Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Astrophysical S factor of 3 He(α,γ) 7 Be

(Dated: Background: The 3 He( α, γ ) 7 Be reaction is important for the neutrino production in the sun’s core and the production of 7 Li during big bang nucleosynthesis. The reaction mechanism is characterized by a strong direct capture component and nearby broad unbound resonance levels. Purpose: Recent experiments have opened up a new energy window into the reaction mechanism and it becomes more and more evident that in order to understand the shape of the S -factor, theoretical calculations need to take into account possible resonance contributions from higher energies as well. Method: In the present work, a relatively wide energy window was investigated, E cm = 300 − 1460 keV, by detecting the prompt γ -rays from the reaction. An extensive R -matrix analysis was performed, utilizing all modern literature capture data, as well as elastic scattering data, which are important in constraining some R -matrix parameters. Results: The new experimental data agree very well with the modern literature data. The ﬁnal result from the R -matrix ﬁt gives a zero-energy S -factor of S (0) = 0 . 554(20) keV b. A table with the newly calculated reaction rate is given. Conclusions: The simultaneous R -matrix analysis of the 3 He( α, γ ) 7 Be and 3 He( α, α ) 3 He channels yielded a reliable ﬁt, consistent with all the included experimental data sets. In order to further constrain the reaction rate within the R -matrix framework, additional high energy capture data, γ -ray angular distributions and the inclusion of other relevant reaction channels are necessary.
Adaptive Learning and Integrated Use of Information Flow Forecasting Methods

This research aims to improve quality indicators in solving classification and regression problems based on the adaptive selection of various machine learning models on separate data samples from local segments. The proposed method combines different models and machine learning algorithms on individual subsamples in regression and classification problems based on calculating qualitative indicators and selecting the best models on local sample segments. Detecting data changes and time sequences makes it possible to form samples where the data have different properties (for example, variance, sample fraction, data span, and others). Data segmentation is used to search for trend changes in an algorithm for points in a time series and to provide analytical information. The experiment performance used actual data samples and, as a result, obtained experimental values of the loss function for various classifiers on individual segments and the entire sample. In terms of practical novelty, it is possible to use the obtained results to increase quality indicators in classification and regression problem solutions while developing models and machine learning methods. The proposed method makes it possible to increase classification quality indicators (F-measure, Accuracy, AUC) and forecasting (RMSE) by 1%–8% on average due to segmentation and the assignment of models with the best performance in individual segments. Doi: 10.28991/ESJ-2023-07-03-03 Full Text: PDF
Constrained Markov Decision Processes With Compact State And Action Sspaces : The Average Case (Dynamic Decision Systems under Uncertain Environments)

Constrained Markov decision processes with compact state and action spaces are studied under long-run average reward or cost criteria. And introducing a corresponding Lagrange function, a saddle-point theorem is given, by which the existence of a constrained optimal pair of initial state distribution and policy is shown. Also, under the hypothesis of Doeblin, the functional characterization of a constrained optimal policy is obtained
Surgery vs. radiotherapy in a population-based cohort of elderly patients with early-stage small-cell lung cancer: an IPTW propensity-score analysis

Background Due to the lack of treatment outcome data comparing surgical and non-surgical treatment modalities in the era of contemporary staging and treatments, the management of elderly patients with early-stage small cell lung cancer (SCLC) continues to be debated. This study sought to compare surgery and radiotherapy in elderly patients (aged ≥70 years) with early-stage SCLC using data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. Methods The inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) method was used to address the selection bias between the surgery and radiotherapy groups. The Kaplan-Meier method and multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression were used to compare the overall survival (OS) of the treatment cohorts before and after the IPTW adjustment. The competing risk survival analyses used Fine and Gray’s method to compare the cancer-specific survival between the groups. Results Between 2004 and 2018, 685 elderly patients received local treatment for early-stage SCLC. Of these patients, 193 patients (26.6%) received surgery and 492 patients (73.4%) received radiotherapy. Surgery was associated with a longer OS time than radiotherapy (median OS time: 32 vs. 20 months; 5-year OS time: 30.6% vs. 17.6%; P=0.002). The survival advantage of surgery was consistent in the IPTW-adjusted cohort (median OS time: 32 vs. 20 months; 5-year OS time: 30.6% vs. 17.6%; P<0.002). In the multivariate analysis, an increased age (P=0.001), stage T2 (P=0.047), radiotherapy (P<0.001), and no chemotherapy (P=0.034) were associated with unfavorable OS. In the IPTW-adjusted cohort, the multivariate analysis showed a decreased age (P<0.001), stage T1 (P=0.038), and surgery (P<0.001) were associated with superior OS. The competing risk analyses demonstrated that surgery produced a consistent decrease in the cancer-specific mortality rate compared to radiotherapy among the patients aged 70–80 years (53.6% vs. 61.0%, P=0.01), but no difference was observed in the 5-year cumulative incidence rate of cancer-related death between the surgery and radiotherapy groups (66.3% vs. 64.9%; P=0.66) in patients aged ≥80 years. Conclusions In this population-based study of the optimal local treatment for elderly early-stage SCLC, patients who underwent surgery had superior OS compared to those who underwent radiotherapy.
Expanding the Brussels ring road and the myth of travel time savings

ABSTRACT In April 2021, the Flemish government published their plans for the redevelopment of the R0, the larger ring road around Brussels. These plans include a social cost-benefit analysis (SCBA) and an environmental impact assessment report (EIA) in which the pros and cons of various plan alternatives are weighed against each other. The current paper is a critical analysis of both official documents, and assesses to what extent recent academic insights regarding induced travel are being dealt with in the planning process for this motorway redevelopment project. Drawing upon a literature review, it is concluded that the existing body of knowledge on induced travel is largely ignored by the planning documents scrutinised, which suggests that the SCBA overestimates the economic benefits of the project, while the EIA underestimates the environmental impacts. While a road pricing scheme would potentially support the achievement of the stated planning objectives, it is not included in any of the proposed plan alternatives.
Facile fabrication of high-density mushroom-shaped microstructures using the photo-lithographic technique

Biomimetic mushroom-shaped microstructures could ignite applications as dry adhesives and super-hydrophobic surfaces, however its facile fabrication still remains a challenge. In this work, we have proposed and demonstrated the facile fabrication of high-density mushroom-shaped microstructures using the photo-lithographic technique. The inverse “T” shaped light exposure in the photoresist directs the formation of the relief microstructure during chemical development, which serves as the mold for the bio-inspired surface. The requirement of one positive photoresist and one-step chemical development greatly simplifies the fabrication process, which also improves the reliability of the approach. The mushroom-shaped microstructures show significant super-hydrophobic properties and has high contact angles (157.2°). The liquid-repellent properties would be tailored by varying the densities of the mushroom-shaped microstructures, which was further exploited for droplet transportation and fusion. The effects of fabrication conditions on the parameters of the mushroom-shaped microstructures were also investigated. This new approach enables facile and controllable fabrication of mushroom-shaped microstructures, implying the potential for practical applications.
Closed-Loop Adaptive Deep Brain Stimulation in Parkinson’s Disease: Procedures to Achieve It and Future Perspectives

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease with a heavy burden on patients, families, and society. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) can improve the symptoms of PD patients for whom medication is insufficient. However, current open-loop uninterrupted conventional DBS (cDBS) has inherent limitations, such as adverse effects, rapid battery consumption, and a need for frequent parameter adjustment. To overcome these shortcomings, adaptive DBS (aDBS) was proposed to provide responsive optimized stimulation for PD. This topic has attracted scientific interest, and a growing body of preclinical and clinical evidence has shown its benefits. However, both achievements and challenges have emerged in this novel field. To date, only limited reviews comprehensively analyzed the full framework and procedures for aDBS implementation. Herein, we review current preclinical and clinical data on aDBS for PD to discuss the full procedures for its achievement and to provide future perspectives on this treatment.
A numerical method of calculation of total stress in reinforced plates with pressurized hole

Abstract The aim of this study was to compute the total stress concentration in reinforced composite plate with circular hole with respect to the volume ratio of the component materials in composite. The contour of the circular hole and its dependency on the structure of plates were calculated in order to study the behaviours of macro- and micro-stresses. In this article, the stress around a circular hole was calculated by orthotropic fibre-reinforced plates dependent upon the volume ratio of the component materials in the composite. Stress distribution using a finite elements method was calculated. Also this problem is analysed with the finite element method by package ANSYS. In this two-tiered approach, a numerical method for solving the micro-stress for the composite plates with a circular hole is used, where on the edge of the hole there is a uniform normal pressure. The results demonstrated the macro- and micro-stresses and behaviour of the orthotropic plate with a circular hole calculated for two different structures.
التحكــم الانتباهــی وعلاقتــه ببعــض المتغیــرات لدى طلبة المرحلة الثانویة فی مدارس الملك عبدالله الثانی للتمیز Attentional Control and its' relationship to some variables among secondary school students in King Abdullah II Schools for Excellence

This study aimed to identify Attentional Control and its' relationship to some variables among secondary school students in King Abdullah II Schools for Excellence, the study sample consisted of (62) male and female students, who were selected purposefully. The Attentional -control scale prepared by (Derryberry & Reed, 2002) was used, which consists of two dimensions: Attention focusing and Attention shifting. The results showed that there was a moderate level of attentional control on the total score of the scale and on each of its' dimensions. The results also showed that there were no differences in the degree of attentional control due to gender, studying in evening centers, and using the Internet for play and entertainment, Whereas, differences were found in both the total score on the attentional control scale, and attention focusing due to the number of daily study hours in favor of students who study from three to five hours a day. The researcher recommended several recommendations, including: Reconsidering the educational tasks presented to outstanding students, making them leaders and stimulating their attention and focus.
Effect of Postnatal Epigallocatechin-Gallate Treatment on Cardiac Function in Mice Prenatally Exposed to Alcohol

Prenatal alcohol exposure affects the cardiovascular health of the offspring. Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) may be a protective agent against it, but no data are available regarding its impact on cardiac dysfunction. We investigated the presence of cardiac alterations in mice prenatally exposed to alcohol and the effect of postnatal EGCG treatment on cardiac function and related biochemical pathways. C57BL/6J pregnant mice received 1.5 g/kg/day (Mediterranean pattern), 4.5 g/kg/day (binge pattern) of ethanol, or maltodextrin until Day 19 of pregnancy. Post-delivery, treatment groups received EGCG-supplemented water. At post-natal Day 60, functional echocardiographies were performed. Heart biomarkers of apoptosis, oxidative stress, and cardiac damage were analyzed by Western blot. BNP and Hif1α increased and Nrf2 decreased in mice prenatally exposed to the Mediterranean alcohol pattern. Bcl-2 was downregulated in the binge PAE drinking pattern. Troponin I, glutathione peroxidase, and Bax increased in both ethanol exposure patterns. Prenatal alcohol exposure led to cardiac dysfunction in exposed mice, evidenced by a reduced ejection fraction, left ventricle posterior wall thickness at diastole, and Tei index. EGCG postnatal therapy restored the physiological levels of these biomarkers and improved cardiac dysfunction. These findings suggest that postnatal EGCG treatment attenuates the cardiac damage caused by prenatal alcohol exposure in the offspring.
Minimum‐energy time‐varying formation of distributed multi‐agent systems with interaction constraints

In the current paper, minimum‐energy time‐varying formation design and analysis problems of distributed multi‐agent systems (DMASs) subjected to randomly switching topologies and aperiodic interaction pauses are investigated, which can ensure the time‐varying formation achievement with the minimum‐energy consumption in the sense of the linear matrix inequality. Firstly, a formation control protocol is designed with local information of neighboring agents, where the total energy consumption during the formation process is constructed and the impacts of interaction constraints are imposed. Then, minimum‐energy formation design and analysis criteria of DMASs are presented in terms of the linear matrix inequality tool, which can be checked by the generalized eigenvalue method. Finally, a numerical simulation is shown to verify the effectiveness of the main results.
Static, dynamic, and fatigue life investigation of a hip prosthesis for walking gait using finite element analysis

ABSTRACT Total hip arthroplasty (THA) is a common procedure that is performed for elderly people who suffer from hip pain and other hip-related problems. THA is an operation where an artificial joint is implanted in the femur and acts as the hip joint. THA has seen advancement to a greater extent in the 20th century. In this work, a novel hip implant design is proposed based on the existing literature data. The hip implants were provided with radial clearance between the head and stem junction. This implant design is analyzed by applying a walking gait that has been clinically prerecorded. Linear and volumetric wear rates are estimated at the head-stem junction, head-liner, and liner to acetabulum using Archard’s wear law. Total deformation, von Mises stress, contact stress, linear and volumetric wear rates were reported. The volumetric wear rate was found to be less than the existing literature, achieving the goal of increasing the life expectancy of the total hip prosthesis. The maximum wear rate is found at the head-stem junction for press-fit. It is observed that when the acetabular cup and femoral head are made of CoCr (Cobalt-Chromium) alloy, the liner with Ultra high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) and the stem with titanium alloy have a lesser wear rate when compared to other material combinations. Further, it is also found that the fatigue life of Ti (Titanium) alloy is higher than that of CoCr alloy and Ti alloy material combinations have the maximum factor of safety.
Mechanism of Reduced Glutathione Induced Lysozyme Defolding and Molecular Self-Assembly

The distinctive assembly behaviors of lysozyme (Lys) feature prominently in food, materials, biomedicine, and other fields and have intrigued many scholars. Although our previous work suggested that reduced glutathione (GSH) could induce lysozyme to form interfacial films at the air/water interface, the underlying mechanism is still obscure. In the present study, the effects of GSH on the disulfide bond and protein conformation of lysozyme were investigated by fluorescence spectroscopy, circular dichroism spectroscopy, and infrared spectroscopy. The findings demonstrated that GSH was able to break the disulfide bond in lysozyme molecules through the sulfhydryl/disulfide bond exchange reaction, thereby unraveling the lysozyme. The β-sheet structure of lysozyme expanded significantly, while the contents of α-helix and β-turn decreased. Furthermore, the interfacial tension and morphology analysis supported that the unfolded lysozyme tended to arrange macroscopic interfacial films at the air/water interface. It was found that pH and GSH concentrations had an impact on the aforementioned processes, with higher pH or GSH levels having a positive effect. This paper on the exploration of the mechanism of GSH-induced lysozyme interface assembly and the development of lysozyme-based green coatings has better instructive significance.
CNN Accelerator at the Edge With Adaptive Zero Skipping and Sparsity-Driven Data Flow

An energy-efficient convolutional neural network (CNN) accelerator is proposed for low-power inference on edge devices. An adaptive zero skipping technique is proposed to dynamically skip the zeros in either activations or weights, depending on which has the higher sparsity. The characteristic of non-zero data aggregation is explored to enhance the effectiveness of adaptive zero skipping in performance boosting. To mitigate the load imbalance issue after zero skipping, a sparsity-driven data flow and low-complexity dynamic task allocation are employed for different convolution layers. Facilitated further by a two-stage distiller, the proposed accelerator achieves <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$5.42\times $ </tex-math></inline-formula>, <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$3.41\times $ </tex-math></inline-formula>, and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$3.42\times $ </tex-math></inline-formula> performance boosting for VGG16, AlexNet, and Mobilenet-v1, respectively, compared to the baseline. Implemented in a 55-nm low power CMOS technology, the proposed accelerator achieves an effective energy efficiency of 2.41 TOPS/W, 2.35 TOPS/W, and 0.64 TOPS/W for VGG16, AlexNet, and Mobilenet-v1, respectively, at 100 MHz and 1.08 V supply voltage.
Fertilization Mode Covaries with Body Size

The evolution of internal fertilization has occurred repeatedly and independently across the tree of life. As it has evolved, internal fertilization has reshaped sexual selection and the covariances among sexual traits, such as testes size, and gamete traits. But it is unclear whether fertilization mode also shows evolutionary associations with traits other than primary sex traits. Theory predicts that fertilization mode and body size should covary, but formal tests with phylogenetic control are lacking. We used a phylogenetically controlled approach to test the covariance between fertilization mode and adult body size (while accounting for latitude, offspring size, and offspring developmental mode) among 1,232 species of marine invertebrates from three phyla. Within all phyla, external fertilizers are consistently larger than internal fertilizers: the consequences of fertilization mode extend to traits that are only indirectly related to reproduction. We suspect that other traits may also coevolve with fertilization mode in ways that remain unexplored.
Extended Exposure Topotecan Significantly Improves Long-Term Drug Sensitivity by Decreasing Malignant Cell Heterogeneity and by Preventing Epithelial–Mesenchymal Transition

Maximum tolerable dosing (MTD) of chemotherapeutics has long been the gold standard for aggressive malignancies. Recently, alternative dosing strategies have gained traction for their improved toxicity profiles and unique mechanisms of action, such as inhibition of angiogenesis and stimulation of immunity. In this article, we investigated whether extended exposure (EE) topotecan could improve long-term drug sensitivity by preventing drug resistance. To achieve significantly longer exposure times, we used a spheroidal model system of castration-resistant prostate cancer. We also used state-of-the-art transcriptomic analysis to further elucidate any underlying phenotypic changes that occurred in the malignant population following each treatment. We determined that EE topotecan had a much higher barrier to resistance relative to MTD topotecan and was able to maintain consistent efficacy throughout the study period (EE IC50 of 54.4 nM (Week 6) vs. MTD IC50 of 2200 nM (Week 6) vs. 83.8 nM IC50 for control (Week 6) vs. 37.8 nM IC50 for control (Week 0)). As a possible explanation for these results, we determined that MTD topotecan stimulated epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT), upregulated efflux pumps, and produced altered topoisomerases relative to EE topotecan. Overall, EE topotecan resulted in a more sustained treatment response and maintained a less aggressive malignant phenotype relative to MTD topotecan.
Active chitosan- poly (vinyl alcohol) film reinforced with zinc oxide nanoparticles for food packaging applications

Active packaging represents an innovative alternative to improve the quality of food and extend the shelf life of the product. The main aim of this research is to develop antibacterial films based on chitosan (Cs), polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), and zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnONps) to find a solution of food deterioration due to the presence of pathogenic microorganisms. ZnONps were synthesized by green chemistry using the leaves extract of Petroselinum crispum. The films were fabricated with 0; 0.5; and 1% w/v of ZnONps using different proportions of Cs: PVA by the casting method. The mechanical, physicochemical, antimicrobial, and antifungal properties were assessed. Moreover, the influence of the Cs/PVA/ZnONps films in the conservation of the Isabella grape was analyzed (pH, titratable acidity, weight loss, total soluble solids, and decay rate) and it was compared to commercial coating and uncoated grapes. Results showed the increase in the content of PVA improved the mechanical properties and increased the water absorption. Besides, Young’s Module, and tensile strength of the films improved with ZnO nanoparticles addition. The antimicrobial activity of the nanocomposite films against Escherichia Coli was demonstrated. Finally, it was corroborated the nanocomposite films preserve the quality and extend the shelf life of Isabella grapes 6 days more than the commercial coating affirming their use in food packaging. To the best of our knowledge, no previous work related with the development of films based on Cs/PVA reinforced with ZnONPs has tested its application as fruits packaging, determining its effect on the ripening process through physic-chemical assays. Graphical Abstract