Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Compliance and clinical efficacy of vaginal dilator after radiotherapy for cervical and endometrial malignancies

Objective To investigate the compliance and clinical efficacy of vaginal dilators (VDs) as an educational intervention in patients receiving pelvic radiation therapy (RT) for endometrial and cervical malignancies. Material and methods This is a single institution, retrospective chart review. Patients undergoing pelvic RT for endometrial or cervical cancer at our center were educated about the use of a VD starting 1 month after completion of RT. The patients were assessed after 3 months of prescribing VD. The demographic details and physical examination findings were extracted from medical records. Results We identified 54 female patients at our institution during the 6-month duration. The median mean age of patients was 54 ± 9.9 years. Twenty-four (44.4%) had endometrial cancers and 30 (55.6%) were diagnosed with cervical cancers. All patients received external beam RT, 38 (70.4%) received a dose of 45 Gy, and 16 (29.6%) patients received 50.4 Gy. Brachytherapy was also received by all patients, 28 (51.9%) received 5 Gy × 2 fractions, 4 (7.4%) received 7 Gy × 3 fractions and 22 (40.7%) received 8 Gy × 3 fractions. The compliance with VD use was 36 (66.6%) patients. Twenty-two (40.7%) used 2–3 times a week, 8 (14.8%) used <2 times per week and 6 (11.9%) used only once a month, and 18 (33.3%) did not use the VD post-treatment. Per vaginal (PV) examination findings of the patient’s vagina with normal mucosa were evaluated in 32 (59.3%) and adhesions were found in 20 (37.0%) and 2 (3.7%) were unable to examine due to dense adhesions. During examination 12 (22.2%) had bleeding PV, however, the majority of the patients, 42 (77.8%) experienced no bleeding PV. Out of the 36 patients who used a VD, it was found to be efficacious in 29 (80.6%) of patients. Upon stratification of efficacy with a frequency of VD, 72.4% (n = 21) efficacy was seen in patients using frequent VD as prescribed 2–3 times per week. Conclusion The compliance and efficacy of VD use after radiation to pelvic in cervical and endometrial cancers at 3 months follow-up were found to be 66.6% and 80.6%, respectively. This shows that VD therapy is an effective interventional tool and patients should receive specialist education about vaginal stenosis as toxicity at the outset of treatment.
Continuum elasticity with topological defects, including dislocations and extra-matter

The elasticity of continuous media with topological defects is described naturally by differential geometry, since it relates metric to strain. We construct a geometrical field theory, identifying disclinations, dislocations and extra-matter defects with the curvature, torsion and nonmetricity tensors, respectively. Connection and metric are given explicitly in the presence of dislocations and extra-matter. The density of extra-matter is a scalar source of isotropic strain, described by a local length scale or gauge. The logarithm of the gauge is related to the density of extra-matter by a Poisson equation. The corresponding integral equation, similar to Gauss' law in electrostatics, measures the amount of extra-matter contained inside a contour.
Efficient Purification of Polyhistidine-Tagged Recombinant Proteins Using Functionalized Corundum Particles

Immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) is a popular and valuable method for the affinity purification of polyhistidine-tagged recombinant proteins. However, it often shows practical limitations, which might require cumbersome optimizations, additional polishing, and enrichment steps. Here, we present functionalized corundum particles for the efficient, economical, and fast purification of recombinant proteins in a column-free format. The corundum surface is first derivatized with the amino silane APTES, then EDTA dianhydride, and subsequently loaded with nickel ions. The Kaiser test, well known in solid-phase peptide synthesis, was used to monitor amino silanization and the reaction with EDTA dianhydride. In addition, ICP-MS was performed to quantify the metal-binding capacity. His-tagged protein A/G (PAG), mixed with bovine serum albumin (BSA), was used as a test system. The PAG binding capacity was around 3 mg protein per gram of corundum or 2.4 mg per 1 mL of corundum suspension. Cytoplasm obtained from different E. coli strains was examined as examples of a complex matrix. The imidazole concentration was varied in the loading and washing buffers. As expected, higher imidazole concentrations during loading are usually beneficial when higher purities are desired. Even when higher sample volumes, such as one liter, were used, recombinant protein down to a concentration of 1 µg/mL could be isolated selectively. Comparing the corundum material with standard Ni–NTA agarose beads indicated higher purities of proteins isolated using corundum. His6-MBP-mSA2, a fusion protein consisting of monomeric streptavidin and maltose-binding protein in the cytoplasm of E. coli, was purified successfully. To show that this method is also suitable for mammalian cell culture supernatants, purification of the SARS-CoV-2-S-RBD-His8 expressed in human Expi293F cells was performed. The material cost of the nickel-loaded corundum material (without regeneration) is estimated to be less than 30 cents for 1 g of functionalized support or 10 cents per milligram of isolated protein. Another advantage of the novel system is the corundum particles’ extremely high physical and chemical stability. The new material should be applicable in small laboratories and large-scale industrial applications. In summary, we could show that this new material is an efficient, robust, and cost-effective purification platform for the purification of His-tagged proteins, even in challenging, complex matrices and large sample volumes of low product concentration.
Propagation of a laser pulse and electro-optic switch in a GaAs/AlGaAs quadruple-coupled quantum dot molecule nanostructure

Based on a GaAs/AlGaAs quadruple-coupled quantum dot heterostructure, an optical switch for controlling superluminal and subluminal light propagation is suggested. The transient and steady state behaviour of the absorption and dispersion of a probe pulse laser field through a quadruple quantum dot molecule are studied. We show that the group velocity of a light pulse can be controlled from superluminal to subluminal, or vice versa, by controlling the tunnelling rates between the quantum dots. The required switching time is calculated and we find it to be about 8 ps. We also investigated a method for the all-optical switching of probe field absorption from a large amount to nearly zero just by applying an incoherent pumping field. We estimated the required switching time for this case to be between 3 and 14 ps.
Response surface bandits

In this paper we define a response surface bandit as the sequential design problem that maximizes an expected bandit utility but where the outcomes y n are continuous and can be related through a response surface to a set of controllable variables x n = (x 1n , x 2n ,., x kn ). We link this problem to other traditional optimization problems from industrial engineering and to the traditional bandit problem. We consider two approaches to the problem. The first is based on a myopic sequential design. The second approach uses the best design out of a family of designs related to upper bounds for the predicted surface; the family includes myopic and sequential versions of D-optimal designs. These approaches can be generalized to more broadly defined sequential problems.
Quantum Correlations, Entanglement, and Squeezed States of Light in Kerr Optical Frequency Combs

The dynamical behavior of Kerr optical frequency combs is very well understood today from the perspective of the semi-classical approximation. In this article, we provide a theoretical understanding of the phenomena of quantum correlations, multimode entanglement and squeezed states of light that can occur in these frequency combs when quantum noise is accounted for. We prove that for all stationary spatio-temporal patterns, the side-modes that are symmetrical relatively to the central (pumped) mode in the frequency domain display quantum correlations that can lead to squeezed states of light under some optimal conditions that are analytically determined. We show that these quantum correlations can persist regardless the dynamical state of the system (rolls or solitons), regardless of the spectral extension of the comb (number sidemodes), and regardless of the dispersion regime (normal or anomalous). We study with particular emphasis the two principal architectures for Kerr comb generation, namely the add-through and add-drop configurations. We show that in both cases, the ratio between out-coupling and total losses plays a key role as it directly determines the efficiency of the squeezing. We also explicitly determine the phase quadratures leading to photon entanglement, and analytically calculate their quantum noise spectra. The relevance of Kerr combs for quantum information systems at optical telecommunication wavelengths is also discussed.
The integral equation approach for models of clines

We have described above the outline of a general recursive method for deriving the likelihood of a model. In order to implement this procedure automatically we need to develop two sets of algorithms, (i) for taking a pedigree in a simple numerical representation, and specifying the order in which we peel individuals off, a non-trivial problem for large pedigrees, and (ii) for carrying out the necessary algebraic manipulations so that L is ultimately obtained, as a function of the parameters which need to be estimated in the model. These have been developed: (i) for zero-loop pedigrees, (ii) for an autosomal locus with three genotypes and arbitrary penetrances, and programmed, and are in the process of generalization to more complex cases.
Constitutive Models for Lattice Materials

Natural materials are often characterised by a cellular microstructure that allows them to achieve a wide range of mechanical properties. This microarchitecture has provided inspiration for the development of high performance manmade structures and artificial materials. Among cellular solids, lattice materials are characterised by an ordered, periodic, microstructure that can be tailored to achieve specific combinations of stiffness, strength and density. This book presents a methodology for the derivation of constitutive models for lattice materials. Under the hypothesis of linear behaviour, the method has been applied to evaluate the macroscopic stiffness and strength of a selection of two-dimensional and three-dimensional lattices. The performance of different cell topologies have been compared by means of material charts for stiffness, buckling and plastic yielding. The method has also been applied to derive constitutive models for the non linear behaviour of lattices. In particular, macroscopic stress-strain relationships have been obtained capable to capture the effect of geometric non linearity.
PERCEPTION INTENSITY AND FREQUENCY OF PRESSURE AND VIBRATIONS ELICITED BY ELECTRICAL STIMULATION

We investigated effects of the two stimulus parameters, the stimulation intensity represented by the pulse amplitude and the pulse frequency, on the tactile sensations elicited by single-channel transcutaneous electrical stimulation. Two types of experiments were conducted. In the current experiment, the current was modulated with the frequency fixed at 20 Hz and 200 Hz. In the frequency experiment, the stimulation frequency was modulated with the amplitude fixed at 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 mA, respectively. In the current experiment, tickling, pressure and the low-frequency vibration were elicited at 20 Hz in more than 90% of the subjects, but the high-frequency vibration mostly appeared at 200 Hz. The frequency experiment showed that the perceived vibration frequency increased with the stimulation frequency. However, the frequency at which the vibration appeared was consistent regardless of the stimulation intensity, implying that the stimulation intensity did not affect the perception frequency of the vibration. On the other hand, pressure was perceived stronger as either the stimulation intensity or the frequency increased. Our observations suggested that the perception frequency and the intensity of the vibration sensations were directly related to the stimulation frequency and the pulse amplitude, i.e. the stimulation intensity, respectively, and the perception intensity of pressure was affected by both the stimulation frequency and the pulse amplitude. Keyword: Tactile sensations, Electrical stimulation, Perception intensity, Pulse amplitude, Pulse frequency
Inégalités d'oracle exactes pour la prédiction d'une matrice en grande dimension

We consider the problem of prediction of a high dimensional matrix of size $m \times T$ with noise, meaning that $m T$ is much larger than the sample size $n$. We focus on the trace norm minimization algorithm, but also on other penalizations. It is now well-known that such algorithms can be used for matrix completion, as well as other problems, such as multi-task learning, see \cite{candes-plan2,candes-recht08,candes-plan1,candes-tao1, rohde-tsyb09, MR2417263}. In this work, we propose sharp oracle inequalities in a statistical learning setup.
Oxygen Depletion in Arctic Lakes: Circumpolar Trends, Biogeochemical Processes, and Implications of Climate Change

Polar amplification of climate change has the potential to cause large‐scale shifts in the dissolved oxygen (DO) dynamics of Arctic lakes, with implications for fish survival, greenhouse gas production, and drinking water quality. While DO is also a sentinel of environmental changes of physical, chemical, and biological nature (e.g., ice cover, temperature, dissolved organic carbon, photosynthesis, and respiration), no synthesis exists of current knowledge of DO dynamics across the diverse freshwater systems of the Arctic. We thus conducted a systematic review of the literature that yielded DO data from 167 sites north of the Subarctic limit (based on vegetation zones), spanning 76 years and including 40 sites with time series. The compilation revealed insufficient observations for adequate representativeness of oxygen dynamics over Arctic ecosystem gradients. We described the main processes controlling DO budgets of Arctic lakes and tested relationships of summer oxygen depletion with maximum depth and latitude. The meta‐analysis showed that most sites with low O2 concentrations were shallow (<10 m) and situated toward the southern end of the latitudinal gradient. Permanently stratified lakes with deep, perennially anoxic basins were located toward the northern end of the gradient. By way of a conceptual model, we identified the direct and indirect drivers and mechanisms that lead to changes in oxygen budgets in the context of the warming Arctic. This comprehensive update on available data allowed us to suggest future research directions and recommend the use of moored instruments for continuous all‐season observations, combined with modeling, remote sensing, and paleo‐reconstructions.
Correction Note: Lengths and Diameters of Plant Roots in Non-Random Populations by Analysis of Plane Surfaces: A Correction

a: b: c nA nB nc LA LB LC 1 1 1 0.333 0.333 0.333 0.667 0.667 0.667 2 2 1 0.293 0.353 0.353 0.644 0.683 0.683 4 4 1 0.254 0.373 0.373 0.626 0.698 0.698 8 8 1 0.219 0.390 0.391 0.614 0.712 0.712 2 1 1 0.315 0.315 0.369 0.657 0.657 0.694 4 1 1 0.302 0.302 0.397 0.651 0.651 0*716 8 1 1 0.292 0.292 0.415 0.648 0.648 0.733 4 2 1 0.276 0.339 0.385 0.636 0.674 0-707 8 2 1 0.264 0.328 0.408 0.632 0.669 0.726 8 4 1 0.238 0.362 0.400 0.621 0.691 0.719 16 4 1 0.228 0.353 0.419 0.618 0.686 0.735 16 8 1 0.206 05381 0.413 0.612 0.706 0.730 32 8 1 0.198 0.373 0.429 0.611 0.702 0.745 625
Comprehensive Analysis of Alternative Polyadenylation Events Associated with the Tumor Immune Microenvironment in Colon Adenocarcinoma

Objective Colon adenocarcinoma (COAD) is one of the leading causes of cancer death worldwide. Alternative polyadenylation (APA) is relevant to the variability of the 3'-UTR of mRNA. However, the posttranscriptional dysregulation of APA in COAD is poorly understood. Methods We collected APA data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) COAD (n =7692). APA events were evaluated using PDUI values, and the prognostically significant APA events were screened by LASSO Cox regression to construct a prognostic model. Then, prognostic model functions and possible regulatory genes of characteristic APA events were analyzed. Finally, the immune regulatory network based on APA regulatory genes was analyzed and established. Results A total of 95 APA events were found to influence the COAD outcomes. Among them, 39 genes were screened as characteristic prognostic APA events by LASSO Cox regression to construct a COAD prognostic signature. The analysis results suggested that a high signature score was associated with poor prognosis and was significantly correlated with a variety of immune cells, including NK and Th1, 2 and 17 cells. Further analysis showed that APA regulators mainly served roles in the prognosis of COAD. Based on the above results, we constructed an immunoregulatory network for APA regulatory genes-APA genes-immune cells. Conclusion Our study revealed that APA events in COAD may regulate tumor progression by influencing immune cells, which provides a new direction for exploring the influencing mechanism of the tumor immune microenvironment and is expected to provide a potential new target for COAD immunotherapy.
Improvement performance by using Machine learning algorithms for fake news detection

The prevalence of internet use and the volume of actual-time data created and shared on social media sites and applications have raised the risk of spreading harmful or misunderstanding content, engaging in unlawful activity, abusing others, and disseminating false information. As of today, some studies have been done on fake news recognition in the Kurdish language. For extremely resourced languages like Arabic, English, and other international languages, false news detection is a well-researched research subject. Less resourced languages, however, stay out of attention because there is no labeled fake corpus, no fact-checking website, and no access to NPL tools. This paper illustrates the process of identifying fake news, using two components of the dataset for fake news and actual news. Several classifiers were then applied to the quantity after using identifiers as a highlight of selection. Results of the proposed study demonstrated that Passive-Aggressive Classifier (PAC) outperformed the other classifiers on both datasets the dataset with an accuracy score of 93.0 percent and other classifiers were less in some percentage that show high accuracy as well since it is 90 percent.
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM J ¨ULICH GmbH

For the analysis and solution of discretized ordinary or partial di(cid:11)erential equations it is necessary to solve systems of equations or eigenproblems with coe(cid:14)cient matrices of di(cid:11)erent sparsity patterns, depending on the discretization method. In many cases, the use of the (cid:12)nite element method (FE) results in largely unstructured systems of equations. The main computational cost in iterative methods for solving these problems consists of matrix-vector products and vector-vector operations; usually the main work in each iteration is the computation of matrix-vector products. When iterative solvers are parallelized on a multiprocessor system with distributed memory, the data distribution and the communicationscheme { depending on the data structures used for sparse matrices { are of the greatest importance for an e(cid:14)cient execution. Here, data distribution and communication schemes are presented that are based on the analysis of the column indices of the non-zero matrix elements. Performance tests, using the conjugate gradient method (CG) and the Lanczos algorithm for the symmetric eigen-problem, were carried out on the distributed memory systems INTEL iPSC/860 and PARAGON XP/S 10 of the Research Centre J(cid:127)ulich with sparse matrices from FE models. The parallel variants of the algorithms showed good scaling behavior for matrices with very di(cid:11)erent sparsity patterns.
A Physics-of-Failure Investigation of Flip Chip Reliability Based on Lead-Free Solder Fatigue Modeling

Solder fatigue failure is one of the primary wear out failure mechanisms limiting reliability in microelectronics flip chip packaging. Solder fatigue failure occurs when a crack initiates and subsequently propagates through the entirety of the solder joint causing an electrical open. Crack initiation and propagation within a solder joint is caused by a cyclic application of stress, typically induced by exposure to temperature cycle excursions. Understanding the relationship between thermal cycling during product use and the accelerated thermal cycles used for testing is critical for predicting device reliability. MIL-PRF-38535 is the guiding aerospace and high reliability General Specification for Integrated Circuits (Microcircuits) Manufacturing that defines manufacturing, qualification and certification requirements for products to be listed on the Defense Logistic Agency’s (DLA) Qualified Manufacturer Listing (QML). Revision M of this standard, targeted for release in 2022, for the first time includes the use of lead-free solder alloys and organic substrates in the manufacturing of QML flip chip products. Hence there is a strong need to understand the physics-of-failure (PoF) concerning solder fatigue of lead-free flip chip assemblies. This paper demonstrates how finite element modeling can be used to predict solder fatigue for flip chip package assemblies. The authors have leveraged fatigue lives measured for different flip chip daisy chain package configurations, as well as fatigue lives defined and available in published papers. The authors then use the resulting lead-free solder fatigue model to perform parametric studies looking at the impact of different die sizes, underfill material properties, and package substrate materials. Comparisons are also made between eutectic Sn/Pb and lead-free fatigue life predictions. In addition, the authors demonstrate how solder fatigue predictions can be de-rated to use conditions in order to make reliability assessments for flip chip package assemblies. This ultimately leads to a better understanding of the impact of solder alloy and material selection on the mission life of aerospace and high reliability products that fall under the changes introduced in MIL-PRF-38535 Revision M.