Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Escherichia coli of human and avian origin: detection of clonal groups associated with fluoroquinolone and multidrug resistance in Italy.

OBJECTIVES Poultry have been suggested as a reservoir for fluoroquinolone-resistant extraintestinal pathogenic Escherichia coli (ExPEC). Our aim was to investigate whether genotypes associated with ciprofloxacin and multidrug resistance were shared among human and avian E. coli. METHODS We compared 277 human ExPEC isolates from urinary tract infection (UTI) and sepsis (142 susceptible and 135 ciprofloxacin resistant) and 101 avian isolates (68 susceptible and 33 ciprofloxacin resistant) by antimicrobial resistance phenotype, phylogenetic group and multilocus sequence type (ST). RESULTS Most ciprofloxacin-resistant isolates from both human and avian sources were multidrug resistant. Human and avian isolates strongly differed in phylogenetic group assignment (B2 and A predominated among human and avian isolates, respectively), but a shift towards group A associated with ciprofloxacin resistance was observed among human isolates (8/100, 8.0% versus 17/87, 19.5%, P =0.021 for UTI and 5/42, 11.9% versus 15/48, 31.3%, P = 0.028 for sepsis). Heterogeneity of ST clones was observed, with ST131 strongly predominant in human ciprofloxacin-resistant strains (58/135, 43.0%), but not in avian strains. However, two major ST clonal complexes (CCs; CC10 and CC23, both belonging to group A) associated with ciprofloxacin resistance and multiresistance were shared by human and avian isolates. CONCLUSIONS The major human and avian E. coli ST clones associated with multidrug resistance were identified. A subset of ST clones belonging to CC10 and CC23 poses a potential zoonotic risk.
A fast intra mode decision technique

A new method for intra mode decision (IMD) of blocks in video encoding, with possible neighbor pixel selection comprising of both source and reconstructed pixels, is presented. This new technique of selecting neighbouring luma and chroma pixels for efficient intra mode prediction has been tested on WebM Project libvpx (vpx-vp8, VP8 standard) reference encoder [1]. This avoids the need of reconstruction of neighbour for block prediction, which eliminates the use of transformation, quantization, inverse-transformation and inverse-quantization blocks in IMD. The method has been studied with a set of seven video sequences with resolution varying from QCIF to full HD. The results show an average 48% reduction in encoder's intra mode decision computation time with 0.0224 dB decrease in luma PSNR and 2.616% increase in bitrate. The proposed technique is useful in complexity reduction and increasing intra-prediction speed.
Using pitch frequency information in speech recognition

Automatic Speech Recognition systems typically use smoothed spectral features as acoustic observations. In recent studies, it has been shown that complementing these standard features with pitch frequency could improve the system performance of the system. While previously proposed systems have been studied in the framework of HMM/GMMs, in this paper we study and compare different ways to include pitch frequency in state-of-the-art hybrid HMM/ANN system. We have evaluated the proposed system on two different ASR tasks, namely, isolated word recognition and connected word recognition. Our results show that pitch frequency can indeed be used in ASR systems to improve the recognition performance.
A system architecture for wireless building automation

Wireless Building Automation is a complex problem dealing with a lot of trade offs: on one hand sensors and actuators have to be as energy-efficient as possible, while on the other hand the overall network should be performant and resilient enough to extend or even replace a wired backbone. In addition, the network should be able to serve existing IEEE 802.11 devices such as PDAs, cameras and laptops. Furthermore, surveillance, fire detection and other critical building automation applications require end-to-end Quality of Service support to ensure the bandwidth and delay requirements also in the case of high network loads. A networking technology that simultaneously fulfills all those requirements does not exist. This paper introduces a system architecture that combines heterogeneous technologies into an appropriate networking solution.
Research and realization of building the three-dimensional Runway of Unity3D game based on PSO algorithm

A new solution for the construction of 3D Runway based on PSO algorithm and Unity 3D game engine is presented in this paper. Compared with the traditional runway construction, this solution can build rich scene interface with less scene resources by the application of PSO algorithm and the construction of Unity3D engine. Experiment has proved that the scheme can generate the scene reasonably which has highly entertainment value. It can realize the random and regular patterns of the scene. The scheme has proved that it can optimize the scene loading process and improve the users' experience.
SCOP2 prototype: a new approach to protein structure mining

We present a prototype of a new structural classification of proteins, SCOP2 (http://scop2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/), that we have developed recently. SCOP2 is a successor to the Structural Classification of Proteins (SCOP, http://scop.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/scop/) database. Similarly to SCOP, the main focus of SCOP2 is to organize structurally characterized proteins according to their structural and evolutionary relationships. SCOP2 was designed to provide a more advanced framework for protein structure annotation and classification. It defines a new approach to the classification of proteins that is essentially different from SCOP, but retains its best features. The SCOP2 classification is described in terms of a directed acyclic graph in which nodes form a complex network of many-to-many relationships and are represented by a region of protein structure and sequence. The new classification project is expected to ensure new advances in the field and open new areas of research.
Improving the readability of defect reports

Bug reports and the user comments associated with them are an important source of information for developers. When many comments are posted in response to a bug description, the discussion becomes difficult to understand. In order to keep discussions coherent and easy to understand, comments should specify if they contain responses to previously posted comments and should not refer to more than one topic. We propose a system, which recommends developers a set of comments related to their own comment, such that developers can explicitly make connections between the new comment and existing ones. The goal is to improve the readability of the discussion thread.
Successive Refinement With Decoder Cooperation and Its Channel Coding Duals

We study cooperation in multiterminal source coding models involving successive refinement. Specifically, we study the case of a single encoder and two decoders, where the encoder provides a common description to both the decoders and a private description to only one of the decoders. The decoders cooperate via cribbing, i.e., the decoder with access only to the common description is allowed to observe, in addition, a deterministic function of the reconstruction symbols produced by the other. We characterize the fundamental performance limits in the respective settings of noncausal, strictly causal, and causal cribbing. We use a coding scheme, referred to as Forward Encoding and Block Markov Decoding, which builds on one recently used by Cuff and Zhao for coordination via implicit communication. Finally, we use the insight gained to introduce and solve some dual-channel coding scenarios involving multiple-access channels with cribbing.
The Effect of XPD Polymorphisms on Digestive Tract Cancers Risk: A Meta-Analysis

Background The Xeroderma pigmento-sum group D gene (XPD) plays a key role in nucleotide excision repair. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) located in its functional region may alter DNA repair capacity phenotype and cancer risk. Many studies have demonstrated that XPD polymorphisms are significantly associated with digestive tract cancers risk, but the results are inconsistent. We conducted a comprehensive meta-analysis to assess the association between XPD Lys751Gln polymorphism and digestive tract cancers risk. The digestive tract cancers that our study referred to, includes oral cancer, esophageal cancer, gastric cancer and colorectal cancer. Methods We searched PubMed and EmBase up to December 31, 2012 to identify eligible studies. A total of 37 case-control studies including 9027 cases and 16072 controls were involved in this meta-analysis. Statistical analyses were performed with Stata software (version 11.0, USA). Odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to assess the strength of the association. Results The results showed that XPD Lys751Gln polymorphism was associated with the increased risk of digestive tract cancers (homozygote comparison (GlnGln vs. LysLys): OR = 1.12, 95% CI = 1.01–1.24, P = 0.029, P heterogeneity = 0.133). We found no statistical evidence for a significantly increased digestive tract cancers risk in the other genetic models. In the subgroup analysis, we also found the homozygote comparison increased the susceptibility of Asian population (OR = 1.28, 95% CI = 1.01–1.63, P = 0.045, P heterogeneity = 0.287). Stratified by cancer type and source of control, no significantly increased cancer risk was found in these subgroups. Additionally, risk estimates from hospital-based studies and esophageal studies were heterogeneous. Conclusions Our meta-analysis suggested that the XPD 751Gln/Gln genotype was a low-penetrate risk factor for developing digestive tract cancers, especially in Asian populations.
The Behavior of Fixed Point Iteration and Newton-Raphson Methods in Solving the Blade Element Momentum Equations

There is a substantial body of ongoing research improving the Blade Element Momentum (BEM) theory and applying it to the optimization of wind turbine rotors. Both of these developments challenge the suitability of fixed point iteration schemes being applied to advanced BEM models. This article explores the mathematical behavior of the BEM equations, with special attention to the application of numerical methods. Under special conditions, multiple solutions will exist when the airfoil is stalled. This situation gives increased uncertainty, where uncertainty in airfoil behavior is already high. This also demonstrates that there could be circumstances where the wake state has weak dependence on blade state. Fixed point iteration and Newton-Raphson numerical methods are investigated in this paper. Both methods will become unstable under certain conditions. The investigation shows that the Newton-Raphson method has well defined conditions for instability in terms of design variables and airfoil properties. By comparison, the fixed point function used here exhibits instability over a larger range.
Using a Variety of n-Grams for the Detection of Different Kinds of Plagiarism Notebook for PAN at CLEF 2013

A text can be plagiarised in different ways. The text may be copied and pasted word by word, parts of the text may be changed, or the whole text may be summarised into one or two lines. Different kinds of plagiarism require different strategies to detect them. But rarely do we know beforehand what type of plagiarism we are dealing with. In this paper we present a system that can detect verbatim plagiarism and obfuscated plagiarism with similar accuracy. Our system uses three different types of n-grams: stopword n-grams, n-grams with at least one named entity, and all words n-grams. After detecting and merging the detections to obtain passages, the system finds new detections incrementally based on the idea that the passages on the vicinity of plagiarised passages are more likely to be plagiarised. The system performs well on verbatim as well as obfuscated plagiarism cases.
Shuffle bialgebras

The goal of our work is to study the spaces of primitive elements of the Hopf algebras associated to the permutahedra and the associahedra. We introduce the notion of shuffle bialgebras, and compute the subpaces of primitive elements associated to these algebras. These spaces of primitive elements have natural structure of some type of algebras which we describe in terms of generators and relations. Applying these results we are able to compute primitive elements of other combinatorial Hopf algebras, and describe the algebraic theories associated to them. Introduction The aim of this paper is to compute the subspaces of primitive elements of some combinatorial Hopf algebras and to describe them as free objects for some new types of algebras. The main examples of combinatorial Hopf algebras studied are the MalvenutoReutenauer Hopf algebra (see [26]), the algebra spanned by the faces of the permutahedra (see [7],[4]), the algebra of functions between finite sets, and the algebra of planar rooted trees (see [23]). In all cases we describe them as free objects for some algebraic theories, and compute the subspaces of their primitive elements. Although the primitive elements of the Malvenuto-Reutenauer algebra and of the algebra of planar binary rooted trees have been previously computed in [2], [3] and [12], our description has the advantage of showing them as free objects for some algebraic theories described in terms of generators and relations. These results give in each case a Cartier-Milnor-Moore type theorem. In the general case, there does not exist a standard method to compute the space of primitive elements of a non-cocommutative coalgebra. The examples studied in this paper have one point in common: they are equipped with an associative product ×, called the concatenation product, which verifies a nonunital infinitesimal relation with the coproduct. Nonunital infinitesimal bialgebras were introduced in [24], where we proved that any connected nonunital infinitesimal bialgebra is isomorphic to the cofree coalgebra spanned by the space of its primitive elements. This result is the main tool used in the present work to compute the primitive elements. We deal first with shuffle algebras, whose free objects are closely related to the Malvenuto-Reutenauer and Solomon-Tits Hopf algebras. Shuffle algebras are a particular case of monoids in the category of S-modules, as described in [29] and [20], where the operations do not preserve the action of the symmetric group. Afterwards, we extend our results to other algebraic structures: the preshuffle algebras 2000 Mathematics Subject Classification. 16A24, 16W30, 17A30, 18D50, 81R60.
Are Prices 'Sticky' Online? Market Structure Effects and Asymmetric Responses to Cost Shocks in Online Mortgage Markets

We analyze daily mortgage rates posted by online lenders at the price comparison site, Microsurf. While cost shocks occurred almost daily in our sample, quoted mortgage rates are surprisingly rigid: Only 16 percent of the posted rates represent changes. However, firms that adjusted rates in response to cost shocks did so quite rapidly; about 98 percent of a cost shock was passed through within two days of the cost shock. Duration analysis reveals that the observed rigidity in rates systematically depends on market structure: Online mortgage rates are 30 to 40 percent more durable in concentrated markets than in markets where there are many competitors. We also find that rates posted online tend to exhibit downward stickiness; rate adjustments in response to cost increases are about twice the corresponding adjustments for cost decreases.
Drug Targets for Cardiovascular-Safe Anti-Inflammatory: In Silico Rational Drug Studies

Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) plays an important role in memory consolidation and synaptic activity, the most fundamental functions of the brain. It converts arachidonic acid to prostaglandin endoperoxide H2. In contrast, if over-expressed, it causes inflammation in response to cytokine, pro-inflammatory molecule, and growth factor. Anti-inflammatory agents, by allosteric or competitive inhibition of COX-2, alleviate the symptoms of inflammation. Coxib family drugs, particularly celecoxib, are the most famous anti-inflammatory agents available in the market showing significant inhibitory effect on COX-2 activity. Due to high cardiovascular risk of this drug group, recent researches are focused on the investigation of new safer drugs for anti-inflammatory diseases. Natural compounds, particularly, phytochemicals are found to be good candidates for drug designing and discovery. In the present study, we performed in silico studies to quantitatively scrutinize the molecular interaction of curcumin and its structural analogs with COX-2, COX-1, FXa and integrin αIIbβIII to investigate their therapeutic potential as a cardiovascular-safe anti-inflammatory medicine (CVSAIM). The results of both ADMET and docking study indicated that out of all the 39 compounds studied, caffeic acid had remarkable interaction with proteins involved in inflammatory response. It was also found to inhibit the proteins that are involved in thrombosis, thereby, having the potential to be developed as therapeutic agent.
DICOM search in medical image archive solution e-Sushrut Chhavi

Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine (DICOM) standard promotes the communication of digital image in the medical imaging environment. A picture archiving and communication system(PACS) is an electronic and ideally film less information system for acquiring, transporting, storing and electronically displaying medical images. It plays a key role in provision of clinical information in the form of images and reports to informed decision making and provision of care. e-Sushrut Chhavi is such an enterprise PACS Solution developed by CDAC, Noida that goes beyond the Radiology department which caters to the need of any department of the hospital that deals with medical images, DICOM or Non-DICOM. DICOM search is the frequently used feature available in e-Sushrut Chhavi and the DICOM Standard for providing Query/Retrieve facility in the image archiving solutions. In e-Sushrut Chhavi this search mechanism is provided for DICOM images and also for converted DICOM images. By using this search facility any user can quickly access Patient images through a multilevel query User Interface. To achieve a better DICOM search in the archive storage the archive server extracts Patient, Study, Series and image level information from the received image and puts in the archive database. So any search related with user given values with respect to search keywords webPACS system only searches the archive database and generate the results depending on the available image information at that time. So the addition any Patient's images in the archive storage can be checked at any point of time. And also any addition of a Series of images or Study of a patient in the archive storage will reflect in the search result. The method of extracting information from the DICOM image is to look for the desired tag and its value. In e-Sushrut Chhavi all the images converted to DICOM have similar Study Instance UID, So when user want to list images generated by e-Chhavi modality or application it actually leads to a search based on Study UID. The DICOM search facility can be extended further for the need of any department that generates patient images by getting monthly, quarterly or annual reports for any modality or patient age or any other information field and also benefits hospital as a whole for viewing a specific image or the associated report of the Patient through a secured user profile under a category of users.
Database of Long-Lived Symmetric Cryptographic Keys

This document specifies the information contained in a conceptual database of long-lived cryptographic keys used by many different routing protocols for message security. The database is designed to support both manual and automated key management. In addition to describing the schema for the database, this document describes the operations that can be performed on the database as well as the requirements for the routing protocols that wish to use the database. In many typical scenarios, the protocols do not directly use the long- lived key, but rather a key derivation function is used to derive a short-lived key from a long-lived key.
Response Surface Methodology: Optimisation of Antifungal Bioemulsifier from Novel Bacillus thuringiensis

An antifungal bioemulsifier compound was produced from a novel strain of Bacillus thuringiensis pak2310. To accentuate the production and as the first step to improve the yield, a central composite design (CCD) was used to study the effect of various factors like minimal salts (1X and 3X), glycerol concentration (2% and 4%), beef extract concentration (1% and 3%), and sunflower oil concentration (2% and 4%) on the production of bioemulsifier molecule and to optimize the conditions to increase the production. The E 24 emulsification index was used as the response variable as the increase in surfactant production was seen to be proportional to increased emulsification. A quadratic equation was employed to express the response variable in terms of the independent variables. Statistical tools like student's t-test, F-test, and ANOVA were employed to identify the important factors and to test the adequacy of the model. Under optimum conditions (1X concentration of minimal salts (MS), 2.6% glycerol (v/v), 1% beef extract (w/v), and 2% sunflower oil (v/v)) a 65% increase in yield was produced.
Preserved blood pressure and heart rate circadian rhythm in early stage Alzheimer's disease.

BACKGROUND This study investigated the blood pressure (BP) values over the day-night period in 11 noninstitutionalized patients affected by probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) in its early stage. The scientific aim was to detect whether the BP circadian rhythm (CR) was preserved, given the fact that CR disruption was observed in advanced or institutionalized AD patients. METHODS The BP within-day values were gathered via noninvasive ambulatory monitoring. The BP time series were analyzed according to the chronobiological procedure, called Cosinor method with three harmonic components. RESULTS The biometric analysis was able to document that BP changes over the 24-h scale in AD patients as a function of a significant CR. Such a preserved circadian regulation is, however, compromised in the second and third harmonic component, suggesting that the BP within-day variability is desynchronized by the environmental clues that act as synchronizers during the diurnal part of the day. CONCLUSIONS The preservation of the BP CR in the early stage of AD suggests using such a finding as a clinical tool for confirming the recent onset of the disease. As a matter of fact, it is presumed that the disease is not evolved enough to reach the suprachiasmatic nuclei, wherein is located the BP circadian pacemaker. The abolition of the ultradian components is another precocious sign that, in turn, indicates early-stage AD patients to be particularly compromised in their synchronization to diurnal cues, such as social routines, meal timing schedule, psycho-physical activity, and occupational schemes.
Optimal Channel Estimation Algorithms for OFDM over Markov Channels

This paper considers the problem of channel estimation for OFDM systems, where the channels are frequency-and time-selective. Incorporating a Markov model for the time-correlation property of the channel, we propose three optimal channel estimation algorithms in the sense of MMSE; preamble-aided scheme, pilot-symbol-aided modulation (PSAM) scheme and combination of these two schemes. In addition, the reliable decision feedback symbols (RDFS) are exploited to refine the channel estimate, where the RDFS is a decision symbol experiencing a low symbol error rate. Three proposed algorithms taking advantage of RDFS give a more accurate channel estimate and a lower bit error rate. Simulation results verify the proposed algorithms under several channel conditions.