bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Design, synthesis, biological assessment and molecular modeling studies of novel imidazothiazole-thiazolidinone hybrids as potential anticancer and anti-inflammatory agents
Authors: Kamboj Payal , Anjali  , Imtiyaz Khalid , Rizvi Moshahid A. , Nath Virendra , Kumar Vipin , Husain Asif , Amir Mohd. 
Published: April 2024

AbstractA new series of imidazothiazole derivatives bearing thiazolidinone moiety (4a-g and 5a-d) were designed, synthesized and evaluated for potential epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) kinase inhibition, anticancer and anti-inflammatory activity, cardiomyopathy toxicity and hepatotoxicity. Compound 4c inhibited EGFR kinase at a concentration of 18.35 ± 1.25 µM, whereas standard drug erlotinib showed IC50 value of 06.12 ± 0.92 µM. The molecular docking, dynamics simulation and MM-GBSA binding energy calculations revealed strong interaction of compound 4c with binding site of EGFR. The synthesized compounds were evaluated for their anticancer activity by MTT assay against three human cancer cell lines A549 (Lung), MCF-7 (Breast), HCT116 (Colon), one normal human embryonic kidney cell line HEK293 and also for their EGFR kinase inhibitory activity. Few compounds of the series (4a, 4b, 4c) showed promising growth inhibition against all the tested cancer cell lines and against EGFR kinase. Among these, compound 4c was found to be most active and displayed IC50 value of 10.74 ± 0.40, 18.73 ± 0.88 against cancer cell lines A549 and MCF7 respectively whereas it showed an IC50 value of 96.38 ± 1.79 against HEK293 cell line indicating lesser cytotoxicity for healthy cell. Compounds 4a, 4b and 4c were also examined for their apoptosis inducing potential through AO/EB dual staining assay and it was observed that their antiproliferative activity against A549 cells is mediated via induction of apoptosis. Cardiomyopathy studies showed normal cardiomyocytes with no marked sign of pyknotic nucleus of compounds 4b and 4c. Hepatotoxicity studies of compounds 4b and 4c also showed normal architecture of hepatocytes. Compounds 4a-g and 5a-d were also evaluated for their in-vitro anti-inflammatory activity by protein albumin denaturation assay. Among the tested compounds 4a-d and 5a-b showed promising activity and were selected for in-vivo inflammatory activity against carrageenan rat paw edema test. Among these compounds, 4b was found to be most active in the series showing 84.94% inhibition, whereas the standard drug diclofenac sodium showed 84.57% inhibition. Compound 4b also showed low ulcerogenic potential and lipid peroxidation. Thus, compounds 4c and 4b could be a promising lead compounds for developing anticancer and anti-inflammatory agents with low toxicity and selectivity.
Experimental study to compare the strength of concrete with different amounts of polypropylene fibers at high temperatures
Authors: Wang Yanhui , Nejati Faezeh , Edalatpanah S. A. , Goudarzi Karim Ramin 
Published: April 2024

AbstractIt is widely known that adding fibers to concrete improves the properties of concrete, which has a brittle behavior. Although concrete has high compressive strength but poor tensile strength, this has led researchers to offer a variety of ways to deal with this weakness. The use of fibers is one of the methods used to enhance concrete behavior. Fire is one of the most important cases in structures; if the temperature is high or its duration is long, it will cause serious damage to the structure. The present study is an experimental study in which different concrete samples with different amounts of polypropylene fibers and different cement content are exposed once at a normal temperature of 25 °C and again at high temperatures, including 250 °C and 500 °C. The effect of temperature on the compressive and tensile strengths of concrete containing 0.5%, 1.5%, and 2% polypropylene fibres and with cement contents of 200 kg/m3, 260 kg/m3, and 320 kg/m3. The compressive and tensile strength was evaluated at curing 28 days of strength. The results showed a severe strength loss for all concretes after exposure to 500 °C. The relative compressive strengths of concretes containing PP fibers were higher than those of concretes without PP fibers. The tensile strength of concrete was more sensitive to high temperatures than the compressive strength. Based on the test results, it can be concluded that adding 2% PP fibers can significantly promote the residual mechanical properties of concrete during heating. The compressive strength at 25 °C with 2% PP fibres decreases by 43% with cement contents of 200 kg/m3 and 64% with cement contents of 260 kg/m3, and 37% with cement contents of 320 kg/m3, respectively. Also, the compressive strength at 500 °C with 2% PP fibres decreases by 61% with 200 kg/m3, 59% with 260 kg/m3, and 42% with cement contents of 320 kg/m3, respectively.
Cas9-directed long-read sequencing to resolve optical genome mapping findings in leukemia diagnostics
Authors: de Boer Eddy N. , Vroom Vincent , Scheper Arjen J. , Johansson Lennart F. , Bosscher Laura , Rietema Nettie , Commandeur-Jan Sabrina Z. , Knoers Nine V. A. M. , Sikkema-Raddatz Birgit , van den Berg Eva , van Diemen Cleo C. 
Published: April 2024

AbstractLeukemias are genetically heterogeneous and diagnostics therefore includes various standard-of-care (SOC) techniques, including karyotyping, SNP-array and FISH. Optical genome mapping (OGM) may replace these as it detects different types of structural aberrations simultaneously and additionally detects much smaller aberrations (500 bp vs 5–10 Mb with karyotyping). However, its resolution may still be too low to define clinical relevance of aberrations when they are located between two OGM labels or when labels are not distinct enough. Here, we test the potential of Cas9-directed long-read sequencing (LRS) as an additional technique to resolve such potentially relevant new findings. From an internal Bionano implementation study we selected ten OGM calls that could not be validated with SOC methods. Per variant we designed crRNAs for Cas9 enrichment, prepared libraries and sequenced them on a MinION/GridION device. We could confirm all aberrations and, importantly, the actual breakpoints of the OGM calls were located between 0.2 and 5.5 kb of the OGM-estimated breakpoints, confirming the high reliability of OGM. Furthermore, we show examples of redefinition of aberrations between labels that enable judgment of clinical relevance. Our results suggest that Cas9-directed LRS can be a relevant and flexible secondary technique in diagnostic workflows including OGM.
Early life factors and oral microbial signatures define the risk of caries in a Swedish cohort of preschool children
Authors: Eriksen Carsten , Boustedt Katarina , Sonne Si Brask , Dahlgren Jovanna , Kristiansen Karsten , Twetman Svante , Brix Susanne , Roswall Josefine 
Published: April 2024

AbstractThe oral cavity harbors complex communities comprising bacteria, archaea, fungi, protozoa, and viruses. The oral microbiota is establish at birth and develops further during childhood, with early life factors such as birth mode, feeding practices, and oral hygiene, reported to influence this development and the susceptibility to caries. We here analyzed the oral bacterial composition in saliva of 260 Swedish children at two, three and five years of age using 16S rRNA gene profiling to examine its relation to environmental factors and caries development at five years of age. We were able to assign the salivary bacterial community in each child at each time point to one of seven distinct clusters. We observed an individual dynamic in the development of the oral microbiota related to early life factors, such as being first born, born by C-section, maternal perinatal antibiotics use, with a distinct transition between three and five years of age. Different bacterial signatures depending on age were related to increased caries risk, while Peptococcus consistently linked to reduced risk of caries development.
The association between body mass index and osteoporosis in a Taiwanese population: a cross-sectional and longitudinal study
Authors: Chiu Chao-Tse , Lee Jia-In , Lu Cheng-Chang , Huang Shu-Pin , Chen Szu-Chia , Geng Jiun-Hung 
Published: April 2024

AbstractThis study investigates the correlation between body mass index (BMI) and osteoporosis utilizing data from the Taiwan Biobank. Initially, a comprehensive analysis of 119,009 participants enrolled from 2008 to 2019 was conducted to assess the association between BMI and osteoporosis prevalence. Subsequently, a longitudinal cohort of 24,507 participants, initially free from osteoporosis, underwent regular follow-ups every 2–4 years to analyze the risk of osteoporosis development, which was a subset of the main cohort. Participants were categorized into four BMI groups: underweight (BMI < 18.5 kg/m2), normal weight (18.5 kg/m2 ≤ BMI < 24 kg/m2), overweight (24 kg/m2 ≤ BMI < 27 kg/m2), and obese groups (BMI ≥ 27 kg/m2). A T-score ≤ − 2.5 standard deviations below that of a young adult was defined as osteoporosis. Overall, 556 (14.1%), 5332 (9.1%), 2600 (8.1%) and 1620 (6.7%) of the participants in the underweight, normal weight, overweight and obese groups, respectively, had osteoporosis. A higher prevalence of osteoporosis was noted in the underweight group compared with the normal weight group (odds ratio [OR], 2.20; 95% confidence interval [95% CI], 1.99 to 2.43; p value < 0.001) in multivariable binary logistic regression analysis. Furthermore, in the longitudinal cohort during a mean follow-up of 47 months, incident osteoporosis was found in 61 (9%), 881 (7.2%), 401 (5.8%) and 213 (4.6%) participants in the underweight, normal weight, overweight and obese groups, respectively. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards analysis revealed that the risk of incident osteoporosis was higher in the underweight group than in the normal weight group (hazard ratio [HR], 1.63; 95% CI 1.26 to 2.12; p value < 0.001). Our results suggest that BMI is associated with both the prevalence and the incidence of osteoporosis. In addition, underweight is an independent risk factor for developing osteoporosis. These findings highlight the importance of maintaining normal weight for optimal bone health.
Biochemical analysis of Hyalomma dromedarii salivary glands and gut tissues using SR-FTIR micro-spectroscopy
Authors: Hendawy Seham H. M. , Alzan Heba F. , Abdel-Ghany Hoda S. M. , Suarez Carlos E. , Kamel Gihan 
Published: April 2024

AbstractTicks are obligatory voracious blood feeders infesting diverse vertebrate hosts, that have a crucial role in the transmission of diverse pathogens that threaten human and animal health. The continuous emergence of tick-borne diseases due to combined worldwide climatic changes, human activities, and acaricide-resistant tick strains, necessitates the development of novel ameliorative tick control strategies such as vaccines. The synchrotron-based Fourier transform infrared micro-spectroscopy (SR-FTIR) is a bioanalytical microprobe capable of exploring the molecular chemistry within microstructures at a cellular or subcellular level and is considered as a nondestructive analytical approach for biological specimens. In this study, SR-FTIR analysis was able to explore a qualitative and semi-quantitative biochemical composition of gut and salivary glands of Hyalomma dromedarii (H. dromedarii) tick detecting differences in the biochemical composition of both tissues. A notable observation regarding Amide I secondary structure protein profile was the higher ratio of aggregated strands in salivary gland and beta turns in gut tissues. Regarding the lipid profile, there was a higher intensity of lipid regions in gut tissue when compared to salivary glands. This detailed information on the biochemical compositions of tick tissues could assist in selecting vaccine and/or control candidates. Altogether, these findings confirmed SR-FTIR spectroscopy as a tool for detecting differences in the biochemical composition of H. dromedarii salivary glands and gut tissues. This approach could potentially be extended to the analysis of other ticks that are vectors of important diseases such as babesiosis and theileriosis.
Self-supervised learning for human activity recognition using 700,000 person-days of wearable data
Authors: Yuan Hang , Chan Shing , Creagh Andrew P. , Tong Catherine , Acquah Aidan , Clifton David A. , Doherty Aiden 
Published: April 2024

AbstractAccurate physical activity monitoring is essential to understand the impact of physical activity on one’s physical health and overall well-being. However, advances in human activity recognition algorithms have been constrained by the limited availability of large labelled datasets. This study aims to leverage recent advances in self-supervised learning to exploit the large-scale UK Biobank accelerometer dataset—a 700,000 person-days unlabelled dataset—in order to build models with vastly improved generalisability and accuracy. Our resulting models consistently outperform strong baselines across eight benchmark datasets, with an F1 relative improvement of 2.5–130.9% (median 24.4%). More importantly, in contrast to previous reports, our results generalise across external datasets, cohorts, living environments, and sensor devices. Our open-sourced pre-trained models will be valuable in domains with limited labelled data or where good sampling coverage (across devices, populations, and activities) is hard to achieve.
RORγt inverse agonist TF-S14 inhibits Th17 cytokines and prolongs skin allograft survival in sensitized mice
Authors: Fouda Ahmed , Maallah Mohamed Taoubane , Kouyoumdjian Araz , Negi Sarita , Paraskevas Steven , Tchervenkov Jean 
Published: April 2024

AbstractChronic antibody mediated rejection (AMR) is the major cause of solid organ graft rejection. Th17 contributes to AMR through the secretion of IL17A, IL21 and IL22. These cytokines promote neutrophilic infiltration, B cell proliferation and donor specific antibodies (DSAs) production. In the current study we investigated the role of Th17 in transplant sensitization. Additionally, we investigated the therapeutic potential of novel inverse agonists of the retinoic acid receptor-related orphan receptor gamma t (RORγt) in the treatment of skin allograft rejection in sensitized mice. Our results show that RORγt inverse agonists reduce cytokine production in human Th17 cells in vitro. In mice, we demonstrate that the RORγt inverse agonist TF-S14 reduces Th17 signature cytokines in vitro and in vivo and leads to blocking neutrophilic infiltration to skin allografts, inhibition of the B-cell differentiation, and the reduction of de novo IgG3 DSAs production. Finally, we show that TF-S14 prolongs the survival of a total mismatch grafts in sensitized mice. In conclusion, RORγt inverse agonists offer a therapeutic intervention through a novel mechanism to treat rejection in highly sensitized patients.
Epidermal retinol dehydrogenases cyclically regulate stem cell markers and clock genes and influence hair composition
Authors: Goggans Kelli R. , Belyaeva Olga V. , Klyuyeva Alla V. , Studdard Jacob , Slay Aja , Newman Regina B. , VanBuren Christine A. , Everts Helen B. , Kedishvili Natalia Y. 
Published: April 2024

AbstractThe hair follicle (HF) is a self-renewing adult miniorgan that undergoes drastic metabolic and morphological changes during precisely timed cyclic organogenesis. The HF cycle is known to be regulated by steroid hormones, growth factors and circadian clock genes. Recent data also suggest a role for a vitamin A derivative, all-trans-retinoic acid (ATRA), the activating ligand of transcription factors, retinoic acid receptors, in the regulation of the HF cycle. Here we demonstrate that ATRA signaling cycles during HF regeneration and this pattern is disrupted by genetic deletion of epidermal retinol dehydrogenases 2 (RDHE2, SDR16C5) and RDHE2-similar (RDHE2S, SDR16C6) that catalyze the rate-limiting step in ATRA biosynthesis. Deletion of RDHEs results in accelerated anagen to catagen and telogen to anagen transitions, altered HF composition, reduced levels of HF stem cell markers, and dysregulated circadian clock gene expression, suggesting a broad role of RDHEs in coordinating multiple signaling pathways.
Multiple‐missile fixed‐time integrated guidance and control design with multi‐stage interconnected observers under impact angle and input saturation constraints
Authors: Zhang Dingye , Yu Hang , Dai Keren , Yi Wenjun , Zhang He , Lei Zhiming 
Published: April 2024

AbstractIn this paper, a novel three‐dimensional fixed‐time integrated guidance and control (IGC) scheme with multi‐stage interconnected observers is proposed for cooperative attacks using multiple missiles against a maneuvering target under impact angle and input saturation constraints. External disturbances, modeling errors, and aerodynamic parameter variations are considered as system uncertainties and a three‐channel fully coupled IGC model for multiple missiles is established. The IGC system is designed optimally based on fixed‐time stability theory, sliding mode control, and the backstepping technique. Three inter‐cascaded fixed‐time disturbance observers based on an improved super‐twisting algorithm are designed to estimate and compensate for system uncertainties. Second‐order command filters are used to constrain virtual control signals, and additional filtering error subsystems are introduced to compensate for the tracking errors of filters. System stability and uniformly ultimately fixed‐time boundedness of all states are proven using the Lyapunov stability theory. Finally, the limits of the acceleration components of the maneuvering target perpendicular to the line of sight direction are derived. The effectiveness of the designed IGC scheme and the ability of multi‐stage interconnected observers to sense disturbances with each other are verified through simulations.
Improved input‐to‐state stability criteria for time‐varying switched singular systems
Authors: Lu Junjie , Li Yongqi , Wang Shijie , She Zhikun 
Published: April 2024

AbstractThis paper is dedicated to proposing improved input‐to‐state stability (ISS) criteria for a class of continuous‐time time‐varying switched singular systems (CTSSS) under slow/fast/slow‐fast switching signals. Specifically, for a CTSSS with time‐varying singular matrices, the authors start with an improved sufficient condition for verifying its ISS under slow switching signals based on the average dwell time method and a relaxed multiple Lyapunov function. Then, considering several or all subsystems may destroy the overall ISS, relaxed sufficient conditions are presented to ensure the ISS of the CTSSS under fast switching signals and slow‐fast switching signals, respectively. Note that the improvement of the proposed ISS criteria is embodied in the derivative of the required multiple Lyapunov functions along with the state trajectories of CTSSS can be positive or negative. Finally, three numerical examples are provided to illustrate the feasibility of the obtained results.
Deep learning cigarette defect detection method based on saliency feature guidance
Authors: Wang Xiaoming , Chen Liyan , Wu Lei , Yang Longfei , Liu Benxue , Yang Zhen 
Published: April 2024

AbstractCigarette defect detection is important in industrial production. Existing methods extract features for defect detection manually or using deep learning. However, due to the small size of cigarette defects, these methods are unable to effectively extract discriminative features, limiting detection performance. Hence, a deep learning‐based method called significant feature‐guided cigarette defect detection (SFGCD) is proposed, which combines saliency feature extraction methods with deep learning to enhance feature representation and improve detection. First, edge saliency features are extracted using the proposed target gradient saliency feature extraction (GSFE) strategy. Then, a dense multi‐level feature fusion network is designed to combine the original features with the saliency features obtained from the target gradient saliency feature extraction strategy. This network enriches feature representation and improves detection by fusing original and saliency features at different levels and scales. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves a higher accuracy of 0.02 mean average precision (MAP) value and a detection speed of 5 frames per second (FPS) on the authors' own labeled cigarette defect dataset compared to existing state‐of‐the‐art methods.
Construction of computer visual dataset for autonomous driving in sand‐dust weather
Authors: Zhongwei Hua 
Published: April 2024

AbstractWith the wide application of vision‐based autonomous driving and mobile robots, the impact of frequent sand‐dust weather on computer vision applications in landlocked countries during spring and autumn has also attracted more and more attention. Although there has been a lot of research on sand‐dust image enhancement, no research has been conducted on how to improve the positioning accuracy of vision‐based autonomous driving or mobile robots in sand‐dust environments, especially because there is currently a lack of dataset to evaluate visual positioning in sand‐dust weather. Therefore, a complete set of visual positioning dataset construction methods in sand‐dust weather is proposed to fill the gap in the evaluation dataset of application fields such as autonomous driving or mobile robot attitude estimation in sand‐dust weather. At the same time, this method is also suitable for the construction of visual positioning dataset under haze and other similar weather. In addition, this paper further demonstrates to readers how to use the converted dust visual positioning dataset to conduct positioning evaluation experiment of automatic driving in sand‐dust weather.
Effect of Modulated Masking on Cortical Auditory Evoked Potential in Normal Hearing Individuals: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
Authors: Rocha Mônyka Ferreira Borges , Advíncula Karina Paes , Silva Jéssica Dayane da , Menezes Pedro de Lemos 
Published: April 2024

Abstract
Introduction The study of electrophysiological auditory measures with different types of masking makes it possible to understand temporal processing skills and the processes involved in speech recognition in noise situations. The use of modulated masking in cortical measures of hearing enables the obtainment of analysis parameters of the masking release and its impact on neural auditory processing.
Objective To investigate the behavior of cortical auditory evoked potentials (CAEPs) with modulated masking in the normal hearing population.
Data synthesis A total of 2,159 articles were identified in the initial search; of these, 12 were selected for full reading. After excluding studies that did not meet the eligibility criteria, six articles were included in the present systematic review.The results show that the type of masking has an influence on cortical auditory behavior, indicating a different effect on neural posture rergarding CAEP responses. Modulated noise as masking in the CAEP record generated statistically higher and earlier responses compared with non-modulated/steady noise, evidenced by the results obtained in the meta-analysis with subgroup analysis. These responses may indicate an influence of the type of noise in the neural auditory coding.
Conclusion Better responses were observed in modulated masking in terms of the behavior of CAEPs. Decreased latency and increased amplitude of cortical measurements with the use of modulated noise indicate a lower masking effect of this noise in cortical auditory processing, evidencing the masking release phenomenon.