Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Serological and Virological Investigations of Bovine Viral Diarrhoea Virus (BVDV) Infection in Dairy Cattle Herds in Ayd›n Province

A total of 288 dairy cattle from 4 different closed barns were sampled in order to investigate the presence of bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV) infection. Based on the data gathered from neutralisation peroxidase-linked antibody (NPLA) tests, which were conducted to detect BVDV antibodies, all of the barns monitored previously had the infection; the rates of seropositive animals were between 44% and 100%. Overall, the results obtained from Ayd›n province showed that 248 of the 288 dairy cows (86%) monitored were seropositive. BVDV antigen ELISA kits (Bio-X Diagnostics- Belgium) were used to detect BVDV antigen (NS3 protein) in blood samples. The cattle found to be positive in the first trial were subjected to subsequent sampling 45 days later. Fourteen animals (4.9%) that were BVDV Ag positive during both trials were diagnosed as persistently infected with the virus.
Effect of Methyl Jasmonate on the Composition of Yield and Growth of Strawberry (Selva and Queen

Strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa Duch. cv.) is the most important cultivated berry in the world. Jasmonate a major derivative of the plant hormone jasmonic acid plays a critical role in inducing resistance to fungal pathogen. The role of methyl jasmonate (MJ) in strawberry (Fragaria _ ananassa Duch. cv Selva, and Queen elisa) fruitripening wasinvestigated by monitoring its endogenous concentrations in fruit at various stages of development � � This study to investigate the impacts of methyl jasmonate on the weight and yield strawberry. Two strawberry cultivars (selva and Queen elisa) were used in these experiments. This investigation performed in factorial randomized complete block design with three replication, in which three concentration of methyl jasmonate (0, 0/25, 0/50 and 1/00 Mm) and control treatment were used as foliar application during bud formation. Applications of methyl jasmonate concentrations in strawberry fruits were showed fruit firmness in strawberry decreased after full Blum. To study the endurance of MeJA-induced resistance and its cause, green mature strawberries were treated with 1 M MJ. In selva and queen elisa cultures, vegetative growth decreased significantly by the addition of 1 mg MJ. Strawberries treated with MJ had higher soluble solids content. Number of the fruits and growth rate of the plant decreased as jasmonic acid concentration increased. Anthocyanin in fruit by MJ treated fruit was increased. The effect of MJ was significant the yield and growth of strawberry plants.
Human Bocavirus among Viral Causes of Infantile Gastroenteritis

Background: Human bocavirus (HBoV) infection possibly plays a role in gastroenteritis because of the frequent manifestation of gastrointestinal symptoms. Objectives: Detect human bocavirus (HBoV) and assess its prevelance among gastroenteritis associated viral agents in infants with gastroenteritis in Benha University Hospital. Methodology: The study was carried out on 100 stool samples collected from 100 infants with acute gastroenteritis for detection of Rotavirus (RV), Norovirus (NoV) & Astrovirus (AstV) by multiplex reverse transciptase polymerase chain reaction and detection of Adenovirus(AdV) & HBoV by multiplex polymerase chain reaction. Results: Viral agents were detected in 57 (57%) samples; 51 (51%) samples show mono-infection while 6 (6%) samples show co-infection. Rotavirus, Norovirus, Adenovirus and astrovirus were detected in 37%, 14%, 7.0%, and 3% of the study population, respectively; HBoV was detected in 2%. Conclusion: This percentage of HBoV suggests that it might play a minor role in gastroenteritis
Lack of association between impaired glucose tolerance and appetite regulating hormones in patients with obstructive sleep apnea.

STUDY OBJECTIVES Understanding the etiologic mechanisms underlying impaired glucose tolerance in obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) would assist development of therapies against this comorbidity. We hypothesized that in patients with OSA impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) would be associated with elevated levels of hormones associated with appetite regulation (leptin, ghrelin, neuropeptide Y [NPY] and peptide tyrosine-tyrosine [PYY]). METHOD We studied 68 OSA patients (mean AHI 22 events/h) and 37 age and weight matched healthy controls recruited by advertisement. All participants received a standardized evening meal, attended polysomnography and an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) on waking. Hormones were measured in blood taken before sleep (22:30) and at the start of the OGTT. RESULTS Impaired glucose tolerance was present in 54% of patients and 32% of controls (p = 0.05). The only differences between groups was that leptin was significantly higher at 22:30 in OSA patients compared to controls (9.6 ng/L vs 7.9 ng/L, p = 0.05). OSA patients had marginally elevated plasma NPY levels at 22:30 (56.6 [52, 67] pmol/L vs 51.1[47.3, 61] pmol/L; p = 0.04). No differences in ghrelin, PYY or NPY were observed between patients with IGT and those without. However OSA patients with IGT had significantly higher value of leptin at both 22:30 (10.9 [7.7, 15.9] ng/mL vs 7.4 [5.6, 12.3] ng/mL, p = 0.02) and 07:00 (11.6 [7.6, 16.2] ng/mL vs 6.9 [5.4, 12.6] ng/mL, p = 0.024) than those without. In multivariate analysis the only major association of leptin was body mass index. CONCLUSION Clinically significant abnormalities of appetite regulating hormones are not present in OSA. Appetite regulating hormones did not differ in OSA patients with and without impaired glucose tolerance.
Need to Belong, Not Rejection Sensitivity, Moderates Cortisol Response, Self-Reported Stress, and Negative Affect Following Social Exclusion

ABSTRACT The present study examined if the traits need to belong (NTB) and rejection sensitivity (RS) differentially moderate the impact of experimentally manipulated social exclusion on stress and affect. Participants (N = 132) completed a survey measuring NTB and RS, and then were randomly assigned to be included or excluded during a game of Cyberball. A second survey then assessed perceived stress and negative affect, and a cortisol sample was taken. Controlling for gender and baseline cortisol levels, excluded participants high (vs. low) in NTB had significantly higher postexclusion cortisol levels, and reported greater perceived stress and negative affect. The moderating effect for RS was not found, however, and NTB and RS were not correlated. Findings suggest that the NTB moderates psychological and physiological responses to exclusion.
Efficacy of dog-appeasing pheromone in reducing behaviours associated with fear of unfamiliar people and new surroundings in newly adopted puppies

This study was designed to determine the potential value of dog-appeasing pheromone (DAP) in reducing behaviours associated with fear of unfamiliar people and new surroundings in puppies newly adopted from a pet shop. The study was triple-blinded, randomised and placebo-controlled. It used 66 puppies (32 fitted with a DAP collar and 34 control) and the adoptive owners were contacted by phone three days and 15 days after they had adopted the puppy to question them about its reactions to specific situations eliciting fear. Fifteen days after the treatments significantly fewer of the puppies with the DAP collars showed signs of fear when facing unfamiliar people at home and/ or during outings. This difference was irrespective of breed size.
Multicolor FISH used for the characterization of small supernumerary marker chromosomes (sSMC) in commercially available immortalized cell lines

There are only about 30 commercially available cell lines which include small supernumerary marker chromosomes (sSMC). As approximately 2.5 million people worldwide are carriers of an sSMC, this small number of immortalized cell lines is hard to understand. sSMC cell lines provide practically unlimited material for continuing studies e.g. to learn more about marker chromosome formation, or karyotypic evolution. To obtain information about their genetic content, in the present study we analyzed by FISH and multicolor-FISH approaches 19 sSMC cell lines obtained from the European Collection of Cell Cultures (ECACC). Microdissection and reverse painting, (sub-) centromere-specific multicolor-FISH (sub-)cenM-FISH, multicolor banding (MCB) and selected locus-specific FISH probes were applied. Thus, we were able to characterize comprehensively 14 out of 19 sSMC carrying cell lines; in the remaining five cases an sSMC could not be detected. Surprisingly, in six of the nine cell lines with sSMC previously characterized for their chromosomal origin by others, those results had to be revised. This has impact on the conclusions of previous studies, e.g. for uniparental disomy (UPD) in connection with sSMC.
Comparison of Methane Production Rate and Coenzyme F420 Content of Methanogenic Consortia in Anaerobic Granular Sludge

The coenzyme F420 content of granular sludge grown on various substrates and substrate combinations was measured, and the potential of the sludge to form methane (maximum specific methane production rate) from hydrogen, formate, acetate, propionate, and ethanol was determined. The F420 content varied between 55 nmol g of volatile suspended solids (VSS)−1 for sludge grown on acetate and 796 nmol g of VSS−1 for sludge grown on propionate. The best correlation was found between the F420 content and the potential activity for methane formation from formate; almost no correlation, however, was found with acetate as the test substrate. The ratio between the potential methanogenic activities (qch4) of sludges grown on various substrates and their F420 content was in general highest for formate (48.2 μmol of CH4 μmol of F420−1 min−1) and lowest for propionate (6.9 μmol of CH4 μmol of F420−1 min−1) as test substrates. However, acetate-grown granular sludge with acetate as test substrate showed the highest ratio, namely, 229 μmol of CH4 μmol of F420−1 min−1. The data presented indicate that the F420 content of methanogenic consortia can be misleading for the assessment of their potential acetoclastic methanogenic activity.
Analysis of Fault Tolerant Control for a Nine-Phase Flux-Switching Permanent Magnet Machine

The fault tolerant capability of electrical machine-based driving systems is extremely important in many applications. Hence, in this paper, two fault tolerant current control strategies for a nine-phase flux-switching permanent magnet (FSPM) machine are proposed and implemented when one or two phases meet the open-circuit fault. The basic concepts of the two control strategies are to keep the rotating magnetomotive force unchanged under both healthy and faulty conditions. Based on the principle, an optimal solution is derived through comparing the magnitudes of fault tolerant currents, average output torque, and torque ripple. The finite element analysis-based predictions of the nine-phase FSPM machine verify the effectiveness and difference of the two fault tolerant control strategies.
Stress and health in novice and experienced nursing students.

AIM This paper is a report of a study conducted to identify the differences in novice and experienced nursing students' reports of stress and health. BACKGROUND Stress from clinical practice and its impact are international yet culturally mediated phenomena. Nursing students are under considerable stress during clinical practice periods, putting their education and health at risk. However, there is little or no empirical evidence about the stress suffered by nursing students and its impact on their health throughout clinical practice. METHODS We performed cross-sectional research using standard information gathering tools. This study was carried out with 357 students from all 3 years of a nursing diploma programme at a Spanish nursing college (71% response rate). The data were collected over an 8-month period in 2004-2005. FINDINGS We identified three types of stressors (clinical, academic and external) and two categories of symptoms (physiological and psychological) linked to clinical practice. Factor analysis identified six major sources of stress and six important symptoms. Students perceived clinical stressors more intensely than academic and external stressors, and showed psychological symptoms more frequently than physiological symptoms. Nursing students from all 3 years perceived moderate stress at similar levels. Experienced students perceived more academic stressors than novices. Although the students were healthy, second year students were the most vulnerable to somatic and psychic anxiety, and common symptoms. CONCLUSION We suggest informing students about possible stressors associated with their profession, and introducing interventions to support development of professionalism, social skills and coping capacity for clinical practice.
Cheap Tuesdays and the Demand for Cinema

Many movie markets are characterised by extensive uniform pricing practices, hampering the ability to estimate price elasticities of demand. Australia presents a rare exception, with most cinemas offering cheap Tuesday ticket prices. We exploit this feature to estimate a random coefficients discrete choice model of demand for the Sydney region in 2007. We harness an extensive set of film, cinema, and time-dependent characteristics to build a rich demand system. Our results are consistent with a market expansion effect from the practice of discounted Tuesday tickets, and suggest that cinemas could profit from price dispersion by discounts based on observable characteristics.
Developing a Clinical Teaching Handbook and Reference Manual for Part-time Clinical Faculty

To orient nurses who are already clinical experts to their new role as clinical educators, we developed a department-specific handbook and a reference manual that included materials which could not, as a practical matter, be photocopied extensively. These materials allowed us to quickly orient new clinical instructors to the responsibilities and skills they would need for clinical instruction and supervision. Providing these orientation and training materials also helped solve the clinical nursing faculty shortage at our institution by supporting nurses who, despite expertise in clinical areas, lacked formal training or experience as educators.
Cytomegalovirus infection and excretion in residents of a nursing home

Cy tomegalovirus (CMV), following primary infection, usually remains latent with the potential for reactivation and excretion in saliva and urine. The prevalence of CMV excretion has not been studied among the elderly. This study followed 54 nursing home residents (mean age 83 years and medically stable, but with a wide spectrum of medical conditions). Over a 6 month period these subjects were serially tested for viral excretion in saliva and urine and for CMV antibody. While approximately 93% of the residents tested were sero‐positive, indicating previous CMV infection, there was no evidence of viral excretion in any resident during the study period. Therefore, it is unlikely that the elderly nursing home residents will prove to be a source of CMV to the health care workers or to their family members.
An autoradiographic study of the commissural and ipsilateral hippocampo‐dentate projections in the adult rat

The distribution of the associational and commissural afferents to the inner one‐fourth of the molecular layer of the dentate gyrus of the rat, has been studied autoradiographically following small injections of 3H‐proline into the hilar region of the dentate (from which both groups of afferents arise). Different patterns of axonal labeling are observed after injections into the temporal (i.e., caudal), middle, or septal (rostral) thirds of the hippocampus. Thus after temporal injections labeled commissural and associational afferents are found only in the caudal third of the dentate gyrus, and the grain densities observed on the two sides are markedly asymmetrical around the short, or transverse, axis of the dentate. On the other hand, injections into the middle third of the hippocampus lead to extensive labeling of the commissural and associational afferents throughout the rostral two‐thirds of the dentate gyrus, and their distribution, as judged by grain density estimates, is symmetrical on the two sides. Septal injections label fibers over the rostral half of the dentate, and again the labeling pattern of the two sides is asymmetrical (but in the reverse pattern from that seen after temporal injections).
Optimized Multiagent Routing for a Class of Guidepath-Based Transport Systems

This paper presents a heuristic algorithm for minimizing the makespan required to route a set of agents inhabiting a shared guidepath network from their initial locations to their respective destinations while observing a set of regulations that seek to ensure the safety and the integrity of the generated traffic. From an application standpoint, the presented developments are motivated by the traffic coordination challenges that arise in the context of many automated unit-load material handling systems and also in the transport of the ionized atoms that takes place in the context of quantum computing. From a methodological standpoint, our developments constitute a customization of the general “local-search” framework of combinatorial optimization theory to the traffic management problem that is considered in this paper. Hence, the presented results include a rigorous characterization of the considered problem and its solution space, detailed algorithms for the construction of the necessary initial solutions and the improving step for the pursued search, a complexity analysis of these algorithms, and a set of computational experiments that reveal and assess the computational efficiency of the presented algorithms and the efficacy of the derived solutions. The paper concludes with some suggestions for potential extensions of the presented results. Note to Practitioners—In many contemporary applications of automation science and engineering, a number of entities—or “agents”—must be transported expediently from their initial locations to certain destinations using a set of links that define the underlying “guidepath network. ” Furthermore, various safety considerations require that the agents must be adequately separated during these transports, and the imposed restrictions turn the corresponding traffic coordination problem into a complex resource allocation problem, where the contested resources are the guidepath-network links. This paper presents a set of algorithms that can provide high-quality schedules for the resulting traffic-scheduling problems in a computationally efficient manner. These properties of our algorithms are established through the necessary theoretical analysis, but they are also demonstrated through a series of numerical experiments where they are shown capable to provide near-optimal solutions for some very complex problem instances in no more than a few seconds. In addition, our algorithms are “complete,” i.e., they will always provide a feasible schedule for any instantiation of the traffic-scheduling problem considered in this paper. Hence, they can effectively address the needs for “real-time” traffic management that arise in the context of the considered applications.
Isolates of Neisseria meningitidis from different sites in the same patient: phenotypic and genomic studies, with special reference to adherence, piliation, and DNA restriction endonuclease pattern.

Neisseria meningitidis was isolated from the throat, blood, and cerebrospinal fluid of six patients and from the throat and blood of two patients. All 22 isolates were of serogroup B, serotype 15, and sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis type IV. Isolates from a single patient always possessed identical DNA restriction endonuclease patterns; this observation strongly suggested genomic identity. In spite of this apparent genomic identity, however, significant differences in piliation and adherence were observed among isolates from different sites in the same patient. Isolates from the throat were significantly more piliated (P less than .001) and adhered to human buccal epithelial cells in vitro in significantly higher numbers (P less than .001) than did isolates from the blood and the cerebrospinal fluid of the same patient. These results indicate that phase shift occurs in N. meningitidis in vivo.
The scavenger receptor, cysteine‐rich domain‐containing molecule gp‐340 is differentially regulated in epithelial cell lines by phorbol ester

Gp‐340 is a glycoprotein belonging to the scavenger receptor cysteine rich (SRCR) group B family. It binds to host immune components such as lung surfactant protein D (SP‐D). Recent studies found that gp‐340 interacts directly with pathogenic microorganisms and induces their aggregation, suggesting its involvement in innate immunity. In order to investigate further its potential immune functions in the appropriate cell lines, the expression of gp‐340 in four conventional immune cell lines (U937, HL60, Jurkat, Raji), and two innate immune‐related epithelial cell lines (A549 derived from lung and AGS from stomach), was examined by RT‐PCR and immunohistochemistry. The resting immune cell lines showed weak or no gp‐340 mRNA expression; while the two epithelial cell lines expressed gp‐340 at much higher level, which was differentially regulated by phorbol myristate acetate (PMA) treatment. In the A549 cells, gp‐340 was up‐regulated along with the PMA‐induced proinflammatory expression of both IL‐6 and IL‐8. In AGS cells, PMA down‐regulation of gp‐340 was seen in parallel with an up‐regulation of the two mature gastric epithelial specific proteins TFF1 (trefoil factor 1) and TFF2, which are implicated as markers of terminal differentiation. Analysis of the distribution of gp‐340, together with the TFFs and SP‐D in normal lung and gastric mucosa, supported further our in vitro data. We conclude that the differential regulation of gp‐340 in the two epithelial cell lines by PMA indicates that gp‐340 s involvement in mucosal defence and growth of epithelial cells may vary at different body locations and during different stages of epithelial differentiation.
Direct stimulation of the autonomic nervous system modulates activity of the brain at rest and when engaged in a cognitive task

The effect of autonomic perturbation (AP) on the central nervous system functioning is still largely unknown. Using an automated neck suction device to stimulate the carotid mechanoreceptors in the carotid sinus (parasympathetic pathway), operated synchronously with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) acquisition, we investigated the effects of AP on the activity of the brain at rest and when engaged in a visuo‐spatial attention task. ECG was always recorded to index changes in autonomic function. At rest, AP induced increased activation in the insula and in the amygdala, which have been previously associated with the autonomic control and emotion processing, as well as in the caudate nucleus and in the medial temporal cortex, both implicated in cognitive functions. Despite a preserved performance during visuo‐spatial attention task, AP induced increased reaction times and a positive modulation on the activation of the right posterior parietal cortex, the occipital cortex, the periaquiductal gray, and nuclei of the brainstem. We speculate that this modulation of brain activity represents, at different anatomical levels, a compensation mechanism to maintain cognitive efficiency under parasympathetic stimulation, which is traditionally considered as the system for energy regain and storage. In conclusion, this study provides the first evidence of a dynamic interaction between AP and higher level functions in humans. Hum Brain Mapp, 2013. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.