bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Research on the damage characteristics of rock masses based on double guide-hole blasting under high in-situ stress
Authors: Xu Ruizong , Xie Liangfu , Ma Long , Wang Benfeng 
Published: November 2023

AbstractIn complex high in-situ stress conditions, how to achieve the ideal rock blasting effect through effective methods is often a difficult point of blasting operations. This paper analyzes the influence of guide holes on blasting effect by adding guide holes to the rock pre-treatment method. Based on the particle expansion method to carry out double-hole blasting experiments, the influence of the blasthole spacing and ground stress on the blasting effect is investigated from the levels of macroscopic cracking effect, microscopic particle contact and so on. The study shows that: (i) the setting of empty holes between the gun holes can enhance the crack penetration effect, and the penetration effect is more obvious when the distance between the gun holes and the empty holes is less than 2.5 times the radius of the crushed zone. (ii) At the level of contact force chain, when the distance between blastholes and empty holes is less than 2.5 times the radius of the crushing zone. The compressive stress in the direction perpendicular to the direction of the blasthole line inhibits crack development, and the tensile stress in the direction parallel to the blasthole line promotes crack development. The main stress direction is perpendicular to the direction of the blasthole line. (iii) As the distance between the blastholes increases, the effect of crack suppression by stresses in the vertical direction decreases, and the main force direction is parallel to the direction of the blasthole line.
Six-pack holography for dynamic profiling of thick and extended objects by simultaneous three-wavelength phase unwrapping with doubled field of view
Authors: Mirsky Simcha K. , Shaked Natan T. 
Published: November 2023

AbstractDynamic holographic profiling of thick samples is limited due to the reduced field of view (FOV) of off-axis holography. We present an improved six-pack holography system for the simultaneous acquisition of six complex wavefronts in a single camera exposure from two fields of view (FOVs) and three wavelengths, for quantitative phase unwrapping of thick and extended transparent objects. By dynamically generating three synthetic wavelength quantitative phase maps for each of the two FOVs, with the longest wavelength being 6207 nm, hierarchical phase unwrapping can be used to reduce noise while maintaining the improvements in the 2π phase ambiguity due to the longer synthetic wavelength. The system was tested on a 7 μm tall PDMS microchannel and is shown to produce quantitative phase maps with 96% accuracy, while the hierarchical unwrapping reduces noise by 93%. A monolayer of live onion epidermal tissue was also successfully scanned, demonstrating the potential of the system to dynamically decrease scanning time of optically thick and extended samples.
Identification of serum miR-1246 and miR-150-5p as novel diagnostic biomarkers for high-grade serous ovarian cancer
Authors: Niemira Magdalena , Erol Anna , Bielska Agnieszka , Zeller Anna , Skwarska Anna , Chwialkowska Karolina , Kuzmicki Mariusz , Szamatowicz Jacek , Reszec Joanna , Knapp Pawel , Moniuszko Marcin , Kretowski Adam 
Published: November 2023

AbstractEpithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is one of the leading cancers in women, with high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) being the most common and lethal subtype of this disease. A vast majority of HGSOC are diagnosed at the late stage of the disease when the treatment and total recovery chances are low. Thus, there is an urgent need for novel, more sensitive and specific methods for early and routine HGSOC clinical diagnosis. In this study, we performed miRNA expression profiling using the NanoString miRNA assay in 34 serum samples from patients with HGSOC and 36 healthy women. We identified 13 miRNAs that were differentially expressed (DE). For additional exploration of expression patterns correlated with HGSOC, we performed weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA). As a result, we showed that the module most correlated with tumour size, nodule and metastasis contained 8 DE miRNAs. The panel including miR-1246 and miR-150-5p was identified as a signature that could discriminate HGSOC patients with AUCs of 0.98 and 1 for the training and test sets, respectively. Furthermore, the above two-miRNA panel had an AUC = 0.946 in the verification cohorts of RT-qPCR data and an AUC = 0.895 using external data from the GEO public database. Thus, the model we developed has the potential to markedly improve the diagnosis of ovarian cancer.
Probabilistic modelling is superior to deterministic approaches in the human health risk assessment: an example from a tribal stretch in central India
Authors: Herojeet Rajkumar , Dewangan Rakesh K. , Naik Pradeep K. , Verma Janak R. 
Published: November 2023

AbstractThis case drew national attention in 2018. About 100 people died and more than 300 hospitalized in a span of few years in a village of 1200 people in a tribal stretch in central India. Medical teams visiting the area reported severe renal failure and blamed the local eating and drinking habits as causative factors. This human health assessment based on geochemical investigations finds nitrate (NO3−) and fluoride (F−) pollution as well in village’s groundwater. Both deterministic and probabilistic techniques are employed to decipher the contamination pathways and extent of contamination. Source apportionments of NO3− and F− and their relationship with other ions in groundwater are carried out through chemometric modelling. Latent factors controlling the hydrogeochemistry of groundwater too are explored. While hazard quotients ($$HQ$$

HQ

) of the chemical parameters ($$HQ_{{{\text{NO}}_{3}^{ - } }}$$

H

Q

NO

3

-

and $$HQ_{{{\text{F}}^{ - } }}$$

H

Q

F

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) identify ingestion as the prominent pathway, the calculated risk certainty levels (RCL) of the hazard index (HI) values above unity are compared between the deterministic and probabilistic approaches. Deterministic model overestimates the HI values and magnify the contamination problems. Probabilistic model gives realistic results that stand at infants ($$HI_{{{\text{NO}}_{3}^{ - } }}$$

H

I

NO

3

-

= 34.03%, $$HI_{{{\text{F}}^{ - } }}$$

H

I

F

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= 24.17%) > children ($$HI_{{{\text{NO}}_{3}^{ - } }}$$

H

I

NO

3

-

= 23.01%, $$HI_{{{\text{F}}^{ - } }}$$

H

I

F

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= 10.56%) > teens ($$HI_{{{\text{NO}}_{3}^{ - } }}$$

H

I

NO

3

-

= 13.17%, $$HI_{{{\text{F}}^{ - } }}$$

H

I

F

-

= 2.00%) > adults ($$HI_{{{\text{NO}}_{3}^{ - } }}$$

H

I

NO

3

-

= 11.62%, $$HI_{{{\text{F}}^{ - } }}$$

H

I

F

-

= 1.25%). Geochemically, about 90% of the samples are controlled by rock-water interaction with Ca2+–Mg2+–HCO3− (~ 56%) as the dominant hydrochemical facies. Chemometric modelling confirms Ca2+, Mg2+, HCO3−, F−, and SO42− to originate from geogenic sources, Cl− and NO3− from anthropogenic inputs and Na+ and K+ from mixed factors. The area needs treated groundwater for human consumption.
Serum Angiopoietin-2 level increase differs between polytraumatized patients with and without central nervous system injuries
Authors: Negrin Lukas L. , Hajdu Stefan 
Published: November 2023

AbstractSince endothelial cells rapidly release Angiopoietin-2 (Ang-2) in response to vascular injury and inflammatory stimuli, we aimed to investigate if its serum levels increase in polytraumatized patients. Our cohort study evaluated 28 blunt polytrauma survivors (mean age, 38.4 years; median ISS, 34) who were directly admitted to our level I trauma center in 2018. We assessed the serum Ang-2 level at admission and on days 1, 3, 5, 7, and 10 during hospitalization. Ang-2 was released into the circulation immediately after polytrauma. At admission (day 0), it amounted to 8286 ± 5068 pg/mL, three-and-a-half times the reference value of 2337 ± 650 pg/mL assessed in a healthy control group. Subgroup analysis provided a higher mean Ang-2 level in the CNSI group combining all patients suffering a brain or spinal cord injury compared to the non-CNSI group solely on day 0 [11083 ± 5408 pg/mL versus 3963 ± 2062 pg/mL; p < 0.001]. Whereas the mean Ang-2 level increased only in the non-CNSI group from day 0 to day 3 (p = 0.009), the respective curves showed similar continuous decreases starting with day 3. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed an association between the Ang-2 day 0 level and the presence of a CNSI (OR = 1.885; p = 0.048). ROC analysis provided a cutoff level of 5352 pg/mL. In our study group, serum Ang-2 levels assessed at admission differed between polytraumatized patients with and without brain or spinal cord injuries. Based on our findings, we consider serum Ang-2 levels an effective biomarker candidate for indicating CNSI in these patients at admission, worthy of further evaluation in large multicenter studies.
Your smartphone could act as a pulse-oximeter and as a single-lead ECG
Authors: Mehmood Ahsan , Sarouji Asma , Rahman M. Mahboob Ur , Al-Naffouri Tareq Y. 
Published: November 2023

AbstractIn the post-covid19 era, every new wave of the pandemic causes an increased concern/interest among the masses to learn more about their state of well-being. Therefore, it is the need of the hour to come up with ubiquitous, low-cost, non-invasive tools for rapid and continuous monitoring of body vitals that reflect the status of one’s overall health. In this backdrop, this work proposes a deep learning approach to turn a smartphone—the popular hand-held personal gadget—into a diagnostic tool to measure/monitor the three most important body vitals, i.e., pulse rate (PR), blood oxygen saturation level (aka SpO2), and respiratory rate (RR). Furthermore, we propose another method that could extract a single-lead electrocardiograph (ECG) of the subject. The proposed methods include the following core steps: subject records a small video of his/her fingertip by placing his/her finger on the rear camera of the smartphone, and the recorded video is pre-processed to extract the filtered and/or detrended video-photoplethysmography (vPPG) signal, which is then fed to custom-built convolutional neural networks (CNN), which eventually spit-out the vitals (PR, SpO2, and RR) as well as a single-lead ECG of the subject. To be precise, the contribution of this paper is twofold: (1) estimation of the three body vitals (PR, SpO2, RR) from the vPPG data using custom-built CNNs, vision transformer, and most importantly by CLIP model (a popular image-caption-generator model); (2) a novel discrete cosine transform+feedforward neural network-based method that translates the recorded video-PPG signal to a single-lead ECG signal. The significance of this work is twofold: (i) it allows rapid self-testing of body vitals (e.g., self-monitoring for covid19 symptoms), (ii) it enables rapid self-acquisition of a single-lead ECG, and thus allows early detection of atrial fibrillation (abormal heart beat or arrhythmia), which in turn could enable early intervention in response to a range of cardiovascular diseases, and could help save many precious lives. Our work could help reduce the burden on healthcare facilities and could lead to reduction in health insurance costs.
Retinal venular vessel diameters are smaller during ten days of bed rest
Authors: Saloň Adam , Çiftci Göktuğ Mert , Zubac Damir , Šimunič Boštjan , Pišot Rado , Narici Marco , Fredriksen Per Morten , Nkeh-Chungag Benedicta Ngwenchi , Sourij Harald , Šerý Omar , Schmid-Zalaudek Karin , Steuber Bianca , De Boever Patrick , Goswami Nandu 
Published: November 2023

AbstractOlder individuals experience cardiovascular dysfunction during extended bedridden hospital or care home stays. Bed rest is also used as a model to simulate accelerated vascular deconditioning occurring during spaceflight. This study investigates changes in retinal microcirculation during a ten-day bed rest protocol. Ten healthy young males (22.9 ± 4.7 years; body mass index: 23.6 ± 2.5 kg·m–2) participated in a strictly controlled repeated-measures bed rest study lasting ten days. High-resolution images were obtained using a hand-held fundus camera at baseline, daily during the 10 days of bed rest, and 1 day after re-ambulation. Retinal vessel analysis was performed using a semi-automated software system to obtain metrics for retinal arteriolar and venular diameters, central retinal artery equivalent and central retinal vein equivalent, respectively. Data analysis employed a mixed linear model. At the end of the bed rest period, a significant decrease in retinal venular diameter was observed, indicated by a significantly lower central retinal vein equivalent (from 226.1 µm, CI 8.90, to 211.4 µm, CI 8.28, p = .026), while no significant changes in central retinal artery equivalent were noted. Prolonged bed rest confinement resulted in a significant (up to 6.5%) reduction in retinal venular diameter. These findings suggest that the changes in retinal venular diameter during bedrest may be attributed to plasma volume losses and reflect overall (cardio)-vascular deconditioning.
Surface-exposed chaperonin 60 derived from Propionibacterium freudenreichii MJ2 inhibits adipogenesis by decreasing the expression of C/EBPα/PPARγ
Authors: An Mirae , Lim Young-Hee 
Published: November 2023

AbstractRecent studies have shown that the health benefits of probiotics are not limited to those offered by living bacteria. It was reported that both live and killed cells of Propionibacterium freudenreichii MJ2 (MJ2) isolated from raw milk showed antiobesity activity in 3T3-L1 cells and high-fat diet-induced obese mice. This study was aimed at identifying the active component(s) responsible for the antiadipogenic activity of MJ2. Cell wall, surface protein, and cytoplasmic fractions of MJ2 were investigated for their inhibitory effects on adipogenesis in 3T3-L1 cells. Adipocytes treated with the surface protein fraction showed significantly lower lipid accumulation. Using the MASCOT algorithm following LC-MS/MS analysis, 131 surface proteins were identified and they were principally classified into three categories (network clusters related to ribosomes, carbon metabolism, and chaperones). Among them, chaperonin 60 (Cpn60) was selected as a potential candidate protein. Cpn60 inhibited lipid accumulation and adipogenesis during the early period of differentiation (days 0–2) and decreased expression of genes related to adipogenesis (Pparg and Cebpa) and lipogenesis (Fas and Scd1). The expression of Gata2/3, which suppresses adipogenesis, significantly increased in Cpn60-treated cells. Moreover, the nuclear translocation of C/EBPβ was inhibited by Cpn60 treatment. In conclusion, Cpn60, a surface protein in MJ2, shows antiadipogenic activity by reducing the expression of C/EBPβ through the upregulation of Gata2/3 expression followed by downregulation of Pparg and Cebpa expression.
A link between energy metabolism and plant host adaptation states in the two-spotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae (Koch)
Authors: Maglov Jorden , Feng Min Yi , Lin Dorothy , Barkhouse Kennedy , Alexander Anton , Grbic Miodrag , Zhurov Vladimir , Grbic Vojislava , Tudzarova Slavica 
Published: November 2023

AbstractEnergy metabolism is a highly conserved process that balances generation of cellular energy and maintenance of redox homeostasis. It consists of five interconnected pathways: glycolysis, tricarboxylic acid cycle, pentose phosphate, trans-sulfuration, and NAD+ biosynthesis pathways. Environmental stress rewires cellular energy metabolism. Type-2 diabetes is a well-studied energy metabolism rewiring state in human pancreatic β-cells where glucose metabolism is uncoupled from insulin secretion. The two-spotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae (Koch), exhibits a remarkable ability to adapt to environmental stress. Upon transfer to unfavourable plant hosts, mites experience extreme xenobiotic stress that dramatically affects their survivorship and fecundity. However, within 25 generations, mites adapt to the xenobiotic stress and restore their fitness. Mites’ ability to withstand long-term xenobiotic stress raises a question of their energy metabolism states during host adaptation. Here, we compared the transcriptional responses of five energy metabolism pathways between host-adapted and non-adapted mites while using responses in human pancreatic islet donors to model these pathways under stress. We found that non-adapted mites and human pancreatic β-cells responded in a similar manner to host plant transfer and diabetogenic stress respectively, where redox homeostasis maintenance was favoured over energy generation. Remarkably, we found that upon host-adaptation, mite energy metabolic states were restored to normal. These findings suggest that genes involved in energy metabolism can serve as molecular markers for mite host-adaptation.
Real-time monitoring of the reaction of KRAS G12C mutant specific covalent inhibitor by in vitro and in-cell NMR spectroscopy
Authors: Zhao Qingci , Haga Ryoka , Tamura Satoko , Shimada Ichio , Nishida Noritaka 
Published: November 2023

AbstractKRAS mutations are major drivers of various cancers. Recently, allele-specific inhibitors of the KRAS G12C mutant were developed that covalently modify the thiol of Cys12, thereby trapping KRAS in an inactive GDP-bound state. To study the mechanism of action of the covalent inhibitors in both in vitro and intracellular environments, we used real-time NMR to simultaneously observe GTP hydrolysis and inhibitor binding. In vitro NMR experiments showed that the rate constant of ARS-853 modification is identical to that of GTP hydrolysis, indicating that GTP hydrolysis is the rate-limiting step for ARS-853 modification. In-cell NMR analysis revealed that the ARS-853 reaction proceeds significantly faster than that in vitro, reflecting acceleration of GTP hydrolysis by endogenous GTPase proteins. This study demonstrated that the KRAS covalent inhibitor is as effective in the cell as in vitro and that in-cell NMR is a valuable validation tool for assessing the pharmacological properties of the drug in the intracellular context.
Magnetic silica/graphene oxide nanocomposite supported ionic liquid–manganese complex as a powerful catalyst for the synthesis of tetrahydrobenzopyrans
Authors: Dadvar Farkhondeh , Elhamifar Dawood 
Published: November 2023

AbstractA novel magnetic silica/graphene oxide nanocomposite supported ionic liquid/manganese complex (Fe3O4@SiO2-NH2/GO/IL-Mn) is prepared, characterized and its catalytic application is investigated. The Fe3O4@SiO2-NH2/GO/IL-Mn catalyst was synthesized via chemical immobilization of graphene oxide on Fe3O4@SiO2 nanoparticles followed by modification with ionic liquid/Mn complex. This nanocomposite was characterized by using SEM, TGA, FT-IR, PXRD, EDX, TEM, nitrogen adsorption–desorption, and VSM analyses. The catalytic application of Fe3O4@SiO2-NH2/GO/IL-Mn was studied in the synthesis of tetrahydrobenzo[b]pyrans (THBPs) in water solvent at RT. This nanocatalyst was successfully recovered and reused at least eight times without a significant decrease in its activity.
A runoff prediction method based on hyperparameter optimisation of a kernel extreme learning machine with multi-step decomposition
Authors: Zhang Xianqi , Liu Fang , Yin Qiuwen , Qi Yu , Sun Shifeng 
Published: November 2023

AbstractTo improve the accuracy of runoff forecasting, a combined forecasting model is established by using the kernel extreme learning machine (KELM) algorithm optimised by the butterfly optimisation algorithm (BOA), combined with the variational modal decomposition method (VMD) and the complementary ensemble empirical modal decomposition method (CEEMD), for the measured daily runoff sequences at Jiehetan and Huayuankou stations and Gaochun and Lijin stations. The results show that the combined model VMD-CEEMD-BOA-KELM predicts the best. The average absolute errors are 30.02, 23.72, 25.75, 29.37, and the root mean square errors are 20.53 m3/s, 18.79 m3/s, 18.66 m3/s, and 21.87 m3/s, the decision coefficients are all above 90 percent, respectively, and the Nash efficiency coefficients are all more than 90%, from the above it can be seen that the method has better results in runoff time series prediction.
Diversity and evolution of the MHC class II DRB gene in the Capra sibirica experienced a demographic fluctuation in China
Authors: Dong Pei-Pei , Wang Rui-Rui , Abduriyim Shamshidin 
Published: November 2023

AbstractThe major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes are the most polymorphic genes in vertebrates, and their proteins play a critical role in adaptive immunity for defense against a variety of pathogens. MHC diversity was lost in many species after experiencing a decline in size. To understand the variation and evolution of MHC genes in the Siberian ibex, Capra sibirica, which has undergone a population decline, we analyzed the variation of the second exon of MHC class II DRB genes in samples collected from five geographic localities in Xinjiang, China, that belong to three diverged mitochondrial clades. Consequently, we identified a total of 26 putative functional alleles (PFAs) with 260 bp in length from 43 individuals, and found one (for 27 individuals) to three (for 5 individuals) PFAs per individual, indicating the presence of one or two DRB loci per haploid genome. The Casi-DRB1*16 was the most frequently occurring PFA, Casi-DRB1*22 was found in only seven individuals, 14 PFAs occurred once, 7 PFAs twice, implying high frequency of rare PFAs. Interestingly, more than half (15) of the PFAs were specific to clade I, only two and three PFAs were specific to clades II and III, respectively. So, we assume that the polygamy and sexual segregation nature of this species likely contributed to the allelic diversity of DRB genes. Genetic diversity indices showed that PFAs of clade II were lower in nucleotide, amino acid, and supertype diversity compared to those of the other two clades. The pattern of allele sharing and FST values between the three clades was to some extent in agreement with the pattern observed in mitochondrial DNA divergence. In addition, recombination analyses revealed no evidence for significant signatures of recombination events. Alleles shared by clades III and the other two clades diverged 6 million years ago, and systematic neighbor grids showed Trans-species polymorphism. Together with the PAML and MEME analyses, the results indicated that the DRB gene in C. sibirica evolved under balancing and positive selection. However, by comparison, it can be clearly seen that different populations were under different selective pressures. Our results are valuable in understanding the diversity and evolution of the DRB gene in a mountain living C. sibirica and in making decisions on future long-term protection strategies.