Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
RhD blood type significantly influences susceptibility to contract COVID-19 among a study population in Iraq

The ABO blood type has been reported to be associated with several diseases such as hepatitis and malaria. Recently, some studies have reported that people with O blood type are protected against COVID-19, while people with A blood type are more susceptible to contract this disease. Here, we analysed data from 5668 COVID-19 patients along with the same number of control samples in a study population in Iraq. Our analysis confirms that people with O blood type are protected partially against COVID-19. Notably, we demonstrate that people with RhD- are more susceptible to contract COVID-19 than people with RhD+ blood type. The blood types are associated with some clinical symptoms such as headache and asthenia of COVID-19, but there is no association with other symptoms. There is no association between blood types and deaths among COVID-19 patients. This study suggests that in addition to ABO, RhD blood type influences the susceptibility to contract COVID-19. Overall, we conclude that susceptibility/protection against COVID-19 may not be determined based only on blood types among the global population as this might vary based on a number of other factors such as ethnicity, geographical locations, occupation and the level of exposure to infected people.
An Exploratory Study of the Impact of Parameterization on JMH Measurement Results in Open-Source Projects

The Java Microbenchmarking Harness (JMH) is a widely used tool for testing performance-critical code on a low level. One of the key features of JMH is the support for user-defined parameters, which allows executing the same benchmark with different workloads. However, a benchmark configured with n parameters with m different values each requires JMH to execute the benchmark mn times (once for each combination of configured parameter values). Consequently, even fairly modest parameterization leads to a combinatorial explosion of benchmarks that have to be executed, hence dramatically increasing execution time. However, so far no research has investigated how this type of parameterization is used in practice, and how important different parameters are to benchmarking results. In this paper, we statistically study how strongly different user parameters impact benchmark measurements for 126 JMH benchmarks from five well-known open source projects. We show that 40% of the studied metric parameters have no correlation with the resulting measurement, i.e., testing with different values in these parameters does not lead to any insights. If there is a correlation, it is often strongly predictable following a power law, linear, or step function curve. Our results provide a first understanding of practical usage of user-defined JMH parameters, and how they correlate with the measurements produced by benchmarks. We further show that a machine learning model based on Random Forest ensembles can be used to predict the measured performance of an untested metric parameter value with an accuracy of 93% or higher for all but one benchmark class, demonstrating that given sufficient training data JMH performance test results for different parameterizations are highly predictable.
Influence of Casting Solution Characteristics on Cellulose Acetate Membranes: Rheology and Atomic Force Microscopy

Cellulose acetates with different substitution degrees were investigated as to their rheological properties and morphology. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) studies on membranes showed ordered domains, in which pores and nodules with different sizes and intensities are distributed. The substitution degree, as well as the history of the membranes formed from the solutions in acetone and water nonsolvent mixtures, influenced the aspect of surface images.
Samya: Geo-Distributed Data System for High Contention Data Aggregates

Geo-distributed databases are the state of the art to manage data in the cloud. But maintaining hot records in geo-distributed databases such as Google’s Spanner can be expensive, as it synchronizes each update across a majority of replicas. Frequent synchronization poses an obstacle to achieve high throughput for contentious update-heavy workloads. While such synchronizations are inevitable for complex data types, simple data types such as aggregate data can benefit from reduced synchronizations. We propose an alternate data management system, Samya, to store and maintain aggregate data. It is presented as a system that stores cloud resource usage data. Samya dis-aggregates tokens of available resources and stores fractions of these tokens across geo-distributed sites. Dis-aggregation allows sites in Samya to serve client requests independently without the need to synchronize each update. Samya also incorporates a learning mechanism to predict the future resource demands at each site. If the predicted demand cannot be satisfied locally at a site, sites execute a synchronization protocol called Avantan to rebalance the available resource tokens in the system. Avantan is a novel faulttolerant consensus protocol where sites agree on the global availability of resources that are then redistributed. After the redistribution, the sites continue to independently serve client requests. Our experiments, conducted on Google Cloud Platform, highlight that dis-aggregating data and reducing the number of synchronizations allows Samya to commit 16x to 18x more transactions than current state of the art cloud based geo-distributed databases.
Application to the Informatics Europe Best Practice Award 2016

In the Italian schools, most of the cultural impact behind informatics is neglected, since this fertile scientific discipline is often blurred by the use of office automation tools or Internet communication facilities. For the latter meaning we coined the term ‘applimatics’ in order to wipe out any ambiguity: in fact, although such activities might indeed need special skills, they can be presented and mastered without referring to computing at all. To cope with this troublesome state of things, in 2008 we founded the ALaDDIN working group (“Aladdin: LAboratorio di Divulgazione e Didattica dell’INformatica”, http://aladdin.di.unimi.it), aimed at changing the way informatics is taught and perceived, with special attention to K-12 non-vocational schools. All the activities we developed in these six years focus on two key goals.
The Effect of Training at Different Temperatures on The Gene Expression of GLUT4 and Insulin Receptor in the Brown Adipose Tissue of Streptozotocin-Induced Diabetic Rats

Material and Methods: In this experimental study, 21 diabetic rats were randomly divided into 3 groups of 7 animals, including: (1) control (C), (2) swimming training at 5° C (S5oC), and (3) swimming training at 36° C (S36oC). Water swimming training was performed at 5±2° C and 36±2° C for six weeks, 5 sessions per week and 2-4 minutes per session. Data were analyzed using oneway analysis of variance and Tukey’s post hoc test at the significance level of p≤0.05.
Fast synthesis of SnO2/graphene composites by reducing graphene oxide with stannous ions

This article propounds a new strategy of preparing graphene by reducing GO with stannous ions for the synthesis of SnO2/graphene composites. As anode materials for lithium ion batteries, the composites showed good performance. This opens a new approach for the synthesis of graphene/metal-oxide composites with excellent properties.
Using the Universal Similarity Metric to Model Artificial Creativity and Predict Human Listeners Response to Evolutionary Music

In this paper we present a new technique for modeling Artificial Creativity in Evolutionary Music (EM) systems and predicting how appealing musical pieces are to human listeners. We use a k-Nearest Neighbor classifier where we approximate the Information Distance between the new, unclassified, musical piece and a corpus of observed musical pieces rated by the user with the Universal Similarity Metric. We approximate the Information Distance with two different methods, using standard binary compression of MIDI files, and using MP3 encoding of raw audio streams. Our experiments indicate that the universal similarity metric can be used to discriminate between music that do and do not appeal to human listeners. Even though classification results is not perfect, it performs significantly better than the random baseline and when we combine the predictions made independently by the MIDI and MP3 classifiers, we obtain an even higher classification accuracy, ranging up to 77% on the test set. These results is in the same range as our results in predicting the aesthetic value of visual art, which indicates that the Universal Similarity Metric is a very general and versatile approach to modeling Artificial Creativity.
On Symbolic Execution of Decompiled Programs

In this paper, we present a combination of existing and new tools that together make it possible to apply formal verification methods to programs in the form of x86_64 machine code. Our approach first uses a decompilation tool (remill) to extract low-level intermediate representation (LLVM) from the machine code. This step consists of instruction translation (i.e. recovery of operation semantics), control flow extraction and address identification.The main contribution of this paper is the second step, which builds on data flow analysis and refinement of indirect (i.e. data-dependent) control flow. This step makes the processed bitcode much more amenable to formal analysis.To demonstrate the viability of our approach, we have compiled a set of benchmark programs into native executables and analysed them using two LLVM-based tools: DIVINE, a software model checker and KLEE, a symbolic execution engine. We have compared the outcomes to direct analysis of the same programs.
Ka-Boom!!! Visually Exploring Latency Measurements for XR

Latency can be detrimental for the experience of Virtual Reality. High latency can lead to loss of performance and cybersickness. There are simple approaches to measure approximate latency and more elaborated for more insight into latency behavior. Yet there are still researchers who do not measure the latency of the system they are using to conduct VR experiments. This paper provides an illustrated overview of different approaches to measure latency of VR applications, as well as a small decision-making guide to assist in the choice of the measurement method. The visual style offers a more approachable way to understand how to measure latency.
Search for a heavy charged boson in events with a charged lepton and missing transverse momentum from pp collisions at s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Citation for published version (APA): Aaboud, M. , Bentvelsen, S. , Berge, D. , Colijn, A. P., de Jong, P. J., Koffeman, E. , Linde, F. , Sabato, G. , Salek, D. , Stapf, B. S. , Verkerke, W. , Vermeulen, A. T. , Vermeulen, J. C. , Vreeswijk, M. , van Vulpen, I. , & al., E. (2019). Search for a heavy charged boson in events with a charged lepton and missing transverse momentum from pp collisions at = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector. Physical Review D. Particles and Fields, 100(5), [052013]. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.100. 052013
Causal Discovery in Physical Systems from Videos Supplementary Material

The combination of the keypoint-based bottleneck layer and the downstream reconstruction task allows the perception module to extract temporally-consistent keypoints dispersing over the images’ foreground. The model accurately tracks the movement of the objects and can naturally handle deformable objects. Figure 1 shows some more qualitative examples of our perception module in both the Multi-Body and the Fabric environments.
Final Report on the Safety Assessment of Sodium Bromate and Potassium Bromate

Sodium Bromate and Potassium Bromate are inorganic salts that act as oxidizing agents. Whereas there are currently no reported uses of Potassium Bromate, Sodium Bromate is used in permanent waves and related hair care products. No current data were available to indicate the concentrations at which this ingredient is used. Bromate was poorly absorbed, if at all, through the skin in several in vivo and in vitro studies. The oral median lethal dose of Potassium Bromate in rats was 200–400 mg/kg. A guinea pig sensitization study suggested at most a mild sensitizing potential for Sodium Bromate. Potassium Bromate was found to be mutagenic in a mammalian cell assay and in one of three bacterial strains tested. Potassium Bromate produced a dose-dependent increase in renal neoplasms in an oral feeding study in rats. A two-stage, 26-week carcinogenesis study in rats suggested that Potassium Bromate was both a tumor promoter and a tumor initiator. Renal cell tumors, of a type not seen in controls, were seen in male golden hamsters administered Potassium Bromate in drinking water. Potassium Bromate applied to the skin of mice or injected subcutaneously into newborn mice or rats, however, was noncarci-nogenic. The high reactivity/poor skin absorption of these oxidizing agents was considered a likely explanation for the difference between the results seen with different routes of exposure. Based on the test concentrations reported, it is concluded that Sodium Bromate and Potassium Bromate are safe in cosmetic permanent wave formulations at concentrations not to exceed 10.17%, measured as Sodium Bromate.
Technical Effi ciency of Smallholder Tea Production in South-Eastern Malawi: A Stochastic Frontier Approach

Tea production contributes 8.8% of foreign exchange earnings in Malawi. A study was undertaken in South-Eastern Malawi to understand the smallholder tea production system, estimate its technical effi ciency and establish sources of technical ineffi ciency. A multi-stage sampling technique was employed to select 230 smallholder tea farmers, who participated in the study. Data analysis was done using SPSS and STATA. Smallholder tea production was characterised using descriptive statistics. A Cobb-Douglas Stochastic frontier model and Tobit Regression model were run in STATA to determine technical effi ciency and sources of technical ineffi ciency respectively. The study found that the technical effi ciency of smallholder tea farmers ranged from 16% to 92% with a mean of 67%. Education, distance to factory and farming experience signifi cantly reduced technical ineffi ciency at 1%, 5% and 10% level respectively; and ineffi ciency was relatively low among farmers that utilised hired labour, and high among those that were contracted by government cooperative. Access to non-tea income was not a source of technical ineffi ciency. The fi ndings of the study imply that various policies on extension and training have to be implemented to increase the knowledge of the smallholder tea farmers to ensure increased technical effi ciency. Smallholder tea farmers should also be facilitated to access labour-saving technologies to enable them carry out timely farm operations.
Frequency Selectivity of Persistent Cortical Oscillatory Responses to Auditory Rhythmic Stimulation

Cortical oscillations have been proposed to play a functional role in speech and music perception, attentional selection, and working memory, via the mechanism of neural entrainment. One of the properties of neural entrainment that is often taken for granted is that its modulatory effect on ongoing oscillations outlasts rhythmic stimulation. We tested the existence of this phenomenon by studying cortical neural oscillations during and after presentation of melodic stimuli in a passive perception paradigm. Melodies were composed of ∼60 and ∼80 Hz tones embedded in a 2.5 Hz stream. Using intracranial and surface recordings in male and female humans, we reveal persistent oscillatory activity in the high-γ band in response to the tones throughout the cortex, well beyond auditory regions. By contrast, in response to the 2.5 Hz stream, no persistent activity in any frequency band was observed. We further show that our data are well captured by a model of damped harmonic oscillator and can be classified into three classes of neural dynamics, with distinct damping properties and eigenfrequencies. This model provides a mechanistic and quantitative explanation of the frequency selectivity of auditory neural entrainment in the human cortex. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT It has been proposed that the functional role of cortical oscillations is subtended by a mechanism of entrainment, the synchronization in phase or amplitude of neural oscillations to a periodic stimulation. One of the properties of neural entrainment that is often taken for granted is that its modulatory effect on ongoing oscillations outlasts rhythmic stimulation. Using intracranial and surface recordings of humans passively listening to rhythmic auditory stimuli, we reveal consistent oscillatory responses throughout the cortex, with persistent activity of high-γ oscillations. On the contrary, neural oscillations do not outlast low-frequency acoustic dynamics. We interpret our results as reflecting harmonic oscillator properties, a model ubiquitous in physics but rarely used in neuroscience.
Unraveling the Gut Microbiome of the Invasive Small Indian Mongoose (Urva auropunctata) in the Caribbean

Small Indian mongooses (Urva auropunctata) are among the most pervasive predators to disrupt the native ecology on Caribbean islands and are strongly entrenched in their areas of introduction. Few studies, however, have considered the microbial ecology of such biological invasions. In this study, we investigated the gut microbiota of invasive small Indian mongooses in terms of taxonomic diversity and functional potential. To this end, we collected fecal samples from 60 free-roaming mongooses trapped in different vegetation zones on the island Saint Kitts. The core gut microbiome, assessed by 16S rRNA amplicon gene sequencing on the Ion S5TM XL platform, reflects a carnivore-like signature with a dominant abundance of Firmicutes (54.96%), followed by Proteobacteria (13.98%) and Fusobacteria (12.39%), and a relatively minor contribution of Actinobacteria (10.4%) and Bacteroidetes (6.40%). Mongooses trapped at coastal sites exhibited a higher relative abundance of Fusobacterium spp. whereas those trapped in scrubland areas were enriched in Bacteroidetes, but there was no site-specific difference in predicted metabolic properties. Between males and females, beta-diversity was not significantly different and no sex-specific strategies for energy production were observed. However, the relative abundance of Gammaproteobacteria, and more specifically, Enterobacteriaceae, was significantly higher in males. This first description of the microbial profile of small Indian mongooses provides new insights into their bioecology and can serve as a springboard to further elucidating this invasive predator’s impact throughout the Caribbean.
Prognostic Significance of Prostate-Specific Antigen Persistence after Radical Prostatectomy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Simple Summary Radical prostatectomy, the standard treatment for localized or locally advanced prostate cancer, generally provides good disease control and favorable long-term survival. However, about 40% of patients experience biochemical recurrence, and a significant number of them develop clinical progression. If identified in advance, those patients could receive specially tailored follow-up and counseling. Current guidelines recommend the first prostate-specific antigen tests three months after surgery, but prostate-specific antigen levels should be undetectable within four weeks. Early testing at 4–8 weeks after surgery could thus be useful for determining patient prognosis. We reviewed the medical literature to study persistence of prostate-specific antigens, progression of prostate cancer, and survival of patients. We found that prostate cancer was more likely to recur in patients with or without lymph nodal involvement who had prostate-specific antigen persistence at 4–8 weeks. Abstract We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the prognostic value of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) persistence 4–8 weeks after radical prostatectomy (RP) in patients with prostate cancer, using studies from Medline, Scopus, and Cochrane Library, on 10 October 2020. Studies were eligible if they compared patients with postoperative PSA persistence 4–8 weeks after RP to those without such persistence to assess the value of PSA persistence in prognosticating biochemical recurrence (BCR), disease recurrence, cancer-specific mortality (CSM), and overall mortality (OM) by multivariable analysis. Our review and analysis included nine studies published between 2008 and 2019 with 14,455 patients. Of those studies, 12.0% showed postoperative PSA persistence. PSA persistence was associated with BCR (HR: 4.44, 95% CI: 2.84–6.93), disease recurrence (HR: 3.43, 95% CI: 1.62–7.25), and CSM (HR: 2.32, 95% CI: 1.83–2.95). We omitted meta-analysis on the association of PSA persistence with OM due to an insufficient number of studies. PSA persistence was associated with disease recurrence in a sub-group of patients with pathological nodal involvement (HR: 5.90, 95% CI: 3.76–9.24). Understanding detection of PSA persistence at 4–8 weeks after RP might be useful for patient counseling, follow-up scheduling, and clinical decision-making regarding adjuvant therapies.
Embryonic Environmental Niche Reprograms Somatic Cells to Express Pluripotency Markers and Participate in Adult Chimaeras

The phenomenon of the reprogramming of terminally differentiated cells can be achieved by various means, like somatic cell nuclear transfer, cell fusion with a pluripotent cell, or the introduction of pluripotency genes. Here, we present the evidence that somatic cells can attain the expression of pluripotency markers after their introduction into early embryos. Mouse embryonic fibroblasts introduced between blastomeres of cleaving embryos, within two days of in vitro culture, express transcription factors specific to blastocyst lineages, including pluripotency factors. Analysis of donor tissue marker DNA has revealed that the progeny of introduced cells are found in somatic tissues of foetuses and adult chimaeras, providing evidence for cell reprogramming. Analysis of ploidy has shown that in the chimaeras, the progeny of introduced cells are either diploid or tetraploid, the latter indicating cell fusion. The presence of donor DNA in diploid cells from chimaeric embryos proved that the non-fused progeny of introduced fibroblasts persisted in chimaeras, which is evidence of reprogramming by embryonic niche. When adult somatic (cumulus) cells were introduced into early cleavage embryos, the extent of integration was limited and only cell fusion-mediated reprogramming was observed. These results show that both cell fusion and cell interactions with the embryonic niche reprogrammed somatic cells towards pluripotency.