Abstract Objectives The updated World Health Organization 2020 guidelines strongly recommend an optimal physical activity level of 150–300 min/week for older adults. However, few studies have ...examined the relationship between different levels of physical activity and sarcopenia. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the cross-sectional associations between overall physical activity levels, gender, intensity, and the risk of sarcopenia among older Taiwanese adults. Methods A nationwide cross-sectional telephone survey of older adults (≥ 65 years) was conducted in Taiwan from October 2019 to January 2020. Participants were interviewed to collect self-reported data on their level of physical activity (measured by the Taiwanese version of the IPAQ-SF), sarcopenia risk (measured by the SARC-F questionnaire), and sociodemographics. Results A total of 1068 older adults were surveyed. Compared with the optimal physical activity level recommendations in the WHO guidelines and after adjusting for potential confounders and proposing an association independent of sedentary behavior, older adults with insufficient physical activity levels (< 150 min/week) were more likely to have a higher risk of sarcopenia (OR: 3.24; CI: 1.67–6.27), whereas older adults who exceeded physical activity guidelines (> 300 min/week) were more likely to have a lower risk of sarcopenia (OR: 0.39; CI: 0.20–0.78). Maintaining moderate-intensity physical activity is essential for older adults, as physical activity that exceeds the guidelines can significantly lower the risk of sarcopenia; meanwhile, insufficient physical activity can greatly increase it. Also, there seems to be a similar association between sarcopenia risk across different physical activity levels in vigorous-intensity physical activities in older adults. However, due to the small number of sarcopenia-risk participants who met or exceeded vigorous-intensity physical activity levels, further comparisons between different vigorous-intensity physical activity levels did not show significant differences in sarcopenia risk. Additionally, insufficient physical activity was found to be an important risk factor for sarcopenia in both genders, while physical activity that exceeded the guidelines prevented sarcopenia in females. Conclusions The findings of this study highlight the potential dose-response relationship related to physical activity. The 2020 WHO guidelines provide the public with minimum recommendations for physical activity. However, exceeding these recommended levels appears to be more effective in preventing sarcopenia in older adults and may offer even greater health benefits. Future research should further explore whether exceeding these guidelines could result in additional health benefits.
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is incurable, and its progression is difficult to control and thus can lead to pulmonary deterioration. Pan-histone deacetylase inhibitors such as SAHA have shown ...potential for modulating pulmonary fibrosis yet with off-target effects. Therefore, selective HDAC inhibitors would be beneficial for reducing side effects. Toward this goal, we designed and synthesized 24 novel HDAC6, HDAC8, or dual HDAC6/8 inhibitors and established a two-stage screening platform to rapidly screen for HDAC inhibitors that effectively mitigate TGF-β-induced pulmonary fibrosis. The first stage consisted of a mouse NIH-3T3 fibroblast prescreen and yielded five hits. In the second stage, human pulmonary fibroblasts (HPFs) were used, and four out of the five hits were tested for caco-2 permeability and liver microsome stability to give two potential leads: J27644 (15) and 20. This novel two-stage screen platform will accelerate the discovery and reduce the cost of developing HDAC inhibitors to mitigate TGF-β-induced pulmonary fibrosis.
This paper presents a radar system for extracting human respiratory features. The proposed radar chip comprises three major components: a digital-to-time converter (DTC), a transmitter, and a ...receiver. The all-digital standard cell-based DTC achieves a timing resolution of 10 ps on a 100-ns time scale, supporting a range-gated sensing process. The transmitter is composed of a digital pulse generator. The receiver comprises a direct-sampling passive frontend for achieving high linearity, an integrator for enhancing the signal-to-noise ratio, and a successive approximation register analog-to-digital converter for signal quantization. A fully integrated CMOS impulse radar chip was fabricated using 65-nm CMOS technology, and the total power consumption is 21 mW. In the backend, a real-time digital signal-processing platform captures human respiratory waveforms via the radar chip and processes the waveforms by applying a human respiratory feature extraction algorithm. Furthermore, a clinical trial was conducted for establishing a new diagnosis workflow for identifying respiratory diseases by the proposed wireless sensor system. The proposed system was validated by applying an adaptive network-based fuzzy inference system and support vector machine algorithm to the clinical trial results. These algorithms confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed system in diagnosing respiratory diseases.
This paper presents a wireless sensor system for monitoring human respiratory activities. The sensor is composed of a fully-integrated CMOS impulse radar chip and a DSP platform that is used for ...human respiratory feature extraction. The proposed and implemented radar chip was fabricated using in the TSMC 65nm CMOS technology. It can achieve the 1.5mm scanning resolution over the 15m scanning range with total 21mW power consumption. Moreover, the timing circuitry supporting range gated sensing and the pulse generator are all digital standard cell-based design which is very favorable to the technology scaling. The real-time DSP platform captures the wireless data via the CMOS radar chip and processes that through a human respiratory feature extraction algorithm. The entire system can fully operate to validate the performance of the wireless sensor system. Furthermore, the clinical trial was carried on and the system was proved helpful in rapid screen for respiratory diseases.
We investigate the non-BPS realm of 3d
{N} = 4
N
=
4
superconformal field theory by uniting the non-perturbative methods of
the conformal bootstrap and supersymmetric localization, and utilizing
...special features of 3d
{N} = 4
N
=
4
theories such as mirror symmetry and a protected sector described by
topological quantum mechanics (TQM). Supersymmetric localization allows
for the exact determination of the conformal and flavor central charges,
and the latter can be fed into the mini-bootstrap of the TQM to solve
for a subset of the OPE data. We examine the implications of the
Z_2
Z
2
mirror action for the SCFT single- and mixed-branch crossing equations
for the moment map operators, and apply numerical bootstrap to obtain
universal constraints on OPE data for given flavor symmetry groups. A
key ingredient in applying the bootstrap analysis is the determination
of the mixed-branch superconformal blocks. Among other results, we show
that the simplest known self-mirror theory with
SU(2) \times SU(2)
S
U
(
2
)
×
S
U
(
2
)
flavor symmetry saturates our bootstrap bounds, which allows us to
extract the non-BPS data and examine the self-mirror
Z_2
Z
2
symmetry thereof.
A nickel catalyzed cross‐coupling protocol for the straightforward C−S bond formation has been developed. Various mercaptans and a wide range of ester and amide substrates bearing various ...substituents were tolerated in this process which afforded products in good to excellent yields. Furthermore, an intramolecular protocol for the synthesis of thioethers starting from thioesters has been developed. The utility of this protocol has been demonstrated in a new synthetic protocol of benzothiophene.
A nickel catalyzed cross‐coupling protocol for facile C−S bond formation was developed. Various thiols and a wide range of ester and amide substrates bearing various substituents were tolerated in this process which afforded products in good to excellent yields. An intramolecular protocol for the synthesis of thioethers starting from thioesters was also developed and its utility was demonstrated in the synthesis of benzothiophene on the bench top.
Generating ultrafast pulses with better spectrotemporal control is crucial for optimizing and characterizing nonlinear light–matter responses, yet it is limited by the gain bandwidth of laser media ...or the phase‐matching geometry of nonlinear processes. This work proposes a simple approach to independently manage a femtosecond source's spectral location and bandwidth. Self‐phase‐modulation‐enabled spectral broadening is first analyzed, which is potentially energy‐scalable using hollow‐core capillaries or multipass cells. It is demonstrated that the outmost lobes in the broadened spectrum show different dependencies on the initial pulse energy and duration. A simple yet effective toy model is introduced that successfully predicts broadband spectral tuning, and the impact of other nonlinear effects, dispersion, and input pulse asymmetry on the experimental scenario is also discussed. Thus a fiber‐based versatile source is demonstrated, which is compressible down to its transform‐limit duration, as short as 12.2 fs centered at 920 nm. In addition, bandwidth‐dependent third‐harmonic generation spectroscopy is performed from a dielectric metasurface with an optimized nonlinear response, and the dependency of laser bandwidth and pulse duration is investigated on the signal‐to‐background ratio of two‐photon images. It is believed that this demonstration will advance the investigation of bandwidth‐dependent nonlinear spectroscopy and microscopy.
Independent control of femtosecond sources’ spectral location and bandwidth is realized with a simple approach enabled by self‐phase modulation. This work thus demonstrates a fiber‐based versatile source, delivering pulses compressible down to few‐optical‐cycle regimes. These demonstrations pave the way for deeper insights into the spectral response of nonlinear resonances, further advancing the field of bandwidth‐dependent nonlinear spectroscopy and microscopy.
A
bstract
We consider topological defect lines (TDLs) in two-dimensional conformal field theories. Generalizing and encompassing both global symmetries and Verlinde lines, TDLs together with their ...attached defect operators provide models of fusion categories without braiding. We study the crossing relations of TDLs, discuss their relation to the ’t Hooft anomaly, and use them to constrain renormalization group flows to either conformal critical points or topological quantum field theories (TQFTs). We show that if certain non-invertible TDLs are preserved along a RG flow, then the vacuum cannot be a non-degenerate gapped state. For various massive flows, we determine the infrared TQFTs completely from the consideration of TDLs together with modular invariance.
The aza‐ortho‐quinone methide (aza‐o‐QM) chemistry has overwhelmingly progressed in the past few decades. This review aims to integrate various transition metal‐catalyzed and organocatalytic ...strategies in taming aza‐o‐QM intermediates, including the aza‐ortho‐vinylidene quinone methide (aza‐o‐VQM), aza‐ortho‐alkynyl quinone methide (aza‐o‐AQM), aza‐para‐quinone methide (aza‐p‐QM), and indole‐based aza‐o‐QM analog. These transient species are often utilized for the direct and enantioselective synthesis of complex (hetero)polycyclic or fused‐ring molecular scaffolds such as tetrahydroquinoline and indoline, among others, which are abundant in many natural products, bioactive compounds, and pharmaceuticals.
The aza‐ortho‐quinone methide (aza‐o‐QM) chemistry has been showing budding progress in the past years. Herein, the asymmetric catalysis involving these transient intermediates is highlighted, which was made possible by well‐designed catalysts as well as new aza‐o‐QM precursors/substrates.
Li‐rich layered oxide cathodes with conventional transition metal cation and unique oxygen anion redox reactions deliver high capacities in Li‐ion batteries. However, the oxygen redox process causes ...the oxygen release, voltage fading/hysteresis, and sluggish electrochemical kinetics, which undermine the performance of these materials. By combining operando quick‐scanning X‐ray absorption spectroscopy with online gas chromatography, the effect of the local electronic structure is elucidated on the reaction mechanism and electrochemical kinetics of Li‐rich cathodes. The local electronic structure of Li‐rich cathodes varies with the excess Li (i.e., Li2MnO3 phase) and Ni contents. Compared to the Li‐rich cathodes with higher amounts of Li2MnO3 phase (high excess lithium content (HLC) cathode), those with lower Li2MnO3 contents (low excess lithium content (LLC) cathode) exhibit reversible anion redox reactions and suppressed voltage hysteresis. The cation oxidation process of LLC cathode is kinetically slower than that of HLC cathode and the cation oxidation potential is shifted, likely due to the local coordination associated with different Li/O ratios. The obtained insights into the effect of local electronic structure on the reaction mechanism and kinetics provide a better understanding and control of Li‐rich cathodes.
This research reveals the reaction mechanism and electrochemical kinetics of Li‐rich cathodes using in operando quick‐scanning X‐ray absorption spectroscopy. With the control of Li2MnO3 domain, cation migration and voltage decay were suppressed. The electrochemical stability and kinetics of tradition metal (TM) redox can be tuned by modifying the local coordination structure of Li‐rich cathode.
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