Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The relationship between circadian rhythm of blood pressure and vascular dysfunction in essential hypertension

ABSTRACT Objective This study aimed to explore whether circadian rhythm of blood pressure is associated with brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV) and brachial artery flow-mediated dilation (FMD) in patients with essential hypertension. Method This cross-sectional study included 4,217 patients with essential hypertension who completed 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, baPWV, and FMD. BaPWV and FMD were measured to evaluate arterial stiffness and endothelial dysfunction. Participants were divided into dipper, non-dipper, and reverse dipping groups according to the nocturnal systolic blood pressure dipping percentage. Results In this study, baPWV was highest in the reverse dipping groups, followed by non-dipper and dipper groups (1667.11 ± 327.90 vs. 1613.88 ± 325.11 vs. 1577.45 ± 306.15 cm/s, P < .001) and FMD gradually increased (4.41 ± 2.87 vs. 4.70 ± 2.84 vs. 4.92 ± 2.79%, P = .001). baPWV and FMD were significantly associated with declining nocturnal systolic blood pressure (SBP). Interestingly, FMD (β = 0.042, P = .014) was only positively associated with a drop in nocturnal SBP decline in patients <65 years of age. Whereas baPWV was consistently negatively associated with nocturnal SBP decline regardless of age (β = -0.065, P < .001, age <65 years; β = -0.149, P = .002, age ≥ 65). Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves analysis showed areas under the curve (AUC) of baPWV/FMD for predicting circadian rhythm of blood pressure are 0.562/0.554 with a sensitivity of 51.7%/53.9% and specificity of 56.4%/53.4. Conclusion Impairment of baPWV and FMD were correlated with abnormal circadian rhythm of blood pressure in essential hypertension, suggesting a decrease in nighttime SBP may associate with endothelial function and arterial stiffness.
Kirigami Makes a Soft Magnetic Sheet Crawl

Limbless crawling on land requires breaking symmetry of the friction with the ground and exploiting an actuation mechanism to generate propulsive forces. Here, kirigami cuts are introduced into a soft magnetic sheet that allow to achieve effective crawling of untethered soft robots upon application of a rotating magnetic field. Bidirectional locomotion is achieved under clockwise and counterclockwise rotating magnetic fields with distinct locomotion patterns and crawling speed in forward and backward propulsions. The crawling and deformation profiles of the robot are experimentally characterized and combined with detailed multiphysics numerical simulations to extract locomotion mechanisms in both directions. It is shown that by changing the shape of the cuts and orientation of the magnet the robot can be steered, and if combined with translational motion of the magnet, complex crawling paths are programed. The proposed magnetic kirigami robot offers a simple approach to developing untethered soft robots with programmable motion.
A sequential cohort study evaluating single‐agent KappaMab and KappaMab combined with lenalidomide and low‐dose dexamethasone in relapsed and/or refractory kappa light chain‐restricted multiple myeloma (AMaRC 01‐16)

KappaMab (KM; formerly MDX‐1097) is a monoclonal antibody specific for the kappa myeloma antigen (KMA), a cell‐surface antigen expressed on malignant plasma cells in kappa‐restricted multiple myeloma (κMM), some lymphomas, occasional tonsillar B cells and in vitro activated B cells, but not on normal B cells in bone marrow. Phase I/IIa studies of single‐agent KM confirmed a favourable toxicity profile and evidence of anti‐myeloma activity. Ex‐vivo studies demonstrating upregulation of KMA by lenalidomide, and enhanced effector‐cell cytotoxicity provided the rationale for this phase IIb study where KM or KM in combination with lenalidomide and dexamethasone (KM‐Rd) was administered in relapsed, refractory κMM patients. In addition, outcomes for a real‐world matched case–control cohort from the Australian and New Zealand Myeloma and Related Diseases Registry (MRDR) who received Rd were compared to the KM‐Rd cohort. KM‐Rd demonstrated an overall response rate of 82.5% which compared favourably to the Rd‐MRDR cohort of 45.1%. Both single‐agent KM and KM‐Rd regimens were well tolerated, with the KM‐Rd safety profile similar to patients given only Rd in other clinical settings. Based on the excellent safety profile and significant efficacy, further clinical trials escalating the KM dose and pairing KM with other standard‐of‐care treatments are planned.
Ultrasonographic monitoring of fetal eye growth parameters throughout gestation in the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus)

The common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) is considered an ideal species for developing genetically modified nonhuman primates (NHP) models of human disease, particularly eye disease. They have been proposed as a suitable bridge between rodents and other NHP models due to their similar ophthalmological features to humans. Prenatal ultrasonography is an accurate and reliable diagnostic tool for monitoring fetal development and congenital malformation. We monitored fetal eye growth and development using noninvasive ultrasonography in 40 heads of clinically normal fetuses during pregnancy to establish the criteria for studying congenital eye anomalies in marmosets. The coronal, sagittal, and transverse planes were useful to identify the facial structures for any associated abnormalities. For orbital measurements, biorbital distance (BOD), ocular diameter (OD), interorbital distance (IOD), and total axial length (TAL) were measured in the transverse plane and carefully identified for intraorbital structures. As a result, high correlations were observed between delivery‐based gestational age (GA) and biparietal diameter (BPD), BOD, OD, and TAL. The correlation assessments based on BOD provide more reliable results for monitoring eye growth and development in normal marmosets than any other parameters since BOD has the highest correlation coefficient according to both delivery‐based GA and BPD among ocular measurements. In conclusion, orbital measurements by prenatal ultrasonography provide reliable indicators of marmoset eye growth, and it could offer early diagnostic criteria to facilitate the development of eye disease models and novel therapies such as genome editing technologies in marmosets.
The Democratization of Hematology-Oncology Medical Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract Like many other aspects of hematology-oncology training, medical education experienced rapid changes throughout the COVID-19 pandemic that continue until today. We discuss some of the most transformative areas within medical education, including, but not limited to, educational philosophy; use of virtual resources; inter-institutional connections, shifts in clinical training; changes in recruitment practice; and attention to equity and diversity. Moreover, we add our own experiences to complement the limited literature addressing these topics. We conclude by highlighting some of the benefits of this unprecedented transformation in democratizing medical education that we hope endure beyond the pandemic.
Eigenfrequecy-based damage identification method for non-destructive testing based on topology optimization

ABSTRACT Non-destructive testing (NDT) detects damage according to a difference in a physical phenomenon between a normal structure and damaged structure. As a solution avoiding human errors in NDT, a numerical method based on a dynamical numerical analysis model and a structural optimization algorithm was proposed. This method automatically derives a structure with a response that is equal to that of a damaged structure through an optimization procedure. Among structural optimization methods, topology optimization can optimize the structure fundamentally by changing the topology and not just the shape of a structure. Thus, topology optimization is employed together with eigenfrequency analysis, which is the most fundamental methodology of NDT. The proposed method derives a structure that has the same eigenfrequencies as a damaged structure employing topology optimization. The shape and location of damage can be identified through the optimal shape obtained.
Microfluidic Capture of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from Clinical Samples for Culture-Free Whole-Genome Sequencing

Diagnosis of tuberculosis is effective using molecular methods; however, a comprehensive characterization of the resistance profile of Mycobacterium tuberculosis often requires culturing and phenotypic drug susceptibility testing or culturing followed by whole-genome sequencing (WGS). The phenotypic route can take anywhere from 1 to >3 months to result, by which point the patient may have acquired additional drug resistance. ABSTRACT Mycobacterium tuberculosis whole-genome sequencing (WGS) is a powerful tool as it can provide data on population diversity, drug resistance, disease transmission, and mixed infections. Successful WGS is still reliant on high concentrations of DNA obtained through M. tuberculosis culture. Microfluidics technology plays a valuable role in single-cell research but has not yet been assessed as a bacterial enrichment strategy for culture-free WGS of M. tuberculosis. In a proof-of-principle study, we evaluated the use of Capture-XT, a microfluidic lab-on-chip cleanup and pathogen concentration platform to enrich M. tuberculosis bacilli from clinical sputum specimens for downstream DNA extraction and WGS. Three of the four (75%) samples processed by the microfluidics application passed the library preparation quality control, compared to only one of the four (25%) samples not enriched by the microfluidics M. tuberculosis capture application. WGS data were of sufficient quality, with mapping depth of ≥25× and 9 to 27% of reads mapping to the reference genome. These results suggest that microfluidics-based M. tuberculosis cell capture might be a promising method for M. tuberculosis enrichment in clinical sputum samples, which could facilitate culture-free M. tuberculosis WGS. IMPORTANCE Diagnosis of tuberculosis is effective using molecular methods; however, a comprehensive characterization of the resistance profile of Mycobacterium tuberculosis often requires culturing and phenotypic drug susceptibility testing or culturing followed by whole-genome sequencing (WGS). The phenotypic route can take anywhere from 1 to >3 months to result, by which point the patient may have acquired additional drug resistance. The WGS route is a very attractive option; however, culturing is the rate-limiting step. In this original article, we provide proof-of-principle evidence that microfluidics-based cell capture can be used on high-bacillary-load clinical samples for culture-free WGS.
Postnatal expression of CD38 in astrocytes regulates synapse formation and adult social memory

Social behavior is essential for health, survival, and reproduction of animals; however, the role of astrocytes in social behavior remains largely unknown. The transmembrane protein CD38, which acts both as a receptor and ADP‐ribosyl cyclase to produce cyclic ADP–ribose (cADPR) regulates social behaviors by promoting oxytocin release from hypothalamic neurons. CD38 is also abundantly expressed in astrocytes in the postnatal brain and is important for astroglial development. Here, we demonstrate that the astroglial‐expressed CD38 plays an important role in social behavior during development. Selective deletion of CD38 in postnatal astrocytes, but not in adult astrocytes, impairs social memory without any other behavioral abnormalities. Morphological analysis shows that depletion of astroglial CD38 in the postnatal brain interferes with synapse formation in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and hippocampus. Moreover, astroglial CD38 expression promotes synaptogenesis of excitatory neurons by increasing the level of extracellular SPARCL1 (also known as Hevin), a synaptogenic protein. The release of SPARCL1 from astrocytes is regulated by CD38/cADPR/calcium signaling. These data demonstrate a novel developmental role of astrocytes in neural circuit formation and regulation of social behavior in adults.
ANALYSIS OF THE UPPER BOUND ON THE COMPLEXITY OF LLL ALGORITHM

We analyze the complexity of the LLL algorithm, invented by Lenstra, Lenstra, and Lovasz as a a well-known lattice reduction (LR) algorithm which is previously known as having the complexity of O(N 4 logB) multiplications (or, O(N 5 (logB) 2 ) bit operations) for a lattice basis matrix H(∈ R M×N ) where B is the maximum value among the squared norm of columns of H. This implies that the complexity of the lattice reduction algorithm depends only on the matrix size and the lattice basis norm. However, the matrix structures (i.e., the correlation among the columns) of a given lattice matrix, which is usually measured by its condition number or determinant, can affect the computational complexity of the LR algorithm. In this paper, to see how the matrix structures can affect the LLL algorithm’s complexity, we derive a more tight upper bound on the complexity of LLL algorithm in terms of the condition number and determinant of a given lattice matrix. We also analyze the complexities of the LLL updating/downdating schemes using the proposed upper bound.
Impact of combined transient plasma/heat loads on tungsten performance below and above recrystallization temperature

The influence of recrystallization on thermal shock resistance has been identified as an issue that may influence the long term performance of ITER tungsten (W) divertor components. To investigate this issue a unique series of experiments has been performed on ITER divertor W monoblock mock-ups in three EU high heat flux facilities: GLADIS (neutral beam), JUDITH 2 (electron beam) and Magnum-PSI (plasma beam). To simulate ITER mitigated edge localised modes, heat fluxes between 0.11 and 0.6 GW m−2 were applied for Δt < 1 ms. Two different base temperatures, Tbase = 1200 °C and 1500 °C, were chosen on which ~18 000/100 000 transient events were superimposed representing several full ITER burning plasma discharges in terms of number of transients and particle fluence. An increase in roughening for both e-beam and plasma loaded surfaces was observed when loading during or after recrystallization and when loading at higher temperature. However, regarding the formation of cracks and microstructural modifications the response was different for e-beam and plasma loaded surfaces. The samples loaded in Magnum-PSI did not crack nor show any sign of recrystallization, even at Tbase = 1500 °C. This could be a dynamic hydrogen flux effect, because pre-loading of samples with hydrogen neutrals (GLADIS) or without hydrogen (e-beam JUDITH 2) did not yield this result. These results show clearly that the loading method used when investigating and qualifying the thermal shock performance of materials for ITER and future fusion reactors can play an important role. This should be properly accounted for and in fact should be the subject of further R&D.
An Approach of Using Gabor Wavelets for Texture Feature Extraction

Gabor wavelets are one of the important approaches to texture feature extraction.Through the orthogonality of its base functions,the Gabor wavelets can not only extract texture features effectively,but also reduce redundancy.However,the texture feature vector computed from the Gabor wavelets has higher dimension.An approach using modified Gabor wavelets is presented in the paper.The approach uses the Gabor wavelets to compute energy of different scales and different directions,and the dominant peak set.Then the texture feature vector is computed from the dominant peak set.Furthermore,standardized energy is introduced into similarity measure as weights.Experiments show that the system that uses the modified Gabor wavelets has about the same retrieval performance as that uses the Gabor wavelets.However,the dimension of the texture feature vector of the former is only 6.1% of that of the latter.
Mode‐independent H∞ filtering for discrete‐time Markov jump linear system with parametric uncertainties and quantized measurements

This paper is concerned with the problem of H∞ filtering for discrete‐time Markov jump linear system with parametric uncertainties and quantized measurements, when the jumping mode information is not accessible. By converting the quantized errors into a sector‐bounded nonlinearity, the parametric uncertainties and measurements quantization are dealt with in a unified framework. The mode‐independent H∞ filter is designed, and sufficient conditions are established via Lyapunov function approach, such that for all possible uncertain parameters and quantization errors, the resulting filtering error system is robustly stochastically stable and achieves a guaranteed H∞ filtering error performance index. A numerical example is provided to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Statistical inference for α-series process with gamma distribution

ABSTRACT The explicit estimators of the parameters α, μ and σ2 are obtained by using the methodology known as modified maximum likelihood (MML) when the distribution of the first occurrence time of an event is assumed to be Weibull in series process. The efficiencies of the MML estimators are compared with the corresponding nonparametric (NP) estimators and it is shown that the proposed estimators have higher efficiencies than the NP estimators. In this study, we extend these results to the case, where the distribution of the first occurrence time is Gamma. It is another widely used and well-known distribution in reliability analysis. A real data set taken from the literature is analyzed at the end of the study for better understanding the methodology presented in this paper.
Visual Observation of Abdominal Adhesion Progression Based on an Optimized Mouse Model of Postoperative Abdominal Adhesions

Abstract Background: There is no clear description of the evolution of the progression of abdominal adhesions over time. Method: The optimized model was selected using different adhesion scoring systems. Then, this model was used to observe the progression of abdominal adhesions. Visualized observation of abdominal adhesion evolution was performed by laparoscopy and computed tomography. The inflammatory cell infiltration and collagen fibers in adhesion tissues at different times were evaluated by hematoxylin-eosin and picrosirius red staining. RNA sequencing was used to predict potential key targets of abdominal adhesions at different times. Results: The abdominal adhesion model showed the highest reproducibility when it was established using a circular tool and an electric brush. Based on this model, we found that the inflammatory response was activated early in the process of adhesion formation, peaking on day 3 and then gradually decreasing until stabilization on day 7. Collagen and fibronectin formed on day 1 and gradually increased until remaining stable on day 7. In addition, the characteristic changes in the adhesion zone from initial congestion, edema and fragile tissue to later dense and stable tissue could be vividly observed in live mice by laparoscopy and artificial pneumoperitoneum CT. The RNA sequencing results revealed that Hck on day 1, Ndufs3 and Ndufs8 on day 3 and Aif1 on day 7 might play key roles in abdominal adhesion formation. Conclusion: The construction of a standard process for describing the evolution of abdominal adhesions based on an optimized mouse model will help to facilitate subsequent adhesion-related studies.
SOFIA design history

SOFIA has reached in the last two years its full operational capabilities and is producing now great science on typically three observing flights per week. The telescope is the backbone of the observatory and is working nearly perfectly. This may be the right time to have a look on the design history of the telescope and some of the major subsystems, which ensure the functionality under the harsh aero-acoustic environment inside the aircraft cavity. A comparison with SOFIA’s predecessor KAO gives insight in to the challenges of airborne telescope design. The paper describes the development of the optical subsystem, the telescopes structure, the telescope mount and the interface to the aircraft from the conceptual design up to the finally as-built telescope, and comments on their influence on the overall observatory performance.
Does Athlete Status Explain Sexual Violence Victimization and Perpetration on College Campuses? A Socio-Ecological Study

In the United States, college students have been identified as a high-risk group for sexual violence (SV) victimization and perpetration, with one in three women and one in four men experiencing SV in their lifetimes. Therefore, studies investigating both perpetration and victimization across genders are pertinent. Additionally, in the context of higher education, athletics is often viewed as a high-risk environment for SV. Despite established relationships between SV and intercollegiate athletics, research on this topic is not conclusive due to the heterogeneous nature of college sports, as well as a dearth of research on recreational athletes. The primary purpose of this study was to examine the differences in SV victimization and perpetration among intercollegiate, recreational, and non-athlete populations. Additional context was provided by exploring variables at multiple levels of the socio-ecological model for violence prevention, as these factors can be important aspects of a person’s development and may inform behavior. Utilizing a sample of 62,996 students from 199 institutions of higher education in the United States, multilevel logistic regression analyses were conducted to assess individual- (i.e., personal demographics), relationship- (i.e., athlete status), and community-level (i.e., institutional characteristics) predictors of SV victimization and perpetration. The results indicated that recreational athletes are the most at-risk group, experiencing and perpetrating SV at higher rates than non-athletes. Results on institutional status and individual characteristics, as well as implications for practitioners and future research is discussed.
Trismus due to myotonia associated with hyperadrenocorticism in a dog

We present the report of trismus due to hyperadrenocorticism-associated myotonia diagnosed by electromyography in a dog. An intact female Miniature Dachshund, 13 years and 9 months old, presented with stiff gait and trismus as well as polyuria and polydipsia. Abdominal ultrasonography showed enlarged adrenal glands. An adrenocorticotropic hormone stimulation test revealed an exaggerated response. Based on these findings, this case was diagnosed with hyperadrenocorticism. Electromyography revealed myotonic discharge in the temporalis muscle and limbs. Therefore, trismus was considered to be caused by hyperadrenocorticism-associated myotonia, and the case was treated with oral trilostane (1.3 mg/kg, once daily). During the 4-month follow-up period, despite the partial improvement in stiff gait, trismus did not recover. Long-term data on more cases are warranted to assess the prognosis and clinical characteristics of trismus due to hyperadrenocorticism-associated myotonia.