Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Selective spatial mode attenuator using phase-intensity-phase modulation toward mode-division multiplexing transmission

In a mode division multiplexing (MDM) transmission using few-mode fibers (FMFs), differential modal gain (DMG) in amplifiers and mode dependent loss (MDL) cause deterioration in signal quality. Therefore, the techniques which selectively attenuate multiplexed modes and equalize optical powers among mode channels are required for a long-haul MDM transmission. In this paper, we propose a selective mode attenuator using phase-intensity-phase (PIP) modulation. The PIP modulation, consisting of a cascade of two phase and one intensity modulation masks connected by optical Fourier transforms (OFTs), makes it possible to selectively attenuate multiplexed mode channels with high accuracy. In the proposed method, the intensity distributions of spatial modes are converted by the phase modulation and OFT, before doing attenuation by intensity mask located between the two phase masks. Due to the action of a pair of phase masks having phase conjugate relations, accurately selective mode attenuation can be performed even if the number of modes is increased over three. To confirm the basic operation of the proposed method, we perform a numerical simulation for power equalization among six spatial modes (LP01, LP11a, LP11b, LP21a, LP21b, and LP02) having different powers. The phase and intensity masks are designed by using simulated annealing. Moreover, we also evaluate modal crosstalk (MXT) characteristics and the wavelength dependence of the equalization in C-band. The results show that the optical powers of all modes are successfully equalized for any wavelengths and the MXT smaller than −25 dB were achieved between all modes.
Study on Croton sp. genetic diversity in the Department of Norte de Santander using the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of ribosomal DNA (rDNA)

Genetic variability studies on species with a pharmacological potential are essential for conserving genetic resources. A genetic characterization of a species can guide efforts to collect and conserve germplasm for future breeding programs. The Croton genus belongs to the Euphorbiaceae family, which has approximately 1,300 species, is widely distributed in tropical and subtropical regions of the world, and has a wide range of ethnobotanical and medicinal uses. The aim of this research was to study genetic variability by analyzing sequences of the internal transcribed space region (ITS1 5'-TCCGTAGGGAACCTGCGGC-3' and ITS4 5'-TCCTCCGCTTATGC-3') of ribosomal DNA (rDNA) of a Croton population from forested areas in the Department of Norte de Santander in the municipalities of Chinacota, Pamplona and El Zulia. The results indicated considerable genetic variability in the Croton population, with a nucleotide similarity ranging from 54 to 99% and phylogenetical grouping according to the place of origin. The information gained from the ITS region can be a useful parameter for diversity evaluations and phylogenetic studies since there are no similar studies on Croton in this department in northeastern Colombia.
PENGARUH SLOW DEEP BREATHING TERHADAP PENURUNAN TEKANAN DARAH PADA PASIEN HIPERTENSI

Hypertension is known as a major health problem worldwide that causes various life- threatening heart diseases. The Department of Health Household Survey on Health shows that hypertension is ranked first as the most common degenerative disease. The phenomenon found in the work area of the Tiban Baru Health Center in Batam City was 150 people. This study was conducted to determine the effect of the Slow Deep Breathing Technique on Blood Pressure Reduction in Hypertension Patients in the Work Area of the Tiban Baru Health Center, Batam City . The research method was Quasy Experimental Design, with pretest-posttest with control group. The sample consisted of 30 respondents consisting of 15 respondents from the intervention group and 15 control groups who suffered from hypertension in the Work Area of the Tiban Baru Health Center, Batam City , with the sampling technique of purposive sampling. The data was processed using the Wilcoxon test. The results showed that the systolic blood pressure of the intervention group before being treated was 165.67 mmHg and diastolic 94.73 mmHg and the systolic blood pressure of the intervention group after being treated was 155.33 mmHg and diastolic 88.00 mmHg. Based on the characteristics of the respondents, the most age was >45 years (80%), and the most gender (73.3%) were women. The results showed that the p-value was 0.002 (<0.05). It was concluded that there was an effect of slow deep breathing on decreasing blood pressure. It is expected that people with hypertension can apply slow deep breathing therapy to lower blood pressure to avoid complications of hypertension.
La #felicidad en Twitter: ¿qué representa realmente?

Existe un gran número de trabajos que tienen por objeto la clasificación de diversos tipos de documentos, desde textos literarios hasta interacciones informales en redes sociales como Twitter, de acuerdo a los sentimientos que pretenden evocar. Se pueden realizar clasificaciones muy variadas con base en los sentimientos que el autor considere. El objetivo de este artículo es clasificar una recopilación de tuits en diferentes contextos en los que la palabra "feliz" o "felicidad" se pueden emplear; por ejemplo publicidad, felicitaciones o como un simple sarcasmo. Para esto se hará uso de sistemas de aprendizaje supervisado y se emplearán varios métodos de procesamiento de lenguaje natural como tokenización, identificación de palabras funcionales y n-gramas.
English for Specific Purposes Research and Practice in the Past 20 Years (2001-2020) in China: A Literature Review

This paper reviews the literature on English for Specific Purposes (ESP) research in 15 CSSCI foreign language journals in China’s CNKI database over the last two decades. The data have been quantified and visualized with Citespace. This paper analyzes research advances and themes, and then puts forward suggestions based on the current situation of college English teaching in China. The findings reveal that: 1) ESP publications have shown a rising trend during the past 20 years; 2) The study of ESP in academic dissertations is mainly at the MA level; 3) ESP research focuses on such issues as relationships between ESP and college English, academic English, corpus and teaching modes; 4) The dominant method of ESP research in China is non-empirical while more and more empirical studies have emerged since 2011. This study also critically analyzes the research limitations and recommendations of the ESP study.
Thymol Alleviates LPS-Induced Liver Inflammation and Apoptosis by Inhibiting NLRP3 Inflammasome Activation and the AMPK-mTOR-Autophagy Pathway

Thymol is a natural antibacterial agent found in the essential oil extracted from thyme, which has been proven to be beneficial in food and medicine. Meanwhile, the NOD-like receptor family pyrin domain-containing 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome and autophagy have been reported to play key roles in the progression of liver injury. However, the effects of thymol on the NLRP3 inflammasome and autophagy in protecting the liver remain unclear. The present study used a mouse model with liver injury induced by lipopolysaccharides (LPS) to investigate the regulatory mechanisms of thymol. We found that thymol alleviated LPS-induced liver structural damage, as judged by reduced inflammatory cell infiltration and improved structure. In addition, elevated levels of the liver damage indicators (alanine transaminase (ALT), aspartate transaminase (AST), and total bilirubin (TBIL)) dropped after thymol administration. The mRNA and protein expression of inflammatory cytokines (tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, interleukin (IL)-6, and IL-22), apoptosis-related genes (caspase3 and caspase9), and the activity of apoptosis-related genes (caspase3 and caspase9) were increased in LPS-treated livers, whereas the changes were alleviated after thymol administration. Thymol inhibited LPS-induced increment in lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity in primary hepatocytes of the mouse. In addition, thymol protected mice from liver injury by inhibiting NLRP3 inflammasome activation induced by LPS. Mechanistically, the present study indicates that thymol has liver protective activity resulting from the modulation of the AMP-activated protein kinase—mammalian target of rapamycin (AMPK–mTOR) to regulate the autophagy pathway, hence curbing inflammation.
A modified UTAUT2 for the study of telemedicine adoption

ABSTRACT The successful operation of Telemedicine significantly depends on whether or not healthcare professionals are ready to accept and use the system. Relying on the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model, this research examines the use behavior of healthcare professionals towards telemedicine with information quality as moderator. A total of 352 health workers (including nurses, pharmacist, laboratory technicians, accountants, and administrators of health institutions) were conveniently sampled for the study. The structural equation modeling (SEM) method was used to test the hypothesized paths in the framework. The results indicate that Performance Expectancy, Habit, and Hedonic Motivation have an influence on healthcare professional’s behavioral intention to adopt and use telemedicine systems. This implies that users will accept and use the system if they perceive that the system will positively affect their performance. The study validates the use of UTAUT in the context of telemedicine. It also informs stakeholders in the health sector to take into consideration compatibility and system quality issues in the development of new systems. This paper provides researchers with a contemporary perspective towards understanding the adoption and use of Telemedicine especially, in the Sub-Saharan Africa context.
Pharmacological Prevention of Hypersensitivity Reactions Caused by Iodinated Contrast Media: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Objectives: Hypersensitivity reactions (HSRs) are uncommon but serious adverse events following the administration of iodinated contrast media (ICM) prior to CT imaging. While premedication is almost universally given in high-risk patients, there is a lack of evidence regarding the efficacy of such premedication. This study aims to determine the efficacy of premedication with corticosteroids prior to ICM administration in the prevention of HSRs through meta-analysis. Materials and Methods: An extensive review of the literature yielded 404 potentially relevant studies. Of these, five studies met the inclusion criteria of this meta-analysis. Pooled HSR event rates were obtained from each of the studies for both patients who had and who had not received premedication with corticosteroids. Heterogeneity between studies was also determined. Results: A total of 736 patients across all five studies were included in the analysis. Patients who did not receive premedication had initial pooled HSR rates of 0.16 (95% CI, 0.07–0.35) across all studies. Following premedication, pooled HSR rates dropped to 0.02 (95% CI, 0.01–0.06). Patients who had prior HSRs were significantly less likely to experience HSRs (OR = 0.09; 95% CI, 0.03–0.25; p < 0.00001) after treatment with premedication. Conclusions: This meta-analysis offers evidence for the reduction in the recurrence of moderate and severe HSRs in patients who have a history of such reactions. Premedication with corticosteroids prior to ICM administration is thus highly recommended in high-risk patients.
Wearable Sensors for Healthcare: Fabrication to Application

This paper presents a substantial review of the deployment of wearable sensors for healthcare applications. Wearable sensors hold a pivotal position in the microelectronics industry due to their role in monitoring physiological movements and signals. Sensors designed and developed using a wide range of fabrication techniques have been integrated with communication modules for transceiving signals. This paper highlights the entire chronology of wearable sensors in the biomedical sector, starting from their fabrication in a controlled environment to their integration with signal-conditioning circuits for application purposes. It also highlights sensing products that are currently available on the market for a comparative study of their performances. The conjugation of the sensing prototypes with the Internet of Things (IoT) for forming fully functioning sensorized systems is also shown here. Finally, some of the challenges existing within the current wearable systems are shown, along with possible remedies.
Accounting for Non-Uniform Ambient Lighting in Ray Traced Ambient Occlusion

Ambient occlusion is a popular method to enhance the visuals of real-time applications. The generally accepted equation assumes that incoming ambient lighting is uniform in the enclosing hemisphere around the surface point. This assumption does not always hold and can cause artifacts. With screen-space techniques the artifact may not be present, because of the lack of information, but it becomes visible with more accurate methods. This is especially true for ray tracing based implementations which are widely used to create the ground truth image to measure other techniques. With recent advancements of the graphics hardware, they also found their way into real-time applications where these shortcomings were neither discussed nor addressed. In this paper we analyze the problem and demonstrate its presence in popular game engines. We also propose a ray tracing based extension to eliminate these artifact in a physically plausible way.
GABRP promotes CD44s-mediated gemcitabine resistance in pancreatic cancer

Background Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has the worst five-year overall survival rate among all cancer types. Acquired chemoresistance is considered one of the main reasons for this dismal prognosis, and the mechanism of chemoresistance is unknown. Methods We previously identified a subpopulation of chemoresistant CD44high-expressing PDAC cells. Subsequently, we selected the candidate gene, gamma-aminobutyric acid receptor subunit Pi (GABRP), from three Gene Expression Omnibus datasets as the potential CD44 downstream target mediating the gemcitabine resistance. Loss and gain of function such as stable knockdown of CD44 by small hairpin (sh) RNA-mediated silencing technique and overexpression (O/E) of CD44s had been studied for comparing the gemcitabine resistance among CD44high-expressing cells, shCD44 cells, CD44low-expressing cells and O/E CD44s expressing cells. Functional assays including cell viability, colony formation, invasion, quantitative PCR and western blotting techniques were performed to validate the roles of CD44 and GABRP playing in mediating the gemcitabine resistance in pancreatic cancer cells. Results CD44s depletion significantly reduced gemcitabine resistance in shCD44 single clone cells compared to CD44high-expressing cells. Knockdown of CD44 cells formed less colonies, became less invasive and remarkably decreased the mRNA level of GABRP. While overexpression of CD44s had the opposite effect on gemcitabine resistance, colony formation and invasive property. Of note, long term gemcitabine resistant pancreatic cancer cells detected increased expression of CD44 and GABRP. Clinically, GABRP expression was significantly upregulated in the tissues of patients with pancreatic cancer compared to the normal samples, and the overall survival rate of patients with low GABRP expression was longer. CD44 and GABRP co-expression was positively correlated in 178 pancreatic cancer patients. Conclusion Our findings suggest that GABRP may serve as a CD44s downstream target to diminish gemcitabine resistance in pancreatic cancer, and both CD44s and GABRP molecules have the potential to become prognostic biomarkers for PDAC patients with gemcitabine resistance.
Recent Advances in Flexible RF MEMS

Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) that are based on flexible substrates are widely used in flexible, reconfigurable radio frequency (RF) systems, such as RF MEMS switches, phase shifters, reconfigurable antennas, phased array antennas and resonators, etc. When attempting to accommodate flexible deformation with the movable structures of MEMS, flexible RF MEMS are far more difficult to structurally design and fabricate than rigid MEMS devices or other types of flexible electronics. In this review, we survey flexible RF MEMS with different functions, their flexible film materials and their fabrication process technologies. In addition, a fabrication process for reconfigurable three-dimensional (3D) RF devices based on mechanically guided assembly is introduced. The review is very helpful to understand the overall advances in flexible RF MEMS, and serves the purpose of providing a reference source for innovative researchers working in this field.
Phytochemistry and Ethnopharmacology of Jatropha gossypiifolia L. (Euphorbiaceae): Bioactivities and Future Direction

Background: The Plant of Jatropha gossypiifolia is known for their many biological activities including anticoagulant, antihypertensive, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal and other. Aim: To carry out recent informations regarding phytochemistry, ethnopharmacology, bioactivities, toxicology, antiviral and medicinal activities of the plant. Study Design: Multidisciplinary advanced bibliographic surveys and dissemination of the resulted knowledge. Results: After literature review, we could notice that Jatropha gossypiifolia has antibacterial, and antiviral properties on different types of viruses. Leaves, roots, latex, seeds, fr,uits and other parts have been reported to have different compounds which have interesting bioactivities and medicinal properties. Conclusion: This work can orient or guide scientifics research for the development of anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, anti-Hepatitis B virus, and anti-Covid-19 herbal drugs also nutritional values from Jatropha gossypiifolia for the benefit the of human beings.
A Fractional-N Synthesizable PLL Using DTC-Based Multistage Injection With Dithering-Assisted Local Skew Calibration

A standard-cell-based fractional-N synthesizable phase-locked loop (PLL) [or multiplying-delay-locked loop (MDLL)] is proposed, where the multiple phases of the three-stage ring digitally controlled oscillator (DCO) are utilized for injection. The required digital-to-time converter (DTC) range is reduced to one third of the DCO’s period, resulting in higher linearity, less jitter, lower power consumption, and smaller area. The issue of the mismatches among DCO’s stages is solved by the proposed dithering-assisted local skew calibration, which removes the skews in the injection path and smears out the periodic pattern at the PLL side to reduce spurs. Most of the dithering noise is suppressed by the injection locking and the phase tracking loop. Measured at 1.0095-GHz output frequency with 24-MHz reference frequency, with the proposed solution, the integrated root-mean-square (rms) jitter can be reduced from 6.40 to 2.55 ps, and the power consumption is 3.36 mW. This translates to −226.6-dB figure of merit (FoM) and −232.8-dB FoMref. The measured fundamental fractional spurs range from −56 to −45 dBc.
Alginate-Based Composites for Corneal Regeneration: The Optimization of a Biomaterial to Overcome Its Limits

For many years, corneal transplantation has been the first-choice treatment for irreversible damage affecting the anterior part of the eye. However, the low number of cornea donors and cases of graft rejection highlighted the need to replace donor corneas with new biomaterials. Tissue engineering plays a fundamental role in achieving this goal through challenging research into a construct that must reflect all the properties of the cornea that are essential to ensure correct vision. In this review, the anatomy and physiology of the cornea are described to point out the main roles of the corneal layers to be compensated and all the requirements expected from the material to be manufactured. Then, a deep investigation of alginate as a suitable alternative to donor tissue was conducted. Thanks to its adaptability, transparency and low immunogenicity, alginate has emerged as a promising candidate for the realization of bioengineered materials for corneal regeneration. Chemical modifications and the blending of alginate with other functional compounds allow the control of its mechanical, degradation and cell-proliferation features, enabling it to go beyond its limits, improving its functionality in the field of corneal tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.
Dynamic Monitoring of Laohugou Glacier No. 12 with a Drone, West Qilian Mountains, West China

Laohugou glacier No. 12 (LHG12), located in the northeast of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau, is the largest valley glacier in the Qilian mountains. Since 1957, LHG12 has shrunk significantly. Due to the limitations of in situ observations, simulations and investigations of LHG12 have higher levels of uncertainty. In this study, consumer-level, low-altitude microdrones were used to conduct repeated photogrammetry at the lower part of LHG12, and a digital orthophoto map (DOM) and a digital surface model (DSM) with a resolution at the centimeter scale were generated, from 2017 to 2021. The dynamic parameters of the glacier were detected by artificial and automatic extraction methods. Using a combination of GNSS and drone-based data, the dynamic process of LHG12 was analyzed. The results show that the terminus of LHG12 has retreated by 194.35 m in total and by 19.44 m a−1 on average during 2008–2021. The differential ablation leading to terminus retreat distance markedly increased during the study period. In 2019–2021, the maximum annual surface velocity was 6.50 cm day−1, and during ablation season, the maximum surface velocity was 13.59 cm day−1, 52.17% higher than it is annually. The surface parameters, motion, and mass balance characteristics of the glacier had significant differences between the west and east branches. The movement in the west branch is faster than it is in the east branch. Because of the extrusion of the two ice flows, there is a region with a faster surface velocity at the ablation area. The ice thickness of LHG12 is decreasing due to intensified ablation, leading to a deceleration in the surface velocity. In large glaciers, this phenomenon is more obvious than it is in small glaciers in the Qilian mountains.