Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Chemical Composition and Biological Activity of Salvia Verbenaca Essential Oil

Salvia verbenaca L. (syn. S. minore) is a perennial herb known in the traditional medicine of Sicily as “spaccapetri” and is used to resolve cases of kidney stones, chewing the fresh leaves or in decoction. The chemical composition of the essential oil obtained from aerial parts of S. verbenaca collected in Piano Battaglia (Sicily) on July 2009, was analyzed by GC and GC-MS. The oil was strongly characterized by fatty acids (39.5%) and carbonylic compounds (21.2%), with hexadecanoic acid (23.1%), (Z)-9-octadecenoic acid (11.1%) and benzaldehyde (7.3%) as the main constituents. The in vitro activity of the essential oil against some microorganisms in comparison with chloramphenicol by the broth dilution method was determined. The oil exhibited a good activity as inhibitor of growth of Gram + bacteria.
High Proportion of Heteroresistance in gyrA and gyrB in Fluoroquinolone-Resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis Clinical Isolates

ABSTRACT Heteroresistance is the coexistence of populations with differing nucleotides at a drug resistance locus within a sample of organisms. Although Sanger sequencing is the gold standard for sequencing, it may be less sensitive than deep sequencing for detecting fluoroquinolone heteroresistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Twenty-seven fluoroquinolone monoresistant and 11 fluoroquinolone-susceptible M. tuberculosis isolates were analyzed by Sanger and Illumina deep sequencing. Individual sequencing reads were analyzed to detect heteroresistance in the gyrA and gyrB genes. Heteroresistance to fluoroquinolones was identified in 10/26 (38%) phenotypically fluoroquinolone-resistant samples and 0/11 (P = 0.02) fluoroquinolone-susceptible controls. One resistant sample was excluded because of contamination with the laboratory strain M. tuberculosis H37Rv. Sanger sequencing revealed resistance-conferring mutations in 15 isolates, while deep sequencing revealed mutations in 20 isolates. Isolates with fluoroquinolone resistance-conferring mutations by Sanger sequencing all had at least those same mutations identified by deep sequencing. By deep sequencing, 10 isolates had a single fixed (defined as >95% frequency) mutation, while 10 were heteroresistant, 5 of which had a single unfixed (defined as <95% frequency) mutation and 5 had multiple unfixed mutations. Illumina deep sequencing identified a higher proportion of fluoroquinolone-resistant M. tuberculosis isolates with heteroresistance than did Sanger sequencing. The heteroresistant isolates frequently demonstrated multiple mutations, but resistant isolates with fixed mutations each had only a single mutation.
Application-Oriented License Plate Recognition

We split the applications of vehicle license plate recognition (LPR) into three major categories and propose a solution with parameter settings that are adjustable for different applications. The three categories are access control (AC), law enforcement (LE), and road patrol (RP). Each application is characterized by variables of different variation scopes and thus requires different settings on the solution with which to deal. The proposed solution consists of three modules for plate detection, character segmentation, and recognition. Edge clustering is formulated for solving plate detection for the first time. It is also a novel application of the maximally stable extreme region (MSER) detector to character segmentation. A bilayer classifier, which is improved with an additional null class, is experimentally proven to be better than previous methods for character recognition. To assess the performance of the proposed solution, the application-oriented license plate (AOLP) database is composed and made available to the research community. Experiments show that the proposed solution outperforms many previous solutions, and LPR can be better solved by solutions with settings oriented for different applications.
One-Port SAW Resonators Using Natural SPUDT Substrates

We discuss the design of one-port surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonators using substrates with a partial or total degree of directivity, that is, the natural single-phase unidirectional transducer (N-SPUDT) effect. A general design method gives a resonance when all three frequencies (the required resonance frequency and the Bragg frequencies) are different. A second method has been derived from the resonance condition for a symmetrical substrate. Two further methods incorporate lambda/4 gaps. The capacitance ratio is presented as a function of the phase of the electrode reflection coefficient. The simulations use data for the N-SPUDT orientation of lanthanide. The reflection coefficient for Al electrodes has been calculated from finite element modeling (FEM) analysis. The approximate perturbation theory is found to agree well for small film thickness (h/lambda < 2%). The phase of the reflection coefficient is typically 150deg, not quite the ideal value of 180deg. Measurements on resonators using Al and Cu films are presented.
Comparison of the histology, gene expression profile, and phenotype of cultured human limbal epithelial cells from different limbal regions.

PURPOSE To investigate whether human limbal epithelial cells (HLECs) derived from various regions of the limbus exhibit differences in gene expression and epithelial characteristics. METHODS HLECs were derived from explants taken from the superior, nasal, inferior, and temporal limbus and cultured for 21 days. Whole genome transcript profiling was performed with a gene microarray. The microarray results were validated by using RT-PCR. Epithelial morphology was studied with light microscopy and transmission electron microscopy, and phenotype was evaluated by immunohistochemistry. RESULTS Epithelial outgrowth was present in most cultures of superior origin (88%) in contrast to cultures of temporal origin (38%). The epithelial thickness and number of cell layers were significantly greater in cultures of superior origin than in cultures from inferior and temporal areas. TRIM36, OSR2, and RHOU, which are involved in morphogenesis, were significantly differentially expressed in the superior region, compared with the other regions. Proposed limbal stem cell, progenitor, and differentiation markers were not differentially expressed. The uniform gene expression of ocular surface markers correlated with homogeneous immunostaining of corresponding protein markers in HLEC cultures from all regions, demonstrating an undifferentiated phenotype (p63(+), DeltaNp63alpha(+), ABCG2(+), K19(+), vimentin(+), integrin beta1(+), nestin(-), K3(-), K5(+), and E-cadherin(+)). CONCLUSIONS No major transcriptional or phenotypic differences were observed in cultured HLECs derived from different regions of the limbus. However, explants of superior origin demonstrated the highest outgrowth success rate and generated epithelia with greater epithelial thickness and number of cell layers, which may prove useful for transplantation purposes.
Immunogenicity and safety of yellow fever vaccination for 102 HIV-infected patients.

BACKGROUND Yellow fever vaccine (17DV) has been investigated incompletely in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients, and adequate immunogenicity and safety are of concern in this population. METHODS In the Swiss HIV Cohort Study, we identified 102 patients who received 17DV while they were HIV infected. We analyzed neutralization titers (NTs) after 17DV administration using the plaque reduction neutralization test. NTs of 1:>or=10 were defined as reactive, and those of 1:<10 were defined as nonreactive, which was considered to be nonprotective. The results were compared with data for HIV-uninfected individuals. Serious adverse events were defined as hospitalization or death within 6 weeks after receipt of 17DV. RESULTS At the time of 17DV administration, the median CD4 cell count was 537 cells/mm(3) (range, 11-1730 cells/mm(3)), and the HIV RNA level was undetectable in 41 of 102 HIV-infected patients. During the first year after vaccination, fewer HIV-infected patients (65 [83%] of 78; P = .01) than HIV-uninfected patients revealed reactive NTs, and their NTs were significantly lower (P < .001) than in HIV-uninfected individuals. Eleven patients with initially reactive NTs lost these reactive NTs <or= 5 years after vaccination. Higher NTs during the first year after vaccination were associated with undetectable HIV RNA levels, increasing CD4 cell count, and female sex. We found no serious adverse events after 17DV administration among HIV-infected patients. CONCLUSION Compared with HIV-uninfected individuals, HIV-infected patients respond to 17DV with lower reactive NTs, more often demonstrate nonprotective NTs, and may experience a more rapid decline in NTs during follow-up. Vaccination with 17DV appears to be safe in HIV-infected individuals who have high CD4 cell counts, although rate of serious adverse events of up to 3% cannot be excluded.
Tensile and Compressive Responses of Ceramic and Metallic Nanoparticle Reinforced Mg Composites

In the present study, room temperature mechanical properties of pure magnesium, Mg/ZrO2 and Mg/(ZrO2 + Cu) composites with various compositions are investigated. Results revealed that the use of hybrid (ZrO2 + Cu) reinforcements in Mg led to enhanced mechanical properties when compared to that of single reinforcement (ZrO2). Marginal reduction in mechanical properties of Mg/ZrO2 composites were observed mainly due to clustering of ZrO2 particles in Mg matrix and lack of matrix grain refinement. Addition of hybrid reinforcements led to grain size reduction and uniform distribution of hybrid reinforcements, globally and locally, in the hybrid composites. Macro- and micro- hardness, tensile strengths and compressive strengths were all significantly increased in the hybrid composites. With respect to unreinforced magnesium, failure strain was almost unchanged under tensile loading while it was reduced under compressive loading for both Mg/ZrO2 and Mg/(ZrO2 + Cu) composites.
Division of the Salmonella-Containing Vacuole and Depletion of Acidic Lysosomes in Salmonella-Infected Host Cells Are Novel Strategies of Salmonella enterica To Avoid Lysosomes

ABSTRACT Salmonella has evolved several strategies to counteract intracellular microbicidal agents like reactive oxygen and nitrogen species. However, it is not yet clear how Salmonella escapes lysosomal degradation. Some studies have demonstrated that Salmonella can inhibit phagolysosomal fusion, whereas other reports have shown that the Salmonella-containing vacuole (SCV) fuses/interacts with lysosomes. Here, we have addressed this issue from a different perspective by investigating if the infected host cell has a sufficient quantity of lysosomes to target Salmonella. Our results suggest that SCVs divide along with Salmonella, resulting in a single bacterium per SCV. As a consequence, the SCV load per cell increases with the division of Salmonella inside the host cell. This demands more investment from the host cell to counteract Salmonella. Interestingly, we observed that Salmonella infection decreases the number of acidic lysosomes inside the host cell both in vitro and in vivo. These events potentially result in a condition in which an infected cell is left with insufficient acidic lysosomes to target the increasing number of SCVs, which favors the survival and proliferation of Salmonella inside the host cell.
Block of T-Type Ca2+ Channels Is an Important Action of Succinimide Antiabsence Drugs

The role of calcium channel blockade in the antiepileptic action of ethosuximide is controversial, especially regarding the potency and efficacy of block. However, recent evidence obtained from transgenic animals and heterologous expression systems supports a major role of T-type calcium channels in both the generation of absence seizures and the action of ethosuximide in human absence epilepsy.
Safety of portable inoculation cabinets.

Laboratory work with pathogenic microorganisms should be performed in a ventilated safety cabinet. A minimum airflow of 0-5 metres per second through the working aperture has been recommended, with discharge of the exhaust air through a filter, then into the open air (Department of Health and Social Security, 1970). Such a unit must be permanently installed. There are possible advantages to a portable unit, in which the filter is replaced by a 'furnace', the sterile exhaust then being discharged into the laboratory (Brown, 1961). The performance of a commercially available cabinet of this type is reported here.
Moderating Effect of the Locus of Control on the Process of Turnover Intentions for High-Tech Personnel

This study examines the role of locus of control as a moderator on the process of turnover intentions. A theoretical model was proposed. In the model, the antecedents are job satisfaction and need for achievement, the outcome variable is turnover intentions, and the mediating constructs include work role centrality (WRC) and organizational commitment. The causal chain specifies the relationships between job satisfaction and turnover intentions, job satisfaction and organizational commitment, job satisfaction and WRC, need for achievement and WRC, WRC and organizational commitment, and organizational commitment and turnover intentions. The causal relationships are moderated by locus of control. The moderating effects were simultaneously examined using data of Taiwanese high-tech personnel. It has been confirmed that the influences of job satisfaction on turnover intentions, organizational commitment, and WRC are all stronger for internals than externals, the influence of organizational commitment on turnover intentions is also stronger for internals than externals, and the influence of need for achievement on WRC is stronger for externals than internals. Finally, the implications of the above findings are discussed.
Competitive Tension: The Awareness-Motivation-Capability Perspective

This paper investigates competitive tension, or the strain between a focal firm and a given rival that is likely to result in the firm taking action against the rival. Drawing on the awareness-motivation-capability perspective, we show how perceived competitive tension, as constructed from managers’ and industry stakeholders’ competitor assessments, is influenced by the independent and interactive effects of three factors: relative scale, rival’s attack volume, and rival’s capability to contest. Our results provide a new avenue for studying competitors and the relationship between competitor analysis and interfirm rivalry. In science, there is a steady state in which opposing forces hold each other in check until the build-up of tension turns the static relationship into dynamic interplay—the point when the steel cable snaps, the steam chamber’s pressure valve opens, or one psychological force overwhelms the other. In business practice, a similar phenomenon exists: when tension that one opponent imposes on another triggers rivalrous actions. Competitor analysis is central to strategy and organization research (Hitt, Ireland, & Hoskisson, 2005; Porter, 1980). Previous research has explored a number of important issues, including conjecture variation (Amit, Domowitz, & Fershtman, 1988), competitor identification (Porac & Thomas, 1990), and blind spots (Zajac & Bazerman, 1991), and has made advances in such areas as theoretical integration of competitor analysis and interfirm rivalry (Chen, 1996). Fundamental questions—such as who a focal firm’s competitors are, and how much competition the firm faces from each rival—have been implicitly or explicitly addressed by a variety
Analyzing the Effects of Aspect Properties on Model Composition Effort: A Replicated Study

Nowadays, model composition plays a central role on software engineering activities. For example, reconciling design models developed in parallel by different software development teams. It can be defined as a set of activities that should be performed over two input models, M A and M B , to produce an output composed model, M CM . Usually, the problem is that the M CM does not correspond to the output intended model. It can be explained by the fact that M A and M B conflict in some way, and the emerging conflicts must be detected and solved. However, these two activities tend to be critical as model composition is usually a cumbersome manual task. This paper presents the replication of an exploratory evaluation about the impact of aspect-orientation properties, such as quantification and obliviousness, on conflict resolution effort. The intuition is that improved modularity of aspect-oriented models may help to better localize composition conflicts. We investigate this issue through an application different from the one used in the previous study, in which three well-established composition algorithms (i.e., override , merge and union ) were used to evolve the design models. The goal was to analyze how the impact of varying quantification and obliviousness degrees are correlated with the rate of semantic and design conflicts. We identified some cases where quantification and obliviousness reduce conflict rate and the composition effort.
Information or Opinion? Media Bias as Product Differentiation

"Two aspects of media bias are important empirically. First, bias is persistent: it does not seem to disappear even when the media is under scrutiny. Second, bias is conflicting: different people often perceive bias in the same media outlet to be of opposite signs. We build a model in which both empirical characteristics of bias are observed in equilibrium. ""The key assumptions are that the information contained in the facts about a news event may not always be fully verifiable, and consumers have heterogeneous prior views ("ideologies") about the news event. Based on these ingredients of the model, we build a location model with entry to characterize firms' reports in equilibrium, and the nature of bias. When a news item comprises only fully verifiable facts, firms report these as such, so that there is no bias and the market looks like any market for information . When a news item comprises information that is mostly nonverifiable, however, then consumers may care both about opinion and editorials, and a firm's report will contain both these aspects-in which case the market resembles any differentiated product market . Thus, the appearance of bias is a result of equilibrium product differentiation when some facts are nonverifiable. ""We use the model to address several questions, including the impact of competition on bias, the incentives to report unpopular news, and the impact of owner ideology on bias. In general, competition does not lead to a reduction in bias unless this is accompanied by an increase in verifiability or a smaller dispersion of prior beliefs. " Copyright 2007, The Author(s) Journal Compilation (c) 2007 Blackwell Publishing.
Strategies for prevention—cervical cerclage

Transvaginal cervical cerclage was introduced as a treatment for cervical incompetence in 1951. Over the years, our understanding of this clinical entity has changed tremendously, which has implications for obstetric management. This review focuses on the obstetric management of women considered to be at high risk of preterm delivery due to cervical incompetence at different stages of pregnancy.
Task-invariant Brain Responses to the Social Value of Faces

In two fMRI experiments (n = 44) using tasks with different demands—approach–avoidance versus one-back recognition decisions—we measured the responses to the social value of faces. The face stimuli were produced by a parametric model of face evaluation that reduces multiple social evaluations to two orthogonal dimensions of valence and power [Oosterhof, N. N. , & Todorov, A. The functional basis of face evaluation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A. , 105, 11087–11092, 2008]. Independent of the task, the response within regions of the occipital, fusiform, and lateral prefrontal cortices was sensitive to the valence dimension, with larger responses to low-valence faces. Additionally, there were extensive quadratic responses in the fusiform gyri and dorsal amygdala, with larger responses to faces at the extremes of the face valence continuum than faces in the middle. In all these regions, participants' avoidance decisions correlated with brain responses, with faces more likely to be avoided evoking stronger responses. The findings suggest that both explicit and implicit face evaluation engage multiple brain regions involved in attention, affect, and decision making.
Clinical Evaluation of a New PCR Assay for Detection of Coxiella burnetii in Human Serum Samples

ABSTRACT A nested PCR method was developed for the detection ofCoxiella burnetii in human serum samples. Two pairs of oligonucleotide primers were designed to amplify a 438-bp fragment of the com1 gene encoding a 27-kDa outer membrane protein ofC. burnetii. The primers amplified the predicted fragments of 21 various strains of C. burnetii but did not react with DNA samples from other microorganisms. The 438-bp amplification products could be digested with restriction enzymes SspI and SalI. The utility of the nested PCR was evaluated by testing human serum samples. The com1 gene fragment was amplified from 135 (87%) of 155 indirect immunofluorescence test (IF)-positive serum samples and from 11 (11%) of 100 IF-negative serum samples. The nested PCR with primers targeted to the com1gene appeared to be a sensitive, specific, and useful method for the detection of C. burnetii in serum samples.
Enhanced Thermostability of Arabidopsis Rubisco Activase Improves Photosynthesis and Growth Rates under Moderate Heat Stress[OA]

Plant photosynthesis declines when the temperature exceeds its optimum range. Recent evidence indicates that the reduction in photosynthesis is linked to ribulose-1,5-bis-phosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco) deactivation due to the inhibition of Rubisco activase (RCA) under moderately elevated temperatures. To test the hypothesis that thermostable RCA can improve photosynthesis under elevated temperatures, we used gene shuffling technology to generate several Arabidopsis thaliana RCA1 (short isoform) variants exhibiting improved thermostability. Wild-type RCA1 and selected thermostable RCA1 variants were introduced into an Arabidopsis RCA deletion (Δrca) line. In a long-term growth test at either constant 26°C or daily 4-h 30°C exposure, the transgenic lines with the thermostable RCA1 variants exhibited higher photosynthetic rates, improved development patterns, higher biomass, and increased seed yields compared with the lines expressing wild-type RCA1 and a slight improvement compared with untransformed Arabidopsis plants. These results provide clear evidence that RCA is a major limiting factor in plant photosynthesis under moderately elevated temperatures and a potential target for genetic manipulation to improve crop plants productivity under heat stress conditions.
Optimal Production Planning for a Manufacturing System: An Approach Based on PA

In this paper, a manufacturing system composed by a single-product machine, a buffer and a stochastic demand is considered. A discrete flow model is adop ted to describe the system and to take into account the lost demands. The objective of this paper is to determine the optimal production planning taken in to account service level . This optimal production planning minimizing the s um of production, inventory, and lost sales costs. Perturbation analysis method is u sed for optimizing the proposed system. Using the discrete flow model, the trajectories of production rate, buffer level and lost demands are studied an d the perturbation analysis estimators are evaluated. The se estimators are shown to be unbiased and then the y are implanted in an optimization algorithm which de termines the optimal production planning in the presence of service level .