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The gut microbiome impacts host health and fitness, in part through the diversification of gut metabolic function and pathogen protection. Elevations in glucocorticoids (GCs) appear to reduce gut microbiome diversity in experimental studies, suggesting that a loss of microbial diversity may be a negative consequence of increased GCs. However, given that ecological factors like food availability and population density may independently influence both GCs and microbial diversity, understanding how these factors structure the GC-microbiome relationship is crucial to interpreting its significance in wild populations. Here, we used an ecological framework to investigate the relationship between GCs and gut microbiome diversity in wild North American red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus). As expected, higher GCs predicted lower gut microbiome diversity and an increase in metabolic taxa. Surprisingly, but in line with prior empirical studies on wild animals, gastrointestinal pathogens decreased as GCs increased. Both dietary heterogeneity and an upcoming food pulse exhibited direct effects on gut microbiome diversity, whereas conspecific density and reproductive activity impacted diversity indirectly via changes in host GCs. Our results provide evidence of a gut-brain axis in wild red squirrels and highlight the importance of situating the GC-gut microbiome relationship within an ecological framework.Venous system pathologies have increasingly been linked to clinically relevant disorders of CSF circulation whereas the exact coupling mechanisms still remain unknown. In this work, flow dynamics of both systems were studied using real-time phase-contrast flow MRI in 16 healthy subjects during normal and forced breathing. Flow evaluations in the aqueduct, at cervical level C3 and lumbar level L3 for both the CSF and venous fluid systems reveal temporal modulations by forced respiration. During normal breathing cardiac-related flow modulations prevailed, while forced breathing shifted the dominant frequency of both CSF and venous flow spectra towards the respiratory component and prompted a correlation between CSF and venous flow in the large vessels. The average of flow magnitude of CSF was increased during forced breathing at all spinal and intracranial positions. Venous flow in the large vessels of the upper body decreased and in the lower body increased during forced breathing. Deep respiration couples interdependent venous and brain fluid flow-most likely mediated by intrathoracic and intraabdominal pressure changes. Further insights into the driving forces of CSF and venous circulation and their correlation will facilitate our understanding how the venous system links to intracranial pressure regulation and of related forms of hydrocephalus.The aim of present study was to investigate the association of placental pathological findings with infantile neurodevelopment during the early 40 months of life. 258 singleton infants were enrolled in the Hamamatsu Birth Cohort for Mothers and Children (HBC Study) whose placentas were saved in our pathological division. To assess the infantile neurodevelopment, we used Mullen Scales of Early Learning (gross motor, visual reception, fine motor, receptive language, expressive language) at 10, 14, 18, 24, 32, and 40 months. For obtaining placental blocks, we carried out random sampling and assessed eleven pathological findings using mixed modeling identified 'Accelerated villous maturation', 'Maternal vascular malperfusion', and 'Delayed villous maturation' as significant predictors of the relatively lower MSEL composite scores in the neurodevelopmental milestones by Mullen Scales of Early Learning. On the other hand, 'Avascular villi', 'Thrombosis or Intramural fibrin deposition', 'Fetal vascular malperfusion', and 'Fetal inflammatory response' were significant predictors of the relatively higher MSEL composite scores in the neurodevelopmental milestones by Mullen Scales of Early Learning. In conclusion, the present study is the first to report that some placental pathological findings are bidirectionally associated with the progression of infantile neurodevelopment during 10-40 months of age.The Biosculptor's CNC milling machine, the Biomill, offered four different surfaces machined on positive models. This study aims to adopt the surface topography method in characterizing the four different surface roughness of polyethylene Pe-Lite liner as a product of the Biomill. Three surface parameters chosen were the arithmetic average (Ra), root mean square roughness (Rq), and ten-point height (Rz). The surface parameters were used to define the four different surfaces (STANDARD, FINE, COARSE, and FAST) and then compared with the same liner material from a conventionally fabricated socket. The Ra values of the conventional liner, 8.43 μm, were determined to be in-between the Ra values of STANDARD and FAST surfaces which were 8.33 μm and 8.58 μm respectively. STANDARD surface required 43.2 min to be carved while FAST surface took almost only a third of the time compared to STANDARD surface (conventional socket takes 2-3 days). The results of this study would be one of the guidelines to the prosthetists using the Biosculptor in socket fabrication to produce sockets according to the suitable surface to cater to different requirements and levels of activity of each amputee.The COVID-19 pandemic has been spreading worldwide since December 2019, presenting an urgent threat to global health. Due to the limited understanding of disease progression and of the risk factors for the disease, it is a clinical challenge to predict which hospitalized patients will deteriorate. Moreover, several studies suggested that taking early measures for treating patients at risk of deterioration could prevent or lessen condition worsening and the need for mechanical ventilation. We developed a predictive model for early identification of patients at risk for clinical deterioration by retrospective analysis of electronic health records of COVID-19 inpatients at the two largest medical centers in Israel. Our model employs machine learning methods and uses routine clinical features such as vital signs, lab measurements, demographics, and background disease. Deterioration was defined as a high NEWS2 score adjusted to COVID-19. In the prediction of deterioration within the next 7-30 h, the model achieved an area under the ROC curve of 0.84 and an area under the precision-recall curve of 0.74. In external validation on data from a different hospital, it achieved values of 0.76 and 0.7, respectively.It is highly significant to theoretically assess the effect, under load, of initial stress and structure on the mass damage of rock mass. In this reported study, first a multi-factor coupling damage constitutive model under the action of joint-load was established by fully considering the non-uniformity, anisotropy and initial structure of a rock mass based on the Weibull distribution and D-P criterion. The relationship between the damage evolution and joint angle in the rock mass was elaborated. Then, a jointed rock mass strength criterion was built in line with the D-P criterion and the limit state of rock mass failure by the method of multivariate function total differential as based on the constitutive model. The results showed that the established constitutive model was in good agreement with the test results, which accurately reflected the damage characteristics of jointed rock mass during the entire loading process. The initial damage value of the rock mass increased with increasing joint dip angles, and the damage evolution of the jointed rock mass could be divided into the initial, stable, accelerated and failure damage stages. Comparing the results of this approach with other methods it was found that the strength criterion better reflected the effects of minimum principal stress σ3, volume stress σm, shear stress J21/2 and joint dip angle β on rock mass strength than other existing strength criteria, which showed that the proposed method offered important guiding principles for the engineering practice.This work presents the structural characterisation of carbon fibres obtained from the carbonization of flax tow at 400°C (CFs400°C) and 1000°C (CFs1000°C) and the thermodynamic and kinetic studies of adsorption of Doxorubicin (Dox) on the fibres. The characteristic of carbon fibres and their drug adsorption and removal mechanism were investigated and compared with that of natural flax tow. All fibres were fully characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transforms infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), specific surface area analysis and Boehm titration. click here The results demonstrated the highest adsorption properties of CFs400°C at 323 K (qmax = 275 mg g-1). The kinetic data followed the pseudo-second-order kinetic model more closely, whereas the Dubinin-Radushkevich model suitably described isotherms for all fibres. Calculated parameters revealed that the adsorption process of Dox ions is spontaneous and mainly followed by physisorption and a pore-filling mechanism. The removal efficiency for carbon fibres is low due to the effect of pore-blocking and hydrophobic hydration. However, presented fibres can be treated with a base for further chemical surface modification, increasing the adsorption capacity and controlling the release tendency.Zipf's law is a paradigm describing the importance of different elements in communication systems, especially in linguistics. Despite the complexity of the hierarchical structure of language, music has in some sense an even more complex structure, due to its multidimensional character (melody, harmony, rhythm, timbre, etc.). Thus, the relevance of Zipf's law in music is still an open question. Using discrete codewords representing harmonic content obtained from a large-scale analysis of classical composers, we show that a nearly universal Zipf-like law holds at a qualitative level. However, in an in-depth quantitative analysis, where we introduce the double power-law distribution as a new player in the classical debate between the superiority of Zipf's (power) law and that of the lognormal distribution, we conclude not only that universality does not hold, but also that there is not a unique probability distribution that best describes the usage of the different codewords by each composer.The effect of an externally applied electric field on exciton splitting and carrier transport was studied on 3.5 nm Si nanocrystals embedded in SiO2 superlattices with barrier oxide thicknesses varied between 2 and 4 nm. Through a series of photoluminescence measurements performed at both room temperature and with liquid N2 cooling, it was shown that the application of an electric field resulted in a reduction of luminescence intensity due to exciton splitting and charging of nanocrystals within the superlattices. This effect was found to be enhanced when surface defects at the Si/SiO2 interface were not passivated by H2 treatment and severely reduced for inter layer barrier oxide thicknesses above 3 nm. The findings point to the surface defects assisting in carrier transport, lowering the energy required for exciton splitting. Said enhancement was found to be diminished at low temperatures due to the freezing-in of phonons. We propose potential device design parameters for photon detection and tandem solar cell applications utilizing the quantum confinement effect based on the findings of the present study.