Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cynomolgus Monkeys (Macaca fascicularis) as an Experimental Infection Model for Human Group A Rotavirus

Group A rotaviruses (RVA) are one of the most common causes of severe acute gastroenteritis in infants worldwide. Rotaviruses spread from person to person, mainly by faecal–oral transmission. Almost all unvaccinated children may become infected with RVA in the first two years of life. The establishment of an experimental monkey model with RVA is important to evaluate new therapeutic approaches. In this study, we demonstrated viral shedding and viraemia in juvenile–adult Macaca fascicularis orally inoculated with Wa RVA prototype. Nine monkeys were inoculated orally: seven animals with human RVA and two control animals with saline solution. During the study, the monkeys were clinically monitored, and faeces and blood samples were tested for RVA infection. In general, the inoculated animals developed an oligosymptomatic infection pattern. The main clinical symptoms observed were diarrhoea in two monkeys for three days, associated with a reduction in plasmatic potassium content. Viral RNA was detected in seven faecal and five sera samples from inoculated animals, suggesting virus replication. Cynomolgus monkeys are susceptible hosts for human Wa RVA infection. When inoculated orally, they presented self-limited diarrhoea associated with presence of RVA infectious particles in faeces. Thus, cynomolgus monkeys may be useful as animal models to evaluate the efficacy of new antiviral approaches.
Adverse Oncologic Impact of New-Onset Diabetes Mellitus on Recurrence in Resected Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma: A Comparison With Long-standing and Non–Diabetes Mellitus Patients

Objectives Diabetes mellitus (DM) is prevalent with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Importantly, new-onset DM is characteristic of the disease and could be an early sign of PDAC. The clinical outcome of PDAC with new-onset DM may differ from that in patients without DM or long-standing DM. Methods We retrospectively reviewed medical records of PDAC patients who underwent curative resection between 2006 and 2014. New-onset DM was defined as a diagnosis of DM within 24 months before the diagnosis of PDAC. Survival analysis and Cox regression were performed to evaluate oncologic outcomes. Results No significant differences in clinical characteristics were found in 3 groups. Overall survival of patients with new-onset DM was worse than non-DM (22 vs 33 months, P = 0.039). New-onset DM was highly associated with early recurrence (hazard ratio, 1.451; 95% confidence interval, 1.054–1.999; P = 0.022). Poor oncologic outcome of new-onset DM was more pronounced in low T stage patients (overall survival in low vs high T stage, 33 vs 18 months; P = 0.129). Conclusions Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma with new-onset DM has worse oncologic outcomes than non-DM or long-standing DM. These results suggest that new-onset DM represents aggressive tumor biology, especially in the early stage of PDAC.
Traffic capacity implications of automated vehicles mixed with regular vehicles

ABSTRACT Automated vehicles (AVs) have begun to receive tremendous interest among researchers and decision-makers because of their substantial safety and mobility benefits. Although much research has been reported regarding the implications of Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) and Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) technologies for highway capacity, to our knowledge, evaluations of the impacts of AVs are rare. AVs can be divided into two categories, cooperative and autonomous. Cooperative AVs, unlike Autonomous AVs, can communicate with other vehicles and infrastructure, thereby providing better sensing and anticipation of preceding vehicles' actions, which would have an impact on traffic flow characteristics. This paper proposes an analytical framework for quantifying and evaluating the impacts of AVs on the capacities of highway systems. To achieve this goal, the behavior of AVs technologies incorporated on the car-following and lane-merging modules in the traffic micro-simulation model, based on which an estimate of the achievable capacity is derived. To consider the period before AVs account for a majority of the vehicles in traffic networks, the proposed model considers combinations of vehicles with varying market penetration. The results indicate that a maximum lane capacity of 6,450 vph per lane (300% improvement) is achievable if all vehicles are driven in a cooperative automated manner. Regarding the incorporation of autonomous AVs into the traffic stream, the achievable capacity appears highly insensitive to market penetration. The results of this research provide practitioners and decision-makers with knowledge regarding the potential capacity benefits of AVs with respect to market penetration and fleet conversion.
ISO 15190:2003 Medical Laboratories - Requirements for Safety

Summary ISO 15190:2003 is a new standard developed by the International Organization for Standardization to address the safety aspects of medical laboratories. It is directly linked to the ISO 15189:2003, the standard for quality and competence. It provides a framework for a safety program based upon the principles of quality management, including designation of responsibilities and authorities, regular audits, and continuous improvement.
Ion Channels and Transporters in Inflammation: Special Focus on TRP Channels and TRPC6

Allergy and autoimmune diseases are characterised by a multifactorial pathogenic background. Several genes involved in the control of innate and adaptive immunity have been associated with diseases and variably combine with each other as well as with environmental factors and epigenetic processes to shape the characteristics of individual manifestations. Systemic or local perturbations in salt/water balance and in ion exchanges between the intra- and extracellular spaces or among tissues play a role. In this field, usually referred to as elementary immunology, novel evidence has been recently acquired on the role of members of the transient potential receptor (TRP) channel family in several cellular mechanisms of potential significance for the pathophysiology of the immune response. TRP canonical channel 6 (TRPC6) is emerging as a functional element for the control of calcium currents in immune-committed cells and target tissues. In fact, TRPC6 influences leukocytes’ tasks such as transendothelial migration, chemotaxis, phagocytosis and cytokine release. TRPC6 also modulates the sensitivity of immune cells to apoptosis and influences tissue susceptibility to ischemia-reperfusion injury and excitotoxicity. Here, we provide a view of the interactions between ion exchanges and inflammation with a focus on the pathogenesis of immune-mediated diseases and potential future therapeutic implications.
Boundary spanners' knowledge sharing for innovation success in turbulent times

Purpose This paper aims to enrich knowledge management theory and practice by investigating how boundary spanners’ willingness to share their knowledge contributes to innovation success and by examining the contingent role of market turbulence. Design/methodology/approach Cross-sectional survey data were collected from 296 top income Hungarian firms. Structural equation modelling with bootstrap procedures was used to test the hypotheses. Findings Boundary spanners’ willingness to share their knowledge has a dual effect on innovation success, which is captured by new product development innovativeness and performance. It has a direct effect on both new product development innovativeness and performance, and it has a mediated effect on new product development performance, where new product development innovativeness serves as a mediator. The study’s results indicate that these effects are robust and not contingent on the turbulence of the firm’s marketplace. Research limitations/implications This study’s respondents were managers in boundary-spanning positions charged with the task of linking the organisation with its external environment. Owing to their proximity to the external environment, their evaluation of market turbulence may be distorted. Practical implications Maintaining the willingness of managers in boundary-spanning positions to share what they know is essential to the continuous creation of superior new product development performance. Hence, firms should develop organisational cultures where employees’ knowledge-sharing willingness is presented as an important asset. While turbulent markets may be unpredictable and hostile, firms should not adjust their knowledge management practices. Originality/value Building on the research on knowledge sharing, boundary spanning theory and contingency theory, this paper increases the understanding of the salient factors that are often implicitly assumed in mechanisms involved in transforming knowledge into new product performance. This is the first empirical study to focus on boundary spanners’ knowledge behaviour and to consider the contingent role of market turbulence in knowledge management.
PTPP: Preference-Aware Trajectory Privacy-Preserving over Location-Based Social Networks

net Trajectory privacy-preserving for Location-based Social Networks (LBSNs) has been received much attention to protect the sensitive location information of subscribers from leaking. Existing trajectory privacy-preserving schemes in literature are confronted with three problems: 1) it is limited for privacy-preserving by only considering the location anonymization in practical environment, and the sensitive locations are always revealed by this way; 2) they fail to consider the user preference and background information in trajectory anonymization, which is important to keep personalized location-based service; 3) they can not be adapted to different kinds of privacy risk levels, resulting in low the service precision. To tackle the above problems, we propose PTPP, a preference-aware trajectory privacy-preserving scheme. First, we model the user preference by considering geographical information, semantical information, movement pattern, user familiarity and location popularity. Then, we classify the privacy risk levels according to user familiarity and location popularity. Finally, we propose a prefer-ence-aware trajectory anonymization algorithm by considering privacy risk levels. The experimental results show that our method outperforms the existing method in terms of data utility and efficiency.
Cardiac MRI assessment in children and young adults with end-stage renal disease .

Assessment of cardiovascular structure and dysfunction is imperative as cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in pediatric patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Cardiac magnetic resonance allows for accurate measurement of myocardial volumes, global function, and regional deformation (strain). We studied 38 patients aged from 11 to 26 years: 10 on hemodialysis (HD), 10 on peritoneal dialysis (PD), and 18 post renal transplantation (RT). First, we found no difference in the amount of left ventricular hypertrophy among the three cohorts, but we did find uncontrolled hypertension and black race to be independently associated with increased normalized left ventricular mass. We found left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) to be significantly higher in patients after RT compared to those on HD. There was no significant difference in peak systolic circumferential strain (Ecc) among the 3 groups, however, 7 of 9 participants with normal LVEF had low Ecc. We also found a strong association between uncontrolled hypertension and reduced Ecc. These findings indicate the presence of subclinical cardiac dysfunction and the importance of proper management of hypertension in pediatric patients with ESRD.
Gene Selection and Classification in Microarray Datasets using a Hybrid Approach of PCC-BPSO/GA with Multi Classifiers

In this study, a three-phase hybrid approach is proposed for the selection and classification of high dimensional microarray data. The method uses Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient (PCC) in combination with Binary Particle Swarm Optimization (BPSO) or Genetic Algorithm (GA) along with various classifiers, thereby forming a PCC-BPSO/GA-multi classifiers approach. As such, five various classifiers are employed in the final stage of the classification. It was noticed that the PCC filter showed a remarkable improvement in the classification accuracy when it was combined with BPSO or GA. This positive impact was seen to be varied for different datasets based on the final applied classifier. The performance of various combination of the hybrid technique was compared in terms of accuracy and number of selected genes. In addition to the fact that BPSO is working faster than GA, it was noticed that BPSO has better performance than GA when it is combined with PCC feature selection.
Analysis of the contribution of phosphoinositides to medial septation in fission yeast highlights the importance of PI(4,5)P2 for medial contractile ring anchoring

In Schizosaccharomyces pombe, loss of the plasma membrane PI4-kinase scaffold Efr3 leads to sliding of the cytokinetic ring (CR) away from the cell center during anaphase, implicating phosphoinositides (PIPs) in CR anchoring. However, whether other PIP regulators contribute to CR anchoring has not been investigated. Here we report that mutants of other PIP kinases and their regulators divide with off-center septa, similar to efr3∆. Using new biosensors for S. pombe PIPs, we confirm that these mutants have disrupted PIP composition. We extend a previous finding that a mutant known to decrease PI(3,5)P2 levels indirectly affects CR positioning by increasing vacuole size which disrupts nuclear position at the onset of mitosis. Indeed, we found that other mutants with increased vacuole size also disrupt medial division via this mechanism. Although elevated plasma membrane PI(4,5)P2 levels do not affect medial cytokinesis, mutants with decreased levels display CR sliding events indicating a specific role for PI(4,5)P2 in CR anchoring.
Confirmation of Zika virus infection through hospital-based sentinel surveillance of acute febrile illness in Uganda,  2014-2017.

Zika virus (ZIKV), transmitted by Aedes species mosquitoes, was first isolated in Uganda in 1947. From February 2014 to October 2017, the Uganda Virus Research Institute, in collaboration with the US Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention, conducted arbovirus surveillance in acute febrile illness (AFI) patients at St Francis hospital in Nkonkonjeru. Three hundred and eighty-four serum samples were collected and tested for IgM antibodies to yellow fever virus (YFV), West Nile virus (WNV), dengue virus (DENV), chikungunya virus (CHIKV) and ZIKV. Of the 384 samples, 5 were positive for ZIKV IgM. Of these five, three were confirmed by plaque reduction neutralization test (PRNT) to be ZIKV infections. Of the remaining two, one was determined to be a non-specific flavivirus infection and one was confirmed to be alphavirus-positive by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). This study provides the first evidence of laboratory-confirmed ZIKV infection in Uganda in five decades, and emphasizes the need to enhance sentinel surveillance.
Predicting Object-Oriented Class Fault-Proneness: A Replication Study

Fault-proneness is a software quality attribute. It refers to the extent to which a software module is prone to faults. In object-oriented software development, the class is the basic design unit, and its quality affects the software’s overall quality. Fault-proneness cannot be measured during early software development phases before the faults are detected and fixed. Several studies empirically explored the ability of statistical-based models that use other software artifacts known at early software development phases to predict fault-proneness. In this paper, we report a replication study that empirically investigated models’ ability based on six well-known and commonly applied design quality measures to predict class fault-proneness using five Java open-source systems. The results indicated that in most cases, the models based on the considered quality measures were found to be statistically significant class fault-proneness predictors. In addition, considering the measures in combination allows for building prediction models with acceptable classification performance.
Utilizing Connection Usage Characteristics for Faster Web Data Transport

The quest for faster data transport to improve web user experience is ongoing and attempts are conducted from various fronts to realize it. On top of improving user experience, the implications of improving web data transport are also on the energy efficiency of wireless devices as well as user retention rates of service providers. HTTP/1.x allow the opening of multiple TCP connections per server and then using those connections for fetching multiple web objects through the use of HTTP pipelining. With the advent of HTTP/2.0, multiplexing is done inside a single connection to fetch multiple objects. In this paper, we analyze the TCP connections between the browser and the servers and examine their characteristics. We describe how an enhanced TCP variant can take advantage of data transport connection patterns. We show the benefits that enhanced TCP system can bring with the understanding of connection usage patterns. We find that such transport protocol can have effect in the page idle times as well as the connection concurrency during web page transfer. The results show significant improvement of page load times for both encryption heavy and unencrypted pages. We discuss the effect of the transport protocol on object transfer, connection duration, idle times during the page load, connections, and concurrency of flows that cumulate into page load times.
Drought-induced senescence of Medicago truncatula nodules involves serpin and ferritin to control proteolytic activity and iron levels.

Drought is a major constraint for legume growth and yield. Senescence of nitrogen-fixing nodules is one of the early drought responses and may cause nutrient stress in addition to water stress in legumes. For nodule senescence to function as part of a drought-survival strategy, we propose that the intrinsically destructive senescence process must be tightly regulated. Medicago truncatula protease inhibitor and iron scavenger-encoding genes, possibly involved in controlling nodule senescence, were identified. RNA interference (RNAi) lines were constructed in which expression of a serpin or ferritins was knocked down. Both wild-type and RNAi lines were subjected to drought stress and nodule activity and plant physiological responses were measured. Drought caused M. truncatula to initiate nodule senescence before plant growth was affected and before an increase in papain-like proteolytic activity and free iron levels was apparent. Knock-down expression of serpin6 and ferritins caused increased protease activity, free iron levels, early nodule senescence and reduced plant growth. The results suggest that M. truncatula nodule-expressed serpin6 and ferritins mediate ordered drought-induced senescence by regulating papain-like cysteine protease activity and free iron levels. This strategy may allow the drought-stressed plants to benefit maximally from residual nitrogen fixation and nutrient recovery resulting from break down of macromolecules.
The Effect of Packet Redundancy Elimination Technique in Sensor Networks

A lot of sensor nodes which are able to sense, process and communicate with external base station with the data obtained from external environment belong to a class of adhoc networks called wireless sensor networks. The main challenge in sensor network is to increase the life time of the network thereby reducing duplicate by detecting the redundant information. While the communication energy-efficiency is necessary to increase the lifetime of the sensor network, an important implementation is to reduce duplicate packets which are considered as a serious issue in these networks. Here the network is hierarchical. The nodes which are intermediate collects information from the source node. These intermediate nodes have their own as well as additional information about the sensed data . This causes redundancy. The redundancy propagates further to the nodes above the network. The main purpose is to detect the packet level redundancy and then to eliminate it. As the nodes are continuously transferring data from sender to receiver and also the sensor nodes consume lot of energy for transmission the data redundancy must be avoided sometimes in order to avoid the loss of needed packets for some critical applications. The packet redundancy elimination hashing algorithm by Rabin Karp is to focus on the identification and elimination of the packet level redundancy with less energy consumption thereby receiving the data with reduction of duplicity. The performance analysis is on energy level of the network and on packet delivery. The level of energy possessed by the nodes in varying time period is noted. The energy levels for existing and proposed methods are compared. The comparison is made with time and energy level of the nodes. The bandwidth of the network is also compared and improved bandwidth is up to 65% in sensor networks when compared with conventional networks.
The Effects of Information Technology Expertise on the Market Value of a Firm

Based on 96 CIO appointments during 1987–1998, Chatterjee et al. (2001) conclude that newly created CIO positions add value to the firm. This paper reexamines that conclusion by using the market's reaction to existing position appointments to benchmark the market's reaction to newly created position appointments. Based on 461 CIO appointments to new and existing CIO positions during 1987–2002, we find no significant difference in the market's reaction to the two types of announcements over the entire sample period. This finding holds when we allow for the market's perception of the value of information technology to shift over time. We also find evidence that the market penalizes firms that fail to move quickly enough to obtain potential strategic advantages from new CIO positions, consistent with first mover advantages. Finally, consistent with Ang et al. (2003) who examine CEO appointments, we find that markets discriminate among newly appointed CIOs in that CIO quality characteristics are associated as.
Striatal subdivisions that coherently interact with multiple cerebrocortical networks

The striatum constitutes the cortical‐basal ganglia loop and receives input from the cerebral cortex. Previous MRI studies have parcellated the human striatum using clustering analyses of structural/functional connectivity with the cerebral cortex. However, it is currently unclear how the striatal regions functionally interact with the cerebral cortex to organize cortical functions in the temporal domain. In the present human functional MRI study, the striatum was parcellated using boundary mapping analyses to reveal the fine architecture of the striatum by focusing on local gradient of functional connectivity. Boundary mapping analyses revealed approximately 100 subdivisions of the striatum. Many of the striatal subdivisions were functionally connected with specific combinations of cerebrocortical functional networks, such as somato‐motor (SM) and ventral attention (VA) networks. Time‐resolved functional connectivity analyses further revealed coherent interactions of multiple connectivities between each striatal subdivision and the cerebrocortical networks (i.e., a striatal subdivision‐SM connectivity and the same striatal subdivision‐VA connectivity). These results suggest that the striatum contains a large number of subdivisions that mediate functional coupling between specific combinations of cerebrocortical networks.