Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Impact of Culturing the Organ Preservation Fluid on Solid Organ Transplantation: A Prospective Multicenter Cohort Study

Abstract Background We analyzed the prevalence, etiology, and risk factors of culture-positive preservation fluid and their impact on the management of solid organ transplant recipients. Methods From July 2015 to March 2017, 622 episodes of adult solid organ transplants at 7 university hospitals in Spain were prospectively included in the study. Results The prevalence of culture-positive preservation fluid was 62.5% (389/622). Nevertheless, in only 25.2% (98/389) of the cases were the isolates considered “high risk” for pathogenicity. After applying a multivariate regression analysis, advanced donor age was the main associated factor for having culture-positive preservation fluid for high-risk microorganisms. Preemptive antibiotic therapy was given to 19.8% (77/389) of the cases. The incidence rate of preservation fluid–related infection was 1.3% (5 recipients); none of these patients had received preemptive therapy. Solid organ transplant (SOT) recipients with high-risk culture-positive preservation fluid receiving preemptive antibiotic therapy presented both a lower cumulative incidence of infection and a lower rate of acute rejection and graft loss compared with those who did not have high-risk culture-positive preservation fluid. After adjusting for age, sex, type of transplant, and prior graft rejection, preemptive antibiotic therapy remained a significant protective factor for 90-day infection. Conclusions The routine culture of preservation fluid may be considered a tool that provides information about the contamination of the transplanted organ. Preemptive therapy for SOT recipients with high-risk culture-positive preservation fluid may be useful to avoid preservation fluid–related infections and improve the outcomes of infection, graft loss, and graft rejection in transplant patients.
Sex-dependent and sex-independent brain resting-state functional connectivity in children with autism spectrum disorder

Background Males are more likely to suffer from autism spectrum disorder (ASD) than females. As to whether females with ASD have similar brain alterations remain an open question. The current study aimed to examine sex-dependent as well as sex-independent alterations in resting-state functional connectivity in individuals with ASD compared with typically developing (TD) individuals. Method Resting-state functional MRI data were acquired from the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (ABIDE). Subjects between 6 to 20 years of age were included for analysis. After matching the intelligence quotient between groups for each dataset, and removing subjects due to excessive head motion, the resulting effective sample contained 28 females with ASD, 49 TD females, 129 males with ASD, and 141 TD males, with a two (diagnosis) by two (sex) design. Functional connectivity among 153 regions of interest (ROIs) comprising the whole brain was computed. Two by two analysis of variance was used to identify connectivity that showed diagnosis by sex interaction or main effects of diagnosis. Results The main effects of diagnosis were found mainly between visual cortex and other brain regions, indicating sex-independent connectivity alterations. We also observed two connections whose connectivity showed diagnosis by sex interaction between the precuneus and medial cerebellum as well as the precunes and dorsal frontal cortex. While males with ASD showed higher connectivity in these connections compared with TD males, females with ASD had lower connectivity than their counterparts. Conclusions Both sex-dependent and sex-independent functional connectivity alterations are present in ASD.
In vitro activity of LY146032 alone and in combination with other antibiotics against gram-positive bacteria

The antibacterial activity of LY146032 alone and in combination with other drugs was assayed against gram-positive isolates. Synergism was found when LY146032 was combined with netilmicin, amikacin, imipenem, and fosfomycin by both checkerboard and time-kill tests. Indifference predominated when LY146032 was combined with teicoplanin, vancomycin, and rifampin. Under no circumstances and with no combinations was an antagonistic effect detected.
Central limit theorem for stationary linear processes

We establish the central limit theorem for linear processes with dependent innovations including martingales and mixingale type of assumptions as defined in McLeish [Ann. Probab. 5 (1977) 616-621] and motivated by Gordin [Soviet Math. Dokl. 10 (1969) 1174-1176]. In doing so we shall preserve the generality of the coefficients, including the long range dependence case, and we shall express the variance of partial sums in a form easy to apply. Ergodicity is not required.
How Far Is the Human Hand ? A Review on Anthropomorphic Robotic End-effectors

In this paper, some considerations about the state of the art and the current trends in the design and control of “robot hands” are reported and discussed. The authors, on the basis of a long research activity for the development of robotic end-effectors and related technologies, address what they consider key-points for the development of “dextrous hands”, being related this term not only to kinematics properties or aesthetic appearance, but also to sensory system, control strategies, integration with the carrying arm and so on. In particular, some indices are defined as an attempt to present a clear comparison of the different “robot hands” presented in the literature. The indices refer to the degree of anthropomorphism, that is the resemblance with the human hand concerning aspect and mechanical structure, and to the level of dexterity, resultant from the kinematic configuration, the sensory apparatus and the control system.
Engaging with nature through the dwelling practices in garden landscapes

ABSTRACT Based on an empirical study in Copenhagen, Denmark, this article investigates whether and how a more diverse nature can be integrated in the dwelling practices of garden owners and users. Is concern for biodiversity part of the engagements inherent in gardening practices? And are such engagements integrated in the embodied competences of garden owners? Drawing on and discussing the theoretical approaches applied in affordance theory, Tim Ingold’s dwelling perspective, relational geography and practice theory, the article analyses the affordances and affects that are maintained in common gardening practices and how these practices sustain or hinder the integration of a broader variety of species in suburban gardens. The study finds that concern for biodiversity and a deeper care for wildlife do not appear to play a significant role in gardening practices. But concern for wildlife and biodiversity does have a latent presence among the affects, conceptions and ideals that are – or potentially could be – enacted in the constitution of gardens landscapes. Based on its empirical findings and theoretical discussions, the article furthermore suggests that we need to consider how secondary experiences and media representations are an integral part of the co-constitution of landscape and dwelling.
Functional, chemical genomic, and super-enhancer screening identify sensitivity to cyclin D1/CDK4 pathway inhibition in Ewing sarcoma

Ewing sarcoma is an aggressive bone and soft tissue tumor in children and adolescents, with treatment remaining a clinical challenge. This disease is mediated by somatic chromosomal translocations of the EWS gene and a gene encoding an ETS transcription factor, most commonly, FLI1. While direct targeting of aberrant transcription factors remains a pharmacological challenge, identification of dependencies incurred by EWS/FLI1 expression would offer a new therapeutic avenue. We used a combination of super-enhancer profiling, near-whole genome shRNA-based and small-molecule screening to identify cyclin D1 and CDK4 as Ewing sarcoma-selective dependencies. We revealed that super-enhancers mark Ewing sarcoma specific expression signatures and EWS/FLI1 target genes in human Ewing sarcoma cell lines. Particularly, a super-enhancer regulates cyclin D1 and promotes its expression in Ewing sarcoma. We demonstrated that Ewing sarcoma cells require CDK4 and cyclin D1 for survival and anchorage-independent growth. Additionally, pharmacologic inhibition of CDK4 with selective CDK4/6 inhibitors led to cytostasis and cell death of Ewing sarcoma cell lines in vitro and growth delay in an in vivo Ewing sarcoma xenograft model. These results demonstrated a dependency in Ewing sarcoma on CDK4 and cyclin D1 and support exploration of CDK4/6 inhibitors as a therapeutic approach for patients with this disease.
Economic development of community by entrepreneurship: an investigation of the entrepreneurial intent and the institutional support to the local community in Al-Kharj region

The purpose of the present study is twofold, to investigate the entrepreneurial intent of the university students and to chalk out with the factors (educational) to be considered for institutional support by the university under study. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) questionnaire was adopted and administered along with a separate sixteen items sheet containng the items pertaining to the institutional suppot mechanisms. Overall, 370 responses were collected from both male & female students. The Data was analysed by applying correlations, linear and hierarchical regression and exploratory factor analysis (EFA). The results of the study reaffirm the theory of planned behaviour in Saudi context with a significant variance of 43.2 percent in explaining students' entrepreneurial intent. However, in the present case it is found that both attitude and perceived behavioral control are the significant predictors of entrepreneurial intent. Moreover, the subjective norm did not significantly predict the entrepreneurial intent. The findings also suggest a four steps generic model of institutional educational support for entrepreneurial nurturement to the local community.
Organization in the cell nucleus: divalent cations modulate the distribution of condensed and diffuse chromatin

The organization of rat liver nuclei in vitro depends on the ionic milieu. Turbidity measurements of nuclear suspensions in the presence of varying concentrations of divalent cations have been correlated with nuclear ultrastructure. The concentration of MgCl2 (2 mM) at which turbidity of nuclear suspensions is maximal and chromatin condensation appears most extensive is the same concentration that reportedly (Gottesfeld et al., 1974, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 71:2193-2197) precipitates "inactive" chromatin. Thus, a mechanism is suggested by which chromatin activity and ultrastructural organization within the nucleus may be mediated. The nuclear organizational changes attendant upon the decrease in divalent cation concentration were not entirely reversible.
Limited feedback design for MIMO-relay assisted cellular networks with beamforming

We consider a MIMO relay downlink system using beamforming techniques with quantized channel state information (CSI) feedback from two hop channels. With this scheme, each remote user feeds back its quantized CSI to the relay, and the relay sends the quantized beamforming vectors to the base station (BS). An upper bound on the rate loss due to feedback quantization is first characterized. Then, a strategy of scaling the quantization accuracy of both hop links in order to maintain the rate loss within a predetermined gap for growing SNRs is proposed. It is revealed that the numbers of feedback bits of both links should scale linearly with the transmit power at the relay, while the number of feedback bits from the relay to the BS needs to grow with the transmit power at the BS.
Tracking Seasonal Fluctuations in Land Water Storage Using Global Models and GRACE Satellites

Seasonal water storage fluctuations are critical for evaluating water scarcity linked to climate forcing and human intervention. Here we compare seasonal changes in land total water storage anomalies using seven global hydrologic and land surface models (WGHM, PCR‐GLOBWB, and five GLDAS models) to GRACE satellite data in 183 river basins globally. This work builds on previous analysis that focused on total water storage anomaly trends. Results show that most models underestimate seasonal water storage amplitudes in tropical and (semi)arid basins and land surface models generally overestimate amplitudes in northern basins. Some models (CLM‐5.0 and PCR‐GLOBWB) agree better with GRACE than others. Causes of model‐GRACE discrepancies are attributed to missing storage compartments (e.g., surface water and/or groundwater) and underestimation of modeled storage capacities in tropical basins and to variations in modeled fluxes in northern basins. This study underscores the importance of considering water storage, in addition to water fluxes, to improve global models.
The Economic Burden of Malaria on Households and the Health System in Enugu State Southeast Nigeria

Background Malaria is the number one public health problem in Nigeria, responsible for about 30% of deaths in under-fives and 25% of deaths in infants and 11% maternal mortality. This study estimated the economic burden of malaria in Nigeria using the cost of illness approach. Methods A cross-sectional study was undertaken in two malaria holo-endemic communities in Nigeria, involving both community and hospital based surveys. A random sample of 500 households was interviewed using interviewer administered questionnaire. In addition, 125 exit interviews for inpatient department stays (IPD) and outpatient department visits (OPD) were conducted and these were complemented with data abstraction from 125 patient records. Results From the household survey, over half of the households (57.6%) had an episode of malaria within one month to the date of the interview. The average household expenditure per case was 12.57US$ and 23.20US$ for OPD and IPD respectively. Indirect consumer costs of treatment were higher than direct consumer medical costs. From a health system perspective, the recurrent provider costs per case was 30.42 US$ and 48.02 US$ for OPD and IPD while non recurrent provider costs were 133.07US$ and 1857.15US$ for OPD and IPD. The mode of payment was mainly through out-of-pocket spending (OOPS). Conclusion Private expenditure on treatment of malaria constitutes a high economic burden to households and to the health system. Removal of user fees and interventions that will decrease the use of OOPS for treatment of malaria will significantly decrease the economic burden of malaria to both households and the health system.
Foreign language teachers’ intercultural competence and legitimacy during an international teaching
 experience

Given the increase in international mobility opportunities for educators, analyzing how the experience of studying and teaching abroad benefits teachers is of utmost importance in a globalized educational system. Using Deardorff’s (2009) model of intercultural competence (IC), this study explores how a group of recently graduated Canadian foreign language teachers benefitted from a four-month international teaching experience (ITE). The following questions guided this investigation: In which ways did the ITE contribute to the participants’ IC development? How did the ITE affect the participants’ professional identity and sense of legitimacy? Data were collected, triangulated, and interpreted using thematic content data analysis. This study provides illustrations of the participants’ IC development across all components on Deardorff’s IC model, showing that properly scaffolded ITEs afforded the participants opportunities to develop their IC. The findings also show that the ITE of living and teaching abroad positively impacted their professional identity and feeling of legitimacy.
Crowdfunding Entrepreneurial or Humanitarian Needs? The Influence of Signals and Biases on Decisions

Crowdfunding platforms have become a valid alternative for raising funds for both entrepreneurial and humanitarian projects. The aim of our study is to investigate the factors influencing the likelihood of funding success across these two project types. Building on the charitable giving and entrepreneurial finance literature streams, we employ the lenses of signaling theory and behavioral decision making to hypothesize how the impact of certain factors varies contingent on the nature of the project, from a humanitarian plea to an entrepreneurial venture. We conduct our investigation on Kiva and find that gender bias and risk signals exhibit a stronger impact on the likelihood of funding success for entrepreneurial projects, whereas humanitarian projects are more affected by home bias. By reconciling prior inconsistencies in crowdfunding research and bringing forward new ideas, we aim to support the vigorous growth of an emergent phenomenon that is of growing social and economic importance.
Are They on the Same Wavelength? Industry Professionals’ and Students’ Perceptions of Online Graduate Degree Programs in Hospitality and Tourism

ABSTRACT The topic of graduate study in hospitality, particularly in an online format, deserves to be studied further to determine additional insights into how to make graduate programs in hospitality and tourism relevant in the 21st century and to reveal current perceptions of online degree options. Therefore, this research study sought to find out more about what undergraduate students and industry professionals, who are potential graduate students, currently think about online hospitality and tourism graduate programs. A survey of tourism professionals and hospitality students found differences between the perceptions of the two groups. Industry professionals favored opportunities to complete a program readily as a part-time student and desired research methods courses, whereas students considered the ability to complete a program in one year as a full-time student and preparation toward a doctoral degree more important. Implications for educational programs in hospitality programs are discussed.
Ustilago maydis: Dissecting the Molecular Interface between Pathogen and Plant

Fungal diseases of plants represent one of the most eminent threats to agriculture. Given the food needs of a growing world population and that more and more crops are devoted to fuel production, the necessity to develop crops with better resistance to disease is increasing. To accomplish this, the mechanisms that plant pathogenic fungi use to colonize plants need to be elucidated. As of now, there are only few examples/models in which this can be done on a functional, genome-wide level, taking into account both the pathogen and its host plant [1]. The fungus Ustilago maydis (U. maydis) is one of these examples. It is a member of the smut fungi: a large group of parasites infecting mostly grasses, including several important crop plants such as maize (Figure 1B), wheat, barley, and sugar cane. Smut fungi are biotrophs, i.e., parasites that need the living host plant to complete their sexual life cycle [2], [3]. They do not establish prominent feeding structures like the related, haustoria-forming rust fungi. During penetration, the host plasma membrane invaginates and completely encases the intracellular hyphae (Figure 1A), establishing an extended interaction zone [4] mediating the exchange of molecules between fungus and host. In contrast to most smut fungi that cause a systemic infection, remaining symptomless until the plant flowers, U. maydis can infect all above-ground parts of the maize plant but fails to spread systemically. U. maydis induces local tumors in which spores develop (Figure 1B) – a unique feature that allows detection of symptoms in corn seedlings less than a week after syringe infection with high levels of inoculum. This, together with the toolbox developed for reverse genetics, cell biology, and functional studies, has contributed to its status as a model for biotrophic basidiomycete fungi [5]. Here the current level of our understanding of the elaborate molecular crosstalk between U. maydis and its host plant will be discussed. Figure 1 Disease symptoms and schematic presentation of effector cocktail use in different maize organs and tissues infected by U. maydis.
A Predictable Execution Model for COTS-Based Embedded Systems

Building safety-critical real-time systems out of inexpensive, non-real-time, COTS components is challenging. Although COTS components generally offer high performance, they can occasionally incur significant timing delays. To prevent this, we propose controlling the operating point of each shared resource (like the cache, memory, and interconnection buses) to maintain it below its saturation limit. This is necessary because the low-level arbiters of these shared resources are not typically designed to provide real-time guarantees. In this work, we introduce a novel system execution model, the Predictable Execution Model (PREM), which, in contrast to the standard COTS execution model, coschedules at a high level all active components in the system, such as CPU cores and I/O peripherals. In order to permit predictable, system-wide execution, we argue that real-time embedded applications should be compiled according to a new set of rules dictated by PREM. To experimentally validate our theory, we developed a COTS-based PREM testbed and modified the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure to produce PREM-compatible executables.
Is All that Talk Just Noise? The Information Content of Internet Stock Message Boards

Financial press reports claim that Internet stock message boards can move markets. We study the effect of more than 1.5 million messages posted on Yahooe Finance and Raging Bull about the 45 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Dow Jones Internet Index. Bullishness is measured using computational linguistics methods. "Wall Street Journal" news stories are used as controls. We find that stock messages help predict market volatility. Their effect on stock returns is statistically significant but economically small. Consistent with Harris and Raviv (1993) , disagreement among the posted messages is associated with increased trading volume. Copyright 2004 by The American Finance Association.
The Occupational Exposure Limit for Fluid Aerosol Generated in Metalworking Operations: Limitations and Recommendations

The aim of this review was to assess current knowledge related to the occupational exposure limit (OEL) for fluid aerosols including either mineral or chemical oil that are generated in metalworking operations, and to discuss whether their OEL can be appropriately used to prevent several health risks that may vary among metalworking fluid (MWF) types. The OEL (time-weighted average; 5 mg/m3, short-term exposure limit ; 15 mg/m3) has been applied to MWF aerosols without consideration of different fluid aerosol-size fractions. The OEL, is also based on the assumption that there are no significant differences in risk among fluid types, which may be contentious. Particularly, the health risks from exposure to water-soluble fluids may not have been sufficiently considered. Although adoption of The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health's recommended exposure limit for MWF aerosol (0.5 mg/m3) would be an effective step towards minimizing and evaluating the upper respiratory irritation that may be caused by neat or diluted MWF, this would fail to address the hazards (e.g., asthma and hypersensitivity pneumonitis) caused by microbial contaminants generated only by the use of water-soluble fluids. The absence of an OEL for the water-soluble fluids used in approximately 80-90 % of all applicants may result in limitations of the protection from health risks caused by exposure to those fluids.