Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Enhancement of Network Planning Tool Predictions through Measurements

We propose a novel method to enhance the quality and precision of model-based simulation results by combining the a-priori information contained in the simulations with the a-posteriori knowledge of the measurements. This method involves the use of K-means clustering, independent component analysis (ICA) and artificial neural network (ANN). The K-means block divides the whole learning space into subspaces to ensure a better generalization of the ANN. The ICA block, being the main contribution of this work, makes the input variables of the ANN statistically independent so that the ANN can operate on one-dimensional distributions without losing information on joint statistics. The proposed method is applied to a prediction tool of a third generation (3G) cellular radio network. Results show that the differences observed between simulations and measurements can be considerably diminished. We can then predict with enhanced accuracy 'unobserved' configurations as long they are not very different from 'learned' configurations
Assessing the Transition of Transfer Students from Community Colleges to a University

The purpose of this study was to examine how pretransfer experiences and preparation, along with posttransfer experiences, influence the adjustment of community college transfer students (as measured by academic achievement and satisfaction with various aspects of the university experience) to life on a four-year university campus. A survey of 372 community college transfer students attending a large, public four-year university provides empirical evidence that those students who are best informed and who have most actively prepared for transfer are most likely to achieve higher grades and be more satisfied in the university environment. The findings from this study also suggested that patterns of academic and social involvement shift as students move from two-year college settings to a four-year university. The article concludes with a discussion of strategies that can be instituted at both two and four-year institutions to assist community college transfer students in making a successful transition to a four-year college or university.
A study of secondary and tertiary solution structure of yeast tRNA(Asp) by nuclear magnetic resonance. Assignment of G.U ring NH and hydrogen-bonded base pair proton resonances.

The 270-MHz spectra of yeast tRNA(Asp) in H2O solutions containing Mg2+ show clearly resolved resonances in the region from -15 to -9.5 ppm. Resonances between -15 and -11.5 ppm from the hydrogen-bonded protons of the acceptor stem and anticodon arm decrease in intensity with increasing temperature and disappear by 75 degrees C. Simultansously, four well-resolved resonances between -11.2 and -10.3 ppm also decrease in intensity and disappear. Because of this behavior and their positions these resonances have been assigned to the four ring NH protons of G.U base pairs 5 and 30 in the acceptor stem and anticodon arm which are thereby shown not to be hydrogen bonded by normal Watson-Crick hydrogen bonds. The five G.C base pair resonances of the T psi C arm remain visible above 70 degrees C after all other resonances have disappeared. The high-temperature tRNA spectrum agrees well with that of the isolated T psi C hairpin and CCA half-molecule fragments, each of which contains the same five hydrogen-bonded proton resonances. The root-mean-square error between the observed and calculated resonance positions for the hydrogen-bonded base pair protons of these three arms is 0.19 ppm. The dihydrouridine stem is expected to have two A.U Watson-Crick base pairs and no B.C base pairs. However, it does not contribute any hydrogen-bonded resonances to the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrum below -11.5 ppm. This suggests that even at 35 degrees C this helix is not hydrogen bonded in a normal manner. In the region below -11.4 ppm there are three additional proton resonances melting earlier than the rest which cannot be assigned to a particular helix of the cloverleaf. We suggest that these resonances arise from hydrogen-bonded protons involved in stabilizing tertiary structure.
Safe Wireless Communication Solution for Driver Machine Interface for Train Control Systems

This paper presents a design for safe wireless communication solution to be used for data transmission to and from a driver machine interface that is a part of a train control system. Introduction of a wireless interface can significantly simplify the maintenance operations of a DMI since no physical detaching and cabling of the component is required. However, since wireless support is becoming a part of the DMI, it shall exhibits the same safety characteristics as DMI. It implies challenges in the design of the wireless communication protocol stack and requires a special-purpose Safety Layer. The paper presents a proposed network architecture, together with the description of the protocols, where the special attention is on wireless security, session control and fault management.
Leveraging the IncuCyte Technology for Higher-Throughput and Automated Chemotaxis Assays for Target Validation and Compound Characterization

Chemotaxis is the directional movement of cells in response to a chemical stimulus and is vital for many physiological processes, including immune responses, tumor metastasis, wound healing, and blood vessel formation. Therefore, modulation of chemotaxis is likely to be of therapeutic benefit. Hence, a high-throughput means to conduct chemotaxis assays is advantageous for lead evaluation and optimization in drug discovery. In this study, we have validated a novel approach for a higher-throughput, label-free, image-based IncuCyte chemotaxis assay encompassing various cell types, including T cells, B cells, mouse Th17, immature and mature dendritic cells, monocyte THP-1, CCRF-CEM, monocytes, neutrophils, macrophages, and MDA-MB-231. These assays enable us to visualize chemotactic cell migration in real time and perform kinetic cell motility studies on an automated platform, thereby allowing us to incorporate the quantitative studies of cell migration behavior into a routine drug discovery screening cascade.
Vaccination against Salmonella Infection: the Mucosal Way

SUMMARY Salmonella enterica subspecies enterica includes several serovars infecting both humans and other animals and leading to typhoid fever or gastroenteritis. The high prevalence of associated morbidity and mortality, together with an increased emergence of multidrug-resistant strains, is a current global health issue that has prompted the development of vaccination strategies that confer protection against most serovars. Currently available systemic vaccine approaches have major limitations, including a reduced effectiveness in young children and a lack of cross-protection among different strains. Having studied host-pathogen interactions, microbiologists and immunologists argue in favor of topical gastrointestinal administration for improvement in vaccine efficacy. Here, recent advances in this field are summarized, including mechanisms of bacterial uptake at the intestinal epithelium, the assessment of protective host immunity, and improved animal models that closely mimic infection in humans. The pros and cons of existing vaccines are presented, along with recent progress made with novel formulations. Finally, new candidate antigens and their relevance in the refined design of anti-Salmonella vaccines are discussed, along with antigen vectorization strategies such as nanoparticles or secretory immunoglobulins, with a focus on potentiating mucosal vaccine efficacy.
Occurrence of potential drug‐drug interactions in nursing home residents

Objective — It has been suggested that elderly people are at increased risk of drug‐related problems such as drug‐induced adverse effects, drug‐drug interactions and drug‐disease interactions. This is particularly the case for nursing home residents because of the often complicated and multiple co‐morbidity that occurs in these people. The aim of this study was to develop prescribing indicators to assess systematically the occurrence and nature of potential drug‐drug interactions (DDIs) in a cohort of Dutch nursing home residents.
Lichtenstein hernioplasty for groin hernia in central Africa

Background : Herniorraphy is a common surgical procedure in our surgical practice in Cameroon. A study was conducted in The General Hospital of Yaounde, to assess Lichtenstein hernioplasty technique, among other hernioplasties. Materials and methods : Fourteen patients were studied, in a retrospective study of 9 years (1996 to 2005) in A General Hospital in Yaounde Cameroon, Central African. All the patients benefited from a tension-free repair using a surgical mesh of polyglactin 910 (vicril*) under local anesthesia. This technique was applied for simple inguinal hernias, bilateral hernia and recurrent hernia. Results : The time of surgery varied from 35 minutes to 140 minutes. Three complications were noted including one hematoma, one scrotal oedema and one crural neuralgia; 9 patients out of 14 were followed up closely for 9 years; no recurrence was noted. Conclusion : We therefore recommend the technique of the Lichtenstein in the repair of the groin hernia, in association to local anaesthesia in Cameroon. Keywords : groin hernia, hernioplasty, surgical mesh, Lichtenstein technique Nigerian Journal of Surgical Research Vol. 7(3&4) 2005: 315-317
Biofilm-Related Infections: Bridging the Gap between Clinical Management and Fundamental Aspects of Recalcitrance toward Antibiotics

SUMMARY Surface-associated microbial communities, called biofilms, are present in all environments. Although biofilms play an important positive role in a variety of ecosystems, they also have many negative effects, including biofilm-related infections in medical settings. The ability of pathogenic biofilms to survive in the presence of high concentrations of antibiotics is called “recalcitrance” and is a characteristic property of the biofilm lifestyle, leading to treatment failure and infection recurrence. This review presents our current understanding of the molecular mechanisms of biofilm recalcitrance toward antibiotics and describes how recent progress has improved our capacity to design original and efficient strategies to prevent or eradicate biofilm-related infections.
Physical Exercise and Psychological Wellness

The relationship between regular physical exercise and psychological wellness among gym members was investigated. Regular exercise was defined as exercising for an average of thirty minutes a day at least three times per week. A wellness profile was constructed from various questionnaires chosen on the basis of their relationship with the general construct of mental health and/or psychological well-being as conceptualised in this paper and as established in previous research. Wellness profile components consisted of assessments of mood, lifestyle, satisfaction with life, sense of coherence, fortitude, stress and coping with stress. The wellness profile was administered to 106 exercisers from four local gyms in the Richards Bay area of South Africa. Respondents were given feedback, and further counselling if needed, with regard to their scores on the various components as wellness and a global wellness percentage score. The correlations among wellness components were almost all highly significant. Findings also indicated a highly significant influence of regular exercise on the various components of wellness as operationally defined by various scores on the wellness profile and the final composite wellness percentage itself. Findings provide further support for the vital role that regular exercise plays in the promotion of mental health and wellness.
A study of help seeking behavior of psychiatric patients

Background : A large number of mentally ill patients prefer to visit non-medical practitioners such as faith healers becauseof the stigma attached to mental illness and/or belief that mental illness are caused by supernatural powers. Faith healersare more convenient to be approached fi rst because of ease of availability and prevalent cultural belief and persuasion. Objective : The current study aims to fi nd the help seeking behavior of patients suffering from mental illness and whomthey approach fi rst once affected, either psychiatrists or faith healers. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted among patients admitted in the psychiatric ward of Kathmandu MedicalCollege Teaching Hospital during 1st January to 30th July 2012. All patients admitted in the ward during that period wereinformed about the purpose of the study and a written informed consent was taken. In case of psychotic patients, theconsent was obtained from nearby relatives. Results : Among 54 patients enrolled in the study, signifi cant number of psychotic patients (n=15) visited faith healersin comparison to only 4 non-psychotic patients. Number of females (n=12) visiting faith healers in comparison to males(n=7) was higher. Patients having belief in black magic were more likely to visit faith healers than those who were nonbelievers.In contrary to the popular belief, patients approaching the faith healers spent more money (>$20) in the treatment thanwho approached psychiatrists (<$20). Conclusion: The study shows that most of the patients suffering from mental illness prefer to approach faith healers fi rstbecause of the prevailing trust on faith healers, because they are locally available and because of a prevailing belief insupernatural causation of mental illness. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.3126/jkmc.v2i1. 10538 Journal of Kathmandu Medical College, Vol. 2, No. 1, Issue 3, Jan.-Mar., 2013: 21-24
On the Performance of Cancellation Carrier-Based Schemes for Sidelobe Suppression in OFDM Networks

An efficient scheme for limiting the inherent high out-of-band radiation of the orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing signal has been studied by Brandes et al. The scheme achieves sidelobe suppression by using few subcarriers, referred to as cancellation carriers (CCs), positioned at the edges of the spectrum and modulated by data-dependent complex-valued symbols that are designed so as to minimize the out-of-band radiation. Unfortunately, its performance has been investigated at the input of the power amplifier (PA) without considering the spectral re-growth induced by PA's non-linear region. Motivated by the above consideration, in this work we return to the aforementioned scheme and investigate its performance at the output of the PA. In addition, since reducing the time-domain signal peaks may alleviate the problem of spectral re-growth, we also adopt two well-known tone reservation (TR)-based peak reduction algorithms. Computer simulations are used to assess the performance of the investigated schemes under different operating conditions. It turns out that the CC-based solution may provide some performance gain at the PA output only for input power backoffs larger than 6 dB. Additional benefits can be achieved when used in conjunction with TR and some linearization of the PA characteristic.
Visceral leishmaniasis in Aba-Roba, south–western Ethiopia: prevalence and incidence of active and subclinical infections

Abstract Between August 1997 and February 2005, a prospective study of human visceral leishmaniasis (VL) was undertaken in two villages in the Konso district of south–western Ethiopia, to provide epidemiological indices of subclinical infection and active VL. Six cross-sectional surveys at 6-month intervals (ending in August 2000) were complemented by a single survey in February 2005. The prevalences and incidences of leishmanial infection and active VL, which were determined using leishmanin skin tests (LST), direct agglutination tests (DAT) and parasitological diagnosis, varied spatio–temporally and by age and gender. At baseline, when 1339 individuals were investigated, the overall prevalences of LST positivity, DAT positivity and active VL among the 1232 subjects who had not been treated previously were 30.0%, 5.4% and 0.49%, respectively. During the study, <10% of the subjects found DAT-positive at baseline progressed to active VL (with a mean of about nine cases of subclinical infection for every one of active VL). The median age of an incident VL case was 10.5 years. The highest rates of LST conversion occurred among the subjects aged 5–25 years. A subject who became LST-positive during the study was much less likely to develop active VL than the other subjects.
Microbial Surface Colonization and Biofilm Development in Marine Environments

SUMMARY Biotic and abiotic surfaces in marine waters are rapidly colonized by microorganisms. Surface colonization and subsequent biofilm formation and development provide numerous advantages to these organisms and support critical ecological and biogeochemical functions in the changing marine environment. Microbial surface association also contributes to deleterious effects such as biofouling, biocorrosion, and the persistence and transmission of harmful or pathogenic microorganisms and their genetic determinants. The processes and mechanisms of colonization as well as key players among the surface-associated microbiota have been studied for several decades. Accumulating evidence indicates that specific cell-surface, cell-cell, and interpopulation interactions shape the composition, structure, spatiotemporal dynamics, and functions of surface-associated microbial communities. Several key microbial processes and mechanisms, including (i) surface, population, and community sensing and signaling, (ii) intraspecies and interspecies communication and interaction, and (iii) the regulatory balance between cooperation and competition, have been identified as critical for the microbial surface association lifestyle. In this review, recent progress in the study of marine microbial surface colonization and biofilm development is synthesized and discussed. Major gaps in our knowledge remain. We pose questions for targeted investigation of surface-specific community-level microbial features, answers to which would advance our understanding of surface-associated microbial community ecology and the biogeochemical functions of these communities at levels from molecular mechanistic details through systems biological integration.
DNA Repair Pathways in Trypanosomatids: from DNA Repair to Drug Resistance

SUMMARY All living organisms are continuously faced with endogenous or exogenous stress conditions affecting genome stability. DNA repair pathways act as a defense mechanism, which is essential to maintain DNA integrity. There is much to learn about the regulation and functions of these mechanisms, not only in human cells but also equally in divergent organisms. In trypanosomatids, DNA repair pathways protect the genome against mutations but also act as an adaptive mechanism to promote drug resistance. In this review, we scrutinize the molecular mechanisms and DNA repair pathways which are conserved in trypanosomatids. The recent advances made by the genome consortiums reveal the complete genomic sequences of several pathogens. Therefore, using bioinformatics and genomic sequences, we analyze the conservation of DNA repair proteins and their key protein motifs in trypanosomatids. We thus present a comprehensive view of DNA repair processes in trypanosomatids at the crossroads of DNA repair and drug resistance.
Phase-dependent modulation of cutaneous reflexes in tibialis anterior muscle during passive stepping

Abstract The purpose of this study was to determine whether the cutaneous reflex elicited in the tibialis anterior (TA) muscle would be modulated in a phase-dependent manner while human subjects were passively stepping on a treadmill (treadmill stepping) or in the air (air stepping). The passive stepping was produced by a robotic gait trainer, Lokomat. The cutaneous reflexes following electric stimulation to the distal tibial nerve were recorded at ten different phases of a step cycle under the condition of tonic dorsiflexion [10% of maximum electromyography activity (EMGmax)]. Cutaneous reflex EMG responses with peak latencies of 70–120 ms [middle latency responses (MLR)] were then analysed. The results showed that there were no visible differences in the background EMG activities at the ten phases or two passive stepping conditions. During treadmill stepping, however, the magnitude of the facilitatory reflex responses between the late stance and the early swing phase was strongly enhanced, whereas no clear modulation of the MLR during air stepping was observed. These results suggest that the load-related afferent information plays a key role in the modulation of the cutaneous reflex during human walking.
Lantibiotic Resistance

SUMMARY The dramatic rise in the incidence of antibiotic resistance demands that new therapeutic options will have to be developed. One potentially interesting class of antimicrobials are the modified bacteriocins termed lantibiotics, which are bacterially produced, posttranslationally modified, lanthionine/methyllanthionine-containing peptides. It is interesting that low levels of resistance have been reported for lantibiotics compared with commercial antibiotics. Given that there are very few examples of naturally occurring lantibiotic resistance, attempts have been made to deliberately induce resistance phenotypes in order to investigate this phenomenon. Mechanisms that hinder the action of lantibiotics are often innate systems that react to the presence of any cationic peptides/proteins or ones which result from cell well damage, rather than being lantibiotic specific. Such resistance mechanisms often arise due to altered gene regulation following detection of antimicrobials/cell wall damage by sensory proteins at the membrane. This facilitates alterations to the cell wall or changes in the composition of the membrane. Other general forms of resistance include the formation of spores or biofilms, which are a common mechanistic response to many classes of antimicrobials. In rare cases, bacteria have been shown to possess specific antilantibiotic mechanisms. These are often species specific and include the nisin lytic protein nisinase and the phenomenon of immune mimicry.
Functions, Compositions, and Evolution of the Two Types of Carboxysomes: Polyhedral Microcompartments That Facilitate CO2 Fixation in Cyanobacteria and Some Proteobacteria

SUMMARY Cyanobacteria are the globally dominant photoautotrophic lineage. Their success is dependent on a set of adaptations collectively termed the CO2-concentrating mechanism (CCM). The purpose of the CCM is to support effective CO2 fixation by enhancing the chemical conditions in the vicinity of the primary CO2-fixing enzyme, d-ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (RubisCO), to promote the carboxylase reaction and suppress the oxygenase reaction. In cyanobacteria and some proteobacteria, this is achieved by encapsulation of RubisCO within carboxysomes, which are examples of a group of proteinaceous bodies called bacterial microcompartments. Carboxysomes encapsulate the CO2-fixing enzyme within the selectively permeable protein shell and simultaneously encapsulate a carbonic anhydrase enzyme for CO2 supply from a cytoplasmic bicarbonate pool. These bodies appear to have arisen twice and undergone a process of convergent evolution. While the gross structures of all known carboxysomes are ostensibly very similar, with shared gross features such as a selectively permeable shell layer, each type of carboxysome encapsulates a phyletically distinct form of RubisCO enzyme. Furthermore, the specific proteins forming structures such as the protein shell or the inner RubisCO matrix are not identical between carboxysome types. Each type has evolutionarily distinct forms of the same proteins, as well as proteins that are entirely unrelated to one another. In light of recent developments in the study of carboxysome structure and function, we present this review to summarize the knowledge of the structure and function of both types of carboxysome. We also endeavor to cast light on differing evolutionary trajectories which may have led to the differences observed in extant carboxysomes.