Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
In Vivo Preclinical Assessment of β-Amyloid–Affine [11C]C-PIB Accumulation in Aluminium-Induced Alzheimer’s Disease-Resembling Hypercholesterinaemic Rat Model

Aluminum (Al) excess and hypercholesterinaemia are established risks of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The aim of this study was to establish an AD-resembling hypercholesterinaemic animal model—with the involvement of 8 week and 48 week-old Fischer-344 rats—by Al administration for the safe and rapid verification of β-amyloid-targeted positron emission tomography (PET) radiopharmaceuticals. Measurement of lipid parameters and β-amyloid–affine [11C]C-Pittsburgh Compound B ([11C]C-PIB) PET examinations were performed. Compared with the control, the significantly elevated cholesterol and LDL levels of the rats receiving the cholesterol-rich diet support the development of hypercholesterinaemia (p ≤ 0.01). In the older cohort, a notably increased age-related radiopharmaceutical accumulation was registered compared to in the young (p ≤ 0.05; p ≤ 0.01). A monotherapy-induced slight elevation of mean standardised uptake values (SUVmean) was statistically not significant; however, adult rats administered a combined diet expressed remarkable SUVmean increment compared to the adult control (SUVmean: from 0.78 ± 0.16 to 1.99 ± 0.28). One and two months after restoration to normal diet, the cerebral [11C]C-PIB accumulation of AD-mimicking animals decreased by half and a third, respectively, to the baseline value. The proposed in vivo Al-induced AD-resembling animal system seems to be adequate for the understanding of AD neuropathology and future drug testing and radiopharmaceutical development.
Rice Leaf Chlorophyll Content Estimation Using UAV-Based Spectral Images in Different Regions

Estimation of crop biophysical and biochemical characteristics is the key element for crop growth monitoring with remote sensing. With the application of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) as a remote sensing platform worldwide, it has become important to develop general estimation models, which can interpret remote sensing data of crops by different sensors and in different agroclimatic regions into comprehensible agronomy parameters. Leaf chlorophyll content (LCC), which can be measured as a soil plant analysis development (SPAD) value using a SPAD-502 Chlorophyll Meter, is one of the important parameters that are closely related to plant production. This study compared the estimation of rice (Oryza sativa L.) LCC in two different regions (Ningxia and Shanghai) using UAV-based spectral images. For Ningxia, images of rice plots with different nitrogen and biochar application rates were acquired by a 125-band hyperspectral camera from 2016 to 2017, and a total of 180 samples of rice LCC were recorded. For Shanghai, images of rice plots with different nitrogen application rates, straw returning, and crop rotation systems were acquired by a 5-band multispectral camera from 2017 to 2018, and a total of 228 samples of rice LCC were recorded. The spectral features of LCC in each study area were analyzed and the results showed that the rice LCC in both regions had significant correlations with the reflectance at the green, red, and red-edge bands and 8 vegetation indices such as the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). The estimation models of LCC were built using the partial least squares regression (PLSR), support vector regression (SVR), and artificial neural network (ANN) methods. The PLSR models tended to be more stable and accurate than the SVR and ANN models when applied in different regions with R2 values higher than 0.7 through different validations. The results demonstrated that the rice canopy LCC in different regions, cultivars, and different types of sensor-based data shared similar spectral features and could be estimated by general models. The general models can be implied to a wider geographic extent to accurately quantify rice LCC, which is helpful for growth assessment and production forecasts.
Analysis and Design of Passive Damping for LC-Equipped Permanent-Magnet Synchronous Machine Drive System

The LC filter can be added between pulse width modulation (PWM) inverter and permanent-magnet synchronous machine (PMSM) to reduce the insulation stress and current harmonics. However, the LCL resonance can threaten the stability of the system. This paper focuses on the passive damping method for LC-equipped PMSM drive system to suppress the resonance without the need of additional sensors or changes in the control software. The inherent damping characteristic of the drive system is derived. Then, two kinds of passive damping schemes are investigated and compared. The analysis and design are validated with simulation results.
Optimal Modulation Strategy for Current-Source Converter to Reduce DC-Link Current Ripple

As one of the most important performance indices of a current-source converter, dc-link current ripple is closely related to the modulation strategy. Excessive dc-link current ripple not only reduces the system efficiency but also increases the total harmonic distortion of grid current and leads to more electromagnetic interference. To get around this problem, optimizing the modulation strategy is more attractive compared with increasing the inductor or switching frequency. To this end, based on the detailed analysis of the mechanism to reduce the dc-link current ripple and the inherent deficiency of the current ripple continuous increase phenomenon between two adjacent sequences, in this article, a novel modulation strategy by employing an optimized switching sequence according to the modulation index is proposed. By applying the proposed modulation strategy, the current ripple is effectively reduced in the full range of the modulation index. Furthermore, the proposed scheme is easy to implement in practice without increasing the switching frequency or inductor. Finally, the selected experimental results confirm the validity of the theoretical analysis.
A Gamma Class Formula for Open Gromov-Witten Calculations

For toric Calabi-Yau threefolds, open Gromov-Witten invariants associated to Riemann surfaces with one boundary component can be written as the product of a disk factor and a closed invariant. Using the Brini-Cavalieri-Ross formalism, these disk factors can often be expressed in terms of gamma classes. When the Lagrangian boundary cycle is preserved by the torus action and can be locally described as the fixed locus of an anti-holomorphic involution, we prove a formula that expresses the disk factor in terms of a gamma class and combinatorial data about the image of the Lagrangian cycle in the moment polytope. We verify that this formula encodes the expected invariants obtained from localization by comparing with several examples. We then examine a novel application of this formula to disk enumeration on the quintic 3-fold. Finally, motivated by large $N$ duality, we show that this formula also unexpectedly applies to Lagrangian cycles on $\mathcal{O}_{\mathbb{P}^1}(-1,-1)$ constructed from torus knots.
A Coordinated Model Pruning and Mapping Framework for RRAM-Based DNN Accelerators

Network sparsity or pruning is a pivotal technology for edge intelligence. Resistive random access memory (RRAM)-based accelerators, featuring dense storage and processing in memory capability, have demonstrated the superior computing performance and energy efficiency over the traditional CMOS-based accelerators for neural network applications. Unfortunately, RRAM-based accelerators suffer the performance or energy degradation when deploying pruned models, impairing their competition in the edge intelligence scenarios. We observed the essential reason is the pruning technology and the mapping strategy in prior RRAM-based accelerator and are optimized individually. As a result, the random zeros in the pruned deep neural network are irregularly distributed in the crossbars, rendering the degradation of computation parallelism of the crossbar without crossbar demand reduction. In this work, we propose a coordinated model pruning and mapping framework to jointly optimize of model accuracy and efficiency of RRAM-based accelerators. As for the mapping, we first decouple weight matrices in the bit-wise way and map the bit matrices to different crossbars, where the signed weights are represented with the two’s complement so as that save half desired crossbars. As for the pruning, we prune weight bits at the crossbar granularity so that free the crossbars holding the pruned bits. Furthermore, we employ an reinforcement learning (RL) approach to automatically select the optimal crossbar-aware bit-pruning strategy for any given neural network without laborious human efforts. We conducted the experiments on a set of representative neural networks and compared our framework with the state-of-the-art (SOTA) bit-sparsity works. The results show that automatic structured bit-pruning saves up to 89.64% energy reduction and 84.12% area overhead compared to existing PRIME-like architecture. Besides, our framework outperforms the SOTA bit-sparsity design by $1.5\times $ in terms of the energy reduction on the RRAM-based accelerator.
Incoherent Optical Beamformer for ARoF Fronthaul in Mm-Wave 5G/6G Networks

Analog beamforming is a key technology to enable millimeter-wave (mm-wave) mobile communications. Nonetheless, the most widespread beamforming solutions are based on electrical implementation, which is inefficient in terms of power consumption, signal bandwidth, and losses. Optical beamforming is a promising alternative for future mm-wave mobile communications due to its inherent benefits, such as large bandwidth, low cross-talk, and low losses. Optical beamforming networks (OBFN) are an outstanding technique to simultaneously generate and radiate multiple beams in an effective manner. True time delays (TTDs) based on optical waveguides are an attractive solution since they offer constant delay in the spectrum to avoid beam squint and allow highly scalable OBFN implementation. In this work, for the first time to the best of the authors' knowledge, an incoherent 4x4 OBFN based on optical waveguides and capable of simultaneously generating four beams is presented, including a thorough explanation of its operating principles and providing a detailed characterization. The presented OBFN is fabricated on Si$_{3}$N$_{4}$ photonic integrated circuit (PIC), and designed for transmission at 27.5 GHz, within the n257 5G band. Furthermore, the building blocks forming the OBFN PIC are deeply explained, providing their corresponding theoretical formulation and key design parameters. The fabricated PIC is exhaustively characterized through all its building blocks, showing in detail the realized measurement procedure. The experimental measures match the design parameters with minimal error, showing the feasibility of fabricating future OBFNs with the same technology and topology for larger antenna arrays. The experimental results corroborate the viability of the presented OBFN architecture as an excellent technology to consider in future mm-wave 5G/6G networks. The contribution of this work paves the road to turn optical beamforming into a mature, scalable, and efficient technology.
Nanoelectromechanical Systems

Nanoelectromechanical systems, or NEMS, are MEMS scaled to submicron dimensions [1]. In this size regime, it is possible to attain extremely high fundamental frequencies while simultaneously preserving very high mechanical responsivity (small force constants). This powerful combination of attributes translates directly into high force sensitivity, operability at ultralow power, and the ability to induce usable nonlinearity with quite modest control forces. In this overview I shall provide an introduction to NEMS and will outline several of their exciting initial applications. However, a stiff entry fee exists at the threshold to this new domain: new engineering is crucial to realizing the full potential of NEMS. Certain mainstays in the methodology of MEMS will, simply, not scale usefully into the regime of NEMS. The most problematic of issues are the size of the devices compared to their embedding circuitry, their extreme surface-to-volume ratios, and their unconventional “characteristic range of operation”. These give rise to some of the principal current challenges in developing NEMS. Most prominent among these are the need for: ultrasensitive, very high bandwidth displacement transducers; an unprecedented control of surface quality and adsorbates; novel modes of efficient actuation at the nanoscale, and precise, robust, and routinely reproducible new approaches to surface and bulk nanomachining. In what follows I shall attempt to survey each of these aspects in turn, but will conclude by describing some exciting prospects in this new field.
A Bio-Inspired Safety Control System for UAVs in Confined Environment With Disturbance

This article presents a bio-inspired safety control scheme for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in confined environments with disturbance. Although there has been some existing research on the effect of disturbance for a single UAV, multi-UAV formation under external wind disturbances remains challenging, especially in a tight and confined environment. Inspired by nature, this study concentrates on an anti-disturbance mechanism for safe multi-UAV formation in a tight environment. The presented safety control system combines disturbance observer-based control (DOBC), bionic formation switching (BFS) strategy, and safety evaluation. Two safety issues are considered in this article. For a single UAV, the estimated disturbance is compensated in the inner-loop controller. While for multi-UAV formation, the BFS strategy attenuates the effect of external wind disturbance leveraging the formation configuration. The so-called group perturbation immune factor (GPIF) is designed to analyze and evaluate the safety of the overall formation. The experimental results validate the comprehensiveness and anti-disturbance capability of the system.
CTIM-35. A PHASE II STUDY OF GITR AGONIST INCAGN01876 AND PD-1 INHIBITOR RETIFANLIMAB IN COMBINATION WITH STEREOTACTIC RADIOTHERAPY IN PATIENTS WITH RECURRENT GLIOBLASTOMA

We evaluated the combination of retifanlimab, INCAGN01876, and FSRT in patients with recurrent GBM. Phase II, single-center, 2 cohort study (A: single-arm non-surgical cohort; B, two-arm neoadjuvant/surgical cohort). Cohort A patients received pre-FSRT one-time doses of retifanlimab (500mg) and INCAGN01876 (300mg), FSRT (8 Gy x 3 fractions), and post-FSRT 28-day treatment cycles (retifanlimab, day 1; INCAGN01876, days 1, 15). Cohort B patients received pre-surgery doses of retifanlimab + INCAGN01876; subsequently, patients either went directly to resection (Sub-Arm 1) or to FSRT followed by resection (Sub-Arm 2). All patients resumed immunotherapy post-operatively. Primary endpoint: ORR in Cohort A. Data cut-off for this analysis was June 30, 2022. Thirty-two evaluable patients: Cohort A, n=16; Cohort B, n=16 (Sub-Arm 1, n=8, Sub-Arm 2, n=8). Median follow-up time: Cohort A, 13.6 months; Cohort B, 8.8 months. Forty-four percent women, median age 64 (IQR, 55–65), 56% MGMT unmethylated. Most common grade 3/4 treatment-related AEs included cerebral edema (25%), lymphopenia (16%), and cognitive disturbance (13%). Efficacy in Cohort A: no objective responses observed, best response of stable disease achieved in 9/16 patients (56%), median PFS 3.9 months (95% CI 2.1 – 6.2 months), median OS 9.8 months (95% CI 8.3 months – not reached [NR]). Efficacy in Cohort B: median PFS NR, median OS 15.1 months (95% CI 8.5 months – NR). Median PFS and OS are longer in Cohort B Sub-Arm 2 compared to Cohort B Sub-Arm 1 (PFS, NR vs. 2.2 months, p = 0.009; OS, NR vs. 8.5 months, p=0.026). Results of tissue and blood-based immune correlative analyses will be presented. The combination of retifanlimab, INCAGN01876, and FSRT is generally well-tolerated in patients with recurrent GBM when administered with or without surgical resection. Survival outcomes in the neoadjuvant cohort are encouraging, largely driven by patients that received neoadjuvant FSRT.
Difference Image Analysis of Galactic Microlensing. II. Microlensing Events

The MACHO collaboration has been carrying out difference image analysis (DIA) since 1996 with the aim of increasing the sensitivity to the detection of gravitational microlensing. This is a preliminary report on the application of DIA to galactic bulge images in one field. We show how the DIA technique significantly increases the number of detected lensing events, by removing the positional dependence of traditional photometry schemes and lowering the microlensing event detection threshold. This technique, unlike PSF photometry, gives the unblended colors and positions of the microlensing source stars. We present a set of criteria for selecting microlensing events from objects discovered with this technique. The 16 pixel and classical microlensing events discovered with the DIA technique are presented.
Classical and quantum D-branes in 2D string theory

We investigate two classes of D-branes in 2-d string theory, corresponding to extended and localized branes, respectively. We compute the string emission during tachyon condensation and reinterpret the results within the c = 1 matrix model. As in [2], we find that the extended branes describe classical eigenvalue trajectories, while, as found in [3], the localized branes correspond to the quantum field that creates and destroys eigenvalues. The matrix model relation between the classical probe and the local collective field precisely matches with the descent relation between the boundary states of D-strings and D-particles.
Dirac fermion reflector by ballistic graphene sawtooth-shaped npn junctions

We have realized a Dirac fermion reflector in graphene by controlling the ballistic carrier trajectory in a sawtooth-shaped npn junction. When the carrier density in the inner p-region is much larger than that in the outer n-regions, the first straight np interface works as a collimator, and the collimated ballistic carriers can be totally reflected at the second zigzag pn interface. We observed clear resistance enhancement around the np+n regime, which is in good agreement with the numerical simulation. Though the effect observed is mild and needs more validation for future application with better device design, the qualitative tunable reflectance of ballistic carriers could be an elementary and important step for realizing ultrahigh-mobility graphene field effect transistors utilizing Dirac fermion optics in the near future. We also comment on some possible guidelines to improve the quantitative device performance.
Tunable coupling scheme for flux qubits at the optimal point

We discuss a practical design for tunably coupling a pair of flux qubits via the quantum inductance of a third high-frequency qubit. The design is particularly well suited for realizing a recently proposed microwave-induced parametric coupling scheme. This is attractive because the qubits can always remain at their optimal points. Furthermore, we will show that the resulting coupling also has an optimal point where it is insensitive to low-frequency flux noise. This is an important feature for the coherence of coupled qubits. The presented scheme is an experimentally realistic way of carrying out two-qubit gates and should be easily extended to multiqubit systems.
Nonconforming Virtual Element Method for 2mth Order Partial Differential Equations in ℝn

A unified construction of the $H^m$-nonconforming virtual elements of any order $k$ is developed on any shape of polytope in $\mathbb R^n$ with constraints $m\leq n$ and $k\geq m$. As a vital tool in the construction, a generalized Green's identity for $H^m$ inner product is derived. The $H^m$-nonconforming virtual element methods are then used to approximate solutions of the $m$-harmonic equation. After establishing a bound on the jump related to the weak continuity, the optimal error estimate of the canonical interpolation, and the norm equivalence of the stabilization term, the optimal error estimates are derived for the $H^m$-nonconforming virtual element methods.
The perimeter generating functions of three-choice, imperfect, and one-punctured staircase polygons

We consider the isotropic perimeter generating functions of three-choice, imperfect, and one-punctured staircase polygons, whose 8th order linear Fuchsian ODEs are previously known. We derive simple relationships between the three generating functions, and show that all three generating functions are joint solutions of a common 12th order Fuchsian linear ODE. We find that the 8th order differential operators can each be rewritten as a direct sum of a direct product, with operators no larger than 3rd order. We give closed-form expressions for all the solutions of these operators in terms of 2F1 hypergeometric functions with rational and algebraic arguments. The solutions of these linear differential operators can in fact be expressed in terms of two modular forms, since these 2F1 hypergeometric functions can be expressed with two, rational or algebraic, pullbacks.
Oral innate immunity in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus in a tertiary hospital in Ibadan Nigeria: a cross-sectional study

Introduction diabetes mellitus is associated with a high prevalence of oral infections. However, it is unclear how diabetes impacts oral innate antimicrobial proteins. This study evaluated salivary lysozyme and histatins, two major innate antimicrobial proteins, in patients with diabetes and non-diabetic controls. Methods a cross-sectional study where salivary lysozyme and histatins were measured alongside plasma glucose levels. Values of the salivary proteins were compared between the two groups; their association with glucose levels was also established using correlation and regression analysis. Results one hundred and fifty-one participants were recruited for this study, 85 (56.3%) of them had type 2 diabetes mellitus with a median fasting plasma glucose of 108.8 mg/dl (IQR 91.2-134.8) while the remaining 66 (43.7%) healthy non-diabetic controls had a median random plasma glucose of 101 mg/dl (IQR 89-112). The median salivary lysozyme was 32.5 ng/ml (IQR 25.0-39.6) in the group with diabetes and 36.4 ng/ml (IQR 31.4-42.1; p=0.01) in the non-diabetic control group. The median salivary histatins was 9.2 ng/ml (IQR 7.6 -10.2) in the group with diabetes and 14.7 ng/ml (IQR12.8-16.5; p<0.001) in the non-diabetic control group. Salivary lysozyme (r = -0.127; p =0.163) and histatins (r = -0.025; p = 0.424) were both negatively correlated with plasma glucose levels, and logistic regression showed that patients with diabetes are more likely to have lower levels of salivary lysozyme (0.957; p=0.013) and histatins (0.527; p<0.001). Conclusion patients with diabetes had reduced levels of salivary lysozyme and histatins, this could provide an insight into the associated high oral infection rates.
The arc-topology

We study a Grothendieck topology on schemes which we call the $\mathrm{arc}$-topology. This topology is a refinement of the $v$-topology (the pro-version of Voevodsky's $h$-topology) where covers are tested via rank $\leq 1$ valuation rings. Functors which are $\mathrm{arc}$-sheaves are forced to satisfy a variety of glueing conditions such as excision in the sense of algebraic $K$-theory. We show that \'etale cohomology is an $\mathrm{arc}$-sheaf and deduce various pullback squares in \'etale cohomology. Using $\mathrm{arc}$-descent, we reprove the Gabber-Huber affine analog of proper base change (in a large class of examples), as well as the Fujiwara-Gabber base change theorem on the \'etale cohomology of the complement of a henselian pair. As a final application we prove a rigid analytic version of the Artin-Grothendieck vanishing theorem from SGA4, extending results of Hansen.