Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Dual-Emission Fluorescent Probe for the Simultaneous Detection of Nitrite and Mercury (Ⅱ) in Environmental Water Samples Based on the Tb3+-Modified Carbon Quantum Dots/3-Aminophenylboronic acid hybrid.

Nitrite (NO2-) and mercury ion (Hg2+) are recognized as two typical inorganic contaminations that can cause severe damage to environment and human beings. In this paper, the energy transfer from CQDs to Tb3+ by the antenna effect was found, and it can promote the f-f transition of Tb3+ and emit strong characteristic fluorescence of Tb3+. Based on CQDs-Tb3+ and 3-aminophenylboronic acid (APBA) have respectively sensitive and specific fluorescent response to NO2- and Hg2+ with different fluorescent signals, a dual-emission fluorescent probe of the CQDs-Tb3+/APBA hybrid was thus fabricated for the simultaneous detection of NO2- and Hg2+ in environmental water samples. They emit dual-emission fluorescence peaks centered at 373 and 545 nm, respectively. A good linearity between the quenching efficiency of (F0-F)/F0 and the concentrations of NO2- and Hg2+ was in the range of 5.0-1200.0 nM for NO2- and 0.1-6.0 µM for Hg2+. Limit of detection (LOD, 3σ/K) is ultrasensitive for NO2- (2.0 nM), and LOD for Hg2+ is 38.1 nM. The dual-emission fluorescent probe was successfully applied for the determination of NO2- and Hg2+ in various environmental water samples. The possible luminescence and fluorescence quenching mechanisms of the probe were also discussed in detail. This study can provide a new approach for fabricating multifunctional fluorescent probe or sensor and a prospective application in environmental monitoring.
BIO 300: a promising radiation countermeasure under advanced development for acute radiation syndrome and the delayed effects of acute radiation exposure

ABSTRACT Introduction There are no radioprotectors currently approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) for either the hematopoietic acute radiation syndrome (H-ARS) or for the acute radiation gastrointestinal syndrome (GI-ARS). There are currently, however, three US FDA-approved medicinals that serve to mitigate acute irradiation-associated hematopoietic injury. Area covered We present the current status of a promising radiation countermeasure, BIO 300 (a genistein-based agent), that has been extensively investigated in murine models of H-ARS and models of the delayed effects of acute radiation exposure (DEARE) and is currently being evaluated in large animal models. It is also being developed for the prevention of radiation-induced toxicities associated with solid tumor radiotherapy and is the subject of two active Investigational New Drug (IND) applications. We have included a listing and brief review of significant investigations of this promising medical countermeasure. Expert opinion BIO 300 is a leading radioprotector under advanced development for H-ARS and DEARE, as well as for select oncologic indication(s). Efficacy following oral administration (po), lack of clinical side effects, storage at ambient temperature, and intended dual use makes BIO 300 an ideal candidate for military and civilian use as well as for storage in the Strategic National Stockpile.
QID: Identifying Mobile Devices via Wireless Charging Fingerprints

Recent years have witnessed the increasing penetration of wireless charging base stations in the workplace and public areas, such as airports and cafeteria. Such an emerging wireless charging infrastructure has presented opportunities for new indoor localization and identification services for mobile users. In this paper, we present QID, the first system that can identify a Qi-compliant mobile device during wireless charging in real-time. QID extracts features from the clock oscillator and control scheme of the power receiver and employs light-weight algorithms to classify the device. QID adopts 2-dimensional motion unit to emulate a variety of multi-coil designs of Qi, which allows for fine-grained device fingerprinting. Our results show that QID achieves high recognition accuracy. With the prevalence of public wireless charging stations, our results also have important implications for mobile user privacy.
Supplementation with vitamin D or ω-3 fatty acids in adolescent girls and young women with endometriosis (SAGE): a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial.

BACKGROUND Adolescents with endometriosis are a particularly underserved population who struggle with chronic pain. Despite widespread use, there are no published trials examining the individual effects of vitamin D and omega-3 (n-3) fatty acid supplementation on endometriosis-associated pain in adolescents. OBJECTIVES We aimed to determine whether supplementation with vitamin D or ω-3 fatty acids remediates pain, changes frequency of pain medication usage, or affects quality of life in young women with endometriosis. METHODS Women (aged 12-25 y) with surgically confirmed endometriosis and pelvic pain enrolled in a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial. The primary outcome was pain measured by the visual analog scale (VAS). Secondary outcomes were quality of life, pain catastrophizing, and pain medication usage. Participants were randomly assigned to receive 2000 IU vitamin D3, 1000 mg fish oil, or placebo daily for 6 mo. RESULTS A total of 147 women were screened and 69 were randomly assigned as follows: 27 to vitamin D3; 20 to fish oil; and 22 to placebo. Participants in the vitamin D arm experienced significant improvement in VAS pain [mean (95% CI) worst pain in the past month, from baseline to 6 mo: 7.0 (6.2, 7.8) to 5.5 (4.2, 6.8), P = 0.02]; however, an improvement of nearly identical magnitude was observed in the placebo arm [6.0 (5.1, 6.9) to 4.4 (3.0, 5.8), P = 0.07]. A more modest improvement was observed in the fish oil arm [5.9 (4.8, 7.0) to 5.2 (3.7, 6.8), P = 0.39]. Neither of the intervention arms were statistically different from placebo. CONCLUSIONS In young women with endometriosis, supplementation with vitamin D led to significant changes in pelvic pain; however, these were similar in magnitude to placebo. Supplementation with fish oil resulted in about half of the VAS pain reduction of the other 2 arms. Studies are needed to better define the physiology underlying the observed reduction in pain score in the placebo arm that persisted across 6 mo.This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT02387931.
Open-Set OCT Image Recognition with Synthetic Learning

Due to new eye diseases discovered every year, doctors may encounter some rare or unknown diseases. Similarly, in medical image recognition field, many practical medical classification tasks may encounter the case where some testing samples belong to some rare or unknown classes that have never been observed or included in the training set, which is termed as an open-set problem. As rare diseases samples are difficult to be obtained and included in the training set, it is reasonable to design an algorithm that recognizes both known and unknown diseases. Towards this end, this paper leverages a novel generative adversarial network (GAN) based synthetic learning for open-set retinal optical coherence tomography (OCT) image recognition. Specifically, we first train an auto-encoder GAN and a classifier to reconstruct and classify the observed images, respectively. Then a subspace-constrained synthesis loss is introduced to generate images that locate near the boundaries of the subspace of images corresponding to each observed disease, meanwhile, these images cannot be classified by the pre-trained classifier. In other words, these synthesized images are categorized into an unknown class. In this way, we can generate images belonging to the unknown class, and add them into the original dataset to retrain the classifier for the unknown disease discovery.
Un déterminisme architectural pour les bois de conifères à ponctuation mixte (Protopinaceae Kraüsel, 1917)?

The Mesozoic fossil wood assemblage, the Protopinaceae, have a type of pitting on the radial walls of their tracheids that is now almost extinct. Until now, the proposed explanations for this type of pitting were unsatisfactory. New observations show a connection with tree architecture, and a new hypothesis is proposed. Key words: Protopinaceae, Gymnosperms, Mesozoic, anatomy, architecture, morphology.
Cockayne Syndrome: The many challenges and approaches to understand a multifaceted disease

Abstract The striking and complex phenotype of Cockayne syndrome (CS) patients combines progeria-like features with developmental deficits. Since the establishment of the in vitro culture of skin fibroblasts derived from patients with CS in the 1970s, significant progress has been made in the understanding of the genetic alterations associated with the disease and their impact on molecular, cellular, and organismal functions. In this review, we provide a historic perspective on the research into CS by revisiting seminal papers in this field. We highlighted the great contributions of several researchers in the last decades, ranging from the cloning and characterization of CS genes to the molecular dissection of their roles in DNA repair, transcription, redox processes and metabolism control. We also provide a detailed description of all pathological mutations in genes ERCC6 and ERCC8 reported to date and their impact on CS-related proteins. Finally, we review the contributions (and limitations) of many genetic animal models to the study of CS and how cutting-edge technologies, such as cell reprogramming and state-of-the-art genome editing, are helping us to address unanswered questions.
A novel COVID‐19 based truck driver syndemic? Implications for public health, safety, and vital supply chains

Abstract U.S. long‐haul truck drivers traverse great distances and interact with numerous individuals, rendering them vulnerable to acquiring and transmitting coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19). Together, the unique co‐occurrence of pronounced health disparities and known COVID‐19 infection, morbidity, and mortality risks suggest the possibility of a novel COVID‐19 based truck driver syndemic due to advanced driver age and endemic health issues. In turn, COVID‐19 sequelae may perpetuate existing health disparities. The co‐occurrence of afflictions may also result in compromised safety performance. To curb the likelihood of a COVID‐19 based truck driver syndemic, several action stepsare needed. First, key COVID‐19 metrics need to be established for this population. Second, relationships between long‐haul trucker network attributes and COVID‐19 spread need to bedelineated. Third, mutually reinforcing interactions between endemic health disparities and COVID‐19 vulnerability need to be elucidated. Finally, grounded in the aforementioned steps, policies and interventions need to be identified and implemented.
Basin‐scale inputs of cobalt, iron, and manganese from the Benguela‐Angola front to the South Atlantic Ocean

We present full‐depth zonal sections of total dissolved cobalt, iron, manganese, and labile cobalt from the South Atlantic Ocean. A basin‐scale plume from the African coast appeared to be a major source of dissolved metals to this region, with high cobalt concentrations in the oxygen minimum zone of the Angola Dome and extending 2500 km into the subtropical gyre. Metal concentrations were elevated along the coastal shelf, likely due to reductive dissolution and resuspension of particulate matter. Linear relationships between cobalt, N2O, and O2, as well as low surface aluminum supported a coastal rather than atmospheric cobalt source. Lateral advection coupled with upwelling, biological uptake, and remineralization delivered these metals to the basin, as evident in two zonal transects with distinct physical processes that exhibited different metal distributions. Scavenging rates within the coastal plume differed for the three metals; iron was removed fastest, manganese removal was 2.5 times slower, and cobalt scavenging could not be discerned from water mass mixing. Because scavenging, biological utilization, and export constantly deplete the oceanic inventories of these three hybrid‐type metals, point sources of the scale observed here likely serve as vital drivers of their oceanic cycles. Manganese concentrations were elevated in surface waters across the basin, likely due to coupled redox processes acting to concentrate the dissolved species there. These observations of basin‐scale hybrid metal plumes combined with the recent projections of expanding oxygen minimum zones suggest a potential mechanism for effects on ocean primary production and nitrogen fixation via increases in trace metal source inputs.
An Iteration Method for Identifying Yeast Essential Proteins From Weighted PPI Network Based on Topological and Functional Features of Proteins

Accumulating studies have indicated that essential proteins play critical roles in numerous biological processes. With the rapid development of high-throughput technologies, a large number of Protein-Protein Interaction (PPI) data have been found in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which facilitate the formation of PPI networks. Up to now, a series of computational methods for predicting essential proteins from PPI networks have been proposed successively. However, the prediction accuracy of these computational methods is still not quite satisfactory. In this paper, a novel prediction method called CVIM is proposed to infer potential essential proteins. In CVIM, original PPI networks will be first transferred into weighted PPI networks by implementing PCC (Pearson Correlation Coefficient) on protein gene expression data. And then, based on weighted PPI networks and information of orthologous proteins, some critical network topological features and protein functional features will be extracted for each protein in the weighted PPI network. Finally, based on these newly extracted topological and functional features of proteins, an iterative algorithm will be designed to predict essential proteins. In order to evaluate the identification performance of CVIM, we have compared CVIM with 13 kinds of state-of-the-art prediction methods. Experimental results show that CVIM can achieve prediction accuracies of 92%, 80% and 71% out of the top 1%, 5% and 10% candidate proteins separately, which significantly outperform the prediction accuracies achieved by those state-of-the-art prediction methods. We have demonstrated that the prediction accuracy of essential proteins can be effectively improved by integrating the functional and network topological characteristics of proteins, which means that the novel method CVIM may be an excellent addition to the protein researches in the future.
Egg consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes: findings from 3 large US cohort studies of men and women and a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies.

BACKGROUND Whether egg consumption is associated with the risk of type 2 diabetes (T2D) remains unsettled. OBJECTIVES We evaluated the association between egg consumption and T2D risk in 3 large US prospective cohorts, and performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies. METHODS We followed 82,750 women from the Nurses' Health Study (NHS; 1980-2012), 89,636 women from the NHS II (1991-2017), and 41,412 men from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS; 1986-2016) who were free of T2D, cardiovascular disease, and cancer at baseline. Egg consumption was assessed every 2-4 y using a validated FFQ. We used Cox proportional hazard models to estimate HRs and 95% CIs. RESULTS During a total of 5,529,959 person-years of follow-up, we documented 20,514 incident cases of T2D in the NHS, NHS II, and HPFS. In the pooled multivariable model adjusted for updated BMI, lifestyle, and dietary confounders, a 1-egg/d increase was associated with a 14% (95% CI: 7%, 20%) higher T2D risk. In random-effects meta-analysis of 16 prospective cohort studies (589,559 participants; 41,248 incident T2D cases), for each 1 egg/d, the pooled RR of T2D was 1.07 (95% CI: 0.99, 1.15; I2 = 69.8%). There were, however, significant differences by geographic region (P for interaction = 0.01). Each 1 egg/d was associated with higher T2D risk among US studies (RR: 1.18; 95% CI: 1.10, 1.27; I2 = 51.3%), but not among European (RR: 0.99; 95% CI: 0.85, 1.15; I2 = 73.5%) or Asian (RR: 0.82; 95% CI: 0.62, 1.09; I2 = 59.1%) studies. CONCLUSIONS Results from the updated meta-analysis show no overall association between moderate egg consumption and risk of T2D. Whether the heterogeneity of the associations among US, European, and Asian cohorts reflects differences in egg consumption habits warrants further investigation.This systematic review was registered at www.crd. york.ac. uk/prospero as CRD42019127860.
Encoding Human Cortex Using Spherical CNNs - A Study on Alzheimer's Disease Classification

In neuroimaging studies, the human cortex is commonly modelled as a sphere to preserve the topological structure of the cortical surface. In this work, we explore the analysis of the human cortex using spherical CNN in an Alzheimer's disease (AD) classification task, using morphometric measures derived from T1-weighted structural MRI. Our results show superior performance in classifying AD versus cognitively normal subjects and in predicting mild cognitive impairment progression within two years. This work demonstrates the feasibility and superiority of the spherical CNN directly applied on the spherical representation in the discriminative analysis of the human cortex and could be readily extended to other imaging modalities and other neurological diseases.
Planktic cyanobacteria from freshwater localities in ThuaThien-Hue province, Vietnam. II. Algal biomass and microcystin production

A survey of cyanobacteria was carried out from February to August of 2004 along the Huong River and Hoamy Reservoir which supply part of the City of Hue, Vietnam with drinking water: also at some localities in the vicinity of the City of Hue. Quantitative analyses and screening for microcystin by ELISA and HPLC were done both in natural samples and in cultured cyanobacteria. The total biomass of cyanobacteria ranged from 0 to 3039 mg L-1 [wet weight (ww)] with Arthrospira massartii, Jaaginema sp. , Merismopedia spp. , Microcystis spp. , Oscillatoria perornata, and Planktothrix zahidii as the dominating species. In the water samples, microcystins detected by ELISA varied between 0 and 76.2 mu g L-1. Concentrations above 1 mu g L-1, which is considered the safety limit for drinking water by WHO, were not found in the drinking water resources. Cultured strains of Microcystis aeruginosa, M. panniformis, M. botrys and Pseudanabaena cf. moniliformis were shown by ELISA to produce microcystins. The major microcystins produced were microcystin-LR and -RR, as detected by HPLC.
Security and Forensics in the Internet of Things: Research Advances and Challenges

Considering the billions of Internet of Things (IoT) devices around the world, the IoT has brought convenience to people’s lives, but also created a larger attack surface. Therefore, specific attention should be paid to IoT, especially from two aspects, namely, security and forensics. Security properties, especially authentication, ensure the integrity of large amounts of data processed in IoT networks, while forensic investigations can identify, collect, and retain evidence when abuse in IoT systems occurs. Regarding these two critical aspects, this article introduces and analyzes the latest biometric-based authentication research effort in IoT, as well as some IoT forensic investigation models/frameworks. In addition, we also investigate some unresolved challenges that IoT research still faces and provide a direction for future work.
First report of Rotylenchulus reniformis infecting turmeric in Vietnam and consequent damage

Abstract Turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) is one of the common medicinal crops of high economical value in Vietnam. A survey in the Central Highlands of Vietnam revealed a turmeric growing area showing serious disease symptoms, including stunting of the plant, yellowing or darkening of the leaf margins and tips, and underdeveloped dry and rotten rhizomes. An inspection for plant pathogens in soil samples from this area revealed a high density and frequency of Rotylenchus reniformis, with a significant relationship between the density of R. reniformis, rhizome weight, and level of plant damage. This study provides the first report of R. reniformis found in parasitic association with turmeric in Vietnam with the support of molecular data and examines its resulting damage.
Impact of Large-Scale Correlated Failures on Multilevel Virtualized Networks

Communication network architectures have been evolving with increased programmability and virtualization of physical infrastructures. While this evolution enables a faster introduction of new services and efficient utilization of resources, the complexities and interdependencies among the physical and virtual infrastructures, as well as the control and management planes, hinder a complete understanding of the system at hand. It is imperative, therefore, to model and study these evolving virtualized infrastructures. We propose a multilevel virtualized network embedding model and study its performance against correlated failures. Our analysis of multiple synthetic network models identified that grid-like infrastructures capture the realistic Internet2 structure the best.
Position Measurement of the Hole Group Based on Point Cloud Registration Algorithm

The position error of the hole group in a precision part directly affects the assembly quality. The accurate measurement of the position error for the hole group is the premise of judging whether the parts are qualified or not. In this paper, the central coordinates of the hole group are measured by the coordinate measuring machine, and the position of the hole group is evaluated based on the point cloud registration algorithm. The registration process is optimized for the possible problems of the experimental results. The experimental results show that the optimized point cloud registration algorithm is accurate and reliable, with high registration accuracy, and can accurately assess the position of the hole group.
Ultrahigh-Speed Mid-Infrared Photodetectors With 2-D Electron Gas in a CdTe/PbTe Heterojunction

A CdTe/PbTe heterojunction (HJ) yields two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) with a high electron density and mobility. Ultrahigh-speed and room-temperature operating mid-infrared photodetectors are developed with the 2DEG. The photoresponse of the detectors originates from the intrinsic response of PbTe by virtue of the conduction-band and valence-band alignment of the HJ. The extremely short rise and decay photoresponse time demonstrate a major advantage of the 2DEG. At <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$ \lambda = {3.0}\,\, \mu \text{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and a bias voltage of 100 mV, the responsivity and detectivity reach 0.94 A/W and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${2} \times {10}^{{10}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> Jones, respectively. The excellent performance of the detectors renders promising applications in novel mid-infrared frequency detection systems.