Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of Cola-Flavored Beverages and Caffeine on Streptococcus mutans Biofilm Formation and Metabolic Activity.

OBJECTIVE To examine the effects of cola-flavored beverages and caffeine on growth and metabolism of Streptococcus mutans biofilm. This study was designed to determine if carbonated beverages or caffeine can increase S. mutans growth and biofilm formation and metabolic activity in vitro, potentially leading to increased S. mutans-associated cariogenicity in children that consume them. STUDY DESIGN Six different cola-flavored products, plus pure caffeine, and pure high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), at different concentrations similar to those in the beverages were tested. A 16-hour culture of S. mutans was treated with different dilutions in bacteriological media. To test for the effect on biofilm formation, the biofilm was stained with crystal violet. The absorbance was determined to evaluate biofilm growth. Biofilm metabolic activity was measured based on biofilm having the ability to reduce XTT to a water-soluble orange compound. RESULTS The inclusion of HFCS in the beverages, as well as pure HFCS, significantly enhanced bacterial biofilm formation and metabolic activity. Pure caffeine and the presence of caffeine in beverages did not significantly increase biofilm formation, but pure caffeine significantly increased metabolism, and Diet Coke had significantly greater metabolic activity than Caffeine-Free Diet Coke. CONCLUSIONS HFCS increases both the biofilm formation and metabolism of S. mutans, and caffeine in some cases increases metabolism of S. mutans.
Flotillin and RacH modulate the intracellular immunity of Dictyostelium to Mycobacterium marinum infection

Mycobacterium marinum, a close relative of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, provides a useful model to study the pathogenesis of tuberculosis in genetically tractable model organisms. Using the amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum as a host, we show that expression of the M. marinum protein MAG24‐1 is crucial to interfere with phagosome maturation. We find that two host proteins – the flotillin homologue vacuolin and p80, a predicted copper transporter – accumulate at the vacuole during pathogen replication until it finally ruptures and the bacteria are released into the host cytosol. Flotillin‐1 accumulation at the replication niche and its rupture were also observed in human peripheral blood monocytes. By infecting various Dictyostelium mutants, we show that the absence of one of the two Dictyostelium vacuolin isoforms renders the host more immune to M. marinum. Conversely, the absence of the small GTPase RacH renders the host more susceptible to M. marinum proliferation but inhibits its cell‐to‐cell spreading.
Gazetiki: automatic creation of a geographical gazetteer

Geolocalized databases are becoming necessary in a wide variety of application domains. Thus far, the creation of such databases has been a costly, manual process. This drawback has stimulated interest in automating their construction, for example, by mining geographical information from the Web. Here we present and evaluate a new automated technique for creating and enriching a geographical gazetteer, called Gazetiki. Our technique merges disparate information from Wikipedia, Panoramio, and web search engines in order to identify geographical names, categorize these names, find their geographical coordinates and rank them. The information produced in Gazetiki enhances and complements the Geonames database, using a similar domain model. We show that our method provides a richer structure and an improved coverage compared to another known attempt at automatically building a geographic database and, where possible, we compare our Gazetiki to Geonames.
Age-related changes in brain structural covariance networks

Previous neuroimaging studies have suggested that cerebral changes over normal aging are not simply characterized by regional alterations, but rather by the reorganization of cortical connectivity patterns. The investigation of structural covariance networks (SCNs) using voxel-based morphometry is an advanced approach to examining the pattern of covariance in gray matter (GM) volumes among different regions of the human cortex. To date, how the organization of critical SCNs change during normal aging remains largely unknown. In this study, we used an SCN mapping approach to investigate eight large-scale networks in 240 healthy participants aged 18–89 years. These participants were subdivided into young (18–23 years), middle aged (30–58 years), and older (61–89 years) subjects. Eight seed regions were chosen from widely reported functional intrinsic connectivity networks. The voxels showing significant positive associations with these seed regions were used to describe the topological organization of an SCN. All of these networks exhibited non-linear patterns in their spatial extent that were associated with normal aging. These networks, except the primary motor network, had a distributed topology in young participants, a sharply localized topology in middle aged participants, and were relatively stable in older participants. The structural covariance derived using the primary motor cortex was limited to the ipsilateral motor regions in the young and older participants, but included contralateral homologous regions in the middle aged participants. In addition, there were significant between-group differences in the structural networks associated with language-related speech and semantics processing, executive control, and the default-mode network (DMN). Taken together, the results of this study demonstrate age-related changes in the topological organization of SCNs, and provide insights into normal aging of the human brain.
Locating a Faulty Interaction in Pair-wise Testing

This article discusses the location of faulty interactions in software testing. We propose an algorithm to generate a test suite that can be used to identify a faulty pair-wise interaction. This approach works as follows. First, a test suite is generated using an existing method for pair-wise testing. Pair-wise testing requires testing all pair-wise interactions but does not guarantee that the faulty interaction can be located. Second, pair-wise interactions that cannot be located by the test suite are enumerated. Finally, test cases are repeatedly added to the test suite until all pair-wise interactions can be located. The results of applying the algorithm to several problem instances show that the test suites obtained using the algorithm are nearly twice as large as those for ordinary pair-wise testing which does not ensure fault locating ability.
Finding an emotional face in a crowd: Emotional and perceptual stimulus factors influence visual search efficiency

In this article, we examine how emotional and perceptual stimulus factors influence visual search efficiency. In an initial task, we run a visual search task, using a large number of target/distractor emotion combinations. In two subsequent tasks, we then assess measures of perceptual (rated and computational distances) and emotional (rated valence, arousal and potency) stimulus properties. In a series of regression analyses, we then explore the degree to which target salience (the size of target/distractor dissimilarities) on these emotional and perceptual measures predict the outcome on search efficiency measures (response times and accuracy) from the visual search task. The results show that both emotional and perceptual stimulus salience contribute to visual search efficiency. The results show that among the emotional measures, salience on arousal measures was more influential than valence salience. The importance of the arousal factor may be a contributing factor to contradictory history of results within this field.
rs9939609 in the FTO Gene is Associated with Obesity but not with Several Biochemical Parameters in Sardinian Obese Children

Several studies have reported an association of the intronic single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs9939609 of the fat mass and obesity‐associated (FTO) gene with obesity and with a number of obesity‐related features. We studied the association of rs9939609 with obesity in 912 obese children and adolescents (426 males and 486 females, mean ± SD age 10.5 ± 3.3 years) and in 543 normal weight subjects. A number of biochemical and clinical parameters was also evaluated in 700 of these patients. In the obese group, mean body mass index standard deviation score (BMI‐SDS) was similar between the three genotypes. The A allele was present in 55% of the patients’ and in 43% of controls’ chromosomes. The distribution of heterozygotes was similar between patients and controls (47%), while the distribution of AA homozygotes was significantly higher in patients (31% vs. 20%). Logistic regression analysis on the genotypes yielded a χ2 of 35.5 with an odds ratio of 1.6 (CI = 1.3–1.8), P < 1 × 10−5. None of the clinical and metabolic parameters tested was associated with the genotype. In conclusion, we have confirmed the strong association between FTO and obesity, and shown that only AA homozygotes are predisposed to develop obesity while TT homozygotes might be protected. Finally, we found no association between rs9939609 and a number of obesity‐related abnormalities.
Emotional Maltreatment and Verbal Victimization in Childhood

Abstract Despite evidence that a history of childhood emotional maltreatment is related to the presence of a cognitive vulnerability to depression in adulthood, few studies have examined the relative impact of emotional maltreatment from parents versus verbal victimization from peers. In addition, no study of which we are aware has examined the relative impact of these forms of victimization on the presence of negative versus positive automatic thoughts in adulthood. Given this, we tested the hypothesis that negative and positive automatic thoughts would mediate the link between childhood emotional maltreatment and verbal victimization and young adults' current depressive symptoms. This hypothesis was supported. In addition, both emotional maltreatment and verbal victimization were independently related to the presence of negative automatic thoughts and both were significantly more strongly related to levels of negative thoughts than positive thoughts.
Promotion of non-rapid eye movement sleep in mice after oral administration of ornithine

We examined the effects of ornithine on the sleep-wake cycle by monitoring the electroencephalo-gram, electromyogram, and locomotor activity of freely moving mice after oral administration of it at lights-off time (18:00). Ornithine (1.0 and 3.0 g/kg of body weight) increased the amount of non-rapid eye movement (non-REM, NREM) sleep for 2 h after its administration, with a peak at 60 min post administration, to 164% and 198%, respectively, of that of the vehicle-administered mice, without changing the amount of REM sleep. The administration of ornithine at a lower dose (0.3 g/kg of body weight) did not increase the amount of NREM sleep compared with the vehicle administration. Ornithine did not affect the power spectrum density of NREM sleep but increased the number of episodes of wakefulness and NREM sleep and that of transitions between wakefulness and NREM sleep, and decreased the mean duration of wake episodes in a dose-dependent manner for 2 h after the oral administration. These results indicate that ornithine increased the amount of NREM sleep without reducing the power spectrum density of NREM sleep.
Efficient Anytime Density-based Clustering

Many clustering algorithms suffer from scalability problems on massive datasets and do not support any user interaction during runtime. To tackle these problems, anytime clustering algorithms are proposed. They produce a fast approximate result which is continuously refined during the further run. Also, they can be stopped or suspended anytime and provide an answer. In this paper, we propose a novel anytime clustering algorithm based on the density-based clustering paradigm. Our algorithm called A-DBSCAN is applicable to very high dimensional databases such as time series, trajectory, medical data, etc. The general idea of our algorithm is to use a sequence of lower-bounding functions (LBs) of the true similarity measure to produce multiple approximate results of the true density-based clusters. ADBSCAN operates in multiple levels w.r. t. the LBs and is mainly based on two algorithmic schemes: (1) an efficient distance upgrade scheme which restricts distance calculations to core-objects at each level of the LBs; (2) a local reclustering scheme which restricts update operations to the relevant objects only. Extensive experiments demonstrate that A-DBSCAN acquires very good clustering results at very early stages of execution thus saves a large amount of computational time. Even if it runs to the end, A-DBSCAN is still orders of magnitude faster than DBSCAN.
Contextualising Jihadi thought

Global jihadism has been on policy agendas for more than two decades. Since the 9/11 attacks, both transnational jihadi entities such as Al-Qaeda and national or regional militant groups have attracted a great deal of media and scholarly attention. In recent years, policy agendas have increasingly come to include a focus on countering militant jihadi ideologies. Despite this, studies of global jihadism that take the impact of ideas seriously are at a relatively early stage and have yet to fully capture the richness of their social contexts and intellectual universes. Departing from the security studies approaches that have characterised much writing about jihadi groups, this volume aims to engage policy-makers and specialists alike by bridging existing disciplines and areas of study to create a framework for beginning to understand jihadi movements through the study of their ideologies, intellectual histories, political engagements and geographies. The contributors to the volume come from a range of academic disciplines (including history, anthropology, political science, religious studies and area studies), as well as from the worlds of diplomacy and policy research. In addition to studies of globalised contexts and ideologies, the volume also includes detailed studies of jihadi currents of thought and responses to them in Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, India, Pakistan, Egypt, South-East Asia and Europe.
Math5 promotes retinal ganglion cell expression patterns in retinal progenitor cells

Purpose To investigate the role of over-expression of Math5 on the retinal ganglion cell (RGC) expression patterns in retinal progenitor cells (RPCs). Methods RPCs were cultured and then transfected by recombinant Math5 plasmid with internal ribosome entry site and enhanced green fluorescent protein (pIRES2-EGFP-Math5; group A), with pIRES2-EGFP transfected (group B) and no plasmid transfected (group C) as control. RGCs were identified by Thy1.1 immunocytochemistry methods and analyzed by Leica Qwin V3.1 system. Real-time polymerase chain reaction was used to examine the expression of Math5-associated genes at different time points during the differentiation of RPCs. Results It was determined that pIRES2-EGFP-Math5 could transfect RPCs, and the transfection rate was 24.68%. After plating, it was found that three different groups of RPCs could differentiate and express retina-specific markers, including RGC marker Thy1.1. The percentage breakdown of Thy1.1-positive cells was 30.85±6.28% in group A, 15.84±3.55% in group B, and 16.22±3.60% in group C. The differences between the three groups were statistically significant (p<0.001). Transfection by pIRES2-EGFP-Math5 could change the expression of Delta-1, Hes1, and Brn-3b. Conclusions Math5 may up-regulate RGC expression patterns in RPCs and change the expression of Math5-associated genes.
Evaluation of Interferon-Gamma Release Assays in the Diagnosis of Recent Tuberculosis Infection in Health Care Workers

Background Health care workers (HCWs) are a group at risk of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI). The aims of this study were to determine IFN-γ response by QuantiFERON-TB GOLD In Tube (QFN-G-IT) and T-SPOT.TB in HCWs, comparing the results with tuberculin skin test (TST); and to analyze the capacity of IFN-γ tests to detect recent versus remote LTBI with a prolonged stimulation test (PST). Methodology/Principal Findings A total of 147 HCWs were enrolled; 23 of whom were BCG vaccinated. 95 HCWs (64.6%) had a previous positive TST and were not retested; and 52 HCWs had a previous negative TST or were tested for the first time. When we analysed individuals without previous positive TST, the number of positive results for T-SPOT.TB was 12/52 (23.1%); and for QFN-G-IT, 9/52 (17.3%). The global concordance (κ) between T-SPOT.TB and QFN-G-IT with TST was 0.754 and 0.929 respectively. Of individuals with previous positive TST, T-SPOT.TB and QFN-G-IT were negative in 51.6% (49/95) and 62.1% (59/95) respectively, decreasing the concordance to 0.321 and 0.288, respectively. In non-BCG vaccinated HCWs with previous positive TST a positive IFN-γ test was associated with degree of exposure and diameter of TST. PST was performed in 24 HCW with previous positive TST and negative IFN-γ tests. PST was developed in 3 cell cultures stimulated with medium alone, ESAT-6 and CFP-10, respectively. In the third and sixth day of incubation period, part of the supernatants were replaced with complete medium supplemented with (rIL)-2. On day 9, ELISPOT assay was performed. In 14 samples PST was not valid due to not having enough cells. In 8 cases, the response was negative, and in 2 cases positive, suggesting that these patients were infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis in some point in the past. Conclusions Both IFN-γ tests showed a similar number of positive results, and concordance between the tests was excellent. None of the tests was affected by prior BCG vaccination. IFN-γ tests are a useful tool for detecting recent infection in HCW population.
Large Field, High Resolution Full-Field Optical Coherence Tomography

We present a benchmark pilot study in which high-resolution Full-Field Optical Coherence Tomography (FF-OCT) was used to image human breast tissue and is evaluated to assess its ability to aid the pathologist's management of intra-operative diagnoses. FF-OCT imaging safety was investigated and agreement between FF-OCT and routinely prepared histopathological images was evaluated. The compact setup used for this study provides 1μm3 resolution and 200μm imaging depth, and a 2.25 cm2 specimen is scanned in about 7 minutes. 75 breast specimens were imaged from 22 patients (21 women, 1 man) with a mean age of 58 (range: 25–83). Pathologists blind diagnosed normal/benign or malignant tissue based on FF-OCT images alone, diagnosis from histopathology followed for comparison. The contrast in the FF-OCT images is generated by intrinsic tissue scattering properties, meaning that no tissue staining or preparation is required. Major architectural features and tissue structures of benign breast tissue, including adipocytes, fibrous stroma, lobules and ducts were characterized. Subsequently, features resulting from pathological modification were characterized and a diagnosis decision tree was developed. Using FF-OCT images, two breast pathologists were able to distinguish normal/benign tissue from lesional with a sensitivity of 94% and 90%, and specificity of 75% and 79% respectively.
Stability analysis and dynamic performance enhancement of autonomous microgrid using adaptive fuzzy PI controller

In this paper, an adaptive fuzzy proportional-integral (AFPI) controller is proposed to improve the dynamic performance of the inverter interfaced autonomous microgrid. For this purpose, an accurate small signal state space model of the microgrid with electronically interfaced distributed generation (DG) units is developed. The developed model includes the network dynamics, controller dynamics, dynamics of LCL filter and load dynamics. In addition, the effect of damping resistor is also included in the proposed model to show its effect on damping high frequency oscillatory modes. After that, eigenvalue analysis is carried out to determine the optimal ranges of critical control parameters, which greatly affects the small signal stability of the microgrid. Finally based on the analysis, an AFPI controller is designed here to enhance the dynamic performance of the autonomous microgrid during disturbances. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed controller, nonlinear time domain simulation is carried out using Matlab/Simulink and results are compared with conventional proportional integral (PI) controller and also with other existing intelligent controllers to show the superiority of the proposed controller.
In Honor of Fadime: Murder and Shame

In 2002, young Fadime Sahindal was brutally murdered by her own father. She belonged to a family of Kurdish immigrants who had lived in Sweden for almost two decades. But Fadime's relationship with a man outside of their community had deeply dishonored her family, and only her death could remove the stain. This abhorrent crime shocked the world, and her name soon became a rallying cry in the struggle to combat so-called honor killings.Unni Wikan narrates Fadime's heartbreaking story through her own eloquent words, along with the testimonies of her father, mother, and two sisters. What unfolds is a tale of courage and betrayal, loyalty and love, power and humiliation, and a nearly unfathomable clash of cultures. Despite enduring years of threats over her emancipated life, Fadime advocated compassion for her killers to the end, believing them to be trapped by an unyielding code of honor. Wikan puts this shocking event in context by analyzing similar honor killings, which are increasing throughout Europe and have now been reported in Canada and the United States. She also examines the concept of honor in historical and cross-cultural depth, concluding that Islam itself is not to blame - indeed, honor killings occur across religious and ethnic traditions - but rather the way that many cultures have resolutely linked honor with violence. "In Honor of Fadime" holds profound and timely insights into Islamic culture, but ultimately the heart of this powerful book is Fadime's courageous and tragic story - and Wikan's telling of it is riveting.
Structures in the Great Attractor region

To further our understanding of the Great Attractor (GA), we have undertaken a redshift survey using the 2dF on the AAT. Clusters and filaments in the GA region were targeted with 25 separate pointings resulting in approximately 2600 new redshifts. Targets included poorly studied X-ray clusters from the CIZA catalogue as well as the Cen-Crux and PKS 1343-601 clusters, both of which lie close to the classic GA centre. For nine clusters in the region, we report velocity distributions as well as virial and projected mass estimates. The virial mass of CIZA J1324.7–5736, now identified as a separate structure from the Cen-Crux cluster, is found to be ∼3 ×10 14 M⊙, in good agreement with the X-ray inferred mass. In the PKS 1343-601 field, five redshifts are measured of which four are new. An analysis of redshifts from this survey, in combination with those from the literature, reveals the dominant structure in the GA region to be a large filament, which appears to extend from Abell S0639 (l=281 ◦ , b=+11 ◦ ) to (l ∼ 5 ◦ , b ∼ –50 ◦ ), encompassing the Cen-Crux, CIZA J1324.7–5736, Norma and Pavo II clusters. Behind the Norma Cluster at cz ∼15000 kms −1 , the masses of four rich clusters are calculated. These clusters (Triangulum-Australis, Ara, CIZA J1514.6–4558 and CIZA J1410.4–4246) may contribute to a continued largescale flow beyond the GA. The results of these observations will be incorporated into a subsequent analysis of the GA flow.