bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Features of the response to subchronic low-dose exposure to copper oxide nanoparticles in rats
Authors: Sutunkova Marina P. , Ryabova Yuliya V. , Minigalieva Ilzira A. , Bushueva Tatiana V. , Sakhautdinova Renata R. , Bereza Ivan A. , Shaikhova Daria R. , Amromina Anna M. , Chemezov Aleksei I. , Shelomencev Ivan G. , Amromin Lev A. , Valamina Irene E. , Toropova Liubov V.
Published: July 2023

Copper is an essential trace element for human health and, at the same time, a major industrial metal widely used both in its elemental form and in compounds. We conducted a dose-dependent assessment of the response of outbred albino male rats to subchronic low-dose exposure to copper oxide nanoparticles administered intraperitoneally at cumulative doses of 18 and 36 mg/kg during 6 weeks to exposure groups 1 and 2, respectively. We observed disorders at different levels of organization of the body in the exposed animals, from molecular to organismal. The observed decrease in the activity of succinate dehydrogenase in nucleated blood cells gave evidence of impaired bioenergetics processes. In view of the results of the metabolomics analysis, we assume mitochondrial damage and contribution of apoptotic processes to the pathology induced by copper poisoning. We also assume neurodegenerative effects based on the assessed morphological parameters of the nervous system, results of behavioral tests, and a decreased level of expression of genes encoding NMDA receptor subunits in the hippocampus. The hepatotoxic effect noted by a number of metabolomics-based, biochemical, and cytological indicators was manifested by the impaired protein-synthesizing function of the liver and enhanced degenerative processes in its cells. We also observed a nephrotoxic effect of nanosized copper oxide with a predominant lesion of proximal kidney tubules. At the same time, both doses tested demonstrated such positive health effects as a statistically significant decrease in the activity of alkaline phosphatase and the nucleated blood cell DNA fragmentation factor. Judging by the changes observed, the cumulative dose of copper oxide nanoparticles of 18 mg/kg body weight administered intraperitoneally approximates the threshold one for rats. The established markers of health impairments may serve as a starting point in the development of techniques of early diagnosis of copper poisoning.
A telemetry study shows that an endangered nocturnal avian species roosts in extremely dry habitats to avoid predation
Authors: Wasserlauf Yohay , Gancz Ady , Ben Dov Amir , Efrat Ron , Sapir Nir , Dor Roi , Spiegel Orr
Published: July 2023

Describing animal space use is essential for understanding their ecological needs and for planning effective conservation schemes. Notably, certain biomes and life histories are understudied due to methodological challenges in tracking animals in their natural habitats. Specifically, both arid environments and nocturnal species are not sufficiently researched compared to diurnal species and to other biomes. This knowledge gap hinders our ability to properly prioritize habitats for species protection in areas undergoing human-related development. Here, we investigate the movement ecology of the Egyptian Nightjar (Caprimulgus aegyptius) in the arid Dead-sea region of Israel, the Palestinian Authority (the West Bank) and Jordan. This nocturnal insectivore is a cryptic desert-dweller and was considered locally extinct until it was rediscovered in 2016. For this work we tracked twelve individuals using GPS tags to determine how this resource-poor environment affects their home range, (predicting large areas), habitat use, and day-roost ecology. We found that the tracked Egyptian Nightjars had a much larger home range area than other Nightjar species, commuting nightly between foraging grounds and day-roosts. We found, as expected, intensive foraging activity at agricultural fields, where artificial irrigation likely supports higher resource (insect) density. Additionally, we found that individuals showed very high roosting site fidelity, often returning to the same specific site, located in extremely dry and exposed habitats, presumably for predator avoidance. This finding highlights the ecological value of these barren habitats that are often considered “lifeless” and therefore of lower priority for conservation. Consequently, our research demonstrates the importance of describing the space-use of nocturnal animals in arid habitats for conservation efforts.
Joint frequency space design approach for efficient planar frequency diverse arrays
Authors: Hasheminasab Maryam , Cheldavi A. , Kishk Ahmed A.
Published: July 2023

Antenna arrays offer advantages in terms of spatial diversity, allowing for control over pattern specifications in space. The incorporation of frequency diversity in arrays presents an opportunity to manipulate beams in the Space–Time domain. Unlike conventional arrays, Frequency Diverse Arrays (FDA) with added frequency diversity exhibit time-variant and range-dependent patterns. These time variations impact both steering and auto-scanning applications. The array factor is influenced by the coherent interplay between frequency and spatial distributions of elements, thereby correlating the spatial and temporal behavior of the FDA’s pattern. To address this space-frequency coherency, an adjoint spatial-frequency design algorithm is the most effective approach to controlling the array's spatial and temporal behavior. Given the complexity of the array factor formulations in FDAs, elements' frequency and spatial distribution have traditionally been designed separately. However, this study proposes an algorithm that simultaneously allocates the location and frequency of elements to achieve a desired pattern. Symmetrical FDA is initially designed using a straightforward formulation of the array factor obtained through symmetry, ensuring a stable and periodic scanning beam. Subsequently, two important design parameters and several crucial design criteria for scanning applications are suggested by analyzing the formulations. These parameters form the basis of a designing algorithm that enables the simultaneous design of element location and frequency in the space-frequency plan, thus meeting the temporal and spatial requirements of the pattern. To demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed algorithm, two different planar arrays are designed, and their results are compared with those of other planar configurations. This study lays the foundation for a novel approach to designing Frequency Diverse Arrays (FDAs), opening up new possibilities in array design.
Effect of gold nanoparticles distribution radius on photothermal therapy efficacy
Authors: Kim Donghyuk , Paik Jeeyong , Kim Hyunjung
Published: July 2023

Lasers are used in various fields, however, in the medical field, they are mainly used for incision or chemotherapy. Photothermal therapy (PTT) is an anti-cancer treatment technique that uses lasers and the photothermal effect to increase the temperature of tumor tissue and induce its death. In this study, the therapeutic effect of PTT using gold nanoparticles as a photothermal converter was analyzed numerically for the occurrence of squamous cell carcinoma inside a skin section consisting four layers. Numerical modeling was implemented to calculate the temperature distribution inside the biological tissue while varying the distribution radius of gold nanoparticles in the tumor tissue, the number of injections, and the intensity of the irradiating laser. For the given situation, the optimal treatment effect was observed when the distribution radius ratio of the injected gold nanoparticles (GNPs) was 1, the number of injections was 7, and the intensity of the irradiated laser was 52 mW. Three apoptotic variables were used to quantitively evaluate the effect of PTT in each case and thus suggest the optimal treatment effect. However, although the temperature range at which apoptosis occurs is known, the maintenance of that temperature range is still under research and the temporal influence of apoptosis remains to be determined.
Social-networks use as adaptive or maladaptive strategy for coping with stress
Authors: Wegmann Elisa , Schiebener Johannes , Brand Matthias
Published: July 2023

Social networks are frequently used to distract, procrastinate, or cope with stress. We aimed to investigate how (problematic) social-networks use affect stress perception in interaction with different stress recovery conditions. A total of 104 participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups. Three groups underwent a stress induction with subsequent stress recovery via (1) using Facebook, (2) reading magazines, or (3) waiting. Another group (4) waited without stress induction. Stress perception was repeatedly assessed with the State-Trait-Anxiety-Inventory. Facebook use and reading magazines decreased acute stress indicating adaptive coping strategies. Stress-recovery conditions and symptom severity showed significant interactions. Facebook use was not effective for individuals with high symptom severity in contrast to non-digital strategies or for individuals with low symptom severity. The usage of social networks may be an adaptive strategy for coping with stress for some people, it is maladaptive for individuals having a problematic usage.
Pregnancy outcomes after vaginal probiotic supplementation before frozen embryo transfer: a randomized controlled study
Authors: Thanaboonyawat Isarin , Pothisan Sootthinan , Petyim Somsin , Laokirkkiat Pitak
Published: July 2023

In women receiving assisted reproductive treatment, intrauterine lactobacilli dominance has been associated with higher rates of pregnancy achievement. This randomized controlled trial conducted in the fertility clinic of the university hospital from 7 August 2019 to May 2021, aimed to compare the clinical outcome of embryo transfer in frozen-thaw cycles with Lactobacillus supplementation prior to embryo transfer and the standard treatment. A total of 340 infertile women underwent randomization. The biochemical and clinical pregnancy rates were comparable between the groups (39.9 and 34.2% in the study group vs. 41.8 and 31.7% in the control group); however, the miscarriage rate was significantly decreased in the study group (9.5 vs. 19.1%, respectively, p = 0.02), [OR = 0.44, 95% CI (0.23, 0.86)]. Among 49 women diagnosed with bacterial vaginosis, the live birth rate in the study group was higher than the control group (42.31 vs. 26.09%, p = 0.23), [OR = 2.08, 95% CI (0.62, 6.99)]. In the blastocyst transfer group (n = 206), the live birth rate was significantly higher in the study group than in the control group (35.71 vs. 22.22%, p = 0.03) [OR = 1.9, 95% CI (1.05, 3.59)]. Therefore, intravaginal lactobacilli supplementation before embryo transfer in the frozen-thaw cycle did not improve the biochemical and clinical pregnancy rate in the general population but significantly reduced the miscarriage rate.

Trial Registration: TCTR20190429001 (29/04/2019) @ www.thaiclinicaltrials.org.
Novel method for predicting nonvisible symptoms using machine learning in cancer palliative care
Authors: Shimada Kazuki , Tsuneto Satoru
Published: July 2023

End-of-life patients with cancer may find expressing their symptoms difficult if they can no longer communicate verbally because of deteriorating health. In this study, we assessed these symptoms using machine learning, which has excellent predictive capabilities and has recently been applied in healthcare. We performed a retrospective clinical survey involving 213 patients with cancer from August 2015 to August 2016. We divided the reported symptoms into two groups—visible and nonvisible symptoms. We used decision tree analysis, an analytical machine learning method that organizes and analyzes information in the form of a tree diagram to visually represent the information structure. Our machine learning model used patient background data and visible symptoms to predict nonvisible symptoms: pain, dyspnea, fatigue, drowsiness, anxiety, delirium, inadequate informed consent, and spiritual issues. The highest and/or lowest values for prediction accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity were 88.0%/55.5%, 84.9%/3.3%, and 96.7%/24.1%, respectively. This work will facilitate better assessment and management of symptoms in patients with cancer. This study was the first to predict nonvisible symptoms using decision tree analyses for patients with cancer receiving palliative care. Notably, applications based on our results may assess symptoms to the same extent as healthcare professionals.
The potential use of glycosyl-transferase inhibitors for targeted reduction of S. mutans biofilms in dental materials
Authors: Scaffa Polliana Mendes Candia , Kendall Alexander , Icimoto Marcelo Yudi , Fugolin Ana Paula Piovezan , Logan Matthew G. , DeVito-Moraes Andre G. , Lewis Steven H. , Zhang Hua , Wu Hui , Pfeifer Carmem S.
Published: July 2023

Streptococcus mutans is the primary oral caries-forming bacteria, adept at producing “sticky” biofilms via the synthesis of insoluble extracellular polysaccharides (EPS), catalyzed by glucosyltransferases (GTFs). To circumvent the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics to combat these bacteria, this study sought to modify existing EPS-targeting small molecules with the ultimate goal of producing anti-biofilm polymer surfaces specifically targeting S. mutans. To achieve this, a known GTF inhibitor (G43) was modified with methoxy or tetraethyleneglycol substitutions in different positions (nine derivatives, tested at 50-µM) to pinpoint potential sites for future methacrylate functionalization, and then assessed against single-species S. mutans biofilms. As expected, the compounds did not diminish the bacterial viability. In general, the compounds with methoxy substitution were not effective in reducing EPS formation, whereas the tetraethyleneglycol substitution (G43-C3-TEG) led to a decrease in the concentration of insoluble EPS, although the effect is less pronounced than for the parent G43. This aligns with the reduced GTF-C activity observed at different concentrations of G43-C3-TEG, as well as the consequent decrease in EPS formation, and notable structural changes. In summary, this study determined that G43-C3-TEG is non-bactericidal and can selectively reduce the biofilm formation, by decreasing the production of EPS. This molecule will serve to functionalize surfaces of materials to be tested in future research.
The promise of zero-shot learning for alcohol image detection: comparison with a task-specific deep learning algorithm
Authors: Bonela Abraham Albert , Nibali Aiden , He Zhen , Riordan Benjamin , Anderson-Luxford Dan , Kuntsche Emmanuel
Published: July 2023

Exposure to alcohol content in media increases alcohol consumption and related harm. With exponential growth of media content, it is important to use algorithms to automatically detect and quantify alcohol exposure. Foundation models such as Contrastive Language-Image Pretraining (CLIP) can detect alcohol exposure through Zero-Shot Learning (ZSL) without any additional training. In this paper, we evaluated the ZSL performance of CLIP against a supervised algorithm called Alcoholic Beverage Identification Deep Learning Algorithm Version-2 (ABIDLA2), which is specifically trained to recognise alcoholic beverages in images, across three tasks. We found ZSL achieved similar performance compared to ABIDLA2 in two out of three tasks. However, ABIDLA2 outperformed ZSL in a fine-grained classification task in which determining subtle differences among alcoholic beverages (including containers) are essential. We also found that phrase engineering is essential for improving the performance of ZSL. To conclude, like ABIDLA2, ZSL with little phrase engineering can achieve promising performance in identifying alcohol exposure in images. This makes it easier for researchers, with little or no programming background, to implement ZSL effectively to obtain insightful analytics from digital media. Such analytics can assist researchers and policy makers to propose regulations that can prevent alcohol exposure and eventually prevent alcohol consumption.
N-eicosapentaenoyl-ethanolamine decreases the proliferation of psoriatic keratinocytes in a reconstructed psoriatic skin model
Authors: Simard Mélissa , Tremblay Andréa , Morin Sophie , Rioux Geneviève , Flamand Nicolas , Pouliot Roxane
Published: July 2023

Psoriasis is an inflammatory skin disease that is characterized by keratinocyte hyperproliferation, abnormal epidermal differentiation and dysregulated lipid metabolism. Some lipid mediators of the N-acylethanolamines (NAEs) and monoacylglycerols (MAGs) can bind to cannabinoid (CB) receptors and are referred to as part of the endocannabinoidome. Their implication in psoriasis remains unknown. The aim of the present study was to characterize the endocannabinoid system and evaluate the effects of n-3-derived NAEs, namely N-eicosapentaenoyl-ethanolamine (EPEA), in psoriatic keratinocytes using a psoriatic skin model produced by tissue engineering, following the self-assembly method. Psoriatic skin substitutes had lower FAAH2 expression and higher MAGL, ABHD6 and ABHD12 expression compared with healthy skin substitutes. Treatments with alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) increased the levels of EPEA and 1/2-docosapentaenoyl-glycerol, showing that levels of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids modulate related NAE and MAG levels. Treatments of the psoriatic substitutes with 10 μM of EPEA for 7 days resulted in decreased epidermal thickness and number of Ki67 positive keratinocytes, both indicating decreased proliferation of psoriatic keratinocytes. EPEA effects on keratinocyte proliferation were inhibited by the CB1 receptor antagonist rimonabant. Exogenous EPEA also diminished some inflammatory features of psoriasis. In summary, n-3-derived NAEs can reduce the psoriatic phenotype of a reconstructed psoriatic skin model.
Usefulness of intraoperative optical coherence tomography to minimize the intraocular lens tilt during the intrascleral fixation: a clinical and experimental evaluation
Authors: Sotani Yasuyuki , Imai Hisanori , Iwane Yukako , Yamada Hiroko , Matsumiya Wataru , Miki Akiko , Kusuhara Sentaro , Nakamura Makoto
Published: July 2023

To report the usefulness of intraoperative real-time adjustment of intraocular lens (IOL) tilt during the intrascleral fixation with intraoperative optical coherence tomography (iOCT) as a clinical evaluation and investigate the factors contributing to IOL tilt using iOCT as an experimental evaluation. Retrospective cohort study and experimental research. As a clinical evaluation, the medical records of 43 eyes of 41 patients who underwent intrascleral IOL fixation combined with real-time iOCT observation were retrospectively reviewed. As an experimental evaluation, in order to investigate the factors contributing to IOL tilt, the four experiments were performed using iOCT. The mean IOL tilt angle (°) at the end of surgery and 3 months after surgery were 1.81 ± 1.15 and 2.10 ± 1.66, respectively (p = 0.46). No apparent intra- or postoperative complications occurred during the follow-up period. The experimental evaluation indicated that the IOL tilt was influenced by the insertion angle of the haptic in the vertical direction. The mean IOL tilt angle (°) was 1.94 ± 0.09, 4.67 ± 0.11, 8.90 ± 0.11, and 15.78 ± 0.85 when the insertion angle of the haptic was 0°, 10°, 27.5°, and 45° in the vertical direction, respectively (p < 0.01). Clinical and experimental IOL tilt assessment using iOCT is interactively useful for better quality surgery and better postoperative outcome.
Optimizing efficiency in the creation of patient-specific plates through field-driven generative design in maxillofacial surgery
Authors: Tel Alessandro , Kornfellner Erik , Moscato Francesco , Vinayahalingam Shankeeth , Xi Tong , Arboit Lorenzo , Robiony Massimo
Published: July 2023

Field driven design is a novel approach that allows to define through equations geometrical entities known as implicit bodies. This technology does not rely upon conventional geometry subunits, such as polygons or edges, rather it represents spatial shapes through mathematical functions within a geometrical field. The advantages in terms of computational speed and automation are conspicuous, and well acknowledged in engineering, especially for lattice structures. Moreover, field-driven design amplifies the possibilities for generative design, facilitating the creation of shapes generated by the software on the basis of user-defined constraints. Given such potential, this paper suggests the possibility to use the software nTopology, which is currently the only software for field-driven generative design, in the context of patient-specific implant creation for maxillofacial surgery. Clinical scenarios of applicability, including trauma and orthognathic surgery, are discussed, as well as the integration of this new technology with current workflows of virtual surgical planning. This paper represents the first application of field-driven design in maxillofacial surgery and, although its results are very preliminary as it is limited in considering only the distance field elaborated from specific points of reconstructed anatomy, it introduces the importance of this new technology for the future of personalized implant design in surgery.
SALA-LSTM: a novel high-precision maritime radar target detection method based on deep learning
Authors: Wang Jingang , Li Songbin
Published: July 2023

Radar detection of maritime targets plays an important role in marine environment monitoring. For civil maritime detection in the areas of inshore coastal, pulse-compression radar is universally used owing to its low cost. The complex sea clutter in the practical application will greatly affect the received radar echoes. Due to the inability to accurately describe the differences in characteristics between sea clutter and maritime targets, the detection performance of methods based on mathematical derivation is not satisfactory in actual deployment. Recently, neural-based methods have made strides in many pattern recognition tasks, such as computer vision and natural language processing. The sophisticated deep neural models can be applied to different downstream tasks due to their powerful learning ability. Inspired by this idea, we propose a maritime radar target detection method in sea clutter based on deep learning. To better model the sequence correlation of radar echoes, we propose a Self-Adaption Local Augmented Long Short-Term Memory (SALA-LSTM) structure. The proposed SALA-LSTM integrates adaptive convolution into vanilla LSTM cells, which not only maintains the inherent overall sequence modeling ability of vanilla LSTM, but also strengthens its ability to perceive the correlation on a small scale in the local scope. Based on SALA-LSTM and other neural structures, we propose a radar target detection network. A measured dataset containing different typical scenarios is utilized to evaluate the detection probability and false alarm rate. The detection performance of our proposed network is superior to that of the existing methods.
Nanohybrids of atomically precise metal nanoclusters
Authors: Sahoo Koustav , Gazi Tapu Raihan , Roy Soumyadip , Chakraborty Indranath
Published: July 2023

Atomically precise metal nanoclusters (NCs) with molecule-like structures are emerging nanomaterials with fascinating chemical and physical properties. Photoluminescence (PL), catalysis, sensing, etc., are some of the most intriguing and promising properties of NCs, making the metal NCs potentially beneficial in different applications. However, long-term instability under ambient conditions is often considered the primary barrier to translational research in the relevant application fields. Creating nanohybrids between such atomically precise NCs and other stable nanomaterials (0, 1, 2, or 3D) can help expand their applicability. Many such recently reported nanohybrids have gained promising attention as a new class of materials in the application field, exhibiting better stability and exciting properties of interest. This perspective highlights such nanohybrids and briefly explains their exciting properties. These hybrids are categorized based on the interactions between the NCs and other materials, such as metal-ligand covalent interactions, hydrogen-bonding, host-guest, hydrophobic, and electrostatic interactions during the formation of nanohybrids. This perspective will also capture some of the new possibilities with such nanohybrids.
Recent advances in proton exchange membrane water electrolysis
Authors: Liu Rui-Ting , Xu Zheng-Long , Li Fu-Min , Chen Fei-Yang , Yu Jing-Ya , Yan Ya , Chen Yu , Xia Bao Yu
Published: July 2023

This review scrutinizes recent progress in PEMWE system including mechanisms, the correlation among structure-composition–performance, manufacturing, system design and operation protocols. The challenges and perspectives for applications are proposed.
Photoactive hydrogels for pre-concentration, labelling, and controlled release of proteins
Authors: Kellermann Leanne , Gupta Ruchi
Published: July 2023

We report a novel hydrogel for pre-concentration, fluorescent labelling, and light-triggered release of proteins for detection of low abundance biomarkers.
Deriving high value products from depolymerized lignin oil, aided by (bio)catalytic funneling strategies
Authors: Wu Xianyuan , De bruyn Mario , Barta Katalin
Published: July 2023

(Bio)catalytic funnelling has been showing a powerful methodology that is capable of catalytically transforming of a complex of depolymerized lignin oil into high value-added and well-defined chemicals and polymeric materials.
Concise total synthesis and structure revision of metacridamides A and B
Authors: Yoshida Masahito , Okoshi Yuhi , Kigoshi Hideo
Published: July 2023

Concise total synthesis of metacridamides is accomplished, resulting in the revision of the absolute configuration of the C-9 position.
Chemical reaction networks based on conjugate additions on β′-substituted Michael acceptors
Authors: Spitzbarth Benjamin , Eelkema Rienk
Published: July 2023

The diverse reactivity of β′-substituted Michael acceptors make them a perfect fit for the application in Chemical Reaction Networks (CRNs). We show how these CRNs can find use in material science, signal amplification, and beyond.
Phosphorus derivatives of mesoionic carbenes: synthesis and characterization of triazaphosphole-5-ylidene → BF3adducts
Authors: Dettling Lea , Limberg Niklas , Küppers Raphaela , Frost Daniel , Weber Manuela , Coles Nathan T. , Andrada Diego M. , Müller Christian
Published: July 2023

BF3adducts of unprecedented triazaphosphol-5-ylidenes were prepared. These carbenes are the phosphorus congeners of tetrazol-5-ylidenes with abnormal substitution pattern.
Machine learning search for stable binary Sn alloys with Na, Ca, Cu, Pd, and Ag
Authors: Thorn Aidan , Gochitashvili Daviti , Kharabadze Saba , Kolmogorov Aleksey N.
Published: July 2023

We have screened a large configuration space of tin alloys with machine learning potentials (MLPs) and identified 29 binary phases thermodynamically stable under accessible pressure and temperature conditions.
Co2P nanowire arrays anchored on a 3D porous reduced graphene oxide matrix embedded in nickel foam for a high-efficiency hydrogen evolution reaction
Authors: Wang Yuanqiang , Wang Ting , Yang Mengru , Rui Yichuan , Xue Zhili , Zhu Haozhen , Wang Chengjie , Li Jing , Chen Binling
Published: July 2023

The configuration, HER mechanism, LSV curves, and durability of Co2P nanowire arrays anchored on a 3D porous reduced graphene oxide matrix embedded in nickel foam (Co2P@3D-rGO/NF).
New class of RSO2-NHC ligands and Pd/RSO2-NHC complexes with tailored electronic properties and high performance in catalytic C–C and C–N bonds formation
Authors: Pasyukov Dmitry V. , Shevchenko Maxim A. , Astakhov Alexander V. , Minyaev Mikhail E. , Zhang Yu , Chernyshev Victor M. , Ananikov Valentine P.
Published: July 2023

A new type of Pd/NHC complex with the RSO2 group directly attached to the imidazol-2-ylidene ligand core was synthesized and evaluated in the catalysis of model C–C and C–N bond-forming reactions.
Polymeric integration of structure-switching aptamers on transistors for histamine sensing
Authors: Shkodra Bajramshahe , Petrelli Mattia , Yang Kyung-Ae , Tagliaferri Anna , Lugli Paolo , Petti Luisa , Nakatsuka Nako
Published: July 2023

We explore alternative non-covalent surface chemistry to functionalize CNTs with aptamers. We harness the adhesive properties of poly-d-lysine to coat CNTs, then graft histamine-specific DNA aptamers electrostatically in close proximity to the CNT semiconducting channel.
A point-of-care microfluidic biosensing system for rapid and ultrasensitive nucleic acid detection from clinical samples
Authors: Zhang Yuxuan , Song Yang , Weng Zhengyan , Yang Jie , Avery Lori , Dieckhaus Kevin D. , Lai Rebecca Y. , Gao Xue , Zhang Yi
Published: July 2023

A point-of-care microfluidic device takes unprocessed clinical samples, actively lyses viral RNAs, and performs the target amplification-free nucleic acid detection with a limit of detection down to 10 aM with 25 min sample-to-result time.
Exposure to solvent vapours for enhanced N-type OTFT stability
Authors: Brixi Samantha , Lamontagne Halynne R. , King Benjamin , Shuhendler Adam J. , Lessard Benoît H.
Published: July 2023

To achieve commercialization of organic electronics, the field must see an improvement in both performance and material stability while maintaining a low cost of fabrication.
Targeted and efficient delivery of rifampicin to macrophages involved in non-tuberculous mycobacterial infection via mannosylated solid lipid nanoparticles
Authors: Chae Jayoung , Kang Seung Hyun , Kim Jiwon , Choi Yonghyun , Kang Shin Hyuk , Choi Jonghoon
Published: July 2023

Targeting mannose receptors expressed on the M. intracellulare infected macrophages with rifampin-loaded mannosylated solid lipid nanoparticles (Man-RIF SLNs) can significantly increase drug delivery efficiency with minimal side effects.
Highly efficient post-synthetically modified UiO-66 MOF for the extraction of Pd(ii) from aqueous solutions: experimental and theoretical studies
Authors: Sengupta Somnath , Sahoo Madhusmita , Sravani V. Venkata , Sreenivasulu B. , Rao C. V. S. Brahmananda , Suresh A.
Published: July 2023

Recovery of palladium from aqueous streams is necessary to meet increasing demands of industries and safe management of radioactive nuclear waste.
Large-scale synthesis of 2D-silica (SiOx) nanosheets using graphene oxide (GO) as a template material
Authors: Birdsong Björn K. , Hoogendoorn Billy W. , Nilsson Fritjof , Andersson Richard L. , Capezza Antonio J. , Hedenqvist Mikael S. , Farris Stefano , Guerrero Antonio , Olsson Richard T.
Published: July 2023

Graphene oxide (GO) was used in this study as a template to successfully synthesize silicon oxide (SiOx) based 2D-nanomaterials, adopting the same morphological features as the GO sheets.
Biosynthesis of metallic nanoparticles by bacterial cell-free extract
Authors: Della-Flora Isabela Karina , de Andrade Cristiano José
Published: July 2023

Biosynthesizing metallic nanoparticles (MNPs) using cell-free extracts (CFEs) is a promising approach, offering control over size, shape, stability, and biological properties. Tuning synthesis parameters like temperature, pH, and time enables tailored MNPs with diverse applications.
Exception search in databases for polymers with practically contradictory properties of heat resistance and transparency
Authors: Nakamura Yasuyuki , Gros Alice , Zhang Wenhao , Sodeyama Keitaro , Naito Masanobu
Published: July 2023

Searching unexplored areas in a comprehensive polymer database enabled efficient finding of heat-resistant transparent polymer materials through filtering, screening and experimental verification.
Sourcing, thermodynamics, and ring-opening (co)polymerization of substituted δ-lactones: a review
Authors: McMichael Peter , Schultze Xavier , Cramail Henri , Peruch Frédéric
Published: July 2023

Substituted δ-lactones are mostly biobased monomers with unfavorable to intermediate thermodynamic parameters. Nevertheless, they can lead to the synthesis of (co)polyesters by ring-opening (co)polymerization mediated by either organocatalysis or metal-based catalysis.
Type-II ternary Bi2WO6/rGO/SnFe2O4 heterojunction nanocomposites and their photocatalytic efficiency towards 4-nitrophenol reduction
Authors: Narayanan Vani , Mandal Badal Kumar
Published: July 2023

Type-II ternary Bi2WO6/rGO/SnFe2O4 heterojunction nanocomposites were synthesized using a hydrothermal method for the reduction of 4-nitrophenol to 4-aminophenol photocatalytically in the presence of excess NaBH4.
An efficient approach for controlling the crystallization, strain, and defects of the perovskite film in hybrid perovskite solar cells through antisolvent engineering
Authors: Tzoganakis Nikolaos , Chatzimanolis Konstantinos , Spiliarotis Emmanuel , Veisakis George , Tsikritzis Dimitris , Kymakis Emmanuel
Published: July 2023

Antisolvent engineering with the octylammonium salt OABr improves the quality of the perovskite film and suppresses nonradiative losses by 43.6%, resulting in high performance and stable inverted perovskite solar cells.
In situ growth of Zn-based metal–organic frameworks in ultra-high surface area nano-wood aerogel for efficient CO2 capture and separation
Authors: Huang Jianpeng , Yang Deshi , Hu Zhipeng , Zhang Huihui , Zhang Zhijun , Wang Fengqiang , Xie Yanjun , Liu Shouxin , Wang Qingwen , Pittman Charles U.
Published: July 2023

Series wood-based MOF composites were fabricated by in situ growth of metal–organic frameworks in nano-wood aerogel, achieving a sustainable and efficient capture and separation of CO2.
Fine-tuning surface oxidation states of ruthenium nanoparticles to enhance hydrogen electrode reactions
Authors: Zhao Hao , Li Jiejie , Zou Jian , Tan Yangchun , Chen Chi , Yang Bo , Cheng Qingqing , Yang Hui
Published: July 2023

The oxidation state of surface atoms on small-sized Ru-NPs can be precisely tuned by NP sizes. The intrinsic activities of the HER/HOR strongly depend on the surface Ru–O structure.
Pseudo-bilayered inverted organic solar cells using the Marangoni effect
Authors: Jo Jihwan , Jeong Seonju , Lee Dongchan , Lee Seungjin , Kim Bumjoon J. , Cho Shinuk , Lee Jung-Yong
Published: July 2023

A pseudo-bilayered (PB) inverted organic solar cell was fabricated by transferring a PM6 film onto a Y7-BO film through the Marangoni effect. The residual solvent within PM6 intermixed the Y7-BO/PM6 interface, and formed the PB structure.
Contact loss and its improvement at the interface between the cathode and solid electrolyte in all solid-state batteries based on multi-scale and multi-physics analysis
Authors: Hwang Taesoon , Chung Ingyun , Im Sunyoung , Lee Jonggeon , Cho Maenghyo , Cho Kyeongjae
Published: July 2023

Contact loss occurs by direct displacement transfer from the cathode to the solid electrolyte and is highly improved by synergetic effect of external pressurization and introduction of polymer fillers.
RyR2 C-terminal truncating variants identified in patients with arrhythmic phenotypes exert a dominant negative effect through formation of wildtype-truncation heteromers
Authors: Tian Shanshan , Zhong Xiaowei , Wang Hui , Wei Jinhong , Guo Wenting , Wang Ruiwu , Paul Estillore John , Napolitano Carlo , Duff Henry H. , Ilhan Erkan , Knight Linda M. , Lloyd Michael S. , Roberts Jason D. , Priori Silvia G. , Chen S.R. Wayne
Published: July 2023

Gain-of-function missense variants in the cardiac ryanodine receptor (RyR2) are linked to catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (CPVT), whereas RyR2 loss-of-function missense variants cause Ca2+ release deficiency syndrome (CRDS). Recently, truncating variants in RyR2 have also been associated with ventricular arrhythmias (VAs) and sudden cardiac death. However, there are limited insights into the potential clinical relevance and in vitro functional impact of RyR2 truncating variants. We performed genetic screening of patients presenting with syncope, VAs, or unexplained sudden death and in vitro characterization of the expression and function of RyR2 truncating variants in HEK293 cells. We identified two previously unknown RyR2 truncating variants (Y4591Ter and R4663Ter) and one splice site variant predicted to result in a frameshift and premature termination (N4717 + 15Ter). These 3 new RyR2 truncating variants and a recently reported RyR2 truncating variant, R4790Ter, were generated and functionally characterized in vitro. Immunoprecipitation and immunoblotting analyses showed that all 4 RyR2 truncating variants formed heteromers with the RyR2-wildtype (WT) protein. Each of these C-terminal RyR2 truncations was non-functional and suppressed [3H]ryanodine binding to RyR2-WT and RyR2-WT mediated store overload induced spontaneous Ca2+ release activity in HEK293 cells. The expression of these RyR2 truncating variants in HEK293 cells was markedly reduced compared with that of the full-length RyR2 WT protein. Our data indicate that C-terminal RyR2 truncating variants are non-functional and can exert a dominant negative impact on the function of the RyR2 WT protein through formation of heteromeric WT/truncation complex.
Bilingual Adolescents' Complex Syntax Production in Both Languages Across Conversational and Expository Contexts
Authors: Rioux Eve Julie , Thordardottir Elin
Published: July 2023

Purpose:

Bilingual development has been shown to be highly dependent on language-specific exposure. This study extended the study of bilingual development to adolescence and to the production of complex syntax in two contexts: conversation and expository discourse.

Method:

English–French bilinguals (EFbil;
n
= 27) and French L1 speakers (
n
= 14) aged 12 to 17 years produced French and English conversational and expository samples. Measures of mean length of T-units and clausal density were used, as well as a measure of detailed subordinate clause diversity developed in this study.

Results:

Both groups produced more complex syntax in expository discourse compared to conversation and performed very similarly overall. Significant group differences were found in French subordinate clause diversity but not in sentence length or clause density. For EFbil, differences between languages were unexpectedly greater in conversation. Previous language exposure impacted both languages of the EFbil and in both contexts.

Conclusions:

This study is the first to report on the spontaneous syntactic use of bilingual adolescents in both their languages. Subtle but significant differences were found in the syntactic skills of the two groups. Expository and conversational contexts each provided unique information on aspects of complex syntactic development, calling into question the idea that the ability to produce a more complex context guarantees conversational abilities. Finally, for the EFbil, previous language exposure impacted both languages, particularly in conversation.

Supplemental Material:

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23713152
Novel circulator design using substrate integrated coaxial line
Authors: Ho Min‐Hua , Hong Jing‐Jie , Hsu Chung I. G. , Hong Wanchu
Published: July 2023

The contribution of this work is to propose a novel circulator design using the substrate‐integrated coaxial line (SICL) structure. Conventionally, the circulator is composed of three‐dimensional waveguide components, and, in contrast, the proposed SICL circulator allows the 3‐D waveguide circulator to be built in a planar form using the printed circuit board (PCB) technology. The proposed SICL circulator is composed of three substrates with two parallel signal strips embedded in the central SICL tunnel. For better impedance matching, a widened section is inserted in each uniform feedline, and the Y‐junction joint on the bottom surface of the middle substrate is connected with three stubs and is loaded with a circular disk on the top surface of the middle substrate. A bandpass filter (BPF) can be embedded in each circulator's branch to improve signal selectivity and the out‐of‐band isolation. Experiments are conducted to verify the circuit design. Agreements are observed between the measured and simulated data.
A high‐performance and lightweight framework for real‐time facial expression recognition
Authors: Xu Xuebin , Liu Chenguang , Cao Shuxin , Lu Longbin
Published: July 2023

Facial expression recognition technology has become a powerful tool for conveying human emotions and intentions and is widely used in areas such as assisted driving and intelligent medical care. Due to the limited computing power of current hardware devices and the real‐time requirements of application scenarios, this paper proposes a high‐performance and lightweight framework for real‐time facial expression recognition framework to solve the problem of real‐time completion of expression recognition tasks under low hardware costs. To address these issues, this paper first designs a RepVGG and mobileNetV2 dual‐channel structure in the feature extraction. It is then input into the MobileViT Block for global feature modelling. Finally, the position vector of the capsule network is used to replace the output of the global pooling, preserving the spatial relationship of the salient features and enhancing the classification effect. Compared with the mainstream facial expression recognition algorithm that cannot get good classification results under low complexity conditions, the model has a significant accuracy improvement while ensuring lightweight. With only 294.60M FLOPS and 0.95M parameters, it achieved an accuracy of 97.53% on the KDEF dataset and 85.56% on the RAF‐DB, demonstrating the advanced nature of the algorithm.
CMLocate: A cross‐modal automatic visual geo‐localization framework for a natural environment without GNSS information
Authors: Liu Zhuoqun , Guo Fan , Liu Heng , Xiao Xiaoyue , Tang Jin
Published: July 2023

In this paper, a new approach to visual geo‐localization for natural environments is proposed. The digital elevation model (DEM) data in virtual space is rendered and construct a panoramic skyline database is constructed. By combining the skyline database with real‐world image data (used as the “queries” to be localized), visual geo‐localization is treated as a cross‐modal image retrieval problem for panoramic skyline images, creating a unique new visual geo‐localization benchmark for the natural environment. Specifically, the semantic segmentation model named LineNet is proposed, for skyline extractions from query images, which has proven to be robust to a variety of complex natural environments. On the aforementioned benchmarks, the fully automatic method is elaborated for large‐scale cross‐modal localization using panoramic skyline images. Finally, the compound index is delicately designed to reduce the storage space of the positioning global descriptors and improve the retrieval efficiency. Moreover, the proposed method is proven to outperform most state‐of‐the‐art methods.
Multi‐modal object detection via transformer network
Authors: Liu Wenbing , Wang Haibo , Gao Quanxue , Zhu Zhaorui
Published: July 2023

According to the fact that single‐modal data usually contain limited information, a great deal of effort has been devoted to making use of the complementary information contained in the multi‐modal data on various patterns. Thus, this paper is concerned with an object detection method that can fully utilize multi‐modal data. First, the method introduces the transformer mechanism to realize the fusion of intra‐modal and inter‐modal features of different modal data. The aim is to take advantage of the complementarity of data between modalities, which helps to improve the performance of multi‐modal object detection. Second, a contrastive loss suitable for contrastive learning is applied. This enables the authors to effectively utilize label information. Extensive experiments are conducted on multiple object detection datasets to demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method.
DS‐Net: Dual supervision neural network for image manipulation localization
Authors: Dai Chenwei , Su Lichao , Wu Bin , Chen Jian
Published: July 2023

With the rapid development of image editing technology, tampering with images has become easier. Maliciously tampered images lead to serious security problems (e.g., when used as evidence). The current mainstream methods of image tampering are divided into three types which are copy‐move, splicing and removal. Many image tampering detection methods can only detect one type of image tampering. Additionally, some methods learn features by suppressing image content, which can result in false positives when identifying tampered areas. In this paper, the authors propose a novel framework named the dual supervision neural network (DS‐Net) to localize the tampered regions of images tampered by the three tampering methods mentioned above. First, to extract richer multiscale information, the authors add skip connections to the atrous spatial pyramid pooling (ASPP) module. Second, a channel attention mechanism is introduced to dynamically weigh the results generated by ASPP. Finally, the authors build additional supervised branches for high‐level features to further enhance the extraction of these high‐level features before fusing them with low‐level features. The authors conduct experiments on various standard datasets. Through extensive experiments, the results show that the AUC scores reach 86.4%, 95.3% and 99.6% for CASIA, COVERAGE and NIST16 datasets, respectively, and the F1 scores are 56.0%, 73.4% and 82.7%, respectively. The results demonstrate that the authors’ method can accurately locate tampered regions and achieve better performance on various datasets than other methods of the same type.
Single‐image snow removal algorithm based on generative adversarial networks
Authors: Zhang Zhijia , Wu Sinan , Wang Shixian
Published: July 2023

The effect of snowfall on an image is not only the interference of snow particles but also snow streaks and masking effects (similar to haze). Snowy weather severely reduces the accuracy of computer vision systems. There is a lot of interest in how to effectively remove snow while preserving as much of the original image information as possible. Based on this, the authors propose an effective Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) snow removal algorithm for single images to solve the snow removal failure problem caused by irregular snow particles and snow streaks. Specifically, the authors improve the original GAN network as follows: A novel Transformer module, the Contextual Transformer (CoT) module, is adopted in the residual modules based generator. It effectively uses the contextual information of the snow streaks neighbourhood to restore the texture and information in the noisy image as much as possible based on the focus on snow streaks features. Also, using learnable Regionalized Normalization (RN‐L), potentially corrupted and undamaged regions are automatically detected for separate normalization, and global affine transformations are performed to enhance their fusion. In addition, a multi‐scale discriminator is used in the discriminator to make the discrimination more adequate and retain more details. Extensive experiments have shown that the authors’ GAN network snow removal algorithm outperforms various current networks on snow removal studies in terms of evaluation metrics on both synthetic and real datasets.
Active contour model based on hybrid signed pressure force function
Authors: Meng XinChao , Si Si
Published: July 2023

To segment noisy and multi‐target images, an active contour model based on a hybrid signed pressure force function that fuses global and local information of the image is proposed. Firstly, a local signed pressure force function is defined using the local area information of the image. Then, it is combined with the existing global grey density function to construct a new signed pressure force function. Finally, the selective binary and Gaussian filtering regularized level set are modified using the newly defined function. Extensive experiments and comparisons on both synthetic and real images demonstrate that the proposed method is robust to noise and can handle noisy and multi‐target images with high accuracy.