Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hypertension, a Moving Target in COVID-19: Current Views and Perspectives

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) associates with a considerable high rate of mortality and represents currently the most important concern in global health. The risk of more severe clinical manifestation of COVID-19 is higher in males and steeply raised with age but also increased by the presence of chronic comorbidities. Among the latter, early reports suggested that arterial hypertension associates with higher susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection, more severe course and increased COVID-19-related deaths. Furthermore, experimental studies suggested that key pathophysiological hypertension mechanisms, such as activation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS), may play a role in COVID-19. In fact, ACE2 (angiotensin-converting-enzyme 2) is the pivotal receptor for SARS-CoV-2 to enter host cells and provides thus a link between COVID-19 and RAS. It was thus anticipated that drugs modulating the RAS including an upregulation of ACE2 may increase the risk for infection with SARS-CoV-2 and poorer outcomes in COVID-19. Since the use of RAS-blockers, ACE inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers, represents the backbone of recommended antihypertensive therapy and intense debate about their use in the COVID-19 pandemic has developed. Currently, a direct role of hypertension, independent of age and other comorbidities, as a risk factor for the SARS-COV-2 infection and COVID-19 outcome, particularly death, has not been established. Similarly, both current experimental and clinical studies do not support an unfavorable effect of RAS-blockers or other classes of first line blood pressure lowering drugs in COVID-19. Here, we review available data on the role of hypertension and its management on COVID-19. Conversely, some aspects as to how the COVID-19 affects hypertension management and impacts on future developments are also briefly discussed. COVID-19 has and continues to proof the critical importance of hypertension research to address questions that are important for global health.
Analysis of Chemical Compositions of Eupatorium fortune Turcz. Essential Oils

The essential oils of the Eupatorium fortunei Turcz. were extracted by simultaneous distillation extraction. The chemical components were separated and analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The content of essential oils extracted from Eupatorium fortunei Turcz. was 2.73%. The identification of the volatile compounds was confirmed by comparing the retention indices with standard values of authentic samples. The relative content was calculated from the peak area normal-ization method. The results indicated that there are thirty-three volatile compounds identified in Eupatorium fortunei Turcz. The major chemical components from Eupatorium fortunei Turcz. are: 2H-1-benzopyran-2-one(12.58%), thymol (4.38%),2,4,5,6,7, 8-hexahydro-1,4,9,9-tetramathyl-3H-3a,7-methanoazulene(4.50%), caryophlleneoxidase(5.27%), 1-methyl-4-(1-methylethyl)-phenol(3.97%) and 1,1a,4,5,6,7,7b-octahydro-1,1,7, 7a-tetramethyl-2H-cyclopropa[a]naphtha (3.62%).
JUST TRANSITION STRATEGIES FOR THE AUSTRIAN AND GERMAN AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY IN THE COURSE OF VEHICLE ELECTRIFICATION

The future of work is of crucial importance in the social-ecological transformation of economies, as many jobs can be found in ecologically unsustainable industries. One such industry is the automotive industry. As the industry is undergoing a transition towards manufacturing cars with other powertrains than the internal combustion engine, many jobs in the sector are endangered. Therefore, it is important to enquire into the expected changes. Understanding which employees are in danger of losing their job aids in the design of policies that shape the sectoral changes in a socially acceptable way, so called Just Transition strategies. This research provides a review of the expected changes in employment in Austrian and German automotive industry. Second, based on the demographic profiles of employees in the sector, it is examined who will be affected by those changes in employment. Subsequently, the suitability of an early retirement programme to cushion reductions in employment is analysed. It is found that retirement at 58 could fully cushion a 25% reduction in employment by 2030 in both countries.
Societal Changes Due to “COVID-19”. An Analysis of the Tourism Sector of Galicia, Spain

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented global health and economic crisis started. This situation has had a devastating effect on all economic and social sectors, provoking either a decrease or cessation of business or profound changes in life habits. One of the most affected industries has been tourism, due to the resulting travel restrictions and a sharp drop in demand among travellers as well as temporary hotel and restaurant closures. Thus, the primary purpose of this study is to analyse the changes during the pandemic in individual consumers’ behaviour patterns in the tourism sector. Predictive market research techniques through quantitative analysis were carried out via surveys (n = 712). One of the more significant findings to emerge from this study is that recollection of these times will be in people’s minds for a long time after the pandemic. Notably, tourists will reward safety over leisure and will continue to undertake independent tours with their own vehicles. Findings also proved—and for the tourism sector this is good news—that travellers’ trust will be rebuilt, and tourists will be travelling again.
Profiles of Blood Metabolites and Milk Production of Lactating Buffalo Fed Local Feed Resources in Sijunjung, West Sumatera

| This research aimed to evaluate the effect of local feed resources on the blood metabolites (protein, blood glucose, prolactin hormone) and milk production of lactating buffalo in Pematang Panjang, Sijunjung. This research used four female lactating buffaloes, aged 4 - 6 y.o. The research method used was Latin Square Design. The treatments were A: supplementary forage, B: cassava leaves, C: katuk leaves, and D: gliricidia leaves. The addition of cassava leaves, katuk leaves, and gliricidia leaves each was given at 5 kg/ head/ day and the data collection period was repeated (4 replications). Each treatment was carried out for 10 days and the adaptation period was 1 (one) week for the next treatment. Basal feed was in the form of forage obtained during grazing and concentrates that are usually given by the graziers (farmers). The data analysis was performed using Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and differences between treatments [were tested] with Duncan’s Multiple Range Test. The results show that the feeding of cassava leaves, katuk leaves, and gliricidia leaves as a food supplement can significantly increase blood protein, blood glucose, and buffalo milk production levels, and they do not affect the prolactin hormone. From the reseawch of the research it can be concluded that cassava leaves, katuk leaves, and gliricidia leaves can be used as ruminant animal feed.
When and how do business shutdowns work? Evidence from Italy's first COVID‐19 wave

Abstract Governments around the world have adopted unprecedented policies to deal with COVID‐19. This paper zooms in on business shutdowns and investigates their effectiveness in reducing mortality. We leverage highly granular death registry data for almost 5000 Italian municipalities in a diff‐in‐diff approach that allows us to mitigate endogeneity concerns credibly. Our results, which are robust to controlling for a host of co‐factors, offer strong evidence that business shutdowns effectively curb mortality. We calculate that they may have reduced the death toll from the first wave of COVID‐19 in Italy by about 40%. Our findings also highlight that timeliness is key – by acting 1 week earlier, their effectiveness could have been increased by an additional 5%. Finally, shutdowns should be targeted. Closing service activities with a high degree of interpersonal contact saves the most lives. Shutting down production activities, while substantially reducing mobility, only has mild effects on mortality.
In-Memory Computing with Resistive Memory Circuits: Status and Outlook

In-memory computing (IMC) refers to non-von Neumann architectures where data are processed in situ within the memory by taking advantage of physical laws. Among the memory devices that have been considered for IMC, the resistive switching memory (RRAM), also known as memristor, is one of the most promising technologies due to its relatively easy integration and scaling. RRAM devices have been explored for both memory and IMC applications, such as neural network accelerators and neuromorphic processors. This work presents the status and outlook on the RRAM for analog computing, where the precision of the encoded coefficients, such as the synaptic weights of a neural network, is one of the key requirements. We show the experimental study of the cycle-to-cycle variation of set and reset processes for HfO2-based RRAM, which indicate that gate-controlled pulses present the least variation in conductance. Assuming a constant variation of conductance σG, we then evaluate and compare various mapping schemes, including multilevel, binary, unary, redundant and slicing techniques. We present analytical formulas for the standard deviation of the conductance and the maximum number of bits that still satisfies a given maximum error. Finally, we discuss RRAM performance for various analog computing tasks compared to other computational memory devices. RRAM appears as one of the most promising devices in terms of scaling, accuracy and low-current operation.
Shock Tube Ignition Delay Data Affected by Localized Ignition Phenomena

ABSTRACT Shock tubes have conventionally been used for measuring high-temperature ignition delay times of approximately O(1 ms). In the last decade or so, the operating regime of shock tubes has been extended to lower temperatures by accessing longer observation times. Such measurements may potentially be affected by some non-ideal phenomena. The purpose of this work is to measure long ignition delay times for fuels exhibiting negative temperature coefficient and to assess the impact of shock tube non-idealities on ignition delay data. Ignition delay times of n-heptane and n-hexane were measured over the temperature range of 650–1250 K and pressures near 1.5 atm. Driver gas tailoring and long length of shock tube driver section were utilized to measure ignition delay times as long as 32 ms. Measured ignition delay times agree with chemical kinetic models at high (>1100 K) and low (<700 K) temperatures. In the intermediate temperature range (700–1100 K), however, significant discrepancies are observed between the measurements and homogeneous ignition delay simulations. It is postulated, based on experimental observations, that localized ignition kernels could affect the ignition delay times at the intermediate temperatures, which lead to compression (and heating) of the bulk gas and result in expediting the overall ignition event. The postulate is validated through simple representative computational fluid dynamic simulations of post-shock gas mixtures, which exhibit ignition advancement via a hot spot. The results of the current work show that ignition delay times measured by shock tubes may be affected by non-ideal phenomena for certain conditions of temperature, pressure, and fuel reactivity. Care must, therefore, be exercised in using such data for chemical kinetic model development and validation.
My EU = Your EU? Differences in the Perception of European Issues Across Geographic Regions

Our perception of the situation in a country or a region is strongly influenced by the reflection of this situation in mass and social media channels. This effect is even more pronounced for geographically and culturally distant regions, for which no firsthand experience is available. To avoid information overload, news outlets typically filter the available news from foreign countries based on the expected interest of the target audiences. Such filtering imposes an inherent bias in the reporting and can create a distorted perception of a region among the consumers of news of other regions. This might lead to misunderstandings between countries and unsubstantiated political and individual decisions (e.g., in the context of migration). In this article, we systematically analyze the bias created in news reports. We consider Europe, or more precisely the European Union (EU) as our zone of concern, and examine its image in the media (news outlets) of other regions, Europe(NON-EU), Africa, Asia, Middle-East, America, and Oceania. An analysis of the year 2018 (January–December 2018) of news published in those regions reveals marked differences in the editorial policies and presented narrative when dealing with EU-related news. We observe a significant variation in the sentiment polarity of the reported EU-related stories between the European and other regional news outlets. We further analyze the polarity variation among different subregions of large geographical areas, such as Africa, Asia, and America. We observe a contrasting difference in their editorial policies. This trend also holds for news related to different topics, such as politics, business, economy, health, and international relation.
GROWTH DYNAMICS OF GRASS-SHRUB COMMUNITIES DURING EARLY FORMATIVE PERIOD

The formation of stable grass-shrub communities is the goal of highway slope ecological protection. However, the growth dynamics of grass-shrub communities during the early formative period is poorly explored, leading to a lack of available guiding. In this study, we carried out an ecological slope protection model of grass and shrubs, the following species were selected: Cynodon dactylon and Magnolia multiflora. We examined the dynamics of plant coverage (PD), plant density (PD), and plant height (PH) of the two plants affected by topographic factors (slope gradient and slope aspect) and seed schemes (grassshrub ratio and seed density). Moreover, we attempted to optimize the four influencing factors according to various PC, PD, and PH. The results indicated that the PD of grass-shrub experimental group was significantly better than that of pure-grass and pure-shrub experimental groups during the early formative period. Significant spatial variation of PD was also found during the first two months. The peak PD for 45 is 1.26-1.46 times higher than that for the other two slope gradients, PD of C. dactylon differed significantly with grass-shrub ratio (P< 0.05). The PH of C. dactylon and M. multiflora was significantly affected by the slope aspect. In addition, the optimum conditions for the formulation of grass-shrub communities are as follows: slope gradient of 30-45, slope aspect of south-facing, seed density of 20 g·m, grass-shrub ratio of 1: 9.
A computational study of soot formation and flame structure of coflow laminar methane/air diffusion flames under microgravity and normal gravity

A numerical study is conducted of methane–air coflow diffusion flames at microgravity (μg) and normal gravity (1g), and comparisons are made with experimental data in the literature. The model employed uses a detailed gas phase chemical kinetic mechanism that includes PAH formation and growth, and is coupled to a sectional soot particle dynamics model. The model is able to accurately predict the trends observed experimentally with reduction of gravity without any tuning of the model for different flames. The microgravity sooting flames were found to have lower temperatures and higher volume fraction than their normal gravity counterparts. In the absence of gravity, the flame radii increase due to elimination of buoyance forces and reduction of flow velocity, which is consistent with experimental observations. Soot formation along the wings is seen to be surface growth dominated, while PAH condensation plays a more major role on centreline soot formation. Surface growth and PAH growth increase in microgravity primarily due to increases in the residence time inside the flame. The rate of increase of surface growth is more significant compared to PAH growth, which causes soot distribution to shift from the centreline of the flame to the wings in microgravity.
The Doctrine of the Nobel Prize Laureate I.I. Mechnikov on Chronic Autointoxication and Premature Aging. Is Not The Reason for These Processes in The Failure of The Bauhinia Damper?

*Corresponding author: Martynov Vladimir Leonidovich, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Associate Professor, National Research Nizhny Novgorod State University named after N.I. Lobachevsky (UNN), Russia, E-mail: hirurgia12@mail.ru Received: 20 Mar 2021 Accepted: 07 Apr 2021 Published: 12 Apr 2021 Copyright: ©2021 Leonidovich MV, This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially.
IMPACT OF THE FOREIGN EXPERIENCE OF BOARD DIRECTORS ON THE PERFORMANCE OF PUBLICLY TRADED BRAZILIAN COMPANIES

ABSTRACT Purpose: We analyzed the impact of board directors with foreign experience on the accounting and market performance of companies listed on the Brazilian Stock Exchange (B3). Originality/value: We show unpublished empirical evidence about the relationship between the foreign experience of board directors and the performance of Brazilian firms. Knowing this relationship better contributes to the formulation of internal policies for the qualification of senior management, in addition to being valuable to shareholders, especially in a context of weak legal protection, as it is in Brazil. Design/methodology/approach: We collected data from 230 companies between 2010 and 2016, submitted it to unbalanced panel data regressions using the Systemic Generalized Method of Moments (GMM-Sys). Findings: The results suggest that the higher the proportion of board members with academic and professional foreign experience, the lower their accounting and market performance. This finding can be justified by institutional isomorphism, in which having an experience abroad would be a myth, a status institutionalized by the Brazilian society. In addition, foreign owners and directors face cultural barriers and would have less knowledge of the local environment, which would increase information asymmetries, impacting negatively in firms’ performance. On the other hand, an increase in the number of foreigners on the board positively influences the market value of companies, since, by having weaker local power networks and, consequently, less possibility to obtain private benefits, the investors could value companies with this characteristic.
Combining Bayesian VARs with Survey Density Forecasts: Does it Pay Off?

This paper studies how to combine real-time forecasts from a broad range of Bayesian vector autoregression (BVAR) specifications and survey forecasts by optimally exploiting their properties. To do that, it compares the forecasting performance of optimal pooling and tilting techniques, including survey forecasts for predicting euro area inflation and GDP growth at medium-term forecast horizons using both univariate and multivariate forecasting metrics. Results show that the Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) provides good point forecast performance, but also that SPF forecasts perform poorly in terms of densities for all variables and horizons. Accordingly, when the model combination or the individual models are tilted to SPF's first moments, point accuracy and calibration improve, whereas they worsen when SPF's second moments are included. We conclude that judgement incorporated in survey forecasts can considerably increase model forecasts accuracy, however, the way and the extent to which it is incorporated matters. JEL Classification: C11, C32, C53, E27, E37
Impact of educational intervention on the knowledge, attitude, and practice of pharmacovigilance among postgraduates of a tertiary care center, Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu, India

Introduction: Prescription of drugs should always be done in a judicious manner and with a satisfactory risk/benefit ratio. Pharmacotherapeutic agents are one of the important causes of adverse effects starting from mere inconvenience to permanent disability and death. Studies suggest that about 0.2%–24% of patients with adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are subjected to hospital admission in India as well as in several highly developed industrialized countries. India contributes below 1% in terms of ADR reporting against the world rate of 5%. To enhance the reporting rate, it is important to improve the knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of all the health-care professionals with regard to the ADR reporting and the pharmacovigilance (PV). Aim: The aim of the study was to evaluate the basic KAP of the postgraduate (PG) students at Meenakshi Medical College and Hospital, Enathur, Kanchipuram, Tamilnadu, India, regarding ADR monitoring and PV. Materials and Methods: This was a before and after comparison study with an educational intervention. A knowledge-, attitude-, and practice-based questionnaire on ADR reporting and PV program was prepared and administrated. Results: Participants had good theoretical knowledge regarding PV, but their attitudes and practical knowledge increased significantly after an educational intervention. The overall scores observed between pretest and posttest were found to be statistically significant. Conclusion: Educational intervention had proven to be an effective tool in improving the KAP of PV in the present study. Lack of motivation and training toward ADR reporting discourages PGs from reporting. Revisions are needed to include the clinical application of PV in the present academic curriculum. Ensuring a better safety profile for drugs can be done only through PV.
Analyzing a test as genre: Critical Genre Analysis of the English language ENEM

ABSTRACT This paper proposes a Critical Genre Analysis (CGA) (Motta-Roth, 2006; 2008a; 2008b) of the English Language test on the Brazilian National High School Exam (EL-ENEM), to, ultimately, discuss the language conception that underlies this test. The corpus of the analysis was composed of eight samples of the EL-ENEM genre. The results point out that EL-ENEM items provide the test takers with a contextualization about their reference texts. This contextualization, in most items, provide information regarding the genres of the reference texts. The items, then, demand the test takers to identify different types of information in the reference texts. The types of information that are demanded the most refer to the text’s content, objective, and topic. This way, the test takers must activate knowledge related to Semantics and Pragmatics, Register (context of situation) and Genre (context of culture), indicating a direction to the view of language as genre, adopted by the official documents that guide ENEM’s design.