Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hypervariations of a Protease-Encoding Gene, PD0218 (pspB), in Xylella fastidiosa Strains Causing Almond Leaf Scorch and Pierce's Disease in California

ABSTRACT Xylella fastidiosa is a gram-negative plant pathogenic bacterium that causes almond leaf scorch disease (ALSD) and Pierce's disease (PD) of grape in many regions of North America and Mexico. Of the two 16S rRNA gene genotypes described in California, A genotype strains cause ALSD only and G genotype strains cause both PD and ALSD. While G genotype strains cause two different diseases, little is known about their genetic variation. In this study, we identified a putative protease locus, PD0218 (pspB), in the genome of X. fastidiosa and evaluated the variation at this locus in X. fastidiosa populations. PD0218 contains tandem repeats of ACDCCA, translated to threonine and proline (TP), upstream of the putative protease conserved domain. Among 116 X. fastidiosa ALSD and PD strains isolated from seven locations in California, tandem repeat numbers (TRNs) varied from 9 to 47, with a total of 30 TRN genotypes, indicating that X. fastidiosa possesses an active mechanism for contracting and expanding tandem repeats at this locus. Significant TRN variation was found among PD strains (mean = 29.9), which could be further divided into two TRN groups: PD-Gsmall (mean = 17.3) and PD-Glarge (mean = 44.3). Less variation was found in ALSD strains (mean = 21.7). The variation was even smaller after ALSD strains were subdivided into the A and G genotypes (mean = 13.3, for the G genotype; mean = 27.1, for the A genotype). Genetic variation at the PD0218 locus is potentially useful for sensitive discrimination of X. fastidiosa strains. However, TRN stability, variation range, and correlation to phenotypes should be evaluated in epidemiological applications such as pathotype identification and delineation of pathogen origin.
Symbolic Data Analysis to Defy Low Signal-to-Noise Ratio in Microarray Data for Breast Cancer Prognosis

Microarray profiling has recently generated the hope to gain new insights into breast cancer biology and thereby improve the performance of current prognostic tools. However, it also poses several serious challenges to classical data analysis techniques related to the characteristics of resulting data, mainly high dimensionality and low signal-to-noise ratio. Despite the tremendous research work performed to handle the first challenge in the feature selection framework, very little attention has been directed to address the second one. We propose in this article to address both issues simultaneously based on symbolic data analysis capabilities in order to derive more accurate genetic marker-based prognostic models. In particular, interval data representation is employed to model various uncertainties in microarray measurements. A recent feature selection algorithm that handles symbolic interval data is used then to derive a genetic signature. The predictive value of the derived signature is then assessed by following a rigorous experimental setup and compared with existing prognostic approaches in terms of predictive performance and estimated survival probability. It is shown that the derived signature (GenSym) performs significantly better than other prognostic models, including the 70-gene signature, St. Gallen, and National Institutes of Health criteria.
Randomization and Associativity in the Design of Placement-Insensitive Caches

cache memory, associative, stride, random, hashing, set lookup, data placement This paper presents a design for a randomized, placement-insensitive, data cache and analyzes its performance. An address stream is randomized using a hash function which selects a set in an associative cache. The manipulation of large data structures is modeled by traversal of a cyclic sweep address sequence and the miss ratio is accurately determined for this sequence. A purely analytic approach to determine cache performance is developed. Analysis predicts regions in which a placement-insensitive cache operates with very few cache misses. A pseudo-random hash function is presented and used to randomize addresses into cache sets and a counting technique is used to determine miss ratios. Finally, an actual cache is simulated allowing comparison against theory. A matrix multiply program is studied demonstrating a close relationship between analysis and at least one real application.
Relationship between positioning of premature infants in Kangaroo Mother Care and early neuromotor development.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the relationship between prone and lateral positioning of preterm infants in Kangaroo Mother Care and early neuromotor development. METHODS Eighty preterm infants born at Instituto Materno-Infantil de Pernambuco, Brazil, admitted to the Kangaroo Mother Care Unit between July and October 2004 were divided into two groups. Forty infants were placed in prone position (PP), while the remaining 40 children were kept in lateral decubitus (LD). On admission and at discharge from the Kangaroo Mother Care Unit, all infants underwent a biomechanical and a neurobehavioral assessment (Dubowitz exam). Statistical analyses were performed using Epi-Info 6.4, with calculation of 95% confidence intervals and significance established at p < 0.05. RESULTS The groups were homogeneous prior to the intervention. Infants placed in LD showed a more flexed posture, and also adopted a more twisted trunk posture. The LD group improved in 13 out of 16 items assessed by the Dubowitz exam, while the group assigned to PP improved in only five items. CONCLUSION Placement of infants in LD had a favorable impact on early neuromotor development in our sample. However, additional longitudinal studies are needed to better clarify this relationship.
A reactive protocol for privacy preserving using location based A reactive protocol for privacy preserving using location based A reactive protocol for privacy preserving using location based A reactive protocol for privacy preserving using location based

Mobile Ad hoc networks (MANETs) are an infrastructure less, self configuring network. These networks can be setup easily anywhere and anytime without any base infrastructure, thus they have proved to be very efficient is rescue related areas like flood and fire. MANETs are now extended to be used in military and law enforcement. MANETs still face the major problem of security and privacy, especially when used in sensitive areas of computing. Secure routing protocols have been developed to provide various levels of security and privacy in the past. This paper presents a Routing scheme based on Location Aided Routing schemes to improve routing facilities along with some enhanced signature schemes to provide privacy and security of data. We prove it by simulation in ns2.
Predicting Turning Points of the Business Cycle: Do Financial Sector Variables Help?

The objective of this study is to develop a system of leading indicators of the business cycle turning points for a wide range of countries, including Russia, over a period of more than thirty years. We use a binary choice model with the dependent variable of the state of economy: the recession, there is no recession. These models allow us to assess how likely is the change of macroeconomic dynamics from positive to negative and vice versa. Empirical analysis suggests that the inclusion of financial sector variables into equation can significantly improve the predictive power of the models of the turning points of business cycles. At the same time, models with financial and real sector variables obtained in the paper outperform the "naive" models based only on the leading indicator of GDP in the OECD methodology due to either a lower level of noise (recession model) or a higher predictive power (model of the recovery from recession).
Paracellular nutrient absorption is higher in bats than rodents: integrating from intact animals to the molecular level

Flying vertebrates have been hypothesized to rely heavily on paracellular absorption of nutrients to compensate for having smaller intestines than non-flyers. We tested this hypothesis in an insectivorous bat (Myotis lucifugus) and two insect-eating rodents (Onychomys leucogaster and Peromyscus leucopus). In intact animals, the fractional absorption of orally dosed l-arabinose (Mr 150) was 82% in M. lucifugus, which was more than twice that of the rodents. Absorption of creatinine (Mr 113) was greater than 50% for all species and did not differ between M. lucifugus and the rodents. We also conducted intestinal luminal perfusions on anesthetized animals. Absorption of l-arabinose per nominal surface area in M. lucifugus was nearly double that of the rodents, while absorption of creatinine was not different among species. Using an everted sleeve preparation, we demonstrated that high concentrations of l-arabinose and creatinine did not inhibit their own uptake, validating their use as passive, paracellular probes. Histological measurements indicated that M. lucifugus has more cells, and presumably more tight junctions, per nominal surface area than P. leucopus. This seems unlikely to explain entirely the higher absorption of l-arabinose in M. lucifugus during perfusions, because l-arabinose absorption normalized to the number of enterocytes was still double that of P. leucopus. As an alternative, we investigated tight junction gene expression. M. lucifugus had higher expression of claudin-1 and claudin-15, and lower expression of claudin-2 relative to P. leucopus. Expression of claudin-7 and occludin did not differ among species. Taken together, our results support the hypothesis that bats have evolved higher paracellular nutrient absorption than non-flying animals, and that this phenomenon might be driven by both histological characteristics and differences in tight junction gene expression.
Understanding Criminal Careers

The study of criminal careers is of increasing interest in criminology. It is now generally recognised that it is important to try to understand criminal behaviour across the life-course rather than focusing on fragmented incidents which provide only a partial picture. This is an accessible text which clarifies the crucial theoretical and methodological debates surrounding the study of criminal careers. It focuses on some major longitudinal studies discussing the onset, persistence, desistance and the duration of a criminal career. The important topics of prediction, risk and specialisation are addressed. The challenging question of 'When do ex-offenders become like non-offenders? ' points a way forward. The book concludes by proposing an even more ambitious approach to the topic of criminal careers.
Variation in training programmes for Resident Assessment Instrument implementation.

BACKGROUND this paper provides an overview of the Minimum Data Set/Resident Assessment Instrument (MDS/RAI) training programmes in eight countries where the system has been introduced into nursing homes. Formal education and training in the skills of assessment and care planning of nursing home personnel is reputed to be poor. In response to this problem several researchers and clinicians view MDS/RAI implementation as an opportunity to upgrade staff knowledge in care of elderly people. RESULTS the courses in the eight countries varied in content and length according to the different goals each interRAI researcher planned when the MDS/RAI was implemented. As expected the greatest differences in training approach were between the USA and other countries. In the USA, where the MDS/RAI was mandated for use in all nursing homes, tens of thousands of professionals had to be oriented to use the system in a relatively short period of time in order to comply with the law. The training programmes therefore tended to be very short compared with those that emerged in countries where the MDS/RAI was freely chosen and implemented.
A Self-Organizing Autonomous Prediction System for Controlling Mobile Robots

No single innovation is likely to precipitate the sudden emergence of a truly general and robust artificial intelligence. Instead, a careful study of the history of efforts to build AI systems and consideration of factors responsible for evolved general intelligence suggest point toward several promising lines of research. In the research reported here we explore the hypothesis that the ability to learn autonomously from patterns of success and failure at making predictions about what will happen next in a perception-action loop may be a necessary condition for robust AI, even if it is not sufficient. We present a novel learning architecture, the Self-Organizing Autonomous Prediction System, which learns to predict the consequences of actions within a perception-action loop. Two simulation studies demonstrate the success of the approach and the value of prediction-based learning as an important feature of highly adaptive intelligence. Future elaborations of this approach are also discussed.
Engineering of Isogenic Cells Deficient for MR1 with a CRISPR/Cas9 Lentiviral System: Tools To Study Microbial Antigen Processing and Presentation to Human MR1-Restricted T Cells

The nonclassical HLA molecule MHC-related protein 1 (MR1) presents metabolites of the vitamin B synthesis pathways to mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells and other MR1-restricted T cells. This new class of Ags represents a variation on the classical paradigm of self/non-self discrimination because these T cells are activated through their TCR by small organic compounds generated during microbial vitamin B2 synthesis. Beyond the fundamental significance, the invariant nature of MR1 across the human population is a tantalizing feature for the potential development of universal immune therapeutic and diagnostic tools. However, many aspects of MR1 Ag presentation and MR1-restricted T cell biology remain unknown, and the ubiquitous expression of MR1 across tissues and cell lines can be a confounding factor for experimental purposes. In this study, we report the development of a novel CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing lentiviral system and its use to efficiently disrupt MR1 expression in A459, THP-1, and K562 cell lines. We generated isogenic MR1−/− clonal derivatives of the A549 lung carcinoma and THP-1 monocytic cell lines and used these to study T cell responses to intracellular pathogens. We confirmed that MAIT cell clones were unable to respond to MR1−/− clones infected with bacteria whereas Ag presentation by classical and other nonclassical HLAs was unaffected. This system represents a robust and efficient method to disrupt the expression of MR1 and should facilitate investigations into the processing and presentation of MR1 Ags as well as into the biology of MAIT cells.
PANOPTIS: A System for Intelligent Monitoring of the Hellenic Broadcast Sector

In this paper we describe a system that applies emerging technologies for speech recognition, language processing, multimedia indexing and retrieval, all integrated into a large video and audio library that covers broadcast news and current affairs in Greece. It assists the Greek National Council for Radio and Television (NCRTV) in compiling information, annotating and analyzing news and monitoring national, political, social, economic, cultural and environmental issues concerning Greece in general. It further assists supervision of the broadcast A/V sector by offering citizens an efficient way to seek and get hold of, an 'official' copy of aired programming, in order to safeguard their interests and promote NCRTV's goals.
Deposition of boron doped DLC films on TiNb and characterization of their mechanical properties and blood compatibility

Abstract Diamond-like carbon (DLC) material is used in blood contacting devices as the surface coating material because of the antithrombogenicity behavior which helps to inhibit platelet adhesion and activation. In this study, DLC films were doped with boron during pulsed plasma chemical vapor deposition (CVD) to improve the blood compatibility. The ratio of boron to carbon (B/C) was varied from 0 to 0.4 in the film by adjusting the flow rate of trimethylboron and acetylene. Tribological tests indicated that boron doping with a low B/C ratio of 0.03 is beneficial for reducing friction (μ = 0.1), lowering hardness and slightly increasing wear rate compared to undoped DLC films. The B/C ratio in the film of 0.03 and 0.4 exhibited highly hydrophilic surface owing to their high wettability and high surface energy. An in vitro platelet adhesion experiment was conducted to compare the blood compatibility of TiNb substrates before and after coating with undoped and boron doped DLC. Films with highly hydrophilic surface enhanced the blood compatibility of TiNb, and the best results were obtained for DLC with the B/C ratio of 0.03. Boron doped DLC films are promising surface coatings for blood contacting devices.
A method for extracting fecg based on ICA algorithm

In order to extract the purer fetal ECG accurately, a BSS method based on higher-order statistics is contrasted with a significant classical technique for FECG extraction. The fast ICA algorithm and infomax ICA algorithm are used for FECG extraction. They were applied to multichannel ECG recording obtained from a pregnant woman. It was observed that both algorithms were able to extract the fetal ECG. But the experiment outcomes demonstrate that the better performance is fast-ICA algorithm in the biomedical application. This method has been proved to be able to extract the desired fetal heart beat signal from the composite abdominal signal.
Debt, crisis, and recovery : the 1930s and the 1990s

This book provides a perspective by a prominent economist on the problems of debt, recession, and recovery in the 1930s as compared with the 1990s. The book begins with several chapters on the explosion of debt in the public and private sectors during the 1970s and 1980s, and its implications for economic stagnation and recession that seem to plague the economy. Resolution of the debt problem and reform of the banking and financial system are critically important because these problems dampen economic recovery and growth in the future. The second part of the book is a reprint of Albert Hart's classic 1938 study, Debts and Recovery 1929 to 1937, originally published by the 20th Century Fund. The extraordinary parallel between financial problems of the 1930s and the 1990s, solutions of the past, and proposed reforms for the future may provide a fascinating study for scholars and interested citizens alike.
Classification of walking patterns on inclined surfaces from accelerometry data

This paper describes the classification of walking patterns on ascending and descending slopes based on features extracted from data recorded using a single waist-mounted tri-axial accelerometer. A 19-dimensional set of salient features representing the hill walking patterns were obtained based on gait cycle analysis related to the acceleration data in the anterior-posterior (AP), medio-lateral (ML), and vertical (V) directions. A Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) classifier was used to perform a four way classification task, discriminating between two inclines and two declines. An overall classification accuracy of 90.9% was achieved for the four different human gait patterns referring to four different paved gradients (up or down 4.8% and 17.3% gradients).
Enhancement of sEMG-based gesture classification using mahanobis distance metric

This paper investigates how to improve the performance of Human-Machine Interface systems using surface electromyogram (sEMG) signals to detect human intention in the forearm muscles. Our goal is to make a robust bionic interface that can interact with computers or robots with human motion. Since recognition performance is highly sensitive to the number and the types of target motions to classify, features of them should be properly handled to generate a total number of user commands. This paper introduces two metric parameters: the Repeatability Index (RI) and the Separability Index (SI), both of which quantify feature distributions in feature space. By evaluating the distributions, we could judge which distribution is desired or not for a training dataset. Furthermore, we could know that which motions should be included or not to improve the performance of the system. Among possible target motion sets, we exploited proposed parameters to find optimal target motions, which lead to achieving precise recognition rates. We confirm the validity of this method through off-line simulation experiments. Using a database of 10 subjects, rather than emphasizing a high level of accuracy, we focused instead on determining the correlation between proposed paratmer and system performances. This research could accelerate the development of wearable sensors, which could then become a familiar and easily applicable part of our daily lives.
Childhood appendectomy, tonsillectomy, and risk for premature acute myocardial infarction--a nationwide population-based cohort study.

AIMS Although inflammation contributes to cardiovascular disease, the associations of appendectomy and tonsillectomy, which remove mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue, with risk of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) are unknown. Our aim was to assess the association between these operations performed in childhood and AMI risk later in life. METHODS AND RESULTS We conducted a prospective matched cohort study among all Swedish residents born between 1955 and 1970. A national register identified all appendectomies and tonsillectomies. For each patient undergoing appendectomy or tonsillectomy, we randomly selected five controls without the history of the respective operation, matched on sex, age, and county of residence. Participants were followed for fatal and non-fatal AMI for an average of 23.5 years. Because appendiceal and tonsillar tissues have reduced function after adolescence, our primary analyses were restricted to individuals below age 20 at the time of surgery (54 449 appendectomies and 27 284 tonsillectomies). We derived hazard ratios (HRs) from proportional hazard models adjusted for parental occupation and parental history of AMI. Operations before 20 years of age were associated with an increased risk for AMI (417 and 216 events in the appendectomy and tonsillectomy datasets, respectively), with adjusted HRs of 1.33 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.05-1.70] for appendectomy and 1.44 (95% CI, 1.04-2.01) for tonsillectomy. This association was graded, with the highest risk among those undergoing both procedures, and generally similar among both males and females. Appendectomy and tonsillectomy performed at or above 20 years of age were not associated with the risk of AMI. CONCLUSIONS We found a higher risk of AMI related to surgical removal of the tonsils and appendix before age 20. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that subtle alterations in immune function following these operations may alter the subsequent cardiovascular risk, but further studies are needed to confirm these findings and to explore possible mechanisms.
Visual odometry for an outdoor mobile robot

This paper presents an alternative solution to the problem of estimating the motion of an outdoor mobile robot through odometry. The solution consists of the use of vision and pseudo-optical flow techniques to make motion estimates of a camera attached to the robot chassis. The use of vision makes the system independent of locomotion (for example, the differences between a robot with wheels and one with legs) and is shown to be applicable to a variety or outdoor ground surfaces, such as tarmac, gravel, grass and dirt. Finally, the simplified calculations result in high processing speeds on moderate equipment, with experiments showing that high speed motion (approximately 300 degree per second rotations and 350 millimetre per second translations) can be reliably estimated.