Where to find lossless metals?

Hypothetical metals having optical absorption losses as low as those of the transparent insulators, if found, could revolutionize optoelectronics. We perform the first high-throughput search for lossless metals among all known inorganic materials in the databases of over 100,000 entries. The 381 candidates are identified -- having well-isolated partially-filled bands -- and are analyzed by defining the figures of merit and classifying their real-space conductive connectivity. The existing experimental evidence of most candidates being insulating, instead of conducting, is due to the limitation of current density functional theory in predicting narrow-band metals that are unstable against magnetism, structural distortion, or electron-electron interactions. We propose future research directions including conductive oxides, intercalating layered materials, and compressing these false-metal candidates under high pressures into eventual lossless metals.Comment: 36 pages, 86 figures, 3 tabl

Therapeutic targets and potential delivery systems of melatonin in osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a highly prevalent age-related musculoskeletal disorder that typically results in chronic pain and disability. OA is a multifactorial disease, with increased oxidative stress, dysregulated inflammatory response, and impaired matrix metabolism contributing to its onset and progression. The neurohormone melatonin, primarily synthesized by the pineal gland, has emerged as a promising therapeutic agent for OA due to its potential to alleviate inflammation, oxidative stress, and chondrocyte death with minimal adverse effects. The present review provides a comprehensive summary of the current understanding regarding melatonin as a promising pharmaceutical agent for the treatment of OA, along with an exploration of various delivery systems that can be utilized for melatonin administration. These findings may provide novel therapeutic strategies and targets for inhibiting the advancement of OA

Multinational prospective cohort study of rates and risk factors for ventilator-associated pneumonia over 24 years in 42 countries of Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East: Findings of the International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC)

Objective: Rates of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) are several times above those of high-income countries. The objective of this study was to identify risk factors (RFs) for VAP cases in ICUs of LMICs. Design: Prospective cohort study. Setting: This study was conducted across 743 ICUs of 282 hospitals in 144 cities in 42 Asian, African, European, Latin American, and Middle Eastern countries. Participants: The study included patients admitted to ICUs across 24 years. Results: In total, 289,643 patients were followed during 1,951,405 patient days and acquired 8,236 VAPs. We analyzed 10 independent variables. Multiple logistic regression identified the following independent VAP RFs: male sex (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.22; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.16-1.28; P <.0001); longer length of stay (LOS), which increased the risk 7% per day (aOR, 1.07; 95% CI, 1.07-1.08; P <.0001); mechanical ventilation (MV) utilization ratio (aOR, 1.27; 95% CI, 1.23-1.31; P <.0001); continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), which was associated with the highest risk (aOR, 13.38; 95% CI, 11.57-15.48; P <.0001)Revisión por pare

Measuring the predictability of life outcomes with a scientific mass collaboration.

How predictable are life trajectories? We investigated this question with a scientific mass collaboration using the common task method; 160 teams built predictive models for six life outcomes using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a high-quality birth cohort study. Despite using a rich dataset and applying machine-learning methods optimized for prediction, the best predictions were not very accurate and were only slightly better than those from a simple benchmark model. Within each outcome, prediction error was strongly associated with the family being predicted and weakly associated with the technique used to generate the prediction. Overall, these results suggest practical limits to the predictability of life outcomes in some settings and illustrate the value of mass collaborations in the social sciences

An international prospective study of INICC analyzing the incidence and risk factors for catheter-associated urinary tract infections in 235 ICUs across 8 Asian Countries

Background: Identify urinary catheter (UC)-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) incidence and risk factors (RF) in 235 ICUs in 8 Asian countries: India, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Methods: From January 1, 2014, to February 12, 2022, we conducted a prospective cohort study. To estimate CAUTI incidence, the number of UC days was the denominator, and CAUTI was the numerator. To estimate CAUTI RFs, we analyzed 11 variables using multiple logistic regression. Results: 84,920 patients hospitalized for 499,272 patient days acquired 869 CAUTIs. The pooled CAUTI rate per 1,000 UC-days was 3.08; for those using suprapubic-catheters (4.11); indwelling-catheters (2.65); trauma-ICU (10.55), neurologic-ICU (7.17), neurosurgical-ICU (5.28); in lower- middle-income countries (3.05); in upper-middle-income countries (1.71); at public-hospitals (5.98), at private-hospitals (3.09), at teaching-hospitals (2.04). The following variables were identified as CAUTI RFs: Age (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 1.01; 95% CI = 1.01-1.02; P < .0001); female sex (aOR = 1.39; 95% CI = 1.21-1.59; P < .0001); using suprapubic-catheter (aOR = 4.72; 95% CI = 1.69-13.21; P < .0001); length of stay before CAUTI acquisition (aOR = 1.04; 95% CI = 1.04-1.05; P < .0001); UC and device utilization-ratio (aOR = 1.07; 95% CI = 1.01-1.13; P = .02); hospitalized at trauma-ICU (aOR = 14.12; 95% CI = 4.68-42.67; P < .0001), neurologic-ICU (aOR = 14.13; 95% CI = 6.63-30.11; P < .0001), neurosurgical-ICU (aOR = 13.79; 95% CI = 6.88-27.64; P < .0001); public-facilities (aOR = 3.23; 95% CI = 2.34-4.46; P < .0001). Discussion: CAUTI rate and risk are higher for older patients, women, hospitalized at trauma-ICU, neurologic-ICU, neurosurgical-ICU, and public facilities. All of them are unlikely to change. Conclusions: It is suggested to focus on reducing the length of stay and the Urinary catheter device utilization ratio, avoiding suprapubic catheters, and implementing evidence-based CAUTI prevention recommendations

Feature Interaction Detection by Local Approach

Feature interaction detection is important in almost all study fields. Correctly identifying variable interactions can help explore the relationships among features in the dataset which in return will aid to build better models containing these variables. However, many existing methods are confused feature interaction with variable importance. On the contrary, based on the formal definition of feature interaction, we built our methods leveraging the implication of the definition. In particular, expected Hessian matrix was proposed and the relationship between quadratic regression and expected Hessian matrix was established. Inspired by the proof, two methods, transformation local approach (TLA) and two-stage interaction detection (TSID), were proposed. Both methods were performed in local settings where the correlation among features were proved to be helpful under certain assumptions. Our methods were compared with other popular interaction detection methods which are currently available to be implemented. Diferent simulation scenarios with various levels of difficulties for feature interaction detections were set up when performing the empirical analyses. Our proposed methods performed the best when taking all the performance metrics into consideration. In addition, the proposed methods have also been extended to detect three-way interactions by leveraging multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS). Real data analyses were conducted on the datasets of Boston Housing, Ozone Readings, Ames Iowa Housing, and Adult Diffuse Glioma which were extracted from various R packages.</p

Fabrication of Co

Co3+ and B co-doping BiVO4 photocatalysts were successfully prepared for organic pollutants degradation through sol-gel and impregnation two-step process. Their structure, surface chemical composition, and optical absorption were characterized. All as-prepared samples consisted of the monoclinic phase. It was found that the Co dopants was existed in the form of CO3O4 in B-BiVO4, thus a p-n heterojunction formed in BiVO4. The optical absorption results reveal that Co3O4 could greatly enhance the absorption and decrease in the band-gap energy of BiVO4. The 0.5% Co3+ doping B-BiVO4 sample exhited the highest photocatalytic activity for methyl orange photocatalytic degradation, being approximately 92% of MO degradation rate under 50 min visible light irradiation

L'Expulsion du petit démon : Danses et exorcisme (Pingxiang, Chine)<br>: In Musée Kwok On, Jacques Pimpaneau Collection.

Aidé de ses complices du service audiovisuel de l’Inalco Guy Sinelle et Paul Hervouet, Jacques Pimpaneau réalisa une vingtaine de documentaires sur les spectacles et religions, en Chine mais aussi en Inde, Indonésie et au Tibet. Grâce à sa générosité, ces vidéos sont mises à la disposition du public sur YouTube. Elles se trouvent également à la médiathèque de l'Inalco.Au Temple des Trois Grands Dieux Exorcistes, des danseurs masqués jouent le Nuoxi, forme de théâtre consistant en une suite de danses avec masques qui a la vertu de chasser les démons responsables des maladies et calamités (Nuoxi = théâtre d’expulsion des pestilences). Les masques représentent les divinités du panthéon populaire, en premier lieu les Dieux Gardiens des Quatre Directions qui protègent l’aire de danse. On voit également le célèbre Prince Nuozha, Guanyu, le guerrier des Trois Royaumes devenu Dieu de la guerre, Zhongkui, le pourfendeur des démons. On distingue les danses de dieux, les danses guerrières ou satiriques. Le triomphe est marqué par la démonstration de l’un des Trois Grands Généraux recouvert de son grand masque sacré. Ici, à Pingxiang ou Nanpang, des bourgades du fin fond du Jiangxi, les paysans qui maintiennent cette pratique ont parfois réussi à conserver de belles collections de masques de divinités. Les danses sont la partie religieuse des festivités du Nouvel An qui comprennent aussi le fameux repas familial, le défilé des lampions, des dragons et phénix illuminés, la procession des bateaux à sec, les lancers de pétards, les concerts de musique... Cependant la troupe de danses d’exorcisme revêt une importance particulière car elle visite chaque foyer et exécute les danses des dieux afin de le protéger des démons. Lorsqu'on construit une nouvelle maison, un rite spécial en plusieurs étapes est accompli dans le même but. Ces danses d’exorcisme, vestige d’anciennes croyances, art “en voie de disparition”, mal toléré par les autorités administratives, méritent notre attention ne serait-ce que pour nous familiariser avec l’univers des dieux populaires et nous rappeler l’origine religieuse de l’opéra chinois

L'Expulsion du petit démon : Danses et exorcisme (Pingxiang, Chine)<br>: In Musée Kwok On, Jacques Pimpaneau Collection.

Aidé de ses complices du service audiovisuel de l’Inalco Guy Sinelle et Paul Hervouet, Jacques Pimpaneau réalisa une vingtaine de documentaires sur les spectacles et religions, en Chine mais aussi en Inde, Indonésie et au Tibet. Grâce à sa générosité, ces vidéos sont mises à la disposition du public sur YouTube. Elles se trouvent également à la médiathèque de l'Inalco.Au Temple des Trois Grands Dieux Exorcistes, des danseurs masqués jouent le Nuoxi, forme de théâtre consistant en une suite de danses avec masques qui a la vertu de chasser les démons responsables des maladies et calamités (Nuoxi = théâtre d’expulsion des pestilences). Les masques représentent les divinités du panthéon populaire, en premier lieu les Dieux Gardiens des Quatre Directions qui protègent l’aire de danse. On voit également le célèbre Prince Nuozha, Guanyu, le guerrier des Trois Royaumes devenu Dieu de la guerre, Zhongkui, le pourfendeur des démons. On distingue les danses de dieux, les danses guerrières ou satiriques. Le triomphe est marqué par la démonstration de l’un des Trois Grands Généraux recouvert de son grand masque sacré. Ici, à Pingxiang ou Nanpang, des bourgades du fin fond du Jiangxi, les paysans qui maintiennent cette pratique ont parfois réussi à conserver de belles collections de masques de divinités. Les danses sont la partie religieuse des festivités du Nouvel An qui comprennent aussi le fameux repas familial, le défilé des lampions, des dragons et phénix illuminés, la procession des bateaux à sec, les lancers de pétards, les concerts de musique... Cependant la troupe de danses d’exorcisme revêt une importance particulière car elle visite chaque foyer et exécute les danses des dieux afin de le protéger des démons. Lorsqu'on construit une nouvelle maison, un rite spécial en plusieurs étapes est accompli dans le même but. Ces danses d’exorcisme, vestige d’anciennes croyances, art “en voie de disparition”, mal toléré par les autorités administratives, méritent notre attention ne serait-ce que pour nous familiariser avec l’univers des dieux populaires et nous rappeler l’origine religieuse de l’opéra chinois