Normal State Research Articles

Association between the geriatric nutritional risk index and cognitive functions in older adults: a cross-sectional study from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

To investigate the associations between the geriatric nutritional risk index (GNRI) with cognitive functions among U.S. older adults. (Patients were classified into two nutrition risk groups based on the GNRI). Our analysis utilized data from the cross-sectional National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) conducted between 2011 and 2014. Cognitive function was measured using CERAD test, AFT and DSST. Composite z-scores were obtained by summing test-specific z-scores of the above three cognitive tests and were used to assess the global cognitive function. We employed weighted logistic regression models to evaluate the associations between GNRI and nutritional status (low and high GNRI) with cognitive function among older participants. The non-linear relationship was described using fitted smoothed curves and threshold effect analyses. Subgroup analysis and interaction tests were also conducted. This study included 2,592 older participants aged 60 years and older. After adjusting for confounding variables, the GNRI was positively associated with AFT (β = 0.05, 95% CI 0.005-0.096, p-value = 0.0285), DSST (β = 0.192, 95% CI 0.078-0.305, p-value = 0.0010) and the composite z-scores (β = 0.027, 95% CI 0.010-0.044, p-value = 0.0024). The results also showed that the high-GNRI group was significantly associated with AFT (β = 0.922, 95% CI 0.166-1.677, p-value = 0.0169), DSST (β = 2.791, 95% CI 0.884-4.698, p-value = 0.0042) and composite z-scores (β = 0.405, 95% CI 0.115-0.695, p-value = 0.0062) likewise had significant positive correlations, using the low-GNRI group as a reference. In addition, inflection points with CERAD and composite z-scores were found at GNRI of 108.016, and 105.371, respectively. Specifically, on the left side of the inflection point GNRI levels were positively correlated with CERAD and composite z-scores (CERAD β = 0.087, 95% CI 0.024-0.150, p-value = 0.0070; composite z-scores β = 0.065, 95% CI 0.040-0.091, p-value <0.0001), while on the right side of the inflection point were significantly negatively associated (CERAD β = -0.295, 95% CI -0.529 to -0.062, p-value = 0.0133, composite z-scores β = -0.050, 95% CI -0.091 to -0.008, p-value = 0.0184). Lower GNRI was associated with poorer performance in several cognitive domains. Additionally, there was a non-linear positive association between GNRI and cognitive function in normal nutritional states, for excessive GNRI may cause cognitive decline.

How battery capacities are correctly estimated considering latent short-circuit faults

Capacity is a key factor in assessing battery health. Traditional capacity estimation methods assume by default the battery is in a normal state. When there is a latent short-circuit fault, the measured current deviates from the actual current flowing into or out of the battery unit, leading to errors in capacity estimation. To address this challenge, we have constructed an end-cloud collaborative framework to accurately estimate the module's capacity considering the latent short-circuit faults. The core scheme is to estimate the module's charging capacity and discharging capacity simultaneously, obtain the module's operating mode based on the historical relationship between the two, conduct quantitative diagnosis for the short-circuit fault, and feedback the accurate capacity value. This framework addresses the coupled issue of erroneous capacity estimation in the presence of latent short-circuit faults, and the inability to diagnose module external short-circuit faults due to the lack of a comparison. This has profound significance for achieving more reliable battery safety management.

Drug-induced liver injury associated with savolitinib: a novel case report and causality assessment

BackgroundSavolitinib, a small molecule inhibitor, has gained approval as the inaugural medication in China that specifically targets MET kinase. Patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who show MET exon 14 skipping now have a new and innovative treatment option available.Case reportIn this case report, we describe a patient who experienced drug-induced liver injury (DILI) due to the administration of savolitinib. After being prescribed with savolitinib (400 mg per day, oral), a 73-year-old male diagnosed with stage IV NSCLC with MET exon 14 skipping mutation experienced an increase in liver enzymes and bilirubin levels according to his laboratory tests conducted one month later. Following a 14-day course of hepatoprotective medication, the liver function reverted back to its normal state. After receiving savolitinib (200 mg per day, oral) for one week, the patient was once again diagnosed with severe liver impairment. Then savolitinib was discontinued and received treatment with hepatoprotective drugs for one week. Following the restoration of normal liver function, another attempt was made to administer a small amount of savolitinib (100 mg per day, oral). Thus far, the patient has been followed up and there has been no recurrence of liver damage. Additionally, the lung CT scan revealed ongoing tumor shrinkage with no apparent indications of spreading or metastasis. The Roussel Uclaf Causality Assessment Method (RUCAM) determined that savolitinib was “highly probable” cause of DILI. Moderate-severe was determined to be the extent of DILI severity.ConclusionTo the best of our understanding, this is the initial instance of DILI resulting from the use of savolitinib as a standalone treatment in a real-world setting. During the administration of savolitinib, healthcare professionals should carefully consider the potential occurrence of DILI. Administering the patient with a small amount of savolitinib resulted in a remarkable response against the tumor, leading us to speculate that the effectiveness of savolitinib might be associated with its plasma concentration. Studying the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics (PK/PD) of savolitinib is beneficial for tailoring and accurately prescribing the medication to each individual.

Zero-field finite-momentum and field-induced superconductivity in altermagnets

We explore the possibilities for spin-singlet superconductivity in newly discovered altermagnets. Investigating d-wave altermagnets, we show that finite-momentum superconductivity can easily emerge in altermagnets even though they have no net magnetization, when the superconducting order parameter also has d-wave symmetry with nodes coinciding with the altermagnet nodes. Additionally, we find a rich phase diagram when both altermagnetism and an external magnetic field are considered, including superconductivity appearing at high magnetic fields from a parent zero-field normal state. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Deep Learning Methods to Analyze the Forces and Torques in Joints Motion

This paper proposes a composite model that combines convolutional neural network models and mechanical analysis to determine the forces acting on an object. First, we establish a model using Newtonian mechanics to analyze the forces experienced by the human body during movement, particularly the forces on joints. The model calculates the mapping relationship between the object’s movement and the forces on the joints. Then, by analyzing a large number of fencing competition videos using a deep learning model, we extract video features to study the torques and forces on human joints. Our analysis of numerous images reveals that, in certain movement patterns, the peak pressure on the knee joint can be two to three times higher than in a normal state, while the driving knee can withstand peak torques of 400–600 Nm. This straightforward model can effectively capture the forces and torques on the human body during movement using a deep neural network. Furthermore, this model can also be applied to problems involving non-rigid body motion.

An Experimental Protocol for the Boyden Chamber Invasion Assay With Absorbance Readout.

The phenomenon of cell invasion is an essential step in angiogenesis, embryonic development, immune responses, and cancer metastasis. In the course of cancer progression, the ability of neoplastic cells to degrade the basement membrane and penetrate neighboring tissue (or blood vessels and lymph nodes) is an early event of the metastatic cascade. The Boyden chamber assay is one of the most prevalent methods implemented to measure the pro- or anti-invasive effects of drugs, investigate signaling pathways that modulate cell invasion, and characterize the role of extracellular matrix proteins in metastasis. However, the traditional protocol of the Boyden chamber assay has some technical challenges and limitations. One such challenge is that the endpoint of the assay involves photographing and counting stained cells (in multiple fields) on porous filters. This process is very arduous, requires multiple observers, and is very time-consuming. Our improved protocol for the Boyden chamber assay involves lysis of the dye-stained cells and reading the absorbance using an ELISA reader to mitigate this challenge. We believe that our improved Boyden chamber methodology offers a standardized, high-throughput format to evaluate the efficacy of various drugs and test compounds in influencing cellular invasion in normal and diseased states. We believe that our protocol will be useful for researchers working in the fields of immunology, vascular biology, drug discovery, cancer biology, and developmental biology. Key features • Measurement of tumor invasion using human cancer cells. • Ability to measure the pro-invasive/anti-invasive activity of small molecules and biological modifiers. • Measurement of chemotaxis, chemokines, trafficking of immune cells, and proteolytic activity of matrix metalloproteinases, lysosomal hydrolysates, collagenases, and plasminogen activators in physiological and pathological conditions. • Investigation of the role of extracellular matrix proteins in the crosstalk between endothelial, epithelial, muscle, or neuronal cells and their adjacent stroma.

A pulsed current set-up for use in magnetic fields above 30 T; application to high-temperature superconductors

Physical measurements of the normal state of an unconventional or high-temperature superconductor in the zero-temperature limit can provide vital information on the nature of the electronic ground state from which the superconductivity emerges. Viable routes to fully suppress the superconductivity include the application of magnetic fields stronger than the upper critical field Hc 2 or current densities larger than the critical current density Jc . In high-Tc superconductors, Hc 2 is typically higher than the available field strengths, while high currents can often create large heating effects that cause irreparable damage to the sample. Here, we present a technique that combines intense current pulses with high magnetic fields to fully suppress the superconductivity of a candidate high-Tc superconductor while keeping both J and μ 0 H below their critical values. Two adaptable circuit designs are presented with negligible stray field or self-heating effects (below a critical current value). As a proof of principle, we apply the technique to a high-Tc cuprate with nominal μ 0 Hc 2 ∼ 36 T and demonstrate the suppression of superconductivity down to T/Tc ≤ 0.1 in a field strength of just 24 T. Further applications of this dual technique are also discussed.

Rotating machine bearing health prognosis using a data driven approach based on KS‐density and BiLSTM

AbstractRolling element bearings are vital components within rotating machinery, making them a central focus of maintenance in the prognostics and health management sector. This involves closely monitoring their condition to accurately predict the remaining useful life, increasing reliability while minimizing unexpected breakdowns, thereby enabling cost savings through planned maintenance, and enhancing operational stability and security. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to build an online intelligent system for degradation monitoring and failure prognosis by the construction of a robust health indicator and making quantitative measure for bearing degradation. In this paper, an efficient and reliable approach is proposed to estimate the remaining useful life of bearing. A new prediction method is presented by the combination of kernel smoothing density (KS‐density) and bidirectional long short‐term memory (BiLSTM). Firstly, KS‐density smoothens the preliminarily estimated probability distribution function using machinery degradation data. Secondly, the obtained KS‐density is used in feed deep learning technique based on BiLSTM models. On this basis, the variation of the signal distribution models between the current faulty state and the normal conditions state is quantified for bearing health assessment. The effective recognition of bearing degradation by the proposed Weibull‐based health index is demonstrated through experimental validations utilizing run‐to‐failure datasets, provided by the centre for intelligent maintenance systems. The comparison with the literature's review show that the prediction results of the proposed approach are more accurate.

Does Consciousness Have Dimensions?

Whether consciousness is unidimensional with states defined along a single scale or it consists of multiple fundamental dimensions has been debated. Clinical assessment of consciousness distinguishes the content of consciousness (awareness) and the level of consciousness (wakefulness or arousal), which conflates firstperson phenomenal properties with third-person observable properties. The state of consciousness is more appropriately defined in terms of subjective level and content which are interdependent. On this account, the state of consciousness is exclusively defined by the experienced mental content, i.e.awareness, whereas behaviour and cognition are overt expressions of the state. Wakefulness and arousal are predisposing factors for specific forms of conscious experience. Nevertheless, a unidimensional representation of consciousness fails to account for the variety of qualitatively different experiences in both normal and altered states of consciousness. To overcome this problem, cognitive and abstract multidimensional models of consciousness have been proposed, but such dimensions are interdependent and lack axiomatic support. A novel multidimensional characterization of consciousness based on the brain's macroscale functional geometry provides an alternative, empirically grounded model whose dimensions are defined by neurofunctional rather than behavioural attributes. The state of consciousness is then represented as a point in this functional multidimensional space.

Self-Healing Control of Nuclear Power Plants Under False Data Injection Attacks

The transition from analog to digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems introduces new threats caused by cyberattacks in the nuclear industry. This paper proposes a self-healing strategy to respond to a false data injection attack that targets digital I&C systems, which is a type of cyberattack commonly targeting nuclear power plants with the potential to cause serious physical impacts. This resilience strategy for self-healing control contains three components: (1) an anomaly detection model that can detect false data injection attacks, (2) a device-level control that utilizes inferred values to perform control under a detected false data injection, and (3) a system-level control that leverages another controller that is not under attack to lead the system back to a safe operation state when the device-level control is unavailable. Anomaly detection and device-level control use an autoencoder while system-level control utilizes reinforcement learning. The proposed self-healing resilience strategy is demonstrated with a generic pressurized water reactor (GPWR) simulator under false data injections, targeting the steam generator water level. The results show that the proposed strategy effectively leads the system back to a normal operation state under various false data injection cases.

Влияние кормовой пробиотической добавки «Ветоспорин-Ж» (Bacillus subtilis) и минеральной добавки «Цеолит» (опока) на проявление генотоксических эффектов в клетках крови молоди стерляди (Acipenser ruthenus) в условиях аквакультуры

In modern conditions of declining natural sturgeon populations in the Volga-Caspian basin, the role and importance of aquaculture is increasing. In the Astrakhan region, due to the presence of a large natural water fund, cage farming of fish, including sterlet, is widely developed. Cage farming of sturgeon in natural water bodies is associated with the impact of anthropogenic pollution, in this area it is associated with water pollution in the river delta Volga, and the deterioration of the hydrochemical regime, which directly affects fish farming. One of the factors of the negative impact of these changes in the aquatic environment is genotoxicity, the degree of manifestation of which can be assessed using accessible and modern methods, which include micronuclear and DNA comet tests. A serious consequence of the genotoxic effect of pollution is the formation of damage to the DNA of the fish body. The purpose of this work was to assess the frequency of appearance of micronuclei and the degree of DNA damage in the blood cells of juvenile sterlet, as well as the selection of functional additives in food that will reduce the effects of genotoxic pressure from a natural water source. In a scientific laboratory, a series of experiments was carried out on feeding juvenile sterlet delivered from a fish farm in the Volga delta. All juvenile sterlet, both at the beginning and at the end of the experiment, were characterized by a normal physiological state, low levels of DNA comets, and the number of erythrocytes with micronuclei was slightly higher than normal. As a result of experimental feeding, reliable data were obtained that food with the addition of the probiotic drug “Vetosporin-Zh” based on the bacteria Bacillus subtilis contributed to a significant increase in weight gain and body length. All analyzed indicators of DNA comets were significantly lower in the group that was fed with the introduction of a probiotic (the micronucleus test turned out to be less sensitive in this case). The mineral additive “Zeolite” did not show such effectiveness. Thus, the addition of Bacillus subtilis-based preparations when feeding juvenile sturgeon can be reasonably recommended to effectively reduce genotoxic stress for fish, mainly to reduce DNA damage.

Health indicator construction based on normal states through FFT‐graph embedding

AbstractUnexpected faults in rotating machinery can lead to cascading disruptions of the entire work process, emphasizing the importance of early detection of performance degradation and identification of the current state. To accurately assess the health of a machine, this study introduces an FFT‐based raw vibration data preprocessing and graph representation technique, which analyses changes in frequency bands to detect early degradation trends in vibration data that may appear normal. The approach proposes a methodology that utilizes a graph convolutional autoencoder trained using only normal data to extract health indicators using the differences in the vectors as degradation progresses. This approach has the advantage of using only normal data to detect subtle performance degradation early and effectively represent health indicators accordingly.

FINITE ELEMENT SIMULATION ANALYSIS OF CURVILINEAR CONTINUOUS BEAM BRIDGE JACKING AND TRANSLATION CONSTRUCTION

This paper investigates the issue of beam misalignment in curved continuous beam bridges. Taking the D0 to D6 spans of the Gongbin Road viaduct as the basis, the main influencing factors causing misalignment in curved beam bridges are analyzed and the causes of transverse and longitudinal misalignment in curved beam bridges are calculated and analyzed using Midas/Civil finite element simulation software. The results indicate that the main influencing factor causing misalignment in the operation of curved continuous beam bridges is the system temperature, with the displacement caused by it being larger than the cumulative displacement caused by self-weight, construction phase, gradient load, vehicle load, and bearing settlement. During operation, the failure of expansion joints changes the boundary conditions of the beam, preventing the bridge from freely expanding and contracting longitudinally under temperature load. As a result, the transverse displacement increases to 2-3 times the normal working state of the expansion joint, leading to beam misalignment.

Stromal KITL/SCF promotes pancreas tissue homeostasis and restrains tumor progression.

Components of normal tissue architecture serve as barriers to tumor progression. Inflammatory and wound-healing programs are requisite features of solid tumorigenesis, wherein alterations to immune and non-immune stromal elements enable loss of homeostasis during tumor evolution. The precise mechanisms by which normal stromal cell states limit tissue plasticity and tumorigenesis, and which are lost during tumor progression, remain largely unknown. Here we show that healthy pancreatic mesenchyme expresses the paracrine signaling molecule KITL, also known as stem cell factor, and identify loss of stromal KITL during tumorigenesis as tumor-promoting. Genetic inhibition of mesenchymal KITL in the contexts of homeostasis, injury, and cancer together indicate a role for KITL signaling in maintenance of pancreas tissue architecture, such that loss of the stromal KITL pool increased tumor growth and reduced survival of tumor-bearing mice. Together, these findings implicate loss of mesenchymal KITL as a mechanism for establishing a tumor-permissive microenvironment.

Investigating Changes in Pharmacokinetics of Steroidal Alkaloids from a Hydroethanolic Fritillariae thunbergii Bulbus Extract in 2,4-Dinitrobenzene Sulfonic Acid-Induced Colitis Rats.

Fritillariae thunbergii Bulbus (FTB), a member of the Liliaceae family, has a long history of use in many herbal formulations for traditional and modern clinical applications to treat various infections and inflammation. To understand FTB's diverse physiochemical properties, it is important to determine the pharmacokinetic properties of its active constituents, the steroidal alkaloids. The aim of the present study was to investigate the pharmacokinetic alterations of the alkaloids, the active components of FTB, in the presence of colitis. A single oral dose of FTB (1 g/kg) was treated to a 2,4-dinitrobenzene sulfonic acid (DNBS)-induced colitis rat model to assess whether the colitis condition could influence the pharmacokinetics of the major alkaloids present in FTB. Among the four major alkaloids, peimisine exhibited a significantly increased systemic exposure, approximately five times higher, under the colitis condition compared with the normal state. Meanwhile, peimine, peiminine, and sipeimine exhibited shorter half-lives in the DNBS group without significant changes in systemic absorption. As herbal medicine may contain active substances with different or opposing efficacies, careful consideration of pharmacokinetic changes in individual components due to diseases is necessary. Further experiments on peimisine are required to ensure the effectiveness and safety of FTB's clinical application in the presence of colitis.

Exposure to 6-PPD quinone disrupts glucose metabolism associated with lifespan reduction by affecting insulin and AMPK signals in Caenorhabditis elegans

Glucose metabolism plays an important role for formation of normal physiological state of organisms. However, association between altered glucose metabolism and toxicity of 6-PPD quinone (6-PPDQ) remains largely unknown. In 1–100 μg/L 6-PPDQ exposed Caenorhabditis elegans, we observed increased glucose content. After 6-PPDQ exposure (1–100 μg/L), expressions of F47B8.10 and fbp-1 governing gluconeogenesis were increased, and expressions of hxk-1, hxk-3, pfk-1.1, pyk-1, and pyk-2 governing glycolysis were decreased. Under 6-PPDQ exposure condition, glucose content could be changed by RNAi of F47B8.10, hxk-1, and hxk-3, key genes for gluconeogenesis and glycolysis. In 6-PPDQ exposed nematodes, RNAi of daf-16 and aak-2 elevated glucose content, increased expressions of F47B8.10 and/or fbp-1, and decreased expressions of hxk-1, hxk-3, and/or pfk-1.1. Additionally, lifespan and locomotion during aging were increased by RNAi of F47B8.10 and decreased by RNAi of hxk-1 and hxk-3 in 6-PPDQ exposed nematodes. Moreover, after 6-PPDQ exposure, RNAi of F47B8.10 decreased expressions of insulin peptide genes (ins-7 and daf-28) and insulin receptor gene daf-2 and increased expressions of daf-16 and aak-2. In 6-PPDQ exposed nematodes, RNAi of hxk-1 and hxk-3 further increased expressions of ins-7, daf-28, and daf-2 and decreased expressions of daf-16 and aak-2. Our results demonstrated important association between altered glucose metabolism and toxicity of 6-PPDQ in inducing lifespan reduction in organisms.

Assessment of Zitterbewegung Interpretation for Free Particle Solution Using the Concept of Relativistic Wave

The Assessment of the interpretation of Zitterbewegung for free particle solution using various models has been carried out in this work where we firstly considered by using the free particle solution for which Dirac equation and projection operator were carried out.. ln this case, it was invariably revealed that the solution have two doubly degenerate eigenvalues representing positive and negative state that was further support by the analysis which was carried out using Heisenberg’s equation and the representation in relativistic velocity and semi-classical equation of motion for acceleration., but in this second case, the results obtained were observed to have two terms, first terms standing in for rapidly oscillatory motion and the second term representing average motion of the particle in x-direction. The first term in the expression is the one deemed to signify zitterbewegung which is one considered to be sas a result of the fluctuation resulting from the interference between negative and positive energy state while the other term is the normal state terms signifying the average motion of the particle. This therefore confirms the explicit nature of using Dirac equation in handling problems involving the behavior of free particles in field as compared to the use of semiclassical equation of motion.

Phonon-mediated unconventional superconductivity in rhombohedral stacked multilayer graphene

Understanding the origin of superconductivity in correlated two-dimensional materials is a key step in leveraging material engineering techniques for next-generation nanoscale devices. While it is widely accepted that phonons fluctuations only mediate conventional (s-wave) superconductivity, the common phenomenology of superconductivity in Bernal bilayer and rhombohedral trilayer graphene, as well as in a large family of graphene-based moiré systems, suggests a common superconducting mechanism across these platforms. In particular, in all these platforms some superconducting regions violate the Pauli limit, indicating unconventional superconductivity, naively ruling out conventional phonon-mediated pairing as the underlying mechanism. Here we combine first principles simulations with effective low-energy theories to investigate the superconducting mechanism and pairing symmetry in rhombohedral stacked graphene multilayers. We find that phonon-mediated superconductivity explains the main experimental findings, namely the displacement field and doping level dependence of the critical temperature, and the presence of two superconducting regions with different pairing symmetries that depend on the parent normal state. In particular, we find that intra-valley phonon scattering favors a triplet f-wave pairing when combined with electronic correlations stabilizing a spin- and valley-polarized normal state. We also propose a so far unexplored superconducting region at higher hole doping densities nh ≈ 4 × 1012 cm−2, and demonstrate how this highly hole-doped regime can be reached in heterostructures consisting of monolayer α-RuCl3 and rhombohedral trilayer graphene. Our findings promote phonon-mediated pairing as a strong contender to explain superconductivity across a wide range of graphene platforms, and demonstrate that phonons can, in fact, stabilize unconventional superconducting orders.

Non-invasive ventilation restores the gut microbiota in rats with acute heart failure

Heart failure (HF) is an increasingly prevalent disease in humans; it induces multiple symptoms and damages health. The animal gut microbiota has critical roles in host health, which might be related to HF symptoms. Currently, several options are used to treat HF, including non-invasive ventilation (NIV). However, studies on gut microbiota responses to acute HF and associated treatments effects on gut communities in patients are scarce. Here, short-term (1 week after treatments) and long-term (3 months after treatment) variations in gut microbiota variations in rats with acute HF treated were examined NIV through high-throughput sequencing of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene. Through comparison of gut microbiota alpha diversity, it was observed lower gut microbiota richness and diversity in animals with acute HF than in normal animals. Additionally, beta-diversity analysis revealed significant alterations in the gut microbiota composition induced by acute HF, as reflected by increased Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes (F/B) ratios and Proteobacteria enrichment. When network analysis results were combined with the null model, decreased stability and elevated deterministic gut microbiota assemblies were observed in animals with acute HF. Importantly, in both short- and long-term periods, NIV was found to restore gut microbiota dysbiosis to normal states in acute HF rats. Finally, it was shown that considerable gut microbiota variations existed in rats with acute HF, that underlying microbiota mechanisms regulated these changes, and confirmed that NIV is suitable for HF treatment. In future studies, these findings should be validated with different model systems or clinical samples.

All Is Well: Catastrophe and the Making of the Normal State by Saptarishi Bandopadhyay

All Is Well: Catastrophe and the Making of the Normal State by Saptarishi Bandopadhyay