Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
What Is the Benefit of Ramped Pulse Shapes for Activating Auditory Cortex Neurons? An Electrophysiological Study in an Animal Model of Cochlear Implant

In all commercial cochlear implant (CI) devices, the activation of auditory nerve fibers is performed with rectangular pulses that have two phases of opposite polarity. Recently, several papers proposed that ramped pulse shapes could be an alternative shape for efficiently activating auditory nerve fibers. Here, we investigate whether ramped pulse shapes can activate auditory cortex (ACx) neurons in a more efficient way than the classical rectangular pulses. Guinea pigs were implanted with CI devices and responses of ACx neurons were tested with rectangular pulses and with four ramped pulse shapes, with a first-phase being either cathodic or anodic. The thresholds, i.e., the charge level necessary for obtaining significant cortical responses, were almost systematically lower with ramped pulses than with rectangular pulses. The maximal firing rate (FR) elicited by the ramped pulses was higher than with rectangular pulses. As the maximal FR occurred with lower charge levels, the dynamic range (between threshold and the maximal FR) was not modified. These effects were obtained with cathodic and anodic ramped pulses. By reducing the charge levels required to activate ACx neurons, the ramped pulse shapes should reduce charge consumption and should contribute to more battery-efficient CI devices in the future.
Hyperspectral imaging using compressed sensing

Compressed sensing (CS) has attracted a lot of attention in recent years as a promising signal processing technique that exploits a signal's sparsity to reduce its size. It allows for simple compression that does not require a lot of additional computational power, and would allow physical implementation at the sensor using spatial light multiplexers using Texas Instruments (TI) digital micro-mirror device (DMD). The DMD can be used as a random measurement matrix, reflecting the image off the DMD is the equivalent of an inner product between the images individual pixels and the measurement matrix. CS however is asymmetrical, meaning that the signals recovery or reconstruction from the measurements does require a higher level of computation. This makes the prospect of working with the compressed version of the signal in implementations such as detection or classification much more efficient. If an initial analysis shows nothing of interest, the signal need not be reconstructed. Many hyper-spectral image applications are precisely focused on these areas, and would greatly benefit from a compression technique like CS that could help minimize the light sensor down to a single pixel, lowering costs associated with the cameras while reducing the large amounts of data generated by all the bands. The present paper will show an implementation of CS using a single pixel hyper-spectral sensor, and compare the reconstructed images to those obtained through the use of a regular sensor.
Hyper-Mol: Molecular Representation Learning via Fingerprint-Based Hypergraph

With the development of artificial intelligence (AI) in the field of drug design and discovery, learning informative representations of molecules is becoming crucial for those AI-driven tasks. In recent years, the graph neural networks (GNNs) have emerged as a preferred choice of deep learning architecture and have been successfully applied to molecular representation learning (MRL). Up-to-date MRL methods directly apply the message passing mechanism on the atom-level attributes (i.e., atoms and bonds) of molecules. However, they neglect latent yet significant hyperstructured knowledge, such as the information of pharmacophore or functional class. Hence, in this paper, we propose Hyper-Mol, a new MRL framework that applies GNNs to encode hypergraph structures of molecules via fingerprint-based features. Hyper-Mol explores the hyperstructured knowledge and the latent relationships of the fingerprint substructures from a hypergraph perspective. The molecular hypergraph generation algorithm is designed to depict the hyperstructured information with the physical and chemical characteristics of molecules. Thus, the fingerprint-level message passing process can encode both the intra-structured and inter-structured information of fingerprint substructures according to the molecular hypergraphs. We evaluate Hyper-Mol on molecular property prediction tasks, and the experimental results on real-world benchmarks show that Hyper-Mol can learn comprehensive hyperstructured knowledge of molecules and is superior to the state-of-the-art baselines.
Psychiatric Disorders and Obesity in Childhood and Adolescence—A Systematic Review of Cross-Sectional Studies

Obesity and psychiatric disorders have high prevalence and are both considered major health problems. Within the last decades, the rates of obesity have risen over 6%, while the prevalence of psychiatric disorders is over 12% for children and adolescents. The aim of this study was to systematically review the evidence regarding the relation of obesity and psychiatric disorders in childhood and adolescence. This review, based on the PRISMA guidelines, included cross-sectional studies published within the last decade, pertaining to the relation between psychiatric disorders and obesity in children and adolescents up to the age of 19 years. Studies on eating disorders were excluded. A total of 14 studies of 23,442 children and adolescents that investigated the relation of obesity with anxiety, mood disorders, and psychosis were included in this systematic review. Nine of the included studies reported a significant relationship between the psychiatric disorder under investigation and obesity. Understanding the nexus between obesity and psychiatric disorders in children and adolescents is of great importance, given the alarming increase in both conditions in youth. Such findings could facilitate the development and implementation of targeted interventions.
Advanced Drug Delivery Systems for Renal Disorders

Kidney disease management and treatment are currently causing a substantial global burden. The kidneys are the most important organs in the human urinary system, selectively filtering blood and metabolic waste into urine via the renal glomerulus. Based on charge and/or molecule size, the glomerular filtration apparatus acts as a barrier to therapeutic substances. Therefore, drug distribution to the kidneys is challenging, resulting in therapy failure in a variety of renal illnesses. Hence, different approaches to improve drug delivery across the glomerulus filtration barrier are being investigated. Nanotechnology in medicine has the potential to have a significant impact on human health, from illness prevention to diagnosis and treatment. Nanomaterials with various physicochemical properties, including size, charge, surface and shape, with unique biological attributes, such as low cytotoxicity, high cellular internalization and controllable biodistribution and pharmacokinetics, have demonstrated promising potential in renal therapy. Different types of nanosystems have been employed to deliver drugs to the kidneys. This review highlights the features of the nanomaterials, including the nanoparticles and corresponding hydrogels, in overcoming various barriers of drug delivery to the kidneys. The most common delivery sites and strategies of kidney-targeted drug delivery systems are also discussed.
Temperature dependence of irreversible switching fields in NdFeB exchange-spring ribbons

The aim of this work is to study the evolution with measurement temperature of magnetic interactions in those phases precipitated after the crystallization of amorphous ribbons of Nd_4. 5Fe_72Co_3Cr_2Al_1B_17. 5 produced by melt-spinning. Different annealing temperatures were attempted to obtain well-coupled magnetic nanostructured phases to boost remanence and energy product. ^57Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy experiments and FORC diagrams at different temperatures were performed. For the overaged ribbons, the diagrams at lower temperatures display a dramatic reduction in the intensity of irreversible interactions. In agreement with Mössbauer spectroscopy results, this fact confirms that soft and hard magnetic phases are weakly coupled in this system. Graphical Abstract
Emotional Support Animal Partnerships: Behavior, Welfare, and Clinical Involvement

ABSTRACT The present study gathered information about the characteristics of individuals and dogs in Emotional Support Animal (ESA) partnerships, instances of service-animal misrepresentation, animal welfare and behavior, dimensions of bond quality, and health professional involvement. Seventy-seven adults (53 female, 24 male) with a canine ESA were surveyed via Qualtrics panel services. Data were analyzed for descriptive data, as well as correlational analyses among variables. Participants reported high frequencies of misrepresentation of emotional support animals, access law violations, and problematic instances including ESAs with a history of aggression and times when participants were unable to care for their dog. The majority of participants reported mental illness diagnoses, seeking ESA documentation from mental health providers; however, levels of health professional involvement in the ESA-procuring process were varied. Several dimensions of bond quality between participants and their ESA were reported to be consistently high across participants. Correlational data brought forth questions about the roles that health professionals and animal welfare could play in preventing harm to clients, animals, and communities, discouraging unlawful and problematic behavior, and strengthening the human–animal bond between their clients and ESAs. For example, welfare concerns were correlated with problematic animal behaviors and perceived costs to the participants. Additionally, as professional involvement increased, so too did rates of misrepresentation of ESAs as service animals and access law violations. These data provide a first picture of ESA partnerships and can be a springboard for future research toward protecting individuals with disabilities, their animals, and communities.
Confirmation of the Prognostic Value of Foxp3+ Cells in Canine Mammary Tumors

Simple Summary Foxp3+ cells have immunosuppressive properties that can interfere with beneficial anti-tumor immunity, enabling tumors to elude the host antitumor immune response. It has already been suggested that these cells play a role in canine mammary tumor progression, but the literature on this topic is poor. Our work aims to investigate Foxp3+ cells in 59 canine mammary tumors by immunohistochemistry and to evaluate associations with clinicopathological, immunohistochemical features, and overall survival (OS). Our findings confirm that the number of Tregs is significantly higher in canine mammary carcinomas than adenomas and that a high number of Foxp3+ cells were associated with negative prognostic factors and shorter overall survival (OS). Abstract Foxp3+ cell counts were evaluated by immunohistochemistry in 59 canine mammary tumors, 20 adenomas, and 39 carcinomas in three different compartments: intratumoral, within the adjacent stroma, and in the distant stroma. Foxp3+ lymphocyte counts were compared with histotype, grading, presence of lymphatic invasion, immunohistochemical expression of estrogen and progesterone receptors, expression of c-erbB-2, and the overall survival (OS). Our findings confirmed that Foxp3+ cells were significantly higher in canine mammary carcinomas compared to adenomas. A significantly higher number of Foxp3+ cells were detected in grade III carcinomas compared to grade II carcinomas, as well as in tumors with lymphatic invasion and loss of ER-expression. Finally, a high number of Foxp3+ cells was associated with poor prognosis. In conclusion, our findings highlighted the association of Foxp3+ lymphocytes with negative clinicopathological features and shorter overall survival (OS), thus confirming the role of Tregs as a negative prognostic marker in canine mammary carcinomas.
Validation of Inertial Sensors to Evaluate Gait Stability

The portability of wearable inertial sensors makes them particularly suitable for measuring gait in real-world walking situations. However, it is unclear how well inertial sensors can measure and evaluate gait stability compared to traditional laboratory-based optical motion capture. This study investigated whether an inertial sensor-based motion-capture suit could accurately assess gait stability. Healthy adult participants were asked to walk normally, with eyes closed, with approximately twice their normal step width, and in tandem. Their motion was simultaneously measured by inertial measurement units (IMU) and optical motion capture (Optical). Gait stability was assessed by calculating the margin of stability (MoS), short-term Lyapunov exponents, and step variability, along with basic gait parameters, using each system. We found that IMUs were able to detect the same differences among conditions as Optical for all but one of the measures. Bland–Altman and intraclass correlation (ICC) analysis demonstrated that mediolateral parameters (step width and mediolateral MoS) were measured less accurately by IMUs compared to their anterior-posterior equivalents (step length and anterior-posterior MoS). Our results demonstrate that IMUs can be used to evaluate gait stability through detecting changes in stability-related measures, but that the magnitudes of these measures might not be accurate or reliable, especially in the mediolateral direction.
Testing for Heteroscedasticity and/or Autocorrelation in Longitudinal Mixed Effect Nonlinear Models with AR(1) Errors

For longitudinal data on several individuals collected over time, nonlinear models (including linear models) that contain both random effects across individuals and first-order autocorrelation in the within-individual errors need to be considered for fitting the data (Diggle et al., 2002). This article is devoted to studying the tests for variance heterogeneity and/or autocorrelation in the framework of nonlinear regression models with random effects and AR(1) errors. Several diagnostic tests using score statistic are constructed, and illustrated with plasma concentrations data (Davidian and Giltinan, 1995). The properties of test statistics are investigated through Monte Carlo simulations.
Ring-Opening Polymerization of Trimethylene Carbonate with Phosphazene Organocatalyst

Aliphatic polycarbonate (APC) compounds are an important class of biodegradable materials with excellent biocompatibility, good biodegradability, and low toxicity, and the study of these compounds and their modification products aims to obtain biodegradable materials with better performance. In this context, the ring-opening polymerization (ROP) of trimethylene carbonate (TMC) from a low nucleophilic organic superbase of phosphazene (t-BuP4) as a catalyst and benzyl alcohol (BnOH) as an initiator at room temperature was carefully studied to prepare poly(trimethylene carbonate) (PTMC) which is one of the most studied APC. 1H NMR and SEC measurements clearly demonstrate the presence of a benzyloxy group at the α-terminus of the obtained PTMC homopolymers while investigation of the polymerization kinetics confirms the controlled/living nature of t-BuP4-catalyzed ROP of TMC. On the basis of this, the block copolymerization of TMC and δ-valerolactone (VL)/ε-caprolactone (CL) was successfully carried out to give PTMC-b-PCL and PTMC-b-PVL copolymers. Furthermore, PTMC with terminal functionality was also prepared with the organocatalytic ROP of TMC through functional initiators. We believe that the present ROP system is a robust, highly efficient, and practical strategy for producing excellent biocompatible and biodegradable PTMC-based materials.
Non-Toxic Natural Additives to Improve the Electrical Conductivity and Viscosity of Polycaprolactone for Melt Electrospinning

Polycaprolactone (PCL) is biodegradable and non-toxic, making it an eco-friendly polymer with various medical applications. In order to increase the stability of PCL used in the field of medical applications, it is necessary to be able to produce fibers with a melt electrospinning method that does not use toxic hydrophobic solvents. However, PCL has very high viscosity and low conductivity, making melt electrospinning difficult. This study presents natural additives enabling the solvent-free melt electrospinning of PCL, wherein the physical properties (i.e., conductivity and viscosity) of the additive-mixed PCL are analyzed. Among the natural additives added to PCL, 7 wt% gallic acid increased conductivity by 81 times and decreased viscosity by 1/8526 times, showing the best results. We believe that our study, improving the physical properties of melt PCL by adding natural additives, will be of great help to the development of the melt electrospinning method of PCL.
Model validation for dynamically uncertain systems

Robust control models describe system uncertainty with both unknown additive signals and unknown dynamic perturbations. These unknown but bounded components lead to a model set description. Model validation is the experimental assessment of the ability of this model set to describe the observed system behaviors. In this paper we consider model validation for H∞ compatible models. This paper provides a detailed presentation of the H∞ model validation problem in the discrete frequency, discrete-time, and sampled-data frameworks. In each case the underlying results and the computational algorithms are discussed. The experimental applicability and the computational consequences are discussed in sufficient detail to give the reader an appreciation of the issues surrounding each model/experiment framework.
Applying of Islamic Economic Principals and Its Impact on Reducing Administrative Corruption in Libyan Islamic Banks

The study is essential in identifying the mechanisms of applying the Islamic economy and their impact on reducing administrative corruption in Libyan Islamic banks. The researcher used the questionnaire as a tool for the study. The study population was limited to the employees of the Libyan republic and oasis banks, which numbered 550 male and female employees. The data were analyzed by SPSS and SMART-PLS. Three hundred questionnaires were distributed to the employees of these banks, 235 questionnaires were retrieved, and 76% and 230 questionnaires met the conditions. Where the study sample was selected by random sample method, and arithmetic averages were used to find out the level of respondents' response to the paragraphs of the study variables. The results of the study showed that there was a strong positive effect with a statistical significance at a significant level (α≤0.05) between the application of the rules of Islamic economics and the reduction of administrative corruption, in addition to the existence of a positive effect between legal, financial controls and the use of Islamic financing mechanisms and government intervention on the reduction of administrative corruption, with his banishment: Bribery and exploitation of public office. The study highlights future research, which is, conducting more studies on applying the rules of the Islamic economy to other Libyan banks and comparing the results due to its positive impact on the state's national economy — analyzing and evaluating the practice of the rules of the Islamic economy on the Libyan Islamic banks.
Overview of Optical Biosensors for Early Cancer Detection: Fundamentals, Applications and Future Perspectives

Simple Summary Due to the increase in cancer incidence worldwide, a necessity for early cancer detection arises. Since the conventional detection and treatment techniques are costly, great efforts have been exerted in developing new methods for early cancer detection. Highly reliable and efficient methods are based on optical detection techniques, which are sensitive, accurate, rapid, noninvasive and immune to external fields. This includes optical biosensors based on plasmonic waveguides and metamaterial. Additionally, many optical detection methods have been adopted using the colorimetric technique, optical coherence tomography, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy and reflectometric interference spectroscopy. This review paper introduces the basic features of each optical detection technique focusing on recent research works toward cancer detection. Abstract Conventional cancer detection and treatment methodologies are based on surgical, chemical and radiational processes, which are expensive, time consuming and painful. Therefore, great interest has been directed toward developing sensitive, inexpensive and rapid techniques for early cancer detection. Optical biosensors have advantages in terms of high sensitivity and being label free with a compact size. In this review paper, the state of the art of optical biosensors for early cancer detection is presented in detail. The basic idea, sensitivity analysis, advantages and limitations of the optical biosensors are discussed. This includes optical biosensors based on plasmonic waveguides, photonic crystal fibers, slot waveguides and metamaterials. Further, the traditional optical methods, such as the colorimetric technique, optical coherence tomography, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy and reflectometric interference spectroscopy, are addressed.
Development and Characterization of Nanobody-Derived CD47 Theranostic Pairs in Solid Tumors

Overexpression of CD47 is frequently observed in various types of human malignancies, inhibiting myeloid-mediated elimination of tumor cells and affecting the prognosis of cancer patients. By mapping biomarker expression, immuno-positron emission tomography has been increasingly used for patient screening and response monitoring. By immunization alpacas with recombinant human CD47, we prepared a CD47-targeting nanobody C2 and developed [68Ga]Ga-NOTA-C2, followed by an exploration of the diagnostic value in CD47-expressing tumor models including gastric-cancer patient-derived xenograft models. By fusing C2 to an albumin binding domain (ABD), we synthesized ABDC2, which had increased in vivo half-life and improved targeting properties. We further labeled ABDC2 with 68Ga/89Zr/177Lu to develop radionuclide theranostic pairs and evaluated the pharmacokinetics and theranostic efficacies of the agents in cell- and patient-derived models. Both C2 and ABDC2 specifically reacted with human CD47 with a high KD value of 23.50 and 84.57 pM, respectively. [68Ga]Ga-NOTA-C2 was developed with high radiochemical purity (99 >%, n = 4) and visualized CD47 expression in the tumors. In comparison to the rapid renal clearance and short half-life of [68Ga]Ga-NOTA-C2, both [68Ga]Ga-NOTA-ABDC2 and [89Zr]Zr-DFO-ABDC2 showed prolonged circulation and increased tumor uptake, with the highest uptake of [89Zr]Zr-DFO-ABDC2 occurring at 72 h post-injection. Moreover, [177Lu]Lu-DOTA-ABDC2 radioimmunotherapy suppressed the tumor growth but was associated with toxicity, warranting further optimization of the treatment schedules. Taken together, we reported a series of nanobody-derived CD47-targeted agents, of which [68Ga]Ga-NOTA-C2 and [89Zr]Zr-DFO-ABDC2 are readily translatable. Optimization and translation of CD47-targeted theranostic pair may provide new prospects for CD47-targeted management of solid tumors.