Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prediction of Girolando cattle weight by means of body measurements extracted from images

Abstract The objective with this study was to analyze the body measurements of Girolando cattle, as well as measurements extracted from their images, to generate a model to understand which measures further explain the cattle body weight. Therefore, the experiment physically measured 34 Girolando cattle (two males and 32 females), for the following traits: heart girth (HGP), circumference of the abdomen, body length, occipito-ischial length, wither height, and hip height. In addition, images of the dorsum and the body lateral [. ]
Patterns of host use in mosquitoes: Implications for virus transmission

Mosquitoes do not feed indiscriminately among hosts, but demonstrate various patterns of host use. Each mosquito species may specialize in feeding within a group of related hosts or may utilize a wide variety of hosts. Mosquito host use may vary with season, habitat or weather and may be affected by factors, such as age, defensive behavior, and daily activity period. Patterns of host use by mosquitoes drive the transmission of mosquito-borne viruses. For zoonotic diseases, a vector must first acquire a pathogen from a reservoir host prior to infecting a human. Birds, for example, are reservoirs for many mosquito-borne viruses such as West Nile virus and eastern equine encephalomyelitis virus. Epidemics of West Nile virus and eastern equine encephalomyelitis virus in humans and horses usually occur in the summer and early fall, when mosquito populations shift from feeding on avian hosts. The work presented here reports on studies examining host use by mosquitoes and the impact of patterns of host use on the transmission of mosquito-borne viruses. To determine host preference of ectotherm-feeding mosquitoes, host use and host abundance data were analyzed to determine whether mosquitoes select some host species over others. Culex peccator was a generalist in its feeding patterns within ectotherms, and Cx. territans appeared to select Bullfrogs and Spring Peepers. To determine the importance of nestling birds as hosts for mosquitoes, I examined patterns of host use in adult and nestling birds, by introducing mosquitoes into nest boxes of eastern bluebirds, and then determining which birds were fed upon
Re‐evaluation of stearyl tartrate (E 483) as a food additive

Abstract The Panel on Food Additives and Flavourings (FAF) provided a scientific opinion re‐evaluating the safety of stearyl tartrate (E 483) as a food additive. The previously evaluated toxicological studies were not available, in addition to no genotoxicity data being available. Thus, adequate toxicity data on stearyl tartrate were not available for its re‐evaluation. In addition, adequate data demonstrating the complete hydrolysis of stearyl tartrate (E 483) in the gastrointestinal tract and/or presystemically, that could allow read‐across from data on its constituents, were lacking. Therefore, the safety of the use of stearyl tartrate as a food additive could not be assessed and the acceptable intake established by the Scientific Committee on Food (SCF) in 1978 could not be confirmed. Exposure to stearyl tartrate (E 483) was calculated using the maximum level exposure assessment scenario as neither use levels nor analytical data were available. Mean exposure to stearyl tartrate (E 483) as a food additive ranged from 0.1 mg/kg body weight (bw) per day in infants to 82.5 mg/kg bw per day in toddlers. The 95th percentile of exposure ranged from 0 mg/kg bw per day in adults to 192.7 mg/kg bw per day in toddlers. The Panel also noted that information from the Mintel's GNPD indicates that only two products have been labelled with stearyl tartrate (E 483) since 1996. Some recommendations were proposed by the Panel.
Tariff Reduction and Environment: Evidence from CAFTA and Chinese Manufacturing Firms

In the context of anti-globalization and trade wars (especially between the US and China), China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA) now plays a prominent role in many aspects. In this paper, we investigate how import tariff reduction in CAFTA affects the importers’ pollution emissions, using the firm-level data of Chinese manufacturing from 2002 to 2007. The mechanisms of import tariff reduction in CAFTA on pollution emissions are divided into technique, composition and scale effects. Our results indicate that import tariff reduction in CAFTA on final goods is conductive to importers’ pollution reduction, whereas that on intermediates significantly aggravates importers’ pollution emissions. Moreover, import tariff reduction has heterogeneous impacts on different types of enterprises in terms of industries, ownership, and region. Our results also find that the state-owned importers’ emissions can hardly be affected through technique, composition and scale effects.
Blood biochemical changes in some important parasitic infestations in goats for clinical appraisal.

Recurring losses in productivity are due to the widely prevalent parasitic infection in small ruminants in all system of management worldwide. Effects on important blood biochemicals were estimated in naturally occurring heamonchosis, cestodiasis, coccidiosis and sarcoptic mange in goats for clinical appraisal. The study was conducted at the goat farm of Institute: goats were kept under semi intensive system of management. In naturally infected clinical cases of haemonchosis, blood glucose values (32.68±2.11 mg %), total protein (4.34±0.27 g %), albumin (2.07±0.16 g %) and globulin (2.29±0.16 g %) levels were significantly decreased in comparison to normal cases. indicating systemic influence of infestation. In hacmonchosis, serum iron (39.05±11.0 μg/ml) significantly decreased which was related to the blood loss. Moneizia infection in kids revealed hypoglycemia (33.45±3.58 mg %), hypoalbuminemia (1.77±0.14.5 g %) and lover levels of calcium (6.18± 0. 992 mg %), which suggested deficiency of essential nutrients and energy. In coccidiosis-affected kids the biochemical parameters like serum glucose (28.55±1.32 mg %), albumin (2.97±0.191 g %), calcium (6.88± 0.027 mg %) and globulin (1.72±0.33 g %) significantly declined, due to varying degree or intestinal epithelial damage. In generalized sarcoptic manage in adult goats, serum glucose (34.83±2.27 mg %), total protein (3.70±0.29 g %), albumin (2.80± 0.15 g %) registered significant decrease. Globulin levels (0.90±0.27%) were drastically lower indicating in immunosuppressant effect of mange in goats. AST levels (97.78± 11.23 U/ml) were also increased because of tissue reaction in skin epithelium. This study indicated that parasitic diseases such as haemonchosis, coccidiosis and moneizia infection and mange infestation in goats in different age group severely affected biochemical parameters.
Impacts of an Early Childhood Mathematics and Science Intervention on Teaching Practices and Child Outcomes

abstract This randomized controlled trial examined effects of the MyTeachingPartner-Math/Science intervention on the quality and quantity of teachers’ mathematics and science instruction, and children’s mathematics and science outcomes in 140 pre-kindergarten classrooms. Teachers participated in the intervention for two years with consecutive cohorts of children. Results from Year 1 are considered experimental, however due to high levels of attrition, results from Year 2 are considered quasi-experimental. Across both years, intervention teachers exhibited higher quality and quantity of instruction. In Year 1, there were no significant effects of the intervention on children’s outcomes. In Year 2, children in intervention classrooms made greater gains in teachers’ ratings of mathematics and science skills and performed better on a spring assessment of science skills. These results have implications for designing and evaluating professional development aimed at supporting children’s mathematics and science knowledge and skills.
Upregulation of CEP55 Predicts Dismal Prognosis in Patients with Liver Cancer

Purpose This study was performed to investigate the association of CEP55 expression with liver cancer and explore potential underlying mechanisms. Materials and Methods. Data obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) was used to investigate CEP55 expression, its prognostic value, the potential mechanisms of its upregulation, CEP55-related pathways, and its biological functions in liver cancer. Data from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) was used to validate survival analysis. The correlation between CEP55 and tumor-infiltrating immune cells (TIICs) in liver cancer was determined by using Tumor Immune Estimation Resource (TIMER). Results CEP55 was significantly overexpressed in the liver tumor sample compared to the adjacent normal liver sample. High CEP55 expression was significantly associated with histological grade, advanced stages, histological type, high T classification, and survival status. High CEP55 expression was significantly related to dismal prognosis compared with low CEP55 expression, which was validated by the GSE54236 dataset and ICGC database. Meanwhile, CEP55 was identified as the risk factor to independently predict overall survival (OS) for patients with liver cancer upon multivariate analysis. Enrichment analysis indicated that cell cycle, DNA replication, pathways in cancer, mTOR signaling pathway, and VEGF signaling pathway were significantly enriched in the high CEP55 expression group. In addition, the CEP55 expression was significantly related to the infiltration level of B cells, CD4+ T cells, CD8+ T cells, macrophages, neutrophils, and dendritic cells in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). CEP55 methylation level was negatively correlated to its mRNA expression. And patients with CEP55 hypermethylation and low expression can achieve a better prognosis than those with CEP55 hypomethylation and high expression. Conclusion CEP55 may serve as a candidate treatment target for it is a determinant of prognosis and immune infiltration in liver cancer patients. DNA hypomethylation might contribute to the overexpression of CEP55 in liver cancer.
Gene Expression Profiling for Melanoma

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Foreign Trade as a Tool to Strengthen the EU's Competitiveness Against China (A Case of the Service Sector)

The paper analyses some aspects of EU-China trade relations. Correlation analysis was applied to quantify the extent of the influence of the foreign trade with China on the overall foreign trade of the five members of the EU that have the largest foreign trade with China. Given the ongoing trade deficits of the EU with China, we decided to apply the Trade Complementarity Index (TCI) to determine the extent of their trade complementarity. Our initial hypothesis that the economies are highly complementary was rejected. We thus decided to apply the TCI to the EU's trade relations with the US. For the US, the TCI confirmed the existence of high trade complementarity. This implies that the EU can strengthen its negotiating power with China by increasing its trade diversification. These conclusions were also supported by our econometric model. A thorough analysis of EU-China trade relations also revealed the growth potential of the trade in services, which is gaining its momentum given the turbulences in global trade. The paper suggests that the EU needs to strengthen its trade relations with its "natural trade partners" instead of concentrating on China. The paper's focus on trade in services is a major contribution as it has so far been neglected in the economic literature.
Effect of Roasting Condition on the Physicochemical Properties of Rice Flour and the Quality Characteristics of Tarakjuk

The physicochemical properties of rice flour roasted at various temperatures and times were analyzed, and the quality characteristics of tarakjuk made from these roasted rice flours were investigated. As roasting temperature and time increased, rice flour showed decreasing moisture, protein content, and glucose the major reducing sugar of rice flour. Total amino acid content did not show any significant changes, but the amount of free amino acids and individual amino acids, such as lysine, tryptophane, and tyrosine, decreased. A decrease in L value and increases in a and b values from both roasted rice flour and tarakjuk was observed. Reduced crystallinity and gelatinization temperatures of roasted rice flour were investigated with X-ray diffractogram and DSC, respectively. The thermal transitions between of tarakjuk by DSC are considered to be due to the melting of amylose-lipid complex. As the roasting temperature and time of rice flours increased, tarakjuk showed lower viscosity and higher spreadability. Sensory characteristics, such as nutty flavor, color intensity, and gritty texture increased significantly. Tarakjuk made from rice flour roasted at for 25min showed the highest score on overall preference. From the above results, roasted rice flour produced more preferable tarakjuk than nonroasted flour in terms of sensory quality.
Tracking Patterns in Self-Regulated Learning Using Students’ Self-Reports and Online Trace Data

For decades, self-report instruments – which rely heavily on students’ perceptions and beliefs – have been the dominant way of measuring motivation and strategy use. An event-based measure based on online trace data arguably has the potential to remove analytical restrictions of perception-based measures. The purpose of this study is therefore to triangulate constructs suggested in theory and measured using self-reported data with revealed online traces of learning behaviour. The results show that online trace data of learning behaviour are complementary to self-reports, as they explained a unique proportion of variance in student academic performance, and reveal that self-reports explain more variance in online learning behaviour of prior weeks than variance in learning behaviour in succeeding weeks. Student motivation is, however, to a lesser extent captured with online trace data, likely because of its covert nature. In that respect, it is of importance to recognize the crucial role of self-reports in capturing student learning holistically. This manuscript is ‘frontline’ in the sense that event-based measurement methodologies with online trace data is relatively unexplored. The comparison with self-report data made in this manuscript sheds new light on the added values of innovative and traditional methods of measuring motivation and strategy use.
Viral Kinetics and Antibody Responses in Patients with COVID-19

Background A pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been spreading over the world. However, the viral dynamics, host serologic responses, and their associations with clinical manifestations, have not been well described in prospective cohort. Methods We conducted a prospective cohort and enrolled 67 COVID-19 patients admitting between Jan 26 and Feb 5, 2020. Clinical specimens including nasopharyngeal swab, sputum, blood, urine and stool were tested periodically according to standardized case report form with final follow-up on February 27. The routes and duration of viral shedding, antibody response, and their associations with disease severity and clinical manifestations were systematically evaluated. Coronaviral particles in clinical specimens were observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Results The median duration of SARS-CoV-2 RNA shedding were 12 (3-38), 19 (5-37), and 18 (7-26) days in nasopharyngeal swabs, sputum and stools, respectively. Only 13 urines (5.6%) and 12 plasmas (5.7%) were viral positive. Prolonged viral shedding was observed in severe patients than that of non-severe patients. Cough but not fever, aligned with viral shedding in clinical respiratory specimens, meanwhile the positive stool-RNA appeared to align with the proportion who concurrently had cough and sputum production, but not diarrhea. Typical coronaviral particles could be found directly in sputum by TEM. The anti-nucleocapsid-protein IgM started on day 7 and positive rate peaked on day 28, while that of IgG was on day 10 and day 49 after illness onset. IgM and IgG appear earlier, and their titers are significantly higher in severe patients than non-severe patients (p<0.05). The weak responders for IgG had a significantly higher viral clearance rate than that of strong responders (p= 0.011). Conclusions Nasopharyngeal, sputum and stools rather than blood and urine, were the major shedding routes for SARS-CoV-2, and meanwhile sputum had a prolonged viral shedding. Symptom cough seems to be aligned with viral shedding in clinical respiratory and fecal specimens. Stronger antibody response was associated with delayed viral clearance and disease severity.
Designing the Coronary Artery Disease Registry with Data Management Processes Approach: A Comparative Systematic Review in Selected Registries

: Context The use of registries to Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) data management plays an important role in the improvement of healthcare processes and reduction of outcomes for patients and healthcare providers. The present study aimed to compare the data management processes of CAD registries in the selected countries. Evidence Acquisition This review study was conducted comparatively in 2019. After selecting countries based on some criteria, the required data were collected by searching valid databases, more useful search engines, and related websites to CAD registries for the selected countries as well as by sending E-mails containing a data extraction form to the related organizations. Results Totally, five registries were chosen in the selected countries as follows: CADOSA (Australia), APPROACH (Canada), START (Italy), CLARIFY (Spain), and GWTG-CAD (US). The results showed that 60% of the selected registries made use of the electronic case report form for data gathering. The main data elements included demographic and general information, risk factors, vital sings, medication, laboratory tests results, examination results, ECG results, invasive measures and interventions, patient’s status on discharge, results of follow-ups, and post-discharge outcomes. Conclusion Developing CAD registries based on the data management principles provides the context to conduct cohort studies with very low costs. With regard to the study results, attention should be paid to data management processes, include data gathering, data processing, and information distribution, in development of CAD registries.
Life transitions and women’s desired number of children: the impact of motherhood, relationships and employment

ABSTRACT To better understand the gap between women’s childbearing aspirations and actual levels of childbearing, this paper investigates the importance of employment, relationship and motherhood transitions for predicting women’s desired number of children. Women born in 1973–78 participating in the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health were asked, at three-time points over six years, how many children they would like to have by the age of 35 years. Women who delayed childbearing, did not marry or enter a cohabiting relationship aspired to fewer children, whilst those who married aspired to more children. Notably, the two-way interactions demonstrated that for women without children, and for women who had had their first child between waves, shifting from secure work to being out of the labour force was associated with desiring fewer children. This finding supports the argument that policies which promote women’s attachment to the workforce enable women to more effectively pursue their aspirations for both motherhood and careers. The findings make a new contribution to the field by indicating that life transitions are more important predictors of desired number of children than background and demographic factors that have long been associated with, and used as explanations for, women’s childbearing.
Jansky VLA observations of synchrotron emitting optical hotspots of 3C 227 and 3C 445 radio galaxies

We report results on deep Jansky Very Large Array A-configuration observations at 22 GHz of the hotspots of the radio galaxies 3C227 and 3C445. Synchrotron emission in the optical on scales up to a few kpc was reported for the four hotspots. Our VLA observations point out the presence of unresolved regions with upper limit to their linear size of about 100 pc. This is the first time that such compact components in hotspots have been detected in a mini-sample, indicating that they are not a peculiar characteristic of a few individual hotspots. The polarization may reach values up to 70 per cent in compact (about 0.1 kpc scale) regions within the hotspot, indicating a highly ordered magnetic field with size up to a hundred parsecs. On larger scales, the average polarization of the hotspot component is about 30-45 per cent, suggesting the presence of a significant random field component, rather than an ordered magnetic field. This is further supported by the displacement between the peaks in polarized intensity and in total intensity images that is observed in all the four hotspots. The electric vector position angle is not constant, but changes arbitrarily in the central part of the hotspot regions, whereas it is usually perpendicular to the total intensity contours of the outermost edge of the hotspot structure, likely marking the large-scale shock front. The misalignment between X-ray and radio-to-optical emission suggests that the former is tracing the current particle acceleration, whereas the latter marks older shock fronts.
“Everyone is on supervision”: the function of home visits in structuring family dynamics and exerting continuous control

Abstract Community supervision has become commonplace within the United States to monitor, regulate, and attempt to rehabilitate individuals in their transition from a correctional setting back into their communities. An abundance of literature has focused on the recidivism outcomes of individuals on supervision. Much less, however, has focused on the agents of supervision and their daily supervisory strategies and tactics in the community. This study analyzes qualitative interviews with 15 adult probation/parole officers, exploring their supervisory techniques during home visitations. The findings document how officers attempt to leverage assistance from household members, while also subjecting these same individuals to formal surveillance. This paper argues that probation/parole officers mobilize their authority to structure the households they visit to an increased state of surveillance and control. In particular, officer strategies include training household members to comply with supervision while also co-opting these members as supplemental forms of surveillance over their loved one who is under supervision.