Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
In vitro Melanin Inhibition and/or alb1 Mutations Modify Azole Susceptibility in Aspergillus flavus

Background: Melanin pigmentation is known to contribute to pathogenicity in Aspergillus species. However its role, if any in triazole susceptibility is unknown. Aim: To investigate the in vitro fungicidal activity of the combination of melanin inhibitors (MIs) and voriconazole (VCZ) against voriconazole susceptible (VCZ-S) and resistant (VCZR) A. flavus and (ii) to investigate the association of alb1 gene alterations and/ or conidiation and triazole susceptibility in A. flavus Methods: Fresh conidial suspensions were prepared from A. flavus cultures grown on SD agar and exposed to melanin inhibitors (MIs) namely tricyclazole (TCZ) and tropolone (TRO). MIC, FICI (fractional inhibitory concentration index), viability and time kill assays were performed using MIC and sub-MIC of TCZ, TRO and VCZ in RPMI using CLSI M-38A2 protocol. The fungicidal activities of MIs alone and in combination with VCZ were determined followed by PCR-based amplification of alb1 (gene encoding melanin) and gene transformation/knock-out experiments. Results: Exposure to TCZ or TRO resulted in loss of pigmentation; TCZ (256 mcg/ ml) and TRO (8 mcg/ml) demonstrated intrinsic antifungal activity against both wildtype (WT) and VCZ-R A. flavus. Susceptibility testing, viability and time kill assays using sub-MICs of MIs plus VCZ demonstrated synergism against WT and VCZ-R A. flavus at 24h and 48h with FICI ≤ 0.5. Alterations in alb1 of A. flavus, resulted in loss of pigmentation, normal conidiation and hyper susceptibility to VCZ. Conclusions: Both TCZ and TRO demonstrate synergistic activity with VCZ against VCZ-R A. flavus; melanin inhibition, alterations in alb1 and conidiation modify triazole susceptibility in A. flavus.
Learning from an Apparent Surprise: When Can Stronger Labor Protection Improve Productivity?

The paper aims to provide some novel insight on the effect of stronger regulation on firm profit and aggregate productivity. While a majority of existing empirical studies suggests that stronger labor protection raises labor costs and reduces firm profit, we start with an apparent puzzle: the adoption of the 2007 Chinese Labor Contract Law appears to have raised the stock prices of more labor intensive firms relative to those of less labor intensive firms. We consider four possible explanations: (a) Commitment: stronger enforcement provides firms with a commitment device to treat workers well, which can induce the latter to make more firm-specific investments that are beneficial to firms. (b) Compliance: stronger enforcement corrects previous non-compliance by smaller and less inefficient firms. (c) Connections: The law is not binding for politically connected firms. (d) Competitiveness: the law raises the market power of large firms. Our series of evidence support the second (compliance) story. One larger message of the research is that, conditional on having the legal/regulatory requirement, a strong and more uniform enforcement can raise overall productivity.
Effect of Random Inclusion of Date Palm Leaf (Fibers) on Some Properties of Soil

Construction of buildings and other civil engineering structures on weak or soft soil is highly risky because such soil is susceptible to differential settlements, poor shear strength, and high compressibility. Soil reinforcement technique by fiber material is considered as an effective ground improvement method because of its cost effectiveness, easy adaptability and reproducibility. Hence, in the present investigation, date palm fiber has been chosen as the reinforcement material and it was randomly included in to the soil at four different percentages of fiber content, i.e. 5, 10, 15, 20% by volume of raw soil. The main objective of this research is to focus on the stiffness and strength behavior of the soil reinforced with randomly included date palm fiber. Direct shear, consolidation and displacement tests were performed. The results of these tests have clearly shown a significant improvement in the failure deviator stress, shear strength parameters (C and φ) of the studied soil with the adding percentages to the fiber length with 1 mm (preferable adding length). Moreover, this adding ratio reduced the displacement of the soil under loading. It can be concluded that date palm fiber can be considered as one of the appropriate material for soil reinforcement. KeywordsFibers Reinforcement; Direct Shear; Date Palm; Compression Ratio; Rebound Ratio
Exchange rate pass-through into inflation in Vietnam: evidence from VAR model

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine and analyze the exchange rate pass-through into inflation (ERPT) in Vietnam. Design/methodology/approach The paper examines and analyzes the ERPT in Vietnam by applying vector autoregression model over the period 2008‒2018. Findings The key finding of the research is that from the impulse response results, the transmission of exchange rate shocks to inflation is significant in Vietnam, and this is incomplete exchange rate pass-through. Moreover, the evidence from variance decompositions argues that exchange rate is an important factor to explain the fluctuation of inflation. Originality/value In overall, the depreciation or appreciation of exchange rate in Vietnam will considerably impact inflation.
Prevalence, Risk Factors, and Antimicrobial Resistance Profiles of Thermophilic Campylobacter Species in Humans and Animals in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Systematic Review

Thermophilic Campylobacter species are clinically important aetiologies of gastroenteritis in humans throughout the world. The colonization of different animal reservoirs by Campylobacter poses an important risk for humans through shedding of the pathogen in livestock waste and contamination of water sources, environment, and food. A review of published articles was conducted to obtain information on the prevalence and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) profiles of thermophilic Campylobacter species in humans and animals in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Electronic databases, namely, PubMed, Google Scholar, Research4life-HINARI Health, and Researchgate.net, were searched using the following search terms “thermophilic Campylobacter,” “Campylobacter jejuni,” “Campylobacter coli,” “diarrhea/diarrhoea,” “antimicrobial resistance,” “antibiotic resistance,” “humans,” “animals,” “Sub-Saharan Africa,” and “a specific country name. ” Initially, a total of 614 articles were identified, and the lists of references were screened in which 22 more articles were identified. After screening, 33 articles on humans and 34 on animals and animal products were included in this review. In humans, Nigeria reported the highest prevalence (62.7%), followed by Malawi (21%) and South Africa (20.3%). For Campylobacter infections in under-five children, Kenya reported 16.4%, followed by Rwanda (15.5%) and Ethiopia (14.5%). The country-level mean prevalence in all ages and under-five children was 18.6% and 9.4%, respectively. The prevalence ranged from 1.7%–62.7% in humans and 1.2%–80% in animals. The most reported species were C. jejuni and C. coli. The AMR to commonly used antimicrobials ranged from 0–100% in both humans and animals. Poultry consumption and drinking surface water were the main risk factors for campylobacteriosis. The present review provides evidence of thermophilic Campylobacter occurrence in humans and animals and high levels of AMR in SSA, emphasizing the need for strengthening both national and regional multisectoral antimicrobial resistance standard surveillance protocols to curb both the campylobacteriosis burden and increase of antimicrobial resistance in the region.
ANALOG MODULATION OF DIGITAL COMPUTATION IN NERVE CELLS: SIMULATING THE STOMATOGASTRIC NERVOUS SYSTEM OF THE CRAB.

In modeling studies, the performance of neural networks is often attributed to the complexity of the structure of the network and the number of connections between neurons. In contrast, recent research in neurobiology shows that an analog modulation of the connections between neurons and of the integrative properties of single neurons can strongly enhance the network performance and might even be capable of replacing parts of the network without losing the task-specific output. We modeled the stomatogastric nervous system of the crab, using the biologically oriented network simulator madSim to test the impact of such analog modulations on network function. This network has been studied intensively and provides a solid data base for a simulation. Our model shows that the analog modulation of a single neuronal connection determines the output of the whole network. Also, an analog computation within a single neuron can substitute missing network parts and rescue the desired function.
YABANCI DİL OLARAK İNGİLİZCE KULLANAN YAZARLARIN İNGİLİZCE YAZMAYA DAİR GÖRÜŞLERİNİN BİR METAFORİK ANALİZİ

The concept of writing in English has increasingly been a common area of interest for many, and developing writing skills is among the most complex skills to master in language learning. In this study, we investigated EFL writers’ views about writing in English through metaphors because, as a significant tool of phenomenology research, metaphorical analysis provides valuable data about many social, psychological, linguistic and cognitive variables. This phenomenological descriptive study was conducted at a Turkish university with 57 ELT major students, and ELT majors’ views on EFL writing were obtained through metaphorical conceptions of the participants in the study. The study reveals some significant data on learner views of EFL writing, and the data analysis suggest themes mainly with regard to writing as a process, and writing as a product. Specifically, the results of the study disclosed 19 themes regarding the process, and 6 themes could be identified in connection with viewing writing as a product. Themes that indicate views of writing in English pertaining to being an individual development process, themes about psychological, emotional and motivational dimensions of writing, and writer identity are among the prominent findings discovered in the research.
CIA_A_222490 61..74

Burkhard Moellenbeck Tobias Kalisch Georg Gosheger Frank Horst Leonie Seeber Christoph Theil 1 Tom Schmidt-Braekling Ralf Dieckmann 1 1Department of General Orthopedics and Tumor Orthopedics, Muenster University Hospital, Muenster, Germany; 2Department of Orthopedics and Traumatology, St. Josef-Stift Sendenhorst, Sendenhorst, Germany Purpose: The present study investigates behavioral conformity regarding physical activity (PA) and sedentary behavior (SB) in older couples where one partner suffers from osteoarthritis (OA). Hereby the question is addressed whether and to what extent the typical physical limitations of OA patients have negative effects on their partners. Patients and Methods: The habitual PA and SB of end-stage osteoarthritis patients (n = 32, 52–81 years | n = 14 gonarthrosis, n = 18 coxarthrosis), their spouses (n = 32, 50–83 years) and control couples (n = 26 subjects, 52–78 years) were assessed by accelerometry. Besides individual results of accelerometry hourly couple-specific performance ratios were calculated for four parameters of PA (number of steps, vector magnitude (VM), metabolic rate (MET), and total time in moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA)) and two parameters of SB (number of sedentary bouts and total time of sedentary bouts per hour). Analyses of covariance were used to explore differences in hourly couple-specific performance ratios between couples affected by osteoarthritis and control couples. Results: Significant differences in PA were observed between the three groups, whereby the patients showed the lowest PA and the subjects of the control group the highest PA. In contrast to this, SB did not differ between the three groups. The hourly analyses of couplespecific performance ratios revealed significant differences between the target couples (patients and spouses) and the control couples for all parameters of PA. Thereby, the deviance in PA between the patients and their spouses was always smaller than in control couples and also decreased with age. The investigation of SB, on the other hand, revealed larger deviations between the patients and their spouses as compared to control couples and no changes with age. Conclusion: This study confirmed the known negative impact of osteoarthritis on the PA and SB of elderly patients. More important, however, was the finding that the patients’ spouses adapt to this poor health behavior and show reduced PA as well. Consequentially, spouses of OA patients should be considered as a risk group for inactivity-related diseases in old age. This should be considered in interventions that aim to use the individual support of spouses to increase the PA of OA patients.
Inflation and inflation uncertainty in selected Latin American countries

This paper studies the feedback relation between inflation and inflation uncertainty in six Latin American economies during 1960-2018. Uncertainty was calculated using conditional volatility, estimated using GJR-GARCH-M models. The main conclusions are as follows: the majority of economies conformed to the Friedman-Ball hypothesis; the CukiermanMeltzer hypothesis was corroborated in the cases of Bolivia, Mexico, Paraguay; positive shocks were found to have a significant impact on inflation uncertainty, and, thanks to the adoption of inflation targets (ITs) by governments, there was empirical evidence that volatility decreased in those economies which implemented ITs.
Biomechanical evaluation of tibial muscle tendons and proposal of their use as allografts in anterior cruciate ligament reconstructions

As lesões ligamentares do joelho são um evento freqüente na traumatologia e seu tratamento por meio da reconstrução dos ligamentos com o uso de enxertos tendinosos é um consenso na literatura atual. A utilização de enxertos homólogos como o ligamento da patela (LP), os tendões dos músculos flexores mediais do joelho (semitendíneo e grácil) e o tendão quadricipital são operações consagradas para este fim(2,5).
Clinical and Laboratory Characteristics of an Acute ChikungunyaOutbreak in Bangladesh in 2017

From April to September 2017, Bangladesh experienced a huge outbreak of acute Chikungunya virus infection in Dhaka. This series describes the clinical and laboratory features of a large number of cases (690; 399 confirmed and 291 probable) suffered during that period. This observational study was carried out at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, Bangladesh. The median age of the patients at presentation was 38 years (IQR 30–50) with a male (57.3%) predominance. Hypertension and diabetes were the most common comorbidities. The mean (±SD) duration of fever was 3.7 (±1.4) days. Other common manifestations were arthralgia (99.2%), maculopapular rash (50.2%), morning stiffness (49.7%), joint swelling (48.5%), and headache (37.6%). Cases were confirmed by anti-chikungunya IgG (173; 43.3%), IgM (165; 42.3%), and reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (44; 11.0%). Important laboratory findings include high erythrocyte sedimentation rate (156; 22.6%), raised serum glutamic pyruvic transaminase (73; 10.5%), random blood sugar (54; 7.8%), leukopenia (72; 10.4%), thrombocytopenia (41; 5.9%), and others. The oligo-articular (453; 66.1%) variety of joint involvement was significantly more common compared with the poly-articular (237; 34.5%) variety. Commonly involved joints were the wrist (371; 54.1%), small joints of the hand (321; 46.8%), ankle (251; 36.6%), knee (240; 35.0%), and elbow (228; 33.2%). Eleven cases were found to be complicated with neurological involvement and two of them died. Another patient died due to myocarditis. Public health experts, clinicians, and policymakers could use the results of this study to construct the future strategy tackling chikungunya in Bangladesh and other epidemic countries.
PRBM_A_238581 29..39

Qian Shang Jia Jin 2 Guanxiong Pei Cuicui Wang Xiaoyi Wang Junping Qiu 1School of Management, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China; 2Business School, Ningbo University, Ningbo, People’s Republic of China; 3Zhejiang Lab, Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China; 4School of Management, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, People’s Republic of China; 5School of Management, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China; 6Chinese Academy of Science and Education Evaluation, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China Introduction: In online shopping, the webpage layout plays an important part in the consumer’s experience. The present study aims to investigate whether the webpage order and which order level (high order vs low order) facilitate consumers’ instant purchase decisions for products. Methods: Fourteen right-handed healthy undergraduates and graduate students participated in the experiment as paid participants. In the experiment, participants were presented with daily products in different online shopping webpages (high-order vs low-order) and reported their purchase intentions between purchase and not purchase. Meanwhile, Electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded from the participants throughout the experiment. In the analysis process, two event-related potentials (ERP) components, P2 and late positive potential (LPP) were mainly focused to examine the cognitive mechanism underlying the purchase decisions. Results: The behavioral data found that the low-order shopping webpage facilitated participants’ purchase intentions compared with the high-order one. Neurophysiologically, increased P2 amplitudes and increased LPP amplitudes were revealed for the low-order webpage compared to the high-order webpage. The P2 indicates the early stage of attention engagement and discordant perception, while the LPP can be taken as a reflection of the late stage of the emotional self-control process. Conclusion: These results provided evidence that webpage order influenced people’s purchase decisions. Low-order webpage design invoked more attention engagement and discordant perception and consumed more self-control resources than the high-order webpage design, which contributed to the higher purchase intentions.
An Investigation of Pre-Service English Teachers’ Self-Efficacy in Web Pedagogical Content Knowledge

The aim of this study is to identify pre-service English teachers’ self-efficacy in web pedagogical content knowledge. The Web Pedagogical Content Knowledge (WPCK) is valuable in comparison to other technology-based models (e.g. TPACK) as it offers a holistic approach by integrating content knowledge with web knowledge specifically rather than focusing on technology in general. The sample of this study consists of 110 pre-service English teachers studying at two state universities in Istanbul and Sakarya, Turkey in the academic year of 2018-2019. The data was collected through “The Scale of Web Pedagogical Content Knowledge” developed by Lee, Tsai and Chang (2008) and adapted into Turkish by Horzum (2011). The data was analyzed through SPSS and the variables university, grade, gender, daily amount of time spent on the internet and social media were considered in addition to identifying participants’ competence levels. The findings demonstrate that the participants have a high level (‘I totally agree’) of self-efficacy in the five sub-dimensions of WPCK. Out of the variables, only grade is observed to have a significant effect while university, gender, daily amount of time spent on the internet and daily amount of time spent on social networks are observed to have a no significant effect on self-efficacy levels. The analysis offers insights into pre-service teachers’ competence and self-efficacy in the use of web for pedagogy, content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and the integration of them. The findings of this study are expected to contribute to pre-service teacher training and the successful integration of the web into content knowledge for pedagogic purposes.
The ongoing influence of the Leeuwin Current on economically important fish and invertebrates off temperate Western Australia – has it changed?

Earlier reviews have identified that the strength of the Leeuwin Current is a key factor associated with changing abundance of a number of key invertebrate and scalefish species harvested by on-shelf commercial fisheries off the Western Australian coast. This review of these relationships has revealed that the addition of more recent data has strengthened the relationship for western rock lobster, the only species whose larvae are primarily distributed in the area of the influence of the Leeuwin Current and its offshore eddies. For other species, particularly scallops and whitebait, while the addition of new data has weakened the LC relationships, other as yet unquantifiable factors now appear to be more important determinants of changing abundance. For a number of the scalefish species (e.g., south coast Australian salmon), discontinuation of juvenile monitoring and the lack of ongoing records of comparable abundance data, primarily as a consequence of changes in the distribution of fishing, relative to the distribution of the stocks, has precluded ongoing exploration of earlier relationships. However preliminary data for some hitherto unreported relationships for other coastal scalefish species suggest that some physical and biological variables that are likely to be influenced by both the Leeuwin and Capes Currents may also be important. To help unravel these relationships, the underlying mechanism of the influence of the current, particularly the role of the northward flowing, mid-shelf Capes Current and salinity of shelf waters, and factors controlling the availability of nutrients to on-shelf primary productivity need to be better understood.
CHEMOMETRIC TOOLS USED IN THE PROCESS OF FIRE INVESTIGATION

Fire debris analysis is one of the most challenging steps in fire investigation. Data analysis is subjected to human interpretation by comparing with a reference database. In recent years, chemometric tools have been successfully applied to data in order to avoid misunderstandings and make data interpretation less subjective. In the present study, two ignitable liquids (ILs) (diesel and ethanol) as well as two substrates (cork from Quercus suber bark and cotton sheet) were used. Fire debris samples were prepared following the modified procedure of Destructive Distillation Method for Burning. Sampling was performed in delayed times. In accordance with a progressive approach to data, multivariate statistical analyses, such as unsupervised hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and principal component analysis (PCA) as well as supervised linear discriminant analysis (LDA) were applied. The aim of the current research is to investigate whether HS-MS eNose is able to detect different ILs among fire debris samples containing different substrates after delayed times of sampling.
Noise-Resilient and Interpretable Epileptic Seizure Detection

Deep convolutional neural networks have recently emerged as a state-of-the art tool in detection of seizures. Such models offer the ability to extract complex nonlinear representations of an electroencephalogram (EEG) signal which can improve accuracy over methods relying on hand-crafted features. However, neural networks are susceptible to confounding artifacts commonly present in EEG signals and are notoriously difficult to interpret. In this work, we present a neural-network based algorithm for seizure detection which leverages recent advances in information theory to construct a signal representation containing the minimal amount of information necessary to discriminate between seizure and normal brain activity. We show our approach automatically learns representations that ignore common signal artifacts and which encode medically relevant information from the raw signal.