Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The half-life of internet references cited in communication journals

This exploratory study examines the use of online citations, focusing on five leading journals in journalism and communication. It analyzes 1126 URL reference addresses in citations of articles published between 2000 and 2003. The results show that only 61 percent of the online citations remain accessible in 2004 and 39 percent do not. The content analysis also shows that . org and . gov are the most stable domains. Error messages for `dead' URL addresses are explored. The instability of online citations raises concerns for researchers, editors and associations.
High-Throughput Plasmid Content Analysis of Borrelia burgdorferi B31 by Using Luminex Multiplex Technology

ABSTRACT Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease in North America, is an invasive pathogen that causes persistent multiorgan manifestations in humans and other mammals. Genetic studies of this bacterium are complicated by the presence of multiple plasmid replicons, many of which are readily lost during in vitro culture. The analysis of B. burgdorferi plasmid content by plasmid-specific PCR and agarose gel electrophoresis or other existing techniques is informative, but these techniques are cumbersome and challenging to perform in a high-throughput manner. In this study, a PCR-based Luminex assay was developed for determination of the plasmid content of the strain B. burgdorferi B31. This multiplex, high-throughput method allows simultaneous detection of the plasmid contents of many B. burgdorferi strains in a 96-well format. The procedure was used to evaluate the occurrence of plasmid loss in 44 low-passage B. burgdorferi B31 clones and in a library of over 4,000 signature-tagged mutagenesis (STM) transposon mutant clones. This analysis indicated that only 40% of the clones contained all plasmids, with (in order of decreasing frequency) lp5, lp56, lp28-1, lp25, cp9, lp28-4, lp28-2, and lp21 being the most commonly missing plasmids. These results further emphasize the need for careful plasmid analysis in Lyme disease Borrelia studies. Adaptations of this approach may also be useful in the evaluation of plasmid content and chromosomal gene variations in additional Lyme disease Borrelia strains and other organisms with variable genomes and in the correlation of these genetic differences with pathogenesis and other biological properties.
Immunophenotypic and clinical features of T‐cell receptor γδ+ T‐lineage acute lymphoblastic leukaemia

The immunophenotypic and clinical features of TCR‐γδ+ T‐lineage acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (T‐ALL) were prospectively analysed in 52 children with membrane CD3+ T‐ALL. We observed a relatively high incidence of TCR‐γδ+ T‐ALL (26/52 patients). Leukaemic blasts from 22 children demonstrated TCR‐αβ positivity, and simultaneous expression of the TCR‐β and ‐δ chain was found in four children. Clinical and haematological features of TCR‐αβ and γδ+ T‐ALL did not differ significantly, except that haemoglobin levels were significantly lower in TCR‐γδ+ cases. Event‐free survival at 4 years was significantly better in TCR‐γδ+ compared with TCR‐αβ+ T‐ALL, but expression of TCR molecules did not emerge as an independent prognostic factor in multivariate analysis.
Partial traceback and dynamic programming

Dynamic programming is used in speech recognition to search efficiently for word sequences whose templates best match acoustic data. The search is constrained by finite-state networks embodying grammatical rules. Typically, dynamic programming is implemented in two steps: the first calculates, for each state in a network and for each time, the best way of arriving at that state at that time; the second traces back from the final state at the final time to the initial state at the initial time to determine the best path through the network. This second step cannot be initiated before the determination (usually from the detection of silence) that the final state has been reached. Such a determination is difficult in the recognition of truly continuous speech; there are often no reliable anchor points. Further, it is often desirable to be able to recognize at least part of an utterance before a speaker has stopped talking. In this paper we introduce a technique for discovering the initial section of the optimal path through a network before the traversal of the network is complete. It can be used to report a system's interpretation of acoustic data from the not-too-distant past without relying on or making any decisions which may degrade recognition accuracy.
Untersuchungsstrategien bei Simulation und funktionellen Sehstörungen

Die Strategie gliedert sich in drei Teile: beidseitiger Blindheit beidseitiger Visusminderung einseitiger Blindheit Visusminderung konzentrischer Gesichtsfeldeinengung Halbseitenaus fall The strategy consists of three parts: bilateral blindness bilateral reduction of visual acuity monolateral blindness or reduction of visual acuity concentric constriction of the visual fields hemianopic field defect
Video Salient Object Detection via Fully Convolutional Networks

This paper proposes a deep learning model to efficiently detect salient regions in videos. It addresses two important issues: 1) deep video saliency model training with the absence of sufficiently large and pixel-wise annotated video data and 2) fast video saliency training and detection. The proposed deep video saliency network consists of two modules, for capturing the spatial and temporal saliency information, respectively. The dynamic saliency model, explicitly incorporating saliency estimates from the static saliency model, directly produces spatiotemporal saliency inference without time-consuming optical flow computation. We further propose a novel data augmentation technique that simulates video training data from existing annotated image data sets, which enables our network to learn diverse saliency information and prevents overfitting with the limited number of training videos. Leveraging our synthetic video data (150K video sequences) and real videos, our deep video saliency model successfully learns both spatial and temporal saliency cues, thus producing accurate spatiotemporal saliency estimate. We advance the state-of-the-art on the densely annotated video segmentation data set (MAE of .06) and the Freiburg-Berkeley Motion Segmentation data set (MAE of .07), and do so with much improved speed (2 fps with all steps).
Population Structure and Evolution of Pathogenicity of Yersinia pseudotuberculosis

ABSTRACT Yersinia pseudotuberculosis is an enteric human pathogen but is widespread in the environment. Pathogenicity is determined by a number of virulence factors, including the virulence plasmid pYV, the high-pathogenicity island (HPI), and the Y. pseudotuberculosis-derived mitogen (YPM), a superantigen. The presence of the 3 virulence factors varies among Y. pseudotuberculosis isolates. We developed a multilocus sequence typing (MLST) scheme to address the population structure of Y. pseudotuberculosis and the evolution of its pathogenicity. The seven housekeeping genes selected for MLST were mdh, recA, sucA, fumC, aroC, pgi, and gyrB. An MLST analysis of 83 isolates of Y. pseudotuberculosis, representing 19 different serotypes and six different genetic groups, identified 61 sequence types (STs) and 12 clonal complexes. Out of 26 allelic changes that occurred in the 12 clonal complexes, 13 were mutational events while 13 were recombinational events, indicating that recombination and mutation contributed equally to the diversification of the clonal complexes. The isolates were separated into 2 distinctive clusters, A and B. Cluster A is the major cluster, with 53 STs (including Y. pestis strains), and is distributed worldwide, while cluster B is restricted to the Far East. The YPM gene is widely distributed on the phylogenetic tree, with ypmA in cluster A and ypmB in cluster B. pYV is present in cluster A only but is sporadically absent in some cluster A isolates. In contrast, an HPI is present only in a limited number of lineages and must be gained by lateral transfer. Three STs carry all 3 virulence factors and can be regarded as high-pathogenicity clones. Isolates from the same ST may not carry all 3 virulence factors, indicating frequent gain or loss of these factors. The differences in pathogenicity among Y. pseudotuberculosis strains are likely due to the variable presence and instability of the virulence factors.
Meta-analyses II

Last week’s question described a meta-analysis of the effectiveness of parenteral corticosteroids for the relief of acute severe migraine headache in adults.1 Seven randomised controlled trials were identified in which single dose parenteral dexamethasone, administered alone or in combination with standard abortive therapy, was compared with placebo or any other standard treatment for acute migraine in adults. For each trial, the relative risk for recurrence of headache within 72 hours was obtained for the dexamethasone treatment arm compared with the placebo arm.2 The results of the meta-analysis were presented in a forest plot (figure⇓). When combined with standard abortive therapy, single dose parenteral dexamethasone was more effective than placebo in reducing the recurrence of acute severe migraine headache in adults within 72 hours (relative risk 0.74, 95% confidence interval 0.60 to 0.90). Forest plot of the effectiveness of dexamethasone in preventing the recurrence of acute severe migraine headache in adults compared with placebo Which of the following statements, if any, are true?
Cross-Site Soil Microbial Communities under Tillage Regimes: Fungistasis and Microbial Biomarkers

ABSTRACT The exploitation of soil ecosystem services by agricultural management strategies requires knowledge of microbial communities in different management regimes. Crop cover by no-till management protects the soil surface, reducing the risk of erosion and nutrient leaching, but might increase straw residue-borne and soilborne plant-pathogenic fungi. A cross-site study of soil microbial communities and Fusarium fungistasis was conducted on six long-term agricultural fields with no-till and moldboard-plowed treatments. Microbial communities were studied at the topsoil surface (0 to 5 cm) and bottom (10 to 20 cm) by general bacterial and actinobacterial terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) and phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) analyses. Fusarium culmorum soil fungistasis describing soil receptivity to plant-pathogenic fungi was explored by using the surface layer method. Soil depth had a significant impact on general bacterial as well as actinobacterial communities and PLFA profiles in no-till treatment, with a clear spatial distinction of communities (P < 0.05), whereas the depth-related separation of microbial communities was not observed in plowed fields. The fungal biomass was higher in no-till surface soil than in plowed soil (P < 0.07). Soil total microbial biomass and fungal biomass correlated with fungistasis (P < 0.02 for the sum of PLFAs; P < 0.001 for PLFA 18:2ω6). Our cross-site study demonstrated that agricultural management strategies can have a major impact on soil microbial community structures, indicating that it is possible to influence the soil processes with management decisions. The interactions between plant-pathogenic fungi and soil microbial communities are multifaceted, and a high level of fungistasis could be linked to the high microbial biomass in soil but not to the specific management strategy.
Treatment of exuberant granulation tissue

The formation of exuberant granulation tissue almost inevitably occurs during second-intention healing of limb wounds in horses. It can be described as an aberrant prolongation of the phase of granulation tissue formation, rather than the wound making a transition to contraction. The formation of exuberant granulation tissue is affected by several factors such as bandages, casts, chronic inflammation, wound location and motion, tissues involved, breed and iatrogenic factors. Uncommonly a neoplastic transformation may occur. Among all the factors, the presence of chronic inflammation may be the most important and often not recognized cause for exuberant granulation tissue. Treatment depends on the age of the exuberant granulation tissue and the cause. The cause should be identified and treated. Many agents have been used to treat or prevent exuberant granulation tissue; however, caustic agents or cryogenic surgery should not be used, because they prolong chronic inflammation and cause more proliferation. In general, the best therapy is surgical excision of the protruding tissue and several excisions may be required. When the chronic inflammation subsides, the wound will resume healing by contraction and epithelialization.
The Sane Society

Foreword, Acknowledgements, Introduction by David Ingleby 1.Are we Sane? 2.Can a Society be Sick? -The Pathology of Normalcy 3. The Human Situation-the Key to Humanistic Psychoanalysis 4.Mental Health and Society 5.Man in Capitalistic Society 6.Varios Other Diagnoses 7.Various Answers 8.Roads to Sanity, 9.Summary-Conclusion
Evaluation of thyroid ablative therapy for ophthalmopathy of Graves' disease

The effect of 131I ablation on the course of thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy was evaluated in a non-randomized study of 15 patients with severe symptomatic ophthalmopathy. The eye condition was stable at a severe level in three and progressive in 12, despite prior treatment including administration of steroids in seven, or use of antithyroid drugs, or radiotherapy. Thirteen had previously been treated by radioactive iodide administration, one had had a subtotal thyroidectomy, and one had euthyroid Graves' disease. At the time of ablative therapy, three were hyperthyroid, four euthyroid, and eight were receiving replacement therapy for hypothy-roidism. 131I was given to reduce 24 RAIU below 1%, and other treatments including steroids were continued, if the patient's condition appeared to require this treatment. Eleven patients appeared to have a beneficial response, and in six patients this appeared to be specifically related to 131I ablative therapy. There was an average 51% decrease in the ophthalmopat.
The theory of signal detectability

The problem of signal detectability treated in this paper is the following: Suppose an observer is given a voltage varying with time during a prescribed observation interval and is asked to decide whether its source is noise or is signal plus noise. What method should the observer use to make this decision, and what receiver is a realization of that method? After giving a discussion of theoretical aspects of this problem, the paper presents specific derivations of the optimum receiver for a number of cases of practical interest. The receiver whose output is the value of the likelihood ratio of the input voltage over the observation interval is the answer to the second question no matter which of the various optimum methods current in the literature is employed including the Neyman - Pearson observer, Siegert's ideal observer, and Woodward and Davies' "observer. " An optimum observer required to give a yes or no answer simply chooses an operating level and concludes that the receiver input arose from signal plus noise only when this level is exceeded by the output of his likelihood ratio receiver. Associated with each such operating level are conditional probabilities that the answer is a false alarm and the conditional probability of detection. Graphs of these quantities called receiver operating characteristic, or ROC, curves are convenient for evaluating a receiver. If the detection problem is changed by varying, for example, the signal power, then a family of ROC curves is generated. Such things as betting curves can easily be obtained from such a family. The operating level to be used in a particular situation must be chosen by the observer. His choice will depend on such factors as the permissable false alarm rate, a priori probabilities, and relative importance of errors. With these theoretical aspects serving as an introduction, attention is devoted to the derivation of explicit formulas for likelihood ratio, and for probability of detection and probability of false alarm, for a number of particular cases. Stationary, band-limited, white Gaussian noise is assumed. The seven special cases which are presented were chosen from the simplest problems in signal detection which closely represent practical situations. Two of the cases form a basis for the best available approximation to the important problem of finding probability of detection when the starting time of the signal, signal frequency, or both, are unknown. Furthermore, in these two cases uncertainty in the signal can be varied, and a quantitative relationship between uncertainty and ability to detect signals is presented for these two rather general cases. The variety of examples presented should serve to suggest methods for attacking other simple signal detection problems and to give insight into problems too complicated to allow a direct solution.
Communication, community, crisis: Mapping uses and gratifications in the contemporary media environment

The article analyzes how community members who were evacuated from their homes use various media, and especially the internet, to keep in touch, receive and disseminate information and express their opinions. Of particular interest are the differences between members of various groups, who differ in their decision whether to relocate in Israel with the rest of the original community or not, in media usage patterns and sense of community. The findings demonstrate that evacuees use diversity and multiplicity of media, where various media are used for different purposes according to need. Small media, with a rather limited and local reach (such as pamphlets, SMS, niche websites and small-scale meetings) are predominantly used for most of the needs, overshadowing mass media usage. Correlations were found amongst various media usages, and between the usage of various media and users’ sense of community. The study demonstrates how contemporary media users use a variety of media depending on their circumstances and needs, and how media usage assists in establishing and maintaining a sense of community after the forced transition from the communities of origin.
Fate of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis after Application of Contaminated Dairy Cattle Manure to Agricultural Soils

ABSTRACT Details regarding the fate of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (basonym, Mycobacterium paratuberculosis) after manure application on grassland are unknown. To evaluate this, intact soil columns were collected in plastic pipes (lysimeters) and placed under controlled conditions to test the effect of a loamy or sandy soil composition and the amount of rainfall on the fate of M. paratuberculosis applied to the soil surface with manure slurry. The experiment was organized as a randomized design with two factors and three replicates. M. paratuberculosis-contaminated manure was spread on the top of the 90-cm soil columns. After weekly simulated rainfall applications, water drainage samples (leachates) were collected from the base of each lysimeter and cultured for M. paratuberculosis using Bactec MGIT ParaTB medium and supplements. Grass was harvested, quantified, and tested from each lysimeter soil surface. The identity of all probable M. paratuberculosis isolates was confirmed by PCR for IS900 and F57 genetic elements. There was a lag time of 2 months after each treatment before M. paratuberculosis was found in leachates. The greatest proportions of M. paratuberculosis-positive leachates were from sandy-soil lysimeters in the manure-treated group receiving the equivalent of 1,000 mm annual rainfall. Under the higher rainfall regimen (2,000 mm/year), M. paratuberculosis was detected more often from lysimeters with loamy soil than sandy soil. Among all lysimeters, M. paratuberculosis was detected more often in grass clippings than in lysimeter leachates. At the end of the trial, lysimeters were disassembled and soil cultured at different depths, and we found that M. paratuberculosis was recovered only from the uppermost levels of the soil columns in the treated group. Factors associated with M. paratuberculosis presence in leachates were soil type and soil pH (P < 0.05). For M. paratuberculosis presence in grass clippings, only manure application showed a significant association (P < 0.05). From these findings we conclude that this pathogen tends to move slowly through soils (faster through sandy soil) and tends to remain on grass and in the upper layers of pasture soil, representing a clear infection hazard for grazing livestock and a potential for the contamination of runoff after heavy rains.
‘There’s a network out there you might as well tap’: Exploring the benefits of and barriers to exchanging informational and support-based resources on Facebook

Research has established a positive relationship between Facebook use and perceptions of social capital, a construct that describes the total resources − both potential and actual − available in one’s social network. However, the process through which social capital conversions occur is unclear. This study presents results from semi-structured interviews with 18 adult Facebook users (ages 25 to 55) about their Facebook use, focusing on how participants use the site to request and provide social support (associated with bonding social capital) and information (associated with bridging social capital). Findings describe how Facebook use facilitates interactions related to social capital and users’ beliefs about the potential negative outcomes of these interactions, providing insight into how users negotiate potential benefits and risks when making decisions about site use.
Party organizational change and ICTs: The growth of a virtual grassroots?

This paper examines the relationship between unofficial party blogs and official party sources in the UK using a mixed-method approach. Specifically we combine interview data with content analysis, user surveys and usage data, and finally hyperlink analysis to profile the emergence, popularity, audience and online prominence of four major party blogs since 2005. The core question posed is how far the blogs are challenging parties as the focal point for member activism and offering an alternative public ‘voice’. The findings show blogs occupy an important alternative critical space for party debate, particularly outside elections. They are not mobilizing tools, however, being used by the grassroots largely for information-gathering and discussion purposes.