bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of Modulatory Activities of Lactobacillus crispatus Strains in the Context of the Vaginal Microbiota
Authors: Argentini Chiara , Fontana Federico , Alessandri Giulia , Lugli Gabriele Andrea , Mancabelli Leonardo , Ossiprandi Maria Cristina , van Sinderen Douwe , Ventura Marco , Milani Christian , Turroni Francesca
Published: March 2022

The human vaginal microbiota includes all microorganisms that colonize the vaginal tract. In this context, a vaginal microbiota dominated by
Lactobacillus
and specifically by
Lactobacillus crispatus
is considered a hallmark of health.
Supplemental Material: Stratigraphy of the Eocene–Oligocene Titus Canyon Formation, Death Valley, California, and Eocene extensional tectonism in the Basin and Range
Authors: Midttun N. , al. et
Published: March 2022

Files removed. Please see Notice of Withdrawal at https://doi.org/10.1130/GES02363.1.
Benzene exposure and risk of benzene poisoning in Chinese workers
Authors: Vermeulen Roel , Portengen Lützen , Li Guilan , Gilbert Ethel S , Dores Graça M , Ji Bu-Tian , Hayes Richard , Yin Sognian , Rothman Nathaniel , Linet Martha S , Lan Qing
Published: March 2022

Objectives

Benzene is a known haematoxin and leukemogen that can cause benzene poisoning (BP), that is, a persistent reduction in white cell counts that is strongly associated with increased risk of lymphohaematopoietic malignancies. Data are needed on the exposure–response, particularly at low doses and susceptible populations for clinical and regulatory purposes.

Methods

In a case-cohort study among 110 631 Chinese workers first employed 1949–1987 and followed up during 1972–1999, we evaluated BP risk according to benzene exposure level and investigated risk modification by subject (sex, attained age) and exposure-related factors (latency, exposure windows, age at first benzene exposure, coexposure to toluene) using excess relative risk and excess absolute risk models.

Results

There were 538 BP cases and 909 benzene-exposed referents. The exposure metric with best model fit was cumulative benzene exposure during a 5-year risk window, followed by a 9-month lag period before BP diagnosis. Estimated excess absolute risk of BP at age 60 increased from 0.5% for subjects in the lowest benzene exposure category (>0 to 10 ppm-years) to 5.0% for those in the highest category (>100 ppm-years) compared with unexposed subjects. Increased risks were apparent at low cumulative exposure levels and for workers who were first exposed at <30 years of age.

Conclusions

Our data show a clear association between benzene exposure and BP, beginning at low cumulative benzene exposure levels with no threshold, and with higher risks for workers exposed at younger ages. These findings are important because BP has been linked to a strongly increased development of lymphohaematopoietic malignancies.
Structural and geochronological constraints on orogenic gold mineralization in the western Wabigoon subprovince, Canada
Authors: Zammit K. , Perrouty S. , Frieman B.M. , Marsh J.H. , Holt K.A.
Published: March 2022

Some of the world’s largest orogenic gold deposits are hosted within granite-greenstone subprovinces of the Superior Province of Canada. The known gold endowment of the western Wabigoon subprovince is much less than that of the Abitibi subprovince, despite both Neoarchean subprovinces sharing similar structural and metallogenic histories. Further, the relationship between regional deformation and orogenic gold mineralizing events in the western Wabigoon subprovince is poorly constrained in comparison with other greenstone belts within the Superior Province. New structural mapping of the Dryden area of the western Wabigoon subprovince indicates that it experienced a N–S shortening event (D1), circa 2705–2695 Ma, which reactivated, or initiated the formation of, the E–W-trending Wabigoon and Mosher Bay – Washeibemaga deformation zones (Wdz and MBWdz, respectively). Following the D1 event, after 2695 Ma, a protracted period of NNW–SSE shortening (D2) localized transpression along the Manitou Dinorwic deformation zone (MDdz), which is spatially associated with orogenic gold systems, including the Goldlund deposit (∼1.7 Moz Au) and Kenwest prospect (∼0.3 Moz Au). During D2, the MDdz experienced NW-over-SE sinistral transpression, while the Wdz and MBWdz experienced N-over-S dextral-sense movement. U–Pb geochronology of vein-hosted xenotime from the Goldlund deposit and Kenwest prospect indicate that the main hydrothermal event, and likely gold mineralization, occurred syn- to late-D2 deformation around 2664 ± 8.3 Ma. A second population of xenotime, and overgrowths, recorded a younger hydrothermal overprint between ∼2590 and ∼2580 Ma. These ages are comparable with other absolute geochronology data on hydrothermal events in the gold-rich Abitibi subprovince. The structural evolution and timing of orogenic hydrothermal events in the western Wabigoon subprovince are broadly similar to the Abitibi subprovince. Therefore, we propose that the structural evolution and timing of individual greenstone belts is not the primary controlling factor on their bulk gold endowment. Nevertheless, orogenic gold deposits are spatially associated with major D2 deformation zones and linked to widespread hydrothermal event(s), spanning 2680–2660 Ma across the southern Superior Province.
On well-posedness and algebraic type of the five-dimensional charged rotating black hole with two equal-magnitude angular momenta
Authors: Fröb Markus B. , Khavkine Igor , Málek Tomáš , Pravda Vojtěch
Published: March 2022

We study various mathematical aspects of the charged rotating black hole with two equal-magnitude angular momenta in five dimensions. We introduce a coordinate system that is regular on the horizon and in which Einstein–Maxwell equations reduce to an autonomous system of ODEs. Employing Bondi and Kruskal-like coordinates, we analyze the geometric regularity of the black hole metric at infinity and the horizon, respectively, and the well-posedness of the corresponding boundary value problem. We also study the algebraic types of the electromagnetic and curvature tensors. While outside the horizon the electromagnetic and Ricci tensors are of type D, the Weyl tensor is algebraically general. The Weyl tensor simplifies to type II on the horizon and type D on the bifurcation sphere. These results imply inconsistency of the metric with the Kerr–Schild form with a geodesic Kerr–Schild vector. This feature is shared by the four-dimensional Kerr–Newman metric and the vacuum Myers–Perry or charged Schwarzschild–Tangherlini geometries in arbitrary dimension, but hence not by the black hole we have considered here.
Searches for supersymmetry in CMS
Authors: Sarkar Uttiya ,   for the CMS Collaboration
Published: March 2022

The results from the CMS search for supersymmetric particles based on Run-2 data recorded at a center-of-mass energy of 13[Formula: see text]TeV are summarized. Strong and weak production of SUSY scenarios are considered. Results presented include the searches for squarks and gluinos, direct production of charginos, neutralinos and sleptons. These searches involve final state objects comprising jets, missing transverse momentum, electrons or muons, taus or photons, as well as long-lived particles. The data in these searches are found to be consistent with Standard Model predictions and no significant excess is observed. Upper limits have been set on the masses of supersymmetric particles from a variety of search channels.
Nonlinear characterization of stress wave factor for plastic damage of A7N01P-T4 aluminum alloys
Authors: Qiu Feifei , Hu Yuzi , Wang Binbin , Chen Bing , Gou Guoqing , Zhu Zhongyin , Lu Wei
Published: March 2022

This paper studies the relationship between plastic damage and the ultrasonic nonlinear coefficient by changing the interior plastic strain of A7N01P-T4 aluminum alloys. An effective evaluation of the plastic damage of tensile test specimens was made by comparing with two different nonlinear ultrasonic detection methods, namely, nonlinear longitudinal wave method and surface wave method. The nonlinear coefficient of the stress wave factor was introduced to characterize the plastic damage for metallic materials. The results showed that with the increasing plastic damage degree, the nonlinear coefficient increased slowly at the early stage of yield hardening (3%) and then increased rapidly at the middle stage (3–5%). It is concluded that the nonlinear longitudinal wave is more suitable for point measurement and its sensitivity is lower than that of the longitudinal wave.
Manipulation of acoustic wave reflection for arbitrary reflecting surfaces based on acoustic metasurfaces
Authors: Yuan J. , Meng X. , Ran J. , Zhang X. , Ma Y. , Zhang A. , Zhao Z.
Published: March 2022

In this work, a general method to manipulate the angle of reflection from an arbitrary two-dimensional (2D) surface is proposed by applying an appropriate phase discontinuity along the arbitrary surface. Three surfaces, including plane surface, parabolic surface and circular surface are taken as instances to validate this method. The results show that angle of reflection is conducted to [Formula: see text] for a wave incident to a plane surface at [Formula: see text], while [Formula: see text] for a wave incident to the parabolic and circular surfaces normally. This kind of manipulation of acoustic waves for arbitrary reflecting surfaces opens up an avenue for reflected wavefront modulations and associated applications such as anti-sonar technology.
THERMAL ANNEALING OF MICRO-OXIDIZED ZINC NITRIDE SPUTTERED THIN FILMS FOR CONVERSION INTO CRYSTALLINE ZnO
Authors: IQBAL AMJID , MAHMOOD ARSHAD , KHAN TAJ MUHAMMAD
Published: March 2022

Thermal oxidation and annealing of zinc nitride sputtered films are described in this paper. Zinc nitride films were produced by the sputtering a zinc target (99.999%) in the plasma, ignited in a mixture of Ar:N2 (20:10 sccm) gas at 60 W and working pressure of [Formula: see text][Formula: see text]mbar. The films were initially micro-annealed in H2O2 solution (35[Formula: see text]vol.%) at room temperature and subsequently in ambient air in the low temperature range of 100–[Formula: see text]C. The as-sputtered and annealed films were examined using X-ray diffraction (XRD), spectrophotometer, Raman and photoluminescence spectroscopies. Annealing oxidation leads to the transformation of the cubic crystal structure of zinc nitride into wurtzite ZnO through the oxygen diffusion process. The XRD peak of (002) plane and the principal [Formula: see text] (high) phonon mode, detected for the annealed film, are clear signature on the conversion of zinc nitride film into crystalline ZnO. The sputtered annealed film showed optical transmittance of 85% and average bandgap energy of 3.28[Formula: see text]eV due to the formation of ZnO. The presented method is appealing since it provides an easy two-step route to the conversion of zinc nitride film into ZnO with p-type behavior and tunable characteristics for various optoelectronic applications.
CORROSION INHIBITION PERFORMANCE OF COMMIPHORAMYRRHA AND CYMBOPOGON OIL EXTRACT ON A36 CARBON STEEL CORROSION IN SULPHATE AND CHLORIDE ELECTROLYTE
Authors: LOTO ROLAND TOLULOPE , DAVID VICTOR JONATHAN , IROANYANWU CHINAZOM VICTOR , ATANE BILKISU CHINEYEZE SULEIMAN
Published: March 2022

Corrosion resistance of A36 carbon steel was assessed in 0.5[Formula: see text]M H2SO4 and HCl media in the presence of specific concentrations of Commiphoramyrrha (CM), Cymbopogon (CP) essential oil extracts and their combined admixture (CMCP). Values from potentiodynamic polarization showed CM extract reacted poorly in both acids at low concentration, but effectively at higher concentrations with optimal performance of 89.76% and 92.83%. CP extract generally performed effectively with inhibition values above 90%. CMCP performed very poorly in H2SO4 compared to its performance in HCl which was generally above 80% inhibition efficiency. The oil extracts exhibited mixed-type inhibition effect coupled with dominant anodic shift in corrosion potential and similar anodic slope configuration at all extract concentrations. ATR-FTIR spectra plots showed that most of the identified functional groups within the extract molecules generally adsorbed unto the A36 steel surface. Curves from open circuit potential analysis showed CM extract in H2SO4, and CP extract in H2SO4 and HCl solution significantly decreased the thermodynamic tendency of A36 steel to degrade. The curves of other extracts displayed significant time and extract concentration dependent active–passive transition behavior. Optical images of the unprotected steel exhibited severe general and localized surface deterioration compared to the inhibited steel with significantly protected morphology. Weight-loss analysis showed the effective protection effect of CP extract in both acids and CMCP in H2SO4 is independent of time and concentration from the onset of exposure compared to their remaining counterparts whose performance significantly varies over time and is concentration dependent. X-ray phase identification diagrams and identified patterns list revealed the presence of FeO(OH) on the steel surface without oil extracts while the phase compounds identified in the presence of the extracts are FeNi and Fe3C.
STUDY ON ADSORPTION MECHANISM AND CORROSION INHIBITION BEHAVIOR OF DIFFERENT CONCENTRATIONS OF TEA EXTRACTS ON THE SURFACE OF HP13CR STAINLESS STEEL
Authors: WU HAODONG , GAO PENG , LI SAI , CHEN DONGXU , ZHOU YANWEN
Published: March 2022

The effect of tea extract (TE) concentration on the inhibition efficiency and the corrosion behavior of HP13Cr stainless steel in 3.5 wt.% NaCl solutions has been investigated. It was found that the inhibition efficiency was influenced significantly by the addition of different concentration of TE. With the concentration of TE increased from 0.1 g/L to 0.3 g/L, the intermolecular interactions among the TE molecules were mainly characterized by attraction, and the coverage of the inhibition film was increased. However, when the concentration of TE was increased to 0.4 and 0.5 g/L, the intermolecular interactions among the TE molecules were mainly characterized by repulsion, which can result in the desorption of the covered TE molecules and the coverage of the inhibition film was decreased obviously. Therefore, the inhibition efficiency was reduced and the corrosion of HP13Cr was aggravated. The intermolecular interactions of TE are calculated, and the influencing mechanisms of the TE concentration on the inhibition efficiency and corrosion behavior are also discussed.
A sequence-based two-layer predictor for identifying enhancers and their strength through enhanced feature extraction
Authors: Amilpur Santhosh , Bhukya Raju
Published: March 2022

Enhancers are short regulatory DNA fragments that are bound with proteins called activators. They are free-bound and distant elements, which play a vital role in controlling gene expression. It is challenging to identify enhancers and their strength due to their dynamic nature. Although some machine learning methods exist to accelerate identification process, their prediction accuracy and efficiency will need more improvement. In this regard, we propose a two-layer prediction model with enhanced feature extraction strategy which does feature combination from improved position-specific amino acid propensity (PSTKNC) method along with Enhanced Nucleic Acid Composition (ENAC) and Composition of k-spaced Nucleic Acid Pairs (CKSNAP). The feature sets from all three feature extraction approaches were concatenated and then sent through a simple artificial neural network (ANN) to accurately identify enhancers in the first layer and their strength in the second layer. Experiments are conducted on benchmark chromatin nine cell lines dataset. A 10-fold cross validation method is employed to evaluate model’s performance. The results show that the proposed model gives an outstanding performance with 94.50%, 0.8903 of accuracy and Matthew’s correlation coefficient (MCC) in predicting enhancers and fairly does well with independent test also when compared with all other existing methods.
Taphonomy of exceptional sponge preservation in the Hirnantian Anji Biota, China
Authors: Wu Xuejin , Botting Joseph P. , Zhang Yuandong , Muir Lucy A. , Ma Junye Y.
Published: March 2022

The Anji Biota is a unique deposit with exceptionally preserved sponges and other organisms in deep-water, uppermost Ordovician mudstone of Zhejiang Province, China. The sponge fossils preserve remarkable details including carbonaceous preservation of soft tissues and axial filaments of spicules, but the taphonomy of the deposit has not previously been documented in detail. This paper documents the complex taphonomic processes responsible for preservation of sponges in the Anji Biota. The most unusual element is a rapid switch from initial pyrite framboid growth throughout the soft tissues, to subsequent rapid silicification of the carbonaceous soft tissue remains, and re-dissolution of the pyrite. This combination implies transiently anoxic post-burial conditions, subsequently becoming rapidly re-oxygenated. Uranium/thorium data confirm an oscillating redox environment. This taphonomic model may apply more widely, as the fossils show striking similarities to published observations of the Cambrian sponge-dominated Hetang Biota; however, it differs from most described modes of exceptional preservation, and represents a new variation on the preservation of pyritized soft tissue.
Optimizing 3D U-Net-based Brain Tumor Segmentation with Integer-arithmetic Deep Learning Accelerators
Authors: Wang Weijia , Lin Bill
Published: March 2022

While gliomas have become the most common cancerous brain tumors, manual diagnoses from 3D MRIs are time-consuming and possibly inconsistent when conducted by different radiotherapists, which leads to the pressing demand for automatic segmentation of brain tumors. State-of-the-art approaches employ FCNs to automatically segment the MRI scans. In particular, 3D U-Net has achieved notable performance and motivated a series of subsequent works. However, their significant size and heavy computation have impeded their actual deployment. Although there exists a body of literature on the compression of CNNs using low-precision representations, they either focus on storage reduction without computational improvement or cause severe performance degradation. In this article, we propose a CNN training algorithm that approximates weights and activations using
non-negative integers
along with
trained affine mapping
functions. Moreover, our approach allows the dot-product operations to be performed in an
integer-arithmetic
manner and defers the floating-point decoding and encoding phases until the end of layers. Experimental results on BraTS 2018 show that our trained affine mapping approach achieves near full-precision dice accuracy with 8-bit weights and activations. In addition, we achieve a dice accuracy within 0.005 and 0.01 of the full-precision counterparts when using 4-bit and 2-bit precisions, respectively.
Stochastic Variational Optimization of a Hierarchical Dirichlet Process Latent Beta-Liouville Topic Model
Authors: Ihou Koffi Eddy , Amayri Manar , Bouguila Nizar
Published: March 2022

In topic models, collections are organized as documents where they arise as mixtures over latent clusters called topics. A topic is a distribution over the vocabulary. In large-scale applications, parametric or finite topic mixture models such as LDA (latent Dirichlet allocation) and its variants are very restrictive in performance due to their reduced hypothesis space. In this article, we address the problem related to model selection and sharing ability of topics across multiple documents in standard parametric topic models. We propose as an alternative a BNP (Bayesian nonparametric) topic model where the HDP (hierarchical Dirichlet process) prior models documents topic mixtures through their multinomials on infinite simplex. We, therefore, propose asymmetric BL (Beta-Liouville) as a diffuse base measure at the corpus level DP (Dirichlet process) over a measurable space. This step illustrates the highly heterogeneous structure in the set of all topics that describes the corpus probability measure. For consistency in posterior inference and predictive distributions, we efficiently characterize random probability measures whose limits are the global and local DPs to approximate the HDP from the stick-breaking formulation with the GEM (Griffiths-Engen-McCloskey) random variables. Due to the diffuse measure with the BL prior as conjugate to the count data distribution, we obtain an improved version of the standard HDP that is usually based on symmetric Dirichlet (Dir). In addition, to improve coordinate ascent framework while taking advantage of its deterministic nature, our model implements an online optimization method based on stochastic, at document level, variational inference to accommodate fast topic learning when processing large collections of text documents with natural gradient. The high value in the predictive likelihood per document obtained when compared to the performance of its competitors is also consistent with the robustness of our fully asymmetric BL-based HDP. While insuring the predictive accuracy of the model using the probability of the held-out documents, we also added a combination of metrics such as the topic coherence and topic diversity to improve the quality and interpretability of the topics discovered. We also compared the performance of our model using these metrics against the standard symmetric LDA. We show that online HDP-LBLA (Latent BL Allocation)’s performance is the asymptote for parametric topic models. The accuracy in the results (improved predictive distributions of the held out) is a product of the model’s ability to efficiently characterize dependency between documents (topic correlation) as now they can easily share topics, resulting in a much robust and realistic compression algorithm for information modeling.
Degraded Mode-benefited I/O Scheduling to Ensure I/O Responsiveness in RAID-enabled SSDs
Authors: Sha Zhibing , Li Jun , Cai Zhigang , Huang Min , Liao Jianwei , Trahay Francois
Published: March 2022

RAID-enabled SSDs commonly have unbalanced I/O workloads on their components (e.g., SSD channels), as the data/parity chunks in the same stripe may have varied access frequency, which greatly impacts I/O responsiveness. This article proposes a I/O scheduling scheme by resorting to the degraded read mode and the read-modify-write mode to reduce the long-tail latency of I/O requests in RAID-enabled SSDs. The basic idea is to avoid scheduling read or update requests to the heavily congested but targeted RAID components. Such requests are satisfied by accessing other relevant RAID components by certain XOR computations (we call
the degraded modes
). Specially, we build a queuing overhead assessment model on the top of factors of data redundancy and the current blocked I/O traffics on SSD channels to precisely dispatch incoming I/O requests to be fulfilled with the degraded mode or not. The trace-driven experiments illustrate that the proposed scheme can reduce the long-tail latency of read requests by
23.1%
on average at the 99.99th percentile, in contrast to state-of-the-art scheduling methods.
Reflections on 65 Years of Helium Research
Authors: Reppy John D.
Published: March 2022

In this autobiographical article, I discuss a number of topics that have absorbed my interest over the years and illustrate how advances in experimental technique, such as the superfluid gyroscope and torsional oscillators, were entwined with expanding knowledge of the properties of helium.
A Hybrid Screen-Printed Strip for Enhanced Electroanalysis towards Lead and Cadmium in Multi-Matrices
Authors: Raucci Ada , Miglione Antonella , Spinelli Michele , Amoresano Angela , Cinti Stefano
Published: March 2022

Although heavy metals represent a major treat for ecosystem and human health, reference methods for their monitoring are characterized by time-consuming procedures, skilled personel and sophisticated equipment (e.g. ICP-MS, AAS). The development of portable solutions is required, particularly improving interventions and reducing complexity. To this regards, an electrochemical strip for the determination of lead and cadmium in clinical, environmental and food matrices have been developed. The Bismuth film-based flexible device has been optimized and it has been able to detect cadmium and lead, respectively, down to the detection limit of 1.3 and 2 ppb. The use of Whatman No.1 chromatographic paper has allowed to improve the sensitivity towards the detection of heavy metals, because of the porosity that allowed to pre-concentrate species. This led to an improvement in the sensitivity, with a detection limit of 0.3 and 0.5 ppb, respectively, to cadmium and lead, and offers the possibility to tune the sensitivity according to needs, e.g., improving the number of pre-concentration steps. Subsequently, the application of the electrochemical sensor in drinking water, mussel and blood serum was evaluated, demonstrating how these hybrid polyester-paper electrochemical strips can significantly lower the time and costs for on-site measurements, through analytical methods of simple use. The accuracy has been evaluated by comparison with ICP-MS measurements, giving satisfactory results.
Review—Microstructural Modification in Lithium Garnet Solid-State Electrolytes: Emerging Trends
Authors: Patra Srabani , Narayanasamy Janani , Panneerselvam Thamayanthi , Murugan Ramaswamy
Published: March 2022

Garnet structured solid electrolytes-based lithium metal batteries are the most attractive high energy density electrochemical energy storage candidates for the transportation and grid sectors. Various studies are carried out to address the concerns of lithium garnets as solid electrolytes and improve their electrochemical performance in lithium metal batteries. Interfacial engineering is a widely studied strategy for improving lithium garnet electrolyte-electrode interfacial contact and critical current densities. In the same perspective, microstructural/grain boundary engineering in lithium garnet is an effective strategy for overcoming obstacles and increasing critical current densities (CCD) in lithium metal battery research. The importance of the microstructural properties of the solid electrolyte has been discussed in several investigations. However, a comprehensive overview of the microstructural modification of lithium garnet solid electrolytes and their effect on electrochemical performance is still lacking. This review presents a detailed discussion on the strategies used to modify the microstructure and their impact on performances such as ionic conductivity, interfacial contact, critical current density, dendrite kinetics, etc., of lithium garnet ceramics.
Scalable Implementation of Recombination Catalyst Layers to Mitigate Gas Crossover in PEM Water Electrolyzers
Authors: Stähler A. , Stähler M. , Scheepers F. , Lehnert W. , Carmo M.
Published: March 2022

Hydrogen permeation across the membrane is a critical safety hurdle within polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) water electrolysis (WE). It is crucial to implement recombination catalysts into the membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) for reducing hydrogen concentrations and allow the use of much thinner membrane architectures that allow high efficiency operation. Here we show how recombination catalyst layers can be fabricated into MEAs by using a scalable method. In subsequent slot-die coating steps, an electrically insulating and then a recombination layer (both 5 μm thick) are applied directly to the anode. This three-layer system is then processed into a 5-layer MEA with a cathode and membrane using the decal process. The 5-layer MEA shows a reliable hydrogen reduction in the anode product gas for a wide-range of membrane thicknesses. The long-term stability of the recombination layer is shown for a 5-layer Nafion™ HP-MEA in comparison to a 3-layer MEA. Even after long-term operation, the MEA shows a safe hydrogen concentration reduction on the anode. Finally, the presented technique is used to produce 5-layer MEAs with active areas of 1056 cm2 and 60 μm membrane thicknesses. Measurements on reference MEAs show a successful scale-up, proving the technique to be applicable to all scales.
Neuronal cholinergic signaling constrains norepinephrine activity in the heart
Authors: Guimarães Diogo A. , Aquino Nayara S. S. , Rocha-Resende Cibele , Jesus Itamar C. G. , Silva Mario Morais , Scalzo Sérgio A. , Fonseca Roberta Cristelli , Durand Marina T. , Pereira Vanessa , Tezini Geisa C. S. V. , Oliveira André , Prado Vania F. , Stefanon Ivanita , Salgado Helio C. , Prado Marco Antônio Máximo , Szawka Raphael E. , Guatimosim Silvia
Published: March 2022

It is well known that cholinergic hypofunction contributes to cardiac pathology, yet, the mechanisms involved remain unclear. Our previous study has shown that genetically engineered model of cholinergic deficit, the vesicular acetylcholine transporter knockdown homozygous (VAChT KDHOM) mice, exhibit pathological cardiac remodeling and a gradual increase in cardiac mass with aging. Given that an increase in cardiac mass is often caused by adrenergic hyperactivity, we hypothesized that VAChT KDHOM mice might have an increase in cardiac norepinephrine (NE) levels. We thus investigated the temporal changes in NE content in the heart from 3-, 6-, and 12-mo-old VAChT mutants. Interestingly, mice with cholinergic hypofunction showed a gradual elevation in cardiac NE content, which was already increased at 6 mo of age. Consistent with this finding, 6-mo-old VAChT KDHOM mice showed enhanced sympathetic activity and a greater abundance of tyrosine hydroxylase positive sympathetic nerves in the heart. VAChT mutants exhibited an increase in peak calcium transient, and mitochondrial oxidative stress in cardiomyocytes along with enhanced G protein-coupled receptor kinase 5 (GRK5) and nuclear factor of activated T-cells (NFAT) staining in the heart. These are known targets of adrenergic signaling in the cell. Moreover, vagotomized-mice displayed an increase in cardiac NE content confirming the data obtained in VAChT KDHOM mice. Establishing a causal relationship between acetylcholine and NE, VAChT KDHOM mice treated with pyridostigmine, a cholinesterase inhibitor, showed reduced cardiac NE content, rescuing the phenotype. Our findings unveil a yet unrecognized role of cholinergic signaling as a modulator of cardiac NE, providing novel insights into the mechanisms that drive autonomic imbalance.
Case Studies in Physiology: Adaptation of load-bearing tendons during pregnancy
Authors: Waugh Charlie M. , Scott Alexander
Published: March 2022

The literature is sparse on the topic of MSK adaptation and injury risk during pregnancy, hence we present this case study as means of highlighting an upcoming area of research that is of increasing importance. Here, we present a case study concerning the morphological, mechanical, and functional adaptation of load-bearing tendons during this unique period. We also discuss different rationales, study considerations, and future directions for continuing this research theme.
Innovative Development of Intangible Culture of Arts and Crafts in Artificial Intelligence Decision Support System
Authors: Li Haifeng , Liu Dongcheng
Published: March 2022

The Chinese nation has accumulated a lot of precious, rich, and wonderful material and intangible culture in its historical evolution, but these cultures are facing the problem of inheritance difficulties in the long term, and it is becoming more and more difficult to innovate. In order to solve these problems, this paper puts forward the innovative development of the intangible culture of arts and crafts based on artificial intelligence decision support system, with the purpose of studying cultural inheritance, regional brand hematopoiesis promotion, and organizational goal’s support for intangible culture. The method of this paper is to study the basic principles of artificial bee colony algorithms and decision support systems, and then evaluate the value of intangible culture. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the development of local intangible culture and innovation models based on local knowledge systems and confirm the influence of technological innovation on intangible culture so as to promote the sustainable development of intangible culture. This paper describes the present situation of intangible cultural innovation and then explores the innovative ways of intangible culture based on the experiment of cultural development of artificial intelligence. The experimental results show that after using the decision support method mentioned in this paper, the technical progress index of Jingdezhen porcelain culture has increased by 2.4%.
Study on Ecological Risk Evaluation and Optimum Selection of Desert Expressway Schemes Based on the Two-Dimensional Cloud Model
Authors: Han Feng , Liu Zhibo , Li Liangying , Yin Wenhua , Wu Jiyin
Published: March 2022

Aimed at the fragile ecological environment in desert, once the resources along routes are destroyed, it will be difficult to restore the original ecological equilibrium in a short time. This paper studies the ecological-equilibrium-oriented risk evaluation of desert motorway schemes in order to choose route schemes reasonably and prevent the sandstorm aggravation caused by ecological damage. Having insight into the special geographical environment and road construction characteristics of Tengger Desert, the research establishes an index system for the ecological risk evaluation in desert areas from five aspects: the interference of living environment of animals and plants, the destruction of natural ecological landscapes, the pollution of water and soil resources, the development and utilization of natural resources, and the sand fixation of plants and the subsequent maintenance; then it confirms each evaluation index’s weight by using the set-valued statistics method to transform the description of the evaluation indexes to an interval value and furthermore determines the comprehensive ecological risk evaluation level of the route scheme in virtue of the two-dimensional cloud image MATLAB outputs which takes the ecological damage and remediation cost as the basic variables. By constructing the model under the method above, the ecological risk evaluations of two route schemes in Zhongwei sand crossing section of Wuhai-Maqin Expressway have been made. The result shows that the western route scheme’s evaluation grade is “good,” is better than the southern route scheme, is within the scope of acceptable risk, agrees with the practical project condition, and verifies the applicability and effectiveness of the model for ecological risk evaluation in desert areas.
Effectiveness of Interventions to Prevent Musculoskeletal Disorders among District Hospital Nurses in Vietnam
Authors: Nguyen Thi Tham , Nguyen Thanh Hai , Hoang Duc Luan , Hoang Thi Giang , Pham Minh Khue
Published: March 2022

Background. Nurses are one of the population groups with the highest prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). Preventive measures in Vietnamese hospitals on the job have not been proposed to study their effectiveness due to barriers related to the lack of knowledge about MSDs by health care administrators and the lack of human resources with expertise in MSD management in hospitals. Objectives. This study is aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of basic interventions (education, physical exercise) to prevent MSDs among district hospital nurses in Vietnam. Material and Methods. A quasi‐experimental study was carried out before/after over a period of one year among two groups of nurses, one receiving the intervention (n = 162) and the other the control group (n = 128). The intervention includes 3 components: training on MSDs, ergonomics training, and instructions for physical exercise. The pre‐ and postintervention assessment tools included the Modified Nordic, Quality of Life Enjoyment and Satisfaction Short‐Form (Q‐LES‐Q‐SF), and the Kessler Psychological Distress Questionnaire (K6). A generalized estimating equation analysis was performed to assess the difference between the two groups at two points in time (before and after the intervention) on some indicators (prevalence of MSDs in the last 12 months and 7 days, score for quality of life and psychological distress). Results. There was a significant difference of the test on the prevalence of MSDs in the last 7 days between the 2 groups before and after the intervention with the p value = 0.016. This difference occurred in 4 anatomical sites: neck, shoulder/upper arm, wrists/hand, and lower back, with p values being 0.013, 0.011, 0.038, and 0.009, respectively. Conclusions. The intervention measures are probably effective in reducing the prevalence of MSDs at 4 anatomical sites in the last 7 days. More in‐depth studies are needed with a combination of measures over a longer period of time to obtain stronger evidence of interventions.
Multimedia Wireless-Network-Based Model for Smart Interactive Translation Teaching
Authors: Huang Fei
Published: March 2022

With the acceleration of the internationalization process, the demand for English-speaking talents in all walks of life in China is also increasing. However, the current students’ translation ability is weak and cannot meet the demand for talents. This article combines interactive translation teaching mode with multimedia teaching theory to provide an interactive translation teaching method for English translation teaching. This article studies the impact of multimedia-centered interactive translation teaching methods on college students’ English learning ability from five dimensions: classroom interaction, learning motivation, learning autonomy, language skills application, and English performance. From the results of the previous test, the English translation ability of the students in the two classes is almost at the same level before the experiment. However, after adopting the interactive method based on multimedia wireless network in one semester, the English translation scores of the two classes differed greatly. Most students can actively practice English translation in their spare time. As a result of collecting information and reading materials on the Internet and preparing daily speeches in their spare time, students gradually accumulate enough written materials, which can alleviate the anxiety caused by insufficient content. In addition, students also actively communicate with their classmates after completing the translation to improve their composition level. Studies have shown that the number of students who complete translation tasks only after class has dropped from 75% to 31%.
miR-1251-5p Overexpression Inhibits Proliferation, Migration, and Immune Escape in Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma by Targeting NPTX2
Authors: Yue Lin , Lin Hualong , Yuan Shaofei , Wu Lili , Chen Guangming , Wang Jiaqi , Feng Jieni
Published: March 2022

Background. miR-1251-5p was identified as a tumor suppressor in a variety of malignancies; however, its biological function in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is unknown. Methods. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database was used to download expression information, including miR-1251-5p, in 521 ccRCC tissues and 71 ordinary tissues, and bioinformatics was used to explore possible target mRNAs. The relationship between miR-1251-5p, target mRNA activity, and clinical factors was examined. To estimate the biological activity of miR-1251-5p and target mRNA in ccRCC cells, we used MTT, colony formation, enzyme-linked immunosorbent, and Transwell assays. We employed a dual-luciferase reporter assay and a western blot to examine the molecular mechanisms of miR-1251-5p in ccRCC cells. In addition, the expressions of miR-1251-5p and target mRNA were further verified in the GEO database. Results. Our findings revealed that miR-1251-5p binds with NPTX2’s 3′-UTR. In TCGA and GEO datasets, miR-1251-5p activity is found to be lower in ccRCC tissues than that in nearby conventional tissues, although NPTX2 activity is higher. In ccRCC sufferers, miR-1251-5p and NPTX2 act as biomarkers that indicate a bad prognosis. Meanwhile, in miR-1251-5p tissues, NPTX2 expression and multiple clinical variables (survival status, grade, T staging, N staging, M staging, and clinical stage) had significant differences

p
<
0.05

. Structurally, miR-1251-5p inhibited proliferation, migration, and immune escape of ccRCC cells by targeting NPTX2. Conclusion. Our findings indicate that miR-1251-5p constrained ccRCC cell advancement, migration, and immune evasion via targeting NPTX2, providing novel insights into ccRCC target treatment.
Newly Prepared 129Xe Nanoprobe‐Based Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging to Evaluate the Efficacy of Acupuncture on Intractable Peripheral Facial Paralysis
Authors: Fan Fengyun , Wang Xiaonan , Lu Yao , Jia Kaixue
Published: March 2022

This study focused on the application value of the newly prepared 129Xe nanoprobe‐based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in exploring the mechanism of the acupuncture treatment for intractable facial paralysis, expected to provide a theoretical reference for the mechanism of acupuncture for the treatment of facial paralysis. In this study, 30 patients with intractable peripheral facial paralysis (experimental group) and 30 healthy volunteers (control group) were selected. All patients were scanned by the newly prepared 129Xe nanoprobe‐based fMRI technology, and then brain functional status data and rating data were collected. fMRI scanning results showed that multiple brain regions were activated in the experimental group before treatment, among which the central posterior brain, insula, and thalamus were positively activated, while the precuneus, superior frontal gyrus, and other parts showed signal reduction. After treatment, several brain regions also showed signal enhancement. Comparisons within the healthy control group also showed activation in multiple brain regions, including the lenticular nucleus, inferior frontal gyrus, and superior temporal gyrus, while in the experimental group, no signal changes were detected in these brain regions. At the same time, comparison of fMRI images of patients with intractable peripheral facial paralysis before and after treatment showed that the cerebellar amygdala, superior frontal gyrus, cerebellar mountaintop, and other brain areas were activated, and all showed positive activation. After treatment, the average House–Brackmann (H‐B) and Sunnybrook scores of the experimental group were 3.82 and 51, respectively, and the change was significant compared with that before treatment (P < 0.05). In conclusion, the newly prepared 129Xe nanoprobe‐based fMRI scan can reflect the functional changes of cerebral cortex after acupuncture. The acupuncture treatment may achieve its therapeutic effect by promoting the functional reorganization of the cerebral cortex in the treatment of intractable facial paralysis.
Machine-Learning-Based Road Soft Soil Foundation Treatment and Settlement Prediction Method
Authors: Zhai Jing
Published: March 2022

In order to effectively predict the settlement of soft soil foundation, improve the accuracy of road soft soil foundation settlement prediction, and improve the safety of the project, this paper proposes an optimized SVM-AR model and discusses the application scope of the SVM model and the time series AR model, respectively. The SVM-AR model is proposed by combining the respective advantages of the two types of models. Firstly, the prediction method of foundation settlement is analyzed and studied, and then the improved ABC algorithm is used to optimize the SVM model. Secondly, the optimized SVM model is combined with the AR model, the ABC-SVM model is used to predict the trend settlement, and the AR model is used to predict the random settlement and then combined to obtain the predicted settlement. The example verification shows that SVM-AR is more accurate than the SVM model prediction results and better reflects the settlement process of highway soft soil foundation.
Effect of α: Phase Nano Al2O3 and Rice Husk Ash in Cement Mortar
Authors: Alex Alexander Gladwin , Kemal Zeyneb , Gebrehiwet Tsegay , Getahun Solomon
Published: March 2022

The study focused on the investigation of the influence of α‐phase nano Al2O3 (NA) and M‐sand as a fine aggregate on the partial replacement of cement by micro rice husk ash (MRHA) to enhance the mechanical properties and durability of mortar and achieve an environmentally sustainable material. MRHA was added to the M‐sand cement mortar (by partial replacement of cement) at varying concentrations of 0%, 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20% by weight of cement; and NA was added at the rate of 0%, 0.5%, 1%, 1.5%, and 2% by weight of cement. The results showed that the partial replacement of cement by MRHA (10%) improves the comprehensive and tensile strength by 7% and 6.9%, respectively, compared to the control. Moreover, the incorporation of NA in cement increased the comprehensive and tensile strengths by 15.5% and 41%, respectively. The optimal increment in the combination of MRHA and NA (MN) in the partial replacement of cement resulted in a 26.4% comprehensive strength and a 48.72% tensile strength compared to the control. The flowability of M‐sand mortar containing MRHA and NA was observed to vary depending on the degree of dosage and the admixture. Our study concludes that the partial replacement of cement by the admixtures MRHA (10%) and NA (1%) in combination improved the strength and reduced water absorption when compared to the individual effects and control, suggesting the application of MRHA and NA in concrete technology.
Serious Adverse Events after a Single Shot of Intrathecal Morphine: A Case Series and Systematic Review
Authors: Koning Mark V. , Reussien Elmer , Vermeulen Beatrijs A. N. , Zonneveld Svenja , Westerman Elsbeth M. , de Graaff Jurgen C. , Houweling Bernard M.
Published: March 2022

Background. The dose of intrathecal morphine is important because of its narrow therapeutic range. Due to a compounding error, pharmacy-compounded, ready-to-use syringes contained 1 mg ml−1 morphine instead of the intended 50 mcg ml−1. Six patients consequently received this twenty-fold dose. This study aims to describe the serious adverse events in these six patients and a systematic review is added to describe the characteristics of serious adverse events after intrathecal morphine. Methods. A retrospective case series described all six patients that received the erroneous morphine intrathecally for analgesia after laparoscopic segmental colonic resections. The patients’ charts were reviewed for the occurrence, timing, duration and management of adverse events, the vital signs at the night after surgery, and length of hospital stay. A systematic review investigated characteristics of serious adverse events after intrathecal morphine in a perioperative setting. Results. Four patients had a serious adverse event, which was respiratory depression combined with somnolence (n = 3) and hypotension (n = 1). The review yielded 63 cases with serious adverse events, predominantly somnolence and/or respiratory depression. The onset occurred between 2 and 24 hours after injection. The severity of symptoms varied and life-threatening respiratory depression only occurred after a dose >900 mcg or when potentiating medication was used. Naloxone did not affect analgesia. No prolonged sequalae occurred. Conclusion. This study reveals that respiratory depression and somnolence are the predominant serious adverse events after intrathecal morphine in a perioperative setting and demonstrated a large variation in the presentation of symptoms.