Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Heterogeneity of Sheep Small Lymphocyte Populations in RNA Labelling

The labelling pattern of 3H-labelled uridine incorporation into RNA was studied by autoradiography in small lymphocytes obtained from the efferent lymph of normal sheep lymph nodes. Heavily labelled small lym-phocytes were always observed in the sheep lymphocyte population. They constituted 3.6 % of the total population. Antigen-stimulation did not alter the number of heavily labelled small lymphocytes. The majority of small lympho-cytes contained only one or two nucleoli, but 5 to 8 percent of the population possessed more than five nucleoli. The possibility was considered that the heterogeneity of small lymphocytes in RNA labelling may be associated with the development of nucleoli and that the heavily labelled small lymphocytes were engaged in particular functions being actively pursued in the efferent lymph.
Fate of a metal‐resistant inoculum in contaminated and pristine soils assessed by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis

Cesium, cadmium, cobalt, and strontium are four contaminants frequently found in soils at biotoxic levels. Introduction of certain nongenetically modified bacteria has been frequently suggested as a method for the immobilization of heavy metal contaminants in soil, thereby reducing runoff and bioavailability. In this study, we have used the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) to track the survival of five bacterial species added to soil microcosms with and without the addition of a mixture of these metals. The PCR primers targeted conserved regions of the 16S rDNA molecule present in all bacteria. The reaction products were shown to reflect the relative abundance of the bacteria both in mixtures of pure cultures and against a background of all the eubacterial species present in the soil following inoculation. Three of the species (Pseudomonas aeruginosa FRD‐1, Shewanella putrifaciens 200, and Desulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough) decreased rapidly following inoculation into both soils. The proportion of Alcaligenes eutrophus CH34 remained at a constant level throughout the 8‐week experiment in both soil treatments. Sphingomonas aromaticivorans B0695 showed toxic metal‐dependent survival in that its relative abundance dropped rapidly in pristine soil but remained at approximately inoculation levels throughout the experiment in contaminated microcosms.
Role of serotonin2A receptors in the d‐amphetamine‐induced release of dopamine: comparison with previous data on α1b‐adrenergic receptors

d‐Amphetamine is known to induce an increase in dopamine release in subcortical structures, thus inducing locomotor hyperactivity in rodents. Previous data have indicated that only 15% of the d‐amphetamine‐induced release of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens is related to locomotor activity and that this ‘functional’ dopamine release is controlled by α1b‐adrenergic receptors located in the prefrontal cortex. We show here that SR46349B (0.5 mg/kg, 30 min before d‐amphetamine), a specific serotonin2A (5‐HT2A) antagonist, can completely block 0.75 mg/kg d‐amphetamine‐induced locomotor activity without decreasing d‐amphetamine‐induced extracellular dopamine levels in the nucleus accumbens. Using the same experimental paradigm as before, i.e. a systemic injection of d‐amphetamine accompanied by a continuous local perfusion of 3 µm d‐amphetamine, we find that SR46349B (0.5 mg/kg) blocks completely the systemic (0.75 mg/kg) d‐amphetamine‐induced functional dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens. Finally, the bilateral injection of SR46349B (500 pmol/side) into the ventral tegmental area blocked both the d‐amphetamine‐induced locomotor activity and functional dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens, whereas bilateral injection of SR46349B into the medial prefrontal cortex was ineffective. We propose that 5‐HT2A and α1b‐adrenergic receptors control a common neural pathway responsible for the release of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens by psychostimulants.
Litter Decomposition Rates in the Seasonally Flooded Great Dismal Swamp

Litter decomposition rates, measured by the litter bag technique, and nutrient dynamics were monitored for 2 yr in four plant communities in the seasonally flooded nonriverine Great Dismal Swamp. The cypress and maple—gum communities were more extensively flooded and had less acid soils than the cedar and mixed—hardwood communities. The highest decay rates for mixed litter, representing an average species composition on each site, were recorded on the cypress and maple—gum sites. Site controls indicated that litter quality, as affected by species importance, was primarily responsible for site variation in total litter decomposition rates. The flooded sites had a predominance of species that were more subject to rapid decay (higher P concentrations, low C:N ratios, and low lignin and tannic acid content). Nitrogen and phosphorous were accumulated, with a few exceptions, in the decomposing litter; calcium and magnesium were released; and potassium was accumulated following initial losses. Accumulations were.
The anionic protease inhibitor BWI-1 from buckwheat seeds. Kinetic properties and possible biological role.

Kinetic characteristics and effects on the growth of filamentous fungi of one of the main anionic protease inhibitors, BWI-1, isolated from buckwheat seeds, have been studied. The inhibition constants of bovine trypsin, chymotrypsin and cathepsin G from human granulocytes with BWI-1 were found to be 1.1, 67 and 200 nM, respectively. Analysis of the amino acid sequence of BWI-1 in the vicinity of the reactive site revealed its homology to the potato proteinase inhibitor I family. It is suggested that the inability of BWI-1 to bind elastase of human granulocytes is due to the basic nature of the amino acid residue (Arg) at the Pj position in its reactive site. It was demonstrated that BWI-1 was able to suppress the germination of the spores and the growth of the mycelium of two filamentous fungi.
Robustness of asymptotic and bootstrap tests for multivariate homogeneity of covariance matrices

O presente trabalho ressalta a importância da aplicacao de testes sobre a hipotese de igualdade de matrizes de covariâncias de k populacoes. A violacao da pressuposicao da homogeneidade das covariâncias afeta diretamente a qualidade dos testes e a probabilidade de cobertura das regioes de confianca. Por essa razao, neste trabalho propoe-se aplicar dois testes de homogeneidade de covariâncias e avaliar as suas performances mediante uso de simulacao Monte Carlo em populacoes normais e a robustez em situacoes nao-normais avaliando-se o erro tipo I e o poder. Os testes utilizados foram: teste de Bartlett multivariado e a sua versao bootstrap. Foram feitas combinacoes entre os tamanhos amostrais, numero de variaveis, correlacao e numero de populacoes. Os resultados obtidos permitiram concluir que o teste de bootstrap foi considerado superior aos assintotico e robusto, controlando o erro tipo I.
Rapid implementation of virtual clinics due to COVID-19: report and early evaluation of a quality improvement initiative

Background The COVID-19 outbreak has placed the National Health Service under significant strain. Social distancing measures were introduced in the UK in March 2020 and virtual consultations (via telephone or video call) were identified as a potential alternative to face-to-face consultations at this time. Local problem The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital (RNOH) sees on average 11 200 face-to-face consultations a month. On average 7% of these are delivered virtually via telephone. In response to the COVID-19 crisis, the RNOH set a target of reducing face-to-face consultations to 20% of all outpatient attendances. This report outlines a quality improvement initiative to rapidly implement virtual consultations at the RNOH. Methods The COVID-19 Action Team, a multidisciplinary group of healthcare professionals, was assembled to support the implementation of virtual clinics. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement approach to quality improvement was followed using the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle. A process of enablement, process redesign, delivery support and evaluation were carried out, underpinned by Improvement principles. Results Following the target of 80% virtual consultations being set, 87% of consultations were delivered virtually during the first 6 weeks. Satisfaction scores were high for virtual consultations (90/100 for patients and 78/100 for clinicians); however, outside of the COVID-19 pandemic, video consultations would be preferred less than 50% of the time. Information to support the future redesign of outpatient services was collected. Conclusions This report demonstrates that virtual consultations can be rapidly implemented in response to COVID-19 and that they are largely acceptable. Further initiatives are required to support clinically appropriate and acceptable virtual consultations beyond COVID-19. Registration This project was submitted to the RNOH’s Project Evaluation Panel and was classified as a service evaluation on 12 March 2020 (ref: SE20.09).
Landscape position and habitat polygons in a dynamic coastal environment

In contrast to stable inland systems, coastal landscape positions are dynamic, changing as shorelines migrate and storms alter topography. We define landscape position by distance to ocean shoreline and elevation above sea level, two metrics that integrate a suite of environmental and biotic factors. As shoreline and elevation change, suitability of a geo-referenced position for a given plant species may also change. The objectives of our study were to use two methods for measuring landscape position (GPS and hyperspectral/light detection and ranging or LIDAR) to develop habitat polygons, compare habitat polygons for five species representing several adaptive strategies, and illustrate change in landscape position due to migrating shoreline for a Virginia, USA barrier island. Habitat polygons for each species were distinct, represented several growth forms or functional groups, and were indicative of tolerances to biotic and abiotic stresses. The habitat polygon for Cakile edentula (annual forb) was relat.
MAOD: An Efficient Anchor-Free Object Detector Based on MobileDet

For real-time object detectors, accuracy and efficiency are two important considerations. In this paper, we propose a lightweight anchor-free detector, MAOD, to better balance efficiency and accuracy. Our object detector contains three components: an efficient backbone network (MobileDet), a lightweight feature pyramid structure (L-FPN) and an anchor-free per-pixel prediction method. MobileDet and L-FPN provide more accurate and faster multi-scale feature extraction. Our anchor-free per-pixel prediction method achieves efficient classification and location regression tasks. On the benchmark MS-COCO dataset, MAOD achieves 46.1% AP at the speed of 68 FPS with the input size <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$512\times512$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. When the input size is <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$800\times800$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, MAOD achieves 47.1% AP at the speed of 43 FPS. The fast version of MAOD (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$320\times320$ </tex-math></inline-formula> input size) can run at 91 FPS with 43.3% AP. Compared with other state-of-the-art object detectors, our detector has similar accuracy while maintaining extremely fast inference speed. MAOD achieves an optimal efficiency-accuracy tradeoff.
SPWalk: Similar Property Oriented Feature Learning for Phishing Detection

Detecting phishing webpages is an essential task that protects legitimate websites and their users from various malicious activities. To classify the suspect webpage as phishing or legitimate, robust and effective features used for classification are in demand. However, recent phishing attacks usually make phishing webpages resemble the legitimate webpages in visual and functional aspects. This poses a greater difficulty for feature extraction. We herein propose <monospace>SPWalk</monospace>, an unsupervised feature learning algorithm for phishing detection. In <monospace>SPWalk</monospace>, <italic>similar property nodes</italic> refer to a collection of phishing webpages or legitimate webpages. We first construct a <italic>weblink network</italic> with nodes representing webpages. The edges between nodes represent the <italic>reference relationships</italic> that connect webpages through hyperlinks or similar textual content. Then, <monospace>SPWalk</monospace> applies the <italic>network embedding</italic> technique to mapping nodes into a low-dimensional vector space. A biased random walk procedure efficiently integrates both structural information between nodes and URL information of each node. The effectiveness and robustness of <monospace>SPWalk</monospace> come from three points. (1). Phishing attackers do not have full control over <italic>reference relationships</italic>. (2). The structural regularities generated by diverse <italic>reference relationships</italic> can be exploited to discriminate between phishing and legitimate webpages. (3). Node URL information makes the learned node representations more suited for phishing detection. Using node as numeric features, we conduct experiments to classify webpages as legitimate or phishing. We demonstrate the superiority of <monospace>SPWalk</monospace> over state-of-the-art techniques on phishing detection, especially in terms of precision (over 95%). Even in the case that phishing webpages are well camouflaged by attackers for evading detection, <monospace>SPwalk</monospace> exhibits better classification efficacy consistently.
Methamphetamine Use and Its Correlates among Individuals with Opioid Use Disorder in a Midwestern U.S. City

Abstract Background: U.S. is experiencing a surging trend of methamphetamine use among individuals who use opioids. More research is needed to characterize this emerging “twin epidemic. ” Objectives: The study aims to identify social and behavioral characteristics associated with methamphetamine use among individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD) in the Dayton, Ohio, area, an epicenter of the opioid crisis and an emerging frontier of methamphetamine epidemic. Methods: 357 adult individuals with current OUD were recruited using targeted and respondent-driven sampling. Structured interviews collected information on social and drug use characteristics. Multivariable Logistic Regression was used to identify characteristics associated with the past 6-month use of methamphetamine. Results: 49.7% were female, and 88.8% were non-Hispanic whites. 55.6% used methamphetamine in the past 6-months, and 84.9% reported first use of methamphetamine after initiation of illicit opioids. Methamphetamine use was associated with homelessness (aOR = 2.46, p = .0001), lifetime history of diverted pharmaceutical stimulant use (aOR = 2.97, p < .001), injection route of heroin/fentanyl use (aOR = 1.89, p = .03), preference for fentanyl over heroin (aOR = 1.82, p = .048), lifetime history of extended-release injectable naltrexone (Vivitrol)-based treatment (aOR = 2.89, p = .003), and more frequent marijuana use (aOR = 1.26, p = .04). Discussion: The findings point to the complexity of motivational and behavioral pathways associated with methamphetamine and opioid co-use, ranging from self-treatment and substitution behaviors, attempts to endure homelessness, and greater risk taking to experience euphoria. More research is needed to understand the causal relationships and the association between methamphetamine and Vivitrol use. Public health responses to the opioid crisis need to be urgently expanded to address the growing epidemic of methamphetamine use.
Die Pharaoameise, Monomorium pharaonis (L.) (Hym., Myrmicidae)

All what is known about pharaoh's ant is compiled and supplemented by personal investigations of the authors and their co-workers. This complex especially concerns laboratory experiences with artificial breeding and the effect of insecticides and pheromones as well as the strategy of control with sodium arsenate baits (as a model of control strategy based on the bait principle). Data on other problems are discussed also, f.i. , ecology, ethology, physiology, aberrant morphology, public health significance, and vector role.
Real‐world assessment of the clinical impact of symptomatic infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (COVID‐19 disease) in patients with multiple myeloma receiving systemic anti‐cancer therapy

Infection with the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 virus resulting in an acute respiratory disease (COVID-19 disease) is the cause of the current pneumonia pandemic, with a rapid rise in cases being reported in the European Union and UK (1, 2). The UK index case was identified on the 31st of January, 2020 and given the rapid spread and high mortality rate of COVID-19, it is imperative to define the impact on patients with co-existing medical conditions(3).
Molecular and serological assays for SARS-CoV-2: insights from genome and clinical characteristics

Abstract Background The ongoing outbreak of the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has posed a challenge for worldwide public health. A reliable laboratory assay is essential both to confirm suspected patients and to exclude patients infected with other respiratory viruses, thereby facilitating the control of global outbreak scenarios. Content In this review, we focus on the genomic, transmission and clinical characteristics of SARS-CoV-2, and comprehensively summarize the principles and related details of assays for SARS-CoV-2. We also explore the quality assurance measures for these assays. Summary SARS-CoV-2 has some unique gene sequences and specific transmission and clinical features that can inform the conduct of molecular and serological assays in many aspects, including the design of primers, the selection of specimens and testing strategies at different disease stages. Appropriate quality assurance measures for molecular and serological assays are needed to maintain testing proficiency. Because serological assays have the potential to identify later stages of the infection and to confirm highly suspected cases with negative molecular assay results, a combination of these two assays is needed to achieve a reliable capacity to detect SARS-CoV-2.
Aspartate 698 within a Novel Cation Binding Motif in α4 Integrin Is Required for Cell Adhesion (*)

The interactions of α4β1 integrin with vascular cell adhesion molecule (VCAM) and fibronectin play important roles in many physiological and pathological processes. To understand the mechanism of α4β1 integrin-mediated cell adhesion, we made mutant α4 constructs. Three aspartic acid (Asp) residues in α4, Asp-489, Asp-698, and Asp-811, were replaced with glutamic acids (Glu). The wild-type and mutant α4 constructs were transfected into K562 cells, and stable transfectants with similar levels of α4 surface expression were established. The Asp → Glu substitutions did not affect α4β1 association or heterodimer formation as demonstrated by immunoprecipitation analysis. However, the glutamate substitutions at Asp-489 and Asp-698 severely impaired cell adhesion to VCAM and fibronectin, whereas the substitution at Asp-811 had no detectable effect on cell adhesion. In contrast to these results, isolated α4β1, containing the D489E or D698E substitution, was able to bind to VCAM, suggesting that these two residues are not critical for ligand recognition. In searching for a mechanism to explain inhibition of adhesion by Asp-489 and Asp-698 mutations, we found that the sequences flanking Asp-698 resemble the DxxxxxD-S-Sx divalent cation/ligand binding motif in β integrins and the I-domains of α integrins. This suggests that Asp-698 in the α4 integrin, which does not possess an I-domain, may also be involved in cation binding and may be part of a sequence functionally similar to that found in the I-domains of other α integrins.
The effect of fetal weight on the accuracy of sonographic weight estimation among women with diabetes

Abstract Objective The assessment of sonographic estimated fetal weight (EFW) enables identification of fetuses in the extremes of weight, thus aiding in the planning and management of peripartum care. There are conflicting reports regarding the accuracy of EFW in diabetic mothers. We aimed to study the factors associated with the accuracy of EFW at term, specifically the role of gestational and pre-gestational diabetes in this setting. Methods A retrospective study including all women carrying singleton term gestations who delivered within a week following a sonographic fetal weight estimation between 2011 and 2019. Accurate EFW was defined as within 10% of the actual birthweight. We allocated the study cohort into two groups: (1) Accurate EFW (2) inaccurate EFW. Both groups were compared in order to identify factors associated with the inaccuracy of EFW. Results Overall, 41,263 deliveries were available for evaluation, including 412 (1.0%) deliveries among women with pre-gestational diabetes and 4,735 (11.5%) among women with gestational diabetes. Of them, 7,280 (17.6%) had inaccurate EFW. Inaccurate EFW was associated with nulliparity, OR 0.82 [95% CI] (0.78–0.87), oligohydramnios, OR 0.81 [95% CI] (0.71–0.93), pregestational diabetes, OR [95% CI] 0.61 (0.50–0.79), and extremity of fetal weight; <2,500 grams–OR [95% CI] 0.37 (0.33–0.41) and >4,000 grams OR [95% CI] 0.52 (0.48–0.57). On multiple regression analysis, the following factors were independently associated with inaccurate EFW: pregestational diabetes, OR [95% CI] 0.58 (0.46–0.73), p < . 001, nulliparity, OR [95% CI] 0.86 (0.82–0.91), p < . 001 and higher fetal weight (for each 500 grams), OR [95% CI [1.25 (1.21–1.30), p < . 001. On analysis of different weight categories, pregestational diabetes was associated with inaccurate EFW only in those with birthweight >3,500 grams, OR [95% CI] 0.37 (0.24–0.56) (p < .001). Conclusion Among pregestational diabetic women, the accuracy of sonographic EFW when assessed to be >3,500 grams is questionable. This should be taken into consideration when consulting women and planning delivery management. Synopsis Among pregestational diabetic women, the accuracy of estimated sonographic fetal weight higher than 3,500 grams is of limited accuracy.