Browse Articles

System- and sample-agnostic isotropic three-dimensional microscopy by weakly physics-informed, domain-shift-resistant axial deblurring

Correction: Functional capacity testing in patients with pulmonary hypertension (PH) using the one-minute sit-to-stand test (1-min STST)

Unusual Phospholipids from <i>Morganella morganii</i> Linked to Depression

Ultra-high electrostriction and ferroelectricity in poly (vinylidene fluoride) by ‘printing of charge’ throughout the film

Abstract Electrostriction is an important electro-mechanical property in poly (vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) films, which describes the proportional relation between the electro-stimulated deformation and the square of the electric field. Generally, traditional methods to improve the electrostriction of PVDF either sacrifice other crystalline-related key properties or only influence minimal regions around the surface. Here, we design a unique electret structure to fully exploit the benefits of internal crystal in PVDF films. Through the 3D printing of charged ink, we have obtained the best electrostrictive and ferroelectric properties among PVDF-based materials so far. The optimized electrostrictive coefficient M 33 (324 × 10−18 m2 V−2) is 104 times that of normal PVDF films, and the piezoelectric constant d 33 (298 pm V−1) is close to 10 times its traditional limit. The proposed 3D electret structure and the bottom-up approach to ‘print the charge’ open up a new way to design and adapt the electroactive polymers in smart devices and systems.

Association of the abdominal aortic calcification with all-cause and cardiovascular disease-specific mortality: Prospective cohort study

Background Abdominal aortic calcification (AAC) is a prevalent form of vascular calcification associated with adverse cardiovascular outcomes. While previous studies on AAC and cardiovascular risk exist, many have limitations such as small sample sizes and limited clinical significance outcomes. This study aims to prospectively investigate the association between AAC and all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD)-specific mortality rates in a nationally representative sample of adults in the United States, using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Methods The study, conducted on NHANES participants aged 40 years or older during the 2013–2014 cycle, assessed AAC using the Kauppila scoring system. Demographic characteristics, mortality data, and comorbid factors such as age, gender, diabetes, and hypertension were considered. Statistical analyses, including weighted percentages, Kaplan-Meier survival curves, and multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression models, were employed to evaluate the associations between AAC and mortality risks. Results After analyzing a final sample of 2717 participants, the study found a significant association between severe AAC (SAAC) and higher all-cause mortality risk (HR 1.70, 95% CI 1.17–2.48). The dose-response relationship indicated an increased risk with higher AAC scores. However, no independent association was observed between AAC and cardiovascular mortality. Stratified analysis revealed variations in the AAC-all-cause mortality association based on gender and hypertension. Conclusion This population-based study provides valuable insights into the prospective association between AAC and all-cause mortality, emphasizing the potential role of AAC assessment in identifying individuals at higher risk.

Green coal and lubricant via hydrogen-free hydrothermal liquefaction of biomass

Psychometric assessment of scales used to evaluate sexual assault prevention programming in the United States Air Force

Background Preventing sexual assault in the United States (U.S.) military is essential to safeguard the overall well-being of military personnel and support the military to function in alignment with its intended mission and objectives. Valid instruments are needed to accurately and reliably evaluate programming effectiveness. The goal of this research was to psychometrically assess measures used to evaluate the Sexual Communication and Consent (SCC) program within the Air Force Basic Military Training (BMT) context. Methods We evaluated four measures used to assess the SCC program implemented at Air Force BMT in 2019–2020: Date Rape Attitudes, Self-Efficacy to Resist Unwanted Advances, Risky and Protective Dating Behaviors, and Bystander Intentions. The analytic sample included 7,126 BMT trainees (74% male). We assessed structural validity with exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). We used full information maximum likelihood estimation with robust standard errors in Mplus. We refined each scale based on factor analysis results and assessed internal consistency reliability by computing Cronbach’s coefficient alpha for each scale in the overall sample, by sex, and by tailored SCC intervention group. Results We identified a two-factor structure for the Date Rape Attitudes scale; subscale reliability was moderate within the overall sample and among males, though low among females. We found single-factor structures and excellent reliability for both the Self-Efficacy to Resist Unwanted Advances scale and the Bystander Intentions scale. The Dating Behaviors scale CFA did not confirm the two-factor solution suggested by the EFA, but subscale reliability was acceptable. Conclusion This research fills a critical gap in the psychometric literature in military settings. Based on our findings, we recommend approaches for using the finalized scales in future evaluations of sexual assault prevention programming in the U.S. Air Force BMT setting.

Integrated system for electrolyte recovery, product separation, and CO2 capture in CO2 reduction

The effect of perceived organizational fairness on the endogenous motivation of university teachers’ professional development: A study of the mediating role of trust and organizational identification

Objective The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of perceived organizational fairness, organizational identity, and trust on the intrinsic motivation for the professional development of university teachers. In addition, this study aims to verify the mediating role of organizational identity and trust. Method This study adopts a quantitative research methodology to investigate the relationship between perceived organizational fairness, organizational identity, trust, and intrinsic motivation in the professional development of university teachers by constructing and validating a structural equation model. Result The study shows that perceived organizational fairness has a significant positive effect on the intrinsic motivation for the professional development of university teachers. Moreover, it validates the mediating effects of organizational identity and trust in the relationship between perceived organizational fairness and intrinsic motivation for teachers’ professional development, shedding light on the psychological mechanisms underlying teachers’ professional development motivation. Conclusion Organizational identity and trust not only directly influence teachers’ intrinsic motivation for professional development but also serve as mediators in the relationship between perceived organizational fairness and intrinsic motivation. These findings have important implications for university management in promoting teachers’ professional development and enhancing educational quality.

Probing quantum floating phases in Rydberg atom arrays

Automatic classification of mobile apps to ensure safe usage for adolescents

The integration of mobile devices into adolescents’ daily lives is significant, making it imperative to prioritize their safety and security. With the imminent arrival of fast internet (6G), offering increased bandwidth and reduced latency compared to its predecessor (5G), real-time streaming of high-quality video and audio to mobile devices will become feasible. To effectively leverage the fast internet, accurately classifying Mobile Applications (M-APPs) is crucial to shield adolescents from inappropriate content, including violent videos, pornography, hate speech, and cyberbullying. This work introduces an innovative approach utilizing Deep Learning techniques, specifically Attentional Convolutional Neural Networks (A-CNNs), for classifying M-APPs. The goal is to secure adolescent mobile usage by predicting the potential negative impact of M-APPs on adolescents. The proposed methodology employs multiple Machine and Deep Learning (M/DL) models, but A-CNNs based on Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers embeddings outperformed other models, achieving an average accuracy of 88.74% and improving the recall from 99.33% to 99.65%.

A compliant metastructure design with reconfigurability up to six degrees of freedom

Abstract Compliant mechanisms with reconfigurable degrees of freedom are gaining attention in the development of kinesthetic haptic devices, robotic systems, and mechanical metamaterials. However, available devices exhibit limited programmability and form-customizability, restricting their versatility. To address this gap, we propose a metastructure concept featuring reconfigurable motional freedom and tunable stiffness, adaptable to various form factors and applications. These devices incorporate passive flexures and actively stiffness-changing rods to modify kinematic freedom. A rational design pipeline informs the flexures’ topological arrangements, geometric parameters, and control signals based on targeted mobilities, enabling the creation of unitary joints with up to six degrees of freedom. Our demonstrative application examples include a wrist device that has an effective stiffness of 0.370 Nm/deg (unlocked state, 5% displacement) to 2.278 Nm/deg (locked state, 1% displacement) to enable dynamic joint mobility control, a haptic thimble device (2.27-52.815 Nmm−1 at 1% displacement) that mimics the sensation of touching physical materials ranging from soft gel to metal surfaces, and a wearable device composed of multiple joints tailored for the arm and hand to augment haptic experiences or facilitate muscle training. We believe the presented method can help democratize compliant metastructures development and expand their versatility for broader contexts.

A phase I/II study of adoptive immunotherapy using donor liver graft-derived NK cell-enriched immune cells to prevent severe infection after liver transplantation

Bloodstream infections (BSIs) are significant postoperative complications associated with high mortality rates after liver transplantation (LT). Natural killer (NK) cells, which are key components of the innate immune system, have demonstrated potential to combat both infections and cancer. The use of activated NK cells to mitigate post-LT infections, particularly BSIs, has attracted considerable interest. We conducted a single-arm Phase I/II clinical trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of transfusing donor liver-derived NK cells into LT recipients. Patients were administered a single infusion of these NK cells three days post-LT. The primary endpoint was BSI incidence. This study was terminated in 19 patients because of the high incidence of BSIs. Of the 19 patients receiving immunotherapy, six (31.5%) developed BSIs within one month of LT. No adverse events were directly related to NK cell infusion. Acute rejection was noted in seven patients (36.8%). After infusion, NK cell activity in the recipient’s peripheral blood remained stable. In conclusion, this clinical trial did not reach the primary endpoint. This could be attributed to a significant percentage of patients presenting with high immunological risk. Nonetheless, the infusion procedure demonstrated a favorable safety profile without serious adverse events.

Oxygen-Driven Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization

Development and validation of an automated machine for self-injury assessment via young Koreans’ natural writings

Self-injury is common in all countries, and 20% of South Korean youths experience self-injury. One of the barriers to assessment and treatment planning is the tendency of young self-injurers to conceal their identities. Following a new stream of research that uses online text data to assess psychological symptoms as they are described in online posts, this study developed a computerized machine that can analyze South Korean self-injurers’ writing in assessing their self-injury severity. Based on 16,645 online posts, Study 1 developed a machine called the Korean Self-Injurious Text Reviewer (K-SITR) using Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modeling and machine learning. The K-SITR’s text-assessment results were statistically indistinguishable from those of professional counselors. Study 2 confirmed the validity of the K-SITR through a survey of 47 young Koreans who had experienced self-injury. Results showed that the K-SITR scores converged with participants’ self-injury frequency and duration and discriminated from other heterogenous factors. The K-SITR also had incremental validity over two popular self-injury questionnaires. This study provides a new measure that may reduce the tendency of young self-injurers to self-conceal compared to traditional direct-item questionnaires.

Diverse Behaviors of N₂ on Mo Centers Bearing POCOP-Pincer Ligands and the Role of π-Electron Configuration in Regulating the Pathway of N₂ Activation

Sexual and reproductive health needs of women with severe mental illness in low- and middle-income countries: A scoping review

Background This scoping review aimed to understand the extent and type of evidence in relation to sexual and reproductive health needs of women with severe mental illness (SMI) in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) and to summarise those needs. Methods Inclusion criteria were 1) focus on sexual and reproductive health needs 2) women or girls with SMI, professionals, caregivers of women with SMI and community members 3) study set in a LMIC 4) peer reviewed literature (no restriction on study date or design). Studies were identified from comprehensive searches of Medline, EMBASE, CINAHL and PsycINFO (to July 2023). Results The review included 100 papers. Most studies were cross-sectional and set in hospital outpatient departments. Only 20 of 140 LMIC countries were included in this review and only 15 studies were set-in low-income countries (LIC). Included studies often had multiple focus areas and were grouped by frequency of topic into categories of HIV (prevalence, risk behaviour and knowledge), other sexually transmitted infections (STIs), sexual function, contraception use and family planning, sexual violence, fertility, pregnancy and postpartum. Included studies indicated women with SMI have worse outcomes and worse sexual and reproductive health compared to both women without SMI and men with SMI. Women with SMI were shown to have higher rates of HIV and low levels of contraception knowledge and use, with little advice offered by professionals. Conclusions This review highlights the need for a greater diversity of study methodology, robustness of ethical and consensual reporting when researching vulnerable populations and for further research on interventions and models of care aimed at addressing stigma, discrimination and improving the sexual and reproductive health of women with SMI. Future research should better represent the breadth of LMIC, investigate cultural adaptability of interventions and consider sexual health needs across the life course.

Signalling pathways involved in urotensin II induced ventricular myocyte hypertrophy

Sustained pathologic myocardial hypertrophy can result in heart failure(HF); a significant health issue affecting a large section of the population worldwide. In HF there is a marked elevation in circulating levels of the peptide urotensin II(UII) but it is unclear whether this is a result of hypertrophy or whether the high levels contribute to the development of hypertrophy. The aim of this study is to investigate a role of UII and its receptor UT in the development of cardiac hypertrophy and the signalling molecules involved. Ventricular myocytes isolated from adult rat hearts were treated with 200nM UII for 48hours and hypertrophy was quantified from measurements of length/width (L/W) ratio. UII resulted in a change in L/W ratio from 4.53±0.10 to 3.99±0.06; (p&lt;0.0001) after 48hours. The response is reversed by the UT-antagonist SB657510 (1μM). UT receptor activation by UII resulted in the activation of ERK1/2, p38 and CaMKII signalling pathways measured by Western blotting; these are involved in the induction of hypertrophy. JNK was not involved. Moreover, ERK1/2, P38 and CaMKII inhibitors completely blocked UII-induced hypertrophy. Sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) Ca2+-leak was investigated in isolated myocytes. There was no significant increase in SR Ca2+-leak. Our results suggest that activation of MAPK and CaMKII signalling pathways are involved in the hypertrophic response to UII. Collectively our data suggest that increased circulating UII may contribute to the development of left ventricular hypertrophy and pharmacological inhibition of the UII/UT receptor system may prove beneficial in reducing adverse remodeling and alleviating contractile dysfunction in heart disease.

Scalable and energy-efficient task allocation in industry 4.0: Leveraging distributed auction and IBPSO

Industry 4.0 has transformed manufacturing with the integration of cutting-edge technology, posing crucial issues in the efficient task assignment to multi-tasking robots within smart factories. The paper outlines a unique method of decentralizing auctions to handle basic tasks. It also introduces an improved variant of the improved Binary Particle Swarm Optimization (IBPSO) algorithm to manage complicated tasks that require multi-robot collaboration. The main contributions we make are: the design of an auction decentralization algorithm (AOCTA) which allows for an efficient and flexible task distribution in dynamic contexts, the optimization of coalition formation in complex jobs by using IBPSO and improves the efficiency of energy and decreases the cost of computation as well as thorough simulations that show that our proposed method significantly surpasses conventional methods for efficiency, task completion rates in terms of energy usage, task completion rate, and scaling of the system. This research contributes to the development of smart manufacturing through providing an effective solution that aligns with the sustainability objectives and addresses operational efficiency as well as environmental impacts. Addressing the challenges posed by dynamic task allocation in distributed multi-robot systems, these advanced technologies provide a comprehensive solution, facilitating the evolution of innovative manufacturing systems.

Therapeutic blockade of CCL17 in obesity-exacerbated osteoarthritic pain and disease

Objectives We previously reported that CCL17 gene-deficient mice are protected from developing pain-like behaviour and exhibit less disease in destabilization of medial meniscus (DMM)-induced OA, as well as in high-fat diet (HFD)-exacerbated DMM-induced OA. Here, we explored if therapeutic neutralization of CCL17, using increasing doses of a neutralizing monoclonal antibody (mAb), would lead to a dose-dependent benefit in these two models. Design DMM-induced OA was initiated in male mice either fed with a control diet (7% fat) or 8 weeks of a 60% HFD, followed by therapeutic intraperitoneal administration (i.e. when pain is evident) of an anti-CCL17 mAb (B293, 25mg/kg, 5mg/kg or 1mg/kg) or isotype control (BM4; 25mg/kg). Pain-like behaviour and arthritis were assessed by relative static weight distribution and histology, respectively. The effects of B293 (25mg/kg) on HFD-induced metabolic changes, namely oral glucose tolerance test, insulin tolerance test and liver triglyceride levels, were examined. Results Therapeutic administration of B293 results in a dramatic amelioration of DMM-induced OA pain-like behaviour and the inhibition of disease progression, compared to BM4 (isotype control) treatment. A similar therapeutic effect was observed in HFD-exacerbated OA pain-like behaviour and disease. B293 treatment did not alter the measured HFD-induced metabolic changes. Conclusions Based on the data presented, CCL17 could be a therapeutic target in OA patients with joint injury alone or with obesity.