Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of escherichia coli isolates from cockroaches in southwestern iran

In recent years antibiotic-resistant bacteria including those producing extended-spectrum β-lactamases increase, which could affect their pathogencity and lead to many disease in both humans and animals. Enterobacteriaceae commonly express plasmid-encoded β-lactamases family like TEM-1 gene, which encodes resistance to penicillin in Escherichia coli. Insects, especially cockroaches, are important vectors to spread these bacteria in human living environmment. The present study was performed to evaluate the frequency of extended spectrum β-lactamase producing gene TEM-1 and the antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of Escherichia coli strains isolated from cockroaches in Iran using antibiogram and molecular techniques. In this study, 110 cockroaches (Periplaneta americana) were collected from residential environments in Chahrmahal Va Bakhtiari province (Southwest Iran) and after bacterial culture on specific media the antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of isolated Escherichia coli strains from cockroaches were evaluated by disk diffusion test and molecular assay. The amplification of TEM-1 gene by PCR revealed a 296 bp fragment on gel electrophoresis. The results of the present research showed that Escherichia coli infection was detected in 84 samples (76.36%) and 11 samples had the TEM-1 gene (10%). The antibiotic susceptibility pattern using the disk diffusion test indicated that most Escherichia coli isolates from cockroaches were sensitive to imipenem (100%) and amikacin (87.8%), while resistance to aztreonam, ceftazidime, and ceftriaxone was 88.1%, 80.5%, and 78.2%, respectively. These findings showed that cockroaches are important agents for transmission of Enterobacteriaceae and that extended-spectrum β-lactamases producing genes like TEM-1 by Escherichia coli could increase the gastrointestinal infections and antibiotic resistance. So, antibacterial drugs such as aztreonam, ceftazidime, and ceftriaxone must be used with caution, while imipenem and amikacin antibiotics are helpful to reduce Escherichia coli infection caused by cockroaches. © 2016, Bulgarian Journal of Veterinary Medicine. All rights reserved.
Antimicrobial activity of amurca (olive oil lees) extract against selected foodborne pathogens

The antimicrobial activity of a methanolic extract of amurca (olive oil lees) was determined against both Gram-positive (L. monocytogenes and S. aureus) and Gram-negative (E. coli O157:H7 and S. enteritidis) foodborne pathogens at 10 °C or 37 °C using microdilution and disk diffusion methods, and its relative activity was compared to selected antibiotics. Minimum inhibitory (MIC) and minimum bactericidal (MBC) concentrations of amurca extract ranged from 60 to 80 µl/ml at 37 °C after 24 h against all tested strains. At 10 °C, amurca was more inhibitory with MIC and MBC values of 40 and 60 µl/ml, respectively, after 7 d against tested strains. Amurca at 40 µl/ml reduced numbers of tested pathogens by 2.5 to 3.2 log10 CFU/ml at 10 °C after 7 d, but was not inhibitory at 37 °C after 24 h. Protein prepared from amurca was not antimicrobial. The relative antimicrobial activity (inhibition zone ratio) of 80 µl/ml amurca methanolic extract compared to chloramphenicol, erythromycin, gentamycin and tetracycline ranged from 0.36 to 1.0 against Gram-negative and from 0.45 to 2.0 against Gram-positive bacteria. In addition, amurca extract inhibited E. coli O157:H7 02-0628 and S. aureus 26127 which were resistant to tetracycline and chloramphenicol, respectively.
Is concordance with World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research guidelines for cancer prevention related to subsequent risk of cancer? Results from the EPIC study.

BACKGROUND In 2007 the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) and the American Institute of Cancer Research (AICR) issued 8 recommendations (plus 2 special recommendations) on diet, physical activity, and weight management for cancer prevention on the basis of the most comprehensive collection of available evidence. OBJECTIVE We aimed to investigate whether concordance with the WCRF/AICR recommendations was related to cancer risk in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study. DESIGN The present study included 386,355 EPIC participants from 9 European countries. At recruitment, dietary, anthropometric, and lifestyle information was collected. A score was constructed based on the WCRF/AICR recommendations on weight management, physical activity, foods and drinks that promote weight gain, plant foods, animal foods, alcoholic drinks, and breastfeeding for women; the score range was 0-6 for men and 0-7 for women. Higher scores indicated greater concordance with WCRF/AICR recommendations. The association between the score and cancer risk was estimated by using multivariable Cox regression models. RESULTS Concordance with the score was significantly associated with decreased risk of cancer. A 1-point increment in the score was associated with a risk reduction of 5% (95% CI: 3%, 7%) for total cancer, 12% (95% CI: 9%, 16%) for colorectal cancer, and 16% (95% CI: 9%, 22%) for stomach cancer. Significant associations were also observed for cancers of the breast, endometrium, lung, kidney, upper aerodigestive tract, liver, and esophagus but not for prostate, ovarian, pancreatic, and bladder cancers. CONCLUSION Adherence to the WCRF/AICR recommendations for cancer prevention may lower the risk of developing most types of cancer.
Effect of Virtual Reality on Adolescent Pain During Burn Wound Care

The objective of this study was to compare the effect of virtual reality to passive distraction and standard care on burn treatment pain in adolescents.This single-blinded, randomized controlled study enrolled 30 adolescents who were 10 to 17 years of age from the burn clinic of a large children’s hospital. After providing informed consent/assent, these participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups during wound care: standard care, passive distraction watching a movie, or virtual reality (VR) using a tripod-arm device rather than an immersive helmet. Before wound care, participants completed the Spielberger’s State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children and Pre-Procedure Questionnaire while blinded to group assignment. A total of 28 participants completed the study and rated treatment pain after wound care by using the Adolescent Pediatric Pain Tool and completed a Post-Procedure Questionnaire. The VR group reported less pain during wound care than either the passive distraction or standard care group as determined by multivariable linear regression adjusted for age, sex, preprocedure pain, state anxiety, opiate use, and treatment length. The VR group was the only group to have an estimated decrease in pain perception from baseline preprocedure pain to procedural pain reported. Adolescents pretreated with opiate analgesics and female adolescents reported more pain during wound care.This between-subjects clinical study provides further support for VR, even without requiring wearing of an immersive helmet, in lessening burn wound care pain in adolescents. Passive distraction by watching a movie may be less effective in reducing treatment pain. Additional between-subjects randomized controlled trials with larger samples of children and during other healthcare treatments may further support VR’s effectiveness in pediatric procedural pain management.
Towards an Improvement of Bisection-Based Adaptive Random Testing

Bisection-based adaptive random testing (B-ART) is a lightweight method for test case generation. However, its failure detection effectiveness is not so ideal. In this paper, two strategies are designed to overcome the disadvantage as above. The first one is the flexible partitioning strategy, in which the splitting line (or plane) is determined according to the relative position of the test case within the region to be bisected. Secondly, given an empty sub-region, candidate strategy is applied to select an appropriate candidate whose boundary distance is the largest in the set of random candidates as the next test case. Based on these two strategies, an improved algorithm named B-ART-FPCS is proposed. To verify the effectiveness of B-ART-FPCS algorithm, simulation analysis is performed for the comparison between the original B-ART and B-ART-FPCS. The experimental results show that B-ART-FPCS exhibits the stronger failure detection capability than B-ART for block failure pattern and most cases of point pattern. In addition, the linear-order time complexity of B-ART-FPCS is analyzed in theory and confirmed by experiments.
Factors associated with the status of meniscal tears following meniscal repair concomitant with anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction

ABSTRACT Purpose: Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries are often accompanied by meniscal tears. Meniscal repair is typically performed during ACL reconstruction. However, retear of the meniscus after repair is frequent. The purpose of this study was to analyze the factors associated with meniscal healing after meniscal repair concomitant with ACL reconstruction. Materials and methods: Eighty-seven meniscal repairs in 87 patients who received meniscal repair combined with ACL reconstruction and received second-look arthroscopy at a mean of postoperatively 15.7 months were examined retrospectively. The menisci were divided into three groups (complete heal, incomplete heal, and retear), and factors thought to affect the healing status of repaired menisci were analyzed using multivariate logistic regression analysis. Results: Meniscal healing was judged to be complete in 49 knees (56%), incomplete in 19 knees, (22%), and retear in 19 knees (22%). There were no significant differences among the three groups in age, sex, time from injury to operation, mean Tegner activity scale, tear location, or mean postoperative anteroposterior tibial translation on KT-1000. The mean length of the tear was significantly higher in the retear group. Additionally, the proportion patients with complete tear and the proportion with postoperative positive pivot shift test were significantly higher in the retear group than in the other groups. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that complete tear and positive pivot shift test were associated with retear. Conclusions: These findings suggest that complete tears and residual instability are associated with retears after meniscal repair concomitant with ACL reconstruction.
Lexico-Acoustic Neural-Based Models for Dialog Act Classification

Recent works have proposed neural models for dialog act classification in spoken dialogs. However, they have not explored the role and the usefulness of acoustic information. We propose a neural model that processes both lexical and acoustic features for classification. Our results on two benchmark datasets reveal that acoustic features are helpful in improving the overall accuracy. Finally, a deeper analysis shows that acoustic features are valuable in three cases: when a dialog act has sufficient data, when lexical information is limited and when strong lexical cues are not present.
Endoscopic ultrasound-guided needle-based confocal laser endomicroscopy for diagnosis of solid pancreatic lesions (ENES): a pilot study

Background and study aims: Endoscopic ultrasound-guided needle-based confocal laser endomicroscopy (EUS-nCLE) has been shown to aid in the diagnosis of cystic pancreatic lesions. This is a pilot project to study its findings in patients with solid pancreatic lesions (SPLs) with a prospective single-blinded study design. Methods: Patients with SPLs undergoing trans-gastric EUS fine needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) from July 2013 to March 2014 were prospectively enrolled. The nCLE diagnoses were compared with the final diagnoses. Researchers learned about the EUS-nCLE findings from previously published studies and applied it to diagnose SPLs. In the meantime, the findings were recorded. Results: In total, 22 patients were recruited (mean age 62.7 years, SD 13.8 years; 14 men and eight women). The mean maximal tumor diameter was 36.0 mm (SD 10.9 mm). EUS-nCLE yielded satisfactory images in all patients during the first EUS procedure and diagnosed benign and malignant SPLs in 3 and 19 patients, respectively. Final diagnoses of malignant SPLs were made in 19 patients. Benign SPLs were eventually diagnosed in three patients, with confirmed the cytology and disease stability during the 12-month follow-up period. At the end of the project, based on the results of this current study, EUS-nCLE findings for malignant SPLs were dark clumping with or without dilated vessels (> 40 μm). There were two criteria for diagnosing benign lesions which were white fibrous bands and normal acini cells. The accuracy rate of EUS-nCLE was 90.9 % (20/22). One falsely diagnosed malignant SPL was an inflammatory mass from a recent acute pancreatitis. Another one with a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor presenting with a symptomatic pseudocyst was incorrectly diagnosed as an inflammatory mass. This was likely from sampling error of the EUS-nCLE probe in an inflammatory area. Only one patient had post EUS-FNA bleeding but did not require a blood transfusion. The inter-observer agreement among three blinded endoscopists was almost perfect (Kappa 0.82). Conclusion: EUS-nCLE is a promising technique for the diagnosis of SPLs with good inter-observer agreement. Study registration‎: TCTR20140402001
Social isolation, loneliness and health in old age: a scoping review

The health and well-being consequences of social isolation and loneliness in old age are increasingly being recognised. The purpose of this scoping review was to take stock of the available evidence and to highlight gaps and areas for future research. We searched nine databases for empirical papers investigating the impact of social isolation and/or loneliness on a range of health outcomes in old age. Our search, conducted between July and September 2013 yielded 11,736 articles, of which 128 items from 15 countries were included in the scoping review. Papers were reviewed, with a focus on the definitions and measurements of the two concepts, associations and causal mechanisms, differences across population groups and interventions. The evidence is largely US-focused, and loneliness is more researched than social isolation. A recent trend is the investigation of the comparative effects of social isolation and loneliness. Depression and cardiovascular health are the most often researched outcomes, followed by well-being. Almost all (but two) studies found a detrimental effect of isolation or loneliness on health. However, causal links and mechanisms are difficult to demonstrate, and further investigation is warranted. We found a paucity of research focusing on at-risk sub-groups and in the area of interventions. Future research should aim to better link the evidence on the risk factors for loneliness and social isolation and the evidence on their impact on health.
Continuum thermo-electro-mechanical model for electrostrictive elastomers

This article presents a finite-deformation fully-coupled thermo-electro-elastic continuum model that is suited for the analysis, design, and control of solid-state transduction devices based on electrostrictive elastomers. In the model, electrostrictive elastomers are considered as isotropic modified-entropic hyperelastic dielectrics that deform in response to a simultaneous combination of electrical, thermal, and mechanical stimuli. The model is thermodynamically consistent and comprises general balance equations, which do not require the postulation of any force or stress tensor of electrical origin, together with phenomenological invariant-based constitutive relations, which necessitate the minimum number of material parameters to be determined via experimental tests only. Comparison with existing theories and experimental results are provided that validate the proposed thermo-electro-elastic model.
Expression of Sphingosine Kinase-1 Is Associated with Invasiveness and Poor Prognosis of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma.

BACKGROUND/AIM The expression of sphingosine kinase-1 (SphK1) has been reported in several cancers. However, the exact roles of SphK1 in cancer progression still remain unknown. The aim of the present study was to investigate SphK1 expression in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) and clarify the involvement of SphK1 in the proliferation and invasiveness of OSCC and its prognostic implications. MATERIALS AND METHODS Expression of SphK1, E-cadherin, vimentin, and Ki-67 were examined in 69 OSCC tissues immunohistochemically, as well as by western blot, and correlations between their expression and relationships with tumor invasiveness and prognosis were analyzed. RESULTS SphK1 was expressed in the tumor cells of 38 of 69 OSCCs, particularly at the invasion front. Patients with OSCCs with high SphK1 expression showed higher invasive grades and unfavorable survival rates. SphK1 expression correlated with acquisition of vimentin expression and loss of E-cadherin expression; there was no significant difference in Ki-67 labeling indices between OSCCs with high and low SphK1 expression. CONCLUSION These results demonstrate the involvement of SphK1 in the invasiveness of OSCC and in unfavorable prognosis, indicating its role in the epithelial-mesenchymal transition of OSCC cells.
Biological productivity in the Mauritanian upwelling estimated with a triple gas approach

Due to their high biological productivity coastal upwelling regions are important for biogeochemical cycles in the ocean and for fisheries. Upwelled water is not only enriched in nutrients but also supersaturated with respect to atmospheric CO2 and N2O and undersaturated for O2. We present a novel approach to estimate carbon based net community production (NCP) using surface ocean data for CO2, O2 and N2O from three cruises to the Mauritanian upwelling region (Northwest Africa) that were conducted in different seasons. Through combination of the saturation patterns of CO2, O2 and N2O effects of air–sea gas exchange and NCP could be separated. NCP values ranges from 0.6 ± 0.1g C m−2 d−1 during times of weak upwelling to 1.6 ± 0.4 g C m−2 d−1 during strong upwelling. The estimated NCP values show a strong relationship with a wind derived upwelling index, which was used to estimate annual NCP.
Online Photometric Calibration of Auto Exposure Video for Realtime Visual Odometry and SLAM

Recent direct visual odometry and SLAM algorithms have demonstrated impressive levels of precision. However, they require a photometric camera calibration in order to achieve competitive results. Hence, the respective algorithm cannot be directly applied to an off-the-shelf-camera or to a video sequence acquired with an unknown camera. In this letter, we propose a method for online photometric calibration that enables to process auto exposure videos with visual odometry precisions that are on par with those of photometrically calibrated videos. Our algorithm recovers the exposure times of consecutive frames, the camera response function, and the attenuation factors of the sensor irradiance due to vignetting. Gain robust Kanade-Lucas-Tomasi (KLT) feature tracks are used to obtain scene point correspondences as input to a nonlinear optimization framework. We show that our approach can reliably calibrate arbitrary video sequences by evaluating it on datasets for which full photometric ground truth is available. We further show that our calibration can improve the performance of a state-of-the-art direct visual odometry method that works solely on pixel intensities, calibrating for photometric parameters in an online fashion in realtime.
Strengthening of Square Reinforced Concrete Plates with Fiber Reinforced Plastics

This paper presents a reasonable numerical model for reinforced concrete structures strengthened by FRP. Proper constitutive models are introduced to simulate the nonlinear behaviors of reinforced concrete and FRP. The finite element program ABAQUS is used to perform the nonlinear failure analysis of the discussed problems. The validity of proposed material models is verified with experimental data and some strengthening schemes are discussed in detail for engineering applications. It has been shown that the use of fiber-reinforced plastics can significantly increase the stiffness as well as the ultimate strengths of reinforced concrete slabs. In addition, the nonlinearity of FRP in in-plane shear stress-strain relation dose not influence the behavior of such composite slabs, because of the small failure shear strain of the composite plates.
Relating the proton relative biological effectiveness to tumor control and normal tissue complication probabilities assuming interpatient variability in α/β

Abstract Background: Proton therapy uses a constant relative biological effectiveness (RBE) of 1.1. The use of variable RBE values has been suggested but is currently not feasible due to uncertainties. The impact of variable RBE has solely been studied using dosimetric indices. This work elucidates the impact of RBE variations on tumor control and normal tissue complication probabilities (TCP/NTCP). Methods: Models to estimate TCP and NTCP were used in combination with an empirical proton RBE model. Variations in outcome as a function of linear-quadratic model parameters for cellular radiosensitivity were determined for TCP in prostate and ependymoma. In addition, NTCP analysis was done for brainstem necrosis. Results: Considering a variable proton RBE as a dose-modifying factor for prescription doses and dose constraints is misleading, as TCP/NTCP do not simply scale with RBE. The dependency of RBE on α/β cannot be interpreted independent of TCP/NTCP because variations in radiosensitivity affect both photon and proton treatments. Assuming interpatient variability in radiosensitivity results in lower TCP for patients with low α/β. In proton therapy, the magnitude of TCP variations is reduced due to an RBE increase as α/β decreases. The TCP in proton therapy is less affected by interpatient variability in α/β. On the other hand, patients with a lower α/β would have a lower complication probability, which is counteracted by an increase in RBE as α/β decreases. Toxicities in proton therapy would be more affected by α/β variations compared to photon therapy. Conclusions: Assessment of variable RBE in proton therapy should be based on TCP and NTCP. Potential interpatient variability in radiosensitivity causes a smaller variance in TCP but a larger variance in NTCP for proton patients. The relative TCP as a function of α/β was found to be higher than the RBE, whereas the relative NTCP was lower than a calculated RBE.