Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Inhibition of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Glutamine Synthetase as a Novel Antibiotic Strategy against Tuberculosis: Demonstration of Efficacy In Vivo

ABSTRACT Tuberculosis remains one of humankind's greatest killers, and new therapeutic strategies are needed to combat the causative agent, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which is rapidly developing resistance to conventional antibiotics. Using the highly demanding guinea pig model of pulmonary tuberculosis, we have investigated the feasibility of inhibiting M. tuberculosis glutamine synthetase (GS), an enzyme that plays a key role in both nitrogen metabolism and cell wall biosynthesis, as a novel antibiotic strategy. In guinea pigs challenged by aerosol with the highly virulent Erdman strain of M. tuberculosis, the GS inhibitor l-methionine-SR-sulfoximine (MSO) protected the animals against weight loss, a hallmark of tuberculosis, and against the growth of M. tuberculosis in the lungs and spleen; MSO reduced the CFU of M. tuberculosis at 10 weeks after challenge by ∼0.7 log unit compared with that in control animals. MSO acted synergistically with isoniazid in protecting animals against weight loss and bacterial growth, reducing the CFU in the lungs and spleen by ∼1.5 log units below the level seen with isoniazid alone. In the presence of ascorbate, which allows treatment with a higher dose, MSO was highly efficacious, reducing the CFU in the lungs and spleen by 2.5 log units compared with that in control animals. This study demonstrates that inhibition of M. tuberculosis GS is a feasible therapeutic strategy against this pathogen and supports the concept that M. tuberculosis enzymes involved in cell wall biosynthesis, including major secretory proteins, have potential as antibiotic targets.
Local scour around complex abutments

ABSTRACT Local scour around complex abutment and pier is the main reason for bridges to collapse. Although the complex abutment/pier has been used in most rivers, there is limited research in the literature about the flow pattern and local scour at complex abutment/pier. In this study, a series of experimental test was conducted to predict local scour at complex abutments and provided results were compared with complex piers. The trend of local scour at compound abutments and piers was similar and considerably sensitive to the foundation level (Z). The top of foundation stops development of scour depth for several hours which depends on the abutment/pier size (L), foundation size and its level (Lf and Z). The minimum scour depth was observed for 1.0 < Z/L < 1.5. A novel equation with high accuracy (R 2 = 0.97 and RMSE = 0.06) was developed for prediction of local scour at compound abutment based on effective length. This research highlights that the bridge cost can be reduced with a suitable design for the foundation level.
Observations of Temporal and Azimuthal Variability

In this third paper in a series presenting observations by the Cassini Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (UVIS) of the Io plasma torus, we show remarkable, though subtle , spatio-temporal variations in torus properties. The Io torus is found to exhibit significant, near-sinusoidal variations in ion composition as a function of azimuthal position. The azimuthal variation in composition is such that the mixing ratio of S II is strongly correlated with the mixing ratio of S III and the equatorial electron density and strongly anti-correlated with the mixing ratios of both S IV and O II and the equatorial electron temperature. Surprisingly, the azimuthal variation in ion composition is observed to have a period of 10.07 hours—1.5% longer than the System III rotation period of Jupiter, yet 1.3% shorter than the System IV period defined by Brown (1995). Although the amplitude of the azimuthal variation of S III and O II remained in the range of 2–5%, the amplitude of the S II and S IV compositional variation ranged between 5–25% during the UVIS observations. Furthermore, the amplitude of the az-imuthal variations of S II and S IV appears to be modulated by its location in System III longitude, such that when the region of maximum S II mixing ratio (minimum S IV mixing ratio) is aligned with a System III longitude of ∼200±15 • , the amplitude is a factor of ∼4 greater than when the variation is anti-aligned. This behavior can explain numerous, often apparently contradictory, observations of variations in the properties of the Io plasma torus with the System III and System IV coordinate systems.
Structural Disparities of Urban Traffic in Southern California: Implications for Vehicle-Related Air Pollution Exposure in Minority and High-Poverty Neighborhoods

ABSTRACT: Structural inequalities provide an important context for understanding and responding to the impact of high traffic densities on disadvantaged neighborhoods. Emerging atmospheric science and epidemiological research indicates hazardous vehicle-related pollutants (e.g., diesel exhaust) are highly concentrated near major roadways, and the prevalence of respiratory ailments and mortality are heightened in these high-traffic corridors. This article builds on recent findings that low-income and minority children in California disproportionately reside in high-traffic areas by demonstrating how the urban structure provides a critical framework for evaluating the causes, characteristics, and magnitude of traffic, particularly for disadvantaged neighborhoods. We find minority and high-poverty neighborhoods bear over two times the level of traffic density compared to the rest of the Southern California region, which may associate them with a higher risk of exposure to vehicle-related pollutants. Furthermore, these areas have older and more multifamily housing, which is associated with higher rates of indoor exposure to outdoor pollutants, including intrusion of motor vehicle exhaust. We discuss the implications of these patterns on future planning and policy strategies for mitigating the serious health consequences of exposure to vehicle-related air pollutants.
The Perception of Charisma from Voice: A Cross-Cultural Study

This paper provides an overview of previous works on the acoustic parameters of charismatic voice and illustrates MASCharP, a scale for measuring the perception of charisma in voice. A study is then presented on the perception of charisma through the temporal and pitch structure of the voices of an Italian and a French politician. Results show some cultural differences in charisma perception and how acoustic features such as pitch (normal, higher, or lower) and types of pauses (short or long) can affect the Proactive-Attractive and Calm-Benevolent dimensions of charisma. The same dimension of charisma can be conveyed by different acoustic correlates of voice by connecting them to the dimension of leader extraversion-introversion.
Paragraph vector based retrieval model for similar cases recommendation

Internet inquiry is playing an increasingly important role as the complement of the traditional medical service system, especially the similar cases recommendation. It can not only save the patients' waiting time, but also make use of the historical resources, for many cases with the same purpose have been solved perfectly. However, because of the diversity and non-standard of the patients' descriptions, the inquiry platform cannot find the cases with similar semantic easily. Most traditional retrieval methods require the overlap of two sentences, and this is not suitable with the diversity and non-standard descriptions. In this paper, we try to utilize the sentences' semantic representation in a continuous space to understand the cases, and then recommend the similar cases. We also incorporate it into query likelihood language models, trying to get better results. Our experimental data are all collected from a real internet inquiry platform, and the results show that our methods significantly outperform the state-of-the-art translation based methods for similar cases recommendation.
An XMM–Newton observation of Mkn 3 – a Seyfert galaxy just over the edge

A 100-ks XMM–Newton observation of the nearby Seyfert 2 galaxy Mkn 3 offers a unique opportunity to explore the complexity of its X-ray spectrum. We find the ∼3–8 keV continuum to be dominated by reflection from cold matter, with fluorescent K-shell lines detected from Ni, Fe, Ca, Ar, S, Si and Mg. At higher energies an intrinsic power-law continuum, with canonical Seyfert 1 photon index, is seen through a near-Compton-thick cold absorber. A soft excess below ∼3 keV is found to be dominated by line emission from an outflow of ‘warm’ gas, photoionized and photoexcited by the intrinsically strong X-ray continuum. Measured blueshifts in the strong Fe Kα and O vii and O viii emission lines are discussed in terms of the properties of the putative molecular torus and ionized outflow.
Do Chinese Employers Avoid Hiring Overqualified Workers? Evidence from an Internet Job Board

Can having more education than a job requires reduce one's chances of being offered the job? We study this question in a sample of applications to jobs that are posted on an urban Chinese website. We find that being overqualified in this way does not reduce the success rates of university-educated jobseekers applying to college-level jobs, but that it does hurt college-educated workers' chances when applying to jobs requiring technical school, which involves three fewer years of education than college. Our results highlight a difficult situation faced by the recent large cohort of college-educated Chinese workers: They seem to fare poorly in the competition for jobs, both when pitted against more-educated university graduates, and when pitted against less-educated technical school graduates.
Visual Acuity and Optical Parameters in Progressive-Power Lenses

Purposes. The purposes of this study are to explore the effect of astigmatism and high-order aberrations of progressive-power lenses (PPLs) on visual acuity (VA) and to find a good optical metric for evaluating visual performance of PPLs. Methods. A Hartmann-Shack (HS) wavefront sensor was used to measure PPLs and human eyes either independently or in combination. An additional channel permits the measurement of VA under the same optical conditions. Measurements were taken in six relevant locations of a PPL and in three eyes of different normal subjects. In every case, we obtained the wavefront aberration as Zernike polynomials expansions, the root mean square (RMS) error, and two metrics on point spread function (PSF): Strehl ratio and the common logarithm of the volume under the PSF normalized to one (Log_Vol_PSF). Results. Aberration coupling of the PPL with the eye tends to equalize the retinal image quality between central and peripheral zones of the progressive lenses. In the corridor of the PPL, the combination of small amounts of coma, trefoil, and astigmatism (total RMS 0.1 &mgr;m) does not significantly affect VA. The continuous increase of astigmatism from corridor to outside zones reduces moderately the quality of vision. The highest correlations between optical metrics and VA were found for Log_Vol_PSF of the entire system eye plus PPL. Conclusions. Ocular aberrations reduce optical quality difference between corridor and peripheral zones of PPLs. In the same way, VA through the corridor is similar to that of eyes without a lens and it decreases slowly toward peripheral locations. VA through PPLs is well predicted by the logarithm of metrics directly related with image spread (Log_Vol_PSF or equivalent) of the complete system of the eye with the lens.
Outside the Sports Closet: News Discourses of Professional Gay Male Athletes in the Mainstream

Contributing to a growing yet underresearched area of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer issues in sport, this study interrogates news discourses of the most prominent American athletes coming-out stories to date: the National Basketball Association’s Jason Collins and the National Football League’s Michael Sam. Mainstream media narratives invoked an overall congratulatory tone, hailing these announcements as watershed moments while at the same time emphasizing athletes’ physicality and athleticism in ways that reinforced the hypermasculine. Journalists and opinion leaders celebrated these announcements while simultaneously relying on coded and overt homophobic labels and language. Media storytellers subsequently relied upon dualistic, self-contradictory binaries, highlighting the paradoxes implicit in celebrating increased gay visibility within the confines of a commercialized sports/media complex with heterosexuality and hypermasculinity at its core.
High-Throughput Sequencing of microRNAs in Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells: Identification of Potential Weight Loss Biomarkers

Introduction MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are being increasingly studied in relation to energy metabolism and body composition homeostasis. Indeed, the quantitative analysis of miRNAs expression in different adiposity conditions may contribute to understand the intimate mechanisms participating in body weight control and to find new biomarkers with diagnostic or prognostic value in obesity management. Objective The aim of this study was the search for miRNAs in blood cells whose expression could be used as prognostic biomarkers of weight loss. Methods Ten Caucasian obese women were selected among the participants in a weight-loss trial that consisted in following an energy-restricted treatment. Weight loss was considered unsuccessful when <5% of initial body weight (non-responders) and successful when >5% (responders). At baseline, total miRNA isolated from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) was sequenced with SOLiD v4. The miRNA sequencing data were validated by RT-PCR. Results Differential baseline expression of several miRNAs was found between responders and non-responders. Two miRNAs were up-regulated in the non-responder group (mir-935 and mir-4772) and three others were down-regulated (mir-223, mir-224 and mir-376b). Both mir-935 and mir-4772 showed relevant associations with the magnitude of weight loss, although the expression of other transcripts (mir-874, mir-199b, mir-766, mir-589 and mir-148b) also correlated with weight loss. Conclusions This research addresses the use of high-throughput sequencing technologies in the search for miRNA expression biomarkers in obesity, by determining the miRNA transcriptome of PBMC. Basal expression of different miRNAs, particularly mir-935 and mir-4772, could be prognostic biomarkers and may forecast the response to a hypocaloric diet.
Divisions 3-5-2014 The Vitamin D Status of Prison Inmates

Introduction: There is no comprehensive, systematic analysis of the vitamin D status of prisoners in the scientific literature. Objective: To investigate the vitamin D status and its determinants in US prison inmates. Hypothesis: Given the uniformity of dietary intake amongst inmates, vitamin D status will be determined by non-dietary factors such as skin pigmentation, security level-, and the duration of incarceration. Subjects and Methods: A retrospective study of 526 inmates (males, n = 502, age 48.6612.5 years; females, n = 24, age 44.1612.2) in Massachusetts prisons. Vitamin D sufficiency, insufficiency, and deficiency were respectively defined as a 25(OH)D concentration 75 nmol/L; 50 to 75 nmol/L; and ,50 nmol/L. The Massachusetts Department of Correction Statement of Nutritional Adequacy stated that each inmate received the recommended daily allowance of vitamin D daily. Security level of incarceration was designated as minimum, medium, and maximum. Racial groups were categorized as Black, white, Asian, and Others. Results: Serum 25(OH)D levels peaked in summer and autumn, and decreased in winter and spring. Vitamin D deficiency occurred in 50.5% of blacks, 29.3% of whites, and 14.3% of Asian inmates (p = 0.007). Black inmates had significantly lower serum 25(OH)D level than white inmates at the maximum security level (p = 0.015), medium security level (p = 0.001), but not at the minimum security level (p = 0.40). After adjusting for covariates black inmates at a maximum security level had a four-fold higher risk for vitamin D deficiency than white inmates at the same security level (OR 3.9 [95% CI 1.3–11.7]. Conclusions: The vitamin D status of prison inmates is determined by skin pigmentation, seasons, and the security level of incarceration. Citation: Nwosu BU, Maranda L, Berry R, Colocino B, Flores Sr. CD, et al. (2014) The Vitamin D Status of Prison Inmates. PLoS ONE 9(3): e90623. doi:10.1371/ journal.pone. 0090623 Editor: Andrzej T. Slominski, University of Tennessee, United States of America Received December 4, 2013; Accepted January 31, 2014; Published March 5, 2014 Copyright: 2014 Nwosu et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: This work was funded by the Faculty Diversity Scholars Program, and the Department of Pediatrics, University of Massachusetts Medical School. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. * E-mail: Benjamin.Nwosu@umassmemorial.org
Planck2013 results support the simplest cyclic models

We show that results from the Planck satellite reported in 2013 are consistent with the simplest cyclic models for natural parameter ranges (i.e., order unity dimensionless coefficients), assuming the standard entropic mechanism for generating curvature perturbations. With improved precision, forthcoming results from Planck and other experiments should be able to test the remaining parameter range and confirm or refute the core predictions i.e., no observable primordial B-mode polarization and detectable local non-gaussianity. A new prediction, given the Planck2013 constraints on the bispectrum, is a sharp constraint on the local trispectrum parameter gNL; namely, the simplest models predict it is negative, with gNL . −1700.
Modified array manifold for signal waveform estimation in wireless communications

In wireless communication scenarios, local scatterers in the vicinity of the sources cause angular spreading. A parameterization of the spatial signature in the presence of local scattering is presented which applies to uniform linear arrays (ULAs). The spatial signature is shown to be approximately a Vandermonde vector for a ULA in environments with small angular spread. An estimator of the spatial signature is formulated based on ESPRIT. For a simple signal waveform estimator the gain may be considerable in scenarios with multiple sources, as compared with using the ideal manifold parameterized by direction of arrival (DOA).
Wireless Sensor Networks and Applications: a Survey

Summary In this research work, a survey on Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) and their technologies, standards and applications was carried out. Wireless sensor networks consist of small nodes with sensing, computation, and wireless communications capabilities. Many routing, power management, and data dissemination protocols have been specifically designed for WSNs where energy awareness is an essential design issue. Routing protocols in WSNs might differ depending on the application and network architecture. A multidisciplinary research area such as wireless sensor networks, where close collaboration between users, application domain experts, hardware designers, and software developers is needed to implement efficient systems. The flexibility, fault tolerance, high sensing fidelity, low cost, and rapid deployment characteristics of sensor networks create many new and exciting application areas for remote sensing. In the future, this wide range of application areas will make sensor networks an integral part of our lives. However, realization of sensor networks needs to satisfy the constraints introduced by factors such as fault tolerance, scalability, cost, hardware, topology change, environment, and power consumption.
International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Research Performance of Cooperative Diversity for Pcp Ofdm Based Cognitive Relay Network

In this paper, an adaptive Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) system, with a precoded cyclic prefix (PCP), will be proposed to address the recent need of robust and flexible transmission technique in Cognitive Radio (CR) communications which is not clarified until now. Identification of PCP-OFDM signals is therefore of great importance for the design of fair spectrum sharing mechanism, particularly at very low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) when synchronization is not achievable. The precoded cyclic prefix, multiplexed with the data-carrying OFDM signals, provides one unique and recognizable feature of PCP-OFDM signals. In this paper, the network consists of sender, a destination and a third station, which is used as a relay is analyzed. The data that is sent to the sender is considered to be OFDM with PCP. The analysis of this system will be made which is not clarified until now. The channels are modeled containing noise, Rayleigh fading and path loss. Moreover, different combining methods and diversity protocols are compared. To combine the incoming signals the channel quality should be estimated as well as possible. Amplify and Forward (AAF) will be applied in this system. Also, the effect of the positions of the relay will be studied.
Enhanced mobilization of the bone marrow–derived circulating progenitor cells by intracoronary freshly isolated bone marrow cells transplantation in patients with acute myocardial infarction

Autologous bone marrow cell transplantation (BMCs‐Tx) is a promising novel option for treatment of cardiovascular disease. We analysed in a randomized controlled study the influence of the intracoronary autologous freshly isolated BMCs‐Tx on the mobilization of bone marrow–derived circulating progenitor cells (BM‐CPCs) in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Sixty‐two patients with AMI were randomized to either freshly isolated BMCs‐Tx or to a control group without cell therapy. Peripheral blood (PB) concentrations of CD34/45+‐ and CD133/45+‐circulating progenitor cells were measured by flow cytometry in 42 AMI patients with cell therapy as well as in 20 AMI patients without cell therapy as a control group on days 1, 3, 5, 7, 8 and 3, 6 as well as 12 months after AMI. Global ejection fraction (EF) and the size of infarct area were determined by left ventriculography. We observed in patients with freshly isolated BMCs‐Tx at 3 and 12 months follow up a significant reduction of infarct size and increase of global EF as well as infarct wall movement velocity. The mobilization of CD34/45+ and CD133/45+ BM‐CPCs significantly increased with a peak on day 7 as compared to baseline after AMI in both groups (CD34/45+: P < 0.001, CD133/45+: P < 0.001). Moreover, this significant mobilization of BM‐CPCs existed 3, 6 and 12 months after cell therapy compared to day 1 after AMI. In control group, there were no significant differences of CD34/45+ and CD133/45+ BM‐CPCs mobilization between day 1 and 3, 6 and 12 months after AMI. Intracoronary transplantation of autologous freshly isolated BMCs by use of point of care system in patients with AMI may enhance and prolong the mobilization of CD34/45+ and CD133/45+ BM‐CPCs in PB and this might increase the regenerative potency after AMI.