Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of a Chlorhexidine Gluconate-Containing Mouthwash on the Vitality and Antimicrobial Susceptibility of In Vitro Oral Bacterial Ecosystems

ABSTRACT Oral bacterial microcosms, established using saliva inocula from three individuals, were maintained under a feast-famine regime within constant-depth film fermenters. Steady-state communities were exposed four times daily, postfeeding, to a chlorhexidine (CHX) gluconate-containing mouthwash (CHXM) diluted to 0.06% (wt/vol) antimicrobial content. The microcosms were characterized by heterotrophic plate counts and PCR-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE). CHXM caused significant decreases in both total anaerobe and total aerobe/facultative anaerobe counts (P < 0.05), together with lesser decreases in gram-negative anaerobes. The degree of streptococcal and actinomycete inhibition varied considerably among individuals. DGGE showed that CHXM exposure caused considerable decreases in microbial diversity, including marked reductions in Prevotella sp. and Selenomonas infelix. Pure-culture studies of 10 oral bacteria (eight genera) showed that Actinomyces naeslundii, Veillonella dispar, Prevotella nigrescens, and the streptococci were highly susceptible to CHX, while Lactobacillus rhamnosus, Fusobacterium nucleatum, and Neisseria subflava were the least susceptible. Determination of the MICs of triclosan, CHX, erythromycin, penicillin V, vancomycin, and metronidazole for microcosm isolates, before and after 5 days of CHXM exposure, showed that CHXM exposure altered the distribution of isolates toward those that were less susceptible to CHX (P < 0.05). Changes in susceptibility distributions for the other test agents were not statistically significant. In conclusion, population changes in plaque microcosms following repeated exposure to CHXM represented an inhibition of the most susceptible flora with a clonal expansion of less susceptible species.
MHD modeling of conductors at ultra-high current density

In conjunction with ongoing high-current experiments on Sandia National Laboratories' Z accelerator we have revisited a problem first described in detail by Heinz Knoepfel (1970). Unlike the 1-Tesla MITLs of pulsed power accelerators used to produce intense particle beams, Z's disc transmission line (downstream of the current addition) is in a 100-1200 Tesla regime, so its conductors cannot be modeled simply as static infinite conductivity boundaries. Using the MHD code MACH2 we have been investigating the conductor hydrodynamics, characterizing the joule heating, magnetic field diffusion, and material deformation, pressure, and velocity over a range of current densities, current rise-times, and conductor materials. Three purposes of this work are (1) to quantify power flow losses owing to ultra-high magnetic fields, (2) to model the response of VISAR diagnostic samples in various configurations on Z, and (3) to incorporate the most appropriate equation of state and conductivity models into our MHD computations. Certain features are strongly dependent on the details of the conductivity model. Comparison with measurements on Z is discussed.
Finite-time rendezvous algorithms for mobile autonomous agents

This paper focuses on finite-time rendezvous problems. Here finite-time rendezvous refers to agreement on states in finite time within certain communication range. Using semistability theory for discontinuous dynamical systems, we develop a framework for designing finite-time semistable rendezvous protocols for multiagent dynamical systems. Specifically, we present distributed switching static and dynamic output feedback controller architectures for multiagent rendezvous.
Estimating the under-reporting rate for infectious gastrointestinal illness in Ontario.

BACKGROUND In Ontario, infectious gastrointestinal illness (IGI) reporting can be represented by a linear model of several sequential steps required for a case to be captured in the provincial reportable disease surveillance system. Since reportable enteric data are known to represent only a small fraction of the total IGI in the community, the objective of this study was to estimate the under-reporting rate for IGI in Ontario. METHODS A distribution of plausible values for the under-reporting rate was estimated by specifying input distributions for the proportions reported at each step in the reporting chain, and multiplying these distributions together using simulation methods. Input distributions (type of distribution and parameters) for the proportion of cases reported at each step of the reporting chain were determined using data from the Public Health Agency of Canada's National Studies on Acute Gastrointestinal Illness (NSAGI) initiative. RESULTS For each case of enteric illness reported to the province of Ontario, the estimated number of cases of IGI in the community ranged from 105 to 1,389, with a median of 285, and a mean and standard deviation of 313 and 128, respectively. CONCLUSIONS Each case of enteric illness reported to the province of Ontario represents an estimated several hundred cases of IGI in the community. Thus, reportable disease data should be used with caution when estimating the burden of such illness. Program planners and public health personnel may want to consider this fact when developing population-based interventions.
School as a ritual institution

Abstract Based on a video-ethnographic study of a school's everyday life the article shows and discusses ritualisations of children during transition from break time to a lesson. Looking for homologies and contrasts in their cultural performances it distinguishes patterns of ritualisations relating collective and individual territories, and makes clear that the transition from child to pupil is not completed by admission into a school, but a fragile process, which determines everyday school life
A Case Study on Covert Channel Establishment via Software Caches in High-Assurance Computing Systems

Covert channels can be utilized to secretly deliver information from high privileged processes to low privileged processes in the context of a high-assurance computing system. In this case study, we investigate the possibility of covert channel establishment via software caches in the context of a framework for component-based operating systems. While component-based operating systems offer security through the encapsulation of system service processes, complete isolation of these processes is not reasonably feasible. This limitation is practically demonstrated with our concept of a specific covert timing channel based on file system caching. The stability of the covert channel is evaluated and a methodology to disrupt the covert channel transmission is presented. While these kinds of attacks are not limited to high-assurance computing systems, our study practically demonstrates that even security-focused computing systems with a minimal trusted computing base are vulnerable for such kinds of attacks and careful design decisions are necessary for secure operating system architectures.
Interpretation and Implementation of Intensive Blood Pressure Reduction in Acute Cerebral Hemorrhage Trial (INTERACT II).

INTRERACT II as a definitive trial The writing group considered the results as hypothesis generating but not compelling to change standard of care based on the following observations: Statistical significance was not achieved in primary analysis and the impact was further reduced after adjustment for confounders such as NIHSS score, hematoma volume, and IVH. Statistical significance was achieved in secondary analysis, but not after adjustment for confounders such as National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score, hematoma volume, and IVH. Intensive SBP reduction as applied in INTERACT II resulted in benefit of small magnitude with no effect on hematoma expansion. Similarly, the benefit was of small magnitude (absolute benefit of 3.6%) on rate of severe disability and death. Antihypertensive treatment in the intensive SBP reduction group did not achieve the target SBP value of less than 140 mm Hg in a large proportion of patients. The risk benefit profile maybe different with greater magnitude of SBP reduction if implemented into clinical practice. There is discordance between the proposed and observed therapeutic benefit of intensive SBP reduction in INTERACT II. The lack of early reduction in hematoma expansion (at 24 h) and death and disability (both at 7 days or 1 month) in subjects randomized to intensive SBP reduction suggests possible therapeutic effect of variable impact on other differences in treatment groups such as post-24-h SBP reduction. The safety or benefit of intensive SBP reduction was not tested in patients with large volumes hemotomas; a group most likely at risk for global cerebral perfusion compromise due to high ICP. The lack of a clear cut off for hematoma size in INTRERACT II prevents implementation of a reproducible method to exclude such patients in clinical practice. Without a more focused therapeutic measure, such as the one adopted by ATACH II in which only IV nicardioie is the antihypertensive therapy, it is difficult to define the most optimal antihyptersensive therapy based on INTERACT II findings.
ConceptLearner: Discovering visual concepts from weakly labeled image collections

Discovering visual knowledge from weakly labeled data is crucial to scale up computer vision recognition systems, since it is expensive to obtain fully labeled data for a large number of concept categories. In this paper, we propose ConceptLearner, which is a scalable approach to discover visual concepts from weakly labeled image collections. Thousands of visual concept detectors are learned automatically, without human in the loop for additional annotation. We show that these learned detectors could be applied to recognize concepts at image-level and to detect concepts at image region-level accurately. Under domain-specific supervision, we further evaluate the learned concepts for scene recognition on SUN database and for object detection on Pascal VOC 2007. ConceptLearner shows promising performance compared to fully supervised and weakly supervised methods.
Bis[μ-3,5-bis(2-pyridyl)pyrazolato]bis(hydrogensulfato)dicopper(II) methanol disolvate

The title compound, [Cu2(C13H9N4)2(HSO4)2]·2CH3OH, consists of discrete centrosymmetric dinuclear complex molecules and methanol solvent molecules. The CuII atom shows a square-pyramidal coordination geometry and is bonded to four N atoms of the two bis-chelating 3,5-bis(2-pyridyl)pyrazolate ions (bpypz−) and one O atom of the hydrogensulfate ion. The bpypz− ligands in the complex molecule are virtually coplanar [dihedral angle between the mean ligand planes = 0.000(1)°] with the CuII atom deviating in opposite directions from their best plane by 0.2080 (12) Å. π–π stacking interactions between the pyridyl and pyrazole rings [centroid–centroid distance = 3.391 (3) Å] and strong O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds between the hydrogensulfate ligands and the methanol molecules assemble the molecules into a one-dimensional polymeric structure extending along the a axis. The methanol molecule acts both as an accepter and a donor in the hydrogen bonding.
Railway device diagnosis using sparse Independent Component Analysis

This paper presents a study on the potential interest of sparse Independent Component Analysis (ICA) for the diagnosis of a complex railway infrastructure device. This complex system is composed of several spatially related subsystems, i.e. a defective subsystem not only modifies its own inspection data but also those of other subsystems. In this context, the ICA model is used to extract from inspection data indicators of each subsystem state. We assume here that inspection data are observed variables generated by a linear mixture of independent and nongaussian latent variables linked to the defects. Furthermore, physical knowledge on the inspection system provides prior information on the mixing structure. We investigate then the ability of sparse ICA to recover this structure and to provide meaningful defect indicators. We also show that introducing sparsity in the mixing process slightly improves the results.
Central quadrant procurement of radical prostatectomy specimens

Obtaining high quality fresh or frozen prostate tissue in gram amounts promotes the research of prostate cancer. Due to the inability to effectively recognize prostate cancer upon the cut section of a fresh prostate many pathology departments perform whole organ processing precluding the procurement of prostate tissue. Some sites randomly procure tissue, while others perform specialized procedures that can be difficult to duplicate. Neither of these types of procurement consistently results in gram quantities of tissue procured from each prostate with a high percentage of samples yielding tissue corresponding to cancer. In this study, we present a simplified model of prostate tissue procurement that has no impact on Gleason grade, tumor stage or margin status, requires minimal specialized processing, and obtains gram amounts of fresh tissue from each radical prostatectomy specimen with a high percentage yielding cancer tissue. Prostate 69: 770–773, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Developing a Low‐Cost Technique for Parallel Cross‐Cultural Instrument Development: The Question Appraisal System (QAS‐04)

Many approaches are used to prepare instruments for multicultural administration, depending on the scope, schedule and budget of the study. Sequential questionnaire development, the most common approach to developing cross‐cultural instruments, is also the most affordable. Designers formulate and pretest an instrument in the source language, then translate it into the target language(s) using culture‐specific tailoring. In contrast, parallel development incorporates target cultures throughout the design and pretesting process. The disadvantages to parallel development are that it is expensive, time‐consuming and subject to version control problems. Question Appraisal System (QAS) is a coding tool for pretesting instruments. The QAS is supported by an item taxonomy of the cognitive demands of a question and documents the features that may lead to response error. Results of the appraisal are used to revise question wording, response wording, questionnaire format and question ordering. This article describes research conducted to update the QAS to identify problems due to cross‐cultural and cross‐linguistic application of questions.
Multilevel Activation Functions For True Color Image Segmentation Using a Self Supervised Parallel Self Organizing Neural Network (PSONN) Architecture: A Comparative Study

The paper describes a self supervised parallel self organizing neural network (PSONN) architecture for true color image segmentation. The proposed architecture is a parallel extension of the standard single self organizing neural network architecture (SONN) and comprises an input (source) layer of image information, three single self organizing neural network architectures for segmentation of the different primary color components in a color image scene and one final output (sink) layer for fusion of the segmented color component images. Responses to the different shades of color components are induced in each of the three single network architectures (meant for component level processing) by applying a multilevel version of the characteristic activation function, which maps the input color information into different shades of color components, thereby yielding a processed component color image segmented on the basis of the different shades of component colors. The number of target classes in the segmented image corresponds to the number of levels in the multilevel activation function. Since the multilevel version of the activation function exhibits several subnormal responses to the input color image scene information, the system errors of the three component network architectures are computed from some subnormal linear index of fuzziness of the component color image scenes at the individual level. Several multilevel activation functions are employed for segmentation of the input color image scene using the proposed network architecture. Results of the application of the multilevel activation functions to the PSONN architecture are reported on three real life true color images. The results are substantiated empirically with the correlation coefficients between the segmented images and the original images. Keywords— Color image segmentation, fuzzy set theory, multilevel activation functions, parallel self organizing neural network
The Information Systems Profession: Myth or Reality?

Much of the prior research into information systems (IS) workers has assumed that they are professionals. In this paper we examine the characteristics of IS workers, IS work and the IS workplace, and suggest that this perspective is mistaken. Drawing on the sociological theory of professions as a reference discipline we contend that IS professionalism is an inappropriate categorization, and that such a portrayal limits our understanding of IS workers and their work. We argue in this paper that a more faithful and potentially useful characterization is to view IS workers as members of an occupational group. Within this perspective, an understanding of the occupational culture, context and history of IS workers is essential to an understanding of the IS occupation. We examine and challenge some common myths regarding IS work, technology and the IS workplace. We conclude by making some recommendations for future research, which should enhance our understanding of IS workers as members of an occupation.
Dendritic Cells Antigen Stability in Macrophages and with Endosomal and Phagosomal pH and Immune-Complexed Antigen Is Associated The Neonatal FcR-Mediated Presentation of

The Fc g Rs found on macrophages (M f s) and dendritic cells (DCs) efﬁciently facilitate the presentation or cross-presentation of immune-complexed Ags to T cells. We found that the MHC class I-related neonatal FcR for IgG (FcRn) in both M f s and DCs failed to have a strong effect on the cross-presentation of immune complex (IC) OVA Ag to CD8 + T cells. Interestingly, endosomal FcRn enhanced the presentation of the monomeric OVA-IC to CD4 + T cells robustly, whereas FcRn in phagosomes exerted distinctive effects on Ag presentation between M f s and DCs. The presentation of phagocytosed OVA-ICs to CD4 + T cells was considerably enhanced on wild-type versus FcRn-deﬁcient M f s, but was not affected in FcRn-deﬁcient DCs. This functional discrepancy was associated with the dependence of IgG–FcRn binding in an acidic pH. Following phagocytosis, the phagosomal pH dropped rapidly to , 6.5 in M f s but remained in the neutral range in DCs. This disparity in pH determined the rate of degradation of phagocytosed ICs. Thus, our ﬁndings reveal that FcRn expression has a different effect on Ag processing and presentation of ICs to CD4 + T cells in the endosomal versus phagosomal compartments of M f s versus DCs. The Journal of Immunology , 2011, 186: 4674–4686.
Predicting VO2max in College-Aged Participants Using Cycle Ergometry and Perceived Functional Ability

The purpose of this study was to develop a multiple linear regression model to predict treadmill VO2max scores using both exercise and non-exercise data. One hundred five college-aged participants (53 male, 52 female) successfully completed a submaximal cycle ergometer test and a maximal graded exercise test on a motorized treadmill. The submaximal cycle protocol required participants to achieve a steady-state heart rate equal to at least 70% of age-predicted maximum heart rate (220-age), while the maximal treadmill graded exercise test required participants to exercise to volitional fatigue. Relevant submaximal cycle ergometer test data included a mean (±SD) ending steady-state heart rate and ending workrate equal to 164.2 ± 13.0 bpm and 115.3 ± 27.0 watts, respectively. Relevant non-exercise data included a mean (±SD) body mass (kg), perceived functional ability score, and physical activity rating score of 74.2 ± 15.1, 15.7 ± 4.3, and 4.7 ± 2.1, respectively. Multiple linear regression was used to generate the following prediction of (R = .91, standard error of estimates (SEE) = 3.36 ml·kg−1·min−1): VO2max = 54.513 + 9.752 (gender, 1 = male, 0 = female) – . 297 (body mass, kg) + . 739 (perceived functional ability, 2–26) + . 077 (work rate, watts) – . 072 (steady-state heart rate). Each predictor variable was statistically significant (p < .05) with beta weights for gender, body mass, perceived functional ability, exercise workrate, and steady-state heart rate equal to . 594, –. 544, . 388, . 305, and –. 116, respectively. The predicted residual sums of squares (PRESS) statistics reflected minimal shrinkage (RPRESS = .90, SEEPRESS = 3.56 ml·kg−1·min−1) for the multiple linear regression model. In summary, the submaximal cycle ergometer protocol and accompanying prediction model yield relatively accurate VO2max estimates in healthy college-aged participants using both exercise and non-exercise data.
Robust classification of neonatal apnoea-related desaturations

Respiratory signals monitored in the neonatal intensive care units are usually ignored due to the high prevalence of noise and false alarms (FA). Apneic events are generally therefore indicated by a pulse oximeter alarm reacting to the subsequent desaturation. However, the high FA rate in the photoplethysmogram may desensitize staff, reducing the reaction speed. The main reason for the high FA rates of critical care monitors is the unimodal analysis behaviour. In this work, we propose a multimodal analysis framework to reduce the FA rate in neonatal apnoea monitoring. Information about oxygen saturation, heart rate, respiratory rate and signal quality was extracted from electrocardiogram, impedance pneumogram and photoplethysmographic signals for a total of 20 features in the 5 min interval before a desaturation event. 1616 desaturation events from 27 neonatal admissions were annotated by two independent reviewers as true (physiologically relevant) or false (noise-related). Patients were divided into two independent groups for training and validation, and a support vector machine was trained to classify the events as true or false. The best classification performance was achieved on a combination of 13 features with sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of 100% in the training set, and a sensitivity of 86%, a specificity of 91% and an accuracy of 90% in the validation set.