Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
COVID-19 mortality rates in South America related to environmental factors

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic started its outbreak in South America in mid-February 2020, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths within a period of 8 months. This ecological study aimed to investigate whether environmental factors like air quality and climate could explain the variability in COVID-19 mortality rate across 36 South American cities spanning different climate regimes. The cities’ climate and air pollution background were characterised using daily data from surface weather stations and tropospheric column NO2 from OMI (Ozone Monitoring Instrument). Results indicate a drop in NO2 concentrations in six metropolitan areas in the first month of the epidemics, following the mobility restrictions. Temperature and NO2 exposure were positively associated with deaths by COVID-19, with mortality rate ratios (MRR) of 1.25 (95% CI 1.20–1.30) and 1.02 (95% CI 1.01–1.03), respectively, in the 100th epidemic day. The positive association between temperature and deaths related to COVID-19 suggest that the likely protective effect of temperature on virus spread was overwhelmed by the influence of socioeconomic conditions, access to health care, cultural aspects and effectiveness of social distancing policies.
The Effect of Prucalopride on the Completion Rate and Polyp Detection Rate of Colon Capsule Endoscopies

Purpose To investigate whether the prokinetic prucalopride increases the completion rate of colon capsule endoscopy (CCE). Secondary outcomes included demographic distribution, polyp detection rate (PDR), distribution of Leighton–Rex grade, and adverse events. Patients and Methods In a nested cohort within the CareForColon2015 trial, a subgroup of 406 individuals underwent CCE in 2021. The first half (control) received the standard bowel preparation and the second half (prucalopride) was supplemented with 2 mg of prucalopride. Transit times and bowel preparations were analyzed and completion rates calculated as those having timely transit and acceptable bowel cleanliness. Major adverse events were recorded continuously and minor adverse events were quantified from questionnaires. Results The group demographics were homogenous. The prevalence ratio for complete CCE was 1.32 (CI 95% 1.15; 1.53) in the prucalopride group compared to the control group. Completion rate was 74.9% in the prucalopride group and 56.7% in the control group. The proportions of acceptable bowel preparation and complete transits were higher in the prucalopride group. The mean CCE transit time was 2 hours and 8 minutes faster in the prucalopride group. The PDR was higher in the intervention group with 55.7% compared to 36.0% in the control group for polyps greater than 9 mm, whereas the groups’ PDRs were similar for small and diminutive polyps. In all, 589 polyps (mean 2.9) were found in the prucalopride group compared to 522 polyps (mean 2.6) in the control group. Conclusion Prucalopride led to an increase in CCE completion rates. The proportions of complete transits and acceptable bowel preparations were higher in the prucalopride group. The PDR was higher in the prucalopride group compared to the control group. No major adverse events were identified. Nausea, diarrhea, headache and fatigue were more commonly reported in the prucalopride group.
Eye-Tracking Assistive Technologies for Individuals With Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS, is a progressive nervous system disorder that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, resulting in the loss of muscle control. For individuals with ALS, where mobility is limited to the movement of the eyes, the use of eye-tracking-based applications can be applied to achieve some basic tasks with certain digital interfaces. This paper presents a review of existing eye-tracking software and hardware through which eye-tracking their application is sketched as an assistive technology to cope with ALS. Eye-tracking also provides a suitable alternative as control of game elements. Furthermore, artificial intelligence has been utilized to improve eye-tracking technology with significant improvement in calibration and accuracy. Gaps in literature are highlighted in the study to offer a direction for future research.
Lipid Intake and Breast Cancer Risk: Is There a Link? A New Focus and Meta-Analysis.

Objective To determine if there is an association between total lipid intake, saturated fatty acid (SFA), Poly- and Mono-Unsaturated Fatty Acid (PUFA and MUFA) and cholesterol intake and breast cancer risk. Materials and Methods We conducted a systematic review of the literature and a meta-analysis following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. We included all cohort and case-control studies published up to December 2020 with subgroup analysis according to menopausal status. Results We included 44 articles for analysis. There was no association between total fat, SFA, MUFA, PUFA and cholesterol intake and breast cancer in the general population and in pre-menopausal women. In postmenopausal women, high SFA consumption was associated with increased breast cancer risk in case-control studies [relative risk (RR): 1.12; confidence interval (CI) 95%: 1.03-1.21; p = 0.006 but not in cohort studies (RR: 1.01; CI 95%: 0.85-1.19; p = 0.93). Conclusion There was a weak association between high SFA consumption and breast cancer risk in post-menopausal women, however there was high heterogeneity for this analysis. As lipids can have different actions in the same family, studies should rather focus on specific lipid consumption.
Evaluation of Staphylococcus aureus Colonization in Adult Patients Undergoing Tonsillectomy for Recurrent Tonsillitis

Background and objectives: Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is often recovered from the pharynx. However, the role of this pathogen in the etiology of tonsillar inflammation is still unclear and complicated due to frequent carriage of S. aureus. The aim of the study was to evaluate the frequency and the clinical importance of S. aureus colonization and biofilm production ability in patients with recurrent tonsillitis (RT) using patient samples from tonsillar crypts during tonsillectomy, and from the throat, nasal cavity, and armpits after tonsillectomy. Materials and Methods: A case series study was carried out at a tertiary referral center among 16 patients diagnosed with RT who were undergoing tonsillectomy. Samples from tonsillar crypts were obtained during tonsillectomy, and samples from the throat, nasal cavity, and armpit were obtained a year after surgery. An evaluation of S. aureus incidence, biofilm formation, and antibacterial susceptibility was performed. Results: During tonsillectomy, 16 strains of S. aureus were isolated from 16 patients, while 15/16 S. aureus strains were biofilm producers. A year after tonsillectomy, 8 S. aureus strains were isolated from 6 out of 16 patients, while 6/8 S. aureus strains were biofilm producers. After tonsillectomy, 3 patients showed S. aureus in throat culture. Conclusions: In 10/16 cases S. aureus was the causative agent of RT, in 4/16 cases patients had a predisposition to colonization of S. aureus, and in 2/16 cases S. aureus was a part of the patients` oral microbiome. Tonsillectomy results in less frequent isolation of S. aureus strains.
Dynamic Changes in Reactive Oxygen Species in the Shoot Apex Contribute to Stem Cell Death in Arabidopsis thaliana

In monocarpic plants, stem cells are fated to die. However, the potential mechanism of stem cell death has remained elusive. Here, we reveal that the levels of two forms of reactive oxygen species (ROS), superoxide anion free radical (O2·−) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), show dynamic changes in the shoot apex during the plant life cycle of Arabidopsis thaliana. We found that the level of O2·− decreased and disappeared at four weeks after bolting (WAB), while H2O2 appeared at 3 WAB and showed a burst at 5 WAB. The timing of dynamic changes in O2·− and H2O2 was delayed for approximately three weeks in clv3-2, which has a longer lifespan. Moreover, exogenous application of H2O2 inhibited the expression of the stem cell determinant WUSCHEL (WUS) and promoted the expression of the developmentally programmed cell death (dPCD) marker gene ORESARA 1 (ORE1). These results indicate that H2O2 triggers an important signal inducing dPCD in stem cells. Given that O2·− plays roles in maintaining WUS expression and stem cell activity, we speculate that the dynamic shift from O2·− to H2O2 in the shoot apex results in stem cell death. Our findings provide novel insights for understanding ROS-mediated regulation during plant stem cell death.
Local Government Financial Statements Disclosure: A Reflection on Governmental Performance in Central Java, Indonesia

In Indonesia, local government accountability is a reflection of its performance that can be seen from the disclosure of local government financial statements in accordance with Government Regulation (PP) Number 71 of 2010 concerning Government Accounting Standards. Based on the reference and the previous study, the level of adequacy of financial statement disclosure is influenced by several factors: audit findings, legislative size, local government budget expenditure, intergovernmental revenue, and the number of local governments’ agencies. This study analyzes the effect of those factors on the disclosure of local government financial statements in Central Java Provence, Indonesia from 2017 to 2019. This is a quantitative study with secondary data types obtained from Local Government Financial Report Examination Results (LHP LKPD) districts/cities in Central Java Province in 2017 – 2019. The sample consists of 75 local government financial statement disclosure from 34 districts or cities obtained through purposive sampling methods. The analysis method uses multiple linear regression. The result shows audit findings and local government budget expenditure affect the disclosure of local government financial statements. Meanwhile, the legislative size, intergovernmental revenue and number of local governments agencies do not affect the local government financial statements disclosure. This research can be used as an evaluation for local governments in increasing transparency and accountability in their financial management by applicable laws and regulations. This study has limitations that do not describe the overall level of disclosure of local government financial statements, in future research, it is expected to use a longer period and expand the research area.
Development of Bamboo Zephyr Composite and the Physical and Mechanical Properties

The objective of this study is to determine the effect of fiber direction arrangement and layer composition of hybrid bamboo laminate boards on the physical and mechanical properties. The raw material used was tali bamboo ( Gigantochloa apus (J.A. Schultes) Kurs) rope in the form of flat sheets (zephyr) and falcata veneer ( Paraserianthes falcataria (L) Nielsen). Zephyr bamboo was arranged in three layers using water-based isocyanate polymer (WBPI) with a glue spread rate of 300 g/m 2 . There were variations in the substitution of the core layer with falcata veneers (hybrid) as much as two layers and using a glue spread rate of 170 g/m 2 . The laminated bamboo board was cold-pressed at a pressure of 22.2 kgf/cm 2 for 1 h, and the physical and mechanical properties were evaluated. The results showed that the arrangement of the fiber direction significantly affected the dimensional stability, modulus of rupture, modulus of elasticity, shear strength, and screw withdrawal strength. However, the composition of the layers had no significant effect on the physical and mechanical properties. The bonding quality of bamboo laminate boards with WBPI was considered to be quite good, as shown by the absence of delamination in all test samples. The bamboo hybrid laminate board can be an alternative based on the physical and mechanical properties that can meet laminated board standards.
Functionality and adaptability of design solutions for public apartment buildings in Ghana : towards evidence-based design for sustainable lifespan building performance

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Towards the Optimal Rate Memory Tradeoff in Caching With Coded Placement

The idea of coded caching for content distribution networks was introduced by Maddah-Ali and Niesen, who considered the canonical <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$(N, K)$ </tex-math></inline-formula> cache network in which a server with <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$N$ </tex-math></inline-formula> files satisfies the demands of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$K$ </tex-math></inline-formula> users (each equipped with an independent cache of size <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$M$ </tex-math></inline-formula>). The optimal rate memory tradeoff for demands where all files are requested by at least one user has been characterized only for small caches where <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$M\leq \frac {1}{K}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and large caches where <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$M\geq N-\frac {N}{K}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. For the case <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$N \leq K \leq 2N-1$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, we derive new lower bounds for small and large caches and propose a new coded caching scheme for large caches. Along with the scheme proposed by Gómez-Vilardebó, this leads to a characterization of the optimal rate memory tradeoff for <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$M\leq \frac {1}{K}+\frac {1}{K(N-1)}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$M\geq N-\frac {N}{K}-\frac {N-1}{K(K-1)}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. For the case <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$2N-1\leq K$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, we derive a new lower bound for large caches, which proves the optimality of the scheme proposed by Yu et al. and leads to a characterization of the optimal rate memory tradeoff for <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$M\geq N-\frac {2N}{K}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. We also derive a new lower bound for small caches, which improves upon previously known lower bounds.
Socio-Demographic Factors Associated with Antibiotics and Antibiotic Resistance Knowledge and Practices in Vietnam: A Cross-Sectional Survey

(1) Background: Antibiotic resistance (ABR) has been escalating to seriously high levels worldwide, accelerated by the misuse and overuse of antibiotics, especially in Vietnam. In this work, we investigated the Vietnamese public socio-demographic and knowledge factors associated with inappropriate practices of antibiotics to better understand the country’s antibiotic use and ABR. (2) Methods: To this end, a cross-sectional survey was conducted among Vietnamese people aged 18–60 years via Computer Assisted Telephone Interviews (CATIs) from May 2019 to November 2019. (3) Results: Among 3069 responses distributed equally in all 63 provinces in Vietnam, 1306 respondents completed the survey (response rate of 42.5%). Socio-demographically, most participants were male (56.4%), 18–25 years old (40.4%), located in Southern Vietnam (67.1%), highly educated (93.7%), and possessed medical insurance (95.3%). Respondents with higher education levels (college and above) had 2.663 times higher knowledge scores than those with lower education levels (p < 0.001). High-income respondents possessed more knowledge than low-income respondents (OR = 1.555, CI 95% 0.835–2.910, p = 0.024). Students, non-skilled workers, skilled workers, and professionals and managers had 0.052, 0.150, 0.732, and 0.393 times lower practice scores than the unemployed group, respectively (p < 0.001). Furthermore, respondents with higher/adequate knowledge scores had higher practice scores than those with inadequate knowledge scores (p < 0.05). (4) Conclusions: The findings indicate that socio-demographic differences in knowledge and practices exist, and focusing on these issues should be the priority in forthcoming interventions. The research data also provide information for policy makers to raise the community’s awareness of ABR.
Energy Efficient HARQ for Ultrareliability via a Novel Outage Probability Bound and Geometric Programming

Hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) is a key enabler for ultrareliable communications. This paper optimizes transmit power for the initial transmission and the subsequent retransmissions of HARQ with either incremental redundancy or Chase combining, aiming to minimize the expected energy consumption given the target outage probability and the target latency. The main challenge is due to the fact that the outage probability is a complicated function of the power variables which are nested in successive convolutions. The existing works mostly use a classic upper bound to approximate the outage probability by assuming unbounded transmit power, then convert the original problem to a geometric programming (GP) problem. In contrast, we propose a novel and much tighter upper bound by taking the practical power limit into consideration. The new bound and the resulting new GP method are further extended to a broader group of channel models with various fading, multiple antennas, and multiple receivers. As shown in simulations, the GP method based on the new bound significantly outperforms the existing strategies that either fix transmit power or optimize power by the classic bounding technique.
Effects of Harvesting Times and Germplasm Accessions on the Physical Properties of Roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa L.) Seeds

Roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa L.) is an important crop grown successfully in tropical and subtropical climates with huge nutritional, economic, and industrial benefits. The physical properties of seeds, particularly length, width, thickness, mean diameter, angle of repose, degree of sphericity, mass, and surface area, have been found to play significant roles in designing equipment for storage, transportation, and subsequent field operations of the seeds. Therefore, a study was carried out to determine the effects of different harvesting times on the physical properties of seeds of twelve roselle accessions for their subsequent industrial management. In total, 12 × 3 factorial arrangements in Randomized Complete Block Design and Completely Randomized Design were used for the field and laboratory experiments, respectively. The first factor was germplasm accessions at twelve levels (HS08, HS11, HS19, HS25, HS27, HS32, HS41, HS58, HS59, HS69, HS83, and H86), and the second factor was harvesting times at three levels (physiological maturity, one week after physiological maturity, and two weeks after physiological maturity). Seeds of accession HS32 harvested at the physiological maturity stage had the highest moisture content, which was similar to the other 11 accessions harvested at the same stage. The seeds of accession HS08 harvested at physiological maturity had significantly the best values in seed length (4.33 mm), seed width (4.30 mm), seed thickness (2.43 mm), seed geometric mean diameter (3.83 mm), seed angle of repose (20.57°), seed sphericity (0.76), seed surface area (18.57 mm2), and seed mass (0.05 g). Further, there were strongly positive and significant correlations between seed width and seed angle of repose (r = 0.93); seed width and seed length (r = 0.84); seed width and mean seed diameter (r = 0.89); seed width and seed sphericity (r = 0.68); seed width and seed surface area (0.94). There were also strongly positive and significant correlations between seed thickness and seed sphericity (r = 0.79) and also between seed thickness and seed surface area (r = 0.63). In conclusion, the physical properties of accession HS08 harvested at the physiological maturity stage could be very important in designing machinery for roselle seeds storage, transportation, and subsequent field operations.
The Impact of a Counseling Techniques Course on Self-Efficacy and Stigma

Authors analyzed data from counseling trainees in a skills course to examine self-efficacy and stigma. It was hypothesized that self-efficacy would increase, self-stigma would decrease, and that increased self-efficacy would decrease self-stigma in CTs. Increased self-efficacy was statistically significant, but self-efficacy changes did not predict decreased self-stigma. Increased self-efficacy was predictive of self-stigma related to help-seeking. Authors offer implications for counselor educators and counselors. What is the public significance of this article? This study suggests that self-efficacy increases in counseling trainees across a clinical skills course, and that this self-efficacy also predicts the stigma trainees felt about seeking help for a mental health concern. Although it was expected that a skills course would help increase self-efficacy, the study suggests that increased self-efficacy does not relate to the stigma that trainees feel about mental health treatment.
Uncovering Novel Pre-Treatment Molecular Biomarkers for Anti-TNF Therapeutic Response in Patients with Crohn’s Disease

Neutralising monoclonal antibodies for tumour necrosis factor (TNF) has been widely used to treat Crohn’s disease (CD) in clinical practice. However, differential individual response necessitates a therapeutic response assessment of anti-TNF agents in CD patients for optimizing therapeutic strategy. We aimed to predict anti-TNF therapy response in CD patients using transcriptome analyses. Transcriptome analyses were performed using data from the Gene Expression Omnibus, GeneCards, and Human Protein Atlas databases. The significantly mitigated biological functions associated with anti-TNF therapy resistance in CD patients encompassed immune pathways, including Interleukin-17 (IL-17) signaling, cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, and rheumatoid arthritis. The scores of immune cell markers, including neutrophils, monocytes, and macrophages/monocytes were also significantly decreased in non-responders compared with that measured in anti-TNF therapy responders. The KAT2B gene, associated with IL-17 cytokine mediated neutrophil mobilization and activation, was significantly under-expressed in both tissue and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) in anti-TNF therapy-resistant CD patients. The reduced expression of several pro-inflammatory cytokines due to down-regulated IL-17 signaling, is suggestive of the primary non-response to anti-TNF agents in CD patients. Furthermore, the PBMC KAT2B gene signature may be a promising pre-treatment prognostic biomarker for anti-TNF drug response in CD patients.