Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Detection and characterization of stone fruit virus diseases in Tunisia

A preliminary survey was conducted in Tunisia to identify stone fruit (almond, plum, peach) virus diseases occurring in orchards and mother block stands. Two ilarviruses, Prunus necrotic ringspot virus (PNRSV) and Prune dwarf virus (PDV) infecting almond and plum and a trichovirus, Apple chlorotic leaf spot virus (ACLSV) found in a peach orchard in northern Tunisia, were detected. These viruses were detected by means of herbaceous and woody indicators (cucumber, peach GF 305), serology (DAS-ELISA), electron microscopy (DIP, ISEM, Decoration) and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction-based assay (RT-PCR). Furthermore, typing PNRSV isolates was done by bioassays using various species and cultivars of Cucurbitaceae, serotyping with specific monoclonal antibodies (Mabs) in ELISA-DASI and RFLP analysis. Characterization work showed that serotyping with Mabs was the best mean to distinguish between PNRSV isolates.
Retrieval situations and belief change

Situational aspects are very helpful to decide relevance but they have often been left aside by information retrieval models. The standard logical approach to information retrieval, based on deciding relevance with the entailment d|=q, where d and q are logical representations of a document and a query respectively does not consider retrieval situations. In this work we propose to introduce these aspects through a revision process. The relevance test is generalized to be (S/spl middot/d)|=q, where /spl middot/ is a belief revision operator and S is the logical representation of a retrieval simulation. Besides, we analyze the basic properties of different belief change methods and their adequacy to the modelization of S/spl middot/d. We also study the close relation between our approach and other approaches dealing with counter-factuals.
Cultured neurons coupled to microelectrode arrays: circuit models, simulations and experimental data

The purpose of this paper is to characterize the neuron-microelectrode junction, based on the equivalent electric-circuit approach. As a result, recording of action potentials can be simulated with a general-purpose circuit simulation program such as HSPICE. The response of the microelectrode was analyzed as a function of parameters such as sealing resistance and adhesion conditions. The models of the neuron and microelectrode implemented in HSPICE were first described. These models were used to simulate the behavior of the junction between a patch of neuronal membrane (described by the compartmental model) and a microelectrode.
Evaluation of Salivary Leptin Levels in Healthy Subjects and Patients with Advanced Periodontitis

Objectives: Leptin is a hormone-like protein produced by the adipose tissue. It plays an important role in protection of host against inflammation and infection. Some studies have reported changes in leptin levels in the gingival crevicular fluid (GCF), saliva and blood serum of patients with periodontal disease compared to healthy individuals. The aim of the present study was to compare the salivary leptin levels in patients with advanced periodontitis and healthy individuals. Materials and Methods: In this case-control study, the salivary samples of healthy individuals and patients with advanced periodontitis with clinical attachment loss >5mm were obtained using a standardized method and the leptin levels were measured in the salivary samples by means of ELISA. The effects of the periodontal status and sex on the salivary leptin levels of both groups were statistically analyzed by two-way ANOVA. Results: The means ± standard deviation (SD) of salivary leptin levels in healthy subjects and patients with advanced periodontitis were 34.27±6.88 and 17.87±5.89 pg/mL, respectively. Statistical analysis showed that the effect of sex on the salivary leptin levels was not significant (P=0.91), while the effect of advanced periodontitis on the salivary leptin levels was significant compared to healthy individuals (P<0.0001). Conclusions: In patients with advanced periodontitis, the salivary leptin levels were significantly lower compared to healthy individuals. Thus, assessment of salivary leptin can be done as a non-invasive and simple method to determine the susceptibility of patients to advanced periodontitis.
The evolution of the stress concept.

Everybody knows what stress is and nobody knows what it is. The word stress, like success, failure, or happiness, means different things to different people and, except for a few specialized scientists, no one has really tried to define it although it has become part of our daily vocabulary. Is it effort, fatigue, pain, fear, the need for concentration, the humiliation of censure, loss of blood, or even an unexpected success that requires complete reformulation of one's life? The answer is yes and no. That is what makes the definition of stress so difficult. Every one of these conditions can produce stress, and yet none of them, can be singled out as being "it" since the word applies equally to all others as well.
Numerical Simulation of the Transient Flow in Natural Gas Transmission Lines Using a Computational Fluid Dynamic Method

Until now, almost all tools that are used to analyze gas transportation networks are based on steady flow conditions. Some design problems can be solved by the assumption of a steady state. However, some circumstances force us to use transient analyses, which commonly include changes in customer demand, the failure of a compressor station or gas pipeline ruptures. In this study, the dynamic behavior of natural gas in transmission lines was investigated through Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) simulations. The system was modeled using the equations of continuity, motion (or momentum), energy and the ideal gas equation when considering turbulence effects in a two dimensional cylindrical lattice. The coupled partial differential equations were discretized based on the finite volume method. The accuracy of this method was verified by comparing the experimental field data with this approach, showing errors of approximately 4 to 4.5%, which shows the precision of this approach. Finally, an important case study was used as an application for the model and the best possible operating solution was proposed for a compressor station failure during peak demand times when the pipelines were operating at the maximum flow rate.
International Journal of Nephrology and Renovascular Disease Dovepress the Autonomic Nervous System and Renal Physiology

Research in resistant hypertension has again focused on autonomic nervous system denervation – 50 years after it had been stopped due to postural hypotension and availability of newer drugs. These (ganglionic blockers) drugs have all been similarly stopped, due to postural hypotension and yet newer antihypertensive agents. Recent demonstration of the feasibility of limited regional transcatheter sympathetic denervation has excited clinicians due to potential therapeutic implications. Standard use of ambulatory blood pressure recording equipment may alter our understanding of the diagnosis, potential treatment strategies, and health care outcomes – when faced with patients whose office blood pressure remains in the hypertensive range – while under treatment with three antihypertensive drugs at the highest tolerable doses, plus a diuretic. We review herein clinical relationships between autonomic function, resistant hypertension, current treatment strategies, and reflect upon the possibility of changes in our approach to resistant hypertension.
Metacarpophalangeal pattern profile analysis in Williams syndrome.

Many patients with Williams syndrome (WS) are not diagnosed until they are old enough to demonstrate the characteristic personality and facial changes. A number of these changes are quite subtle and none of them is present in all affected individuals. The cause of WS remains obscure and consequently, there are no cytogenetic, biochemical, or molecular studies to help in the diagnosis of patients in whom the diagnosis is uncertain. We have generated a mean WS metacarpophalangeal pattern profile (MCPP) on 21 clinically diagnosed individuals with WS. This mean syndrome profile shows that WS hands are smaller than average age-matched control hands and that the distal phalanx of the thumb is disproportionately large with respect to the rest of the hand. A mathematical model, which effectively discriminates WS patients from unaffected control individuals, was developed using discriminant analysis of the MCPP data. Of the 21 WS patients classified by this method, only 2 were misclassified as "normal. " Similarly, 2 of the 24 control individuals were misclassified as "WS," yielding an over-all successful classification rate of 91%.
Secondary analysis of outcomes after 11,085 hip fracture operations from the prospective UK Anaesthesia Sprint Audit of Practice (ASAP‐2)

We re‐analysed prospective data collected by anaesthetists in the Anaesthesia Sprint Audit of Practice (ASAP‐1) to describe associations with linked outcome data. Mortality was 165/11,085 (1.5%) 5 days and 563/11,085 (5.1%) 30 days after surgery and was not associated with anaesthetic technique (general vs. spinal, with or without peripheral nerve blockade). The risk of death increased as blood pressure fell: the odds ratio (95% CI) for mortality within five days after surgery was 0.983 (0.973–0.994) for each 5 mmHg intra‐operative increment in systolic blood pressure, p = 0.0016, and 0.980 (0.967–0.993) for each mmHg increment in mean pressure, p = 0.0039. The equivalent odds ratios (95% CI) for 30‐day mortality were 0.968 (0.951–0.985), p = 0.0003 and 0.976 (0.964–0.988), p = 0.0001, respectively. The lowest systolic blood pressure after intrathecal local anaesthetic relative to before induction was weakly correlated with a higher volume of subarachnoid bupivacaine: r2 −0.10 and −0.16 for hyperbaric and isobaric bupivacaine, respectively. A mean 20% relative fall in systolic blood pressure correlated with an administered volume of 1.44 ml hyperbaric bupivacaine. Future research should focus on refining standardised anaesthesia towards administering lower doses of spinal (and general) anaesthesia and maintaining normotension.
Antibiotic Resistance Determinant-Focused Acinetobacter baumannii Vaccine Designed Using Reverse Vaccinology

As one of the most influential and troublesome human pathogens, Acinetobacter baumannii (A. baumannii) has emerged with many multidrug-resistant strains. After collecting 33 complete A. baumannii genomes and 84 representative antibiotic resistance determinants, we used the Vaxign reverse vaccinology approach to predict classical type vaccine candidates against A. baumannii infections and new type vaccine candidates against antibiotic resistance. Our genome analysis identified 35 outer membrane or extracellular adhesins that are conserved among all 33 genomes, have no human protein homology, and have less than 2 transmembrane helices. These 35 antigens include 11 TonB dependent receptors, 8 porins, 7 efflux pump proteins, and 2 fimbrial proteins (FilF and CAM87009.1). CAM86003.1 was predicted to be an adhesin outer membrane protein absent from 3 antibiotic-sensitive strains and conserved in 21 antibiotic-resistant strains. Feasible anti-resistance vaccine candidates also include one extracellular protein (QnrA), 3 RND type outer membrane efflux pump proteins, and 3 CTX-M type β-lactamases. Among 39 β-lactamases, A. baumannii CTX-M-2, -5, and -43 enzymes are predicted as adhesins and better vaccine candidates than other β-lactamases to induce preventive immunity and enhance antibiotic treatments. This report represents the first reverse vaccinology study to systematically predict vaccine antigen candidates against antibiotic resistance for a microbial pathogen.
Measuring Message Credibility

Despite calls to conceptualize credibility as three separate concepts—source credibility, message credibility, and media credibility—there exists no scale that exclusively measures message credibility. To address this gap, the current study constructs and validates a new scale. Results from a confirmatory factor analysis suggest that message credibility, specifically in the context of news, can be measured by asking participants to rate how well three adjectives describe content: accurate, authentic, and believable. Validity and reliability tests are reported, and contributions to credibility research are discussed.
SDSS-IV MaNGA : spatially resolved star formation histories in galaxies as a function of galaxy mass and type

We study the internal gradients of stellar population properties within 1.5 Re for a representative sample of 721 galaxies, with stellar masses ranging between 109 M⊙ and 1011.5 M⊙ from the SDSS-IV MaNGA Integral-Field-Unit survey. Through the use of our full spectral fitting code FIREFLY, we derive light- and mass-weighted stellar population properties and their radial gradients, as well as full star formation and metal enrichment histories. We also quantify the impact that different stellar population models and full spectral fitting routines have on the derived stellar population properties and the radial gradient measurements. In our analysis, we find that age gradients tend to be shallow for both early-type and late-type galaxies. Mass-weighted age gradients of early-types arepositive [sic] (∼0.09 dex/Re) pointing to ‘outside–in’ progression of star formation, while late-type galaxies have negative light-weighted age gradients (∼−0.11 dex/Re), suggesting an ‘inside–out’ formation of discs.We detect negative metallicity gradients in both early- and late-type galaxies, but these are significantly steeper in late-types, suggesting that the radial dependence of chemical enrichment processes and the effect of gas inflow and metal transport are far more pronounced in discs. Metallicity gradients of both morphological classes correlate with galaxy mass, with negative metallicity gradients becoming steeper with increasing galaxy mass. The correlation with mass is stronger for late-type galaxies, with a slope of d(∇[Z/H])/d(log M) ∼ −0.2 ± 0.05 , compared to d(∇[Z/H])/d(log M) ∼ −0.05 ± 0.05 for early-types. This result suggests that the merger history plays a relatively small role in shaping metallicity gradients of galaxies.
Fast Parallel SAME Gibbs Sampling on General Discrete Bayesian Networks

A fundamental task in machine learning and related fields is to perform inference on Bayesian networks. Since exact inference takes exponential time in general, a variety of approximate methods are used. Gibbs sampling is one of the most accurate approaches and provides unbiased samples from the posterior but it has historically been too expensive for large models. In this paper, we present an optimized, parallel Gibbs sampler augmented with state replication (SAME or State Augmented Marginal Estimation) to decrease convergence time. We find that SAME can improve the quality of parameter estimates while accelerating convergence. Experiments on both synthetic and real data show that our Gibbs sampler is substantially faster than the state of the art sampler, JAGS, without sacrificing accuracy. Our ultimate objective is to introduce the Gibbs sampler to researchers in many fields to expand their range of feasible inference problems.
Stat6 dependent goblet cell hyperplasia during intestinal nematode infection

To identify the role of signal transducer and activator of transcription factor 6 (Stat6) in the development of intestinal goblet cell hyperplasia during nematode infection, we compared the number of goblet cells in Stat6 deficient (Stat6 −/−) mice with that generated in wild‐type (Stat6 +/+) mice in Trichinella spiralis infection. The number of goblet cells significantly increased with infection in wild‐type mice. However, Stat6 −/− failed to generate infection‐induced goblet cell hyperplasia and a significantly lower number of goblet cells was observed in Stat6 −/− mice on days 14 and 21 postinfection compared to Stat6 +/+ mice. In addition to suppressed goblet cell numbers, Stat6 −/− mice exhibited severe impairment in their ability to produce IL‐4 and IL‐13 and to expel the parasites from the gut. Our study clearly shows an essential role of Stat6 in intestinal goblet cell hyperplasia which accompanies this infection. We postulate that Th2 cytokines regulate the development of goblet cell hyperplasia in gut during nematode infection via Stat6 activation and that the increased number of goblet cells plays an important role in host protective immunity against the infection.
Impact of Backbone Fluorination on π-Conjugated Polymers in Organic Photovoltaic Devices: A Review

Solution-processed bulk heterojunction solar cells have experienced a remarkable acceleration in performances in the last two decades, reaching power conversion efficiencies above 10%. This impressive progress is the outcome of a simultaneous development of more advanced device architectures and of optimized semiconducting polymers. Several chemical approaches have been developed to fine-tune the optoelectronics and structural polymer parameters required to reach high efficiencies. Fluorination of the conjugated polymer backbone has appeared recently to be an especially promising approach for the development of efficient semiconducting polymers. As a matter of fact, most currently best-performing semiconducting polymers are using fluorine atoms in their conjugated backbone. In this review, we attempt to give an up-to-date overview of the latest results achieved on fluorinated polymers for solar cells and to highlight general polymer properties’ evolution trends related to the fluorination of their conjugated backbone.
M-theory cosmologies from singular Calabi–Yau compactifications

We study five-dimensional Kasner cosmologies in a time-dependent Calabi–Yau compactification of M-theory undergoing a flop transition. The dynamics of the additional states, which become massless at the transition point and give rise to a scalar potential, are taken into account using a recently constructed gauged supergravity action. Due to the dynamics of these states the moduli do not show the usual run-away behaviour but oscillate around the transition region. Moreover, the solutions typically exhibit short periods of accelerated expansion. We also analyse the interplay between the geometries of moduli space and spacetime.
The Role of Thyrotropin Receptor Activation in Adipogenesis and Modulation of Fat Phenotype

Evidence from clinical and experimental data suggests that thyrotropin receptor (TSHR) signaling is involved in energy expenditure through its impact on white adipose tissue (WAT) and brown adipose tissue (BAT). TSHR expression increases during mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) differentiation into fat. We hypothesize that TSHR activation [TSHR*, elevated thyroid-stimulating hormone, thyroid-stimulating antibodies (TSAB), or activating mutation] influences MSC differentiation, which contributes to body composition changes seen in hypothyroidism or Graves’ disease (GD). The role of TSHR activation on adipogenesis was first investigated using ex vivo samples. Neck fat (all euthyroid at surgery) was obtained from GD (n = 11, TSAB positive), toxic multinodular goiter (TMNG, TSAB negative) (n = 6), and control patients with benign euthyroid disease (n = 11, TSAB negative). The effect of TSHR activation was then analyzed using human primary abdominal subcutaneous preadipocytes (n = 16). Cells were cultured in complete medium (CM) or adipogenic medium [ADM, containing thiazolidinedione (TZD), PPARγ agonist, which is able to induce BAT formation] with or without TSHR activation (gain-of-function mutant) for 3 weeks. Adipogenesis was evaluated using oil red O (ORO), counting adipogenic foci, qPCR measurement of terminal differentiation marker (LPL). BAT [PGC-1α, uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1), and ZIC1], pre-BAT (PRDM16), BRITE− (CITED1), or WAT (LEPTIN) markers were analyzed by semiquantitative PCR or qPCR. In ex vivo analysis, there were no differences in the expression of UCP1, PGC-1α, and ZIC1. BRITE marker CITED1 levels were highest in GD followed by TMNG and control (p for trend = 0.009). This was associated with higher WAT marker LEPTIN level in GD than the other two groups (p < 0.001). In primary cell culture, TSHR activation substantially enhanced adipogenesis with 1.4 ± 0.07 (ORO), 8.6 ± 1.8 (foci), and 5.5 ± 1.6 (LPL) fold increases compared with controls. Surprisingly, TSHR activation in CM also significantly increased pre-BAT marker PRDM16; furthermore, TZD-ADM induced adipogenesis showed substantially increased BAT markers, PGC-1α and UCP1. Our study revealed that TSHR activation plays an important role in the adipogenesis process and BRITE/pre-BAT formation, which leads to WAT or BAT phenotype. It may contribute to weight loss as heat during hyperthyroidism and later transforms into WAT posttreatment of GD when patients gain excess weight.
Exploring the relationship between marital expectations and marital satisfaction between married African immigrant couples and United States born married couples

Marriage is still considered a universal institution in many countries worldwide. Marriage provides benefits for wives, husbands, children, families, and communities. Why Marriage Matters (Wilcox et al., 2005), outlined the benefits of marriage, including improved physical and mental health, biological and social benefits for husbands, wives, children and families in America. In sub-Saharan Africa benefits emanating from marriage included increased survival rates for young children (Omariba & Boyle, 2007); reduced maternal morbidity and mortality rates for women due to reduced risks from self-inflicted abortions (Garenne, Tollman, Kahn, Collins, & Ngwenya, 2001); and improved economic management in homes due to exchanging gender-specific tasks within households (Gezon, 2002). Despite these benefits, approximately half the marriages in the United States end in divorce (Raley & Bumpass, 2003; Smith, 2007). Reduced marital satisfaction leads to dissolution of marriages in the U.S. Marital expectations were associated with marital satisfaction (Juvva & Bhatti, 2006). The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between marital expectations and marital satisfaction between African immigrant and United States born married couples. The independent variable was marital expectations, measured with the Marital Expectations Questionnaire (MEQ, Ngazimbi & Daire, 2008). The dependent variables were marital satisfaction, measured by the Relationship Assessment Scale (RAS, Hendrick, 1988), and the Relationship Pleasure Scale (RPS, PAIRS Foundation, 1993). The participants were recruited from nine sites in six states located in three geographical regions. The regions were the Midwest, the West and the Pacific Northwest. They were recruited through faith-based leaders. Participants consisted of 87 couples and 35 individuals who participated without their spouses. This was a mixed methods design. In the quantitative section, three instruments were used to collect data: the MEQ, the RAS, and the RPS. The first section of the MEQ contained four open-ended questions which were used to collect qualitative data. Significant differences were found in the relationships between marital expectations and marital satisfaction between African immigrants and non-immigrants. Qualitative differences and similarities were found between African immigrant and U.S. born married couples. Implications of the findings are discussed for research, counselor education and clinical practice.