Let $\Omega$ be a bounded domain in $\mathbb{R}^N, N\geq 2,$ with smooth boundary $\Sigma$ and let $\Omega_1$ be a subdomain of $\Omega$ with smooth boundary $\Gamma,$ such that $\overline{\Omega}_1\subset \Omega$. Denote $\Omega_2 = \Omega \setminus \overline{\Omega}_1.$ Consider the transmission eigenvalue problem \begin{equation*} \left\{\begin{array}{l} -\Delta_p u_1+\gamma_1(x)\mid u_1\mid ^{r-2}u_1=\lambda \mid u_1\mid ^{p-2}u_1\ \ \mbox{in} ~ \Omega_1,\\[1mm] -\Delta_q u_2+\gamma_2(x)\mid u_2\mid ^{s-2}u_2=\lambda \mid u_2\mid ^{q-2}u_2\ \ \mbox{in} ~ \Omega_2,\\[1mm] u_1=u_2,~~\frac{\partial u_1}{\partial\nu_{p}}=\frac{\partial u_2}{\partial\nu_{q}} ~~ \mbox{on} ~ \Gamma,\\[1mm] \frac{\partial u_2}{\partial\nu_{q}}+\beta (x) \mid u_2\mid^{\zeta-2} u_2=0 ~~ \mbox{on} ~ \Sigma, \end{array}\right. \end{equation*} where $\lambda$ is a real parameter $p, q, r, s, \zeta \in (1, \infty)$ and $\gamma_i\in L^{\infty}(\Omega_i), ~i=1, 2, \beta\in L^{\infty}(\Sigma),$ $\beta\geq 0$ a.e. on $\Sigma.$ Under additional suitable assumptions on $p, q, r, s, \zeta$ we prove the existence of a sequence of eigenvalues $\big(\lambda_n\big)_n, \lambda_n\rightarrow \infty.$ The proof is based on the Lusternik-Schnirelmann theory on $C^1-$ manifolds.

Zooplankton undergo a vertical migration which exposes them to gradients of light, temperature, oxygen and food availability on a predictable daily schedule. Anticipating and responding to these environmental conditions, which independently are known to influence metabolic rates, likely has an appreciable effect on the delivery of waste products to the distinctly different daytime (deep) and nighttime (surface) habitats. Disentangling the co-varying and potentially synergistic interactions on metabolic rates has proven difficult, despite the importance of this migration to oceanic biogeochemical cycling. This study examines the transcriptomic and proteomic profile of the circumglobal migratory copepod, Pleuromamma xiphias, over the diel cycle. The transcriptome showed a large number of up-regulated genes during the middle of the day – the period often considered to be of lowest metabolic activity. There were proteomic and transcriptomic peaks in oxidative stress response and muscle proteins after the periods of migration, suggestive of a physiological consequence of migration. There were changes in metabolic pathways over time, with increased ammonium production signals during the evening and chitin synthesis and degradation pathways during the day. Comparisons of patterns across the paired datasets suggest that 1) estimates of physiological rates made in the laboratory in steady state conditions that don’t account for time of day may not be adequate to predict in situ phenotypes 2) use of ‘omics datasets to predict organismal phenotypes must be done cautiously as highly dynamic patterns in the transcriptome and proteome are often dampened and sometimes asynchronous at the enzyme or organismal level.

The source term identification of the time-fractional diffusion equation under Robin boundary condition is studied. This problem is ill-posed. Therefore, we apply Landweber iterative regularization method, Fractional Landweber iterative regularization method, TSVD method, combining TSVD method and Fractional Landweber iterative regularization method, respectively. The comparisons of these four methods are given, which can help us select the most effective method. The error estimates between the regularized approximate solutions and the exact solution are given under the a priori and a posteriori regularization parameter choice rules. Finally, numerical examples verify the effectiveness of the methods.

A document by Ngoc Loi Nguyen, written on Authorea.

The spread of the Corona pandemic has led to the emergence of many challenges and needs, including the need to provide educational services electronically. The students with special needs are considered a sensitive group to any changes in the educational process, this study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of e-learning among students with special hearing needs during the Corona pandemic from the point of view of their parents in Aqaba Governorate, south of Jordan. The researcher analyzed the responses of (35) families of students with special hearing needs to the questionnaire prepared in advance to achieve the goal of this study. The results concluded that there is an average level of effectiveness of e-learning among students with special needs from the point of view of their parents, and that there is a strong statistical relationship for the level of effectiveness according to the age variable of students with special needs from the point of view of their parents.

Deep Neural Networks have been used in a wide variety of applications with significant success. However, their highly complex nature owing to comprising millions of parameters has lead to problems during deployment in pipelines with low latency requirements. As a result, it is more desirable to obtain lightweight neural networks which have the same performance during inference time. In this work, we propose a weight based pruning approach in which the weights are pruned gradually based on their momentum of the previous iterations. Each layer of the neural network is assigned an importance value based on their relative sparsity, followed by the magnitude of the weight in the previous iterations. We evaluate our approach on networks such as AlexNet, VGG16 and ResNet50 with image classification datasets such as CIFAR-10 and CIFAR-100. We found that the results outperformed the previous approaches with respect to accuracy and compression ratio. Our method is able to obtain a compression of 15× for the same degradation in accuracy on both the datasets.

A document by Shmmon Ahmad, written on Authorea.

A pregnant woman with severe aplastic anemia was managed using biweekly red blood cell transfusion and oral eltrombopag olamine administration during pregnancy. She was diagnosed with severe preeclampsia at 35 weeks of gestation. The severity of aplastic anemia is very important for predicting the course of pregnancy.

Competition in pedagogy is increasing day by day with addition of new teaching domains. English as Foreign Language (EFL) is a new paradigm of teaching that is invading teaching space overall the world. With feel the need of English as an international language, all countries are intended to include EFL courses to coap the need of English language learning and teaching. In this article we will present a narrative overview of EFL with context to university level teaching. Introduction:

Competition in pedagogy is increasing day by day with addition of new teaching domains. English as Foreign Language (EFL) is a new paradigm of teaching that is invading teaching space overall the world. With feel the need of English as an international language, all countries are intended to include EFL courses to coap the need of English language learning and teaching. In this article we will present a narrative overview of EFL with context to university level teaching. Introduction:

IntroductionA notion of life being originated from polymerization of RNA nucleotides seems to be corroborated by circumstantial evidence and some experimental results, however, how it was actually proceeded is not well understood. There are ongoing efforts to synthesize RNA nucleotides in modern labs starting from simple molecular components presumably existed on prebiotic Earth [1-4]. It appears that entire processes leading to formation of the subunits of RNA nucleotides, i.e., ribose sugar, phosphate and nucleobases (adenine (A for short), uracil (U), guanine (G) and cytosine (C)) could be naturally proceeded in prebiotic Earth environment following thermodynamic principles. Alternatively, some intermediate products might be originated from outer space and delivered to Earth. Evidence provided by meteorites suggests this possibility [5]. On the other hand, according to experiments performed in modern labs, the final process, the formation of the RNA nucleotides by joining the subunits is found to be thermodynamically difficult because the subunits must be joined together with covalent bonding that requires to overcome a high activation energy. Thus, there had to be a process that modified the activation energy and promoted the formation of the nucleotides to produce enough quantity for the subsequent polymerization.Once the concentration of RNA nucleotides had reached a certain level, the polymerization took place, and a single strand of RNA polymer was formed on prebiotic Earth. An experiment a simulated prebiotic condition shows that the polymer can grow up to 40 nucleotide units. The max length is determined by stability of the polymer that is constantly subjected to dissociation (bond breaking). The length is well short comparing the length of known short functional RNAs (70~100 units). The dissociation rate linearly increases as the polymer grows in length. In order to grow further, a mechanism that produced longer polymers had to be operated in prebiotic Earth.Autocatalytic reaction is a special property of certain molecules, by which the molecules are multiplied exponentially instead of linearly. Self-replication of RNA enzyme without help of biotic catalysts is known [6]. Also, the self-replication of synthetic molecule has been demonstrated [7]. The molecule is an amino adenosine triacid ester (AATE), which copies itself by attracting another ester molecule to its adenosine end, and an amino adenosine molecule to its ester end. These two molecules then react to form another AATE. The copying process works because of a weak bonding, known as hydrogen bonding which can be broken even by thermal vibration. Hydrogen bonding plays the same role in the self-replication of DNA.It is conceivable that self-replication with a help of non-biotic catalysts might play an essential role for the formation of RNA nucleotides and the polymerization of the nucleotides on prebiotic Earth [8]. Catalysts are widely used to increase yields in modern chemical syntheses. We speculate that non-biotic catalysts played an essential role in the formation of the nucleotides and the polymerization on prebiotic Earth. Metals and clay minerals are known to be good catalysts and certainly existed on prebiotic Earth [9, 10]. Their roles in the process were twofold. First, they provided surfaces on which the subunits were selectively adsorbed. This reaction consequently increased the concentration of the subunits on the surface and allowed the subunits to react each other more frequently. Secondly, they strained and aligned the subunits and nucleotides in proper orientations so that particular reactions became easier due to reduction of the activation energy.

Supplementary Materials: Figures S1, S2, S3, Equation S1

This Supporting Information includes: the detailed dimensions of the MRE valves, the dimensions of the four different MRE geometries investigated, and the detailed setup and parameters of the PID controllers used. Corresponding author Email:  sihan.wang@eng.ox.ac.uk 

A document by Mayer Brezis, written on Authorea.

Mark Davidson Jewell1 and Graham Bell1,21Department of Biology, McGill University; 1205 ave Docteur Penfield, Montreal, Quebec H3A 1B1, Canada.2Redpath Museum, McGill University; 859 Sherbrooke St West, Montreal, Quebec H3A 0C4, Canada.

Nitric oxide (NO) is a ubiquitous signaling molecule in a variety of physiological and pathological process in living organisms. A two-photon probe, i.e., 2-acetyl-6-dialkylaminonaphthalene as the reporter and an o-diaminobenzene as the reaction site for NO, linked by prolinamide (ANO1), has been synthesized. Based on the experimental study, five other two-photon probes have been designed by substituting the naphthalene fluorophore in ANO1 with the luciferin analogue (ANO2), pyrene (substitution at 1,6-position, ANO3, and 2,7-position, ANO3’), fluorene (ANO4), and boron-dipyrromethene (ANO5) units. DFT/TDDFT studies have been conducted on both experimental two-photon probe ANO1 and designed ANOn (n=2–5). Our results indicated that for designed probes, both absorption and emission spectra show red shifts compared with ANO1. The one- and two-photon absorption band positions as well as the emission wavelength do have no significant change for each probe before and after reaction with NO. However, the fluorescence intensities are enhanced after reaction with NO. ANO3 and ANO4 have large two-photon absorption cross sections. Furthermore, analysis of molecular orbitals is exhibited to interpret the photoinduced electron transfer mechanism between the donor and acceptor.

Due to their special geographical locations and environments, plateau lakes play a key role in maintaining regional water balance, but lake water storage changes are upsetting this balance. Based on data from lakes on the Tibetan Plateau (TP), this study used the Spatial Processes in Hydrology (SPHY) model to simulate the runoff process in the Siling Co basin from 2000-2016 and estimated the changes in water storage of Siling Co and the contribution of each component of runoff into the lake. The results showed that the water storage capacity of Siling Co has increased by 1.157 billion m 3/yr, declines in precipitation have significantly reduced baseflow(BF), rainfall runoff(RR), and Snow runoff(SR), while temperature increases have raised glacier runoff(GR). The simulated average runoff showed that BF, GF, RR, and SR contribute 24%, 22%, 16%, and 38%, respectively, of the flow into Siling Co. Based on hypothetical climate change scenarios and two Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP1-2.6 and SSP3-7.0) from the MRI-ESM2-0 GCMs, this study estimated that a 10% increase in precipitation could lead to a 28.45% increase in total runoff, while a 1 °C increase in temperature could lead to a 9.49% decrease in runoff. The average runoff depth of the basin is expected to increase by 29.77-39.13 mm, since the temperature and precipitation may increase significantly from 2020-2050. The intensification of glacial melting caused by the increase in temperature continues, posing a greater challenge to many water resources management problems caused by the expansion of lakes.

Rosuvastatin is a lipid-lowering medication that is routinely used to reduce blood cholesterol levels. It acts by inhibiting HMG-CoA reductase, the rate-limiting enzyme in cholesterol production, preventing de novo cholesterol synthesis and increasing the amount of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptors on the liver surface, resulting in lower blood LDL levels. Rosuvastatin has some adverse effects, including moderate ones like headache, stomach discomfort, nausea, and weakness, as well as major ones like muscle, liver, and renal issues including severe muscular pain, decreased appetite, dark-colored urine, and continuous nausea/vomiting. According to recent research, rosuvastatin medication can produce renal tubular toxicity in persons who have no prior history of kidney disease. Rosuvastatin has been linked to myalgia, rhabdomyolysis, and elevated creatine phosphokinase levels. If patients on rosuvastatin have muscular or renal difficulties, they should seek emergency medical assistance. Nonetheless, Rosuvastatin’s lipid-lowering effects exceed the danger of adverse effects. Strong adherence to these safety precautions can enhance Rosuvastatin’s safety profile and allow it to be given safely for hypercholesterolemia.

The sarcoid-like reaction is a rare autoinflammatory disease that can affect lymph nodes or organs but does not meet the diagnostic criteria for systemic sarcoidosis. Several drug classes have been associated with the development of a systemic sarcoid-like reaction, which defines drug-induced sarcoidosis-like reactions and can affect a single organ. Anti-CD20 antibodies (rituximab) have rarely been reported as responsible for this reaction and this adverse effect has mainly been described during the treatment of Hodgkin’s lymphoma. We report a unique case of a sarcoid-like reaction complicating rituximab following the treatment of a mantle cell lymphoma and interesting only the kidney. The 60-year-old patient presented with severe acute renal failure six months after the end of his r-CHOP protocol and the urgent renal biopsy revealed acute interstitial nephritis rich in granulomas without caseous necrosis. After ruling out other causes of granulomatous nephritis, a sarcoid-like reaction was retained since infiltration was limited to the kidney. The temporal relationship between rituximab administration and the sarcoid-like reaction onset in our patient supported the diagnosis of a rituximab-induced sarcoidosis-like reaction. Oral corticosteroid treatment led to rapid and lasting improvement in renal function. Clinicians should be warned of this adverse effect and regular and prolonged monitoring of renal function should be recommended during the follow-up of patients after the end of treatment with rituximab.

Aims: The serratus anterior plane block (SAPB) has commonly been utilized as a regional anesthesia technique for pain management in various upper chest surgical procedures. The purpose of this study was to investigate the analgesic effect and pharmacokinetics of ropivacaine in continuous SAPB undergoing VATS. Methods: This prospective randomized study included patients scheduled for elective VATS. Patients first received a bolus of 20 ml of 0.2% (Group L) or 0.375% (Group H) ropivacaine that was administered beneath the serratus anterior muscle. The pump was connected to the catheter for continuous administration within 48 hours postoperatively, in which a background infusion at a rate of 7 ml·h−1 of low-dose at 0.2% (Group L) or high-dose at 0.375% (Group H) of ropivacaine was administered. The main results were to compare the analgesic effects and analyze the pharmacokinetics of different concentrations of ropivacaine. Results: Eighty-eight patients agreed to participate in the trial and were recruited. The VAS scores in Group H at 12, 24, and 48 hours postoperatively at rest and on coughing were significantly lower than those in Group L. The peak values of total ropivacaine plasma concentrations were observed at 48 hours (2.01 μg·mL−1 for Group L and 2.93 μg·mL−1 for Group H), which were far below the theoretical toxicity threshold. Postoperative rescue analgesia, complications, and other outcomes did not differ significantly. Conclusions: In VATS patients, the analgesic effect of 0.2% ropivacaine for continuous SAPB was not inferior to that of 0.375% ropivacaine, and the blood concentration of 0.2% ropivacaine was

AbstractFabrication of structures in unstructured environments is a promising field to expand the application spaces of additive manufacturing (AM). One potential application is to add new components directly onto existing structures. In this paper, we developed a versatile, reconfigurable direct ink write (DIW) manufacturing method in tandem with a two-stage hybrid ink designed to fabricate high-strength, self-supporting parts in unconventional printing spaces, such as underneath a build surface or horizontally. Our two-stage hybrid DIW ink combines a photopolymer and a tough epoxy resin. The photopolymer can be cured rapidly to enable layer-by-layer printing complex structures. It also possesses adequate adhesion to allow the fabrication of large volume structures on a diversity of substrates including acrylic, wood, glass, aluminum, and concrete. The epoxy component can be cured after 72 hours in ambient conditions with further increased adhesion strengths. We demonstrated the capabilities of the reconfigurable DIW extrusion nozzle method to print complex structures in inverted and horizontal environments. Finally, via the addition of DIW-deposited conductive paths, we created a functional 3D printed structure capable of in-situ deformation monitoring. This work has the potential to be used for applications such as appending new parts to existing structures for increasing functionality, repair, and structure health monitoring.Corresponding author: H. Jerry Qi, qih@me.gatech.edu

Introduction: Rituximab, which is widely used in the treatment of B-cell lymphoma, is a chimeric monoclonal antibody directed against the CD20 antigen. Rituximab has many side effects, mainly allergic and neurological. Rituximab may cause thrombocytopenia in the long term after administration. Rare cases with rituximab-induced acute thrombocytopenia have been reported in the literature. Case Report: A 51-year-old female patient who newly diagnosed splenic marginal zone lymphoma recieved rituximab as first line therapy. Petechiae occurred in the lower extremities on the day following rituximab administration. The blood test showed a severe drop in the platelet count from 112,000/μL to 5,000/μL. Blood peripheral smear evaluation confirmed severe thrombocytopenia. Management and outcome: There was no change in hemoglobin or white blood cell levels. After the diagnosis of rituximab-induced acute thrombocytopenia, thrombocyte suspension was administered due to the risk of bleeding. Close clinical and laboratory observations were made. The platelet count began to rise gradually in the following period. Before the second week of rituximab administration, the platelet count was 122,000/μL. No complications developed after premedication and slow rituximab administration, and subsequent treatments were continued in the same way. Discussion: Rituximab has a widespread use, especially in malignancies and autoimmune diseases. Like many monoclonal antibodies, rituximab has several side effects. Thrombocytopenia is a long-term side effect associated with rituximab, and rituximab-induced severe acute thrombocytopenia has been rarely reported. Therefore, it should be kept in mind that severe acute thrombocytopenia may develop after rituximab administration.

Background: Diabetes prior to conception may cause pregnancy complications through disruptions of placental function. Objectives/Key Questions: 1) To describe placental changes in women with pre-existing diabetes. 2) To determine if elastography can detect in-vivo placental changes? Search Strategy: PubMed, Embase, Medline, Cochrane database searches of English language reports published until July 2020. Selection Criteria: Question 1: Any study describing placental histopathology in women with known diabetes. Question 2: Any study using elastography to report in-vivo placental stiffness values. Data Collection and Analysis: For Key Question 1: we grouped placental pathologies using Amsterdam International Consensus Group definitions. For Key Question 2: we conducted a meta-analysis of placental stiffness scores reported in metres per second (m/s) or kilopascals (kPa). Main Results: Cumulative data from 14 studies showed no placental histopathology features pathognomonic for diabetes. Pooled analysis of 14 studies included 478 “high risk pregnancies” and 828 control/healthy pregnancies. Only one study reported stiffness scores for placentas of women with pre-existing diabetes (N < 10 women). Maternal-derived pathologies resulted in higher placental stiffness with mean difference 4.5kPa (95% CI 3.16, 5.87) compared to control / healthy pregnancies. Fetal-derived pathologies resulted in higher placental stiffness with mean difference of 6.5kPa (95% CI 1.08, 11.86) compared to control / healthy pregnancies. Conclusions: Shear Wave Elastography may provide in-vivo approximation of placental histopathology. Further studies in women with pre-existing diabetes may confirm this. Funding: primary author (AG) receives Western Sydney University Postgraduate Research Scholarship (Ainsworth Trust) and Australian Federal Government Research Training Program (RTP) Fees Offset.

Background and Purpose: Although the prevalence of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is rapidly increasing, effective therapy is lacking. Tenofovir alafenamide (TAF) is a widely used antiviral drug for hepatitis B. In this study, we investigated the potential pharmacological effects of TAF on NASH. Experimental Approach: Two different NASH mouse models were established: 1) by subcutaneous injection of streptozotocin (0.2 mg) and feeding the mice a high-fat, high-cholesterol (HFHC) diet, and 2) feeding the mice a choline-deficient, L-amino acid-defined, high-fat (CDAHF) diet. Key Results: Serum alanine aminotransferase and triglyceride levels in TAF-treated NASH mice were significantly lower than those in the mock-treated ones. The livers from the TAF-treated NASH mice showed attenuated mononuclear phagocyte (MP) infiltration compared to those from the mock-treated ones. TAF-treated NASH mice exhibited decreased liver infiltration of activated MPs (IAIE+/PD-L1+/MerTK+). In ex vivo experiments using sorted human CD14+ monocytes treated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and/or TAF, we confirmed the decreased level of phosphorylated AKT in TAF-treated LPS-stimulated monocytes compared to that in the mock-treated ones. Mouse liver immunoblotting showed that phosphorylation levels of AKT were significantly lower in the TAF-treated NASH group than in the mock-treated group. Conclusion and Implications: TAF exerts anti-inflammatory effects in NASH livers by attenuating AKT phosphorylation in intrahepatic activated MPs. Therefore, TAF may serve as a new therapeutic option for NASH.