Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
THE EFFECT OF AGRO-ECOLOGICAL ZONES ON THE INCIDENCE AND DISTRIBUTION OF APHID VECTORS OF PEPPER VEINAL MOTTLE VIRUS, ON CULTIVATED PEPPER (CAPSICUM ANNUUM L.) IN NIGERIA

The distribution of aphid vectors of Pepper veinal mottle virus (PVMV) was studied on cultivated pepper between 2003 and 2005 in the major pepper producing areas of the six agro-ecological zones in Nigeria. The aphids were isolated, identified and their transmission ability determined. Population of aphid vectors increased progressively in all the agro-ecological zones from March at the onset of raining season reaching a peak in August and then declining from September at the on set of the dry season. The Humid forest and Derived Savanna agro-ecological zones recorded highest mean population of aphids / leaf and types of aphid’s species compared with other agro-ecological zones. Six species of aphid, Myzus persicae (Sulzer), Aphis gossipii (Glover), Aphis craccivora (Koch), Aphis spiraecola (Patch), Aphis fabae (Blanchard), and Rhopalosiphum maidis (Fitch), were identified on the pepper fields surveyed in all the agro-ecological zones. There was no significant difference in the occurrence of M. persicae, A. gossipii, A. craccivora, and R. maidis while A. spiraecola and A. fabae that varied in occurrence in all the zones. Ability to transmit PVMV to a healthy pepper plants varied in all the identified aphid species but R. maidis was not able to transmit PVMV from infected to a healthy pepper plant. A more sustainable approach to controlling pepper viruses is by targeting the aphid vectors and preventing the vectors from reaching the crops because the aphid vectors which are virus specific are the major means of transmitting virus to healthy plant.
Synthesis of the Major Bacteriophage f1 Coat Protein

A method which allows one to follow the synthesis of the major f1 coat protein in normal, unirradiated f1-infected cells is reported. The N-terminal tryptic peptide of this protein, labeled with 14C-lysine, has a negative charge at pH 4.5 and is readily separated from the contaminating peptides of host cell proteins. This technique was used to study several aspects of the synthesis of the major f1 coat protein in infected cells.
IL-10: The Master Regulator of Immunity to Infection

IL-10 is an anti-inflammatory cytokine. During infection it inhibits the activity of Th1 cells, NK cells, and macrophages, all of which are required for optimal pathogen clearance but also contribute to tissue damage. In consequence, IL-10 can both impede pathogen clearance and ameliorate immunopathology. Many different types of cells can produce IL-10, with the major source of IL-10 varying in different tissues or during acute or chronic stages of the same infection. The priming of these various IL-10-producing populations during infections is not well understood and it is not clear whether the cellular source of IL-10 during infection dictates its cellular target and thus its outcome. In this article we review the biology of IL-10, its cellular sources, and its role in viral, bacterial, and protozoal infections.
Differences in Clinical Outcomes Between Patients With ST-Elevation Versus Non-ST-Elevation Acute Myocardial Infarction in Korea

In Korea, the incidence of acute myocardial infarction has been increasing rapidly. Twelve-month clinical outcomes for 13,133 patients with acute myocardial infarction enrolled in the nationwide prospective Korea Acute Myocardial Infarction Registry study were analyzed according to the presence or absence of ST-segment elevation. Patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) were younger, more likely to be men and smokers, and had poorer left ventricular function with a higher incidence of cardiac death compared to patients with non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI). NSTEMI patients had a higher prevalence of 3-vessel and left main coronary artery disease with complex lesions, and were more likely to have co-morbidities. The in-hospital and 1-month survival rates were higher in NSTEMI patients than in STEMI patients. However, 12-month survival rates was not different between the two groups. In conclusion, NSTEMI patients have worse clinical outcomes than STEMI patients, and therefore should be treated more intensively during clinical follow-up.
Patients with type 2 diabetes inadequately controlled on premixed insulin: effect of initiating insulin glargine plus oral antidiabetic agents on glycaemic control in daily practice*

Aim: Premixed insulin regimens are commonly used for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients. However, there is limited information regarding next‐step therapy options in cases where premixed insulin does not provide adequate glycaemic control. This 12‐week observational study of everyday clinical practice evaluated the efficacy and safety of insulin glargine (glargine) plus oral antidiabetic drugs (OADs) in T2DM patients previously treated with premixed insulin.
The water entry of decelerating spheres

We present the results of a combined experimental and theoretical investigation of the vertical impact of low-density spheres on a water surface. Particular attention is given to characterizing the sphere dynamics and the influence of its deceleration on the shape of the resulting air cavity. A theoretical model is developed which yields simple expressions for the pinch-off time and depth, as well as the volume of air entrained by the sphere. Theoretical predictions compare favorably with our experimental observations, and allow us to rationalize the form of water-entry cavities resulting from the impact of buoyant and nearly buoyant spheres.
Targeted Disruption of the Testicular SPAG5/Deepest Protein Does Not Affect Spermatogenesis or Fertility

ABSTRACT In an effort to define the molecular basis for morphogenesis of major sperm tail structures, including outer dense fibers, we recently cloned the Spag5 gene by virtue of its strong and specific leucine-zipper-mediated interaction with Odf1, the 27-kDa major outer dense fiber protein. Spag5 is expressed during meiosis and in round spermatids and is similar, if not identical, to Deepest, a putative spindle pole protein. Here we report the disruption of the Spag5 gene by homologous recombination. Spag5-null mice lack Spag5 mRNA and protein. However, male mice are viable and fertile. Analysis of the process of spermatogenesis and sperm produced in Spag5-null mice did not reveal a major phenotype as a consequence of the knockout event. This result suggests that if Spag5 plays a role in spermatogenesis it is likely compensated for by unknown proteins.
Assessing Schizophrenia in Daily Life: The Experience Sampling Method.

• A submitted manuscript is the version of the article upon submission and before peer-review. There can be important differences between the submitted version and the official published version of record. People interested in the research are advised to contact the author for the final version of the publication, or visit the DOI to the publisher's website. • The final author version and the galley proof are versions of the publication after peer review. • The final published version features the final layout of the paper including the volume, issue and page numbers.
Anti‐endothelial cell antibodies in primary antiphospholipid syndrome and SLE: patterns of reactivity with membrane antigens on microvascular and umbilical venous cell membranes

Although there has been recent emphasis on autoantibodies to epitopes on beta‐2‐glycoprotein I and prothrombin in the pathogenesis of antiphospholipid syndrome (APS), antibodies other than those directed toward epitopes on phospholipid binding proteins are present. These include those reactive with antigens on platelet membrane glycoproteins, and with vascular endothelial cell membrane. As the pathogenesis of the thrombotic manifestations of APS remains unexplained, further characterization of these antibodies may be informative. We have confirmed anti‐endothelial cell binding to a range of cell membrane antigens in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and primary APS. Furthermore, differences in both the pattern of antibody binding and band intensity between human umbilical vein (HUVEC) and human microvascular endothelial cells (HMEC‐1) were demonstrated. Of 17 primary APS sera, antibody binding to HUVEC cell membranes was found in nine and to HMEC‐1 membranes in seven. Binding at 72–79 kD was confined to HUVEC. In 32 SLE sera, binding to HUVEC and HMEC‐1 membranes was detected in 17 and 22 respectively, binding at 135–155 kD being confined to HMEC‐1. These results are consistent with the phenotypic variation in endothelial cells of different origins and confirm the frequent presence of autoantibodies reactive with vascular endothelium in both SLE and PAPS. Whether these antibodies could be involved in the pathogenesis of thrombosis, through induction of endothelial cell apoptosis or damage, remains to be determined.
The impact of puberty on adolescent brain development

Research has demonstrated that the human brain undergoes significant change in both structure and function during adolescence, but little is known about the role of puberty in this developmental process. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the relationship between puberty and brain development during adolescence. The first two chapters of this thesis summarise the current understanding of the behavioural and brain changes associated with both adolescence and puberty, and review the methods employed to assess puberty in research. Chapters 3 and 4 focus on the relationship between puberty and changes in brain structure. In Chapter 3, the influence of puberty on subcortical structural development is investigated in a large longitudinal MRI dataset, using a mixed effects modelling analysis method. Chapter 4 investigates the relationship between pubertal status, as measured by physical pubertal stage and levels of salivary sex steroid hormones, and white matter structural development in a cross-sectional sample of 12-16 year old boys, using diffusion tensor imaging. In Chapters 5-7, functional brain changes with puberty are explored. Chapters 5 and 6 focus on social emotion processing, where social emotions (e.g. embarrassment) are defined as emotions that require an awareness of other people’s mental states, while basic emotions (e.g. fear) are those which do not. In Chapter 5, the neural correlates of social and basic emotion processing are investigated in relation to pubertal status. In Chapter 6, the fMRI data are reanalysed using psycho-physiological interaction (PPI) analysis to investigate puberty-related changes in functional connectivity during the same task. Chapter 7 explores, in males, how developmental changes in brain function when performing a risk-taking task are related to puberty, independently of chronological age. Finally, in Chapter 8, the results of the empirical studies are summarised and the findings and implications of the thesis are discussed.
The Good News in Short Interest

Stocks with relatively high short interest subsequently experience negative abnormal returns, but the effect can be transient and of debatable economic significance. In contrast, relatively heavily traded stocks with low short interest experience both statistically and economically significant positive abnormal returns. These positive returns are often larger (in absolute value) than the negative returns observed for heavily shorted stocks. Thus, the positive information associated with low short interest, which is publicly available, is only slowly incorporated into prices, which raises a broader market efficiency issue. Our results also cast doubt on existing theories of the impact of short sale constraints.
Multiparty protocols and logspace-hard pseudorandom sequences

Let ƒ(<italic>x<subscrpt>1</subscrpt></italic>, ···· <italic>x</italic><subscrpt>k</subscrpt>) be a Boolean function that <italic>k</italic> parties wish to collaboratively evaluate. The <italic>i</italic>'th party knows each input argument except <italic>x</italic><subscrpt>i</subscrpt>; and each party has unlimited computational power. They share a blackboard, viewed by all parties, where they can exchange messages. The objective is to minimize the number of bits written on the board. We prove lower bounds of the form &OHgr;(<italic>n</italic>·<italic>c<supscrpt>-k</supscrpt></italic>), for the number of bits that need to be exchanged in order to compute some (explicitly given) functions in P. Our bounds hold even if the parties only wish to have a 1% advantage at guessing the value of ƒ on random inputs. We then give several applications of our lower bounds. Our first application is a pseudorandom generator for Logspace. We explicitly construct (in polynomial time) pseudorandom sequences of length <italic>n</italic> from a random seed of length exp(<italic>c</italic>√log<italic>n</italic>) that no Logspace Turing machine will be able to distinguish from truly random sequences. As a corollary we give an explicit construction of universal traversal sequence of length exp(exp(<italic>c</italic>√log<italic>n</italic>)) for arbitrary undirected graphs on <italic>n</italic> vertices. We then apply the multiparty protocol lower bounds to derive several new time-space tradeoffs. We give a tight time-space tradeoff of the form <italic>TS</italic>=&THgr;(<italic>n</italic><supscrpt>2</supscrpt>), for general, <italic>k</italic>-head Turing-Machines; the bounds hold for a function that can be computed in linear time and constant space by a <italic>k</italic>+1-head Turing Machine. We also give a new length-width tradeoff for oblivious branching programs; in particular our bound implies new lower bounds on the size of arbitrary branching programs, or on the size of Boolean formulas (over an arbitrary finite base).
Identification of Air Traffic Controller Conflict Resolution Strategies for the CORA ( Conflict Resolution Assistant ) Project

In order to explore the potential for a human centred design of conflict resolution advisor, or ‘assistant’, a project has been undertaken to elicit from controllers directly their resolution strategies for a number of scenarios. Since this is a European project, it was necessary to consider a number of different countries. Therefore controllers from seven countries were interviewed individually and in groups, using a standardised set of conflict scenarios. These scenarios ranged from straightforward ‘classical’ scenarios such as ‘head on’ and ‘catch-up’, to multiple aircraft conflicts, and conflicts occurring in constrained airspace. This work, currently being analysed, will establish the degree of agreement between different countries, and the range of preferable and allowable resolution strategies for a set of scenarios. It will also establish what controllers would not do to resolve conflicts, thereby identifying potential advice that would jeopardise the controllers’ trust in the CORA support environment. The paper will outline the methodology used, and will focus on the initial results from the interview process. These results include some of the explicit rules that controllers pay attention to, as well as the implicit strategies they adopt when solving conflicts. It will also show the factors controllers consider when carrying out conflict resolution. This information is intended to inform development of CORA, and may also be of benefit in the training of ab initio controllers.
Sensitivity and Specificity of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Rapid Serologic Assays and Testing Algorithms in an Antenatal Clinic in Abidjan, Ivory Coast

ABSTRACT To evaluate serologic testing algorithms for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) based on a combination of rapid assays among persons with HIV-1 (non-B subtypes) infection, HIV-2 infection, and HIV-1–HIV-2 dual infections in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, a total of 1,216 sera with known HIV serologic status were used to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of four rapid assays: Determine HIV-1/2, Capillus HIV-1/HIV-2, HIV-SPOT, and Genie II HIV-1/HIV-2. Two serum panels obtained from patients recently infected with HIV-1 subtypes B and non-B were also included. Based on sensitivity and specificity, three of the four rapid assays were evaluated prospectively in parallel (serum samples tested by two simultaneous rapid assays) and serial (serum samples tested by two consecutive rapid assays) testing algorithms. All assays were 100% sensitive, and specificities ranged from 99.4 to 100%. In the prospective evaluation, both the parallel and serial algorithms were 100% sensitive and specific. Our results suggest that rapid assays have high sensitivity and specificity and, when used in parallel or serial testing algorithms, yield results similar to those of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay-based testing strategies. HIV serodiagnosis based on rapid assays may be a valuable alternative in implementing HIV prevention and surveillance programs in areas where sophisticated laboratories are difficult to establish.
Reading for 11–13-year-old students in the digital age: New Zealand case studies

ABSTRACT In New Zealand schools, the focus continues to be on improving the reading achievement of all students situated across a range of socio-economic groups. This is particularly so for our young adolescent students, where research investigations have indicated some concerning trends which influence reading development for this age group. This research explored 11—13-year-old students in six case-study schools in New Zealand. Year 7 and 8 teachers and the principals of the six schools were interviewed. The research found changing use of information communication technologies to engage and motivate these young adolescents in reading. In some of the case-study schools, the increased use of iPads and laptops during reading facilitated a means of high interest engagement in reading for contextual purposes. The variance of access to a reliable infrastructure impacted on some schools’ ability to effectively integrate digital technologies within their literacy programmes.
Behavioral Effects of Felbamate in Childhood Epileptic Encephalopathy (Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome)

The behavioral effects of felbamate were assessed in 20 persons (ages 2 to 19 years) who were participating in a compassionate plea protocol for children with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. Parents completed a questionnaire concerning aspects of behavioral change once all medications were in a constant regimen. Significant improvements were suggested in social functioning, intellectual functioning, motor functioning, attention and concentration, alertness, initiative, variability In performance, and memory. There was a tendency for these effects to reverse when the drug was discontinued.
Lateral gas transport in soil adjacent to an old landfill: factors governing emissions and methane oxidation

Field investigations of lateral gas transport and subsequent emissions in soil adjacent to an old landfill in Denmark were conducted during a 1-year period. A significant seasonal variation in the emissions with high carbon dioxide and low methane fluxes in the summer (May to October) was observed. This was attributed to methane oxidation. Diurnal measurements during a drop in barometric pressure showed that the fluxes of landfill gas changed dramatically within a very short time. The concentrations and the soil moisture content in the upper part of the soil profile had significant influence on the fluxes, as did the distance from the landfill border, temperature, barometric pressure and the pressure gradient. Statistical analyses proved that soil moisture described the largest part of the variation. No methane is emitted during the summer. Calculations and isotope analyses showed that very high fractions of the laterally migrating methane were oxidised.
Deep learning with orthogonal volumetric HED segmentation and 3D surface reconstruction model of prostate MRI

Automatic MR whole prostate segmentation is a challenging task. Recent approaches have attempted to harness the capabilities of deep learning for MR prostate segmentation to tackle pixel-level labeling tasks. Patch-based and hierarchical features-based deep CNN models were used to delineate the prostate boundary. To further investigate this problem, we introduce a Holistically-Nested Edge Detector (HED) MRI prostate deep learning segmentation and 3D surface reconstruction model that facilitate the registration of multi-parametric MRI with histopathology slides from radical prostatectomy specimens and targeted biopsy specimens. Application of this technique combines deep learning and computer aided design to provide a generalized solution to construct a high-resolution 3D prostate surface from MRI images in three orthogonal views. The performance of the segmentation is evaluated with MRI scans of 100 patients in 4-fold cross-validation. We achieve a mean Dice Similarity of 88.6%.
Power and sample size calculation for log‐rank test with a time lag in treatment effect

The log‐rank test is the most powerful non‐parametric test for detecting a proportional hazards alternative and thus is the most commonly used testing procedure for comparing time‐to‐event distributions between different treatments in clinical trials. When the log‐rank test is used for the primary data analysis, the sample size calculation should also be based on the test to ensure the desired power for the study. In some clinical trials, the treatment effect may not manifest itself right after patients receive the treatment. Therefore, the proportional hazards assumption may not hold. Furthermore, patients may discontinue the study treatment prematurely and thus may have diluted treatment effect after treatment discontinuation. If a patient's treatment termination time is independent of his/her time‐to‐event of interest, the termination time can be treated as a censoring time in the final data analysis. Alternatively, we may keep collecting time‐to‐event data until study termination from those patients who discontinued the treatment and conduct an intent‐to‐treat analysis by including them in the original treatment groups. We derive formulas necessary to calculate the asymptotic power of the log‐rank test under this non‐proportional hazards alternative for the two data analysis strategies. Simulation studies indicate that the formulas provide accurate power for a variety of trial settings. A clinical trial example is used to illustrate the application of the proposed methods. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.