bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Irrigation optimization enhances water management and tree performance in commercial citrus groves on sandy soil.
Authors: Atta Alisheikh , Morgan Kelly , Hamido Said , Kadyampakeni Davie
Published: February 2024

Citrus production in Florida accounts for nearly 50% of national production in the United States. The goal of this study was to determine the impact of varying irrigation levels on tree growth, leaf nutrient concentrations, and water relations at selected citrus tree densities. During most of the year, significant water distribution and movement were detected across soil horizons as a function of irrigation applied and capillary water rising from the water table. As a result, significant fibrous root length densities (FRLD), median root lifespan, and leaf nutrient concentration were observed in the three-row and two-row experiments with deficit (50%-crop evapotranspiration, ETc) and moderate (78%-ETc) irrigation regimes, respectively. Stomata conductance and stem water potential (y) portray less water stress of the trees when they received moderate irrigation in the low and moderate tree densities than the highest tree density. Moderate irrigation triggered FRLD and improved root survival probability and root lifespan. As a result, irrigation management improved water availability, plant nutrition, and tree growth while efficiently utilizing resources.
Hyperexpansion of genetic diversity and metabolic capacity of extremophilic bacteria and archaea in ancient Andean Lake sediments
Authors: Lezcano María Ángeles , Bornemann Till L.V. , Sánchez-García Laura , Carrizo Daniel , Adam Panagiotis S. , Esser Sarah P. , Cabrol Nathalie A. , Probst Alexander J. , Parro Víctor
Published: February 2024

Background: The Andean Altiplano hosts a repertoire of high-altitude lakes with harsh conditions for life. These lakes are undergoing a process of desiccation caused by the current climate, leaving terraces exposed to extreme atmospheric conditions and serving as analogs to Martian paleolake basins. Microbiomes in Altiplano lake terraces have been poorly studied, enclosing uncultured lineages and a great opportunity to understand environmental adaptation and the limits of life on Earth. Here we examine the microbial diversity and function in ancient sediments (10.3-11 ky BP (Before Present)) from a terrace profile of Laguna Lejía, a sulfur- and metal/metalloid-rich saline lake in the Chilean Altiplano. We also evaluate the physical and chemical changes of the lake over time by studying the mineralogy and geochemistry of the terrace profile.
Results: The mineralogy and geochemistry of the terrace profile revealed large water level fluctuations in the lake, scarcity of organic carbon, and high concentration of SO43--S, Na, Cl and Mg. Lipid biomarker analysis indicated the presence of aquatic/terrestrial plant remnants preserved in the ancient sediments, and genome-resolved metagenomics unveiled a diverse prokaryotic community with still active microorganisms based on in silico growth predictions. We reconstructed 591 bacterial and archaeal metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs), of which 98.8% belonged to previously unreported species. The most abundant and widespread metabolisms among MAGs were the reduction and oxidation of S, N, As and halogenated compounds, as well as CO oxidation, possibly as a key metabolic trait in the organic carbon-depleted sediments. The broad redox and CO2 fixation pathways among phylogenetically distant bacteria and archaea extended the knowledge of metabolic capacities to previously unknown taxa. For instance, we identified genomic potential for dissimilatory sulfate reduction in Bacteroidota and α- and γ-Proteobacteria; ammonium oxidation in a novel Actinobacteriota; and we predicted enzymes of the Calvin-Benson-Bassham cycle in Planctomycetota, Gemmatimonadota, and Nanoarchaeota. The presence of genes encoding for enzymes involved in the above metabolic pathways in unexpected taxonomic groups has significant implications for the expansion of microorganisms involved in the biogeochemical cycles of carbon, nitrogen and sulfur.
Should the Level of the Posterior Instrumentation Combined With the Intermediate Screw Be a Short Segment or a Long Segment in Thoracolumbar Fractures With Fusion to the Fractured Segment?
Authors: Suer Onur , Aydemir Selahaddin , Kilicli Bunyamin , Akcali Omer , Ozturk Anil Murat
Published: February 2024

Purpose It was aimed to compare the results of long segment posterior instrumentation with intermadiate pedicular screw + fusion at the level of the fractured segment including one vertebra above and one below the fractured vertebra (LSPI) and short segment posterior instrumentation with intermadiate pedicular screw + fusion at the level of the fractured segment including one vertebra above and one below the fractured vertebra (SSPI) in the surgical treatment of thoracolumbar vertebral fractures.Methods 90 patients with thoracolumbar vertebral (T11-L2) fractures operated between March 2015 and February 2022 were included in the study. The patients were divided into two groups as those who underwent LSPI (group A: n: 54, age: 40.3) and those who underwent SSPI (group B: n: 36, age: 39.7). Radiological evaluations like vertebral compression angle (VCA), vertebral corpus heights (VCH), intraoperative parameters and complications were compared between the groups.Results Correction in early postoperative VCA was statistically significantly better in Group A (p = 0.003). At 1-year follow-up, postoperative VCA correction was significantly more successful in group A (p = 0.001). There was no difference between the two groups in terms of correction loss in VCA measured at 1-year follow-up. There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups in terms of postoperative VCH, VCH at 1-year follow-up, and correction loss in VCH.Conclusion LSPI provides better postoperative kyphosis correction of the fractured vertebra than SSPI. Regarding of the segment level of posterior instrumentation, there was no difference between the two groups in terms of the loss of achieved correction of VCA, ABH, and PBH at 1-year follow-up. Operating a thoracolumbar fracture with LSPI will lengthen the operation and increase the number of intraoperative fluoroscopies compared to SSPI.
Spreading of rotating liquid annular ring with hysteresis effects
Authors: Boettcher Konrad E.R. , Ehrhard Peter
Published: February 2024

The spreading of a liquid, subjected to centrifugal forces or an air jet, leads toa lowering of the liquid height at the center. If the system is partially wetting,experiments show a break up of the liquid and the appearance of a dry patch atthe center. In this article, the spreading of a droplet or a liquid film, featuring adry patch at the center, is investigated. Via a generalized Tanner’s law, we allowfor a contact–angle hysteresis in partially–wetting system. By means of the lubrication approximation, an analytical quasi–steady solution can be derived in thelimit of small capillary numbers. We find a power–law regime for the spreading,in which at least one of the contact lines follows a power law in time, almost independent of both static contact angles. The influence of the static contact anglesremains restricted to the beginning of the spreading and to transition periods.Four different types of spreading can be identified, namely spreading (i) with avery thin central liquid layer, (ii) as annular ring with central dry patch, (iii) intoa static equilibrium, and (iv) with closing of the central dry patch. In a flow map,these types of spreading are mapped as function of both static contact angles.Moreover, the dependency from gravitational and centrifugal forces is investigated and included in the flow map. For a perfectly–wetting system, a disjoiningpressure correction in combination with Tanner’s law prohibits negative liquidheights at the center. Hereby, the magnitudes of the Hamaker constants have anegligible influence and arbitrary–small values can be used, since the dynamicsof the contact line remains controlled by Tanner’s law.
Multi-Granularity Hypergraph Enhanced Hierarchical Neural Network Framework for Visual Classification
Authors: Jiang Jianjian , Chen Ziwei , Lei Fangyan , Xu Long , Huang Jiahao , Yuan Xiaochen
Published: February 2024

Fine-grained single-label classification tasks aim to distinguish highly similar categories but often overlook inter-category relationships. Hierarchical multi-granularity visual classification strives to categorize image labels at various hierarchy levels, offering optimize label selection for people. This paper addresses the hierarchical multi-granularity classification problem from two perspectives: (1) effective utilization of labels at different levels and (2) efficient learning to distinguish multi-granularity visual features. To tackle these issues,
we propose a novel multi-granularity hypergraph enhanced Hierarchical Neural Network (HNN) framework, seamlessly integrating swin transformers and hypergraph neural networks for handling visual classification tasks.
Firstly, we employ swin transformer as a Image Hierarchical Feature Learning (IHFL) module to capture hierarchical features. Secondly, a Feature Reassemble (FR) module is applied to rearrange features at different hierarchy levels, creating a spectrum of features from coarse to fine-grained. Thirdly, to unveil the correlation between features at different granularity, we propose a Feature Relationship Mining (FRM) module. Within this module, a learnable hypergraph modeling method is introduced to construct coarse to fine-grained hypergraph structures. Simultaneously, multi-granularity hypergraph neural networks are employed to explore grouping relationships feature in different granularity, enhancing semantic feature representation learning within the hypergraph space. Finally, we adopt a Multi-Granularity Classifier (MGC) to predict hierarchical label probabilities. Experimental results demonstrate that HNN outperforms other state-of-the-art classification methods across three multi-granularity datasets.
Assessing the Therapeutic Efficacy of Artemether-Lumefantrine for Uncomplicated Malaria in Lagos, Nigeria: A Comprehensive Study on Treatment Response and Resistance Markers
Authors: Oyebola Kolapo M. , Ligali Funmilayo C. , Owoloye Afolabi J. , Aina Oluwagbemiga O. , Alo Yetunde M. , Erinwusi Blessing , Olufemi Michael J. , Salako Babatunde L.
Published: February 2024

Background
The burden of malaria persists in sub-Saharan Africa and the emergence of artemisinin resistance has introduced complexity to control efforts. Monitoring the efficacy of artemisinin-based treatment for malaria is crucial to address this challenge. This study assessed treatment efficacy of artemether-lumefantrine (AL) and genetic diversity of Plasmodium falciparum isolates in a Nigerian population.
Methods
A total of 972 participants presenting at the health centre with clinical symptoms of uncomplicated malaria at the health center were screened for P. falciparum. Enrolled participants spanning three age groups (1–5, 6–14 and > 15 years), were treated with AL and monitored through scheduled check-up visits, clinical and laboratory examinations for 28 days. Parasite clearance and genetic diversity were assessed through polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis of merozoite surface proteins (MSP1 and MSP2). The prevalence of drug resistance mutations was assessed by P. falciparum multidrug resistance gene 1 (MDR1) genotyping followed by P. falciparum ubiquitin-specific protease 1 (UBP1) gene sequencing.
Results
The PCR-uncorrected treatment outcome revealed 94.4% adequate clinical and parasitological response (ACPR) and 5.6% late parasitological failure (LPF) rates. After PCR correction, no suspected LPF case was detected and ACPR 67/67 (100%) was achieved in all the individuals. Moreover, a high prevalence of wild-type alleles for MDR1 N86Y (93.7%), and MDR1 D1246Y (87.5%) was observed. Genetic diversity analysis revealed predominant K1 allelic family for MSP1 (90.2%) and FC27 for MSP-2 (64.4%). Estimated multiplicity of infection (MOI) was 1.7, with the highest MOI observed in the 5–15 years age group. UBP1 sequence analysis identified one nonsynonymous E1528D polymorphism at a low frequency (1.6%).
Conclusion
The study demonstrated sustained efficacy of AL for treating uncomplicated P. falciparum malaria. Genetic diversity analysis revealed various allelic types, suggesting occurrences of polyclonal infections. Nonetheless, the detection of a significant UBP1 polymorphism could have future implications for the epidemiology of antimalarial drug resistance in the population.
Multiscale Modelling and Characterization of Bonded Repaired Sandwich Composite Facing Sheet under Static Loading
Authors: Quader Niaz , Muthu Jacob
Published: February 2024

Prediction of composite materials failure is a valuable resource for ensuring structural integrity of aerospace structures. For the experimental part of the study, the sandwich specimens were fabricated using two aluminum cores, a Nomex core sandwiched between tool-facing and bag-facing sheets. A damaged slot was introduced and thereafter repaired with filler and repaired plies on the tool-facing sheet. The bonded-repaired sandwich composite facing sheet specimens were tested using a four-point bending setup under static loading conditions. A Multiscale Modelling (MSM) approach was developed to characterize the failure of a bonded-repaired sandwich composite tool-facing sheet. The MSM approach bridged three different length scales such as micro, meso and macro scales. The data processing and information transfer between the scales was facilitated by Visual Basic Applications scripts. Comparisons of micro, meso and micro-scale results were presented for both MSM and experimentation to validate the proposed MSM failure characterization approach. Numerical and fractographical results from MSM and experimentation matched very well for all three scales. In conclusion, the MSM failure characterization approach performed well against the experiment. It presents an opportunity to use an alternative composite materials failure characterization method for future research.
Self-Management, Outness, Anxiety, Depression and Minority Stress in LGBTQ+ Adolescents: Results From an Online Survey
Authors: Town Rosa , Osborn Tom G. , Saunders Rob , Stapley Emily , Fonagy Peter , Hayes Daniel
Published: February 2024

Aims: Previous research has established a relationship between self-management and better emotional health. However, self-management has not been explored amongst LGBTQ+ adolescents, who are more likely to have a mental health difficulty than their non-LGBTQ+ peers, but less likely to access specialist mental health services. Furthermore, self-management has not been investigated as a mediator or a moderator of the established relationships between outness and minority stress and emotional health difficulties. This study aims to clarify the relationships between these topics to inform early interventions involving self-management.
Methods: Data were collected via an anonymous online survey on REDCap. Participants completed validated measures of outness, anxiety, depression, minority stress, and self-management, as well as demographics. Data were analysed in SPSS 25.
Results and Conclusions: 3,541 participants aged 16 to 25 completed all or part of the survey. Significant correlations were observed between outness and depression, self-management and anxiety/depression, and minority stress and anxiety/depression. Self-management significantly moderated the relationship between outness and depression. Self-management significantly mediated the relationship between minority stress and depression, but not anxiety. Greater capacity to self-manage had a larger impact on depression for participants experiencing low minority stress compared to those experiencing higher levels of minority stress. Future self-management interventions should consider targeting LGBTQ+ young people experiencing lower levels of minority stress. Greater financial support and systemic prioritisation of self-management interventions is needed, particularly for LGBTQ+ adolescents.
Improving the Rehabilitation of Individuals Admitted to England’s National Spinal Injuries Centre with Traumatic Brain Injury
Authors: Falshaw Lawson , King Nigel , Cotter Imogen
Published: February 2024

Study Design:
Mixed methods service improvement project. Retrospective analysis of clinical documentation and qualitative focus group with clinicians.
Objectives
Although traumatic brain injury (TBI) and spinal cord injury (SCI) often co-occur, many barriers have been found to identifying TBI in SCI rehabilitation and adapting treatment accordingly. This study aimed to compare the number of TBIs detected at the English National Spinal Injury Centre to figures found in previous research, and understand the barriers to adapting SCI rehabilitation in the presence of TBI.
Setting:
United Kingdom inpatient spinal cord injury rehabilitation unit.
Methods
This mixed methods study assessed the documentation at each stage of 88 patients’ treatment where a TBI could be detected and used to inform rehabilitation, and subsequently, a focus group was conducted with staff to explore the barriers to detecting TBI and adapting SCI rehabilitation.
Results
Results suggested that data related to TBI were inconsistently recorded, the number of TBIs at the Centre was lower than previous research, and several barriers were interpreted from the focus group.
Conclusions
TBI in SCI populations may be an invisible unmet need. Several barriers may exist which prevent clinicians from detecting TBI in this population and adapting rehabilitation accordingly. Findings have implications for rehabilitation for individuals with TBI and SCI admitted to the service.
Characteristics of Japanese adult esotropia: A retrospective evaluation of 105 patients undergoing esotropia surgery at Inoue Memorial Hospital.
Authors: Yokoyama Akiko
Published: February 2024

Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate etiological factors, changes in alignment angle post-surgery, and binocular vision function improvement in Japanese adults with esotropia.
Methods: This retrospective study included 105 patients with esotropia who underwent surgery at our hospital. We reviewed the medical records to determine causes of esotropia; patient motivation for surgery; changes in alignment angle post-surgery; improvement in binocular vision function; and correlation between the operated muscle length and corrected eye alignment angle. The alternate prism cover test was performed to assess the angle of misalignment. Binocular vision function was evaluated using the Titmus Stereo Test, major amblyoscope, Bagolini striated lenses test, and afterimage test.
One-to-four muscle surgery, involving medial rectus muscle recession or lateral rectus muscle resection, was performed.
Results: The etiologies included acquired progressive esotropia with myopia (n=51); congenital esotropia (n=6); partial accommodative esotropia (n=5); cerebral infarction or cerebral breeding (n=5); sagging eye syndrome (SES; n=5); brain tumors (n=3); sensory esotropia (n=2); consecutive esotropia after exotropia surgery (n=2); face trauma (n=1); Duane syndrome (n=1); and unknown origin (n=24).
Eye alignment improved in all patients. However, four patients needed a second operation. Binocular vision function improved in patients with acquired progressive esotropia with myopia; partial accommodative esotropia; cerebral infarction or cerebral breeding; SES; and brain tumors. Binocular vision function was unchanged in patients with sensory and congenital esotropia.
Conclusion: Esotropia surgery in adults could lead to improved eye alignment and binocular vision function. However, patients with sensory esotropia and congenital esotropia were unable to acquire binocular vision function.
Generating higher order bright soliton pulse using Integrated Lithium Niobate Waveguides for higher end supercontinuum application
Authors: kumar S. Vengatesh , Nagarajan R. , babu S. Venkatesh , Ignatious J. Joseph
Published: February 2024

The supercontinuum spectrum is generated through a wide range of wavelengths by sending a short and strong pulse to the nonlinear medium and sputtering at the output and is used in optical measurements, spectroscopy, biological imaging optical coherence photography, etc. Integrated photonics is an idea to realize low-cost and microscale communication, sensing, and fast computing methods. In addition, the miniaturization and integration of photonic structures make possible new designs and applications that are inaccessible in their large volumes. Lithium niobate is one of the most widely used and attractive materials in the field of photonics due to its extraordinary electro-optical, acoustic-optical, nonlinear optics, wide transparency window, and relatively high refractive index. In this work, a lithium niobate waveguide is designed by choosing basic solitons as the input pulse and considering various effects such as high-order scattering, self-phase modulation, second harmonic generation, Raman effect, self-downward effect, etc. The proposed waveguide has super-sustainable production. This supercontinuum spectrum is designed in the waveguide, for the 10th order bright soliton at a distance of 35 mm, 4 times the initial width, for the 20th order bright soliton at 9 mm, 4 times the initial width, and for the 30th order bright soliton at 4.5 mm, 5 times the initial pulse width in the frequency domain are created. Such dimensions are suitable for use in photonic integrated circuits.
Deformable Kernel Expansion Model for Efficient Arbitrary-shaped Scene Text Detection
Authors: He Tao , Huang Sheng , Tang Wenhao , Liu Bo
Published: February 2024

Scene text detection is a challenging computer vision task due to the high variation in text shapes and ratios.
In this work, we propose a real-time arbitrary-shaped scene text detector named Deformable Kernel Expansion (DKE), which incorporates the merits of both segmentation and contour-based detectors.
DKE employs a segmentation module to segment the shrunken text region as the text kernel,
then expands the kernel to obtain text boundary by regressing the vertex-wise offsets.
Generating the text kernel by segmentation enables DKE to inherit the arbitrary-shaped text region modeling capability of segmentation-based detectors.
Regressing the kernel with control points enables DKE to avoid the complicated pixel-level post-processing
and better learn contour deformation as the contour-based detectors. Moreover, we propose an Optimal Bipartite Graph Matching Loss that measures the matching error between the predicted points and the ground truth, which efficiently minimizes the global matching distance.
Extensive experiments on five standard benchmarks demonstrate that DKE achieves a good tradeoff between accuracy and efficiency in scene text detection.
Potential causal relationships between metabolites, immunophenotypes, and uveitis disease: A Mediation Mendelian Randomization Study
Authors: Hu Xiaoyan , Wu Jian , Zhang Yizheng , Meng Zhiyong , Ye Xingan , Zhang Chenming
Published: February 2024

Background
There is substantial evidence that immune cells play a role in the pathogenesis of uveitis. Establishing causal relationships is challenging due to confounding biasing mechanisms of reverse causation and residual relationships.
Methods
Instrumental variables for 731 immune phenotypes, 1091 blood metabolites, and 309 metabolite ratios were derived from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) meta-analyses. The Integrated Epidemiology Unit (IEU) provides data on uveitis disease. A two-way Mendelian randomization study was performed to determine the relationship between exposure and outcome. Results were examined for robustness, potential heterogeneity, and horizontal pleiotropy through sensitivity analyses.
Results
High levels of CD3 on CM CD4+ were causally associated with an increased risk of uveitis (OR of IVW, 1.084; 95% CI, 1.032-1.139). This effect was found to be mediated through lower levels of phosphate to cysteine ​​ratio metabolites. Phosphate to cysteine ratio explained 8.56% (95% CI 0.593%, 16.5%) of the total effect of immune cell traits on uveitis.
Conclusions
Our study supports phosphate to cysteine ​​ratio as a mediating biomarker of CD3 on CM CD4+ effects in uveitis.
Rhizophagus irregularis combined with biochar can improve the saline-alkali tolerance and energy quality of switchgrass through osmoregulation and salt- tolerance gene expression
Authors: Wen Yuqiang , Xu Tianle , Qi Dandan , Chang wei , Li Kun , Fang Xiaoxu , Zhang Mengmeng , Ping Yuan , Song Fuqiang
Published: February 2024

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and biochar have potential applications in agriculture and ecological restoration. However, the effects of AMF combined with biochar on saline-alkali tolerance and bioenergy quality of plants under saline-alkali stress have yet to be thoroughly studied. In this study, we investigated the effects of Rhizophagus irregularis (Ri) and biochar application alone or in combination on growth, osmoregulation, ion uptake, expression of genes related to saline-alkali tolerance, and energy quality of switchgrass under saline-alkali stress. The results showed as follows: (1) The biomass of switchgrass in Ri combined with biochar treatment group was significantly higher than that in single treatment group (P < 0.05); (2) Ri combined with biochar increased the activity of antioxidant enzymes and the accumulation of osmoregulatory substances, and affected the synthesis of plant hormones; (3) Combined treatment significantly increased the contents of K+, Ca2+ and Mg2+ in leaves and roots, decreased the contents of Na+, and maintained high K+/Na+, Ca2+/Na+ and Mg2+/Na+; (4) Combined treatment could significantly induce stress response, active oxygen scavenging, ion transport and overexpression of cellulose biosynthesis genes in switchgrass leaves and roots; (5) Ri combined with biochar increased cellulose, hemicellulose and calorific value of switchgrass, and decreased lignin and ash content. Our research results prove that Ri combined with biochar can further enhance the saline-alkali tolerance of switchgrass, improve the quality of plant energy, and provide a new idea for increasing the planting area and improving the quality of energy plants.
Multi-omics analysis unravels the underlying mechanisms of the escape response of the common strain black carp
Authors: Xu Yuanfeng , Dong Ping , Sewo Daniel Yohannes , Su Shengyan , Li Jianlin , Feng Wenrong , Liao Yu , Tang Yongkai
Published: February 2024

Reducing the escape response of fish during the aquaculture has important economic value and ecological safety significance. This study takes the common strain black carp (Cyprinus carpio var. baisenensis), which is known for its low-escape response, as the main research object. Through a simulated flood experiment, the common strain black carps were divided into the low-escape (BL) group and the high-escape (BH) group. Multi-omics techniques:transcriptome sequencing, LS-MS/MS detection, and 16s sequencing were used to analyze the differences in brain gene transcription levels, liver metabolites, and intestinal microbiota composition between the two groups. In addition, in order to reduce false positives generated by transcriptome experiments, Jian carps (Cyprinus carpio var. Jian) were also grouped into the low-escape (JL) group and the high-escape (JH) group and subjected to transcriptome analysis. According to the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) analysis, 18 DEGs were obtained from both the common strain black carp and Jian carp. Except for the MAP6 gene, which was significantly highly expressed, the remaining 17 genes showed significantly low expression in the BL group, which were almost related to signal transduction, and brain tissue and neuronal development. The results of KEGG signaling pathway annotation, KOG functional annotation, and topGO enrichment analysis showed that there were significant differences in signal transduction between the BL and BH groups, especially in the gama aminobutyric acid (GABA) signaling pathway. The detection of liver metabolites showed that there were differences in tryptophan metabolism between the BL and BH groups of the common strain black carp, with higher tryptophan content in the liver of the BL group fish. This study suggests that the brain activity and development of low-escape fish may be lower than that of high-escape fish. Meanwhile, differences in the brain's GABA signaling pathway and the liver's tryptophan metabolismmay also affect fish's escape response. This study accumulates experimental foundation of fish escape response, and provides a new insight into breeding low-escape fish and developing novel strategies to reduce escape responses during aquaculture.
Greedy Recursive Spectral Bisection for Modularity-bound Hierarchical Divisive Community Detection
Authors: Cardoso Douglas O. , Junior João Domingos Gomes da Silva , Oliveira Carla Silva , Marques Celso , de Assis Laura Silva
Published: February 2024

Spectral clustering refers to a class of techniques that depend on the eigenstructure of a similarity matrix for the purpose of dividing data points into disjoint clusters, where points within the same cluster exhibit high similarity and those in different clusters have a lower similarity. The objective of this work was to develop a spectral method that could be compared to clustering algorithms which represent the current state of art. This investigation conceived a novel spectral clustering method, as well as 5 policies which guide its execution, based on spectral graph theory and embodying hierarchical clustering principles. Computational experiments were undertaken in this study to evaluate the clustering methods under scrutiny. The assessment was performed using two evaluation metrics, specifically the adjusted Rand index, and modularity. The obtained results furnish compelling evidence, indicating that the proposed method is competitive and possesses distinctive properties compared to those elucidated in the existing literature. This suggests that our approach stands as a viable alternative, offering a robust choice within the spectrum of available same-purpose tools.
Co-culture with bronchial epithelial cells and hypoxia promote ADAM33 expression to regulate activation, ferroptosis, proliferation, migration, and apoptosis of embryonic lung fibroblasts
Authors: aierken haidiya , Wang Jing , Wufuer Dilinuer
Published: February 2024

Asthma is a common chronic respiratory system disease, and thoroughly revealing its pathological mechanism is still a major challenge in the current biomedical field. Studies on embryonic lung fibroblasts have found that hypoxia promoted the expression and secretion of ADAM33 in a time-dependent manner. Co-culture with bronchial epithelial cells (co-BECs) also induced the expression of ADAM33, and hypoxia further enhanced the effect of co-culture on promoting ADAM33 expression. Western blot and/or immunofluorescence detection showed that co-BECs significantly enhanced the expression of α-SMA, vimentin, calponin, collagen I and vinculin, but the effect on promoting desmin expression was not significant; ADAM33 overexpression or hypoxia further enhanced these gene expression, and ADAM33 overexpression plus hypoxia had the most significant expression-promoting effect; however, ADAM33 knockout blocked the promotion effect of co-culture on these gene expression, indicating that co-culture promotes fibroblast activation through ADAM33. Further detection of ferroptosis showed that co-BECs promoted the expression of GPX4 and FPN, and inhibited the expression of ACSL4; ADAM33 knockout down-regulated the expression of GPX4, FPN, FTH1 and FTL, while ADAM33 overexpression or hypoxia enhanced the regulatory effect of co-culture on these gene expression, and the synergistic effect of ADAM33 overexpression and hypoxia on co-culture was more significant. In addition, co-BECs promoted fibroblast proliferation and migration, increased GSH content, and reduced MDA production and cell apoptosis; ADAM33 knockout significantly increased the accumulation of Fe2+, ROS and MDA, as well as cell apoptosis, while reducing GSH content, cell proliferation and migration; ADAM33 overexpression or hypoxia had opposite effects, and ADAM33 overexpression plus hypoxia had a more significant regulatory effect on these biological traits of fibroblasts. Therefore, epithelial cells can regulate the activation, ferroptosis, proliferation, migration and apoptosis of fibroblasts by enhancing the expression of ADAM33, indicating that ADAM33 plays an important role in fibroblasts.
Emergency Surgery Score (ESS) In Predicting Post- Operative Course In Patients Undergoing Emergency Laparotomy – An Indian Tertiary center experience
Authors: Bhowmik Srishti , Singh Chandra Bhushan , Neogi Sushanto , Ghuliani Deepak , Roy Sarmista
Published: February 2024

Aims And Objectives - To determine the predictive value of Emergency Surgery Score (ESS) with regards to mortality and morbidity rates of patients undergoing emergency laparotomy. Method - The ESS, ranging from 0 to 29 is an extensive risk calculator based on 22 variables including important parameters like demographics, pre-operative treatment, comorbidities, and laboratory values. Twenty patients who underwent emergency laparotomy were preoperatively assessed and ESS was calculated for each. After establishment of diagnosis and resuscitation, the patient was taken up for emergency laparotomy. Postoperatively, patients were monitored clinically as well as with laboratory and radiological investigations as per case needed till discharge and further followed up physically in OPD/ ward or interviewed telephonically for 30 days on a weekly basis. Incidence of mortality and morbidity in terms of postoperative complications, ICU admission, reoperation and readmission among the cases occurring within 30 days of procedure were recorded. Results - ESS correlated well with the outcome in the current study, 10 out of 14 patients with score less than 8 were discharged without any complications. Mean ESS was higher among non survivors. Ability of ESS to predict postoperative mortality, morbidity and ICU stay was proven statistically with c-statistics of 0.853, 0.84, 0.879 respectively. ESS was found to be good predictor for development of postoperative LRTI (c-statistic = 0.828), sepsis (c-statistic = 0.867), DIC (c-statistic = 0.805), AKI (c-statistic = 0.804). ESS showed poor correlation with reoperation and readmission rates. Conclusion - It can be concluded from the study that risk stratification should be done for patients undergoing emergency laparotomy by using ESS. Thereby it can predict necessary needs for resuscitation and patient stabilization before surgery. Using ESS, patients unsuitable for operation can be identified and optimized beforehand; well informed decisions can be taken regarding targeted treatment, operation, and post-operative care. This study is a registered study under Clinical Trials Registry - India (CTRI) with registration number CTRI/2021/07/034504 and was registered on 01/07/2021.
Anti-sarcopenic effect of leucine-enriched branched-chain amino acid supplementation among elderly chronic kidney disease patients: a double-blinded randomized controlled trial
Authors: Sunsandee Neti , Thimachai Paramat , Satirapoj Bancha , Supasyndh Ouppatham
Published: February 2024

Background
Leucine, branched-chain amino acids (BCAA), represents an effective nutritional strategy to augment skeletal muscle mass in aging population. The study aimed to determine the effect of oral leucine-enriched BCAA supplementation on muscle mass, biomarkers of muscle synthesis and physical performance among elderly patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD).
Methods
A randomized controlled trial study was performed among patients with CKD stage III and IV aged over 65 year. Eligible participants were randomly assigned to either oral 4.5 g/day of leucine in mixed BCAA supplement (N = 29) or placebo (N = 26) in the same manner for 12 weeks. Blood chemistry, serum insulin growth factor-1 (IGF-1), serum myostatin, muscle mass using dual energy X-ray absorptiometry were measured at start and end of the intervention. Three-day food record was documented and reviewed by a dietitian. All participants were monitored for functional capacity using the handgrip and 6-minute walk tests during the study.
Results
Fifty-five patients (33 males) with mean age of 75.4 ± 5.2 years were enrolled. Daily protein and calorie intake during the study were similar in both groups. After the end of the study, lean muscle mass was significantly increased in the leucine group compared with that of the placebo group (0.4 kg (95% CI 0.1 to 0.7) vs. -0.2 kg; 95% CI -0.6 to 0.2) kg, P = 0.010, respectively). Also, statistically significant differences were noted in percentage of changed in muscle mass at 12 weeks between the leucine and placebo groups (1.0 ± 1.8 vs. -0.5 ± 2.6%, P = 0.014). However, muscle strength determined by handgrip and 6-minute walk tests, serum myostatin and IGF-1 did not significantly differ between the two groups. No serious adverse event was observed during the study.
Conclusions
In our study, 12 weeks of oral supplement with leucine-enriched BCAA resulted in increasing muscle mass, However, the treatment dose showed no benefit on biomarkers of muscle activity, functional capacity and adverse reaction among elderly patients with CKD.
EDIL3 alleviates Mannan-induced psoriatic arthritis by slowing the intracellular glycolysis process in mononuclear-derived dendritic cells
Authors: Yu Jiadong , Wang Xiaoyan , Zhou Yifan , Hu Jing , Gu Linna , Zhou Hong , Yue Chengcheng , Zhou Pei , Li Ya , Zhao Qixiang , Zhang Chen , Hu Yawen , Zeng Fanlian , Zhao Fulei , Li Guolin , Feng Yuting , Wu Wenling , Huang Nongyu , Cui Kaijun , Li Jiong
Published: February 2024

Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is an immune-mediated, chronic inflammatory joint disease that commonly occurs as a complication of psoriasis. EGF-like repeats and discoidal I-like domain 3 (EDIL3) is a secreted protein with multiple structural domains and associated with various physiological functions. Mannan-induced psoriasis arthritis-like disease relies on the differentiation of MoDCs and Th17 cells. Reduced expression of EDIL3 was correlated with more severe symptoms in mannan-induced PsA. Additionally, EDIL3 knockout mice also exhibited more severe PsA disease, which could be reversed by reinfusion of recombinant EDIL3 protein. The alleviating effect of EDIL3 on PsA depends on the activation of MoDCs and Th17 cells. After neutralizing antibodies against MoDCs and Th17 cells were used to inhibit their function, the beneficial effect of EDIL3 on PsA was lost. Furthermore, EDIL3 can activate AMPK phosphorylation while reducing AKT phosphorylation, thereby slowing down mannose-induced intracellular glycolysis process in MoDCs and inhibiting their maturation and differentiation. Consequently, these compounds reduce the differentiation of Th17 cells and slow down the progression of PsA. Our results elucidate the role and mechanism through which EDIL3 contributes to the development of PsA, providing new targets for clinical diagnosis and treatment.
Development and evaluation of a deep learning framework for detection and diagnosis of peri-ampullary tumor in MRI images
Authors: Tang Yong , Zheng Yingjun , Luo De , Zhou Linjing , Wang Weijia , Wang Xuewen , Chen Jing , Li Bo , Shu Jian , Lv Muhan , Wu Jiali , Su Song
Published: February 2024

Purpose: We were development and evaluation of one deep learning (DL) framework for identification of Peri-ampullary (PA) regions and diagnosis of peri-ampullary tumor (PAT) conditions in MRI images.
Experimental Design: We retrospectively analyzed 1,038 patients. We found that DL algorithm for identification of PA regions and diagnosis of PAT conditions in MRI images.
Results: The DL algorithm successfully identified and segmented the PA regions in both T1WI (IOU = 0·62) and T2WI images (IOU = 0·55). Based on the segmentations of PA regions in images, the classification DL algorithm achieved optimal accuracies in classifications of NPA and PSOL with AUC of 0·71 (95% CI 0·68 to 0·74) (T1WI) and 0·72 (95% CI 0·68 to 0·75) (T2WI). For PSOL cases, another classification DL algorithm achieved encouraging accuracies to further classify PAT and Non-PATL with AUC of 0·81 (95% CI 0·77 to 0·85) (T1WI) and 0·78 (95% CI 0·73 to 0·83) (T2WI). Furthermore, in the patient-based approach, the classification DL algorithm achieved optimal accuracies in classifications of NPA and PSOL with ACC of 0·75 (95% CI 0·65 to 0·85) (T1WI) and 0·88 (95% CI 0·81 to 0·94) (T2WI). For PSOL cases, another classification DL algorithm achieved encouraging accuracies to further classify PAT and Non-PATL with ACC of 0·83 (95% CI 0·71 to 0·96) (T1WI) and 0·82 (95% CI 0·70 to 0·93) (T2WI).
Conclusions: Our study suggests that DL could accurately identify and segment PA regions in MRI images and further classify PAT conditions with promising accuracies. DL could assist clinicians in MRI interpretation for PAT diagnosis.
Adaptive Adversarial Augmentation for Molecular Property Prediction
Authors: Cho Soyoung , Hong Sungchul , Jeon Jong-June
Published: February 2024

Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) exhibit potential in predicting the properties of molecules, but computational analyses with the GNNs often encounter the problem of data imbalance or overfitting. Augmentation techniques have emerged as a popular solution, and adversarial perturbation to node features achieves a significant improvement in enhancing the model's generalization capacity. Despite remarkable advancement, there is scarce research about systematically tuning the adversarial augmentation. We propose a new framework for an adversarial perturbation with influential graph features. Our method selects the data to apply adversarial augmentation based on the one-step influence function that measures the influence of each training sample on prediction in each iteration. In particular, the approximation of the one-step influence function has wide applicability to evaluate a model's validity on the observation level for a large-scale neural network. Selected data using the one-step influence function are likely to be located near the decision boundary, and experimental results demonstrated that augmentation of such data has improved the model's performance.
An unexpected case of tetanus in a fully immunized 20-year-old female: A case report
Authors: Okuda Mitsutoshi , Morizane Atsushi , Asaba Sunao , Tsurui Saika , Tsuno Ryutaro , Hatakenaka Mariko , Sugimura Tomoko , Saisaka Yuichi
Published: February 2024

Background:
Widespread vaccinations have significantly decreased the number of tetanus cases in developed countries. Today, most cases of tetanus affect the elderly and those with inadequate immunization in developed countries such as Japan. As vaccinations were believed to be nearly 100% effective in preventing tetanus, tetanus in young, immunized individuals were considered unlikely. However, unexpected tetanus infection has been reported in young adequately immunized individuals.
Case:
We herein describe a 20-year-old immunized female who visited our emergency department with trismus and painful muscle spasms that started after receiving a puncture wound to her right foot. A physical examination revealed an elevated body temperature (38°C), trismus, muscle spasms in her right leg and neck, and a puncture wound at the sole of her right foot. Following the development of dyspnea after admission to the intensive care unit, the patient was intubated and mechanically ventilated. She fully recovered after six days in intensive care.
Conclusion:
The present case serves as a stark reminder that tetanus may still occur in young, immunized individuals. Patients with a history of immunization may have a better prognosis than those with no immunizations.
SIDM-WIR: A Sampling Improved DiffusionModel for Worksite Image Restoration
Authors: Wen JiaYan , Zhuang Yuansheng , Deng JunYi
Published: February 2024

At presently, Diffusion Model (DM) has achieved state-of-the-art performanceby modeling the image synthesis process through a series of denoising networkapplications. Image Restoration (IR) is to improve the subjective image qual-ity corrupted by various kinds of degradation unlike image synthesis. However,IR for worksite images is greatly challenging in the low-level vision field due tocomplicated environmental factors. To solve this problem, we propose a Sam-pling Improved Diffusion Model for Worksite Image Restoration (SIDM-WIR).It not only improves the authenticity and representation ability for the gener-ation process, but also handles complex backgrounds and diverse object typeseffectively. SIDM-WIR has three main contributions: 1) Its framework adopts aMish-based residual module, which enhances the ability to learn complex patternsof images, and allows for the presence of negative gradients to reduce overfittingrisks during model training. 2) It employs a Mixed-head Self-Attention (MSA)mechanism, which augments the correlation among input elements at each timestep, and maintains a better balance between capturing the global structuralinformation and local detailed textures of the image. 3) It ran in a new customizeddataset named Workplace for WIR specifically. Furthermore, experiments on bothtwo datasets demonstrate that SIDM-WIR achieves better results to previousmethods both quantitatively and qualitatively.
Sarcopenia in children: Lecture
Authors: Zavyalova A. N. , Novikova V. P. , Yakovleva M. N.
Published: February 2024

Primary sarcopenia characterizes frailty of old age. Secondary sarcopenia can occur in both adults and children with severe somatic or surgical pathology. A model for studying sarcopenia in children can be patients with cerebral palsy, whose muscle development differs from typically developing children. The lecture presents the mechanism of the development of sarcopenia, diagnostic criteria for adult patients presented in consent documents, as well as analogues of diagnostic scales used in pediatric practice. The diagnosis of sarcopenia in children has something in common with the diagnosis of the patient’s nutritional status. Diagnosis of sarcopenia in children using bioimpedansometry method was proposed by the authors, and a Eurasian patent was received. Based on the volumes of adipose and active cellular tissue in the component composition of the body: with a combination of a percentage of fat mass of 40.5% and above and a percentage of active cell mass of 37% and below, sarcopenia is diagnosed, and with a combination of a percentage of fat mass of 30.5% and above and percentage of active cell mass from 37% to 43.5% is diagnosed as presarcopenia. Options for preventing sarcopenia are presented, including patented ones. A multidisciplinary approach to working with a patient with sarcopenia includes, while treating the underlying disease, nutritious nutrition, restoration of the intestinal microflora and motor activity of the patient.