bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Global Incidence of Ovarian Cancer According to Histologic Subtype: A Population-Based Cancer Registry Study
Authors: Wang Minmin , Bi Yanxin , Jin Yinzi , Zheng Zhi-Jie
Published: May 2024

PURPOSE

Ovarian cancer can be categorized into distinct histologic subtypes with varying identifiable risk factors, molecular composition, clinical features, and treatment. The global incidence of ovarian cancer subtypes remains limited, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) without high-quality cancer registry systems.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We used data from population-based cancer registries of the Cancer Incidence in Five Continents project to calculate the proportions of serous, mucinous, endometrioid, clear cell, and other histologic subtypes of ovarian cancer. Proportions were applied to the estimated numbers of patients with ovarian cancer from Global Cancer Observatory 2020. Age-standardized incidence rates were calculated.

RESULTS

Globally, an estimated 133,818 new patients of serous cancer, 35,712 new patients of mucinous cancer, 29,319 new patients of endometrioid cancer, and 17,894 new patients of clear cell cancer were identified in 2020. The distribution of ovarian cancer histologic subtypes exhibited regional variation. Eastern Europe had the highest rate of serous and mucinous carcinomas, whereas Northern Africa and Eastern Asia had the highest burden of endometrioid and clear cell carcinomas, respectively.

CONCLUSION

This study provides a global incidence landscape of histologic subtypes of ovarian cancer, particularly in LMICs lacking comprehensive registry systems. Our analysis offers valuable insights into disease burden and guidance for tailored strategies for prevention of ovarian cancer.
RET
Alterations Differentiate Molecular Profile of Medullary Thyroid Cancer
Authors: Prabhash Kumar , Saldanha Elveera , Patil Vijay , Bal Munita , Reddy P Sreekanth , Sanjeev Airy , Kumar Raunak , Poojary Disha , Noronha Vanita , Menon Nandini , Mittal Neha , Trivedi Vaishakhi , Nambiar Kavya , Mishra Rohit , Tanwar Nishtha , Malhotra Richa , Pange Priyanka , Gupta Vinod , Veldore Vidya H. , Chougule Anuradha , Chaturvedi Pankaj , Dutt Amit , Chandrani Pratik
Published: May 2024

PURPOSE

Medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) is a rare cancer originating from parafollicular C cells of the thyroid gland. Therapeutically relevant alterations in MTC are predominantly reported in
RET
oncogene, and lower-frequency alterations are reported in
KRAS
and
BRAF
. Nevertheless, there is an unmet need existing to analyze the MTC in the Indian cohort by using in-depth sequencing techniques that go beyond the identification of known therapeutic biomarkers.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Here, we characterize MTC using integrative whole-exome and whole-transcriptome sequencing of 32 MTC tissue samples. We performed clinically relevant variant analysis, molecular pathway analysis, tumor immune-microenvironment analysis, and structural characterization of
RET
novel mutation.

RESULTS

Mutational landscape analysis shows expected
RET
mutations in 50% of the cases. Furthermore, we observed mutations in known cancer genes like
KRAS
,
HRAS
,
SF3B1
, and
BRAF
to be altered only in the
RET
-negative cohort. Pathway analysis showed differential enrichment of mutations in transcriptional deregulation genes in the
RET
-negative cohort. Furthermore, we observed novel RET kinase domain mutation Y900S showing affinity to RET inhibitors accessed via molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulation.

CONCLUSION

Altogether, this study provides a detailed genomic characterization of patients with MTC of Indian origin, highlighting the possible utility of targeted therapies in this disease.
Assembly of In-Situ Gel Containing Nano-Spanlastics of an Angiotensin II Inhibitor as a Novel Epitome for Hypertension Management: Factorial Design Optimization, In-vitro Gauging, Pharmacokinetics, and Pharmacodynamics Appraisal
Authors: Salem Heba F. , Nafady Mohamed M. , Eissa Essam M. , Abdel-Sattar Hend Hassan , Khallaf Rasha A.
Published: May 2024

More than 1 billion people worldwide suffer from hypertension; therefore, hypertension management has been categorized as a global health priority. Losartan potassium (LP) is an antihypertensive drug with a limited oral bioavailability of about 33% since it undergoes the initial metabolic cycle. Thus, nasal administration is a unique route to overcome first-pass metabolism. The investigation focused on the potential effects of LP-loaded spanlastic vesicles (SNVs) on LP pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetic parameters, utilizing a thin-film hydration methodology established on a 3122 full factorial design. Entrapment efficiency (EE%) ranged from 39.8 ± 3.87.8 to 83.8 ± 2.92% for LP-SNVs. Vesicle size (VS) varied from 205.5 ± 6.5.10 to 445.1 ± 13.52 nm, and the percentage of LP released after 8 h (Q8h) ranged from 30.8 ± 3.10 to 68.8 ± 1.45%. LP permeated through the nasal mucosa during 24 h and flocculated from 194.1 ± 4.90 to 435.3 ± 13.53 µg/cm2. After twenty-four hours, the optimal LP-SNVs in-situ gel showed 2.35 times more permeation through the nasal mucosa than the LP solution. It also lowered systolic blood pressure, so it is thought to be better than the reference formulation in terms of pharmacodynamics. The pharmacokinetics studies demonstrated that the intranasal LP-SNVs gel boosted its bioavailability approximately 6.36 times compared to the oral LP solution. Our research showed that intranasal LP-SNVs could be a good nanoplatform because they are well-tolerated and have possible pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics.

Graphical Abstract
Watching Women: Surveillance and Spectatorship in Early Science Fiction Television
Authors: Dickason Cara
Published: May 2024

This article analyzes episodes of early science fiction anthology series to examine how fears of television's ability to turn its gaze on the home circulated around women, both as objects of surveillance and as television spectators, in the 1950s and 1960s. Media historians have called attention to the importance of women in defining the role of new technologies and have detailed the gendered popular constructions of early television. This article stems from such work, addressing the time when audiences and producers alike were grappling with the imagined potential of television's visuality and liveness to impose visibility on its viewers. Early episodes of Tales of Tomorrow, The Twilight Zone, and The Outer Limits expose anxieties about the power of television as a surveillance mechanism to enact control over audiences. Formally and narratively, these episodes complicate the division between seeing and being seen, particularly for women viewers, while enacting strategies to contain and discipline women. They mobilize women's navigation of visual subjectivity and objectification only to eschew their ability to look and reify their status as objects to be looked at. By taking a closer look at early television surveillance narratives, this article demonstrates how women's television spectatorship has always entailed a complex negotiation of imposed looking relations that paradoxically attempt to deny the female gaze even as they depend on it. Understanding this historical context helps illuminate the gendered power dynamics of spectatorship and visibility in our present media landscape, in which the convergence of TV and surveillance technologies realizes the imagined fears of the mid-twentieth century.
The Feminist Refusal of I May Destroy You
Authors: Ullrich Madeline
Published: May 2024

Michaela Coel's I May Destroy You (HBO, BBC One, 2020) chronicles a first-generation Black woman's struggles in the aftermath of her sexual assault. Set in the United Kingdom, I May Destroy You was well-received by US critics and audiences alike, who rallied around the series as a positive, cohesive, and ultimately feminist example of how a woman productively deals with sexual trauma. These discourses of positive representation used to frame I May Destroy You, however, focus on reinforcing liberal feminist ideals of assimilation, legibility, and respectability in the service of an unexamined “womanhood.” In reality, I May Destroy You uses both plot—as Arabella and her friends attempt to make sense of her rape—and narrative form to deconstruct the identity of “woman,” the term that most television series on “women's issues” and with feminist modes of address have attempted to represent and stabilize since the medium's foundations in the mid-twentieth century. In resisting stable, positive identity categories in a story of sexual violence, Coel's I May Destroy You presents an aberration and an important intervention in a televisual landscape that often relies on access to distinct binaries of male/female, Black/white, and victim/perpetrator to make claims of “accurate” representation—both for sexual assault on television and for women's experience more broadly.
Mammalian pexophagy at a glance
Authors: Bajdzienko Justyna , Bremm Anja
Published: May 2024

Peroxisomes are highly plastic organelles that are involved in several metabolic processes, including fatty acid oxidation, ether lipid synthesis and redox homeostasis. Their abundance and activity are dynamically regulated in response to nutrient availability and cellular stress. Damaged or superfluous peroxisomes are removed mainly by pexophagy, the selective autophagy of peroxisomes induced by ubiquitylation of peroxisomal membrane proteins or ubiquitin-independent processes. Dysregulated pexophagy impairs peroxisome homeostasis and has been linked to the development of various human diseases. Despite many recent insights into mammalian pexophagy, our understanding of this process is still limited compared to our understanding of pexophagy in yeast. In this Cell Science at a Glance article and the accompanying poster, we summarize current knowledge on the control of mammalian pexophagy and highlight which aspects require further attention. We also discuss the role of ubiquitylation in pexophagy and describe the ubiquitin machinery involved in regulating signals for the recruitment of phagophores to peroxisomes.
A predictive algorithm for the analysis of AMR trends and healthcare decision support
Authors: Agboeze Tochukwu , Daramola Oluwasegun , Akomolafe Ayobami , Adedeji Roqeeb , Markwei Julius
Published: May 2024

Background Translating available AMR surveillance data to observe evolving patterns of microbial resistance to antimicrobial agents while identifying regions at high risk of resistant cases and serving as a decision-support tool is an aspect of AMR surveillance that is rarely explored nationwide and uncommon globally. Therefore, we developed a two-tier dashboard algorithm (PATHFINDER) that can analyse antimicrobial surveillance datasets, observe evolving global spatiotemporal patterns of AMR, and integrate local AMR gene resources to identify functional AMR determinant genes and antibiotic classes from the query organism genome. Methods The Python-based plotly library was used to develop the interactive variables of the Antimicrobial Testing Leadership Surveillance (ATLAS) dataset in an adjustable spatiotemporal environment. A lightweight database containing multiple known resistant genes from the ResFinder database was used as a prototype to identify unique AMR determinant genes from query nucleotide sequences. In R, a function was created to accept query genome sequences and generate Kmers of length 250 using the blaster package. The GPT-4 API plug-in was embedded with adequate prompt parsing for it as an interpretation LLM function. Results AMR trendline plots were designed for invasive infections and customised based on the class of antibiotics and infection types on the surveillance dashboard. The decision-support tool correctly predicted resistant genes with a sensitivity of 75% on pre-confirmed organisms. The observed specificity score (51.5%) was due to the need for more filtering and optimisation and not to PATHFINDER performance. When run against the reference gene dataset containing pre-identified AMR genes, the support tool generated a BLAST table with identified AMR gene determinants in a nucleotide sequence. Conclusions The PATHFINDER algorithm has the potential to revolutionise healthcare decision-making. It can inform targeted interventions, guide antimicrobial stewardship efforts at a national level, promote appropriate antibiotic use, and significantly reduce the risk of resistance development.
Demystifying the S3 guidelines: what do they actually mean?
Authors: Raindi Devan S , Chapple Iain , Kebschull Moritz
Published: May 2024

Recent guidelines have been developed by the European Federation of Periodontology (EFP) and adoloped by the British Society of Periodontology to provide evidence-based guidance for clinicians in the UK to deliver periodontal therapy. To ensure the guidelines are as robust as possible the process of development is carefully structured. This article explores the background behind S3-level guidance for the treatment of periodontitis.

CPD/Clinical Relevance: Understanding the process behind guideline formulation allows clinicians to apply them appropriately and confidently within their clinical practice.
An update on the prevention and treatment of peri-implant diseases
Authors: Menhadji Payvand , Lu Emily Ming-Chieh
Published: May 2024

Peri-implant diseases, especially peri-implantitis, present a growing public health concern owing to their rising prevalence and adverse outcomes, and lead to substantial dental care costs and an overall economic impact. This article outlines the case definitions and diagnoses for peri-mucositis and peri-implantitis and summarizes the EFP S3-level clinical practice guidelines.

CPD/Clinical Relevance: Understanding case definitions and diagnoses of peri-implant diseases, including peri-mucositis and peri-implantitis, is essential for dental professionals to provide effective treatment and prevent complications.
Radiation dose and image quality optimization in lumbar spine digital radiography for overweight and obese patients: Phantom study
Authors:   Department of Radiological Technology, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, Naresuan University, Phitsanulok Province, Thailand, Prapan Ausanai , Chuprempri Kanthicha ,   Department of Radiological Technology, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, Naresuan University, Phitsanulok Province, Thailand, Fong-in Phattharawadee ,   Department of Radiological Technology, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, Naresuan University, Phitsanulok Province, Thailand, Kheawtubtim Panida ,   Department of Radiological Technology, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, Naresuan University, Phitsanulok Province, Thailand, Rattanarungruangchai Natch ,   Department of Radiation Dose Measurement and Assessment, Nuclear Technology Service Center, Thailand Institute of Nuclear Technology (Public Organization), Nakornnayok Province, Thailand, Pengpan Thanyawee ,   Department of Radiological Technology, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, Naresuan University, Phitsanulok Province, Thailand
Published: May 2024

Background: Lumbar spine radiography plays an important role in routine use for clinical practice in overweight and obese patients. The radiographer is responsible for setting suitable exposure factors for the tradeoffs between radiation dose and image quality (IQ). Objective: To investigate the effect of different kVp values combined with AEC used on radiation dose and IQ for routine lumbar spine radiography in overweight and obese patients. Materials and methods: A 1.5 and 3 cm thickness of frozen pork lard was placed on a pelvis phantom to simulate an overweight and obese patient, respectively. The phantom was imaged at 10 kVp intervals in combination with AEC used. For IQ evaluation, CNR and SNR were calculated, and the observer study was determined using visual grading scores (VGS) with a 5-point Likert scale. The radiation dose was measured using a DAP meter, and then the figure of merit (FOM) was calculated. Results: SNR and CNR for both AP and lateral projection showed a slightly decreasing trend when kVp increased in all groups. The DAP values decreased when the higher kVp was selected with AEC used in each group. The VGS by five radiographers showed good image quality in all groups, while the FOM at 100 and 109 kVp was the highest score for both AP and lateral projections. Conclusion: The optimal kVp setting in this study ranged from 100 to 109 kVp in combination with AEC used, indicating minimal radiation dose, while maintaining diagnostic IQ.
EVALUATING SHORT-TERM OUTCOMES POST- INTRA-ARTICULAR CALCANEAL FRACTURE FIXATION VIA A SINUS TARSI APPROACH IN A NON-EXCLUSIVELY SELECTED COHORT
Authors: Davey M. , Stanton P. , Lambert L.A. , McCarton T. , Walsh J.
Published: May 2024

Aims

Management of intra-articular calcaneal fractures remains a debated topic in orthopaedics, with operative fixation often held in reserve due to concerns regarding perioperative morbidity and potential complications. The purpose of this study was to identify the characteristics of patients who developed surgical complications to inform the future stratification of patients best suited to operative treatment for intra-articular calcaneal fractures and those in whom surgery was highly likely to produce an equivocal functional outcome with potential post-operative complications.

Methods

All patients who underwent open reduction and internal fixation of calcaneal fractures utilizing the Sinus Tarsi approach between March 2014 and July 2018 were identified using theatre records. Patient imaging was used to assess pre- and post-operative fracture geometry with Computed Tomography (CT) used for pre-operative planning. Each patient's clinical presentation was established through retrospective analysis of medical records. Patients provided verbal consent to participation and patient reported outcome measures were recorded using the Maryland Foot Score.

Results

Fifty-eight intra-articular calcaneal fractures (fifty-three patients including five bilateral, mean age = 46.91 years) were included. Forty-nine patients were injured as a result of a fall from a height (92.4%). Mean time from presentation to surgery was 3.23 days (range 0–21). Mean Maryland Foot score was found to be 77.6 (+/− 16.22) in forty-five patients. Five patients (9.4%) had wound complications; two superficial (3.7%) and three deep (5.6%).

Conclusion

Intra-articular fractures of the calcaneus should be considered for surgical intervention in order to improve long-term functional outcomes. The Sinus Tarsi approach provides the potential to decrease the operative complication rate whilst maintaining adequate fixation, however, the decision to surgically manage these fractures should be carefully balanced against the risk of post-operative complications. This increased risk of complication associated with smoking may tip the balance against benefit from surgical management.
Early school leaving in Spain: a longitudinal analysis by gender
Authors: Martín-González Martín , González-Betancor Sara M. , Pérez-Esparrells Carmen
Published: May 2024

Spain is one of the eight EU-27 countries that failed to reduce early school leaving (ESL) below 10% in 2020, and now faces the challenge of achieving a rate below 9% by 2030. The determinants of this phenomenon are usually studied using cross-sectional data at the micro level and without differentiation by gender. In this study, we analyse it for the first time for Spain using panel data (between 2002 and 2020), taking into account the high regional inequalities at the macroeconomic level and the masculinisation of the phenomenon. The results show a positive relationship between ESL and socio-economic variables such as the adolescent fertility rate, immigration, unemployment or the weight of the industrial and construction sectors in the regional economy, with significant gender differences that invite us to discuss educational policies. Surprisingly, youth unemployment has only small but significant impact on female ESL.
Error performance and capacity of subcarrier BPSK modulated THz wireless systems with pointing errors
Authors: Niu Mingbo , Ji Ruihang , Zhang Panpan , Miah Md. Sipon , Li Ying
Published: May 2024

Terahertz (THz) technology is poised to play a pivotal role in the future sixth-generation (6 G) wireless systems, offering substantial benefits with its extremely high bandwidth and rapid transmission speeds. This paper explores subcarrier-modulated THz wireless systems, analyzing their performance under the log-normal and gamma-gamma models. It provides a detailed examination of how composite turbulence and pointing errors impact the system performance. Closed-form solutions for the bit error rate and outage probability are derived for various conditions of turbulence and pointing errors. Furthermore, the paper delves into the asymptotic error performance, presenting numerical results that confirm the accuracy of the derived solutions across different propagation distances, turbulence strengths, and pointing error scenarios. The study offers critical insights into how different conditions affect the system performance, which is essential for characterizing subcarrier THz links in forthcoming 6 G deployments.
Modelling polarized pulsed LiDAR signals in scattering media: an approach for optimizing systems in real-world scenarios
Authors: Ballesta-Garcia Maria , Royo Santiago
Published: May 2024

Adverse weather conditions present a primary challenge for ground-based LiDAR imaging systems in outdoor applications. The use of polarization has been proposed as an effective filtering mechanism. However, the number of potential situations is large, complex and difficult to parameterize with accuracy. In such conditions, advanced simulation methods enable the testing of different experimental configurations and the determination of the best possible setup. With this purpose, a Monte Carlo algorithm is presented for modeling polarized pulsed LiDAR signals in turbid media. This algorithm is designed for immediate applicability, incorporating realistic media characterization and accounting for the attributes of existing prototypes. It allows testing various experimental configurations, managing optical obstacles, adjusting polarization arrangements, and different geometries of particles within the medium. The developed algorithm accurately characterizes backscattering signals, revealing their dependence on medium properties. A relationship between visibility and backscattering energy is identified, offering insights for sensor optimization. Polarization analysis highlights the efficacy of circular polarization in mitigating scattering effects and establishes a connection with the polarimetric characteristics of imaged targets. The algorithm's application to irregular particles reveals also an unexpected behavior of polarized light, challenging established strategies. These diverse use cases exemplify the algorithm's capability to model real-world circumstances, emphasizing its significance in predicting cutting-edge situations when designing optical systems for complex and demanding outdoor scenarios.
Long wavelength distributed feedback tapered quantum cascade lasers
Authors: Pinto Davide , Díaz Thomas Daniel Andres , Loghmari Zeineb , Kinjalk Kumar , Teissier Roland , Bahriz Michael , Lendl Bernhard , Baranov Alexei N.
Published: May 2024

We present a study on distributed feedback tapered quantum cascade lasers emitting at 14 µm. The fabricated lasers with taper angles between 0° and 3° exhibited output powers scaling in accordance with the active zone volume increase. Reduced divergence angles as small as 4.2° have been obtained with diffraction limited-beam quality (M2 ≈ 1). With a first order Bragg-grating for single longitudinal mode selection, continuous wave operation was demonstrated up to almost room temperature with side-mode suppression ratios greater than 20 dB.
Optical matter based on graphene surface plasmons
Authors: Ferrari H. , Cuevas M.
Published: May 2024

In this work, we have proposed a graphene planar structure as an optical binding device of dielectric nanoparticles. Surface plasmons (SPs) on a graphene sheet, generated thanks to the near field scattering of the incident plane wave by the nanoparticles placed close to the graphene sheet, act as a powerful intermediary for enhancing the optical force between nanoparticles to organize the particle structure at length scales comparable with the plasmon wavelength, i.e., at the light sub-wavelength scale. In particular, we have paid attention to the formation of one-dimensional arrays of nanoparticles. Our results show that both the equilibrium separation between particles and the energy potential binding depend on the number of particles forming the array and that the former tends to the plasmon wavelength (the array constant) for a number of particles large enough. We have obtained simple analytical expressions that explain the main results obtained by using the rigorous theory. Our contribution can be valuable for the knowledge in the low-frequency optical binding framework, from terahertz to far-infrared spectrum.
Observation of valley-polarized topological phase transition in surface wave photonic crystals
Authors: Li Shuwei , Hu Yuanhang , Zhang Yunpeng , Lu Haipeng , Liang Difei , Zhou Peiheng
Published: May 2024

Simultaneous breaking of inversion symmetry and time-reversal symmetry
brings topological phases fundamental in valleytronics, i.e. unpaired
Dirac points and edge states. Here, we experimentally demonstrate the
valley-polarized topological phase transition of these states. In a
surface wave photonic crystal platform with honeycomb lattice, we use
unequal metal pillars and magnetically biased gyromagnetic ferrite
disks to modulate the breaking of symmetries. Switching of the
unpaired Dirac points between K and K’ valleys is observed.
More importantly, we realize valley manipulation of the edge states in
heterojunctions constructed by specific topological phases. Our
research thus paves the way for valley-polarized devices.
Modelling daisy quorum drive: A short-term bridge across engineered fitness valleys
Authors: de Haas Frederik J. H. , Kläy Léna , Débarre Florence , Otto Sarah P.
Published: May 2024

Engineered gene-drive techniques for population modification and/or suppression have the potential for tackling complex challenges, including reducing the spread of diseases and invasive species. Gene-drive systems with low threshold frequencies for invasion, such as homing-based gene drive, require initially few transgenic individuals to spread and are therefore easy to introduce. The self-propelled behavior of such drives presents a double-edged sword, however, as the low threshold can allow transgenic elements to expand beyond a target population. By contrast, systems where a high threshold frequency must be reached before alleles can spread—above a fitness valley—are less susceptible to spillover but require introduction at a high frequency. We model a proposed drive system, called “daisy quorum drive,” that transitions over time from a low-threshold daisy-chain system (involving homing-based gene drive such as CRISPR-Cas9) to a high-threshold fitness-valley system (requiring a high frequency—a “quorum”—to spread). The daisy-chain construct temporarily lowers the high thresholds required for spread of the fitness-valley construct, facilitating use in a wide variety of species that are challenging to breed and release in large numbers. Because elements in the daisy chain only drive subsequent elements in the chain and not themselves and also carry deleterious alleles (“drive load”), the daisy chain is expected to exhaust itself, removing all CRISPR elements and leaving only the high-threshold fitness-valley construct, whose spread is more spatially restricted. Developing and analyzing both discrete patch and continuous space models, we explore how various attributes of daisy quorum drive affect the chance of modifying local population characteristics and the risk that transgenic elements expand beyond a target area. We also briefly explore daisy quorum drive when population suppression is the goal. We find that daisy quorum drive can provide a promising bridge between gene-drive and fitness-valley constructs, allowing spread from a low frequency in the short term and better containment in the long term, without requiring repeated introductions or persistence of CRISPR elements.
Numerical simulation of temperature field of a new type of freezing device under seepage effect
Authors: Yang Ning , Wang Xuyong , Ren Jixun
Published: May 2024

In order to investigate the development of the temperature field of a new type of freezing reinforcement under seepage conditions, in this paper, COMSOL finite element software was used to simplify the model and simulate the effect of groundwater seepage on the development of the temperature field of frozen pipes by coupling the Darcy’s law module and the heat transfer module for porous media. The heads of water were also varied to simulate the change in seepage velocity to further investigate the effect of seepage velocity on the temperature field. The results of the study show that the freezing wall formed in the high head region was thinner than that in the low head region due to the effect of seepage, and this phenomenon was aggravated with the increase of seepage rate; The effect of seepage action on the temperature field had a hysteresis along the seepage direction; When the seepage rate was greater than 1.65 m/d, the soil in the center of the device feezed better and could form a tight and dense freezing wall comparable to the size of the freezing device; When the seepage rate was greater than 5.78 m/d, the temperature of the center soil body gradually increased, and eventually the freezing curtain cannot be formed.
Barriers to adaptation of environmental sustainability in SMEs: A qualitative study
Authors: Durrani Nazneen , Raziq Abdul , Mahmood Tarique , Khan Mustafa Rehman
Published: May 2024

This study examines the antecedents of environmental sustainability in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) of a developing country and explores the specific internal and external factors for environmental sustainability. The study focused on SMEs in Balochistan, Pakistan, utilizing convenience and purposive sampling techniques to select a sample size of 30 SMEs. In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted using a semi-structured questionnaire. The results of the study revealed that lack of finance and education are major barriers to recognizing and addressing environmental sustainability issues, along with the lack of government support and regulations to ensure compliance with environmental safety laws, hence leading to low concern for sustainability practices among SMEs. Awareness and attitude of SME owners/managers, along with customer demand and government policies, influence the adoption of environmental sustainability practices. Overcoming financial constraints and promoting cooperation among stakeholders are key to fostering sustainable practices in SMEs. This research makes an important contribution to the sustainable management literature by providing new and in-depth insights into the barriers that impede environmental sustainability in SMEs of developing countries.
Integration of metabolomics and transcriptomics provides insights into the molecular mechanism of temporomandibular joint osteoarthritis
Authors: Tuerxun Palati , Ng Takkun , Zhao Ke , Zhu Ping
Published: May 2024

The deficiency of clinically specific biomarkers has made it difficult to achieve an accurate diagnosis of temporomandibular joint osteoarthritis (TMJ-OA) and the insufficient comprehension of the pathogenesis of the pathogenesis of TMJ-OA has posed challenges in advancing therapeutic measures. The combined use of metabolomics and transcriptomics technologies presents a highly effective method for identifying vital metabolic pathways and key genes in TMJ-OA patients. In this study, an analysis of synovial fluid untargeted metabolomics of 6 TMJ-OA groups and 6 temporomandibular joint reducible anterior disc displacement (TMJ-DD) groups was conducted using liquid and gas chromatography mass spectrometry (LC/GC-MS). The differential metabolites (DMs) between TMJ-OA and TMJ-DD groups were analyzed through multivariate analysis. Meanwhile, a transcriptomic dataset (GSE205389) was obtained from the GEO database to analyze the differential metabolism-related genes (DE-MTGs) between TMJ-OA and TMJ-DD groups. Finally, an integrated analysis of DMs and DE-MTGs was carried out to investigate the molecular mechanisms associated with TMJ-OA. The analysis revealed significant differences in the levels of 46 DMs between TMJ-OA and TMJ-DD groups, of which 3 metabolites (L-carnitine, taurine, and adenosine) were identified as potential biomarkers for TMJ-OA. Collectively, differential expression analysis identified 20 DE-MTGs. Furthermore, the integration of metabolomics and transcriptomics analysis revealed that the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism, ferroptosis were significantly enriched. This study provides valuable insights into the metabolic abnormalities and associated pathogenic mechanisms, improving our understanding of TMJOA etiopathogenesis and facilitating potential target screening for therapeutic intervention.
Competition and regional Phillips curve: Evidence from China
Authors: Du Shukai
Published: May 2024

The product market competition affects the non-neutrality of monetary policy. This paper quantitatively assesses its impact on the slope of the Phillips curve through the channels of nominal and real rigidity. We build a New Keynesian model using the Kimball aggregator and the Calvo staggered pricing scheme. We show that a more competitive market environment has opposite effects on the slope of the Phillips curve by increasing the real rigidity and lowering the nominal rigidity. We then estimated the model using regional data of China. The Bayesian estimation shows that the response of inflation-output trade-off is larger in the region with a high degree of competition. Counterfactual experiments demonstrate that nominal rigidity has a dominant role and accounts for the majority of the difference in the Phillips curve, while the contribution of real rigidity is relatively minor. Our results highlight the key role of nominal rigidity in determining the inflation-output dynamics.
Government infrastructure investment stimulation through booming natural resources: Evidence from a lower-middle-income country
Authors: Hidayat Bachtari Alam , Supartoyo Yesi Hendriani , Setiawan Sigit , Ragimun Ragimun , Salim Zamroni
Published: May 2024

The dynamics of central government funding to regions depend on local investments. In regional autonomy, local governments are encouraged to be more self-reliant from the central government. For regions with high natural resource yields, they will not encounter difficulties in meeting their fiscal needs. Community welfare can be realized through fulfilling basic needs, one of which is infrastructure development. High-quality infrastructure will be able to contribute to further progress in trade, thus enhancing production efficiency. The objective of this research is to analyze the extent of the influence of central government transfer funds, especially the Natural Resource Revenue Sharing Funds (DBH SDA), on local government investments in infrastructure across 508 districts/cities in Indonesia. The method used is dynamic panel regression using the Generalized Method of Moment (GMM) Arellano-Bond approach. This study finds that the role of DBH SDA is still low in infrastructure spending. The role of the central government remains significant in determining infrastructure spending at the district/city level in Indonesia. This indicates that local governments rely more on other sectors in infrastructure investment. By enhancing the role of DBH SDA through technological advancements, it is hoped that the market value of natural resources can be higher through resource downstreaming. This strategy will have broader impacts, as labor needs can be absorbed not only in raw material production activities but also in the processing technology sector. Furthermore, the utilization of natural resources with modern technology can increase extraction efficiency, support sustainable development, and minimize environmental impacts.
Analytical validation of a novel comprehensive genomic profiling informed circulating tumor DNA monitoring assay for solid tumors
Authors: Zollinger Daniel R. , Rivers Elizabeth , Fine Alexander , Huang Yanmei , Son Joseph , Kalyan Akshita , Gray Wren , Baharian Golshid , Hammond Carly , Ram Rosalyn , Ringman Lindsay , Hafez Dina , Savel Daniel , Patel Vipul , Dantone Marc , Guo Cui , Childress Merrida , Xu Chang , Johng Dorhyun , Wallden Brett , Pokharel Prapti , Camara William , Hegde Priti S. , Hughes Jason , Carter Corey , Davarpanah Nicole , Degaonkar Viraj , Gupta Pratyush , Mariathasan Sanjeev , Powles Thomas , Ferree Sean , Dennis Lucas , Young Amanda
Published: May 2024

Emerging technologies focused on the detection and quantification of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in blood show extensive potential for managing patient treatment decisions, informing risk of recurrence, and predicting response to therapy. Currently available tissue-informed approaches are often limited by the need for additional sequencing of normal tissue or peripheral mononuclear cells to identify non-tumor-derived alterations while tissue-naïve approaches are often limited in sensitivity. Here we present the analytical validation for a novel ctDNA monitoring assay, FoundationOne®Tracker. The assay utilizes somatic alterations from comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) of tumor tissue. A novel algorithm identifies monitorable alterations with a high probability of being somatic and computationally filters non-tumor-derived alterations such as germline or clonal hematopoiesis variants without the need for sequencing of additional samples. Monitorable alterations identified from tissue CGP are then quantified in blood using a multiplex polymerase chain reaction assay based on the validated SignateraTM assay. The analytical specificity of the plasma workflow is shown to be 99.6% at the sample level. Analytical sensitivity is shown to be >97.3% at ≥5 mean tumor molecules per mL of plasma (MTM/mL) when tested with the most conservative configuration using only two monitorable alterations. The assay also demonstrates high analytical accuracy when compared to liquid biopsy-based CGP as well as high qualitative (measured 100% PPA) and quantitative precision (<11.2% coefficient of variation).
Laetoli, Tanzania: Extant terrestrial mollusc faunas shed new light on climate and palaeoecology at a Pliocene hominin site
Authors: Tattersfield Peter , Rowson Ben , Ngereza Christine F. , Harrison Terry
Published: May 2024

Laetoli, Tanzania is one of the most important palaeontological and palaeoanthropological localities in Africa. We report on a survey of the extant terrestrial gastropod faunas of the Laetoli-Endulen area, examine their ecological associations and re-examine the utility of Pliocene fossil molluscs in palaeoenvironmental reconstruction. Standardised collecting at 15 sites yielded 7302 individuals representing 58 mollusc species. Significant dissimilarities were found among the faunas of three broad habitat types: forest, woodland/bushland and open (grassland and scattered, xeric shrubland). Overall, more species were recorded in the woodland/bushland sites than in the forest sites. Open sites were less diverse. Environmental factors contributing most strongly to the separation of habitat types were aridity index and elevation. The results are supplemented with new mollusc data from the Mbulu Plateau south of Lake Eyasi, and compared to the list of species cumulatively recorded from the Ngorongoro area. Some regional variation is apparent and historical factors may explain the absence of some fossil taxa from Laetoli today. Differences in seasonality separated upland forest sites on the Mbulu plateau from those at Lemagurut at Laetoli. Indicator species were identified for each habitat. These included several large-bodied species analogous to the Laetoli Pliocene fossil species that were then used for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction. Based on the estimated aridity index, and adopting the widely used United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) global climate classification, the four stratigraphic subunits of the Upper Laetolil Beds (3.6–3.85 Ma) would be placed in either the UNEP’s Dry Sub-humid or Semi-arid climate classes, whereas the Upper Ndolanya Beds (2.66 Ma) and Lower Laetolil Beds (3.85-<4.36 Ma) would be assigned to the Humid and Semi-arid climate classes respectively. Pliocene precipitation at Laetoli is estimated as 847–965 mm per year, refining previous estimates. This is close or slightly higher than the present mean annual precipitation, and is likely to have corresponded to a mosaic of forest, woodland and bushland within a grassland matrix consistent with other reconstructions.
Segmenting and classifying lung diseases with M-Segnet and Hybrid Squeezenet-CNN architecture on CT images
Authors: Shafi Syed Mohammed , Chinnappan Sathiya Kumar
Published: May 2024

Diagnosing lung diseases accurately and promptly is essential for effectively managing this significant public health challenge on a global scale. This paper introduces a new framework called Modified Segnet-based Lung Disease Segmentation and Severity Classification (MSLDSSC). The MSLDSSC model comprises four phases: "preprocessing, segmentation, feature extraction, and classification." Initially, the input image undergoes preprocessing using an improved Wiener filter technique. This technique estimates the power spectral density of the noisy and original images and computes the SNR assisted by PSNR to evaluate image quality. Next, the preprocessed image undergoes Segmentation to identify and separate the RoI from the background objects in the lung image. We employ a Modified Segnet mechanism that utilizes a proposed hard tanh-Softplus activation function for effective Segmentation. Following Segmentation, features such as MLDN, entropy with MRELBP, shape features, and deep features are extracted. Following the feature extraction phase, the retrieved feature set is input into a hybrid severity classification model. This hybrid model comprises two classifiers: SDPA-Squeezenet and DCNN. These classifiers train on the retrieved feature set and effectively classify the severity level of lung diseases.
Assessment of Gene Set Enrichment Analysis using curated RNA-seq-based benchmarks
Authors: Candia Julián , Ferrucci Luigi
Published: May 2024

Pathway enrichment analysis is a ubiquitous computational biology method to interpret a list of genes (typically derived from the association of large-scale omics data with phenotypes of interest) in terms of higher-level, predefined gene sets that share biological function, chromosomal location, or other common features. Among many tools developed so far, Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) stands out as one of the pioneering and most widely used methods. Although originally developed for microarray data, GSEA is nowadays extensively utilized for RNA-seq data analysis. Here, we quantitatively assessed the performance of a variety of GSEA modalities and provide guidance in the practical use of GSEA in RNA-seq experiments. We leveraged harmonized RNA-seq datasets available from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) in combination with large, curated pathway collections from the Molecular Signatures Database to obtain cancer-type-specific target pathway lists across multiple cancer types. We carried out a detailed analysis of GSEA performance using both gene-set and phenotype permutations combined with four different choices for the Kolmogorov-Smirnov enrichment statistic. Based on our benchmarks, we conclude that the classic/unweighted gene-set permutation approach offered comparable or better sensitivity-vs-specificity tradeoffs across cancer types compared with other, more complex and computationally intensive permutation methods. Finally, we analyzed other large cohorts for thyroid cancer and hepatocellular carcinoma. We utilized a new consensus metric, the Enrichment Evidence Score (EES), which showed a remarkable agreement between pathways identified in TCGA and those from other sources, despite differences in cancer etiology. This finding suggests an EES-based strategy to identify a core set of pathways that may be complemented by an expanded set of pathways for downstream exploratory analysis. This work fills the existing gap in current guidelines and benchmarks for the use of GSEA with RNA-seq data and provides a framework to enable detailed benchmarking of other RNA-seq-based pathway analysis tools.
Effects of swine manure and straw biochars on fluorine adsorption-desorption in soils
Authors: Cui Jiatao , Zhang Mengyu , Mi Meng , Zhao Yaming , Jin Zewen , Wong Ming Hung , Shan Shengdao , Ping Lifeng
Published: May 2024

With increasing global awareness of soil health, attention must be paid to fluorine exposure in soils, which poses a threat to human health. Therefore, this study aimed to study the fluorine adsorption characteristics of swine manure and straw biochars and their impact on fluorine adsorption-desorption in soil with batch experiments. The biochar samples originated from high-temperature anaerobic cracking of swine manure (350°C, 500°C, and 650°C) and straw (500°C). Results indicated that the adsorption of soil fluorine reached adsorption equilibrium at around 4 h after the mixing of swine manure and straw biochar. Fluorine adsorption kinetics using these biochars conformed to the quasi-two-stage kinetic model. The fluorine adsorption kinetics for biochar-treated soils conformed to the double-constant equation and the Elovich equation, and the soil treated with straw biochar showed the fastest fluorine adsorption rate. The adsorption isotherms of fluorine for biochars and biochar-treated soils could be fitted by the isothermal adsorption model of Langmuir and Freundlich. The maximal equilibrium quantity of fluorine was 73.66 mg/g for swine manure biochar. The soil, adding with 2% of swine manure biochar achieved with showed at 650°C had the smallest adsorption. This study also shows that the adsorption of fluorine by biochar gradually decreased with the increase of pH. Comparing with other factors, the mixture pH with biochars added had a significant effect on fluorine adsorption. The decreased fluorine adsorption capacities for soils treated with swine manure and straw biochars were closely related to the increased pH in soils after adding biochars. Considering the fluorine threat in soil, this study provides a theoretical basis for the application of biochars on soil fluorine adsorption.