Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ana Catarina Rodrigues

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is regarded as a “phenomenon of bacterial resistance”. This gram negative bacterium is responsible for a high percentage of mortality in the hospitals all over the world and its prevalence can be a consequence of important reasons, such as: intrinsic resistance determined by virulence factors; acquired resistance mechanisms that lead to a low susceptibility to antimicrobial agents; and the ability of P. aeruginosa to grow on any natural and artificial surfaces leading to the development of biofilms. The emergence of new strategies to control P. aeruginosa biofilms is becoming more evident due to their resistance to traditional treatments, and (bacterio)phages have been recognized as an attractive alternative for this problem. Nevertheless, despite the potential of phages as antimicrobial agents, it is well known that bacteria can quickly adapt and create new survival strategies and the emergence of phage-resistant phenotypes is inevitable. Thus, the combination of phage and antibiotic therapies could have potentially more benefits than just using phages and antibiotics alone. This work describes the combined effect of phages and antibiotics against planktonic cultures and biofilms of P. aeruginosa. The antimicrobial susceptibility of three reference strains of P. aeruginosa towards antibiotics belonging to four different action groups was initially evaluated and for this purpose, two important parameters were determined: Minimal Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) for planktonic cultures and Minimal Biofilm Eradication Concentration (MBEC) for biofilms. After that, phage infection assays were performed against cultures and biofilms of P. aeruginosa using four different phages from the Bacteriophage Biotechnology Group of the University of Minho. The efficacies of antibiotics and phages or both combined were evaluated in biofilms by viable cell enumeration and in planktonic cultures by measuring the absorbance (OD600nm). In general, all antibiotics tested showed little efficacy against biofilms which were also very tolerant to phage infection. The presence of degradative enzymes, such as beta-lactamase, and the survival of tolerant cells (persister cells) can explain the failure of antibiotics in reducing the cell numbers present in biofilms. In the
Approximate Expected Utility Rationalization

We propose a new measure of deviations from the expected utility theory. For any positive number e, we give a characterization of the datasets with a rationalization that is within e (in beliefs, utility, or perceived prices) of expected utility theory, under the assumption of risk aversion. The number e can then be used as a measure of how far the data is to the expected utility theory. We apply our methodology to data from three large-scale experiments. Many subjects in these experiments are consistent with utility maximization, but not with expected utility maximization. Our measure of distance to expected utility is correlated with the subjects’ demographic characteristics.
Vertical Integration and Operational Flexibility

The main aim of the paper is to highlight the relation between flexibility and vertical integration. To this purpose, we go through the selection of the optimal degree of vertical disintegration of a flexible firm which operates in a dynamic uncertain environment. The enterprise we model enjoys flexibility since it can switch from a certain amount of disintegration to vertical integration and viceversa. This means that the firm never loses vertical control, i.e., the ability to produce all inputs even when it buys them in the market. This sort of flexibility makes for results which are somehow contrary to the Industrial Organization recent literature and closer to the Operations Research results. In this sense we provide a bridge between the two approaches and rescue Industrial Organization from counterintuitive conclusions.
Testing an inference of function from structure: Snake vertebrae do the twist

The zygapophyses and zygosphene–zygantrum articulations of snake vertebrae are hypothesized to restrict or eliminate vertebral torsion. This hypothesis is apparently based solely on the inference of function from structure, despite the limitations of such inferences, as well as contradictory observations and measurements. In this study, I observed and measured axial torsion in gopher snakes, Pituophis melanoleucus. To examine the structural basis of axial torsion, I measured the vertebral articulation angles along the body and the insertion angles of five epaxial muscles. To examine torsion in a natural behavior, I digitized video images and measured the degree of apparent axial torsion during terrestrial lateral undulation. Finally, I measured the mechanical capacity of the vertebral joints for actual torsion over intervals of 10 vertebrae in fresh, skinned segments of the trunk. Vertebral articulation angles vary up to 30° and are associated with variation in torsional capacity along the trunk. The freely crawling P. melanoleucus twisted up to 2.19° per vertebra, which produced substantial overall torsion when added over several vertebrae. The vertebral joints are mechanically capable of torsion up to 2.89° per joint. Therefore, despite the mechanical restriction imposed by the complex articulations, vertebral torsion occurs in snakes and appears to be functionally important in several natural behaviors. Even in cases in which mechanical function appears to be narrowly constrained by morphology, specific functions should not be inferred solely from structural analyses. J. Morphol. 241:217–225, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Stabilizing CPU Frequency and Voltage for Temperature-Aware DVFS in Mobile Devices

Recent mobile devices adopt high-performance processors to support various functions. As a side effect, higher performance inevitably leads to power density increase, eventually resulting in thermal problems. In order to alleviate the thermal problems, off-the-shelf mobile devices rely on dynamic voltage-frequency scaling (DVFS)-based dynamic thermal management (DTM) schemes. Unfortunately, in the DVFS-based DTM schemes, an excessive number of DTM operations worsen not only performance but also power efficiency. In this paper, we propose a temperature-aware DVFS scheme for Android-based mobile devices to optimize power or performance depending on the option. We evaluate our scheme in the off-the-shelf mobile device. Our evaluation results show that our scheme saves energy consumption by 12.7%, on average, when we use the power optimizing option. Our scheme also enhances the performance by 6.3%, on average, by using the performance optimizing scheme, still reducing the energy consumption by 6.7%.
THE EFFECT OF VARIOUS BREATHING MANEUVERS ON MEASUREMENT OF LUNG VOLUMES FOR HYDROSTATIC WEIGHING by Gaoyong

approved: Redacted for Privacy Dr. Christian W. Zauner This study was to determine if an increase of PaCO2, after breathholding prior to full inspiration, could enable a person to reach the same FVC measured on land while submerged. Another purpose of this study was to explore the difference in Db and %BF between HW at RV, TLC and TLCwet with breath-holding. The FVC was measured under the conditions of on land and in water, both with breath-holding and without breath-holding. Secondly, subjects were hydrostatically weighed at RV, TLCwet, and TLCwet with breath-holding to determine the differences in estimation of Db and %BF. The RV was estimated via empirical formula. The TLC was determined by summing FVC and RV. Fifteen male (18 25 years old) and 15 female (19 -28 years old) students volunteered for this study. A two-way ANOVA with repeated measures and Scheffe's post hoc test were used for statistical analysis of data. The a level was set at . 05 for statistical significance. There was no indication of increase in FVC with breath-holding. The FVC both with and without breath-holding was significantly reduced in water (5.4 5.5% 0,0 in females, 3.4 % 3.9 % in males). The mean Db calculated from RV was the lowest in both genders and was significantly lower than Db from TLCwet, TLCdry, and TLCwet with breath-holding. The Db at TLCwet was lower than at TLCdry with no statistical significance in males (average 0.002 gm/cc difference) and in females (mean difference was 0.005 gm/cc). The mean %BF difference between TLCwet and TLCdry was 0.75 % in males and 2.01 % in females (12>.05). It is unlikely that a possible increase of PaCO2 attained after breath-holding could facilitate inspiratory motion via stimulus to the chemoreceptors to overcome hydrostatic pressure. The empirical estimate of RV may not be suitable for young adults who have larger lungs. Using TLCdry in HW could be an alternative instead of using RV for males; for females it should be used with greater caution. THE EFFECT OF VARIOUS BREATHING MANEUVERS ON MEASUREMENT OF LUNG VOLUMES FOR HYDROSTATIC WEIGHING
Structural Econometric Approach to Bidding in the Main Refinancing Operations of the Eurosystem

This paper contributes to the existing literature on central bank repo auctions. It is based on a structural econometric approach, whereby the primitives of bidding behavior (individual bid schedules and bid-shading components) are directly estimated. With the estimated parameters we calibrate a theoretical model in order to illustrate some comparative static results. This exercise sheds light on the debate about the reversed winner's curse found in the empirical literature on ECB auctions by showing that it may be related to an identification problem. Overall the results suggest that strategic and optimal behavior is prevalent in ECB tenders. We find evidence of a statistically significant bid-shading component, even though the number of bidders is very large. Bid-shading increases with liquidity uncertainty and decreases with the number of participants and with price uncertainty. We argue that a sufficient condition for the latter effect to appear in the data is that the residual supply facing an individual bidder does not change much ex-post when very short-term market rates increase.
richome-like emergences in Croton of Brazilian highland rock utcrops : Evidences for atmospheric water uptake arah

Background and aims: Although trichomes are typical features of the species-rich genus Croton, little is known about their development, anatomical structure and function. This study aims to characterize the anatomy of leaf trichomes of three Croton species restricted to Brazilian rock outcrops, and investigate their functional role in an environment with limited soil water availability. Methods: Samples of leaves at different stages of maturity were submitted to standard anatomical light and scanning electron microscopy techniques to perform a structural and developmental study. Atmospheric water uptake was investigated through the absorption of aqueous solutions of berberine hemisulfate and Indian ink. Key results: The so-called trichomes actually correspond to emergences because they originate from protodermal and ground meristem activity rather than from epidermal tissue. These emergences show a complex anatomy, are closely associated with the mesophyll sclereids and might be involved in leaf atmospheric water uptake. The outermost cells of the emergences are arranged radially and present non-lignified thick walls. We demonstrate that an aqueous solution can effectively penetrate through the leaf emergences, continuing through sclereids and reaching the vascular bundle or flowing across the mesophyll maximizing water distribution in the leaf tissue. Conclusions: The complex structure and hypothesized function of Croton trichome-like emergences represent a novel finding in Euphorbiaceae. In the three species studied, these leaf emergences might play a role in atmospheric water absorption and they may be one of the clues for the occurrence of Croton in habitats with limited soil water supply where this genus is usually species-rich and abundant. © 2016 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.
The bimodal effects of estradiol on gonadotropin synthesis and secretion in female mice are dependent on estrogen receptor-a

Depending on the estrous/menstrual cycle stage in females, ovarian-derived estradiol (E2) exerts either a negative or a positive effect on the hypothalamic–pituitary axis to regulate the synthesis and secretion of pituitary gonadotropins, LH, and FSH. To study the role of estrogen receptor-a (ERa) mediating these effects, we assessed the relevant parameters in adult wild-type (WT) and ERa-null (aERKO) female mice in vivo and in primary pituitary cell cultures. TheaERKO mice exhibited significantly higher plasma and pituitary LH levels relative to WT females despite possessing markedly high levels of circulating E2. In contrast, hypothalamic GnRH content and circulating FSH levels were comparable between genotypes. Ovariectomy led to increased plasma LH in WT females but no further increase in aERKO females, while plasma FSH levels increased in both genotypes. E2 treatment suppressed the high plasma LH and pituitary Lhb mRNA expression in ovariectomized WT females but had no effect in aERKO. In contrast, E2 treatments only partially suppressed Journal of Endocrinology (2006) 191, 309–317 0022–0795/06/0191–309 q 2006 Society for Endocrinology Printed in Great plasma FSH in ovariectomized WT females, but this too was lacking in aERKO females. Therefore, negative feedback on FSH is partially E2/ERa mediated but more dependent on ovarian-derived inhibin, which was increased threefold above normal in aERKO females. Together, these data indicate that E2-mediated negative feedback is dependent on functional ERa and acts to primarily regulate LH synthesis and secretion. Studies in primary cultures of pituitary cells from WT females revealed that E2 did not suppress basal or GnRH-induced LH secretion but instead enhanced the latter response, indicating that the positive influence of E2 on gonadotropin secretion may occur at the level of the pituitary. Once again this effect was lacking in aERKO gonadotropes in culture. These data indicate that the aspects of negative and positive effects of E2 on gonadotropin secretion are ERa dependent and occur at the level of the hypothalamus and pituitary respectively. Journal of Endocrinology (2006) 191, 309–317
Unsupervised Wishart Classfication of Wetlands in Newfoundland, Canada Using Polsar Data Based on Fisher Linear Discriminant Analysis

Abstract. Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolSAR) imagery is a complex multi-dimensional dataset, which is an important source of information for various natural resources and environmental classification and monitoring applications. PolSAR imagery produces valuable information by observing scattering mechanisms from different natural and man-made objects. Land cover mapping using PolSAR data classification is one of the most important applications of SAR remote sensing earth observations, which have gained increasing attention in the recent years. However, one of the most challenging aspects of classification is selecting features with maximum discrimination capability. To address this challenge, a statistical approach based on the Fisher Linear Discriminant Analysis (FLDA) and the incorporation of physical interpretation of PolSAR data into classification is proposed in this paper. After pre-processing of PolSAR data, including the speckle reduction, the H/α classification is used in order to classify the basic scattering mechanisms. Then, a new method for feature weighting, based on the fusion of FLDA and physical interpretation, is implemented. This method proves to increase the classification accuracy as well as increasing between-class discrimination in the final Wishart classification. The proposed method was applied to a full polarimetric C-band RADARSAT-2 data set from Avalon area, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. This imagery has been acquired in June 2015, and covers various types of wetlands including bogs, fens, marshes and shallow water. The results were compared with the standard Wishart classification, and an improvement of about 20% was achieved in the overall accuracy. This method provides an opportunity for operational wetland classification in northern latitude with high accuracy using only SAR polarimetric data.
Felt tip pens and school councils: children's participation rights in four English schools

The United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child has created practical challenges for nation states and institutions particularly in relation to children's rights to participation. The limited research that is available has tended to use survey methodology; qualitative accounts of children's daily lives are rare. The present study investigated the nature of children's participation in their education in two primary and two secondary schools; in particular the right to express views freely in all matters affecting the child. The study found that children's opportunities to express their views were extremely limited even when school councils were in place. It is concluded that the goal of active citizenship espoused by recent national curriculum developments will remain illusive unless educational practice changes to a focus on school processes rather than products. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Growing into an Innovative Economy: Evidence from Chinese Firm-Level Data Analysis

Since initiating market reforms in 1978, China has undergone a significant economic transformation (Lin 2011). A more recent development is that China now aims to become a knowledge-intensive economy. This goal may constitute a part of the force that drives the redistribution of knowledge in the international market (Serger and Breidne 2007). The following question, proposed by Jones and Romer (2010: 231), may become increasingly relevant:
Dejan Gluvačević Challenges of branding in post-confl ict countries : The case of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Country branding, by which the authors imply the management of identity and image, that is, strategic communication with the global audience, is an omnipresent phenomenon. Studies have confi rmed that a country's positive image is refl ected in its international economic and political position. Th erefore, various communication strategies, techniques and branding tools have been developed and applied by many countries. However, these strategies and techniques are not necessarily applicable for branding divided and post-confl ict countries. For this reason, the paper is deals with the challenges, opportunities and methods of communication and branding Bosnia and Herzegovina, which, even twenty years after the end of the war, is still synonymous with an unstable state and a divided society. It provides an adjusted branding methodology based on an analysis of the elements of identity around which there is a consensus of all three ethnic groups Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs, and reveals the possibilities upon which the modern brand of an European Bosnia and Herzegovina can be built. Th e authors pay special attention to the role of Bosnia and Herzegovina's citizens and argue that their perceptions and attitudes towards Bosnia and Herzegovina – as well as their mutual communication – have signifi cant, if not crucial, role in the development of a branding strategy.
An integrative analysis reveals coordinated reprogramming of the epigenome and the transcriptome in human skeletal muscle after training

Regular endurance exercise training induces beneficial functional and health effects in human skeletal muscle. The putative contribution to the training response of the epigenome as a mediator between genes and environment has not been clarified. Here we investigated the contribution of DNA methylation and associated transcriptomic changes in a well-controlled human intervention study. Training effects were mirrored by significant alterations in DNA methylation and gene expression in regions with a homogeneous muscle energetics and remodeling ontology. Moreover, a signature of DNA methylation and gene expression separated the samples based on training and gender. Differential DNA methylation was predominantly observed in enhancers, gene bodies and intergenic regions and less in CpG islands or promoters. We identified transcriptional regulator binding motifs of MRF, MEF2 and ETS proteins in the proximity of the changing sites. A transcriptional network analysis revealed modules harboring distinct ontologies and, interestingly, the overall direction of the changes of methylation within each module was inversely correlated to expression changes. In conclusion, we show that highly consistent and associated modifications in methylation and expression, concordant with observed health-enhancing phenotypic adaptations, are induced by a physiological stimulus.
Brazilian Bare Nouns in Comparatives: Experimental Evidence for Non-Contextual Dependency

This is an empirical investigation into the volume interpretation attested for the Bare Singular (BS) in Brazilian Portuguese (BrP) in previous studies (e.g.: Bevilaqua e Pires de Oliveira, 2014). The issue is whether it is contextually dependent, as argued by Lima & Gomes (2016) and Bevilaqua et al (2016). The results indicate that besides a cardinal reading, the volume interpretation is significantly associated with the BS, independently of the context. The BP is normally compared by the number of individuals, however the BP accepted some volume judgments in the biased context. We conclude that the results about the BS shows that its volume reading is not contextually dependent, contradicting Lima & Gomes (2016) and Bevilaqua et al.’s (2016) prediction. We criticize Rothstein & Pires de Oliveira’s (2016) explanation for the behavior of the BS; the authors treat it as flexible nouns in English (Rothstein & Pires de Oliveira (2016)). However, English flexible nouns in a mass context do not allow the cardinal reading. We suggest that the BS is under-determined because it denotes the kind.
Harmonic-Percussive Source Separation Using Harmonicity and Sparsity Constraints

In this paper, we propose a novel approach to harmonic-percussive sound separation (HPSS) using Non-negative Matrix Factorization (NMF) with sparsity and harmonicity constraints. Conventional HPSS methods have focused on temporal continuity of harmonic components and spectral continuity of percussive components. However, it may not be appropriate to use them to separate time-varying harmonic signals such as vocals, vibratos, and glissandos, as they lack in temporal continuity. Based on the observation that the spectral distributions of harmonic and percus-sive signals differ – i.e. , harmonic components have harmonic and sparse structure while percussive components are broadband – we propose an algorithm that successfully separates the rapidly time-varying harmonic signals from the percussive ones by imposing different constraints on the two groups of spectral bases. Experiments with real recordings as well as synthesized sounds show that the proposed method outperforms the conventional methods.