Background: Stable atherosclerotic plaques are characterized by thick fibrous caps of smooth muscle cells, collagen, and macrocalcifications. Identifying factors of plaque stability is necessary to design drugs to prevent plaque rupture and symptoms. Osteomodulin, originally identified in bones, is expressed by bone synthesizing osteoblasts and involved in mineralization. In the present study, we

Circulating inflammatory markers are essential to human health and disease, and they are often dysregulated or malfunctioning in cancers as well as in cardiovascular, metabolic, immunologic and neuropsychiatric disorders. However, the genetic contribution to the physiological variation of levels of circulating inflammatory markers is largely unknown. Here we report the results of a genome-wide gen

The age of COVID-19 calls for a different approach toward global well-being and flourishing through the transcendence suffering as advocated by existential positive psychology. In the present study, we primarily explained what self-transcendence is and why it represents the most promising path for human beings to flourish through the transformation of suffering in a difficult and uncertain world.

Purpose: The dependence of patients with chronic diseases on drugs may affect their health-related quality of life (HRQoL). This study aims to assess the relationship between the direct economic burden caused by out-of-pocket (OOP) payments, drug accessibility, sociodemographic characteristics, and health-related quality of life. Methods: 1,055 patients with chronic diseases from Gansu, Hebei, Sic

We show that a generalized version of the holographic principle can be derived from the Hamiltonian description of information flow within a quantum system that maintains a separable state. We then show that this generalized holographic principle entails a general principle of gauge invariance. When this is realized in an ambient Lorentzian space-time, gauge invariance under the Poincaré group is

The fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual introduced the diagnosis of Acute Stress Disorder (ASD) for acute pathological reactions including dissociative ones, following a traumatic event. Various measures of ASD have been developed, with the Stanford Acute Stress Reaction Questionnaire (SASRQ) being one of the most commonly used across the world. This paper systematically covers

PURPOSE: Underground diesel exhaust exposure is an occupational health risk. It is not known how recent intensified emission legislation and use of renewable fuels have reduced or altered occupational exposures. We characterized these effects on multipollutant personal exposure to diesel exhaust and underground ambient air concentrations in an underground iron ore mine.METHODS: Full-shift personal

Recently, multi-agent systems have become a central study topic in many different disciplines including biology, engineering, physics, and social science. This has led to the emergence of large and constantly growing interdisciplinary research field, known as network science. The analysis of the mathematical models describing such systems has achieved significant results, but remains mostly an ope

Stability of Wardrop equilibria is analyzed for dynamical transportation networks in which the drivers' route choices are influenced by information at multiple temporal and spatial scales. The considered model involves a continuum of indistinguishable drivers commuting between a common origin/destination pair in an acyclic transportation network. The drivers' route choices are affected by their, r

A single-letter characterization is provided for the capacity region of finite-state multiple-access channels, when the channel state process is an independent and identically distributed sequence, the transmitters have access to partial (quantized) state information, and complete channel state information is available at the receiver. The partial channel state information is assumed to be asymmet

The problem of reliably transmitting a real-va lued random vector through a digital noisy channel is relevant for the design of distributed estimation and control techniques over networked systems. One important example consists in the remote state estimation under communication constraints. In this case, an anytime transmission scheme consists of an encoder-which maps the real vector into a seque

A class of large-scale stochastic discrete-time continuous-opinion dynamical systems is analyzed. Agents have pairwise random interactions in which their vector-valued opinions are updated to a weighted average of their current values. The intensity of the interactions is allowed to depend on the agents' opinions themselves through an interaction kernel. This class of models includes as a special

Technological advances have increased the energy performance of integrated daylighting and lighting systems to unprecedented levels. The shift to LED technologies, innovative shadings, and advanced lighting and shading controls promises a dramatic reduction in energy use for lighting. Work will continue to save more energy with technological solutions, but additional savings can be attained by und

The capacity of finite Abelian group codes over symmetric memoryless channels is determined. For certain important examples, such as m-PSK constellations over additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels, with m a prime power, it is shown that this capacity coincides with the Shannon capacity; i.e., there is no loss in capacity using group codes. (This had previously been known for binary-linear

We provide a single letter characterization of the capacity region for independent, identically distributed, finite-state channels, with partial (quantized) state information, when the channel state information is available at the receiver. The partial state information is asymmetric at the encoders. The problem is practically relevant, and provides a tractable optimization problem. We also consid

Typical minimum distances and error exponents are analyzed on the 8-PSK Gaussian channel for two capacity- achieving code ensembles with different algebraic structure. It is proved that the typical group code over the cyclic group of order eight achieves both the Gilbert-Varshamov bound and the expurgated error exponent. On the other hand, the typical binary-coset codes (under any labeling) is sho

Carbon fibre reinforced polymers (CFRP) are lightweight materials with great potential due to their high strength and stiffness relative to their weight. This enables weight reduction in, for example, vehicles, which is important in reducing energy consumption. Their high strength and stiffness along the fibre direction also enable the development of new types of construction parts. The manufactur

BackgroundEthical problems in everyday healthcare work emerge for many reasons and constitute threats to ethical values. If these threats are not managed appropriately, there is a risk that the patient may be inflicted with moral harm or injury, while healthcare professionals are at risk of feeling moral distress. Therefore, it is essential to support the learning and development of ethical compet

In this work we have critically reviewed the processes in high-temperature sublimation growth of graphene in Ar atmosphere using closed graphite crucible. Special focus is put on buffer layer formation and free charge carrier properties of monolayer graphene and quasi-freestanding monolayer graphene on 4H–SiC. We show that by introducing Ar at higher temperatures, TAr, one can shift the formation