The strong coupling between antiferromagnetism and ferroelectricity at room temperature found in BiFeO3 generates high expectations for the design and development of technological devices with novel ...functionalities. However, the multi-domain nature of the material tends to nullify the properties of interest and complicates the thorough understanding of the mechanisms that are responsible for those properties. Here we report the realization of a BiFeO3 material in thin film form with single-domain behaviour in both its magnetism and ferroelectricity: the entire film shows its antiferromagnetic axis aligned along the crystallographic b axis and its ferroelectric polarization along the c axis. With this we are able to reveal that the canted ferromagnetic moment due to the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction is parallel to the a axis. Furthermore, by fabricating a Co/BiFeO3 heterostructure, we demonstrate that the ferromagnetic moment of the Co film does couple directly to the canted moment of BiFeO3.
Background Fine particulate matter <2.5 µm in diameter (PM2.5) has known effects on cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. However, no study has quantified and compared the risks of incident ...myocardial infarction, incident stroke, ischemic heart disease (IHD) mortality, and cerebrovascular mortality in relation to long‐term PM2.5 exposure. Methods and Results We sought to quantitatively summarize studies of long‐term PM2.5 exposure and risk of IHD and stroke events by conducting a review and meta‐analysis of studies published by December 31, 2019. The main outcomes were myocardial infarction, stroke, IHD mortality, and cerebrovascular mortality. Random effects meta‐analyses were used to estimate the combined risk of each outcome among studies. We reviewed 69 studies and included 42 studies in the meta‐analyses. In meta‐analyses, we found that a 10‐µg/m3 increase in long‐term PM2.5 exposure was associated with an increased risk of 23% for IHD mortality (95% CI, 15%–31%), 24% for cerebrovascular mortality (95% CI, 13%–36%), 13% for incident stroke (95% CI, 11%–15%), and 8% for incident myocardial infarction (95% CI, −1% to 18%). There were an insufficient number of studies of recurrent stroke and recurrent myocardial infarction to conduct meta‐analyses. Conclusions Long‐term PM2.5 exposure is associated with increased risks of IHD mortality, cerebrovascular mortality, and incident stroke. The relationship with incident myocardial infarction is suggestive of increased risk but not conclusive. More research is needed to understand the relationship with recurrent events.
This paper proposes a novel approach to extract image features for texture classification. The proposed features are robust to image rotation, less sensitive to histogram equalization and noise. It ...comprises of two sets of features: dominant local binary patterns (DLBP) in a texture image and the supplementary features extracted by using the circularly symmetric Gabor filter responses. The dominant local binary pattern method makes use of the most frequently occurred patterns to capture descriptive textural information, while the Gabor-based features aim at supplying additional global textural information to the DLBP features. Through experiments, the proposed approach has been intensively evaluated by applying a large number of classification tests to histogram-equalized, randomly rotated and noise corrupted images in Outex, Brodatz, Meastex, and CUReT texture image databases. Our method has also been compared with six published texture features in the experiments. It is experimentally demonstrated that the proposed method achieves the highest classification accuracy in various texture databases and image conditions.
This study examined the prevalence of major depressive disorder (MDD), and the correlations and co-morbid conditions associated with MDD, in the adult Taiwanese population, which a previous estimate ...in the 1980s had found to be at the lower end of the spectrum worldwide. Possible explanations for the reported low prevalence of MDD were evaluated.
As part of a survey of common psychiatric disorders in a nationally representative sample of individuals aged ≥ 18 years who were non-institutionalized civilians in Taiwan, a face-to-face interview using the paper version of the World Mental Health Survey of the World Health Organization (WHO) Composite International Diagnostic Interview (WMH-CIDI) was conducted between 2003 and 2005. Functional impairment and help-seeking behaviors were compared between Taiwanese subjects with MDD and their counterparts in the USA.
Among the 10 135 respondents, the lifetime prevalence of MDD was 1.20% standard error (S.E.)=0.2%. Individuals who were divorced or widowed, aged ≤ 40 years, and female were at increased risk, whereas rural residents were at lower risk for MDD. The proportion of MDD cases co-morbid with other psychiatric disorders in this study was much lower than in the US study. Only one-third of Taiwanese individuals with MDD sought help despite having twice the number of lost workdays compared with the US sample.
Despite the low prevalence of MDD in Taiwanese adults, the pattern of low help-seeking behavior and profound functional impairment indicates much room for improvement in the early detection of and intervention in major depression in this population.
Purpose
The objectives of present communication are threefolds. First is to model and analyze the two-dimensional Darcy-Forchheimer flow of Maxwell fluid induced by a stretching surface. ...Temperature-dependent thermal conductivity is taken into account. Second is to examine the heat transfer process through non-classical flux by Cattaneo-Christov theory. Third is to derive convergent homotopic solutions for velocity and temperature distributions. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
The resulting non-linear system is solved through the homotopy analysis method.
Findings
An increment in Deborah number β causes a reduction in velocity field f′(η) while opposite behavior is observed for temperature field θ(η). Velocity field f′(η) and thickness of momentum boundary layer are decreased when the authors enhance the values of porosity parameter λ while opposite behavior is noticed for temperature profile θ(η). Temperature field θ(η) is inversely proportional to the thermal relaxation parameter γ. The numerical values of temperature gradient at the sheet − θ′(0) are higher for larger values of thermal relaxation parameter γ.
Originality/value
To the best of author’s knowledge, no such consideration has been given in the literature yet.
Mitochondrial replacement techniques (MRTs), known in the popular media as 'three‐parent' or 'three‐person' IVFs, have the potential to enable women with mitochondrial diseases to have children who ...are genetically related to them but without such diseases. In the debate regarding whether MRTs should be made available, an issue that has garnered considerable attention is whether MRTs affect the characteristics of an existing individual or whether they result in the creation of a new individual, given that MRTs involve the genetic manipulation of the germline. In other words, do MRTs affect the qualitative identity or the numerical identity of the resulting child? For instance, a group of panelists on behalf of the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has claimed that MRTs affect only the qualitative identity of the resulting child, while the Working Group of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCOB) has argued that MRTs would create a numerically distinct individual. In this article, I shall argue that MRTs do create a new and numerically distinct individual. Since my explanation is different from the NCOB's explanation, I shall also offer reasons why my explanation is preferable to the NCOB's explanation.
The role of autophagy in oncogenesis remains ambiguous, and mechanisms that induce autophagy and regulate its outcome in human cancers are poorly understood. The maternally imprinted Ras-related ...tumor suppressor gene aplasia Ras homolog member I (ARHI; also known as DIRAS3) is downregulated in more than 60% of ovarian cancers, and here we show that re-expression of ARHI in multiple human ovarian cancer cell lines induces autophagy by blocking PI3K signaling and inhibiting mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), upregulating ATG4, and colocalizing with cleaved microtubule-associated protein light chain 3 (LC3) in autophagosomes. Furthermore, ARHI is required for spontaneous and rapamycin-induced autophagy in normal and malignant cells. Although ARHI re-expression led to autophagic cell death when SKOv3 ovarian cancer cells were grown in culture, it enabled the cells to remain dormant when they were grown in mice as xenografts. When ARHI levels were reduced in dormant cells, xenografts grew rapidly. However, inhibition of ARHI-induced autophagy with chloroquine dramatically reduced regrowth of xenografted tumors upon reduction of ARHI levels, suggesting that autophagy contributed to the survival of dormant cells. Further analysis revealed that autophagic cell death was reduced when cultured human ovarian cancer cells in which ARHI had been re-expressed were treated with growth factors (IGF-1, M-CSF), angiogenic factors (VEGF, IL-8), and matrix proteins found in xenografts. Thus, ARHI can induce autophagic cell death, but can also promote tumor dormancy in the presence of factors that promote survival in the cancer microenvironment.
Based on homotopy, which is a basic concept in topology, a general analytic method (namely the homotopy analysis method) is proposed to obtain series solutions of nonlinear differential equations. ...Different from perturbation techniques, this approach is independent of small/large physical parameters. Besides, different from all previous analytic methods, it provides us with a simple way to adjust and control the convergence of solution series. Especially, it provides us with great freedom to replace a nonlinear differential equation of order n into an infinite number of linear differential equations of order k, where the order k is even unnecessary to be equal to the order n. In this paper, a nonlinear oscillation problem is used as example to describe the basic ideas of the homotopy analysis method. We illustrate that the second‐order nonlinear oscillation equation can be replaced by an infinite number of (2κ)th‐order linear differential equations, where κ≥ 1 can be any a positive integer. Then, the homotopy analysis method is further applied to solve a high‐dimensional nonlinear differential equation with strong nonlinearity, i.e., the Gelfand equation. We illustrate that the second‐order two or three‐dimensional nonlinear Gelfand equation can be replaced by an infinite number of the fourth or sixth‐order linear differential equations, respectively. In this way, it might be greatly simplified to solve some nonlinear problems, as illustrated in this paper. All of our series solutions agree well with numerical results. This paper illustrates that we might have much larger freedom and flexibility to solve nonlinear problems than we thought traditionally. It may keep us an open mind when solving nonlinear problems, and might bring forward some new and interesting mathematical problems to study.
Context. The Gaia mission has released the second data set (Gaia DR2), which contains parallaxes and proper motions for a large number of massive, young stars. Aims. We investigate the spiral ...structure in the solar neighborhood revealed by Gaia DR2 and compare it with that depicted by VLBI maser parallaxes. Methods. We examined three samples with different constraints on parallax uncertainty and distance errors and stellar spectral types: (1) all OB stars with parallax errors of less than 10%; (2) only O-type stars with 0.1 mas errors imposed and with parallax distance errors of less than 0.2 kpc; and (3) only O-type stars with 0.05 mas errors imposed and with parallax distance errors of less than 0.3 kpc. Results. In spite of the significant distance uncertainties for stars in DR2 beyond 1.4 kpc, the spiral structure in the solar neighborhood demonstrated by Gaia agrees well with that illustrated by VLBI maser results. The O-type stars available from DR2 extend the spiral arm models determined from VLBI maser parallaxes into the fourth Galactic quadrant, and suggest the existence of a new spur between the Local and Sagittarius arms.
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