Alcohol intake and mortality risk of COVID-19, pneumonia, and other infectious diseases: An analysis of 437191 UK biobank participants

This study aims to investigate the association between alcohol consumption and COVID-19, infectious diseases, and pneumonia mortality. This is a prospective analysis of 437,191 UK Biobank participants (age 56.3 years, 54% female). The main exposure was self-reported alcohol consumption. In addition to never and previous drinkers, we applied quartiles-based and UK guidelines-based criteria to divide current drinkers by weekly consumption into four groups. Outcomes included COVID-19, infectious diseases, and pneumonia mortality, obtained from the national death registries until May 2020. After an 11-year follow-up, compared to never drinkers, previous drinkers had higher mortality risks of infectious diseases and pneumonia (adjusted HR: 1.29 [95% CI 1.06–1.57] and 1.35 [1.07–1.70], respectively), but not COVID-19. There was a curvilinear association of alcohol consumption with infectious diseases and pneumonia mortality. Drinking within-guidelines (<14 UK units/wk) and amounts up to double the recommendation (14 to < 28 UK units/wk) was associated with the lowest mortality risks of infectious diseases (0.70 [0.59–0.83] and 0.70 [0.59–0.83], respectively) and pneumonia (0.71 [0.58–0.87] and 0.72 [0.58–0.88], respectively). Alcohol consumption was associated with lower risks of COVID-19 mortality (e.g., drinking within-guidelines: 0.53 [0.33–0.86]). Drinkers reporting multiples of the recommended alcohol drinking amounts did not have higher mortality risks of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases than never drinkers. Despite the well-established unfavorable effects on general health, we found no deleterious associations between alcohol consumption and the risk of infectious diseases, including COVID-19. Future research with other study designs is needed to confirm the causality

Data-driven curation, learning and analysis for inferring evolving IoT botnets in the wild

The insecurity of the Internet-of-Things (IoT) paradigm continues to wreak havoc in consumer and critical infrastructure realms. Several challenges impede addressing IoT security at large, including, the lack of IoT-centric data that can be collected, analyzed and correlated, due to the highly heterogeneous nature of such devices and their widespread deployments in Internet-wide environments. To this end, this paper explores macroscopic, passive empirical data to shed light on this evolving threat phenomena. This not only aims at classifying and inferring Internet-scale compromised IoT devices by solely observing such one-way network traffic, but also endeavors to uncover, track and report on orchestrated "in the wild" IoT botnets. Initially, to prepare the effective utilization of such data, a novel probabilistic model is designed and developed to cleanse such traffic from noise samples (i.e., misconfiguration traffic). Subsequently, several shallow and deep learning models are evaluated to ultimately design and develop a multi-window convolution neural network trained on active and passive measurements to accurately identify compromised IoT devices. Consequently, to infer orchestrated and unsolicited activities that have been generated by well-coordinated IoT botnets, hierarchical agglomerative clustering is deployed by scrutinizing a set of innovative and efficient network feature sets. By analyzing 3.6 TB of recent darknet traffic, the proposed approach uncovers a momentous 440,000 compromised IoT devices and generates evidence-based artifacts related to 350 IoT botnets. While some of these detected botnets refer to previously documented campaigns such as the Hide and Seek, Hajime and Fbot, other events illustrate evolving threats such as those with cryptojacking capabilities and those that are targeting industrial control system communication and control services

Structural and Optical Properties of Varies Thickness of Znte Nanoparticle

ZnTe thin films of different thicknesses were deposited onto glass substrates for optical devices applications. Xray diffractogram of different thicknesses for ZnTe films are measured and their patterns exhibits polycrystalline nature with a preferential orientation along the (111) plane. X-ray diffraction techniques have been employed to determine the microstructure parameters, both crystallite size and microstrain. Film thickness and the optical constants of ZnTe films were calculated based on the measured transmittance spectral data using Swanepole’s method in the wavelength range 400–2500 nm. The refractive index n and absorption index k were calculated, and the refractive index exhibits a normal dispersion. The refractive index could be extrapolated by Cauchy dispersion relationship over the whole spectra range, which extended from 400 to 2500 nm. The optical band gap can be calculated in strong absorption region and displays an allowed direct transition. Both the refractive index and the band gap increase with the increase film thickness, thus ZnTe/glass substrates are good candidates in optoelectronic devices

Structural and Optical Properties of Varies Thickness of Znte Nanoparticle

ZnTe thin films of different thicknesses were deposited onto glass substrates for optical devices applications. Xray diffractogram of different thicknesses for ZnTe films are measured and their patterns exhibits polycrystalline nature with a preferential orientation along the (111) plane. X-ray diffraction techniques have been employed to determine themicrostructure parameters, both crystallite size and microstrain. Film thickness and the optical constants of ZnTe films were calculated based on the measured transmittance spectral data using Swanepole’s method in the wavelength range 400–2500 nm. The refractive index n and absorption index k were calculated and the refractive index exhibits a normal dispersion. The refractive index could be extrapolated by Cauchy dispersion relationship over the whole spectra range, which extended from 400 to 2500 nm. The optical band gap can be calculated in strong absorption region and displays an allowed direct transition. Both the refractive index and the band gap increase with the increase film thickness, thus ZnTe/glass substrates are good candidates in optoelectronic devices.Keywords: ZnTe, thin film, cry crystallitze size; microstrain; optical constants

Transmission Properties of FeCl₃-Intercalated Graphene and WS₂ Thin Films for Terahertz Time-Domain Spectroscopy Applications

This is the final version. Available on open access from Springer via the DOI in this recordTime-resolved terahertz spectroscopy has become a common method both for fundamental and applied studies focused on improving the quality of human life. However, the issue of finding materials applicable in these systems is still relevant. One of the appropriate solutions is 2D materials. Here, we demonstrate the transmission properties of unique graphene-based structures with iron trichloride FeCl3 dopant on glass, sapphire and Kapton polyimide film substrates that previously were not investigated in the framework of the above-described problems in near infrared and THz ranges. We also show properties of a thin tungsten disulfide WS2 film fabricated from liquid crystal solutions transferred to a polyimide and polyethylene terephthalate substrates. The introduction of impurities, the selection of structural dimensions and the use of an appropriate substrate for modified 2D layered materials allow to control the transmission of samples for both the terahertz and infrared ranges, which can be used for creation of effective modulators and components for THz spectroscopy systems.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)Government of the Russian Federatio

Structural and Optical Properties of Znse1−Xtex Nanocrystalline Thin Films in Terms of Optical Spectroscopic Ellipsometry

Polycrystalline thin films of ZnSe1−xTex (0.0 ≤ x ≤ 1.0) were deposited on glass substrate using electron beam deposition technique. The structure of the prepared films was examined using X-ray diffraction technique and revealed that the deposited films have polycrystalline zinc blend structure. The optical constants and film thicknesses of nanocrystalline ZnSe1−xTex films were obtained by fitting the spectroscopic ellipsometric data (ψ, Δ) using a three-layer model system in the wavelength range from 400 to 1100 nm. The refractive index was observed to increase with increasing Te concentration. This increase in the refractive index with increasing Te content may be attributed to the increase in the polarizability due tothe large ionic radius of Te compared to the ionic radius of Zn. The optical studies of the polycrystalline ZnSe1−xTex films showed that the refractive index increases and fundamental band gap opt g E decreases from 2.58 to 2.21 eV as the tellurium concentration increases from 0 to 1. Furthermore, it was also found that the variation of optical band gap with compositionshows quadratic behavior.Keywords: ZnSe1−xTex thin film, nanocrystalline, Spectroscopic ellipsometry, bandgap