Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Rapid Pulsed-Field Gel Electrophoresis Protocol for Subtyping of Campylobacter jejuni

ABSTRACT We developed a rapid pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) protocol for subtyping Campylobacter isolates based on the standardized protocols used by PulseNet laboratories for the subtyping of other food-borne bacterial pathogens. Various combinations of buffers, reagents, reaction conditions (e.g., cell suspension concentration, lysis time, lysis temperature, and restriction enzyme concentration), and electrophoretic parameters were evaluated in an effort to devise a protocol that is simple, rapid, and robust. PFGE analysis of Campylobacter isolates can be completed in 24 to 30 h using this protocol, whereas the most widely used current protocols require 3 to 4 days to complete. Comparison of PFGE patterns obtained in six laboratories showed that subtyping results obtained using this protocol are highly reproducible.
Picture Changes During Blinks: Looking Without Seeing and Seeing Without Looking

Observers inspected normal, high quality colour displays of everyday visual scenes while their eye movements were recorded. A large display change occurred each time an eye blink occurred. Display changes could either involve “Central Interest” or “Marginal Interest” locations, as determined from descriptions obtained from independent judges in a prior pilot experiment. Visual salience, as determined by luminance, colour, and position of the Central and Marginal Interest changes were equalized. The results obtained were very similar to those obtained in prior experiments showing failure to detect changes occurring simultaneously with saccades, flicker, or “mudsplashes” in the visual scene: Many changes were very hard to detect, and Marginal Interest changes were harder to detect than Central Interest changes. Analysis of eye movements showed, as expected, that the probability of detecting a change depended on the eye's distance from the change location. However a surprising finding was that both for Central and Marginal Interest changes, even when observers were directly fixating the change locations (within 1 degree), more than 40% of the time they still failed to see the changes. It seems that looking at something does not guarantee you “see” it.
The transference of benefits between the eyes. Does training of express saccades in the dominant eye transfer to the non-dominant eye through the interconnectedness of the abducens nerve?

Saccades have been extensively investigated and have been found to be generated from five places in the brain with the oculomotor center of the brainstem as its pathway to the eyes. Express saccades are low-latency and mostly involuntary saccades which are generated within the superior colliculus. The training of express saccades in one direction can benefit other directions within the same eye. Horizontal saccadic eye movements are performed by the abducens nerve by means of motorneurons. In order to coordinate the eyes, the abducens nerve also sends interneurons to the contralateral eye. With that in mind we hypothesized that by training one eye those benefits might be transferred to the other eye. Nine participants were trained on their dominant eye to perform express saccades and then the dominant and non-dominant eye were tested in the middle and at the end of the study. For the non-dominant eye, saccadic latencies were reduced after training and larger number of express saccades were noticeable. Differences between the dominant and non-dominant eye were not significant. The results therefore show next to complete transfer of training effects from the dominant to the non-dominant. We talk about the need for a reproduction of this study along with possible direction for future studies.
Korean Word-Sense Disambiguation Using Parallel Corpus as Additional Resource

Most previous research on Korean WordSense Disambiguation (WSD) were focusing on unsupervised corpus-based or knowledge-based approach because they suffered from lack of sense-tagged Korean corpora.Recently, along with great effort of constructing sense-tagged Korean corpus by government and researchers, finding appropriate features for supervised learning approach and improving its prediction accuracy became an issue. To achieve higher word-sense prediction accuracy, this paper aimed to find most appropriate features for Korean WSD based on Conditional Random Field (CRF) approach. Also, we utilized Korean-Japanese parallel corpus to enlarge size of sensetagged corpus, and improved prediction accuracy with it. Experimental result reveals that our method can achieve 95.67% of prediction accuracy.
Social and behavioral interventions to increase breast cancer screening.

Over the past 10 years, breast cancer screening has increased greatly among women in the United States. Among women ages 50 and older, more than 56% reported having received a clinical breast exam and mammogram (X-ray images of the breast) in the 2 years preceding the 1994 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), compared with 25% in 1987 (US. Department of Health and Human Services [DHHS], 1990). Mammography rates doubled or tripled for most ethnic groups over that period. In the past decade, the progress that has been made in breast cancer screening is striking. Although it may be impossible to demonstrate a causal relationship, the increase in screening rates surely is a result of a concerted effort by researchers, clinicians, and practitioners. The investments made by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Cancer Society, and other organizations to conduct research, promote screening, and deliver services have played an important role in the increase in breast cancer screening. In this review, we examine briefly, and with more emphasis on breadth
The Hierarchical Ray Engine 1

Due to the success of texture based approaches, ray casting has lately been conflned to performing preprocessing in realtime applications. Though GPU based ray casting implementations outperform the CPU now, they either do not scale well for higher primitive counts, or require the costly construction of spatial hierarchies. We present an improved algorithm based on the Ray Engine approach, which builds a hierarchy of rays instead of objects, completely on the graphics card. Exploiting the coherence between rays when displaying refractive objects or computing caustics, realtime frame rates are achieved without preprocessing. Thus, the method fllls a gap in the realtime rendering repertoire.
Executive Function Skills, Early Mathematics, and Vocabulary in Head Start Preschool Children

ABSTRACT Research Findings: The contribution of 3 executive function skills (shifting, inhibitory control, and working memory) and their relation to early mathematical skills was investigated with preschoolers attending 6 Head Start centers. Ninety-two children ranging in age from 3 years, 1 month, to 4 years, 11 months, who were native English or Spanish speakers were assessed for these executive function skills as well as their receptive vocabulary skills and early mathematical abilities using the Child Math Assessment (Starkey, Klein, & Wakeley, 2004), which captures an array of skills across 4 domains. Hierarchal regression analyses revealed that inhibitory control and working memory made unique contributions to children’s early mathematical abilities in the domains of numeracy, arithmetic, spatial/geometric reasoning, and patterning/logical relations after we controlled for age, receptive vocabulary, and previous Head Start experience. Furthermore, receptive vocabulary also accounted for significant variance in children’s early mathematical abilities above and beyond executive function skills. No group differences emerged between English-only and dual language learners on the fit of the regression models. Practice or Policy: These findings extend previous research highlighting the interface of executive function skills and mathematical learning in early childhood with further evidence to support this relationship beyond early numeracy and counting using a broad measure of critical early math skills. In addition, the intricate role of language in the development of early mathematical competence is considered. Implications of these findings for scaffolding executive function skills and vocabulary within prekindergarten math curricula are discussed, with particular consideration for children from low socioeconomic backgrounds.
Comprehensive Standard Cell Characterization Considering Random Line-Edge Roughness Lithography Variation

As the transistors are scaled down, undesirable performance mismatch in identically designed transistors increases and hence causes greater impact on circuit performance and yield. Since Line-End Roughness (LER) does not decrease as the device shrinks and has been reported to be in the order of several nanometers, it has evolved as a critical problem in the sub-45nm devices and may lead to serious device parameter fluctuations and performance degradation for the future VLSI circuit. In this paper, we present a new cell characterization methodology which uses the non-rectangular gate print-images generated by lithography and etch simulations with the random LER variation to estimate the device performance of a sub-45nm design. We systematically analyze the random LER by considering the impact on circuit performance due to LER variation and suggest the maximum tolerance of LER to minimize the performance degradation. We observed that the driving current is highly affected by LER as the gate length becomes thinner. We performed lithography simulations using 45nm process window to examine the LER impact of the state-of-the-art industrial devices. Results show that the rms value of LER is as much as 10% from its nominal line edge, and the saturation current can vary by as much as 10% in our 2-input NAND cell.
Two “Knockout” Mouse Models Demonstrate That Aortic Vasodilatation Is Mediated via α2A-Adrenoceptors Located on the Endothelium

UK-14,304 [5-bromo-N-(4,5-dihydro-1H-imidazol-2-yl)-6-quinoxalinamine]-mediated vasodilator responses were studied on wire myograph-mounted mouse aorta to determine the cells involved, mechanisms of action, and subtypes of α2-adrenoceptors. In the presence of induced tone, UK-14,304 produced concentration-related vasodilatation that was abolished by rauwolscine, Nω-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester (l-NAME), or endothelium removal, indicating that endothelial α2-adrenoceptors can release nitric oxide. In the α2A-adrenoceptor knockout mouse and the D79N mouse, a functional knockout of the α2A-adrenoceptor, these relaxant effects of UK-14,304 were lost, indicating the involvement of the α2A-adrenoceptor. UK-14,304 could also contract aorta: a small contraction occurred at high concentrations, was enhanced by l-NAME, and was absent in the α1D-adrenoceptor knockout mouse, indicating activation of the α1D-adrenoceptor. There was no evidence for a contractile α2-adrenoceptor-mediated response. A fluorescent ligand, quinazoline piperazine bodipy, antagonized the relaxant action of UK-14,304. This compound could be visualized on aortic endothelial cells, and its binding could be prevented by rauwolscine, providing direct evidence for the presence of α2-adrenoceptors on the endothelium. Norepinephrine reduced tone in the α1D-adrenoceptor knockout and controls, an effect blocked by rauwolscine and l-NAME but not by prazosin. This suggests that norepinephrine activates endothelial α2-adrenoceptors. In conclusion, the endothelium of mouse aorta has an α2A-adrenoceptor that responds to norepinephrine; promotes the release of nitric oxide, causing smooth muscle relaxation; and that can be directly visualized. Knockout or genetic malfunction of this receptor should increase arterial stiffness, exacerbated by raised catecholamines, and contribute to heart failure.
Prevalence, clearance, and incidence of anal human papillomavirus infection in HIV-infected men: the HIPVIRG cohort study.

BACKGROUND Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-seropositive men who have sex with men (MSM) are at higher risk of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection. This study was conducted to better understand the natural history of type-specific HPV infection in the anus. METHODS A cohort study was conducted among HIV-seropositive MSM in Montreal to investigate acquisition and loss of anal HPV infection. Participants were followed up every 6 months for 3 years for risk behaviors, HIV-related parameters, and HPV testing. RESULTS HPV DNA was detected in 97.9% of the 247 participants at baseline (median, 5 HPV types). The most common types were HPV-16 (38.2%) and HPV-6 (35.3%). Prevalent HPV-16 infections had the lowest clearance rate (12.2 cleared episodes per 1000 person-months [95% confidence interval {CI}, 8.5-17.7]) and a mean retention time of 36 months (95% CI, 32.7-38.8). The highest incidence rates were found for HPV-16 (10.8 new cases per 1000 person-months [95% CI, 8.0-14.7]), HPV-52 (10.8 new cases per 1000 person-months [95% CI, 8.2-14.1]), and HPV-53 (9.8 new cases per 1000 person-months [95% CI, 7.4-13.0]), with cumulative incidences at 36 months of approximately 30%. CONCLUSIONS Multiple HPV types were common in the anal canals of HIV-seropositive MSM. Incidence and clearance rates were not similar among HPV types. Ongoing surveillance of this cohort will help our understanding of the determinants of HPV persistence and progression to lesions.
A Flemish Voice for the Nextens Text-To-Speech System

Nextens is an open source text-to-speech system that can be u sed to convert Dutch text into speech as spoken in The Netherl ands. Flemish is the variant of Dutch as spoken in Flanders. These two langu ges have the same written form, but they sound clearly diffe rent. This paper describes how we transformed the Nextens system into a Flemish speaking application. In order to achieve this goal , a high-quality acoustic diphone synthesizer has been developed as the new b ack-end. This synthesizer is based on a very simple and effec tive overlapadd technique that can be used to simultaneously solve the pr oblem of waveform concatenation and to perform the necessar y prosodic modifications. In addition, some post-lex rules have been ad apted to the Flemish speaking style. The resulting Flemish d ip one synthesis system has a quality that is comparable to that of a commercia l diphone synthesis system. Flamski govor za sistem Nextens za pretvarjanje besedila v g ovor Nextens je odprtokodni sistem za pretvarjanje besedila v go vor. Uporabljamo ga lahko za pretvarjanje besedila v nizoze mšcini v govor, kakršnega govorijo na Nizozemskem. Flamšcina je razlici ca nizozemšcine, ki jo govorijo na Flamskem. Podobno kot br itanska in ameriška anglešcina imata ta dva jezika isto pisno obliko , zvenita pa razlicno. V prispevku je opisano, kako smo sprem enili sistem Nextens v flamsko govoreco aplikacijo. Za dosego tega cilja j e bil razvit zelo kakovosten akusticen difonski sintetizat or kot novi zaledni del. Sintetizator temelji na zelo preprosti in ucinkoviti t ehniki prekrivanja in dodajanja, ki jo lahko uporabljamo za socasno reševanje problema združevanja valovnih oblik in za izvajanje zahte vanih prozodicnih prilagoditev. Poleg tega so bila nekater a postleksikalna pravila prilagojena flamskemu nacinu govora. Kakovost dobl jenega flamskega difonskega sistema za sintezo je primerlji va s kakovostjo komercialnih difonskih sistemov za sintezo.
Speech Recognition Tools for Mobile Phone - A Comparative Study

In this age of information technology, access of information in a convenient manner has gained importance. Since human beings use speech as a primary mode of communication, it is natural for people to expect to be able to carry out spoken dialogue with computer. Speech recognition (SR) system permits ordinary people to speak to the computer to retrieve information. This paper describes the existing tools developed for speech recognition. The objective of this paper is to summarize and compare the well known tools of speech recognition system which are at the forefront of this exciting and challenging field.
Does the Dumbbell-Carrying Position Change the Muscle Activity in Split Squats and Walking Lunges?

Abstract Stastny, P, Lehnert, M, Zaatar, AMZ, Svoboda, Z, and Xaverova, Z. Does the dumbbell-carrying position change the muscle activity in split squats and walking lunges? J Strength Cond Res 29(11): 3177–3187, 2015—The forward walking lunge (WL) and split squat (SSq) are similar exercises that have differences in the eccentric phase, and both can be performed in the ipsilateral or contralateral carrying conditions. This study aimed to determine the effects of dumbbell-carrying position on the kinematics and electromyographic (EMG) amplitudes of the gluteus medius (Gmed), vastus medialis (VM), vastus lateralis (VL), and biceps femoris during WLs and SSqs. The resistance-trained (RT) and the non–resistance-trained (NT) groups (both n = 14) performed ipsilateral WLs, contralateral WLs, ipsilateral SSqs, and contralateral SSqs in a randomized order in a simulated training session. The EMG amplitude, expressed as a percentage of the maximal voluntary isometric contraction (%MVIC), and the kinematics, expressed as the range of motion (ROM) of the hip and knee, were measured during 5 repetition maximum for both legs. The repeated measure analyses of variance showed significant differences between the RT and NT groups. The NT group showed a smaller knee flexion ROM (p < 0.001, &eegr;2 = 0.36) during both types of WLs, whereas the RT group showed a higher eccentric Gmed amplitude (p < 0.001, &eegr;2 = 0.46) during all exercises and a higher eccentric VL amplitude (p < 0.001, &eegr;2 = 0.63) during contralateral WLs. Further differences were found between contralateral and ipsilateral WLs in both the RT (p < 0.001, &eegr;2 = 0.69) and NT groups (p < 0.001, &eegr;2 = 0.80), and contralateral WLs resulted in higher eccentric Gmed amplitudes. Contralateral WLs highly activated the Gmed (90% MVIC); therefore, this exercise can increase the Gmed maximal strength. The ipsilateral loading condition did not increase the Gmed or VM activity in the RT or NT group.
A Measurement System of Electric Signals on Standing Trees

The standing tree electric signal (STES), defined as the electric potential difference between standing trees and the surrounding soil, can be utilized to reflect the biological nature of the trees. This signal should be measured precisely because it can also be collected and used as the electric power energy. In this paper, the automatic measurement system of standing tree biological electric signal based on MSP430 MCU. First of all, the basic structure of the presented system is introduced and it includes three modules: amplification module of the standing tree electric signal, the acquisition and processing of the signal module and the serial communication module. Then, the performances of the built system are respectively validated by the Poplar, Planetree, and Platanus in Beijing Forestry University. The result indicated that the relative error of this system is less than 2 %. The presented system can be considered as the foundation of the subsequent study on the mechanism of the biological electric signal and the application of the biological electric energy on standing trees. Copyright © 2014 IFSA Publishing, S. L.
Automatic Reputation Assessment in Wikipedia

The online encyclopedia Wikipedia is predominantly created by anonymous or pseudonymous authors whose knowledge and motivations are unknown. For that reason there is an uncertainty in terms of their contribution quality. An approach to this problem is provided by automatic reputation systems, which have been becoming a new research branch in the recent years. In previous research, different metrics for automatic reputation assessment have been suggested. Nevertheless, the metrics are evaluated insufficiently and considered isolated only. As a result, the significance of these metrics is quite unclear. In this paper, we compare and assess seven metrics, both originated from the literature and new suggestions. Additionally, we combine these metrics via a discriminant analysis to deduce a significant reputation function. The analysis reveals that our newly suggested metric editing efficiency is particularly effective. We validate our reputation function by means of an analysis of Wikipedia user groups.
Develop of Diseases Pest Information System Based on WEBGIS

With the widespread use of WEBGIS system, we design the architecture of diseases and Insect Pest Information System (DIPS) based on WEBGIS. First, expound the structure principle and maintenance methods of the component model management subsystem, propose common interface standards and design interface component model that suitable for WEBGIS system. Then, present design ideas and realization method of intelligent decision reasoning module in the Pest and disease control system. The development of the system is based on the use of the COM + Component technology. System consist of data access component system DIPI, WEBGIS interface components, component model management systems, pest and disease control information processing components and mathematical model. Finally, verify the correctness of the design ideas by the operation of DIPS system. The DIPS system runs successfully, it confirms that the design mentality is accuracy.
THE CONSTRUCTION OF BALANCED BOUNDING-VOLUME HIERARCHIES USING SPATIAL OBJECT MEDIAN SPLITTING METHOD FOR COLLISION DETECTION

Finding two or more contact points between rigid bodies simulation is always a fundamental task in virtual environment. Furthermore, the contact point needs to be accurately reported as soon as possible within 30-60 frames per second (fps) between moving polyhedral. This article introduced an efficient splitting method that is able to divide the bounding-volume of Axis Aligned Bounding-Box (AABB) hierarchies into a balanced tree. The construction of well-balanced tree will helps to improve the speed of the intersection between rigid bodies’ objects.
Calreticulin modulates cell adhesiveness via regulation of vinculin expression

Calreticulin is an ubiquitous and highly conserved high capacity Ca(2+)- binding protein that plays a major role in Ca2+ storage within the lumen of the ER. Here, using L fibroblast cell lines expressing different levels of calreticulin, we show that calreticulin plays a role in the control of cell adhesiveness via regulation of expression of vinculin, a cytoskeletal protein essential for cell-substratum and cell-cell attachments. Both vinculin protein and mRNA levels are increased in cells overexpressing calreticulin and are downregulated in cells expressing reduced level of calreticulin. Abundance of actin, talin, alpha 5 and beta 1 integrins, pp125 focal adhesion kinase, and alpha-catenin is not affected by the differential calreticulin expression. Overexpression of calreticulin increases both cell- substratum and cell-cell adhesiveness of L fibroblasts that, most surprisingly, establish vinculin-rich cell-cell junctions. Upregulation of calreticulin also affects adhesion-dependent phenomena such as cell motility (which decreases) and cell spreading (which increases). Downregulation of calreticulin brings about inverse effects. Cell adhesiveness is Ca2+ regulated. The level of calreticulin expression, however, has no effect on either the resting cytoplasmic Ca2+ concentration or the magnitude of FGF-induced Ca2+ transients. Calreticulin, however, participates in Ca2+ homeostasis as its level of expression affects cell viability at low concentrations of extracellular Ca2+. Consequently, we infer that it is not the Ca2+ storage function of calreticulin that affects cell adhesiveness. Neither endogenous calreticulin nor overexpressed green fluorescent protein-calreticulin construct can be detected outside of the ER. Since all of the adhesion-related effects of differential calreticulin expression can be explained by its regulation of vinculin expression, we conclude that it is the ER-resident calreticulin that affects cellular adhesiveness.