bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Experimental study of the bond behavior of 400MPa grade hot-rolled ribbed steel bars in steel fibre reinforced concrete
Authors: Zhao Minglei , Li Jie , Xie Yi Min , Shen Jianhu , Li Changyong 
Published: February 2024

AbstractPresent studies show that steel fibres can improve the bond of steel bar in steel fibre reinforced concrete (SFRC) with a correlation to the fibre factor and the fibre distribution uniformity. As a foundation of high-flowability SFRC working together with 400 MPa grade hot-rolled ribbed (HRB400) steel bar in reinforced structures, the bond between them was evaluated through a series of pull-out testing on 48 specimens with a central arranged steel bar. The bond behaviours of steel bar were estimated with a constant bond length of 5d (d is the diameter of steel bar) embedded in high-flowability SFRC, the main research parameters included the ingot mill steel fibres with a fibre volume fraction varied from 0.8 to 2.0%, the strength grade C40 and C50 of SFRC or referenced conventional concrete, and the diameter of steel bars varied from 14 to 20 mm. Results showed that the high-flowability SFRC compacted with a slight vibration is beneficial to improve the bond failure pattern since steel fibres effectively eliminate the crack appeared on the SFRC blocks during the pulling out of steel bar, leading to all specimens failed with the steel bar pull out of SFRC blocks. The bond strength was dominant by the SFRC strength, and obviously strengthened with the increase of fibre volume fraction, while the peak-slip was slightly influenced by the diameter of steel bar. By conducting analyses of test data, equations for calculating the bond strength and the peak-slip are proposed accounting for the effect of steel fibres. Then the predicting method for the anchorage length is suggested linking with different design codes for concrete structures. Compared with test results of this study, a little shorter anchorage length of steel bar in SFRC is obtained from the specification of Chinese code JGJ/T46, which should be noticed to ensure a rational anchorage of ribbed steel bar in SFRC with ingot mill steel fibres.
The impact of factor Xa inhibitors on bleeding risk in patients with respiratory diseases
Authors: Hamada Shohei , Muramoto Kei , Akaike Kimitaka , Okabayashi Hiroko , Masunaga Aiko , Tomita Yusuke , Ichiyasu Hidenori , Sakagami Takuro 
Published: February 2024

AbstractIt is unclear which factor Xa (FXa) inhibitors are associated with higher bleeding risk in patients with respiratory diseases, and there are no studies on the association between prothrombin time–international normalized ratio (PT–INR) and bleeding risk. We conducted a retrospective cohort study comparing 1-year-outcomes and PT–INR between patients with respiratory diseases treated with rivaroxaban (R group, n = 82) or edoxaban (E group, n = 138) for atrial fibrillation or venous thromboembolism from 2013 to 2021. The most frequent event of all bleeding discontinuations was respiratory bleeding in both groups (7.3 and 4.3%, respectively). The cumulative incidence of bleeding discontinuation was significantly higher in the R group (25.6%) than in the E group (14.4%) (hazard ratio [HR], 2.29; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.13–4.64; P = 0.023). PT–INR after initiation of therapy significantly increased and was higher in the R group than in the E group (median value, 1.4 and 1.2, respectively; P < 0.001). Multivariate analysis using Cox proportional hazards and Fine-Gray models revealed that PT–INR after initiation of therapy was an independent risk factor of bleeding discontinuation events (HR = 4.37, 95% CI 2.57–7.41: P < 0.001). Respiratory bleeding occasionally occurs in patients receiving FXa inhibitors, and monitoring the PT–INR may need to ensure safety.
Detection of non-pathogenic and pathogenic populations of Vibrio parahaemolyticus in various samples by the conventional, quantitative and droplet digital PCRs
Authors: Vidovic Sinisa , Taylor Roland , Hedderley Duncan , Fletcher Graham C. , Wei Nicola 
Published: February 2024

AbstractIn this study, three generations of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays: (i) conventional PCR, (ii) qPCR and (iii) droplet digital PCR (ddPCR), were systematically tested for their abilities to detect non-pathogenic and pathogenic populations of Vibrio parahaemolyticus. The limit of detection (LOD) for the ddPCR was 1.1 pg/µL of purified DNA, followed by the qPCR (5.6 pg/µL) and the conventional PCR (8.8 pg/µL). Regarding the LOD for V. parahaemolyticus cells, the ddPCR assay was able to detect 29 cells, followed by the conventional PCR assay (58 cells) and the qPCR assay (115 cells). Regarding the sensitivities to detect this pathogen from PCR inhibition prone samples (naturally contaminated mussels), the ddPCR assay significantly outperformed the conventional PCR and qPCR. The ddPCR assay was able to consistently detect non-pathogenic and pathogenic populations of V. parahaemolyticus from naturally contaminated mussels, indicating its tolerance to various PCR inhibitors. This study also revealed the significant difference between conventional PCR and qPCR. The conventional PCR assay showed significantly greater sensitivity than that of the qPCR assay in detecting V. parahaemolyticus in crude samples, whereas the qPCR assay showed better sensitivity in detecting the presence of V. parahaemolyticus in purified DNA samples.
Suppressive action of nesfatin-1 and nesfatin-1-like peptide on cortisol synthesis in human adrenal cortex cells
Authors: Nasri Atefeh , Sands Jade , Unniappan Suraj 
Published: February 2024

AbstractNucleobindin-derived peptides, nesfatin-1 [NESF-1] and nesfatin-1-like-peptide [NLP] have diverse roles in endocrine and metabolic regulation. While both peptides showed a stimulatory effect on the synthesis of proopiomelanocortin (POMC), the adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) precursor in mouse corticotrophs, whether NESF-1 and NLP have any direct effect on glucocorticoid [GC] synthesis in the adrenal cortex remains unknown. The main aim of this study was to determine if NESF-1 and/or NLP act directly on adrenal cortex cells to regulate cortisol synthesis in vitro. Whether NLP injection affects stress-hormone gene expression in the adrenal gland and pituitary in vivo in mice was also assessed. In addition, cortisol synthetic pathway in Nucb1 knockout mice was studied. Human adrenal cortical [H295R] cells showed immunoreactivity for both NUCB1/NLP and NUCB2/NESF-1. NLP and NESF-1 decreased the abundance of steroidogenic enzyme mRNAs, and cortisol synthesis and release through the AC/PKA/CREB pathway in H295R cells. Similarly, intraperitoneal injection of NLP in mice decreased the expression of enzymes involved in glucocorticoid (GC) synthesis in the adrenal gland while increasing the expression of Pomc, Pcsk1 and Crhr1 in the pituitary. Moreover, the melanocortin 2 receptor (Mc2r) mRNA level was enhanced in the adrenal gland samples of NLP injected mice. However, the global genetic disruption in Nucb1 did not affect most steroidogenic enzyme mRNAs, and Pomc, Pcsk2 and Crhr1 mRNAs in mice adrenal gland and pituitary gland, respectively. Collectively, these data provide the first evidence for a direct inhibition of cortisol synthesis and secretion by NLP and NESF-1. NUCB peptides might still elicit a net stimulatory effect on GC synthesis and secretion through their positive effects on ACTH-MC2R pathway in the pituitary.
An improved composite ship magnetic field model with ellipsoid and magnetic dipole arrays
Authors: Lu Binjie , Zhang Xiaobing 
Published: February 2024

AbstractIn order to simultaneously maintain the ship magnetic field modeling accuracy, reduce the number of coefficient matrix conditions and the model computational complexity, an improved composite model is designed by introducing the magnetic dipole array model with a single-axis magnetic moment on the basis of the hybrid ellipsoid and magnetic dipole array model. First, the improved composite model of the ship's magnetic field is established based on the magnetic dipole array model with 3-axis magnetic moment, the magnetic dipole array model with only x-axis magnetic moment, and the ellipsoid model. Secondly, the set of equations for calculating the magnetic moments of the composite model is established, and for the problem of solving the pathological set of equations, the least-squares estimation, stepwise regression method, Tikhonov, and truncated singular value decomposition regularization methods are introduced in terms of the magnetic field, and generalized cross-validation is used to solve the optimal regularization parameters. Finally, a ship model test is designed to compare and analyze the effectiveness of the composite and hybrid models in four aspects: the number of coefficient matrix conditions of the model equation set, the relative error of magnetic field fitting, the relative error of magnetic field extrapolation, and the computational time complexity. The modeling results based on the ship model test data show that the composite model can be used for modeling the magnetic field of ships, and compared with the hybrid model, it reduces the number of coefficient matrix conditions and improves the computational efficiency on the basis of retaining a higher modeling accuracy, and it can be effectively applied in related scientific research and engineering.
Engineering primitive multiscale chimeric vasculature by combining human microvessels with explanted murine vessels
Authors: Margolis Emily A. , Choi Lucia S. , Friend Nicole E. , Putnam Andrew J. 
Published: February 2024

AbstractStrategies to separately manufacture arterial-scale tissue engineered vascular grafts and microvascular networks have been well-established, but efforts to bridge these two length scales to create hierarchical vasculature capable of supporting parenchymal cell functions or restoring perfusion to ischemic tissues have been limited. This work aimed to create multiscale vascular constructs by assessing the capability of macroscopic vessels isolated from mice to form functional connections to engineered capillary networks ex vivo. Vessels of venous and arterial origins from both thoracic and femoral locations were isolated from mice, and then evaluated for their abilities to sprout endothelial cells (EC) capable of inosculating with surrounding human cell-derived microvasculature within bulk fibrin hydrogels. Comparing aortae, vena cavae, and femoral vessel bundles, we identified the thoracic aorta as the rodent macrovessel that yielded the greatest degree of sprouting and interconnection to surrounding capillaries. The presence of cells undergoing vascular morphogenesis in the surrounding hydrogel attenuated EC sprouting from the macrovessel compared to sprouting into acellular hydrogels, but ultimately sprouted mouse EC interacted with human cell-derived capillary networks in the bulk, yielding chimeric vessels. We then integrated micromolded mesovessels into the constructs to engineer a primitive 3-scale vascular hierarchy comprising capillaries, mesovessels, and macrovessels. Overall, this study yielded a primitive hierarchical vasculature suitable as proof-of-concept for regenerative medicine applications and as an experimental model to better understand the spontaneous formation of host-graft vessel anastomoses.
The influence of subpolar marine ice expansion on global climate in the Early Pleistocene
Authors: Han Wenxia , Zan Jinbo , Kemp David B. , Zhang Tao , Wang Zhixiang , Mai Li , Fang Xiaomin 
Published: February 2024

AbstractMajor climatic-environmental transitions and ecological shifts occurred during the mid-Early Pleistocene, a time when external forcing conditions were relatively stable. To help elucidate their driving mechanisms, we perform linear-nonlinear analysis on global climate and oceanographic records. A synchronous change in these records, starting at 1.9–1.6 Ma, was accompanied by an increased obliquity signal and coeval climate regime shifts. We posit that bipolar cooling and an extension of terrestrial ice sheets across marine margins in subpolar regions increased the sensitivity of the global climate system to obliquity variations at this time. The resulting strengthening of meridional and zonal temperature gradients and shoaling of the tropical thermocline would cause enhanced aridification of East Africa and Arabia, and meanwhile a stronger East Asian winter and summer monsoon. Our study highlights the likely contribution of subpolar sea ice expansion on critical transitions in global climate and ecosystem evolution via its ability to modify the sensitivity of the Earth system to orbital variations.
CancerGPT for few shot drug pair synergy prediction using large pretrained language models
Authors: Li Tianhao , Shetty Sandesh , Kamath Advaith , Jaiswal Ajay , Jiang Xiaoqian , Ding Ying , Kim Yejin 
Published: February 2024

AbstractLarge language models (LLMs) have been shown to have significant potential in few-shot learning across various fields, even with minimal training data. However, their ability to generalize to unseen tasks in more complex fields, such as biology and medicine has yet to be fully evaluated. LLMs can offer a promising alternative approach for biological inference, particularly in cases where structured data and sample size are limited, by extracting prior knowledge from text corpora. Here we report our proposed few-shot learning approach, which uses LLMs to predict the synergy of drug pairs in rare tissues that lack structured data and features. Our experiments, which involved seven rare tissues from different cancer types, demonstrate that the LLM-based prediction model achieves significant accuracy with very few or zero samples. Our proposed model, the CancerGPT (with ~ 124M parameters), is comparable to the larger fine-tuned GPT-3 model (with ~ 175B parameters). Our research contributes to tackling drug pair synergy prediction in rare tissues with limited data, and also advancing the use of LLMs for biological and medical inference tasks.
Automatic speech-based assessment to discriminate Parkinson’s disease from essential tremor with a cross-language approach
Authors: Rios-Urrego Cristian David , Rusz Jan , Orozco-Arroyave Juan Rafael 
Published: February 2024

AbstractParkinson’s disease (PD) and essential tremor (ET) are prevalent movement disorders that mainly affect elderly people, presenting diagnostic challenges due to shared clinical features. While both disorders exhibit distinct speech patterns—hypokinetic dysarthria in PD and hyperkinetic dysarthria in ET—the efficacy of speech assessment for differentiation remains unexplored. Developing technology for automatic discrimination could enable early diagnosis and continuous monitoring. However, the lack of data for investigating speech behavior in these patients has inhibited the development of a framework for diagnostic support. In addition, phonetic variability across languages poses practical challenges in establishing a universal speech assessment system. Therefore, it is necessary to develop models robust to the phonetic variability present in different languages worldwide. We propose a method based on Gaussian mixture models to assess domain adaptation from models trained in German and Spanish to classify PD and ET patients in Czech. We modeled three different speech dimensions: articulation, phonation, and prosody and evaluated the models’ performance in both bi-class and tri-class classification scenarios (with the addition of healthy controls). Our results show that a fusion of the three speech dimensions achieved optimal results in binary classification, with accuracies up to 81.4 and 86.2% for monologue and /pa-ta-ka/ tasks, respectively. In tri-class scenarios, incorporating healthy speech signals resulted in accuracies of 63.3 and 71.6% for monologue and /pa-ta-ka/ tasks, respectively. Our findings suggest that automated speech analysis, combined with machine learning is robust, accurate, and can be adapted to different languages to distinguish between PD and ET patients.
Common mitochondrial deletions in RNA-Seq: evaluation of bulk, single-cell, and spatial transcriptomic datasets
Authors: Omidsalar Audrey A. , McCullough Carmel G. , Xu Lili , Boedijono Stanley , Gerke Daniel , Webb Michelle G. , Manojlovic Zarko , Sequeira Adolfo , Lew Mark F. , Santorelli Marco , Serrano Geidy E. , Beach Thomas G. , Limon Agenor , Vawter Marquis P. , Hjelm Brooke E. 
Published: February 2024

AbstractCommon mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) deletions are large structural variants in the mitochondrial genome that accumulate in metabolically active tissues with age and have been investigated in various diseases. We applied the Splice-Break2 pipeline (designed for high-throughput quantification of mtDNA deletions) to human RNA-Seq datasets and describe the methodological considerations for evaluating common deletions in bulk, single-cell, and spatial transcriptomics datasets. A robust evaluation of 1570 samples from 14 RNA-Seq studies showed: (i) the abundance of some common deletions detected in PCR-amplified mtDNA correlates with levels observed in RNA-Seq data; (ii) RNA-Seq library preparation method has a strong effect on deletion detection; (iii) deletions had a significant, positive correlation with age in brain and muscle; (iv) deletions were enriched in cortical grey matter, specifically in layers 3 and 5; and (v) brain regions with dopaminergic neurons (i.e., substantia nigra, ventral tegmental area, and caudate nucleus) had remarkable enrichment of common mtDNA deletions.
Unearthing the role of septins in viral infections
Authors: Khairat Jasmine Elanie , Hatta Muhammad Nur Adam , Abdullah Nurshariza , Azman Adzzie Shazleen , Calvin Shee Yin Ming , Syed Hassan Sharifah 
Published: February 2024

Abstract
Septin proteins are a subfamily of closely related GTP-binding proteins conserved in all species except for higher plants and perform essential biological processes. Septins self-assemble into heptameric or octameric complexes and form higher-order structures such as filaments, rings, or gauzes by end-to-end binding. Their close association with cell membrane components makes them central in regulating critical cellular processes. Due to their organisation and properties, septins function as diffusion barriers and are integral in providing scaffolding to support the membrane’s curvature and stability of its components. Septins are also involved in vesicle transport and exocytosis through the plasma membrane by co-localising with exocyst protein complexes. Recently, there have been emerging reports of several human and animal diseases linked to septins and abnormalities in their functions. Most of our understanding of the significance of septins during microbial diseases mainly pertains to their roles in bacterial infections but not viruses. This present review focuses on the known roles of septins in host–viral interactions as detailed by various studies.
Electrical tree degradation of MgO/epoxy resin composites at different voltage frequencies
Authors: Zhang Yunxiao , Lin Wenxin , Zhou Yuanxiang , Xing Weiwei , Cheng Jiayu , Teng Chenyuan 
Published: February 2024

AbstractElectrical tree degradation is one of the main causes of insulation failure in high‐frequency transformers. Electrical tree degradation is studied on pure epoxy resin (EP) and MgO/EP composites at frequencies ranging from 50 Hz to 130 kHz. The results show that the tree initiation voltage of EP decreases, while the growth rate and the expansion coefficient increase with frequency. Moreover, the bubble phenomenon at high frequencies in EP composites is discussed. Combined with trap distribution characteristics within the material, the intrinsic mechanism of epoxy composites to inhibit the growth of the electrical tree at different frequencies is discussed. It can be concluded that more deep traps and blocking effect are introduced by doping nano‐MgO into EP bulks, which can improve the electrical tree resistance performance of EP composites in a wide frequency range.
A fast and structurally simple control scheme based on a fuzzy supervisory approach for wireless power transfer systems
Authors: Kiyani Mohammadreza , Abdollahi Seyed Ehsan , Baigzadehnoe Barmak , Abdollahi Seyed Reza 
Published: February 2024

AbstractWireless power transfer (WPT) is a promising technology and has attracted many researchers’ attention due to its inherent advantages such as reliability, safety, flexibility, and low maintenance costs. For WPT systems, the output voltage varies according to the variable loads and the coupling coefficient conditions, affecting system stability and efficiency. In this regard, this study is concerned with the tracking control problem of WPT systems based on fuzzy supervisory proportional–integral (PI) controller and a phase shift modulation technique, which is for the first time proposed by this paper. By introducing appropriate fuzzy rules, the proposed control scheme not only can track the desired output voltage but also has better robust behaviour to deal with the problem of variations of circuit elements and coupling coefficients. That is, the proposed fuzzy supervisory PI control scheme can perform better than the traditional PI controller. Analysis of the designed control method and simulation results validate the superiority of the proposed method over the traditional PI controller in all conditions, which can make it a suitable choice for the applications of electric vehicle charging systems. The analysis is supported by experimental measurements.
The origin of cold gas in the circumgalactic medium
Authors: Decataldo Davide , Shen Sijing , Mayer Lucio , Baumschlager Bernhard , Madau Piero 
Published: February 2024

Context. The presence of cold gas (T ≲ 104 K) in the circumgalactic medium (CGM) of galaxies has been confirmed in observations and in high-resolution simulations, but its origin is still a puzzle. Possible mechanisms are cold accretion from the intergalactic medium (IGM), clumps embedded in outflows and transported from the disk, and gas detaching from the hot CGM phase via thermal instabilities.
Aims. In this work we characterize the history of cold CGM gas in order to identify the dominant origin channels at different evolutionary stages of the main galaxy.
Methods. To this end, we tracked gas particles in different snapshots of the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) cosmological zoom-in simulation Eris2k. We performed a backward tracking of cold gas, starting from different redshifts until we could identify one of the followings origins for the particle: cold inflow, ejection from the disk, cooling down in situ, or stripping from a satellite. We also performed a forward tracking of gas in different components of the galaxy (such as the disk and outflows).
Results. We find a clear transition between two epochs. For z > 2, most cold gas (up to 80%) in the CGM comes from cold accretion streams as the galaxy is accreting in the cold mode from the IGM. At lower z, gas either cools down in situ after several recycles (with 10–20% of the gas cooling in outflow), or it is ejected directly from the disk (up to 30%). Outflows have a major contribution to the cold CGM gas budget at z < 1, with almost 50% of the hot gas cooling in outflow. Finally, we discuss possible mechanisms for CGM cooling, showing that the thermally unstable gas with tcool/tff < 1 (precipitation-regulated feedback) is abundant up to r ∼ 100 kpc and cooling times are shorter than 50 Myr for densities n > 10−2 cm−3.