bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
WITHDRAWN: Determination of Various Factors to Evaluate a Successful Curriculum Design Using Interval - Valued Pythagorean Neutrosophic Graphs
Authors: broumi said , Sundareswaran R. , Shanmugapriya M. , Chellamani P. , Bakali Assia , Talea Mohamed
Published: March 2023

Graph theory is a developing field which has many advancements and developments in real-life applications. Although graph theory has rapid growth in modeling real life issues, some vague details in real-life problems are hard to picture using the usual graph. Fuzzy graph theory is known for its applications in modeling the human thinking, which has the same structure as graph theory. The concept of fuzzy graphs extended to Pythagorean fuzzy sets depends on real-time situations. Thus, the proposed investigation aims to develop the doctrine of Interval-Valued Pythagorean Neutrosophic Graphs (IVPNG) and their arithmetic operations. In addition, the concept of regular, strong, product, support strong, effective balanced IVPNG are introduced for aggregating the IVPNGs information and analysed with suitable examples. Further, a methodology for successful curriculum design is examined to illuminate the adequacy and feasibility of the developed IVPNG.
Quantum fluctuation of ferroelectric order in polar metals
Authors: Gu Fangyuan , Wang Jie , Lang Zijian , Ku Wei
Published: March 2023

The polar metallic phase is an unusual metallic phase of matter containing long-range ferroelectric (FE) order in the electronic and atomic structure. Distinct from the typical FE insulating phase, this phase spontaneously breaks the inversion symmetry without global polarization. Unexpectedly, the FE order is found to be dramatically suppressed and destroyed at moderate ∼10% carrier density. Here, we propose a general mechanism based on carrier-induced quantum fluctuations to explain this puzzling phenomenon. The quantum kinetic effect would drive the formation of polaronic quasi-particles made of the carriers and their surrounding dipoles. The disruption in dipolar directions can therefore weaken or even destroy the FE order. We demonstrate such polaron formation and the associated FE suppression via a concise model using exact diagonalization, perturbation, and quantum Monte Carlo approaches. This quantum mechanism also provides an intuitive picture for many puzzling experimental findings, thereby facilitating new designs of multifunctional FE electronic devices augmented with quantum effects.
Development of Speech Recognition System for Remote Vocal Music Teaching based on Markov model
Authors: Xu Fumei , Xia Yu
Published: March 2023

With the popularization of smart homes, car audio systems and various speech recognition software, speech recognition systems have gradually entered people's sights, and are favored by most users because of their practicability and accuracy. Cognition is an important interface for human-computer interaction. It will become a research focus in the field of artificial intelligence. It plays an important role in cultivating the basic characteristics of music and cultivating students' interest in music, and vocal music teaching. Teaching traditional vocal music education to students in the form of classrooms, such as vocal music, arrangement, and bel canto. The disadvantage is the lack of communication between the classroom and teachers and students. On the other hand, the development of Internet technology provides a new teaching method for traditional vocal music teaching, and provides a network infrastructure for building a vocal teaching system platform. Therefore, this article provides a preliminary construction of a remote vocal music education platform by combining vocal music education with Internet technology. The remote audio and video training system is a complex and relatively large project with multiple functions. Introduce important functions in this system. At the same time, register and log in to the remote voice and video implementation requirements and system functions respectively to realize functions such as video training and video-on-demand training.
Effect of Acceleration on Aerodynamic Performance of Flapping-wing Air Vehicle
Authors: Li Zhandong , gong Changquan , Zhao Xinyu , Ma Shuang , Wang Wei , Zhao Jinfang
Published: March 2023

The acceleration effect on aerodynamic performance of flapping wing air vehicle (FWAV) is studied. A multi-degree-of-freedom three-dimensional bionic flapping wing motion model with acceleration effect is established and the hydrodynamic performance can be obtained by CFD. The aerodynamic coefficient variations are combined to reveal the aerodynamic and pressure distribution characteristics at the transient and peak moments under each acceleration coefficient. The results show that compared with conventional flapping, the acceleration effect of the flapping wing can significantly increase the aerodynamic lift and thrust. The accelerated downstroke of the flapping wing changes the intensity of leading-edge vorticity and trailing edge vorticity, and increases the eddy current adhesion area of the upper surface of the wing. The acceleration effect also increases the capture effect of last cycle LEV shedding of the flapping wing, thus significantly improving aerodynamic performance of the flapping wing.
Perception of risk of recurrence among patients with first episode and recurrent schizophrenia: A descriptive phenomenological study
Authors: Yu Hong , Sun Yujing , Qin Mengnan , Ren Jiaxin , Yu Kai , Song Jin , Zhou Yuqiu , Liu Li
Published: March 2023

Background: Patients suffering from schizophrenia are at a higher risk of relapse. The perception of the risk of recurrence in patients with schizophrenia is critical for recurrence prevention. In the field of psychiatry, the study of risk perception of recurrence, has been neglected.
Methods: We carried out a qualitative study using a descriptive phenomenological approach. Data were collected at twopsychiatric hospitals in China. In total, 22 patients with schizophrenia were recruited through purposive sampling. Face to face semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with them. Interview recordings were transcribed by the research team, and transcripts were analyzed by two independent coders with Colaizzi’s descriptive analysis framework. The consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research checklist was used for reporting.
Results: The data of first-episode schizophrenic patients yielded three themes: (i) lack of knowledge about disease recognition and medical treatment; (ii) overoptimistic estimation of the risk of recurrence; (iii) perceived importance of treatment. For first-recurrence schizophrenic patients : (i) initial awareness of relapse warning symptom; (ii) lack of systematic and accurate assessment of disease information; (iii) the perception of drug withdrawal is related to recurrence. Patients with multiple recurrences : (i) susceptibility to relapse: confusion and powerlessness; (ii) the severity of recurrence: suicidal thoughts and behavior; (iii) effects of perceived benefits and barriers on therapeutic behavior.
Conclusions: In schizophrenic patients with first-episode, first-recurrence, and multiple recurrences, there were dynamic changes in the perception of disease recurrence risk and treatment behavior. Medical workers must improve risk awareness education. They should provide patients with scientific, accurate, and timely communication channels, and dynamically assess and manage the risk of recurrence in various patients.
Identification and Validation of Lactate Metabolism-Related Genes in Retinopathy of Prematurity
Authors: Xu Jiawei , Zhang Yunpeng , Rong Gan , Liu Zhuoqi , Deng Yan
Published: March 2023

Purpose: Lactic acid metabolism may play an imperative role in the development of Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP). Through bioinformatics analysis, we strive to identify the potential lactate metabolism-related genes (LMRGs) of ROP, and predict their functions and internal mechanisms.
Methods: GSE158799 microarray dataset is located on the GPL18635 platform (Ion Torrent Proton), which is from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). Firstly, we used R software to screen for potentially differentially expressed LMRGs related to ROP. Then we analyzed the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) by protein–protein interactions (PPI), correlation analysis, gene-ontology (GO) enrichment analysis and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis, Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA), and assessment of immune cell infiltration.
Results: A total of 41 differentially expressed LMRGs were identified among 284 genes in 3 P17_OIR mice and 3 P17_OIR mice. The results of PPI analysis indicated the interaction among these LMRGs. And the GO and KEGG analysis revealed several enriched pathways related to lactate metabolism, such as PI3K-Akt signaling pathway and Apelin signaling pathway. Moreover, immune infiltration analysis showed that the expression levels of immune cells in the sample changed greatly, especially M1 and M2 macrophages.
Conclusion: We identified 41 potential LMRGs correlated to ROP. These DEGs may regulate lactate metabolism, leading to the changes of metabolism and immunity, thereby inducing the development of ROP. Our results will expand our understanding of the intrinsic mechanism of ROP and may be helpful for the directions for treatment of ROP in the future.
Automatic and Continuous Blood Pressure Monitoring Via an Optical-Fiber-Sensor-Assisted Smartwatch
Authors: Li Liangye , Sheng Shunfeng , Liu Yunfei , Wen Jianpei , Song Changying , Chen Zhipeng , Xu Wangyang , Zhang Zhi , Fan Wei , Chen Chen , Sun Qizhen , Shum Perry-Ping
Published: March 2023

Automatic and continuous blood pressure monitoring is important for preventing cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension. The evaluation of medication effects and the diagnosis of clinical hypertension can both benefit from continuous monitoring. The current generation of wearable blood pressure monitors frequently encounters limitations with inadequate portability, electrical safety, limited accuracy, and precise position alignment. Here, we present an optical fiber sensor-assisted smartwatch for precise continuous blood pressure monitoring. A fiber adapter and a liquid capsule were used in the building of the blood pressure smartwatch based on an optical fiber sensor. The fiber adapter was used to detect the pulse wave signals, and the liquid capsule was used to expand the sensing area as well as the conformability to the body. The sensor holds a sensitivity of -213µw/kPa, a response time of 5 ms, and high reproducibility with 70000 cycles. With the assistance of pulse wave signal feature extraction and a machine learning algorithm, the smartwatch can continuously and precisely monitor blood pressure. A wearable smartwatch featuring a signal processing chip, a Bluetooth transmission module, and a specially designed cellphone APP was also created for active health management. The performance in comparison with commercial sphygmomanometer reference measurements shows that the systolic pressure and diastolic pressure errors are -0.35 ± 4.68 mmHg and 2.54 ± 4.07 mmHg, respectively. These values are within the acceptable ranges for Grade A according to the British Hypertension Society (BHS) and the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI). The smartwatch assisted with an optical fiber is expected to offer a practical paradigm in digital health.
Large area MoS2 thin film growth by direct sulfurization
Authors: Yang Kai-Yao Yang , Nguyen Hong-Thai , Tsao Yu-Ming , Artemkina Sofya B. , Fedorov Vladimir E. , Huang Chien-Wei , Wang Hsiang-Chen
Published: March 2023

In this study, we present the growth of monolayer MoS2 (molybdenum disulfide) film. Mo (molybdenum) film was formed on a sapphire substrate through e-beam evaporation, and triangular MoS2 film was grown by direct sulfurization. First, the growth of MoS2 was observed under an optical microscope. The number of MoS2 layers was analyzed by Raman spectrum, atomic force microscope (AFM), and photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL) measurement. Different sapphire substrate regions have different growth conditions of MoS2. The growth of MoS2 is optimized by controlling the amount and location of precursors, adjusting the appropriate growing temperature and time, and establishing proper ventilation. Experimental results show the successful growth of a large-area single-layer MoS2 on a sapphire substrate through direct sulfurization under a suitable environment. The thickness of the MoS2 film determined by AFM measurement is about 0.73 nm. The peak difference between the Raman measurement shift of 386 and 405 cm-1 is 19.1 cm-1, and the peak of PL measurement is about 677 nm, which is converted into energy of 1.83 eV, which is the size of the direct energy gap of the MoS2 thin film. The results verify the distribution of the number of grown layers. Based on the observation of the optical microscope (OM) images, MoS2 continuously grows from a single layer of discretely distributed triangular single-crystal grains into a single-layer large-area MoS2 film. This work provides a reference for growing MoS2 in a large area. We expect to apply this structure to various heterojunctions, sensors, solar cells, and thin-film transistors.
Klebsiella pneumoniae invasive syndrome with liver abscess and purulent meningitis presenting as acute hemiplegia: a case report
Authors: Chang Yu , Chen Jiann Hwa , Chen Wei Lung , Chung Jui Yuan
Published: March 2023

Background
Klebsiella pneumoniae can infect a variety of sites, with the risk of infection being higher in the immunocompromised state such as diabetes mellitus. A distinct invasive syndrome has been detected mostly in Southeast Asia in the past two decades. A common destructive complication is pyogenic liver abscess that can be complicated by metastatic endophthalmitis as well as the involvement of the central nervous system, causing purulent meningitis or brain abscess.
Case presentation
We report a rare case of an invasive liver abscess caused by K. pneumoniae, with metastatic infections of meninges. A 68-year-old man with a past medical history of type 2 diabetes mellitus presented to our emergency department as sepsis. Sudden disturbed consciousness was noticed with presentation of acute hemiplegia and gaze preference mimicking a cerebrovascular accident.
Conclusions
The above case adds to the scarce literature on K. pneumoniae invasive syndrome with liver abscess and purulent meningitis. K. pneumoniae is a rare cause of meningitis and should raise suspicions about the disease in febrile individuals. In particular, Asian patients with diabetes presenting with sepsis and hemiplegia prompt a more thorough evaluation with aggressive treatment.
The Influence of Pandemic-Related Worries During Pregnancy on Child Development at 12 Months
Authors: White Lauren K. , Himes Megan M. , Waller Rebecca , Njoroge Wanjikũ F.M. , Chaiyachati Barbara H. , Barzilay Ran , Kornfield Sara L. , Burris Heather H. , Seidlitz Jakob , Parish-Morris Julia , Brady Rebecca G. , Gerstein Emily D. , Laney Nina , Gur Raquel E. , Duncan Andrea
Published: March 2023

The COVID-19 pandemic has been linked to increased risk for perinatal anxiety and depression among parents, as well as negative consequences for child development. Less is known about how worries arising from the pandemic during pregnancy are related to later child development, nor if resilience factors buffer negative consequences. The current study addresses this question in a prospective longitudinal design. Data was collected from a sub-study (n = 184) of a longitudinal study of pregnant individuals (total n = 1,173). During pregnancy (April 17-July 8, 2020) and the early postpartum period (August 11, 2020-March 2, 2021), participants completed online surveys. At 12 months postpartum (June 17, 2021-March 23, 2022), participants completed online surveys and a virtual laboratory visit, which included parent-child interaction tasks. We found more pregnancy-specific pandemic worries were prospectively related to lower levels of child socioemotional development based on parent report (B=-1.13, SE = .43, p = .007) and observer ratings (B=-0.13, SE = .07, p = .045), but not to parent-reported general developmental milestones. Parental emotion regulation in the early postpartum period moderated the association between pregnancy-specific pandemic worries and child socioemotional development such that pregnancy-specific pandemic worries did not related to worse child socioemotional development among parents with high (B=-.02, SE = .10, t=-.14, p = .89) levels of emotion regulation. Findings suggest the negative consequences of parental worry and distress during pregnancy on the early socioemotional development of children in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results highlight that parental emotion regulation may represent a target for intervention to promote parental resilience and support optimized child development.
Quantitative analysis of security metrics on SME cyber network
Authors: Wang Sufen , Yu Haosheng , Yu Xiaochuan
Published: March 2023

To evaluating and measure the security of an enterprise or a public network is an important step for the security of network itself and defence outside threat. So many of the current research in cyber analysis were focusing on it. In the field of network security, others have used CVSS, security metrics and attack graph to evaluate software systems or automation systems. However, no article has used these methods to study the SME(small and medium-sized enterprises) network, and there is no complete set of methods to evaluate the topology of the SME network, as well as which security metrics to use to evaluate the network and which metrics are the most important, there is no conclusion at present. Therefore, this paper will use the research results mentioned above to focus on solving this problem. In this paper, first of all, we tried different network constructing technique, and used attack graph to generate the absorbing Markov chain model, then calculated the security metrics base on CVSS. Finally, we analyzed the meaning of different metrics and the score of each of them and gave the suggestion for improvement for this network. Finally, we found that when faced with the network topology of small and medium-sized enterprises, the various metrics are only relatively important, and there are no completely unimportant metrics. Therefore, security engineers need to model the topology structure of the network and use tools to generate the attack graph, calculate the security metrics and make adjustments when building the network. Security engineers need to comprehensively consider various metrics to adjust and analyse the network to determine the security of the network, instead of adjusting the network after it's built.
Projectability disentanglement for accurate and automated electronic-structure Hamiltonians
Authors: Qiao Junfeng , Pizzi Giovanni , Marzari Nicola
Published: March 2023

Maximally-localized Wannier functions (MLWFs) are a powerful and broadly used tool to characterize the electronic structure of materials, from chemical bonding to dielectric response to topological properties. Most generally, one can construct MLWFs that describe isolated band manifolds, e.g. for the valence bands of insulators, or entangled band manifolds, e.g. in metals or describing both the valence and the conduction manifolds in insulators. Obtaining MLWFs that describe a target manifold accurately and with the most compact representation often requires chemical intuition and trial and error, a challenging step even for experienced researchers and a roadblock for automated high-throughput calculations. Here, we present a very natural and powerful approach that provides automatically MLWFs spanning the occupied bands and their natural complement for the empty states, resulting in Wannier Hamiltonian models that provide a tight-binding picture of optimized atomic orbitals in crystals. Key to the success of the algorithm is the introduction of a projectability measure for each Bloch state onto atomic orbitals (here, chosen from the pseudopotential projectors) that determines if that state should be kept identically, discarded, or mixed into a disentangling algorithm. We showcase the accuracy of our method by comparing a reference test set of 200 materials against the selected-columns-of-the-density-matrix algorithm, and its reliability by constructing Wannier Hamiltonians for 21737 materials from the Materials Cloud.
Dimension-agnostic and granularity-based spatially variable gene identification
Authors: Wang Juexin , Li Jinpu , Kramer Skyler , Su Li , Chang Yuzhou , Xu Chunhui , Ma Qin , Xu Dong
Published: March 2023

Identifying spatially variable genes (SVGs) is critical in linking molecular cell functions with tissue phenotypes. Spatially resolved transcriptomics captures cellular-level gene expression with corresponding spatial coordinates in two or three dimensions and can be used to infer SVGs effectively. However, current computational methods may not achieve reliable results and often cannot handle three-dimensional spatial transcriptomic data. Here we introduce BSP (big-small patch), a spatial granularity-guided and non-parametric model to identify SVGs from two or three-dimensional spatial transcriptomics data in a fast and robust manner. This new method has been extensively tested in simulations, demonstrating superior accuracy, robustness, and high efficiency. BSP is further validated by substantiated biological discoveries in cancer, neural science, rheumatoid arthritis, and kidney studies with various types of spatial transcriptomics technologies.
The effects of water quality parameters, water level changes, and mixing on zooplankton community daynamics in a tropical high-mountain Lake Ardibo, Ethiopia.
Authors: Mohammed Adem , Mengistou Seyoum , Fetahi Tadesse
Published: March 2023

The diversity and abundance of zooplankton community are affected by the change in physicochemical parameters, trophic interactions, water quality, water level changes, and periodic mixing. The influence of water level changes and periodic mixing on zooplankton distribution and abundance was seasonally studied for Lake Ardibo from October 2020 to September 2021 collected from 3 sites. Results on the physicochemical variables indicated that all variables, except turbidity, varied significantly (p < 0.05) in all sampling seasons. A total of 36 zooplankton species were recorded, comprising 18 rotifers, 11 cladocerans, and 7 cyclopoid copepods. Zooplankton abundance significantly varied seasonally with peak abundance (4232.13 ind. L−1) recorded in the dry season and lowest numbers (402.42 ind. L−1) during the long rainy period. Redundancy analysis (RDA) results indicated that dissolved oxygen, NH3-N, NO3-N and conductivity were the most significant driving forces for the seasonal successions in the abundance and distribution of zooplankton communities whereas turbidity has a minor role. Cyclopoid copepod abundance was significantly (p<0.05) higher in the dry season, which could be correlated with the partial mixing (atelomixis) phenomenon that occurred during the dry period.
In-vitro fatigue and fracture testing of temporary materials from different manufacturing processes in implant-supported anterior crowns
Authors: Bein Laila , Rauch Angelika , Schmidt Michael , Rosentritt Martin
Published: March 2023

Objectives

The aim of this study was to investigate the in-vitro fatigue and fracture force of temporary implant-supported anterior crowns with different abutment conicity, with/without a screw-channel, and with different type of fabrication.

Materials and Methods

192 implant supported crowns were manufactured (4° or 8° conicity; with/without screw channel) form 6 materials (n = 8; 2x additive, 3x subtractive, 1x cartridge; reference). Crowns were temporary cemented, screw-channels were closed (Teflon, resin composite) and stored in water (37°C; 10 days) before thermal cycling and mechanical loading. Fracture force was determined, and failures were analyzed. Statistics: Kolmogorov-Smirnov, ANOVA; Bonferroni; Kaplan-Meier; Log-Rank; α = 0.05.

Results

Failure during TCML varied between 0 failures and total failure. Mean survival time was between 1,8 ± 1,6 x105 cycles and 4,8 ± 0 x105 cycles. Highest impact on survival presented type of material (η2 = 0.072, p < .001). Fracture values varied between 265.7 N and 628.6 N. Highest impact on fracture force was found for type of material (η2 = 0.084, p < .001).

Conclusion

Additively and subtractively manufactured crowns had similar or even higher survival rates and fracture forces. The choice of material is decisive for the survival time and fracture force. The fracture force was higher with smaller conicity. Fatigue testing was only affected by manually inserted screw-channels in cartridge-made crowns.

Clinical relevance

The highest stability has been shown for crowns with a low abutment conicity, which are manufactured additively and subtractively. In cartridge-fabricated crowns, manually inserted screw channels have negative effects.
Determination of Natural and Anthropogenic Caused Forest Fire Susceptibilities Threatening the Pine Honey Production and Marchalina Hellenica Population
Authors: SARI Fatih
Published: March 2023

Every year, an average of 250 forest fires occur in Turkey and 10,000 hectares of forest area are destroyed by natural and human-caused forest fires. Moreover, 90% of the world's pine honey production is produced in red pine (Pinus brutia) forests infested withMarchalina Hellenica. However, the limited production sites for pine honey are destroyed by forest fires and most of the sites overlap with the regions where susceptibility to forest fires is highest. In particular, in 2021 and 2022, pine honey production in Muğla province decreased by half due to the large forest fires. In this study, susceptibility to forest fires caused by lightning, cigarette butts, stubble burning and power lines was modeled separately for all pine honey production sites via MaxEnt. Each risk map overlapped with theMarchalina Hellenicadistribution map to determine which fire causes put each region at risk. When the results were examined, 1357.6 km2(56.6%) of the 2396 km2pine honey production site was found to be at risk from lightning-caused forest fires. For human-caused forest fires, 184.7 km2(7.7%) were at risk from power lines and 136 km2(5.7%) from stubble fires. 116.8 km2of pine honey production areas are threatened by forest fires caused by cigarette butts, which is the least threatening cause in the study area. The findings obtained in this study provide important information on the measures that can be taken against forest fires and on the planning of early intervention procedures to protect pine honey production areas.
Non-HDL Cholesterol and Remnant Cholesterol Predict Different Components of the Metabolic Syndrome in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Patients in a Regional Hospital
Authors: Nsiah Paul , Acquah Samuel , Bockarie Ansumana Sandy , Adjei George , Aniakwaa-Bonsu Ebenezer , Togbe Eliezer , Ossei Paul Poku Sampene , Debrah Oksana
Published: March 2023

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) continues to increase in incidence within the ageing population of the globe. Patients with T2DM have a 2-4 times higher risk of experiencing an adverse cardiovascular event than their non-diabetic counterparts. Total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL), triglycerides and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels have been the routine biomarkers for lipid-based cardiovascular disease diagnostic and prognostic decisions in clinical practice. Recent evidence elsewhere suggests remnant cholesterol (RC) and Non-HDL cholesterol (Non-HDL-c) can serve as biomarkers with a higher predictive power for cardiovascular disease (CVD) than the aforementioned routine ones. In our context, there is limited information on the suitability and superiority of these emerging biomarkers for the assessment of CVD risk in T2DM. The current study therefore sought to examine the relationship between RC and non-HDL-c for predicting CVD in T2DM patients in the context of the obesity paradox. Apart from adiponectin level which was lower (P < 0.05), overweight/obese respondents exhibited higher (P < 0.05) mean levels for all the measured indices. Insulin resistance was independently predicted (R2 = 0.951; adjusted R2 = 0.951; P < 0.001) by RC, duration and fasting plasma glucose. However, Non-HDL-c predicted CVD risk (AOR = 4.31; P <0.001), hypertension (AOR = 2.24; P <0.001), resistin (AOR = 2.14; P <0.001) and adiponectin (AOR = -2.24; P <0.001) levels. Our findings point to different mechanisms by which RC and non-HDL-c contribute to the development of CVD.
Prognostic nomogram for predicting overall survival in patients with medullary carcinoma of the colon
Authors: Zhou Huabin , Chen Jiayi , Liu Yulan , Zheng Chao , Li Min
Published: March 2023

Objective Medullary carcinoma (MC) of the colon is a rare malignancy, and there is no survival prediction for this tumor. This study aimed to construct a nomogram to predict the overall survival (OS) of patients with MC
Methods We included 276 patients with a pathological diagnosis of MC between 2010 and 2015 from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. The random forest method and multivariate Cox proportional risk model were used to identify independent prognostic factors for MC. The consistency index (C-index), the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, and the calibration curve determined the nomogram's predictive accuracy and discriminative ability. Decision curve analysis (DCA) was used to evaluate the net clinical benefit of the nomogram.
Results The Cox regression analysis showed that age, N-stage, M-stage, tumor size, and chemotherapy were associated with OS of MC. Based on the identified independent factors, we constructed a nomogram for predicting OS in MC patients. The C-index value of the nomogram for predicting OS was superior to the TNM staging system (0.705 vs. 0.673). ROC and calibration curves showed the nomogram's good discriminatory and calibration ability. DCA showed that the nomogram had a more significant net clinical benefit than the TNM staging system.
Conclusion We developed a nomogram to accurately predict MC patients’ survival. The nomogram had excellent predictive efficacy and could help clinicians to assess the prognosis of MC patients.
Deep Spatial and Channel Sliding Attention Patches for Pose-invariant Facial Expression Recognition
Authors: Liu Chaoji , Liu Xingqiao , Chen Chong , Zhou Kang
Published: March 2023

Pose-invariant facial expression recognition (FER) is an import yet challenging research topics in computer vision, especially with the introduction of pose change and self-occlusion, which makes the recognition results changing from one observational angle to another. In this paper, a newly deep sliding patch combined with spatial-channel attention network is designed for pose-invariant FER. The new network architecture consists of three main components, namely, the sliding patch (SP) model, deep channel squeeze-and-extraction model (SE) and spatial sliding patch attention (SPA) model. The sliding patch (SP) model is devised to find the best patch size and stride for pose-invariant FER. The sliding patch attention (SPA) model can guide the network pay more attention to the current local patches and adaptively estimate the significance of each local sliding patch. The squeeze-and-extraction (SE) operation was implemented prior to SPA model whose aims to shrink the number of feature maps and provide more salient semantic feature maps for SPA model. Extensive experiments were implemented on four pose robust expression datasets, namely, BU3DFEP1, BU3DFEP2, Multi-PIE, Pose-RAFDB, Pose-Affect, and the experimental results indicated the validity and feasibility of SPA-SE network.
CYP2E1 overexpression protects COS-7 cancer cells against ferroptosis
Authors: Caro Andres A. , Barrett Daniel , Garcia Cristobal , Northington Weston , Pinkney Jamya , Shuja Rayan , Stovall Hannah
Published: March 2023

Ferroptosis is a recently described form of regulated cell death initiated by the iron-mediated one-electron reduction of lipid hydroperoxides (LOOH). Cytochrome P450 2E1 (CYP2E1) induction, a consequence of genetic polymorphisms or/and gene induction by xenobiotics, may promote ferroptosis by contributing to the cellular pool of LOOH. However, CYP2E1 induction also increases the transcription of anti-ferroptotic genes that regulate the activity of glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4), the main ferroptosis inhibitor. Based on the above, we hypothesize that the impact of CYP2E1 induction on ferroptosis depends on the balance between pro- and anti-ferroptotic pathways triggered by CYP2E1. To test our hypothesis, ferroptosis was induced with class 2 inducers (RSL-3 or ML-162) in mammalian COS-7 cancer cells that don’t express CYP2E1 (Mock cells), and in cells engineered to express human CYP2E1 (WT cells), and the impact on viability, lipid peroxidation and GPX4 was assessed. CYP2E1 overexpression protected COS-7 cancer cells against ferroptosis, evidenced by an increase in the IC50 and a decrease in lipid ROS in WT versus Mock cells after exposure to class 2 inducers. CYP2E1 overexpression produced an 80% increase in the levels of the GPX4 substrate glutathione (GSH). Increasing GSH in Mock cells protected cells against ferroptosis by ML-162. Depleting GSH, or inhibiting Nrf2 in WT cells reverted the protective effect mediated by CYP2E1, causing a decrease in the IC50 and an increase in lipid ROS after exposure to ML-162. These results show that CYP2E1 overexpression protects COS-7 cancer cells against ferroptosis, an effect probably mediated by Nrf2-dependent GSH induction.
Sliding method for equations with uniformly parabolic fractional operators
Authors: Tang Yanjuan
Published: March 2023

In this paper, we obtain the one-dimensional symmetry and monotonicity of entire solutions for equations involving uniformly parabolic fractional operators via a sliding method. We first establish a generalized weighted average inequality and the maximum principle in unbounded domains, then using the sliding method, we derive the symmetry and monotonicity of entire solutions to fractional uniformly parabolic equations in the whole space.
MSC 2020: 35B50, 35R11, 35K60.
A novel lithium-ion battery capacity prediction framework based on SVMD-AO-DELM
Authors: DING Guorong , Chen Hongxia
Published: March 2023

Accurate and efficient lithium-ion battery capacity prediction plays an important role in improving performance and ensuring safe operation. In this study, a novel lithium-ion battery capacity prediction model combining successive variational mode decomposition (SVMD) and aquila optimized deep extreme learning machine (AO-DELM) is proposed. Firstly, SVMD is used to divide capacity signal and it improves short-term trend prediction, especially for capacity growth that occurs during the degradation process. Secondly, the DELM network outperforms other networks in efficiently extracting time-dependent features, and it is more accurate than other standard ELM-based methods. The AO algorithm is used to optimize the parameters of the DELM training process for the problem of sensitivity to initial weights. Finally, experiments are conducted to validate the predictive performance of the proposed model based on NASA and CALCE lithium-ion batteries discharge capacity decay sequences. The MAE (0.0066Ah, 0.0044Ah), RMSE (0.0113Ah, 0.0078Ah), MAPE (0.44%, 0.82%) are effectively reduced and the R2 (98.94%, 99.87%) are better than the prediction performance of other hybrid models.
Core Patient-Reported Outcome Measures for Chronic Pain Patients treated with Spinal Cord Stimulation: Findings from a Prospective, Post-Market Study
Authors: Huygen Frank , Hagedorn Jonathan M. , Falowski Steven , Schultz David , Vesper Jan , Heros Robert D. , Patterson Denis G. , Mansouri Misagh , Ross Erika , Kyani Anahita , Kallewaard Jan Willem
Published: March 2023

Background

Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is a highly effective therapy for treatment of chronic pain, however due to the complexity of pain, measuring a subject’s long-term response to the therapy remains difficult. Frequent measurement of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) to reflect multiple aspects of subjects’ pain is a crucial step in determining therapy outcomes. However, collecting full-length PROs is burdensome for both patients and clinicians. The objective of this work is to investigate the feasibility of using limited sets of outcomes from multiple PROs to accurately characterize subjects’ response to SCS therapy.

Methods

Validated PROs were used to capture pain, physical function and disability, as well as psychometric, satisfaction, and global health metrics. PROs were collected from 509 patients implanted with a neurostimulator enrolled in the post-market REALITY study. Combination of Pearson’s correlation and factor analysis was used to eliminate highly correlated questions and find the minimal meaningful set of questions within the predefined domains of each scale.

Results

The shortened versions of the questionnaires presented almost identical accuracy for classifying SCS therapy outcome as compared to the validated full-length versions. In addition, principal component analysis was performed on all the PROs and showed a robust clustering of pain intensity, psychological factors, physical function, and sleep across multiple PROs. A selected set of questions captured from multiple PROs can provide adequate information for measuring SCS therapy outcomes.

Conclusions

These shorter and more targeted PROs could result in better patient engagement, enhanced and more frequent data collection processes for digital health platforms, and ultimately increased patient satisfaction with SCS therapy.

Trial registration

Data for our analysis were extracted from the ongoing prospective, multicenter, international REALITY (Long-Term Real-World Outcomes Study on Patients Implanted with a Neurostimulator) study (NCT03876054).
Modulation of resting-state networks following repetitive transcranial alternating current stimulation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
Authors: Khan Ahsan , Mosbacher Jochen A. , Vogel Stephan E. , Binder Mira , Wehovz Michael , Moshammer Arnulf , Halverscheid Stefan , Pustelnik Kolja , Nitsche Michael A. , Tong Raymond Kai-Yu , Grabner Roland H.
Published: March 2023

Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) offers a unique method to temporarily manipulate the activity of the stimulated brain region in a frequency-dependent manner. However, it is not clear if repetitive modulation of ongoing oscillatory activity with tACS over multiple days can induce changes in resting-state functional connectivity. The current study addresses this question by applying multiple-session theta band stimulation on the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (L-DLPFC) during arithmetic training. Fifty healthy participants (25 males and 25 females) were randomly assigned to the experimental and sham groups, half of the participants received individually adjusted theta band tACS, and half received sham stimulation. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance (rs-fMRI) data were collected before and after three days of tACS-supported procedural learning training. Resting-state network analysis showed a significant increase in connectivity for the frontoparietal network (FPN) with the precuneus cortex. Seed-based analysis with a seed defined at the primary stimulation site showed an increase in connectivity with the precuneus cortex, posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), and lateral occipital cortex. We conclude that multi-session task-associated tACS can induce significant changes in resting state functional connectivity.
Prognostic analysis of traumatic spinal cord injury-related factors
Authors: He Shaojie , Zhao Zhenyu , Yu XinCheng , Kong Chang , Li Weikuan , Gu Haokun , Huang Weiguan , Ma Hangzhan , Zha Dingsheng
Published: March 2023

Background
To systematically analyze the evaluation indexes of injury degree and prognostic improvement in traumatic spinal cord injury.
Methods
A retrospective analysis of 133 patients with traumatic spinal cord injury admitted to our hospital from January 2017 to August 2021. The clinical indicators collected include the following: patient gender, age, underlying diseases, time from trauma to operation, length of hospital stay, intraoperative blood loss, cause of injury, whether accompanied with (or multi-segment ) spinal fracture and dislocation, intervertebral disc herniation, other sites of the injury and complications, the type of complications, spinal cord injury plane, surgical methods, ASIA grade within 72h and 6 months after injury, whether received hyperbaric oxygen therapy or high-dose cortisol hormone therapy, mean arterial pressure 3 days after operation, neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (NLR) within 72h after admission, the length of MR spinal signal change, maximum canal compression (MCC), maximum spinal cord compression (MSCC), and the BASIC score of spinal signal changes.
Results
1) The length of signal change (p < 0.001), MSCC (p < 0.05), MCC (p < 0.05) and NLR within 72h of injury (p < 0.01) were significantly different among groups with different degrees of TSCI injury. 2) MAP (p༜0.01), NLR (p༜0.01), and the initial degree of injury (p༜0.05) showed significant differences between the groups of patients with improved and non-improved prognoses 6 months after TSCI injury.
Conclusions
The MRI signal change length, MSCC, MCC, and NLR within 72 h after injury are good indicators of the TSCI severity while MAP, NLR, and ASIA can be used to evaluate the prognosis of TSCI patients.
Aliasing Effect on Flux Ramp Demodulation: Nonlinearity in the Microwave SQUID Multiplexer
Authors: Salum J.M. , Muscheid T. , Fuster A. , Redondo M. Garcia , Hampel M.R. , Ferreyro L.P. , Geria J.M. , Bonilla-Neira J. , Müller N. , Bonaparte J. , Almela A. , Ardilla-Perez L.E. , Platino M. , Sander O. , Weber M.
Published: March 2023

A novel system formed by a Microwave Superconducting Quantum Interference Device (SQUID) Multiplexer (uMUX) and a room temperature electronics employs frequency division multiplexing (FDM) technique to read out multiple cryogenic detectors. Since the detector signal is embedded in the phase of the SQUID signal, a Digital Quadrature Demodulator (DQD) is widely implemented to recover it. However, the DQD also generates a signal that aliases into the first Nyquist zone affecting the demodulated detector signal. In this work, we demonstrate how this spurious signal is generated and a mathematical model of it is derived and validated. In addition, we discuss different proposals to improve the attenuation of this undesired signal. Lastly, we implement one of the proposals in our readout system. Our measurements show an enhancement in the spurious signal attenuation of more than 35 dB. As a result, this work contributes to attenuate the spurious below the system noise.
Laparoscopic cholecystectomy for xanthogranulomatous cholecystitis: 18 years of experience
Authors: Zubillaga-Mares Asya , Renteria-Palomo Enrique , Hall-Ramirez William Bryan , Lopez-Godinez Maria Fernanda , Nuñez-Venzor Alejandra , Cardenas-Lailson Eduardo
Published: March 2023

Introduction
Xanthogranulomatous cholecystitis (XGC) is a rare inflammatory disease of the gallbladder(GB). It has been classified as an uncommon variant of chronic cholecystitis with a prevalence of 0.7 to 10%. It is a difficult diagnosis because macroscopic appearance may be confused with gallbladder cancer (GC). Laparoscopic cholecystectomy is the gold standard for the management of benign gallbladder disease. Laparoscopic cholecystectomy in XGC is associated with a high conversion rate to open cholecystectomy with a rate of 10.6 to 80%.
Material and methods
A descriptive, observational, retrospective, and cross-sectional study was carried out over a period of 18 years at a general hospital on Mexico City. Patients with histopathological diagnosis of xanthogranulomatous cholecystitis were included. This study was retrospectively registered and approved by the board of ethical committee in our institution on 2018.
Results
We recorded 142 patients, and 106 surgeries were performed totally laparoscopically (74.6%). 52 were emergency surgeries (49%) and 54 elective (51%). The conversion rate to open cholecystectomy was 3.7% (4 patients). There were 5 post-surgical complications (4.7%) one biloma, one surgical site infection, and 3 pancreatitis.
Conclusions
XGX represents a surgical challenge from diagnosis to surgical management and is associated to a higher number of perioperative complications. Nevertheless, a laparoscopic approach is safe in high volume centers with experience in laparoscopy.
The influence of adding copper and iron third body on brake disc temperature
Authors: Yao Manqi , Zhao Chong , Su Linlin , Fu Rong , Han Xiaoming , Fei Gao
Published: March 2023

A large number of third bodies are born on the friction surface during braking. Exploring whether the third body has an impact on the friction surface temperature is helpful to recognize the wear factors affecting the brake disc. The effect of the third body composition on the temperature distribution of disc was studied by adding third body method on the TM-I inertial reduced scale brake testing machine, t Temperature distribution of the disc surface is compared at the pressure of 0.25 MPa and speed of 20–200 km/h under three conditions: no adding third body (NTB), adding Cu third body (CTB), and adding Fe third body (FTB). The results indicate that the difference in fluidity and thermal conductivity between CTB and FTB leads to the deviation of the contact state of surface, thus forming the variation of temperature and distribution state of brake disc. At a speed of 120–200 km/h, when adding the CTB, the maximum temperature of disc surface is reduced by 1.9–3.1%, the proportion of the high-temperature zone is reduced by 4.3–13.1%, and the unit width temperature of the high-temperature area decreases 2.2–3.2%. When adding the FTB, the maximum temperature of the disc surface rises by 4.1–7.4%, meanwhile, the proportion of the high-temperature area and the temperature per unit width are increased by 1.4–5.4% and 5.9–20.2%, respectively. At high speeds, the good fluidity and thermal conductivity of CTB lead to adhesive wear. FTB has high hardness, poor fluidity and thermal conductivity, which causes oxidative fatigue wear.
Whey-carrot based functional beverage: Development and storage study
Authors: Naik Bindu , Walter Nidhi , Kohli Deepika , Gupta Arun K , Mishra Sadhna , Khan Javed M. , Saris Per Erik Joakim , Irfan Mohammad , Rustagi Sarvesh , Kumar vijay
Published: March 2023

The current study was designed to prepare whey-carrot-based functional beverages and studying the effect on physicochemical properties during the 28 days of storage period. Different ratio of whey and carrot juice were selected for preparation of the six formulations, out of which based on the sensory acceptance only three were selected for the further storage studies (sample 1 = 45:55, sample 2 = 50:50, and sample 3 = 55:45 of carrot juice to whey ratio). During 28 days of storage, the developed beverage samples revealed a significant increase in reducing sugars, total phenolic content, and acidity. The pH, sweetness, and acceptance percentage of the beverage found to be decreased with storage period. It was also found that there is not change in the properties of the beverage storage with and without the preservative. It was revealed that beverage with less proportion of carrot juice is more acceptable quality. The results also suggest that whey can be used with fruit and vegetable to create whey-based beverage.