Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Nanocomposites of Nitrogen-Doped Graphene Oxide and Manganese Oxide for Photodynamic Therapy and Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide. Conventional methods of cancer treatment, including chemotherapy and radiotherapy, are associated with multiple side effects. Recently, photodynamic therapy (PDT) has emerged as an effective therapeutic modality for cancer treatment without adversely affecting normal tissue. In this study, we synthesized nitrogen doped graphene (NDG) and conjugated it with Mn3O4 nanoparticles to produce NDG-Mn3O4 nanocomposite with the aim of testing its bimodal performance including PDT and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We did not use any linker or binder for conjugation between NDG and Mn3O4, rather they were anchored by a milling process. The results of cell viability analysis showed that NDG-Mn3O4 nanocomposites caused significant cell death under laser irradiation, while control and Mn3O4 nanoparticles showed negligible cell death. We observed increased generation of singlet oxygen after exposure of NDG-Mn3O4 nanocomposites, which was directly proportional to the duration of laser irradiation. The results of MRI showed concentration dependent enhancement of signal intensity with an increasing concentration of NDG-Mn3O4 nanocomposites. In conclusion, NDG-Mn3O4 nanocomposites did not cause any cytotoxicity under physiological conditions. However, they produced significant and dose-dependent cytotoxicity in cancer cells after laser irradiation. NDG-Mn3O4 nanocomposites also exhibited concentration-dependent MRI contrast property, suggesting their possible application for cancer imaging. Further studies are warranted to test the theranostic potential of NDG-Mn3O4 nanocomposites using animal models of cancer.
Attribute-based Maturity Grading of Mango Fruit by Machine Learning

Accurate and reliable fruit grading contributes to India’s economic prosperity. Classification and grading are needed before marketing agricultural products. The color, size, shape, and texture of a fruit, as well as its overall look, frequently characterize its quality. Fruit choosing should not be done solely on appearance. Ripeness is largely judged by internal fruit attributes, such as sweetness and acidity. According to studies, a fruit’s maturity is often appraised by an image that depicts its stage. Observing fruits of the same color at different stages of maturation makes determining ripeness difficult. The studied data, which includes qualities with yellow skin pigmentation at all stages of development, is collected from the mango fruit dataset “Nam Dok Mai Si Tong” to address this issue. This study suggests using indicators like Total Soluble Solids (TSS), Titrable Acidity (TA), and BrimA to define mango fruit development according to ripeness for a certain type. Metrics and ten-fold cross-validation is used to analyze ML models. The decision tree classifier has the highest accuracy (91.9% on average) for both unripe and ripe classifications compared to state-of-the-art, according to trial findings.
Female Adolescent Athletes’ Experiences of Body Dissatisfaction Across Individual and Team Sports

There is an abundance of research explaining the physical and psychological benefits of sport and exercise. Some research suggests sport and exercise may act as a protective factor against body dissatisfaction for adolescent females (Fernández-Bustos et al., 2019; Soulliard et al. 2019). However, it is unclear if adolescent females’ experiences in specific sport settings contribute to perceptions about their bodies. Therefore, this study investigated body perception and its sociocultural influences in adolescent females in team sports versus adolescent females in individual sports. Three focus groups of team sport athletes and two focus groups of individual sport athletes, ages 14-16 years, were conducted. The following four core themes were identified around influences and messaging in sport related to the athletes’ bodies: relationships among teammates and coaches, self-concept, functionality, and social influence. Based on these themes, the findings indicate adolescent female athletes may view sport as a helpful tool to reduce or counteract body dissatisfaction, particularly in team sport athletes. However, sport may not entirely reduce the negative impact from normative and potentially harmful messages surrounding body weight and image, both of which are pervasive in society, the media, and relationships with influential individuals, such as friends, family, and coaches.
Piecewise linear approximation applied to nonlinear function of a neural network

An efficient piecewise linear approximation of a nonlinear function (PLAN) is proposed. This uses a simple digital gate design to perform a direct transformation from X to Y, where X is the input and Y is the approximated sigmoidal output. This PLAN is then used within the outputs of an artificial neural network to perform the nonlinear approximation. The comparison of this technique with two other sigmoidal approximation techniques for digital circuits is presented and the results show that the fast and compact digital circuit proposed produces the closest approximation to the sigmoid function. The hardware implementation of PLAN has been verified by a VHDL simulation with Mentor Graphics running under the UNIX operating system.
RAFF-UNet: an improved U-Net architecture for semantic segmentation of retinal vascular image

The problem of poor segmentation of diabetic retinal vascular images has always existed. In this paper, we propose an improved U-Net architecture RAFF-UNet to address it. In the U-Net encoding module, we innovatively use RAFF attention module before down-sampling. Based on the retinal vascular segmentation dataset made by Baidu PaddlePaddle AI STUDIO, the experimental results show that compared with U-Net and Attention-UNet, the MIoU index of RAFFUNet is increased by 0.94% and 1.33% respectively, and Acc index is improved.
Towards x-ray differential phase contrast imaging on a compact setup

A new imaging setup, aimed to perform differential X-ray phase contrast (DPC) imaging with a Talbot interferometer on a microfocus X-ray tube, is demonstrated. The main features compared to recently proposed setups are an extremely short source to detector distance, high spatial resolution and a large field of view. The setup is designed for an immediate integration into a industrial micro CT scanner. In this paper, technical challenges of a compact setup, namely the critical source coherence and divergence, are discussed. A theoretical analysis using wave optics based computer simulations is performed to estimate the DPC signal visibility and the size of the field of view for a given setup geometry. The maximization of the signal visibility as a function of the inter-grating distance yields the optimal grating parameters. Imaging results using the optimized grating parameters are presented. The reduction of the field of view, being a consequence of the high beam divergence, was solved by fabricating new, cylindrically bent diffraction gratings. The fabrication process of these gratings required a change of the currently used wafer materials and an adaption of the manufacturing techniques. The implementation of the new setup represents a major step forward for the industrial application of the DPC technique.
EXTRACTION AND QUANTIFICATION OF L-ARGINASE PRODUCED BY ALCALIGENES FAECALIS

L-arginase is one of the enzymes that have been used as therapy for cancer treatment. L-arginase catabolise L-arginine and reduce tumour growth by making them susceptible to other anti-cancer drugs. Previous works have focused on the use of radiotherapy and chemotherapy for the treatment of metastatic cells. However, both radiotherapy and chemotherapy have been reported to have severe side effects. This necessitates the development of other agents such as enzymes with minimal side effects. This study therefore examined the production of L-arginase and determination of the optimum fermentation conditions. Isolated bacteria were screened using rapid plate assay in order to determine their ability to produce L-arginase. Medium component includes L-arginine and relevant salts. Enzyme activity was determined using calorimetric assay. The promising isolate was selected and primed for identification using molecular technique. The highest zone of colour change was produced by Alcaligenes faecalis. The optimum incubation period was 60 hours. Optimum agitation rate was 150 revolution per minute. Enzyme yield was 163±0.78 U/mL when optimum fermentation conditions were used for enzyme production. The molecular weight of L-arginase determined was 120 kilodalton. Alcaligenes faecalis isolated during this work can be taken as a promising isolate for the large-scale production of L-arginase. There should be further search for other microorganisms with the potential to produce other industrially important enzymes.
Gender, entrepreneurship, and coping with the COVID‐19 pandemic: The case of GoFood merchants in Indonesia

Abstract This paper examines business performance and crisis‐mitigation strategies among micro, small, and medium‐sized enterprises (MSMEs) in Indonesia during the COVID‐19 pandemic. We utilise a new primary dataset based on administrative records, survey data, and follow‐up interviews with merchants using the digital application GoFood, an on‐demand cooked food delivery service. Three empirical findings emerge: first, the overall employment size of women‐owned businesses shrank more than men‐owned businesses after the onset of the pandemic; second, women were more likely than men to cut personal expenditures and use government assistance as crisis‐mitigation strategies; and third, competition increased sharply as new merchants entered the platform, with the service areas of both incumbents and entrants shrinking over time. These results have implications for policies on womenʼs entrepreneurship, the uptake of business development services, and financing programs for MSMEs.
Evaluation of the Simultaneous Effects of Lactobacillus delbrueckii and Lactobacillus lactis on Biofilms of Isolates from Chronic Ulcer Infections with Multiple-drug Resistance

Background: Bacterial biofilm is a major barrier to chronic wound healing. Therefore, the prevention of biofilm formation has an effective role in accelerating the healing of these wounds. Today, probiotics' anti-biofilm and antibacterial activity have been proven, and bacteriotherapy by probiotics is a new strategy for treating chronic ulcer infections. Objectives: The present study aimed to investigate the synergistic effects of Lactobacillus delbrueckii and L. lactis on biofilms of bacterial agents isolated from these ulcers in the human plasma biofilm model (hpBIOM). Methods: This study examined 82 specimens of chronic ulcer biofilms and identified bacterial isolates using phenotypic and molecular methods. After preparing the hpBIOM, 50 µL of each probiotic (109 CFU/mL) was added in two doses separately and simultaneously. After 24 hours, 1 mL of bromelain (0.1 g/mL) was added to the complex and incubated at 37°C for two hours. Then, the surviving bacterial cells were counted by serial dilutions. Results: Among 119 bacterial isolates, Staphylococcus aureus (19%), Escherichia coli (17.0%), and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (14%) were the most common bacterial isolates. Lactobacillus delbrueckii showed anti-biofilm activity against multiple-drug resistance pathogens, Staphylococcus, P. aeruginosa, and K. pneumoniae. Although L. lactis had anti-biofilm activity against these three pathogens, its effect was less than that of L. delbrueckii. The two probiotics did not have any synergistic effect on the biofilms of the isolates. Conclusions: The results of the present study emphasized the potential of probiotics in destroying biofilms of isolates with multiple-drug resistance; however, their simultaneous use for this purpose requires further investigation.
A novel deep domain adaptation method for automated detection of sleep apnea/hypopnea events

Objective. Sleep apnea–hypopnea syndrome (SAHS) is a common sleep-related respiratory disorder that is generally assessed for severity using polysomnography (PSG); however, the diversity of sampling devices and patients makes this not only costly but may also degrade the performance of the algorithms. Approach. This paper proposes a novel deep domain adaptation module which uses a long short-term memory–convolutional neural network embedded with the channel attention mechanism to achieve autonomous extraction of high-quality features. Meanwhile, a domain adaptation module was built to achieve domain-invariant feature extraction for reducing the differences in data distribution caused by different devices and other factors. In addition, during the training process, the algorithm used the last second label as the label of the PSG segment, so that second-by-second evaluation of respiratory events could be achieved. Main results. The algorithm applied the two datasets provided by PhysioNet as the source and target domains. The accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of the algorithm on the source domain were 86.46%, 86.11% and 93.17%, respectively, and on the target domain were 83.63%, 82.52%, 91.62%, respectively. The proposed algorithm showed strong generalization ability and the classification results were comparable to the current advanced methods. Besides, the apnea–hypopnea index values estimated by the proposed algorithm showed a high correlation with the manual scoring values on both domains. Significance. The proposed algorithm can effectively perform SAHS detection and evaluation with certain generalization.
Enhanced sulfur in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere in spring 2020

Abstract. Sulfur compounds in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS) impact the atmosphere radiation budget, either directly as particles or indirectly as precursor gas for new particle formation. In situ measurements in the UTLS are rare but are important to better understand the impact of the sulfur budget on climate. The BLUESKY mission in May and June 2020 explored an unprecedented situation. (1) The UTLS experienced extraordinary dry conditions in spring 2020 over Europe, in comparison to previous years, and (2) the first lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic caused major emission reductions from industry, ground, and airborne transportation. With the two research aircraft HALO and Falcon, 20 flights were conducted over central Europe and the North Atlantic to investigate the atmospheric composition with respect to trace gases, aerosol, and clouds. Here, we focus on measurements of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and particulate sulfate (SO42-) in the altitude range of 8 to 14.5 km which show unexpectedly enhanced mixing ratios of SO2 in the upper troposphere and of SO42- in the lowermost stratosphere. In the UT, we find SO2 mixing ratios of (0.07±0.01) ppb, caused by the remaining air traffic, and reduced SO2 sinks due to low OH and low cloud fractions and to a minor extent by uplift from boundary layer sources. Particulate sulfate showed elevated mixing ratios of up to 0.33 ppb in the LS. We suggest that the eruption of the volcano Raikoke in June 2019, which emitted about 1 Tg SO2 into the stratosphere in northern midlatitudes, caused these enhancements, in addition to Siberian and Canadian wildfires and other minor volcanic eruptions. Our measurements can help to test models and lead to new insights in the distribution of sulfur compounds in the UTLS, their sources, and sinks. Moreover, these results can contribute to improving simulations of the radiation budget in the UTLS with respect to sulfur effects.
GREEN BIOSYNTHESIS OF SILVER NANOPARTICLES (AgNPs) FROM Vitex negundo PLANT EXTRACT AND ITS PHYTOCHEMICAL SCREENING AND ANTIMICROBIAL ASSESSMENT NEXT TO PATHOGENIC MICROBES

In the present study, green synthesis of silver-nanoparticle (AgNPs) is demonstrated using plant extract of Vitex negundo. Plant extract through six different solvents, including petroleum ether, benzene, chloroform, acetone, methanol, and water, was prepared and further investigated for its antimicrobial and antifungal activities using different bacterial and fungal strains. The phytochemical analysis was performed, where saponins, tannins, steroids, flavonoids and glycosides were detected in acetone, chloroform and methanolic extract. Subsequent analysis of synthesized AgNPs through dynamic light scattering suggested that particle sizes were 10-300 nm in size. The study indicated that the chloroform, acetone, and methanol extracts of Vitex negundo showed good inhibitory activity against Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Bacillus subtilis based on the zone of inhibition. The antimicrobial activity of the synthesized AgNPs suggested that it can inhibit the growth of both gram +ve and gram -ve microorganisms. The MIC value of AgNPs of methanolic extract of V. negundo detected was 0.078 mg/mL, which was relatively lower than that of the MIC value of its crude extract (1.25mg/mL). The observed MIC values concluded that the synthesized AgNPs had better antimicrobial activity and could be necessary for various applications, including medicine, biology, and industry.
An alternate numerical solution to the linear quadratic problem

This note proposes a new method, based on convex programming, for solving the linear quadratic problem (LQP) directly on the parameter space generated by the feedback control gain. All stabilizing controllers are mapped into a convex set; the problem is then formulated as a minimization of a linear function over this convex set. Its optimal solution furnishes, under certain conditions, the same feedback control gain obtained from the classical Riccati equation. Generalizations to decentralized control and output feedback control design are included. The theory is illustrated by some numerical examples. >
Generation of THz repetition rate signals by nonlinear interaction of two femtosecond pulses

The method of optical signal generation with repetition rate frequency of about 30-50 THz based on interaction of two femtosecond laser pulses propagating collinearly in transparent nonlinear media with different group velocities is presented. It was shown that for high input pulses intensities their interaction may result in formation of quasi-discrete spectrum with temporal structure consisting of many ultrashort pulses of near rectangular shape. It was demonstrated that generated sequence could be used in information technologies.
Positivity of the generalized translation associated with the q-Hankel transform and applications

A new formulation of the Graf-type addition formula related to the third Jackson q-Bessel function gives a solution for the problem of the positivity of the generalized q-translation operator associated with the q-Hankel transform. Next some applications in q-theory are treated, for instance the relationship between the q-Bessel- positive and negative-definite functions. We also show how the positivity of the q-Bessel translation operator plays a central role in q-Fourier analysis, namely in the study of Markov operators in the q-context. The paper concludes with the nonnegative product linearization of the q−2-Lommel polynomials.
TRPV4 Promotes Metastasis in Melanoma by Regulating Cell Motility through Cytoskeletal Rearrangement

The abnormal expression of Transient Receptor Potential cation channel subfamily V member 4 (TRPV4) is closely related to the progression of multiple tumors. In addition, TRPV4 is increasingly being considered a potential target for cancer therapy, especially in tumor metastasis prevention. However, the biological correlation between TRPV4 and tumor metastasis, as well as the specific role of TRPV4 in malignant melanoma metastasis, is poorly understood. In this study, we aimed to examine the role of TRPV4 in melanoma metastasis through experiments and clinical data analysis, and the underlying anticancer mechanism of Baicalin, a natural compound, and its inhibitory effect on TRPV4 with in vivo and in vitro experiments. Our findings suggested that TRPV4 promotes metastasis in melanoma by regulating cell motility via rearranging the cytoskeletal, and Baicalin can inhibit cancer metastasis, whose mechanisms reverse the recruitment of activated cofilin to leading-edge protrusion and the increasing phosphorylation level of cortactin, which is provoked by TRPV4 activation.
Spatial-Angular Versatile Convolution for Light Field Reconstruction

Spatial-angular separable convolution (SAS-conv) has been widely used for efficient and effective 4D light field (LF) feature embedding in different tasks, which mimics a 4D convolution by alternatively operating on 2D spatial slices and 2D angular slices. In this paper, we argue that, despite its global intensity modeling capabilities, SAS-conv can only embed local geometry information into the features, resulting in inferior performances in the regions with textures and occlusions. Because the epipolar lines are highly related to the scene depth, we introduce the concept of spatial-angular correlated convolution (SAC-conv). By alternating 2D convolutions on the vertical and horizontal epipolar slices, SAC-conv can embed global and robust geometry information into the features. We verify that SAS-conv and SAC-conv are skilled at different aspects of 4D LF feature embedding through a detailed feature and error analysis. Based on their complementarity, we further combine SAS-conv and SAC-conv by a parallel residual connection, forming a new spatial-angular versatile convolution (SAV-conv) module. We conduct comprehensive experiments on two representative LF reconstruction tasks, i.e., LF angular super-resolution and LF spatial super-resolution. Both the quantitative and qualitative results demonstrate that, without any extra parameters, networks upgraded with our proposed SAV-conv notably outperform those upgraded with SAS-conv and achieve a new state-of-the-art performance.
A new technique for the analysis of the dispersion characteristics of planar waveguides

An efficient method for calculating the dispersion characteristics of planar waveguide structures is presented, of which the principle is known as the ‘method of lines’ in mathematical literature. The wave equation is discretized in only one direction, and the resulting differential-difference equation can be solved analytically. As an example of application the phase constant and the characteristic impedance of microstrips with tuning septums are calculated.
Autonomic Nervous System Monitoring: Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging Data as a Surrogate for Autonomic Data in Children

Perioperative autonomic nervous system (ANS) measurements are evolving toward increasing import and utility. We present a three-year-old male with Down Syndrome who underwent ambulatory autonomic monitoring during surgery followed by cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging. Autonomic data from both environments are compared to age-related norms. We are the first to describe a method for acquiring and trending autonomic data from clinically indicated CMR scans in order to monitor autonomic function. These data are proof of concept for the use of routinely collected CMR data as a surrogate for autonomic data in children, noting differences in the autonomic effects of anesthetic techniques.