Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Successful control of resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa using antibiotic stewardship and infection control programs at a Chinese university hospital: a 6-year prospective study

Objective Pseudomonas aeruginosa is emerging as a highly multidrug-resistant (MDR) nosocomial pathogen. Data on the efficacy of infection control measures in endemic situations are lacking. We investigated the effect of antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) and infection control programs (ICPs) in controlling the resistance of P. aeruginosa at a tertiary hospital center. Methods Susceptibility and resistance were investigated using broth microdilution, as per the guidelines of the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute. Antibiotic use was restricted through AMS, which included a classification management system for antibiotic use. The ICPs included environmental cleaning and disinfection, hand hygiene, active surveillance of P. aeruginosa, and education about infection control. Results A total of 2,241 P. aeruginosa isolates were evaluated between 2012 and 2017. Sensitivity and resistance of the isolates to the antipseudomonal antimicrobials colistin and tigecycline were stable. The sensitivity and resistance to other antipseudomonal antimicrobials improved after 2014, after the AMS and ICPs were implemented in 2013. The use of alcohol-based hand gel significantly increased from 0.6 to 10.9 L per 1,000 patient-days (PD) during the study period (P=0.005). The incidence rates of extensively drug-resistant (XDR) and MDR P. aeruginosa showed a sustained decrease from 2013 (4.9 and 22%) to 2017 (1 and 15%), respectively. The yearly consumption of antimicrobial agents also showed a sustained and significant decrease from 45 defined daily doses (DDDs) per 1,000 PD to 38.15 DDDs per 1,000 PD (P=0.04). A significant correlation was found between the incidence rate of MDR P. aeruginosa and the consumption of antimicrobial agents (P=0.01). Conclusion Monitoring of P. aeruginosa, AMS, and comprehensive ICPs could be one of the best and effective methods to prevent the development of resistance in P. aeruginosa.
Composable security in relativistic quantum cryptography

Relativistic protocols have been proposed to overcome certain impossibility results in classical and quantum cryptography. In such a setting, one takes the location of honest players into account, and uses the signalling limit given by the speed of light to constraint the abilities of dishonest agents. However, composing such protocols with each other to construct new cryptographic resources is known to be insecure in some cases. To make general statements about such constructions, a composable framework for modelling cryptographic security in Minkowski space is required. Here, we introduce a framework for performing such a modular security analysis of classical and quantum cryptographic schemes in Minkowski space. As an application, we show that (1) fair and unbiased coin flipping can be constructed from a simple resource called channel with delay; (2) biased coin flipping, bit commitment and channel with delay through any classical, quantum or post-quantum relativistic protocols are all impossible without further setup assumptions; (3) it is impossible to securely increase the delay of a channel, given several short-delay channels as ingredients. Results (1) and (3) imply in particular the non-composability of existing relativistic bit commitment and coin flipping protocols.
Antibacterial potency and fluoride release of a glass ionomer restorative material containing different concentrations of natural and chemical products: An in-vitro comparative study

Background This study investigated the antibacterial efficacy against Streptococcus mutans and fluoride release of a conventional glass ionomer (GI) contained natural and chemical agents. Material and Methods Two hundred and ten GI specimens were divided into ten groups (n=21) according to the concentrations of the additives as; Propolis extract containing GI (Groups 1, 2, 3) with concentrations of 0.25%, 0.75% and 1.25% respectively, Miswak extract containing GI (Groups 4, 5, 6) and Chlorhexidine containing GI (Groups 7, 8, 9) with the same concentrations. The prepared specimens were subjected to antimicrobial activity by well diffusion, bacterial adherence, and fluoride release (from 2 to 72 hours) assessments. Results A higher statistically significant antibacterial activity was found in (Groups 2, 3) compared to (Groups 8, 9), while (Groups 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10) no antibacterial efficacy was reported. For (Groups 2, 3) had a higher statistically significant anti-adherence effect compared to the other tested groups. Enhanced ascending increase in fluoride release was observed for (Groups 3, 4) compared to (GI). Conclusions The increased concentration of propolis extract had a synergistic effect on the antimicrobial activity of the tested GI. Additive concentrations of 0.25% Miswak and 1.25% propolis could enhance the fluoride-releasing ability of the tested GI. Key words:Propolis, miswak, chlorhexidine, glass ionomer, fluoride.
Hyperfine Structure Measurements of Neutral Manganese with Fourier Transform Spectroscopy

We report experimental hyperfine structure constants of levels in the neutral manganese atom, measured using Fourier transform spectroscopy of hollow cathode discharges. In total, 208 spectral lines of astrophysical interest have been analyzed to obtain hyperfine structure constants for 106 levels in Mn I, of which 67 have no previous hyperfine structure measurements. The uncertainties in the magnetic dipole constants, A, are between 1 × 10-4 and 5 × 10-4 cm-1. Hyperfine structure constants for an additional 18 levels compiled from the literature are also given.
Le Page’s theoretical and applied legacy in sociolinguistics and creole studies

This paper reviews Robert B. Le Page’s contributions to creole linguistics, sociolinguistics, and applied linguistics, combining a critical and academic viewpoint with the personal perspective of a sociolinguist whose career and work have been deeply influenced by Le Page. The conclusion reflects on how linguists and educators can ideally build on Le Page’s legacy. Following his example, we can make our most useful contributions by continuing to make sociolinguistic research bear on curricula in schools and universities. Meanwhile, the field of Caribbean sociolinguistics continues to offer vast opportunity for original empirical research and theoretical thinking that should develop and supersede Le Page’s most lasting contribution in this area, the Acts of Identity model.
Visual Cortex Limits Pop-Out in the Superior Colliculus of Awake Mice

Abstract We detect objects more readily if they differ from their surroundings in motion, color, or texture. This increased saliency is thought to be related to increased responses in the visual cortex. The superior colliculus is another brain area involved in vision and especially in directing gaze and attention. In this study, we show that differences in texture orientation also increase responses in the superficial layers of the superior colliculus that receive retinal and cortical input. We found that gratings evoke more neural response when surrounded by orthogonal gratings than when surrounded by parallel gratings, particularly in the awake mouse. This pop‐out is not originating from the visual cortex, and silencing visual cortex increased the relative difference in response. A model shows that this can result from retinotopically matched excitation from visual cortex to the superior colliculus. We suggest that the perceptual saliency of a stimulus differing from its surround in a low‐level feature like grating orientation could depend on visual processing in the superior colliculus.
Comparison of les and rans predictions with experimental results of the fan of a turbofan

This paper aims at validating LES capability if applied to an actual turbofan configu-ration at nominal regime, if compared to RANS and experimental measurements. For assessment, averaged radial profiles are compared in 3 axial planes – before the stage, between the rotor blade and stator vanes, and downstream of the stator. RANS and LES results are in very good agreement, but found to be shifted compared to the measurements and for some quantities. An analysis of the unsteady axial velocity is then proposed, in-vestigating root-mean square of axial velocity. Tip-leakage, as well as two boundary layer transitions are evidenced in the rotor. An estimation of the integral turbulent timescale is finally proposed in the whole domain, using autocorrelation of the axial velocity. Suction-side horseshoe vortices are found to be very coherent, as well as the stator corner vortices. Regions of large timescale are moreover evidenced between rotor and stator wakes.
PCH framework for IP runtime security verification

Untrusted third-party vendors and manufacturers have raised security concerns in hardware supply chain. Among all existing solutions, formal verification methods provide powerful solutions in detection malicious behaviors at the pre-silicon stage. However, little work have been done towards built-in hardware runtime verification at the post-silicon stage. In this paper, a runtime formal verification framework is proposed to evaluate the trust of hardware during its execution. This framework combines the symbolic execution and SAT solving methods to validate the user defined properties. The proposed framework has been demonstrated on an FPGA platform using an SoC design with untrusted IPs. The experimentation results show that the proposed approach can provide high-level security assurance for hardware at runtime.
Project Title: Relationship between milk protein percentage and reproductive performance in seasonal calving herds

The InCalf Project included a large, prospective, observational field study that described the reproductive performance of 29,462 dairy cows in 168 herds throughout Australia. Milk protein percentage was identified as one of 6 factors which had a moderate to large effect on herd reproductive performance. A subset of the original database was used and then refined to only include Holstein-Friesian cows with between 1 and 5 milk production records during the first 120 days of lactation in seasonal-calving herds which carried out AI for at least the first 6 weeks of the mating period. This subset comprised of 8,795 cows in 66 herds. Cows in the subset were categorised into quartiles based on milk protein percentage (low: 2.36 to 2.99 %; med-low: 3.00 to 3.14 %; medhigh: 3.15 to 3.29 %; and high 3.30 to 4.59 %) and 5 groups based on interval from calving to mating start date (>12 weeks; 9-12 weeks; 6-9 weeks; 3-6 weeks; 0.05) between quartile of milk protein percent. The association between milk protein percentage and reproductive performance was due, in part, to the prevalence of non-cycling cows with consequent effects on submission rate in the first 3 weeks of AI. In conclusion, late calving cows with low milk protein percentage were at greatest risk of not being submitted for AI in the first 3 weeks of mating and not being in-calf within 6 weeks of the start of mating.
Examining the patterns and dynamics of species abundance distributions in succession of forest communities by model selection

There are a few common species and many rare species in a biological community or a multi-species collection in given space and time. This hollow distribution curve is called species abundance distribution (SAD). Few studies have examined the patterns and dynamics of SADs during the succession of forest communities by model selection. This study explored whether the communities in different successional stages followed different SAD models and whether there existed a best SAD model to reveal their intrinsic quantitative features of structure and dynamics in succession. The abundance (the number of individuals) of each vascular plant was surveyed by quadrat sampling method from the tree, shrub and herb layers in two typical communities (i.e., the evergreen needle- and broad-leaved mixed forest and the monsoon evergreen broad-leaved forest) in southern subtropical Dinghushan Biosphere Reserve, South China. The sites of two forest communities in different successional stages are both 1 ha in area. We collected seven widely representative SAD models with obviously different function forms and transformed them into the same octave (log2) scale. These models are simultaneously confronted with eight datasets from four layers of two communities, and their goodness-of-fits to the data were evaluated by the chi-squared test, the adjusted coefficient of determination and the information criteria. The results indicated that: (1) the logCauchy model followed all the datasets and was the best among seven models; (2) the fitness of each model to the data was not directly related to the successional stage of forest community; (3) according to the SAD curves predicted by the best model (i.e., the logCauchy), the proportion of rare species decreased but that of common ones increased in the upper layers with succession, while the reverse was true in the lower layers; and (4) the difference of the SADs increased between the upper and the lower layers with succession. We concluded that the logCauchy model had the widest applicability in describing the SADs, and could best mirror the SAD patterns and dynamics of communities and their different layers in the succession of forests. The logCauchy-modeled SADs can quantitatively guide the construction of ecological forests and the restoration of degraded vegetation.
Reward Estimation for Variance Reduction in Deep Reinforcement Learning

Reinforcement Learning (RL) agents require the specification of a reward signal for learning behaviours. However, introduction of corrupt or stochastic rewards can yield high variance in learning. Such corruption may be a direct result of goal misspecification, randomness in the reward signal, or correlation of the reward with external factors that are not known to the agent. Corruption or stochasticity of the reward signal can be especially problematic in robotics, where goal specification can be particularly difficult for complex tasks. While many variance reduction techniques have been studied to improve the robustness of the RL process, handling such stochastic or corrupted reward structures remains difficult. As an alternative for handling this scenario in model-free RL methods, we suggest using an estimator for both rewards and value functions. We demonstrate that this improves performance under corrupted stochastic rewards in both the tabular and non-linear function approximation settings for a variety of noise types and environments. The use of reward estimation is a robust and easy-to-implement improvement for handling corrupted reward signals in model-free RL.
Accurate laboratory wavelengths of some ultraviolet lines of Cr, Zn and Ni relevant to time variations of the fine structure constant

The quality of astronomical spectroscopic data now available is so high that interpretation and analysis are often limited by the uncertainties of the laboratory data base. In particular, the limit with which space–time variations in the fine structure constant α can be constrained using quasar spectra depends on the availability of more accurate laboratory rest wavelengths. We recently measured some transitions in magnesium by high-resolution Fourier transform spectroscopy for this purpose, and we now report measurements on some ultraviolet resonance lines of Zn ii (2062 and 2026 A), Cr ii (2066, 2062 and 2056 A) and Ni ii (1751, 1741, 1709 and 1703 A). Apart from the last line, which is very weak, the uncertainty of these measurements is 0.002 cm−1 (0.08 ma) for the lines around 2000 A and 0.004 cm−1 (0.12 ma) for the lines around 1700 A.
Time Motion and Notational Analysis of 21 Point and 15 Point Badminton Match Play

The purpose of this study was to investigate and compare the time motion and notational variables of 21 point singles' badminton play and of the old scoring system (15 points for males and 11 for females). Sixteen (8 males and 8 females) state-level badminton players with a mean age of 15.7 ± 1.2 years participated in this study. They were initially tested using incremental treadmill test following Bruce protocol to obtain individual maximum oxygen consumption (VO2max) value. VO2max of the male and female participants were 47.1 ± 5.2 ml·kg-1·min-1 and 39.8 ± 6.2 ml·kg-1·min-1 respectively. On a separate day, they played a simulated badminton match using 21 points (Trial 1) and 15 / 11 points (Trial 2) scoring system. During the trials, a video camera was used for time-motion and notational analysis throughout the match. The statistical analysis showed that total number of shots and rallies in a match were the only variables which were significantly higher in the 15 points compared to 21 points in men's singles match play (331.2 ± 51.6 vs 463.5 ± 24.7 (total shots) and 70.2 ± 1.2 vs 97 ± 6.6 (total rallies) respectively). Even though female players had a greater point difference (10 points) in the new scoring system compared to the male counterparts, there were no significant differences in all parameters measured. The patterns of play which were analyzed on the basis of notational variables were also similar in both scoring systems. However, some differences in the time motion and notational analysis were found between genders suggesting that there should be different training regimens for men and women in their respective disciplines due to greater intensity, speed of play and the longer rally lengths in men's singles. Therefore, it is recommended that players should impart more emphasis in the development and improvement of the skills/techniques rather than making any drastic changes to the training programme to develop their physical fitness to meet the demands of the match with the 21 point scoring system.
A window beneath the skin: how computed tomography assessment of body composition can assist in the identification of hidden wasting conditions in oncology that profoundly impact outcomes

Advancements in image-based technologies and body composition research over the past decade has led to increased understanding of the importance of muscle abnormalities, such as low muscle mass (sarcopenia), and more recently low muscle attenuation (MA), as important prognostic indicators of unfavourable outcomes in patients with cancer. Muscle abnormalities can be highly prevalent in patients with cancer (ranging between 10 and 90 %), depending on the cohort under investigation and diagnostic criteria used. Importantly, both low muscle mass and low MA have been associated with poorer tolerance to chemotherapy, increased risk of post-operative infectious and non-infectious complications, increased length of hospital stay and poorer survival in patients with cancer. Studies have shown that systemic antineoplastic treatment can exacerbate losses in muscle mass and MA, with reported loss of skeletal muscle between 3 and 5 % per 100 d, which are increased exponentially with progressive disease and proximity to death. At present, no effective medical intervention to improve muscle mass and MA exists. Most research to date has focused on treating muscle depletion as part of the cachexia syndrome using nutritional, exercise and pharmacological interventions; however, these single-agent therapies have not provided promising results. Rehabilitation care to modify body composition, either increasing muscle mass and/or MA should be conducted, and its respective impact on oncology outcomes explored. Although the optimal timing and treatment strategy for preventing or delaying the development of muscle abnormalities are yet to be determined, multimodal interventions initiated early in the disease trajectory appear to hold the most promise.
Acrocomia aculeata oil: Beneficial effects on cyclophosphamide‐induced reproductive toxicity in male rats

This study aimed to evaluate the effects of the extracted oil of Acrocomia aculeata pulp in preventing or mitigating the reproductive toxicity induced by cyclophosphamide (CP) in male rats. Adult male rats were segregated into seven groups that received vehicle, 100 mg/kg/day of CP, or 10 mg/kg/day of β‐carotene or 3 or 30 mg/kg/day of A. aculeata oil co‐administered with CP. A. aculeata oil exhibited a high content of β‐carotene. CP treatment induced reproductive toxicity in the animals, as it changed the reproductive organs weight, hormone levels, sperm counts and testicular histology. In contrast, co‐administration of A. aculeata improved CP‐induced alterations in these parameters. A. aculeata oil also increased the gene Ckit expression and normalised the antioxidant enzymes levels which were changed by CP. The A. aculeata oil is capable of protecting the male reproductive system from the adverse effects of CP, possibly by acting as an antioxidant and increasing the Ckit gene expression.
End-to-End Polyphonic Sound Event Detection Using Convolutional Recurrent Neural Networks with Learned Time-Frequency Representation Input

Sound event detection systems typically consist of two stages: extracting hand-crafted features from the raw audio waveform, and learning a mapping between these features and the target sound events using a classifier. Recently, the focus of sound event detection research has been mostly shifted to the latter stage using standard features such as mel spectrogram as the input for classifiers such as deep neural networks. In this work, we utilize end-to-end approach and propose to combine these two stages in a single deep neural network classifier. The feature extraction over the raw waveform is conducted by a feedforward layer block, whose parameters are initialized to extract the time-frequency representations. The feature extraction parameters are updated during training, resulting with a representation that is optimized for the specific task. This feature extraction block is followed by (and jointly trained with) a convolutional recurrent network, which has recently given state-of-the-art results in many sound recognition tasks. The proposed system does not outperform a convolutional recurrent network with fixed hand-crafted features. The final magnitude spectrum characteristics of the feature extraction block parameters indicate that the most relevant information for the given task is contained in 0 – 3 kHz frequency range, and this is also supported by the empirical results on the SED performance.