Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pharmaceutical Functionalization of Monomeric Ionic Liquid for the Preparation of Ionic Graft Polymer Conjugates

Polymerizable choline-based ionic liquid (IL), i.e., [2-(methacryloyloxy)ethyl]-trimethylammonium (TMAMA/Cl¯), was functionalized by an ion exchange reaction with pharmaceutical anions, i.e., cloxacillin (CLX¯) and fusidate (FUS¯), as the antibacterial agents. The modified biocompatible IL monomers (TMAMA/CLX¯, TMAMA/FUS¯) were copolymerized with methyl methacrylate (MMA) to prepare the graft copolymers (19–50 mol% of TMAMA units) serving as the drug (co)delivery systems. The in vitro drug release, which was driven by the exchange reaction of the pharmaceutical anions to phosphate ones in PBS medium, was observed for 44% of CLX¯ (2.7 μg/mL) and 53% of FUS¯ (3.6 μg/mL) in the single systems. Similar amounts of released drugs were detected for the dual system, i.e., 41% of CLX¯ (2.2 μg/mL) and 33% of FUS¯ (2.0 μg/mL). The investigated drug ionic polymer conjugates were examined for their cytotoxicity by MTT test, showing a low toxic effect against human bronchial epithelial cells (BEAS-2B) and normal human dermal fibroblasts (NHDF) as the normal cell lines. The satisfactory drug contents and the release profiles attained for the well-defined graft polymers with ionically bonded pharmaceuticals in the side chains make them promising drug carriers in both separate and combined drug delivery systems.
Stellar ovals and nuclear rings in the interior of M51 and M100

CCD images taken in the B, R, and I passbands have revealed substantial stellar ovals in the interior region (about 1 kpc) of the two nearby Sc galaxies M51 and M100. The amplitude of the azimuthal intensity variation is found to be 25 percent and 45 percent, respectively. The ovals are associated with both noncircular streaming motions and enhanced star formation. Blue (B - I about 0.8) rings of star formation are found near the outer boundary of the ovals. The close association of the star-forming rings and the ovals with the estimated position of the galaxy's inner Lindblad resonance (ILR) suggests a dynamical connection between the ovals and the ILR. Interestingly, M100 possess both an inner oval (within the ILR) and a classical bar (extending to near the expected radius for corotation). 48 references.
On the Depth of the Equatorial Planetary Boundary Layer

Abstract The solutions of the linear equatorial boundary layer are evaluated and found to be dependent on both the depth of the modelled boundary layer and the mode of symmetry about the equator. The inclusion of the frictional effect at levels higher than the usually assumed 1-km boundary layer depth is crucial to the concentration of convergence around the critical latitude. It is therefore suggested that the top of the boundary layer in tropical wave models should be properly selected in order to represent the deep convergence around the critical latitude.
On Applications of Pi-Algebras in the Analysis of Quantum Channels

In this paper, we discuss some constructive procedures which can be used in characterizations of linear transformations which preserve the set of states of a fixed quantum system. Our methods are based on analyzing an explicit form of a linear positive map in its Kraus representation. In particular, we discuss the so-called partial commutativity of operators and its applications to investigation of decoherence-free subspaces. These subspaces can also be considered as a special class of quantum error correcting codes. Using the concept of standard polynomials and Amitsur–Levitzki theorem and other ideas from the so-called polynomial identity algebras (PI-algebras) we discuss some effective algorithms for analyzing properties of quantum channels.
The Physical Foundation of Protein Architecture

The folding mechanism of a nascent protein synthesized according to the information contained in DNA is presented with the aid of the island model developed by Saito and his collaborators. The purpose of this review article is twofold: to give a summary of their researches on protein folding and to provide an ab initio method of prediction of protein structure from physics principles. The method based on the island model has been developed to have rich contents through various attempts of refolding proteins of known three-dimensional structures. A statistical mechanical theory of the formation of secondary structures is discussed first and then the mechanism of their packing into the tertiary structure is elucidated by applying the island model to typical proteins such as myoglobin, lysozyme, flavodoxin, bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor, etc. Topics related to protein structures are also described such as modules, molecular chaperones, membrane proteins and empirical methods of structure prediction based on protein data. Appendices are prepared for the supplements of the text.
The Therapeutic Landscape of Salivary Gland Malignancies—Where Are We Now?

Salivary gland malignancies (SGMs) account for less than 5% of new diagnoses in head and neck tumors. If feasible, surgery is the preferred treatment modality. Nevertheless, some malignancies have a tendency of recurrence, with possible distant metastasis. Alternative treatment strategies, such as primary radiation or chemotherapeutics, often present low response rates. As a result, there is an unmet need for novel therapeutic approaches. Nowadays, target-based therapies (e.g., small inhibitors and immunotherapy) are used by the medical oncologist for possible treatment of advanced SGMs. Based on recent published trials, some novel treatments may provide additional disease control for some patients. However, sample sizes are small, the general findings are unsatisfactory, and a lot of uncertainties remain to be elucidated. Nevertheless, research shows that patients do not benefit from blind administration of systemic treatments and therefore a more personalized approach is highly needed. The aim of this review paper is to summarize the most recent advances in the biological understanding and molecular pathways of salivary gland cancers, the association of these pathways with the current treatments used and their implications for more personalized targeted-based therapies.
Controlled Release of Thymol by Cyclodextrin Metal-Organic Frameworks for Preservation of Cherry Tomatoes

Thymol is a phenol monoterpene with potential antifungal, antioxidant and antibacterial activities. Due to the low water solubility and high volatility of thymol, encapsulation serves as an effective tool during application. In the present study, cyclodextrin (CD)-based metal-organic-frameworks (MOFs) were synthesized using α-CD, β-CD, and γ-CD as organic building blocks, and further complexed with thymol to produce three CD-MOF-THY inclusion complexes (ICs). The encapsulation content, release kinetics and fruit preservation effect of ICs were analyzed. Results showed that thymol was well embedded in γ-CD-MOFs, with the highest encapsulation content of 286.7 ± 8.4 mg/g. Release kinetics revealed that CD-MOFs exhibited a controlled release effect toward thymol for 35 days. The release kinetics of three ICs fit the Rigter–Peppas model well, with γ-CD-MOF-THY showing the lowest release rate constant of 2.85 at 50 °C, RH 75%. Moreover, γ-CD-MOF-THY exhibited a remarkable preservation performance on cherry tomatoes with the lowest decay index (18.75%) and weight loss (5.17%) after 15 days of storage, suggesting this material as a potential fresh-keeping material for fruit and vegetable preservation.
Provoking Artificial Slips and Trips towards Perturbation-Based Balance Training: A Narrative Review

Humans’ balance recovery responses to gait perturbations are negatively impacted with ageing. Slip and trip events, the main causes preceding falls during walking, are likely to produce severe injuries in older adults. While traditional exercise-based interventions produce inconsistent results in reducing patients’ fall rates, perturbation-based balance training (PBT) emerges as a promising task-specific solution towards fall prevention. PBT improves patients’ reactive stability and fall-resisting skills through the delivery of unexpected balance perturbations. The adopted perturbation conditions play an important role towards PBT’s effectiveness and the acquisition of meaningful sensor data for studying human biomechanical reactions to loss of balance (LOB) events. Hence, this narrative review aims to survey the different methods employed in the scientific literature to provoke artificial slips and trips in healthy adults during treadmill and overground walking. For each type of perturbation, a comprehensive analysis was conducted to identify trends regarding the most adopted perturbation methods, gait phase perturbed, gait speed, perturbed leg, and sensor systems used for data collection. The reliable application of artificial perturbations to mimic real-life LOB events may reduce the gap between laboratory and real-life falls and potentially lead to fall-rate reduction among the elderly community.
Effect of Cross-Linking Cations on In Vitro Biocompatibility of Apple Pectin Gel Beads

The study aimed to compare the in vitro biocompatibility of pectin gels formed by different cross-linking cations. Hydrogel beads named CaPG, ZnPG, FePG, and AlPG were prepared from 4% solutions of apple pectin using ionotropic gelling with CaCl2, ZnCl2, FeCl3, and AlCl3, respectively. Cations influenced the gel strength of the wet gel beads in the following order (least strong) Ca2+ < Zn2+ < Fe3+~Al3+ (most strong). The swelling degree of the CaPG beads after 24 h of incubation in the RPMI-1640 medium was 104%, whereas the ZnPG, FePG, and AlPG beads swelled by 76, 108, and 134%, respectively. The strength of the pectin gel decreased significantly after incubation in the RPMI-1640 medium for 24 h, regardless of the cross-linking cation, although the FePG beads remained the strongest. All the pectin beads adsorbed serum proteins to a low degree, however the serum protein adsorption by the ZnPG and FePG beads (1.46 ± 0.87 and 1.35 ± 0.19 µg/mm2) was more than the CaPG and AlPG beads (0.31 ± 0.36 and 0.44 ± 0.25 µg/mm2). All the pectin beads reduced the production of TNF-α and IL-10 by hPBMCs in response to LPS stimulation. The IL-1β response of cells to LPS was significantly reduced by the CaPG, ZnPG, and FePG beads, whereas the AlPG beads enhanced it twofold. The CaPG, FePG, and AlPG beads had no cytotoxicity. The viability of hPBMCs and human fibroblasts incubated with ZnPG beads was 5.3 and 7.2%, respectively. Thus, the use of different cross-linking cations changed the properties of the pectin gel, which is important for biocompatibility.
Role of Circadian Clock on the Pathogenesis and Lifestyle Management in Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Several features of the modern lifestyle, such as weekly schedules or irregular daily eating patterns, have become major drivers of global health problems, including non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Sleep is an essential component of human well-being, and it has been observed that when circadian rhythms are disrupted, or when sleep quality decreases, an individual’s overall health may worsen. In addition, the discrepancy between the circadian and social clock, due to weekly work/study schedules, is called social jetlag and has also been associated with adverse metabolic profiles. Current management of NAFLD is based on dietary intake and physical activity, with circadian preferences and other environmental factors also needing to be taken into account. In this regard, dietary approaches based on chrononutrition, such as intermittent fasting or time-restricted feeding, have proven to be useful in realigning lifestyle behaviors with circadian biological rhythms. However, more studies are needed to apply these dietary strategies in the treatment of these patients. In this review, we focus on the impact of circadian rhythms and the role of sleep patterns on the pathogenesis and development of NAFLD, as well as the consideration of chrononutrition for the precision nutrition management of patients with NAFLD.
The Advantage of Immunohistochemical Staining for Evaluating Lymphovascular Invasion Is Limited for Patients with Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma Invading the Muscularis Mucosa

The cumulative metastasis rate of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) pathologically invading the muscularis mucosae (pT1a-MM), based on lymphovascular invasion (LVI) evaluated by immunohistochemical (IHC) staining is unknown. This retrospective study included patients with endoscopically resected pT1a-MM ESCC. The primary endpoint was the metastasis rate of pT1a-MM based on LVI, evaluated using IHC and additional prophylactic therapy. The secondary endpoint was the identification of independent factors for metastasis based on lesion characteristics. The prognosis was also analyzed considering the impact of head and neck cancer. A total of 104 patients were analyzed, with a median follow-up of 74 months. The positive rate for LVI was 43.3% (45/104). In 33 patients, IHC was not performed at the time of clinical evaluation, 8 of whom exhibited LVI. However, these patients did not exhibit metastasis. The metastasis rates of patients without LVI, those with LVI and additional therapy, and those with LVI without additional therapy were 5.1%, 20.8%, and 0%, respectively. Lesion size ≥ 25 mm was the only independent factor for metastasis in multivariate analysis. The advantage of IHC for determining additional prophylactic therapy is limited for patients with pT1a-MM ESCC.
Comparative Safety of Ustekinumab and Vedolizumab in Older Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Bicentric Cohort Study

Introduction: Data about the safety of vedolizumab and ustekinumab are lacking in older patients with inflammatory bowel disease. The objective was to compare the safety of vedolizumab and ustekinumab therapies in older patients (>60 years) with inflammatory bowel disease. Methods: This retrospective study included patients with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis initiating vedolizumab, ustekinumab or anti-TNF therapy at >60 years of age. We examined the occurrence of adverse events within one year after therapy. Results: This study included 182 patients: 53 were treated with vedolizumab (22 patients with Crohn’s disease and 31 with ulcerative colitis), 31 with ustekinumab (30 Crohn’s disease and one ulcerative colitis) and 98 with anti-TNF (63 Crohn’s disease and 35 ulcerative colitis). At one year, there was no difference in terms of safety in patients with Crohn’s disease between vedolizumab and ustekinumab considering the number of adverse events per year of follow-up (p = 0.258). For ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, the occurrence of adverse events per year of follow-up was similar between vedolizumab and anti-TNF (p = 0.274 and p = 0.876, respectively). Conclusions: Safety was similar between vedolizumab and ustekinumab in older patients with inflammatory bowel disease.
Stationary shock-front of a relativistically strong electromagnetic radiation in an underdense plasma

The propagation of a relativistically strong electromagnetic pulse in an underdense homogeneous plasma is considered with the focus on the possible existence of stationary structure of a pulse front. The analytical stationary shock-like solutions are obtained and analyzed. These solutions correspond to the conversion of the pulse electromagnetic energy to an electron plasma wave in the narrow region of the considered stationary front. Our theoretical analysis is supported by the PIC simulations, which demonstrate the formation and existence of the shock-like structure of the pulse leading front and extremely fast pulse depletion.
Stochastic Cahn-Hilliard-Navier-Stokes equations with the dynamic boundary: Martingale weak solution, Markov selection

The existence of global martingale weak solution for the 2D and 3D stochastic Cahn-Hilliard-Navier-Stokes equations driven by multiplicative noise in a smooth bounded domain is established. In particular, the system is supplied with the dynamic boundary condition which accounts for the interaction between the fluid components and the rigid walls. The proof is completed by a three-level approximate scheme combining a fixed point argument and the stochastic compactness argument, overcoming challenges from strong nonlinearity, dynamic boundary and random effect. Then, we prove the existence of an almost surely Markov selection to the associated martingale problem following the abstract framework established by F. Flandoli and M. Romito [16].
Rainbow Saturation for Complete Graphs

We call an edge-colored graph rainbow if all of its edges receive distinct colors. An edge-colored graph $\Gamma$ is called $H$-rainbow saturated if $\Gamma$ does not contain a rainbow copy of $H$ and adding an edge of any color to $\Gamma$ creates a rainbow copy of $H$. The rainbow saturation number $sat(n,{R}(H))$ is the minimum number of edges in an $n$-vertex $H$-rainbow saturated graph. Gir\~{a}o, Lewis, and Popielarz conjectured that $sat(n,{R}(K_r))=2(r-2)n+O(1)$ for fixed $r\geq 3$. Disproving this conjecture, we establish that for every $r\geq 3$, there exists a constant $\alpha_r$ such that $$r + \Omega\left(r^{1/3}\right) \le \alpha_r \le r + r^{1/2} \qquad \text{and} \qquad sat(n,{R}(K_r)) = \alpha_r n + O(1). $$ Recently, Behague, Johnston, Letzter, Morrison, and Ogden independently gave a slightly weaker upper bound which was sufficient to disprove the conjecture. They also introduced the weak rainbow saturation number, and asked whether this is equal to the rainbow saturation number of $K_r$, since the standard weak saturation number of complete graphs equals the standard saturation number. Surprisingly, our lower bound separates the rainbow saturation number from the weak rainbow saturation number, answering this question in the negative. The existence of the constant $\alpha_r$ resolves another of their questions in the affirmative for complete graphs. Furthermore, we show that the conjecture of Gir\~{a}o, Lewis, and Popielarz is true if we have an additional assumption that the edge-colored $K_r$-rainbow saturated graph must be rainbow. As an ingredient of the proof, we study graphs which are $K_r$-saturated with respect to the operation of deleting one edge and adding two edges.
LoopDraw: a Loop-Based Autoregressive Model for Shape Synthesis and Editing

There is no settled universal 3D representation for geometry with many alternatives such as point clouds, meshes, implicit functions, and voxels to name a few. In this work, we present a new, compelling alternative for representing shapes using a sequence of cross-sectional closed loops. The loops across all planes form an organizational hierarchy which we leverage for autoregressive shape synthesis and editing. Loops are a non-local description of the underlying shape, as simple loop manipulations (such as shifts) result in significant structural changes to the geometry. This is in contrast to manipulating local primitives such as points in a point cloud or a triangle in a triangle mesh. We further demonstrate that loops are intuitive and natural primitive for analyzing and editing shapes, both computationally and for users.
Some emerging photonic technologies and their device impact: photonic crystals, plasmonics, and electromagnetically induced transparency (Invited Paper)

Photonics is far behind electronics in maturity. The devices are orders of magnitude larger than their electronics counterparts and the functionality is low. But it appears that these issues are not fundamentally impossible to solve. In this paper some of the emerging possibilities to overcome the limitations mentioned above are briefly treated, and we discuss the utilization of these comparatively new phenomena to widen the application envelope of photonics technology to generate functions not normally associated with photonics. These developments could lead to quantum leaps in photonics devices, to complement the forceful engineering improvements. Examples of such potential candidate research fields for quantum leaps are: Coherent light matter interaction, plasmonics, quantum information and communications, photonic crystals, intersubband based devices. The list is by no means exhaustive. This paper will concentrate on coherent light matter interaction, plasmonics and photonic crystals.
Uncertainty Estimation in Deep Speech Enhancement Using Complex Gaussian Mixture Models

Single-channel deep speech enhancement approaches often estimate a single multiplicative mask to extract clean speech without a measure of its accuracy. Instead, in this work, we propose to quantify the uncertainty associated with clean speech estimates in neural network-based speech enhancement. Predictive uncertainty is typically categorized into aleatoric uncertainty and epistemic uncertainty. The former accounts for the inherent uncertainty in data and the latter corresponds to the model uncertainty. Aiming for robust clean speech estimation and efficient predictive uncertainty quantification, we propose to integrate statistical complex Gaussian mixture models (CG-MMs) into a deep speech enhancement framework. More specifically, we model the dependency between input and output stochastically by means of a conditional probability density and train a neural network to map the noisy input to the full posterior distribution of clean speech, modeled as a mixture of multiple complex Gaussian components. Experimental results on different datasets show that the proposed algorithm effectively captures predictive uncertainty and that combining powerful statistical models and deep learning also delivers a superior speech enhancement performance.
Speed‐gradient principle for description of transient dynamics in systems obeying maximum entropy principle

The speed‐gradient variational principle (SG‐principle) for nonstationary nonequilib‐rium systems is formulated and illustrated by an example. It is proposed to use the SG‐principle to model transient (relaxation) dynamics for systems satisfying maximum entropy principle. Nonstationary processes generated with the method of dynamics of particles are studied. A comparison of theoretic prediction and simulation results confirming reasonable prediction precision is presented.
MIMO Is All You Need : A Strong Multi-In-Multi-Out Baseline for Video Prediction

The mainstream of the existing approaches for video prediction builds up their models based on a Single-In-Single-Out (SISO) architecture, which takes the current frame as input to predict the next frame in a recursive manner. This way often leads to severe performance degradation when they try to extrapolate a longer period of future, thus limiting the practical use of the prediction model. Alternatively, a Multi-In-Multi-Out (MIMO) architecture that outputs all the future frames at one shot naturally breaks the recursive manner and therefore prevents error accumulation. However, only a few MIMO models for video prediction are proposed and they only achieve inferior performance due to the date. The real strength of the MIMO model in this area is not well noticed and is largely under-explored. Motivated by that, we conduct a comprehensive investigation in this paper to thoroughly exploit how far a simple MIMO architecture can go. Surprisingly, our empirical studies reveal that a simple MIMO model can outperform the state-of-the-art work with a large margin much more than expected, especially in dealing with longterm error accumulation. After exploring a number of ways and designs, we propose a new MIMO architecture based on extending the pure Transformer with local spatio-temporal blocks and a new multi-output decoder, namely MIMO-VP, to establish a new standard in video prediction. We evaluate our model in four highly competitive benchmarks (Moving MNIST, Human3.6M, Weather, KITTI). Extensive experiments show that our model wins 1st place on all the benchmarks with remarkable performance gains and surpasses the best SISO model in all aspects including efficiency, quantity, and quality. We believe our model can serve as a new baseline to facilitate the future research of video prediction tasks. The code will be released.