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In this paper, we describe the design and fabrication of a front-end receiver and matrix modules for 2−18 GHz with high gain, good phase matching characteristics, and reliability; this was accomplished by applying a chip-and-wire process using a bare-type monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) device. To compensate for the mismatch among many sub-modules, a front-end module, matrix module, and built-in test module suitable for sub-band frequency characteristics were designed and applied to the direct receiver. The matrix box used a high-pass filter to remove unwanted low frequencies and a 4-way divider to distribute single input BIT signals. The broadband receiver module had two paths: a phase path and an amplitude path. Phase- and amplitude-matched radio frequency semi-rigid cables of different lengths were used to connect to the internal sub-modules of the matrix receiver. The main RF line was a dielectric substrate, RT/Duroid 5880, with a relative dielectric constant of 2.2 and a dielectric thickness of 0.127 mm. The sizes of the front-end receiver and matrix box were 137 mm × 120 mm × 31 mm and 250 mm × 238 mm × 138 mm, respectively. In the wideband frequency receiver module, the gain was 22.99 dB at mid-band (frequency 2−6 GHz) with a return loss of about 14.76 dB. Th e gain was 23.25 dB at a high band (frequency 6−18 GHz), having a return loss of about 11.63 dB. The peak values of phase matching among the channels for 2–6 GHz were ±3.30°, and the peak values of phase matching among the channels for 6–18 GHz were ±8.24°.

Among all industrial accident-induced diseases, musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are most prominently observed among nurses. The physical load of everyday tasks involved in nursing work was assessed in this study using a developed risk index, whereby the physical burden was evaluated using the exposure duration and work intensity levels. This survey targeted nine small-, medium-, and large-sized hospitals in South Korea and categorized representative nursing tasks into six groups. The subtasks within these six categories (evaluated as high risk) included changing a patient's posture and assisting with walkers or wheelchairs, transporting/handling drug carts, bathing patients, replacing bedding, traction therapy, cardiopulmonary resuscitation and artificial manual breathing unit, and computer work. The risk index ratio was significantly different by task type for each task. We demonstrated that the risk index developed in this study can be used to evaluate MSDs in hospitals.

DWP16001 is a novel sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitor for the treatment of type 2 diabetes with selective and sustained sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibition. We aimed to evaluate whether the coadministration of DWP16001 and metformin causes any changes in pharmacokinetics (PK) or pharmacodynamics (PD).A randomized, open-label, single- and multiple-dose, 2-sequence, crossover study was conducted in healthy male subjects. Subjects received the following treatments: a single oral dose of DWP16001 (DWP) 2 mg, metformin immediate release 1000 mg (MET) twice daily for 7 days and a single oral dose of DWP and MET at steady-state for metformin (DWP+MET). Serial blood and interval urine were collected for PK and PD analyses. Safety and tolerability profiles were assessed throughout the study.DWP+MET displayed increased peak concentration and area under the concentration-time curve from time 0 to time of the last quantifiable concentration compared with DWP (per standard bioequivalence boundaries, 0.8-1.25); the geometric mean ratios (GMRs) and their 90% confidence intervals (CIs) were 1.22 (1.13-1.31) and 1.09 (1.05-1.14), respectively. DWP+MET and MET showed similar peak concentration and area under the concentration-time curve within a dosing interval at steady state for metformin; the GMRs and 90% CIs were 0.98 (0.90-1.06) and 1.05 (0.98-1.13), respectively. The amount of urinary glucose excretion from time 0 to 144 h was also comparable between DWP+MET and DWP (GMR and 90% CI; 0.99, 0.94-1.05).The results suggest that DWP16001 and metformin could be coadministered without clinically relevant PK and PD interactions.

COVID-19 outbreak was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020. To minimize casualties and the impact on the economy, various mitigation measures have being employed with the purpose to slow the spread of the infection, such as complete lockdown, social distancing, and random testing. The key contribution of this article is twofold. First, we present a novel extended spatially informed epidemic model, SIRTEM, Spatially Informed Rapid Testing for Epidemic Modeling and Response to COVID-19 , that integrates a multi-modal testing strategy considering test accuracies. Our second contribution is an optimization model to provide a cost-effective testing strategy when multiple test types are available. The developed optimization model incorporates realistic spatially based constraints, such as testing capacity and hospital bed limitation as well.

The small-scale magnetospheric and ionospheric plasma experiment (SNIPE) is a mission initiated by the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) in 2017 and comprises four 6U-sized nano-satellites (Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute Satellite-1, KASISat-1) flying in formations. The main goal of the SNIPE mission is to investigate the space environment in low Earth orbit at 500-km. Because Iridium & GPS Board (IGB) is installed on the KASISat-1, a communication simulation is required to analyze the contact number and the duration. In this study, communication simulations between the Iridium satellite network and KASISat-1 are performed using STK Pro (System Tool Kit Pro Ver 11.2) from the AGI (Analytical Graphics, Inc.). The contact number and durations were analyzed by each orbit and date. The analysis shows that the average access number per day is 38.714 times, with an average of 2.533 times per orbit for a week. Furthermore, on average, the Iridium satellite communication is linked for 70.597 min daily. Moreover, 4.625 min is the average duration of an individual orbit.

The broad line region (BLR) size-luminosity relation has paramount importance for estimating the mass of black holes in active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Traditionally, the size of the H$\beta$ BLR is often estimated from the optical continuum luminosity at 5100\angstrom{} , while the size of the H$\alpha$ BLR and its correlation with the luminosity is much less constrained. As a part of the Seoul National University AGN Monitoring Project (SAMP) which provides six-year photometric and spectroscopic monitoring data, we present our measurements of the H$\alpha$ lags of 6 high-luminosity AGNs. Combined with the measurements for 42 AGNs from the literature, we derive the size-luminosity relations of H$\alpha$ BLR against broad H$\alpha$ and 5100\angstrom{} continuum luminosities. We find the slope of the relations to be $0.61\pm0.04$ and $0.59\pm0.04$, respectively, which are consistent with the \hb{} size-luminosity relation. Moreover, we find a linear relation between the 5100\angstrom{} continuum luminosity and the broad H$\alpha$ luminosity across 7 orders of magnitude. Using these results, we propose a new virial mass estimator based on the H$\alpha$ broad emission line, finding that the previous mass estimates based on the scaling relations in the literature are overestimated by up to 0.7 dex at masses lower than $10^7$~M$_{\odot}$., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ (Jun. 25th, 2023). 21 pages, 12 figures

Double-stranded RNAs (dsRNAs) longer than 30 bp have not been considered desirable RNA interference (RNAi) triggering structures in mammalian cells as they nonspecifically activate innate immune response. However, in earlier studies, not only dsRNA length but also 5'-triphosphate moiety produced by

Metabolic abnormalities are one of the main hallmarks of cancer and are associated with chemoresistance. Therefore, targeting the metabolic reprogramming of cancer cells has the potential to overcome chemoresistance. Probiotic-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs) play important roles in biological function and intracellular communication. However, the inhibitory effect of Lactobacillus plantarum-derived EVs (LpEVs) on colorectal cancer (CRC) cells has not yet been elucidated. This study clearly revealed that increased glycolysis in 5-fluorouracil (5-FU)-resistant CRC cells (CRC/5FUR) is directly related to chemoresistance and that the metabolic shift reversed by LpEVs inhibits cancer cell proliferation and eventually leads to apoptosis. Pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase 2 (PDK2), one of the crucial enzymes for enhancing glycolysis, was upregulated in CRC/5FUR cells. In our study, LpEVs sensitized CRC/5FUR cells to 5-FU by attenuating PDK2 expression in p53-p21-dependent metabolic signaling, thereby circumventing 5-FU resistance. We demonstrated the effect of cellular responses to 5-FU by modifying the PDK2 expression level in both 5-FU-sensitive parental CRC and 5-FU resistant CRC cell lines. Finally, we revealed that the PDK2 signaling pathway can potentially be targeted using LpEVs treatment to overcome chemoresistant CRC, thereby providing a potential strategy for CRC treatment by intervening in tumor metabolism.

Advances in new technologies are changing the Internet of Things (IoTs) from vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) to Internet of Vehicles (IoVs). This IoV needs to construct a network topology in order to efficiently send and receive data to Cloud or Fog nodes. In such a topology construction, there are various methods of configuring a topology considering network interference and configuring a topology for energy saving, such as a mobile sensor network. However, there has been no research on the topology construction considering the rapidly high movement of mobile node, characteristic of IoV. In this article, we proposed the k-Lifetime Tree Topology Construction (k-LTTC) algorithm during emergency situations for IoV with highly dynamic characteristics. By applying the time domain to the topology construction, it is guaranteed to maintain the topology for a specific period of time (k-Life Time). The first algorithm is a centralized algorithm to construct k-lifetime tree topology, and the second algorithm is a decentralized algorithm to construct k-lifetime tree topology. We describe the time complexity and message complexity for the mathematical analysis of our proposed algorithms. Furthermore, we provided the simulation results to verify our proposed method.

Holographic data storage (HDS) is an emerging technology that promises to revolutionize digital data storage and access. Unlike traditional storage media such as hard drives and flash memory, HDS uses light to write and read page-oriented two-dimensional (2D) data from volume media. This allows for significantly higher densities and faster data transfer rates in HDS systems. However, 2D interference is a serious issue in HDS due to hologram dispersion during the reading process. Therefore, we present a novel detection algorithm based on maximum a posteriori (MAP) detection to mitigate 2D interference. In our proposed model, we inherited the structure of the serial generalized partial response target to design the serial structure for MAP detection. The simulation results show that the proposed model can achieve a high bit error rate performance.

All current categorizations of human population, such as ethnicity, ancestry and race, are based on various selections and combinations ofsubjectively-and/orqualitatively-defined characteristics, such as ancestral lineage/location, cultural/societal norm, language, skin color and other phenotypes and traits perceived by the members within or from outside of the categorized group. Yet, such categorization has been broadly used also in the fields of human genetics, health sciences and medical practices (e.g.,1,2,3), where the observed health characteristics are objectively and quantitatively definable, but the population categorization is not yet available. Here we show the feasibility of deriving a whole-genome-based categorization that is objectively definable and quantitatively measurable. We observe that: (a) the world’s ethnic populations form about 14 genomic groups (GGs); (b) each GG consists of multiple ethnic groups (EGs); and (c) at an individual level, approximately 99.8%, on average, of the whole genome contents are identical between anytwo individualsregardless of their GGs or EGs.

All current categorizations of human population, such as ethnicity, ancestry and race, are based on various selections and combinations of complex and dynamic common characteristics, that are mostly societal and cultural in nature, perceived by the members within or from outside of the categorized group. During the last decade, a massive amount of a new type of characteristics, that are exclusively genomic in nature, became available that allows us to analyze the inherited whole-genome demographics of extant human, especially in the fields such as human genetics, health sciences and medical practices (e.g., 1,2,3), where such health-related characteristics can be related to whole-genome-based categorization. Here we show the feasibility of deriving such whole-genome-based categorization. We observe that, within the available genomic data at present, (a) the study populations form about 14 genomic groups, each consisting of multiple ethnic groups; and (b), at an individual level, approximately 99.8%, on average, of the whole autosomal-genome contents are identical between any two individuals regardless of their genomic or ethnic groups.

Aims This study aimed to develop and apply natural language processing (NLP) algorithms to identify recurrent atrial fibrillation (AF) episodes following rhythm control therapy initiation using electronic health records (EHRs). Methods and results We included adults with new-onset AF who initiated rhythm control therapies (ablation, cardioversion, or antiarrhythmic medication) within two US integrated healthcare delivery systems. A code-based algorithm identified potential AF recurrence using diagnosis and procedure codes. An automated NLP algorithm was developed and validated to capture AF recurrence from electrocardiograms, cardiac monitor reports, and clinical notes. Compared with the reference standard cases confirmed by physicians’ adjudication, the F-scores, sensitivity, and specificity were all above 0.90 for the NLP algorithms at both sites. We applied the NLP and code-based algorithms to patients with incident AF (n = 22 970) during the 12 months after initiating rhythm control therapy. Applying the NLP algorithms, the percentages of patients with AF recurrence for sites 1 and 2 were 60.7% and 69.9% (ablation), 64.5% and 73.7% (cardioversion), and 49.6% and 55.5% (antiarrhythmic medication), respectively. In comparison, the percentages of patients with code-identified AF recurrence for sites 1 and 2 were 20.2% and 23.7% for ablation, 25.6% and 28.4% for cardioversion, and 20.0% and 27.5% for antiarrhythmic medication, respectively. Conclusion When compared with a code-based approach alone, this study's high-performing automated NLP method identified significantly more patients with recurrent AF. The NLP algorithms could enable efficient evaluation of treatment effectiveness of AF therapies in large populations and help develop tailored interventions.

Background Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common, clinically relevant arrhythmia in adults and associated with ischemic stroke and premature death. However, data are conflicting on whether AF is independently associated with risk of dementia, particularly in diverse populations. Methods and Results We identified all adults from 2 large integrated health care delivery systems between 2010 and 2017 and performed a 1:1 match of incident AF: no AF by age at index date, sex, estimated glomerular filtration rate category, and study site. Subsequent dementia was identified through previously validated diagnosis codes. Fine‐Gray subdistribution hazard models were used to examine the association of incident AF (versus no AF) with risk of incident dementia, adjusting for sociodemographics and comorbidity and accounting for competing risk of death. Subgroup analyses by age, sex, race, ethnicity, and chronic kidney disease status were also performed. Among 196 968 matched adults, mean (SD) age was 73.6 (11.3) years, with 44.8% women, and 72.3% White. Incidence rates (per 100 person‐years) for dementia over a median follow‐up of 3.3 (interquartile range, 1.7–5.4) years were 2.79 (95% CI, 2.72–2.85) and 2.04 (95% CI, 1.99–2.08) per 100 person‐years in persons with versus without incident AF, respectively. In adjusted models, incident AF was associated with a significantly greater risk of diagnosed dementia (subdistribution hazard ratio [sHR], 1.13 [95% CI, 1.09–1.16]). With additional adjustment for interim stroke events, the association of incident AF with dementia remained statistically significant (sHR, 1.10 [95% CI, 1.07–1.15]). Associations were stronger for age P P Conclusions In a large, diverse community‐based cohort, incident AF was associated with a modestly increased risk of dementia that was more prominent in younger patients and those without chronic kidney disease but did not substantially vary across sex, race, or ethnicity. Further studies should delineate mechanisms underpinning these findings, which may inform use of AF therapies.

Denitrification in woodchip bioreactors is a microbial process, but the effects of variations in bioreactors operation on microbial community structure are not well understood. Here, our goals were to understand hydraulic retention time (HRT) as a factor that influences woodchip bioreactor microbial community variation and structure in replicated field bioreactors and to evaluate relationships between microbial community membership and marker genes for denitrification. We used a combination of quantitative polymerase chain reaction of nirS, nirK, nosZI, and nosZII and 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing to characterize the microbial communities of nine pilot-scale woodchip bioreactors located at Iowa State University. Our results showed dynamic microbial communities but with persistent taxa between two sampling years and three HRTs. Similarities between functional gene copy numbers across sampling year and HRT indicate that the potential for denitrification is conserved despite differences in the microbial communities. These results are evidence that there are specific and persistent taxa within replicated bioreactors. Woodchip bioreactor microbial community membership is recommended to be the focus of future studies to better understand the relationship between microbial community functions and bioreactor management.

In-depth convergence analyses for neutronics/thermal-hydraulics (T/H) coupled calculations are performed to investigate the performance of nonlinear methods based on the Fixed-Point Iteration (FPI). A simplified neutronics-T/H coupled system consisting of a single fuel pin is derived to provide a testbed. The xenon equilibrium model is considered to investigate its impact during the nonlinear iteration. A problem set is organized to have a thousand different fuel temperature coefficients (FTC) and moderator temperature coefficients (MTC). The problem set is solved by the Jacobi and Gauss-Seidel (G-S) type FPI. The relaxation scheme and the Anderson acceleration are applied to improve the convergence rate of FPI. The performances of solution schemes are evaluated by comparing the number of iterations and the error reduction behavior. From those numerical investigations, it is demonstrated that the number of FPIs is increased as the feedback is stronger regardless of its sign. In addition, the Jacobi type FPIs generally shows a slower convergence rate than the G-S type FPI. It also turns out that the xenon equilibrium model can cause numerical instability for certain conditions. Lastly, it is figured out that the Anderson acceleration can effectively improve the convergence behaviors of FPI, compared to the conventional relaxation scheme.