A Deep Learning Approach for Paragraph-Level Paraphrase Generation for Plagiarism Detection

Expressing information in different forms is an important skill that students should develop in school. This skill positively impacts academic reading and writing. However, it can also lead to negative consequences, such as plagiarism. Students may paraphrase original texts and present them as their own work. Therefore, the need to develop effective approaches to detect plagiarism and identify paraphrase has become increasingly important in academia, journalism, publishing, and other fields where innovation, novelty, and originality are highly valued, especially with the rising incidence of plagiarism in these areas because of the easy access to information on the internet and the capabilities of large language models. Most published detection methods analyse plagiarism at the sentence-level. We have developed approaches for generating and detecting paraphrased paragraphs by considering inter-sentence and intra-sentence relations, which enables the identification of paraphrased text at the paragraph-level. This includes joining, splitting, and/or shifting sentences within a paragraph, as students often plagiarise paragraphs. In the generating stage, we create the ALECS dataset, by developing three algorithms and applying a masking approach to tackle the paragraph’s syntactic and lexical layers while maintaining the paragraph’s semantics. ALECS can contribute to developing students’ abilities in paraphrasing, as there are more than 6 different forms for each source paragraph. In addition, as in this study, ALECS can be employed to train deep learning models for the purpose of generating or detecting plagiarised paragraphs. For the detection phase, our method shows robust results and outperforms existing work in detecting paragraph-level paraphrases, achieving a 90.1 F1 score with Longformer and reaching 96 when using a fine-tuned GPT-3.5. Graphical Abstract

Effects of hospital facilities on patient outcomes after cancer surgery: an international, prospective, observational study

Background Early death after cancer surgery is higher in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) compared with in high-income countries, yet the impact of facility characteristics on early postoperative outcomes is unknown. The aim of this study was to examine the association between hospital infrastructure, resource availability, and processes on early outcomes after cancer surgery worldwide.Methods A multimethods analysis was performed as part of the GlobalSurg 3 study-a multicentre, international, prospective cohort study of patients who had surgery for breast, colorectal, or gastric cancer. The primary outcomes were 30-day mortality and 30-day major complication rates. Potentially beneficial hospital facilities were identified by variable selection to select those associated with 30-day mortality. Adjusted outcomes were determined using generalised estimating equations to account for patient characteristics and country-income group, with population stratification by hospital.Findings Between April 1, 2018, and April 23, 2019, facility-level data were collected for 9685 patients across 238 hospitals in 66 countries (91 hospitals in 20 high-income countries; 57 hospitals in 19 upper-middle-income countries; and 90 hospitals in 27 low-income to lower-middle-income countries). The availability of five hospital facilities was inversely associated with mortality: ultrasound, CT scanner, critical care unit, opioid analgesia, and oncologist. After adjustment for case-mix and country income group, hospitals with three or fewer of these facilities (62 hospitals, 1294 patients) had higher mortality compared with those with four or five (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 3.85 [95% CI 2.58-5.75]; p<0.0001), with excess mortality predominantly explained by a limited capacity to rescue following the development of major complications (63.0% vs 82.7%; OR 0.35 [0.23-0.53]; p<0.0001). Across LMICs, improvements in hospital facilities would prevent one to three deaths for every 100 patients undergoing surgery for cancer.Interpretation Hospitals with higher levels of infrastructure and resources have better outcomes after cancer surgery, independent of country income. Without urgent strengthening of hospital infrastructure and resources, the reductions in cancer-associated mortality associated with improved access will not be realised

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

Identification of Volatile Flavor Constituents of the Peel (Flavedo) from Five Greek Citrus Varieties Cultivated in the Area of Arta

Citrus is one of the world's most important fruit crops with a total world production of approximately 105 million metric tons. The citrus fruit consists of the following fundamental parts: the flavedo (external colored part of the peel), the albedo (white internal part of the peel), the pericarp which contains the above mentioned parts, and the pulp containing the juices and the seeds, called endocarp. The flavedo is composed mainly of cellulosic material and contains other components such as essential oils, non-volatile fraction of the essential oil (paraffin waxes, steroids, fatty acids, flavones etc.), and additional components such as pigments, bitter compounds (limonin) and enzymes. In the present study the volatile flavor constituents of the peel (flavedo) from five Greek citrus varieties cultivated in the area of Arta (Zambetakis lemon variety, Navelina oranges, Valencia oranges, Common orange variety and bitter oranges) have been characterized by headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) in conjunction with gas chromatography - mass spectrometry (GC-MS). For HS-SPME method a 100-μm PDMS fiber coating was utilized. GC-MS separations of volatile compounds were made using a 60 m×320 μm I.D.×1 μm film thickness DB5 (non polar) column. Eighty two (82) compounds were totally identified in citrus peel samples. More specifically, a total of 52, 57, 54, 53 and 36 compounds were found in Zambetakis lemon variety, Navelina oranges, Valencia oranges, common orange variety and bitter oranges, respectively. The identified compounds belong to the group of esters, alcohols, aldehydes and mainly sesquiterpene hydrocarbons. Limonene was the most abundant component in all samples, followed by sabinene, β-pinene, β-myrcene and linalool.</jats:p

Migration studies from recycled paper packaging materials: development of an analytical method for rapid testing

The safe use of recycled paper and board material for food packaging applications is a major area of investigation. Studies on the migration of contaminants into foods and food simulants have been carried out to evaluate the suitability of recycled paperboard for direct food contact applications. In the present study, the kinetics of migration of selected model contaminants (surrogates) from paper packaging samples into an alternative or substitute fatty food simulant (Tenax) was studied with the aim of developing a rapid test method based on solvent extraction, gas chromatography (GC)-mass spectrometry (MS) identification and GC-flame ionization detector (FID) quantification. These tested substances represent a large number of molecular sizes and polarities and are among those that may be present in fiber material. Crucial data about the time needed to reach equilibrium between paper samples and the food simulant were obtained. The results of the study indicate that time and temperature conditions are the most important variables with respect to the actual mass transfer during contact with food simulants. The proposed quick test method seems to be suitable for compliance testing of paper and board samples if migration limits are applied in future legislation. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V, All rights reserved.Analytica Chimica Act

Studies on the usability of recycled PET for food packaging applications

The need of and opportunities for recycling of plastics for food packaging have been recognized, and a lot of work to find meaningful and cost-effective solutions to this issue is in progress. The safety of recycled plastics for food contact use is largely dictated by the ability of post-consumer contaminants to absorb into recycled materials and later diffuse from recycled plastics into the food. The objective of the present study was to establish a suitable analytical approach to identifying and quantifying any chemical substances that derive from the earlier use and remain in the polyethylene terephthalate (PET). A simple gas chromatographic technique using flame ionization detection was developed to allow quantification of solvent extractable compounds in a series of recycled PET samples. Identification of the nature and extent of contaminants in the PET samples was also attempted using GC/MS analysis.European Food Research and Technolog