Browse Articles

Polycystic ovary syndrome negatively affects sexual function and lower urinary tract symptoms in syrian women: a case-control study

Abstract Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most prevalent endocrine disorder in women of reproductive age worldwide, and its related features like obesity, mental health issues and hyperandrogenism may contribute to inadequately investigated health problems such as sexual dysfunction (SD) and lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS). Therefore, this study examined the impact of PCOS on sexual function (SF) and lower urinary tract in Syrian women by recruiting a total of 178 women of reproductive age, of whom 88 were diagnosed with PCOS according to the Rotterdam criteria and 90 without PCOS were considered as the control group. Female sexual function index (FSFI) and Bristol Female Lower Urinary Tract Symptom Questionnaire (BFLUTS) were used to assess SF and LUTS respectively. PCOS group had higher SD prevalence compared to control group (65.9% vs 48.9%, p  = 0.016), and BMI showed an inverse correlation with the total FSFI score in PCOS group ( p  = 0.027, r = -0.235). Furthermore, PCOS group exhibited significantly lower scores in orgasm and satisfaction subdomains. Additionally, PCOS patients had significantly higher total BFLUTS score compared to control group (median 8 vs 5, p  = 0.025). Thus, PCOS may be related to SD and LUTS, highlighting the importance of evaluating SF and urinary symptoms in PCOS patients.

A dual-biomimetic surface with leaf-skeleton-based hierarchical structures for efficient atmospheric water harvesting

Atmospheric water harvesting (AWH) has been extensively researched as a sustainable solution to current freshwater scarcity. Various bioinspired AWH surfaces have been developed to enhance water-harvesting performance, yet challenges remain in optimizing their structures. In this work, we report a dual-biomimetic AWH surface that combines beetle-inspired heterogeneous wettability with leaf-skeleton-based hierarchical microstructures on a rigid substrate. An authentic leaf skeleton innovatively serves as the mask during photolithography complemented by O2-plasma treatment, enabling precise design of superhydrophilic SiO2 structures with a hierarchy of vein orders forming reticulate meshes on a hydrophobic Si substrate. This design facilitates enhanced water collection through intricate reticulate meshes and directional droplet transport along the abundant multi-order veins. Such AWH surface shows a water-harvesting efficiency of 172 mg cm−2 h−1, increasing up to 62% and 58% over the pristine SiO2/Si wafer and Si wafer, respectively. Additionally, the role of structure orientation in the open-surface droplet transport is explored while the AWH surface is vertically placed during the water-harvesting process. This work highlights the potential of using meticulous natural designs, like leaf skeletons, to improve AWH surfaces, with broad applications in compact devices, such as on-chip evaporative cooling and planar microfluidics manipulation.

Assessment of the potential and application of Be12O12 nanocage for removal of ciprofloxacin from water employing density functional theory

Rb 2 Ti 2 O 5 : A layered ionic conductor at the sub-micrometer scale

Over the past few years, ionic conductors have gained a lot of attention because of the possibility of implementing them in various applications such as supercapacitors, batteries or fuel cells, and resistive memories. Especially, layered two-dimensional (2D) crystals, such as h-BN, graphene oxide, and MoSe2, have been shown to provide unique properties originating from the specific 2D confinement of moving ions. Two important parameters are the ion conductivity and the chemical stability over a wide range of operating conditions. In this vein, Rb2Ti2O5 (RTO) has recently been found displaying remarkable properties such as superionic conduction and equivalent colossal dielectric constant. Here, an approach to the study of the electrical properties of the layered RTO 100-nm scale is presented. Characterizations by means of micro-Raman spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy measurements of mechanically exfoliated RTO micro-flakes via the so-called adhesive-tape technique are reported. Finally, the results of electrical measurements performed on an exfoliated RTO micro-flake are presented and are found to be consistent with the results obtained on macroscopic bulk crystals.

Soil fluoride enrichment process and the possible adaptation prevention principle in coal-burning fluorosis area in Southwest China

AbstractCoal-burning fluorosis prevails in southwest China and other provinces. Although clay used as binder of briquettes was proven to cause coal-burning fluorosis, its enrichment processes remain unknown. The soils and rocks on typical geological units were sampled and simulation experiments were performed to detect the forming process of high-fluoride clay. The surface and mineral soils, farmland soils and rocks have fluoride levels of 157.9–1076.76, 334.58–1419.28, 227.52–1303.11 and 46.05–964.11 mg/kg respectively. Fluoride levels of surface soils, mineral horizon soils and farmland soils are significantly positively correlated, while those between soils and rocks are not significantly correlated. The soils overlying carbonates have substantially higher fluoride levels than those overlying non-carbonates although the carbonates have extremely lower fluoride levels. The fluoride levels in acid insoluble substances are significantly positively correlated with soil fluoride levels. The acid insoluble substances in carbonates have obviously higher fluoride levels than those in non-carbonates. High Ca(Mg) levels in carbonates restrict fluorine leaching into the water and facilitate fluorine deposition in soils. Fluoride enriches in soils with numerous Ca(Mg)CO3 leaching during carbonate weathering, which is a new insight into the cause of high-fluoride clay. An exposure pathway of fluoride is forwarded. The best prevention principle and policy are proposed.

Single resonant cavity enhances the second harmonic generation of layered ferroelectric NbOCl2

Second harmonic generation (SHG) is a common nonlinear optical process with wide applications. Recent studies have found that the van der Waals crystal material NbOCl2 has a high efficiency in SHG, and this material does not undergo any change in electronic structure or weakening of excitonic effect during stacking, making it a scalable SHG crystal. Here, we designed and fabricated a single resonant Fabry–Pérot (FP) microcavity to enhance the SHG of NbOCl2 by amplifying the local electric field of the excitation light. The cavity was fabricated by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition, and the deposition process was optimized to avoid the damage of the NbOCl2 sample. Our measurements confirmed that the SHG of the NbOCl2 sample can be amplified more than 30 times on the distributed Bragg reflector (half of the FP cavity), and more than 200 times inside the FP cavity. This method provides ideas for efficiently enhancing harmonics and directions for on-chip integrated photonic devices.

Timing of pre-retrieval warnings matters in reducing memory errors in a repeated testing misinformation study

A 614 MW/cm2 AlGaN-channel Schottky barrier diode with high breakdown voltage and high temperature sensitivity

In this work, a high-performance AlGaN-channel Schottky barrier diode with high breakdown voltage of 2.23 kV defined at anode leakage current of 1 μA and high power figure-of-merit of 614 MW/cm2 is demonstrated. Anode voltage (VA) with a clear linear relationship as a function of temperature from 300 to 525 K shows great potential for temperature sensors, and maximum temperature sensitivity of 2.0 mV/K at anode current density (IA) of 6.28 × 10−8 A is obtained, satisfying the low power consumption requirement. Meanwhile, the corresponding temperature sensitivity of ln(–I) vs temperature at a fixed VA of –15 V is 5.0 mA/K, and the suppressed temperature sensitivity at reverse bias is attributed to the energy-band modulated Schottky barrier height of AlGaN-channel M/S interface, which is vital for high-temperature and high-power applications.

Estrogen sulfotransferase SULT1E1 expression correlates with progression and prognosis of lung adenocarcinoma

Advanced thermal boundary resistance measurement techniques for thick-film diamond heterostructures

With the miniaturization of electronic devices, thermal management has become a critical challenge, especially for high-power systems where efficient heat dissipation is essential. Polycrystalline diamond films, renowned for their exceptional thermal conductivity, offer a promising solution. However, the thermal boundary resistance (TBR) at the diamond/substrate interface remains a significant bottleneck, severely impacting heat dissipation efficiency. This study presents a measurement approach tailored for quantifying TBR in thick-film diamond heterostructures, focusing on diamond-on-silicon (Diamond-on-Si) systems with a silicon nitride barrier layer. Compared to conventional methods, such as transient thermoreflectance techniques, which often exhibit limited sensitivity for thick layers, this approach demonstrates greater reliability and applicability. The findings establish a foundation for advancing strategies to reduce TBR and improve the thermal management performance of diamond films in high-power electronic applications.

Mortality causes and health spending by gender and health conditions in octogenarians, nonagenarians and centenarians in Colombia

Ghost imaging through complex scattering media with random light disturbance

Imaging in a complex environment is recognized to be challenging in various applications. Imaging with single-pixel detection, e.g., ghost imaging (GI), emerges as a solution in recent years. Here, we report a unified GI framework based on untrained neural networks (UNNs) to eliminate the effect of complex environments and realize high-resolution object reconstruction. Two UNNs are designed to respectively estimate the corrected realizations and a series of dynamic scaling factors from the collected realizations. A GI-formation-based physical model is incorporated into the network to ensure the validity of the corrected realizations and enable object reconstruction. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method is effective and robust for high-resolution and high-contrast object reconstruction in complex environments, i.e., dynamic scattering media with high-randomness light disturbance. In addition, the proposed method is validated at low sampling ratios to alleviate data acquisition burden. With the advantages in the integration, adaptability, and efficiency, the proposed method provides a promising solution for GI in complex environments.

An innovative complex-valued encoding black-winged kite algorithm for global optimization

Sliding ferroelectricity-induced triple barrier modulation in van der Waals boron arsenide tunnel junctions

To develop low-power, miniature, nonvolatile memory resistor integrated devices for in-memory computing technologies, the exploration of atomic-scale ferroelectric channel semiconductor devices is necessary. We theoretically designed tunnel junction devices based on two-dimensional ferroelectric semiconductors, with two-dimensional metal TaSe2 used as the top electrode and van der Waals bilayer boron arsenide (BAs) as the ferroelectric semiconductor channel, aiming to achieve high-performance, low-power, two-dimensional ferroelectric memory resistors. Our findings demonstrate that the bilayer BAs, upon contact with metal electrodes, can achieve two stable and switchable ferroelectric states. Interlayer relative sliding enables stable and alternating two-dimensional ferroelectric domains, altering the types of triple potential barriers at interfaces from Schottky contacts to Ohmic contacts. Thus, under the modulation of the “triple barrier” mechanism, control over channel carrier switching is achieved, resulting in a tunneling electroresistance of 104%. Additionally, non-equilibrium Green's function results indicate nonlinear changes in the I–V curve when switching between the two stable ferroelectric states, highlighting the multi-resistive state nature of channel resistance. Our research underscores the potential of sliding ferroelectric tunnel junctions in integrating nonvolatile storage and computing units, emphasizing their innovative applications in in-memory computing technologies.

A latent diffusion approach to visual attribution in medical imaging

Abstract Visual attribution in medical imaging seeks to make evident the diagnostically-relevant components of a medical image, in contrast to the more common detection of diseased tissue deployed in standard machine vision pipelines (which are less straightforwardly interpretable/explainable to clinicians). We here present a novel generative visual attribution technique, one that leverages latent diffusion models in combination with domain-specific large language models, in order to generate normal counterparts of abnormal images. The discrepancy between the two hence gives rise to a mapping indicating the diagnostically-relevant image components. To achieve this, we deploy image priors in conjunction with appropriate conditioning mechanisms in order to control the image generative process, including natural language text prompts acquired from medical science and applied radiology. We perform experiments and quantitatively evaluate our results on the COVID-19 Radiography Database containing labelled chest X-rays with differing pathologies via the Frechet Inception Distance (FID), Structural Similarity (SSIM) and Multi Scale Structural Similarity Metric (MS-SSIM) metrics obtained between real and generated images. The resulting system also exhibits a range of latent capabilities including zero-shot localized disease induction, which are evaluated with real examples from the cheXpert dataset.

Study of carrier diffusion in InGaN/GaN quantum wells: Impact of quantum well thickness and substrate type

In InGaN/GaN micro-light-emitting diodes (μLEDs), the size-dependent efficiency loss is commonly attributed to carrier diffusion within quantum wells (QWs). When the μLED size is sufficiently small, carriers can diffuse laterally to reach defective sidewalls, leading to non-radiative recombination. This challenges earlier assumptions of short-range carrier diffusion in InGaN/GaN QWs. However, recent studies have demonstrated the potential for long-range diffusion, prompting further investigation into how QW design and growth conditions influence carrier diffusion length and μLED efficiency. This paper contributes to this investigation by examining carrier diffusion in c-plane InGaN/GaN single QW samples using photoluminescence experiments. By varying the QW thickness, we observe an increase in diffusion length with thicker QWs, consistent with the increased radiative recombination lifetime due to the quantum confined Stark effect. This suggests that reducing QW thickness could mitigate the size-dependent efficiency loss in μLEDs. As the substrate type plays a crucial role in advancing the industrialization of μLEDs, we compare carrier diffusion in QWs grown on a substrate of different nature: sapphire, freestanding GaN, and Si (111). Our results demonstrate that the three types of substrates enable long-range diffusion. Finally, analyzing the evolution of carrier diffusion length with carrier density reveals two opposite regimes. In the high-excitation regime, carrier diffusion length decreases by increasing the excitation power, which is in agreement with previous studies and supported by a diffusion–recombination model. However, in the low-excitation regime, carrier diffusion length unexpectedly increases by increasing the excitation power.

The circadian clock gene period regulates the composition and daily bacterial load of the gut microbiome in Drosophila melanogaster

Effect of doping in small-size hybrid nanostructures for plasmonic catalysis

The effect of doping on the lowest quantum state of hot electron trapped in the semiconductor shell of small size hybrid nanoparticles is investigated. Assuming a spherical Ag-AgBr hybrid nanoparticle with a metal core and a semiconductor shell, we study the changes in the spatial profile of the contact electric potential in the Schottky barrier as a function of the doping density under the Sze approximation of a completely depleted layer. The energy of the lowest quantum state of an electron in the semiconductor shell is estimated along with the tunneling time into the metal core. It is found that when the characteristic size of the depletion layer of the Schottky barrier exceeds the size of the semiconductor shell, this energy varies throughout the Schottky barrier height by changing the shell thickness and the doping density, with the tunneling lifetime varying from subpicoseconds to submicroseconds. This possibility can be exploited to improve the efficiency of plasmonic photocatalysis with small-sized hybrid nanoparticles: By adjusting the energy of the discrete electron state to the given lowest unoccupied molecular orbit level of the chemical adsorbed on the surface of the hybrid nanoparticle, one should expect the resonance transfer of an electron, thus a dramatic increase in the rate of photocatalysis. The proposed method introduces Quantum-Size Resonance-Enhanced Photocatalysis in the hybrid structure.

Investigating Seidel energies and thermodynamic properties of benzenoid hydrocarbons through regression models

Ultrafast manipulation of Néel-type merons using electric field pulses

A nanoscale meron, as a type of topological magnetic soliton with half topological charge, can function as a quantum mechanical object whose core spin (polarity) represents the qubit states |0⟩ and |1⟩. Here, we demonstrate ultrafast steering of Néel-type merons through a simple sequence of picosecond electric field pulses via magnetoelectric interactions. All four distinct meron states exhibit well-defined switching behavior. Both volatile and nonvolatile control of the meron polarity are achieved using step and half-cycle pulses, respectively. Our approach offers an energy-efficient and localized method for controlling high density storage and fast logic computations based on nanoscale merons.