Publications by authors named "Ben J"

: In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Australian state and federal governments enacted boarder closures, social distancing measures, and lockdowns. By the end of October 2020, the 112-day lockdown in the Australian state of Victoria was the longest continuous lockdown period internationally. Previous studies have examined how the COVID-19 pandemic and government restrictions have affected Australians' mental health and well-being; however, less is known about the relationship between psychological variables and well-being.

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Background: The advancement in non-invasive methods for diagnosing and characterizing liver disease has achieved significant success. One such methods, FibroScan, combines non-invasiveness, rapidity, painlessness, and reproducibility. However, its accuracy and value are limited in many clinical settings.

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Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is an aggressive neuroendocrine tumor with the poorest prognosis among all types of lung cancer. Developing an effective comprehensive strategy remains a key focus. We herein present the first documented case of a 68-year-old man with limited-stage SCLC who has maintained a complete response (CR) for over 30 months to date.

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  • Adipokines are important for the thermogenesis (heat production) in beige fat cells, but the specific processes are still unclear.* ! -
  • This study reveals that signaling between VEGFB and VEGFR1 enhances thermogenesis in white adipose tissue (WAT), with VEGFB increasing in fat cells and VEGFR1 in macrophages when thermogenesis is activated.* ! -
  • Removing VEGFB from fat cells reduces browning in WAT, while adding VEGFB boosts thermogenesis, but this effect is negated if VEGFR1 in macrophages is knocked out; the study also shows how VEGFB influences signaling pathways to promote norepinephrine clearance in macrophages.* !
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Background: Macrophages are key players in obesity-associated cardiovascular diseases, which are marked by inflammatory and immune alterations. However, the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying macrophage's role in obesity-induced cardiac inflammation are incompletely understood. Our study aimed to identify the key macrophage population involved in obesity-induced cardiac dysfunction and investigate the molecular mechanism that contributes to the inflammatory response.

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  • - The study introduces a new Ni/Pt/Al p-electrode designed for AlGaN-based deep ultraviolet (DUV) LEDs, aiming to enhance performance at a wavelength of 276 nm.
  • - By inserting a Pt layer, the p-electrode effectively blocks harmful aluminum diffusion during annealing, preserving high reflectivity over 80% near 280 nm, which helps improve the device's efficiency.
  • - Compared to traditional p-electrodes, the new design shows significant improvements in wall-plug efficiency, marking a 10.3% and 30.5% enhancement over existing technologies, while also simplifying the manufacturing process.
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Macrophages mediated inflammatory response is crucial for the recovery of skeletal muscle following ischemia. Thus, it's necessary to exploit macrophages based therapeutic targets for ischemic disease. Here, we found mRNA level of SR-A1 was elevated in patients with critical limb ischemia by analysis of gene expression omnibus (GEO) database.

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Macrophage-orchestrated inflammation contributes to multiple diseases including sepsis. However, the underlying mechanisms remain to be defined clearly. Here, we show that macrophage TP53-induced glycolysis and apoptosis regulator (TIGAR) is up-regulated in murine sepsis models.

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With the fast development of artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of things (IOT), etc, there is an urgent need for the technology that can efficiently recognize, store and process a staggering amount of information. The AlScN material has unique advantages including immense remnant polarization, superior temperature stability and good lattice-match to other III-nitrides, making it easy to integrate with the existing advanced III-nitrides material and device technologies. However, due to the large band-gap, strong coercive field, and low photo-generated carrier generation and separation efficiency, it is difficult for AlScN itself to accumulate enough photo-generated carriers at the surface/interface to induce polarization inversion, limiting its application in in-memory sensing and computing.

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Obesity has been increasing worldwide and is well-known as a risk factor for cognitive decline. It has been reported that oxidative stress in the brain is deeply involved in cognitive dysfunction in rodent models. While there are many studies on oxidation in the liver and adipose tissue of obese mice, the relationship between obesity-induced cognitive dysfunction and brain oxidation has not been elucidated.

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Integrating ferroelectric AlScN with III-N semiconductors to enhance the performance and tunability of nitride devices requires high-quality AlScN films. This work focuses on the effect and regulation mechanism of post-annealing in pure N on the crystal quality and ferroelectric properties of AlScN films. It is found that the crystal quality improves with increasing annealing temperatures.

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The unique optical and electrical properties of graphene-based heterojunctions make them significant for artificial synaptic devices, promoting the advancement of biomimetic vision systems. However, mass production and integration of device arrays are necessary for visual imaging, which is still challenging due to the difficulty in direct growth of wafer-scale graphene patterns. Here, a novel strategy is proposed using photosensitive polymer as a solid carbon source for in situ growth of patterned graphene on diverse substrates.

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  • AlN films are valued for their excellent properties, including a wide bandgap and high resistance to radiation, making them useful in various applications.
  • High-temperature annealing (HTA) can produce quality AlN films efficiently, but it leads to an unexpected change in lattice polarity from N-polarity to Al-polarity, the mechanism for which is still unclear.
  • The study found that this polarity inversion is caused by the diffusion of aluminum and oxygen atoms from the sapphire substrate into the AlN layer, but it has minimal effects on the film's quality and stress, with a prediction of a two-dimensional electron gas at the inversion interface, though measured concentrations are lower than expected due to various factors.
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CBP/p300 interacting transactivator with Glu/Asp-rich carboxy-terminal domain 1 (CITED1) is a transcriptional activator belonging to the non-DNA-binding transcription co-regulator family. It regulates diverse pathways, including the transforming growth factor/bone morphogenetic protein/SMAD, estrogen, Wnt-β-catenin, and androgen-AR signaling pathways, by binding to CBP/p300 co-activators through its conserved transactivation domain CR2. CITED1 plays an important role in embryonic development and a certain regulatory role in the occurrence and development of various tumors.

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Superhydrophobic coatings have increasingly become the focal point of research due to their distinctive properties like water resistance, wear resistance, and acid-base resilience. In pursuit of maximizing their efficiency, research has primarily revolved around refining the fabrication process and the composition of emulsion/nanoparticle coatings. We innovatively devised a superhydrophobic coating by employing a spraying technique.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has been one of the most acute global crises in recent history, which profoundly impacted the world across many dimensions. During this period, racism manifested in ways specifically related to the pandemic, including xenophobic sentiments, racial attacks, discriminatory policies, and disparate outcomes across racial/ethnic groups. This paper examines some of the pressing questions about pandemic racism and inequity.

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  • Osteoclasts are important cells in bone remodeling, and targeting their apoptosis could help reduce bone loss as people age.
  • The research involved MvpLyz2-Cre mice, which showed that the major vault protein (MVP) plays a protective role against osteoclast formation and is less present in older mice.
  • The study found that knocking out MVP led to decreased apoptosis of osteoclasts, identified its interaction with the Fas receptor, and suggested MVP as a potential target for osteoporosis treatments.
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Flexible III-nitride-based optoelectronic devices are crucial for the next-generation foldable/wearable lighting sterilization and sensor working in the ultraviolet (UV) region. However, the strong bonding effect at the epitaxial interface of III-nitride and bare sapphire substrate makes it difficult for epilayer separation and flexible applications. Although the emerging van der Waals epitaxy (vdWE) with graphene insertion layer offers a feasible route for weakening the interfacial adhesion, the intact centimeter-transferable III-nitride membrane still remains challenging.

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  • The study explores the role of Major Vault Protein (MVP) in macrophages during fracture healing, revealing its importance in the inflammatory response.
  • Macrophage-specific knockout of MVP (MacKO) resulted in impaired transition from pro-inflammatory to anti-inflammatory states, negatively affecting fracture repair.
  • Reintroducing MVP in MacKO mice enhanced healing, highlighting MVP as a potential target for new fracture treatment therapies.
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Aims: Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a common, usually asymptomatic disease with high mortality and limited therapeutic options. Extensive extracellular matrix (ECM) fragmentation and transmural inflammation act as major pathological processes of AAA. However, the underlying regulatory mechanisms remain incompletely understood.

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With increasing Al mole fraction, n-contact has become an important issue limiting the development of Al-rich AlGaN-based devices. In this work, we have proposed an alternative strategy to optimize the metal/n-AlGaN contact by introducing a heterostructure with a polarization effect and by etching a recess structure through the heterostructure beneath the n-contact metal. Experimentally, we inserted an n-AlGaN layer into an AlGaN p-n diode on the n-AlGaN layer to form a heterostructure, where a high interface electron concentration of 6 × 10 cm was achieved with the aid of a polarization effect.

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Hyperferritinemic syndrome, an overwhelming inflammatory condition, is characterized by high ferritin levels, systemic inflammation and multi-organ dysfunction, but the pathogenic role of ferritin remains largely unknown. Here we show in an animal model that ferritin administration leads to systemic and hepatic inflammation characterized by excessive neutrophil leukocyte infiltration and neutrophil extracellular trap (NET) formation in the liver tissue. Ferritin-induced NET formation depends on the expression of peptidylarginine deiminase 4 and neutrophil elastase and on reactive oxygen species production.

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The epitaxy of III-nitrides on metallic substrates is competitive due to the advantages of vertical carrier injection, enhanced heat dissipation, and flexible application in various III-nitride-based devices. However, the serious lattice mismatch, atom diffusion, and interface reaction under the rigorous growth conditions have caused enormous obstacles. Based on the thermal and chemical stability of the graphene layer, we propose the van der Waals epitaxy of c-oriented wurtzite AlGaN on the polycrystalline Mo substrate by high-temperature metal-organic chemical vapor deposition.

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Climate change is expected to profoundly affect key food production sectors, including fisheries and agriculture. However, the potential impacts of climate change on these sectors are rarely considered jointly, especially below national scales, which can mask substantial variability in how communities will be affected. Here, we combine socioeconomic surveys of 3,008 households and intersectoral multi-model simulation outputs to conduct a sub-national analysis of the potential impacts of climate change on fisheries and agriculture in 72 coastal communities across five Indo-Pacific countries (Indonesia, Madagascar, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, and Tanzania).

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Background: Macrophages are implicated in atherosclerotic plaque instability by inflammation and degradation of extracellular matrix. However, the regulatory mechanisms driving these macrophage-associated processes are not well understood. Here, we aimed to identify the plaque destabilization-associated cytokines and signaling pathways in macrophages.

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