Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
New host-vector system in solvent-producing Clostridium saccharoperbutylacetonicum strain N1-4.

4, known as a high butanol-producing bacterium among acetone-butanol producing clostridia was previously used to produce butanol commercially. Recently, the solventogenic clostridia attract great concern in view of the effective utilization of unused biomass (Lee et al., 1995). Acetone-butanol producing clostridia including strain N1-4 exhibit two major interesting characteristics. One is a metabolic regulatory mechanism called “metabolic shift,” in which acetic acid and butyric acid are produced during the exponential phase (called acidogenesis), and acetone and butanol are produced during stationary phase (called solventogenesis) concomitantly with assimilation of acetic acid and butyric acid (Jones and Woods, 1986). Another is the emergence of a degenerated strain which has lost the ability to produce solvents (Kashket and Cao, 1995; Woolley and Morris, 1990; Yoshino and Hayashida, 1990). The expression or repression of the solventogenic genes using a host-vector system in strain N1-4 will allow us to understand these metabolic regulatory mechanisms. A host-vector system in clostridia has been developed in a type strain of Acetone-Butanol fermentating clostridia C. acetobutylicum ATCC824 (Girbal et al., 2003; Kutty and Bennett, 2006; Noelling et al., 2001; Tummala et al., 2003 a,b). Since strain N1-4 is a different species from ATCC824 evolutionally (Johnson et al., 1997; Keis et al., 1995, 2001), the host-vector system of strain ATCC 824 cannot be applied to strain N1-4. Therefore, we attempted to develop a new hostvector system in strain N1-4 by applying pTYD101 that replicates stably only in strain N1-4. pTYD101 is a deletion derivative of pTY10, which was previously constructed as a shuttle vector but is instable in strain N1-4, in which the 3.9 kb DNA region including the ori region functional in Escherichia coli is deleted (Yoshino et al., 1990). First we determined the entire nucleotide sequence of pTYD101 (GenBank accession No. DQ676869). pTYD101 contained two orfs derived from pTY10; one is similar to the rep gene of pSRD191 (48% identity, Sprincova et al., 2005) and the other is similar to mob of pS86 (35% identity, Martinez-Bueno et al., 2000). These rep and mob genes are commonly found in gram positive bacteria. pTYD101 also carries the chloramphenicol resistance gene (cat) from promoter-probe vector pKK232-8 (Fig. 1). The upstream region of the cat gene possessed a strech similar to the s promoter region of E. coli (Harly and Reynolds, 1987; Lisser and Margalit, 1993), suggesting that cat promoter of pTYD101 can function New host-vector system in solvent-producing Clostridium saccharoperbutylacetonicum strain N1-4
Occurrence of Hypermutable Pseudomonas aeruginosa in Cystic Fibrosis Patients Is Associated with the Oxidative Stress Caused by Chronic Lung Inflammation

ABSTRACT Oxidative stress caused by chronic lung inflammation in patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) and chronic lung infection with Pseudomonas aeruginosa is characterized by the reactive oxygen species (ROS) liberated by polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNs). We formulated the hypothesis that oxidation of the bacterial DNA by ROS presents an increased risk for the occurrence of hypermutable P. aeruginosa. The occurrence of hypermutable P. aeruginosa isolates was investigated directly in the sputum of 79 CF patients and among 141 isolates collected from 11 CF patients (10 to 15 isolates/patient) collected from the 1st and up to the 25th year of their chronic lung infection. The level of oxidized guanine moiety 8-oxo-2′-deoxyguanosine (8-oxodG), which is a frequently investigated DNA oxidative lesion, was measured. Hypermutable P. aeruginosa isolates were found in the sputum bacterial population of 54.4% of the CF patients. The earliest mutator P. aeruginosa isolates were found after 5 years from the onset of the chronic lung infection, and once they were present in the CF lung, the prevalence increased with time. The hypermutable isolates were significantly more resistant to antipseudomonal antibiotics than nonhypermutable isolates (P ≤ 0.001). The level of 8-oxodG/106 deoxyguanosine (dG) was significantly higher in hypermutable P. aeruginosa isolates (87 ± 38) than in nonhypermutable P. aeruginosa isolates (59.4 ± 17) (P = 0.02), and an increase to 86.84 from 21.65 8-oxodG/106 dG was found after exposure of the reference strain PAO1 to activated PMNs. Our results suggest that the chronic PMN inflammation in the CF lung promotes oxidative stress and is associated with the occurrence of hypermutable bacteria in the lung. The hypermutable phenotype can associate with mutations that confer adaptation of the bacteria in the lung and persistence of the infection.
Ototoxicity Associated with Vinblastine

OBJECTIVE: To describe a patient with ototoxicity associated with vinblastine chemotherapy. CASE SUMMARY: A 29-year-old white man with recurrent Hodgkin's disease received doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine (ABVD) chemotherapy once every two weeks for 12 cycles. He reported tinnitus after each treatment, with an onset of about six hours and a duration of seven to 10 days. This interfered with reading, watching television, and general concentration. Symptoms returned to baseline prior to the beginning of each subsequent cycle. Audiograms performed before and after several cycles showed mild sensorineural hearing loss in the high-decibel range, but no loss of speech recognition. DISCUSSION: No reported cases of ototoxicity or tinnitus from ABVD were found. All concomitant medications were eliminated as possible causes either due to lack of temporal association with the symptoms or no reports of ototoxicity in the literature. Vincristine, a more commonly used vinca alkaloid very similar to vinblastine, was noted to have caused several cases of sensorineural hearing loss. CONCLUSIONS: This case suggests that vinblastine may cause ototoxicity.
Perceived comfort during minor hand surgeries with wide awake local anaesthesia no tourniquet (WALANT) versus local anaesthesia (LA)/tourniquet

Purpose: Minor hand surgeries can be done under field sterility in procedure rooms. Surgeons are still sceptical about the usage of wide awake local anaesthesia no tourniquet (WALANT) technique. They perceive that patients can tolerate tourniquet for a brief period while they perform minor surgeries under local anaesthesia (LA). We compared the perceived comfort experienced by patients during minor hand surgeries with WALANT and LA/tourniquet. We investigated the difference in preoperative preparation time, operating time and blood loss between the two groups. Methods: Between July and October 2016, a total of 72 patients were diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome, trigger finger or ganglion, at the University Malaya Medical Centre. Forty patients consented to participate in this study and were randomized into WALANT and LA/tourniquet groups. Anaesthesia was administered accordingly and tourniquet was applied. The time taken for preoperative preparation and surgery was recorded. Each surgeon estimated the blood loss. The perceived comfort level of each patient was quantified using a visual analogue score (VAS). Data were analysed using SPSS. Results: The mean VAS for the WALANT group was 2.33 ± 1.94, whereas it was 4.72 ± 3.05 for the LA/tourniquet group, and the difference was statistically significant (p < 0.05). The mean time for preoperative preparation in WALANT group was 19.17 ± 12.61 min and LA/tourniquet group was 7.05 ± 3.44 min. The difference between these groups was statistically significant (p < 0.01). There was no significant difference in operating time and blood loss. Conclusion: WALANT technique was associated with better patient comfort. Tourniquet was the main reason for discomfort during surgeries. WALANT is an alternative in minor hand surgeries for a bloodless surgical field without the discomfort of tourniquet application.
Unsupervised Neural-Network-Based Algorithm for an On-Line Diagnosis of Three-Phase Induction Motor Stator Fault

In this paper, an automatic algorithm based an unsupervised neural network for an on-line diagnostics of three-phase induction motor stator fault is presented. This algorithm uses the alfa-beta stator currents as input variables. Then, a fully automatic unsupervised method is applied in which a Hebbian-based unsupervised neural network is used to extract the principal components of the stator current data. These main directions are used to decide where the fault occurs and a relationship between the current components is calculated to verify the severity of the fault. One of the characteristics of this method, given its unsupervised nature, is that it does not need a prior identification of the system. The proposed methodology has been experimentally tested on a 1kW induction motor. The obtained experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method
A Robust Directional Saliency-Based Method for Infrared Small-Target Detection Under Various Complex Backgrounds

Infrared small-target detection plays an important role in image processing for infrared remote sensing. In this letter, different from traditional algorithms, we formulate this problem as salient region detection, which is inspired by the fact that a small target can often attract attention of human eyes in infrared images. This visual effect arises from the discrepancy that a small target resembles isotropic Gaussian-like shape due to the optics point spread function of the thermal imaging system at a long distance, whereas background clutters are generally local orientational. Based on this observation, a new robust directional saliency-based method is proposed incorporating with visual attention theory for infrared small-target detection. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperforms the state-of-the-art methods for real infrared images with various typical complex backgrounds.
B1. Nanotechnology in RF and microwave applications: Review article

In this paper detailed discussions are introduced for possible applications of nanotechnology and nano-materials in RF, microwave and optical applications. The proposed discussions include different nano-materials like carbon nanotube, graphene sheets, nanowires, nano-particles of noble metals like Ag and Au, and nano-ferrite materials. On the other hand, the proposed applications include nano-antennas, passive microwave circuits, microwave transistors, flexible conducting sheets, RF conducting ink, RF absorbers and RF shielding.
X4‐tropic human immunodeficiency virus IIIB utilizes CXCR4 as coreceptor, as distinct from R5X4‐tropic viruses

Human immunodeficiency viruses initiate infections via CCR5 coreceptors and then change their tropism to C‐X‐C chemokine receptor type 4 (CXCR4), this change being associated with rapid disease progression. HIV‐1IIIB, a widely described pure X4‐tropic strain, is distinct from R5X4‐tropic viruses. In this study, the requirement for amino terminal regions (NTRs) of CXCR4 for entry of HIV‐1IIIB virus into host cells was examined and compared to that of R5X4‐tropic viruses. CXCR4 and its deletion mutant (CXCR4ΔNTR23; first 23 amino acids removed from NTR) were amplified to examine their coreceptor activities. NP‐2/CD4/CXCR4 and NP‐2/CD4/CXCR4ΔNTR23 cell lines were prepared accordingly. Indirect immune fluorescence assay (IFA), PCR, and reverse transcriptase (RT) activity were used to compare the process of infection of host cells by HIV‐1IIIB virus, one R5‐tropic and five other R5X4‐tropic viruses. All the R5X4‐tropic HIVs were found to utilize both CCR5 and CXCR4 but unable to use CXCR4ΔNTR23 as coreceptors. In contrast, X4‐tropic HIV‐1IIIB was found to preferentially infect through CXCR4ΔNTR23. Viral antigens in infected NP‐2/CD4/CXCR4ΔNTR23 cells were detected by IFA and confirmed by detection of proviral DNA and by performing RT assays on the spent cell‐supernatants. In dual tropic viruses, deletion of 23 amino acids from NTR abrogates the coreceptor activity of CXCR4. This observation demonstrates that NTR of CXCR4 have an obligatory coreceptor role for dual tropic viruses. However, HIV‐1IIIB may have different requirements for NTR than R5X4 viruses or may infect host cells independent of NTR of CXCR4.
Erythropoietin doping in cycling: lack of evidence for efficacy and a negative risk–benefit

Imagine a medicine that is expected to have very limited effects based upon knowledge of its pharmacology and (patho)physiology and that is studied in the wrong population, with low‐quality studies that use a surrogate end‐point that relates to the clinical end‐point in a partial manner at most. Such a medicine would surely not be recommended. The use of recombinant human erythropoietin (rHuEPO) to enhance performance in cycling is very common. A qualitative systematic review of the available literature was performed to examine the evidence for the ergogenic properties of this drug, which is normally used to treat anaemia in chronic renal failure patients. The results of this literature search show that there is no scientific basis from which to conclude that rHuEPO has performance‐enhancing properties in elite cyclists. The reported studies have many shortcomings regarding translation of the results to professional cycling endurance performance. Additionally, the possibly harmful side‐effects have not been adequately researched for this population but appear to be worrying, at least. The use of rHuEPO in cycling is rife but scientifically unsupported by evidence, and its use in sports is medical malpractice. What its use would have been, if the involved team physicians had been trained in clinical pharmacology and had investigated this properly, remains a matter of speculation. A single well‐controlled trial in athletes in real‐life circumstances would give a better indication of the real advantages and risk factors of rHuEPO use, but it would be an oversimplification to suggest that this would eradicate its use.
Modeling of photovoltaic solar array under different levels of partial shadow conditions

Different methods of configuration have been formulated regarding photovoltaic solar power by employing several techniques. This has been done because of the varying conditions so that the loss of power can be minimized. The main factor which decreases energy output of the photovoltaic PV solar systems is partial shadowing. The way the energy output of partially shadowed arrays varies with the system configuration used, has been studied extensively. A huge degree of disorder still exists, particularly with respect to the best modularity grade for these systems. There are two distinct sub-divisions in the systems implemented in the reconfiguration mechanism: reconfigurable solar arrays, and a switching matrix to do a reconfiguration. Using different methods, the proportions of shadowing obstructions were noted to allow for calculation of the likely shadowing losses. The outcomes of this paper on modeling and monitoring are used to evaluate the photovoltaic system with respect to shadowing losses with different levels and their reliance on the system configuration are selected. It has been found that power loss because of varying conditions is majorly due to the decrease in radiance occurring on the photovoltaic array and can be avoided through selecting the suitable configuration and connection. The simulation results show that the output characteristics of the simulator presented better results with that proposed model.
Impairment of daytime cerebrovascular reactivity in patients with obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome

Several studies have demonstrated a clear association between snoring, sleep apnoea and increased risk of stroke. However, the possible role of sleep apnoea in the pathophysiogenetic mechanisms of cerebrovascular disease is still unknown. Our aim in this study was to investigate cerebral haemodynamic changes during the waking state in eight patients with sleep apnoea syndrome (OSAS) by means of transcranial Doppler (TCD). In particular, we studied cerebral vascular reactivity (CVR) to hypercapnia calculated by means of the breath holding index (BHI). The investigation was performed in the early morning, soon after awakening, and in the late afternoon. Data were compared with those of eight healthy subjects matched for age and vascular risk factors. OSAS patients showed significantly lower BHI values with respect to controls both in the morning (0.56 vs. 1.36; P< 0.0001) and in the afternoon (1.12 vs. 1.53; P< 0.0001). In patients, BHI values in the afternoon were significantly higher than in the morning (P< 0.0001). These data demonstrate a diminished vasodilator reserve in OSAS patients, particularly evident in the morning. This reduction of the possibility of cerebral vessels to adapt functionally in response to stimulation could be linked to hyposensitivity of cerebrovascular chemoreceptors after the continuous stress caused by nocturnal hypercapnia.
A Modified Fuzzy Vault Scheme for Biometrics-Based Body Sensor Networks Security

The fuzzy vault scheme, which has been most widely used in biometric systems, has some weaknesses while applied in securing Body Sensor Network (BSN) communications. This is mainly because of the dynamic random characteristics of biometric identifiers independently generated by sensor nodes based on self-captured physiological signals. A modified fuzzy vault scheme is proposed to overcome this problem, aiming for a significant reduction in recognition errors. Error-correction encoding/decoding process is deployed in a way different from the existing ones at the transmitter/receiver to reduce the effect of bit differences in dynamic random patterns between biometric identifiers. An enveloping process is further deployed before the projection of real points onto the keying material constructed polynomial to protect the real points from being revealed by various potential attacks. This enveloping process can also be deployed in the traditional fuzzy vault scheme to prevent the known attacks based on statistical analysis of points in the vault. A detailed performance analysis in terms of False Acceptance Rate (FAR) and False Rejection Rate (FRR), as well as anti-attack capability was conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of our solution.
On the Performance of Hybrid ARQ with Incremental Redundancy over Amplify-and-Forward Dual-Hop Relay Networks

In this paper, we consider a three node relay network comprising a source, a relay, and a destination. The source transmits the message to the destination using hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) with incremental redundancy (IR). The relay overhears the transmitted message, amplifies it using a variable gain amplifier, and then forwards the message to the destination. This latter combines both the source and the relay message and tries to decode the information. In case of decoding failure, the destination sends a negative acknowledgement. A new replica of the message containing new parity bits is then transmitted in the subsequent HARQ round. This process continues until successful decoding occurs at the destination or a maximum number M of rounds is reached. We study the performance of HARQ-IR over the considered relay channel from an information theoretic perspective. We derive for instance exact expressions and bounds for the information outage probability, the average number of transmissions, and the average transmission rate. The derived exact expressions are validated by Monte Carlo simulations.
Continual improvement and assessment plan for Mechanical Engineering Programme in UNITEN

This paper describes the continuous quality improvement (CQI) process plan that was developed and implemented by the Department of Mechanical Engineering (DME), Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN), Malaysia for its Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering Programme. The plan is part of the Outcome-Based Education (OBE) system that is required by the Engineering Accreditation Council (EAC) of Malaysia. DME has implemented OBE approach in the programme for the past 3 years. Throughout the implementation process, the Department has developed ongoing assessment and CQI plan to measure the outcomes and improve the teaching and learning process. This plan, which was first implemented at the end of 2006, has generally shown a positive trend in the teaching and learning process in the programme. This paper also discusses the assessment tools that are used in the continuous quality improvement (CQI) plan. Assessment is one of the important parts in the CQI plan. Direct and indirect measurement methods are used to gather the data which are to be analysed to measure the outcome attainment. The attainment results are used to identify the areas that need to be improved. The assessment plan has been continuously improved to be more effective in measuring the achievement of the OBE implementation in the department.
Profit Versus Energy Efficiency Maximization in Regular Topology Cellular Networks

This letter investigates the performance of cellular networks of a regular topology by proposing a profit maximization problem in which the center of each base station (BS) is d distance apart and each BS is Erlang-loaded. The profit of our interest is defined as the difference between the revenue earned from the average data rate of accepted users and the transmission and maintenance power costs. Compared with energy efficiency (EE) maximization in the literature, the proposed profit maximization problem enables us to price the average data rate for a BS to be profitable, to show a minimal traffic load from which a BS becomes profitable, and to show an optimal traffic load at which the maximum profit and EE can be achieved.
Built to Last or Meant to End: Intertemporal Choice in Strategic Alliance Portfolios

A salient but rarely explicitly studied characteristic of interfirm relationships is that they can intentionally be formed for finite periods of time. What determines firms' intertemporal choices between different alliance time horizons? Shadow of the future theorists suggest that when an alliance has an explicitly set short-term time frame, there is an increased risk that partners may behave opportunistically. This does not readily explain the high incidence of time-bound alliances being formed. Reconciling insights from the shadow of the future perspective with nascent research on the flexibility of temporary organizations, and shifting the focus from the level of individual transactions to that of strategic alliance portfolios, we argue that firms may be willing to accept a higher risk of opportunism when there are offsetting gains in strategic flexibility in managing their strategic alliance portfolio. Consequently, we hypothesize that environmental factors that increase the need for strategic flexibility—namely, dynamism and complexity in the environment—are likely to increase the relative share of time-bound alliances in strategic alliance portfolios. Our analysis of longitudinal data on the intertemporal alliance choices of a large sample of small and medium-sized enterprises provides support for this argument. Our findings fill an important gap in theory about time horizons in interfirm relationships and temporary organizations and show the importance of separating planned terminations from duration-based performance measures.
Fuzzy Pi Adaptive Learning Controller for Controlling the Angle of Attack of an Aircraft

In this paper, a Fuzzy PI Adaptive Learning controller is proposed for a flight control system to control the angle of attack of an aircraft. The proposed controller tracks the reference angle as desired by the pilot of the aircraft. The performance indices are evaluated and the corresponding value is compared with that for the conventional controllers obtained from Zigler Nichols (ZN), Tyreus Luyben (TL) and Extended Skogestad Internal Model Controller (ESIMC). The performance indices such as Mean Square Error (MSE), Integral Absolute Error (IAE) and Integral Absolute Time Error (IATE) are evaluated to verify superiority of one over another.