Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Natural Genetic Transformation in Monoculture Acinetobacter sp. Strain BD413 Biofilms

ABSTRACT Horizontal gene transfer by natural genetic transformation in Acinetobacter sp. strain BD413 was investigated by using gfp carried by the autonomously replicating plasmid pGAR1 in a model monoculture biofilm. Biofilm age, DNA concentration, and biofilm mode of growth were evaluated to determine their effects on natural genetic transformation. The highest transfer frequencies were obtained in young and actively growing biofilms when high DNA concentrations were used and when the biofilm developed during continuous exposure to fresh medium without the presence of a significant amount of cells in the suspended fraction. Biofilms were highly amenable to natural transformation. They did not need to advance to an optimal growth phase which ensured the presence of optimally competent biofilm cells. An exposure time of only 15 min was adequate for transformation, and the addition of minute amounts of DNA (2.4 fg of pGAR1 per h) was enough to obtain detectable transfer frequencies. The transformability of biofilms lacking competent cells due to growth in the presence of cells in the bulk phase could be reestablished by starving the noncompetent biofilm prior to DNA exposure. Overall, the evidence suggests that biofilms offer no barrier against effective natural genetic transformation of Acinetobacter sp. strain BD413.
Comparison of dry laser printer versus paper printer in full-field digital mammography

Background: Paper printers have been used to document radiological findings in some hospitals. It is critical to establish whether paper printers can achieve the same efficacy and quality as dry laser printers for full-field digital mammography (FFDM). Purpose: To compare the image quality and detection rate of dry laser printers and paper printers for FFDM. Material and Methods: Fifty-five cases (25 with single clustered microcalcifications and 30 controls) were selected by a radiologist not participating in the image review. All images were printed on film and paper by one experienced mammography technologist using the processing algorithm routinely used for our mammograms. Two radiologists evaluated hard copies from dry laser printers and paper printers for image quality and detectability of clustered microcalcifications. For the image quality comparisons, agreement between the reviewers was evaluated by means of kappa statistics. The significance of differences between both of the printers was determined using Wilcoxon's signed-rank test. The detection rate of two printing systems was evaluated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. Results: From 110 scores (55 patients, two readers) per printer system, the following quality results were achieved for dry laser printer images: 70 (63.6%) were rated as good and 40 (36.4%) as moderate. By contrast, for the paper printer images, 25 scores (22.7%) were rated as good and 85 (77.3%) as moderate. Therefore, the image quality of the dry laser printer was superior to that achieved by the paper printer (P=0.00). The average area-under-the-curve (Az) values for the dry laser printer and the paper printer were 0.991 and 0.805, respectively. The difference was 0.186. Results of ROC analysis showed significant difference in observer performance between the dry laser printer and paper printer (P=0.0015). Conclusion: The performance of dry laser printers is superior to that of paper printers. Paper printers should not be used in FFDM.
Evaluation of the profitability of companies financed by venture capital (CVC) listed on the French market

This paper examines changes in profitability of 146 CVC listed on the French market. The results show disappointing post-IPO profitability. The decline in performance ranges from 9.5% to 32% over a two-year period following the launch on the stock exchange. It also appears that the decline in operating performance is less significant for CVC compared with non CVC over the same period. An analysis of this underperformance shows that CVC supported by reputed VCF manage to limit the decline in operating performance compared to those supported by non-reputed VCF.
The Fragility of Functional Work Systems in American Steel

The I/N case offers insight into the interrelationship between work systems, living standards and performance. It demonstrates that a high road approach and functional work systems positively impact stakeholders' lives, improve production efficiency and benefit the local and macro-level economies and societies in which they are embedded. It also shows that such work systems can be implemented in contexts with a history of adversarial labor-management relations. However, broader external forces can conspire to make it very difficult for firms to sustain functional work systems despite initial successes in specific contexts. Financial markets in particular make long term commitment to stakeholder groups other than shareholders (i.e. employees, suppliers and communities) conditional on profit maximization and share price appreciation. Yet the logic of profit maximization for the benefit of shareholders leads to short termist decisions that undermine the very commitments that were so necessary for creating a new work system: security is threatened, training is put on the back burner; trust is irreparably undermined. Indeed, because of the inherent contradiction between strategic approaches to maximizing stock market and long term product market success, these high road systems are fragile in national frameworks that subject them to low road pressures without a forum for resolving the difficulties that arise from opposing market pressures and responses.
Differences in cognitive impairment between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder: Considering the role of heterogeneity

Schizophrenia is associated with significant cognitive impairment. Bipolar disorder (BD) also presents with cognitive deficits that are similar to, albeit less severe, than those reported in schizophrenia. There has been controversy over whether selective deficits in social cognition or developmental trajectory of cognitive deficits can distinguish schizophrenia from BD. Also, available studies have not generally considered the potential effect of cognitive heterogeneity within the two disorders on between‐group differences. The current review examines the evidence on the specificity of social cognitive deficits and early neurocognitive impairment to schizophrenia and explores the overall outcome of studies investigating within and cross‐diagnosis cognitive heterogeneity in schizophrenia and BD. Current evidence does not support the specificity of social cognitive impairment to schizophrenia. Available studies also suggest that cognitive impairment in premorbid and early stages is evident not only in schizophrenia but also in many BD patients. Both schizophrenia and BD have a number of cognitive subgroups, including severe impairment, good functioning, and one or more selective or modest impairment clusters. While both disorders are represented in each cognitive subgroup, there are significant cross‐diagnostic differences regarding prevalences of individuals belonging to the severe impairment and good functioning subgroups. Individuals with schizophrenia are much more likely to exhibit severe cognitive impairment than individuals with BD and good cognitive functioning is more often observed in BD patients than schizophrenia patients. Further identification of the neurobiological and genetic characteristics of the cognitive subgroups in major psychoses can improve the validity of diagnostic systems and can advance the development of personalized management approaches, including cognitive remediation.
Schistosomiasis mansoni in the chimpanzee: parasitologic, clinical, serologic, pathologic and radiologic observations.

Summary Studies conducted in splenectomized and intact chimpanzees (Pan satyrus) indicated that this primate is susceptible to experimental infections with Schistosoma mansoni. After a prepatent period of six to seven weeks, viable eggs appeared in the stools. The pattern of egg production remained relatively constant and sustained for the duration of the experiment. At necropsy, active and well-developed adult schistosomes were found in the distal branches of the mesenteries. Although most of the eggs were recovered in the large intestine and in the liver, viable eggs were also found in the lungs, the pancreas, the kidneys, the small intestine, the urinary bladder and the spleen. In the heavily infected chimpanzees, there was an elevation in temperature between the sixth and ninth week after exposure, anoxia, diarrhea with mucus and frank hemorrhage, and a transient marked decrease in activity and responsiveness. These symptoms were followed approximately three weeks later by transient hepatomegaly and ascites. A lymphocytic leukocytosis accompanied the first appearance of eggs in the feces and the onset of clinical symptoms. Pathologic and radiologic observations revealed changes resembling human pipestem fibrosis in a heavily infected animal, and portocaval anastomoses around the lower esophagus and diaphragm. Most of the eggs in the gut were in the mucosal layer. The course of antibody production as measured by the slide flocculation test using as antigens somatic extracts of eggs and cercariae and metabolic products of adult worms followed a pattern similar to that observed previously in mice, rabbits, monkeys and humans. Cutaneous reactivity was successfully transferred from an infected chimpanzee and from infected humans to uninfected rhesus monkeys. Reagenic antibodies, which were largely destroyed by heating the serum, were demonstrated approximately three months after exposure and persisted throughout the duration of the experiment. To the authors' knowledge this is the first time that antischistosome reagenic antibodies have been detected in humans and chimpanzees and successfully transferred to rhesus monkeys. The pattern of egg output in the feces, the distribution of eggs in various organs, the clinical course, the pathological effects and the serological response of schistosomiasis in chimpanzees followed a course similar to that which had been observed in men.
The Impact of Brand Equity and the Company's Reputation on Revenues

Abstract This paper intends to establish the relationships among variables in corporate communications, especially between advertising and public relations, and to form an evaluation model for integrating the effects of brand equity and the company's reputation in the context of integrated marketing communications (IMC). A new approach for integrating the effects of brand equity and the company's reputation was introduced and the IMC evaluation model was specified for testing. The proposed model was tested with existing secondary data. The outcomes indicated that both brand equity and the company's reputation have significant impact on revenues and showed the positive relationship between brand equity and the company's reputation in the proposed model to justify the need of IMC in overall corporate communications.
Phenomenological subtypes of delirium in older persons: patterns, prevalence, and prognosis.

BACKGROUND Delirium is an acute confusional state that is common, preventable, and life-threatening. OBJECTIVE The authors investigated the phenomenology of delirium severity as measured with the Memorial Delirium Assessment Scale among 441 older patients (age 65 and older) admitted with delirium in post-acute care. METHODS Using latent class analysis, they identified four classes of psychomotor-severity subtypes of delirium: 1) hypoactive/mild; 2) hypoactive/severe; 3) mixed, with hyperactive features/severe; and 4) normal/mild. RESULTS Among those with dementia (N=166), the hypoactive/mild class was associated with a higher risk of mortality. Among those without dementia (N=275), greater severity was associated with mortality, regardless of psychomotor features, when compared with the normal/mild class. CONCLUSION The data suggest that instruments measuring delirium severity and psychomotor features provide important prognostic information and should be integrated into the assessment of delirium.
Polymorphisms within the IL-1 gene cluster: effects on cytokine profiles in peripheral blood and whole blood cell cultures of patients with aggressive periodontitis, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis.

BACKGROUND Genetic polymorphisms of cytokines have been associated with the susceptibility, severity, and clinical outcome of inflammatory diseases, such as periodontitis and chronic arthritis. An important question to address is how interleukin (IL)-1 polymorphisms affect the cytokine profiles of patients with such diseases. METHODS The study population consisted of Danish white adults, <35 years of age, who were diagnosed with localized aggressive periodontitis (LAgP, n = 18), generalized aggressive periodontitis (GAgP, n = 27), juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA, n = 10), and rheumatoid arthritis (RA, n = 23) and healthy individuals with no systemic or oral diseases (n = 25). Genotypes of IL-1A-889, IL-1A+4845, IL-1B-511, and IL-1B+3954 were determined by polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-restriction fragment length polymorphism, and IL-1RN variable number tandem repeat (VNTR) was detected by PCR amplification and fragment size analysis. Analysis of variance was used to evaluate the effects of IL-1 genotypes on the levels of IL-1alpha, -1beta, -1 receptor antagonist, -6, and -10; tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha); and lymphotoxin-alpha in peripheral blood (plasma) and in unstimulated and stimulated whole blood cell cultures from the same blood collection. RESULTS The frequencies of IL-1 genotypes investigated did not differ significantly between diseased and control individuals. In LAgP patients, allele 2 of IL-1RN VNTR was associated with significantly higher levels of IL-1alpha, -6, and -10 and TNF-alpha, whereas allele 2 of IL-1B+3954 was associated with significantly lower levels of the same cytokines. In GAgP patients, a general lack of association was found. In JIA and RA patients, IL-1RN VNTR also influenced the cytokine levels. CONCLUSIONS IL-1 genotypes were associated with cytokine levels in patients with aggressive periodontitis and chronic arthritis. No associations were observed in control individuals.
Galectin‐3: a novel mediator of heart failure development and progression

Galectins are a family of soluble β‐galactoside‐binding lectins that play many important regulatory roles in inflammation, immunity, and cancer. Recently, a role for galectin‐3 in the pathophysiology of heart failure (HF) has been suggested. Numerous studies have demonstrated the up‐regulation of galectin‐3 in hypertrophied hearts, its stimulatory effect on macrophage migration, fibroblast proliferation, and the development of fibrosis. The latter observation is particularly relevant as cardiac remodelling is an important determinant of the clinical outcome of HF and is linked to disease progression and poor prognosis. Because galectin‐3 expression is maximal at peak fibrosis and virtually absent after recovery, routine measurement in patients with HF may prove valuable to identify those patients at highest risk for readmission or death, thus enabling physicians to tailor the level of care to individual patient needs. This review summarizes the most recent advances in galectin‐3 research, with an emphasis on the role galectin‐3 plays in the development and progression of HF.
Association of Tapasin and COPI Provides a Mechanism for the Retrograde Transport of Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) Class I Molecules from the Golgi Complex to the Endoplasmic Reticulum*

Tapasin is a subunit of the transporter associated with antigen processing (TAP). It associates with the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I. We show that tapasin interacts with β- and γ-subunits of COPI coatomer. COPI retrieves membrane proteins from the Golgi network back to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). The COPI subunit-associated tapasin also interacts with MHC class I molecules suggesting that tapasin acts as the cargo receptor for packing MHC class I molecules as cargo proteins into COPI-coated vesicles. In tapasin mutant cells, neither TAP nor MHC class I are detected in association with the COPI coatomer. Interestingly, tapasin-associated MHC class I molecules are antigenic peptide-receptive and detected in both the ER and the Golgi. Our data suggest that tapasin is required for the COPI vesicle-mediated retrograde transport of immature MHC class I molecules from the Golgi network to the ER.
Alternative Estimates of the Cost of Equity Capital for Australian Firms

We estimate the cost of equity capital for a sample of Australian firms using the CAPM and valuation models which are based on analyst forecasts of earnings and dividends. We find that the use of a composite of time-series and analyst forecasts rather than raw analyst forecasts results in cost of capital estimates that better explain the cross-sectional variation in future stock returns. Cost of capital estimates from the CAPM provide the weakest explanation of future stock returns. Cost of capital estimates from the valuation models are also found to be significantly related to key firm characteristics such as size, book-to-market and financial leverage. A variant of the dividend discount model provides the best cost of capital estimates when judged by their ability to explain the cross-section of future returns and their association with firm risk characteristics.
Ecology of the Modern Institutional Spot FX: The EBS Market in 2011

The EBS market has two access methods for its customers: GUI-based access for manual traders (MT) and automated interface (AI). In this work we offer taxonomy of the AI customers in terms of average daily order number: ‘slow’ AI (those AI that do not trade more than MT), high-frequency trading (HFT) firms, and ultra-HFT (those professional trading firms that trade more than the bank AI). Liquidity of the EBS market is characterized with two measures: percentage of time with two-sided market (PTTSM) and the bid/offer spread. The main focus of this work is on the EBS market liquidity during the intervention by the Bank of Japan on 4-Aug-2011 and intervention by the Swiss National Bank on 6-Sep-2011. Generally MT and HFT have the highest PTTSM, and HFT provide the tightest bid/ask spread. It is suggested that HFT determine the FX market volatility rather than just affect it.
Evaluation of root-normalised front-end (RN LFCC) for speech recognition in wireless GSM network environments

With the emergence of mobile telephony, the conditions of use of speech recognisers have been completely reconsidered. Speech can be input from a wide range of environments, having to face several degradation causes principally induced by noise and/or channel distortions. The root-normalised front-end is evaluated on several databases. Special attention is given to the GSM environment where noise, channel and coder effects are analysed. Experimental results indicate that this analysis model, when compared to the more conventional mel-scale cepstral representation (MFCC), is proved to be more robust to several types of perturbations. This advantage is maintained when using explicit channel and noise compensation schemes such as NSS (non-linear spectral subtraction).
Atomic-Scale Desorption Through Electronic and Vibrational Excitation Mechanisms

The scanning tunneling microscope has been used to desorb hydrogen from hydrogen-terminated silicon (100) surfaces. As a result of control of the dose of incident electrons, a countable number of desorption sites can be created and the yield and cross section are thereby obtained. Two distinct desorption mechanisms are observed: (i) direct electronic excitation of the Si-H bond by field-emitted electrons and (ii) an atomic resolution mechanism that involves multiple-vibrational excitation by tunneling electrons at low applied voltages. This vibrational heating effect offers significant potential for controlling surface reactions involving adsorbed individual atoms and molecules.
Privatization and Financial Market Development: A Comparison Between MENA Countries and Other Regions

This paper examines the impact of privatization on stock market size and liquidity in a multinational sample of 31 emerging markets. We find that the intensity of privatization and the use of privatization offerings on the stock market contribute to enhance stock market development. To enable result comparisons across geographical regions, we re-run our GMM on our dynamic panel and find that results vary across-regions. Privatization was the most beneficial in the Asian sub sample where most favorable conditions were put in place before privatization actually started. In the MENA region however, similar positive outcomes are yet to materialize. We derive several policy implications from our results.
4-Hydroxy-2-nonenal Statues in Hypertension Patients

1 Department of Chemistry, College of Science, Al-Nahrain University, Baghdad, Iraq (alaaalqaisi74@yahoo.com; alialkarady91yahoo@gmail.com) 2 Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, College of Pharmacy, Al-Nahrain University, Baghdad, Iraq (dr.ammalalobaidi@yahoo.com) 3 Department of Chemistry, College of Science, University of Al-Mustansiriyah, Baghdad, Iraq (zyadalqaisi@yahoo.com) 4 Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Bani Walid University, Bani Walid, Libya (amamer1982@yahoo.com)
Human Activity Recognition Using Combinatorial Deep Belief Networks

Human activity recognition is a topic undergoing a great amount of research. The main reason for that is the number of practical applications that are developed using activity recognition as the base. This paper proposes an approach to human activity recognition using a combination of deep belief networks. One network is used to obtain features from motion and to do this we propose a modified Weber descriptor. Another network is used to obtain features from images and to do this we propose the modification of the standard local binary patterns descriptor to obtain a concatenated histogram of lower dimensions. This helps to encode spatial and temporal information of various actions happening in a frame. This further helps to overcome the dimensionality problem that occurs with LBP. The features extracted are then passed onto a CNN that classifies the activity. Few standard activities are considered such as walking, sprinting, hugging etc. Results showed that the proposed algorithm gave a high level of accuracy for classification.
Use of Intranasal Dexmedetomidine as a Solo Sedative for MRI of Infants.

BACKGROUND Dexmedetomidine, a selective α-2 receptor agonist, can be delivered via the intranasal (IN) route and be used for procedural sedation. The drug's favorable hemodynamic profile and relative ease of application make it a promising agent for sedation during radiologic procedures, although there are few studies on its efficacy for MRI studies. METHODS A retrospective chart review was performed between June 2014 and December 2016. Outpatients between 1 and 12 months of age who received 4 μg/kg of IN dexmedetomidine for MRI were included in the analysis. Our aim with this study was to determine the rate of successful completion of the sedation procedure without the need for a rescue drug (other than repeat IN dexmedetomidine). RESULTS A total of 52 subjects were included in our study. Median (interquartile range) patient age was 7 (5-8) months. Median (interquartile range) procedure length was 40 (35-50) minutes. Overall success rate (including first dose and any rescue dose IN) of dexmedetomidine was 96.2%. None of the patients had significant adverse effects related to dexmedetomidine. CONCLUSIONS IN dexmedetomidine is an effective solo sedative agent for MRI in infants.