Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of ultrasonic treatment on reduction of Esherichia coli ATCC 25922 and egg quality parameters in experimentally contaminated hens' shell eggs.

BACKGROUND In this study, hen eggs which were experimentally contaminated with Esherichia coli ATCC 25922 were used. Contaminated eggs were washed statically (S5 to S30; 0 kHz) and by ultrasonic waves (U5 to U30; 35 kHz) for given applications of time (5, 15 and 30 min), then the eggs were stored at 22°C for 14 days. RESULTS Depending on the time of ultrasonic application, a significant increase in egg shell strength (P < 0.01) was recorded. The highest value of the Haugh unit (67.93, 1 day) was observed on the eggs which were washed by ultrasonic waves. Yolk width values of ultrasonic washed eggs diminished. E. coli was completely removed by 30 min of ultrasonic application. During storage E. coli growth was not detected on the eggs which were washed by ultrasonic waves except the eggs in U5 group (2.04 log CFU eggshell⁻¹) on the first day of storage. CONCLUSION Depending on the time of ultrasonic application a significant increase in egg quality parameters (shell strength, albumen height, Haugh units, and yolk height) were observed. The application of ultrasound led to a significant reduction in E. coli numbers on egg shells.
A Novel Locus for Ectodermal Dysplasia of Hair, Nail and Skin Pigmentation Anomalies Maps to Chromosome 18p11.32-p11.31

Ectodermal dysplasias (EDs) are a large heterogeneous group of inherited disorders exhibiting abnormalities in ectodermally derived appendages such as hair, nails, teeth and sweat glands. EDs associated with reticulated pigmentation phenotype are rare entities for which the genetic basis and pathophysiology are not well characterized. The present study describes a five generation consanguineous Pakistani family segregating an autosomal recessive form of a novel type of ectodermal dysplasia. The affected members present with sparse and woolly hair, severe nail dystrophy and reticulate skin pigmentation. After exclusion of known gene loci related with other skin disorders, genome-wide linkage analysis was performed using Illumina HumanOmniExpress beadchip SNP arrays. We linked this form of ED to human chromosome 18p11.32-p11.31 flanked by the SNPs rs9284390 (0.113Mb) and rs4797100 (3.14 Mb). A maximum two-point LOD score of 3.3 was obtained with several markers along the disease interval. The linkage interval of 3.03 Mb encompassed seventeen functional genes. However, sequence analysis of all these genes did not discover any potentially disease causing-variants. The identification of this novel locus provides additional information regarding the mapping of a rare form of ED. Further research, such as the use of whole-genome sequencing, would be expected to reveal any pathogenic mutation within the disease locus.
NO decreases evoked quantal ACh release at a synapse of Aplysia by a mechanism independent of Ca2+ influx and protein kinase G.

1. The exogenous nitric oxide (NO) donor, SIN‐1, decreased the postsynaptic response evoked by a presynaptic spike at an identified cholinergic neuro‐neuronal synapse in the buccal ganglion of Aplysia californica. 2. The statistical analysis of long duration postsynaptic responses evoked by square depolarizations of the voltage‐clamped presynaptic neurone showed that the number of evoked acetylcholine (ACh) quanta released was decreased by SIN‐1, pointing to a presynaptic action of the drug. 3. Vitamin E, a scavenger of free radicals, prevented the effects of SIN‐1 on ACh release. SIN‐1 still decreased ACh release in the presence of superoxide dismutase, whereas haemoglobin suppressed the effects of SIN‐1. These results showed that NO is the active compound. 4. 8‐Bromoguanosine 3', 5' cyclic monophosphate (8‐Br‐cGMP) mimicked the inhibitory effect of NO on ACh release suggesting the involvement of a NO‐sensitive guanylate cyclase. This was reinforced by the reversibility of the effects of SIN‐1 by inhibitors of guanylate cyclase, Methylene Blue, cystamine or LY83583. Methylene Blue partially reduced the inhibitory effect of NO. In addition, in the presence of superoxide dismutase, Methylene Blue blocked and cystamine significantly reduced the NO‐induced inhibition of ACh release. 5. In the presence of KT5823 or R‐p‐8‐pCPT‐cGMPS, two inhibitors of protein kinase G, the reduction of ACh release by SIN‐1 still took place indicating that the effects of NO most probably did not involve protein kinase G‐dependent phosphorylation. 6. Presynaptic voltage‐dependent Ca2+ (L‐, N‐ and P‐types) and K+ (IA and late outward rectifier) currents were unmodified by SIN‐1. 7. The modulation of ACh release in opposite ways by L‐arginine and N omega‐nitro‐L‐arginine points to the involvement of an endogenous NO synthase‐dependent regulation of transmitter release.
Want Answers? A Reddit Inspired Study on How to Pose Questions

Questions form an integral part of our everyday communication, both offline and online. Getting responses to our questions from others is fundamental to satisfying our information need and in extending our knowledge boundaries. A question may be represented using various factors such as social, syntactic, semantic, etc. We hypothesize that these factors contribute with varying degrees towards getting responses from others for a given question. We perform a thorough empirical study to measure effects of these factors using a novel question and answer dataset from the website Reddit.com. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first such analysis of its kind on this important topic. We also use a sparse nonnegative matrix factorization technique to automatically induce interpretable semantic factors from the question dataset. We also document various patterns on response prediction we observe during our analysis in the data. For instance, we found that preference-probing questions are scantily answered. Our method is robust to capture such latent response factors. We hope to make our code and datasets publicly available upon publication of the paper.
Crowd-Selection Query Processing in Crowdsourcing Databases: A Task-Driven Approach

Crowd-selection is essential to crowdsourcing applications, since choosing the right workers with particular expertise to carry out specific crowdsourced tasks is extremely important. The central problem is simple but tricky: given a crowdsourced task, who is the right worker to ask? Currently, most existing work has mainly studied the problem of crowd-selection for simple crowdsourced tasks such as decision making and sentiment analysis. Their crowd- selection procedures are based on the trustworthiness of workers. However, for some complex tasks such as document review and question answering, selecting workers based on the latent category of tasks is a better solution. In this paper, we formulate a new problem of task-driven crowd- selection for complex tasks. We first develop a bayesian gener- ative model to exploit "who knows what" for the workers in the crowdsourcing environment. The model provides a principle and natural framework for capturing the latent skills of workers as well as the latent categories of crowdsourced tasks. The inference of the latent skills of workers is based on past resolved crowdsourced tasks with feedback scores. We assume that the feedback scores can illustrate the performance of the workers for the tasks. We then devise a variational algorithm that transforms the latent skill infer- ence with the proposed model into a standard optimization prob- lem, which can be solved efficiently. We verify the performance of our method through extensive experiments on the data collected from three well-known crowdsourcing platforms for question an- swering tasks such as Quora, Yahoo ! Answer and Stack Overflow.
Yeast cells reveal the misfolding and the cellular mislocalization of the human BRCA1 protein

ABSTRACT Understanding the effect of an ever-growing number of human variants detected by genome sequencing is a medical challenge. The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae model has held attention for its capacity to monitor the functional impact of missense mutations found in human genes, including the BRCA1 breast and ovarian cancer susceptibility gene. When expressed in yeast, the wild-type full-length BRCA1 protein forms a single nuclear aggregate and induces a growth inhibition. Both events are modified by pathogenic mutations of BRCA1. However, the biological processes behind these events in yeast remain to be determined. Here, we show that the BRCA1 nuclear aggregation and the growth inhibition are sensitive to misfolding effects induced by missense mutations. Moreover, misfolding mutations impair the nuclear targeting of BRCA1 in yeast cells and in a human cell line. In conclusion, we establish a connection between misfolding and nuclear transport impairment, and we illustrate that yeast is a suitable model to decipher the effect of misfolding mutations. Highlighted Article: The functional impact of missense mutations is difficult to predict. Yeast cells detect the misfolding effects of these types of mutations in the human BRCA1 protein, revealing an associated nuclear transport impairment.
Image Fusion on Multi Focused Images using NSCT

In this paper we put forward an image fusion algorithm based on Wavelet Transform, Second Generation Curvelet Transform and Nonsubsampled Contourlet Transform. Here we analyze the characteristics of NSCT along with Wavelet and Curvelet Transform for simulation experiments on multi-focus images. Here it includes multiresolution analysis ability in wavelet transform, also has better direction ability for edge feature of awaiting describing image in the second Generation Curvelet Transform and the NSCT is flexible, multiscale, multidirection, and shift invariant image decomposition that can be efficiently implemented in image fusion. The core of the proposed scheme is in NSCT. This paper uses Wavelet, Curvelet and Contourlet Transform into fusion images, then makes deep research on fusion standards and puts forward corresponding fusion project. Keywords–Image Fusion, Wavelet Transform, Second Generation Curvelet Transform, Nonsubsampled Contourlet Transform (NSCT).
A simple method for establishing concordance between short‐tandem‐repeat allele frequency databases

BACKGROUND: Current paternity and forensic accreditation standards do not require concordance to be established between short‐tandem‐repeat allele frequency databases representing the same population. The current statistical methods for evaluating databases do not establish concordance. Although acceptable under current forensic statistical methods, databases representing the same population may have sufficient variation to influence the outcome of a nondirect relationship testing result (i.e., siblingship). Hence there is a need for a quantitative method to determine concordance between databases.
WISE: A World Wide Web Resource Database System

The paper describes the World Wide Web Index and Search Engine (WISE) for Internet resource discovery. The system is designed around a resource database containing meta information about WWW resources and is automatically built using an indexer robot, a special WWW client agent. The resource database allows users to search for resources based on keywords, and to learn about potentially relevant resources without having to directly access them. Such capabilities can significantly reduce the amount of time that a user needs to spend in order to find the information of his/her interest. We discuss WISE's main components: the resource database, the indexer robot, the search engine, and the user interface, and through the technical discussions, we highlight the research issues involved in the design, the implementation and the evaluation of such a system.
Protective efficacy of an Ecklonia cava extract used to treat transient focal ischemia of the rat brain

Phlorotannins (marine algal polyphenols) have been reported to exhibit beneficial biological activities, serving as both antioxidants and anti-inflammatory agents. Among marine algae, Ecklonia cava, a member of the Laminariaceae, is a very popular food regarded as healthy in Korea and Japan. Recently, benefits afforded by phlorotannins in the treatment of various clinical conditions have been reported, but any therapeutic effects of such materials in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as stroke remain unclear. Also, the mechanisms of action of the algal components remain poorly understood. In the present in vivo study, administration of Ecklonia cava polyphenols (ECP) at 10 mg/kg and 50 mg/kg intraperitoneally (i.p.) significantly decreased infarct size and the extent of brain edema in the rat after induction of transient focal ischemia via middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO). Further, terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick end-labeling (TUNEL) assay revealed dose-dependent blockage of neuronal apoptosis upon intravenous ECP treatment. Neurobehavioral tests performed over the 6 days after MCAO revealed a reduction in neurological motor performance in control animals, but administration of ECP (50 mg/kg i.p.) prevented this decline. In vitro, a significant neuroprotective effect of ECP was evident when cell viability was assayed after induction of H2O2-mediated oxidative stress, upon retinoic acid treatment, in the differentiated neuroblastoma cell line SH-SY5Y. Interestingly, ECP blocked the rise in cytosolic calcium, in a dose-dependent manner, in differentiated SH-SY5Y cells exposed to H2O2. Together, the results suggest that ECP exerts neuroprotective effects in the focally ischemic brain by reducing Ca2+-mediated neurotoxicity.
A preliminary report on the closure of the Challinor Centre

This paper reports preliminary data for 32 individuals with intellectual disability who were relocated from a large state institution to small community-based group homes. Assessments of adaptive behaviour, life circumstances, choice-making, and direct observations of activities were conducted approximately 6 months prior to the relocation and then again after 1, 6, and 12 months of community living. Standardized assessments indicated no significant changes in adaptive behaviour. However, there were significant increases in life circumstances and choice-making, and direct observations revealed more appropriate behaviour and less undirected and challenging behaviour following relocation to the community. These results suggest the relocation has enabled a more active and normalised lifestyle. However, community-based services may need to incorporate more effective active treatment programs if adaptive behaviour gains are to occur.
Robust Facial Feature Tracking

We present a robust technique for tracking a set of pre-determined points on a human face. To achieve robustness, the Kanade-Lucas-Tomasi point tracker is extended and specialised to work on facial features by embedding knowledge about the configuration and visual characteristics of the face. The resulting tracker is designed to recover from the loss of points caused by tracking drift or temporary occlusion. Performance assessment experiments have been carried out on a set of 30 video sequences of several facial expressions. It is shown that using the original Kanade-Lucas-Tomasi tracker, some of the points are lost, whereas using the new method described in this paper, all lost points are recovered with no or little displacement error.
Optimal Energy Allocation for Energy Harvesting Transmitters With Hybrid Energy Storage and Processing Cost

We consider data transmission with an energy harvesting transmitter that has hybrid energy storage with a perfect super-capacitor (SC) and an inefficient battery. The SC has finite storage space while the battery has unlimited space. The transmitter can choose to store the harvested energy in the SC or in the battery. The energy is drained from the SC and the battery simultaneously. In this setting, we consider throughput optimal offline energy allocation problem over a point-to-point channel. In contrast to previous works, the hybrid energy storage model with finite and unlimited storage capacities imposes a generalized set of constraints on the transmission policy. As such, we show that the solution generalizes that for a single battery and is found by a sequential application of the directional water-filling algorithm. Next, we consider offline throughput maximization in the presence of an additive time-linear processing cost in the transmitter's circuitry. In this case, the transmitter has to additionally decide on the portions of the processing cost to be drained from the SC and the battery. Despite this additional complexity, we show that the solution is obtained by a sequential application of a directional glue pouring algorithm, parallel to the costless processing case. Finally, we provide numerical illustrations for optimal policies and performance comparisons with some heuristic online policies.
Efficient privacy-aware search over encrypted databases

In recent years, database as a service (DAS) model where data management is outsourced to cloud service providers has become more prevalent. Although DAS model offers lower cost and flexibility, it necessitates the transfer of potentially sensitive data to untrusted cloud servers. To ensure the confidentiality, encryption of sensitive data before its transfer to the cloud emerges as an important option. Encrypted storage provides protection but it complicates data processing including crucial selective record retrieval. To achieve selective retrieval over encrypted collection, considerable amount of searchable encryption schemes have been proposed in the literature with distinct privacy guarantees. Among the available approaches, oblivious RAM based ones offer optimal privacy. However, they are computationally intensive and do not scale well to very large databases. On the other hand, almost all efficient schemes leak some information, especially data access pattern to the remote servers. Unfortunately, recent evidence on access pattern leakage indicates that adversary's background knowledge could be used to infer the contents of the encrypted data and may potentially endanger individual privacy. In this paper, we introduce a novel construction for practical and privacy-aware selective record retrieval over encrypted databases. Our approach leaks obfuscated access pattern to enable efficient retrieval while ensuring individual privacy. Applied obfuscation is based on differential privacy which provides rigorous individual privacy guarantees against adversaries with arbitrary background knowledge.
Bayesian Approaches to Matching Architectural Diagrams

IT system architectures and many other kinds of structured artifacts are often described by formal models or informal diagrams. In practice, there are often a number of versions of a model or diagram, such as a series of revisions, divergent variants, or multiple views of a system. Understanding how versions correspond or differ is crucial, and thus, automated assistance for matching models and diagrams is essential. We have designed a framework for finding these correspondences automatically based on Bayesian methods. We represent models and diagrams as graphs whose nodes have attributes such as name, type, connections to other nodes, and containment relations, and we have developed probabilistic models for rating the quality of candidate correspondences based on various features of the nodes in the graphs. Given the probabilistic models, we can find high-quality correspondences using search algorithms. Preliminary experiments focusing on architectural models suggest that the technique is promising.
The Survival of Artemia Salina (L.) in Various Media

1. The survival of Artemia salina adults in various media has been studied. 2. Prolonged survival is only possible in media in which certain sodium salts (principally NaCl) predominate. 3. Certain substances are found to be highly toxic. 4. It is confirmed that the high toxicity of potassium ions can be antagonized by sodium ions. 5. The results indicate that the animal is appreciably permeable.
Aggregation of the Protein TRIOBP-1 and Its Potential Relevance to Schizophrenia

We have previously proposed that specific proteins may form insoluble aggregates as a response to an illness-specific proteostatic dysbalance in a subset of brains from individuals with mental illness, as is the case for other chronic brain conditions. So far, established risk factors DISC1 and dysbindin were seen to specifically aggregate in a subset of such patients, as was a novel schizophrenia-related protein, CRMP1, identified through a condition-specific epitope discovery approach. In this process, antibodies are raised against the pooled insoluble protein fractions (aggregomes) of post mortem brain samples from schizophrenia patients, followed by epitope identification and confirmation using additional techniques. Pursuing this epitope discovery paradigm further, we reveal TRIO binding protein (TRIOBP) to be a major substrate of a monoclonal antibody with a high specificity to brain aggregomes from patients with chronic mental illness. TRIOBP is a gene previously associated with deafness which encodes for several distinct protein species, each involved in actin cytoskeletal dynamics. The 3′ splice variant TRIOBP-1 is found to be the antibody substrate and has a high aggregation propensity when over-expressed in neuroblastoma cells, while the major 5′ splice variant, TRIOBP-4, does not. Endogenous TRIOBP-1 can also spontaneously aggregate, doing so to a greater extent in cell cultures which are post-mitotic, consistent with aggregated TRIOBP-1 being able to accumulate in the differentiated neurons of the brain. Finally, upon expression in Neuroscreen-1 cells, aggregated TRIOBP-1 affects cell morphology, indicating that TRIOBP-1 aggregates may directly affect cell development, as opposed to simply being a by-product of other processes involved in major mental illness. While further experiments in clinical samples are required to clarify their relevance to chronic mental illness in the general population, TRIOBP-1 aggregates are thus implicated for the first time as a biological element of the neuropathology of a subset of chronic mental illness.
‘The 5 cm rule’: biopower, sexuality and schooling

This paper explores ‘the 5 cm rule’, a regulation around student contact discovered during an investigation of the sexual culture of schooling with 16–19-year-olds in New Zealand. Implemented to stem ‘inappropriate and unwanted’ touching, it stipulates that students must maintain a physical distance of 5 cm at all times. It is argued this rule represents a contemporary type of biopower which forms part of the sexual culture of schooling. As a technique of corporeal regulation it is characterised by a ‘loose’ exercise of power, that allows for student resistance while producing subjects’ ‘docility-utility’ (Foucault, 1980). The paper contends that the rule contributes negatively to ‘the sexual culture of schooling’ by constituting student sexuality as ‘unruly’ and ‘problematic’. This stipulation also prescribes a set of gender relations that are inhibitive of mutually negotiated and pleasurable corporeal experience.