Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bacterial cellulose production from the litchi extract by Gluconacetobacter xylinus

ABSTRACT Although litchi has both nutrient and edible value, the extremely short preservation time limited its further market promotion. To explore processed litchi products with longer preservation time, litchi extract was selected as an alternative feedstock for production of bacterial cellulose (BC). After 2 weeks of static fermentation, 2.53 g/L of the BC membrane was obtained. The trace elements including magnesium (Mg) and sodium (Na) in the litchi extract were partly absorbed in the BC membrane, but no potassium (K) element was detected in it, curiously. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) photographs exhibited an ultrafine network nanostructure for the BC produced in the litchi extract. Analysis of the fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) confirmed the pellicles to be a cellulosic material. Interestingly, X-ray diffraction (XRD) results showed the BC membrane obtained from litchi extract had higher crystallinity of 94.0% than that from HS medium. Overall, the work showed the potential of producing high value-added polymer from litchi resources.
Wide spectrum modulation by KP-544 in models relevant for neuronal survival

Reduced neurotrophic signalling has been proposed as a part of the pathophysiology behind neuronal death and dysfunction. The small molecule KP-544 was developed with the intention to enhance nerve growth factor signalling. To characterize the actions of KP-544 pharmacologically, we used four diverse models with relevance for neuronal function and survival. We found that 300–1000 nM KP-544 enhanced the neurite outgrowth in PC12 cells in response to a suboptimal concentration of nerve growth factor. KP-544 also protected the cerebellar granule cells from excitotoxicity apoptosis induced by the mitochondrial toxin methyl-phenyl-pyridinium, and modulated inflammation by inhibiting interleukin-6 production in primary astrocytes. Chronic treatment of rats with KP-544 prevented the hyper-responsiveness to amphetamine of animals treated with methylazoxymethanol acetate, a recently described neurodevelopmental model of schizophrenia.
Lumbar Tactile Acuity in Patients With Low Back Pain and Healthy Controls: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Objective: Diminished tactile acuity in chronic non-neuropathic pain syndromes has been attributed to central pain processing and cortical reorganization. The latter was recently targeted in clinical trials that demonstrated no clear advantages over traditional approaches for the reduction of nonspecific low back pain (LBP). The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to summarize the current evidence on tactile acuity in LBP and pain-free controls. Methods: Six databases were independently searched by 2 researchers. Nineteen studies with either case-control, cross-sectional, or baseline lumbar tactile acuity data collected before an intervention were included in the qualitative and quantitative synthesis. All pooled analyses were based on random effects models. Risk of bias was assessed using the Downs and Black scale and selection criteria were verified independently by 2 assessors. Results: Data on patients (n=547) and controls (n=346) were summarized. Studies on patients included data on nonspecific chronic LBP only; no data on acute LBP were identified. There was a significant mean difference between patients and controls for lumbar tactile acuity including (11.74 mm; 95% confidence interval, 8.61-14.87) and excluding (9.49 mm; 95% confidence interval, 3.64-15.34) higher risk of bias studies. Discussion: A gap of knowledge regarding tactile acuity in populations with acute and chronic non-neuropathic LBP needs to be addressed in future research as this may significantly help the understanding of the causality of tactile acuity alterations.
Modeling Regions of Interest on Orbital and Rover Imagery for Planetary Exploration Missions

ABSTRACT Planetary rover exploration missions require accurate and computationally efficient robot localization in order to perform complex and cooperative tasks. The global localization on planetary environments can be competently addressed by incorporating orbital and ground rover imagery. An indicative approach could include (1) the extraction of regions of interest (ROIs) in orbital images, (2) the extraction of ROIs in rover images, (3) the ROI matching, and (4) the localization. In order to perform adequately in ROI matching, a model should be able to detect common ROIs. The work in hand tackles the problem of extracting such regions of interest that are observable on both orbital and rover images. The dedicated model that was designed and implemented contains a detection and a classification part. The detection of the ROIs is based on both their texture and their geometrical properties. Classification was performed on the result of the detection in order to annotate the ROIs and discard any outliers caused by false detection. The results prove that the model is able to detect commonly observable regions and, therefore, is considered to be an adequate preprocessing step in the context of a global rover localization system.
Multiple Human Papillomavirus Infections with High Viral Loads Are Associated with Cervical Lesions but Do Not Differentiate Grades of Cervical Abnormalities

ABSTRACT Multiple human papillomavirus (HPV) genotypes often coexist within cervical epithelia and are frequently detected together in smears of different grades of cervical neoplasia. Describing the association between multiple infections and cervical disease is important in generating hypotheses regarding its pathogenesis. We analyzed the prevalence of multiple HPV infections and their attribution to cervical disease in a screening population of 999 consecutive BD SurePath liquid-based cervical cytology samples enriched with atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASCUS) (n = 100), low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (LSIL) (n = 100), and high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSIL) (n = 97). HPV genotyping was performed only on cytology specimens using a broad-spectrum GP5+/6+-PCR/multiplex HPV genotyping (BSGP5+/6+-PCR/MPG) assay that detects and quantifies 51 HPV genotypes and 3 subtypes. Using a recently defined high viral load cutoff, the quantitative data were scored as high or low viral load. In the 36-month follow-up, 79 histologically confirmed cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2 or greater (CIN2+) cases were identified. In the screening population, there was a trend of having more multiple infections at a younger age. Multiple HPV infections were common. Multiple HPV types were most prevalent in LSIL (75.9% of HPV positives), followed by HSIL (65.5%), ASCUS (64.6%), and negative for intraepithelial lesion or malignancy (NILM) (36.8%). On average, 3.2 and 2.5 HPV types were detected per LSIL and HSIL sample, respectively. Multiple HPV types with high viral loads were most prevalent in LSIL (62.6% of high viral load positives), followed by HSIL (51.9%), ASCUS (40.7%), and NILM (19.3%). Patients with multiple high viral loads showed a 4- to 6-fold-higher risk of having cervical precancerous cytological lesions than did patients with single high viral loads. Compared to NILM, multiple infections, especially with multiple high viral loads, were significantly associated with cytological precancerous lesions. However, the presence of multiple infections did not distinguish low-grade from high-grade cytological lesions.
Distraction from multiple in-vehicle secondary tasks: vehicle performance and mental workload implications

This study investigates the impact of multiple in-vehicle information systems on the driver. It was undertaken using a high fidelity driving simulator. The participants experienced, paced and unpaced single tasks, multiple secondary tasks and an equal period of ‘normal’ driving. Results indicate that the interaction with secondary tasks led to significant compensatory speed reductions. Multiple secondary tasks were shown to have a detrimental affect on vehicle performance with significantly reduced headways and increased brake pressure being found. The drivers reported interaction with the multiple in-vehicle systems to significantly impose more subjective mental workload than either a single secondary task or ‘normal driving’. The implications of these findings and the need to integrate and manage complex in-vehicle information systems are discussed.
A Novel FtsZ-Like Protein Is Involved in Replication of the Anthrax Toxin-Encoding pXO1 Plasmid in Bacillus anthracis

ABSTRACT Plasmid pXO1 encodes the tripartite anthrax toxin, which is the major virulence factor of Bacillus anthracis. In spite of the important role of pXO1 in anthrax pathogenesis, very little is known about its replication and maintenance in B. anthracis. We cloned a 5-kb region of the pXO1 plasmid into an Escherichia coli vector and showed that this plasmid can replicate when introduced into B. anthracis. Mutational analysis showed that open reading frame 45 (repX) of pXO1 was required for the replication of the miniplasmid in B. anthracis. Interestingly, repX showed limited homology to bacterial FtsZ proteins that are involved in cell division. A mutation in the predicted GTP binding domain of RepX abolished its replication activity. Genes almost identical to repX are contained on several megaplasmids in members of the Bacillus cereus group, including a B. cereus strain that causes an anthrax-like disease. Our results identify a novel group of FtsZ-related initiator proteins that are required for the replication of virulence plasmids in B. anthracis and possibly in related organisms. Such replication proteins may provide novel drug targets for the elimination of plasmids encoding the anthrax toxin and other virulence factors.
Spatial Limits to MIMO Capacity in General Scattering Environments

o In this paper we present a new upper bound on the capacity of MIMO systems. By characterizing the fundamental communication modes of a physical aperture, we develop an intrinsic capacity which is independent of antenna array geometries and array signal processing. Using a modal expansion for free-space wave propagation we show that there exists a maximum achievable capacity for communication between spatial regions of space, which depends on the size of the regions and the statistics of the scattering environment.
Confiança política na América Latina: evolução recente e determinantes individuais

Recentes pesquisas sobre o tema da confianca politica tem apontado um quadro de significativo descredito dos cidadaos em relacao as principais instituicoes das democracias ocidentais. Entre as diferentes explicacoes levantadas para esse grave fenomeno, tem recebido destaque a tese que o associa a um processo de mudanca cultural que estaria conduzindo ao estabelecimento de uma cidadania critica e, consequentemente, a um novo padrao nas relacoes entre os individuos e o sistema politico. Ainda que satisfatoriamente testada em democracias de longa tradicao e relativamente consolidadas, alguns criticos tem apontado a fragilidade explicativa dessa hipotese para o caso das jovens democracias, nas quais o fenomeno seria explicado pela desilusao dos cidadaos com o funcionamento concreto das instituicoes que compoem o sistema politico. Nesse trabalho tratamos dessa polemica ao testar essas hipoteses no contexto latinoamericano, investigando os determinantes individuais da desconfianca politica. Utilizando dados produzidos pelo projeto World Values Survey em suas tres ondas conduzidas na regiao, inicialmente analisamos a evolucao recente de alguns indicadores e, na sequencia, propomos um modelo que confronta simultaneamente diferentes explicacoes para o fenomeno em questao.
The tolC locus of Escherichia coli affects the expression of three major outer membrane proteins

tolC mutants, which are resistant to colicin E1 and also highly sensitive to detergents and dyes, were shown to lack the OmpF outer membrane protein. There was little effect on transcription as judged by the use of an ompF-lac operon fusion strain, and the tolC effect was probably due to a post-transcriptional effect. The NmpC protein and protein 2 were also tolC dependent.
Improving congestion control performance through loss differentiation

Linear increase/multiplicative decrease (LIMD) has typically been the congestion control paradigm of choice in the Internet. However, a major drawback of LIMD is that it reacts identically (and aggressively) to all packet losses, irrespective of the cause of loss. In this paper, we try to augment the basic LIMD congestion control with additional mechanisms to predict the cause of packet losses and react accordingly. To this end, we present the LIMD/H algorithm, which has the following features: (a) LIMD/H uses the "history" of packet losses and the evolution of transmission rate for a connection in order to distinguish between congestion-induced and non-congestion-induced packet losses; (b) LIMD/H reacts gently to non-congestion-induced losses and aggressively to congestion-induced losses, thereby achieving high efficiency, fairness, as well as quick reaction to the onset of congestion. We present an initial performance evaluation of LIMD/H using simulations and analysis.
Supporting Interpersonal Communication Using Mind Maps

Engaging in initial communication interactions with an unknown partner for the first time can be a daunting task. Participants often use several different strategies, including an active strategy involving getting to know their communication partners through asking other people about them. However, this strategy might not always be possible. To resolve the situation when this strategy is not suitable, we propose a method to extract keywords from the partner’s comments on SNS sites and use these comments to represent their interests and activities.
Degree theorems and Lipschitz simplicial volume for nonpositively curved manifolds of finite volume

We study a metric version of the simplicial volume on Riemannian manifolds, the Lipschitz simplicial volume, with applications to degree theorems in mind. We establish a proportionality principle and a product inequality from which we derive an extension of Gromov's volume comparison theorem to products of negatively curved manifolds or locally symmetric spaces of noncompact type. In contrast, we provide vanishing results for the ordinary simplicial volume; for instance, we show that the ordinary simplicial volume of noncompact locally symmetric spaces with finite volume of ℚ‐rank at least 3 is zero.
Multicode CDMA transmission over time-varying multipath channels

To adapt to the adverse radio environment efficiently, we address the use of a pilot aided multicode code division multiple access (CDMA) system. This system is implemented by transmitting all the information symbols together with the pilot symbols of a user simultaneously over the wireless channel. We analyze the trade-off between the diversity order and the channel estimation error in the performance of the proposed system. Our numerical results indicate that depending on the transmitter power and the channel condition, the proposed system is capable of outperforming the conventional CDMA system with known channel state information at the receiver.
Interference Aware Routing for Tactical Networks using Power Spatial Density

Performance of wireless communications and sensor networks is subject to limitations imposed by available bandwidth, power, or interference levels. Nodes may be able to report their consumption of these resources as congestion indicators so that appropriate routing decisions can be made to reduce their load and guarantee certain levels of service. To the extent that the congestion involves only one node or is due to logical flows between nodes, this approach is adequate. However mutual interference is a function of the power spatial density of nodes and therefore some link qualities are correlated. This suggests that routing with regional congestion control may be more effective than with nodal congestion control - provided the appropriate metrics can be obtained. This paper introduces a new approach to interference aware routing that results in more effective load balancing by using power spatial density as a predictor of interference. The analogy of temperature is used in a novel and computationally efficient algorithm to detect "hot spots" that may emerge anywhere in the domain of the network. The detection algorithm provides a regional congestion indicator to a routing algorithm as an additional penalty, so that an entire region may be avoided when making routing decisions. Operation requires the periodic exchange of indicators, as well as position and transmitted power reports between nodes, which may be accommodated by many tactical networking protocols. Preliminary simulation results are presented demonstrating that the algorithm exhibits good dynamic behavior, and is robust with respect to stale reports.
Run-Time Management for Multicore Embedded Systems With Energy Harvesting

In this paper, we propose a novel framework for runtime energy and workload management in multicore embedded systems with solar energy harvesting and a periodic hard real-time task set as the workload. Compared with prior work, our framework makes several novel contributions and possesses several advantages, including the following: 1) a semidynamic scheduling heuristic that dynamically adapts to runtime harvested power variations without losing the consistency of periodic tasks; 2) a battery-supercapacitor hybrid energy storage module for more efficient system energy management; 3) a coarse-grained core shutdown heuristic for additional energy saving; 4) energy budget planning and task allocation heuristics with process variation tolerance; 5) a novel dual-speed method specifically designed for periodic tasks to address discrete frequency levels and dynamic voltage/frequency scaling switching overhead at the core level; and 6) an extension to prepare the system for thermal issues arising at runtime during extreme environmental conditions. The experimental studies show that our framework results in a reduction in task miss rate by up to 70% and task miss penalty by up to 65% compared with the best known prior work.
Identifying Sources of Bias in the WISC-R

The use of intelligence tests, especially the WISC-R, has come under repeated scrutiny in recent years. Arguments for and against the use of WISC-R IQs have centered around the issue of bias. The issues of construct validity, predictive validity, and item content bias on the WISC-R were examined. Evidence regarding these biases was analyzed based on psychometric conceptions of test bias. Although this approach can lead to a narrow examination of possible bias in the WISC-R, it allows for objectivity based on empirical studies. Although all the evidence is not in, our review clearly suggests that the verdict of “not proven” is justified. Test bias has now become and will continue to be one of the major topics in psychometric research.
Obsessions with Fair Skin: Color Discourses in Indian Advertising

In India, the idea of beauty is often associated with fairness. Fairness creams abound in the market, and advertisements glorify fair skin. An analysis of television advertisements of fairness products shows how they connect fairness with achieving other personal goals, such as marriage, success, empowerment, job opportunities, and confidence. Focus-group interviews with Indian women reveal that most agree that an obsession with fairness and its projected attributes continues to prevail despite an awareness that beauty is a more personal and complex concept. Many believe the connection between beauty and fair skin arises from age-old historical beliefs that are now perpetuated in advertisements for fairness creams. Though these women do not personally rate fairness as a predominant indicator of beauty, they are aware of the culturally determined advantages of being fair and have themselves made efforts to look fair.
Domestic Dogs as Facilitators in Social Interaction: An Evaluation of Helping and Courtship Behaviors

ABSTRACT Previous studies have suggested that dogs facilitate social interaction between humans. Furthermore, the nature of social interaction is limited to nonverbal behavior such as smiling or gazing or to commonplace conversations. Four studies were carried out in field settings in order to explore if dogs can facilitate closer relationships. In the first experiment, a male confederate (accompanied or not by a dog) solicited people for money in the street. The second experiment was the same except that a female confederate was used. In a third experiment, a male confederate (with or without a dog) accidentally dropped some coins on the ground, to see if people would help him pick them up. In the fourth experiment, a male confederate (with or without a dog) solicited young women in the street for their phone numbers. Results show that the presence of the dog was associated with a higher rate of helping behavior (experiments 1, 2, 3) and higher compliance with the request of the confederate (experiment 4). The influence of a domestic dog as a facilitator to create affiliation and relations in social interaction is discussed.
The Everyday Challenges of Pro-Environmental Practices

Much research and policy planning aimed at climate change mitigation currently focuses on individual behavioural change as a means to reduce carbon emissions. An often used approach in order to achieve this is the attempt to influence behaviour through transfers of knowledge and information. However, awareness of climate change problems and intentions to live proenvironmentally friendly do not always translate into actual changed practice. In this sense, there is often a discrepancy between attitude and actual behaviour. This article is an in-depth empirical investigation of the logics guiding everyday pro-environmental practices, the aim was to examine the challenges experienced in this regard. Based on visits to households in Copenhagen, four major challenges are identified and discussed. The paper argues that everyday life, as the starting point of individual pro-environmental practices, is characterised by a complexity which people have to navigate, and thus that pro-environmental practices should not be seen as one demarcated field, but as interlinked with other practices in everyday life.
Leveling cartoons, texture energy markers, and image decomposition

The variational u + v model for image decomposition aims at sep- arating the image into a 'cartoon component' u, which consists of relatively flat plateaus for the object regions surrounded by abrupt edges, and a 'texture component' v, which contains smaller-scale oscillations plus possibly noise. Exploiting this model leads to im- proved performance in several image analysis and computer vision problems. In this paper we propose alternative approaches for u+v decomposition based on levelings and texture energy. First, we pro- pose an ecient method for obtaining a multiscale cartoon compo- nent using hierarchies of levelings based on Gaussian scale-space markers. We show that this corresponds to a constrained mini- mization driven by PDEs and link the leveling cartoons with total variation minimization. Second, we extract the texture component from levelings of the residuals between the image and its multiscale levelings. Further, we employ instantaneous nonlinear operators to estimate the spatial modulation energy in the most active texture frequency bands and use this as a new type of texture markers that yield an improved texture component from the leveling residuals. Finally, we provide experimental results that demonstrate the e- cacy of the proposed image decomposition methods.