Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A plasmid-mediated CMY-2 beta-lactamase from an Algerian clinical isolate of Salmonella senftenberg.

Multiresistance to antibiotics including beta-lactams, e.g. cefoxitin, was transferred by conjugation to Escherichia coli strain C1a from a clinical isolate of Salmonella senftenberg recovered from stools of an Algerian child. The susceptibility pattern to beta-lactams was similar to the profile mediated by an AmpC-type beta-lactamase. By biochemical analysis, typical AmpC-type enzyme substrate and inhibition profiles were obtained. Finally, an ampC plasmid-encoded beta-lactamase gene was cloned and sequenced. Its deduced amino acid sequence confirmed its identity as a class C beta-lactamase. It showed 99.5% sequence identity with the plasmid-mediated beta-lactamase CMY-2. The differences in the amino acid sequences of the two enzymes were located in the signal peptide.
Growth Performance and Survival of Larvae of Ompok pabda Produced from Vitamin E Treated Female Broodfish

An experiment was conducted to observe growth performance and survival of the larvae produced from the brood fish of Ompok pabda treated with 4 dietary levels of vitamin E for 90 days viz. 0 (served as control), 50, 100 and 150mg vitamin E/kg feed under 4 treatments i.e. treatment T 1 , T 2 , T 3 and T 4 . After the feeding trials, the brood fish were induced to breed with equal dose of PG extract i.e. 12 and 18mg/kg body weight for male and female respectively and subsequently larvae were produced. The experiment was started with 5 days-old larvae having an average weight and length of 21.4 ± 8.6 mg and 13.8 ± 2.49 mm respectively in 16 bowls of 10l capacity divided into 4 treatments corresponding to the broods fish having 3 replications each with 100 larvae in each bowl i.e. 10 larvae per liter. After rearing for 28 days with live-food tubificid worms the highest growth rate in terms of weight (609.13 ± 15.20 mg) and length (86.70 ± 1.84 mm), gain in weight (587.78 ± 15.27 mg) and length (72.98 ± 1.81 mm), specific growth rate (30.36 ± 0.12%), health condition (16.63 ± 0.69 mg/mm) and survival (83.25 ± 2.87) were showed by the larvae produced from brood fish fed with 100 mg vitamin E/kg feed (treatment T 3 ) while poorest was observed by the larvae produced from brood fish fed 150 mg vitamin E/kg feed. The results imply that inclusion of 100mg vitamin E/kg feed in the diet of O. pabda brood fish is best for enhancing growth and survival of larvae indicating that vitamin E has a positive impact. The results also suggest that inclusion of higher level of vitamin E in the diet exerts an antagonistic effect on the produced larvae. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.3329/pa.v20i1-2.16864 Progress. Agric. 20(1 & 2): 125 – 132, 2009
Guests’ perceptions of hotels’ (un)fair treatment of staff: their impact on service recovery

Limited previous research has examined the impact that third-party guests’ observations of (in)justice for others can have on a hotel. This study deals with this issue by testing whether the way guests who raised a complaint perceive management treatment towards hotel staff influence their satisfaction with service recovery (SSR), when controlling for perceptions of justice for the self: distributive, procedural, and interactional. The paper first verifies the distinctiveness of all the justice variables included in this study. Data were collected from 288 guests who had experienced a service failure in seven sampled hotels in the Canary Islands (Spain). Structural equation modeling (SEM) results indicated that guests who raised a complaint and were unhappy on the management treatment towards hotel staff, showed significantly lower satisfaction with service recovery (SSR). These findings suggest that, like justice for the self, justice toward staff also predicts satisfaction with service recovery (SSR), thus earning a place in the service recovery literature. Suggestions for future research and practical implications are also presented.
Angiotensin II-aldosterone interaction in human coronary microarteries involves GPR30, EGFR, and endothelial NO synthase.

AIMS The aim of this study was to investigate the aldosterone-angiotensin (Ang) II interaction in human coronary microarteries (HCMAs). METHODS AND RESULTS HCMAs, obtained from 75 heart-beating organ donors, were mounted in myographs and exposed to Ang II, either directly or following a 30-min pre-incubation with aldosterone, 17β-oestradiol, hydrocortisone, the p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) inhibitor SB203580, the extracellular regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) inhibitor PD98059, the GPR30 antagonist G15, or the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) antagonist AG1478. Ang II constricted HCMAs in a concentration-dependent manner. All steroids, at nanomolar levels, potentiated Ang II and G15 prevented this effect. The potentiation disappeared or was reversed into Ang II antagonism at micromolar steroid levels. NO synthase (NOS) inhibition prevented the latter antagonism in the case of 17β-oestradiol, whereas both aldosterone and 17β-oestradiol at micro- (but not nano-) molar levels induced endothelial NOS phosphorylation in human umbilical vein endothelial cells. AG1478, but not SB203580 or PD98059, abolished the Ang II-induced contraction in the presence of aldosterone or 17β-oestradiol, and none of these drugs affected Ang II alone. CONCLUSION Steroids including aldosterone affect Ang II-induced vasoconstriction in a biphasic manner. Potentiation occurs at nanomolar steroid levels and depends on GPR30 and EGFR transactivation. At micromolar steroid levels, this potentiation either disappears (aldosterone and hydrocortisone) or is reversed into an inhibition (17β-oestradiol), and this is due to the endothelial NOS activation that occurs at such concentrations.
Moving on? : experiences of social mobility in a mixed-class North London neighbourhood

This qualitative study investigates subjective experiences of social mobility amongst parents whose children attend the same London state primary school, at a historical moment when the Conservative-led Coalition government claims social mobility as the principal goal of its social policies. I argue that the government’s understanding of social mobility is founded on a neoliberal discourse that holds individuals responsible for their own life trajectories. This individualist view aligns with individualization theory’s emphasises on reflexive selves, understood as disembedded from class groups. By examining how participants’ experiences are shaped by class processes I interrogate this dominant perspective, and consider alternative conceptions of social mobilities that expand the existing discourse. I take a case-study approach that utilises a range of qualitative methods, enabling crossclass comparisons as well as examining parents’ intersectional identities. I draw embodied and emotional geographies into the analysis, including everyday distinctionmaking and face-to-face interactions. I relate subjective experiences to class structures across a range of social fields, inter-weaving material and cultural analyses to examine the impacts of economic and political processes on lived experiences. The thesis demonstrates how class processes significantly impact on social mobility experiences, and thus argues that the individualist social mobility discourse is flawed. However, whilst the individualist model denies the role of class structures, I argue that it constructs class identities by attaching stigma and status to individuals, who are held responsible for their own social trajectories. This narrative is implicated in processes of dominance and hegemony, and works to justify the current welfare cuts. I also argue, however, that by attending to participants’ experiences and using a class analysis it is possible to reframe social mobility within an equality agenda based on the redistribution of resources. This study therefore makes a significant academic contribution because it expands the understanding of how class impacts on social mobility experiences, it explicitly addresses the individualist discourse of social mobility, and it suggests an alternative more equitable model.
The Bicoid gradient is shaped independently of nuclei

Morphogen gradients provide embryos with positional information, yet how they form is not understood. Binding of the morphogen to receptors could affect the formation of the morphogen gradient, in particular if the number of morphogen binding sites changes with time. For morphogens that function as transcription factors, the final distribution can be heavily influenced by the number of nuclear binding sites. Here, we have addressed the role of the increasing number of nuclei during the formation of the Bicoid gradient in embryos of Drosophila melanogaster. Deletion of a short stretch of sequence in Bicoid impairs its nuclear accumulation. This effect is due to a ∼4-fold decrease in nuclear import rate and a ∼2-fold reduction in nuclear residence time compared with the wild-type protein. Surprisingly, the shape of the resulting anterior-posterior gradient as well as the centre-surface distribution are indistinguishable from those of the normal gradient. This suggests that nuclei do not shape the Bicoid gradient but instead function solely during its interpretation.
Sequence Analysis of cytb Gene in Echinococcus granulosus from Western China

Echinococcus granulosus is the causative agent of cystic echinococcosis with medical and veterinary importance in China. Our main objective was to discuss the genotypes and genetic diversity of E. granulosus present in domestic animals and humans in western China. A total of 45 hydatid cyst samples were collected from sheep, humans, and a yak and subjected to an analysis of the sequences of mitochondrial cytochrome b (cytb) gene. The amplified PCR product for all samples was a 1,068 bp band. The phylogenetic analysis showed that all 45 samples were identified as E. granulosus (genotype G1). Ten haplotypes were detected among the samples, with the main haplotype being H1. The haplotype diversity was 0.626, while the nucleotide diversity was 0.001. These results suggested that genetic diversity was low among our samples collected from the west of China based on cytb gene analysis. These findings may provide more information on molecular characteristics of E. granulosus from this Chinese region.
Overview of the Scalable Video Coding Extension of the H . 264 / AVC Standard

The introduction begins by talking about the spectrum of todays video transmission and storage systems. Next it brings up the fact that now a days our video receivers range from low powered small screen cell phones to large high definition computer monitors. In addition, our connections are quite variable as well. They define “scalability” to be the “removal of parts of the video bit stream in order to adapt it to the various needs or preferences of end users as well as to varying terminal capabilities or network conditions. ” They offer Scalable Video Coding (SVC) as a solution to the issue presented. The basic concept behind SVC is to enable high quality video encoding by transmitting a bit stream which contains multiple subset bit streams thats can be decoded on their own as well, all while having a complexity and reconstruction quality on par with that of H.264. Next they give a brief history of scalability solutions in the past, stating that they existed but are rarely used due to significant loss in coding efficiency, and far more complex decoding.
Low noise and high linearity LNA based on InGaP/GaAs HBT for 5.3 GHz WLAN

This paper presents a low noise and high linearity LNA based on InGaP/GaAs HBT for 5.3 GHz WLAN. Previous LNAs based on FET series such as HEMT show excellent noise characteristics, but poor linearity. The InGaP/GaAs HBT LNA shows excellent linearity and noise characteristics because of its high base doping concentration. The proposed LNA is fully integrated in area of 0.9 /spl times/ 0.9 mm/sup 2/ single chip with high Q spiral inductors and MIM capacitors and biased at current point for optimum noise figure and gain characteristics, furthermore, excellent linearity is achieved. Measured result of the proposed LNA shows 13 dB gain, 2.1 dB noise figure, and excellent linearity in terms of IIP3 of 5.5 dBm. The figure of merit (FOM) defined as a function of the linearity and noise figure is 20.1 dB, which is the best result among previous LNAs.
Combination of intra-flow network coding and opportunistic routing: reliable communications over wireless mesh networks

Opportunistic routing has recently appeared as a technique aimed to increase the performance of wireless mesh networks, by taking advantage of the broadcast nature of the wireless medium. Despite the remarkable attention the research community has paid to it, there are still some issues that need to be addressed; one of the most relevant ones is the unnecessary forwarding of the same packet by a number of nodes. Since Random Linear Coding (RLC) mechanisms randomly mix packets before forwarding them, they can be exploited to avoid (or at least to minimize) the aforementioned problem. In a previous work we introduced a flexible Network Coding (NC) entity that we integrated within the ns-3 framework. We extend herewith its functionalities, by integrating an opportunistic routing module that enables it to be used over random topologies. In addition, we assess the performance of using different external algebraical libraries to carry out the coding/recoding/decoding operations (i.e. matrix inverse and rank calculation).
Increasingly mobile: How new technologies can enhance qualitative research

Advances in technology, such as the growth of smart phones, tablet computing, and improved access to the internet have resulted in many new tools and applications designed to increase efficiency and improve workflow. Some of these tools will assist scholars using qualitative methods with their research processes. We describe emerging technologies for use in data collection, analysis, and dissemination that each offer enhancements to existing research processes. Suggestions for keeping pace with the ever-evolving technological landscape are also offered.
ORGM: Occlusion Relational Graphical Model for Human Pose Estimation

Articulated human pose estimation from monocular image is a challenging problem in computer vision. Occlusion is a main challenge for human pose estimation, which is largely ignored in popular tree structured models. The tree structured model is simple and convenient for exact inference, but short in modeling the occlusion coherence especially in the case of self-occlusion. We propose an occlusion relational graphical model, which is able to model both self-occlusion and occlusion by the other objects simultaneously. The proposed model can encode the interactions between human body parts and objects, and enables it to learn occlusion coherence from data discriminatively. We evaluate our model on several public benchmarks for human pose estimation, including challenging subsets featuring significant occlusion. The experimental results show that our method is superior to the previous state-of-the-arts, and is robust to occlusion for 2D human pose estimation.
Curcumin Ameliorates Functional and Structural Abnormalities in Cisplatin-induced Neuropathy

Peripheral neuropathy is one of the major side effects of cisplatin; however, effective treatments are lacking. Curcumin is a polyphenol found in the root of Curcuma longa and has been shown neuroprotective against several neurological diseases. Nevertheless, its effects on cisplatin neuropathy remain unclear. This study aimed to clarify this issue by inducing neuropathy in the rats with intraperitoneal injection of cisplatin 2 mg/kg twice a week for 5 consecutive weeks. Curcumin 200 mg/kg/day was given by gavage to a group of cisplatin-treated rats during these five weeks. The results showed that cisplatin induced thermal hypoalgesia in the 5th week which could be prevented by curcumin. In the 5th and 8th weeks, sciatic motor nerve conduction velocity was reduced in the cisplatin compared with the control groups. Curcumin significantly attenuated this deficit. Morphometric analysis of L4 dorsal root ganglia from the cisplatin group revealed nuclear and nucleolar atrophy including loss of neurons in the 8th week. These alterations were significantly blocked by curcumin. Moreover, curcumin also ameliorated the reduced myelin thickness in the sciatic nerve of cisplatin-treated rats. Taken together, our findings suggest the favorable effects of curcumin on both functional and structural abnormalities in cisplatin neuropathy. Future studies are needed to clarify the exact underlying mechanisms.
Corticosteroid treatment induces chondrocyte apoptosis in an experimental arthritis model and in chondrocyte cultures.

OBJECT In order to examine the mechanisms involved in steroid-induced arthropathy after intra-articular corticosteroid injection, a histological examination was performed in vivo using severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) mice that were implanted with human articular cartilage into the back (SCID/hu model). In addition, the effect of corticosteroids on chondrocyte apoptosis was evaluated in vitro using cultured human chondrocytes. METHOD Human articular cartilage was obtained during knee surgery and implanted subcutaneously into the backs of SCID mice. One month later, weekly injections of corticosteroid (hydrocortisone acatate: 1 mg/0.2 ml, triamcinolone acetonide: 0.2 mg/0.2 ml, dexamethasone acetate: 0.1 mg/0.2 ml) in the subcutaneous cavity around the grafted cartilage in SCID mice were initiated. After six weeks of treatment, the grafted cartilage pieces were removed from the SCID mice and examined histologically. Chondrocyte apoptosis after corticosteroid treatment was also investigated using cultured human chondrocytes. RESULT In the corticosteroid treated, grafted articular cartilage, apoptotic chondrocytes were apparent in the superficial and middle layers of cartilage. But a reduced intensity of Safranin O staining was not remarkable. In the cultured chondrocytes, apoptotic changes were also observed after corticosteroid treatment. CONCLUSION Corticosteroid treatment induces chondrocyte apoptosis and it may be important to understand the steroid-induced arthropathy.
Prevention of Trabecular Bone Loss Induced by Estrogen Deficiency by a Selective p38α Inhibitor

Increased bone remodeling with estrogen deficiency is mediated by the production of cytokines such as TNFα and interleukin (IL)−1. Recent data have indicated that the p38 pathway mediates cytokines effects on enhanced bone turnover in postmenopausal osteoporosis. Thus, in this study, we investigated the effect of a selective p38α inhibitor, SD‐282, on the prevention of bone loss induced by estrogen deficiency in an adult ovariectomized (OVX) rat model. Results indicate that oral administration of SD‐282 for 8 wk dose‐dependently blunted the increase in the bone resorption marker DPD/Cr induced by OVX in adult rats. Associated with this effect, SD‐282 did not reduce but significantly enhanced by 2‐fold the rise in the bone formation marker serum osteocalcin observed in OVX animals. In addition, SD‐282 completely blocked vertebral bone loss associated with estrogen deficiency. Furthermore, a partial preventive effect was observed in long bones with reduction of trabecular bone loss and enhancement of cross‐sectional area of the diaphysis. Prevention of trabecular bone loss and increased in cortical bone area were associated with improvement of biomechanical resistances. In conclusion, chronic administration of a selective p38α inhibitor effectively prevented trabecular bone loss and alteration of bone microarchitecture induced by estrogen deficiency. Prevention of bone loss was associated with inhibition of bone resorption with uncoupled changes in bone formation. These data strongly suggest that the p38 pathway is important for regulation of bone resorption induced by estrogen deficiency, and selective inhibitors of this pathway have potential for prevention of bone loss in postmenopausal osteoporosis.
A fast and simple algorithm for training neural probabilistic language models

In spite of their superior performance, neural probabilistic language models (NPLMs) remain far less widely used than n-gram models due to their notoriously long training times, which are measured in weeks even for moderately-sized datasets. Training NPLMs is computationally expensive because they are explicitly normalized, which leads to having to consider all words in the vocabulary when computing the log-likelihood gradients. We propose a fast and simple algorithm for training NPLMs based on noise-contrastive estimation, a newly introduced procedure for estimating unnormalized continuous distributions. We investigate the behaviour of the algorithm on the Penn Treebank corpus and show that it reduces the training times by more than an order of magnitude without affecting the quality of the resulting models. The algorithm is also more efficient and much more stable than importance sampling because it requires far fewer noise samples to perform well. We demonstrate the scalability of the proposed approach by training several neural language models on a 47M-word corpus with a 80K-word vocabulary, obtaining state-of-the-art results on the Microsoft Research Sentence Completion Challenge dataset.
The Conjugated Auxin Indole-3-Acetic Acid–Aspartic Acid Promotes Plant Disease Development[C][W]

Auxin conjugation promotes susceptibility to pathogens. This study reveals that during infection with fungi and bacteria, auxin conjugation is increased in the plant to produce IAA-Asp, which regulates the expression of virulence genes and induces plant susceptibility to pathogens. Auxin is a pivotal plant hormone that regulates many aspects of plant growth and development. Auxin signaling is also known to promote plant disease caused by plant pathogens. However, the mechanism by which this hormone confers susceptibility to pathogens is not well understood. Here, we present evidence that fungal and bacterial plant pathogens hijack the host auxin metabolism in Arabidopsis thaliana, leading to the accumulation of a conjugated form of the hormone, indole-3-acetic acid (IAA)-Asp, to promote disease development. We also show that IAA-Asp increases pathogen progression in the plant by regulating the transcription of virulence genes. These data highlight a novel mechanism to promote plant susceptibility to pathogens through auxin conjugation.
Prion aggregate structure in yeast cells is determined by the Hsp104-Hsp110 disaggregase machinery

3D structural analysis of a yeast [PSI+] prion model by correlative fluorescence and electron tomography reveals that prion aggregate structure depends on the levels of Hsp70 chaperones, the protein remodeling ATPase Hsp104, and the Hsp70 nucleotide exchange factor/disaggregase Sse1 (yeast Hsp110).