Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Investigation of the Possible Role of Chlamydophila abortus in Reproductive Failures in Brazilian Herds of Domestic Ruminants Francielle

Chlamydophila abortus (C. abortus) infection is rel at d to reproductive failure in domestic ruminants. Although it has not been well characterized worldwide, this pat hogen has already been identified in some European cou tries and in the USA. In Brazil, preliminary studies have shown serological evidence of C. abortus infection in herds with low antibody prevalence. Until now, the identificat on of C. abortus in biological samples from female s presenting reproductive failures has not been described in Bra zilian herds of domestic ruminants. The aim of this study was to evaluate the presence of the C. abortus in a collec tion of abortions from cattle (n=85), sheep (n=12), and goats (n=8), in samples of vaginal mucus from cows (n=13) , sheep (n=90), and goats (n=20), and in semen from sheep (n=10) and goats (n=5). The specimens (n=243) were evaluated using a PCR assay developed to amplify th e 16S23S rRNA intergenic space of C. abortus. A PCR assa y with an internal control, which amplifies a fragm ent from the ND5 gene of bovine mitochondrial DNA, was used in order to evaluate the efficiency of the DNA extr ac ion and of the PCR reaction. All biological samples (n=243) included in this study were negative for C. abortu s in the PCR assay. The internal control enabled the amplificati on of a product from the bovine mitochondrial ND5 g ene in all cattle abortion samples (n=85). Given the serologic al evidence indicating the presence of C. abortus i nfection in Brazilian herds of domestic ruminants, and consider ing the wide sampling evaluated, the failure to ide ntify C. abortus in this survey suggests that the frequency of linical signs in infected animals may be low or even absent.
Seven-Tesla Magnetic Resonance Imaging Accurately Quantifies Intratumoral Uptake of Therapeutic Nanoparticles in the McA Rat Model of Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Preclinical Study in a Rodent Model

ObjectivesAfter inducing McA tumors in Sprague-Dawley rats (McA-SD), the following hypotheses were tested: first, that hypervascular McA tumors grown in Sprague-Dawley rats provide a suitable platform to investigate drug delivery; and second, that high-field MRI can be used to measure intratumoral uptake of DOX-SPIOs. Materials and MethodsMcA cells were implanted into the livers of 18 Sprague-Dawley rats. In successfully inoculated animals, 220-&mgr;L DOX-SPIOs were delivered to tumors via the intravenous or intra-arterial route. Pretreatment and posttreatment T2*-weighted images were obtained using 7-T MRI, and change in R2* value (&Dgr;R2*) was obtained from mean signal intensities of tumors in these images. Tumor iron concentration ([Fe]), an indicator of DOX-SPIO uptake, was measured using mass spectroscopy. The primary outcome variable was the Pearson correlation between &Dgr;R2* and [Fe]. ResultsTumors grew successfully in 13 of the 18 animals (72%). Mean (SD) maximum tumor diameter was 0.83 (0.25) cm. The results of phantom studies revealed a strong positive correlation between &Dgr;R2* and [Fe], with r = 0.98 (P < 0.01). The results of in vivo drug uptake studies demonstrated a positive correlation between &Dgr;R2* and [Fe], with r = 0.72 (P = 0.0004). ConclusionsThe McA tumors grown in the Sprague-Dawley rats demonstrated uptake of nanoparticle-based therapeutic agents. Magnetic resonance imaging quantification of intratumoral uptake strongly correlated with iron concentrations in pathological specimens, suggesting that MRI may be used to quantify uptake of iron-oxide nanotherapeutics.
A fourth trypsinogen (P23) in the rat pancreas induced by CCK.

P23 Is a secretory protein synthesized by the unstimulated rat pancreas in relatively small amounts (0.4% of total exocrine product). By non-reducing 2D-IEF/SDS-PAGE it has an estimated Mr of 23 kD, similar to the known acidic (T1,2) and basic (T3) forms of trypsinogen, and a pl of 6.2, between those of the trypsinogens (4.3, 4.4 and 8.0). Caerulein, an analog of CCK/PZ (Cholecystokinin/Pancreozymin), stimu-lates its absolute synthesis 14-fold (1). By this criterion, P23 is the most strongly regulated protein of the rat exocrine pancreas. Using a polyclonal rabbit antiserum raised against P23 isolated from 2D gels, four recombinant plaques were identffied in a A zap (Stratagene) cDNA expression library made with poly(A) +-enriched RNA from CCK-stimulated rat pancreas. Recombinant plasmids were excised in vivo with helper phage R408 (Stra- tagene) from the A clones and sequenced on both strands using Sequenase (USB Corporation). The sequence of the longest clone (P23/2) is shown with its deduced amino acid sequence. pi of 6.2. We propose that P23 is a fourth trypsinogen (T4) because (i) its amino acid sequence contains all the major structural features of other trypsins (2-4): the signal peptide (up to left V) followed by an activation peptide with a typical polyanionic charge cluster preceding the acti- vation cleavage position (right V); an obligatory Asp at position 195; the catalytic triad of HIS64, ASPlo8 and SER2o1; and finally, six conserved disulphide bonds (Cys-Cys: 30-161, 49-65, 133-234, 140-207, 172-186 and 197-221) which explain the faster mobility of P23 in non-reducing SDS-PAGE (Reduced, the apparent Mr corresponds more closely to the calculated Mr of 26.6 kD). (ii) The trypsin activity of renatured P23 cut out from a 2D gel was found to be comparable to those of T1,2 and T3. (iii) The polyclonal antiserum used for the screening cross-reacted with T3 and weakly so with T1,2 in protein blots. The physiological role of this fourth trypsinogen is unknown as are the function and the level of its hor-monal regulation.
Bio-inspired fabrication of stimuli-responsive photonic crystals with hierarchical structures and their applications

When the constitutive materials of photonic crystals (PCs) are stimuli-responsive, the resultant PCs exhibit optical properties that can be tuned by the stimuli. This can be exploited for promising applications in colour displays, biological and chemical sensors, inks and paints, and many optically active components. However, the preparation of the required photonic structures is the first issue to be solved. In the past two decades, approaches such as microfabrication and self-assembly have been developed to incorporate stimuli-responsive materials into existing periodic structures for the fabrication of PCs, either as the initial building blocks or as the surrounding matrix. Generally, the materials that respond to thermal, pH, chemical, optical, electrical, or magnetic stimuli are either soft or aggregate, which is why the manufacture of three-dimensional hierarchical photonic structures with responsive properties is a great challenge. Recently, inspired by biological PCs in nature which exhibit both flexible and responsive properties, researchers have developed various methods to synthesize metals and metal oxides with hierarchical structures by using a biological PC as the template. This review will focus on the recent developments in this field. In particular, PCs with biological hierarchical structures that can be tuned by external stimuli have recently been successfully fabricated. These findings offer innovative insights into the design of responsive PCs and should be of great importance for future applications of these materials.
Geometric path following control for multirotor vehicles using nonlinear model predictive control and 3D spline paths

There is strong interest in Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV) control architectures which are able to systematically respect physical limitations of the plant. Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC) inherits the required constraint handling abilities and is easy to reconfigure in case of plant degradation. This work presents a promising cascaded control architecture for multirotors for the task to follow a geometric path. In contrast to existing NMPC implementations for path following, three times continuously differentiable reference trajectories are required due to the underactuated nature of multirotor vehicles. This is achieved by defining a path by a quartic spline and employ fourth order path dynamics. The proposed controller considers the dynamics of the inner acceleration loop explicitly so that the assumption of time-scale separation between the controller cascades can be dropped. The presented implementation allows for online adaptation of plant and control parameters as a first step towards application in a fault-tolerant setup. High fidelity simulation results demonstrate the favorable performance. Due to the observed runtimes well below a tenth of the sample rate, deployability to the onboard embedded computer can be expected.
Managing the Process Conglomeration in Health and Social Care

The organisation and processes of today’s health and social care are becoming ever more complex as a consequence of societal trends, including an ageing population and an increased reliance on care at home. One aspect of the increased complexity is that a single patient may receive care from several separate care providers, which easily results in situations with potentially incoherent, uncoordinated and interfering care processes. In order to describe and analyse such situations, the paper introduces the notion of a process conglomeration. This is defined as a set of patient care processes that all influence the same patient, which are overlapping in time, and that all have the goal of improving or maintaining the health and social wellbeing of the patient. Problems and challenges of process conglomerations are investigated using coordination theory and speech act theory. In order to address the challenges, a number of information services are proposed.
Evidence : philosophy of science meets medicinejep

Obviously medicine should be evidence-based. The issues lie in the details: what exactly counts as evidence? Do certain kinds of evidence carry more weight than others? (And if so why? ) And how exactly should medicine be based on evidence? When it comes to these details, the evidence-based medicine (EBM) movement has got itself into a mess – or so it will be argued. In order to start to resolve this mess, we need to go ‘back to basics’; and that means turning to the philosophy of science. The theory of evidence, or rather the logic of the interrelations between theory and evidence, has always been central to the philosophy of science – sometimes under the alias of the ‘theory of confirmation’. When taken together with a little philosophical commonsense, this logic can help us move towards a position on evidence in medicine that is more sophisticated and defensible than anything that EBM has been able so far to supply.
Heart Rate and Blood Pressure Variability and Baroreflex Sensitivity in Patients With Anorexia Nervosa

Objective: Anorexia nervosa (AN) is considered to have a significant risk for sudden death because of cardiac complications, and abnormalities of the autonomic nervous system might be a cause of cardiac dysfunction. The aim of this study was to investigate autonomic nervous system function in AN patients by analyzing heart rate variability (HRV), blood pressure variability (BPV), and baroreflex sensitivity (BRS). Methods: The subjects were 32 AN patients without other psychiatric comorbidities and 37 healthy controls. Beat-to-beat R-R interval and systolic blood pressure recorded in the supine position were analyzed using power spectral analysis and cross-spectrum analysis to quantify the frequency domain properties of HRV, BPV, and BRS. In addition, detrended fluctuation analysis was used to quantify the fractal correlation properties from the scaling exponent &agr;1 of HRV. Results: High frequency power and total power of HRV and BRS were significantly higher in AN patients and low frequency power of BPV, low frequency/High frequency ratio of HRV, and the scaling exponent &agr;1 of HRV were significantly lower in AN patients, compared with controls. Conclusions: These findings suggest that AN patients have reduced cardiovascular sympathetic nervous responsiveness, increased parasympathetic nervous responsiveness, and increased complexity of the interbeat interval time series compared with healthy controls. Regarding the relationship to prognosis of AN, the study showed conflicting results, and further prospective studies are needed to determine if these results are related to high mortality in AN patients. AN = anorexia nervosa; HRV = heart rate variability; BPV = blood pressure variability; BRS = baroreflex sensitivity; DFA = detrended fluctuation analysis; BMI = body mass index; RRI = R-R interval; SBP = systolic blood pressure; LF = low frequency; HF = high frequency.
Analytical Investigation of Sideband Electromagnetic Vibration in Integral-Slot PMSM Drive With SVPWM Technique

This paper provides a comprehensive investigation into the electromagnetic vibration associated with the sideband harmonic components introduced by a space vector pulse width modulation applied in integral-slot permanent magnet synchronous machine (PMSM) drives. The critical permanent magnet, armature reaction, and sideband magnetic field components, which are the primary causes for a sideband electromagnetic vibration in integral-slot PMSMs, are identified. The analytical derivations of the magnetic field components are carried out, and amplitudes and frequencies of the resultant sideband radial electromagnetic force components are obtained. Furthermore, the proposed models of the sideband radial electromagnetic force components are incorporated into the vibration model to analytically evaluate the corresponding sideband electromagnetic vibrations of the machine. Experimental tests on an integral-slot PMSM drive are comprehensively performed to confirm the validity and accuracy of the analytical models. Not only can the validated analytical models offer insightful details in understanding the impacts of the key factors, such as operation conditions, machine geometry, electromagnetic, and power converter parameters, on the sideband electromagnetic vibration, but also can be readily extended to assess and reduce noise in integral-slot PMSM drives.
Calculation of ohmic losses in litz wires by coupling analytical and numerical methods

Up to now, litz wires with many (several hundreds) strands are simplified in complex systems such as transformers or coils to make simulations feasible. However, frequency dependent losses of litz wires and solid conductors differ strongly. In this paper, a coupled process of numerical simulation and analytical methods is described which allows efficient simulation of full 3D structures including resolving litz wire sub-structure. To achieve this, 3D simulation with a simplified conductor calculates the magnetic field in the entire system. Based on these data, a new analytical method determines the losses in the litz wire along the conductor for the large number of 2D cross-sections. The error of the analytical method is less than 5% at frequencies up to 1MHz and external magnetic fields up to 2500kA/m. Because of the significant reduction of calculation time, windings and ferrite structures can be efficienly optimized.
Personal Stigma in Suicide Attempters

The aim of this study was to explore suicide attempters’ experiences of personal stigma. This qualitative study included a focus group of 7 experienced clinicians and semi-structured interviews with 8 suicide attempters. Thematic analysis of the data yielded four main themes: seriousness, care, “badness,” and avoidance. Experiences of stigma pervaded all contexts, but were most emotionally upsetting to the participants in interpersonal relationships. The findings show the importance of evaluating stigma for suicide attempters during suicide risk assessment and the need for specifically tailored interventions to combat suicide stigma at the individual level.
Associations Between Physiological Reactivity and Children’s Behavior: Advantages of a Multisystem Approach

ABSTRACT. The past decade has seen a notable increase in interest in and research concerning the physiological correlates of behavior problems in childhood. The present article reviews what this growing body of research has revealed. The main tenet is that disruptions in both sympathetic and adrenocortical regulation appear to be common among children with internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. The associations between such neuroendocrine alterations and behavior are discussed and their implications for the fields of stress physiology, neuroendocrinology, and developmental psychopathology are outlined. It is proposed that substantial advances can be made by investigating patterns of physiological responses among multiple, concurrent systems rather than individual response systems.
Design of Hybrid Time-Domain Schemes With Optimal Gridding Density and Material-Interface Sensitivity for Large-Scale EMC Problems

The systematic construction of a 3D generalized explicit method with adjustable mesh density is presented in this paper for the consistent analysis of large-scale applications. The novel algorithm introduces a parametric hybridization of a conformal multimodal finite-difference time-domain and a curvilinear pseudospectral time-domain technique which lead to optimized simulations. Updated independently, these procedures are interconnected by flexible boundary conditions and Runge-Kutta integrators, while their media sensitivity receives efficient tuning. Further enhancement is achieved via stencil patterns that exploit structural periodicity. So, the proposed schemes yield highly precise and affordable results devoid of grid errors, as certified by several real-world problems.
LspA-independent action of globomycin on Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

OBJECTIVES The objective of this study was to investigate the antimicrobial activity and specificity of globomycin, an inhibitor of lipoprotein signal peptidase II (LspA), against Mycobacterium tuberculosis. METHODS The mycobactericidal and mycobacteriostatic activity of globomycin was determined by optical density and cfu plating. The specificity of globomycin was determined by western immunoblotting using anti-MPT83 antibody. RESULTS Globomycin is mycobactericidal at concentrations>or=40 mg/L. However, at 80 mg/L, the processing of the lipoprotein MPT-83 is unaffected and growth-inhibitory effect of globomycin is unchanged in an lspA null mutant (DeltalspA::lspAmut) lacking the putative drug target. CONCLUSIONS Globomycin kills M. tuberculosis through a mechanism that is independent of LspA.
Pathogenicity island integrase cross‐talk: a potential new tool for virulence modulation

Instability and excision of pathogenicity islands (PAIs) have already been described in Escherichia coli 536. In this edition of Molecular Microbiology, Bianca Hochhut and colleagues from the University of Würzburg in Germany have shown that the instability of four of the E. coli 536 PAIs is mediated by a P4‐type integrase encoded within the specific PAI by a site‐specific recombination mechanism. The integrase encoded on PAI II536 is able to mediate excision and integration of both PAI II536, and also PAI V536. The att sites of both these PAIs have a region of sequence similarity, which is also found in several other PAIs and in tRNA genes in several bacterial species. The cross‐PAI activity of this integrase (IntPAI II) suggests that it plays an important role in both genome evolution and horizontal transfer of pathogenicity elements, possibly even across species barriers. Deletion of PAIs that carry genes for adhesins and other traits might lead to a phase variation‐like phenomenon. Differential regulation of integrase activity or production might add a further level of fine‐tuning during bacterial infection.
You Can't Bribe a Computer: Dealing with the Societal Challenge of Corruption Through ICT

Despite the influence of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on enhancing transparency and fairness, there is limited theoretical understanding of how ICT affects corruption. Adopting an institutional perspective, we conceptualize the mechanisms through which e-government influences corruption in a nation. Specifically, we theorize the relationship between e-government and corruption at two levels: (1) base corruption observed in national institutions (political, legal, and media institutions), and (2) permeated corruption in the national stakeholder service systems (business and citizen systems). Using panel data from 63 countries over a 4-year period, we test the direct and mediated effects of e-government on corruption in national institutions and stakeholder service systems, respectively. This exploratory study provides preliminary insights into the mechanisms through which corruption manifests in a nation and demonstrates how e-government can be helpful in alleviating it. In addition, the study offers important implications that we believe will be instrumental in stimulating future research on the subject.
Factors involved in specific transcription by mammalian RNA polymerase II: purification, genetic specificity, and TATA box-promoter interactions of TFIID

Selective and accurate transcription of purified genes by RNA polymerase II requires multiple factors. The factor designated TFIID was purified extensively from HeLa cell nuclear extracts by using a simple and novel complementation assay. Thus, TFIID was preferentially inactivated by mild heat treatment of a nuclear extract, and supplementation of the heat-treated extract with TFIID-containing fractions restored adenovirus major late (ML) promoter-dependent transcription. By using this assay, TFIID was purified approximately 300-fold by conventional chromatographic methods. The most purified TFIID fraction was demonstrated to be required for transcription of a number of other cellular and viral class II genes. This factor showed specific interactions with both the adenovirus ML promoter and a human heat shock 70 (hsp-70) promoter. On the ML promoter, the DNase I-protected region extended from around position -40 to position +35, although some discontinuities (and associated hypersensitive sites) were apparent near the initiation site and near position +27; the upstream and downstream boundaries of the TFIID-binding site were also confirmed by exonuclease III digestion experiments. In contrast to these results, the DNase I-protected regions on the human hsp-70 promoter were confined to a smaller area that extended from positions -35 to -19. DNase I hypersensitive sites were observed in both the adenovirus ML and hsp-70 promoters, most notably in the region at position -47. These results indicate either that there are different forms of TFIID or that a single TFIID can interact differently with distinct promoters.