Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dental Fear and Associated Factors among Children and Adolescents: A School-Based Study in Lithuania

Dental fear is a challenging problem in dentistry and many contributing factors have been identified. Although this problem among children and adolescents has been studied in the literature for a long time, few such studies have been conducted in Lithuania. This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of dental fear and examine its association with gender, age and several psychological and social factors among children and adolescents in Lithuania. The cross-sectional survey included a randomly selected sample (n = 1590) of children aged 11–14 and adolescents aged 15–18. The data were supplemented by interviewing the parents of these subjects (n = 1399). Dental fear was measured with a single five-score question. The data collection also included questions on oral health, socioeconomic status, oral health-related quality of life and self-esteem. Poisson regression analysis was used to assess the association between perception of dental fear and potential predictor variables. It was found that 32.2% (95% CI: 29.9–34.4%) of children and adolescents reported no fear of dental treatment, 12.5% (10.8–14.2%) of their peers were highly afraid of dental treatment, and other subjects assessed their dental fear gradually. Girls reported greater dental fear scores than boys, but the level of dental fear did not depend on the age. We identified the groups of subjects by gender and age, and a higher level of dental fear was significantly associated with untreated caries experience, a delay in the age of the subject’s first visit to the dentist, low self-esteem, low oral health-related quality of life, low overall life satisfaction and low family affluence. The results also suggested that dental fear could originate from previous toothache, dentists’ actions, high sensitivity in the child and poor psychological readiness for treatment. It was concluded that dental fear among Lithuanian children and adolescents is a common problem that is associated with gender and several dental, psychological and social factors. The findings indicate that school-based health policies, paediatric dentists and parents should be encouraged to focus on the psychosocial factors associated with dental fear because most of them can be prevented.
Ruminant Milk-Derived Extracellular Vesicles: A Nutritional and Therapeutic Opportunity?

Milk has been shown to contain a specific fraction of extracellular particles that are reported to resist digestion and are purposefully packaged with lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids to exert specific biological effects. These findings suggest that these particles may have a role in the quality of infant nutrition, particularly in the early phase of life when many of the foundations of an infant’s potential for health and overall wellness are established. However, much of the current research focuses on human or cow milk only, and there is a knowledge gap in how milk from other species, which may be more commonly consumed in different regions, could also have these reported biological effects. Our review provides a summary of the studies into the extracellular particle fraction of milk from a wider range of ruminants and pseudo-ruminants, focusing on how this fraction is isolated and characterised, the stability and uptake of the fraction, and the reported biological effects of these fractions in a range of model systems. As the individual composition of milk from different species is known to differ, we propose that the extracellular particle fraction of milk from non-traditional and minority species may also have important and distinct biological properties that warrant further study.
An Advanced Proportional Multiresonant Controller for Enhanced Harmonic Compensation With Power Ripple Mitigation of Grid-Integrated PV Systems Under Distorted Grid Voltage Conditions

This article proposes an advanced integrated control strategy for enhanced grid current harmonic compensation with power ripple mitigation in a grid–integrated photovoltaic systems (GIPVS) under distorted grid voltage conditions. The proposed control strategy consists of an advanced proportional multiresonant (APMR) current controller and a compensator for grid voltage sag (CGVS), which is implemented with a phase-locked loop block. The APMR is designed in the α–β reference frame and minimizes the harmonics of the grid injected current. The CGVS, along with the APMR, eliminates the active and reactive power ripples under unbalanced voltage sags conditions. Further, an adaptive step size incremental conductance (ASINC) maximum power point tracking controller in integration with the proposed control strategy is implemented. Along with current harmonic reduction by APMR, the ASINC method ensures effective and faster tracking of maximum power point and negligible oscillations in the steady-state under different environmental conditions. By utilizing the proposed APMR control strategy, the frequency adaptability of the GIPVS is improved compared to the conventional proportional multiresonant (PMR) control strategy under grid frequency deviations. It successfully keeps the grid current total harmonics distortion below the acceptable limits for the grid voltage polluted by several odd harmonics, up to the nineteenth harmonics. The proposed control strategy of APMR with CGVS almost completely eliminates the power ripples in even severe unbalanced voltage sag conditions. Experimental studies are carried out using a real-time digital simulator to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy in comparison with the conventional PMR controller.
The nanofluids application in a twin-screw electromechanical hydrolyser

The analysis of the electromechanical device with nanofluid filling is performed in the work. The principle of operation of this machine is developed theoretically. Mechanical characteristics, spatial representation of heating and distribution density of magnetic induction were obtained by numerical analysis by the finite element method. According to the simulation results, by applying the nanofluid in the device, an increase in the electromagnetic moment is achieved, heat exchange conditions are improved.
Unrepeatered Optical Systems Design based on Iterative Channel Pre-Emphasis Optimization

An optimization method is proposed to design unrepeatered optical systems based on distributed Raman and remotely pumped optical amplification. The pumping powers and wavelengths, channels allocation, and remote amplifier's Erbium-doped fiber length and position are optimized by taking into account the link's systemic performance aiming to maximize the equalized optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) at the receiver. An iterative algorithm to allow the sequential design of each element of the unrepeatered system independently is proposed, reducing the computational effort and avoiding its convergence to an optimum local solution. Employing the proposed method, an unrepeatered optical link encompassing both distributed Raman amplification and remotely pumped amplifiers was designed, showing an equalized received OSNR improvement of about 0.6 dB in comparison with a straightforward optimization algorithm. In practical applications, the OSNR gain in system performance can be converted into improvements in link reach and capacity.
Immunomodulating Effect of the Consumption of Watercress (Nasturtium officinale) on Exercise-Induced Inflammation in Humans

The vegetable watercress (Nasturtium officinale R.Br.) is, besides being a generally nutritious food, a rich source of glucosinolates. Gluconasturtiin, the predominant glucosinolate in watercress, has been shown to have several health beneficial properties through its bioactive breakdown product phenethyl isothiocyanate. Little is known about the immunoregulatory effects of watercress. Moreover, anti-inflammatory effects have mostly been shown in in vitro or in animal models. Hence, we conducted a proof-of-concept study to investigate the effects of watercress on the human immune system. In a cross-over intervention study, 19 healthy subjects (26.5 ± 4.3 years; 14 males, 5 females) were given a single dose (85 g) of fresh self-grown watercress or a control meal. Two hours later, a 30 min high-intensity workout was conducted to promote exercise-induced inflammation. Blood samples were drawn before, 5 min after, and 3 h after the exercise unit. Inflammatory blood markers (IL-1β, IL-6, IL-10, TNF-α, MCP-1, MMP-9) were analyzed in whole blood cultures after ex vivo immune cell stimulation via lipopolysaccharides. A mild pro-inflammatory reaction was observed after watercress consumption indicated by an increase in IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α, whereas the immune response was more pronounced for both pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory markers (IL-1β, IL-6, IL-10, TNF-α) after the exercise unit compared to the control meal. During the recovery phase, watercress consumption led to a stronger anti-inflammatory downregulation of the pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-6 and TNF-α. In conclusion, we propose that watercress causes a stronger pro-inflammatory response and anti-inflammatory counter-regulation during and after exercise. The clinical relevance of these changes should be verified in future studies.
Morphological and Morphometric Characteristics of Anterior Maxilla Accessory Canals and Relationship with Nasopalatine Canal Type—A CBCT Study

This study aimed to evaluate principal morphological and morphometric characteristics of accessory canals (ACs) of the anterior maxilla, as well as to analyze the relationship with nasopalatine canal (NPC) type. The results of our study showed that ACs were observed in almost 50% of participants. They were mostly presented bilaterally and in a curved shape, with a palatal foramen position. The morphometric characteristics of ACs were significantly influenced by NPC type. NPC type had the strongest impact on the distance between the NPC and AC, as well as on the distance between the AC and the facial aspect of buccal bone wall, in inferior parts of the alveolar ridge. On the other hand, the distance between the AC and central incisors was not significantly influenced by NPC shape in the lower region of the anterior maxilla. However, the participants with the banana-type of the NPC expressed the reduction in distance from the AC to the central incisor at the upper part in comparison with the subjects with the cylindrical-type of the NPC. On the basis of the results of this study, the simultaneous estimation of ACs and the NPC seems reasonable, as this approach may be useful in the prevention of complications which could occur during implant surgery interventions.
TRPM2 Oxidation Activates Two Distinct Potassium Channels in Melanoma Cells through Intracellular Calcium Increase

Tumor microenvironments are often characterized by an increase in oxidative stress levels. We studied the response to oxidative stimulation in human primary (IGR39) or metastatic (IGR37) cell lines obtained from the same patient, performing patch-clamp recordings, intracellular calcium ([Ca2+]i) imaging, and RT-qPCR gene expression analysis. In IGR39 cells, chloramine-T (Chl-T) activated large K+ currents (KROS) that were partially sensitive to tetraethylammonium (TEA). A large fraction of KROS was inhibited by paxilline—a specific inhibitor of large-conductance Ca2+-activated BK channels. The TEA-insensitive component was inhibited by senicapoc—a specific inhibitor of the Ca2+-activated KCa3.1 channel. Both BK and KCa3.1 activation were mediated by an increase in [Ca2+]i induced by Chl-T. Both KROS and [Ca2+]i increase were inhibited by ACA and clotrimazole—two different inhibitors of the calcium-permeable TRPM2 channel. Surprisingly, IGR37 cells did not exhibit current increase upon the application of Chl-T. Expression analysis confirmed that the genes encoding BK, KCa3.1, and TRPM2 are much more expressed in IGR39 than in IGR37. The potassium currents and [Ca2+]i increase observed in response to the oxidizing agent strongly suggest that these three molecular entities play a major role in the progression of melanoma. Pharmacological targeting of either of these ion channels could be a new strategy to reduce the metastatic potential of melanoma cells, and could complement classical radio- or chemotherapeutic treatments.
SP-MTFL: A self paced multi-task feature learning method for cognitive performance predicting of Alzheimer's disease

Machine learning algorithms and multivariate data analysis methods have been widely utilized in the field of Alzheimer's disease (AD) research in recent years. Predicting cognitive performance of subjects from neuroimage measures and identifying relevant imaging biomarkers are important research topics in the study of Alzheimer's disease. Multi-task based feature learning (MTFL) have been widely studied to select a discriminative feature subset from MRI features, and improve the performance by incorporating inherent correlations among multiple clinical cognitive measures. Inspired by the fact that humans often learn from easy concepts to hard ones in the cognitive process, we propose a self-paced multi-task feature learning framework that attempts to learn the tasks by simultaneously taking into consideration the complexities of both tasks and instances per task in this study. Experimental results on ADNI are provided, and the comparison results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach and show that our approach outperforms the state-of-the-art methods.
Multicellular Human Cardiac Organoids Transcriptomically Model Distinct Tissue-Level Features of Adult Myocardium

Human-induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) have been widely used for disease modeling and drug cardiotoxicity screening. To this end, we recently developed human cardiac organoids (hCOs) for modeling human myocardium. Here, we perform a transcriptomic analysis of various in vitro hiPSC-CM platforms (2D iPSC-CM, 3D iPSC-CM and hCOs) to deduce the strengths and limitations of these in vitro models. We further compared iPSC-CM models to human myocardium samples. Our data show that the 3D in vitro environment of 3D hiPSC-CMs and hCOs stimulates the expression of genes associated with tissue formation. The hCOs demonstrated diverse physiologically relevant cellular functions compared to the hiPSC-CM only models. Including other cardiac cell types within hCOs led to more transcriptomic similarities to adult myocardium. hCOs lack matured cardiomyocytes and immune cells, which limits a complete replication of human adult myocardium. In conclusion, 3D hCOs are transcriptomically similar to myocardium, and future developments of engineered 3D cardiac models would benefit from diversifying cell populations, especially immune cells.
Interaction-Aware Crowd Navigation via Augmented Relational Graph Learning

Safe and effective navigation with a socially-compliant manner in crowd environment is an essential yet challenging task for mobile robots. Previous works have shown the advantages of deep reinforcement learning in learning socially cooperative navigation policy. However, most previous learning methods incur slow convergence and limited action space because they focus on value-based models, which only learn the discrete action navigation policy under sparse rewards. To overcome these limitations, an augmented relational graph based reinforcement learning method CEM-RGL is proposed, which incorporates cross entropy method(CEM) into a relational graph learning(RGL) framework to get sufficient samples in continuous state-action space during training; and introduces graph attention network(GAT) to extract efficient and scalable representation for crowd-robot interaction. A reward shaping technique is implied to accelerate the training convergence. Evaluation compared with the state-of-the-art methods in simulation experiments demonstrates that the crowd navigation policy with our augmented training method has a higher success rate and a higher cumulative reward return.
Characterization and Evaluation of 3D-Printed Connectors for Microfluidics

3D printing is regarded as a useful tool for the fabrication of microfluidic connectors to overcome the challenges of time consumption, clogging, poor alignment and bulky fixtures existing for current interconnections. 3D-printed connectors without any additional components can be directly printed to substrate with an orifice by UV-assisted coaxial printing. This paper further characterized and evaluated 3D-printed connectors fabricated by the proposed method. A process window with an operable combination of flow rates was identified. The outer flow rate could control the inner channel dimensions of 3D-printed connectors, which were expected to achieve less geometric mismatch of flow paths in microfluidic interfaces. The achieved smallest inner channel diameter was around 120 µm. Furthermore, the withstood pressure of 3D-printed connectors was evaluated to exceed 450 kPa, which could enable microfluidic chips to work at normal pressure.
Video-guided Machine Translation with Spatial Hierarchical Attention Network

Video-guided machine translation, as one type of multimodal machine translations, aims to engage video contents as auxiliary information to address the word sense ambiguity problem in machine translation. Previous studies only use features from pretrained action detection models as motion representations of the video to solve the verb sense ambiguity, leaving the noun sense ambiguity a problem. To address this problem, we propose a video-guided machine translation system by using both spatial and motion representations in videos. For spatial features, we propose a hierarchical attention network to model the spatial information from object-level to video-level. Experiments on the VATEX dataset show that our system achieves 35.86 BLEU-4 score, which is 0.51 score higher than the single model of the SOTA method.
LIDAR Graph SLAM based Autonomous Vehicle Maps using XY and Yaw Dead-Reckoning Measurements

A robust Graph Slam (GS) framework for generating precise LIDAR maps is still a challenging demand for autonomous vehicle players. This is because of the sparsity of LIDAR 3D point clouds that leads to wrong compensations of relative position errors in x, y and yaw directions. We handle this drawback by proposing a unique GS strategy to process the relative position errors in the image domain. This is achieved by converting the vehicle trajectories into 2D grayscale images using “node strategy” to encode dense environmental representations with proper identifications in Absolute Coordinate System (ACS). Accordingly, Phase Correlation and Fourier Mellin Transform are employed to non-iteratively estimate the relative positions between nodes in the image domain at loop closure areas. These estimations are assigned into a set of edges that constitute the relationships between nodes in the map. Two individual cost functions are designed to utilize these edges in optimizing the nodes' yaw angles and then x, y positions in ACS. The proposed GS framework has been tested in a challenging environment of high buildings, dense trees and longitudinal bridge in Tokyo. The experimental results have verified the robustness to generate precise maps based on Dead Reckoning measurements and outperform GNSS/INS-RTK map in critical road structures.
Can training trunk musculature influence musculoskeletal pain and physical performance in military police officers?

Abstract To investigate the effect of a Trunk Training (TT) program on the general musculoskeletal pain (GMP) and physical performance of Military Police Officers. Twenty officers were divided into either control group (CG) or TT group (TTG). Both groups performed nine weeks of traditional physical training. However, the TTG had 25-minutes allocated to TT during each scheduled physical training period. Anthropometric, trunk endurance, and physical fitness tests were completed pre- and post-training for both groups. Both groups also answered a weekly questionnaire about their GMP. Post-training, trunk endurance performance was significantly higher (p < 0.05) and the GMP significantly lower (p < 0.05) in the TTG when compared to the CG. Improvement in side plank test scores was associated with a decreased in GMP (r = −0.495, p < 0.05). TT can reduce the perception of GMP in addition to increasing the endurance of the trunk muscles. The side plank was the only physical test associated with GMP. Practitioner summary: Trunk Training can reduce general musculoskeletal pain and increase the endurance of the trunk muscles without a concomitant loss in general fitness in elite Military Police Officers. This research lasted 11 weeks and presents real-world and pragmatic findings.
The Enhanced Permeability and Retention (EPR) Effect: The Significance of the Concept and Methods to Enhance Its Application

Chemotherapy for human solid tumors in clinical practice is far from satisfactory. Despite the discovery and synthesis of hundreds of thousands of anticancer compounds targeting various crucial units in cancer cell proliferation and metabolism, the fundamental problem is the lack of targeting delivery of these compounds selectively into solid tumor tissue to maintain an effective concentration level for a certain length of time for drug-tumor interaction to execute anticancer activities. The enhanced permeability and retention effect (EPR effect) describes a universal pathophysiological phenomenon and mechanism in which macromolecular compounds such as albumin and other polymer-conjugated drugs beyond certain sizes (above 40 kDa) can progressively accumulate in the tumor vascularized area and thus achieve targeting delivery and retention of anticancer compounds into solid tumor tissue. Targeting therapy via the EPR effect in clinical practice is not always successful since the strength of the EPR effect varies depending on the type and location of tumors, status of blood perfusion in tumors, and the physical-chemical properties of macromolecular anticancer agents. This review highlights the significance of the concept and mechanism of the EPR effect and discusses methods for better utilizing the EPR effect in developing smarter macromolecular nanomedicine to achieve a satisfactory outcome in clinical applications.
Detailed 3D Optical Modelling of Interdigitated Back Contact Solar Cells

A development and calibration of a detailed 3D coupled ray-wave optical model for accurate simulations of laterally varying photovoltaic structures is presented and applied for the analysis of interdigitated back contact cells. Four key aspects, which predominantly contribute to the accuracy of optical simulations are highlighted through the validation of the model. The applicability of the model is demonstrated through an example of electroluminescence simulations.