Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Viable Microbiome of Human Milk Differs from the Metataxonomic Profile

Bacteria in human milk contribute to the establishment of the infant gut microbiome. As such, numerous studies have characterized the human milk microbiome using DNA sequencing technologies, particularly 16S rRNA gene sequencing. However, such methods are not able to differentiate between DNA from viable and non-viable bacteria. The extent to which bacterial DNA detected in human milk represents living, biologically active cells is therefore unclear. Here, we characterized both the viable bacterial content and the total bacterial DNA content (derived from viable and non-viable cells) of fresh human milk (n = 10). In order to differentiate the living from the dead, a combination of propidium monoazide (PMA) and full-length 16S rRNA gene sequencing was used. Our results demonstrate that the majority of OTUs recovered from fresh human milk samples (67.3%) reflected DNA from non-viable organisms. PMA-treated samples differed significantly in their bacterial composition compared to untreated samples (PERMANOVA p < 0.0001). Additionally, an OTU mapping to Cutibacterium acnes had a significantly higher relative abundance in PMA-treated (viable) samples. These results demonstrate that the total bacterial DNA content of human milk is not representative of the viable human milk microbiome. Our findings raise questions about the validity of conclusions drawn from previous studies in which viability testing was not used, and have broad implications for the design of future work in this field.
Information Technology Acceptance in South Africa: An Investigation of Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, and Actual System Use Constructs

Information technology (IT) acceptance studies pay much attention to issues of significance in assessing the contributions of variables explaining IT usage for decision-making in organizations. Davis’ Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) states that Perceived Usefulness (PU) and Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU) are the two factors that govern the adoption and use of information technology. Actual System Use (behavior) consists of the number of times of systems use. The author conducted a survey of 31 organizations in KwaZulu/Natal, a region in South Africa, which implemented an Executive Information System (EIS). A validated survey instrument was administered to an EIS stakeholder in each organization surveyed. This paper reports on the PU, PEOU, and Actual System Use constructs for organizations surveyed in South Africa.
Selecting a Virtual Classroom System: Elluminate Live vs. Macromedia Breeze (Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional)

Synchronous, virtual classroom systems can provide high levels of interaction for distance learning initiatives. With the rapid evolution of technology, continuous product evaluation is necessary to ensure optimal methods and resources for connecting students, instructors, and educational content in rich, online learning communities. This article presents the analysis of two online, synchronous learning solutions (Elluminate Live and Breeze), focusing on their abilities to meet both technical and pedagogical needs in higher education. To make a solid comparison, the systems were examined in online classrooms with instructors, guest speakers, and students. Pros and cons relative to usability, instructional needs, technical aspects, and compatibility are outlined for both systems.
ACAPELLA-1K: a biomechatronic fluid handling system for genome analysis that processes 1000 samples in 8 hours

An automated biomechatronic submicroliter fluid handling system for processing deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) has been developed in the Genomation Laboratory, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle. This first generation system, ACAPELLA-1K, can process 1000 samples in 8 h in preparation for DNA sequencing using sample volumes ten times smaller than current state-of-the art manual and automated instrumentation. The system is based upon a proof-of-concept system that was developed by the Genomation Laboratory. The ACAPELLA-1K is the first integration of modules for fluid aspiration, dispensing, mixing, transport, and thermal processing that have been designed and developed with corporate partners Orca Photonic Systems, Inc., Redmond, WA, and Engineering Arts, Mercer Island, WA. These modules, comprising piezoceramic actuators, pneumatic pumps, linear mechanisms, thermal controllers, optical sensors, electronics, computer control, and software, are described in detail. Processing statistics are presented and successful experimental results are presented.
Investigation on surface roughness, tool wear and cutting power in MQL turning of bio-medical Ti-6Al-4V ELI alloy with sustainability

Ti-6Al-4V ELI (Grade 23) is highly recommended for bio-materials and due to its low thermal conductivity and chemically reactive properties, machinability is poor. Thus the current work emphasized on the selection of appropriate cooling technique and optimal cutting parameters for machining of Ti-6Al-4V ELI alloy with sustainability analysis for surface roughness, flank wear and cutting power. Initially, the cutting performances under dry, flood and MQL environments are compared and MQL is observed to better performed. At lower speed (70 m/min), MQL exhibited 26.38% and 19.69% lesser surface roughness relative to dry and flood cooling individually. At the same cutting condition, MQL assisted cutting resulted in lower flank wear relative to dry (157. 33%) and flood cooling (40%). Further, a detailed investigation has been made under MQL through Taguchi L18 design of experiments. The major mechanisms for flank wear are found to be abrasion, chipping and notch wear. Optimal data set through Grey relational analysis is found to be v1 (70 m/min), f1 (0.1 mm/rev) and d1 (0.1 mm) and improved. Quadratic regression model is found to be significant for prediction of responses. Sustainability Pugh matrix assessment revealed that MQL environment enhanced the economical, technological as well as environmental and operator health aspects. Reduction of energy consumption by 53.96% and savings of carbon footprints by 68.46 kg of CO2 observed under MQL at optimal conditions and thus saves manufacturing cost.
Combined UV and IR ozone profile retrieval from TROPOMI and CrIS measurements

Abstract. Vertical ozone profiles from combined spectral measurements in the ultraviolet and infrared spectral range were retrieved by using data from TROPOMI/S5P and CrIS/Suomi-NPP, which are flying in loose formation three minutes apart in the same orbit. A previous study of ozone profiles retrieved exclusively from TROPOMI UV spectra showed that the vertical resolution in the troposphere is clearly limited (Mettig et al, 2021). The vertical resolution and the vertical extent of the ozone profiles is improved by combining both wavelength ranges compared to retrievals limited to UV or IR spectral data only. The combined retrieval particularly improves the accuracy of the retrieved tropospheric ozone and to a lesser degree stratospheric ozone up to 30 km. An increase in the degree-of-freedom by one was found in the UV+IR retrieval compared to the UV-only retrieval. Compared to previous publications, which investigated combinations of UV and IR observations from the pairs OMI/TES and GOME-2/IASI, the degree of freedom is lower, which is attributed to the reduced spectral resolution of CrIS compared to TES or IASI. Tropospheric lidar and ozonesondes were used to validate the ozone profiles and tropospheric ozone column (TOC). From the comparison with tropospheric lidars both ozone profiles and TOCs show smaller biases for the retrieved data from the combined UV+IR observation than the UV observations alone. While the TOCs show good agreement, the profiles have a positive bias of more than 20 % between 10 and 15 km. The reason is probably a positive stratospheric bias from the IR retrieval. The comparison of the UV+IR and UV ozone profiles up to 30 km with MLS (Microwave Limb Sounder) demonstrates the improvement of the UV+IR profile in the stratosphere.
Dietary Curcumin Alleviated Aflatoxin B1-Induced Acute Liver Damage in Ducks by Regulating NLRP3–Caspase-1 Signaling Pathways

Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) is a mycotoxin widely distributed in animal feed and human food; it represents a serious threat to human and animal health. This study investigates the mechanism by which dietary curcumin protected liver against acute damage caused by AFB1 administration in ducks. One-day-old male ducks (n = 450) were randomly assigned to three groups, the control group, the AFB1 group, and the AFB1 + curcumin group; the first group were fed with basic diet, while the third group was fed basic diet containing 500 mg/kg curcumin. Ducks in the AFB1 group and AFB1 + curcumin group were challenged with AFB1 at the age of 70 days. The results show that AFB1 administration caused liver damage, increased CYP450 content and AFB1-DNA adducts in the liver, and induced oxidative stress and inflammatory response in the liver. Dietary curcumin significantly inhibited the generation of H2O2 and MDA in liver, activated the Nrf2-ARE signaling pathway, and suppressed the NLRP3–caspase-1 signaling pathway in the liver of ducks. Conclusively, curcumin in diet could protect duck liver against the generation of AFB1-DNA adducts, toxicity, oxidation stress and inflammatory response induced by AFB1 through regulating the NLRP3–caspase-1 signaling pathways, demonstrating that curcumin is a potential feed additive agent to reduce the serious harmful effects of AFB1 on duck breeding.
Engineering risk management in performance-based building environments

AbstractNowadays, a wide range of stakeholders seek explicit performance and risk information on construction projects. These stakeholders include end-users, authorities, insurance companies and financial institutions, among others. They look for proof that engineering risks are being properly managed and that specified performance-based requirements are fulfilled throughout all stages of the project (e.g. technical requirements related to the building such as structural safety, structural serviceability, structural durability, fire safety, energy efficiency, or others). Such demonstration can be conveyed through statements of technical conformity, such as technical risk reports or engineering performance certificates. Statements of conformity are particularly valuable to make informed decisions associated with contractual or other legal warranties against building nonconformities. This paper describes the conceptual background and the methodologies undertaken to design and develop a management framework .
Recovering and Modeling Sensor and Actuator Architecture in Automotive Embedded Systems

From the past decade onward, a trend has been seen in which the amount of code used in a vehicle is increasing exponentially. Because of this growing factor, the automotive industry is gradually shifting towards software-intensive. As in most software-intensive industries, the system’s evolution is driven at a fast pace by the market’s requirements. The re-usability of valuable legacy code is an effective method of reducing the time to market. In Scania, software development is predominantly based on an extensive legacy platform. In this context, maintaining a comprehensive software architecture description is necessary for system understanding, re-usability, maintenance, system verification and safety analysis. However, to develop such a description involves additional resources, and it is difficult to maintain consistency with evolving implementations. One way to solve this problem is Reverse Engineering. The software architecture can be retrieved automatically from embedded source code and presented in a manner specific to the domain. This thesis is part of the ESPRESSO project. One part of ESPRESSO is to recover the truck’s software architecture from source code. The objective of this work is to extend the coverage of the architecture recovery by adding connections between hardware and software. To achieve this, a hardware model, inspired by the EAST-ADL hardware meta-model, has been developed and employed in the existing infrastructure. The hardware model was used to gather and process information in order to store it to the Neo4J graph database. User interface suggestions were provided for querying, but the implementation was not part of the thesis. The challenges facing this work arose mainly due to the fact that each Scania department uses its own partial system model of the truck’s architecture. Multipleviews and concepts from different departments had to be merged in a single model. To achieve validation to a certain degree, the populated database was used in connection with the user interface. The interface was the mean by which a few scenarios were checked both against internal technical documentation and the engineers that are working with those systems.
Lessons Learned for Emergency Feeding During Modifications to 11 School Feeding Programs in Latin America and the Caribbean During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Background: School feeding programs (SFPs) can play a crucial role in the emergency food and nutrition response, but there is a dearth of information on how SFPs operate during emergencies. Design and Methods: A rapid comparative assessment of 11 SFPs throughout Latin America and the Caribbean during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data from (1) systematic document search and (2) surveys with key informants (n = 23) about barriers/facilitators to modifications were systematically analyzed using a multiple case study approach. Results: During the pandemic, all SFPs continued (although continuation plans varied from a few days in Chile to > 1 month in Puerto Rico) via food kits, food vouchers, and/or grab n’ go meals. The SFP implementation was highly dependent on the programs’ autonomy and financial support, which impacted their logistics to acquire and distribute foods during the pandemic. The types of foods offered in some SFPs suggest that established nutritional guidelines were not always followed. Key informants expressed concerns about the deterioration of the nutritional quality of foods offered during the pandemic and lack of community engagement that impeded distribution to the neediest. Conclusions: Results underscore the urgency for clear implementation guidance on how to modify SFP during emergencies. Public health implications include (1) allocation of autonomous resources to an intersectoral working group to safeguard nutritional benefits during emergencies, (2) strengthening efforts of SFP community engagement before and during emergencies, and (3) establishing guidelines of the types of foods that can be distributed to meet the nutritional needs of beneficiaries during emergencies.
Public Attitudes

This chapter discusses developments in research on citizens’ attitudes towards the welfare state. The introduction briefly reminds the reader about older, and still vibrant, research traditions. From then on, however, the focus is on four distinct ‘new directions’ that became prominent recently and were only present on the fringe of the field a decade ago. One key development concerns conceptualizations and measures. A second, fast-growing literature deals with the consequences of ethnic diversity and immigration on welfare attitudes. A third literature examines whether demographic change has triggered intergenerational conflict in such attitudes. A fourth research programme concerns an increasing attention to the causes and effects of welfare state ‘performance evaluations’. Taken together, these subfields demonstrate how the broader field of welfare attitude research is responding to the significant welfare state challenges and changes documented elsewhere in this Handbook.
The El Salvadoran peace process five years on: An assessment

With the Cold War having ended, there is a real possibility that countries such as El Salvador that served as Cold War battlegrounds will again be relegated to the back burner of American political scholarship. The central argument of this article is that marginalizing El Salvador's recent political history would be a mistake because this history contains a large number of important lessons for ongoing U.S. peacemaking efforts in conflicts such as those in Bosnia, Northern Ireland, and the Middle East. Three specific questions are addressed: First, how were the parties to this conflict able, after a brutal, decade‐long civil war that had polarized their country, to achieve a negotiated peace settlement? Second, five years after the 1992 peace accord, what obstacles remain to an enduring peace settlement? Third, while the El Salvadoran civil war had unique features that will not be present in other violent civil conflicts, what are the lessons of the El Salvadoran peace process for peacemakers in such conf.
Buzz and Recommendations on the Internet. What Impacts on Box-Office Success?

Potential moviegoers may find information on the Internet on movie critics' recommendations and web users' comments on movies they have seen. The more a recommendation is shared by a large number of individuals, the greater is the buzz. This research explores to what extent this online buzz can be a predictor and/or modifier of box-office results, particularly the week following the launch. A field experiment on 534 movies shows that the buzz, and more specifically critics' recommendations appearing on the allocine.com website, is significantly correlated with box-office results after the first week. Various developments show that these online recommendations may not only predict but also influence box-office results.
Degradation of gold-aluminium ball bonds by aging and contamination

The degradation of gold aluminium ball bonds has been studied by shear tests, resistivity measurements, micrographs, EDX and AES as a function of aging time at elevated temperatures and after various contamination treatments before and after bonding. Samples were subjected to ion etching treatment immediately before bonding in order to guarantee a comparable initial state. Incorporation of large amounts of Cl, Br, and F into the surface layer of the pad and other contamination treatments before bonding did not show detectable effects in subsequent annealing treatments as long as the bonding process itself has not been impeded by thick surface layers. The degradation process during annealing can be described as a three stage mechanism. Each stage can be clearly distinguished by the fracture behavior in the shear test, the morphology of the bond shown by the micrographs and by the change of contact resistivity.
The Value of Ultrasound Elastography in Diffuse Thyroid Disease among a Sample of Iraqi Population

Abstract Background: Early detection of many thyroid disorders is essential in the management. Ultrasound elastography is beneficial in the assessment of diffuse thyroid diseases. Aim of study: To assess the role of ultrasound strain elastography in the diagnosis of diffuse non nodular thyroid disease in comparison to healthy controls and in the characterization and differentiation of the types of diffuse thyroid diseases. Patients and methods: It is a prospective analytic study performed in the Radiology Department of Oncology Teaching Hospital/Medical city Complex in Baghdad during the period from 1st of December 2019 to 30th of June, 2020 on convenient sample of 25 patients with diffuse thyroid disease, in addition to a sample of 25 healthy control persons. The diagnosis of diffuse thyroid diseases was made by combination of clinical symptoms, laboratory investigations and thyroid ultrasound. Results: The mean elastography strain ratio (1.36) of patients with diffuse thyroid disease was significantly higher than (0.82) mean of elastography strain ratio for healthy control persons (p<0.001). The acceptable cutoff elastography strain ratio in the diagnosis of diffuse thyroid disease was 0.89 with validity results (80% sensitivity, 70% specificity and 75% accuracy). The mean elastography strain ratio for patients with Hashimotos thyroiditis was significantly higher than the strain ratio of patients with Graves disease (p=0.002). Conclusions: The ultrasound elastography is useful in the assessment and characterization of diffuse thyroid disease. The ultrasound elastography strain ratio value is helpful in differentiation between different diffuse thyroid diseases especially between Hashimotos thyroiditis and Graves's disease
Intensive Care Nursing During the Pandemia Process: The Effect of Perceived Stress on Compassion Fatigue

Objective: It is thought that the Coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic may cause compassion fatigue by increasing the perceived stress level of intensive care nurses. For this reason, this descriptive study was carried out to determine the effect of the intensive care nurses perceived stress on compassion fatigue during the pandemic process. Methods: The study sample consists of 149 intensive care nurses who can actively use the internet and agree to participate in the study voluntarily. The data of the study were collected via internet using Data Collection Form, Perceived Stress Scale and Compassion Fatigue Short Scale. Written permission was obtained from the Non-Interventional Clinical Research Ethics Committee of a university to conduct the study. Descriptive statistics, one-way analysis of variance, independent groups t-test, Pearson correlation analysis were used to evaluate the data. Results: In this study, 98.7% of the intensive care nurses stated that they experienced stress during the pandemic process. Intensive care nurses Perceived Stress Scale total score, Compassion Fatigue Short Scale total score, secondary trauma and burnout subscale mean scores were 46.42±7.46, 76.80±23.37, 27.87±11.17 and 48.93±15.01 respectively. A highly significant positive correlation was found between the Perceived Stress Scale and Compassion Fatigue Short Scale mean scores. Conclusion: As a result, in this study, it was determined that the perceived stress and compassion fatigue level of intensive care nurses during the pandemic process was high. In addition, it was found that as the level of stress perceived by nurses increased, the level of compassion fatigue also increased. Psychosocial monitoring and support of intensive care nurses is recommended.