Traditional Analysis Research Articles

Novel In-Line Hemolysis Detection on a Blood Gas Analyzer and Impact on Whole Blood Potassium Results.

Preanalytical error due to hemolyzed blood samples is a common challenge in laboratory and point-of-care (POC) settings. Whole blood potassium (K+) measurements routinely measured on blood gas analyzers are particularly susceptible to hemolysis, which poses a risk for incorrect K+ results. The GEM Premier 7000 with IQM3 (GEM 7000) blood gas analyzer provides novel integrated hemolysis detection within the sample measurement process. Therefore, the GEM 7000 can detect and flag hemolyzed whole blood samples at the POC, warning the operator of potentially erroneous results. Heparinized venous or arterial whole blood samples were used for K+ interference studies and assessed for hemolysis agreement utilizing either a traditional volumetric method or chemistry analyzer serum index measurements with the Roche cobas c311 or Abbott Alinity c. Hemolysis interference studies performed at 2 different K+ concentrations (3.8 and 5.3 mmol/L) identified that a plasma free hemoglobin ≥116 mg/dL can impact K+ results on the GEM 7000. Hemolysis agreement studies demonstrated an excellent agreement of >99% with the volumetric method, 98.8% with cobas H index, and 96.4% with Alinity H index. GEM 7000 K+ results were correctly flagged for both native and spiked samples. GEM 7000 hemolysis detection provides a novel technology to detect hemolysis in whole blood samples. Moreover, the GEM 7000 demonstrates excellent agreement with traditional laboratory hemolysis detection methods and offers an integrated technological solution for assuring the quality of whole blood K+ results in POC settings.

Exploring Cross-Cultural Influences in the Pakistani Drama Industry: A Critical Analysis

The aim of this research paper is to highlight the impact of Indian, Turkish, and now Korean content on Pakistani society through television dramas from the last three decades. The study provides a comparative analysis of different global customs, cultural traditions, and lifestyles in our particular local drama, perceiving how our drama industry has evolved with foreign influences over time. While keeping in mind our glorious era of the 1970s, 80s, even 90s, and millennium, Pakistani modern-day drama has been overshadowed by foreign supremacy. The overlapping similarities among these cultures are one of the reasons the audiences can relate to these drama genres and conclusively are fascinated with their influence. Although it is a matter of consideration that our local viewer has a wide variety of drama content on other platforms, the growing popularity and impact of the abovementioned cultures can be relatable to modern-day collective issues. Moreover, the present study proves that the influence of Indian, Turkish, and Korean content in our local drama industry is gradually changing the lifestyles and mindsets of youth. Undoubtedly, international content shares some relevance rather than fascination and may promote cultural diversity, but the fastest-changing trends among Pakistani youth require attention and an immediate approach to redefining cultural identity. Moreover, the study reveals that our local drama become more commercialized while addressing serious social issues due to foreign influences, which are not alienated but irrelevant to Indigenous Pakistani society. This comparative analysis has been done on the basis of the viewer’s perception and exploratory research method towards foreign influences in our local drama industry using the technique of innate expressionism.

This Ship Prays: The Southern Chinese Religious Seascape through the Handbook of a Maritime Ritual Master

Long kept in the British Library, a liturgical manuscript from the port of Haicheng, Fujian, holds details of the rich system of beliefs that Chinese sailors held. Originally untitled, the text by the shelfmark OR12693/18 is usually referred to as “Libation Ritual (for Ship Safety)” ([An Chuan] Zhuoxian Ke [(安船)酌献科]). Formerly, it was given scholarly attention mostly due to its addended lists of maritime placenames, which follows Qing-era sea routes across China’s coasts and to the South China Sea. Further inquiry into the manuscript’s terminology, deity names, and maritime knowledge confirms its deep relation to sailors’ lore. By tracing this text into a wide range of sources, this paper demonstrates how manuscript OR12693/18 reflects a cohesive maritime system of beliefs and knowledge. Manifested within the prayer are a hierarchical pantheon, ritual practices, and a perceived sacred seascape. Moreover, it is evident that the manuscript belonged to a tradition of sailing ritual masters who were regular members of the crew onboard junks. As such, this paper offers an analysis of a religious-professional tradition with trans-local aspects, shedding new light on seafaring in pre-modern China.

ASO Visual Abstract: Systematic Cholecystectomy During Cytoreductive Surgery Plus HIPEC: A Critical Analysis of an Empirical Tradition

ASO Visual Abstract: Systematic Cholecystectomy During Cytoreductive Surgery Plus HIPEC: A Critical Analysis of an Empirical Tradition

Systematic Visual Documentation of the Mah Meri Tribe's Cultural Practices

The purpose of photography is identical to that of language and writing. Photography's operation must be evaluated in light of various explanatory, interpretative, and theoretical linguistic assertions due to visual art's multifaceted and multifunctional nature. In documentary photography, people, situations, objects, and events are depicted straightforwardly and narratively; This paper first gives a brief overview of the history and facts related to the beliefs and culture of the Mah Meri tribe in Peninsular Malaysia in photo documentary reporting. The primary purpose of this research is to conduct a thorough analysis of cultural traditions and environmentalist ideals. Accordingly, Mah Meri requires systematic and organized visual data, and the collection of qualitative data is essential. In a phased study, ethnomethodological techniques were used to collect periodic primary data. Throughout this systematic documentation procedure, more time was needed to collect in-depth information about personal lifestyles and religious practices. In conclusion, this research contributes to the modern accessibility of digital data sources by achieving an understanding of the Mah Meri tribe through the discovery and deconstruction of traditional beliefs unknown to the public.

Effect and Mechanisms of Huangqi-Shanzhuyu in the Treatment of Diabetic Nephropathy based on Network Pharmacology and In Vitro Experiments.

Huangqi-Shanzhuyu (HS), a classic combination of Chinese herbal formulae, has been widely used for the treatment of diabetic nephropathy (DN). However, its pharmacological mechanism of action is still unclear. The active ingredients of HS and their potential targets were identified through the Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology Database and Analysis Platform (TCMSP) and the DN-related targets were determined from GeneCards, Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM), PharmGkb, and Therapeutic Target Database (TTD). The Cytoscape software was used to construct a herb-disease-target network and screen core genes. STRING was employed to generate a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network. Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analyses were performed to predict the mechanism of action of HS in DN. Animal experiments and molecular docking were used to verify the potential mechanism. In total, 40 active ingredients and 180 effective targets of HS in DN were identified and 1115 DN-related targets were retrieved. From the PPI network, VEGFA, AKT1, IL6, IL1B, TP53, MMP9, PTGS2, CASP3, EGF and EGFR were identified as core genes. The anti-DN mechanism mainly involved multiple signaling pathways such as AGEs-RAGE. Animal experiments and molecular docking analysis confirmed that HS downregulated the expression of IL-1 and IL-6 via kaempferol-mediated inhibition of JNK1 phosphorylation. HS exhibits a therapeutic effect in DN through its multiple ingredients that act on several targets and multiple signaling pathways, including AGEs-RAGE.

Being modern in China: A Western cultural analysis of modernity, tradition and schooling in China today By PaulWillis, Cambridge: Polity Press. 2019. 240 pp. $24.95 (Paperback).

Being modern in China: A Western cultural analysis of modernity, tradition and schooling in China today By PaulWillis, Cambridge: Polity Press. 2019. 240 pp. $24.95 (Paperback).

A Survey on Information Bottleneck.

This survey is for the remembrance of one of the creators of the information bottleneck theory, Prof. Naftali Tishby, passing away at the age of 68 on August, 2021. Information bottleneck (IB), a novel information theoretic approach for pattern analysis and representation learning, has gained widespread popularity since its birth in 1999. It provides an elegant balance between data compression and information preservation, and improves its prediction or representation ability accordingly. This survey summarizes both the theoretical progress and practical applications on IB over the past 20-plus years, where its basic theory, optimization, extensive models and task-oriented algorithms are systematically explored. Existing IB methods are roughly divided into two parts: traditional and deep IB, where the former contains the IBs optimized by traditional machine learning analysis techniques without involving any neural networks, and the latter includes the IBs involving the interpretation, optimization and improvement of deep neural works (DNNs). Specifically, based on the technique taxonomy, traditional IBs are further classified into three categories: Basic, Informative and Propagating IB; While the deep IBs, based on the taxonomy of problem settings, contain Debate: Understanding DNNs with IB, Optimizing DNNs Using IB, and DNN-based IB methods. Furthermore, some potential issues deserving future research are discussed. This survey attempts to draw a more complete picture of IB, from which the subsequent studies can benefit.

The concept of “spectacularity” in the context of cultural concepts

In our imagination the concept of “spectacularity” is associated with images of a fair, a bright, exciting, cheerful carnival with laughter, joy, bright colors, and mirror refl ections. Certainly, “spectacularity” is not only about positive impressions: it can also be shocking or frightening, as evidenced by the Latin word “specter” (from the Latin “spectrum” — “vision”), meaning “apparition”, “ghost”, which again is one of the synonyms of Russian “spectacularity”. The phenomena of spectacle and spectacularity can be considered as phenomena of society and culture. The article shows approaches to the analysis of the concept of “spectacularity”, which are presented in the cultural and philosophical works of Russian and foreign scientists: M.M. Bakhtin, J. Ortega y Gasset, A.I. Mazaev, N.A. Khrenov, E.V. Salnikova and others. It is revealed that in developing these concepts, the authors rely on an analysis of traditions and rituals associated with festive culture. Often, through the holiday/ mundanity dichotomy, the authors identify the essential characteristics of concepts. Elite and profane, “low” and “high” — these are the characteristics that are used when talking about mass and elite culture. The materials of the article can be used within the disciplines “History of Culture”, “History of Art” and “Aesthetics”

Systematic Cholecystectomy During Cytoreductive Surgery Plus HIPEC: A Critical Analysis of an Empirical Tradition.

Some procedures performed during cytoreductive surgery (CRS) and hyperthermic intraoperative intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) are based on empirical data. One of these procedures is systematic cholecystectomy. This study aimed to perform a critical analysis of the need for systematic cholecystectomy during CRS+HIPEC of patients with peritoneal carcinomatosis using long-term follow-up data. Patients with peritoneal surface malignancies who were candidates for CRS+HIPEC and underwent surgery between January 2008 and December 2022 were analyzed. For patients with gallbladder involvement due to the disease or for patients whose preoperative study showed the presence of cholelithiasis, cholecystectomy was performed as part of the surgery, which was avoided for the remaining patients. All postoperative adverse events that occurred in the first 90 days were recorded, and clinical records focused on the development of biliary pathology during the follow-up period were studied. The results from a consecutive series of 443 patients with peritoneal surface malignancies who underwent surgery between January 2008 and December 2022 were analyzed. The average age of the cohort was 50 years. The median follow-up period for the cohort was 41 months (range, 12-180 months), with a disease-free survival of 17 months. For 373 of the patients, CRS+HIPEC was completed without an associated cholecystectomy, and in 16 of them, the appearance of cholelithiasis was detected during the follow-up period. Only two patients in the series showed complications derived from gallstones and required a delayed cholecystectomy. Although cholecystectomy is a safe procedure in the context of CRS+HIPEC, it is not risk free, and its routine performance may be unnecessary.

The Carrier Proteome Should Be Reassessed for Each Mass Analyzer Architecture.

A clever utilization of classic proteomics reagents now allows the effective amplification of the peptide sequencing potential in shotgun proteomics. The application of this method has helped usher in the exciting new field of single cell proteomics. While it was easy to first think that this approach was finally the answer for the polymerase chain reaction in protein chemistry, limitations were carefully described by the authors and others. A study by Cheung et al. systematically identified the consequences of higher concentration carrier proteomes and defined the "carrier proteome limit" [Cheung et al. Nat. Methods 2021, 18, 76]. While this work has been replicated by others, every analysis published to date has used a variation of the same mass analyzer. When the same analysis is performed on alternative instruments, these limits appear to be very different and can be attributed to defined characteristics of each mass analyzer. Specifically, in mass analyzers with a higher relative intrascan linear dynamic range, increased carrier channels appear less detrimental to quantitative accuracy. As such, we may be limiting the power of isobaric peptide signal "amplification" by restricting ourselves to traditional mass analyzer options for shotgun proteomics.

Diversity and Isolation of Endophytic Fungi in Panax japonicus and Biotransformation Activity on Saponins.

This study reports the diversity and community structure differences of the endophytic fungi of Panax japonicus of different ages to obtain novel endophytic fungi with glycoside hydrolytic activity for rare saponins production. This study used the high-throughput sequencing method to analyze the diversity and community structure of endophytic fungi of P. japonicus. The endophytic fungi were processed by traditional isolation, culture, conservation, and ITS rDNA sequence analyses. Then the total saponins of P. japonicus were used as the substrate to evaluate the glycoside hydrolytic activity. The composition analysis of the community structure showed that the abundance, evenness, and diversity of endophytic fungi of nine-year-old P. japonicus were the best among all samples. A total of 210 endophytic fungi were isolated from P. japonicus samples and further annotated by sequencing the internal transcribed spacer. Then the biotransformation activity of obtained strains was further examined on total saponins of P. japonicus (TSPJ), with a strain identified as Fusarium equiseti (No.30) from 7-year-old P. japonicus showing significant glycoside hydrolytic activity on TSPJ, including ginsenoside Ro→zinglbroside R1, pseudoginsenoside RT1→pseudoginsenoside RP1, chikusetsusaponin IV→tarasaponin VI and chikusetsusaponin IVa →calenduloside E. These results reveal the diversity and community structure differences of the endophytic fungi of P. japonicus with different ages and establish a resource library of endophytic fungi of P. japonicus. More importantly, we identified a valuable endophytic fungus with glycoside hydrolytic activity and provided a promising convenient microbial transformation approach to produce minor deglycosylated ginsenosides.

Model driven method for exploring individual and confounding effects in spontaneous adverse event reporting databases

ABSTRACT Background Spontaneous Adverse Event Reporting (SAER) databases play a crucial role in post-marketing drug surveillance. However, the traditional model-free disproportionality analysis has been challenged by the insufficiency in investigating subgroup and confounders. These issues result in significant low-precision and biases in data mining for SAER. Methods The Model-Driven Reporting Odds Ratio (MD-ROR) was proposed to bridge the gap between SAER database and explainable models for exploring individual and confounding effects. MD-ROR is grounded in a well-designed model, rather than a 2 × 2 cross table, for estimating AE-drug signals. Consequently, individual and confounding effects can be parameterized based on these models. We employed simulation data and the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) database. Result The simulated data indicated the subgroup effects estimated by MD-ROR were unbiased and efficient. Moreover, the adjusted-MD-ROR demonstrated greater robustness against confounding biases than the crude ROR. Applying our method to the FAERS database suggested higher occurrences of drug interactions and cardiac adverse events induced by Midazolam in females compared to males. Conclusion The study underscored that MD-ROR holds promise as a method for investigating individual and confounding effects in SAER databases.

Portraying Women in Revolt:

The present article analyses the painting The Uprising of the Women of Rome on the Capitol by the Dutch-Danish painter Pieter Isaacsz (1569-1625). This work depicts the mythical story of the Roman boy Papirius, who, after attending a meeting of the Roman Senate, lied to his inquisitive mother to safeguard political secrets, falsely telling her that the senators were deliberating the introduction of systematic bigamy. Enraged, his mother then marched to the Capitol, leading a crowd of elite married women in protest. In the (limited) visual tradition of this classical story, it is always the boy – and therefore, the sound and sensible political actions of men – who takes centre stage, set against the foolish and rebellious behaviour of the women. Isaacsz painted this obscure story twice, approximately ten years apart. The paintings differ in composition and style, but especially in the second painting, the women – not Papirius – have assumed the leading role. In Uprising of the Women, we see the women entering the Capitol in protest: they are in the foreground, with all men relegated to the margins. Based on an analysis of the literary tradition and representation of the Papirius myth, the painter’s sources of inspiration and a comparison of the two paintings, we investigate why Isaacsz chose to place the protesting women in the foreground of his later, Amsterdam painting, thus turning the spotlight on female agency.

Reclaiming the Xhotsa: climate adaptation and ecosystem restoration via the return of Sumas Lake

Sumas Lake (Xhotsa), located in the Fraser Valley, British Columbia, Canada, was the heart of Semá:th Nation Territory and the epicenter of a complex Indigenous food system. For the Semá:th people, the lake represented life and livelihood. In 1924, the lake was stolen and drained in an instance of land theft that occurred during a nationwide campaign of land dispossession and genocide, decimating an ecology that supported a rich and diverse Indigenous food system and replacing it with a settler food system. A century later, in November 2021 climate change induced flooding caused the lake to return, resulting in the evacuation of thousands of people and causing millions in damages to homes and infrastructure. Since the flood, the response has been a continuation of the status quo to protect settler agricultural lands via increased investment in hard structures that control the flow of water based on assumptions of the predictability of future flow conditions. We offer a missing narrative by bringing together an analysis of Indigenous laws and oral tradition with an assessment of the economic costs of “managed retreat”, defined as the purposeful relocation of people and infrastructure out of harm’s way. We find that the cost of buying out properties in the lakebed and allowing the lake to return is close to half the cost ($1 billion) of maintaining the status quo ($2.4 billion), while facilitating climate adaptation, and restoration of a floodplain ecosystem that supported thriving populations of people, salmon, sturgeon, ducks, and food and medicinal plants– including many species which are now endangered. Returning Sumas Lake by centering ‘Water Back’ as a climate resiliency solution, enacts both food systems and ecological reconciliation, addressing the harms caused by the loss of the lake to the Semá:th People that is still felt to this day. In a time when climate change induced flooding is predicted to increase, this study demonstrates how the inclusion of Indigenous laws and knowledges are critical to the development of solutions toward a more sustainable and just future.

Research of active compounds from Allii Macrostemonis Bulbus and potential targets against Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma based on Network pharmacology.

Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma (NHL) is a series of lymphoid malignancies in some aggressive subtypes with unsatisfactory treatment effects. Allii Macrostemonis Bulbus (Xie Bai) is a traditional Chinese medicine with anti-cancer activities, which may potentially suppress aggressive NHL. This study tries to discover active components and targets of Xie Bai in treating NHL by network pharmacology-based approaches. Compounds and related targets of Xie Bai were collected from the Traditional Chinese Medicine Database and Analysis Platform. Target genes associated with NHL were searched by GeneCards and DisGeNET, then the overlapped targets were further analyzed by STRING tool, GO, and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis. Molecular docking was employed to verify the interaction between compounds and targets. 11 bioactive compounds were successfully identified, with 30 targets that were screened out for the treatment of NHL. Functional enrichment analysis suggested that Xie Bai exerted its potential effects against NHL via pathways in cancer, such as PI3K/ AKT, p53, and MAPK signaling pathways. Molecular docking results showed that 3 active compounds (quercetin, beta-sitosterol, and naringenin) had good affinity with selected 6 targets（TP53, AKT1, CASP3, CCND1, HPK1, and NLRP3). Identifying six potential genes could accurately be docked with Xie Bai and had close interactions with NHL, which may provide insight into further research and new treatment strategy.

Candl: cosmic microwave background analysis with a differentiable likelihood

We present candl, an automatically differentiable python likelihood for analysing cosmic microwave background power spectrum measurements. candl is powered by JAX, which makes it fast and easy to calculate derivatives of the likelihood. This facilitates, for example, robust Fisher matrices without finite-difference methods. We show the benefits of candl through a series of example calculations, covering forecasting, robustness tests, and gradient-based Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling. These also include optimising the band power bin width to minimise parameter errors of a realistic mock data set. Moreover, we calculate the correlation of parameter constraints from correlated and partially overlapping subsets of the SPT-3G 2018 TT/TE/EE data release. In a traditional analysis framework, these tasks are slow and require careful fine-tuning to obtain stable results. As such, a fully differentiable pipeline allows for a higher level of scrutiny; we argue that this is the paradigm shift required to leverage incoming data from ground-based experiments, which will significantly improve the cosmological parameter constraints from the Planck mission. candl comes with the latest primary and lensing power spectrum data from the South Pole Telescope and Atacama Cosmology Telescope collaborations and will be used as part of the upcoming SPT-3G TT/TE/EE and ϕϕ data releases. Along with the core code, we release a series of auxiliary tools, which simplify common analysis tasks and interface the likelihood with other cosmological software. candl is pip-installable and publicly available on Github.

Theoretical and practical dimensions of legal responsibility in criminal justice

The present academic paper is devoted to analyzing the current challenges in the field of criminal law and justice, with a special emphasis on the development of universal standards of criminal prosecution. The primary purpose of the research is to identify the key aspects and challenges faced by modern criminal justice systems in the context of their adaptation to globalization processes and international standards. Legal responsibility is the cornerstone of national criminal justice, reflecting a set of legal principles that define the boundaries of permissible behavior and establish legal consequences for violating them. Legal responsibility in the context of international criminal justice reflects the globalization of legal norms and the interaction of international and national legal systems. The principles of fair trial enshrined in the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (hereinafter - the Convention) are an integral part of criminal justice in the member states of the Convention. The basic principles of fair trial relating to criminal prosecution are defined in Article 6 of the Convention. Challenges related to implementing the principles of justice and legality in the international context as well as opportunities for improving the mechanisms of international cooperation in this area actualize the prospects for further studies in this direction. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of various legal traditions and approaches to justice that influence the formation of universal standards of criminal justice. A deeper study of the specifics of national systems and their impact on the formation of universal legal norms is important in order to create a more harmonious and fair international justice.

Unruly Truth: On Parrhesia and/as Political Refusal

This article employs Bonnie Honig’s concepts of refusal and intensification to conceptualize the ancient practice of ‘parrhesia’ as a form of conflictual, political truth-telling. This entails envisaging political truth-telling as an intense, agonal practice that does not establish unalterable foundations but takes part in world-building practices. To this end, I first reconstruct parrhesia as an agonistic practice of truth-telling. Against this background, I take up Honig’s concept of intensification to make sense of parrhesia’s intricate political stakes with reference to Euripides’s Ion tragedy. Finally, I reenvisage the bacchants’ secession to Cithaeron against the backdrop of Michel Foucault’s analysis of the cynic tradition, where parrhesia turns into a subversive political practice of displaying and prefiguring other forms of existence and social relations.

Investigating the Shared Genetic Etiology Between Parkinson's Disease and Depression.

Depression is a common symptom in Parkinson's disease (PD), resulting from underlying neuropathological processes and psychological factors. However, the extent to which shared genetic risk factors contribute to the relationship between depression and PD is poorly understood. To examine the effects of common genetic variants influencing the etiology of PD and depression risk at the genome-wide and local genomic regional level. We comprehensively investigated the genetic relationship between PD and depression using genome-wide association studies data. First, we estimated the genetic correlation at the genome-wide level using linkage-disequilibrium score regression, followed by local genetic correlation analysis using the GWAS-pairwise method and functional annotation to identify genes that may jointly influence the risk for both traits. Also, we performed Latent Causal Variable, Latent Heritable Confounder Mendelian Randomization, and traditional Mendelian Randomization analyses to investigate the potential causal relationship. Although the genetic correlation between PD and depression was not statistically significant at the genome-wide level, GWAS-pairwise analyses identified 16 genomic segments associated with PD and depression, implicating nine genes. Further analyses revealed distinct patterns within individual genes, suggesting an intricate pattern. These genes involve various biological processes, including neurotransmitter regulation, senescence, and nucleo-cytoplasmic transport mechanisms. We did not observe genetic evidence of causality between PD and depression. Our findings did not support a genome-wide genetic correlation or a causal association between both conditions. However, we identified genomic segments but identified genomic segments linked to distinct biological pathways influencing their etiology.Further research is needed to understand their functional consequences.