Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Rank M Wavelets with N Vanishing Moments

This work generalizes the rank 2 (scale factor of 2) orthogonal wavelet sequences of Daubechies to the case of a rank $M$ wavelet matrix. Several equivalent definitions of $N$th order vanishing moments for rank $M$ wavelets are developed. These notions are used to find an explicit formula for rank $M$ wavelet scaling sequences with $N$ vanishing wavelet moments (of degree $N$ in our terminology). A full wavelet matrix (scaling sequence and $M-1$ wavelet sequences) is constructed, with explicit examples.
Survey of pathogens and blood parasites in free-living passerines.

To determine the disease prevalence of free-living passerines, 1709 passerines were sampled from 38 different field sites in Ohio. Choanal and cloacal swabs were collected from each bird and cultured for the presence of Pasteurella multocida, Salmonella spp. , and Escherichia coli by standard microbiologic techniques. In addition, the serum from each bird was analyzed for the presence of antibodies to Mycoplasma gallisepticum, Mycoplasma synoviae, Newcastle disease virus, and avian influenza virus. A blood smear was also made to examine for the presence of blood parasites. Results indicated that the isolation of E. coli varied with bird species, with the European starling having a higher (21.4%) isolation of E. coli. Salmonella spp. were also isolated from these free-living passerines. Pasteurella multocida was not isolated from any of the sampled passerines. These birds did not have antibodies to M. gallisepticum, M. synoviae, Newcastle disease virus, or avian influenza virus. Blood parasites were not detected in any of the birds sampled.
Characterization of Biofilm Formation by Clinically Relevant Serotypes of Group A Streptococci

ABSTRACT Streptococcus pyogenes (group A streptococcus [GAS]) is a frequent cause of purulent infections in humans. As potentially important aspects of its pathogenicity, GAS was recently shown to aggregate, form intratissue microcolonies, and potentially participate in multispecies biofilms. In this study, we show that GAS in fact forms monospecies biofilms in vitro, and we analyze the basic parameters of S. pyogenes in vitro biofilm formation, using Streptococcus epidermidis as a biofilm-positive control. Of nine clinically important serotype strains, M2, M6, M14, and M18 were found to significantly adhere to coated and uncoated polystyrene surfaces. Fibronectin and collagen types I and IV best supported primary adherence of serotype M2 and M18 strains, respectively, whereas serotype M6 and M14 strains strongly bound to uncoated polystyrene surfaces. Absorption measurements of safranin staining, as well as electron scanning and confocal laser scanning microscopy, documented that primary adherence led to subsequent formation of three-dimensional biofilm structures consisting of up to 46 bacterial layers. Of note, GAS isolates belonging to the same serotype were found to be very heterogeneous in their biofilm-forming behavior. Biofilm formation was equally efficient under static and continuous flow conditions and consisted of the classical three steps, including partial disintegration after long-term incubation. Activity of the SilC signaling peptide as a component of a putative quorum-sensing system was found to influence the biofilm structure and density of serotype M14 and M18 strains. Based on the presented methods and results, standardized analyses of GAS biofilms and their impact on GAS pathogenicity are now feasible.
Job satisfaction among primary care physicians: results of a survey.

BACKGROUND A shortage of primary care physicians (PCPs) seems likely in Germany in the near future and already exists in some parts of the country. Many currently practicing PCPs will soon reach retirement age, and recruiting young physicians for family practice is difficult. The attractiveness of primary care for young physicians depends on the job satisfaction of currently practicing PCPs. We studied job satisfaction among PCPs in Lower Saxony, a large federal state in Germany. METHODS In 2009, we sent a standardized written questionnaire on overall job satisfaction and on particular aspects of medical practice to 3296 randomly chosen PCPs and internists in family practice in Lower Saxony (50% of the entire target population). RESULTS 1106 physicians (34%) responded; their mean age was 52, and 69% were men. 64% said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their job overall. There were particularly high rates of satisfaction with patient contact (91%) and working atmosphere (87% satisfied or very satisfied). In contrast, there were high rates of dissatisfaction with administrative tasks (75% dissatisfied or not at all satisfied). The results were more indifferent concerning payment and work life balance. Overall, younger PCPs and physicians just entering practice were more satisfied than their older colleagues who had been in practice longer. CONCLUSION PCPs are satisfied with their job overall. However, there is significant dissatisfaction with administrative tasks. Improvements in this area may contribute to making primary care more attractive to young physicians.
A single‐molecule force spectroscopy nanosensor for the identification of new antibiotics and antimalarials

An important goal of nanotechnology is the application of individual molecule handling techniques to the discovery of potential new therapeutic agents. Of particular interest is the search for new inhibitors of metabolic routes exclusive of human pathogens, such as the 2‐C‐methyl‐d‐erythritol‐4‐phosphate (MEP) pathway essential for the viability of most human pathogenic bacteria and of the malaria parasite. Using atomic force microscopy single‐molecule force spectroscopy (SMFS), we have probed at the single‐molecule level the interaction of 1‐deoxy‐d‐xylulose 5‐phosphate synthase (DXS), which catalyzes the first step of the MEP pathway, with its two substrates, pyruvate and glyceraldehyde‐3‐phosphate. The data obtained in this pioneering SMFS analysis of a bisubstrate enzymatic reaction illustrate the substrate sequentiality in DXS activity and allow for the calculation of catalytic parameters with single‐molecule resolution. The DXS inhibitor fluoropyruvate has been detected in our SMFS competition experiments at a concentration of 10 µM, improving by 2 orders of magnitude the sensitivity of conventional enzyme activity assays. The binding of DXS to pyruvate is a 2‐step process with dissociation constants of koff = 6.1 × 10−4 ± 7.5 × 10−3 and 1.3 × 10−2 ± 1.0 × 10−2 s−1, and reaction lengths of xβ = 3.98 ± 0.33 and 0.52 ± 0.23 Å. These results constitute the first quantitative report on the use of nanotechnology for the biodiscovery of new antimalarial enzyme inhibitors and open the field for the identification of compounds represented only by a few dozens of molecules in the sensor chamber. —Sisquella, X. , de Pourcq, K. , Alguacil, J., Robles, J., Sanz, F. , Anselmetti, D. , Imperial, S. , Fernàndez‐Busquets, X. A single‐molecule force spectroscopy nanosensor for the identification of new antibiotics and antimalarials. FASEB J. 24, 4203–4217 (2010). www.fasebj. org
Use of Ulva lactuca to identify ammonia toxicity in marine and estuarine sediments

Toxicity identification evaluation (TIE) methods are being developed for use with whole sediments. Although a phase I TIE method has been developed to characterize ammonia toxicity in aqueous samples using the marine macroalga Ulva lactuca, the relationship between amphipod and mysid mortality and uptake by U. lactuca of bedded sediment ammonia had not been explored. Additionally, it was not known how interactions in whole sediments between metal and organic contaminants with U. lactuca and ammonia would affect TIE interpretation. The current study showed that ammonia toxicity to amphipods and mysids was reduced significantly in marine sediments in the presence of U. lactuca. The alga slightly affected metal concentrations but did not alter the concentration of organic contaminants in either overlying or interstitial waters. Conversely, ammonia uptake by U. lactuca was not affected by the presence of metal or organic contaminants in the sediments. When used with other TIE manipulations, U. lactuca can be utilized in a whole‐sediment, phase I TIE to remove toxicity due to ammonia.
Effets de la reproduction partiellement asexuée sur la dynamique des fréquences génotypiques en populations majoritairement diploïdes

Les systemes reproducteurs determinent comment le materiel genetique est transmis d’une generation a la suivante […]. Les especes qui combinent de la reproduction sexuee et asexuee/clonale sont tres repandues [… mais] l’effet de leur systeme reproducteur sur leur evolution reste enigmatique et discute.L’objectif de cette these est de modeliser la dynamique des frequences genotypiques d’une population avec une combinaison de reproduction sexuee et/ou clonale dans des cycles de vie principalement diploides [. … Un] modele du type chaine de Markov avec temps et etats discrets sert de base mathematique pour decrire [leurs] changements […] au cours du temps.Les resultats montrent que la reproduction partiellement asexuee peut en effet modifier la dynamique de la diversite genomique par rapport a une reproduction strictement sexuee ou strictement asexuee. […] L’histoire demographique a un role important pour les organismes partiellement clonaux et doit etre prise en compte dans toute analyse […]. Cette these fait des recommandations pour la collecte des donnees et une hypothese de base pour l’interpretation des donnees de genetique/genomique […]. Ces resultats ont des retombees dans plusieurs domaines, allant de la recherche fondamentale […] a des applications en agriculture […], peche […] et protection de la nature […].
Robust Visual Tracking via Online Discriminative and Low-Rank Dictionary Learning

In this paper, we propose a novel and robust tracking framework based on online discriminative and low-rank dictionary learning. The primary aim of this paper is to obtain compact and low-rank dictionaries that can provide good discriminative representations of both target and background. We accomplish this by exploiting the recovery ability of low-rank matrices. That is if we assume that the data from the same class are linearly correlated, then the corresponding basis vectors learned from the training set of each class shall render the dictionary to become approximately low-rank. The proposed dictionary learning technique incorporates a reconstruction error that improves the reliability of classification. Also, a multiconstraint objective function is designed to enable active learning of a discriminative and robust dictionary. Further, an optimal solution is obtained by iteratively computing the dictionary, coefficients, and by simultaneously learning the classifier parameters. Finally, a simple yet effective likelihood function is implemented to estimate the optimal state of the target during tracking. Moreover, to make the dictionary adaptive to the variations of the target and background during tracking, an online update criterion is employed while learning the new dictionary. Experimental results on a publicly available benchmark dataset have demonstrated that the proposed tracking algorithm performs better than other state-of-the-art trackers.
SENSE shimming (SSH): A fast approach for determining B0 field inhomogeneities using sensitivity coding

The pursuit of ever higher field strengths and faster data acquisitions has led to the construction of coil arrays with high numbers of elements. With the sensitivity encoding (SENSE) technique, it has been shown that the sensitivity of those elements can be used for spatial image encoding. Here, a proof‐of‐principle is presented of a method that can be considered an extreme case of the SENSE approach, completely abstaining from using encoding gradients. The resulting sensitivity encoded free‐induction decay (FID) data are then not used for imaging, but for determining B0 field inhomogeneity distribution. The method has therefore been termed “SENSE shimming” (SSH). In phantom experiments the method's ability to detect inhomogeneities of up to the second order is demonstrated. Magn Reson Med, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Impact of Impurities From Crucible and Coating on mc-Silicon Quality—the Example of Iron and Cobalt

The aim of this paper is to analyze the limiting role of crucible and coating impurities on material quality of multicrystalline silicon. Both solid body diffusion and diffusion into the silicon melt are considered in this study. Two ingots of size G1 have been analyzed. One of them was crystallized in a standard crucible, whereas the other was crystallized in a quartz crucible of very high purity. Focus is put on iron and cobalt as examples of typical impurity species. Iron was found in large concentrations in standard crucibles, and cobalt was proven to be a suitable marker impurity that is mainly found in the coating. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy data are exploited for the determination of impurity concentrations in crucible, coating, and within the crystal. With higher sensitivity for low concentration, PL imaging is applied for carrier lifetime and interstitial iron concentration measurements. The different findings are compared with modeling results of iron and cobalt in-diffusion by Sentaurus Process. The analysis of silicon wafers before and after gettering steps enable a quantification of impurity-limiting cell efficiency potential. Conclusions about the role of impurities from coated crucibles in large-scale crystallization are deduced.
Enabling legacy system accessibility by Web heterogeneous clients

In the Internet era, a challenging issue consists of defining viable solutions for integrating existing enterprise systems and making them accessible from heterogeneous client devices by exploiting the common infrastructure offered by the Web. This paper presents an integration approach that exploits black-box techniques for capturing the dynamic and static models of a legacy system user interface, and reproducing them on client devices with the support of a software wrapper. The wrapper is designed to satisfy service stability, data integration, and application integration requirements, and exploits State Chart Diagrams and open standard technologies, such as XML and XSL. In the paper, a methodology for designing the wrapper is proposed, and a toolkit that supports the application of the methodology is presented. An example of using the methodology for wrapping an existing system and exporting it to a Web browser and a WAP mobile phone is, finally, discussed.
ARAŞTIRMA GÖREVLİLERİNİN ÖRGÜTSEL BAĞLILIK DÜZEYLERİNİN KADRO TÜRÜ VE DEMOGRAFİK ÖZELLİKLER AÇISINDAN İNCELENMESİ

Calismanin amaci, arastirma gorevlilerinin orgutsel baglilik duzeylerinin kisisel ozellikler ve kadro turleri (50d, 33a, OYP) acisindan farklilik gosterip gostermediginin tespit edilmesidir. Calisma bir devlet universitesinde calisan arastirma gorevlilerinin orgutsel baglilik duzeylerini yas, cinsiyet, medeni durum, calisma alani, deneyim (gorev suresi) ve bulunulan lisansustu asama (egitim duzeyi) gibi faktorler ile birlikte kadro turu faktoru acisindan incelemek uzere tasarlanmistir. Calismada veri toplama yontemi olarak anket calismasi kullanilmistir. Orgutsel baglilik duzeyini olcmek icin hazirlanan ankette Allen ve Meyer’in uc boyuttan olusan orgutsel baglilik modelinden yararlanilmistir. Calismanin orneklemini Karadeniz Teknik Universitesi’nde gorev yapan 173 arastirma gorevlisi olusturmaktadir. T oplanan veriler SPSS paket programi araciligiyla faktor analizi, T-testi ve Anova Testi ile analiz edilmistir. Elde edilen bulgulara gore, arastirma gorevlilerinin gorev sureleri orgutsel bagliligin normatif ve devam bagliliklari boyutlari ile, bulunduklari lisansustu asama ve kadro turleri ise duygusal, devam ve normatif baglilik boyutlari ile iliskili olup orgutsel baglilik duzeyleri arasinda anlamli bir farklilik tespit edilmistir.
IS2 insertion is a major cause of spontaneous mutagenesis of the bacteriophage P1: non‐random distribution of target sites.

Insertion mutations arising spontaneously in the P1 prophage and affecting vegetative phage reproduction were screened for the presence of insertion sequence 2 (IS2). Filter hybridization identified 28 out of 44 independent insertions as IS2. Their target specificity is not random. A region that amounts to < 2% of the phage genome had trapped 15 of the 28 IS2 elements. However, precise mapping of nine mutants in this hot spot segment revealed no preferred insertion site. Rather, the nine IS2 are distributed over the whole target segment and IS2 are found in both orientations. Sequence data indicate that at least two sequence variants of IS2 participated in mutagenesis of the phage genome. The detectable transposition of IS2 from the host chromosome to the prophage occurs with a frequency of 3 x 10(‐5) per cell per generation under the particular experimental conditions. It is concluded that IS2, a natural resident of Escherichia coli K12 strains, is an important agent for spontaneous mutagenesis and exerts this action non‐randomly along the genome.
Cancer Gene Therapy – Key Biological Concepts in the Design of Multifunctional Non-Viral Delivery Systems

The importance of gene therapy strategies for the treatment of malignancies is highlighted by the fact that there are (at the time of writing) 823 cancer gene therapy clinical trials world‐ wide that are actively, or have yet to begin recruiting patients (www.clinicaltrials.gov ac‐ cessed November 2012). The potential of the delivery of genetic material for therapeutic purposes has long been recognised, but to this point, has yet to be successfully translated. Strategies that have proved promising in the in vitro setting have stumbled when exposed to the complexities of the in vivo environment. Classically involving the delivery of plasmid DNA (pDNA) that encodes a therapeutic protein product, the field of gene therapy has evolved to encompass not only delivery of therapeutic DNA, but also micro(miRNA), short hairpin(shRNA) and small interfering RNAs (siRNA) and oligodeoxynucleotides (ODNs) [1]. Despite the evolution of the technology for altering the genotype of target cells and tis‐ sues, the problem of overcoming the biological barriers that limit the efficacies of these tech‐ nologies remains. These barriers exist at both systemic and local levels. To date, the only approved nucleic acid-based treatments for clinical use are an antisense ODN for the treat‐ ment of cytomegalovirus retinitis [2], and pegaptanib sodium (Macugen), an RNA aptamer targeted against VEGF-165 and used to treat age-related macular degeneration [3]. This chap‐ ter will focus on the biological barriers faced by non-viral vectors for gene therapy, strategies that have been employed to overcome these barriers, and will conclude by documenting the state of the art technologies being used to propel non-viral gene therapies forward.
Analysis and Comparison of Different Bond Strength Tests

In Dentistry, the mechanical tests aim to evaluate the properties and predict the behavior of dental materials, mimicking the real biological conditions and providing methods to be further used. Among the existing tests, tensile and shear tests are highlighted. However, since the 90’s, the so-called microtests appear as an alternative to those tests. The advantage of microtests is the reliability of the results. This paper aims to evaluate, through a literature review, the advantages of microtests over the conventional tests, as well as their indications for in vitro simulation of the bond strength between the dental surfaces.
Evaluation of a solid-phase immunoassay for the simultaneous detection of antibodies to human immunodeficiency virus type 1 and human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I

We describe the evaluation of a solid-phase immunoassay developed for the simultaneous detection of antibodies to human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and human T-cell lymphotropic virus types I (HTLV-I) and II (HTLV-II) in human serum. The immunoassay employs a mixture of HIV-1 and HTLV-I whole viral lysates immobilized in the wells of microtiter plates. Evaluation of genetically well-pedigreed specimens along with normal blood donor samples indicated that the performance characteristics of the test were equivalent to the sensitivity and specificity of individual tests licensed by the Food and Drug Administration for antibodies to HIV-1 and HTLV-I. Furthermore, the test was also able to detect the presence of cross-reacting antibodies in HTLV-II-infected individuals. The use of such a test would greatly reduce the continually mounting costs associated with screening transfusable products for infectious agents.
Two-Dimensional Technique for Image Presentation and its Application

In contrast with PCA, the two-dimension presentation technique (TDP) developed recently is very efficient. With TDP, we can easily extract feature vectors of an image matrix by projecting the image matrix rather than the corresponding vector onto projecting axes. In this paper, we present complete properties of TDP in detail and the property of decorrelation associated with TDP is originally revealed. The differences and similarities between TDP and PCA are also analyzed and presented. Furthermore, local-TDP approach is proposed to perform face recognition. Local-TDP aims to draw local characteristic of face images. Especially, local-TDP appears to be beneficial to weaken the side effect on face recognition of varying imaging conditions. The possible reason is that the varying imaging conditions mainly bring strong difference for parts of the image, while the influence on other parts is little. As a result, the similarity between the extracted local features of two face images of one individual may become larger in comparison with holistic features of face images. The conducted experiment also indicates that local-TDP is competent for extracting invariant features of face images with varying illumination
Multi-objective optimization of IPMSM based on subspace division

Recently the multi-objective optimization of Interior Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor (IPMSM) used for Electrical Vehicles (EVs) has attracted widely attention. However, it not only suffers from its lower optimization efficiency, but also is difficult to achieve the optimal solution. Therefore, an effective multi-objective optimization design scheme is presented which innovatively integrates Taguchi method, sequential subspace optimization method (SSOM) with differential Evolution (De) algorithm by using VB script. Moreover, a 50 KW IPMSM is investigated by finite element analysis (FEA) to validate its technical advantages and satisfactory optimization benefits.
Enhancement the space between structureson PS-b-PMMA BCPs self-assembly processing

We discuss in this work a practical approach to control the distance between the nanostructures in the self-assembly process in block copolymers (BCP) thin films (PS-b-PMMA). The thermodynamics governs this self-assembly process by forcing the space between the structures and the feature size to be the same, 1:1 pattern. However, some applications of the BCPs produced template require un-equal space-feature pattern for a given pitch, which cannot be readily generated by a standard BCPs self-assembly process. The aim of this work is to investigate to overcome this limitation. The first approach used is testing the effect of thermal annealing on periodicity. The result was not relevant. Blending with homopolymer was another option to enhance the space between structures. The last approach was the “hole in hole” method, which gives a promising result for the target behind this work.