Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Role of Chitinases in Chronic Airway Inflammation Associated with Tobacco Smoke Exposure

Chitinases and chitinase-like proteins are thought to play a role in innate inflammatory responses. Our study aimed to assess whether chitinase concentration and activity in induced sputum (IS) of patients exposed to tobacco smoke are related to the level of airway inflammation including the level and activity of chitinases and chitinase-like proteins. The study included 22 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), 12 non-COPD smokers, and nine nonsmoking subjects. Sputum CHIT1 and YKL-40 levels and chitinolytic activity were compared with sputum IL-6, IL-8, IL-18, and MMP-9 levels. A hierarchical cluster analysis was also performed. Sputum YKL-40 was higher in COPD patients than in the control groups. Sputum CHIT1 and YKL-40 levels correlated with IS inflammatory cell count as well as with MMP-9 and IL-8 levels. Two main clusters were revealed: Cluster 1 had lower chitinase levels and activity, lower IS macrophage and neutrophil count, and lower IS IL-8, IL-18, and MMP-9 than Cluster 2. Comparison of COPD patients from both clusters revealed significant differences in the IS inflammatory profile despite comparable clinical and functional data. Our findings seem to confirm the involvement of chitinases in smoking-associated chronic airway inflammation and show that airway chitinases may be a potential novel marker in COPD phenotyping.
Latent Variable Models for Teratogenesis Using Multiple Binary Outcomes

Abstract Multiple outcomes are commonly measured in the study of birth defects. The reason is that most teratogens do not cause a single, uniquely defined defect, but rather result in a range of effects, including major malformations, minor anomalies, and deficiencies in birth weight, length and head circumference. The spectrum of effects associated with a particular teratogen is sometimes described as a “syndrome. ” In this article we develop a latent variable model to characterize exposure effects on multiple binary outcomes. Not only does the method allow comparisons of control and exposed infants with respect to multiple outcomes, but it also provides a measure of the “severity” of each child's condition. Data from a study of the teratogenic effects of anticonvulsants illustrate our results.
Photometric System For Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) Imaging

We present details of a filter set which we have found useful for cosmological investigations with the CFA-CCD camera system. We discuss transformations to standard BVRI and gr I photometric systems, as well as systems of photographic photometry. We present colors and magnitudes of stars in an open cluster useful as standards.
Adjuvant treatment for the elderly patient with resected gallbladder cancer: a SEER-Medicare analysis

Background In patients with resected gallbladder cancer (GBC), the role of adjuvant chemotherapy (aCT) remains ill-defined, especially in elderly patients. This study evaluates the value of aCT in elderly patients with GBC and assesses response according to tumor stage. Methods Patients of ≥65 years of age with resected GBC diagnosed from 2004–2015 were identified using a Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER)/Medicare linked database. After propensity score matching, survival of patients treated with aCT was compared to survival of patients who did not receive aCT using Kaplan-Meier and Cox proportional hazards analysis. Results Of 2,179 patients with resected GBC, 876 (25%) received aCT. In the full cohort of 810 propensity-score matched patients, survival did not differ between patients treated with aCT (17.6 months ) and without aCT (19.5 months, P=0.7720). Subgroup analysis showed that survival was significantly better after aCT in T3/T4 disease (12.3 vs. 7.2 months, P=0.013). Interaction analysis showed that benefit of aCT was primarily seen in combined T3/T4, node-positive disease (HR 0.612 , P=0.006). Conclusions In this large cohort of elderly patients with resected GBC, aCT was not associated with increased survival. However, aCT may provide a survival benefit in T3/4, node-positive disease.
Spatial association of land-use areas and disease occurred by pesticide poisoning in Thailand

Background: Thailand is one of the Asian countries where high pesticides use is common for agriculture. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the spatial association between types of land-use areas and diseases occurred by pesticide poisoning in Thailand. Methods: This study was conducted by using the data set of average prevalence of diseases occurred by pesticide pollution and the land-use areas between 2018-2020. A Moran’s I and local indicators of spatial association (LISA) were used to identify the spatial autocorrelation between each type of land use areas and diseases developed due to pesticide poisoning in Thailand. Results: This present study observed that the average prevalence of disease occurred from pesticide pollution between 2018-2020 was 13.17 (95% CI: 10.83 - 15.50) per 100,000 in Thailand. The results identified the spatial global autocorrelation of each type of land used and occurrence of diseases due to pesticide pollution, including rice field areas, field crops, fruit trees and perennials, vegetables and flowers, and other agriculture with Moran’s I 0.270, 0.144, 0.606, 0.135, and 0.324 respectively. A spatial association between various factors and average prevalence of pesticide pollutions with significant LISA analysis were; rice field areas with eight high-high clusters and nine low-low clusters, field crops areas with three high-high clusters and 11 low-low clusters, fruit trees and perennials areas with eight high-high clusters and 12 low-low clusters, and six high-high clusters and four low-low clusters vegetable and flower areas. Similarly, nine high-high clusters and nine low-low clusters of other agricultural areas had been observed with prevalence of diseases acquired by pesticide pollution. Conclusions: There was significant spatial association between land-use areas and diseases acquired by pesticide pollution in Thailand. It should be controlled by new policy recommendations for pesticides use for agriculture. , especially, in provinces with more land-use areas for each type of plant.
Large-Eddy Simulation of Stratified Turbulence. Part II: Application of the Stretched-Vortex Model to the Atmospheric Boundary Layer

AbstractThe buoyancy-adjusted stretched-vortex subgrid-scale (SGS) model is assessed for a number of large-eddy simulations (LESs) corresponding to diverse atmospheric boundary layer conditions. The cases considered are free convection, a moderately stable boundary layer [first Global Energy and Water Exchanges (GEWEX) Atmospheric Boundary Layer Study (GABLS)] case, shallow cumulus [Barbados Oceanographic and Meteorological Experiment (BOMEX)], shallow precipitating cumulus [Rain in Cumulus over the Ocean (RICO)] and nocturnal stratocumulus [Second Dynamics and Chemistry of the Marine Stratocumulus (DYCOMS-II) field study RF01]. An identical LES setup, including advection discretization and SGS model parameters, is used for all cases, which is a stringent test on the ability of LES to accurately capture diverse conditions without any flow-adjustable parameters. The LES predictions agree well with observations and previously reported model results. A grid-resolution convergence study is carried out, and fo.
RICE PHENOTYPING THROUGH GRAIN QUALITY TRAITS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW GENERATION CULTIVARS

The present rice market requires a range of rice products with increased eating and nutritional values. The presented work was carried out within the framework of the breeding program for developing new rice cultivars with desirable grain quality traits based on an integrated approach, using modern methods of trait phenotyping and the genomic approach, post genomic, and cellular technologies. The latest study aimed to phenotype rice cultivars from the Unique Scientific Installation (USI) - Collection of Federal Scientific Rice Centre, Krasnodar, Russia, as sources of valuable grain quality traits. Studied traits included vitreosity, fracturing, and protein and grain amylose content. The coefficient of variation determined the variability of traits and helped identify the best cultivars as sources of valuable traits. The grain quality of harvested sample cultivars showed significant differences. The rice cultivar Thaibonnet gave the best results in terms of grain quality traits and variability. By combining low variability of technologically-tested quality traits and protein content, the rice cultivars Elbrus and Thaibonnet led all the samples. Cultivar Svetlana was characterized by high traits of vitreosity and fracturing and having less variability. The cultivars Leader and Patriot both had high protein content and low trait variability. These cultivars are recommended for use in parental crosses in breeding programs to develop rice genotypes with desirable grain quality traits and nutritional values.
Random walks and polygons in tight confinement

We discuss the effect of confinement on the topology and geometry of tightly confined random walks and polygons. Here the walks and polygons are confined in a sphere of radius R ≥ 1/2 and the polygons are equilateral with n edges of unit length. We illustrate numerically that for a fixed length of random polygons the knotting probability increases to one as the radius decreases to 1/2. We also demonstrate that for random polygons (walks) the curvature increases to πn (π(n – 1)) as the radius approaches 1/2 and that the torsion decreases to ≈ πn/3 (≈ π(n – 1)/3). In addition we show the effect of length and confinement on the average crossing number of a random polygon.
Multiscale computational modelling of the heart

A computational framework is presented for integrating the electrical, mechanical and biochemical functions of the heart. Finite element techniques are used to solve the large-deformation soft tissue mechanics using orthotropic constitutive laws based in the measured fibre-sheet structure of myocardial (heart muscle) tissue. The reaction-diffusion equations governing electrical current flow in the heart are solved on a grid of deforming material points which access systems of ODEs representing the cellular processes underlying the cardiac action potential. Navier-Stokes equations are solved for coronary blood flow in a system of branching blood vessels embedded in the deforming myocardium and the delivery of oxygen and metabolites is coupled to the energy-dependent cellular processes. The framework presented here for modelling coupled physical conservation laws at the tissue and organ levels is also appropriate for other organ systems in the body and we briefly discuss applications to the lungs and the musculo-skeletal system. The computational framework is also designed to reach down to subcellular processes, including signal transduction cascades and metabolic pathways as well as ion channel electrophysiology, and we discuss the development of ontologies and markup language standards that will help link the tissue and organ level models to the vast array of gene and protein data that are now available in web-accessible databases.
Maximum likelihood estimation under a successive sampling discovery model

A common problem encountered in the analysis of discovery data is the size-bias phenomenon in which the larger units tend to be discovered first. One approach to account for this bias is to model the discovery process as sampling successively from a finite population without replacement and with probability proportional to size. We consider in this article a generalized version of this model for analyzing multivariate data with any given measure of size. We assume a superpopulation framework and develop procedures for maximum likelihood estimation of the parameters of the distribution. The use of the EM algorithm for computing the maximum likelihood estimates, associated computational issues, and relationships to regression estimators in survey sampling are discussed. Oil discovery data from the Rimbey—Meadowbrook reef play are used to illustrate the techniques.
The First Report of a Virulent Newcastle Disease Virus of Genotype VII.2 Causing Outbreaks in Chickens in Bangladesh

Newcastle disease (ND) is endemic in poultry in Bangladesh. We performed genotypic and pathotypic characterization of four ND virus (NDV) isolates from recent outbreaks in broiler chickens in Bangladesh during the period of 2020–2021. Phylogenetic analysis based on the complete fusion protein gene coding sequences classified the viruses into NDV class II genotype VII.2 together with viruses from Indonesia isolated between 2014 and 2021 and a single 2020 Indian isolate. Pathogenicity testing using the intracerebral pathogenicity index in day-old chickens and mean embryo death time in embryonating chicken eggs revealed that the Bangladeshi isolates are velogenic. Inoculation of 35-day-old chickens with two NDV isolates (LT67 and N5) resulted in 100% morbidity by 3 days post inoculation (DPI), and all birds succumbed to infection by 7 DPI. Massive hemorrhages, congestion and necrotic lesions were observed in different visceral organs, which were typical for infection with a velogenic viscerotropic pathotype of NDV. At microscopic examination, tracheitis, severe pneumonia, focal proventriculitis, transmural enteritis, focal myocarditis, severe congestion and necrosis in kidneys, and lymphoid depletion in lymphoid tissues were found. Our study reports the first outbreak of the panzootic genotype VII.2 NDV in poultry in Bangladesh and documents a possible recent re-introduction of this NDV genotype from Southeast or East Asia. This study further provides viral distribution and epidemiological data that can facilitate the effective control of NDV.
Nanosecond response of organic solar cells and photodetectors

We examine the impact of various parameters on the transient current density characteristics of organic solar cells and photodetectors by means of numerical simulations. Our self-consistent numerical model treats the dynamics of generated electrons and holes in the framework of a drift-diffusion model. As input parameter for the electric model, the intensity distribution of the incident light is calculated with a transfer-matrix method accounting for interference effects. The results are compared to experimental results. With our approach, we are able to distinguish the influence of different physical effects as they become dominant at different current densities or at different time regimes. This enables us to estimate the electron and hole mobilities separately by fitting the experimental results. Furthermore, space charge effects are identified as being highly important for the transient response of photodetectors.
Vector potential and magnetic field of current-carying finite arc segment in analytical form, part II: Thin sheet approximation

Analytical expressions for the components of the vector potential and magnetic field of a thin circular conic cylinder segment of arbitrary azimuthal and axial length, and carrying a constant peripheral current are derived. All the expressions developed consist of known functions such as Jacobian elliptic functions, and complete and incomplete elliptic integrals of the first, second, and third kind and thus permit a new time-saving efficient computation algorithm.
Blockchain Storage Optimisation With Multi-Level Distributed Caching

Distribution, security, and immutability have led to the great success of blockchain in many applications, while contributing to major increases in ledger size. The storage challenge is one of the major barriers to the adoption of blockchain in the Internet of Things (IoT), which consists of many resource constrained devices. In this paper, we propose Multi-Level Distributed Caching (MLDC) for blockchain storage optimisation which reduces data replication based on data access patterns in a decentralised manner. For storage optimisation of data-centric blockchains, MLDC introduces a hierarchical storage class (SC), in which every node is assigned to an SC with its own Access Frequency (AF) threshold based on node availability. To reduce the number of replications shared among participant nodes, each node in a SC continues to remove unaccessed data from local storage based on a threshold time determined by the AF threshold of the SC, while maintaining all block hashes for consistency. Eventually, all nodes in MLDC store the most frequently accessed data in their local storage, so MLDC effectively reduces the storage and query costs while minimising network overhead. We also analyse the security of MLDC and quantitatively evaluate its performance for both the uniform access and exponentially decaying access patterns. The evaluation was carried out on a representative blockchain simulator with 15 storage nodes. Our results from 11 hours of experiments producing 6667 blocks and 39997 transactions show good performance for MLDC. The results of the experimentation for the exponentially decaying assess pattern show that MLDC can reduce the total storage cost by 83% compared to conventional blockchain systems, while maintaining blockchain consistency and data availability with a slight increase in network overhead and query cost.
Graph Regularized Semi-Supervised Concept Factorization

Concept Factorization (CF) is a new matrix decomposition technique for data representation. A modified CF algorithm called Graph Regularized Semi-supervised Concept Factorization (GRSCF) is proposed for addressing the limitations of CF and Local Consistent Concept Factorization (LCCF), which did not consider the geometric structure or the label information of the data. GRSCF preserves the intrinsic geometry of data as regularized term and use the label information as semi-supervised learning, it makes nearby samples with the same class-label are more compact, and nearby classes are separated. Compared with Non-Negative Matrix Factorization (NMF), CNMF, CF and LCCF, experiment results on ORL face database and Coil20 image database have shown that the proposed method achieves better clustering results.
Estimation of Additive Genetic Variance Components in Aquaculture Populations Selectively Pedigreed by DNA Fingerprinting

A method to estimate genetic variance components in populations partially pedigreed by DNA fingerprinting is presented. The focus is on aquaculture, where breeding procedures may produce thousands of individuals. In aquaculture populations the individuals available for measurement will often be selected, i.e. will come from the upper tail of a size‐at‐age distribution, or the lower tail of an age‐at‐maturity distribution etc. Selection typically occurs by size grading during grow‐out and/or choice of superior fish as broodstock. The method presented in this paper enables us to estimate genetic variance components when only a small proportion of individuals, those with extreme phenotypes, have been identified by DNA fingerprinting. We replace the usual normal density by appropriate robust least favourable densities to ensure the robustness of our estimates.
Fabrication of wurtzite ZnS nanobelts via simple thermal evaporation

Mass production of uniform wurtzite-ZnS nanobelts is achieved by a simple thermal evaporation method using Au as the catalyst. The as-synthesized ZnS nanobelts are single crystalline, usually several tens of microns in length and several hundreds of nanometers in width. Most of the nanobelts grow along [01 1 0] direction. Stacking faults are commonly observed in these nanobelts. The room-temperature cathodoluminescence spectrum of such nanobelts reveals three peaks, which may be ascribed to surface states, defects, and impurity-induced emissions, and is consistent with the nanobelt microstructure. The growth mechanism of the nanobelts is discussed.
Spin-valley coupling in atomically thin dichalcogenides

The monolayers of group VI transition metal dichalcogenides feature a valence band spin splitting with opposite sign in the two valleys located at corners of 1st Brillouin zone. This spin-valley coupling, particularly pronounced in tungsten dichalcogenides, can benefit potential spintronics and valleytronics with the important consequences of spin-valley interplay and the suppression of spin and valley relaxations. Here we report the optical studies of MoS2,WS2 and WSe2 monolayers and multilayers. The efficiency of second harmonic generation (SHG) shows a dramatic even-odd oscillation consistent with the presence (absence) of inversion symmetry in even (odd) layer. Photoluminescence (PL) measurements show the crossover from an indirect band gap semiconductor at mutilayers to a direct-gap one at monolayers. The PL spectra and first-principle calculations consistently reveal a spin-valley coupling of 0.4 eV which suppresses interlayer hopping and manifests as a thickness independent splitting pattern at valence band edge near K points. This giant spin-valley coupling, together with the valley dependent physical properties, may lead to rich possibilities for manipulating spin and valley degrees of freedom in these atomically thin 2D materials.
Functioning Problems Associated with Health Conditions with Greatest Disease Burden in South Africa: A Scoping Review

A notable rise in health-related disability for which evidence-based rehabilitation is beneficial is evident in low-to-middle income countries. This scoping review aimed to systematically identify and map the most common functioning problems associated with health conditions that contribute most to disability in South Africa using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) framework. Peer-reviewed evidence published from January 2006 to December 2021 was systematically searched from five databases. Some 268 studies reporting on functioning problems (impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions) in South African adults (>18 years) related to 10 health conditions were included. A total of 130 different functioning problems were mapped to the ICF. The most prevalent problems (top 20) were related to mobility, pain, and mental health but spanned across several ICF domains and were mostly in patients at primary care. The high prevalence and wide range of functioning problems may be particularly burdensome on an already strained primary health care (PHC) system. This points towards targeted planning of innovative strategies towards strengthening rehabilitation service delivery at primary care to address these complexities where there is an inadequate rehabilitation workforce.
Reduced-Order Modeling of Droop-Controlled Inverters Using Slow Coherency and Aggregation Algorithm

By considering time-scale separation characteristics and nonlinear node voltage equation, an improved slow coherency algorithm has been proposed, and for the first time, applied to the slow coherency model widely used for modeling three-phase droop-controlled grid-connected inverters. The method works by combining two coherency clustering results, which in turn, are computed from mode matrix, representing slow mode and damping coefficient of the slow coherency model. Subsequently, fuzzy C-means spatial clustering algorithm and aggregation method are used for identifying coherent generators and building the reduced-order model, respectively. Compared to the traditional slow coherency algorithms, the presented method can accurately identify oscillating mode between power supplies under the condition of selecting any number of areas. Its range of application can moreover be expanded to cover distributed networks with multiple droop-controlled inverters. These expectations, and accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed method have eventually been verified by simulations performed with both detailed and reduced-order models under different faults.