Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Long-term exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 incidence: a prospective study of residents in the city of Varese, Northern Italy

Objectives To investigate the association between long-term exposure to airborne pollutants and the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 up to March 2021 in a prospective study of residents in Varese city. Methods Citizens of Varese aged ≥18 years as of 31 December 2019 were linked by residential address to 2018 average annual exposure to outdoor concentrations of PM2.5, PM10, NO2, NO and ozone modelled using the Flexible Air quality Regional Model (FARM) chemical transport model. Citizens were further linked to regional datasets for COVID-19 case ascertainment (positive nasopharyngeal swab specimens) and to define age, sex, living in a residential care home, population density and comorbidities. We estimated rate ratios and additional numbers of cases per 1 µg/m3 increase in air pollutants from single- and bi-pollutant Poisson regression models. Results The 62 848 residents generated 4408 cases. Yearly average PM2.5 exposure was 12.5 µg/m3. Age, living in a residential care home, history of stroke and medications for diabetes, hypertension and obstructive airway diseases were independently associated with COVID-19. In single-pollutant multivariate models, PM2.5 was associated with a 5.1% increase in the rate of COVID-19 (95% CI 2.7% to 7.5%), corresponding to 294 additional cases per 100 000 person-years. The association was confirmed in bi-pollutant models; excluding subjects in residential care homes; and further adjusting for area-based indicators of socioeconomic level and use of public transportation. Similar findings were observed for PM10, NO2 and NO. Ozone was associated with a 2% decrease in disease rate, the association being reversed in bi-pollutant models. Conclusions Long-term exposure to low levels of air pollutants, especially PM2.5, increased the incidence of COVID-19. The causality warrants confirmation in future studies; meanwhile, government efforts to further reduce air pollution should continue.
Changes in Fatty Acids Profile, Health Indices, and Physical Characteristics of Organic Eggs from Laying Hens at the Beginning of the First and Second Laying Cycles

Simple Summary Eggs are some of the most valuable components of the human diet. Nowadays, the “trend” is for humans to follow healthy lifestyle behaviours. Moreover, special emphasis is placed on animal welfare and in the handling of animals. Thus, hen-laying cycles are more often extended (or ended) by moulting, followed by another cycle, instead of depopulation. Egg quality during the life of a hen was monitored to optimise the hen’s age of the cycle ending (in terms of fatty acid composition and its impact on human health). The present study compared the egg qualities from hens, of two laying cycles, regarding the fatty acids profile, and hypocholesterolemic, atherogenic, and thrombogenic indices. Younger hens had higher albumen and yolk indices, Haugh units, and eggshell strength; monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) were lower and saturated fatty acids (SFAs) were higher. The polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) n-6/n-3 ratio, saturation, atherogenic, and thrombogenic indices were significantly lower in the egg yolks from older hens compared to younger layers. These findings prove that it is practical to utilize them in the organic farming system during a period of two years. Abstract The present study compared the fatty acid profile and some physical parameters of eggs from hens reared according to the organic system at the beginning of the first and second laying cycle. A total of 1080 eggs were analysed at the beginning of the first (from the 28th to 30th week of age) and the second (from the 78th to 80th week of age) laying cycle. It was found that the hen ages influenced the egg weight, egg surface area, yolk proportion, and eggshell colour. Albumen and eggshell proportion, albumen, yolk index, Haugh unit score, and eggshell strength were lower in eggs from older hens compared with those produced from younger layers. Monounsaturated fatty acids were found in higher amounts than saturated fatty acids and polyunsaturated fatty acids in egg yolks of eggs from layers only at the beginning of the second laying cycle. The PUFAn-6/n-3 ratio, saturation, atherogenic, and thrombogenic indices were significantly lower in the egg yolks from older hens compared to younger layers. These findings (regarding the eggs from the older ones) prove that it is practical to utilize them in the organic farming system during a period of two years.
High-frame-rate A-mode ultrasound for calibration-free cuffless carotid pressure: feasibility study using lower body negative pressure intervention

Abstract Purpose Existing technologies to measure central blood pressure (CBP) intrinsically depend on peripheral pressure or calibration models derived from it. Pharmacological or physiological interventions yielding different central and peripheral responses compromise the accuracy of such methods. We present a high-frame-rate ultrasound technology for cuffless and calibration-free evaluation of BP from the carotid artery. The system uses a pair of single-element ultrasound transducers to capture the arterial diameter and local pulse wave velocity (PWV) for the evaluation of beat-by-beat BP employing a novel biomechanical model. Materials and methods System’s functionality assessment was conducted on eight male subjects (26 ± 4 years, normotensive and no history of cardiovascular risks) by perturbing pressure via short-term moderate lower body negative pressure (LBNP) intervention (−40 mmHg for 1 min). The ability of the system to capture dynamic responses of carotid pressure to LBNP was investigated and compared against the responses of peripheral pressure measured using a continuous BP monitor. Results While the carotid pressure manifested trends similar to finger measurements during LBNP, the system also captured the differential carotid-to-peripheral pressure response, which corroborates the literature. The carotid diastolic and mean pressures agreed with the finger pressures (limits-of-agreement within ±7 mmHg) and exhibited acceptable uncertainty (mean absolute errors were 2.4 ± 3.5 and 2.6 ± 4.0 mmHg, respectively). Concurrent to the literature, the carotid systolic and pulse pressures (PPs) were significantly lower than those of the finger pressures by 11.1 ± 9.4 and 11.3 ± 8.2 mmHg, respectively (p < .0001). Conclusions The study demonstrated the method’s potential for providing cuffless and calibration-free pressure measurements while reliably capturing the physiological aspects, such as PP amplification and dynamic pressure responses to intervention.
Effects of Dietary Cereal and Protein Source on Fiber Digestibility, Composition, and Metabolic Activity of the Intestinal Microbiota in Weaner Piglets

Simple Summary Rye and rapeseed meal can be alternative feed components for weaner piglets instead of wheat and soybean meal. Both components can help to meet current challenges in pig nutrition, such as increasingly dry weather conditions and the high amount of imported soybean. Since they contain more and differently composed fiber, effects on digestive physiology and intestinal microbiota might help to maintain gut health and prevent post-weaning diarrhea. This study shows that despite a similar composition of the large intestinal microbiota, the higher amount and solubility of complex carbohydrates from rye lead to a higher fermentative activity compared to wheat, which is considered a beneficial effect. The high amount of insoluble dietary fiber in rapeseed-based diets lowered bacterial metabolic activity and caused a shift toward insoluble fiber degrading bacteria. Abstract This study aimed to investigate the effect of fiber-rich rye and rapeseed meal (RSM) compared to wheat and soybean meal (SBM) on fiber digestibility and the composition and metabolic activity of intestinal microbiota. At weaning, 88 piglets were allocated to four feeding groups: wheat/SBM, wheat/RSM, rye/SBM, and rye/RSM. Dietary inclusion level was 48% for rye and wheat, 25% for SBM, and 30% for RSM. Piglets were euthanized after 33 days for collection of digesta and feces. Samples were analyzed for dry matter and non-starch-polysaccharide (NSP) digestibility, bacterial metabolites, and relative abundance of microbiota. Rye-based diets had higher concentrations of soluble NSP than wheat-based diets. RSM-diets were higher in insoluble NSP compared to SBM. Rye-fed piglets showed a higher colonic and fecal digestibility of NSP (p < 0.001, p = 0.001, respectively). RSM-fed piglets showed a lower colonic and fecal digestibility of NSP than SBM-fed piglets (p < 0.001). Rye increased jejunal and colonic concentration of short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) compared to wheat (p < 0.001, p = 0.016, respectively). RSM-fed pigs showed a lower jejunal concentration of SCFA (p = 0.001) than SBM-fed pigs. Relative abundance of Firmicutes was higher (p = 0.039) and of Proteobacteria lower (p = 0.002) in rye-fed pigs compared to wheat. RSM reduced Firmicutes and increased Actinobacteria (jejunum, colon, feces: p < 0.050), jejunal Proteobacteria (p = 0.019) and colonic Bacteroidetes (p = 0.014). Despite a similar composition of the colonic microbiota, the higher amount and solubility of NSP from rye resulted in an increased fermentative activity compared to wheat. The high amount of insoluble dietary fiber in RSM-based diets reduced bacterial metabolic activity and caused a shift toward insoluble fiber degrading bacteria. Further research should focus on host–microbiota interaction to improve feeding concepts with a targeted use of dietary fiber.
Muscle and Bone Impairment in Infantile Nephropathic Cystinosis: New Concepts

Cystinosis Metabolic Bone Disease (CMBD) has emerged during the last decade as a well-recognized, long-term complication in patients suffering from infantile nephropathic cystinosis (INC), resulting in significant morbidity and impaired quality of life in teenagers and adults with INC. Its underlying pathophysiology is complex and multifactorial, associating complementary, albeit distinct entities, in addition to ordinary mineral and bone disorders observed in other types of chronic kidney disease. Amongst these long-term consequences are renal Fanconi syndrome, hypophosphatemic rickets, malnutrition, hormonal abnormalities, muscular impairment, and intrinsic cellular bone defects in bone cells, due to CTNS mutations. Recent research data in the field have demonstrated abnormal mineral regulation, intrinsic bone defects, cysteamine toxicity, muscle wasting and, likely interleukin-1-driven inflammation in the setting of CMBD. Here we summarize these new pathophysiological deregulations and discuss the crucial interplay between bone and muscle in INC. In future, vitamin D and/or biotherapies targeting the IL1β pathway may improve muscle wasting and subsequently CMBD, but this remains to be proven.
Performance Evaluation of the Compartment Bag Test for E. coli in Drinking Water

Nearly 748 million people worldwide lack access to improved drinking water sources, putting them at risk for waterborne illnesses. Fecal contamination of drinking water is one of the largest contributors to the 1.8 million deaths per year from diarrheal disease. Because many countries lack active monitoring of drinking water quality, it is often unknown if consumed waters are safe. Current microbial monitoring methods typically require the use of specialized equipment, electricity, and trained personnel. However, in lowresource settings, these capacities are often unavailable. Therefore, there is a need for a low-cost, portable, and simple method for determining the microbial quality of drinking water in low-resource settings. The drawbacks of current water tests based on fecal indicator bacteria may be overcome using the Compartment Bag Test (CBT), a novel microbial water quality test innovated at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The CBT uses a simple design of a clear, chambered plastic bag with various compartment volumes totaling 100 mL to determine a Most Probable Number (MPN) estimate of Escherichia coli bacteria concentration using a chromogenic liquid medium. This method could provide actionable results to identify microbially unsafe water and decrease microbial water quality health risks, if its performance is further documented against standard tests under a variety of use conditions. The goal of this research is to evaluate and document the performance of the CBT. A laboratory evaluation was conducted to explore the use of CBT to detect E. coli compared to a standard test using the Colilert medium in Quanti-Trays at various incubation temperatures. The CBT was also evaluated in field settings by incorporating the CBT in Demographic Health Surveys in Peru and Liberia. Household surveys were conducted in Tanzania to evaluate the CBT as a health behavior and education tool. Overall these studies demonstrate that 1) the CBT detects and quantifies E. coli comparable to standard methods, 2) incubation temperature between 27°C to 44°C provide comparable E. coli MPN results, 3) the CBT can be utilized in low resource settings and incorporated within national health surveys, and 4) the use of the CBT as a health behavior and education tool can influence perception and knowledge of microbial water quality of household users.
Tencent Translation System for the WMT21 News Translation Task

This paper describes Tencent Translation systems for the WMT21 shared task. We participate in the news translation task on three language pairs: Chinese-English, English-Chinese and German-English. Our systems are built on various Transformer models with novel techniques adapted from our recent research work. First, we combine different data augmentation methods including back-translation, forward-translation and right-to-left training to enlarge the training data. We also apply language coverage bias, data rejuvenation and uncertainty-based sampling approaches to select content-relevant and high-quality data from large parallel and monolingual corpora. Expect for in-domain fine-tuning, we also propose a fine-grained “one model one domain” approach to model characteristics of different news genres at fine-tuning and decoding stages. Besides, we use greed-based ensemble algorithm and transductive ensemble method to further boost our systems. Based on our success in the last WMT, we continuously employed advanced techniques such as large batch training, data selection and data filtering. Finally, our constrained Chinese-English system achieves 33.4 case-sensitive BLEU score, which is the highest among all submissions. The German-English system is ranked at second place accordingly.
The University of Maryland, College Park Submission to Large-Scale Multilingual Shared Task at WMT 2021

This paper describes the system submitted to Large-Scale Multilingual Shared Task (Small Task #2) at WMT 2021. It is based on the massively multilingual open-source model FLORES101_MM100 model, with selective fine-tuning.Our best-performing system reported a 15.72 average BLEU score for the task.
Solid Modeling and Finite Element Analysis of an Overhead Crane Bridge

The design of an overhead crane bridge with a double box girder has been investigated and a case study of a crane with 35 ton capacity and 13 m span length has been conducted. In the initial phase of the case study, conventional design calculations proposed by F. E. M. Rules and DIN standards were performed to verify the stress and deflection levels. The crane design was modeled using both solids and surfaces. Finite element meshes with 4-node tetrahedral and 4-node quadrilateral shell elements were generated from the solid and shell models, respectively. After a comparison of the finite element analyses, the conventional calculations and performance of the existing crane, the analysis with quadratic shell elements was found to give the most realistic results. As a result of this study, a design optimization method for an overhead crane is proposed.
Gestational diabetes: changed health beliefs in migrant women from five Asian countries living in Sweden: a prospective qualitative study

Abstract Aim: The aim of this study was to explore the temporal development of beliefs about health, illness and health care in migrant women with gestational diabetes (GD) born in Asia residing in Sweden, and the influence on health-related behaviour in terms of self-care and seeking care. Background: Migrant Asian women are a high-risk group for developing GD. Adapting to the culture in the new society and the healthcare system, being diagnosed with GD and becoming a mother is demanding. The question is whether Asian migrants’ patterns of beliefs and behaviour change over time, as no previous study has been revealed on this topic. Method: Qualitative prospective exploratory study. Semi-structured interviews were held on three occasions: during pregnancy and three and fourteen months after delivery, with women born in Asia, diagnosed with GD. Data were analysed with qualitative content analysis. Findings: There was a temporal change of beliefs influencing health-related behaviour, showing a rising curve in risk awareness. An increasing number of persons described developing a healthy diet/lifestyle based on initial advice and shifted focus from the child to worries about the woman’s health and risk of developing type 2 diabetes and being unable to care for the child/family. Also, the number of women perceiving GD as a transient condition decreased and more believed it would last forever. Beliefs about health care were unchanged, the healthcare model was perceived working well but information about GD and follow-ups was requested even after delivery, and competent staff was expected. Health professionals’ beliefs about the seriousness of GD influence patients’ beliefs and need to be considered. Migrant women need support with adequate information, based on their individual beliefs, to continue develop a sustainable healthy lifestyle even after giving birth, to promote health and prevent type 2 diabetes.
The generalized Wiener–Hopf equations for the elastic wave motion in angular regions

In this work, we introduce a general method to deduce spectral functional equations in elasticity and thus, the generalized Wiener–Hopf equations (GWHEs), for the wave motion in angular regions filled by arbitrary linear homogeneous media and illuminated by sources localized at infinity. The work extends the methodology used in electromagnetic applications and proposes for the first time a complete theory to get the GWHEs in elasticity. In particular, we introduce a vector differential equation of first-order characterized by a matrix that depends on the medium filling the angular region. The functional equations are easily obtained by a projection of the reciprocal vectors of this matrix on the elastic field present on the faces of the angular region. The application of the boundary conditions to the functional equations yields GWHEs for practical problems. This paper extends and applies the general theory to the challenging canonical problem of elastic scattering in angular regions.
Porosity of the porous carbonate rocks in the Jingfengqiao–Baidiao area based on finite automata

This study is based on the processing of computed microtomography images of rock samples. In this study, a finite automation is constructed using the grey value, red-green-blue (RGB) value and Euler number of polarized images of carbonate rocks from the Jingfengqiao–Baidiao area. The finite automaton is used to perform black and white binary processing of the polarized images of the carbonate rocks. The porosity of the carbonate rock is calculated based on the black and white binarization processing results of the polarized images of the carbonate rocks. The obtained porosity is compared with the carbonate porosity obtained by use of the traditional carbonate research method. When the two porosities are close, the image processing threshold of the finite automata is considered to be credible. Based on the finite automata established using the image processing threshold, the black and white binary images of the polarized images of the carbonate rocks are used to establish a rock pore image using ImageJ2X. The polarized images of the carbonate rocks are classified according to their RGB values using the finite automata for the porosity classification, and the obtained images are used as textures to paste onto a cube to construct a three-dimensional data model of the carbonate rocks. This study also uses 16S rDNA analysis to verify the formation mechanism of the carbonate pores in the Jingfengqiao–Baidiao area. The results of the 16S rDNA analysis show that the pores in the carbonate rocks in the Jingfengqiao–Baidiao area are closely related to microorganisms, represented by denitrifying bacteria.
Quantifying transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 and impact of intervention within long-term healthcare facilities

Estimates of the basic reproduction number (R0) for COVID-19 are particularly variable in the context of transmission within locations such as long-term healthcare (LTHC) facilities. We sought to characterize the heterogeneity of R0 across known outbreaks within these facilities. We used a unique comprehensive dataset of all outbreaks that occurred within LTHC facilities in British Columbia, Canada as of 21 September 2020. We estimated R0 in 18 LTHC outbreaks with a novel Bayesian hierarchical dynamic model of susceptible, exposed, infected and recovered individuals, incorporating heterogeneity of R0 between facilities. We further compared these estimates to those obtained with standard methods that use the exponential growth rate and maximum likelihood. The total size of outbreaks varied dramatically, with range of attack rates 2%–86%. The Bayesian analysis provided an overall estimate of R0 = 2.51 (90% credible interval 0.47–9.0), with individual facility estimates ranging between 0.56 and 9.17. Uncertainty in these estimates was more constrained than standard methods, particularly for smaller outbreaks informed by the population-level model. We further estimated that intervention led to 61% (52%–69%) of all potential cases being averted within the LTHC facilities, or 75% (68%–79%) when using a model with multi-level intervention effect. Understanding of transmission risks and impact of intervention are essential in planning during the ongoing global pandemic, particularly in high-risk environments such as LTHC facilities.
NoDeeLe: A Novel Deep Learning Schema for Evaluating Neural Machine Translation Systems

Due to the wide-spread development of Machine Translation (MT) systems –especially Neural Machine Translation (NMT) systems– MT evaluation, both automatic and human, has become more and more important as it helps us establish how MT systems perform. Yet, automatic evaluation metrics have lagged behind, as the most popular choices (e.g., BLEU, METEOR and ROUGE) may correlate poorly with human judgments. This paper seeks to put to the test an evaluation model based on a novel deep learning schema (NoDeeLe) used to compare two NMT systems on four different text genres, i.e. medical, legal, marketing and literary in the English-Greek language pair. The model utilizes information from the source segments, the MT outputs and the reference translation, as well as the automatic metrics BLEU, METEOR and WER. The proposed schema achieves a strong correlation with human judgment (78% average accuracy for the four texts with the highest accuracy, i.e. 85%, observed in the case of the marketing text), while it outperforms classic machine learning algorithms and automatic metrics.