bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Analysis of human physical vulnerability using static equilibrium techniques of a Hazard flood for the determination of unsafe areas in the city of Catacaos – Piura, Peru
Authors: Carrizales J A , Rodas M C , Castillo L F
Published: January 2022

Heavy rains and El Niño phenomenon are recurring natural phenomena at a national level. These can cause floods due to the overflowing of rivers, which, when close to cities, can cause both human and material losses. The district of Catacaos, located in the city of Piura, was the one with the highest number of injuries due to the flood caused by El Niño phenomenon in 2017. This phenomenon causes a large amounts of rainfalls due to the presence of abnormally warm waters along the northern coast of Peru [1]. It is for this reason that the need arose to carry out an analysis of the physical vulnerability due to instability of people through static equilibrium, in said district, in order to present maps of unsafe areas in the face of this phenomenon. In this investigation, flood hazard maps are generated simulating the one presented in 2017, using 2D hydraulic modeling. For the generation of vulnerability curves, the instability analysis is performed by moment and drag force. Finally, maps with unsafe areas are made using ArcGis software. Where the results obtained indicate that 29.37% of the city was flooded. Likewise, the vulnerability maps generated show us that women and men over 18 years of age in the city of Catacaos would be vulnerable to dragging and overturning in the face of floods in 16.54% and 13.21%, respectively, of the total studied area. This information will be useful for the development of future evacuation plans during floods, carried out by national entities.
Multi-step-ahead forecasting of hourly potential evapotranspiration for irrigation triggering in horticultural nurseries under oceanic climate
Authors: Tawegoum R
Published: January 2022

Predicting hourly potential evapotranspiration is particularly important in constrained horticultural nurseries. This paper presents a three-step-ahead predictor of potential evapotranspiration for horticultural nurseries under unsettled weather conditions or climate sensor failure. The Seasonal AutoRegressive Integrated Moving Average model based on climate data was used to derive a predictor using data generated according to prior knowledge of the system behavior; the aim of the predictor was to compensate for missing data that are usually not considered in standard forecasting approaches. The generated data also offer the opportunity to capture variations of the model parameters due to abrupt changes in local climate conditions. A recursive algorithm was used to estimate parameter variation, and the Kalman filter to model the state of the system. The simulations for steady-state weather and unsettled weather conditions showed that the predictor could forecast potential evapotranspiration more accurately than the standard approach did. These results are encouraging within the context of predictive irrigation scheduling in nurseries.
Slippage during high-pressure torsion of commercially pure titanium and application of accumulative HPT to it
Authors: Gunderov D V , Churakova A A , Sharafutdinov A V , Sitdikov V D , Astanin V V
Published: January 2022

A new efficient method was used to find that in the case of high-pressure torsion of commercially pure titanium, accumulation of shear strain in Ti does not occur due to slippage of anvils. Despite this, micro-hardness increases as the number of turns n increases, and Ti structure is refined more intensively. High-pressure torsion is accompanied by a high-pressure ω-phase formation. However, the content of ω-phase changes non-monotonously with an increase in the number of turns. First, while number of turns is less than n=5, the ω-phase content reaches 50%. Upon further deformation, the ω-phase content decreases to 15% for n=20. A new accumulative high-pressure torsion method is applied to commercially pure titanium for the first time. Accumulative high-pressure torsion leads to the strongest transformation of the structure and an increase in hardness, since stronger real deformation occurs due to composition of compression and torsion strain cycles.
The strain variation during the isothermal B2→B19’ martensitic transformation in the quenched or annealed Ni51Ti49 alloy
Authors: Ivanov A , Gabrielian A , Belyaev S , Resnina N , Andreev V
Published: January 2022

The strain variation during the isothermal holding under constant stress was studied in the quenched or annealed Ni51Ti49 alloy samples. The isothermal strain variation was found in both samples and this strain was completely recovered on subsequent unloading and heating. This allowed to conclude that the strain variation on holding was caused by the isothermal martensitic transformation. It was found that the maximum value of isothermal strain depended on the alloy heat treatment. This value was equal to 0.5 % in annealed sample and it was equal to 6 % in quenched sample. It was assumed that the formation of the Ni4Ti3 phase during annealing led to a decrease in concentration of substitutional Ni atoms in NiTi phase that were responsible for the isothermal transformation. As a result, the less volume fraction of the martensite formed during holding that supresses the strain variation in annealed samples.
Investigation of crystal structure formation by electropulse treatment of amorphous Ti50Ni25Cu25 alloy ribbons
Authors: Sitnikov N , Shelyakov A , Zaletova I
Published: January 2022

The study of the effect of electropulse treatment with a variable duration on the crystallization processes and the structure of a amorphous TiNiCu alloy with 25 at.% Cu in comparison with isothermal annealing and heating at a constant speed was carried out. The alloy was fabricated by rapid-quenching from the liquid state (melt spinning technique) at the cooling rate of the melt of about 106 °C/s in the form of a ribbon with a thickness of 28 μm with a surface crystal layer with a thickness of about 2-3 μm. To remove the crystal layer, the method of double-sided electrochemical polishing was used. The studies were carried out by methods of differential scanning calorimetry, metallography and scanning electron microscopy. It was established that the formation of the crystalline phase in the electropulse treatment of the amorphous ribbon occurs from the surface to the inner part due to the predominant formation and growth of columnar crystals with subsequent nucleation and growth of crystals in the rest of the ribbon.
Evolution of Transformation Strain During Partial Transformation Cycling of an NiTi Shape Memory Alloy
Authors: Swaminathan G , Sampath V
Published: January 2022

This paper deals with how the magnitude of transformation strain changes on partial transformation cycling of an NiTi shape memory alloy. A near-equiatomic NiTi shape memory alloy was allowed to undergo partial thermal cycling keeping the stress constant at 100 MPa for various upper cycle temperatures (between austenite start and austenite finish), using a custom-built thermomechanical cycling test setup. The displacement and the temperature of the sample during cycling were measured using a LASER extensometer and an optical pyrometer, respectively. The test results show that the recovery strain and thermal hysteresis width decrease with increasing number of cycles during partial cycling. In addition, martensite start and martensite finish temperatures increase during the initial cycles, whereas austenite start and austenite finish temperatures decrease during the initial cycles, followed by their saturation.
Self-healing efficiency study of thermoset-thermoplastic polymer material
Authors: Choong W H , Hamidi H H , Yeo K B
Published: January 2022

This study is focused on exploring intrinsic self-healing polymer material development, where the inclusion of thermoplastic additives into thermoset polymer material as healing agents. Intrinsic self-healing thermoset-thermoplastic development is involving the material formulation of thermoset liquid resin (Poly Bisphenol A-co-epichlorohydrin) and thermoplastic (polycaprolactone). The material formulation ratio is up to 30% polycaprolactone with respect to thermoset weight. The mixture is heated and stirred to saturate at 80°C before the hardener is added. The mixture is cured and further finishing as Charpy impact test specimen. The specimen is fractured and absorbed impact energy property characterised through the Charpy impact test. The heat treatment is then performed to trigger the self-healing reaction in the polymer. The self-healing efficiency of the thermoset thermoplastic is investigated based on the absorbed impact energy before and after the heat treatment. The 20% or higher thermoplastic concentration in the polymer caused the polymer to possess high self-healing efficiency and faster healing time as compared to the low thermoplastic concentration polymer. However, the high concentration polymer has a disadvantage on the overall structural strength instead. On the contrary, 10% to 15% thermoplastic composition will result in lower and slower self-healing performance but higher initial structural strength.
Feasibility study: Resin-based functionally graded material incorporated with carbonized waste rice husk
Authors: Melvin G J H , Ling H M , Karen W M J
Published: January 2022

Feasibility study was conducted in exploring the fabrication and characterization of resin-based functionally graded material (FGM) incorporated with carbonized waste rice husk. The waste rice husks were converted into carbon materials through heat treatment under the presence of inert gas at 500°C for 2 hours. Then, they were incorporated into resin to form FGM by centrifugal method to achieve desired gradation. Sample B3 with 5 wt.% of carbonized rice husk (CRH) incorporated into polyester resin (including hardener and ethanol) was centrifugated at 4000 rpm for 30 minutes to form FGM. The fabricated samples were cut into three parts, namely upper, middle, and bottom layer to further characterize the properties at various gradation levels. The density of sample B3 increased gradually, 4.10%, 6.54%, and 6.93% when compared to bulk resin, from upper to bottom layer, respectively. The hardness of sample B3 increased gradually, 27.38%, 42.57%, and 47.08% in contrast to bulk resin, from upper to bottom layer, respectively. FGM proposed in this study can be further manipulated based on the centrifugal force and time, ratio of solvents/hardener, and weight percentage of CRH that indicate they can be exploited for specific of numerous appropriate applications.
Vortex profile analysis under different diffuser size for inlet channel of gravitational water vortex power plant
Authors: Tamiri F M , Yeo E C T , Ismail M A
Published: January 2022

Hydropower is a renewable technology to store the amount of electricity which is the least expensive. Gravitational Water Vortex Power Plant is an ultra-low head micro hydropower system working ranging from 0.7 m to 2m without having the needs of a large reservoir and installation area. Several researches have been conducted on its basin configuration, orifice diameter, blade configuration, the geometry of the basin shape but not onto the addition of the diffuser at the inlet channel. The function of the diffuser is to direct the water into the basin allowing the water vortex to travel towards the tangential direction where this phenomenon will increase the rate of speed flow through the turbine. The simulation results showed that the addition of the diffuser has significantly increased the tangential velocity and the kinetic energy of the vortices. The increase in the velocity of the flow increased the height of the vortex which also led to the increase in the strength of the vortex and affects the vortex uniformity.
The effect of air velocity on the performance of the direct evaporative cooling system
Authors: Hassan Z , Misaran M S , Siambun N J , Adzrie M
Published: January 2022

This experimental study aimed to determine the effect of airflow velocity on the performance of a direct evaporative cooling system. Rectangular-shaped honeycomb cooling pads with a length of 34 cm, a width of 25 cm, and a thickness of 3.5 cm are used as cooling media. The main parameters of the study are low air velocity (2.3 ms−1), medium (3.2 ms−1), and high velocity (3.7 ms−1). The data collected include dry bulb temperature, wet bulb temperature, output air temperature, input and output air velocity, input and output humidity, and solar radiation. These data are used to determine saturation efficiency, cooling capacity, temperature decreases, and feasibility index. The experimental results are presented in the form of tables and graphs and analysed based on existing theories. The results showed that the evaporative cooling system could produce output temperatures up to 27.5°C with input 31.4°C at low airspeed, 27.97°C with input 31.47oC at medium speed, and 27.7°C with input 31.30°C at high air speed. It was concluded that a low airflow rate would add to the cooling efficiency, and the higher the airflow rate, the lower the cooling efficiency. The results showed that evaporative cooling is achievable with a feasibility index of 19.89 ≤ F*≤ 20.67. The results also affirmed that cooling capability is higher where the feasibility indexes are comparatively low.
In situ poly(melamine-formaldehyde) microencapsulation of diglycidyl ether of bisphenol-A epoxy and pentaerythritol tetrakis(3-mercaptopropionate) for self-healing applications
Authors: Ghazali H , Ghazali K , Yusoff R
Published: January 2022

In this study, microcapsules as potential candidates for self-healing agents were prepared by in situ polymerisation, taking place in oil-in-water emulsion. Poly(melamine-formaldehyde) is employed as shell material and diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A as polymerisable core materials and Pentaerythritol Tetrakis(3-Mercaptopropionate) as its hardener. The geometry, shell features, size distributions, core content, and the reactivity of the microcapsules were studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), optical microscopy (OM), Soxhlet extraction method and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Microcapsules with different sizes and distributions were obtained by adjusting the stirring speeds during the preparation stage. From the results, it was established that the spherical microcapsules fabricated using this technique, resulted in satisfactory size and shell structure with shell thickness of less than 2 μm. The microcapsules possess high core content at about 90 wt.% for each size range of microcapsules and it was also observed that the viscosity of the core content decreased at an elevated temperature. The results obtained in this work indicate that these microcapsules possess the characteristics that can be potentially used for self-healing applications.
Cancer cell migration on straight, wavy, loop and grid microfibre patterns
Authors: Zhang Duo , Sheng Yaqi , Piano Nicholas , Jakuszeit Theresa , Cozens Edward Jonathan , Dong Lingqing , Buell Alexander K , Pollet Andreas , Lei Iek Man , Wang Wenyu , Terentjev Eugene , Huang Yan Yan Shery
Published: January 2022

Cell migration plays an important role in physiological and pathological processes where the fibrillar morphology of extracellular matrices (ECM) could regulate the migration dynamics. To mimic the morphological characteristics of fibrillar matrix structures, low-voltage continuous electrospinning was adapted to construct straight, wavy, looped and gridded fibre patterns made of polystyrene (of fibre diameter ca. 3 μm). Cells were free to explore their different shapes in response to the directly-adhered fibre, as well as to the neighbouring patterns. For all the patterns studied, analysing cellular migration dynamics of MDA-MB-231 (a highly migratory breast cancer cell line) demonstrated two interesting findings: first, although cells dynamically adjust their shapes and migration trajectories in response to different fibrillar environments, their average step speed is minimally affected by the fibre global pattern; secondly, a switch in behaviour was observed when the pattern features approach the upper limit of the cell body’s minor axis, reflecting that cells’ ability to divert from an existing fibre track is limited by the size along the cell body’s minor axis. It is therefore concluded that the upper limit of cell body’s minor axis might act as a guide for the design of microfibre patterns for different purposes of cell migration.
Physical and mechanical properties of mortars containing date palm fibers
Authors: Bamaga S O
Published: January 2022

This paper presents the results of a study conducted to investigate the effects of incorporating Sefri Date Palm Leave Fibers (SDPLF) into the mortar. A total of seven mixtures were prepared and tested. SDPLF were collected from local farms. The fibers were then cleaned, dried, and cut to different sizes of 10 mm, 20 mm, and 50 mm, maintaining the same individual fiber width of approximately 5 ± 2 mm. The content of SDPLF in mortars was kept to 1% and 3% by mass. The physical and mechanical properties of SDPLF fibers and SDPLF mortars were investigated. The compressive strength at 7, 14, and 28 days was determined. The water absorption rate test was carried out on mortars containing 1% SDPLF fibers. The results showed that mortars with SDPLF have lower workability, lower density, and lower compressive strength as compared to control mortars. However, they are still acceptable for use in construction works. Mortars containing 10 mm and 20 mm SDPLF fibers by mass showed significant improvement in terms of water absorption rate as compared to the control mortar.
Free-boundary plasma equilibria with toroidal plasma flows
Authors: CHEN Wenjin , MA Zhiwei , ZHANG Haowei , ZHANG Wei , YAN Longwen
Published: January 2022

Magnetohydrodynamic equilibrium schemes with toroidal plasma flows and scrape-off layer are developed for the ‘divertor-type’ and ‘limiter-type’ free boundaries in the tokamak cylindrical coordinate. With a toroidal plasma flow, the flux functions are considerably different under the isentropic and isothermal assumptions. The effects of the toroidal flow on the magnetic axis shift are investigated. In a high beta plasma, the magnetic shifts due to the toroidal flow are almost the same for both the isentropic and isothermal cases and are about 0.04a
0 (a
0 is the minor radius) for M
0 = 0.2 (the toroidal Alfvén Mach number on the magnetic axis). In addition, the X-point is slightly shifted upward by 0.0125a
0. But the magnetic axis and the X-point shift due to the toroidal flow may be neglected because M
0 is usually less than 0.05 in a real tokamak. The effects of the toroidal flow on the plasma parameters are also investigated. The high toroidal flow shifts the plasma outward due to the centrifugal effect. Temperature profiles are noticeable different because the plasma temperature is a flux function in the isothermal case.
Preparation of N-doped graphite oxide for supercapacitors by NH3 cold plasma
Authors: ZHOU Yufa , ZHANG Jingsen , XIA Guangqing , HUA Yue , LI Yanqin , HU Jixiang , ZHANG Xiuling , DI Lanbo
Published: January 2022

In this work, N-doped graphite oxide (GO-P) was prepared by cold plasma treatment of GO using a mixture of NH3 and Ar as the working gas. When the ratios of NH3:Ar were 1:2, 1:3, and 1:4, the specific capacitances of the GO-P(NH3:Ar = 1:2), GO-P(NH3:Ar = 1:3), and GO-P(NH3:Ar = 1:4) were 124.5, 187.7, and 134.6 F·g−1, respectively, which were 4.7, 7.1, and 5.1 times that of GO at the current density of 1 A·g−1. The capacitance retention of the GO-P(NH3:Ar = 1:3) was 80% when it was cycled 1000 times. The characterization results showed that the NH3 cold plasma could effectively produce N-doped GO and generate more active defects. The N/C ratio and the contents of pyridinic nitrogen and graphitic nitrogen of the GO-P(NH3:Ar = 1:3) were the highest. These were conducive to providing pseudocapacitance and reducing the internal resistance of the electrode. In addition, the I
D/I
G of the GO-P(NH3:Ar = 1:3) (1.088) was also the highest, indicating the highest number of defects. The results of discharge parameters measurement and in situ optical emission spectroscopy diagnosis of NH3 plasma showed that the discharge is the strongest when the ratio of NH3:Ar was 1:3, thereby the generated nitrogen active species can effectively promote N-doping. The N-doping and abundant defects were the keys to the excellent electrochemical performance of the GO-P(NH3:Ar = 1:3). NH3 cold plasma is a simple and rapid method to prepare N-doped GO and regulate the N-doping to prepare high-performance supercapacitors.
Various concentric-ring patterns formed in a water-anode glow discharge operated at atmospheric pressure
Authors: WU Kaiyue , ZHAO Na , NIU Qiming , WU Jiacun , ZHOU Shuai , JIA Pengying , LI Xuechen
Published: January 2022

Pattern formation is a very interesting phenomenon formed above a water anode in atmospheric pressure glow discharge. Up to now, concentric-ring patterns only less than four rings have been observed in experiments. In this work, atmospheric pressure glow discharge above a water anode is conducted to produce diversified concentric-ring patterns. Results indicate that as time elapses, the number of concentric rings increases continuously and up to five rings have been found in the concentric-ring patterns. Moreover, the ring number increases continuously with increasing discharge current. The electrical conductivity of the anode plays an important role in the transition of the concentric patterns due to its positive relation with ionic strength. Hence, the electrical conductivity of the water anode is investigated as a function of time and discharge current. From optical emission spectrum, gas temperature and intensity ratio related with density and temperature of electron have been calculated. The various concentric-ring patterns mentioned above have been simulated at last with an autocatalytic reaction model.
Biomechanics of skin grafts: effect of pattern size, spacing and orientation
Authors: Gupta Vivek , Chanda Arnab
Published: January 2022

Skin graft expansion is the key to the treatment of severe burn injuries requiring skin transplantation. While high expansions have been claimed by a majority of graft manufacturers, the realistic expansions reported to date with skin grafts are much lower. To clarify this discrepancy, we attempted to understand the biomechanics of skin grafts through the study of common graft pattern sizes, spacing, and orientation, and their influence on mesh expansion and induced stress. A novel skin simulant material and additive manufacturing were employed to develop the skin graft models. Tensile testing experiments were conducted to study expansion and overall stresses, and a finite element model (FEM) was used to characterize the local trends. At low strains (i.e., <1), the mesh expansion ratio was reported to be below 1, which increased up to 1.93 at a high strain of 2. The pattern size and spacing were not observed to affect the expansion much (i.e., <10%). With a change in orientation, the expansion decreased across all graft models and strains. High localized induced stresses were reported for high strains, which varied with graft orientation. The novel observations highlight the achievable expansions without overstressing, with standard slit patterning in skin grafts. These findings will not only help achieve better mesh expansion outcomes in burn surgeries but also guide the development of novel graft patterns for enhanced expansion in the future.
Differentiable programming of isometric tensor networks
Authors: Geng Chenhua , Hu Hong-Ye , Zou Yijian
Published: January 2022

Differentiable programming is a new programming paradigm which enables large scale optimization through automatic calculation of gradients also known as auto-differentiation. This concept emerges from deep learning, and has also been generalized to tensor network optimizations. Here, we extend the differentiable programming to tensor networks with isometric constraints with applications to multiscale entanglement renormalization ansatz (MERA) and tensor network renormalization (TNR). By introducing several gradient-based optimization methods for the isometric tensor network and comparing with Evenbly–Vidal method, we show that auto-differentiation has a better performance for both stability and accuracy. We numerically tested our methods on 1D critical quantum Ising spin chain and 2D classical Ising model. We calculate the ground state energy for the 1D quantum model and internal energy for the classical model, and scaling dimensions of scaling operators and find they all agree with the theory well.
Drug–target interactions prediction via deep collaborative filtering with multiembeddings
Authors: Chen Ruolan , Xia Feng , Hu Bing , Jin Shuting , Liu Xiangrong
Published: January 2022

Drug–target interactions (DTIs) prediction research presents important significance for promoting the development of modern medicine and pharmacology. Traditional biochemical experiments for DTIs prediction confront the challenges including long time period, high cost and high failure rate, and finally leading to a low-drug productivity. Chemogenomic-based computational methods can realize high-throughput prediction. In this study, we develop a deep collaborative filtering prediction model with multiembeddings, named DCFME (deep collaborative filtering prediction model with multiembeddings), which can jointly utilize multiple feature information from multiembeddings. Two different representation learning algorithms are first employed to extract heterogeneous network features. DCFME uses the generated low-dimensional dense vectors as input, and then simulates the drug–target relationship from the perspective of both couplings and heterogeneity. In addition, the model employs focal loss that concentrates the loss on sparse and hard samples in the training process. Comparative experiments with five baseline methods show that DCFME achieves more significant performance improvement on sparse datasets. Moreover, the model has better robustness and generalization capacity under several harder prediction scenarios.
Accelerating the discovery of antifungal peptides using deep temporal convolutional networks
Authors: Singh Vishakha , Shrivastava Sameer , Kumar Singh Sanjay , Kumar Abhinav , Saxena Sonal
Published: January 2022

The application of machine intelligence in biological sciences has led to the development of several automated tools, thus enabling rapid drug discovery. Adding to this development is the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, due to which researchers working in the field of artificial intelligence have acquired an active interest in finding machine learning-guided solutions for diseases like mucormycosis, which has emerged as an important post-COVID-19 fungal complication, especially in immunocompromised patients. On these lines, we have proposed a temporal convolutional network-based binary classification approach to discover new antifungal molecules in the proteome of plants and animals to accelerate the development of antifungal medications. Although these biomolecules, known as antifungal peptides (AFPs), are part of an organism’s intrinsic host defense mechanism, their identification and discovery by traditional biochemical procedures is arduous. Also, the absence of a large dataset on AFPs is also a considerable impediment in building a robust automated classifier. To this end, we have employed the transfer learning technique to pre-train our model on antibacterial peptides. Subsequently, we have built a classifier that predicts AFPs with accuracy and precision of 94%. Our classifier outperforms several state-of-the-art models by a considerable margin. The results of its performance were proven as statistically significant using the Kruskal–Wallis H test, followed by a post hoc analysis performed using the Tukey honestly significant difference (HSD) test. Furthermore, we identified potent AFPs in representative animal (Histatin) and plant (Snakin) proteins using our model. We also built and deployed a web app that is freely available at https://tcn-afppred.anvil.app/ for the identification of AFPs in protein sequences.
Functional analysis of the stable phosphoproteome reveals cancer vulnerabilities
Authors: Xiao Di , Kim Hani Jieun , Pang Ignatius , Yang Pengyi
Published: January 2022

Motivation

The advance of mass spectrometry-based technologies enabled the profiling of the phosphoproteomes of a multitude of cell and tissue types. However, current research primarily focused on investigating the phosphorylation dynamics in specific cell types and experimental conditions, whereas the phosphorylation events that are common across cell/tissue types and stable regardless of experimental conditions are, so far, mostly ignored.

Results

Here, we developed a statistical framework to identify the stable phosphoproteome across 53 human phosphoproteomics datasets, covering 40 cell/tissue types and 194 conditions/treatments. We demonstrate that the stably phosphorylated sites (SPSs) identified from our statistical framework are evolutionarily conserved, functionally important and enriched in a range of core signaling and gene pathways. Particularly, we show that SPSs are highly enriched in the RNA splicing pathway, an essential cellular process in mammalian cells, and frequently disrupted by cancer mutations, suggesting a link between the dysregulation of RNA splicing and cancer development through mutations on SPSs.

Availability and implementation

The source code for data analysis in this study is available from Github repository https://github.com/PYangLab/SPSs under the open-source license of GPL-3. The data used in this study are publicly available (see Section 2.8).

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Effect of bariatric surgery on cancer risk: results from an emulated target trial using population-based data
Authors: Lazzati Andrea , Epaud Salomé , Ortala Matthieu , Katsahian Sandrine , Lanoy Emilie
Published: January 2022

Background

The impact of weight loss induced by bariatric surgery on cancer occurrence is controversial. To study the causal effect of bariatric surgery on cancer risk from an observational database, a target-trial emulation technique was used to mimic an RCT.

Methods

Data on patients admitted between 2010 and 2019 with a diagnosis of obesity were extracted from a national hospital discharge database. Criteria for inclusion included eligibility criteria for bariatric surgery and the absence of cancer in the 2 years following inclusion. The intervention arms were bariatric surgery versus no surgery. Outcomes were the occurrence of any cancer and obesity-related cancer; cancers not related to obesity were used as negative controls.

Results

A total of 1 140 347 patients eligible for bariatric surgery were included in the study. Some 288 604 patients (25.3 per cent) underwent bariatric surgery. A total of 48 411 cancers were identified, including 4483 in surgical patients and 43 928 among patients who did not receive bariatric surgery. Bariatric surgery was associated with a decrease in the risk of obesity-related cancer (hazard ratio (HR) 0.89, 95 per cent c.i. 0.83 to 0.95), whereas no significant effect of surgery was identified with regard to cancers not related to obesity (HR 0.96, 0.91 to 1.01).

Conclusion

When emulating a target trial from observational data, a reduction of 11 per cent in obesity-related cancer was found after bariatric surgery.
Performance of non-invasive biomarkers compared with invasive methods for risk prediction of posthepatectomy liver failure in hepatocellular carcinoma
Authors: Hobeika Christian , Guyard Clémence , Sartoris Riccardo , Maino Cesare , Rautou Pierre-Emmanuel , Dokmak Safi , Bouattour Mohamed , Durand François , Weiss Emmanuel , Vilgrain Valérie , Beaufrère Aurélie , Sepulveda Ailton , Farges Olivier , Paradis Valérie , Luciani Alain , Lim Chetana , Sommacale Daniele , Scatton Olivier , Laurent Alexis , Nault Jean-Charles , Soubrane Olivier , Ronot Maxime , Cauchy François
Published: January 2022

Background

Posthepatectomy liver failure (PHLF) is a rare but dreaded complication. The aim was to test whether a combination of non-invasive biomarkers (NIBs) and CT data could predict the risk of PHLF in patients who underwent resection of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Methods

Patients with HCC who had liver resection between 2012 and 2020 were included. A relevant combination of NIBs (NIB model) to model PHLF risk was identified using a doubly robust estimator (inverse probability weighting combined with logistic regression). The adjustment variables were body surface area, ASA fitness grade, male sex, future liver remnant (FLR) ratio, difficulty of liver resection, and blood loss. The reference invasive biomarker (IB) model comprised a combination of pathological analysis of the underlying liver and hepatic venous pressure gradient (HVPG) measurement. Various NIB and IB models for prediction of PHLF were fitted and compared. NIB model performances were validated externally. Areas under the curve (AUCs) were corrected using bootstrapping.

Results

Overall 323 patients were included. The doubly robust estimator showed that hepatitis C infection (odds ratio (OR) 4.33, 95 per cent c.i. 1.29 to 9.20; P = 0.001), MELD score (OR 1.26, 1.04 to 1.66; P = 0.001), fibrosis-4 score (OR 1.36, 1.06 to 1.85; P = 0.001), liver surface nodularity score (OR 1.55, 1.28 to 4.29; P = 0.031), and FLR volume ratio (OR 0.99, 0.97 to 1.00; P = 0.014) were associated with PHLF. Their combination (NIB model) was fitted externally (2-centre cohort, 165 patients) to model PHLF risk (AUC 0.867). Among 129 of 323 patients who underwent preoperative HVPG measurement, NIB and IB models had similar performances (AUC 0.753 versus 0.732; P = 0.940). A well calibrated nomogram was drawn based on the NIB model (AUC 0.740). The risk of grade B/C PHLF could be ruled out in patients with a cumulative score of less than 160 points.

Conclusion

The NIB model provides reliable preoperative evaluation with performance at least similar to that of invasive methods for PHLF risk prediction.
Dopaminergic medication normalizes aberrant cognitive control circuit signalling in Parkinson’s disease
Authors: Cai Weidong , Young Christina B , Yuan Rui , Lee Byeongwook , Ryman Sephira , Kim Jeehyun , Yang Laurice , Henderson Victor W , Poston Kathleen L , Menon Vinod
Published: January 2022

Dopaminergic medication is widely used to alleviate motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, but these medications also impact cognition with significant variability across patients. It is hypothesized that dopaminergic medication impacts cognition and working memory in Parkinson’s disease by modulating frontoparietal-basal ganglia cognitive control circuits, but little is known about the underlying causal signalling mechanisms and their relation to individual differences in response to dopaminergic medication. Here we use a novel state-space computational model with ultra-fast (490 ms resolution) functional MRI to investigate dynamic causal signalling in frontoparietal-basal ganglia circuits associated with working memory in 44 Parkinson’s disease patients ON and OFF dopaminergic medication, as well as matched 36 healthy controls.

Our analysis revealed aberrant causal signalling in frontoparietal-basal ganglia circuits in Parkinson’s disease patients OFF medication. Importantly, aberrant signalling was normalized by dopaminergic medication and a novel quantitative distance measure predicted individual differences in cognitive change associated with medication in Parkinson’s disease patients. These findings were specific to causal signalling measures, as no such effects were detected with conventional non-causal connectivity measures. Our analysis also identified a specific frontoparietal causal signalling pathway from right middle frontal gyrus to right posterior parietal cortex that is impaired in Parkinson’s disease. Unlike in healthy controls, the strength of causal interactions in this pathway did not increase with working memory load and the strength of load-dependent causal weights was not related to individual differences in working memory task performance in Parkinson’s disease patients OFF medication. However, dopaminergic medication in Parkinson’s disease patients reinstated the relation with working memory performance.

Our findings provide new insights into aberrant causal brain circuit dynamics during working memory and identify mechanisms by which dopaminergic medication normalizes cognitive control circuits.
Commentary: Role and communications of cancer hazard determinations
Authors: Samet Jonathan M , Berrington de Gonzalez Amy , Lunn Ruth M , Schubauer-Berigan Mary K
Published: January 2022

This commentary is written in response to a recent commentary in Carcinogenesis that provides several viewpoints on the International Agency for Research on Cancer’s (IARC) Monographs program on cancer hazard identification. This commentary offers an alternative viewpoint of the role of cancer hazard identification derived from cancer epidemiology studies in risk characterization, as well as clarification on the previous commentary’s interpretation of the purpose of the Monographs and other programs of cancer hazard identification and how IARC communicates the findings of the Monographs.
Validated Smart Different Chromatographic Methods for Selective Quantification of Acefylline Piperazine, Phenobarbital Sodium and Methylparaben Additive in Bulk and Pharmaceutical Dosage Form
Authors: Boltia Shereen A , Algmaal Shrouk E , Mostafa Nadia M , El Saharty Yasser S
Published: January 2022

Two chromatographic methods have been proposed for the simultaneous determination of acefylline piperazine (ACEF) and phenobarbital (PHENO) in presence of methylparaben as additive in pharmaceutical dosage form. The first method was thin-layer chromatography. The separation was achieved using silica gel as stationary phase and chloroform: methanol: glacial acetic acid (2.0, 8.0 and 0.1, by volume) as a developing system at 254 nm. Accurate determination of both drugs was attained over the concentration range of 0.5–25 μg/band. The second method was based on the use of reversed phase liquid chromatography with diode array detection, by which the proposed components were separated on a reversed phase C18 analytical column using methanol: water (60: 40, by volume) as a mobile phase with flow rate of 0.8 mL/min at 214 nm in a concentration range of 0.5–100 μg/mL. The proposed chromatographic methods were practiced successfully for the determination of ACEF and PHENO in pharmaceutical dosage form. Both methods were validated according to the International Conference on Harmonization guidelines and statistically compared with a reported high-performance liquid chromatograph method. Planar chromatography has never been proposed in the literature for ACEF and PHENO determination besides the proposed columnar chromatographic method using an isocratic eco-friendly mobile phase.
A Multicancer Malignant Pleural Effusion Diagnostic Test Using Hexokinase 2 and Single-Cell Sequencing
Authors: Chen Jie , Yang Yibin , Wang Zhuo , Shen Xiaohan , Zhang Ziyuan , Wang Chunying , Xu Haimiao , Shi Qihui
Published: January 2022

Background

Malignant pleural effusion (MPE) represents advanced malignant disease with poor prognosis. To date, pleural effusion cytology remains the best test to diagnose MPE but suffers from limited diagnostic sensitivity and high variation. We report a hexokinase 2-based method (HK2-seq) as a novel diagnostic method for multicancer MPE diagnosis.

Methods

HK2-seq employed HK2 as a new metabolic function-associated marker to detect disseminated tumor cells engaging increased glycolysis in pleural effusion from many cancer types. Single-cell sequencing was used to confirm the malignancy of HK2-derived high glycolytic tumor cells (hgTCs) at the single-cell level via surveying genome-wide copy number alterations (CNAs), leading to establishment of definitive MPE diagnosis.

Results

In a prospective cohort study including 111 patients with pleural effusion, the HK2 test showed diagnostic sensitivity, diagnostic specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of 91% (95% CI: 80%–97%), 84% (95% CI: 68%–93%), 90% (95% CI: 79%–96%), and 86% (95% CI: 70%–95%), respectively, in MPE diagnosis across 12 different cancer types. In contrast, pleural effusion cytology exhibits an overall diagnostic sensitivity of 45%. In addition to confirming the tumor origin of hgTCs, single-cell sequencing allowed identification of prognostic or targetable CNAs in hgTCs, especially CNAs found in liquid biopsies but absent in solid biopsies.

Conclusions

HK2-seq establishes definitive MPE diagnosis across many cancer types with high diagnostic performance. It has the potential to be used for multicancer detection of circulating tumor cells in blood and other types of body fluids, as well as liquid biopsy-based genomic characterization for informative diagnosis.
Targeting RUNX1 as a novel treatment modality for pulmonary arterial hypertension
Authors: Jeong Euy-Myoung , Pereira Mandy , So Eui-Young , Wu Keith Q , Del Tatto Michael , Wen Sicheng , Dooner Mark S , Dubielecka Patrycja M , Reginato Anthony M , Ventetuolo Corey E , Quesenberry Peter J , Klinger James R , Liang Olin D
Published: January 2022

Aims

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a fatal disease without a cure. Previously, we found that transcription factor RUNX1-dependent haematopoietic transformation of endothelial progenitor cells may contribute to the pathogenesis of PAH. However, the therapeutic potential of RUNX1 inhibition to reverse established PAH remains unknown. In the current study, we aimed to determine whether RUNX1 inhibition was sufficient to reverse Sugen/hypoxia (SuHx)-induced pulmonary hypertension (PH) in rats. We also aimed to demonstrate possible mechanisms involved.

Methods and results

We administered a small molecule specific RUNX1 inhibitor Ro5-3335 before, during, and after the development of SuHx-PH in rats to investigate its therapeutic potential. We quantified lung macrophage recruitment and activation in vivo and in vitro in the presence or absence of the RUNX1 inhibitor. We generated conditional VE-cadherin-CreERT2; ZsGreen mice for labelling adult endothelium and lineage tracing in the SuHx-PH model. We also generated conditional Cdh5-CreERT2; Runx1(flox/flox) mice to delete Runx1 gene in adult endothelium and LysM-Cre; Runx1(flox/flox) mice to delete Runx1 gene in cells of myeloid lineage, and then subjected these mice to SuHx-PH induction. RUNX1 inhibition in vivo effectively prevented the development, blocked the progression, and reversed established SuHx-induced PH in rats. RUNX1 inhibition significantly dampened lung macrophage recruitment and activation. Furthermore, lineage tracing with the inducible VE-cadherin-CreERT2; ZsGreen mice demonstrated that a RUNX1-dependent endothelial to haematopoietic transformation occurred during the development of SuHx-PH. Finally, tissue-specific deletion of Runx1 gene either in adult endothelium or in cells of myeloid lineage prevented the mice from developing SuHx-PH, suggesting that RUNX1 is required for the development of PH.

Conclusion

By blocking RUNX1-dependent endothelial to haematopoietic transformation and pulmonary macrophage recruitment and activation, targeting RUNX1 may be as a novel treatment modality for pulmonary arterial hypertension.
Virus Infection and Host Plant Suitability Affect Feeding Behaviors of Cannabis Aphid (Hemiptera: Aphididae), a Newly Described Vector of Potato Virus Y
Authors: Pitt William Jacob , Kairy Lisa , Villa Emily , Nalam Vamsi J , Nachappa Punya
Published: January 2022

Aphids are the most prolific vectors of plant viruses resulting in significant yield losses to crops worldwide. Potato virus Y (PVY) is transmitted in a non-persistent manner by 65 species of aphids. With the increasing acreage of hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) (Rosales: Cannabaceae) in the United States, we were interested to know if the cannabis aphid (Phorodon cannabis Passerini) (Hemiptera: Aphididae) is a potential vector of PVY. Here, we conduct transmission assays and utilize the electrical penetration graph (EPG) technique to determine whether cannabis aphids can transmit PVY to hemp (host) and potato (non-host) (Solanum tuberosum L.) (Solanales: Solanaceace). We show for the first time that the cannabis aphid is an efficient vector of PVY to both hemp (96% transmission rate) and potato (91%) using cohorts of aphids. In contrast, individual aphids transmitted the virus more efficiently to hemp (63%) compared to potato (19%). During the initial 15 min of EPG recordings, aphids demonstrated lower number and time spent performing intracellular punctures on potato compared to hemp, which may in part explain low virus transmission to potato using individual aphids. During the entire 8-hour recording, viruliferous aphids spent less time ingesting phloem compared to non-viruliferous aphids on hemp. This reduced host acceptance could potentially cause viruliferous aphids to disperse thereby increasing virus transmission. Overall, our study shows that cannabis aphid is an efficient vector of PVY, and that virus infection and host plant suitability affect feeding behaviors of the cannabis aphid in ways which may increase virus transmission.
The impact of the coronavirus lockdown on mental health: evidence from the United States
Authors: Adams-Prassl Abi , Boneva Teodora , Golin Marta , Rauh Christopher
Published: January 2022

The coronavirus outbreak has caused significant disruptions to people’s lives. We exploit variation in lockdown measures across states to document the impact of stay-at-home orders on mental health using real-time survey data in the United States. We find that the lockdown measures lowered mental health by 0.083 standard deviations. This large negative effect is entirely driven by women. As a result of the lockdown measures, the existing gender gap in mental health has increased by 61%. The negative effect on women’s mental health cannot be explained by an increase in financial worries or caring responsibilities.
Regularization tunnelling for full waveform inversion
Authors: Keating Scott D , Innanen Kristopher A
Published: January 2022

Prior knowledge can be a powerful source of information in seismic inversion, leading to substantially more accurate models than those derived from seismic data alone. Prior knowledge about clustering of rock physics properties, supplied by appropriate rock physics models, or nearby well-logs, may be especially informative. However, incorporating general forms of this type of information into local optimization methods, such as those used in full waveform inversion (FWI), is problematic, since it will often call for model updates involving a departure from the basin of a local minimum. Here, we propose an optimization strategy for FWI, in which global regularization information is partially accounted for, and in which a model can, under the right circumstances, ‘tunnel’ between basins, to honour prior information. The process is based on standard FWI updates and begins with an initial model in which every model grid cell is in one of a range of pre-defined clusters. At each iteration, a standard update is computed, but it is then followed by a second update, in which each grid cell tunnels to a new cluster if the move is warranted by the update history of the model (its ‘momentum’) and the model regularization penalty (its ‘potential’). To limit the ability of the tunnelling procedure from introducing spatial variations on scales smaller than those contained in the seismic data, these conditions are considered in combination with a small mode filter. We implement the procedure by building on an existing 2-D viscoelastic FWI algorithm, limited such that only the P-wave velocity and density are updated, and evaluate it by subjecting it to a variety of basic tests involving simulated data. We conclude that the basic approach, and this specific implementation, using a simple initial model, provides a combination of well-resolved structures and grid cells occupying appropriate clusters that cannot be produced by standard means.