Label-free sensing of cells with fluorescence lifetime imaging: the quest for metabolic heterogeneity

Molecular, morphological and physiological heterogeneity is the inherent property of cells, which governs differences in their response to external influence. The tumor cells metabolic heterogeneity is of a special interest due to its clinical relevance to the tumor progression and therapeutic outcomes. Rapid, sensitive and non-invasive assessment of metabolic heterogeneity of cells is of a great demand for biomedical sciences. Fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM), which is an all-optical technique is an emerging tool for sensing and quantifying cellular metabolism by measuring fluorescence decay parameters (FDPs) of endogenous fluorophores, such as NAD(P)H. To achieve the accurate discrimination between metabolically diverse cellular subpopulations, appropriate approaches to FLIM data collection and analysis are needed. In this report, the unique capability of FLIM to attain the overarching goal of discriminating metabolic heterogeneity has been demonstrated. This has been achieved using a novel approach to data analysis based on the non-parametric analysis, which revealed a much better sensitivity to the presence of metabolically distinct subpopulations as compare more traditional approaches of FLIM measurements and analysis. The new approach was further validated for imaging cultured cancer cells treated with chemotherapy. Those results pave the way for an accurate detection and quantification of cellular metabolic heterogeneity using FLIM, which will be valuable for assessing therapeutic vulnerabilities and predicting clinical outcomes.

Quantum Nonlocality - Possible Cosmophysical Effects

Mutiple experimental results indicate the existence of cosmophysical effects which influence parameters of nuclear decays and chemical reactions in lab. conditions. In particular, variations of nucleus decay parameters are detected which amplitudes are of the order 10−3 and periods of one year, 24 hours or about one month. Similar influence of solar activity on nuclear decays and chemical reactions also was reported. We argue that such deviations from radioactive decay law and other similar effects can be described by novel quantum nonlocality mechanism, different from standard EPR-Bohm nonlocality. Modified Doebner-Goldin model applied for the description of dynamical nonlocal effects concerned with nuclear decays.

Muon Decay

The decay of the muon has been studied at PSI with several precision measurements: The longitudinal polarization P_{\mathrm{L}}(E)PL(E) with the muon decay parameters \xi'ξ′, \xi''ξ″, the Time-Reversal Invariance (TRI) conserving transverse polarization P_{\mathrm{T_{1}}}(E)PT1(E) with the muon decay parameters \etaη, \eta''η″, the TRI violating transverse polarization P_{\mathrm{T_{2}}}(E)PT2(E), with \alpha'/Aα′/A, \beta'/Aβ′/A and the muon decay asymmetry with P_{\mu}\xiPμξ. The detailed theoretical analysis of all measurements of normal and inverse muon decay has led for the first time to a lower limit |g^{V}_{LL}| > 0.960|gLLV|>0.960 (“V-AV−A”) and upper limits for nine other possible complex couplings, especially the scalar coupling |g^{S}_{LL}| < 0.550|gLLS|<0.550 which had not been excluded before.

Measurement of the CP-violating phase $$\phi _s$$ in $$ B_{s}^{0} \rightarrow J/\psi \phi $$ decays in ATLAS at 13 TeV

A measurement of the $$ B_{s}^{0} \rightarrow J/\psi \phi $$ B s 0 → J / ψ ϕ decay parameters using $$ 80.5\, \mathrm {fb^{-1}} $$ 80.5 fb - 1 of integrated luminosity collected with the ATLAS detector from 13 $$\text {Te}\text {V}$$ Te proton–proton collisions at the LHC is presented. The measured parameters include the CP-violating phase $$\phi _{s} $$ ϕ s , the width difference $$ \Delta \Gamma _{s}$$ Δ Γ s between the $$B_{s}^{0}$$ B s 0 meson mass eigenstates and the average decay width $$ \Gamma _{s}$$ Γ s . The values measured for the physical parameters are combined with those from $$ 19.2\, \mathrm {fb^{-1}} $$ 19.2 fb - 1 of 7 and 8 $$\text {Te}\text {V}$$ Te data, leading to the following: $$\begin{aligned} \phi _{s}= & {} -0.087 \pm 0.036 ~\mathrm {(stat.)} \pm 0.021 ~\mathrm {(syst.)~rad} \\ \Delta \Gamma _{s}= & {} 0.0657 \pm 0.0043 ~\mathrm {(stat.)}\pm 0.0037 ~\mathrm {(syst.)~ps}^{-1} \\ \Gamma _{s}= & {} 0.6703 \pm 0.0014 ~\mathrm {(stat.)}\pm 0.0018 ~\mathrm {(syst.)~ps}^{-1} \end{aligned}$$ ϕ s = - 0.087 ± 0.036 ( stat . ) ± 0.021 ( syst . ) rad Δ Γ s = 0.0657 ± 0.0043 ( stat . ) ± 0.0037 ( syst . ) ps - 1 Γ s = 0.6703 ± 0.0014 ( stat . ) ± 0.0018 ( syst . ) ps - 1 Results for $$\phi _{s} $$ ϕ s and $$ \Delta \Gamma _{s}$$ Δ Γ s are also presented as 68% confidence level contours in the $$\phi _{s} $$ ϕ s –$$ \Delta \Gamma _{s}$$ Δ Γ s plane. Furthermore the transversity amplitudes and corresponding strong phases are measured. $$\phi _{s} $$ ϕ s and $$ \Delta \Gamma _{s}$$ Δ Γ s measurements are in agreement with the Standard Model predictions.

Virtual Sound Field of the Roman Theatre of Malaca

In Hispania (present-day Spain and Portugal), there are 25 structures documented of classical Roman open-air theatres, of which 10 are in the south, in the Roman Baetica (Andalusia). The Baetica embraced the progress of urbanisation in the time of the Roman emperor Augustus, where theatres, built in stone, were the foci of entertainment, performance, and propaganda of the empire. The Roman theatre in Malaga presents the archaeological remains of the main vestige of the Roman Malaca. It is located in the historical centre of the city, at the foot of the hill of the Muslim Alcazaba and was discovered in 1952. It is a medium-sized theatre whose design corresponds to a mixed construction that combines making use of the hillside for the terraces, in the manner of Greek theatres, with a major construction where rock is non-existent, thereby creating the necessary space for the stands. In this paper, the production process, adjustment, and validation of the 3D model of the theatre are analysed for the creation of a numerical predictive model of its sound field. Acoustic properties of the venue are examined and the effect of the Muslim Alcazaba and the hillside on the various acoustic descriptors is analysed. The results highlight the influence of this large stone surface mainly on the time decay parameters.

Temporal properties of aftershock sequences of large earthquakes in Iran - Analysis of primary and secondary aftershocks of the Ezgeleh sequence

In this study, the decay of earthquake aftershock sequences of some major earthquakes in different tectonic regimes in the Iranian plateau is discussed. The studied earthquakes are Rigan [2010], Ahar-Varzaghan [2012], Goharan [2013], Sefidsang [2017] and Ezgeleh [2017]. The spatial and temporal windows are considered based on the method proposed by Gardner and Knopoff [1974] to compute decay parameters for each sequence. The decay rates of sequences were compared to well-known models to find the best fit for each sequence. The results showed that the modified Omori is the best fit for Ahar-Varzaghan and Ezgeleh sequences, for Rigan and Sefidsang sequences the modified Omori and the Kisslinger ones found as the best fits. The values of the p parameter of the Reasenberg and Shcherbakov models were larger compared to the Omori model, but the parameter of the Kisslinger model was slightly smaller compared to the Omori one. The c parameter showed an inverse relation to the threshold magnitude. The correlation between the p and c parameters and also the and the Gutenberg and Richter (G-R) parameters were investigated. In addition, we made use of a graphical method to analyze the seismic sequence of the Ezgeleh earthquake during 13 months after the main event. The graphical method was successful to estimate the occurrence of an event with an approximate magnitude of M=6.4 in the sequence.

Measurement of the weak mixing phase ϕs through time-dependent CP-violation in Bs0 → J/ψϕ decays in the ATLAS detector

A measurement of [Formula: see text] decay parameters using data collected by the ATLAS detector in [Formula: see text] collisions at 13 TeV in 2015–2017 is performed. Integrated luminosity of this sample is 80.5 fb[Formula: see text]. The measurement of physical parameters are statistically combined with results obtained from Run 1 data at 7 and 8 TeV. The measured value of CP-violating phase [Formula: see text] is obtained, which has significantly better precision in comparison with Run 1 result. Precision of other physical parameters is also improved, including the decay width difference [Formula: see text]. Further improvement is expected from the use of full Run 2 statistics, as well as from modifications in the analysis.

Plasma environment effects on K lines of astrophysical interest

Aims. Within the framework of compact-object accretion disks, we calculate plasma environment effects on the atomic structure and decay parameters used in the modeling of K lines in lowly charged iron ions, namely Fe II–Fe VIII. Methods. For this study, we used the fully relativistic multiconfiguration Dirac–Fock method approximating the plasma electron–nucleus and electron-electron screenings with a time-averaged Debye-Hückel potential. Results. We report modified ionization potentials, K-threshold energies, wavelengths, radiative emission rates, and Auger widths for plasmas characterized by electron temperatures and densities in the ranges 105 − 107 K and 1018 − 1022 cm−3. In addition, we propose two universal fitting formulae to predict the IP and K-threshold lowerings in any elemental ion. Conclusions. We conclude that the high-resolution X-ray spectrometers onboard the future XRISM and ATHENA space missions will be able to detect the lowering of the K edges of these Fe ions due to the extreme plasma conditions occurring in the accretion disks around compact objects.

Emotion Classification of Song Lyrics using Bidirectional LSTM Method with GloVe Word Representation Weighting

The rapid change of the music market from analog to digital has caused a rapid increase in the amount of music that is spread throughout the world as well because music is easier to make and sell. The amount of music available has changed the way people find music, one of which is based on the emotion of the song. The existence of music emotion recognition and recommendation helps music listeners find songs in accordance with their emotions. Therefore, the classification of emotions is needed to determine the emotions of a song. The emotional classification of a song is largely based on feature extraction and learning from the available data sets. Various learning algorithms have been used to classify song emotions and produce different accuracy. In this study, the Bidirectional Long-short Term Memory (Bi-LSTM) deep learning method with weighting words using GloVe is used to classify the song's emotions using the lyrics of the song. The result shows that the Bi-LSTM model with dropout layer and activity regularization can produce an accuracy of 91.08%. Dropout, activity regularization and learning rate decay parameters can reduce the difference between training loss and validation loss by 0.15.