Browse Articles

Retraction Note: A fixed support method for cryogenic silicon cavities of ultra-stable lasers for space applications

Control of flow behavior in complex fluids using automatic differentiation

Inverse design of complex flows is notoriously challenging because of the high cost of high dimensional optimization. Usually, optimization problems are either restricted to few control parameters, or adjoint-based approaches are used to convert the optimization problem into a boundary value problem. Here, we show that the recent advances in automatic differentiation (AD) provide a generic platform for solving inverse problems in complex fluids. To demonstrate the versatility of the approach, we solve an array of optimization problems related to active matter motion in Newtonian fluids, dispersion in structured porous media, and mixing in journal bearing. Each of these problems highlights the advantages of AD in ease of implementation and computational efficiency to solve high-dimensional optimization problems involving particle-laden flows.

A comparison of the burden of cancers between 1990 and 2019 in Iran: A national and subnational study

Background Cancer is a rapidly increasing global problem, and one of the leading causes of burden and mortality. This study aims to compare the burden of cancer in Iran between the year 1990 and 2019. Methods We used Global Burden of Disease data on cancer from 1990 to 2019 by province, year, age group, and sex. We then estimated the trend of age standardized mortality and Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) of the cancers by sex. Age pattern and geographical variation in the ranking of cancers were assessed at national and sub-national levels from 1990 to 2019. Results The mortality rate decreased from 102 (95% UI: 91, 111) to 96 (95% UI: 88, 103) per 100000 population. Additionally, the DALYs rates decreased from 2619 (95% UI: 2357, 2852) to 2321 (95% UI: 2116, 2497) per 100000 between 1990 and 2019. Both of the mortality and DALYs rate from cancers increased with age. These indicators were significantly higher in men than in women across all age groups. Consequently, the mortality rate and DALYs per 100,000 of cancers were higher in the northwest and northeast of Iran. Notably, stomach cancer was identified as the leading cause of cancer mortality in 23 provinces of Iran in 2019. The highest percentage change of DALYs per 100,000 rate between 1990 and 2019 was observed for malignant skin melanoma, stomach cancer, and cervical cancers with rate of −41.1, −40.1, and −38.4, respectively. Conclusion Overall, the mortality and DALYs per 100,000 rates of all cancers for both sexes in Iran have decreased between 1990 and 2019. However, there is an increasing trend in types of cancers, such as pancreatic, ovarian, and breast cancers.

Japanese nationwide dental survey of hypophosphatasia reveals novel oral manifestations

A circRNA–mRNA pairing mechanism regulates tumor growth and endocrine therapy resistance in ER-positive breast cancer

The molecular mechanisms underlying estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast carcinogenesis and drug resistance remain incompletely understood. Elevated expression of CCND1 is linked to enhanced invasiveness, poorer prognosis, and resistance to drug therapies in ER-positive breast cancer. In this study, we identify a highly expressed circular RNA (circRNA) derived from FOXK2 , called circFOXK2, which plays a key role in stabilizing CCND1 mRNA, thereby promoting cell cycle progression, cell growth, and endocrine therapy resistance in ER-positive breast cancer cells. Mechanistically, circFOXK2 binds directly to CCND1 mRNA via RNA–RNA pairing and recruits the RNA-binding protein ELAVL1/HuR, stabilizing the CCND1 mRNA and enhancing CCND1 protein levels. This results in activation of the CCND1–CDK4/6–p-RB–E2F signaling axis, driving the transcription of downstream E2F target genes and facilitating the G1/S transition during cell cycle progression. Notably, targeting circFOXK2 with antisense oligonucleotide (ASO-circFOXK2) suppresses ER-positive breast cancer cell growth both in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, combination therapy with ASO-circFOXK2 and tamoxifen exhibits synergistic effects and restores tamoxifen sensitivity in tamoxifen-resistant cells. Clinically, high circFOXK2 expression is positively correlated with CCND1 levels in both ER-positive breast cancer cell lines and patient tumor tissues. Overall, our findings reveal the critical role of circFOXK2 in stabilizing the oncogene CCND1 and promoting cancer progression, positioning circFOXK2 as a potential therapeutic target for ER-positive breast cancer in clinical settings.

Evaluation of different intramuscular injectable anesthetic combinations in rabbits: Impact on anesthetic depth, physiological parameters, and EEG recordings

Rabbits have a high anesthesia-related mortality rate because of their small size, high metabolic rate and challenging airway management. This study aimed to investigate different combinations of intramuscularly administered anesthetics in New Zealand White rabbits, focusing on their effects on anesthetic depth, physiological parameters, and electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings. Defined doses ketamine (K), esketamine (SK), medetomidine (M), dexmedetomidine (D), midazolam (Mi), and butorphanol (B) were investigated and compared in five different combinations: KM (25/0.25 mg/kg), SKM (17/0.25 mg/kg), SKD (17/0.15 mg/kg), MMiB (0.25/1/0.2 mg/kg), and DMiB (0.15/1/0.2 mg/kg). For 60 minutes, the anesthetic depth was assessed using an anesthesia score, and physiological parameters, including heart rate (HR), respiratory rate (RR), oxygen saturation and blood pressure were recorded. The study also assessed the latencies to loss and recovery of reflexes after targeted antagonization, and EEGs were measured. The rabbits were not intubated and were supplied with oxygenated air via nasal probes. All anesthetic combinations achieved anesthesia with surgical tolerance, with significant intergroup differences in HR, RR, blood pressure and EEG power spectra. The KM group demonstrated the most stable anesthesia and rapid recovery, while SKD and SKM groups showed prolonged recovery times. Oxygen saturation remained consistently high across all groups, obviating the need for intubation. All rabbits recovered fully after anesthesia. In conclusion, intramuscular administered anesthetic combinations can provide effective anesthesia with surgical tolerance for short procedures in rabbits. Monitoring circulatory parameters during and after anesthesia and adequate pain management pre-, inter-, and postoperatively are essential. Considering these criteria, the KM group presented the best results compared with the other groups.

Investigation on the influence of co-sensitization on semi-transparent DSSCs fabricated using NIR-sensitive squaraine dyes and visible dyes

Abstract Two squaraine dyes (“blue colored” SQ258 and “green colored” SQ259) active in the near-infrared spectral range were co-sensitized with popular commercial dyes (D35 and N719) and their photophysical characterizations were performed using stationary and time-resolved spectroscopic techniques. The dye mixtures, D35:SQ258 and N719:SQ259 demonstrated a better photovoltaic performance when compared with their individual photovoltaic efficiencies. The studied different DSSC configurations using squaraine dyes and mixtures in the devices with thin TiO2 layer show the potential application in multi-color semi-transparent cells. The D35:SQ258 system was also evaluated in the presence of cobalt-based redox shuttle, revealing improved performance compared to I−/I3 −. The stationary, transient absorption and external quantum efficiency spectra indicated the squaraine dye de-aggregating function of D35 and N719 dyes. The fast internal conversion of the excited squaraine dyes which competes with too slow electron injection was observed as the main reason for the limited charge separation efficiency in the studied cells of pure squaraine dyes. However, as a result of the synergetic effects of the co-sensitized dyes, the improvement of the charge separation efficiency was revealed. Finally, transient absorption studies revealed that upon exclusive excitation of squaraine dyes an ultrafast energy transfer between the squaraine monomers and their H-aggregates takes place, and a Stark shift of absorption band of co-sensitized dyes can be observed.

Risks of habitat loss from seaweed cultivation within seagrass

HLA-class II genes association with multiple sclerosis: An immunogenetic prediction among multiple sclerosis Jordanian patients

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory autoimmune disease affecting the central nervous system (CNS). The pathogenesis of MS is characterized by neuronal axonal degeneration and demyelination. Among the genes that raises MS risk are the HLA-class II genes. The goals of this study were to investigate the role of the HLA-DRB1 and HLA-DQB1 genes (for the first time) in Jordanian MS patients and their association with MS disease. The association of these genes with other clinical features, such as optic neuritis, sensory impairment, and brainstem symptoms in MS patients was investigated as well using PCR-SSP techniques. Our findings indicated an association between HLA-DRB1 * 03:01 (Pc =  0.01) and HLA-DRB1 * 04:01 (Pc =  0.004) alleles with Jordanian MS patients. In addition, a significant linkage between HLA-DRB1 * 15:01 and HLA-DQB1 * 06:01 alleles (Pc ≤  0.001 and Pc =  0.012, respectively) were presented among Jordanian MS patients with optic neuritis compared to Jordanian MS patients without optic neuritis. Moreover, HLA-DQB1 * 05:01 and HLA-DQB1 * 06:02 alleles (Pc ≤  0.001 and Pc =  0.006, respectively) was found to be related with sensory impairment in MS patients. Additionally, HLA-DRB1 * 07:01 allele indicates a positive correlation in MS patients with brainstem symptoms (Pc <  0.001). Moreover, our results indicated that there is no association on the HLA-DRB1 ~ HLA-DQB1 haplotype level and MS disease. Knowing the genes that are linked to MS, they may facilitate MS diagnosis, prevention, and treatment at earlier stage. Also, these results may serve in the development of more potent therapeutic regimens for MS and its related complications, such as optic neuritis, sensory impairment, and brainstem symptoms.

Comparison of pregnant mare serum gonadotropin products with surprising differences in protein content

Measuring population heterogeneity requires heterogeneous populations

Predicting IVF live -birth probability using time-lapse data: Implications of including or excluding age in a day 2 embryo transfer model

The primary objective of this study was to develop predictive models for the likelihood of live births following In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) treatment, based on a retrospective analysis of time-lapse data from Day 2 embryo transfers at Klinikk Hausken, Norway. This analysis encompassed 1,506 IVF treatment cycles, which included 865 single and 641 double embryo transfer cycles, totalling 2,147 embryos transferred. The model covariates included nucleation error, timing of two-cell stage (t2) and duration between t2 and the three-cell stage (t3). The predictive ability was assessed using Area Under Curve (AUC). Generalised Additive Mixed Models (GAMM) were utilised to address clustering effects from Single Embryo Transfers (SET) and Double Embryo Transfers (DETs), as well as the non-linear effects of female age and t2 timings. A stratification of age and model scores demonstrated the impact of incorporating age into the model. The” Base Model, not incorporating age, achieved an AUC of 0.641, while the “Age Model”, using maternal age, significantly enhanced AUC to 0.745, as estimated through bootstrap analysis. However, when the Age Model was subjected to average ages across three respective age intervals, the AUC values were comparable to the Base Model, rather than the original Age Model scores. Adjusting the Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) timing by ± 2 hours, purely as a theoretical exercise, has minimal impacts on model predictions. This highlights the value of including t2 despite fertilisation timing variations between ICSI and IVF. The Age Model did not show superiority in predicting live birth within single treatment cohorts. However, given its distinct AUC values for broader age ranges, the Age Model can serve as a counselling tool on live-birth probabilities. With further validation, we suggest only using the Age Model for general counselling, while the Base Model is preferable for the embryo selection decision support.

Association of magnesium depletion score with increased stroke incidence and mortality risks in a comprehensive analysis

High spatial resolution charge sensing of quantum Hall states

Charge distribution offers a unique fingerprint of important properties of electronic systems, including dielectric response, charge ordering, and charge fractionalization. We develop an architecture for charge sensing in two-dimensional electronic systems in a strong magnetic field. We probe local change of the chemical potential in a proximitized detector layer using scanning tunneling microscopy, allowing us to infer the chemical potential and the charge profile in the sample. Our technique has both high energy (<0.3 meV) and spatial (<10 nm) resolution exceeding that of previous studies by an order of magnitude. We apply our technique to study the chemical potential of quantum Hall liquids in monolayer graphene under high magnetic fields and their responses to charge impurities. The chemical potential measurement provides a local probe of the thermodynamic gap of quantum Hall ferromagnets and fractional quantum Hall states. The screening charge profile reveals spatially oscillatory response of the quantum Hall liquids to charge impurities and is consistent with the composite Fermi liquid picture close to the half-filling. Our technique also paves the way to map moiré potentials, probe Wigner crystals, and investigate fractional charges in quantum Hall and Chern insulators.

Ecuadorian Holstein-Friesian cattle paternal lineages: Demographic structure, inbreeding evolution, and genetic diversity

Holstein-Friesian cattle are the most important dairy breed worldwide. The main objective was to carry out a detailed pedigree evaluation of the Ecuadorian Holstein-Friesian cattle to investigate the demographic structure, inbreeding evolution, and genetic diversity of the official paternal lineages to determine the potential GD loss after the inclusion of modern Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs). Official pedigree information from 28,893 Holstein-Friesian sires born between 1950 and 2021 and enrolled with the Ecuadorian Holstein-Friesian Association (AHFE, Ecuador) were recorded and evaluated from USA and Canada genetic official databases. After multiple-trait across-country genetic analyses the total population was divided into four subpopulations; i) 1950–1969: natural mating (NM) period; ii) 1970–1989: NM +  artificial insemination (AI) period; iii) 1990–2009: AI +  embryo transfer (ET) period; and iv) 2010–2021: AI +  ET +  genomic selection (GS) period. Demographic parameters [number of males, pedigree integrity (PI), and generation interval (GI)] were analysed. PI was analysed using known ancestors up to 4 generations considering the number of complete (GCom), maximum (GMax) and equivalent (GEqu) generations. Moreover, Inbreeding parameters [inbreeding coefficient (F), average relatedness (AR), coancestry (C), effective size (Ne), genetic conservation index (GCI)] and parameters related to the gene origin probability (number of founders (f), effective number of founders (fe), genetic conservation index (GCI), among others] were also analysed, together with the fe/f ratio, fge/fe ratio, genetic contributions, and genetic diversity loss (GD-loss) derived parameters. The results indicated that nearly all imported sires used in Ecuador born in the beginning of 1990s could be traced to just three countries, who together account for > 90% of paternal lineages. This fact indicates that GD has undergone a dramatic decrease during the past 30 years. The PCI for the three last periods were > 55%, and the trend was enhanced in the fourth chronological period till > 92%. The estimated proportion of random genetic drift in GD loss increased over time as well as the Ne that decreased by the time. In conclusion, the occurrence of AI +  ET +  GS period led to the major GD loss. Therefore, due to the extremely limited number of paternal lineages the strategy for recovering the minimal GD on the current and future Ecuadorian Holstein-Friesian cattle should reduce the inbreeding values by increasing the Ne using alternately the foreign genetic material and the national breeding stock.

Cascading quantum walks with Chebyshev map for designing a robust medical image encryption algorithm

Do LLMs write like humans? Variation in grammatical and rhetorical styles

Large language models (LLMs) are capable of writing grammatical text that follows instructions, answers questions, and solves problems. As they have advanced, it has become difficult to distinguish their output from human-written text. While past research has found some differences in features such as word choice and punctuation and developed classifiers to detect LLM output, none has studied the rhetorical styles of LLMs. Using several variants of Llama 3 and GPT-4o, we construct two parallel corpora of human- and LLM-written texts from common prompts. Using Douglas Biber’s set of lexical, grammatical, and rhetorical features, we identify systematic differences between LLMs and humans and between different LLMs. These differences persist when moving from smaller models to larger ones and are larger for instruction-tuned models than base models. This observation of differences demonstrates that despite their advanced abilities, LLMs struggle to match human stylistic variation. Attention to more advanced linguistic features can hence detect patterns in their behavior not previously recognized.

Acute and sub-acute toxicity of ethanol extracts of Hagenia abyssinica and Rumex abyssinicus flowers in Swiss albino mice

Background Hagenia abyssinica (Bruce) J.F. Gmel (Family: Rosaceae) and Rumex abyssinicus Jacq (Family: Polygonaceae) are valuable medicinal plants traditionally used in Ethiopia to treat various diseases. Recent studies have also demonstrated that solvent extracts of these plants exhibit molluscicidal activities under laboratory conditions, highlighting their potential for snail control. However, limited information is available regarding their safety profiles. Objective This study aimed to evaluate acute, and sub-acute toxicity of 70% ethanol extracts of H. abyssinica and R. abyssinicus flowers in Swiss albino mice, following the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development guidelines 423 and 407. Methods In the acute toxicity study, both extracts were administered orally to experimental groups at varying concentrations (mg/kg bodyweight): 5, 50, 300, and 2000. For the sub-acute toxicity study, both extracts were given to the experimental groups at doses (mg/kg) of 125, 250, and 500 daily for 28 days. Blood samples were collected from each mouse and analyzed for hematological and biochemical parameters. Additionally, the heart, liver, and kidneys were excised, stained, and examined for potential histopathological effects. Results The acute toxicity study revealed no noticeable changes in behavior at the highest oral dosage of 2000 mg/kg. In the sub-acute toxicity study, no statistically significant changes were observed in hematological and biochemical parameters compared to the control group. Similarly, no abnormal histological findings were noted in the examined organs in comparison to the control group. Conclusion These findings indicate that flower extracts of both plants did not show significant toxicity to laboratory mammals at an oral dosage of 2000 mg/kg.

A network analysis of the heterogeneity and associated risk and protective factors of depression and anxiety among college students

Gene duplication captures morph-specific promoter usage in the evolution of aphid wing dimorphisms

Understanding how morphology evolves requires identifying the types of mutations that contribute to changes in development. We integrated comparative genomics and transcriptomics to reconstruct the evolution and regulation of follistatin paralogs in relation to the evolution of aphid winged and wingless morphs. We find that different pea aphid follistatin duplicates play an essential molecular role in both the male and female wing dimorphisms, linking the genetic and environmental control of morph determination in each sex, respectively. We also find that an ancestral follistatin gene likely had multiple promoters and that the follistatin duplicates that evolved wingless-specific expression retained only the ancestral wingless-specific promoter. Our work provides a roadmap for how alternative promoter usage and subsequent gene duplication can enable the evolution of animal form.