Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Colonization of dental plaque: a source of nosocomial infections in intensive care unit patients.

OBJECTIVE To study the dental status and colonization of dental plaque by aerobic pathogens and their relation with nosocomial infections in intensive care unit (ICU) patients. DESIGN A prospective study in a medical ICU of a university-affiliated hospital. PATIENTS Consecutive patients admitted to the ICU during a 3-mo period. INTERVENTIONS Dental status was assessed by the same investigator using a score adapted from the "Caries-Absent-Occluded" (CAO) index (referred to in the U.S. as DMFT [Decayed-Missing-Filled Teeth] index). The amount of dental plaque on premolars was assessed using a semiquantitative score. Quantitative cultures of dental plaque, nasal secretions, tracheal aspirates, and urine were done at admission (day 0) and every fifth day until death or discharge. An additional study was done in eight patients to serially compare dental plaque, salivary, and tracheal aspirate cultures during a 2-wk period. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS Fifty-seven patients were included in the main study. Due to the variability in their ICU stay, 29 patients could be examined on day 0 only (group A), 15 patients on days 0 and 5 (group B), and 13 patients on days 0, 5, and 10 (group C). The mean dental CAO score was 16 +/- 8 and did not change during the ICU stay. The dental plaque score was < or =1 in 70% of patients on day 0; > or =2 in 50% of patients on day 5; and > or =2 in 90% of patients on day 10. Dental plaque cultures were positive at 10(3) colony-forming units/mL for aerobic pathogens in 23% of patients on day 0; 39% of patients on day 5; and 46% of patients on day 10. In groups B and C, mean dental plaque score and frequency of plaque colonization increased from days 0 to 5 and from days 5 to 10. A high bacterial concordance was found between dental plaque and tracheal aspirate cultures, and in the additional study, between salivary and dental plaque cultures. Twenty-one patients developed a nosocomial infection in the ICU. Dental plaque colonization on days 0 and 5 was significantly associated with the occurrence of nosocomial pneumonia and bacteremia (sensitivity 0.77; specificity 0.96; positive predictive value 0.87; negative predictive value 0.91; relative risk 9.6). In six cases of nosocomial infection, the pathogen isolated from dental plaque was the first identified source of nosocomial infection. CONCLUSIONS The amount of dental plaque increased during the ICU stay. Colonization of dental plaque was either present on admission or acquired in 40% of patients. A positive dental plaque culture was significantly associated with subsequent nosocomial infections. Dental plaque colonization by aerobic pathogens might be a specific source of nosocomial infection in ICU patients.
Daytime and nighttime detection of mineral dust over desert using infrared spectral contrast

Desert dust has a potentially strong effect on climate and climate forcing as evident from satellite data, yet its detection close to its sources over deserts and semidesert regions is difficult. The lifted dust often has the same mineral composition as the surface sand left behind. The main consistent difference between airborne dust and surface sand is particle size. This difference is used here to develop a remote sensing technique for the detection of dust over desert. The technique uses two infrared channels that will be on the Earth Observing System (EOS) moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS). It is based on measurements and modeling of the thermal infrared spectrum of silicate and carbonate minerals that show strong differences between the thermal properties of the smaller dust particles (diameter of 2–5 μm) and the larger sand particles (diameter >70 μm). In particular, the emissivity of quartz increases with the particle size at 11 μm and decreases at 8.6 μm. This different behavior allows use of these two MODIS channels to distinguish between variations of the dust temperature and surface temperature from the variation in the loading of the smaller dust particles in the atmosphere. We report simulations of the technique for day and night remote sensing and apply it to high resolution infrared sounder (HIRS) data which is validated against ground-based measurements by Sun photometers. The technique is found to be sensitive to the dust loading over sand surfaces and not very sensitive to the dust height.
Predicting Hail Size Using Model Vertical Velocities

Abstract : A simple test hail growth model is created in order to compare hailstone sizes from model vertical velocities and calculated updrafts from a simple cloud model using forecasted soundings. The models used MM5 model data coinciding with severe hail events collected from the Central and Southern Plains from March to May 2006 and 2007. In the test model, four different starting embryo sizes were interjected into four separate hail growth modes: dry growth and wet growth using model vertical velocities and dry and wet growths using calculated updrafts. These embryos were placed at four different beginning vertical levels resulting in 64 possible ending hailstone sizes. Examination of the 804 hail events revealed the potential usefulness of model vertical velocities in generating severe hailstones. In particular, using dry growth, the model vertical velocities produced 727 severe hailstones compare to 661 produced by dry growth using the thermodynamically calculated updraft. Model vertical velocities also proved more accurate than updrafts, resulting in an average error of 0.417 compare to 0.788 under dry growth conditions. Calculated updrafts were still required to generate the large severe hail that model vertical velocities could not produce.
Genetic diversity and phylogeography of the Apennine yellow‐bellied toad Bombina pachypus, with implications for conservation

Genetic variation was investigated in 17 populations of the Italian endemic Apennine yellow‐bellied toad using both mitochondrial (598 bp of the cytochrome b gene) and nuclear (21 allozyme loci) markers. Populations from central Calabria (southern Italy) showed the highest levels of intrapopulation genetic variation, whereas samples located north of this region were nearly lacking in variation. This appears to be a typical pattern of ‘southern richness and northern purity’, usually attributed to the prolonged population stability within southern refugia coupled with the loss of variation during postglacial northward expansion. However, the overall pattern of genetic variation observed has a strong geographical component, suggesting two Calabrian plains, Catanzaro and Crati‐Sibari, as historical barriers to dispersal separating three population groups. These findings cannot be explained by the prolonged stability of southern populations alone, and suggest that the southern richness has been at least in part shaped by allopatric differentiation within the refugial range, followed by intermixing of previously differentiated lineages. From a conservation standpoint, Calabria is the major genetic diversity reservoir for this species, thus deserving particular conservation efforts. Furthermore, although the low intrapopulation genetic variation outside Calabria appears to be of clear historical origin, evidence of a current reduction of gene flow suggests that human disturbance has also played a part, particularly in the anthropogenic impacted Volturno river drainage basin.
Personalized Recommendation for Individual Users Based on the Group Recommendation Principles

The amount of information available on the Web is increasing day by day. Users are overloaded and cannot access desired information in a reasonable time. Plenty of approaches for the web personalization, which try to solve information overload have been proposed in the literature. Important feature of any personalization is its accuracy, or more precisely accuracy of personalized recommendation provided to a user. In this paper we propose a new recommendation approach for the single-user collaborative filtering based on the principles of the recommendations for group of users. We explore the best configuration for such an approach according to the group size used for computation, the aggregation strategy of ratings used within groups or the number of similar users used for the recommendation. We did an experiment over the MovieLens and SME.SK news portal datasets. Proposed approach is compared to the standard collaborative and group recommender respectively. The results support our hypothesis that proposed approach brings statistically significant improvement and it is applicable on various domains, thus can be used for the single-user recommendation tasks.
SIMULATOR OF GALAXY MILLIMETER/SUBMILLIMETER EMISSION (SÍGAME): THE [C ii]–SFR RELATIONSHIP OF MASSIVE z = 2 MAIN SEQUENCE GALAXIES

We present SÍGAME simulations of the [ C II ] ? > 157.7 μm fine structure line emission from cosmological smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations of seven main sequence galaxies at z = 2. Using sub-grid physics prescriptions the gas in our simulations is modeled as a multi-phased interstellar medium comprised of molecular gas residing in giant molecular clouds, an atomic gas phase associated with photo-dissociation regions (PDRs) at the cloud surfaces, and a diffuse, ionized gas phase. Adopting logotropic cloud density profiles and accounting for heating by the local FUV radiation field and cosmic rays by scaling both with local star formation rate (SFR) volume density, we calculate the [ C II ] ? > emission using a photon escape probability formalism. The [ C II ] ? > emission peaks in the central ≲ 1 kpc ? > of our galaxies as do the SFR radial profiles, with most [ C II ] ? > ( ≳ 70 % ? > ) originating in the molecular gas phase, whereas further out ( ≳ 2 kpc ? > ), the atomic/PDR gas dominates ( ≳ 90 % ? > ) the [ C II ] ? > emission, no longer tracing ongoing star formation. Throughout, the ionized gas contribution is negligible ( ≲ 3 % ? > ). The [ C II ] ? > luminosity versus SFR ( [ C II ] ? > –SFR) relationship, integrated as well as spatially resolved (on scales of 1 kpc), delineated by our simulated galaxies is in good agreement with the corresponding relations observed locally and at high redshifts. In our simulations, the molecular gas dominates the [ C II ] ? > budget at SFR ≳ 20 M ⊙ yr − 1 ? > ( &Sgr; SFR ? > ≳ 0.5 M ⊙ yr − 1 kpc − 2 ? > ), while atomic/PDR gas takes over at lower SFRs, suggesting a picture in which [ C II ] ? > predominantly traces the molecular gas in high-density/pressure regions where star formation is ongoing, and otherwise reveals the atomic/PDR gas phase.
Evaluating the Association between Assisted Conception and the Severity of Preeclampsia

Objective. To investigate the association between assisted conceptions and preeclampsia (PEC), including assessment of severity of disease. Methods. In a prospective case control study, cases were selected from women with preeclampsia and controls from women without preeclampsia. Exposure was defined as assisted conception with intrauterine insemination or in vitro fertilization (IUI or IVF). We assessed the association between exposure and outcome, using Chi square or Fisher's exact tests. Stratified analyses and multivariable logistic regression were used to control for confounders. Results. Preeclampsia was associated with assisted conception after controlling for age and race (AOR 2.2, [1.03–4.72]). All women with preeclampsia who had assisted conceptions demonstrated severe disease and were more likely to have abnormal lab values: AST >45 (AOR = 6.01 [1.63–22.21] P = 0.007), creatinine ≥1 (AOR 2.92 [0.82–10.4], P = 0.09) or platelets <100 (AOR 5.74 [1.00–32.76] P = 0.049), after adjusting for race, age, and multiple gestations. Conclusion. Assisted conceptions are associated with a more severe preeclamptic phenotype.
Passively Released Heme from Hemoglobin and Myoglobin Is a Potential Source of Nutrient Iron for Bordetella bronchiseptica

ABSTRACT Colonization by Bordetella bronchiseptica results in a variety of inflammatory respiratory infections, including canine kennel cough, porcine atrophic rhinitis, and a whooping cough-like disease in humans. For successful colonization, B. bronchiseptica must acquire iron (Fe) from the infected host. A vast amount of Fe within the host is sequestered within heme, a metalloporphyrin which is coordinately bound in hemoglobin and myoglobin. Utilization of hemoglobin and myoglobin as sources of nutrient Fe by B. bronchiseptica requires expression of BhuR, an outer membrane protein. We hypothesize that hemin is acquired by B. bronchiseptica in a BhuR-dependent manner after spontaneous loss of the metalloporphyrin from hemoglobin and/or myoglobin. Sequestration experiments demonstrated that direct contact with hemoglobin or myoglobin was not required to support growth of B. bronchiseptica in an Fe-limiting environment. Mutant myoglobins, each exhibiting a different affinity for heme, were employed to demonstrate that the rate of growth of B. bronchiseptica was directly correlated with the rate at which heme was lost from the hemoprotein. Finally, Escherichia coli cells expressing recombinant BhuR had the capacity to remove hemin from solution. Collectively, these experiments provided strong experimental support for the model that BhuR is a hemin receptor and B. bronchiseptica likely acquires heme during infection after passive loss of the metalloporphyrin from hemoglobin and/or myoglobin. These results also suggest that spontaneous hemin loss by hemoglobin and myoglobin may be a common mechanism by which many pathogenic bacteria acquire heme and heme-bound Fe.
CCR 20th Anniversary Commentary: Gene-Expression Signature in Breast Cancer—Where Did It Start and Where Are We Now?

Desmedt and colleagues published two articles, one in the June 1, 2007 issue, and the other in the August 15, 2008, issue of Clinical Cancer Research, that showed gene-expression signatures to be proliferation driven and time dependent, with their prognostic power decreasing with increasing follow-up years. Moreover, the articles showed that immune response is a crucial determinant of prognosis in the HER2-positive and estrogen receptor–negative/HER2-negative subtypes, providing a rationale to further explore the role of the antitumor immune response in these breast cancer subtypes. Clin Cancer Res; 21(21); 4743–6. ©2015 AACR. See related articles by Desmedt et al., Clin Cancer Res 2007;13(11) June 1, 2007;3207–14 and Desmedt et al., Clin Cancer Res 2008;14(16) August 15, 2008;5158–65.
Latent and active abPPO4 mushroom tyrosinase cocrystallized with hexatungstotellurate(VI) in a single crystal

Mushroom tyrosinase isoform abPPO4 (Agaricus bisporus polyphenol oxidase 4) was crystallized by means of an Anderson-type polyoxometalate. The enzyme crystallized as a crystallographic heterodimer containing the zymogen (L-TYR; 64 kDa), the 21 kDa smaller activated form (A-TYR) and the polyoxometalate (POM) within one single crystal in a 1:1:1 ratio.
Femoral stiffness and strength critically depend on loading angle: a parametric study in a mouse-inbred strain

Abstract Biomechanical tests of human femora have shown that small variations of the loading direction result in significant changes in measured bone mechanical properties. However, the heterogeneity in geometrical and bone tissue properties does not make human bones well suited to reproducibly assess the effects of loading direction on stiffness and strength. To precisely quantify the influence of loading direction on stiffness and strength of femora loaded at the femoral head, we tested femora from C57BL/6 inbred mice. We developed an image-based alignment protocol and investigated the loading direction influence on proximal femur stiffness and strength. An aluminum femoral phantom and C57BL/6 femora were tested under compression with different loading directions. Both tests, with the aluminum phantom and the murine bones, showed and quantified the linear dependence of stiffness on loading direction: a 5° change in loading direction resulted in almost 30% change in stiffness. Murine bone testing also revealed and quantified the variation in strength due to loading direction: 5° change in loading direction resulted in 8.5% change in strength. In conclusion, this study quantified, for the first time, the influence of misalignment on bone stiffness and strength for femoral head loading. We showed the extreme sensitivity of this site regarding loading direction.
Overweight Influence on Circadian Variations of Ambulatory Blood Pressure in Chinese Adolescents

Childhood obesity and its consequences have been the subject of intense interest in recent years. In this study we examined the influence of overweight on circadian variations of ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) in Chinese adolescents. First, 24-hr ABP monitoring was performed in 252 adolescents divided into two groups with equivalent sex, age, and body height (49 girls and 77 boys in each group): controls (normal weight) were aged 13.68 ± 1.21 years, height 165.37 ± 9.45 cm, body mass index (BMI) 18.82 ± 2.3; overweights (BMI = 24) were aged 13.71 ± 1.23 years, height 165.75 ± 9.47 cm, BMI 27.70 ± 3.1. ABP recordings were treated by ABP database system and analyzed by cosinor method and conventional statistics methods. The circadian variations of ABP in adolescent patterned as “dipper” and circadian rhythmicity of ABP variations were confirmed by cosinor analysis in most adolescents of both groups. Significant statistical differences were found for rhythm parameters: the MESOR (midline estimate statistic of rhythm), peak, trough (the maximum and minimum values derived from the composed curves, respectively), and amplitude values between control and overweight groups. Significant higher values also were seen in the overweight group for most of ABP parameters (p < .01), such as, BP means (SBP, DBP, MAP: mean arterial pressure, or PP: pulse pressure), BP variability, BP loads and rate-pressure product (HR × SBP). Our results have shown that overweight influenced significantly on ABP and parameters derived from ABP recordings in Chinese adolescents, which suggests an increasing risk of cardiovascular diseases in overweight adolescents.
Particle filtering for registration of 2D and 3D point sets with stochastic dynamics

In this paper, we propose a particle filtering approach for the problem of registering two point sets that differ by a rigid body transformation. Typically, registration algorithms compute the transformation parameters by maximizing a metric given an estimate of the correspondence between points across the two sets of interest. This can be viewed as a posterior estimation problem, in which the corresponding distribution can naturally be estimated using a particle filter. In this work, we treat motion as a local variation in pose parameters obtained from running a few iterations of the standard Iterative Closest Point (ICP) algorithm. Employing this idea, we introduce stochastic motion dynamics to widen the narrow band of convergence often found in local optimizer functions used to tackle the registration task. Thus, the novelty of our method is twofold: Firstly, we employ a particle filtering scheme to drive the point set registration process. Secondly, we increase the robustness of the registration performance by introducing a dynamic model of uncertainty for the transformation parameters. In contrast with other techniques, our approach requires no annealing schedule, which results in a reduction in computational complexity as well as maintains the temporal coherency of the state (no loss of information). Also, unlike most alternative approaches for point set registration, we make no geometric assumptions on the two data sets. Experimental results are provided that demonstrate the robustness of the algorithm to initialization, noise, missing structures or differing point densities in each sets, on challenging 2D and 3D registration tasks.
Zinc Treatment to Under-five Children: Applications to Improve Child Survival and Reduce Burden of Disease

Zinc is an essential micronutrient associated with over 300 biological functions. Marginal zinc deficiency states are common among children living in poverty and exposed to diets either low in zinc or high in phytates that compromise zinc uptake. These children are at increased risk of morbidity due to infectious diseases, including diarrhoea and respiratory infection. Children aged less than five years (under-five children) and those exposed to zinc-deficient diets will benefit from either daily supplementation of zinc or a 10 to 14-day course of zinc treatment for an episode of acute diarrhoea. This includes less severe illness and a reduced likelihood of repeat episodes of diarrhoea. Given these findings, the World Health Organization/United Nations Children's Fund now recommend that all children with an acute diarrhoeal illness be treated with zinc, regardless of aetiology. ICDDR.B scientists have led the way in identifying the benefits of zinc. Now, in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Bangladesh and the private sector, the first national scaling up of zinc treatment has been carried out. Important challenges remain in terms of reaching the poorest families and those living in remote areas of Bangladesh.
Frustration as a generical regulatory mechanism for motivated navigation

This paper explores the use of a mechanism to auto-regulate the robot behavior in situations of persistent failures. In order to give more autonomy to a mobile robot, a generical frustration mechanism based on the automonitoring of the progress (in terms of goal distance reduction) is studied in different situations and on different parts of the robot architecture. To escape failure situations and deadlocks, the frustration reaction can inhibit the robot navigation strategies, goals or drives.
Stellar population gradients in bulges along the Hubble sequence - II. Relations with galaxy properties

We present the analysis of the radial gradients of stellar absorption lines in a sample of 32 bulges of edge-on spiral galaxies, spanning nearly the full Hubble sequence (from S0 to Sc types), and a large range of velocity dispersion (from about 60 to 300 km s −1 ). Different diagnostics such as index–index, gradient–gradient diagrams, and simple stellar population models are used to tackle the origin of the variation of the bulge stellar population. We find that the vast majority of bulges show older age, lower metallicity and higher [α/Fe] in their outer regions than in their central parts. The radial gradients in [Fe/H] are 2 to 3 times larger than in Log(age). The relation between gradient and bulge velocity dispersion is interpreted as a gradual build up of the gradient mean values and their dispersions from high to low velocity dispersion, rather than a pure correlation. The bulge effective radii and the Hubble type of the parent galaxies seem to play a more minor role in causing the observed spatial distributions. At a given velocity dispersion, bulges and ellipticals share common properties.
Design of optimal MIMO channel under line-of-sight environment by using directional antenna

This paper presented the channel capacity improvement by the distributed antenna arrangement and directional antennas under LOS environment. The simulation results showed that the proposed system provided higher channel capacity than the centralized antenna system. From experimental results, the proposed system achieved low correlation and saved up to 84% of transmit power under indoor environment. The proposed system is expected to provide the optimal channel matrix to maximize the channel capacity by the use of high directivity l antenna.