Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interrelationships of Dictyocaulus spp. in Wild Ruminants with Morphological Description of Dictyocaulus cervi n. sp. (Nematoda: Trichostrongyloidea) from Red Deer, Cervus elaphus

Abstract Lungworms from the genus Dictyocaulus cause parasitic bronchitis (dictyocaulosis) characterized by coughing and severe lung pathology in both domestic and wild ruminants. In this study we investigated the interrelationships of Dictyocaulus spp. from European bison (Bison bonasus L.), roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), and red deer (Cervus elaphus) by nucleotide sequence analysis spanning the 18S RNA gene (small subunit [SSU]) and internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) regions of the ribosomal gene array as well as the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (cox1). Molecular analyses of sequence data obtained partly with novel primers from between 10 and 50 specimens from each host were carried out. Bayesian inference analysis revealed that each host species was infected with different genotypes. Analysis of cox1 sequence data showed a diverse genetic background and high evolutionary potential of Dictyocaulus taxa. Data from lungworms of European bison revealed a distinct genotype of Dictyocaulus viviparus, whereas Dictyocaulus capreolus was only found in roe deer. In contrast, red deer were infected with a taxon with unique SSU, ITS2, and cox1 sequences. These results indicate the occurrence of a novel genotype from red deer, which differs significantly from the National Center for Biotechnology Information reference sequence of Dictyocaulus eckerti. The molecular evidence was consistent with a morphological study with description and imaging of Dictyocaulus cervi n. sp. recovered from red deer. Dictyocaulus cervi n. sp. can be distinguished from D. eckerti on the basis of the absence of cervical papillae, the occurrence of a single ring of 4 symmetrical submedian cephalic papillae, length of the tail in females, morphometry of the female reproductive system, and measurements of gubernacula in males. In conclusion, our findings further strengthen the idea that the genetic complexity and diversity among Dictyocaulus lungworms infecting wildlife ruminants is larger than previously believed and warrants further investigation.
Distribution of 10-formyltetrahydrofolate synthetase in eubacteria

The distribution of 10-formyltetrahydrofolate synthetase, which activates formate for use as a one-carbon donor in a variety of biosynthetic reactions, was determined for a variety of eubacteria. Organisms from several genera were found to lack detectable synthetase activity; however, all organisms tested were found to contain 5,10-methylenetetrahydrofolate dehydrogenase activity.
Cloning and characterization of two groESL operons of Rhodobacter sphaeroides: transcriptional regulation of the heat-induced groESL operon

The nonsulfur purple bacterium Rhodobacter sphaeroides was found to contain two groESL operons. The groESL1 heat shock operon was cloned from a genomic library, and a 2.8-kb DNA fragment was sequenced and found to contain the groES and groEL genes. The deduced amino acid sequences of GroEL1 (cpn60) and GroES1 (cpn10) were in agreement with N-terminal sequences previously obtained for the isolated proteins (K. C. Terlesky and F. R. Tabita, Biochemistry 30:8181-8186, 1991). These sequences show a high degree of similarity to groESL genes isolated from other bacteria. Northern analysis indicated that the groESL1 genes were expressed as part of a 2.2-kb polycistronic transcript that is induced 13-fold after heat shock. Transcript size was not affected by heat shock; however, the amount of transcript was induced to its greatest extent 15 to 30 min after a 40 degrees C heat shock, from an initial temperature of 28 degrees C, and remained elevated up to 120 min. The R. sphaeroides groESL1 operon contains a putative hairpin loop at the start of the transcript that is present in other bacterial heat shock genes. Primer extension of the message showed that the transcription start site is at the start of this conserved hairpin loop. In this region were also found putative -35 and -10 sequences that are conserved upstream from other bacterial heat shock genes. Transcription of the groESL1 genes was unexpectedly low under photoautotrophic growth conditions. Thus far, it has not been possible to construct a groESL1 deletion strain, perhaps indicating that these genes are essential for growth. A second operon (groESL2) was also cloned from R. sphaeroides, using a groEL1 gene fragment as a probe; however, no transcript was observed for this operon under several different growth conditions. A groESL2 deletion strain was constructed, but there was no detectable change in the phenotype of this strain compared to the parental strain.
Modeling and Simulation of LDO Voltage Regulator Susceptibility to Conducted EMI

This paper presents a methodology dedicated to modeling and simulation of low-dropout (LDO) voltage regulator susceptibility to conducted electromagnetic interference (EMI). A test chip with a simple LDO structure was designed for EMC test and analysis. A transistor-level model, validated by functional tests, Z-parameter characterization and direct power injection (DPI) measurements, is used to predict the immunity of the LDO regulator. Different levels of model extraction reveal the weight contributions of subcircuits and parasitic elements on immunity issues. The DPI measurement results show a good fit with model prediction up to 1 GHz.
Prevalence and determinants of physical activity and fluid intake in kidney transplant recipients

Gordon EJ, Prohaska TR, Gallant MP, Sehgal AR, Strogatz D, Conti D, Siminoff LA. Prevalence and determinants of physical activity and fluid intake in kidney transplant recipients. Clin Transplant 2010: 24: E69–E81. © 2009 John Wiley & Sons A/S.
Gain improvement of an array of sequentially rotated circularly polarized microstrip antennas using stacked parasitic patches

Sequentially rotated microstrip array antennas have been extensively used for circularly polarized radiation due to their wide VSWR bandwidth and polarization purity; however, in many cases, these arrays do not meet gain requirements. Stacked parasitic patches have been used to improve the gain of an array of sequentially rotated circularly polarized microstrip antennas. The gain can be improved within 2.5-3.2 dB by adding one parasitic patch to each array element, or 3-4 dB by adding two parasitic patches per element, with minor side effects on axial ratio. The dependence of the gain improvement on the height and size of the parasitic patches has been studied and verified by simulations. It is found that there are multiple local maxima in the curve of the gain versus the height of the parasitic patch. The maxima occur at heights near to multiples of a half of the wavelength in the spacer medium. Since the parasitic patches are fabricated on low dielectric constant substrates and are separated from the exciting patch by spacer or foam, this method of gain improvement is very simple and at the same time cost-effective.
A study on the relationship between robotic movement with animacy and visual attention of young children

Socially assistive robots have been used successfully for improvement of communication skills of young children. Such robots need to attract children's attention and stimulate sustainable interactions. Many recent research studies propose various approaches for increasing of interaction effectiveness of such robots. In this study, we investigate the effect of robotic movements with animacy on the visual attention of young children. For the experiments, we used the TurtleBot robot. The effect of three different robot movement patterns were explored with the conducted tests: simple circle movement, inanimated movement, and animated movement. Thirty four children (21 males, 13 females, Mean of ages: 4.5) participated in an experiment. Results show that robot movement raises visual attention. Most of the children demonstrated increased interest toward animated robotic movement than simple motion. The animated movement that elicits much interest depends on children's age. The findings of this study contribute to effective use of interactive robots in education and therapy of young children and children with developmental disorder.
Paediatric diabetes: achieving practical, effective insulin therapy in type 1 and type 2 diabetes

Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes can occur in children and adolescents. Type 1 diabetes is the most common chronic disease in children in the developed countries and the number of adolescents with type 2 diabetes is rising as a consequence of the obesity epidemic. As they grow, children and adolescents with diabetes have special and changing needs; these must be recognized and addressed as there are major physiological, medical, psychological, social and emotional differences in adults with diabetes. Glycaemic control is important to prevent or delay long‐term complications also in the paediatric age group. This goal is often achieved using insulin. However, practical issues associated with insulin use in paediatric patients include attainment of target glycaemic levels without increased risk of hypoglycaemia, hormone‐driven fluctuations in insulin requirements, and the psychological and social impacts of weight gain and puberty. This article reviews the advances that are helping to overcome these issues and enable paediatric patients to achieve their treatment goals.
Extended tropism of an adenoviral vector does not circumvent the maturation‐dependent transducibility of mouse skeletal muscle

Efficient adenoviral gene delivery to mature skeletal muscle has been hindered by different factors. The low levels of adenoviral attachment receptor (CAR) that have been reported in this tissue may be a limiting factor. Therefore, adenoviral transduction of mature muscle may be improved by extending the tropism of the adenoviral vectors to attachment receptors that are highly expressed in mature myofibers. In this study, we have investigated whether an extended tropism adenoviral vector which additionally attaches to the broadly expressed heparan‐containing receptors (AdPK) can bypass the maturation‐dependent adenoviral transducibility of mouse skeletal muscle.
Effect of image colourspace on performance of convolution neural networks

Recently the term Deep Learning has been creating a lot of interest in the fields of Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision and Natural Language Processing. And especially the Convolution Neural Networks (CNN) are giving state of art results in image recognition, scene understanding, object detection and image description etc. Generally in CNN the processing of images is done in RGB colourspace even though we have many other colourspaces available. In this paper we try to understand the effect of image colourspace on the performance of CNN models in recognizing the objects present in the image. We evaluate this on CIFAR10 dataset, by converting all the original RGB images into four other colourspaces like HLS, HSV, LUV, YUV etc. To compare results we have trained AlexNet with fixed set of parameters on all five colourspaces, including RGB. We have observed that LUV colourspace is the best alternative to RGB colourspace to use with CNN models with almost equal performance on the test set of CIFAR10 dataset. While YUV colourspace is the worst to use with CNN models.
Lentiviruses inefficiently incorporate human parainfluenza type 3 envelope proteins

We have previously shown that the envelope glycoproteins of human parainfluenza type 3 (HPIV3), F and HN, are able to pseudotype lentiviruses, but the titers of these viruses are too low for use in clinical gene transfer. In this study we investigated the cause of these low titers. We compared the mRNA and protein expression levels of HN and F in transfected cells and in cells infected with wild‐type HPIV3. Transfected cells contained similar levels of HN and F cytosolic mRNA, but fewer cell‐surface HN and F proteins (3.8‐ and 1.3‐fold less, respectively), than cells infected with wild‐type HPIV3. To increase expression of HN in transfected cells, we codon‐optimized HN and used it to transfect lentivirus producer cells. Cell surface expression of HN, as well as the amount of HN incorporated into virus particles, increased two‐ to threefold. Virus titers increased 1.2‐ to 6.4‐fold, and the transduction efficiency of polarized MDCK cells via their apical surfaces increased 1.4‐fold. Interestingly, even though codon optimization improved the expression levels of HN and virus titers, we found that HPIV3 pseudotyped viruses contained about 14‐fold fewer envelope proteins than lentiviruses pseudotyped with the amphotropic envelope protein. Taken together, our findings suggest that titers are low, not because virus producer cells express levels of HPIV3 envelope proteins that are too low, but because too few of these proteins are incorporated by the lentiviruses for them to be able to efficiently transduce cells. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2008; 99; 1016–1027. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Inferior vena cava size is not associated with shock following injury

BACKGROUND The inferior vena cava (IVC) collapses with shock but may also be collapsed in volume-depleted patients in the absence of shock. The speed and availability of computed tomography (CT) make IVC measurement an attractive diagnostic modality for shock. The purpose of this study was to determine if IVC size following injury is associated with shock. METHODS Retrospective data were collected on 272 trauma patients admitted to an adult trauma center from January 1 to December 31, 2012. Patients who met the highest-level activation criteria and underwent an abdominal CT scan during their initial resuscitation were included. All images were reviewed by two attending radiologists, and concordance was assessed using the Pearson correlation coefficient. The transverse (T) and anteroposterior (AP) diameters of the IVC were measured to calculate a T/AP ratio. Analysis of variance and &khgr;2 were used to assess for a relationship between this ratio and various indices of shock. RESULTS The mean (SD) age of the study cohort was 50 (21) years, mean (SD) Injury Severity Score (ISS) was 14 (9), 74% were male, and 96% sustained blunt trauma. The overall mean (SD) T/AP ratio was 1.81 (0.68). Patients with a shock index greater than 0.7 were significantly younger (43 [20] years vs. 55 [21] years, p < 0.0001), had a significantly lower mean arterial pressure (88 [15] mm Hg vs. 103 [18] mm Hg, p < 0.0001), and were more likely to be intubated (56% vs. 24%, p < 0.0001). However, IVC T/AP ratio was not significantly different among the cohort. Similarly, there was no association between IVC size and the need for urgent operation, angiography, emergent transfusion, hospital length of stay, or mortality. CONCLUSION The static degree of IVC collapse is not associated with shock following injury. Therefore, measurement of IVC size by CT scan for patients with a T/AP ratio between 1 and 3.5 is not clinically relevant and cannot be used to predict mortality, shock, or impending shock. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE Diagnostic test, level III.
Toward a Practical Regularity-based Model

Most Hierarchical Real-time Scheduling (HiRTS) techniques have focused on temporal resource partitions in which time units are periodically distributed. Although such periodic partitions could provide great flexibility for the resource-level scheduling, engineers face significant obstacles when trying to determine the schedulability of real-time tasks running on them. The main reason is that periodic partitions fail to effectively bound the difference between the ideal and the actual resource allocation. To solve this problem, some researchers introduced the Regular Partition, a type of temporal resource partition that is almost evenly distributed. Recent research has shown that it achieves maximal transparency for task scheduling—some classical real-time scheduling problems on a regular partition can be easily transformed into equivalent problems on a dedicated single resource. However, the resource partitioning problem for regular partitions is much more complicated than the one for periodic partitions. Based on a practical two-layer HiRTS platform, this article introduces MulZ (Multiple Z-seqences), which is the first to solve this problem with a partitioned scheduling strategy. By using a more complicated approximation methodology, our experimental results show that MulZ outperforms the current best global scheduling algorithm on this problem. After that, it compares the overall performance of the periodic partition and the regular partition. We conclude that the regular partition is a better choice for the integration of real-time applications.
Indirect activation of a plant nucleotide binding site–leucine-rich repeat protein by a bacterial protease

Nucleotide binding site–leucine-rich repeat (NBS–LRR) proteins mediate pathogen recognition in both mammals and plants. The molecular mechanisms by which pathogen molecules activate NBS–LRR proteins are poorly understood. Here we show that RPS5, a NBS–LRR protein from Arabidopsis, is activated by AvrPphB, a bacterial protease, via an indirect mechanism. When transiently expressed in Nicotiana benthamiana leaves, full-length RPS5 protein triggered programmed cell death, but only when coexpressed with AvrPphB and a second Arabidopsis protein, PBS1, which is a specific substrate of AvrPphB. Using coimmunoprecipitation analysis, we found that PBS1 is in a complex with the N-terminal coiled coil (CC) domain of RPS5 before exposure to AvrPphB. Deletion of the RPS5 LRR domain caused RPS5 to constitutively activate programmed cell death, even in the absence of AvrPphB and PBS1, and this activation depended on both the CC and NBS domains. The LRR and CC domains both coimmunoprecipitate with the NBS domain but not with each other. Thus, the LRR domain appears to function in part to inhibit RPS5 signaling, and cleavage of PBS1 by AvrPphB appears to release RPS5 from this inhibition. An amino acid substitution in the NBS site of RPS5 that is known to inhibit ATP binding in other NBS–LRR proteins blocked activation of RPS5, whereas a substitution thought to inhibit ATP hydrolysis constitutively activated RPS5. Combined, these data suggest that ATP versus ADP binding functions as a molecular switch that is flipped by cleavage of PBS1.
Using a Modified Jigsaw Technique in E-Learning Laboratory Classes for Engineering Students

In this paper, we discuss the use of the jigsaw technique in e-learning laboratory classes for mechanical engineering undergraduate students. The program Mechanical Engineering Online at Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences (FRA-UAS) makes it possible for students to combine studying for a university degree with work and family life. The main part of the tuition of the program takes place as web conferences, preferably in the evenings. Only 20% of the teaching requires the students to be present at the university, mostly during weekends. However, one common problem in the teaching of e-learning based courses is the high risk that the students who start the course will drop out. Some important factors influencing the dropout rate are, among many other factors, how actively the students are contributing to the learning process and how much responsibility they assume during the course. This paper describes how we can apply a modified version of the jigsaw cooperative learning technique in order to make the students actively and with a high level of responsibility participate in web conference based laboratory work in a course in basic natural sciences. The current study focuses on the settings and implementation of the web-based laboratory work. Furthermore, the first experimental in-class-usage has been completed and the outcome is discussed.
Interhemispheric interaction between human dorsal premotor and contralateral primary motor cortex

We used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in a paired pulse protocol to investigate interhemispheric interactions between the right dorsal premotor (dPM) and left primary motor cortex (M1) using interstimulus intervals of 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 16 and 20 ms in ten healthy subjects. A conditioning stimulus over right dPM at an intensity of either 90 or 110% resting motor threshold (RMT) suppressed motor‐evoked potentials (MEPs) evoked in the first dorsal interosseous (FDI) muscle by stimulation of left M1. Maximum effects occurred for interstimulus intervals (ISIs) of 8–10 ms. There was no effect if the conditioning stimulus was applied 2.5 cm lateral, anterior or medial to dPM. The effect differed from previously described M1 interhemispheric inhibition in that the threshold for the latter was greater than 90% RMT, whereas stimulation of the dPM at the same intensity led to significant inhibition. In addition, voluntary contraction of the left FDI (i.e. contralateral to the conditioning TMS) enhanced interhemispheric inhibition from right M1 but had no effect on the inhibition from right dPM. Finally, conditioning to right dPM at 90% RMT reduced short‐interval intracortical inhibition (SICI; at ISI = 2 ms) in left M1 whilst there was no effect if the conditioning stimulus was applied to right M1. We conclude that conditioning TMS over dPM has effects that differ from the previous pattern of interhemispheric inhibition described between bilateral M1s. This may reflect the existence of commissural fibres between dPM and contralateral M1 that may play a role in bimanual coordination.
Structure of cell wall mannan of Candida kefyr IFO 0586

We conducted a structural analysis of the antigenic cell wall mannoprotein (mannan) isolated from Candida kefyr (formerly Candida pseudotropicalis) IFO 0586. The result of two-dimensional homonuclear Hartmann-Hahn analysis of this mannan indicates that the molecule is constructed from alpha-1,2- and alpha-1,6-linked mannopyranose residues. Upon alkali treatment (beta-elimination reaction), this mannan released two alpha-1,2-linked mannooligosaccharides, biose and triose. The structure of the alkali-stable mannan (outer chain) moiety was investigated by acetolysis. The structures of the resultant oligosaccharides, biose and triose, from the outer chain moiety were found to be the same as those of the alkali-released ones. Further, the treatment of the parent mannan with an Arthrobacter GJM-1 exo-alpha-mannosidase gave a linear mannan consisting solely of alpha-1,6-linked mannopyranose residues. These results indicate that the mannan forms the long backbone of the alpha-1,6 linkage, with a large number of short alpha-1,2-linked oligomannosyl side chains forming a comblike structure. Moreover, we investigated the serological properties of this mannan by performing an inhibition assay of a slide agglutination reaction with mannooligosaccharides and polyclonal factor sera (Candida Check; Iatron). The result indicates that the factor 1 serum preferentially recognizes the alpha-1,2-linked oligomannosyl side chains in this mannan. On the other hand, the fact that the mannan does not contain an antigenic determinant(s) corresponding to factor 8 suggests that the epitope(s) of this factor resides in other molecules on the cell surface of this strain.