Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Impact of Anxiety and Depression in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Highlights Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients experience a higher level of psychological distress than the general population, including anxiety and/or depression. This article reviews the pathophysiology, clinical features, impact of mental health disorders in COPD patients. It dives into the current screening, diagnosis, and management of this population. What are the main findings? COPD patients with comorbid anxiety or depression experience more acute exacerbations, incidences of rehospitalization, and carry a higher risk of mortality than COPD patients without these comorbidities. COPD patients benefit from non-pharmacological and pharmacological intervention based on severity of depression. What is the implication of the main findings? Ongoing investigation and research are necessary to ensure appropriate screening, diagnosis, and management of COPD patient with anxiety and/or depression. Adequate treatment of COPD patients with comorbid mental health conditions can decrease the burden on the healthcare system by improving symptomatology and rehospitalizations. Abstract Patients with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) are at a higher risk of comorbid conditions such as anxiety and/or depression, which in turn increase their symptom burden and rehospitalizations compared to the general population. It is important to investigate the pathophysiology and clinical implications of mental health on patients with COPD. This review article finds that COPD patients with anxiety and/or depression have a higher rehospitalization incidence. It reviews the current screening and diagnosis methods available. There are pharmacological and non-pharmacologic interventions available for treatment of COPD patients with depression based on severity. COPD patients with mild depression benefit from pulmonary rehabilitation and cognitive behavioral therapy, whereas patients with severe or persistent depression can be treated with pharmacologic interventions.
Microfluidic Methods for Generation of Submicron Droplets: A Review

Submicron droplets are ubiquitous in nature and widely applied in fields such as biomedical diagnosis and therapy, oil recovery and energy conversion, among others. The submicron droplets are kinetically stable, their submicron size endows them with good mobility in highly constricted pathways, and the high surface-to-volume ratio allows effective loading of chemical components at the interface and good heat transfer performance. Conventional generation technology of submicron droplets in bulk involves high energy input, or relies on chemical energy released from the system. Microfluidic methods are widely used to generate highly monodispersed micron-sized or bigger droplets, while downsizing to the order of 100 nm was thought to be challenging because of sophisticated nanofabrication. In this review, we summarize the microfluidic methods that are promising for the generation of submicron droplets, with an emphasize on the device fabrication, operational condition, and resultant droplet size. Microfluidics offer a relatively energy-efficient and versatile tool for the generation of highly monodisperse submicron droplets.
Improvement in contact resistance of 4H-SiC by excimer laser doping using silicon nitride films

We have proposed a novel method of low-temperature nitrogen doping into 4H-SiC(0001) induced by KrF excimer laser irradiation to a SiNx film. The SiNx film with a thickness of 100 nm was deposited on an n-type 4H-SiC(0001) substrate by chemical vapor deposition. Laser beam size on the sample surface was 300 μm×300 μm. Irradiation fluence was 1.0 J/cm2-4.0 J/cm2, and the number of shots was from 1 shot to 30 shots. Laser irradiation was performed in a vacuum chamber to avoid oxidation of the SiC surface. High concentration nitrogen doping (~1×1021 /cm3 at the surface) and very low contact resistance with ohmic I-V characteristics can be achieved by laser ablation of the SiNx film. In the case of laser irradiation at the fluence of 2.0 J/cm2, the SiNx film was almost ablated without laser ablation of the SiC substrate. Then, excellent ohmic contact characteristics was obtained at the irradiation number of 5 shots, and it was hardly deteriorated up to 30 shots. In the case of irradiation fluence above 3.0 J/cm2, ablation of the SiC substrates was induced and ohmic contact characteristics were deteriorated with increasing the number of shots. From these results, we conclude that excellent ohmic contact characteristics without irradiation damage to SiC substrates can be obtained in a stable.
Improved performance in organic light emitting diodes with a mixed electron donor-acceptor film involved in hole injection

Organic light emitting diodes using a mixed layer of electron acceptor 3, 4, 9, 10 perylenetetracarboxylic dianhydride and electron donor copper phthalocyanine (PTCDA:CuPc) on indium tin oxide (ITO) anodes were fabricated. The device properties were found to be strongly dependent on the thickness of the PTCDA:CuPc film: both the power efficiency and the driving voltage of the device were optimized with a thickness of PTCDA:CuPc ranging from 10 to 20 nm. As compared to the conventional ITO/CuPc hole injection structure, the ITO/PTCDA:CuPc hole injection structure could remarkably enhance both the luminance and the power efficiencies of devices. A mechanism of static-induced, very efficient hole-electron pairs generation in mixed PTCDA:CuPc films was proposed to explain the experimental phenomena. The structural and optical properties of PTCDA:CuPc film were examined as well. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.
Interaction between Sulfate and Selenate in Tetraploid Wheat (Triticum turgidum L.) Genotypes

Selenium (Se) is an essential micronutrient of fundamental importance to human health and the main Se source is from plant-derived foods. Plants mainly take up Se as selenate (SeO42−), through the root sulfate transport system, because of their chemical similarity. The aims of this study were (1) to characterize the interaction between Se and S during the root uptake process, by measuring the expression of genes coding for high-affinity sulfate transporters and (2) to explore the possibility of increasing plant capability to take up Se by modulating S availability in the growth medium. We selected different tetraploid wheat genotypes as model plants, including a modern genotype, Svevo (Triticum turgidum ssp. durum), and three ancient Khorasan wheats, Kamut, Turanicum 21, and Etrusco (Triticum turgidum ssp. turanicum). The plants were cultivated hydroponically for 20 days in the presence of two sulfate levels, adequate (S = 1.2 mM) and limiting (L = 0.06 mM), and three selenate levels (0, 10, 50 μM). Our findings clearly showed the differential expression of genes encoding the two high-affinity transporters (TdSultr1.1 and TdSultr1.3), which are involved in the primary uptake of sulfate from the rhizosphere. Interestingly, Se accumulation in shoots was higher when S was limited in the nutrient solution.
Eicosapentaenoic and Docosahexaenoic Acid Supplementation Increases HDL Content in n-3 Fatty Acids and Improves Endothelial Function in Hypertriglyceridemic Patients

High-density lipoproteins (HDLs) are known to enhance vascular function through different mechanisms, including the delivery of functional lipids to endothelial cells. Therefore, we hypothesized that omega-3 (n-3) eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) content of HDLs would improve the beneficial vascular effects of these lipoproteins. To explore this hypothesis, we performed a placebo-controlled crossover clinical trial in 18 hypertriglyceridemic patients without clinical symptoms of coronary heart disease who received highly purified EPA 460 mg and DHA 380 mg, twice a day for 5 weeks or placebo. After 5 weeks of treatment, patients followed a 4-week washout period before crossover. HDLs were isolated using sequential ultracentrifugation for characterization and determination of fatty acid content. Our results showed that n-3 supplementation induced a significant decrease in body mass index, waist circumference as well as triglycerides and HDL-triglyceride plasma concentrations, whilst HDL-cholesterol and HDL-phospholipids significantly increased. On the other hand, HDL, EPA, and DHA content increased by 131% and 62%, respectively, whereas 3 omega-6 fatty acids significantly decreased in HDL structures. In addition, the EPA-to-arachidonic acid (AA) ratio increased more than twice within HDLs suggesting an improvement in their anti-inflammatory properties. All HDL-fatty acid modifications did not affect the size distribution or the stability of these lipoproteins and were concomitant with a significant increase in endothelial function assessed using a flow-mediated dilatation test (FMD) after n-3 supplementation. However, endothelial function was not improved in vitro using a model of rat aortic rings co-incubated with HDLs before or after treatment with n-3. These results suggest a beneficial effect of n-3 on endothelial function through a mechanism independent of HDL composition. In conclusion, we demonstrated that EPA and DHA supplementation for 5 weeks improved vascular function in hypertriglyceridemic patients, and induced enrichment of HDLs with EPA and DHA to the detriment of some n-6 fatty acids. The significant increase in the EPA-to-AA ratio in HDLs is indicative of a more anti-inflammatory profile of these lipoproteins.
Perturbation theory, scaling and the spherical model

The four dimensional spherical model is treated as a perturbation of the three dimensional model. An exact resummation of the expansion is possible and the perturbed critical properties are compared with the predictions of the scaling theoretical approach to the problem. Both methods are found to yield the correct dependence on the strength of the perturbation, which can also be found from the exact solution of the model. A more general method of resummation is discussed and applied to the expansion of both the four and five dimensional models. The effects of perturbations which do not alter the critical exponents are also investigated.
Analytic expression for the temperature of the current-heated nanowire for the current-induced domain wall motion

The authors find a simple analytic expression for the temperature of Joule heated nanowire by current pulse, which is important in the study of the current induced domain wall motion. Since the effect of spin transfer torque depends on the thermal energy of the system, the temperature of the nanowire is a vital information. Even though the numerical solution of the heat conduction equation is well established, not only does it require a lot of numerical effort, but neither does it give any physical insight. With appropriate assumptions and Green’s function method, the author derive a simple expression for the temperature of the nanowire as a function of the current density, sample geometry, and thermal properties of the substrate. The authors confirm the validity of their analytic expression by the comparison between the results of a simple expression and a commercial finite element method.
Blast Furnace Charging State Recognition based on YOLOv5

For modern iron and steel industry, blast furnace (BF) burden charging is one of the key procedures for cast iron making. Recognition of the different states during the charging process is the premise of burden layer profile observation and the hot gas monitoring in the BF throat. Conventional methods only provide limited information from the measurement spots where the sensors are located. Infrared thermal imaging technique provides continuous and field information of the BF throat, and is able to monitor the charging process. In the paper, the computer vision technique is applied to implement the charging state recognition of the BF. After preprocessing of the infrared images, the YOLOv5 algorithm is adopted to accomplish the target detection of the markers in the BF throat. A state identification template is designed to tell the different states during the charging process. The proposed charging state recognition method in this paper is verified with the infrared videos from an actual BF. The recognition accuracy is better than 95.5%, which has shown the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Diagnosing Santa Ana Winds in Southern California with Synoptic-Scale Analysis

AbstractSanta Ana winds (SAW) are among the most notorious fire-weather conditions in the United States and are implicated in wildfire and wind hazards in Southern California. This study employs large-scale reanalysis data to diagnose SAW through synoptic-scale dynamic and thermodynamic factors using mean sea level pressure gradient and lower-tropospheric temperature advection, respectively. A two-parameter threshold model of these factors exhibits skill in identifying surface-based characteristics of SAW featuring strong offshore winds and extreme fire weather as viewed through the Fosberg fire weather index across Remote Automated Weather Stations in southwestern California. These results suggest that a strong northeastward gradient in mean sea level pressure aligned with strong cold-air advection in the lower troposphere provide a simple, yet effective, means of diagnosing SAW from synoptic-scale reanalysis. This objective method may be useful for medium- to extended-range forecasting when mesoscale mo.
Rice pest Detection based on MobileNetv2-YOLOv4

For the management and conservation of rice, accurate pest identification is crucial. Low pest detection effectiveness and good classification accuracy in rice fields are addressed by the lightweight model MobileNetv2-YOLOv4, which is based on YOLOv4. First, MobileNetv2 is utilized as the backbone network in lieu of CSPDarknet53 in YOLOv4 to minimize the amount of parameters and lighten the model. Second, the model emphasizes the difficulty of recognizing samples during training by balancing the positive and negative samples in the picture using the Focal Loss loss function. The results show that MobileNetv2-YOLOv4 has 90.50% mAP, 51.55 frames per second(FPS), and the model weights of 49.00MB on the 3-type field rice pest dataset. Compared to YOLOv4, the mAP is basically the same, FPS is 206% higher, and model weights are reduced fivefold. The MobileNetv2-YOLOv4 model indicated in this research can be used for field detection of rice pests and diseases, taking into account the accuracy and recognition speed of rice pest detection.
Hepatocyte-Specific Triggering of Hepatic Stellate Cell Profibrotic Activation by Apoptotic Bodies: The Role of Hepatoma-Derived Growth Factor, HIV, and Ethanol

Liver disease is one of the leading comorbidities in HIV infection. The risk of liver fibrosis development is potentiated by alcohol abuse. In our previous studies, we reported that hepatocytes exposed to HIV and acetaldehyde undergo significant apoptosis, and the engulfment of apoptotic bodies (ABs) by hepatic stellate cells (HSC) potentiates their pro-fibrotic activation. However, in addition to hepatocytes, under the same conditions, ABs can be generated from liver-infiltrating immune cells. The goal of this study is to explore whether lymphocyte-derived ABs trigger HSC profibrotic activation as strongly as hepatocyte-derived ABs. ABs were generated from Huh7.5-CYP2E1 (RLW) cells and Jurkat cells treated with HIV+acetaldehyde and co-culture with HSC to induce their pro-fibrotic activation. ABs cargo was analyzed by proteomics. ABs generated from RLW, but not from Jurkat cells activated fibrogenic genes in HSC. This was driven by the expression of hepatocyte-specific proteins in ABs cargo. One of these proteins is Hepatocyte-Derived Growth Factor, for which suppression attenuates pro-fibrotic activation of HSC. In mice humanized with only immune cells but not human hepatocytes, infected with HIV and fed ethanol, liver fibrosis was not observed. We conclude that HIV+ABs of hepatocyte origin promote HSC activation, which potentially may lead to liver fibrosis progression.
Siamese Graph Learning for Semi-Supervised Age Estimation

In this paper, we propose a Siamese graph learning (SGL) approach to alleviate aging dataset bias. While numerous semi-supervised algorithms have been successfully applied to classification tasks, most of them assume that both the labeled and unlabeled samples are drawn from identical distributions. However, this assumption may not hold due to the heterogeneity of face aging data, which gives rise to a bias and unpromising prediction. Motivated by this, our SGL learns to align the sparse distribution with the dense one for dataset debias with preserving the real aging smoothness. To achieve this, we adopt a mixup strategy to plausibly generate hallucinatory samples, which leverages amounts of unlabeled data to enhance the diversity of unbalanced classes. Moreover, we develop a graph contrastive regularization to suppress the noise introduced by auxiliary unlabeled samples. Extensive experimental results show compelling performance by only utilizing the limited scalability of training annotations.
Finitude and eternity: mental companions of soulful aging?

ABSTRACT It is a well-known finding that perceived finitude plays a critical role in the process of aging. The current article addressed how perceptions of finitude and eternity contribute to a soulful aging experience. Infinity is introduced as a temporal concept involving endurance and everlasting existence of time that marks the opposite end of finitude of a human life. Eternity, in contrast, relates to a timeless concept going beyond time without beginning or ending characterized by omnipresence. While the soul reflects eternity, the aging experience pertains to finitude. I suggest that the experience of soulful aging requires an integrative balance between reflections and perceptions of eternity and finitude. This involves a reappraisal of personal finitude into one of the three possible perceptions of infinity, that is, one that views infinity as not including the self, one that views infinity in being commemorated, and one that construes infinity as a possible afterlife of a soul. Conversing personal finitude into perspectives of infinity and eternity may also contribute to positive outcomes in the process of aging.
Dysregulation of AMPA Receptor Trafficking and Intracellular Vesicular Sorting in the Prefrontal Cortex of Dopamine Transporter Knock-Out Rats

Dopamine (DA) and glutamate interact, influencing neural excitability and promoting synaptic plasticity. However, little is known regarding the molecular mechanisms underlying this crosstalk. Since perturbation of DA-AMPA receptor interaction might sustain pathological conditions, the major aim of our work was to evaluate the effect of the hyperactive DA system on the AMPA subunit composition, trafficking, and membrane localization in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Taking advantage of dopamine transporter knock-out (DAT−/−) rats, we found that DA overactivity reduced the translation of cortical AMPA receptors and their localization at both synaptic and extra-synaptic sites through, at least in part, altered intracellular vesicular sorting. Moreover, the reduced expression of AMPA receptor-specific anchoring proteins and structural markers, such as Neuroligin-1 and nCadherin, likely indicate a pattern of synaptic instability. Overall, these data reveal that a condition of hyperdopaminergia markedly alters the homeostatic plasticity of AMPA receptors, suggesting a general destabilization and depotentiation of the AMPA-mediated glutamatergic neurotransmission in the PFC. This effect might be functionally relevant for disorders characterized by elevated dopaminergic activity.
Tip-sample interaction in tapping-mode scanning force microscopy

Tip-sample interaction in intermittent contact scanning force microscopy, also called tapping mode, is experimentally studied to determine under which conditions tip-sample contact is established. Force vs distance curves are made while the cantilever is oscillating at its resonance frequency. Cantilevers with different force constants driven at different oscillation amplitudes have been used. In addition, samples with different hardness, such as silicon oxide, glass, and highly orientated pyrolytic graphite were taken as sample surface. From the analysis of the data we conclude that by choosing appropriate operating conditions, tip-sample contact can be avoided. This operating regime is of general interest in scanning force microscopy, since it allows imaging of even the softest samples.
Use of Sub-Atmospheric Pressure Storage to Improve the Quality and Shelf-Life of Marmande Tomatoes cv. Rojito

In this study, the feasibility of storing Marmande tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum, cv Rojito) under hypobaric conditions was evaluated. The fruits were sorted into four lots of 72 fruits each. One lot was considered as a control, and the fruits were kept in the open box, while the fruits of the rest of the three remaining lots were enclosed in airtight containers and subjected to 101, 75 and 50 Kpa, respectively. Control fruits and airtight containers were kept at room temperature, and every three days from the beginning of the experiment the following main quality parameters were analysed: ethylene production rate, firmness, colour, total solids content, ascorbic acid, total phenolics and pigments, as well as a sensory analysis carried out by panellists. The results show that sub-atmospheric storage led a reduction in ethylene production, which was associated with a delay in ripening. The differences in the evolution of pigments were very significant, while a large degradation of chlorophylls was observed in the control fruits and in those kept at 101 kPa, in the fruits kept at 75 kPa and 50 kPa the degradation was much slower. In relation to carotenoid pigments, it was observed that sub-atmospheric treatments delayed their appearance compared to control and 101 kPa fruits. In relation to other quality parameters, it was found that control fruit and fruit held at 101 kPa softened more rapidly than fruit under sub-atmospheric conditions, whose loss of firmness was more gradual with differences found only at 9 and 12 days of storage with respect to fruit firmness at harvest. The appearance of these fruits was evaluated with the same score as at the time of harvesting, during 9 of the 12 days of the experiment, then a positive effect of sub-atmospheric treatments was also found in the sensory analysis. The results suggest that sub-atmospheric storage could be a suitable method of increasing the shelf-life of fruits.
Decoding of Pre-movement EEG Patterns Using Cross-entropy Loss-based Ensemble Learning

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) provide a new pathway to connect the brain with external devices. Motor intention-based BCI is one of the most natural paradigms, which has developed rapidly. However, decoding the pre-movement intention during motor preparation from electroencephalography (EEG) is still a challenge. In this paper, we devised a voluntary movement paradigm of left and right fingers and recruited ten subjects to take part in the experiment. We proposed a new weighted average ensemble model based on cross-entropy loss. As a result, the ensemble model reached the mean classification accuracy of 78.63%, which was significantly higher than six submodels (p<0.05), i.e., CSP, FBCSP, MDRM, TSClassifier, ShallowNet and EEGNet. These results confirmed the effectiveness and feasibility of integrating different framework models for EEG patterns’ recognition during movement preparation, which is significant for the development of BCIs.
Serum LH levels are associated to serum insulin and Anti‐Müllerian hormone levels in women with both functional hypothalamic amenorrhoea and polycystic ovarian morphology

The aim of the study was to investigate whether serum Luteinizing Hormone (LH) levels in women with Functional Hypothalamic Amenorrhoea (FHA) and Polycystic Ovarian Morphology (PCOM) are still associated to Body Mass Index (BMI) and/or serum insulin and/or Anti‐Müllerian Hormone (AMH) levels using a larger population of FHA.