Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The fabrication of GaN-based nanorod light-emitting diodes with multilayer graphene transparent electrodes

GaN-based nanorod light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with multilayer graphene (MLG) transparent electrodes have been fabricated. Two types of nano-LEDs with graphene on and under the metal pads are fabricated and their performances are investigated. And LEDs with graphene on the metal-pads exhibiting lower forward voltage and higher electroluminescence intensity are obtained. Using scanning electron microscope and Raman spectroscopy, we have demonstrated that graphene transferred after the metal deposition remains intact and has much less damages than graphene under the metal during the fabrication of LEDs with nanorods.
Gendered employment patterns: Women’s labour market outcomes across 24 countries

An accepted framework for ‘gendering’ the analysis of welfare regimes compares countries by degrees of ‘defamilialization’ or how far their family policies support or undermine women’s employment participation. This article develops an alternative framework that explicitly spotlights women’s labour market outcomes rather than policies. Using hierarchical clustering on principal components, it groups 24 industrialized countries by their simultaneous performance across multiple gendered employment outcomes spanning segregation and inequalities in employment participation, intensity, and pay, with further differences by class. The three core ‘worlds’ of welfare (social-democratic, corporatist, liberal) each displays a distinctive pattern of gendered employment outcomes. Only France diverges from expectations, as large gender pay gaps across the educational divide – likely due to fragmented wage-bargaining – place it with Anglophone countries. Nevertheless, the outcome-based clustering fails to support the idea of a homogeneous Mediterranean grouping or a singular Eastern European cluster. Furthermore, results underscore the complexity and idiosyncrasy of gender inequality: while certain groups of countries are ‘better’ overall performers, all have their flaws. Even the Nordics fall behind on some measures of segregation, despite narrow participatory and pay gaps for lower- and high-skilled groups. Accordingly, separately monitoring multiple measures of gender inequality, rather than relying on ‘headline’ indicators or gender equality indices, matters.
Performance of high-power AlInGaN light emitting diodes

The performance of high-power AlInGaN light emitting diodes (LEDs) is characterized by light output-current-voltage (L-I-V) measurements for devices with peak emission wavelengths ranging from 428 to 545 nm. The highest external quantum efficiency (EQE) is measured for short wavelength LEDs (428 nm) at 29%. EQE decreases with increasing wavelength, reaching 13% at 527 nm. With low forward voltages ranging from 3.3 to 2.9 V at a drive current density of 50 A/cm 2 , these LEDs exhibit power conversion efficiencies ranging from 26% (428 nm) to 10% (527 nm).
Optical identification of serendipitous Einstein X-ray sources: luminosity and redshift relations in the X-ray and optical emission from active galaxies and quasars

We have optically identified 40 objects from a sample of 139 serendipitous Einstein X-ray sources. Thirteen of the sources are identified with galactic counterparts, and 27 are identified with extragalactic counterparts. The galactic counterparts include normal bright (V<10) stars, emission line stars, RS CVn stars, and cataclysmic variables; these are similar in their X-ray properties to other galactic objects observed at X-ray wavelengths. All but one of the extragalactic counterparts are active galactic nuclei (AGNs). The optical spectra of the X-ray selected AGNs are indistinguishable from those of AGNs discovered by their radio or optical emission. We have combined our sample of X-ray selected AGNs with other samples of X-ray selected and previously cataloged AGNs in order to investigate correlations between their optical and X-ray properties.
A Laplace transform exponential method for monoenergetic three-dimensional fixed source discrete ordinates problems in Cartesian geometry

We describe a Laplace transform exponential method applied to x-y-z geometry heterogeneous neutron transport problems in the discrete ordinates (SN) formulation that we refer to as the LTSN – Exp method. This numerical method uses the space Laplace transform technique to solve the one-dimensional transverse-integrated SN exponential equations within one of the homogeneous regions of the domain of solution. Based on the physics of shielding problems where the neutron flux attenuates exponentially with increasing distance from the source, we approximate the transverse leakage terms by exponential functions. We show in two numerical experiments that the LTSN – Exp method generates very accurate results in highly absorbing media.
Conscious Sedation for Dental Treatments in Subjects with Intellectual Disability: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

This systematic review and meta-analysis was aimed to investigate the conscious sedation efficiency in patients with intellectual disability undergoing dental treatment (PROSPERO CRD42022344292). Four scientific databases were searched by ad-hoc prepared strings. The literature search yielded 731 papers: 426 were selected, 42 were obtained in full-text format, and 4 more were added after hand searching. Fourteen studies were finally included, 11 of which were included in the meta-analysis (random effect model). A high heterogeneity in the drugs used and route of administration was retrieved. Success rate, occurrence of side effects, and deep sedation occurrence were combined to give an overall efficiency of each drug. N2O/O2 reported the highest efficiency (effect size = 0.90; p < 0.01) and proved to be more efficient when used alone. Nine papers reported a success rate of sedation of 80% or more. The prevalence of side effects (6 studies) ranged from 3% to 40%. Enteral and parenteral benzodiazepines showed the same overall efficiency (effect size = 0.86). No meta-analysis has yet been conducted to define the most effective and safest way to achieve conscious sedation in patients with intellectual disability; nitrous oxide appears to be the best choice to perform conscious sedation in patients with intellectual disability undergoing dental treatment.
Chapman–Kolmogorov equations for global PPIs with Discriminant-EM

Ongoing improvements in Computational Biology research have generated massive amounts of Protein–Protein Interactions (PPIs) dataset. In this regard, the availability of PPI data for several organisms provoke the discovery of computational methods for measurements, analysis, modeling, comparisons, clustering and alignments of biological data networks. Nevertheless, fixed network comparison is computationally stubborn and as a result several methods have been used instead. We illustrate a probabilistic approach among proteins nodes that are part of various networks by using Chapman–Kolmogorov (CK) formula. We have compared CK formula with semi-Markov random method, SMETANA. We significantly noticed that CK outperforms the SMETANA in all respects such as efficiency, speed, space and complexity. We have modified the SMETANA source codes available in MATLAB in the light of CK formula. Discriminant-Expectation Maximization (D-EM) accesses the parameters of a protein network datasets and determines a linear transformation to simplify the assumption of probabilistic format of data distributions and find good features dynamically. Our implementation finds that D-EM has a satisfactory performance in protein network alignment applications.
Efficacy of Organ Preservation Strategy by Adjuvant Chemoradiotherapy after Non-Curative Endoscopic Resection for Superficial SCC: A Multicenter Western Study

Simple Summary Endoscopic resection (ER) of superficial esophageal SCC is a safe and efficient treatment. Compared with surgery, ER is minimally invasive and associated with lower morbidity and mortality. This is the largest Western study to investigate long-term outcomes after ER for superficial esophageal SCC and to measure the effect of CRT after non-curative resection. The combination therapy of ER and adjuvant CRT reduced the risk of nodal recurrence. This organ preservation strategy may be considered as an alternative to adjuvant surgery for patients with high comorbidities and high risk of nodal invasion after ER of superficial SCC. Abstract Background. In case of high risk of lymph node invasion after endoscopic resection (ER) of superficial esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), adjuvant chemoradiotherapy (CRT) can be an alternative to surgery. We assessed long-term clinical outcomes of adjuvant therapy by CRT after non-curative ER for superficial SCC. Methods. We performed a retrospective multicenter study. From April 1999 to April 2018, all consecutive patients who underwent ER for SCC with tumor infiltration beyond the muscularis mucosae were included. Results. A total of 137 ER were analyzed. The overall nodal or metastatic recurrence-free survival rate at 5 years was 88% and specific recurrence-free survival rates at 5 years with and without adjuvant therapy were, respectively, 97.9% and 79.1% (p = 0.011). Independent factors for nodal and/or distal metastatic recurrence were age (HR = 1.075, p = 0.031), Sm infiltration depth > 200 µm (HR = 4.129, p = 0.040), and the absence of adjuvant CRT or surgery (HR = 11.322, p = 0.029). Conclusion. In this study, adjuvant therapy is associated with a higher recurrence-free survival rate at 5 years after non-curative ER. This result suggests this approach may be considered as an alternative to surgery in selected patients.
Lévy-based spatial-temporal modelling, with applications to turbulence

This paper involves certain types of spatial-temporal models constructed from Levy bases. The dynamics is described by a field of stochastic processes , on a set of sites , defined as integrals where denotes a Levy basis. The integrands are deterministic functions of the form , where has a special form and is a subset of . The first topic is OU (Ornstein-Uhlenbeck) fields , which represent certain extensions of the concept of OU processes (processes of Ornstein-Uhlenbeck type); the focus here is mainly on the potential of for dynamic modelling. Applications to dynamical spatial processes of Cox type are briefly indicated. The second part of the paper discusses modelling of spatial-temporal correlations of SI (stochastic intermittency) fields of the form This form is useful when explicitly computing expectations of the form which are used to characterize correlations. The SI fields can be viewed as a dynamical, continuous, and homogeneous generalization of turbulent cascades. In this connection an SI field is constructed with spatial-temporal scaling behaviour that agrees with the energy dissipation observed in turbulent flows. Some parallels of this construction are also briefly sketched.
Influence of background estimation on the superresolution properties of nonlinear image restoration algorithms

The essential difference of non-linear image restoration algorithms with linear image restoration filters is their capability to restrict the restoration result to non-negative intensities. The iterative constrained Tikhonov-Miller algorithm (ICTM) algorithm, for example, incorporates the non-negativity constraint by clipping each iteration of its conjugate gradient descent algorithm. This constraint will only be effective when the restored intensities have near zero values. Therefore the background estimation will have an influence on the effectiveness of the non-negativity constraint of these non-linear restoration algorithms. We have investigated the effect of the background estimation on the performance of the ICTM, Carrington, and RichardsonLucy algorithms and compared it to the performance of the linear Tikhonov-Miller restoration filter. We found that an underestimation of the background will make the non-negativity constraint ineffective which results in a performance that does not differ much from the performance obtained by the linear restoration filter. An overestimation of the background however is even more dramatic since it results in a clipping of object intensities. We show that this will dramatically deteriorate the performance of the non-linear restoration algorithms. We propose a novel method to estimate the background based on the dependency of non-linear restoration algorithms on the background.
A-Posteriori Estimates and Adaptive Schemes for Transmission Problems

The results presented here are directed to Galerkin schemes with respect to stable multiscale bases discretizations for boundary integral equations which describe transmission problems. We derive a posteriori estimates which are reliable and efficient with respect to any desirable tolerance. Moreover, the convergence of an adaptive scheme is investigated. The underlying ideas are applicable to a wide class of elliptic problems, cf. [14]. Here further details concerning decay estimates and appropriate index-sets for a system of boundary integral equations are presented.
Emerging Recombinant Oncolytic Poliovirus Therapies Against Malignant Glioma: A Review

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is a fourth-grade malignant glioma that continues to be the main contributor to primary malignant brain tumour-related death in humans. The most prevalent primary brain tumours are gliomas. The most dangerous of these neoplasms, GBM, has been shown to be one of the most lethal and refractory tumours. For those who have been diagnosed with GBM, the median time to progression, as determined by magnetic resonance imaging, is roughly six months, and the median survival is approximately one year. GBM is challenging to manage with old treatments like chemotherapy, tumour debulking, and radiation therapy. Treatment outcomes are poor, and due to this effect, the treatment is not up to the mark. GBM also shows diagnostic complexity due to limitations in the use of specific targeted therapies. The treatment protocol followed currently has an entire focus on safe resection and radiotherapy. Protein synthesis is not tightly regulated physiologically in malignant cells, which promotes unchecked growth and proliferation. An innovative, experimental technique for treating cancer uses polioviruses that have been genetically altered to target a fascinating aberration of translation regulation in cancer. This approach enables precise and effective cancer cell targeting based on the convergence of numerous variables. Oncolytic viruses have revolutionised cancer treatment. However, their effectiveness in glioblastoma remains restricted, necessitating more improvement. Oncolytic poliovirus has shown great potential in the treatment of GBM. Factors like the blood-brain barrier, immunosuppressive tumour microenvironment (TME), and tumour heterogeneity make treatment for malignant gliomas ineffective. In this review, we have focused on oncolytic viruses, specifically oncolytic poliovirus, and we explore malignant glioma treatments. We have also discussed currently available conventional treatment options for malignant glioma and other brain tumours.
Control of Explosive Chemical Reactions by Optical Excitations: Defect-Induced Decomposition of Trinitrotoluene at Metal Oxide Surfaces

Interfaces formed by high energy density materials and metal oxides present intriguing new opportunities for a large set of novel applications that depend on the control of the energy release and initiation of explosive chemical reactions. We studied the role of structural defects at a MgO surface in the modification of electronic and optical properties of the energetic material TNT (2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, also known as trinitrotoluene, C7H5N3O6) deposited at the surface. Using density functional theory (DFT)-based solid-state periodic calculations with hybrid density functionals, we show how the control of chemical explosive reactions can be achieved by tuning the electronic structure of energetic compound at an interface with oxides. The presence of defects at the oxide surface, such as steps, kinks, corners, and oxygen vacancies, significantly affects interfacial properties and modifies electronic spectra and charge transfer dynamics between the oxide surface and adsorbed energetic material. As a result, the electronic and optical properties of trinitrotoluene, mixed with an inorganic material (thus forming a composite), can be manipulated with high precision by interactions between TNT and the inorganic material at composite interfaces, namely, by charge transfer and band alignment. Also, the electron charge transfer between TNT and MgO surface reduces the decomposition barriers of the energetic material. In particular, it is shown that surface structural defects are critically important in the photodecomposition processes. These results open new possibilities for the rather precise control over the decomposition initiation mechanisms in energetic materials by optical excitations.
Reinforcement Learning Based Self-play and State Stacking Techniques for Noisy Air Combat Environment

Reinforcement learning (RL) has recently proven itself as a powerful instrument for solving complex problems and even surpassed human performance in several challenging applications. This signifies that RL algorithms can be used in the autonomous air combat problem, which has been studied for many years. The complexity of air combat arises from aggressive close-range maneuvers and agile enemy behaviors. In addition to these complexities, there may be uncertainties in real-life scenarios due to sensor errors, which prevent estimation of the actual position of the enemy. In this case, autonomous aircraft should be successful even in the noisy environments. In this study, we developed an air combat simulation, which provides noisy observations to the agents, therefore, make the air combat problem even more challenging. Thus, we present a state stacking method for noisy RL environments as a noise reduction technique. In our extensive set of experiments, the proposed method significantly outperforms the baseline algorithms in terms of the winning ratio, where the performance improvement is even more pronounced in the high noise levels. In addition, we incorporate a self-play scheme to our training process by periodically updating the enemy with a frozen copy of the training agent. By this way, the training agent performs air combat simulations to an enemy with smarter strategies, which improves the performance and robustness of the agents. In our simulations, we demonstrate that the self-play scheme provides important performance gains compared to the classical RL training.
A vortex sheet method applied to unsteady flow separation from sharp edges

A computational method is presented which describes the unsteady two-dimensional vortex generation and convection in stationary geometries with sharp edges. A second-order panel method is used to describe the motion of the two-dimensional vortex sheet, while the generation of vorticity at the sharp edges is enforced through a Kutta condition. In order to easily satisfy the normal-velocity boundary condition on the stationary walls, the flow domain is transformed to a half-plane (x > 0) by a Schwarz-Christoffel conformal mapping. In the computational plane the solid walls are situated on the vertical coordinate axis so that image vorticity can be utilized to satisfy the boundary condition in a simple way. The method is applied to describe the separating impulsively started flow past a sharp-edged wedge and the flow in a channel with a deep cavity. These applications show that the method is able to describe vortex shedding in complex geometries in an accurate way.
On Constructing Statistics and Reporting Data

This article has two purposes: (a) To construct useful statistics by estimating important probabilities, a method that could easily be used in a first course in mathematical statistics as an alternative to standard methods (like the likelihood ratio). (b) To discuss these probability estimates as another method for reporting the findings of a quantitative stujdy. Since this idea has been used in certain selected nonparametric problems, it is not new. Nevertheless, its generality has not been explored, and its usefulness in reporting data has been seemingly overlooked. The basic idea is to consider one or more important probabilities that are associated with the problem under consideratiori and then to estimate these probabilities, assuming the most reasonable mathematical model available. We believe that these estimates, along with appropriate error bounds, will be as useful to the consumers of statistical analyses as are our present techniques. As a matter of fact, it would be easy, in a first course in mathematical statistics, to use this approach, as it produces nearly all of the standard parametric and nonparametric techniques associated with one or two distributions. Since the main purpose of our paper is to advertise this approach, we give several illustrations which demonstrate its adaptability, without going into any one in great depth. It is hoped that many statisticians, including the authors, will want to explore its various characteristics further.
Stochastic Forcing of the Wintertime Extratropical Flow

Abstract This study is concerned with assessing the extent to which extratropical low-frequency variability may be viewed as a response to geographically coherent stochastic forcing. This issue is examined with a barotropic model linearized about the long-term mean wintertime 300-mb flow with zonal and meridional structure. The perturbation eigenfunctions of the model are stable (i.e., decaying) for a realistic 5-day drag, so transient eddy activity can be maintained against the drag only with forcing. In a statistical steady state, a fluctuation–dissipation relation (FDR) links the covariance structure of the eddy vorticity to the covariance structure of the forcing. This relation is used in a forward sense to determine the covariance of eddy vorticity for a specified covariance of forcing. It is also used in a backward sense to infer the covariance of forcing required to maintain the observed covariance of eddy vorticity. The focus is on explaining the observed variability of 10-day running mean anomali.
The Association between Antibiotic Use and the Incidence of Heart Failure: A Retrospective Case-Control Study of 162,188 Outpatients

The pathogenesis of heart failure (HF) is multifactorial, and is characterized by structural, cellular, and molecular remodeling processes. Inflammatory signaling pathways may play a particularly understudied role in HF. Recent data suggest a possible impact of antibiotic use on HF risk. Therefore, the aim of this retrospective case-control study was to investigate the association between antibiotic use and the incidence of HF. Data from the Disease Analyzer (IQVIA) database for patients diagnosed with HF and matched non-HF controls from 983 general practices in Germany between 2000 and 2019 were analyzed. A multivariable conditional logistic regression model was performed. Regression models were calculated for all patients, as well as for data stratified for sex and four age groups. A total of 81,094 patients with HF and 81,094 patients without HF were included in the analyses. In the regression analysis, low, but not high, total antibiotic use was significantly associated with a slightly lower HF risk compared with non-antibiotic users (OR: 0.87; 95% CI: 0.85–0.90). A significantly lower HF incidence was observed for sulfonamides and trimethoprim (OR: 0.87, 95% CI: 0.81–0.93) and for macrolides (OR: 0.87, 95% CI: 0.84–0.91). High use of cephalosporins, however, was associated with an increased HF risk (OR: 1.16; 95% CI: 1.11–1.22). In conclusion, this study from a large real-world cohort from Germany provides evidence that the use of different antibiotics may be associated with HF risk in a dose-dependent manner, possibly due to involved inflammatory processes. Overall, this study should provide a basis for future research to offer new therapeutic strategies for HF patients to improve their limited prognosis.