Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Aberrant composition of gut microbiota of allergic infants: a target of bifidobacterial therapy at weaning?

Background: Recent data have outlined a relationship between the composition of the intestinal microflora and allergic inflammation, and demonstrated the competence of probiotics in downregulation of such inflammation. Aims: Our aims were to characterise the relationship between gut microbes and the extent of allergic sensitisation and to assess whether the efficacy of bifidobacterial supplementation in the treatment of allergy could relate to modulation of the intestinal microbiota. Methods: This randomised study included 21 infants with early onset atopic eczema of whom eight were intolerant (highly sensitised group (HSG)) and 13 tolerant (sensitised group (SG)) to extensively hydrolysed whey formula (EHF). In the SG, six were weaned to EHF without (placebo group (PG)) and seven to EHF with Bifidobacterium lactis Bb-12 supplementation (bifidobacteria treated group (BbG)). The faecal microflora of infants in the HSG was analysed only before weaning whereas in the SG the faecal microflora was analysed both before and after weaning. Results: Infants in the HSG had greater numbers of lactobacilli/enterococci than those in the SG. Serum total IgE concentration correlated directly with Escherichia coli counts in all infants and with bacteroides counts in the HSG, indicating that the presence of these bacteria is associated with the extent of atopic sensitisation. The effect of supplementation was characterised as a decrease in the numbers of Escherichia coli and protection against an increase in bacteroides numbers during weaning. Conclusions: These data indicate that bifidobacterial supplementation appears to modify the gut microbiota in a manner that may alleviate allergic inflammation. Further studies are needed to confirm this conclusion.
Age-related Attenuation of Isoflurane Preconditioning in Human Atrial Cardiomyocytes: Roles for Mitochondrial Respiration and Sarcolemmal Adenosine Triphosphate–sensitive Potassium Channel Activity

Background:Clinical trials suggest that anesthetic-induced preconditioning (APC) produces cardioprotection in humans, but the mechanisms of APC and significance of aging for APC in humans are not well understood. Here, the impact of age on the role of two major effectors of APC, mitochondria and sarcolemmal adenosine triphosphate–sensitive potassium (sarcKATP) channels, in preconditioning of the human atrial myocardium were investigated. Methods:Right atrial appendages were obtained from adult patients undergoing cardiac surgery and assigned to mid-aged (MA) and old-aged (OA) groups. APC was induced by isoflurane in isolated myocardium and isolated cardiomyocytes. Mitochondrial oxygen consumption measurements, myocyte survival testing, and patch clamp techniques were used to investigate mitochondrial respiratory function and sarcKATP channel activity. Results:After in vitro APC with isoflurane, the respiratory function of isolated mitochondria was better preserved after hypoxia–reoxygenation stress in MA than in OA. In isolated intact myocytes, APC significantly decreased oxidative stress–induced cell death in MA but not in OA, and isoflurane protection from cell death was attenuated by the sarcKATP channel inhibitor HMR-1098. Further, the properties of single sarcKATP channels were similar in MA and OA, and isoflurane sensitivity of pinacidil-activated whole cell KATP current was no different between MA and OA myocytes. Conclusion:Anesthetic-induced preconditioning with isoflurane decreases stress-induced cell death and preserves mitochondrial respiratory function to a greater degree in MA than in OA myocytes; however, sarcKATP channel activity is not differentially affected by isoflurane. Therefore, effectiveness of APC in humans may decrease with advancing age partly because of altered mitochondrial function of myocardial cells.
Coding and Consent: Moral Challenges of the Database Project in Iceland

A major moral problem in relation to the deCODE genetics database project in Iceland is that the heavy emphasis placed on technical security of healthcare information has precluded discussion about the issue of consent for participation in the database. On the other hand, critics who have emphasised the issue of consent have most often demanded that informed consent for participation in research be obtained. While I think that individual consent is of major significance, I argue that this demand for informed consent is neither suitable nor desirable in this case. I distinguish between three aspects of the database and show that different types of consent are appropriate for each. In particular, I describe the idea of a written authorisation based on general information about the database as an alternative to informed consent and presumed consent in database research.
Quasi-exponential input-to-state stability for discrete-time impulsive hybrid systems

This paper investigates the problem of input-to-state stability (ISS) for the general discrete-time impulsive hybrid systems. Quasi-exponential input-to-state stability criteria are established for non-linear discrete-time impulsive hybrid systems, based on the Lyapunov function. The results are then specialized to the linear discrete-time impulsive hybrid systems and fairly simple algebraic conditions are derived. Moreover, ISS small-gain properties are also investigated for a class of interconnected discrete-time impulsive systems. Several examples are given to illustrate results.
NORMS, REWARDS, AND THEIR EFFECT ON THE MOTIVATION OF OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS

In this study, we conduct a scenario experiment testing the effect of monetary rewards on intrinsic motivation of open source software (OSS) developers. While we observe no difference in intrinsic motivation between the payment and no payment scenario, total motivation increases when a monetary reward is offered. We find that self-reported interest increases in the payment scenario when there is a norm for payment, whereas it decreases when there is a norm for no payment. We conclude that, under certain preconditions, monetary rewards may well be used in OSS development.
Work-related musculoskeletal disorders among occupational therapists in Korea

[Purpose] The purpose of the study was to identify general characteristics of occupational therapists in Korea and to investigate the present conditions of their work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMD) in order to present preliminary data for its prevention and directions for improvement. [Subjects and Methods] This study was conducted by performing a survey about WRMD among 95 occupational therapists working in Korea. Frequency analysis was conducted for the work-related general characteristics of subjects and for parts of the body with musculoskeletal disorder, and a χ2 test was used to analyze the association between the presence of WRMD characteristics and each general characteristic. [Results] The parts of the body involved the most were the shoulders, hands, and neck (in decreasing order), and the work-related general characteristics shown to be associated with WRMD were the gender and the mean length of employment period. [Conclusion] The results of this study revealed that occupational therapists in Korea were extremely vulnerable to WRMD, and that realistic measures should be prepared swiftly for its prevention and treatment.
Reducing write activities on non-volatile memories in embedded CMPs via data migration and recomputation

Recent advances in circuit and process technologies have pushed non-volatile memory technologies into a new era. These technologies exhibit appealing properties such as low power consumption, non-volatility, shock-resistivity, and high density. However, there are challenges to which we need answers in the road of applying non-volatile memories as main memory in computer systems. First, non-volatile memories have limited number of write/erase cycles compared with DRAM memory. Second, write activities on non-volatile memory are more expensive than DRAM memory in terms of energy consumption and access latency. Both challenges will benefit from reduction of the write activities on the nonvolatile memory. In this paper, we target embedded Chip Multiprocessors (CMPs) with Scratch Pad Memory (SPM) and non-volatile main memory. We introduce data migration and recompu-tation techniques to reduce the number of write activities on non-volatile memories. Experimental results show that the proposed methods can reduce the number of writes by 59.41% on average, which means that the non-volatile memory can last 2.8 times as long as before. Meanwhile, the finish time of programs is reduced by 31.81% on average.
Small Changes in pH Have Direct Effects on Marine Bacterial Community Composition: A Microcosm Approach

As the atmospheric CO2 concentration rises, more CO2 will dissolve in the oceans, leading to a reduction in pH. Effects of ocean acidification on bacterial communities have mainly been studied in biologically complex systems, in which indirect effects, mediated through food web interactions, come into play. These approaches come close to nature but suffer from low replication and neglect seasonality. To comprehensively investigate direct pH effects, we conducted highly-replicated laboratory acidification experiments with the natural bacterial community from Helgoland Roads (North Sea). Seasonal variability was accounted for by repeating the experiment four times (spring, summer, autumn, winter). Three dilution approaches were used to select for different ecological strategies, i.e. fast-growing or low-nutrient adapted bacteria. The pH levels investigated were in situ seawater pH (8.15–8.22), pH 7.82 and pH 7.67, representing the present-day situation and two acidification scenarios projected for the North Sea for the year 2100. In all seasons, both automated ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis and 16S ribosomal amplicon pyrosequencing revealed pH-dependent community shifts for two of the dilution approaches. Bacteria susceptible to changes in pH were different members of Gammaproteobacteria, Flavobacteriaceae, Rhodobacteraceae, Campylobacteraceae and further less abundant groups. Their specific response to reduced pH was often context-dependent. Bacterial abundance was not influenced by pH. Our findings suggest that already moderate changes in pH have the potential to cause compositional shifts, depending on the community assembly and environmental factors. By identifying pH-susceptible groups, this study provides insights for more directed, in-depth community analyses in large-scale and long-term experiments.
R-HybrID: Evolution of Agent Controllers with a Hybrisation of Indirect and Direct Encodings

Neuroevolution, the optimisation of artificial neural networks (ANNs) through evolutionary computation, is a promising approach to the synthesis of controllers for autonomous agents. Traditional neuroevolution approaches employ direct encodings, which are limited in their ability to evolve complex or large-scale controllers because each ANN parameter is independently optimised. Indirect encodings, on the other hand, facilitate scalability because each gene can be reused multiple times to construct the ANN, but are biased towards regularity and can become ineffective when irregularity is required. To address such limitations, we introduce a novel algorithm called R-HybrID. In R-HybrID, controllers have both indirectly encoded and directly encoded structure. Because the portion of structure following a specific encoding is under evolutionary control, R-HybrID can automatically find an appropriate encoding combination for a given task. We assess the performance of R-HybrID in three tasks: (i) a high-dimensional visual discrimination task that requires geometric principles to be evolved, (ii) a challenging benchmark for modular robotics, and (iii) a memory task that has proven difficult for current algorithms because it requires effectively accumulating neural structure for cognitive behaviour to emerge. Our results show that R-HybrID consistently outperforms three state-of-the-art neuroevolution algorithms, and effectively evolves complex controllers and behaviours.
Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors for the Treatment of Chronic-Phase Chronic Myeloid Leukemia: Long-Term Patient Care and Management

Several tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) are now approved for the treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia in chronic phase. The efficacy of these drugs has been repeatedly demonstrated, as has their tolerability in most patients. However, late and chronic toxicities become an important issue for many patients facing long-term TKI exposure. For patients on long-term imatinib, gastrointestinal events, fluid retention, muscle cramps, fatigue, and hepatotoxicity are among the most common and most clinically relevant adverse events (AEs). A few of these have also emerged as important AEs with some of the newer TKIs. Distinct long-term toxicity concerns have emerged for dasatinib (pleural effusion, pulmonary hypertension, headache, and dyspnea) and nilotinib (rash, headache, myalgia, alopecia, and hyperglycemia), whereas due to the recent approval of bosutinib and ponatinib, their long-term toxicity profiles have not been fully characterized. Clinical experience with each of these drugs is accumulating, and ensuring proper adherence and monitoring for potential AEs is essential for effective treatment.
Support recovery from noisy random measurements via weighted ℓ1 minimization

Herein, we analyze the sample complexity of general weighted ℓ1 minimization in terms of support recovery from noisy underdetermined measurements. This analysis generalizes prior work for standard ℓ1 minimization by considering the weighting effect. We state explicit relationship between the weights and the sample complexity such that i.i. d random Gaussian measurement matrices used with weighted ℓ1 minimization recovers the support of the underlying signal with high probability as the problem dimension increases. This result provides a measure that is predictive of relative performance of different algorithms. Motivated by the analysis, a new iterative weighted strategy is proposed. In the Reweighted Partial Support (RePS) algorithm, a sequence of weighted ℓ1 minimization problems are solved where partial support recovery is used to prune the optimization; furthermore, the weights used for the next iteration are updated by the current estimate. RePS is compared to other weighted algorithms through the proposed measure and numerical results, which demonstrate its superior performance for a spectrum occupancy estimation problem motivated by cognitive radio.
Antimicrobial Susceptibility and Clinical Sources of Dolosigranulum pigrum Cultures

ABSTRACT Antimicrobial susceptibilities of 27 clinical isolates ofDolosigranulum pigrum were determined. All were susceptible to amoxicillin, cefotaxime, cefuroxime, clindamycin, levofloxacin, meropenem, penicillin, quinupristin-dalfopristin, rifampin, tetracycline, and vancomycin. Fifteen of the isolates were intermediate to chloramphenicol. One isolate was resistant to trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole. Two isolates were susceptible, 10 were intermediate, and 15 were resistant to erythromycin.
Adapting Grammatical Error Correction Based on the Native Language of Writers with Neural Network Joint Models

An important aspect for the task of grammatical error correction (GEC) that has not yet been adequately explored is adaptation based on the native language (L1) of writers, despite the marked inﬂuences of L1 on second language (L2) writing. In this paper, we adapt a neural network joint model (NNJM) using L1-speciﬁc learner text and integrate it into a statistical machine translation (SMT) based GEC system. Speciﬁcally, we train an NNJM on general learner text (not L1-speciﬁc) and subsequently train on L1-speciﬁc data using a Kullback-Leibler divergence regularized ob-jective function in order to preserve generalization of the model. We incorporate this adapted NNJM as a feature in an SMT-based English GEC system and show that adaptation achieves signiﬁcant F 0 . 5 score gains on English texts written by L1 Chinese, Russian, and Spanish writers.
Arterial blood gas analysers: accuracy in determining haemoglobin, glucose and electrolyte concentrations in critically ill adult patients

Abstract Arterial blood gas (ABG) machines are vital tools in the assessment of critically ill patients. Current ABG point-of-care (POC) analysers provide information on concentrations of haemoglobin, glucose and electrolytes in addition to acid-base balance. Awaiting results from venous analysers may present a significant delay in diagnosis and management, thus reliance on arterial blood gas determination of these parameters is increasing. However, published data on the concordance between the two modalities are limited. This study aims to assess the concordance of ABG machines in analysing haemoglobin, glucose and electrolyte concentrations compared to standard venous analysers as the gold standard. Results from 100 patients undergoing ABG analysis and simultaneous venous sampling without therapeutic intervention between sampling were compared. Differences in haemoglobin, glucose, sodium and potassium concentrations were determined and analysed using statistical software (Statview). There was a significant difference (P<0.02, paired signed test) in the mean haemoglobin concentration between the two modalities of 0.91 g/dL (range: 0–4.3 g/dL). Mean discrepancy in glucose concentrations was 1.16 mmol/L (range: 0-10.5 mmol/L; P<0.012, paired-signed test). Sodium and potassium showed no significant difference within the physiological range. At higher concentrations of potassium (>5 mmol/L), ABG readings varied significantly (P<0.0013, paired sign test) from standard venous estimates (mean difference: 0.44 mmol/L). Arterial blood gas analysers are invaluable for rapid assessment of critically ill patients; however, estimations of haemoglobin, glucose and potassium concentrations (>5 mmol/L) obtained from such machines should be interpreted with caution and confirmed using standard venous samples.
Reduced Dimensionality Lithium Niobate Microsystems

The following report describes work performed under the LDRD program at Sandia National Laboratories October 2014 and September 2016. The work presented demonstrates the ability of Sandia Labs to develop state-of-the-art photonic devices based on thin film lithium niobate (LiNbO3). Section 1 provides an introduction to integrated LiNbO3 devices and motivation for developing thin film nonlinear optical systems. Section 2 describes the design, fabrication, and photonic performance of thin film optical microdisks fabricated from bulk LiNbO3 using a bulk implantation method developed at Sandia. Sections 3 and 4 describe the development of similar thin film LiNbO3 structures fabricated from LiNbO3 on insulator (LNOI) substrates and our demonstration of optical frequency conversion with state-of-the-art efficiency. Finally, Section 5 describes similar microdisk resonators fabricated from LNOI wafers with a buried metal layer, in which we demonstrate electro-optic modulation.
Laparoscopic Habib 4X: a bipolar radiofrequency device for bloodless laparoscopic liver resection.

BACKGROUND In recent years the progress of laparoscopic procedures and the development of new and dedicated technologies have made laparoscopic hepatic surgery feasible and safe. In spite of this laparoscopic liver resection remains a surgical procedure of great challenge because of the risk of massive bleeding during liver transection and the complicated biliary and vascular anatomy in the liver. A new laparoscopic device is reported here to assist liver resection laparoscopically. METHODS The laparoscopic Habib 4X is a bipolar radiofrequency device consisting of a 2 x 2 array of needles arranged in a rectangle. It is introduced perpendicularly into the liver, along the intended transection line. It produces coagulative necrosis of the liver parenchyma sealing biliary radicals and blood vessels and enables bloodless transection of the liver parenchyma. RESULTS Twenty-four Laparoscopic liver resections were performed with LH4X out of a total of 28 attempted resections over 12 months. Pringle manoeuvre was not used in any of the patients. None of the patients required intraoperative transfusion of red cells or blood products. CONCLUSION Laparoscopic liver resection can be safely performed with laparoscopic Habib 4X with a significantly low risk of intraoperative bleeding or postoperative complications.
Contradiction between Plastid Gene Transcription and Function Due to Complex Posttranscriptional Splicing: An Exemplary Study of ycf15 Function and Evolution in Angiosperms

Plant chloroplast genes are usually co-transcribed while its posttranscriptional splicing is fairly complex and remains largely unsolved. On basis of sequencing the three complete Camellia (Theaceae) chloroplast genomes for the first time, we comprehensively analyzed the evolutionary patterns of ycf15, a plastid gene quite paradoxical in terms of its function and evolution, along the inferred angiosperm phylogeny. Although many species in separate lineages including the three species reported here contained an intact ycf15 gene in their chloroplast genomes, the phylogenetic mixture of both intact and obviously disabled ycf15 genes imply that they are all non-functional. Both intracellular gene transfer (IGT) and horizontal gene transfer (HGT) failed to explain such distributional anomalies. While, transcriptome analyses revealed that ycf15 was transcribed as precursor polycistronic transcript which contained ycf2, ycf15 and antisense trnL-CAA. The transcriptome assembly was surprisingly found to cover near the complete Camellia chloroplast genome. Many non-coding regions including pseudogenes were mapped by multiple transcripts, indicating the generality of pseudogene transcriptions. Our results suggest that plastid DNA posttranscriptional splicing may involve complex cleavage of non-functional genes.
Eyewitness confidence : the relation between accuracy and confidence in episodic memory

Many decisions in the legal system are based on eyewitness evidence. It seems to be a matter of common sense that the level of confidence expressed by a witness can be used as a diagnostic tool to discriminate between accurate and inaccurate memories. Contrary to this general belief, the bulk of empirical evidence collected in laboratory and field experiments over the past 25 years indicates that the relationship between confidence and accuracy is far from perfect. The central focus of this dissertation is on the accuracy of eyewitness memory, and especially on the relationship between accuracy and confidence (i.e., the subjective judgment of accuracy). To enhance the ecological validity of the laboratory studies, we used a method that allowed us to determine accuracy and confidence scores for the recall of details of complex naturalistic events. The first three chapters are experiments from the laboratory testing the effect of repeated retrieval, retention interval and repeated misleading questioning. The fourth chapter is a case study in which real live witnesses of a robbery on a supermarket were interviewed. Our findings show a clear and consistent relationship between confidence judgements and the actual accuracy of memories. With some caution, confidence may be used as a partial indicator of accuracy, especially during the early stages of an investigation. Unfortunately, however, there always remain incorrect items that are given the maximum confidence score. That is the reason why no single witness statement can be accepted as certainly correct, based on confidence alone.