Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optimization of Plasmon Decay Through Scattering and Hot Electron Transfer

Light incident on metal nanoparticles induce localized surface oscillations of conductive electrons, called plasmons, which is a means to control and manipulate light. Excited plasmons decay as either thermal energy as absorbed phonons or electromagnetic energy as scattered photons. An additional decay pathway for plasmons can exist for gold nanoparticles situated on graphene. Excited plasmons can decay directly to the graphene as through hot electron transfer. This dissertation begins by computational analysis of plasmon resonance energy and bandwidth as a function of particle size, shape, and dielectric environment in addition to diffractive coupled in lattices creating a Fano resonance. With this knowledge, plasmon resonance was probed with incident electrons using electron energy loss spectroscopy in a transmission electron microscope. Nanoparticles were fabricated using electron beam lithography on 50 nanometer thick silicon nitride with some particles fabricated with a graphene layer between the silicon nitride and metal structure. Plasmon resonance was compared between ellipses on and off graphene to characterize hot electron transfer as a means of plasmon decay. It was observed that the presence of graphene caused plasmon energy to decrease by as much as 9.8% and bandwidth to increase by 25%. Assuming the increased bandwidth was solely from electron transfer as an additional plasmon decay route, a 20% efficiency of plasmon decay to graphene was calculated for the particular ellipses analyzed.
Treatment Outcome of Epileptic Patients Receiving Antiepileptic Drugs in Ethiopia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background The prevalence and incidence rate of epilepsy were found to be higher in low- and middle-income countries. Uncontrolled epilepsy has a high risk of disability, stigma, discrimination, human rights violations, and premature death. The available studies of controlled seizure in Ethiopia have showed inconsistent results which calls for systematic review and meta-analysis. Therefore, this review intended to show the pooled prevalence of controlled seizure among people with epilepsy receiving antiepileptic drugs at outpatient department. Methods A systematic literature search was conducted using PubMed/Medline, Science Direct, PsycINFO, Hinnarri databases, and Google Scholar for grey literatures. Data were extracted with structured format prepared using Microsoft Excel and exported to Stata/MP 16.0 software for analyses. The I2 test was used to check the heterogeneity between primary studies with a corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI). Results A total of 23 primary studies were included in the review showing the pooled prevalence of controlled seizure to be 46% (95% CI: 35, 56). A subgroup analysis of the primary studies showed a considerable variation in magnitude of seizure freedom by study regions, age groups, and seizure-free period. The highest prevalence was found in Addis Ababa 52% (95% CI: 29, 75), pediatric patients 77% (95% CI: 71, 83), and a seizure-free period of less than six months 58% (95% CI: 32, 83). On the other hand, the lowest prevalence of controlled seizure was found in Tigray 27% (95% CI: 11, 65), adult patients 43% (95% CI: 32, 54), and a seizure-free period of six or more 41% (95% CI: 32, 51). Higher frequency of seizure before treatment (2.23, 95% CI: 1.15, 3.31) and medication nonadherence (2.7, 95% CI: 1.25, 4.15) had statistically significant association with uncontrolled seizure. Conclusion In this review, the prevalence of controlled seizure was found to be low. This warrants that clinicians should give more focus to epileptic patients regarding monitoring and evaluation of treatment outcome of epilepsy and factors that affect seizure control in routine clinical services. The use of standardized definition of controlled seizure, designing strategies to identify pharmacoresistant epilepsy and its treatment, and increasing medication adherence are recommended in Ethiopia. The review protocol has been registered with PROSPERO registration number CRD42021215302.
Speech-in-Noise Test results of compensation claimants for noise induced hearing loss in Korean male workers: Words-in-Noise Test (WIN) and quick-Hearing-in-Noise Test (HINT)

Background Pure-tone audiometry is used as a gold standard for hearing measurement. However, since communication in the work environment occurs in noise, it might be difficult to evaluate the actual communication ability accurately based on pure-tone audiometry only. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to evaluate speech intelligibility in noisy environments by using Speech-in-Noise Tests and to check its relationship with pure-tone audiometry. Methods From January 2017 to September 2018, for 362 workers who visited a university hospital for the purpose of compensating for noise-induced hearing loss, several tests were conducted: pure-tone audiometry, speech reception threshold, speech discrimination score, and Speech-in-Noise Tests (Words-in-Noise Test [WIN] and quick-Hearing-in-Noise Test [quick-HINT]). The subjects were classified into serviceable hearing group and non-serviceable hearing group based on 40 dB hearing level (HL) pure-tone average. In both groups, we conducted age-adjusted partial correlation analysis in order to find out the relationship between pure-tone threshold, speech reception threshold, speech discrimination score and WIN and quick-HINT respectively. Results In non-serviceable hearing group, all results of partial correlation analysis were statistically significant. However, in serviceable hearing group, there were many results which showed little or no significant relationship between pure-tone threshold and Speech-in-Noise Tests (WIN and quick-HINT). Conclusions The relationship between Speech-in-Noise Tests and the pure-tone thresholds were different by the hearing impairment levels; in mild to moderate hearing loss workers, there was little or no relationship; in severe cases, the relationship was significant. It is not enough to predict the speech intelligibility of hearing-impaired persons, especially in mild to moderate level, with pure-tone audiometry only. Therefore, it would be recommended to conduct Speech-in-Noise Test.
Silencing the COPB2 gene decreases the proliferation, migration and invasion of human triple-negative breast cancer cells

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is highly invasive, has a high rate of recurrence and is associated with a poor clinical outcome when compared with non-TNBC due to a lack of effective and targeted treatments. The coatomer protein complex subunit β2 (COPB2) is upregulated in various types of malignant cancer. The present study demonstrated that COPB2 expression levels were significantly upregulated in breast carcinoma HS-578T cells (clonal cells originating from TNBC) when compared with non-TNBC MCF-7 cells. HS-578T cells also exhibited higher rates of proliferation, invasion and transendothelial migration when compared with MCF-7 cells. Moreover, it was identified that genetically silencing the COPB2 gene using a lentivirus-short hairpin RNA inhibited the proliferative, colony formation, migratory and invasive properties of the TNBC HS-578T cells. Mediation of the COPB2 silencing effect may be associated with regulating the phosphorylation of serine/threonine kinase AKT in the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway. These results suggested the importance of COPB2 in promoting the proliferation of TNBC cells and identified COPB2 as a potential novel therapeutic target.
Snapshot polarized light scattering spectroscopy using spectrally‐modulated polarimetry for early gastric cancer detection

Polarized light scattering spectroscopy (PLSS) is a promising optical technique developed for the detection of cancer, which extracts the single scattering light to infer morphological information of epithelial cells. However, traditional PLSS uses either a rotatable polarizer or two orthogonal polarizers to purify the single scattering light, which makes it complicated and challenged to build a PLSS endoscope. Herein, we propose a snapshot PLSS with a single optical path to directly get the single scattering light for the first time. The single scattering light is encoded using the spectrally‐modulated polarimetry and decoded using the continuous slide iterative method. Both the polystyrene microsphere solutions and the ex vivo gastric cancer samples are used to verify the method. The experimental results of the snapshot PLSS are consistent well with that of the traditional PLSS. The proposed method has a potential for the building of snapshot PLSS endoscope systems in future.
Inter-Subject Domain Adaptation for CNN-Based Wrist Kinematics Estimation Using sEMG

Recently, convolutional neural network (CNN) has been widely investigated to decode human intentions using surface Electromyography (sEMG) signals. However, a pre-trained CNN model usually suffers from severe degradation when testing on a new individual, and this is mainly due to domain shift where characteristics of training and testing sEMG data differ substantially. To enhance inter-subject performances of CNN in the wrist kinematics estimation, we propose a novel regression scheme for supervised domain adaptation (SDA), based on which domain shift effects can be effectively reduced. Specifically, a two-stream CNN with shared weights is established to exploit source and target sEMG data simultaneously, such that domain-invariant features can be extracted. To tune CNN weights, both regression losses and a domain discrepancy loss are employed, where the former enable supervised learning and the latter minimizes distribution divergences between two domains. In this study, eight healthy subjects were recruited to perform wrist flexion-extension movements. Experiment results illustrated that the proposed regression SDA outperformed fine-tuning, a state-of-the-art transfer learning method, in both single-single and multiple-single scenarios of kinematics estimation. Unlike fine-tuning which suffers from catastrophic forgetting, regression SDA can maintain much better performances in original domains, which boosts the model reusability among multiple subjects.
Soy diet for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease

Abstract Introduction: The efficacy of soy diet for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease remains controversial. We conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to explore the influence of soy diet vs placebo on the treatment of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Methods: We search PubMed, EMbase, Web of science, EBSCO, and Cochrane library databases through October 2020 for randomized controlled trials assessing the efficacy of soy diet vs placebo for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. This meta-analysis is performed using the random-effect model. Results: Five randomized controlled trials are included in the meta-analysis. Overall, compared with control group for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, soy diet is associated with significantly reduced HOMA-IR (standard mean difference [SMD] = −0.42; 95% confidence interval [CI] = −0.76 to −0.08; P = .01), increased insulin (SMD = −0.64; 95% CI = −0.98 to −0.30; P = .0002) and decreased malondialdehyde (SMD = −0.43; 95% CI = −0.74 to −0.13; P = .005), but demonstrated no substantial impact on body mass index (SMD = 0.17; 95% CI = −0.20 to 0.53; P = .37), alanine aminotransferase (SMD = −0.01; 95% CI = −0.61 to 0.60; P = .98), aspartate-aminotransferase (SMD = 0.01; 95% CI = −0.47 to 0.49; P = .97), total cholesterol (SMD = 0.05; 95% CI = −0.25 to 0.35; P = .73) or low density lipoprotein (SMD = 0; 95% CI = −0.30 to 0.30; P = .99). Conclusions: Soy diet may benefit to alleviate insulin resistance for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.
Uncontrolled blood pressure and treatment of hypertension in older chronic kidney disease patients

An influential meta-analysis of 61 studies and over 1 million adults showed an age-specific correlation between elevated systolic blood pressure (SBP) and cardiovascular mortality. Subsequently, the SPRINT Senior Trial demonstrated that intensive antihypertensive treatment (SBP target <120 mmHg) for patients over 75 years old resulted in fewer cardiovascular events compared to standard treatment (SBP target <140 mmHg)while having no difference in falls, orthostatic hypotension, or overall severe adverse events. In contrast, AHA/ACC, ACP/AAFP, and ESC/ESH guidelines set this cohort's SBP target to be under 130 mmHg, 150 mmHg, and between 130 and 139 mmHg, respectively.3–5 Chronic kidney disease (CKD) also confers risk of cardiovascular disease with the AASK trial finding 3.3% cardiovascular outcomes per patient-year in this population. This study also found a low BP goal to be associated with reduced risk of end-stage renal disease and death among patients with CKD. AHA/ACC guidelines suggest a target SBP of under 130 for patients with CKD. When combining age and CKD, however, there is no specific target SBP. While the SPRINT Senior trial did not focus on hypertensive older patients with CKD, a group that deserves special attention due to the additional risk of acute kidney injury, in addition to falls, with intensive BP control. We sought to examine local practice patterns for this group.
Association of Chlamydia trachomatis, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Mycoplasma genitalium and Ureaplasma species infection and organism load with cervicitis in north Indian population

Cervicitis is predominantly caused by Neisseria gonorrhoeae and Chlamydia trachomatis, which accounts for almost half of all the cases of cervicitis. The role of newer organisms like Mycoplasma genitalium and Ureaplasma sp. and association of bacterial load with cervicitis are also not well established. So the study aimed to determine the relative frequency of these organisms and their load in association with cervicitis cases from north India. A case–control study involving 300 women was conducted using quantitative real‐time PCR from endocervical swabs for identification of organisms and quantification of bacterial load. Among 150 cervicitis cases, C. trachomatis, N. gonorrhoeae, M. genitalium and Ureaplasma parvum were detected in 5 (3·3%), 10 (6·6%), 37(24·6%) and 47 (31·3%) respectively. Old age (<0·001, chi‐squared test) and irregular menstrual cycles (<0·001, chi‐squared test) were significantly associated with cervicitis. M genitalium was the only organism to be associated significantly with cervicitis with regard to age (<0·031) and symptoms like discharge (P < 0·033, chi‐squared test) and dysuria (P < 0·044, chi‐squared test) in multivariate analysis. Our finding suggests that the bacterial load of these organisms is not significantly associated with cervicitis. However, we found significant association of M. genitalium infection with clinical characteristics of cervicitis cases.
Different Methods for Molecular and Rapid Detection of Human Novel Coronavirus.

INTRODUCTION While PCR has been recognized as one of the appropriate ways to diagnosis of infectious diseases, Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), which is a nucleic acid amplification method, can be considered as an alternative to PCR, and it is faster, cost-effective, and easier to perform than nested PCR. PATIENTS AND METHODS Keywords were searched in PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus and Institute for Scientific Information Web of Science, as well as the search engine of Google Scholar. Keywords were PCR, LAMP, RAA, RPA, Virus and COVID-19. RESULTS LAMP technology has been extensively applied for the detection of human pathogenic bacteria, crop pests, pathogenic organisms and components in meat products. A new isotheral method, Recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA), can amplify the DNA as well as RPA. RPA has benefited from isothermal PCR and both simplicity and rapid amplification. Recombinase aided amplification (RAA) assay has been favorably used in the detection of bacterial and viral pathogens and solved the technical difficulties posed by DNA amplification methods because it does not need thermal denaturation of the template and employs at a low and constant temperature. CONCLUSIONS Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, digital PCR, LAMP, nicking endonuclease amplification reaction, recombinase polymerase amplification, and clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats are different nucleic acid amplification tests of COVID-19. LAMP methods can be more specific than qPCR and immunoassays. The LAMP assay can be applied for rapid detection of SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2, and influenza, because LAMP is a highly sensitive and specific DNA/RNA amplification technique.
Maternal sensitivity and infant neural response to touch: an fNIRS study

Abstract The mother’s attunement to her infant’s emotional needs influences her use of touching behaviors during mother–infant interactions. Moreover, maternal touch appears to modulate infants’ physiological responses to affective touch. However, little is known about the impact of maternal sensitivity on infants’ touch processing at a brain level. This study explored the association between maternal sensitivity when infants (N = 24) were 7 months old and their patterns of cortical activation to touch at 12 months. Brain activation was measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Changes in oxy-hemoglobin (HbO2) and deoxy-hemoglobin (HHb) concentrations were measured in the left somatosensory cortex and right temporal cortex while infants received two types of tactile stimulation—affective and discriminative touch. Results showed that a lower maternal sensitivity was associated with a higher HbO2 response for discriminative touch over the temporal region. Additionally, infants of less sensitive mothers tended to present a higher response in HbO2 for affective touch over the somatosensory region. These findings suggest that less sensitive interactions might result in a lower exposure to maternal touch, which can be further related to infants’ neural processing of touch.
Proscriptive Injunctions Can Elicit Greater Reactance and Lower Legitimacy Perceptions Than Prescriptive Injunctions

Based on previous research investigating proscriptive injunctions (requesting that one should not do something) versus prescriptive injunctions (requesting that one should do something), we propose that proscription leads to greater reactance than does prescription for a range of actions, and that this effect is associated with lower perceived legitimacy of the injunction. Across five experimental studies, our student and general population samples received proscriptions or prescriptions and reported their reactance. Proscription led to greater reactance than did prescription in all five studies. This effect was accentuated by an authoritative source (Study 2), was mediated by the perceived legitimacy of the request (Study 3 and Study 4), and was attenuated by a self-affirmation intervention (Study 5). We suggest that proscriptions are viewed as more obligatory than prescriptions, limit the scope of behavioral alternatives, restrict perceived autonomy, and elicit greater reactance. The findings have implications for the design of effective persuasive communications.
Dynamic Myocardial Ultrasound Localization Angiography

Dynamic Myocardial Ultrasound Localization Angiography (MULA) is an ultrasound-based imaging modality destined to enhance the diagnosis and treatment monitoring of coronary pathologies. Current diagnosis methods of coronary artery disease focus on the observation of vessel narrowing in the coronary vasculature to assess the organ’s condition. However, we would strongly benefit from mapping and measuring flow from intramyocardial arterioles and capillaries as they are the direct vehicle of the myocardium blood income. With the advent of ultrafast ultrasound scanners, imaging modalities based on the localization and tracking of injected microbubbles allow for the subwavelength resolution imaging of an organ’s vasculature. Yet, the application of these vascular imaging modalities relies on an accumulation of cine loops of a region of interest undergoing no or minimal tissue motion. This work introduces the MULA framework that combines 1) the mapping of the dynamics of the microvascular flow using an ultrasound sequence triggered by the electrocardiogram with a 2) novel Lagrangian beamformer based on non-rigid motion registration algorithm to form images directly in the myocardium’s material coordinates and thus correcting for the large myocardial motion and deformation. Specifically, we show that this framework enables the non-invasive imaging of the angioarchitecture and dynamics of intramyocardial flow in vessels as small as a few tens of microns in the rat’s beating heart in vivo.
Antioxidant compounds from the stem bark of Sorbus commixta

The MeOH extract of Sorbus commixta (Rosaceae) exhibited strong DPPH radical scavenging activity, and through activity-guided fractionation two antioxidant compounds were isolated and identified as catechin-7-O-β-D-xylopyranoside (1) and cetechin-7-O-β-D-apiofuranoside (2) by physicochemical and spectrometric methods. To evaluate the antioxidant effect of these compounds, some in vitro tests, such as the DPPH radical scavenging activity test, the superoxide radical scavenging activity test and lipid peroxidation inhibitory activity test, were performed. Compounds 1 and 2 showed stronger activities than both α-tocopherol and butylated hydroxy anisole (BHA) in each assay.
Common mechanisms explain nitrogen-dependent growth of Arctic shrubs over three decades despite heterogeneous trends and declines in soil nitrogen availability.

Heterogeneity has been observed in the responses of Arctic shrubs to climate variability over recent decades, which may reflect landscape-scale variability in belowground resources. At a northern fringe of tall shrub expansion (Yuribei, Yamal Peninsula, Russia), we sought to determine the mechanisms relating nitrogen (N) limitation to shrub growth over decadal time. We analysed the ratio of 15 N to 14 N isotopes in wood rings of ten Salix lanata L. individuals (399 measurements) to reconstruct annual point-based bioavailable N between 1980 - 2013. We applied a model-fitting/model-selection approach with a suite of competing ecological models to assess the most-likely mechanisms that explain each shrub's individual time-series. Shrub δ15 N time-series indicated declining (7 shrubs), increasing (2 shrubs) and no trend (1 shrub) in N availability. The most appropriate model for all shrubs included N-dependent growth of linear rather than saturating form. Inclusion of plant-soil feedbacks better explained ring width and δ15 N for eight of ten individuals. Although N trajectories were individualistic, common mechanisms of varying strength confirmed the N-dependency of shrub growth. The linear mechanism may reflect intense scavenging of scarce N; the importance of plant-soil feedbacks suggests that shrubs subvert the microbial bottleneck by actively controlling their environment.