bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Severe lymphopenia as a prognostic factor in rectal cancer patients receiving adjuvant chemoradiotherapy: a retrospective study
Authors: Li Shuang , Yao Weiping , Liu Ruiqi , Lu Yanwei , Zhang Haibo , Liang Xiaodong 
Published: May 2023

AbstractThe relationship between total lymphocyte counts (TLCs) and survival is not well documented in rectal cancer. This study aimed to investigate the association between TLCs and disease-free survival (DFS) and identify factors associated with lymphopenia in locally advanced rectal cancer patients receiving chemoradiotherapy. Thirty-six patients with locally advanced rectal cancer were retrospectively analyzed. TLCs were evaluated before surgery (pre-S), before radiotherapy (pre-RT), and during concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT). The relationship between TLCs and DFS was analyzed by univariate and multivariate analysis. Potential clinical factors associated with lymphopenia were also evaluated. Median TLC declined significantly during radiotherapy. Severe lymphopenia during CCRT was significantly associated with poorer DFS on Kaplan–Meier analysis (p = 0.01), univariate regression analysis (p = 0.036), and multivariate regression analysis (p = 0.038). Pre-S TLCs (p = 0.009) and pre-RT TLCs (p = 0.042) were significantly associated with severe lymphopenia on univariate regression analysis; however, only pre-S TLCs (p = 0.026) were significantly associated with severe lymphopenia on multivariate regression analysis. Severe lymphopenia was a predictor of poorer DFS in patients with locally advanced rectal cancer receiving adjuvant chemoradiotherapy. Pre-S TLCs were predictors of severe lymphopenia. Further study is warranted to reduce the rate of severe lymphopenia.
Influence of in utero fetal death on perineal tears in vaginal deliveries
Authors: Boudry Thibaud , Lallemant Marine , Ramanah Rajeev , Mottet Nicolas 
Published: May 2023

AbstractThe aim of this work was to evaluate and compare the incidence of perineal tears and Obstetrical anal sphincter injuries (OASIS) after vaginal delivery following a in utero fetal death (IUFD) compared with those with a live-birth. We conducted a single-center, retrospective cohort study using a database of all women who underwent a spontaneous vaginal delivery in the level III maternity ward. Exclusion criteria were breech presentation, cesarean section birth, instrumental delivery, multiple pregnancy, delivery before 24 + 6 weeks of gestation (WG) and termination of pregnancy for medical reasons. Women from the database were divided into two groups: an "in utero fetal death" (IUFD) group and a control group. Women were included in the IUFD group if they had a spontaneous vaginal delivery following a fetal demise after 24 + 6 WG in cephalic presentation between January 2006 and June 2020. Women in the "control" group were selected from the same database and were included if they underwent a spontaneous vaginal delivery of a live fetus in cephalic presentation, after 24 + 6 WG, during the same period. Each woman in the "IUFD" group was matched to two women (ratio 1:2) in the control group for parity, maternal age, body mass index, gestation and birth weight. The primary outcome was the presence of a sutured or unsutured perineal tear. During the study period, 31,208 patients delivered at a level III maternity hospital. Among them, 215 and 430 women were included in the IUFD group and the control group respectively. The two groups were comparable for all demographic and clinical characteristics except for an epidural analgesia (92% versus 70% in the control group, p < 0.01) and labor induction (86% versus 17% in the control group, p < 0.01). The incidence of any perineal tears was 13% (28/15) in the IUFD group versus 16% (70/430) in the control group. Relative risk of any perineal tears was non significative (RR = 0.8 IC95% [0.5–1.2]). The incidence of first-degree perineal tears was 10% in the IUFD group and 11% in the control group. The incidence of second-degree perineal tears was 18% in the IUFD group and 28% in the control group. Relative risk of first-degree perineal tears (RR = 0.88 95% CI [0.5–1.4]) and second-degree tears (RR = 0.51 95% CI [0.2–1.4]) were non significative. No obstetrical anal sphincter injury was found in either group. Vaginal delivery following a fetal demise did not appear to be either a risk factor or a protective factor for perineal tears. But there as a trend toward a lower incidence of second degree perineal tears in this context.
Multimodal fusion models for pulmonary embolism mortality prediction
Authors: Cahan Noa , Klang Eyal , Marom Edith M. , Soffer Shelly , Barash Yiftach , Burshtein Evyatar , Konen Eli , Greenspan Hayit 
Published: May 2023

AbstractPulmonary embolism (PE) is a common, life threatening cardiovascular emergency. Risk stratification is one of the core principles of acute PE management and determines the choice of diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. In routine clinical practice, clinicians rely on the patient’s electronic health record (EHR) to provide a context for their medical imaging interpretation. Most deep learning models for radiology applications only consider pixel-value information without the clinical context. Only a few integrate both clinical and imaging data. In this work, we develop and compare multimodal fusion models that can utilize multimodal data by combining both volumetric pixel data and clinical patient data for automatic risk stratification of PE. Our best performing model is an intermediate fusion model that incorporates both bilinear attention and TabNet, and can be trained in an end-to-end manner. The results show that multimodality boosts performance by up to 14% with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.96 for assessing PE severity, with a sensitivity of 90% and specificity of 94%, thus pointing to the value of using multimodal data to automatically assess PE severity.
Studying the mechanism and kinetics of fuel desulfurization using CexOy/NiOx piezo-catalysts as a new low-temperature method
Authors: Ahmed Sangar S. , Amiri Omid , Rahman Karwan M. , Ismael Savana J. , Rasul Noor S. , Mohammad Darya , Babakr Karukh A. , Abdulrahman Nabaz A. 
Published: May 2023

AbstractIn order to advance desulfurization technology, a new method for excellent oxidative desulfurization of fuel at room temperature will be of paramount importance. As a novel desulfurization method, we developed piezo-catalysts that do not require adding any oxidants and can be performed at room temperature. A microwave method was used to prepare CeO2/Ce2O3/NiOx nanocomposites. Model and real fuel desulfurization rates were examined as a function of synthesis parameters, such as microwave power and time, and operation conditions, such as pH and ultrasonic power. The results showed that CeO2/Ce2O3/NiOx nanocomposites demonstrated outstanding piezo-desulfurization at room temperature for both model and real fuels. Furthermore, CeO2/Ce2O3/NiOx nanocomposites exhibited remarkable reusability, maintaining 79% of their piezo-catalytic activity even after 17 repetitions for desulfurization of real fuel. An investigation of the mechanism of sulfur oxidation revealed that superoxide radicals and holes played a major role. Additionally, the kinetic study revealed that sulfur removal by piezo-catalyst follows a second-order reaction kinetic model.
A kinetic-based stopped-flow DPPH• method
Authors: Angeli Lucrezia , Morozova Ksenia , Scampicchio Matteo 
Published: May 2023

AbstractThe reaction kinetics of antioxidants with free radicals is crucial to screen their functionality. However, studying antioxidant-radical interactions is very challenging for fast electron-donor substances, such as ascorbic acid, because the reaction ends in a few seconds. Accordingly, this work proposes a rapid and sensitive method for the determination of the absolute rate constant of the reaction between fast antioxidants and DPPH•. The method consists of a stopped-flow spectrophotometric system, which monitors the decay of DPPH• during its interaction with antioxidants. A kinetic-based reaction mechanism fits the experimental data. Kinetic parameters include a second order kinetics (k1) and, depending on the type of antioxidant, a side reaction (k2). Ascorbic acid was the fastest antioxidant (k1 = 21,100 ± 570 M−1 s−1) in comparison with other eleven phenols, showing k1 values from 45 to 3070 M−1 s−1. Compounds like catechin, epicatechin, quercetin, rutin, and tannic, ellagic and syringic acids presented a side reaction (k2 from 15 to 60 M−1 s−1). Among seven fruit juices, strawberry was the fastest, while red plum the slowest. Overall, the proposed kinetic-based DPPH• method is simple, rapid, and suitable for studying the activity and capacity of different molecules, and food samples rich in fast antioxidants, like fruit juices.
Small RNA transcriptome analysis using parallel single-cell small RNA sequencing
Authors: Li Jia , Zhang Zhirong , Zhuang Yinghua , Wang Fengchao , Cai Tao 
Published: May 2023

AbstractmiRNA and other forms of small RNAs are known to regulate many biological processes. Single-cell small RNA sequencing can be used to profile small RNAs of individual cells; however, limitations of efficiency and scale prevent its widespread application. Here, we developed parallel single-cell small RNA sequencing (PSCSR-seq), which can overcome the limitations of existing methods and enable high-throughput small RNA expression profiling of individual cells. Analysis of PSCSR-seq data indicated that diverse cell types could be identified based on patterns of miRNA expression, and showed that miRNA content in nuclei is informative (for example, cell type marker miRNAs can be detected in isolated nuclei). PSCSR-seq is very sensitive: analysis of only 732 peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) detected 774 miRNAs, whereas bulk small RNA analysis would require input RNA from approximately 106 cells to detect as many miRNAs. We identified 42 miRNAs as markers for PBMC subpopulations. Moreover, we analyzed the miRNA profiles of 9,533 cells from lung cancer biopsies, and by dissecting cell subpopulations, we identified potentially diagnostic and therapeutic miRNAs for lung cancers. Our study demonstrates that PSCSR-seq is highly sensitive and reproducible, thus making it an advanced tool for miRNA analysis in cancer and life science research.
Deep ocean water alters the cholesterol and mineral metabolism of squid Todarodes pacificus and suppresses its weight loss
Authors: Hatano Kaito , Yoshida Masa-Aki , Hirayama Jun , Kitani Yoichiro , Hattori Atsuhiko , Ogiso Shouzo , Watabe Yukina , Sekiguchi Toshio , Tabuchi Yoshiaki , Urata Makoto , Matsumoto Kyoko , Sakatoku Akihiro , Srivastav Ajai K. , Toyota Kenji , Matsubara Hajime , Suzuki Nobuo 
Published: May 2023

AbstractThis study is the first to demonstrate that deep ocean water (DOW) has physiological significant effects on squid. After 36 h of rearing squids, those reared with DOW had significantly higher total and free cholesterol levels and lower alanine transaminase activity in hemolymph as compared with those reared with surface sea water (SSW). SSW rearing also resulted in 6.95% weight loss, while DOW rearing caused only 2.5% weight loss, which might be due to liver metabolism suppression. Furthermore, both monovalent (sodium, chloride, and potassium ions) and divalent (calcium, inorganic phosphorus, and magnesium ions) ions in hemolymph were elevated when reared with DOW compared to those when reared with SSW. A study of genes expressed in the brain revealed that five genes were specifically remarked in DOW rearing. Most altered genes were neuropeptides, including those from vasopressin superfamily. These neuropeptides are involved in cholesterol and/or mineral metabolisms and physiological significant effects on squid. This study is the first report the effects of DOW on cholesterol and mineral metabolism of squid and will contribute to squid aquaculture using DOW.
Brain-wide dendrites in a near-optimal performance of dynamic range and information transmission
Authors: Lin Congping , Xu Fan , Zhang Yiwei 
Published: May 2023

AbstractDendrites receive and process signals from other neurons. The range of signal intensities that can be robustly distinguished by dendrites is quantified by the dynamic range. We investigate the dynamic range and information transmission efficiency of dendrites in relation to dendritic morphology. We model dendrites in a neuron as multiple excitable binary trees connected to the soma where each node in a tree can be excited by external stimulus or by receiving signals transmitted from adjacent excited nodes. It has been known that larger dendritic trees have a higher dynamic range. We show that for dendritic tress of the same number of nodes, the dynamic range increases with the number of somatic branches and decreases with the asymmetry of dendrites, and the information transmission is more efficient for dendrites with more somatic branches. Moreover, our simulated data suggest that there is an exponential association (decay resp.) of overall relative energy consumption (dynamic range resp.) in relation to the number of somatic branches. This indicates that further increasing the number of somatic branches (e.g. beyond 10 somatic branches) has limited ability to improve the transmission efficiency. With brain-wide neuron digital reconstructions of the pyramidal cells, 90% of neurons have no more than 10 dendrites. These suggest that actual brain-wide dendritic morphology is near optimal in terms of both dynamic range and information transmission.
Increased gulf stream warm core ring formations contributes to an observed increase in salinity maximum intrusions on the Northeast Shelf
Authors: Silver Adrienne , Gangopadhyay Avijit , Gawarkiewicz Glen , Fratantoni Paula , Clark Jenifer 
Published: May 2023

AbstractWe present observational evidence of a significant increase in Salinity Maximum intrusions in the Northeast US Shelf waters in the years following 2000. This increase is subsequent to and influenced by a previously observed regime-shift in the annual formation rate for Gulf Stream Warm Core Rings, which are relatively more saline than the shelf waters. Specifically, mid-depth salinity maximum intrusions, a cross-shelf exchange process, has shown a quadrupling in frequency on the shelf after the year 2000. This increase in intrusion frequency can be linked to a similar increase in Warm Core Ring occupancy footprint along the offshore edge of the shelf-break which has greatly increased the abundance of warm salty water within the Slope Sea. The increased ring occupancy footprint along the shelf follows from the near doubling in annual Warm Core Ring formation rate from the Gulf Stream. The increased occurrence of intrusions is likely driven by a combination of a larger number of rings in the slope sea and the northward shift in the GS position which may lead to more interactions between rings and the shelf topography. These results have significant implications for interpreting temporal changes in the shelf ecosystem from the standpoint of both larval recruitment as well as habitability for various important commercial species.
Establishment and application of suspension static method in blood group screening of automated blood group analyzer
Authors: Huang Min , Ma Chengping , Li Yan , Dong Ruiping , Pang Rongrong , Huang Shuizhen , Fu Qiang , Zhang Libo 
Published: May 2023

AbstractThe accuracy of blood group identification is the basis of blood transfusion safety. In order to increase the detection rate of weak agglutination, unexpected antibodies (UAb) and blood subtypes for pre-transfusion testing, the blood group screening process of automated blood group analyzer (ABGA) is ameliorated by introducing one static step and establishing a suspension static method (SSM). One static step was introduced in the blood group screening process of ABGA and three static time conditions were designed: 300 s, 400 s and 500 s, from which the optimal static time was selected and SSM was established; By comparing the detection of weak agglutination and UAb before and after the application of SSM, the feasibility and effect of suspension static method were verified and evaluated. The last two steps of the automatic blood group screening process were replaced with static, light centrifugation and imaging. The optimal static time parameter was selected as 400 s and SSM was established; After the application of SSM, it was verified that: (1) The detection level of weak antibodies (anti-A and anti-B) and weak antigens (weak D phenotype) could be improved by SSM, including antibodies in plasma of known type O samples with 0, 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 times serial dilutions(simulating weak anti-A and weak anti-B), weak antibodies (anti-B) in plasma of one normal A-type sample and weak antigens on red blood cells (RBC) of 5 weak D phenotype samples (weak D antigen); (2) Three blood donor samples (type A, O and B) with known UAb were detected by SSM. The results showed that SSM could detect both weak antibodies (anti-A and anti-B) and UAb; (3) SSM was applied to detect the samples of 3 A2B and 3 subtype B blood donors and the blood subtypes could be clearly detected; (4) The number of screening samples was 95,314 and 106,814 before SSM (2018) and after (2020) the application of SSM and the positive rate of UAb (63/95,314 and 187/106,814) increased after SSM, discrepancy of which was statistically significant (χ2 = 48.42, P < 0.01). The above results demonstrate that SSM of ABGA is conducive to the detection of weak agglutination, UAb and blood subtypes in blood samples, which can improve the sensitivity of blood group detection and ensure the safety of clinical blood transfusion to a certain extent.
In-depth analysis on PTB7 based semi-transparent solar cell employing MoO3/Ag/WO3 contact for advanced optical performance and light utilization
Authors: Çokduygulular Erman , Çetinkaya Çağlar , Emik Serkan , Kınacı Barış 
Published: May 2023

AbstractNovel semi-transparent organic solar cells (ST-OSC) can be designed with high average visible transmittance (AVT) while at the same time exhibiting superior photovoltaic performance. This reach requires their design to be based not only on conventional window applications but also on functional industrial applications that require exceptional optical performance. In ST-OSC, high AVT can be achieved by photonic-based dielectric/metal/dielectric (DMD) transparent contact engineering. Functional optical modification can also be made with a fine-tuned design of DMD that includes a light management engineering-based approach. Thus, ST-OSCs can be suitable for aesthetic, colourful and decorative industrial windows that provide natural lighting. In this study, we determined optimal ST-OSCs based on a novel PTB7:PC71BM polymer blend with MoO3/Ag/WO3 asymmetric DMD top contact by examining extraordinary optical properties such as AVT, colour rendering index, correlated colour temperature and colour perception over 10 thousand designs. In addition to determining the optimality and extraordinary optical limits for PTB7, we also evaluated the photon-harvesting and photovoltaic performance of ST-OSCs from external quantum efficiency and quantum utilization efficiency. In optimal situations, ST-OSCs offering 48.75% AVT, 99.08 CRI, and sky-blue colours were designed and determined to generate short-circuit current densities of 9.88 mA·cm−2, 13.64 mA·cm−2, and 13.06 mA·cm−2, respectively.
Nonlinear canonical correspondence analysis and its application
Authors: Zhou Leru , Liu Zhili , Liu Fei , Peng Jian , Zhou Tiejun 
Published: May 2023

AbstractThe canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) is a multivariate direct gradient analysis method performing well in many fields, however, when it comes to approximating the unimodal response of species to an environmental gradient, which still assumes that the relationship between the environment and the weighted species score is linear. In this work, we propose a nonlinear canonical correspondence analysis method (NCCA), which first determines the most appropriate nonlinear explanatory factor through two screenings by correlation and LASSO regression, and successively uses the linear regression method and the improved heuristic optimal quadratic approximation method to fit the chi-square transformation values of the response variables. Thus, our method effectively reflects the nonlinear relationship between the species and the environment factors, and a biplot is employed to visualize the effects of the later on the distribution of species. The results from applying this method over a real dataset show that the NCCA method not only maintains the advantages of the polynomial canonical correspondence analysis (PCCA) proposed by Makarenkov (2002), but also outperforms Makarenkov’s method in explaining the variance of response variables.
Network pharmacology analysis reveals potential targets and mechanisms of proton pump inhibitors in breast cancer with diabetes
Authors: Hu Haihong , Wang Hanbin , Yang Xiaoyan , Li Zhicheng , Zhan Wendi , Zhu HongXia , Zhang Taolan 
Published: May 2023

AbstractBreast cancer and diabetes are significant health challenges, and effective treatments for both diseases are lacking. Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) have demonstrated anticancer and hypoglycemic effects, but their mechanisms of action are not yet fully understood. We used the GeneCards and PharmMapper databases to identify therapeutic targets for diabetes, breast cancer and PPIs. We identified common targets and constructed a regulatory network of diseases and drugs using the STRING database and Cytoscape software. We also explored the binding between small molecule ligands and protein receptors using Discovery Studio software. We identified 33 shared targets for breast cancer, diabetes, and PPIs including lansoprazole, omeprazole, and pantoprazole, which play a critical role in fatty acid transport, insulin resistance, apoptosis, and cancer-related signaling pathways. Our findings demonstrated that PPIs had a strong affinity for AKT1 and MMP9. This study provides insights into the mechanisms of action of PPIs in breast cancer and diabetes and identifies AKT1 and MMP9 as critical targets for future drug development. Our findings highlight the potential of PPIs as a novel therapeutic approach for these challenging diseases.