Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
In vitro activity of SCE-2787, a new cephalosporin with potent activity against Pseudomonas aeruginosa and members of the family Enterobacteriaceae

The in vitro activity of SCE-2787, 7-[(Z)-2-(5-amino-1,2,4-thiadiazol-3- yl)-2-methoxyiminoacetamido]-3-(1-imidazo[1,2-b]pyridazinium)methy l-3- cephem-4-carboxylate, was compared with those of ceftazidime, ceftriaxone, and imipenem against recent clinical isolates. SCE-2787 inhibited 50% of tested isolates of the family Enterobacteriaceae at < or = 0.25 micrograms/ml. SCE-2787 was equally active as or more active than ceftazidime and ceftriaxone against members of the Enterobacteriaceae, with the exception of Proteus vulgaris. The MIC of SCE-2787 at which 90% of the isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa were inhibited was 2 micrograms/ml, two- to fourfold lower than those of imipenem and ceftazidime, respectively. SCE-2787, like ceftazidime and imipenem, did not inhibit the majority of strains of Pseudomonas cepacia and Xanthomonas maltophilia. SCE-2787 inhibited beta-hemolytic streptococci at < or = 0.12 micrograms/ml, but it did not inhibit Enterococcus faecalis, Listeria monocytogenes, or the anaerobic species tested. Methicillin-resistant staphylococci required SCE-2787 MICs of > or = 16 micrograms/ml, whereas methicillin-susceptible staphylococci were inhibited by 2 micrograms/ml. No difference between the MICs and MBCs was noted, except for P. aeruginosa, for which there was a fourfold difference. SCE-2787 was active over a pH range of 6 to 8. The inoculum size of 10(5) to 10(7) CFU caused only a twofold change in the MIC for Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus but a 4- to 16-fold change in Enterobacter cloacae and P. aeruginosa. beta-Lactamases from Bush groups 1, 2a, and 2b did not hydrolyze SCE-2787. There was significant hydrolysis of SCE-2787 by the beta-lactamases designated 2b', i.e., TEM-3, TEM-5, TEM-7, and TEM-9, and by the group 2d beta-lactamases. SCE-2787 had poor affinity for group 1 and group 2b enzymes and constitutively produced chromosomal beta-lactamases such as P-99 of Enterobacter cloacae and plasmid-mediated TEM-1 of E. coli. SCE-2787 has in vitro activity comparable to that of current parenteral cephalosporin and is more active against P. aeruginosa and S. aureus.
Semi-Supervised Recursive Learning of Discriminative Mixture Models for Time-Series Classification

We pose pattern classification as a density estimation problem where we consider mixtures of generative models under partially labeled data setups. Unlike traditional approaches that estimate density everywhere in data space, we focus on the density along the decision boundary that can yield more discriminative models with superior classification performance. We extend our earlier work on the recursive estimation method for discriminative mixture models to semi-supervised learning setups where some of the data points lack class labels. Our model exploits the mixture structure in the functional gradient framework: it searches for the base mixture component model in a greedy fashion, maximizing the conditional class likelihoods for the labeled data and at the same time minimizing the uncertainty of class label prediction for unlabeled data points. The objective can be effectively imposed as individual mixture component learning on weighted data, hence our mixture learning typically becomes highly efficient for popular base generative models like Gaussians or hidden Markov models. Moreover, apart from the expectation-maximization algorithm, the proposed recursive estimation has several advantages including the lack of need for a pre-determined mixture order and robustness to the choice of initial parameters. We demonstrate the benefits of the proposed approach on a comprehensive set of evaluations consisting of diverse time-series classification problems in semi-supervised scenarios.
Fonctionnement sismique du Golfe de Tadjoura : approches statistique (1973-2007) et deterministe (cas de la séquence 2004

L'objectif de ce travail est d'etudier certains aspects de la sismicite en general et quelques seismes particuliers dans le Golfe de Tadjoura en Republique de Djibouti dans l'Afar meridional sur une periode de temps allant de 1973 a 2007 grâce a des donnees recoltees par l'Observatoire Geophysique d'Arta. Parmi les points importants qui sont abordes, on trouve notamment dans la partie analyse spatio-temporelle, la cartographie de la distribution frequence-magnitude, ainsi que l'organisation dans l'espace, temps et magnitude des seismes en s'appuyant sur la notion de temps de recurrence. Cette analyse tente entre autres, d'une part d'estimer la probabilite d'occurrence d'un seisme de magnitude 6 et plus, et d'autre part la proportion de chocs principaux (seismes independants) parmi tous les seismes dans les zones a forte densite de seismes comme la Fosse d'Obock et l'ouest du Golfe de Tadjoura. Dans la partie modelisation des formes d'ondes et de la contrainte statique de Coulomb, l'accent est mis dans un premier temps sur les calculs des fonctions de Green pour les deux chocs principaux de magnitude 5. 1 et 5. 3 de la sequence sismique de janvier 2004 pres de Maskali. Il est ensuite verifie si leur declenchement etait favorise ou non par les seismes anterieurs de magnitude superieure a 5 qui se sont produits entre 1973 et 2004 (seismes faisant partie du catalogue). A travers ce travail, les deux approches evoquees (etudes d'une collection de seismes ou d'un seisme individuel) sont complementaires et offrent une vision a la fois aleatoire (statistique) et deterministe pour comprendre, d'une part, la relation entre les seismes et la dynamique qui gouverne la propagation de la ride du Golfe d'Aden dans le Golfe de Tadjoura, et d'autre, part contribuer a l'evaluation a l'evaluation de l'alea sismique en Republique de Djibouti. Ces deux approches sont egalement realisees a deux echelles differentes: a l'echelle regionale du point chaud de l'Afar, et a celle de structure locale comme la faille transformante de Maskali
Everolimus with low‐dose tacrolimus in simultaneous pancreas and kidney transplantation

The efficacy and safety of everolimus (EVR) in simultaneous pancreas and kidney transplantation (SPKT) is unclear. We retrospectively evaluated 25 consecutive SPKT recipients at our center from November 2011 to March 2013. All patients received dual induction (Thymoglobulin/basiliximab) and low‐dose tacrolimus plus corticosteroids. Nine patients who received EVR were compared with 14 patients who received enteric‐coated mycophenolate sodium (EC‐MPS); two patients who received sirolimus were excluded from the analysis. With a median follow‐up of 14 months, the pancreas graft survival rate was 100% in both groups, and the kidney graft survival rate was 100% and 93% in EVR and EC‐MPS patients, respectively. One EC‐MPS patient lost her kidney graft from proteinuric kidney disease. Another EC‐MPS patient received treatment for clinically diagnosed pancreas and kidney graft rejection. No rejection was observed in EVR patients. Serum creatinine and HbA1c levels were similar between the groups. There was no significant difference of surgical or medical complications. In conclusion, EVR seems to provide comparable short‐term outcome to EC‐MPS when combined with low‐dose tacrolimus/steroids and dual induction therapy. A larger study with a longer follow‐up is required to further assess this combination.
Pittfalls of MRI measurement of white matter perfusion based on arterial spin labeling

Although arterial spin labeling (ASL) MRI has been successfully applied to measure gray matter (GM) perfusion in vivo, accurate detection of white matter (WM) perfusion has proven difficult. Reported literature values are not consistent with each other or with perfusion measured with other modalities. In this work, the cause of these inconsistencies is investigated. The results suggest that WM perfusion values are substantially affected by the limited image resolution and by signal losses caused by the long transit times in WM, which significantly affect the label. From gadolinium diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid (Gd‐DTPA) bolus‐tracking experiments (N = 6), it is estimated that the transit time can be several seconds long in deep WM. Furthermore, simulations show that even at a spatial resolution of 7 μl voxel size, contamination by the GM signals can exceed 40% of the actual WM signal. From 10‐min long flow‐sensitive alternating inversion recovery ASL (FAIR‐ASL) measurements at 3T in normal subjects (N = 7), using highly sensitive detectors, it is shown that single‐voxel (7 μl) deep WM perfusion values have an signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) less than 1. The poor sensitivity and heterogeneous transit time limit the applicability of ASL for measurement of perfusion in WM. Magn Reson Med 59:788–795, 2008. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
MAOA promoter polymorphism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in indian children

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a highly disabling, early onset childhood neurobehavioral disorder with a higher occurrence in boys as compared to girls. Pharmacological and molecular genetic studies have revealed the influence of dopaminergic and serotonergic systems in the etiology of the disorder. Monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) is a mitochondrial enzyme that regulates the dopaminergic signals in the pre‐synaptic region. Polymorphism in the promoter region of the MAOA gene, which comprises of 30 bp repeats with repeat number varying between 2.5, 3.5, 4.5, and 5.5, has been shown to be associated with various neurobehavioral disorders including ADHD. This is the first study on Indian ADHD cases to validate an association between transmission of MAOA promoter polymorphism and risk of ADHD. We have analyzed the MAOA promoter polymorphism in a group of ADHD probands, their parents and ethnically matched controls by UNPHASED. Our findings indicate significant difference in the frequency of 3.5 repeat allele (P = 0.02) between cases and controls and preferential transmission of the short allele (3.5 repeat) from mothers to male ADHD probands (P = 0.005). We conclude that the short 3.5 repeat allele of the MAOA‐u VNTR is probably associated with ADHD in our population and could be the reason for making boys prone to ADHD as compared to girls. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Revealing the import nce of meristems and root for the development of hypersensitive responses and full foliar resistance to Phytophthora infestans in the resistant potato cultivar

In mammals, cadmium is widely considered as a non-genotoxic carcinogen acting through a methylation-dependent epigenetic mechanism. Here, the effects of Cd treatment on the DNA methylation patten are examined together with its effect on chromatin reconfiguration in Posidonia oceanica. DNA methylation level and pattern were analysed in actively growing organs, under short(6 h) and long(2 d or 4 d) term and low (10 mM) and high (50 mM) doses of Cd, through a Methylation-Sensitive Amplification Polymorphism technique and an immunocytological approach, respectively. The expression of one member of the CHROMOMETHYLASE (CMT) family, a DNA methyltransferase, was also assessed by qRT-PCR. Nuclear chromatin ultrastructure was investigated by transmission electron microscopy. Cd treatment induced a DNA hypermethylation, as well as an up-regulation of CMT, indicating that de novo methylation did indeed occur. Moreover, a high dose of Cd led to a progressive heterochromatinization of interphase nuclei and apoptotic figures were also observed after long-term treatment. The data demonstrate that Cd perturbs the DNA methylation status through the involvement of a specific methyltransferase. Such changes are linked to nuclear chromatin reconfiguration likely to establish a new balance of expressed/repressed chromatin. Overall, the data show an epigenetic basis to the mechanism underlying Cd toxicity in plants.
Adaptive Multicell 3-D Beamforming in Multiantenna Cellular Networks

We consider a cellular network with multiantenna base stations (BSs) and single-antenna users, multicell cooperation, imperfect channel state information (CSI), and directional antennas, each with a vertically adjustable beam. We investigate the impact of the elevation angle of the BS antenna pattern, which is denoted as tilt, on the performance of the considered network when employing either a traditional single-cell transmission or a fully cooperative multicell transmission. Using the results of this investigation, we propose a novel hybrid multicell cooperation technique in which the intercell interference is controlled via either cooperative beamforming in the horizontal plane or coordinated beamforming in the vertical plane of the wireless channel, which is denoted as adaptive multicell 3-D beamforming. The main idea is to divide the coverage area into two disjoint vertical regions and adapt the multicell cooperation strategy at the BSs when serving each region. A fair scheduler is used to share the time slots between the vertical regions. It is shown that the proposed technique can achieve performance comparable with that of a fully cooperative transmission but with significantly lower complexity and signaling requirements. To facilitate computationally efficient simulation and design space exploration, accurate approximations of the user ergodic rate are proposed for different transmission strategies under imperfect CSI.
Molecular Cloning of F4/80-Like-Receptor, a Seven-Span Membrane Protein Expressed Differentially by Dendritic Cell and Monocyte-Macrophage Subpopulations1 2

A novel dendritic cell (DC) surface molecule termed F4/80-like-receptor (FIRE) has been selected based on its differential expression between DC subsets. The gene encoding FIRE has been cloned and sequenced, and mAbs specific for FIRE have been produced. FIRE is a seven-transmembrane-spanning molecule with two epidermal growth factor-like domains in the extracellular region. It is a novel member of the epidermal growth factor/transmembrane-7 protein subfamily and shows similarity to the macrophage marker F4/80. FIRE is expressed by CD8− DC, but not by CD8+ DC, and it is down-regulated on DC activation. It is expressed by blood monocytes and by some tissue macrophages, but not by most macrophage cell lines or by lymphoid cells. FIRE is a useful marker of myeloid cells with a DC developmental potential.
Eosinophilic gastroenteritis: clinical experience with 15 patients.

AIM To evaluate the clinic features of eosinophilic gastroenteritis and to examine the diagnosis, treatment, long-term outcome of this disease. METHODS Charts with a diagnosis of eosinophilic gastroenteritis from 1984 to 2002 at Mackay Memorial Hospital were reviewed retrospectively. There were 15 patients diagnosed with eosinophilic gastroenteritis. The diagnosis was established in 13 by histologic evaluation of endoscopic biopsy or operative specimen and in 2 by radiologic imaging and the presence of eosinophilic ascites. RESULTS All the patients had gastrointestinal symptoms and 12 (80%) had hypereosinophilia (absolute eosinophil count 1,008 to 31,360/cm3). The most common symptoms were abdominal pain and diarrhea. Five of the 15 patients had a history of allergy. Seven patients had involvement of the mucosa, 2 of muscularis, and 6 of subserosa. One with a history of seafood allergy was successfully treated with an elimination diet. Another patient improved spontaneously after fasted for several days. The remaining 13 patients were treated with oral prednisolone, 10 to 40 mg/day initially, which was then tapered. The symptoms in all the patients subsided within two weeks. Eleven of the 15 patients were followed up for more than 12 months (12 to 104 months, mean 48.7), of whom 5 had relapses after discontinuing steroids (13 episodes). Two of these patients required long-term maintenance oral prednisolone (5 to 10 mg/day). CONCLUSION Eosinophilic gastroenteritis is a rare condition of unclear etiology characterized by relapses and remissions. Short courses of corticosteroids are the mainstay of treatment, although some patients with relapsing disease require long-term low-dose steroids.
Compensating I–Q Imperfections in Hybrid RF/Digital Predistortion With an Adapted Lookup Table Implemented in an FPGA

The performance of hybrid RF/digital predistortion (RF-DPD) is limited, due to in-phase (I) and quadrature-phase (Q) imperfection in its key component, the RF vector multiplier, and the associated circuitry. These imperfections cause errors, in terms of implemented gain and phase of the predistortion function. This brief presents the methodology of implementing hybrid RF-DPD with a lookup table (LUT) adapted to compensate for hardware related I-Q imperfections of the RF vector multiplier within the digital signal processing domain. This modified LUT will accurately compensate for I-Q imperfection, without needing a precise tuning of the control voltages at the pins of the RF vector multiplier. This brief also presents the test setup for characterizing the RF-DPD system to obtain the I-Q imperfections within it and utilizes this information to modify the LUT to compensate for these imperfections. To verify the capability of the modified LUT in compensating for the I-Q imperfections, an experimental validation is carried out by linearizing a class-AB base station power amplifier using the hybrid RF-DPD system developed with an Altera Stratix field-programmable gate array (FPGA) evaluation board. In addition to the 12-dB adjacent-channel leakage ratio obtained using static RF-DPD, an improvement of 2.5 dB is achieved using the proposed I-Q compensation technique.
An SOI-MEMS Piezoelectric Torsional Stage With Bulk Piezoresistive Sensors

This paper presents a micro-electromechanical stage for out-of-plane positioning of microcantilevers designed for atomic force microscopes. The stage produces an out-of-plane displacement using a torsional mechanism that exploits piezoelectric clamped-guided beams as actuators. To measure the torsional displacement of the stage, novel differential piezoresistive sensors are implemented. These sensors feature clamped-guided beams that exploit the bulk piezoresistivity of silicon. Using this sensing concept eliminates the requirement to fabricate highly doped regions on the flexures. An analytical model is provided that describes the sensor’s linearity. The sensor, the microcantilevers, and the mechanical features of the stage are experimentally characterized. The first resonance frequency of the stage is located at 7.8 kHz, and a static out-of-plane displacement of more than 1.2 <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu \text{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> is obtained. In addition, the piezoresistive sensor captures the dynamics of the stage within a bandwidth of 13 kHz with a <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$1\sigma $ </tex-math></inline-formula>-resolution of 3 nm.
A Ka-band GaAs monolithic phase shifter

The design and performance of a GaAs monolithic 180° one-bit switched line phase shifter test circuit forKa-band operation is presented. A self-aligned gate (SAG) fabrication technique is also described that reduces resistive parasitics in the switching FET's. Over the 27.5-30 GHz band, typical measured differential insertion phase is within 10-20° of the ideal time delay characteristic. Over the same band, the insertion loss for the SAG phase shifter is about 2.5-3 dB per bit. The SAG fabrication technique holds promise in reducing phase shifter insertion loss to about 1.5 dB/bit for 30-GHz operation.
Development of Clinical Dementia Rating Scale Cut‐off Scores for Patients With Parkinson's Disease

The aim of this study was to explore validity of the Clinical Dementia Rating Scale (CDR) in measuring cognitive impairment among individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD). The scale was created for use in patients with Alzheimer's disease, and, to date, there have been no published studies examining whether this tool is appropriate for patients with PD.
Organochlorine pesticides in seafood products from Southern China and health risk assessment

Seafood consumption is an important route of human exposure to organic contaminants. Residual levels of organochlorine pesticides (OCPs), including DDTs, hexachlorocyclohexanes (HCHs), heptachlor, aldrin, α‐endosulfan, β‐endosulfan, dieldrin, endrin, endrin aldehyde, endrin ketone, methoxychlor, endosulfan sulfate, and heptachlor epoxide, were determined in a wide variety of seafood products collected from 11 coastal cities in southern China in June and October 2005. The results indicated that OCPs were predominated by DDTs and HCHs. The concentrations of other OCP components generally were low and were detectable in a small number of seafood samples only, probably reflective of the generally low levels of these OCPs in the study region and low bioaccumulation potentials in the species under investigation. Risk assessment against various standards clearly showed that seafood products were highly contaminated by DDTs and may pose health threat to local residents and the consumers all over the world. Furthermore, other OCP components, such as dieldrin and heptachlor, also impose lifetime cancer risk, especially to residents of coastal regions who often consume more seafood than those living inland. Therefore, continual monitoring of OCPs in various environment compartments, including biota and abiota, urgently is needed to mitigate effectively the impact of OCPs, particularly DDTs, on human health and the ecological environment.
Sorting nexin 3 (SNX3) is a component of a tubular endosomal network induced by Salmonella and involved in maturation of the Salmonella‐containing vacuole

Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium is an intracellular pathogen that grows within a modified endomembrane compartment, the Salmonella‐containing vacuole (SCV). Maturation of nascent SCVs involves the recruitment of early endosome markers and the remodelling of phosphoinositides at the membrane of the vacuole, in particular the production of phosphatidylinositol 3‐phosphate [PI(3)P]. Sorting nexins (SNXs) are a family of proteins characterized by the presence of a phox homology (PX) domain that binds to phosphoinositides and are involved in intracellular trafficking in eukaryotic cells. We therefore studied whether sorting nexins, particularly sorting nexin 3 (SNX3), play a role in Salmonella infection. We found that SNX3 transiently localized to SCVs at early times post invasion (10 min) and presented a striking tubulation phenotype in the vicinity of SCVs at later times (30–60 min). The bacterial effector SopB, which is known to promote PI(3)P production on SCVs, was required for the formation of SNX3 tubules. In addition, RAB5 was also required for the formation of SNX3 tubules. Depletion of SNX3 by siRNA impaired RAB7 and LAMP1 recruitment to the SCV. Moreover, the formation of Salmonella‐induced filaments (Sifs) was altered by SNX3 knock‐down. Therefore, SNX3 plays a significant role in regulating the maturation of SCVs.