Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Genotypic Stability of Cold-Adapted Influenza Virus Vaccine in an Efficacy Clinical Trial

ABSTRACT An investigational live influenza virus vaccine, FluMist, contains three cold-adapted H1N1, H3N2, and B influenza viruses. The vaccine viruses are 6/2 reassortants, in which the hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) genes are derived from the circulating wild-type viruses and the remaining six genes are derived from the cold-adapted master donor strains. The six genes from the cold-adapted master donor strains ensure the attenuation, and the HA and NA genes from the wild-type viruses confer the ability to induce protective immunity against contemporary influenza strains. The genotypic stability of this vaccine was studied by employing clinical samples collected during an efficacy trial. Viruses present in the nasal and throat swab specimens and in supernatants after culturing the specimens were detected and subtyped by multiplex reverse transcriptase (RT)-PCR. Complete genotypes of these detected viruses were determined by a combination of RT-PCR and restriction fragment length polymorphism, multiplex RT-PCR and fluorescent single-strand conformation polymorphism, and nucleic acid sequencing analysis. The FluMist vaccine appeared to be genotypically stable after replication in the human host. All viruses detected during the 2-week postvaccination period were shed vaccine viruses and had maintained the 6/2 genotype.
Capturing device for dense point cloud of indoor people using horizontal LIDAR and pan rotation of vertical LIDAR with mirrors

This paper reports construction of a new device to capture 3D point cloud on human body. The device consists of a horizontal LIDAR, a vertical LIDAR and pan rotational mechanism. The device contain three main features. 1) The device can capture point cloud in large area using combination of the vertical LIDAR and the rotational mechanism. 2) The device can measure dense point cloud using mirror reflection and focus control of pan rotation. 3) The device keeps tracking the human using horizontal LIDAR. The experiment to confirm performance of the device was conducted. The experiments demonstrated that our device can measure dense point clouds on human body in indoor environments.
Multimarket Contact In Banking Competition In The United States

In this paper, I present a structural discrete-choice model for deposit services. This model produces estimates of different supply functions at the MSA and bank levels. Combining this information with detailed cost data per bank at the national level, I trace the degree of competition in the banking system and perform compensatory analysis. I derive and estimate the model under three different assumptions: Nash-Bertrand competition, perfect collusion, and partially collusive equilibrium. The findings show that multimarket contacts in the US banking system lead to highly competitive behavior. Also, I measure the variation in consumer welfare as if there was a Nash-Bertrand competition vis-à-vis the identified market equilibrium. I show this change to be between 1.5 to 3.8 cents per dollar deposited, which is equivalent to an increase in (stock) welfare of about 0.65 percent points of a one year US GDP.
Effects of niacin supplementation and dietary concentrate proportion on body temperature, ruminal pH and milk performance of primiparous dairy cows

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of niacin and dietary concentrate proportion on body temperature, ruminal pH and milk production of dairy cows. In a 2 × 2 factorial design, 20 primiparous Holstein cows (179 ± 12 days in milk) were assigned to four dietary treatments aimed to receive either 0 or 24 g niacin and 30% (low) or 60% (high) concentrate with the rest being a partial mixed ration (PMR) composed of 60% corn and 40% grass silage (on dry matter basis). Ambient temperature and relative humidity were determined and combined by the calculation of temperature humidity index. Respiration rates, rectal, skin and subcutaneous temperatures were measured. Milk production and composition were determined. Ruminal pH and temperature were recorded at a frequency of 5 min using wireless devices for continuous intra-ruminal measurement (boluses). pH values were corrected for pH sensor drift. The climatic conditions varied considerably but temporarily indicated mild heat stress. Niacin did not affect skin, rectal and subcutaneous temperatures but tended to increase respiration rates. High concentrate reduced skin temperatures at rump, thigh and neck by 0.1–0.3°C. Due to the technical disturbances, not all bolus data could be subjected to statistical evaluation. However, both niacin and high concentrate influenced mean ruminal pH. High concentrate increased the time spent with a pH below 5.6 and ruminal temperatures (0.2–0.3°C). Niacin and high concentrate enhanced milk, protein and lactose yield but reduced milk fat and protein content. Milk fat yield was slightly reduced by high concentrate but increased due to niacin supplementation. In conclusion, niacin did not affect body temperature but stimulated milk performance. High concentrate partially influenced body temperatures and had beneficial effects on milk production.
Pancreatic Regenerating Gene Overexpression in the Nonobese Diabetic Mouse During Active Diabetogenesis

The reg gene has previously been shown to be associated with regeneration of pancreatic islets. Strategies for influencing the replication and the growth of the β-cell mass may be important for prevention and/or treatment of type I diabetes. In this study, we have examined the level of reg gene expression at various degrees of diabetogenesis in the pancreas of the NOD mouse (male, female, and cyclophosphamide-treated male) using both human reg cDNA as the probe and dot blot analysis. The expression of the reg gene was found to be significantly increased in female mice compared with male mice, and in both cases, the expression level was not influenced by age. Nondiabetic female mice have a significantly higher expression of the gene than diabetic female mice, and there was a positive correlation between the age of diabetes onset and the reg mRNA level. In addition, overexpression of the reg gene was found in male mice treated by cyclophosphamide, an agent known to be a potent inducer of diabetes in male NOD mice. None of these results were found in the diabetes-resistant control OF1 mice, in which pancreatic reg gene expression did not differ between female and male mice treated or untreated with cyclophosphamide. All of these data suggest that there is a strong correlation between reg gene expression in the pancreas of the NOD mouse and the likelihood of developing diabetes.
The drivers of regional growth in Russia

Russia is a federation of more than 80 regions spanning across a huge territory. Natural resource endowment, inherited industrial specialization, remoteness and climate conditions contribute to large regional disparities. This paper presents an empirical framework model for assessing determinants of regional growth in Russia between 2004 and 2015 with an extension to include sub-national fiscal policies. Baseline results show convergence rates of regional GDP per capita in line with the 2% “iron law of convergence” between countries. Capital investment, and public investment in particular, is a stronger driver of regional growth than in most OECD countries. Natural-resource rich regions are growing faster, and oil price shocks have little economic impact in these regions, pointing at Russia’s centralized tax and transfer system. Subnational current government expenditure is associated with lower growth and slower regional convergence, suggesting low sub-national spending efficiency. There is also weak evidence that sub-national investment yields higher returns than federal government investment. Transfers have mixed effects depending on their nature. Budget equalization grants tend to slow regional growth as they reduce incentives to improve spending efficiency. On the other hand earmarked matching grants tend to spur growth and convergence as they direct resources towards more productive spending.
Instability in a spatially periodic open flow

R r= 130, more than 40 times smaller than for plane Poiseuille Bow. The primary transition is shown to be a supercritical Hopf bifurcation arising from a convective instability. A numerical linear stability analysis is in quantitative agreement with the experimental observations, and a simple one-dimensional model captures essential features of the primary transition. The.secohdary flow loses stability at R2= 160 to a tertiary flow, with a standing wave structure aIong the streamwise direction and a preferred wave number in the spanwise direction. This three-dimensional flow remains stable for a range of R, even though the structures resemble the initial stages of the breakdown to turbulence typically displayed by wall-bounded shear flow. The results of a Floqpet stability analysis for the onset of three-dimensional flow are in partial agreement with experiment. 0 I995 American Ins&z&e o$ Physics.
Reflections from a systematic review of dietary energy density and weight gain: is the inclusion of drinks valid?

The association between dietary energy density, increased energy intake and weight gain is supported by experimental evidence, but confirmation of an effect in free‐living humans is limited. Experimental evidence supports a role of energy density in obesity through changes in food composition, not drinks consumption. The inclusion of drinks in the calculation creates a variable of questionable validity and has a substantive impact on the estimated energy density of the diet. We posit, based on the experimental evidence, that calculating the energy density of diets by excluding drinks and including calories from drinks as a covariate in the analysis is the most valid and reliable method of testing the relationship between energy density and weight gain in free‐living humans. We demonstrate, by systematically reviewing existing observational studies of dietary energy density and weight gain in free‐living humans, how current variation in the method for calculating energy density hampers the interpretation of these data. Reaching an a priori decision on the appropriate methodology will reduce the error caused by multiple comparisons and facilitate meaningful interpretation of epidemiological evidence to inform the development of effective obesity prevention strategies.
Firefly based region growing and region merging for image segmentation

Image Segmentation is one of the basic concepts widely used in each and every fields of image processing. The entire process of the proposed work comprises of 3 phases: Threshold Generation with Dynamic Modified Region Growing phase, Texture feature generation and Region Merging phase. By dynamically changing two thresholds regions are grown and the firefly algorithm is used to optimize the thresholds. In the second phase, the texture feature can be extracted using entropy based operation from the input image. In Region Merging phase, the results obtained from the texture feature generation phase are combined with the results of Dynamic Modified Region Growing phase and similar regions are merged by using a distance comparison between regions. The experimentation of this proposed work is implemented using Matlab platform with several medical images. The performance of the proposed work is evaluated using the metrics Sensitivity, Specificity and Accuracy. The results show that the proposed algorithm provides very good accuracy for the segmentation process in images.
Conceptualisations of Family and Social Work Family Practice in Chile, Mexico and Norway

Social workers all around the world work with families and family complexity in their everyday practice. In this article, we present findings from a cross-national study exploring how social workers in child welfare conceptualise ‘family’, and how they relate to ‘family’ in their practice. Data presented is taken from focus groups with twenty-eight social workers from Chile, Mexico and Norway. The findings reveal that in Chilean, Mexican, and Norwegian social work, the conceptualisation of family has expanded over time, acknowledging various family forms and displays, and an increased orientation towards networks regardless of biological ties. However, differences were found, particularly in the way professionals view extended family, perspectives on family intervention, and the position of children in the family. Practical implications will be discussed.
DNA sequencing of maternal plasma to detect Down syndrome: An international clinical validation study

Purpose: Prenatal screening for Down syndrome has improved, but the number of resulting invasive diagnostic procedures remains problematic. Measurement of circulating cell-free DNA in maternal plasma might offer improvement.Methods: A blinded, nested case-control study was designed within a cohort of 4664 pregnancies at high risk for Down syndrome. Fetal karyotyping was compared with an internally validated, laboratory-developed test based on next-generation sequencing in 212 Down syndrome and 1484 matched euploid pregnancies. None had been previously tested. Primary testing occurred at a CLIA-certified commercial laboratory, with cross validation by a CLIA-certified university laboratory.Results: Down syndrome detection rate was 98.6% (209/212), the false-positive rate was 0.20% (3/1471), and the testing failed in 13 pregnancies (0.8%); all were euploid. Before unblinding, the primary testing laboratory also reported multiple alternative interpretations. Adjusting chromosome 21 counts for guanine cytosine base content had the largest impact on improving performance.Conclusion: When applied to high-risk pregnancies, measuring maternal plasma DNA detects nearly all cases of Down syndrome at a very low false-positive rate. This method can substantially reduce the need for invasive diagnostic procedures and attendant procedure-related fetal losses. Although implementation issues need to be addressed, the evidence supports introducing this testing on a clinical basis.
Investigating the variables that influence frequency of women shopping behaviour - evidences from emerging economies

The paper investigated the variables that influence frequency of women shopping behaviour in Sultanate of Oman. The study used two major constructs, i.e., internal and external variables and tested the impact of such variables over frequency of women shopping. One hundred women respondents were interviewed through personal interview and multiple linear regression analysis used to determine the results. The results revealed that: 1) external variables found to have more impact over frequency of women shopping closely followed by internal variables; 2) place variables (store oriented) found to have more influence, followed by product variables and extraneous variables such as social media websites, internet and arrival of new brands, over frequency of women shopping.
Indifference curve analysis of banks' risk-taking and CoCo Covenants

This paper investigates two repercussions of the contingent convertible (CoCo) bond bail-in framework: the agency costs and the resulting monitoring costs. For the first, the equityholders' behaviour is analysed as a trade-off between the value of the bank and the risk taken by using an indifference curve model. While the first-best optimal risk maximises the value of the bank, the equityholders select sub-optimally high risk level under bail-in structures. This leads to both wealth transfer and value destruction agency costs. For the second, the increased required rate of return by bondholders that reflects the cost of monitoring is shown to act as a "Pigouvian tax" on the equityholders' behaviour. Utilising this, we propose different types of covenants within CoCo bonds indenture as a solution to the sub-optimal risk-taking behaviour.
The 1591C mutation in triosephosphate isomerase (TPI) deficiency. Tightly linked polymorphisms and a common haplotype in all known families.

In order to investigate the basis of the repeated occurrence of the 1591C mutation (TPI 1591C, 105 Glu-Asp) in multiple unrelated families throughout the world, we studied five microsatellite and short tandem repeat markers that lie within a 1.77 megabase region which includes the TPI gene. We also studied an intragenic polymorphic marker that lies within intron 5 of the TPI gene. This polymorphism, recently described by others, is characterized by either an A or a G at position 2262 (the A in the initiation ATG is designated as +1 for both genomic and cDNA nucleotides). With very minor exceptions, all of the known families in the world with the 1591C mutation were available for study. These included five families from the U.S., three from France, one from Greece, one (of Turkish origin) from Germany, and two from Australia. Although we did not have the opportunity to directly study five families from the U.K., key data concerning the 2262 intragenic polymorphism in these subjects were made available to us. Four of the microsatellite and short tandem repeat markers were linked, but in apparent equilibrium. In contrast, a polymorphic repeat pentamer in the CD4 gene, thought to lie telomeric to TPI, was in apparent complete linkage disequilibrium with the TPI 1591C mutation. The intragenic polymorphism was also in apparent complete linkage disequilibrium with the mutation. In unrelated persons of known phase (1591C homozygotes or normal controls), the comparative allele frequencies for the CD4 pentameric repeat were 1.0 (14/14 alleles) in homozygous TPI 1591C subjects and 0.412 (28/68 alleles) in normal subjects (p < 0.0001). Again, in persons of known phase, the comparative allele frequencies for the A form of the intragenic 2262 A or G polymorphism were 1.0 (14/14 alleles) in 1591C homozygotes and 0.130 (7/54 alleles) in normals (p < 0.0001). Haplotypes were discernible in all of the 1591C homozygotes and in several of the heterozygotes and normals. The CD4 162, TPI 2262A haplotype was found on only two of thirty-eight normal chromosomes, but was universally associated with 1591C. The data indicate that all TPI 1591C subjects are descendants of a common ancestor who probably lived in what is now England or France. The original mutation probably occurred well in excess of 1000 years ago.
Hybrid substrate integrated waveguides developed using flexible substrates

In this paper, hybrid substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) structures developed using multi-layer flexible laminates are investigated for application in off-the-board chip-to-chip communication systems. It is shown through full-wave simulations that the transmission characteristics of the TEM and TE10 channels of the hybrid SIW are virtually unaffected by the substrate bending. This new implementation platform is found to be suitable for high-speed applications due to its relatively low dielectric losses and offers new possibilities for deployment of the hybrid SIW interconnect.
Prophagic DNA Fragments in Streptococcus agalactiae Strains and Association with Neonatal Meningitis

ABSTRACT We identified—by randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis at the population level followed by DNA differential display, cloning, and sequencing—three prophage DNA fragments (F5, F7, and F10) in Streptococcus agalactiae that displayed significant sequence similarity to the DNA of S. agalactiae and Streptococcus pyogenes. The F5 sequence aligned with a prophagic gene encoding the large subunit of a terminase, F7 aligned with a phage-associated cell wall hydrolase and a phage-associated lysin, and F10 aligned with a transcriptional regulator (ArpU family) and a phage-associated endonuclease. We first determined the prevalence of F5, F7, and F10 by PCR in a collection of 109 strains isolated in the 1980s and divided into two populations: one with a high risk of causing meningitis (HR group) and the other with a lower risk of causing meningitis (LR group). These fragments were significantly more prevalent in the HR group than in the LR group (P < 0.001). Our findings suggest that lysogeny has increased the ability of some S. agalactiae strains to invade the neonatal brain endothelium. We then determined the prevalence of F5, F7, and F10 by PCR in a collection of 40 strains recently isolated from neonatal meningitis cases for comparison with the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) strains isolated in the 1980s. The prevalence of the three prophage DNA fragments was similar in these two populations isolated 15 years apart. We suggest that the prophage DNA fragments identified have remained stable in many CSF S. agalactiae strains, possibly due to their importance in virulence or fitness.
Phosphorylation by Protein Kinase CK2 Changes the DNA Binding Properties of the Human Chromatin Protein DEK

ABSTRACT We have examined the posttranslational modification of the human chromatin protein DEK and found that DEK is phosphorylated by the protein kinase CK2 in vitro and in vivo. Phosphorylation sites were mapped by quadrupole ion trap mass spectrometry and found to be clustered in the C-terminal region of the DEK protein. Phosphorylation fluctuates during the cell cycle with a moderate peak during G1 phase. Filter binding assays, as well as Southwestern analysis, demonstrate that phosphorylation weakens the binding of DEK to DNA. In vivo, however, phosphorylated DEK remains on chromatin. We present evidence that phosphorylated DEK is tethered to chromatin throughout the cell cycle by the un- or underphosphorylated form of DEK.
Re-identification : On the perception of human motion for surveillance and forensic applications

Because of the unprecedented number of crimes and terror attacks as well as the vital need to provide safer environment, a surge of concerns has emerged in many countries to ensure the safety of their citizens via the use of advanced surveillance technology. It is no wonder that many cities have deployed a number of biometric technologies within their surveillance systems to ease the management and monitoring from a large number of cameras. Biometrics can be of benefits not only for identify recognition, but it can be play a vital role for tracking people people over a distributed camera network with disjoint views. Gait biometrics is considered the only suitable solution in surveillance scenarios to re-identify people between different cameras due to the fact that the gait motion can be captured from a distance even with low-resolution besides the non-invasive property of gait biometrics.