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Anisotropic superconductivity in the quasi-one-dimensional superconductor V2Ga5

Chronic starvation induces microglial cell depletion in an activity-based anorexia model

Abstract Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a severe psychiatric disease with a largely unknown pathophysiology. AN leads to reduced brain volume and a disbalance of the gut microbiome suggesting the involvement of the gut-brain-axis. Also, in the activity-based anorexia (ABA) animal model mimicking AN brain volume loss is observed. This study investigated the impact of chronic starvation on brain cell populations and evaluated the potential protective effects of omega-3 fatty acids (FA) and probiotics in rats. We used a chronic ABA model and provided daily oral supplementation of omega-3 FA and probiotics. Immunohistochemistry and qPCR were used to analyze GFAP-positive astrocytes, IBA1-positive microglia, OLIG1/2-positive oligodendrocytes, MAP2-positive neurons and Ki-67-positive proliferating cells in the cerebral cortex and corpus callosum. We found a significant reduction of astrocytes and microglia in all ABA groups, likely due to reduced proliferating cells. Reduced running wheel activity and reduced amount of food needed to sustain body weight were observed in animals with supplementation with omega-3 FA and probiotics but we did not observe alterations in brain cells that could be attributed to these supplementations. Our results indicate that glial cell depletion potentially underlies the diminished brain volume found in ABA rats. Omega-3 FA and probiotics show potential for reducing AN-related symptoms and merit further study as a therapeutic approach.

Sub-4 nm Ru-RuO₂ Schottky Nanojunction as a Catalyst for Durable Acidic Water Oxidation

Neural network conditioned to produce thermophilic protein sequences can increase thermal stability

Abstract This work presents Neural Optimization for Melting-temperature Enabled by Leveraging Translation (NOMELT), a novel approach for designing and ranking high-temperature stable proteins using neural machine translation. The model, trained on over 4 million protein homologous pairs from organisms adapted to different temperatures, demonstrates promising capability in targeting thermal stability. A designed variant of the Drosophila melanogaster Engrailed Homeodomain shows a melting temperature increase of 15.5 K. Furthermore, NOMELT achieves zero-shot predictive capabilities in ranking experimental melting and half-activation temperatures across a number of protein families. It achieves this without requiring extensive homology data or massive training datasets as do existing zero-shot predictors by specifically learning thermophilicity, as opposed to all natural variation. These findings underscore the potential of leveraging organismal growth temperatures in context-dependent design of proteins for enhanced thermal stability.

Significance and classification of AI-driven techniques in telecommunication sectors based on interval-valued bipolar fuzzy soft aggregation operators

Author Correction: A drug-drug co-amorphous system for highly improved solubility of breviscapine: an experimental and computational study

Intraocular fluid analysis-guided precision therapy in the treatment of acute retinal necrosis syndrome

The influence of socio-economic status on the fulfilment of Saint-Gallen recommendations for early-stage breast cancer

Potential C-terminal domain interactions of the cardiac voltage gated sodium channel

Supermoms—Tired, admired, or inspired? Decoding the impact of supermom beliefs: A study on Indian employed mothers

Some days she is a supermom, some days just a mom, but most days a bit of both, and every day she strives to keep her oath! The study aims to unravel the perceptions and beliefs about ‘being a supermom’ and to explore its relationships with work-related factors. Our study aims to unravel the perceptions and beliefs of 306 Indian-employed mothers about ‘being a supermom’ and its relationship with work-related factors like self-efficacy, work engagement, and psychological well-being. Standardized scales were used for quantitative study and qualitative questions were used to understand the beliefs about the supermom notion. Frequency analysis for the perception of the supermom notion showed that 52% of mothers consider it detrimental to achieving success, while 48% consider it to be beneficial. A path analysis revealed that if the supermom notion is perceived as beneficial, it increases employed mothers’ self-efficacy; self-efficacy promotes work engagement, and work engagement increases psychological well-being. SEM confirmed that self-efficacy increases psychological well-being directly as well as through work engagement indicating partial mediation of work engagement. Findings suggest that while the supermom ideal can be exhausting and is often viewed as a myth or trap that negatively impacts psychological well-being, it can also serve as a source of inspiration and contribute positively to psychological well-being for some mothers.

Fly ash pollution causes morpho-anatomical and biochemical changes in Eichhornia crassipes (Mart.) Solms and Pistia stratiotes L: demonstrating stress-tolerant activity

Where the wild bees are: Birds improve indicators of bee richness

Widespread declines in wild bee populations necessitate urgent action, but insufficient data exist to guide conservation efforts. Addressing this data deficit, we investigated the relative performance of environmental and/or taxon-based indicators to predict wild bee richness in the eastern and central U.S. Our methodology leveraged publicly available data on bees (SCAN and GBIF data repositories), birds (eBird participatory science project) and land cover data (USDA Cropland Data Layer). We used a Bayesian variable selection algorithm to select variables that best predicted species richness of bees using two datasets: a semi-structured dataset covering a wide geographical and temporal range and a structured dataset covering a focused extent with a standardized protocol. We demonstrate that birds add value to land cover data as indicators of wild bee species richness across broad geographies, particularly when using semi-structured data. These improvements likely stem from the demonstrated sensitivity of birds to conditions thought to impact bees but that are missed by remotely sensed environmental data. Importantly, this enables estimation of bee richness in places that don’t have direct observations of bees. In the case of wild bees specifically, we suggest that bird and land cover data, when combined, serve as useful indicators to guide monitoring and conservation priorities until the quality and quantity of bee data improve.

Exploring the potential of handgrip strength as a prognostic marker in acute decompensated heart failure with reduced ejection fraction: a cross-sectional study

Effects of inbound attendees of a mass gathering event on the COVID-19 epidemic using individual-based simulations

Given that mass gathering events involve heterogeneous and time-varying contact between residents and visitors, we sought to identify possible measures to prevent the potential acceleration of the outbreak of an emerging infectious disease induced by such events. An individual-based simulator was built based on a description of the reproduction rate among people infected with the infectious disease in a hypothetical city. Three different scenarios were assessed using our simulator, in which controls aimed at reduced contact were assumed to be carried out only in the main event venue or at subsequent additional events, or in which behavior restrictions were carried out among the visitors to the main event. The simulation results indicated that the increase in the number of patients with COVID-19 could possibly be suppressed to a level equivalent to that if the event were not being held so long as the prevalence among visitors was only slightly higher than that among domestic residents and strict requirements were applied to the activities of visitors.

Improved food image recognition by leveraging deep learning and data-driven methods with an application to Central Asian Food Scene

A new synonym for Viburnum erosum (Viburnaceae) in East China, based on morphological and molecular evidence

The critical observations of living plants in the field, along with the examination of type specimens and protologues, led us to conclude that the key characteristics, including the length of the petiole, stipules and peduncles, as well as the shape of leaves of Viburnum fengyangshanense, all fall within the variation range of V. erosum. Additionally, molecular analysis of nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (nrITS) and three plastid DNA markers (rbcL, matK and ndhF) indicates that V. fengyangshanense and V. erosum are deeply nested within a clade. Therefore, based on morphological and molecular evidence, it is demonstrated that V. fengyangshanense should be regarded as a new synonym of V. erosum.

The relationship of glycosylated hemoglobin A1c and Apolipoprotein A‑1 ratio on short-term prognosis in STEMI patients following PCI: a retrospective study

Network traffic prediction based on transformer and temporal convolutional network

This paper proposes a hybrid model combining Transformer and Temporal Convolutional Network (TCN). This model addresses the shortcomings of current approaches in capturing long-term and short-term dependencies in network traffic prediction tasks. The Transformer module effectively captures global temporal relationships through a multi-head self-attention mechanism. Meanwhile, the TCN module models local and long-term dependencies using dilated convolution technology. Experimental results on the PeMSD4 and PeMSD8 datasets demonstrate that our method considerably surpasses current mainstream methods at all time steps, particularly in long-term step prediction. Through ablation experiments, we verified the contribution of each module in the model to the performance, further proving the key role of the Transformer and TCN modules in improving prediction performance.

Surface structural probing and photoelectrochemical characterization of electrodeposited MoS2 nanostructured thin film

CureSCi Metadata Catalog—Finding and harmonizing studies for secondary analysis of hydroxyurea discontinuation in sickle cell disease

Objectives Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a rare group of inherited red blood cell disorders that affect hemoglobin, resulting in serious multi-system complications. The limited number of patients available to participate in research studies can inhibit investigating sophisticated relationships. Secondary analysis is a research method that involves using existing data to answer new research questions. Data harmonization enables secondary analysis by combining data across studies, especially helpful for rare disease research where individual studies may be small. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Cure Sickle Cell Initiative (CureSCi) Metadata Catalog is a web-based tool to identify SCD study datasets for conducting data harmonization and secondary analysis. We present a proof-of-concept secondary analysis to explore factors associated with discontinuation of hydroxyurea, a safe and effective first line SCD therapy, to illustrate the utility of the CureSCi Metadata Catalog to expedite and enable more robust SCD research. Methods We performed secondary analysis of SCD studies using a multi-step workflow: develop research questions, identify study datasets, identify variables of interest, harmonize variables, and establish an analysis method. A harmonized dataset consisting of eight predictor variables across five studies was created. Secondary analysis employed a generalized linear model to identify factors that significantly impact hydroxyurea discontinuation. Results The CureSCi Metadata Catalog provided a platform to efficiently find relevant studies and design a harmonization strategy to prepare data for secondary analysis. Multivariate analysis of the harmonized data identified that patients who were female, had a history of blood transfusion therapy, experiencing pain, and had the SC sickle cell genotype are more likely to stop hydroxyurea treatment. Conclusion This secondary analysis provides a template for how the CureSCi Metadata Catalog expedites dataset discovery of sickle cell studies for identifying relationships between variables or validating existing findings.