Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Resistance Determinants and Their Association with Different Transposons in the Antibiotic-Resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae

Multiple resistance of Streptococcus pneumoniae is generally associated with their unique recombination-mediated genetic plasticity and possessing the mobile genetic elements. The aim of our study was to detect antibiotic resistance determinants and conjugative transposons in 138 antibiotic-resistant pneumococcal strains isolated from nasopharynx of healthy young children from Lublin, Poland. These strains resistant to tetracycline and/or to chloramphenicol/erythromycin/clindamycin were tested by PCR using the specific genes as markers. The presence of Tn916 family transposons, carrying tet(M) and int/xisTn916, was observed in all of the tested strains. Tn916 was detected in 16 strains resistant only to tetracycline. Tn6002 and Tn3872-related element were found among 99 erm(B)-carrying strains (83.8% and 3.0%, resp.). Eight strains harbouring mef(E) and erm(B) genes were detected, suggesting the presence of Tn2010 and Tn2017 transposons. Among 101 chloramphenicol-resistant strains, two variants of Tn5252-related transposon were distinguished depending on the presence of int/xis5252 genes specific for cat gene-containing Tn5252 (75.2% of strains) or int Sp23FST81 gene, specific for cat-containing ICESp23FST81 element (24.8% of strains). In 6 strains Tn916-like and Tn5252-like elements formed a Tn5253-like structure. Besides clonal dissemination of resistant strains of pneumococci in the population, horizontal transfer of conjugative transposons is an important factor of the high prevalence of antibiotic resistance.
Deploying WLAN service with OpenFlow technology

In this paper, we proposed a feasible software‐defined networking (SDN) wireless local area network (WLAN) solution that leverages OpenFlow technique and provides affordable centralized WLAN service without the proprietary restrictions of centralized thin access point WLAN architecture. On the basis of an SDN‐enabled WLAN architecture with fat access points, we implement and deploy a wireless network test bed, where network administrators can exploit the extensibility and flexibility of OpenFlow‐based SDN switches and controller. Service providers can develop customized application modules and required features. We build our system with open sources and commercial off‐the‐shelf hardware and develop a mechanism to control wireless bandwidth. Field experimental results show that our SDN wireless bandwidth control application can effectively manage bandwidth in a dynamic and flexible way via the SDN WLAN.
The impact of pulmonary rehabilitation on severe physical inactivity in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a pilot study

Introduction In patients with COPD, severe physical inactivity (SPI, which is defined as total daily energy expenditure/resting energy expenditure; physical activity level [PAL] ratio, <1.4) is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) increases physical capacity in COPD, but the impact on SPI is unknown. In this study, we aimed at elucidating the prevalence of SPI in COPD patients attending standard PR, the impact of PR on SPI prevalence, and the relationship between SPI and time spent in moderate physical activity thus whether American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommendations are clinically useful in excluding SPI in COPD. Methods This is a prospective non-interventional pilot study on patients with COPD completing PR, consenting to wear an accelerometer (Sensewear© Armband) for a week before and after completing PR to assess changes in energy expenditure, time spent in physical activity, and number of daily steps. Low level of daily physical activity was not an inclusion criterion. Results In total, 57 patients completed the study and 31 (54%) had SPI at baseline. In patients with SPI, baseline median FEV1 was 48 (range, 28–86) % of predicted and GOLD B, n=11 (35%)/GOLD D, n=20 (65%). Surprisingly, 31 of SPI patients (97%) spent ≥150 minutes/week in moderate physical activity. After rehabilitation, 24 (78%) did not change activity level and were persistently SPI. We observed no differences at baseline between patient responding (n=7) vs not responding (n=24) to PR. Responders increased number of daily steps and time spent in lighter but not moderate physical activity during rehabilitation. Conclusion In this pilot study, SPI was prevalent, and PR had limited impact. Contraintui-tively, most patients with SPI complied with general recommendations of weekly hours spent in moderate physical activity. Our study highlights that increasing time spent in light activity rather than improving time spent in moderate activity is important in COPD patients with chronic dyspnea.
Environmentally Friendly Bio-Based Vinyl Ester Resins for Military Composite Structures

Abstract : Liquid resins used for molding composite structures a significant source of volatile organic compounds (VOC) and hazardous air pollutant (HAP) emissions. One method of reducing styrene emissions from vinyl ester (VE) resins is to replace some or all of the styrene with fatty acid-based monomers. These fatty acid vinyl ester resins allow for the formulation of high performance composite resins with no more than 25 wt% styrene. As a result, these resins are currently being demonstrated/validated for DoD use on Army tactical vehicles, including HMMWV hoods, HMMWV helmet hardtops, T-38 dorsal covers, and composite rudders for the Navy. Composite panel validation studies have been performed, showing that the fatty acid-based resins have sufficient, modulus, strength, glass transition temperature, and resistance to weathering. Demonstration parts have been prepared and are in the process of being validated for military use.
Highly Reliable Key Generation From Electrocardiogram (ECG)

Traditional passwords are inadequate as cryptographic keys, as they are easy to forge and are vulnerable to guessing. Human biometrics have been proposed as a promising alternative due to their intrinsic nature. Electrocardiogram (ECG) is an emerging biometric that is extremely difficult to forge and circumvent, but has not yet been heavily investigated for cryptographic key generation. ECG has challenges with respect to immunity to noise, abnormalities, etc. In this paper, we propose a novel key generation approach that extracts keys from real-valued ECG features with high reliability and entropy in mind. Our technique, called interval optimized mapping bit allocation (IOMBA), is applied to normal and abnormal ECG signals under multiple session conditions. We also investigate IOMBA in the context of different feature extraction methods, such as wavelet, discrete cosine transform, etc., to find the best method for feature extraction. Experiments of IOMBA show that 217-, 38-, and 100-bit keys with 99.9%, 97.4%, and 95% average reliability and high entropy can be extracted from normal, abnormal, and multiple session ECG signals, respectively. By allowing more errors or lowering entropy, key lengths can be further increased by tunable parameters of IOMBA, which can be useful in other applications. While IOMBA is demonstrated on ECG, it should be useful for other biometrics as well.
Synthetic faces as a lipreading support

In the Teleface project the possibility to use a synthetic face as a visual telephone communication aid for hearing impaired persons is evaluated. In an earlier study, NH, a group of normal hearing persons participated. This paper describes the results of two multimodal intelligibility tests with hearing impaired persons, where the additional information provided by a synthetic as well as a natural face is evaluated. In a first round with hearing impaired persons, HI:1, twelve subjects were presented with VCV-syllables and ”everyday sentences” together with a questionnaire. The intelligibility score for the VCV-syllables presented as audio alone, was 30%. When adding a synthetic face the score improved to 55% and when instead adding the natural face it was 58%. In a second round, HI:2, fifteen hearing impaired persons were presented with the sentence material and a questionnaire. The audio track was filtered to simulate telephone bandwidth. The intelligibility score for the audio only condition was 57% correctly identified keywords. Together with a synthetic face it was 66% and with a natural face 83%. Answers in the questionnaires were collected and analysed. The general subjective rating of the synthetic face was positive and the subjects would like to use such a type of aid if available.
Learning multiple visual tasks while discovering their structure

Multi-task learning is a natural approach for computer vision applications that require the simultaneous solution of several distinct but related problems, e.g. object detection, classification, tracking of multiple agents, or denoising, to name a few. The key idea is that exploring task relatedness (structure) can lead to improved performances. In this paper, we propose and study a novel sparse, nonparametric approach exploiting the theory of Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Spaces for vector-valued functions. We develop a suitable regularization framework which can be formulated as a convex optimization problem, and is provably solvable using an alternating minimization approach. Empirical tests show that the proposed method compares favorably to state of the art techniques and further allows to recover interpretable structures, a problem of interest in its own right.
Oxyresveratrol Supplementation to C57bl/6 Mice Fed with a High-Fat Diet Ameliorates Obesity-Associated Symptoms

Oxyresveratrol has been proven effective in inhibiting adipogenesis in a 3T3-L1 cell model. We investigated the preventive effect of oxyresveratrol supplementation on obesity development in high-fat diet-fed mice. Male C57bl/6 mice were randomly subjected to control (5% fat by weight, LF), high-fat (30% fat by weight, HF), and high-fat supplemented with 0.25% and 0.5% oxyresveratrol (OXY1 and OXY2, respectively) diet groups for eight weeks. Oxyresveratrol supplementation effectively alleviated obesity-associated symptoms such as insulin resistance, hyperglycemia, and hepatic steatosis in high-fat diet-fed mice. Compared to the high-fat diet group, oxyresveratrol supplementation suppressed expression of glucose-6-phosphatase, sterol regulatory element-binding proteins 1, fatty acid synthase and CCAAT/Enhancer-binding proteins α, and elevated AMP-activated protein kinase (α2-catalytic subunit) level in liver, upregulated insulin-dependent glucose transporter type 4 level in adipose tissue, and increased expression of insulin receptor substrate 1, insulin-dependent glucose transporter type 4, AMP-activated protein kinase α, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ coactivator-1α, and sirtuin 1 in muscle to regulate lipid and glucose homeostasis in these tissues. This study demonstrated that oxyresveratrol supplementation effectively ameliorated obesity-associated symptoms in high-fat diet-fed mice, presumably attributed to mediating critical regulators involved in lipid and glucose homeostasis in liver, visceral fat, and muscle.
When to Use Your Head and When to Use Your Heart

Four studies explored whether perspective-taking and empathy would be differentially effective in mixed-motive competitions depending on whether the critical skills for success were more cognitively or emotionally based. Study 1 demonstrated that individual differences in perspective-taking, but not empathy, predicted increased distributive and integrative performance in a multiple-round war game that required a clear understanding of an opponent’s strategic intentions. Conversely, both measures and manipulations of empathy proved more advantageous than perspective-taking in a relationship-based coalition game that required identifying the strength of interpersonal connections (Studies 2-3). Study 4 established a key process: perspective-takers were more accurate in cognitive understanding of others, whereas empathy produced stronger accuracy in emotional understanding. Perspective-taking and empathy were each useful but in different types of competitive, mixed-motive situations—their success depended on the task–competency match. These results demonstrate when to use your head versus your heart to achieve the best outcomes for oneself.
A Theoretical Framework of Brand Image and Service Quality on Third-Party Logistics Service

Since its origins in the 1980s, third-party logistics is maturing as an option to help increase supply chain effectiveness. The trend of using third-party logistics services becomes prominent especially in the industrializing countries like China where manufacturing constitutes a major part of the GDP. This development poses a great challenge to channel managers in selecting the third-party logistics service provider (3PL) and evaluating the quality of its services. Unfortunately, the research nowadays does not provide a sufficient insight on these aspects. Many third-party logistics studies are descriptive in nature, which address the issues such as the benefits of using third-party logistics services and the areas to be outsourced. To resolve this challenge in channel management, it needs to go a step forward in examining the causality between satisfaction and loyalty on third-party logistics services. Drawing the concepts from marketing, a research model is proposed to integrate brand image and service quality in predicting satisfaction and loyalty. It also considers the effect of manufacturer-3PL relationship on these causations.
Fast Times at Ridgemont High? The Effect of Compulsory Schooling Laws on Teenage Births

Research suggests that teenage childbearing adversely affects both the outcomes of the mothers as well as those of their children. We know that low-educated women are more likely to have a teenage birth, but does this imply that policies that increase educational attainment reduce early fertility? This paper investigates whether increasing mandatory educational attainment through compulsory schooling legislation encourages women to delay childbearing. We use variation induced by changes in compulsory schooling laws in both the United States and Norway to estimate the effect in two very different institutional environments. We find evidence that increased compulsory schooling does in fact reduce the incidence of teenage childbearing in both the United States and Norway, and these results are quite robust to various specification checks. Somewhat surprisingly, we also find that the magnitude of these effects is quite similar in the two countries. These results suggest that legislation aimed at improving educational outcomes may have spillover effects onto the fertility decisions of teenagers.
Psychiatric Comorbidity and Aspects of Cognitive Coping Negatively Predict Outcome in Cognitive Behavioral Treatment of Psychophysiological Insomnia

Cognitive behavioral treatment is the gold standard treatment for insomnia, although a substantial group does not respond. We examined possible predictors for treatment outcome in psychophysiological insomniacs, with a focus on the presence of clearly defined psychiatric comorbidity. This was a longitudinal uncontrolled case series study comprising 60 patients with chronic psychophysiological insomnia consecutively referred to a tertiary sleep medicine center, to receive cognitive behavioral treatment for insomnia (CBT-I). Remission of insomnia was defined as a posttreatment Insomnia Severity Index score below 8. As an alternative outcome, we used a clinically relevant decrease on the Insomnia Severity Index (drop of > 7 points). Personality, coping, and social support questionnaires were assessed before the start of the treatment and were compared between treatment responders and nonresponders. To examine whether these variables were predictive for negative treatment outcome, logistic regression analyses were applied. Treatment nonresponders had a significantly higher prevalence of psychiatric comorbidity. Logistic regression analyses showed that the presence of psychiatric comorbidity was strongly predictive for negative treatment outcome (odds ratios: 20.6 and 10.3 for the 2 outcome definitions). Additionally, higher scores on the cognitive coping strategy called “refocus on planning” were associated with worse CBT-I outcome. Current psychiatric comorbidity is strongly predictive for negative treatment outcome. The presence of a psychiatric disorder must therefore be one of the leading arguments in the choice of treatment modalities that are being proposed to patients with insomnia.
Sclerostin Antibody Treatment Increases Bone Formation, Bone Mass, and Bone Strength in a Rat Model of Postmenopausal Osteoporosis

The development of bone‐rebuilding anabolic agents for potential use in the treatment of bone loss conditions, such as osteoporosis, has been a long‐standing goal. Genetic studies in humans and mice have shown that the secreted protein sclerostin is a key negative regulator of bone formation, although the magnitude and extent of sclerostin's role in the control of bone formation in the aging skeleton is still unclear. To study this unexplored area of sclerostin biology and to assess the pharmacologic effects of sclerostin inhibition, we used a cell culture model of bone formation to identify a sclerostin neutralizing monoclonal antibody (Scl‐AbII) for testing in an aged ovariectomized rat model of postmenopausal osteoporosis. Six‐month‐old female rats were ovariectomized and left untreated for 1 yr to allow for significant estrogen deficiency‐induced bone loss, at which point Scl‐AbII was administered for 5 wk. Scl‐AbII treatment in these animals had robust anabolic effects, with marked increases in bone formation on trabecular, periosteal, endocortical, and intracortical surfaces. This not only resulted in complete reversal, at several skeletal sites, of the 1 yr of estrogen deficiency‐induced bone loss, but also further increased bone mass and bone strength to levels greater than those found in non‐ovariectomized control rats. Taken together, these preclinical results establish sclerostin's role as a pivotal negative regulator of bone formation in the aging skeleton and, furthermore, suggest that antibody‐mediated inhibition of sclerostin represents a promising new therapeutic approach for the anabolic treatment of bone‐related disorders, such as postmenopausal osteoporosis.
Functional Characterization of a Vesicular Glutamate Transporter in an Interneuron That Makes Excitatory and Inhibitory Synaptic Connections in a Molluscan Neural Circuit

Understanding circuit function requires the characterization of component neurons and their neurotransmitters. Previous work on radula protraction in the Aplysia feeding circuit demonstrated that critical neurons initiate feeding via cholinergic excitation. In contrast, it is less clear how retraction is mediated at the interneuronal level. In particular, glutamate involvement was suggested, but was not directly confirmed. Here we study a suspected glutamatergic retraction interneuron, B64. We used the representational difference analysis (RDA) method to successfully clone an Aplysia vesicular glutamate transporter (ApVGLUT) from B64 and from a glutamatergic motor neuron B38. Previously, RDA was used to characterize novel neuropeptides. Here we demonstrate its utility for characterizing other types of molecules. Bioinformatics suggests that ApVGLUT is more closely related to mammalian VGLUTs than to Drosophila and Caenorhabditis elegans VGLUTs. We expressed ApVGLUT in a cell line, and demonstrated that it indeed transports glutamate in an ATP and proton gradient-dependent manner. We mapped the ApVGLUT distribution in the CNS using in situ hybridization and immunocytochemistry. Further, we demonstrated that B64 is ApVGLUT positive, supporting the idea that it is glutamatergic. Although glutamate is primarily an excitatory transmitter in the mammalian CNS, B64 elicits inhibitory PSPs in protraction neurons to terminate protraction and excitatory PSPs in retraction neurons to maintain retraction. Pharmacological data indicated that both types of PSPs are mediated by glutamate. Thus, glutamate mediates the dual function of B64 in Aplysia. More generally, our systematic approaches based on RDA may facilitate analyses of transmitter actions in small circuits with identifiable neurons.
Convergent Inputs from Thalamic Motor Nuclei and Frontal Cortical Areas to the Dorsal Striatum in the Primate

Current models of basal ganglia circuitry primarily associate the ventral thalamic nuclei with relaying basal ganglia output to the frontal cortex. However, some studies have demonstrated projections from the ventral anterior (VA) and ventral lateral (VL) thalamic nuclei to the striatum, suggesting that these nuclei directly modulate the striatum. VA/VL nuclei have specific connections with primary, supplementary, premotor, and cingulate motor cortices indicating their involvement in motor function. These areas mediate different aspects of motor control such as movement execution, motor learning, and sensorimotor integration. Increasing evidence indicates that functionally related motor areas have convergent projections to the dorsal striatum, suggesting that integration of different aspects of motor control occur at the level of the striatum. This study examines the organization of VA/VL thalamic inputs to the dorsal “motor” striatum to determine how this afferent projection is organized with respect to corticostriatal afferents from motor, premotor, and cingulate motor areas. Motor cortical projections to specific dorsal striatal regions arose from multiple areas, including components from primary motor, premotor, supplementary, and cingulate motor areas. Diverse motor cortical projections to a given dorsal striatal region indicated convergence of functionally related corticostriatal motor pathways. Most dorsal striatal sites received dense thalamic inputs from the VL pars oralis nucleus. Additional thalamostriatal projections arose from VA, VL pars caudalis, and ventral posterior lateral pars oralis nuclei and Olszewski's Area X. Our results provide evidence for convergent striatal projections from interconnected ventral thalamic and cortical motor areas, suggesting that these afferents modulate the same striatal output circuits.
Security control brought back to the user

The activity of the Ph.D. student Juri Luca De Coi involved the research field of policy languages and can be divided in three parts. The first part of the Ph.D. work investigated the state of the art in policy languages, ending up with: (i) identifying the requirements up-to-date policy languages have to fulfill; (ii) defining a policy language able to fulfill such requirements (namely, the Protune policy language); and (iii) implementing an infrastructure able to enforce policies expressed in the Protune policy language. The second part of the Ph.D. work focused on simplifying the activity of defining policies and ended up with: (i) identifying a subset of the controlled natural language ACE to express Protune policies; (ii) implementing a mapping between ACE policies and Protune policies; and (iii) adapting the ACE Editor to guide users step by step when defining ACE policies. The third part of the Ph.D. work tested the feasibility of the chosen approach by applying it to meaningful real-world problems, among which: (i) development of a security layer on top of RDF stores; and (ii) efficient policy-aware access to metadata stores. The research activity has been performed in tight collaboration with the Leibniz Universitat Hannover and further European partners within the projects REWERSE, TENCompetence and OKKAM.