Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Antimicrobial resistance, penicillin-binding protein sequences, and pilus islet carriage in relation to clonal evolution of Streptococcus pneumoniae serotype 19A in Russia, 2002–2013

SUMMARY Clonal changes of serotype 19A pneumococci have been appreciated in conjunction with growing prevalence of this serotype after implementation of the seven-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7). In the present study, we characterized serotype 19A pneumococci collected in Russia within a decade preceding the implementation of PCV vaccination and described their clonal evolution. We retrospectively analyzed non-invasive serotype 19A isolates collected in 2002–2013. All isolates were subjected to multilocus sequence typing, antimicrobial susceptibility testing, determination of macrolide resistance genotype, molecular detection of pilus islet (PI) carriage, sequencing of penicillin-binding protein (PBP) genes. A total of 49 serotype 19A isolates represented 25 sequence types, of which 14 were newly described. The majority of isolates were distributed among clonal complex (CC) 663 (28%), CC230 (25%), CC156, and CC320 (14% each). CC663 and CC156 dominated in 2003, but were replaced by CC230 and CC320 later on; CC320 was only evident starting 2010. All isolates of CC663 and CC156 carried PI1; CC320 possessed both PI1 and PI2. The overall rate of altered amino acids in penicillin-nonsusceptible isolates was 13·9%, 7·2%, and 8·7% for PBP1a, PBP2b, and PBP2x, respectively. Our findings demonstrate that the clonal structure of serotype 19A pneumococci may evolve without PCV pressure.
Acute effects of moderate aerobic exercise on specific aspects of executive function in different age and fitness groups: A meta-analysis.

Whereas a wealth of studies have investigated acute effects of moderate aerobic exercise on executive function, the roles of age, fitness, and the component of executive function in this relationship still remain unclear. Therefore, the present meta-analysis investigates exercise-induced benefits on specific aspects of executive function in different age and aerobic fitness subgroups. Based on data from 40 experimental studies, a small effect of aerobic exercise on time-dependent measures (g = .35) and accuracy (g = .22) in executive function tasks was confirmed. The results further suggest that preadolescent children (g = .54) and older adults (g = .67) compared to other age groups benefit more from aerobic exercise when reaction time is considered as dependent variable. In contrast to age, aerobic fitness and the executive function component had no influence on the obtained effect sizes. Consequently, high aerobic fitness is no prerequisite for temporary improvements of the executive control system, and low- as well as high-fit individuals seem to benefit from exercise in a similar way. However, a higher sensitivity of executive function to acute aerobic exercise was found in individuals undergoing developmental changes. Therefore, preadolescent children and older adults in particular might strategically use a single aerobic exercise session to prepare for a situation demanding high executive control.
Seroepidemiology of Toxoplasma gondii infection in patients with liver disease in eastern China

SUMMARY The role of the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii in the pathogenesis of liver disease has recently gained much interest. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and risk factors associated with T. gondii infection in patients with liver disease from three cities in Shandong and Henan provinces, China. A case–control study was conducted from December 2014 to November 2015 and included 1142 patients with liver disease and 1142 healthy controls. Serum samples were collected from all individuals and were examined with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for the presence of anti-T. gondii IgG and IgM antibodies. Information on the demographics, clinical, and lifestyle characteristics of the participants was collected from the medical records and by the use of a questionnaire. The prevalence of anti-T. gondii IgG was 19·7% in patients with liver disease compared with 12·17% in the controls. Only 13 patients had anti-T. gondii IgM antibodies compared with 12 control individuals (1·14% vs. 1·05%, respectively). The highest seroprevalence was detected in patients with liver cancer (22·13%), followed by hepatitis patients (20·86%), liver cirrhosis patients (20·42%), and steatosis patients (20%). Multivariate logistic regression analysis indicated that consumption of raw meat (odds ratio (OR) = 1·32; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1·01–1·71; P = 0·03) and source of drinking water from wells (OR = 1·56; 95% CI 1·08–2·27; P = 0·01) were independent risk factors for T. gondii infection in liver disease patients. These findings indicate that T. gondii infection is more likely to be present in patients with liver disease. Therefore, efforts should be directed toward health education of populations at high risk of T. gondii infection and measures should be taken to protect vulnerable patients with liver disease.
EUS-guided drainage of ruptured liver abscess.

taneously. If drainage is inadequate, sur− gery may be necessary [1]. Endoscopic ul− trasound (EUS)−guided drainage of pan− creatic, pelvic, subphrenic, and splenic abscesses has been reported [2]. There has been one reported case of EUS−guided drainage of a well−encapsulated liver ab− scess [3]. A ruptured liver abscess is usually an indication for surgery [1]. We report a case of ruptured liver abscess with a walled−off left subhepatic collec− tion that was successfully treated by EUS−guided drainage using a double− wire technique [4] that facilitated the placement of multiple stents. A 58−year−old woman presented with a 1− week history of fever and lethargy. There was fullness in the left upper abdomen but no peritonism. The woman was also in diabetic ketoacidosis. Computer to− mography showed a ruptured left liver abscess communicating with a walled− off subhepatic collection measuring 10.7  5.7 cm (l" Fig. 1). The patient was treated with intravenous antibiotics and insulin. Percutaneous drainage was at− tempted but was unsuccessful, with minimal aspirate. The surgical risks were considered high, so the patient was refer− red for endoscopic drainage. The subhe− patic abscess was visualized using a ther− apeutic linear echoendoscope (GF− UCT160; Olympus, Tokyo, Japan) and punctured with a 19−gauge needle (EUSN−19−T; Cook Endoscopy, Winston− Salem, North Carolina, USA) (l" Fig. 2) via a transgastric approach. A 480−cm, 0.035−inch guide wire was inserted and the puncture needle was withdrawn. A 10−Fr Soehendra biliary dilator (Cook En− EUS−guided drainage of ruptured liver abscess
Contacts of healthcare workers, patients and visitors in general wards in Singapore

SUMMARY To characterize contacts in general wards, a prospective survey of healthcare workers (HCWs), patients and visitors was conducted using self-reported diary, direct observation and telephone interviews. Nurses, doctors and assorted HCWs reported a median of 14, 18 and 15 contact persons over one work shift, respectively. Within 1 h, we observed 3·5 episodes with 25·6 min of cumulative contact time for nurses, 2·9 episodes and 22·1 min for doctors and 5·0 episodes with 44·3 min for assorted-HCWs. In interactions with patients, nurses had multiple brief episodes of contact; doctors had fewer episodes and less cumulative contact time; assorted-HCWs had fewer contact episodes of longer durations (than for nurses and doctors). Assortative mixing occurred amongst HCWs: those of the same HCW type were the next most frequent class of contact after patients. Over 24-h, patients contacted 14 persons with 23 episodes and 314·5 min of contact time. Patient-to-patient contact episodes were rare, but a maximum of five were documented from one patient participant. 22·9% of visitors reported contact with patients other than the one they visited. Our study revealed differences in the characteristics of contacts among different HCW types and potential transmission routes from patients to others within the ward environment.
A brief summary of the epidemiology and genetic relatedness of avian influenza H9N2 virus in birds and mammals in the Middle East and North Africa

SUMMARY H9N2 is the most widespread avian influenza virus subtype in poultry worldwide. It infects a broad spectrum of host species including birds and mammals. Infections in poultry and humans vary from silent to fatal. Importantly, all AIV, which are fatal in humans (e.g. H5N1, H7N9) acquired their ‘internal’ gene segments from H9N2 viruses. Although H9N2 is endemic in the Middle East (ME) and North Africa since the late 1990s, little is known about its epidemiology and genetics on a regional level. In this review, we summarised the epidemiological situation of H9N2 in poultry and mammals in Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. The virus has been isolated from humans in Egypt and serosurveys indicated widespread infection particularly among poultry workers and pigs in some countries. Some isolates replicated well in experimentally inoculated dogs, mice, hamsters and ferrets. Insufficient protection of immunised poultry was frequently reported most likely due to concurrent viral or bacterial infections and antigenic drift of the field viruses from outdated vaccine strains. Genetic analysis indicated several distinct phylogroups including a panzootic genotype in the Asian and African parts of the ME, which may be useful for the development of vaccines. The extensive circulation of H9N2 for about 20 years in this region where the H5N1 virus is also endemic in some countries, poses a serious public health threat. Regional surveillance and control strategy are highly recommended.
Convergence of finite volume schemes for the coupling between the inviscid Burgers equation and a particle

In this paper, we prove the convergence of a class of finite volume schemes for the model of coupling between a Burgers fluid and a pointwise particle introduced in [LST08]. In this model, the particle is seen as a moving interface through which an interface condition is imposed, which links the velocity of the fluid on the left and on the right of the particle and the velocity of the particle (the three quantities are all not equal in general). The total impulsion of the system is conserved through time.The proposed schemes are consistent with a “large enough” part of the interface conditions. The proof of convergence is an extension of the one of [AS12] to the case where the particle moves under the influence of the fluid. It yields two main difficulties: first, we have to deal with time-dependent flux and interface condition, and second with the coupling between and ODE and a PDE.
Resting‐state functional connectivity in the rat cervical spinal cord at 9.4 T

Numerous studies have adopted resting‐state functional MRI methods to infer functional connectivity between cortical regions, but very few have translated them to the spinal cord, despite its critical role in the central nervous system. Resting‐state functional connectivity between gray matter horns of the spinal cord has previously been shown to be detectable in humans and nonhuman primates, but it has not been reported previously in rodents.
Changes in induced hues at low luminance and following dark adaptation suggest rod-cone interactions may differ for luminance increments and decrements

Color contrast describes the influence of one color on the perception of colors in neighboring areas. This study addressed two issues: (1) the accurate representation of the color changes; (ii) the underlying visual mechanisms. Observers matched the hue that was induced in a neutral square when it was set in one of four standard colored surrounds: “red” (+L(−M) relative to neutral), “green” (−L(+M)), “purple” (+S), and “yellow” (−S). The standard and matching displays were viewed haploscopically. The standard neutral square was either a luminance increment, or decrement, both of which appeared the complementary color to the surrounds in which they were inset. In Experiment 1, the surround luminance in each eye's display was either equal, at 18 cd·m−2, or the match surround luminance was reduced to 2.5 cd·m−2. The matches with equal surround luminances could be represented as vector shifts in a logarithmic MacLeod–Boynton (r, b) chromaticity diagram, as described previously (Shepherd, 1997, 1999). The low luminance matches were, however, displaced further from neutral, as if larger chromatic differences were needed. The precise direction of the displacements differed for luminance increments and decrements: the red, green and yellow decrement matches were also displaced vertically downwards in the MacLeod-Boynton diagram. In Experiment 2, dark-adapting before setting repeat color matches displaced the decrement matches vertically, but did not affect the increment matches. Thus, rod intrusion in S-cone pathways may have boosted the S-cone signal for the lowest luminance decrement matches in Experiment 1 and account for the vertical shift in MacLeod-Boynton co-ordinates. The distinct pattern of displacements for low luminance increments and decrements may be explained if the match is set at a cone-opponent, rather than a cone contrast, site and if rod signals have an input only to S-cone decrement, perhaps S-OFF, pathways.
Pharmacogenomics and the Treatment of Sporadic Alzheimers Disease:A Decade of Progress

Several lines of evidence indicate that apolipoprotein E (apoE) plays a central role in the brain's response to in- jury and neurodegeneration in the adult. The coordinated expression of apoE and several of its accessory proteins appears to regulate the transport and internalization of cholesterol and phospholipids during development and normal brain rein- nervation in the adult. The discovery, a few years ago, that a genetic variant in the apoE gene called apoE4 strongly links to both sporadic and familial late onset Alzheimer's disease (AD) has raised the possibility that a dysfunction of the lipid transport system in the brain could be central to AD pathophysiology. Pathophysiological evidence obtained in autopsy- confirmed sporadic AD cases clearly indicate that the presence of apoE4 allele in humans directly compromises choliner- gic function in the adult brain and indirectly modulate the efficacy of medications designed to enhance the cholinergic ac- tivity in diseased brain. The apoE4 allele was found to significantly increase the risk of progression to dementia for per- sons exhibiting amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), a transitional state between the cognitive changes associated with normal aging and early AD. Furthermore, two accessory enzymes involved in cholinergic neurotransmission called butyrylcholinesterase and paraoxonase-1 were shown i) to display polymorphic variants that increase the risk of develop- ing AD and ii) to modulate drug responsiveness in AD subjects exposed to cholinomimetic agents. This article reviews the most critical findings in this field and reassess the potent clinical value of pharmacogenomics of neurodegenerative dis- eases and dementia.
Is there an omitted stimulus response in the human cone flicker electroretinogram?

Abstract Omitting a stimulus from a train of repetitive stimuli, by either interrupting or terminating the train, can elicit an electrophysiological response that occurs at the time appropriate for the omitted stimulus. This study investigated whether such an omitted stimulus response (OSR) is present in the flicker electroretinogram (ERG) of the human cone system. ERGs were recorded from 11 visually normal subjects in response to full-field sinusoidal flicker trains presented against a rod-desensitizing adapting field at frequencies ranging from 12.5 to 100 Hz. Recordings were synchronized with the onset of the stimulus trains, and the amplitude and relative delay of any additional ERG responses following the offset of the flicker train were analyzed. At stimulus frequencies below 35 Hz, the number of ERG responses always equaled the number of stimulus cycles. However, over the frequency range of 38.5 to 100 Hz, the ERG contained an extra response following flicker train offset. At stimulus frequencies from 38.5 to 62.5 Hz, there was a constant delay between the peak of the extra ERG response and the time at which the next stimulus would have occurred had the flicker train continued. This constant delay is characteristic of an OSR. In addition, an extra ERG response was apparent at these same stimulus frequencies if the flicker train was interrupted by omitting stimulus cycles from the middle of the train. The pattern of ERG findings is consistent with a recently proposed model of the OSR that attributes the phenomenon to a resonant oscillation in retinal bipolar cells.
Eigenvalue decay of positive integral operators on the sphere

Abstract. We obtain decay rates for singular values and eigenvalues of integral operators generated by square integrable kernels on the unit sphere in Rm+1, m ≥ 2, under assumptions on both, certain derivatives of the kernel and the integral operators generated by such derivatives. This type of problem is common in the literature but the assumptions are usually defined using standard differentiation in Rm+1. In this paper, the assumptions are all defined via the Laplace-Beltrami derivative, a concept first investigated by Rudin in the early fifties and genuinely spherical in nature. The rates we present depend on both, the differentiability order used to define the smoothness conditions and the dimension m. They are shown to be optimal.
Distinct synaptic mechanisms create parallel S-ON and S-OFF color opponent pathways in the primate retina

Abstract Anatomical and physiological approaches are beginning to reveal the synaptic origins of parallel ON- and OFF-pathway retinal circuits for the transmission of short (S-) wavelength sensitive cone signals in the primate retina. Anatomical data suggest that synaptic output from S-cones is largely segregated; central elements of synaptic triads arise almost exclusively from the “blue-cone” bipolar cell, a presumed ON bipolar, whereas triad-associated contacts derive primarily from the “flat” midget bipolar cell, a hyperpolarizing, OFF bipolar. Similarly, horizontal cell connectivity is also segregated, with only the H2 cell-type receiving numerous contacts from S-cones. Negative feedback from long (L-) and middle (M-) wavelength sensitive cones via the H2 horizontal cells elicits an antagonistic surround in S-cones demonstrating that S versus L + M or “blue-yellow” opponency is first established in the S-cone. However, the S-cone output utilizes distinct synaptic mechanisms to create color opponency at the ganglion cell level. The blue-cone bipolar cell is presynaptic to the small bistratified, “blue-ON” ganglion cell. S versus L + M cone opponency arises postsynaptically by converging S-ON and LM-OFF excitatory bipolar inputs to the ganglion cell’s bistratified dendritic tree. The common L + M cone surrounds of the parallel S-ON and LM-OFF cone bipolar inputs appear to cancel resulting in “blue-yellow” antagonism without center-surround spatial opponency. By contrast, in midget ganglion cells, opponency arises by the differential weighting of cone inputs to the receptive field center versus surround. In the macula, the “private-line” connection from a midget ganglion cell to a single cone predicts that S versus L + M opponency is transmitted from the S-cone to the S-OFF midget bipolar and ganglion cell. Beyond the macula, OFF-midget ganglion cell dendritic trees enlarge and collect additional input from multiple L and M cones. Thus S-OFF opponency via the midget pathway would be expected to become more complex in the near retinal periphery as L and/or M and S cone inputs sum to the receptive field center. An important goal for further investigation will be to explore the hypothesis that distinct bistratified S-ON versus midget S-OFF retinal circuits are the substrates for human psychophysical detection mechanisms attributed to S-ON versus S-OFF perceptual channels.
Carers' Perspectives on their Needs and Local Authority Occupational Therapy Practice

Unpaid family carers are the main providers of care for older people in the community. Local authority occupational therapists are required by law to assess the needs of such carers in their work, targeting their interventions to support carers' roles. This small qualitative study identified the perceived needs of nine family carers of adults with physical disabilities in one English county, exploring the extent to which these needs were met by local authority occupational therapists. Data were collected from semi-structured qualitative interviews with nine family carers. These interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using elements of grounded theory methodology. Six varied categories of carers' needs emerged. Occupational therapists met the participants' needs for practical assistance and information, but not for respite or financial assistance. Regarding support network issues, the participants reported poorly integrated community services and little initial awareness of occupational therapy. Once seen by an occupational therapist, however, they wished to remain ‘on file’ to gain instant access to a valued source of support. The recommendations made include the generation of family carer targeted occupational therapy information resources, ongoing therapist liaison to raise general practitioners' familiarity with local service provision and additional research.
Linking sensory neurons to visually guided behavior: Relating MST activity to steering in a virtual environment

Abstract Many complex behaviors rely on guidance from sensations. To perform these behaviors, the motor system must decode information relevant to the task from the sensory system. However, identifying the neurons responsible for encoding the appropriate sensory information remains a difficult problem for neurophysiologists. A key step toward identifying candidate systems is finding neurons or groups of neurons capable of representing the stimuli adequately to support behavior. A traditional approach involves quantitatively measuring the performance of single neurons and comparing this to the performance of the animal. One of the strongest pieces of evidence in support of a neuronal population being involved in a behavioral task comes from the signals being sufficient to support behavior. Numerous experiments using perceptual decision tasks show that visual cortical neurons in many areas have this property. However, most visually guided behaviors are not categorical but continuous and dynamic. In this article, we review the concept of sufficiency and the tools used to measure neural and behavioral performance. We show how concepts from information theory can be used to measure the ongoing performance of both neurons and animal behavior. Finally, we apply these tools to dorsal medial superior temporal (MSTd) neurons and demonstrate that these neurons can represent stimuli important to navigation to a distant goal. We find that MSTd neurons represent ongoing steering error in a virtual-reality steering task. Although most individual neurons were insufficient to support the behavior, some very nearly matched the animal’s estimation performance. These results are consistent with many results from perceptual experiments and in line with the predictions of Mountcastle’s “lower envelope principle. ”