Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An overview of current and future instrumentation at the Subaru telescope

In the past few years, a new prime focus optical imager Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC), which has 1.5 deg field of view (FoV), is commissioned and started its science operation. Prime-Focus Spectrograph (PFS), which is an optical to near-infrared multiplexed spectrograph over 1.3 deg FoV is currently in the construction phase and will be a next facility instrument to promote the wide-field astronomy at Subaru together with HSC. As a new facility instrument program, ULTIMATE-Subaru, which will develop wide-field near-infrared instruments with the aid of ground-layer adaptive optics system, is being planned. In addition to the new facility instruments, upgrades of the existing facility instruments and developments of several visitor instruments are in progress. This paper gives an overview of current and future instrumentation at the Subaru telescope.
Gene Polymorphisms and Biological Effects of Vitamin D Receptor on Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Development and Progression

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common chronic liver disease, with increasing prevalence worldwide. The genetic and molecular background of NAFLD pathogenesis is not yet clear. The vitamin D/vitamin D receptor (VDR) axis is significantly associated with the development and progression of NAFLD. Gene polymorphisms may influence the regulation of the VDR gene, although their biological significance remains to be elucidated. VDR gene polymorphisms are associated with the presence and severity of NAFLD, as they may influence the regulation of adipose tissue activity, fibrosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) development. Vitamin D binds to the hepatic VDR to exert its biological functions, either by activating VDR transcriptional activity to regulate gene expression associated with inflammation and fibrosis or by inducing intracellular signal transduction through VDR-mediated activation of Ca2+ channels. VDR activity has protective and detrimental effects on hepatic steatosis, a characteristic feature of NAFLD. Vitamin D-VDR signaling may control the progression of NAFLD by regulating immune responses, lipotoxicity, and fibrogenesis. Elucidation of the genetic and molecular background of VDR in the pathophysiology of NAFLD will provide new therapeutic targets for this disease through the development of VDR agonists, which already showed promising results in vivo.
Enzymatic Synthesis of α-Glucosyl-Baicalin through Transglucosylation via Cyclodextrin Glucanotransferase in Water

Baicalin is a biologically active flavone glucuronide with poor water solubility that can be enhanced via glucosylation. In this study, the transglucosylation of baicalin was successfully achieved with CGTases from Thermoanaerobacter sp. and Bacillus macerans using α-cyclodextrin as a glucosyl donor. The synthesis of baicalin glucosides was optimized with CGTase from Thermoanaerobacter sp. Enzymatically modified baicalin derivatives were α-glucosylated with 1 to 17 glucose moieties. The two main glucosides were identified as Baicalein-7-O-α-D-Glucuronidyl-(1→4′)-O-α-D-Glucopyranoside (BG1) and Baicalein-7-O-α-D-Glucuronidyl-(1→4′)-O-α-D-Maltoside (BG2), thereby confirming recent findings reporting that glucuronyl groups are acceptors of this CGTase. Optimized conditions allowed for the attainment of yields above 85% (with a total glucoside content higher than 30 mM). BG1 and BG2 were purified via centrifugal partition chromatography after an enrichment through deglucosylation with amyloglucosidase. Transglucosylation increased the water solubility of BG1 by a factor of 188 in comparison to that of baicalin (molar concentrations), while the same value for BG2 was increased by a factor of 320. Finally, BG1 and BG2 were evaluated using antioxidant and anti-glycation assays. Both glucosides presented antioxidant and anti-glycation properties in the same order of magnitude as that of baicalin, thereby indicating their potential biological activity.
Genome-Wide Characteristics of GH9B Family Members in Melon and Their Expression Profiles under Exogenous Hormone and Far-Red Light Treatment during the Grafting Healing Process

β-1,4-glucanase can not only promote the wound healing of grafted seedlings but can also have a positive effect on a plant’s cell wall construction. As a critical gene of β-1,4-glucanase, GH9B is involved in cell wall remodeling and intercellular adhesion and plays a vital role in grafting healing. However, the GH9B family members have not yet been characterized for melons. In this study, 18 CmGH9Bs were identified from the melon genome, and these CmGH9Bs were located on 15 chromosomes. Our phylogenetic analysis of these CmGH9B genes and GH9B genes from other species divided them into three clusters. The gene structure and conserved functional domains of CmGH9Bs in different populations differed significantly. However, CmGH9Bs responded to cis elements such as low temperature, exogenous hormones, drought, and injury induction. The expression profiles of CmGH9Bs were different. During the graft healing process of the melon scion grafted onto the squash rootstock, both exogenous naphthyl acetic acid (NAA) and far-red light treatment significantly induced the upregulated expression of CmGH9B14 related to the graft healing process. The results provided a technical possibility for managing the graft healing of melon grafted onto squash by regulating CmGH9B14 expression.
Ultra-Wideband Bandpass Filter with a Notch Band Using EBG Array Etched Ground

A novel ultra-wideband (UWB) bandpass filter (BPF) with a notch band is proposed and implemented. The filter is realized by using a high pass filter (HPF) and an array of multiband electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) cells etched on the ground of a 50 Ω microstrip line. The first and third stopband of the designed EBG array generate the edges at each side of the passband of the UWB BPF, while the second stopband creates a very sharp notch response. Since it is the passband of the designed EBG array at lower frequency, a HPF is involved. To the authors' knowledge, we present for the first time a sharp notch band generated by using an EBG array in UWB BPF. The proposed filter was successfully designed, simulated and fabricated. The measured results show that the proposed BPF has a wide bandwidth from 3.8 GHz to 10.1 GHz with a notch response centered at 5.1 GHz. Both simulated and measured results are described.
GLOBAL MINIMIZATION

Many problems in image processing can be posed as non-convex minimization problems. For certain classes of non-convex problems involving scalar-valued functions, it is possible to recast the problem in a convex form using a “functional lifting” technique. In this paper, we present a variational functional lifting technique that can be viewed as a generalization of previous works by Pock et. al and Ishikawa. We then generalize this technique to the case of minimization over vector-valued problems, and discuss a condition which allows us to determine when the solution to the convex problem corresponds to a global minimizer. This generalization allows functional lifting to be applied to a wider range of problems then previously considered. Finally, we present a numerical method for solving the convexiﬁed problems, and apply the technique to ﬁnd global minimizers for optical ﬂow image registration.
Thermal transport properties of defective graphene: A molecular dynamics investigation

In this work the thermal transport properties of graphene nanoribbons with randomly distributed vacancy defects are investigated by the reverse non-equilibrium molecular dynamics method. We find that the thermal conductivity of the graphene nanoribbons decreases as the defect coverage increases and is saturated in a high defect ratio range. Further analysis reveals a strong mismatch in the phonon spectrum between the unsaturated carbon atoms in 2-fold coordination around the defects and the saturated carbon atoms in 3-fold coordination, which induces high interfacial thermal resistance in defective graphene and suppresses the thermal conductivity. The defects induce a complicated bonding transform from sp2 to hybrid sp—sp2 network and trigger vibration mode density redistribution, by which the phonon spectrum conversion and strong phonon scattering at defect sites are explained. These results shed new light on the understanding of the thermal transport behavior of graphene-based nanomaterials with new structural configurations and pave the way for future designs of thermal management phononic devices.
Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Loop Diuretics on Antibiotic Pharmacokinetics

Loop diuretics and antibiotics are commonly co-prescribed across many clinical care settings. Loop diuretics may alter antibiotic pharmacokinetics (PK) via several potential drug interactions. A systematic review of the literature was performed to investigate the impact of loop diuretics on antibiotic PK. The primary outcome metric was the ratio of means (ROM) of antibiotic PK parameters such as area under the curve (AUC) and volume of distribution (Vd) on and off loop diuretics. Twelve crossover studies were amenable for metanalysis. Coadministration of diuretics was associated with a mean 17% increase in plasma antibiotic AUC (ROM 1.17, 95% CI 1.09–1.25, I2 = 0%) and a mean decrease in antibiotic Vd by 11% (ROM 0.89, 95% CI 0.81–0.97, I2 = 0%). However, the half-life was not significantly different (ROM 1.06, 95% CI 0.99–1.13, I2 = 26%). The remaining 13 observational and population PK studies were heterogeneous in design and population, as well as prone to bias. No large trends were collectively observed in these studies. There is currently not enough evidence to support antibiotic dosing changes based on the presence or absence of loop diuretics alone. Further studies designed and powered to detect the effect of loop diuretics on antibiotic PK are warranted in applicable patient populations.
Laryngeal Leukoplakia Classification Via Dense Multiscale Feature Extraction in White Light Endoscopy Images

Laryngeal leukoplakia classification is challenging using white light endoscopy images. Relevant research focus on normal tissues versus non normal tissues, cancer versus non cancer classification. The objective of this paper is to classify laryngeal leukoplakia in white light endoscopy images into six classes: normal tissues, inflammatory keratosis, mild dysplasia, moderate dysplasia, severe dysplasia and squamous cell carcinoma. We proposed a dense multiscale convolutional neural network including parallel multiscale convolution, dense convolution and recurrent convolution in favor of extracting dense multiscale features of laryngeal leukoplakia for fine classification. The proposed network achieved an overall accuracy of 0.8958 for the six-class classification. It has high sensitivity and specificity for each class which are, respectively, 1.0000 and 0.9394 for normal tissues, 0.6667 and 1.0000 for inflammatory keratosis, 0.8889 and 0.9744 for mild dysplasia and moderate dysplasia, 0.7500 and 1.0000 for severe dysplasia, 1.0000 and 0.9767 for squamous cell carcinoma. The experimental results show that our proposed model is superior to the state-of-the-art deep learning-based models.
Deep fibrous histiocytoma of the index finger: a case report

Abstract Our patient presented with an elastic soft mass of his left index finger. Hematoxylin and eosin staining showed a high cellular density with spindle-shaped cells in a storiform pattern. Immunohistochemical staining was positive for CD68, factor XIIIa and α-smooth muscle actin, and negative for CD34, STAT6, S100 protein, and desmin.
On quasi-stationary distributions in discrete-time Markov chains with a denumerable infinity of states

Distributions appropriate to the description of long-term behaviour within an irreducible class of discrete-time denumerably infinite Markov chains are considered. The first four sections are concerned with general reslts, extending recent work on this subject. In Section 5 these are applied to the branching process, and give refinements of several well-known results. The last section deals with the semi-infinite random walk with an absorbing barrier at the origin.
Deep Born Operator Learning for Reflection Tomographic Imaging

Recent developments in wave-based sensor technologies, such as ground penetrating radar (GPR), provide new opportunities for accurate imaging of underground scenes. Given measurements of the scattered electromagnetic wavefield, the goal is to estimate the spatial distribution of the permittivity of the underground scenes. However, such problems are highly ill-posed, difficult to formulate, and computationally expensive. In this paper, we propose a physics-inspired machine learning-based method to learn the wave-matter interaction under the GPR setting. The learned forward model is combined with a learned signal prior to recover the permittivity distribution of the unknown underground scenes. We test our approach on a dataset of 400 permittivity maps with a three-layer background, which is challenging to solve using existing methods. We demonstrate via numerical simulation that our method achieves a 50% improvement in mean squared error over benchmark machine learning-based solvers for reconstructing layered underground scenes.
Real-Time Change Detection for Automated Test Socket Inspection Using Advanced Computer Vision and Machine Learning

We present our automated real-time socket inspection system capable of detecting an assortment of defects including metallic and liquid staining, loose capacitors and pins, and other debris and foreign material (FM). Our test tools pick and place manufactured units into sockets for electrical testing. Any debris accumulated inside the test sockets will likely damage subsequent units until the defective socket is replaced. To quickly capture in-situ defects and mitigate further damage, we equipped each pick-and-place arm with a new vision system designed to fit within the existing tool. The tight footprint constraints required a highly compact imaging system which resulted in a variety of image artifacts, creating several unique challenges. Our inspection algorithm utilizes a variety of advanced computer vision and machine learning techniques to normalize images, extract and match features, register the images, suppress unwanted artifacts, and detect defects. The detected changes are then sent to a deep learning classifier to further filter between true defects and natural socket deterioration. The flagged socket images can be manually dispositioned by the user and the socket can be sent for repair or cleaning as needed.
GEOMETRICAL IMAGE DENOISING USING QUADTREE SEGMENTATION

scheme generally works well hut fails to perform the segmentation according to the real singularities of the given piecewise smooth signal. But it has been shown in [2, 101 that the wavelet based coders perform suhop timally due to their failure to precisely model singulari- ties. This suggests that the above wavelet based denoising scheme might have some limitations for the denoising appli- cation. That means, a good denoising scheme should he ca- pable of performing the segmentation according to the real singularities of the underlying signal. Since the quadtree
Communication Capacity Maximization in Drone Swarms

Employment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones as swarms of coordinating nodes offers multiple advantages for commercial as well as military applications. However, the complex communication requirements of these swarms, coupled with high data rates of advanced UAV payloads require innovative techniques for optimizing data throughput. Channel capacity being the key resource, optimum communication architecture and network topology is critical to ensure QoS while remaining within transmission power constraints. This paper proposes a capacity maximization approach for swarm communications architectures using Mixed Integer Non-Linear Programming (MINLP). These techniques are designed to tackle optimization applications involving both discrete variables and nonlinear system dynamics. Mathematical model formulated considering system constraints and desired objective function establishes applicability of MINLP. Since MINLP problems are NP hard in general, computational overheads and search space exponentially grows with number of nodes in the swarm. Therefore, Outer Approximation Algorithm (OAA) has been applied that achieves near-optimal solutions with reduced convergence time and complexity compared to exhaustive search. Applicability of algorithm regardless of selected communication architecture has been established through realistic simulations.
Photophysical Properties of Anthracene Derivatives

In this tutorial review, we intend to provide the reader with a comprehensive introduction to the photophysical properties of organic compounds with a specific focus on anthracene and its derivatives. Anthracene-based building blocks have attracted the attention of chemists due to their intrinsic luminescent properties. A deep understanding of their interaction with light, including the mechanisms of emission (luminescence, i.e., fluorescence or phosphorescence) and quenching, is crucial to design and generate compounds with precise properties for further applications. Thus, the photophysical properties of different types of aggregates, both in the ground state (J- and H-type) and in the exited state (e.g., excimer, exciplex) will be discussed, finishing with a few examples of dyads and triads.
Impact of Canine Amniotic Mesenchymal Stem Cell Conditioned Media on the Wound Healing Process: In Vitro and In Vivo Study

The aim of this study was to provide a beneficial treatment effect of mesenchymal stem cell products derived from the canine amniotic membrane (AM-MSC) on the complicated wound healing process in dogs. AM-MSCs were characterized in terms of morphology, phenotypic profile, and multilineage differentiation potential. The in vitro study of the effect of canine amniotic mesenchymal stem cell conditioned media (AMMSC-CM) on a primary skin fibroblast cell culture scratch assay showed a decrease in the measured scratch area of about 66.39% against the negative control (Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle’s Medium—32.55%) and the positive control (Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle’s Medium supplemented with FGF2, N2, B27, and EGF—82.077%) after 72 h treatment. In the experimental study, seven dogs with complicated nonhealing wounds were treated with a combination of antibiotics, NSAIDs, and local AMMSC-CM application. After 15 days of therapy, we observed a 98.47% reduction in the wound surface area as opposed to 57.135% in the control group treated by conventional therapy based on debridement of necrotic tissue, antibiotic therapy, pain management, and change of wound dressing.
Central Limit Theorem for a Class of Linear Systems

We consider a class of interacting particle systems with values in $[0,∞)^{\mathbb{Z}^d}$, of which the binary contact path process is an example. For $d \geq 3$ and under a certain square integrability condition on the total number of the particles, we prove a central limit theorem for the density of the particles, together with upper bounds for the density of the most populated site and the replica overlap.
Sex Differences in Excitatory and Inhibitory Function in the Primary Somatosensory Cortex during the Early Follicular Phase: A Preliminary Study

Background and objectives: We examined sex differences in the excitatory and inhibitory functions of the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) between males and females during the early follicular phase, when estradiol hormones are unaffected. Methods: Fifty participants (25 males and 25 females) underwent measurement of somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) and paired-pulse inhibition (PPI) in the S1; SEPs and PPI were elicited by constant current square-wave pulses (0.2 ms duration) delivered to the right median nerve by electrical stimulation. Paired-pulse stimulation occurred at 30- and 100-ms interstimulus intervals. Participants were randomly presented with 1500 (500 stimuli each) single- and paired-pulse stimuli at 2 Hz. Results: The N20 amplitude was significantly larger in female subjects than in male subjects, and the PPI-30 ms was significantly potentiated in female subjects compared to that in male subjects. Conclusions: The excitatory and inhibitory functions in S1 differ between male and female subjects, at least during the early follicular phase.
APJ as Promising Therapeutic Target of Peptide Analogues in Myocardial Infarction- and Hypertension-Induced Heart Failure

The widely expressed G protein-coupled apelin receptor (APJ) is activated by two bioactive endogenous peptides, apelin and ELABELA (ELA). The apelin/ELA-APJ-related pathway has been found involved in the regulation of many physiological and pathological cardiovascular processes. Increasing studies are deepening the role of the APJ pathway in limiting hypertension and myocardial ischaemia, thus reducing cardiac fibrosis and adverse tissue remodelling, outlining APJ regulation as a potential therapeutic target for heart failure prevention. However, the low plasma half-life of native apelin and ELABELA isoforms lowered their potential for pharmacological applications. In recent years, many research groups focused their attention on studying how APJ ligand modifications could affect receptor structure and dynamics as well as its downstream signalling. This review summarises the novel insights regarding the role of APJ-related pathways in myocardial infarction and hypertension. Furthermore, recent progress in designing synthetic compounds or analogues of APJ ligands able to fully activate the apelinergic pathway is reported. Determining how to exogenously regulate the APJ activation could help to outline a promising therapy for cardiac diseases.
Cerebral water transport using multiple-network poroelastic theory: application to normal pressure hydrocephalus

The twenty-first century is bearing witness to a drastic change in population demographics and diseases of old age, such as dementia, are placing an unprecedented burden on the global healthcare system. Normal pressure hydrocephalus may be the only curable form of dementia, yet its pathophysiology is paradoxical and a consistent treatment currently remains elusive. A novel application of multiple-network poroelastic theory (MPET) is proposed to investigate water transport in the cerebral environment. Specifically, MPET is modified to allow a detailed investigation of spatio-temporal transport of fluid between the cerebral blood, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and brain parenchyma across scales. This framework thus allows an exploration of hypotheses defining the initiation and progression of both acute and chronic hydrocephalus. Results show that a breakdown in the transport mechanisms between the arterial vascular network and interstitial space within the parenchyma may be a cause of accumulation of CSF in the ventricles. Specifically, there must be an increase in the compliance of the arteriole/capillary network, which may combine with a breakdown in the blood–CSF barrier to allow an increased flow from the arteriole/capillary blood to the CSF. The results of this study should prove useful to guide experimental exploration in areas that warrant further investigation and validation.