Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of Lactic Acid Bacteria and Molasses Additives on Dynamic Fermentation Quality and Microbial Community of Native Grass Silage

Ensiling native grass is an effective method to protect the nutritional quality of forage and alleviate feed shortages in the cold winter of the Inner Mongolian Plateau. To improve the usability of native grass resources as feed in China, the effects of lactic acid bacteria and molasses additions on the microbial population, fermentation quality, and nutritional quality of native grass during silage were investigated. Treatments were a control treatment with no additive (CK), lactic acid bacteria (L), molasses (M), and lactic acid bacteria in combination with molasses (L+M), all of which were stored at ambient temperature (17–28°C) for 7, 14, 30, and 60 days. The results showed that all additives improved nutritional value and fermentation quality with low pH and ammonia nitrogen (NH3–N) and high crude protein (CP) and water soluble carbohydrate (WSC) than control silage over the ensiling period. Compared with L or M silage, the L+M silage combination improved fermentability, as evidenced by higher LA content and a faster pH drop during the first 7 days of ensiling. With prolonged ensiling time, the combined addition of L and M could increase the count of desirable Lactobacillus, decrease microbial diversity, and inhibit the growth of undesirable microorganism, such as Clostridia, Escherichia, and Enterobacter abundance compared with silage treated with CK, L. or M. Application of L together with M could further improve the silage quality of native grass by altering bacterial community structure. In summary, the addition of lactic acid bacteria and molasses increased the relative abundance of Lactobacillus of native grass silage and improved fermentation quality.
Primary retroperitoneal mucinous cystadenocarcinoma in a male patient

Primary retroperitoneal mucinous cystadenocarcinomas (PRMCs) are rare. This is the first reported case in the literature in English of PRMC in a man. The 64-year-old man presented with a large retroperitoneal cystic tumour measuring 24×20×16 cm3, which was removed intact. Areas ranging from a benign mucinous cyst to borderline mucinous tumour to mucinous cystadenocarcinoma were observed on microscopy. Strong patchy staining for cytokeratins 7 and 20 and strong diffuse staining for MUC2 and MUC5AC core peptides, similar to staining patterns in ovarian mucinous tumours, were shown in the benign and atypical epithelium. Staining for CA19.9 and carcinoembryonic antigen was also shown by both components. The theory of its origin from the mucinous metaplasia of peritoneal (mesothelial) inclusion cysts, rather than from ectopic ovarian tissue or ovarian teratomas, is supported by the occurrence of such a tumour in a male patient.
Responses of Fathead Minnows (Pimephales promelas) During Life-Cycle Exposures to Pulp Mill Effluents at Four Long-Term Receiving Water Study Sites

Abstract We exposed fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas) to 7 concentrations of effluents from pulp mills at 4 Long-Term Receiving Water Study (LTRWS) sites. The primary objective of these investigations was to determine the potential for toxicity, particularly on fish reproduction, of the pulp mill effluents using laboratory tests. These tests were performed as LTRWS fish community assessments were being completed, thus results of the laboratory fish reproduction tests could be compared to in-stream fish community measurements. In general, bioindicators measured during the life-cycle tests, including gonadosomatic index (GSI), hepatosomatic index, condition factor, numbers of tubercles on heads of males and females, and gonadal histology did not show consistent patterns or dose response and did not predict effects on egg production. Gonadosomatic indexes and tubercles also did not indicate estrogenic or androgenic responses to the effluents during the life-cycle tests. The most consistently sensitive test endpoint showing a dose response was the 25% inhibition concentration (IC25) for egg production. Based on this endpoint all 4 effluents had effects on fish reproduction from 8% by volume to 100% effluent. However, in-stream effects on fish reproduction would not be expected based on these 4 life-cycle tests for any of the LTRWS stream sites. The mean effluent concentration in Codorus Creek, Pennsylvania, USA was approximately 32%, and the IC25 for the life-cycle test was 100% effluent, providing a margin of safety of approximately 3 times. The margins of safety at the other sites are much greater: 34 times for Leaf River, Mississippi, USA (IC25 = 69%, 2% mean receiving water concentration), 36 times for the McKenzie River, Oregon, USA (IC25 = 18%, 0.5% mean receiving water concentration), and 40 times for the Willamette River, Oregon, USA (IC25 = 8%, 0.2% mean receiving water concentration). Effects on fish numbers, diversity, and community structure due to the effluent were also not found during the LTRWS, which is consistent with these laboratory results. These findings indicate that in this case, when laboratory results combined with in-stream effluent concentrations suggest in-stream effects on fish population are not expected, the laboratory results are consistent with the in-stream observations. However, inferences about situations where laboratory results predict in-stream effects cannot be made from these data.
Optimized Magnetic Stimulation Induced Hypoconnectivity Within the Executive Control Network Yields Cognition Improvements in Alzheimer’s Patients

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a severe neurodegenerative disease, which mainly manifests as memory and progressive cognitive impairment. At present, there is no method to prevent the progression of AD or cure it, and effective intervention methods are urgently needed. Network-targeted intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS) may be effective in alleviating the cognitive symptoms of patients with mild AD. The abnormal function of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) within executive control network (ECN) may be the pathogenesis of AD. Here, we verify the abnormality of the ECN in the native AD data set, and build the relevant brain network. In addition, we also recruited AD patients to verify the clinical effects of DLPFC-targeted intervention, and explor the neuro-mechanism. Sixty clinically diagnosed AD patients and 62 normal controls were recruited to explore the ECN abnormalities. In addition, the researchers recruited 20 AD patients to explore the efficacy of 14-session iTBS treatments for targeted DLPFC interventions. Functional magnetic resonance imaging and neuropsychological assessment of resting state were performed before and after the intervention. Calculate the changes in the functional connectivity of related brain regions in the ECN, as well as the correlation between the baseline functional connectivity and the clinical scoring scale, to clarify the mechanism of the response of iTBS treatment to treatment. Our results showed that compared with normal control samples, the brain function connection between the left DLPFC and the left IPL within the ECN of AD patients was significantly enhanced (t = 2.687, p = 0.008, FDR-corrected p = 0.045). And we found that iTBS stimulation significantly reduced the functional magnetic resonance imaging signal between the left DLPFC and the left IPL in the ECN (t = 4.271, p < 0.001, FDR-corrected p = 0.006), and it was related to the improvement of the patient’s clinical symptoms (r = −0.470, p = 0.042). This work provides new insights for targeted brain area interventions. By targeted adjusting the functional connection of ECN to improve the clinical symptoms and cognitive function of AD patients.
Sentinel node biopsy in male breast cancer

ObjectiveMale breast cancer is a rare disease and axillary status is the most important prognostic indicator. Lymphoscintigraphy associated with gamma-probe guided surgery has been proved to reliably detect sentinel nodes in female patients with breast cancer. This study evaluates the feasibility of the surgical identification of sentinel node by using lymphoscintigraphy and a gamma-detecting probe in male patients, in order to select subjects who would be suitable for complete axillary lymphadenectomy. MethodsColloid human albumin labelled with 99Tc was administered to 18 male patients with breast cancer and clinically negative axillary lymph nodes. Lymphoscintigraphy was performed the day before surgery. An intraoperative gamma-detecting probe was used to identify sentinel nodes during surgery. ResultsLymphoscintigraphy and biopsy of the sentinel node were successful in all cases. A total of 20 sentinel nodes were removed. Pathological examinations showed 11 infiltrating ductal carcinomas, two intraductal carcinomas and five intracystic papillary carcinomas. Six patients (33%) had positive sentinel node (micrometastases were found in three patients). These patients underwent axillary dissection; in five of them (83%) the sentinel node was the only positive node. Twelve patients (67%) showed negative sentinel nodes; in all of them no further surgical treatments were planned. ConclusionsAs in women, lymphoscintigraphy and sentinel node biopsy under the guidance of a gamma-detecting probe proved to be an easy method for the detection of sentinel nodes in male breast carcinoma. In male patients with early stage cancer, sentinel node biopsy might represent the standard surgical procedure in order to avoid unnecessary morbidity after surgery, preserving accurate staging of the disease in the axilla.
OPTIC DISC DRUSEN — A PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDY II. RETINAL NERVE FIBRE LAYER PHOTOGRAPHY

As part of an examination of 180 patients with optic disc drusen fundus photographs of 159 cases were evaluated. Twenty‐one patients had no fundus photographs, and 12 cases had only autofluorescence pictures, positive colour transparencies or fluorescein angiograms. Peripapillary retinal nerve fibre layer (RNFL) was examined in 147 patients from black‐and‐white stereo‐photographs of the optic disc (116) or from special RNFL pictures (4) or from both (27). Fifty‐three of 147 patients had been photographed two or more times during the years from 1967 to 1981. The regional grading of the RNFL was performed separately from 6 sectors around the disc from 386 series of photographs, and the findings were later compared with the patients' visual fields. The eyes with buried drusen usually showed normal RNFL and normal fields, but the visible drusen were often associated with thinning or slits or atrophy of the peripapillary nerve fibre bundles and with visual field defects.
Temperature-sensitive 6-aminopenicillanic acid-resistant mutants of Escherichia coli

Wild-type Escherichia coli cells became spherical in the presence of low concentrations of 6-aminopenicillanic acid (APA). Higher concentrations of APA caused inhibition of cell division (filamentation) and lysis. Spontaneous temperature-sensitive APA-resistant mutants were isolated and characterized. These mutants also possessed increased resistance to mecillinam but not to benzylpenicillin, ampicillin, and cephaloridine. They formed round or pleomorphic cells at the nonpermissive temperature and possessed thermolabile penicillin-binding protein 2 activity. Temperature-resistant revertants of these mutants had normal rod-shaped morphology, normal levels of sensitivity to APA and mecillinam, and thermostable penicillin-binding protein 2 activity. The mutation conferring APA resistance cotransduced with lip and mapped, therefore, close to 14 min on the E. coli linkage map. APA appears to be more specific than mecillinam as a selective agent for the isolation of penicillin-binding protein 2 mutants.
A neuropsychological investigation of prefrontal cortex involvement in acute mania.

OBJECTIVE Mania has received little attention from a contemporary neuropsychological perspective despite its clear resemblance to the disinhibition syndrome sometimes seen after frontal brain injury, particularly injury to the inferior aspect of the prefrontal cortex. The purpose of this investigation was to describe the neuropsychological profile of severe acute mania by using a range of tasks selected primarily for the detection of localized neural disruption within the prefrontal cortex. METHOD Fifteen acutely manic inpatients were compared with 30 nonpsychiatric subjects on tasks from the Cambridge Automated Neuropsychological Test Battery (Tower of London, spatial working memory, intradimensional-extradimensional attentional shift, and rapid visual information processing tasks) and on the Iowa Gambling Task, Stroop Color and Word Test, a verbal fluency task, and the California Verbal Learning Test. RESULTS Discriminant function analysis identified deficits in sustained attention (on the rapid visual information processing task) and verbal learning (on the California Verbal Learning Test) as the best indicators of manic performance, rather than deficits on any of the tests of executive functioning. The model correctly classified 91% of subjects overall and 87% of manic subjects. Manic patients did not resemble patients with ventromedial prefrontal cortex damage in their performance on the Iowa Gambling Task. CONCLUSIONS Acute mania is characterized by core deficits in verbal memory and sustained attention against a background of milder impairments in functions that are traditional measures of prefrontal cortex integrity (attentional set shifting, planning, working memory). The data do not implicate ventral prefrontal cortex disruption as a locus of pathology in acute mania. Verbal memory and sustained attention deficits may relate differentially to the state and trait characteristics of bipolar disorder.
Capturing the diversity of biological tuning curves using generative adversarial networks

Tuning curves characterizing the response selectivities of biological neurons often exhibit large degrees of irregularity and diversity across neurons. Theoretical network models that feature heterogeneous cell populations or random connectivity also give rise to diverse tuning curves. However, a general framework for fitting such models to experimentally measured tuning curves is lacking. We address this problem by proposing to view mechanistic network models as generative models whose parameters can be optimized to fit the distribution of experimentally measured tuning curves. A major obstacle for fitting such models is that their likelihood function is not explicitly available or is highly intractable to compute. Recent advances in machine learning provide ways for fitting generative models without the need to evaluate the likelihood and its gradient. Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) provide one such framework which has been successful in traditional machine learning tasks. We apply this approach in two separate experiments, showing how GANs can be used to fit commonly used mechanistic models in theoretical neuroscience to datasets of measured tuning curves. This fitting procedure avoids the computationally expensive step of inferring latent variables, e.g., the biophysical parameters of individual cells or the particular realization of the full synaptic connectivity matrix, and directly learns model parameters which characterize the statistics of connectivity or of single-cell properties. Another strength of this approach is that it fits the entire, joint distribution of experimental tuning curves, instead of matching a few summary statistics picked a priori by the user. More generally, this framework opens the door to fitting theoretically motivated dynamical network models directly to simultaneously or non-simultaneously recorded neural responses.
Integrating rapid pathogen identification and antimicrobial stewardship significantly decreases hospital costs.

CONTEXT Early diagnosis of gram-negative bloodstream infections, prompt identification of the infecting organism, and appropriate antibiotic therapy improve patient care outcomes and decrease health care expenditures. In an era of increasing antimicrobial resistance, methods to acquire and rapidly translate critical results into timely therapies for gram-negative bloodstream infections are needed. OBJECTIVE To determine whether mass spectrometry technology coupled with antimicrobial stewardship provides a substantially improved alternative to conventional laboratory methods. DESIGN An evidence-based intervention that integrated matrix-assisted laser desorption and ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry, rapid antimicrobial susceptibility testing, and near-real-time antimicrobial stewardship practices was implemented. Outcomes in patients hospitalized prior to initiation of the study intervention were compared to those in patients treated after implementation. Differences in length of hospitalization and hospital costs were assessed in survivors. RESULTS The mean hospital length of stay in the preintervention group survivors (n = 100) was 11.9 versus 9.3 days in the intervention group (n = 101; P = .01). After multivariate analysis, factors independently associated with decreased length of hospitalization included the intervention (hazard ratio, 1.38; 95% confidence interval, 1.01-1.88) and active therapy at 48 hours (hazard ratio, 2.9; confidence interval, 1.15-7.33). Mean hospital costs per patient were $45 709 in the preintervention group and $26 162 in the intervention group (P = .009). CONCLUSIONS Integration of rapid identification and susceptibility techniques with antimicrobial stewardship significantly improved time to optimal therapy, and it decreased hospital length of stay and total costs. This innovative strategy has ramifications for other areas of patient care.
Network Newton-Part II: Convergence Rate and Implementation

The use of network Newton methods for the decentralized optimization of a sum cost distributed through agents of a network is considered. Network Newton methods reinterpret distributed gradient descent as a penalty method, observe that the corresponding Hessian is sparse, and approximate the Newton step by truncating a Taylor expansion of the inverse Hessian. Truncating the series at $K$ terms yields the NN-$K$ that requires aggregating information from $K$ hops away. Network Newton is introduced and shown to converge to the solution of the penalized objective function at a rate that is at least linear in a companion paper [3]. The contributions of this work are: (i) To complement the convergence analysis by studying the methods' rate of convergence. (ii) To introduce adaptive formulations that converge to the optimal argument of the original objective. (iii) To perform numerical evaluations of NN-$K$ methods. The convergence analysis relates the behavior of NN-$K$ with the behavior of (regular) Newton's method and shows that the method goes through a quadratic convergence phase in a specific interval. The length of this quadratic phase grows with $K$ and can be made arbitrarily large. The numerical experiments corroborate reductions in the number of iterations and the communication cost that are necessary to achieve convergence relative to distributed gradient descent.
Evidence of serologic diversity within group C rotaviruses

The Cowden strain of porcine group C rotavirus and the Shintoku strain of bovine group C rotavirus were classified as different serotypes by two-way cross-neutralization tests. Two neutralization patterns against the Cowden and Shintoku strains were observed when hyperimmune or convalescent-phase antisera to three noncultivatable porcine group C rotaviruses and a human group C rotavirus were used in one-way cross-neutralization tests. Antisera to two porcine group C rotaviruses and the human group C rotavirus neutralized the Cowden strain at high titers but did not neutralize the Shintoku strain, suggesting that these three strains are serotypically related to the Cowden strain. The remaining antisera to a porcine group C rotavirus (HF strain) reacted with the Cowden and Shintoku group C rotaviruses in cell culture immunofluorescence tests but did not neutralize either virus in one-way cross-neutralization, suggesting that the HF strain belongs to a third serotype. However, confirmation of these findings requires additional analysis by two-way cross-neutralization. Our findings support the existence of at least two distinct serotypes of group C rotaviruses, and possibly a third, among animals and humans. The serotypic similarity observed between the Cowden strain and a human group C rotavirus suggests that the cultivatable Cowden strain and antiserum to this virus may provide important reagents for the diagnosis of group C rotaviruses in humans.
Development of porcine embryos and offspring after intracytoplasmic sperm injection with liposome transfected or non-transfected sperm into in vitro matured oocytes

The objective of this study was to evaluate in vitro and in vivo development of porcine in vitro matured (IVM) porcine oocytes fertilised by intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and the possibility of producing transgenic embryos and offspring with this procedure. Activated ICSI oocytes had a higher pronuclear formation than non-activated ICSI oocytes (mean 64.8±17.3% vs 28.5±3.4%, p<0.05). When the zygotes with two pronuclei were cultured to day 2, there was no difference (p<0.05) in the cleavage rate (mean 60.0±7.0% vs 63.3±12.7%) between the two groups. The blastocyst rate in the activation group was significantly higher than that in the non-activation group (mean 30.0±11.6% vs 4.6±4.2%, p<0.05). After injection of the sperm transfected with DNA/liposome complex, destabilised enhanced green fluorescent protein (d2EGFP) expression was not observed on day 2 in either cleaved or uncleaved embryos. But from day 3, some of the embryos at the 2-cell to 4-cell stage started to express d2EGFP. On day 7, about 30% of cleaved embryos, which were in the range of 2-cell to blastocyst stage, expressed d2EGFP. However, for the IVF oocytes inseminated with sperm transfected with DNA/liposome complex, and for oocytes injected with sperm transfected with DNA/liposome complex, and for oocytes injected with DNA/liposome complex following insemination with sperm not treated with DNA/liposome complex, none of the embryos expressed d2EGFP. Sixteen day 4 ICSI embryos derived from sperm not treated with DNA/liposome complex were transferred into a day 3 recipient. One recipient delivered a female piglet with normal birthweight. After transfer of the ICSI embryos derived from sperm transfected with DNA/liposome complex, none of the four recipients maintained pregnancy.
Improving Design Preference Prediction Accuracy Using Feature Learning

Quantitative preference models are used to predict customer choices among design alternatives by collecting prior purchase data or survey answers. This paper examines how to improve the prediction accuracy of such models without collecting more data or changing the model. We propose to use features as an intermediary between the original customer-linked design variables and the preference model, transforming the original variables into a feature representation that captures the underlying design preference task more effectively. We apply this idea to automobile purchase decisions using three feature learning methods (principal component analysis (PCA), low rank and sparse matrix decomposition (LSD), and exponential sparse restricted Boltzmann machine (RBM)) and show that the use of features offers improvement in prediction accuracy using over 1 million real passenger vehicle purchase data. We then show that the interpretation and visualization of these feature representations may be used to help augment data-driven design decisions. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4033427]