Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Know your tuberculosis epidemic–Is it time to add Mycobacterium tuberculosis immunoreactivity back into global surveillance?

Tuberculosis (TB) still causes 1.5 million deaths globally each year. Over recent decades, slow and uneven declines in TB incidence have resulted in a falling prevalence of TB disease, which increasingly concentrates in vulnerable populations. Falling prevalence, while welcome, poses new challenges for TB surveillance. Cross-sectional disease surveys require very large sample sizes to accurately estimate disease burden, and even more participants to detect trends over time or identify high-risk areas or populations, making them prohibitively resource-intensive. In the past, tuberculin skin surveys measuring Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) immunoreactivity were widely used to monitor TB epidemiology in high-incidence settings, but were limited by challenges with both delivering and interpreting the test. Here we argue that the shifting epidemiology of tuberculosis, and the development of new tests for Mtb infection, make it timely and important to revisit the strategy of TB surveillance based on infection or immunoreactivity. Mtb infection surveys carry their own operational challenges and fundamental questions, for example: around survey design and frequency; which groups should be included; how the prevalence of immunoreactivity in a population should be used to estimate force of infection; how individual results should be interpreted and managed; and how surveillance can be delivered efficiently and ethically. However, if these knowledge gaps are addressed, the relative feasibility and lower costs of Mtb infection surveillance offer a powerful and affordable opportunity to better “know your TB epidemic”, understand trends, identify high-risk and underserved communities, and tailor public health responses to dynamic epidemiology.
Charged Lepton Flavour Violation using Intense Muon Beams at Future Facilities

Charged-lepton flavour-violating (cLFV) processes offer deep probes for new physics with discovery sensitivity to a broad array of new physics models - SUSY, Higgs Doublets, Extra Dimensions, and, particularly, models explaining the neutrino mass hierarchy and the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the universe via leptogenesis. The most sensitive probes of cLFV utilize high-intensity muon beams to search for $\mu \rightarrow e$ transitions. We summarize the status of muon-cLFV experiments currently under construction at PSI, Fermilab, and J-PARC. These experiments offer sensitivity to effective new physics mass scales approaching O($10^4$) TeV/c$^2$. Further improvements are possible and next-generation experiments, using upgraded accelerator facilities at PSI, Fermilab, and J-PARC, could begin data taking within the next decade. In the case of discoveries at the LHC, they could distinguish among alternative models; even in the absence of direct discoveries, they could establish new physics. These experiments both complement and extend the searches at the LHC.
DIETARY CONCEPTS, PATTERNS AND LIFESTYLES IN ADULTS WITH DIABETES IN PUNJAB, PAKISTAN.

Background: It is estimated that 1.5 million fatalities were directly caused by diabetes and 2.2 million deaths were caused by high blood glucose. This study was conducted to evaluate the link of food concepts, lifestyle habits, and dietary patterns among persons with diabetes mellitus. Methodology: The participants with diabetes mellitus were chosen from the diabetic wards and OPDs of several hospitals in Punjab. There were 600 participants in the entire sample size. The questionnaire was created to evaluate diabetes-related myths about food, diabetes-related lifestyle routines, and eating habits among persons with diabetes. Statistical techniques were used percentages (%) and cross tabs. Results: The study found that 55.8% of persons have a history of diabetes mellitus in their families. A sedentary lifestyle and lack of physical activity were prevalent in about 41.8% of the population. Participants with no education or little education have higher levels of uncontrolled HbA1C than participants with some education. 24% of the individuals who lacked education thought that eating too much sugar could cause diabetes. 10% of individuals actually used a home remedy, whereas 88.8% of participants did not use any. Of the participants, 24.5% believed that home remedies were helpful in managing diabetes. Conclusion: This study shows that people do not exercise enough; about half of the participants are physically inactive. Major meals were consumed in an appropriate amount. The promotion of good eating and lifestyle practices, particularly prevention among high-risk groups, is encouraged through health education and other interventions.
A Neptune-mass Free-floating Planet Candidate Discovered by Microlensing Surveys

Current microlensing surveys are sensitive to free-floating planets down to Earth-mass objects. All published microlensing events attributed to unbound planets were identified based on their short timescale (below two days), but lacked an angular Einstein radius measurement (and hence lacked a significant constraint on the lens mass). Here, we present the discovery of a Neptune-mass free-floating planet candidate in the ultrashort (tE = 0.320 ± 0.003 days) microlensing event OGLE-2016-BLG-1540. The event exhibited strong finite-source effects, which allowed us to measure its angular Einstein radius of θE = 9.2 ± 0.5 μas. There remains, however, a degeneracy between the lens mass and distance. The combination of the source proper motion and source-lens relative proper motion measurements favors a Neptune-mass lens located in the Galactic disk. However, we cannot rule out that the lens is a Saturn-mass object belonging to the bulge population. We exclude stellar companions up to ∼15 au.
Séparation de Sources en Mélanges Convolutifs Sous-déterminés Combinant Masquage et formation de voie

Résumé – Ce papier présente une nouvelle méthode de Séparation Aveugle de Sources (SAS) en mélanges convolutifs pouvant être sous-déterminés. Exploitant la parcimonie des signaux sources dans le domaine Temps-Fréquence (TF), cette méthode combine le masquage TF et la formation de voie (ou “beamforming”). L’utilisation du beamforming permet de réduire consi-dérablement les artefacts qui aﬀectent les signaux séparés par les méthodes de SAS basées uniquement sur le masquage TF. Par ailleurs, contrairement aux méthodes existantes qui utilisent le beamforming en plus du masquage TF, nous introduisons de nouveaux vecteurs directionnels dits normalisés pour générer les diﬀérents beamformers mis en jeu, et une nouvelle approche pour mieux estimer ces vecteurs, ce qui constitue un grand avantage pour notre méthode. Les tests ont montré de bonnes performances de notre méthode comparée à quelques méthodes existantes, similaires en termes d’hypothèses de travail. Abstract – A new Blind Source Separation (BSS) method for convolutive mixtures that might be underdetermined is presented in this paper. This method, which exploits the sparsity of the source signals in the Time-Frequency (TF) domain, combines TF masking and beamforming. The artifacts that aﬀect the signals separated by BSS methods based only on TF masking are signiﬁcantly reduced by using beamforming. Moreover, unlike existing methods that combine beamforming with TF masking, we introduce new normalized directional vectors to generate the diﬀerent beamformers involved, and a new way for better estimating these vectors, which is a great advantage for our method. Test results showed good performance of our method compared to some existing methods, similar in terms of working hypotheses.
A Helium White Dwarf of Extremely Low Mass

We analyze the spectrum of an unusually low mass white dwarf, SDSS J123410.37-022802.9 (0335-264-52000), found in our recent, white dwarf catalog from the first data release (DR1) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Two independent, model atmosphere fits result in an accurate determination of atmospheric and stellar parameters. The more hands-on analysis yields Teff = 17,470 ± 750 K and log g = 6.38 ± 0.05. We argue that the object cannot be a main-sequence A star, a horizontal-branch star, or a subdwarf B star. Instead, it is interpreted as a very low mass white dwarf with a core composed of helium, with mass ~0.18-0.19 M☉, similar to that published previously for the unusual companion to the millisecond pulsar J1012+5307. The star probably remains in a binary, perhaps even with an undiscovered or dead pulsar companion. However, the companion might be a more ordinary star, provided Roche lobe mass transfer began shortly after the now-visible component left the main sequence. A second SDSS low-mass white dwarf candidate is also analyzed, but the spectrum for this fainter object is of poorer quality. The sample appears to include additional, similar candidates, worthy of more accurate observation. Correct identification of any additional white dwarfs of extremely low mass requires careful observation and interpretation.
Mass function and dynamical study of the open clusters Berkeley 24 and Czernik 27 using ground based imaging and Gaia astrometry

We present a $UBVI$ photometric study of the open clusters Berkeley 24 (Be 24) and Czernik 27 (Cz 27). The radii of the clusters are determined as 2\farcm7 and 2\farcm3 for Be 24 and Cz 27, respectively. We use the Gaia Data Release 2 (GDR2) catalogue to estimate the mean proper motions for the clusters. We found the mean proper motion of Be 24 as $0.35\pm0.06$ mas yr$^{-1}$ and $1.20\pm0.08$ mas yr$^{-1}$ in right ascension and declination for Be 24 and $-0.52\pm0.05$ mas yr$^{-1}$ and $-1.30\pm0.05$ mas yr$^{-1}$ for Cz 27. We used probable cluster members selected from proper motion data for the estimation of fundamental parameters. We infer reddenings $E(B-V)$ = $0.45\pm0.05$ mag and $0.15\pm0.05$ mag for the two clusters. Analysis of extinction curves towards the two clusters show that both have normal interstellar extinction laws in the optical as well as in the near-IR band. From the ultraviolet excess measurement, we derive metallicities of [Fe/H]= $-0.025\pm0.01$ dex and $-0.042\pm0.01$ dex for the clusters Be 24 and Cz 27, respectively. The distances, as determined from main sequence fitting, are $4.4\pm0.5$ kpc and $5.6\pm0.2$ kpc. The comparison of observed CMDs with $Z=0.01$ isochrones, leads to an age of $2.0\pm0.2$ Gyr and $0.6\pm0.1$ Gyr for Be 24 and Cz 27, respectively. In addition to this, we have also studied the mass function and dynamical state of these two clusters for the first time using probable cluster members. The mass function is derived after including the corrections for data incompleteness and field star contamination. Our analysis shows that both clusters are now dynamically relaxed
Always on non-nearest-neighbour coupling in scalable quantum computing

In many previous ‘always-on’ quantum computing (QC) schemes the non-nearest-neighbour couplings are often omitted because of their weak strength compared with the nearest-neighbour coupling. In this paper, we consider the problem of residual long-range interaction. We propose a QC scheme in which by the method of generalized ‘barrier spin’ encoding, the influence of the long-range coupling can be significantly suppressed. The universal quantum gates could be deterministically established. We also study the application of this scheme in a Josephson junction system.
The impact of vorticity waves on the shock dynamics in core-collapse supernovae

Convective perturbations arising from nuclear shell burning can play an important role in propelling neutrino-driven core-collapse supernova explosions. In this work, we analyze the impact of vorticity waves on the shock dynamics and the post-shock flow using the solution of the linear hydrodynamics equations. We show that the entropy perturbations generated by the interaction of the shock with vorticity waves may play a dominant role in generating buoyancy-driven turbulence in the gain region. We estimate that the resulting reduction in the critical luminosity is 17-24%, which approximately agrees with the results of three-dimensional neutrino-hydrodynamics simulations.
Pre-processing of galaxies in cosmic filaments around AMASCFI clusters in the CFHTLS

Context. Galaxy clusters and groups are thought to accrete material along the preferred direction of cosmic filaments. These structures have proven difficult to detect because their contrast is low, however, and only a few studies have focused on cluster infall regions. Aims. We detect cosmic filaments around galaxy clusters using photometric redshifts in the range 0.15 < z < 0.7. We characterise galaxy populations in these structures to study the influence of pre-processing by cosmic filaments and galaxy groups on star formation quenching. Methods. We detected cosmic filaments in the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey (CFHTLS) T0007 data, focusing on regions around clusters of the AMASCFI CFHTLS cluster sample. The filaments were reconstructed with the discrete persistent structure extractor (DISPERSE) algorithm in photometric redshift slices. We show that this reconstruction is reliable for a CFHTLS-like survey at 0.15 < z < 0.7 using a mock galaxy catalogue. We split our galaxy catalogue into two populations (passive and star forming) using the LePhare spectral energy density fitting algorithm and worked with two redshift bins (0.15 < z ≤ 0.4 and 0.4 < z < 0.7). Results. We showed that the AMASCFI cluster connectivity (i.e. the number of filaments that is connected to a cluster) increases with cluster mass M200. Filament galaxies outside R200 are found to be closer to clusters at low redshift, regardless of the galaxy type. Passive galaxies in filaments are closer to clusters than star-forming galaxies in the low redshift bin alone. The passive fraction of galaxies decreases with increasing clustercentric distance up to d ∼ 5 cMpc. Galaxy groups and clusters that are not located at nodes of our reconstruction are mainly found inside cosmic filaments. Conclusions. These results give clues for pre-processing in cosmic filaments that could be due to smaller galaxy groups. This trend could be further explored by applying this method to larger photometric surveys such as the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC-SPP) or Euclid.
Grain Growth with Size-Dependent or Statistically Distributed Mobility

Conventional grain growth is rate-limited by the mobility of grain boundary. To describe similar phenomena limited by the mobility of other grain junctions, we have developed a general theory allowing for size-dependent mobility and its statistical variance. We obtained analytic solutions for the steady-state size distribution and the growth exponent, defined as (grain size)n ~ time, down to n=1, which arises when the mobility of three-grain lines is rate-limiting. When the mobility of four-grain junctions is rate-limiting, exponential growth and a bifurcating size distribution result. These solutions manifest a general trend: The size distribution narrows with increasing n. Yet experimentally the opposite trend has been observed recently, which can only be reproduced in simulation if the mobility distribution is made at lease bimodal, with one mode being immobile or nearly immobile. The latter can be realized in slow grain growth below the temperature of mobility transition.
Repurposing Lenvatinib as A Potential Therapeutic Agent against Thyroid Eye Disease by Suppressing Adipogenesis in Orbital Adipose Tissues

Thyroid eye disease (TED) is the most common orbital disease in adults. Targeting expanded orbital adipose tissue (OAT) removed by surgery has therapeutic potential. However, drugs targeting OAT are unavailable because of the lack of deciphering features of OAT. Here, we aimed to investigate the mechanism underlying OAT expansion and identify a drug targeting OAT in TED. We found an increasing number of adipocytes with smaller size in TED-derived OATs as compared with controls, indicating that hyperplasia rather than hypertrophy contributed to OAT enlargement in TED. Typically smaller-sized adipocytes in TED patient-derived OATs were noted to localize surrounding vessels. RNA sequencing revealed enriched vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR) genes in adipocytes differentiated from preadipocytes of TED-derived stromal vascular fraction (SVF). Similarly, OATs in patients with TED also expressed a higher level of VEGFR-1 and -2. We induced adipogenesis in TED-derived SVF with or without Lenvatinib, an FDA-approved small-molecule VEGFR inhibitor. Lenvatinib significantly suppressed lipid accumulation in a dose-dependent manner. In conclusion, our study revealed the potential anti-adipogenic effect of Lenvatinib on the OAT of TED-affected patients. In addition to proposing a drug for TED treatment, this study shows the therapeutic potential of anti-adipogenesis drugs targeting the VEGF pathway.
Nitro Capsaicin Suppressed Microglial Activation and TNF-α-Induced Brain Microvascular Endothelial Cell Damage

Chronically activated microglia and brain vascular damage are major causes of neuroinflammation. The aim of this study was to determine the anti-inflammatory effects of nitro capsaicin, a newly modified capsaicin with less irritating characteristics, against microglial activation and brain microvascular endothelial cell damage. Using the SIMA9 microglia cell line, we found that nitro capsaicin reduced nitric oxide (NO) production in LPS-activated microglia better than its parent compound, capsaicin. Nitro capsaicin also decreased the expression of proinflammatory cytokines (TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6) and enhanced the levels of anti-inflammatory factors, IL-4 and IL-10, both at the mRNA and protein levels. In the TNF-α-induced vascular damage model, nitro capsaicin decreased expression and secretion of the proinflammatory cytokines IL-1β and IL-6. Phosphorylated NF-κB p65, a key transcription factor that stimulates the signaling of inflammatory pathways, was also reduced in the presence of nitro capsaicin, suggesting that the anti-inflammatory effects of nitro capsaicin were created through reducing NF-κB activation. Together, we concluded that nitro capsaicin has the potential to be further developed as an anti-neuroinflammatory agent.
Line broadening in gravitational radiation from gamma-ray bursts

Core-collapse in massive stars is believed to produce a rapidly spinning black hole surrounded by a compact disk or torus. This forms an energetic MeV-nucleus inside a remnant He-core, powered by black hole-spin energy. The output produces a GRB-supernova, while most of the energy released is in gravitational radiation. The intrinsic gravitational-wave spectrum is determined by multipole mass-moments in the torus. Quadrupole gravitational radiation is radiated at about twice the Keplerian frequency of the torus, which is non-axisymmetric when sufficiently slender, representing a ``{\em black hole-blob}" binary system or a "{\em blob-blob}" binary bound to the central black hole. We here discuss line-broadening in the observed spectrum due to Lense-Thirring precession, which modulates the orientation of the torus to the line-of-sight. This spectral feature is long-lived, due to weak damping of precessional motion. These events are believed to occur perhaps once per year within a distance of 100Mpc, which provides a candidate source for Advanced LIGO.
Black Holes as P-Branes

We review briefly the thermodynamical interpretation of black hole physics and discuss the problems and inconsistencies in this approach. We provide an alternative interpretation of black holes as quantum objects and investigate the statistical mechanics of a gas of such objects in the microcanonical ensemble. We argue that the theory of black holes has the conformal properties of duality and satisfaction of the statistical bootstrap condition. We show in the context of mean field theory that the thermal vacuum is the false vacuum for a black hole and define a microcanonical vacuum which leads to a number density characteristic of pure states for the Hawking radiation.
A new parametrization of dark energy equation of state leading to double exponential potential

We show that a phenomenological form of energy density for the scalar field can provide the required transition from decelerated (q > 0) to accelerated expansion (q < 0) phase of the universe. We have used the latest type Ia supernova (SNIa) and Hubble parameter datasets to constrain the model parameters. The best fit values obtained from those datasets are then applied to reconstruct ωϕ(z), the equation of state parameter for the scalar field. The results show that the reconstructed forms of q(z) and ωϕ(z) do not differ much from the standard ΛCDM value at the current epoch. Finally, the functional form of the relevant potential V(ϕ) is derived by a parametric reconstruction. The corresponding V(ϕ) comes out to be a double exponential potential, which has a number of cosmological implications. Additionally, we have also studied the effect of this particular scalar field dark energy sector on the evolution of matter overdensities.
Heterologous Expression of the Lactobacillus sakei Multiple Copper Oxidase to Degrade Histamine and Tyramine at Different Environmental Conditions

Biogenic amines (BAs) are produced by microbial decarboxylation in various foods. Histamine and tyramine are recognized as the most toxic of all BAs. Applying degrading amine enzymes such as multicopper oxidase (MCO) is considered an effective method to reduce BAs in food systems. This study analyzed the characterization of heterologously expressed MCO from L. sakei LS. Towards the typical substrate 2,2′-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS), the optimal temperature and pH for recombinant MCO (rMCO) were 25 °C and 3.0, respectively, with the specific enzyme activity of 1.27 U/mg. Then, the effect of different environmental factors on the degrading activity of MCO towards two kinds of BAs was investigated. The degradation activity of rMCO is independent of exogenous copper and mediators. Additionally, the oxidation ability of rMCO was improved for histamine and tyramine with an increased NaCl concentration. Several food matrices could influence the amine-oxidizing activity of rMCO. Although the histamine-degrading activities of rMCO were affected, this enzyme reached a degradation rate of 28.1% in the presence of surimi. Grape juice improved the tyramine degradation activity of rMCO by up to 31.18%. These characteristics of rMCO indicate that this enzyme would be a good candidate for degrading toxic biogenic amines in food systems.
The further analytical discussions on the U(1) gauged Q-balls with N-power potential

We discuss the U(1) gauged Q-balls with N-power potential to examine their properties analytically. More numerical descriptions and some analytical consideration have been contributed to the models governed by four-power potential. We also demonstrate strictly some new limitations that the stable U(1) gauged Q-balls should accept instead of estimating those with only some specific values of model variables numerically. Having derived the explicit expressions of radius, the Noether charge and energy of the gauged Q-balls, we find that these models under the potential of matter field with general power and the boundary conditions will exist instead of dispersing and decaying. The Noether charge of the large gauged Q-balls must be limited. The mass parameter of the model can not be tiny.