Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Insight into the Microscopic Structure of Module-Assembled Thermoresponsive Conetwork Hydrogels

The microscopic structure of module-assembled thermoresponsive conetworks was systematically investigated as a function of both temperature T and the mole fraction of the thermoresponsive modules r using small-angle neutron scattering (SANS). The conetworks were prepared by end-linking of hydrophilic modules and LCST-type thermoresponsive modules in water by the molar ratio of (1 – r):r. When the hydrogels with 0.02 ≤ r ≤ 0.10 were heated above certain T, nanometer-scale spherical domains were formed by aggregation of several prepolymer modules, whereas for the hydrogel with r = 0.01 such domain formation was not detected in the T range investigated. The size of spherical domains increased with increasing r and T. The observed r dependence of the domain size was theoretically explained by considering the free energy of domain formation, from which we concluded that the equilibrium domain size was determined mainly by the balance between two free energy contributions: the interfacial free energy of domain–.
Ethical Leadership and Deviant Workplace Behaviour: The Role Ethical Reasoning, LMX, Distributive Justice, and Psychological Safety and Attachment in a Moderated Mediation Framework

The article aims to analyse and explain the relationship between ethical leadership, organisational deviance. We proposed a theoretical framework arguing a mediatory role of situational factors including psychological safety, psychological attachment, distributive justice, and Leader-Member Exchange (LMX). We also argue that utilitarian based ethical reasoning make employees more responsive towards the ethical decision by the leadership making them less deviant. Empirical validity was established by conducting a survey using a close-ended questionnaire. Data was collected from 254employees and analysed using confirmatory factor analysis and structured equation modelling. The measurement and structure model were assessed using AVE (average variance extracted), Composite Reliability (CR), Cronbach’s alpha, discriminant validity through the Fornell-Larcker Criterion, and Collinearity methods in PLS-SEM. The results suggested a significant and positive effect of ethical leadership on Leader-member-exchange, psychological attachment, distributive justice, and psychological safety. Moreover, apart from distributive justice, all other factors seem to decrease Organisational Deviance, however, their effect remained insignificant. Surprisingly, ethical leadership (EL) seems to be directly instigating Organisational Deviance (OD), as well as through the mediation of distributive justice. However, EL seems to significantly reduce deviance through including Utilitarianism ethical reasoning amongst its followers, as EL seems to positively affect utilitarianism, which in turn negatively affects deviance. Utilitarianism also seems to complement EL in reducing OD directly as the result showed significant and negative complementarities amongst EL and Utilitarianism in explaining OD. The results imply that EL and OD nexus is more affected by ethical reasoning rather than situational factors.
Suppression of leakage current of p-GaN gate AlGaN/GaN HEMTs with beta-Ga2O3 back barrier

This research demonstrates a p-GaN gate AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor with beta-Ga2O3 back barrier and investigates the electric characteristics of the device. The simulated results show that the threshold voltage of the device will increase with the use of the Ga2O3 back barrier. Moreover, the off-state leakage current level is one order of magnitude lower than the device without back barrier, which can be attributed to the rise of the conduction band diagram in the buffer layer and the decrease of the electron current density released by ionized accept traps. In addition, the impacts of the beta-Ga2O3 back barrier thickness are investigated, and the results show that with increasing Ga2O3 thicknesses, the threshold voltage of the device decreases while the leakage current of the device increases.
Batting Outside the Field: Examining E-Engagement Behaviors of IPL Fans

This study examines the relationship between cognitive awareness and perceived knowledge of sports fans’ social media engagement behaviors. Data were collected through an online survey of 236 adults from India who identified as Indian Premier League (IPL) fans. The findings of the study suggest that perceived knowledge and cognitive awareness of sports are precursors to social media engagement behaviors of sports fans. Further, sports fandom mediates links between perceived knowledge and cognitive awareness with social media engagement. The findings hold special significance for contemporary COVID scenarios because physical engagement is being substituted by digital engagement.
Parallel network simplex algorithm for the minimum cost flow problem

In this work, we contribute a parallel implementation of the network simplex algorithm that is used for the solution of minimum cost flow problem. In the network simplex algorithm, finding an entering arc requires searching through many arcs to decide which one should be included in the spanning tree solution on the next iteration. We propose finding the entering arc in parallel as it often takes the majority of the execution time. A usual strategy is to pick the arc violating the optimality the most out of all possible candidates. Scanning all arcs can take quite some time, so it is common to consider only a fixed number of arcs which is referred as the block search pivoting rule. Arc scans can easily be done in parallel to find the best candidate as the calculations are independent of each other. We used shared memory parallelism using OpenMP along with vectorization using AVX instructions. We also tried adjusting block sizes to increase the parallel portion of the algorithm. Our dataset consists of various natural and synthetic graphs with sizes up to a billion arc. Our experiments show speedups up to four are possible, though they are typically lower.
Alzheimer’s Disease Diagnostics Must Be Globally Accessible

Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are global health crises, with most affected individuals living in low- or middle-income countries. While research into diagnostics and therapeutics remains focused exclusively on high-income populations, recent technological breakthroughs suggest that low-cost AD diagnostics may soon be possible. However, as this disease shifts onto those with the least financial and structural ability to shoulder its burden, it is incumbent on high-income countries to develop accessible AD healthcare. We argue that there is a scientific and ethical mandate to develop low-cost diagnostics that will not only benefit patients in low-and middle-income countries but the AD field as a whole.
Credit Card Fraud Detection with Autoencoder and Probabilistic Random Forest

This paper proposes a method, called autoencoder with probabilistic random forest (AEPRF), for detecting credit card frauds. The proposed AE-PRF method first utilizes the autoencoder to extract features of low-dimensionality from credit card transaction data features of high-dimensionality. It then relies on the random forest, an ensemble learning mechanism using the bootstrap aggregating (bagging) concept, with probabilistic classification to classify data as fraudulent or normal. The credit card fraud detection (CCFD) dataset is applied to AE-PRF for performance evaluation and comparison. The CCFD dataset contains large numbers of credit card transactions of European cardholders; it is highly imbalanced since its normal transactions far outnumber fraudulent transactions. Data resampling schemes like the synthetic minority oversampling technique (SMOTE), adaptive synthetic (ADASYN), and Tomek link (T-Link) are applied to the CCFD dataset to balance the numbers of normal and fraudulent transactions for improving AE-PRF performance. Experimental results show that the performance of AE-PRF does not vary much whether resampling schemes are applied to the dataset or not. This indicates that AE-PRF is naturally suitable for dealing with imbalanced datasets. When compared with related methods, AE-PRF has relatively excellent performance in terms of accuracy, the true positive rate, the true negative rate, the Matthews correlation coefficient, and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve.
Superplastic Behavior of B- and Gd-Containing β-Solidifying TiAl Based Alloy

Mechanical behavior and microstructure evolution of the cast Ti-43.2Al-1.9V-1.1Nb-1.0Zr-0.2Gd-0.2B alloy were studied at temperatures from 1100 to 1250°С and strain rates in the range 0.001-1 s-1. Following phase fields (α2+γ), (α+γ), (α) and (α+β) during heating of alloy were revealed. Microstructure analysis after deformation and mechanical behavior allowed defining main processes of structure formation. Two temperature-strain rate conditions with pronounced superplastic behaviour were found: the first one corresponded to the (α2+γ)-phase field (1100°C), where the microstructure had mainly a lamellar morphology, and the second was associated with the (α+β)-phase field (1250°C), in which the α-phase dominated. At T=1100°C and έ=0.05 s-1 the maximum strain rate sensitivity m was of 0.40. At T=1250°C and έ=0.5 s-1 the maximum strain rate sensitivity m was of 0.59. In the (α2+γ)-phase field, superplastic behavior was associated with the transformation of the lamellar structure into globular one. In the (α+β)-phase field, it was due to the formation of a homogeneous refined microstructure during dynamic recrystallization. The relationship between coefficient m value and microstructure formed was discussed.
Multi-Band Analogue Electromagnetically Induced Transparency in DoubleTuned Metamaterials

A multi-band analogue electromagnetically induced transparency (A-EIT) metamaterial is proposed. The structure is composed of liquid crystal (LC) layer and a graphene strips layer on both sides of silicon dioxide. The transmission spectrum and electric field distribution of only one graphene strip and two graphene strips have been studied. As a bright mode, the graphene strip is coupled with adjacent graphene strip to realize the A-EIT effect. When multiple graphene strips are coupled with each other, the multi-band A-EIT is obtained due to the electric dipole resonances of the four strips. The results show that the multiband A-EIT effect can be tuned by voltage on LC and graphene layer, respectively. Moreover, changing the incident angle of the electromagnetic wave has had little influence on the transmission window in the low frequency band, it is meaning that the A-EIT effect with insensitive to the incident angle can be obtained. Each transmission window has a high maximum transmittance and figure of merit (FOM). The multi-band A-EIT effect can widen the application on sensor and optical storage devices.
An Evaluation of the Performance of Five Burnout Screening Tools: A Multicentre Study in Anaesthesiology, Intensive Care, and Ancillary Staff

Burnout is an important occupational hazard and early detection is paramount in preventing negative sequelae in physicians, patients, and healthcare systems. Several screening tools have been developed to replace lengthy diagnostic tools for large-scale screening, however, comprehensive head–to–head evaluation for performance and accuracy are lacking. The primary objective of this study was to compare the diagnostic performance of five burnout screening tools, including a novel rapid burnout screening tool (RBST). This was a cross-sectional study involving 493 hospital staff (anaesthesiology and intensive care doctors, nurses, and ancillary staff) at the COVID-19 frontline across four hospitals in Singapore between December 2020 and April 2021. The Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS) was used as the reference standard. Five burnout screening tools, the single-item MBI measure of burnout (SI-MBI), dual-item MBI (DI-MBI), abbreviated MBI (aMBI), Single Item Burnout Question (SIBOQ), and the RBST, were administered via a 36-item online survey. Tools were administered simultaneously and responses were anonymised. Burnout prevalence was 19.9%. The RBST and the SI-MBI had the two highest accuracies (87.8% and 81.9% respectively) and AUROC scores (0.86, 95% CI: 0.83–0.89 and 0.86, 95% CI: 0.82–0.89 respectively). However, the accuracy of the RBST was significantly higher than the SI-MBI (p < 0.0001), and it had the highest positive likelihood ratio (+LR = 7.59, 95% CI 5.65–10.21). Brief screening tools detect burnout albeit with a wide range of accuracy. This can strain support services and resources. The RBST is a free screening tool that can detect burnout with a high degree of accuracy.
Molecular Mechanisms of Mesenchymal Stem Cell-Based Therapy in Acute Kidney Injury

Acute kidney injury (AKI) causes a lot of harm to human health but is treated by only supportive therapy in most cases. Recent evidence shows that mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) benefit kidney regeneration through releasing paracrine factors and extracellular vesicles (EVs) to the recipient kidney cells and are considered to be promising cellular therapy for AKI. To develop more efficient, precise therapies for AKI, we review the therapeutic mechanism of MSCs and MSC-derived EVs in AKI and look for a better understanding of molecular signaling and cellular communication between donor MSCs and recipient kidney cells. We also review recent clinical trials of MSC-EVs in AKI. This review summarizes the molecular mechanisms of MSCs’ therapeutic effects on kidney regeneration, expecting to comprehensively facilitate future clinical application for treating AKI.
Multi-Wavelength Photobiomodulation Therapy Combined with Static Magnetic Field on Long-Term Pulmonary Complication after COVID-19: A Case Report

Introduction: Photobiomodulation therapy, alone (PBMT) or combined with a static magnetic field (PBMT-sMF), has been demonstrated to be effective in the regeneration of tissues, modulation of inflammatory processes, and improvement in functional capacity. However, the effects of PBMT-sMF on the pulmonary system and COVID-19 patients remain scarce. Therefore, in this case report, we demonstrated the use of PBMT-sMF for peripheral oxygen saturation, pulmonary function, massive lung damage, and fibrosis as a pulmonary complication after COVID-19. Case report: A 53-year-old Mexican man who presented with decreased peripheral oxygen saturation, massive lung damage, and fibrosis after COVID-19 received PBMT-sMF treatment once a day for 45 days. The treatment was irradiated at six sites in the lower thorax and upper abdominal cavity and two sites in the neck area. We observed that the patient was able to leave the oxygen support during the treatment, and increase his peripheral oxygen saturation. In addition, the patient showed improvements in pulmonary severity scores and radiological findings. Finally, the patient presented with normal respiratory mechanics parameters in the medium-term, indicating total pulmonary recovery. Conclusions: The use of PBMT-sMF may potentially lead to safe treatment of and recovery from pulmonary complications after COVID-19, with regard to the structural and functional aspects.
Current Status of CAR-T Cell Therapy in Multiple Myeloma

Current data on CAR-T cell-based therapy is really promising in multiple myeloma, especially in terms of response. In heavily pretreated patients, who have already received proteasome inhibitors, immunomodulatory drugs and monoclonal antibodies, current trials report an overall response rate ranging from 81 to 97% and 45 to 67% of complete remission rates. Data are less encouraging in terms of duration of response, although most recent trials have shown significant improvements in terms of event-free survival, with medians ranging from 8 to 14 months and up to 77% progression-free survival at 12 months with an acceptable toxicity profile. These data will be consolidated in future years and will provide new evidence on the best timing for CAR-T cell therapy. Moreover, new CAR-T designs are underway and will challenge the current results.
Association of Visceral Obesity-Related Indices With Coronary Collateralization in Patients With Chronic Total Occlusion

Background: Obesity is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease. We investigated whether and to what extent visceral obesity-related indices were associated with coronary collateralization (CC) in chronic total occlusion (CTO) patients. Methods: This retrospective cohort study involved 1,008 consecutive patients with CTO who underwent CTO-percutaneous coronary artery intervention (PCI). CC was graded according to the Rentrop scoring system. Data on demographic and clinical characteristics were collected by cardiovascular doctors. Logistic regression, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and Kaplan-Meier analyses were performed to assess the predictive value of visceral obesity-related indices for CC. Results: Overall, 1,008 inpatients were assigned to the poor CC group (n = 592) and good CC group (n = 416). In multivariate-adjusted logistic regression analyses, all visceral obesity-related indices (P-value < 0.001) were significantly associated with CC. After ROC analysis and the Delong test, the Chinese visceral adiposity index (CVAI) had the largest area under the curve (AUC) of 0.741 (0.711–0.771). Further analysis revealed that CVAI quartile remained a risk factor for poor CC in all groups, CVAI was associated with a 1.018-fold higher risk of poor CC (OR = 1.018, 95% CI: 1.014–1.021, P < 0.001). Individuals in the top CVAI quartile group had the highest risk of poor CC (OR = 10.657, 95% CI: 6.492–17.493, P < 0.001). Subgroup analyses showed similar results, and CVAI quartile remained a risk factor for poor CC. Moreover, increased CVAI predicted poor prognosis in CTO patients. Conclusion: In summary, this study indicated that all the increased visceral obesity-related indices were significantly associated with increased poor CC risk. After adjusting for potential risks, CVAI had the best performance for estimating CC and predicting prognosis in CTO patients.
A Science Review of Selected Essential Oils and their Botanical Ingredients. Focus on Essential Oils used for Respiratory and Calming Indications

Interest in botanical ingredients is rapidly growing. Essential oils are a key part of this growth and are one of the most important natural products derived from plants. Rising prevalence of both mental and physical health issues is contributing to this increased demand. Essential oils have been used traditionally for millennia and scientific research is now uncovering the potential mechanisms of action of biological active ingredients in these preparations. Many thousands of such compounds, mainly terpenes, including monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes, and also phenolic compounds, alcohols, aldehydes, esters and ketones have been identified in essential oils. Thanks to their chemical composition, essential oils possess numerous biological activities (e.g., antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral). Anecdotally, and in the practice of aromatherapists, they have been shown to enhance mental and physical well-being and provide refreshment from exhaustion. Increasingly they are used in aromatherapy practice in various disorders such as cardiovascular disorders, sleep disorders and Alzheimer’s disease. This review evaluates laboratory and clinical evidence on a range of essential oils and their botanical ingredients. DOI: 10.29011/2688-948X.100133
CHITOSAN ENCAPSULATED CURCUMIN NANOPARTICLES AS AN EFFECTIVE DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEM FOR ORAL CANCER TREATMENT

Curcumin, a yellow polyphenolic component obtained from the plants of the Curcuma longa, has been used traditionaly as a therapeutic agent. curcumin has poor bioavailability. This problem can be overcome by using nanoparticle technology using biocompatible chitosan as an encapsulating polymer for effective delivery of curcumin. Curcumin nanoparticles were prepared by ionic gelation method and characterized by particle size analysis, resulting in the nanosize range of 138.2 nm to 355 nm and with PDI. The encapsulation efficiency was 73.8±0.17 to 69.6±0.25, respectively. TEM images of Nanoparticles optimized formulation (F4) showed spherical shape & nano size 110nm and 125m. in vitro release profile of curcumin encapsulated chitosan nanoparticles formulations F1 to F9 showed sustained release of drug. In vitro cytotoxicity study (MTT Assay) showed high and long term anticancer efficacy in human oral cancer cell lines till 72h. Stability studies indicated that the formulation was stable.
Crystal Structure of Oxalate Decarboxylase from Photorhabdus luminescens, A Symbiotic Bacterium Associated with Entomopathogenic Nematodes

Sreeja Chellappan, S. Mathivanan, R. Thippeswamy, M. Nagesh, H. S. Savithri and M. R. N. Murthy* Molecular Biophysics Unit and Department of Biochemistry, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru 560 012, India Department of Molecular Biology, Kannur University, Kannur 671 314, India Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Project Directorate of Biological Control, Bengaluru 560 024, India Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology, Bengaluru 560 100, India Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Thiruvananthapuram 695 551, India
Jasmonic Acid Impairs Arabidopsis Seedling Salt Stress Tolerance Through MYC2-Mediated Repression of CAT2 Expression

High salinity causes ionic, osmotic, and oxidative stresses to plants, and the antioxidant enzyme Catalase2 (CAT2) plays a vital role in this process, while how CAT2 expression is regulated during plant response to high salinity remains elusive. Here, we report that phytohormone jasmonic acid (JA) impairs plant salt stress tolerance by repressing CAT2 expression in an MYC2-dependent manner. Exogenous JA application decreased plant salt stress tolerance while the jar1 mutant with reduced bioactive JA-Ile accumulation showed enhanced salt stress tolerance. JA enhanced salt-induced hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) accumulation, while treatment with H2O2-scavenger glutathione compromised such effects of JA on plant H2O2 accumulation and salt stress tolerance. In addition, JA repressed CAT2 expression in salt-stressed wild-type plant but not in myc2, a mutant of the master transcriptional factor MYC2 in JA signaling, therefore, the myc2 mutant exhibited increased salt stress tolerance. Further study showed that mutation of CAT2 largely reverted lower reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation, higher CAT activity, and enhanced salt stress tolerance of the myc2 mutant in myc2 cat2-1 double mutant, revealing that CAT2 functions downstream JA-MYC2 module in plant response to high salinity. Together, our study reveals that JA impairs Arabidopsis seedling salt stress tolerance through MYC2-mediated repression of CAT2 expression.