Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Vaginal Infections in Pregnant Women at the Bè Hospital in Lomé (Togo) from 2008 to 2013

Sexually transmitted infections remain a public health problem almost all around the world. Women of childbearing age frequently have vulvovaginitis. The aim of this work is to evaluate the prevalence of the main germs responsible for vaginal infections in pregnant women who have had their vaginal swabs taken at Be hospital. We conducted a retrospective study between May 2008 and December 2013, on 126 pregnant women in whom a vaginal swab was performed. We vaginally sampled 126 pregnant women, of whom 90 or 71.43% had vaginal infections. Candida albicans was the most frequently isolated species (47.97%) followed by Gardnerella vaginalis (38.21%). The most affected age group was between 25 and 30 years old. Candida albicans were respectively resistant to miconazole, clotrimazole and econazole. Our study showed that pregnant women are highly exposed to vaginal infections with a predominance of Candida albicans and Gardnerella vaginalis. This shows that it is necessary to do at least one culture of vaginal swabs during pregnancy for each woman.
DOES OVERHEAD IRRIGATION WITH SALT AFFECT GROWTH, YIELD, AND PHENOLIC CONTENT OF LENTIL PLANTS?

Overhead irrigation of lentil plants with salt (100 mM NaCl) did not have any significant impact on plant growth, while chlorophyll content and chlorophyll fluorescence parameter F v/Fm were affected. Under such poor irrigation water quality, the malondialdehyde content in leaves was increased due to the lipid peroxidation of membranes. In seeds, the total phenolic content (TPC) was correlated to their total antioxidant capacity (TAC). High performance liquid chro- matography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS) detection showed that flavonoids (catechin, epicatechin, rutin, p-coumaric acid, quercetin, kaempferol, gallic acid and resveratrol) appear to be the compounds with the greatest influence on the TAC values. Catechin is the most abundant phenolic compound in lentil seeds. Overhead irrigation with salt reduced the concentration of almost all phenolic compounds analyzed from lentil seed extracts.
Carnitine acetyltransferase (Crat) in hunger‐sensing AgRP neurons permits adaptation to calorie restriction

Hunger‐sensing agouti‐related peptide (AgRP) neurons ensure survival by adapting metabolism and behavior to low caloric environments. This adaption is accomplished by consolidating food intake, suppressing energy expenditure, and maximizing fat storage (nutrient partitioning) for energy preservation. The intracellular mechanisms responsible are unknown. Here we report that AgRP carnitine acetyltransferase (Crat) knockout (KO) mice exhibited increased fatty acid utilization and greater fat loss after 9 d of calorie restriction (CR). No differences were seen in mice with ad libitum food intake. Eleven days ad libitum feeding after CR resulted in greater food intake, rebound weight gain, and adiposity in AgRP Crat KO mice compared with wild‐type controls, as KO mice act to restore pre‐CR fat mass. Collectively, this study highlights the importance of Crat in AgRP neurons to regulate nutrient partitioning and fat mass during chronically reduced caloric intake. The increased food intake, body weight gain, and adiposity in KO mice after CR also highlights the detrimental and persistent metabolic consequence of impaired substrate utilization associated with CR. This finding may have significant implications for postdieting weight management in patients with metabolic diseases. —Reichenbach, A. , Stark, R. , Mequinion, M. , Lockie, S. H. , Lemus, M. B. , Mynatt, R. L. , Luquet, S. , Andrews, Z. B. Carnitine acetyltransferase (Crat) in hunger‐sensing AgRP neurons permits adaptation to calorie restriction. FASEB J. 32, 6923–6933 (2018). www.fasebj. org
Corrosion Behavior of Heat-Treated AlSi10Mg Manufactured by Laser Powder Bed Fusion

This experimental work is aimed at studying the effect of microstructural modifications induced by post-processing heat treatments on the corrosion behavior of silicon-aluminum alloys produced by means of laser powder bed fusion (LPBF). The manufacturing technique leads to microstructures characterized by the presence of melt pools, which are quite different compared to casting alloys. In this study, the behavior of an AlSi10Mg alloy was evaluated by means of intergranular corrosion tests according to ISO 11846 standard on heat-treated samples ranging from 200 to 500 °C as well as on untreated samples. We found that temperatures above 200 °C reduced microhardness of the alloy, and different corrosion morphologies occurred due to the modification of both size and distribution of silicon precipitates. Selective penetrating attacks occurred at melt pool borders. The intergranular corrosion phenomena were less intense for as-produced specimens without heat treatments compared to the heat-treated specimens at 200 and 300 °C. General corrosion morphologies were noticed for specimens heat treated at temperatures exceeding 400 °C.
Significant age‐ and gender‐related variability of main lymphocyte subsets in paediatric patients: Latvian data

Age‐ and gender‐related variability of main lymphocyte subsets (T, B and NK cell absolute counts and percentages from Ly; T4, T8 and DN cell absolute counts and percentages from lymphocytes and from T cells; T4:T8 and T:B ratios) was studied in a large cohort of paediatric patients (2 days‐17 years) at yearly intervals. A total of 4128 six‐color TBNK tests performed on BD FACSCanto II flow cytometer were assessed; patients with immune deficiencies and tumours were not included. The study revealed significant age‐ and gender‐related changes in all subsets. Absolute counts of T, B, T4 cells dropped from neonates to adolescents, decrease in T8 and NK cells was milder; relative count of T cells increased with age and that of B cells decreased; T4:T8 ratio went down and T:B ratio grew. Total T, T4 cells and T4:T8 ratio were significantly higher in girls, while T8, NK and DN cells were significantly higher in boys; significantly higher relative and absolute B cell counts in boys appeared in adolescence. We compared our results with reference values for healthy children (Tosato et al, Cytometry A. 2015;87:81); there was a good concordance, except for DN cells. Advantages of using patient cohort instead of healthy children as reference, possibilities for adjusting age‐ and gender‐specific reference ranges and potential international data pooling are discussed.
Consumer Attitudes Toward Human-Like Avatars in Advertisements: The Effect of Category Knowledge and Imagery

ABSTRACT Despite the importance and the growing use of avatars in online and offline advertising, investigations on the effectiveness of avatar-based advertising remains scant. This article attempts to narrow this gap by examining several factors that influence consumers’ evaluations of human-like avatar-based ads. Based on mental schema theory, the authors theorize that avatars elicit categorization tension, a feeling of incongruence between avatar and expected human features. This tension is reflected in negative attitudes toward the ad and low purchase intention. Two experiments supported these contentions and demonstrated how product category knowledge and imagery moderate these effects. This investigation contributes to theory by employing a mental schema framework to explain and predict how and when consumers form positive evaluations of human-like avatar-based ads. The research findings also offer several recommendations for advertising professionals. The findings suggest that human-like avatars are more likely to generate negative evaluations among novice or less knowledgeable consumers. To minimize this effect, advertisers can encourage consumers to imagine the consumption experience.
Impacts of Sixteen Different Biochars on Soil Greenhouse Gas Production

One potential abatement strategy to increasing atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) is to sequester atmospheric CO 2 captured through photosynthesis in biomass and pyrolysed into a more stable form of carbon called biochar. We evaluated the impacts of 16 different biochars from different pyrolysis/gasification processes and feed stock materials (corn stover, peanut hulls, macadamia nut shells, wood chips, and turkey manure plus wood chips) as well as a steam activated coconut shell charcoal on net CO 2 , methane (CH 4 ) and nitrous oxide (N 2 O) production/consumption potentials through a 100 day laboratory incubation with a Minnesota agricultural soil (Waukegan silt loam, total organic carbon = 2.6%); Wisconsin forest nursery soil (Vilas loamy sand, total organic carbon = 1.1%); and a California landfill cover soil (Marina loamy sand plus green waste-sewage sludge, total organic carbon = 3.9%) at field capacity (soil moisture potential = -33 kPa). After correcting for the CO 2 , CH 4 and N 2 O production of the char alone, the addition of biochars (10% w/w) resulted in different responses among the soils. For the agricultural soil, five chars increased, three chars reduced and eight had no significant impact on the observed CO 2 respiration. In the forest nursery soil, three chars stimulated CO 2 respiration, while the remainder of the chars suppressed CO 2 respiration. In the landfill cover soil, only two chars increased observed CO 2 respiration, with the remainder exhibiting lower CO 2 respiration rates. All chars and soil combinations resulted in decreased or unaltered rates of CH 4 oxidation, with no increases observed in CH 4 oxidation or production activity. Biochar additions generally suppressed observed N 2 O production, with the exception being high nitrogen compost-amended biochar, which increased N 2 O production. The general conclusions are: (1) the impact on trace gas production is both dependent on the biochar and soil properties and (2) biochar amendments initially reduce microbial activity in laboratory incubations. These preliminary results show a wide diversity in biochar properties that point to the need for more research. Permanent URL: http://hdl.handle. net/2047/d10019583
Complete chloroplast genome of Tetragonia tetragonioides: Molecular phylogenetic relationships and evolution in Caryophyllales

The chloroplast genome of Tetragonia tetragonioides (Aizoaceae; Caryophyllales) was sequenced to provide information for studies on phylogeny and evolution within Caryophyllales. The chloroplast genome of Tetragonia tetragonioides is 149,506 bp in length and includes a pair of inverted repeats (IRs) of 24,769 bp that separate a large single copy (LSC) region of 82,780 bp and a small single copy (SSC) region of 17,188 bp. Comparative analysis of the chloroplast genome showed that Caryphyllales species have lost many genes. In particular, the rpl2 intron and infA gene were not found in T. tetragonioides, and core Caryophyllales lack the rpl2 intron. Phylogenetic analyses were conducted using 55 genes in 16 complete chloroplast genomes. Caryophyllales was found to divide into two clades; core Caryophyllales and noncore Caryophyllales. The genus Tetragonia is closely related to Mesembryanthemum. Comparisons of the synonymous (Ks), nonsynonymous (Ka), and Ka/Ks substitution rates revealed that nonsynonymous substitution rates were lower than synonymous substitution rates and that Ka/Ks rates were less than 1. The findings of the present study suggest that most genes are a purified selection.
The 3-minute all-out cycling test is sensitive to changes in cadence using the Lode Excalibur Sport ergometer

ABSTRACT This study investigated the effect cadence has on the estimation of critical power (CP) and the finite work capacity (Wʹ) during the 3-minute all-out cycling test. Ten participants completed 8 tests: 1) an incremental test to calculate gas exchange threshold (GET), maximal aerobic power (MAP) and peak oxygen uptake (V̇O2peak), 2–4) three time-to-exhaustion tests at 80, 100 and 105% MAP to calculate CP and Wʹ, 5–7) four 3-minute all-out tests to calculate end power (EP) and work done above EP (WEP) using cadences ranging from preferred −5 to preferred +10 rev·min−1 to set the fixed resistance. Significant differences were seen between CP and EP-preferred (267.5 ± 22.6 W vs. 296.6 ± 26.1 W, P < 0.001), CP and EP−5 (267.5 ± 22.6 W vs. 303.6 ± 24.0 W, P < 0.001) and between CP and EP+5 (267.5 ± 22.6 W vs. 290.0 ± 28.0 W, P = 0.002). No significant differences were seen between CP and EP+10 (267.5 ± 22.6 W vs. 278.1 ± 30.9 W, P = 0.331). Significant differences were seen between Wʹ and WEP at all tested fixed resistances. EP is reduced when cycling at higher than preferred cadences, providing better estimates of CP.
Strategies to Reduce the Euthanasia of Impounded Dogs and Cats Used by Councils in Victoria, Australia

Simple Summary Euthanasia is used in developed countries as a method of population control for dogs and cats entering shelters and council pounds. This study analyzed all available dog and cat population, registration, intake and outcome data for the 79 Victorian councils. The majority (74%) of councils achieved euthanasia rates for dogs of ≤10%, but only one achieved that for cats, and mean cat euthanasia was 48%. Low euthanasia rates were associated with high rates of reclaim, and adoption of unclaimed animals. A telephone survey of 35 councils (44%) was undertaken to identify policies, practices and attitudes of staff to identify strategies that reduce euthanasia. It is envisaged this data could be used as a resource for councils to lower euthanasia rates. Abstract Using euthanasia to manage dog and cat overpopulation causes health issues and emotional stress in employees involved, increases staff turnover, and has financial, moral and ethical ramifications for communities. Welfare agencies and local government agencies (councils) share responsibility for managing companion animal populations. This study investigated Australian councils in the state of Victoria, to identify strategies used to reduce euthanasia. Statistics regarding animal populations, registration, intake, reclaim, rehome and euthanasia were obtained from the Domestic Animal Management Plan of each council. Of the 79 Victorian councils, 74% achieved ≤10% euthanasia of impounded dogs, which is widely quoted as zero euthanasia of adoptable and treatable animals. The mean euthanasia rates for cats by the councils was 48%, with only one council achieving a euthanasia rate of ≤10% for cats. Mean reclaim rates for dogs were higher (73%) than for cats (13%), as was the mean proportion of unclaimed dogs rehomed (71%), compared to cats (45%). Telephone questionnaires were conducted with animal management officers from 35 councils (44%). Those with low euthanasia rates had high reclaim rates and/or rehome rates. Reclaim, rehome and euthanasia rates for dogs and cats were not significantly different between councils that operated their own pound facilities and those that utilized the services of welfare organizations to operate pounds on behalf of the council. More council managers believed they would never achieve ≤10% euthanasia for cats (49%) than for dogs (11%). A variety of strategies were used by councils to achieve high reclaim and rehoming rates.
Comparison of two commercial DNA extraction kits for the analysis of nasopharyngeal bacterial communities

Characterization of microbial communities via next-generation sequencing (NGS) requires an extraction ofmicrobial DNA. Methodological differences in DNA extraction protocols may bias results and complicate inter-study comparisons. Here we compare the effect of two commonly used commercial kits (Norgen and Qiagen)for the extraction of total DNA on estimatingnasopharyngeal microbiome diversity. The nasopharynxis a reservoir for pathogens associated with respiratory illnesses and a key player in understandingairway microbial dynamics. Total DNA from nasal washes corresponding to 30 asthmatic children was extracted using theQiagenQIAamp DNA and NorgenRNA/DNA Purification kits and analyzed via IlluminaMiSeq16S rRNA V4 ampliconsequencing. The Norgen samples included more sequence reads and OTUs per sample than the Qiagen samples, but OTU counts per sample varied proportionallybetween groups (r = 0.732). Microbial profiles varied slightly between sample pairs, but alpha- and beta-diversity indices (PCoAand clustering) showed highsimilarity between Norgen and Qiagenmicrobiomes. Moreover, no significant differences in community structure (PERMANOVA and adonis tests) and taxa proportions (Kruskal-Wallis test) were observed betweenkits. Finally, aProcrustes analysis also showed low dissimilarity (M 2 = 0.173; P < 0.001) between the PCoAs of the two DNA extraction kits. Contrary to what has been observed in previous studies comparing DNA extraction methods, our 16S NGS analysis of nasopharyngeal washes did not reveal significant differences in community composition or structure between kits. Our findingssuggest congruence between column-based chromatography kits and supportthe comparison of microbiomeprofilesacross nasopharyngeal metataxonomic studies.
Cultural and Social Predictors of Substance Abuse Recovery among American Indian and Non-American Indian Pregnant and Parenting Women

ABSTRACT Substance abuse is especially undesirable among pregnant or parenting women (PPW). As such, there is a need to examine the factors impacting positive treatment outcomes, particularly among American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) PPW, as they are seeking substance abuse treatment at rates considerably higher than the national average. This study aimed to identify the social and cultural mechanisms that support their recovery. Qualitative analyses were used to identify mechanisms used by AI and non-AI PPW in their recovery. Several differences between AI and non-AI PPW emerged. AI participants mentioned their families more often as the reason why they wanted to become or stay sober. In addition to familial support, AI participants relied on a variety of other sources for assistance in their recovery. Many of the women had difficulty defining specific aspects of their culture, especially in relation to their recovery. However, for AI PPW, many aspects of AI culture were identified as they described their recovery, suggesting the often subtle ways culture can impact everyday life. Our findings indicated that women utilized cultural supports in different ways; therefore, it is necessary to help them define their culture in ways that are meaningful in their recovery.
Knowledge Factorization

We propose a new technique called Knowledge Factorization which can factor the knowledge present in the large pre-trained model generic network to improve training of a smaller model on a new, smaller task. Transfer learning by reusing pre-trained weights has been shown to greatly improve performance when training on smaller datasets. However, in order to reuse these weights, we generally need to reuse the same model architecture or a contiguous subset of layers of the architecture. This may cause performance on the smaller dataset to suffer due to poor model selection or overfitting. While methods such as [1] have proposed using pruning based approaches to address this problem, these methods often require many rounds of fine-tuning for each round of pruning. Furthermore, depending on the heuristic used to perform pruning, it could possibly be discarding regularities that would be beneficial for the new task. We leverage ideas from Knowledge Distillation [2] and Multi-Task learning to solve our task. Figure 1: Example application of knowledge factorization of ImageNet model to dog classification
Optimization Methods for Semi-Supervised Learning

The goal of this thesis is to provide efficient optimization algorithms for some semisupervised learning (SSL) tasks in machine learning. For many machine learning tasks, training a classifier requires a large amount of labeled data; however, providing labels typically requires costly manual annotation. Fortunately, there is typically an abundance of unlabeled data that can be easily collected for many domains. In this thesis, we focus on problems where an underlying structure allows us to leverage the large amounts of unlabeled data, while only requiring small amounts of labeled data. In particular, we consider low-rank matrix completion problems with applications to recommender systems, and semi-supervised support vector machines (SVM) to solve binary classification problems, such as digit recognition or disease classification. For the first class of problems, we study convex approximations to the low-rank matrix completion problem. Instead of restricting the solution space to low-rank matrices, we use the trace norm as a convex surrogate. Unfortunately, many trace norm minimization algorithms scale very poorly in practice since they require a full singular value decomposition (SVD) at each iteration. Recently, there has been renewed interest in the trace norm constrained problem utilizing the Frank-Wolfe algorithm, which only requires calculating the leading singular vector pair, providing an order of magnitude improvement on the iteration complexity. However, the Frank-Wolfe algorithm empirically has very slow convergence and in practice yields high-rank solutions, which greatly increases computational costs. To address this issue, we investigate a rank-drop step for Frank-Wolfe, which solves a subproblem specifically designed to decrease the rank of the iterate, ensuring that the Frank-Wolfe algorithm converges along a low-rank path. We show that this rank-drop subproblem can be decomposed into two cases, where each subproblem can be solved efficiently and we guarantee that the iterates remain feasible, preserving the projection-free property of Frank-Wolfe. Next we show that these ideas can be used to provide scalable algorithms for simultaneously sparse and low-rank matrix completion problems. We extend the Frank-Wolfe analysis to accommodate nonsmooth objectives, which can be used to solve the simultaneously sparse and low-rank problem. We replace the traditional linear approximation used in Frank-Wolfe by a uniform affine approximation to better address poor local approximations given by the first-order Taylor approximation. We show that this naturally leads to a sequence of smooth functions that uniformly converges to the original nonsmooth objective, allowing for a careful balance between approximation quality and convergence that is closely related to the step sizes of the Frank-Wolfe algorithm. We apply this algorithm
Synthesis of Porous CoFe2O4 and Its Application as a Peroxidase Mimetic for Colorimetric Detection of H2O2 and Organic Pollutant Degradation

Porous CoFe2O4 was prepared via a simple and controllable method to develop a low-cost, high-efficiency, and good-stability nanozyme. The morphology and microstructure of the obtained CoFe2O4 was investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high-resolution TEM (HRTEM), specific surface area and pore analysis, and Raman spectroscopy. The results show that the annealing temperature has an important effect on the crystallinity, grain size, and specific surface area of CoFe2O4. CoFe2O4 obtained at 300 °C (CF300) exhibits the largest surface area (up to 204.1 m2 g−1) and the smallest grain size. The peroxidase-like activity of CoFe2O4 was further verified based on the oxidation of peroxidase substrate 3,3’,5,5’-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) in the presence of H2O2. The best peroxidase-like activity for CF300 should be ascribed to its largest surface area and smallest grain size. On this basis, an effective method of colorimetric detection H2O2 was established. In addition, the porous CoFe2O4 was also used for the catalytic oxidation of methylene blue (MB), indicating potential applications in pollutant removal and water treatment.