Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
PERFORMANCE OF BROILERS FED DIFFERENT DIETARY CHOLINE SOURCES AND LEVELS

Two experiments were carried out to evaluate the bioequivalence of a commercial phosphatidylcholine source (BiocholineTM) as an alternative to choline chloride and the choline requirements of broilers of a fast-growth strain. In Experiment I, 672 broilers were fed four BiocholineTM levels (0, 100, 200, or 300 mg/kg) and three choline levels (200, 400, or 600 mg/kg) supplied as choline chloride between 4 and 28 days (d) of age. In Experiment II, 462 broilers received diets supplemented with 0, 200, 400, 600 or 800 mg/kg choline as choline chloride. In both experiments, diets were based on white rice, soybean meal, and corn gluten. In Experiment I, birds fed choline chloride presented higher feed intake than those fed BiocholineTM. Both choline supplements linearly improved feed conversion ratio (FCR) between 15 and 28 d, but the curves presented different slopes, showing that one unit (U) of BiocholineTM was equivalent to 2.52 U of choline supplied as choline chloride. In Experiment II, the supplementation of choline had a quadratic effect on weight gain (WG) but did not affect FCR. Choline requirements for WG were determined as 778, 632, and 645 mg/kg for 1-7, 1-35, and 1-42 d of age, respectively.
Molecular Mechanism and Genetic Determinants of Buprofezin Degradation

ABSTRACT Buprofezin is a widely used insect growth regulator whose residue has been frequently detected in the environment, posing a threat to aquatic organisms and nontarget insects. Microorganisms play an important role in the degradation of buprofezin in the natural environment. However, the relevant catabolic pathway has not been fully characterized, and the molecular mechanism of catabolism is still completely unknown. Rhodococcus qingshengii YL-1 can utilize buprofezin as a sole source of carbon and energy for growth. In this study, the upstream catabolic pathway in strain YL-1 was identified using tandem mass spectrometry. Buprofezin is composed of a benzene ring and a heterocyclic ring. The degradation is initiated by the dihydroxylation of the benzene ring and continues via dehydrogenation, aromatic ring cleavage, breaking of an amide bond, and the release of the heterocyclic ring 2-tert-butylimino-3-isopropyl-1,3,5-thiadiazinan-4-one (2-BI). A buprofezin degradation-deficient mutant strain YL-0 was isolated. A comparative genomic analysis combined with gene deletion and complementation experiments revealed that the gene cluster bfzBA3A4A1A2C is responsible for the upstream catabolic pathway of buprofezin. The bfzA3A4A1A2 cluster encodes a novel Rieske nonheme iron oxygenase (RHO) system that is responsible for the dihydroxylation of buprofezin at the benzene ring; bfzB is involved in dehydrogenation, and bfzC is in charge of benzene ring cleavage. Furthermore, the products of bfzBA3A4A1A2C can also catalyze dihydroxylation, dehydrogenation, and aromatic ring cleavage of biphenyl, flavanone, flavone, and bifenthrin. In addition, a transcriptional study revealed that bfzBA3A4A1A2C is organized in one transcriptional unit that is constitutively expressed in strain YL-1. IMPORTANCE There is an increasing concern about the residue and environmental fate of buprofezin. Microbial metabolism is an important mechanism responsible for the buprofezin degradation in the natural environment. However, the molecular mechanism and genetic determinants of microbial degradation of buprofezin have not been well identified. This work revealed that gene cluster bfzBA3A4A1A2C is responsible for the upstream catabolic pathway of buprofezin in Rhodococcus qingshengii YL-1. The products of bfzBA3A4A1A2C could also degrade bifenthrin, a widely used pyrethroid insecticide. These findings enhance our understanding of the microbial degradation mechanism of buprofezin and benefit the application of strain YL-1 and bfzBA3A4A1A2C in the bioremediation of buprofezin contamination.
Use of Short Messaging Service for Hypertension Management: A Systematic Review

Background: Mobile phone Short Message Service (SMS) is a tool now used by the health research community, providing the capability for instant communication between patients and health professionals. Greater understanding of how to best use SMS as a means to improve healthcare delivery and outcomes will foster innovation in research and provide an opportunity to progress as a public health community. Purpose: The purposes of this systematic review are 2-fold: (1) to provide insight on the most used mobile phone SMS practices and characteristics in hypertension (HTN) outcome-focused publications and (2) to critically evaluate empirical evidence associated with SMS utilization and BP outcomes. Methods: Two independent systematic literature searches were completed. The final selected studies each then underwent data extraction and quality-rating assessment, followed by an evaluation for a meta-analysis to measure mean difference of the change in BP. Results: A total of 6 studies meeting the inclusion criteria were included in the review. Feasibility assessment for a meta-analysis was found unfavorable because of the variation among studies. Short Message Service interventions focused on BP management were most effective in studies featuring 2-way communication and individual patient-tailored content, and guided by evidence-based HTN management practices. Implications: Short Message Service interventions for HTN management were supported through evidence provided by the studies reviewed. Short Message Service holds strong potential to bring greater innovation to HTN management and care, especially in racial/ethnic minority populations that face psychosocial and structural barriers in healthcare access and utilization.
Coating carbon fibres with hybrid polymers for use at high temperatures

A thermal resistance coating of different high temperature resistance polymers, e.g. polysilazane and polysiloxane was applied to a carbon roving by a continuous dip coating method. Improved mechanical and thermal resistance properties of the coated carbon roving were evaluated by thermogravimetric analysis and tensile property testing under thermal stress. Investigation of the mechanical properties of coated carbon roving revealed a significant increase in their breaking strength, which amounted to more than 50% as compared to uncoated roving. The thermal stability as well as the oxidation protection of the coated sample in ambient air at temperatures up to 800℃ was much higher than that of the control sample. Topographical phenomena occurring due to the coating on the microscale were examined by scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray analysis. The surface energy and the adhesion property of the coated substrate were determined by measuring the contact angle.
NFI-FRITS: A forensic speaker recognition database and some first experiments

In this paper we describe the collection of a speech database with forensically realistic data. It consists of speech material obtained from lawfully intercepted telephone conversations collected during police investigations. The speech material therefore is very similar to the kind we encounter in casework at the Netherlands Forensic Institute. The database is augmented with metadata describing language, accent, speaking style and acoustic conditions. A total of 604 speakers have been identified in 4188 conversation sides. After manual speaker attribution using various forms of available metadata, the speech content has been anonymised by zeroing out fragments that might disclose the real identity of speakers. Additional to the database description, this paper reports on some speaker recognition experiments using a commercially available forensic speaker recognition system. We can observe some effect of spoken language in terms of calibration, but overall the systems appears not too sensitive to accent or language.
AV + EC 2015 – The First Affect Recognition Challenge Bridging Across Audio, Video, and Physiological Data

We present the ﬁrst Audio-Visual + Emotion recognition Challenge and workshop (AV + EC 2015) aimed at comparison of multimedia processing and machine learning methods for automatic audio, visual and physiological emotion analysis. This is the 5th event in the AVEC series, but the very ﬁrst Challenge that bridges across audio, video and physiological data. The goal of the Challenge is to provide a common benchmark test set for multimodal information processing and to bring together the audio, video and physiological emotion recognition communities, to compare the relative merits of the three approaches to emotion recognition under well-deﬁned and strictly comparable conditions and establish to what extent fusion of the approaches is possible and beneﬁcial. This paper presents the challenge, the dataset and the performance of the baseline system.
Green Synthesis of Silver Nanoparticles Using Leaf Extract of Common Arrowhead Houseplant and Its Anticandidal Activity

Background: Silver nanoparticles have excellent medical and nonmedical properties and application compared with other metallic nanoparticles. In the present study, fresh leaves of Syngonium podophyllum have been used for synthesis of silver nanoparticles. Objectives: In this study, we evaluated the anticandidal activity of S. podophyllum and the synthesized nanoparticles. Materials and Methods: In this study, simple and economical procedure was adopted for silver nanoparticles synthesis. S. podophyllum leaf was processed to obtain aqueous extract as a biological material for nanoparticles production. Synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by ultraviolet (UV) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and atomic force microscopy. Results: The progress of silver nanoparticles biosynthesis from leaf extract of S. podophyllum was observed by UV-visible spectroscopy. The peaks maxima were observed at 455 nm for silver nanoparticles synthesized from the leaf extracts of S. podophyllum. XRD diffractogram showing Bragg peaks of face-centered cubic crystalline elemental silver confirming the formation of silver nanoparticles. The minimal inhibitory concentration values of aqueous extracts of S. podophyllum leaf were estimated by broth dilution method and found that the extracts exhibited antifungal activity against Candida albicans. The antifungal activity was also determined using disk diffusion method by measuring the diameter for zone of inhibition. Conclusion: S. podophyllum leaf extract shows strong antifungal activity against C. albicans. S. podophyllum could be applied in the fields of medical and pharmaceuticals for formulation of new drugs. Abbreviation used: AgNO3: Silver nitrate, MIC: Minimum inhibitory concentration, MTCC: Microbial type culture collection, SPR: Surface plasmon resonance, UV: Ultraviolet, XRD: X-ray diffraction
Waving Real Hand Gestures Recorded by Wearable Motion Sensors to a Virtual Car and Driver in a Mixed-Reality Parking Game

We envision to add context awareness and ambient intelligence to edutainment and computer gaming applications in general. This requires mixed-reality setups and ever-higher levels of immersive human-computer interaction. Here, we focus on the automatic recognition of natural human hand gestures recorded by inexpensive, wearable motion sensors. To study the feasibility of our approach, we chose an educational parking game with 3D graphics that employs motion sensors and hand gestures as its sole game controls. Our implementation prototype is based on Java-3D for the graphics display and on our own CRN Toolbox for sensor integration. It shows very promising results in practice regarding game appeal, player satisfaction, extensibility, ease of interfacing to the sensors, and - last but not least - sufficient accuracy of the real-time gesture recognition to allow for smooth game control. An initial quantitative performance evaluation confirms these notions and provides further support for our setup
Landmarking for Meta-Learning using RapidMiner

In machine learning, picking the optimal classifier for a given problem is a challenging task. A recent research field called meta-learning automates this procedure by using a meta-classifier in order to predict the best classifier for a given dataset. Using regression techniques, even a ranking of preferred learning algorithms can be determined. However, all methods are based on a prior extraction of meta-features from datasets. Landmarking is a recent method of computing metafeatures, which uses the accuracies of some simple classifiers as characteristics of a dataset. Considered as the first meta-learning step in RapidMiner, a new operator called landmarking has been developed. Evaluations based on 90 datasets, mainly from the UCI repository, show that the landmarking features from the proposed operator are useful for predicting classifiers’ accuracies based on regression.
Demand management by electronic gatekeeping of test requests does not influence requesting behaviour or save costs dramatically

Background Healthcare budgets face constraints, and laboratories have developed strategies to adapt to the concomitant increase in workload. Some of the tests (7.4%) may be attributed to unnecessary repeat testing. Electronic gatekeeping has been implemented at selected laboratories in South Africa to limit unnecessary repeat testing. We performed a study of chemistry tests subjected to electronic gatekeeping to determine its effectiveness as a sustainable demand management tool. Methods A 22-month retrospective study of chemistry test requests at a Pretoria hospital was performed. Tests violating electronic gatekeeping rules were rejected upon registration before analysis, and cost-savings were estimated from electronic gatekeeping-held tests. The impact of electronic gatekeeping on the test requesting pattern of clinicians was derived from the percentage cost of electronic gatekeeping-held tests. Results The total savings generated from electronic gatekeeping test rejections amounted to $84,380. Greatest savings were generated from high-cost tests: glycated haemoglobin ($14,139), urea ($8661) and thyroid-stimulating hormone ($7514). The average number of electronic gatekeeping-held tests as a percentage of their total requested number over 22 months was 3.18%. Discussion The savings from electronic gatekeeping-held tests were not as dramatic as anticipated, but were modest and may have some impact in a cost-constrained setting. Electronic gatekeeping was concluded not to have a substantial effect on the clinician test requesting pattern, demonstrated by the largely unchanged monthly percentage of electronic gatekeeping-held tests. As a solitary demand management strategy, electronic gatekeeping does not appear to be as effective as anticipated or as demonstrated in other studies.
A Novel Algorithm for Remote Photoplethysmography: Spatial Subspace Rotation

In this paper, we propose a conceptually novel algorithm, namely “Spatial Subspace Rotation” (2SR), that improves the robustness of remote photoplethysmography. Based on the assumption of 1) spatially redundant pixel-sensors of a camera, and 2) a well-defined skin mask, our core idea is to estimate a spatial subspace of skin-pixels and measure its temporal rotation for pulse extraction, which does not require skin-tone or pulse-related priors in contrast to existing algorithms. The proposed algorithm is thoroughly assessed on a benchmark dataset containing 54 videos, which includes challenges of various skin-tones, body-motions in complex illuminance conditions, and pulse-rate recovery after exercise. The experimental results show that given a well-defined skin mask, 2SR outperforms the popular ICA-based approach and two state-of-the-art algorithms (CHROM and PBV). When comparing the pulse frequency spectrum, 2SR improves on average the SNR of ICA by 2.22 dB, CHROM by 1.56 dB, and PBV by 1.95 dB. When comparing the instant pulse-rate, 2SR improves on average the Pearson correlation and precision of ICA by 47% and 65%, CHROM by 22% and 23%, and PBV by 21% and 39%. ANOVA confirms the significant improvement of 2SR in peak-to-peak accuracy. The proposed 2SR algorithm is very simple to use and extend, i.e., the implementation only requires a few lines MATLAB code.
No Adverse Programming by Post‐Weaning Dietary Fructose of Body Weight, Adiposity, Glucose Tolerance, or Metabolic Flexibility

Scope Metabolic programming can occur not only in the perinatal period, but also post‐weaning. This study aims to assess whether fructose, in comparison to glucose, in the post‐weaning diet programs body weight, adiposity, glucose tolerance, metabolic flexibility, and health at adult age. Methods and results Three‐week‐old male and female C57BL6/JRccHsd mice are given an intervention diet with 32 energy percent (en%) glucose or fructose for only 3 weeks. Next, all animals are switched to the same 40 en% high fat diet for 9 weeks. Neither body weight nor adiposity differs significantly between the animals fed with glucose or fructose diets at any point during the study in both sexes. Glucose tolerance in adulthood is not affected by the post‐weaning diet, nor are activity, energy expenditure, and metabolic flexibility, as measured by indirect calorimetry. At the end of the study, only in females fasting serum insulin levels and HOMA‐IR index are lower in post‐weaning fructose versus glucose diet (p = 0.02), without differences in pancreatic β‐cell mass. Conclusions Our present findings indicate no adverse programming of body weight, adiposity, glucose tolerance, and metabolic flexibility by dietary (solid) fructose in comparison to glucose in the post‐weaning diet in mice.
Analysis of ultimate load and mechanisms of failure in large cast steel joints

Based on a project of pipe truss roof framing in Chengdu,the ultimate limit state analysis is performed on cast steel joints by using FEM,in which Linear hardening elastic-plastic constitutive model is considered. The results show that,the joint has a great accumulation of plastic strain in ultimate loads,and the point of maximum stress is different from that in elastic with the development of the yielding zone. The paper propoes to use rate-type tensor for the large strain geometric nonlinear problem,shows the criterion of failure formation,and indicates that its essential to apply limit state analysis to the determination of the weakest location on cast steel joint design,which provides basis for understanding the failure modes and failure mechanism of cast steel joint and the cast steel joint design.
Assessment of Marine Meiobenthic Assemblages in Transplanted Mangrove Forests along the Inner Gulf of Thailand

Two transplanted mangrove forests in the Inner Gulf of Thailand were selected for this study. One was on the mud flat in Samut Songkhram Province and another was on sand flat in Phetchaburi Province. There were differences in species and ages of mangroves transplanted in the study sites. Sediment samples were collected randomly for analyses of meiobenthic communities and granulometric properties. Samples were collected from under 7-year old & 4 year old Avicennia alba and 4 year old Sonneratia caseolaris stands in Samut Songkhram site and from 7 years & 1year old Rhizophora apiculata and 7 year old Avicennia alba stands. Average meiobenthic densities (ind.10 cm) varied, ranging from 452.62± 23.24 654± 59.42 in Samut Songkhram and 382.96 ± 45.38 627.30 ± 56.89 in Phetchaburi sites. There were significant differences in their densities among samples. Higher densities occurred in samples under older transplanted tree stands in both sites. Also, within stands of the same age of transplanted trees, meiofaunal average densities were different between mangrove species. In Samut Songkhram site, average density in Avicennia alba samples (540 ± 42) was higher than that in Sonneratia caseolaris samples (453± 23). Also, this value in Avicennia alba samples (627± 57) was higher than that in Rhizophora apiculata samples (587 ± 44) in Phetchaburi site. For meiobenthic composition, there were a total of eight taxa recorded, namely nematodes, copepods, polychaetes, oligochaetes, halacarids, tardigrads, kinorynchs and tanaids. According to an average percentage of their total abundances in Samut Songkhram and Phetchaburi mangrove forests, nematodes were the most dominant with values of 92.74 ± 1.0 and 93.21 ± 0.76%, while harpacticoid copepods were second with values of 6.51 ± 0.47 and 6.42 ± 0.69 in each sites, respectively. Analysis of meiobenthic assemblages using non-parametric multi dimensional scaling showed differences between sampling sites and transplanted mangrove species. Minor meiobenthic taxa, such as oligochaetes, halacarids, tardigrads, kinorynchs and tanaids, also showed significant differences which could be related to habitats, tree species and age of mangrove stand. Results of the present study reveal that meiobenthic assemblages can be used to detect subtle environmental effects and are, therefore, ideal organisms to use to monitor the mangrove recovery.
Islet Autoantibody Detection by Electrochemiluminescence (ECL) Assay

Islet autoantibodies, used as markers for the autoimmune destruction of insulin producing β cells, plays an essential role in predicting and diagnosing type 1 diabetes (T1D). For decades, mechanistic bioassays of islet autoantibodies (IAbs) have been gradually developed against a current panel of four major islet autoantigens, namely, insulin (IAA), glutamic acid decarboxylase (GADA), islet antigen 2 (IA-2A), and zinc transporter 8 (ZnT8A). In order to improve and standardize measurements of IAbs associated with T1D, the Islet Autoantibody Standardization Program (IASP) and Islet Autoantibody Harmonization Committee were established and put in great efforts since the year of 2000 and 2007, respectively, led by NIH/NIDDK, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Immunology of Diabetes Society (IDS) [1-4]. While many laboratories in IASP workshops had less than acceptable sensitivity or specificity, especially the insulin autoantibody assay. The reason may lie in the limited conformational epitope recognition of antigens by antibodies where antigens are bound to the solid phase in the traditional enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Therefore, the radio-binding assay (RBA), a fluid phase assay using radiolabeled antigens to facilitate identification of immuno-reactive antigen regions, has been established as the current ‘gold’ standard assay for all four major IAbs. However, the works are still in progress, especially for the IAA assay, which is still problematic in most laboratories. Furthermore, the use of radiation limits the application in clinical lab and the single assay capacity limits routine screening in large scale population.