Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
MOLECULAR AND PHENOTYPIC CHARACTERIZATION OF CARBAPENEM RESISTANCE AND EXTENDED SPECTRUM BETA-LACTAMASES AMONG URINARY ESCHERICHIA COLI ISOLATES

Uropathogenic Escherichia coli isolates are responsible for around 90% of urinary tract infections (UTIs) and are becoming morecommonly associated with extended-spectrum beta-lactamases (ESBL) and carbapenemase production, leading to failure of antimicrobial treatment, with resultant increases in the rates of morbidity and mortality. The aims of this study were to determine the prevalence of ESBL and carbapenemase producing E. coli from UTI patients, to determine their antibiotic susceptibility, characterize genes responsible for ESBL and carbapenem resistance and to identify the co-associations between these two types of genes. One hundred clinical isolates of E. coli were collected from patients suffering from UTIs from King Abdallah University Teaching Hospital, Jordan. Antimicrobial susceptibility was performed using the Kirby Bauer disk diffusion method and phenotypic identification of ESBLs and carbapenemase production was confirmed by the double disk synergy test and the modified Hodge test, respectively. Conventional and multiplex PCR were conducted for detection of ESBL and carbapenem resistance genes, respectively. The highest rates of resistance were observed against ampicillin (85%), followed by sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim (73%), ceftriaxone (58%), cefotaxime (57%), ciprofloxacin (53%), and ceftizoxime (50%). All isolates were sensitive to imipenem and meropenem. Furthermore, 96% of the isolates were sensitive to ertapenem, 84% to tigecycline, 79% to nitrofurantoin, 77% to doripenem, 51% to ceftazidime, 48% to aztreonam and levofloxacin each, and 41% to amoxicillin/clavulanic acid. The prevalence of ESBL and carbapenemase producers was 54% and 23%, respectively. Aztreonam, alone identified the most ESBL isolates, while ertapenem, alone identified the most carbapenemase isolates. Having a carbapenemase phenotype was associated with resistance to most antimicrobial agents used, but not imipenem and meropenem. The co-expression of ESBLs and carbapenemases was seen among20% of the isolates. The blaTEM gene was the most prevalent (69%), followed by blaCTX (55%), blaNDM (53%), blaVIM (41%), and blaSHV (1%). None of the isolates harbored blaKPC. A statistically significant association of resistance genes was observed between blaTEM and blaVIM, as 41% of E. coli isolates had both blaTEM and blaVIM. The ESBL phenotype was correlated with the presence of blaTEM and blaCTX genes. BlaCTX gene was significantly associated with resistance to almost all cephalosporins, levofloxacin, ciprofloxacin, and doripenem, and the presence of carbapenemase phenotype. Overall, a high prevalence of blaTEM type ESBL and co-presence of ESBLs and carbapenemase genes, was observed. The prompt detection of these multi-resistant organisms ultimately enhances patient prognosis and limits the further spread of these organisms in the hospitals and community settings.
Olfactory cues and nest recognition in the solitary bee Osmia lignaria

Abstract. The use of olfactory cues for nest recognition by the solitary bee Osmia lignaria is studied in a greenhouse environment. Glass tubes are provided as nesting cavities to allow the in‐nest behaviour of bees to be observed. In addition, each glass tube is cut into three sections for experimental manipulation and for subsequent chemical analysis. Nesting females drag their abdomen along the tube before exiting, spiral inside the tube, and sometimes deposit fluid droplets from the tip of the abdomen. For the manipulation, the outer section, the middle section, or both sections are removed and replaced with similar clean glass tube sections, and the behaviour exhibited by test females is recorded upon arrival in front of the nesting site and inside the nesting tubes. The resulting hesitation behaviour displayed by females after treatments appears to indicate the loss of some olfactory cues used for nest recognition inside the entire nest. Chemical analysis of the depositions inside the nesting tube, as well as analysis of the cuticular lipids of the nesting bees, reveals the presence of free fatty acids, hydrocarbons and wax esters.
Discriminative Subsequence Mining for Action Classification

Recent approaches to action classification in videos have used sparse spatio-temporal words encoding local appearance around interesting movements. Most of these approaches use a histogram representation, discarding the temporal order among features. But this ordering information can contain important information about the action itself e.g. consider the sport disciplines of hurdle race and long jump, where the global temporal order of motions (running, jumping) is important to discriminate between the two. In this work we propose to use a sequential representation which retains this temporal order. Further, we introduce Discriminative Subsequence Mining to find optimal discriminative subsequence patterns. In combination with the LPBoost classifier, this amounts to simultaneously learning a classification function and performing feature selection in the space of all possible feature sequences. The resulting classifier linearly combines a small number of interpretable decision functions, each checking for the presence of a single discriminative pattern. The classifier is benchmarked on the KTH action classification data set and outperforms the best known results in the literature.
Clinical Efficacy of a Single Afternoon Dose of Effervescent Levodopa-Carbidopa Preparation (CHF 1512) in Fluctuating Parkinson Disease

A possible cause of motor fluctuations in patients with Parkinson disease is the erratic drug absorption. In a randomized double-blind double-dummy study of melevodopa (levodopa methyl ester), a highly soluble levodopa pro-drug plus carbidopa (CHF 1512) was compared to a standard formulation of levodopa/carbidopa (LD/CD) in 74 fluctuating Parkinson disease patients. The first afternoon, LD/CD tablet was substituted with an equimolar dose of CHF 1512. The study lasted 4 weeks and was followed by an 8-week (optional) open phase. The primary efficacy variable was latency to "on. " Patients randomized to receive CHF 1512 had a significative shorter latency to "on" than those randomized to LD/CD and a similar "on" duration. The safety profile of CHF 1512 was also comparable with LD/CD.
Evaluation of radiation-induced myocardial damage using iodine-123 β-methyl-iodophenyl pentadecanoic acid scintigraphy

We evaluated radiation-induced myocardial damage using iodine-123 β-methyl-iodophenyl pentadecanoic acid (I-123 BMIPP) scintigraphy. Between May 2010 and April 2011 we performed I-123 BMIPP scintigraphy for patients who had maintained complete response to curative radiotherapy (RT) for esophageal cancer for more than six months. We compared the area of the myocardium in the RT fields with that of reduced I-123 BMIPP uptake using a 15-segment model that is based on axial computed tomography (CT) images. We classified the segments into three categories: segments receiving 40 Gy (Segment 40 Gy), segments receiving 60 Gy (Segment 60 Gy) and segments out of the radiation fields (Segment 0 Gy). A segment with reduced uptake in the RT fields was defined as positive. A total of 510 segments in 34 patients were used for analysis. The median interval from completion of RT to I-123 BMIPP scintigraphy was 22 months (range, 6–103 months). The numbers of Segment 0 Gy, Segment 40 Gy and Segment 60 Gy were 324, 133 and 53, respectively. Reduced uptake was detected in 42.9% (57/133) of Segment 40 Gy, 67.9% (36/53) of Segment 60 Gy and 13.3% (43/324) of Segment 0 Gy. The odds ratios of 40 Gy and 60 Gy compared with regions out of the RT fields were 5.2 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 3.7–7.4) and 15.4 (95% CI: 6.9–34.6), respectively. Reduced myocardial I-123 BMIPP uptake in RT fields, suggesting RT-induced myocardial damage, was frequently observed. I-123 BMIPP myocardial scintigraphy may be useful for identifying RT-induced myocardial damage.
Loss of Cation-Chloride Cotransporter Expression in Preterm Infants With White Matter Lesions: Implications for the Pathogenesis of Epilepsy

Epilepsy associated with preterm birth is often refractory to anticonvulsants. Children who are born preterm are also prone to cognitive delay and behavioral problems. Brains from these children often show diffuse abnormalities in cerebral circuitry that is likely caused by disrupted development during critical stages of cortical formation. To test the hypothesis that prenatal injury impairs the developmental switch of &ggr;-amino butyric acid (GABA)ergic synapses from excitatory to inhibitory, thereby disrupting cortical circuit formation and predisposing to epilepsy, we used immunohistochemistry to compare the expression of cation-chloride transporters that developmentally regulate postsynaptic GABAergic discharges in postmortem cerebral samples from infants born preterm with known white matter injury (n = 11) with that of controls with minimal white matter gliosis (n = 7). Controls showed the expected developmental expression of cation-chloride transporters NKCC1 and KCC2 and ofcalretinin, a marker of a GABAergic neuronal subpopulation. Samples from infants with white matter damage showed a significant loss of expression of both NKCC1 and KCC2 in subplate and white matter. By contrast, there were no significant differences in total cell number or glutamate transporter VGLUT1 expression. Together, these novel findings suggest a molecular mechanism involved in the disruption of a critical stage of cerebral circuit development after brain injury from preterm birth that may predispose to epilepsy.
Sonographic diagnosis of a round ligament cyst in the inguinal area

We report a case of a 37‐year‐old female with a mesothelial cyst of the round ligament presenting as a palpable mass. The mass appeared sonographically as a fusiform structure with several cystic anechoic areas and was misdiagnosed preoperatively as herniation of the right ovary. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Ultrasound, 2007
Effect of creatine supplementation on body composition and performance: a meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND Creatine supplementation (CS) has been reported to increase body mass and improve performance in high-intensity, short-duration exercise tasks. Research on CS, most of which has come into existence since 1994, has been the focus of several qualitative reviews, but only one meta-analysis, which was conducted with a limited number of studies. PURPOSE This study compared the effects of CS on effect size (ES) for body composition (BC) variables (mass and lean body mass), duration and intensity (< or = 30 s, [ATP-PCr = A]; 30-150 s [glycolysis = G]; >150 s, [oxidative phosphorylation = O]) of the exercise task, type of exercise task (single, repetitive, laboratory, field, upper-body, lower-body), CS duration (loading, maintenance), and subject characteristics (gender, training status). METHODS A search of MEDLINE and SPORTDiscus using the phrase "creatine supplementation" revealed 96 English-language, peer-reviewed papers (100 studies), which included randomized group formation, a placebo control, and human subjects who were blinded to treatments. ES was calculated for each body composition and performance variable. RESULTS Small, but significant (ES > 0, p < or = .05) ES were reported for BC (n=163, mean +/- SE=0.17 +/- 0.03), ATP-PCr (n=17, 0.24 +/- 0.02), G (n=135, 0.19 +/- 0.05), and O (n=69, 0.20 +/- 0.07). ES was greater for change in BC following a loading-only CS regimen (0.26 +/- 0.03, p=.0003) compared to a maintenance regimen (0.04 +/- 0.05), for repetitive-bout (0.25 +/- 0.03,p=.028) compared to single-bout (0.18 +/- 0.02) exercise, and for upper-body exercise (0.42 +/- 0.07, p<.0001) compared to lower (0.21 +/- 0.02) and total body (0.13 +/- 0.04) exercise. ES for laboratory-based tasks (e.g., isometric/isotonic/isokinetic exercise, 0.25 +/- 0.02) were greater (p=.014) than those observed for field-based tasks (e.g., running, swimming, 0.14 +/- 0.04). There were no differences in BC or performance ES between males and females or between trained and untrained subjects. CONCLUSION ES was greater for changes in lean body mass following short-term CS, repetitive-bout laboratory-based exercise tasks < or = 30 s (e.g., isometric, isokinetic, and isotonic resistance exercise), and upper-body exercise. CS does not appear to be effective in improving running and swimming performance. There is no evidence in the literature of an effect of gender or training status on ES following CS.
Structures of Annulenes and Model Annulene Systems in the Ground and Lowest Excited States

The paper introduces general considerations on structural properties of aromatic, antiaromatic and non-aromatic conjugated systems in terms of potential energy along bond length alternation and distortion coordinates, taking as examples benzene, cyclobutadiene and cyclooctatetraene. Pentalene, formally derived from cyclooctatetraene by cross linking, is also considered as a typical antiaromatic system. The main interest is concerned with [n]annulenes and model [n]annulene molecular systems, n ranging from 10 to 18. The rich variety of conformational and configurational isomers and of dynamical processes among them is described. Specific attention is devoted to bridged [10]- and [14]annulenes in the ground and lowest excited states as well as to s-indacene and biphenylene. Experimental data obtained from vibrational and electronic spectroscopies are discussed and compared with ab initio calculation results. Finally, porphyrin, tetraoxaporphyrin dication and diprotonated porphyrin are presented as annulene structures adopting planar/non-planar geometries depending on the steric hindrance in the inner macrocycle ring. Radiative and non-radiative relaxation processes from excited state levels have been observed by means of time-resolved fluorescence and femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy. A short account is also given of porphycene, the structural isomer of porphyrin, and of porphycene properties.
Co-Enzyme Q10 and n-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid Supplementation Reverse Intermittent Hypoxia-Induced Growth Restriction and Improved Antioxidant Profiles in Neonatal Rats

Neonatal intermittent hypoxia (IH) increases the risk for many morbidities in extremely low birth weight/gestational age (ELBW/ELGA) neonates with compromised antioxidant systems and poor growth. We hypothesized that supplementation with coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10, ubiquinol) or n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) during neonatal IH improves antioxidant profiles and somatic growth in neonatal rats. Newborn rats were exposed to two IH paradigms at birth (P0): (1) 50% O2 with brief hypoxic episodes (12% O2); or (2) room air (RA) with brief hypoxia, until P14 during which they received daily oral CoQ10 in olive oil, n-3 PUFAs in fish oil, or olive oil only from P0 to P14. Pups were studied at P14 or placed in RA until P21 for recovery from IH (IHR). Body weight and length; organ weights; and serum antioxidants and growth factors were determined at P14 and P21. Neonatal IH resulted in sustained reductions in somatic growth, an effect that was reversed with n-3 PUFAs. Improved growth was associated with higher serum growth factors. CoQ10 decreased superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione, but increased catalase, suggesting reduced oxidative stress. Further studies are needed to determine the synergistic effects of CoQ10 and n-3 PUFA co-administration for the prevention of IH-induced oxidative stress and postnatal growth deficits.
Granulocyte Colony Stimulating Factor Adjuvant Role on the Immunological Response to Hepatitis B Vaccine in Patients With Cirrhosis: A Double Blind Randomized Placebo Controlled Trial

Background: Patients with liver cirrhosis have usually poor antibody response to hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccination. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the effect of granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) on increasing antibody titers, after HBV vaccination, in patients with liver cirrhosis waiting for transplantation. Patients and Methods: From 56 patients with cirrhosis, 28 patients were allocated to receive double dose HBV vaccine (40 μgr) plus G-CSF and 28 patients were allocated to receive double dose HBV vaccine (40 μgr) plus placebo. Injections were performed on weeks 0, 4 and 8 and the blood samples were obtained one month after each vaccination session. Results: There was no statistically significant difference between anti-HBV antibody titers in patients receiving double dose HBV vaccination plus G-CSF and patients receiving double dose HBV vaccination plus placebo, after first, second or third vaccination rounds (P > 0.05). Although the adjuvant G-CSF injection did not cause significant increased antibody titers in our patients compared to the placebo group, the increase in antibody titers following vaccination, happened faster in this group, compared to the placebo group. Conclusions: The present study showed that G-CSF is not superior to placebo in production of protective antibody titers after HBV vaccination but could result in a more rapid antibody response, compared to the placebo.
Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Music Emotion Recognition: Implications for Content and Context-Based Models

The prominent status of music in human culture and every day life is due in large part to its striking ability to elicit emotions, which may manifest from slight variation in mood to changes in our physical condition and actions. In this paper, we first review state of the art stud- ies on music and emotions from dierent disciplines including psychology, musicology and music information retrieval. Based on these studies, we then propose new insights to enhance automated music emotion recog- nition models.
Neural Lattice-to-Sequence Models for Uncertain Inputs

The input to a neural sequence-to-sequence model is often determined by an up-stream system, e.g. a word segmenter, part of speech tagger, or speech recognizer. These up-stream models are potentially error-prone. Representing inputs through word lattices allows making this uncertainty explicit by capturing alternative sequences and their posterior probabilities in a compact form. In this work, we extend the TreeLSTM (Tai et al., 2015) into a LatticeLSTM that is able to consume word lattices, and can be used as encoder in an attentional encoder-decoder model. We integrate lattice posterior scores into this architecture by extending the TreeLSTM’s child-sum and forget gates and introducing a bias term into the attention mechanism. We experiment with speech translation lattices and report consistent improvements over baselines that translate either the 1-best hypothesis or the lattice without posterior scores.
Evidence for a Caregiving Instinct: Rapid Differentiation of Infant from Adult Vocalizations Using Magnetoencephalography

Crying is the most salient vocal signal of distress. The cries of a newborn infant alert adult listeners and often elicit caregiving behavior. For the parent, rapid responding to an infant in distress is an adaptive behavior, functioning to ensure offspring survival. The ability to react rapidly requires quick recognition and evaluation of stimuli followed by a co-ordinated motor response. Previous neuroimaging research has demonstrated early specialized activity in response to infant faces. Using magnetoencephalography, we found similarly early (100–200 ms) differences in neural responses to infant and adult cry vocalizations in auditory, emotional, and motor cortical brain regions. We propose that this early differential activity may help to rapidly identify infant cries and engage affective and motor neural circuitry to promote adaptive behavioral responding, before conscious awareness. These differences were observed in adults who were not parents, perhaps indicative of a universal brain-based “caregiving instinct. ”
CONSISTENCY OF CROSS VALIDATION FOR COMPARING REGRESSION PROCEDURES

Theoretical developments on cross validation (CV) have mainly focused on selecting one among a list of finite-dimensional models (e.g., subset or order selection in linear regression) or selecting a smoothing parameter (e.g., bandwidth for kernel smoothing). However, little is known about consistency of cross validation when applied to compare between parametric and nonparametric methods or within nonparametric methods. We show that under some conditions, with an appropriate choice of data splitting ratio, cross validation is consistent in the sense of selecting the better procedure with probability approaching 1. Our results reveal interesting behavior of cross validation. When comparing two models (procedures) converging at the same nonparametric rate, in contrast to the parametric case, it turns out that the proportion of data used for evaluation in CV does not need to be dominating in size. Furthermore, it can even be of a smaller order than the proportion for estimation while not affecting the consistency property.
Adiponectin and sE-selectin Concentrations in Relation to Inflammation in Obese Type 2 Diabetic Patients With Coronary Heart Disease

Adipose tissue can release proinflammatory mediators, namely C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin 1β (IL-1β), and monocyte chemotactic protein 1 (MCP-1), contributing to vascular injury and insulin resistance (IR). Other mediators namely, adiponectin and nitric oxide (NO) are protective. We enrolled type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) obese male patients without coronary heart disease ([CHD] group II, n = 25) and T2DM obese patients with CHD (group III, n = 25). They were compared with 20 age- and body mass index (BMI)-matched nondiabetic control males (group I). Fasting blood glucose (FBG), glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c%), lipids, insulin, malondialdehyde ([MDA]; lipid peroxidation product), NO, high-sensitivity CRP (hsCRP), IL-1β, MCP-1, adiponectin as well as sE-selectin concentration were significantly different in patients with T2DM and CHD compared with patients without CHD and nondiabetic controls (P = .01). There was a significant negative correlation between adiponectin and E-selectin (P = .0001). Adipose tissue in T2DM obese patients may contribute to the pathogenesis of CHD.
Using language models for tracking events of interest over time

This paper presents the TNO tracking system which was evaluated at the 2000 Topic Detection and Tracking evaluation project (TDT2000). The objective of the TDT tracking task is to track events of interest over time. We built a baseline tracking system based on a language modeling approach. This approach had proved to be powerful for the TREC adaptive filtering task and several other IR tasks.