bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Syntactic alignment and identification of theta-role subgroups in Mehináku stative verbs
Authors: De Felipe Paulo Henrique
Published: June 2023

In this work, I present a first analysis of the syntactic alignment in the Mehináku (Arawak) language to show how this language behaves in terms of its different verbal predicates and the arguments that these predicates take. I argue that this language tends to manifest an active-stative alignment (or split ergativity, as proposed by Aikhenvald (1999, 2001, 2002, 2018, 2019) for other Arawak languages), since it is the semantic type of the verb that determines which type of argument functioning as subject will be taken and, moreover, in what syntactic position this argument will appear. I show that transitive verbs, agentive intransitives, non-agentive intransitives, and most stative intransitive verbs (type 1) align in the same way, taking as subject one of the pronominal proclitics of the language positioned before the verb, while a small portion of the stative intransitive verbs (type 2) align with the direct object of the transitive verb since it takes as its subject the full pronouns of the language positioned after the verb. Furthermore, I show that the subject of the transitive verb (A) and the subjects of the agentive, non-agentive, and type 1 intransitive verbs are marked with the thematic role of agent or experiencer, while, in turn, the object of the transitive verb and the subject of the intransitive verb of type 2 (So) are marked with the thematic role of theme or patient.
Sintaxe histórica do infinitivo português: a oração subordinada substantiva objetiva direta reduzida de infinitivo
Authors: Martinho Marcos
Published: June 2023

Confronto duas construções portuguesas: a de verbo causativo ou sensitivo e a de verbo declarativo ou opinativo com nome/pronome e infinitivo. Primeiro, procuro mostrar, à luz da gramática sincrônica, duas diferenças entre as construções: 1) que o nome/pronome e infinitivo constituem oração (= subordinada substantiva objetiva direta reduzida de infinitivo) na segunda construção, mas não na primeira; 2) que, quando se emprega pronome pessoal, este apresenta forma reta na segunda construção, e oblíqua na primeira. Daí, investigo, à luz da gramática diacrônica, as causas dessas diferenças, que têm suas raízes no latim. Enfim, ilustro o uso de ambas as construções em nove textos portugueses elaborados entre os séc. XIII e XVI.
"Ele me chamou de comedor de burrito": xenofobia, impolidez e ameaça à face de imigrantes latinos nos Estados Unidos
Authors: Silveira Fernanda Vieira da Rocha , Ferreira Gabriella dos Santos
Published: June 2023

Este estudo de natureza qualitativa e cunho etnográfico tem como objetivos abordar a xenofobia nas interações comunicativas entre estadunidenses e imigrantes latinos nos Estados Unidos através da impolidez no discurso e analisar a sua influência na ameaça à face desse grupo de imigrantes. O aporte teórico incluiu os conceitos de xenofobia e a contextualização da situação do imigrante no corpo social dos Estados Unidos, examinados através dos estudos de Lee (2019) e Allport (1954), a impolidez linguística, por meio dos estudos de Culpeper (1996) e Culpeper e Kadar 2010), perpassando os estudos de face de Goffman (1975, 1982). Os dados foram gerados através de dois questionários desenvolvidos na plataforma Google Forms. A pesquisa foi realizada a partir das respostas de 15 participantes, sendo 13 de origem latina. A análise pragmático-discursiva dos dados se deu de forma interpretativista e seguiu a linha da análise temática (MANEN, 1990). Os resultados mostraram evidências linguísticas de impolidez que ameaçam a face do imigrante latino-americano de modo a contribuir para a manutenção da sua situação periférica no contexto social estadunidense e corroborando estereótipos que acabam por interferir na interação social desses imigrantes.
Calcitriol Alleviates AKI Via Inhibiting Intestinal Inflammation and Restoring Intestinal Microbiota
Authors: Huo Aijing , Wang Fengmei
Published: June 2023

Background：The intestinal microbiota affects the inflammatory status of the host and the prognosis of diseases. AKI can lead to microinflammation of intestinal tract and changes of intestinal flora. Calcitriol (Cal) has a protective effect on the intestine.
Methods and Results：In the AKI rat model, intestinal infiltration of inflammatory cells and the deterioration of renal function were significantly alleviated by Cal pretreatment. By increasing the levels of Zonula Occludens-1(ZO-1 and Occludin), Cal significantly prevented the destruction of the intestinal barrier in AKI. In AKI rats, Cal decreased the concentration of Proteobacteria and enhanced the linear discriminant (LDA) score of beneficial bacteria (such as Lactobacillus). Cal increased the expression of butyric acid among intestinal metabolites. Cal supplementation decreased serum LPS levels and downstream HMGB1-MYD88-NF-κB-p65 signaling.
Conclusions：High-dose Cal may play a protective role in AKI by regulating HMGB1-MYD88-NF-κB-p65 signaling pathways and the intestinal microbiota in rats. This study demonstrates the renal effects of Cal. The experiment revealed a close interaction between the kidney and the intestine. It provides new insights for the treatment of AKI.
Methyltransferase SETD4 mediates macrophages proliferation through EGFR signaling
Authors: Wu Caixia , Wu Linxu , Ha Yanping , Zou Yuan , Shi Kaijia , Xing Jingci , Zhao Yangyang , Guo Junli , Shen Zhihua , Jie Wei
Published: June 2023

Purpose: Epigenetic modifications have important impacts on the biological functions of cells. This study explored the effects of SET domain-containing protein (SETD)4, a histone lysine methyltransferase, on the general biological functions of bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMMs).
Materials and Methods: We employed a CRISPR/Cas9 technology-edited mouse model. After isolated from SETD4knockout (KO) and Wild-type (WT) mice, BMMs were maintained and identified. Then, serials in vitro experiments were performed to test the levels of methylation of histone lysine sites and the abilities in proliferation, cell cycle, migration, inducing vascular tube-formation and polarity. The phosphorylation pathway profiling arrays focused on the Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase (MAPK), AKT, Janus Kinase/signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription(JAK/STAT), Nuclear Factor-κB (NF-κB), and Transforming Growth Factor β (TGF-β) signaling pathways were performed. After the Differentially Expressed Proteins (DEPs) were screened, the Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment were adopted on those DEPs. Finally, CI-1033, an inhibitor for pan Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) was administrated to treat the BMMs, the cell viability and expression of phosphorylated(p)-EGFR(Ser1070) were assessed.
Results: BMMs from SETD4 KO mice exhibited significant inhibition of monomethylation, dimethylation or trimethylation of histones H3K4, H3K36, H3K79 and H4K20; significant enhancement of the proliferation, EdU-positive cell ratio, Ki67 mRNA levels, and ability to form vascular structures; and attenuation of cell migration ability. After induction by lipopolysaccharide + interferon-γ or interleukin (IL)-4, a majority of the markers that were tested, including pro-inflammatory Interleukin-1β, Interleukin-6, Inducible nitric oxide synthase and tumor necrosis factor-α and anti-inflammatory Fizz-1, Arginase 1 and Mannose receptor C-type 1 were all downregulated, while TGF-β1 was upregulated. The phosphorylation pathway profiling arrays revealed 32 DEPs, six that were upregulated and 26 that were downregulated in BMMs from SETD4 KO mice versus WT mice. These DEPs were involved in 1365 terms from the GO and 137 signals from the KEGG database. Inhibition of the most significantly upregulated protein, EGFR(Ser1070), by CI-1033 significantly reduced p-EGFR(Ser1070), and was accompanied by a decrease in the cell viability of BMMs, particularly in the SETD4 KO cells.
Conclusion: This is the first study to implicate the involvement of SETD4-mediated EGFR signaling in the proliferation of BMMs. SETD4 mediates the methylation of multiple histone lysine sites in BMMs, in turn affecting cell biology.
Haptic feature selection using Statistical Analysis for Haptic Object Reconstruction
Authors: Dewapura Praveena Wimarshani , Abeykoon A. M. Harsha S.
Published: June 2023

Object reconstruction in the haptic dimension is crucial in achieving realization
in the virtual world. Prior studies have employed the conventional spring damper
model to interpret object behavior, with motion parameters being the main deter-
minant of force feedback. However, haptic information is nonlinear and more
factors could influence haptic feedback recreation than just motion parameters.
In recent years, scientists have paid much attention to employing AI technologies
with haptics. AI approach is data-driven, and a thorough understanding of the
data is critical to its performance. As a result, a detailed statistical analysis is
required to discover patterns and relationships within the features and identify
significant features as utilizing all the factors affecting haptic object reconstruc-
tion will cost higher computational time and resources. Thus, this study focused
on statistically analyzing data extracted through a Disturbance Observer (DOB)
and Reaction Force Observer (RFOB) based sensorless technique and selecting
the significant features to reconstruct an object in a haptic dimension precisely.
Furthermore, a mathematical notation was introduced to define a feature and the
feature matrix was derived using the notation. Finally, the performance of an AI
algorithm was then compared using different feature inputs to the AI model to
understand the effect of the feature matrix.
Pollution Assessment of Selected Heavy Metals in Irrigation Water
Authors: Shah Sha Md. Shahan , Munshi Meghla , Islam Md. Jahidul , Mollah Md. Mahtab Ali , Zakir Hossain Mohammad , Salam Sayed M A
Published: June 2023

Irrigation water is an important factor in proper crop production. Thus irrigation water plays a vital role in food safety and security. This study, therefore, focuses on the estimation of the concentration of four heavy metals in irrigation water along with their pollution assessments. The concentration of heavy metals found in this study followed the order of Mn (0.0913-0.3701 mg/L) > Pb (0.0211-0.2104 mg/L) > Cd (0.0004-0.0222 mg/L) > Cr (0.00105-0.00937 mg/L). In a few cases, the concentrations of heavy metals exceed the permissible limit for irrigation water recommended by the Food and Agricultural Organization. Pollution assessments were carried out using the enrichment factor, geoaccumulation index, contamination factor, and modified degree of contamination. This study revealed that the enrichment factor for lead and chromium showed no enrichment, whereas cadmium showed minor to moderate enrichment, and manganese was used as a reference element. The geoaccumulation index and contamination factor demonstrate that lead and chromium were uncontaminated, but manganese and cadmium denote moderate contamination. The modified degree of contamination indicated nil to the lower degree of contamination for all samples. Proper steps by the government and different organizations should be taken to identify the reasons for their sources, and appropriate techniques should be implemented to reduce their concentrations.
Risk factors for psychological distress in the general population of Japan: A nationally representative survey
Authors: Hanaoka Shimpei , Matsumoto Kunichika , Hirata Toyoaki , Hasegawa Tomonori
Published: June 2023

Background
Psychological distress in the general population in Japan has not been analyzed. This study is the first to examine risk factors for psychological distress in the general population using official statistics available to researchers.
Methods
The anonymous data of the 2013 National Survey of Living Conditions were used. Binomial logistic analysis was conducted incorporating age, marital status, living arrangements, education, household income, working status, smoking, and drinking as independent variables and the low and high-risk groups for psychological distress (K6 scale) as dependent variables, differentiating by gender.
Results
The odds ratios (OR)were lower for both genders aged 60 years and older (men, 0.21–0.23; women, 0.28–0.40), while they were higher for respondents of both genders who were unemployed (men, 3.16; women, 3.42). In addition, never-married (1.65), being in the third-highest household income quantile (1.71), doing mainly housework (2.66) and abstainers from alcohol (1.70) among men and having a middle level of education (1.58), receiving the lowest quantile of household income (1.54), and smoking (1.91) among women were risk factors that increased the odds ratios. By contrast, moderate drinker (0.51) and abstainer (0.64) were risk factors that decreased the odds ratio for women.
Conclusions
For the first time, the risk factors for psychological distress in a general population were identified using nationally representative survey data. Further studies are needed to analyze the above high-risk groups to identify reasonable measures for mental health promotion. We hope this current study will lead to further study in Japan.
Endoscopic ultrasonography-guided gastroenterostomy versus surgical gastrojejunostomy for palliation of malignant gastric outlet obstruction (ENDURO): study protocol for a randomised controlled trial
Authors: de Pavert Yorick L. van , Kastelijn Janine B. , Besselink Marc G. , Fockens Paul , Voermans Rogier P. , Wanrooij Roy L.J. van , de Wijkerslooth Thomas R. , Curvers Wouter L. , de Hingh Ignace H.J.T. , Bruno Marco J. , Koerkamp Bas Groot , Patijn Gijs A. , Poen Alexander C. , Hooft Jeanin E. van , Inderson Akin , Mieog J. Sven D. , Poley Jan-Werner , Bijlsma Alderina , Lips Daan J. , Venneman Niels G. , Verdonk Robert C. , Dullemen Hendrik M. van , Hoogwater Frederik J.H. , Frederix Geert W.J. , Molenaar I. Quintus , Welsing Paco M.J. , Moons Leon M.G. , Santvoort Hjalmar C. van , Vleggaar Frank P.
Published: June 2023

Background
Malignant gastric outlet obstruction (GOO) is a debilitating condition that frequently occurs in patients with malignancies of the distal stomach and (peri)ampullary region. The standard palliative treatment for patients with a reasonable life expectancy and adequate performance status is a laparoscopic surgical gastrojejunostomy (SGJ). Recently, endoscopic ultrasound-guided gastroenterostomy (EUS-GE) emerged as a promising alternative to the surgical approach. The present study aims to compare these treatment modalities in terms of efficacy, safety, and costs.
Methods
The ENDURO-study is a multicentre, open-label, parallel group randomised controlled trial. In total, ninety-six patients with gastric outlet obstruction caused by an irresectable or metastasized malignancy will be 1:1 randomised to either SGJ or EUS-GE. The primary endpoint is time to tolerate at least soft solids. The co-primary endpoint is the proportion of patients with persisting or recurring symptoms of gastric outlet obstruction for which a reintervention is required. Secondary endpoints are technical and clinical success, quality of life, gastroenterostomy dysfunction, reinterventions, time to reintervention, adverse events, quality of life, time to start chemotherapy, length of hospital stay, readmissions, weight, survival, and costs.
Discussion
The ENDURO-study assesses whether EUS-GE, as compared to SGJ, results in a faster resumption of solid oral intake and is non-inferior regarding reinterventions for persistent or recurrent obstructive symptoms in patients with malignant GOO. This trial aims to guide future treatment strategies and to improve quality of life in a palliative setting.
Trial registration
International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP): NL9592. Date of registration: 2021-07-07
Williamson liquid flow over a stretching cylinder using modified Fick’s and Fourier law
Authors: khan Ambreen afsar , mir shafaa , zaman Akbar
Published: June 2023

The present execution is devoted to discusse the flow of Williamson fluid over a stretching cylinder with the scintillating impact of magnetic field and the convective boundary conditions are also implemented. Beside this, the modified heat flux and modified mass flux model are also considered in this problem. The ODEs are retreived from the brace of PDEs by using the appropriate similarity transformations. Shooting method collaborates with RK method is used to solve the current problem numerically. Influence of numerous flow parameters on temperature profile, velocity profile and concentration profile are shown graphically in this article. Results explain that concentration and temperature profiles enhance due to rising mass and heat Biot number parameters. The current results are compared with existing results and have shown an excellent agreement.
Enformer: An encoder-decoder generative model to enhance prediction of disease outcomes using electronic health records
Authors: Yang Zhichao , Mitra Avijit , Liu Weisong , Berlowitz Dan , Yu Hong
Published: June 2023

Deep learning transformer-based models using longitudinal electronic health records (EHRs) have shown a great success in prediction of clinical diseases or outcomes. Pretraining on a large dataset can help such models map the input space better and boost their performance on relevant tasks through finetuning with limited data. In this study, we present Enformer, a generative encoder-decoder model with transformer that was pretrained using a new pretraining objective - predicting all diseases and outcomes of a patient at a future visit from previous visits. Enformer’s encoder-decoder framework, paired with the novel pretraining objective, helped it achieve the new state-of-the-art (SOTA) performance on multiple clinical prediction tasks. Comparing with the previous SOTA model, Enformer improved area under the precision–recall curve (AUPRC) by 2% (p<0.001) for pancreatic cancer onset and by 24% (p<0.001) for intentional self-harm in patients with PTSD. The high performance in predicting intentional self-harm shows the potential of Enformer in building effective clinical intervention systems. Enformer is also generalizable and can be easily finetuned for clinical prediction tasks with limited data.
Study on the rumor detection of social media in disaster based on multi-feature fusion method
Authors: Li Shaopan , Wang Yan , Huang Hong , Zhou Yiqi
Published: June 2023

In recent years, there is a significant increase in research combining social media data for disaster warning and damage assessment. When natural disasters occur, social media data can also contain rumors, which not only reduce the accuracy of assessment but also have a very negative social impact. In this paper, a multi-feature fusion neural network with attention mechanism is proposed for rumor detection, which makes the attempt to integrate user, textual and propagation features in one united framework. Specifically, a Bi-directional Long Short Term Memory Network (Bi-LSTM) is applied to extract user and textual features and a Graph Convolutional Neural Network (GCN) is employed to extract the high-order propagation features. In addition, both the complementary and alignment relationships between different features are considered to achieve better fusion. It shows that our method can detect rumors effectively and perform better than previous methods on the Weibo dataset. To validate the effectiveness of our model, rumor detection is conducted in the social media data collected from Typhoon Lekima on Aug 10th- 14th 2019 in China, the earthquake of magnitude 6.8 on Sep 5th- 9th, 2022 in Sichuan, China, the wildfire on Aug 15th- 26th, 2022 in Chongqing, China. Results show that: 1) the proposed method performs well in rumor detection in disaster; 2) rumors often appear along with hot topics; 3) rumors express much negative sentiment; 4) rumor propagation networks have tighter structure and deeper propagation depth. 5) rumors account for a relatively small percentage of social media data in disaster, which means that most social media data is credible.
Labelling of RPA amplicons: an experimental comparison between primer and nucleotide labelling used for multiplex detection of antibiotic resistance genes
Authors: Warmt Christian , Broweleit Lisa-Marie , Fenzel Carolin Kornelia , Henkel Jörg
Published: June 2023

Direct labelling of amplification products using isothermal amplification is currently done most frequently by incorporating previously labelled primer. Although this method is well proven and widely used, it is not a universal solution due to some weaknesses. Alternatively, labelled nucleotides could be used, whose application and functionality have been already partially demonstrated. It remains to be determined how this method performs in comparison to traditional labelling, in particular combined with isothermal amplification methods. In this work, we show a detailed analysis of the labelling efficiency under different conditions and compare the results with the traditional primer-labelling method in the context of RPA amplification. Impressively, our results showed that using Cy5-labelled dUTPs can achieve much more efficient labelling for fragments above 200 bp, while using them for smaller fragments does not bring any relevant disadvantages, but also no major benefit. Furthermore, this work successfully demonstrate for the first time a quadruplex microarray for the detection of resistance genes using RPA and direct labelling with Cy5-dUTP as a potential application scenario. The sensitivities achieved here extend to SNP discovery for the detection of the proper blaKPC variant.
Community detection with greedy modularity disassembly strategy
Authors: Rustamaji Heru Cahya , Kusuma Wisnu Ananta , Nurdiati Sri , Batubara Irmanida
Published: June 2023

One of the problems in networking is community detection, the process of identifying groups of nodes in a network that are more densely connected than the rest of the network. To measure the quality of community detection in the network using modularity. Greedy modularity is one of the community detection algorithms. It optimizes the modularity score locally at each step rather than globally optimizing over all possible network partitions. However, because the algorithm makes local improvements, it can be trapped in a suboptimal network partition. In this research, we developed the Greedy Modularity algorithm by adding an exploration method: a disassembly node and disassembly community formed to increase modularity. There are four strategies for disassembly nodes: disassembly random nodes, weak nodes, nodes with low embeddedness values, and releasing nodes that do not form triads. The disassembly community strategy includes random communities, weak communities, communities with low internal edge density, communities with low triad participation ratio, and communities with low conductance. The results show increased modularity in various real-world and synthetic network datasets. We also compared the results with various community detection algorithms, and the modularity ranking of these algorithms were in positions 1-8 across various datasets.
A Multilevel and Multicenter Assessment of Health Care System Capacity to Manage Cardiovascular Diseases in Africa: A Baseline Study of the Ghana Heart Initiative
Authors: Doku Alfred , Tuglo Lawrence Sena , Chilunga Felix , Edzeame Juliette , Peters Ron J.G. , Agyemang Charles
Published: June 2023

Introduction:
Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) remain the leading cause of death worldwide, with over 70% of these deaths occurring in low- and middle-income regions such as Africa. However, most countries in Africa do not have the capacity to manage CVD. The Ghana Heart Initiative has been an ongoing national program since 2018, aimed at improving CVD care and thus reducing the death rates of these diseases in Ghana. This study therefore aimed at assessing the impact of this initiative by identifying, at baseline, the gaps in the management of CVDs within the health system in order to develop robust measures to bolster CVD management and care in Ghana.
Methods
This study employed a cross-sectional study design and was conducted from November 2019 to March 2020 in 44 health facilities in the Greater Accra region. The assessment covered CVD management, equipment availability, knowledge of health workers in CVD and others including CVD management support system, availability of CVD management guidelines and CVD/NCD indicators in the District Health Information Management System (DHIMS2). Data were analyzed using SPSS Version 25.
Results
The baseline data showed a total of 85,612 outpatient attendants over the period in the study facilities, 70% were women and 364(0.4%) were newly diagnosed with hypertension. Eighty-three percent (83%) of the newly diagnosed hypertensives were put on treatment, 56.3% (171) continued treatment during the study period and less than 10% (5%) had their blood pressure controlled at the end of the study (in March, 2020). Other gaps identified included suboptimal health worker knowledge in CVD management (mean score of 69.0 ± 13.0, p < 0.05), lack of equipment for prompt CVD emergency diagnosis, poor management and monitoring of CVD care across all levels of health care, lack of standardized protocol on CVD management, and limited number of indicators on CVD in the National Database (i.e., DHIMS2) for CVD monitoring.
Conclusion
This study shows that there are gaps in CVD care and therefore, there is the need to address such gaps to improve the capacity of the health system to effectively manage CVDs in Ghana.
Synchronous Chanting in Indonesian Social Movement Repertoires: A Tool for Emoting and for Manipulating Emoters
Authors: Angkasa William
Published: June 2023

Chanting has been in existence for thousands of years and thought to emerge as a way to convey information about visceral and affective states. Chanting synchronously allows participants to synchronize their actions and affective states for it requires them to actively and coordinatively participate in it. This phenomenon can be observed in various social rituals across times and cultures all around the world, including in social movement repertoires, such as demonstrations and street protests. Since emotions play a pivotal role in social movements, it is useful to gain insights into how chanting can be used as a “tool” for emoting and evoking emotions during social movement repertoires. For that purpose, the lens of situated cognition and affectivity is used to analyze how activists' interactions during occurrences of synchronous chanting facilitate distributed emotions amongst the participating chanters.
Looking at cases of social movements in Indonesia, a multi-ethnic nation-state, which has its own demonstration culture embedded in its sociocultural-historical context, it is argued that synchronous chanting as an emoting tool is coupled to Indonesian activists of various groups. Some of these chants even date back to more than two decades ago, beginning when Indonesian youth fought against the despotic regime of President Suharto and his New Order, to hundreds of years ago when the founding fathers fought against colonialism. Based on the said framework, the analysis concludes that synchronous chanting can be used as a tool for not only emoting but also manipulating people.
Chitosan encapsulated Naringenin promotes ROS mediated apoptosis in human breast cancer cell MDA-MB-231 through the activation of executioner Caspase-3
Authors: KT Ramya Devi , Jaganathan MK , Karthick Dharshene , Ganesh
Published: June 2023

We previously reported that chitosan nanoparticles encapsulated Naringenin (CS-NPs/NAR) could scavenge free radicals at lower doses and cytotoxic to cancer cells. As a continuation of that, the current study focuses on the mechanism behind CS-NPs/NAR-induced breast cancer cell (MDA-MB-231) death. MDA-MB-231 cells were treated with higher concentrations (100µg, 200 µg, and 200 µg) of Chitosan nanoparticles (CS-NPs), naringenin (NAR) and chitosan encapsulated naringenin (CS-NPs/NAR). The cell viability, proliferation, oxidative stress parameters such as nitric oxide [NO], xanthine oxidase (XOD), and xanthine dehydrogenase (XDH) levels were analyzed. ROS levels were determined through DCFDA analysis. MTT based cell cytotoxicity and BrdU cell proliferation analysis depicted the cytotoxicity effects (37% and 29% for 24h and 48h) and exhibited a reduction in the proliferation of MDA-MB-231 by CS-NPs/NAR. A significant increase in NO content, XOD, a decrease in XDH, and increase in ROS levels were observed upon treatment with CS-NPs/NAR. Fluorescent images suggested the increase in the ROS level upon treatment with CS-NPs/NAR in cancer cells and the results suggested that it could induce apoptosis. Further, to confirm this, the activity of caspase3 was analyzed through western blotting, and the result suggested that the higher concentration of CS-NPs/NAR has increased the activation of procaspase3 when compared to free NAR. Hence the current investigation concludes that high doses of CS-NPs/NAR induce and increase oxidative stress and so increased activation of procaspase3 may lead to cancer cell apoptosis and reduction in cell proliferation.
Functional properties of ant queen pheromones as revealed by behavioral experiments
Authors: ZENG HAOLIN
Published: June 2023

Ants represent one of the most prominent groups of social animals by virtue of their colony social structure, where up to millions of individuals cooperate to survive, compete, and reproduce as a single superorganism. Members of ant colonies typically are categorized into a reproductive queen caste and a non-reproductive worker caste. The queen conveys her fertility condition and genotypic information via a suite of queen pheromones, which act as agents that manifest various effects crucial to the superorganismal nature of ant colonies. A firm understanding of the functional roles of queen pheromones is required to identify constituent chemicals and to understand their mode of functions. In this review, I summarize functional properties of ant queen pheromones learned from seven decades of behavioral experiments, and contextualize this knowledge within the broader understanding of queen pheromones in other major groups of social insects. The effects include promotion of colony integrity and coherence, maintenance of reproductive dominance of the queen, and regulation of colony social structure. Additionally, general characteristics of queen pheromones are discussed and potential revenues for future research are highlighted.
Multi-Graph Attention Network: Spatiotemporal Traffic Speed Forecasting
Authors: Ke Jiawu , Yu Haisheng , Rong Weixin , Wang Wenguo , Chen Zhixuan
Published: June 2023

Accurate traffic forecasting plays a significant role in alleviating traffic congestion. Existing approaches mainly model the complex spatiotemporal dependencies in the road network based on the characteristics of node data. In this paper, we also take the edge properties and the weekly periodicity of traffic data into account to make traffic speed forecasting more accurate, on the basis of the node properties. Specifically, we propose a multi-graph attention network which is an encoder-decoder architecture, where the encoder encodes multiple input graph signal representations and the decoder produces multiple output sequences of graph signal. Both encoder and decoder contain multiple spatial-temporal aggregation blocks to capture complex spatiotemporal dependencies, utilizing the properties of both node and edge data. Each decoder layer further incorporates a multi-head attention over the outputs of the encoder stack to predict multiple output sequences in parallel, by using multiple graph signal representations in the previous week. This non-autoregressive forecasting mode can alleviate the error propagation. We evaluate the proposed model on two public traffic datasets, METR-LA and PEMS-BAY, and observe better performance than the state-of-the-art baselines in 30, 60-min forecasting horizon. The source code is available at https://github.com/logickkk/MGAT-pytroch (Not yet public).
Machine Learning Instructed Microfluidic Synthesis of Curcumin-loaded Liposomes
Authors: Francesco Valentina Di , Boso Daniela P. , Moore Thomas L. , Schrefler Bernhard A. , Decuzzi Paolo
Published: June 2023

The association of machine learning (ML) tools with the synthesis of nanoparticles has the potential to streamline the development of more efficient and effective nanomedicines. The continuous-flow synthesis of nanoparticles via microfluidics represents an ideal playground for ML tools, where multiple engineering parameters – flow rates and mixing configurations, type and concentrations of the reagents – contribute in a non-trivial fashion to determine the resultant morphological and pharmacological attributes of nanomedicines. Here we present the application of ML models towards the microfluidic-based synthesis of liposomes loaded with a model hydrophobic therapeutic agent, curcumin. After generating over 200 different liposome configurations by systematically modulating flow rates, lipid concentrations, organic:water mixing volume ratios, support-vector machine models and feed-forward artificial neural networks were trained to predict, respectively, the liposome dispersity/stability and size. This work presents an initial step towards the application and cultivation of ML models to instruct the microfluidic formulation of nanoparticles.
The long-term effects of the first and second glaucoma drainage implant surgery in patients with primary open-angle glaucoma
Authors: Morita Shuu , Hamanaka Teruhiko , Sakurai Tetsuro , Watanabe Satoshi , Sakanishi Yoshihito , Ishida Nobuo , Ebihara Nobuyuki
Published: June 2023

Background
To investigate the long-term outcome of non-valved glaucoma drainage implant surgery (GDIS) in primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) patients divided in Group I (patients who underwent the first GDIS) and Group II (patients who underwent the second GDIS because of the failed first GDIS).
Methods
Intraocular pressure (IOP), visual acuity (VA), visual field defect (VFD), medication score (MS), survival rate, complications, and patient background was retrospectively analyzed. Two success criteria were set: Criteria 1) IOP reduction ≥ 20% and 5 < IOP ≤ 21, Criteria 2) IOP reduction ≥ 20% and 5 < IOP ≤ 14.
Results
There were 136 eyes of 109 patients in Group I and 32 eyes of 27 patients in Group II. In Group I and II, mean preoperative IOP was 26.7 ± 6.7 mmHg and 23.7 ± 3.5 mmHg, respectively (P = 0.09). No statistically significant difference in postoperative IOP reduction was found between the two groups (P = 0.39). At 5-years postoperative, the Criteria 1 (Criteria 2) survival rate in Group I and Group II was 60.4% (31.7%) and 61.2% (25.6%), respectively (Criteria 1: P = 0.24; Criteria 2: P = 0.48). No significant difference in VA, VFD change, MS, or complications was observed. Young patient age was the only significant factor for failure in Group Ⅰ (P = 0.03).
Conclusion
The second GDIS may be as effective as the first GDIS for IOP reduction in POAG patients, however, there is a high risk of failure in young-age patients and the surgery may be ineffective in eyes requiring Criteria 2.
Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress Aggravates Inflammatory Bowel Disease by Triggering TLR2 Signaling Pathway
Authors: Wu Weijie , Zhao Yan , Hu Tian , Long Yan , Zeng ya , Li Mengling , Peng Siyuan , Hu Jinyue , Shen Yueming
Published: June 2023

Background:
Endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS) and Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) signaling play an important role in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD); however, the link between TLR2 and ERS in IBD is unclear. This study investigated whether ERS and TLR2 mutually regulate and have a pro-inflammatory role in IBD pathogenesis.
Methods:
The THP-1 cells were treated with TLR2 agonist (Pam3CSK4), ERS inducer (TG) or inhibitor (TUDCA). The expressions of TLR1-TLR10 were detected by qRT-PCR or Western blot analysis. The expressions of TNF-α, IL-1β, IFN-β and IL-8 were measured by qRT-PCR and ELISA. The IBD mouse model was established by TNBS in the modeling group. TUDCA was used in the treatment group. The degree of colitis was assessed by comparing histological scores and DAI scores in each group.The expressions of Grp78 and TLR2 in intestinal mucosa were detected by immunohistochemistry.
Results:
The ERS inducer (TG) can increase the expressions of TLR2 and TLR5 after inducing ERS in THP-1 cells, while this effect is inhibited by TUDCA. However, the TLR2 agonist (Pam3CSK4) has no significant effect on the expressions of GRP78 and CHOP proteins. Treatment of THP-1 cells by TG and Pam3CSK4 together can significantly promote the expression of TNF-α, IL-1β and IL-8. In vivo experiments, TUDCA can inhibit intestinal mucosal inflammation and the expressions of Grp78 and TLR2. Compared with normal controls, the protein expressions of GRP78 and TLR2 in the colon mucosa of CD patients were significantly elevated.
Conclusions:
ERS aggravates inflammatory reaction in IBD by activating the TLR2 signaling pathway, making it a potential therapeutic target for IBD.
Analysis of Effects of Risk Factors and Disease History on Cognitive Levels of Older Adults in Nursing Homes: A Cross-Sectional Study
Authors: Rekawati Etty , Eriska Winda , Rachmawati Utami , Wati Dwi Nurviyandari Kusuma , Sahar Junaiti , Andriyanto Arief , Wang Jing-Jy
Published: June 2023

Background
The increase in the older adult population has resulted in an epidemiological transition—namely, a shift in disease patterns from infections and nutritional disorders to degenerative diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, cancer, and coronary heart disease. Disorders due to other decreased functions that often occur in older adults are also related to cognitive function. The purpose of the study was to analyse the effects of risk factors and disease history on the cognitive level of older adults in nursing homes.
Methods
This research involved an analytical survey with a cross-sectional approach. The research subjects were 372 older adults living in nursing homes. The data in this study were obtained through interviews using demographic data questionnaires and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). Data analysis was performed using a chi-square test.
Results
The results showed that there was a relationship between risk factors and the cognitive levels of older adults, including gender (0.003), ethnicity (0.04), education level (0.001), memory complaints (0.001), history of smoking (0.03), alcohol consumption (0.001), fruit and vegetable consumption (0.04), and occupation (0.02). Furthermore, there was a relationship between disease history and the cognitive levels of the older adults with a p-value of 0.02 (< 0.05).
Conclusions
There was a relationship between several risk factors and disease history and the cognitive levels of the older adults. One effort that can be undertaken by nurses is to identify and control factors that can affect cognitive functioning in older adults.
The role and mechanism of quercetin via TLR4/MyD88/IRAK4 signaling pathway in the treatment of allergic rhinitis
Authors: Kang Chenglin , Liu Jiangqi , Wu Zhisheng , Li Xiaomei , Liu Peng , Liu Yue , Zeng Xianhai , Zhao Hailiang , Qiu Shuqi
Published: June 2023

An ovalbumin (OVA)-induced allergic rhinitis (AR) mouse model was established to investigate whether quercetin (QUE) treats AR via TLR4/MyD88/IRAK4 signaling pathway. SPF grade Balb/c mice were randomly divided into 4 groups: normal control (NC), OVA, dexamethasone (DEX), and (QUE) groups. OVA and aluminum hydroxide [AL(OH)3] were injected intraperitoneally for basic sensitization and OVA was dripped into the nose for challenge to induce a mouse model of AR. The mice were scored by observing the behaviors of scratching, sneezing and runny nose to assess whether the modeling was successful. The treatment groups (DEX and QUE) were given the corresponding drugs for gavage treatment for 1 week after successful modeling, and the OVA and NC groups were treated with normal saline instead. The levels of OVA-IgE, IL-4, IL-13, IL-1β, IL-17 and IL-10 in serum were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA); the changes of mice nasal mucosa were observed in hematoxylin-eosin (HE) stained histopathological sections; the relative expression levels of mRNA and protein of TLR4, MyD88, IRAK4, NF-κB in lung tissues were measured by quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) and western blot, respectively; the changes in the percentages of regulatory T cells (Treg) and helper T cells 17 (Th17) in splenocytes were detected by flow cytometry. The results showed that the allergic symptoms scores were greater than 10 points and the expression levels of OVA-IgE, IL-4, IL-13, IL-1β and IL-17 in the serum increased and the expression level of IL-10 decreased in the OVA group compared with NC group. HE staining of the nasal cavity suggested detachment and necrosis of the nasal mucosa, tissue edema, and inflammatory cell infiltration in the OVA group. The relative expression levels of mRNA and protein of TLR4, MyD88, IRAK4, NF-κB in lung tissues were increased and the percentage of Treg cells decreased and the percentage of Th17 cells increased in splenocytes of the OVA group. Based on these results, we speculate that QUE may inhibit inflammatory responses and induce immune tolerance via TLR4/MyD88/IRAK4 signaling pathway in mice model of AR.
Neuronal protein kinase C epsilon–regulated endoplasmic reticulum stress and autophagic formation mediated neuropathic manifestation in diabetic neuropathy
Authors: Kan Yu-Yu , Chang Ying-Shuang , Liao Wen-Chieh , Chao Tzu-Ning , Hsieh Yu-Lin
Published: June 2023

In chronic diabetic neuropathy (DN), the cellular mechanisms of neuropathic manifestation remain unclear. Protein kinase C epsilon (PKCε) is an intracellular signaling molecule that mediates chronic pain. This paper addresses the DN-associated chronic neuropathic manifestations linked to long-term upregulated PKCε–mediated endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and autophagic formation. We found that the course of thermal hyperalgesia and mechanical allodyniawas associated with PKCε upregulation after DN, but not skin denervation. Pathologically, PKCε upregulation was associated with the expression of inositol-requiring enzyme 1α (IRE1α; ER stress–related molecule) and ubiquitin D (UBD), which are involved in the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS)-mediated degradation of misfolded proteins under ER stress. Manders coefficient analyses revealed an approximately 50% colocalized ratio for IRE1α(+):PKCε(+) neurons (0.34–0.48 for M1 and 0.40–0.58 for M2 Manders coefficients). The colocalized coefficients of UBD/PKCε increased (M1: 0.33 ± 0.03 vs. 0.77 ± 0.04, p < 0.001; M2: 0.29 ± 0.05 vs. 0.78 ± 0.04; p < 0.001) in the acute DN stage. In addition, the regulatory subunit p85 of phosphoinositide 3-kinase, which is involved in regulating insulin signaling, exhibited similar expression patterns to those of IRE1α and UBD; for example, it had highly colocalized ratios to PKCε. Upregulated PKCε–mediated neuropathic manifestation as well as ER stress and UPS-related molecule upregulation was reversed by PKCεv1-2, a PKCε specific inhibitor. The ultrastructural examination further confirmed that autophagic formation was associated functional PKCε. Collectively, this finding confirmed the pivotal roles of PKCε in DN-associated neuropathic manifestation and neuropathology.
Dynamic modeling of thin-walled CFRP surface milling and the effect of chatter on surface quality
Authors: Wang Fuji , Deng Jun , Fu Rao , Lin Yongquan , He Qingsong , Ma Xing
Published: June 2023

Milling a thin-walled curved structure is prone to chattering, and the quality of the machined surface cannot be guaranteed. For carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) parts with a strong anisotropic characteristic, the tool will contact different fiber directions, resulting in a large change in dynamic cutting force and more complex chatter. Thus, this study introduced the anisotropic and laminated characteristics of CFRP into the machining dynamic model and stability domain solution prediction in milling CFRP. Meanwhile, a dynamic cutting force model under the regenerating mechanism was first proposed by considering the instantaneous fiber cutting angle and the cutting edge length of the instantaneous contact micro-element with the same fiber layer. Moreover, the dynamic model for milling this CFRP workpiece was established based on the dynamic cutting force model and dynamic characteristics of the workpiece. The stability lobe diagram was drawn, and the stable cutting regions for milling CFRP were obtained. Also, experimental verifications were conducted, and the chattering and stable machining conditions were well predicted. Compared with the stable region obtained without considering the anisotropic characteristic of CFRP, the predicted maximum peak value of the stable region increased by 49.7%, proving the accuracy of the proposed method.
Submerged wall jet on a macro-rough boundary: turbulent flow characteristics and their scaling laws
Authors: Chowdhury Sammelan , Sen Dhrubajyoti , Dey Subhasish
Published: June 2023

This study presents the turbulence characteristics and the scaling laws in a horizontal submerged wall jet on an array of hemispherical macro-rough elements forming an open-channel boundary. The flow field was measured by an acoustic Doppler system, called Vectrino. The turbulence characteristics on a macro-rough boundary, being different from those on smooth boundary, are discussed from the perspective of decay of the local-peak parameters, similarity, and growth of the length scales. The vector plots, streamwise velocity flow field, and the jet velocity variations show that the decay rate of jet velocity in a submerged jet on a macro-rough boundary is initially sharp and then gradually drops down to become independent of streamwise distance. The growth rate of the jet boundary layer thickness is initially slow and then becomes fast as it tends to reach the free surface. On the other hand, the plots of the Reynolds shear stress and turbulence intensities, and the variations of their local-peak magnitudes reveal the gradual damping of these parameters with the streamwise distance. These results encapsulate the recovery of a submerged jet on a macro-rough boundary to become an open channel flow. The most important outcome is that the streamwise velocity, Reynolds shear stress, and turbulence intensities in the fully developed zone are found to be self-similar when the velocity is scaled with the local-peak velocity against jet half-width, and the Reynolds shear stress and turbulence intensities are scaled with their respective local-peak magnitudes against half-width of Reynolds shear stress. The boundary shear stress diminishes with an increase in streamwise distance.