Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
S. epidermidis Isolates from a Tertiary Care Portuguese Hospital Show Very High Antibiotic Non-Susceptible Rates and Significant Ability to Form Biofilms

Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) have been increasing during recent decades, leading to long hospital stays and high morbidity and mortality rates. The usage of antibiotics therapy against these infections is enhancing the emergence of more multiple-drug resistant strains, in particular in Staphylococcus epidermidis. Hence, this study focused on the resistance pattern of S. epidermidis isolates from clinical settings and its association with phenotypic and molecular traits. Our results showed that HAIs were more prevalent among infants and older adults, and the most frequent type of HAI was central line-associated bloodstream infection. Half of the patients received antibiotic therapy before laboratory diagnosis. Preceding microbiological diagnosis, the number of patients receiving antibiotic therapy increased by 29.1%. Eighty-six per cent of the clinical isolates presented a multidrug resistance (MDR) profile, and a quarter were strong biofilm producers. Furthermore, polysaccharide intercellular adhesin (PIA)-dependent biofilms presented higher biomass production (p = 0.0041) and a higher rate of antibiotic non-susceptibility than PIA-independent biofilms, emphasizing the role of icaABDC operon in infection severity. Therefore, this study suggests that a thorough understanding of the phenotypic and molecular traits of the bacterial cause of the HAIs may lead to a more suitable selection of antibiotic therapy, improving guidance and outcome assessment.
Semi Analytical Modelling for Drain-Induced Barrier Lowering Reduction in Dual-Metal Gate all Around FET

In the research paper, the semi-analytical modelling is done for low drain-induced barrier lowering (DIBL) dual-metal gate all around FET (DM GAAFET). Vacuum and silicon nitride are considered in the act of the gate oxide material near drain region for dual-metal vacuum oxide gate all around FET (DM-VO GAAFET) and dual-metal nitride oxide gate all around FET (DM-NO GAAFET) respectively, in which surface potential, threshold voltage, and DIBL are modelled for both the devices. The proposed models are validated by comparing DM-NO GAAFET with DM-VO GAAFET. DM-NO GAAFET shows the better device performance than DM-VO GAAFET as the threshold voltage increased by 10% and DIBL decreased by 50% in simulated as well as analytical results. The obtained results are having very close agreement with simulated results for both the GAAFETs.
Overview on domestication, breeding, genetic gain and improvement of tuber quality traits of potato using fast forwarding technique (GWAS): A review

Tuber quality is the subject of great interest among the processing industry and consumers worldwide. Being a polygenic trait, its enhancement requires a systematic understanding of their genetic complexity. Molecular genetics offered valuable solutions to the challenging endeavours of slow genetic gains in conventional potato breeding. With the advent of linkage maps, molecular markers and availability of next-generation sequencing (NGS) platforms,
Revisiting the effect of statutory pension ages on participation and the average age of retirement in OECD countries

* We are grateful for the comments on and discussion of previous empirical work at Working Party No.1 (WP1) of the OECD’s Economic Policy Committee, particularly from the Chairman, Arent Skjaeveland, which stimulated the further research summarised here. We are also grateful for comments on an earlier version of the current paper from WP1 delegates, Luiz de Mello, Alain De Serres, Christian Geppert and two anonymous referees as well as Veronica Humi for preparing the document for publication. ** Received: September 29, 2020 Accepted: January 2, 2021
Rapid Multialkylation of Aqueous Ammonia with Alcohols by Heterogeneous Iridium Catalyst under Simple Conditions

This paper reports the synthesis of tertiary and secondary amines from aqueous ammonia and benzylic alcohols by titania‐supported iridium catalyst. It is a successful example of heterogeneous systems at moderate temperature without either additional solvent or high pressure. The catalytic system showed good tolerance to the atmosphere condition and performed rapidly to give tribenzylamine a yield of over 99 % within 6 hours in argon. The crystal structure of titania supports for iridium catalysts strongly affected their activity. The catalysis smoothly proceeded on larger scales. The catalyst could be easily reused and run at least for 5 cycles without significant loss of activity. The highly‐dispersed iridium species of less than 2 nm in diameter would be responsible for the excellent catalytic activity. This catalyst is well applicable in multialkylation of aqueous ammonia with various primary and secondary benzylic alcohols.
FFNet-M: Feature Fusion Network with Masks for Multimodal Facial Expression Recognition

Compared with 2D facial expression recognition (FER) and 3D FER, 2D+3D FER can handle the effects of illumination changes and pose variations. The combination of 2D texture and 3D attribute information can further improve the performance. However, most existing approaches still face two challenges: the selection of proper networks for extracting multimodal features, and the significance of local features in salient regions for expression classification. To address these challenges, we propose an efficient feature fusion network with masks (FFNet-M) for 2D+3D FER. Each 3D scan is rep-resented by three types of attribute maps (i.e., depth map, normal map, and texture image), which are then fed into FFNet-M with different networks to extract both 2D and 3D features. Moreover, we design two masks to make FFNet-M focus on 2D local features while paying attention to 3D local features in salient regions. Experimental results show that our FFNet-M outperforms state-of-the-art methods on BU-3DFE dataset and also achieves a high accuracy on Bosphorus dataset.
Research on the rotor/stator interaction noise through vane unsteady pressure test based on polyvinylidene fluoride sensor array

The rotor/stator interaction noise is the primary noise source of modern turbofan engines. Vane unsteady pressure test is essential to understand the generation mechanism and propagation characteristics of the noise, as well as examine the passive/active noise control technologies. However, limited by the Vane’s thickness as well as the requirement for high spatial and temporal resolutions of the sensor, traditional transducers still have considerable limitations and difficulties carrying out the measurement. In this paper, a polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) piezoelectric-film sensor array was developed for the vane unsteady pressure test. The dynamic characteristics of the sensor were obtained by the shock tube test. The calibration results further confirm the effectiveness of the self-developed PVDF sensor and also show the advantage in frequency response over traditional pressure transducer. Time histories of the vane fluctuating pressures were obtained by the PVDF sensor. The blade passing frequency (BPF) harmonic component and the broadband component of the unsteady pressure were analyzed individually by time-domain averaging and spectral analysis. The distributions of BPF content and broadband content on both sides of the vane at different fan tip speeds and operating conditions were investigated in detail. The results indicate that the operating conditions have little effect on both of them. The broadband component yielded by the rotor-wake turbulence seems to be quasi-isotropic. The average broadband level increases linearly with the fan tip speed. The developed PVDF sensor shows potential in noise evaluation and noise source diagnosis, which can properly guide further noise reduction technology development.
Ultrasound tomography for health monitoring of carbon fibre–reinforced polymers using implanted nanocomposite sensor networks and enhanced reconstruction algorithm for the probabilistic inspection of damage imaging

Irrespective of the popularity and demonstrated effectiveness of ultrasound tomography (UT) for damage evaluation, reconstruction of a precise tomographic image can only be guaranteed when a dense transducer network is used. However, a network using transducers such as piezoelectric wafers integrated with the structure under inspection unavoidably lowers local material strength and consequently degrades structural integrity. With this motivation, an implantable, nanocomposite-inspired, piezoresistive sensor network is developed for implementing in situ UT-based structural health monitoring of carbon fibre–reinforced polymer (CFRP) laminates. Individual sensors in the network are formulated with graphene nanosheets and polyvinylpyrrolidone, fabricated using a spray deposition process and circuited via highly conductive carbon nanotube fibres as wires, to form a dense sensor network. Sensors faithfully respond to ultrasound signals of megahertz. With ignorable intrusion to the host composites, the implanted sensor network, in conjunction with a UT approach that is enhanced by a revamped reconstruction algorithm for the probabilistic inspection of damage–based imaging algorithm, has proven capability of accurately imaging anomaly in CFRP laminates and continuously monitoring structural health status, while not at the cost of sacrificing the composites’ original integrity.
Formation of cyclones over the East Mediterranean within Red‐Sea Troughs

The Red‐Sea Trough (RST) is a lower‐level trough extending from the tropical low‐pressure to the Levant. Its annual occurrence in the Levant is 20%, mostly in the autumn. It produces dry weather, but occasionally causing local showers and floods. During winter, the dominant synoptic system over the eastern Mediterranean is the Cyprus low (CL). Previous studies showed that some CLs form within pre‐existing RSTs, through a tropical–extratropical interaction.
Post assembly quality inspection using multimodal sensing in aircraft manufacturing

Contactless, non-destructive testing has always been an important pillar in crucial tasks performed in industrial applications, including post-assembly testing oriented toward aircraft manufacturing. This work will examine the topic from the point of view of the quality check for the lining of aircraft interiors, such as sidewalls and hatracks, with the aim of improving safety of operation and comfort during flights, using an automatic approach guided by the usage of computer vision system. In particular, it will present a multimodal approach using a 3d snapshot sensor and a color camera, for identifying defects and anomalies that belong to two distinct categories, such as geometrical and surface defects, where, in the aircraft manufacturing sectors, due to the low-volume production, when compared with the automotive industry, such quality check operation tasks are still done manually, with a low level of automation. The proposed approach is showing potential and has been demonstrated on a proof-of-concept system prototype funded through a European Commission Horizon 2020 research project under the Clean Sky 2 umbrella aimed at the growth of the aviation sector.
STH-net: a soil monitoring network for process-based hydrological modelling from the pedon to the hillslope scale

Abstract. The Schafertal Hillslope site is part of the TERENO Harz/Central German Lowland Observatory, and its soil water dynamics are being monitored intensively as part of an integrated, long-term, multi-scale, and multi-temporal research framework linking hydrological, pedological, atmospheric, and biodiversity-related research to investigate the influences of climate and land use change on the terrestrial system. Here, a new soil monitoring network, indicated as STH-net, has been recently implemented to provide high-resolution data about the most relevant hydrological variables and local soil properties. The monitoring network is spatially optimized, based on previous knowledge from soil mapping and soil moisture monitoring, in order to capture the spatial variability in soil properties and soil water dynamics along a catena across the site as well as in depth. The STH-net comprises eight stations instrumented with time-domain reflectometry (TDR) probes, soil temperature probes, and monitoring wells. Furthermore, a weather station provides data about the meteorological variables. A detailed soil characterization exists for locations where the TDR probes are installed. All data have been measured at a 10 min interval since 1 January 2019. The STH-net is intended to provide scientists with data needed for developing and testing modelling approaches in the context of vadose-zone hydrology at spatial scales ranging from the pedon to the hillslope. The data are available from the EUDAT portal ( https://doi.org/10.23728/b2share.82818db7be054f5eb921d386a0bcaa74 , Martini et al., 2020).
On the Evolution of Pt Nanoparticles on Few-Layer Graphene Supports in the High-Temperature Range

Controlling the size, dispersion, and shape of nanoparticles (NPs) in the high-temperature range is a key topic for the development of new technologies with applications in the particular fields of catalysis and energy storage. In this article, we present an approach combining in situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM), electron tomography (ET), and molecular dynamics (MD) calculations for assessing the evolution of Pt NPs deposited onto few-layer graphene supports. Spherical Pt NPs with average sizes of 2 nm located preferentially at the support topographical defects (e.g., steps and edges) diffuse and coalesce along these defects, such that, after annealing to 700 °C, the nanoparticles were located exclusively here. Their dispersion remained significant; only the particle size distribution changed from mono- to bimodal. This statistical variation is discussed herein by reviewing fundamental issues such as the NP–support interaction and NP faceting, diffusion, and subsequent sintering in the high-tem.
Spatio‐temporal variability in the stratiform/convective rainfall contribution to the summer monsoon rainfall in India

Spatio‐temporal variability of contributions of stratiform and convective rainfall to Indian monsoon (June–September) rainfall have been investigated using hourly rainfall data of well distributed 126 stations in India for the period 1969–2015. The criteria used for identifying stratiform rainfall are hourly rainfall ≤5 mm and spatial homogeneity. The study showed that Indian monsoon rainfall exhibits two distinctive features, viz. stratiform component dominating over peninsular (southern) India and convective component dominating over northern India. The diurnal variation shows domination of convective activity in the afternoon hours over the northern parts of India. Intra‐seasonal variability in the stratiform rainfall is the lowest over the West Coast stations through‐out the season. While it shows low values during the onset (June) and withdrawal (September) phases of monsoon and higher values during July–August in Peninsular India. Inter‐annual variations in the convective rainfall are larger than that of stratiform rainfall all over the country. Trend analysis indicates that both stratiform and convective rainfall are decreasing over the central parts of the country and increasing significantly along West Coast and western parts of the country. During excess monsoon year, convective rainfall activity is more than in deficit monsoon year, in Central India. The results brought out in the study will be useful as a proxy for understanding the spatial and temporal variability of the latent heating fields over India in the monsoon season and validation of model simulations of clouds and rainfall types.
Efficacy of Prednisolone in Recovery from Acute Bronchiolitis: Study in a Tertiary Care Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Introduction: Acute bronchiolitis is a condition where patients are presenting with breathing difficulties, cough, poor feeding, and irritability. Treatment of bronchiolitis have many controversies. Most trials of bronchiolitis treatment suffer from 2 constraints: possible inclusion of patients with asthma and inconsistent outcome measures. The aim of the study was to determine the efficacy of prednisolone in recovery from acute bronchiolitis who have a family history of atopy. Material & Methods: This randomized double blind placebo controlled trial (RCT) was conducted in the department of pediatrics Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) from July 2008 to June 2010. Sixty (60) bronchiolitis patients having family history of atopy were included in his study. Prednisolone and placebo were packaged in identical envelops with separate code number given by the guide and the code number were recorded in a preformed questionnaire. The trial was so planned that neither the parents nor the investigator were aware of group allocation. The collected data were analyzed thoroughly by SPSS program version of 16.0 software. Informed written consent from parents or legal guardians was taken and ethical clearance was obtained from the ethical review committee of Dhaka Medical College to conduct the research works. Results: In our study, mean age of the patients of this series were 3.68 months (±1.29SD) and 3.52 month’s (±1.1SD) in prednisolone and placebo group respectively. Use of accessory muscle score was assessed twice at 8 am and 8 pm each day for three days. On first assessment at day 1 the score was similar in both the treatment groups (P>.05). More people in Prednisolone arm recovered within 3 days then the placebo group. The difference is statistically significant (P<.01). Conclusion: Three-day oral prednisolone treatment was effective in accelerating clinical recovery (Fast breathing, use of accessory muscle, wheezing) in acute bronchiolitis cases who had family history of atopy.
A long-life lithium-oxygen battery via a molecular quenching/mediating mechanism

The advancement of lithium-oxygen (Li-O2) batteries has been hindered by challenges including low discharge capacity, poor energy efficiency, severe parasitic reactions, etc. We report an Li-O2 battery operated via a new quenching/mediating mechanism that relies on the direct chemical reactions between a versatile molecule and superoxide radical/Li2O2. The battery exhibits a 46-fold increase in discharge capacity, a low charge overpotential of 0.7 V, and an ultralong cycle life >1400 cycles. Featuring redox-active 2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-1-piperidinyloxy moieties bridged by a quenching-active perylene diimide backbone, the tailor-designed molecule acts as a redox mediator to catalyze discharge/charge reactions and serves as a reusable superoxide quencher to chemically react with superoxide species generated during battery operation. The all-in-one molecule can simultaneously tackle issues of parasitic reactions associated with superoxide radicals, singlet oxygen, high overpotentials, and lithium corrosion. The molecular design of multifunctional additives combining various capabilities opens a new avenue for developing high-performance Li-O2 batteries.
Unified Kinetic Model for Cellulose Deconstruction via Acid Hydrolysis

Kinetics of cellulose acid hydrolysis is reported to be very different under dilute acid–high temperature and concentrated acid–low temperature conditions due to the heterogeneous and homogeneous nature of the reactions, respectively. This work aims at unifying the kinetics of cellulose deconstruction by developing a mechanistic model that includes formation and decomposition of glucose and cellulo-oligomers under extremely low (0.07%) to high (70%) acid concentrations and high (225 °C) to low (25 °C) temperatures. A continuous distribution kinetic model that includes (i) random mid-chain and specific end-chain scission of cellulose to form cellulo-oligomers and glucose; (ii) specific scission of cellulo-oligomers to form glucose, cellobiose, cellotriose, cellotetraose, and cellopentaose; and (iii) degradation of glucose was developed. The model predicted reasonably well the experimental data of concentration of cellulose, glucose, and other oligomers obtained from different studies in a broad range of ac.
Unifying Dynamic Optimizer Search and Network Architecture Search

Network architecture search techniques have recently revolutionized massive application problems due to its advanced performance. However, previous works rely on a strong assumption that the optimizers are manually designed and fixed for all architectures, which deviates from the intuition that each architecture should be empowered with its optimal optimization strategy. In this paper, we propose to unify Dynamic Optimizer Search (DOS) and Network Architecture Search (NAS), aiming to jointly search for the optimization scheduling and network architecture, named as DOS-NAS. The scheduling process of DOS is formulated as a Markov Decision Process, optimized via the REINFORCE algorithm. Conjunct with NAS, our DOS-NAS learns a discrete temporal scheduling to dynamically configure optimizers from a predefined set, leading to personalized optimizer scheduling for the searched network. Extensive experiments on CIFAR-10, CIFAR-100 and Tiny-ImageNet demonstrate the validity of our proposed DOS-NAS in performance improvement and speeding up the convergence significantly. DOS-NAS provides a new paradigm for AutoML systems through the joint search over optimization strategy and network architecture.
The tracheal virome of broiler chickens with respiratory disease complex in Iran: the metagenomics study

Background and Objectives: Avian respiratory disease complex (RDC) is one of the most detrimental economic diseases that affected different parts of the world. Various pathogens cause the disease, but the most significant viral pathogens include avian influenza virus (AIV), infectious bronchitis virus (IBV), and Newcastle disease virus (NDV) are the most prevalent. To detect these pathogens, various methods have been discovered in the last decades. Detection and characterization of viruses by metagenomics methods have improved our knowledge about the role of virome in the avian complex respiratory disease. Materials and Methods: This research investigates the viral pathogen populations that mostly participate in emerging these diseases using the NGS method RNA-sequencing. In surveillance of ten broiler farms from different cities with respiratory symptoms, trachea samples were collected to determine the pathogenic virome causing the disease. Results: In this metagenomics analysis, nine viral families were identified, comprising 72.82% of RNA viruses, 24.32% of RT viruses, and 2.86% of DNA viruses. RNA viruses had the highest contribution to the respiratory disease complex instead of disease, including paramyxoviridae, orthomyxoviridae, coronaviridae, and picornaviridae viruses. Other viruses from the RNA viruses and DNA virus families were also identified in addition to these results. Conclusion: This research suggests that studies of pathogenic viromes in different diseases can help monitor different diseases and predict their future occurrence.