Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Role of Staphylococcus aureus Virulence Factors in Inducing Inflammation and Vascular Permeability in a Mouse Model of Bacterial Endophthalmitis

Staphylococcus (S.) aureus is a common causative agent of bacterial endophthalmitis, a vision threatening complication of eye surgeries. The relative contribution of S. aureus virulence factors in the pathogenesis of endophthalmitis remains unclear. Here, we comprehensively analyzed the development of intraocular inflammation, vascular permeability, and the loss of retinal function in C57BL/6 mouse eyes, challenged with live S. aureus, heat-killed S. aureus (HKSA), peptidoglycan (PGN), lipoteichoic acid (LTA), staphylococcal protein A (SPA), α-toxin, and Toxic-shock syndrome toxin 1 (TSST1). Our data showed a dose-dependent (range 0.01 μg/eye to 1.0 μg/eye) increase in the levels of inflammatory mediators by all virulence factors. The cell wall components, particularly PGN and LTA, seem to induce higher levels of TNF-α, IL-6, KC, and MIP2, whereas the toxins induced IL-1β. Similarly, among the virulence factors, PGN induced higher PMN infiltration. The vascular permeability assay revealed significant leakage in eyes challenged with live SA (12-fold) and HKSA (7.3-fold), in comparison to other virulence factors (~2-fold) and controls. These changes coincided with retinal tissue damage, as evidenced by histological analysis. The electroretinogram (ERG) analysis revealed a significant decline in retinal function in eyes inoculated with live SA, followed by HKSA, SPA, and α-toxin. Together, these findings demonstrate the differential innate responses of the retina to S. aureus virulence factors, which contribute to intraocular inflammation and retinal function loss in endophthalmitis.
Interannual Variation in Hydrologic Budgets in an Amazonian Watershed with a Coupled Subsurface-Land Surface Process Model

AbstractThe central Amazon forest is projected to experience larger interannual precipitation variability, with uncertain impacts on terrestrial hydrologic fluxes. How surface runoff, groundwater, and evapotranspiration (ET) change as a function of annual precipitation (AP) has large climate and biogeochemical implications. A process-based hydrological model is used to examine the sensitivity of hydrologic budgets and stream discharge Qs generation to AP in an upland Amazon catchment. The authors find that AP strongly controls infiltration, base flow, and surface runoff, but not ET. Hence, AP alone can predict interannual changes in these fluxes except ET. Experiments with perturbed rainfall show the strong control derives from the predominant groundwater component that varies linearly with AP but is insensitive to seasonal rainfall fluctuations. Most rainfall from large storms infiltrates and becomes base flow rather than runoff or ET. Annual baseflow index (BFI; the fraction of stream discharge from bas.
Chymotryptic digestion of Tetrahymena 22S dynein. I. Decomposition of three-headed 22S dynein to one- and two-headed particles

Molecular composition of Tetrahymena ciliary dynein has been examined by electron microscopy and gel electrophoresis. SDS-urea gel electrophoresis revealed that Tetrahymena 22S dynein contains three (A alpha, A beta, and A gamma) heavy chains whereas 14S dynein contains only one. The molecular masses of 22S and 14S dynein heavy chains were estimated to be approximately 490 and 460 kD, respectively. Electron microscopy of negatively stained specimens showed 22S dynein has three globular heads and thin stalks, whereas 14S dynein consists of a single head. Chymotrypsin digested each of the three 22S dynein heavy chains into large fragments with different time courses. Sucrose density gradient centrifugation separated the digestion products as two peaks. The one with a larger sedimentation coefficient mainly consisted of two- headed particles having binding ability to doublet microtubules, whereas the other with a smaller sedimentation coefficient consisted of only isolated globular particles. Both fractions had ATPase activities. Thus, one active head of 22S dynein can be isolated by chymotrypsin digestion.
IUD discontinuation rates, switching behavior, and user satisfaction: findings from a retrospective analysis of a mobile outreach service program in Pakistan

Background In Pakistan, the uptake rate for the intrauterine device (IUD) is very low at 2.5%. The most popular modern contraceptive methods in Pakistan are female sterilization and use of condoms. The Marie Stopes Society established its mobile outreach service delivery program with the aim of increasing use of modern quality contraceptive services, including the long-term reversible IUD, by women living in hard-to-reach areas. The present study attempts to assess IUD discontinuation rates and associated factors, including switching behavior and level of satisfaction with this type of service delivery. Methods Using a cross-sectional approach, we contacted 681 women who had received an IUD from the Marie Stopes Society mobile outreach program during July and August 2009. Successful interviews were conducted with 639 of these women using a structured questionnaire. The data were analyzed with Stata 11.2 using simple descriptive Chi-square and Cox proportional techniques. Results Analysis revealed that 19.4% (95% confidence interval 16.3–22.5) of the women discontinued use of their IUD at 10 months and, of these women, the majority (69.4%) cited side effects as the main reason for discontinuation. Other factors, such as geographical catchment province, age of the woman, history of contraceptive use before IUD insertion, and side effects following insertion of the device, were found to be significantly associated with IUD. Amongst the women who had their IUD removed, 56.5% did not switch to any other contraceptive method, while 36.3% switched to either short-term or traditional methods, such as withdrawal, rhythm, and folk methods. Degree of satisfaction with the device was also significantly associated with discontinuation. Conclusion Early discontinuation and not switching to another contraceptive method increases the risk of unplanned pregnancy. Health care workers should be trained in managing clients’ concerns about the IUD to prevent discontinuation and providing counseling services for clients to select an alternative contraceptive method if they decide to discontinue.
Evolving Least Squares Support Vector Machines for Stock Market Trend Mining

In this paper, an evolving least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) learning paradigm with a mixed kernel is proposed to explore stock market trends. In the proposed learning paradigm, a genetic algorithm (GA), one of the most popular evolutionary algorithms (EAs), is first used to select input features for LSSVM learning, i.e., evolution of input features. Then, another GA is used for parameters optimization of LSSVM, i.e., evolution of algorithmic parameters. Finally, the evolving LSSVM learning paradigm with best feature subset, optimal parameters, and a mixed kernel is used to predict stock market movement direction in terms of historical data series. For illustration and evaluation purposes, three important stock indices, S&P 500 Index, Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) Index, and New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Index, are used as testing targets. Experimental results obtained reveal that the proposed evolving LSSVM can produce some forecasting models that are easier to be interpreted by using a small number of predictive features and are more efficient than other parameter optimization methods. Furthermore, the produced forecasting model can significantly outperform other forecasting models listed in this paper in terms of the hit ratio. These findings imply that the proposed evolving LSSVM learning paradigm can be used as a promising approach to stock market tendency exploration.
Antiatherogenic and Cardioprotective Effects of Black Chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa) Juice in Aging Rats

Age-related diseases are a social problem of global significance and their prevention by natural products is a research area of particular interest. The present study is an approach to counteract the risk factors for atherosclerosis arising in the aging process by supplementation of chokeberry juice. It employed a model of healthy adult rats monitored for a number of somatometric, serum lipidogram, and histopathological parameters, related to risk factors and their response to supplementation with antioxidant-rich chokeberry juice. The results were used to calculate different atherogenic and cardioprotective indices, and all results were compared to those of young healthy rats. Chokeberry juice proved an extremely rich source of polyphenols resulting in very high antioxidant activity. Treatment with Aronia juice significantly lowered the proatherogenic low-density lipoprotein fraction of the animals studied and led to a 16.5% decrease in their total cholesterol. Atherogenic indices in Aronia-supplemented animals clearly showed lower atherogenic risk and cardioprotective indices indicated protection of the cardiovascular system. Besides that, chokeberry juice retarded the age-related changes in the aortic wall and can be recommended as a prophylactic tool for healthy aging.
Central retinal function as measured by the multifocal electroretinogram and flicker perimetry in early age-related macular degeneration.

PURPOSE To determine the retinal function in early age-related macular degeneration (AMD) assessed by the multifocal electroretinogram (mfERG) and flicker perimetry and to seek a relationship between local objective mfERG parameters and subjective flicker perimetry thresholds. METHODS mfERG and flicker perimetry were performed in 15 patients (15 eyes) with early AMD and 14 controls (14 eyes) of similar age. The mfERG P1 response amplitude density (nV/deg²) and P1 implicit time of the first-order kernel and the flicker thresholds of each concentric ring were analyzed. The relationship between individual mfERG responses and the corresponding individual flicker sensitivity outcomes was determined. RESULTS The mfERG response amplitude of the central ring (ring 1) was significantly reduced in early AMD eyes compared with the controls (P = 0.009). No significant difference in mfERG amplitude between early AMD and control eyes was detected in the other rings. The mfERG implicit time was significantly increased in the early AMD eyes but only within the central four rings of 12°. A significant reduction in flicker sensitivity was also detected in early AMD eyes but only within the central 6°. There was a significant, moderate correlation (r = -0.477; P < 0.001) between local mfERG latency and flicker sensitivity from the same tested locations within the central 6°. There was a weak correlation (r = 0.200; P = 0.014) between mfERG amplitude and flicker sensitivity. CONCLUSIONS Both mfERG and flicker perimetry show abnormal retinal function, but only in the very central macula, in early AMD. A novel relationship between mfERG and flicker sensitivity should enhance the clinical monitoring of disease progression.
Loop Corrected Belief Propagation

We propose a method for improving Belief Propagation (BP) that takes into account the influence of loops in the graphical model. The method is a variation on and generalization of the method recently introduced by Montanari and Rizzo [2005]. It consists of two steps: (i) standard BP is used to calculate cavity distributions for each variable (i.e. probability distributions on the Markov blanket of a variable for a modified graphical model, in which the factors involving that variable have been removed); (ii) all cavity distributions are combined by a messagepassing algorithm to obtain consistent single node marginals. The method is exact if the graphical model contains a single loop. The complexity of the method is exponential in the size of the Markov blankets. The results are very accurate in general: the error is often several orders of magnitude smaller than that of standard BP, as illustrated by numerical experiments.
Magnetic Anisotropy in Silurian Gas‐Bearing Shale Rocks From the Pomerania Region (Northern Poland)

Analysis of anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) and anhysteretic remanent magnetization (AARM) was conducted on unconventional gas‐bearing Silurian shale rocks from northern Poland. Samples of these rocks were collected from depths greater than 3,500 m from two drill cores. The aim was to investigate magnetic fabrics to verify current models of depositional conditions, current direction, and/or tectonic evolution. To obtain an in‐depth interpretation, rock magnetic studies, microscopic analyses, and graptolite orientation measurements were performed. The results indicate that the magnetic susceptibility is mainly governed by paramagnetic minerals (phyllosilicates) with a small contribution of ferromagnetic minerals, mostly magnetite. Typically, in the studied mudstones, the AMS and AARM fabrics are characterized by strong bedding‐parallel foliation, resulting mostly from compaction. The foliation is much weaker in the associated early‐diagenetic calcareous concretions. Although the mudstones are almost isotropic in the bedding plane, there is a slight tendency for grouping of magnetic lineation axes with an orientation of approximately NNW‐SSE. The corresponding orientation of the AMS lineation is preserved in the concretions, and the same trend also prevails in the preferred orientation of graptolites. Thus, we interpret this orientation to be related to paleocurrents. The observed directions show that during the Wenlock (Silurian) in the studied part of the Baltic Basin, the dominant currents had an orientation of circa NNW‐SSE along the margin of Baltica. Our results confirm that even in such fine‐grained sediments, in which there are no other unequivocal directional sedimentary indicators, paleocurrent directions can be determined by applying AMS and AARM methodology.
BLyS upregulation in Sjogren's syndrome associated with lymphoproliferative disorders, higher ESSDAI score and B-cell clonal expansion in the salivary glands.

OBJECTIVE Primary SS is characterized by an increased risk of lymphoma in patients with prelymphomatous manifestations (i.e. myoepithelial sialadenitis or mixed cryoglobulinaemia). Serum B-lymphocyte stimulator (s-BLyS) levels in SS-related B-cell lymphoproliferative disorders were studied by integrating the results with the disease activity score and with molecular analyses of B-cell expansion in the salivary glands. METHODS Seventy-six primary SS patients (with or without lymphoma or prelymphomatous manifestations), 56 HCV-related cryoglobulinaemic vasculitis patients and 55 controls were studied. s-BLyS and molecular analyses of B-cell expansion in the salivary gland tissues were performed. Patients with SS and persistent parotid swelling underwent parotid biopsy. RESULTS s-BLyS differed between SS subgroups, higher levels being documented in patients with lymphoma or prelymphomatous manifestations vs SS without [1.85 (0.45-4.12) ng/ml vs 1.12 (0.56-1.98) ng/ml; P < 0.0001]. s-BLyS levels significantly correlated with the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) SS disease activity index (r = 0.62, P < 0.0001, Spearman's test). Clonal B-cell expansion in the salivary glands, but not polyclonal B-cell expansion, was associated with higher s-BLyS levels [1.98 (0.45-4.12) ng/ml vs 1.15 (0.56-3.25) ng/ml; P = 0.013)]. CONCLUSION Higher s-BLyS levels and tissue clonal B-cell expansion characterize SS with B-cell lymphoproliferative disorders, even at prelymphomatous stages. This subgroup of SS patients showed the highest EULAR SS disease activity index scores. This represents a biologic rationale for targeting both clonal B-cell expansion and s-BLyS overproduction in SS.
Neural stem cell heterogeneity demonstrated by molecular phenotyping of clonal neurospheres

Neural stem cells (NSCs) in vitro are able to generate clonal structures, “neurospheres,” that exhibit intra-clonal neural cell-lineage diversity; i.e., they contain, in addition to NSCs, neuronal and glial progenitors in different states of differentiation. The present study focuses on a subset of neurospheres derived from fresh clinical specimens of human brain by using an in vitro system that relies on particular growth factors, serum, and anchorage withdrawal. Thirty individual and exemplary cDNA libraries from these neurosphere clones were clustered and rearranged within a panel after characterization of differentially expressed transcripts. The molecular phenotypes that were obtained indicate that clonogenic NSCs in our in vitro system are heterogeneous, with subsets reflecting distinct neural developmental commitments. This approach is useful for the sorting and expansion of NSCs and facilitates the discovery of genes involved in cell proliferation, communication, fate control, and differentiation.
Probabilistic Adaptive Computation Time

We present a probabilistic model with discrete latent variables that control the computation time in deep learning models such as ResNets and LSTMs. A prior on the latent variables expresses the preference for faster computation. The amount of computation for an input is determined via amortized maximum a posteriori (MAP) inference. MAP inference is performed using a novel stochastic variational optimization method. The recently proposed Adaptive Computation Time mechanism can be seen as an ad-hoc relaxation of this model. We demonstrate training using the general-purpose Concrete relaxation of discrete variables. Evaluation on ResNet shows that our method matches the speed-accuracy trade-off of Adaptive Computation Time, while allowing for evaluation with a simple deterministic procedure that has a lower memory footprint.
Colour and spatial cueing in low-prevalence visual search

In visual search, 30–40% of targets with a prevalence rate of 2% are missed, compared to 7% of targets with a prevalence rate of 50% (Wolfe, Horowitz, & Kenner, 2005). This “low-prevalence” (LP) effect is thought to occur as participants are making motor errors, changing their response criteria, and/or quitting their search too soon. We investigate whether colour and spatial cues, known to improve visual search when the target has a high prevalence (HP), benefit search when the target is rare. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that although knowledge of the target's colour reduces miss errors overall, it does not eliminate the LP effect as more targets were missed at LP than at HP. Furthermore, detection of a rare target is significantly impaired if it appears in an unexpected colour—more so than if the prevalence of the target is high (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 showed that, if a rare target is exogenously cued, target detection is improved but still impaired relative to high-prevalence conditions. Furthermore, if the cue is absent or invalid, the percentage of missed targets increases. Participants were given the option to correct motor errors in all three experiments, which reduced but did not eliminate the LP effect. The results suggest that although valid colour and spatial cues improve target detection, participants still miss more targets at LP than at HP. Furthermore, invalid cues at LP are very costly in terms of miss errors. We discuss our findings in relation to current theories and applications of LP search.
Trial of an intervention to reduce passive smoking in infancy

We tested a health education intervention program to reduce passive smoking in infancy. The aim was to develop an instrument for study of tobacco smoke exposure and childhood respiratory illness. One hundred and eighty‐four women who had smoked during pregnancy were allocated by month of delivery to an intervention group, to a minimal contact group, or to a follow‐up only comparison group. Exposure to smoke was assessed 3 months later by questionnaire and by measurement of cotinine in samples of maternal and infant urine. There was a reduction in maternal smoking associated with contact with research staff, but this was not statistically significant. There were no differences between the groups in the exposure of infants to tobacco smoke. Reasons for this finding may include the timing of the intervention, the heterogeneity of the target group, and the manner in which information was presented on health risks caused by parental smoking.
Terlipressin as rescue treatment of refractory shock in a neonate

Patients with septic shock may develop refractory hypotension despite maximal inotropic support with impairment of clinical outcome. Terlipressin, a long‐acting vasopressin analogue, is reported to be effective as rescue treatment of refractory septic shock in adult and paediatric patients, while clinical experience in neonates is definitely scarce. We report a neonate with systemic inflammatory response syndrome after surgery for abdominal neuroblastoma who received terlipressin as rescue treatment after failure of volume load and catecholamines. Terlipressin promptly reversed hypotension and improved tissue perfusion without adverse effects.
Low-complexity frequency synchronization for ICA based semi-blind CoMP systems with ICI and phase rotation caused by multiple CFOs

We propose a low-complexity frequency synchronization approach for semi-blind independent component analysis (ICA) based coordinated multi-point (CoMP) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems, with multiple carrier frequency offsets (CFOs). The key idea is to introduce a short pilot for both multi-CFO estimation and ambiguity elimination in the ICA equalized signals. First, by minimizing the cross-correlation between original pilots and received pilots with implicit phase rotation correction, the one-dimensional search based CFO estimation can be performed without trial ICI compensation and channel state information (CSI). Second, by maximizing the real part of the cross-correlation between ICA equalized pilots and original pilots, the same pilots can be used again to eliminate the permutation and quadrant ambiguity in the ICA equalized signals. Simulation results show that, with a very low training overhead of 2%, the proposed multi-CFO estimation approach outperforms existing methods. Also, the proposed semi-blind CoMP system can achieve a bit error rate (BER) performance close to the ideal case with perfect CSI and no CFO.
Nursing autonomy and patients' rights: development of a nursing attitude scale.

A 69-item attitude scale was constructed and administered to 702 nurses in five different settings. A principal componentsfactor analysis results in three subscales that adequately represented the intent of the study: (1) nursing autonomy and advocacy; (2) patients' rights; and (3) rejection of traditional rule limitations. The subscales clearly differentiated between the different samples of nurses. Higher scores were associated with education, leadership, academic setting and non-traditional social climate.
A self-triggered Model Predictive Control framework for the cooperation of distributed nonholonomic agents

In this paper we propose a decentralized Model Predictive Control (MPC) framework with a self-triggering mechanism, for a team of cooperating agents. The nonholonomic agents are controlled locally and exchange information with their neighbors. The aim at scheduling the control updates based on a self-triggering criterion is twofold: to reduce the updates of the control law for each agent and to reduce the communication effort between the agents. The input-to-state (abbr. ISS) stability of the agents is proven, the condition for triggering is provided and the theoretic results are then depicted by a simulated example.