Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Microglia Susceptibility to Free Bilirubin Is Age-Dependent

Increased concentrations of unconjugated bilirubin (UCB), namely its free fraction (Bf), in neonatal life may cause transient or definitive injury to neurons and glial cells. We demonstrated that UCB damages neurons and glial cells by compromising oligodendrocyte maturation and myelination, and by activating astrocytes and microglia. Immature neurons and astrocytes showed to be especially vulnerable. However, whether microglia susceptibility to UCB is also age-related was never investigated. We developed a microglia culture model in which cells at 2 days in vitro (2DIV) revealed to behave as the neonatal microglia (amoeboid/reactive cells), in contrast with those at 16DIV microglia that performed as aged cells (irresponsive/dormant cells). Here, we aimed to unveil whether UCB-induced toxicity diverged from the young to the long-cultured microglia. Cells were isolated from the cortical brain of 1- to 2-day-old CD1 mice and incubated for 24 h with 50/100 nM Bf levels, which were associated to moderate and severe neonatal hyperbilirubinemia, respectively. These concentrations of Bf induced early apoptosis and amoeboid shape in 2DIV microglia, while caused late apoptosis in 16DIV cells, without altering their morphology. CD11b staining increased in both, but more markedly in 2DIV cells. Likewise, the gene expression of HMGB1, a well-known alarmin, as well as HMGB1 and GLT-1–positive cells, were enhanced as compared to long-maturated microglia. The CX3CR1 reduction in 2DIV microglia was opposed to the 16DIV cells and suggests a preferential Bf-induced sickness response in younger cells. In conformity, increased mitochondrial mass and NO were enhanced in 2DIV cells, but unchanged or reduced, respectively, in the 16DIV microglia. However, 100 nM Bf caused iNOS gene overexpression in 2DIV and 16DIV cells. While only arginase 1/IL-1β gene expression levels increased upon 50/100 nM Bf treatment in long-maturated microglia, MHCII/arginase 1/TNF-α/IL-1β/IL-6 (>10-fold) were upregulated in the 2DIV microglia. Remarkably, enhanced inflammatory-associated microRNAs (miR-155/miR-125b/miR-21/miR-146a) and reduced anti-inflammatory miR-124 were found in young microglia by both Bf concentrations, while remained unchanged (miR/21/miR-125b) or decreased (miR-155/miR-146a/miR-124) in aged cells. Altogether, these findings support the neurodevelopmental susceptibilities to UCB-induced neurotoxicity, the most severe disabilities in premature babies, and the involvement of immune-inflammation neonatal microglia processes in poorer outcomes.
Heterologous Expression of the Class IIa Bacteriocins, Plantaricin 423 and Mundticin ST4SA, in Escherichia coli Using Green Fluorescent Protein as a Fusion Partner

The antilisterial class IIa bacteriocins, plantaricin 423 and mundticin ST4SA, have previously been purified from the cell-free supernatants of Lactobacillus plantarum 423 and Enterococcus mundtii ST4SA, respectively. Here, we present the fusions of mature plantaricin 423 and mundticin ST4SA to His-tagged green fluorescent protein (GFP) for respective heterologous expression in Escherichia coli. Fusion of plantaricin 423 and mundticin ST4SA to His-tagged GFP produced the fusion proteins GFP-PlaX and GFP-MunX, respectively. Both fusion proteins were autofluorescent, circumvented inclusion body formation and lowered the toxicity of class IIa bacteriocins during heterologous expression. Not only did GFP-class IIa fusion stabilize heterologous expression and boost yields, the fluorescent intensity of GFP-PlaX and GFP-MunX could be monitored quantitatively and qualitatively throughout expression and purification. This robust fluorometric property allowed rapid optimization of conditions for expression and bacteriocin liberation from GFP via the incorporated WELQut protease cleavage sequence. Incubation temperature and IPTG concentration had a significant effect on bacteriocin yield, and was optimal at 18°C and 0.1–0.2 mM, respectively. GFP-MunX was approximately produced at a yield of 153.30 mg/L culture which resulted in 12.4 mg/L active mundticin ST4SA after liberation and HPLC purification. While GFP-PlaX was produced at a yield of 121.29 mg/L culture, evidence suggests heterologous expression resulted in conformation isomers of WELQut liberated plantaricin 423.
Web Page Classification in Yioop!

Within the field of machine learning, classification is the problem of training a learning algorithm on a set of labeled examples belonging to two or more classes so that, when given a new unlabeled instance, the algorithm may assign the correct label. This is referred to as a supervised learning problem because the training examples must be labeled—usually by a human. An unsupervised learning problem, by contrast, takes unlabeled examples and derives both a set of labels and a procedure for assigning one or more of those labels to new instances. The unsupervised learning equivalent of classification is categorization. Both classification and categorization have applications to information retrieval, where they can be used to weed out uninteresting documents (e.g. spam), to label documents so that searches may be restricted to a particular class (e.g. pages about a location), and to group related documents together (e.g. news stories about the same event). The Yioop search engine does not presently perform any classification or categorization, and this project aims to change that by introducing automatic classification of web pages at crawl time. The goal is to provide administrators with an interface to train classifiers on a collection of labeled examples (i.e. web pages) belonging to two or more classes, and to enable Yioop to use the trained classifiers to assign labels to crawled web pages using the mechanism of meta keywords. Because classification requires labeled training examples to learn from, and collecting such examples can often be the most difficult and tedious aspect of the task, the system should also help the administrator to efficiently find and label example documents, either on the open web or in an index from a previous crawl. This classification system breaks down into a few major components: a classifier implementation, a web-based tool to interactively train classifier instances, and the application of one or more trained classifiers at crawl time to label new web pages. The first component can be implemented relatively independently of Yioop, while the latter two components require changes both to Yioop’s administrator interface and its behavior at crawl time. Over the course of this semester (Fall 2012) I’ve developed a plan for how web page classification will work in Yioop, explored the existing literature on
Nepal tourism in the aftermath of the April/May 2015 earthquake and aftershocks: repercussions, recovery and the rise of new tourism sectors

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the application of the Pacific Asia Travel Association’s (PATA) risk and recovery strategy for Nepal following the April/May 2015 earthquake and aftershocks. The impact of the earthquake on tourism to Nepal, the establishment and evolution of PATA’s Nepal Rapid Recovery Taskforce and strategic approaches to tourism recovery contained within the report and its outcomes are discussed. The methodology involved participant observation with three key players in the recovery process, email interviews of key informants, analysis of secondary data sources and reviews of management information systems. Collaborative theory was at the core of PATA’s recovery process and provided a lens through which to understand the intent, direction and actions undertaken. The application of Nepal’s recovery strategy is examined through volunteer tourism, which played a central role in Nepal’s tourism recovery and accessible tourism as an innovative approach to introducing a new market sector in Nepal. Volunteer and accessible tourism enterprises provided opportunities for these organisations to create their own narratives and to include them in the broader media and marketing approach towards stimulating tourism recovery to Nepal between 2015 and 2017.
Clonal spread of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in a large geographic area of the United States.

Methicillin resistance in Staphylococcus aureus has rapidly increased over the last two decades. This increase is paralleled by the emergence of unique multi-resistant MRSA clones. In Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Portugal and Czech Republic a specific MRSA clone is widely spread, the so-called Brazilian epidemic clone. Another epidemic clone, the Iberian clone, is disseminated in Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Scotland, Italy, Germany and New York. Thus, a large number of hospital-acquired infections have been caused by specific MRSA clones. Using different molecular techniques for MRSA typing, we verified that two unique epidemic clones are spread over large geographic area in the US. In addition, we showed that a previously described MRSA clone type, the New York clone (I::A:A), is widely spread beyond the New York frontiers.
Differential Evolution strategy based on the constraint of fitness values classification

This paper presents a new Differential Evolution (DE) strategy, named as FCDE, based on the constraint of classification of fitness function values. To ensure the population could move to the better fitness landscape, the global fitness value distribution information of the objective function are used and all points in the population are classified into three class by their fitness values in each generation, so the points in each class choose their donor vector and differential vector from the points in adjacent senior class to form the trial vector. This strategy could speed up the convergence to global optimal as well as avoid falling into the local optimal. Another attractive character of FCDE is the control parameters in this DE variant are self-adaptive. This method is tested on the 30 benchmark functions of CEC2014 special session and competition on single objective real-parameter numerical optimization. The experimental results showed acceptable reliability of this strategy in high search dimension. This paper will participate in the competition on real parameter single objective optimization to compare with other algorithms.
The impacts of increasing drought on forest dynamics, structure, and biodiversity in the United States

We synthesize insights from current understanding of drought impacts at stand‐to‐biogeographic scales, including management options, and we identify challenges to be addressed with new research. Large stand‐level shifts underway in western forests already are showing the importance of interactions involving drought, insects, and fire. Diebacks, changes in composition and structure, and shifting range limits are widely observed. In the eastern US, the effects of increasing drought are becoming better understood at the level of individual trees, but this knowledge cannot yet be confidently translated to predictions of changing structure and diversity of forest stands. While eastern forests have not experienced the types of changes seen in western forests in recent decades, they too are vulnerable to drought and could experience significant changes with increased severity, frequency, or duration in drought. Throughout the continental United States, the combination of projected large climate‐induced shifts in suitable habitat from modeling studies and limited potential for the rapid migration of tree populations suggests that changing tree and forest biogeography could substantially lag habitat shifts already underway. Forest management practices can partially ameliorate drought impacts through reductions in stand density, selection of drought‐tolerant species and genotypes, artificial regeneration, and the development of multistructured stands. However, silvicultural treatments also could exacerbate drought impacts unless implemented with careful attention to site and stand characteristics. Gaps in our understanding should motivate new research on the effects of interactions involving climate and other species at the stand scale and how interactions and multiple responses are represented in models. This assessment indicates that, without a stronger empirical basis for drought impacts at the stand scale, more complex models may provide limited guidance.
Implementation of a Third-Generation 16-Core 32-Thread Chip-Multithreading SPARCs® Processor

This third-generation chip-multithreading (CMT) SPARC processor is targeted for high-performance servers, and is optimized for both single- and multi-threaded applications. The architecture highlights are provided in [M. Tremblay and S. Chaudhry, 2008], while this paper focuses on the physical implementation aspects, providing an overview of circuit innovations in memory arrays, register files, and floating-point hardware that boost the performance and circuit robustness with low area overhead. The 396mm2 chip is fabricated in a 11M 65nm CMOS process and operates at a nominal frequency of 2.3GHz, consuming a maximum power of 250W at 1.2V. Power-management techniques include clock gating at core-cluster level and power throttling through a single-thread-issue mode of operation. This mode is used in power-constrained systems without sacrificing single-thread performance.
Validity and reliability of an in-training evaluation report to measure the CanMEDS roles in emergency medicine residents.

BACKGROUND There is a question of whether a single assessment tool can assess the key competencies of residents as mandated by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada CanMEDS roles framework. OBJECTIVE The objective of the present study was to investigate the reliability and validity of an emergency medicine (EM) in-training evaluation report (ITER). METHOD ITER data from 2009 to 2011 were combined for residents across the 5 years of the EM residency training program. An exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation was used to explore the construct validity of the ITER. A total of 172 ITERs were completed on residents across their first to fifth year of training. RESULTS A combined, 24-item ITER yielded a five-factor solution measuring the CanMEDs role Medical Expert/Scholar, Communicator/Collaborator, Professional, Health Advocate and Manager subscales. The factor solution accounted for 79% of the variance, and reliability coefficients (Cronbach alpha) ranged from α = 0.90 to 0.95 for each subscale and α = 0.97 overall. The combined, 24-item ITER used to assess residents' competencies in the EM residency program showed strong reliability and evidence of construct validity for assessment of the CanMEDS roles. CONCLUSION Further research is needed to develop and test ITER items that will differentiate each CanMEDS role exclusively.
Augmentation of Aripiprazole for Depressed Patients With an Inadequate Response to Antidepressant Treatment: A 6-Week Prospective, Open-Label, Multicenter Study

ObjectivesNonresponse or a partial response to 1 or more antidepressants is a common and significant problem in clinical practice. Adjunctive therapy with atypical antipsychotics is considered as 1 of the next treatment options for such inadequate responses. The present trial evaluated the efficacy and the safety of aripiprazole as an augmentation to ongoing antidepressant monotherapy for patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) who have previously exhibited an inadequate clinical response. MethodsThis was a 6-week prospective, multicenter, open-label study with flexibly dosed adjunctive aripiprazole. The 86 participants with MDD showed inadequate responses to more than 8 weeks of standard antidepressant treatment. The primary outcome was the mean change in Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale total score from baseline to the end point (week 6). ResultsThe mean daily dose of aripiprazole at the end point was 6.9 mg. The Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale total score was significantly decreased with adjunctive aripiprazole during the study period (by 14.0 points, P = 0.000). At the end point, the response rate was 52.3% and the remission rate was 39.8%. Adjunctive aripiprazole produced a significant response and remission from week 1 through the end point. The study completion rate was 73.9%, and adverse events included sedation (n = 11), akathisia (n = 9), headache (n = 6), tremor (n = 6), and increased appetite (n = 5). Of the discontinuations, only 5.7% were due to adverse events. ConclusionsAdjunctive aripiprazole in patients with MDD who had previously exhibited an inadequate response to standard antidepressant therapy was efficacious and well tolerated. A low daily dose of aripiprazole would be more acceptable in the clinical setting.
Diversity and Popularity in Social Networks

Homophily, the tendency of linked agents to have similar characteristics, is an important feature of social networks. We present a new model of network formation that allows the linking process to depend on individuals types and study the impact of such a bias on the network structure. Our main results fall into three categories: (i) we compare the distributions of intra- and inter-group links in terms of stochastic dominance, (ii) we show how, at the group level, homophily depends on the groups size and the details of the formation process, and (iii) we understand precisely the determinants of local homophily at the individual level. Especially, we find that popular individuals have more diverse networks. Our results are supported empirically in the AddHealth data looking at networks of social connections between boys and girls.
Optimal training symbols for channel estimation in constant-envelope OFDM

In this paper, optimal training symbols are designed for training-based least-square channel estimation among various constant-envelope orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) systems to provide minimum achievable mean-squared error (MSE) performance under quasi-static multipath fading channels. In particular, the closed-form expressions of optimal training symbols are specifically given along with the minimum achievable MSE expressions. Simulation results show that the channel estimation technique using optimal training symbols outperforms the technique using other training symbols previously designed for OFDM.
Measurement of quality of recovery using the QoR-40: a quantitative systematic review.

BACKGROUND Several rating scales have been developed to measure quality of recovery after surgery and anaesthesia, but the most extensively used is the QoR-40, a 40-item questionnaire that provides a global score and subscores across five dimensions: patient support, comfort, emotions, physical independence, and pain. It has been evaluated in a variety of settings, but its overall psychometric properties (validity, reliability, ease of use, and interpretation) and clinical utility are uncertain. METHODS We undertook a quantitative systematic review of studies evaluating psychometric properties of the QoR-40. Data were combined in meta-analyses using random effects models. This resulted in a total sample of 3459 patients from 17 studies originating in nine countries. RESULTS We confirmed content, construct, and convergent [pooled r=0.58, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.51-0.65] validity. Reliability was confirmed by excellent intraclass correlation (pooled α=0.91, 95% CI: 0.88-0.93), test-retest reliability (pooled r=0.90, 95% CI: 0.86-0.92), and inter-rater reliability (intraclass correlation=0.86). The clinical utility of the QoR-40 instrument was supported by high patient recruitment into evaluation studies (97%), and an excellent completion and return rate (97%). The mean time to complete the QoR-40 was 5.1 (95% CI: 4.4-5.7) min. CONCLUSIONS The QoR-40 is a widely used and extensively validated measure of quality of recovery. The QoR-40 is a suitable measure of postoperative quality of recovery in a range of clinical and research situations.
Impact of Business Strategy on Stock Price Crash Risk: Role of Overvalued Equity

The objective of the current study is to investigate the impact of business strategies on the future crash risk of stock prices by considering the role of overvalued equity. This relationship is checked by taking non-financial firms from Pakistan Stock Exchange from 2008-2016. To evaluate the business strategy, composite strategy score is used which considers the firm's development and research costs to look for new products, sales ratio to determine the firm’s capacity to manufacture the product efficiently, standard deviation of employees, sales growth, marketing expense to sales ratio to locate the firms’ emphasis on marketing, and intensity of assets expenditures to capture the firms’ emphasis on production. Market to book decomposition method is used to calculate the equity overvaluation whereas the negative conditional skewness is used as a measure of crash risk. Random and fixed effect panel regression models are used to estimate the results. The results of the present study indicate that firms pursuing innovative strategies have a higher probability to face crash price risk. Outcomes of the study also confirm that such strategies also increase the likelihood of equity overvaluation which increases the risk of stock price crash in the future. The results of the current study are helpful for the investors in allocating the assets cautiously among companies with diverse strategies.
Discretion vs. Timeless Perspective Policy-Making: The Role of Input-Output Interactions

This paper contributes to a recent debate about the structural and institutional conditions under which discretionary monetary policy-making may be superior to timeless perspective. To this end, we formulate an input-output economy in which firms' technology employs both labor and intermediate goods produced by all firms in the economy. Unlike price stickiness, input materials reduce the slope of the New Keynesian Phillips curve, while leaving the policy maker's preference for consumption stabilization unaffected. Strategic complementarities stemming from realistic degrees of input-output interactions greatly amplify the loss of social welfare under timeless perspective, even for small departures of the economy from its steady state. By contrast, price rigidity proves to be ineffective at improving the performance of discretion relative to timeless perspective.
An Item Response Theory Analysis of the Impulsive Behaviors Checklist for Adolescents

This study used item response theory (IRT) to examine the Impulsive Behaviors Checklist for Adolescents (IBCL-A) among 6,276 (67.7% girls) Chinese secondary school students. The IBCL-A included 15 maladaptive impulsive behaviors adapted from the Revised Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines. The authors obtained the severity and discrimination parameters for each item in the IBCL-A, examined differential item functioning across gender and age groups, and tested reliability and concurrent validity of the IBCL-A IRT-scaled score. Most items in the IBCL-A were the most accurate in assessing moderate to high levels of impulsivity and discriminated well among adolescents with varied levels of impulsivity. Differential item functioning emerged in several items across gender. The IRT-scaled score showed good construct validity and incremental predictive validity. Findings demonstrate the sound psychometric properties of the IBCL-A and support the clinical utility of this scale.