Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
16-channel tunable and 25-Gb/s EAM-integrated DBR-LD for WDM-based mobile front-haul networks.

We report a tunable distributed Bragg reflector-laser diode (DBR-LD) integrated with an electro-absorption-modulator (EAM) at an operating wavelength of 1.3 µm. This LD consists of gain, phase control (PC), DBR, and EAM sections, realized by using a butt-coupling technique in monolithically integrating the multiple quantum wells (MQWs) with the passive core and by applying an etched-mesa buried hetero-structure (EMBH) to the resonance cavity (i.e., gain to DBR section) and a deep-ridge type to the EAM section in fabricating the waveguide structure. Wavelength tuning of the LD is achieved by both applying a voltage to the heater metal of DBR section (coarse tuning) and injecting a current to the ohmic metal of PC section (fine tuning). From the work, the fabricated chips show a threshold current of about 13 mA, a side mode suppression ratio (SMSR) of more than 35 dB, and a tuning range of 15 nm within a heater voltage of 2 V. Dynamic tests for the EAM-integrated LD show the 3 dB bandwidth of more than 20 GHz and clear 25 Gb/s eye openings with a dynamic extinction ratio (DER) of over 7 dB for 16 channels spaced at the wavelength interval of 0.55 nm. Based on these results, we conclude that the EAM-integrated DBR-LD is capable of providing 16 channel operation at a data rate of 25 Gb/s and can be used as an effective light source for WDM-based mobile front-haul networks.
Quantitative Electroencephalography Findings in Patients With Diabetes Mellitus

Objective. Diabetes mellitus (DM) causes structural central nervous system (CNS) impairment, and this situation can be detected by quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG) findings before cognitive impairment is clinically observed. The main aim of this study is to uncover the effect of DM on brain function. Since QEEG reflects the CNS functioning, particularly in cognitive aspects, we expected electrophysiological clues to be found for prevention and follow-up in DM-related cognitive decline. Since a majority of the psychiatric population have cognitive dysfunction, we have given particular attention to those people. It was stated that a decrease was observed in the posterior cortical alpha power due to the hippocampal atrophy by several previous studies and we hypothesize that decreased alpha power will be observed also in DM. Methods. This study included 2094 psychiatric patients, 207 of whom were diagnosed with DM and 1887 of whom were not diagnosed with DM, and QEEG recordings were performed. Eyes-closed electroencephalography data were segmented into consecutive 2 s epochs. Fourier analysis was performed by averaging across 2 s epochs without artifacts. The absolute alpha power in the occipital regions (O1 and O2) of patients with and without DM was compared. Results. In the DM group, a decrease in the absolute alpha, alpha 1, and alpha 2 power in O1 and O2 was observed in comparison with the control group. It was determined that the type of psychiatric diagnosis did not affect QEEG findings. Conclusion. The decrease in absolute alpha power observed in patients diagnosed with DM may be related to the CNS impairment in DM. QEEG findings in DM can be useful while monitoring the CNS impairment, diagnosing DM-related dementia, in the follow-up of the cognitive process, constructing the protocols for electrophysiological interventions like neurofeedback and transcranial magnetic stimulation and monitoring the response to treatment.
Theoretical studies of medium effects on conformational equilibria

Revue d'etudes theoriques recentes sur les effets d'un milieu condense (effet de solvant en particulier) sur les equilibres conformationnels, en utilisant les methodes de Monte Carlo et de la dynamique moleculaire. Comparaison aux donnees experimentales
Immediate effects of stance and swing phase training on gait in patients with stroke

To compare the effects of gait trainings targeting the stance (stance training) and the swing phases (swing training) among the subjects with stroke, and quantify the characteristics in the subjects who benefitted from either the stance training or the swing training. Sixteen subjects with stroke performed the stance training, which focused on the center of pressure to move from the heel to the forefoot, and the swing training, which focused on the improvement of hip flexion in the swing phase. To investigate the immediate effects of the stance training and the swing training, the instrumented gait analysis was performed before and after training. To quantify the characteristics, subjects were divided into two groups based on the gait speed change. These two groups were compared using clinical examinations. After the stance training, the center of pressure displacement of the paretic limb was increased compared with the swing training. Subjects who benefitted from the stance training had slower Timed Up and Go and weaker paretic hip muscle strength than those who benefitted from the swing training. Stance training may be more effective in subjects with slower Timed Up and Go outcomes and weaker hip muscles.
Novel Trial Design: CHIEF-HF

Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text. Background: The expense of clinical trials mandates new strategies to efficiently generate evidence and test novel therapies. In this context, we designed a decentralized, patient-centered randomized clinical trial leveraging mobile technologies, rather than in-person site visits, to test the efficacy of 12 weeks of canagliflozin for the treatment of heart failure, regardless of ejection fraction or diabetes status, on the reduction of heart failure symptoms. Methods: One thousand nine hundred patients will be enrolled with a medical record-confirmed diagnosis of heart failure, stratified by reduced (≤40%) or preserved (>40%) ejection fraction and randomized 1:1 to 100 mg daily of canagliflozin or matching placebo. The primary outcome will be the 12-week change in the total symptom score of the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire. Secondary outcomes will be daily step count and other scales of the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire. Results: The trial is currently enrolling, even in the era of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Conclusions: CHIEF-HF (Canagliflozin: Impact on Health Status, Quality of Life and Functional Status in Heart Failure) is deploying a novel model of conducting a decentralized, patient-centered, randomized clinical trial for a new indication for canagliflozin to improve the symptoms of patients with heart failure. It can model a new method for more cost-effectively testing the efficacy of treatments using mobile technologies with patient-reported outcomes as the primary clinical end point of the trial. Registration: URL: https://www.clinicaltrials. gov; Unique identifier: NCT04252287.
Applying Latent Class Analysis on Cancer Registry Data to Identify and Compare Health Disparity Profiles in Colorectal Cancer Surgical Treatment Delay

Context: Colorectal cancer (CRC) surgical treatment delay (TD) has been associated with mortality and morbidity; however, disparities by TD profiles are unknown. Objectives: This study aimed to identify CRC patient profiles of surgical TD while accounting for differences in sociodemographic, health insurance, and geographic characteristics. Design: We used latent class analysis (LCA) on 2005-2015 Tennessee Cancer Registry data of CRC patients and observed indicators that included sex/gender, age at diagnosis, marital status (single/married/divorced/widowed), race (White/Black/other), health insurance type, and geographic residence (non-Appalachian/Appalachian). Setting: The state of Tennessee in the United States that included both Appalachian and non-Appalachian counties. Participants: Adult (18 years or older) CRC patients (N = 35 412) who were diagnosed and surgically treated for in situ (n = 1286) and malignant CRC (n = 34 126). Main Outcome Measure: The distal outcome of TD was categorized as 30 days or less and more than 30 days from diagnosis to surgical treatment. Results: Our LCA identified a 4-class solution and a 3-class solution for in situ and malignant profiles, respectively. The highest in situ CRC patient risk profile was female, White, aged 75 to 84 years, widowed, and used public health insurance when compared with respective profiles. The highest malignant CRC patient risk profile was male, Black, both single/never married and divorced/separated, resided in non-Appalachian county, and used public health insurance when compared with respective profiles. The highest risk profiles of in situ and malignant patients had a TD likelihood of 19.3% and 29.4%, respectively. Conclusions: While our findings are not meant for diagnostic purposes, we found that Blacks had lower TD with in situ CRC. The opposite was found in the malignant profiles where Blacks had the highest TD. Although TD is not a definitive marker of survival, we observed that non-Appalachian underserved/underrepresented groups were overrepresented in the highest TD profiles. The observed disparities could be indicative of intervenable risk.
Effectiveness and safety of electroacupuncture in treating Parkinson disease

Abstract Background: Parkinson disease (PD) is an Extrapyramidal Disease mainly characterized by static tremor, myotonia, bradykinesia and postural gait disorder. As China's population ages, the number of people suffering from PD is increasing. Since there are many side effects of western medicine for Parkinson's patients, and the high price of the drugs make it difficult for many patients to adhere to treat. At present, many clinical studies have shown that electroacupuncture is effective in treating PD. Therefore, this systematic review aims to explore the effectiveness and safety of electroacupuncture in the treatment of PD. Methods: Comprehensive search of PubMed, Embase, Medline, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Chinese Biomedical Literatures Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Chinese Scientific Journal Database, Wang Fang Database from inception to February 2021, the literature selected is not restricted by language. In addition, we will search for unpublished studies and the references that were originally included in the literature manually. There were two reviewers screened the data and cross-checked the information individually, the quality of the literature was assessed by reviewers independently. The outcomes of interest include:the scale of Unifified PD Rating Scales, the Webster scale, the Quality of Life Questionnaire, total effective rate, recurrence rate, adverse events. The laboratory inspection indicators include:the content of lipid peroxidase, Superoxide dismutase activity in plasma and erythrocyte. The relevant randomized controlled trials will be included in this study. And we will evaluate the quality of the selected literature according to the Cochrane Handbook. Meta-analysis will be performed using RevMan 5.4. 0 software. The heterogeneity test will be implemented in the included literature, the tests’ thresholds will be P < . 1 and I2 > 50%. We will use either fixed effects model or random effects model according to the size of heterogeneity. Results: The results of this systematic review will provide a comprehensive evidence for the clinical treatment of PD, and we will report this result soon. Conclusion: This paper will explore whether or not electroacupuncture can be used as a non-drug therapy for PD. Ethics and dissemination: Ethical approval is not required for this paper, our plan will be published in the journal. Trial registration number: INPLASY202120031
Unraveling the Coupling between Conformational Changes and Ligand Binding in Ribose Binding Protein Using Multiscale Molecular Dynamics and Free-Energy Calculations

Conformational changes of proteins upon ligand binding are usually explained in terms of several mechanisms including the induced fit, conformational selection, or their mixtures. Due to the slow time scales, conventional molecular dynamics (cMD) simulations based on the atomistic models cannot easily simulate the open-to-closed conformational transition in proteins. In our previous study, we have developed an enhanced sampling scheme (generalized replica exchange with solute tempering selected surface charged residues: gREST_SSCR) for multidomain proteins and applied it to ligand-mediated conformational changes in the G134R mutant of ribose-binding protein (RBPG134R) in solution. The free-energy landscape (FEL) of RBPG134R in the presence of a ribose at the binding site included the open and closed states and two intermediates, open-like and closed-like forms. Only the open and open-like forms existed in the FEL without a ribose. In the current study, the coupling between the conformational changes and ligand binding is further investigated using coarse-grained MD, multiple atomistic cMD, and free-energy calculations. The ribose is easily dissociated from the binding site of wild-type RBP and RBPG134R in the cMD simulations starting from the open and open-like forms. In contrast, it is stable at the binding site in the simulations from the closed and closed-like forms. The free-energy calculations provide the binding affinities of different structures, supporting the results of cMD simulations. Importantly, cMD simulations from the closed-like structures reveal transitions toward the closed one in the presence of a bound ribose. On the basis of the computational results, we propose a molecular mechanism in which conformational selection and induced fit happen in the first and second halves of the open-to-closed transition in RBP, respectively.
Crystallization characteristics of polypropylene and low ethylene content polypropylene copolymer with and without nucleating agents

In this paper, the crystallization characteristics of polypropylene and low ethylene content polypropylene copolymers with and without nucleating agents were studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and polarized light microscopy (PLM). In order to determine the nonisothermal crystallization rate of these materials, a new estimation method was introduced. Comparing with the crystallization rate coefficient (CRC), which was proposed by Khanna, we found the new approach is more reasonable. From the analysis of results of DSC and PLM, it can be concluded that nucleating agent is more efficient than it is in PP homopolymer. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Grafting to Cellulose via Thio-Bromo Click Reaction

ii Co-Authorship. iii Acknowledgements . iv List of Figures . viii List of Tables . xi List of Abbreviations . xii List of Symbols . xiii . Introduction . 1 Chapter 1 1.1 Background Information . 1 1.2 Thesis Objectives . 2 1.3 Thesis Outline . 3 . Literature Review: Effect of Solvent Selection on Copper Wire Mediated Controlled/Living Chapter 2 Radical Polymerization . 4 2.
Genome-wide screens in yeast models towards understanding chronological lifespan regulation

Abstract Cellular models such as yeasts are a driving force in biogerontology studies. Their simpler genome, short lifespans and vast genetic and genomics resources make them ideal to characterise pro-ageing and anti-ageing genes and signalling pathways. Over the last three decades, yeasts have contributed to the understanding of fundamental aspects of lifespan regulation including the roles of nutrient response, global protein translation rates and quality, DNA damage, oxidative stress, mitochondrial function and dysfunction as well as autophagy. In this short review, we focus on approaches used for competitive and non-competitive cell-based screens using the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, for deciphering the molecular mechanisms underlying chronological ageing. Automation accompanied with appropriate computational tools allowed manipulation of hundreds of thousands of colonies, generation, processing and analysis of genome-wide lifespan data. Together with barcoding and modern mutagenesis technologies, these approaches have allowed to take decisive steps towards a global, comprehensive view of cellular ageing.
Invasive species trait-based risk assessment for non-native freshwater fishes in a tropical city basin in Southeast Asia

Biological invasions have created detrimental impacts in freshwater ecosystems. As non-native freshwater species include economically beneficial, but also harmful, species, trait-based risk assessments can be used to identify and prevent the import of potentially invasive species. Freshwater fishes are one of the most evaluated freshwater taxa to date. However, such assessments have mostly been done in sub-temperate to temperate regions, with a general lack of such research in the tropics. In view of this knowledge gap, this study aims to determine if a different set of traits are associated with successful establishment of non-native fishes within the tropics. In tropical Southeast Asia, Singapore represents a suitable model site to perform an invasive species trait-based risk assessment for the tropical region given its susceptibility to the introduction and establishment of non-native freshwater fishes and lack of stringent fish import regulation. A quantitative trait-based risk assessment was performed using random forest to determine the relative importance of species attributes associated with the successful establishment of introduced freshwater fishes in Singapore. Species having a match in climate, prior invasion success, lower absolute fecundity, higher trophic level, and involvement in the aquarium trade were found to have higher establishment likelihood (as opposed to native distributional range and maximum size being among the commonly identified predictors in subtropical/temperate trait-based risk assessments). To minimize invasive risk, incoming freshwater fishes could be screened in future for such traits, allowing lists of prohibited or regulated species to be updated. The findings could also potentially benefit the development of invasive species action plans and inform management decisions in the Southeast Asian region. Considering a geographical bias in terms of having relatively less documentation of biological invasions in the tropics, particularly Asia, this study highlights the need to perform more of such risk assessments in other parts of the tropics.
Experimental evidence of the importance of multitrophic structure for species persistence

Significance It has been unclear whether understanding how biodiversity is maintained requires us to study species interactions within and across trophic levels simultaneously. Achieving this task remains, however, challenging for practical and theoretical reasons. Here, integrating a simple but detailed experimental plant–pollinator community and a tractable mathematical framework, we show that biodiversity is strongly affected by species competitive interactions among plants and among pollinators, as well as the mutualistic effects between pollinators on plants. Furthermore, we show that experimentally preventing some species to interact can modify the rest of the interactions and affect idiosyncratically the probability of species persistence. These effects are only observable within the empirical evaluation and not with traditional simulation approaches. Ecological theory predicts that species interactions embedded in multitrophic networks shape the opportunities for species to persist. However, the lack of experimental support of this prediction has limited our understanding of how species interactions occurring within and across trophic levels simultaneously regulate the maintenance of biodiversity. Here, we integrate a mathematical approach and detailed experiments in plant–pollinator communities to demonstrate the need to jointly account for species interactions within and across trophic levels when estimating the ability of species to persist. Within the plant trophic level, we show that the persistence probability of plant species increases when introducing the effects of plant–pollinator interactions. Across trophic levels, we show that the persistence probabilities of both plants and pollinators exhibit idiosyncratic changes when experimentally manipulating the multitrophic structure. Importantly, these idiosyncratic effects are not recovered by traditional simulations. Our work provides tractable experimental and theoretical platforms upon which it is possible to investigate the multitrophic factors affecting species persistence in ecological communities.
Correlation between clinical features and total maturation score by magnetic resonance imaging in very low birth weight premature infants with brain injury.

BACKGROUND Brain injury in premature infants (BIPI) seriously affects the growth and development of preterm infants. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has become an important method of assessing brain development. The aim of this study was to explore the correlation between clinical features and total maturation score (TMS) by MRI in very low birth weight (VLBW) preterm infants with brain injury at term postmenstrual age (PMA). METHODS A retrospective cohort of 65 cases of BIPI with VLBW and 40 normal control cases were included, and all cases underwent MRI examination. The 2 groups were assessed in terms of TMS and sub-parameters (myelination, cortical infolding, germinal matrix, bands of migrating glial cells), and the correlation between TMS and term PMA was also analyzed. RESULTS The TMS of the BIPI group was lower than that of the control group (P<0.01). The differences in myelination and cortical infolding were statistically significant (P<0.01). No significant differences in the germinal matrix and bands of migrating glial cells were found. The linear regression equation showing a positive correlation between TMS and term PMA in normal preterm infants was y=1.164x-28.888 (t=9.478, P=0.000). CONCLUSIONS TMS by conventional cranial MRI can objectively reflect the brain maturity and brain damage of premature infants, and is related to the term PMA.
Teachers' work-related non-literature-known building-related symptoms are also connected to indoor toxicity: A cross-sectional study.

A previous study showed that classical building-related symptoms (BRS) were related to indoor dust and microbial toxicity via boar sperm motility assay, a sensitive method for measuring mitochondrial toxicity. In this cross-sectional study, we analyzed whether teachers' most common work-related non-literature-known BRS (nBRS) were also associated with dust or microbial toxicity. Teachers from 15 schools in Finland completed a questionnaire evaluating 20 nBRS including general, eye, respiratory, hearing, sleep, and mental symptoms. Boar sperm motility assay was used to measure the toxicity of extracts from wiped dust and microbial fallout samples collected from teachers' classrooms. 231 teachers answered a questionnaire and their classroom toxicity data were recorded. A negative binomial mixed model showed that teachers' work-related nBRS were 2.9-fold (95% CI: 1.2-7.3) higher in classrooms with highly toxic dust samples compared to classrooms with non-toxic dust samples (p = 0.024). The RR of work-related nBRS was 1.8 (95% CI: 1.1-2.9) for toxic microbial samples (p = 0.022). Teachers' BRS appeared to be broader than reported in the literature, and the work-related nBRS were associated with toxic dusts and microbes in classrooms.