Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Immunogenicity of recombinant yeast-derived hepatitis B vaccine in nonresponders to perinatal immunization.

OBJECTIVE Nonresponse to hepatitis B vaccine in the perinatal period occasionally occurs. This report documents the results of reimmunization of nonresponders to perinatal immunization. DESIGN From a cohort of 1154 infants immunized with plasma-based vaccine in the perinatal period and followed up for more than 8 years, 45 nonresponders were identified. These children were reimmunized at 4 years of age. Each child received a yeast-derived recombinant hepatitis B vaccine on a 0-, 1-, and 5-month schedule, 33 children with 10-micrograms and 12 with 5-micrograms doses. Blood was sampled 1 month after the third vaccination and thereafter at 1, 2, and 4 years. SETTING The follow-up clinic where the cohort of children was regularly seen. PATIENTS Forty-five 4-year-old children who had no antibody to hepatitis B despite perinatal immunization. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Antibody levels to hepatitis B surface antigen. RESULTS Seroconversion with titers higher than 10 mIU/mL occurred in all children. More than 70% still had titers higher than 10 mIU/mL 4 years after vaccination. CONCLUSION Nonresponders to perinatal hepatitis B vaccination respond well to subsequent vaccination.
Selective medium for isolation of Bacteroides gracilis

A new medium selective for Bacteroides gracilis was developed. The medium is tryptic soy agar (Difco Laboratories, Detroit, Mich.) containing nalidixic acid, teicoplanin, sodium formate, sodium fumarate, and potassium nitrate. All 18 strains of B. gracilis tested grew with only minimal inhibition. Most of the other 214 organisms tested, including most Bacteroides species, other anaerobes, and a substantial number of facultative anaerobes, were significantly inhibited by the medium. In a diagnostic study of 49 clinical specimens (28 patients with intra-abdominal infection, mostly gangrenous or perforated appendicitis), four strains of B. gracilis were isolated (from 4 different patients) on B. gracilis selective agar but were not detected on standard media.
Sex Differences in Time Perception during Self-paced Running

Time perception during exercise may be affected by chosen intensity, and may also affect enjoyment of exercise and subsequent long-term adherence. However, little is known about how individuals perceive the passage of time during exercise, or if factors such as sex are influential. The purpose of this study was to determine if there are sex related differences in perception of time during a bout of exercise in experienced runners. Twenty-two recreational runners (11 men, 11 women) participated in a bout of treadmill running where they were allowed to select their intensity. Sixty second prospective time estimations were taken before, during (at 33%, 66% and 90% of the completed distance), and after the run. Heart rate (HR) was also recorded throughout. The women (M = 91.9, SD = 3.3) ran at a significantly higher percentage of their maximum HR than the men (M = 86.5, SD = 6.4; p = 0.022), choosing to run at a higher relative intensity than the men when given the opportunity to self-pace. The women had relatively lower time estimations overall, showing that they perceived time to be passing by more slowly compared to the men. These results may help to explain sex related differences in exercise adherence.
Fast Unscented Transformation-Based Transient Stability Margin Estimation Incorporating Uncertainty of Wind Generation

Intermittent generation from wind farms leads to fluctuating power system operating conditions pushing the stability margin to its limits. The traditional way of determining the worst case generation dispatch for a system with several semi-scheduled wind generators yields a conservative solution. This paper proposes a fast estimation of the transient stability margin (TSM) incorporating the uncertainty of wind generation. First, the Kalman filter (KF) is used to provide linear estimation of system angle and then unscented transformation (UT) is used to estimate the distribution of the TSM. The proposed method is compared with the traditional Monte Carlo (MC) method and the effectiveness of the proposed approach is verified using Single Machine Infinite Bus (SMIB) and IEEE 14 generator Australian dynamic system. This method will aid grid operators to perform fast online calculations to estimate TSM distribution of a power system with high levels of intermittent wind generation.
Crystalliferous Bacillus cereus group bacteria from a Maryland hardwood forest are dominated by psychrotolerant strains

Crystal‐forming bacteria of the Bacillus cereus group were isolated from soil samples collected at different elevations within a mixed hardwood forest in central Maryland, and their phylogenetic relationships determined by multilocus sequence analysis. The vast majority of isolates obtained were associated with two phylogenetic groups known to be psychrotolerant, with very few isolates representing phylogenetic groups more typically associated with Bacillus thuringiensis. Isolates from the psychrotolerant groups were found to grow on solid media at 7°C. Isolates of 11 highly related, novel sequence types (STs) from the psychrotolerant group that includes Bacillus weihenstephanensis were generally found at higher elevations, and were not associated with soils near streams. Isolates of two related STs from the second psychrotolerant group were nearly always found at the bottoms of ravines near streams, in areas abundant in earthworm castings.
A critical appraisal of the use of microRNA data in phylogenetics

Significance As progress toward a highly resolved tree of life continues, evolutionary relationships that defy resolution continue to be identified. Recently, the presence/absence of microRNA families has emerged as a potentially ideal source of information to resolve these difficult phylogenetic problems, and these data have been used to address several long-standing problems in the metazoan phylogeny. To our knowledge, this study performs the first rigorous statistical assessment of the phylogenetic utility of microRNAs and finds that a high incidence of homoplasy and sampling error renders published phylogenies based on microRNA data highly biased or uncertain. This study casts serious doubt on the central phylogenetic conclusions of several previous analyses of microRNA datasets. Recent progress in resolving the tree of life continues to expose relationships that resist resolution, which drives the search for novel sources of information to solve these difficult phylogenetic problems. A recent example, the presence and absence of microRNA families, has been vigorously promoted as an ideal source of phylogenetic data and has been applied to several perennial phylogenetic problems. The utility of such data for phylogenetic inference hinges critically both on developing stochastic models that provide a reasonable description of the process that give rise to these data, and also on the careful validation of those models in real inference scenarios. Remarkably, however, the statistical behavior and phylogenetic utility of microRNA data have not yet been rigorously characterized. Here we explore the behavior and performance of microRNA presence/absence data under a variety of evolutionary models and reexamine datasets from several previous studies. We find that highly heterogeneous rates of microRNA gain and loss, pervasive secondary loss, and sampling error collectively render microRNA-based inference of phylogeny difficult. Moreover, our reanalyses fundamentally alter the conclusions for four of the five studies that we reexamined. Our results indicate that the capacity of miRNA data to resolve the tree of life has been overstated, and we urge caution in their application and interpretation.
Grinding Burn and Chatter Classification Using Genetic Programming

This paper looks at the multiple characteristics and investigations of two grinding anomalies: grinding burn and grinding chatter. A genetic programming (GP) of multiple classifications was investigated for different machining strategies and associated anomaly phenomena. Such a GP paradigm could evolve rules to provide the correlation between monitored signals and grinding phenomena. The investigation also looks at both Short-Time Fourier Transforms (STFT) and Wavelet Packet Transforms (WPT) to convert the raw acoustic emission (AE) signal into a time based frequency signal, segmented into different frequency bands. A set of encouraging results is presented.
The statistics of natural images

Recently there has been a resurgence of interest in the properties of natural images. Their statistics are important not only in image compression but also for the study of sensory processing in biology, which can be viewed as satisfying certain ‘design criteria’. This review summarizes previous work on image statistics and presents our own data. Perhaps the most notable property of natural images is an invariance to scale. We present data to support this claim as well as evidence for a hierarchical invariance in natural scenes. These symmetries provide a powerful description of natural images as they greatly restrict the class of allowed distributions.
Robust and low-cost cascaded non-linear acoustic echo cancellation

This paper addresses the problem of acoustic echo cancellation in non-linear environments. The first contribution relates to the use of a cascaded model which divides the loudspeaker enclosure microphone system into two main blocks; the first models the downlink transducers which are assumed to be the main source of nonlinearity. The second block includes the acoustical channel and uplink transducers which are assumed to be linear and have a comparatively longer impulse response and higher time variability. The second contribution is a new non-linear adaptive echo canceler which is based on the cascaded model and has greater robustness to changes in the acoustic channel than an existing power filter approach.
The Primacy of β1 Integrin Activation in the Metastatic Cascade

After neoplastic cells leave the primary tumor and circulate, they may extravasate from the vasculature and colonize tissues to form metastases. β1 integrins play diverse roles in tumorigenesis and tumor progression, including extravasation. In blood cells, activation of β1 integrins can be regulated by “inside-out” signals leading to extravasation from the circulation into tissues. However, a role for inside-out β1 activation in tumor cell metastasis is uncertain. Here we show that β1 integrin activation promotes tumor metastasis and that activated β1 integrin may serve as a biomarker of metastatic human melanoma. To determine whether β1 integrin activation can influence tumor cell metastasis, the β1 integrin subunit in melanoma and breast cancer cell lines was stably knocked down with shRNA and replaced with wild-type or constitutively-active β1. When tumor cells expressing constitutively-active β1 integrins were injected intravenously into chick embryos or mice, they demonstrated increased colonization of the liver when compared to cells expressing wild-type β1 integrins. Rescue expression with mutant β1 integrins revealed that tumor cell extravasation and hepatic colonization required extracellular ligand binding to β1 as well as β1 interaction with talin, an intracellular mediator of integrin activation by the Rap1 GTPase. Furthermore, shRNA-mediated knock down of talin reduced hepatic colonization by tumor cells expressing wild-type β1, but not constitutively-active β1. Overexpression in tumor cells of the tumor suppressor, Rap1GAP, inhibited Rap1 and β1 integrin activation as well as hepatic colonization. Using an antibody that detects activated β1 integrin, we found higher levels of activated β1 integrins in human metastatic melanomas compared to primary melanomas, suggesting that activated β1 integrin may serve as a biomarker of invasive tumor cells. Altogether, these studies establish that inside-out activation of β1 integrins promotes tumor cell extravasation and colonization, suggesting diagnostic and therapeutic approaches for targeting of β1 integrin signaling in neoplasia.
Is there a case for mobile phone content pre-staging?

Content caching is a fundamental building block of the Internet. Caches are widely deployed at network edges to improve performance for end-users, and to reduce load on web servers and the backbone network. Considering mobile 3G/4G networks, however, the bottleneck is at the access link, where bandwidth is shared among all mobile terminals. As such, per-user capacity cannot grow to cope with the traffic demand. Unfortunately, caching policies would not reduce the load on the wireless link which would have to carry multiple copies of the same object that is being downloaded by multiple mobile terminals sharing the same access link. In this paper we investigate if it is worth to push the caching paradigm even farther. We hypothesize a system in which mobile terminals implement a local cache, where popular content can be pushed/pre-staged. This exploits the peculiar broadcast capability of the wireless channels to replicate content "for free" on all terminals, saving the cost of transmitting multiple copies of those popular objects. Relying on a large data set collected from a European mobile carrier, we analyse the content popularity characteristics of mobile traffic, and quantify the benefit that the push-to-mobile system would produce. We found that content pre-staging, by proactively and periodically broadcasting "bundles" of popular objects to devices, allows to both greatly i) improve users' performance and ii) reduce up to 20% (40%) the downloaded volume (number of requests) in optimistic scenarios with a bundle of 100 MB. However, some technical constraints and content characteristics could question the actual gain such system would reach in practice.
Enabledness-based program abstractions for behavior validation

Code artifacts that have nontrivial requirements with respect to the ordering in which their methods or procedures ought to be called are common and appear, for instance, in the form of API implementations and objects. This work addresses the problem of validating if API implementations provide their intended behavior when descriptions of this behavior are informal, partial, or nonexistent. The proposed approach addresses this problem by generating abstract behavior models which resemble typestates. These models are statically computed and encode all admissible sequences of method calls. The level of abstraction at which such models are constructed has shown to be useful for validating code artifacts and identifying findings which led to the discovery of bugs, adjustment of the requirements expected by the engineer to the requirements implicit in the code, and the improvement of available documentation.
Flow restrictor silicon membrane microvalve actuated by optically controlled paraffin phase transition

Restrictor valves allow proportional control of fluid flow but are rarely integrated in microfluidic systems. In this study, an optically actuated silicon membrane restrictor microvalve is demonstrated. Its actuation is based on the phase transition of paraffin, using a paraffin wax mixed with a suitable concentration of optically absorbing nanographite particles. Backing up the membrane with oil (the melted paraffin) allows for a compliant yet strong contact to the valve seat, which enables handling of high pressures. At flow rates up to 30 µL min−1 and at a pressure of 2 bars, the valve can successfully be closed and control the flow level by restriction. The use of this paraffin composite as an adhesive layer sandwiched between the silicon valve and glass eases fabrication. This type of restrictor valve is best suited for high pressure, low volume flow silicon-based nanofluidic systems.
Molecular Cloning, Sequence Analysis, and Characterization of a Penicillin-Resistantdd-Carboxypeptidase of Myxococcus xanthus

ABSTRACT We have cloned a gene, pdcA, from the genomic library of Myxococcus xanthus with an oligonucleotide probe representing conserved regions of penicillin-resistantdd-carboxypeptidases. The amino- and carboxy-terminal halves of the predicted pdcA gene product showed significant sequence similarity toN-acetylmuramoyl-l-alanine amidase and penicillin-resistant dd-carboxypeptidase, respectively. ThepdcA gene was expressed in Escherichia coli, and the characteristics of the gene product were similar to those ofdd-carboxypeptidase (VanY) of vancomycin-resistant enterococci. No apparent changes in cell growth, sporulation, or germination were observed in pdcA deletion mutants.
MVSS: An Active Storage Architecture

This paper presents MVSS, a storage system for active storage devices MVSS offers a single framework for supporting various services at the device level. It provides a flexible interface for associating services to a file through multiple views of the file Similar to views of a database in a multiview database system, views in MVSS are generated dynamically and are not stored on physical storage devices. MVSS represents each view of an underlying file through a separate entry in the file system namespace. MVSS separates the deployment of services from file system implementations and, thus, allows services to be migrated to storage devices. The paper presents the design of MVSS and how different services can be supported in MVSS at the device level. To illustrate our approach, we implemented a prototype system on PCs running Linux. We present results from example applications implemented on the prototype and discuss a variety of architectural issues including mixed workloads.
Implicit index-aware model order reduction for RLC/RC networks

This paper introduces the implicit-IMOR method for differential algebraic equations. This method is a modification of the Index-aware model order reduction (IMOR) method proposed in our earlier papers which is the explicit-IMOR method. It also involves first splitting the differential-algebraic equations (DAEs) into differential and algebraic parts using a basis of projectors. In contrast with the explicit-IMOR method, the implicit-IMOR method leads to implicit differential and algebraic parts. We demonstrate the implicit-IMOR method using the RLC/RC networks, but it can also be applied to other problems which lead to differential-algebraic equations.
Quantitative investigation of chemical shrinkage stress in flip chip using a 3D moire interferometry system

Thermo-mechanical reliability is a key issue of IC packaging. In this paper, the chemical shrinkage stress caused by the underfill curing is quantitatively investigated: DSC test result provides the basis for the determination of temperature profile for the curing of underfill. The 3D deformation of the flip chip during the underfill curing process is measured with 3D Moire interferometry system. Also a simple theoretical model is set up for this problem, DMA test provide the necessary parameters for this model. The experimental and theoretical results agree well with each other, both results show that the chemical shrinkage stress is fairly small when compared with the thermal residual stress, so this part of residual stress can be neglected in the commonly used finite element analysis (FEA) model.
A Case-Based Reasoning System for Indirect Bank Lending

By implementing case-based reasoning (CBR) systems, business organizations can utilize past cases—a key data resource—for future decision making. CBR is particularly suitable for business domains that have available a large amount of historical data. One such domain is indirect bank lending. In this paper, we present a case-based system that operates in the bank lending domain. The system recommends whether an indirect loan application should be approved or denied, based on past experiences. We describe how the system was developed and explain how the system functions. The system was empirically evaluated using actual loan cases. The positive results of the evaluation confirm our hypothesis that CBR is an attractive decision-making methodology for the bank lending domain. © 1996 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Pathological Image Retrieval for Breast Cancer with pLSA Model

Pathological image retrieval contributes to computer-aided diagnosis for breast cancer due to the fact that the retrieval results generally contain detailed diagnostic information (e.g. abnormal regions and diagnostic opinion from other doctors) which can offer some reference and assistance to the doctor during diagnosis process. In this paper, we present a novel pathological image retrieval approach based on probabilistic latent semantic analysis (pLSA) model. The method respectively utilizes SIFT features after visual saliency detection, and block Gabor features for the construction of two semantic codebooks, which not only can characterize the salient local invariant features and texture information under different scales and orientations in the pathological images, but also consider the high-level semantic features. Furthermore, we apply pLSA model to discover the latent topics in each codebook. Finally each pathological image is represented by the combination of topics from these two codebooks. The proposed method is evaluated on the pathological image database for breast cancer, which includes 5 categories (mucinous cystadenocarcinoma, invasive lobular carcinoma, basal-like carcinoma, invasive breast cancer and low-grade adenosquamous carcinoma) and 110 cases for each category. Experimental results demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of our method.
Carrier sense range effect on multipath routing performances in Wireless Sensor Networks

In the recent years, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have become a great field of interest for scientific community. This kind of network provides a panoply of applications in different areas of human life. However WSNs must ensure the quality of service (QoS) to give the requested performance for the final user. Among different issues presented in the literature to provide high QoS, multipath routing is commonly used. But such a solution could be not enough efficient if the multipath routing design does not consider the phenomena of interference. Indeed the constructed paths can have an interference zone, mainly a shared carrier sense range. In this paper we show by analytical and experimental results, that using multipath routing can never overshoot the performance of single path when the interferences are not taken into account. Also, we show how the carrier sense range can influence the network performance.