Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Serotype-related HEp-2 cell interaction of Yersinia enterocolitica

The ability of human clinical isolates of Yersinia enterocolitica to interact with HEp-2 cells was found to vary considerably between the serotypes O:3, O:8, and O:9. Although all three serotypes adhered initially to the cell surface, regardless of incubation temperature of the bacterial inoculum or presence of the 40- to 48-megadalton virulence plasmid, the ability to localize intracellularly was not uniformly expressed. By using a combined light optical method based on differential interference contrast and UV incident light microscopy, we found that in serotype O:3, resistance to internalization was dependent upon prior growth at 37 degrees C and carriage of the virulence plasmid; in serotype O:9, this property was plasmid dependent but not temperature dependent; in serotype O:8, it was constitutive. The ability of serotype O:3 to resist internalization was correlated with the expression of plasmid-associated fibrillae on the bacterial surface. No relationship between fibrillation and HEp-2 cell interaction was apparent for serotype O:8 or O:9. Serotypes O:8 and O:9, unlike the O:3 strains studied, associated with HEp-2 cells in greater number after cultivation at 22 degrees C than after cultivation at 37 degrees C. We failed to establish a correlation between the expression of surface fibrillae and the ability to evoke guinea pig conjunctivitis.
Volume increases in putamen associated with positive symptom reduction in previously drug-naive schizophrenia after 6 weeks antipsychotic treatment

Background Brain structure appears to alter after antipsychotic administration, but it is unknown whether these alterations are associated with improvement of psychopathology in patients with schizophrenia. In this study, the authors explore this relationship. Method Altogether, 66 first-episode, drug-naive patients with schizophrenia and 23 well-matched healthy controls underwent brain magnetic resonance imaging scans at baseline. All 23 healthy controls and 42 of the patients were rescanned after 6 weeks follow-up. The patients received regular antipsychotic treatment during the 6-week period and their psychopathology was assessed using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) at baseline and 6 weeks. The difference in PANSS scores between baseline and 6 weeks was expressed as a ratio of the scores at baseline – ‘PANSS reduction ratio’. A modified tensor-based morphometry procedure was applied to analyse longitudinal images. Correlations between regional volume changes, PANSS reduction ratio and antipsychotic drug dosages were explored. Results Compared with healthy controls, there was a significant increase in grey-matter volume of the right putamen in patients after 6 weeks treatment. This volume change was positively correlated with a positive PANSS reduction score but not related to drug dosages. Conclusions Putaminal volume increased after 6 weeks antipsychotic treatment in first-episode schizophrenia. The increased volume was closely correlated with improved psychopathology, suggesting the putamen might be a biomarker to predict the treatment response in schizophrenia.
Flow cytometric analysis of DNA ploidy pattern from deparaffinized formalin‐fixed gastric cancer tissue

Histologically processed tissue from gastric cancers has been analyzed by flow cytometry in an attempt to correlate DNA ploidy pattern and behavior of the tumor. Of the mucosal and submucosal cancers (so‐called early, all stage I in the present series), 62.7% show a diploid DNA pattern and 37.3% show a single aneuploid pattern. Of the deeply infiltrating (beyond the submucosa) cancers (stage II and III), 52.1% are single aneuploid and 47.9% are multiploid. While stage‐I patients are all alive at the end of the follow‐up period (6 years), in stage II and III cases Cox's regression model shows that the hazard function depends on DNA pattern: survival is negatively influenced by multiploidy. On this basis, it may be assumed that the DNA pattern is a useful prognostic indicator of gastric cancer. As expected, in Cox's regression model an even more important negative correlation exists between survival and stage: single aneuploid cases in stage II have a better prognosis than those in stage III. Instead, no correlation is found between histological cancer subtype (Laurén and WHO classifications), grade and DNA pattern.
Human Action Recognition by Negative Space Analysis

we propose a novel region-based method to recognize human actions by analyzing regions surrounding the human body, termed as negative space according to art theory, whereas other region-based approaches work with silhouette of the human body. We find that negative space provides sufficient information to describe each pose. It can also overcome some limitations of silhouette based methods such as leaks or holes in the silhouette. Each negative space can be approximately represented by simple shapes, resulting in computationally inexpensive feature description that supports fast and accurate action recognition. The proposed system has obtained 100% accuracy on the Weizmann human action dataset and is found more robust with respect to partial occlusion, shadow, noisy segmentation and non-rigid deformation of actions than other methods.
Early Prediction of Software Fault-Prone Module using Artificial Neural Network

Prediction of software modules into fault-prone (FP) and not-fault-prone (NFP) categories using software metrics allows prioritization of testing resources to fault-prone modules for achieving higher reliability growth and cost effectiveness. This paper proposes an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model with use of Sensitivity Analysis (SA-ANN) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA-ANN) for dimensionality reduction of the prediction problem. In SA-ANN model, a non-linear logarithmic scaling approach is used to scale metrics values, which improves quality of ANN training, followed by sensitivity analysis to rank and choose top Sensitivity Casual Index (SCI) value metrics. In PCA-ANN model, PCA is used for reducing dimensions of the problem and then the reduced dimension data is scaled using logarithmic function followed by training and prediction by ANN model. Simulations are carried out for four benchmark datasets to evaluate and compare the classification accuracy of proposed models with existing models. It has been found that non-linear scaling has good effect on predictive capability and PCA-ANN model provides higher accuracy than SA-ANN model and some other existing models for four datasets.
Transport systems for branched-chain amino acids in Pseudomonas aeruginosa

The cells of Pseudomonas aeruginosa showed high activity for leucine transport in the absence of Na+, giving a Km value of 0.34 microM. In the presence of Na+, however, two Km values, 0.37 microM (LIV-I system) and 7.6 microM (LIV-II system), were obtained. The former system seemed to serve not only for the entry of leucine, isoleucine, and valine, but also for that of alanine and threonine, although less effectively. However, the LIV-II system served for the entry of branched-chain amino acids only. The LIV-II system alone was operative in membrane vesicles, for the transport of branched-chain amino acids in membrane vesicles required Na+ and gave single Km values for the respective amino acids. When cells were osmotically shocked, the activity of the LIV-I system decreased, whereas the LIV-II system remained unaffected. The shock fluid from P. aeruginosa cells showed leucine-binding activity with a dissociation constant of 0.25 microM. The specificity of the activity was very similar to that of the LIV-I system. These results suggest that a leucine-binding protein(s) in the periplasmic space may be required for the transport process via the LIV-I system of P. aeruginosa.
Small Infrared Target Detection Based on Weighted Local Difference Measure

Against an intricate infrared cloudy-sky background, jamming objects such as the edges of clouds in the scene have a similar thermal intensity measure with respect to the background as small targets. This may cause high false alarm rates and low probabilities of detection according to conventional small target detection methods. In this paper, we propose a weighted local difference measure (WLDM)-based scheme for the detection of small targets against various complex cloudy-sky backgrounds. Initially, a WLDM map is achieved to simultaneously enhance targets and suppress background clutters and noise. In this way, the true targets can be easily separated from jamming objects. After that, a simple adaptive threshold is used to segment the targets. More than 460 infrared small target images against diverse intricate cloudy-sky backgrounds were utilized to validate the detection capability of the WLDM-based method. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm not only works more robustly for different cloudy-sky backgrounds, target movements, and signal-to-clutter ratio (SCR) values but also has a better performance with regard to the detection accuracy, in comparison to traditional baseline methods. In particular, the proposed method is able to significantly improve SCR values of the images.
Primary closure using Redon drains vs vacuum-assisted closure in post-sternotomy mediastinitis.

OBJECTIVES Vacuum-assisted closure (VAC) is a commonly used therapy for the treatment of post-sternotomy mediastinitis. Primary closure of the sternum with high vacuum suction using Redon drains is an alternative that may reduce hospital stay. The aim of this study was to describe for the first time, the results of VAC compared with Redon drainage. METHODS We performed a retrospective analysis of 132 patients undergoing VAC (n = 89) or primary closure of the sternum with Redon drains (n = 43) as treatment for post-sternotomy mediastinitis between January 2000 and January 2011. Patient characteristics, risk factors and procedure-related variables were analysed. Duration of therapy, treatment failure, hospital stay and mortality as well as C-reactive protein and blood leucocyte counts on admission and at various time intervals during hospital stay were determined. RESULTS In-hospital mortality was 12.5% in the VAC group compared with 14% in the Redon group (P = 0.96). Treatment failure in the VAC and Redon groups occurred in 28 and 23% of the patients, respectively (P = 0.68). Intensive-care stay in the VAC group was 6.8 ± 14.4 days, and 4.8 ± 10.1 days in the Redon group (P = 0.99). Hospitalization in the VAC group was 74 ± 61 days and in the Redon group, 45 ± 38 days (P = 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS Primary closure using high vacuum suction drains is a safe and feasible treatment modality for post-sternotomy mediastinitis. It reduces hospital stay when compared with VAC therapy, without compromising mortality.
Suicide mitigation: time for a more realistic approach.

One of the great myths of health politics is that risk can ultimately be eliminated if we have the right policies, procedures, and therapies. However, in areas where health professionals feel ill equipped to manage risk, those same expectations can be a powerful disincentive, discouraging the acknowledgement and assessment of risk. When patients present with suicidal thoughts or following self harm, fear of accusation of suboptimal clinical expertise or even litigation if the patient goes on to complete a suicide may dissuade many clinicians from enquiring too deeply. This is in case they acknowledge a risk they will then be expected to manage, but which they do not believe they have the means to control. Thus, the pervasive expectation that risk must be controlled and preferably eliminated could paradoxically increase suicide risk rather than reduce it. GPs appear willing to identify suicide risk in patients with a diagnosed mental illness. A study by Pearson et al 1 investigated the frequency and nature of general practice consultations for 247 patients with a known mental illness, also in contact with specialist mental health services in the year before their suicide. In 91% of suicides the patient consulted their GP in the year before their death, half having their final GP consultation in the month before death and a sixth in the week before death. Malone et al highlighted a lack of documentation of suicide risk by mental health professionals.2 Possible factors may include not appreciating that the patient was at risk from suicide or self harm, not asking the right questions, or not understanding what the patient wanted to convey. There may be difficulty …
A novel ZCS non-isolated bidirectional buck-boost DC-DC converter for energy storage applications

This paper proposes a new ZCS non-isolated bidirectional buck-boost DC-DC converter for energy storage applications. The conventional bidirectional converter was derived with auxiliary resonant cell to obtain ZCS turn-on/turn-off condition of the main switches. The proposed converter was operated in boost and buck modes with soft-switching operations in order to minimize the current stresses and switching losses, because the resonating current for the zero current switching does not flow through the main switches. The converter has an improved overall efficiency than the hard-switching converter, for high power energy storage applications. This paper mainly describes the operation principles of the proposed topology and experimental verification of theoretical analysis of the simulation results.
The murine fem1 gene family: homologs of the Caenorhabditis elegans sex-determination protein FEM-1.

The pathway controlling sex determination in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is a model for the genetic control of cell-fate determination. We report here the cloning and characterization of a new mouse gene family with homology to FEM-1, a signal-transducing regulator in the C. elegans sex-determination pathway. This gene family consists of two known members, designated Fem1a and Fem1b. The highest degree of homology between the two mouse proteins and the nematode protein is in a domain that encodes seven sequential ANK repeats. The Fem1a gene localizes to chromosome 17 and is highly expressed in adult heart and skeletal muscle. The Fem1b gene localizes to chromosome 9 and is highly expressed in adult testis. Both genes are expressed during embryogenesis. The existence of FEM-1 homologs in the mouse raises the possibility that evolutionary conservation of ancient FEM-1 signaling interactions may play a role in vertebrate cell-fate determination.
Puppets of Nostalgia: The Life, Death, and Rebirth of the Japanese Awaji Ningyō Tradition@@@Puppets of Nostalgia: The Life, Death, and Rebirth of the Japanese Awaji Ningyo Tradition

AcknowledgmentsIntroduction. Of Stories and Fragments31In the Shape of a Person: The Varieties of Ritual Uses of Effigy in Japan172Kadozuke: The Outsider at the Gates493A Crippled Deity, a Priest, and a Puppet: Kugutsu and Ebisu-kaki of the Nishinomiya Shrine894A Dead Priest, an Angry Deity, a Fisherman, and a Puppet: The Narrative Origins of Awaji Ningyo1375Puppets of the Road, Puppets of the Field: Shiki Sanbaso, Ebisu-mai, and Puppetry Festivals on Awaji1646Puppets and Whirlpools: Icons, Nostalgia, Regionalism, and Identity in the Revival of Awaji Ningyo204Epilogue265Notes267Bibliography301Index313
The Intergenerational Impact of Genetic and Psychological Factors on Blood Pressure Study (InterGEN): Design and Methods for Recruitment and Psychological Measures.

BACKGROUND Although studies show that genomics and environmental stressors affect blood pressure, few studies have examined their combined effects, especially in African Americans. OBJECTIVE We present the recruitment methods and psychological measures of the Intergenerational Impact of Genetic and Psychological Factors on Blood Pressure (InterGEN) study, which seeks to investigate the individual and combined effects of genetic (G) and environmental (E) (psychological) stressors on blood pressure in African American mother-child dyads. Genetic methods are presented elsewhere, but here we present the recruitment methods, psychological measures, and analysis plan for these environmental stressors. METHODS This longitudinal study will enroll 250 mother-child dyads (N = 500). Study participation is restricted to women who (a) are ≤21 years of age, (b) self-identify as African American or Black, (c) speak English, (d) do not have an identified mental illness or cognitive impairment, and (e) have a biological child between 3 and 5 years old. The primary environmental stressors assessed are parenting stress, perceived racism and discrimination, and maternal mental health. Covariates include age, cigarette smoking (for mothers), and gender (for children). The study outcome variables are systolic and diastolic blood pressure. ANALYSIS The main analytic outcome is genetic-by-environment interaction analyses (G × E); however, main effects (G) and (E) will be individually assessed first. Genetic (G) and interaction analyses (G × E) are described in a companion paper and will include laboratory procedures. Statistical modeling of environmental stressors on blood pressure will be done using descriptive statistics and generalized estimating equation models. IMPLICATIONS The methodology presented here includes the study rationale, community engagement and recruitment protocol, psychological variable measurement, and analysis plan for assessing the association of environmental stressors and blood pressure. This study may provide the foundation for other studies and development of interventions to reduce the risk for hypertension and to propose targeted health promotion programs for this high-risk population.
Processing Skyline Queries in Incomplete Database: Issues, Challenges and Future Trends

In many contemporary database applications such as multi-criteria decision-making and real-time decision-support applications, data mining, e-commerce and recommendation systems, users need query operators to process the data aiming at finding the results that best fit with their preferences. Skyline queries are one of the most predominant query operators that privileges to find the query results that return only those data items whose dimension vector is not dominated by any other data item in the database. Because of their usefulness and ubiquity, skyline queries have been incorporated into different types of databases such as complete, incomplete and uncertain. This paper attempts to survey and analyze the previous works proposed to process skyline queries in the incomplete database. The discussion focuses on examining these approaches highlighting the strengths and the weaknesses of each work. Besides, we also discuss in detail the current challenges in processing skyline queries in the incomplete database and investigate the impact of incomplete data on skyline operation. A summary of the most well-known works has been reported to identify the limitations of these works. Some recommendations and future work directions have been drawn to help researchers investigate the unsolved problems related to skyline queries in a database system.
Intraspecific Variation in the Thermal Biology of Rabidosa rabida (Araneae: Lycosidae) (Walckenaer) from the Mountains of Arkansas

ABSTRACT Temperature affects all levels of biological organization and multiple aspects of ecological performance and fitness. Descriptions of thermal biology are, therefore, essential pieces of information for studying ecology in varying thermal environments. This paper describes the thermal biology of the spider Rabidosa rabida by using three common descriptive measures. Spiders were collected from two populations on mountains in Arkansas that share similar climate and vegetation. Maximum sprint speed across temperature was used to calculate an estimate of thermal sensitivity of locomotor ability. Spiders were placed in a thermal gradient to determine thermal preference. Spiders' body temperatures were increased or decreased until the ability to move was lost. Results were compared between the populations to describe intraspecific variation. Maximum sprint speed increased across temperatures showing moderate sensitivity (Q10 all spiders = between 1.74 and 2) except at the highest temperatures in males, and the lowest temperatures in both sexes. Maximum sprint speeds differed between populations (P < 0.05). The critical thermal maximum was shown to be 42.9°C ± 0.70. The critical thermal minimum was estimated at 0°C. Thermal preference of R. rabida was determined to be 31.9°C ± 0.44 showing no significant variation between populations. This study provides a first description of thermal biology in an ecologically important spider, and shows evidence of variation between thermal biology measures between populations with similar climate but no gene flow. Having adapted to various and changing conditions in the past, this spider and others like it can provide many ecologically and evolutionarily interesting lines of inquiry.
Developing Islanding Detection Arrangement for Grid on Sensing Voltage or Frequency Variation

As distributed generators increase their importance on the electric power system, more and more parameters have to be controlled in order to assure the proper operation of the utility. One of the main problems encountered with this kind of generation is the potential formation of islands which could keep working in a normal way even if the utility grid has failed. There are several power generation units connected to the grid such as hydel, thermal, solar etc to supply power to the load. These generating units need to supply power according to the rules of the grid. These rules involve maintaining a voltage variation within limits and also the frequency. As per CENTRAL ELECTRICTY AUTHORITY OF INDIA Regulations 2010, variation of the system voltage should be of +- 5 % and make all efforts to operate at a frequency close to 50 Hz and shall not allow it to go beyond the range 49.2 to 50.3 Hz or a narrower frequency band specified in the Grid Code, except during the transient period following tripping. If any deviation from the acceptable limit of the grid it is mandatory that the same feeder should automatically get disconnected from the grid which by effect is termed as islanding. This prevents in large scale brown out or black out of the grid power. So it is preferable to have a system which can warn the grid in advance so that alternate arrangements are kept on standby to avoid complete grid failure. A large number of methods for detecting the islanding condition are used. Requirements for the performance of these methods have been spelled out by the International Electro technical Commission (IEC), the Underwriters Laboratories Inc. (UL), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and several other ―National Standards‖. Currently, the anti-islanding methods are clearly grouped into three categories as a function of their operating mode. These three categories are: • Passive methods resident in the grid tied inverter. • Active methods resident in the grid tied inverter. • Methods not resident in the DG but communicating the DG and the utility. The paper is based on passive method to detect the synchronization failure of any external supply source to the power grid on sensing the abnormalities in frequency and voltage.
Achieving TCP fairness through power management in CDMA wireless networks

It is well known that TCP is unfair when connections with different round trip times share the same bottleneck. In the literature TCP fairness in wired networks has been widely studied but little effort has been devoted to this issue in wireless networks where new problems arise. Objective of this paper is investigating on the possibility of achieving TCP fairness through power management in wireless CDMA networks. The basic idea is to allow long round trip time connections, which are usually the most disadvantaged, to have higher signal-to-interference ratio levels. An analytical framework is introduced to calculate, for each mobile terminal, the appropriate transmission power giving fairness. The impact of such power management scheme on fairness and overall throughput performance is evaluated by means of both analysis and simulation.