bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Early evolution of glial morphology and inflammatory cytokines following hypoxic-ischemic injury in the newborn piglet brain
Authors: Teo Elliot J. , Chand Kirat. K. , Miller Stephanie M. , Wixey Julie A. , Colditz Paul B. , Bjorkman S. Tracey. 
Published: January 2023

AbstractNeuroinflammation is a hallmark of hypoxic-ischemic injury and can be characterized by the activation of glial cells and the expression of inflammatory cytokines and chemokines. Interleukin (IL)-1β and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)α are among the best-characterized early response cytokines and are often expressed concurrently. Several types of central nervous system cells secrete IL-1β and TNFα, including microglia, astrocytes, and neurons, and these cytokines convey potent pro-inflammatory actions. Chemokines also play a central role in neuroinflammation by controlling inflammatory cell trafficking. Our aim was to characterise the evolution of early neuroinflammation in the neonatal piglet model of hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE). Piglets (< 24 h old) were exposed to HI insult, and recovered to 2, 4, 8, 12 or 24H post-insult. Brain tissue from the frontal cortex and basal ganglia was harvested for assessment of glial cell activation profiles and transcription levels of inflammatory markers in HI piglets with comparison to a control group of newborn piglets. Fluorescence microscopy was used to observe microglia, astrocytes, neurons, degenerating neurons and possibly apoptotic cells, and quantitative polymerase chain reaction was used to measure gene expression of several cytokines and chemokines. HI injury was associated with microglial activation and morphological changes to astrocytes at all time points examined. Gene expression analyses of inflammation-related markers revealed significantly higher expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines tumor necrosis factor-α (TNFα) and interleukin 1 beta (IL-1β), chemokines cxc-chemokine motif ligand (CXCL)8 and CXCL10, and anti-inflammatory cytokine transforming growth factor (TGF)β in every HI group, with some region-specific differences noted. No significant difference was observed in the level of C-X-C chemokine receptor (CCR)5 over time. This high degree of neuroinflammation was associated with a reduction in the number of neurons in piglets at 12H and 24H in the frontal cortex, and the putamen at 12H. This reduction of neurons was not associated with increased numbers of degenerating neurons or potentially apoptotic cells. HI injury triggered a robust early neuroinflammatory response associated with a reduction in neurons in cortical and subcortical regions in our piglet model of HIE. This neuroinflammatory response may be targeted using novel therapeutics to reduce neuropathology in our piglet model of neonatal HIE.
Small molecule targeting long noncoding RNA GAS5 administered intranasally improves neuronal insulin signaling and decreases neuroinflammation in an aged mouse model
Authors: Patel Rekha S. , Lui Ashley , Hudson Charles , Moss Lauren , Sparks Robert P. , Hill Shannon E. , Shi Yan , Cai Jianfeng , Blair Laura J. , Bickford Paula C. , Patel Niketa A. 
Published: January 2023

AbstractShifts in normal aging set stage for neurodegeneration and dementia affecting 1 in 10 adults. The study demonstrates that lncRNA GAS5 is decreased in aged and Alzheimer’s disease brain. The role and targets of lncRNA GAS5 in the aging brain were elucidated using a GAS5-targeting small molecule NPC86, a frontier in lncRNA-targeting therapeutic. Robust techniques such as molecular dynamics simulation of NPC86 binding to GAS5, in vitro functional assays demonstrating that GAS5 regulates insulin signaling, neuronal survival, phosphorylation of tau, and neuroinflammation via toll-like receptors support the role of GAS5 in maintaining healthy neurons. The study demonstrates the safety and efficacy of intranasal NPC86 treatment in aged mice to improve cellular functions with transcriptomic analysis in response to NPC86. In summary, the study demonstrates that GAS5 contributes to pathways associated with neurodegeneration and NPC86 has tremendous therapeutic potential to prevent the advent of neurodegenerative diseases and dementias.
Densely attention mechanism based network for COVID-19 detection in chest X-rays
Authors: Ullah Zahid , Usman Muhammad , Latif Siddique , Gwak Jeonghwan 
Published: January 2023

AbstractAutomatic COVID-19 detection using chest X-ray (CXR) can play a vital part in large-scale screening and epidemic control. However, the radiographic features of CXR have different composite appearances, for instance, diffuse reticular-nodular opacities and widespread ground-glass opacities. This makes the automatic recognition of COVID-19 using CXR imaging a challenging task. To overcome this issue, we propose a densely attention mechanism-based network (DAM-Net) for COVID-19 detection in CXR. DAM-Net adaptively extracts spatial features of COVID-19 from the infected regions with various appearances and scales. Our proposed DAM-Net is composed of dense layers, channel attention layers, adaptive downsampling layer, and label smoothing regularization loss function. Dense layers extract the spatial features and the channel attention approach adaptively builds up the weights of major feature channels and suppresses the redundant feature representations. We use the cross-entropy loss function based on label smoothing to limit the effect of interclass similarity upon feature representations. The network is trained and tested on the largest publicly available dataset, i.e., COVIDx, consisting of 17,342 CXRs. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach obtains state-of-the-art results for COVID-19 classification with an accuracy of 97.22%, a sensitivity of 96.87%, a specificity of 99.12%, and a precision of 95.54%.
Purified complement C3b triggers phagocytosis and activation of human neutrophils via complement receptor 1
Authors: Boero Elena , Gorham Ronald D. , Francis Emmet A. , Brand Jonathan , Teng Lay Heng , Doorduijn Dennis J. , Ruyken Maartje , Muts Remy M. , Lehmann Christian , Verschoor Admar , van Kessel Kok P. M. , Heinrich Volkmar , Rooijakkers Suzan H. M. 
Published: January 2023

AbstractThe complement system provides vital immune protection against infectious agents by labeling them with complement fragments that enhance phagocytosis by immune cells. Many details of complement-mediated phagocytosis remain elusive, partly because it is difficult to study the role of individual complement proteins on target surfaces. Here, we employ serum-free methods to couple purified complement C3b onto E. coli bacteria and beads and then expose human neutrophils to these C3b-coated targets. We examine the neutrophil response using a combination of flow cytometry, confocal microscopy, luminometry, single-live-cell/single-target manipulation, and dynamic analysis of neutrophil spreading on opsonin-coated surfaces. We show that purified C3b can potently trigger phagocytosis and killing of bacterial cells via Complement receptor 1. Comparison of neutrophil phagocytosis of C3b- versus antibody-coated beads with single-bead/single-target analysis exposes a similar cell morphology during engulfment. However, bulk phagocytosis assays of C3b-beads combined with DNA-based quenching reveal that these are poorly internalized compared to their IgG1 counterparts. Similarly, neutrophils spread slower on C3b-coated compared to IgG-coated surfaces. These observations support the requirement of multiple stimulations for efficient C3b-mediated uptake. Together, our results establish the existence of a direct pathway of phagocytic uptake of C3b-coated targets and present methodologies to study this process.
Study on smoke blocking and thermal radiation attenuation by water curtain in tunnel fire
Authors: Chen Yinuo , Jia Jinzhang , Che Guangbo , Zhu Zhiheng , Shen Zhiyuan , Wu Yumo 
Published: January 2023

AbstractA 1:10 scale model tunnel with a length, height and width of 9 m, 0.6 m and 0.8 m, respectively, was set up in this paper. A water curtain system was installed in the model to investigate the effect of water curtain systems on smoke flow and heat propagation. A reduced-scale experimental and theoretical study was carried out by varying the heat release rate of the fire source, the water curtain pressure, and the number of water curtain rows. A series of tests were carried out for various setups to quantify each mechanism of interaction between the water mist and hot smoke, to propose a method for qualitatively analysing water curtain systems blocking the propagation of heat radiation and the flow of smoke from combustion, and to propose a method for predicting heat fluxes. The study found that the pressure of the water curtain, the number of rows, and the heat release rate of the fire source all had an effect on the smoke blocking effect of the water curtain system. This effect decreased as the heat release rate of the fire source increased and increased significantly with the pressure of the water curtain and the number of rows. The smoke blocking effect was quantified using conservation of momentum by establishing a dimensionless parameter R to represent the ratio of water curtain momentum to smoke momentum, as well as the ratio of heat flux before and after the water curtain to represent the smoke blocking capacity $$\delta$$
δ
of the water curtain. The smoke blockage rate $$\delta$$
δ
ranges between 40 and 75%, and the smoke blockage rate increases as the momentum R increases. Finally, in tunnel fires, a predictive model for the attenuation of heat radiation by water curtains has been developed, providing theoretical support for the quantitative study of the smoke and thermal blockage effects of water curtains, which is beneficial to the protection of human life in confined spaces.
Shear behavior of bedding fault material on the basal layer of DGB landslide
Authors: Liang Yufei , Cui Shenghua , Pei Xiangjun , Zhu Ling , Wang Hui , Yang Qingwen 
Published: January 2023

AbstractDaguangbao (DGB) Landslide (12 × 108 m3) is the largest landslide triggered by the 2008 Ms8.0 Wenchuan Earthquake, in which basal shear failure develops on an interlayer fault at 400 m deep under the ground. After the landslide, a 1.8 km long (in the sliding direction) oblique shear face is exposed. Different kinds of materials in the interlayer fault of DGB landslide are taken for direct shear test, medium scale shear test, in-situ shear test and ring shear test. The test results show that fault material cohesion ranges from 20 to 320 kPa and internal friction angle from 15° to 41°. Shearing strength of interlayer fault materials is related to fragmentation degree of structure. The lower fragmentation degree the more obvious strain softening characteristics of materials, the higher fragmentation degree the poorer shearing resistance of materials. Compared with argillaceous materials in the same fault, the mylonitic materials are of higher shear strength and internal friction angle. Both mylonitic materials and breccia materials are strong in liquefying. In saturated undrained cases, shear strength of fault materials could drop to 9.7°, with S3 down to 0. In saturated undrained dynamic shear conditions, fault internal friction angle could be reduced to 23.1° and 4.2°. It is concluded that low friction feature of fault materials caused by the influence of groundwater is the main reason for destabilization of DGB landslide.
Prediction of left ventricular ejection fraction changes in heart failure patients using machine learning and electronic health records: a multi-site study
Authors: Adekkanattu Prakash , Rasmussen Luke V. , Pacheco Jennifer A. , Kabariti Joseph , Stone Daniel J. , Yu Yue , Jiang Guoqian , Luo Yuan , Brandt Pascal S. , Xu Zhenxing , Vekaria Veer , Xu Jie , Wang Fei , Benda Natalie C. , Peng Yifan , Goyal Parag , Ahmad Faraz S. , Pathak Jyotishman 
Published: January 2023

AbstractLeft ventricular ejection fraction (EF) is a key measure in the diagnosis and treatment of heart failure (HF) and many patients experience changes in EF overtime. Large-scale analysis of longitudinal changes in EF using electronic health records (EHRs) is limited. In a multi-site retrospective study using EHR data from three academic medical centers, we investigated longitudinal changes in EF measurements in patients diagnosed with HF. We observed significant variations in baseline characteristics and longitudinal EF change behavior of the HF cohorts from a previous study that is based on HF registry data. Data gathered from this longitudinal study were used to develop multiple machine learning models to predict changes in ejection fraction measurements in HF patients. Across all three sites, we observed higher performance in predicting EF increase over a 1-year duration, with similarly higher performance predicting an EF increase of 30% from baseline compared to lower percentage increases. In predicting EF decrease we found moderate to high performance with low confidence for various models. Among various machine learning models, XGBoost was the best performing model for predicting EF changes. Across the three sites, the XGBoost model had an F1-score of 87.2, 89.9, and 88.6 and AUC of 0.83, 0.87, and 0.90 in predicting a 30% increase in EF, and had an F1-score of 95.0, 90.6, 90.1 and AUC of 0.54, 0.56, 0.68 in predicting a 30% decrease in EF. Among features that contribute to predicting EF changes, baseline ejection fraction measurement, age, gender, and heart diseases were found to be statistically significant.
Indolethylamine N-methyltransferase (INMT) is not essential for endogenous tryptamine-dependent methylation activity in rats
Authors: Glynos Nicolas G. , Carter Lily , Lee Soo Jung , Kim Youngsoo , Kennedy Robert T. , Mashour George A. , Wang Michael M. , Borjigin Jimo 
Published: January 2023

AbstractIndolethylamine N-methyltransferase (INMT) is a transmethylation enzyme that utilizes the methyl donor S-adenosyl-L-methionine to transfer methyl groups to amino groups of small molecule acceptor compounds. INMT is best known for its role in the biosynthesis of N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a psychedelic compound found in mammalian brain and other tissues. In mammals, biosynthesis of DMT is thought to occur via the double methylation of tryptamine, where INMT first catalyzes the biosynthesis of N-methyltryptamine (NMT) and then DMT. However, it is unknown whether INMT is necessary for the biosynthesis of endogenous DMT. To test this, we generated a novel INMT-knockout rat model and studied tryptamine methylation using radiometric enzyme assays, thin-layer chromatography, and ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. We also studied tryptamine methylation in recombinant rat, rabbit, and human INMT. We report that brain and lung tissues from both wild type and INMT-knockout rats show equal levels of tryptamine-dependent activity, but that the enzymatic products are neither NMT nor DMT. In addition, rat INMT was not sufficient for NMT or DMT biosynthesis. These results suggest an alternative enzymatic pathway for DMT biosynthesis in rats. This work motivates the investigation of novel pathways for endogenous DMT biosynthesis in mammals.
Characterization of relativistic electron–positron beams produced with laser-accelerated GeV electrons
Authors: Song Hoon , Kim Chul Min , Won Junho , Song Jaehyun , Lee Seongmin , Ryu Chang-Mo , Bang Woosuk , Nam Chang Hee 
Published: January 2023

AbstractThe characterization of an electron–positron beam generated from the interaction of a multi-GeV electron beam with a lead plate is performed using GEANT4 simulations. The dependence of the positron beam size on driver electron beam energy and lead converter thickness is investigated in detail. A pancake-like positron beam structure is generated with a monoenergetic multi-GeV driver electron beam, with the results indicating that a 5 GeV driver electron beam with 1 nC charge can generate a positron beam with a density of 1015–1016 cm−3 at one radiation length of lead. In addition, we find that electron–positron beams generated using above-GeV electron beams have neutralities greater than 0.3 at one radiation length of lead, whereas neutralities of 0.2 are observed when using a 200 MeV electron beam. The possibility of observing plasma instabilities in experiments is also examined by comparing the plasma skin depth with the electron–positron beam size. A quasi-neutral electron–positron plasma can be produced in the interaction between a 1 nC, 5 GeV electron beam and lead with a thickness of five radiation lengths. Our findings will aid in analyzing and interpreting laser-produced electron–positron plasma for laboratory astrophysics research.
Adaptive nonsingular terminal sliding mode control of robot manipulator based on contour error compensation
Authors: Dachang Zhu , Pengcheng Huang , Baolin Du , Puchen Zhu 
Published: January 2023

AbstractTo achieve accurate contour tracking of robotic manipulators with system uncertainties, external disturbance and actuator faults, a cross-coupling contour adaptive nonsingular terminal sliding mode control (CCCANTSMC) is proposed. A nonsingular terminal sliding mode manifold is developed which eliminates the singularity completely. In order to avoid the demand of the prior knowledge of system uncertainties, external disturbance and actuator faults in practical applications, an adaptive tuning approach is proposed. The stability of the proposed control strategy is demonstrated by the finite-time stability theory. Then, the developed controller combines adaptive nonlinear terminal sliding mode control (ANTSMC) of joint trajectory tracking and proportion–differentiation control of end-effector contour tracking by introducing the coupling factor between multiple axes based on Jacobian. Moreover, a unified framework of cross-coupling contour compensation and reference position pre-compensation is built. Finally, numerical simulation and experimental results validate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.
Magnetoencephalography recordings reveal the neural mechanisms of auditory contributions to improved visual detection
Authors: Pérez-Bellido Alexis , Spaak Eelke , de Lange Floris P. 
Published: January 2023

AbstractSounds enhance the detection of visual stimuli while concurrently biasing an observer’s decisions. To investigate the neural mechanisms that underlie such multisensory interactions, we decoded time-resolved Signal Detection Theory sensitivity and criterion parameters from magneto-encephalographic recordings of participants that performed a visual detection task. We found that sounds improved visual detection sensitivity by enhancing the accumulation and maintenance of perceptual evidence over time. Meanwhile, criterion decoding analyses revealed that sounds induced brain activity patterns that resembled the patterns evoked by an actual visual stimulus. These two complementary mechanisms of audiovisual interplay differed in terms of their automaticity: Whereas the sound-induced enhancement in visual sensitivity depended on participants being actively engaged in a detection task, we found that sounds activated the visual cortex irrespective of task demands, potentially inducing visual illusory percepts. These results challenge the classical assumption that sound-induced increases in false alarms exclusively correspond to decision-level biases.
Neuroprosthetics: from sensorimotor to cognitive disorders
Authors: Gupta Ankur , Vardalakis Nikolaos , Wagner Fabien B. 
Published: January 2023

AbstractNeuroprosthetics is a multidisciplinary field at the interface between neurosciences and biomedical engineering, which aims at replacing or modulating parts of the nervous system that get disrupted in neurological disorders or after injury. Although neuroprostheses have steadily evolved over the past 60 years in the field of sensory and motor disorders, their application to higher-order cognitive functions is still at a relatively preliminary stage. Nevertheless, a recent series of proof-of-concept studies suggest that electrical neuromodulation strategies might also be useful in alleviating some cognitive and memory deficits, in particular in the context of dementia. Here, we review the evolution of neuroprosthetics from sensorimotor to cognitive disorders, highlighting important common principles such as the need for neuroprosthetic systems that enable multisite bidirectional interactions with the nervous system.
Surface states of dual-atom catalysts should be considered for analysis of electrocatalytic activity
Authors: Yang Weijie , Jia Zhenhe , Zhou Binghui , Wei Li , Gao Zhengyang , Li Hao 
Published: January 2023

AbstractExperimentally well-characterized dual-atom catalysts (DACs), where two adjacent metal atoms are stably anchored on carbon defects, have shown some clear advantages in electrocatalysis compared to conventional catalysts and emerging single-atom catalysts. However, most previous theoretical studies directly used a pristine dual-atom site to analyze the electrocatalytic activity of a DAC. Herein, by analyzing 8 homonuclear and 64 heteronuclear DACs structures with ab initio calculations, our derived surface Pourbaix diagrams show that the surface states of DACs generally differ from a pristine surface at electrocatalytic operating conditions. This phenomenon suggests that the surface state of a DAC should be considered before analyzing the catalytic activity in electrocatalysis, while the electrochemistry-driven pre-adsorbed molecules generated from the liquid phase may either change the electronic properties or even block the active site of DACs. Based on these results, we provide a critical comment to the catalyst community: before analyzing the electrocatalytic activity of a DAC, its surface state should be analyzed beforehand.
The interaction of droplet dynamics and turbulence cascade
Authors: Crialesi-Esposito Marco , Chibbaro Sergio , Brandt Luca 
Published: January 2023

AbstractThe dynamics of droplet fragmentation in turbulence is described by the Kolmogorov-Hinze framework. Yet, a quantitative theory is lacking at higher concentrations when strong interactions between the phases and coalescence become relevant, which is common in most flows. Here, we address this issue through a fully-coupled numerical study of the droplet dynamics in a turbulent flow at Rλ ≈ 140, the highest attained up to now. By means of time-space spectral statistics, not currently accessible to experiments, we demonstrate that the characteristic scale of the process, the Hinze scale, can be precisely identified as the scale at which the net energy exchange due to capillarity is zero. Droplets larger than this scale preferentially break up absorbing energy from the flow; smaller droplets, instead, undergo rapid oscillations and tend to coalesce releasing energy to the flow. Further, we link the droplet-size distribution with the probability distribution of the turbulent dissipation. This shows that key in the fragmentation process is the local flux of energy which dominates the process at large scales, vindicating its locality.