The ability of trophectodermal cells (outer layer of the embryo) to attach to the endometrial cells and subsequently invade the underlying matrix are critical stages of embryo implantation during successful pregnancy establishment. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) have been implicated in embryo-maternal crosstalk, capable of reprogramming endometrial cells towards a pro-implantation signature and phenotype. However, challenges associated with EV yield and direct loading of biomolecules limit their therapeutic potential. We have previously established generation of cell-derived nanovesicles (NVs) from human trophectodermal cells (hTSCs) and their capacity to reprogram endometrial cells to enhance adhesion and blastocyst outgrowth. Here, we employed a rapid NV loading strategy to encapsulate potent implantation molecules such as HB-EGF (NVHBEGF). We show these loaded NVs elicit EGFR-mediated effects in recipient endometrial cells, activating kinase phosphorylation sites that modulate their activity (AKT S124/129, MAPK1 T185/Y187), and downstream signalling pathways and processes (AKT signal transduction, GTPase activity). Importantly, they enhanced target cell attachment and invasion. The phosphoproteomics and proteomics approach highlight NVHBEGF-mediated short-term signalling patterns and long-term reprogramming capabilities on endometrial cells which functionally enhance trophectodermal-endometrial interactions. This proof-of-concept study demonstrate feasibility in enhancing the potency of NVs in the context of embryo attachment and establishment.

Background: Globally, observational studies have demonstrated an association between high levels of air pollution and asthma attacks in children. It remains unclear whether and to what extent exposure may be associated with increased near fatal and fatal attacks. Objective: To systematically review the evidence for an association between ambient outdoor air pollution and fatal and/or near fatal asthma (NFA). Methods: Following Cochrane methodology, we searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, Web of Science, Scopus and Open Grey electronic databases for studies reporting the association of fatal/NFA and air pollution (Particulate Matter (PM), sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, black carbon and ozone) in children. NFA was defined as requiring intensive care (ICU) management. Results: Two reviewers independently screened 1,358 papers. 276 studies identified asthma attacks related to air pollution, 272 did not meet inclusion criteria after full text review. Four observational studies described fatal/NFA, of which 3 addressed NFA. PM2.5 and ozone (22ppb) were associated with NFA in one study (RR 1.26 CI (1.10-1.44)). PM10 was associated with ICU admission in the context of thunderstorm asthma. Elemental carbon was associated equally with NFA that did not require an ICU admission (p=0.67). Studies of fatal asthma including children did not demarcate age within analysis. Conclusions: Ozone and PM2.5 have been associated with NFA in children but synthesis is limited by the paucity of studies and methodological heterogeneity. Poor reporting of severities of asthma attack does not enable assessment of whether outdoor air pollution is associated with an increased number of NFA and fatal attacks in children.

The emergence of intra-industry trade has been studied through a fruitful interaction between theoretical explanations and empirical methods. Indicators have been developed to measure the intensity of intra-industry trading, which has led to the rise of theoretical models explaining the determinants of these trade flows. Empirical analyses have debated the need to distinguish intra-industry trade in horizontal differentiation from that in vertical differentiation. The first theoretical analysis of intra-industry trade showed that the determinants and consequences of this type of trade are different, depending on whether the traded products differ in quality. A method exists for distinguishing intra-industry trade between two countries in vertical differentiation from those in horizontal differentiation. This approach has limitations, leading to a need for an alternative method for separating and measuring intra-industry trade into horizontal and vertical differentiation.

Introduction: It has been reported that COVID-19 may cause severe endothelial damage. Pulmonary Artery Stiffness (PAS) is a strong predictor of right ventricular function. PAS can reveal important information about the endothelial functions of the pulmonary bed. In this study we aimed to elucidate the possible effect of COVID-19 on PAS. Materials & Method: The study was performed by measuring PAS values with transthoracic echocardiography in 130 patients, 60 of whom had COVID-19 and 70 were controls. COVID-19 patients with positive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test results were included in the study 3-6 months after their positivity. Results: When the Maximal frequency shift (MFS) (Hz) results were examined, no significant difference was observed between the patient and control groups (2764 ± 279.24 and 2664.8 ± 673.91 p=0.340, respectively). There was a significant difference between the patient and control groups in favor of the patient group in pulmonary acceleration time (PAT) (msec) results (93.18 ± 14.99 and 126.1 ± 17.58, respectively, p<0.001) . There was a significant difference between the patient and control groups in favor of the patient group in pulmonary artery stiffness (PAS) (Hz/msec) results (30.28 ± 5.07 and 21.57 ± 7.04, respectively, p<0.001). Conclusion: It is possible that COVID19 may have adverse effects on the pulmonary artery wall and bed. As a result of endothelial damage due to COVID-19, an increase in PAS values can be observed.

This paper has multiple deliverables: the need for two different quicksort algorithms, the need for a hybrid with more than 2 design layers and at least 3 members, a new technique for obtaining pivots, a novel one pivot version extended with the Edelkamp enhancement and several three pivot versions. Each topic has its own section with a description of the underlying ideas and the benefits shown by performance results. Topic N+1 builds on top of topic N. All versions have O(NlogN) worst case complexity and linear complexity on constant inputs. Novel design elements are, among others: using the single element moving technique (in addition to pairwise swapping) and using array layouts with two gaps (in addition to single gap layouts). Given our focus on arrays with referenced items we assess our versions (in addition to timings) with comparison counts instead of with swap counts. We compare our versions favorably against quicksort versions we found in libraries and elsewhere.

The medical robot systems have the effect of reducing the work load and preventing accidents by supporting task that are difficult for inexperienced medical practitioners. Recently, research on automated blood collection and injection robotic system has been increasing, but work is still necessary such as replacing needle tips, setting tourniquet and fixing the patient's arm. In this letter, we propose an intelligent intravenous injection robot without having to see the medical workers face-to-face. We design a revolving system for automatic needle replacement and an arm holder for vessel fixation. Finally, we experiment positioning the needle at the target point by position control based on mathematical modeling and velocity kinematics.

We study the stationary motion of an incompressible Navier–Stokes fluid past obstacles in R 3 , subject to the provided boundary velocity u b , external force f = div F , and nonzero constant vector k e 1 at infinity. We first prove that the existence of at least one very weak solution u in L 3 ( Ω ) + L 4 ( Ω ) for an arbitrary large F ∈ L 3 / 2 ( Ω ) + L 2 ( Ω ) provided that the flux of u b on the boundary of each body is sufficiently small with respect to the viscosity ν. Moreover, we establish weak- and strong-regularity results for very weak solutions. Consequently, our existence and regularity results enable us to prove the existence of a weak solution satisfying ∇ u ∈ L r ( Ω ) for a given F ∈ L r ( Ω ) with 3 /2≤ r≤2, and a strong solution satisfying ∇ 2 u ∈ L s ( Ω ) for a given f ∈ L s ( Ω ) with 1 ≤6 /5, respectively.

Global change alters the stability of biological communities by affecting species richness and how species covary through time (i.e., synchrony). There are few large-scale empirical tests of stability-diversity-synchrony relationships and those mostly focus on the terrestrial realm. Moreover, the effect of synchrony is largely unknown when species only covary at either high or low extremes of abundance (i.e., tail-dependent synchrony), a common phenomenon in ecological communities. Here, we synthesized long-term community time-series data (20+ years of species’ abundances/biomass for 2,668 communities across 7 taxonomic groups) from both terrestrial and freshwater realms and explored how the relationships among richness, synchrony, and stability vary across realms. We also investigated the effect of tail-dependent synchrony on stability across 714 freshwater and 1,954 terrestrial communities. For terrestrial communities, we found a positive diversity-stability relationship and that the tail-dependent synchrony was a more important determinant of stability than the traditional measure of overall synchrony (i.e., based on the covariation of all species). For freshwater communities, only overall synchrony explained some variation in stability. Assessing tail-dependent synchrony can improve our ability to understand why stability varies across different ecosystems and thereby our inferences about the causes of human-mediated biodiversity loss.

Zinc oxide nanocrystals (ZnO NCs) hold great promise in nanomedicine, with fascinating multifunctional properties. We investigated the therapeutic potential of sol-gel synthesized ZnO NCs with crystal sizes of 52.65 nm and 25.11 nm, focusing on their anti-cancer effects on HepG2 and HT29 cells, antioxidant properties, and antimicrobial activity. Both samples displayed a hexagonal wurtzite ZnO structure, wherein the crystal sizes diminished with lower calcination temperatures according to the XRD. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis revealed that lowering the calcination temperature resulted in a decrease in the grain size of the ZnO nanocrystals, as expected. This reduction in grain size combined with a decrease in crystal size resulted in a significant 40% reduction in the reflectance of the ZnO nanocrystals in UV-Vis-NIR spectroscopy. In both cell lines, the cytotoxic potential was found to be higher in HepG2 cells. Specifically, when using ZnO nanocrystals (NCs) with a crystal size of 25.11nm, the lowest cell viability was observed at a concentration of 250 μg/ml. Based on oxidative stress index (OSI) values, lower crystal size of ZnO NCs displayed greater effectiveness in HT29 cells, while higher crystal size of ZnO NCs had pronounced effects in HepG2 cells. Moreover, both ZnO NCs, especially 25.11nm size of ZnO NCs at low concentrations, exhibited significant antimicrobial activity against Gram-positive bacteria (E. faecalis, S. aureus) and C. parapsilopsis fungus. These findings emphasize sol-gel ZnO nanocrystals’ potential as versatile agents in nanomedicine, spurring research on targeted cancer therapies and antimicrobial innovations.

BACKGROUND: Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common malignancy of childhood. With the introduction of novel cellular therapies, cost of care is a critical component and financial toxicity experienced by patients and society requires evaluation. This study aims to assess the total cost of CAR-T therapy for pediatric ALL patients with commercial insurance coverage in the United States. STUDY DESIGN: Using de-identified commercial insurance data from the OptumLabs ® Data Warehouse, a cohort of 37 patients, aged 1-25 years, with B-ALL treated with CAR-T therapy between Oct 2016 and Dec 2021 in the United States was identified. Cost was evaluated for a 90 day period encompassing CAR-T infusion and by administration and complication characteristics. RESULTS: Among the 37 identified ALL patients that received a CAR-T product infusion, 14 patients were female, median age at administration was 13 years. The median 90-day total cost was $620,500 (Mean: $589,108). Inpatient cost accounted for approximately 71% of the total cost with an average of 28 inpatient days per patient. Although inpatient cost was slightly higher in the older age group (aged 10-25 years) and in patients with a code for CRS, these differences were not statistically significant. CONCLUSION: This real-world cost analysis shows for the first time the encompassing cost of CAR-T therapy for pediatric ALL patients in the US with commercial insurance. This study provides a valuable benchmark that can be used to analyze the financial implications of CAR-T therapy for pediatric ALL therapy on health systems.

A document by Mikhail Trifonov. Click on the document to view its contents.

It is well known that the invention of reinforced concrete revolutionized the construction industry because the two materials can act uniformly in resisting forces. We propose a biomimetic idea that to in-situ construct a layer of ductile and dense skin protects the brittle concrete matrix just like the role of animal skin, the whole reinforced concrete unit can be more natural.

Hypoxic zones and associated nitrate pollution from farms, cities, and industrial facilities is driving declines in water quality that affect ecosystems, economies and human health in major rivers and coastal areas worldwide. In the Mississippi River, the United States Environmental Protection Agency set a goal of reducing nitrogen loading 20% by 2025 but estimating progress toward this goal is difficult because data from in-stream gauges and laboratory samples are too sparse. Satellites have the potential to provide sufficient data across the Mississippi River, if a key methodological challenge can be overcome. Satellites provide data from visible light, but nitrates are only observable with ultraviolet light. We address this methodological challenge by using a two-step surrogate modeling procedure to link optical data and nitrates in the Lower Mississippi River. First, we correlate in-situ nitrate measurements to common water quality parameters, particularly turbidity and chlorophyll, using data from water sensors installed at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA, and a long-term data set from Louisiana State University. Second, we correlate these water quality data to satellite estimates of water quality parameters. We found a correlation between these water quality parameters and nitrate concentrations, as indicated by a coefficient of determination, when the relationship was viewed in non-linear parameter space. The spatial extent of the correlation was tested with an upstream nitrate sensor 140 km north of the estimation location. These results provide proof-of-concept that we can develop models that use satellite data to provide large scale monitoring of nitrates across the Mississippi River Basin and other impaired rivers, globally.

Background: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is associated with high mortality and morbidity rates. In terms of the underlying pathophysiology, AF is complex and remains unclear. Necroptosis plays an essential role in the pathogenesis of various cardiovascular diseases. This study aims to investigate the role of necroptosis and analyze the interaction between necroptosis and AF. Methods: GSE79768 and GSE41177 from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database were downloaded, and necroptosis-related differentially expressed genes (NRDEGs) were identified between AF and healthy groups. The Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) databases were then used to conduct functional enrichment analyses of these genes. The CIBERSORT algorithm was used to reveal the patterns of immune cell infiltration in AF and exam the correlation between hub genes and immune cells to explain the underlying mechanism. Then, a lncRNA-associated ceRNA network was constructed by using Cytoscape underlying the interaction generated from the miRcode, miRTarBase, and TarBase databases. Results: There were a total of 34 DEGs identified. Necroptosis and inflammation were mainly controlled by these DEGs. MAPK8, MAP3K7, CD40, CASP8, MYC, HSP90AA1, BCL2L11and DIABLO were identified as the top 8 hub genes associated with AF. The relationship between AF and the hub genes in patients was further confirmed in the STRING database. The immune cell infiltration analysis indicated that B cells memory, Eosinophil, T cells follicular helper, and Neutrophils were significantly activated in atrial fibrillation. It was found that the hub genes in GSE79768 were strongly correlated with immune cell infiltration. B cells naïve and B cells memory, Plasma cells, and Macrophages M2, T cells CD8 and Mast cells activated, Mast cells resting and Mast cells activated showed a negative correlation (P <0.01), Mast cells activated and Eosinophils, B cells memory and T cells CD4 naïve showed a positive correlation (P <0.01). Finally, 43 lncRNAs were identified in AF. Seven lncRNAs (SLFNL1-AS1, LINC01132, PCBP1-AS1, LINC01816, LINC02035, MYLK-AS1, TERC) regulate the hub-gene through has-mir-34c-5p. Conclusions: MAPK8, MAP3K7, CD40, and CASP8 may act as critical regulators in the necroptosis of cardiomyocytes in AF patients. It involves mechanisms such as humoral immunity, cellular immunity, and inflammatory response, but the fundamental biological function of these genes remains unclear. Our present study may pave the way for further research into the necroptosis of AF.

Differential privacy has emerged as a prominent framework for safeguarding individual privacy in the context of data analysis and statistical computations. With the proliferation of data-driven applications and the necessity to share sensitive information while preserving confidentiality, the study of composition algorithms in differential privacy becomes increasingly vital. This paper presents a critical examination of the various composition techniques employed to combine multiple privacy-preserving computations while upholding the integrity of the overarching privacy guarantees. The paper begins by outlining the fundamental principles of differential privacy and its significance in contemporary data-centric environments. It subsequently delves into a critical analysis of sequential composition, parallel composition, and advanced composition theorems. The inherent strengths and limitations of each technique are scrutinized; emphasizing their practical implications in preserving privacy across different scenarios. The study extends beyond basic composition strategies to explore intricate facets of composition algorithms. Post-processing and renewal-based composition methodologies are evaluated in the context of preserving privacy amidst evolving data landscapes. The paper also investigates adaptive data analysis and hierarchical composition, elucidating their roles in addressing complex privacy challenges that arise in multi-agent and multi-level environments. Through a meticulous survey of literature and practical implementations, this paper unveils the nuanced interplay between composition algorithms and differential privacy mechanisms. It highlights the need for judicious application of composition techniques while considering the dynamic interactions between privacy parameters, data characteristics, and adversarial behaviours. Furthermore, the paper underscores the significance of incorporating advanced composition theorems to yield more precise privacy bounds, providing a comprehensive understanding of the intricacies involved.

We present a complete portable pipeline for sequencing and analysis of environmental metagenomes in less than a day. This unprecedented development was possible due to the conjunction of state-of-the art experimental and computational advances: a portable laboratory suitable for DNA extraction and sequencing with nanopore technology.The powerful metagenomic analysis pipeline SqueezeMeta, capable to provide a complete analysis in a few hours and using scarce computational resources. Finally, tools for the automatic inspection of the results via a graphical user interface, that can be coupled to a web server to allow remote visualization of data (SQMtools and SQMxplore). We tested the feasibility of our approach in the sequencing of the microbiota associated to volcanic rocks in La Palma, Canary Islands. Also, we did a two-day sampling campaign of marine waters in which the results obtained the first day guided the experimental design of the second day. We demonstrate that it is possible to generate metagenomic information in less than one day, making it feasible to obtain taxonomic and functional profiles fast and efficiently, even in field conditions. This capacity can be used in the further to perform real-time functional and taxonomic profiling of microbial communities in remote areas

Left ventricular non-compaction, often known as LVNC, is a form of congenital cardiomyopathy that is extremely uncommon. It is a condition that may be identified by an elevated number of endomyocardial trabeculations as well as an increase in their prominence. Alcoholic cardiomyopathy, also known as ACM, is a non-ischemic form of dilated cardiomyopathy that is characterized by contractile failure and an enlargement of the heart ventricles. It is not entirely known whether or not there is a clinically significant overlap in phenotypic characteristics between the two illnesses. We report a patient who had previously been diagnosed with ACM and who had cardiac MRI (CMR) results that fit the criteria for both LVNC and ACM.

IntroductionSolid pseudopapillary neoplasms (SPN) are rare tumors of the pancreas. Epidemiologically they tend to affect women predominantly and occur in patients of Asian or African American ethnic backgrounds. We report a rare case of a solid pseudopapillary neoplasm in a Caucasian man who initially presented with nonspecific acute abdominal pain.

Hypertonic saline is a commonly employed and efficacious approach for mitigating acute elevations in intracranial pressure, which has gained broad acceptance. Although numerous research studies have demonstrated the rationale behind peripheral administration of concentrated sodium chloride with minimal risk of harm, infusion-related adverse effects such as drug leakage, phlebitis, and tissue

This review presents a state-of-the-art literature review of automatic generation control (AGC) control strategies for power systems containing new energy sources. The incorporation of new energy into the power system causes a large impact on the stability, reliability, economy and security of the power system. In order to mitigate these effects, it is important to choose a suitable control strategy for AGC. However, there is no review of AGC control strategies specifically for new energy-containing power systems, so a review of AGC control strategies for new energy-containing power systems is necessary. The investigation of this paper focuses on all kinds of different AGC control strategies for new energy-containing power systems, such as PID control, fuzzy control, artificial neural network control, etc., and compares and considers these different control methods, while this paper summarises the power system models with/without new energy. In addition, this paper summarises and discusses the application of intelligent optimisation algorithms and energy storage systems to control strategies. The problems and future research directions of the current research on power systems with new energy sources are also discussed.

A document by Théophile Perrod. Click on the document to view its contents.

Abtract: Web Services play a crucial role in the realm of e-business applications in view of the rapid growth of web servce technologies. Effectively discovering the most pertinent web services from an extensive collection is pivotal for seamless application execution. However, extracting the most pertinent web services is still a challenging task due to poor query results with lack of semantics, low precision and recall rates. While past studies have employed various methods for web service discovery, this paper incorporates a collaborative filtering approach by employing singular value decomposition (SVD) matrix factorization to capture the principal sematics hidden behind a user query and the description in services. The proposed work aims to enhance the retrieval of relevant outcomes for user queries by leveraging a genetic algorithm inspired collaborative SVD (G-CSVD) matrix factorization technique. This is complemented by an entropy-based deep neural network clustering process, culminating in efficient service discovery. Post-clustering, the knowledge base is integrated into user queries, utilizing the SPARQL endpoint for data retrieval and manipulation within the resource description framework (RDF) database. As a result, the proposed methodology yields pertinent outcomes from the RDF data store in response to user queries.This research contributes an in-depth analysis encompassing execution time, service discovery time, cluster accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, search time, execution time, root mean square error (RMSE), and mean square error (MSE). Furthermore, a comparative assessment against conventional methods highlights the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Floating point arithmetic is a tedious implementation in General Purpose Processors (GPP) and Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC). ASICs don’t afford the modifications of instruction and algorithms in floating point applications. GPP takes over the floating computations in a separate circuit called a Floating Point Unit (FPU), it makes the FPU consume more power and chip area. This paper presents the FPU which incorporates its hardware circuitry for microarchitectural configuration in FPGA. The proposed FPU provides the RAM blocks for storing the instructions and data alongside floating point arithmetic circuits. Compared to conventional implementation, Fused Multiply-Add (FMA) instruction is implemented with a minimum adder, multiplier, and shifters resources. An instruction stored in RAM selects and controls the floating point operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and Multiply Accumulate (MAC) operations. Pipelined FPU is implemented as a simple microarchitecture in Stratix III FPGA at the maximum operating frequency of 463 MHz; proposed FPU shares some hard floating point circuits in adder multiplier data paths.

Electrochemical synthesis of green oxidants O3 and H2O2 is valuable for applications, but challenges persist in enhancing the O3 and H2O2 generation activity and combined application. Herein, we modulate the surface Ni active sites and oxygen vacancy defects content in Ni-Sb-SnO2 electrocatalysts to enhance selectivity for electrochemical ozone generation (EOP) and two-electron electrochemical oxygen reduction reactions (2e⁻ ORR). The Ni active sites and oxygen vacancy defects enriched electrocatalysts resulting in an ozone faradaic efficiency of 48.1%, while non-enriched electrocatalyst obtained 90% selectivity for H2O2. Theoretical calculations revealed that Ni-Sb-SnO2 efficiently captures O2 with defective Ovac2 stabilize intermediates, facilitating O3 and H2O2 synthesis. Moreover, concerted EOP and 2e⁻ ORR enable concurrent generation of O3 and H2O2 for efficient synergistic degradation of organic pollutants, while attenuating the energy demands of the electrolyzer. This study provides an appealing strategy for the simultaneous production of O3 and H2O2 with applications in wastewater treatment.