Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Upadacitinib in the Treatment of Atopic Dermatitis: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background. The pathogenesis of atopic dermatitis (AD) is associated with proinflammatory cytokines and the JAK/STAT signaling pathway. Upadacitinib, an approved oral JAK1 inhibitor, has been investigated in some clinical trials and observational studies of AD. However, the efficacy and safety profile of upadacitinib for AD is still unclear, as few previous meta-analyses evaluated upadacitinib alone. Purpose. To assess the benefit and risk profile of upadacitinib for patients with AD based on evidence from current clinical trials and observational studies. Methods. The study was performed according to PRISMA guidelines. Efficacy outcomes included the proportion of AD patients achieving 50%, 75%, 90%, and 100% improvement in Eczema Area and Severity Index (EASI 50, 75, 90, and 100) and clear or almost clear in Investigator Global Assessment (IGA 0/1) following upadacitinib treatment. Risk of Bias in Non-randomized Studies of Interventions (ROBINS-I) was used for quality assessment, and Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (CMA) was used to analyze the extracted data. Results. We enrolled 12 studies from 11 articles, including 6 clinical trials and 6 observational studies. For efficacy, the overall pooled proportions of AD patients achieving EASI 50, EASI 75, EASI 90, and EASI 100 after upadacitinib therapy were 83.3%, 70.5%, 51.8%, and 25.0%, respectively. For safety, the most frequently reported adverse events during upadacitinib treatment were acne (13.2%), and the overall pooled rate of serious adverse events was acceptable (2.2%). The pooled rate of upadacitinib discontinuation was 1.5%, with adverse events (2.2%) and lack of efficacy (1.6%) as the major factors. The subgroup analysis based on dosage regimen revealed that upadacitinib 30 mg/d conferred superior efficacy in treating AD but higher risks of acne than 15 mg/d. Conclusions. Upadacitinib seems to be a promising drug with mild adverse effects in the treatment of AD. More high-quality, large-scale controlled trials are needed for further verification.
Stability based testing for the analysis of fMRI data

Neurological imaging has become increasingly important in the field of psychological research. The leading technique is functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), in which a correlate of the oxygen-level in the blood is measured (the BOLD-signal). In an fMRI-experiment, a time series of brain images is taken while participants perform a certain task. By comparing different conditions, the task-related areas in the brain can be localised. An fMRI study leads to enormous amounts of data. To analyse the data adequately, the brain images are devided into a large number of volume units (or voxels). Subsequently, a time series of the measured signal is modelled voxelwise as a linear combination of different signal components, after which an indication of activation can be tested in each voxel. This encompasses an enormous number of simultaneous statistical tests (+/-250 000 voxels). As a result, the multiple testing problem is a serious challenge for the analysis of fMRI data. In this context, classical multiple testing procedures such as Bonferroni and Benjamini-Hochberg (Benjamini & Hochberg, 1995) have been applied to respectively control the family-wise error rate (FWER) and the false discovery rate FDR)(Genovese, Lazar, & Nichols, 2002). Random Field Theory (Worsley, Evans, Marrett, & Neelin, 1992) controls the FWER while accounting for the spatial character of the data. Because of the dramatically decrease in power when controlling the FWER, methods to control the topological false discovery rate (FDR) were developed (Chumbley & Friston, 2009; Heller, Stanley, Yekutieli, Rubin, & Benjamini, 2006). A general shortcoming of current procedures is the focus on detecting non-null activation while a non-null effect is not necessarily biologically relevant. Moreover, failing to reject the hypothesis of no activation is not the same as conﬁdently excluding important effects. Another aspect that remains largely unexplored is the stability of test results which can be deﬁned as selection variability of individual voxels (Qiu, Xiao, Gordon, & Yakovlev, 2006). Given the need to control both false positives (type I errors) and false negatives (type II errors) in a direct manner (Lieberman & Cunningham, 2009), we approach the multiple testing problem from a different angle. Following the procedure of (Gordon, Chen, Glazko, & Yakovlev, 2009) in the context of gene selection, we present a statistical method to detect brain activation that not only includes information on false positives, but also on power and stability. The method uses bootstrap resampling to extract information on stability and uses this information to detect the most reliable voxels in relation to the experiment. The ﬁndings indicate that the method can improve stability of procedures and allows a direct trade-off between type I and type II errors. In this particular setting, it is shown how the proposed method enables researchers to adapt classical procedures while improving their stability. The method is evaluated and illustrated using simulation studies and a real data example.
The Sample Complexity of Subspace Learning with Partial Information

The goal of subspace learning is to find a $k$-dimensional subspace of $\mathbb{R}^d$, such that the expected squared distance between instance vectors and the subspace is as small as possible. In this paper we study the sample complexity of subspace learning in a \emph{partial information} setting, in which the learner can only observe $r \le d$ attributes from each instance vector. We derive upper and lower bounds on the sample complexity in different scenarios. In particular, our upper bounds involve a generalization of vector sampling techniques, which are often used in bandit problems, to matrices.
Total quality management and lean six sigma impact on supply chain research field: systematic analysis

The purpose of this study is to explore and identify the trending topics in the field of total quality management (TQM), lean six sigma (LSS), and supply chain management (SCM) by employing bibliometric techniques. This paper aims to identify the recent status of the field, gaps in research and the future direction of journal articles by providing a knowledge structure. This study collected over one thousand and nine hundred published articles between 1995 and 2022. The analysis of this study sheds light on the areas that have been growing fast during the past few years and the areas that have been slowly developing over the past decades. Furthermore, the findings shed light on identifying the most relevant journals, active authors, and productive countries in the selected fields. This research provides opportunities for both scholars and practitioners to learn about the trending topics related to TQM and LSS practices on the SCM field based on recent studies and highlights the research gaps for future studies.
Deregulated Expression of IL-37 in Patients with Bladder Urothelial Cancer: The Diagnostic Potential of the IL-37e Isoform

Cellular and molecular immune components play a crucial role in the development and perpetuation of human malignancies, shaping anti-tumor responses. A novel immune regulator is interleukin-37 (IL-37), already shown to be involved in the inflammation associated with the pathophysiology of many human disorders, including cancer. The interplay between tumor and immune cells is of great importance, especially for highly immunogenic tumors such as bladder urothelial carcinoma (BLCA). This study aimed to investigate the potential of IL-37 and its receptor SIGIRR (single immunoglobulin IL-1-related receptor) to serve as prognostic and/or diagnostic markers in patients with BLCA. To this end, a series of bioinformatics tools processing -omics datasets and specifically designed qPCR assays on human BLCA tumors and cancer cell lines were utilized. Bioinformatics analysis revealed that IL-37 levels correlate with BLCA tumor development and are higher in patients with longer overall survival. Furthermore, mutations on SIGIRR are associated with enhanced infiltration of the tumor by regulatory T cells and dendritic cells. Based on the qPCR validation experiments, BLCA epithelial cells express the IL-37c and IL-37e isoforms, while the latter is the predominant variant detected in tumor biopsies, also associated with higher grade and the non-muscle-invasive type. This is the first time, to the best of our knowledge, that IL-37 and SIGIRR levels have been assessed in BLCA tumor lesions, and associations with pathological and survival parameters are described, while a transcript variant-specific signature is indicated to have a diagnostic potential. These data strongly indicate the need for further investigation of the involvement of this cytokine and interconnected molecules in the pathophysiology of the disease and its prospective as a therapeutic target and biomarker for BLCA.
From fission yield measurements to evaluation: Propositions of 235U(nth,f) Fission Yields for JEFF-4

The study of fission yields has a major impact on the characterization and understanding of the fission process and its applications. The fission products have a direct influence on the amount of neutron poisons that limit the fuel burnup and on the evaluation of the decay heat of the reactor after shutdown. Fission yield evaluation represents the synthesis of experimental and theoretical knowledge in order to perform the best estimation of mass and independent fission product yields. Today, the lack of correlations between the different fission observables induces some inconsistencies in the evaluations. For instance, the mass yield uncertainties are drastically overestimated while this observable is the best known. In this last decade, different covariance matrices have been proposed but the experimental part of those are neglected. A consistent covariance matrix depends on the global process of evaluation from data up to the models used. The collaboration develops a new methodology in the field of fission products for the future version of the JEFF-library coupling the analyses of the CEA and NNL institutes.
Target Screening of Chemicals of Emerging Concern (CECs) in Surface Waters of the Swedish West Coast

The aquatic environment faces increasing threats from a variety of unregulated organic chemicals originating from human activities, collectively known as chemicals of emerging concern (CECs). These include pharmaceuticals, personal-care products, pesticides, surfactants, industrial chemicals, and their transformation products. CECs enter aquatic environments through various sources, including effluents from wastewater treatment plants, industrial facilities, runoff from agricultural and residential areas, as well as accidental spills. Data on the occurrence of CECs in the marine environment are scarce, and more information is needed to assess the chemical and ecological status of water bodies, and to prioritize toxic chemicals for further studies or risk assessment. In this study, we describe a monitoring campaign targeting CECs in surface waters at the Swedish west coast using, for the first time, an on-site large volume solid phase extraction (LVSPE) device. We detected up to 80 and 227 CECs in marine sites and the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluent, respectively. The dataset will contribute to defining pollution fingerprints and assessing the chemical status of marine and freshwater systems affected by industrial hubs, agricultural areas, and the discharge of urban wastewater.
Liquid Culture System: An Efficient Approach for Sustainable Micropropagation

Micropropagation of important forestry, horticultural and medicinal plants have made revolutionary changes in terms of research and commercialization. However, there are a variety of factors which influence the scaling-up and commercialization aspects, which decide whether mass propagation will be effective and lucrative. Low rates of shoot multiplication, increased costs of media components, loss of cultures due to contamination, and difficulties with hardening and acclimation are the key obstacles to scaling up micropropagation technology. These restrictions have forced a large number of in vitro technologies developed for a range of plant species to be used only under research laboratories settings. To apply tissue culture technology to large-scale propagation, it is required to develop techniques that are relatively simple to adopt, have high multiplication rate with high levels of reproducibility, and exhibit higher survival of plantlets when transferred to ex vitro conditions. Efficient techniques include utilization of liquid culture systems and replacement of agar with other gelling agents. These techniques allow development of micropropagules that not only function better in post-vitro soil conditions and are comparatively less expensive, but will also help develop a workable micropropagation technique that can be applied to the mass production of desirable plant species. The current review describes liquid culture system as an efficient approach to produce large number of plants at low production cost.
Measurement theory and experimental research on microwave permeability and permittivity by using the cavity characteristic equation method

The characteristic equation for a TE/sub 10P/ (P=even or odd number) rectangular cavity loaded by a ferrite slab in the middle has been derived on the basis of electromagnetic theory. This characteristic equation is used in a novel measurement technique for microwave permeability and permittivity with improved precision, because of elimination of the error caused by the perturbation approximation. Considerable computational analysis and experimental research have been done using the characteristic equation method. >
Visualization of rotating detonation waves in a plane combustor with a cylindrical wall injector

A Rotating Detonation Engine (RDE) has higher thermal efficiency and simpler structure than a conventional gas turbine engine. Therefore, many research institutions has been investigating RDEs. Property of propagation of detonation waves in a RDE, however, has not been fully elucidated yet. Toward the practical use of RDEs, clarifying the propagation characteristics of detonation waves in RDEs is important. In the present study,we fabricated a plane RDE combustor with a cylindrical wall injector and performed visualization experiment. Propagation speed of the combustion waves that was observed in this experiment had reached to about 1300 – 1100 m/s, that is about 55 – 45 % of Chapman Jouguet detonation velocity.
Relative dispersion of passive scalar plume in a turbulent boundary layer

The relative dispersion of a scalar plume is examined experimentally. A passive fluorescent tracer is continuously released from a flush-bed mounted source into the turbulent boundary layer of a laboratory-generated open channel flow. A two-dimensional particle image velocimetry–laser-induced florescence (PIV– LIF) technique is applied to measure the instantaneous horizontal velocity and concentration fields. Measured results are used to investigate the relationship between the boundary-layer turbulence and the evolution of the distance-neighbour function, namely the probability density distribution of the separation distance between two marked fluid particles within a cloud of particles. Special attention is paid to the hypothesis that a diffusion equation can describe the evolution of the distanceneighbour function. The diffusion coefficient in such an equation, termed the ‘relative diffusivity’, is directly calculated based on the concentration distribution. The results indicate that the relative diffusivity statistically depends on particle separation lengths instead of the overall size of the plume. Measurements at all stages of the dispersing plume collapse onto a single curve and follow a 4/3 power law in the inertial subrange. The Richardson–Obukhov constant is estimated from the presented dataset. The relationship between the one-dimensional (1D) representation of the distanceneighbour function and its three-dimensional (3D) representation is discussed. An extended model for relative diffusivity beyond the inertial subrange is proposed based on the structure of the turbulent velocity field, and it agrees well with measurements. The experimental evidence implies that, while the diffusion of the distance-neighbour function is completely determined by the underlying turbulence, the overall growth rate of the plume is affected by both the turbulent flow and its actual concentration distribution.
Pathway and energetics of xenon migration in uranium dioxide

Using a combination of Density Functional Theory (DFT), classical potentials, Molecular Dynamics (MD), and Nudged Elastic Band (NEB) calculations, we explore the diffusion of xenon in uranium dioxide (UO 2 ). We compare migration barriers of empirical potentials with DFT by performing NEB calculations and subsequently we use the DFT-validated empirical potentials to calculate vacancy clusters, with and without xenon, to determine the migration path and barrier of xenon in bulk UO 2 . We find (i) two empirical potentials out of four tested agree qualitatively with DFT derived energetics for Schottky defect migration, (ii) through the use of molecular dynamics with empirical potentials, we have found a new path for the diffusion of xenon-tetravacancy clusters (Xe + 2 V U + 2 V O ), (iii) this new path has an energy barrier significantly lower than previously reported paths by nearly 1 eV, (iv) we examine the physical contributions to the migration pathway and find the barrier is largely electrostatic and that xenon contributes very little to the barrier height, (v) once a uranium vacancy attaches to a xenon-Schottky defect, the resulting xenon-tetravacancy cluster is strongly bound, and (vi) like xenon in a tetravacancy, a xenon-double Schottky defect can diffuse in a concerted manor with a comparable barrier to xenon in a tetravacancy, but two of the oxygen vacancies are only weakly bound to the defect. The energy barriers of
Advantages of Short-Segment Fusion in the Surgical Management of Thoracolumbar Traumatic Fractures: A Case Series and Review of the Literature

Introduction: Spine trauma is a common pathology that frequently requires neurosurgical intervention. Few studies have examined short-segment, 360-degree stabilization of traumatic thoracolumbar fractures. Methods: A retrospective review was completed of adult and pediatric patients who underwent surgical correction for thoracolumbar fractures between December 2011 and December 2021. Results: Forty patients met the inclusion criteria. The majority of patients presented with an American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) score of D (n = 11) or E (n = 21). The most common level of injury was L1 (n = 20). The average length of stay was 11.7 days. Postoperatively, two patients had pulmonary emboli or deep venous thrombosis, and two had surgical site infections. Most patients were discharged to home (n = 21) or acute rehab (n = 14). The fusion rate at six months was 97.5%. Neurologically, all patients regained ambulation by >18 months follow-up. For the ASIA scale, most had a score of D (n = 4) or E (n = 32) at six months. The same trend was observed with the Frankel score, where most patients had either D (n = 5) or E (n = 31), improving to only two having a score of D at >18 months. Conclusions: Corpectomy followed by posterior fusion has a number of biomechanical benefits. This construct permits circumferential decompression, larger surface area for fusion, improved reconstitution of vertebral body height, reduced kyphosis, and an overall shorter segment. This results in fewer levels needing to be fused while enabling the greatest changes of successful fusion.
Origin of the 0.5 plateau in the ballistic conductance of quantum point contacts

A non-equilibrium Green function formalism (NEGF) is used to study the conductance of a side-gated quantum point contact (QPC) in the presence of lateral spin-orbit coupling (LSOC). A small difference of bias voltage between the two side gates (SGs) leads to an inversion asymmetry in the LSOC between opposite edges of the channel. This triggers a spontaneous spin polarization, which is significantly enhanced by electron-electron interaction. The spin polarization can be strong enough to result in the occurrence of a conductance plateau at 0.5(2e2/h) in the absence of any external magnetic field. In our simulations for a model QPC device, the 0.5 plateau is found to be quite robust and survives up to a temperature of 40K. The spontaneous spin polarization and the resulting magnetization of the QPC can be reversed by reversing the polarity of the source to drain bias or the potential difference between the two SGs. These numerical simulations are in good agreement with recent experimental results for side-gated QPCs made from the low band gap semiconductor InAs.
Sensitivity of the Acoustic Scattering Problem in Prolate Spheroidal Geometry with Respect to Wavenumber and Shape

The sensitivity of analytical solutions of the direct acoustic scattering problem in prolate spheroidal geometry on the wavenumber and shape, is extensively investigated in this work. Using the well known Vekua transformation and the complete set of radiating “outwards” eigensolutions of the Helmholtz equation, introduced in our previous work ([Charalambopoulos and Dassios (2002)],[Gergidis, Kourounis, Mavratzas, and Charalambopoulos (2007)]), the scattered field is expanded in terms of it, detouring so the standard spheroidal wave functions along with their inherent numerical deficiencies. An approach is employed for the determination of the expansion coefficients, which is optimal in the sense, that minimizes the L2 norm of the error related to the satisfaction of the boundary condition on the surface of the scatterer. The study of the conditioning of the matrices involved in the linear systems, the solution of which provides the expansion coefficients, reveals the need for implication of numerical implementations using arbitrary precision arithmetics. Numerical and convergence properties estimations such as condition numbers, L2 and L∞ error norms prove the robustness of the adopted methodology. A study of the dependence of the error with respect to geometrical, physical and numerical parameters is developed. Three dimensional representation of the L2 norm clarifies the distribution of errors on the scatterer’s surface. Keyword: Prolate Spheroid; Acoustic Scattering; Vekua Transformation; Arbitrary Precision; L2-norm Minimization; Mathematical Modeling; Numerical Acoustics; Scientific Computing. 1 Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Ioannina, GR 45110 Ioannina, Greece
3D Polar-Radius-Invariant-Moments and Their Application to 3D Model Retrieval

A novel moment,3D polar-radius-invariant-moment,is proposed for the 3D object recognition and classification.Some properties of the new moments including the invariance on shift,rotation and scale transforms are studied and proved.Eighteen moment invariants are derived and tested. Examples are presented to illustrate the performance and invariance of these moments.With the help of these moment invariants,the 3D models are distinguished accurately.