Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Who Is Willing to Get Vaccinated? A Study into the Psychological, Socio-Demographic, and Cultural Determinants of COVID-19 Vaccination Intentions

Crucial to the success of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign is the rate of people who adhere to it. This study aimed to investigate the reasons underlying people’s willingness to get vaccinated in a sample of Italian adults, considering the effects of different individual characteristics and psychological variables upon positive vs. negative/hesitant vaccination intentions, as well as subjects’ self-reported motivations for such intentions. An anonymous cross-sectional survey was distributed online in February 2021. The results showed that trust in science, number of vaccinations received in 2019, and belief that COVID-19 is more severe than the common flu, were associated with positive vaccination intentions. “Chance externality” health locus of control showed both direct and indirect effects upon positive vaccination intentions. Anxiety symptoms and participants’ perceived psychological status also showed indirect positive effects. Subjects’ self-reported motivations varied interestingly across positive vs. negative/hesitant intentions. Implications of these findings for identifying effective pro-vaccination messages are discussed in the final section of the paper.
Detection of Explosives by SERS Platform Using Metal Nanogap Substrates

Detecting trace amounts of explosives to ensure personal safety is important, and this is possible by using laser-based spectroscopy techniques. We performed surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) using plasmonic nanogap substrates for the solution phase detection of some nitro-based compounds, taking advantage of the hot spot at the nanogap. An excitation wavelength of 785 nm with an incident power of as low as ≈0.1 mW was used to excite the nanogap substrates. Since both RDX and PETN cannot be dissolved in water, acetone was used as a solvent. TNT was dissolved in water as well as in hexane. The main SERS peaks of TNT, RDX, and PETN were clearly observed down to the order of picomolar concentration. The variations in SERS spectra observed from different explosives can be useful in distinguishing and identifying different nitro-based compounds. This result indicates that our nanogap substrates offer an effective approach for explosives identification.
Rapid sulfuric acid–dimethylamine nucleation enhanced by nitric acid in polluted regions

Significance Nucleation of atmospheric aerosol particles can contribute to nearly half of global cloud condensation nuclei. Nitric acid (NA) is one of the most abundant atmospheric pollutants. A recent study suggested that NA is likely to participate in the sulfuric acid–ammonia nucleation only in the clean and cold upper free troposphere, but its role in the polluted atmospheric boundary layer was not considered. Herein, we found that NA can extensively participate in and significantly enhance the predominant sulfuric acid–dimethylamine nucleation in the polluted boundary layer. Thus, controls on the emissions of nitrogen pollutants are likely significant for the reduction of particulate pollution, especially in the polluted regions. Recent research [Wang et al., Nature 581, 184–189 (2020)] indicates nitric acid (NA) can participate in sulfuric acid (SA)–ammonia (NH3) nucleation in the clean and cold upper free troposphere, whereas NA exhibits no obvious effects at the boundary layer with relatively high temperatures. Herein, considering that an SA–dimethylamine (DMA) nucleation mechanism was detected in megacities [Yao et al., Science 361, 278–281 (2018)], the roles of NA in SA-DMA nucleation are investigated. Different from SA-NH3 nucleation, we found that NA can enhance SA-DMA–based particle formation rates in the polluted atmospheric boundary layer, such as Beijing in winter, with the enhancement up to 80-fold. Moreover, we found that NA can promote the number concentrations of nucleation clusters (up to 27-fold) and contribute 76% of cluster formation pathways at 280 K. The enhancements on particle formation by NA are critical for particulate pollution in the polluted boundary layer with relatively high NA and DMA concentrations.
An Experimental Medicine Investigation of the Effects of Subacute Pramipexole Treatment on Emotional Information Processing in Healthy Volunteers

Treatment with the dopamine D2/D3 receptor agonist pramipexole has demonstrated promising clinical effects in patients with depression. However, the mechanisms through which pramipexole might alleviate depressive symptoms are currently not well understood. Conventional antidepressant drugs are thought to work by biasing the processing of emotional information in favour of positive relative to negative appraisal. In this study, we used an established experimental medicine assay to explore whether pramipexole treatment might have a similar effect. Employing a double-blind, parallel-group design, 40 healthy volunteers (aged 18 to 43 years, 50% female) were randomly allocated to 12 to 15 days of treatment with either pramipexole (at a peak daily dose of 1.0 mg pramipexole salt) or placebo. After treatment was established, emotional information processing was assessed on the neural level by measuring amygdala activity in response to positive and negative facial emotional expressions, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In addition, behavioural measures of emotional information processing were collected at baseline and on drug, using an established computerized task battery, tapping into different cognitive domains. As predicted, pramipexole-treated participants, compared to those receiving placebo, showed decreased neural activity in response to negative (fearful) vs. positive (happy) facial expressions in bilateral amygdala. Contrary to our predictions, however, pramipexole treatment had no significant antidepressant-like effect on behavioural measures of emotional processing. This study provides the first experimental evidence that subacute pramipexole treatment in healthy volunteers modifies neural responses to emotional information in a manner that resembles the effects of conventional antidepressant drugs.
Reproductive health in first-degree relatives of patients with polycystic ovary syndrome: a review and meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a highly heritable disease. Emerging evidence elucidated the elevated prevalence of reproductive abnormalities in first-degree relatives (FDRs) of patients with PCOS. METHODS Ten databases were searched in December 2020 (PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, ClinicalTrials.gov, CBM, CNKI, VIP and WanFang and WHO international clinical trials registry platform). This study included cohort, case-control, or cross-sectional studies. ﻿The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis statement was followed. Dichotomous data from each of the eligible studies were combined by Mantel-Haenszel model. Standard mean differences with 95% confidence intervals were assessed. Heterogeneities were assessed using I 2 statistics, and the quality of evidence was evaluated by AHRQ EPC program and GRADE approach. RESULTS Thirty-eight studies were included. The prevalence of PCOS (0.22; 95%CI 0.16 to 0.29), menstrual irregularities (0.28; 95%CI 0.22 to 0.34, P<0.01) and ovary morphological changes were elevated in female PCOS FDRs. Female FDRs also presented with increased levels of luteinizing hormone, total testosterone (SMD, 0.53; 95%CI 0.28 to 0.78, P<0.01), unconjugated testosterone, free androgen index, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS), and anti-Mullerian hormone levels. Subgroup analyses indicated that some of these changes begun in pubertal girls. Furthermore, fathers of PCOS had higher risk of premature baldness. The DHEAS level was elevated in male FDRs. CONCLUSIONS The findings of this analysis suggested that FDRs of patients with PCOS suffered from reproductive endocrinological dysregulations. Thus, more attention should be focused on this population. (PROSPERO-CRD42020183243).
Canine Myocytes Represent a Good Model for Human Ventricular Cells Regarding Their Electrophysiological Properties

Due to the limited availability of healthy human ventricular tissues, the most suitable animal model has to be applied for electrophysiological and pharmacological studies. This can be best identified by studying the properties of ion currents shaping the action potential in the frequently used laboratory animals, such as dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs, or rats, and comparing them to those of human cardiomyocytes. The authors of this article with the experience of three decades of electrophysiological studies, performed in mammalian and human ventricular tissues and isolated cardiomyocytes, summarize their results obtained regarding the major canine and human cardiac ion currents. Accordingly, L-type Ca2+ current (ICa), late Na+ current (INa-late), rapid and slow components of the delayed rectifier K+ current (IKr and IKs, respectively), inward rectifier K+ current (IK1), transient outward K+ current (Ito1), and Na+/Ca2+ exchange current (INCX) were characterized and compared. Importantly, many of these measurements were performed using the action potential voltage clamp technique allowing for visualization of the actual current profiles flowing during the ventricular action potential. Densities and shapes of these ion currents, as well as the action potential configuration, were similar in human and canine ventricular cells, except for the density of IK1 and the recovery kinetics of Ito. IK1 displayed a largely four-fold larger density in canine than human myocytes, and Ito recovery from inactivation displayed a somewhat different time course in the two species. On the basis of these results, it is concluded that canine ventricular cells represent a reasonably good model for human myocytes for electrophysiological studies, however, it must be borne in mind that due to their stronger IK1, the repolarization reserve is more pronounced in canine cells, and moderate differences in the frequency-dependent repolarization patterns can also be anticipated.
A Review of Antiresonant Hollow-Core Fiber-Assisted Spectroscopy of Gases

Antiresonant Hollow-Core Fibers (ARHCFs), thanks to the excellent capability of guiding light in an air core with low loss over a very broad spectral range, have attracted significant attention of researchers worldwide who especially focus their work on laser-based spectroscopy of gaseous substances. It was shown that the ARHCFs can be used as low-volume, non-complex, and versatile gas absorption cells forming the sensing path length in the sensor, thus serving as a promising alternative to commonly used bulk optics-based configurations. The ARHCF-aided sensors proved to deliver high sensitivity and long-term stability, which justifies their suitability for this particular application. In this review, the recent progress in laser-based gas sensors aided with ARHCFs combined with various laser-based spectroscopy techniques is discussed and summarized.
SpecTalk: Conforming IoT Implementations to Sensor Specifications

Due to the fast evolution of Sensor and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, several large-scale smart city applications have been commercially developed in recent years. In these developments, the contracts are often disputed in the acceptance due to the fact that the contract specification is not clear, resulting in a great deal of discussion of the gray area. Such disputes often occur in the acceptance processes of smart buildings, mainly because most intelligent building systems are expensive and the operations of the sub-systems are very complex. This paper proposes SpecTalk, a platform that automatically generates the code to conform IoT applications to the Taiwan Association of Information and Communication Standards (TAICS) specifications. SpecTalk generates a program to accommodate the application programming interface of the IoT devices under test (DUTs). Then, the devices can be tested by SpecTalk following the TAICS data formats. We describe three types of tests: self-test, mutual-test, and visual test. A self-test involves the sensors and the actuators of the same DUT. A mutual-test involves the sensors and the actuators of different DUTs. A visual-test uses a monitoring camera to investigate the actuators of multiple DUTs. We conducted these types of tests in commercially deployed applications of smart campus constructions. Our experiments in the tests proved that SpecTalk is feasible and can effectively conform IoT implementations to TACIS specifications. We also propose a simple analytic model to select the frequency of the control signals for the input patterns in a SpecTalk test. Our study indicates that it is appropriate to select the control signal frequency, such that the inter-arrival time between two control signals is larger than 10 times the activation delay of the DUT.
Genetic Variability of PRRSV Vaccine Strains Used in the National Eradication Programme, Hungary

Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) is a globally spread, highly infectious viral disease. Live, attenuated vaccines against PRRS virus (PRRSV) decrease virus excretion and evoke protective immunity reducing the economic damage caused by the disease. In a longitudinal molecular epidemiological study accompanying ongoing national eradication programme we evaluated the suitability of PRRSV ORF5 and ORF7 sequences to identify possible field strains of vaccine-origin. In total, 2342 ORF5 sequences and 478 ORF7 sequences were analysed. Vaccine strains were identified by sequence identity values and phylogenetic network analysis. Strains that shared greater than 98% nucleotide identity within ORF5 and/or ORF7 were considered to have originated from vaccine. A total of 882 (37.6%) ORF5 and 88 (18.4%) ORF7 sequences met these criteria. In detail, 618, 179 and 35 ORF5 and 51, 29 and 8 ORF7 sequences were related to Porcilis PRRS vaccine, Unistrain PRRS vaccine, and ReproCyc PRRS EU vaccine, respectively. Data showed that the Porcilis vaccine was genetically more stable. Whereas, the variability of the Unistrain and the ReproCyc strains was significantly higher. Given that ORF7 shares, in some instances, complete identity between a particular vaccine strain and some historic variants of field PRRSV strains, care must be taken when evaluating vaccine relatedness of a field isolate based on the ORF7. On the contrary, ORF5 sequences were more suitable to predict the vaccine origin making a distinction more robustly between field and vaccine strains. We conclude that ORF5 based molecular epidemiological studies support more efficiently the ongoing PRRS eradication programmes. The conclusions presented in this large-scale PRRS molecular epidemiological study provides a framework for future eradication programmes planned in other countries.
Reading between the Lines: RNA-seq Data Mining Reveals the Alternative Message of the Rice Leaf Transcriptome in Response to Heat Stress

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is a major food crop but heat stress affects its yield and grain quality. To identify mechanistic solutions to improve rice yield under rising temperatures, molecular responses of thermotolerance must be understood. Transcriptional and post-transcriptional controls are involved in a wide range of plant environmental responses. Alternative splicing (AS), in particular, is a widespread mechanism impacting the stress defence in plants but it has been completely overlooked in rice genome-wide heat stress studies. In this context, we carried out a robust data mining of publicly available RNA-seq datasets to investigate the extension of heat-induced AS in rice leaves. For this, datasets of interest were subjected to filtering and quality control, followed by accurate transcript-specific quantifications. Powerful differential gene expression (DE) and differential AS (DAS) identified 17,143 and 2162 heat response genes, respectively, many of which are novel. Detailed analysis of DAS genes coding for key regulators of gene expression suggests that AS helps shape transcriptome and proteome diversity in response to heat. The knowledge resulting from this study confirmed a widespread transcriptional and post-transcriptional response to heat stress in plants, and it provided novel candidates for rapidly advancing rice breeding in response to climate change.
Automated Specification-Based Testing of REST APIs

Nowadays, REpresentational State Transfer Application Programming Interfaces (REST APIs) are widely used in web applications, hence a plethora of test cases are developed to validate the APIs calls. We propose a solution that automates the generation of test cases for REST APIs based on their specifications. In our approach, apart from the automatic generation of test cases, we provide an option for the user to influence the test case generation process. By adding user interaction, we aim to augment the automatic generation of APIs test cases with human testing expertise and specific context. We use the latest version of OpenAPI 3.x and a wide range of coverage metrics to analyze the functionality and performance of the generated test cases, and non-functional metrics to analyze the performance of the APIs. The experiments proved the effectiveness and practicability of our method.
Single-Dose Intranasal Administration of AdCOVID Elicits Systemic and Mucosal Immunity against SARS-CoV-2 and Fully Protects Mice from Lethal Challenge

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has highlighted the urgent need for effective prophylactic vaccination to prevent the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Intranasal vaccination is an attractive strategy to prevent COVID-19 as the nasal mucosa represents the first-line barrier to SARS-CoV-2 entry. The current intramuscular vaccines elicit systemic immunity but not necessarily high-level mucosal immunity. Here, we tested a single intranasal dose of our candidate adenovirus type 5-vectored vaccine encoding the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (AdCOVID) in inbred, outbred, and transgenic mice. A single intranasal vaccination with AdCOVID elicited a strong and focused immune response against RBD through the induction of mucosal IgA in the respiratory tract, serum neutralizing antibodies, and CD4+ and CD8+ T cells with a Th1-like cytokine expression profile. A single AdCOVID dose resulted in immunity that was sustained for over six months. Moreover, a single intranasal dose completely protected K18-hACE2 mice from lethal SARS-CoV-2 challenge, preventing weight loss and mortality. These data show that AdCOVID promotes concomitant systemic and mucosal immunity and represents a promising vaccine candidate.
Systematic Study on Coherent Control of Electronic Population and Vibrational Coherence in the One-Photon Regime

In the scope of this thesis, a systematic study about coherent control with shaped femtosecond pulses in the one-photon regime was performed. This regime is especially important in nature as photochemical and -physical reactions are driven by sun light, i.e. at very low intensities. Apart from the relevance of these conditions in nature, coherent control experiments at low intensity are well suited to gain understanding of the underlying processes as well as to control them by using shaped laser light ﬁelds. For the experimental shaping in the visible spectral range, a liquid-crystal spatial light modulator (LCM) was utilized. Here, it was shown for the ﬁrst time that such an LCM introduces noise on the tailored spectral phase. The detailed characterization of the noise implied that molecular properties like the mobility of the liquid crystals cause the noise. Reliable pulse shapes on a pulse-to-pulse basis were achieved by externally cooling the LCM. Due to appropriate data averaging, coherent control experiments were successfully performed, where even small differences in the shaped pulses are important. These control experiments aimed at the enhancement of electronic population and vibrational coherence in the ground and excited state in dependence on the temporal shape of the excitation pulses for various excitation spectra. The temporal shape of the excitation pulse was tailored to linearly chirp pulses, multipulses, whose interpulse distance matches the period of the dominant molecular mode, and the sum of both as chirped multipulses. While the ideal choice to enhance the population and the vibrational coherence in the ground state is a resonant negatively chirped multipulse, the excited state is enhanced best with a blue-detuned positively chirped multipulse. These transient absorption experiments were performed on a prototype chromophore. However, the results should be applicable to other systems. These kinds of control experiments should be transferred to DNA bases and prototype molecules, which can be easily addressed theoretically. As many organic molecules absorb light in the ultraviolet wavelength regime, an experimental set-up for the shaping of femtosecond pulses in the spectral range between 250 nm and 350 nm was developed and characterized in detail. This setup provides the basis for future experiments with organic samples.
A Systematic Review of the Protective Effect of Prior SARS-CoV-2 Infection on Repeat Infection

We systematically reviewed studies to estimate the risk of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection among those previously infected with SARS-CoV-2. For this systematic review, we searched scientific publications on PubMed and MedRxiv, a pre-print server, through August 18, 2021. Eligible studies were retrieved on August 18, 2021. The following search term was used on PubMed: (((“Cohort Studies”[Majr]) AND (“COVID-19”[Mesh] OR “SARS-CoV-2”[Mesh])) OR “Reinfection”[Majr]) OR “Reinfection”[Mesh]. The following search term was used on MedRxiv: “Cohort Studies” AND “COVID-19” OR “SARS-CoV-2” AND “Reinfection”. The search terms were broad to encompass all applicable studies. There were no restrictions on the date of publication. Studies that did not describe cohorts with estimates of the risk of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection among those with previous infection were excluded. Studies that included vaccinated participants were either excluded or limited to sub-groups of non-vaccinated individuals. To identify relevant studies with appropriate control groups, we developed the following criteria for studies to be included in the systematic analysis: (1) baseline polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing, (2) a uninfected comparison group, (3) longitudinal follow-up, (4) a cohort of human participants, i.e. not a case report or case series, and (5) outcome determined by PCR. The review was conducted following PRISMA guidelines. We assessed for selection, information, and analysis bias, per PRISMA guidelines. We identified 1,392 reports. Of those, 10 studies were eligible for our systematic review. The weighted average risk reduction against reinfection was 90.4% with a standard deviation of 7.7% (p-value: <0.01). Protection against SARS-CoV-2 reinfection was observed for up to 10 months. Studies had potential information, selection, and analysis biases. The protective effect of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection on re-infection is high and similar to the protective effect of vaccination. More research is needed to characterize the duration of protection and the impact of different SARS-CoV-2 variants.