Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bacterial genotypic and patient risk factors for adverse outcomes in Escherichia coli bloodstream infections: a prospective molecular epidemiological study

Background Escherichia coli bloodstream infections have increased rapidly in the UK, for reasons that are unclear. The relevance of highly fit, or multi-drug resistant lineages such as ST131 to overall E. coli disease burden remains to be fully determined. We set out to characterise the prevalence of E. coli multi-locus sequence types (MLST) and determine if these were associated with adverse outcomes in an urban population of E. coli bacteraemia patients. Methods We undertook whole genome sequencing of E. coli blood isolates from all patients with diagnosed E. coli bacteraemia in north-west London from July 2015 to August 2016 and assigned multi-locus sequence types to all isolates. Isolate sequence types were linked to routinely collected antimicrobial susceptibility, patient demographic, and clinical outcome data to explore relationships between the E. coli sequence types, patient factors, and outcomes. Findings A total of 551 E. coli genomes were available for analysis. More than half of these cases were caused by four E. coli sequence types: ST131 (21%), ST73 (15%), ST69 (9%) and ST95 (8%). E. coli genotype ST131-C2 was associated with non-susceptibility to quinolones and third-generation cephalosporins, and also to amoxicillin, augmentin, gentamicin and trimethoprim. An association between the ST131-C2 lineage and longer length-of-stay was detected, although multivariable regression modelling did not demonstrate an association between E. coli sequence type and mortality. However, a number of unexpected associations were identified, including gentamicin non-susceptibility, ethnicity, and sex that might influence mortality and length-of-stay, requiring further research. Interpretation Although E. coli sequence type was associated with antimicrobial non-susceptibility patterns and length-of-stay, we did not find that E. coli sequence type was associated with increased mortality. Where ST131 is prevalent, caution is required when pairing beta-lactam agents with gentamicin or using single agent aminoglycosides.
Planning in Financial Markets in Presence of Spikes: Using Machine Learning GBDT

Planning in financial markets is a difficult task as the method needs to dramatically change its behavior when facing very rare black swan events like crises that shift market regime. In order to address this challenge, we present a gradient boosting decision trees (GBDT) approach to predict large price drops in equity indexes from a set of 150 technical, fundamental and macroeconomic features. We report an improved accu-racy of GBDT over other machine learning (ML) methods on the S&amp;P 500 futures prices. We show that retaining fewer and carefully selected features provides improvements across all ML approaches. We show that this model has a strong predic-tive power. We train the model from 2000 to 2014, a period where various crises have been observed and use a validation period of 3 years to find hyperparameters. The fitted model timely forecasts the Covid crisis giving us a planning method for early detection of potential future crises.
Banking on Experience

Does bank experience reduce moral hazard in credit markets? Using U.S. corporate loan-level data, we find that, while experience with borrowers and co-lenders reinforces banks’ monitoring incentives, sector experience dilutes them, calling for larger involvement in lending syndicates. In cross-sectional tests, we dissect scenarios in which experience ameliorates lending outcomes. We interpret our findings through a loan syndication model in which experience eases monitoring, but sector experience raises salvage values after loan defaults. To attain identification, we exploit variation in experience at a point in time across firms, sectors, and co-lenders, and use bank mergers as instruments for bank experience.
Portable Fake Currency Detector in Indian Scenario

As of late, a ton of illicit forging rings make and sell counterfeit coins, and simultaneously counterfeit note cash is also printed, which have made incredible misfortune and harm the general public. Along these lines, it is basic to have the option to identify counterfeit cash. We propose another way to deal with identify counterfeit Indian notes utilizing their pictures. A cash picture is spoken to in the disparity space, which is a vector space developed by contrasting the picture and a lot of models. Each measurement quantifies the uniqueness between the picture viable and a model. To get the uniqueness between two pictures, the neighborhood key focuses on each picture are recognized and depicted. Because of the attributes of the cash, the coordinated key focuses on the two pictures can be recognized effectively. A post preparing strategy is additionally proposed to evacuate bungled key focuses. Because of the predetermined number of phony cash, SVM is directed for counterfeit money identification, so just real money are expected to prepare the classifier.Our country is a developing economy and creating a nation, generation, the printing of case duplication of 100 notes, 500 notes, 200 notes, and 2000 notes are debasing and falling apart the monetary development of our nation. From the most recent couple of years on account of innovative headway in shading printing, copying, and filtering, falsifying issues are coming into the picture. The acknowledgment of paper cash with the assistance of Arduino based innovation methods is portrayed.
Role of Phenolic Groups in the Stabilization of Palladium Nanoparticles

For carbon supported Pd catalysts, the surface properties of activated carbons (ACs) are closely related with the Pd particle size. In this study, phenolic groups were adjustably introduced on ACs by hydrothermally treating ACs under different temperatures (433–513 K). Pd/ACs catalysts were prepared by the wetness impregnation method and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), CO chemisorption, and H2-temperature-programmed reduction (TPR). The results revealed that the size of Pd nanoparticles (NPs) was highly dependent upon the amount of phenolic groups. The density functional theory (DFT) study suggested that the enhanced binding between palladium clusters and surface functional groups (SFGs) modified carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in the sequence: CNTs–O > CNTs–OH > CNTs–COOH > CNTs. Both the experimental and theoretical results suggested that phenolic groups on the surface of ACs play a vital role in the stabilization of Pd NPs, which provides insight into how to tr.
Objective Real-World Outcomes of Patients Suffering from Painful Neurogenic Claudication Treated with the mild® Procedure: Interim 6-Month Report of a Randomized Controlled Trial

Background Lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) is a serious degenerative condition of the spine that can cause significant functional disability. Therapies for these patients generally begin with conservative management, since more invasive interventions such as open surgery and spinal implants are associated with higher complication rates. Early in the treatment algorithm for LSS patients, multiple conventional medical management (CMM) therapies are often combined as an initial low-risk treatment strategy. This composite first-line treatment plan may include conservative care together with early interventional treatment options such as epidural steroid injections, radiofrequency ablation and the mild® Procedure. Methods This prospective randomized controlled trial evaluates patients aged 50 to 80 years treated with mild plus CMM, compared to those treated with CMM alone, as the active control. Walking tolerance test outcomes and incidence of subsequent disallowed procedures provided objective real-world outcome data. The incidence of device or procedure-related adverse events was analyzed. Follow-up includes 6-month, 1-year and 2-year assessments, with 1-year being primary. Patients in the mild+CMM group are followed at 3, 4, and 5 years. This is a report of interim 6-month outcomes. Results Of 155 patients enrolled at 19 US interventional pain management centers, 78 were allocated to CMM-Alone, and 77 to mild+CMM. At 6-months, the validated walking tolerance test demonstrated statistical superiority of mild+CMM versus CMM-Alone (p<0.001). The incidence of patients receiving a subsequent disallowed procedure, and thereby considered treatment failures in their study group, was statistically significantly higher in CMM-Alone versus mild+CMM (p<0.001). There were no device or procedure-related adverse events in either group. Conclusion At 6-months, the mild Procedure combined with CMM provided statistically superior objective real-world outcomes versus CMM-Alone. There were no device or procedure-related adverse events reported in either study group. With its excellent safety profile and superior efficacy, mild is uniquely positioned as early first-line therapy.
Cuffless blood pressure estimation based on haemodynamic principles: progress towards mobile healthcare.

Background Although cuff-sphygmomanometry is used worldwide in medical and healthcare fields, it is a fact that the use of an occlusive cuff to obtain blood pressure (BP) is troublesome and inconvenient. There have therefore been on-going efforts to devise methods that do not require the use of a cuff, almost all being based on the measurement of pulse wave velocity or pulse transit time, but so far few significant developments have been made, especially regarding measurement accuracy. We have previously reported a smartphone-based cuffless method using a linear multiple regression calibration model comprising of BP obtained with a cuff-sphygmomanometer as an objective variable and modified normalized pulse volume (mNPV: a measure of vasoconstrictive activity in a finger) and pulse rate (PR) as explanatory variables. This requires a number of subjects to construct a calibration model and thus is largely dependent on the accuracy due to the model. To address these drawbacks, we report here a new cuffless method to surpass considerably the results of our previous study as well as earlier works. Methods With this method we can estimate BP, with much higher accuracy, using mNPV and PR, both also obtained from a smartphone-derived photoplethysmogram. The subject firstly performs a cuff-based BP measurement in parallel with the acquisition of mNPV and PR from a smartphone. These parameters are set as initial values (BP c0, mNPV 0 and PR 0; initial calibration procedure). Then, the estimated BP (BP e) can be calculated from the relation: "BP e = (BP c0·PR·mNPV)/(PR 0·mNPV 0)", which is derived from the so-called haemodynamic Ohm's law. To validate this method, preliminary experiments using 13 volunteers were carried out to compare results from the new method with those from the cuff-sphygmomanometry, used as a reference. Results Altogether 299 paired data sets were analyzed: A good agreement was found between the cuff-based and the estimated BP values, with correlation coefficients of 0.968 for systolic BP (SBP), 0.934 for mean BP (MBP) and 0.844 for diastolic BP (DBP). Bland-Altman analyses for the BP e (SBP e, MBP e, DBP e) and the BP c (SBP c, MBP c, DBP c) values also supported these comparison results. Mean absolute differences between the BP e and the BP c values in total subjects were less than 5 mmHg. Fairly good tracking availability in terms of time series data of the BP c against the corresponding BP e values was also confirmed in each subject during the study periods (1-2 weeks for 12 subjects and about 4 months for one subject). Discussion The present study reported the successful development of the new cuffless BP estimation method, given as the status of a trial stage of investigation. This method could easily be used with various smartphones, smart watches, and finger-based devices, and it appears to have significant potential as a convenient substitute for conventional cuff-sphygmomanometers as well as for practical application to mobile healthcare.
Head and mandible shapes are highly integrated yet represent two distinct modules within and among worker subcastes of the ant genus Pheidole

Abstract Ants use their mandibles for a wide variety of tasks related to substrate manipulation, brood transport, food processing, and colony defense. Due to constraints involved in colony upkeep, ants evolved a remarkable diversity of mandibular forms, often related to specific roles such as specialized hunting and seed milling. Considering these varied functional demands, we focused on understanding how the mandible and head shape vary within and between Pheidole subcastes. Using x‐ray microtomography and 3D geometric morphometrics, we tested whether these structures are integrated and modular, and how ecological predictors influenced these features. Our results showed that mandible and head shape of majors and minor workers tend to vary from robust to slender, with some more complex changes related to the mandibular base. Additionally, we found that head and mandible shapes are characterized by a high degree of integration, but with little correlation with feeding and nesting habits. Our results suggest that a combination of structural (allometric) constraints and the behavioral flexibility conferred by subcaste dimorphism might largely buffer selective pressures that would otherwise lead to a fine‐tuning between ecological conditions and morphological adaptation.
Chinese-style incentives: The intraindustry ripple effects of CEO awards

Considering the background of traditional Chinese culture, which emphasizes that “when we see outstanding people, we should think of emulating them”, and social comparison theory, this study explores how CEO awards impact the R&D investment of award-winning CEOs’ competitors. The results show that award-winning CEOs’ competitors increase R&D investment in the postaward period relative to the preaward period. We further find that CEO awards’ “gold content”, the social attention of award-winning CEOs’ competitors, the similarity between award-winning CEOs and their competitors, and industry competitive pressure are important factors affecting the size of ripple effects. Empirical evidence also shows that the intraindustry ripple effects of CEO awards significantly improve the firm performance and value of competitors. In a robustness test, we confirm CEO awards’ intraindustry ripple effects from the perspective of the number of patent applications. The ripple effects of CEO awards are still valid after using PSM-DID to alleviate endogeneity problems and considering the right-side distribution of R&D investment.
Adaptive versus maladaptive cardiac remodelling in response to sustained β-adrenergic stimulation in a new ‘ISO on/off model’

On the one hand, sustained β-adrenergic stress is a hallmark of heart failure (HF) and exerts maladaptive cardiac remodelling. On the other hand, acute β-adrenergic stimulation maintains cardiac function under physiological stress. However, it is still incompletely understood to what extent the adaptive component of β-adrenergic signaling contributes to the maintenance of cardiac function during chronic β-adrenergic stress. We developed an experimental catecholamine-based protocol to distinguish adaptive from maladaptive effects. Mice were for 28 days infused with 30 mg/kg body weight/day isoproterenol (ISO) by subcutaneously implanted osmotic minipumps (‘ISO on’). In a second and third group, ISO infusion was stopped after 26 days and the mice were observed for additional two or seven days without further ISO infusion (‘ISO off short’, ‘ISO off long’). In this setup, ‘ISO on’ led to cardiac hypertrophy and slightly improved cardiac contractility. In stark contrast, ‘ISO off’ mice displayed progressive worsening of left ventricular ejection fraction that dropped down below 40%. While fetal and pathological gene expression (increase in Nppa, decrease in Myh6/Myh7 ratios, increase in Xirp2) was not induced in ‘ISO on’, it was activated in ‘ISO off’ mice. After ISO withdrawal, phosphorylation of phospholamban (PLN) at the protein kinase A (PKA) phosphorylation site Ser-16 dropped down to 20% as compared to only 50% at the Ca2+/Calmodulin-dependent kinase II (CaMKII) phosphorylation site Thr-17 in ‘ISO off’ mice. PKA-dependent cardioprotective production of the N-terminal proteolytic product of histone deacetylase 4 (HDAC4-NT) was reduced in ‘ISO off’ as compared to ‘ISO on’. Taken together, these data indicate that chronic ISO infusion induces besides maladaptive remodelling also adaptive PKA signalling to maintain cardiac function. The use of the ‘ISO on/off’ model will further enable the separation of the underlying adaptive from maladaptive components of β-adrenergic signalling and may help to better define and test therapeutic targets downstream of β-adrenergic receptors.
Neurophysiological correlates of disorder-related autobiographical memory in anorexia nervosa

Abstract Background Anorexia nervosa (AN) is characterized by an overgeneralization of food/body-related autobiographical memories (AM). This is regarded as an emotion regulation strategy with adverse long-term effects implicated in disorder maintenance and treatment resistance. Therefore, we aimed to examine neural correlates of food/body-related AM-recall in AN. Methods Twenty-nine female patients with AN and 30 medication-free age-sex-matched normal-weight healthy controls (HC) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while recalling AMs in response to food/body-related and neutral cue words. To control for general knowledge retrieval, participants engaged in a semantic generation and riser detection task. Results In comparison to HC, patients with AN generated fewer and less specific AMs in response to food/body-related words, but not for neutral cue words. Group comparisons revealed reduced activation in regions associated with self-referential processing and memory retrieval (precuneus and angular gyrus) during the retrieval of specific food/body-related AM in patients with AN. Brain connectivity in regions associated with memory functioning and executive control was reduced in patients with AN during the retrieval of specific food/body-related AM. Finally, resting-state functional connectivity analysis revealed no differences between groups, arguing against a general underlying disconnection of brain networks implicated in memory and emotional processing in AN. Conclusions These results indicate impaired neural processing of food/body-related AM in AN, with a reduced involvement of regions involved in self-referential processing. Our findings are discussed as possible neuronal correlates of emotional avoidance in AN and provide new insights of AN-pathophysiology underscoring the importance of targeting dysfunctional emotion regulation strategies during treatment.
Post-infectious and post-acute sequelae of critically ill adults with COVID-19

Background Data on the post-acute and post-infectious complications of patients who have recovered from severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are limited. While studies report that approximately 5–15% of COVID-19 hospitalized patients require intensive care and mechanical ventilation, a substantially higher number need non-invasive ventilation and are subject to prolonged hospitalizations, with long periods of immobility and isolation. The purpose of this study is to describe the post-infectious sequelae of severe viral illness and the post-acute complications of intensive care treatments in critically ill patients who have recovered from severe COVID-19 infection. Methods We performed a retrospective chart review of adult patients initially hospitalized with confirmed COVID-19 infection, who recovered and were transferred to a general medical ward or discharged home between March 15, 2020 and May 15, 2020, dates inclusive, after an intensive care unit (ICU) or high dependency unit (HDU) admission in a designated COVID-19 hospital in the United Arab Emirates. Demographic data, underlying comorbidities, treatment, complications, and outcomes were collected. Descriptive statistical analyses were performed. Results Of 71 patients transferred out of ICU (n = 38, 54%) and HDU (n = 33, 46%), mean age was 48 years (SD, 9.95); 96% men; 54% under age 50. Mean ICU stay was 12.4 days (SD, 5.29), HDU stay was 13.4 days (SD, 4.53). Pre-existing conditions were not significantly associated with developing post-acute complications (Odds Ratio [OR] 1.1, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.41, 2.93, p = 1.00). Fifty nine percent of patients had complications; myopathy, swallowing impairments, and pressure ulcers were most common. Delirium and confusion were diagnosed in 18% (n = 13); all were admitted to the ICU and required mechanical ventilation. Of note, of all patients studied, 59.2% (n = 42/71) had at least 1 complication, 32.4% (n = 23) had at least 2 complications, and 19.7% (n = 14) suffered 3 or more sequelae. Complications were significantly more common in ICU patients (n = 33/38, 87%), compared to HDU patients (n = 9/33, 27%) (OR 17.6, 95% CI 5.23, 59.21, p <0.05). Conclusion In a subset of critically ill patients who recovered from severe COVID-19 infection, there was considerable short-term post-infectious and post-acute disability. Long-term follow-up of COVID-19 survivors is warranted.
Inhibition effect of thymoquinone and lycopene compounds on glutathione reductase enzyme activity purified from human erythrocytes

Abstract Glutathione reductase (GR, EC 1.8.1.7) is a specific antioxidant enzyme that catalyzes oxidized glutathione (GSSG) to reduced glutathione (GSH). GR enzyme maintains the cellular reduced GSH level and plays a central role in cell defense against reactive oxygen species. Herein, GR was purified with affinity chromatography method in one step using 2',5'-ADP Sepharose 4B from human erythrocytes. The purification rate of glutathione reductase enzyme purified from human erythrocytes was 6224 fold and specific activity was calculated as 9.586 EU/mg protein. The molecular weight of GR was determined to be 53 kDa by SDS-PAGE. The effect of thymoquinone and lycopene compounds on the GR activity purified from human erythrocytes was researched. Both compounds showed an inhibitory effect on GR activity. IC50 values for thymoquinone and lycopene were calculated as 62.12 µM and 35.79 µM, respectively. Inhibition type and Ki values were determined from the Lineveawer-Burk graph. The type of inhibition for thymoquinone and lycopene was found to be non-competitive inhibition. Ki value was calculated as 57.71 µM for thymoquinone and 46.65 µM for lycopene. In this study, it was concluded that antioxidant compounds thymoquinone and lycopene, which have an inhibitory effect on GR activity, may have a therapeutic effect on cancer disease. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma