bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Stamen dimorphism, bee visitation, and pollen removal in three species of Agalinis (Orobanchaceae)
Authors: Dieringer Gregg , Cabrera R. Leticia
Published: March 2022

Stamen dimorphism of buzz-pollinated flowers frequently involves heteranthery, where vibrated, poricidal anthers produce less pollen of lower viability. These anthers often allow for a progressive dispensing of pollen as predicted by the pollen presentation hypothesis. Buzz-pollinated, didynamous stamens of Agalinis lack poricidal anthers but possess staminal trichomes. We quantified pollen characteristics, bee visitation, and foraging behavior (sternotribic vs. nototribic) for three buzz-pollinated species of Agalinis. Single visits to Agalinis auriculata (Michx.) S.F.Blake were performed to evaluate pollen dispensing associated with different foraging behaviors. For all three species, the abaxial stamens, those vibrated by bees, possessed greater total pollen of larger size and viability than smaller adaxial stamens, thus not being heterantherous. Most bee visits (81%) were inverted whether vibrating stamens or not. Single visits to flowers of A. auriculata removed between 75%–80% of the available pollen in contrast to a more progressive dispensing of pollen, likely a consequence of filament trichomes allowing vibrating bees a better grasp of stamens. The flower form of Agalinis appears to encourage inverted foraging, which has not led to a division of labor for the dimorphic stamens typical of heterantherous species. The annual habit and short-lived flowers in these species likely select for rapid pollen loss.
Temporal trends of phosphorus in urban atmospheric aerosols
Authors: Furdui Vasile I. , Duric Mark , Eskander Hany , Stacey Natalie
Published: March 2022

Air particulate samples collected from a Canadian urban area station showed the seasonal trend of the phosphorus with peak levels observed for April–June periods and levels not significantly changed between 2007 and 2015. The phosphorus measured as total phosphorus (TP) in digested aqueous extracts showed an exponential increase with daily temperature (R2 = 0.544, N = 474), with the best correlation observed for the 2010 subset (R2 = 0.727, N = 55). The temperature correlation was not observed with the total suspended particles (TSP). Longer dry periods during spring to summer months favored a higher P level on aerosols. The temperature and precipitation pattern dependence indicate a possible climate change influence on the aerosol P levels. The unchanged yearly aerosol TP content does not directly reflect the dropping trend observed in surface water after 1990s from the same area during spring to summer period.
Quantum power: a Lorentz invariant approach to Hawking radiation
Authors: Good Michael R. R. , Linder Eric V.
Published: March 2022

Particle radiation from black holes has an observed emission power depending on the surface gravity $$\kappa = c^4/(4GM)$$

κ
=

c
4

/

(
4
G
M
)

as $$\begin{aligned} P_{\text {black hole}} \sim \frac{\hbar \kappa ^2}{6\pi c^2} = \frac{\hbar c^6}{96\pi G^2 M^2}, \end{aligned}$$

P

black hole

∼

ħ

κ
2

6
π

c
2

=

ħ

c
6

96
π

G
2

M
2

,

while both the radiation from accelerating particles and moving mirrors (accelerating boundaries) obey similar relativistic Larmor powers, $$\begin{aligned} P_{\text {electron}}= \frac{q^2\alpha ^2}{6\pi \epsilon _0 c^3}, \quad P_{\text {mirror}} =\frac{\hbar \alpha ^2}{6\pi c^2}, \end{aligned}$$

P
electron

=

q
2

α
2

6
π

ϵ
0

c
3

,

P
mirror

=

ħ

α
2

6
π

c
2

,

where $$\alpha $$
α
is the Lorentz invariant proper acceleration. This equivalence between the Lorentz invariant powers suggests a close relation that could be used to understand black hole radiation. We show that an accelerating mirror with a prolonged metastable acceleration plateau can provide a unitary, thermal, energy-conserved analog model for black hole decay.
New results in models with reduced couplings
Authors: Heinemeyer S. , Kalinowski J. , Kotlarski W. , Mondragón M. , Patellis G. , Tracas N. , Zoupanos G.
Published: March 2022

The reduction of couplings concept consists in searching for renormalization group invariant relations among parameters that hold to all orders in perturbation theory. This technique has been applied to [Formula: see text] supersymmetric Grand Unified Theories, some of which can become finite to all loops. We review the basic idea and tools, as well as two theories in which reduction of couplings has been applied: (i) an all-loop finite [Formula: see text] [Formula: see text] model and (ii) a reduced version of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. The finite model exhibits high relic abundance of cold dark matter, while, on the contrary, the second model has underproduction in the early universe. For each model we select three representative benchmark scenarios. The heavy Higgs and supersymmetric spectrum of the finite [Formula: see text] model lies beyond the reach of the 14 TeV HL-LHC, while large parts of the predicted spectrum can be tested in the 100 TeV FCC-hh, although the higher mass regions are beyond its reach. On the other hand, the Reduced Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (Reduced MSSM) is found to be ruled out by LHC searches for heavy neutral MSSM Higgs bosons.
New results from the CUORE experiment
Authors: Nutini I. , Adams D. Q. , Alduino C. , Alfonso K. , Avignone F. T. , Azzolini O. , Bari G. , Bellini F. , Benato G. , Beretta M. , Biassoni M. , Branca A. , Brofferio C. , Bucci C. , Camilleri J. , Caminata A. , Campani A. , Canonica L. , Cao X. G. , Capelli S. , Cappelli L. , Cardani L. , Carniti P. , Casali N. , Celi E. , Chiesa D. , Clemenza M. , Copello S. , Cremonesi O. , Creswick R. J. , D’Addabbo A. , Dafinei I. , Dell’Oro S. , Di Domizio S. , Dompè V. , Fang D. Q. , Fantini G. , Faverzani M. , Ferri E. , Ferroni F. , Fiorini E. , Franceschi M. A. , Freedman S. J. , Fu S. H. , Fujikawa B. K. , Giachero A. , Gironi L. , Giuliani A. , Gorla P. , Gotti C. , Gutierrez T. D. , Han K. , Hansen E. V. , Heeger K. M. , Huang R. G. , Huang H. Z. , Johnston J. , Keppel G. , Kolomensky Yu. G. , Ligi C. , Ma L. , Ma Y. G. , Marini L. , Maruyama R. H. , Mayer D. , Mei Y. , Moggi N. , Morganti S. , Napolitano T. , Nastasi M. , Nikkel J. , Nones C. , Norman E. B. , Nucciotti A. , O’Donnell T. , Ouellet J. L. , Pagan S. , Pagliarone C. E. , Pagnanini L. , Pallavicini M. , Pattavina L. , Pavan M. , Pessina G. , Pettinacci V. , Pira C. , Pirro S. , Pozzi S. , Previtali E. , Puiu A. , Rosenfeld C. , Rusconi C. , Sakai M. , Sangiorgio S. , Schmidt B. , Scielzo N. D. , Sharma V. , Singh V. , Sisti M. , Speller D. , Surukuchi P. T. , Taffarello L. , Terranova F. , Tomei C. , Vetter K. J. , Vignati M. , Wagaarachchi S. L. , Wang B. S. , Welliver B. , Wilson J. , Wilson K. , Winslow L. A. , Zimmermann S. , Zucchelli S.
Published: March 2022

The Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) is the first bolometric experiment searching for neutrino-less double-beta (0[Formula: see text]) decay that has been able to reach the one-ton scale. The detector, located at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy, consists of an array of 988 TeO2 crystals arranged in a compact cylindrical structure of 19 towers. Following the completion of the detector construction in August 2016, CUORE began its first physics data run in 2017 at a base temperature of about 10 mK. Following multiple optimization campaigns in 2018, CUORE is currently in stable operating mode. In 2019, CUORE released its second result of the search for 0[Formula: see text] corresponding to a TeO2 exposure of 372.5 kg[Formula: see text]⋅[Formula: see text]yr and a median exclusion sensitivity to a 130Te 0[Formula: see text] decay half-life of [Formula: see text] yr. We find no evidence for 0[Formula: see text] decay and set a 90% C.I. Bayesian lower limit of [Formula: see text] yr on the 130Te 0[Formula: see text] decay half-life. We present the current status of CUORE’s search for 0[Formula: see text]. We give an update of the CUORE background model and the measurement of the 130Te two neutrino double-beta (2[Formula: see text]) decay half-life. Eventually, we show the preliminary results on half-life limits from the analysis of 130Te 0[Formula: see text] and 2[Formula: see text] decay to the first 0[Formula: see text] excited state of [Formula: see text]Xe.
Dark matter investigation with DAMA set-ups
Authors: Bernabei R. , Belli P. , Caracciolo V. , Cerulli R. , Di Marco A. , Merlo V. , Cappella F. , d’Angelo A. , Incicchitti A. , Dai C. J. , Ma X. H. , Sheng X. D. , Montecchia F. , Ye Z. P.
Published: March 2022

Experimental observations and theoretical arguments at Galaxy and larger scales suggested that a large fraction of the universe is composed by Dark Matter particles. This motivated the DAMA experimental efforts to investigate the presence of such particles in the galactic halo by exploiting a model-independent signature and very highly radiopure set-ups deep underground. Here, a review of the model-independent positive results, obtained by the DAMA set-ups at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory of the INFN, and some of the implications will be given.
Fatigue performance of CFRP/aluminum alloy riveted joints
Authors: Chen Jia , Chen Zhibing , Zhang Mingyue , Xu Ziwei , Chen Jungang , Ye Jiafan , Gou Guoqing , Gao Wei
Published: March 2022

Three types of CFRP/aluminum (Al) alloy riveted joints, single-rivet joint, double-rivet joint and three-rivet joint, were prepared by the riveting technique. The fatigue limit of the three-rivet joint was 27.35 MPa. The fatigue failure mechanism of the joint was that Al alloy cracks on the surface of rivet holes and propagates to fail.
Normal and Oblique Impact on Polyurea-Coated ASTM1045 Steel Plates by Small-Arms Projectiles
Authors: Zhang Long , Wang Xin , Ji Chong , Wu Gang , Zhu Haojie , Han Zeyan
Published: March 2022

Small-caliber steel core projectiles fired by light weapons pose a great threat to metal structures. Coating with polyurea (PU) is a potential option to improve the anti-penetration performance of metal structures. In this work, we carried out numerical simulations to clarify the dynamic characteristics of PU-coated ASTM1045 steel plates subjected to oblique penetration by 5.8-mm small-caliber steel core projectiles. The failure modes, dynamic response process, energy absorption characteristics, and comprehensive protection effects of target plates with different coating positions and thicknesses during the penetration process were compared and analyzed. The result showed that coating with a certain thickness of PU could enhance the protection ability of the steel plate against the oblique penetration of projectiles. In contrast to the results obtained from experiments in which the projectile penetrated the composite plate normally, when the PU coated both sides, the effect of improving the oblique penetration resistance of the steel plate was the best. The effect was lowest with a PU layer only on the back face. This study provides a reference for strengthening the bulletproof performance of various systems, including steel structures, weapons, and vehicles.
CFD SIMULATIONS AND ANALYSES OF ASYMPTOMATIC AND SYMPTOMATIC NASAL AIRWAY OBSTRUCTIONS
Authors: MATARACI FURKAN , KARIMOV ULVI , OZDEMIR I. BEDII , YILDIRIM DUZGUN , ALTINDAG AYTUG
Published: March 2022

The numerical simulations of the flow in nasal airways were performed for two different clinical cases. The results comprised the distributions of scalars at five different sections and included contours of pressure, velocity magnitude, turbulent kinetic energy and vorticity magnitude. Simulations showed the air branching occurring at the inferior meatus is unaffected by the variations in the volumetric flow rate or the changes in the flow regime through the olfactory cleft. However, the contractions and the following rapid change in the cross-section of the nasopharynx preclude the upward penetration of the vacuum field set by the lungs during the inhalation process. As a result, considerably low velocities and significant cross-sectional nonuniformities are observed, which lead to the appearances of the secondary flow structures and strong unsteadiness. Increased interactions between the airflow and the walls of the nasal cavity resulted in an increase in the vorticity on the right middle meatus and upper inferior meatus. The vorticity was also very high in the nostrils, where the flow was not fully developed.
Two-way unclonable encryption with a vulnerable sender
Authors: Leermakers Daan , Škorić Boris
Published: March 2022

Unclonable Encryption, introduced by Gottesman in 2003 [Quantum Inform. Comput. 3 (2003) 581], is a quantum protocol that guarantees the secrecy of a successfully transferred classical message even when all keys leak at a later time. We propose an Unclonable Encryption protocol with the additional property that the sender’s key material is allowed to leak even in the case of an unsuccessful run. This extra feature makes it possible to achieve secure quantum encryption even when one of the parties is unable to protect its keys against after-protocol theft. Such an asymmetry occurs e.g. in case of server–client scenarios, where the client device is resource constrained and/or located in a hostile environment. Our protocol makes use of a bidirectional quantum channel in a manner similar to the two-way protocol LM05 [Phys. Rev. Lett. 94 (2005) 140501]. Bob sends random qubit states to Alice. Alice flips the states in a way that depends on the message and a shared key, and sends the resulting states back to Bob. Bob recovers Alice’s message by measuring the flips. We prove that our protocol satisfies the definition of unclonable encryption and additionally that the message remains secure even if all of Alice’s keys leak after the protocol. Furthermore, we show that some of the key materials can be safely re-used. Our security proof is formulated in terms of diamond norms, which makes it composable, and allows for noisy quantum channels. We work out the details only for the asymptotics in the limit of long messages. As a side result, we construct a two-way QKD scheme with a high key rate. We show that its key rate is higher than the rate of the two-way QKD scheme LM05 proven by Beaudry et al. [Phys. Rev. A 88 (2013) 062302] for the case of independent channel noise.
Short-time coherence of a qubit and measurement apparatus
Authors: Giraldi Filippo
Published: March 2022

The effects of the measurement apparatus on quantum coherence are studied by considering a purely dephasing model of a qubit. The initial state is prepared from a thermal state of the whole system by performing a nonselective measurement on the qubit. The magnitude of the initial postmeasurement coherence is bounded by the value [Formula: see text], which is realized with special measurement schemes and in the low-temperature limit. The coherence magnitude identically vanishes, increases or decreases with an approximately constant rate over a determined short-time scale, according to the choice of the preparation measurement. The maximization of the short-time increasing or decreasing rate is favored by the choice of other special measurement schemes and the high-temperature limit. The measurement apparatus allows to manipulate the quantum coherence of the qubit over short times via nonselective preparation measurements.
Leading the Global Race to Zero Emissions: A New China-U.S. Climate Agenda
Authors: Hongyuan Yu , Jiahua Pan , Qingchen Chao , Qimin Chai , Yunjie Zhu , Lixiao Jiang , Jiahan Cao
Published: March 2022

The international community is now acutely aware of the negative global impact of climate change. But efforts to advance global climate agendas will not go far without China and the United States leading the way, given the two major powers’ sheer economic size, global influence, and contributions to greenhouse gas emissions. A growing consensus is that China and the United States share common interests in promoting a global transition toward a carbon-free future. China-U.S. climate cooperation may also encourage other major carbon emitters to shoulder greater international responsibilities and help advance a global low-carbon agenda. This article previews the Biden administration’s climate and energy policies, analyzes the state and impact of China-U.S. interactions in climate governance and energy transition, and presents a set of policy recommendations on how to build trust and increase cooperation between the world’s largest economies and carbon emitters. Washington’s green recovery-centered climate plan will not go far without advancing international cooperation in industrial restructuring, infrastructure investment, emerging key resource development, and market demand. Likewise, Beijing’s ambitious goals of peaking carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060 will also be difficult to attain if it cannot accelerate green economic growth at home and shoulder the joint leadership of climate governance abroad. In this context, China-U.S. climate cooperation and joint efforts toward carbon neutrality could serve as an icebreaker for the current frosty bilateral relationship.
Influence of non-uniformity in inter-fibre distance on strength distribution of unidirectional fibre-reinforced polymer composites
Authors: Verma Akash , Vedantam Srikanth , Akella Kiran , Srinivasan Sivakumar M.
Published: March 2022

Unidirectional fibre-reinforced polymer (UDFRP) composites exhibit statistical variations in the material properties. It is essential to acknowledge these variations and use a statistics-based strength property for designing composite structures. In this work, the effect of non-uniformity in inter-fibre distance on the statistics of strength distribution of UDFRP composite is studied through computational micromechanics. Micromechanics-based realisations of the UDFRP composite are developed with a quantified measure of non-uniformity (MoN) in fibre distribution through an algorithm. Several realisations of these models are created for each non-uniform fibre distribution. External stress is applied to each realisation in the transverse direction till failure initiates in the matrix. The modified Drucker–Prager failure criteria are implemented for matrix failure. This externally applied stress is termed as the failure initiation strength. Statistical distribution of failure initiation strength is obtained for each fibre distribution. Variations of mean value, standard deviation and B-basis of failure initiation strength with the measure of non-uniformity in fibre distribution are studied for the fibre volume fractions of 0.5 and 0.6. In addition to the mean value, non-uniformity in fibre distribution also significantly influences the standard deviation and B-basis of strength distribution.
Stateful Serverless Computing with
Crucial
Authors: Barcelona-Pons Daniel , Sutra Pierre , Sánchez-Artigas Marc , París Gerard , García-López Pedro
Published: March 2022

Serverless computing greatly simplifies the use of cloud resources. In particular, Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) platforms enable programmers to develop applications as individual functions that can run and scale independently. Unfortunately, applications that require fine-grained support for mutable state and synchronization, such as machine learning (ML) and scientific computing, are notoriously hard to build with this new paradigm. In this work, we aim at bridging this gap. We present
Crucial
, a system to program highly-parallel stateful serverless applications.
Crucial
retains the simplicity of serverless computing. It is built upon the key insight that FaaS resembles to concurrent programming at the scale of a datacenter. Accordingly, a distributed shared memory layer is the natural answer to the needs for fine-grained state management and synchronization.
Crucial
allows to port effortlessly a multi-threaded code base to serverless, where it can benefit from the scalability and pay-per-use model of FaaS platforms. We validate
Crucial
with the help of micro-benchmarks and by considering various stateful applications. Beyond classical parallel tasks (e.g., a Monte Carlo simulation), these applications include representative ML algorithms such as
k
-means and logistic regression. Our evaluation shows that
Crucial
obtains superior or comparable performance to Apache Spark at similar cost (18%–40% faster). We also use
Crucial
to port (part of) a state-of-the-art multi-threaded ML library to serverless. The ported application is up to 30% faster than with a dedicated high-end server. Finally, we attest that
Crucial
can rival in performance with a single-machine, multi-threaded implementation of a complex coordination problem. Overall,
Crucial
delivers all these benefits with less than 6% of changes in the code bases of the evaluated applications.
Terminator
: A Secure Coprocessor to Accelerate Real-Time AntiViruses Using Inspection Breakpoints
Authors: Botacin Marcus , Moreira Francis B. , Navaux Philippe O. A. , Grégio André , Alves Marco A. Z.
Published: March 2022

AntiViruses (AVs) are essential to face the myriad of malware threatening Internet users. AVs operate in two modes: on-demand checks and real-time verification. Software-based real-time AVs intercept system and function calls to execute AV’s inspection routines, resulting in significant performance penalties as the monitoring code runs among the suspicious code. Simultaneously, dark silicon problems push the industry to add more specialized accelerators inside the processor to mitigate these integration problems. In this article, we propose
Terminator
, an AV-specific coprocessor to assist software AVs by outsourcing their matching procedures to the hardware, thus saving CPU cycles and mitigating performance degradation. We designed
Terminator
  to be flexible and compatible with existing AVs by using
YARA
and
ClamAV
rules. Our experiments show that our approach can save up to 70 million CPU cycles per rule when outsourcing on-demand checks for matching typical, unmodified
YARA
rules against a dataset of 30 thousand in-the-wild malware samples. Our proposal eliminates the AV’s need for blocking the CPU to perform full system checks, which can now occur in parallel. We also designed a new inspection breakpoint mechanism that signals to the coprocessor the beginning of a monitored region, allowing it to scan the regions in parallel with their execution. Overall, our mechanism mitigated up to 44% of the overhead imposed to execute and monitor the SPEC benchmark applications in the most challenging scenario.
Best Approximate Quantum Compiling Problems
Authors: Madden Liam , Simonetto Andrea
Published: March 2022

We study the problem of finding the best approximate circuit that is the closest (in some pertinent metric) to a target circuit, and which satisfies a number of hardware constraints, like gate alphabet and connectivity. We look at the problem in the CNOT+rotation gate set from a mathematical programming standpoint, offering contributions both in terms of understanding the mathematics of the problem and its efficient solution. Among the results that we present, we are able to derive a 14-CNOT 4-qubit Toffoli decomposition from scratch, and show that the Quantum Shannon Decomposition can be compressed by a factor of two without practical loss of fidelity.
An Autonomous System for Efficient Control of PTZ Cameras
Authors: Davani Sina G. , Al-Hadrusi Musab S. , Sarhan Nabil J.
Published: March 2022

This article addresses the research problem of how to autonomously control Pan/Tilt/Zoom (PTZ) cameras in a manner that seeks to optimize the face recognition accuracy or the overall threat detection and proposes an overall system. The article presents two alternative schemes for camera scheduling:
Grid-Based Grouping
(GBG) and
Elevator-Based Planning
(EBP). The camera control works with realistic 3D environments and considers many factors, including the direction of the subject’s movement and its location, distances from the cameras, occlusion, overall recognition probability so far, and the expected time to leave the site, as well as the movements of cameras and their capabilities and limitations. In addition, the article utilizes clustering to group subjects, thereby enabling the system to focus on the areas that are more densely populated. Moreover, it proposes a dynamic mechanism for controlling the pre-recording time spent on running the solution. Furthermore, it develops a parallel algorithm, allowing the most time-consuming phases to be parallelized, and thus run efficiently by the centralized parallel processing subsystem. We analyze through simulation the effectiveness of the overall solution, including the clustering approach, scheduling alternatives, dynamic mechanism, and parallel implementation in terms of overall recognition probability and the running time of the solution, considering the impacts of numerous parameters.
Vanadium—Polydopamine Flow Battery
Authors: Mahanta Vivekananda , Ramanujam Kothandaraman
Published: March 2022

Dopamine (DA) exhibits quinone/hydroquinone redox activity at ∼0.77 V vs SHE. As the potential is sufficiently high, this can be a replacement to the VO2+/VO2
+ redox couple (catholyte) of the vanadium redox flow battery. But DA undergoes polymerization into polydopamine (PDA) while cycling in the flow battery. Therefore, a hybrid flow battery was constructed with PDA coated thermally activated graphite felt positive electrode and V3+/V2+ in 3 M H2SO4 anolyte. The vanadium-PDA flow battery exhibits a capacity of ∼275 mAh gPDA
−1 in the first cycle. When the battery was subjected to continuous galvanostatic charge-discharge up to 300 cycles, a capacity retention of ∼86% was observed with coulombic efficiency close to > 99%. Besides, energy efficiency of ∼63% at a current density of 5 A g−1 was observed. The peak power density of the battery was found to be ∼8.83 W g−1 at a current density of ∼14.31 A g−1.
Study on Energy Dissipation Characteristic of Ice-Rich Frozen Soil in SHPB Compression Tests
Authors: Dongdong Ma , Huasong Xiang , Zhiwei Zhou , Yizhong Tan , Xinpeng Wang
Published: March 2022

Frozen soil will inevitably bear dynamic loads (impact and blasting) in the construction process in cold regions; the investigation of dynamic energy dissipation characteristic of ice-rich frozen soil is beneficial to optimize blasting parameters and the design of underground explosion-proof structure. In this study, the dynamic impact laboratory tests were conducted for frozen sandy soil with various water contents (from 15% to 110%) and strain rates (from 450 s-1 to 728 s-1) based on the split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB) system. The influences of strain rate, temperature, and water content on the energy parameters (i.e., absorption energy, reflected energy, and absorption energy rate) were systematically analyzed. Moreover, the energy dissipation characteristics of frozen sandy soil under different deformation stages were studied. Test results revealed that under impact load, the proportion of reflected energy to incident energy was the largest for frozen soil materials. Both the absorption energy and reflected energy were associated with strain rate. However, compared with the water content and temperature, the sensitivities of strain rate on the absorption energy rate were not obvious. At -10°C, the average absorption energy rate decreases from 17.6% to 14.5% when the water content increases from 15% to 37.5%, with a reduction of 18%. However, it substantially decreases to 6.9% at 45% water content, with a large-scale reduction of 61% compared with that at 15% water content. The energy dissipation parameters (i.e., absorption energy, releasable elastic strain energy, and dissipation energy) were closely associated with the water content, temperature, and strain rate.
Factors Associated with Ruptured Ectopic Pregnancy: A 10-Year Review at a District Hospital in Ghana
Authors: Sefogah Promise E. , Oduro Nana E. , Swarray-Deen Alim , Nuamah Hanson G. , Takyi Raphael B. , Nuamah Mercy A. , Oppong Samuel A.
Published: March 2022

Background. Approximately 1–2% of all pregnancies are ectopic. Despite a decline in ectopic pregnancy-related mortality, there is still a paucity of information on the factors associated with clinical presentation and outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa which is essential in determining the most appropriate treatment modalities. Methods. We performed a ten-year retrospective chart review of cases of ectopic pregnancies managed at the Lekma hospital and assessed them for peculiar risk factors, clinical presentation, and outcomes. Associations between patients’ sociodemographic characteristics, clinical presentation, and treatment outcome were evaluated using multiple logistic regression and reported as adjusted odds ratios (AOR). The confidence interval (CI) was set at 95%, and a p value <0.05 were considered significant. Results. Over the ten-year period, there were 115 ectopic pregnancies and 14,450 deliveries (7.9/1,000). The mean age ± standard deviation of the 115 patients was 27.61 ± 5.56. More than half of the patients were single (59/115, 51.3%). The majority (71.3%) of the patients presented with a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. After adjusting for covariates, the odds of an ectopic pregnancy presenting as ruptured among single patients was 2.63 times higher than that of married patients (AOR = 3.63, 95% CI: 1.33–9.93,p=0.01). Ectopic pregnancies located in the isthmic region of the tube had a 77% lower odds of presenting as ruptured than those located in the ampullary region (AOR = 0.23, 95% CI: 0.07–0.74,p=0.01). The odds of rupturing were 1.69 times increased for every additional week after the missed period (AOR = 2.69, 95% CI: 1.56–4.64,p<0.01). No mortalities were reported as a result of an ectopic pregnancy. Conclusion. Most of the cases of ectopic pregnancy presented ruptured. Marital status and period of amenorrhoea were significantly associated with rupture.
Application of m6A and TME in Predicting the Prognosis and Treatment of Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma
Authors: Pei Dongchen , Xu Chaojie , Wang Dong , Shi Xiaoxue , Zhang Yurui , Liu Yi , Liu Nan , Guo Jianhua , Yu Yang , Kang Zhengjun , Zhu Haipeng
Published: March 2022

Background. Previous studies have shown that RNA N6-methyladenosine (m6A) plays an important role in the construction of the tumor microenvironment (TME). However, how m6A plays a role in the TME of clear cell renal cell carcinoma remains unclear. Methods. Based on 23 m6A modulators, we applied consensus cluster analysis to explore the different m6A modification profiles of ccRCC. The CIBERSORT method was employed to reveal the correlation between TME immune cell infiltration and different m6A modification patterns. A m6A score was constructed using a principal component analysis algorithm to assess and quantify the m6A modification patterns of individual tumors. Results. Three distinct m6A modification patterns of ccRCC were identified. The characteristics of TME cell infiltration in these three patterns were consistent with immune rejection phenotype, immune inflammation phenotype, and immune desert phenotype. In particular, when m6A scores were high, TME was characterized by immune cell infiltration and patient survival was higher (

p
<
0.05

). When m6A scores were low, TME was characterized by immunosuppression and patient survival was lower (

p
<
0.05

). The immunotherapy cohort confirmed that patients with higher m6A scores had significant therapeutic advantages and clinical benefits. Conclusions. The m6A modification plays an important role in the formation of TME. The m6A scoring system allows the identification of m6A modification patterns in individual tumors, discriminates the immune infiltrative features of TME, and provides more effective prognostic indicators and treatment strategies for immunotherapy.
The Value of Wearable Sensors in Swimming Flexibility Training under the Background of the Internet of Things
Authors: Bao Kai , Gao Jie , Zhang Xiaomin , Qi Wen , Liu Xurui , Tian Hao
Published: March 2022

Flexibility training in swimming is a key to improving the flexibility index of athletes. In this era of rapid development of IoT technology, it is necessary to combine the Internet of Things technology with the application of wearable sensors in swimming flexibility training. This article is to study the value of wearable sensors in swimming flexibility training under the background of the Internet of Things. In this paper, by combining the interconnected nature of the Internet of Things technology, choosing Apache MINA and the XStream library platform to construct the Internet of Things system, combined with the data measurement characteristics of wearable sensors, an improved strategy is analyzed by measuring various indicators in the flexibility training of swimmers and through the movement interference removal combined with the adaptive algorithm to reduce the energy consumption in flexibility training. In this paper, two sets of flexibility training experiments of static stretching and dynamic stretching are designed. In the experiment, the flexibility index and energy consumption of athletes are received through the wearable sensor of the Internet of Things, and finally, the new improved strategy is analyzed through the received data. And this article also designed a set of control experiments. The experiment shows that wearing IoT wearable sensors can improve the flexibility index of swimmers up to 20.41, while the highest is 15.53 without wearing them.
5-Methylcytosine-Related Long Noncoding RNAs Are Potential Biomarkers to Predict Overall Survival and Regulate Tumor-Immune Environment in Patients with Bladder Cancer
Authors: Li Zhuoyuan , Wang Siyu , Chen Yuxian , Huang Yaozhou , Li Tianping
Published: March 2022

The role of 5-methylcytosine-related long noncoding RNAs (m5C-lncRNAs) in bladder cancer (BLCA) remains unclear. Here, we aim to study the prognostic value, gene expression characteristics, and correlation between the m5C-lncRNA risk model and the tumor microenvironment, immune infiltration, and tumor mutations in BLCA. After collecting BLCA patient RNA sequence transcriptome data, clinical information and mutation data from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, 17 m5C-related lncRNAs independently correlated with OS were obtained by Lasso and multivariate Cox regression analysis, and a risk model was constructed. Univariate Cox, multivariate Cox regression analysis, and the C-index curve proved that the risk model was a significant independent prognostic indicator for patients with BLCA. ESTIMATE and CIBERSORT indicated that the higher the number of immune cells and stromal cells in TME, the higher the prognostic risk. We found that in the low-risk group, the expression levels of immune cells that predicted a good prognosis were higher, including plasma cells, regulatory T cells, and CD 8 T cells. There is a negative correlation between TMB and risk score. The TMB of the low-risk group is significantly higher than that of the high-risk group. In conclusion, the m5C-related risk model is crucial to predict the prognosis of patients with BLCA.
Identification of Pathogenic Mutations in Primary Microcephaly‐ (MCPH‐) Related Three Genes CENPJ, CASK, and MCPH1 in Consanguineous Pakistani Families
Authors: Khan Niaz Muhammad , Masoud Muhammad Shareef , Baig Shahid Mahmood , Qasim Muhammad , Chang Junlei
Published: March 2022

Microcephaly (MCPH) is a developmental anomaly of the brain known by reduced cerebral cortex and underdeveloped intellectual disability without additional clinical symptoms. It is a genetically and clinically heterogenous disorder. Twenty‐five genes (involved in spindle positioning, Wnt signaling, centriole biogenesis, DNA repair, microtubule dynamics, cell cycle checkpoints, and transcriptional regulation) causing MCPH have been identified so far. Pakistani population has contributed in the identification of many MCPH genes. WES of three large consanguineous families revealed three pathogenic variants of MCPH1, CENPJ, and CASK. One novel (c.1254delT) deletion variant of MCPH1 and one known (c.18delC) deletion variant of CENPJ were identified in family 1 and 2, respectively. In addition to this, we also identified a missense variant (c.1289G>A) of CASK in males individuals in family 3. Missense mutation in the CASK gene is frequent in the boys with intellectual disability and autistic traits which are the common features that are associated with FG Syndrome 4. The study reports novel and reported mutant alleles disrupting the working of genes vital for normal brain functioning. The findings of this study enhance our understanding about the genetic architecture of primary microcephaly in our local pedigrees and add to the allelic heterogeneity of 3 known MCPH genes. The data generated will help to develop specific strategies to reduce the high incidence rate of MCPH in Pakistani population.
The Effectiveness of Synbiotic on the Improvement of Clinical Symptoms in Children with Eosinophilic Esophagitis
Authors: Amini Niloufar , Khademian Majid , Momen Tooba , Saneian Hossein , Nasri Peiman , Famouri Fatemeh , Ebrahimi Giti
Published: March 2022

Background. Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) is an allergic inflammatory disorder of the esophagus. Today, probiotics are included as adjuvant therapy in the treatment of allergic diseases. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of synbiotic on clinical symptom improvement in EoE patients. Methods. This study is designed by a double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial with two parallel groups, which was performed on 30 children with eosinophilic esophagitis. All participants were children aged 6 months to 15 years. Both groups received the same treatment (elimination diet, topical steroid, and proton pump inhibitor). A synbiotic (KidiLact) was added to the medication regimen of 15 patients (case), while the next 15 patients received a placebo (control). Severity and frequency of symptoms were assessed with a checklist derived from a validated scoring tool in both groups before and after 8 weeks of treatment. Results. There was a significant reduction in the severity score of chest pain and poor appetite (

P

value < 0.05) in the case group taking probiotics, while nausea and poor appetite were the only symptoms with a significant reduction in the frequency score after intervention in this group. Conclusion. Probiotics can be used as adjuvant treatment for patients with EoE. Improvement in the severity of chest pain and poor appetite and reduction in the frequency of nausea and poor appetite in these patients can be seen.
Multiple Focal Brown Tumors (Osteitis Fibrosa Cystica) in a Renal Transplant Recipient
Authors: Priyanthan Thavathurai , Hermann Anne Pernille , Bojsen Jonas Asgaard , Krøigaard Anne Bruun , Bistrup Claus , Pedersen Erik Bo
Published: March 2022

Brown tumors (BTs) are manifestations of osteitis fibrosa cystica that develops due to increased osteoclast activity secondary to hyperparathyroidism (HPTH). The name comes from its characteristic brown color due to high hemosiderin level and hemorrhage surrounded by osteoclastic giant cells, fibrous tissue, and bone fragments. Presentation can be either unifocal or rarely multifocal. Misdiagnosis of BT compared to malignant giant cell tumor is not uncommon. Early diagnosis and intervention may prevent destructive bone changes. Treatment of BTs due to chronic renal failure should be aimed primarily at its prevention with phosphate binders, vitamin D (analogues), calcimimetics, and prolonged dialysis sessions. Parathyroidectomy can be the option in nonresponsive cases. In this report, we present an unusual case of multiple brown tumors in a 54-year-old female renal transplant patient involving the spine, jaw, and scapula, initially misdiagnosed as giant cell tumor. Five years later, the patient was diagnosed with BT because of the medical history, morphology, and negative p63 staining in combination with secondary/tertiary hyperparathyroidism. The patient subsequently underwent subtotal parathyroidectomy.
Internet of Medical Things and Edge Computing for Improving Healthcare in Smart Cities
Authors: Alrazgan Muna
Published: March 2022

To build prosperous smart cities, adequate infrastructure must be provided. Smart cities contain intelligent things to enhance lives and save people’s lives. The Internet of medical things (IoM) and edge computing are part of these things. Healthcare services are essential services that should benefit from the infrastructure of smart cities. Increasing the quality of services (QoS) required increased connectivity and supercomputing. Supercomputing is represented by connecting the IoM with high processing devices close to these healthcare service devices called edge processing. Healthcare application requires low network latencies; therefore, edge computing must be necessary. Edge computing enables reduced latency and energy efficiency, scalability, and bandwidth. In this study, we review the most important algorithms used in the resource allocation management process at the MEC, which are the DPSO, ACO, and basic PSO. Our experiments have proven that the DPSO is the better and appropriate algorithm used in the event of intensive process congestion that needs to be addressed at the edges of the network to reduce time, including operations related to patients’ health conditions.
Multiobjective Optimization of Structure and Robustness of a Split Parallel Multicomponent Strain Sensor
Authors: Kong Peng , Peng Xiaoqiang , Lian Zhenzeng
Published: March 2022

A novel split parallel multicomponent strain sensor structure layout is proposed based on the special requirements of the helicopter rotor airfoil wind tunnel test for measuring aerodynamic sensors. The sensor consists of two splits with the same configuration; the performance of the sensor not only depends on the split structure of the sensor but also depends on the assembly relationship between the splits. Three steps have been performed so as to enhance the technical performance of the sensor. First, the RBF neural network approximate model and the second-generation nondominated sorting genetic algorithm are used to optimize the split of sensor deterministically; secondly, the rotor airfoil wind tunnel test model and the sensor finite element system model are established, and the

6
σ

robustness analysis is carried out; finally, the

6
σ

robust multiobjective optimization has been carried out considering the sensor split processing errors and the assembly errors. The results show that, compared to initial designed sensors, the sensitivity of the three components of the sensor is increased by 285.46%, 284.95%, and 151.5%, respectively, and the maximum equivalent stress is reduced by 28.4%; the interference to the three components is reduced by 97.82%, 92.83%, and 99.8%, respectively, and the quality is reduced by 25.74%. Meanwhile, the quality level of the sensor was promoted, and the sensitivity of the response to assembly and manufacturing errors were reduced. These results exhibit that the structural layout, optimized path, and method in this strain sensor are suitable for the needs of helicopter rotor airfoil wind tunnel test.
Real-Time Collection and Analysis of Sports Index Time Series Based on Multimodal Sensor Monitoring
Authors: Li Yang , Huang Ying , Zhao Qianqi
Published: March 2022

With the further development of microelectronics technology and sensors, sensors can be widely embedded in mobile phone devices and portable devices. The use of acceleration sensors for human motion monitoring has broad application prospects. Monitoring the daily exercise of the human body is of great significance for formulating scientific exercise and fitness plans and improving physical health. This paper uses the measurement data of multiple types of sensors to propose an index recognition method based on the fusion of multiple types of sensor information. We take the measurement value of a single type of sensor as input and output the index value of the moving part without a strain sensor. The pattern recognition method is used to establish a pattern library, a recognition library, and a measurement library. This article considers noise interference or malfunction of sensor measurements. Aiming at uncertain factors such as the error of the finite element model, a pattern matching method considering the uncertainty is proposed. This article takes aerobics as an example to simulate and analyze the dynamic response of aerobics under wind load. In addition, by simulating the recognition results under different levels of noise interference, the robustness and anti-interference of the pattern matching method are verified.
Multifeature Deep Cascaded Learning for PPG Biometric Recognition
Authors: Liu Chunying , Huang Yuwen , Huang Fuxian , Yu Jijiang
Published: March 2022

Aiming at the problem that the traditional photoplethysmography (PPG) biometric recognition based on sparse representation is not robust to noise and intraclass variations when the sample size is small, we propose a PPG biometric recognition method based on multifeature deep cascaded sparse representation (MFDCSR). The method consists of multifeature signal coding and deep cascaded coding. The function of multifeature signal coding is to extract the shape, wavelet, and principal component analysis features of the PPG signal and to perform sparse representation. Deep cascaded coding is multilayer feature coding. Each layer combines multifeature signal coding with the result of the previous layer as input, and the output of each layer is the input of the next layer. The function of deep cascade coding is to learn the features of the PPG signal, layer by layer, and to output the category distribution vector of the PPG signal in the last layer. Experiments demonstrate that MFDCSR has better recognition performance than current methods for PPG biometric recognition.
Solutions of Stiff Systems of Ordinary Differential Equations Using Residual Power Series Method
Authors: Qayyum Mubashir , Fatima Qursam
Published: March 2022

The stiff differential equations occur in almost every field of science. These systems encounter in mathematical biology, chemical reactions and diffusion process, electrical circuits, meteorology, mechanics, and vibrations. Analyzing and predicting such systems with conventional numerical techniques require more time and memory; still accurate solution is completely uneconomical and uncertain. Most of the numerical techniques have stability issues while dealing with stiff systems. To overcome these limitations, residual power series method (RPSM) is proposed for stiff systems of differential equations (DEs). RPSM is applied to various linear and nonlinear stiff systems, and closed‐form solutions are achieved. This indicates the effectiveness of proposed scheme for stiff family of DEs. Since this method leads to better results with less computational cost, it can be extended for more complex systems which arise in different areas of engineering and sciences.