Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Colony-level assessment of Brucella and Leptospira in the Guadalupe fur seal, Isla Guadalupe, Mexico.

The relatively small population size and restricted distribution of the Guadalupe fur seal Arctocephalus townsendi could make it highly vulnerable to infectious diseases. We performed a colony-level assessment in this species of the prevalence and presence of Brucella spp. and Leptospira spp. , pathogenic bacteria that have been reported in several pinniped species worldwide. Forty-six serum samples were collected in 2014 from pups at Isla Guadalupe, the only place where the species effectively reproduces. Samples were tested for Brucella using 3 consecutive serological tests, and for Leptospira using the microscopic agglutination test. For each bacterium, a Bayesian approach was used to estimate prevalence to exposure, and an epidemiological model was used to test the null hypothesis that the bacterium was present in the colony. No serum sample tested positive for Brucella, and the statistical analyses concluded that the colony was bacterium-free with a 96.3% confidence level. However, a Brucella surveillance program would be highly recommendable. Twelve samples were positive (titers 1:50) to 1 or more serovars of Leptospira. The prevalence was calculated at 27.1% (95% credible interval: 15.6-40.3%), and the posterior analyses indicated that the colony was not Leptospira-free with a 100% confidence level. Serovars Icterohaemorrhagiae, Canicola, and Bratislava were detected, but only further research can unveil whether they affect the fur seal population.
EFFECT OF MODE OF ADDITION OF DISINTEGRANTS ON DISSOLUTION OF MODEL DRUG FROM WET GRANULATION TABLETS

The purpose of the study was to formulate immediate release tablets using various types of disintegrants (crospovidone, sodium starch glycolate and sodium carboxymethylcellulose), in order to investigate the effect of mode of incorporation of disintegrants on release mechanism from tablets. Acetaminophen, a poor soluble drug was used as a model drug to evaluate its release characteristics from different formulations. The USP paddle method was selected to perform the dissolution profiles carried out by USP apparatus 2 (paddle) at 50 rpm in 900 ml phosphate buffer pH 5.8. Successive dissolution time, time required for 25%, 50% and 80% of the drug release (T25%, T50%, T80%) was used to compare the dissolution results. A One way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to interpret the result. Statistically significant differences were found among the drug release profile from all the formulations except mode of addition of crosspovidone. At a fixed amount of disintegrants, extragranular mode of addition seemed to be the best mode of incorporation. The best release was achieved with the crospovidone containing formulations. The T50 and T80 values were indicative of the fact that the drug release was faster from tablet formulations containing crosspovidone. The drug release was very much negligible difference by the mode of crospovidone addition. Two formulations found very small T50 and T80 values indicating very much faster release. From the all formulations corresponded extragranular mode of addition could be the best mode of incorporation. The drug release was unaffected by the mode of crospovidone addition. The mode of incorporation of disintegrants suggested enchancing the release of poor soluble drugs.
Mapping user requirements to implementations

The trend towards systems that support a rich variety of interaction techniques has consequences for the traditional understanding of software design practice. Formal approaches to software development have mainly focused on design expressions that avoid explicit discussion of interactive behaviour. The emphasis in rigorous development is on transforming a mathematical specification into an implementation through a series of valid refinement steps. However, any design process for interactive systems must also add user oriented requirements. It is suggested that a suitable concern for human factors can be folded into a rigorous development process by generalising from functional models and refinement to models that provide multiple viewpoints onto the design artefacts. The paper provides an overview of the relevant perspectives and describes work aimed at integrating them within the specification phase of software development.
SGNET: a distributed infrastructure to handle zero-day exploits

This work builds upon the Leurré. com infrastructure and th e Scriptgen technology. Leurré. com is a worldwide distributed setup of low interaction honeypots whereas Scriptgen is a new class of honeypot: a medium intera ction one. In this paper, we see how Scriptgen can be enriched thanks to the Argo s and Nepenthes open source software in order to build a distributed system a ble to collect rich information about ongoing attacks and to collect malware, eve n for zero-day attacks, without facing the same liability and complexity issues enc ountered by classical high interaction honeypots. The design is precisely expose d as well as its implementation. Experimental results are offered that highl ight the validity of the proposed solution.
A scalable dual-primal domain decomposition method

We blend dual and primal domain decomposition approaches to construct a fast iterative method for the solution of large-scale systems of equations arising from the finite element discretization of second- and fourth-order partial differential equations. We show numerically that our method is scalable with respect to the mesh size, the subdomain size, and the number of elements per subdomain. We apply it to the solution of several realistic structural mechanics problems, and report on parallel performance results obtained on an Origin 2000 system, as well as the ASCI Option Red supercomputer. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Two-year outcomes of RTOG 0529: A phase II evaluation of dose-painted IMRT in combination with 5-fluorouracil and mitomycin-C for the reduction of acute morbidity in carcinoma of the anal canal.

368 Background: 5-Fluorouracil (5FU) and mitomycin-C (MMC) chemoradiation for anal cancer is associated with high rates of acute morbidity. We have previously shown that dose-painted IMRT (DP-IMRT) significantly reduces grade 3+ GI and dermatologic acute toxicity, as compared to the RTOG 9811 5FU/MMC arm, which used non-conformal radiation techniques. We now report on the two-year outcomes of this DP-IMRT approach. METHODS T2-4N0-3M0 anal canal cancers received 5FU (1,000 mg/m2/day 96 hour infusion) and MMC (10 mg/m2 bolus) days 1 and 29 of DP-IMRT prescribed as follows - T2N0: 42 Gy elective nodal and 50.4 Gy anal tumor planning target volumes (PTVs), 28 fractions; T3-4N0-3: 45 Gy elective nodal, 50.4 Gy ≤ 3 cm and 54 Gy > 3 cm metastatic nodal and 54 Gy anal tumor PTVs, 30 fractions. The following two-year outcomes were assessed: local-regional (LRF) and colostomy failures (CF) using the cumulative incidence method, and disease-free (DFS), overall (OS) and colostomy-free survivals (CFS) using the Kaplan-Meier method. RESULTS Of 63 accrued patients, 52 were analyzable. Median age was 58 years; 81% female; 54% stage II; 25% IIIA; 21% IIIB. Median follow-up was 23.2 months (0.2-33). Two-year LRF, CF, DFS and 95% confidence intervals are 20% (9%, 31%), 8% (0.4%, 15%) and 77% (62%, 86%), respectively. The causes of death for the 7 patients that died are: anal cancer in 5, morbidity in one and second primary outside the radiation field in one. Two-year comparison data from the RTOG 9811 5FU/MMC arm are shown in the table below. CONCLUSIONS DP-IMRT with 5FU/MMC for the treatment of anal canal cancer yields similar two-year outcomes as the RTOG 9811 conventional radiation, 5FU/MMC arm. Because of the associated acute toxicity sparing, DP-IMRT will be used as the platform, and may allow for radiation dose escalation, in future RTOG anal canal trials. Supported by RTOG U10 CA21661, CCOP U10 CA3742 and ATC U24 CA 81647 NCI grants. [Table: see text] No significant financial relationships to disclose.
Plenty of Room

农民伊凡家的房子很小，他的妻子总是抱怨没有地方放锅具，五个孩子也经常为争地盘而打架，可怜的伊凡更是在累了天后，连一个休息的地方都没有，伊凡很苦恼，后来去向村子里的一位智者征求意见，那位智者如何能将他们的房子变大呢？
The Bel-1 protein of human foamy virus activates human immunodeficiency virus type 1 gene expression via a novel DNA target site

The Bel-1 protein of human foamy virus can activate transcription directed by the long terminal repeat (LTR) promoter of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). The target sequence for Bel-1 is shown to lie within the HIV-1 LTR U3 region but does not coincide with any previously described factor-binding site. Gene expression directed by an HIV-1 LTR lacking functional sites for the inducible cellular transcription factor NF-kappa B was activated over 100-fold by coexpression of Bel-1. These observations suggest that Bel-1 has the potential to significantly enhance the level of HIV-1 gene expression in cells dually infected with HIV-1 and human foamy virus.
Increasing the precision of comparative models with YASARA NOVA—a self‐parameterizing force field

One of the conclusions drawn at the CASP4 meeting in Asilomar was that applying various force fields during refinement of template‐based models tends to move predictions in the wrong direction, away from the experimentally determined coordinates. We have derived an all‐atom force field aimed at protein and nucleotide optimization in vacuo (NOVA), which has been specifically designed to avoid this problem. NOVA resembles common molecular dynamics force fields but has been automatically parameterized with two major goals: (i) not to make high resolution X‐ray structures worse and (ii) to improve homology models built by WHAT IF. Force‐field parameters were not required to be physically correct; instead, they were optimized with random Monte Carlo moves in force‐field parameter space, each one evaluated by simulated annealing runs of a 50‐protein optimization set. Errors inherent to the approximate force‐field equation could thus be canceled by errors in force‐field parameters. Compared with the optimization set, the force field did equally well on an independent validation set and is shown to move in silico models closer to reality. It can be applied to modeling applications as well as X‐ray and NMR structure refinement. A new method to assign force‐field parameters based on molecular trees is also presented. A NOVA server is freely accessible at http://www.yasara. com/servers Proteins 2002;47:393–402. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The study on optimization strategies of natural ventilation in an exhibition design

Rational controlled natural ventilation is a means of building energy conservation, it can reduce the energy consumption of using the air conditioning, create a favorable wind environment and optimize the indoor air quality at the same time. We using CFD software simulate indoor natural ventilation of a exhibition in Tai Zhou, analysis and organize natural ventilation, to summarize the optimal design strategy of natural ventilation for this exhibition building.
A Quantitative Method to Detect Design Defects and to Ascertain the Elimination of Design Defects after Refactoring

A sporting glove adapted to extend over the hand of a human being, the glove including finger covering portions, a thumb covering portion, a palm covering portion, a wrist covering portion and a portion for covering the back of the hand wherein all of the portions are interconnected together. The glove has a pair of slots on the front and back adjacent to the thumb and a strap having one end with a metal "D" ring attached thereto which is positioned adjacent the wrist covering portion and such one end extends around the base of the thumb covering portion and leads to one of the pairs of slots on the back of the glove, over and between the thumb covering portion and the adjacent finger covering portion and through the other pair of slots on the palm covering portion. The strap then leads down around the base of the thumb, around the back of the wrist and still extending around to the front of the wrist wherein the other end of the strap extends through the metal "D" ring on the one end of the strap, reverse pulled and is held in that position by hook and pile type VELCRO fasteners attached to the strap itself.
Hybrid UAV path planning based on interfered fluid dynamical system and improved RRT

In this paper, a hybrid strategy based on interfered fluid dynamical system (IFDS) and improved rapidly-exploring random tree (IRRT) is proposed for the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) route planning problem in 3-dimensional complex environments. By imitating the phenomenon of fluid flow, the IFDS method can plan a smooth and safe path quickly, but the route may fall into the concave area produced by some overlapping obstacles. Hence the IFDS method is combined with IRRT, which introduces the target probability and heuristic evaluation function on the basis of the traditional RRT. In this hybrid method, the IRRT method can be adopted as the framework of route planning, where the expanding nodes can be computed by IFDS algorithm. The simulation results by different methods prove that this method is of good performance of space searching and obstacle avoidance in 3-dimensional path planning.
Transcriptional activation of prion protein gene in growth-arrested and differentiated mouse erythroleukemia and human neoplastic cells.

The prion protein (PrP) is a GPI-anchored sialoglycoprotein that has attracted worldwide attention over the years due to its involvement in the pathogenesis of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies in sheep (scrapie), cattle (BSE), and humans (CJD). To understand the precise role of the Prn-p gene in cell growth and differentiation we investigated the expression pattern of the Prn-p gene in proliferating cells and in cells arrested in growth either by confluency or by induction of terminal differentiation. Viral-transformed mouse spleen hematopoietic cells named murine erythroleukemia (MEL) and other types of inducible cells (human neuroectodermal RD/TE-671, myoid RD cells) were employed. Cells grown exponentially, at confluency, or irreversibly arrested in growth at terminal differentiation state were analyzed by fluorescence cell sorting and Northern blot hybridization to estimate the steady-state level of PrP mRNA at different phases of the cell cycle. MEL cells that failed to differentiate from treatment with N(6)-methyladenosine (N(6)mAdo), an inhibitor of differentiation, were also analyzed for PrP mRNA level. Our results indicate the following: (a) growth arrest of cells at G(1) phase by confluency or by induction of terminal differentiation led to increased accumulation of PrP mRNA transcripts, an event observed also in differentiated MEL, RD/TE-671, and RD cells independent of the inducer used; (b) treatment of MEL cells with N(6)mAdo prevented early activation of the Prn-p gene in cells treated with the inducer; and (c) cell-free nuclear run-off studies showed enhanced expression of the Prn-p gene due to transcriptional activation. These findings indicate, for the first time, that the Prn-p gene, which is thought to be a housekeeping gene, is transcriptionally activated in G(1) phase in confluent and terminally differentiated cells. This information may be valuable in understanding the overaccumulation of PrP in some differentiated tissues and may let us repress Prn-p gene activation by novel agents.
Olfactory ensheathing cells promote corticospinal axonal outgrowth by a L1 CAM‐dependent mechanism

Olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) support the ability of the olfactory neuraxis to continually retarget within the mature central nervous system. This has led many groups to transplant OECS into the lesioned rodent spinal cord (SCd) in vivo, with variable degrees of anatomical, physiological, and behavioral success. Some of the most conflicting results in OEC transplantation have come from the corticospinal tract (CST) which has shown a relatively poor regeneration response. Although spinal neurite sprouting occurs in response to OECs in vivo and in vitro, we do not know if OECs possess the molecular machinery to stimulate outgrowth of functionally important motor tracts like the CST. Here, we assay cultured postnatal day 8 mouse CST neurons expressing yellow fluorescent protein (YFP) for their ability to extend axons and dendrites in response to different glia, and show that CST axons elongate in response to proteins in OEC plasma membrane (PM). In contrast, CST dendritic branching preferentially occurs in response to factors secreted by both OECs and astrocytes. We identify the L1‐neural cell adhesion molecule (L1‐NCAM) as a major component of OEC‐induced corticospinal axon elongation, and have determined that OEC PM factors (including L1), can stimulate CST outgrowth even when inhibition is induced by myelin associated glycoprotein. Together, these results suggest that in the right context, OEC‐derived PM factors could enhance CST axonal regeneration, and potentially contribute to approaches to ameliorate recovery from SCd injury. GLIA 2013;61:1873–1889
Relationships between sarcomere length and basic composition of infraspinatus and longissimus dorsi muscle

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between sarcomere length and basic composition (water, protein, ash, collagen, and fat content including marbling) of beef muscles with fast-twitch glycolytic (longissimus dorsi muscle) and slow-twitch oxidative fibers (infraspinatus muscle) in Limousin bulls. Samples (n = 15) were obtained from federally inspected slaughter facilities, and animals used in the experiment were treated according to standard ethical norms. The shortest sarcomeres were observed for longissimus dorsi from striploin, and the longest for infraspinatus muscle. Additionally, the influence of both cut and animal was observed. In both cases of muscles, sarcomere length was positively correlated with marbling level and negatively correlated with protein content. Moreover, sarcomere length was very strongly correlated with marbling level in the case of longissimus dorsi et lumborum. Differences in sarcomere length were associated with cut and animal, and this correlation may partly explain differences in composition, especially in protein content.
Computing Efficiency Improvement in Monte Carlo Simulation of a 12 MV Photon Beam Medical LINAC

Variance reduction techniques (VRTs) have been tremendously successful when applied to Monte Carlo radiation transport codes for which the computation time constitutes an important and a problematic parameter. In fact, many Monte Carlo calculations absolutely require variance reduction methods to achieve practical computation times. The MCNPX code has a fairly rich set of variance reduction techniques; the most known are transport cutoffs, interaction forcing, Bremsstrahlung splitting and Russian roulette. Also, the use of a phase space seems to be appropriate to reduce enormously the computing time. This work deals with the use of VRTs provided by MCNPX code for the simulation of a clinical linear electron accelerator (LINAC). Differences between various sets of VRTs are investigated. Combination between VRTs and PS is also analyzed during this study. Analysis showed that the use of VRTs and PS improve the simulation efficiency by a factor greater than 700. Finally, experimental curves of depth-dose and dose profile performed in a homogeneous water phantom are compared to dose distributions computed by use of MCNPX Monte Carlo code.
Cloning and expression of the beta-D-galactosidase gene from Streptococcus thermophilus in Escherichia coli

The beta-D-galactosidase (beta-gal) gene from Streptococcus thermophilus was cloned to isolate and characterize it for potential use as a selection marker in a food-grade cloning vector. Chromosomal DNA from S. thermophilus 19258 was cleaved with the restriction enzyme PstI and ligated to pBR322 for transformation into Escherichia coli JM108. A beta-galactosidase-positive clone was detected by its blue color on a medium supplemented with 5-bromo-4-chloro-3-indolyl-beta-D-galactoside. This transformant possessed a single plasmid, designated pRH116, which contained, in addition to the vector DNA, a 7.0-kilobase (kb) PstI insertion fragment coding for beta-gal activity. An extract from JM108(pRH116) contained a beta-gal protein with the same electrophoretic mobility as the beta-gal from S. thermophilus 19258. Compared with the beta-gal from E. coli HB101, the S. thermophilus beta-gal was of lower molecular weight. A restriction map of pRH116 was constructed from cleavage of both the plasmid and the purified insert. The construction of deletion derivatives of pRH116 with BglII, BstEII, and HindIII revealed the approximate location of the gene on the 7.0-kb fragment. The beta-gal gene was further localized to a 3.85-kb region.
Automatic syllable detection for vowel landmarks

Lexical Access From Features (LAFF) is a proposed knowledge-based speech recognition system which uses landmarks to guide the search for distinctive features. The first stage in LAFF must find Vowel landmarks. This task is similar to automatic detection of syllable nuclei (ASD). This thesis adapts and extends ASD algorithms for Vowel landmark detection. In addition to existing work on ASD, the acoustic theory of speech production was used to predict characteristics of vowels, and studies were done on a speech database to test the predictions. The resulting data guided the development of an improved Vowel landmark detector (VLD). Studies of the TIMIT database showed that about 94% of vowels have a peak of energy in the F1 region, and that about 89% of vowels have a peak in F1 frequency. Energy and frequency peaks were fairly highly correlated, with both peaks tending to appear before the midpoint of the vowel duration (as labeled), and frequency peaks tending to appear before energy peaks. Landmark based vowel classification was not found to be sensitive to the precise location of the landmark. Energy in a fixed frequency band (300 to 900 Hz) was found to be as good for finding landmarks as the energy at F1, enabling a simple design for a VLD without the complexity of formant tracking. The VLD was based on a peak picking technique, using a recursive convex hull algorithm. Three acoustic cues (peak-to-dip depth, duration, and level) were combined using a multilayer perceptron with two hidden units. The perceptron was trained by matching landmarks to syllabic nuclei derived from the TIMIT aligned phonetic transcription. Pairs of abutting vowels were allowed to match either one or two landmarks without penalty. The perceptron was trained first by back propagation using mean squared error, and then by gradient descent using error rate. The final VLD's error rate was about 12%, with about 3.5% insertions and 8.5% deletions, which compares favorably to the 6% of vowels without peaks. Most errors occurred in predictable circumstances, such as high vowels adjacent to semivowels, or very reduced schwas. Further work should include improvements to the output confidence score, and error correction as part of vowel quality detection. (Copies available exclusively from MIT Libraries, Rm. 14-0551, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307. Ph. 617-253-5668; Fax 617-253-1690.)