Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Brucella detection in blood: comparison of the BacT/Alert standard aerobic bottle, BacT/Alert FAN aerobic bottle and BacT/Alert enhanced FAN aerobic bottle in simulated blood culture.

The objective of this study was to compare the performances of the standard aerobic bottle (StAe), FAN aerobic (FANAe) and enhanced FAN aerobic (E-FANAe) (the charcoal component of the FANAe was revised recently to improve the feasibility of Gram smear interpretation) blood culture bottles for BacT/Alert system for the detection of Brucella melitensis in simulated blood culture. Triplicate strains of eight clinical isolates of B. melitensis were studied. Each bottle was inoculated with 5 mL of freshly collected human blood at three different targeted bacterial inocula (10(1), 10(2) and 10(3) CFU/bottle). All bottles were monitored for up to 21 days or until they became positive. The results of time to detection (TTD) on the eight B. melitensis samples were as follows: at 10(1) CFU/bottle, the E-FANAe had a mean TTD significantly shorter than the StAe (48 h vs. 56.2 h, P < 0.05); and at 10(3) CFU/bottle, the FANAe and E-FANAe had a mean TTD significantly shorter than the StAe (41.2 h and 40 h vs. 45.6 h, P < 0.05). The reproducibilities (no.of positive signals/no.of all bottles) of three bottle systems were as follows: at 10(1) CFU/bottle, the reproducibilities of StAe, FANAe and E-FANAe were 96, 83 and 58%, respectively. At 10(3) CFU/bottle, the reproducibilities of StAe, FANAe and E-FANAe were 95, 95 and 91%, respectively. Positive results for the presence of bacteria in Gram smears were confirmed in 68% of StAe, 54% of FANAe and 90% of E-FANAe. In case of suspected brucellosis, the combination of one StAe bottle and one E-FANAe bottle seems to provide the highest and fastest recovery of the organism.
Switching and voltage controls for a flyback switch-mode rectifier

This paper presents the development of a flyback switch-mode rectifier (SMR) and its switching and voltage dynamic controls. In power circuit, the rating derivation and design for its constituted components are made. As to the control affair, a novel charge-regulated varying-frequency current control scheme is first developed. The proposed switching scheme possesses the advantages of without slope compensation, having robust current tracking control and ease of implementation. Then the quantitative and robust voltage regulation controls considering nonlinear behavior are made. The performance of the developed SMR is verified experimentally. Finally, the random switching for the developed SMR is studied.
Fast Handover Pre-Authentication Protocol in 3GPP-WLAN Heterogeneous Mobile Networks

The demand of ubiquitous communications drives the development of advanced mobile technologies. Meanwhile, recent increases in mobile data usage and the emergence of new IP service applications constitute the motivation to integrate 3GPP cellular mobile systems with broadband WLANs. Since 3GPP and WLAN systems complement each other in terms of infrastructure and network coverage and bandwidth, 3GPP-WLAN Heterogeneous Mobile Networks based on the 3GPP-based Home Network (3GHN) are proposed for meeting the growing demands in high-speed data access on any mobile devices. However, heterogeneous radio access technologies and architectures lead to many interworking issues, such as network transparency, security mechanism, seamless handover, and quality of service. Among of them, security and handover are the major motives to ensure the confidentiality, reliability and continuity of services in 3GPP-WLAN Heterogeneous Mobile Networks. This paper proposes fast handover pre-authentication protocol to reduce the handover authentication latency and authentication signaling overhead during the whole handover session. The proposed protocol supports Intra-Domain Handover Pre-Authentication (Intra-HO Pre-Auth) and Inter-Domain Handover Pre-Authentication (Inter-HO Pre-Auth) for preauthenticating the Mobile User (MS) prior to performing an Inter-domain Handover (Inter-domain HO)/Intra-domain Handover (Intra-domain HO) process. Meanwhile, the reduction in retrieving new Authentication Vector sand key sets from the Home Location Register/Home Subscriber Service/Authentication Center in 3GHN achieves for minimized redundant authentication signaling transactions between 3GPP domains and WLAN domains. In addition, this paper provides simulation results which show that the proposed Intra-HO Pre-Auth achieves 49% handover authentication performance improvement compared to EAP-AKA, and the proposed Inter-HO Pre-Auth achieves 26% handover authentication performance improvement as well.
On the asymptotic sum-rate of the relay-assisted amplify-and-forward cognitive MIMO channel

This paper studies the asymptotic sum-rate of the primary network within the relay-assisted multi-antenna cognitive radio system performing amplify-and-forward relaying. The achievable sum-rates are derived in the large-system limit by means of the replica method. A closed-form expression for the sum-rate of the primary network is obtained for large antenna arrays as a function of parameters obtained by solving a set of fixed-point equations. Numerical simulations confirm the validity of the results even for systems with only a few antennas at each terminal.
Association between gene polymorphism of growth hormone and carcass traits in dairy bulls

The contribution of the leucine/valine substitution at amino acid position 127 in the bovine growth hormone (GH) protein to variation in carcass traits was studied. The data included 109 Polish Friesian bulls slaughtered at 15 months of age. The traits measured were carcass gain, weights of meat, bones, intermuscular and subcutaneous fat in the carcass and meat, bones and fat in valuable cuts (fore and best ribs, sirloin, round of beef and shoulder). The bulls’ GH genotype was determined using the PCR-RFLP technique. The frequencies of leucine (Leu) and valine (Val) alleles were 0·64 and 0·36, respectively. The GH concentration was determined in serial blood plasma samples collected every 15 min starting from 15 min before to 135 min after intravenous administration of 0·15 µ g thyrotropin releasing hormone (TRH) per kg live weight. Response GH variables were: baseline (the mean of samples collected at ‐15 and 0 min), peak (the sample taken at 15 min post injection of TRH) and disappearance rate (calculated as peak minus the sample at 60 min, divided by time interval 45 min). Mixed animal models were used for the statistical analysis. Differences were found between the Leu/Leu and the Val/Val genotypes for carcass gain and weight of meat in the carcass ( P ≤ 0·05). Moreover, differences in the size of the GH peak between the two homozygotes approached significance ( P ≤ 0·10). The effect of GH genotype accounted for a moderate part of the phenotypic variance in the carcass traits, corresponding to a reduction in the residual variance of ≤ 5·25% when included in the model, whereas the corresponding value for the effect of GH genotype on the variation in GH release was lower, ≤ 1·77%. In conclusion, the Leu/Val polymorphism seems to be associated with carcass traits in dairy bulls, although the effect was relatively small when compared with the effects of season and background genome.
Joint analysis of gyral folding and fiber shape patterns

Cortical gyral folding pattern can be described by the hinge numbers, e.g., 2-hinge and 3-hinge gyri. Our recent studies have shown that joint analysis of 2-hinge gyral folding and its fiber connection patterns can be a powerful tool to elucidate the regularity and variability of gyral structures. However, other more complex gyral shape patterns such as 3-hinge gyri have not been investigated yet. In this paper, we proposed a novel computational framework to characterize 3-hinge gyral folding patterns and jointly analyze the correlation between folding and DTI-derived fiber orientation patterns in these regions. To characterize and differentiate these 3-hinge gyral folding patterns, an effective decision tree model is designed and applied to classify these 3-hinge gyral patches into the combinations of five basic sub-types of `S', `U', `V', `I', and other shapes. Then, the correlations between the shapes of these sub-types of 3-hinge gyri and their DTI-derived fiber connection patterns are quantitatively assessed, and our results demonstrated their close relationships. This work further replicated and strengthened our previous finding obtained in 2-hinge gyri that gyral folding patterns are closely correlated with fiber connection patterns.
Bayesian approach in pharmacoeconomics: relevance to decision-makers

The Bayesian approach is becoming increasingly visible in pharmacoeconomics. This approach has been primarily applied to two decision problems commonly encountered in pharmacoeconomics: adoption and allocation. Acceptability curves generated from Bayesian cost-effectiveness analyses can be interpreted as the probability that the new treatment is cost-effective at a given level of willingness-to-pay. This probabilistic interpretation of study findings provides information that is more relevent and easier to understand for those who make adoption decisions. The Bayesian value of information analysis offers a decision-analytic framework to explore values of additional research and to set research priorities. It is a useful analytical framework for decision-makers who wish to achieve allocation efficacy.
Deoxyribonucleic Acid for Nanopackaging: A promising bottom-up approach

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is presented as a potential candidate to develop nanopackaging solutions in the field of microelectronics by a bottom-up approach. Such an approach could overcome the miniaturization limitations of the current top-down approaches. By its particular and unique properties of self-assembling and the capability to be functionalized, DNA is a versatile biological material that can be used in many different ways to build multiscale nanostructures and especially conductive nanowires (NWs). These NWs could be implemented as potential future nanoscale interconnections.
Presentation of manuscripts for publication in The British Journal of Surgery

Most surgeons are impatient perfectionists. They have little time to spare for reading outside their subjects, and what reading they do is probably done while travelling, between operations, or late at night. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that they are prepared to tolerate both in their reading and their writing convoluted prose, sloppy analyses, careless presentations, and unfounded conclusions. A proportion of the manuscripts submitted for publication in The British Journal of Surgery during the past few months contained one or more of these defects. Some of the examples were minor for example, miscalculation of percentages, spelling mistakes and the use of unexplained abbreviations. Some, however, were more serious and could have undermined the editors’ determination to maintain the highest standards of ethical and scientific integrity and surgical reliability. Some authors did not supply enough information for readers to place any reliance on either their results or their conclusions; some quoted percentages inappropriately, given the smallness of their samples, and some did not differentiate between statistical significance and biological relevance, coming to conclusions that were potentially misleading. This article is not a criticism of the editors. Their principal tasks are to publish ideas, techniques and trials that are interesting and may have a potential for altering clinical practice, as well as controversial statements and authoritative reviews. As most surgeons are not trained in techniques of presentation it does mean that both scientific and technical editors have to spend a lot of time trying to eliminate errors before the papers are printed; their burden would be lighter if authors took the trouble to submit manuscripts that were free from at least the most obvious solecisms. In this paper I illustrate some of these points, and suggest remedies for the grossest errors of presentation. I must emphasize that many of the defects were corrected before the papers were published and that my analysis was of the manuscripts.
CHAMP: concurrent hierarchical and multilevel program for simulation of VLSI circuits

The design and implementation of a hierarchical switch-level simulator for complex digital circuits is discussed. The hierarchy is exploited to reduce the memory requirements of the simulation, thus allowing the simulation of circuits that are too large to simulate at the flat level. The algorithm used in the simulator operates directly on the hierarchical circuit description. Speedup is obtained through the use of high-level models. The simulator has been implemented on a SUN workstation and used to simulate a switch-level description of the Motorola 68000 microprocessor. <<ETX>>
Emotional speaker recognition based on i-vector space model

I-vector space feature has been recently proved to be very efficient in speaker recognition field. In this paper, we assess using the i-vector approach for emotional speaker recognition in order to boost the performance which is deteriorated by emotions. The key idea of the i-vector algorithm is to represent each speaker by a fixed length and low dimensional feature vector. The concatenation of these speaker dependent i-vector features is used as an input characteristic vectors in the Support Vector Machines (SVM) classifier. In the feature extraction step, the Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) were used. All experiments were on spontaneous emotional context using the IEMOCAP data base. Results reveal that the i-vector solve the problem of large scale of SVM model and give a promising results for speaker recognition in spontaneous emotional context.
In situ laser processing in a scanning electron microscope

Laser delivery probes using multimode fiber optic delivery and bulk focusing optics have been constructed and used for performing materials processing experiments within scanning electron microscope/focused ion beam instruments. Controlling the current driving a 915-nm semiconductor diode laser module enables continuous or pulsed operation down to sub-microsecond durations, and with spot sizes on the order of 50 μm diameter, achieving irradiances at a sample surface exceeding 1 MW/cm2. Localized laser heating has been used to demonstrate laser chemical vapor deposition of Pt, surface melting of silicon, enhanced purity, and resistivity via laser annealing of Au deposits formed by electron beam induced deposition, and in situ secondary electron imaging of laser induced dewetting of Au metal films on SiOx.
Regulation and role in pathogenicity of Erwinia chrysanthemi 3937 pectin methylesterase

The gene pem, encoding the pectin methylesterase (PME) of Erwinia chrysanthemi 3937, was cloned and mutagenized by mini-Mu transposable elements. A second gene, pecY, which could act as a negative regulator of PME was found 5' to the pem gene. A PME-E. chrysanthemi derivative inoculate onto Saintpaulia plants was shown to be clearly noninvasive, demonstrating the important role of this enzyme in soft rot disease.
The Camberwell Assessment of Need: The Validity and Reliability of an Instrument to Assess the Needs of People with Severe Mental Illness

Background People with severe mental illness often have a complex mixture of clinical and social needs. The Camberwell Assessment of Need (CAN) is a new instrument which has been designed to provide a comprehensive assessment of these needs. There are two versions of the instrument: the clinical version has been designed to be used by staff to plan patients' care; whereas the research version is primarily a mental health service evaluation tool. The CAN has been designed to assist local authorities to fulfil their statutory obligations under the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 to assess needs for community services. Method A draft version of the instrument was designed by the authors. Modifications were made following comments from mental health experts and a patient survey. Patients (n = 49) and staff (n = 60) were then interviewed, using the amended version, to assess the inter-rater and test-retest reliability of the instrument. Results The mean number of needs identified per patient ranged from 7.55 to 8.64. Correlations of the inter-rater and test-retest reliability of the total number of needs identified by staff were 0.99 and 0.78 respectively. The percentage of complete agreement on individual items ranged from 100–81.6% (inter-rater) and 100–58.1% (test-retest). Conclusions The study suggests that the CAN is a valid and reliable instrument for assessing the needs of people with severe mental illness. It is easily learnt by staff from a range of professional backgrounds, and a complete assessment took, on average, around 25 minutes.
Clinical and neurohormonal correlates and prognostic value of serum prolactin levels in patients with chronic heart failure

Hypothalamic axis deregulation is associated with clinical severity and depression in chronic heart failure (CHF). We investigated the relationship of serum prolactin, an indicator of hypothalamic axis function, to neurohomonal/immune activation and depressive symptoms in CHF as well as its prognostic value.
EyeTap video-based featureless projective motion estimation assisted by gyroscopic tracking

This paper proposes a computationally economical method of recovering the projective motion of head mounted cameras or EyeTap devices, for use in wearable computer mediated reality. The tracking system combines featureless vision and inertial tracking in a closed loop system to achieve accurate robust head tracking using inexpensive uncalibrated sensors. The combination of inertial and vision techniques provides the high accuracy visual registration needed for fitting computer graphics onto real images and robustness to large interframe camera motion due to fast head rotations. Operating on a 1.2 GHz Pentium III wearable computer, the system is able to register live video images with less than 2 pixels of error (0.3 degrees) at 12 frames per second.
Robust Confidence Intervals for Average Treatment Effects Under Limited Overlap

Estimators of average treatment effects under unconfounded treatment assignment are known to become rather imprecise if there is limited overlap in the covariate distributions between the treatment groups. But such limited overlap can also have a detrimental effect on inference, and lead for example to highly distorted confidence intervals. This paper shows that this is because the coverage error of traditional confidence intervals is not so much driven by the total sample size, but by the number of observations in the areas of limited overlap. At least some of these “local sample sizes” are often very small in applications, up to the point where distributional approximation derived from the Central Limit Theorem become unreliable. Building on this observation, the paper proposes two new robust confidence intervals that are extensions of classical approaches to small sample inference. It shows that these approaches are easy to implement, and have superior theoretical and practical properties relative to standard methods in empirically relevant settings. They should thus be useful for practitioners.
Hippo Pathway-independent Restriction of TAZ and YAP by Angiomotin*

The Hippo pathway restricts the activity of transcriptional co-activators TAZ and YAP by phosphorylating them for cytoplasmic sequestration or degradation. In this report, we describe an independent mechanism for the cell to restrict the activity of TAZ and YAP through interaction with angiomotin (Amot) and angiomotin-like 1 (AmotL1). Amot and AmotL1 were robustly co-immunoprecipitated with FLAG-tagged TAZ, and their interaction is dependent on the WW domain of TAZ and the PPXY motif in the N terminus of Amot. Amot and AmotL1 also interact with YAP via the first WW domain of YAP. Overexpression of Amot and AmotL1 caused cytoplasmic retention of TAZ and suppressed its transcriptional outcome such as the expression of CTGF and Cyr61. Hippo refractory TAZ mutant (S89A) is also negatively regulated by Amot and AmotL1. HEK293 cells express the highest level of Amot and AmotL1 among nine cell lines examined, and silencing the expression of endogenous Amot increased the expression of CTGF and Cyr61 either at basal levels or upon overexpression of exogenous S89A. These results reveal a novel mechanism to restrict the activity of TAZ and YAP through physical interaction with Amot and AmotL1.
Effects of stearoyl-CoA desaturase 1 and sterol regulatory element binding protein gene polymorphisms on milk production, composition and coagulation properties of individual milk of brown Swiss cows.

Summary Associations between stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD) and sterol regulatory element binding protein (SREBP-1) gene polymorphisms and milk production, composition (fat, protein, and casein content), acidity (pH and titratable acidity) and coagulation properties (MCP), namely rennet coagulation time (RCT, min) and curd fi rmness (a 30 , mm) were investigated on individual Brown Swiss milk. A total of 294 cows from 16 herds and progeny of 15 sires were milk-sampled once. Th e additive eff ects of SCD and SREBP-1 genotypes on the aforementioned traits were analyzed through Bayesian linear models. Th e SCD gene was associated with protein content, casein content and a 30 . Lower protein, casein and a 30 was observed for milk yielded by SCD V than A cows, whereas for other traits the eff ect was trivial. Animals carrying the L allele of SREBP-1 showed higher fat content than animals carrying the S allele. Th ese results suggest a possible use of these loci in gene-assisted selection programs for the improvement of milk quality traits and MCP in Brown Swiss cattle, although large scale studies in diff erent breeds are required.
Preconditioning by fast direct methods for nonself-adjoint nonseparable elliptic equations

We consider the use of fast direct methods as preconditioners for iterative methods for computing the numerical solution of nonself-adjoint elliptic boundary value problems. We derive bounds on convergence rates that are independent of discretization mesh size. For two-dimensional problems on rectangular domains, discretized on an $n \times n$ grid, these bounds lead to asymptotic operation counts of $O(n^2 \log n\log \varepsilon ^{ - 1} )$ to achieve relative error $\varepsilon $ and $O(n^2 (\log n)^2 )$ to reach truncation error.
Chapter 24 Correlation of 4 0-[ methyl-11 C ]-Thiothymidine Uptake with Ki-67 Immunohistochemistry in Patients with Newly Diagnosed and Recurrent Gliomas

Purpose: 40-[methyl-11C]-thiothymidine (4DST) has been developed as an in vivo cell proliferation marker based on the DNA incorporation method. We evaluated 4DST uptake on PET in patients with newly diagnosed and recurrent gliomas and correlated the results with proliferative activity. Methods: 4DST PET was investigated in 32 patients, including 21 with newly diagnosed gliomas and 11 with recurrent gliomas. PET imaging was performed at 15 min after 4DST injection. The standardized uptake value (SUV) was determined by region-of-interest analysis. The maximal SUV for tumor (T) and the mean SUV for contralateral normal brain tissue (N) were calculated and T/N ratio was determined. Proliferative activity as indicated by the Ki-67 index was estimated in tissue specimens. Results: The sensitivity of 4DST PET for the detection of newly diagnosed and recurrent gliomas was 86 % and 100 %, respectively. In newly diagnosed gliomas, there was a weak correlation between T/N ratio and Ki-67 index (r1⁄4 0.45; p< 0.05). In recurrent gliomas, there was no significant difference between T/N ratio and Ki-67 index. Conclusion: In newly diagnosed gliomas, 4DST PET seems to be useful in the noninvasive assessment of proliferation.