Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence of multidrug-resistant extended spectrum beta-lactamase-producing Salmonella strains in commercial raw chicken meat

The incidence of extended spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL)-producing pathogens is worrisome because it confers multiple drug resistance (MDR). Considering their serious clinical significance, the study investigated the prevalence of MDR-ESBL-producing Salmonella strains isolated from raw chicken meat in Southern Nigeria. A total of 240 raw chicken meat were sampled and the recovered Salmonella strains were characterized for MDR and ESBL-genes using Kirby Bauer disc diffusion and molecular techniques. Of the 52 confirmed Salmonellaenterica serotypes, 67.31% (35/52) were Salmonella entericasubsp. entericaserovar Typhimurium, 32.68% (17/52) were Salmonella entericasubsp. entericaserovar Enteritidis, 78.85% (41/52) were ESBL-producer and 88.45% (46/52) multidrug resistant. Ampicillin (96.15%) and gentamycin (40.39%) were the most and least antibiotics. The most prevalent MDR-ESBL-genes were bla CTX-M (92.68%), followed by bla SHV genes (68.29%) and bla TEM(31.71%). This study showed that Salmonella serotypes with high ESBL-genes and MDR were prevalent in raw chicken meat vended in southern Nigerian markets. Bangladesh J. Sci. Ind. Res.56(4), 271-284, 2021
Long-Chain Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid Concentrations and Association with Weight Gain in Pregnancy

Lower concentrations of omega-3 (ω-3) and higher concentrations of omega-6 (ω-6) have been associated with excess weight in adults; however, the information on this relationship in pregnancy remains in its infancy. This study aimed to investigate the association between plasma levels of ω-3 and ω-6 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) and weight gain during the gestational period. This is a prospective cohort study involving 185 pregnant women registered with the prenatal services of a municipality in the northeast of Brazil. The dosage of the serum concentration of fatty acids and the anthropometric measurements were carried out at the baseline, and the women’s weight information in the first, second, and third trimesters was collected from their pregnancy cards. Serum fatty acids were determined with the help of gas chromatography. The response variable of this study is the latent variable weight gain in pregnancy, derived from three variables: gestational weight in the first, second, and third trimesters. The main exposure was the plasma concentrations of PUFAs. Structural equation modeling was used for the data analysis. The mean age of the pregnant women was 26.74 years old (SD: 5.96 years). Most of the women had not completed high school (84%) and had a low income (70.86%). It was observed that the ω-3 PUFAs, represented by ALA plasm (alpha-linolenic acid), DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), and the EPA/ALA ratio (eicosapentaenoic acid to alpha-linolenic acid ratio), were negatively associated with the weight gain during pregnancy construct (−0.20, −0.12, and −0.14, respectively). Meanwhile, the PUFAs represented by the ratio between the ω-6 category acids ARA and LA (arachidonic acid and linoleic acid) had a direct and positive association (0.22) with that construct. Excess maternal weight gain was associated with ω-3 and ω-6 plasma levels. The women with the greatest gestational weight gain were the ones that presented the highest ARA/LA ratio (ω-6) and the lowest plasma concentrations of ALA, DHA, and EPA/ALA ratio (ω-3).
Analysis and design of microstrip-slot line for phase shifting applications

The analysis and design of printed phase shifters based on the microstrip line are described. A spectral-domain analysis is presented where the necessary Green's functions are formulated using the transmission matrix technique. The nonreciprocal characteristics for single-layer and multilayer structures are studied. Microstrip-slot in a multilayer structure of ferrite and high-dielectric material is found to have considerably more nonreciprocity than microstrip-slot for microstrip in a single-layer structure. Over 65 degrees /cm is predicted for certain optimized designs. This, in addition to the 50- Omega design capability of the line, makes the microstrip-slot line a suitable choice for phase shifting applications. A multilayer microstrip-slot line was constructed on a rectangular ferrite toroid. Differential phase shifts of roughly 45 degrees /cm were measured over a 6.0-8.5-GHz frequency range. These results are in good agreement with the analysis. >
Information Diffusion Model in Twitter: A Systematic Literature Review

Information diffusion, information spread, and influencers are important concepts in many studies on social media, especially Twitter analytics. However, literature overviews on the information diffusion of Twitter analytics are sparse, especially on the use of continuous time Markov chain (CTMC). This paper examines the following topics: (1) the purposes of studies about information diffusion on Twitter, (2) the methods adopted to model information diffusion on Twitter, (3) the metrics applied, and (4) measures used to determine influencer rankings. We employed a systematic literature review (SLR) to explore the studies related to information diffusion on Twitter extracted from four digital libraries. In this paper, a two-stage analysis was conducted. First, we implemented a bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer and R-bibliometrix software. This approach was applied to select 204 papers after conducting a duplication check and assessing the inclusion–exclusion criteria. At this stage, we mapped the authors’ collaborative networks/collaborators and the evolution of research themes. Second, we analyzed the gap in research themes on the application of CTMC information diffusion on Twitter. Further filtering criteria were applied, and 34 papers were analyzed to identify the research objectives, methods, metrics, and measures used by each researcher. Nonhomogeneous CTMC has never been used in Twitter information diffusion modeling. This finding motivates us to further study nonhomogeneous CTMC as a modeling approach for Twitter information diffusion.
Refocusing of ground moving targets for range migration algorithm in FMCW SAR

Frequency-Modulated Continuous-Wave Synthetic Aperture Radar (FMCW SAR) is a promising compact remote imaging sensor. Its detection and refocusing of the ground moving targets is discussed in this paper in order to provide FMCW SAR system with simultaneous moving targets indication application. A moving target indication method by focusing is derived and presented. This method is derived based on range migration algorithm taking into account the moving target range cell walk. To discriminate the target optimally, the concept of relative motion is extended to FMCW SAR. Due to continuous transmitting and receiving at all time, the standard “stop-go” approximation is not valid here. By searching the relative velocity, the moving target can be focused accurately, equivalent as a fixed target focused in squint mode. The maximum output corresponds to the best matched parameters. Thus the matched targets are detected and the others suppressed.
Synthesis, in vitro Antimicrobial Activity, and Docking Studies of some Pyrano[2,3-c] Pyrazole Derivatives

The hospital environment favors the circulation of drug-resistant bacteria. The researcher has oriented this public health problem to find an ideal tool for better patient management. Therefore, this study aims to assess the biological activity of some synthetic molecules against multidrug-resistant bacterial isolates from patients suspected of nosocomial infections. After synthesizing and characterizing five targeted compounds 5(a-e), a sensitivity test is carried out to screen their antibacterial activity via microbiological methods (diffusion and microdilution). The forgoing results confirmed that (5c) compound has better potential against all studied strains with a minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) that varies between 6.25 - 50 mg/mL. The lowest MIC values were observed with Klebsiella pneumonia, while the greatest value of the same parameter was obtained with L. monocytogenes. On the other side, in silico pharmacological studies like ADME and docking data were implemented for the selected compounds 5(a-e) to comprehensively understand the plausible mode of interaction with the target. Docking results indicated that the compounds 5c and 5b have considerable binding energy towards the active site of Escherichia coli MurB and S. aureus DNA gyrase B. In vitro and in silico data have confirmed the antimicrobial potentials of the five synthetic compounds; this data can be added and supported the literature on the bioactivity of pyrano[2,3-c] pyrazole.
Antioxidant status, nutrition facts, and sensory of spinach extract fortified wet
noodles

Healthy food has been a lifestyle trend in modern society since the last decades. Vegetable noodles as an alternative healthy food are often consumers’ choices considering that noodles are a favourite food today. This study aims to get more insight into the effect of spinach extract (SE) fortification on noodle dough toward antioxidant status, nutrition facts, and the sensory of wet spinach noodles (WSN) produced. The dough of wet noodle samples was treated by 4 different concentrations of SE fortification of 0, 0.4, 4.0, and 40 mg/mL in which for each treatment was quintuple. Results showed SE fortification had a significant effect on antioxidant status, some nutrient composition (protein, sugar, cholesterol, energy amount, iron, magnesium, and vitamin C), and sensory characteristics of the wet noodle. WSN with rich in antioxidants, low calories, and favoured by panellists was obtained at the optimum concentration of 4 mg/mL. Thus, SE was potential as food fortificant for developing WSN as a promising functional food product in the future.
Electrothermal properties and modeling of polysilicon microthermal actuators

This work addresses a range of issues on modeling electrothermal microactuators, including the physics of temperature dependent material properties and Finite Element Analysis (FEA) modeling techniques. Electrical and thermal conductivity are a nonlinear function of temperature that can be explained with electron and phonon transport models, respectively. Parametric forms of these equations are developed for polysilicon and a technique to extract these parameters from experimental data is given. A modeling technique to capture the convective and conductive cooling effects on a thermal actuator in air is then presented. Using this modeling technique and the established polysilicon material properties, simulation results are compared with measured actuator responses. Both static and transient analyzes have been performed on two styles of actuators and the results compare well with measured data.
Real-Time High Performance of Induction Motor Drive Using Hybrid Fuzzy-Sliding Mode Controllers

Obtaining the required performance, stability, and robustness in real-time control of induction motors usually requires the use of complex controllers, however through multiple experimentations, many challenges have arisen from such methods. The complex structure of control methods in real-time applications is usually computationally challenging and energy consuming, hence the need for a simple control strategy to overcome these challenges, in this paper, we focus on designing an advanced hybrid control strategy with a simple design applied to an induction motor. Mainly, the hybrid controller used in this study has the benefits of joining the best performance of both fuzzy logic controller and sliding mode controller, specifically designed to handle each phase separately, the transition phase and the steady phase. A fuzzy controller intervenes as a supervisor in our control structure, more specifically it manages the switch from one type of control to the other taking into account the intervention phase of each type of controller by commanding the rate of both controllers. Control performance analysis was carried out in a real experimental setup to validate the efficiency and robustness of the proposed hybrid controller and confirm its effectiveness in handling the compromise between overshoot and response time.
Relating Failure Tests Performed in Hollow Cylinder Apparatus to Inherent Anisotropy

Described are failure tests performed on a fine-grained Leighton Buzzard sand in the Nottingham hollow cylinder apparatus. These tests were conducted to characterize the inherent anisotropy of the material formed during the sample preparation procedure. An image analysis procedure for determining preferred particle orientation is introduced and its derivation discussed. An attempt is subsequently made to relate the statistically significant preferred orientation to the anisotropic shear strength properties of the Leighton Buzzard sand.
On Fractional Order Disturbance Observer

In this paper, for the first time, the fractional order disturbance observer (FO-DOB) is proposed for vibration suppression applications such as hard disk drive servo control. It has been discovered in a recently published US patent application (US20010036026) (Chen et al., 2001) that there is a tradeoff between the the phase margin loss and the strength of the low frequency vibration suppression. Given the required cutoff frequency of the low pass filter, also known as the Q-filter, it turns out that the relative degree of the Q-filter is the major tuning knob for this tradeoff. As a motivation for the fractional order Q-filter, a solution based on integer order Q-filter with a variable relative degree is introduced which is the key contribution of US20010036026. Then, a fractional order disturbance observer based on the fractional order Q-filter is proposed. The implementation issue is also discussed. The nice point of this paper is that the traditional DOB is extended to fractional order DOB with the advantage that the FO-DOB design is now no longer conservative or aggressive, i.e., given the cutoff frequency and the desired phase margin, we can uniquely determine the fractional order of the low pass filter.
Chinese government role in CAD technology transfer

The enormous and constantly growing potential of technology innovations have promoted the Chinese government to actively explore the best way and means to realize its continued economic achievements. Among them, the advances of its high technology have been positioned as the key driving force, and high-tech policies, such as "National High Technology Research and Development Program" or "863 Program" were launched in March 1986. This paper examines CAD (computer-aided design) technology, a key issue under CIMS (computer-integrated manufacturing System) subject topic under /spl Gt/OPEN the "/863 Program", and focuses on government involvement in fostering CAD technology transfer. The followed governmental policy-making mechanism, policies and measures and key features, such as inter-sector and inter-organization collaboration, in CAD technology transfer are disclosed. The study provides some new observations for debates and discussions to policy-makers and researchers on technology management in China and abroad and can benefit business managers seeking to understand the CAD environment in China.
The Impact of Environmental Uncertainty on Corporate Innovation: Empirical Evidence from an Emerging Economy

The paper analyzes the effect of environmental uncertainty on corporate technological innovation from the perspective of an innovation value chain under the institutional background of China. This paper not only discusses the intermediary effect of agency problems on environmental uncertainty and corporate technological innovation but also deeply explores the influence of information transparency, government subsidies, and other mechanisms to alleviate agency problems on environmental uncertainty and corporate technological innovation. We use the data of listed companies in China from 2008 to 2019 as the research sample, and the results show that, in general, environmental uncertainty has a negative effect on both input and output of technological innovation, and the negative effect can last for two years. Further research shows that the agency problem has an intermediary effect on the environmental uncertainty and corporate technology innovation, and the environmental uncertainty aggravates the agency problem, which hinders the input and output of corporate technology innovation. As an important mechanism to alleviate the agency problems, information transparency and government subsidies can effectively alleviate the agency conflict, thus reducing the inhibition of environmental uncertainty on the input and output of technological innovation. Our findings contribute to the discussion of driving factors for technological innovation in the context of China’s system. Our results provide useful insights into the link between environmental uncertainty and corporate innovation for economic academics and practitioners alike.
COVID-19 surveillance in Israeli press: Spatiality, mobility, and control

In March 2020, Israel passed emergency regulations authorizing its internal security agency to track citizens’ mobile phone geolocations in order to tackle the spread of COVID-19. This unprecedented surveillance enterprise attracted extensive media attention and sparked a vigorous public debate regarding technology and democratic values such as privacy, mobility, and control. This article examines press coverage of Israel’s surveillance of its citizens during the COVID-19 pandemic by four leading news sites to identify and map the frames that informed their reports. Based on a thematic analysis, our findings point to supportive and critical constructions of mobile phone location-tracking and organize them within two scapes: personal; and international. These attest to the collective imagining of intimacies and public life, respectively. We draw on the case study to articulate mobile phones as devices that reduce movement into manageable mapped information and individuals into controllable data. Mobile phone location-tracking during the COVID-19 pandemic is understood as turning mobility into order and control.
Cryo-EM structures and binding of mouse and human ACE2 to SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern indicate that mutations enabling immune escape could expand host range

Investigation of potential hosts of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is crucial to understanding future risks of spillover and spillback. SARS-CoV-2 has been reported to be transmitted from humans to various animals after requiring relatively few mutations. [1] There is significant interest in describing how the virus interacts with mice as they are well adapted to human environments, are used widely as infection models and can be infected. [2] Structural and binding data of the mouse ACE2 receptor with the Spike protein of newly identified SARS-CoV-2 variants are needed to better understand the impact of immune system evading mutations present in variants of concern (VOC). Previous studies have developed mouse-adapted variants and identified residues critical for binding to heterologous ACE2 receptors. [3,4] Here we report the cryo-EM structures of mouse ACE2 bound to trimeric Spike ectodomains of four different VOC: Beta, Omicron BA.1, Omicron BA.2. 12.1 and Omicron BA.4/5. These variants represent the oldest to the newest variants known to bind the mouse ACE2 receptor. Our high-resolution structural data complemented with bio-layer interferometry (BLI) binding assays reveal a requirement for a combination of mutations in the Spike protein that enable binding to the mouse ACE2 receptor. AUTHOR SUMMARY The SARS-CoV-2 virus can infect different types of animals beyond humans. The virus uses its Spike protein on its surface to bind to cells. These cells have a protein called ACE2 that the Spike protein recognizes. Animals have slightly different ACE2 receptors compared to humans. Mice are widely used as a research animal and live in the same environments as humans so scientists are particularly interested. Understanding how Spike proteins binds to the mouse ACE2 receptor allows us to understand the impact of immune evading mutations found in new variants. We use a high resolution imaging technique called cryo-electron microscopy to look at how different Spike variants bind to the ACE2 receptor from mouse at a resolution where we can see the amino acids. We can see directly the individual amino acids and mutations on the Spike protein that interact with the mouse ACE2 receptor. Many of the mutations found in variants of concern also increase the strength of binding to the mouse ACE2 receptor. This result suggests that mutations in the Spike protein of future variants may have an additional effect in influencing how it binds to not only human ACE2 receptors but to mice and also different animals.
The Numerical Calculation of Static Performance of Multi Wound Foil Bearing and Experimental Validation

Multi wound foil bearings (MWFB), as a kind of foil bearings with simple structures, are supposed to be one of the best candidates of supporting component for turbo-machineries because of their design simplicity, reduced weight and size, high speed and temperature capability, and easy maintenance. In this study, a theoretical model of MWFB taking account of the effect of the foil deformation is developed to predict its static performance. Reynolds’ equation is solved using Finite Difference Method (FDM) to yield air pressure distribution, while the elastic deformation equation is solved by Finite Element Method (FEM) to predict the deformation of the foil. Then, the above two equations are coupled by several iterations until the convergence criterion is reached. Based on the calculations, static characteristics of MWFB such as film thickness, load capacity and torque are presented. Finally, an experimental apparatus is built up to measure the load of MWFB at different operation condition, which are used to validate numerical calculation results. © 2007 ASME
Low noise Sb-heterostructure diode detectors for W-band imaging arrays without RF amplification

The figure of merit for RF detectors, noise-equivalent power (NEP), is determined by the noise divided by the sensitivity. Thus, the challenge is to design a diode structure that has low junction resistance while maintaining a large nonlinearity. This work presents sensitivity and noise measurements for Sb-heterostructure backward diodes with varying barrier thicknesses and cross-sectional areas. Nominal diode areas are 2x2mm2 and 3x4mm2 with 15Å and 20Å barriers. The best NEP measured to date is 1.19 pW/rtHz at 36.5 GHz.
A Case Study of Quantizing Convolutional Neural Networks for Fast Disease Diagnosis on Portable Medical Devices

Recently, the amount of attention paid towards convolutional neural networks (CNN) in medical image analysis has rapidly increased since they can analyze and classify images faster and more accurately than human abilities. As a result, CNNs are becoming more popular and play a role as a supplementary assistant for healthcare professionals. Using the CNN on portable medical devices can enable a handy and accurate disease diagnosis. Unfortunately, however, the CNNs require high-performance computing resources as they involve a significant amount of computation to process big data. Thus, they are limited to being used on portable medical devices with limited computing resources. This paper discusses the network quantization techniques that reduce the size of CNN models and enable fast CNN inference with an energy-efficient CNN accelerator integrated into recent mobile processors. With extensive experiments, we show that the quantization technique reduces inference time by 97% on the mobile system integrating a CNN acceleration engine.