Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Eneterotoxigenic Bacillus cereus and Bacillus thuringiensis Spores in U.S. retail Spices

iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I have to thank my research advisor, Prof. Ronald Labbe for his guidance, encouragement and dedicated support in every step throughout the process. The accomplishment of this paper is due to his understanding and unfaltering faith in me over the last three years. While working with him, I not only developed as a professional, but also as an individual. I would also like to show my gratitude to my committee, Dr. McLandsborough for their guidance and valued ideas for my dissertation. Special thanks also to Prof. Kalidas Shetty and the food science department; particularly Ruth Witkowski and Fran Kostek for their continued support. Successfully completing my dissertation required more than just academic support, and I would like to thank my friend and fiancé Varun Rai and my friend Siddheshwari Advani for listening to, and having to tolerate me over the past three years. I would also like to thank Chi-An Lee, Kyle Landry and Chandrakant Ankolekar for their personal and professional support over the time I spent in lab. Most importantly, thanks to my family, without whom none of this would have been possible. To my parents and sister – your unwavering support gave me the strength to succeed and this dissertation is a testament to your unconditional love and encouragement. iv
Intranasal Administration of Maleic Anhydride-Modified Human Serum Albumin for Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis of Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the leading cause of pediatric viral respiratory tract infections. Neither vaccine nor effective antiviral therapy is available to prevent and treat RSV infection. Palivizumab, a humanized monoclonal antibody, is the only product approved to prevent serious RSV infection, but its high cost is prohibitive in low-income countries. Here, we aimed to identify an effective, safe, and affordable antiviral agent for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) of RSV infection in children at high risk. We found that maleic anhydride (ML)-modified human serum albumin (HSA), designated ML-HSA, exhibited potent antiviral activity against RSV and that the percentages of the modified lysines and arginies in ML- are correlated with such anti-RSV activity. ML-HSA inhibited RSV entry and replication by interacting with viral G protein and blocking RSV attachment to the target cells, while ML-HAS neither bound to F protein, nor inhibited F protein-mediated membrane fusion. Intranasal administration of ML-HSA before RSV infection resulted in significant decrease of the viral titers in the lungs of mice. ML-HSA shows promise for further development into an effective, safe, affordable, and easy-to-use intranasal regimen for pre-exposure prophylaxis of RSV infection in children at high risk in both low- and high-income countries.
Short‐term visual outcome after unilateral implantation of a trifocal diffractive presbyopia‐correcting intraocular lens

We present a case of a unilateral posterior cataract in the right eye of a 46-year-old woman. The patient, a health professional working in our hospital, had a distance visual acuity (VA) of 0.38 logMAR in her right eye with emmetropic vision. Left eye examination showed VA of −0.04 (−0.50 D). However, the patient insisted that she was not satisfied with her overall vision; a subsequent slitlamp examination revealed the presence of a lenticular opacity along the visual axis (Figure 1A). After thorough discussion, a cataract operation was suggested and the new trifocal diffractive iOL AcrySof IQ PanOptix (Alcon Laboratories, Inc, Fort Worth, Texas, USA) was recommended in the hope that it would offer satisfactory VA at all distances, as reported by recent studies about similar models. The patient did not have any sign of cataract in her fellow eye, so a bilateral implantation was unlikely. Cionni and colleagues have shown that unilateral implantation of a diffractive multifocal IOL exhibited acceptable results almost equal to the bilateral implantation. During preoperative evaluations, we observed that optical biometry did not present an acceptable measurement of the axial length due to significant opacity of the visual axis. Applanation ultrasound biometry was performed and appropriate correction of the measured IOL was obtained. The specific IOL had only one optical A-constant; consequently, we interpreted the ultrasound measurement to an optical value in order to calculate the dioptric power of the trifocal lens. The surgical procedure was uneventful and the trifocal IOL was implanted following aspiration of the crystalline lens through the curvilinear capsulorrhexis. As expected, very low ultrasound energy was used. The patient was prescribed antibiotic, steroid and non-steroid anti-inflammatory eye-drops according to our clinic protocol. The patient was examined the next day and we started to monitor her VA from postoperative day 7. Her subjective impression was that her vision had significantly improved but she still felt she relied on her
What leads students to adopt information from Wikipedia? An empirical investigation into the role of trust and information usefulness

With the prevalence of the Internet, it has become increasingly easy and common for students to seek information from various online sources. Wikipedia is one of the largest and most popular reference websites that university students may heavily rely on in completing their assignments and other course-related projects. Based on the information adoption model, this study empirically examines the effects of trust and information usefulness on Hong Kong students' information adoption from Wikipedia. We conducted an online survey and analysed the responses using partial least squares. Overall, the model explained 69.4% of the variance in information adoption, 59.1% of the variance in trust and 62.7% of the variance in information usefulness. Interestingly, deviating significantly from the information adoption model, trust played a major role in determining information adoption and fully mediated the relationship between information usefulness and information adoption. The implications of this study will provide important insights to both researchers and practitioners. Practitioner Notes What is already known about this topic Current controversy is perpetuated by the use of Wikipedia in academic work, although it is heavily utilised by university students. , Information adoption is solely determined by information usefulness as proposed in Sussman and Siegal's information adoption model. , Prior studies on trust in online information environment primarily focused on issues such as security, technical reliability or e-commerce. , What this paper adds This study provides preliminary empirical evidence regarding university students' motivations behind the use of Wikipedia. , Trust towards Wikipedia mediates the relationship between information usefulness and information adoption. , Completeness and format of online information determine university students' perceptions of information usefulness. , Implications for practice and/or policy Educators should provide university students with more training on evaluating online information and instruct them to be critical learners. , Academic institutions should not simply prohibit the use of Wikipedia but instead incorporate it into the curriculum to develop students' digital literacy. , The administrators of online educational reference websites should create a reputation system and increase the completeness and format of information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Electronic properties of zig-zag carbon nanotubes : a first-principles study

5 Chapter 1 – Introduction . 8 1.1 Carbon Nanomaterials . 9 1.2 Applications of Carbon Nanotubes . 11 1.3 Objective . 13 Chapter 2 – First-Principles Simulation Techniques . 14 2.1 Schrodinger Equation . 15 2.2 Born-Oppenheimer Approximation . 16 2.3 Hartree-Fock Method . 17 2.4 Post Hartree-Fock Methods . 20 2.5 Density Functional Theory . 22 Chapter 3–Electronic Properties of Zig-Zag Carbon Nanotubes . 27 3.
Blood pressure changes during adolescence and subsequent adult blood pressure level.

Serial data were analyzed for blood pressure recorded between the ages of 9 to 18 years for 278 children and for a subset of this group whose blood pressure was measured at the age of 30 +/- 5.0 years (n = 93). Blood pressures were measured by auscultation over the antecubital fossa with the participant seated. Systolic blood pressure was recorded when the first sound was heard, and diastolic blood pressure was recorded when all sounds disappeared (fifth phase). A linear regression model was fitted to the data for each individual, and adjustments were made for regression toward the mean using maximum likelihood procedures. There were no significant correlations between the estimated initial values of blood pressure and the rate of change from 9 to 18 years of age. The associations between the levels of blood pressure at 9 years of age and at 30 years of age were significant for systolic blood pressure only in male subjects and were not significant for diastolic blood pressure in either sex. The correlations between the rate of blood pressure change from 9 to 18 years of age and blood pressure levels at 30 years of age were nonsignificant. When the initial values and the rate of change in blood pressure from 9 to 18 years of age were taken into account simultaneously, they accounted for approximately 20% of the variation in systolic blood pressure levels at 30 years of age. This finding indicates that children with higher blood pressure levels at about 9 years of age and with rapid increases in blood pressure during pubescence may have an increased risk of becoming hypertensive. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Energy-efficient mid-term strategies for collision avoidance in crowd simulation

When navigating in crowds, humans are able to move efficiently between people. They look ahead to know which path would reduce the complexity of their interactions with others. Current navigation systems for virtual agents consider the long-term planning to find a path in the static environment and the short term reaction to avoid collision with close obstacles. Recently some mid-term considerations have been added to avoid high density areas. However, there is no mid-term planning among static and dynamic obstacles that would enable the agent to look ahead and avoid difficult paths or find easy ones as human do. In this paper we present a system for such mid-term planning. This system is added to the navigation process between the path finding and the local avoidance to improve the navigation of virtual agents. We show the capacities of such system on several case studies. Finally we use an energy criterion to compare trajectories computed with and without the mid-term planning.
Interpreting febrile neutropenia rates from randomized, controlled trials for consideration of primary prophylaxis in the real world: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND Guidelines recommend primary prophylaxis (PP) with granulocyte-colony-stimulating factors (G-CSF) for patients above a febrile neutropenia (FN) risk threshold of 20%. Practitioners often use FN rates of regimens based on data from randomized, controlled trials (RCTs), which are often comprised of highly selected patients. Patients in the community setting may be at higher risk of FN. MATERIALS AND METHODS A systematic literature search was conducted for full-length articles reporting FN rates for breast cancer-related chemotherapies between January 1996 and February 2014. A regimen was included if there was at least one RCT and one observational study. Meta-regression was used to model the odds of FN. RESULTS 130 studies involving 29 regimens and 50 069 patients were identified. Sixty-five observational study (n = 7812) and 110 RCT (n = 42 257) cohorts were included. The unadjusted FN rate was 11.7% in observational and 7.9% in RCT cohorts. The univariable odds ratio (OR) for FN in the observational study compared with RCT cohorts was 1.58 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.09-2.28; P = 0.017]. The FN rates remained significantly higher in the observational study compared with RCT cohorts (OR = 1.74; 95% CI 1.15-2.62; P = 0.012) after adjusting for age, chemotherapy intent, and regimen; this meant that a 13% (95% CI 8.7% to 17.9%) FN rate in RCT would translate into 20% FN rate in observational study. CONCLUSIONS FN rates in the observational studies are significantly higher than suggested by RCTs. Guidelines should clarify how FN rates from RCTs should be applied in clinical practice. Large population-based studies are needed to confirm FN rates in the real world.
Disequilibrium Theory : reflections towards a revival of learning

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Encyclopedia of sport and exercise psychology

How do athletes overcome fears, slumps, mental blocks, or injuries? How do they deal with stress and anxiety, be it from competitors, teammates, audiences, parents, coaches, or themselves? What psychological techniques prove effective in mental training for peak performance, maintaining concentration, motivation, and competitive drive? How can an athlete enhance his or her commitment to a training regimen, or how might the average person better adhere to a program of fitness and exercise? Readers will find answers to these questions and more in the Encyclopedia of Sport and Exercise Psychology.
A National Examination of Gender Equity in Public Parks and Recreation

Despite the number of women in the field of public parks and recreation, gender equity continues to be a problem. The purpose of this study was to explore perceptions of workplace equity in public parks and recreation on a national level. The impact these perceptions have on workplace attitudes such as organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and organizational citizenship was also examined. Subjects for this study were drawn from the American Parks and Recreation Society membership list using a systematic stratified random sampling procedure. Chi-square, multivariate and univariate analyses were used for data analyses. Data indicated that there were significant differences between men and women with regard to perceptions of equity as well as levels of organizational citizenship. Perceptions of inequity also appear to be precursors to lower levels of organizational commitment.
C21 steroidal glycosides from Cynanchum wallichii Wight

Three new C21 steroidal glycosides, characterized with rostratamine and qinyangshengenin as aglycone moiety and 2,6-dideoxy-pyranoses as component sugars, have been isolated from the roots of Cynanchum wallichii Wight. The structures of the three new C21 steroidal glycosides were elucidated as rostratamine-3-O-β-d-oleandropyranosyl-(1 → 4)-β-d-cymaropyranosyl-(1 → 4)-β-d-cymaropyranoside, qinyangshengenin-3-O-β-d-cymaropyranosyl-(1 → 4)-β-d-digitoxo-pyranoside, and qinyangshengenin-3-O-β-d-oleandropyranosyl-(1 → 4)-β-d-cymaropyranosyl-(1 → 4)-β-d-digitoxopyranoside.
Disulphide bond assignment in human tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases (TIMP).

Disulphide bonds in human recombinant tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases (TIMP) were assigned by resolving proteolytic digests of TIMP on reverse-phase h.p.l.c. and sequencing those peaks judged to contain disulphide bonds by virtue of a change in retention time on reduction. This procedure allowed the direct assignment of Cys-145-Cys-166 and the isolation of two other peptides containing two disulphide bonds each. Further peptide cleavage in conjunction with fast-atom-bombardment m.s. analysis permitted the assignments Cys-1-Cys-70, Cys-3-Cys-99, Cys-13-Cys-124 and Cys-127-Cys-174 from these peptides. The sixth bond Cys-132-Cys-137 was assigned by inference, as the native protein has no detectable free thiol groups.
Cronyism and Capital Controls: Evidence from Malaysia

The initial impact of the Asian financial crisis in Malaysia reduced the expected value of government subsidies to politically favored firms. Of the estimated $60 billion loss in market value for politically connected firms from July 1997 to August 1998, roughly 9% can be attributed to the fall in the value of their connections. Firing the Deputy Prime Minister and imposing capital controls in September 1998 primarily benefited firms with strong ties to Prime Minister Mahathir. Of the estimated $5 billion gain in market value for Mahathir-connected firms during September 1998, approximately 32% was due to the increase in the value of their connections. The evidence suggests Malaysian capital controls provided a screen behind which favored firms could be supported.
The specification and modeling of computer security

A description is given of computer security models in general and the model of D. Bell and L. LaPadula (Tech. Rep. MTR-2997, Mitre Corp., 1976) in particular. The Bell and LaPadula (BLP) model is the backbone of the National Computer Security Center's evaluation process for trusted computer systems. Although discretionary access control is briefly addressed, the focus is on mandatory access control (MAC) in national security. However, the issues addressed are relevant to any setting in which MAC-like restrictions arise. It is shown that security is a fruitful research area for those interested in software specification, since some of the most difficult issues in specifying security have analogs in other domains. The limitations of the BLP model are examined. For example, it has little relevance for systems in which users can change their own security levels or those of their files, and it is inadequate for expressing requirements that certain operations cannot be performed by a single individual working alone. It is shown how BLP's limitations can be remedied by a framework of models, making it more useful to those interested in industrial security. <<ETX>>
Context-Aware Wrapping: Synchronized Data Extraction

The deep Web presents a pressing need for integrating large numbers of dynamically evolving data sources. To be more automatic yet accurate in building an integration system, we observe two problems: First, across sequential tasks in integration, how can a wrapper (as an extraction task) consider the peer sources to facilitate the subsequent matching task? Second, across parallel sources, how can a wrapper leverage the peer wrappers or domain rules to enhance extraction accuracy? These issues, while seemingly unrelated, both boil down to the lack of "context awareness": Current automatic wrapper induction approaches generate a wrapper for one source at a time, in isolation, and thus inherently lack the awareness of the peer sources or domain knowledge in the context of integration. We propose the concept of context-aware wrappers that are amenable to matching and that can leverage peer wrappers or prior domain knowledge. Such context awareness inspires a synchronization framework to construct wrappers consistently and collaboratively across their mutual context. We draw the insight from turbo codes and develop the turbo syncer to interconnect extraction with matching, which together achieve context awareness in wrapping. Our experiments show that the turbo syncer can, on the one hand, enhance extraction consistency and thus increase matching accuracy (from 17--83% to 78--94% in F-measure) and, on the other hand, incorporate peer wrappers and domain knowledge seamlessly to reduce extraction errors (from 09--60% to 01--11%).
Forest structure from longer wavelength SARS

In this paper we address three topics related to SAR Tomography of forest scenarios at P-Band. In first place we discuss the role of pulse bandwidth, which is shown to play a critical role as for the capability of the Tomographic system to separate ground and canopy contributions. Accordingly, vertical resolution depends not only on baseline aperture, but also on pulse bandwidth. Another factor to be accounted for is phase calibration, as the quality of the vertical focusing carried out by SAR Tomography is strictly related to the condition that phase contributions due to platform motion or atmospheric propagation are properly compensated for. Finally, multiple scattering phenomena are likely to occur at longer wavelengths, resulting in Tomographic techniques not being suffice for the aim of discriminating ground and volume scattering. The three points above are here discussed in light of the results achieved in the framework of the ESA campaign BioSAR 2008. The analysis has been carried out by exploiting the Algebraic Synthesis technique, which provides a theoretical framework to decompose the SAR signal into ground-only and volume-only contributions. Ground-only contributions provide an easy and viable way to phase calibrate the data stack. Volume-only contributions, if correctly identified, allow a direct Tomographic imaging of the vegetation layer. The impact of pulse bandwidth is tackled by assuming a Common Band Filtering approach, which results in a vertical resolution improvement by a factor 2.
On optimal arbitrage

In a Markovian model for a financial market, we characterize the best arbitrage with respect to the market portfolio that can be achieved using nonanticipative investment strategies, in terms of the smallest positive solution to a parabolic partial differential inequality; this is determined entirely on the basis of the covariance structure of the model. The solution is intimately related to properties of strict local martingales and is used to generate the investment strategy which realizes the best possible arbitrage. Some extensions to non-Markovian situations are also presented.
The Experiences of Mothers Bereaved by Suicide: An Exploratory Study

To ascertain the meaning of their loss, the authors explored the experiences of 7 biological mothers bereaved by suicide. Purposive sampling was used and 1-to-1 interviews were conducted and analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Four themes emerged: (a) silencing grief; (b) shattered assumptions; (c) constructing a narrative; and (d) the depth of a mother's grief. Mothers experienced intense prolonged grief with many psychological and physical symptoms; one acknowledged strong suicidal thoughts and one had attempted suicide. The findings suggest a need for care professionals to be aware of, and to target, this vulnerable subgroup.