Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Legionella pneumophila Risk from Cooling Tower Systems in China

LD is likely to be underrecognized in many countries. Due to the widespread existence of L. pneumophila in natural and artificial water environments and to the lack of cross-protection against different strains, L. pneumophila is a potentially serious threat to human health. ABSTRACT Legionella pneumophila widely exists in natural and artificial water environments, which enables it to infect people. L. pneumophila infection causes Legionnaires’ disease (LD), which is a significant but relatively uncommon respiratory infection. Approximately 90% of LD is caused by L. pneumophila serogroup 1 (Lp1). Meteorological conditions may affect the infectivity and virulence of Lp1, but the exact relationship between them is still unclear. In this study, we evaluated the virulence of Lp1 by screening of total 156 Lp1 strains isolated from cooling tower water in different regions of China by detecting their abilities to activate NF-κB signaling pathway in vitro. In addition, we screened the distribution of some selected virulence genes in these strains. The virulence, virulence gene distribution, and the meteorological factors were analyzed. We found that both the virulence and the distribution of virulence genes had a certain regional and meteorological correlation. Although the loss of several virulence genes showed significant effects on the virulence of Lp1 strains, the distribution of virulence genes had very limited effects on the virulence of Lp1. IMPORTANCE LD is likely to be underrecognized in many countries. Due to the widespread existence of L. pneumophila in natural and artificial water environments and to the lack of cross-protection against different strains, L. pneumophila is a potentially serious threat to human health. Therefore, effective monitoring of the virulence of L. pneumophila in the water environment is very important to prevent and control the prevalence of LD. Understanding the virulence of L. pneumophila can not only help us to predict the risk of possible outbreaks in advance but can also enable more targeted clinical treatment. This study highlights the importance of understanding the epidemiology and ecology of L. pneumophila isolated from public facilities in terms of public health and biology. Due to the potential for water sources to harbor and disseminate L. pneumophila and to the fact that geographical conditions influence the virulence of L. pneumophila, timely and accurate L. pneumophila virulence surveillance is urgently needed.
Subclinical steatohepatitis and advanced liver fibrosis in health examinees with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in 10 South Korean cities: A retrospective cross-sectional study

Background Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) has a risk of progressing to cirrhosis. The prevalence of NASH and its associated risk factors in community populations are relatively unknown. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of NASH and advanced liver fibrosis using magnetic resonance elastography (MRE), and determine those risk factors in health examinees with asymptomatic fatty liver. Methods This study consecutively selected subjects who underwent health checkups at 13 health-promotion centers in 10 Korean cities between 2018 and 2020. Hepatic steatosis and stiffness were assessed using ultrasonography and MRE, respectively. Stages of liver stiffness were estimated using MRE with cutoff values for NASH and advanced liver fibrosis of 2.91 and 3.60 kPa, respectively. Results The overall prevalence of NASH and advanced liver fibrosis in the subjects with fatty liver were 8.35% and 2.04%, respectively. Multivariate logistic regression analysis indicated that central obesity (OR = 5.12, 95% CI = 2.70–9.71), increased triglyceride (OR = 3.29, 95% CI = 1.72–6.29), abnormal liver function test (OR = 3.09, 95% CI = 1.66–5.76) (all P<0.001), and decreased high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (OR = 5.18, 95% CI = 1.78–15.05) (P = 0.003) were associated with NASH. The main risk factor for advanced liver fibrosis was diabetes (OR = 4.46, 95% CI = 1.14–17.48) (P = 0.032). Conclusion NASH or advanced liver fibrosis is found in one-tenth of health examinees with asymptomatic fatty liver. This suggests that early detection of NASH should be considered to allow early interventions such as lifestyle changes to prevent the adverse effects of NASH and its progression in health examinees with asymptomatic fatty liver.
The impact of changing cigarette smoking habits and smoke-free legislation on orofacial cleft incidence in the United Kingdom: Evidence from two time-series studies

Background Both active and passive cigarette smoking have previously been associated with orofacial cleft aetiology. We aimed to analyse the impact of declining active smoking prevalence and the implementation of smoke-free legislation on the incidence of children born with a cleft lip and/or palate within the United Kingdom. Methods and findings We conducted regression analysis using national administrative data in the United Kingdom between 2000–2018. The main outcome measure was orofacial cleft incidence, reported annually for England, Wales and Northern Ireland and separately for Scotland. First, we conducted an ecological study with longitudinal time-series analysis using smoking prevalence data for females over 16 years of age. Second, we used a natural experiment design with interrupted time-series analysis to assess the impact of smoke-free legislation. Over the study period, the annual incidence of orofacial cleft per 10,000 live births ranged from 14.2–16.2 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and 13.4–18.8 in Scotland. The proportion of active smokers amongst females in the United Kingdom declined by 37% during the study period. Adjusted regression analysis did not show a correlation between the proportion of active smokers and orofacial cleft incidence in either dataset, although we were unable to exclude a modest effect of the magnitude seen in individual-level observational studies. The data in England, Wales and Northern Ireland suggested an 8% reduction in orofacial cleft incidence (RR 0.92, 95%CI 0.85 to 0.99; P = 0.024) following the implementation of smoke-free legislation. In Scotland, there was weak evidence for an increase in orofacial cleft incidence following smoke-free legislation (RR 1.16, 95%CI 0.94 to 1.44; P = 0.173). Conclusions These two ecological studies offer a novel insight into the influence of smoking in orofacial cleft aetiology, adding to the evidence base from individual-level studies. Our results suggest that smoke-free legislation may have reduced orofacial cleft incidence in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Assessing adolescents’ critical health literacy: How is trust in government leadership associated with knowledge of COVID-19?

This study explored relations between COVID-19 news source, trust in COVID-19 information source, and COVID-19 health literacy in 194 STEM-oriented adolescents and young adults from the US and the UK. Analyses suggest that adolescents use both traditional news (e.g., TV or newspapers) and social media news to acquire information about COVID-19 and have average levels of COVID-19 health literacy. Hierarchical linear regression analyses suggest that the association between traditional news media and COVID-19 health literacy depends on participants’ level of trust in their government leader. For youth in both the US and the UK who used traditional media for information about COVID-19 and who have higher trust in their respective government leader (i.e., former US President Donald Trump and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson) had lower COVID-19 health literacy. Results highlight how youth are learning about the pandemic and the importance of not only considering their information source, but also their levels of trust in their government leaders.
General Treatment of Klystron Resonant Cavities

Klystron resonant cavities are treated for general cases and their equivalent circuits are theoretically determined, which allows a fairly accurate estimate of resonant properties. It is shown that a reentrant cavity is expressed as a low-frequency series LCR/sub se/ circuit or a shunt LCR/sub sh/ circuit, taking L as the inductance of a toroidal coil with one turn and with a cross section the same as the cavity, C as the gap capacitance plus the equivalent capacitance of the cavity, and R/sub se/ or R/sub sh/ as the equivalent series or shunt resistance of the cavity at resonance. The introduction of the equivalent cavity capacitance has proved to be very effective. The formulas derived here enable one to calculate the resonant frequency within an error of a few per cent and the shunt resistance and the Q within an error of several tenths of a per cent in most cases, and thus should prove to be very useful to the designer of microwave circuits.
Turbulent flow in curved channels

Abstract Fully developed turbulent flow in channels with mild to strong longitudinal curvature is studied by direct numerical simulations. The Reynolds based on the bulk mean velocity and channel half-width $\delta$ is fixed at $20\,000$, resulting in a friction Reynolds number of approximately 1000. Four cases are considered with curvature varying from $\gamma = 2\delta /r_c = 0.033$ to 0.333, where $r_c$ is the curvature radius at the channel centre. Substantial differences between the mean wall shear stress on the convex and concave walls are already observed for $\gamma = 0.033$. A log-law region is absent and a region with nearly constant mean angular momentum develops in the channel centre for strong curvatures. Spanwise and wall-normal velocity fluctuations are strongly amplified by curvature in the outer region of the concave channel side. Only near the walls, where curvature effects are relatively weak, do the mean velocity and velocity fluctuation profiles approximately collapse when scaled by wall units based on the local friction velocity. Budgets of the streamwise and wall-normal Reynolds-stress equations are presented and turbulence structures are investigated through visualizations and spectra. In the case with strongest curvature, the flow relaminarizes locally near the convex wall. On the concave channel side, large elongated streamwise vortices reminiscent of Taylor–Görtler vortices develop for all curvatures considered. The maximum in the premultiplied two-dimensional wall-normal energy spectrum and co-spectrum shifts towards larger scales with increasing curvature. The large scales substantially contribute to the wall-normal velocity fluctuations and momentum transport on the concave channel side.
Radiation pressure acceleration of protons from structured thin-foil targets

The process of radiation pressure acceleration (RPA) of ions is investigated with the aim of suppressing the Rayleigh–Taylor-like transverse instabilities in laser–foil interaction. This is achieved by imposing surface and density modulations on the target surface. We also study the efficacy of RPA of ions from density modulated and structured targets in the radiation dominated regime where the radiation reaction effects are important. We show that the use of density modulated and structured targets and the radiation reaction effects can help in achieving the twin goals of high ion energy (in GeV range) and lower energy spread.
Instability of a planar fluid interface under a tangential electric field in a stagnation point flow

Abstract The interface between two immiscible fluids can become unstable under the effect of an imposed tangential electric field along with a stagnation point flow. This canonical situation, which arises in a wide range of electrohydrodynamic systems including at the equator of electrified droplets, can result in unstable interface deflections where the perturbed interface gets drawn along the extensional axis of the flow while experiencing strong charge build-up. Here, we present analytical and numerical analyses of the stability of a planar interface separating two immiscible fluid layers subject to a tangential electric field and a stagnation point flow. The interfacial charge dynamics is captured by a conservation equation accounting for Ohmic conduction, advection by the flow and finite charge relaxation. Using this model, we perform a local linear stability analysis in the vicinity of the stagnation point to study the behaviour of the system in terms of the relevant dimensionless groups of the problem. The local theory is complemented with a numerical normal-mode linear stability analysis based on the full system of equations and boundary conditions using the boundary element method. Our analysis demonstrates the subtle interplay of charge convection and conduction in the dynamics of the system, which oppose one another in the dominant unstable eigenmode. Finally, numerical simulations of the full nonlinear problem demonstrate how the coupling of flow and interfacial charge dynamics can give rise to nonlinear phenomena such as tip formation and the growth of charge density shocks.
Helicobacter pylori infection and eradication outcomes among Vietnamese patients in the same households: Findings from a non-randomized study

Objective Familial transmission can possibly influence the infection and treatment of Helicobacter pylori. This study aimed to describe the prevalence of H. pylori infection and outcomes of eradication treatment among Vietnamese patients who live in the same households. Methods We conducted a prospective cohort study of Vietnamese household members with upper gastrointestinal complaints. Participants received esophagogastroduodenoscopy and H. pylori testing. The H. pylori-positive patients were treated and asked to return for follow-up within 4 months. To explore factors associated with H. pylori infection at baseline, we performed multilevel logistic regression to account for the clustering effect of living in the same households. To explore factors associated with eradication failure, we used Poisson regression with robust variance estimation to estimate the risk ratio. Results The prevalence of H. pylori infection was 83.5% and highest among children <12 years old (92.2%) in 1,272 patients from 482 households. There were variations in H. pylori infection across households (intraclass correlation = 0.14, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.05, 0.33). Children aged <12 years had higher odds of H. pylori infection (odds ratio = 3.41, 95%CI 2.11, 5.50). At follow-up, H. pylori was eradicated in 264 of 341 patients (77.4%). The risk of eradication failure was lower for the sequential regimen with tetracycline. Conclusion H. pylori infection was common among people living in the same households. Eradication success for H. pylori was higher for the tetracycline sequential regimen. More research should be focused on how family factors influence H. pylori infection and on eradication treatment.
Boundary-Layer Transition Over Rough Surfaces With Elevated Free-Stream Turbulence

This paper presents experimental results documenting the combined effects of surface roughness and free-stream turbulence level on boundary-layer transition. The experiments were conducted on a flat surface, upon which a pressure distribution similar to those prevailing on the suction side of turbine blades was imposed. The test matrix consists of four variations in the roughness conditions, at each of three free-stream turbulence levels and two flow Reynolds numbers. The ranges of these parameters considered in the study, which are typical of low-pressure turbines, resulted in both attached-flow and separation-bubble transition. The experimental results show that the transition inception location remains sensitive to surface roughness with increasing free-stream turbulence. Through spectral analysis of the velocity signals, this is shown to be due to earlier appearance and larger amplitude of Tollmien-Schlichting instability waves in both attached-flow and separation-bubble transition. In the test cases in which a separation-bubble is present, the rate of transition is seen to be insensitive to surface roughness, and only mildly sensitive to free-stream turbulence.Copyright © 2004 by ASME
How do People Perceive the Role of AI in Human-AI Collaboration to Solve Everyday Tasks?

Recent technological advances in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence have led to the proliferation of AI-powered decision support systems. This partially explains the HCI research community’s increased interest in investigating how to design systems that will optimise Human-AI collaboration. However, most studies predominately focus on the work environment in which domain experts interact with AI systems to solve relatively well-defined tasks. In this paper, we explore Human AI collaboration involving non-domain experts in the everyday task of waste sorting for recycling. We conducted a study in which 35 participants completed a waste sorting task using Waste Wizard, an AI-infused prototype that we developed. We present the results of our qualitative analysis based on follow-up interviews aiming to understand how our participants perceived the role of the AI system during their collaboration. Our results show four distinct roles (Mirror, Assistant, Guide, and Oracle) that our participants ascribed to the AI system.
Effective Cyclic Energy as a Measure of Seismic Demand

Structural damage during strong ground shaking is associated with both the seismic input energy and the ability of structural components to dissipate energy through viscous damping and inelastic cyclic response. The correlation of the damage potential of ground motions with seismic energy demand is an important element in developing energy-based design methodologies. This article proposes a new measure of the severity of ground motions by introducing the concept of effective cyclic energy (ECE) defined as the peak-to-peak energy demand (sum of hysteretic and damping energies) imposed on a structure over an effective duration that is equivalent to the time between two zero-crossings of the “effective velocity pulse. ” The proposed energy measure, which is dependent on the characteristics of the ground motion, is shown to be well correlated with peak seismic demand for a range of system parameters. The development of ECE also provides a basis for defining a non dimensional response index (γ eff ) to quantify the destructive potential of ground motions. The effectiveness of the new index parameter is validated using an extensive set of near-fault accelerograms and also compared to other ground motion severity indices. Finally, ECE demand of a MDOF system is estimated through modal-energy-decomposition of elastic and inelastic SDOF systems, and the concept of ECE spectrum is proposed to estimate the modal target energy demands for performance evaluation of structures.
The Views and Experiences of Selected South African Lecturers on COVID-19 Emergency Electronic Learning Use: Lessons Learned

The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a national lock down that saw universities completely switch to online teaching and learning. Lecturers were ill prepared for a change of such magnitude. This study sought to investigate the views and experiences of lecturers’ use of electronic learning (eLearning) during the lock down. A qualitative research methodology was used in which lecturers from selected public South African universities were engaged. Study findings show that participants faced challenges when using eLearning. However, positive outcomes from the use of eLearning were noted. Even though participants appear to be warming up to the idea of using eLearning, study findings show that careful planning and channeling of the necessary resources remains important. Findings from this study can play a key role in influencing the design of eLearning technologies.
Nearly one-in-five mothers avoid colostrum in North Wollo Zone, Ethiopia: an institution-based cross-sectional study

Abstract Colostrum contains antibodies that protect the newborn against disease. Despite this fact, many Ethiopian mothers see colostrum feeding as a cause of neonatal morbidity and mortality. These mothers believe that colostrum must discard to alleviate this effect. However, the cause of this misconception about colostrum was not well researched, particularly in this study area. The main aim of the present study was to assess colostrum avoidance and associated factors among mothers having children aged 6–59 months in North Wollo Zone, Northeastern Ethiopia. An institution-based cross-sectional study design was used. Descriptive statistics, binary and multivariable logistic regression analyses were used for the statistical analysis. The prevalence of colostrum avoidance was 19 % (95 % CI 15⋅03, 22⋅89 %) among mother–child pair aged 6–59 months. In multivariable logistic regression analysis, the most important predictors were breast-feeding initiation Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) 6⋅369; 95 %, Confidence Interval (CI) (3⋅067, 13⋅224), pre-lacteal feeding AOR 3⋅464; 95 % CI (1⋅721, 6⋅973), shared household decision about child feeding AOR 3⋅585; 95 % CI (1⋅563, 7⋅226), Index child sex AOR 2⋅103; 95 % CI (1⋅015, 4⋅358) and health facility delivery AOR 3⋅033; 95 % CI (1⋅293, 7⋅117). The colostrum avoidance in the present study was 19 %. The study recommends the promotion of institutional delivery, timely initiation of breast-feeding, the shared household decisions about child feeding, avoiding sex preferences and stopping pre-lacteal feeding were critically important.
Tom70-based transcriptional regulation of mitochondrial biogenesis and aging

Mitochondrial biogenesis has two major steps: the transcriptional activation of nuclear genome-encoded mitochondrial proteins and the import of nascent mitochondrial proteins that are synthesized in the cytosol. These nascent mitochondrial proteins are aggregation-prone and can cause cytosolic proteostasis stress. The transcription factor-dependent transcriptional regulations and the TOM-TIM complex-dependent import of nascent mitochondrial proteins have been extensively studied. Yet, little is known regarding how these two steps of mitochondrial biogenesis coordinate with each other to avoid the cytosolic accumulation of these aggregation-prone nascent mitochondrial proteins. Here we show that in budding yeast, Tom70, a conserved receptor of the TOM complex, moonlights to regulate the transcriptional activity of mitochondrial proteins. Tom70’s transcription regulatory role is conserved in Drosophila. The dual roles of Tom70 in both transcription/biogenesis and import of mitochondrial proteins allow the cells to accomplish mitochondrial biogenesis without compromising cytosolic proteostasis. The age-related reduction of Tom70, caused by reduced biogenesis and increased degradation of Tom70, is associated with the loss of mitochondrial membrane potential, mtDNA, and mitochondrial proteins. While loss of Tom70 accelerates aging and age-related mitochondrial defects, overexpressing TOM70 delays these mitochondrial dysfunctions and extends the replicative lifespan. Our results reveal unexpected roles of Tom70 in mitochondrial biogenesis and aging.
Content Personalization framework in cultural routes: TRACCE project case study

Recent developments in digital storytelling technologies regarding the cultural tourism domain have driven technological trends in comfortable and convenient travelling, by offering interactive and personalized user experiences. The emergence of recommendation systems and personalization techniques have created a smart research field, augmenting cultural heritage visitor's experience. In this work, a novel narrative system for cultural routes is proposed, that combines user's media preference with cultural tourist typologies. Starting with the McKercher typology as a user classification research base, which extracts five categories of heritage tourists and using a questionnaire, an enriched cultural tourist typology is developed, where three categories of cultural tourists are also proposed based on the multimedia data given.