bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Intrasacral Meningocele Complicating Caudal Analgesia in a 6-Year-Old Child After 3 Previous Uneventful Caudals: A Case Report
Authors: Dunlap Julie D. , Allison Jacquelyn E. , Green Morton C. , Ackerman Laurie L. , Whittam Benjamin M.
Published: May 2021

A 6-year-old male undergoing bilateral hydrocelectomy was to receive caudal analgesia after induction of general anesthesia. After insertion of the caudal needle, cerebrospinal fluid was unexpectedly aspirated and the caudal was abandoned. The surgeon performed bilateral ilioinguinal nerve blocks just before incision. Surgery was uneventful. The patient had difficulty ambulating postoperatively, and a detailed neurologic examination revealed quadriceps weakness. A lumbosacral magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed a sacral meningocele. By the next morning, quadriceps function had returned, and he was ambulating normally. The ilioinguinal block was most likely deep to the internal oblique muscle and produced femoral nerve dysfunction.
Literature, Economics, and a Turn to Content
Authors: Fessenbecker Patrick , Yazell Bryan
Published: May 2021

In much of the recent scholarship on economics and literature, the depth of insight is inversely proportional to the status claimed for literature as such. For example, Gary Saul Morson and Morton Schapiro’s Cents and Sensibility argues that economists need to read literary works for their great moral wisdom, and they fault literary scholars for ignoring this appeal and for failing to understand basic economics. But as this survey of recent publications demonstrates, the conjunction of these critiques is odd: literary critics have been skeptical of claims about genuine value precisely because they have attended so closely to the markets structuring cultural production. What ultimately stands out in recent scholarship on economics and literature is its turn away from complex accounts of the nature of literary form and its turn toward considerations of the representation of economic life.
Laying Bare the Device
Authors: Gauvin Mitchell
Published: May 2021

What do experiential poet Bruce Andrews and former Fox News pundit Bill O’Reilly have in common? On the surface, almost nothing—the former is a highly regarded, retired academic and the latter a disgraced TV host and conservative partisan. For a brief four minutes in 2006, however, the two met and discussed on national television the nature of politics and higher education, with predictable obtuseness on the part of O’Reilly. Nothing was concluded or conceded, and arguably nothing was learned. Yet both did portend a fundamental change to the operation of American political life. O’Reilly’s attempt was far more public (and destructive), but Andrews’s political project has remained confined to a small contingent of scholars. This article reexamines Andrews’s claim that the only effective means of political resistance can come from an experimental poetic practice that challenges the ideology of American individualism at the heart of contemporary sense making. The author argues that the limitations of this political project are instructive and relevant beyond the confines of a scholarly interest in poetry, which are revealed through readings of Harryette Mullen.
Zebrafish mbnl mutants model physical and molecular phenotypes of myotonic dystrophy
Authors: Hinman Melissa N. , Richardson Jared I. , Sockol Rose A. , Aronson Eliza D. , Stednitz Sarah J. , Murray Katrina N. , Berglund J. Andrew , Guillemin Karen
Published: May 2021

The muscleblind RNA-binding proteins (MBNL1, MBNL2 and MBNL3) are highly conserved across vertebrates and are important regulators of RNA alternative splicing. Loss of MBNL protein function through sequestration by CUG or CCUG RNA repeats is largely responsible for the phenotypes of the human genetic disorder myotonic dystrophy (DM). We generated the first stable zebrafish (Danio rerio) models of DM-associated MBNL loss of function through mutation of the three zebrafish mbnl genes. In contrast to mouse models, zebrafish double and triple homozygous mbnl mutants were viable to adulthood. Zebrafish mbnl mutants displayed disease-relevant physical phenotypes including decreased body size and impaired movement. They also exhibited widespread alternative splicing changes, including the misregulation of many DM-relevant exons. Physical and molecular phenotypes were more severe in compound mbnl mutants than in single mbnl mutants, suggesting partially redundant functions of Mbnl proteins. The high fecundity and larval optical transparency of this complete series of zebrafish mbnl mutants will make them useful for studying DM-related phenotypes and how individual Mbnl proteins contribute to them, and for testing potential therapeutics.

This article has an associated First Person interview with the first author of the paper.
Vacuolar H+-ATPase and Na+/K+-ATPase energize Na+ uptake mechanisms in the nuchal organ of the hyperregulating freshwater crustacean Daphnia magna
Authors: Morris Carolyn , O'Donnell Michael J.
Published: May 2021

The nuchal organ of the embryos and neonates of the cladoceran, Daphnia magna, has been shown to be a site of Na+ influx and H+, NH4+ and Cl− efflux. This study combines the scanning ion-selective electrode technique with application of inhibitors of specific transporters to assess the mechanisms of Na+ transport across the nuchal organ. Na+ influx across the nuchal organ was inhibited both by inhibitors of the Na+/K+-ATPase (ouabain, bufalin) and by inhibitors of the vacuolar H+-ATPase (bafilomycin, N-ethylmaleimde, 7-chloro-4-nitrobenzo-2-oxa-1,3-diazole, KM91104, S-nitrosoglutathione). Na+ influx was unaffected by the epithelial Na+ channel blocker benzamil, but was sensitive to ethylisopropyl amiloride and elevated external ammonium concentrations, consistent with roles for Na+/H+ and Na+/NH4+ exchangers in the apical membrane but not Na+ channels. Transport across the basolateral membrane into the haemolymph is proposed to involve the Na+/K+-ATPase and a thiazide-sensitive Na+/Cl− cotransporter.
The stem cell–specific protein TRIM71 inhibits maturation and activity of the prodifferentiation miRNA let-7 via two independent molecular mechanisms
Authors: Torres-Fernández Lucia A. , Mitschka Sibylle , Ulas Thomas , Weise Stefan , Dahm Kilian , Becker Matthias , Händler Kristian , Beyer Marc , Windhausen Julia , Schultze Joachim L. , Kolanus Waldemar
Published: May 2021

The stem cell–specific RNA-binding protein TRIM71/LIN-41 was the first identified target of the prodifferentiation and tumor suppressor miRNA let-7. TRIM71 has essential functions in embryonic development and a proposed oncogenic role in several cancer types, such as hepatocellular carcinoma. Here, we show that TRIM71 regulates let-7 expression and activity via two independent mechanisms. On the one hand, TRIM71 enhances pre-let-7 degradation through its direct interaction with LIN28 and TUT4, thereby inhibiting let-7 maturation and indirectly promoting the stabilization of let-7 targets. On the other hand, TRIM71 represses the activity of mature let-7 via its RNA-dependent interaction with the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) effector protein AGO2. We found that TRIM71 directly binds and stabilizes let-7 targets, suggesting that let-7 activity inhibition occurs on active RISCs. MiRNA enrichment analysis of several transcriptomic data sets from mouse embryonic stem cells and human hepatocellular carcinoma cells suggests that these let-7 regulatory mechanisms shape transcriptomic changes during developmental and oncogenic processes. Altogether, our work reveals a novel role for TRIM71 as a miRNA repressor and sheds light on a dual mechanism of let-7 regulation, uncovering a bistable switch between TRIM71 and let-7 miRNAs that regulates the balance between proliferation and differentiation.
Szeregi składniowe w staropolskich apokryfach Starego i Nowego Testamentu (na przykładzie Historyi barzo cudnej o stworzeniu nieba i ziemie i Rozmyślania przemyskiego)
Authors: Stelmach Wojciech
Published: May 2021

Syntactic Sequences in Old Polish Apocrypha of the Old and New Testament (Based on Historya barzo cudna o stworzeniu nieba i ziemie and Rozmyślanie przemyskie)

Researchers of Old Polish texts notice that they contain stylistic devices called syntactic sequences, a particular type of which are synonymous sequences. The aim of the article is to characterize synonymous sequences in Polish medieval Biblical-apocryphal writings, and to indicate their importance for the stylistics of Old Polish literature. Furthermore, the author of the article wants to find out why the copyists/authors of the texts decided to use such sequences in those writingss. The basis for the analysis includes some examples of syntactic sequences from The Przemyśl Meditation (Rozmyślanie Przemyskie) and The Marvellous Story on the Creation of Heaven and Earth (Historya barzo cudna o stworzeniu nieba i ziemie) by Krzysztof Pussman. However, the author of the article does not focus on the genetic aspects of text analysis. He is not interested in the origin of the sequences. What is important for him is to determine the function of the word connections in question, and to identify the reasons for using them in the translation.
Staropolski imiesłów czynny jako predykatywny atrybut
Authors: Ziółkowska Olga
Published: May 2021

Old Polish Present Participle as a Predicative Attribute

The author of the article shows that Old Polish (present) participles are transitional categories – they combine the syntactic features of an attribute and a predicate. She also tries to answer the question of how to recognize their nature. Is one of the functions dominant or are they equal? It is also important to reflect on how the choice of terminology used for syntactic description affects the way of perceiving and interpreting linguistic phenomena. The author considers the functionality of terms which already exist in the research tradition and are designed to name the double function of a participle. She also proposes the term: “predicative attribute” (in Polish: “predykatywny atrybut”) referring to the functional syntax of Stanisław Karolak. She shows that an entire separation, in a syntactic description, of the two syntactic functions performed by a participle, is ahistorical and incorrect as it suggests the existence of something which was unclear and only emerging.
Z etymologii łemkowskich
Authors: Fałowski Adam , Hojsak Wiktoria
Published: May 2021

Lemko Etymologies. Part VI

This article constitutes the sixth part in the series related to Lemko etymologies. In this part, the authors present the words beginning with the letters П and Р: пага, пажерити, памула, пандзір, папуля, пацалуватий, перайки, п(е)реквинтувати си, пыркій, погармиґувати ся, погынцатися, подышір, поперхливый, попыртаный, порамотати, порплі, постружниця, пофафрындити, похыхму, пошкрібок, пошпотити ся, префынкати, приґвамчыти, приячка, прогайнувати, псятвоч, раканя, рамак/рамач, рапавий, репчыти, римно, рынявий, розбырдати, розпаідити(ся). The authors attempt to determine the origin of these words, taking into account the data provided in etymological, historical and dialectal dictionaries of Slavic languages and dialects, as well as of neighbouring non-Slavic languages. Thus, they have outlined a broad comparative background, offering their supplementation or correction of the previous etymological conclusions.
Leksyka przestępcza w trylogii złodziejskiej Sergiusza Piaseckiego
Authors: Kubusiak Ewa
Published: May 2021

Criminal Sociolect in The Criminal Trilogy by Sergiusz Piasecki

The author of the article aims at reconstructing the criminal sociolect of the North-Eastern Borderlands in 1918-1919, based on The Criminal Trilogy by Sergiusz Piasecki. The plot of the novels takes place in Minsk Litewski, which, at that time, was full of thieves from all regions of Poland. In the novels, Piasecki recreated the sociolect of thieves living in the North-Eastern Borderlands, using the authentic criminal lexis. The authenticity of this sociolect is confirmed both by the materials provided by Piasecki himself (preface, footnotes and vocabulary of thieves’ language) and by their comparison with other lexicographic scientific descriptions concerning criminal vocabulary from the first half of the twentieth century.
What role do vaccines play in primary cardiovascular disease prevention?
Authors: Butterfield Liz , Day Jasmine
Published: May 2021

President of the British Association for Nursing in Cardiovascular Care council Liz Butterfield and council member Jasmine Day discuss evidence for the role of vaccinations in preventing morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular disease.
Rejecting Respectability: On Being Unapologetically Working Class
Authors: Attfield Sarah
Published: May 2021

Many working-class people have aspired to respectability – maintaining cleanliness in the home, presenting an image of ‘niceness’ through neat modes of dress, or speaking ‘proper’. This respectability is intended to show those in power that working-class people are worthy of their attention and assistance. But what happens when workingclass people refuse to be respectable? When they choose to use strong language and won’t speak in soft tones? What happens when working-class people do not defer to their ‘betters’ and instead articulate their anger loudly and assertively? Critiques of class systems and calls for social justice are arguably more threatening when presented in a loud and direct manner. This article considers how the politics of respectability are used against working-class activists.
Paradise Lost? Patterns and Precarity in Working-Class Academic Narratives
Authors: Warnock Deborah M.
Published: May 2021

Through an analysis of eight collections of autoethnographic essays written by working-class academics and published over the span of thirty-two years, I identify stable themes and emergent patterns in lived experiences. Some broad and stable themes include a sense of alienation, lack of cultural capital, encountering stereotypes and microaggressions, experiencing survivor guilt and the impostor syndrome, and struggling to pass in a middle-class culture that values ego and networking. Two new and troubling patterns are crippling amounts of student debt and the increased exploitation of adjunct labor. I emphasize the importance of considering social class background as a form of diversity in academia and urge continued research on the experiences of working-class academics.
Labor, Discipline, and Resistance: Transnational Migrant Workers ‘on the line’
Authors: Hallett Miranda
Published: May 2021

Unauthorized workers are foundational to neoliberal production regimes in the United States. The economic indispensability of such ‘disposable’ laborers in the era of flexible accumulation and the new energy they bring to labor activism promise to shape the emergence of the 21st century working class. This article explores the dynamics of labor discipline among undocumented workers, situating the current experiences of transnational migrants within a broader cultural history of the recruitment, disciplining, and exploitation of workers from vulnerable populations. Currently, conditions of illegality and deportability make transnational workers particularly vulnerable to labor rights violations and wage theft. The structure of immigration law, which frames and facilitates exploitation, serves the interests of capital and disciplines workers to perform their role as a subordinated class. Nonetheless, the confluence of labor militancy and immigrants’ rights activism over the past decade provides hope for social and political change based in solidarity and worker agency.
History and the Working-Class Now: The Collective Impulse, Tumult and Democracy
Authors: Irving Terry
Published: May 2021

Terry Irving was invited to address the Sydney Historical Research Network at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia, in March 2017, as part of a session on ‘Histories of Class Now’. The other speakers were Hannah Forsyth and Elizabeth Humphrys. Each of them was asked to say something about their current research. This is a revised version of his address, followed by a note on sources
Blockades, Barricades, and Barriers: Accessing and Navigating Academia from a Multi-Marginalized Positionality
Authors: Foiles Sifuentes A.M.
Published: May 2021

This article is an autoethnographic account of a gender-queer, working-class, woman of color scholar’s venture into academia. Through an analysis of race and class violence compounded by gender and first-generation college student status, the author recounts the impact of intersectional identities on both their entry into higher education and their progression through graduate school. The author grapples with the isolation derived from engaging graduate students of color from economically privileged backgrounds. Similarly, they delve into finding community among white working-class academics and having to contend with whiteness and unexamined racial privilege. Further, definitions of work and productivity on the academic landscape are thoroughly examined as well as how a class-based consciousness shaped their professional trajectory.
Publish AND Perish: On Publishing, Precarity and Poverty in Academia
Authors: Vossen Emma
Published: May 2021

We have all heard the phrase ‘publish or perish’ but what does perishing actually look like? Are you publishing and still perishing? In this article, Vossen probes into the complexity of academic publishing from her perspective as both a poor PhD student and the editor-in-chief of Game Studies publication First Person Scholar. Vossen argues that academic publishing (examining both journal articles and academic manuscripts) exploits the labour of grad students and contract workers by encouraging them to publish their work without compensation in the hopes of attaining tenure-track employment in the future. This ‘work for exposure’ method is dependent on the optimism of young scholars, the majority of whom will not attain tenure-track positions. Vossen focuses specifically on how academic journal articles function as both currency and commodity, devaluing alternative forms of research sharing (such as the work published in First Person Scholar) which is seen as ‘academic waste’ that doesn't ‘count’. Academic journal articles are intrinsically linked to an academics ‘worth’ both culturally and financially and therefore, many untenured academics feel they can't take the financial risk of publishing outside of traditional venues for fear of furthering their descent into debt and poverty. Vossen and the staff of First Person Scholar have attempted to remedy the system in their field of Game Studies by both paying academics for their writing and firmly rejecting opportunities to become an academic journal to instead be considered a ‘middle state publication’. Lastly, Vossen discusses opting out of the publish or perish game as a grad student and what you lose when you decide not to play.
Working-Class Culture as Political Participation: Reading Trump as Revolt Against a Middle-Class Public Sphere
Authors: Kohn Liberty
Published: May 2021

The 2016 election cycle and ensuing presidency of Donald Trump has been attributed in large part to his support among working-class whites (Gest 2016, p. 193; Tyson and Maniam 2016). Their reasons for support, however, are open to interpretation. This article will suggest that elements of Donald Trump’s public communication style and ethos align with elements of working-class culture, language use, and knowledge construction. Trump’s anti-institutional, anti-government rhetoric reifies these components of working-class culture because of institutions’ and government’s deep foundations in middle-class culture, language use, and knowledge construction—and the working-class’s, especially the white working-class’s, alienation from these institutions, with the result being anger or apathy (Lareau 2003; Jensen 2012; Gest 2016). These values are often embedded in a master narrative that defines white working-class life as one of victimization (Hochschild 2016; Gest 2016; Cramer 2016). The article next suggests that Trump’s oft-used rhetorical framework of not just immigrants as threat, but of immigrants as protected and valued by institutions that overlook white workingclass concerns (Gest 2016), opens up one possible persuasive framework to legitimate Trump’s xenophobia and racism through white working-class attitudes.
‘A Little Crow in the Tree’: Growing Inequality and White Working-Class Politics in the U.S.
Authors: Eppard Lawrence , Hochschild Arlie , Wilkinson Richard
Published: May 2021

There have been troubling trends in economic inequality, deprivation, and insecurity in the U.S. since the 1970s. This inequality and insecurity has left the American social fabric ‘fraying at the edges,’ in the words of Joseph Stiglitz. Scholars have recently begun focusing their attention on phenomena which are reflective of and associated with this fraying social fabric: the increasing economic insecurity and emerging ‘politics of resentment’ of the White working class in the U.S. This piece contains excerpts from interviews that Lawrence Eppard conducted with two important scholars, Arlie Hochschild and Richard Wilkinson, who have explored these issues in their work in different ways. The interviews touch on a variety of topics, including growing inequality and its social consequences, the role of government in addressing inequality, White working-class resentment, the impact of racism and sexism on White working-class attitudes and politics, the 2016 U.S. presidential election, political polarization, and dominant American notions of freedom. Much of the discussion focuses on Hochschild’s work in Strangers in Their Own Land and Wilkinson’s work with Kate Pickett in The Spirit Level.
‘Those People that are Invisible’: An Interview with Santee Frazier
Authors: Frazier Santee , Mackay James
Published: May 2021

This interview with Oklahoma poet and educator Santee Frazier discusses the context and creative process for his first book of poetry, Dark Thirty (2009), and the importance of language and place in Native American poetry.
Falling Through Class
Authors: Hansen Murray Ruby
Published: May 2021

This flash essay responds lyrically to the contradictions of class identification for a citizen of the Osage Nation in northeastern Oklahoma associated with social changes resulting from the discovery and exploitation of oil and gas resources.
College Rankings: Creating an Equitable Model of Transformation and Institutional Effectiveness
Authors: Hurst Allison
Published: May 2021

Colleges that serve working-class students show up poorly in traditional rankings of US colleges. Without appropriate outcome measures, measures of ‘quality’ of inputs drive most current ranking systems. The trouble is that quality is often just a measure of pre-existing privilege (e.g., selectivity, average SAT scores). In this article, I demonstrate the viability of a model that uses economic returns data while factoring in the relative lack of privilege of students attending any particular institution as a way of ranking that institution’s transformative efficacy and institutional effectiveness. The model was then tested on a diverse sample of 655 US colleges and universities for whom reliable economic returns and institutional effectiveness data are available. Unlike widely used rankings models, this proposed alternative model can distinguish between reproducing privilege (high economic returns as expected, low defaults, timely year to degree and fewer incompleters) and facilitating social mobility (higher returns and persistence than would be expected given the incoming characteristics of students). The article concludes with a discussion of the uses to which such a model could be best put.
Washing lines, whinberries and reworking ‘waste ground’: Women's affective practices and a haunting within the haunting of the UK coalfields
Authors: Bright Geoff , Ivinson Gabrielle
Published: May 2021

This article reflects on a series of ‘Ghost lab’ events (Bright 2019) with local people where creative memory work – stimulated by songs, films, and readings from a pack of what we have called a ‘Community Tarot’ cards (our main focus here) – was used to register aspects of what, following Gordon (2008), we are calling a ‘social haunting’ of former coal-mining communities in the north of England and the valley communities of south Wales. The events were part of a joint 2018-19 research project called Song lines on the road – Life lines on the move! (On the Road for short) that sought to share two independent strands of longitudinal, co-produced, arts-based research in which we have developed approaches aimed at amplifying how living knowledge flows on in communities even when the shocks and intensities of lived experience defy articulation and representation. During the last decade or so both of us have worked with artists to co-produce research projects that enable young people and marginalised adults to communicate with and challenge authority by drawing on the affective power of art. Independently of each other until now, we have both been using creative/affective methodologies to understand how classed and gendered circuits of affect both reproduce and reconfigure vernacular bonds of solidarity and practices of wellbeing in multiple impoverished coalfield communities.
Spacially resolved coupled mode analysis for TMI threshold powers in quantum and Rayleigh scattering limits
Authors: Mermelstein Marc D.
Published: May 2021

A 3D spatially resolved coupled mode and perturbation analysis for the transverse mode instability (TMI) threshold powers in Yb-doped fiber amplifiers is presented in this paper. Threshold powers are computed in the quantum and thermal Rayleigh scattering limits and are compared with those calculated by other coupled mode analyses. Quantum-limited threshold powers are found to be more than three times greater than those calculated with coupled-mode analyses that use uniform and/or average gain approximations. The analysis presented here includes pump depletion, gain saturation, and transverse hole burning. Simulations are applied to co-, cnt-, and bidirectionally pump amplifier configurations. The appearance of TMI is attributed to the formation of a dynamic thermal grating, which enables the exchange of optical power between the fundamental mode (FM) and higher-order mode (HOM). The sole approximation made is that the power in the HOM is much less than that in the FM. A distributed thermal Rayleigh scattering model is introduced that includes a ray-optic representation of the fiber mode structure that relates the Rayleigh power captured by the HOM to the waveguide structure. The location and strength of the thermal gratings are identified to assist in the application of mitigation techniques.
Particle counting based on high-order Fano resonance in an optofluidic microcavity
Authors: Zhan Zhijian , Cao Liu , Li Mi , Song Yuejiang
Published: May 2021

We demonstrate particle counting based on high-order Fano resonance (FR) in an optofluidic microcavity. The high-order FR excited by a thin fiber taper can penetrate the liquid core of a microcapillary. An optical pulse is generated due to the resonant spectrum shift when a particle crosses the microcavity. Analogous to other methods, such a pulse can be used for particle counting. The sampled particles of PS microspheres and super-absorbent polymer broken beads are used for particle-counting experiments. All results confirm the feasibility of such a counting method.
Correction of shape distortions in laser beams apodized with circular serrated apertures
Authors: Sizova I. , Moskalev T. , Stavrovskii D.
Published: May 2021

Flat-top laser beams produced with apodizers comprising a circular serrated aperture and spatial filter are not optimal for propagation over long distances. Residual intensity fluctuations across the overall smooth profile at the apodizer exit significantly accelerate degradation of the beam at small Fresnel numbers. By solving the parabolic equation for uniform and Gaussian beams propagating through a serrated aperture apodizer, we show that a narrow opaque ring installed inside the serrated aperture can largely suppress unwanted diffraction effects and bring the output amplitude profile close to the flattened Gaussian function. With this correction, the usable propagation distance of the apodized beam can be extended to Fresnel numbers

N

F

≈
2
…
5

.
Robust block-matching algorithm for motion estimation using an
anti-interference similarity criterion and the bilateral optimization
scheme
Authors: Pang Shuiquan , Zhang Xianmin , Li Hai , Lu Yihua
Published: May 2021

As an essential component in applications such as video coding,
autonomous navigation, and surveillance cameras, efficient and robust
motion estimation is always required. This paper proposes a robust
block-matching algorithm consisting of a rough matching step and a
fine matching step for motion estimation. In the coarse matching step,
an improved adaptive rood pattern search strategy combined with an
anti-interference similarity criterion is developed to improve the
computational efficiency and robustness. In the fine matching step,
after performing a subpixel estimation procedure, a bilateral
verification scheme is demonstrated to decrease the motion estimation
errors caused by environmental disturbances. Experiments are carried
out over popular video and image sequences, and several measurement
indexes are used to quantify the performance of the proposed method
and other motion estimation methods. Comparative analysis and
quantitative evaluation demonstrate that the proposed method exhibits
strong robustness and can achieve a good balance between computational
efficiency and complexity.
Parametric dog-bone-shaped tunable cylindrical fluidic lens
Authors: Ozgur Erol , Reetz Daniel , Akhoundi Farhad , O’Brien Nicholas , Wycoff Jaclyn , Voorakaranam Ram , Blanche Pierre-Alexandre , LaComb Lloyd , Liang Chen , Peyman Gholam , Peyghambarian N.
Published: May 2021

Tunable spherical fluidic lenses are among the most essential components in adaptive optics. However, fabricating cylindrical tunable lenses has proven more challenging, mainly due to the difficulty in eliminating the defocus component. We demonstrate a parametric approach to minimize the defocus in cylindrical tunable fluidic lenses. We theoretically model and experimentally verify that a dog-bone-shaped tunable cylindrical fluidic lens exhibits almost pure cylindrical performance within the range of

±

5
D

of astigmatism. We anticipate these results will facilitate the use of tunable cylindrical fluidic lenses in adaptive optics applications and particularly ophthalmic devices, where rapid and reliable wavefront correction is required.
Improving the adaptability of the optical performance monitor by transfer learning
Authors: Fan Xiaojie , Chen Zhenan , Hao Rui , Ren Fang , Wang Jianping
Published: May 2021

Owing to their mighty fitting ability, the supervised learning-based deep-learning (DL) models have been widely used in the area of optical performance monitoring (OPM) to improve the optical monitors’ performance. However, the supervised learning-based DL models used in OPM are based on two important premises. The first premise is enough training data with labels; the second premise is the same distribution of the training and test data. Nevertheless, it is hard to meet the two premises in the real-world environment where the optical performance monitors are deployed, since the data are unlabeled and the optical network environment is dynamic (such as component aging caused by slow parameter variation), causing the degradation of the monitoring performance. This is because the supervised learning-based DL models lack the adaptability of the dynamic environment. For the purpose of improving the optical performance monitors’ adaptability, we propose a transfer-learning-based convolutional neural network model to maintain the monitoring performance in the dynamic optical network environment. The transfer-learning method can transfer the learned knowledge from the labeled data under an invariant optical network environment to the unlabeled data under a dynamic optical network environment. During the training phase, the maximum mean discrepancy (MMD) is applied to match the features extracted from the source and the target domains. When the trained model is deployed in the OPM monitor, the robustness of the system to the dynamic environment would be enhanced. Four signals (60/100 Gbps 16/64 QAM) under different working environments are used to verify the adaptability of the method. The influence of the MMD’s weight rates, batch size, and weight parameters confirmed the effectiveness of our method.
Noise-tolerant wavefront shaping in a Hadamard basis
Authors: Mastiani Bahareh , Vellekoop Ivo M.
Published: May 2021

Light scattering is the main limitation for optical imaging. However, light can be focused through or inside turbid media by spatially shaping the incident wavefront. Wavefront shaping is ultimately limited by the available photon budget. We developed a new ‘dual reference’ wavefront shaping algorithm that optimally uses the available light. Our method allows for multi-target wavefront shaping, making it suitable for transmission matrix measurements or transmitting images. We experimentally confirmed the improvement of the focus intensity compared to existing methods.
Rapid prototyping of a bispectral terahertz-to-infrared converter
Authors: Salmon Arthur , Bouchon Patrick
Published: May 2021

Conversion of terahertz radiation into thermal radiation is a promising approach for the development of low cost terahertz instruments. Here, we experimentally demonstrate bispectral terahertz-to-infrared conversion using metamaterials fabricated using a rapid prototyping technique. The converter unit cell is composed of two metal-insulator-metal (MIM) antennas absorbing independently the terahertz radiation at 96 and 130 GHz and a thin carbon nanotubes (CNT) layer used as a thermal emitter. The converter unit cell has a typical λ/100 thickness and sub-wavelength lateral dimensions. The terahertz absorption of the converter was observed by monitoring its thermal emission using an infrared camera. Within the first hundred milliseconds of the terahertz pulse, thermal radiation from the CNTs only increases at the location of the MIM antennas, thus allowing to record the terahertz response of each MIM antenna independently. Beyond 100 ms, thermal diffusion causes significant cross-talk between the pixels, so the spectral information is more difficult to extract. In a steady state regime, the minimum terahertz power that can be detected is 5.8 µW at 130 GHz. We conclude that the converter provides a suitable low-cost solution for fast multi-spectral terahertz imaging with resolution near the diffraction limit, using an infrared camera in combination with a tunable source.
Spatially-resolved measurements of spin valley polarization in MOCVD-grown monolayer WSe2
Authors: Batalden Spencer , Sih Vanessa
Published: May 2021

Time-resolved Kerr rotation microscopy is used to generate and measure spin valley polarization in MOCVD-grown monolayer tungsten diselenide (WSe2). The Kerr signal reveals bi-exponential decay with time constants of 100 ps and 3 ns. Measurements are performed on several triangular flakes from the same growth cycle and reveal larger spin valley polarization near the edges of the flakes. This spatial dependence is observed across multiple WSe2 flakes in the Kerr rotation measurements but not in the spatially resolved reflectivity or microphotoluminescence data. Time-resolved pump-probe overlap measurements further reveal that the Kerr signal’s spatial dependence is not due to spin diffusion on the nanosecond timescale.
Cell behavior on silica-hydroxyapatite coaxial composite
Authors: Garibay-Alvarado Jesús Alberto , Herrera-Ríos Ericka Berenice , Vargas-Requena Claudia Lucía , de Jesús Ruíz-Baltazar Álvaro , Reyes-López Simón Yobanny
Published: May 2021

Progress in the manufacture of scaffolds in tissue engineering lies in the successful combination of materials such as bioceramics having properties as porosity, biocompatibility, water retention, protein adsorption, mechanical strength and biomineralization. Hydroxyapatite (HA) is a ceramic material with lots of potential in tissue regeneration, however, its structural characteristics need to be improved for better performance. In this study, silica-hydroxyapatite (SiO2-HA) non-woven ceramic electrospunned membranes were prepared through the sol-gel method. Infrared spectra, scanning electron microscopy and XRD confirmed the structure and composition of composite. The obtained SiO2-HA polymeric fibers had approximately 230±20 nm in diameter and were then sintered at 800°C average diameter decreased to 110±17 nm. Three configurations of the membranes were obtained and tested in vitro, showing that the composite of SiO2-HA fibers showed a high percentage of viability on a fibroblast cell line. It is concluded that the fibers of SiO2-HA set in a coaxial configuration may be helpful to develop materials for bone regeneration.
Therapy with lopinavir/ritonavir and hydroxychloroquine is associated with acute kidney injury in COVID-19 patients
Authors: Schneider Johanna , Jaenigen Bernd , Wagner Dirk , Rieg Siegbert , Hornuss Daniel , Biever Paul M. , Kern Winfried V. , Walz Gerd
Published: May 2021

Background

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is an independent risk factor for mortality, which affects about 5% of hospitalized coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) patients and up to 25–29% of severely ill COVID-19 patients. Lopinavir/ritonavir and hydroxychloroquine showin vitroactivity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and have been used for the treatment of COVID-19. Both, lopinavir and hydroxychloroquine are metabolized by cytochrome P450 (CYP) 3A4. The impact of a triple therapy with lopinavir/ritonavir and hydroxychloroquine (triple therapy) on kidney function in COVID-19 is currently not known.

Methods

We retrospectively analyzed both non-ICU and ICU patients with COVID-19 receiving triple therapy for the incidence of AKI. Patients receiving standard therapy served as a control group. All patients were hospitalized at the University Hospital of Freiburg, Germany, between March and April 2020. A matched-pair analysis for the National Early Warning Score (NEWS) 2 was performed to control for the severity of illness among non-intensive care unit (ICU) patients.

Results

In non-ICU patients, the incidence of AKI was markedly increased following triple therapy (78.6% vs. 21.4% in controls, p = 0.002), while a high incidence of AKI was observed in both groups of ICU patients (triple therapy: 80.0%, control group: 90.5%). ICU patients treated with triple therapy showed a trend towards more oliguric or anuric kidney injury. We also observed a linear correlation between the duration of the triple therapy and the maximum serum creatinine level (p = 0.004, R2= 0.276, R = 0.597).

Conclusion

Triple therapy is associated with an increase in the incidence of AKI in non-ICU COVID-19 patients. The underlying mechanisms may comprise a CYP3A4 enzyme interaction, and may be relevant for any future therapy combining hydroxychloroquine with antiviral agents.
Glycans unique to the relapse-prone subset within triple-negative breast cancer as revealed by lectin array-based analysis of surgical specimens
Authors: Sakata-Matsuzawa Madoka , Denda-Nagai Kaori , Fujihira Haruhiko , Noji Miki , Ishii-Schrade Katrin Beate , Matsuda Atsushi , Kuno Atsushi , Okazaki Misato , Nakai Katsuya , Horimoto Yoshiya , Saito Mitsue , Irimura Tatsuro
Published: May 2021

Introduction

Molecular and cellular characteristics of the relapse-prone subset within triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) remain unclear. Aberrant glycosylation is involved in the malignant behavior of cancer cells. In the present study, we aimed to reveal glycan profiles unique to relapsed TNBC patients.

Methods

Thirty TNBC patients who did not undergo neoadjuvant chemotherapy but postoperative standard adjuvant therapy from 2009 through 2016 at Juntendo Hospital were investigated. TNBC cells were resected from primary breast cancer sections of formalin-fixed surgical specimens using laser-assisted microdissection. The binding intensities of the extracted glycoproteins to 45 lectins were quantified using lectin microarray and compared between relapsed and non-relapsed patients. Immunohistochemical staining with TJA-II lectin in specimen sections was performed.

Results

Five patients relapsed during the follow-up (range 37–123 months). Lectin microarray analysis revealed that 7 out of 45 lectins showed significant differences in binding intensity between the relapsed and the non-relapsed group. TJA-II, ACA, WFA, and BPL showed stronger binding in the relapsed group. PNGase F treatment of TNBC cell lysates suggested that TJA-II and ACA bind O-glycans. TJA-II staining of tissue sections revealed strong binding to cell surface membranes and to the cytoplasm of TNBC cells, but not to other types of cells. Significantly more TNBC cells were stained in tissue sections from relapsed than non-relapsed patients.

Conclusions

TNBC cells from relapsed patients showed a unique lectin reactivity, with higher levels of TJA-II (also WFA and BPL) binding than in non-relapsed patients. The results are potentially useful to develop new prognostic and therapeutic tools.
Subcellular distribution of ezrin/radixin/moesin and their roles in the cell surface localization and transport function of P-glycoprotein in human colon adenocarcinoma LS180 cells
Authors: Kobori Takuro , Tameishi Mayuka , Tanaka Chihiro , Urashima Yoko , Obata Tokio
Published: May 2021

The ezrin/radixin/moesin (ERM) family proteins act as linkers between the actin cytoskeleton and P-glycoprotein (P-gp) and regulate the plasma membrane localization and functionality of the latter in various cancer cells. Notably, P-gp overexpression in the plasma membrane of cancer cells is a principal factor responsible for multidrug resistance and drug-induced mutagenesis. However, it remains unknown whether the ERM proteins contribute to the plasma membrane localization and transport function of P-gp in human colorectal cancer cells in which the subcellular localization of ERM has yet to be determined. This study aimed to determine the gene expression patterns and subcellular localization of ERM and P-gp and investigate the role of ERM proteins in the plasma membrane localization and transport function of P-gp using the human colon adenocarcinoma cell line LS180. Using real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and immunofluorescence analyses, we showed higher levels of ezrin and moesin mRNAs than those of radixin mRNA in these cells and preferential distribution of all three ERM proteins on the plasma membrane. The ERM proteins were highly colocalized with P-gp. Additionally, we show that the knockdown of ezrin, but not of radixin and moesin, by RNA interference significantly decreased the cell surface expression of P-gp in LS180 cells without affecting the mRNA expression of P-gp. Furthermore, gene silencing of ezrin substantially increased the intracellular accumulation of rhodamine123, a typical P-gp substrate, with no alterations in the plasma membrane permeability of Evans blue, a passive transport marker. In conclusion, ezrin may primarily regulate the cell surface localization and transport function of P-gp as a scaffold protein without influencing the transcriptional activity of P-gp in LS180 cells. These findings should be relevant for treating colorectal cancer, which is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in males and females combined.
Cognitive bias analysis of young novice drivers’ observation abilities—A questionnaire-based study
Authors: Xiang Wang , Liu Xuemei , Peng Qunjie , Xue Qingwan , Hao Wei , Yu Ji
Published: May 2021

Observation ability, which is the basis of following decision-making and vehicle manipulation behaviour, is of great importance while driving. However, the subject self-cognition and objective assessment of driving ability are usually different, especially for the young novice drivers. In this paper, drivers’ observation abilities for both static traffic signs and markings and dynamic surrounding vehicles were investigated based on questionnaire data. Effects of gender and driving characteristics (driving year, driving frequency, driving time) on drivers’ observation abilities were verified by ANOVA analysis and structural equation model (SEM) from two aspects: drivers’ self-assessment scores (self-assessment) and mutual assessment scores (evaluated by others). Significant difference could be found between all the factors and drivers’ self-assessment scores, while only driving year had a significant effect on drivers’ mutual assessment scores. Besides, cognitive bias was found between all the driving year groups. It seemed that drivers with driving experience less than one year were always overconfident with their driving abilities. And drivers with driving experience more than three years usually gave the most conservative assessment scores for themselves and others. With more exposures to various traffic conditions, experienced drivers are more aware of their limitations on observing surrounding information, while young novice drivers still not realized their limitations on observing traffic signs and other vehicles in a right way.
Color-complexity enabled exhaustive color-dots identification and spatial patterns testing in images
Authors: Liao Shuting , Liu Li-Yu , Chen Ting-An , Chen Kuang-Yu , Hsieh Fushing
Published: May 2021

Our computational developments and analyses on experimental images are designed to evaluate the effectiveness of chemical spraying via unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Our evaluations are in accord with the two perspectives of color-complexity: color variety within a color system and color distributional geometry on an image. First, by working within RGB and HSV color systems, we develop a new color-identification algorithm relying on highly associative relations among three color-coordinates to lead us to exhaustively identify all targeted color-pixels. A color-dot is then identified as one isolated network of connected color-pixel. All identified color-dots vary in shapes and sizes within each image. Such a pixel-based computing algorithm is shown robustly and efficiently accommodating heterogeneity due to shaded regions and lighting conditions. Secondly, all color-dots with varying sizes are categorized into three categories. Since the number of small color-dot is rather large, we spatially divide the entire image into a 2D lattice of rectangular. As such, each rectangle becomes a collective of color-dots of various sizes and is classified with respect to its color-dots intensity. We progressively construct a series of minimum spanning trees (MST) as multiscale 2D distributional spatial geometries in a decreasing-intensity fashion. We extract the distributions of distances among connected rectangle-nodes in the observed MST and simulated MSTs generated under the spatial uniformness assumption. We devise a new algorithm for testing 2D spatial uniformness based on a Hierarchical clustering tree upon all involving MSTs. This new tree-based p-value evaluation has the capacity to become exact.