Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Tapioca maltodextrin in the production of soft unripened cheese.

BACKGROUND An excessive consumption of fat has been associated with an increased risk of health problems such as obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Cheese is a highly concentrated product which is rich in protein and minerals such as calcium and phosphorus and essential amino acids, therefore it is an important food in the diet. But low fat cheeses are usually characterized as having poor body and flavour. Therefore, it is crucial to find ways of improving the acceptability of the product. The aim of this research was to investigate the possibility of using of tapioca maltodextrin in the production of soft cheese made from ultrafiltrated skimmed milk and to create organoleptic properties of a fat product in a non-fat product. METHODS To estimate the possibility of using tapioca maltodextrin in the production of soft cheese, the influence of tapioca maltodextrin on rennet flocculation time (RFT) and rennet clotting time (RCT), pH values, moisture content were estimated. Improving the quality of cheese, rheological and sensory characteristics in the course of soft unripened cheese manufacturing has to be focused on. RESULTS Using tapioca maltodextrin led to decrease in RFT and RCT. The concentration increase of the maltodextrin in milk for cheese production led to increase in moisture-binding capacity and moisture content of the cheeses, but led to decrease in RFT, RCT and pH-value. Based on the experiments data the optimal doses of tapioca maltodextrin were recommended. CONCLUSIONS An addition of tapioca maltodextrin resulted in a tendency of decreasing RFT and RCT, pH-value for cheese made with different concentrations of tapioca maltodextrin when compared to cheese made without maltodextrin addition. At the same time an increased amount of tapioca maltodextrin led to moisture content increase of cheese samples. Inclusion of tapioca maltodextrin in natural, low fat cheese may improve texture and acceptability as compared to low fat control cheeses without maltodextrin. The recommended level of tapioca maltodextrin is 1.1% of the mixture weight.
Robust auto calibration technique for stereo camera

Calibration of the internal and external parameters of a stereo vision camera is a well-known research problem in the computer vision. Usually, to get accurate 3D results the camera should be manually calibrate accurately as well. This paper proposes a robust approach to Auto Calibration stereo camera Without intervention of the user. There are several methods and techniques of calibration that have been proven, in this work we exploiting the geometric constraint, namely, the epipolar geometry. We specifically focuses to use 7 techniques for Features Extraction (SURF, BRISK, FAST, FREAK, MinEigen, MSERF, SIFT), however tries to establish the correspondences between points extracted in stereo images with Various Matching Techniques (SSD, SAD, Hamming). Then we exploits the Fundamental Matrix to estimate the epipolar Line by choosing the perfect Eight-point algorithms (Norm8Point, LMedS, RANSAC, MSAC, LTS). A large number of experiments have been carried out, and very good results have been obtained by Comparison & choice the perfect technique in every stage.
An Image-Based Approach to Video Copy Detection With Spatio-Temporal Post-Filtering

This paper introduces a video copy detection system which efficiently matches individual frames and then verifies their spatio-temporal consistency. The approach for matching frames relies on a recent local feature indexing method, which is at the same time robust to significant video transformations and efficient in terms of memory usage and computation time. We match either keyframes or uniformly sampled frames. To further improve the results, a verification step robustly estimates a spatio-temporal model between the query video and the potentially corresponding video segments. Experimental results evaluate the different parameters of our system and measure the trade-off between accuracy and efficiency. We show that our system obtains excellent results for the TRECVID 2008 copy detection task.
Fertilizer, Irrigation and Root Ball Slicing Affects Burford Holly Growth after Planting

Abstract Dwarf burford holly (Ilex cornuta ‘Burfordii Nana’) fertilized with 22.1 g N/container/yr of nitrogen during production in the nursery generated more new shoot weight but less root weight after transplanting to a landscape than those receiving 14.8 g N/container/yr. Slicing the root ball at planting, compared to not slicing, resulted in comparable regenerated root weight but reduced new shoot number, new shoot dry weight and new shoot:regenerated root dry weight ratio when irrigation was not applied daily after transplanting. Although irrigation frequency did not impact total weight of regenerated roots into landscape soil, more roots grew from the bottom half of the root ball when plants were irrigated periodically after planting than when plants received daily irrigation. Plants irrigated other than daily produced fewer shoots and less shoot weight than those receiving irrigation daily after transplanting. When plants were without irrigation for 4 or 6 days in the first week after transplanting.
Can unquantised articulatory feature continuums be modelled?

Articulatory feature (AF) modelling of speech has received a considerable amount of attention in automatic speech recognition research. Although termed ‘articulatory’, previous definitions make certain assumptions that are invalid, for instance, that articulators ‘hop’ from one fixed position to the next. In this paper, we studied two methods, based on support vector classification (SVC) and regression (SVR), in which the articulation continuum is modelled without being restricted to using discrete AF value classes. A comparison with a baseline system trained on quantised values of the articulation continuum showed that both SVC and SVR outperform the baseline for two of the three investigated AFs, with improvements up to 5.6% absolute.
Mediterranean Journal of Hematology and Infectious Diseases Comparison of Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus in Healthy Community Hospital Visitors [ca-mrsa] and Hospital Staff [ha-mrsa] Methods: Nasal and Cell Phones Swabs Were Collected from Hospital Visitors and Health-care Workers on St

Background: The prevalence of community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus [CA-MRSA] is unknown in Oman. Comparison of methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus in healthy community hospital visitors[CA-MRSA] and hospital staff [HA-MRSA]. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Introduction. Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus [MRSA] has emerged as a virulent pathogen and is a leading cause of nosocomial infections.
A Review on Various Uses of N-Acetyl Cysteine

N-acetyl cysteine (NAC), as a nutritional supplement, is a greatly applied antioxidant in vivo and in vitro. NAC is a precursor of L-cysteine that results in glutathione elevation biosynthesis. It acts directly as a scavenger of free radicals, especially oxygen radicals. NAC is a powerful antioxidant. It is also recommended as a potential treatment option for different disorders resulted from generation of free oxygen radicals. Additionally, it is a protected and endured mucolytic drug that mellows tenacious mucous discharges. It has been used for treatment of various diseases in a direct action or in a combination with some other medications. This paper presents a review on various applications of NAC in treatment of several diseases.
Sodium Intake and Blood Pressure Among US Children and Adolescents

OBJECTIVE: To assess the association between usual dietary sodium intake and blood pressure among US children and adolescents, overall and by weight status. METHODS: Children and adolescents aged 8 to 18 years (n = 6235) who participated in NHANES 2003–2008 comprised the sample. Subjects’ usual sodium intake was estimated by using multiple 24-hour dietary recalls. Linear or logistic regression was used to examine association between sodium intake and blood pressure or risk for pre-high blood pressure and high blood pressure (pre-HBP/HPB). RESULTS: Study subjects consumed an average of 3387 mg/day of sodium, and 37% were overweight/obese. Each 1000 mg per day sodium intake was associated with an increased SD score of 0.097 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.006–0.188, ∼1.0 mm Hg) in systolic blood pressure (SBP) among all subjects and 0.141 (95% CI: –0.010 to 0.298, ∼1.5 mm Hg) increase among overweight/obese subjects. Mean adjusted SBP increased progressively with sodium intake quartile, from 106.2 mm Hg (95% CI: 105.1–107.3) to 108.8 mm Hg (95% CI: 107.5–110.1) overall (P = .010) and from 109.0 mm Hg (95% CI: 107.2–110.8) to 112.8 mm Hg (95% CI: 110.7–114.9; P = .037) among those overweight/obese. Adjusted odds ratios comparing risk for pre-HBP/HPB among subjects in the highest versus lowest sodium intake quartile were 2.0 (95% CI: 0.95–4.1, P = .062) overall and 3.5 (95% CI: 1.3–9.2, P = .013) among those overweight/obese. Sodium intake and weight status appeared to have synergistic effects on risk for pre-HBP/HPB (relative excess risk for interaction = 0.29 (95% CI: 0.01–0.90, P < .05). CONCLUSIONS: Sodium intake is positively associated with SBP and risk for pre-HBP/HPB among US children and adolescents, and this association may be stronger among those who are overweight/obese.
The weight of traumatic stress: a prospective study of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and weight status in women.

IMPORTANCE Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) indicates a chronic stress reaction in response to trauma. This prevalent condition has been identified as a possible risk factor for obesity. Whether PTSD symptoms alter the trajectory of weight gain or constitute a comorbid condition has not been established. OBJECTIVE To determine whether women who develop PTSD symptoms are subsequently more likely to gain weight and become obese relative to trauma-exposed women who do not develop PTSD symptoms or women with no trauma exposure or PTSD symptoms and whether the effects are independent of depression. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS The Nurses' Health Study II, a prospective observational study initiated in 1989 with follow-up to 2005, using a PTSD screener to measure PTSD symptoms and time of onset. We included the subsample of the Nurses' Health Study II (54 224 participants; ages 24-44 years in 1989) in whom trauma and PTSD symptoms were measured. EXPOSURES Trauma and PTSD symptoms. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Development of overweight and obesity using body mass index (BMI) (calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared) cut points 25.0 and 30.0, respectively; change in BMI during follow-up among women reporting PTSD symptom onset before 1989; and BMI trajectory before and after PTSD symptom onset among women who developed PTSD symptoms in 1989 or during follow-up. RESULTS Among women with at least 4 PTSD symptoms before 1989 (cohort initiation), BMI increased more steeply (b = 0.09 [SE = 0.01]; P < .001) during the follow-up. Among women who developed PTSD symptoms in 1989 or later, BMI trajectory did not differ by PTSD status before PTSD onset. After PTSD symptom onset, women with at least 4 symptoms had a faster rise in BMI (b = 0.08 [SE = 0.02]; P < .001). The onset of at least 4 PTSD symptoms in 1989 or later was also associated with an increased risk of becoming overweight or obese (odds ratio, 1.36 [95% CI, 1.19-1.56]) among women with a normal BMI in 1989. Effects were maintained after adjusting for depression. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Experience of PTSD symptoms is associated with an increased risk of becoming overweight or obese, and PTSD symptom onset alters BMI trajectories over time. The presence of PTSD symptoms should raise clinician concerns about physical health problems that may develop and prompt closer attention to weight status.
Human umbilical cord blood mesenchymal stem cells reduce colitis in mice by activating NOD2 signaling to COX2.

BACKGROUND & AIMS Decreased levels or function of nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain 2 (NOD2) are associated with Crohn's disease. NOD2 regulates intestinal inflammation, and also is expressed by human umbilical cord blood-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hUCB-MSCs), to regulate their differentiation. We investigated whether NOD2 is required for the anti-inflammatory activities of MSCs in mice with colitis. METHODS Colitis was induced in mice by administration of dextran sulfate sodium or trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid. Mice then were given intraperitoneal injections of NOD2-activated hUCB-MSCs; colon tissues and mesenteric lymph nodes were collected for histologic analyses. A bromodeoxyuridine assay was used to determine the ability of hUCB-MSCs to inhibit proliferation of human mononuclear cells in culture. RESULTS Administration of hUCB-MSCs reduced the severity of colitis in mice. The anti-inflammatory effects of hUCB-MSCs were greatly increased by activation of NOD2 by its ligand, muramyl dipeptide (MDP). Administration of NOD2-activated hUCB-MSCs increased anti-inflammatory responses in colons of mice, such as production of interleukin (IL)-10 and infiltration by T regulatory cells, and reduced production of inflammatory cytokines. Proliferation of mononuclear cells was inhibited significantly by co-culture with hUCB-MSCs that had been stimulated with MDP. MDP induced prolonged production of prostaglandin (PG)E2 in hUCB-MSCs via the NOD2-RIP2 pathway, which suppressed proliferation of mononuclear cells derived from hUCB. PGE2 produced by hUCB-MSCs in response to MDP increased production of IL-10 and T regulatory cells. In mice, production of PGE2 by MSCs and subsequent production of IL-10 were required to reduce the severity of colitis. CONCLUSIONS Activation of NOD2 is required for the ability of hUCB-MSCs to reduce the severity of colitis in mice. NOD2 signaling increases the ability of these cells to suppress mononuclear cell proliferation by inducing production of PGE2.
A dominant negative mutant of the E. coli RNA helicase DbpA blocks assembly of the 50S ribosomal subunit

Escherichia coli DbpA is an ATP-dependent RNA helicase with specificity for hairpin 92 of 23S ribosomal RNA, an important part of the peptidyl transferase center. The R331A active site mutant of DbpA confers a dominant slow growth and cold sensitive phenotype when overexpressed in E. coli containing endogenous DbpA. Ribosome profiles from cells overexpressing DbpA R331A display increased levels of 50S and 30S subunits and decreased levels 70S ribosomes. Profiles run at low Mg2+ exhibit fewer 50S subunits and accumulate a 45S particle that contains incompletely processed and undermodified 23S rRNA in addition to reduced levels of several ribosomal proteins that bind late in the assembly pathway. Unlike mature 50S subunits, these 45S particles can stimulate the ATPase activity of DbpA, indicating that hairpin 92 has not yet been sequestered within the 50S subunit. Overexpression of the inactive DbpA R331A mutant appears to block assembly at a late stage when the peptidyl transferase center is formed, indicating a possible role for DbpA promoting this conformational change.
Delay-Cognizant Interactive Streaming of Multiview Video With Free Viewpoint Synthesis

In interactive multiview video streaming (IMVS), a client receives and observes one of many available viewpoints of the same scene and periodically requests from the server view switches to neighboring views, as the video is played back in time uninterruptedly. One key technical challenge is to design a frame coding structure that facilitates periodic view switching and achieves an optimal tradeoff between storage cost and expected transmission rate. In this paper, we first propose three significant improvements over existing IMVS systems and then study the corresponding frame structure optimization. First, using depth-image-based rendering, the new IMVS system enables free viewpoint switching, i.e., by encoding and transmitting both texture and depth maps of captured views, a client can select and synthesize any virtual view from an almost continuum of viewpoints between the left-most and right-most captured views. Second, the IMVS system adopts a more realistic Markovian view-switching model with memory that more accurately captures user behaviors than previous memoryless models . A view-switching model is used in predicting client's future view-switching patterns. Third, assuming that the round-trip-time (RTT) delay during server-client communication is nonnegligible, during an IMVS session, the IMVS system additionally transmits redundant frames RTT into future playback, so that zero-delay view switching can be achieved. Given these improvements, we formalize a new joint optimization of the frame coding structure, transmission schedule, and quantization parameters of the texture and depth maps of multiple camera views. We propose an iterative algorithm to achieve fast and near-optimal solutions. The convergence of the algorithm is also demonstrated. Experimental results show that the proposed optimized rate-allocation method requires 38% lower transmission rate than the fixed rate-allocation scheme. In addition, with the same storage, the transmission rate of the optimized frame structure can be up to 55% lower than that of an I-frame-only structure and 27% lower than that of the structure without distributed source coding frames.
Flight restriction prevents associative learning deficits but not changes in brain protein-adduct formation during honeybee ageing

SUMMARY Honeybees (Apis mellifera) senesce within 2 weeks after they discontinue nest tasks in favour of foraging. Foraging involves metabolically demanding flight, which in houseflies (Musca domestica) and fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) is associated with markers of ageing such as increased mortality and accumulation of oxidative damage. The role of flight in honeybee ageing is incompletely understood. We assessed relationships between honeybee flight activity and ageing by simulating rain that confined foragers to their colonies most of the day. After 15 days on average, flight-restricted foragers were compared with bees with normal (free) flight: one group that foraged for ∼15 days and two additional control groups, for flight duration and chronological age, that foraged for ∼5 days. Free flight over 15 days on average resulted in impaired associative learning ability. In contrast, flight-restricted foragers did as well in learning as bees that foraged for 5 days on average. This negative effect of flight activity was not influenced by chronological age or gustatory responsiveness, a measure of the bees' motivation to learn. Contrasting their intact learning ability, flight-restricted bees accrued the most oxidative brain damage as indicated by malondialdehyde protein adduct levels in crude cytosolic fractions. Concentrations of mono- and poly-ubiquitinated brain proteins were equal between the groups, whereas differences in total protein amounts suggested changes in brain protein metabolism connected to forager age, but not flight. We propose that intense flight is causal to brain deficits in aged bees, and that oxidative protein damage is unlikely to be the underlying mechanism.
The Sm protein methyltransferase PRMT5 is not required for primordial germ cell specification in mice

PRMT5 is a type II protein arginine methyltransferase with roles in stem cell biology, reprograming, cancer and neurogenesis. During embryogenesis in the mouse, it was hypothesized that PRMT5 functions with the master germline determinant BLIMP1 to promote primordial germ cell (PGC) specification. Using a Blimp1‐Cre germline conditional knockout, we discovered that Prmt5 has no major role in murine germline specification, or the first global epigenetic reprograming event involving depletion of cytosine methylation from DNA and histone H3 lysine 9 dimethylation from chromatin. Instead, we discovered that PRMT5 functions at the conclusion of PGC reprograming I to promote proliferation, survival and expression of the gonadal germline program as marked by MVH. We show that PRMT5 regulates gene expression by promoting methylation of the Sm spliceosomal proteins and significantly altering the spliced repertoire of RNAs in mammalian embryonic cells and primordial cells.
Iterative Flattening Search for the Flexible Job Shop Scheduling Problem

This paper presents a meta-heuristic algorithm for solving the Flexible Job Shop Scheduling Problem (FJSSP). This strategy, known as Iterative Flattening Search (IFS), iteratively applies a relaxation-step, in which a subset of scheduling decisions are randomly retracted from the current solution; and a solving-step, in which a new solution is incrementally recomputed from this partial schedule. This work contributes two separate results: (1) it proposes a constraint-based procedure extending an existing approach previously used for classical Job Shop Scheduling Problem; (2) it proposes an original relaxation strategy on feasible FJSSP solutions based on the idea of randomly breaking the execution orders of the activities on the machines and opening the resource options for some activities selected at random. The efficacy of the overall heuristic optimization algorithm is demonstrated on a set of well-known benchmarks.
Compression, SIMD, and Postings Lists

The three generations of postings list compression strategies (Variable Byte Encoding, Word Aligned Codes, and SIMD Codecs) are examined in order to test whether or not each truly represented a generational change -- they do. Some weaknesses of the current SIMD-based schemes are identified and a new scheme, QMX, is introduced to address both space and decoding inefficiencies. Improvements are examined on multiple architectures and it is shown that different SSE implementations (Intel and AMD) perform differently.
3D Reconstruction and Standardization of the Rat Vibrissal Cortex for Precise Registration of Single Neuron Morphology

The three-dimensional (3D) structure of neural circuits is commonly studied by reconstructing individual or small groups of neurons in separate preparations. Investigation of structural organization principles or quantification of dendritic and axonal innervation thus requires integration of many reconstructed morphologies into a common reference frame. Here we present a standardized 3D model of the rat vibrissal cortex and introduce an automated registration tool that allows for precise placement of single neuron reconstructions. We (1) developed an automated image processing pipeline to reconstruct 3D anatomical landmarks, i.e., the barrels in Layer 4, the pia and white matter surfaces and the blood vessel pattern from high-resolution images, (2) quantified these landmarks in 12 different rats, (3) generated an average 3D model of the vibrissal cortex and (4) used rigid transformations and stepwise linear scaling to register 94 neuron morphologies, reconstructed from in vivo stainings, to the standardized cortex model. We find that anatomical landmarks vary substantially across the vibrissal cortex within an individual rat. In contrast, the 3D layout of the entire vibrissal cortex remains remarkably preserved across animals. This allows for precise registration of individual neuron reconstructions with approximately 30 µm accuracy. Our approach could be used to reconstruct and standardize other anatomically defined brain areas and may ultimately lead to a precise digital reference atlas of the rat brain.