Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quorum Sensing Inhibiting Activity of Cefoperazone and Its Metallic Derivatives on Pseudomonas aeruginosa

The last decade has witnessed a massive increase in the rate of mortalities caused by multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Therefore, developing new strategies to control virulence factors and pathogenicity has received much attention. One of these strategies is quorum sensing inhibition (QSI) which was developed to control Pseudomonas infection. This study aims to validate the effect of one of the most used β-lactam antibiotics; cefoperazone (CFP) and its metallic-derivatives on quorum sensing (QS) and virulence factors of P. aeruginosa. Assessment of quorum sensing inhibitory activity of CFP, cefoperazone Iron complex (CFPF) and cefoperazone Cobalt complex (CFPC) was performed by using reporter strain Chromobacterium violaceum ATCC 12472. Minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) was carried out by the microbroth dilution method. The influence of sub-MICs (1/4 and 1/2 MICs) of CFP, CFPF and CFPC on virulence factors of P. aeruginosa was evaluated. Data was confirmed on the molecular level by RT-PCR. Also, molecular docking analysis was conducted to figure out the possible mechanisms of QSI. CFP, CFPF, and CFPC inhibited violacein pigment production of C. violaceum ATCC 12472. Sub-MICs of CFP (128- 256 μg/mL), and significantly low concentrations of CFPC (0.5- 16 μg/mL) and CFPF (0.5- 64 μg/mL) reduced the production of QS related virulence factors such as pyocyanin, protease, hemolysin and eliminated biofilm assembly by P. aeruginosa standard strains PAO1 and PA14, and P. aeruginosa clinical isolates Ps1, Ps2, and Ps3, without affecting bacterial viability. In addition, CFP, CFPF, and CFPC significantly reduced the expression of lasI and rhlI genes. The molecular docking analysis elucidated that the QS inhibitory effect was possibly caused by the interaction with QS receptors. Both CFPF and CFPC interacted strongly with LasI, LasR and PqsR receptors with a much high ICM scores compared to CFP that could be the cause of elimination of natural ligand binding. Therefore, CFPC and CFPF are potent inhibitors of quorum sensing signaling and virulence factors of P. aeruginosa.
Arabidopsis thaliana eIF4E1 and eIF(iso)4E Participate in Cold Response and Promote Translation of Some Stress-Related mRNAs

Plant defense and adaptation to adverse environmental conditions rely on gene expression control, such as mRNA transcription, processing, stability, and translation. Sudden temperature changes are common in the era of global warming; thus, understanding plant acclimation responses at the molecular level becomes imperative. mRNA translation initiation regulation has a pivotal role in achieving the synthesis of the appropriate battery of proteins needed to cope with temperature stress. In this study, we analyzed the role of translation initiation factors belonging to the eIF4E family in Arabidopsis acclimation to cold temperatures and freezing tolerance. Using knockout (KO) and overexpressing mutants of AteIF4E1 or AteIF(iso)4E, we found that AteIF4E1 but not AteIF(iso)4E overexpressing lines displayed enhanced tolerance to freezing without previous acclimation at 4°C. However, KO mutant lines, eif(iso)4e-1 and eif4e1-KO, were more sensitive to the stress. Cold acclimation in wild-type plants was accompanied by increased levels of eIF4E1 and eIF(iso)4E transcript levels, polysomes (P) enrichment, and shifts of these factors from translationally non-active to active fractions. Transcripts, previously found as candidates for eIF(iso)4E or eIF4E1 selective translation, changed their distribution in both P and total RNA in the presence of cold. Some of these transcripts changed their polysomal distribution in the mutant and one eIF4E1 overexpressing line. According to this, we propose a role of eIF4E1 and eIF(iso)4E in cold acclimation and freezing tolerance by regulating the expression of stress-related genes.
Metagenomic Analysis Reveals Microbial Interactions at the Biocathode of a Bioelectrochemical System Capable of Simultaneous Trichloroethylene and Cr(VI) Reduction

Bioelectrochemical systems (BES) are attractive and versatile options for the bioremediation of organic or inorganic pollutants, including trichloroethylene (TCE) and Cr(VI), often found as co-contaminants in the environment. The elucidation of the microbial players’ role in the bioelectroremediation processes for treating multicontaminated groundwater is still a research need that attracts scientific interest. In this study, 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing and whole shotgun metagenomics revealed the leading microbial players and the primary metabolic interactions occurring in the biofilm growing at the biocathode where TCE reductive dechlorination (RD), hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis, and Cr(VI) reduction occurred. The presence of Cr(VI) did not negatively affect the TCE degradation, as evidenced by the RD rates estimated during the reactor operation with TCE (111±2 μeq/Ld) and TCE/Cr(VI) (146±2 μeq/Ld). Accordingly, Dehalococcoides mccartyi, the primary biomarker of the RD process, was found on the biocathode treating both TCE (7.82E+04±2.9E+04 16S rRNA gene copies g−1 graphite) and TCE/Cr(VI) (3.2E+07±2.37E+0716S rRNA gene copies g−1 graphite) contamination. The metagenomic analysis revealed a selected microbial consortium on the TCE/Cr(VI) biocathode. D. mccartyi was the sole dechlorinating microbe with H2 uptake as the only electron supply mechanism, suggesting that electroactivity is not a property of this microorganism. Methanobrevibacter arboriphilus and Methanobacterium formicicum also colonized the biocathode as H2 consumers for the CH4 production and cofactor suppliers for D. mccartyi cobalamin biosynthesis. Interestingly, M. formicicum also harbors gene complexes involved in the Cr(VI) reduction through extracellular and intracellular mechanisms.
Immune-Related Genetic Overlap Between Regional Gray Matter Reductions and Psychiatric Symptoms in Adolescents, and Gene-Set Validation in a Translational Model

Adolescence is a period of vulnerability for the maturation of gray matter (GM) and also for the onset of psychiatric disorders such as major depressive disorder (MDD), bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Chronic neuroinflammation is considered to play a role in the etiology of these illnesses. However, the involvement of neuroinflammation in the observed link between regional GM volume reductions and psychiatric symptoms is not established yet. Here, we investigated a possible common immune-related genetic link between these two phenomena in european adolescents recruited from the community. Hippocampal and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) were defined a priori as regions of interest (ROIs). Their GM volumes were extracted in 1,563 14-year-olds from the IMAGEN database. We found a set of 26 SNPs that correlated with the hippocampal volumes and 29 with the mPFC volumes at age 14. We formed two ROI-Related Immune-gene scores (RRI) with the inflammation SNPs that correlated to hippocampal GM volume and to mPFC GM volume. The predictive ability of both RRIs with regards to the presence of psychiatric symptoms at age 18 was investigated by correlating the RRIs with psychometric questionnaires obtained at age 18. The RRIs (but not control scores constructed with random SNPs) correlated with the presence of depressive symptoms, positive psychotic symptoms, and externalizing symptoms in later adolescence. In addition, the effect of childhood maltreatment, one of the major environmental risk factors for depression and other mental disorders, interacted with the RRI effect. We next sought to validate this finding by investigating our set of inflammatory genes in a translational animal model of early life adversity. Mice were subjected to a protocol of maternal separation at an early post-natal age. We evaluated depressive behaviors in separated and non-separated mice at adolescence and their correlations with the concomitant expression of our genes in whole blood samples. We show that in mice, early life adversity affected the expression of our set of genes in peripheral blood, and that levels of expression correlated with symptoms of negative affect in adolescence. Overall, our translational findings in adolescent mice and humans provide a novel validated gene-set of immune-related genes for further research in the early stages of mood disorders.
Twenty-Seven Y-Chromosome Short Tandem Repeats Analysis of Italian Mummies of the 16th and 18th Centuries: An Interdisciplinary Research

Roccapelago (MO) is a small village located in the Northern Central Apennines, with a population of 31 inhabitants (2014). In 2010, more than 400 individuals dated between the end of the 16th and the 18th century, many of which partially mummified, were discovered in the crypt of the church. This small village, because of its geographical location and surrounding environment, seems to possess the characteristics of a genetic isolate, useful for population genetics and genealogical analyses. Thus, a diachronic study of DNA aimed at investigating the structure and dynamics of the population of Roccapelago over the about 4 centuries, was conducted by analyzing ancient and modern inhabitants of the village. The 14 modern samples were selected by considering both the founder surnames of the village, identified thanks to the study of parish registers, and the grandparent’s criterion. From 25 ancient mummies, morphologically assigned to male individuals, the petrous bone, that harbors high DNA amounts, was selected for the DNA extraction. The quantification and qualitative assessment of total human male DNA were evaluated by a real-time PCR assay using the Quantifiler Trio DNA Quantification Kit and multiplex PCR of 27 Y-chromosome short tandem repeat (Y-STR) markers included in the Yfiler Plus PCR Amplification Kit, with seven rapidly mutating Y-STR loci for improving discrimination of male lineages, was performed to genotype the samples. Y-STRs were analyzed according to the criteria of ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis to ensure that authentic DNA typing results were obtained from these ancient samples. The molecular analysis showed the usefulness of the Y chromosome to identify historically relevant remains and discover patterns of relatedness in communities moving from anthropology to genetic genealogy and forensics.
Strategic Directions for AI: The Role of CIOs and Boards of Directors

This paper applies upper echelons theory to investigate whether chief information officers (CIOs) and boards of directors affect the development of AI orientation, which represents firms’ overall strategic direction and goals regarding the introduction and application of artificial intelligence (AI)technology. We tested our model using a dataset drawn from 1,454 publicly listed firms in China. Our findings show that the presence of a CIO positively influences AI orientation and that board educational diversity, R&D experience, and AI experience positively moderate the CIO’s effect on AI orientation. Our post hoc analysis further demonstrates that these board characteristics represent contingencies that impact AI orientation but not conventional IT orientation. This paper contributes to the upper echelons literature and IT management research by offering contextualized arguments that explain new business and IT strategies such as AI orientation. Further, our findings suggest important implications about how to build top management teams and boards capable of effectively developing AI orientations
IoT implementation strategies amid COVID-19 pandemic

The world, at present, is witnessing grave challenges to its established institutions and shared beliefs due to the outbreak of novel Coronavirus. Almost all of our establishments are under threat and unprecedented disruptions are being witnessed across all spheres of life. Besides medical hunt for discovering the cure, there exists an equally significant need to invent technological solutions for restoring numerous services while considering the restrictions imposed by the pandemic. Therefore, in this research work, we have investigated and analysed the possibilities, opportunities, and applications of IoT technology in the field of food safety and quality control, automatic disinfectant, healthcare systems, wearable health devices, and personal hygiene. We have assessed various features of currently available IoT design platforms and standard protocols and proposed feasible and dynamic strategies for their implementations. The efficacy of the system demonstrates an immense possibility for the continuation of IoT-based technology, even after the Coronavirus scare is over.
Monolith Passive Adsorbers Prepared with Hydrophobic Porous Silica Rods Coated with Hydrogel

ABSTRACT This work focuses on the synthesis and characterization of porous silica monolith-based adsorbent materials. Materials with bimodal porosity (macro and meso) were prepared through a sol–gel process. The capacity of adsorption of organic molecules was ensured by grafting of hydrophobic organic coating on the silica surface. Alkylsilane chains or lauryl acrylate polymer were used for this purpose. The adsorption kinetic behavior of the produced materials was assessed through benzophenone adsorption studies in aqueous media. The results have shown that the macropore size of the monoliths had no effect on the adsorption capacity. The thicker organic layer prepared by polymerization of lauryl acrylate has decreased the adsorption kinetics without affecting the total adsorption capacity. The over-coating with additional external layer of hydrogel further slowed the diffusion of benzophenone thus better matches the passive-sampler requirements.
Temperature-, Light-, and Soft X-ray-Induced Spin Crossover in a Single Layer of FeII-Pyrazolylborate Molecules in Direct Contact with Gold

Understanding the properties of spin-crossover molecules in direct contact with metals is crucial for their future integration in electronic and spintronic devices. By X-ray absorption spectroscopy, we investigate the properties of FeII((3,5-(CH3)2Pz)3BH)2 molecules in the form of monolayer islands on a metallic substrate, namely, Au(111). We demonstrate that the spin-crossover transition can be thermally induced from the high spin state to a mixed spin state phase containing one-third of high-spin-state and two-thirds of low-spin-state molecules in agreement with previous work by scanning tunneling microscopy. In addition, at 4.4 K, the spin crossover from the low spin state to the high spin state can also be induced by X-ray and by light excitations.
Evaluation of The Role of Buffalo Milk on Acute Toluene Induced Hepatotoxicity and Nephrotoxicity in Adult Male Albino Rats

Zagazig J. Forensic Med.& Toxicology Vol. (19) No. (2) Jul 2021 Original Article Evaluation of The Role of Buffalo Milk on Acute Toluene Induced Hepatotoxicity and Nephrotoxicity in Adult Male Albino Rats Heba Ibrahim khalil Mohamed , Hanan Mohamed Ahmed Hassaneine , Arwa Ahmed El-sheikh , Abeer M. Abdelbary. 1 Forensic Medicine And Clinical Toxicology Department, Faculty Of Medicine, Zagazig University. pathology Department, Faculty Of Medicine, Zagazig University. ABSTRACT
Automated Sports Player Identification: A Survey

—Sports can not be said it is a mean for social cohesion by allowing people interaction disregarding their social status, age, etc. only but also it became the entertainment industry from governmental views. Consequently, a large amount of resources has been directed to sports to improve understanding, performance and presentation. Sports video analysis is a popular tool to capture low-level and high-level analysis. In order to make the automatic sports video analysis realized, there is a necessity for player identification across sports. Identifying players in sports videos is a major research challenge due to low video resolution per player, camera perspective, variation of the posture of player, illumination conditions, variety of sports fields and t-shirts. Here, we survey the most significant methods and problem formulations that have been proposed to address the problem of player identification.
Diversity and inventorization of angiospermic flora in Dibrugarh district, Assam, Northeast India

The floristic composition of the Dibrugarh District of Assam has remained unexplored and the present study on Angiosperms addresses this fact. A total of 462 species of flowering plants belonging to 334 genera under 106 families recorded as per the APG IV system of classification and 116 families were recorded according to Bentham and Hooker system. 39% of native species were included in superorder Superrosids, 29% from superorder Superasterids, 18% from superorder Monocots and 7% from superorder Magnoliids. The orders with the highest number of native species were Lamiales (35), Malpighiales (29), Rosales (26), Gentianales (23), Sapindales (18), Fagales (19), Alismatales (17), Poales (14), Zingiberales (13) and Laurales (11) which accounted for 60.8% of the species. A total of 129 non-native or invasive species were represented in 12 superorders. Habit analysis showed that herbs were represented by the highest proportion followed by trees, shrubs and climbers. Twenty species are listed under various IUCN threat categories and one species under Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Traditional uses of some reported species were also documented. The present study was conducted to understand the diversity of local flora, which can be helpful in the conservation of natural vegetation and sustainable utilisation of resources in this region.
REVISTA DE CONTABILIDAD SPANISH ACCOUNTING REVIEW

This paper aims to identify the drivers of management reporting choices in a setting characterized by ownership concentration and weak enforcement. Previous research indicates, that tone of the letter to shareholders is correlated with performance. However, tone can be biased towards the positive when a company is highly responsive to stock market incentives or controlled by majority investors. Bias can be reduced by the monitoring activities of institutional investors in closely held companies. There are two major implications of the study. First, when managers bias the text, they lose the ability to communicate positive news about their company. Under rational expectations investors can detect bias based on known situational incentives and disregard the biased information. Second, the results suggest that managers manipulate tone strategically, rather than unconsciously, to satisfy the needs of key shareholder groups. ©2021 ASEPUC. Published by EDITUM Universidad de Murcia. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Códigos JEL: G32 M41 Palabras clave: Concentración de la propiedad Tono Carta a los accionistas Incentivos Análisis textual La elección del tono de la dirección en las cartas a los accionistas: sinceridad, sesgo e incentivos
Association of common bacterial blight (Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. phaseoli) epidemics with agro ecological factors in Southwestern Ethiopia

Common bacterial blight, caused by Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. phaseoli, is an economically important disease of common bean and causes significant yield losses in Ethiopia. A field survey was conducted to understand the spatial distribution, relative importance and association of common bacterial blight epidemics with agro-ecological factors in low and mid-land areas of Southwestern, Ethiopia, during the 2018-19 cropping season. A total 85 bean fields were assessed in four common bean growing districts. High diseases incidence and severity was recorded at Debub Ari (77.6 and 52.7%, respectively) while the lowest was from Male (38.5 and 28.0%, respectively). The associations between disease parameters and agro-ecological factors were analyzed using multiple logistic regression models. Agronomic practices including NPS fertilization, preceding crop, weed management and plant population had highly significant (P<0.0001) association with both disease incidence and severity. Also, altitude, seed source and cropping system significantly (P<0.05) influenced disease severity while cropping pattern showed significant (P<0.05) association with disease incidence in the reduced model. Higher mean disease severity (≥40%) had high probability of association with district, absence of NPS fertilization, poor weed management practice, and preceding crops, than their counter parts. Adequate NPS fertilization increases growth performance of the crop in turn decreases disease intensity, weed serve as alternate host for incoming inoculum and previous crops were source for inocula as well as crop rotation used as reduce inoculum load. Therefore, the present study showed that the disease is a major production constraint of common bean, and suggested proper nutrient and weed management practices, and crop rotation to reduce common bacterial blight in the study areas. Int. J. Agril. Res. Innov. Tech. 11(1): 74-83, June 2021
Efficient Implementation of Radon Transform and Encryption Techniques for Cancelable Speaker Identification

— This paper introduces three cancelable speaker identification techniques based on the spectrogram estimation of speech signals subjected to either chaotic encryption process, or RSA algorithm in addition to Radon transform to produce cancelable templates instead of the original speech signals. The resulting transformed versions of the voice biometrics are stored in the server instead of the original biometrics. Therefore, the users' privacy can be protected well. It is evident from the obtained results that the proposed techniques are secure, reliable and practical. They have good encryption and ability to generate cancelable templates. These characteristics lead to good performance. The proposed cancelable speaker identification techniques are evaluated under the influence of Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) with different strengths. This makes them more accurate in identifying the users and also more resistant to attack attempts. In addition, security is enhanced through maintaining the confidentiality of the processed data. In the experimental results, evaluation metrics such as Equal Error Rate (EER), False Rejection Rate (FRR), and False Acceptance Rate (FAR) are used to assess the performance of the proposed techniques. In addition, the genuine, impostor distributions, Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve and area under the ROC curve for the proposed techniques are estimated for better evaluation and comparison.
The relationship between hydrodynamic variables and particle size distribution in flotation

This chapter studies the effect of solid particles on the bubble size distribution and gas hold-up, as well as the correlation between the bubble size distribution and gas hold-up in column flotation. Experiments were conducted in two and three-phase systems using a laboratory flotation column (5.6 cm internal diameter for a total height of 650 cm), and mixtures of quartz (hydrophilic gangue) and talc (naturally hydrophobic mineral), classified in four different size fractions. Results are compared with literature correlations and models to reveal that hydrophobic particles affect the gas hold-up through three different mechanisms modifying the Sauter mean diameter and rise velocity, namely (1) surface interactions, and the joint antagonistic effect of (2) bubble loading and (3) coalescence.