Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Improved Detection of Five Major Gastrointestinal Pathogens by Use of a Molecular Screening Approach

ABSTRACT The detection of bacterial and parasitic gastrointestinal pathogens through culture and microscopy is laborious and time-consuming. We evaluated a molecular screening approach (MSA) for the detection of five major enteric pathogens: Salmonella enterica, Campylobacter jejuni, Giardia lamblia, Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC), and Shigella spp. /enteroinvasive E. coli (EIEC), for use in the daily practice of a clinical microbiology laboratory. The MSA consists of prescreening of stool specimens with two real-time multiplex PCR (mPCR) assays, which give results within a single working day, followed by guided culture/microscopy of the positive or mPCR-inhibited samples. In the present 2-year overview, 28,185 stool specimens were included. The MSA was applied to 13,974 stool samples (49.6%), whereas 14,211 samples were tested by conventional methods only (50.4%). The MSA significantly increased the total detection rate compared to that of conventional methods (19.2% versus 6.4%). The detection of all included pathogens, with the exception of S. enterica, significantly improved. MSA detection frequencies were as follows: C. jejuni, 8.1%; G. lamblia, 4.7%; S. enterica, 3.0%; STEC, 1.9%; and Shigella spp. /EIEC, 1.4%. The guided culture/microscopy was positive in 76.8%, 58.1%, 88.9%, 16.8%, and 18.1% of mPCR-positive specimens, respectively. Of all mPCRs, only 1.8% was inhibited. Other findings were that detection of mixed infections was increased (0.9% versus 0.02%) and threshold cycle (CT ) values for MSA guided culture/microscopy-positive samples were significantly lower than those for guided culture/microscopy-negative samples. In conclusion, an MSA for detection of gastrointestinal pathogens resulted in markedly improved detection rates and a substantial decrease in time to reporting of (preliminary) results.
Electronic Confinement and Coherence in Patterned Epitaxial Graphene

Ultrathin epitaxial graphite was grown on single-crystal silicon carbide by vacuum graphitization. The material can be patterned using standard nanolithography methods. The transport properties, which are closely related to those of carbon nanotubes, are dominated by the single epitaxial graphene layer at the silicon carbide interface and reveal the Dirac nature of the charge carriers. Patterned structures show quantum confinement of electrons and phase coherence lengths beyond 1 micrometer at 4 kelvin, with mobilities exceeding 2.5 square meters per volt-second. All-graphene electronically coherent devices and device architectures are envisaged.
Búsqueda de sensaciones

Sensation Seeking. The present paper studies the dif ferences in the trait le vel of Sensation Seeking, in function of the sex and age. The Sensation Seeking Scale, Form V (Zuckerman, Eysenck y Eysenck, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psycholo gy, 46, 139-149, 1978) was administered to 532 partici pants, 263 men and 269 females. The results show significant dif ferences between sexes in three subscales (TAS, DIS and BS) and in the total scale. No dif ferences were observed for the Experience Se eking (ES) scores. The total scores tendet to decline with a ge eve though a slight increase seem to exist for the 20-29 age group, particularly in the females. There is a strong decrease in the scores for the 3040 age group, possibly associated with biolo gical processes.
A novel state assignment method for Extended Burst-Mode FSM design using genetic algorithm

With the evolution of microelectronics, more and more high-complexity digital systems are been designed. Once the global clock signal is a main concern for synchronous systems design, asynchronous circuits seem to be an interesting alternative, once they don't present clock skew and clock distribution problems. However, the lack of tools for automatic synthesis is a major drawback. This paper proposes a new algorithm for state assignment of Extended Burst-Mode Asynchronous Finite State Machines (XBM_AFSM), which are widely used in the design of Controllers of asynchronous digital systems. The proposal is based on genetic algorithm and introduces a novel style of state assignment. It improves the results and overcomes the previous methods found in literature once it addresses the “state minimization”, the “free of critical race coding” and “coverage” as a single problem. Furthermore, it is able to detect the conflicts in XBM specification and insert the minimum number of state variables in the XBM specification to eliminate those conflicts. A dedicated computational tool called SAGAAs implements the algorithm and was tested to a set of 36 benchmarks. When compared to 3D tool, our method achieved an average reduction of 13.33%, 35.65%, 32.15% and 39.12% in the number of state variables, number of products, number of literals and the number of switching, respectively. When compared to Minimalist tool, SAGAAs provided an average reduction of 52% in the number of inserted state variables, 11% in the number of literals, and a penalty of 8% in the number of products. Results show that the method and the dedicated computational tool SAGAAs achieved good and reliable results, showing a high potential of practical implementation in actual circuits design.
A Comparison of General Education Co-Teaching versus Special Education Resource Service Delivery Models on Math Achievement of Students with Disabilities.

Recent legislation in education mandates that students with disabilities be given access to the general education curriculum in order to reach higher academic standards. To meet these requirements, co-teaching has become a popular service delivery model for instruction of students with disabilities within the general education setting. The purpose of this causal-comparative study was to compare math achievement of secondary students with disabilities in general education co-taught math classes to students with disabilities in special education resource math classes. Participants included 145 high school students with disabilities from four large suburban schools in Northeast Georgia. Learning outcomes were measured by scores on the Georgia Math II End of Course Test. Math I End of Course Test scores from the previous school year were used as a covariate to control for differences in math ability between the groups. Data were analyzed for statistical significance using an ANCOVA. Results indicated that students instructed in co-taught math classes had higher mean scores on end of course tests than students instructed in resource math classes. The findings suggest that co-teaching had a small effect in influencing outcomes in math. Implications for practice indicate that the design of effective teaching practices and instruction are necessary for the attainment of math skills. Future research would help identify important instructional components, teacher experience and training, as well as provide broader generalization of results. Key terms: co-teaching, co-taught, resource, special education, mathematics achievement, disabilities, students with disabilities
Perceptions of bullying and intervention in relation to personality

This study aimed to investigate people’s perceptions of bullying and whether their stated willingness to intervene in a bullying situation was related to gender and personality. The hypothesis was that participants with high Extraversion along with low Agreeableness and Conscientiousness scores would be more likely to report having engaged in bullying behaviors. It was assumed that people would prefer not to intervene in a bullying scenario. One hundred and twelve university students (14 men, 95 women, and 3 other) who range in age from 18 to 42 filled out an online survey consisting of three sections assessing: (a) personality; (b) attitudes toward, and experience with, bullying; and (c) demographics. A series of logistic regressions, discriminant function analyses, and multinomial logistic regressions were conducted on the data collected. Overall, 16.1% of participants saw or heard direct bullying in the last two weeks. Furthermore, 11.6% reported that they had been bullied through mobile phone use and 7.1% reported that they had been bullied through internet use in the last two weeks. People who were more Agreeable and more Extraverted were most likely to report that they would intervene in a direct bullying scenario. However, personality did not predict whether people were more likely to report that they would intervene in indirect bullying or cyberbullying scenarios. This result may be due to the perception that direct bullying is more aggressive and has more of a physical impact on an individual, as opposed to indirect and cyberbullying scenarios. Intervention may be more likely reported for a direct bullying scenario because the witness can visualize the physical harm imposed upon the victim.
MATE: a mobile analysis tool for usability experts

The 'SmartMobile' research project is directed to design and develop tools to help mobile companies view and analyze data related to the usage and performance of their applications and services. In this paper we focus on one of the main tools that were developed - MATE (Mobile Analysis Tool for usability Experts). MATE is designed to highlight potential usability problems in specific mobile applications, tasks and screens. This is done by extracting and aggregating relevant usage and performance metrics from real customers using their mobile devices. Subjective metrics received from usability tests may be inserted to MATE in order to compare objective and subjective metrics per scenario and per task. Usability evaluations performed by experienced usability experts strengthened the necessity of this tool as an important complement to usability testing.
Evaluation of Natural Language Processing Techniques for Sentiment Analysis on Tweets

Hiermit versichere ich, die vorliegende Bachelor-Thesis ohne Hilfe Dritter nur mit den angegebenen Quellen und Hilfmitteln angefertigt zu haben. Alle Stellen, die aus Quellen entnommen wurden sind als solche kenntlich gemacht. Diese Arbeit hat in gleicher oder ähnlicher Form noch keiner Prüfungsbehörde vorgelegen.
Actual Role of Platelet Glycoprotein IIb/IIIa Receptor Inhibitors as Adjunctive Pharmacological Therapy to Primary Angioplasty in Acute Myocardial Infarction: In the Light of Recent Randomized Trials and Observational Studies with Bivalirudin

Strategies for preventing ischemic complications during percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) in the setting of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) have focused on the platelet surface-membrane glycoprotein (GP) IIb/IIIa receptor. The platelet GP IIb/IIIa receptor inhibitors, by blocking the final common pathway of platelet aggregation, have become a breakthrough in the management of acute coronary syndromes. Current adjuvant pharmacological therapy of AMI with aspirin, clopidogrel, unfractionated heparin (UH), and platelet GP IIb/IIIa inhibitors provides useful therapeutic benefits. Although the use of more potent antithrombin and antiplatelet agents during PCI in AMI has reduced the rate of ischemic complications, in parallel, the rate of bleeding has increased. Several studies have reported an association between bleeding after PCI and an increase in morbidity and mortality. Therefore, investigational studies have focused in pharmacological agents that would reduce bleeding complications without compromising the rate of major adverse cardiovascular events. Based on the results of several randomized trials, abciximab with UH, aspirin and clopidogrel have become a standard adjunctive therapy with primary PCI for AMI. However, some of the trials were done before the use of stents and the widespread use of thienopyridines. In addition, GP IIb/IIIa inhibitors use have been associated with thrombocytopenia, high rates of bleeding, and the need for transfusions, which increase costs, length of hospital stay, and mortality. On the other hand, in the stent era, bivalirudin, a semi-synthetic direct thrombin inhibitor, has recently been shown to provide similar efficacy with less bleeding compared with unfractionated heparin plus platelet GP IIb/IIIa inhibitors in AMI patients treated with primary PCI. The impressive results of this recent randomized trial and other observational studies make a strong argument for the use of bivalirudin rather than heparin plus GP IIb/IIIa inhibitors for the great majority of patients with AMI treated with primary PCI. However, some controversial results and limitations in the studies with bivalirudin exert some doubts in the future widespread use of this drug.
A proof-of-concept framework for PDE-based video compression

In image compression, codecs that rely on interpolation with partial differential equations (PDEs) are becoming increasingly popular. However, there have not been many attempts to transfer this concept to video compression. Since real-time performance is challenging for PDE-based reconstruction, first efficient approaches work on a frame-by-frame basis and focus on parallel implementations without considering coding quality. So far, there is no fully PDE-based video codec that exploits temporal redundancies. As a remedy, we propose a modular framework that combines PDE-based compression with motion compensation: Intra frames are predicted with PDE-based inpainting and inter frames with dense optic flow fields. We use this framework to develop a proof-of-concept codec that combines homogeneous diffusion inpainting with the variational optic flow model of Brox et al. (2004). Even without sophisticated parallelisation, we are able to perform real-time decompression of colour videos for the first time in PDE-based video compression.
Factors in the cross-cultural adaptation of African students in Chinese universities

Since 2006, the enrollment of African students in Chinese universities has been increasing steadily. A majority of the students have been recruited through the China Scholarship Council. Cast against that background of growth in the number of African students in Chinese universities, it is important that their educational experience in a country whose cultural landscape and political orientation are significantly different from those of their homelands be examined for evidence on their overall well-being. A total of 110 students from 32 African countries enrolled in six public Chinese universities responded to a questionnaire on their satisfaction with and adjustment and adaptation to their new cultural and academic environments. Results indicated that the students’ over-expectation of China and natural factors, particularly China’s weather as a barrier to adjustment, had negative associations with their overall satisfaction and with their adaptation to their environment. A broad network of friends, prior cross-cultural experience, and prior knowledge of cultural differences had positive associations with satisfaction and adaptation. The implications of these results for developing campus programs for acculturating the students, as well as other international students in Chinese universities, are presented.
Neuronal avalanche induced by multiplicative spike-timing-dependent plasticity

Recent studies in the field of neuroscience have reported that neuronal avalanches are observed in the cultured cortical slice of the brain. The neuronal avalanches are considered as one of the mechanisms of memory functions in the brain. However, it still remains elusive what is a key factor to produce neuronal avalanches. To clarify this issue, we considered spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) as a candidate for the mechanism to induce the neuronal avalanches because STDP constructs functional cortical circuits. In this paper, based on this idea, we analyzed neuronal activities in networks constructed through STDP from viewpoints of neuronal avalanche. As a result, comparing “additive” and “multiplicative” STDP, “multiplicative” STDP could realize more similar properties of neuronal avalanche observed in the cultured cortical slice.
Asperisporium and Pantospora (Mycosphaerellaceae): epitypifications and phylogenetic placement

The species-rich family Mycosphaerellaceae contains considerable morphological diversity and includes numerous anamorphic genera, many of which are economically important plant pathogens. Recent revisions and phylogenetic research have resulted in taxonomic instability. Ameliorating this problem requires phylogenetic placement of type species of key genera. We present an examination of the type species of the anamorphic Asperisporium and Pantospora. Cultures isolated from recent port interceptions were studied and described, and morphological studies were made of historical and new herbarium specimens. DNA sequence data from the ITS region and nLSU were generated from these type species, analysed phylogenetically, placed into an evolutionary context within Mycosphaerellaceae, and compared to existing phylogenies. Epitype specimens associated with living cultures and DNA sequence data are designated herein. Asperisporium caricae, the type of Asperisporium and cause of a leaf and fruit spot disease of papaya, is closely related to several species of Passalora including P. brachycarpa. The status of Asperisporium as a potential generic synonym of Passalora remains unclear. The monotypic genus Pantospora, typified by the synnematous Pantospora guazumae, is not included in Pseudocercospora sensu stricto or sensu lato. Rather, it represents a distinct lineage in the Mycosphaerellaceae in an unresolved position near Mycosphaerella microsora.
Relevance of the Mini Nutritional Assessment in cirrhotic liver disease patients.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Malnutrition is an important prognostic factor for patients with liver disease and a novel nutritional assessment tool is required for these patients. The aim of this study was to validate the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) as a nutritional screening tool for patients with liver disease, by comparing MNA scores with other nutrition-related parameters. METHODS AND STUDY DESIGN Patients who were hospitalized at the gastroenterology division of Kyushu and Beppu Medical Center were enrolled. The study included 77 patients with liver disease (male/female, 46/31; mean±SD age, 68.5±10.7 years; liver cirrhosis, 64.9%; liver cancer, 61.0%). Correlations of MNA score at hospital admission with anthropometric parameters and blood test data were evaluated. RESULTS In patients with liver disease, MNA scores demonstrated that 18 (23.4%) had normal nutritional status, 41 (53.2%) were at risk of malnutrition, and 18 (23.4%) were malnourished, indicating that up to 76.6% of the liver disease group were malnourished. Especially, patients with liver cirrhosis had lower scores of nutritional markers and MNA. The MNA score in liver cirrhotic patients correlated with the following parameters: % arm circumference, % triceps skinfolds, ratio of % maximum grasp strength and arm circumference, maximum grasp strength, arm muscle circumference, calf circumference, serum albumin levels, the controlling nutritional status score, and Onodera's prognostic index, while patients without liver cirrhosis did not show such correlation. CONCLUSIONS MNA scores correlated with nutrition-related data in patients with liver cirrhosis. The MNA is an appropriate tool for nutritional screening assessment in these cirrhotic patients of any etiology.
A test distribution grid for study of slow coherency concept

This paper propose a test grid for investigation of slow coherency concept in nowadays active distributions power systems with small scale hydro units. The slow coherency concept is studied by increasing the model complexity of the small scale hydro generators. The purpose is to obtain a small signal equivalent suitable for the studies of the main bulk transmission system.
Discovering Topics to Enhance Communities of Creation from Links to the Future

The World Wide Web is a great source of new topics significant for trend birth/creation. Here we propose a method for discovering such topics from the web. The obtained web pages absorb attentions of people from multiple interestcommunities, to enforce the spread of latent interest trends. Topics in such pages can be triggers for personal/social progress of interests, beyond the bounds of existing communities.
Multiple Ranking Strategies for Opinion Retrieval in Blogs - The University of Amsterdam at the 2006 TREC Blog Track

We describe our participation in the Opinion Retrieval task at TREC 2006. Our approach to identifying opinions in blog post consisted of scoring the posts separately on various aspects associated with an expression of opinion about a topic, including shallow sentiment analysis, spam detection, and link-based authority estimation. The separate approaches were combined into a single ranking, yielding significant improvement over a content-only baseline.
Revising the nitrogen cycle in the Peruvian oxygen minimum zone

The oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) of the Eastern Tropical South Pacific (ETSP) is 1 of the 3 major regions in the world where oceanic nitrogen is lost in the pelagic realm. The recent identification of anammox, instead of denitrification, as the likely prevalent pathway for nitrogen loss in this OMZ raises strong questions about our understanding of nitrogen cycling and organic matter remineralization in these waters. Without detectable denitrification, it is unclear how NH4+ is remineralized from organic matter and sustains anammox or how secondary NO2− maxima arise within the OMZ. Here we show that in the ETSP-OMZ, anammox obtains 67% or more of NO2− from nitrate reduction, and 33% or less from aerobic ammonia oxidation, based on stable-isotope pairing experiments corroborated by functional gene expression analyses. Dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium was detected in an open-ocean setting. It occurred throughout the OMZ and could satisfy a substantial part of the NH4+ requirement for anammox. The remaining NH4+ came from remineralization via nitrate reduction and probably from microaerobic respiration. Altogether, deep-sea NO3− accounted for only ≈50% of the nitrogen loss in the ETSP, rather than 100% as commonly assumed. Because oceanic OMZs seem to be expanding because of global climate change, it is increasingly imperative to incorporate the correct nitrogen-loss pathways in global biogeochemical models to predict more accurately how the nitrogen cycle in our future ocean may respond.
Green supply chain performance measurement using fuzzy ANP-based balanced scorecard: a collaborative decision-making approach

The purpose of this paper is to delineate a green supply chain (GSC) performance measurement framework using an intra-organisational collaborative decision-making (CDM) approach. A fuzzy analytic network process (ANP)-based green-balanced scorecard (GrBSc) has been used within the CDM approach to assist in arriving at a consistent, accurate and timely data flow across all cross-functional areas of a business. A green causal relationship is established and linked to the fuzzy ANP approach. The causal relationship involves organisational commitment, eco-design, GSC process, social performance and sustainable performance constructs. Sub-constructs and sub-sub-constructs are also identified and linked to the causal relationship to form a network. The fuzzy ANP approach suitably handles the vagueness of the linguistics information of the CDM approach. The CDM approach is implemented in a UK-based carpet-manufacturing firm. The performance measurement approach, in addition to the traditional financial performance and accounting measures, aids in firm’s decision-making with regard to the overall organisational goals. The implemented approach assists the firm in identifying further requirements of the collaborative data across the supply-cain and information about customers and markets. Overall, the CDM-based GrBSc approach assists managers in deciding if the suppliers’ performances meet the industry and environment standards with effective human resource.