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The Combined Treatment of Chinese Herbal Medicines is Correlated with a Lower Risk of Rheumatoid Arthritis in Patients with Depression: Evidence from a Population-Based Patient–control Study
Get PDFBackground: Major depression places psychological strain on the individual that may increase the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Though the use of Chinese herbal medicines (CHMs) is widespread in clinical practice, its effect on the prevention of RA incidents is still unknown. This study aimed to evaluate the association between CHMs use by patients with depression and their subsequent risk of being diagnosed with RA
Direct Graphene Growth on Low-Alloy and Mild Steel Surfaces Controlled by Carbon Solubility and Surface Microstructural Transformations During Chemical Vapor Deposition
Get PDFThis study demonstrates for the first time, graphene grown directly on the iron-rich surfaces of bulk 8620 low-alloy and 1018 mild steel by chemical vapor deposition, a key step toward developing thin graphene coatings with strong graphene-steel bonding. Low growth temperatures of 660 °C–680 °C, were used to manipulate the steel\u27s carbon solubility, confining carbon diffusion and microstructural transformations to the surface regions, with the bulk relatively unchanged. For 1018, a growth temperature of 680 °C resulted in a multilayer graphene coating with 80 % coverage. The alloying elements in 8620 improved graphene formation by influencing the surface microstructure transformations at these growth temperatures, with graphene coverage up to 95 %. The surface microstructure for 8620 affected graphene formation, seen in growths at 660 °C where a few-layer graphene coating formed from a cementite surface layer, and for growths at 680 °C where multi-layer graphene covered a pearlite dominant surface microstructure. Contact angle measurements confirmed the hydrophobicity of the graphene coating and electrochemical testing by potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy confirmed the 101 mV improvement to corrosion potential and an increase in impedance up to 18.23 kΩ. These detailed results regarding the direct growth of graphene as a coating layer on highly oxidation-sensitive steel surfaces suggest that this process is achievable through manipulating carbon solubility at the steel\u27s surface by controlling temperature, alloy composition and surface microstructure transformations. These methods could be leveraged in developing protective graphene coatings for various iron-based alloys
Urban Nature Visitation, Accessibility, and Impact of Travel Distance for Sustainable Cities
No full textAccessible urban nature is a key component of creating sustainable urban communities and promoting human health and well-being. However, more information is still needed regarding how planners and managers can promote urban nature visitation and equitable access during health and environmental crises. The purpose of this study was to examine trends in urban nature visitation during the COVID-19 pandemic and then to determine if the effect of the pandemic on the frequency of urban nature site visitation varied by distance to home. This study analyzed both publicly available large-scale mobility data and a conducting web-based survey of residents about their urban nature experiences in Tel Aviv-Yafo. The mobility data results showed that there was a negative mean % difference in park visits compared to baseline during the first and third lockdowns, but an increase compared to baseline between lockdowns and even during the second lockdown. This suggests that urban residents had greater need to reconnect with urban nature during and after periods of intense stress. The survey results showed an increasing negative effect of distance on urban nature site visitation during the pandemic, specifically for urban nature sites located more than 1 km from home, suggesting that people who lived within 1 km of their preferred urban nature site had disproportionate access to the benefits of urban nature during and after lockdowns. To effectively make transitions toward urban sustainability, it is vital that cities collaborate with diverse community stakeholders and promote urban nature accessibility during current and future crises
Oak Loss is Driven by New Urban Development in Urban Areas and Logging in Rural Areas
No full textThe Oak Prairie Work Group, established in 2012, mapped Oregon white oak (Quercus garryana) distribution from 2014-2018 within the northwest Oregon-southwest Washington Intertwine boundary and identified 110 of the largest, most important remaining oak habitat patches called “Oak Cores.” In 2024 I assessed the status of the Oak Cores using recent aerial photographs in Google Earth Pro. Twenty-two percent of Oak Cores appeared intact since we mapped oak. Nearly half (45%) exhibited some loss of less than 5%. Twenty-five percent showed moderate loss of 5-25%, 6% showed heavy loss of 25-50% and three Oak Cores in newly developing urban areas are currently being developed and would no longer qualify as Oak Cores under our original criteria. Inside the Urban Growth Boundary, new development including roads and buildings caused the highest losses. In rural areas, logging caused the highest losses, with large lot residential development, small patch tree cutting and agricultural encroachment also contributing. Getting ahead of new urban area planning, educating residents about the importance and resilience of our native oak species, and working with the timber industry to retain climate-friendly oak trees when logging could help slow these losses
Foundation Models Boost Low-Level Perceptual Similarity Metrics
Get PDFFor full-reference image quality assessment (FR-IQA) using deep-learning approaches, the perceptual similarity score between a distorted image and a reference image is typically computed as a distance measure between features extracted from a pretrained CNN or more recently, a Transformer network. Often, these intermediate features require further fine-tuning or processing with additional neural network layers to align the final similarity scores with human judgments. So far, most IQA models based on foundation models have primarily relied on the final layer or the embedding for the quality score estimation. In contrast, this work explores the potential of utilizing the intermediate features of these foundation models, which have largely been unexplored so far in the design of low-level perceptual similarity metrics. We demonstrate that the intermediate features are comparatively more effective. Moreover, without requiring any training, these metrics can outperform both traditional and state-of-the-art learned metrics by utilizing distance measures between the features. Code: https://github.com/abhijay9/ZS-IQ
Access to Arynes from Arenes via Net Dehydrogenation: Scope, Synthetic Applications and Mechanistic Analysis
Get PDFArynes undergo a wide range of chemical transformations making them versatile reactive intermediates for organic synthesis. Access to arynes has long been dominated by pre-functionalised reagents, e.g., the venerable o-trimethylsilylaryl triflates. However, a move toward developing methods to access arynes that are both mild and efficient has prompted research into aryl “onium” aryne precursors. Here, we leverage aryl “onium” species as in situ or isolated intermediates in a net dehydrogenation of simple arenes as a novel and efficient way to access arynes. We describe a unified strategy in which two different tactics are employed to access diversely substituted arynes from simple arenes. (1) We developed a one-pot method that converts simple arenes into aryl thianthrenium salts and uses them in situ to generate arynes. (2) We developed a two-step process to convert arenes into aryl(Mes)iodonium salts and ultimately trapped arynes to expand the scope of compatible arenes. The net transformations from arenes to trapped arynes are complete with 2–4 hours. Mechanistic analysis through competition experiments, deuterium kinetic isotope effects (DKIE) and Density Functional Theory (DFT) provide key comparisons of the two approaches described in this work and yield a user\u27s guide for selecting the appropriate “onium” leaving group based on the arene
Realizing Intrinsically Ultralow and Glass-Like Thermal Transport via Chemical Bonding Engineering
Get PDFCrystals exhibiting glass-like and low lattice thermal conductivity ( ) are not only scientifically intriguing but also practically valuable in various applications, including thermal barrier coatings, thermoelectric energy conversion, and thermal management. However, such unusual are typically observed only in compounds containing heavy elements, with large unit cells, or at high temperatures. In this study, chemical bonding principles are utilized to weaken the Ag–Ag bonds and enhance lattice anharmonicity. The incorporation of a chalcogen anion as a bridge ligand is proposed to facilitate phonon rattling in Ag6-octahedron-based compounds. Guided by this design strategy, five Ag6 octahedron-based compounds, AAg3X2 (A = Li, Na, and K; X = S and Se), which are characterized by low average atomic masses and exhibit exceptionally strong four-phonon scattering, are theoretically identified. Consequently, these compounds demonstrate ultralow thermal conductivities (0.3–0.6 W m−1 K−1) with minimal temperature dependence (T−0.1) across a wide temperature range. Experimental validation confirms that the κL of NaAg3S2 is 0.45 W m−1 K−1 within the temperature range of 200–550 K. The results clearly demonstrate that weak chemical bonding plays a crucial role in designing compounds with glass-like κL, highlighting the effectiveness of chemical bonding engineering in achieving desired thermal transport properties
Disrupting the Abuse-Prison Nexus: the Gendered Violence of Prosecution and Abolitionist Feminist Approaches to Social Care Work
Get PDFThe vast majority of people in U.S. women’s prisons are survivors of interpersonal violence, a pattern that organizers and advocates have referred to as the abuse-to-prison pipeline. This article critically examines criminal prosecution from the perspectives of survivors of interpersonal violence who faced long prison sentences in California. In-depth interviews and group discussions were generated through a participatory process at a gathering to launch the University of California Sentencing Project, a partnership with the community-based organization California Coalition for Women Prisoners. The twenty-two formerly incarcerated participants had collectively spent more than 300 years imprisoned. Drawing on their lived experiences spanning several decades and multiple jurisdictions, this article offers an unyielding account of tactics of isolation, intimidation, narrative manipulation, and confinement as definitional to prosecutorial practice and culture. This criminalized survivor-centered analysis of prosecution shows how one of the most robustly funded public interventions for interpersonal violence is not merely failing to protect victims but is protracting patterns of abuse and coercive control. Implications are discussed in terms of social care work and collective defense rooted in abolition feminism
Acompañamiento and Assessment: Examples of Community Building through Assignments in a First-Year Class
No full textThis collection of seven diverse assignments written by students from under-represented communities for a first-year inquiry class on immigration, migration, and belonging illustrates how instructors can facilitate a sense of belonging or acompañamiento through course assignments, assessment instruments. Each of the student authors provides a retrospective introduction on how their personal reflection, essay, or research project helped them to make personal connections within or outside of the class. The instructor provides a brief introduction to the concept of acompañamiento and why it is particularly important for New Majority college students
Explaining the Variance in Cardiovascular Health Indicators Among Asian Americans: A Comparison of Demographic, Socioeconomic, and Ethnicity
Get PDFBACKGROUND
The Asian American (AA) population is the fastest-growing major racial or ethnic group in the U.S. Typically treated as a monolith in research, disaggregated data show disproportionate cardiovascular disease (CVD) burden among certain AA ethnic groups. This analysis aimed to identify which factors explain variance in cardiovascular health among AA ethnic groups.
METHODS
We analyzed pooled 2010-2018 National Health Interview Survey cross-sectional data from Chinese, Asian Indian, Filipino, and Other Asian adults in the U.S. Coronary heart disease, heart attack, and stroke were the CVD outcomes of interest. Covariates included sociodemographic characteristics, CVD-related health behaviors (e.g., smoking tobacco, physical inactivity), and health conditions (e.g., diabetes, hypertension). The distribution of self-reported CVD outcomes and covariates were examined among the full AA sample and disaggregated ethnic groups. Variance explained by sociodemographic, health behaviors, and health conditions were calculated based on the adjusted R-squared from a series of five models for each CVD health outcome.
RESULTS
Of the 10,353 AAs in the sample, 53% identified as female and 86% between the ages of 18-64 years old. Compared to the aggregate AA sample and the other ethnic groups, Filipinos had a higher burden of any CVD outcome (5.9%), particularly for coronary heart disease (4.0%) and heart attack (2.5%).The combination of all predictors explained at most 13% of variance, with sociodemographic characteristics accounting for at least half of the variance explained among all participants. Health behaviors explained a greater amount of additional variance for all CVD outcomes among Asian Indians, including an additional 3.1% for stroke. Inversely, existing health conditions were significant predictors of CVD for all AA ethnic groups compared to Asian Indians.
CONCLUSIONS
There is heterogeneity in CVD outcomes and related risk factors in AA ethnic groups, emphasizing the need for culturally-tailored prevention and intervention strategies