Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Vancomycin-dependent Enterococcus faecium isolated from stool following oral vancomycin therapy

The isolation of clinical strains of enterococci requiring vancomycin for growth has only recently been reported. We describe the isolation of Enterococcus faecium requiring vancomycin for growth from the stool of a patient who had completed oral vancomycin therapy. Growth of the vancomycin-dependent E. faecium was supported by ristocetin and D-alanyl-D-alanine but not by daptomycin, teicoplanin, or D,L-alanine. Spontaneous revertants not requiring vancomycin occurred at a rate of 1 in 10(6). Both the vancomycin-dependent E. faecium and the revertant hybridized with a vanB gene probe and had identical contour-clamped homogeneous electrophoresis patterns. The majority of revertant colonies were resistant to teicoplanin, suggesting constitutive production of the vanB ligase. We believe the vancomycin-dependent E. faecium evolved from a vancomycin-resistant, vancomycin-independent E. faecium in the presence of high concentrations of vancomycin in the intestine.
Employed Professionals’ Ethical Responsibilities in Public Service and Private Enterprise: Dilemma, Priority and Synthesis

Traditionally, most professionals operated as sole practitioners or in small partnerships. This work environment affected professions' images of themselves and the way their ethics was conceived and written. But the locus of practice has changed and is continuing to change. Though the common image of professionals remains of sole practitioners serving individual clients on a one-toone basis, many of the most senior professionals work within large organisations. These organisational environments may be characterised by intense competition for work and/or clients both within and between organisations. Instead of a professional enjoying security of occupation and income, and wide professional autonomy, he or she may be placed in contexts that are large, competitive, teambased, and/or multidisciplinary, where work is unbundled and spread around, creating situations of low decision latitude and unclear lines of responsibility. The employing organisation may even usurp traditional professional organisation tasks, including socialisation, education, training, self-regulation, lobbying and fostering a sense of identity. In this environment, professionals can seem to face 'multiple duties [which] need to be deciphered and weighed against each other' and may have to 'reconcile the ascendance of commercial considerations over older notions of professionalism'.
Factorial Validation of a Corporate Social Responsibility Perception Scale for Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises

Abstract: The aim of this study is obtaining a valid and reliable scale to evaluate the Corporate Social Responsibility perception level (pCSR) of micro, small, and medium-sized Mexican enterprises. A literature review revealed 58 items among 11 dimensions: Ethics, performance, business model changes, quality of working life, the environment, community outreach, marketing, philanthropy, competitiveness, and the interests of stakeholders. A total of 296 companies located in Mexico were considered for the study. Principal axis factoring with varimax rotation was performed with the Exploratory Factorial Analysis Technique (EFA) to give an interpretation to the pCSR in the Mexican context. The factors found are the environment and social commitment, performance, ethics, change in business model, restrictions, and competitiveness. The outcomes show that the scale is valid and reliable for use in evaluating pCSR in micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises. This scale is a tool that allows us to evaluate the social responsibility of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises, we conclude that considering the characteristics of Latin America, we have provided an original scale to measure pCSR.
Septic Arthritis of the Wrist: Incidence, Risk Factors, and Predictors of Infection.

Septic arthritis of the wrist can result in permanent damage to the joint, making timely diagnosis crucial to initiate empiric antibiotics and surgical intervention. Although septic arthritis is routinely included in the differential diagnosis of atraumatic wrist pain, the incidence is unknown. Unlike large joints, there is no consensus on cell count values considered pathognomonic for wrist septic arthritis. The goal of this retrospective study was to determine the incidence of wrist septic arthritis and to identify the clinical, serum, and joint fluid values that predict infection. The records of patients who presented to a single urban hospital with a swollen, painful wrist without trauma during a 10-year period were reviewed. For patients who had a joint fluid analysis, the records were examined for history as well as demographic and laboratory data. Joint fluid analysis consisted of cell count, Gram stain, and cultures. Of 892 patients who met the inclusion criteria, 1.5% had wrist septic arthritis. Variables associated with septic arthritis included serum white blood cell count above 11,000/µL, core temperature above 100.4°F within 24 hours of aspiration, history of intravenous drug abuse, and smoking. No joint cell count analysis predicted septic arthritis, although patients with septic wrists had an elevated joint white blood cell count above 97,000/µL. Wrist septic arthritis is uncommon; however, objective factors can help identify patients at risk. Because joint cell count analysis cannot reliably predict a septic wrist, priority for joint aspirations with limited fluid should be given instead to Gram stain, culture, and crystal analysis. [Orthopedics. 2017; 40(3):e526-e531. ].
Modulation by Astrocytes of Microglial Cell-Mediated Neuroinflammation: Effect on the Activation of Microglial Signaling Pathways

The strong inflammatory response observed in neurodegenerative diseases can depend on the impairment of the endogenous control of microglial activation, triggering the release of potentially detrimental factors such as cytokines, nitric oxide (NO) and superoxide anion (O2–·). Our aim was to study the activation of microglial cells and the transduction pathways involved in their modulation by IL-1β and TNF-α. Microglial and mixed glial cell cultures from neonatal rats were exposed to IFN-γ and/or IL-1β and TNF-α. We analyzed NO secretion and the activation of ERK and STAT1. We found that astrocytes modulated microglial cell activation, decreasing production of NO. IFN-γ induced an 18- to 25-fold increase in NO, associated to a 3- to 5-fold increase in ERK phosphorylation in microglial cultures. IL-1β, but not TNF-α, inhibited IFN-γ-induced production of NO in microglia by 87%. It also reduced IFN-γ-induced phosphoERK (pERK) by 40%, without affecting phosphoSTAT1 (pSTAT1). In contrast, in microglial cultures exposed to media conditioned by astrocytes, IL-1β did not inhibit pERK, whereas it reduced activation of STAT1. Inducible NO synthase expression induced by IFN-γ in microglial cultures was reduced when the activation of ERK was prevented. We propose that IL-1β modulates IFN-γ-induced production of oxidative molecules through cross talk between STAT1 and MAPK pathways, regulating the amplitude and duration of microglial activation. Modulation of ERK was observed at 30 min, whereas inhibition of pSTAT was observed later (at 4 h), indicating that it was an early and transient phenomenon.
A recombinant human Fab expressed in Escherichia coli neutralizes rabies virus

A recombinant human anti-rabies monoclonal antibody (MAb-57) Fab was prepared by cloning the heavy (Fd)- and light-chain domains into the same bacterial expression vector. To construct the recombinant Fab, mRNA was extracted from MAb-57-producing hybridoma cells, reverse transcribed, and then amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) by using oligonucleotides specific for immunoglobulin heavy- and light-chain DNA sequences. PCR-amplified Fd-chain cDNA was fused, in frame, between a bacterial leader peptide (PelB) at the amino terminus and a 10-amino-acid peptide tag at the carboxy terminus. The PCR-amplified lambda-chain cDNA was also fused to the PelB leader peptide. The immunoglobulin Fab was then expressed as a dicistronic message in bacteria by using the isopropyl-beta-D-thiogalactopyranoside-inducible lactose promotor (lacZ). DNA sequencing was used to define the gamma-chain isotype (immunoglobulin G1) and VH (VHI) chain and VL (V lambda II) chain gene usage. The recombinant Fab (rFab57) specifically bound the rabies virus coat glycoprotein, while the Fd and lambda chains, when expressed individually, did not. The binding specificity of rFab57 was indistinguishable from that of the intact MAb in direct enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays; however, the dissociation constant of rFab57 for rabies virus protein G was approximately 1 log10 U lower than that of complete MAb-57 in competition enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. A fluorescent-focus inhibition assay showed that bacterially expressed rFab was capable of neutralizing rabies virus strain CVS-11. We conclude that a human Fab expressed in bacteria maintains its specificity and biologic activity.
Adaptive Equalization Architecture Using Distributed Arithmetic for Partial Response Channels

This paper proposes a design and implementation of transversal adaptive digital filter using LMS (least mean squares) adaptive algorithm. The filter structure is based on distributed arithmetic (DA), which is able to calculate the inner product by shifting, and accumulating of partial products and storing in look-up table, also the desired adaptive digital filter will be multiplierless filter. In addition, the hardware implementation uses VHDL (very high-speed integrated circuit hardware description language) and synthesis using FLEX10K Altera FPGA (field programmable gate array) as target technology and uses Leonardo spectrum and MAX+plusII program for overall development. The results of this design are shown that the speed performance and used area of FPGA. The experimental results are presented to demonstrate the feasibility of the desired adaptive digital filter
Nasolacrimal stimulation of aqueous tear production.

PURPOSE Aqueous tear production decreases after anesthetizing the ocular surface. Loss of the nasolacrimal reflex is a risk factor for neurotrophic keratopathy and keratoconjunctivitis sicca. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of nasal mucosal anesthesia on aqueous tear production. METHODS Eleven healthy human volunteers with a normal ocular surface and Schirmer I tear-test scores > 10 mm participated in this study. Schirmer I values were obtained daily for 3 days to establish a normal baseline. On a separate day, the right nasal mucosa was anesthetized with aerosolized 10% lidocaine (Xylocaine). After a 10-min period to allow the anesthetic to take effect and reflex tearing to subside, the Schirmer I test was repeated. A saline nasal spray was used as a control. RESULTS Baseline Schirmer I values for both eyes had a mean of 22.98 +/- 1.05 mm (SEM). There was no difference in Schirmer scores between the two eyes after nasal anesthesia (p > 0.6); however, when these were compared with the baseline Schirmer I values, a significant decrease in tear production was noted (p < 0.001). The mean Schirmer I value after nasal anesthesia was 15.18 +/- 1.38 mm (SEM), a 34% decrease from baseline. The difference between the baseline and the normal saline control values was not significant (p = 0.160). There was a significant difference in Schirmer test scores between the saline control and nasal anesthesia groups (p < 0.02). CONCLUSIONS In addition to sensory neural stimulation from the ocular surface, sensory stimulation of the nasal mucosa also promotes aqueous tear production. These results may help explain the decreased tear production observed in patients who have nasal mucosal damage, disease, or denervation.
The human T-cell leukemia/lymphotropic virus type I p12I protein cooperates with the E5 oncoprotein of bovine papillomavirus in cell transformation and binds the 16-kilodalton subunit of the vacuolar H+ ATPase

The human T-cell leukemia/lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) induces T-cell leukemia and transforms human T cells in vitro. A recently identified protein with a molecular weight of 12,000 (12K) (p12I), encoded by single- and double-spliced mRNAs transcribed from the 3' end of the HTLV-I genome, has been shown to localize in the perinuclear compartment and in the cellular endomembranes. The p12I protein exhibits significant amino acid sequence similarity to the E5 oncoprotein of bovine papillomavirus type 1 (BPV-1). Both proteins are very hydrophobic, contain a glutamine residue in the middle of a potential transmembrane region(s), and are localized in similar cellular compartments. Because of these observations, we investigated whether the p12I resemblance to E5 correlated with a similarity in their biological behavior. We expressed the p12I protein to evaluate its ability to functionally cooperate with the BPV-1 E5 oncoprotein and to bind to a cellular target of the E5 protein, the 16K component of the vacuolar H+ ATPase. Cotransfection of the mouse C127 cell line with the p12I and E5 cDNAs showed that although p12I alone could not induce focus formation, it strongly potentiated the transforming activity of E5. In addition, the p12I protein bound to the 16K protein as efficiently as the E5 protein. These findings might provide new insight for potential mechanisms of HTLV-I transformation and suggest that p12I and E5 represent an example of convergent evolution between RNA and DNA viruses.
Innovative Behaviour of Indian Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises: An Empirical Study

The aim of this paper is to explore innovative behaviour of Indian Micro Small and Medium Enterprises. It is interesting to study innovative behaviour of microsmau and medium enterprises (MSMEs) since they try to innovate while surrounded by many barriers. They also face high failure rate in doing so. This failure is due to presence of barriers that MSMEs fail to manage. But it has been observed that many MSMEs are now awakening to their potential and becoming innovative. They tend to respond to environmental factors in an innovative way, either by cutting cost or changing ways of management. This innovative way defines their innovative behaviour. The innovative behaviour of MSMEs is studied through three variables, i.e., size, age and barriers faced by them. The result shows that size does influence innovation activities undertaken by MSMEs and statistically, there is no correlation between age and innovative behaviour. Their innovative behaviour is affected by barriers like shortage of technical skilled manpower, technology and shortage of funds or complex funding procedure. The paper is concluded by summarising the key findings, discussing implications, limitations and further scope of study.
Traffic jams and the complex role of α-Synuclein aggregation in Parkinson disease

ABSTRACT A common pathological event among various neurodegenerative disorders (NDs) is the misfolding and aggregation of different proteins in the brain. This is thought to potentiate aberrant protein-protein interactions that culminate in the disruption of several biological processes and, ultimately, in neuronal cell loss. Although protein aggregates are a common hallmark in several disorders, the molecular pathways leading to their generation remain unclear. The misfolding and aggregation of α-Synuclein (aSyn) is the pathological hallmark of Parkinson disease (PD), the second most common age related ND. It has been postulated that oligomeric species of aSyn, rather than more mature aggregated forms of the protein, are the causative agents of cytotoxicity. In recent years, we have been investigating the molecular mechanisms underlying the initial steps of aSyn accumulation in living cells. Using an unbiased genome-wide lentiviral RNAi screen we identified trafficking and kinase genes as modulators of aSyn oligomerization, aggregation, and toxicity. Among those, Rab8b, Rab11a, Rab13 and Slp5 were found to promote the clearance of aSyn inclusions and reduce aSyn toxicity. Moreover, we found that endocytic recycling and secretion of aSyn was enhanced upon expression of Rab11a or Rab13 in cells accumulating aSyn inclusions. Altogether, our findings suggest specific trafficking steps may prove beneficial as targets for therapeutic intervention in synucleinopathies, and should be further investigated in other models.
SmartEye Integrated Solution to Home Automation, Security and Monitoring through Mobile Phones

Automation is the process of having a machine or machines to accomplish tasks hitherto performed wholly or partly by humans. Home automation concerns automating the domestic tasks. There are number of applications addressing home automation and monitoring involving infrared/Bluetooth or Ethernet over Power techniques in remote controls. But there is no such publication on providing facility to control and monitor unlimited number of equipments at home via a mobile device at a very low cost using General Packet Radio Services (GPRS) networks. This paper presents a recent research and development effort in construing a real-time home automation and monitoring system named SmartEye which uses cellular networks, Internet based server, networked hardware equipments and GPRS networks. SmartEye accomplishes two tasks; they are home automation and monitoring through mobile phone. Under automation it addresses turning on/off household electrical appliances, such as electric bulbs, door locks etc. SmartEye uses an alerting mechanism together with security cameras to safeguard homes. And also it provides an interface to monitor and control the home through mobile devices. This is a system which integrates the home with the World Wide Web and mobile devices. This paper also discusses the architecture of the system which makes it an easily expandable, user-friendly, affordable and reliable real-time monitoring and remote controlling solution.
Path reconstruction based on gyroscope bias estimation using GPS

This paper presents a method for path reconstruction from logged MEMS gyroscope and odometer measurements, through the estimation of the gyroscope bias from GPS data. The bias estimation is done by minimizing the distance between the reconstructed path and the external reference positions (GPS) by tuning the bias with common minimization methods. Both gradient based and quasi-Newton minimization methods are investigated. An efficient quaternion based mathematical model of the problem is presented. The path produced by the proposed method has higher spatial and temporal resolution than the GPS path, it is more accurate than a path from a purely inertial measurement unit and it is at least as accurate as the GPS path, according to real-life experiment.
KL divergence based feature switching in the linguistic search space for automatic speech recognition

In this paper, we propose a novel idea for using two different feature streams in a continuous speech recognition system. Conventionally multiple feature streams are concatenated and HMMs trained to build triphone/syllable models. In this paper, instead of concatenation, we build separate subword HMMs for each of the feature streams during training. Also during training, the relevance of a feature stream to a particular sound is evaluated. During testing, hypotheses are generated by the language model. A greedy Kullback Leibler distance measure is used to determine the best feature at a particular instant, for the given hypotheses. There are two important aspects of this approach, namely, a) use of a feature that is relevant for recognizing a specific sound and b) the dimension of the feature stream does not increase with the number of different feature streams. To enable feature switching during recognition, a syllablebased automatically annotated recognition framework is used. In this framework, the test speech signal is first segmented into syllables, and, syllable boundaries are incorporated in the language model. Experiments are performed on three databases (a) Tamil DDNews database (b) TIMIT database (c) NTIMIT database, using, two features: MFCC (derived from the power spectrum of the speech signal) and MODGDF (derived from the phase spectrum of the speech signal). The results show that word error rate (WER) is lower than that of the use of joint features by almost 1.5% for the TIMIT database, by almost 3.4% for the NTIMIT database, by about 3.8% for the Tamil DDNew database.
Intergeneration social support affects the subjective well-being of the elderly: Mediator roles of self-esteem and loneliness

The mental health of the elderly is an important issue in the area of health psychology. This study investigated the effect of intergeneration social support on the subjective well-being of 429 elderly participants. Results suggested that intergeneration social support, self-esteem, and loneliness were significantly correlated to subjective well-being. Structural equation modeling indicated that self-esteem and loneliness partially mediated the effect of intergeneration social support on subjective well-being. These findings provided insights into the effect of intergeneration social support on the subjective well-being of the elderly.
LETTERS AND COMMENTS: Self-initiation of EEG-based brain computer communication using the heart rate response

A process for producing a hydrocarbon resin which comprises polymerizing, by means of a Friedel-Crafts catalyst, a mixture of (1) a residual fraction obtained by polymerizing a fraction of a boiling point range of from 140 DEG to 280 DEG C. obtained from the decomposition of a petroleum and containing unsaturated hydrocarbons and removing the resulting polymer and (2) phenol and/or a phenol derivative.
Anthelmintic resistance of intestinal nematodes to ivermectin and pyrantel in Estonian horses

Abstract There is evidence of resistance in horses to anthelmintic treatment using ivermectin and pyrantel. However, little information is available about the parasites, treatment practices or anthelmintic resistance in the horse population in Estonia. In the present study, we examined 41 trotting and riding horses aged < 3 years from four stables in Estonia. Faecal samples were collected, and horses were selected for treatment if the nematode egg count per gram faeces exceeded 200. Horses (n= 32) that shed strongyle-type eggs were treated with pyrantel, whereas Parascaris equorum-positive animals received ivermectin. Up to 78% of horses required anthelmintic treatment and the efficiency of the anthelmintics was evaluated using a faecal egg count reduction test. Resistance of P. equorum was observed in 50% of horses treated with ivermectin and of strongyles in 27% of horses treated with pyrantel. Ivermectin treatment resulted in a mean reduction of 100% for strongyle eggs and an 89% reduction in P. equorum, and pyrantel-treated horses exhibited an 88% reduction in strongyle eggs. These results are considered to be the first indication of resistance to pyrantel, but further studies of ivermectin resistance are required. According to questionnaires completed by the owners of horses, resistance might be explained by a lack of evidence-based strategies, a strong preference for using ivermectin and possibly a subjective evaluation of the body weight of horses.