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This paper introduces the USPDATRO dataset. This is a speech dataset, in the Romanian language, constructed from open data, focusing on under-represented voice types (children, young and old people, and female voices). The paper covers the methodology behind the dataset construction, specific details regarding the dataset, and evaluation of existing Romanian Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) systems, with different architectures. Results indicate that more under-represented speech content is needed in the training of ASR systems. Our approach can be extended to other low-resourced languages, as long as open data are available.

In modern societies, digitalization plays a tremendously important role for people and businesses. Apart from an economic representation, competitiveness characterizes a society from political, cultural, or human points of view. In this article, we aim to highlight the role of digital development from a competitiveness perspective, as there are few studies related to this relationship. The empirical investigation is based on panel data analysis for European Union countries for 2017–2022, considering the digital economy and society index (DESI) and the index developed by International Institute for Management Development (IMD), respectively IMD world competitiveness index. The results obtained are reported both for general indices and for the components of DESI, presented separately for the groups of Central and Eastern European countries and Western European countries. They indicate different influences for the two groups of countries, with only a few common aspects. The most obvious is the case of skilled labor. This aspect demonstrates the link between the various dimensions of digitalization and changes in human capital development strategies, as they appear in the specialized literature.

Shear-wave elastography (SWE) showed the absence or presence of significant differences among stable kidney allograft function and allograft dysfunction. We evaluated the variability of kidney allograft stiffness in relation to allograft dysfunction, respectively, in terms of a correlation of stiffness with patients’ characteristics. A single-center prospective study on patients who had undergone renal transplantation was conducted between October 2017 and November 2018. Patients were clinically classified as having a stable allograft function or allograft dysfunction. SWE examinations performed by the same radiologist with a LOGIQ E9 were evaluated. Ten measurements were done for Young’s modulus (kPa) at the level of allograft cortex and another ten at the level of medulla. Eighty-three SWE examinations from 63 patients, 69 stable allografts, and 14 allografts with dysfunction were included in the analysis. The intra-examinations stiffness showed high variability, with the quantile covariation coefficient ranging from 2.21% to 45.04%. The inter-examinations stiffness showed heterogeneity (from 28.66% to 42.38%). The kidney allograft cortex stiffness showed significantly higher values in cases with dysfunction (median = 28.70 kPa, interquartile range (IQR) = (25.68−31.98) kPa) as compared to those with stable function (median = 20.99 kPa, interquartile range = (16.08−27.68) kPa; p-value = 0.0142). Allograft tissue stiffness (both cortex and medulla) was significantly negatively correlated with body mass index (−0.44, p-value < 0.0001 for allograft cortex and −0.42, p-value = 0.0001 for allograft medulla), and positively correlated with Proteinuria/Creatinuria ratio (0.33, p-value = 0.0021 for allograft cortex and 0.28, p-value = 0.0105 for allograft medulla) but remained statistically significant only in cases with stable function. The cortical tissue stiffness proved significantly higher values for patients with allograft dysfunction as compared to patients with stable function, but to evolve as an additional tool for the evaluation of patients with a kidney transplant and to change the clinical practice, more extensive studies are needed.

The benefits of using comparable corpora for improving translation quality for statistical machine translators have been already shown by various researchers. The usual approach is starting with a baseline system, trained on out-of-domain parallel corpora, followed by its adaptation to the domain in which new translations are needed. The adaptation to a new domain, especially for a narrow one, is based on data extracted from comparable corpora from the new domain or from an as close as possible one. This article reports on a slightly different approach: building an SMT system entirely from comparable data for the domain of interest. Certainly, the approach is feasible if the comparable corpora are large enough to extract SMT useful data in sufficient quantities for a reliable training. The more comparable corpora, the better the results are. Wikipedia is definitely a very good candidate for such an experiment. We report on mass experiments showing significant improvements over a baseline system built from highly similar (almost parallel) text fragments extracted from Wikipedia. The improvements, statistically significant, are related to what we call the level of translational similarity between extracted pairs of sentences. The experiments were performed for three language pairs: Spanish-English, German-English and Romanian-English, based on sentence pairs extracted from the entire dumps of Wikipedia as of December 2012. Our experiments and comparison with similar work show that adding indiscriminately more data to a training corpus is not necessarily a good thing in SMT.

The pseudoglow and glow discharge behavior of a 0.5-mm metallic-dielectric electrode gap in helium under atmospheric pressure was examined as a function of ac voltage between 0.3 and 32 kHz. The number of discharge current pulses per half-cycle within the pseudoglow was found to diminish with rising frequency, as opposed to the increase observed with rising voltage. The reduction in the rise time and the quasi-monotonic decreases in amplitude of the successive discrete current pulses within the pseudoglow were attributed to the enhanced Penning ionization due to an increase in the number of energetic precursors (metastables and dimers) over the first quadrant in each half cycle. The interruption in the discharge pulse sequence, caused by a change in polarity of the ac field, greatly reduced the precursors' concentration and resulted in the first incipient pulse of the pseudoglow having the shortest rise time and width in the pulse sequence. The increase in frequency at constant voltage caused a gradual decrease in the number of discharge current pulses within the pseudoglow, until at ca. 10 kHz and beyond only a single pulse glow discharge took place. The influence of argon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen impurities was studied and interpreted in terms of Penning ionization and electron attachment. Index Terms--AC voltage, atmospheric pressure, discharge, glow, helium, impurity effects, metallic-dielectric electrodes, Penning ionization, pseudoglow, variable frequency.

We present experimental results of atmospheric pressure glow discharges (APGD) in a dielectric barrier discharge reactor. These are examined in different noble gases and in the [N.sub.2]/[O.sub.2] system (air and pure [N.sub.2]), under varying experimental conditions (frequency f; gap length d; and electric field intensity E). Discharge diagnostics have been carried out using ultrahigh speed imaging, and synchronous dual-detection of light emission and current-voltage measurements, the former using a photomultiplier. The time evolutions of the discharges and of columnar patterns in regular geometric arrangements at atmospheric pressure under different experimental conditions are reported for all of the noble gases studied here. We present evidence that columnar patterns and APGD are manifestations of the same discharge physics, which is discussed with reference to recent work reported by others. Index Terms--Atmospheric pressure, diagnostics, dielectric barrier, glow discharge, noble gases.

The impact of fossil fuel utilisation in different combustion systems on climate change due to greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmosphere is rather evident. A part of these gases comes from the large engines used for propulsion in marine applications. In the continuous global effort made by engine manufacturers to mitigate this negative impact, one way is represented by the utilisation of alternative fuels such as biodiesel and methanol, based on dedicated research to fulfil the more stringent regulations concerning pollutant emissions issued by piston heat engines. In this study, a numerical investigation was conducted on a four-stroke large marine diesel engine (ALCO 16V 251C) at several engine speeds and full load conditions. Different blends of diesel–methanol and biodiesel B20–methanol with methanol mass fractions of 10% and 20% were considered for theoretical analysis in two techniques of methanol supply: direct injection mode of a blend of base fuel diesel/biodiesel B20 with methanol and injection of methanol after the intercooler, and direct injection of the base fuel. The results show that, if 10% in power loss can be acceptable, then for diesel–methanol 10%, in the direct injection technology, the NOx emission can be reduced up to 19%, but with a compromise of an 8% increase in SOOT emission, while for biodiesel B20–methanol 10%, with the same direct injection method, the NOx emissions increase by up to 58% with the benefit of reducing SOOT by up to 23% relative to the original diesel fuel operation. For a 20% methanol fraction in blend fuel, the drop in power is more than 10% regardless of the method of methanol supply and the base fuel, diesel, or B20 used.

Leishmaniasis is an infectious disease that belongs to the top 10 neglected tropical diseases. It mainly affects the poor population from tropical and subtropical areas of the World, which lacks sufficient resources and means to fight against this disease. With this in mind, the European Commission has funded an international collaborative research project in which are participating various institutions from South America, North Africa and Europe. The main objective of this project is the development of a fast, less expensive, non-invasive and easy to use alternative method for leishmaniasis diagnosis in dogs, one of the main reservoirs of leishmaniasis spread to humans. In this perspective article, we present our personal insight and opinion regarding the challenges of realizing a joint international research project on leishmaniasis in Colombia, a country where leishmaniasis is endemic, as well as regarding the involvement of the Public Health institutions and the local population from this country.

Cattle genome sequencing has a major impact on livestock breeding and provides useful information in the field biotechnology that can ultimately lead to the development of several techniques for early molecular diagnosis. These developments within molecular genetics have made possible the rapid and effective detection of lethal or mutant alleles associated with a disease-specific phenotype by DNA isolation followed by in vitro amplification techniques and enzymatic restriction. DNA tests are currently in use for the detection of heterozygotes and diagnosis of genetic diseases such as bovine leukocyte adhesion deficiency (BLAD), deficiency of uridine monophosphate synthase (DUMPS) and bovine citrullinemia. These genetic defects are autosomal recessive disorders which were widespread trough advanced reproductive technologies, including artificial insemination and multiple ovulation embryo transfer, as result of selection focused on desirable traits carried by elite bulls with high genetic merit. In order to prevent the risk of dissemination of inherited defects in dairy herds and to decrease the economic losses all bulls have to be tested, although the prevalence of the above mentioned recessive alleles is low. Therefore, it is advisable to use molecular markers to assess bovine health and to implement such programs for the purpose of monitoring hereditary diseases in cattle.

The objective of this study was to determine the influence of the lactation rank on the milk production level and total days in milk in the Fleckvieh-type population raised at the Research and Development Station for Bovine Raising - Arad. Researches were carried out on 350 lactations, as follows: 52 first lactations, 66 second lactations, 81 third lactations, 79 fourth lactations, 43 fifth lactations, and 29 sixth lactations. The average lactation was 344.65 days, with the longest lactation the fourth parity (359.31 days), while the shortest was found in the first (331.82 days). The milk production was on average 6035.66 kg with a maximum yield of 6692.81 kg reached in the fourth lactation, and the lowest in the first lactation (5745.86 kg). The first lactation represented 86% of the maximum lactation. There were significant differences for milk production between the first two lactations and lactations 4, 5, and 6, as well as between the fourth lactation and lactations 5 and 6.

The present work was carried out to determine the influence of lactation rank on the milk yield, fat and protein evolution. Observations were carried out on 117 lactations, as follows: 15 first lactations, 22 second lactations, 26 third lactations, 28 fourth and 26 fifth lactations. It was found out that the average milk yield was 7511.66 kg with the maximum in the fifth lactation (7898.19 kg) and the minimum of 7117.06 kg in first lactation. The differences were highly significant until the third lactation. After the fourth lactation the differences between lactations become statistically no significant, as productive maturity is reached. Milk fat percentage reaches the maximum value in the fifth lactation (4%) with a minimum value recorded in the fourth lactation (3.83%). The average milk fat percentage was 3.94%. Significant and very significant differences occurred for the milk fat percentage between the first three lactations and the fourth and fifth lactations. Milk protein percentage has averaged 3.2%. This parameter is less influenced by lactation rank.

The aim of the current study was to evaluate the genetic polymorphism of A and B variants at the CSN3 (κ-casein) and LGB (β-lactoglobulin) loci in Romanian Spotted and Romanian Brown breeds using PCR-RFLP and PCR-HRM genotyping methods. Altogether, 280 cattle from Arad county were genotyped. The most frequent allele at the CSN3 locus was A in Romanian Spotted breed (0.723) while the B allele was the most common in the Romanian Brown (0.694). For LGB locus the A and B alleles recorded similar frequencies for Romanian Spotted (0.5141 and 0.4859) compared to Romanian Brown breed where the B allele was the most prevalent (0.5970). Knowledges regarding genetic information of breeds related to milk protein are valuable for economic reassertion of cattle breeds, particularly autochthonous ones. Further, the results would be useful in future breeding programs for the studied population, aimed to improve cattle genetic structure for milk quality traits.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the body weight and some biometric measurements on meat crossbred calves comparative with Romanian Black Spotted dairy calves at weaning (4 months). The current research was carried out on a number of 45 calves in the Dairy cows' Experimental Farm of the Research and Development Institute for Bovine Balotesti, on four experimental groups, E1: F1 Blanc Blue Belgique x Romanian Black Spotted, E2: F1 Aberdeen Angus x Romanian Black Spotted, E3: F1 Limousine x Romanian Black, E4: F1 Charolaise x Romanian Black Spotted, with n=9 heads/group and the control group (M) Romanian Black Spotted, with n=9 heads/group. The obtained mean values for the body weight were statistically significant (p

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of season of collection on the quantity, quality and hygienic properties of the raw milk delivered from one dairy farm. The studied traits were: bulk tank milk yield, chemical composition (fat, protein, lactose, and total solids), freezing point, density, total bacteria count, coliform bacteria count and somatic cell count, during years 2010 and 2011. A total of 727 samples were drawn and analysed in two laboratories, using the standard methods. Average milk production per day per head in the farm was 13.58 kg, obtained from 252 cows. Year of collection had a significant effect on the bulk tank raw milk yield, quality and hygiene, except for freezing point and total bacteria count. The raw milk yield and chemical composition improved (p

The aim of this paper was to highlight the importance of the milking system on the milk yield and quality. Researches were carried out at the Research and Development Station for Bovine Raising Arad, on 72 Romanian Spotted cows of Fleckvieh type. The two milking systems were 1) milking at bucket in the barn (the old system) and 2) milking on a 2x14 herringbone parlour (the new system). Just by changing the milking system the milk production increased by 330.94 kg, the total bacteria count decreased by more than 9 times, from 460495.1 ufc/ml to 49277.5 ufc/ml, and the somatic cell count decreased as well from 346516.4 to 227275. Changing the milking from bucket in the barn to the herringbone parlour increased the hygienic qualities of the milk to the standards required by the EU.

The aim of this study was to assess the milk production dynamics in one dairy farm rearing both Brown and Romanian Spotted breed cows. The study was carried out at the Research and Development Station for Bovine Raising Arad, on 321 lactations obtained from Romanian Spotted cows and 117 lactations from Brown cows. These lactations were classified according to the age of cows in first, second, third, fourth and fifth lactation. The milk yield in the first lactation was the lowest both in Romanian Spotted and Brown cows (5745.86 kg and 7117.00 kg, respectively), while the maximum milk yield per lactation was produced in the fourth lactation by the Romanian Spotted cows (6692.81 kg) and in the fifth lactation by Brown cows (7898.19 kg). Romanian Spotted cows produced 85.85% milk in the first lactation from the maximum lactation, while the Brown cows produced 90.11% in the first lactation from the highest lactation. There was concluded that there are differences regarding the precocity for milk production and the dynamics from one lactation to another between the two breeds.

The use of SNP microarrays has gained distinguished attention in recent years and the identification of numerous SNPs has proven valuable for genetic evaluation and selection in farm animals. In the current study we compared several bovine populations from Romania and Switzerland at the level of SNPs. Romanian Brown (N=39) and Romanian Spotted (N=245) cattle were genotyped using the Axiom Bovine BovMDv3 SNP microarray. For the Swiss population, we acquired sequencing data from the NCBI SRA database for 80 individuals from three breeds: Brown Swiss (N=20), Original Braunvieh (N=20) and Simmental (N=40). Sequencing data were processed using the Bcbio-nextgen data analysis pipeline and variants were called based on the UMD3.1 reference genome. Common SNPs found from both microarray and sequencing data were retained and genotypes from all the Romanian and Swiss animals were pooled together, resulting in a combined dataset of 48,291 SNPs for 364 individuals. Pairwise comparisons were assessed on the five subpopulations according to Weir and Cockerham’s FST index. Small genetic differences (FST < 0.05) were found between the Romanian Brown and Swiss Brown Swiss subpopulations and between Romanian Spotted and Swiss Simmental subpopulations. For all the other pairwise comparisons, FST values were between 0.05 and 0.1, indicating a moderate level of genetic difference among the corresponding subpopulations. The results of fastSTRUCTURE indicated that the most likely number (K) of subpopulations from the pooled dataset was between 8 and 12. Bar plots for K = 5, 8 and 12 confirmed that Romanian Brown and Swiss Brown Swiss subpopulations were genetically similar. However, they also revealed a surprisingly high level of heterogeneity among the Romanian Spotted individuals. As such, future research is required to zoom in on the genetic make-up and explain the most likely sources of heterogeneity for the Romanian Spotted breed. Current results will facilitate a better understanding of genomic selection and its application for improved breeding programs in Romanian cattle breeds.

The aim of the current research was to determine the risk factors associated to dystocia in 400 Romanian Spotted cows. Calf sex, season of calving, dam’s parity, productive level and the type of birth were related to the incidence of dystocia. Calf sex was not associated to the incidence of dystocia, with no significant effect (25.25 vs. 22.25% for males and females, respectively, P>0.52). Season of calving had no significant effect on dystocia, comparable incidences of dystocia in the summer and winter seasons (26 vs. 20.5%, P>0.2) being recorded. A comparable incidence of dystocia was obtained according to cow's parity (27 vs. 23.5%, P>0.475) in primiparous and multiparous animals. High producing cows experienced a higher incidence of dystocia compared to lower producing cows (37.75 vs. 22.25%, P≤0.018). The twin pregnancies were the major factor related to dystocia in cows, causing a higher prevalence of dystocia compared to single (39.25 vs. 19.5%, P≤0.001). Concluding, the production level and type of birth were the main risk factors for dystocia. The sex of calves, the season of birth and the parity had no influence on dystocia incidence, conversely to other studies. In this respect, additional studies should be performed in order to include other factors and validate their influential level.

The aim of the current research was to determine the influence of calving year, season of calving, lactation parity and calving ease on service period (SP) length in Romanian Brown breed. A total of 750 data recorded from 150 lactations of 50 Romanian Brown cows raised between 2018 and 2020 were included in the current study. Year of calving (P≤0.05), lactation parity (P≤0.01) and calving ease (P≤0.001) were related to the service period length. A comparable length of the service period was noted according to season of calving (P>0.5). Concluding, year of calving and calving ease were the main influential factors for this particularly reproductive trait. In this respect, additional studies should be performed in order to include other factors and validate their influence.

The aim of the current research was to determine the influence of calving year and season on calving interval (CI) in Romanian Brown breed. A total of 250 data recorded from 150 lactations of 50 Romanian Brown cows raised between 2018 and 2020 were included in the current study. The year proved to exert a significant effect (p≤0.01) on calving interval, this parameter recording an increased tendency. Comparable values were recorded according to season of calving (p>0.05). Concluding, year of calving was the main influential factors for this particularly reproductive trait. In this respect, additional studies should be performed in order to include other factors, validate their influence and properly manage of its.

The vulnerable populations of bison had gone through a drastic reduction in population size, have undergone a very high level of inbreeding and have been through severe bottlenecks. Using a panel of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (GGP Bovine 50K SNP arrays, Neogen) developed across the entire bovine (Bos taurus) genome, we have carried out a genome variability screening on a bison (Bison bison) population in Romania. Eight males were included in the analysis. As part of SNP quality control filtering, one individual with a call rate below 80% was removed from the study. From a total of 47,843 SNPs only 4474 were polymorphic (9.35% from the total) and 7 individuals (out of a total of 8) were left after PLINK's quality control filtering. The total call rate of genotyped samples was 90.11% for the filtered dataset. A secondary PLINK run was performed on the 4474 filtered SNPs to find the ones whose HWE p-value fell below 0.05 and 100 markers were highlighted in this way. The results showed a larger number of polymorphic SNPs compared with previous studies from the literature. In addition, the data obtained using the GGP Bovine 50K SNP arrays may facilitate the design of breeding strategies that can be applied for decreasing unwanted inbreeding effects in the vulnerable bison populations.

Mastitis is the most common production disease in the dairy sector worldwide, its incidence being associated with both cows’ exposure to bacteria and the cows’ genetic make-up for resistance to pathogens. The objective of our study was to analyse 89 missense SNPs belonging to six genes (CXCR2, CXCL8, TLR4, BRCA1, LTF, BOLA-DRB3), which were found to be associated with genetic resistance or susceptibility to mastitis. A total of 298 cattle (250 Romanian Spotted and 48 Romanian Brown) were genotyped by Kompetitive Allele Specific PCR (KASP) and a chi-squared test was used for genetic association studies with clinical mastitis. A total of 35 SNPs (39.3%) among the selected 89 SNPs were successfully genotyped, of which 31 markers were monomorphic. The polymorphic markers were found in two genes: TLR4 (rs460053411) and BOLA-DRB3 (rs42309897, rs208816121, rs110124025). The polymorphic SNPs with MAF > 5% and call rates > 95% were used for the association study. The results showed that rs110124025 in the BOLA-DRB3 gene was significantly associated with mastitis prevalence (p ≤ 0.05) in both investigated breeds. Current results show that the SNP rs110124025 in the BOLA-DRB3 gene can be used as a candidate genetic marker in selection for mastitis resistance in Romanian dairy cattle.

In the present study, we investigated one polymorphism of the PRL gene (rs211032652 SNP) and assessed its influence on milk production and chemical composition in two Romanian cattle breeds. A total of 119 cattle from two breeds reared in Western Romania (64 Romanian Spotted and 55 Romanian Brown) were included in the research herd. A PCR-RFLP genotyping assay was used for the identification of the rs211032652 SNP variants. Shapiro’s test and Levene’s test were used to verify ANOVA assumptions and ANOVA and Tukey’s test were employed to test the associations between PRL genotypes and five milk traits. Among the studied breeds, our results showed that PRL genotypes were significantly associated (p < 0.05) with fat and protein percentage in the milk of Romanian Brown cattle. The AA genotype was associated with a higher fat percentage in milk (4.76 ± 0.28) compared to the GG genotype (4.04 ± 0.22, p = 0.048), as well as a higher protein percentage (3.96 ± 0.32% vs. 3.43 ± 0.15%, p = 0.027) in Romanian Brown cattle. Moreover, the PRL locus favored a significantly higher fat (p = 0.021) and protein (p = 0.028) percentage in the milk of Romanian Brown cattle compared to the Romanian Spotted breed, with a difference of 0.263% and 0.170%, respectively.

The Scientific Committee on Cosmetic and Non-Food Products has identified 26 compounds that may cause contact allergy in consumers when present in concentrations above certain legal thresholds in a product. Twenty-four of these compounds are volatiles and can be analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) or electronic nose (e-nose) technologies. This manuscript first describes the use of the GC-MS approach to identify the main volatile compounds present in the original perfumes and their counterfeit samples. The second part of this work focusses on the ability of an e-nose system to discriminate between the original fragrances and their counterfeits. The analyses were carried out using the headspace of the aqueous solutions. GC-MS analysis revealed the identification of 10 allergens in the perfume samples, some of which were only found in the imitated fragrances. The e-nose system achieved a fair discrimination between most of the fragrances analyzed, with the counterfeit fragrances being clearly separated from the original perfumes. It is shown that associating the e-nose system to the appropriate classifier successfully solved the classification task. With Principal Component Analysis (PCA), the three first principal components represented 98.09% of the information in the database.

Naphthalimide derivatives possess many interesting properties such as strong emission, high quantum efficiency, good photostability, thermal stability, etc. The electronic absorption and fluorescence spectra of naphthalimides are sensitive to the polarity of surrounding environment, and these derivatives can be excellent candidates for fluorescent sensors for water detection in solution because the emission is strongly depended on the solvent polarity and it is quenched even at low water levels. In order to find out more information about the excited state dynamics of the naphthalimide derivatives, time-resolved fluorescence experiments were conducted in solvents of different polarities, and lifetimes from 0.5 ns to 9 ns were obtained. The transient absorption map in dioxane, dimethylformamide and methanol in the presence or absence of water revealed ground state bleaching bands (GSB) in the range of 230–290 nm, whereas an absorption band in excited state (ESA) occurred at shorter wavelengths from 210 to 295 nm. At longer wavelength, negative bands appeared, which can be assigned to the stimulated emissions (SE). In addition, the quantum yields with absolute values from 0.01 to 0.87 were found depending on the solvent nature.