bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
One-dimensional calculation approach for gaseous clearance flows
Authors: Jünemann T , Brümmer A
Published: November 2022

Clearance flows do strongly influence the efficiency of dry-running positive displacement machines. To model the operation behaviour of the machines an accurate prediction of the clearance mass flows is crucial. If a chamber model simulation is used, the clearance mass flows are commonly estimate with simple equation to keep the computational effort low. Therefore, regression functions or coefficient databases are built into simulation. However, finding such functions or coefficients is a challenging and expensive task since many boundary conditions and geometry parameters must be varied in experiment or simulation. To reduce the effort of clearance analysis this paper presents a one-dimensional approach to estimate the clearance mass flow in e.g. dry-running screw-type compressors, based on the well-known differential equation of A.H. Shapiro for compressible flow of ideal gases. The friction is modelled with respect to laminar and turbulent flow. The flow separation and the friction of laminar flow are modelled based on the solutions of the Jeffery-Hamel flow. The friction in the turbulent regime is modelled by the Blasius expression, while the flow separation criteria is assumed to be the same as for laminar flow. The moving clearance wall is modelled assuming a superposition of Couette and Poiseuille flow. In addition, the heat transfer between gas and clearance boundary as well as gas rarefaction can also be optionally modelled. Results of the one-dimensional approach are compared to measurements and 3D-CFD simulations from the literature, varying Reynolds number and wall velocity.
Contribution of modern rotor profiles to energy efficiency of screw compressors
Authors: Patil S , Davis M , Stosic N , Kovacevic A , Asati N
Published: November 2022

Screw rotors are the heart of screw compressors. And the energy efficiency of industrial machines is a matter of tremendous significance now more than ever. Historically, rotor profile developments have played a key role in making screw compressors energy efficient and commercially viable. Further attention to manufacturing aspects of rotor profiles and the invention of the rack generated rotor profiles led to rotor profiles having good manufacturability. The principles of rotor profile generation and manufacturing are available in open literature since 1960’s. But more and more literature on rotor profiling has been published since then. Modern screw rotor profiles (patented close to and in the 21st century) have all the principles of a good profile incorporated in their design. Hence the industry and profile designers at large are aware of the increasing difficulty to further make the twin screw compressor rotor profiles more energy efficient. This paper tries to quantify the contribution of rotor profile to energy efficiency of a typical twin screw compressor by comparing the most recent (hence modern) screw compressor rotor profiles. In order to fairly compare different rotor profiles, all are retrofitted to a single size, lobe combination, rotor length, and helix angle. Only the curves constituting the profile, as dictated in the patent documents of the respective profiles, have been changed. Tools such as SCORPATH and SCORG have been used to do the geometric and thermodynamic calculations on the profiles. Keeping the working conditions same for all the retrofitted but different profiles, a comparison has been made. This comparison sheds some light on how much is the energy efficiency of a particular twin screw compressor influenced by a mere change of profile. This analysis can be further extended to establish reasonable targets for twin screw compressor manufacturers to improve energy efficiency of their machines via improving their rotor profiles. This remains the future scope of this work.
Thermodynamic simulation and experimental validation of an oil-free twin-screw expander
Authors: Grieb M , Brümmer A
Published: November 2022

The chamber model method is still a powerful tool for the thermodynamic simulation of screw machines and is widely used in the industry and in science. When choosing adequate submodels for the compressible flows through machine clearances and the machine ports high simulation accuracy can be reached with minimal computation resources. However, detailed modelling is required when the complex geometry of twin-screw machines is abstracted to a time-dependent zero-dimensional chamber model. In this paper a two-chamber model simulation tool is used for the thermodynamic simulation of an oil-free twin-screw expander operating with dry air as working fluid. Insights into the modelling process are presented and the importance of precise modelling of gap flows between adjacent capacities is discussed. The simulation results are finally validated against experimental data. Integral values obtained from the experiments, such as expander mass flow rate, indicated power, and effective power, are in good agreement with the numerical calculations. To gain a deeper understanding of the thermodynamics of the expander working cycle, additional investigations are carried out at zero speed. The mass flow rates measured for a variation of stationary rotor positions are compared to values calculated with the two-chamber model method.
Use of CFD to optimize the design of a shunt pulsation trap (SPT) used for noise and vibration mitigation in oil free screw compressors
Authors: Willie J , Yonkers S W , Huang P X , Ganatra R B
Published: November 2022

Noise and vibration are problems that are inherent in screw compressors and other Positive Displacement (PD)Machines. This problem is driven partly by the lobe passing frequencies inside these machines that are generated due to the meshing between the gate and main rotors teeth. Because these compressors are operated over a wide speed range and at various loads they usually run at off-design conditions leading to either over or under-compression. In both scenarios, the pressure within the compressor always changes rapidly to match the discharge or process pressure when the discharge opens thus leading to pulsation and noise. To ensure that the compressor is operated without over and or under compression, which also negatively affects the compressor efficiency Hi-Bar Blowers, Inc developed a Shunt Pulsation Trap (SPT) that will contain and reduce the pulsation inside the compressor cavities thus eliminating the use of a silencer at the inlet and the discharge. During the SPT development the CVS Silo King (SKL 1100) compressor was selected for benchmarking this technology. CFD was used extensively to simulate the SKL 1100 without and with the SPT integrated, which allowed the SPT design to be optimized. This paper will present the results obtained to demonstrate that this technology has the potential to eliminate over and under compression while at the same time leading to energy savings and reducing the compressor footprint and the noise and vibration that are commonplace in screw compressors.
A Novel Screw Compressor with a Shunt Enhanced Compression and Pulsation Trap (SECAPT)
Authors: Huang P X , Yonkers S , Willie J
Published: November 2022

Some positive displacement (PD) compressors are equipped with automatic discharge valves such as reed valves that open automatically whenever the cavity pressure is slightly larger than the outlet pressure to deal effectively with varying pressure ratio applications. Screw compressors today do not have such valves, resulting in off-design conditions known as the under-compression or over-compression when the cavity pressure at discharge is deviating from the outlet pressure. Compressor efficiency suffers and pulsation/noise becomes worse under these conditions. Some type of controls are desired such as a discharge pulsation dampener or a variable volume ratio (often called variable Vi) slide valve design to lessen or cure the discharge pressure mismatch problems.

Injecting gas vapor into a screw compressor cavity during internal compression phase has been known to be beneficial in enhancing compressor performance and has been widely used in HVAC&R industry known as the Economizer. However, the underlining principle of the Economizer has thus far not been explored for optimizing compression schemes of a screw compressor in general. This paper introduces a self-sensing and self-correcting compression process that can be “derived or deduced” from the Perfect Gas Law by optimizing for multiple design criteria such as compressor efficiency, pulsation/noise abatement, and cost and footprint reduction for a screw operating over a wide range of pressures. The scheme, called SECAPT (Shunt Enhanced Compression And Pulsation Trap), is then investigated and optimized numerically by a new CFD code for one industrial case: a bulk truck loading application where compressor pressure varies from no pressure rise to maximum load. The numerical simulations illustrate that SECAPT is tentatively capable of achieving multiple targets as theorized.
A two-phase approach for simulation of water-flooded twin-screw machines validated for expander applications
Authors: Nikolov A , Brümmer A
Published: November 2022

In the lower and medium power range, twin-screw machines offer a high potential for energy conversion in various compressor applications with liquid injection or as expanders with respect to electrical power generation from regenerative and exhaust heat sources in trilateral or wet Rankine cycle systems, for instance. Aiming high efficiencies and reliability, the design of liquid-flooded twin-screw machines as a critical system component presents particular challenges for the engineers. Hence, reliably representative simulations to guide design are mandatory. In this context, this study presents a two-phase approach for simulation of the operational behaviour of water-flooded twin-screw machines. The thermodynamic fluid state is calculated using the humid air model that considers the two-phase mixture in thermal equilibrium. Additionally, dissipative two-phase mass flow rates are predicted regarding a slip-flow model and two-phase discharge coefficients. The proposed two-phase approach including liquid distribution in the working chamber is validated for expander applications considering available experimental data of the test twin-screw expander SE 51.2 in terms of indicator diagrams, indicated power, mass flow rate, and outlet temperature.
Experimental and numerical analyses of the thermodynamic and mechanical performance of an oil-injected and economized 4/6 twin-screw compressor
Authors: Saravana A , Liu H , Groll E A , Ziviani D
Published: November 2022

To advance oil-injected twin-screw compressors, it is necessary to understand and model the complex physical phenomena occurring during the compression process (e.g., mass and heat transfer mechanisms) as well as analyze the mechanical behavior of the compressor (e.g., rotordynamics, bearing loads, variation of clearance gaps). To validate these models, the in-chamber compression process as well as mechanical loads need to be accurately measured. This paper presents a comparison between experimental results and numerical modeling of a 4/6 oil-injected twin-screw compressor with slide-valve part-load modulation and economization. The compressor has been equipped with high-frequency pressure sensors, load-cells at the bearings and torque sensor on the main rotor. Bearing forces are analyzed to quantify and validate the experimentally obtained axial force data. The validated model can later be used to analyze the mechanical performance of the compressor, such as bearing loss computation. This study also discusses isentropic and mechanical efficiencies computed for the various data points.
SnO2 Doping Effect on the Microstructural and Electrical Behavior of ZnO nanoparticles-Bi2O3 Based Varistor Ceramics
Authors: Sendi R. K.
Published: November 2022

In the current study, ZnO-Bi2O3 varistors manufactured from ZnO nanoparticle size and doped with SnO2 were processed by the ceramic industrial technique. The impact of the various SnO2 concentration upon the sintering, microstructural improvement and nonlinearity characteristic of the varistor system was investigated. Different SnO2 concentration was found to possess considerable influences on the varistors, particularly on improving ZnO grains growth at a lower SnO2 amount. But, the adding of greater contents of SnO2 leads to inhibit the ZnO grain growth via the raising percentage of Zn2SnO4 type spinel phase. In discs with a Sn/Bi less than 1.5 mol%, the pyrochlore phase forms and bounds all the SnO2, whereas excess Bi2O3 leads to the formation of a liquid phase at 740 °C which promotes sintering process. For Sn/Bi more than 1.5 mol%, all the Bi2O3 is bounded in Bi2Sn2O7 pyrochlore phase and sintering process is prevented. X-ray diffraction investigated that additive of SnO2 to the ZnO-Bi2O3 varistor sample caused the structure of the Bi2Sn2O7 type pyrochlore phase and the Zn2SnO4 type spinel phase during the sintering step. The SnO2 adding furthermore noticeably affected the electrical behaviors of the sample with a significant rise in the breakdown voltage with increasing the SnO2 doping more than 1.5 mol%. The resistivity also achieved an obvious increase with increase the SnO2 doping contents. Moderate SnO2 doping enhanced the nonlinear properties of the ZnO-Bi2O3 varistor system, while a significant amount of SnO2 causing its deterioration.
Experimental Study for the Comparison between Core, Schmidt and Cubic Concrete Compressive Strength After Durability Test
Authors: Elrazek Mostafa Abd , Rashwan M M , Ahmed Mohammed H M
Published: November 2022

Estimating the compressive strength of concrete exposed to different environmental conditions is an essential parameter in judging the quality of concrete and proving its ability to perform as planned. There are various destructive (DT) and non-destructive (NDT) methods for estimating compressive strength. Some NDT and DT procedures, such as Schmidt hammer and core testing, have been used for estimating concrete strength for a long time. These methods consider indirect and predicted tests to evaluate concrete strength in existing structures. Various factors influence these tests, so it is difficult to precisely assess the hardened concrete strength. Thus, this research aims to identify a coherent relationship that connects the results of these tests and correlates them with the results of cube compressive strength by assessing data from laboratory tests conducted under control and durability conditions using statistical techniques. To achieve this purpose, three grades of concrete were considered C250, C450, and C600 Kg/cm2. Six concrete cubes of size (15x15x15 cm) and four concrete columns of size (30x15x50 cm) were cast for each grade and tested to assess the cube, Schmidt hammer, and core compressive strength of concrete. Half of the columns and cubes were cured in drinking water (control condition) and the other half of the samples were subjected to durability cycles for 92 days (durability condition). In the durability condition, the samples were exposed to 10% sodium sulfate solution for a day, placed in a water tank for a day, heated to 100°C at a laboratory furnace for a day and then left at average laboratory temperature for a day to finish one cycle. The results were tabulated and graphed to notice any differences between DT, NDT and cube compressive strength tests. The results showed that the cube strength is higher than the core strength for all grades of concrete under control and durability conditions. The cube test indicates a lower compressive strength than the Schmidt hammer test method at grade C250 under control condition and greater compressive strength in the rest of the grades.
Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) Concentration-dependent Photovoltaic Cells Performance of PAni-TiO2 Nanocomposite
Authors: Shahat M. Abdelhamid , Ghitas Ahmed
Published: November 2022

By optimizing the features of the photoactivated polyaniline-titanium dioxide (PAni-TiO2) nanocomposite layer, varied concentrations of TiO2 nanoparticles (NPs) inside PAni matrix were used to improve the performance of organic cells. In this work, polymer solar cells were designed using the FTO/(PAni- TiO2)/Ag combination. PAni-TiO2 films’ structural evolution, surface properties, optical and electrical characteristics have been studied. The XRD patterns showed that the crystallite size gradually decreases from 18.7 to 12.8 nm depending on the TiO2 NPs concentration in the PAni matrix. In addition, the surface of the highly concentrated films was rougher and more porous than it was for the pristine film. With varying concentrations of TiO2 NPs incorporated into the PAni structure, PAni- TiO2 based composite cells’ efficiency enhanced from 0.33 to 0.85%. This conclusion is mostly related to a structural shift accompanied by a high increase in roughness scales, that led to a reduction of reflected photons and, as a consequence, an increase in the creation of free carriers.
ZnO Nanoparticles for Photocatalytic Methyl Orange Degradation: Hydrothermal Synthesis, Characterization, and Optimization
Authors: Shahat M. Abdelhamid , Ghitas Ahmed , El-Hossary F. M. , El-Rahman A. M. Abd
Published: November 2022

This study investigates the production of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) utilizing an efficient and surfactant-free hydrothermal method for use as a photocatalytic agent in the purification of organic polluted water. The structural features, optical properties and photocatalytic performance of ZnO NPs have been investigated. XRD, SEM, HR-TEM, FTIR and UV–vis absorption spectroscopy were used as analytical and characterization techniques. The ZnO NPs prepared with hexagonal structure and interesting applied properties was obtained by adjusting the processing time at a low treatment temperature of 75 °C. The crystallite size and energy band gap are reaction time-dependent, which in turn affects the photocatalytic performance. ZnO NPs under UV irradiation show an efficiency of 93% in the photocatalytic decomposition of methyl orange (MO) dye. The value of ZnO NPs bandgap (3.38 eV) is suitable for allowing UV light absorption and rapid generation of charge carriers; creating photooxidation reactions for decomposing the organic dye.
A virus changed my life
Authors: Aguilera Renato J.
Published: November 2022

The E. E. Just Award commemorates the great African-American cell biologist Dr. Ernest Everett Just, who was a successful pioneer in an era of systemic exclusion of minorities in science and academia. Receiving this award is not only an honor but a recognition of my long-standing commitment to helping Persons Excluded due to Ethnicity or Race (PEERS) to achieve success in biomedical careers. As a proud member of this group, I have devoted most of my career to training underrepresented undergraduate and graduate students to pursue scientific careers. My early work as a molecular immunologist focused on the search for enzymes involved in antigen–receptor gene recombination, as well as the characterization of nuclear factors involved in recombination and the transcriptional regulation of the murine recombination-activating genes. Over the past two decades, my research has focused on discovering and evaluating novel anticancer agents that can be used to treat various cancer types.
R2-DDI: relation-aware feature refinement for drug–drug interaction prediction
Authors: Lin Jiacheng , Wu Lijun , Zhu Jinhua , Liang Xiaobo , Xia Yingce , Xie Shufang , Qin Tao , Liu Tie-Yan
Published: November 2022

Precisely predicting the drug–drug interaction (DDI) is an important application and host research topic in drug discovery, especially for avoiding the adverse effect when using drug combination treatment for patients. Nowadays, machine learning and deep learning methods have achieved great success in DDI prediction. However, we notice that most of the works ignore the importance of the relation type when building the DDI prediction models. In this work, we propose a novel R$^2$-DDI framework, which introduces a relation-aware feature refinement module for drug representation learning. The relation feature is integrated into drug representation and refined in the framework. With the refinement features, we also incorporate the consistency training method to regularize the multi-branch predictions for better generalization. Through extensive experiments and studies, we demonstrate our R$^2$-DDI approach can significantly improve the DDI prediction performance over multiple real-world datasets and settings, and our method shows better generalization ability with the help of the feature refinement design.
AutoDeconJ: a GPU-accelerated ImageJ plugin for 3D light-field deconvolution with optimal iteration numbers predicting
Authors: Su Changqing , Gao Yuhan , Zhou You , Sun Yaoqi , Yan Chenggang , Yin Haibing , Xiong Bo
Published: November 2022

Motivation

Light-field microscopy (LFM) is a compact solution to high-speed 3D fluorescence imaging. Usually, we need to do 3D deconvolution to the captured raw data. Although there are deep neural network methods that can accelerate the reconstruction process, the model is not universally applicable for all system parameters. Here, we develop AutoDeconJ, a GPU-accelerated ImageJ plugin for 4.4× faster and more accurate deconvolution of LFM data. We further propose an image quality metric for the deconvolution process, aiding in automatically determining the optimal number of iterations with higher reconstruction accuracy and fewer artifacts.

Results

Our proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art light-field deconvolution methods in reconstruction time and optimal iteration numbers prediction capability. It shows better universality of different light-field point spread function (PSF) parameters than the deep learning method. The fast, accurate and general reconstruction performance for different PSF parameters suggests its potential for mass 3D reconstruction of LFM data.

Availability and implementation

The codes, the documentation and example data are available on an open source at: https://github.com/Onetism/AutoDeconJ.git.

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
dnadna: a deep learning framework for population genetics inference
Authors: Sanchez Théophile , Bray Erik Madison , Jobic Pierre , Guez Jérémy , Letournel Anne-Catherine , Charpiat Guillaume , Cury Jean , Jay Flora
Published: November 2022

Motivation

We present dnadna, a flexible python-based software for deep learning inference in population genetics. It is task-agnostic and aims at facilitating the development, reproducibility, dissemination and re-usability of neural networks designed for population genetic data.

Results

dnadna defines multiple user-friendly workflows. First, users can implement new architectures and tasks, while benefiting from dnadna utility functions, training procedure and test environment, which saves time and decreases the likelihood of bugs. Second, the implemented networks can be re-optimized based on user-specified training sets and/or tasks. Newly implemented architectures and pre-trained networks are easily shareable with the community for further benchmarking or other applications. Finally, users can apply pre-trained networks in order to predict evolutionary history from alternative real or simulated genetic datasets, without requiring extensive knowledge in deep learning or coding in general. dnadna comes with a peer-reviewed, exchangeable neural network, allowing demographic inference from SNP data, that can be used directly or retrained to solve other tasks. Toy networks are also available to ease the exploration of the software, and we expect that the range of available architectures will keep expanding thanks to community contributions.

Availability and implementation

dnadna is a Python (≥3.7) package, its repository is available at gitlab.com/mlgenetics/dnadna and its associated documentation at mlgenetics.gitlab.io/dnadna/.
Border Region Attachment: An Empirical Study on Regional Social Capital in the French–German Border Area
Authors: Wiens Marcus , Klein Miriam , Schultmann Frank
Published: November 2022

In today’s globalized and interconnected world, international relationships are becoming ever more important. This applies not only to political relations but also to transnational attachment, a positive and solidary mutual attitude between the citizens of two countries, which is mainly based on social capital and trust. In particular border areas can benefit enormously when people have a bond with their neighboring country and its inhabitants. Due to their geographic proximity and historically shaped identity, border regions have a high potential for increased economic and social exchange. While empirical work on these characteristics of specific border areas is scarce, this article presents a novel approach which applies the concept of transnational social capital taking the French–German border area as an example. The representative study is based on telephone interviews, which were conducted in the border area and in regions within the two countries as a control for country-level effects. We find strong evidence for border region attachment in form of higher levels of social capital and trust in the border area. Our findings have important implications for borderland economies in general and in particular for cross-border resilience with regard to prevailing risks like upcoming nationalism and disasters such as the Covid-19 pandemic.
PNCTS: A Prediction and Network Coding-Based Transmission Scheme for Efficient Screen Updates Delivery in DaaS
Authors: Luo Qin , Cao Xin
Published: November 2022

Desktop as a Service (DaaS) provides users with flexible, customizable and highly secure cloud based virtual desktop access. As the major carrier of execution results in DaaS, screen updates play an important role in users’ quality of experience. In order to bring users the same feelings like manipulating a local device, timeliness and reliability should be balanced. However, a timely but unreliable transmission scheme (i.e. UDP) or a completely reliable transmission scheme (i.e. TCP) is inappropriate for such a transmission scenario, especially under a high-loss network. In this paper, we propose a Prediction and Network Coding based Transmission Scheme (PNCTS) for efficient screen updates delivery in DaaS. As an end-to-end partially reliable transmission scheme, it prioritizes different data obtained by partitioning screen updates and employs network coding and TFRC (TCP Friendly Rate Control) to compensate for data loss and adjust the sending rate of screen updates, respectively. To reduce the overhead of network coding, PNCTS uses a Hidden Markov Model to predict the reliability level of network and makes different encoding strategies for the data with different priorities. Simulation results show that PNCTS can improve display quality and instantaneous goodput effectively while maintaining end-to-end delay and jitter at a relatively low level under the static and time-varying network conditions.
Assessing the Suitability of Chinese Cabbage as an Alternative Host forSpodoptera frugiperda(Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)
Authors: Wu Meng-Ling , Zhao Hao-Yang , Liu Tong-Xian , Pan Ming-Zhen
Published: November 2022

When the favored host of an herbivorous insect pest is absent, the availability of alternative host plants can maintain insect pest populations. Spodoptera frugiperda (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) is a major invasive, polyphagous insect pest in China. To investigate the suitability of Chinese cabbage as an alternative host for S. frugiperda, oviposition preferences and life history traits were determined for S. frugiperda on Chinese cabbage, corn, and winter wheat over three generations. Results showed that S. frugiperda females preferred to lay their eggs on corn compared to winter wheat and Chinese cabbage. The survival rate of S. frugiperda decreased after switching from corn to Chinese cabbage, only 6% of individuals successfully pupated in the third generation. In addition, S. frugiperda reared on Chinese cabbage had lower pupal weight and fecundity. Winter wheat was a good host for S. frugiperda; although the survival rate decreased when S. frugiperda switched from corn to winter wheat in the parental generation, the survival rate increased over the next two generations to be as high as those reared on corn. Chinese cabbage is not a good long-term host for S. frugiperda, but it could maintain the pest population for at least two generations when more suitable host plants are unavailable. These results will inform management strategies for S. frugiperda.
Plasma Leptin Is Associated With Amyloid CSF Biomarkers and Alzheimer’s Disease Diagnosis in Cognitively Impaired Patients
Authors: Lilamand Matthieu , Bouaziz-Amar Elodie , Dumurgier Julien , Cognat Emmanuel , Hourregue Claire , Mouton-Liger François , Sanchez Manuel , Troussière Anne-Cécile , Martinet Matthieu , Hugon Jacques , Paquet Claire
Published: November 2022

Background

Metabolic dysfunction and dysregulation of leptin signaling have been linked to Alzheimer’s disease (AD)’s pathophysiology. The objectives of this study were to examine the associations between plasma leptin, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), beta-amyloid (Aβ), and tau biomarkers (AT[N] status) and with the stage of cognitive impairment.

Methods

Cross-sectional analysis of data from cognitively impaired patients from a tertiary memory clinic. Plasma leptin levels were compared according to the stage of cognitive impairment and biomarker profiles, using the AT(N) classification. Linear regression models were performed to examine the relationship between leptin and CSF biomarkers. Results were adjusted for age, gender, body mass index (BMI), and APOE ε4. In a subgroup of A+T+ individuals, we compared the 2-year evolution of Mini-Mental State Examination scores, according to the participants’ tertile of plasma leptin levels.

Results

We included 1 036 participants (age 68.7 ± 9.1, females = 54.1%). A+T+ and A+T− patients had significantly lower plasma leptin levels than amyloid negative participants (p < .01). CSF Aβ concentration was significantly associated with lower plasma leptin β = −4.3 (1.5), p = .005 unadjusted; and β = −3.4 (1.6), p = .03 after adjustment for age, female gender, BMI, and APOE ε4. Patients with major neurocognitive disorder due to AD had a difference of leptin of −7.3 ng/mL 95% confidence interval (CI; −11.8; −2.8), p = .0002, compared to individuals with other causes of cognitive impairment. Leptin was not associated with the slope of cognitive decline.

Conclusion

Plasma leptin levels were associated with CSF Aβ and with the diagnosis of AD confirmed by CSF biomarkers, suggesting a molecular interplay between leptin metabolism and brain amyloid deposition.
Effects of bamboo leaf extract on energy metabolism, antioxidant capacity, and biogenesis of small intestine mitochondria in broilers
Authors: Xie Zechen , Yu Ge , Yun Yang , Zhang Xin , Shen Mingming , Jia Minghui , Li Anqi , Zhang Hao , Wang Tian , Zhang Jingfei , Zhang Lili
Published: November 2022

The present study was carried out to investigate the effects of bamboo leaf extract (BLE) on energy metabolism, antioxidant capacity, and biogenesis of broilers’ small intestine mitochondria. A total of 384 one-day-old male Arbor Acres broiler chicks were randomly divided into four groups with six replicates each for 42 d. The control group was fed a basal diet, whereas the BLE1, BLE2, and BLE3 groups consumed basal diets with 1.0, 2.0, and 4.0 g/kg of BLE, respectively. Some markers of mitochondrial energy metabolism including isocitrate dehydrogenase, α-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase, and malate dehydrogenase and some markers of redox system including total superoxide dismutase, malondialdehyde, and glutathione were measured by commercial colorimetric kits. Mitochondrial and cellular antioxidant genes, mitochondrial biogenesis-related genes, and mitochondrial DNA copy number were measured by quantitative real-time-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Data were analyzed using the SPSS 19.0, and differences were considered as significant at P < 0.05. BLE supplementation linearly increased jejunal mitochondrial isocitrate dehydrogenase (P < 0.05) and total superoxide dismutase (P < 0.05) activity. The ileal manganese superoxide dismutase mRNA expression was linearly affected by increased dietary BLE supplementation (P < 0.05). Increasing BLE supplementation linearly increased jejunal sirtuin 1 (P < 0.05) and nuclear respiratory factor 1 (P < 0.05) mRNA expression. Linear (P < 0.05) and quadratic (P < 0.05) responses of the ileal nuclear respiratory factor 2 mRNA expression occurred with increased dietary BLE levels. In conclusion, BLE supplementation was beneficial to the energy metabolism, antioxidant capacity, and biogenesis of small intestine mitochondria in broilers. The dose of 4.0 g/kg BLE demonstrated the best effects.
Should we treatBlastocystissp.? A double-blind placebo-controlled randomized pilot trial
Authors: Cobuccio Ludovico Gennaro , Laurent Marie , Gardiol Celine , Wampfler Rahel , Poppert Sven , Senn Nicolas , Eperon Gilles , Genton Blaise , Locatelli Isabella , de Vallière Serge
Published: November 2022

Background

Blastocystis sp. is a worldwide-distributed protist colonizing the guts of humans and a great variety of animals. It is unclear whether it is just a commensal or an infectious parasite that prompts eradication.

The main objective of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of metronidazole in patients with gastrointestinal symptoms harbouring only Blastocystis sp. In addition, we explored whether Blastocystis subtype or concomitant parasitic infection detected by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) may influence treatment outcome.

Methods

We included adults with persistent gastrointestinal symptoms (>14 days) visiting a primary care physician and in whom stool microscopy revealed only Blastocystis sp. Eligible patients were randomized to receive 10 days of metronidazole or placebo, followed by a crossover if still symptomatic. The primary outcome was normal stool consistency. Secondary outcomes were the changes in other abdominal symptoms (bloating, flatulence, abdominal pain, number of daily bowel movements) and general wellbeing. After the clinical phase of the study, Blastocystis subtypes were determined by PCR sequencing and stool samples were tested for 11 other protozoa with an in-house PCR.

Results

We screened 581 outpatients for inclusion, of which 50 met the eligibility criteria. There was no difference in the primary outcome, nor any of the secondary outcomes between the subjects treated with metronidazole and placebo.

The most frequent Blastocystis subtypes were ST4 (11/36) and ST2 (10/36). The in-house PCR was positive for other protozoa in 25% (10/40) of the patients. We identified Dientamoeba fragilis in 5, Entamoeba dispar in 3 and Cyclospora cayetanensis in 2 patients. Stratified analysis according to Blastocystis subtype or the presence of other protozoa showed no significant difference in treatment outcome with metronidazole or placebo.

Conclusions

Among patients infected with Blastocystis sp., metronidazole, compared with placebo, was not better in improving gastrointestinal symptoms, irrespective of subtype or microscopically undetected coinfection with other protozoa.
Animal Ritual
Authors: Hartigan John
Published: November 2022

Rituals are a universal aspect of vertebrate life; they mediate interactions that range from routine to stressful. Rituals enable conspecifics (members of the same species) to reproduce successfully and to interact socially. Rituals feature repetitive, stereotyped behaviors that signal an animal’s disposition and catalytically enhance its capacity to act. That is, rituals are fundamentally communicative and performative. Through rituals, animals communicate their interests and perceive and perhaps acknowledge the interests of conspecifics—whether to mate or to fight, or to socialize and participate in an overarching social order. Our understanding of animal ritual has changed significantly over the last century, reflecting shifting theorizations of culture, evolution, and communication. Early ethologists and sociobiologists promoted a view of ritual as a set of evolved, innate behaviors, even evident in humans’ large-scale, collective ceremonies. Social theorists largely reject the evolutionary dimension of ritual behavior in humans and insisted that our species’ rituals are distinctive because they feature meanings—conventional forms of culturally imbibed signification. These contrasting perspectives are currently being synthesized as ethologists recognize that animals (at least social species) also have culture—socially learned and transmitted behavioral repertoires that are not genetically inherited. As animals are increasingly recognized as having forms of behavioral plasticity and large communicative capacities, the question is no longer whether meaning distinguishes between human and nonhuman forms of rituals; it’s whether or how the more developed theorization of ritual in humans pertains to and is applicable in analyzing other social species. There will be more than one answer to this question, depending upon the species but also the type of ritual under consideration. The most familiar and common rituals involve mating, with another related set featuring forms of fighting. In contrast with these often dramatic, energetic displays, rituals also manifest in mundane forms such as greetings and leave-taking. These communicative interactions signal a willingness by individual animals to comport themselves in accord with their shared social conventions. For ethologists, the underlying function of rituals is to diffuse or contain aggression. But this assumption leaves out a vast range of affiliative behaviors between conspecifics, such as grooming, which has shared features of rituals. Extending and deepening current understandings of animal rituals will require ethologists to engage with social theorists’ efforts to define and analyze rituals in humans. This extension of social theory to other species began in primatology and gradually is being extended to other taxa.
Legal Geography
Authors: Pettersen Christian
Published: November 2022

“Legal geography” encapsulates a breadth of scholarship. Within legal geography, there is considerable debate as to what the boundaries of law and geography are and should be. Some scholars argue that legal geography is a nascent subdiscipline of human geography. Others argue that more than a discipline, legal geography is an intellectual commitment to a particular kind of multidisciplinary engagement with the law. With such a seemingly divergent set of interests, defining the bounds of legal geography can be challenging. Throughout the literature on legal geography there is a consistent thread: legal geography concerns the co-constitution of law, space, and power. Legal geography is a law-in-society approach, meaning that scholarship in legal geography is concerned with law’s central relationship to social processes; law cannot be understood outside of the spatial and temporal social, political, and economic conditions of its production. In this work, law is defined along three, often overlapping lines: law as process, law as text, and law as practice—each with a focus on law as a mechanism of power in law and (in)justice in society. Existing scholarship has focused on questions of environment; courtroom architecture; human rights; neoliberal globalization; property relations and the right to the city; colonialism and postcolonialism; race, migration, and citizenship; and methodological considerations. It has often centered on the law as a practice of Global North state power. Recent calls by North American legal geographers and existing work by Australian legal geographers has begun to push legal geography into new terrain: spaces outside the Global North. Recent engagement with feminist scholarship has also provided new opportunities to explore the spatially uneven gendered and embodied effects of law. This work, with its international and intersectional approach, provides important direction for the future of legal geography.
Geographies of Humor
Authors: Fluri Jennifer L.
Published: November 2022

Geographers have engaged with and examined humor from a variety of subdisciplinary perspectives. Many geographic inquiries draw on Michel Billig’s theoretical engagements with laughter, humor, mockery, and “unlaughter” (see Billig 2005). The geographer Juha Ridanpää, featured throughout this article, has written extensively on humor in geography from geohumanities to geopolitics. Geographers have begun to heed Ridanpää’s request for geographic analyses to seriously engage with humor. Analyses of humor address the ways in which comedy, comics, cartoons, jokes, laughter, and mockery are used to call attention to social or political issues, act as a mechanism of both inclusion and exclusion, and serve as a method for creating spatial meaning or spatial imaginaries. Humor is contextual, spatial, and operates within specific time-spaces. The time-spaces of humor explored by various geographers includes a focus on the momentary or temporally contingent, as well as the cyclical, ongoing or entrenched.
Long-Term Follow-up of Human Immunodeficiency Virus-Associated Pulmonary Hypertension: Clinical Features and Survival Outcomes of the Pan Africa Pulmonary Hypertension Cohort (PAPUCO)
Authors: Thienemann Friedrich , Katoto Patrick D M C , Azibani Feriel , Kodogo Vitaris , Mukasa Sandra L , Sani Mahmoud U , Karaye Kamilu M , Mbanze Irina , Mocumbi Ana O , Dzudie Anastase , Sliwa Karen
Published: November 2022

Background

Data characterizing risk factors and long-term outcome studies on human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-associated pulmonary hypertension (PH) in Africa are lacking.

Methods

The Pan African Pulmonary Hypertension Cohort, a multinational registry of 254 consecutive patients diagnosed with PH (97% of African descent) from 9 centers in 4 African countries was implemented. We compared baseline characteristics and 3-year survival of an HIV-infected cohort newly diagnosed with PH (PH/HIV+) to an HIV-uninfected cohort with PH (PH/HIV−).

Results

One hundred thirty-four participants with PH completed follow up (47 PH/HIV+ and 87 PH/HIV−; age median, 36 versus 44 years; P = .0004). Cardiovascular risk factors and comorbidities were similar except for previous tuberculosis (62% versus 18%, P < .0001). Six-minute walk distance (6MWD) <300 meters was common in PH/HIV− (P = .0030), but PH/HIV+ had higher heart (P = .0160) and respiratory (P = .0374) rates. Thirty-six percent of PH/HIV+ and 15% of PH/HIV− presented with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) (P = .0084), whereas 36% of PH/HIV+ and 72% of PH/HIV− exhibited PH due to left heart disease (PHLHD) (P = .0009). Pulmonary hypertension due to lung diseases and hypoxia (PHLD) was frequent in PH/HIV+ (36% versus 15%) but did not reach statistical significance. Human immunodeficiency virus-associated PAH tended to have a poorer survival rate compared with PHLHD/PHLD in HIV-infected patients.

Conclusions

The PH/HIV + patients were younger and commonly had previous tuberculosis compared to PH/HIV− patients. Despite a better 6MWD at presentation, they had more signs and symptoms of early onset heart failure and a worse survival rate. Early echocardiography assessment should be performed in HIV-infected patients with history of tuberculosis who present with signs and symptoms of heart failure or posttuberculosis lung disease.
Emission characteristics of gadolinium ions in a water Cherenkov detector
Authors: Iwata Y , Sekiya H , Ito C
Published: November 2022

To observe supernova relic neutrino events, 13 tons of gadolinium sulfate octahydrate (Gd2(SO4)3·8H2O), corresponding to 0.01% Gd solution, was dissolved in the Super-Kamiokande water Cherenkov detector in 2020. The aim is to improve the detection efficiency of neutrons from inverse β decay involving electron antineutrinos. However, Gd3+ ions can be excited by the Cherenkov light from cosmic muons, and the subsequent emission at 312 nm is a possible background (BG) source for Cherenkov signal detection. In this work, we constructed an experimental setup based on time-resolved laser-induced luminescence spectroscopy to investigate the emission characteristics of Gd3+ ions in water. The excitation laser wavelength was tuned in the range of 245–255 nm, and large resonant peaks were observed at 246.2 nm and 252.3 nm with measured emission lifetimes of around 3 ms. Good linearity was observed between Gd concentration and emission intensity for these two wavelengths, indicating that our setup is useful for remote monitoring of Gd concentration. According to the simulation results using our spectroscopic data and reference values, the Gd3+ emission BG rate from cosmic muons is expected to be 10−1 counts/μs or less, which seems small but not negligible.
A comprehensive study of the vector leptoquark with U(1)B3-L2 on the B-meson and muon g − 2 anomalies
Authors: Ban Kayoung , Jho Yongsoo , Kwon Youngjoon , Park Seong Chan , Park Seokhee , Tseng Po-Yan
Published: November 2022

Recently reported anomalies in various B-meson decays and also in the anomalous magnetic moment of muon (g − 2)μ motivate us to consider a particular extension of the standard model incorporating new interactions in the lepton and quark sectors simultaneously. Our minimal choice would be the leptoquark. In particular, we take the vector leptoquark (U1) and comprehensively study all related observables including ${(g-2)_{\mu }},\ R_{K^{(*)}},\ R_{D^{(*)}}$, B → (K)ℓℓ′, where ℓℓ′ are various combinations of μ and τ, and also lepton flavor violation in the τ decays. We find that a hybrid scenario with an additional $U(1)_{B_3-L_2}$ gauge boson provides a common explanation for all these anomalies.
Can agricultural policy achieve environmental goals through an indicator-based direct payment system?
Authors: Gilgen Anina , Drobnik Thomas , Mann Stefan , Flury Christian , Mack Gabriele , Ritzel Christian , Roesch Andreas , Gaillard Gérard
Published: November 2022

Indicator-based frameworks for assessing farms’ environmental performance have become a resource for environmental knowledge regarding the impacts of agricultural practices. The present study explores whether a novel indicator-based direct payment system, which focuses on the farms’ environmental impact, could better target Swiss agricultural policy and help achieve its environmental goals. The system covers the environmental topics of biodiversity, nutrients and climate, plant protection products, and soil. Despite high direct payments, simulations with an agent-based agricultural sector model show that such indicator-based payments have a limited impact. For example, the decrease in the animal population is only moderate. Though direct payments alone can hardly lead to the desired reduction in Switzerland's environmental pollution, they could help make important contributions to a more targeted distribution of environmentally oriented direct payments and steer agricultural production in a more environmentally friendly way.