Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Rapid identification and susceptibility testing using the VITEK 2 system using culture fluids from positive BacT/ALERT blood cultures.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE In order to reduce the turnaround time for laboratory diagnosis of bacteremia, the efficacy of identification and antimicrobial susceptibility testing using samples taken directly from positive BacT/ALERT standard aerobic and standard anaerobic blood culture bottles was evaluated. METHODS 160 positive blood culture bottles were examined and incubated at 35 degrees C in 5% carbon dioxide for 4-24 h, and an aliquot of the culture fluid was Gram stained. Samples containing Gram-negative bacilli were inoculated on VITEK 2 ID-GNB (identification-Gram-negative bacilli) and AST (antimicrobial susceptibility testing)-GN04 cards, and those containing Gram-positive cocci were inoculated on ID-GPC (identification-Gram-positive cocci) and AST-P526 cards. The same samples were also examined by the standard method, involving subculture from positive BacT/ALERT standard blood culture bottles. RESULTS Eighty seven of 97 Gram-negative bacilli (89.7%) and 21 of 63 Gram-positive cocci (33.3%) were correctly identified to the species level. For antimicrobial susceptibility testing, the direct method had an overall error rate of 5.4% for Gram-negative bacilli, with 0.9% very major, 0.9% major, and 3.6% minor discrepancies compared to the standard method. The overall error rate in antimicrobial susceptibility testing for the 13 Staphylococcus spp. was 10.3%, with 6.0% very major, 2.6% major, and 1.7% minor discrepancies. CONCLUSION These data suggest that VITEK 2 cards inoculated with samples taken directly from positive Bact/ALERT blood culture bottles would provide acceptable identification and antimicrobial susceptibility testing results for Gram-negative bacilli, but not for Gram-positive cocci. Compared to the standard method, the direct method would reduce turnaround time by at least 24 h.
Psychometric Properties of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale in African American and Black Caribbean US Adults

A 12-item version of the 20-item Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression (CES-D) Scale was not validated in Black US adults but demonstrated strong psychometrics in other populations. Using data from the National Survey of American Life (n = 4,815), the psychometric properties of the scale were tested in African American and Black Caribbean adults. When compared with the DSM-IV-TR criteria for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and Dysthymia, most items in the CES-D Scale focus on depressed mood, providing evidence for content validity. Construct validity was questionable in African American and Black Caribbean men. The CES-D scores of African American men who met the DSM-IV-TR (APA, 2000) criteria for Dysthymia were not significantly different than African American men who did not (t = 1.9, p = .109). The CES-D scores of Black Caribbean men who met the DSM-IV-TR criteria for MDD were not significantly different than Black Caribbean men who did not (t = 1.6, p = .198), and none of the Black Caribbean men met the DSM-IV-TR criteria for Dysthymia. For the item, “I felt like everything I did was an effort,” all groups had item-to-total correlations and inter-item correlations below . 30. After eliminating this item, the alpha for the remaining 11 items was . 80 and . 76 in African American and Black Caribbean women, respectively. African American and Black Caribbean men also had item-to-total correlations and inter-item correlations below . 30 for the item “I felt that I was just as good as other people. ” After eliminating these items, the alpha for the remaining 10 items was . 73 in African American and Black Caribbean men. The cut-off score was 9 for the 11-item CES-D and 8 for the 10-item CES-D.
Ochratoxin A: 50 Years of Research

Since ochratoxin A (OTA) was discovered, it has been ubiquitous as a natural contaminant of moldy food and feed. The multiple toxic effects of OTA are a real threat for human beings and animal health. For example, OTA can cause porcine nephropathy but can also damage poultries. Humans exposed to OTA can develop (notably by inhalation in the development of acute renal failure within 24 h) a range of chronic disorders such as upper urothelial carcinoma. OTA plays the main role in the pathogenesis of some renal diseases including Balkan endemic nephropathy, kidney tumors occurring in certain endemic regions of the Balkan Peninsula, and chronic interstitial nephropathy occurring in Northern African countries and likely in other parts of the world. OTA leads to DNA adduct formation, which is known for its genotoxicity and carcinogenicity. The present article discusses how renal carcinogenicity and nephrotoxicity cause both oxidative stress and direct genotoxicity. Careful analyses of the data show that OTA carcinogenic effects are due to combined direct and indirect mechanisms (e.g., genotoxicity, oxidative stress, epigenetic factors). Altogether this provides strong evidence that OTA carcinogenicity can also occur in humans.
The detection of enhanced carbon monoxide abundances in remotely sensed infrared spectra of a forest fire smoke plume

Nadir looking infrared spectra of a forest fire smoke plume off the south shore of Long Island, New York, were obtained from a NASA ER-2 aircraft during two spatially coincident over-flights on the morning of August 25, 1995. These spectra exhibit enhanced CO column densities at the same geographic locations over the smoke plume on both over-flights with a peak CO column density ∼2.6 × 1018 cm−2, ∼6σ above the clear air background. Meteorological conditions suggest the smoke plume was confined to the planetary boundary layer (PBL), pressures ≥ 850 mb, and perhaps to a thin region near the top of the PBL. Constraining the excess CO to the PBL yields a CO mixing ratio ∼1,400 ppbv. Further constraining the CO to the model layer nearest the top of the PBL, 852–878 mb, yields-4,300 ppbv. From the spatial overlap of the spectra, the estimated width of the CO rich portion of the plume is ≤ 2.8 km vs. a plume width of ∼5 km in GOES-8 satellite visible images.
Melatonin in Antinociception: Its Therapeutic Applications

The intensity of pain sensation exhibits marked day and night variations. Since the intensity of pain perception is low during dark hours of the night when melatonin levels are high, this hormone has been implicated as one of the prime antinociceptive substances. A number of studies have examined the antinociceptive role of melatonin in acute, inflammatory and neuropathic pain animal models. It has been demonstrated that melatonin exerts antinociceptive actions by acting at both spinal cord and supraspinal levels. The mechanism of antinociceptive actions of melatonin involves opioid, benzodiazepine, α1- and α2-adrenergic, serotonergic and cholinergic receptors. Most importantly however, the involvement of MT1/MT2 melatonergic receptors in the spinal cord has been well documented as an antinociceptive mechanism in a number of animal models of pain perception. Exogenous melatonin has been used effectively in the management of pain in medical conditions such as fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome and migraine and cluster headache. Melatonin has been tried during surgical operating conditions and has been shown to enhance both preoperative and post-operative analgesia. The present review discusses the available evidence indicating that melatonin, acting through MT1/MT2 melatonin receptors, plays an important role in the pathophysiological mechanism of pain.
Silent Synapses, LTP, and the Indirect Parallel-Fibre Pathway: Computational Consequences of Optimal Cerebellar Noise-Processing

Computational analysis of neural systems is at its most useful when it uncovers principles that provide a unified account of phenomena across multiple scales and levels of description. Here we analyse a widely used model of the cerebellar contribution to sensori-motor learning to demonstrate both that its response to intrinsic and sensor noise is optimal, and that the unexpected synaptic and behavioural consequences of this optimality can explain a wide range of experimental data. The response of the Marr-Albus adaptive-filter model of the cerebellar microcircuit to noise was examined in the context of vestibulo-ocular reflex calibration. We found that, when appropriately connected, an adaptive-filter model using the covariance learning rule to adjust the weights of synapses between parallel fibres and Purkinje cells learns weight values that are optimal given the relative amount of signal and noise carried by each parallel fibre. This optimality principle is consistent with data on the cerebellar role in smooth pursuit eye movements, and predicts that many synaptic weights must be very small, providing an explanation for the experimentally observed preponderance of silent synapses. Such a preponderance has in its turn two further consequences. First, an additional inhibitory pathway from parallel fibre to Purkinje cell is required if Purkinje cell activity is to be altered in either direction from a starting point of silent synapses. Second, cerebellar learning tasks must often proceed via LTP, rather than LTD as is widely assumed. Taken together, these considerations have profound behavioural consequences, including the optimal combination of sensori-motor information, and asymmetry and hysteresis of sensori-motor learning rates.
Neurophysiological Tools to Investigate Consumer's Gender Differences during the Observation of TV Commercials

Neuromarketing is a multidisciplinary field of research whose aim is to investigate the consumers' reaction to advertisements from a neuroscientific perspective. In particular, the neuroscience field is thought to be able to reveal information about consumer preferences which are unobtainable through conventional methods, including submitting questionnaires to large samples of consumers or performing psychological personal or group interviews. In this scenario, we performed an experiment in order to investigate cognitive and emotional changes of cerebral activity evaluated by neurophysiologic indices during the observation of TV commercials. In particular, we recorded the electroencephalographic (EEG), galvanic skin response (GSR), and heart rate (HR) in a group of 28 healthy subjects during the observation of a series of TV advertisements that have been grouped by commercial categories. Comparisons of cerebral indices have been performed to highlight gender differences between commercial categories and scenes of interest of two specific commercials. Findings show how EEG methodologies, along with the measurements of autonomic variables, could be used to obtain hidden information to marketers not obtainable otherwise. Most importantly, it was suggested how these tools could help to analyse the perception of TV advertisements and differentiate their production according to the consumer's gender.
Comparative Evaluation of Land Acquisition and Compensation Processes across the World

One of the key challenges in the development of infrastructure in India is the acquisition of land necessary for the projects. Land acquisition techniques adopted across a variety of other countries are reviewed in this paper. Although no single “best practice” exists, viewing land acquisition practices through a framework of principles, processes, and compensation mechanisms allows us to position the Indian experience within the international context.
Subspace identification using predictor estimation via Gaussian regression

In this paper we propose a new nonparametric approach to identification of linear time invariant systems using subspace methods. The nonparametric paradigm to prediction of stationary stochastic processes, developed in a companion paper, is integrated into a recently proposed subspace method. Simulation results show that this approach significantly improves over standard subspace methods when using small sample sizes. In particular, the new approach facilitates significantly the order selection step.
Utilising Location Based Social Media in Travel Survey Methods: bringing Twitter data into the play

A growing body of literature has been devoted to harnessing the crowdsourcing power of social media by extracting knowledge from the huge amounts of information available online. This paper discusses how social media data can be used indirectly and with minimal cost to extract travel attributes such as trip purpose and activity location. As a result, the capacity of Twitter data in complementing other sources of transport related data such as household travel surveys or traffic count data is examined. Further, a detailed discussion is provided on how short term travellers, such as tourists, can be identified using Twitter data and how their travel pattern can be analysed. Having appropriate information about tourists/visitors -- such as the places they visit, their origin and the pattern of their movements at their destination -- is of great importance to urban planners. The available profile information of users and self-reported geo-location data on Twitter are used to identify tourists visiting Sydney as well as also those Sydney residents who made a trip outside Sydney. The presented data and analysis enable us to understand and track tourists' movements in cities for better urban planning. The results of this paper open up avenues for travel demand modellers to explore the possibility of using big data (in this case Twitter data) to model short distance (day-to-day or activity based) and long distance (vacation) trips.
ON ADHESIVE THEORIES IN MULTILAYERED INTERFACES, WITH PARTICULAR REGARD TO "SURFACE FORCE APPARATUS" GEOMETRY

Adhesion is a key factor in many tribological processes, especially wear. We generalize a recent formulation for the indentation of a multilayered material using an efficient integral transform method, to the case of adhesion, using a simple energetic transformation in the JKR regime. Then, we specialize the study for the geometry of the Surface Force Apparatus, which consists of two thin layers on a substrate, where the intermediate layer is softer than the other two. We find the pull-off force under "force control" (i.e. for "soft" loading systems), as well as under "displacement control" (i.e. for "rigid" systems), as a function of the geometrical thicknesses and material properties ratios, and the method is fully implemented in a fast Mathematica code, available to the public (see Appendix).
Rapid Appearance of Secondary Immune Responses and Protection from Acute CD4 Depletion after a Highly Pathogenic Immunodeficiency Virus Challenge in Macaques Vaccinated with a DNA Prime/Sendai Virus Vector Boost Regimen

ABSTRACT Heterologous prime/boost regimens are AIDS vaccine candidates because of their potential for inducing cellular immune responses. Here, we have developed a prime/boost regimen leading to rapid control of highly pathogenic immunodeficiency virus infection in macaques. The strategy, priming by an env and nefdeletion-containing simian-human immunodeficiency virus (SHIV) proviral DNA followed by a single booster with a Gag-expressing Sendai virus (SeV-Gag), efficiently induced virus-specific T cells, which were maintained for more than 3 months until challenge. While all naive control macaques showed acute CD4+ T-cell depletion at week 2 after an intravenous SHIV89.6PD challenge, all the macaques vaccinated with the prime/boost regimen were protected from depletion and showed greatly reduced peak viral loads compared with controls. Vaccination with the DNA alone or SeV-Gag alone was not enough to confer the consistent protection from the depletion, although it led to efficient secondary CD8+ T-cell responses at week 2 after challenge. At week 1, a difference in the secondary responses between the protected and the unprotected macaques was clear; rapid augmentation of virus-specific CD8+ T cells was detected in the former but not in the latter. Thus, our results indicate the importance of rapid secondary responses for reduction in the peak viral loads and protection from acute CD4+ T-cell depletion.
Sensing of Pyrophosphate Metabolites by Vγ9Vδ2 T Cells

The predominant population of γδ T cells in human blood express a T cell receptor (TCR) composed of a Vγ9 (Vγ2 in an alternate nomenclature) and Vδ2 domains. These cells came into the limelight when it was discovered they can respond to certain microbial infections and tumorigenic cells through the detection of small, pyrophosphate containing organic molecules collectively called “phosphoantigens” or “pAgs. ” These molecules are intermediates in both eukaryotic and prokaryotic metabolic pathways. Chemical variants of these intermediates have been used in the clinic to treat a range of different cancers, however, directed optimization of these molecules requires a full understanding of their mechanism of action on target cells. We and others have identified a subclass of butyrophilin-related molecules (BTN3A1-3) that are directly involved in pAg sensing in the target cell, leading to engagement and activation of the T cell through the TCR. Our data and that of others support the pAg binding site to be the intracellular B30.2 domain of BTN3A1, which is the only isoform capable of mediating pAg-dependent stimulation of Vγ9Vδ2 T cells. Here, we review the data demonstrating pAg binding to the B30.2 domain and our studies of the structural conformations of the BTN3A extracellular domains. Finally, we synthesize a model linking binding of pAg to the intracellular domain with T cell detection via the extracellular domains in an “inside-out” signaling mechanism of the type characterized first for integrin molecule signaling. We also explore the role of Vγ9Vδ2 TCR variability in the CDR3 γ and δ loops and how this may modulate Vγ9Vδ2 cells as a population in surveillance of human health and disease.
Deficiency of triad junction and contraction in mutant skeletal muscle lacking junctophilin type 1

In skeletal muscle excitation–contraction (E–C) coupling, the depolarization signal is converted from the intracellular Ca2+ store into Ca2+ release by functional coupling between the cell surface voltage sensor and the Ca2+ release channel on the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR). The signal conversion occurs in the junctional membrane complex known as the triad junction, where the invaginated plasma membrane called the transverse-tubule (T-tubule) is pinched from both sides by SR membranes. Previous studies have suggested that junctophilins (JPs) contribute to the formation of the junctional membrane complexes by spanning the intracellular store membrane and interacting with the plasma membrane (PM) in excitable cells. Of the three JP subtypes, both type 1 (JP-1) and type 2 (JP-2) are abundantly expressed in skeletal muscle. To examine the physiological role of JP-1 in skeletal muscle, we generated mutant mice lacking JP-1. The JP-1 knockout mice showed no milk suckling and died shortly after birth. Ultrastructural analysis demonstrated that triad junctions were reduced in number, and that the SR was often structurally abnormal in the skeletal muscles of the mutant mice. The mutant muscle developed less contractile force (evoked by low-frequency electrical stimuli) and showed abnormal sensitivities to extracellular Ca2+. Our results indicate that JP-1 contributes to the construction of triad junctions and that it is essential for the efficiency of signal conversion during E–C coupling in skeletal muscle.
A Microeconomic Interpretation of the Maximum Entropy Estimator of Multinomial Logit Models and Its Equivalence to the Maximum Likelihood Estimator

Maximum entropy models are often used to describe supply and demand behavior in urban transportation and land use systems. However, they have been criticized for not representing behavioral rules of system agents and because their parameters seems to adjust only to modeler-imposed constraints. In response, it is demonstrated that the solution to the entropy maximization problem with linear constraints is a multinomial logit model whose parameters solve the likelihood maximization problem of this probabilistic model. But this result neither provides a microeconomic interpretation of the entropy maximization problem nor explains the equivalence of these two optimization problems. This work demonstrates that an analysis of the dual of the entropy maximization problem yields two useful alternative explanations of its solution. The first shows that the maximum entropy estimators of the multinomial logit model parameters reproduce rational user behavior, while the second shows that the likelihood maximization problem for multinomial logit models is the dual of the entropy maximization problem.
Detection performance of Compressive Sensing applied to radar

In this paper some results are presented on detection performance of radar using Compressive Sensing. Compressive sensing is a recently developed theory which allows reconstruction of sparse signals with a number of measurements much lower than implied by the Nyquist rate. In this work the behavior of detection and false alarm performance of a CS based radar using a stepped frequency waveform is analyzed. The results are obtained via simulations with known noise levels for several different scenarios (e.g. single and multiple targets, varying compression factors and Signal to Noise Ratios (SNR). Performance of CS reconstruction and detection are analyzed by means of Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves and compared to conventional Matched Filtering
Developing a Consulting Program in Special Education: Implementation and Interventions.

Service delivery models used to educate handicapped students have been influenced by a variety of factors. Requirements in Public Law 94-142 to educate students in the least restrictive environment, research examining the efficacy of special education programs (Dunn, 1968; Goldstein, Moss, & Jordan, 1965; Sindelar & Deno, 1978), research into the effects of labeling (Hobbs, 1975; Reger, 1979), and criticisms of current identification practices (Ysseldyke, 1979, 1983) have encouraged schools to educate handicapped students in environments other than self-contained settings. The direction toward educating handicapped students in the least restrictive environment has had the greatest impact upon individuals identified as mildly handicapped. This includes students in the categories of behavioral disorders, learning disabilities, and mild mental retardation, as well as students referred to as slow learners, underachievers, or educationally handicapped (Deshler, Schumaker, Alley, Warner, & Clark, 1982; Madden & Slavin, 1983). To educate mildly handicapped students in the least restrictive environment, special education efforts historically have attempted to provide direct academic interventions in resource room settings to improve students' academic skill achievement and thus allow the students to function effectively in the regular classroom. One important assumption in this model is that mildly handicapped students can be appropriately educated largely in regular education settings, and one means of achieving this goal is to improve the cooperation between regular and special education teachers. Although educators have achieved no consensus, research and professional opinion have supported efforts to provide appropriate education programs for mildly handicapped students within the regular classroom setting (Bickel & Bickel, 1986; Wang & Birch, 1984). The utilization of sound instructional practices is thought to meet the needs of a large number of special education students while allowing them to remain in the regular classroom (Heller, Holtzman, & Messick, 1982). Placing handicapped students in regular classes, however, has placed increased instructional and management demands on regular classroom teachers (Gerber, 1986). Therefore, to educate handicapped students in the least restrictive environment, regular educators must receive supporting and collaborative services from special educators.