Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Enterococcal peritonitis in children receiving chronic peritoneal dialysis.

BACKGROUND Peritonitis is a common complication of chronic peritoneal dialysis (CPD) and can be associated with technique failure. Enterococcus is an uncommon peritoneal pathogen in children receiving CPD but represents a potential therapeutic challenge due to its innate resistance to cephalosporins and emerging resistance to glycopeptides. METHODS The International Pediatric Peritonitis Registry is a global consortium of 47 paediatric dialysis centres designed to address validation of the International Society for Peritoneal Dialysis paediatric peritonitis treatment guidelines. Between 2001 and 2004, peritonitis episodes were assessed in 392 participating children receiving CPD. RESULTS Among the 392 patients, 340 episodes of culture-positive peritonitis were evaluated. Twenty of these episodes were due to Enterococcus species (5.9%). There were no clinical characteristics uniquely associated with enterococcal peritonitis at presentation. After 3 days of therapy, 75% of patients were pain free, 95% had decreased effluent cloudiness and 90% were afebrile. Only one patient required a catheter exchange, and all patients experienced full functional recovery. Despite broad in vitro resistance to cephalosporins and 21% resistance to glycopeptides, neither in vitro resistance pattern nor choice of empiric antibiotic regimen affected short- or long-term outcomes. CONCLUSIONS Enterococci are likely responsible for ∼6% of culture-positive peritonitis episodes in children receiving CPD. Although it was not possible to identify patients with enterococcal peritonitis based on presentation, clinical response was not associated with in vitro resistance patterns, and patients who initially received a cephalosporin-based empiric regimen until culture results are available are likely to respond quickly and have full functional recovery.
Local resource competition and local resource enhancement shape primate birth sex ratios

Sex ratio theory provides a powerful source of testable predictions about sex allocation strategies. Although studies of invertebrates generally support predictions derived from the sex ratio theory, evidence for adaptive sex ratio biasing in vertebrates remains contentious. This may be due to the fact that most studies of vertebrates have focused on facultative adjustment in relation to maternal condition, rather than processes that might produce uniform sex biases across individuals. Here, we examine the effects of local resource enhancement (LRE) and local resource competition (LRC) on birth sex ratios (BSRs). We also examine the effects of sex differences in the costs of rearing male and female offspring on BSRs. We present data from 102 primate species and show that BSRs are skewed in favour of the dispersing sex in species that do not breed cooperatively, as predicted by the LRC model. In accordance with the LRE model, BSRs are generally skewed in favour of the more beneficial sex in cooperatively breeding primate species. There is no evidence that BSRs reflect the extent of sexual size dimorphism, an indirect measure of the costs of rearing male and female offspring. These analyses suggest that adaptive processes may play an important role in the evolution of BSRs in vertebrates.
A Constrained Finite Mixture Structural Equation Methodology for Empirically Deriving Strategic Types

Miles and Snow (1978) originally envisioned strategy as an agglomeration of decisions by which a firm group or strategic business unit (SBU) aligns itself with its environment. Accordingly, these authors conceptualized a classification of “strategic types” based on SBUs’ patterns of decisions into the now familiar Prospector-AnalyzerDefender-Reactor (P-A-D-R) framework. The Miles and Snow framework has been criticized by Hambrick (1983,1984) and others for ignoring industry and environmental factors, for lacking explanatory or predictive power in specific industries, and for being somewhat naively determined methodologically speaking. In this light, we devise a constrained latent structure structural equation based methodology to empirically estimate an “optimal” typology using data obtained from 216 SBUs in the U.S. as an illustration. This procedure allows for more comprehensive modeling and grouping of entities and simultaneously provides a diagnosis of the sources of heterogeneity producing the derived strategic groups. In addition, environmental and industry specific factors can be easily incorporated. Results show that our derived four mixed-type solution dominates the four-group P-A-D-R Miles and Snow classification (as well as a number of other nested model solutions) in terms of objective statistical fit criteria for this dataset, suggesting a more contingency-driven strategic stance adopted by these SBUs.
LYMPHOID NEOPLASIA b-Catenin activation synergizes with Pten loss and Myc overexpression in Notch-independent TALL

Institut de Génétique et de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale U964, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique UMR 7104, Université de Strasbourg, Illkirch, France; Université de Strasbourg, Faculté de Médecine, Strasbourg, France; European Molecular Biology Laboratory Mouse Biology Unit, Monterotondo, Italy; and Medical Research Council, Weatherall Institute of Molecular
Movie Pre-use preference Post-use preference Rating Movie # 1 High High 5 Movie # 2 High Low 1 Movie # 3 Not high Unknown

We develop a novel framework, named as l-injection, to address the sparsity problem of recommender systems. By carefully injecting low values to a selected set of unrated user-item pairs in a user-item matrix, we demonstrate that top-N recommendation accuracies of various collaborative filtering (CF) techniques can be significantly and consistently improved. We first adopt the notion of pre-use preferences of users toward a vast amount of unrated items. Using this notion, we identify uninteresting items that have not been rated yet but are likely to receive low ratings from users, and selectively impute them as low values. As our proposed approach is method-agnostic, it can be easily applied to a variety of CF algorithms. Through comprehensive experiments with three real-life datasets (e.g., Movielens, Ciao, and Watcha), we demonstrate that our solution consistently and universally enhances the accuracies of existing CF algorithms (e.g., item-based CF, SVD-based CF, and SVD++) by 2.5 to 5 times on average. Furthermore, our solution improves the running time of those CF methods by 1.2 to 2.3 times when its setting produces the best accuracy. The datasets and codes that we used in the experiments are available at: https://goo.gl/KUrmip.
Design of a New Electromagnetic Brake for Actuator Locking Mechanism in Aerospace Vehcile

Electromagnetic (EM) brakes are gaining importance in aerospace vehicles for various critical applications. In guided missiles, they are primarily used for locking the actuator when the missile is in carriage either by road or by air such that the position of the actuator is not changed when servo is in the off condition. In this paper, a new EM brake is designed which is more energy efficient and reliable compared to a conventional solenoid operated brake. The nonlinear magnetic analysis is carried out on the brake, and the hardware is realized and tested. The test results are promising and this topology can be adapted for aerospace and other critical applications.
Understanding Factors That Modulate the Establishment of HIV Latency in Resting CD4+ T-Cells In Vitro

Developing robust in vitro models of HIV latency is needed to better understand how latency is established, maintained and reversed. In this study, we examined the effects of donor variability, HIV titre and co-receptor usage on establishing HIV latency in vitro using two models of HIV latency. Using the CCL19 model of HIV latency, we found that in up to 50% of donors, CCL19 enhanced latent infection of resting CD4+ T-cells by CXCR4-tropic HIV in the presence of low dose IL-2. Increasing the infectious titre of CXCR4-tropic HIV increased both productive and latent infection of resting CD4+ T-cells. In a different model where myeloid dendritic cells (mDC) were co-cultured with resting CD4+ T-cells, we observed a higher frequency of latently infected cells in vitro than CCL19-treated or unstimulated CD4+ T-cells in the presence of low dose IL-2. In the DC-T-cell model, latency was established with both CCR5- and CXCR4-tropic virus but higher titres of CCR5-tropic virus was required in most donors. The establishment of latency in vitro through direct infection of resting CD4+ T-cells is significantly enhanced by CCL19 and mDC, but the efficiency is dependent on virus titre, co-receptor usage and there is significant donor variability.
Role of In Vivo Vascular Redox in Resistance Arteries

Vascular thiol redox state has been shown to modulate vasodilator functions in large conductance Ca2+-activated K+ channels and other related channels. However, the role of vascular redox in small resistance arteries is unknown. To determine how in vivo modulation of thiol redox state affects small resistance arteries relaxation, we generated a transgenic mouse strain that overexpresses thioredoxin, a small redox protein (Trx-Tg), and another strain that is thioredoxin-deficient (dnTrx-Tg). The redox state of the mesenteric arteries (MAs) in Trx-Tg mice is found to be predominantly in reduced state; in contrast, MAs from dnTrx-Tg mice remain in oxidized state. Thus, we created an in vivo redox system of mice and isolated the second-order branches of the main superior MAs from wild-type, Trx-Tg, or dnTrx-Tg mice to assess endothelium-dependent relaxing responses in a wire myograph. In MAs isolated from Trx-Tg mice, we observed an enhanced intermediate-conductance Ca2+–activated potassium channel contribution resulting in a larger endothelium-dependent hyperpolarizing (EDH) relaxation in response to indirect (acetylcholine) and direct (NS309) opening of endothelial calcium-activated potassium channels. MAs derived from dnTrx-Tg mice showed both blunted nitric oxide–mediated and EDH-mediated relaxation compared with Trx-Tg mice. In a control study, diamide decreased EDH relaxations in MAs of wild-type mice, whereas dithiothreitol improved EDH relaxations and was able to restore the diamide-induced impairment in EDH response. Furthermore, the basal or angiotensin II–mediated systolic blood pressure remained significantly lower in Trx-Tg mice compared with wild-type or dnTrx-Tg mice, thus directly establishing redox-mediated EDH in blood pressure control.
VMware distributed resource Management : design , Implementation , and lessons learned

Automated management of physical resources is critical for reducing the operational costs of virtualized environments. An effective resource-management solution must provide performance isolation among virtual machines (VMs), handle resource fragmentation across physical hosts and optimize scheduling for multiple resources. It must also utilize the underlying hardware infrastructure efficiently. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of two such management solutions: DRS and DPM. We also highlight some key lessons learned from production customer deployments over a period of more than five years. VMware's Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) manages the allocation of physical resources to a set of virtual machines deployed in a cluster of hosts, each running the VMware ESX hypervisor. DRS maps VMs to hosts and performs intelligent load balancing in order to improve performance and to enforce both user-specified policies and system-level constraints. Using a variety of experiments, augmented with simulation results, we show that DRS significantly improves the overall performance of VMs running in a cluster. DRS also supports a " what-if " mode, making it possible to evaluate the impact of changes in workloads or cluster configuration. VMware's Distributed Power Management (DPM) extends DRS with the ability to reduce power consumption by consolidating VMs onto fewer hosts. DPM recommends evacuating and powering off hosts when CPU and memory resources are lightly utilized. It recommends powering on hosts appropriately as demand increases, or as required to satisfy resource-management policies and constraints. Our extensive evaluation shows that in clusters with non-trivial periods of lowered demand, DPM reduces server power consumption significantly.
The Hosotani Mechanism in Bulk Gauge Theories with an Orbifold Extra Space S 1 /Z 2

We pursue the possibility of the scenario in which the Higgs field is identified with the extra-space component of a bulk gauge field. The space–time we take is M4 ⊗ S1/Z2. We show that a nontrivial Z2-parity assignment allows some of the extra-space component to have radiatively induced vev, which strongly modifies the mass spectrum and gauge symmetry of the theory, realized by orbifolding. In particular we investigate the dynamical mass generation of zero-mode fermion and spontaneous gauge symmetry breaking due to the vev. The gauge theories we adopt are a prototype model SU(2) and SU(3) model, of special interest as the realistic minimal scheme to incorporate the standard model SU(2) × U(1).
Large Scale Variational Inference and Experimental Design for Sparse Generalized Linear Models

Sparsity is a fundamental concept of modern statistics, and often the only general principle available at the moment to address novel learning applications with many more variables than observations. While much progress has been made recently in the theoretical understanding and algorithmics of sparse point estimation, higher-order problems such as covariance estimation or optimal data acquisition are seldomly addressed for sparsity-favouring models, and there are virtually no algorithms for large scale applications of these. We provide novel approximate Bayesian inference algorithms for sparse generalized linear models, that can be used with hundred thousands of variables, and run orders of magnitude faster than previous algorithms in domains where either apply. By analyzing our methods and establishing some novel convexity results, we settle a long-standing open question about variational Bayesian inference for continuous variable models: the Gaussian lower bound relaxation, which has been used previously for a range of models, is proved to be a convex optimization problem, if and only if the posterior mode is found by convex programming. Our algorithms reduce to the same computational primitives than commonly used sparse estimation methods do, but require Gaussian marginal variance estimation as well. We show how the Lanczos algorithm from numerical mathematics can be employed to compute the latter. We are interested in Bayesian experimental design here (which is mainly driven by efficient approximate inference), a powerful framework for optimizing measurement architectures of complex signals, such as natural images. Designs optimized by our Bayesian framework strongly outperform choices advocated by compressed sensing theory, and with our novel algorithms, we can scale it up to full-size images. Immediate applications of our method lie in digital photography and medical imaging. We have applied our framework to problems of magnetic resonance imaging design and reconstruction, and part of this work appeared at a conference (Seeger et al., 2008). The present paper describes our methods in much greater generality, and most of the theory is novel. Experiments and evaluations will be given in a later paper.
Structural relationships of actin, myosin, and tropomyosin revealed by cryo-electron microscopy

We have calculated three-dimensional maps from images of myosin subfragment-1 (S1)-decorated thin filaments and S1-decorated actin filaments preserved in frozen solution. By averaging many data sets we obtained highly reproducible maps that can be interpreted simply to provide a model for the native structure of decorated filaments. From our results we have made the following conclusions. The bulk of the actin monomer is approximately 65 X 40 X 40 A and is composed of two domains. In the filaments the monomers are strongly connected along the genetic helix with weaker connections following the long pitch helix. The long axis of the monomer lies roughly perpendicular to the filament axis. The myosin head (S1) approaches the actin filament tangentially and binds to a single actin, the major interaction being with the outermost domain of actin. In the map the longest chord of S1 is approximately 130 A. The region of S1 closest to actin is of high density, whereas the part furthest away is poorly defined and may be disordered. By comparing maps from decorated thin filaments with those from decorated actin, we demonstrate that tropomyosin is bound to the inner domain of actin just in front of the myosin binding site at a radius of approximately 40 A. A small change in the azimuthal position of tropomyosin, as has been suggested by others to occur during Ca2+- mediated regulation in vertebrate striated muscle, appears to be insufficient to eclipse totally the major site of interaction between actin and myosin.
EEG-based emotion recognition using discriminative graph regularized extreme learning machine

This study aims at finding the relationship between EEG signals and human emotional states. Movie clips are used as stimuli to evoke positive, neutral and negative emotions of subjects. We introduce a new effective classifier named discriminative graph regularized extreme learning machine (GELM) for EEG-based emotion recognition. The average classification accuracy of GELM using differential entropy (DE) features on the whole five frequency bands is 80.25%, while the accuracy of SVM is 76.62%. These results indicate that GELM is more suitable for emotion recognition than SVM. Additionally, the accuracies of GELM using DE features on Beta and Gamma bands are 79.07%, 79.93% respectively. This suggests that these two bands are more relevant to emotion. The experimental results indicate that the EEG patterns for emotion are generally stable among different experiments and subjects. By using minimal-redundancy-maximal-relevance (MRMR) algorithm and correlation coefficients to select effective features, we get the distribution of top 20 subject-independent features and build a manifold model to monitor the trajectory of emotion changes with time.
Logique d'action des primo-créateurs d'entreprise en Région wallonne : Identité et dynamiques push-pull

L'objectif de cette recherche exploratoire est, d'une part, d'examiner si, pour un ensemble d'individus qui ont (re)oriente leur trajectoire vers l'entrepreneuriat, il est possible de traduire celle-ci en termes de dynamiques push ou pull et, le cas echeant, de caracteriser celles-ci et, d'autre part, d'eclairer les articulations entre ces dynamiques et les caracteristiques personnelles des entrepreneurs. La dichotomie push-pull est identifiee a l'aide d'une analyse en composantes principales appliquees aux resultats d'une enquete socio-economique. Les resultats montrent que les individus qui s'engagent dans un processus entrepreneurial ont rencontre une situation disruptive et/ou des opportunites et se positionnent, des lors, avec plus ou moins d'intensite dans une dynamique que nous avons qualifiee de push ou pull. Ils demontrent egalement que les situations disruptives et les opportunites a l'origine du passage a la creation peuvent etre de nature tres diverse et, par consequent, que les dynamiques push et pull peuvent revetir des formes differentes. Enfin, les resultats issus d'une analyse regressive montrent l'influence qu'exerce la position sociale et la trajectoire biographique des createurs sur leur positionnement en termes de dynamiques push-pull.
Development of a new analog of SGK1 inhibitor and its evaluation as a therapeutic molecule of colorectal cancer

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most leading causes of cancer-related death worldwide. The serum and glucocorticoid inducible kinase SGK1 is highly expressed and involved in several tumors. GSK650394, a SGK1 inhibitor, has been proved to be effective in impeding tumor growth in vitro. In this study, we developed a novel analog of GSK650394, and evaluated its effects on CRC cells and tumor growth both in vitro and in vivo. HCT116 cells were treated with a concentration gradient of new developed compounds and cholecystokinin octapeptide (CCK-8) assay was used to calculate the IC50 value of every analog. Cell proliferation analysis was estimated from EdU staining and flow cytometry in vitro, and immunohistochemistry of Ki67 and PCNA in vivo. Cell migration analysis was examined using the transwell assay. In vivo tumor growth was determined in athymic nude mice by injecting the HCT116 cells in the subcutaneous tissue, followed by the injection of QGY-5-114-A. We found that new developed GSK650394 analog QGY-5-114-A has lower IC50 value, and treatment with QGY-5-114-A significantly inhibited CRC cell proliferation and migration in vitro. Besides that, colonic tumor growth was also dramatically restricted by QGY-5-114-A in vivo. In conclusion, pharmacological treatment with QGY-5-114-A impedes CRC tumor cell proliferation, migration and tumor growth.
Hubungan Antara Kontrol Diri Dengan Sikap Terhadap Perilaku Seksual Pada Remaja Karang Taruna

Fenomena perilaku seksual yang melanggar norma-norma agama, hukum maupun sosial sampai pada tingkat yang mengkhawatirkan dan fenomena tersebut tidak hanya terjadi di kota-kota besar namun sudah mulai merambah ke kota-kota kecil. Bentuk dari perilaku seksual bermacam-macam, mulai dari perasaan tertarik sampai dengan perilaku berkencan, berciuman hingga bersenggama. Salah satu faktor yang dapat mempengaruhi perilaku seksual yaitu kontrol diri. Remaja yang dapat menahan diri cenderung tidak melakukan perilaku perilaku seksual yang tidak sesuai dengan norma. Tujuan penelitian adalah mengetahui hubungan antara kontrol diri dengan sikap terhadap perilaku seksual remaja karang taruna. Hipotesis yang diajukan: Ada hubungan negatif antara kontrol diri dengan sikap terhadap perilaku seksual. Subjek penelitian anggota Karang taruna “Sedyo Utomo” Kelurahan Jeron Kecamatan Nogosari Boyolali berjumlah 58 orang. Alat pengumpulan data menggunakan skala kontrol diri dan skala sikap terhadap perilaku seksual. Metode analisis data menggunakan analisis korelasi product moment. Berdasarkan perhitungan koefisien korelasi r = -0,481; p=0,000 (p<0,01). Artinya ada hubungan negatif yang sangat signifikan antara kontrol diri dengan sikap terhadap perilaku seksual. Semakin tinggi kontrol diri maka semakin rendah perilaku seksual, sebaliknya semakin rendah kontrol diri maka semakin tinggi perilaku seksual. Sumbangan efektif kontrol diri terhadap perilaku seksual sebesar 23,1. Kontrol diri subjek tergolong sedang ditunjukkan rerata empirik (RE) = 72,310 dan rerata hipotetik (RH) = 70. Sikap terhadap perilaku seksual subjek tergolong sedang, ditunjukkan rerata empirik (RE) = 59,190 dan rerata hipotetik (RH) = 62,5. Kesimpulan penelitian menunjukkan ada hubungan negatif yang sangat signifikan antara kontrol diri dengan sikap terhadap perilaku seksual namun generalisasi hasil penelitian terbatas pada populasi dimana penelitian dilakukan sehingga penerapan pada ruang lingkup yang lebih luas dengan karakteristik yang berbeda kiranya perlu dilakukan penelitian ulang dengan menggunakan atau menambah variabel- variabel lain yang belum disertakan dalam penelitian ini ataupun dengan menambah dan memperluas ruang lingkup penelitian.