. Here, we apply CRISPR interference to interrogate the function of nine genes implicated in COPD by GWAS in induced pluripotent stem cell–derived type 2 alveolar epithelial cells (iAT2s). We find that multiple genes implicated by GWAS affect iAT2 function, including differentiation potential, maturation, and/or proliferation. Detailed characterization of the GWAS gene DSP demonstrates that it regulates iAT2 cell-cell junctions, proliferation, mitochondrial function, and response to cigarette smoke–induced injury. Our approach thus elucidates the biological function, as well as disease-relevant consequences of dysfunction, of genes implicated in COPD by GWAS in type 2 alveolar epithelial cells.
A Deep Learning Approach for Automatic Scoliosis Cobb Angle Identification

Efficient and reliable medical image analysis is indispensable in modern healthcare settings. The conventional approaches in diagnostics and evaluations from a mere picture are complex. It often leads to subjectivity due to experts' various experiences and expertise. Using convolutional neural networks, we proposed an end-to-end pipeline for automatic Cobb angle measurement to pinpoint scoliosis severity. Our results show that the Residual U-Net architecture provides vertebrae average segmentation accuracy of 92.95% based on Dice and Jaccard similarity coefficients. Furthermore, a comparative benchmark between physician's measurement and our machine-driven approach produces an acceptable mean deviation of 1.57 degrees and a T-test p-value of 0.9028, indicating no significant difference. This study has the potential to help doctors in prompt scoliosis magnitude assessments.
Real Time Energy Management and Control of Renewable Energy based Microgrid in Grid Connected and Island Modes

An efficient power management control for microgrids with energy storage is presented in this paper. The proposed control scheme increases the reliability and resiliency of the microgrid based on three distributed energy resources (DERs), namely Photovoltaic (PV), battery, and diesel generator with local active loads. Coordination among the DERs with energy storage is essential for microgrid management. The system model and the control strategy were developed in Real Time Digital Simulator (RTDS). Decoupled d-q current control strategy is proposed and implemented for voltage source converters (VSCs) used to interface the PV and battery sources to the AC grid. A dc-dc buck converter with a maximum power point tracking function is implemented to maximize the intermittent energy generation from the PV array. A controller is proposed and employed for both grid connected and island modes of operation. In grid connected mode, the system frequency and voltage are regulated by the grid. During a fault in island mode, the diesel generator controls the system frequency and voltage in isochronous mode. Results based on the real time digital simulator are provided to verify the superiority and effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.
Thoughts on the Possibility of Damage of High-Voltage Electrical Insulation below the So-Called Inception Voltage: Simulation under a Superposition of AC and DC Voltage – Part III

In a previous work, a typical case is studied, where a solid sheet insulation contains a void under DC or AC voltage. In the present paper, to study the charging phenomenon in HVDC valve windings and cables, a more complex case is studied under a superposition of AC and DC voltage. Real inception voltage is calculated, and it agrees with the experimental results reported in another paper. Moreover, the location of the charging phenomenon is calculated, and it is related to the ratio between AC and DC voltage.
Comparison of Apache SparkSQL and Oracle Performance: Case Study of Data Cleansing Process

A dataset with good quality is a valuable asset for a company. The data can be processed into information to help companies improve decision-making. However, the data increased more and more over time to decrease data quality. Thus, good data management is important to keep data quality meeting company standards. One of the efforts that can be done is conducting data cleansing to clean data from errors, inaccuracies, duplication, format discrepancies, etc. Apache Spark is an engine that can analyze large amounts of data. Oracle Database is a database management system used to manage databases. Both have their own reliability and can be used to analyze SQL-shaped data. This study compared Spark and Oracle performance based on query processing time. Both were tested on queries used to perform data cleansing of millions of rows of the dataset. The research focuses on finding out Spark and Oracle's performance through quantitative analysis. The results of this study showed that there were differences in query processing times on both tools. Apache Spark is rated better because it has a relatively faster query processing time than Oracle Database. It can be concluded that Oracle is more reliable in storing complex data models than in analyzing large data. For future research, it is suggested to add other comparison aspects such as memory and CPU usage. The researchers can also consider using query optimization techniques to enrich query experiments.
Intratumoral Budding in Pretreatment Biopsies, among Tumor Microenvironmental Components, Can Predict Prognosis and Neoadjuvant Therapy Response in Colorectal Adenocarcinoma

Background and Objectives: The prediction of the prognosis and effect of neoadjuvant therapy is vital for patients with advanced or unresectable colorectal carcinoma (CRC). Materials and Methods: We investigated several tumor microenvironment factors, such as intratumoral budding (ITB), desmoplastic reaction (DR), and Klintrup–Mäkinen (KM) inflammation grade, and the tumor–stroma ratio (TSR) in pretreatment biopsy samples (PBSs) collected from patients with advanced or unresectable CRC. A total of 85 patients with 74 rectal carcinomas and 11 colon cancers treated at our hospital were enrolled; 66 patients had curative surgery and 19 patients received palliative treatment. Results: High-grade ITB was associated with recurrence (p = 0.002), death (p = 0.034), and cancer-specific death (p = 0.034). Immature DR was associated with a higher grade of clinical tumor-node-metastasis stage (cTNM) (p = 0.045), cN category (p = 0.045), and cM category (p = 0.046). The KM grade and TSR were not related to any clinicopathological factors. High-grade ITB had a significant relationship with tumor regression in patients who received curative surgery (p = 0.049). Conclusions: High-grade ITB in PBSs is a potential unfavorable prognostic factor for patients with advanced CRC. Immature DR, TSR, and KM grade could not predict prognosis or therapy response in PBSs.
Analyzing the Impact of Mobile App Engagement on Mental Health Outcomes: Secondary Analysis of the Unwinding Anxiety Program

Background App-based interventions provide a promising avenue for mitigating the burden on mental health services by complimenting therapist-led treatments for anxiety. However, it remains unclear how specific systems’ use of app features may be associated with changes in mental health outcomes (eg, anxiety and worry). Objective This study was a secondary analysis of engagement data from a stage 1 randomized controlled trial testing the impact of the Unwinding Anxiety mobile app among adults with generalized anxiety disorder. The aims of this study were 2-fold: to investigate whether higher microengagement with the primary intervention feature (ie, educational modules) is associated with positive changes in mental health outcomes at 2 months (ie, anxiety, worry, interoceptive awareness, and emotional reactivity) and to investigate whether the use of adjunctive app features is also associated with changes in mental health outcomes. Methods We analyzed the intervention group during the stage 1 trial of the Unwinding Anxiety mobile app. The total use of specific mobile app features and the use specific to each feature were calculated. We used multivariate linear models with a priori significance of α=. 05 to investigate the impact of cumulative app use on anxiety, worry, interoceptive awareness, and emotional regulation at 2 months, controlling for baseline scores, age, and education level in all models. Significant relationships between system use metrics and baseline participant characteristics were assessed for differences in use groupings using between-group testing (ie, 2-tailed t tests for continuous data and chi-square analyses for categorical data). Results The sample was primarily female (25/27, 93%), and the average age was 42.9 (SD 15.6) years. Educational module completion, the central intervention component, averaged 20.2 (SD 11.4) modules out of 32 for the total sample. Multivariate models revealed that completing >75% of the program was associated with an average 22.6-point increase in interoceptive awareness (b=22.6; SE 8.32; P=.01; 95% CI 5.3-39.8) and an 11.6-point decrease in worry (b=−11.6; SE 4.12; P=.01; 95% CI −20.2 to −3.1). In addition, a single log unit change in the total number of meditations was associated with a 0.62-point reduction in the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 scale scores (b=0.62; SE 0.27; P=.005; 95% CI −1.2 to −0.6), whereas a single log unit use of the stress meter was associated with an average of a 0.5-point increase in emotional regulation scores (Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire; b=0.5; SE 0.21; P=.03; 95% CI 0.1-0.9). Conclusions This study offers a clearer understanding of the impact of engagement with app features on broader engagement with the health outcomes of interest. This study highlights the importance of comprehensive investigations of engagement during the development of evidence-based mobile apps.
Antiviral Effects of Propolis against SARS-COV 2

Propolis, which is produced by honey bees from plant exudates, has long been used in traditional herbal medicine and is widely consumed as an immune system enhancer. The COVID-19 pandemic has renewed interest in propolis products worldwide; fortunately, various aspects of the SARS-CoV-2 infection mechanism are potential targets for propolis components. In preclinical studies, propolis promoted immunoregulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines, including reduction in IL-6, IL-1 beta and TNF-α Propolis has also shown promise as an aid in the treatment of several of the comorbidities that are particularly dangerous in COVID-19 patients, including respiratory diseases, hypertension, diabetes, and cancer. In this mini review, we summarize the potential role of COVID-19 treatment and prevention.
Epidemiología de la infección del tracto urinario en niños, Hospital General de Ambato, Ecuador.

La infección de vías urinarias es una de las patologías más frecuentes en la edad pediátrica, afecta por igual tanto a hombres y mujeres en los primeros años de vida y después es más prevalente en mujeres; el principal signo es la fiebre en todas las edades y principalmente en los niños menores de 2 años, seguido de síntomas y signos más específicos en niños mayores. Para su diagnóstico es importante la clínica y el laboratorio, en donde la presencia de nitros, bacteriuria, leucocitaria en el estudio elemental y microscópico de orina (EMO) nos orienta a su diagnóstico. El cultivo permite identificar el agente etiológico, conocer su comportamiento frente a los antibióticos y orienta el tratamiento.
Spoofing Mitigation Method for Navigation Receiver Based on Cross Correlation and Projection

Since spoofing send similar navigation satellites C/A code, this kind of interferences can lead to the receiver misled easily, receiver will provide a wrong location information. Considering both navigation signal and spoofing with same navigation signal structure has high self-coherence characteristic, and the power of spoofing is a little higher than authentic signal, this paper proposes a blind spoofing suppression method based on array antenna. Firstly, a cross-correlation matrix is obtained by cross-correlation processing between receive data from multiple antennas and its own delayed reference data. Secondly, the orthogonal projection matrix of interference can be got by the cross-correlation matrix. Finally, the eigenvector corresponding to the biggest eigenvalue from the projected cross-correlation matrix is taken as the optimal weight. Without having known the direction of authentic signal and interference, this method avoid despreading by searching each satellite C/A code sequence before receive. Experimental results show that the array beam can effectively suppress interference with high SNR and receiver performance has no effect by the spoofing.
The Glucose Sensitivity of Insulin Secretion-Lessons from In Vivo and In Vitro Studies in Mice

This study explored the relationship between the glucose dose and insulin response from beta cells in vivo and in vitro in mice. Glucose was administered intravenously at different dose levels (from 0 to 0.75 g/kg) in anesthetized C57BL/6J mice, and the glucose and insulin concentrations were determined in samples taken after 50 min. Furthermore, freshly isolated mouse islets were incubated for 60 min in the presence of different concentrations of glucose (from 2.8 to 22.2 mmol/L) and insulin levels were analyzed in the medium. It was found that insulin levels increased after an intravenous injection of glucose with the maximal increase seen after 0.35 g/kg with no further increase after 0.5 or 0.75 g/kg. The acute increase in insulin levels (during the first 5 min) and the maximum glucose level (achieved after 1 min) showed a curvilinear relation with the half-maximal increase in insulin levels achieved at 11.4 mmol/L glucose and the maximal increase in insulin levels at 22.0 mmol/L glucose. In vitro, there was also a curvilinear relation between glucose concentrations and insulin secretion. Half maximal increase in insulin concentrations was achieved at 12.5 mmol/L glucose and the maximal increase in insulin concentrations was achieved at 21.5 mmol/L. Based on these data, we concluded that the glucose-insulin relation was curvilinear both in vivo and in vitro in mice with similar characteristics in relation to which glucose levels that achieve half-maximal and maximal increases in insulin secretion. Besides the new knowledge of knowing these relations, the results have consequences on how to design studies on insulin secretion to obtain the most information.
Determinants of Vietnam’s Exports to ASEAN Countries in the Context of the ASEAN Economic Community

The ASEAN region is emerging as a dynamically developing region, and trade between Vietnam and ASEAN countries has continuously improved over the years. This study investigates the determinants of Vietnam’s exports to ASEAN countries from 1997 to 2020. The paper also examines the differences in the directions of the impact in different groups of exported products. Using pooled OLS and panel data methods, the results demonstrate that Vietnam’s exports increased as its GDP per capita and importing countries’ GDP per capita increased. In contrast, transportation costs proxied by geographic distance were found to have a negative impact on Vietnam’s exports. The results assert the positive relationship between exports and real bilateral exchange rate. The ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA) was found to have no statistically significant influence on Vietnam’s exports. These results are vital for trade policy formulation to promote Vietnam’s exports to ASEAN countries. Vietnam should promote trade with countries sharing a border to take advantage of transportation costs and reduce potential risks in goods movement. In addition, it is necessary to minimize the effects of fluctuations in the exchange rate in order to further promote Vietnam's exports in the future.
On the edge of the Shivaliks: An insight into the origin and taxonomic position of Pakistani toads from the Duttaphrynus melanostictus complex (Amphibia, Bufonidae)

The common Asian toad Duttaphrynus melanostictus (Schneider, 1799) complex has a wide distribution ranging from western foothills of the Himalaya to the easternmost range of the Wallacea, with the evidence of human-mediated introductions to some other areas. In the entire distribution range, the complex is formed by several evolutionary clades, distributed mostly in South-East Asia with unresolved taxonomy. In the northwestern edge of its distribution (Pakistan), the name D. melanostictus hazarensis (Khan, 2001) has been assigned to local populations but its biological basis remained, so far, understudied and unvalidated. Therefore, we re-evaluated the available genetic data (mitochondrial and nuclear) to show the relationships between Pakistani populations (including the type locality of D. m. hazarensis) and others from across the range. Our results showed that Pakistani populations are associated with one, deeply diverged, well-supported and widely distributed clade (so-called Duttaphrynus sp. 1 according to 16S, or clade B based on tRNAGly-ND3), that has already been detected in previous studies. This clade is further distributed in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia and is characterized by a low level of genetic variability. This further suggests that both natural, as well as potential human-mediated dispersal, might have played an important role in setting up the current phylogeographic and distribution pattern of this clade. The clade is deeply divergent from other clades of the complex and represents a taxonomically unresolved entity. We here argue that the clade Duttaphrynus sp. 1/B represents a distinct species for which the name Duttaphrynus bengalensis (Daudin, 1802) comb. nov. is applicable, while the description of D. m. hazarensis does not satisfy the rules of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature.
Instrumental and Sensory Analyses of Salami from Autochthonous and Conventional Pig Breeds

Typical salami produced from Mora Romagnola (MR), an autochthonous pig breed extensively farmed within a geographically confined Italian area, are food products of commercial interest. This investigation aimed to highlight elements for the recognition and authentication of such typical salami. Five MR salami were analyzed using a sensory and instrumental approach, and the results were compared with those from eight salami made from a conventional pig breed. The sensory profiles were defined through attributes such as seasoning, pepper, garlic, fermented etc.; no differences in the products ascribable to the pig breed were highlighted. By analyzing volatile compounds, 33 molecules were detected; significant differences were found among samples, probably related to processing methods. Color differences between MR and conventional salami were identified by an electronic eye. According to instrumental texture analysis, large variability among the MR samples was detected, probably related to different types of salami (recipe, casing, size, ripening). Correlations were found among the sensory results, volatile compounds, and textural properties of the samples. Most differences do not appear to be specifically related to MR breed; only red color intensity evaluated by an electronic eye showed a correlation with breed, i.e., MR salami. This study highlights the large variability among the salami analyzed.
The Effect of Ease and Trust Using E-commerce on Purchasing Decision for Online Binjai District Attorney Employees

This study aims to determine how the influence of ease and trust in using e-commerce onpurchasing decisions for online employees of the Binjai District Attorney's Office. The type of research used is quantitative research, where the variables are measured using the Likert scale method. Data collection in this study was carried out by means of a list of questions (questionnaires), interviews (interviews), and direct observation. Sampling was done by totalmethod sampling, where the entire population was used as a sample of 45 people. Datacarried out using the SPSS (processing wasstatistical program for social scienceapplication) version 21.0. The hypothesis testing technique in this study uses multiple linear regression. Previously, the validity test, reliability test, and classical assumption test were conducted first. The results of this study indicate that: (1) Partially, the variable ease of using e-commerce has an effect onpurchasing decisions for online employees of the Binjai District Attorney's Office. (2) Partially, the trust variable using e-commerce has an effect onpurchasing decisions for online employees of the Binjai District Attorney's Office. (3) Simultaneously there is a positive and significant influence between the variables of convenience and trust in using e-commerce onpurchasing decisions for online Binjai State Attorney's employees.
Explaining Steep-Slope Switching in Carbon Nanotube Dirac-Source Field-Effect Transistors

Dirac-source field-effect transistors (DS-FETs) have been proposed as steep-slope transistors for low-power switching. The steep-slope switching of a DS-FET originates from the “low-pass” energy filtering effect of the graphene Dirac source, which requires the number of modes in the graphene source to be lower than the ones in the channel. However, despite the fact that this requirement is not satisfied in a DS-FET with a carbon nanotube (CNT) channel, steep-slope switching has been experimentally demonstrated in such devices. In this article, we propose a mechanism of switching in CNT DS-FETs that is consistent with the small number of modes in a CNT. We argue that the CNT acts as a transverse momentum selector, which effectively introduces a bandgap in the graphene source, and thus, the Klein tunneling in the graphene n-p junction becomes band-to-band tunneling (BTBT). This makes the CNT DS-FET essentially a new type of tunneling field-effect transistor (TFET), which we call momentum-selector TFET (MS-TFET). Moreover, we study the impact of misorientation between graphene and CNT on the performance of a CNT MS-TFET. Finally, we show that scattering may actually be beneficial in such a device and could potentially enhance the on-current of a CNT MS-TFET.