Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Conservative Level Set Approach to Non-Spherical Drop Impact in Three Dimensions

A recently developed conservative level set model, coupled with the Navier-Stokes equations, was invoked to simulate non-spherical droplet impact in three dimensions. The advection term in the conservative level set model was tackled using the traditional central difference scheme on a half-staggered grid. The pressure velocity coupling was decoupled using the projection method. The inhouse code was written in Fortran and was run with the aid of the shared memory parallelism, OpenMP. Before conducting extensive simulations, the model was tested on meshes of varied resolutions and validated against experimental works, with satisfyingly qualitative and quantitative agreement obtained. The model was then employed to predict the impact and splashing dynamics of non-spherical droplets, with the focus on the effect of the aspect ratio. An empirical correlation of the maximum spread factor was proposed. Besides, the number of satellite droplets when splashing occurs was in reasonable agreement with a theoretical model.
Cobalamin Deficiency May Induce Astrosenescence—An In Vitro Study

Cobalamin (vitamin B12) deficiency is one of the major factors causing degenerative changes in the nervous system and, thus, various neurological and psychiatric symptoms. The underlying cellular mechanism of this phenomenon is not yet fully understood. An accumulation of senescent astrocytes has been shown to contribute to a wide range of pathologies of the nervous system, including neurodegenerative disorders. This study aimed to investigate whether cobalamin deficiency triggers astrosenescence. After inducing cobalamin deficiency in normal human astrocytes in vitro, we examined biomarkers of cellular senescence: SA-β-gal, p16INK4A, and p21Waf1/Cip1 and performed cell nuclei measurements. The obtained results may contribute to an increase in the knowledge of the cellular effects of cobalamin deficiency in the context of astrocytes. In addition, the presented data suggest a potential causative agent of astrosenescence that has not been proven to date.
TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE FROM MERGING WHITE DWARFS. I. PROMPT DETONATIONS

Merging white dwarfs are a possible progenitor of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia). Numerical models suggest that a detonation might be initiated before the stars have coalesced to form a single compact object. Here we study such prompt detonations by means of numerical simulations, modeling the disruption and nucleosynthesis of the stars until the ejecta reach the coasting phase, and generating synthetic light curves and spectra. Three models are considered with primary masses 0.96 M☉, 1.06 M☉, and 1.20 M☉. Of these, the 0.96 M☉ dwarf merging with a 0.81 M☉ companion, with an 56Ni yield of 0.58 M☉, is the most promising candidate for reproducing common SNe Ia. The more massive mergers produce unusually luminous SNe Ia with peak luminosities approaching those attributed to “super-Chandrasekhar” mass SNe Ia. While the synthetic light curves and spectra of some of the models resemble observed SNe Ia, the significant asymmetry of the ejecta leads to large orientation effects. The peak bolometric luminosity varies by more than a factor of two with the viewing angle, and the velocities of the spectral absorption features are lower when observed from angles where the light curve is brightest. The largest orientation effects are seen in the ultraviolet, where the flux varies by more than an order of magnitude. The set of three models roughly obeys a width–luminosity relation, with the brighter light curves declining more slowly in the B band. Spectral features due to unburned carbon from the secondary star are also seen in some cases.
Morphometrics of Xenopus laevis Kept as Laboratory Animals

Simple Summary Body conditions can be indicators of nutritional status and health in animals. Thus, it is important to monitor body conditions. In laboratory animals, this is of special interest during experiments, on the one hand, to evaluate the stress the animal is exposed to, and on the other hand, the recordings of these parameters are important in order to provide the animals with appropriate husbandry conditions in their lives and metabolic needs. For African clawed frogs, Xenopus laevis, as amphibians, the use of body condition scores or indices has not been implemented as yet. In the present study, adult male and female Xenopus laevis were weighed and several measurements were taken from standardized photographs to establish tools for body condition evaluations in this species. Such morphometric data can serve as reference data for body condition evaluations. Abstract Morphometric data that provide information on body conditions can be used to monitor the health and well-being of animals. In laboratory animals, they can help to evaluate the stress due to experiments or treatments, following the 3R principles. The aim of the present study was to obtain morphometric data of male and female African clawed frogs, Xenopus laevis, as the bases for body condition evaluations. Adult frogs (n = 198) were weighed and standardized photographs were taken. The photographs were used to determine several measurements (length, cranial width, caudal width, thigh width). In addition, a triangle was drawn to outline each frog’s simplified body form, and the triangle surface was calculated. In conclusion, the triangle surface drawn on the dorsal plane of each frog correlated with the body weight of the females. There were significant differences between the body weights and sizes of male and female frogs, with males being smaller (p < 0.001). Based on the morphometric data, females could be assigned to five groups in which an assessment of the animal’s well-being is feasible.
A Generalized Strategy From S‐Wave Receiver Functions Reveals Distinct Lateral Variations of Lithospheric Thickness in Southeastern Tibet

The selected rotation angle and deconvolution time window during S‐wave receiver function (SRF) calculations, and the final SRF quality control may introduce artificial interference. Here we overcome these problems by proposing a new strategy named GC_SRF for obtaining the lithospheric thickness from S‐wave receiver functions, which employs grid search and correlation analysis to obtain reliable SRFs. Extensive tests using synthetic and real data suggest that the GC_SRF strategy is a robust and reproducible approach for estimating lithospheric thickness. Specifically, this GC_SRF strategy can restore the weak Sp phases from full wavefield synthetic seismograms. Clear and distinct discontinuity patterns that do not involve artificial interference compared with those obtained in previous studies of southeastern Tibet are produced here. The post‐stack migrated SRFs reveal distinct lateral variations of lithospheric thickness in southeastern Tibet: (a) Tengchong volcano has a thin crust and thin lithosphere–asthenosphere boundary (LAB) (∼90 km); (b) the Chuandian region has a thicker crust and either a poorly defined or unclear LAB. The absence of a continuous LAB in the Chuandian region may suggest lithospheric regrowth due to the recovery processes of the mantle plume; (c) a thinner crust and clear LAB of ∼160 km depth is presented beneath the Sichuan Basin.
Unpolarized isovector quark distribution function from lattice QCD: A systematic analysis of renormalization and matching

We present a detailed lattice QCD study of the unpolarized isovector quark parton distribution function (PDF) using a large-momentum effective theory framework. We choose a quasi-PDF defined by a spatial correlator which is free from mixing with other operators of the same dimension. In the lattice simulation, we use a Gaussian-momentum-smeared source at ${M}_{\ensuremath{\pi}}=356\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{MeV}$ and ${P}_{z}\ensuremath{\in}{1.8,2.3}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{GeV}$. To control the systematics associated with the excited states, we explore five different source-sink separations. The nonperturbative renormalization is conducted in a regularization-independent momentum subtraction scheme, and the matching between the renormalized quasi-PDF and $\overline{\mathrm{MS}}$ PDF is calculated based on perturbative QCD up to one-loop order. Systematic errors due to renormalization and perturbative matching are also analyzed in detail. Our results for light-cone PDF are in reasonable agreement with the latest phenomenological analysis.
Validation and comparison of volume measurements using 1 multidetector computed tomography and 5 cone-beam computed tomography protocols: An in vitro study

Purpose The purpose of this study was to compare volume measurements obtained using 2 image software packages on Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) images acquired from 1 multidetector computed tomography and 5 cone-beam computed tomography devices, using different protocols for physical volume measurements. Materials and Methods Four pieces of bovine leg were prepared. Marrow was removed from 3 pieces, leaving cortical bone exposed. The resulting space of 1 piece was filled with water, another was filled with propylene glycol, and the third was left unfilled. The marrow in the fourth sample was left fully intact. Volume measurements were obtained after importing DICOM images into the Dolphin Imaging 11.95 and ITK-SNAP software programs. Data were analyzed using 3-way analysis of variance with a generalized linear model to determine the effects of voxel size, software, and content on percentage mean volume differences between tomographic protocols. A significance level of 0.05 was used. Results The intraclass correlation coefficients for intraobserver and interobserver reliability were, respectively, 0.915 and 0.764 for the Dolphin software and 0.894 and 0.766 for the ITK-SNAP software. Three sources of statistically significant variation were identified: the interaction between software and content (P=0.001), the main effect of content (P=0.014), and the main effect of software (P=0.001). Voxel size was not associated with statistically significant differences in volume measurements. Conclusion Both content and software influenced the accuracy of volume measurements, especially when the content had gray values similar to those of the adjacent tissues.
Cavities, shocks and a cold front around 3C 320

We present results obtained from the analysis of a total of 110 ks of Chandra observations of the Fanaroff–Riley class II (FR II) radio galaxy 3C 320, located at the centre of a cluster of galaxies at redshift z = 0.342. A pair of X-ray cavities has been detected at an average distance of ∼38 kpc along the east and west directions, with cavity energy, age and total power equal to ∼7.7 × 1059 erg, ∼7 × 107 yr and ∼3.5 × 1044 erg s−1, respectively. The cooling luminosity within the cooling radius of ∼100 kpc was found to be Lcool ∼ 8.5 × 1043 erg s−1. Comparison of these two estimates (total cavity power and cooling luminosity) implies that the cavity power is sufficiently high to balance radiative loss. A pair of weak shocks has also been detected at distances of ∼47 and ∼76 kpc surrounding the radio bubbles. Using the observed density jumps of ∼1.8 and ∼2.1 at the shock locations along the east and west directions, we estimate the Mach numbers ($\mathcal {M}$) to be ∼1.6 and ∼1.8, respectively. A sharp surface-brightness edge was also detected at a relatively larger radius (∼80 kpc) along the south direction. The density jump at this surface-brightness edge was estimated to be ∼1.6 and it is probably due to the presence of a cold front in this cluster. The far-infrared luminosity yielded a star formation rate of 51 M⊙ yr−1, which is a quarter of the cooling rate ($\dot{M}$ ∼ 192 M⊙ yr−1).
Estimation of Psychological Impairment and Coping Strategies during COVID-19 Pandemic among University Students in Saudi Arabia: A Large Regional Analysis

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictive measures have substantially affected educational processes around the globe, resulting in psychological distress among students. The mental health of students in higher education is of paramount importance, and the COVID-19 pandemic has brought this vulnerable population into renewed focus. In this context, the evaluation of students‘ mental health at educational institutes has gained invaluable popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aimed to ascertain the psychological health and coping strategies among students from a higher education institute in Saudi Arabia. Methods: An online study instrument was used to assess anxiety (Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7, GAD-7), depression (Patient Health Questionnaire-9, PHQ-9), post-traumatic stress disorder—PTSD (Impact of Event Scale-Revised, IES-R) and coping strategies (Brief-COPE). The severity of the psychological distress was classified as per the scoring criteria and correlated with demographics using appropriate statistical methods. Results: Of 1074 students (age 21.1 ± 2.1 years), 12.9% and 9.7% had severe anxiety and depression, respectively. The mean anxiety and depression scores were 7.50 ± 5.51 and 9.31 ± 6.72, respectively. About one-third (32%) of students reported suicidal ideation, with 8.4% students having such thoughts nearly every day. The average PTSD score was 21.64 ± 17.63, where avoidance scored higher (8.10 ± 6.94) than intrusion and hyperarousal. There was no association of anxiety, depression and PTSD score with the demographics of the study participants. Religious/spiritual coping (5.43 ± 2.15) was the most adoptive coping mechanism, followed by acceptance (5.15 ± 2.10). Male students were significantly (p < 0.05) associated with active copings, instrumental support, planning, humor, acceptance and religious coping. Substance use was the least adopted coping strategy but practiced by a considerable number of students. Conclusions: The long-lasting pandemic situation, onerous protective measures and uncertainties in educational procedures have resulted in a high prevalence of psychological ailments among university students, as indicated in this study. These findings accentuate the urgent need for telepsychiatry and appropriate population-specific mental health services to assess the extent of psychological impairment and to leverage positive coping behaviors among students.
Does Aerobic Exercise Facilitate Vaping and Smoking Cessation: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials with Meta-Analysis

Cigarette smokers try to quit using several strategies including electronic cigarette use (vaping). An alternative, easy and cheap method is exercise. However, little is known about the efficacy of aerobic exercise (AE) to augment smoking and vaping cessation. This study aimed to systematically review and discuss the reported effects of AE on long-term vaping and smoking cessation in randomized control trials (RCTs). RCTs were searched on different databases. The outcome measures included long-term vaping or smoking cessation and maximal or peak oxygen uptake (VO2max/peak) after vaping- or smoking cessation. Meta-analysis was conducted to examine the effects of AE on long-term vaping and smoking cessation, and the effects of AE on VO2max/peak. Cochrane Risk of Bias tool 2 was used to assess trials quality. Thirteen trials were included (5 high, 2 moderate and 6 low quality). Although two high quality trials revealed that 3 vigorous supervised AE sessions a week for 12 to 15 weeks increased the number of long-term successful quitters, the meta-analysis including the other trials showed that AE did not significantly increase success rate of long-term quitters. However, VO2max/peak was improved at the end of treatment. There were no trials on AE and vaping cessation. No evidence was found that AE promotes long-term smoking cessation. Nevertheless, AE improved VO2max and/or VO2peak in quitters.
Near-IR period-luminosity relations for pulsating stars in $\omega$ Centauri (NGC 5139)

$\omega$ Centauri (NGC 5139) hosts hundreds of pulsating variable stars of different types, thus representing a treasure trove for studies of their corresponding period-luminosity (PL) relations. Our goal in this study is to obtain the PL relations for RR Lyrae, and SX Phoenicis stars in the field of the cluster, based on high-quality, well-sampled light curves in the near-infrared (IR). $\omega$ Centauri was observed using VIRCAM mounted on VISTA. A total of 42 epochs in $J$ and 100 epochs in $K_{\rm S}$ were obtained, spanning 352 days. Point-spread function photometry was performed using DoPhot and DAOPHOT in the outer and inner regions of the cluster, respectively. Based on the comprehensive catalogue of near-IR light curves thus secured, PL relations were obtained for the different types of pulsators in the cluster, both in the $J$ and $K_{\rm S}$ bands. This includes the first PL relations in the near-IR for fundamental-mode SX Phoenicis stars. The near-IR magnitudes and periods of Type II Cepheids and RR Lyrae stars were used to derive an updated true distance modulus to the cluster, with a resulting value of $(m-M)_0 = 13.708 \pm 0.035 \pm 0.10$ mag, where the error bars correspond to the adopted statistical and systematic errors, respectively. Adding the errors in quadrature, this is equivalent to a heliocentric distance of $5.52\pm 0.27$ kpc.
On the Spatially Resolved Star Formation History in M51. I. Hybrid UV+IR Star Formation Laws and IR Emission from Dust Heated by Old Stars

We present Lightning, a new spectral energy distribution fitting procedure, capable of quickly and reliably recovering star formation history (SFH) and extinction parameters. The SFH is modeled as discrete steps in time. In this work, we assumed lookback times of 0–10 Myr, 10–100 Myr, 0.1–1 Gyr, 1–5 Gyr, and 5–13.6 Gyr. Lightning consists of a fully vectorized inversion algorithm to determine SFH step intensities and combines this with a grid-based approach to determine three extinction parameters. We apply our procedure to the extensive far-UV-to-far-IR photometric data of M51, convolved to a common spatial resolution and pixel scale, and make the resulting maps publicly available. We recover, for M51a, a peak star formation rate (SFR) between 0.1 and 5 Gyr ago, with much lower star formation activity over the past 100 Myr. For M51b, we find a declining SFR toward the present day. In the outskirt regions of M51a, which includes regions between M51a and M51b, we recover an SFR peak between 0.1 and 1 Gyr ago, which corresponds to the effects of the interaction between M51a and M51b. We utilize our results to (1) illustrate how UV+IR hybrid SFR laws vary across M51 and (2) provide first-order estimates for how the IR luminosity per unit stellar mass varies as a function of the stellar age. From the latter result, we find that IR emission from dust heated by stars is not always associated with young stars and that the IR emission from M51b is primarily powered by stars older than 5 Gyr.
Stieleria sedimenti sp. nov., a Novel Member of the Family Pirellulaceae with Antimicrobial Activity Isolated in Portugal from Brackish Sediments

The phylum Planctomycetota is known for having uncommon biological features. Recently, biotechnological applications of its members have started to be explored, namely in the genus Stieleria. Here, we formally describe a novel Stieleria isolate designated as strain ICT_E10. 1T, obtained from sediments collected in the Tagus estuary (Portugal). Strain ICT_E10. 1T is pink-pigmented, spherical to ovoid in shape, and 1.7 µm ± 0.3 x 1.4 µm ± 0.3 in size. Cells cluster strongly in aggregates or small chains, divide by budding, and have prominent fimbriae. Strain ICT_E10. 1T is heterotrophic and aerobic. Growth occurs from 20 to 30 °C, from 0.5 to 3% (w/v) NaCl, and from pH 6.5 to 11.0. The analysis of the 16S rRNA gene sequence placed strain ICT_E10. 1T into the genus Stieleria with Stieleria neptunia Enr13T as the closest validly described relative. The genome size is 9,813,311 bp and the DNA G+C content is 58.8 mol%. Morphological, physiological, and genomic analyses support the separation of this strain into a novel species, for which we propose the name Stieleria sedimenti represented by strain ICT_E10. 1T as the type of strain (=CECT 30514T= DSM 113784T). Furthermore, this isolate showed biotechnological potential by displaying relevant biosynthetic gene clusters and potent activity against Staphylococcus aureus.
Observational constraints on the primordial curvature power spectrum

CMB temperature fluctuation observations provide a precise measurement of the primordial power spectrum on large scales, corresponding to wavenumbers 10−3 Mpc−1 ≲ k ≲ 0.1 Mpc−1, [1-7, 11]. Luminous red galaxies and galaxy clusters probe the matter power spectrum on overlapping scales (0.02 Mpc−1 ≲ k ≲ 0.7 Mpc−1; [10, 12-20]), while the Lyman-alpha forest reaches slightly smaller scales (0.3 Mpc−1 ≲ k ≲ 3 Mpc−1; [22]). These observations indicate that the primordial power spectrum is nearly scale-invariant with an amplitude close to 2 × 10−9, [5, 23-28]. These observations strongly support Inflation and motivate us to obtain observations and constraints reaching to smaller scales on the primordial curvature power spectrum and by implication on Inflation. We are able to obtain limits to much higher values of k ≲ 105 Mpc−1 and with less sensitivity even higher k ≲ 1019− 1023 Mpc−1 using limits from CMB spectral distortions and other limits on ultracompact minihalo objects (UCMHs) and Primordial Black Holes (PBHs). PBHs are one of the known candidates for the Dark Matter (DM). Due to their very early formation, they could give us valuable information about the primordial curvature perturbations. These are complementary to other cosmological bounds on the amplitude of the primordial fluctuations. In this paper, we revisit and collect all the published constraints on both PBHs and UCMHs. We show that unless one uses the CMB spectral distortion, PBHs give us a very relaxed bounds on the primordial curvature perturbations. UCMHs, on the other hand, are very informative over a reasonable k range (3 ≲ k ≲ 106 Mpc−1) and lead to significant upper-bounds on the curvature spectrum. We review the conditions under which the tighter constraints on the UCMHs could imply extremely strong bounds on the fraction of DM that could be PBHs in reasonable models. Failure to satisfy these conditions would lead to over production of the UCMHs which is inconsistent with the observations. Therefore, we can almost rule out PBH within their overlap scales with the UCMHs. We compare the UCMH bounds coming from those experiments which are sensitive to the nature of the DM, such as γ-rays, Neutrinos and Reionization, with those which are insensitive to the type of the DM, e.g. the pulsar-timing as well as CMB spectral distortion. We explicitly show that they lead to comparable results which are independent of the type of DM. These bounds however do depend on the required initial density perturbation, i.e. δmin. It could be either a constant or a scale-dependent function. As we will show, the constraints differ by three orders of magnitude depend on our choice of required initial perturbations.