Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sero-prevalence of Small Ruminant Brucellosis in Selected Settlements of Dire Dawa Administrative Council Area, Eastern Ethiopia

DOI: 10.21276/sjavs.2018. 5.5. 2 Abstract: The cross sectional study of small ruminant brucellosis was conducted at 8 selected PAs of Dire Dawa Administrative council from November 2013 to April 2014 to determine the sero-prevelence of small ruminant brucellosis. A total of 424 serum sample are taken; 159 from sheep and 265 from goats and tested for presence of Brucella antibodies against Brucellosis. The sera were first screened for Brucella antibodies using RBPT and positive sera were subjected to the CFT. In this study the overall rate prevalence 2.6% was recorded in small ruminant: 3.02% and 1.9% in goat and in sheep respectively. There was no statically significant difference observed in the prevalence of the disease among different age group, and between sex and species (p>0.05). The prevalence range from o-4.9% were observed in different PAs. Most of the respondent 66.7 % have no awareness about the Zoonotic importance of the disease. 72.2% of flock owners drinks raw milk and 96.3% flock owner handle animals retained fetal membrane with bare hand . In conclusion small ruminant brucellosis were found to be spread in the study area, and the management practice and tradition of using animal’s products exposes the society to Brucella infection.
Membrane-Associated Quinoprotein Formaldehyde Dehydrogenase from Methylococcus capsulatus Bath

ABSTRACT A membrane-associated, dye-linked formaldehyde dehydrogenase (DL-FalDH) was isolated from the obligate methylotrophMethylococcus capsulatus Bath. The enzyme was the major formaldehyde-oxidizing enzyme in cells cultured in high (above 1 μmol of Cu per mg of cell protein) copper medium and expressing the membrane-associated methane monooxygenase. Soluble NAD(P)+-linked formaldehyde oxidation was the major activity in cells cultured in low-copper medium and expressing the soluble methane monooxygenase (Tate and Dalton, Microbiology 145:159–167, 1999; Vorholt et al., J. Bacteriol. 180:5351–5356, 1998). The membrane-associated enzyme is a homotetramer with a subunit molecular mass of 49,500 Da. UV-visible absorption, electron paramagnetic resonance, and electrospray mass spectrometry suggest the redox cofactor of the DL-FalDH is pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ), with a PQQ-to-subunit stochiometry of approximately 1:1. The enzyme was specific for formaldehyde, oxidizing formaldehyde to formate, and utilized the cytochrome b559/569 complex as the physiological electron acceptor.
Building and Using Comparable Corpora for Domain-Specific Bilingual Lexicon Extraction

This paper presents a series of experiments aimed at inducing and evaluating domain-specific bilingual lexica from comparable corpora. First, a small English-Slovene comparable corpus from health magazines was manually constructed and then used to compile a large comparable corpus on health-related topics from web corpora. Next, a bilingual lexicon for the domain was extracted from the corpus by comparing context vectors in the two languages. Evaluation of the results shows that a 2-way translation of context vectors significantly improves precision of the extracted translation equivalents. We also show that it is sufficient to increase the corpus for one language in order to obtain a higher recall, and that the increase of the number of new words is linear in the size of the corpus. Finally, we demonstrate that by lowering the frequency threshold for context vectors, the drop in precision is much slower than the increase of recall.
Reconstructing the Demographic History of the Human Lineage Using Whole-Genome Sequences from Human and Three Great Apes

The demographic history of human would provide helpful information for identifying the evolutionary events that shaped the humanity but remains controversial even in the genomic era. To settle the controversies, we inferred the speciation times (T) and ancestral population sizes (N) in the lineage leading to human and great apes based on whole-genome alignment. A coalescence simulation determined the sizes of alignment blocks and intervals between them required to obtain recombination-free blocks with a high frequency. This simulation revealed that the size of the block strongly affects the parameter inference, indicating that recombination is an important factor for achieving optimum parameter inference. From the whole genome alignments (1.9 giga-bases) of human (H), chimpanzee (C), gorilla (G), and orangutan, 100-bp alignment blocks separated by ≥5-kb intervals were sampled and subjected to estimate τ = μT and θ = 4μgN using the Markov chain Monte Carlo method, where μ is the mutation rate and g is the generation time. Although the estimated τHC differed across chromosomes, τHC and τHCG were strongly correlated across chromosomes, indicating that variation in τ is subject to variation in μ, rather than T, and thus, all chromosomes share a single speciation time. Subsequently, we estimated Ts of the human lineage from chimpanzee, gorilla, and orangutan to be 6.0–7.6, 7.6–9.7, and 15–19 Ma, respectively, assuming variable μ across lineages and chromosomes. These speciation times were consistent with the fossil records. We conclude that the speciation times in our recombination-free analysis would be conclusive and the speciation between human and chimpanzee was a single event.
Attention Inequality in Social Media

Social media can be viewed as a social system where the currency is attention. People post content and interact with others to attract attention and gain new followers. In this paper, we examine the distribution of attention across a large sample of users of a popular social media site Twitter. Through empirical analysis of these data we conclude that attention is very unequally distributed: the top 20\% of Twitter users own more than 96\% of all followers, 93\% of the retweets, and 93\% of the mentions. We investigate the mechanisms that lead to attention inequality and find that it results from the "rich-get-richer" and "poor-get-poorer" dynamics of attention diffusion. Namely, users who are "rich" in attention, because they are often mentioned and retweeted, are more likely to gain new followers, while those who are "poor" in attention are likely to lose followers. We develop a phenomenological model that quantifies attention diffusion and network dynamics, and solve it to study how attention inequality grows over time in a dynamic environment of social media.
Pathophysiology of pain.

Few current topics generate as much interest and enthusiasm as does pain . Because this ubiquitous symptom has remained so long a mystery, any discovery or theory concerning its mechanism and alleviation is even more intriguing. We know pain exists, but we may be unable to find its cause. If we do find the cause, there may be no correlation between the extent of disease and the degree of patient suffering. A condition that causes excruciating pain in one person may be completely tolerable to another. Even if the cause is removed, suffering may continue. Pain is entirely subjective, but we know it exists when we see the distressed patient. We cannot see the pain, but we recognize its presence in facial expression, verbal description, body language, and objective clinical signs (eg, pallor, rapid pulse, sweating, and others). The patient may feel that he must convince us of its reality, but
Sertoli Cells Loaded with Doxorubicin in Lipid Micelles Reduced Tumor Burden and Dox-Induced Toxicity

The toxic side effects of doxorubicin (Dox) limit its long-term use as a lung cancer chemotherapeutic. Additionally, drug delivery to the deep lung is challenging. To address these challenges, isolated rat Sertoli cells (SCs) were preloaded with Dox conjugated to lipid micelle nanoparticles (SC-DLMNs) and delivered to mouse lungs. These immunocompetent cells, when injected intravenously, travel to the lung, deliver the payload, and get cleared by the system quickly without causing any adverse reaction. We observed that SC-DLMNs effectively treated Lewis lung carcinoma 1-induced lung tumors in mice and the drug efficacy was comparable to SC-Dox treatment. Mice treated with SC-DLMNs also showed significantly less toxicity compared to those treated with SC-Dox. The encapsulation of Dox in lipid micelle nanoparticles reduced the toxicity of Dox and the SC-based delivery method ensured drug delivery to the deep lung without evoking any immune response. Taken together, these results provide a novel SC-based nanoparticle drug delivery method for improved therapeutic outcome of cardiotoxic antilung cancer drugs.
Plasma Fibrinogen as a Predictor of Total and Cause-Specific Mortality in Elderly Japanese-American Men

Abstract—The relation between plasma fibrinogen and total and cause-specific mortality was investigated in a cohort of 3571 Japanese-American men aged 71 to 93 years during a median follow-up of 4.4 years. There were a total of 728 deaths, of which 37% were accounted for by cardiovascular disease and 27% by cancer. The age-adjusted relative risk (RR) for total mortality in the top quintile of fibrinogen (>3.51 g/L) compared with the bottom quintile (<2.57 g/L) was 4.3 (P <0.0001) in the first year of follow-up. RR was reduced to 1.7 in the second year but remained significantly and slightly increased in subsequent years. After adjustment for age and confounding risk factors, the RRs (and 95% confidence intervals) associated with a 1-SD increment of fibrinogen (0.64 g/L) for all-cause, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other-cause mortality were 1.3 (1.2 to 1.4), 1.2 (1.1 to 1.4), 1.3 (1.2 to 1.5), and 1.3 (1.2 to 1.5), respectively. Preexisting diseases did not influence the significant association of fibrinogen with mortality. There was a significant interaction of fibrinogen with white blood cell count but not with cigarette smoking. We conclude that plasma fibrinogen is an independent risk factor for mortality from a broad spectrum of diseases in elderly men and that this universal effect of fibrinogen on mortality may be mediated partly through inflammation.
Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security in Tanzania

The consequences of climate change for agriculture and food security in developing countries are of serious concern. Due to their reliance on rain-fed agriculture, both as a source of income and consumption, many low-income countries are considered to be the most vulnerable to climate change. This paper estimates the impact of climate change on food security in Tanzania. Representative climate projections are used in calibrated crop models to predict crop yield changes for 110 districts in the country. The results are in turn imposed on a highly-disaggregated, recursive dynamic economy-wide model of Tanzania. The authors find that, relative to a no-climate-change baseline and considering domestic agricultural production as the principal channel of impact, food security in Tanzania appears likely to deteriorate as a consequence of climate change. The analysis points to a high degree of diversity of outcomes (including some favorable outcomes) across climate scenarios, sectors, and regions. Noteworthy differences in impacts across households are also present both by region and by income category.
Efficacy of Rechallenge Chemotherapy in Patients With Sensitive Relapsed Small Cell Lung Cancer

Objectives:To evaluate the efficacy of rechallenge with current induction regimens for sensitive-relapse small cell lung cancer (SCLC) patients. Methods:We defined sensitive relapse as treatment-free interval (TFI≥90 d). Sensitive-relapse SCLC patients who received second-line chemotherapy were separated into those treated with rechallenge chemotherapy (rechallenge group) and those treated with other regimens (other group). The endpoints were overall survival (OS), progression-free survival, and toxicity. Results:Sixty-five patients (19 rechallenge group and 46 other group) were assessable for efficacy and safety evaluation. No significant differences in age, sex, ECOG performance status at relapse, disease extent at diagnosis, or response to first-line treatment were found between the 2 groups, but TFI was significantly longer in the rechallenge group. Twenty-one patients of the other group received amrubicin. There was no significant difference in OS between the 2 groups (median survival time [MST]: rechallenge group, 14.4 mo; other group, 13.1 mo; P=0.51). In the patients treated with amrubicin, MST was 12.6 months. Comparing the rechallenge group with the patients treated with amrubicin, there was also no significant difference in OS (P=0.38). Both the rechallenge and other group included 11 patients with ex-sensitive relapse (TFI≥180 d). There was no significant difference in OS between the 2 groups (MST 15.7 vs. 26.9 mo, P=0.46). Conclusions:Rechallenge chemotherapy did not prove superior to other chemotherapies, suggesting that monotherapy, such as amrubicin, might be reasonable as second-line chemotherapy for sensitive-relapse SCLC patients.
Caveolar Endocytosis Is Required for Human PSGL-1-Mediated Enterovirus 71 Infection

ABSTRACT Enterovirus 71 (EV71) causes hand, foot, and mouth disease and severe neurological disorders in children. Human scavenger receptor class B member 2 (hSCARB2) and P-selectin glycoprotein ligand-1 (PSGL-1) are identified as receptors for EV71. The underling mechanism of PSGL-1-mediated EV71 entry remains unclear. The endocytosis required for EV71 entry were investigated in Jurkat T and mouse L929 cells constitutively expressing human PSGL-1 (PSGL-1-L929) or human rhabdomyosarcoma (RD) cells displaying high SCARB2 but no PSGL-1 by treatment of specific inhibitors or siRNA. We found that disruption of clathrin-dependent endocytosis prevented EV71 infection in RD cells, while there was no influence in Jurkat T and PSGL-1-L929 cells. Disturbing caveolar endocytosis by specific inhibitor or caveolin-1 siRNA in Jurkat T and PSGL-1-L929 cells significantly blocked EV71 infection, whereas it had no effect on EV71 infection in RD cells. Confocal immunofluorescence demonstrated caveola, and EV71 was directly colocalized. pH-dependent endosomal acidification and intact membrane cholesterol were important for EV71 infection, as judged by the pretreatment of inhibitors that abrogated the infection. A receptor-dominated endocytosis of EV71 infection was observed: PSGL-1 initiates caveola-dependent endocytosis and hSCARB2 activates clathrin-dependent endocytosis.
Cepstral mean and variance normalization in the model domain

In prior work we have demonstrated the noise robustness of a novel microphone solution, the PARAT earplug communication terminal. Here we extend that work with results for the ETSI Advanced Front-End and segmental cepstral mean and variance normalization (CMVN). We also propose a method for doing CMVN in the model domain. This removes the need to train models on normalized features, which may signiﬁcantly extend the applicability of CMVN. The recognition results are comparable to those of the traditional approach.
Antibacterial Bisabolane-Type Sesquiterpenoids from the Sponge-Derived Fungus Aspergillus sp.

Four new bisabolane-type sesquiterpenoids, aspergiterpenoid A (1), (−)-sydonol (2), (−)-sydonic acid (3), and (−)-5-(hydroxymethyl)-2-(2′,6′,6′-trimethyltetrahydro-2H- pyran-2-yl)phenol (4) together with one known fungal metabolite (5) were isolated from the fermentation broth of a marine-derived fungus Aspergillus sp. , which was isolated from the sponge Xestospongia testudinaria collected from the South China Sea. Four of them (1–4) are optically active compounds. Their structures and absolute configurations were elucidated by using NMR spectroscopic techniques and mass spectrometric analysis, and by comparing their optical rotations with those related known analogues. Compounds 1–5 showed selective antibacterial activity against eight bacterial strains with the MIC (minimum inhibiting concentrations) values between 1.25 and 20.0 µM. The cytotoxic, antifouling, and acetylcholinesterase inhibitory activities of these compounds were also examined.
Clinical and demographic characteristics of tracheobronchial variations

Background: There are various anatomic variations in tracheobronchial system (tracheal bronchus, ectopic bronchus, and accessory bronchus). We aimed to investigate the bronchoscopic findings of the patients with tracheobronchial variations (TBVs) during bronchoscopy and to describe their clinical characteristics. Materials and Methods: A total of 3322 records of bronchoscopic examinations in university hospital and 1560 in chest disease hospital total 4882 were retrospectively analyzed and 198 (134 male, 64 female) patients were diagnosed as TBV. Results: Mean age of patients was 48.5 ± 17.8 (range, 15–78) years. Most of the tracheobronchial variations (n = 68, 33.1%) were localized at the right upper lobe bronchus. The most common type of TBVs at this region was right upper lobe with two segments. Symptoms were found in 21 (10.2%) patients with TBVs (7 accessory cardiac bronchus, 5 tracheal bronchus, 5 accessory segmental bronchus in left main bronchus and 4 accessory segmental bronchus in right main bronchus). Their symptoms cough, hemoptysis and recurrent pneumonia with unknown etiologies were thought as related to TBVs. No other potential causes leading these symptoms were found in these patients. Conclusion: According to our best of knowledge our study population is one of the largest series of bronchoscopy for investigate of TBVs. Although TBVs were usually reported as asymptomatic, nearly 10% of our patients with TBVs had symptoms such as recurrent pneumonia, cough and hemoptysis. TBVs should be taken into consideration in symptomatic patients before fiber-optic bronchoscopic examination.
Contour generators of evolving implicit surfaces

The contour generator is an important visibility feature of a smooth object seen under parallel projection. It is the curve on the surface which seperates front-facing regions from back facing regions. The apparent contour is the projection of the contour generator onto a plane perpendicular to the view direction. Both curves play an important role in computer graphics.Our goal is to obtain fast and robust algorithms that compute the contour generator with a guarantee of topological correctness. To this end, we first study the singularities of the contour generator and the apparent contour, for generic views, and for generic time-dependent projections, e.g. when the surface is rotated or deformed. The singularities indicate when components of the contour generator merge or split as time evolves.We present an algorithm to compute an initial contour generator, using a dynamic step size. An interval test guarantees the topological correctness. This initial contour generator can then be maintained under a time-dependent projection by examining its singularities.
Shared decision-making: the perspectives of young adults with type 1 diabetes mellitus

Background Shared decision-making (SDM) is at the core of patient-centered care. We examined whether young adults with type 1 diabetes perceived the clinician groups they consulted as practicing SDM. Methods In a web-based survey, 150 Australians aged 18–35 years and with type 1 diabetes rated seven aspects of SDM in their interactions with endocrinologists, diabetes educators, dieticians, and general practitioners. Additionally, 33 participants in seven focus groups discussed these aspects of SDM. Results Of the 150 respondents, 90% consulted endocrinologists, 60% diabetes educators, 33% dieticians, and 37% general practitioners. The majority of participants rated all professions as oriented toward all aspects of SDM, but there were professional differences. These ranged from 94.4% to 82.2% for “My clinician enquires about how I manage my diabetes”; 93.4% to 82.2% for “My clinician listens to my opinion about my diabetes management”; 89.9% to 74.1% for “My clinician is supportive of my diabetes management”; 93.2% to 66.1% for “My clinician suggests ways in which I can improve my self-management”; 96.6% to 85.7% for “The advice of my clinician can be understood”; 98.9% to 82.2% for “The advice of my clinician can be trusted”; and 86.5% to 67.9% for “The advice of my clinician is consistent with other members of the diabetes team”. Diabetes educators received the highest ratings on all aspects of SDM. The mean weighted average of agreement to SDM for all consultations was 84.3%. Focus group participants reported actively seeking clinicians who practiced SDM. A lack of SDM was frequently cited as a reason for discontinuing consultation. The dominant three themes in focus group discussions were whether clinicians acknowledged patients’ expertise, encouraged patients’ autonomy, and provided advice that patients could utilize to improve self-management. Conclusion The majority of clinicians engaged in SDM. Young adults with type 1 diabetes prefer such clinicians. They may fail to take up recommended health services when clinicians do not practice this component of patient-centered care. Such findings have implications for patient safety, improved health outcomes, and enhanced health service delivery.
Massively Parallel Sequencing and Analysis of the Necator americanus Transcriptome

BACKGROUND The blood-feeding hookworm Necator americanus infects hundreds of millions of people worldwide. In order to elucidate fundamental molecular biological aspects of this hookworm, the transcriptome of the adult stage of Necator americanus was explored using next-generation sequencing and bioinformatic analyses. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS A total of 19,997 contigs were assembled from the sequence data; 6,771 of these contigs had known orthologues in the free-living nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, and most of them encoded proteins with WD40 repeats (10.6%), proteinase inhibitors (7.8%) or calcium-binding EF-hand proteins (6.7%). Bioinformatic analyses inferred that the C. elegans homologues are involved mainly in biological pathways linked to ribosome biogenesis (70%), oxidative phosphorylation (63%) and/or proteases (60%); most of these molecules were predicted to be involved in more than one biological pathway. Comparative analyses of the transcriptomes of N. americanus and the canine hookworm, Ancylostoma caninum, revealed qualitative and quantitative differences. For instance, proteinase inhibitors were inferred to be highly represented in the former species, whereas SCP/Tpx-1/Ag5/PR-1/Sc7 proteins ( = SCP/TAPS or Ancylostoma-secreted proteins) were predominant in the latter. In N. americanus, essential molecules were predicted using a combination of orthology mapping and functional data available for C. elegans. Further analyses allowed the prioritization of 18 predicted drug targets which did not have homologues in the human host. These candidate targets were inferred to be linked to mitochondrial (e.g., processing proteins) or amino acid metabolism (e.g., asparagine t-RNA synthetase). CONCLUSIONS This study has provided detailed insights into the transcriptome of the adult stage of N. americanus and examines similarities and differences between this species and A. caninum. Future efforts should focus on comparative transcriptomic and proteomic investigations of the other predominant human hookworm, A. duodenale, for both fundamental and applied purposes, including the prevalidation of anti-hookworm drug targets.
Tangible Heat Maps for Navigation of Visually Impaired Users

Copyright is held by the author/owner(s). CHI’13, April 27 – May 2, 2013, Paris, France. ACM 978-1-XXXX-XXXX-X/XX/XX. Abstract Commonly used haptic interaction techniques are typically limited to touching solid glass displays or vibrations. Although there are more complex experimental haptic interfaces, their real application is often unclear. Our prototype of tangible heat map for visually impaired travelers demonstrates rich haptic interaction in real application. We map heat maps values to several haptic features, and help the user to get feeling of confidence and safety while travelling.