Browse Articles

Predictive value of scoring systems for stone free status and complications before percutaneous nephrolithotomy in children

Age-associated differences in mucosal and systemic host responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection

Abstract Age is among the strongest risk factors for severe outcomes from SARS-CoV-2 infection. Here we describe upper respiratory tract (URT) and peripheral blood transcriptomes of 202 participants (age range of 1 week to 83 years), including 137 non-hospitalized individuals with mild SARS-CoV-2 infection and 65 healthy individuals. Among healthy children and adolescents, younger age is associated with higher URT expression of innate and adaptive immune pathways. SARS-CoV-2 infection induces broad upregulation of URT innate and adaptive immune responses among children and adolescents. Peripheral blood responses among SARS-CoV-2-infected children and adolescents are dominated by interferon pathways, while upregulation of myeloid activation, inflammatory, and coagulation pathways is observed only in adults. Among SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals, fever is associated with blunted URT immune responses and more pronounced systemic immune activation. These findings demonstrate that immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 differ across the lifespan, from distinct signatures in childhood and adolescence to age-associated alterations in adults.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa promoted microbial fuel cells for cytidine acid production wastewater treatment

Graph-structured populations elucidate the role of deleterious mutations in long-term evolution

Abstract Birth-death models are used to understand the interplay of genetic drift and natural selection. While well-mixed populations remain unaffected by the order of birth and death and where selection acts, evolutionary outcomes in spatially structured populations are affected by these choices. We show that the choice of individual moving to vacant sites—parent or offspring—controls the initial mutant placement on a graph and hence alters its fixation probability. Moving parent individuals introduces, to our knowledge, previously unexplored update rules and fixation categories for heterogeneous graphs. We identify a class of graphs, amplifiers of fixation, where fixation probability is larger than in well-mixed populations, regardless of the mutant fitness. Under death-Birth parent moving, the star graph is an amplifier of fixation, with a non-zero fixation probability for deleterious mutants, in contrast to very large well-mixed populations. Most Erdős-Rényi graphs of size 8 are amplifiers of fixation under death-Birth parent moving, but suppressors of fixation under Birth-death offspring moving. Surprisingly, amplifiers of fixation attain lower fitness in long-term evolution, despite favouring beneficial mutants, while suppressors of fixation attain higher fitness. These counterintuitive findings are explained by the fate of deleterious mutations and highlight the crucial role of deleterious mutants for adaptive evolution.

The impact of the river chief system on transboundary water pollution

Alveolar macrophages from persons with HIV mount impaired TNF signaling networks to M. tuberculosis infection

The effect of social settings and olfactory environments on spontaneous movement synchrony

Pennate diatoms make non-photochemical quenching as simple as possible but not simpler

Abstract Studies of marine microalgal photosynthesis are heavily moulded on legacy research from organisms like Arabidopsis and Chlamydomonas , despite the differences between primary and secondary endosymbionts. Non-photochemical quenching (NPQ) protects photosystem II from excessive light and, in pennate diatoms, requires the xanthophyll pigment diatoxanthin and Lhcx proteins. Although NPQ’s relationship with diatoxanthin is straightforward, the role of Lhcx proteins has been unclear and at the core of several conflicting NPQ models, often unnecessarily borrowing the complexity of models from green organisms. We use 14 Phaeodactylum tricornutum strains, including 13 transgenic lines with variable Lhcx1 expression levels, grow them under two non-stressful light conditions, and modulate diatoxanthin levels through short light stress. The resulting Lhcx1-diatoxanthin matrices are used to demonstrate that NPQ is proportional to the product of the Lhcx1 concentration and the proportion of diatoxanthin in the xanthophyll pool. This indicates that the interaction between diatoxanthin and Lhcx1 creates a homogeneous Stern-Volmer quencher responsible for NPQ. Additionally, we demonstrate that the photosynthetic unit in pennate diatoms follows a “lake” model, with discrepancies in the NPQ-photochemistry relationship arising from unconsidered assumptions, one possibility being cellular heterogeneity. This underscores pennate diatoms as natural reductionist system for studying marine photosynthesis.

Impact of adapted physical activity and diet counselling on health-related quality of life in women undergoing adjuvant breast cancer therapy

Impact of liver fibrosis on AAV-mediated gene transfer to mouse hepatocytes

Controlled electrochemical fabrication of large and stable gold nanorods with reduced cytotoxicity

Equitable machine learning counteracts ancestral bias in precision medicine

Land transfer and planning in suburban villages of mountain valley area based on scenario analysis

Observation of first- and second-order dissipative phase transitions in a two-photon driven Kerr resonator

Abstract In open quantum systems, dissipative phase transitions (DPTs) emerge from the interplay between unitary evolution, drive, and dissipation. While second-order DPTs have been predominantly investigated theoretically, first-order DPTs have been observed in single-photon-driven Kerr resonators. We present here an experimental and theoretical analysis of both first and second-order DPTs in a two-photon-driven superconducting Kerr resonator. We characterize the steady state at the critical points, showing squeezing below vacuum and the coexistence of phases with different photon numbers. Through time resolved measurements, we study the dynamics across the critical points and observe hysteresis cycles at the first-order DPT and spontaneous symmetry breaking at the second-order DPT. Extracting the timescales of the critical phenomena reveals slowing down across five orders of magnitude when scaling towards the thermodynamic limit. Our results showcase the engineering of criticality in superconducting circuits, advancing the use of parametric resonators for critically-enhanced quantum information applications.

Secrecy outage probability and strictly positive secrecy capacity of UAV assisted cooperative NOMA system with two untrusted destinations

Abstract The volume of confidential information transmitted over 5G networks has increased rapidly due to the widespread adoption of large machine-type communication and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Secrecy outage probability (SOP) and strictly positive secrecy capacity (SPSC) parameters are crucial parameters used in evaluating the security of wireless systems, particularly in situations where maintaining secrecy is essential. Also, Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has the potential to improve the performance of wireless communication systems due to its higher spectral efficiency, improved fairness in resource allocation, and enhanced coverage and connectivity. In this paper, we investigate the secrecy performance of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) assisted cooperative NOMA system with a half duplex protocol based amplify and forward relay over the Rayleigh fading channel in presence of two eavesdroppers for downlink communication. We derive SOP and SPSC of the proposed system model and analyze its performance in terms of the illegal SNR of eavesdroppers, power allocation coefficient, information rates and Rayleigh channel parameters. Simulation results demonstrate that SOP decreases with a higher value of power allocation coefficient and lower values of the illegal SNR of eavesdropper and lower information rates. SPSC increases with high values of power allocation coefficient of far destination and decreases with lower values of illegal SNR of eavesdroppers and Rayleigh channel parameters. Analytical simulations are verified using Monte Carlo simulations.

Size-effect induced controllable Cu0-Cu+ sites for ampere-level nitrate electroreduction coupled with biomass upgrading

Sustainable development of bioepoxy composites reinforced with recycled rigid polyurethane foam for mechanical, thermal, acoustic, and electromagnetic applications in a circular economy approach

Abstract The accumulation of polyurethane (PU) waste presents a critical environmental challenge due to the inefficiencies of traditional disposal methods like landfilling and incineration. This study introduces a sustainable approach by repurposing 99.89% pure rigid polyurethane foam granules (~ 150 µm) as fillers (5 wt.%) in bio-epoxy composites, complemented with 99.89% pure vermiculite particles (~ 10 µm) at varying concentrations (2–10 wt.%). Comprehensive characterization techniques, including high-resolution scanning electron microscopy (HR-SEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), were employed to evaluate the composites’ mechanical, thermal, electrical, acoustic, and electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding properties. The study specifically measured EMI shielding effectiveness in the frequency range of 8–12 GHz. Among the formulations, sample S5 exhibited superior mechanical performance, with tensile strength (10.47 N/mm2), impact strength (0.006 kJ/cm2), and flexural strength (46.80 N/mm2). EMI analysis revealed a dielectric constant of 1.111 and shielding effectiveness of -35.24 dB, while sample S3 achieved optimal acoustic absorption (NRC 0.295). Thermal assessments showed the lowest thermal conductivity (0.141 W/mK) and a reduced burning rate (6.8 mm/min) for S5. These results highlight the viability of recycled PU foam-based composites in minimizing plastic waste and advancing net-zero carbon emission goals. Potential applications include battery enclosures, engine bay insulation, and cabin soundproofing in electric vehicles. This work establishes the novelty of integrating recycled materials into bio-epoxy matrices to address environmental challenges and create high-performance composites.

Tunable superconductivity coexisting with the anomalous Hall effect in a transition metal dichalcogenide

Prospect certainty for data-driven models

Abstract The inherent nature of uncertainty in the inputs of data-driven models can lead to incorrect outputs. Such outcomes are difficult to ascertain due to the lack of reference data during the deployment, which hinders their acceptance in practical applications. This highlights the need to evaluate the degree of certainty of the output of a model to improve its robustness. In this paper, we present a new method for quantifying the output certainty of data-driven models, considering changing probability distributions of input data during the deployment. We achieve this by introducing the concept of logit masking to mitigate the deterministic nature of the model and build multiple alternatives for each output logit. Then, we propose a weighted probability function to provide an initial insight into the certainty of these alternatives. Moreover, we define a behavior function to describe the degree to which these alternatives affect the output distribution pattern. By combining these weights and behaviors, we determine the prospect certainty of these variants and finally choose the one with the highest certainty as the refined output of the model. Experimental results on benchmark and real-world datasets show that our proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art techniques in determining output certainty for data-driven models.

Secure and scalable gene expression quantification with pQuant