bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Ability of the ash dieback pathogen to reproduce and to induce damage on its host are controlled by different environmental parameters
Authors: Marçais Benoit , Giraudel Arnaud , Husson Claude
Published: April 2023

Ash dieback, induced by an invasive ascomycete,Hymenoscyphus fraxineus, has emerged in the late 1990s as a severe disease threatening ash populations in Europe. Future prospects for ash are improved by the existence of individuals with natural genetic resistance or tolerance to the disease and by limited disease impact in many environmental conditions where ash is common. Nevertheless, it was suggested that, even in those conditions, ash trees are infected and enable pathogen transmission. We studied the influence of climate and local environment on the ability ofH.fraxineusto infect, be transmitted and cause damage on its host. We showed that healthy carriers, i.e. individuals showing no dieback but carryingH.fraxineus, exist and may play a significant role in ash dieback epidemiology. The environment strongly influencedH.fraxineuswith different parameters being important depending on the life cycle stage. The ability ofH.fraxineusto establish on ash leaves and to reproduce on the leaf debris in the litter (rachises) mainly depended on total precipitation in July-August and was not influenced by local tree cover. By contrast, damage to the host, and in particular shoot mortality was significantly reduced by high summer temperature in July-August and by high autumn average temperature. As a consequence, in many situations, ash trees are infected and enableH.fraxineustransmission while showing limited or even no damage. We also observed a decreasing trend of severity (leaf necrosis and shoot mortality probability) with the time of disease presence in a plot that could be significant for the future of ash dieback.
A survey on the determinants to using political memes as a journalistic tool by Filipino journalists
Authors: Gomez James Paul , Lao Charlene Grace , Intia Rushelle , Ilagan Karol , Opiniano Jeremaiah
Published: April 2023

Memes have successfully disseminated various information on social media, albeit in a humorous tone. Journalism and journalists, however, remain uncertain in using memes as part of news work. Previous studies have revealed that variables related to journalism such as news values, participatory culture, public opinion, disinformation and credibility may be relevant in decisions to use memes in journalistic work. This survey from the Philippines employed partial least squares–structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to determine the factors that Filipino journalists (N = 138) consider in using political memes as a journalistic tool. This study is theoretically anchored on the theory of planned behaviour and the multilevel model of meme diffusion. It was found that the variables public opinion, news values, participatory culture and disinformation indirectly affect the production of political memes through mediation by intention. However, credibility was found to be insignificant. As well, results show that intention has a direct effect on the production of political memes. These results indicate that regardless of the degree of the variables’ existence, journalists still carry some intentions to produce political memes. Study results can provide reflections should journalists and their news organizations employ memes as a tool for credible news production, not as tools for disinformation.
Low-iodine diet before radioactive iodine therapy - to prescribe or not to prescribe
Authors: Guselnikova A. R. , Korchagina M. O. , Sheremeta M. S.
Published: April 2023

Iodine is the most important trace element in the human body. Its main function is to participate in the synthesis of thyroid hormones, thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3). The main source of iodine for humans is food rich in this trace element. The iodine content in foods varies greatly. The main sources of iodine are seafood, iodized salt, seaweed, as well as dairy products and egg yolks. In addition, iodine is found in a number of drugs for external and internal use, dietary supplements, and in iodinated contrast agents.Low-iodine diet (less than 50 μg per day) is prescribed before radioactive iodine therapy (RAIT) for thyroid diseases, namely hyperthyroidism and differentiated thyroid cancer. Currently, there is no consensus on the clinical benefits of such a diet, especially in countries with iodine deficiency, such as Russia.The aim of this review is to assess the need for a low-iodine diet and its optimal duration, as well as to determine the clinical characteristics affecting the outcome of RAIT, based on data from recent studies.
Comparative efficacy of phosphate solubilizing bacteria and synthetic phosphate fertilizers on the growth of wheat
Authors: Khan Aamir , Baloch Mohammad Safdar , Ullah Naimat , Abidin Sheikh Zain Ul , Bhatti Muhammad Zeeshan , Khan Raees , Khan Asghar Ali , Ismail Hammad , Saeed Asma , Gul Hadia
Published: April 2023

Wheat is recognized as one of the most important dietary elements due to its high nutritious content and thus, has become greatest food option all over the world. Phosphorus (P) being major plant food nutrient plays a vital role multiple functions of plant growth and development. The current study was carried out to compare the performance of phosphate solubilizing bacteria (PSB) as bio-fertilizer with commercially available phosphate fertilizers on wheat crop. The trial was designed in randomized complete block (RCB) replicated thrice. 6 different sources of phosphate fertilizers (Di-ammonium phosphate as DAP, Nitrophos as NP, Single super phosphate as SSP, Restore as PSB, Marathon as PSB, Nitrogen (N2) fixing bacteria as PSB) followed by control were evaluated for agronomic, physiological and quality attributes of wheat. The results showed that most of the qualitative traits were significantly influenced by different treatments. However, application of N2 fixing bacteria was more significant in all treatments. Highest total viable count of colony-forming units (14.63×106 at 3-WAS & 17.70×106 after harvest CFU g-1), maximum tillers’ count (337 m-2), grains’ count (45.57 spike-1), grain yield (2714.3 kg ha-1), LAI (0.67 & 1.16 at 56 & 112 DAS), CGR (13.59 g day-1 m-2), photosynthesis rate (26.13 µ mol m-2 sec-1) and flag leaf sugar content (0.24%) were recorded on account of using N2-fixing bacteria applied as PSB. Moreover, NPK content in shoot, grain as well as uptake of NPK by grain were also received as highest in the same treatment. Based on research findings, it is concluded that application of N2-fixing bacteria as PSB (7.5 kg ha-1) might be increasing wheat production in Dera Ismail Khan and other areas of similar environment in Pakistan.
Wspólna Polityka Bezpieczeństwa i Obrony UE w perspektywie teoretycznej, praktycznej i agencyjno-instytucjonlanej
Authors: Piechowicz Michał
Published: April 2023

Artykuł ten analizuje ewolucję polityki bezpieczeństwa UE, czyli sfery, która była uznawana przez dziesięciolecia integracji za kompetencję państw członkowskich. Stąd rozwadze poddano z jednej strony mechanizmy zapewniające udział w procesach decyzyjnych organów reprezentujących interesy ponadnarodowe (tj. Komisja Europejska, Europejska Agencja Obrony, Komitet Polityczny i Bezpieczeństwa), przy jednoczesnej gwarancji decyzyjnej dla rządów państw członkowskich (m.in. w ramach Rady). W pierwszej części dyskusja dotyczy roli Traktatu w procesie kształtowania Wspólnej Polityki Bezpieczeństwa i Obrony (WPBiO) oraz dylematów dotyczących np. poszukiwania konsensusu negocjacyjnego, jak również znaczenia poziomu inwestycji w sferze bezpieczeństwa dla możliwości realizacji założonych celów. Następnie omówione są teoretyczne podstawy integracji omawianej polityki, oraz związane z tym wyzwania interpretacyjne. Trzecia część to analiza sfery instytucjonalno-agencyjnej związanej z zarządzaniem WPBiO, jak również mechanizmów decyzyjnych oraz źródeł finansowania podjętych działań i projektów. Dodatkowo, ukazana jest rola PESCO, czyli stałej współpracy strukturalnej, jako nowej koncepcji praktycznego realizowania założeń traktatowych i celów strategicznych UE w sferze bezpieczeństwa i obrony.
Leveraging Application Data Constraints to Optimize Database-Backed Web Applications
Authors: Liu Xiaoxuan , Wang Shuxian , Sun Mengzhu , Pan Sicheng , Li Ge , Jha Siddharth , Yan Cong , Yang Junwen , Lu Shan , Cheung Alvin
Published: April 2023

Exploiting the relationships among data is a classical query optimization technique. As persistent data is increasingly being created and maintained programmatically, prior work that infers data relationships from data statistics misses an important opportunity. We present Coco, the first tool that identifies data relationships by analyzing database-backed applications. Once identified, Coco leverages the constraints to optimize the application's physical design and query execution. Instead of developing a fixed set of predefined rewriting rules, Coco employs an enumerate-test-verify technique to automatically exploit the discovered data constraints to improve query execution. Each resulting rewrite is provably equivalent to the original query. Using 14 real-world web applications, our experiments show that Coco can discover numerous data constraints from code analysis and improve real-world application performance significantly.
VersaMatch: Ontology Matching with Weak Supervision
Authors: Fürst Jonathan , Argerich Mauricio Fadel , Cheng Bin
Published: April 2023

Ontology matching is crucial to data integration for across-silo data sharing and has been mainly addressed with heuristic and machine learning (ML) methods. While heuristic methods are often inflexible and hard to extend to new domains, ML methods rely on substantial and hard to obtain amounts of labeled training data. To overcome these limitations, we propose
VersaMatch
, a flexible, weakly-supervised ontology matching system. VersaMatch employs various weak supervision sources, such as heuristic rules, pattern matching, and external knowledge bases, to produce labels from a large amount of unlabeled data for training a discriminative ML model. For prediction, VersaMatch develops a novel ensemble model combining the weak supervision sources with the discriminative model to support generalization while retaining a high precision. Our ensemble method boosts end model performance by 4 points compared to a traditional weak-supervision baseline. In addition, compared to state-of-the-art ontology matchers, VersaMatch achieves an overall 4-point performance improvement in F1 score across 26 ontology combinations from different domains. For recently released, in-the-wild datasets, VersaMatch beats the next best matchers by 9 points in F1. Furthermore, its core weak-supervision logic can easily be improved by adding more knowledge sources and collecting more unlabeled data for training.
Efficient Approximation of Certain and Possible Answers for Ranking and Window Queries over Uncertain Data
Authors: Feng Su , Glavic Boris , Kennedy Oliver
Published: April 2023

Uncertainty arises naturally in many application domains due to, e.g., data entry errors and ambiguity in data cleaning. Prior work in incomplete and probabilistic databases has investigated the semantics and efficient evaluation of ranking and top-k queries over uncertain data. However, most approaches deal with top-k and ranking in isolation and do represent uncertain input data and query results using separate, incompatible data models. We present an efficient approach for under- and over-approximating results of ranking, top-k, and window queries over uncertain data. Our approach integrates well with existing techniques for querying uncertain data, is efficient, and is to the best of our knowledge the first to support windowed aggregation. We design algorithms for physical operators for uncertain sorting and windowed aggregation, and implement them in PostgreSQL. We evaluated our approach on synthetic and real world datasets, demonstrating that it outperforms all competitors, and often produces more accurate results.
Auxo: A Scalable and Efficient Graph Stream Summarization Structure
Authors: Jiang Zhiguo , Chen Hanhua , Jin Hai
Published: April 2023

A graph stream refers to a continuous stream of edges, forming a huge and fast-evolving graph. The vast volume and high update speed of a graph stream bring stringent requirements for the data management structure, including sublinear space cost, computation-efficient operation support, and scalability of the structure. Existing designs summarize a graph stream by leveraging a hash-based compressed matrix and representing an edge using its fingerprint to achieve practical storage for a graph stream with a known upper bound of data volume. However, they fail to support the dynamically extending of graph streams.

In this paper, we propose Auxo, a scalable structure to support space/time efficient summarization of dynamic graph streams. Auxo is built on a proposed novel
prefix embedded tree
(PET) which leverages binary logarithmic search and common binary prefixes embedding to provide an efficient and scalable tree structure. PET reduces the item insert/query time from
O
(|
E
|) to
O
(
log
|
E
|) as well as reducing the total storage cost by a
log
|
E
| scale, where |
E
| is the size of the edge set in a graph stream. To further improve the memory utilization of PET during scaling, we propose a proportional PET structure that extends a higher level in a proportionally incremental style. We conduct comprehensive experiments on large-scale real-world datasets to evaluate the performance of this design. Results show that Auxo significantly reduces the insert and query time by one to two orders of magnitude compared to the state of the arts. Meanwhile, Auxo achieves efficiently and economically structure scaling with an average memory utilization of over 80%.
OneShotSTL: One-Shot Seasonal-Trend Decomposition For Online Time Series Anomaly Detection And Forecasting
Authors: He Xiao , Li Ye , Tan Jian , Wu Bin , Li Feifei
Published: April 2023

Seasonal-trend decomposition is one of the most fundamental concepts in time series analysis that supports various downstream tasks, including time series anomaly detection and forecasting. However, existing decomposition methods rely on batch processing with a time complexity of
O
(
W
), where
W
is the number of data points within a time window. Therefore, they cannot always efficiently support real-time analysis that demands low processing delay. To address this challenge, we propose OneShotSTL, an efficient and accurate algorithm that can decompose time series online with an update time complexity of
O
(1). OneShotSTL is more than 1, 000 times faster than the batch methods, with accuracy comparable to the best counterparts. Extensive experiments on real-world benchmark datasets for downstream time series anomaly detection and forecasting tasks demonstrate that OneShotSTL is from 10 to over 1, 000 times faster than the state-of-the-art methods, while still providing comparable or even better accuracy.
Scalable and Robust Snapshot Isolation for High-Performance Storage Engines
Authors: Alhomssi Adnan , Leis Viktor
Published: April 2023

MVCC-based snapshot isolation promises that read queries can proceed without interfering with concurrent writes. However, as we show experimentally, in existing implementations a single long-running query can easily cause transactional throughput to collapse. Moreover, existing out-of-memory commit protocols fail to meet the scalability needs of modern multi-core systems. In this paper, we present three complementary techniques for robust and scalable snapshot isolation in out-of-memory systems. First, we propose a commit protocol that minimizes cross-thread communication for better scalability, avoids touching the write set on commit, and enables efficient fine-granular garbage collection. Second, we introduce the Graveyard Index, an auxiliary data structure that moves logically-deleted tuples out of the way of operational transactions. Third, we present an adaptive version storage scheme that enables fast garbage collection and improves scan performance of frequently-modified tuples. All techniques are engineered to scale well on multi-core processors, and together enable robust performance for complex hybrid workloads.
NV-SQL: Boosting OLTP Performance with Non-Volatile DIMMs
Authors: An Mijin , Park Jonghyeok , Wang Tianzheng , Nam Beomseok , Lee Sang-Won
Published: April 2023

When running OLTP workloads, relational DBMSs with flash SSDs still suffer from the
durability overhead.
Heavy writes to SSD not only limit the performance but also shorten the storage lifespan. To mitigate the durability overhead, this paper proposes a new database architecture, NV-SQL. NV-SQL aims at absorbing a large fraction of writes written from DRAM to SSD by introducing NVDIMM into the memory hierarchy as a durable write cache. On the new architecture, NV-SQL makes two technical contributions. First, it proposes the
re-update interval-based admission policy
that determines which write-hot pages qualify for being cached in NVDIMM. It is novel in that the page hotness is based solely on pages' LSN. Second, this study finds that NVDIMM-resident pages can violate the
page action consistency
upon crash and proposes how to detect inconsistent pages using per-page in-update flag and how to rectify them using the redo log. NV-SQL demonstrates how the ARIES-like logging and recovery techniques can be elegantly extended to support the caching and recovery for NVDIMM data. Additionally, by placing write-intensive redo buffer and DWB in NVDIMM, NV-SQL eliminates the
log-force-at-commit
and
WAL
protocols and further halves the writes to the storage. Our NV-SQL prototype running with a real NVDIMM device outperforms the
same-priced
vanilla MySQL with larger DRAM by several folds in terms of transaction throughput for write-intensive OLTP benchmarks. This confirms that NV-SQL is a cost-performance efficient solution to the durability problem.
Lero: A Learning-to-Rank Query Optimizer
Authors: Zhu Rong , Chen Wei , Ding Bolin , Chen Xingguang , Pfadler Andreas , Wu Ziniu , Zhou Jingren
Published: April 2023

A recent line of works apply machine learning techniques to assist or rebuild cost-based query optimizers in DBMS. While exhibiting superiority in some benchmarks, their deficiencies, e.g., unstable performance, high training cost, and slow model updating, stem from the inherent hardness of predicting the cost or latency of execution plans using machine learning models. In this paper, we introduce a
learning-to-rank
query optimizer, called Lero, which builds on top of a native query optimizer and continuously learns to improve the optimization performance. The key observation is that the relative order or
rank
of plans, rather than the exact cost or latency, is sufficient for query optimization. Lero employs a
pairwise
approach to train a classifier to compare any two plans and tell which one is better. Such a binary classification task is much easier than the regression task to predict the cost or latency, in terms of model efficiency and accuracy. Rather than building a learned optimizer from scratch, Lero is designed to leverage decades of wisdom of databases and improve the native query optimizer. With its non-intrusive design, Lero can be implemented on top of any existing DBMS with minimal integration efforts. We implement Lero and demonstrate its outstanding performance using PostgreSQL. In our experiments, Lero achieves near optimal performance on several benchmarks. It reduces the plan execution time of the native optimizer in PostgreSQL by up to 70% and other learned query optimizers by up to 37%. Meanwhile, Lero continuously learns and automatically adapts to query workloads and changes in data.
Deploying Computational Storage for HTAP DBMSs Takes More Than Just Computation Offloading
Authors: Lee Kitaek , Jo Insoon , Ahn Jaechan , Lee Hyuk , Lee Hwang , Sul Woong , Jung Hyungsoo
Published: April 2023

Hybrid transactional/analytical processing (HTAP) would overload database systems. To alleviate performance interference between transactions and analytics, recent research pursues the potential of in-storage processing (ISP) using commodity computational storage devices (CSDs). However, in-storage query processing faces technical challenges in HTAP environments. Continuously updated data versions pose two hurdles: (1) data items keep changing, and (2) finding visible data versions incurs excessive data access in CSDs. Such access patterns dominate the cost of query processing, which may hinder the active deployment of CSDs.

This paper addresses the core issues by proposing an

a
nalyt
i
c offloa
d e
ngine

(AIDE) that transforms engine-specific query execution logic into vendor-neutral computation through a canonical interface. At the core of AIDE are the
canonical representation
of vendor-specific data and the separate management of data locators. It enables any CSD to execute vendor-neutral operations on canonical tuples with separate indexes, regardless of host databases. To eliminate excessive data access, we
prescreen
the indexes before offloading; thus, host-side prescreening can obviate the need for running costly version searching in CSDs and boost analytics. We implemented our prototype for PostgreSQL and MyRocks, demonstrating that AIDE supports efficient ISP for two databases using the same FPGA logic. Evaluation results show that AIDE improves query latency up to 42× on PostgreSQL and 34× on MyRocks.
Robust Query Driven Cardinality Estimation under Changing Workloads
Authors: Negi Parimarjan , Wu Ziniu , Kipf Andreas , Tatbul Nesime , Marcus Ryan , Madden Sam , Kraska Tim , Alizadeh Mohammad
Published: April 2023

Query driven cardinality estimation models learn from a historical log of queries. They are lightweight, having low storage requirements, fast inference and training, and are easily adaptable for any kind of query. Unfortunately, such models can suffer unpredictably bad performance under workload drift, i.e., if the query pattern or data changes. This makes them unreliable and hard to deploy. We analyze the reasons why models become unpredictable due to workload drift, and introduce modifications to the query representation and neural network training techniques to make query-driven models robust to the effects of workload drift. First, we emulate workload drift in queries involving some unseen tables or columns by randomly masking out some table or column features during training. This forces the model to make predictions with missing query information, relying more on robust features based on up-to-date DBMS statistics that are useful even when query or data drift happens. Second, we introduce join bitmaps, which extends sampling-based features to be consistent across joins using ideas from sideways information passing. Finally, we show how both of these ideas can be adapted to handle data updates.

We show significantly greater generalization than past works across different workloads and databases. For instance, a model trained with our techniques on a simple workload (JOBLight-train), with 40
k
synthetically generated queries of at most 3 tables each, is able to generalize to the much more complex Join Order Benchmark, which include queries with up to 16 tables, and improve query runtimes by 2× over PostgreSQL. We show similar robustness results with data updates, and across other workloads. We discuss the situations where we expect, and see, improvements, as well as more challenging workload drift scenarios where these techniques do not improve much over PostgreSQL. However, even in the most challenging scenarios, our models never perform worse than PostgreSQL, while standard query driven models can get much worse than PostgreSQL.
Influence of aspirin on aging skeletal muscle: Insights from a cross‐sectional cohort of septuagenarians
Authors: Fountain William A. , Naruse Masatoshi , Finch W. Holmes , Claiborne Alex , Trappe Scott W. , Trappe Todd A.
Published: April 2023

Aspirin is one of the most commonly consumed cyclooxygenase (COX)‐inhibitors and anti‐inflammatory drugs and has been shown to block COX‐produced regulators of inflammation and aging skeletal muscle size. We used propensity score matching to compare skeletal muscle characteristics of individuals from the Health ABC study that did not consume aspirin or any other COX‐inhibiting drugs (non‐consumers, n = 497, 74 ± 3 year, 168 ± 9 cm, 75.1 ± 13.8 kg, 33.1 ± 7.4% body fat, 37% women, 34% black) to those that consumed aspirin daily (and not any other COX‐inhibiting drugs) and for at least 1 year (aspirin consumers, n = 515, 74 ± 3 year, 168 ± 9 cm, 76.2 ± 13.6 kg, 33.8 ± 7.1% body fat, 39% women, 30% black, average aspirin consumption: 6 year). Subjects were matched (p > 0.05) based on age, height, weight, % body fat, sex, and race (propensity scores: 0.33 ± 0.09 vs. 0.33 ± 0.09, p > 0.05). There was no difference between non‐consumers and aspirin consumers for computed tomography‐determined muscle size of the quadriceps (103.5 ± 0.9 vs. 104.9 ± 0.8 cm2, p > 0.05) or hamstrings (54.6 ± 0.5 vs. 54.9 ± 0.5 cm2, p > 0.05), or quadriceps muscle strength (111.1 ± 2.0 vs. 111.7 ± 2.0 Nm, p > 0.05). However, muscle attenuation (i.e., density) was higher in the aspirin consumers in the quadriceps (40.9 ± 0.3 vs. 44.4 ± 0.3 Hounsfield unit [HU], p < 0.05) and hamstrings (27.7 ± 0.4 vs. 33.2 ± 0.4 HU, p < 0.05). These cross sectional data suggest that chronic aspirin consumption does not influence age‐related skeletal muscle atrophy, but does influence skeletal muscle composition in septuagenarians. Prospective longitudinal investigations remain necessary to better understand the influence of chronic COX regulation on aging skeletal muscle health.
Altered expression of synaptic proteins and adhesion molecules in the hippocampus and cortex following the onset of diabetes in nonobese diabetic mice
Authors: Yokokawa Takumi , Kido Kohei , Sato Koji , Hayashi Tatsuya , Fujita Satoshi
Published: April 2023

Mounting evidence links Type 1 diabetes (T1D) with cognitive dysfunction, psychiatric disorders, and synaptic alterations; however, the underlying mechanism remains unclear. Numerous synaptic proteins and synaptic adhesion molecules (SAMs) that orchestrate synaptic formation, restructuring, and elimination are essential for proper brain function. Currently, it is unclear whether the pathogenesis of T1D is related to the expression of synaptic proteins and SAMs. Here, we investigated whether T1D mice exhibited altered synaptic protein and SAM expression in the hippocampus and cortex. We discovered that T1D mice exhibited partially decreased levels of excitatory and inhibitory synapse proteins and SAMs, such as neurexins, neuroligins, and synaptic cell adhesion molecules. We also found that compared to control mice, T1D mice showed a marginal decrease in body weight and a significant increase in plasma glycoalbumin levels (a hyperglycemia marker). These results provide novel molecular‐level insights into synaptic dysfunction in mice with T1D.
Sex differences in body fluid composition in humans with obstructive sleep apnea before and after CPAP therapy
Authors: Nicholl David D. M. , Hanly Patrick J. , MacRae Jennifer M. , Zalucky Ann A. , Handley George B. , Sola Darlene Y. , Ahmed Sofia B.
Published: April 2023

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is common in heart and kidney disease, both conditions prone to fluid retention. Nocturnal rostral fluid shift contributes to the pathogenesis of OSA in men more than women, suggesting a potential role for sex differences in body fluid composition in the pathogenesis of OSA, with men having a predisposition to more severe OSA due to an underlying volume expanded state. Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) increases intraluminal pressure in the upper airway and mitigates the rostral fluid shift; this, in turn, may prevent fluid redistribution from other parts of the body to the upper airway. We sought to determine the impact of CPAP on sex differences in body fluid composition. Twenty‐nine (10 women, 19 men) incident, sodium replete, otherwise healthy participants who were referred with symptomatic OSA (oxygen desaturation index >15/h) were studied pre‐ and post‐CPAP (>4 h/night × 4 weeks) using bioimpedance analysis. Bioimpedance parameters including fat‐free mass (FFM, %body mass), total body water (TBW, %FFM), extracellular and intracellular water (ECW and ICW, %TBW), and phase angle (°) were measured and evaluated for sex differences before and after CPAP. Pre‐CPAP, despite TBW being similar between sexes (74.6 ± 0.4 vs. 74.3 ± 0.2%FFM, p = 0.14; all values women vs. men), ECW (49.7 ± 0.7 vs. 44.0 ± 0.9%TBW, p < 0.001) was increased, while ICW (49.7 ± 0.5 vs. 55.8 ± 0.9%TBW, p < 0.001) and phase angle (6.7 ± 0.3 vs. 8.0 ± 0.3°, p = 0.005) were reduced in women compared to men. There were no sex differences in response to CPAP (∆TBW –1.0 ± 0.8 vs. 0.7 ± 0.7%FFM, p = 0.14; ∆ECW –0.1 ± 0.8 vs. −0.3 ± 1.0%TBW, p = 0.3; ∆ICW 0.7 ± 0.4 vs. 0.5 ± 1.0%TBW, p = 0.2; ∆Phase Angle 0.2 ± 0.3 vs. 0.0 ± 0.1°, p = 0.7). Women with OSA had baseline parameters favoring volume expansion (increased ECW, reduced phase angle) compared to men. Changes in body fluid composition parameters in response to CPAP did not differ by sex.
Improvement of international reference ionospheric model total electron content maps: a case study using artificial neural network in Egypt
Authors: Mohamed Basma E. , Tawfik Heba S. , Abdelfatah Mohamed A. , El-Fiky Gamal S.
Published: April 2023

An essential ionosphere parameter that can be applied for ionosphere corrections in radio systems is the ionosphere’s total electron content (TEC). TEC is a crucial parameter for ionospheric correction in the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) of positioning, navigation, and radio science. This study uses the artificial neural network (ANN) application to improve the International Reference Ionospheric Model (IRI-2016) TEC maps across Egypt. The study period is based on the data that were accessible between 2013 and 2020. The ANN model input parameters are (year, day, hour, latitude, and longitude). The ANN1 and ANN2 estimate TEC values of the enhanced IRI-2020 and IRI-2016 according to the Center for Orbit Determination in Europe (CODE), respectively. ANN3 and ANN4 estimate TEC values of the enhanced IRI-2020 and IRI-2016 regarding IGS stations data analyzed by GNSS Analysis software for the multi-constellation and multi-frequency Precise Positioning (GAMP) model, respectively. The ANN model’s validations were based on the root mean square error (RMSE), correlation coefficient (CC), and T-test. According to the results, the suggested ANN can accurately predict the TEC over Egypt. In comparison to the IRI model, the TEC maps that the ANN models produced are significantly more in accordance with the related CODE and GAMP TEC maps. These results demonstrate that the developed approach can enhance IRI 2016 and IRI-2020s ability to estimate global TEC maps. For the ANN1 model, the mean CC and RMSE are 0.92, and 5.15 TECU for all the global data sets compared by CODE. On the other hand, the CC and RMSE between IRI-2020 and CODE are 0.847 and 7.67 TECU. For the ANN2, the mean CC and RMSE are 0.87, 5.59 TECU compared by CODE, respectively. Although the CC and RMSE between IRI-2016 and CODE are 0.820 and 9.052 TECU respectively. For the ANN3, the CC and RMSE are 0.830 and 4.87 TECU compared with GAMP for all global data, respectively. On the other hand, the CC and RMSE between IRI-2020 and GAMP are 0.644 and 10.41, respectively. For the ANN4 the CC and RMSE are 0.82, and 5.95 TECU compared with GAMP, respectively. Although the CC and RMSE between IRI-2016 and GAMP are 0.665 and 12.347 TECU respectively.
Application of the Ultrasonic Guided Wave Technique Based on PSO-ELM Algorithm in the Rail Fatigue Crack Assessment
Authors: Yu Shangzhi , Zeng Wei , Qi Shikai , Liu Li , Xu Qing , Wu Liangdan
Published: April 2023

Rail safety is very important, and fatigue cracking is one of the important factors affecting rail safety. Therefore, it is an urgent need to develop a safe and effective rail fatigue crack detection technology. Ultrasonic guided wave technology plays an important role in rail detection because of its long propagation distance and small attenuation. In order to realize the quantitative detection of rail fatigue crack, an ultrasonic guided wave technology based on particle swarm optimization–extreme learning machine (PSO-ELM) algorithm for evaluating the rail fatigue crack depth is proposed. The finite element method is used to establish the ultrasonic guided wave model in the rail, and the rail fatigue crack at different depths is simulated. The ultrasonic guided wave selected through the time window function of the excitation signal is used for analysis, and then nine features such as the time domain and the frequency domain of the ultrasonic guided wave are extracted. The PSO-ELM algorithm is used to identify the rail fatigue crack with different depths, and an ultrasonic guided wave-based detection system for the rail fatigue crack is built to verify the relevant theoretical results. The results of finite element simulation and the experiment show that ultrasonic guided wave technology based on PSO-ELM algorithm proposed can quantitatively evaluate the rail fatigue crack with different depths, with an accuracy of more than 99.95 %, which provides an effective method for the rail fatigue crack detection.
Preliminary Investigation into Ultrasound and MRI Presentation of Large-Cell Neuroendocrine Carcinomas of the Uterine Cervix
Authors: Tan Long , Wu Shi-Ji , Qiu Ya , Jie Yue , Zhang Shen , Zhou Shang-Lan , Luo Bao-Ming , Di Na
Published: April 2023

Objective: The aim of this study was to analyze the ultrasound and MRI features of eight patients with cervical large-cell neuroendocrine carcinoma to improve awareness of this disease among sonographers, radiologists, and clinicians.

Methods: Clinical data for eight patients with cervical large-cell neuroendocrine carcinoma confirmed by pathology at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University between February 2018 and April 2021 were retrospectively analyzed according to clinical, conventional ultrasound, contrast-enhanced ultrasound, and MRI characteristics.

Results: Conventional ultrasound examination of the cervical large-cell neuroendocrine carcinoma lesions in the eight patients revealed two features: (1) irregular hypoechoic areas in the muscular layer, with slightly hyperechoic inlay streaks, and poorly delineated lesions, and (2) slightly abundant blood flow distribution in the lesions. The contrast-enhanced ultrasound showed a “fast-in and fast-out” mode; after subsidence, a “fence-like” change was observed, and the enhancement range was significantly greater than the range of two-dimensional ultrasound. In MRI, T1WI showed a low signal or isosignal; T2WI showed a high signal; DWI showed a high signal and low ADC value; and most of the enhanced MRI showed inhomogeneous hyperenhancement.

Conclusion: Conventional ultrasound, contrast-enhanced ultrasound and MRI are complementary methods that provide additional imaging information for the diagnosis of cervical large-cell neuroendocrine carcinoma.
Purified Immunoglobulin F(ab′)2 Protects Mice and Rhesus Monkeys against Lethal Ricin Intoxication
Authors: Tian Jingjing , Li Cong , Shi Bochang , Han Hui , Liu Yuan , Tan Lingyun , Wang Keyu , Yan Fang , He Wei , Li Bo , Zheng Naxin , Li Huabin , Li Xinyu , Tian Chongyu , Zheng Yuanqiang , Zhao Zhongpeng , Fan Ruiwen
Published: April 2023

Objective:

Ricin is a highly toxic ribosome-inactivating lectin derived from castor beans. To date, no antidote is available to treat ricin-poisoned patients, and the development of a safe and effective antidote is urgently needed.

Methods:

First, ricin was prepared and used to construct a mouse model and a rhesus monkey model of ricin intoxication. Second, pepsin-digested F(ab′)2 fragments of serum IgG from horses injected with Freund’s-adjuvanted purified ricin were prepared. Third, the protective efficacy was evaluated in mouse and rhesus monkey models of lethal ricin intoxication.

Results:

The purity quotient of the prepared ricin and F(ab′)2 fragments exceeded 90% and 85% in the mouse and monkey models, respectively. The LD50 of ricin in mice and rhesus monkeys was 2.7 and 9 μg/kg, respectively. A quantity of 6.25 and 1.85 mg/kg F(ab′)2 was sufficient to treat lethal ricin intoxication in the mice and rhesus monkeys, respectively. Finally, the effect of this therapeutic antibody on peripheral blood immune cells was examined by analysis of peripheral blood immune cells through single cell sequencing. The underlying mechanism was found to involve restraining neutrophil activation, proliferation, and differentiation.

Conclusion:

Purified F(ab′)2 fragments administered with needle-free devices fully protect mice and rhesus monkeys against lethal doses of ricin intoxication.
CLEC11A improves insulin secretion and promotes cell proliferation in human beta-cells
Authors: Shi Ruifeng , Cen Jing , Westermark Gunilla T , Zhao Sheng , Welsh Nils , Sun Zilin , Lau Joey
Published: April 2023

Beta-cell dysfunction is a hallmark of disease progression in patients with diabetes. Research has been focused on maintaining and restoring beta-cell function during diabetes development. The aims of this study were to explore the expression of C-type lectin domain containing 11A (CLEC11A), a secreted sulphated glycoprotein, in human islets and to evaluate the effects of CLEC11A on beta-cell function and proliferation in vitro. To test these hypotheses, human islets and human EndoC-βH1 cell line were used in this study. We identified that CLEC11A was expressed in beta-cells and alpha-cells in human islets but not in EndoC-βH1 cells, whereas the receptor of CLEC11A called integrin subunit alpha 11 was found in both human islets and EndoC-βH1 cells. Long-term treatment with exogenous recombinant human CLEC11A (rhCLEC11A) accentuated glucose-stimulated insulin secretion, insulin content, and proliferation from human islets and EndoC-βH1 cells, which was partially due to the accentuated expression levels of transcription factors MAFA and PDX1. However, the impaired beta-cell function and reduced mRNA expression of INS and MAFA in EndoC-βH1 cells that were caused by chronic palmitate exposure could only be partially improved by the introduction of rhCLEC11A. Based on these results, we conclude that rhCLEC11A promotes insulin secretion, insulin content, and proliferation in human beta-cells, which are associated with the accentuated expression levels of transcription factors MAFA and PDX1. CLEC11A, therefore, may provide a novel therapeutic target for maintaining beta-cell function in patients with diabetes.
La parataxe dans le parlé spontané et dans l’écrit littéraire
Authors: Cresti Emanuela
Published: April 2023

The article argues that parataxis is a specific syntactic relation, since it holds between clauses and phrases within one major textual unit. The research is based on spoken and written (literary) corpora, and reports on the quantitative and qualitative differences in both modalities. In speech, the major textual unit is the Utterance, which corresponds to one pragmatic act, and the onset of paratactic relations follows from its information structure. When the linguistic content is distributed through various textual units (60% of utterances), it is combined in accordance to paratactic relations and does not follow compositional syntax. In writing, the major textual unit is the Period, which is identified by strong punctuation and does not correspond to a pragmatic act. The content within the period follows compositional syntax and mainly corresponds to one proposition with one main clause. However, corpus analysis shows that roughly 25% of periods comprise more than one main clause, linked by weak punctuation or lexical connectors. These clauses have independent modality and therefore are not strictly compositional within a single syntactic configuration. In these cases, the clauses stand in a paratactic relation.
IMAGACT4ALL Mapping Spanish Varieties onto a Corpus-Based Ontology of Action
Authors: Brown Susan Windisch , Gagliardi Gloria , Moneglia Massimo
Published: April 2023

IMAGACT is a corpus-based ontology of action concepts, derived from English and Italian spontaneous speech resources, which makes use of the universal language of images to identify action types. IMAGACT4ALL is an Internet infrastructure for mapping languages onto the ontology. Because the action concepts are represented with videos, extension into new languages is done using competence-based judgments by mother-tongue informants without intense lexicographic work involving underdetermined semantic description. It has already been proved on Spanish and Chinese and it is now in the process of being extended to Hindi, Bengali, Sanskrit, Urdu, Oriya, Polish, European and Brazilian Portuguese. IMAGACT4ALL has also been successfully used to implement language varieties, as European and American (Argentinian) Spanish. The first part of this paper presents the infrastructure and the methodology for mapping languages onto the ontology. In the second part we present the results of a comparative analysis of European and American Spanish data derived from the database, that show relevant distinctions in the referential properties of the Spanish verbal lexicon in the two language varieties.
Un’analisi diacronica corpus-based dei soggetti clitici di terza persona singolare in fiorentino.
Authors: Ferrari Lúcia de Almeida , Raso Tommaso
Published: April 2023

In questo contributo verrà presentata un’analisi diacronica corpus-based dei pronomi clitici soggetto di terza persona singolare gl’, l’, la, e nel vernacolo fiorentino. Obiettivo del lavoro è verificare la questione della supposta perdita dei clitici soggetto in fiorentino dovuta, secondo buona parte degli studiosi, alla pressione dell’italiano standard, in particolare a quella del periodo a partire dalla fine degli anni Sessanta, con la scolarizzazione di massa e la diffusione dei mass-media, specialmente della televisione (Galli De’ Paratesi, 1984; Sobrero, 1997; Berruto, 1997 e 2005; Binazzi, 1997, 1998 e 2007; Cardinaletti e Munaro, 2009).         La novità di questa proposta risiede nel fatto che, per la prima volta, ci si è avvalsi di dati di parlato spontaneo in diacronia per verificare la perdita o meno dei pronomi clitici soggetto in fiorentino e osservare eventuali riconfigurazioni dell’espressione del soggetto. I corpora utilizzati sono il corpus Stammerjohann (Stammerjohann 1970; Signorini e Tucci 2005; Scarano e Moneglia 2005)  e il Corpus di confronto diacronico LABLITA (Scarano 2005). La possibilità di avere a disposizione corpora che forniscono dati diacronici comparabili è unica, sfruttata sinora solamente per studi di tipo lessicale (Moneglia et al. 2006). Si ritiene dunque che questo lavoro apra le porte ad una prospettiva nuova sull'approccio della perdita dei clitici soggetto nel vernacolo fiorentino.         L’articolo è suddiviso come segue: nel primo paragrafo saranno esposte le particolarità morfosintattiche dei pronomi soggetto del vernacolo fiorentino rispetto all’italiano. Nel secondo verranno presentati i corpora consultati: il Corpus Stammerjohann e il Corpus per il Confronto Diacronico. Il terzo paragrafo esporrà la metodologia utilizzata nell’analisi dei dati, a cui è dedicato il quarto paragrafo. Infine, il quinto paragrafo conclude il contributo con una sintesi degli argomenti trattati e una riflessione sugli sviluppi futuri possibili a partire dalla ricerca qui presentata.
The American English spontaneous speech minicorpus. Architecture and comparability
Authors: Cavalcante Frederico Amorim , Ramos Adriana Couto
Published: April 2023

This paper presents the American English (AE) minicorpus, a spontaneous speech resource created within the auspices of the C-ORAL-BRASIL project consisting of texts selected from the Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English. We focus on the sampling strategy that guided the selection of texts, the transcription criteria that were implemented and the prosodic and informational annotation carried on the AE minicorpus. The minicorpus was designed to be comparable to the minicorpora of the C-ORAL projects for Italian and Brazilian Portuguese, which were conceived to allow the study of information structure in spontaneous speech in accordance with the principles of the Language into Act Theory. This theory comprises a pragmatic framework for the study of spontaneous speech and it integrates the IPO approach into its prosodic model. The IPO approach consists of a perception-based model for the study of intonation, providing an apparatus for the description and classification of melodic contours observed in spontaneous speech.
An automatic speech segmentation tool based on multiple acoustic parameters
Authors: Mittmann Maryualê Malvessi , Barbosa Plínio Almeida
Published: April 2023

Speech segmentation is required not only for linguistic research based on oral corpora, but had become essential for natural language processing. Many researchers have developed different approaches to deal with the need of automatic segmentation of speech data. In this paper we discuss some of the prosodic parameters used as cues for boundary identification and present an ongoing project for the automatic segmentation of spontaneous speech developed for Brazilian Portuguese.
Effects of speech rhythm on spoken syntax. A corpus-based study on Brazilian Portuguese and Italian
Authors: Bossaglia Giulia
Published: April 2023

This paper presents a preliminary study on the syntax/prosody interface in spoken Brazilian Portuguese and Italian, within the Language into Act Theory theoretical framework (L-AcT, Cresti 2000). According to this theory, spoken syntax has to be studied taking into consideration the way the speaker combines information along one or more information units, since each of them is understood as a syntactic/semantic island (Cresti 2014). Then, linearized syntax defines proper dependency relationships, performed within the same information unit, while patterned constructions, syntactic structures performed across more than one information unit, are to be analyzed considering the pragmatic functions of the information units involved (Cresti 2014). According to a non-discrete conception of speech rhythm (Barbosa 2000, 2006), BP can be defined as a more stress-timed language with respect to IT, and its tonal unit can host more phonological syllables than IT’s, for BP’s rhythm leads to strong re-syllabification phenomena. Based on data from the C-ORAL-BRASIL (Raso & Mello 2012) and Italian C-ORAL-ROM (Cresti & Moneglia 2005) spontaneous speech corpora, this paper aims at verifying if such prosodic features partake in the way the two languages display preference for linearized syntax or patterned constructions.