Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Impact of multimorbidity count on all-cause mortality and glycaemic outcomes in people with type 2 diabetes: a systematic review protocol

Introduction Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a leading health priority worldwide. Multimorbidity (MM) is a term describing the co-occurrence of two or more chronic diseases or conditions. The majority of people living with T2D have MM. The relationship between MM and mortality and glycaemia in people with T2D is not clear. Methods and analysis Medline, Embase, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Complete, The Cochrane Library, and SCOPUS will be searched with a prespecified search strategy. The searches will be limited to quantitative empirical studies in English with no restriction on publication date. One reviewer will perform title screening and two review authors will independently screen the abstract and full texts using Covidence software, with disagreements adjudicated by a third reviewer. Data will be extracted using a using a Population, Exposure, Comparator and Outcomes framework. Two reviewers will independently extract data and undertake the risk of bias (quality) assessment. Disagreements will be resolved by consensus. A narrative synthesis of the results will be conducted and meta-analysis considered if appropriate. Quality appraisal will be undertaken using the Newcastle-Ottawa quality assessment scale and the quality of the cumulative evidence of the included studies will be assessed using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation approach. This protocol was prepared in adherence to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Protocols guidelines to ensure the quality of our review. Ethics and dissemination This review will synthesise the existing evidence about the impact of MM on mortality and glycaemic outcomes in people living with T2D and increase our understanding of this subject and will inform future practice and policy. Findings will be disseminated via conference presentations, social media and peer-reviewed publication. PROSPERO registration number CRD42017079500.
Arbovirus titer variation in field-collected mosquitoes.

Patterns in the distribution of titers in arbovirus-positive mosquito pools were examined. Virus isolation records from the Division of Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from 1974 through 1993 were used to estimate virus titers in field-collected pools. Pools were classified as either low titer (< or = 3.0 log10 plaque-forming units [PFU]/ml) or high titer (> 3.0 log10 PFU/ml). The proportion of virus-positive pools that had high titers varied among the different domestic arboviruses, within viruses among field sites and years, and within viruses among mosquito species tested. Alphaviruses produced a greater proportion of pools with high titers than did the flaviviruses. Variation in the proportion of pools with high titers among sites and years suggested variation in mosquito and/or virus strains. Variation in the proportion of pools with high titers among mosquito species indicated species-specific differences in vectorial capacity. The results show that information about the titer of virus in mosquito pools can complement other parameters, such as the minimum infection rate, currently used in mosquito-based arbovirus surveillance programs.
Electron-beam modification of silica for integrated optics

Germanium-doped silica deposited by flame-hydrolysis deposition (FHD) is one of the materials most widely used for the fabrication of passive optical circuits for the telecommunication and bio-sensors industries. The development of novel fabrication techniques that reduce the number of processing steps while producing high-quality waveguides with tailored characteristics is desired. Electron-beam irradiation of silica increases the refractive index of the material, producing directly buried waveguides and leaving a flat wafer surface that allows easy integration with further processing steps. The aim of this thesis is to characterise the physical processes involved in electron-beam irradiation of germanium doped FHD silica and the influence of the different material and irradiation parameters on the change of optical properties. The use of electron-beam irradiation is a convenient way of fabricating different kinds of communication and bio-sensing devices. To that aim, the germanium-doped flame-hydrolysis silica employed was first characterized. A non-uniformity of the optical properties as a function of depth, was observed. In order to elucidate the origin of the graded-optical properties, compositional, structural and density analyses were carried out on the material. Once the properties of the initial material were known, the effects of electron-beam irradiation were studied. The electron-beam transfers energy to the material non-uniformly, which undergoes a structural rearrangement, which leads to change in the relative density and therefore, variation in the refractive index. The structural, density and refractive index changes were independently characterized and confirmed from theoretical calculations. Thermal annealing experiments were carried out in order to study the stability of the changes induced in the material and further information concerning the physical processes involved was found. Several waveguide devices were fabricated, exhibiting low-losses, thus confirming the suitability of the technique. Finally, the results obtained for electron-beam irradiation were compared with 2 MeV argon ion irradiation, finding that a common structural modification leading to the refractive index change mechanism must be present in both cases.
Labour Relations Quality and Productivity: An Empirical Analysis on French Firms

We empirically characterise how good labour relations can alleviate the negative impact on productivity of regulatory constraints or workforce opposition. The estimates are based on a unique survey of French manufacturing firms collected by the Banque de France over the period 1991-2008. Our main results may be summarised as follows: i) 'workforce or union opposition' interacted with 'regulatory constraints' has a negative significant impact on total factor productivity (TFP). When this interaction is not taken into account, a deteriorated labour climate, through workforce or union opposition, weighs directly on TFP. But when this interaction is taken into account, this negative impact relies solely on the combination of regulatory constraints and labour opposition: workers or unions can successfully oppose management's decisions and weigh on TFP when they can use or threaten to use appropriate regulation; otherwise, their opposition may be harmless; ii) 'regulatory constraints' interacted with 'branch or firm agreement' has a positive significant impact on TFP. These agreements, which can only be obtained if labour relations are supportive, would be used by firms to offset the negative impact of regulatory constraints. This favourable impact can be obtained through two channels: first, informally, a good labour climate can lead to a flexible implementation of regulation; second, formally, the French labour code incorporates provisions that allow firm or branch agreements to adapt or even alleviate the constraints of regulation. These results emphasise that the implementation of regulatory constraints and their impact on productivity crucially hinges on the quality of labour climate.
Diamidine Compounds for Selective Inhibition of Protein Arginine Methyltransferase 1

Protein arginine methylation is a posttranslational modification critical for a variety of biological processes. Misregulation of protein arginine methyltransferases (PRMTs) has been linked to many pathological conditions. Most current PRMT inhibitors display limited specificity and selectivity, indiscriminately targeting many methyltransferase enzymes that use S-adenosyl-l-methionine as a cofactor. Here we report diamidine compounds for specific inhibition of PRMT1, the primary type I enzyme. Docking, molecular dynamics, and MM/PBSA analysis together with biochemical assays were conducted to understand the binding modes of these inhibitors and the molecular basis of selective inhibition for PRMT1. Our data suggest that 2,5-bis(4-amidinophenyl)furan (1, furamidine, DB75), one leading inhibitor, targets the enzyme active site and is primarily competitive with the substrate and noncompetitive toward the cofactor. Furthermore, cellular studies revealed that 1 is cell membrane permeable and effectively inhibits intracellular PRMT1 activity and blocks cell proliferation in leukemia cell lines with different genetic lesions.
Reinforcement of plant fiber-based ultra low density material with sodium silicate

Inorganic materials such as sodium silicate and aluminum sulfate can be used as additives to improve mechanical and fire resistance performances of plant fiber-based ultra low density material(ULDM) during its making process using the liquid frothing approach.Following process was used to make sample mats:after fiberization in a refiner,adding resin and surface active agent in the pulp solution,then adding sodium silicate and aluminum sulfate,well mixing the solution;after solution frothing,mat forming and drying,a plant fiber-based ultra low density mat was made.Compared with 0 inorganic additive,using 40% sodium silicate and corresponding amount of aluminum sulfate could increase internal bonding strength of the ULDM from 0.1 MPa to 1.0 MPa,MOE from 12.4 MPa to 87.3 MPa;MOR from 0.2 MPa to 7.3 MPa and compressive strength(at 10% strain) was ranging from 0.2 MPa to 3.7 MPa.This also can reinforce fire resistance performance and oxygen index reach a higher level of 42%. No significant weight loss and exothermic decomposition could be observed below 700 ℃.
Neutrosophic Hough Transform-Based Track Initiation Method for Multiple Target Tracking

A neutrosophic Hough transform-based track initiation method (NHT-TI) is proposed to solve the uncertain track initiation problem in a complex surveillance environment. In the proposed method, a neutrosophic set is employed to describe the uncertain association of a measurement with different targets, which is divided into three categories, including the association with real targets, uncertain targets, and false targets, respectively. On this basis, the neutrosophic Hough transform (NHT) method is developed in the framework of the standard Hough transform (HT) method. Based on the sequential processing mode of the sensors, candidate temporary tracks are further defined to directly calculate the parameter points in the parameter space, which are utilized to calculate the contribution for the corresponding vote cells in the accumulation matrix by using the Gaussian membership function. Based on the scheme, the NHT method can avoid large traversal operations and reduce computation complexity of the HT method. Moreover, considering the effects of noises and clutters on track initiation, two constraint conditions related to the velocity information of moving targets and the time information of measurement sequences are introduced to suppress false tracks and reduce vote times. Finally, the real tracks can be determined by detecting the peaks of the global accumulation matrix. The performance of the proposed NHT-TI method is evaluated by using two experiments with simulated data and real data in two complex surveillance environments. The results are found to be better than those of the standard HT-based track initiation (HT-TI) method, the modified HT-TI method based on candidate temporary tracks and the improved HT-TI method in detection reliability and computational complexity.
LIUM-CVC Submissions for WMT18 Multimodal Translation Task

This paper describes the multimodal Neural Machine Translation systems developed by LIUM and CVC for WMT18 Shared Task on Multimodal Translation. This year we propose several modifications to our previous multimodal attention architecture in order to better integrate convolutional features and refine them using encoder-side information. Our final constrained submissions ranked first for English→French and second for English→German language pairs among the constrained submissions according to the automatic evaluation metric METEOR.
Microwave-Assisted Oxalic Acid Pretreatment for the Enhancing of Enzyme Hydrolysis in the Production of Xylose and Arabinose from Bagasse

In this study, highly-efficient hydrolysis of bagasse into xylose and arabinose sugars (C5 sugars) was developed by microwave-assisted oxalic acid pretreatment under mild reaction conditions. The effects of acid and hydrolysis conditions on the C5 sugar yields were discussed. The results showed that oxalic acid performed better than hydrochloric acid and maleic acid, and was a promising alternative to sulfuric acid for xylose production at the same acid concentration. The maximum yields of xylose (95.7%) and arabinose (91.5%) were achieved via the microwave-assisted oxalic acid pretreatment (120 °C, 10 min, 0.4 mol/L, solid–liquid ratio of 1:50 g/mL), indicating that almost all xylan-type hemicelluloses were released from the cell wall and hydrolyzed into C5 sugars. After pretreatment, more than 90% of the cellulose in the residual bagasse was converted to glucose (92.2%) by enzymatic hydrolysis. This approach could realize the highly-efficient hydrolysis of xylan from bagasse into C5 sugars, which would enhance the enzyme hydrolysis of treated bagasse into glucose.
Experimental evaluation of long- and short-term moisture damage characteristics of asphalt mixtures

Moisture damage susceptibility was evaluated using a conditioning protocol, which comprises two conditioning types, namely bath immersion and pore pressure application. The protocol was used to quantify the effect of long- and short-term moisture damage processes on asphalt mixtures. In addition, computed tomography scanning and image analysis techniques were employed to characterise damage due to pore pressure. Compacted porous asphalt samples, with various aggregate and bitumen types, were conditioned by combinations of water immersion and cyclic pore pressures by means of the moisture-induced sensitivity tester, and subsequently tested using the indirect tensile test. The results indicated that strength degradation due to moisture is influenced by the conditioning regime and time, as well as by aggregate and binder types. Overall, asphalt mixtures with polymer-modified bitumen and sandstone aggregates exhibited the best performance against moisture. Nevertheless, the long- and short-term moisture damage mechanisms had a diverse effect on mixture degradation. Repeated pore pressures were found to have a significant effect on mixture tensile strength. Image analysis revealed the effect of pore pressures on air voids content and interconnectivity of asphalt mixtures, while visual observations suggested that repeated pore pressures induce damage by opening new flow paths and eroding fine sand and mastic particles.
Faheem: Explaining URLs to people using a Slack bot

Online safety regularly depends on users’ ability to know either where a URL is likely to lead or identify when they are on a site other than they expect. Unfortunately, the combination of low URL reading ability in the general population and the use of hard-to-detect approaches like look-alike letters makes the reading of URLs quite challenging for people. We design a Slack bot, named Faheem, which assists users in identifying potentially fraudulent URLs while also teaching them about URL reading and common malicious tactics. In this work, we describe the design of the bot and provide an initial evaluation. We ﬁnd that Faheem does a good job of interactively helping users identify issues with URLs, but Faheem users show minimal retention of knowledge when they lose access to the tool.
Hybrid computation approach for SCOPF considering voltage stability and penetration of renewable enegy

For stable operation of power system, preventive control based on security constraint optimal power flow is widely applied. Other than line contingency, recent penetration of renewable energy could become new threat, especially for the voltage stability issue. However, consideration of renewable energy uncertainty would increase the number of system states that should be considered in the preventive control, and as a result, the computation burden becomes heavier. This paper proposes a hybrid computation approach, which combines numerical and heuristic optimization techniques to approximate the sub-optimum operating point in a practical computation time to improve the voltage security and stability. IEEE 57-bus test system with multiple renewable energy generations is used to demonstrate the merit of the proposed method. The simulation results show that the proposed method can find the optimum solution consistently in reasonable computation time.
Effective methods to detect metamorphic malware: a systematic review

The succeeding code for metamorphic malware is routinely rewritten to remain stealthy and undetected within infected environments. This characteristic is maintained by means of encryption and decryption methods, obfuscation through garbage code insertion, code transformation and registry modification which makes detection very challenging. The main objective of this study is to contribute an evidence-based narrative demonstrating the effectiveness of recent proposals. 16 primary studies were included in this analysis based on a pre-defined protocol. The majority of the reviewed detection methods used Opcode, control flow graph (CFG) and API call graph. Key challenges facing the detection of metamorphic malware include code obfuscation, lack of dynamic capabilities to analyse code and application difficulty. Methods were further analysed on the basis of their approach, limitation, empirical evidence and key parameters such as dataset, detection rate (DR) and false positive rate (FPR).
Numerical and Experimental Analysis of an Inductive-Type Fault Current Limiter Using Short-Circuited 2G Tape

Integrating inductive-type fault current limiters (FCLs) in power grids is envisaged to provide effective protection during severe short-circuit fault occurrences. Numerical simulations are an important class of tools for predicting the performance of these devices under those extreme events. For a proper accuracy of simulations, both electromagnetic and thermal phenomena must be considered. The properties of high-temperature superconducting (HTS) materials, such as electrical resistivity, heat capacity, thermal conductivity, critical current density, and n-index, are strongly dependent on temperature. This is often neglected in transient simulations of devices employing HTS materials, due to unavailability of commercial software easily addressing electromagnetic and thermal interdependence. In this paper, the dynamical behavior of a single-phase inductive-type FCL using a single-turn short-circuited secondary built of HTS second-generation (2G) tape is analyzed by means of a methodology based on the electromagnetic–thermal behavior of the constitutive parts of the FCL. This methodology is fully implemented in MATLAB/Simulink. The transient response during normal and fault operations of line current, primary linked flux, temperature, and current in the 2G tape is simulated and compared with experimental results obtained from a developed prototype. The developed simulation tool provides results in few minutes.
Role of Character Strengths and Stress in Psychological Symptoms among Chinese Secondary Vocational School Students

Background: Character strengths are important psychology resources, which affect the academic and social development of students at secondary vocational schools. Purpose: We aimed to clarify the relationship between character strengths, psychological stress, and psychological symptoms among these students from a positive psychological perspective. By focusing on virtues and strengths, we suggest improvements to school education and family upbringing. Sample: A total of 282 secondary vocational school students were recruited. Design and Method: Students were asked to complete the Chinese Virtues Questionnaire, Life Stress Rating Scale, and Symptom Checklist-90. Statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS 19.0. Results: Regression analyses indicated that the interaction between relationship strengths and family stress explained 45% of the variance in psychological symptoms. This study clarified the positive role of character strengths in stressful situations. Thus, helping secondary vocational school students recognize and use their strengths is conducive to improving their health. Conclusion: Our results should also help teachers and parents adopt a strengths perspective, which might encourage students to explore and develop their strengths.
Planning Reliable Paths With Pose SLAM

The maps that are built by standard feature-based simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) methods cannot be directly used to compute paths for navigation, unless enriched with obstacle or traversability information, with the consequent increase in complexity. Here, we propose a method that directly uses the Pose SLAM graph of constraints to determine the path between two robot configurations with lowest accumulated pose uncertainty, i.e., the most reliable path to the goal. The method shows improved navigation results when compared with standard path-planning strategies over both datasets and real-world experiments.
A Mediterranean Diet Model in Australia: Strategies for Translating the Traditional Mediterranean Diet into a Multicultural Setting

Substantial evidence supports the effect of the Mediterranean Diet (MD) for managing chronic diseases, although trials have been primarily conducted in Mediterranean populations. The efficacy and feasibility of the Mediterranean dietary pattern for the management of chronic diseases has not been extensively evaluated in non-Mediterranean settings. This paper aims to describe the development of a MD model that complies with principles of the traditional MD applied in a multiethnic context. Optimal macronutrient and food-based composition was defined, and a two-week menu was devised incorporating traditional ingredients with evidence based on improvements in chronic disease management. Strategies were developed for the implementation of the diet model in a multiethnic population. Consistent with the principles of a traditional MD, the MD model was plant-based and high in dietary fat, predominantly monounsaturated fatty acids from extra virgin olive oil. Fruits, vegetables and wholegrains were a mainstay, and moderate amounts of nuts and seeds, fish, dairy and red wine were recommended. The diet encompassed key features of the MD including cuisine, biodiversity and sustainability. The MD model preserved traditional dietary components likely to elicit health benefits for individuals with chronic diseases, even with the adaptation to an Australian multiethnic population.