bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Effects of Different Extraction Methods in Pharmacopoeia on the Content and Structure Transformation of Ginsenosides
Authors: Li Hui , Jiang Hua , Xu Lei , Deng Yaling , Xu Jing , Zhao Yuqing
Published: July 2022

Ginseng (Panax ginseng C. A. Meyer), a perennial herb, possesses immunostimulatory, anticarcinogenic, antiemetic, and antioxidative biological activities. In recent years, more and more people have paid attention to the extraction methods and quality evaluation of ginseng. China, the United States, Europe, Japan, and Korea have all had the quality standards and content determination methods of ginseng. The different treatment methods are adopted before the determination of ginseng samples and the content limits of the index components, such as ginsenoside Rb1, ginsenoside Rg1, and ginsenoside Re exist differences. The similarities and differences of ginseng content detection methods in pharmacopoeias of different countries have been analyzed by a research group, but the comparison of the effects of different methods on the ginsenoside content and structural transformation has not been reported. In this paper, ginsenosides in ginseng were extracted according to four national pharmacopoeias and analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively by UPLC-Q-Exactive-MS and HPLC-UV. It was illustrated that the pretreatment method has a significant influence on the content determination of ginseng. The yield of rare saponins was increased by heating concluded from both the qualitative and quantitative comparison. Finally, a simple and feasible extraction method was optimized by response surface method at room temperature. The analysis of the preparation method and process optimization of the four pharmacopoeias can provide important reference information for the revision of ginseng standards.
Melatonin Reverses the Warburg-Type Metabolism and Reduces Mitochondrial Membrane Potential of Ovarian Cancer Cells Independent of MT1 Receptor Activation
Authors: Cucielo Maira Smaniotto , Cesário Roberta Carvalho , Silveira Henrique Spaulonci , Gaiotte Letícia Barbosa , dos Santos Sérgio Alexandre Alcantara , de Campos Zuccari Debora Aparecida Pires , Seiva Fábio Rodrigues Ferreira , Reiter Russel J. , de Almeida Chuffa Luiz Gustavo
Published: July 2022

Ovarian cancer (OC) is the most lethal gynecologic malignancy, and melatonin has shown various antitumor properties. Herein, we investigated the influence of melatonin therapy on energy metabolism and mitochondrial integrity in SKOV-3 cells and tested whether its effects depended on MT1 receptor activation. SKOV-3 cells were exposed to different melatonin concentrations, and experimental groups were divided as to the presence of MT1 receptors (melatonin groups) or receptor absence by RNAi silencing (siRNA MT1+melatonin). Intracellular melatonin levels increased after treatment with melatonin independent of the MT1. The mitochondrial membrane potential of SKOV-3 cells decreased in the group treated with the highest melatonin concentration. Melatonin reduced cellular glucose consumption, while MT1 knockdown increased its consumption. Interconversion of lactate to pyruvate increased after treatment with melatonin and was remarkable in siRNA MT1 groups. Moreover, lactate dehydrogenase activity decreased with melatonin and increased after MT1 silencing at all concentrations. The UCSC XenaBrowser tool showed a positive correlation between the human ASMTL gene and the ATP synthase genes, succinate dehydrogenase gene (SDHD), and pyruvate dehydrogenase genes (PDHA and PDHB). We conclude that melatonin changes the glycolytic phenotype and mitochondrial integrity of SKOV-3 cells independent of the MT1 receptor, thus decreasing the survival advantage of OC cells.
Is Glyceryl Trinitrate, a Nitric Oxide Donor Responsible for Ameliorating the Chemical-Induced Tissue Injury In Vivo?
Authors: Ahmed Ayesha Rahman , Ahmed Mahiba , Vun-Sang Senty , Iqbal Mohammad
Published: July 2022

Oxidative stress induced by well-known toxins including ferric nitrilotriacetate (Fe-NTA), carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) and thioacetamide (TAA) has been attributed to causing tissue injury in the liver and kidney. In this study, the effect of glyceryl trinitrate (GTN), a donor of nitric oxide and NG-nitroarginine methyl ester (l-NAME), a nitric oxide inhibitor on TAA-induced hepatic oxidative stress, GSH and GSH-dependent enzymes, serum transaminases and tumor promotion markers such as ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) activity and [3H]-thymidine incorporation in rats were examined. The animals were divided into seven groups consisting of six healthy rats per group. The six rats were injected intraperitoneally with TAA to evaluate its toxic effect, improvement in its toxic effect if any, or worsening in its toxic effect if any, when given in combination with GTN or l-NAME. The single necrogenic dose of TAA administration caused a significant change in the levels of both hepatic and serum enzymes such as glutathione S-transferase (GST), glutathione reductase (GR), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), γ-glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT), glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD), alanine aminotransferase (AST) and aspartate aminotransferase (ALT). In addition, treatment with TAA also augmented malondialdehyde (MDA), ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) activity and [3H]-thymidine incorporation in rats liver. Concomitantly, TAA treatment depleted the levels of GSH. However, most of these changes were alleviated by the treatment of animals with GTN dose-dependently. The protective effect of GTN against TAA was also confirmed histopathologically. The present data confirmed our earlier findings with other oxidants including Fe-NTA and CCl4. The GTN showed no change whatsoever when administered alone, however when it was given along with TAA then it showed protection thereby contributing towards defending the role against oxidants-induced organ toxicity. Overall, GTN may contribute to protection against TAA-induced oxidative stress, toxicity, and proliferative response in the liver, according to our findings.
Bioactive Phenolic Compounds from Peperomia obtusifolia
Authors: Ware Ismail , Franke Katrin , Hussain Hidayat , Morgan Ibrahim , Rennert Robert , Wessjohann Ludger A.
Published: July 2022

Peperomia obtusifolia (L.) A. Dietr., native to Middle America, is an ornamental plant also traditionally used for its mild antimicrobial properties. Chemical investigation on the leaves of P. obtusifolia resulted in the isolation of two previously undescribed compounds, named peperomic ester (1) and peperoside (2), together with five known compounds, viz. N-[2-(3,4-dihydroxyphenyl)ethyl]-3,4-dihydroxybenzamide (3), becatamide (4), peperobtusin A (5), peperomin B (6), and arabinothalictoside (7). The structures of these compounds were elucidated by 1D and 2D NMR techniques and HREIMS analyses. Compounds 1–7 were evaluated for their anthelmintic (against Caenorhabditis elegans), antifungal (against Botrytis cinerea, Septoria tritici and Phytophthora infestans), antibacterial (against Bacillus subtilis and Aliivibrio fischeri), and antiproliferative (against PC-3 and HT-29 human cancer cell lines) activities. The known peperobtusin A (5) was the most active compound against the PC-3 cancer cell line with IC50 values of 25.6 µM and 36.0 µM in MTT and CV assays, respectively. This compound also induced 90% inhibition of bacterial growth of the Gram-positive B. subtilis at a concentration of 100 µM. In addition, compound 3 showed anti-oomycotic activity against P. infestans with an inhibition value of 56% by using a concentration of 125 µM. However, no anthelmintic activity was observed.
Temperature-Dependent Exciton Dynamics in a Single GaAs Quantum Ring and a Quantum Dot
Authors: Kim Heedae , Kim Jong Su , Song Jin Dong
Published: July 2022

Micro-photoluminescence was observed while increasing the excitation power in a single GaAs quantum ring (QR) at 4 K. Fine structures at the energy levels of the ground (N = 1) and excited (N = 2) state excitons exhibited a blue shift when excitation power increased. The excited state exciton had a strong polarization dependence that stemmed from the asymmetric localized state. According to temperature-dependence measurements, strong exciton–phonon interaction (48 meV) was observed from an excited exciton state in comparison with the weak exciton–phonon interaction (27 meV) from the ground exciton state, resulting from enhanced confinement in the excited exciton state. In addition, higher activation energy (by 20 meV) was observed for the confined electrons in a single GaAs QR, where the confinement effect was enhanced by the asymmetric ring structure.
Hypertension: Constraining the Expression of ACE-II by Adopting Optimal Macronutrients Diet Predicted via Support Vector Machine
Authors: Khan Mohammad Farhan , Kalyan Gazal , Chakrabarty Sohom , Mursaleen M.
Published: July 2022

The recent elevation of cases infected from novel COVID-19 has placed the human life in trepidation mode, especially for those suffering from comorbidities. Most of the studies in the last few months have undeniably raised concerns for hypertensive patients that face greater risk of fatality from COVID-19. Furthermore, one of the recent WHO reports has estimated a total of 1.13 billion people are at a risk of hypertension of which two-thirds live in low and middle income countries. The gradual escalation of the hypertension problem andthe sudden rise of COVID-19 cases have placed an increasingly higher number of human lives at risk in low and middle income countries. To lower the risk of hypertension, most physicians recommend drugs that have angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors. However, prolonged use of such drugs is not recommended due to metabolic risks and the increase in the expression of ACE-II which could facilitate COVID-19 infection. In contrast, the intake of optimal macronutrients is one of the possible alternatives to naturally control hypertension. In the present study, a nontrivial feature selection and machine learning algorithm is adopted to intelligently predict the food-derived antihypertensive peptide. The proposed idea of the paper lies in reducing the computational power while retaining the performance of the support vector machine (SVM) by estimating the dominant pattern in the features space through feature filtering. The proposed feature filtering algorithm has reported a trade-off performance by reducing the chances of Type I error, which is desirable when recommending a dietary food to patients suffering from hypertension. The maximum achievable accuracy of the best performing SVM models through feature selection are 86.17% and 85.61%, respectively.
Facile Synthesis of Multi-Emission Nitrogen/Boron Co-Doped Carbon Dots from Lignin for Anti-Counterfeiting Printing
Authors: Gu Xuexin , Zhu Lingli , Shen Dekui , Li Chong
Published: July 2022

The transformation of lignin with natural aromatic structure into value-added carbon dots (CDs) achieves a win-win situation for low-cost production of novel nanomaterials and reasonable disposal of biomass waste. However, it remains challenging to produce multi-emission CDs from biomass for advanced applications. Herein, a green and facile approach to preparing multi-emission CDs from alkali lignin via N and B co-doping is developed. The obtained N and B co-doped CDs (NB-CDs) show multi-emission fluorescence centers at 346, 428 and 514 nm under different excitations. As the doping amount of N and B increases, the fluorescence emission band gradually shifts to 428 and 514 nm, while that at 346 nm decreases. The fluorescence mechanism is explored through the research of the structure, composition and optical performance of NB-CDs in combination with density functional theory (DFT) calculations. It demonstrates that the effect of doping with B-containing functional groups on the fluorescence emission behavior is multivariate, which may be the crucial contribution to the unique multi-emission fluorescence of CDs. The multi-emission NB-CDs with prominent stability are applied for multilevel anti-counterfeiting printing. It provides a promising direction for the sustainable and advanced application of biomass-derived CDs, and the theoretical results highlight a new insight into the deep understanding of the multi-emission fluorescence mechanism.
‘This Is Our Testimony to the Whole World’: Quaker Peace Work and Religious Experience
Authors: Rosen Matt
Published: July 2022

Quakers express their faith by refraining from war, often actively opposing it. In modern Quakerism, this is known as the ‘Peace Testimony’. This commonly has a negative and positive construal: it is seen as a testimony against war, and as a testimony to the possibility and goodness of peaceful lives. This paper offers an account of how these aspects of the Peace Testimony are unified in and grounded on a corporate experience of being led by God into a way of life that renders war unthinkable. My goal is to make sense of Friends’ activism in light of their religious experience and to introduce some ideas from Quaker practical theology to philosophers and theologians more generally. I begin by considering the role of what Rachel Muers calls ‘negative testimony’ in Quaker peace work, arguing that we risk misunderstanding this work if we do not see the unity of the Peace Testimony’s negativity and Friends’ positive peace-making endeavors. I then turn to the Testimony’s ground, which I claim can be nothing other than an experience of direct revelation. I conclude by arguing that prominent objections to pacifism, such as Elizabeth Anscombe’s, hold little weight against the Peace Testimony.
The Puzzle of Italian Religious Freedoms: Local Experiments and Complex Interactions
Authors: Giorgi Alberta , Giorda Maria Chiara , Palmisano Stefania
Published: July 2022

“Religious freedom” has many different meanings, and its social perceptions vary depending on different factors, including different understandings of the role of religion in society. In this paper, we contribute to the analysis of the intersections between the institutional definitions and the social perceptions by comparatively analyzing the practices and discourses on religious freedom in the fields of healthcare and school canteens through regional and municipal case studies in Italy. Results allow exploring the role of individual actors and local and sectoral cultures in enforcing specific practices in the broad area of “religious freedom”.
Inspiring Intergenerational Relationships: Aging and the New Testament from One Historian’s Perspective
Authors: LaFosse Mona Tokarek
Published: July 2022

The Christian New Testament contains surprisingly few references to age and aging, and what readers do encounter is usually read through the lens of their own experiences and assumptions about age. In this article, I approach the New Testament from my vantage point as a historian of early Christianity to glean meaning relevant for aging and intergenerational relationships today by engaging a contextual approach to the reader and the text. I begin with a sketch of the diversity of attitudes and approaches among people who may have interest in finding meaning in the Bible as they age and among caregivers who want to nurture meaning as they care for older family members or clients. I then consider older age in the New Testament, noting that we find relatively few older individuals or inspiration for aging in the texts of the New Testament. However, focusing on one text in particular (1 Timothy) through a lens of storytelling, I argue that a historically and culturally sensitive reading of the biblical text in its own context opens new possibilities for finding meaning related to aging. Namely, I reflect on the value of three relational aspects of intergenerational interaction that may inspire such relationships today: (1) the power and wisdom of storytelling, (2) the importance of fictive kin, namely surrogate grandparents, parents, children and grandchildren and (3) the value of legacy, which includes instilling and transmitting inherited traditions.
In Search of Authenticity: Humanist Weddings in the Polish Context
Authors: Rejowska Agata
Published: July 2022

The post-1989 transformation in Poland entailed not only institutional change, but also an ideational shift. Among other things, this ideational shift gave rise to a growing emphasis on individual autonomy, expressive values, and secularization, which has had an impact on the means of symbolic communication (e.g., rituals) and prepared the ground for the emergence of humanist marriage ceremonies in Poland. The secularization process has gradually undermined the taken-for-granted character of some religious practices, such as rites of passage. Additionally, with the increased focus on authenticity rather than on accuracy in the usage of some pre-stipulated scripts, social actors often tend to replace “ossified” meanings that are communicated through rituals with new meanings, which are perceived as more relevant. This paper sheds light on the issue of authenticity, which is an important category in studies of symbolic, ritual-like actions. Perceptions of authenticity were recurring themes during interviews conducted with couples who decided on a humanist wedding ceremony in Poland. Interviewees often asserted that they rejected the dominant Catholic rite because they perceived it as inauthentic.
Synchronous Assimilation of Tidal Current-Related Data Obtained Using Coastal Acoustic Tomography and High-Frequency Radar in the Xiangshan Bay, China
Authors: Zhu Ze-Nan , Zhu Xiao-Hua , Guan Weibing , Zhang Chuanzheng , Chen Minmo , Liu Zhao-Jun , Wang Min , Zheng Hua , Chen Juntian , Dai Longhao , Cao Zhenyi , Chen Qi , Kaneko Arata
Published: July 2022

To accurately reconstruct large-area three-dimensional current fields in coastal regions, simultaneous observations with ten coastal acoustic tomography (CAT) stations and two high-frequency radar (HFR) stations were performed in the Xiangshan Bay (XSB) on 4–5 December 2020. The section-averaged velocity that was observed by CAT and the radial velocity that was observed by HFR were, for the first time, synchronously assimilated into a three-dimensional barotropic ocean model. Compared with acoustic Doppler current profile data, the velocities of the model assimilating both CAT and HFR data had the highest accuracy according to root mean square differences (RMSDs), ranging from 0.05 to 0.08 m/s for all the vertical layers. For the models individually assimilating CAT and HFR, the values in the vertical layers ranged from 0.07 to 0.12 m/s and 0.08 to 0.13 m/s, respectively. A harmonic analysis of the model grid data showed that the spatial mean amplitudes of the M2, M4, and residual currents were 0.66, 0.14, and 0.09 m/s, respectively. Furthermore, the standing wave characteristics of the M2 current and M4 associated-oscillation in the inner XSB, mouth of the Xiangshan fjord, were better captured by the model assimilating both CAT and HFR. Our study demonstrates the advances in three-dimensional tidal current analysis using a model that assimilates both CAT and HFR data, especially in regions with complex coastal geography.
The Observed Impact of the South Asian Summer Monsoon on Land-Atmosphere Heat Transfers and Its Inhomogeneity over the Tibetan Plateau
Authors: Li Hongyi , Zhou Libo , Wang Ge
Published: July 2022

To promote Tibetan meteorological research, the third Tibetan Plateau (TP) Experiment for atmospheric sciences (TIPEX III) has been carried out over the plateau region since 2014, with near-surface heat fluxes measured at different sites. Using the observational data of near-surface heat fluxes measured at 8 plateau stations in TIPEX III, as well as the ECMWF ERA Interim reanalysis data, the land-atmosphere heat transfers over different regions of TP and their responses to the South Asian summer monsoon (SASM) during active/break periods were investigated. Inhomogeneity was found in the land-atmosphere heat transfers over the plateau, with large differences among plateau stations. During the observation period, the daily averaged total heat transfer (the sum of sensible and latent heat flux) varied from 70.2 to 101.2 Wm−2 among the 8 plateau stations, with the sensible heat flux from 18.8 to 60.1 Wm−2 and the latent heat flux from 10.1 to 74.7 Wm−2. These heat transfers were strongly affected by the SASM evolution, but with strong inhomogeneities over the plateau stations. Overall, the more southern station locations exhibited more SASM impacts. The land-atmosphere heat transfers (the total, sensible and latent heat fluxes) were greatly weakened/strengthened during the SASM active/break period at Namco (southeast plateau), Baingoin (central plateau), Lhari (central plateau), and Nagqu (central plateau), which were closely related to the weakened/strengthened radiation conditions. However, the SASM impacts were quite small or even negligible for the other plateau stations, which complicated our conclusions, and further investigations are still needed.
An Overview on Down-Looking UAV-Based GPR Systems
Authors: Noviello Carlo , Gennarelli Gianluca , Esposito Giuseppe , Ludeno Giovanni , Fasano Giancarmine , Capozzoli Luigi , Soldovieri Francesco , Catapano Ilaria
Published: July 2022

Radar imaging from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is a dynamic research topic attracting huge interest due to its practical fallouts. In this context, this article provides a comprehensive review of the current state of the art and challenges related to UAV-based ground-penetrating radar (GPR) imaging systems. First, a description of the available prototypes is provided in terms of radar technology, UAV platforms, and navigation control devices. Afterward, the paper addresses the main issues affecting the performance of UAV-based GPR imaging systems. such as the control of the UAV platform during the flight to collect high-quality data, the necessity to provide accurate platform position information in terms of probing wavelength, and the mitigation of clutter and other electromagnetic disturbances. A description of the major applicative areas for UAV GPR systems is reported with the aim to show their potential. Furthermore, the main signal-processing approaches currently adopted are detailed and two experimental tests are also reported to prove the actual imaging capabilities. Finally, open challenges and future perspectives regarding this promising technology are discussed.
Geodetic SAR for Height System Unification and Sea Level Research—Results in the Baltic Sea Test Network
Authors: Gruber Thomas , Ågren Jonas , Angermann Detlef , Ellmann Artu , Engfeldt Andreas , Gisinger Christoph , Jaworski Leszek , Kur Tomasz , Marila Simo , Nastula Jolanta , Nilfouroushan Faramarz , Nordman Maaria , Poutanen Markku , Saari Timo , Schlaak Marius , Świątek Anna , Varbla Sander , Zdunek Ryszard
Published: July 2022

Coastal sea level is observed at tide gauge stations, which usually also serve as height reference stations for national networks. One of the main issues with using tide gauge data for sea level research is that only a few stations are connected to permanent GNSS stations needed to correct for vertical land motion. As a new observation technique, absolute positioning by SAR using off the shelf active radar transponders can be installed instead. SAR data for the year 2020 are collected at 12 stations in the Baltic Sea area, which are co-located to tide gauges or permanent GNSS stations. From the SAR data, 3D coordinates are estimated and jointly analyzed with GNSS data, tide gauge records and regional geoid height estimates. The obtained results are promising but also exhibit some problems related to the electronic transponders and their performance. At co-located GNSS stations, the estimated ellipsoidal heights agree in a range between about 2 and 50 cm for both observation systems. From the results, it can be identified that, most likely, variable systematic electronic instrument delays are the main reason, and that each transponder instrument needs to be calibrated individually. Nevertheless, the project provides a valuable data set, which offers the possibility of enhancing methods and procedures in order to develop a geodetic SAR positioning technique towards operability.
Google Earth Engine and Artificial Intelligence (AI): A Comprehensive Review
Authors: Yang Liping , Driscol Joshua , Sarigai Sarigai , Wu Qiusheng , Chen Haifei , Lippitt Christopher D.
Published: July 2022

Remote sensing (RS) plays an important role gathering data in many critical domains (e.g., global climate change, risk assessment and vulnerability reduction of natural hazards, resilience of ecosystems, and urban planning). Retrieving, managing, and analyzing large amounts of RS imagery poses substantial challenges. Google Earth Engine (GEE) provides a scalable, cloud-based, geospatial retrieval and processing platform. GEE also provides access to the vast majority of freely available, public, multi-temporal RS data and offers free cloud-based computational power for geospatial data analysis. Artificial intelligence (AI) methods are a critical enabling technology to automating the interpretation of RS imagery, particularly on object-based domains, so the integration of AI methods into GEE represents a promising path towards operationalizing automated RS-based monitoring programs. In this article, we provide a systematic review of relevant literature to identify recent research that incorporates AI methods in GEE. We then discuss some of the major challenges of integrating GEE and AI and identify several priorities for future research. We developed an interactive web application designed to allow readers to intuitively and dynamically review the publications included in this literature review.
Relationship of Attributes of Soil and Topography with Land Cover Change in the Rift Valley Basin of Ethiopia
Authors: Ayele Gebiaw T. , Seka Ayalkibet M. , Taddese Habitamu , Jemberrie Mengistu A. , Ndehedehe Christopher E. , Demissie Solomon S. , Awange Joseph L. , Jeong Jaehak , Hamilton David P. , Melesse Assefa M.
Published: July 2022

Understanding the spatiotemporal trend of land cover (LC) change and its impact on humans and the environment is essential for decision making and ecosystem conservation. Land degradation generally accelerates overland flow, reducing soil moisture and base flow recharge, and increasing sediment erosion and transport, thereby affecting the entire basin hydrology. In this study, we analyzed watershed-scale processes in the study area, where agriculture and natural shrub land are the dominant LCs. The objective of this study was to assess the time series and spatial patterns of LCC using remotely-sensed data from 1973 to 2018, for which we used six snapshots of satellite images. The LC distribution in relation to watershed characteristics such as topography and soils was also evaluated. For LCC detection analysis, we used Landsat datasets accessed from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) archive, which were processed using remote sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques. Using these data, four major LC types were identified. The findings of an LC with an overall accuracy above 90% indicates that the area experienced an increase in agricultural LC at the expense of other LC types such as bushland, grazing land, and mixed forest, which attests to the semi-continuous nature of deforestation between 1973 and 2018. In 1973, agricultural land covered only 10% of the watershed, which later expanded to 48.4% in 2018. Bush, forest, and grazing land types, which accounted for 59.7%, 16.7%, and 13.5% of the watershed in 1973, were reduced to 45.2%, 2.3%, and 4.1%, respectively in 2018. As a result, portions of land areas, which had once been covered by pasture, bush, and forest in 1973, were identified as mixed agricultural systems in 2018. Moreover, spatial variability and distribution in LCC is significantly affected by soil type, fertility, and slope. The findings showed the need to reconsider land-use decision tradeoffs between social, economic, and environmental demands.
IRSTFormer: A Hierarchical Vision Transformer for Infrared Small Target Detection
Authors: Chen Gao , Wang Weihua , Tan Sirui
Published: July 2022

Infrared small target detection occupies an important position in the infrared search and track system. The most common size of infrared images has developed to 640×512. The field-of-view (FOV) also increases significantly. As the result, there is more interference that hinders the detection of small targets in the image. However, the traditional model-driven methods do not have the capability of feature learning, resulting in poor adaptability to various scenes. Owing to the locality of convolution kernels, recent convolutional neural networks (CNN) cannot model the long-range dependency in the image to suppress false alarms. In this paper, we propose a hierarchical vision transformer-based method for infrared small target detection in larger size and FOV images of 640×512. Specifically, we design a hierarchical overlapped small patch transformer (HOSPT), instead of the CNN, to encode multi-scale features from the single-frame image. For the decoder, a top-down feature aggregation module (TFAM) is adopted to fuse features from adjacent scales. Furthermore, after analyzing existing loss functions, a simple yet effective combination is exploited to optimize the network convergence. Compared to other state-of-the-art methods, the normalized intersection-over-union (nIoU) on our IRST640 dataset and public SIRST dataset reaches 0.856 and 0.758. The detailed ablation experiments are conducted to validate the effectiveness and reasonability of each component in the method.
Surface Upwelling off the Zhoushan Islands, East China Sea, from Himawari-8 AHI Data
Authors: Yin Wenbin , Ma Youzhi , Wang Dian , He Shuangyan , Huang Daji
Published: July 2022

The summer upwelling around the Zhoushan Islands is well-known. The previous concise review of (mostly) observational studies reveals that the present knowledge of the Zhoushan upwelling is unsatisfactory and has focused on seasonal variations. In this study, a sea surface temperature (SST) gradient-based upwelling detection algorithm was used. The Level 3 daily and hourly SST data from the geostationary satellite Himawari-8 were used to explore statistical features, seasonal variations, and short-term variations of the Zhoushan upwelling. Despite the duration period being like in previous studies, there is a new finding that the location of the upwelling center has a significant monthly migration. The statistical results show that the potential upwelling spots are clustered in the location with large topographic gradients and can be divided into four aggregation areas: between Gouqi Island and Lvhua Island, off Shengsi Island, around the Zhongjieshan Islands, and off the Taohua-Liuheng Islands. The core area of the Zhoushan upwelling is located at 122°E–123°E, 29.5°N–31.15°N with an irregular ellipse extending from southwest to northeast. The continuous cloud-free satellite images display that the lifecycle of the short-term variations was about 24 h and included two stages: intensification and decay. Meanwhile, the surface upwelling center has onshore–offshore movement under the advective transport of local tidal currents. A preliminary discussion suggests that the quasi-24 h periodic variations may be caused by the competing effect between tidal mixing and the stratification in the water column.
Ionospheric Assimilation of GNSS TEC into IRI Model Using a Local Ensemble Kalman Filter
Authors: Tang Jun , Zhang Shimeng , Huo Xingliang , Wu Xuequn
Published: July 2022

Ionospheric total electron content (TEC) is important data for ionospheric morphology, and also an important parameter for ionospheric correction in Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) precise positioning, navigation, and radio science. In this study, we present a data assimilation model for regional ionosphere based on a local ensemble Kalman filter (LEnKF) with the International Reference Ionosphere 2016 (IRI-2016) model as the background, to assimilate ionospheric TEC observations from GNSS. To demonstrate the results, the TEC estimates from the Crustal Movement Observation Network of China (CMONOC), which is about 260 stations in China, are applied as observation. The assessments are performed against the TEC estimates from BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) geostationary earth orbit (GEO) and against the final products from the Center for Orbit Determination in Europe (CODE). The assimilation results are in good agreement with BDS GEO TEC and the CODE TEC on a quiet or disturbed day. The correlation coefficient after assimilation is increased by about 17% compared with that before assimilation, and the RMSE after assimilation is decreased by about 42% compared with that before assimilation. Furthermore, the assimilated method is also evaluated in the single-frequency precise point positioning (PPP). The experimental results indicate that the PPP/Assimilated method can improve the GNSS positioning accuracy more effectively in comparison to the PPP/CODE. These results reveal that the LEnKF method can be considered as a useful tool for ionospheric assimilation.
Polarized Intensity Ratio Constraint Demosaicing for the Division of a Focal-Plane Polarimetric Image
Authors: Yan Lei , Jiang Kaiwen , Lin Yi , Zhao Hongying , Zhang Ruihua , Zeng Fangang
Published: July 2022

Polarization is an independent dimension of light wave information that has broad application prospects in machine vision and remote sensing tasks. Polarization imaging using a division-of-focal-plane (DoFP) polarimetric sensor can meet lightweight and real-time application requirements. Similar to Bayer filter-based color imaging, demosaicing is a basic and important processing step in DoFP polarization imaging. Due to the differences in the physical properties of polarization and the color of light waves, the widely studied color demosaicing method cannot be directly applied to polarization demosaicing. We propose a polarized intensity ratio constraint demosaicing model to efficiently account for the characteristics of polarization detection in this work. First, we discuss the special constraint relationship between the polarization channels. It can be simply described as: for a beam of light, the sum of the intensities detected by any two vertical ideal analyzers should be equal to the total light intensity. Then, based on this constraint relationship and drawing on the concept of guided filtering, a new polarization demosaicing method is developed. A method to directly use raw images captured by the DoFP detector as the ground truth for comparison experiments is then constructed to aid in the convenient collection of experimental data and extensive image scenarios. Results of both qualitative and quantitative experiments illustrate that our method is an effective and practical method to faithfully recover the full polarization information of each pixel from a single mosaic input image.
Similarity Analysis between Contour Lines by Remotely Piloted Aircraft and Topography Using Hausdorff Distance: Application on Contour Planting
Authors: Freire Alexandre Araujo Ribeiro , Antunes Mauro Antonio Homem , de Barros Murilo Machado , de Souza Wagner Dias , de Sousa da Silva Wesley , de Souza Thaís Machado
Published: July 2022

Contour planting minimizes soil degradation, making agricultural production more sustainable. Currently, geotechnologies can provide more precise and fast data from relief than rudimentary data acquisition for agricultural management. Thus, the objective of this work was to analyze the similarities between contour lines from topography and Remotely Piloted Aircraft, using the Hausdorff distance algorithm. This study was carried out in the period between January 2020 and November 2021 in four localities in the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: two areas located in the municipality of Bom Jardim and two areas in the municipality of Seropédica. Data were acquired through a conventional topographic survey and an aerial photogrammetric survey by Remotely Piloted Aircraft. From the acquired field data for the studied areas, the Digital Elevation Models were generated with a spatial resolution of 0.20 m and the contour lines with an equidistance of one meter. The contour lines obtained by both techniques were superimposed and their similarity was verified using the Hausdorff distance. The results show that there was a better similarity among the contour lines in areas with a very rugged relief than in a smooth relief. Also, the lowest altimetric differences observed in the Digital Elevation Models were associated with the smallest Hausdorff distance. These adjustments correspond, respectively, to the segments between the contour lines with the best and the worst individual similarity for each area. We observed that the similarity between the contour lines from topography and RPA yielded slope differences lower than 6.1% for at least 95% of all studied areas. The Hausdorff distance analysis allowed us to conclude that contour planting can be performed from data obtained via Remotely Piloted Aircraft, provided that vertical accuracy analysis controls the quality of the Digital Elevation Models.
Rayleigh Lidar Signal Denoising Method Combined with WT, EEMD and LOWESS to Improve Retrieval Accuracy
Authors: Zhang Yijian , Wu Tong , Zhang Xianzhong , Sun Yue , Wang Yu , Li Shijie , Li Xinqi , Zhong Kai , Yan Zhaoai , Xu Degang , Yao Jianquan
Published: July 2022

Lidar is an active remote sensing technology that has many advantages, but the echo lidar signal is extremely susceptible to noise and complex atmospheric environment, which affects the effective detection range and retrieval accuracy. In this paper, a wavelet transform (WT) and locally weighted scatterplot smoothing (LOWESS) based on ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) for Rayleigh lidar signal denoising was proposed. The WT method was used to remove the noise in the signal with a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) higher than 16 dB. The EEMD method was applied to decompose the remaining signal into a series of intrinsic modal functions (IMFs), and then detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) was conducted to determine the threshold for distinguishing whether noise or signal was the main component of the IMFs. Moreover, the LOWESS method was adopted to remove the noise in the IMFs component containing the signal, and thus, finely extract the signal. The simulation results showed that the denoising effect of the proposed WT-EEMD-LOWESS method was superior to EEMD-WT, EEMD-SVD and VMD-WOA. Finally, the use of WT-EEMD-LOWESS on the measured lidar signal led to significant improvement in retrieval accuracy. The maximum error of density and temperature retrievals was decreased from 1.36% and 125.79 K to 1.1% and 13.84 K, respectively.
Multisensory and Sensorimotor Integration in the Embodied Self: Relationship between Self-Body Recognition and the Mirror Neuron System
Authors: Shimada Sotaro
Published: July 2022

The embodied self is rooted in the self-body in the “here and now”. The senses of self-ownership and self-agency have been proposed as the basis of the sense of embodied self, and many experimental studies have been conducted on this subject. This review summarizes the experimental research on the embodied self that has been conducted over the past 20 years, mainly from the perspective of multisensory integration and sensorimotor integration regarding the self-body. Furthermore, the phenomenon of back projection, in which changes in an external object (e.g., a rubber hand) with which one has a sense of ownership have an inverse influence on the sensation and movement of one’s own body, is discussed. This postulates that the self-body illusion is not merely an illusion caused by multisensory and/or sensorimotor integration, but is the incorporation of an external object into the self-body representation in the brain. As an extension of this fact, we will also review research on the mirror neuron system, which is considered to be the neural basis of recognition of others, and discuss how the neural basis of self-body recognition and the mirror neuron system can be regarded as essentially the same.
The Progress of Research into Flexible Sensors in the Field of Smart Wearables
Authors: Yin Yunlei , Guo Cheng , Li Hong , Yang Hongying , Xiong Fan , Chen Dongyi
Published: July 2022

In modern society, technology associated with smart sensors made from flexible materials is rapidly evolving. As a core component in the field of wearable smart devices (or ‘smart wearables’), flexible sensors have the advantages of excellent flexibility, ductility, free folding properties, and more. When choosing materials for the development of sensors, reduced weight, elasticity, and wearer’s convenience are considered as advantages, and are suitable for electronic skin, monitoring of health-related issues, biomedicine, human–computer interactions, and other fields of biotechnology. The idea behind wearable sensory devices is to enable their easy integration into everyday life. This review discusses the concepts of sensory mechanism, detected object, and contact form of flexible sensors, and expounds the preparation materials and their applicability. This is with the purpose of providing a reference for the further development of flexible sensors suitable for wearable devices.
Research on Multi-AUVs Data Acquisition System of Underwater Acoustic Communication Network
Authors: Gao Chunxian , Hu Wenwen , Chen Keyu
Published: July 2022

In order to meet the needs of large-scale underwater operations, the underwater acoustic communication network emerged, marking a historic moment. At the same time, the development of artificial intelligence has promoted the application of intelligent underwater robots in large-scale underwater operations, and the research on related algorithms has been gradually promoted. Due to the complexity of underwater operations and the difficulty of replacing batteries, the energy efficiency of intelligent underwater robots is particularly important in multi-AUVs data acquisition systems. In view of the energy consumption of multi-AUVs data acquisition systems in water acoustic cluster networks, this paper proposed the AE (A*-Energy) algorithm for multi-AUVs task assignment and path planning. Through the simulation experiment, it was proved that the AE algorithm proposed in this paper can effectively reduce the energy consumption of multi-AUVs data acquisition systems and has good energy efficiency.
Thermal Probing Techniques for a Single Live Cell
Authors: Yang Nana , Xu Jingjing , Wang Fan , Yang Fan , Han Danhong , Xu Shengyong
Published: July 2022

Temperature is a significant factor in determining and characterizing cellular metabolism and other biochemical activities. In this study, we provide a brief overview of two important technologies used to monitor the local temperatures of individual living cells: fluorescence nano-thermometry and an array of micro-/nano-sized thin-film thermocouples. We explain some key technical issues that must be addressed and optimised for further practical applications, such as in cell biology, drug selection, and novel antitumor therapy. We also offer a method for combining them into a hybrid measuring system.
Blockchain Private File Storage-Sharing Method Based on IPFS
Authors: Kang Peng , Yang Wenzhong , Zheng Jiong
Published: July 2022

Under the current national network environment, anyone can participate in publishing. As an important information resource, knowledge files reflect the workload of publishers. Moreover, high-quality knowledge files can promote the progress of society. However, pirated inferior files have the opposite effect. At present, most organizations use centralized servers to centrally manage the knowledge files released by users. In addition, it is necessary to introduce an untrusted third party to examine and encrypt the contents of files, which leads to an opaque process of file storage transactions, tampering with intellectual copyright, and the inability to have consistent systems of file management among institutions due to the lack of uniform standards for the same intellectual files. The purpose of this paper is to ensure the safe storage of knowledge files on the one hand and to realize efficient sharing of copyrighted files on the other hand. Therefore, this paper combines NDN (Named Data Network) technology with a distributed blockchain and an Interplanetary File System (IPFS) and proposes a blockchain knowledge file storage and sharing method based on an NDN. The method uses the NDN itself for the file content signature and encryption, thereby separating the file security and transmission process. At the same time, the method uses a flexible NDN reverse path forwarding and routing strategy, combining an IPFS private storage network to improve the safety of the encrypted data storage security. Finally, the method takes advantage of all participating nodes consensus and shares files in the synchronized blockchain to ensure traceability. This paper introduces the structure and principles of the method and describes the process of file upload and transfer. Finally, the performance of the method is compared and evaluated, and the advantages and disadvantages of the method and the future research direction are summarized.
Cybersecurity of Critical Infrastructures: Challenges and Solutions
Authors: Maglaras Leandros , Janicke Helge , Ferrag Mohamed Amine
Published: July 2022

People’s lives are becoming more and more dependent on information and computer technology [...]
Sitagliptin Potentiates the Anti-Neoplastic Activity of Doxorubicin in Experimentally-Induced Mammary Adenocarcinoma in Mice: Implication of Oxidative Stress, Inflammation, Angiogenesis, and Apoptosis
Authors: Salama Mohamed M. , Zaghloul Randa A. , Khalil Rania M. , El-Shishtawy Mamdouh M.
Published: July 2022

Sitagliptin (STG) is a highly selective dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitor recently used in the treatment of type 2 diabetes. The current study aimed to investigate the anti-neoplastic effect of STG alone and in combination with Doxorubicin (Dox), a known chemotherapeutic agent but with ominous side effects. After intramuscular inoculation of 2 × 106 Ehrlich tumor cells, Female Swiss mice were divided into tumor-bearing control, STG-treated, Dox-treated, and a combination of STG and Dox-treated groups. The results showed a significant reduction in the tumor growth of the treated animals in comparison with those of the positive control group with a more prominent effect in the co-treated group. Where, the anti-proliferative and apoptotic effect of STG, and its chemo-sensitizing ability, when used in combination with Dox, was mediated by modulation of oxidative stress (MDA and GSH), attenuation of tumor inflammation (IL-6 and IL-1β), and angiogenesis (VEGF), suppressing proliferation (β-catenin and cyclin-D1) and enhancement of apoptosis (survivin, p53, caspase 3). Thus, in conclusion, STG as adjunctive therapy for Dox could be a strategy for the treatment of breast cancer patients, by their ability in hindering cell proliferation and minimizing the associated oxidative and inflammatory adverse reactions.