Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Phylogenetic influence on mating call preferences in female túngara frogs,Physalaemus pustulosus


We evaluated how various phylogenetic models for estimating ancestral characters can influence studies of behavioural evolution. Previously we used a single model of evolution to estimate the values of call characters at ancestral nodes for the Physalaemus pustulosus species group and some close relatives (Ryan & Rand 1995, Science, 269, 390-392). We then synthesized these ancestral calls and measured the females' responses to such calls in phonotaxis experiments. We repeated the above procedure to determine the sensitivity of these results and conclusions to various models used to estimate the ancestral call characters. We asked whether: (1) different models gave different call estimates for the same nodes; (2) different call estimates at the same node were perceived as different by females; and (3) differences in female responses influenced previous conclusions. We used seven different models that varied in at least one of the following parameters: tree topology (bifurcating versus pectinate in-group trees), algorithms (local squared-change versus squared-change parsimony), tempo (gradual or punctuated evolution), and outgroups (two or three outgroup taxa used). Although different models often gave different call estimates for the same node, these different estimates often were not perceived as different by the females. These data reinforce our previous conclusions that: (1) the range of female preferences exceeds the known variation of the conspecific call; (2) females do not discriminate between the conspecific call and the call of their most recent ancestor; and (3) female responses may be context dependent, given that females differ in their responses to the same signal variation in discrimination and recognition experiments. Copyright 1999 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
Adsorbed poly(ethyleneoxide)-poly(propyleneoxide) copolymers on synthetic surfaces: spectroscopy and microscopy of polymer structures and effects on adhesion of skin-borne bacteria.

Poly(ethyleneoxide)-copoly(propyleneoxide) (PEO-PPO) polymer coatings were evaluated for their resistance to the attachment of the marker organism Serratia marcescens and the skin-borne bacteria Staphylococcus epidermidis. The copolymers were adsorbed onto poly(styrene) films-chosen as simplified physicochemical models of skin surfaces-and their surface characteristics probed by contact angle goniometry, attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). These functional surfaces were then presented to microbial cultures, bacterial attachment was assessed by fluorescence microscopy and AFM, and the structures of the polymer films examined again spectroscopically. Surface characterization data suggest that the adsorbed copolymer was partially retained at the surface and resisted bacterial attachment for 24 h. Quantitative evaluation of cell attachment was carried out by scintillation counting of (14)C-labeled microorganisms in conjunction with plate counts. The results show that a densely packed layer of PEO-PPO copolymer can reduce attachment of skin commensals by an order of magnitude, even when the coating is applied by a simple adsorptive process. The work supports the hypothesis that adhesion of microorganisms to biological substrates can be reduced if a pretreatment with an appropriate copolymer can be effected in vivo.
Recommendations for standardized nomenclature and definitions of viral response in trials of hepatitis C virus investigational agents

Outdated virological response terms used at key trial timepoints in clinical trials with first‐generation direct‐acting antivirals plus pegylated interferon and ribavirin have failed to keep pace with hepatitis C virus (HCV) drug development. A more intuitive and flexible nomenclature capable of adapting to continuing advances in HCV drug development is needed. Assistance in standardization of the field was provided by members of the Hepatitis C Virus Drug Development Advisory Group, a project of the Forum for Collaborative HIV Research with participation from the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, European Association for the of the liver, and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Our proposed descriptive, virological response nomenclature for key decision points in trials (with and without lead‐in treatment) is based on an assay‐specified lower limit of quantitation cutoff. This allows responses to be categorized as either quantifiable or unquantifiable HCV RNA, with unquantifiable responses further divided based on whether target HCV RNA was detected or not detected. The unified reporting recommendations will facilitate interpretation of results across clinical trials and validation of new response‐guided timepoints. As time‐critical treatment parameters are shortened in HCV trials, the proposed nomenclature will greatly simplify and facilitate future adaptations of virological response terms. Our proposed nomenclature will also be helpful in developing treatment guidelines for use in clinical practice. (HEPATOLOGY 2012;56:2398–2403)
The Perceptions of the Personal and Professional Factors Influencing Social Workers in Saudi Hospitals: A Qualitative Analysis

The perceptions of 10 social workers regarding the personal and professional characteristics influencing their practice at Saudi hospitals were examined using semi-structured interviews. A qualitative analysis employing a thematic approach informed by grounded theory was undertaken and produced three broad interrelated themes: “skills upgrading,” “departmental support,” and “personal experience in the workplace,” which subsequently informed the development of the overarching theme of “personal and professional factors. ” The discussion illustrates social work practitioners are inhibited from effectively performing their roles. These include: (a) Deficiencies related to job training and professional skills updating where there is a lack of efficient and accessible inservice training programs, especially in relation to practical issues. Further, these perceptions relate to a lack of long-term educational opportunities that impact on individual practitioner's currency of skills, techniques and pedagogy enabling/disenabling him/her to excel at his/her job, (b) Obvious bureaucracy within the controlling hierarchy and difficulty with the dissemination of information between the social workers were perceived to detrimentally impact on a practitioner's ability to attend to one's work demands, and (c) Personal day to day work experiences, including counterproductive emotional feelings (high stress), increased dissatisfaction with the job, and ineffective communication within the workplace were seen as limiting the social workers' professional potential. This article will focus on how these themes were addressed in terms of qualitative interview data.
Immunological identification and distribution of dissimilatory heme cd1 and nonheme copper nitrite reductases in denitrifying bacteria

Polyclonal antibodies were used to identify heme or copper nitrite reductases in the following groups: 23 taxonomically diverse denitrifiers from culture collections, 100 numerically dominant denitrifiers from geographically diverse environments, and 51 denitrifiers from a culture collection not selected for denitrification. Antisera were raised against heme nitrite reductases from Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Pseudomonas stutzeri and against copper nitrite reductase from Achromobacter cycloclastes. Nitrite reductases were identified by Western immunoblot. Diethyldithiocarbamate, which specifically inhibits copper nitrite reductases, was used to confirm the immunological characterization and determine which type was present in strains nonreactive with any antiserum. For groups in which the type of nitrite reductase has not been previously described, we found that Alcaligenes eutrophus, Bacillus azotoformans, Bradyrhizobium japonicum, Corynebacterium nephridii, and Rhizobium spp. contained copper nitrite reductase, while Aquaspirillum itersonii, Flavobacterium spp. , and Pseudomonas fluorescens contained heme nitrite reductase. Heme nitrite reductases dominated, regardless of soil type or geographic origin. They occurred in 64 and 92%, respectively, of denitrifiers in the numerically dominant and nonselected collections. The two nitrite reductase types were mutually exclusive in individual bacteria, but both appeared in different strains from the Alcaligenes and Pseudomonas genera. The heme type predominated in Pseudomonas strains. The heme-type nitrite reductase appeared more conserved if judged by similarities in molecular weights and immunological reactions. The Cu type was found in more taxonomically unrelated strains and varied in molecular weight and antiserum recognition.
Saturation in Phosphene Size with Increasing Current Levels Delivered to Human Visual Cortex

Electrically stimulating early visual cortex results in a visual percept known as a phosphene. Although phosphenes can be evoked by a wide range of electrode sizes and current amplitudes, they are invariably described as small. To better understand this observation, we electrically stimulated 93 electrodes implanted in the visual cortex of 13 human subjects who reported phosphene size while stimulation current was varied. Phosphene size increased as the stimulation current was initially raised above threshold, but then rapidly reached saturation. Phosphene size also depended on the location of the stimulated site, with size increasing with distance from the foveal representation. We developed a model relating phosphene size to the amount of activated cortex and its location within the retinotopic map. First, a sigmoidal curve was used to predict the amount of activated cortex at a given current. Second, the amount of active cortex was converted to degrees of visual angle by multiplying by the inverse cortical magnification factor for that retinotopic location. This simple model accurately predicted phosphene size for a broad range of stimulation currents and cortical locations. The unexpected saturation in phosphene sizes suggests that the functional architecture of cerebral cortex may impose fundamental restrictions on the spread of artificially evoked activity and this may be an important consideration in the design of cortical prosthetic devices. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Understanding the neural basis for phosphenes, the visual percepts created by electrical stimulation of visual cortex, is fundamental to the development of a visual cortical prosthetic. Our experiments in human subjects implanted with electrodes over visual cortex show that it is the activity of a large population of cells spread out across several millimeters of tissue that supports the perception of a phosphene. In addition, we describe an important feature of the production of phosphenes by electrical stimulation: phosphene size saturates at a relatively low current level. This finding implies that, with current methods, visual prosthetics will have a limited dynamic range available to control the production of spatial forms and that more advanced stimulation methods may be required.
Monoclonal antibodies specific for Clostridium difficile toxin B and their use in immunoassays

Five mouse monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) against Clostridium difficile toxin B have been raised and characterized. Three of them were immunoglobulin M (IgM) antibodies (6B10, 6G3, and 10B9), and the other two were of the IgG1 isotype (9E5 and 17G2), recognizing specifically two distinct epitopes on the toxin B molecule. No MAb was able to neutralize cytotoxic activity significantly. The two IgG1 MAbs were purified and applied to various immunodiagnostic assays. MAbs coupled to latex beads were used for specific removal of toxin B from cytotoxic samples and for agglutination assay. An indirect sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay with MAb 9E5 or 17G2 as the capture antibody was established for identification of toxin B with a lower detection limit of 5 ng/ml.
A Cystine Knot Peptide Targeting Integrin αvβ6 for Photoacoustic and Fluorescence Imaging of Tumors in Living Subjects

Photoacoustic imaging is a nonionizing biomedical imaging modality with higher resolution and imaging depth than fluorescence imaging, which has greater sensitivity. The combination of the 2 imaging modalities could improve the detection of cancer. Integrin αvβ6 is a cell surface marker overexpressed in many different cancers. Here, we report the development and evaluation of a dye-labeled cystine knot peptide, which selectively recognizes integrin αvβ6 with high affinity, for photoacoustic and fluorescence imaging. The new dual-modality probe may find clinical application in cancer diagnosis and intraoperative imaging of integrin αvβ6–positive tumors. Methods: An engineered cystine knot peptide, R01, that recognizes integrin αvβ6 was labeled with Atto 740 (A740) and evaluated for its specific cell uptake and its sensitivity threshold. A740-R01 was injected via the tail vein into nude mice xenografted with A431 (integrin αvβ6–positive) or 293T (integrin αvβ6–negative) tumors. Photoacoustic and fluorescence scans of tumors were acquired before and at 0.5, 1, 2, and 4 h after injection of A740-R01. Dynamic photoacoustic scans of various normal organs were also acquired. Ex vivo fluorescence imaging of tissues was performed 1 h after injection. Results: The A740-R01 demonstrated integrin αvβ6–dependent binding to A431 cells in culture. Sensitivity studies indicated that the probe may potentially detect lesions as small as 1 or 6 mm3 by fluorescence or photoacoustic imaging, respectively. The photoacoustic and fluorescence signals of A431 xenografts at 1 h after injection were 1.87 ± 0.25 arbitrary units (AU) and 8.27 ± 0.87 AU, respectively. Target specificity was confirmed by low tumor uptake in 293T tumors at 1 h after injection (1.07 ± 0.15 AU and 1.10 ± 0.14 AU for photoacoustic and fluorescence signals, respectively). A740-R01 exhibited hepatobiliary clearance marked by high uptake in the liver, spleen, and intestine but low uptake in the kidneys. Conclusion: A740-R01 specifically targeted integrin αvβ6 with low nanomolar affinity. A740-R01 was able to detect integrin αvβ6 both in vitro and in vivo by photoacoustic and fluorescence imaging. A740-R01 is able to detect αvβ6-positive tumors in living subjects and may have clinical application in cancer diagnosis and real-time image-guided surgery.
The Influence of Engineers on Public Policy

THE INFLUENCE OF ENGINEERS ON PUBLIC POLICY Sarah Bouazzaoui Old Dominion University, 2018 Director: Dr. Charles Daniels Engineers play a vital role in society and contribute positively to economic growth in various areas, including energy, transportation, telecommunications, and others. In the United States of America, these areas are monitored by public policies that are set by policy actors— mainly lawyers, public administrators and social scientists—at legislative and regulatory levels. In these domains, engineers have a reduced voice with key decision makers on critical engineering issues, and their input is very limited. Their lack of involvement results in costly unintended consequences, affecting both the interest of the profession and the interest of the nation. Research has shown that increased input from engineers bridges disciplinary gaps, allowing clarification of technical concerns and disentanglement of system complexities in public policy issues. This dissertation explores the skills necessary for engineers to navigate effectively within organizations and society, influence policy decisions, and the different factors impacting their influence. Grounded theory method is used to analyze data collected through semi-structured interviews conducted with engineers and other engineering or engineering management professionals. The investigation will lead to the construction of a theory and topic of study referred to as socio-political engineering. Furthermore, the perception of engineers regarding this topic of study is analyzed using a Q methodology, which supports the results of the grounded theory. This knowledge provides insight into ways that socio-political engineering may enhance engineering education and engineers’ certification through the development of capabilities to influence multidisciplinary decision making.
Prevalence of loss and complicated grief among psychiatric outpatients.

OBJECTIVE This study examined the prevalence of significant loss through the death of another person as well as complicated grief among patients at two psychiatric outpatient clinics for one year. METHODS A total of 729 patients were interviewed about significant losses through death during their lives. Standard questionnaires were used to classify 235 patients who had experienced such losses into three groups: those who had minimal disturbance, those who had moderate complicated grief, and those who had severe complicated grief. Multivariate and univariate analyses of variance were used to test for differences in loss-specific variables (for example, pathological grief) and variables that were not specific to loss (for example, depression) among the three groups. RESULTS More than half of the 729 patients reported that they had experienced one or more significant losses through death. About a third of all patients who came to the clinics met the criteria for either moderate or severe complicated grief. The average time since the loss was about ten years, indicating that these patients had long-term complicated grief. Significant differences in loss-specific variables and variables that were not specific to loss were detected among the three groups. Patients who had severe complicated grief scored higher than patients in the other two groups on both types of variables. Patients with moderate complicated grief had higher scores than those with minimal disturbance. CONCLUSIONS Clinicians should routinely assess outpatients for loss and complicated grief and should consider addressing loss and complicated grief in treatment. Rather than a single classification of complicated grief, different levels should be considered.
An Automotive HMI Architecture Based on a Mobile Operating System

Integrating a mobile operating system (OS) into the vehicle as foundation for the vehicle's information system is limited to the capabilities of original manufactures, as it is an integral part of the engineering process. Taking advantage of designing and engineering an electric vehicle from scratch, we built up the HMI system architecture based on Android from the early design phase on. We designed the architecture in a way that it gives access to third party developers during the overall engineering process and beyond. In this paper we discuss the engineering process, the features of the system, the difficulties we struggled with and emphasize the advantages of this setup for lower- and medium-class vehicles.
A review article on genetic algorithm in wireless sensor network

Maximizing the duration of a warning system by arrangement procedures of devices is a successful solution to develop power successful instant warning networks. Following the arbitrary arrangement of devices in the goal region, the situation of locating the greatest amount of disjoint models of devices, with every collection to be able to totally protect the goal region, is nondeterministic polynomial-complete. That report proposes a cross strategy of mixing a genetic algorithm with routine move procedures, termed STHGA, to deal with that problem. Distinctive from different techniques in the literature, STHGA adopts a ahead selection system for chromosomes in the people and employs some efficient genetic and warning routine move operations. The uniqueness of the ahead selection system is that the most gene price of every chromosome is improved continually with the answer quality, which pertains to the amount of disjoint total protect sets. By exerting the constraint on chromosomes, the ahead selection system shows the architectural top features of probable schedules of devices and gives advice for more advancement. Complying with the selection needs, genetic procedures and routine move procedures in STHGA work to alter the imperfect protect collection in to a total one, while another models however keep total protection through the routine of unnecessary devices in the sets. Purposes for realizing several goal factors, termed point-coverage, and for your region, termed area-coverage, have already been useful for assessing the potency of STHGA. Besides the amount of devices and devices 'realizing stages, the effect of devices 'redundancy on the efficiency of STHGA has already been analyzed. Effects reveal that the planned algorithm is encouraging and outperforms another present strategy by equally optimization pace and answer quality.
Usage of artificial neural network for estimating of the electrospun nanofiber diameter

At the present time, nanomaterials are used in the medicine and biology applications such as drug and gene delivery, bio-detection of pathogens, MRI contrast enhancement, tumor destruction via heating, and protein detection. Tissue engineering which is another of these applications is being increasingly popular. Because extracellular matrix (ECM) consists nano-sized structure; the usage of nanomaterials in tissue engineering enables to produce of tissue scaffolds that are more closely resemble the ECM form. Thus, the success rate increases in tissue engineering as it is provided a more favorable environment for the growth of cells. Electrospinning is a popular method among nanomaterial production ones. The diameter of the fiber produced by electrospinning technique depends on the various parameters like process, solution, and environmental parameters. In this study, an ANN model based on multilayer perceptron (MLP) is presented for predicting the average fiber diameter (AFD) of electrospun gelatin/bioactive glass (Gt/BG) scaffold. The experimental results previously published in the literature, which include one solution parameter (BG content) as well as two process parameters (tip to collector distance and solution flow rate) related to producing of electrospun Gt/BG nanofiber, have been used. The values of average percentage error between the predicted average fiber diameters and experimental ones are achieved as 3.27 %. The results obtained from the proposed model have also been confirmed by comparing with results of AFD expression reported elsewhere. It is illustrated that the AFD of electrospun Gt/BG can be accurately predicted by the model proposed here without requiring any complicated or sophisticated knowledge of the mathematical and physical background.
A Robust Alternative to the Schemper–Henderson Estimator of Prediction Error

Summary In clinical applications, the prediction error of survival models has to be taken into consideration to assess the practical suitability of conclusions drawn from these models. Different approaches to evaluate the predictive performance of survival models have been suggested in the literature. In this article, we analyze the properties of the estimator of prediction error developed by Schemper and Henderson (2000 , Biometrics 56, 249–255), which quantifies the absolute distance between predicted and observed survival functions. We provide a formal proof that the estimator proposed by Schemper and Henderson is not robust against misspecification of the survival model, that is, the estimator will only be meaningful if the model family used for deriving predictions has been specified correctly. To remedy this problem, we construct a new estimator of the absolute distance between predicted and observed survival functions. We show that this modified Schemper–Henderson estimator is robust against model misspecification, allowing its practical application to a wide class of survival models. The properties of the Schemper–Henderson estimator and its new modification are illustrated by means of a simulation study and the analysis of two clinical data sets.