Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Proof of Concept for a Systems Approach to Biologically Characterize the Maternal Gut Microbiome, Immune Patterns and Mental Distress During Pregnancy

Importance: Screening for anxiety and depression is important but especially difficult during pregnancy. Identification and quantification of the variation of maternal biologic dimensions during the dynamic pregnancy period, e.g. immune and microbiome profiles, have the potential to greatly improve mental heath screening and patient stratification. Objective: To determine if specific immune and microbiome profiles align with features of mental distress during pregnancy. Design: Prospective case-control study from two cohorts in US followed from 2017 to 2019 in the second and third trimesters. Setting: For the urban cohort, recruitment from an obstetric clinic; for the suburbian group, recruitment from advertisements in the hospital and surrounding communities. Participants: A total of 90 pregnant women from two distinct geographic regions, with contrasting race, age, marital status, education and urban vs suburban settings. Exposures: Self-reported mental health symptoms (anxiety, preceptions of stress and depression) and sociodemographic characteristics; blood was obtained for cytokine profiles and stool for microbiota analysis. Main Outcomes and Measures: Dimensionality reduction clustered the symptom scores from the three self-report tools. Phenotypes based on these features were then defined. Results: Factor analysis revealed four features: Burn-out, Low Self-Esteem, Mixed State, and Suicidal/Self-Harm; six phenotypes: severe, with and without suicidal thoughts, depressed with low self-steem, hyperactive, and healthy. Factors and phenotype groups were statistically associated with immune and microbiota profiles and sociodemography. The hyperactive phenotype, despite having low self-reported symptoms, had elevated inflammatory cytokines and a microbiota profile similar to the severe phenotype. Elevated T-helper cell 17 (Th17), inducer of inflammation, is related to anxiety in these cohorts. Variance in socioeconomic factors and and the gut microbiota profile can account for 50% of the variance in phenotype. Conclusion: Better stratification of biological charateristics is essential for understanding complex perinatal mental disorders and can be achieved by including microbiota and immune data. Our preliminary results suggest that variance in microbial and immune factors can describe differences in mental health phenotype, and could be predictive of the women's current or future risk for future diagnosis. These findings form testable hypotheses for larger longitudinal studies.
Granzyme B Expression in Visceral Adipose Tissue Associates With Local Inflammation and Glyco-Metabolic Alterations in Obesity

Granzyme B (GrB) is a serine protease produced by immune and non-immune cells, able to promote multiple processes, like apoptosis, inflammation, extracellular matrix remodeling and fibrosis. GrB expression in visceral adipose tissue (VAT) was associated with tissue damage, local inflammation and insulin resistance in obesity murine model, but there is no data in humans. Aim of this study was to explore the expression of GrB in VAT from obese subjects in relation to adipose tissue injury, inflammation, metabolic alterations and GrB circulating levels. For this purpose, 85 obese individuals undergoing bariatric surgery and 35 healthy subjects (as control) were recruited at Sapienza University, Rome, Italy. Study participants underwent clinical work-up and routine biochemistry. mRNA expression of GrB in VAT and of a panel of VAT inflammatory markers was analyzed by real-time PCR. Serum GrB levels were measured by Elisa Affymetrix EBIO. We observed that 80% of obese patients expressed GrB mRNA in VAT, and GrB VAT expression was associated with the presence of local inflammation and glucose homeostasis alterations. Moreover, GrB serum levels, which were higher in obese subjects compared to non-obese healthy individuals, were associated with GrB expression in VAT and glyco-metabolic impairment. Our data show, for the first time in humans, that obese subjects with “sick” fat and altered glucose tolerance exhibit GrB expression in VAT, and suggest that GrB might contribute to obesity-related VAT inﬂammatory remodeling and glucose homeostasis dysregulation. Moreover, increased circulating GrB levels might represent a possible peripheral marker of VAT dysfunction in metabolic diseases.
Effects of prescribed burning on rodent community ecology in Serengeti National Park

Abstract. A study on the effects of prescribed burning on rodent community ecology was conducted in Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. The study aimed at generating ecological knowledge about the changes in rodent communities when areas of the park are intentionally burned to regulate grasslands or reduce undergrowth that can lead to uncontrolled forest fires. A completely randomized design (CRD) factorial layout with two treatments (burned and unburned) and two replications was applied. A total of 148 animals comprising six species of rodent and one insectivore were captured over 2,940 trap nights. Among the trapped individuals, 41.9% were adults, 16.1% juveniles and 41.9% sub-adults. Males and females were at parity between treatments. Species abundance was estimated using the minimum number alive (MNA) method for different rodent species and was found to vary with treatment where Mastomys natalensis declined in burned plots whilst Arvicanthis niloticus increased. However, species diversity did not differ across treatments (F1, 10 = 0.15, p = 0.70). Differences in the reproductive condition of female M. natalensis (z = 4.408, df = 15, p < 0.001) and A. niloticus (z = 2.381, df = 15, p = 0.017) were observed between treatments showing that higher numbers of reproductively active females were observed in burned plots in March, whilst in unburned plots more were observed from November to February. Conservation strategies involving periodic habitat burning should, therefore, consider small mammal reproductive periods to ensure that species potentially at risk are not adversely affected and able to rapidly recover from the effects of burning in temporarily lowering food resources and longer term impacts of increased predation caused by reduced cover.
Linear relationship of normal and tangential contact stiffness with load

Measurements with digital image correlation of normal and tangential contact stiffness for ground Ti-6Al-4V interfaces suggest a linear relationship between normal contact stiffness and normal load and a linear relationship between tangential contact stiffness and tangential load. The normal contact stiffness is observed approximately to be inversely proportional to an equivalent surface roughness parameter, defined for two surfaces in contact. The ratio of the tangential contact stiffness to the normal contact stiffness at the start of tangential loading is seen to be given approximately by the Mindlin ratio. A simple empirical model is proposed to estimate both the normal and tangential contact stiffness at different loads for a ground Ti-6Al-4V interface, on the basis of the equivalent surface roughness and the coefficient of friction.
Two novel benchmark datasets from ArcGIS and bing world imagery for remote sensing image retrieval

ABSTRACT Benchmark datasets are essential to develop and evaluate remote sensing image retrieval (RSIR) approaches. However, there are no two datasets with different remote sensing image sources, an approximate equal number of images, the same classification system, and image size in the existing public benchmark datasets. This may affect the evaluation of the universality and robustness of RSIR approaches for the same category in different datasets, and even hinder the development of new cross-source RSIR approaches that require remote sensing images from different sources. We therefore present two new large-scale datasets from ArcGIS and Bing World Imagery, respectively. Similar to the PatternNet dataset from Google Earth Imagery, both two new collected datasets contain 38 classes using the same classification system and each class has at least 1,500 images. We conduct experiments using five handcrafted low/mid-level feature methods and six deep learning high-level feature methods on the two datasets. Results show that our datasets are effective for evaluating different RSIR approaches and the results can be served as the baseline for future research. We also perform the comparison and the cross analysis compared with other large-scale datasets. Results indicate that our datasets are more inclusive, richer variations and better intra-class diversity. Besides, other experimental results show that our new datasets and the VGoogle (extracted by volunteers from Google imagery) dataset can be merged into one dataset for larger-scale remote sensing image retrieval.
Structural, Electronic and Mechanical Properties of Advanced Functional Materials

Ramzan, M. 2013. Structural, Electronic and Mechanical Properties of Advanced Functional Materials. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology 1062. 98 pp. Uppsala. ISBN 978-91-554-8723-2. The search for alternate and renewable energy resources as well as the efficient use of energy and development of such systems that can help to save the energy consumption is needed because of exponential growth in world population, limited conventional fossil fuel resources, and to meet the increasing demand of clean and environment friendly substitutes. Hydrogen being the simplest, most abundant and clean energy carrier has the potential to fulfill some of these requirements provided the development of efficient, safe and durable systems for its production, storage and usage. Chemical hydrides, complex hydrides and nanomaterials, where the hydrogen is either chemically bonded to the metal ions or physiosorbed, are the possible means to overcome the difficulties associated with the storage and usage of hydrogen at favorable conditions. We have studied the structural and electronic properties of some of the chemical hydrides, complex hydrides and functionalized nanostructures to understand the kinetics and thermodynamics of these materials. Another active field relating to energy storage is rechargeable batteries. We have studied the detailed crystal and electronic structures of Li and Mg based cathode materials and calculated the average intercalation voltage of the corresponding batteries. We found that transition metal doped MgH2 nanocluster is a material to use efficiently not only in batteries but also in fuelcell technologies. MAX phases can be used to develop the systems to save the energy consumption. We have chosen one compound from each of all known types of MAX phases and analyzed the structural, electronic, and mechanical properties using the hybrid functional. We suggest that the proper treatment of correlation effects is important for the correct description of Cr2AlC and Cr2GeC by the good choice of Hubbard 'U' in DFT+U method. Hydrogen is fascinating to physicists due to predicted possibility of metallization and high temperature superconductivity. On the basis of our ab initio molecular dynamics studies, we propose that the recent claim of conductive hydrogen by experiments might be explained by the diffusion of hydrogen at relevant pressure and temperature. In this thesis we also present the studies of phase change memory materials, oxides and amorphization of oxide materials, spintronics and sulfide materials.
A quality improvement method for 3D laser slam point clouds based on geometric primitives of the scan scene

ABSTRACT 3D laser simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) technology is one of the most efficient methods to capture spatial information. However, the low-accuracy SLAM point cloud limits its application in many fields. To address the problem, a laser SLAM point cloud quality improvement method based on geometric primitive (PCQI-GP) is proposed, which mainly includes extraction of reference datum and point cloud data correction. More specifically, the point cloud data quality is evaluated through extracting the geometric primitives of the scanning scene using the random sampling consistency algorithm, and the high-accuracy point cloud is defined as the reference datum. Furthermore, the primitive parameters extracted from reference datum are adopted to construct constraint conditions, and the coordinates of drifting point cloud data are corrected. Experiments are conducted with data collected by a handheld laser scan system in two challenging scenes to evaluate the PCQI-GP method. Compared with the theoretical design values, the correction accuracy of the PCQI-GP method is less than 3 cm. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can effectively improve the quality of the laser SLAM point cloud in the area without global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signal and sufficient feature points.
Informing Development of Bispecific Antibodies Using Physiologically Based Pharmacokinetic‐Pharmacodynamic Models: Current Capabilities and Future Opportunities

Antibody therapeutics continue to represent a significant portion of the biotherapeutic pipeline, with growing promise for bispecific antibodies (BsAbs). BsAbs can target 2 different antigens at the same time, such as simultaneously binding tumor‐cell receptors and recruiting cytotoxic immune cells. This simultaneous engagement of 2 targets can be potentially advantageous, as it may overcome disadvantages posed by a monotherapy approach, like the development of resistance to treatment. Combination therapy approaches that modulate 2 targets simultaneously offer similar advantages, but BsAbs are more efficient to develop. Unlike combination approaches, BsAbs can facilitate spatial proximity of targets that may be necessary to induce the desired effect. Successful development of BsAbs requires understanding antibody formatting and optimizing activity for both targets prior to clinical trials. To realize maximal efficacy, special attention is required to fully define pharmacokinetic (PK)/pharmacodynamic (PD) relationships enabling selection of dose and regimen. The application of physiologically based pharmacokinetics (PBPK) has been evolving to inform the development of novel treatment modalities such as bispecifics owing to the increase in our understanding of pharmacology, utility of multiscale models, and emerging clinical data. In this review, we discuss components of PBPK models to describe the PK characteristics of BsAbs and expand the discussion to integration of PBPK and PD models to inform development of BsAbs. A framework that can be adopted to build PBPK‐PD models to inform the development of BsAbs is also proposed. We conclude with examples that highlight the application of PBPK‐PD and share perspectives on future opportunities for this emerging quantitative tool.
An investigation of electrochemical techniques in acoustic environments

A new system for the generation of hydrodynamic modulation voltammetry (HMV) is presented. This system consists of an oscillating jet produced through the mechanical vibration of a large membrane/piston. The structure of the cell is such that a relatively small vibration is transferred to a large (~ 1 m s-1) fluid flow at the jet outlet. High-speed imaging of the system shows vortex behaviour of the flow at the exit of the jet. Positioning of an electrode over the exit of this jet enables the detection of the modulated flow of liquid. The periodic character of the signal recorded at the electrode allows a “lock-in” approach to be employed. This enables discrimination of the background processes signal from the mass transport component. This is demonstrated for Fe(CN)6 3-/4- 3-/4-. Here “lock-in” to the modulated hydrodynamic signal is achieved through the deployment of bespoke software. The apparatus and procedure is shown to produce a simple and efficient way to obtain the desired signal. In addition the spatial variation of the HMV signal, phase correction and time averaged current with respect to the jet orifice is presented. The detection limit for the analysing system is shown to be 45 × 10-9 mol dm-3. The HMV method is employed to study the reduction of molecular oxygen at high surface area (HI-Pt) modified electrodes. The successful elimination of background signals is achieved for the 0.5 mm diameter nanostructured Pt electrode with roughness factor (RF) of 42.4. Employment of higher roughness factors (>50) HIPt electrodes revealed an anomalous “drop off” effect characterising these electrodes. It is demonstrated that the “drop off” is not caused by the hydrogen peroxide production at the electrode or pH change near the electrode surface. However, a clear dependence of the current deflection on the roughness factor of the electrodes is observed. The shape of the “drop off” followed the shape of the hydrogen adsorption region. It is suggested that the surface characteristics of the electrodes are important in these investigations. It is proposed here, that the capacitance of the electrode influences the HMV signal. Another type of hydrodynamic modulation method, specifically a vibrating 50 ? m diameter Pt or Au wire or “tight-rope” electrode was studied. High frequency modulation (80 Hz) is employed. FFT data processing was employed to extract the desired signal from the total current. This technique was applied to study reduction of molecular oxygen at the modulated electrodes. A current “drop off” in hydride region was again observed. This is shown to be related to the uncompensated resistance of the cell. In particular, the resistance of the reference electrode is demonstrated to contribute to this effect
On Adaptive PARAFAC Decomposition of Three-Way Tensors

We propose a fast adaptive PARAFAC algorithm for a class of third-order tensors which have one dimension growing linearly with time. The proposed method is based on alternating least squares approach used in conjunction with a Newton-type optimization technique. By exploiting the Khatri-Rao product and the reduced rank structure at each time instant, our algorithm has the advantages of both linear complexity and superior convergence performance. A modified version of the algorithm is also proposed to tackle the nonnegative adaptive PARAFAC problem. Parallel implementation issues and algorithm performance are finally investigated. The latter is achieved through simulation comparison with the state-of-the-art algorithms to better highlight the effectiveness of the proposed method.
STUDY OF ELECTRIC QUADRUPOLE INTERACTIONS OF lllln AND lllcd FOLLOWING ION IMPLANTATION OF rain INTO GRAPHITE

The nuclear electric quadrupole interaction of I I lln ion-implanted in hightly oriented pyrolytic graphite has been observed by means of low-temperature nuclear orientation and by means of perturbed angular correlations. From the first kind of experiment, it is concluded that a relatively large number of indium nuclei experience a well-defined macroscopic orientation, which is partly lost after the radioactive decay to cadmium. Indeed, the second kind of experiment revealed a broad distribution of electric field gradients interacting with the 245 keV Cd excited state, as well as a small fraction experiencing a unique electric field gradient. The experimental results are compared with theoretical calculations of the electric field gradient at various lattice positions, in which carbon and indium electronic wavefunctions are allowed to hybridize. Lattice positions of the covalent indium atom between the graphite layers can explain the measured electric field gradient of V~z = + 1.47(11). 1022 V/m z, directed parallel to the graphite c-axis.
NACHWEIS FREIER CHLORIONEN AUF BETONOBERFLAECHEN MIT DEM UV-VERFAHREN

Dem Nachweis freier, in Wasser geloester Chlorionen in Stahlbeton kommt grosse Bedeutung zu, da Chlorionen am Stahl Lochfrasskorrosion hervorrufen koennen. Bei Anwendung des neuen UV-Verfahrens von Schoeppel werden freieChlorionen auf Betonoberflaechen nach Aufspruehen von waessriger Silbernitratloesung als schwerloesliches Silberchlorid gebunden. In Bereichen ohne freie Chlorionen entsteht vorwiegend braunes Silberoxid. Bei Einwirkungvon UV-Strahlung wird das Silberchlorid teilweise zersetzt. Die entstehende Mischung aus Silberchlorid und Silber auf der Betonoberflaeche ist je nach Konzentration der freien Chlorionen nach 5-10 Minuten direkter Sonnenbestrahlung silbergrau bis blaugrau gefaerbt. Wird eine Betonoberflaeche ohne freie Chlorionen hintereinander mit Silbernitrat- und Kaliumchromatloesung besprueht, koennen carbonatisierte Bereiche an der Rotbraunfaerbung des Feinmoertels erkannt werden. (A*) (Titel in Englisch: Indication of free chlorione ions on concrete surfaces by the UV-test).
Fast-response pyrometer development for expansion tunnel testing with hot carbon models

New methods for hot wall testing in expansion tunnels allow more accurate simulation of re-entry flow characteristics through resistive heating of carbon-carbon models to above 2000 K, representative of levels reached in flight. A nonintrusive, fast-response spectral pyrometer has been developed to measure surface temperature variations during the short steady flow time in expansion tunnel tests, and deduce surface heat flux through an unsteady heat conduction model. The signal is converted to spectral irradiance, and for gray bodies, the ratio between the irradiance of any two of four filter wavelengths allows deduction of surface temperature. To use the system for time accurate measurements through the radiating shock layer of re-entry bodies, non-emitting windows in the spectrum have been identified. The pyrometer has been spectrally calibrated using a tungsten lamp and its performance independently checked through benchtop testing of carbon-carbon samples at measured temperatures. The capacity to measure temperature and heat flux on carbon-carbon models at elevated surface temperatures, combined with emission spectroscopy of the shock layer will provide the opportunity to explore previously inaccessible flow thermochemistry interactions with heat shield materials under realistic re-entry conditions.
Energy Efficient Massive MIMO 5G System with ZF Receiver

The Massive MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output), one of the leading 5G technologies, has brought efficiency, reliability, and robustness of the communication system. Interference and power consumption are the significant problems for Massive MIMO. The Nakagami-m fading channel carries a characteristic like m diversity order, this order is unique because of having co-channel interference reduction feature. That’s why, in this inspection, Nakagami-m fading channel has been used in massive MIMO system. The massive MIMO has various categories such as co-located MIMO, distributed MIMO and hybrid MIMO depending on its base station. In this research, we have exclusively analysed the performance of these three massive MIMO channels and their energy efficiency. This system seems to be less affected by co-channel interference. The MIMOs have been compared using ZF (Zero Forcing) receiver.