Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Limits of detection in XRF spectroscopy

The most important characteristic of analytical procedure is the limit of detection especially in the analyses of toxic substance in the environment. This concept is used in many fields that may contribute to various controversial definitions and practice for its determination. This work was motivated by the possible use of the X-ray fluorescence (XRF) available detection system to detect the heavy toxic element present in some imported polyethylene and plastic goods and to verify their conformity with the European Union RoHS compliance. A review of the concept of limits of detection with its experimental determination for XRF spectroscopy was necessary to select the adequate practical calculation method. The results obtained show that the correct and practical approach to determine the limits of detection in XRF spectroscopy should be the calibration curve approach. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Preparation and photoelectrochemical properties of densely immobilized Cu2ZnSnS4 nanoparticle films

Colloidal Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) nanoparticles with sizes of 5–6 nm that contain no highly toxic elements were successfully synthesized through thermal reactions of metal acetate and sulfur in high-temperature oleylamine solution. The reaction temperature was a key factor for the synthesis of CZTS nanoparticles: synthesis at temperatures higher than 240 °C gave a pure CZTS crystal phase, whereas a secondary phase of CuS was formed at reaction temperatures lower than 180 °C. Nanoparticles were successfully accumulated on ITO-coated or quartz glass substrates via layer-by-layer deposition using 1,2-ethanedithiol as a cross-linking agent. The resulting CZTS particle films exhibited a photoresponse similar to that of p-type semiconductor photoelectrodes in an aqueous solution containing Eu(NO3)3 as an electron scavenger. Potentials of the valence band edge and conduction band edge were determined from the onset potential of the cathodic photocurrent to be +0.3 and −1.2 V vs. Ag/AgCl, respectively.
Immunological substrates of depressive symptoms in patients with severe obesity: An exploratory study

In this pilot study, we explored the immune phenotype of patients with severe obesity and comorbid depressive symptoms compared to non‐depressed patients with obesity and normal‐weight controls. Immune cell subsets were analysed by flow cytometry and depressive symptoms assessed using the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ‐9). Cell frequencies were correlated with depressive symptom scores and waist‐to‐hip ratio (WHR). Patients with obesity and comorbid depression showed significantly lower numbers of circulating cytotoxic natural killer cells, dendritic cells and CD8+ effector memory T cells, compared to normal‐weight controls. Regulatory T cells and CD4+ central memory T cells were increased compared to non‐depressed patients with obesity and compared to normal‐weight controls, respectively. Frequencies of cytotoxic natural killer cells and CD4+ central memory T cells significantly correlated with PHQ‐9 scores, but not with WHR. Reduced numbers of dendritic cells were observed in both patient groups with obesity and correlated with PHQ‐9 scores and WHR. These findings provide evidence for an altered immune composition in comorbid obesity and depression, supporting a pathobiological overlap between the two disorders.
Synthetic Studies on the Incorporation of N-Acetylallosamine in Hyaluronic Acid-Inspired Thiodisaccharides

Two approaches for the synthesis of the thiodisaccharide β-S-GlcA(1→3)β-S-AllNAc are described here. The target disaccharide was a C-3 epimer and thio-analogue of the hyaluronic acid repetitive unit, tuned with a thiopropargyl anomeric group for further click conjugation. Thus, we analysed and tested two convenient sequences, combining the two key steps required to introduce the thioglycosidic bonds and consequently reach the target molecule: the SN2 substitution of a good leaving group (triflate) present at C-3 of a GlcNAc derivative and the introduction of the anomeric thiopropargyl substituent. The use of a 2-azido precursor showed to be a convenient substrate for the SN2 step. Nevertheless, further protecting group manipulation and the introduction of the thiopropargyl anomeric residue were then required. This approach showed to provide access to a variety of thiodisaccharide derivatives as interesting building blocks for the construction of neoglycoconjugates.
Relative Effectiveness of the Cell-derived Inactivated Quadrivalent Influenza Vaccine Versus Egg-derived Inactivated Quadrivalent Influenza Vaccines in Preventing Influenza-related Medical Encounters During the 2018–2019 Influenza Season in the United States

Abstract Background The cell-propagated inactivated quadrivalent influenza vaccine (ccIIV4) may offer improved protection in seasons where egg-derived influenza viruses undergo mutations that affect antigenicity. This study estimated the relative vaccine effectiveness (rVE) of ccIIV4 versus egg-derived inactivated quadrivalent influenza vaccine (eIIV4) in preventing influenza-related medical encounters in the 2018–2019 US season. Methods A dataset linking primary care electronic medical records with medical claims data was used to conduct a retrospective cohort study among individuals ≥ 4 years old vaccinated with ccIIV4 or eIIV4 during the 2018–2019 season. Adjusted odds ratios (ORs) were derived from a doubly robust inverse probability of treatment-weighted approach adjusting for age, sex, race, ethnicity, geographic region, vaccination week, and health status. rVE was estimated by (1 – OR) × 100 and presented with 95% confidence intervals (CI). Results Following the application of inclusion/exclusion criteria, the study cohort included 2 125 430 ccIIV4 and 8 000 903 eIIV4 recipients. Adjusted analyses demonstrated a greater reduction in influenza-related medical encounters with ccIIV4 versus eIIV4, with the following rVE: overall, 7.6% (95% CI, 6.5–8.6); age 4–17 years, 3.9% (95% CI, .9–7.0); 18–64 years, 6.5% (95% CI, 5.2–7.9); 18–49 years, 7.5% (95% CI, 5.7–9.3); 50–64 years, 5.6% (95% CI, 3.6–7.6); and ≥65 years, –2.2% (95% CI, –5.4 to .9). Conclusions Adjusted analyses demonstrated statistically significantly greater reduction in influenza-related medical encounters in individuals vaccinated with ccIIV4 versus eIIV4 in the 2018–2019 US influenza season. These results support ccIIV4 as a potentially more effective public health measure against influenza than an egg-based equivalent.
Identification and validation of an immune-related gene signature predictive of overall survival in colon cancer

The heterogeneity and complexity of tumor-immune microenvironments lead to diverse immunotherapy effects among colon cancer patients. It is crucial to identify immune microenvironment-related biomarkers and construct prognostic risk models. In this study, the immune and stromal scores of 415 cases from TCGA were calculated using the ESTIMATE algorithm. AXIN2, CCL22, CLEC10A, CRIP2, RUNX3, and TRPM5 were screened and established a prognostic immune-related gene (IRG) signature using by univariate, LASSO, and multivariate Cox regression models. The predicted performance of IRG signature was external validated by GSE39582 (n=519). Stratified survival analysis showed IRG signature was an effective predictor of survival in patients with different clinical characteristics. The protein expression level of six genes was validated by immunohistochemistry analysis. Difference analysis indicated the mutation rate, immune cell of resting NK cells and regulatory T cells infiltration and four immune checkpoints of PD-1, PD-L1, LAG3 and VSIR expression levels in the high-risk group were significantly higher than those in the low-risk group. A nomogram incorporating the gene signatures and clinical factors was demonstrated had a good accuracy (1-, 3-, and 5-year AUC= 0.799, 0.791, 0.738). Our study identified a novel IRG signature, which may provide some references for the clinical precision immunotherapy of patients.
Percutaneous core needle biopsy in the diagnosis of lung lesions: An experience on 280 consecutive cases from a university hospital in southern India

Context: Percutaneous needle biopsy of lung (PCNBL) is advantageous over bronchoscopic biopsies to obtain adequate sample for peripheral lung lesions. Objective: The objective was to evaluate the diagnostic yield of image-guided PCNBL in the diagnosis of lung lesions and to classify lung carcinomas as per the recently proposed International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC)/American Thoracic Society/European Respiratory Society classification for small biopsies modified and adopted by the World Health Organization, 2015. Materials and Methods: A total of 280 image-guided PCNBL were analyzed. The radiological findings and routine hematoxylin and eosin (H&E)-stained sections along with immunohistochemistry (IHC) were analyzed in all the cases. Molecular testing was done depending on tissue diagnosis and availability. Results: Majority (81%) were diagnosed as malignant lesions, with adenocarcinoma (ADC) being the most common. More than 70% were diagnosed on H&E morphology alone, with thirty cases requiring IHC to categorize as ADC. Nearly 60% were categorized as squamous cell carcinoma on morphology alone and the rest required IHC. Though TTF1 showed higher sensitivity than napsin A, the latter is more specific. Both p63 and p40 were found to be highly sensitive for squamous cell carcinoma, but p40 was more specific than p63. Epidermal growth factor receptor could be evaluated on 94.4% of ADC samples, indicating good yield for molecular testing. Conclusion: PCNBL yields adequate sampling for tissue diagnosis and ancillary testing with minimal complications. The use of IHC markers reduces the number of non-small-cell not otherwise specified cases significantly.
Improved Mechanical and Sound Absorption Properties of Open Cell Silicone Rubber Foam with NaCl as the Pore-Forming Agent

Porous materials hold great potential in the field of sound absorption, but the most abundantly used materials, such as Polyurethane (PU) foam and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) foam, would inevitably bring environmental harms during fabrication. In this study, the nontoxic addition-molded room temperature vulcanized silicone rubber is chosen as the matrix, and NaCl particles are chosen as the pore forming agent to prepare open cell foams via the dissolve-separating foaming method. The effect of different amounts of NaCl (0–100 phr) on the cell structure, mechanical and sound absorption properties is investigated and analyzed. The results indicate that the cell structure could be tailored via changing the addition amount of NaCl, and open cell silicon rubber foams could be achieved with more than 20 phr NaCl addition. Open cell silicon foams show the most effective sound absorption for sound waves in middle frequency (1000–2000 Hz), which should be attributed to the improved impedance matching caused by the open cell structures. Additionally, the mechanical properties, including hardness, tensile strength and corresponding elastic properties, gradually decay to a steady value with the increasing addition amount of NaCl. Therefore, open cell silicone rubber foams are capable of sound absorption in middle frequency.
Nanovesicles released by OKT3 hybridoma express fully active antibodies

Abstract Recent findings have shown that nanovesicles preparations from either primary immune cells culture supernatants or plasma contain immunoglobulins, suggesting that a natural way of antibody production may be through exosome release. To verify this hypothesis, we used the OKT3 hybridoma clone, which produces a murine IgG2a monoclonal antibody used to reduce rejection in patients undergoing organ transplantation. We showed exosome-associated immunoglobulins in hybridoma supernatants, by Western blot, nanoscale flow cytometry and immunocapture-based ELISA. The OKT3-exo was also being able to trigger cytokines production in both CD4 and CD8 T cells. These results show that nanovesicles contain immunoglobulin and could be used for immunotherapy. These data could lead to a new approach to improve the effectiveness of therapeutic antibodies by exploiting their natural property to be expressed on nanovesicle membrane, that probably render them more stable and as a consequence more capable to interact with their specific ligand in the best way.
Controlled Radical Polymerization of Furfuryl Methacrylate

Atom transfer radical polymerization provides a new method of controlled radical polymerization. The most important advantage of ATRP is that it is tolerant to the different functional groups present in the initiator as well as in the monomer. Furfuryl Methacrylate (FMA) is a specialty monomer, which has applications in coatings, adhesives and in biomedicals. Conventional radical polymerization of FMA leads to excessive gel formation, which limits its applications. In this investigation homo and co-polymerization of FMA has been carried out via ATRP. ATRP of FMA was carried out using CuBr as catalyst and i, 1, 4,7,10,10 hexamethyltriethylenetetramine (HMTETA) as ligand. There was no gel formation during the polymerization. ATRP of FMA was well controlled with a linear increase of molecular weight (Mn) with monomer conversion. The polymers were characterized by using 1 HNMR, FT-IR and GPC analysis. Interestingly, it was observed that the furfuryl ring was not affected during polymerization.
Sparseness and Smoothness Regularized Imaging for improving the resolution of Cryo-EM single-particle reconstruction

Significance Three-dimensional refinement is a critical component of cryo-EM single-particle reconstruction. In this paper, we report the development of a computational method, OPUS-SSRI, and its application to seven real cryo-EM datasets. Our data clearly demonstrated that OPUS-SSRI can improve the final resolutions and structural details in cryo-EM single-particle analysis. In this paper, we present a refinement method for cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) single-particle reconstruction, termed as OPUS-SSRI (Sparseness and Smoothness Regularized Imaging). In OPUS-SSRI, spatially varying sparseness and smoothness priors are incorporated to improve the regularity of electron density map, and a type of real space penalty function is designed. Moreover, we define the back-projection step as a local kernel regression and propose a first-order method to solve the resulting optimization problem. On the seven cryo-EM datasets that we tested, the average improvement in resolution by OPUS-SSRI over that from RELION 3.0, the commonly used image-processing software for single-particle cryo-EM, was 0.64 Å, with the largest improvement being 1.25 Å. We expect OPUS-SSRI to be an invaluable tool to the broad field of cryo-EM single-particle analysis. The implementation of OPUS-SSRI can be found at https://github.com/alncat/cryoem.
Derivation of cation exchange constants for sand, loess, clay and peat soils on the basis of field measurements in the Netherlands

This report presents extensive Tables of cation exchange constants (selectivity coefficients) for sand, loess, clay and peat soils at different depths derived from simultaneous field measure-ments of adsorbed in dissolved concentrations of H, Al, Ca, Mg, K and Na in several hundreds of non-agricultural soils in the Netherlands. Data are provided for the two most widely used cation exchange models (Gaines-Thomas and Gapon) and for all possible combinations of cations, including protons. Results show a wide range in exchange constants, especially when using the Gaines-Thomas exchange description. It appears that Gapon exchange constants are stronger correlated than the corresponding Gaines-Thomas exchange constants, especially for sandy soils. A strong positive correlation means that the ratio between two exchange constants is more characteristic, and less variable, of a certain soil (type) than their absolute numbers, which often vary by several orders of magnitude. In deriving exchange constants, the Al constants were related to free Al3+, the CEC was normalised to a buffered soil pH of 6.5 and the dissolved ion concentrations have all been derived while using a centrifugation method to extract the soil solution. Because of these methodological aspects, they cannot always be used directly in a particular model application. Nevertheless, they provide insight into the numerical ranges of and correlations between exchange constan, and are thus useful for constraining model parameters, e.g. in model calibrations.
The effects of training with high‐speed interval running on muscle performance are modulated by slope

We examined changes in selected muscle performance parameters after 8 weeks of interval training using two opposite running inclinations. We hypothesized that the uphill training will affect endurance muscle performance outcomes, whereas the downhill training will affect power muscle performance outcomes. Fourteen physically active volunteers were randomly assigned into either the Uphill group (UG; n = 7; uphill interval running at +10% incline) or the Downhill group (DG; n = 7; downhill interval running at −10% incline) and completed 16 training sessions. Each session consisted of ten 30 s treadmill runs at 90% of maximum aerobic speed (MAS) with a work to rest ratio of 1:2. Vertical jump performance, isometric (MVC) and isokinetic torque of knee extensors and flexors, and fatigue of knee extensors were evaluated pre and post‐training. Moreover, body composition (via bioimpedance) and vastus lateralis muscle architecture (via ultrasonography) were assessed pre and post‐training. Relative lean tissue mass, relative fat mass, and squat jump (cm) significantly (p < .05) changed from baseline values by +4.5 ± 4.0%, −11.5 ± 9.6%, and +9.5 ± 11.7%, respectively, only in the DG. Similarly, DG improved absolute values of knee extension rate of torque development and impulse (p < .05), whereas knee flexion peak torque angle significantly decreased in both groups (p < .05). On the other hand, the UG increased the number of repetitions achieved during the fatigue protocol and total work by 21.2 ± 32.6% and 13.8 ± 21.2%, respectively (p < .05). No differences were found between groups in muscle architecture. Introducing variations in slope during HIIT could be used to induce specific improvements toward muscle endurance or power performance characteristics.
Divorce and Domestic Violence Among Syrian Refugees in Germany

In recent literature, there are no academic studies on divorce and domestic violence among Syrian refugees in Germany. To contribute to filling this gap, the current study addresses the question: What are the main causes of divorce and domestic violence among Syrian refugees in Germany, and how are these two phenomena interrelated? The present study is based on 14 qualitative interviews with divorced Syrian refugee men and women in Germany, all of them are Muslim with different economic backgrounds from urban and rural areas in Syria and got divorced shortly after their arrival to Germany. The data were analyzed and coded following Mayring’s guidelines for content analysis. The findings suggest that domestic violence results from conflicts of interest in marriage and divorce between Syrian refugee men and women. The present study uses the economic theory of marriage and divorce by Cary Becker to show how Syrian refugee women’s “gains” of divorce in Germany exceed the “gains” of remaining married and how that leads them to divorce their husbands. In contrast, divorce is a heavy loss for Syrian refugee men. In addition, it shows how this conflict of interest results in domestic violence, by which the men resist their wives’ eagerness to divorce and interpret the marital relationship according to Sharia law and Arabic traditions in order to keep their old patriarchal authority. However, this interpretation is inapplicable and criminalized by the German family legislation, and unwanted by their wives. The findings, through the example of Syrian refugees in Germany, imply that the causes of divorce and domestic violence among refugees in some regards are unique in comparison with natives and migrants. That means that we need more studies on this topic in different socio-cultural contexts.
On the basic reproduction number in semi-Markov switching networks

ABSTRACT Basic reproduction number in network epidemic dynamics is studied in the case of stochastic regime-switching networks. For generality, the dependence between successive networks is considered to follow a continuous time semi-Markov chain. is the weighted average of the basic reproduction numbers of deterministic subnetworks. Its position with respect to 1 can determine epidemic persistence or extinction in theories and simulations.
Effect of Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation on the Duration of Mechanical Ventilation

BACKGROUND: It has been proposed that neuromuscular or functional electrical stimulation may have effects on respiratory muscles through its systemic effects, similar to those produced by exercise training. However, its impact on the duration of invasive mechanical ventilation has not been adequately defined. We sought to evaluate the effect of neuromuscular or functional electrical stimulation on the duration of invasive mechanical ventilation in critically ill subjects. METHODS: We systematically searched 3 databases up to August 2019 (ie, CENTRAL, MEDLINE, and EMBASE) as well as other resources to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that evaluated the effects of neuromuscular or functional electrical stimulation compared to usual care/rehabilitation or placebo of neuromuscular or functional electrical stimulation on the duration of invasive mechanical ventilation. RESULTS: After reviewing 1,200 single records, 12 RCTs (N = 530 subjects) fulfilled our eligibility criteria. Three studies included only subjects with COPD (n = 106 subjects), whereas the rest considered subjects with different diseases. The most frequently stimulated muscle group was the quadriceps. Neuromuscular or functional electrical stimulation may decrease the duration of invasive mechanical ventilation (mean difference = –2.68 d, 95% CI –4.35 to –1.02, I2 = 50%, P = .002; 10 RCTs; low quality of evidence), and we are uncertain whether this effect may be more pronounced in subjects with COPD (mean difference = –2.90 d, 95% CI –4.58 to –1.23, I2 = 9%, P < .001; 3 RCTs; very low quality of evidence). CONCLUSIONS: Neuromuscular or functional electrical stimulation may slightly reduce the duration of invasive mechanical ventilation; we are uncertain whether these results are found in subjects with COPD compared to subjects receiving usual care or placebo, and the quality of the body of evidence is low to very low. More RCTs are needed with a larger number of subjects, with more homogeneous diseases and basal conditions, and especially with a more adequate methodological design.