Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bioinformatics analysis and biological experiments support an emerging role of ELK3 in glioma

Glioma is a malignant tumor that recurs easily. This study aimed at investigating the biological effect of ELK3 in epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and its prognostic value.Bioinformatics analyses were performed to determine the expression and prognostic value of ELK3. The biological properties of glioma cells (A172 and LN229) were evaluated by cell counting kit-8, plate cloning and transwell assays. Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis (GEPIA) website was used to analyze the relationship between ELK3 expression and EMT-related markers. Western blotting was applied to detect the protein levels.ELK3 is highly expressed in glioma and significantly associated with poor prognosis (p < 0.05), presenting promising value in the diagnosis and prognostic prediction of glioma. Further biological assays revealed that cell viability was notably reduced after down-regulating ELK3 (p < 0.01). The numbers of colonies formed by A172 (145.30 ± 12.86 vs. 300.30 ± 11.68) and LN229 (125.70 ± 4.04 vs. 256.00 ± 20.07) cells were decreased after transfection of si-ELK3 (p < 0.01). The numbers of invaded and migrated glioma cells in si-ELK3 group were decreased by about half (p < 0.01). Moreover, ELK3 was positively correlated with N-Cadherin (R = 0.21), Snail1 (R = 0.43), Slug (R = 0.6) and Vimentin (R = 0.35), and depletion of ELK3 reduced the levels of these EMT-related markers more than a half (p < 0.01). Our observations illustrated that ELK3 was highly expressed in glioma and played a promoting role in the growth and mobility of glioma cells partly by modulating EMT progress.
Innovative Blockchain Uses in Health Care

Blockchain, the digital ledger technology that can securely maintain continuously growing lists of data records and transactions, has the power to potentially transform health care, according to industry experts. By simplifying and expediting the way the health care industry processes data in such areas as revenue cycle management, health data interoperability and supply chain validation, blockchain has the power to dramatically reduce back-office data input and maintenance costs and improve data accuracy and security.
Wound Chronicity, Impaired Immunity and Infection in Diabetic Patients.

BACKGROUND Diabetic foot ulcers are a common diabetic complication leading to alarming figures of amputation, disability, and early mortality. The diabetic glucooxidative environment impairs the healing response, promoting the onset of a 'wound chronicity phenotype'. In 50% of ulcers, these non-healing wounds act as an open door for developing infections, a process facilitated by diabetic patients' dysimmunity. Infection can elicit biofilm formation that worsens wound prognosis. How this microorganism community is able to take advantage of underlying diabetic conditions and thrive both within the wound and the diabetic host is an expanding research field. OBJECTIVES 1) Offer an overview of the major cellular and molecular derangements of the diabetic healing process versus physiological cascades in a non-diabetic host. 2) Describe the main immunopathological aspects of diabetics' immune response and explore how these contribute to wound infection susceptibility. 3) Conceptualize infection and biofilim in diabetic foot ulcers and analyze their dynamic interactions with wound bed cells and matrices, and their systemic effects at the organism level. 4) Offer an integrative conceptual framework of wound-dysimmunity-infection-organism damage. EVIDENCE AQUISITION We retrieved 683 articles indexed in Medline/PubMed, SciELO, Bioline International and Google Scholar. 280 articles were selected for discussion under four major subheadings: 1) normal healing processes, 2) impaired healing processes in the diabetic population, 3) diabetic dysimmunity and 4) diabetic foot infection and its interaction with the host. DEVELOPMENT The diabetic healing response is heterogeneous, torpid and asynchronous, leading to wound chronicity. The accumulation of senescent cells and a protracted inflammatory profile with a pro-catabolic balance hinder the proliferative response and delay re-epithelialization. Diabetes reduces the immune system's abilities to orchestrate an appropriate antimicrobial response and offers ideal conditions for microbiota establishment and biofilm formation. Biofilm-microbial entrenchment hinders antimicrobial therapy effectiveness, amplifies the host's pre-existing immunodepression, arrests the wound's proliferative phase, increases localized catabolism, prolongs pathogenic inflammation and perpetuates wound chronicity. In such circumstances the infected wound may act as a proinflammatory and pro-oxidant organ superimposed onto the host, which eventually intensifies peripheral insulin resistance and disrupts homeostasis. CONCLUSIONS The number of lower-limb amputations remains high worldwide despite continued research efforts on diabetic foot ulcers. Identifying and manipulating the molecular drivers underlying diabetic wound healing failure, and dysimmunity-driven susceptibility to infection will offer more effective therapeutic tools for the diabetic population.
Der blinde Fleck der deutschen Rechtswissenschaft – Zur digitalen Verfügbarkeit instanzgerichtlicher Rechtsprechung

Veröffentlichungspraxis und Do- kumentation Grundsatzentscheidungen, die Belange gut organi-sierter Gruppen berühren [. ] eine größere Chance, zum Richterrecht zu erstarken als Entscheidungen, die sich mit den Rechten schwächerer Schichten und Gruppen befassen.
Satellite glial cells of the peripheral nervous system

receptors and ion channels in both nerve terminals. Activity in somata dynamically contributes to nerve signaling to dorsal horn cells. Non-neuronal cells also affect neuronal activity through glial-neuron interaction. Somata of sensory neurons do not form synaptic contacts with one another in the ganglia, instead they are enveloped by satellite glial cells (SGCs).
Quantum Dot-Peptide Nanoassembly on Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticle for Biosensing

Quantum dots (QDs) are powerful luminescent probes for detecting single-molecules and imaging live cells. Despite several reports on bioimaging and biosensing applications of QDs, controlled and targeted detection of biomolecules using quantum dots is an ongoing challenge. When a QD is conjugated with an ideal chromophore, which can be a fluorescent or a non-fluorescent dye molecule, QD luminescence can be quenched by Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) to the quencher dye. However, the photoluminescence of QD can be recovered upon on-demand release of the quencher. Our study focuses on quenching of QD photoluminescence after conjugation with a non-fluorescent dye molecule, black hole quencher 1 (BHQ-1), intermediated with a molecular sensing target peptide GPLG↓VRGK. Based on steady-state and time-resolved photoluminescence measurements of QD and the QD-peptide-BHQ-1 sensor assemblies, we attribute the quenching of photoluminescence intensity and lifetime to FRET from the QD to BHQ-1molecules. Here the intermediate peptide GPLG↓VRGK can be cleaved by matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2), an enzyme that is upregulated in cancer cells extra cellular matrix (ECM), at its Gly and Val region shown by the down headed arrow. Here the QD-pep-BHQ-1 conjugate detected the MMP-2 presence at the extra cellular matrix of H1299 cancer cells. Further the QD-pep-BHQ-1 molecules were conjugated at the surface of a mesoporous silica nanoparticle (MSN) scaffold to localize maximum target peptide in a nanospace volume for the future αvβ3 integrin receptor targeted detection of MMP-2. The luminescence quenching of MSN-QD-pep-BHQ-1 conjugates were analyzed with time resolved photoluminescence measurement.
Time-Domain Studies of General Dispersive Anisotropic Media by the Complex-Conjugate Pole–Residue Pairs Model

A novel finite-difference time-domain formulation for the modeling of general anisotropic dispersive media is introduced in this work. The method accounts for fully anisotropic electric or magnetic materials with all elements of the permittivity and permeability tensors being non-zero. In addition, each element shows an arbitrary frequency dispersion described by the complex-conjugate pole–residue pairs model. The efficiency of the technique is demonstrated in benchmark numerical examples involving electromagnetic wave propagation through magnetized plasma, nematic liquid crystals and ferrites.
Electron Heat Transport in JET from Ion to Electron Scales: Experimental Investigation and Gyro-kinetic Simulations

Experimental studies and gyro-kinetic simulations of electron heat transport performed in JET C-wall L-mode plasmas with various combinations of NBI and ICRH heating have provided indications of a significant role of small-scale instabilities (ETGs, Electron Temperature Gradient). Comparison of the measured electron inverse critical gradient length with linear gyro-kinetic simulations using the GENE code is generally consistent with both TEM and ETG thresholds, but the rather high experimental electron stiffness level is not reproduced by non-linear gyro-kinetic simulations including only large-scale ITG/TEM instabilities. The fact that Te peaking is very sensitive to the value of τ=Zeff Te/Ti, which is a key player for ETG instabilities, suggests that ETG turbulence could account for the missing electron heat flux. A first study of the ETG contribution to the heat flux, using linear and non-linear local GENE simulations, was based on separate simulations of ion and electron scales. For the ETG saturation, either an ad hoc external flow shear or electron scale zonal flows were used. In both ICRH and ICRH+NBI cases it was found that a non-negligible electron heat flux can be carried by the ETG modes, explaining the observations. However, a high sensitivity of the results on multiple parameters was found. Following recent work showing that multi-scale simulations with real electron to ion mass ratio are needed for a proper ETG study, computationally heavy multi-scale simulations have then been started using GENE for these JET shots. First results indeed indicate a substantial fraction of ETG flux and a high stiffness level, consistent with experiment. These results are important in view of extrapolations to ITER scenarios, where the electron channel will be key for fusion performance, due to the dominance of electron heating.
Doping of two-dimensional MoS2 by high energy ion implantation

Two-dimensional (2D) materials have been demonstrated to be promising candidates for next generation electronic circuits. Analogues to conventional Si-based semiconductors, p- and n-doping of 2D materials are essential for building complementary circuits. Controllable and effective doping strategies require large tunability of the doping level and negligible structural damage to ultrathin 2D materials. In this work, we demonstrate a doping method utilizing a conventional high-energy ion-implantation machine. Before the implantation, a Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) protective layer is used to decelerate the dopant ions and minimize the structural damage to MoS2, thus aggregating the dopants inside MoS2 flakes. By optimizing the implantation energy and fluence, phosphorus dopants are incorporated into MoS2 flakes. Our Raman and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) results show that only negligibly structural damage is introduced to the MoS2 lattice during the implantation. P-doping effect by the incorporation of p+ is demonstrated by Photoluminescence (PL) and electrical characterizations. Thin PMMA protection layer leads to large kinetic damage but also a more significant doping effect. Also, MoS2 with large thickness shows less kinetic damage. This doping method makes use of existing infrastructures in the semiconductor industry and can be extended to other 2D materials and dopant species as well.
Feasibility of Indirect Secondary Distribution of HIV Self-test Kits via WeChat Among Men Who Have Sex With Men: National Cross-sectional Study in China

Background HIV self-testing (HIVST) kits are common in key sexually active populations. Direct secondary distribution of HIVST kits (DSDHK) is effective in improving the uptake of HIVST. However, there are concerns about the various limitations of DSDHK, including limited geographic reach, payment problems, and need for face-to-face interactions. Objective In this study, we aim to evaluate the feasibility and characteristics of indirect secondary distribution of HIVST kits (ISDHK) via WeChat (distributing HIVST application links and follow-up HIVST kits to partners) among men who have sex with men (MSM). Methods From October 2017 to September 2019, an HIVST recruitment advertisement was disseminated on the WeChat social media platform to invite MSM to apply for the HIVST kits (referred to as index participants [IPs]). All MSM participants were encouraged to distribute the HIVST application link to their friends and sexual partners (referred to as alters) through their social networks. All the alters were further encouraged to continue distributing the HIVST application link. All participants paid a deposit (US $7), which was refundable upon completion of the questionnaire, and uploaded the test results via a web-based survey system. Results A total of 2263 MSM met the criteria and successfully applied for HIVST. Of these, 1816 participants returned their HIVST results, including 1422 (88.3%) IPs and 394 (21.7%) alters. More alters had condomless anal intercourse, a higher proportion of them had never previously tested for HIV, and they showed a greater willingness to distribute HIVST kits to their sexual partners (P=.002) than the IPs. After controlling for age, education, and income, the alters had a greater proportion of MSM who had never tested for HIV before (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 1.29, 95% CI 1.00-1.68), were more willing to distribute the HIVST application link (aOR 1.71, 95% CI 1.21-2.40), had a lower number of sexual partners (aOR 0.71, 95% CI 0.57-0.90), and were less likely to search for sexual partners on the web (aOR 0.78, 95% CI 0.60-1.02) than IPs. In comparison, the rates of reactive HIVST results, conducting HIV confirmatory tests, HIV seropositivity, and initiation of HIV antiretroviral therapy were similar for IPs and alters. Conclusions The ISDHK model of distributing HIVST application links among the MSM population via social media is feasible. The ISDHK model should be used to supplement the DSDHK model to enable a greater proportion of the MSM population to know their HIV infection status.
Effect of exfoliated graphene defects on thermal conductivity of water based graphene nanofluids

In this work, sonication assisted exfoliated Graphene (Gr) was separated into five different suspensions using a systematic centrifugation scheme (4000-500 rpm) for the two different solvents N-Methyl-2-Pyrrolidone (NMP) and N, Ndimethylformamide (DMF). Gr dispersions in deionized water (DW) were prepared by the re-dispersion process with the aid of vacuum filtration. Systematic thermal conductivity (TC) measurements were conducted separately on the prepared Gr dispersion in DW with rising temperature ranging from 25 to 60 oC. Defects in exfoliated Gr samples were identified in terms of intensity ratio of D and G band (ID/IG) of Raman spectroscopy. For a fixed time of sonication values of ID/IG were found considerably higher in higher centrifugation speed (rpm). This phenomenon was perceived for both of the solvents. However, obtained values of ID/IG for the exfoliated Gr in NMP (Gr-NMP) were lower than that of Gr exfoliated by DMF (Gr-DMF). Lowest values of ID/IG found for 500 rpm, were 0.697 and 0.879 for the Gr-NMP and Gr-DMF respectively. Effect of exfoliated Gr defects were evaluated on the TC of Gr dispersed DW nanofluids. At 60 ℃, TC of GrNMP dispersion in DW was obtained 1.146 W/m-K for ID/IG of 0.697 (500 rpm) and 0.935 W/m-K for ID/IG of 0.916 (4000 rpm). Similarly occurrence was also apparent for the Gr-DMF dispersion in DW.
Preparation, characterization and catalytic performance of Ag/Ce/La co-modified TiO2 photocatalysts

ABSTRACT Ag and rare earth elements (Ce-La) co-modified TiO2 photocatalysts were synthesized via sol–gel method. The structure of co-modified TiO2 was investigated by using TEM, XRD, XPS and UV–visible absorption spectra. Based on the ammonia nitrogen degradation experiment, the effects of the co-modifier content (1, 3, 5wt% Ag/Ce/La) on the photocatalytic activity of TiO2 were evaluated systematically. The results showed the crystal phase of modified TiO2 transformed from anatase/rutile mixture to pure anatase, and the anatase crystallites size decreased after co-modifying. Ag was deposited onto the surface of TiO2 photocatalyst, and the synergistic effect of Ce-La and Ag caused the decrease of band gap energy from 3.2 eV to 2.0 eV. In the degradation of ammonia nitrogen wastewater, 3% Ag/Ce/La-TiO2 photocatalyst represented the best activity, whose degradation efficiency of ammonia nitrogen reached 93.9% after 6 h degradation reaction, whereas was 27.8% in case of pure TiO2.
Static and Dynamic Hand Gesture Recognition Using CNN Models

: Similar to the touchscreen, hand gesture based human computer interaction (HCI) is a technology that could allow people to perform a variety of tasks faster and more conveniently. This paper proposes a training method of an imaged - based hand gesture image and video clip recognition system using Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN). A dataset containing images of 6 different static hand gestures is used to train a 2D CNN model. ~98% accuracy is achieved. Furthermore, a 3D CNN model is trained on a dataset containing video clips of 4 dynamic hand gestures resulting in ~83% accuracy. This research demonstrates that a Cozmo robot loaded with pre - trained models is able to recognize static and dynamic hand gestures.
Image-Scale-Symmetric Cooperative Network for Defocus Blur Detection

Defocus blur detection (DBD) for natural images is a challenging vision task especially in the presence of homogeneous regions and gradual boundaries. In this paper, we propose a novel image-scale-symmetric cooperative network (IS2CNet) for DBD. On one hand, in the process of image scales from large to small, IS2CNet gradually spreads the recept of image content. Thus, the homogeneous region detection map can be optimized gradually. On the other hand, in the process of image scales from small to large, IS2CNet gradually feels the high-resolution image content, thereby gradually refining transition region detection. In addition, we propose a hierarchical feature integration and bi-directional delivering mechanism to transfer the hierarchical feature of previous image scale network to the input and tail of the current image scale network for guiding the current image scale network to better learn the residual. The proposed approach achieves state-of-the-art performance on existing datasets. Codes and results are available at: https://github.com/wdzhao123/IS2CNet.
Intraventricular Hematoma Removal with Combined Drainage Techniques in Patients with High-Grade Subarachnoid Hemorrhage: A Surgical Technique.

AIM To describe a surgical technique for removal of hematomas in the third ventricle in patients with high-grade aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) and report our intraoperative observations and surgical and clinical outcomes. MATERIAL AND METHODS Ninety-four patients with high-grade aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhagic were included in the study. Prior to Sylvian dissection, a ventricular catheter was inserted as soon as possible. After surgical corridor opening and aneurysm clipping, the lamina terminalis (LT) was fenestrated. The free flow of isotonic solution from the back-side open syringe to the distal end of the catheter inside the third ventricle was allowed under gravitational force. The blood clot trapped in the third ventricle was removed through the aperture of the LT by propulsion of blood through the anterior movement of the solution. The procedure was continued until the clearance of solution was observed. RESULTS The study population consisted of two groups, the combined surgical technique group and the control group, which included patients who underwent operation before the planned study, with 47 patients in each group. The Glasgow Coma, Hunt and Hess, and Fisher scales were used to determine the clinical and radiological severities of the cases. The Modified Rankin Scale was used to evaluate the surgical outcomes at presentation and the 6th and 12th postoperative months. CONCLUSION Our reported surgical technique, which combines ventricular drainage and opening of the LT, will be useful for removing blood clots and blood breakdown products, and recirculating cerebrospinal fluid as much and as soon as possible in high-grade SAH patients with ventricular hemorrhage. Although combining these two well-known procedures as a novel technique does not have any reducing effect on mortality, it may have a significant reducing effect on hydrocephalus and shunt dependency.
A Polarization and Beam Steering Reconfigurable Cavity-Backed Magneto-Electric Dipole Antenna Array Using Reflection-Type Phase Shifter

This article introduces a reconfigurable cavity-backed $1\,\,\times4$ magneto-electric (ME) dipole antenna array with agile polarization and steerable beam features for both linear and circular polarizations (CPs). The proposed ME dipole element backed by a cavity can reduce the mutual coupling and enhance the scanning performance of the antenna array. To achieve continuous beam-scanning ability, reflection-type phase shifters are designed with varactor diodes and integrated with the feeding network. The polarization agility is determined by embedding two switchable cross strips into the ME dipole element. By manipulating the states of the two switchable cross strips through dc bias controls, three different polarization states including linear polarization (LP), left-hand CP (LHCP), and right-hand CP (RHCP) can be realized. For verification, a prototype of the antenna array was fabricated and measured. A good agreement between the simulation and the measurement is obtained, thus validating the multiple reconfigurable capability of the antenna array in polarization and radiation pattern. The measured results demonstrate that the beam can be scanned continuously in a range between ±40° for the three polarization states. Meanwhile, the measured overlapped bandwidth for the reflection coefficient ( $\vert \text{S}_{11}\vert \le -10$ dB) and the 3 dB axial ratio (AR) is from 2.0 to 2.4 GHz for all states.
Redefining the Channel Bandwidth for Simultaneous Wireless Power and Information Transfer

The ideal simultaneous wireless power and information transfer (SWPIT) system should share the same source and channel bandwidth. However, the requirements of the channel bandwidth between wireless power transfer (WPT) and wireless information transfer are different. In order to alleviate the effect of communications on the WPT, three bandwidths are redefined based on traditional communication systems, namely the modulation bandwidth, channel bandwidth and demodulation bandwidth. A square wave circuit is built to track the frequencies of signals at the receiver power coil, and the harmonic components in the same square wave are used to recreate information source to transmit data. Since the harmonic components can enlarge the deviations of the fundamental component, the needed channel bandwidth is decreased. The transmitter power coil and the receiver power coil still work under the quasi-resonant state with online communications. The communication function shows a strong immunity to various disturbances, such as distances, loads and input voltages. Based on the proposed method, two typical SWPIT systems in near-field and far-field are built, and the experimental data are consistent with the analytical results. The proposed SWPIT achieves a good tradeoff between efficiency and data transfer rate.