Ultimate Dream Research Articles

Zuckerberg’s Smile, or Presence in the Age of Digital Technologies

AI and AR do not merely coexist with the archive and repertoire as modes of transmission but profoundly alter them and prove profoundly anti-archival. “Live” transmission from body to body is radically altered by digital technologies that simulate presence. “Feeling truly present with another person,” Mark Zuckerberg stated, “is the ultimate dream of social media.” He aspires to create an avatar that can simulate an emotion that he cannot express—and make him more human. Are we being led back into Plato’s cave? Artists and humanists must be centrally involved in the epistemic, ontological, and political changes that accompany these new and evolving forms of transmission.

Asymptotic ultraviolet-safe unification of gauge and Yukawa couplings: The exceptional case

The ultimate dream of unification models consists in combining both gauge and Yukawa couplings into one unified coupling. This is achieved by using a supersymmetric exceptional E6 gauge symmetry together with asymptotic unification in compact five-dimensional space-time. The ultraviolet fixed point requires exactly three fermion generations: one in the bulk, and the two light ones localised on the SO(10) boundary in order to cancel gauge anomalies. A second option allows to preserve baryon number and to lower the compactification scale down to the typical scales of the intermediate Pati-Salam gauge theory.

Materials-Driven Soft Wearable Bioelectronics for Connected Healthcare.

In the era of Internet-of-things, many things can stay connected; however, biological systems, including those necessary for human health, remain unable to stay connected to the global Internet due to the lack of soft conformal biosensors. The fundamental challenge lies in the fact that electronics and biology are distinct and incompatible, as they are based on different materials via different functioning principles. In particular, the human body is soft and curvilinear, yet electronics are typically rigid and planar. Recent advances in materials and materials design have generated tremendous opportunities to design soft wearable bioelectronics, which may bridge the gap, enabling the ultimate dream of connected healthcare for anyone, anytime, and anywhere. We begin with a review of the historical development of healthcare, indicating the significant trend of connected healthcare. This is followed by the focal point of discussion about new materials and materials design, particularly low-dimensional nanomaterials. We summarize material types and their attributes for designing soft bioelectronic sensors; we also cover their synthesis and fabrication methods, including top-down, bottom-up, and their combined approaches. Next, we discuss the wearable energy challenges and progress made to date. In addition to front-end wearable devices, we also describe back-end machine learning algorithms, artificial intelligence, telecommunication, and software. Afterward, we describe the integration of soft wearable bioelectronic systems which have been applied in various testbeds in real-world settings, including laboratories that are preclinical and clinical environments. Finally, we narrate the remaining challenges and opportunities in conjunction with our perspectives.

One Hundred and One Years of Insulin Delivery with Transition from Syringes to User-Friendly Technologies

In people with diabetes, the most efficient therapeutic option available to reduce hyperglycemia continues to be insulin, even though they experience numerous challenges with the use of insulin. Beginning with the syringe for injecting insulin, progressing to insulin pens, insulin pumps, and sensor-augmented pumps, the growth of diabetes technologies accelerated with the introduction of hybrid closed-loop systems, integration with consumer electronics, and cloud-based data systems. There has been a high-speed evolution in diabetes technologies to improve the quality of life and to extend the endurance of subjects with diabetes. Although there were commendable developments in the currently available devices, many of those were prohibitively expensive. The ultimate dream is to develop an artificial pancreas capable of 100% time in range and 0% time below range and affordable to everyone. Even though the mission demands enormous commitment and time, it has the potential to transform diabetes therapy.

Pre-calculated relevant Nd: YAG laser parameters for optimized varicose veins treatment

Full clearance of enlarged veins, without side effects, had always been the ultimate dream of patients. Varicose veins’ treatment protocols were not very decisive and mostly associated with some side effects. The aim of this work is to demystify the exact dose of laser parameters; namely fluence and pulse duration, to successfully treat enlarged blood vessels in face, legs and arms without side effects. This necessitated the calculation of exact temperature rise of the targeted tissue before laser irradiation. The pre-calculated laser parameters required, for successful treatment, without side effects were tested to achieve optimum clinical results; using 1064nm pulsed Nd: YAG lasers for all skin photo types. For this work, two values of spot size (5mm and 3mm), variable pulse duration (15-30 ms), variable fluences (110-190 J/cm2) and variable skin cooling temperature (3-18 °C) were used. Pre and post-cooling were found necessary to ensure positive results and minimal discomfort.

Nonstatistical Photoinduced Processes in Gaseous Organic Molecules.

Processes that proceed in femtoseconds are usually referred to as being ultrafast, and they are investigated in experiments that involve laser pulses with femtosecond duration in so-called pump probe schemes, where a light pulse triggers a molecular process and a second light pulse interrogates the temporal evolution of the molecular population. The focus of this review is on the reactivity patterns that arise when energy is not equally distributed on all the available degrees of freedom as a consequence of the very short time scale in play and on how the localization of internal energy in a specific mode can be thought of as directing a process toward (or away from) a certain outcome. The nonstatistical aspects are illustrated with examples from photophysics and photochemistry for a range of organic molecules. The processes are initiated by a variety of nuclear motions that are all governed by the energy gradients in the Franck–Condon region. Essentially, the molecules will start to adapt to the new electronic environment on the excited state to eventually reach the equilibrium structure. It is this structural change that is enabling an ultrafast electronic transition in cases where the nuclear motion leads to a transition point with significant coupling between to electronic states and to ultrafast reaction if there is a coupling to a reactive mode at the transition point between the involved states. With the knowledge of the relation between electronic excitation and equilibrium structure, it is possible to predict how the nuclei move after excitation and often whether an ultrafast (and inherently nonstatistical) electronic transition or even a bond breakage will take place. In addition to the understanding of how nonstatistical photoinduced processes proceed from a given excited state, it has been found that randomization of the energy does not even always take place when the molecule takes part in processes that are normally considered statistical, such as for example nonradiative transitions between excited states. This means that energy can be localized in a specific degree of freedom on a state other than the one that is initially prepared. This is a finding that could kickoff the ultimate dream in applied photochemistry; namely light excitation that leads to the rupture of a specific bond.

Research and publication ethics in developing countries

The scientific validity of any project relies heavily on the ethically conducted and published research work. Conducting good quality research and publishing it in a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal is the ultimate dream of any researcher. However if not done without any research and publication ethics, the work will be counterproductive. Fortunately, there are several publications on ethics of research and publication guiding an early-stage researcher to follow the underlying principles. Research ethics include upholding the basic ethical principles of human research, namely, respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. Publication ethics involve not committing scientific misconduct, resolving authorship disputes, and avoiding simultaneous submission and duplicate publication. Repercussions of unethical research and publications are often unforgiving. Researchers in developing countries face unique challenges in this regard. However, at no cost should these principles be ignored. This will promote the development of a healthy research and publication culture, so desperately needed in these populations. Researchers, sponsors, ethical boards, publishers, and editors should work hand-in-hand to safeguard the research and publication integrity. In this review, issues surrounding research and publication ethics relevant to developing countries will be discussed.

Who is the Ultimate Dream Weaver in John Keats’s The Eve of St. Agnes?

This article aims to interpret dreams in John Keats’s narrative The Eve of St. Agnes from different perspectives: the Beadsman’s, Porphyro’s, Madeline’s and John Keats’s, the poet. We will analyze their functions respectively, and then draw a conclusion of Keats’s purpose in structuring such a way of weaving dreams. After summarizing studies and theories on dream and soul from the perspective of psychoanalysis and scholars’ views on The Eve of St. Agnes, we will continue to illustrate the ways in which John Keats constructs three layers of dreams with the pertinent approaches by Freud, Fromm, Lacan, Rank, Žižek, etc. so as to reveal John Keats’s viewpoints on life and death, dream and reality, and pleasure and pain.

A Review on Terahertz Technologies Accelerated by Silicon Photonics.

In the last couple of decades, terahertz (THz) technologies, which lie in the frequency gap between the infrared and microwaves, have been greatly enhanced and investigated due to possible opportunities in a plethora of THz applications, such as imaging, security, and wireless communications. Photonics has led the way to the generation, modulation, and detection of THz waves such as the photomixing technique. In tandem with these investigations, researchers have been exploring ways to use silicon photonics technologies for THz applications to leverage the cost-effective large-scale fabrication and integration opportunities that it would enable. Although silicon photonics has enabled the implementation of a large number of optical components for practical use, for THz integrated systems, we still face several challenges associated with high-quality hybrid silicon lasers, conversion efficiency, device integration, and fabrication. This paper provides an overview of recent progress in THz technologies based on silicon photonics or hybrid silicon photonics, including THz generation, detection, phase modulation, intensity modulation, and passive components. As silicon-based electronic and photonic circuits are further approaching THz frequencies, one single chip with electronics, photonics, and THz functions seems inevitable, resulting in the ultimate dream of a THz electronic–photonic integrated circuit.

The Effects of Work Stress on Employees Performance in the Banking Sector of Cameroon: Case of NFC Bank PLC Cameroon

The overall issue of stress management in National Financial Credit (NFC) Bank in Cameroon is so essential that it plays a critical role in ascertaining and ensuring a stress free financial services industry. It is the ultimate dream of every employer to have a stress free job environment. Thus having the right attitude to execute the job in order to increase productivity has not always been the case. The purpose of this study was to establish the relationship between the effects of work stress and job performance in the Cameroonian banking sector. Specifically, the study sought to explore the views of employees at National Financial Credit Bank regarding the issue of stress, its impact on employee performance and its management. Descriptive survey design was adopted as the most appropriate design for the study. The purposive and convenient sampling techniques were used to select all the heads of departments in the bank and the other bank employees for the study respectively. A sample of 50 respondents participated in the study. A questionnaire was designed based on a five point-likert Scale used in data collection. Five causal relationships were hypothesized and findings show that there was significant and positive correlation between employee performance and Work stress. Organizational level stress and group level stress as a mediating variable between individual level stress and work performance have a positive statistical significant effect on the performance of workers. This can be seen in table 13 (harmonized test of hypotheses) where the P_value for the stated hypotheses are significant within a 99% confidence interval level. The limitation of this study is that it was purely a quantitative based study. Future research should focus on using qualitative approaches to give an in-depth understanding on the causes of stress, the effects of stress and how stress management strategies can be designed to work. This study can offer useful information and insights for clarifying certain corporate concepts and can help to shape the development of future theory as well as the procedure for data collection and testing.

From organic chemistry to chemical biology via macromolecules with Hermann Staudinger

Hermann Staudinger was born in Worms, Germany on March 23, 1881 and studied chemistry at University of Halle, Technical University, Darmstadt and Ludwig Maximillian University, Munich. In 1903 when he was only 22 years old, he obtained his PhD in Chemistry with Daniel Vorlaender in Halle. He started his habilitation with J. Thiele at the University of Strasbourg where in 1905, at age 25 he reported the discovery of ketenes. In 1907 at age 26 he discovered the [2 + 2] cycloaddition of ketenes with imines. This reaction remains even today the method of choice for the synthesis of β-lactams the main building block of antibiotics. This reaction is known as the Staudinger synthesis. In 1907 he obtained his habilitation in Strasbourg and moved as a junior faculty to the Technical University in Karslruhe. In Karslruhe he became for the first time interested in polymers. In 1912 he moved as professor of organic chemistry at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich) where in 1919 he discovered the reduction of azides with triphenylphosphine, known as the Staudinger reaction. In 1920, at age 39 and at the pick of his professional career as an organic chemist he published a paper claiming that natural and synthetic polymers are covalently linked macromolecules. He had no support for this concept. In 1953 he received Nobel Prize in chemistry “for his discoveries in the field of macromolecular chemistry.” As seen even from Nobel lecture, his ultimate dream was to bridge between synthetic macromolecules and biology. His dream came through in the year 2000 when Bertozzi, Raines and Kiessling discovered Staudinger ligation, a bioorthogonal reaction that allows chemistry in living systems. His dream did not come through by bridging between synthetic macromolecules and biology but by transforming Staudinger reaction into Staudinger ligation.

Dream Machines: The Motorcar as Sign of Conquest and Destruction in F. Scott Fitzgerald's <em>The Great Gatsby</em>

Dream Machines: The Motorcar as Sign of Conquest and Destruction in F. Scott Fitzgerald's <em>The Great Gatsby</em>

Brain Structural Plasticity: From Adult Neurogenesis to Immature Neurons

Brain structural plasticity is an extraordinary tool that allows the mature brain to adapt to environmental changes, to learn, to repair itself after lesions or disease, and to slow aging. A long history of neuroscience research led to fascinating discoveries of different types of plasticity, involving changes in the genetically determined structure of nervous tissue, up to the ultimate dream of neuronal replacement: a stem cell-driven “adult neurogenesis” (AN). Yet, this road does not seem a straight one, since mutable dogmas, conflicting results and conflicting interpretations continue to warm the field. As a result, after more than 10,000 papers published on AN, we still do not know its time course, rate or features with respect to other kinds of structural plasticity in our brain. The solution does not appear to be behind the next curve, as differences among mammals reveal a very complex landscape that cannot be easily understood from rodents models alone. By considering evolutionary aspects, some pitfalls in the interpretation of cell markers, and a novel population of undifferentiated cells that are not newly generated [immature neurons (INs)], we address some conflicting results and controversies in order to find the right road forward. We suggest that considering plasticity in a comparative framework might help assemble the evolutionary, anatomical and functional pieces of a very complex biological process with extraordinary translational potential.

IAMHAPPY: Towards an IoT knowledge-based cross-domain well-being recommendation system for everyday happiness

Abstract Nowadays, healthy lifestyle, fitness, and diet habits have become central applications in our daily life. Positive psychology such as well-being and happiness is the ultimate dream of everyday people's feelings (even without being aware of it). Wearable devices are being increasingly employed to support well-being and fitness. Those devices produce physiological signals that are analyzed by machines to understand emotions and physical state. The Internet of Things (IoT) technology connects (wearable) devices to the Internet to easily access and process data, even using Web technologies (aka Web of Things). We design IAMHAPPY, an innovative IoT-based well-being recommendation system to encourage every day people's happiness. The system helps people deal with day-to-day discomforts (e.g., minor symptoms such as headache, fever) by using home remedies and related alternative medicines (e.g., naturopathy, aromatherapy), activities to reduce stress, etc. To achieve this system, we build a web-based knowledge repository for emotion with a focus on happiness and well-being. The knowledge repository helps analyze data produced by IoT devices to understand users' emotions and health. The semantics-based knowledge repository is integrated with a rule-based engine to suggest recommendations to achieve everyday people's happiness. The naturopathy application scenario supports the recommendation system.

Zinc status in adults males in northern Serbia

Continuous improvement in diagnosis and treatment has significantly increased the survival of cancer patients. Treatments for neoplastic disease, including radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and surgery or combined therapy with the above methods, may lead to premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) or substantial male germ cell loss. For the patients it is a seriously double whammy. Therefore, reproductive medicine experts strongly suggest that all young patients diagnosed with a malignant tumor should immediately undergo a consultation with suggestions for fertility and endocrine function protection and preservation. Here, we discuss the background knowledge, methods, indications, pros and cons, and experimental and clinical applications of fertility preservation, and new strategies for future fertility conservation to help physicians, especially oncologist, pediatrician, hematologist, and surgeons, become aware of the concepts, methods, and importance of fertility and endocrine function protection. We also hope to help doctors develop novel personalized strategies for fertility conservation according to patients’ own conditions, tumor types, treatment methods, recurrence rate and so on. This review focuses on changing and enhancing the fertility preservation idea, further investigations in clinical and translational medicine will help ensure the development of novel personalized treatments, to help cancer patients have healthy children or maintain endocrine function once they are in remission. This is just the ultimate dream of oncofertility.

Oncofertility: What can we do from bench to bedside?

Continuous improvement in diagnosis and treatment has significantly increased the survival of cancer patients. Treatments for neoplastic disease, including radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and surgery or combined therapy with the above methods, may lead to premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) or substantial male germ cell loss. For the patients it is a seriously double whammy. Therefore, reproductive medicine experts strongly suggest that all young patients diagnosed with a malignant tumor should immediately undergo a consultation with suggestions for fertility and endocrine function protection and preservation. Here, we discuss the background knowledge, methods, indications, pros and cons, and experimental and clinical applications of fertility preservation, and new strategies for future fertility conservation to help physicians, especially oncologist, pediatrician, hematologist, and surgeons, become aware of the concepts, methods, and importance of fertility and endocrine function protection. We also hope to help doctors develop novel personalized strategies for fertility conservation according to patients’ own conditions, tumor types, treatment methods, recurrence rate and so on. This review focuses on changing and enhancing the fertility preservation idea, further investigations in clinical and translational medicine will help ensure the development of novel personalized treatments, to help cancer patients have healthy children or maintain endocrine function once they are in remission. This is just the ultimate dream of oncofertility.

Machine Learning-Driven Real-Time Topology Optimization Under Moving Morphable Component-Based Framework

In the present work, it is intended to discuss how to achieve real-time structural topology optimization (i.e., obtaining the optimized distribution of a certain amount of material in a prescribed design domain almost instantaneously once the objective/constraint functions and external stimuli/boundary conditions are specified), an ultimate dream pursued by engineers in various disciplines, using machine learning (ML) techniques. To this end, the so-called moving morphable component (MMC)-based explicit framework for topology optimization is adopted for generating training set and supported vector regression (SVR) as well as K-nearest-neighbors (KNN) ML models are employed to establish the mapping between the design parameters characterizing the layout/topology of an optimized structure and the external load. Compared with existing approaches, the proposed approach can not only reduce the training data and the dimension of parameter space substantially, but also has the potential of establishing engineering intuitions on optimized structures corresponding to various external loads through the learning process. Numerical examples provided demonstrate the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed approach.

Programming a crystalline shape memory polymer network with thermo- and photo-reversible bonds toward a single-component soft robot.

The need to support the two most basic functions [three-dimensional (3D)-shaped support and actuation] independently for a typical robot demands that at least two components should be used in its construction. Therefore, component assembly is unavoidable despite the ultimate dream of creating assembly-free robots. We devise a strategy that uses a programmable crystalline shape memory polymer with thermo- and photo-reversible bonds to create a single-component robot. The global 3D-shaped structural support is fabricated via a plasticity-based origami technique enabled by the thermo-reversible bonds. More critically, precisely controlled localized actuation can be programmed into the 3D origami via spatially defined reversible shape memory using the photo-reversible bonds. The overall result is that a polymer thin film can be programmed into various soft robots including a 3D crane and an elephant. Besides reversible shape memory, other types of actuation mechanisms can be potentially introduced via a similar principle. Thus, our strategy represents a general method to create single-component soft robots.

Single-atom fabrication with electron and ion beams: From surfaces and two-dimensional materials toward three-dimensional atom-by-atom assembly

Abstract

Exploring the Cosmopolitan Elements in Lao She's Works

Abstract In this article, the author explores the cosmopolitan elements that are intermingled with his apparently patriotic, even nationalistic, narratives. The author wants to argue that as Lao She's ultimate dream for the entire humanity, this cosmopolitan idealism, or the Great Unity of the world, comes from his own Manchu origin against the backdrop of the Han majority in China, his isolated personal experience as a young lecturer sojourning in London, the bitter experience of him and his family caused by the Western and Japanese invasions, his ambiguous religious beliefs, and his inheritance of the traditional Confucius culturing.