Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bi-LSTM-CRF Network for Clinical Event Extraction With Medical Knowledge Features

Extracting clinical event expressions and their types from clinical text is a fundamental task for many applications in clinical NLP. State-of-the-art systems need handcraft features and do not take into account the representation of the low-frequency words. To address these issues, a Bi-LSTM-CRF neural network architecture based on medical knowledge features is proposed. First, we employ convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to encode character-level information of a word and extract medical knowledge features from an open-source clinical knowledge system. Then, we concatenate character-level and word-level embedding and the medical knowledge features of words together, and feed them into bi-directional long short-term memory (Bi-LSTM) to build context information of each word. Finally, we jointly use a conditional random field (CRF) to decode labels for the whole sentence. We evaluate our model on two publicly available clinical datasets, namely THYME corpus and 2012 i2b2 dataset. Experimental results show that our model outperforms previous state-of-the-art systems with different methodologies, including machine learning-based methods, deep learning-based methods, and Bert-based methods.
The Effect of Lumbar Belts with Different Extensibilities on Kinematic, Kinetic, and Muscle Activity of Sit-to-Stand Motions in Patients with Nonspecific Low Back Pain

Although lumbar belts can be used for the treatment and prevention of low back pain, the role of the lumbar belt remains unclear without clear guidelines. This study aimed to investigate the effect of lumbar belts with different extensibilities on the kinematics, kinetics, and muscle activity of sit-to-stand motions in terms of motor control in patients with nonspecific low back pain. A total of 30 subjects participated in the study: 15 patients with nonspecific low back pain and 15 healthy adults. Participants performed the sit-to-stand motion in random order of three conditions: no lumbar belt, wearing an extensible lumbar belt, and wearing a non-extensible lumbar belt. The sit-to-stand motion’s kinematic, kinetic, and muscle activity variables in each condition were measured using a three-dimensional motion analysis device, force plate, and surface electromyography. An interaction effect was found for the time taken, anterior pelvic tilt angle, and muscle activity of the vastus lateralis and biceps femoris. The two lumbar belts with different extensibilities had a positive effect on motor control in patients with nonspecific low back pain. Therefore, both types of extensible lumbar belts can be useful in the sit-to-stand motion, which is an important functional activity for patients with nonspecific low back pain.
3D-printed flexible anode for high-performance zinc ion battery

Three-dimensional (3D) printed battery has received an increasing attention for creating structures with enhanced performance. Zinc ion battery (ZIB) is a promising energy storage system due to its high safety, low cost, and high volumetric capacity; however, the rapid evaporation of Zn has limited its 3D printability. Here, we develop a unique 3D-printed flexible ZIB with an engineered surface area of Zn anode using direct ink writing. The 3D-printed Zn anodes effectively suppress the dendrite growth while providing high Zn-ion diffusion resulting in the high specific capacity of 650 mAh/g at 0.2 A/g and long-term cyclic stability. Graphical abstract
Neutrino oscillations

In the last decades, a very important breakthrough has been brought in the elementary particle physics by the discovery of the phenomenon of the neutrino oscillations, which has shown neutrino properties beyond the Standard Model. But a full understanding of the various aspects of the neutrino oscillations is far to be achieved. In this paper the theoretical background of the neutrino oscillation phenomenon is described, referring in particular to the paradigmatic models. Then the various techniques and detectors which studied neutrinos from different sources are discussed, starting from the pioneering ones up to the detectors still in operation and to those in preparation. The physics results are finally presented adopting the same research path which has crossed this long saga. The problems not yet fixed in this field are discussed, together with the perspectives of their solutions in the near future.
Securing Microservices Against Password Guess Attacks using Hardware Performance Counters

Modern customer-facing applications need to be easy to use, localizable, and to scale out to serve large customer bases. Microservice architectures have the potential to decentralize functionality, improve flexibility, and provide faster time to market of incremental changes. However, applications implemented as microservices also have a larger surface area, which may make them more prone to cyber attacks. Modern operating systems provide performance counters which are tamper-resistant, and can be used to track the run-time behavior of applications. In this work, we aim to detect a password guess attack on microservice using performance counter data. Our approach consists of modelling behavior of normal and attack user login requests, identification of key performance counters that effectively distinguish these requests and developing a machine learning model that classifies unknown login requests. A fully connected neural network-based classification model gave us 98.3% test accuracy in detecting the attacks with a false negative rate of 1.6%.
A Renormalisation-Group Algorithm for Eigenvalue Density Functions of Interacting Quantum Systems

We present a certifiable algorithm to calculate the eigenvalue density function -- the number of eigenvalues within an infinitesimal interval -- for an arbitrary 1D interacting quantum spin system. Our method provides an arbitrarily accurate numerical representation for the smeared eigenvalue density function, which is the convolution of the eigenvalue density function with a gaussian of prespecified width. In addition, with our algorithm it is possible to investigate the density of states near the ground state. This can be used to numerically determine the size of the ground-state energy gap for the system to within a prespecified confidence interval. Our method exploits a finitely correlated state/matrix product state representation of the propagator and applies equally to disordered and critical interacting 1D quantum spin systems. We illustrate our method by calculating an approximation to the eigenvalue density function for a random antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model.
One-dimensional quantum liquids: Beyond the Luttinger liquid paradigm

For many years, the Luttinger liquid theory has served as a useful paradigm for the description of one-dimensional (1D) quantum fluids in the limit of low energies. This theory is based on a linearization of the dispersion relation of the particles constituting the fluid. We review the recent progress in understanding 1D quantum fluids beyond the low-energy limit, where the nonlinearity of the dispersion relation becomes essential. The novel methods which have been developed to tackle such systems combine phenomenology built on the ideas of the Fermi edge singularity and the Fermi liquid theory, perturbation theory in the interaction strength, and a new way of treating finite-size integrable models. These methods can be applied to a wide variety of 1D fluids, from 1D spin liquids to electrons in quantum wires to cold atoms confined to a 1D trap. We review existing results for various dynamic correlation functions, in particular the density structure factor and the spectral function. Moreover, we show how a dispersion nonlinearity leads to finite particle lifetimes, and discuss its impact on the transport properties of 1D systems at finite temperatures. The conventional Luttinger liquid theory is a special limit of the new theory, and we explain the relation between the two.
Biomimetic Targeted Theranostic Nanoparticles for Breast Cancer Treatment

The development of biomimetic drug delivery systems for biomedical applications has attracted significant research attention. As the use of cell membrane as a surface coating has shown to be a promising platform for several disease treatments. Cell-membrane-coated nanoparticles exhibit enhanced immunocompatibility and prolonged circulation time. Herein, human red blood cell (RBC) membrane-cloaked nanoparticles with enhanced targeting functionality were designed as a targeted nanotheranostic against cancer. Naturally, derived human RBC membrane modified with targeting ligands coated onto polymeric nanoparticle cores containing both chemotherapy and imaging agent. Using epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM)-positive MCF-7 breast cancer cells as a disease model, the nature-inspired targeted theranostic human red blood cell membrane-coated polymeric nanoparticles (TT-RBC-NPs) platform was capable of not only specifically binding to targeted cancer cells, effectively delivering doxorubicin (DOX), but also visualizing the targeted cancer cells. The TT-RBC-NPs achieved an extended-release profile, with the majority of the drug release occurring within 5 days. The TT-RBC-NPs enabled enhanced cytotoxic efficacy against EpCAM positive MCF-7 breast cancer over the non-targeted NPs. Additionally, fluorescence images of the targeted cancer cells incubated with the TT-RBC-NPs visually indicated the increased cellular uptake of TT-RBC-NPs inside the breast cancer cells. Taken together, this TT-RBC-NP platform sets the foundation for the next-generation stealth theranostic platforms for systemic cargo delivery for treatment and diagnostic of cancer.
Homozygous CRISPR/Cas9 Knockout Generated a Novel Functionally Active Exon 1 Skipping XPA Variant in Melanoma Cells

Defects in DNA repair pathways have been associated with an improved response to immune checkpoint inhibition (ICI). In particular, patients with the nucleotide excision repair (NER) defect disease Xeroderma pigmentosum (XP) responded impressively well to ICI treatment. Recently, in melanoma patients, pretherapeutic XP gene expression was predictive for anti-programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) ICI response. The underlying mechanisms of this finding are still to be revealed. Therefore, we used CRISPR/Cas9 to disrupt XPA in A375 melanoma cells. The resulting subclonal cell lines were investigated by Sanger sequencing. Based on their genetic sequence, candidates from XPA exon 1 and 2 were selected and further analyzed by immunoblotting, immunofluorescence, HCR and MTT assays. In XPA exon 1, we established a homozygous (c.19delG; p.A7Lfs*8) and a compound heterozygous (c.19delG/c.19_20insG; p.A7Lfs*8/p.A7Gfs*55) cell line. In XPA exon 2, we generated a compound heterozygous mutated cell line (c.206_208delTTG/c.208_209delGA; p.I69_D70delinsN/p.D70Hfs*31). The better performance of the homozygous than the heterozygous mutated exon 1 cells in DNA damage repair (HCR) and post-UV-C cell survival (MTT), was associated with the expression of a novel XPA protein variant. The results of our study serve as the fundamental basis for the investigation of the immunological consequences of XPA disruption in melanoma.
Estimation of Digital Transformation in South Asian Economies: An Application of Broad-Spectrum Approach

The study aims to estimate the status of digital transformation (DT) in developing economies. Since there has been a gap in the measurement of digital transformation, this study will help in improving the economic performances of SAARC countries in the future. Herein, a study of the rankings of Digital transformation is being presented by the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation SAARC (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, the Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) using a set of indicators under the prevailing scenarios of digital transformation. Composite digital transformation indicators can primarily be grouped into three dimensions: the financial sector digital transformation, industrial sector digital transformation, and services sector digital transformation. Each identified indicator happens to be independent of the other, which could be easily used to put value (individual) based on accurate statistics coupled with the available observation for each country by using PCA (Principal of Component Analysis). The exercise brought about the results that showed that Bangladesh stands at the top of being the most DT country insofar as SAARC nations are being considered. Subsequently, Bangladesh is followed by Sri Lanka. The Maldives has been found to be at the lowest echelon of digital transformation. However, other countries of the SAARC region have been found to lie in the middle of this research’s spectrum. India and Pakistan have consistently been at the centre slot after considering the results of all four scenarios. This framework provides new vistas of opportunities for the policymakers to put their might regarding digital transformation to good use with a view to bringing other regions up insofar as digital transformation is considered.
HIGH-RESOLUTION IMAGING OF THE GEGENSCHEIN AND THE GEOMETRIC ALBEDO OF INTERPLANETARY DUST

We performed optical observations of the Gegenschein using a liquid-nitrogen-cooled wide-field camera, the Wide-field Imager of Zodiacal light with ARray Detector (WIZARD), between 2003 March and 2006 November. We found a narrow brightness enhancement superimposed on the smooth gradient of the Gegenschein at the exact position of the antisolar point. Whereas the Gegenschein morphology changed according to the orbital motion of the Earth, the maximum brightness coincided with the antisolar direction throughout the year. We compared the observed morphology of the Gegenschein with those of models in which the spatial density of the interplanetary dust cloud was considered and found that the volume scattering phase function had a narrow backscattering enhancement. The morphology was reproducible with a spatial distribution model for infrared zodiacal emission. It is likely that the zero-phase peak (the so-called opposition effect) was caused by coherent backscattering and/or shadow-hiding effects on the rough surfaces of individual dust particles. These results suggest that big particles are responsible for both zodiacal light and zodiacal emission. Finally, we derived the geometric albedo of the smooth component of interplanetary dust, assuming big particles, and obtained a geometric albedo of 0.06 ± 0.01. The derived albedo is in accordance with collected dark micrometeorites and observed cometary dust particles. We concluded that chondritic particles are dominant near Earth space, supporting the recent theoretical study by dynamical simulation.
Analysis of surface code under the restricted number of CNOT gates

To date, the surface code has become a promising candidate for quantum error correcting codes because of its high threshold, nearest gate operations and low weight stabilizers. Here, we assume that the number of CNOT gates is restricted because of the quantum crosstalk due to residual inter-qubit coupling or max channels per pulse gate. We thus calculated the effective physical error rate in this case and determine the surface code distance accordingly. The optimal code distance was obtained based on the logical error rate performance estimation of the surface code for some T1 and T2 time.
A Review of the Green Synthesis of ZnO Nanoparticles Utilising Southern African Indigenous Medicinal Plants

Metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs), such as zinc oxide (ZnO), have been researched extensively for applications in biotechnology, photovoltaics, photocatalysis, sensors, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals due to their unique properties at the nanoscale. ZnO NPs have been fabricated using conventional physical and chemical processes, but these techniques are limited due to the use of hazardous chemicals that are bad for the environment and high energy consumption. Plant-mediated synthesis of ZnO NPs has piqued the interest of researchers owing to secondary metabolites found in plants that can reduce Zn precursors and stabilise ZnO NPs. Thus, plant-mediated synthesis of ZnO NPs has become one of the alternative green synthesis routes for the fabrication of ZnO NPs. This is attributable to its environmental friendliness, simplicity, and the potential for industrial-scale expansion. Southern Africa is home to a large and diverse indigenous medicinal plant population. However, the use of these indigenous medicinal plants for the preparation of ZnO NPs is understudied. This review looks at the indigenous medicinal plants of southern Africa that have been used to synthesise ZnO NPs for a variety of applications. In conclusion, there is a need for more exploration of southern African indigenous plants for green synthesis of ZnO NPs.
Host Identity and Consumption Behavior: Evidence from Rural–Urban Migrants in China

Rural–urban migrants significantly contribute to developing economy, whereas they face high housing prices, rare work opportunities and insufficient consumption. By stimulating the consumption of migrants, their happiness and life satisfaction can increase, regional consumption structural transformation can be stimulated, and economic growth can be boosted. By exploiting the data from the “China Migrants’ Dynamic Survey” (CMDS) conducted by the National Health and Family Planning Commission of China, this study explores the effect of rural–urban migrants’ host identity on their consumption. We measure host city identity by migrants’ sense of belonging in the city. Propensity score matching (PSM), instrumental variable methods (IV), and structural equation modeling (SEM) are adopted to tackle down the potential selection bias and endogeneity concerns. As indicated by the empirical results, host identity significantly impacts rural–urban migrants’ consumption, while regional cultural differences hinder migrants from forming host identity. Compared with those without a host identity, migrants with a host identity, the monthly household consumption increased by 4%, and savings decreased significantly by 1.7%. As revealed by the heterogeneity analysis, the host identity effects are significantly larger for migrants aged over 30 years or for those staying in big cities. The results of SEM show that a one-unit increase in the latent variable of identity will increase the consumption by 5.2%, and education, social insurance, and household registration have a significant effect not only on consumption but also on host identity. The findings of this paper contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the psychological and economic integration of migrants in cities and provide valuable suggestions for city managers and policymakers.
Focusing of light beyond the diffraction limit

Diffraction limits the behaviour of light in optical systems and sets the smallest achievable line width at half the wavelength. With a novel subwavelength plasmonic lens to reduce the diffraction via an asymmetry and to generate and squeeze the wave functions, an incident light is focused by the aperture to a single-line with its width beyond the limit outside the near zone. The fields focused are radiative and capable of propagating to the far zone. The light focusing process, besides being of academic interest, is expected to open up a wide range of application possibilities.
Enhanced Production of ECM Proteins for Pharmaceutical Applications Using Mammalian Cells and Sodium Heparin Supplementation

The yields of soluble ECM proteins recombinantly produced with mammalian cells can be significantly enhanced by exploiting the stabilizing properties of heparin. Here, we propose a simple and straightforward scalable protocol for the mammalian cell production of ECM proteins with affinity for heparin, using heparin as a supplement. As proof of concept, we have demonstrated the high-level expression of four biomedically relevant human enzymes such as carboxypeptidase Z (CPZ), carboxypeptidase A6 (CPA6), beta-galactoside alpha-2,6-sialyltransferase 2 (ST6GAL1) and thrombin-activable fibrinolysis inhibitor (TAFI). We found a strong linear correlation between the isoelectric point (pI) of a protein and the improvement in protein expression levels upon heparin addition, providing a reference for selecting novel protein targets that would benefit from heparin supplementation. Finally, we demonstrated the compatibility of this approach with a three-step purification strategy that includes an initial heparin affinity purification step. Using CPZ as a representative example, we performed a preparative purification of this enzyme. The purified protein is enzymatically active and can be used for pharmaceutical applications as well as for high-throughput functional and structural studies.
Development of Thai Sensory Patterns Assessment Tool for Children Aged 3–12 Years: Caregiver-Version

Most existing tools for measuring sensory patterns of children have been developed in Western countries. These tools are complex and may not be culturally appropriate for other contexts that require specific knowledge in the clinical perspective. The aim of this study was to develop a simplified tool called the Thai Sensory Patterns Assessment (TSPA) tool for children. It is designed for children ages 3–12 years old to be completed by their caregiver. The process of creating the tool consisted of drafting a questionnaire and interpreting the result. Partial psychometrics were completed during item development, content validity of items was assessed by five expert ratings. Construct validity and internal consistency were assessed using data from 414 caregivers and intra-rater reliability was assessed with 40 caregivers. The two parts of the TSPA tool for children results, sensory preference, and sensory arousal, were designed to be presented as a sensory pattern in a radar chart/plot. The data analysis showed that both parts of the TSPA tool for children had acceptable psychometric properties with the retained 65 items. Only proprioceptive sensory arousal had a low Cronbach’s α coefficient, suggesting more information sharing between caregivers and professionals is needed. This research is an initial study and must be continuously developed. Future development of this tool in technology platforms is recommended to support use within healthcare services.
Association between Mortality and Sequential Organ Failure Assessment Score during a Short Stay in the Intensive Care Unit after Non-Cardiac Surgery

Background: The sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) score has been validated in various clinical situations. However, it has not been investigated during a short stay in the intensive care unit (ICU). This study aimed to evaluate the association between the SOFA score and outcomes in patients who were monitored for less than one day after non-cardiac surgery. Methods: From a total of 203,787 consecutive adult patients who underwent non-cardiac surgery between January 2011 and June 2019, we selected 17,714 who were transferred to the ICU immediately after surgery and stayed for less than 24 h. Patients were divided according to quartile value and change between the initial and follow-up levels of SOFA score. Results: Three-year mortality tended to increase with a higher initial SOFA score (11.7%, 11.8%, 15.1%, and 17.8%, respectively). The patients were divided according to changes in the SOFA score at the midnight postoperative follow-up check: 16,176 (91.3%) in the stable group and 1538 (8.7%) in the worsened group. The worsened group showed significantly higher three-year mortality and complications (13.2% vs. 18.6%; HR [hazard ratio]: 1.236; 95% CI [confidence interval]: 1.108–1.402; p ≤ 0.0021 for three-year mortality and 3.8% vs. 9.1%; HR: 2.13; 95% CI: 1.73–2.60; p < 0.001 for acute kidney injury). Conclusions: The SOFA score during a short stay in the ICU after non-cardiac surgery showed an association with mortality. The change in SOFA score may need to be considered at discharge from the ICU.