Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Growth of Geobacter sulfurreducens with Acetate in Syntrophic Cooperation with Hydrogen-Oxidizing Anaerobic Partners

ABSTRACT Pure cultures of Geobacter sulfurreducens and other Fe(III)-reducing bacteria accumulated hydrogen to partial pressures of 5 to 70 Pa with acetate, butyrate, benzoate, ethanol, lactate, or glucose as the electron donor if electron release to an acceptor was limiting. G. sulfurreducens coupled acetate oxidation with electron transfer to an anaerobic partner bacterium in the absence of ferric iron or other electron acceptors. Cocultures of G. sulfurreducens and Wolinella succinogenes with nitrate as the electron acceptor degraded acetate efficiently and grew with doubling times of 6 to 8 h. The hydrogen partial pressures in these acetate-degrading cocultures were considerably lower, in the range of 0.02 to 0.04 Pa. From these values and the concentrations of the other reactants, it was calculated that in this cooperation the free energy change available to G. sulfurreducens should be about −53 kJ per mol of acetate oxidized, assuming complete conversion of acetate to CO2 and H2. However, growth yields (18.5 g of dry mass per mol of acetate for the coculture, about 14 g for G. sulfurreducens) indicated considerably higher energy gains. These yield data, measurement of hydrogen production rates, and calculation of the diffusive hydrogen flux indicated that electron transfer in these cocultures may not proceed exclusively via interspecies hydrogen transfer but may also proceed through an alternative carrier system with higher redox potential, e.g., a c-type cytochrome that was found to be excreted byG. sulfurreducens into the culture fluid. Syntrophic acetate degradation was also possible with G. sulfurreducens and Desulfovibrio desulfuricans CSN but only with nitrate as electron acceptor. These cultures produced cell yields of 4.5 g of dry mass per mol of acetate, to which both partners contributed at about equal rates. These results demonstrate that some Fe(III)-reducing bacteria can oxidize organic compounds under Fe(III) limitation with the production of hydrogen, and they provide the first example of rapid acetate oxidation via interspecies electron transfer at moderate temperature.
Prediction of Aqueous Solubility of Organic Compounds Based on a 3D Structure Representation

Two quantitative models for the prediction of aqueous solubility of 1293 organic compounds were developed by a Multilinear Regression (MLR) analysis and a Back-Propagation (BPG) neural network. The molecules were described by a set of 32 values of a Radial Distribution Function (RDF) code representing the 3D structure and eight additional descriptors. The 1293 compounds were divided into a training set of 797 compounds and a test set of 496 compounds based on a Kohonen self-organizing neural network map. The obtained models show a good predictive power: for the test set, a correlation coefficient of 0.96 and a standard deviation of 0.59 were achieved by the back-propagation neural network approach.
Statin Therapy Is Associated with Reduced Risk of Peptic Ulcer Disease in the Taiwanese Population

Although statin use may affect the severity of chronic gastritis and gastric cancer, no data exists about the relationship between statin therapy and risk of peptic ulcer disease (PUD) in patients. We investigated the effect of statin use and the incidence of PUD from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD). A total of 35,194 patients records for medical claims were enrolled. We performed a population-based case-control analysis to compare the incidence of PUD in patients who were prescribed statins and that in patients who were not. In the univariate logistic analysis, we found that statin was not significant risk of PUD. However, a multivariate model indicates that satin use was significantly associated with a reduced risk of PUD (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 0.87, 95% CI = 0.82–0.93, P < 0.001). The cumulative defined daily dose (DDD) was analyzed. Patients who prescribed fluvastatin ≥280 DDD, atorvastatin ≥200 DDD, and pravastatin ≥130 DDD dramatically decreased risk for PUD (aOR = 0.58, 0.67, and 0.71; 95% CI = 0.46–0.74, 0.57–0.78, and 0.56–0.91, respectively). Our results showed that statin therapy reduced the risk of PUD and this was associated with the high cumulative DDD of prescribed statins. This study reveals that active use of statins to be associated with decreased risk for PUD.
Tokyo Guidelines 2018: initial management of acute biliary infection and flowchart for acute cholangitis

The initial management of patients with suspected acute biliary infection starts with the measurement of vital signs to assess whether or not the situation is urgent. If the case is judged to be urgent, initial medical treatment should be started immediately including respiratory/circulatory management if required, without waiting for a definitive diagnosis. The patient's medical history is then taken; an abdominal examination is performed; blood tests, urinalysis, and diagnostic imaging are carried out; and a diagnosis is made using the diagnostic criteria for cholangitis/cholecystitis. Once the diagnosis has been confirmed, initial medical treatment should be started immediately, severity should be assessed according to the severity grading criteria for acute cholangitis/cholecystitis, and the patient's general status should be evaluated. For mild acute cholangitis, in most cases initial treatment including antibiotics is sufficient, and most patients do not require biliary drainage. However, biliary drainage should be considered if a patient does not respond to initial treatment. For moderate acute cholangitis, early endoscopic or percutaneous transhepatic biliary drainage is indicated. If the underlying etiology requires treatment, this should be provided after the patient's general condition has improved; endoscopic sphincterotomy and subsequent choledocholithotomy may be performed together with biliary drainage. For severe acute cholangitis, appropriate respiratory/circulatory management is required. Biliary drainage should be performed as soon as possible after the patient's general condition has been improved by initial treatment and respiratory/circulatory management. Free full articles and mobile app of TG18 are available at: http://www.jshbps. jp/modules/en/index.php? content_id=47. Related clinical questions and references are also included.
Incidence and Clinical Characteristics of Group A Rotavirus Infections among Children Admitted to Hospital in Kilifi, Kenya

Background Rotavirus, predominantly of group A, is a major cause of severe diarrhoea worldwide, with the greatest burden falling on young children living in less-developed countries. Vaccines directed against this virus have shown promise in recent trials, and are undergoing effectiveness evaluation in sub-Saharan Africa. In this region limited childhood data are available on the incidence and clinical characteristics of severe group A rotavirus disease. Advocacy for vaccine intervention and interpretation of effectiveness following implementation will benefit from accurate base-line estimates of the incidence and severity of rotavirus paediatric admissions in relevant populations. The study objective was to accurately define the incidence and severity of group A rotavirus disease in a resource-poor setting necessary to make informed decisions on the need for vaccine prevention. Methods and Findings Between 2002 and 2004 we conducted prospective surveillance for group A rotavirus infection at Kilifi District Hospital in coastal Kenya. Children < 13 y of age were eligible as “cases” if admitted with diarrhoea, and “controls” if admitted without diarrhoea. We calculated the incidence of hospital admission with group A rotavirus using data from a demographic surveillance study of 220,000 people in Kilifi District. Of 15,347 childhood admissions 3,296 (22%) had diarrhoea, 2,039 were tested for group A rotavirus antigen and, of these, 588 (29%) were positive. 372 (63%) rotavirus-positive cases were infants. Of 620 controls 19 (3.1%, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.9–4.7) were rotavirus positive. The annual incidence (per 100,000 children) of rotavirus-positive admissions was 1,431 (95% CI 1,275–1,600) in infants and 478 (437–521) in under-5-y-olds, and highest proximal to the hospital. Compared to children with rotavirus-negative diarrhoea, rotavirus-positive cases were less likely to have coexisting illnesses and more likely to have acidosis (46% versus 17%) and severe electrolyte imbalance except hyponatraemia. In-hospital case fatality was 2% among rotavirus-positive and 9% among rotavirus-negative children. Conclusions In Kilifi > 2% of children are admitted to hospital with group A rotavirus diarrhoea in the first 5 y of life. This translates into over 28,000 vaccine-preventable hospitalisations per year across Kenya, and is likely to be a considerable underestimate. Group A rotavirus diarrhoea is associated with acute life-threatening metabolic derangement in otherwise healthy children. Although mortality is low in this clinical research setting this may not be generally true in African hospitals lacking rapid and appropriate management.
Undergraduate Seminars: The Poster Session Solution

Discussion and Conclusion. Although there are limitations in the data, respondents were distributed across many demographic variables. Thus, their responses are probably suggestive of typical responses for larger samples of students, but generalization of results beyond this'small group is not recommended. These respondents seemed to enjoy the puzzles. They were more motivated to learn and retained the material longer than they did during the first part of the quarter before puzzles were used. Also, post-test scores significantly differed from pretest comparisons at thep < . O1 level. All-in-all, crossword puzzles seem to be a promising tool for use in a variety of courses where key concepts must be paired with some other piece of information, for example, names and ideas. There are many possibilities for designing various types of crossword puzzles, limited only by the imagination of the creator. Not only are such puzzles useful in History of Psychology, where important dates, names and concepts must be learned, but such a technique could be used in other psychology, human development, sociology, and anthropology courses, as well as other substantive areas in the social sciences.
Faces of an Invisible Population

Based on a quantitative, comparative analysis of U.S., French, and Norwegian news media, this article examines the use of human interest stories in the coverage of irregular immigration. In an innovative design, it systematically analyzes how human interest framing is related to the frequency and complexity of dominant arguments and perspectives (issue-specific frames). In contrast to the extant literature, arguing that news on immigration reduces immigrants to dangerous and anonymous threats, the article finds that about half the news stories studied have a human face or example. Moreover, these human interest articles tend to frame the issue from the immigrants’ perspective, describing their personal stories and struggle. This result nuances the commonly held assumption that human interest frames signal declining news quality, as the number and range of arguments presented are not significantly reduced when human narratives are employed. The prevalence of human interest frames is highest in Norway, where we also identify a reduction in frame complexity in human interest stories, indicating the need to rethink the democratic corporatist model in media system theory.
Fertility and fertility preservation techniques for breast cancerpatients

Breast cancer is not rare in younger women. There has been remarkable improvement in the survival rate due to progress in cancer treatment. Those treatments often cause premature ovarian failure due to massive destruction of the ovarian reserve. Early loss of ovarian function not only puts the patient at risk for menopause-related complications at a very young age but is also associated with loss of fertility. The purpose of this paper is to review the incidence of gonadal toxicity associated with adjuvant chemotherapy, fertility concerns, and the options to preserve fertility in young breast cancer survivors.
Coping styles and self-reported measures of state anxiety and self-confidence

Abstract Four stress coping styles in intercollegiate golfers (N = 112) were differentiated based on low and high combinations of repressive defensiveness (scores on the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale) and competitive trait anxiety (scores on the Sport Competition Anxiety Test). The results indicated biased responding on the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2) occurs only for repressors (high Marlowe-Crowne, low competitive trait anxiety). Repressors reported higher self-confidence and similar state anxiety as that reported by truly low anxious subjects (low Marlowe-Crowne, low competitive trait anxiety). High social desirability responders who were considered defensive high-anxious (high Marlowe-Crowne, high competitive trait anxiety) did not deny disturbing pre-competition cognitions. When predicting tournament performance with the CSAI-2 subscales, over twice as much variance was accounted for with repressors (assumed to have distorted responses) deleted compared to when all golfer.
Properties of AGN coronae in the NuSTAR era – II. Hybrid plasma

The corona, a hot cloud of electrons close to the centre of the accretion disc, produces the hard X-ray power-law continuum commonly seen in luminous Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). The continuum has a high-energy turnover, typically in the range of one to several 100 keV and is suggestive of Comptonization by thermal electrons. We are studying hard X-ray spectra of AGN obtained with NuSTAR after correction for X-ray reflection and under the assumption that coronae are compact, being only a few gravitational radii in size as indicated by reflection and reverberation modelling. Compact coronae raise the possibility that the temperature is limited and indeed controlled by electron-positron pair production, as explored earlier (Paper I). Here we examine hybrid plasmas in which a mixture of thermal and nonthermal particles is present. Pair production from the nonthermal component reduces the temperature leading to a wider temperature range more consistent with observations.
Body Positive

Four women who had previously undergone extensive treatment for an eating disorder but continued to have persistent body image disturbances participated in a new body image therapy program, called the Body Positive program. This project was conceptualized as a pilot study in which all participants were treated using the same protocol. There was no control group. Participants underwent pre- and post- treatment assessment that measured indices such as: body size estimation, depression, anxiety, body dissatisfaction, and eating disorder symptoms. The treatment consisted of 16 total sessions and was conducted on an outpatient basis over a 20-week period. The treatment implemented in this study was based on a cognitive-behavioral conceptualization. Components of the treatment were: relaxation and rebreathing training, self-monitoring, cognitive-behavioral treatment for body image concerns, mirror exposure (involving in- session and homework exposure to the body), behavioral exposure, and relapse prevention. Treatment efficacy was evaluated by changes in the outcome measures from pretreatment to posttreatment. Results indicated an overall improvement for all four participants in the areas of depression, state and trait anxiety, and body dissatisfaction. In addition, improvement was found for eating disorder symptoms such as; binge eating, purging, fear of fatness, restrictive eating, and avoidance of fear foods. These preliminary findings suggest that body image therapy can be used to effectively treat persistent weight/shape concerns in persons who have partially recovered from an eating disorder.
Sieve-based confidence intervals and bands for Lévy densities

The estimation of the L\'{e}vy density, the infinite-dimensional parameter controlling the jump dynamics of a L\'{e}vy process, is considered here under a discrete-sampling scheme. In this setting, the jumps are latent variables, the statistical properties of which can be assessed when the frequency and time horizon of observations increase to infinity at suitable rates. Nonparametric estimators for the L\'{e}vy density based on Grenander's method of sieves was proposed in Figueroa-L\'{o}pez [IMS Lecture Notes 57 (2009) 117--146]. In this paper, central limit theorems for these sieve estimators, both pointwise and uniform on an interval away from the origin, are obtained, leading to pointwise confidence intervals and bands for the L\'{e}vy density. In the pointwise case, our estimators converge to the L\'{e}vy density at a rate that is arbitrarily close to the rate of the minimax risk of estimation on smooth L\'{e}vy densities. In the case of uniform bands and discrete regular sampling, our results are consistent with the case of density estimation, achieving a rate of order arbitrarily close to $\log^{-1/2}(n)\cdot n^{-1/3}$, where $n$ is the number of observations. The convergence rates are valid, provided that $s$ is smooth enough and that the time horizon $T_n$ and the dimension of the sieve are appropriately chosen in terms of $n$.
Expectation-Confirmation Model of Information System Continuance: A Meta-Analysis

 Abstract — The expectation-confirmation model (ECM) is one of the most widely used models for evaluating information system continuance, and this model has been extended to other study backgrounds, or expanded with other theoretical perspectives. However, combining ECM with other theories or investigating the background problem may produce some disparities, thus generating inaccurate conclusions. Habit is considered to be an important factor that influences the user’s continuance behavior. This paper thus critically examines seven pairs of relationships from the original ECM and the habit variable. A meta-analysis was used to tackle the development of ECM research over the last 10 years from a range of journals and conference papers published in 2005–2014. Forty-six journal articles and 19 conference papers were selected for analysis. The results confirm our prediction that a high effect size for the seven pairs of relationships was obtained (ranging from r=0.386 to r=0.588). Furthermore, a meta-analytic structural equation modeling was performed to simultaneously test all relationships. The results show that habit had a significant positive effect on continuance intention at p <=0.05 and that the six other pairs of relationships were significant at p <0.10. Based on the findings, we refined our original research model and an alternative model was proposed for understanding and predicting information system continuance. Some theoretical implications are also discussed.
Energy Loss Reduction by Conductor Replacement and Capacitor Placement in Distribution Systems

Traditionally, capacitor placement and conductor replacement have been considered as independent solutions for loss reduction in distribution networks. However, these two methods have an inherent coupling relationship, especially at harmonic frequencies. This paper presents a joint optimization algorithm for both conductor replacement of overhead lines and capacitor placement to minimize energy losses in the presence of harmonics throughout the distribution system, such that both individual and total harmonic distortion of bus voltages are kept within the acceptable levels. All actual conditions including time varying nature of loads, network extension over the planning horizon, annual load growth and different load patterns are taken into account based on the realistic data. By applying the proposed method, the economic cost and energy losses are remarkably reduced compared to that could be achieved by applying these two methods separately in the presence of harmonics. The proposed method is applied on a realistic distribution network of Sirjan city-center in Iran.
Changing epidemiology of Clostridium difficile infection following the introduction of a national ribotyping-based surveillance scheme in England.

BACKGROUND Marked increases in Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) incidence, driven by epidemic strain spread, is a global phenomenon. METHODS The Clostridium difficile Ribotyping Network (CDRN) was established in 2007 as part of enhanced CDI surveillance in England, to facilitate the recognition and control of epidemic strains. We report on changes in CDI epidemiology in England in the first 3 years of CDRN. RESULTS CDRN received 12,603 fecal specimens, comprising significantly (P < .05) increasing numbers and proportions of national CDI cases in 2007-2008 (n = 2109, 3.8%), 2008-2009 (n = 4774, 13.2%), and 2009-2010 (n = 5720, 22.3%). The C. difficile recovery rate was 90%, yielding 11,294 isolates for ribotyping. Rates of 9 of the 10 most common ribotypes changed significantly (P < .05) during 2007-2010. Clostridium difficile ribotype 027 predominated, but decreased markedly from 55% to 36% and 21% in 2007-2008, 2008-2009, and 2009-2010, respectively. The largest regional variations in prevalence occurred for ribotypes 027, 002, 015, and 078. Cephalosporin and fluoroquinolone use in CDI cases was reported significantly (P < .05) less frequently during 2007-2010. Mortality data were subject to potential reporting bias, but there was a significant decrease in CDI-associated deaths during 2007-2010, which may have been due to multiple factors, including reduced prevalence of ribotype 027. CONCLUSIONS Access to C. difficile ribotyping was associated with significant changes in the prevalence of epidemic strains, especially ribotype 027. These changes coincided with markedly reduced CDI incidence and related mortality in England. CDI control programs should include prospective access to C. difficile typing and analysis of risk factors for CDI and outcomes.