Distinctive Features Research Articles

Cellulose-based delivery systems for bioactive ingredients: A review.

Cellulose-based delivery systems for bioactive ingredients: A review.

Frontal Deactivation and the Efficacy of Statistical Learning: Neural Mechanisms Accompanying Exposure to Visual Statistical Sequences.

Statistical learning is the cognitive ability to rapidly identify structure and meaning in unfamiliar streams of sensory experience, even in the absence of feedback. Despite extensive studies, the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying this phenomenon still require further clarification under varying cognitive conditions. Here, we examined neural mechanisms during the first exposure to visually presented sequences in 47 healthy participants. We used two types of visual objects: abstract symbols and pictures of cartoon-like animals. This allowed us to compare informational processing mechanisms with defined distinguishing features. Participants achieved better performance for sequences with easy-to-name than difficult-to-name abstract stimuli. fMRI results revealed greater activation in widespread brain regions in response to random versus statistical sequences for all stimuli types. Behavioral accuracy was associated with increased deactivation of the ventromedial PFC for easy-to-name statistical versus random sequences. For difficult-to-name statistical versus random sequences, performance correlated with dorsomedial prefrontal cortex deactivation. ROI analysis showed a generally positive involvement of the caudate head in sequence processing with significantly stronger activity during the first run of performing the task. Functional connectivity analysis of prefrontal deactivation regions revealed significant connectivity with nodes of the salience network for both object types and inverse connectivity with the caudate head only for easy-to-name objects. The results indicated that distinct subregions of PFC modulate task performance depending on the visual stimulus characteristic. They also showed that among striatal regions, only the head of the caudate was sensitive to initial exposure to visual statistical information.

Lexical Bundles in L1 and L2 English Academic Writing: Convergent and Divergent Usage

As a key component of fluent linguistic production, multi-word sequences called lexical bundles are considered an important distinguishing feature of discourse in different registers, genres, and disciplines. They are also an important aspect of empirically correct and proficient language use in a corpus of natural language because they enable writers to establish membership in a specific discourse community. Given the significant role of lexical bundles in academic writing, the comparison of master’s theses, written by L1 English and L2 English master’s students, offers significant insight into the ways in which lexical bundles are utilized, both structurally and functionally. Based on the assumption, we built a 1,282,700-word English corpus of master’s theses to compare the convergent and divergent usage of four-word lexical bundles in the academic texts of L1 English and L1 Chinese of L2-English writers. Findings showed that Chinese students use lexical bundles more frequently but with less variety than L1 English writers. Shared bundles, which exhibit a grammatically compressed discourse style dominated by prepositional phrases, were used by the two groups of writers in different ways and with significantly different frequencies. The analysis of divergent bundles revealed that Chinese writers frequently use clausal bundles while L1 English students employ more phrasal bundles. With regard to students’ ability to write convincingly in various functional categories, the two groups exhibited remarkable differences. Chinese writers also demonstrated some uniqueness of lexical bundles usage and weak awareness of register in the academic writing. The pedagogical implications and further areas of the study are discussed.

Familial Frontal Fibrosing Alopecia Occurs Early in Daughters With Affected Mothers: A Case Report and a Review of the Literature.

Frontal fibrosing alopecia (FFA) is a form of cicatricial alopecia that is being increasingly diagnosed in recent years. It predominantly affects post-menopausal women of various ethnic backgrounds, but cases have also been reported in pre-menopausal women and rarely in men. Eleven familial cases of FFA have been published in the literature, with some authors raising speculation about potential genetic predisposition or shared exposure to environmental factors as triggers for the condition. Despite this, there remains a lack of detailed characterisation of the clinical features specific to familial cases of FFA. In this report, we aim to contribute to the understanding of FFA by presenting the first Australian case of familial FFA involving a mother and her daughter, while also attempting to define the clinical distinguishing features in familial FFA and sporadic FFA.

A physics-constrained deep learning treatment of runaway electron dynamics

An adjoint formulation leveraging a physics-informed neural network (PINN) is employed to advance the density moment of a runaway electron (RE) distribution forward in time. A distinguishing feature of this approach is that once the adjoint problem is solved, its solution can be used to project the RE density forward in time for an arbitrary initial momentum space distribution of REs. Furthermore, by employing a PINN, a parametric solution to the adjoint problem can be learned. Thus, once trained, this adjoint-deep learning framework is able to efficiently project the RE density forward in time across various plasma conditions while still including a fully kinetic description of RE dynamics. As an example application, the temporal evolution of the density of primary electrons is studied, with particular emphasis on evaluating the decay of a RE population when below threshold. Predictions from the adjoint-deep learning framework are found to be in good agreement with a traditional relativistic electron Fokker–Planck solver, for several distinct initial conditions, and across an array of physics parameters. Once trained, the PINN thus provides a means of generating RE density time histories with exceptionally low online execution time.

NPM1 mutation frequency and protein in Cutaneous Blastic Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cell Neoplasms.

NPM1 mutation frequency and protein in Cutaneous Blastic Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cell Neoplasms.

Breast hamartomas associated with epithelial atypia and malignancy: are there specific clinical, radiological or pathological features that identify at risk patients?

Breast hamartomas are rarely associated with epithelial atypia or malignancy. Since the introduction of digital mammography in the UK from 2008, hamartoma detection has increased. The aim of this study was to identify if there are characteristic clinical, radiological or histological features that distinguish hamartomas with intralesional atypia/malignancy (complex hamartomas, CH) or ipsilateral/contralateral atypia/malignancy (non-CH) from those without atypia/malignancy at diagnosis (other benign hamartomas, BH). We performed a retrospective single-institution review of 450 hamartomas reported between 2010 and 2023. Anonymised H&E sections and imaging of CH and non-CH were reviewed to identify distinguishing features. 13,441 benign breast lesions were biopsied/resected between 2010 and 2023 including 450 hamartomas (3.3%), 19 of which (4.2%) were associated with atypia or malignancy. 14 were analysed further (7 CH; 7 non-CH). The mean age of CH plus non-CH patients was significantly higher than patients with BH (47.5 vs. 40.6years; p = 0.03). The mean size of CH was greater than non-CH (32.1mm vs.17.6mm; p = 0.06). There was a statistically significantly higher incidence of atypical/malignant lobular lesions (ALH/LCIS/ILC) in CH vs. non-CH (42.9% vs 0%; p = 0.05). MRI was performed in 2 CH and 3 non-CH; in all 5 the associated malignancy was detected. There was no significant difference between the CH and non-CH group in ultrasound/mammographic features, other hamartoma histological features or other associated benign breast changes. Ultrasound/mammogram are not sufficiently sensitive to identify hamartomas with associated atypia/malignancy. Certain hamartoma features may preferentially be associated with atypia/malignancy and which merit further radiological and/or detailed histological investigation.

Enhancing explainability via distinguishable feature learning based on causality in image classification

Enhancing explainability via distinguishable feature learning based on causality in image classification

Monocular depth estimation via a detail semantic collaborative network for indoor scenes

Monocular image depth estimation is crucial for indoor scene reconstruction, and it plays a significant role in optimizing building energy efficiency, indoor environment modeling, and smart space design. However, the small depth variability of indoor scenes leads to weakly distinguishable detail features. Meanwhile, there are diverse types of indoor objects, and the expression of the correlation among different objects is complicated. Additionally, the robustness of recent models still needs further improvement given these indoor environments. To address these problems, a detail‒semantic collaborative network (DSCNet) is proposed for monocular depth estimation of indoor scenes. First, the contextual features contained in the images are fully captured via the hierarchical transformer structure. Second, a detail‒semantic collaborative structure is established, which establishes a selective attention feature map to extract details and semantic information from feature maps. The extracted features are subsequently fused to improve the perception ability of the network. Finally, the complex correlation among indoor objects is addressed by aggregating semantic and detailed features at different levels, and the model accuracy is effectively improved without increasing the number of parameters. The proposed model is tested on the NYU and SUN datasets. The proposed approach produces state-of-the-art results compared with the 14 performance results of recent optimal methods. In addition, the proposed approach is fully discussed and analyzed in terms of stability, robustness, ablation experiments and availability in indoor scenes.

Differential Diagnoses of Acute Myocardial Infarction

Introduction: Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Accurate diagnosis is critical, yet challenging due to the myriad conditions that can mimic its presentation. Distinguishing AMI from its differential diagnoses is essential for timely and appropriate management. Objective: This narrative review aims to elucidate the various conditions that can present similarly to AMI, highlighting key distinguishing features to aid clinicians in accurate diagnosis. Methods: A comprehensive literature search was conducted across databases including PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar. Recent studies published within the last five years were prioritized to ensure up-to-date information. Results and Discussion: Several conditions, such as acute pericarditis, aortic dissection, pulmonary embolism, and gastroesophageal reflux disease, can mimic the clinical presentation of AMI. Each condition possesses unique clinical, electrocardiographic, and biomarker profiles that can aid in differentiation. For instance, acute pericarditis often presents with pleuritic chest pain and diffuse ST-segment elevations, whereas aortic dissection may involve tearing chest pain radiating to the back and mediastinal widening on imaging. Conclusion: A thorough understanding of the differential diagnoses of AMI is imperative for clinicians to ensure accurate diagnosis and appropriate management, ultimately improving patient outcomes.

Analytical reconstruction of equivalent purely kinetic k-essence description for cs2(w) barotropic fluid models

Abstract A novel approach to the class of cosmic barotropic fluids in which the speed of sound squared is defined as a function of the equation of State parameter, so called c s 2 ( w ) models, is examined. For this class of models, a new analytical reconstruction method is introduced for finding their equivalent purely kinetic k-essence formulation. The method is explicitly demonstrated for several c s 2 ( w ) models. A distinguished feature of the studied models is a peak in c s 2 during cosmic expansion. A possible role that such model features could play in understanding of so far unexplained aspects of cosmic evolution is discussed. The application of the obtained explicit or closed form solutions in understanding dark sector unification models is outlined.

Revisiting eye blink in Parkinson’s disease

Spontaneous blinking is a rapid and unconscious type of blinking that has been linked to several cognitive processes. Blink rate has been established as a reliable measure of cognitive processing and a predictor of dopamine-related cognitive function. Patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) have a reduced spontaneous blink rate. In this study, we propose an additional measure of blink characteristic, namely blink duration, and evaluate its alteration in a large cohort of 107 patients with PD. We also investigate the relationship between blink rate and blink duration and disease characteristics such as severity and dopaminergic neuronal loss. The results show that the blink rate is reduced, and blink duration is increased in patients compared to healthy controls. Blink rate is related to motor deficit severity and significantly correlated with dopamine depletion (dopamine transporter striatal binding ratio). Conversely, blink duration is related to non-motor aspects such as sleepiness. These findings highlight the potential of blink as a distinguishing feature of Parkinson’s disease, underscoring the importance of incorporating blink assessments into standardized oculomotor testing protocols for PD.

Creating Database With Image Processing Methods From Dental X-Ray

The characteristic distinguishing features of a person define that person. With these characteristics, a person can be distinguished from other persons. Forensic sciences have to identify individuals in some cases. In identification, dental images are frequently used today, especially in age and gender determination procedures. In this study, a data base was created in which panoramic dental x-ray images could be used to identify people. By removing the borders from panoramic dental X-ray images, a total of 1313 dental images and 162 distinct tooth groups were generated. These images have undergone pre-processing to achieve improved results. Preprocessed images are saved in a folder. The preprocessed images are corrected with a novel and originally developed rotation algorithm. The application was developed in C # programming language.

Vector Bessel-like beams with quadrature phases of electric and magnetic fields

The peculiarities of propagation of vector Bessel – Gaussian (BG) beams, the distinguishing feature of which is the quadrature of phases of electric and magnetic fields, are considered. The expression for vector BG beams is obtained on the basis of common approach in a form of linear superposition of known accurate solutions of the Maxwell equations. By selection of weight function of superposition there are found the equations for all components of electric and magnetic field of the BG beam, and also expressions for square field functions, such as linear density of energy, pulse and pulse moments along the direction of beam propagation. The particular case is considered when weight functions of the superposition do not depend on azimuthal mode index m of the vortex beam. For this case the expression is found for the ratio of linear density of the pulse moment to linear density of BG beam energy with a quadrature of electric and magnetic fields. From the equation obtained it follows that linear density of the pulse moment per one photon for non-paraxial beams essentially differs from the value ћ(m + 1) for large cone angles (of about several tens of degrees). Particularly, this result is important for the correct estimation of angular momentum of the field on the basis of measurement by the photoreceivers with direct detection of azimuthal index m, which are being developed in the recent time. It is also shown that when increasing the cone angle of BG beam its polarization differs from angular one, and the longitudinal component increases. Here the functional dependence of transverse and longitudinal components on radial coordinate is different. The obtained results are important when developing compact elements for the optical communication systems, microscopy, laser tweezers and others.

Uncertainty Quantification in Flow Cytometry Using a Cell Sorter.

In cytometry, it is difficult to disentangle the contributions of population variance and instrument noise toward total measured variation. Fundamentally, this is due to the fact that one cannot measure the same particle multiple times. We propose a simple experiment that uses a cell sorter to distinguish instrument-specific variation. For a population of beads whose intensities are distributed around a single peak, the sorter is used to collect beads whose measured intensities lie below some threshold. This subset of particles is then remeasured. If the variation in the measured values is only due to the sample, the second set of measurements should also lie entirely below our threshold. Any "spillover" is therefore due to instrument-specific effects-we demonstrate how the distribution of the post-sort measurements is sufficient to extract an estimate of the cumulative variability induced by the instrument. A distinguishing feature of our work is that we do not make any assumptions about the sources of said noise. We then show how "local affine transformations" let us transfer these estimates to cytometers not equipped with a sorter. We use our analysis to estimate noise for a set of three instruments and two bead types, across a range of sample flow rates. Lastly, we discuss the implications of instrument noise on optimal classification, as well as other applications.

ბუღალტერთა და აუდიტორთა საკვალიფიკაციო მოთხოვნების შედარებითი ანალიზი პოსტსაბჭოთა ქვეყნებში

The article discusses the issues related to qualification requirements of accountants and auditors in Georgia and makes a comparative analysis with other post-Soviet countries. Obligatory procedures for obtaining the status of a certified accountant and auditor, recognition of certification programs, requirements related to conducting exams, certification bodies, exam topics, etc. are covered. Completion of the full certification program is required to obtain the status of certified public accountant. In addition, it is possible to count one or all subjects relevant to the certification program. Assessment of professional competence is carried out through a certification exam, which assesses the candidate's theoretical knowledge and ability to apply it in practice. The article highlights the functions and role of the three departments of accounting, reporting and audit supervision in relation to the above-mentioned issues. There are common and main distinguishing features between Georgia and other post-Soviet countries in the qualification requirements of accountants and auditors. Among other issues, the paper discusses the continuing education system of certified accountants and auditors, and the obligations of professional accountants and professional organizations in this field.

Characteristics of the subject as a basis for distinguishing certain crimes against the foundations of national security of Ukraine (according to the components provided for in Articles 111, 111-1, 111-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine)

The issue of criminal liability for crimes against the foundations of national security of Ukraine became particularly relevant with the beginning of russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine in 2014 and with the full-scale invasion of the aggressor state’s troops and the introduction of martial law. Given the similarity of certain elements of these crimes, it became necessary to establish distinguishing features, one of which is the subject of the crime as one of the mandatory elements of the crime. The purpose of this study was to determine the features of the subject to distinguish related elements of crimes against the foundations of national security and provide proposals for their improvement. Establishing the features of the subject of each of the crimes provided for in Art. 111, Art. 111-1, Art. 111-2, led to a number of important conclusions for both the theory of criminal law and lawmaking activity, and for the practice of applying the norms of criminal law. The subject of crimes against the foundations of national security provided for in Art. 111, Art. 111-1, Art. 111-2, is special on the basis of citizenship, which at the same time is a distinguishing feature for the correct qualification of the committed criminally punishable acts. In order to avoid competition of criminal law norms when qualifying the acts of a person falling under the features of the elements of crimes provided for by the above-mentioned articles, we propose to make the following changes to such norms: to legislate the feature of citizenship in Part 4 and Part 6 of Art. 111-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, indicating that the actions provided for in these norms can be committed only by a citizen of Ukraine; to exclude from the disposition of Art. 111-2 the phrase «citizen of Ukraine», thereby stipulating the possibility of holding only foreigners and stateless persons liable under this article. This will increase the effectiveness of bringing persons to justice for committing crimes against the foundations of national security and ensure the imposition of a fair and sufficient type and amount of punishment. This study does not resolve all issues of delimiting the elements of crimes against the foundations of national security and is promising for further improvement of the relevant norms of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

Revisit of Histopathology in Rheumatoid Lung Nodules.

Diagnosing pulmonary rheumatoid nodules (RN) is challenging because they are rare and share clinical, radiologic, and histopathologic features with other necrotizing granulomatous diseases such as infectious granulomas (IG) and granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA). Herein, we revisit the histopathologic features of RN and the findings in the adjacent lung tissue, in comparison with IG and GPA, to identify distinguishing features. Twenty-eight cases with surgically resected RN evaluated at our institution (1991 to 2024), 33 IG (10 mycobacterial infection, 10 histoplasmosis, 13 coccidiomycosis), and 10 GPA cases were included in the study. All available slides with H&E and special stains were reviewed for various histologic parameters within the nodules and in surrounding lung tissue. Many histopathologic features of RN overlap with the necrotizing granulomas seen in infections and GPA. However, some findings in the adjacent lung tissue showed significant differences. The lack of airspace granulomas/non-necrotizing granuloma and the absence of necrotizing vasculitis in the setting of RN can help to differentiate between infection cases and GPA, respectively. Given their considerable overlap, correlation with clinical context, serologic and microbiologic studies, as well as careful evaluation of special stains is crucial in the diagnosis of RN.

Apvit: ViT with adaptive patches for scene text recognition

Scene texts in nature exhibit varied colors, which serve as a significant distinguishing feature that effectively suppresses background interference. In this study, color clustering is utilized as a prior guide to group patches, enhancing their spatial relationships. Additionally, patch sizes are adaptively adjusted during training to balance speed and accuracy, while unimportant tokens and blocks in the model are pruned. We propose APViT, which modifies the ViTs model for scene text recognition requirements. It consists of three components: Sparse Patches Selection (SPS), ViT-STR, and Token Code (TC). First, SPS segments images into appropriate patches and clusters similar ones to explore diverse local patches adaptively. Second, we enhance the ViTs model specifically for scene text recognition as ViT-STR. Finally, TC prunes non-essential parts of the network based on self-attention mechanisms to accelerate performance. Consequently, our proposed APViT model outperforms state-of-the-art methods across several datasets, demonstrating its effectiveness.

Многополярный вектор во внешнеполитической стратегии Дэн Сяопина: переосмысление дипломатического курса КНР

The modern world order is in a state of permanent change. By the end of the 20th century, the topic of a multipo-lar world order began to gain popularity, mainly in the discourse of developing countries such as China. The ideas of equal, multilateral and global cooperation were reflected not only in the official, but also in the expert discourse of Chinese political scientists and scientists. In order to be able to evaluate and predict China’s for-eign policy strategy towards its partners (including Russia) today, it is necessary to identify the distinctive fea-tures of the Chinese understanding of multilateral cooperation and global interaction, laid down under the great reformer of China, Deng Xiaoping, which is the purpose of this article. Methods: 1) a problem-chronological approach that allowed us to identify the main reasons for China’s support of the new multipolar course; 2) comparative analysis – to compare the official discourse of the Chinese leadership and the opinions of the Chinese expert community regarding the understanding of the formation and functioning of the multipolar world order.