Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Relationships between internalized stigma and depression and suicide risk among queer youth in the United States: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background Queer youth experience high rates of depression and suicidality. These disparities stem from stigma-based stressors, including internalized stigma (i.e., negative social views that minoritized individuals internalize about their own identity). Given the importance of this factor in understanding mental health disparities among queer youth, we completed a systematic review and meta-analysis examining the relationships between internalized stigma and outcomes of depression and suicide risk (i.e., suicidal ideation, non-suicidal self-injury, and suicidal behavior). Methods We followed the PRISMA standards. Six bibliographic databases were searched for studies in the United States from September 2008 to March 2022. Dual independent screening of search results was performed based on a priori inclusion criteria. Results A total of 22 studies were included for data extraction and review. Most studies examined general internalized homophobia, with few examining internalized biphobia or transphobia. Many studies examined depression as an outcome, few studies examined suicidal ideation or behavior, and no studies examined non-suicidal self-injury. Meta-analyses model results show the association between general internalized queer stigma and depressive symptoms ranged r = 0.19, 95% CI [0.14, 0.25] to r = 0.24, 95% CI [0.19, 0.29], the latter reflecting more uniform measures of depression. The association between internalized transphobia and depressive outcomes was small and positive (r = 0.21, 95% CI [−0.24, 0.67]). General internalized queer stigma and suicidal ideation had a very weak positive association (r = 0.07, 95% CI [−0.27, 0.41]) and an even smaller, weaker positive association with suicide attempt (r = 0.02, 95% CI [0.01, 0.03]). Conclusion Implications for clinical practice, policy, and future research are discussed.
ASL MRI informs blood flow to chronic stroke lesions in patients with aphasia

Introduction: Response to post-stroke aphasia language rehabilitation is difficult to anticipate, mainly because few predictors can help identify optimal, individualized treatment options. Imaging techniques, such as Voxel-based Lesion Symptom Mapping have been useful in linking specific brain areas to language behavior; however, further development is required to optimize the use of structural and physiological information in guiding individualized treatment for persons with aphasia (PWA). In this study, we will determine if cerebral blood flow (CBF) mapped in patients with chronic strokes can be further used to understand stroke-related factors and behavior. Methods: We collected perfusion MRI data using pseudo-Continuous Arterial Spin Labeling (pCASL) using a single post-labeling delay of 2,200 ms in 14 chronic PWA, along with high-resolution structural MRI to compute maps of tissue damage using Tissue Integrity Gradation via T2w T1w Ratio (TIGR). To quantify the CBF in chronic stroke lesions, we tested at what point spatial smoothing should be applied in the ASL analysis pipeline. We then related CBF to tissue damage, time since stroke, age, sex, and their respective cross-terms to further understand the variability in lesion CBF. Finally, we assessed the feasibility of computing multivariate brain-behavior maps using CBF and compared them to brain-behavior maps extracted with TIGR MRI. Results: We found that the CBF in chronic stroke lesions is significantly reduced compared to its homologue grey and white matter regions. However, a reliable CBF signal (although smaller than expected) was detected to reveal a negative relationship between CBF and increasing tissue damage. Further, the relationship between the lesion CBF and age, sex, time since stroke, and tissue damage and cross-terms suggested an aging-by-disease interaction. This relationship was strongest when smoothing was applied in the template space. Finally, we show that whole-brain CBF relates to domain-general visuospatial functioning in PWA. The CBF-based brain-behavior maps provide unique and complementary information to structural (lesion-based) brain-behavior maps. Discussion: Therefore, CBF can be detected in chronic stroke lesions using a standard pCASL MRI acquisition and is informative at the whole-brain level in identifying stroke rehabilitation targets in PWAs due to its relationship with demographic factors, stroke-related factors, and behavior.
Icerya purchasi Maskell (Hemiptera: Monophlebidae) Control Using Low Carbon Footprint Oligonucleotide Insecticides

Climate change creates favourable conditions for the growth of insect populations. Today, the world is seeing an increase in the number of insect pest infestations associated with a long-term increase in the average temperature of climatic systems. For example, local invasions of Icerya purchasi Maskell, a citrus pest recognized worldwide, have increased in size and number in recent years. Controlling this pest is complicated because not all chemical insecticides are effective, and their use is undesirable since citrus fruit is used for food and chemical agents cumulatively harm human health. In this article, we demonstrated for the first time the successful use of a short single-stranded fragment of the 28S ribosomal RNA gene called “oligoICER-11” to control cottony cushion scale, and we propose the use of green oligonucleotide insecticides with a low carbon footprint for large-scale implementation in agriculture and forestry. Using the contact oligonucleotide insecticide oligoICER-11 at a concentration of 100 ng/μL on I. purchasi larvae resulted in a mortality of 70.55 ± 0.77% within 10 days. Thus, climate change is driving the need in both agriculture and forestry for oligonucleotide insecticides (DNA insecticides, olinscides): safe, effective, affordable insecticides with a low carbon footprint and long operational life.
Hybrid Beamforming for Millimeter Wave Massive Multiuser MIMO Systems Using Regularized Channel Diagonalization

This letter presents a novel hybrid analog-digital beamforming design for massive multiuser MIMO downlink transmission in sparse millimeter wave channels. The proposed hybrid regularized channel diagolnalization (HRCD) scheme combines analog (RF) phase-only beamforming with linear digital (baseband) precoding based on regularized channel diagonalization. Being a hybrid beamforming design utilizing simple non-iterative processing, HRCD provides a low complexity solution that is capable of outperforming several other hybrid schemes including those based on block diagonalization, as shown through simulations. Furthermore, it is also shown that the performance remains strong even with the use of finite-resolution phase shifters.
Pluronic F-127 Hydrogels Containing Copper Oxide Nanoparticles and a Nitric Oxide Donor to Treat Skin Cancer

Melanoma is a serious and aggressive type of skin cancer with growing incidence, and it is the leading cause of death among those affected by this disease. Although surgical resection has been employed as a first-line treatment for the early stages of the tumor, noninvasive topical treatments might represent an alternative option. However, they can be irritating to the skin and result in undesirable side effects. In this context, the potential of topical polymeric hydrogels has been investigated for biomedical applications to overcome current limitations. Due to their biocompatible properties, hydrogels have been considered ideal candidates to improve local therapy and promote wound repair. Moreover, drug combinations incorporated into the polymeric-based matrix have emerged as a promising approach to improve the efficacy of cancer therapy, making them suitable vehicles for drug delivery. In this work, we demonstrate the synthesis and characterization of Pluronic F-127 hydrogels (PL) containing the nitric oxide donor S-nitrosoglutathione (GSNO) and copper oxide nanoparticles (CuO NPs) against melanoma cells. Individually applied NO donor or metallic oxide nanoparticles have been widely explored against various types of cancer with encouraging results. This is the first report to assess the potential and possible underlying mechanisms of action of PL containing both NO donor and CuO NPs toward cancer cells. We found that PL + GSNO + CuO NPs significantly reduced cell viability and greatly increased the levels of reactive oxygen species. In addition, this novel platform had a huge impact on different organelles, thus triggering cell death by inducing nuclear changes, a loss of mitochondrial membrane potential, and lipid peroxidation. Thus, GSNO and CuO NPs incorporated into PL hydrogels might find important applications in the treatment of skin cancer.
Road Recognition and Stability Control for Unmanned Ground Vehicles on Complex Terrain

The study of unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) operating under unstructured roads is of great significance to intelligent transportation, agricultural development and military technology. In order to ensure reliable and stable operation of UGVs on unstructured terrain, it is necessary to identify the current road terrain and perform vehicle stability adjustment. Road terrain identification is a prerequisite for stability control. Most of the existing road terrain identification methods use a single vehicle sensor, which has the problem that complex algorithms need to be applied for data processing, which reduces the real-time performance. Moreover, the single sensor is weak in anti-interference and limited in recognizing the road. To address these problems, a method is proposed to collect vehicle motion data using on-board gyroscope sensors and velocity sensors. Back propagation (BP) neural network is used to identify the category of the road. For the problem that the conventional proportional-integral differential (PID) algorithm cannot be adapted to different road stability control, a multi-loop adaptive proportional-integral differential (PID) control system with the velocity loop as the outer loop and the torque (current) loop as the inner loop is proposed. In order to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the method, experiments are conducted on a UGV using robot operating system (ROS), and the results verify the feasibility and superiority of the road identification and stability control method proposed in this paper. It provides a good theoretical basis and valuable technical guidance for the UGV operation and control on unstructured roads.
Characteristics of OMVPE grown GaAsBi QW lasers and impact of post-growth thermal annealing

Laser diodes employing a strain-compensated GaAs1−xBix/GaAs1−yPy single quantum well (SQW) active region were grown by organometallic vapor phase epitaxy (OMVPE). High resolution x-ray diffraction, room temperature photoluminescence, and real-time optical reflectance measurements during the OMVPE growth were used to find the optimum process window for the growth of the active region material. Systematic post-growth in situ thermal anneals of various lengths were carried out in order to investigate the impacts of thermal annealing on the laser device performance characteristics. While the lowest threshold current density was achieved after the thermal annealing for 30 min at 630 °C, a gradual decrease in the external differential quantum efficiency was observed as the annealing time increases. It was observed that the temperature sensitivities of the threshold current density increase while those of lasing wavelength and slope efficiency remain nearly constant with increasing annealing time. Z-contrast sca.
Fibrous PVA Matrix Containing Strontium-Substituted Hydroxyapatite Nanoparticles from Golden Apple Snail (Pomacea canaliculata L.) Shells for Bone Tissue Engineering

A scaffold that replicates the physicochemical composition of bone at the nanoscale level is a promising replacement for conventional bone grafts such as autograft, allograft, or xenograft. However, its creation is still a major challenge in bone tissue engineering. The fabrication of a fibrous PVA-HA/Sr matrix made of strontium (Sr)-substituted hydroxyapatite from the shell of Pomecea canaliculate L. (golden apple snail) is reported in this work. Since the fabrication of HAp from biogenic resources such as the shell of golden apple snail (GASs) should be conducted at very high temperature and results in high crystalline HAp, Sr substitution to Ca was applied to reduce crystallinity during HAp synthesis. The resulted HAp and HA/Sr nanoparticles were then combined with PVA to create fibrous PVA-HAp or PVA-HA/Sr matrices in 2 or 4 mol % Sr ions substitution by electrospinning. The nanofiber diameter increased gradually by the addition of HAp, HA/Sr 2 mol %, and HA/Sr 4 mol %, respectively, into PVA. The percentage of the swelling ratio increased and reached the maximum value in PVA-HA/Sr-4 mol %, as well as in its protein adsorption. Furthermore, the matrices with HAp or HA/Sr incorporation exhibited good bioactivity, increased cell viability and proliferation. Therefore, the fibrous matrices generated in this study are considered potential candidates for bone tissue engineering scaffolds. Further in vivo studies become an urgency to valorize these results into real clinical application.
Modelling the Health of Filipino Children

AbstractThis paper estimates dynamic models for nutrient intakes, height, weight and morbidity spells by using longitudinal data on 312 children between the ages 1 and 10 years from the Bukidnon region of the Philippines. The analysis attempts to integrate the biomedical aspects of anthropometric assessment with the behavioural factors affecting health. The time dimension of child health is emphasized and a triangular system of equations for height, weight and morbidity spells is estimated. The empirical results show positive associations between protein intake and the children's heights and a negative association between β-carotene intake and an index of morbidity. Also, the susceptible children can be identified by using anthropometric variables.
Microwave Gas Sensor Based on Graphene Aerogels

In this article, the experimental demonstration of a novel microwave gas sensor based on graphene aerogel (GA) is presented. This device makes use of a highly porous structure of the aerogel in combination with the modulation of graphene AC conductivity upon exposure to vacuum and ambient air. As a proof of concept, we integrate the GA into rectangular waveguides and measure its scattering parameters with a vector network analyzer (VNA). The aerogel is characterized by a combination of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and four-probe DC measurements. The aerogel is integrated into WR-90 waveguides by custom-designed support and wave propagation is tested over the 8–12 GHz frequency range (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${X}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-band). By exposing the aerogel to either air or a moderate vacuum, clear shifts in the waveguide scattering parameters are observed. In particular, changes of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\approx } {3}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\approx } {1}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> dB in the transmission and reflection parameters of the waveguide are obtained, respectively. Moreover, the sensor exhibits excellent reproducibility when exposed to alternating cycles of air and vacuum, proving that the shifts in microwave transmission and reflection are caused by changes in the conductivity of the GA due to the absorption and desorption of gas molecules. These proof-of-concept results pave the way for the development of a new class of gas sensors for applications such as breath analysis.
Distance covariance for stochastic processes

The distance covariance of two random vectors is a measure of their dependence. The empirical distance covariance and correlation can be used as statistical tools for testing whether two random vectors are independent. We propose an analog of the distance covariance for two stochastic processes defined on some interval. Their empirical analogs can be used to test the independence of two processes. 2010 AMS Mathematics Subject Classification: Primary: 62E20; Secondary: 62G20, 62M99, 60F05, 60F25.
60 GHz Circular Patch-Fed High Gain Transparent Lens Antenna

─ A high gain, low cost and easy to fabricate millimeter-wave (MMW) antenna is presented. To focus the radiation into a very thin main beam, a concept based on employing a cylindrical air cavity with a convex front-end linking a microstrip patch radiator and a transparent dielectric lens is introduced. This principle is applied to enhance the coupling between the patch antenna and dielectric lens at 60 GHz. The design shows very directive and stable radiation patterns in both the E and H-planes. The proposed antenna exhibits a measured gain of 20 dB over the ISMband, as well as high radiation efficiency (greater than 90%). The performance of the proposed antenna makes it a promising solution for various MMW applications, including short distance wireless communications and MMW imaging. Index Terms ─ Dielectric lens, high gain, millimeter-wave antenna, unlicensed 60 GHz band.
Efficient Approximate Distance Oracles for Vertex-Labeled Planar Graphs

Let $G$ be a graph where each vertex is associated with a label. A Vertex-Labeled Approximate Distance Oracle is a data structure that, given a vertex $v$ and a label $\lambda$, returns a $(1+\varepsilon)$-approximation of the distance from $v$ to the closest vertex with label $\lambda$ in $G$. Such an oracle is dynamic if it also supports label changes. In this paper we present three different dynamic approximate vertex-labeled distance oracles for planar graphs, all with polylogarithmic query and update times, and nearly linear space requirements.
CONSEQUENCES OF DOPAMINERGIC AGONIST ASSOCIATED WITH BDNF TREATMENT ON BEHAVIORAL ALTERATIONS AND CYTOLOGICAL CHANGES IN AN EXPERIMENTAL MODEL OF PARKINSON DISEASE DUE TO MANGANESE EXPOSURE.

Parkinson disease (PD) is characterized by dopaminergic (DA) neuronal loss and motor alterations; in this way, an effective therapy should protect and regenerate the DA neurons and striatal innervation. Conclusion:-Our findings provide evidence that the continuous D3 receptor activation associated with the BDNF gene non-viral transfection to the SNc DA neurons induce a significant and persistent motor behavior recovery in a bilateral PD rat model. The behavioral recovery is in association with the increased TH + neurons of a well-reinnervated striatum, evidenced by the dendritic spines recovery of the striatal medium-sized spiny neurons. The pharmacological effect is improbable to explain the functional recovery since the motor behavior improvement continued two months after treatment was finished, suggesting a trophic effect. This combined treatment appears to be a favorable approach for DA cells recovering in this PD experimental model, which in our opinion is a middle PD stage because we found 66.65% cell death, and, since it has been reported that D3 receptors decrease with the PD progression (Szabolcs et al. 2012; Rangel-Barajas et al. 2015), thus this kind of treatment should be given at initial or middle stages of the disease. Moreover, we assure that the inhalation of MnCl 2 /Mn(OAc) 3 mixture is an appropriate PD model, since it provides similar behavioral and morphological changes to those observed in PD patients contributing as a
Topological chaos and chaotic mixing of viscous flows

Since it is difficult or impossible to generate turbulent flow in a highly viscous fluid or a microfluidic system, efficient mixing becomes a challenge. However, it is possible in a laminar flow to generate chaotic particle trajectories (well-known as chaotic advection), that can lead to effective mixing. This dissertation studies mixing in flows with the limiting case of zero Reynolds numbers that are called Stokes flows and illustrates the practical use of different theories, namely the topological chaos theory, the set-oriented analysis and lobe dynamics in the analysis, design and optimization of different laminar-flow mixing systems. In a recent development, the topological chaos theory has been used to explain the chaos built in the flow only based on the topology of boundary motions. Without considering any details of the fluid dynamics, this novel method uses the ThurstonNielsen (TN) classification theorem to predict and describe the stretching of material lines both qualitatively and quantitatively. The practical application of this theory toward design and optimization of a viscous-flow mixer and the important role of periodic orbits as ”ghost rods” are studied. The relationship between stretching of material lines (chaos) and the homogenization of a scalar (mixing) in chaotic Stokes flows is examined in this work. This study helps determining the extent to which the stretching can represent real mixing. Using a set-oriented approach to describe the stirring in the flow, invariance or leakiness of the Almost Invariant Sets (AIS) playing the role of ghost rods is found to be in a direct relationship with the rate of homogenization of a scalar. The mixing caused by these AIS and the variations of their structure are explained from the point of view of geometric mechanics using transport through lobes. These lobes are made of segments of invariant manifolds of the periodic points that are generators of the ghost rods. A variety of the concentration-based measures, the important parameters of their calculation, and the implicit effect of diffusion are described. The studies, measures and methods of this dissertation help in the evaluation and understanding of chaotic mixing systems in nature and in industrial applications. They provide theoretical and numerical grounds for selection of the appropriate mixing protocol and design and optimization of mixing systems, examples of which can be seen throughout the dissertation.
Precise visual positioning of agricultural mobile robots with a fiducial marker reprojection approach

Semi-structured greenhouse environment often features repetitive and weak texture, naturally bringing challenges to high-precision vision-based positioning techniques. This paper proposes a precise visual positioning method for agricultural mobile robots in the greenhouse, which improves their positioning accuracy via discriminatively minimizing fiducial marker reprojection errors. First, fiducial markers are used to enhance environment features, and a markers-based visual positioning task is formulated as a Perspective-n-Point (PnP) problem. The projection constraints of keypoints and the pose constraints of the coordinate systems provide a theoretical basis for robot positioning. Second, a reprojection error minimization approach is proposed by taking into account the markers’ distance and image noise. Far-away markers are more prone to greater observation errors than those close to the robots, the improved PnP algorithm considering distance weighting ensures higher positioning accuracy. Synthetic and field experiments are carried out to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. Synthetic experiments show that the rotation error and translation error of the proposed method are less than 0.7° and 0.5% within a range of 12 m. The mean absolute error and root mean square error of field dynamic positioning experiments are 8.57 cm and 8.59 cm, respectively. Experimental results show that the proposed method is significantly better than traditional methods in dealing with distance-related noise at keypoints.