The level of spatial accessibility is directly related to how street networks are connected. Connected or so-called “permeable” network systems encourage walking, cycling, and riding public transit. Fast urbanization during the recent decades in the world metropolises has created separated urban areas. Gated-style apartment complexes have led this segregation more obviously with their inaccessible internal networks. Opening the internal network of apartment complexes and redesigning the pedestrian paths among apartment buildings will significantly mitigate these networks’ adverse effects on network permeability and increase spatial accessibility. This paper analyzes how such an opening design proposal for apartment complexes can change spatial accessibility using the case study of Mapo-gu, Seoul, Korea. It simulates three types of street networks and compares the results of accessibility in three conditions: (1) the internal networks of apartment complexes are not used by outsiders; (2) the internal networks of apartment complexes are open to outsiders with its existing entrances and path; and (3) the internal networks of sites are opened and redesigned by the Voronoi diagram method, which generates the optimal shortest path. An urban network analysis tool, Rhinoceros three-dimensional software, and Grashopper3D visual programming language have been used for the study results, which shows that a policy change in opening the intra-network of apartment complexes is likely to make the city more permeable. In addition, this study suggests extra modification on the pedestrian path for a higher level of accessibility in neighborhoods. Walking distance is an essential factor influencing whether or not people choose public transport, especially in areas of large residential sites and non-central suburbs ,2. Some The apartment is a representative type of housing in Korea. According to the Korean Population and Housing Census , more thAnother aspect of Korean apartment complexes is that they occupy larger areas than do examples in other countries. This increases the impact of disconnection . The priThe internal pedestrian paths of apartment complexes are mostly different from the typical surrounding neighborhood’s pedestrian networks by design. Apartment complexes have more irregular and ornamented paths that are shaded or lighted. Some may claim that this increases walking comfort, but such an irregular path causes unfamiliarity, because pedestrians from outside may feel more unaware of the place, which is a reason not to choose such a walking route. In addition, the isolated walking path of the apartment complex’s residents robs the building of a sense of community by reducing social contact and hindering the formation of relationships with neighbors. In addition, privatizing roads and public spaces in the complex, limiting cars and pedestrians’ inflow, and emphasizing security cause a massive segregation in the city center.Internal streets of Chinese, South American, and Middle Eastern gated communities are segregated from surrounding street networks by gates and walls, whereas some apartment complexes in Korea do not hinder pedestrians from passing through the gates into their internal network. However, this does not mean a good connection between the neighborhood pedestrian network and the apartment complexes’ internal network. Although some local people may be familiar with apartment complexes’ internal street networks, many may not use pedestrian paths inside apartment sites. It constitutes barriers for the strangers to the neighborhood because the online maps do not provide a route option for apartment complexes’ internal streets. In this way, isolated apartment complexes are distributed in urban spaces to create effectively urban islands. The discontinuity of pedestrian paths in the city due to apartment complexes’ development directly and indirectly affects the physical and social network. Less connected pedestrian paths between apartment complexes and surrounding neighborhoods negatively affect people’s walking activities and increase the use of vehicles to bridge the disconnection of urban spaces, hindering social and physical sustainability.Street Traffic Guidance Manual, the government encourages connected street networks by emphasizing that they encourage walking and biking and make places more comfortable to explore [Meanwhile, permeability is the core theory of new urbanism, which favors urban design based on the “traditional”  street grid. The new urbanist view also affects the policy of some governments. According to the UK’s  explore . HoweverTherefore, this study aims to analyze the effect of the policy change to open apartment complexes on the pedestrian permeability and pedestrian accessibility and its influence on pedestrian efficiency of the city through these questions. The relative differences in accessibility measurements are considered as pedestrian efficiency (PE) in this study. This study also aims to determine whether there are better solutions to increasing accessibility by testing the new path planning inside apartment complexes using Voronoi diagrams. This paper explores how the spatial potential of different network configurations in the internal area of apartment complexes can generate better accessibility. The specific research questions are as follows. How do the spatial characteristics of the apartment complex affect the transmittance? How and to what extent does the road opening in the apartment complex change the apartment complex’s permeability and the surrounding area? Furthermore, how can the accessibility change by some design proposals to modify pedestrian networks inside apartment complexes using Voronoi diagrams?Cities’ openness has been discussed by different urbanists. Modern urbanists claimed that their form of city is the best option for open city, because it offers more ground space for green or for solar . HoweverUnlike in the past, when there were many social and physical restrictions on movement, the development of transportation technology has enabled better movement options between spaces. However, walking is still a basic means of transportation that enables movement between two spaces while minimizing cost if physical strength permits. More significant, walking is a tool of ridership for accessing transit. With this point, the issue of accessibility becomes critical, because it determines whether people choose walking on the street. Meanwhile, accessibility measurements are used both for walkability studies and help to understand different aspects of an urban form such as its compactness, functionality, sustainability, equity, and centers of social interaction .As an element of conflict caused by apartment complexes, there is an increase in walking distance due to the disconnection of urban pedestrian path. As a result of this closed form of the apartment complex, outside residents may bypass the apartment complex and try to access their destination using public transit. Briefly, the physical walking distance becomes longer, which acts as an obstacle to the purpose of passage through walking, which is one cause of reduction in walking activity ,14. StudImprovement of the pedestrian environment promotes the walking activity of urban residents, which is likely to decrease the use of automobiles, thereby improving the urban environment. In particular, the improvement of pedestrian accessibility in neighborhoods due to the improvement of the pedestrian environment outside of the apartment complex affects the housing price ,18. HousAn early comprehensive study on neighborhood characteristics, street form, connectivity, and urban community identified spatial typologies and analyzed the patterns of growth, land use, and street layouts in the case study of the San Francisco Bay area . Among tThere are two main approaches to walkability in the literature: network connectivity and audit tools . BrieflyThere are some different approaches on the impact and benefits of opening policies. For instance, Dong et al.  approachThe purpose of this study is to analyze based on the network connectivity the effect of the openness of an apartment complex on the pedestrian environment in a neighborhood. To this end, the impact of the road-opening policy in the apartment complex on the permeability of the pedestrian environment was compared using data on the progress of the 2018 Seoul Maintenance Project. The area of the east side of Mapo-gu, an apartment complex cluster, derived through analysis of k-mean clustering, was selected as the target area for analysis . AnotherThere are three main components of origin, network, and destination in this study. First, origin is the initial location of human a movement, which is usually considered to start from the place of residency. In our study, regardless of building type, we used the whole building stock in the case study area as origins. The building stock data used in this study were received from the source of “Road Name Address DB,” provided by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security. Second, the mean of transport has two different impacts for pedestrian activity; one of them is about walking through (betweenness and straightness measurement in our study are related to this) and the other is about walking to (gravity and reach measurements in our study are related to this). The data of network, which is the mean of transport, were generated based on street centerlines from Seoul road maps. Third, subway stations were chosen as the destination because subway stations are distributed in every part of city, and subways are the most used public transportation method in Seoul. According to the Korean Statistical Information Service’s Annual Modal Share in 2018, the share of subway on public transportation is 41%, whereas the share of bus is only 24% [One of the most common methodologies for network and accessibility studies is space syntax. There are various software and tools for space syntax methodology. The urban network analysis (UNA) framework has been used for this study. Contrary to deficiencies in space syntax and other network analysis methodologies, UNA has a useful modification in that it adds buildings (housing or other infrastructures) to representations, adopting a tripartite system that consists of three basic elements: edges, nodes, and buildings . In the The definitions of the measurements are as follows. First, “reach” measures the number of destinations that can be accessible in a certain radius area. Second, “gravity” measures the travel cost to access to destinations in a certain radius area. It can also be regarded as attractiveness, as being closer to the destination means higher attractiveness. Three, “straightness” measures how directly a route is being generated between origin and destination. Finally, “betweenness” measures to which degree a node is being used when a configuration of routes geo-located between all origin and destination.Three different scenarios of an internal pedestrian network of apartment sites and their connection to their surroundings are considered in the measurement: gated, partially opened, and fully opened with Voronoi modification . First, The Voronoi diagram is defined as a cell formed by dividing the Euclidian line connecting the two most adjacent points by vertically dividing the lines. A Voronoi diagram consists of a Voronoi cell, the Voronoi space that surrounds a Voronoi cell, a Voronoi vertex, and a Voronoi foam . VoronoiAdditionally, in urban design, a Voronoi diagram gives the opportunity to draw the optimum shortest routes among the buildings or other obstacles of a built environment. Optimum shortest routes are different from geometrical shortest connections by not closely approaching obstacles among the route. Moreover, a Voronoi diagram helps to create environments for each building by not interrupting the others . To creaIn this study, the measurements of reach, gravity, straightness, and betweenness were considered as positive indicators for pedestrian environment. Therefore, the relative differences of these measurements in three scenarios were considered as pedestrian efficiency (PE). S1 stands for the measurement result of scenario 1 (gated). S2 indicates the measurement result of scenario 2 . S3 means the measurement result of scenario 3 (fully opened with Voronoi modification). Meanwhile, PE1 indicates a pedestrian efficiency change for the hypothetical scenario 2 . PE2 means pedestrian efficiency for hypothetical scenario 3 . In addition, we examined the number of buildings with increasing accessibility and centrality in the case study area.The study focused on accessibility and centrality measurements of street networks by considering these measurements as an evaluation of pedestrian efficiency. Values of accessibility, namely reach and gravity, and centrality, namely straightness and betweenness, measurements to examine the spatial potential for pedestrian efficiency assessment have been calculated for three scenarios of pedestrian network: (1) the internal networks of apartment complexes are not used by outsiders; (2) the internal network of apartment complexes are open to outsiders with its existing entrances and path; and (3) the internal network of sites are opened and redesigned by the Voronoi diagram method, which generates the optimal shortest path. Accessibility and centrality measurements have been conducted for 13,405 buildings based on the destination of 10 subway stations in the case area.In The results clearly indicate that not only opening gated communities but also modifying their internal network with a Voronoi diagram will increase all the accessibility and centrality values. Among the indicators, straightness has the highest percentages of change in three configurations, especially in a radius area of 800 m, as it increases up to 6.16% in scenario 3. It can be explained as that apartment complexes are hindering direct access to facilities by their gated conditions. Particularly, this is more visible in the case of longer destinations than shorter ones.We analyze whole buildings in the case area, which includes 13,405 buildings. To understand how many of the 13,405 buildings in the case area have accessibility and centrality benefiting from open gates and redesigning pedestrian path, we calculated the number and percentage of buildings having accessibility and centrality gains in scenarios 2 and 3 by considering scenario 1 as the base. The number of buildings benefiting from such an opening policy increases drastically in all four measurements. As an example, for the radius area of 800 m in scenario 3 (fully opened with Voronoi modification), the number of buildings benefitting increases up as following: 830 units (6.19%) in reach, 2645 units (19.73%) in gravity, 2657 units (19.82%) in straightness, and 2063 units (15.39%) in betweenness.According to the results, the street pattern generated by the Voronoi diagram provides the best accessibility result. In addition, it is one of the best options for walkability, because it has smaller building unit and more intersections. As mentioned in the literature review, small units and more interactions provide walkers direct travel and more route choices. The visual results in Pedestrian accessibility to public transit is essential for increasing public transit ridership in general and walkability in particular. Improved accessibility influences the local and regional economics as well as social health of urban communities. This study analyzed the effect of the closed-ness and open-ness of apartment complexes on the connectivity of urban spaces. The change in accessibility of public transport facilities in the surrounding area of apartment complexes was spatially visualized using three scenarios. First, the internal networks of apartment complexes are not used by outsiders. Second, the internal networks of apartment complexes are open to outsiders with existing entrances and paths. Third, the internal network of sites is opened and redesigned by a Voronoi diagram method generating the shortest optimal path.The analysis confirmed that the policy of opening the pedestrian path from the neighborhood around the complex to the interior of the apartment complex improved the accessibility and centrality of the network including the apartment complex, thereby increasing the accessibility to public transportation facilities. Therefore, to secure public access to urban spaces in the future development of large-scale apartment complexes and to increase equity in the use of public transportation, this study presented the basis for introducing an open policy of apartment complexes. In addition, the results of this study can help urban policy makers and urban planners to increase the sustainability of their neighborhoods by creating a spatial layout to enhance urban spaces and providing a pedestrian-centered urban space rather than one that is car-centered.The pattern of streets has a strong impact on the quality of the urban environment. The spatial pattern of urban streets directly affects connectivity and accessibility as well as privacy and safety. As this study shows, accessibility can be improved significantly with different configurations. However, it would be incomplete to evaluate the issue of walkability only in the context of accessibility based on street network patterns. The spatial pattern of streets may affect opposite impacts. For instance, increasing accessibility may mean decreasing privacy and safety. Therefore, urban designers and policy makers need to devise a legible street pattern that provides pedestrian, bicycle, and transit access without sacrificing privacy and safety. In addition, this study focused on the issue of accessibility to subway stations, which is one of the most important amenities. However, there are other essential facilities of commercial, education, medical, parks, and public services in the neighborhoods. Finally, the problem may not be only the closed-ness of apartment complexes by a fence or wall. It needs to be studied whether superblock-centered urbanism is good for pedestrianism and lively streets. The opening of gated community may not be enough to make streets lively unless they are designed organically with the surrounding urban fabric. Hence, the opening of gated communities may not be the only solution; we may also need to quantify the impact of superblock-centered urbanism on the quality of life in the surrounding neighborhoods.


The post-mortem interval of human cadavers may be estimated based on insect evidence. In order to identify scientific challenges that pertain to these estimations, I review forensic entomology literature and conclude that research on the development and succession of carrion insects, thermogenesis on cadavers and the accuracy of PMI estimates are of primary importance to advance this field.During death investigations insects are used mostly to estimate the post-mortem interval (PMI). These estimates are only as good as they are close to the true PMI. Therefore, the major challenge for forensic entomology is to reduce the estimation inaccuracy. Here, I review literature in this field to identify research areas that may contribute to the increase in the accuracy of PMI estimation. I conclude that research on the development and succession of carrion insects, thermogenesis in aggregations of their larvae and error rates of the PMI estimation protocols should be prioritized. Challenges of educational and promotional nature are discussed as well, particularly in relation to the collection of insect evidence. Carrion insects living in human cadavers can be highly useful for the estimation of the post-mortem interval (PMI) ,2. MethoA PMI estimate is only as good as it is close to the true PMI. The accuracy of estimation is most important, particularly for the end users of insect evidence. Therefore, the major general challenge for the field is to reduce the estimation inaccuracy. Its sources are related to both the collection and analysis of insect evidence . I dividErrors in the collection of insect evidence are certainly among the most important sources of the inaccuracy in PMI estimation. Death scene samples frequently misrepresent cadaver entomofauna. However, it is difficult to discern how bad these samples usually are and what the consequences of sampling errors are for the estimation of PMI. In most cases insects are collected by law enforcement officers or medical examiners, and rarely by entomologists. In a recent case, insects were sampled by police officers with the medical examiner and independently by entomologists, which enabled—in this paper—the comparison of samples taken by non-experts and experts . The samGuidelines for the collection of insect evidence state that death scene samples should accurately represent cadaver entomofauna, i.e., all life stages of each important species that inhabit a cadaver should be represented in the sample ,9,10. CaLucilia sericata or Calliphora vicina), there are still species that regularly breed in cadavers but for which no dataset has been published  or only single datasets are available . These species should become the hot taxa for forensic entomology research in Europe. The understudied species ought to be identified also for other geographical regions.Most frequently, forensic entomologists estimate the age of immature insects collected on a death scene and use this information as the minimum PMI . The refAnother point that needs our attention is the lack of standards and guidelines for developmental studies in forensic entomology. Several elements of the protocol for such studies were found to affect the quality of the resultant developmental data ,17,18,19There are several forensic reasons to study insect succession on cadavers. First, these studies yield inventories of carrion insects for habitats and geographical locations that form a starting point for any further research in forensic entomology. Such inventories were published for many habitats and locations around the world (recently reviewed in ), but thSecond, succession studies provide reference data on the pre-appearance interval (PAI) and the presence interval (PI) of particular insect taxa. Such data are essential to use insects that colonize cadavers late in decomposition, as their PAI may be longer than the development interval, and to get meaningful PMI it may be necessary to combine insect age with the PAI ,11,103. Third, decomposition experiments using pig cadavers may be useful to validate the PMI estimation protocols . Such exThere are guidelines for decomposition studies in forensic entomology ,114,115.The succession and development of insects on cadavers is largely dependent on the temperature ,128,129.Forensic entomologists frequently use temperature data from the local weather stations. Weather station temperatures can be corrected to adjust them to the peculiarities of a death scene ,133,134.Some authors modelled temperature conditions in parked vehicles , containNecrodes littoralis L. (Silphidae), with evidence that heat is produced within the feeding matrix, which is formed by adult and larval beetles through spreading their exudates over the cadaver surface [The last factor that needs much more of our attention is the insect-driven thermogenesis. It has been discovered and extensively studied in aggregations of blow fly larvae ,151,152. surface . Thermog surface .When large aggregations of fly larvae (with elevated temperature) are present on a cadaver, Charabidze and Hedouin  suggest All insect evidence can be challenging in some cases, and some types are always challenging. The puparia of flies and pupae of beetles are informative pieces of insect evidence, particularly on decomposed cadavers ,11. HoweThe identification of insect evidence is a necessary first step in any analysis. Significant progress has been recently made in this field, with several forensically important fly taxa gaining excellent identification keys for adult insects ,160,161 Necrodes littoralis by means of the quantification of the eye-background contrast, with very encouraging results of the initial validation [It is difficult to estimate the age of the fixed puparia of flies and pupae of beetles. The most promising techniques for aging such evidence consist of the qualitative morphological analyses of the intra-puparial forms of the flies ,35,36. Ilidation . SimilarEmpty puparia  are frequently collected on cadavers with long PMI, and their examination may provide an estimate of the minimum PMI . This tyForensic entomologists developed several methods for the estimation of PMI based on insect development ,181,182 Most of the validation studies in forensic entomology were proof-of-assumptions or proof-of-concept studies . ExperimSimilarly, validations using casework data were infrequent . In ordeThere were surprisingly large differences between the cases. Errors I (differences between the true and estimated PMI expressed as the percentage of the true PMI) ranged from 0 to 83% for the development-based estimates  and fromSummarizing, the protocols for the estimation of PMI based on insect evidence usually lack errors and their validity has been rather poorly demonstrated in a true forensic context. Therefore, validation studies using pig or human cadavers and casework data should be prioritized in forensic entomology. I think this is our greatest challenge.Although the set of challenges elucidated in this article is somehow subjective, I believe that most forensic entomologists would construct similar sets. Some challenges should focus more of our attention, with priority for the resultant research. This applies, in particular, to the validation research, as well as to development and succession research. Studies on thermogenesis in larval aggregations on cadavers should be prioritized as well. There are also highly important challenges of educational and promotional nature. Although we should look for more optimal guidelines for insect sampling on a death scene, and this is a scientific task, improvement in the samples taken by a law enforcement personnel depends equally or even more on the promotion of forensic entomology among its end-users and on the education of the officers or medical examiners that collect insect evidence on death scenes.


Empiric rheology is considered a useful tool for assessing the technological quality of wheat. Over the decades, several tests have been adapted from common to durum wheat, and new approaches have been proposed to meet the needs of the players of the durum wheat value chain. Breeders are looking for reliable methods to test the functional quality of wheat lines at early stages, where there are limited amounts of sample; millers need fast and reliable methods for checking wheat quality right at the point of the receiving station; and pasta-makers are looking for suitable methods to predict end product quality. This review provides an overview of the strengths and weaknesses of the rheological tests currently used to evaluate the quality of durum wheat semolina, with the emphasis on Europe. Moreover, the relationships among the parameters obtained from different rheological approaches are extrapolated from the literature and integrated with the data obtained from 74 samples of durum wheat semolina. Although numerous efforts have been made to propose rapid and reliable tests for semolina characterization, the ideal test has yet to be proposed, indicating that researchers and pasta companies need to focus on perfecting the way to assess the quality of durum wheat and pasta. Durum wheat semolina is considered the ideal raw material to produce dry pasta; this statement is well accepted by all the players of the durum wheat value chain, from breeders to pasta-makers and consumers. This is true not only in Italy, Greece, and France—where only semolina can be used to produce dry pasta legally—but also outside of the Mediterranean area. Specifically, the suitability of semolina for pasta-making is due to the ability of the corresponding dough to withstand the numerous physical stresses occurring during processing . This prThe quality of raw materials and processing conditions are responsible for the cooking behavior of pasta. The role of drying temperature in enhancing the formation of a regular protein structure around the starch granules has been elsewhere described ,9,10,11.The amount of protein in durum wheat is the first parameter that dry pasta producers consider when choosing the raw material. According to the voluntary classification used in Italy  in the fAlthough the high protein—and consequently gluten —content is an important quality requirement ,10, thisAt this point it is necessary to clarify what “suitable for pasta-making” means. Several researchers have used different terms to describe the features of durum wheat gluten that mainly affect pasta quality: strength, tenacity, and elasticity . All of Dough is one of the most difficult materials to characterize from a rheological point of view . In factSince the 1980s, several rheological tests have been proposed to characterize durum wheat semolina and to objectively describe its pasta-making performance, as summarized in In general terms, the tests used for the rheological characterization of durum wheat can be classified according to various criteria. Some of them  directly evaluate the quality of gluten after its extraction from semolina, while others are carried out on dough  or slurry  systems. Some of them provide information mainly about strength , others also provide details on extensibility  or elasticity . Some of them  test sample breakage, others do not . Some of them are used more in Europe than in the United States or Canada, and vice versa, depending on the country of the company that produced the device. For example, the Alveograph is mostly used in European countries, whereas the Mixograph is widely used in North America . As the The main approaches used for semolina characterization are summarized in Most of the tests were proposed for the common wheat sector, so they do not simulate, either by type or intensity, the stresses that arise during pasta extrusion and drying. In some cases, the method has been adapted to measure the quality of durum wheat by making some modest/small changes . It follows that the information gathered from the current tests is mainly useful for classifying semolina in broad classes , whereas the screening of samples within each class is still challenging. Although the limitations of such tests are well known, most of them are widely used, as a reference in the industry, to predict the pasta-making quality of durum wheat semolina ,40,41,42Basically, the procedures have not changed over the years, but additional data integration systems have been developed for directly processing the values of the parameters provided by the instruments. A brief description of each test will be provided in the following sections, whereas the main indices provided by each test are reported in Gluten Index and the Glutograph® test have in common the short time required for analysis (about 10–20 min), the small quantity of sample (10 g) and their applicability even to whole grain flours, eliminating the refinement process to obtain semolina. While providing useful information on specific properties of gluten, both tests might underestimate the effect of other wheat constituents and their interactions with proteins because they are measuring extracted gluten. On the other hand, such interactions might affect sample behavior during the pasta-making processing, and thus the quality of the final product. Although some researchers have highlighted high variability related to the extraction phase, both tests have great potential for use in breeding programs.The Gluten Index (GI) is a measure of the quality of gluten after mechanical extraction at room temperature: the higher the value, the stronger the gluten. This method is widely used for the screening of durum wheat varieties based on gluten strength , as wellConflicting results were found for the relationship between GI values and HMW-GS/LMW-GS ratio: Sissons et al.  highlighGI is relatively independent of protein content ,41. On tAnother drawback of this method is its low capacity to differentiate semolina of medium quality. Indeed, for semolina samples with a GI in the 30–65 range, the GI did not show any significant correlation with quality attributes  of pasta dried using a low temperature drying cycle .Interestingly, the test is not influenced by the extraction rate of the semolina: indeed, although the higher the extraction rate, the higher the protein content, proteins present in bran are not gluten proteins . More reThe Glutograph®  device measures the extensibility and elasticity of gluten quantifying its resistance to stretching and its recovery. Although widely used by industries to evaluate semolina quality, the Glutograph® is rarely mentioned in the literature. The measuring system of the instrument consists of two parallel, round, finely corrugated plates set at a pre-determined distance. The analytical conditions for this test are those indicated in the manufacturer’s manual  as there are no official methods. During the test, while the upper plate remains still, the lower plate is turned with a constant moment till a fixed angle is reached  (stretching phase). This constant force determines the deformation of the dough. After stretching, the force is released for 10 s (relaxing phase) and the sample contracts according to its elasticity. Strong gluten requires prolonged “stretching” times and low relaxation values compared to weak gluten . Based oOn the other hand, relaxation values are not a good indicator of gluten strength and cannot be used to differentiate cultivars according to their gluten quality.Moreover, in case of tenacious gluten, poor repeatability and reproducibility of the results are observed. Furthermore, for very tenacious gluten the stretching angle (800 BU) is not reached during the shear phase C. In thiAlthough using different hydration levels, the Alveograph and the Mixolab provide information on dough behavior during specific stresses . The AlvThe Alveograph test  was developed for the characterization of common wheat flour. Widely used in Europe, it evaluates dough resistance to three-dimensional expansion, thus simulating biological leavening and, therefore, the development dough volume due to the accumulation of carbon dioxide produced by yeasts. Nevertheless, it can be applied to durum wheat semolina by increasing the kneading time (from 8 to 26 min). In this case, the Alveograph test could provide information on the ability of the dough to withstand mechanical stress during pasta processing. The pressure promoted by air insufflation that is necessary for the blowing—until breakage—of a dough disc, is measured and recorded as an alveogram, yielding the indices reported in The W value can be considered a measure of the gluten network quality: high W values are associated with the formation of a strong network able to retain starch granules during cooking. Therefore, the W value is considered a valid parameter to predict the cooking quality of pasta ,32,33. RThe test is carried out at a constant level of hydration. In the case of durum wheat dough, this aspect might be critical since it does not consider the influence of some characteristics of the raw material (including protein amount and damaged starch content) on dough consistency and its ability to absorb and retain water . Thus, iMixolab  is used to measure the rheological properties of a dough subject simultaneously to mechanical kneading and heating with a temperature gradient. This approach is potentially capable of giving information on both protein and starch properties in a single analysis . In addiProtein and starch are related to each other as the intensity of the gelatinization of starch is inversely related to the protein and gluten content. The swelling rate and gelatinization level both depend on the availability of water in the dough , as wellRecently, Mixolab® has been successfully used to quickly detect the damage caused by sunn pests in durum wheat . MoreoveGlutoPeak®  has recently been proposed for the evaluation of wheat quality by determining the aggregation properties of gluten. Compared to conventional tests , the anaThe curve is characterized by an increase in consistency up to a peak  that corresponds to the maximum gluten aggregation. The time of maximum consistency is called peak maximum time (PMT). After this point, the consistency decreases following the breaking of the gluten network due to intense mechanical action. Generally, low values of BEM and PMT indicate poor aggregation properties, and thus low pasta-making performance ,61, as rUntil now there has been no official methodology for this test. From the literature it emerges how each researcher adopts different analysis conditions  and that the latter can change according to the type of sample. It is therefore difficult to compare the results obtained from different papers and their interpretation. For example, Marti et al. , when prAs regards applications, Grassi et al.  adopted Some authors ,63 have When applied to wholemeal semolina, the GlutoPeak test could be considered as a useful tool in the genetic selection phase of durum wheat lines . WholemeAlthough this review is an overview of rheological tests to evaluate the quality of gluten, we cannot omit the sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) sedimentation test, still one of the most popular and used approaches. Unlike the other tests previously described, it is a physical–chemical method that provides indications on the quantity and quality of those protein fractions that define the characteristics of gluten. The test, in fact, is based on the property of gluten proteins to swell and flocculate in an acid medium. Under specific conditions, a suspension of wholemeal in a lactic acid-SDS solution forms a sediment whose volume represents the sedimentation index ,64. WhenThe SDS test was initially developed for the evaluation of the baking quality of common wheat . SubsequThe test is commonly used as a rapid method in quality controls and to predict gluten quality in wheat selection programs in early generations when the quantity of seed is a limiting factor. The test, in fact, requires a lower quantity of sample (6 g) and fewer manual skills; a “micro-method” was also developed, applicable on just 1 g of wholemeal flour .Assessing the quality of gluten is an old but still relevant topic. Indeed, the selection of new lines/varieties as well as the impact of climate change on the quality of wheat crops and, consequently, on gluten quality, account for the number of studies evaluating the pasta-making potential of durum wheat samples. At the same time, several studies aimed at correlating the parameters obtained from different rheological approaches. Such studies are certainly not a pure publication exercise, but are driven by various aspects, for example:(I) Every time a new device appears on the market, it is necessary to verify its reliability by correlating its indices with those obtained by well-established, conventional approaches;(II) Each rheological approach provides information on a specific gluten attribute ; hence, the need to evaluate semolina quality by using all the available rheological tests and/or to find one approach that in the shortest possible time provides information that can be correlated to as many attributes/indices as possible.Thus, Pearson coefficients and their significance have been extrapolated from the studies on the rheological properties of durum wheat semolina and summarized in SDS and GI are widely used among breeders to select durum wheat varieties . If a poAmong the GlutoPeak indices, the area under the curve—which takes into consideration both the peak torque and peak time—seems to be the most indicative index, since it is correlated with W index. As regards the GSI proposed by Sissons and Smit , althougAlthough all operators in the durum wheat supply chain support the use of rheological tests for predicting the quality of cooked pasta, only a few studies showed relationships between semolina and pasta quality. As regards the GI, it is positively correlated with cooked firmness . AccordiThe assessment of semolina quality continues to be of interest to researchers and pasta companies, suggesting that the ideal test to determine pasta-making potential has not yet been found. However, in the last few years, numerous efforts have been made to propose rapid and reliable tests for semolina quality. For most of them, the lack of a standard method limits their diffusion. Furthermore, some tests are based on the evaluation of the gluten extracted from the dough; this approach is controversial as the extraction of a component can alter and modify real interactions between the different (macro)molecules of the “native” system. Moreover, almost all the rheological tests adopted so far in the pasta-making sector derive from tests developed for bread-making using common wheat flour, simulating the phenomena occurring in that process. In addition to the different particle size between semolina and flour, which is not a secondary parameter in influencing the rheological behavior of a raw material, the conditions adopted in pasta-making and bread-making are very different, both in terms of hydration level during kneading, and of the type and intensity of physical stresses developing during processing. Thus, the relation between the rheological properties of semolina and pasta quality is often weak. Furthermore, although the positive correlations between rheological properties and cooking quality reported by some authors are significant, they remain relatively weak, indicating the considerable variation between measurements to test quality and pasta quality as perceived by consumers. It should be noted that the studies that have been carried out on durum wheat varieties and pasta are generally lab-scale in dimension, whereas industrially, a mixture of varieties is processed into making pasta.In addition, since each test addresses a specific gluten property , several authors have proposed a correlation among the indices obtained by the various approaches. A multivariate approach might help in identifying which attributes best differentiate pasta samples according to gluten quality. In addition to gluten, starch is also involved in determining pasta quality. Thus, the relation between pasta quality and semolina pasting properties should be taken into consideration in further studies.Over the years, breeding programs have improved the qualitative characteristics of durum wheat, resulting in varieties that are increasingly rich in proteins, making for very strong dough . Consequ


Pharmacovigilance and safety reporting, which involve processes for monitoring the use of medicines in clinical trials, play a critical role in the identification of previously unrecognized adverse events or changes in the patterns of adverse events.This study aims to demonstrate the feasibility of automating the coding of adverse events described in the narrative section of the serious adverse event report forms to enable statistical analysis of the aforementioned patterns.We used the Uniﬁed Medical Language System (UMLS) as the coding scheme, which integrates 217 source vocabularies, thus enabling coding against other relevant terminologies such as the International Classification of Diseases–10th Revision, Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities, and Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine). We used MetaMap, a highly configurable dictionary lookup software, to identify the mentions of the UMLS concepts. We trained a binary classifier using Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT), a transformer-based language model that captures contextual relationships, to differentiate between mentions of the UMLS concepts that represented adverse events and those that did not.The model achieved a high F1 score of 0.8080, despite the class imbalance. This is 10.15 percent points lower than human-like performance but also 17.45 percent points higher than that of the baseline approach.These results confirmed that automated coding of adverse events described in the narrative section of serious adverse event reports is feasible. Once coded, adverse events can be statistically analyzed so that any correlations with the trialed medicines can be estimated in a timely fashion. Modern health care is associated with increased costs and broad-reaching variations in care and outcomes across the global population. The provision of evidence-based health care is a critical priority for users, providers, and policy makers alike. The systematic and high-quality conduct of clinical trials is critical for the development of clinical guidance to inform evidence-based practice. Pharmacovigilance and safety reporting are among the most important aspects of the conduct of clinical trials. This is relevant to all clinical trials in which the benefit or harm must be fully established before any intervention or medicinal product is adopted.Pharmacovigilance and safety reporting provide the basis for ensuring clinical trial participant safety and good research practice. It involves processes for monitoring the use of medicines or interventions in clinical trials. It has a critical role in the identification of previously unrecognized adverse events or changes in the patterns of adverse events. It is also relevant to the assessment of the risks and benefits of medicines or interventions to determine what action, if any, is needed to improve their safe use.An adverse event is any untoward medical occurrence in a participant to whom a medicinal product has been administered, including occurrences that are not necessarily caused by or related to the administered product. A serious adverse event (SAE) is any untoward medical occurrence that, at any dose, results in death, is life-threatening, requires inpatient hospitalization or causes prolongation of existing hospitalization, results in persistent or significant disability or incapacity, or comprises a congenital anomaly or birth defect. Early detection of unknown adverse events, reactions, interactions, and an increase in the frequency of (known) adverse events is a key element of the pharmacovigilance and safety process. Provision of up-to-date information on adverse events to health care professionals, researchers, and regulatory bodies contributes to the assessment of benefit, harm, effectiveness, and risk of the intervention, thus advancing their safe, rational, and more effective (including cost-effective) use.In multicenter noncommercial clinical trials conducted in the United Kingdom, the SAE reporting requirements are detailed in the trial protocol, and the principal investigators at National Health Service sites are responsible for reporting SAEs to the coordinating clinical trial unit (CTU) for an assessment of the seriousness, causality, and expectedness as delegated by the clinical trial sponsor. An SAE report includes an event term and additional signs and symptoms in a narrative. The narrative is reported by a physician during their medical assessment of the event. The report is then reviewed by a central CTU reviewer to assess any potential causal relationship with the trial drug. Each narrative is reviewed as a single report. The narratives are typically received from sites as paper records. These are logged electronically in the safety databases by the CTU pharmacovigilance team for the relevant national competent authorities . The reports are searchable on request and subject to appropriate regulatory permissions. There is now a clear recognition of the potential for artificial intelligence in safety case management to identify relationships and signals . AlthougIt is possible that the narrative contains additional adverse events or toxicities that are not coded as additional events and are captured in the narrative only. However, there is no mechanism for the detection of safety signals across individual reports or individual trials and, thus, there is no possibility for early detection of worrying trends. This is particularly the case for toxicities for which reconciliation with the clinical database would be advantageous. Such a tool would facilitate the cross-checking of toxicities recorded in the narrative of the SAE form with those recorded in the trial database, which is currently only feasible if automated. Although these approaches may be used in commercial trial settings, they would not always be used in the public domain simply because of the nature of the drug licensing pathway.This study seeks to use text mining to automatically identify and code adverse events from the narrative sections of SAE reports in clinical trials of investigational medicinal products coordinated by a noncommercial CTU, with the aim of unlocking narrative evidence for further statistical analysis. Although such an analysis is beyond the scope of this study, it would serve to monitor the patterns of adverse events at the cohort level rather than singular adverse events. Owing to their narrative nature, such an analysis cannot be conducted directly on the content of SAE reports.Text mining has been used to identify adverse events from a variety of data sources, including spontaneous reporting systems, medical literature, electronic health records, and user-generated content on the internet . The proIn terms of semantics, adverse events are compatible with signs and symptoms. When a dictionary-based method is used to extract such instances, a binary classifier is needed to differentiate between the signs and symptoms that correspond to adverse events and those associated with the underlying diagnosis . Along sAlternatively, the problem of identifying adverse events can be defined as that of information extraction . More spWhen multiple medicines are considered, 2 types of named entities need to be extracted—medicines and adverse events—and additional reasoning needs to be performed to extract a relationship between the two ,17,18. FSpecific methods chosen to mine adverse events from text depend on the way the text mining problem is posed. Typical approaches chosen for text classification include rule-based methods ,7,14,20 Finally, approaches chosen to address adverse event mining as a sequence labeling problem include conditional random fields (CRFs) ,23 and, The aforementioned word-embedding models generate a single embedding for each word, thus conflating homonyms in the corresponding vector space. Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT)  capturesThe after-the-fact nature of text data collected from sources such as spontaneous reporting systems, medical literature, electronic health records, and social media naturally gives rise to postmarketing surveillance applications ,33. HoweData were provided by the Center for Trials Research (CTR), the largest group of academic  clinical trial staff in Wales. Their portfolio of work includes drug trials and complex interventions, mechanisms of disease and treatments, cohort studies, and informing policy and practice in partnerships with researchers across the United Kingdom and worldwide. Across all these trials, standard procedures are put in place to monitor and manage safety reporting and SAE in line with the regulatory requirements for research.Clinical trials SAE report forms  are compAlthough narratives in noncommercial settings, such as CTR, can be digitized, this does not currently take place at the point of initial SAE reporting, as electronic data capture for the SAE report is associated with additional regulatory challenges, primarily because of the requirement for signature verification by a physician and a contemporaneous changelog. Clinical trial staff reviewing SAE reports are, thus, unable to systematically analyze the information provided in the narrative, missing an opportunity to identify the trends and potential safety signals. If the text mining approach were to identify additional safety events and signals not detected through standard reporting, processes could be altered to improve work practices at the level of a noncommercial CTU pharmacovigilance team.This study aims to assess the feasibility of text mining in the context of such an analysis. The findings could affect the way regulatory narratives are reviewed and analyzed, for example, noncompliances or audit findings.Data were collected from 6 ongoing clinical trials, as described in Ethical review and approval were waived for this study as this study involved the use of secondary SAE data that were fully deidentified. All involved trials were conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the relevant research ethics committees. All chief investigators from these trials were consulted, and sponsor agreement was obtained for the use of the data in this secondary research study. Participant consent was also waived for the reasons stated above.A subset of SAE reports was sampled randomly from each trial, giving a total of 286 reports. Phases 1 and 2 were early phases with a smaller number of participants and were not powered. The fewer numbers of reported SAEs were a function of the smaller numbers of participants compared with phase 3; hence, there were variations in the number of documents across the 6 trials.The original SAE reports were pseudoanonymized at the point of extraction from the system by obscuring any links between the patient and their individual records. The narrative sections of the SAE reports were then transcribed and saved as Microsoft Word documents. The transcription process was extended to include deidentification by obscuring any personally identifiable information in a way that minimizes the risk of unintended disclosure of the identity of individuals and information about them. The transcribed documents were an average of 37 (SD 24) tokens long.The aim of this task was to annotate adverse events in the transcribed versions of the SAE report forms. For the purpose of this task, an adverse event was defined as any unfavorable or unintended disease, sign, or symptom  that is temporally associated with the use of a medical treatment or procedure, which may or may not be considered related to the medical treatment or procedure. Such an event could be related to the intervention, dose, route of administration, or patient or caused by an interaction with another drug or procedure.The annotation guidelines prescribed the scope of the annotation task as follows: (1) focus only on adverse events that have occurred in the present or past, that is, ignore hypothetical or future events; (2) annotate the entire phrase that describes an adverse event; and (3) if the same adverse event were mentioned multiple times, then annotate every mention. The annotation process was based on the following instructions: (1) identify an adverse event that is mentioned in the narrative, (2) select the text that describes the adverse event, and (3) highlight the selected text.The text editing operations were performed using Microsoft Word, which was preferred over a specifically designed annotation tool such as BRAT or Bionotate  because A total of 2 annotators independently annotated all the documents. The 2 annotators labeled SAEs as phrases, which were sequences of words whose total number, together with their start and end positions, were not prefixed. Comparing the interannotator agreement at the token level, as suggested by Tomanek et al , was notThese values can then be used to calculate the precision (P), R, and F1-score as follows :An advantage of using information retrieval performance measures to estimate interannotator agreement is that their values can later be used to gauge a system against human-like performance. At F1=0.9095, the interannotator agreement was found to be relatively high. A total of 148 disagreements were resolved through discussions to establish the ground truth. As part of the discussions, the agreed annotations of adverse events were coded manually against the UMLS, which integrates multiple terminologies, classifications, and coding standards in an attempt to support the interoperability between biomedical information systems, including electronic health records . The MetThe aim of this study was to automate the identification of adverse events described in the narrative section of the SAE reports. This goal was cast as a text classification problem. Given a document and classification scheme, the system should label the document with the relevant classes from the given scheme. In our case, the document was an SAE report, a classification scheme was the set of concepts encompassed by the UMLS, and their CUIs were used as class labels. The second column in pleural effusion. For example, the first 3 references do not constitute adverse events. The first and third mentions of pleural effusion refer to medical history, whereas the second mention is negated. The remaining 3 mentions of pleural effusion refer to the cause of hospital admissions that prompted SAE reporting.To identify the possible adverse events mentioned in a document, the first step involved looking for concepts of the relevant semantic types. In our approach, the UMLS dictionary lookup was restricted to 6 manually selected semantic types: disease or syndrome, finding, injury or poisoning, neoplastic process, pathological function, and sign or symptom. Some of their mentions could be in the context of medical history and, therefore, not necessarily constitute an adverse event. To differentiate between the 2 types of mentions, we formulated a binary classification task at the concept level: given a context, does a specific UMLS concept constitute an adverse event? The practical implementation of such problem representations started with linguistic preprocessing, which was originally developed to support cohort selection from hospital discharge summaries, adapted for this study . This mogiven a context, does a specific UMLS concept constitute an adverse event?—indicates 2 main types of involved features: extrinsic (context) and intrinsic (concept). Extrinsic features may include the number of mentions within a document, the position within a document, and other words within a fixed-size window. When combined with gold standard annotations, machine learning can be used to discover how to differentiate between positive and negative contexts without having to manually describe the patterns of positive and negative use. For example, by considering the co-occurring words  is more likely to refer to a process than a single event. Similarly, any concept whose name contains a word loss  is more likely to be an adverse event. The words themselves can be analyzed for affixes. For example, the prefix hypo-  can be used to increase the likelihood of concepts such as hypocalcemia or orthostatic hypotension corresponding to adverse events. Similarly, the suffix -emia (presence in the blood) can be used to identify concepts such as cerebrovascular ischemia or hyperkalemia as strong candidates for adverse events. Again, no prior medical knowledge is required to embed such features into NNs, which consider inputs and outputs simultaneously to support end-to-end learning and, hence, bypasses manual feature engineering.Similarly, lexical morphology could be explored in an NN approach to learn the patterns of subwords within a concept’s name, which were positively or negatively correlated with adverse events. For example, it is reasonable to expect that any concept identified as a potential adverse event that contains the word The first choice en route to implementing a binary adverse event classifier is text representation. Traditionally, the BOW representation, which is based on the frequency of occurrence of individual words, has been used to support text classification. Given that multiple signs and symptoms, some of which can be adverse events, are commonly discussed in an SAE report, the BOW representation would make it difficult to distinguish adverse events from other signs and symptoms discussed within the same document as it does not preserve local context. In addition, the BOW representation is not robust with respect to the out-of-dictionary problem; that is, any classifier trained using this representation will not be able to use words that were previously not encountered in the training data.Word embedding can alleviate this problem. Word embedding is a mapping from the lexicosemantic space of words to the n-dimensional real-valued vector space. Methods such as word2vec  and GloVmole would have a single embedding regardless of its many different meanings. Context-sensitive word-embedding models such as BERT [mole used as a unit of measurement and a disorder that affects the soft tissue will have different representations in the word-embedding space.Context-free word-embedding models such as word2vec  and GloV as BERT  generateBERT  is a traThe masked language modeling was 1 of the 2 tasks on which BERT was trained simultaneously. The second task was the next sentence prediction. In addition to [MASK], BERT uses 2 other special tokens for fine-tuning and specific task training: (1) a classification token [CLS], which indicates the beginning of a sequence and is commonly used for classification tasks (the output associated with this token is used for the next sentence prediction task); and (2) a sequence delimiter token [SEP], which indicates the end of a segment.The embedding layer shown in BASE model, which comprises 12 layers of transformer encoders, each having a hidden size of 768 and 12 attention heads. Each layer produces a token-specific output, which can be used as its  embedding. Similar to binary classification tasks described in  not commenced chemotherapy related infection,” the model misinterpreted the latter mention as a negated one and, consequently, misclassified this adverse event.Finally, the classification model struggled when a given concept was used in multiple contexts. For example, for the concept This study established the feasibility of automated coding of adverse events described in the narrative section of the SAE reports. This, in turn, enables statistical analysis of adverse events and the patterns of such events so that any correlations with the use of medicines can be estimated in a timely fashion. An easy adaptation of an existing deep learning architecture trained on a relatively small data set demonstrates that similar tools can be built rapidly. In addition, the evaluation results show that such tools also perform with high accuracy. This performance can be attributed to the choice of the method. BERT is already pretrained on a large unlabeled corpus, which allows it to be fine-tuned on a small, labeled corpus for a specialized task. This is particularly relevant for clinical text mining applications, where the data annotation bottleneck has been identified as one of the key obstacles to machine learning approaches for clinical text mining .Unfortunately, the relevant data are still mainly handwritten, which means that they cannot be immediately processed in the way proposed in this study. There are 2 ways in which this issue can be addressed. We can work with the stakeholders to change the policy on the means of collecting information on SAEs, for example, by transcribing the notes when they reach the safety and pharmacovigilance teams in the central trial unit, by requiring them to be typed, or by using some combination of these 2 approaches.Alternatively, we can propose to develop methods to digitize handwritten notes automatically using tools such as Transkribus , which h


News reporting, on events that occur in our society, can have different styles and structures, as well as different dynamics of news spreading over time. News publishers have the potential to spread their news and reach out to a large number of readers worldwide. In this paper we would like to understand how well they are doing it and which kind of obstacles the news may encounter when spreading. The news to be spread wider cross multiple barriers such as linguistic , economic, geographical, political, time zone, and cultural barriers. Observing potential differences between spreading of news on different events published by multiple publishers can bring insights into what may influence the differences in the spreading patterns. There are multiple reasons, possibly many hidden, influencing the speed and geographical spread of news. This paper studies information cascading and propagation barriers, applying the proposed methodology on three distinctive kinds of events: Global Warming, earthquakes, and FIFA World Cup. Our findings suggest that 1) the scope of a specific event significantly effects the news spreading across languages, 2) geographical size of a news publisher’s country is directly proportional to the number of publishers and articles reporting on the same information, 3) countries with shorter time-zone differences and similar cultures tend to propagate news between each other, 4) news related to Global Warming comes across economic barriers more smoothly than news related to FIFA World Cup and earthquakes and 5) events which may in some way involve political benefits are mostly published by those publishers which are not politically neutral. News spreading is one of the most effective mechanisms for spreading information. Mainly there are two different ways of obtaining information: 1) observing or engaging in the event in person, for example, listening to a presidential speech, and 2) coming across information that is propagated from multiple channels or publishers which potentially influence the perception of the event they are reporting on and thus can consequently change the recipient’s point of view.Due to globalization, many events from different areas are internationally relevant. Representation of cross-lingual information about an event should be in a unique format and relevant context as this helps people to understand the entire story of current regional and international events that belong to diverse cultures. Information spreading via news is related to information cascading, where publishers decide to write on an event that is already published by another publisher. The result is subsequent news reporting on the same event, starting from the root news article to the last news article on the same event. The concept is commonly used in social media to find a set of subsequent re-shares starting from the root user  of cascading chains in events of different domains?Q2: Do the different information cascading chains have any relation to each other?Q3: How do economic, geographical, time zone, and cultural values influence news spreading in events of different domains?Q4: What is the correlation of news spreading of events in different domains to the political alignment of the news publishers?The concept of information spreading is a broad topic and has an enormous number of research dimensions. As this study focuses on information spreading and respective barriers, we review six different types of interconnected related works: information spreading and contrasting events, linguistic, economical, geographical and time zone differences as well as political and cultural barriers.As this topic is much known globally and pertinent to cross-cultural studies, various studies have been conducted in the past to understand various aspects of information spreading. Among them are understanding the key features in sports-related information spreading  Segev, . The magGeographical representation of entities and events has been utilized extensively in the past to detect local, global, and critical events , and enhancements of the dataset.We have created a corpus that consist of 7773 news articles published between 2015 – 2020 in one of the five selected languages  , we have utilised information connected with the country of the publisher of the news articles.Deciphering information about economical barriers across different countries depends upon the economic profile of countries. We collected economic profiles of all the countries using the latest prosperity ranking 2019For the linguistic barrier, the dataset already encompasses information on the natural language in which the article is written. As the articles are represented in a language neutral way - by Wikipedia concepts, we are able to compare articles in different languages and in the case of high similarity, we assume that the information is spreading from older to newer articles. Data regarding the linguistic analysis for all three events can be found on the Zenodo repository (version 1.0.2).To understand the influence of political actors, we have obtained profiles of publishers from the Wikipedia info-boxFor geographical analysis of events, there was a need for the physical location of the publishers’ headquarters or the geographical location of the country to which the publisher belongs. Publishers’ profiles  belonging to three different domains. We focus on information cascading and cross-lingual information spreading across geographical, economical, time zone, political and cultural barriers. For linguistic cascading and cross-lingual information spreading, the existing dataset already encompasses the needed information. For all other barriers, we collect additional information as described in Section For analysis of information spreading in mono-lingual settings, we perform network analysis using force-directed graphs see Fig. . Force-dFor multi-lingual temporal information cascading, a visualization has been developed using Processing IDE to portray the temporal spread of a list of news articles about each event see Fig. . ProcessTo understand the effect of economical barriers on information propagation, we perform the analysis based on economical categories of different countries of news publishers using the alluvial diagrams for each event see Fig. . AlluviaTo capture the similarities and differences across different countries regarding information propagation that is caused by different time zones, we construct a chord diagram for each event see Fig. . A chordTo visualize information spreading paths from one country to another, we utilize Google maps , we generated and analyzed networks of similar news articles. The network graph representing these three events is shown below see Fig. . Nodes rEach of these news articles reports about anonymous attacks on 2022 Qatar World Cup and published within 10 minutes by three different publishers. A community with more articles could involve different discussions than a few articles, therefore we focused on large communities/chains.For the FIFA World cup, total communities were 147. Each language English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Slovene had 47, 67, 26, 6, 0 chains respectively. For each of these languages, the largest communities consisted of 8, 24, 8, 5, 0 news articles whereas small communities consisted of 3 news articles  were observed as barriers, as the news seems to propagate mostly to countries which are more or less similar in these two dimensions . Secondly, we looked into the text of chains of news articles similar to the mono-lingual analysis and found that news articles related to natural disasters and FIFA World Cup include the relevant communication in long/short chains when compared to the topic of Global Warming see Fig. . OverallOur time zone analysis over Google maps suggests a harmony of spreading information related to natural disasters and sports  by and large support our hypothesis. The generalizability of the results is to some extent limited by all the steps including computation and representation. By finding associations we are recognizing that the same information have presence across the barriers and we are not speculating on the cause of that. For instance, if two articles in different languages are similar that we conclude the information cross the linguistic barrier. We notice that the reasons for crossing that can be different and we are not investigating them. Firstly, by changing the cross-lingual similarity method, the results could be clearer and efficient. Secondly, with the availability of publishers’ profiles along with the accurate location of their headquarters, the results would be more accurate. Additionally, more experiments on different types of events would enable more precise and robust comparison of information barriers.In this paper, we focused on the analysis of information spreading barriers by observing different aspects of news spreading in a global setting. Our motivation was primarily to understand the multilingual information cascading regarding different types of events within news articles, as it is not only valuable for journalists but it is also beneficial in a pragmatic sense for those who wish to follow globally influential-events  and investigate the influence of multiple barriers  across different types of events. We firstly characterized the concept of information cascading on news articles in different languages and then find the total and largest cascading chains across distinct kind of events: Global Warming, FIFA World Cup and earthquakes. We also performed analysis to detect the influence of multiple barriers on event-centric news spreading.In order to answer the first research question of this study - What are the properties (ratio and size) and values of cascading chains in events of different domains? - we identified the number of total communities showing information spreading as 196, 147, and 95 in the earthquake, FIFA World Cup, and Global Warming, respectively. Similarly, the largest cascading chains were in the earthquakes, FIFA World Cup, and Global Warming in English (28 articles), German (24 articles), and English (21 articles), respectively.However, regarding the second research question - Do the different information cascading chains have any relations with each other? - There is a strong relation between the size and time of cascading chains and information spreading as the time duration of the longest chain of the earthquake was of 2.5 years and 3 months and single day for the FIFA World Cup and Global Warming respectively. Overall, it shows that more news propagated earthquakes than FIFA World and Global Warming.In order to answer the third research question - Do the economic, geographical, time zone, and cultural values influence event-centric news spreading?- We observed all barriers having a certain effect on news propagation related to events. Firstly, it appears that spreading across languages was influenced by the scope of the event, the geographical size of an area directly related to the amount of news published from this area, places having the same culture publish similar news, news spreads firstly towards areas with adjacent time zones and economic barriers show more news spread upwards like low-income countries to high-income countries. Secondly, a comparison among the events shows that news related to FIFA World Cup propagated toward countries with shorter time zone differences and news propagated between countries with larger time zone differences in other events, economic values indicate that news related to Global Warming did not cross the economic barrier, countries with larger areas have more publishers but European countries have a large number of news articles related to earthquakes, and news related to earthquakes cross cultural barriers effectively than FIFA World Cup and Global Warming.Finally, the answer to the last research question - What is the correlation of news spreading among events of different domains and political alignment of news publishers? - Was easier to predict based on the simple political alignment of publishers and it suggested that news related to an earthquake event is propagated mostly by those publishers which were politically neutral. Overall, our findings suggest that news published in news articles propagates to a greater degree across languages for natural disasters (earthquake events) than climate change  and sports (FIFA World Cup). In our experiments, we observed more cascading chains as well as longer cascading chains for earthquakes. If we look at the temporal difference between news articles, it shows that there is a larger time difference in the longest cascading chain of earthquake events . Our analysis of an economical barrier suggest that for Global Warming events, more news has propagated among economically stronger countries than to economically weaker countries. We found strong evidence that the news related to Global Warming has not crossed the economic barrier to reach Iran and Nigeria, which have currently considered as economically weaker countries. When we looked for information spreading in the domain of natural disaster, cultural barriers were important and difficult to cross. When we moved on to climate change events, linguistic and cultural barrier were difficult to cross, while for sports events, time zone barrier shows to be difficult to cross.As the result of our research, we have provided a new publicly available dataset to help in understanding information spreading within three domains: natural disasters, climate change and sports. Apart from the data sets, a reusable visualization has been developed to show the real-time spreading of events using cross-lingual news articles. To this end, we utilized Google Maps, alluvial and chord diagrams to look at the spreading of information across the world with economic, cultural, time zone, and geographical distance between larger entities, such as countries. Moreover, we have considered the political involvement of publishers while analyzing the spreading patterns within different domains.