Modelling and Forecast of Air Pollution Concentrations during COVID Pandemic Emergency with ARIMA Techniques: the Case Study of Two Italian Cities

An efficient and punctual monitoring of air pollutants is very useful to evaluate and prevent possible threats to human beings' health. Especially in areas where such pollutants are highly concentrated, an accurate collection of data could suggest mitigation actions to be implemented. Moreover, a well-performed data collection could also permit the forecast of future scenarios, in relation to the seasonality of the phenomenon. With a particular focus on COVID pandemic period, several literature works demonstrated a decreasing of pollutant concentrations in air of urban areas, mainly for NOx, while CO and PM10, on the opposite, has been observed to remain still, mainly because of the intensive usage of heating systems by the people forced to stay home (on specific regions). With the present contribution the authors here present an application of Time Series analysis (TSA) approach to pollutants concentration data of two Italian cities during first lockdown (9 march – 18 may 2020), demonstrating the possibility to predict pollutants concentration over time. © 2023, World Scientific and Engineering Academy and Society. All rights reserved.

Immunogenicity of COVID-19 Vaccination in Cardiac Transplant Recipients: 5 Months Follow-Up after the 3rd Dose

Vaccination against COVID 19 has been shown to improve outcomes after transplant. There are prior reports of vaccines leading to sensitization in transplant recipients, however, little is known about the development of de novo (dn) anti-HLA antibodies (abs) after COVID-19 vaccination (COVAX). The purpose of this study was to prospectively survey immunological markers in heart transplant recipients after receiving their 3rd dose of COVAX. Thirty-one subjects (mean 30 months post-transplant) were evaluated 1, 3and 5 months after COVAX. Single antigen bead assay for anti-HLA abs (thresholdMFI >1000), COVID-19 spike abs (threshold ≥250 U/mL) and donor/recipientcell free DNA testing (threshold ratio >.12) were performed. (Table 1, Fig 1): Over 5 months, 32% of subjects developed dn anti-HLA abs and 19%developed dn donor specific abs (DSA). Antibodies developed by 1 month with titers decreasing by 5 months. All sensitized subjects developed Class II antibodies, with 60% having concomitant Class I. One of four subjects with pre COVAX DSAs had a significant rise after COVAX. No significant cellular or antibody mediated rejection was seen during follow up, but 32% of subjects demonstrated a new rise in cell free DNA. We did not see a temporal relationship between intercurrent COVID infection and dn DSA during study follow up. After the 3rd COVAX dose, one third of subjects developed dn anti-HLA abs and one fifth dn DSAs. These preliminary findings warrant further study, especially as additional boosters are recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Heart & Lung Transplantation is the property of Elsevier B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The brewing industry in Friuli Venezia Giulia

This article discusses the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on beer production and consumption in Europe, with a focus on Friuli Venezia Giulia region in Italy. The pandemic restrictions have resulted in a contraction in the production and consumption of beer in Europe in 2020 and 2021. However, Italy has seen a recovery in the beer sector due to a surge in demand in the HoReCa channel. In terms of off-trade outlets, such as supermarkets and retail sales, there has been a continued growth trend seen in previous years, with an increasing preference for low-alcohol or alcohol-free beers. Friuli Venezia Giulia has experienced a rise in the number of beer consumers by 3.1% in 2021, with every 100 people witnessing a rise of 1.5% compared to the previous year, making it the region with the highest percentage of beer consumers in Italy. The region has seen continuous growth in craft brewing companies, with 55 as of 31 March 2022. Microbreweries are the predominant business type, and e-commerce is a service offered by 36% of the craft companies. The environmental impact resulting from the activities of the companies studied varies, and there is significant room for improvement in the future. Overall, the craft brewing industry in Friuli Venezia Giulia shows continued growth and development, contributing to the economic development of rural areas.

Worldwide Gender Differences in Public Code Contributions and how they have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic

Gender imbalance is a well-known phenomenon observed throughout sciences which is particularly severe in software development and Free/Open Source Software communities. Little is know yet about the geography of this phenomenon in particular when considering large scales for both its time and space dimensions. We contribute to fill this gap with a longitudinal study of the population of contributors to publicly available software source code. We analyze the development history of 160 million software projects for a total of 2.2 billion commits contributed by 43 million distinct authors over a period of 50 years. We classify author names by gender using name frequencies and author geographical locations using heuristics based on email addresses and time zones. We study the evolution over time of contributions to public code by gender and by world region. For the world overall, we confirm previous findings about the low but steadily increasing ratio of contributions by female authors. When breaking down by world regions we find that the long-term growth of female participation is a world-wide phenomenon. We also observe a decrease in the ratio of female participation during the COVID-19 pandemic, suggesting that women's ability to contribute to public code has been more hindered than that of men.