Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Potent β-Lactam Enhancer Activity of Zidebactam and WCK 5153 against Acinetobacter baumannii, Including Carbapenemase-Producing Clinical Isolates

ABSTRACT Multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii has rapidly spread worldwide, resulting in a serious threat to hospitalized patients. Zidebactam and WCK 5153 are novel non-β-lactam bicyclo-acyl hydrazide β-lactam enhancer antibiotics being developed to target multidrug-resistant A. baumannii. The objectives of this work were to determine the 50% inhibitory concentrations (IC50s) for penicillin-binding proteins (PBP), the OXA-23 inhibition profiles, and the antimicrobial activities of zidebactam and WCK 5153, alone and in combination with β-lactams, against multidrug-resistant A. baumannii. MICs and time-kill kinetics were determined for an A. baumannii clinical strain producing the carbapenemase OXA-23 and belonging to the widespread European clone II of sequence type 2 (ST2). Inhibition of the purified OXA-23 enzyme by zidebactam, WCK 5153, and comparators was assessed. All of the compounds tested displayed apparent Ki values of >100 μM, indicating poor OXA-23 β-lactamase inhibition. The IC50s of zidebactam, WCK 5153, cefepime, ceftazidime, meropenem, and sulbactam (range of concentrations tested, 0.02 to 2 μg/ml) for PBP were also determined. Zidebactam and WCK 5153 demonstrated specific high-affinity binding to PBP2 of A. baumannii (0.01 μg/ml for both of the compounds). The MICs of zidebactam and WCK 5153 were >1,024 μg/ml for wild-type and multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter strains. Importantly, combinations of cefepime with 8 μg/ml of zidebactam or WCK 5153 and sulbactam with 8 μg/ml of zidebactam or WCK 5153 led to 4- and 8-fold reductions of the MICs, respectively, and showed enhanced killing. Notably, several of the combinations resulted in full bacterial eradication at 24 h. We conclude that zidebactam and WCK 5153 are PBP2 inhibitors that show a potent β-lactam enhancer effect against A. baumannii, including a multidrug-resistant OXA-23-producing ST2 international clone.
Evolution by Computational Selection

A complexity-theoretic approach to studying biological networks is proposed. A simple graph representation is used where molecules (DNA, RNA, proteins and chemicals) are vertices and relations between them are directed and signed (promotional (+) or inhibitory (-)) edges. Based on this model, the problem of network evolution (NE) is defined formally as an optimization problem and subsequently proven to be fundamentally hard (NP-hard) by means of reduction from the Knapsack problem (KP). Second, for empirical validation, various biological networks of experimentally-validated interactions are compared against randomly generated networks with varying degree distributions. An NE instance is created using a given real or synthetic (random) network. After being reverse-reduced to a KP instance, each NE instance is fed to a KP solver and the average achieved knapsack value-to-weight ratio is recorded from multiple rounds of simulated evolutionary pressure. The results show that biological networks (and synthetic networks of similar degree distribution) achieve the highest ratios at maximal evolutionary pressure and minimal error tolerance conditions. The more distant (in degree distribution) a synthetic network is from biological networks the lower its achieved ratio. The results shed light on how computational intractability has shaped the evolution of biological networks into their current topology.
Liquidity – Profitability Relationship Analysed Once Again. The Case Of Poland

In this article, a study on relationship between liquidity and profitability of an enterprise are presented. Besides traditional measures of liquidity and profitability, the analysis takes account also of dynamic measures, i.e. the cash conversion cycle and the economic value added. The authors demonstrated that the lack of cohesion in the theory in the case of statistical measures may result from the certain snapshot effect, whereas the analysis of dynamic measures allows the interpretation of ratios consistent with the theory. This article also presents EVA (Economic Value Added) as a financial ratio for the calculation of which not all accounting corrections proposed so far must be used.
The Role of Recollection and Familiarity in Nondemented Parkinson's Patients

ABSTRACT The aim of the current study was to examine if recollection and familiarity decline in nondemented Parkinson's patients. To do so we compared a sample of older people with Parkinson's disease (n = 32) to a control sample of healthy older people (n = 32) on an associative recognition task in which we manipulated the repetition of the pairs during the study phase (half of the pairs were presented once and half twice) to obtain corrected estimates of recollection, familiarity, and false recognition based on the logic of the process-dissociation procedure. The results clearly show that recollection is impaired but familiarity is preserved in nondemented Parkinson's patients. The results show that memory for pairs in Parkinson's patients relies largely on the familiarity of each item and not on a precise recollection of associative information, supporting the idea that recollection-based monitoring processes are impaired in these patients.
Retinopathy Online Challenge: Automatic Detection of Microaneurysms in Digital Color Fundus Photographs

The detection of microaneurysms in digital color fundus photographs is a critical first step in automated screening for diabetic retinopathy (DR), a common complication of diabetes. To accomplish this detection numerous methods have been published in the past but none of these was compared with each other on the same data. In this work we present the results of the first international microaneurysm detection competition, organized in the context of the Retinopathy Online Challenge (ROC), a multiyear online competition for various aspects of DR detection. For this competition, we compare the results of five different methods, produced by five different teams of researchers on the same set of data. The evaluation was performed in a uniform manner using an algorithm presented in this work. The set of data used for the competition consisted of 50 training images with available reference standard and 50 test images where the reference standard was withheld by the organizers (M. Niemeijer, B. van Ginneken, and M. D. AbrA¿moff). The results obtained on the test data was submitted through a website after which standardized evaluation software was used to determine the performance of each of the methods. A human expert detected microaneurysms in the test set to allow comparison with the performance of the automatic methods. The overall results show that microaneurysm detection is a challenging task for both the automatic methods as well as the human expert. There is room for improvement as the best performing system does not reach the performance of the human expert. The data associated with the ROC microaneurysm detection competition will remain publicly available and the website will continue accepting submissions.
Circulating Retinoic Acid Levels and the Development of Metabolic Syndrome.

CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVE In this prospective study, we evaluated the association of retinoic acid (RA) with the metabolic syndrome (MetS) in the Chinese population. DESIGN AND PARTICIPANTS A total of 1042 nondiabetic adults from the population-based Nutrition and Health of Aging Population were prospectively followed up for 4 years. Serum RA concentrations was determined and its relationship with the MetS and its component was investigated. RESULTS At baseline, higher RA levels were inversely associated with the presence of MetS (odds ratio 0.61; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.44–0.74, P < .001) after adjustment for age, gender, body mass index, the homeostasis model assessment index for insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), and other confounding factors. Subjects with lower RA levels had a progressively worse cardiometabolic risk profile at baseline. Serum RA levels were inversely associated with 8-iso-prostaglandin F2α (P < .001), high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (P = .015), and IL-6 (P = .020) and positively correlated with high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (P = .038). Among 825 subjects without MetS at baseline, 146 had developed it at 4 years. Serum RA by quartiles was inversely correlated with the incident MetS (adjusted hazard ratio 0.67; 95% CI 0.48–0.81, P = .006). Apart from HOMA-IR (P < .001), the baseline RA level was the only independent predictor of the development of the MetS during the 4-year follow-up (odds ratio 0.53; 95% CI 0.40–0.69; P < .001) after adjustment for age, gender, body mass index, and HOMA-IR. CONCLUSIONS The serum RA level is inversely associated with the development of MetS independently of adiposity and insulin resistance.
Reassessment of the role of CD8+ T cells in the induction of allograft tolerance by donor‐specific blood transfusion

Donor‐specific allograft tolerance can be induced in adult rats by pregraft donor‐specific blood transfusion (DST). We have previously shown that DST elicits in recipients the expansion of a donor‐specific CD8+ T cell clone displaying the Vβ18‐Dβ1‐Jβ2. 7 TCR rearrangement, which rapidly infiltrates allografts after transplantation, suggesting a regulatory function for this clone in DST‐induced tolerance. In this study, recipients were pretreated before grafting, using an anti‐CD8 monoclonal antibody to deplete CD8+ T cells. CD8 depletion before DST and transplantation abrogated allograft tolerance, and the CD8+ T cell clone was absent from allografts. These effects were not observed when CD8 depletion was performed after DST but before transplantation. We conclude that CD8+ T cells play a role in the induction of allograft tolerance by DST.
CELL-TO-CELL MODELING OF THE INTERFACE BETWEEN ATRIAL AND SINOATRIAL ANISOTROPIC HETEROGENEOUS NETS

The transition between Sinoatrial cells and Atrial cells in the Heart is not fully undefirst ood. Here we focus in cell-to-cell mathematical models involving typical Sinoatrial cells and Atrial cells connected with experimentally observed conductance values exclusively. We are interested mainly in the geometry of the microstructure of the conduction paths in the Sinoatrial Node. We show with some models that appropriate source-sink relationships between Atrial and Sinoatrial cells may occur according to certain geometric arrangements.
National Institutes of Health–Funded Cardiac Arrest Research: A 10‐Year Trend Analysis

Background Cardiac arrest (CA) is a leading cause of death in the United States, claiming over 450 000 lives annually. Improving survival depends on the ability to conduct CA research and on the translation and implementation of research findings into practice. Our objective was to provide a descriptive analysis of annual National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding for CA research over the past decade. Method and Results A search within NIH RePORTER for the years 2007 to 2016 was performed using the terms: “cardiac arrest” or “cardiopulmonary resuscitation” or “heart arrest” or “circulatory arrest” or “pulseless electrical activity” or “ventricular fibrillation” or “resuscitation. ” Grants were reviewed and categorized as CA research (yes/no) using predefined criteria. The annual NIH funding for CA research, number of individual grants, and principal investigators were tabulated. The total NIH investment in CA research for 2015 was calculated and compared to those for other leading causes of death within the United States. Interrater reliability among 3 independent reviewers for fiscal year 2015 was assessed using Fleiss κ. The search yielded 2763 NIH‐funded grants, of which 745 (27.0%) were classified as CA research (κ=0.86 [95%CI 0.80‐0.93]). Total inflation‐adjusted NIH funding for CA research was $35.4 million in 2007, peaked at $76.7 million in 2010, and has decreased to $28.5 million in 2016. Per annual death, NIH invests ≈$2200 for stroke, ≈$2100 for heart disease, and ≈$91 for CA. Conclusions This analysis demonstrates that the annual NIH investment in CA research is low relative to other leading causes of death in the United States and has declined over the past decade.
Effect of wrist posture on carpal tunnel pressure while typing

Long weekly hours of keyboard use may lead to or aggravate carpal tunnel syndrome. The effects of typing on fluid pressure in the carpal tunnel, a possible mediator of carpal tunnel syndrome, are unknown. Twenty healthy subjects participated in a laboratory study to investigate the effects of typing at different wrist postures on carpal tunnel pressure of the right hand. Changes in wrist flexion/extension angle (p = 0.01) and radial/ulnar deviation angle (p = 0.03) independently altered carpal tunnel pressure; wrist deviations in extension or radial deviation were associated with an increase in pressure. The activity of typing independently elevated carpal tunnel pressure (p = 0.001) relative to the static hand held in the same posture. This information can guide the design and use of keyboards and workstations in order to minimize carpal tunnel pressure while typing. The findings may also be useful to clinicians and ergonomists in the management of patients with carpal tunnel syndrome who use a keyboard. © 2008 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 26:1269–1273, 2008
School-based youth physical activity promotion: Thoughts and beliefs of pre-service physical education teachers

Physical education teachers are central to the facilitation of school-based physical activity promotion. However, teachers have selfreported a lack of knowledge, skills, understanding, and competence to successfully implement these strategies. The aim of this investigation was to explore the beliefs and perceptions of pre-service physical education teachers, concerning their potential roles in future school-based programs designed to promote student physical activity. Fifty-seven pre-service physical education teachers (21 males and 36 females) had complete data and were included in the analysis. Participants responded positively, and did not reveal concerns about their capacity to facilitate school-based physical activity promotion during practicum, and prospectively as practising teachers. This may indicate that either this particular tertiary institution provides curriculum which adequately prepared participants; or participants had misconceptions about their ability and preparedness to fulfill this role. This investigation provides important empirical evidence for preparing pre-service physical education teachers in their potential future roles.
Paralogs are revealed by proportion of heterozygotes and deviations in read ratios in genotyping‐by‐sequencing data from natural populations

Whole‐genome duplications have occurred in the recent ancestors of many plants, fish, and amphibians, resulting in a pervasiveness of paralogous loci and the potential for both disomic and tetrasomic inheritance in the same genome. Paralogs can be difficult to reliably genotype and are often excluded from genotyping‐by‐sequencing (GBS) analyses; however, removal requires paralogs to be identified which is difficult without a reference genome. We present a method for identifying paralogs in natural populations by combining two properties of duplicated loci: (i) the expected frequency of heterozygotes exceeds that for singleton loci, and (ii) within heterozygotes, observed read ratios for each allele in GBS data will deviate from the 1:1 expected for singleton (diploid) loci. These deviations are often not apparent within individuals, particularly when sequence coverage is low; but, we postulated that summing allele reads for each locus over all heterozygous individuals in a population would provide sufficient power to detect deviations at those loci. We identified paralogous loci in three species: Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) which retains regions with ongoing residual tetrasomy on eight chromosome arms following a recent whole‐genome duplication, mountain barberry (Berberis alpina) which has a large proportion of paralogs that arose through an unknown mechanism, and dusky parrotfish (Scarus niger) which has largely rediploidized following an ancient whole‐genome duplication. Importantly, this approach only requires the genotype and allele‐specific read counts for each individual, information which is readily obtained from most GBS analysis pipelines.
Explaining Immigrant Health Service Utilization

Although there is no paucity of theoretical frameworks for explaining people’s health service utilization (HSU), theoretical frameworks designed to account for variations in immigrants’ HSU remain underdeveloped. Building on influential theories or models for explaining HSU and especially Andersen’s widely used health behavior model, this article proposes a theoretical framework for explaining disparities in immigrant HSU. The proposed framework explains disparities in immigrant HSU by the health care need, resources, and predisposing factors of immigrants, and macrostructural/contextual conditions at both the general and immigrant-specific levels, as well as the mediating relationships among some of these factors. It is believed that this new framework can offer a fuller understanding of the determination process of immigrant HSU.
The Effect of a Phonological Awareness Intervention Program on Phonological Memory, Phonological Sensitivity, and Metaphonological Abilities of Preschool Children At-Risk for Reading Disabilities.

The Purpose of this study was to explore the effect of a phonological awareness intervention program on phonological memory ,phonological sensitivity, and metaphonological abilities of preschool children at-risk for reading disabilities. The participants in this study were 40 preschool children selected from three preschools located within three elementary schools in Baltim Educational Edara. A pre- post design was used to examine the effectiveness of the phonological awareness intervention program on phonological memory, phonological sensitivity, and metaphonological abilities of the target children. Findings from this study indicated the effectiveness of the phonological awareness intervention program on phonological memory, phonological sensitivity, and metaphonological abilities of the target children. On the basis of the findings, the study advocated for the effectiveness of the phonological awareness intervention program employed on phonological memory, phonological sensitivity, and metaphonological abilities of the target children.
Generation of Recombinant Vaccinia Viruses

This unit describes how to infect cells with vaccinia virus and then transfect them with a plasmid‐transfer vector or PCR fragment to generate a recombinant virus. Selection and screening methods used to isolate recombinant viruses and a method for the amplification of recombinant viruses are described. Finally, a method for live immunostaining that has been used primarily for detection of recombinant modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA) is presented. © 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Enhancing intercultural engagement through service learning and music making with Indigenous communities in Australia

This article explores the potential for music making activities such as jamming, song writing, and performance to act as a medium for intercultural connection and relationship building during service learning programs with Indigenous communities in Australia. To set the context, the paper begins with an overview of current international perspectives on service learning and then moves towards a theoretical and practical discussion of how these processes, politics, and learning outcomes arise when intercultural engagement is used in service learning programs. The paper then extends this discussion to consider the ways in which shared music making can bring a sense of intercultural “proximity” that has the potential to evoke deep learning experiences for all involved in the service learning activity. These learning experiences arise from three different “facings” in the process of making music together: facing others together; facing each other; facing ourselves. In order to flesh out how these theoretical ideas work in practice, the article draws on insights and data from Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University’s award winning Winanjjikari Service Learning Program, which has been running in partnership with Barkly Regional Arts and Winanjjikari Music Centre in Tennant Creek since 2009. This program involves annual service learning trips where university music students travel to Central Australia to work alongside Aboriginal and non-Indigenous musicians and artists on a range of community-led projects. By looking at the ways in which shared music making brings participants in this program “face to face”, we explore how this proximity leads to powerful learning experiences that foster mutual appreciation, relationship building, and intercultural reconciliation.
A world made for money: economy, geography, and the way we live today

A world made for money: economy, geography, and the way we live today, by Bret Wallach, Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 2015, xvi + 470 pp., US$40.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-8032-9891-0 In A world made for money, Bret Wallach presents a panoramic view of international business in the twenty-first century. The book's central premise, as captured by its title, is a simple one: the modern world is increasingly made and remade by money-seeking. For Wallach, this aspect of contemporary life has become so extreme that when he looks around, literally "everything [he] sees has been built to make money" (p. viii). Having stated this premise and offered a few brief caveats and clarifications in the book's brief introduction, Wallach launches into a series of chapters organized around basic realms or concepts associated with the conduct of globalized business: shopping, making, moving, fueling, and so on. While the book's subtitle, Economy, geography, and the way we live today, suggests a book at least partly about "everyday life", as well as economic and spatial analysis of some sort, the empirical content focuses almost exclusively on various sectors of business and industry. This is because the material presented in the text is derived from articles in newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and the New York Times. One of the effects of this approach is that the book reflects and amplifies the frenetic and seemingly chaotic nature of business in the contemporary world. The reader is treated to a whirlwind of brief vignettes from places around the globe, in which we see not only the staggering scale of social and ecological changes wrought by political economic developments of recent years, but also the shocking rapidity with which these changes take place. The transformation of China's economy over the past several decades often presents the most striking examples of the vast and rapid economic processes that fill the text, as summarized succinctly by the following: "(I)n 2010, the country exported in a day what in 1978 it had exported in a year" (p. 264). The book is lengthy and replete with examples such as these, leaving the reader with a sense of awe, if not at times confusion and bewilderment, in the face of such far-reaching changes, occurring at unprecedented and accelerating speeds; "all that is solid" indeed appears to melt into air in these pages. And yet such changes do not occur without encountering considerable friction, of course, and the text does an excellent job of balancing the staggering feats of global business with stories of political struggle, whether in the form of union activity, state efforts to curb rampant market processes, or revolutionary movements. …