Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Molecular epidemiology of fluoroquinolone resistant Salmonella in Africa: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Background Wide-ranging evidence on the occurrence of fluoroquinolone (FQ) resistance genetic determinants in African Salmonella strains is not available. The main objectives of this study were to assess the heterogeneity, estimate pooled proportions and describe the preponderance of FQ-resistance determinants in typhoidal and non-typhoidal Salmonella (NTS) isolates of Africa. Methods Genetic and phenotypic data on 6103 Salmonella isolates were considered. Meta- and frequency analyses were performed depending on the number of studies by category, number of isolates and risks of bias. A random effects model was used to assess heterogeneity and estimate pooled proportions. Relative and cumulative frequencies were calculated to describe the overall preponderance of FQ-resistance determinants in quinolone resistant isolates. Results The pooled proportion of gyrA mutants (Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi, Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium, and Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis) was estimated at 5.7% (95% Confidence interval (CI) = 2.6, 9.8; Tau squared (T2) = 0.1105), and was higher in S. Typhi than in S. Typhimurium (odds ratio (OR) = 3.3, 95%CI = 2, 5.7). The proportions of each of gyrB and parC mutants, and strains with Plasmid Mediated Quinolone Resistance genes (qnrA, qnrB and qnrS) were low (≤ 0.3%). Overall, 23 mutant serotypes were identified, and most strains had mutations at codons encoding Ser83 and Asp87 of gyrA (82%, 95%CI = 78, 86). Conclusions Mutations at gyrA appear to account for ciprofloxacin non-susceptibility in most clinical Salmonella strains in Africa. The estimates could be harnessed to develop a mismatch-amplification mutation-assay for the detection of FQ-resistant strains in Africa.
My Own Best Friend: Homeless Youths’ Hesitance to Seek Help and Strategies for Coping Independently after Distressing and Traumatic Experiences

ABSTRACT Although homeless youth face extreme adversities, they are often hesitant to seek help from formal and informal supports. The current study qualitatively explored homeless youths’ reasons for coping independently and their strategies for doing so. Youth accessing services (N = 145) in three U.S. cities were interviewed about their rationales for not seeking help from others regarding distressing experiences. Analyses illustrated specific barriers to help seeking that prompted homeless youth to cope on their own by utilizing soothing, avoidant, aggressive, and introspective coping strategies. Implications for outreaching to those least likely to seek help are discussed.
The relationships between depression, neuroticism, and attitudes (NDA model) in heroin abusers in Taiwan

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Heroin use is a severe problem worldwide. To develop more effective treatments for heroin abusers, a comprehensive psychosocial model of heroin use should be established and examined. We created and assessed a neuroticism, depression, attitudes, and heroin addiction (NDA) model. METHODS In this cross-sectional study, 234 patients undergoing methadone replacement treatment were recruited from psychiatric clinics. We used Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to assess all for neuroticism, depression, and a positive outcome expectancy (POE) (attitudes). RESULTS The full model had acceptable goodness-of-fit indices, but neuroticism was not significantly associated with a POE or heroin use. A reduced model that deleted insignificant paths had better goodness-of-fit indices, and neuroticism had indirect effects on heroin use via depression and a POE CONCLUSIONS: Our findings provide evidence that depression, neuroticism, and POE affect heroin use. We also found that POE mediates between depression and heroin use. Despite the emotional regulation strategies recommended to help heroin abusers with depression to reduce the likelihood of their heroin use, teaching them with negative attitudes using heroin should also be considered when developing treatments for heroin abusers with depression. SCIENTIFIC SIGNIFICANCE Our findings provide a comprehensive mechanism of addiction that is integrated with emotion, cognition, and personality. Drug-related beliefs and emotional regulation can be targeted to reduce the likelihood of relapse in abusers with higher levels of neuroticism. (Am J Addict 2018;27:139-143).
Non-Uniform Sample Assignment in Training Set Improving Recognition of Hand Gestures Dominated with Similar Muscle Activities

So far, little is known how the sample assignment of surface electromyogram (sEMG) features in training set influences the recognition efficiency of hand gesture, and the aim of this study is to explore the impact of different sample arrangements in training set on the classification of hand gestures dominated with similar muscle activation patterns. Seven right-handed healthy subjects (24.2 ± 1.2 years) were recruited to perform similar grasping tasks (fist, spherical, and cylindrical grasping) and similar pinch tasks (finger, key, and tape pinch). Each task was sustained for 4 s and followed by a 5-s rest interval to avoid fatigue, and the procedure was repeated 60 times for every task. sEMG were recorded from six forearm hand muscles during grasping or pinch tasks, and 4-s sEMG from each channel was segmented for empirical mode decomposition analysis trial by trial. The muscle activity was quantified with zero crossing (ZC) and Wilson amplitude (WAMP) of the first four resulting intrinsic mode function. Thereafter, a sEMG feature vector was constructed with the ZC and WAMP of each channel sEMG, and a classifier combined with support vector machine and genetic algorithm was used for hand gesture recognition. The sample number for each hand gesture was designed to be rearranged according to different sample proportion in training set, and corresponding recognition rate was calculated to evaluate the effect of sample assignment change on gesture classification. Either for similar grasping or pinch tasks, the sample assignment change in training set affected the overall recognition rate of candidate hand gesture. Compare to conventional results with uniformly assigned training samples, the recognition rate of similar pinch gestures was significantly improved when the sample of finger-, key-, and tape-pinch gesture were assigned as 60, 20, and 20%, respectively. Similarly, the recognition rate of similar grasping gestures also rose when the sample proportion of fist, spherical, and cylindrical grasping was 40, 30, and 30%, respectively. Our results suggested that the recognition rate of hand gestures can be regulated by change sample arrangement in training set, which can be potentially used to improve fine-gesture recognition for myoelectric robotic hand exoskeleton control.
Parallel evolution of the POQR prolyl oligo peptidase gene conferring plant quantitative disease resistance

Plant pathogens with a broad host range are able to infect plant lineages that diverged over 100 million years ago. They exert similar and recurring constraints on the evolution of unrelated plant populations. Plants generally respond with quantitative disease resistance (QDR), a form of immunity relying on complex genetic determinants. In most cases, the molecular determinants of QDR and how they evolve is unknown. Here we identify in Arabidopsis thaliana a gene mediating QDR against Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, agent of the white mold disease, and provide evidence of its convergent evolution in multiple plant species. Using genome wide association mapping in A. thaliana, we associated the gene encoding the POQR prolyl-oligopeptidase with QDR against S. sclerotiorum. Loss of this gene compromised QDR against S. sclerotiorum but not against a bacterial pathogen. Natural diversity analysis associated POQR sequence with QDR. Remarkably, the same amino acid changes occurred after independent duplications of POQR in ancestors of multiple plant species, including A. thaliana and tomato. Genome-scale expression analyses revealed that parallel divergence in gene expression upon S. sclerotiorum infection is a frequent pattern in genes, such as POQR, that duplicated both in A. thaliana and tomato. Our study identifies a previously uncharacterized gene mediating QDR against S. sclerotiorum. It shows that some QDR determinants are conserved in distantly related plants and have emerged through the repeated use of similar genetic polymorphisms at different evolutionary time scales.
Impact of supplementing diets with propolis on productive performance, egg quality traits and some haematological variables of laying hens

One hundred and twenty eight, 28-weeks-old Lohmann LSL hybrid layers were used in this experiment, which lasted 12 weeks to investigate the effect of propolis supplementation on the productive performance, egg quality traits and haematological variables of laying hens. All hens were randomly classified into four equal experimental groups, eight replicates (4 birds/each). Hens in group 1 were fed on a commercial diet and considered as control group, while those in groups 2, 3 and 4 were fed on the same commercial diet and supplemented with 250, 500 and 1000 mg propolis/kg diet. The obtained results revealed that daily feed consumption/hen increased insignificantly with increasing propolis level than that of the control group. Regarding the means of egg mass and egg production rate, it was observed that the laying hens fed diets containing 250 and 1000 mg propolis/kg significantly (p < 0.05) produced more and heaver egg in comparison with control group. External egg quality traits have not affected with increasing the level of propolis, while eggshell weight was significantly (p < 0.05) increased. The internal egg quality traits except albumen and yolk percentages increased significantly (p < 0.05) with increasing propolis level for treated hens as compared to those in the control. Concerning the haematological parameters, the results showed that the levels of total protein and globulin increased significantly with increasing propolis level, while cholesterol and liver enzymes were significantly decreased (p < 0.05). Heterophils count of hens in the treated groups significantly decreased, whereas the lymphocyte count significantly increased, resulting in a decreased H/L ratio than that of the control group. Thus, it could be concluded that the supplementation of 250 mg propolis/kg diet is highly recommended to improving egg production, blood constituent and haematological parameters of the commercial laying hens.
High performances of dual network PVA hydrogel modified by PVP using borax as the structure-forming accelerator

Abstract A dual network hydrogel made up of polyvinylalcohol (PVA) crosslinked by borax and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) was prepared by means of freezing-thawing circles. Here PVP was incorporated by linking with PVA to form a network structure, while the introduction of borax played the role of crosslinking PVA chains to accelerate the formation of a dual network structure in PVA/PVP composite hydrogel, thus endowing the hydrogel with high mechanical properties. The effects of both PVP and borax on the hydrogels were evaluated by comparing the two systems of PVA/PVP/borax and PVA/borax hydrogels. In the former system, adding 4.0% PVP not only increased the water content and the storage modulus but also enhanced the mechanical strength of the final hydrogel. But an overdose of PVP just as more than 4.0% tended to undermine the structure of hydrogels, and thus deteriorated hydrogels’ properties because of the weakened secondary interaction between PVP and PVA. Likewise, increasing borax could promote the gel crosslinking degree, thus making gels show a decrease in water content and swelling ratio, meanwhile shrinking the pores inside the hydrogels and finally enhancing the mechanical strength of hydrogels prominently. The developed hydrogel with high performances holds great potential for applications in biomedical and industrial fields.
Fitting additive hazards models for case‐cohort studies: a multiple imputation approach

In this paper, we consider fitting semiparametric additive hazards models for case‐cohort studies using a multiple imputation approach. In a case‐cohort study, main exposure variables are measured only on some selected subjects, but other covariates are often available for the whole cohort. We consider this as a special case of a missing covariate by design. We propose to employ a popular incomplete data method, multiple imputation, for estimation of the regression parameters in additive hazards models. For imputation models, an imputation modeling procedure based on a rejection sampling is developed. A simple imputation modeling that can naturally be applied to a general missing‐at‐random situation is also considered and compared with the rejection sampling method via extensive simulation studies. In addition, a misspecification aspect in imputation modeling is investigated. The proposed procedures are illustrated using a cancer data example. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Effect of reverberation on the directional sensitivity of auditory neurons : peripheral factors

Reverberation poses a challenge for theories of sound localization due to the interaction between the direct sound and the various acoustic reflections. These reflections corrupt binaural cues available to the receiver, resulting in a degradation of directional information available in the acoustic stimulus. Despite this interaction, directionally-sensitive neural responses in the auditory midbrain have been shown to be more robust to reverberation than predicted by a binaural model based on the long- term cross-correlation of the two ear-input signals (Devore et al., 2009, Neuron 63(1), pp 123-134). To determine the extent to which this robustness is central or peripheral in origin, and to quantitatively investigate whether peripheral adaptation contributes to this robustness, we recorded auditory nerve (AN) responses to tokens of noise with varying levels of simulated reverberation. We found many qualitatively similar trends in AN responses as have been previously observed in the midbrain, suggesting a peripheral origin of robust directional coding. In particular, we found that degradation of directional coding in the AN due to reverberation is stronger at high frequencies, and that this degradation is limited near the stimulus onset. We also show that peripheral adaptation plays a positive role in increasing robustness of directional representation in the presence of reverberation. We also investigated the nature of the frequency dependence observed in the degradation of directional coding due to reverberation. Based on our experimental results and the results of an auditory model, we argue that in addition to being affected by AN fibers' synchrony to stimulus fine structure, the frequency dependence is also produced by temporal structure of the reverberant room response.
Fuzzy uncertainty modelling for project planning ; application to helicopter maintenance

To cite this version: Masmoudi, Malek and Haït, Alain Fuzzy uncertainty modelling for project planning; application to helicopter maintenance. (2012) International Journal of Production Research, vol. 50 (n° 13). pp. 3594-3611. ISSN 0020-7543 Open Archive Toulouse Archive Ouverte (OATAO) OATAO is an open access repository that collects the work of Toulouse researchers and makes it freely available over the web where possible.
Does Bruxism Contribute to Dental Implant Failure? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

BACKGROUND Bruxism was usually considered as a contraindication for oral implanting. The causal relationship between bruxism and dental implant failure was remained controversial in existing literatures. PURPOSE This meta-analysis was performed to investigate the relationship between them. MATERIALS AND METHODS This review conducted an electronic systematic literature search in MEDLINE (PubMed) and EmBase in November 2013 without time and language restrictions. Meanwhile, a hand searching for all the relevant references of included studies was also conducted. Study information extraction and methodological quality assessments were accomplished by two reviewers independently. A discussion ensued if any disagreement occurred, and unresolved issues were solved by consulting a third reviewer. Methodological quality was assessed by using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale tool. Odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) was pooled to estimate the relative effect of bruxism on dental implant failures. Fixed effects model was used initially; if the heterogeneity was high, random effects model was chosen for meta-analysis. Statistical analyses were carried out by using Review Manager 5.1. RESULTS In this meta-analysis review, extracted data were classified into two groups based on different units. Units were based on the number of prostheses (group A) and the number of patients (group B). In group A, the total pooled OR of bruxers versus nonbruxers for all subgroups was 4.72 (95% CI: 2.66-8.36, p = .07). In group B, the total pooled OR of bruxers versus nonbruxers for all subgroups was 3.83 (95% CI: 2.12-6.94, p = .22). CONCLUSIONS This meta-analysis was performed to evaluate the relationship between bruxism and dental implant failure. In contrast to nonbruxers, prostheses in bruxers had a higher failure rate. It suggests that bruxism is a contributing factor of causing the occurrence of dental implant technical/biological complications and plays a role in dental implant failure.
Understanding the Influence of Encapsulating Matrix on the Physical and Thermal Properties of Oregano Essential Oil Powder

In this study, the influence of blends of carbohydrates on the physical and thermal properties of oregano essential oil micro particles was evaluated. Powders were produced by spray drying using different wall materials: gum Arabic (GA), modified starch (MS) and maltodextrin (MD). The micro particles were characterized by morphology, moisture content, water activity, particle size distribution, particle mean diameter, poly dispersity index, glass transition temperature (Tg) and thermal stability. The partial replacement of GA by MS or a mixture of MS and MD resulted in micro particles with lower moisture content. The results showed that micro particles with GA had higher values of Tg (97.02 °C), indicating more physical stability. However, the use of MS and MD results in a slight reduction of Tg. TGA results showed that the nature of wall materials have considerable effect on the thermal degradation of micro particles. Thermal analysis revealed the potential of application of these carbohydrates for substitution of GA.
Cardiovascular Aspects in Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome – Molecular Issues, Hypoxia and Cytokine Profiles

Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS), which is a highly prevalent breathing disorder in sleep, is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Results from clinical studies as well as animal models and cell culture studies utilizing intermittent hypoxia implicate oxidative stress and inflammation in the pathogenesis of OSAS. However, the underlying mechanisms are not entirely understood. Both oxidative stress and inflammation are major components in the initiation and development of endothelial dysfunction and consequently atherosclerosis. Yet, these fundamental mechanisms are associated with obesity and with components of the metabolic syndrome that also cluster with OSAS. Accumulated evidence indicates that inflammatory cytokines such as TNF-α that are under the control of nuclear factor κB actively participate in endothelial damage. The current review highlights some of the recent findings on oxidative stress and inflammation in OSAS with specific emphasis on the role of inflammatory pathway activation and expression of cytokines and their possible role in OSAS-related cardiovascular morbidity. In light of the new findings in the field of cytokines, their potential involvement in endothelial dysfunction and cardiovascular morbidity in OSAS is discussed.
The Normalized Graph Cut and Cheeger Constant: From Discrete to Continuous

Let M be a bounded domain of with a smooth boundary. We relate the Cheeger constant of M and the conductance of a neighborhood graph defined on a random sample from M. By restricting the minimization defining the latter over a particular class of subsets, we obtain consistency (after normalization) as the sample size increases, and show that any minimizing sequence of subsets has a subsequence converging to a Cheeger set of M.
Dosimetry in x-ray-based breast imaging

The estimation of the mean glandular dose to the breast (MGD) for x-ray based imaging modalities forms an essential part of quality control and is needed for risk estimation and for system design and optimisation. This review considers the development of methods for estimating the MGD for mammography, digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) and dedicated breast CT (DBCT). Almost all of the methodology used employs Monte Carlo calculated conversion factors to relate the measurable quantity, generally the incident air kerma, to the MGD. After a review of the size and composition of the female breast, the various mathematical models used are discussed, with particular emphasis on models for mammography. These range from simple geometrical shapes, to the more recent complex models based on patient DBCT examinations. The possibility of patient-specific dose estimates is considered as well as special diagnostic views and the effect of breast implants. Calculations using the complex models show that the MGD for mammography is overestimated by about 30% when the simple models are used. The design and uses of breast-simulating test phantoms for measuring incident air kerma are outlined and comparisons made between patient and phantom-based dose estimates. The most widely used national and international dosimetry protocols for mammography are based on different simple geometrical models of the breast, and harmonisation of these protocols using more complex breast models is desirable.
A network meta‐analysis on the short‐term efficacy and adverse events of different anti‐osteoporosis drugs for the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis

A network meta‐analysis was conducted to compare the short‐term efficacy and adverse events of different drugs for the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis (PMO), providing a more effective treatment for PMO. We initially searched through various databases like PubMed, Cochrane Library, and EMBASE from inception till October 2016. All randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of drugs for the treatment of PMO were included for direct and indirect comparison. A combination of direct and indirect evidence of different inhibitors of anti‐diabetic drugs for treatment of PMO were considered for calculating the weighted mean difference (WMD) value or odd ratio (OR) value and to draw surface under the cumulative ranking (SUCRA) curves. Twenty‐seven RCTs were ultimately incorporated into this network meta‐analysis comprising of 48 200 patients suffering from PMO. The network meta‐analysis revealed that compared with placebo, alendronate had better efficacy on improving bone mineral density (BMD) at lumbar spine, femoral neck, and total hip. Risedronate and raloxifene had relatively lower incidence of new vertebral fractures. The SUCRA analysis showed that alendronate had better efficacy on improving BMD, risedronate could significantly decrease the incidence of fresh fracture and bazedoxifene was relatively safe. The available evidence suggested that alendronate and risedronate might be the superior choices for the treatment of PMO, while bazedoxifene was a comparatively safer option for patients.