Backgrounds: Torus tubarius hypertrophy (TTH) after adenoidectomy causing nasal obstruction, recurred snoring, sleep apnea, or mouth breathing has been reported more and more recently, partial resection of TTH conducted by a low-temperature plasma technique is a safe and effective therapy, and some benefit from intranasal steroid therapy. However, the expression of glucocorticoid receptor (GCR) in TTH tissue is currently unknown and no paper reported secretory otitis media caused by TTH. Objectives: To assess the expression patterns of the human GCR in TTH tissue in children with adenoidectomy. Methods: 5 children from Jan to Jun 2024 were included in this study. All children underwent partial resection of TTH, and TTH tissues were collected for immunofluorescence. Results: GCR-α and GCR-β were both expressed in TTH tissues in 5 children, the expression of GCR-α was significantly higher than GCR-β. Since it has been reported that the high expression of GCR-α is correlated to glucocorticoid therapy sensitivity, the glucocorticoid therapy may be curative to TTH in children. Conclusions: TTH after adenoidectomy were reported more often in recently, partial resection of TTH operation conducted by a low-temperature plasma technique under general anesthesia is a safe and effective therapy, intranasal corticosteroids could be a alternative solution of TTH. However the function of GCR in children with TTH still requires further investigation.

Alternative way to make good memories out of bad ones: piercing placement during surgery in children with oncologic diagnosis

Congenital mesoblastic nephroma (CMN) is a rare pediatric renal neoplasm, seen in infants. In this study, the imaging findings of 3 cases of CMN were retrospectively analyzed and an attempt was made to identify radiological patterns and signs that may aid in accurate diagnosis of CMN.

In recent years, due to the exponential growth in the applicability of biometric authentication systems, it has become essential to address the privacy and security concerns of user biometric information. The cancellable biometric template generation is one of the promising solutions in this situation which protects both the system and the user’s biometric data from unauthorized access. The complexity of such a system which sustains improved performance while maintaining the anonymity of users by introducing non-invertibility, unlinkability, and encapsulation of encrypted templates is a difficult task[1]. The random projection-based cancellable biometric template generation is one of the efficient techniques to secure the information of users. But still, this approach suffers from the adversary attack where an attacker can obtain the original template by performing repeated random projections on the stored template[2]. In this paper, we proposed a technique: MCC Encoded Random Triangle Hashing which protects the biometric template by encoding the projection matrix with the minutiae cylindrical codes obtained from the minutiae information. This technique addresses the problem where the projection matrix is leaked to an attacker which can lead to the reconstruction of the original biometric template. The performance of the proposed technique is evaluated using FMR, FAR, GAR, ROC Curve, and EER parameters on six FVC fingerprint databases FVC2000 DB1, FVC2000 DB2, FVC2002 DB1, FVC2002 DB3, FVC2004 DB1, and FVC2004 DB3 which is publicly available.

This paper studies the optimal controller synthesis of an energy-transmission-feedback Linear-Quadratic-Gaussian (LQG) system with imperfect acknowledgments and energy harvesting constraints. The filter, which is provided with several energy options, is capable of receiving imperfect feedback information from the controller. The aim is to jointly select the transmission energy and the controller that would maintain an optimal balance between the control performance and the transmission cost. Firstly, this paper separates the controller synthesis problem from the energy selection problem. Then, the optimal controller synthesis subproblem is characterized by a Riccati equation with continuous packet loss. Simultaneously, the energy selection problem of imperfect feedback is transformed into Markov decision process (MDP) of perfect acknowledgments via the iteration of state information. And the optimal energy selection policy is found by solving a Bellman equation. Ultimately, the effectiveness of the above method is verified through a simulation.

In this paper, we provide an in-depth discussion of the problem of predefined-time formation control for Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) and consider the presence of non-periodic Denial of Service (DoS) attacks. The suggested approach utilizes the system state to achieve time-varying formation of MAS within predefined-time. It effectively mitigates external disturbance or non-periodic DoS attacks. The algorithm combines the predefined-time Lyapunov stability theory with the Terminal Sliding Mode Control (TSMC) is the strategy of predefined-time sliding mode control. It creates a new distributed sliding mode surface to ensure the speed and stability of multi-agent formation under dynamic change and uncertainty conditions. The range of the system convergence time is specifically linked to the changeable parameters, which simplifies the design of the control algorithm to satisfy the appropriate requirements for convergence time. This study demonstrates the stability of the method through theoretical analysis and validates its effectiveness by conducting simulations on the Matlab experimental platform. The simulation results demonstrate that the anticipated limit of the time required for the algorithm to achieve a stable formation is less cautious and more resilient compared to the current TSMC algorithm.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the non-existence of global weak solutions of the following degenerate inequality on the Heisenberg group { u t – ∆ H u ≥ ( K ∗ H | u | p ) | u | q , η ∈ H n , t > 0 , u ( η , 0 )= u 0 ( η ), η ∈ H n , where n≥1, p, q>0, u 0 ∈ L loc 1 ( H n ) , ∆ H is the Heisenberg Laplacian, and K:(0,∞)→(0,∞) is a continuous function satisfying K ( | · | H ) ∈ L loc 1 ( H n ) which decreases in a vicinity of infinity. In addition, ∗ H denotes the convolution operation in H n . Our approach is based on the non-linear capacity method.

Globally, the imperative to improve nitrogen retention and enhance N use efficiency in saline-alkali soil is critical for sustainable agriculture and food security. To address the issues of high N loss and low N use efficiency in saline-alkali soil, this study used soil column cultivation experiments and the ZmNRT1.1B loss-of-function mutation of maize to investigate the impacts of vermicompost and Azotobacter chroococcum on N loss (NH 3 volatilization and 15N leaching), available 15N and maize N uptake in a saline-alkali soil. The results showed that the addition of vermicompost and A. chroococcum decreased NH 3 volatilization through decreased Na + and pH, and increased of cation exchange capacity. These additions were also found to decrease the 15N leaching though increased soil organic carbon and macroaggregates, thereby increasing soil available 15N. In addition, they were found to promote growth and N uptake of wild-type maize, most likely through increased soil available N and decreased Na +/K + in the roots. In particular, the increased available 15N was absorbed through ZmNRT1.1B gene activity, as evidenced by maize with ZmNRT1.1B loss-of-function unable to perceive NO 3 - signals, which did not promote growth and N uptake. These suggested that findings will contribute to improving the management and sustainable use of N resources in saline-alkali soil.

Objectives: To identify the differences in the clinical characteristics of frailty syndrome between patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls and to explore the correlation between frailty severity and immune-inflammatory markers in patients with schizophrenia. Methods: Twenty-seven community-dwelling patients (male, 51.9%; mean age, 39.9 ± 7.8 years; age range, 20–55 years) with schizophrenia and 14 healthy controls (male, 35.7%; mean age, 37.1 ± 8.4 years) were recruited; laboratory data were collected for assessing frailty using the index-laboratory and immune-inflammatory markers. Results: The Frailty Index-laboratory scores of participants with schizophrenia were higher than those of healthy controls significantly. Relative to the healthy controls, the participants with schizophrenia exhibited significantly higher levels of memory (CD45RO+) γ/δ T− Th17, naïve (CD45RA+) γ/δ T+, regulatory γ/δ T− Th, memory (CD45RO+) regulatory γ/δ T− Th, and memory (CD45RO−) Tc. By contrast, the two groups did not differ significantly for hs-CRP and homocysteine. The level of memory (CD45RO+) γ/δ T− Tc was positively correlated with FI-Lab results. Conclusions: The participants with schizophrenia exhibited a higher level of frailty and various immune-inflammatory markers relative to the healthy controls. Memory (CD45RO+) γ/δ T− Tc may serve as proxies reflecting prefrailty changes in patients with schizophrenia before old age.

Fung and colleagues observed improvements in Prescribing Safety Assessment (PSA) pass rates following targeted teaching interventions in their medical school cohorts. They showed that the PSA captured the effect of the intervention providing further evidence of its validity as a test of prescribing competence, and its sensitivity as an instrument to measure this. It also demonstrates that a dedicated prescribing assessment can influence the design of student learning pathways and encourage the development of authentic prescribing tasks in undergraduate medical training. In contrast, the Applied Knowledge Test (AKT), which necessarily tests multiple domains and areas of practice and knowledge, exclusively with single-best-answer (SBA) questions, did not detect the educational impact of this intervention. The PSA focuses on various aspects of prescribing skills including drug selection, dosing, timing and frequency of administration; as well as providing information to patients, recognising adverse drug reactions, dose calculations, monitoring, prescription review and planning management. It uses a testing approach that more closely aligned with prescribing practice including simulation of electronic prescribing in ‘white space’ fields, avoiding the potential cuing effects of SBA questions, and using a semi-open book design, in which the candidates use the key resource that they will use in practice – the British National Formulary. Fung and colleagues’ findings underscore the importance of passing the PSA as a measure of competence to enter practice and the complementarity of the PSA and the AKT in determining this.

Introduction: Quality of Life (QoL) is an important outcome measure for people with a first episode psychosis (FEP). Despite high numbers of patients being admitted to psychiatric hospitals following an FEP, the impact of hospital admission on outcome measures such as QoL is under-investigated. This study aimed to systematically review evidence of the impact of hospital admission on QoL in patients with an FEP. Methods: A systematic review was conducted in line with the PRISMA Guidelines. PsychINFO, Medline, CINAHL and EMBASE were searched from 2000 to 2022, examining the impact of QoL for people with an FEP following a hospital admission. Quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods studies were included in the search. Study quality was assessed using the Mixed Methods Assessment Tool. Data was analysed using narrative synthesis. Results: Seven hundred and eight two abstracts were found. Fifty-three full texts were reviewed. Data was extracted for eight articles. Across the eight studies, four discrete QoL measures were employed. Results showed that QoL scores were consistent over time, with little statistical change from baseline to follow-up. Across studies, participants reported low average QoL scores. Across studies, information on the treatment components and duration of hospital admission were scarce. Conclusion: There is a relative paucity of studies that have examined QoL in relation to hospital admission. QoL scores remained consistent over time, suggesting that QoL is relatively well preserved at the first episode. Further research is needed on the impact of inpatient-based interventions in FEP.

Aim: To test the null hypotheses that the specificities and sensitivities of the p-value based significance test for differences between baseline variables and the I 2 test for single trials do not significantly differ in detecting selection bias in RCTs. Methods: In MS Excel, 100 trials were simulated, each consisting of two treatment groups (A and B), with 100 subjects in each group. Fifty trials were biased, while 50 remained non-biased. Both tests were applied to all trials, yielding true positive, false positive, false negative and true negative per test. Subsequently, sensitivities and specificities with 95% CI were calculated and statistically compared using the z-test. Results: No false positive results were observed and subsequently the specificities of both tests were identical (100.00%; 95% CI: 92.89% to 100.00%). The sensitivity for the significance test and I 2 test were 24.00% (95% CI: 13.06% to 38.17%) and 76.00% (95% CI: 61.83% to 86.94%), respectively. A statistical comparison of the test sensitivities yielded a significant result in favour of the I 2 test (z = 5.2; p < 0.0001). Consequently, the null-hypothesis for the tests' sensitivities was rejected. Conclusion: The I 2 test appears to be a more effective method than the p-value based significance test for detecting selection bias in RCTs.

Viral protein 3 (VP3) of chicken anaemia virus (CAV), also known as apoptin, has been investigated as a potent anti-cancer therapy in human. The problem in selection of the most potent apoptin is the availability of more than 800 sequence data of apoptin of CAV in GeneBank. Here we compare the apoptin of all available CAV sequences. All sequence data were downloaded from GenBank in September 9, 2024. The sequences were aligned using Mega 11 software. Consensus residues was generated using Geneious Prime software. Protein database analysis and Protein structure prediction of consensus peptide compared to putative sequence with the four most prevalence substitutions were conducted using online software Phyre 2. Overall mean distance was 0.005. Out of 121, there were 27 conserved residues. The four most common substitutions, listed from most frequent, were S67N, L25S, V73A, and C118R, which occurred in 91, 51, 34, and 32 sequences, respectively. The artificial apoptin with four of the most frequent substitutions has additional alpha-helix structure at its carboxy terminus. There was no N-link glycosylation pattern in the consensus peptide, but emerged in few isolates. Many O-link glycosylation patterns spread across the all sequences. The phosphorylation pattern of SXXXXTP, has been located in the amino- and carboxy termini of consensus peptide, while TPXXXXXR in amino terminus of apoptin. To date, the whole apoptin should be chosen with intact phosphorylation and glycosylation motives prior to the delineation of the most effective sequence demonstrating potent anti-cancer apoptosis.

While advances in vaccine technology allowed the rapid production and approval of COVID-19 vaccines, the availability of antivirals has relied mainly on drug repurposing. Most of the proposed antivirals aim to inhibit viral entry or regulate the severity of the coronavirus infection. Of the SARS-CoV-2 three structural proteins (membrane, envelope, and nucleocapsid) that play an essential role in the assembly and formation of infectious virion particles, the envelope protein (E protein) is the least studied in terms of finding inhibitors of its function using repurposed drugs. E protein can homo-oligomerize to form a pentamer that functions as a cation-selective ion channel. This study aimed to find potential antiviral molecules targeting SARS-CoV-2 viroporin E. To achieve this, we applied virtual screening methods to the ASINEX antiviral library that contains 6827 compounds. Eight promising inhibitors were identified. The docking process was conducted on a structure of the SARS-CoV-2 viroporin E (2-E) taken from the NMR-resolved structure published by Cao Y. et al. [5], showing that these compounds could accommodate within the 2-E channel through aliphatic, aromatic, and polar interactions with the amino acid residues Val18, Leu20, Phe16, Phe19, and Thr23 of helices B, D, and E of the pentamer. All these compounds showed excellent ADMET properties like absorption, metabolism, minimal toxicity, and bioavailability. They remained stabilized at the binding site of viroporin E during the MD simulation and confirmed by MMPBSA results. The identified lead compounds are proposed as effective inhibitors of the 2-E by inhibiting the envelope formation and virion assembly.

Laboratory automation in the biopharmaceutical industry as a rule requires contracted service from highly professional automation solution provider, at times involving the purchase and development of specialized or customized hardware and software, which can be proprietary and expensive. Alternatively, with the availability of open-source software customized for automation, it is possible to automate existing laboratory instruments in a do-it-yourself (DIY), low-cost, and flexible fashion. In this work, we used an open-source scripting language, AutoIt, to integrate an existing microplate imager into an existing automation platform that is already equipped with a 4-axis robotic arm and an automated incubator, to achieve automation of the imaging procedure in our cell line development workflow. Furthermore, optimizations were performed using AutoIt to improve the overall automated imaging process, namely i) incorporating an automated scan profile selection step, ii) setting up automated handling of system errors, and iii) setting up remote handling of system errors. In summary, the use of AutoIt for DIY instrument integration proves to be cost-saving, versatile, and able to enhance the efficiency of automation workflows in the laboratory.

This article presents an unconditionally stable mixed finite element method for time-dependent inductionless magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) problem. We first propose a mixed variational formulation based on the variables ( u, p, j, ϕ). A fully discrete second-order Crank-Nicolson extrapolation scheme based on mixed finite element method is considered, in which the Navier-Stokes equations are approximated by MINI-elements and the current density is discretized by the divergence-conforming Raviart-Thomas element. A notable feature of this method is that the discrete density maintains charge conservation property. It is shown that the scheme is unconditionally stable. We prove that the optimal estimates on the low regularity hypothesis for the exact solutions. Finally, some numerical experiments have been performed to validate the theoretical analysis and the law of charge conservation.

How tropical forest leaves respond to climate change has important implications for the global carbon cycle and biodiversity. Climate change could impact the energy balance properties of tropical forest canopies through 1)long-term trait changes and 2)abrupt disruptions/damage to leaf/photosynthetic machinery. We assessed the radiative and evaporative impacts of two recently proposed impacts of climate change on tropical forest canopies: 1) long-term leaf darkening and 2) leaf death through high temperature extremes. We darkened leaves to absorb 138 Wm-2 more energy in the upper canopy of a seasonally-dry tropical moist forest in Panama. 20% of this energy went towards heating leaves by ~4°C, 3% went towards warming the air, and 77% went towards evaporative cooling. This leaf warming led to the appearance of necrosis across 9±5 % of the leaf area on certain species. In contrast, brightening leaves decreased energy absorbed by an average of 58 Wm-2, which mainly reduced evaporation (88%) with only 12% reducing leaf temperatures (and no sensible heat flux). This asymmetrical result suggests leaves may be close to hydraulic limitations towards the end of the dry season. Similar albedo increases in a model (CLM 4.0) did not diverge between brightening and darkening leaves and generally showed sensible heat flux to dominate although there were strong geographic trends. Heat death in leaves generally heated nearby leaves (by an average of ~1.35°C) and air temperature (by 0.5°C), but less than hypothesized because leaf albedo increased. Overall, our canopy top experiments question important potential climate feedbacks, but need further study.

Serpentines are layered hydrous magnesium silicates (MgO·SiO2·H2O) formed through serpentinization, a geochemical process that significantly alters the physical property of the mantle. They are hard to investigate experimentally and computationally due to the complexity of natural serpentine samples and the large number of atoms in the unit cell. We developed a machine learning (ML) potential for serpentine minerals based on density functional theory (DFT) calculation with the r2SCAN meta-GGA functional for molecular dynamics simulation. We illustrate the success of this ML potential model in reproducing the high-temperature equation of states of several hydrous phases under the Earth’s subduction zone conditions, including brucite, lizardite, and antigorite. In addition, we investigate the polymorphism of antigorite with periodicity m = 13–24, which is believed to be all the naturally existent antigorite species. We found that antigorite with m larger than 21 appears more stable than lizardite at low temperatures. This machine learning potential can be further applied to investigate more complex antigorite superstructures with multiple coexisting periodic waves.

A document by Hongliang Lu. Click on the document to view its contents.

Treatment for youth at clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR-P) presents an opportunity for early intervention with the capacity to decrease the burden associated with a potential psychotic illness later in life. However, significant barriers prevent youth at CHR-P from accessing specialty mental health services. Few studies have examined the pathways to care for youth at CHR-P within the U.S. health system. The present study reports the results of a codebook thematic analysis of qualitative interviews conducted with 15 families of youth at CHR-P. We inquired about their experiences navigating the health system to eventually arrive at the CHR-P specialty program, including help-seeking events and referrals, attributions for CHR-P symptoms, and barriers and facilitators to care using a semi-structured interview guide. Caregivers reported confusion and uncertainty regarding symptom attributions. They also disclosed the significant challenges to obtaining mental health care including mental health literacy, illness stigma, provider availability and appropriateness, and adequacy of referrals. Notably, most youth at CHR-P had encounters with emergency services during their help-seeking journey. Our results help define targets for future policy, research, and clinical efforts to improve access to specialty care for youth at CHR-P in the U.S.

Perfluoropentanone (C5F10O) gas mixtures are expected to be used in gas-insulated switchgear due to their excellent environmental and insulating properties. Nevertheless, the study of the insulating properties and influencing factors of C5F10O gas mixtures under the internal conditions of gas-insulated switchgear is not yet comprehensive. This paper comprehensively investigates the insulating properties of C5F10O/ dry air gas mixtures. The findings demonstrate that adding C5F10O significantly enhances the insulating properties of the gas mixture. The findings of this research serve as a valuable reference for the engineering application, operation, and maintenance of C5F10O/dry air gas mixtures.

Photochemical reflectance index (PRI) has been a promising method to estimate vegetation photosynthetic efficiency. However, the capability of canopy PRI in detecting environmental stress degrees and its underlying mechanism remains unclear, due to the strong confounding effects between soil background and canopy characteristics. This study aimed to explain how the canopy PRI responds to soil moisture and canopy characteristics under soil drying with their relative contributions and influencing pathways. A set of maize field experimental data with various drought treatments was applied to distinguish the roles played by soil moisture and canopy characteristics in determining the variations of seasonal canopy PRI. The results showed that PRI has the capability to capture canopy stress across growing season during soil drying. The mean canopy PRI across the entire growth period closely correlated with and RUE across varying drought treatments. Besides, the fraction of absorbed photosynthetic available radiation (fAPAR), canopy water content (CWC), and canopy chlorophyll content (CCC) were more related with PRI than leaf area index. The available soil water content (ASWC) was not directly linked to PRI but shared a positive linear relationship with PRI after eliminating the effects of canopy characteristics (including LAI, CCC, and CWC). Moreover, fAPAR and LAI were the most important direct and indirect factors affecting canopy PRI, respectively. The effect of CWC on canopy PRI was indirectly achieved by LAI and fAPAR. The results suggested that the confounding effects of LAI, CCC, and CWC on canopy PRI can be well presented by fAPAR. These findings imply that accounting for the fAPAR contribution is necessary to improve the accuracy for estimating photosynthetic efficiency and then monitoring crop stress through remote sensing.

A document by Asad Allana. Click on the document to view its contents.

The brain’s ability to integrate sensory and motor information allows us to maintain a sense of orientation in space, a process in which head-direction cells play a key role. While these neurons have been studied extensively in mammals, their presence and function in non-mammalian species remain less understood. Here, I summarise the research work for my PhD thesis, where we explore the interpeduncular nucleus (IPN) in zebrafish, a lesser-known brain region, using whole-brain electron microscopy and calcium imaging techniques. We identified a novel population of unipolar neurons, with their activity exhibiting a dynamic, rotational pattern during head movements, even in the absence of sensory cues. This population mirrors the functionality of head-direction cells observed in mammals, suggesting a conserved mechanism for spatial orientation across vertebrates. Our findings reveal the potential of the zebrafish IPN as a vertebrate model for studying ring attractor networks, a theoretical framework previously used to explain head-direction cell activity. These results pave the way for future research on how motor and sensory signals converge in the vertebrate brain to maintain spatial orientation.