Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Microarray-Based Genotyping and Clinical Outcomes of Staphylococcus aureus Bloodstream Infection: An Exploratory Study

The clinical course of Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia varies extensively. We sought to determine the relationship between genetic characteristics of the infecting pathogen and clinical outcomes in an exploratory study. In two study centers, 317 blood culture isolates were analyzed by DNA microarray and spa genotyping. By uni- and multivariate regression analyses associations of genotype data with 30-day all-cause mortality, severe sepsis/septic shock, disseminated disease, endocarditis, and osteoarticular infection were investigated. Univariate analysis showed significant association between S. aureus genes/gene-clusters or clonal complexes and clinical endpoints. For example CC15 was associated with 30-day mortality and CC22 with osteoarticular infection. In multivariate analysis methicillin resistance (mecA, OR 4.8 [1.43–16.06]) and the beta-lactamase-gene (bla, OR 3.12 [1.17–8.30]) remained independently associated with 30-day mortality. The presence of genes for enterotoxins (sed/sej/ser) was associated with endocarditis (OR 5.11 [1.14–18.62]). Host factors such as McCabe classification (OR 4.52 [2.09–9.79] for mortality), age (OR 1.06 [1.03–1.10] per year), and community-acquisition (OR 3.40 [1.31–8.81]) had a major influence on disease severity, dissemination and mortality. Individual genotypes and clonal complexes of S. aureus can only partially explain clinical features and outcomes of S. aureus bacteremia. Genotype-phenotype association studies need to include adjustments for host factors like age, comorbidity and community-acquisition.
Neural oscillator for gait command of a humanoid robot

In this article bio-inspired techniques are used for generating the gait of a biped robot. The concept of CPG, central pattern generator, which is a neural network capable of producing rhythm output, was used. It was modeled as coupled oscillators. With the purpose of verifying the operation of the oscillators, simulations were made. After that they were implemented for generating the gait for the robot. The output of the oscillators were used as the reference trajectory for the feet and the joint angles were obtained by inverse kinematics. We obtained good result in simulations for the humanoid robot, which showed a degree of tolerance to external perturbations.
Wavelet Kernel Local Fisher Discriminant Analysis With Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm for Bearing Defect Classification

Feature extraction and dimensionality reduction (DR) are necessary and helpful preprocessing steps for bearing defect classification. Linear local Fisher discriminant analysis (LFDA) has recently been developed as a popular method for feature extraction and DR. However, the linear method tends to give undesired results if the samples between classes are nonlinearly separated in the input space. To enhance the performance of LFDA in bearing defect classification, a new feature extraction and DR algorithm based on wavelet kernel LFDA (WKLFDA) is presented in this paper. Herein, a new wavelet kernel function is proposed to construct the kernel function of LFDA. To seek the optimal parameters for WKLFDA, particle swarm optimization (PSO) is used; as a result, a new PSO-WKLFDA algorithm is proposed. The experimental results for the synthetic data and measured vibration bearing data show that the proposed WKLFDA and PSO-WKLFDA outperform other state-of-the-art algorithms.
Distributed Control of Functional RT Components Based on Open Robot Architecture RTM

In this paper, we propose using Open Robot Architecture RTM as platform to develop service robotic system. First, we developed QuickCam Orbit cameras functional elements as "RT software components" to monitor home integration robot system working and the state of the aged or disabled. Then we developed IEEE1394 cameras RT components to improve network distributed monitoring system because IEEE1394 cameras are widely used in robot field and have high performance and high resolution. By using Open Robot Architecture RTM, the developed camera components can be implemented by different programming languages, run in different operating system, or connected in different networks to inter-operate. It is also easy to create comprehensive robot system application by re-using existing modules thus facilitating network-distributed software sharing and improving the cost of writing and maintaining software.
Efficient Hearing Screening in Noise-Exposed Listeners Using the Digit Triplet Test

Objectives: Hearing screening in occupational medicine is generally based on pure-tone threshold audiometry. However, reliable and valid thresholds can only be obtained in a sound-proof room, using a high-quality, well-calibrated audiometer, and by a well-trained administrator. Thresholds also need to be determined for several audiometric frequencies. This makes the test time-consuming and expensive, which is not ideal for the screening of large populations. A Speech-In-Noise test (SPIN), by contrast, does not have the abovementioned requirements. Because it can be implemented as a quick automated self-test, possibly over the Internet, a SPIN test is highly advantageous for screening purposes. However, its sensitivity for (isolated) high-frequency hearing loss, as typically seen in noise-exposed listeners, was unclear up to present. In this study, the authors investigated the sensitivity and specificity of the Digit Triplet SPIN test for detecting and monitoring (early-stage) high-frequency hearing loss, and its similarity across two different language versions. Design: One-hundred eighteen noise-exposed workers, representing a wide range from no to severe high-frequency hearing loss, completed the French or Dutch version of the broadband Digit Triplet self-test in an office-like room. Pure-tone thresholds, collected by a professional audiologist in favorable settings, served as the reference. Results: The 84 Dutch-speaking participants showed a very strong linear relation between the reference and the Digit Triplet test, with the pure-tone average at 2, 3, 4, and 6 kHz as a strong predictor (R = 0.86) for the speech-reception threshold. The sensitivity and specificity to detect mild high-frequency hearing loss were 92% (61 of 66) and 89% (16 of 18), respectively. The area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was very high (≥0.91) for several degrees of high-frequency hearing loss. With a within-subject standard deviation of only 0.8 dB, the Digit Triplet test also had a low measurement error. The results of the 34 French-speaking subjects showed a highly similar trend. Conclusions: The Digit Triplet test proves to have a high sensitivity and specificity for detecting different degrees of high-frequency hearing loss. Given its ease of use, this test is very suitable for screening purposes in occupational medicine, and potentially for the screening of adolescents at risk of recreational noise–induced hearing loss.
Spontaneous superficial parenchymal and leptomeningeal hemorrhage in term neonates.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Intracranial hemorrhage in term neonates often results from asphyxia, obvious birth trauma, blood dyscrasia, or vascular malformation but may occur without an obvious inciting event. In this study, we review the clinical and neuroimaging features of healthy term neonates presenting with spontaneous superficial parenchymal and leptomeningeal (ie, subpial or subarachnoid) hemorrhage. METHODS The clinical records and neuroimaging studies of seven term neonates with spontaneous superficial parenchymal and leptomeningeal hemorrhage were retrospectively reviewed. All underwent diffusion-weighted MR imaging and 6 underwent CT within 72 hours of birth. Magnetic susceptibility-weighted imaging was performed in five, MR angiography in two, and MR venography in two. Follow-up MR imaging was performed in one infant. Clinical follow-up was done in four patients. RESULTS All neonates had normal birth weights and high 5-minute APGAR scores. All were delivered vaginally (one with forceps assistance, and one with vacuum assistance). No blood dyscrasias were noted. Within 36 hours after delivery, all neonates presented with apnea or seizures or both. Neuroimaging subsequently revealed superficial parenchymal and leptomeningeal hemorrhage. Four occurred in the anterior-inferior-lateral temporal lobe adjacent to the pterion. The remaining three were located in the parietal lobe, frontal lobe, and lateral temporal lobe under the squamosal suture. Decreased diffusion in parenchyma adjacent to the hemorrhage and overlying subcutaneous soft-tissue swelling were apparent in five patients. Susceptibility-weighted imaging showed no additional lesions. MR angiography and MR venography findings were normal. Follow-up MR imaging in one patient demonstrated encephalomalacia. Four patients with short-term clinical follow-up were neurologically normal. CONCLUSION Spontaneous superficial parenchymal and leptomeningeal hemorrhage occurs in otherwise healthy term neonates. The hemorrhage is most often in the temporal lobe and in proximity to sutures, accompanied by overlying soft-tissue swelling and adjacent decreased diffusion. This pattern leads us to implicate local trauma with contusion or venous compression or occlusion in the development of these hemorrhages.
Use of Ly6G‐specific monoclonal antibody to deplete neutrophils in mice

The anti‐granulocyte receptor‐1 (Gr‐1) mAb, RB6‐8C5, has been used extensively to deplete neutrophils in mice and to investigate the role of these cells in host defense. RB6‐8C5 binds to Ly6G, which is present on neutrophils, and to Ly6C, which is expressed on neutrophils, dendritic cells, and subpopulations of lymphocytes and monocytes. It is thus likely that in vivo administration of RB6‐8C5 may deplete not only neutrophils but also other Gr‐l+ (Ly6C+) cells. This study describes the use of an Ly6G‐specific mAb, 1A8, as an alternative means to deplete neutrophils. In vivo administration of RB6‐8C5 reduced blood neutrophils and Gr‐1+ monocytes, whereas administration of 1A8 reduced blood neutrophils but not Gr‐1+ monocytes. Plasma TNF‐α in endotoxemia was increased 20‐fold by RB6‐8C5 pretreatment and fourfold by 1A8 pretreatment. In a wound model, pretreatment with either antibody decreased wound neutrophils and macrophages. TNF‐α staining in brefeldin‐treated wound leukocytes was increased by pretreatment with RB6‐8C5, but not 1A8. Neutrophil depletion with 1A8 offers advantages over the use of RB6‐8C5, as it preserves non‐neutrophil Gr‐1+ cells depleted by the anti‐Gr‐1 antibody. The loss of non‐neutrophil Gr‐1+ populations in RB6‐8C5‐treated animals is associated with increased TNF‐α responses, suggesting these cells may function to suppress TNF‐α production.
A Soil Hydrology-Based Catchment Water Resources Model

A conceptual rainfall-runoff model, the Catchment Resources and Soil Hydrology (CRASH) model, designed for catchment management purposes, has been developed to compute continuous river flow at the catchment or river basin scale. Its input data requirements are limited to data normally existing in any catchment of potential interest. The mechanistic model is driven by soil, land use and weather data, and is parameterised according to the soil series types within the catchment. One model parameter related to runoff is derived from computed coefficients from the soil hydrological classification of the Hydrology Of Soil Types (HOST) system. HOST is a conceptual representation of the hydrological processes in the soil for which calibrated values of Base Flow Index and Standard Percentage Runoff have previously been computed. The three other parameters are calibrated for each HOST class. Due to the specification of the HOST system CRASH has been evaluated at first in the United Kingdom. It has initially been independently applied to medium size catchments with acceptable results. As a second step, the model has been tested with a common set of parameter values in two catchments of similar size and soil characteristics but with contrasting climate condition. The results are reasonable through the range of the flow duration curve and would tend to confirm that it is possible to derive unique model parameters for soils with similar hydrological behaviour. It is however necessary to test the model more widely to obtain a robust set of parameters that would allow the use of the model in ungauged catchments without catchment-specific calibration.
Improved characterisation of among-lineage rate variation in cetacean mitogenomes using codon-partitioned relaxed clocks

Background and aims. There is extensive variation in substitution rates among metazoan mitochondrial genomes, including differences among lineages and among sites. Differences in substitution rates among lineages are routinely taken into account in molecular phylogenetic and dating analyses. However, this is rarely the case for differences in the lineage-specific patterns of rate variation among sites. Materials and methods. We analysed an alignment of 32 cetacean mitogenomes using a partitioned relaxed-clock approach, in which a separate relaxed-clock model was applied to each of the three codon positions of the protein-coding genes. Results. By comparing Bayes factors, we found overwhelming support for this model compared with a strict-clock model and less-complex models comprising fewer relaxed clocks. Our analyses reveal the presence of substantial rate heterogeneity among cetacean lineages, and that these patterns of variation differ between codon positions. However, we find no evidence of mitochondrial rate autocorrelation throughout the cetacean phylogeny. Conclusions. Our study confirms the feasibility of applying a partitioned relaxed-clock model to mitogenomic data, and suggests that molecular phylogenetic and dating analyses may be improved by the application of these models.
Role of pausing in text-to-speech synthesis for simultaneous interpretation

The goal of simultaneous speech-to-speech (S2S) translation is to translate source language speech into target language with low latency. While conventional speech-to-speech (S2S) translation systems typically ignore the source language acousticprosodic information such as pausing, exploiting such information for simultaneous S2S translation can potentially aid in the chunking of source text into short phrases that can be subsequently translated incrementally with low latency. Such an approach is often used by human interpreters in simultaneous interpretation. In this work we investigate the phenomena of pausing in simultaneous interpretation and study the impact of utilizing such information for target language text-to-speech synthesis in a simultaneous S2S system. On one hand, we superimpose the source language pause information obtained through forced alignment (or decoding) in an isomorphic manner on the target side while on the other hand, we use a classifier to predict the pause information for the target text by exploiting features from the target language, source language or both. We contrast our approach with the baseline that does not use any pauses. We perform our investigation on a simultaneous interpretation corpus of Parliamentary speeches and present subjective evaluation results based on the quality of synthesized target speech.
Multi-view representation learning via gcca for multimodal analysis of Parkinson's disease

Information from different bio-signals such as speech, handwriting, and gait have been used to monitor the state of Parkinson's disease (PD) patients, however, all the multimodal bio-signals may not always be available. We propose a method based on multi-view representation learning via generalized canonical correlation analysis (GCCA) for learning a representation of features extracted from handwriting and gait that can be used as a complement to speech-based features. Three different problems are addressed: classification of PD patients vs. healthy controls, prediction of the neurological state of PD patients according to the UPDRS score, and the prediction of a modified version of the Frenchay dysarthria assessment (m-FDA). According to the results, the proposed approach is suitable to improve the results in the addressed problems, specially in the prediction of the UPDRS, and m-FDA scores.
Innovation Trends in South Korea

This paper analyzes innovation trends in South Korea by means of the number of patent applications filed by residents and nonresidents during the period 1965 to 2012. Making use of patent data released by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), we search for the presence of multiple structural changes in patent application series in this country. These changes may suggest that firms’ innovative activity has been modified as a result of implementing some science, technology and innovation (STI) policies. Accordingly, the new regulations implemented in this country in the last decades have influenced its innovative activity. The question conducting this research is thus how STI policies in South Korea have influenced its innovation activity. The results confirm the existence of multiple structural changes in the series of patent applications resulting from alternative STI policies implemented during these years. Keywords—Econometric methods, innovation activity, South Korea, patent applications, science, technology and innovation (STI) policy.
Anti-glycoprotein D monoclonal antibody protects against herpes simplex virus type 1-induced diseases in mice functionally depleted of selected T-cell subsets or asialo GM1+ cells

Passive transfer of a monoclonal antibody (MAb) specific for glycoprotein D (gD) is highly effective in preventing the development of herpes simplex virus type 1-induced stromal keratitis. In the present study, we investigated whether animals which had been functionally depleted of T-cell subsets or asialo GM1+ cells would continue to be responsive to MAb therapy. BALB/c mice were depleted of CD4+, CD8+, or asialo GM1+ cells by treatment with anti-L3T4, anti-Lyt 2.2, or anti-asialo GM1 antibodies, respectively. Functional depletion of CD4+ cells was documented by the loss of delayed-type hypersensitivity responsiveness, while CD8+ cell depletion was accompanied by abrogation of cytotoxic lymphocyte activity. Anti-asialo GM1 treatment led to the loss of natural killer cell lytic activity. Mice depleted of the desired cell population and infected on the scarified cornea with herpes simplex virus type 1 uniformly developed necrotizing stromal keratitis by 3 weeks postinfection. A single inoculation of anti-gD MAb (55 micrograms) given intraperitoneally 24 h postinfection strongly protected hosts depleted of CD4+ cells against stromal keratitis. Likewise, antibody treatment in CD8+ or asialo GM1+ cell-depleted hosts was as therapeutically effective as that seen in non-cell-depleted mice. We also observed that in cell-depleted mice, the virus spread into the central nervous system and caused encephalitis. The CD4+ cell-depleted mice were the most severely affected, as 100% developed fatal disease. Anti-gD MAb treatment successfully protected all (32 of 32) CD4+-, CD8+-, or asialo GM1(+)-depleted hosts against encephalitis. We therefore conclude that antibody-mediated prevention of stromal keratitis and encephalitis does not require the obligatory participation of CD4+, CD8+, or asialo GM1+ cells. However, when mice were simultaneously depleted of both CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell subsets, antibody treatment could not prevent fatal encephalitis. Thus, antibody can compensate for the functional loss of one but not two T-lymphocyte subpopulations.
Identification of critical source areas of soil erosion on moderate fine spatial scale in Loess Plateau in China

Critical Source Areas (CSAs) are considered as priority areas for soil conservation and it is essential to identify CSAs for effective watershed management. Soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) model is a useful tool in identifying CSAs. Previous studies that used SWAT for CSAs identification were almost carried out on the basis of sub-watershed level which was too coarse to capture spatial detail of soil erosion. This research identified CSAs of soil erosion at a moderate fine spatial detail scale in a small watershed of Loess Plateau in China using SWAT model. CSAs were identified based on the 4-year average annual sediment yield of hydrological response units (HRU). The result shows that CSAs were mainly located in steep slope farmland areas and gully dominated areas. CSAs covered 10% areas of watershed, and contributed 30% sediment yield to the watershed. Such a trend is more obvious under larger storms. This could imply that CSAs identification on HRUs level is suitable for site-specific management design. This study also confirms that CSAs identification could be a potential approach assisting water quality control.
Perceived Views on the Application of a Knowledge Management Model for Product Design within a Brazilian SME Company

The success of the Design department at SEBRAE/RN or any organization depends on the ability to manage the knowledge of their team members. However, the knowledge management of an organization is usually carried out in an informal way. This is because the internal knowledge is not shared and utilized in a proper and correct manner. As a consequence, a diagnosis of the knowledge management was accomplished inside of the Design department at SEBRAE/RN through the application of a questionnaire in order to find out which are the existents practices of knowledge management and information management within this department. The objective of the diagnosis was to identify, based on a theoretical model which action needs more attention, in other words, more dedication during the exercise of the knowledge management within the organization. The analysis will obtain the state of the art of the Designs department, in which will give support during the application of the methodology and tools of knowledge management. Finally, it is expected that the practice of the knowledge management in the Design department at SEBRAE/RN can reach a superior performance contributing with an improvement of the products and services offered by the organization.
A 0.1pJ/b 5-to-10Gb/s charge-recycling stacked low-power I/O for on-chip signaling in 45nm CMOS SOI

Compact low-power signaling schemes to drive on-chip interconnects are needed for processor chips where high-bandwidth data buses connect processor cores and on-chip cache. Since a significant portion of the signaling power is dynamic power spent on driving long wires, reducing the signal swing improves power efficiency [1-3]. In addition, charge-recycling techniques reduce signal swing by stacking circuits with regular and predictable data switching activities, such as logic circuits [4] and clocking circuits [5]. Unlike conventional schemes, low-swing I/O that leverages charge-recycling techniques offers the potential for quadratic power reduction. We present a compact low-power I/O for on-chip signaling using charge-recycling stacked drivers and compact voltage regulators/converters. A receiver circuit modified from a parametric amplifier-based design [6] further improves the area and power efficiency.