Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characterization of Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus based on its virulence factors and antimicrobial susceptibility profile

Staphylococcus aureus remains as one of the most potent bacterial human pathogen because of its expression of various virulence factors and also due to its property of multidrug resistance. A total of 468 non-duplicate S.aureus strains obtained from various clinical specimens were included in the study. Methicillin Resistant S.aureus (MRSA) strains were screened for DNase production using DNase agar, hemolytic property of the isolates were detected in 5% sheep blood agar plates, hemagglutination property of the isolates were demonstrated using 1% O group RBC's, slime production was detected using congo red agar medium and biofilm production was quantitatively assayed by microtitre plate method. Antimicrobial susceptibility profile was studied for the MRSA isolates. Out of 468 S.aureus strains, 114(24%) strains were detected as MRSA. Among the MRSA strains 99(86%) were positive for DNase, 77(67%) were showed beta hemolysis, 49 (42%) strains were positive for hemagglutination, 70 (61%) were slime producers, most of the strains were biofilm producers, 4(3.5%) were non-adherent, 85(74%) were weakly adherent, 23(20%) were moderately adherent and 2(1.7%) were strongly adherent. About 56%, 60% and 63% of the isolates were resistant to cotrimoxazole, erythromycin and ciprofloxacin respectively and about 22% and 33% of the isolates showed resistance towards clindamycin and gentamicin respectively. All the isolates were sensitive to vancomycin, teicoplanin and linezolid. About 10(8.7%) strains showed high level mupirocin resistance (HLMR) and 1(0.8%) strain showed low level mupirocin resistance (LLMR). Both HLMR and LLMR (100%) strains showed susceptibility to fusidic acid. MRSA infections remain a major threat in both community and nosocomial settings. Therefore a thorough understanding of its virulence mechanisms and regular surveillance of antimicrobial susceptibility pattern will help the clinician to choose appropriate treatment options and to control the emergence of multidrug resistant strains.
Road cycle TT performance: Relationship to the power-duration model and association with FTP

ABSTRACT Purpose: To determine the accuracy of critical power (CP) and Wʹ (the curvature constant of the power-duration relationship) derived from self-paced time-trial (TT) prediction trials using mobile power meters to predict 16.1-km road cycling TT performance. This study also aimed to assess the agreement between functional threshold power (FTP) and CP. Methods: Twelve competitive male cyclists completed an incremental test to exhaustion, a FTP test and 4–5 self-paced TT bouts on a stationary bike within the lab, and a 16.1 km road TT, using mobile power meters. Results: CP and Wʹ derived from the power-duration relationship closely predicted TT performance. The 16.1-km road TT completion time (26.7 ± 2.2 min) was not significantly different from and was significantly correlated with the predicted time-to-completion (27.5 ± 3.3 min, r = 0.89, P < 0.01). CP and FTP were not significantly different (275 ± 40 W vs. 278 ± 42 W, P > 0.05); however, the limits of agreement between CP and FTP were 30 to -36 W. Discussion: The findings of this study indicate that CP and Wʹ determined using mobile power meters during maximal, self-paced TT prediction trials can be used to accurately predict 16.1-km cycling performance, supporting the application of the CP and Wʹ for performance prediction. However, the limits of agreement were too large to consider FTP and CP interchangeable.
New perspectives on childhood memory: introduction to the special issue

ABSTRACT This special issue brings together the scholarship that contributes diverse new perspectives on childhood amnesia – the scarcity of memories for very early life events. The topics of the studies reported in the special issue range from memories of infants and young children for recent and distant life events, to mother–child conversations about memories for extended lifetime periods, and to retrospective recollections of early childhood in adolescents and adults. The methodological approaches are diverse and theoretical insights rich. The findings together show that childhood amnesia is a complex and malleable phenomenon and that the waning of childhood amnesia and the development of autobiographical memory are shaped by a variety of interactive social and cognitive factors. This collective body of work will facilitate discussion and deepen our understanding of the dynamics that influence the accessibility, content, accuracy, and phenomenological qualities of memories from early childhood.
Attention to Action: Specific Modulation of Corticocortical Interactions in Humans

The prefrontal cortex may exert cognitive control by a general mechanism of attentional selection of neuronal representations. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to test this hypothesis in the motor system. Normal volunteers were scanned during performance of a simple motor task, with their attention either directed towards their actions, or diverted towards a visual search task, or neither. Attention to action increased activity in prefrontal, premotor and parietal cortex, compared with unattended performance of the same movements. Analysis of cortical activity by structural equation modelling of regional fMRI time series was used to measure effective connectivity among prefrontal, premotor and parietal cortices. Attention to action enhanced effective connectivity between dorsal prefrontal cortex and premotor cortex, whereas non-motor attention diminished it. These effects were not attributable to common inputs from parietal cortex to the prefrontal and premotor cortex. The results suggest a supra-modal role for the dorsal prefrontal cortex in attentional selection, operating within the motor system as well as sensory and mnemonic domains.
The processing of spectral cues by the call analysis system of the túngara frog,
 Physalaemus pustulosus
 


Abstract How the Neotropical frogPhysalaemus pustulosususes spectral cues to recognize and assess the relative attractiveness of conspecific calls was examined using 50 different phonotaxis experiments with a total of 1005 individual female-choice tests. The advertisement call is an FM sweep from 900 to 430 Hz, or ‘whine’, which can be followed by a ‘chuck’ (with most energy near 2500 Hz) to enhance the whine's attractiveness. Female-choice tests pairing full whines against modified whines or chucks indicate that stimulation in a high-frequency region of the whine’s fundamental between 900 and 560 Hz, followed by stimulation in a partially overlapping low-frequency region between 640 and 500 Hz is necessary and sufficient to call recognition. No single frequency or frequency band within each region is crucial for recognition, and the recognition system is tolerant of silent gaps and shortening of the signal. Adding energy at any frequency in the normal whine's fundamental or in the chuck enhances the attractiveness of the call. The higher frequencies of the chuck, which contain 90% of its energy, are normally responsible for its enhancement of the call. These results suggest that much of the natural call in this species is unnecessary for call recognition, and that the recognition system is very tolerant of call variation. They also suggest that the system assessing the relative attractiveness of calls is extremely permissive, and that virtually anything that increases the amount of energy in the call at frequencies stimulating any part of the peripheral auditory system may make the call more attractive.
Re-building the first year experience, one block at a time

For many years, universities around the world have been developing and enhancing the First Year Experience (FYE), with a view to improving retention, performance and student satisfaction. This feature practice report outlines a strategic initiative, launched in 2018 at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia that aims to transform the experience of Victoria University’s first-year students on an unprecedented scale. This unique model reconceptualises the design, structure and delivery of first year units of study in order to deliver a program that deliberately focuses on students’ pedagogical, transition and work/life balance needs. This initiative required the disruption and redevelopment of all university systems to ensure students experience a supportive and seamless transition into, and journey through, their first year of study at university.
Feature-Based Induction

A connectionist model of argument strength that applies to categorical arguments involving natural categories and predicates about which subjects have few prior beliefs is proposed. An example is robins have sesamoid bones, therefore falcons have sesamoid bones. The model is based on the hypothesis that argument strength is related to the proportion of the conclusion category′s features that are shared by the premise categories. The model assumes a two-stage process. First, premises are encoded by connecting the features of premise categories to the predicate. Second, conclusions are tested by examining the degree of activation of the predicate upon presentation of the features of the conclusion category. The model accounts for 13 qualitative phenomena and shows close quantitative fits to several sets of argument strength ratings.
Noradrenergic processes in the behavioral actions of psychomotor stimulants

Although psychomotor stimulants such as cocaine and amphetamine are known to release both norepinephrine and dopamine in brain, most evidence indicates that it is the release of central dopamine rather than that of norepinephrine that mediates the reinforcing, discriminative, and eliciting properties of psychomotor stimulants, i.e., that drug‐induced dopamine release is a necessary and sufficient factor to account for these properties, while drug‐induced norepinephrine release is neither necessary nor sufficient. However, this generally accepted conclusion may not be completely accurate. Evidence is available indicating that psychomotor‐stimulant‐induced increases in norepinephrine release, while possibly not necessary, are sufficient to account at least for the eliciting and discriminative‐stimulus properties of amphetamine‐like drugs. The data supporting this contention are reviewed.
Female mate choice under predation risk in the guppy

Abstract Sexual selection, and thus the evolution of both female mating preferences and preferred male traits, may be constrained by costs associated with mate choice. Recent theoretical models predict that female preference should decrease with increasing costs of mate choice such as predation risk. This general hypothesis was tested experimentally by presenting individual female guppies, Poecilia reticulata , originating from two Trinidadian populations with different predation regimes, with a choice of paired males (differing mainly in colour pattern) as potential mates in both the absence and presence of a cichlid fish predator that naturally co-occurs in one of these populations. Moreover, any reduction in female preference under risk was predicted to be positively correlated with the level of predation intensity occurring in their respective populations. In an experiment in which only the female could see the nearby predator, females from the high-predation population (Quare River) significantly reduced both their overall level of sexual activity and their preference for a particular male (most commonly the more colourful male) in the presence of the predator. In contrast, the sexual activity level and mating preference of females from the low-predation population (Paria River) were unaffected by the apparent threat of predation. Observed changes in female sexual activity level and mating preference could not have been mediated by any change in male behaviour when the predator was present, because the males could neither see or smell the predator nearby. In a corollary experiment in which both males and females from the risk-sensitive Quare River population could freely interact with one another and see the predator, females significantly reduced their preference for the more brightly coloured male in the presence of the predator, irrespective of predator-mediated changes in male courtship behaviour. These results are best explained by a reduction in female preference under increased apparent risk of predation, and are consistent with the general hypothesis that female mate choice in the guppy is potentially costly in terms of an increased risk of mortality due to predation and that females from different populations are differentially sensitive to this risk when assessing and choosing potential mates. Therefore, predators may exert direct selection on female mate choice in certain natural populations of the guppy.
DÖRDÜNCÜ VE BEŞİNCİ SINIF ÖĞRENCİLERİNİN SOSYAL BİLGİLER DERSİNE İLİŞKİN GÖRÜŞLERİ

Ilkogretim, cocuklari hayata hazirlamak, bir takim aliskanliklar ve beceriler kazandirmak bakimindan oldukca onemlidir. Ogrenciler ilkogretimde kazandiklari bilgi ve becerileri pekistirerek ve zenginlestirerek hayatlari boyunca kullanacaklardir. Ilkogretim 1. ve 3. siniflar arasinda temel vatandaslik becerisi Hayat Bilgisi dersi ile verilmeye calisilmaktadir. Ogrenci dorduncu sinifa geldiginde genisleyen program cercevesinde, gunluk hayati algilamasini saglayan ve yakin cevresini ogreten, Hayat Bilgisi dersi yerine Sosyal Bilgiler dersi ile karsilasir. Sosyal Bilgiler dersi, Hayat Bilgisi dersi ile kiyaslandiginda, agirlikli olarak tarih, cografya ve temel yurttaslik konularini iceren bir derstir. Bu cercevede icerigi genisleyen, ogrencileri yakin cevresinin disindaki dunya ile tanistiran Sosyal Bilgiler dersini ogrencilerin nasil degerlendirdigi, ders hakkinda ogrencilerin ne dusundugunun onemli oldugu arastirmacilar tarafindan dusunulmustur. Bu arastirmanin amaci, ilkogretim 4. ve 5. siniflarda okuyan ogrencilerin, Sosyal Bilgiler dersine iliskin goruslerini tespit etmek, programin beklentileri ile ogrencilerin ders hakkindaki goruslerini karsilastirmaktir. Bu arastirma tarama modelli ve karsilastirmali bir durum tespiti calismasidir. Arastirmada nicel ve nitel veri toplama teknikleri ile elde edilen sayisal degerler kullanilmistir. Arastirmanin evreni Istanbul’un cesitli semtlerindeki 8 ilkogretim okulunun 4. ve 5. sinif ogrencileridir. Orneklem ise, bu evrenden 2008–2009 egitim-ogretim yilinda tesadufi ornekleme yontemi ile secilen 8’i 4. sinif, 8’i 5. sinif olmak uzere toplam 16 sinifta ogrenim goren, 559 ogrencidir. Arastirmanin nicel verileri anketle toplanmis, nitel veriler ise orneklemden rastgele secilen 40 ogrenciye yoneltilen acik uclu sorulardan elde edilmistir. Acik uclu sorulara yazili ve sozlu cevap alinmistir. Anketlerle toplanan veriler bilgisayar ortaminda degerlendirilmistir. Yapilan istatistiksel analizde anket sorularina verilen cevaplarin % dagilimlari alinmis, acik uclu sorularla toplanan veriler ise icerik analizine tabii tutulmustur. Icerik analizinden elde edilen veriler belli kategoriler cercevesinde kodlanmistir. Daha sonra % dagilimlari alinan nicel veriler ile kategorilendirilen nitel veriler tablo haline getirilip karsilastirilarak yorumlanmistir.
Treatment of Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome: Phenobarbital vs CIWA‐Ar Protocol

Background Benzodiazepine‐based therapy for alcohol withdrawal is associated with agitation and respiratory depression. Treatment can be complicated by a need for adjunctive therapy to control these symptoms and in patients requiring mechanical ventilation. Strong evidence for the effectiveness of alternative treatment modalities is lacking, despite the availability of promising pharmacological agents such as phenobarbital. Objective To compare the standard of care for the treatment of alcohol withdrawal—a symptom‐triggered benzodiazepine protocol used in conjunction with the revised Clinical Institute Withdrawal Assessment of Alcohol (CIWA‐Ar) scale—with a phenobarbital protocol. Methods Retrospective cohort study conducted from January 2016 through June 2017 at a 42‐bed medical intensive care unit in a private teaching hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. The primary outcome was intensive care unit length of stay. Secondary outcomes included hospital length of stay, incidence of invasive mechanical ventilation, and use of adjunctive pharmacotherapy. Results Patients who received phenobarbital had significantly shorter stays in the intensive care unit than did those who received therapy based on the CIWA‐Ar scale (mean [SD], 2.4 [1.5] vs 4.4 [3.9] days; P < .001). Those who received phenobarbital also had significantly shorter hospital stays (4.3 [3.4] vs 6.9 [6.6] days; P = .004). The incidence of invasive mechanical ventilation was lower in the phenobarbital group (1 [2%] vs 14 [23%] patients; P < .001), as was use of adjunctive agents for symptom control, including dexmedetomidine (4 [7%] vs 17 [28%] patients; P = .002). Conclusion A phenobarbital protocol for the treatment of alcohol withdrawal is an effective alternative to the standard‐of‐care protocol of symptom‐triggered benzodiazepine therapy.
Study on Social Psychological Factors of Property and Violent Criminals -- Based on the Investigation and Analysis of Criminals in City A

Objective: to explore the social psychological factors of violent crime and property crime, so as to provide a basis for effective crime prevention. Methods: 51 criminals qualified for violent crimes and 52 criminals qualified for property crimes were selected in the jail of city A. Meanwhile, according to the matching principle of age, gender and violent crime group, 50 cases of non-criminal persons without criminal experience were selected as the control group. Childhood trauma questionnaire (CTQ), social support revalued scale (SSRS), Eysenck personality questionnaire (EPQ) and family assessment device (FAD) were used for the measurement. Results: the scores of emotional abuses, sexual abuse, physical neglect of CTQ, psychoticism and neuroticism of EPQ, FAD communication and the overall function in the violent crime group were all higher than those in the property crime group and the control group [for example, emotional abuse score: (8. 9 ± 0. 4) vs. (6. 7 ± 0. 3), (6. 2 ± 0. 5), all P< 0. 05. The score of objective support of SSRS was lower than that of the property crime group and the control group (P < 0.05). The overall scores of emotional neglect of CTQ, neuroticism, introversion and extroversion of EPQ, FAD problem solving in the property crime group were all higher than those in the control group (all P < 0.05). Logistic regression analysis showed that emotional abuse of CTQ, psychoticism, neuroticism, introversion and extroversion of EPQ, and overall family function of FAD are the risk factors for violent crime (OR = 1.43, 1.06, 1.42, 8.57, 140.60). Emotional neglect of CTQ, neuroticism, introversion and extroversion of EPQ, FAD problem solving function are the risk factors for property crime (OR = 1.48, 1.05, 1.12, 11.16). Conclusion: violent crime and property crime may be related to childhood trauma experience, personality traits and family dysfunction.
Regulation of SLC1A4 and SLC1A5 in Prostate Cancer—Letter

In the May 2017 issue of Molecular Cancer Research , White and colleagues reported that “Glutamine Transporters are Targets of Multiple Oncogenic Signaling Pathways in Prostate Cancer” ([1][1]). In this article they suggested that the amino acid transporters SLC1A4/ASCT1 and SLC1A5/ASCT2 both
The effects of using performance assessment tasks on Singapore students' learning of mathematics

The inadequacies of traditional assessment, which is typically based on paper-and-pencil tests, conducted within classrooms over a limited amount of time (e.g., one or two hours) have been increasingly recognized by educational researchers over the last decades. There is no doubt that because of the dynamic nature of students’ learning, it is basically impossible to use a single assessment mode to assess students for the full range of educational goals and instructional objectives. In particular, while traditional assessment is powerful in assessing students’ factual knowledge, it is relatively weak in connecting knowledge being taught in school with students’ experience in their daily life as well as in engaging students in critical thinking (Brown & Shavelson, 1994). To overcome the limitations of the traditional assessment is one of the important reasons for many researchers to call for the use of alternative assessment (e.g., see Fan, 2006).
Duty cycle control for low-power-listening MAC protocols

Energy efficiency is of the utmost importance in wireless sensor networks. The family of low-power-listening MAC protocols was proposed to reduce one form of energy dissipation-idle listening, a radio state for which the energy consumption cannot be neglected. Low-power-listening (also called channel probing) MAC protocols are characterized by a duty cycle: a node probes the channel every ti s of sleep. A low duty cycle favors receiving nodes because they may sleep for longer periods of time, but at the same time, contention may increase locally, thereby reducing the number of packets that can be sent. We propose a new approach to dynamically control the duty cycle so that the target rate of transmitted packets is reached, while the consumed energy is minimized. Our approach utilizes control theory and adapts it to the control of ti for low-power-listening MAC protocols in wireless sensor networks. Results show that this approach can appropriately adjust ti to the current network conditions.
POA and Issues of Pedagogic Principle

POA is designed to remedy what is seen as a flawed approach to English teaching, described as a top-down approach, whereby the focus is on development of reading without a concomitant concern with what is seen as Chinese students’ predominant need for English, namely the ability to put the language to productive use, particularly in writing. As we learnt at the Vienna conference in October 2017, the approach has been developed over many years and extensive research has provided evidence of its pedagogic effectiveness in the context for which it was designed. It is because the design features of POA take local circumstances into account that it differs from other approaches to English teaching that have been proposed in the past which have tended to take local circumstances as constraints that impede their effective implementation rather than as conditions on the validity of the approach itself. In this respect, POA is an impressive initiative. But apart from its significance as an appropriate practical approach to meeting the English language needs of Chinese students, which as outsiders we are not competent to comment on, POA is of considerable theoretical interest in that it raises issues about the principles of language pedagogy of more general relevance, and it is these that the following remarks are concerned with. A central issue here is the problematic relationship between competence defined as knowledge of the formal properties of English and performance defined as the ability to act upon that knowledge to communicate in pragmatically appropriate ways. The relationship is problematic because although the acquisition of both formal knowledge and communicative ability involve the processing of textual input of one kind or another, the kind of processing is different in each case and the central pedagogic question is how the two can be reconciled. To acquire linguistic knowledge students need to have their attention drawn to the formal grammatical and lexical features that are manifested in a particular text. This can be done by restricting the input by using text in the form of sentences so that it exemplifies particular formal features, so as to ration, so to speak, the student intake. Alternatively students can be exposed to larger stretches of text which