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Abstract The effects of subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation (STN-DBS) on anxiety in Parkinson’s disease (PD) are understudied. We identified clinical predictors of STN-DBS effects on anxiety in this study. In this prospective, open-label, multicentre study, we assessed patients with anxiety undergoing STN-DBS for PD preoperatively and at 6-month follow-up postoperatively. We assessed the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS-anxiety and depression subscales), Unified PD Rating Scale-motor examination, Scales for Outcomes in PD-motor (SCOPA-M)-activities of daily living (ADL) and -motor complications, Non-Motor Symptom Scale (NMSS), PDQuestionnaire-8 (PDQ-8), and levodopa-equivalent daily dose. We tested changes at follow-up with Wilcoxon signed-rank test and corrected for multiple comparisons (Bonferroni method). We identified patients with a clinically relevant anxiety improvement of anxiety based on a designated threshold of ½ standard deviation of baseline HADS-anxiety. Moreover, we investigated predictors of HADS-anxiety changes with correlations and linear regressions. We included 50 patients with clinically relevant baseline anxiety (i.e., HADS-anxiety ≥ 8) aged 63.1 years ± 8.3 with 10.4 years ± 4.5 PD duration. HADS-anxiety improved significantly at 6-month follow-up as 80% of our cohort experienced clinically relevant anxiety improvement. In predictor analyses, worse baseline SCOPA-ADL and NMSS-urinary domain were associated with greater HADS-anxiety improvements. HADS-anxiety and PDQ-8 changes correlated moderately. Worse preoperative ADL and urinary symptoms predicted favourable postoperative anxiety outcome, which in turn was directly proportionate to greater QoL improvement. This study highlights the importance of detailed anxiety assessments alongside other non-motor and motor symptoms when advising and monitoring patients undergoing STN-DBS for PD.

Abstract Deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus (STN-DBS) is an established therapy in advanced Parkinson’s disease (PD). Motor and non-motor outcomes, however, show considerable inter-individual variability. Preoperative morphometry-based metrics have recently received increasing attention to explain treatment effects. As evidence for the prediction of non-motor outcomes is limited, we sought to investigate the association between metrics of voxel-based morphometry and short-term non-motor outcomes following STN-DBS in this prospective open-label study. Forty-nine PD patients underwent structural MRI and a comprehensive clinical assessment at preoperative baseline and 6-month follow-up. Voxel-based morphometry was used to assess associations between cerebral volume and non-motor outcomes corrected for multiple comparisons using a permutation-based approach. We replicated existing results associating volume loss of the superior frontal cortex with subpar motor outcomes. Overall non-motor burden, however, was not significantly associated with morphometric features, limiting its use as a marker to inform patient selection and holistic preoperative counselling.

The occurrence of three bony ray-finned fishes, Thorogobius ephippiatus (Lowe, 1839), Chlopsis bicolor Rafinesque, 1810, and Grammonus ater (Risso, 1810) is reported for the first time in the scientific literature from Maltese coastal waters. The leopard-spotted goby, T. ephippiatus, was mostly recorded within the 8–32 m depth range on soft sediment and rocky bottoms within caves, but one individual was recorded on a rocky bottom with a thin layer of silt at a depth of 117 m where no cave was present. The bicolour eel, C. bicolor, was recorded within the 318–518 m depth range on rocky bottoms covered with a thin layer of muddy-detritic sediment; and the cusk-eel G. ater was recorded at a depth of 10 m within a cave. Notes on these three species as well as on another bony fish, the Azores rockling, Gaidropsarus granti (Regan, 1903), including new information on their bathymetric range and habitat association, are presented.

Abstract Previous studies have shown less access to deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Parkinson’s disease (PD) in women compared to men raising concerns about a potential gender gap resulting from nonclinical factors or gender differences in clinical efficacy for postoperative quality of life (QoL), motor, and nonmotor symptoms (NMS) outcomes. This was a cross-sectional and a longitudinal, prospective, observational, controlled, quasi-experimental, international multicenter study. A total sample size of 505 consisted of 316 consecutively referred patients for DBS indication evaluation at the University Hospital Cologne (01/2015–09/2020) and 189 consecutively treated patients at DBS centers in the University Hospitals Cologne and Marburg, Salford’s Royal Hospital Manchester, and King’s College Hospital London. In the cross-sectional cohort, we examined gender proportions at referral, indication evaluations, and DBS surgery. In the longitudinal cohort, clinical assessments at preoperative baseline and 6-month follow-up after surgery included the PD Questionnaire-8, NMSScale, Scales for Outcomes in PD-motor scale, and levodopa-equivalent daily dose. Propensity score matching resulted in a pseudo-randomized sub-cohort balancing baseline demographic and clinical characteristics between women with PD and male controls. 316 patients were referred for DBS. 219 indication evaluations were positive (women n = 102, respectively n = 82). Women with PD were disproportionally underrepresented in referrals compared to the general PD population (relative risk [RR], 0.72; 95%CI, 0.56–0.91; P = 0.002), but more likely to be approved for DBS than men (RR, 1.17; 95%CI, 1.03–1.34; P = 0.029). Nonetheless, their total relative risk of undergoing DBS treatment was 0.74 (95%CI, 0.48–1.12) compared to men with PD. At baseline, women had longer disease duration and worse dyskinesia. Exploring QoL domains, women reported worse mobility and bodily discomfort. At follow-up, all main outcomes improved equally in both genders. Our study provides evidence of a gender gap in DBS for PD. Women and men with PD have distinct preoperative nonmotor and motor profiles. We advocate that more focus should be directed toward the implementation of gender equity as both genders benefit from DBS with equal clinical efficacy. This study provides Class II evidence of beneficial effects of DBS in women with PD compared to male controls.

Background: Prior studies have shown that decompressive craniectomy may be an independent risk factor for the development of post-traumatic hydrocephalus (PTH). It is upon this background that we chose to conduct our single-center retrospective study to establish the possibility of an association between decompressive craniectomy and PTH. Methods: A retrospective review involving a database of all patients with traumatic brain injury was undertaken. All referrals and admissions with traumatic brain injury, as defined by the Mayo Classification, from January 2012 to May 2022, were included in the subsequent analysis. Statistical analysis was carried out using IBM SPSS version 28.0.1. Results: The mean age of the cohort was 44.91 ± 19.16 with more males (82.3%) than females (17.7%). Vehicle incident/collision was the most common cause of traumatic brain injury. 84% of the cohort was alive at 30 days, 4% were noted to have an intracranial infection, and 3% underwent shunt insertion procedures, while 14% received decompressive craniotomies as part of their clinical management. There was a statistically significant association between undergoing decompressive craniectomy, and the development of PTH (odds ratio, 4.759 [95% confidence interval, 1.290–17.559]; P = 0.019). The presence of intracranial infection and insertion of an external ventricular drain insertion were also independent predictors of developing PTH. Conclusions: This study adds to the growing body of work regarding the immediate and long-term effects of the procedure. Although life-saving, PTH, needing shunt insertion, is one of the possible complications that surgeons and patients should be aware of.

When designing nano-structured metamaterials with an iterative optimization method, a fast deep learning solver is desirable to replace a time-consuming numerical solver, and the related issue of data shift is a subtle yet easily overlooked challenge. In this work, we explore the data shift challenge in an AI-based electromagnetic solver and present innovative solutions. Using a one-dimensional grating coupler as a case study, we demonstrate the presence of data shift through the probability density method and principal component analysis, and show the degradation of neural network performance through experiments dealing with data affected by data shift. We propose three effective strategies to mitigate the effects of data shift: mixed training, adding multi-head attention, and a comprehensive approach that combines both. The experimental results validate the efficacy of these approaches in addressing data shift. Specifically, the combination of mixed training and multi-head attention significantly reduces the mean absolute error, by approximately 36%, when applied to data affected by data shift. Our work provides crucial insights and guidance for AI-based electromagnetic solvers in the optimal design of nano-structured metamaterials.

This work presents refined, updated subregional and regional non-indigenous species (NIS) inventories for the Mediterranean Sea, validated by national and taxonomic experts, with species records observed until December 2020. These datasets will be used as the baselines for the implementation of the Integrated Monitoring and Assessment Programme for the Mediterranean (IMAP) and the Mediterranean Quality Status Report 2023. In total, 1006 non-indigenous species have been found in Mediterranean marine and brackish waters. The highest numbers of NIS were observed in Israel, Türkiye, Lebanon and Italy. Approximately 45 species were categorized as data deficient, either due to lack of consensus on their alien status or the validity of their identification. Polychaeta, Foraminifera and macroalgae were the groups with the highest numbers of controversial species. There was a general increase in the yearly rate of new NIS introductions after the late 1990s, which appears to be slowing down in the last decade, but this may be confounded by reporting lags and differential research efforts. Between 1970 and 2020 there has been a steep increase in the proportion of shared species present throughout all four Mediterranean subregions, which are predominantly transported via shipping and recreational boating. While Lessepsian species are gradually spreading westwards and northwards, there is still a considerable invasion debt accumulating in the eastern and central Mediterranean.

Abstract To identify predictors of 36-month follow-up quality of life (QoL) outcome after bilateral subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation (STN-DBS) in Parkinson’s disease (PD). In this ongoing, prospective, multicenter international study (Cologne, Manchester, London) including 73 patients undergoing STN-DBS, we assessed the following scales preoperatively and at 6-month and 36-month follow-up: PD Questionnaire-8 (PDQ-8), NMSScale (NMSS), Scales for Outcomes in PD (SCOPA)-motor examination, -activities of daily living, and -complications, and levodopa equivalent daily dose (LEDD). We analyzed factors associated with QoL improvement at 36-month follow-up based on (1) correlations between baseline test scores and QoL improvement, (2) step-wise linear regressions with baseline test scores as independent and QoL improvement as dependent variables, (3) logistic regressions and receiver operating characteristic curves using a dichotomized variable “QoL responders”/“non-responders”. At both follow-ups, NMSS total score, SCOPA-motor examination, and -complications improved and LEDD was reduced significantly. PDQ-8 improved at 6-month follow-up with subsequent decrements in gains at 36-month follow-up when 61.6% of patients were categorized as “QoL non-responders”. Correlations, linear, and logistic regression analyses found greater PDQ-8 improvements in patients with younger age, worse PDQ-8, and worse specific NMS at baseline, such as ‘difficulties experiencing pleasure’ and ‘problems sustaining concentration’. Baseline SCOPA scores were not associated with PDQ-8 changes. Our results provide evidence that 36-month QoL changes depend on baseline neuropsychological and neuropsychiatric non-motor symptoms burden. These findings highlight the need for an assessment of a wide range of non-motor and motor symptoms when advising and selecting individuals for DBS therapy.

Fruit quality assessment plays a crucial role in determining their market value, consumer acceptance, and post-harvest management. In recent years, spectroscopic techniques have gained significant attention as non-destructive methods for evaluating fruit quality. In this study, we propose a novel deep-learning network, called GCNN-LSTM-AT, for the prediction of five important parameters of tangerines using visible and near-infrared spectroscopy (Vis–NIR). The quality attributes include soluble solid content (SSC), total acidity (TA), acid–sugar ratio (A/S), firmness, and Vitamin C (VC). The proposed model combines the strengths of graph convolutional network (GCN), convolutional neural networks (CNNs), and long short-term memory (LSTM) to capture both spatial and sequential dependencies in the spectra data, and incorporates an attention mechanism to enhance the discriminative ability of the model. To investigate the effectiveness and stability of the model, comparisons with three traditional machine-learning algorithms—moving window partial least squares (MWPLS), random forest (RF), and support vector regression (SVR)—and two deep neural networks—DeepSpectra2D and CNN-AT—are provided. The results have shown that the GCNN-LSTM-AT network outperforms other algorithms and models, achieving accurate predictions for SSC (R2: 0.9885, RMSECV: 0.1430 ∘Brix), TA (R2: 0.8075, RMSECV: 0.0868%), A/S (R2: 0.9014, RMSECV: 1.9984), firmness (R2: 0.9472, RMSECV: 0.0294 kg), and VC (R2: 0.7386, RMSECV: 29.4104 mg/100 g) of tangerines.

Background: Subthalamic (STN) and pallidal (GPi) deep brain stimulation (DBS) improve quality of life, motor, and nonmotor symptoms (NMS) in advanced Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, few studies have compared their nonmotor effects. Objective: To compare nonmotor effects of STN-DBS and GPi-DBS. Methods: In this prospective, observational, multicenter study including 60 PD patients undergoing bilateral STN-DBS (n = 40) or GPi-DBS (n = 20), we examined PDQuestionnaire (PDQ), NMSScale (NMSS), Unified PD Rating Scale-activities of daily living, -motor impairment, -complications (UPDRS-II, –III, -IV), Hoehn&Yahr, Schwab&England Scale, and levodopa-equivalent daily dose (LEDD) preoperatively and at 6-month follow-up. Intra-group changes at follow-up were analyzed with Wilcoxon signed-rank or paired t-test, if parametric tests were applicable, and corrected for multiple comparisons. Inter-group differences were explored with Mann-Whitney-U/unpaired t-tests. Analyses were performed before and after propensity score matching which balanced out demographic and preoperative clinical characteristics. Strength of clinical changes was assessed with effect size. Results: In both groups, PDQ, UPDRS-II, -IV, Schwab&England Scale, and NMSS improved significantly at follow-up. STN-DBS was significantly better for LEDD reduction, GPi-DBS for UPDRS-IV. While NMSS total score outcomes were similar, explorative NMSS domain analyses revealed distinct profiles: Both targets improved sleep/fatigue and mood/cognition, but only STN-DBS the miscellaneous (pain/olfaction) and attention/memory and only GPi-DBS cardiovascular and sexual function domains. Conclusions: To our knowledge, this is the first study to report distinct patterns of beneficial nonmotor effects of STN-DBS and GPi-DBS in PD. This study highlights the importance of NMS assessments to tailor DBS target choices to patients’ individual motor and nonmotor profiles.

Localization and tracking in multi-player sports present significant challenges, particularly in wide and crowded scenes where severe occlusions can occur. Traditional solutions relying on a single camera are limited in their ability to accurately identify players and may result in ambiguous detection. To overcome these challenges, we proposed fusing information from multiple cameras positioned around the field to improve positioning accuracy and eliminate occlusion effects. Specifically, we focused on soccer, a popular and representative multi-player sport, and developed a multi-view recording system based on a 1+N strategy. This system enabled us to construct a new benchmark dataset and continuously collect data from several sports fields. The dataset includes 17 sets of densely annotated multi-view videos, each lasting 2 min, as well as 1100+ min multi-view videos. It encompasses a wide range of game types and nearly all scenarios that could arise during real game tracking. Finally, we conducted a thorough assessment of four multi-view multi-object tracking (MVMOT) methods and gained valuable insights into the tracking process in actual games.

A critical review of marine fishes from Malta (Central Mediterranean) recorded up to December 2022 in the technical and semi-popular literature, during the Mediterranean International Trawl Survey (MEDITS), and in commercial fisheries landings data, was undertaken with the main aim of producing a checklist of species whose occurrence in the seas around the Maltese Islands could be authenticated. This review also served to generate two other lists: one of the species whose occurrence around the islands is probable or possible but which require confirmation, and a second list of previously reported species whose occurrence was deemed highly unlikely and which were hence excluded; the reasons for such exclusion are given. A total of 412 species were confirmed as occurring in Maltese waters, 53 species were listed as requiring confirmation, and 78 species were excluded. Of the species whose occurrence around the Maltese Islands was confirmed, 370 were native; 17 were non-established aliens; seven were established aliens; three were non-established Atlantic immigrants; five were established Atlantic immigrants; nine were non-established cryptogenic; and one was an established cryptogenic. The 412 confirmed species from the Maltese Islands represent 54% of the Mediterranean fish species that have been recorded in recently published works. Therefore, considering the geographical location of the islands at the centre of the Mediterranean, they provide a presumed ideal siting for a good representation of the marine ichthyological fauna. The Maltese checklist appears to still be short of many fish species that probably occur locally and have yet to be added to the present confirmed list. Nevertheless, the present review serves as a good indication of the current situation of the Maltese fish fauna, also noting that checklists for the group from neighbouring countries are somewhat outdated and require review and updating.

Benthic habitats of the deep Mediterranean Sea and the biodiversity they host are increasingly jeopardized by increasing human pressures, both direct and indirect, which encompass fisheries, chemical and acoustic pollution, littering, oil and gas exploration and production and marine infrastructures (i.e., cable and pipeline laying), and bioprospecting. To this, is added the pervasive and growing effects of human-induced perturbations of the climate system. International frameworks provide foundations for the protection of deep-sea ecosystems, but the lack of standardized criteria for the identification of areas deserving protection, insufficient legislative instruments and poor implementation hinder an efficient set up in practical terms. Here, we discuss the international legal frameworks and management measures in relation to the status of habitats and key species in the deep Mediterranean Basin. By comparing the results of a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) and of expert evaluation (EE), we identify priority deep-sea areas for conservation and select five criteria for the designation of future protected areas in the deep Mediterranean Sea. Our results indicate that areas (1) with high ecological relevance (e.g., hosting endemic and locally endangered species and rare habitats),(2) ensuring shelf-slope connectivity (e.g., submarine canyons), and (3) subject to current and foreseeable intense anthropogenic impacts, should be prioritized for conservation. The results presented here provide an ecosystem-based conservation strategy for designating priority areas for protection in the deep Mediterranean Sea.

Invasive alien species threaten biodiversity and ecosystem structure and functioning, but incomplete assessments of their origins and temporal trends impair our ability to understand the relative importance of different factors driving invasion success. Continuous time-series are needed to assess invasion dynamics, but such data are usually difficult to obtain, especially in the case of small-sized taxa that may remain undetected for several decades. In this study, we show how micropaleontologic analysis of sedimentary cores coupled with radiometric dating can be used to date the first arrival and to reconstruct temporal trends of foraminiferal species, focusing on the alien Amphistegina lobifera and its cryptogenic congener A. lessonii in the Maltese Islands. Our results show that the two species had reached the Central Mediterranean Sea several decades earlier than reported in the literature, with considerable implications for all previous hypotheses of their spreading patterns and rates. By relating the population dynamics of the two foraminifera with trends in sea surface temperature, we document a strong relationship between sea warming and population outbreaks of both species. We conclude that the micropaleontologic approach is a reliable procedure for reconstructing the bioinvasion dynamics of taxa having mineralized remains, and can be added to the toolkit for studying invasions.

Hyperbolic metamaterials (HMs) supporting hyperbolic isofrequency curves (IFCs) provide unprecedented control on wave propagation and light‐matter interaction. However, in the microwave regime, ultrahigh wave vectors and customizable permittivity tensors cannot be supported simultaneously by current common HMs. Based on the waveguide principle, low‐loss waveguide‐type HMs (WHMs) are suggested as a new geometry format of microwave HMs, flexibly mixing positive and negative components in their effective permittivity tensors. Then, a deeply subwavelength WHM cavity, confirming the existence of giant wave vectors, is demonstrated, whose transverse size has a potential to be reduced to three orders smaller than the working free‐space wavelength. Such a WHM cavity is also demonstrated to follow the fascinating anomalous scaling law originating from the unique shape of hyperbolic IFCs. As a low‐loss platform, WHMs are predicted to produce distinctive physical phenomena based on HMs and provide novel functional devices at low frequencies.

Multi-player action recognition for automatic analysis in sports is the subject of increasing attention. Trajectory-tracking technology is key for accurate recognition, but little research has focused on this aspect, especially for non-professional matches. Here, we study multi-player tracking in the most popular and complex sport among non-professionals—soccer. In this non-professional soccer player tracking (NPSPT) challenge, single-view-based motion recording systems for continuous data collection were installed in several soccer fields, and a new benchmark dataset was collected. The dataset consists of 17 2-min long super-high-resolution videos with diverse game types consistently labeled across time, covering almost all possible situations for multi-player detection and tracking in real games. A comprehensive evaluation was conducted on the state-of-the-art multi-object-Tracking (MOT) systems, revealing insights into player tracking in real games. Our challenge introduces a new dimension for researchers in the player recognition field and will be beneficial to further studies.

Plasmonic nanostructures can tailor excitation and emission for quantum emitters, but generally only for a single emitter. In this work, the authors selectively excite and detect one out of two quantum dots coupled to a deep-subwavelength cavity composed of three gold nanorods assembled into a U-shape.

Thermal management on a variety of length scales is essential for many industrial, solar and computational systems. Here we explore the thermal properties of a nearly perfect graphite absorber with both high emissivity and thermal conductivity which is fabricated by simple one-step etching. The hemispherical reflectance of the absorber is around 1% in the visible range and the normal specular reflectance is less than 1% from 1.5 μm to 10 μm. The thermal conductivity of the absorber is measured above 630 Wm-1K-1, which is 2.5 times larger than the aluminum used in commercial heat sinks. Heat dissipation testing indicates that a device is 3.7 ± 2 degrees cooler with the graphite absorber as the heat spreader than a pristine graphite sheet and 9.1 ± 2 degrees cooler than an Au-coated graphite sheet, primarily due to improved radiation cooling. A theoretical analysis accounts for the results. Further analysis suggests that the radiative heat dissipation is more prominent in the low-convection environment, especially for a convection coefficient below 10 Wm-2K-1.

DeepLab v3+ neural network shows excellent performance in semantic segmentation. In this paper, we proposed a segmentation framework based on DeepLab v3+ neural network and applied it to the problem of hyperspectral imagery classification (HSIC). The dimensionality reduction of the hyperspectral image is performed using principal component analysis (PCA). DeepLab v3+ is used to extract spatial features, and those are fused with spectral features. A support vector machine (SVM) classifier is used for fitting and classification. Experimental results show that the framework proposed in this paper outperforms most traditional machine learning algorithms and deep-learning algorithms in hyperspectral imagery classification tasks.

In this paper, we show that the guided mode resonance can exist in a low-index waveguide layer on top of a high-index substrate. With the help of the interaction of diffraction from a metal grating and total internal reflection effects, we verify that the guided mode can be supported in the low-index SU8 layer on a high-index substrate. Simulation and experiment show the resonant wavelength can be simply manipulated by controlling the geometrical parameters of the metal grating and waveguide layer. This structure extends the possibilities of guided-mode resonance to a broader class of functional materials and may boost its use in applications such as field enhancement, sensing and display.

The use of linear mixed effects models (LMMs) is increasingly common in the analysis of biological data. Whilst LMMs offer a flexible approach to modelling a broad range of data types, ecological data are often complex and require complex model structures, and the fitting and interpretation of such models is not always straightforward. The ability to achieve robust biological inference requires that practitioners know how and when to apply these tools. Here, we provide a general overview of current methods for the application of LMMs to biological data, and highlight the typical pitfalls that can be encountered in the statistical modelling process. We tackle several issues regarding methods of model selection, with particular reference to the use of information theory and multi-model inference in ecology. We offer practical solutions and direct the reader to key references that provide further technical detail for those seeking a deeper understanding. This overview should serve as a widely accessible code of best practice for applying LMMs to complex biological problems and model structures, and in doing so improve the robustness of conclusions drawn from studies investigating ecological and evolutionary questions.

Dynamic structural color can empower devices with additional functions like spectrum and polarization detection beyond display or imaging. However, present methods suffer from narrow tuning ranges, low throughput, or bulky volumes. In this work, a tunable filter composed of a dichroic metagrating Fabry-Perot cavity and liquid crystal (LC) material is proposed and investigated. By modulating the polarization of the incident light with the LC, the color response can change from blue to green and deep red due to the ‘mode jumping’ effect, with a tuning range of around 300 nm. Besides, we experimentally demonstrate the use of this device as a spectral imager in the visible range. Experimental results show that spectral resolvability can be around 10 nm, with the largest peak wavelength inaccuracy of ∼ 5 nm. This approach shows superior performance over traditional liquid crystal tunable filters in low light conditions and indicates the potential of dynamic structural color for miniaturized spectroscopic applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We experimentally demonstrate a broadband vis-NIR absorber consisting of 300-400 nm nanocone structures on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite. The nanocone structures are fabricated through simple nanoparticle lithography process and analyzed with three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain methods. The measured absorption reaches an average level of above 95% over almost the entire solar spectrum and agrees well with the simulation. Our simple process offers a promising material for solar-thermal devices.