Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Immune responses to the R4 protein antigen of group B streptococci and its relationship to other streptococcal R4 proteins

The R antigen, a trypsin-resistant protein observed in group A, C, F, G, and L streptococci, has also been found in group B streptococci (GBS). Although four species of the R antigen have been described for GBS, the R4 protein is the most prevalent in GBS isolates recovered from humans. This study examined the prevalence of antibodies against the R4 antigen by Western blot (immunoblot) (WB) in sera from 40 mothers colonized with GBS serotype II and III and from 26 noncolonized mothers; 92.5% of the colonized mothers had anti-R4 antibodies, compared with 54% of the noncolonized mothers (P < 0.001). Findings of antibodies in neonatal cord sera (n = 14) were concordant with maternal results by WB analysis for 71% of mother-infant pairs colonized with serotype II and for 57% of pairs colonized with serotype III. Of mothers known to be colonized with type II/R4 or III/R4, 100% (n = 12) had antibody against R4 by WB. This study also evaluated the prevalence of antibody to the GBS R4 antigen in 48 sera from individuals with high and low group A streptococcal anti-DNase B titers. Of those individuals with an anti-DNase B titer of > 640, 64% had a positive WB for anti-R4 antibody, compared with 30% of individuals with low anti-DNase B titers (P < 0.05). The R4 antigen of GBS had immunologic identity to the R4 antigen of group A streptococci. Overall, the findings suggested that antibodies to the streptococcal R4 antigen were commonly present in GBS-colonized mothers and that transplacental passage of these antibodies occurred. The presence of antibody to R4 in non-GBS-colonized individuals may be due to immunologic responses to past exposure to the R antigen present in GBS or other streptococcal groups.
International Conference on Parallel Processing A COMPARISON BASED PARALLEL SORTING ALGORITHM *

We present o fast comportson h s c d pomllel sortrng dporithrn fhot can handle a r b i t m y key types. Dofo movcmrnt is the major portion o j sorttng tame for most olgurithma In the litemdum. Our algorithm 1s prometerazuf so that rt can be tuned to control data movcmcnt trrnc, sspcrrdlyfor large data sets. Parallelhtatogmm ore used lo p r l r l r o n the key aet exactlv. The algorithm is archrtectum tndeptndent. and has been implemented tn the CHARM portoblc pomllel programming system, allowing it to be cficrcntly tun on vtrfually any EdIMD computer. Pcrjomancc ~ s u l : # for sorting diflerent aura sets are presented.
Wavefield Analysis Over Large Areas Using Distributed Higher Order Microphones

Successful recording of large spatial soundfields is a prevailing challenge in acoustic signal processing due to the enormous numbers of microphones required. This paper presents the design and analysis of an array of higher order microphones that uses 2D wavefield translation to provide a mode matching solution to the height invariant recording problem. It is shown that the use of Mth order microphones significantly reduces the number of microphone units by a factor of 1/(2M + 1) at the expense of increased complexity at each microphone unit. Robustness of the proposed array is also analyzed based on the condition number of the translation matrix while discussing array configurations that result in low condition numbers. The white-noise gain (WNG) of the array is then derived to verify that improved WNG can be achieved when the translation matrix is well conditioned. Furthermore, the array's performance is studied for interior soundfield recording as well as exterior soundfield recording using appropriate simulation examples.
Utilizing Concept of Vegetation Freeboard Equivalence in River Restoration

The concept of vegetation freeboard equivalence (VFE) is presented from the comparison between the rise in stage with/without vegetation and the freeboard height under design discharge conditions. In South Korea, the freeboard height of large, medium and small rivers is defined as a function of river discharge. Two models are used for this analysis of flood stage with and without vegetation: the 1-D model HEC-RAS and the 2-D model RMA-2. Both models are applied to three river study sites of the Geum River in South Korea as representative sites for a large, a medium and a small river. The analysis shows that without vegetation, both models provide comparable results and the calculated results are in very good agreement with the design configuration. The vegetation effects on the medium river are less significant, and the freeboard is adequate to contain the rise in stage from the added floodplain vegetation in large rivers. The concept of vegetation freeboard equivalence is therefore useful for the analysis of flood river stages after the restoration of channels with increased floodplain vegetation.
A shared-bitline SRAM cell architecture for 1-V ultra low-power word-bit configurable macrocells

1-V ultra low-power SRAM circuit techniques are described for word-bit configurable memory macrocells. A shared bitline SRAM cell architecture with modified address assignment is proposed to reduce wasted memory-cell current to zero while suppressing the area penalty. For the new SRAM cell design, we devise a multiplexer-merged charge-transfer amplifier for high-sensitivity read operation and a bitline precharge scheme with an equalizing line for high-speed write-recovery operation. A 1 V operating 64 kb (2 kw/spl times/16 b/spl times/2) test chip was designed using a 0.35 /spl mu/m multithreshold-voltage CMOS (MTCMOS) logic process. The simulated power dissipation is 1/4 (486 /spl mu/W) that of the conventional 1-V word-bit configurable SRAM macrocell with a 13% area increase.
Smallholder Agriculture in the Information Age: Limits and Opportunities

Recent projections by the United Nations show that the food production needs to double by 2050 in order to meet the nutrition demand of the world's growing population. A key enabler of this growth are smallholder family farms, that form the backbone of agricultural (AG) production worldwide. To meet this increasing demand, smallholder farms need to implement critical advances in task management and coordination, crop and livestock monitoring and efficient farming practices. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) will play a critical role in these advances by providing integrated and affordable cyber-physical systems (CPS) that can longitudinally measure, analyze and control AG operations. In this paper we make headway towards the design and integration of such AG-CPS. We begin by characterizing the information and communication technology demand of smallholder agriculture based on traffic analysis of farm Internet use. Our findings inform the design and integration of an end-to-end AG-CPS called FarmNET that provides (i) robust control mechanisms for multi-sensor AG data collection and fusion, (ii) wide-area, heterogeneous wireless networks for ubiquitous farm connectivity, (iii) algorithms and models for farm data analytics that produce actionable information from the collected agricultural data, and (iv) control mechanisms for autonomous, proactive farming.
Islet autoantibodies present in association with Ljungan virus infection in bank voles (Myodes glareolus) in northern Sweden

Bank voles are known reservoirs for Puumala hantavirus and probably also for Ljungan virus (LV), a suggested candidate parechovirus in type 1 diabetes etiology and pathogenesis. The aim of this study was to determine whether wild bank voles had been exposed to LV and if exposure associated to autoantibodies against insulin (IAA), glutamic acid decarboxylase 65 (GADA), or islet autoantigen‐2 (IA‐2A). Serum samples from bank voles (Myodes glareolus) captured in early summer or early winter of 1997 and 1998, respectively, were analyzed in radio binding assays for antibodies against Ljungan virus (LVA) and Puumala virus (PUUVA) as well as for IAA, GADA, and IA‐2A. LVA was found in 25% (189/752), IAA in 2.5% (18/723), GADA in 2.6% (15/615), and IA‐2A in 2.5% (11/461) of available bank vole samples. LVA correlated with both IAA (P = 0.007) and GADA (P < 0.001), but not with IA‐2A (P = 0.999). There were no correlations with PUUVA, detected in 17% of the bank voles. Compared to LVA negative bank voles, LVA positive animals had higher levels of both IAA (P = 0.002) and GADA (P < 0.001), but not of IA‐2A (P = 0.205). Levels of LVA as well as IAA and GADA were higher in samples from bank voles captured in early summer. In conclusion, LVA was detected in bank voles and correlated with both IAA and GADA but not with IA‐2A. These observations suggest that exposure to LV may be associated with islet autoimmunity. It remains to be determined if islet autoantibody positive bank voles may develop diabetes in the wild. J. Med. Virol. 89:24–31, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Reduction of neurite outgrowth in a model of glial scarring following CNS injury is correlated with the expression of inhibitory molecules on reactive astrocytes

The extracellular matrix (ECM) molecules chondroitin-6-sulfate proteoglycan (CS-PG) and cytotactin/tenascin (CT), present on subpopulations of astroglia or their precursors during development, can inhibit neurite outgrowth in vitro. However, it is not known whether these molecules are expressed within the mature CNS following injury, where they could contribute to regenerative failure. Thus, the expression of various ECM molecules that affect axon growth was examined in areas of reactive gliosis caused by implanting a piece of nitrocellulose into the cortex of neonatal and adult animals. The expression of these molecules was compared to the amount of neurite outgrowth that occurred in vitro when the damaged CNS tissue from animals of various ages was removed intact and used as a substrate in explant culture. The results demonstrate that the growth-promoting molecules laminin, collagen type IV, and fibronectin were present around the implant in all experimental groups. In comparison, CS-PG and CT were present within and around the area of the lesion only in adult animals. In vivo, these molecules were colocalized with intensely glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP)-positive astrocytes in and immediately adjacent to the scar, but not with other equally intensely GFAP- positive astrocytes in the cortex away from the site of injury. CT and CS-PG were present in gray matter areas of the cortex that had been directly damaged during the implant procedure and in the corpus callosum when lesioned during implantation. In vitro, the glial tissue removed from the lesion site of neonatal animals supported neurite outgrowth, while scars removed from adult animals did not. The inability of the adult glial scar tissue to support neurite outgrowth was best correlated with the expression of CS-PG and CT, suggesting that these molecules may be involved in limiting the growth of regenerating axons in the CNS after injury.
AffectCam: arousal- augmented sensecam for richer recall of episodic memories

This paper describes the design and evaluation of AffectCam, a wearable system integrating SenseCam and BodyMedia SenseWear for capturing galvanic skin response as a measure of bodily arousal. AffectCam's algorithms use arousal as a filtering mechanism for selecting the most personally relevant photos captured during people's ordinary daily life, i.e. high arousal photos. We discuss initial findings showing that emotional arousal does improve the quality of memory recall associated with emotionally arousing events. In particular, the high arousal photos support richer recall of episodic memories than low arousal ones, i.e. over 50% improvement. We also consider how various phenomenological characteristics of autobiographical memories such as event, emotions, thoughts, place and time are differently cued by the AffectCam.
Prevalence and Correlates of Internet Gaming Problem among Internet Users: Results from an Internet Survey.

INTRODUCTION The current study aimed to establish the prevalence of internet gaming disorder (IGD) and its association with demographic characteristics, game genre, game use (time spent on gaming), as well as psychological distress, social phobia and well-being among current online gamers in Singapore. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 1251 participants aged 13 to 40 years completed the study which was administered as a web survey. The online questionnaire was designed using QuestionPro, and consisted of 8 sections and 105 questions. The 9-item Internet Gaming Disorder Questionnaire was used to establish the prevalence of IGD in the study. A series of logistic regression models were used to examine the associations between IGD, demographic characteristics and game genre, as well as IGD and psychological distress, social phobia and well-being. RESULTS The prevalence of IGD established using a cutoff of 5 among those who were current online gamers was 17.7%. Multiple logistic regressions revealed that those meeting criteria of IGD were more likely to be older, reported an earlier age of onset of playing online games, had primary and secondary education versus tertiary education, were currently students versus being currently employed and played massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Distress and social anxiety were higher while satisfaction with life was significantly lower among those who met criteria for IGD than those who did not meet the criteria. CONCLUSION The prevalence of IGD and its negative consequences in our sample of current online gamers was significant and point towards the need for further clinical studies and innovative interventions to address the problem.
Exogenous Nitric Oxide Protects Human Embryonic Stem Cell-Derived Cardiomyocytes against Ischemia/Reperfusion Injury

Background and Aims. Human embryonic stem cell- (hESC-) derived cardiomyocytes are one of the useful screening platforms of potential cardiocytoprotective molecules. However, little is known about the behavior of these cardiomyocytes in simulated ischemia/reperfusion conditions. In this study, we have tested the cytoprotective effect of an NO donor and the brain type natriuretic peptide (BNP) in a screening platform based first on differentiated embryonic bodies (EBs, 6 + 4 days) and then on more differentiated cardiomyocytes (6 + 24 days), both derived from hESCs. Methods. Both types of hESC-derived cells were exposed to 150 min simulated ischemia, followed by 120 min reperfusion. Cell viability was assessed by propidium iodide staining. The following treatments were applied during simulated ischemia in differentiated EBs: the NO-donor S-nitroso-N-acetylpenicillamine (SNAP) (10−7, 10−6, and 10−5 M), BNP (10−9, 10−8, and 10−7 M), and the nonspecific NO synthase inhibitor Nω-nitro-L-arginine (L-NNA, 10−5 M). Results. SNAP (10−6, 10−5 M) significantly attenuated cell death in differentiated EBs. However, simulated ischemia/reperfusion-induced cell death was not affected by BNP or by L-NNA. In separate experiments, SNAP (10−6 M) also protected hESC-derived cardiomyocytes. Conclusions. We conclude that SNAP, but not BNP, protects differentiated EBs or cardiomyocytes derived from hESCs against simulated ischemia/reperfusion injury. The present screening platform is a useful tool for discovery of cardiocytoprotective molecules and their cellular mechanisms.
An Enhanced Adaptive Coupled-Layer LGTracker++

This paper addresses the problems of tracking targets which undergo rapid and significant appearance changes. Our starting point is a successful, state-of-the-art tracker based on an adaptive coupled-layer visual model [10]. In this paper, we identify four important cases when the original tracker often fails: significant scale changes, environment clutter, and failures due to occlusion and rapid disordered movement. We suggest four new enhancements to solve these problems: we adapt the scale of the patches in addition to adapting the bounding box, marginal patch distributions are used to solve patch drifting in environment clutter, a memory is added and used to assist recovery from occlusion, situations where the tracker may lose the target are automatically detected, and a particle filter is substituted for the Kalman filter to help recover the target. We demonstrate the advantages of the enhanced tracker over the original tracker using a test toolkit [17]. We demonstrate the advantages of the enhanced tracker over the original tracker, as well as several other state-of-the art trackers from the literature.
Extensive functional redundancy in the regulation of Candida albicans drug resistance and morphogenesis by lysine deacetylases Hos2, Hda1, Rpd3 and Rpd31

Current treatment efforts for fungal infections are hampered by the limited availability of antifungal drugs and by the emergence of drug resistance. A powerful strategy to enhance the efficacy of antifungal drugs is to inhibit the molecular chaperone Hsp90. Hsp90 governs drug resistance, morphogenesis and virulence in a leading fungal pathogen of humans, Candida albicans. Our previous work with Saccharomyces cerevisiae established acetylation as a novel mechanism of posttranslational control of Hsp90 function in fungi. We implicated lysine deacetylases (KDACs) as key regulators of resistance to the most widely deployed class of antifungals, the azoles, in both S. cerevisiae and C. albicans. Here, we demonstrate high levels of functional redundancy among the KDACs that are important for regulating Hsp90 function. We identify Hos2, Hda1, Rpd3 and Rpd31 as the KDACs mediating azole resistance and morphogenesis in C. albicans. Furthermore, we identify lysine 30 and 271 as critical acetylation sites on C. albicans Hsp90, and substitutions at these residues compromise Hsp90 function. Finally, we show that pharmacological inhibition of KDACs phenocopies pharmacological inhibition of Hsp90 and abrogates Hsp90‐dependent azole resistance in numerous Candida species. This work illuminates new facets to the impact of KDACs on fungal drug resistance and morphogenesis, provides important insights into the divergence of the C. albicans Hsp90 regulatory network and reveals new targets for development of antifungal drugs.
Unlabeled Data for Morphological Generation With Character-Based Sequence-to-Sequence Models

We present a semi-supervised way of training a character-based encoder-decoder recurrent neural network for morphological reinflection—the task of generating one inflected wordform from another. This is achieved by using unlabeled tokens or random strings as training data for an autoencoding task, adapting a network for morphological reinflection, and performing multi-task training. We thus use limited labeled data more effectively, obtaining up to 9.92% improvement over state-of-the-art baselines for 8 different languages.
Modeling and multi-objective optimization of WEDM of spark plasma sintered boron carbide considering preferences of users

In this research work, development of a multi-response optimization technique was performed, using Genetic Algorithm (GA) optimization technique in wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM) keeping in mind about the priorities of multiple users. Boron carbide has been selected as work piece for experiment. The effect of five process parameters such as pulse on time (Ton), pulse off time (Toff), peak current (IP), water pressure (WP), servo feed (SF), were investigated on the responses such as machining speed and surface roughness (Ra) in WEDM operation. Further, two responses were modeled empirically through regression analysis. The developed models can be used by the machinists to predict the machining as well as the surface characteristics over a wide range of machining input parameters. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) is also applied to investigate the effect of influential input parameters. Finally, the confirmation experiments were conducted with optimal set of machining parameters and minor deviations have been found.
Rapid DNA Library Construction for Functional Genomic and Metagenomic Screening

ABSTRACT A rapid protocol was developed for constructing plasmid libraries from small quantities of genomic/metagenomic DNA. The technique utilizes linker amplification with topoisomerase cloning and allows for inducible transcription in Escherichia coli. As proof of principle, several anti-Bacillus lysins were cloned from bacteriophage genomes and an aerolysin was cloned from a metagenomic sample.
Effects of Resistance Training in Youth Athletes on Muscular Fitness and Athletic Performance: A Conceptual Model for Long-Term Athlete Development

During the stages of long-term athlete development (LTAD), resistance training (RT) is an important means for (i) stimulating athletic development, (ii) tolerating the demands of long-term training and competition, and (iii) inducing long-term health promoting effects that are robust over time and track into adulthood. However, there is a gap in the literature with regards to optimal RT methods during LTAD and how RT is linked to biological age. Thus, the aims of this scoping review were (i) to describe and discuss the effects of RT on muscular fitness and athletic performance in youth athletes, (ii) to introduce a conceptual model on how to appropriately implement different types of RT within LTAD stages, and (iii) to identify research gaps from the existing literature by deducing implications for future research. In general, RT produced small-to-moderate effects on muscular fitness and athletic performance in youth athletes with muscular strength showing the largest improvement. Free weight, complex, and plyometric training appear to be well-suited to improve muscular fitness and athletic performance. In addition, balance training appears to be an important preparatory (facilitating) training program during all stages of LTAD but particularly during the early stages. As youth athletes become more mature, specificity, and intensity of RT methods increase. This scoping review identified research gaps that are summarized in the following and that should be addressed in future studies: (i) to elucidate the influence of gender and biological age on the adaptive potential following RT in youth athletes (especially in females), (ii) to describe RT protocols in more detail (i.e., always report stress and strain-based parameters), and (iii) to examine neuromuscular and tendomuscular adaptations following RT in youth athletes.
Energy-Limited vs. Interference-Limited Ad Hoc Network Capacity

In a multi-user system in which interference is treated as noise, increasing the power of all transmissions eventually makes thermal noise negligible and causes the network to be interference-limited. This paper attempts to determine the power level at which a random-access ad hoc network becomes interference limited. Furthermore, when the network is not interference-limited (i.e., when signal power does not completely overwhelm noise), the relationship between power and area spectral efficiency is quantified. It is shown that the key quantity is the energy per information bit, commonly referred to as E<sub>b</sub>/N<sub>o</sub>. Roughly speaking, a network becomes interference limited for E<sub>b</sub>/N<sub>o</sub>- values above approximately 15 dB; increasing E<sub>b</sub>/N<sub>o</sub>- leads to E<sub>b</sub>/N<sub>o</sub>middot a negligible capacity increase, but decreasing E<sub>b</sub>/N<sub>o</sub> below this value does lead to a non-negligible capacity decrease. Furthermore, as E<sub>b</sub>/N<sub>o</sub> approaches the Shannon limit of -1.59 dB, network capacity is seen to be extremely sensitive to the value of J^.