Search Results (24)

Breast cancer remains the most common malignancy in women, and breast-conserving surgery (BCS) with adjuvant radiotherapy is a standard treatment for early-stage disease. This study assessed the impact of positive surgical margins and secondary surgeries on local recurrence rates and patient outcomes. In this retrospective tumor registry-based study, 24,450 women were eligible for analysis. Of them, 18,082 underwent primary BCS only, 4836 underwent re-excision by BCS, and 1532 underwent re-excision by mastectomy following primary BCS. Our findings indicate that even though re-excision procedures were associated with higher local recurrence rates (HR 1.19; 95% CI 1.08–1.33), they did not significantly affect long-term survival (HR 0.98; 95% CI 0.87–1.10). This underscores the need for meticulous surgical practices to achieve clean margins initially, and suggests that the choice of surgical intervention should consider individual tumor characteristics and patient preferences to optimize oncological and aesthetic outcomes. Full article

Radial tree growth at high-elevation and high-latitude sites is predominantly controlled by changes in summer temperature. This relationship is, however, expected to weaken under projected global warming, which questions the reliability of tree-ring chronologies for climate reconstructions. Here, we examined the growth–climate response patterns of five tree-ring width (TRW) and maximum latewood density (MXD) chronologies of larch (Larix sibirica) from upper-treeline ecotones in the Altai Mountains, which is a key region for developing millennial-long dendroclimatic records in inner Eurasia. The TRW and MXD chronologies exhibited significant year-to-year coherency within and between the two parameters (p < 0.001). While TRW is mostly influenced by temperature changes during the first half of the growing season from June to July (r = 0.66), MXD is most strongly correlated with May–August temperatures (r = 0.73). All seasonal temperature signals are statistically significant at the 99% confidence level, temporally stable back to 1940 CE, the period with reliable instrumental measurements, and spatially representative for a vast area of inner Eurasia between northeastern Kazakhstan in the west, northern Mongolia in the east, southern Russia in the north and northwestern China in the south. Our findings demonstrate the paleoclimatic potential of TRW and especially MXD chronologies and reject any sign of the ´divergence problem´ at these high-elevation, mid-latitude larch sites. Full article

Despite great advances in the treatment of oncological diseases, the development of medical technologies to prevent or reduce complications of therapy, in particular, those associated with surgery and the introduction of antibiotics, remains relevant. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the use of autoprobiotics based on indigenous non-pathogenic strains of Enterococcus faecium and Enterococcus hirae as a personalized functional food product (PFFP) in the complex therapy of colorectal cancer (CRC) in the early postoperative period. A total of 36 patients diagnosed with CRC were enrolled in the study. Study group A comprised 24 CRC patients who received autoprobiotic therapy in the early postoperative period, while the control group C included 12 CRC patients without autoprobiotic therapy. Prior to surgery and between days 14 and 16 post-surgery, comprehensive evaluations were conducted on all patients, encompassing the following: stool and gastroenterological complaints analysis, examination of the gut microbiota (bacteriological study, quantitative polymerase chain reaction, metagenome analysis), and analysis of interleukins in the serum. Results: The use of autoprobiotics led to a decrease in dyspeptic complaints after surgery. It was also associated with the absence of postoperative complications, did not cause any side effects, and led to a decrease in the level of pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-6 and IL-18) in the blood serum. The use of autoprobiotics led to positive changes in the structure of escherichia and enterococci populations, the elimination of Parvomonas micra and Fusobacterium nucleatum, and a decrease in the quantitative content of Clostridium perfringens and Akkermansia muciniphila. Metagenomic analysis (16S rRNA) revealed an increase in alpha diversity. Conclusion: The introduction of autoprobiotics in the postoperative period is a highly effective and safe approach in the complex treatment of CRC. Future studies will allow the discovery of additional fine mechanisms of autoprobiotic therapy and its impact on the digestive, immune, endocrine, and neural systems. Full article

A novel binary compound within the Ba–Sb phase diagram, Ba₅Sb₈, was synthesized by combining elements with an excess of Sb in an alumina crucible. Structural elucidation was performed using single-crystal X-ray diffraction. This compound crystallizes in the orthorhombic space group Fdd2 with unit cell parameters of a = 15.6568(13) Å, b = 35.240(3) Å, c = 6.8189(6) Å, adopting its own structure type. The most distinctive features of the structure are the eight-membered [Sb₈]¹⁰⁻ polyanionic fragments which have no known precedents among antimonides. They are separated by five Ba²⁺ cations, which afford the charge balance and enable adherence to the Zintl–Klemm formalism. Ba₅Sb₈ is the highest known member of the homologous series within the family of barium antimonides Ba_nSb_2n−2 (n ≥ 2), all of which boast anionic substructures with oligomeric moieties of pnictogen atoms with varied lengths and topologies. Electronic structure calculations indicate an indirect narrow bandgap of ca. 0.45 eV, which corroborates the valence-precise chemical bonding in Ba₅Sb₈. Full article

Botrytis cinerea, causing grey mold, is a dangerous plant pathogen able to infect agricultural crops during the whole production cycle, including storage and transportation. A wide set of pathogenicity factors, high ecological plasticity, and universality of propagation and spreading of this fungus significantly complicate the control of this pathogen. A rapid increase in pathogen tolerance to fungicides dictates the necessity of developing antiresistant protection strategies, which include the use of biopreparations based on antagonistic microorganisms or their metabolites. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the antifungal activity of a dry biomass of P. chrysogenum VKM F-4876D (DMP), both individually and in combination with tebuconazole-, fludioxonil-, or difenoconazole-containing compounds recommended to control grey mold, in relation to B. cinerea isolated from grape samples. A water suspension of DMP was added to the PDA medium at a concentration of 1.0, 2.5, 5.0, 7.5, and 10.0 g/L. The pathogen growth inhibition was evaluated after 3, 7, and 14 days of cultivation; fungal cultures grown on DMP-free medium were used as a control. The resulting effective DMP concentration was 2.5 g/L. The effective concentrations of fungicides included in the study were determined to be 0.5 mg/L (tebuconazole), 0.1 g/L (difenoconazole), and 0.04 mg/L (fludioxonil). Combining DMP (2.5 g/L) with tebuconazole, difenoconazole, or fludioxonil (all taken at the effective concentrations) resulted in pathogen growth inhibition after 7 days of incubation by 86.5, 85.6, and 84.6%, respectively. Among all studied variants, the DMP (2.5 g/L) + difenoconazole (1.0 mg/L) combination provided the most efficient control of B. cinerea development under in vitro conditions: even after 14 days of incubation, the pathogen growth suppression remained at the level of 51.3%, whereas the DMP combination with tebuconazole or fludioxonil provided only 28.5 and 37.4%, respectively. The obtained results show good prospects for the efficient control of grey mold development, together with the reduction of pesticide loads on agrobiocoenoses and the prevention of the emergence of new resistant forms of plant pathogens. Full article

Leaf area and biomass are important morphological parameters for in situ plant monitoring since a leaf is vital for perceiving and capturing the environmental light as well as represents the overall plant development. The traditional approach for leaf area and biomass measurements is destructive requiring manual labor and may cause damages for the plants. In this work, we report on the AI-based approach for assessing and predicting the leaf area and plant biomass. The proposed approach is able to estimate and predict the overall plants biomass at the early stage of growth in a non-destructive way. For this reason we equip an industrial greenhouse for cucumbers growing with the commercial off-the-shelf environmental sensors and video cameras. The data from sensors are used to monitor the environmental conditions in the greenhouse while the top-down images are used for training Fully Convolutional Neural Networks (FCNN). The FCNN performs the segmentation task for leaf area calculation resulting in 82% accuracy. Application of trained FCNNs to the sequences of camera images allowed the reconstruction of per-plant leaf area and their growth-dynamics. Then we established the dependency between the average leaf area and biomass using the direct measurements of the biomass. This in turn allowed for reconstruction and prediction of the dynamics of biomass growth in the greenhouse using the image data with 10% average relative error for the 12 days prediction horizon. The actual deployment showed the high potential of the proposed data-driven approaches for plant growth dynamics assessment and prediction. Moreover, it closes the gap towards constructing fully closed autonomous greenhouses for harvests and plants biological safety. Full article

The use of spintronic devices with a tunable magnetic order on small scales is highly important for novel applications. The MAX phases containing transition metals and/or magnetic ion-substituted lattices attract a lot of attention. In this study, the magnetic and electronic properties of (Cr_4-xFe_x)_0.5AC (A = Ge, Si, Al) compounds were predicted and investigated within the density functional theory. It was established that single-substituted (Cr₃Fe₁)_0.5AC (A = Ge, Si, Al) lattices are favorable in terms of energy. An analysis of the magnetic states of the MAX phases demonstrated that their spin order changes upon substitution of iron atoms for chromium ones. It was found that mostly the (Cr_4-xFe_x)_0.5GeC and (Cr_4-xFe_x)_0.5AlC lattices acquire a ferrimagnetic state in contrast to (Cr_4-xFe_x)_0.5SiC for which the ferromagnetic spin order dominates. It was pointed out that the atomic substitution could be an efficient way to tune the magnetic properties of proposed (Cr_4-xFe_x)_0.5AC (A = Ge, Si, Al) MAX phases. Full article

Developing biodegradable materials based on polymer blends with a programmable self-destruction period in the environmental conditions of living systems is a promising direction in polymer chemistry. In this work, novel non-woven fibrous materials obtained by electrospinning based on the blends of poly(lactic acid) (PLA) and poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) were developed. The kinetics of biodegradation was studied in the aquatic environment of the inoculum of soil microorganisms. Oxidative degradation was studied under the ozone gaseous medium. The changes in chemical composition and structure of the materials were studied by optical microscopy, DSC, TGA, and FTIR-spectroscopy. The disappearance of the structural bands of PHB in the IR-spectra of the blends and a significant decrease in the enthalpy of melting after 90 days of exposure in the inoculum indicated the biodegradation of PHB while PLA remained stable. It was shown that the rate of ozonation was higher for PLA and the blends with a high content of PLA. The lower density of the amorphous regions of the blends determined an increased rate of their oxidation by ozone compared to homopolymers. The optimal composition in terms of degradation kinetics is a fibrous material based on the blend of 30PLA/70PHB that can be used as an effective ecosorbent, for biopackaging, and as a highly porous covering material for agricultural purposes. Full article

Reducing the dimensions of optical gyroscopes is a crucial task and resonant fiber optic gyroscopes are promising candidates for its solution. The paper presents a prototype of a miniature resonant interferometric gyroscope of a strategic accuracy class. Due to the use of passive optical elements in this gyroscope, it has a great potential for miniaturization, alongside a low production cost and ease of implementation, since it does not require many feedback loops. The presented prototype shows results on a zero instability of 20°/h and an angle random walk of 0.16°/√h. A theoretical model explaining the nature of the multipath interference of resonant spectra and establishing the relationship between the resonator parameters and the output parameters of the presented prototype is proposed. The results predicted are in agreement with the experimental data. The prototype gyroscope demonstrates a scale factor instability and a change in the average signal level, which is due to the presence of polarization non-reciprocity, occurring due to the induced birefringence in the single-mode fiber of the contour. This problem requires further investigation to be performed. Full article

Today, the task of developing microoptical gyroscopes is topical. Usually, tunable lasers with a built-in frequency stabilization system are used in such gyroscopes. They are comparatively bulky, which hinders the real miniaturization of optical gyroscopes. We propose a new approach implemented by using a Mach–Zehnder modulator with a passive ring resonator connected to one of its arms. This makes it possible to obtain a mutual configuration and makes the use of a tunable laser optional. Two ring resonators made of the polarization-maintaining fiber, suitable for use as sensitive elements of a gyroscope, were realized and investigated. Their Q-factor is equal to 14.5 × 10⁶ and 28.9 × 10⁶. The maximum sensitivity of the proposed method when using the described resonators is 3.2 and 1.8 °/h, respectively. The first experimental setup of a resonator gyroscope implementing this approach has been manufactured and analyzed. When measuring the rotation speed by the quasi-harmonic signal span and its phase, the measurement accuracy was approximately 11 and 0.4 °/s, respectively. Full article

Mn₅Ge₃ epitaxial thin films previously grown mainly on Ge substrate have been synthesized on Si(111) using the co-deposition of Mn and Ge at a temperature of 390 °C. RMS roughness decreases by almost a factor of two in the transition from a completely polycrystalline to a highly ordered growth mode. This mode has been stabilized by changing the ratio of the Mn and Ge evaporation rate from the stoichiometric in the buffer layer. Highly ordered Mn₅Ge₃ film has two azimuthal crystallite orientations, namely Mn₅Ge₃ (001) [1-10] and Mn₅Ge₃ (001) [010] matching Si(111)[-110]. Lattice parameters derived a (7.112(1) Å) and c (5.027(1) Å) are close to the bulk values. Considering all structural data, we proposed a double buffer layer model suggesting that all layers have identical crystal structure with P6₃/mcm symmetry similar to Mn₅Ge₃, but orientation and level of Si concentration are different, which eliminates 8% lattice mismatch between Si and Mn₅Ge₃ film. Mn₅Ge₃ film on Si(111) demonstrates no difference in magnetic properties compared to other reported films. T_C is about 300 K, which implies no significant excess of Mn or Si doping. It means that the buffer layer not only serves as a platform for the growth of the relaxed Mn₅Ge₃ film, but is also a good diffusion barrier. Full article

The biological control of fungal crop diseases based on the use of micro-organisms or their metabolites is a promising environmentally friendly alternative to common fungicide-based technologies. Penicillium fungi which synthesize various biologically active compounds with a wide range of antimicrobial activity are of special interest as potential producers of antifungal biopreparations. The purpose of this study was the evaluation of the antifungal activity of a dry biomass of the Penicillium chrysogenum VKPM F-4876D strain (DMP), both individually and combined with commercial azoxystrobin-, fludioxonil-, difenoconazole-, and tebuconazole-based fungicides commonly used to control early blight, towards Alternaria solani, an infectious agent of this potato disease. The study was performed under in vitro (cultivation on solid and liquid media) and in vivo (detached potato leaves) conditions. The cultivation of A. solani on agarized medium supplemented with 5 g/L of DMP caused significant morphological changes in pathogen colonies, whereas 7.5 g/L of DMP resulted in complete suppression of pathogen development. DMP addition to the liquid culture of A. solani significantly increased electrolyte release, i.e., impaired the cell membrane integrity in the pathogen. Combining DMP (1–2 g/L) with fungicides at a dose range of 0.01–10 mg/L resulted in significant in vitro growth inhibition of A. solani. The best result was obtained for the combination of DMP (1 g/L) with fludioxonil (1–5 mg/L) or tebuconazole (10 mg/L): a significant and prolonged antifungal effect (96–97% growth inhibition) was observed during the whole 14-day period of observation. The treatment of detached potato leaves with 1 g/L of DMP prior to artificial infection with A. solani resulted in a four-fold increase in the number of uninfected leaves and a two-fold reduction in the number of severely infected leaves compared to the control. These results demonstrate the possibility to develop an efficient environmentally friendly approach to manage potato early blight and provide prerequisites for the reduction in pesticide load on agrobiocoenoses, thus contributing to the restoration of ecological balance and the prevention of the emergence and spread of resistant pathogen strains. Full article

Background and Objective: Medical microwave radiometry (MWR) is used to capture the thermal properties of internal tissues and has usages in breast cancer detection. Our goal in this paper is to improve classification performance and investigate automated neural architecture search methods. Methods: We investigated extending the weight agnostic neural network by optimizing the weights using the bi-population covariance matrix adaptation evolution strategy (BIPOP-CMA-ES) once the topology was found. We evaluated and compared the model based on the F1 score, accuracy, precision, recall, and the number of connections. Results: The experiments were conducted on a dataset of 4912 patients, classified as low or high risk for breast cancer. The weight agnostic BIPOP-CMA-ES model achieved the best average performance. It obtained an F1-score of 0.933, accuracy of 0.932, precision of 0.929, recall of 0.942, and 163 connections. Conclusions: The results of the model are an indication of the promising potential of MWR utilizing a neural network-based diagnostic tool for cancer detection. By separating the tasks of topology search and weight training, we can improve the overall performance. Full article

The subway is one of the most actively used means of transport in the traffic infrastructure of large metropolitan areas. More than seven million passengers use the Moscow subway every day, which promotes the exchange of microorganisms between people and the surrounding subway environment. In this research, a study of the bacterial communities of two Moscow subway stations was conducted and the common subway microbiome was determined. However, there were differences in microbiological and antibiotic-resistance profiles, depending on the station. The station’s operational period since opening correlated with the taxonomic diversity and resistance of the identified bacteria. Moreover, differences between aerosol and surface bacterial communities were found at the two subway stations, indicating the importance of diversified sampling during the microbiome profiling of public areas. In this study, we also compared our data with previously published results obtained for the Moscow subway. Despite sample collection at different stations and seasons, we showed the presence of 15 common genera forming the core microbiome of the Moscow subway, which represents human commensal species, as well as widespread microorganisms from the surrounding environment. Full article

Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (Lib.) de Bary is a plant pathogen with a wide host range, which causes significant yield and storage losses of edible roots and other plant products. Due to its ability to sclerotia formation, the efficient control of this pathogen is complicated. The study of five Bacillus strains (B. subtilis VKM B-3154D, VKM B-3155D, VKM B-3505D, VKM B-2998D, and B. amyloliquefaciens VKM B-3153D) showed their ability to produce polyene antibiotics suppressing the growth and development of plant pathogenic fungi. The maximum concentration of polyene compounds was revealed for B. subtilis VKM B-2998D. A high in vitro antifungal activity of a dry mycelium biomass (DMP) of Penicillium chrysogenum VKM F-4876D, B. subtilis VKM B-2998D, and their combination has been demonstrated in relation to S. sclerotiorum. A combined application of DMP (0.3 g/L) and azoxystrobin at low dosage (2.5 mg/L) showed a high suppressing activity towards S. sclerotiorum (100% growth inhibition) including inhibition of a sclerotia formation that may be useful for the development of efficient methods of crop protection against this plant pathogen. A high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis of DMP revealed the presence of mevastatin suggesting the mechanism of the DMP antifungal activity is based on the blocking of the ergosterol (the main component of fungal cell walls) biosynthesis. The results of the study provide a prerequisite to the development of biopreparations to control S. sclerotiorum, whose use may provide a reduction of concentrations of fungicides used in agriculture and the corresponding reduction of their negative xenobiotic impact on the environment and recovery of the ecological balance in the soil. Full article