Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Novel Multilocus Sequence Typing Scheme Reveals High Genetic Diversity of Human Pathogenic Members of the Fusarium incarnatum-F.equiseti and F. chlamydosporum Species Complexes within the United States

ABSTRACT Species limits within the clinically important Fusarium incarnatum-F. equiseti and F. chlamydosporum species complexes (FIESC and FCSC, respectively) were investigated using multilocus DNA sequence data. Maximum-parsimony and maximum-likelihood analyses of aligned DNA sequences from four loci resolved 28 species within the FIESC, within which the species were evenly divided among two clades designated Incarnatum and Equiseti, and four species within the FCSC. Sequence data from a fifth locus, β-tubulin, was excluded from the study due to the presence of highly divergent paralogs or xenologs. The multilocus haplotype nomenclature adopted in a previous study (K. O'Donnell, D. A. Sutton, A. Fothergill, D. McCarthy, M. G. Rinaldi, M. E. Brandt, N. Zhang, and D. M. Geiser, J. Clin. Microbiol. 46:2477-2490, 2008) was expanded to all of the species within the FIESC and FCSC to provide the first DNA sequence-based typing schemes for these fusaria, thereby facilitating future epidemiological investigations. Multilocus DNA typing identified sixty-two sequence types (STs) among 88 FIESC isolates and 20 STs among 26 FCSC isolates. This result corresponds to indices of discrimination of 0.985 and 0.966, respectively, for the FIESC and FCSC four-locus typing scheme using Simpson's index of discrimination. Lastly, four human and two veterinary isolates, received as members of the FIESC or FCSC, were resolved as five phylogenetically distinct species nested outside these species complexes. To our knowledge, these five species heretofore have not been reported to cause mycotic infections (i.e., F. armeniacum, F. brachygibbosum, F. flocciferum, and two unnamed Fusarium species within the F. tricinctum species complex).
Observations of Collaborative Behavior in COMPS Computer Mediated Problem Solving

COMPS is a web-delivered computer-mediated problem solving environment for student collaborative exploratory learning. The primary mode of interaction is typed dialogue, but COMPS also provides problem-specific affordances for exploring a problem. This paper reports qualitatively on dialogues from students employed in four different activities: two logical reasoning problems in a quantitative literacy class and two different problems in object-oriented Java in an elementary programming class. In all domains we observe behaviors consistent with quality collaborative learning experiences: co-construction of knowledge, mixed initiative dialogue, coming to common agreement, and students adopting different roles in the problem-solving process. These observations confirm that COMPS indeed facilitates true collaborative activity.
Lipid peroxidation & antioxidants status in patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma.

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE Overproduction of lipid peroxidation byproducts and disturbances in antioxidant defense system have been implicated in the pathogenesis of several diseases including oral cancer. Though several studies have been done on the level of lipid peroxidation and antioxidants in oral cancer patients, there are no reports in patients with various clinical stages of oral squamous cell carcinoma. We carried out this study to assess the level of oxidative stress in oral cancer patients with various clinical stages. METHODS Blood samples of 48 adult male oral cancer patients with various clinical stages of oral cancer (stage II to stage IV, 16 of each) and 16 age and sex matched healthy subjects were collected. Plasma and erythrocytes levels of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), vitamin E, reduced glutathione (GSH), and activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) were assayed using specific colorimetric methods. The statistical comparisons were performed by one way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by Student's t-test. RESULTS Elevated lipid peroxidation and decline in non-enzymatic and enzymatic antioxidants status were noticed in oral cancer patients as compared to healthy subjects. The TBARS levels were gradually increased whereas antioxidants were gradually reduced from stage II to stage IV of oral cancer patients. INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSION The altered lipid peroxidation in plasma and erythrocytes of oral cancer patients may be related to their compensatory changes in the antioxidants defense system.
Dynamics of Propofol-Induced Loss of Consciousness Across Primate Neocortex

The precise neural mechanisms underlying transitions between consciousness and anesthetic-induced unconsciousness remain unclear. Here, we studied intracortical neuronal dynamics leading to propofol-induced unconsciousness by recording single-neuron activity and local field potentials directly in the functionally interconnecting somatosensory (S1) and frontal ventral premotor (PMv) network during a gradual behavioral transition from full alertness to loss of consciousness (LOC) and on through a deeper anesthetic level. Macaque monkeys were trained for a behavioral task designed to determine the trial-by-trial alertness and neuronal response to tactile and auditory stimulation. We show that disruption of coherent beta oscillations between S1 and PMv preceded, but did not coincide with, the LOC. LOC appeared to correspond to pronounced but brief gamma-/high-beta-band oscillations (lasting ∼3 min) in PMv, followed by a gamma peak in S1. We also demonstrate that the slow oscillations appeared after LOC in S1 and then in PMv after a delay, together suggesting that neuronal dynamics are very different across S1 versus PMv during LOC. Finally, neurons in both S1 and PMv transition from responding to bimodal (tactile and auditory) stimulation before LOC to only tactile modality during unconsciousness, consistent with an inhibition of multisensory integration in this network. Our results show that propofol-induced LOC is accompanied by spatiotemporally distinct oscillatory neuronal dynamics across the somatosensory and premotor network and suggest that a transitional state from wakefulness to unconsciousness is not a continuous process, but rather a series of discrete neural changes. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT How information is processed by the brain during awake and anesthetized states and, crucially, during the transition is not clearly understood. We demonstrate that neuronal dynamics are very different within an interconnecting cortical network (primary somatosensory and frontal premotor area) during the loss of consciousness (LOC) induced by propofol in nonhuman primates. Coherent beta oscillations between these regions are disrupted before LOC. Pronounced but brief gamma-band oscillations appear to correspond to LOC. In addition, neurons in both of these cortices transition from responding to both tactile and auditory stimulation before LOC to only tactile modality during unconsciousness. We demonstrate that propofol-induced LOC is accompanied by spatiotemporally distinctive neuronal dynamics in this network with concurrent changes in multisensory processing.
A simple and low-cost control strategy for active power filters connected in cascade

A simple and low-cost control strategy for active power filters implemented with pulsewidth modulation voltage-source inverters (PWM-VSIs) connected in cascade is presented and analyzed in this paper. The principal component of the control circuit is an INTEL 8031 AH microcontroller, which generates the current reference waveforms and respective switching patterns for each inverter. The switching pattern is obtained by using a vector control technique. The proposed active power filter consists of two PWM-VSIs, connected in cascade, each operating at a different switching frequency. This paper presents the proposed control strategy in terms of principles of operation, circuit design and implementation. Finally, predicted results are verified experimentally on a 10 kVA breadboard model.
Processing of procaryotic ribonucleic acid.

INTRODUCTION . 502 ENZYMOLOGY OF RIBONUCLEIC ACID (RNA) PROCESSING 6 . 503 Ribonuclease (RNase) P . 5. 503 Subunit structure . 5.506 RNasem . 5.506 Structure ofRNase Im processing regions . 507 RNaseE.5. 09 RNaseM5 . 610 Substrate recognition . 5. 610 RNaseD . 513 Other Activities Implicated in RNA Processing . 5.13 3' Endonuclease activities . 5.513 RNase P2 and 0 activities . 5.14 3' Exonucleolytic trimming activities . 514 RNaseBN . 514 Secondary maturation activities 515 GENETICS OF RNA PROCESSING. Mutants Defective in RNA Processing.515 rnp Mutants 515 Idenification.515 Transfer RNA (tRNA) precursors accumulated in rnp strains.517 nc Mutants 17 Ribosomal RNA metabolism in RNase ff-cells518 ne Mutants 519 A Putative RNase M16 Mutant.521 The BN Mutant. 21 PROCESSING OF RIBOSOMAL RNA.521 Processing in Wild-Type Cells. 2 Processing in Mutant Strains 523 Efficiency and Order of Processing Steps.52 Sequential Nature of Processing Reactions 4 Other Processing Enzymes and Secondary Maturation.524 PROCESSING OFtRNA. 24 Eswherichia coli tRNA.524 Enzymes involved 525 Sequence of processing events.525 Bacteriophage T4 tRNA.5 7 Sumuar . 528 PROCESSING OF MESSENGER RNA.530 Host Messenger RNAs.53 Bacteriophage T7 Messenger RNAs.531 Bacteriophage X Leftward Transcript Processing and Attenuation.532 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 3 Unity ofRNA Processing Mechanisms.53 Function of Polycistronic Transcription and Processing.533 Specificity and Efficiency ofRNA Processing Reactions.533 FINAL POINTS. 34 LITEIRIATURE CITED . 535
Method of at determination: comparison and re-examination of the relationship between LT and VT determined by objective methods.

There is as yet no standard method for determining anaerobic threshold (AT), and the poor reliability due to visual detection is still unsolved, although many studies have been reported on the physiological implications of AT and its application to various fields regarding physical working capacity over the last 20 years. In recent years, controversy as to the physiological concept of AT has arisen again (BRooKs, 1985; DAVIS, 1985). One of the causes of this dispute is attributed to the methodological points for determining AT. "AT" is a conceptual term for the dramatic changes of various physiological
A Framework to Provide a Bidirectional Abstraction of the Asymmetric Network to Routing Protocols

Wireless links are often asymmetric due to heterogeneity in the transmission power of devices, non-uniform environmental noise, and other signal propagation phenomenon. Because of the variable and unpredictable capacity of wireless links, packet loses may happen frequently. Several routing protocols have been proposed for Mobile Adhoc networks, yet there is no one for all schemes that works well in all link conditions with different network sizes, traffic loads and node mobility patterns. This paper first presents a study of various routing protocols and the impact of asymmetric links on network connectivity. It then presents a framework that provides a bidirectional abstraction of the asymmetric network to routing protocols. This new framework works by maintaining multi-hop reverse routes for unidirectional links and provides three new abilities: improved connectivity by taking advantage of the unidirectional links, reverse route forwarding of control packets to enable off-the shelf routing protocols, and detection packet loss on unidirectional links. This framework takes the approach of discovering and maintaining reverse paths for unidirectional links. Experiments were conducted in ns2 simulator with the design of bidirectional routing abstraction to maintain reverse routes for unidirectional links in an efficient and scalable manner. Performance evaluation shows how a typical routing protocol, such as the well-known AODV, layered on this framework achieves superior connectivity in asymmetric networks.
Application of heat shock promoter in transgenic zebrafish

The heat shock promoter is useful for regulating transgene expression in small water‐living organisms. In zebrafish embryos, downstream gene expression can be greatly induced throughout the body by raising the temperature from 28.5°C to 38.0°C. By manipulating the local temperature within an embryo, spatial control of transgene expression is also possible. One such way for inducing heat shock response in targeted cells is by using a laser microbeam under the microscope. In addition, random mosaic expression by transient gene expression and transplantation of the transgenic embryo into a wild type host can be considered a powerful tool for studying gene functions using this promoter. In this paper, we review the applications of the zebrafish heat shock protein promoter as a gene expression tool and for lineage labeling and transcription enhancer screening.
Challenges of School Libraries and Quality Education in Tanzania: A Review

Quality education is fundamental for pupils’ advancement in any country. School libraries are said to be the second class for pupils because of the important role they play in enhancing the quality of education. School libraries are the avenues for cultivating pupils’ morals, the important facade for improving pupils’ education quality and for effective facilities for developing special technical education, serving as a friendly place for increasing pupils’ total education quality. The general idea for school libraries is to intensify the quality of education in schools through provision of adequate facilities such as chairs, tables, textbooks and qualified library staff to guide pupils in appropriate usage of libraries for better performance and hence lead to quality education in the country. Despite of the tremendous contribution of school libraries in increasing the students’ performance it has been discovered that this role is not recognized by most of the government officials. The challenges such as staffing, funding, lack of standard library building and frequent change in curriculum that affects collection development need to be addressed by the government if at all the country has to provide quality education to her citizens.
LOCATION DATA PRIVACY PRESERVATION IN MOBILE NETWORKS

Uncontrolled variety of location based service (LBS) applications in mobile networks led to the loss of individual user location data privacy. To preserve privacy in mobile networks data randomization and anonymization must be used because of location data uncertainty. By data randomization additional random data is added to the original location data, desensitizing the precise information content. To ensure location data anonymization, location data modification is performed and anonymized data record is indistinguishable from at least k−1 other records. Anonymous location-based queries, use of spatiotemporal indexing methods in privacy preservation and other techniques of privacy preservation in mobile networks were conceptually reviewed in this paper.
A Multiple Image-Based Noise Level Estimation Algorithm

In this letter, a novel multiple image-based Gaussian noise level estimation (NLE) algorithm for natural images by jointly exploiting the noise level-aware feature extraction and the local means (LM) estimation techniques was proposed. We employed some efficient and powerful noise level-aware features in the form of a feature vector to characterize the noise levels across image contents. Based on this, we adopted LM estimation scheme to estimate the noise level for an image to be estimated by comparing multiple images of similar noise levels in a preconstructed sample database. We had verified the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed NLE algorithm on a large of images from several benchmark databases. Compared with the competing NLE algorithms, our algorithm is superior to them for noise level estimation in terms of both estimation accuracy and execution time.
A Computational Analysis of Social Media Scholarship

Data from social media platforms and online communities have fueled the growth of computational social science. In this chapter, we use computational analysis to characterize the state of research on social media and demonstrate the utility of such methods. First, we discuss how to obtain datasets from the APIs published by many social media platforms. Then, we perform some of the most widely used computational analyses on a dataset of social media scholarship we extract from the Scopus bibliographic database’s API. We apply three methods: network analysis, topic modeling using latent Dirichlet allocation, and statistical prediction using machine learning. For each technique, we explain the method and demonstrate how it can be used to draw insights from our dataset. Our analyses reveal overlapping scholarly communities studying social media. We ﬁnd that early social media research applied social network analysis and quantitative methods, but the most cited and inﬂuential work has come from marketing and medical research. We also ﬁnd that publication venue and, to a lesser degree, textual features of papers explain the largest variation in incoming citations. We conclude with some consideration of the limitations of computational research and future directions.
Poster: Vibration as a wayfinding aid

There are several ways to guide users to a destination in a Virtual World, most of them inherited from real counterparts, and typically based on visual feedback. Although these aids are very useful in general, we want to avoid user's distractions from the main scene and visual cluttering that may occur when visual feedback for wayfinding is used. We present our work on a “vibrating belt”, a belt of motors that can be used as an orientation aid. We conducted a set of experiments that compared such device with a low cognitive load visual aid for wayfinding, and we have found our device as effective as the visual aids in our study. We believe this device could improve the user's performance and concentration on the main activities in the scene.
Bulk-driven Flipped Voltage Differential Pair

This paper explores a new design approach of a low-power high slew rate CMOS voltage buffer. The buffer is based on the Flipped Voltage Follower Pseudo Differential Pair, but the bulk-driven technique is utilized at the input stage to achieve rail-to-rail operation. This buffer has been designed for a 0. 35µm CMOS technology to operate at a 1.8V supply voltage. The BSIM3 simulated results are provided which demonstrate the open-loop gain of 50dB, gain bandwidth of 3MHz with a 5pF load, whereas the total static current consumption remains below 9µA. This paper also addresses the issue of latch-up problem that occurs with a large step input.
A CC-SAM, for Coiled Coil–Sterile α Motif, Domain Targets the Scaffold KSR-1 to Specific Sites in the Plasma Membrane

A previously unknown module that mediates membrane binding is identified in the scaffold KSR. Another Helping Hand to the Membrane Growth factor stimulation activates the mitogen-activated protein kinase module, in which Raf activates MEK, which in turn activates ERK. Kinase suppressor of Ras-1 (KSR-1) requires a phospholipid-binding atypical C1 domain to associate with the plasma membrane to promote assembly of this module. Koveal et al. identified a sterile α motif (SAM) adjacent to a coiled coil (CC) domain in KSR-1. Structural and biochemical analysis of just the CC and SAM regions showed that CC-SAM formed a single, structural module. CC-SAM bound directly to micelles and bicelles in vitro and was targeted to the plasma membrane in growth factor–treated cells. Structure-based point mutations in helix α3 of the CC motif prevented the binding of CC-SAM to micelles and bicelles. Full-length KSR-1 with these mutations did not localize to the plasma membrane or interact with B-Raf when expressed in growth factor–treated cells. Thus, KSR-1 requires the atypical C1 and CC-SAM domains to associate with the plasma membrane. Kinase suppressor of Ras-1 (KSR-1) is an essential scaffolding protein that coordinates the assembly of the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) module, consisting of the MAPK kinase kinase Raf, the MAPK kinase MEK (mitogen-activated or extracellular signal–regulated protein kinase kinase), and the MAPK ERK (extracellular signal–regulated kinase) to facilitate activation of MEK and thus ERK. Although KSR-1 is targeted to the cell membrane in part by its atypical C1 domain, which binds to phospholipids, other domains may be involved. We identified another domain in KSR-1 that we termed CC-SAM, which is composed of a coiled coil (CC) and a sterile α motif (SAM). The CC-SAM domain targeted KSR-1 to specific signaling sites at the plasma membrane in growth factor–treated cells, and it bound directly to various micelles and bicelles in vitro, indicating that the CC-SAM functioned as a membrane-binding module. By combining nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and experiments in cultured cells, we found that membrane binding was mediated by helix α3 of the CC motif and that mutating residues in α3 abolished targeting of KSR-1 to the plasma membrane. Thus, in addition to the atypical C1 domain, the CC-SAM domain is required to target KSR-1 to the plasma membrane.
Detection of homocysteine by conventional and microchip capillary electrophoresis/electrochemistry

A method based on capillary electrophoresis (CE) with electrochemical (EC) detection for the determination of both total homocysteine (tHcy) and protein‐bound homocysteine (pbHcy) in plasma is described. Both end‐column and off‐column amperometric detection were investigated. Off‐column detection resulted in a more sensitive assay for the determination of homocysteine (Hcy). The detection limit for homocysteine was 500 nM using off‐column EC detection and the response was linear over the range 1–100 νM. Therefore, this assay is appropriate for the quantification of Hcy over the physiological concentration ranges found in all disease states. Methodologies for the determination of tHcy and pbHcy in human plasma were investigated and optimized and the concentrations of both pbHcy and tHcy in plasma obtained from a healthy individual were determined to be 2.79 ± 0.31 νM (n = 4) and 3.37 ± 0.15 νM (n = 3), respectively. The methodology was then transferred to a microchip CE‐EC format and Hcy and reduced glutathione (GSH) were detected. Future work will focus on the development of ancillary methodologies to identify the other forms of Hcy in vivo.
A Digitally Modulated Polar CMOS Power Amplifier With a 20-MHz Channel Bandwidth

This paper presents a CMOS RF power amplifier that employs a digital polar architecture to improve the overall power efficiency when amplifying signals with high linearity requirements. The power amplifier comprises 64 parallel RF amplifiers that are driven by a constant envelope RF phase-modulated signal. The unit amplifiers are digitally activated by a 6-bit envelope code to construct a non-constant envelope RF output, thereby performing a digital-to-RF conversion. In order to suppress the spectral images resulting from the discrete-time to continuous-time conversion of the envelope, the use of oversampling and four-fold linear interpolation is explored. An experimental prototype of the polar amplifier has been integrated in a 0.18- mum CMOS technology, occupies a total die area of 1.8 mm2 , operates at a 1.6-GHz carrier frequency with a channel bandwidth of 20 MHz. For an OFDM signal, it achieves a power-added efficiency of 6.7% with an EVM of - 26.8 dB while delivering 13.6 dBm of linear output power and drawing 145 mA from a 1.7-V supply.