Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Memristive Computational Memory Using Memristor Overwrite Logic (MOL)

In this article, we present a novel logic design style, namely, memristor overwrite logic (MOL), associated with an original MOL-based computational memory. MOL relies on a fully digital representation of memristor and can operate with different memristive device technologies. Its integration in memristive crossbar arrays and computational memories allows the execution of bit and vector-level primitive logic operations in two computational steps at most. Promising features and performances are demonstrated through the implementation of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$N$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-bit full addition using the proposed MOL-based computational memory.
Mobility-Aware Subband and Beam Resource Allocation Schemes for Millimeter Wave Wireless Networks

Millimeter wave (mmWave) has been widely considered as a promising technology in the next generation wireless communication systems. Various beam-based directional transmission techniques have been proposed to compensate high pathloss caused by mmWave properties. However, mobility effect of users potentially causes severe inter-beam interferences, which has not been fully-investigated in existing studies. In this paper, we have analyzed different types of mobility-aware beam interference models. Additionally, the theoretical SINR is derived based on channel statistics and the trajectories of users. We propose a mobility-aware subband and beam resource allocation (MSBA) scheme for the mmWave subband-beam massive multi-input multi-output (SB-MMIMO) systems. The proposed MSBA benefits from reduced computation complexity for maximizing system throughput constrained by quality-of-service (QoS) demands of users. The first phase of MSBA scheme is responsible for resource block assignment; while the second phase allocates beamwidth and beam directions according to the analytical derivations. Numerical results show that the proposed MSBA scheme can effectively achieve the highest system throughput and the lowest complexity compared to existing schemes in open literatures.
Improved Relativistic Cycle-Consistent GAN With Dilated Residual Network and Multi-Attention for Speech Enhancement

Generative adversarial networks (GANs) have been increasingly used as feature mapping functions in speech enhancement, in which the noisy speech features are transformed to the clean ones through the generators. This article proposes a novel speech enhancement model based on a cycle-consistent relativistic GAN with Dilated Residual Networks and a Multi-attention mechanism. Using the adversarial loss, improved cycle-consistency losses, and an identity-mapping loss, a noisy-to-clean generator $G$ and an inverse clean-to-noisy generator $F$ simultaneously learn the forward and backward mappings between the source and target domains. To guarantee the stability of the training process, we replace vanilla GAN loss with relativistic average GAN loss and use spectral normalization in discriminators so that they conform to Lipschitz continuity. Furthermore, we employ two attention-based components as multi-attention mechanism to reduce importing signal distortion: attention U-net gates and dilated residual self-attention blocks. By employing these components, our proposed generators can capture long-term inner dependencies between elements of speech features and further preserve linguistic information. Experimental results on a public dataset indicate that the proposed model achieves state-of-the-art speech enhancement performance, especially in reducing speech distortion and improving signal overall quality. Compared with the representative GAN-based approaches, the proposed method significantly achieves the best performance in terms of STOI, CSIG, COVL, and CBAK objective metrics. Moreover, we demonstrate the contribution of each proposed component including relativistic average loss, attention U-net gate, self-attention layers, spectral normalization, and dilation operation by ten comparison systems.
Forensic endodontics and national identity programs in India

National identity programs like Aadhaar in India can play an unique role in identification of an individual and has numerous beneficial applications for the government and the citizens. The biometric records of finger prints and iris provided in the database can be useful for the forensic purpose. In unfortunate incidence of disasters, accidents, and criminal cases such as severe burnings, the identification of the victims is possible through dental profiling where fingerprint matching is not possible. Endodontic treatment includes the radiography for diagnosis of the lesion, during working length determination, obturation, and various other procedures. The variations in tooth anatomy and morphology, post-endo restorations, root canal fillings, and sometimes, endodontic mishaps are recorded in these radiographs. This record can play an important role in identification of a person in case of unfortunate happenings. So, it is suggested to include dental profiling in National Identification programs, and the purpose of this article is to highlight the role of root canal procedures in dental profiling.
The challenging nature of primary T lymphocytes for transfection: Effect of protamine sulfate on the transfection efficiency of chemical transfection reagents

Background and purpose: The optimization of an effective non-viral gene delivery method for genetic manipulation of primary human T cells has been a major challenge in immunotherapy researches. Due to the poor transfection efficiency of conventional methods in T cells, there has been an effort to increase the transfection rate in these cells. Protamine is an FDA-approved compound with a documented safety profile that enhances DNA condensation for gene delivery. Experimental approach: In this study, the effect of protamine sulfate on the transfection efficiency of standard transfection reagents, was evaluated to transfect primary human T cells. In this regard, pre-condensation of DNA was applied using protamine, and the value of the zeta potential of DNA/protamine/cargo complexes was determined. T cells were transfected with DNA/protamine/cargo complexes. The transfection efficiency rate was evaluated by flow cytometry. Also, the green fluorescent protein expression level and cytotoxicity of each complex were identified using real-time polymerase chain reaction and MTT assay, respectively. Findings/Results: Our results demonstrated that protamine efficiently increases the positive charge of DNA/cargo complex without any cytotoxic effect on the primary human T cells. We observed that the transfection efficiency in DNA/protamine/ Lipofectamine® 2000 and DNA/protamine/TurboFect™ was 87.2% and 78.9%, respectively, while transfection of T cells by Lipofectamine® 2000 and TurboFect™ would not result in sufficient transfection. Conclusion and implications: Protamine sulfate enhanced the transfection rate of T cells; and could be a promising non-viral gene delivery method to achieve a safe, rapid, cost-effective, and efficient system which will be further applied in gene therapy and T cells manipulation methods.
THE ROLE OF HUMAN PARAOXONASE 1 (PON-1) IN VIRAL INFECTIONS

ABSTRACT According to the World Health Organization, Human Immunodeficiency Virus, Hepatitis B virus and Hepatitis C virus are one of the most common causes of chronic viral related disease. The Paraoxonase-1enzyme is a calcium-dependent enzyme associated to high density lipoprotein, with various activities, including paraxaonase, arylesterase and lactonase. This ability to hydrolase various subtracts seems to give the enzyme antioxidant properties and sensibility to oxidative stress. This review cross references the information of most of the recent and available studies done in the area and tries to demonstrate the connections and the importance of the Paraoxonase-1 enzyme that could provide invaluable clinical information. Several studies conclude that significant alterations occur on the enzymatic activity of Paraoxonase-1 in Human Immunodeficiency Virus, Hepatitis B virus and Hepatitis C virus infected patients. This modifications seem to occur due to the increased levels caused by the infections on the organism, leading to multiple disruption on antioxidant and anti-inflammatory pathways that were demonstrated to involve Paraoxonase-1. Although Paraoxonase-1 activity alterations seem to be caused by malignant causes, positive and useful clinical information might be extracted by measuring such alterations. Paraoxonase-1 possibly will be used with more research in future as a biomarker for some viral infections.
Satureja khuzistanica Jamzad essential oil prevents doxorubicin-induced apoptosis via extrinsic and intrinsic mitochondrial pathways

Background and purpose: In addition to hepato-cardiotoxicity, doxorubicin (DOX) also induces nephrotoxicity which is considered as the limiting factor for this drug in cancer therapy. The effect of carvacrol, the main active ingredient of Satureja khuzistanica Jamzad essential oil (SKEO), in the amelioration of DOX- induced cardiotoxicity is well established. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the possible protective effects of SKEO against DOX-induced nephrotoxicity. Experimental approach: SKEO was intraperitoneally administered at 50, 100, and 200 mg/kg to male Wistar rats for 12 consecutive days. Five groups of animals including negative control (saline), vehicle (Tween® 20), SKEO50, DOX (at 8th day of treatment), and SKEO50 + DOX were assessed. Findings/Results: Creatinine, urea concentrations, and caspase-3 activity significantly elevated in the serum of DOX treated group in contrast to other groups after injection of a single dose of DOX (20 mg/kg i.p.), however, SKEO reduced glutathione peroxidase and caspase-3 activity against other groups while SKEO + DOX was also significantly reduced caspase-3 activity against DOX group. Other biochemical markers changes were not significant. Immunohistochemical assessment unveiled that SKEO + DOX improved the activity of Bcl-2 family proteins (Bax and Bcl-2) and caspase-8 protein to the advantage of cell survival in both intrinsic mitochondrial and extrinsic pathway down streamed to the terminal caspase-3 apoptotic molecule. , Conclusion and implications: It was concluded that SKEO could have influential effects against apoptosis induced by DOX, but not improperly ameliorate oxidative stress.
Detection and Mitigation of RPL Rank and Version Number Attacks in the Internet of Things: SRPL-RP

The rapid growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the massive propagation of wireless technologies has revealed recent opportunities for development in various domains of real life, such as smart cities and E-Health applications. A slight defense against different forms of attack is offered for the current secure and lightweight Routing Protocol for Low Power and Lossy Networks (RPL) of IoT resource-constrained devices. Data packets are highly likely to be exposed in transmission during data packet routing. The RPL rank and version number attacks, which are two forms of RPL attacks, can have critical consequences for RPL networks. The studies conducted on these attacks have several security defects and performance shortcomings. In this research, we propose a Secure RPL Routing Protocol (SRPL-RP) for rank and version number attacks. This mainly detects, mitigates, and isolates attacks in RPL networks. The detection is based on a comparison of the rank strategy. The mitigation uses threshold and attack status tables, and the isolation adds them to a blacklist table and alerts nodes to skip them. SRPL-RP supports diverse types of network topologies and is comprehensively analyzed with multiple studies, such as Standard RPL with Attacks, Sink-Based Intrusion Detection Systems (SBIDS), and RPL+Shield. The analysis results showed that the SRPL-RP achieved significant improvements with a Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR) of 98.48%, a control message value of 991 packets/s, and an average energy consumption of 1231.75 joules. SRPL-RP provided a better accuracy rate of 98.30% under the attacks.
Review on Biomedical Sensors, Technologies and Algorithms for Diagnosis of Sleep Disordered Breathing: Comprehensive Survey

This paper provides a comprehensive review of available technologies for measurements of vital physiology related parameters that cause sleep disordered breathing (SDB). SDB is a chronic disease that may lead to several health problems and increase the risk of high blood pressure and even heart attack. Therefore, the diagnosis of SDB at an early stage is very important. The essential primary step before diagnosis is measurement. Vital health parameters related to SBD might be measured through invasive or non-invasive methods. Nowadays, with respect to increase in aging population, improvement in home health management systems is needed more than even a decade ago. Moreover, traditional health parameter measurement techniques such as polysomnography are not comfortable and introduce additional costs to the consumers. Therefore, in modern advanced self-health management devices, electronics and communication science are combined to provide appliances that can be used for SDB diagnosis, by monitoring a patient’s physiological parameters with more comfort and accuracy. Additionally, development in machine learning algorithms provides accurate methods of analysing measured signals. This paper provides a comprehensive review of measurement approaches, data transmission, and communication networks, alongside machine learning algorithms for sleep stage classification, to diagnose SDB.
Collagen/PCL Nanofibers Electrospun in Green Solvent by DOE Assisted Process. An Insight into Collagen Contribution

Collagen, thanks to its biocompatibility, biodegradability and weak antigenicity, is widely used in dressings and scaffolds, also as electrospun fibers. Its mechanical stability can be improved by adding polycaprolactone (PCL), a synthetic and biodegradable aliphatic polyester. While previously collagen/PCL combinations were electrospun in solvents such as hexafluoroisopropanol (HFIP) or trifluoroethanol (TFE), more recently literature describes collagen/PCL nanofibers obtained in acidic aqueous solutions. A good morphology of the fibers represents in this case still a challenge, especially for high collagen/PCL ratios. In this work, thanks to preliminary rheological and physicochemical characterization of the solutions and to a Design of Experiments (DOE) approach on process parameters, regular and dimensionally uniform fibers were obtained with collagen/PCL ratios up to 1:2 and 1:1 w/w. Collagen ratio appeared relevant for mechanical strength of dry and hydrated fibers. WAXS and FTIR analysis showed that collagen denaturation is related both to the medium and to the electrospinning process. After one week in aqueous environment, collagen release was complete and a concentration dependent stimulatory effect on fibroblast growth was observed, suggesting the fiber suitability for wound healing. The positive effect of collagen on mechanical properties and on fibroblast biocompatibility was confirmed by a direct comparison of nanofiber performance after collagen substitution with gelatin.
Microbiological and Physicochemical Qualities of Sushi and Sashimi from Japanese Restaurants in Brazil

Japanese cuisine is known for its nutritional and sensory quality. Sushi and sashimi are highly perishable and widely consumed foods in Brazil. The production and storage of these foods under appropriate conditions are critical factors in ensuring consumer safety. This study was carried out to evaluate the microbiological and physicochemical conditions of sushi and sashimi sold in Japanese restaurants as well as their handling conditions. Samples of sushi (36) and sashimi (35) and 112 swabs of food handlers were collected from 18 Japanese restaurants of the central region, Brazil. Temperature, pH and Total Volatile Nitrogen Bases (in sashimi) of food samples were determined. Thermotolerant coliforms, coagulase positive Staphylococcus, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Bacillus cereus (in sushi) counts and the detection of Salmonella sp. were also performed. Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli were investigated in the swabs samples. The average temperature of the food samples at all the restaurants was higher than the recommended value as well as 63.9% of the sushi and 54.3% of the sashimi samples had above recommended pH. All sashimi samples had content within legal limits of Total Volatile Nitrogen Bases. Four samples (5.6%) were positive for thermotolerant coliforms, and in three of them (4.2%), E. coli was isolated. High counts of Bacillus cereus were found in 22.2% of the sushi samples. Coagulase positive Staphylococcus, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, and Salmonella sp. were not found in the samples analysed. In 9.0% of the clinical samples, thermotolerant coliforms were detected and E. coli was found in 5.4% (n = 6) of them. Staphylococcus aureus was not detected on any food handler. The high storage temperature of food, the lack of heat treatment and the microbial contamination found may lead the present microorganisms to reach high counts until consumption, and therefore represent risk to consumers. Thus, effective prevention by supervisory bodies is essential.
Exercise and Nutrition Interventions in Patients with Head and Neck Cancer during Curative Treatment: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

The aim of this meta-analysis was to examine the effects of nutritional and physical exercise interventions and interventions combining these interventions during radiotherapy treatment for patients with head and neck cancer on body composition, objectively measured physical function and nutritional status. Systematic electronic searches were conducted in MEDLINE (PubMed interface), EMBASE (Ovid interface), CINAHL (EBSCO interface) and Cochrane Library (Wiley interface). We identified 13 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that included 858 patients. For body composition, using only nutrition as intervention, a significant difference between treatment and control group were observed (SMD 0.42 (95CI 0.23–0.62), p < 0.001). Only pilot RCTs investigated combination treatment and no significant difference between the treatment and control groups were found (SMD 0.21 (95CI −0.16–0.58), p = 0.259). For physical function, a significant difference between treatment and control group with a better outcome for the treatment group were observed (SMD 0.78 (95CI 0.51–1.04), p < 0.001). No effects on nutritional status were found. This meta-analysis found significantly positive effects of nutrition and physical exercise interventions alone in favor of the treatment groups. No effects in studies with combined interventions were observed. Future full-scaled RCTs combining nutrition and physical exercise is warranted.
Sequence heterochrony led to a gain of functionality in an immature stage of the central complex: A fly–beetle insight

Animal behavior is guided by the brain. Therefore, adaptations of brain structure and function are essential for animal survival, and each species differs in such adaptations. The brain of one individual may even differ between life stages, for instance, as adaptation to the divergent needs of larval and adult life of holometabolous insects. All such differences emerge during development, but the cellular mechanisms behind the diversification of brains between taxa and life stages remain enigmatic. In this study, we investigated holometabolous insects in which larvae differ dramatically from the adult in both behavior and morphology. As a consequence, the central complex, mainly responsible for spatial orientation, is conserved between species at the adult stage but differs between larvae and adults of one species as well as between larvae of different taxa. We used genome editing and established transgenic lines to visualize cells expressing the conserved transcription factor retinal homeobox, thereby marking homologous genetic neural lineages in both the fly Drosophila melanogaster and the beetle Tribolium castaneum. This approach allowed us for the first time to compare the development of homologous neural cells between taxa from embryo to the adult. We found complex heterochronic changes including shifts of developmental events between embryonic and pupal stages. Further, we provide, to our knowledge, the first example of sequence heterochrony in brain development, where certain developmental steps changed their position within the ontogenetic progression. We show that through this sequence heterochrony, an immature developmental stage of the central complex gains functionality in Tribolium larvae.
Speech characteristics in individuals with myasthenia gravis: a case control study

Abstract Introduction Myasthenia Gravis (MG) is an autoimmune disease. The characteristic symptoms of the disease are muscle weakness and fatigue. These symptoms affect de oral muscles causing dysarthria, affecting about 60% of patients with disease progression. Purpose Describe the speech pattern of patients with MG and comparing with healthy controls (HC). Material and methods Case–control study. Participants were divided in MG group (MGG) with 38 patients MG diagnosed and HC with 18 individuals matched for age and sex. MGG was evaluated with clinical and motor scales and answered self-perceived questionnaires. Speech assessment of both groups included: recording of speech tasks, acoustic and auditory-perceptual analysis. Results In the MGG, 68.24% of the patients were female, with average age of 50.21 years old (±16.47), 14.18 years (±9.52) of disease duration and a motor scale of 11.19 points (±8.79). The auditory-perceptual analysis verified that 47.36% (n = 18) participants in MGG presented mild dysarthria, 10.52% (n = 4) moderate dysarthria, with a high percentage of alterations in phonation (95.2%) and breathing (52.63%). The acoustic analysis verified a change in phonation, with significantly higher shimmer values in the MGG compared to the HC and articulation with a significant difference between the groups for the first formant of the /iu/ (p = <.001). No correlation was found between the diagnosis of speech disorder and the dysarthria self-perception questionnaire Conclusion We found dysarthria mild in MG patients with changes in the motor bases phonation and breathing, with no correlation with severity and disease duration.
Photoinduced Mass Transport in Azo-Polymers in 2D: Monte Carlo Study of Polarization Effects

We studied the impact of light polarization on photoinduced dynamics of model azo-polymer chains in two dimensions, using bond-fluctuation Monte Carlo simulations. For two limiting models—sensitive to and independent of light polarization—their dynamics driven by photoisomerization of azo-dyes as well as by thermal effects was studied, including characterization of mass transport and chain reorientations. The corresponding schemes of light–matter interaction promote qualitatively different dynamics of photoinduced motion of azo-polymer chains. In particular, they can inhibit or trigger off a directed mass transport along a gradient of light illumination. The generic dynamics of single chains is superdiffusive and is promoted by breaking a symmetry present in the polarization independent model.