bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Cancer incidence amongst UK firefighters
Authors: Wolffe Taylor A. M. , Robinson Andrew , Dickens Kathryn , Turrell Louis , Clinton Anna , Maritan-Thomson Daniella , Joshi Miland , Stec Anna A. 
Published: January 2023

AbstractFirefighters suffer an increased risk of cancer from exposures to chemicals released from fires. Our earlier research has found that fire toxicants not only remain on firefighters’ PPE, but are also tracked back to fire stations. The UK Firefighter Contamination Survey assesses firefighters’ risk of developing cancer due to occupational exposure to fire toxins. Over 4% of surveyed firefighters were found to have a cancer diagnosis, with the age-specific cancer rate up to 323% higher (35–39 year olds) than that of the general population. Firefighters who had served ≥ 15 years were 1.7 times more likely to develop cancer than those who had served less time. Firefighters were at least twice as likely to be diagnosed with cancer if they noticed soot in their nose/throat (odds ratio (OR) = 2.0, 1.1–3.5), or remained in their PPE for more than four hours after attending a fire incident (OR = 2.3, 1.1–5.2). Also associated with an increased likelihood of cancer was: eating while wearing PPE (OR = 1.8, 1.2–2.7); failing to store clean/dirty PPE separately (OR = 1.3, 1.0–1.7); working in a station that smells of fire (OR = 1.3, 1.0–1.8) or not having designated (separated) clean and dirty areas (OR = 1.4, 1.1–1.7); using an on-site washing machine to launder fire hoods (OR = 1.3, 1.0–1.7); feeling that cleaning is not taken seriously at work (OR = 1.5, 1.2–2.0).
High probability of successive occurrence of Nankai megathrust earthquakes
Authors: Fukushima Yo , Nishikawa Tomoaki , Kano Yasuyuki 
Published: January 2023

AbstractGreat earthquakes along the Nankai megathrust in south-western Japan feature in the top priority list of Japan’s disaster management agenda. In May 2019, an alert system was incepted to issue public warnings when the probability of an earthquake occurrence along the Nankai megathrust became higher than usual. One of the cases that trigger the issuance of public warnings is when a great earthquake occurred and another one of the same scale is anticipated within a short period of time. Although such “twin ruptures” have occurred multiple times along the Nankai megathrust, the quantification of the probability of such twin ruptures has never been attempted. Based on global statistics and local earthquake occurrence history, we estimated the probability of a successive occurrence of two M8 or larger earthquakes within 3 years globally and along the Nankai megathrust to be 5.3–18% and 4.3–96%, respectively. The timing of the second earthquake followed the Omori–Utsu law in global statistics, which allowed the estimation of the probability for the successive occurrence of Nankai megathrust earthquakes in arbitrary time frames. The predicted probability for the one-week timeframe was 100–3600-fold higher than that of the norm, endorsing the necessity for the warning scheme.
Error-based and reinforcement learning in basketball free throw shooting
Authors: Truong Charlène , Ruffino Célia , Crognier Alexandre , Paizis Christos , Crognier Lionel , Papaxanthis Charalambos 
Published: January 2023

AbstractThis study investigates the effects of error-based and reinforcement training on the acquisition and long-term retention of free throw accuracy in basketball. Sixty participants were divided into four groups (n = 15 per group): (i) the error-based group (sensory feedback), (ii) the reinforcement group (binary feedback including success or failure), (iii) the mixed group (sensory feedback followed by binary feedback), and (iv) the control group (without training). Free throws success was recorded before training (PreT), immediately after (Postd0), one day later (Postd1), and seven days later (Postd7). The error-based group, but not the reinforcement group, showed a significant immediate improvement in free throw accuracy (PreT vs Postd0). Interestingly, over time (Postd0 vs Postd1 vs Postd7), the reinforcement group significantly improved its accuracy, while the error-based group decreased it, returning to the PreT level (PreT vs Post7). The mixed group showed the advantage of both training methods, i.e., fast acquisition and retention on a long-term scale. Error-based learning leads to better acquisition, while reinforcement learning leads to better retention. Therefore, the combination of both types of learning is more efficient for both acquisition and retention processes. These findings provide new insight into the acquisition and retention of a fundamental basketball skill in free throw shooting.
Haptic shared control improves neural efficiency during myoelectric prosthesis use
Authors: Thomas Neha , Miller Alexandra J. , Ayaz Hasan , Brown Jeremy D. 
Published: January 2023

AbstractClinical myoelectric prostheses lack the sensory feedback and sufficient dexterity required to complete activities of daily living efficiently and accurately. Providing haptic feedback of relevant environmental cues to the user or imbuing the prosthesis with autonomous control authority have been separately shown to improve prosthesis utility. Few studies, however, have investigated the effect of combining these two approaches in a shared control paradigm, and none have evaluated such an approach from the perspective of neural efficiency (the relationship between task performance and mental effort measured directly from the brain). In this work, we analyzed the neural efficiency of 30 non-amputee participants in a grasp-and-lift task of a brittle object. Here, a myoelectric prosthesis featuring vibrotactile feedback of grip force and autonomous control of grasping was compared with a standard myoelectric prosthesis with and without vibrotactile feedback. As a measure of mental effort, we captured the prefrontal cortex activity changes using functional near infrared spectroscopy during the experiment. It was expected that the prosthesis with haptic shared control would improve both task performance and mental effort compared to the standard prosthesis. Results showed that only the haptic shared control system enabled users to achieve high neural efficiency, and that vibrotactile feedback was important for grasping with the appropriate grip force. These results indicate that the haptic shared control system synergistically combines the benefits of haptic feedback and autonomous controllers, and is well-poised to inform such hybrid advancements in myoelectric prosthesis technology.
Magnetic field and nuclear spin influence on the DNA synthesis rate
Authors: Stovbun Sergey V. , Zlenko Dmitry V. , Bukhvostov Alexander A. , Vedenkin Alexander S. , Skoblin Alexey A. , Kuznetsov Dmitry A. , Buchachenko Anatoly L. 
Published: January 2023

AbstractThe rate of a chemical reaction can be sensitive to the isotope composition of the reactants, which provides also for the sensitivity of such “spin-sensitive” reactions to the external magnetic field. Here we demonstrate the effect of the external magnetic field on the enzymatic DNA synthesis together with the effect of the spin-bearing magnesium ions ($$^{25}$$

25

Mg). The rate of DNA synthesis monotonously decreased with the external magnetic field induction increasing in presence of zero-spin magnesium ions ($$^{24}$$

24

Mg). On the contrary, in the presence of the spin-bearing magnesium ions, the dependence of the reaction rate on the magnetic field induction was non-monotonous and possess a distinct minimum at 80–100 mT. To describe the observed effect, we suggested a chemical scheme and biophysical mechanism considering a competition between Zeeman and Fermi interactions in the external magnetic field.
The role of Nd3+ concentration in the modulation of the thermometric performance of Stokes/anti-Stokes luminescence thermometer in NaYF4:Nd3+
Authors: Maciejewska K. , Marciniak L. 
Published: January 2023

AbstractThe growing popularity of luminescence thermometry observed in recent years is related to the high application potential of this technique. However, in order to use such materials in a real application, it is necessary to have a thorough understanding of the processes responsible for thermal changes in the shape of the emission spectrum of luminophores. In this work, we explain how the concentration of Nd3+ dopant ions affects the change in the thermometric parameters of a thermometer based on the ratio of Stokes (4F3/2 → 4I9/2) to anti-Stokes (4F7/2,4S3/2 → 4I9/2) emission intensities in NaYF4:Nd3+. It is shown that the spectral broadening of the 4I9/2 → 4F5/2, 2H9/2 absorption band observed for higher dopant ion concentrations enables the modulation of the relative sensitivity, usable temperature range, and uncertainty of temperature determination of such a luminescent thermometer.
The importance of contrast features in rat vision
Authors: Schnell Anna Elisabeth , Vinken Kasper , de Beeck Hans Op 
Published: January 2023

AbstractModels of object recognition have mostly focused upon the hierarchical processing of objects from local edges up to more complex shape features. An alternative strategy that might be involved in pattern recognition centres around coarse-level contrast features. In humans and monkeys, the use of such features is most documented in the domain of face perception. Given prior suggestions that, generally, rodents might rely upon contrast features for object recognition, we hypothesized that they would pick up the typical contrast features relevant for face detection. We trained rats in a face-nonface categorization task with stimuli previously used in computer vision and tested for generalization with new, unseen stimuli by including manipulations of the presence and strength of a range of contrast features previously identified to be relevant for face detection. Although overall generalization performance was low, it was significantly modulated by contrast features. A model taking into account the summed strength of contrast features predicted the variation in accuracy across stimuli. Finally, with deep neural networks, we further investigated and quantified the performance and representations of the animals. The findings suggest that rat behaviour in visual pattern recognition tasks is partially explained by contrast feature processing.
Modulation of trigeminal neuropathic pain by optogenetic inhibition of posterior hypothalamus in CCI-ION rat
Authors: Islam Jaisan , KC Elina , So Kyoung Ha , Kim Soochong , Kim Hyong Kyu , Park Yoon Young , Park Young Seok 
Published: January 2023

AbstractPosterior hypothalamus (PH), an important part of the descending pain processing pathway, has been found to be activated in trigeminal autonomic cephalalgias. However, there are very few studies conducted and information regarding its implications in trigeminal neuropathic pain (TNP). Therefore, we aimed to ascertain whether optogenetic inhibition of PH could affect the outcomes of a chronic constriction injury in the infraorbital nerve (CCI-ION) rat model. Animals were divided into the TNP animal, sham, and naive-control groups. CCI-ION surgery was performed to mimic TNP symptoms, and the optogenetic or null virus was injected into the ipsilateral PH. In vivo single-unit extracellular recordings were obtained from both the ipsilateral ventrolateral periaqueductal gray (vlPAG) and contralateral ventral posteromedial (VPM) thalamus in stimulation “OFF” and “ON” conditions. Alterations in behavioral responses during the stimulation-OFF and stimulation-ON states were examined. We observed that optogenetic inhibition of the PH considerably improved behavioral responses in TNP animals. We found increased and decreased firing activity in the vlPAG and VPM thalamus, respectively, during optogenetic inhibition of the PH. Inhibiting PH attenuates trigeminal pain signal transmission by modulating the vlPAG and trigeminal nucleus caudalis, thereby providing evidence of the therapeutic potential of PH in TNP management.
Development of serum-free and grain-derived-nutrient-free medium using microalga-derived nutrients and mammalian cell-secreted growth factors for sustainable cultured meat production
Authors: Yamanaka Kumiko , Haraguchi Yuji , Takahashi Hironobu , Kawashima Ikko , Shimizu Tatsuya 
Published: January 2023

AbstractConsidering the amount of global resources and energy consumed, and animal welfare issues associated with traditional meat production, cultured meat production has been proposed as a solution to these problems and is attracting worldwide attention. Cultured meat is produced by culturing/proliferating animal muscle cells in vitro. This process requires significant amounts of culture medium, which accounts to a major portion of the production cost. Furthermore, it is composed of nutrients derived from grains and heterotrophic microorganisms and fetal bovine serum (FBS), which will impact the sustainability of cultured meat in future. Here, we developed a novel medium containing nutrients extracted from microalga and cell-secreted growth factors. First, rat liver epithelial RL34 cells were cultured by adding Chlorella vulgaris extract (CVE) to inorganic salt solution. The supernatant, containing the RL34 cell-secreted growth factors, was used as the conditioned medium (CM). This CM, with CVE added as a nutrient source, was applied to primary bovine myoblast cultures. This serum-free and grain-derived-nutrient-free medium promoted the proliferation of bovine myoblasts, the main cell source for cultured beef. Our findings will allow us to take a major step toward reducing production costs and environmental impacts, leading to an expansion of the cultured meat market.
Exploring the potential of intranasally administered naturally occurring quercetin loaded into polymeric nanocapsules as a novel platform for the treatment of anxiety
Authors: Mahmoud Khaled Y. , Elhesaisy Nahla A. , Rashed Abdelrahman R. , Mikhael Ebram S. , Fadl Mahmoud I. , Elsadek Mahmoud S. , Mohamed Merna A. , Mostafa Merna A. , Hassan Mohamed A. , Halema Omar M. , Elnemer Youssef H. , Swidan Shady A. 
Published: January 2023

AbstractAnxiety is one of the most prevalent forms of psychopathology that affects millions worldwide. It gained more importance under the pandemic status that resulted in higher anxiety prevalence. Anxiolytic drugs such as benzodiazepines have an unfavorable risk/benefit ratio resulting in a shift toward active ingredients with better safety profile such as the naturally occurring quercetin (QRC). The delivery of QRC is hampered by its low water solubility and low bioavailability. The potential to enhance QRC delivery to the brain utilizing polymeric nanocapsules administered intranasally is investigated in the current study. Polymeric nanocapsules were prepared utilizing the nanoprecipitation technique. The best formula displayed a particle size of 227.8 ± 11.9 nm, polydispersity index of 0.466 ± 0.023, zeta potential of − 17.5 ± 0.01 mV, and encapsulation efficiency % of 92.5 ± 1.9%. In vitro release of QRC loaded polymeric nanocapsules exhibited a biphasic release with an initial burst release followed by a sustained release pattern. Behavioral testing demonstrated the superiority of QRC loaded polymeric nanocapsules administered intranasally compared to QRC dispersion administered both orally and intranasally. The prepared QRC loaded polymeric nanocapsules also demonstrated good safety profile with high tolerability.
Atypical influence of biomechanical knowledge in Complex Regional Pain Syndrome-towards a different perspective on body representation
Authors: Filbrich L. , Verfaille C. , Vannuscorps G. , Berquin A. , Barbier O. , Libouton X. , Fraselle V. , Mouraux D. , Legrain V. 
Published: January 2023

AbstractPart of the multifaceted pathophysiology of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) is ascribed to lateralized maladaptive neuroplasticity in sensorimotor cortices, corroborated by behavioral studies indicating that patients present difficulties in mentally representing their painful limb. Such difficulties are widely measured with hand laterality judgment tasks (HLT), which are also used in the rehabilitation of CRPS to activate motor imagery and restore the cortical representation of the painful limb. The potential of these tasks to elicit motor imagery is critical to their use in therapy, yet, the influence of the body’s biomechanical constraints (BMC) on HLT reaction time, supposed to index motor imagery activation, is rarely verified. Here we investigated the influence of BMC on the perception of hand postures and movements in upper-limb CRPS. Patients were slower than controls in judging hand laterality, whether or not stimuli corresponded to their painful hand. Reaction time patterns reflecting BMC were mostly absent in CRPS and controls. A second experiment therefore directly investigated the influence of implicit knowledge of BMC on hand movement judgments. Participants judged the perceived path of movement between two depicted hand positions, with only one of two proposed paths that was biomechanically plausible. While the controls mostly chose the biomechanically plausible path, patients did not. These findings show non-lateralized body representation impairments in CRPS, possibly related to difficulties in using correct knowledge of the body’s biomechanics. Importantly, they demonstrate the challenge of reliably measuring motor imagery with the HLT, which has important implications for the rehabilitation with these tasks.
Angiotensin II type 1a receptor deficiency alleviates muscle atrophy after denervation
Authors: Takayama Suguru , Inoue Kazuho , Ogura Yuji , Hoshino Seiko , Sugaya Takeshi , Ohata Keiichi , Kotake Hitoshi , Ichikawa Daisuke , Watanabe Minoru , Kimura Kenjiro , Shibagaki Yugo , Kamijo-Ikemori Atsuko 
Published: January 2023

AbstractThe study aim was to determine if suppressed activation of angiotensin II type 1 receptor (AT1) prevents severe muscle atrophy after denervation. The sciatic nerves in right and left inferior limbs were cut in AT1a knockout homo (AT1a−/−) male mice and wild-type (AT1a+/+) male mice. Muscle weight and cross-sectional areas of type IIb muscle fibers in gastrocnemius muscle decreased at 7 and 21 days postdenervation in both AT1a−/− mice and AT1a+/+ mice, and the reduction was significantly attenuated in the denervated muscles of AT1a−/− mice compared to the AT1a+/+ mice. Gene expressions in the protein degradation system [two E3 ubiquitin ligases (muscle RING-finger protein-1 and Atrogin-1)] upregulated at 7 days postdenervation in all denervated mice were significantly lower in AT1a−/− mice than in AT1a+/+ mice. Activations of nuclear factor κB and Forkhead box subgroup O1, and protein expression of monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 were significantly suppressed in the AT1a−/− mice compared with those in the AT1a+/+ mice. In addition, suppressed apoptosis, lower infiltration of M1 macrophages, and higher infiltration of M2 macrophages were significantly observed at 21 days postdenervation in the AT1a−/− mice compared with those in the AT1a+/+ mice. In conclusion, the AT1 receptor deficiency retarded muscle atrophy after denervation.
A simplified space vector pulse width modulation method for a three‐level four‐leg inverter considering the neutral point potential balance
Authors: Zhang Zhi , Chen Haohui , Li Yiyun , Chen Sizhe , Liu Chang , Zhang Zhaoyun 
Published: January 2023

AbstractThis paper presents a simple three‐dimensional space vector modulation method in ghγ coordinates for a three‐level four‐leg neutral‐point‐clamped inverter. The idea uses redundant vectors as centre points to establish two‐level space vector diagrams simplifying the original space, the first sector of which is designated as subspaces, where a modulation process is implemented. The duty cycle and all possible switching sequences in a tetrahedron can be calculated automatically without manual storage and can avoid a full‐scale search process. Additionally, the neutral point potential can be balanced by three types of charge through cancellation. Such features enable the inverter to demonstrate good performance under closed‐loop control. Moreover, the proposed method can be applied to a multilevel inverter. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed concept.
Towards optimal phased-array tile configurations for large new-generation radio telescopes and their application to NenuFAR
Authors: Girard J. N. , Zarka P. 
Published: January 2023

Context.Recent instrumental developments have aimed to build large digital radio telescopes made of ~100k antennas. The massive data rate required to digitise all elements drives the instrumental design towards the hierarchical distribution of elements by groups of𝒪(10) that form small analogue phased arrays that lower the computational burden by one to two orders of magnitude.Aims.We study possible optimal layouts for a tile composed of five to 22 identical elements. We examine the impact of the tile layout on the overall response of an instrument.Methods.We used two optimisation algorithms to find optimal arrangements of elements in the tile using: (i) a deterministic method (Kogan) based on beam pattern derivative properties; and (ii) a stochastic method (modified simulated annealing) to find global optima minimising the side-lobe level while increasing the field of view (FOV) of the tile, a required condition for all-sky surveys.Results.We find that optimal tile arrangements are compact circular arrays that present some degree of circular symmetry while not being superimposable to any rotated version of themselves. The ‘optimal’ element number is found to be 16 or 17 antennas per tile. These could provide a maximum side-lobe level (SLL) of −33 dB (−24 dB) used with dipole (isotropic) elements. Due to constraints related to the analogue phasing implementation, we propose an approaching solution but with a regular arrangement on an equilateral lattice with 19 elements. By introducing random relative rotations between tiles, we compared and found that the 19-element equilateral tile results in better grating lobe mitigation and a larger FOV than that of rectangular tiles of 16 antennas.Conclusions.Optimal tile arrangements and their regular versions are useful to maximise the sensitivity of new-generation hierarchical radio telescopes. The proposed solution was implemented in NenuFAR, a pathfinder of SKA-LOW at the Nançay Radio Observatory.