•Chemotherapy induces microbiome disruption, inflammation, and cognitive decline.•The resulting microbiome disruption relates to cognitive decline and inflammation.•Those cognitively impaired have ...unique chemotherapy-induced microbiome alterations.
Chemotherapy is notorious for causing behavioral side effects (e.g., cognitive decline). Notably, the gut microbiome has recently been reported to communicate with the brain to affect behavior, including cognition. Thus, the aim of this clinical longitudinal observational study was to determine whether chemotherapy-induced disruption of the gut microbial community structure relates to cognitive decline and circulating inflammatory signals. Fecal samples, blood, and cognitive measures were collected from 77 patients with breast cancer before, during, and after chemotherapy. Chemotherapy altered the gut microbiome community structure and increased circulating TNF-α. Both the chemotherapy-induced changes in microbial relative abundance and decreased microbial diversity were related to elevated circulating pro-inflammatory cytokines TNF-α and IL-6. Participants reported subjective cognitive decline during chemotherapy, which was not related to changes in the gut microbiome or inflammatory markers. In contrast, a decrease in overall objective cognition was related to a decrease in microbial diversity, independent of circulating cytokines. Stratification of subjects, via a reliable change index based on 4 objective cognitive tests, identified objective cognitive decline in 35% of the subjects. Based on a differential microbial abundance analysis, those characterized by cognitive decline had unique taxonomic shifts (Faecalibacterium, Bacteroides, Fusicatenibacter, Erysipelotrichaceae UCG-003, and Subdoligranulum) over chemotherapy treatment compared to those without cognitive decline. Taken together, gut microbiome change was associated with cognitive decline during chemotherapy, independent of chemotherapy-induced inflammation. These results suggest that microbiome-related strategies may be useful for predicting and preventing behavioral side effects of chemotherapy.
In the present study, nanocrystalline nickel (Ni) and nickel-chromium (Ni-Cr) alloy coatings were developed on copper (Cu) substrate using pulse current. The pulse current parameters include a cycle ...time of 240 milliseconds at a duty cycle of 0.5 and 4.17 Hz frequency. The surface morphology, texture, hardness, scratch resistance and porosity were investigated for different coatings developed by pulse plating. Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) analysis revealed good quality Ni and Ni-Cr alloy coatings developed on the copper substrate. The peak current of the pulse has been observed to have an impact on the coating weight and thickness. The micrographs of the coatings explored under Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM), depict uniform coatings consisting of fine primary and coarse secondary granules of Ni and Cr. The hard primary and secondary Ni granules deposited on the surface of Cu increase its hardness, corrosion and wear resistance. Further, it was observed that the Ni-Cr alloy plated samples are harder and less porous in nature compared to Ni plated samples.
In the present work, luminescent Sr2CeO4:Eu3+ (5 mol %), Zn2+ (0.25–3 mol %) nanophosphors were fabricated by the ultrasound irradiated sonochemical method. The samples prepared with 3 h ultrasound ...treatment exhibit well crystalline and single phase Sr2CeO4. The dumbbell shaped morphology of the prepared samples was elucidated from both SEM and TEM results. The energy band gap of the prepared samples was estimated and found to be in the range ∼3.18–3.63 eV. The incorporation of Zn2+ greatly influences the defect and emission intensities, as revealed from photoluminescence and positron lifetime spectroscopy measurements. The enhancement in the photoluminescence emission intensity after Zn2+ incorporation was observed, which may be due to the creation of defects and efficient energy transfer between Zn2+ and Eu3+ or defects that can act as emission centers. The positron lifetime spectroscopy qualitatively explains the concentration of defects (vacancy and voids) which are induced by Zn2+ co-doping. The encryption strategies are provided using the photoluminescent chalk for high level information protection. We believe that the versatile, convenient and user-friendly strategy demonstrated herein will open a new insight for on-site information protection.
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•Novel Sr2CeO4:Eu3+ (5 mol %), Zn2+ (0.25–3 mol %) nanophosphors were fabricated via sonochemical route.•PALS and CDBS studies were carried out.•A new kind of portable and writable luminescent chalk was reported.•The luminescent chalk was versatile for writing on the arbitrary substrates.
Porous anodic alumina (PAA) membranes with highly ordered array of nanopores were prepared by two-step anodization process. Studies on structural and thermal properties and the thermal stability of ...the prepared PAA membranes were carried out. Investigation using scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, X-ray diffraction, thermal analysis and infrared spectroscopy was performed on the prepared PAA membranes at room temperature and in the temperature range 600–1,400 °C. The as-prepared PAA membranes revealed the amorphous nature. Polycrystalline PAA membranes were obtained by annealing carried out at different temperatures. Annealing study confirmed that the heat treatment transformed the amorphous PAA membranes to their crystalline phases, namely, γ-alumina at about 870 °C and then to α-alumina around 1,250 °C.
Abstract Background We recently reported significant association of non-polio enteroviruses (NPEVs) with acute diarrhea in children. Persistent diarrhea (PD) remains a major cause of morbidity and ...mortality in infants below two years of age in developing countries. Understanding age-dependent frequency and duration of NPEV infections is important to determine their association with persistent diarrhea and disease burden. Objectives A cohort of 140 infants was followed for 6 months to 2 years of age to determine the frequency, duration, and association with PD of NPEV infections in comparison with rotavirus and other agents. Study design Stool samples were collected every 14 days, and diarrheal episodes and their duration were recorded. Enteroviruses were characterized by RT-PCR and VP1 gene sequence analysis, rotavirus by electropherotyping, and other agents by PCR. Results Of 4545 samples, negative for oral polio vaccine strains, 3907 (85.96%) and 638 (14.04%) were NPEV-negative and NPEV-positive, respectively, representing 403 (8.87%) infection episodes. About 68% of NPEV infections occurred during the first year with every child having at least one episode lasting between four days and four months. Approximately 38% and 22% of total diarrheal episodes were positive for NPEV and RV, respectively. While about 18% of NPEV infection episodes were associated with diarrhea, 6% being persistent, 13% of total diarrheal episodes were persistent involving infections by monotype NPEV strains or sequential infections by multiple strains and other agents. Conclusions This is the first report revealing NPEVs as the single most frequently and persistently detected viral pathogen in every PD episode.
Harnessing unique physical properties of integrated circuits to enhance hardware security and IP protection has been extensively explored in recent years. Physical unclonable functions (PUFs) can ...sense inherent manufacturing variations as chip identifications. To enable the integration of PUFs into low-power and security applications, we study the impacts of process technology and supply voltage scaling on arbiter-based PUF circuit design. A Monte Carlo-based statistical analysis has demonstrated that advanced technologies and reduced supply voltage can improve the PUF uniqueness due to increased delay sensitivity. A linear regression approach has been leveraged to generate PUF delay profile by factoring in device, supply voltage and temperature variations. An accurate SVM-based software modeling analysis is used to verify the PUF additive delay behavior. Finally, postsilicon validation on arbiter-based PUF test chips in 45 nm SOICMOS technology has been correlated to simulation results and the inconsistency has been discussed. The test chips can resist the basic support vector machine attack due to the dynamic circuit effects and the limitation of our delay model.
•Cr and N ion implantation on natural rubies of low aesthetic quality.•Cr-ion implantation improves colour tone from red to deep red (pigeon eye red).•N-ion implantation at fluence of 3×1017 causes ...blue coloration on surface.•Certain extent of amorphization is observed in the case of N-ion implantation.
Energetic ions of N and Cr were used to implant the surfaces of natural rubies (low aesthetic quality). Surface colours of the specimens were found to change after ion implantation. The samples without and with ion implantation were characterized by diffuse reflectance spectra in ultra violet and visible region (DRS-UV–Vis), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), selected area electron diffraction (SAED) and nano-indentation. While the Cr-ion implantation produced deep red surface colour (pigeon eye red) in polished raw sample (without heat treatment), the N-ion implantation produced a mixed tone of dark blue, greenish blue and violet surface colour in the heat treated sample. In the case of heat treated sample at 3×1017N-ions/cm2 fluence, formation of colour centres (F+, F2, F2+ and F22+) by ion implantation process is attributed to explain the development of the modified surface colours. Certain degree of surface amorphization was observed to be associated with the above N-ion implantation.
Active learning methods aim to select the most informative unlabeled instances to label first, and can help to focus image or video annotations on the examples that will most improve a recognition ...system. However, most existing methods only make myopic queries for a single label at a time, retraining at each iteration. We consider the problem where at each iteration the active learner must select a set of examples meeting a given budget of supervision, where the budget is determined by the funds (or time) available to spend on annotation. We formulate the budgeted selection task as a continuous optimization problem where we determine which subset of possible queries should maximize the improvement to the classifier's objective, without overspending the budget. To ensure far-sighted batch requests, we show how to incorporate the predicted change in the model that the candidate examples will induce. We demonstrate the proposed algorithm on three datasets for object recognition, activity recognition, and content-based retrieval, and we show its clear practical advantages over random, myopic, and batch selection baselines.
The semiconductor industry as a whole is growing increasingly concerned about the possible presence of delay-inducing defects. There exist structured test generation and application techniques which ...can detect them, but there are many practical issues associated with their use. These problems are particularly acute when using low cost test equipment. In this paper, we describe an overall approach for implementing scan-based delay testing with emphasis on low-cost test.
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