Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A study of the association between virulence factors and antifungal susceptibility profile of Candida species recovered from cases of vulvovaginal candidiasis

Conclusions: High level of antifungal resistance to the three antifungals, especially to voriconazole, is worrisome; however, none of the virulence markers have a significant association with antifungal sensitivity of Candida species. This finding rules out the effect of the virulence of the pathogen on drug response. Background: The incidence of mycotic infections, especially of Candida, has gradually increased over the past few years. In clinical practice, azoles are the most frequently used antifungal agents and the growing incidence of systemic candidiasis and resistance to antifungals have become a matter of concern worldwide. Virulence factors in Candida spp. may be critical for predicting the response of antifungal drugs. Objectives: This study aimed to identify the relationship between virulence factors and the antifungal susceptibility of Candida. Methodology: This cross-sectional study was conducted on a sample of 55 Candida strains isolated from vulvovaginal samples of patients in the reproductive age group, presenting with signs and symptoms of vulvovaginitis in a large tertiary care hospital in central India. Results: A majority of the Candida were sensitive to three tested drugs (89% to amphotericin B, 76.4% to fluconazole, and 89.1% to voriconazole). Resistance to fluconazole was highest at 16.4%. No significant relationships were identified between antifungal sensitivity of the three azoles with biofilm formation, phospholipase, or proteinase synthesis.
Development of RIE-textured silicon solar cells

A maskless plasma texturing technique using reactive ion etching (RIE) for silicon solar cells results in a very low reflectance of 5.4% before, and 3.9% after SiN deposition. A detailed study of surface recombination and emitter properties was made, then solar cells were fabricated using the DOSS solar cell process. Different plasma-damage removal treatments are tested to optimize low lifetime solar cell efficiencies. Highest efficiencies are observed for little or no plasma-damage removal etching on mc-Si. Increased J/sub sc/ due to the RIE texture proved superior to a single layer anti-reflection coating. This indicates that RIE texturing is a promising texturing technique, especially applicable on lower lifetime (multicrystalline) silicon. The use of nontoxic, noncorrosive SF/sub 6/ makes this process attractive for mass production.
Fluid-elastic instabilities of liquid-lined flexible tubes

The dynamics of a thin film of Newtonian fluid coating the inner surface of an elastic circular tube is analysed. This problem is motivated by an interest in the closure of small airways of the lungs either by formation of a liquid bridge, the collapse of the airway wall or a combination of both processes. Liquid bridge formation is due to the destabilization of the liquid film that coats the inner surface of airways, while wall collapse can be due to either the high surface tension of the air–liquid interface or the flexibility of the wall. Nonlinear evolution equations for the film thickness and wall position are derived using lubrication theory, but an accurate representation of the curvatures of both the liquid and wall interfaces is employed which is valid for thick films. These approximations allow closure to be predicted. In addition, these approximations are justified by comparison with rigid-wall results obtained by solving the full Navier–Stokes equations and because fluid inertia only becomes important in the very late stages of closure. The linear stability of these equations is examined using normal-mode analysis for infinitesimal disturbances and the nonlinear stability is investigated by solving the governing equations numerically using the method of lines. Solutions show that there is a critical film thickness, strongly dependent on fluid and wall properties, above which unstable waves grow to form liquid bridges. The critical film thickness decreases with increasing surface tension or wall compliance since waves grow faster. Even for relatively stiff airways, the volume of fluid in the liquid lining required for closure can be approximately 70% of the volume for the rigid-tube case. Wall damping is an important effect only when the airway is sufficiently compliant. Airway closure occurs more rapidly with increasing unperturbed film thickness, surface tension and wall flexibility and decreasing wall damping.
Bayes sequential estimation for a time-transformed exponential model

A problem of Bayesian sequential estimating an unknown parameter of a time-transformed exponential model is considered. It is supposed that the loss associated with the error of estimation is weighted squared or precautionary and the cost of observing the process is a function of time and the number of observations. Bayes sequential procedures for estimating the unknown parameter are presented.
Teleconsultation use and satisfaction among cancerologists during the COVID-19 pandemic in Morocco

Introduction health care benefits have undergone major changes during the COVID-19 pandemic. This has led to an explosive growth in teleconsultation services mainly for cancer patients. The purpose of this study was to assess the perception and experience of Moroccan oncologists with the use of teleconsultation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods a 17-question anonymous cross-sectional survey was conducted on Google forms and emailed to all Moroccan oncologists. Statistical analysis was performed using the statistical software Jamovi (version 2.2). Results out of a total of 500 oncologists who received the questionnaire, 126 responded, with a response rate of 25%. During the pandemic, only 59.5% of oncologists used teleconsultation, with no significant differences among the three groups (radiation oncologists, medical oncologists and cancer surgeons (p=0.294)). Most participants were satisfied with being able to explain medical diagnosis, provide assessment results, and provide treatment recommendations during teleconsultation. Finally, 47.2% of participants were willing to continue conducting teleconsultations after the COVID-19 pandemic, with no significant differences among the three groups. Conclusion oncology physicians were satisfied with their experiences with teleconsultation and agreed that it is likely to be part of their long-term practice. Future studies are needed to assess patient satisfaction with teleconsultation and to improve patient care through this virtual technology.
The discovery of rapidly repetitive X-ray bursts from a new source in Scorpius

Rapidly repetitive X-ray bursts have been observed from a new X-ray source in Scorpius. More than 2000 bursts were observed during the approx.4 day continual SAS-3 observations of this source which we designated MXB 1730--335. The time interval between bursts varied from a minimum of approx. 6 s to a maximum of approx.5 minutes. The energy in a given burst is approximately linearly proportional to the time interval to the next burst. The largest bursts observed last for approx.60 s and represent an energy release of approx.10/sup 40/ ergs for an assumed distance to the source of 10 kpc. The smallest bursts observed last only for a few seconds. We suggest that the bursts are caused by sporadic precipitations of plasma from a reservoir in the magnetosphere of a neutron star. The reservoir is replenished at a nearly constant rate by mass transferred from a binary companion. (AIP)
Relationship and Sexual Quality in the Wake of COVID-19: Effects of Individual Regulatory Focus and Shared Concerns over the Pandemic

Research has shown mixed findings regarding the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on relationship and sexual quality and activity. We argue that some of these findings might be understood considering people’s predisposition to maintain safety (i.e., prevention focus) or take risks (i.e., promotion focus), and sharing concerns with one’s partner about the pandemic. A longitudinal study (N = 153) tested if regulatory focus before the pandemic (November 2019) was associated with relationship quality, sexual quality, and joint sexual activity later on (June 2020) and whether these effects were moderated by shared concerns over the pandemic. Results showed that participants more focused on prevention experienced higher relationship quality later on, but also less sexual quality and less frequent joint sexual activity, when they shared fewer (vs. more) concerns with their partner. In contrast, participants more focused on promotion experienced higher relationship quality later on when they shared more (vs. less) concerns with their partner. These results indicate how individuals’ regulatory focus and shared concerns in times of crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, can have downstream consequences on people’s relational and sexual dynamics. We offer insights for mental health professionals to improve psychosocial health and well-being when people are faced with critical events.
On the energetics of maximum‐entropy temperature profiles

The problem of determining a maximum‐entropy state in an atmospheric column has different solutions depending on the constraints imposed. As was first shown by J. W. Gibbs, maximization of entropy in a thermally‐isolated, i.e. energy‐conserving, atmosphere yields an isothermal temperature distribution. It has since been argued that conservation of the mass‐weighted integral of potential temperature, or of the column potential enthalpy, is more appropriate for certain dynamical processes. The solution of the maximization problem satisfying this second constraint is quite different: an adiabatic temperature profile.
Diagnostic accuracy of anti-DGP (IgG) for celiac disease

Background: Celiac disease (CD) is an autoimmune enteropathy that is caused by the intake of gluten-containing grains in genetically susceptible humans. The gliadin and glutenin parts of wheat gluten are the essential factors that cause intestinal damage. Objectives: We analyzed the performance of a time-resolved immunofluorometric assay (TR-IFMA) in the diagnosis of CD in children. For this purpose, we compared the performance of IgA anti-tissue transglutaminase antibodies (IgA anti-TTG) and IgG antibodies against deamidated gliadin peptides (IgG anti-DGP) for the diagnosis of CD. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study conducted in 2021 for a duration of about 6 months, 200 patients with suspected CD symptoms, children who needed screening due to Down syndrome or Turner syndrome, and the first-degree relatives of CD patients who underwent diagnostic evaluation were enrolled in a census study. Results: This study compares existing point-of-care anti-DGP Ab (IgG) and anti-TTG Ab (IgA) tests against each other using the gold standard of duodenal biopsy and pathology. Serology as a screening test was acceptable (93.6% for anti-DGP vs. 94.2% for anti-TTG) for both of them. This equivalent sensitivity of serum TTG and the DGP tests validates its potential as a basic tool for serological testing. Furthermore, endoscopy is carried out in patients positive for both. Conclusions: Our study showed that for the diagnosis of CD, anti-DGP antibodies had comparable characteristics with anti-TTG (IgA) in terms of diagnostic specificity and sensitivity. Specify of anti-DGP was higher than that of anti-TTG.
Streptococcus pneumoniae carriage studies in adults: Importance, challenges, and key issues to consider when using quantitative PCR-based approaches

Streptococcus pneumoniae causes significant morbidity and mortality among older adults. Detection of pneumococcal carriage is an accepted endpoint in pneumococcal conjugate vaccine studies. However, low sensitivity of culture-based approaches and nasopharyngeal samples have hampered adult S. pneumoniae carriage studies in the past. In contrast, detection of adult S. pneumoniae carriers with qPCR-based approaches can achieve high sensitivity and specificity and qPCR-based testing of oral samples improves accuracy of adult carriage detection. In this Viewpoint we outline a strategy for accurate qPCR-based testing. We recommend a dual-target approach for S. pneumoniae qPCR detection as no genetic target is universally present among or solely unique to it. Furthermore, we advise the evaluation of concordance among quantified qPCR targets to improve the accuracy of S. pneumoniae testing and qPCR-based serotyping. We do not recommend omission of qPCR-based oral sample testing as it will likely result in an underestimation of true adult carrier rates.
OH masers and magnetic fields in the bipolar outflow source W75N

MERLIN polarization measurements of 1665-,1667- and 1720-MHz OH masers in the bipolar outflow source W75N are presented. The OH masers are distributed over a region 5 arcsec across (10 000 au at 2 kpc), which is elongated in a north-west‐ south-east (NW ‐SE) direction. The distribution is interpreted in terms of a rotating disc orthogonal to the bipolar outflow that is seen in CO and H2. A compact cluster of OH masers with a large velocity spread appears to mark the source of the outflow. Most of the OH masers detected have strong circular polarization up to 100 per cent. Seven Zeeman groups are identified, including the first example of a complete Zeeman triplet (two s-components and one p-component). The field strength measured from Zeeman pairs of opposite circular polarization ranges from 2 8 toa 8 mG, with a field reversal on opposite sides of the disc. This is interpreted in terms of a toroidal component of the magnetic field in the disc. Linear polarization is also detected in many of the OH masers with some 1665-MHz masers showing up to 100 per cent linear polarization. The polarization position angles are preferentially along the direction of the bipolar outflow or perpendicular to it. The polarization data lend support to the twisted magnetic field model originally proposed by Uchida & Shibata.
Colliding clouds and star formation in NGC 1333

Ongoing star formation in the NGC 1333 molecular cloud is found to be the result of a cloud-cloud collision. Two velocity components at 6.3 and 8.3 km s/sup -1/ are observable in the CO and /sup 13/ CO spectra, with strong self-abosorption occurring only in the 8.3 km s/sup -1/ component. The cloud-cloud collision provides compression and heating of the back side of the 8.3 km s/sup -1/ cloud, while cool, unshocked gas on the front side of this cloud results in the observed self-absorption. With the 6.3 km s/sup -1/ cloud on the far side of the collision interface, no self-absorption occurs at this velocity. One result of the collision is the coalescence of the two velocity components into a single, intermediate velocity component observed at 7.5 km s/sup -1/. Associated with this postcollision gas is a chain of newly formed stars which illuminates and heats the nebulosity of NGC 1333.At one end of this chain of stars is a region of enhanced CO line broadening, indicating a nonhomologous gravitational collapse of this portion of the cloud. The infrared stars closest to the part of the cloud which is collapsing are completely obscured at visual wavelengths, and several aremore » associated with Herbig-Haro (HH) objects. With increasing displacement from the region of collapse, the stars become more visible, are probably older, and the CO self-absorption decreases at these positions in the cloud.The observed region in which the cloud-cloud collision is occurring is located at the intersection of an expanding neutral hydrogen shell and lower-velocity background H I. (AIP)« less
Construction of Improved Semantic Segmentation Model and Application to Extraction of Anthropogenically Disturbed Parcels With Soil Erosion From Remote Sensing Images

With the rapid socioeconomic development in China, increasing soil erosion caused by anthropogenic production and construction activities is taking place, which is characterized by short duration, high frequency, and great damage to its surrounding environment. Therefore, the regulation and control of soil erosion of anthropogenically disturbed parcels is an urgent task. This study proposes an improved model that combines the boundary constraint and jagged hybrid dilated convolution channel shuffling module (BCJHDC and the polarized self-attention (PSA) module for extracting anthropogenically disturbed parcels with soil erosion from high-resolution remote sensing images in Hubei Province. First, the PSA module is added to the encoder to better extract the feature information of the target object. Second, the BCJHDC module is used to extract multiscale semantic information from images and improve the boundary segmentation quality. Precision, recall, intersection over union (IOU), and F1 score (F1) are calculated to evaluate the model accuracy. The results indicate that our improved model performs well on the human-perturbed parcel extraction task, with an F1 of 87.92% and an IOU of 78.44%. Ablation experiments and application experiments suggest the validity of the applicability and the portability of our proposed improved model, respectively. Compared with the other seven advanced semantic segmentation models, our improved model has significant advantages. Overall, this study provides a valuable reference for policy formulation of water and soil conservation.
Exploring the effectiveness of fashion recommendations made by social media influencers in the centennial generation

Previous literature has highlighted the social media influencer’s (SMI’s) credibility as a crucial factor in explaining the persuasive power of recommendations. To date, however, there have been very few studies that have shed light on the role of the audience’s product involvement in mitigating risk and enhancing the authenticity of SMIs’ messages. The present analysis sought to fill this gap, checking whether the relationship between involvement (fashion consciousness), perceived risk, and perceived message authenticity among SMIs’ had an impact on the audience’s attitude and purchase intention. To do so, we present a new exploratory model using an extension of the theory of planned behavior, and we focus on fashion recommendations aimed at the centennial generation. The empirical analysis was carried out on a sample of 690 SMI followers, using partial least squares–structural equation modeling. The results confirmed that high levels of involvement with fashion products improved the perceived authenticity of the recommendations, increased the influence of the social group of belonging, and intensified the power of the recommendations. This paper contributes to the literature by studying a set of variables that have proved relevant to the analysis of influencer marketing. Moreover, as a novelty, the research provides knowledge on the presence of perceived risk and the influence of product involvement on younger consumers. Our results could help managers, marketers, and influencers in the fashion and textile industry. By identifying product involvement as a key construct, we confirmed that the different operators must work on product promotions that appeal to fashion values.
Factors Associated With Response to Growth Hormone in Pediatric Growth Disorders: Results of a 5-year Registry Analysis

Abstract Context Growth hormone (GH) therapy can increase linear growth in patients with growth hormone deficiency (GHD), Turner syndrome (TS), Noonan syndrome (NS), and Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS), although outcomes vary by disease state. Objective To assess growth and identify factors associated with growth response with long-term GH therapy. Methods Data from pediatric patients with GHD, TS, NS, and PWS obtained at GH treatment initiation (baseline) and annually for 5 years in the ANSWER Program and NordiNet® IOS were analyzed retrospectively. Height standard deviation score (HSDS) was assessed over time, and multivariate analyses determined variables with significant positive effects on growth outcomes in each patient cohort. Results Data from patients with GHD (n = 12 683), TS (n = 1307), NS (n = 203), and PWS (n = 102) were analyzed. HSDS increased over time during GH treatment in all cohorts. Factors with significant positive effects on ΔHSDS were younger age at GH initiation and lower HSDS at baseline (all cohorts) and higher GH dose (GHD and TS only); sex had no effect in any cohort. The modeling analysis showed that ΔHSDS was greatest in year 1 and attenuated over consecutive years through year 5. Estimated least-squares mean ΔHSDS values at year 5 by cohort were 1.702 (females) and 1.586 (males) in GHD, 1.033 in TS, 1.153 in NS, and 1.392 in PWS. Conclusion Long-term GH therapy results in large increases in HSDS in patients with GHD, TS, NS, and PWS. Greater gains in HSDS can be obtained with higher GH doses and earlier initiation of treatment.
Heterogeneous formulations of elastodynamic equations and finite-difference schemes

SUMMARY The heterogeneous formulation of differential equations is justified in this paper. This means that the material discontinuities, properly introduced into the elastodynamic equations of motion, manifest themselves as (delta function) localized body forces, serving for the traction continuity. The traction-continuity conditions, formulated separately from the differential equations of motion, are not needed. This result is independent of the method used to solve the differential equations, and encourages attempts to construct heterogeneous formulations of finite-difference equations. A particular heterogeneous finite-difference scheme can be justified by the Taylor expansion method. In general some of the heterogeneous schemes are justified for a given problem, but not all; some of the heterogeneous schemes even violate the traction-continuity condition. A recent elastic scheme (PS2) has been theoretically justified for the problems characterized by a free surface and/or an interface parallel to grid-line direction, including a discontinuity reaching the surface. Synthetic seismograms computed with the PS2 scheme have been compared with the exact solution and the higher-order spectral-element solution. Attention has been focused on the Rayleigh and interface waves. A good agreement between the compared solutions has been found for all presented test models.
Phytochemicals and Biological Activities of Walnut Septum: A Systematic Review

In the last few decades, scientific evidence has stressed the importance of plants in the prevention and/or supportive treatment of a plethora of diseases, many of them chronic, age-associated disorders. Juglans regia L. is a traditional plant that has been integrated into traditional medicine since ancient times. Due to the presence of biologically active compounds, walnut was used in the treatment of various maladies. Recently, investigations have focused on the walnut by-products and waste products, with research on their valuable constituents and active properties. Among these secondary products, walnut septum was analyzed in several studies, its phytochemical profile described, and some of the biological activities examined. However, compared to other walnut by-products, no comprehensive review to gather all the pertinent scientific knowledge was found in the literature. Therefore, the aim of this study was to critically assess the information furnished by peer-reviewed articles regarding the walnut septum chemical composition and the related biological activities, including antioxidant activities, anti-inflammatory effects, antimicrobial properties, antidiabetic activities, anti-tumor properties, and anti-aging potential. In conclusion, as these preclinical studies showed that walnut septum metabolites were responsible for a wide range of preventive and therapeutic uses, further research should confirm the beneficial outcomes in clinical trials.