PhyImpute and UniFracImpute: two imputation approaches incorporating phylogeny information for microbial count data.

Sequencing-based microbial count data analysis is a challenging task due to the presence of numerous non-biological zeros, which can impede downstream analysis. To tackle this issue, we introduce two novel approaches, PhyImpute and UniFracImpute, which leverage similar microbial samples to identify and impute non-biological zeros in microbial count data. Our proposed methods utilize the probability of non-biological zeros and phylogenetic trees to estimate sample-to-sample similarity, thus addressing this challenge.

Assessing the Efficacy of Modified CT Severity Index Versus Conventional CT Severity Index in Determining Severity and Clinical Outcomes of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).

Aims The aim of this study was to evaluate the severity of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) using the computed tomography severity index (CTSI) and the modified CTSI (MCTSI) and to assess their correlation with clinical outcome measures. Additionally, the study aimed to compare the diagnostic performance of these indices in predicting moderate to severe COPD, based on patient outcomes. Materials and methods In this prospective study, conducted between November 2023 and March 2024, two radiologists, blinded to clinical outcomes, independently assessed CTSI and MCTSI.

In-situ synthesis and integration of gold nanoparticles into 3D printed optical fiber probes.

This work uses the polymeric reduction method to explore the in-situ synthesis of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) within 3D-printed optical fiber probes (OFPs). Digital light processing (DLP) 3D printing is employed to fabricate the OFPs using a resin consisting of hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) and polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEGDA). After printing, OFPs were immersed in a boiling gold precursor solution to facilitate the synthesis of AuNPs inside the polymer matrix.

Surface Engineering of Polymeric Colloidal Crystals by Temperature - Pressure Annealing.

Polymer colloidal crystals (PCCs) have been widely explored as acoustic and optical metamaterials and as templates for nanolithography. However, fabrication impurities and fragility of the self-assembled structures are critical bottlenecks for the device's efficiency and applications. We have demonstrated that temperature-assisted pressure [ annealing results in the mechanical strengthening of PCCs, which improves with the annealing temperature.