Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Particle Size Analysis in Aerosol-Generating Dental Procedures Using Laser Diffraction Technique

The global outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has raised concerns about the risk of airborne infection during dental treatment. Aerosol-generating dental procedures (AGDP) produce droplets and aerosols, but the details of the risks of COVID-19 transmission in AGDP are not well-understood. By discriminating between droplets and aerosols, we devised a method to measure particle size using laser diffraction analysis and evaluated aerosols generated from dental devices for providing a basis for proper infection control procedures. The droplets and aerosols generated from dental devices were characterized by multimodal properties and a wide range of droplet sizes, with the majority of droplets larger than 50 μm. AGDP emitted few aerosols smaller than 5 μm, which are of concern for pulmonary infections due to airborne transmission. In addition, the use of extraoral suction was found to prevent the spread of aerosols from high-speed dental engines. This study suggests that the risk of aerosol infections is considerably limited in regular dental practice and that current standard precautions, such as mainly focusing on protection against droplet and contact infections, are sufficient. While several cases of airborne transmission of COVID-19 in general clinics and emergency hospitals have been reported, cluster outbreaks in dental clinics have not yet been reported, which may indicate that AGDP does not pose a significant threat in contributing to the spread of SARS-CoV-2.
Non-Vitamin K Oral Anticoagulant After Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Objective: We aimed to compare non-vitamin K oral anticoagulants (NOACs) with a traditional antithrombotic such as vitamin K antagonist (VKA) and antiplatelet agents in patients after transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). Methods: We conducted a search in PubMed, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library until November 2021 for studies involving comparisons of any type of NOACs, including dabigatran, apixaban, rivaroxaban, and edoxaban, with VKA or antiplatelet agents after TAVR. A comparison of NOACs versus VKA was performed in patients with an indication for oral anticoagulation. In addition, we compared NOACs versus antiplatelet in patients without such indication. We calculated the hazard ratios with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) to determine long-term outcomes. The primary outcome was a combined endpoint consisting of all-cause mortality, stroke, major bleeding, or any related clinical adverse events. Secondary outcomes were all-cause mortality, major bleeding, and stroke, respectively. Results: A total of 10 studies including 10,563 patients after TAVR were included in this meta-analysis. There were no significant differences in any of the long-term outcomes between the NOAC and VKA groups. Although there were no significant differences in the combined endpoint, major bleeding, or stroke, a significant difference was observed in the all-cause mortality (HR 1.74, 95% CI 1.25–2.43, p = 0.001) between the NOAC and antiplatelet groups. Conclusion: For patients with an indication for oral anticoagulation after TAVR, NOACs seem to be associated with noninferior outcomes compared with VKA therapy. However, for patients without an indication for oral anticoagulation, NOACs appear to be associated with a higher risk of all-cause death as compared with antiplatelet treatment. Systematic Review Registration: https://clinicaltrials.gov/, identifier CRD42020155122.
A Simplified Plasticity Model Based on Synaptic Tagging and Capture Theory: Simplified STC

The formation and consolidation of memory play a vital role for survival in an ever-changing environment. In the brain, the change and stabilization of potentiated and depressed synapses are the neural basis of memory formation and maintenance. These changes can be induced by rather short stimuli (only a few seconds or even less) but should then be stable for months or years. Recently, the neural mechanism of conversion from rapid change during the early phase of synaptic plasticity into a stable memory trace in the late phase of synaptic plasticity is more and more clear at the protein and molecular levels, among which synaptic tagging and capture (STC) theory is one of the most popular theories. According to the STC theory, the change and stabilization of synaptic efficiency mainly depend on three processes related to calcium concentration, including synaptic tagging, synthesis of plasticity-related product (PRP), and the capture of PRP by tagged synapse. Based on the STC theory, several computational models are proposed. However, these models hardly take simplicity and biological interpretability into account simultaneously. Here, we propose a simplified STC (SM-STC) model to address this issue. In the SM-STC model, the concentration of calcium ion in each neuronal compartment and synapse is first calculated, and then the tag state of synapse and PRP are updated, and the coupling effect of tagged synapse and PRP is further considered to determine the plasticity state of the synapse, either potentiation or depression. We simulated the Schaffer collaterals pathway of the hippocampus targeting a multicompartment CA1 neuron for several hours of biological time. The results show that the SM-STC model can produce a broad range of experimental phenomena known in the physiological experiments, including long-term potentiation induced by high-frequency stimuli, long-term depression induced by low-frequency stimuli, and cross-capture with two stimuli separated by a delay. Thus, the SM-STC model proposed in this study provides an effective learning rule for brain-like computation on the premise of ensuring biological plausibility and computational efficiency.
A Research Publication and Grant Preparation Program for Native American Faculty in STEM: Implementation of the Six R’s Indigenous Framework

Faculty members in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines are typically expected to pursue grant funding and publish to support their research or teaching agendas. Providing effective professional development programs on grant preparation and management and on research publications is crucial. This study shares the design and implementation of such a program for Native STEM faculty (NAF-STEM) from two tribal colleges and one public, non-tribal, Ph.D. granting institution during a 3-year period. The overall development and implementation of the program is centered on the six R’s Indigenous framework – Respect, Relationship, Representation, Relevance, Responsibility, and Reciprocity. The role of NAF-STEM and their interactions with the program, as members of the community formed by their participation, impacted the program. Their practices and the program co-emerged over time, each providing structure and meaning for the other. Through such reciprocity, NAF-STEM and the program research team continually refined the program through their mutual engagement. They took on the shared responsibility of the program while they participated in and shaped its practices. The process and results of formative and summative assessment and the impact of COVID-19 on the program are reported. Results of the program offer lessons on the implementation of six R’s framework in professional development at institutions of higher education.
Metagenomic Analysis of Togaviridae in Mosquito Viromes Isolated From Yunnan Province in China Reveals Genes from Chikungunya and Ross River Viruses

We collected 5,500 mosquitoes belonging to six species in three locations in China. Their viromes were tested using metagenomic sequencing and bioinformatic analysis. The affluent viral sequences that were detected and annotated belong to 22 viral taxonomic families. Then, PCR was performed to confirm the results, followed by phylogenetic analysis. Herein, part of mosquito virome was identified, including chikungunya virus (CHIKV), Getah virus (GETV), and Ross river virus (RRV). After metagenomic analysis, seven CHIKV sequences were verified by PCR amplification, among which CHIKV-China/YN2018-1 had the highest homology with the CHIKV isolated in Senegal, 1983, with a nucleotide (nt) identity of at least 81%, belonging to genotype West Africa viral genes. Five GETV sequences were identified, which had a high homology with the GETV sequences isolated from Equus caballus in Japan, 1978, with a (nt) identity of at least 97%. The newly isolated virus CHIKV-China/YN2018-1 became more infectious after passage of the BHK-21 cell line to the Vero cell line. The newly identified RRV gene had the highest homology with the 2006 RRV isolate from Australia, with a (nt) identity of at least 94%. In addition, numerous known and unknown viruses have also been detected in mosquitoes from Yunnan province, China, and propagation tests will be carried out.
Harpagoside Protects Against Doxorubicin-Induced Cardiotoxicity via P53-Parkin-Mediated Mitophagy

Doxorubicin (DOX) is one of the most effective chemotherapeutic agents. However, its clinical use is limited due to the severe risk of cardiotoxicity. One of the hallmarks of doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity (DICT) is the cascade of mitophagy deficiency-mitochondrial oxidative injury-apoptosis, while so far, there is no preventive strategy for alleviating DICT by targeting this molecular mechanism. Excitedly, based on our previous drug screen in DICT zebrafish model, harpagoside (HAR) showed dramatic anti-DICT efficacy superior to dexrazoxane (DXZ) only cardioprotectant approved by FDA. Therefore, its pharmacological effects and molecular mechanism on DICT mouse and rat cardiomyocytes were further discussed. In vivo, HAR significantly improved cardiac function and myocardial structural lesions with concomitant of diminished mitochondrial oxidative damage and recovered mitophagy flux. In parallel, HAR protected mitophagy and mitochondria homeostasis, and repressed apoptosis in vitro. Intriguingly, both nutlin-3 (agonist of p53) and Parkin siRNA reversed these protective effects of HAR. Additional data, including fluorescence colocalization of Parkin and MitoTracker and mt-Keima for the detection of mitophagy flux and coimmunoprecipitation of p53 and Parkin, showed that HAR promoted Parkin translocation to mitochondria and substantially restored Parkin-mediated mitophagy by inhibiting the binding of p53 and Parkin. Importantly, the results of the cell viability demonstrated that cardioprotective effect of HAR did not interfere with anticancer effect of DOX on MCF-7 and HepG2 cells. Our research documented p53-Parkin-mediated cascade of mitophagy deficiency-mitochondrial dyshomeostasis-apoptosis as a pathogenic mechanism and druggable pathway and HAR as a cardioprotection on DICT by acting on novel interaction between p53 and Parkin.
Effects of Shenkang Pills on Early-Stage Diabetic Nephropathy in db/db Mice via Inhibiting AURKB/RacGAP1/RhoA Signaling Pathway

Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is the leading cause of end-stage renal disease, so there is an urgent need to suppress its development at early stage. Shenkang pills (SKP) are a hospital prescription selected and optimized from effective traditional Chinese medicinal formulas for clinical treatment of DN. In the present study, liquid chromatography-quadrupole-time of flight-mass spectrometry (LC-Q-TOF-MS) and total contents qualification were applied to generate a quality control standard of SKP. For verifying the therapeutic effects of SKP, db/db mice were administered intragastrically with SKP at a human-equivalent dose (1.82 g/kg) for 4 weeks. Moreover, the underlying mechanism of SKP were analyzed by the renal RNA sequencing and network pharmacology. LC-Q-TOF-MS identified 46 compounds in SKP. The total polysaccharide and organic acid content in SKP were 4.60 and 0.11 mg/ml, respectively, while the total flavonoid, saponin, and protein content were 0.25, 0.31, and 0.42 mg/ml, respectively. Treatment of SKP significantly reduced fasting blood glucose, improved renal function, and ameliorated glomerulosclerosis and focal foot processes effacement in db/db mice. In addition, SKP protected podocytes from injury by increasing nephrin and podocin expression. Furthermore, transcriptome analyses revealed that 430 and 288 genes were up and down-regulated in mice treated with SKP, relative to untreated controls. Gene ontology enrichment analysis revealed that the differentially expressed genes mainly involved in modulation of cell division and chromosome segregation. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis and network pharmacology analysis indicated that aurora kinase B (AURKB), Rac GTPase activating protein 1 (RacGAP1) and SHC binding, and spindle associated 1 (shcbp1) might be the core targets of SKP. This protein and Ras homolog family member A (RhoA) were found overexpression in db/db mice, but significantly decreased with SKP treatment. We conclude that SKP can effectively treat early-stage DN and improve renal podocyte dysfunction. The mechanism may involve down-regulation of the AURKB/RacGAP1/RhoA pathway.
Optimisation énergétique des transmissions MIMO coopératives pour les réseaux de capteurs

Over radio fading channels, Space Time Block Codes require less transmission energy than SISO techniques for the same Bit Error Rate and can be employed practically in Wireless Sensor Networks by using the cooperative MIMO scheme. Considering Alamouti and Tarokh space-time block codes, the number of antennas at both the transmission and the reception sides are selected with respect to the transmission distance. A cooperative multi-hop MIMO scheme, particularly interesting for heterogeneous density networks, is also introduced.
Decreasing Annotation Burden of Pairwise Comparisons with Human-in-the-Loop Sorting: Application in Medical Image Artifact Rating

Ranking by pairwise comparisons has shown improved reliability over ordinal classification. However, as the annotations of pairwise comparisons scale quadratically, this becomes less practical when the dataset is large. We propose a method for reducing the number of pairwise comparisons required to rank by a quantitative metric, demonstrating the effectiveness of the approach in ranking medical images by image quality in this proof of concept study. Using the medical image annotation software that we developed, we actively subsample pairwise comparisons using a sorting algorithm with a human rater in the loop. We find that this method substantially reduces the number of comparisons required for a full ordinal ranking without compromising inter-rater reliability when compared to pairwise comparisons without sorting.
Multi-Objective Optimization Strategy of Controllable Load in Microgrid

In allusion to power imbalance due to the fluctuation of distributed generation in microgrid, based on operating characteristics of air conditioner and water heater a multi-objective optimization model for controllable load in microgrid is established, and on this basis a optimization strategy for controllable load, in which multi-objectives are considered, is proposed. Using non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-2(NSGA-2) the simulative analysis on the effect of adopting the proposed model in actual microgrid is carried out. Finally, considering various random factors the Monte Carlo sampling is applied to the optimization results and according to the results of Monte Carlo simulation, the sensitivity analysis on the contribution of the installation ratio and controllability ratio of controllable load within microgrid to the tracing of the variation of renewable energy sources is performed.
"I feel invaded, annoyed, anxious and I may protect myself": Individuals' Feelings about Online Tracking and their Protective Behaviour across Gender and Country

Online tracking is a primary concern for Internet users, yet previous research has not found a clear link between the cognitive understanding of tracking and protective actions. We postulate that protective behaviour follows affective evaluation of tracking. We conducted an online study, with N=614 participants, across the UK, Germany and France, to investigate how users feel about third-party tracking and what protective actions they take. We found that most participants' feelings about tracking were negative, described as deeply intrusive - beyond the informational sphere, including feelings of annoyance and anxiety, that predict protective actions. We also observed indications of a `privacy gender gap', where women feel more negatively about tracking, yet are less likely to take protective actions, compared to men. And less UK individuals report negative feelings and protective actions, compared to those from Germany and France. This paper contributes insights into the affective evaluation of privacy threats and how it predicts protective behaviour. It also provides a discussion on the implications of these findings for various stakeholders, make recommendations and outline avenues for future work.
Omicron BA.2 (B.1.1.529.2): high potential to becoming the next dominating variant

The Omicron variant of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has rapidly replaced the Delta variant as a dominating SARS-CoV-2 variant because of natural selection, which favors the variant with higher infectivity and stronger vaccine breakthrough ability. Omicron has three lineages or subvariants, BA.1 (B.1.1.529.1), BA.2 (B.1.1.529.2), and BA.3 (B.1.1.529.3). Among them, BA.1 is the currently prevailing subvariant. BA.2 shares 32 mutations with BA.1 but has 28 distinct ones. BA.3 shares most of its mutations with BA.1 and BA.2 except for one. BA.2 is found to be able to alarmingly reinfect patients originally infected by Omicron BA.1. An important question is whether BA.2 or BA.3 will become a new dominating “variant of concern”. Currently, no experimental data has been reported about BA.2 and BA.3. We construct a novel algebraic topology-based deep learning model trained with tens of thousands of mutational and deep mutational data to systematically evaluate BA.2’s and BA.3’s infectivity, vaccine breakthrough capability, and antibody resistance. Our comparative analysis of all main variants namely, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Lambda, Mu, BA.1, BA.2, and BA.3, unveils that BA.2 is about 1.5 and 4.2 times as contagious as BA.1 and Delta, respectively. It is also 30% and 17-fold more capable than BA.1 and Delta, respectively, to escape current vaccines. Therefore, we project that Omicron BA.2 is on its path to becoming the next dominating variant. We forecast that like Omicron BA.1, BA.2 will also seriously compromise most existing mAbs, except for sotrovimab developed by GlaxoSmithKline.
The Central Limit Theorem for Weakly Dependent Random Variables by the Moment Method

In this paper, we derive a central limit theorem for collections of weakly correlated random variables indexed by discrete metric spaces, where the correlation decays in the distance of the indices. The correlation structure we study depends solely on the separability of mixed moments. Our investigation yields a new proof for the CLT for α-mixing random variables, but also non-α-mixing random variables fit within our framework, such as MA(∞) processes. In particular, our results can be applied to ARMA(p, q) process with independent white noise.
Differential Private Knowledge Transfer for Privacy-Preserving Cross-Domain Recommendation

Cross Domain Recommendation (CDR) has been popularly studied to alleviate the cold-start and data sparsity problem commonly existed in recommender systems. CDR models can improve the recommendation performance of a target domain by leveraging the data of other source domains. However, most existing CDR models assume information can directly ‘transfer across the bridge’, ignoring the privacy issues. To solve this problem, we propose a novel two stage based privacy-preserving CDR framework (PriCDR). In the first stage, we propose two methods, i.e., Johnson-Lindenstrauss Transform (JLT) and Sparse-aware JLT (SJLT), to publish the rating matrix of the source domain using Differential Privacy (DP). We theoretically analyze the privacy and utility of our proposed DP based rating publishing methods. In the second stage, we propose a novel heterogeneous CDR model (HeteroCDR), which uses deep auto-encoder and deep neural network to model the published source rating matrix and target rating matrix respectively. To this end, PriCDR can not only protect the data privacy of the source domain, but also alleviate the data sparsity of the source domain. We conduct experiments on two benchmark datasets and the results demonstrate the effectiveness of PriCDR and HeteroCDR.
Impact of 3D Structure on Magnetic Reconnection

Results from 2.5D and 3D studies of the onset and development of the tearing instability are presented, using high-fidelity resistive MHD simulations. A limited parameter study of the strength of the reconnecting field (or shear angle) was performed. An initially simple 1D equilibrium was used, consisting of a modified force-free current sheet, with periodic boundary conditions in all directions. In all cases, the linear and nonlinear evolution led to a primary current sheet between two large flux ropes. The global reconnection rate during this later stage was analyzed in all simulations. It was found that in 2.5D the primary current sheet fragmented owing to plasmoids, and as expected, the global reconnection rate, calculated using multiple methods, increases with the strength of the reconnecting field owing to a stronger Alfvén speed. In 3D, the presence of interacting oblique modes of the tearing instability complicates the simple 2.5D picture, entangling the magnetic field of the inflow and introducing a negative effect on the reconnection rate. The two competing effects of stronger Alfvén speed and entangling, which both increase with the strength of the reconnecting field, resulted in a decrease in the reconnection rate with increasing reconnecting field. For all simulations, the 3D rates were less than in 2.5D but suggest that as one goes to weak reconnecting field (or strong guide field) the system becomes more 2.5D-like and the 2.5D and 3D rates converge. These results have relevance to situations like nanoflare heating and flare current sheets in the corona.
Preservation of product structures under the Ricci flow with instantaneous curvature bounds

In this note, we prove that there exists a constant ǫ > 0, depending only on the dimension, such that if a complete solution to the Ricci flow splits as a product at time t = 0 and has curvature bounded by ǫ t , then the solution splits for all time.
Social interactions affect discovery processes

Our network of acquaintances determines how we get exposed to ideas, products, or cultural artworks (books, music, movies, etc.). Though this principle is part of our common sense, little is known about the specific pathways through which our peers influence our discovery processes and our experience of the new. Here, we fill this gap by investigating a data set containing the whole listening histories of a large, socially connected sample of users from the online music platform \emph{Last.fm}. We demonstrate that users exhibit highly heterogeneous discovery rates of new songs and artists and that their social neighborhood significantly influences their behavior. More explorative users tend to interact with peers more prone to explore new content. We capture this phenomenology in a modeling scheme where users are represented by random walkers exploring a graph of songs or artists and interacting with each other through their social links. Even starting from a uniform population of agents (no natural differences among the individuals), our model predicts the emergence of strong heterogeneous exploration patterns, with users clustered according to their musical tastes and propensity to explore. We contend our approach can pave the way to a quantitative approach to collective discovery processes.