Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The tyrosine kinase inhibitor imatinib mesylate delays prion neuroinvasion by inhibiting prion propagation in the periphery

Prion diseases are fatal neurodegenerative disorders with no effective therapy. A hallmark of prion disease is the conversion of the normal cellular form of prion protein PrPC into a disease-associated isoform PrPSc. The authors recently have shown that a tyrosine kinase inhibitor, imatinib mesylate, induces clearance of PrPSc via specific inhibition of c-Abl in prion-infected cell culture models. In this study, the authors assessed the in vivo effects of imatinib mesylate on prion disease using a scrapie-infected mouse model and further investigated prion infectivity of the drug-treated scrapie-infected neuroblastoma (ScN2a) cells. The authors found that imatinib mesylate abolished prion infectivity to almost undetectable level in ScN2a cells and the level of PrPSc was significantly decreased by the drug in scrapie-infected mouse spleens as well as in ScN2a cells. Moreover, the drug treatment at an early phase of peripheral scrapie infection delayed the appearance of PrPSc in the central nervous system (CNS) and onset of clinical disease in mice. However, neither intraperitoneal nor intracerebroventricular delivery of the drug exerted any PrPSc clearance effect in the CNS.
Frequency of Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes in gut microbiota in obese and normal weight Egyptian children and adults

Introduction Obesity and associated metabolic disorders are a worldwide epidemic. Recent evidence suggests that the microbial community in the human intestine may play an important role in the pathogenesis of obesity. The aim of this study was to assess the differences in the composition of the intestinal microbiota between obese and normal weight Egyptian children and adults. Material and methods The study included 79 subjects among whom 51 were obese (23 children and 28 adults), and 28 were subjects of normal weight (17 children and 11 adults). Faecal samples were collected from all subjects. Total DNA was extracted from collected stool samples and submitted to conventional PCR for detection of Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes. All the studied group was subjected to clinical and anthropometric evaluation. Laboratory assessment of fasting glucose, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) and lipid profile was performed. Results The proportions of the phyla Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes were statistically significantly increased in the obese group compared to the normal weight group (p < 0.001, p = 0.003 respectively). The study also found a statistically significant positive trend for higher hsCRP in subjects with positive Firmicutes (p = 0.004). However, no associations were found between positive Bacteroidetes and hsCRP. Conclusions The results of this study indicate that obesity in Egyptian children and adults is associated with compositional changes in faecal microbiota with increase in the phyla Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes. This could be considered when developing strategies to control obesity and its associated diseases by modifying the gut microbiota.
Intercultural competence for all : preparation for living in a heterogeneous world

This publication looks at the development of intercultural competence as a key element of mainstream education. It stresses the need firstly for an appropriate education policy which puts intercultural competence at the heart of all education and, above all, for the development, on an everyday basis, of the necessary attitudes, skills and knowledge needed for mutual understanding. Without these, no sustainable societal change is possible.
On the Hydrodynamics of Finite Jets and the Geometry of Laminar Counterflow Premixed Flames

The modified form of the equation of motion at eddy-dynamic and cluster-dynamic scales is solved to describe the hydrodynamics of opposed finite jets. The results suggest that one encounters and infinite cascade of self-similar, fractal, opposed jets as the stagnation point is approached at ever-smaller spatial resolutions. Also, an analytical expression giving possible geometry of laminar premixed flames stabilized in opposed finite jets and propagating under Huygens principal is presented. The predicted flame geometries are found to be in agreement with the prior numerical studies as well as the observations of symmetric lean methane premixed flames at low stretch rates reported in the literature.
Genetic Analysis of Termite Colonies in Wisconsin

ABSTRACT The objective of this study was to document current areas of subterranean termite activity in Wisconsin and to evaluate genetic characteristics of these northern, peripheral colonies. Here, amplified fragment-length polymorphism was used to characterize levels of inbreeding, expected heterozygosity, and percent polymorphism within colonies as well as genetic structure among populations sampled. Genetic analysis revealed two species of termites occur in Wisconsin, Reticulitermes flavipes (Kollar) and Reticulitermes tibialis Banks, both found in the southern half of the state. Colonies of both species in Wisconsin are thought to represent the northern boundary of their current distributions. Measurements of within colony genetic variation showed the proportion of polymorphic loci to be between 52.9–63.9% and expected heterozygosity to range from 0.122–0.189. Consistent with geographical isolation, strong intercolony genetic differences were observed, with over 50% of FST values above 0.25 and the remaining showing moderate levels of genetic differentiation. Combined with low levels of inbreeding in most collection locations (FIS 0.042–0.123), we hypothesize termites were introduced numerous times in the state, likely by anthropogenic means. We discuss the potential effects of these genetic characteristics on successful colony establishment of termites along the northern boundary compared with termites in the core region of their distribution.
Middleware for the Internet of Things

The Future Internet enables us to have an immediate access to information about the physical world and its objects. As such, Internet of Things (IoT) has been introduced to integrate the virtual world of information and the real world of devices. Internet of Things covers the infrastructure, which can be hardware, software and services, to support the networking of physical objects. IoT aims to provide a simple interaction between the physical world and the virtual world, by integrating a large numbers of real-world physical devices (or things) into the Internet. IoT has increasingly gained attention in industry to interact with different types of devices. This popularity cause a demand to use IoT vision for different types of device. While each type of devices can support its own communication protocol and required data to provide data for each interaction. This heterogeneous device interaction cause difficulties to interact with the devices to gather information from the environment. The solution that has introduced in the literatures is defining a middleware layer between the devices and the user of the IoT- based system. In this research, we investigate on developing a middleware for an IoT-based system like video Monitoring System (VMS), to facilitate configuration and deployment for non-expert end-users. A VMS is responsible to provide full video coverage to monitor an area for an end-user, such as a guard. The configuration and deployment can be facilitated by providing a homogeneous Graphical User Interface to interact with different types of camera in a uniform way. A VMS must support the technical details of different types of cameras. However, these variations should be hidden from non-expert end-users. Thus, we extract a model from the required features to configure different types of cameras. In this project, we developed a VMS that consist of a Middleware for video Monitoring System (MVMS) and applications, which run on top of the middleware. Our VMS let non-experts end-users configure cameras through communicating with third-party camera service providers which is responsible to apply end- users configuration on cameras. To evaluate our VMS to achieve the ease of configuration and deployment for non-expert end-users, we developed a prototype and interview with the practitioners in a company which has developed VMS.
Stratifying the singularity loci of a class of parallel manipulators

Some in-parallel robots, such as the 3-2-1 and the 3/2 manipulators, have attracted attention because their forward kinematics can be solved by three consecutive trilaterations. In this paper, we identify a class of these robots, which we call flagged manipulators, whose singularity loci admit a well-behaved decomposition, i.e., a stratification, derived from that of the flag manifold. Two remarkable properties must be highlighted. First, the decomposition has the same topology for all members in the class, irrespective of the metric details of each particular robot instance. Thus, we provide explicitly all the singular strata and their connectivity, which apply to all flagged manipulators without any tailoring. Second, the strata can be easily characterized geometrically, because it is possible to assign local coordinates to each stratum (in the configuration space of the manipulator) that correspond to uncoupled rotations and/or translations in the workspace.
Spectra of modular and small-world matrices

We compute spectra of symmetric random matrices describing graphs with general modular structure and arbitrary inter- and intra-module degree distributions, subject only to the constraint of finite mean connectivities. We also evaluate spectra of a certain class of small-world matrices generated from random graphs by introducing shortcuts via additional random connectivity components. Both adjacency matrices and the associated graph Laplacians are investigated. For the Laplacians, we find Lifshitz-type singular behaviour of the spectral density in a localized region of small |λ| values. In the case of modular networks, we can identify contributions of local densities of state from individual modules. For small-world networks, we find that the introduction of short cuts can lead to the creation of satellite bands outside the central band of extended states, exhibiting only localized states in the band gaps. Results for the ensemble in the thermodynamic limit are in excellent agreement with those obtained via a cavity approach for large finite single instances, and with direct diagonalization results.
Caught between a rock and a hard place: From individually experienced double binds to collaborative change in surgery

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to research a critical transition from individually‐experienced double binds to collaborative change. To this end an early phase of a change process in a central surgical unit is studied in detail.Design/methodology/approach – The study uses an interventionist and ethnographic methodology to research the shift from individual to collective during organizational change. Organizational change is studied as a resolution of evolving contradictions. In this early phase, contradictions can emerge as individually‐experienced double binds and crisis.Findings – The findings of the study describe a transition in which individually‐experienced double binds and crisis become a driving force for organizational change. The dissolution of contradictions as double binds and crisis is strongly connected to emotions. When emotions are unveiled and collectively worked out, they become shared and can be understood critically. A change process is usually conceptualized as proceeding thro.
Localization of a toxic form of superoxide dismutase 1 protein to pathologically affected tissues in familial ALS

Mutations in the gene encoding superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) account for about 20% of the cases of familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (fALS). It is not known how the mutant protein causes disease, or why only a subset of cell types (motor neurons) are targeted. The aggregation and misfolding of mutant SOD1 are implicated in disease pathogenesis in both animal models and humans. We used a monoclonal antibody, C4F6, which specifically reacts with mutant and/or “misfolded” SOD1, to investigate the regional distribution of mutant SOD1 protein in rodent and human tissues. C4F6 reacted only with mutant SOD1 and showed remarkable selectivity for disease-affected tissues and cells. Tissue not affected by disease but containing high levels of mutant protein (sensory neurons) did not stain with C4F6. Additionally, C4F6 intensely stained some motor neurons while leaving adjacent motor neurons unstained. Although C4F6 was generated against the G93A SOD1 mutant, it also recognized other SOD1 mutants. In human autopsy tissues from patients carrying SOD1 mutations, C4F6 identified skein-like intracellular inclusions in motor neurons, similar to those seen in rodents, and again stained only a subset of motor neurons. In spinal cords from patients with sporadic ALS, other neurodegenerative diseases, and normal controls, C4F6-immunoreactive inclusions were not detected, but the antibody did reveal diffuse immunostaining of some spinal motor neurons. The ability of C4F6 to differentiate pathologically affected tissue in mutant SOD1 ALS rodent models and humans, specifically motor neuron populations, suggests that this antibody may recognize a “toxic” form of the mutant SOD1 protein.
Maize Response to Fertilizer Dosing at Three Sites in the Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia

This study examines the agronomic response, efficiency and profitability of fertilizer microdosing in maize. An experiment with the following treatments was conducted: control without fertilizer, microdosing treatments, with the rate of 27 + 27, 53 + 53 and 80 + 80 kg ha−1, and banding of fertilizer with 100 + 100 kg ha−1 of di ammonium phosphate (DAP) + urea, applied at planting and jointing, respectively. The treatments were arranged in a randomized complete block design with four replications. The experiment was conducted during the 2011/2012 and 2012/2013 cropping seasons at Ziway, Melkassa and Hawassa in the semiarid central rift valley region of Ethiopia. Compared to the control, the fertilizer treatments had higher yield and fertilizer use efficiency (FUE) profitably. The 27 + 27 kg ha−1 fertilizer rate increased the grain yield by 19, 45 and 46% at Hawassa, Ziway and Melkassa, respectively, and it was equivalent to the higher rates. The value cost ratio (VCR) was highest with the lowest fertilizer rate, varying between seven and 11 in the treatment with 27 + 27 kg ha−1, but two and three in the banding treatment. Similarly, FUE was highest with the lowest fertilizer rate, varying between 23 and 34 kg kg−1 but 7 and 8 kg kg−1 in the banding treatment. The improved yield, FUE, VCR and gross margin in maize with microdosing at the 27 + 27 kg ha−1 of DAP + urea rate makes it low cost, low risk, high yielding and profitable. Therefore, application of this particular rate in maize may be an option for the marginal farmers in the region with similar socioeconomic and agroecological conditions.
The Influence of Physiotherapy on the Range of Motion and Kinesthetic Sensation of Movement in the Radiocarpal Articulation in Patients with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Background: Range of motion (ROM) and kinesthetic differentiation of movement (KDM) significantly influence hand functions during work and while performing everyday activities. Because to date ROM and KDM in carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) patients and its changes following different forms of physiotherapy have not been thoroughly assessed, they became the objective of our study. The aim was to assess the influence of two physiotherapeutic programs on the ROM and KDM in patients with CTS. Methods: 140 people participated in the experiment, including 122 (87,15%) women and 18 (,85%) men. Each person who was not excluded and fulfilled the inclusion criteria to the study was randomly assigned to a group rehabilitated by means of either manual therapy including neurodynamic techniques (MT) or physical therapy including electrophysical modalities (EM). ROM and KDM were assessed. The therapy in MT group was based on manual therapy including neurodynamic techniques and in the EM group on laser therapy and ultrasounds. Results: Statistically significant improvement was observed in flexion and extension ROM in upper extremities with CTS only in the MT group (p<0.001). Similar effects were obtained in KDM. Similar results distribution occurred while comparing extremities with CTS and healthy extremities. Statistically significant improvement in assessment of ROM and KDM were observed only in the MT group (p<0.001). Conclusions: Therapeutic program using manual therapy including neurodynamic techniques improves ROM and KDM in patients with CTS. The cycle of therapy improved the status of symptomatic limbs. A decreased difference in terms of ROM and KDM in the symptomatic limb in relation to the asymptomatic limb was observed.
Nonlinear statistics of quantum transport in chaotic cavities

In the framework of the random matrix approach, we apply the theory of Selberg's integral to problems of quantum transport in chaotic cavities. All the moments of transmission eigenvalues are calculated analytically up to the fourth order. As a result, we derive exact explicit expressions for the skewness and kurtosis of the conductance and transmitted charge as well as for the variance of the shot-noise power in chaotic cavities. The obtained results are generally valid at arbitrary numbers of propagating channels in the two attached leads. In the particular limit of large (and equal) channel numbers, the shot-noise variance attends the universal value $1∕64\ensuremath{\beta}$ that determines a universal Gaussian statistics of shot-noise fluctuations in this case.
Printing spatially-varying reflectance

Although real-world surfaces can exhibit significant variation in materials --- glossy, diffuse, metallic, etc. --- printers are usually used to reproduce color or gray-scale images. We propose a complete system that uses appropriate inks and foils to print documents with a variety of material properties. Given a set of inks with known Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Functions (BRDFs), our system automatically finds the optimal linear combinations to approximate the BRDFs of the target documents. Novel gamut-mapping algorithms preserve the relative glossiness between different BRDFs, and halftoning is used to produce patterns to be sent to the printer. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach with printed samples of a number of measured spatially-varying BRDFs.
External rhinoplasty: a critical analysis of 500 cases

The study presents a comprehensive statistical analysis of a series of 500 consecutive rhinoplasties of which 380 (76 per cent) were primary and 120 (24 per cent) were secondary cases. All cases were operated upon using the external rhinoplasty technique; simultaneous septal surgery was performed in 350 (70 per cent) of the cases. Deformities of the upper two-thirds of the nose that occurred significantly more in the secondary cases included; dorsal saddling, dorsal irregularities, valve collapse, open roof and pollybeak deformities. In the lower third of the nose; secondary cases showed significantly higher incidences of depressed tip, tip over-rotation, tip asymmetry, retracted columella, and alar notching. Suturing techniques were used significantly more in primary cases, while in secondary cases grafting techniques wereused significantly more. The complications encountered intra-operatively included; septal flap tears (2.8 per cent) and alar cartilage injury (1.8 per cent), while post-operative complications included; nasal trauma (one per cent), epistaxis (two per cent), infection (2.4 per cent), prolonged oedema (17 per cent), and nasal obstruction (0.8 per cent). The overall patient satisfaction rate was 95.6 per cent and the transcolumellar scar was found to be unacceptable in only 0.8 per cent of the patients.
Extracellular Reduction of Hexavalent Chromium by Cytochromes MtrC and OmcA of Shewanella oneidensis MR-1

ABSTRACT To characterize the roles of cytochromes MtrC and OmcA of Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 in Cr(VI) reduction, the effects of deleting the mtrC and/or omcA gene on Cr(VI) reduction and the cellular locations of reduced Cr(III) precipitates were investigated. Compared to the rate of reduction of Cr(VI) by the wild type (wt), the deletion of mtrC decreased the initial rate of Cr(VI) reduction by 43.5%, while the deletion of omcA or both mtrC and omcA lowered the rate by 53.4% and 68.9%, respectively. In wt cells, Cr(III) precipitates were detected by transmission electron microscopy in the extracellular matrix between the cells, in association with the outer membrane, and inside the cytoplasm. No extracellular matrix-associated Cr(III) precipitates, however, were found in the cytochrome mutant cell suspension. In mutant cells without either MtrC or OmcA, most Cr(III) precipitates were found in association with the outer membrane, while in mutant cells lacking both MtrC and OmcA, most Cr(III) precipitates were found inside the cytoplasm. Cr(III) precipitates were also detected by scanning election microscopy on the surfaces of the wt and mutants without MtrC or OmcA but not on the mutant cells lacking both MtrC and OmcA, demonstrating that the deletion of mtrC and omcA diminishes the extracellular formation of Cr(III) precipitates. Furthermore, purified MtrC and OmcA reduced Cr(VI) with apparent kcat values of 1.2 ± 0.2 (mean ± standard deviation) and 10.2 ± 1 s−1 and Km values of 34.1 ± 4.5 and 41.3 ± 7.9 μM, respectively. Together, these results consistently demonstrate that MtrC and OmcA are the terminal reductases used by S. oneidensis MR-1 for extracellular Cr(VI) reduction where OmcA is a predominant Cr(VI) reductase.
In vitro Activity of FK463, a Novel Lipopeptide Antifungal Agent, against a Variety of Clinically Important Molds

The in vitro antifungal activity of FK463 against a variety of clinically important opportunistic molds was compared with amphotericin B, itraconazole and fluconazole by using the broth microdilution method M27-A specified by the National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards. FK463 exhibited potent activity against Aspergillus species, which was superior to those of all other compounds tested. FK463 was also active against the dematiaceous fungi Cladosporium trichoides, Exophiala spinifera, Fonsecaea pedrosoi, and Exophiala dermatitidis except for certain clinical isolates. However, FK463 had no activity against Fusarium solani, Pseudallesheria boydii, and the zygomycetes Absidia corymbifera, Cunninghamella elegans, Rhizopus oryzae, and Rhizopus microsporus var. rhizopodiformis. These results suggest that FK463 has potential utility for the treatment for infections caused by Aspergillus species and dematiaceous fungi.
Feature selection in pathological voice classification using dinamyc of component analysis

This paper presents a methodology for the reduction of the training space based on the analysis of the variation of the linear components of the acoustic features. The methodology is applied to the automatic detection of voice disorders by means of stochastic dynamic models. The acoustic features used to model the speech are: MFCC, HNR, GNE, NNE and the energy envelopes. The feature extraction is carried out by means of PCA, and classification is done using discrete and continuous HMMs. The results showed a direct relationship between the principal directions (feature weights) and the classification performance. The dynamic feature analysis by means of PCA reduces the dimension of the original feature space while the topological complexity of the dynamic classifier remains unchanged. The experiments were tested with Kay Elemetrics (DB1) and UPM (DB2) databases. Results showed 91% of accuracy with 30% of computational cost reduction for DB1.