Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On sepsis - epidemiology, prediction and diagnostics

The overall aims of this thesis were to improve prediction, diagnostics and knowledge on epidemiology of sepsis. In paper I, we developed and evaluated an integrated platform for rapid analysis of sepsis-causing organisms directly from blood samples. Testing with blood samples spiked with bacteria and samples from septic patients indicate that the detection limit of the system is in the upper part of clinically relevant bacteria concentration range. The paper describes proof-of-principle for the integrated system for faster sepsis diagnostics. In paper II, we assessed the incidence of hospital-treated sepsis in an entire population based on clinical findings. The annual incidence for severe sepsis (sepsis-2) was 687/100 000 person years (95% CI 549-824) and the annual incidence for sepsis-3 was 780/100 000 person years (95% CI 633-926). These estimates are closer to the true incidence of sepsis compared to estimates based on ICD-codes. In paper III & IV, we evaluated different early warning scores for sepsis prediction and detection. We also developed and evaluated a candidate warning score for sepsis based on vital signs and heparin-binding protein. NEWS2 was superior to qSOFA and RETTS for screening for sepsis. Even with a statistical approach, we could not construct better warning scores for sepsis than NEWS2. In paper V, patients with sepsis admitted to an ICU were retrospectively studied in a clinical chart review. We found a high proportion of bacteremic patients, probably due to that clinical chart review minimizes the misdiagnosis of other conditions. We also demonstrated higher mortality among bacteremic patients, than in non-bacteremic patients. (Less)
Personalized Geographical Influence Modeling for POI Recommendation

Point-of-interest (POI) recommendation has great significance in helping users find favorite places from a large number of candidate venues. One challenging in POI recommendation is to effectively exploit geographical information since users usually care about the physical distance to the recommended POIs. Though spatial relevance has been widely considered in recent recommendation methods, it is modeled only from the POI perspective, failing to capture user personalized preference to spatial distance. Moreover, these methods suffer from a diversity-deficiency problem since they are often based on collaborative filtering which always favors popular POIs. To overcome these problems, we propose in this article a personalized geographical influence modeling method called PGIM, which jointly learns users’ geographical preference and diversity preference for POI recommendation. Specifically, we model geographical preference from three aspects: user global tolerance, user local tolerance, and spatial distance. We also extract user diversity preference from interactions among users for diversity-promoting recommendation. Experimental results on three real-world datasets demonstrate the superiority of PGIM.
A PHYLOGENETIC PERSPECTIVE ON THE EVOLUTION OF CHROMATIC ULTRAVIOLET PLUMAGE COLORATION IN GRACKLES AND ALLIES (ICTERIDAE)

Abstract Plumage traits have been studied intensely for more than a century, especially bright and exaggerated plumage. A large body of evidence across a range of avian taxa supports sexual selection as a major evolutionary force acting on plumage colors. The discovery of ultraviolet (UV) coloration in avian plumage resulted in the extension of sexual selection hypotheses to explain the evolution of potential UV plumage traits. However, there have been no comparative evolutionary studies elucidating the origin of UV signals in birds. Here, I used a comparative phylogenetic approach to investigate the evolution of chromatic UV plumage colors in the grackles-and-allies clade of the New World blackbirds (Icteridae). On the basis of reflectance data collected from museum study skins, I have determined that UV plumage signals have evolved multiple times from an ancestral condition that lacked UV plumage signals, with very few unambiguous reversals. Although UV plumage has evolved in both males and females, there have been significantly more evolutionary changes in male UV plumage characters. Concentrated changes tests and correlations of independent contrasts reveal evidence for sexual selection of some male UV plumage characters, as well as an increase in UV plumage coloration for species found in open habitats. These results support the use of objective assessments of avian colors (i.e. spectrophotometry) to properly interpret patterns of plumage evolution generally, and they suggest the need for behavioral studies on the function of chromatic UV signals in several blackbird species. Una Perspectiva Filogenética sobre la Evolución de la Coloración Ultravioleta en los Changos y Chamones (Icteridae)
EFFECTS OF MUNICIPAL WASTEWATER IRRIGATION ON PHYSIOLOGICAL AND PHYTOCHEMICAL PARAMETERS OF AEGILOPS COLUMNARIS ZHUK (POACEAE=GRAMINAE)

Today use of municipal or industrial wastewater as alternative source of water for irrigation purpose is a common practice. The present study has been carried out to understand the effect of wastewater on some physiological and phytochemical parameters of Aegilops columnaris. It is considered to be one of the ancestors of the cultivated wheat, also consists of only one donor species to the gene pool of Triticum and has an important potential utilization in wheat improvement. Two cultivation groups consist of control (urban drinking water irrigation) and treated wastewater plants (wastewater irrigation) of A. columnaris were prepared in equal soil and cultivation condition in 10 replications for 8 weeks. Wastewater was obtained from the Arak, Iran sewage ponds. Then 30 physiological and phytochemical parameters were studied and calculated for all of control and treated plants. Data analyzed using EXCEL and SPSS. Results showed using wastewater for irrigation of cultivated A. columnaris increased all of growth parameters with the exception of aerial part and root water contents % in comparison with control. Chlorophylls and carotenoids reduced while increasing root and aerial parts prolin, water soluble carbohydrates and catalase were seen in treated plants. Positive correlation was observed between aerial part Na and root and aerial part prolin and carbohydrates. Aerial part catalse showed positive correlation with aerial growth parameters, root and aerial part prolin and carbohydrates amounts and correlated negative to photosynthetic pigments (P<0.01).
Marking Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds with Radio Frequency Identification Tags

ABSTRACT We assessed the feasibility of marking ruby-throated hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. We trapped 27 hummingbirds at feeding stations on a 2.0-ha study site. We subcutaneously implanted each hummingbird with a 0.067-g RFID tag and released it at the capture site. We deployed RFID transceiver systems at 5 feeding stations and electronically monitored tagged hummingbird activity continuously on the study site through 3 summers. Post-release relocation rate exceeded expectations based on previous leg band recovery data, and bird activity data acquisition was consistent and reliable and required minimum labor.
Acyclic nucleotide analogues: synthesis and oligomerization studies of disubstituted pyrimidines

Acyclic nucleotide analogues are of interest in origin of life studies. The synthesis is reported of the compounds: 5,5-di(2-phosphoethyl)-2,4,6-trioxopyrimidine (1), 2-amino-5,5-di(2-phosphoethyl)-4,6-dioxopyrimidine (2), 4,6-diamino-5,5-di(2-phosphoethyl)-2-oxopyrimidine (3), 2,4,6-triamino-5,5-di(2-phosphoethyl)pyrimidine (4), 6-amino-5,5-di(2-phosphoethyl)-2,4-dioxopyrimidine (5), and 2,6-diamino-5,5-di(2-phosphoethyl)-4oxopyrimidine (6). These six new pyrimidine analogues were prepared by condensation of urea or guanidine with a,a-di(2-[ethoxy-l-ethoxy]ethyl)diethylmalonate (21), α,α-di(2-[ethoxy-l-ethoxy]ethyl)malononitrile (24) or a,a-di(2-[ethoxy-l-ethoxy]ethyl)ethylcyanoacetate (25) respectively, followed by removal of the protecting groups and bisphosphorylation. Possible conformations of the analogues are discussed. Based in part on: M.J. van Vliet, J. Visscher and A.W. Schwartz (1994) Nucleosides & Nucleotides, 13, 2113-2124 29
Vertical distribution of fruit-feeding butterflies in Sabah, Borneo

Investigation of vertical distribution of fruit-feeding butterflies in the complex tropical rainforest of Sabah is important for understanding butterfly diversity in the tropics and for determining responses of butterflies to forest disturbance. We used fruit- baited traps to investigate the vertical distribution of fruit-feeding butterflies in primary rainforest and to determine if ground-based surveys can reliably survey nymphalid butterflies, or whether there are significant numbers of these species restricted to the canopy. The results show that whilst ground-based transect techniques can survey Satyrinae and Morphinae butterflies fairly reliably, they are likely to miss the canopy component of the fauna. Movements of recaptured butterflies between traps at different heights were minimal, indicating that species are confined to certain heights.
Improving Semantic Segmentation of Aerial Images Using Patch-based Attention

The trade-off between feature representation power and spatial localization accuracy is crucial for the dense classification/semantic segmentation of aerial images. High-level features extracted from the late layers of a neural network are rich in semantic information, yet have blurred spatial details; low-level features extracted from the early layers of a network contain more pixel-level information, but are isolated and noisy. It is therefore difficult to bridge the gap between high and low-level features due to their difference in terms of physical information content and spatial distribution. In this work, we contribute to solve this problem by enhancing the feature representation in two ways. On the one hand, a patch attention module (PAM) is proposed to enhance the embedding of context information based on a patch-wise calculation of local attention. On the other hand, an attention embedding module (AEM) is proposed to enrich the semantic information of low-level features by embedding local focus from high-level features. Both of the proposed modules are light-weight and can be applied to process the extracted features of convolutional neural networks (CNNs). Experiments show that, by integrating the proposed modules into the baseline Fully Convolutional Network (FCN), the resulting local attention network (LANet) greatly improves the performance over the baseline and outperforms other attention based methods on two aerial image datasets.
Antioxidative protection in a drought‐resistant maize strain during leaf senescence

Leaves of 7- and 18-day-old plants of two maize strains, one resistant (LIZA) and one sensitive (LG11) to water stress, were floated in 1 mM paraquat and 1 mM H2O2 for 12 h in light and in darkness. The aim of this work was to analyse the effects of these substances on the activities of enzymes involved in the scavenging of active oxygen species during senescence. Three senescence parameters; chlorophyll loss, lipid peroxidation and conductivity; showed a general cell damage caused by both oxidative treatments and revealed a higher tolerance of LIZA than LG11 to paraquat and H2O2 both in light and in darkness. Activities of antioxidative enzymes increased by the effect of oxidative treatments in young and senescent leaves of the drought-resistant maize strain LIZA. These increases were about 3-to 6-fold in glutathione reductase. 3-to 4-fold in superoxide dismutase and 2-fold in ascorbate peroxidase activities. The possible correlation between water stress resistance. senescence and the potential of antioxidant enzymes was analysed.
Microalgae for phosphorus removal and biomass production: a six species screen for dual‐purpose organisms

Microalgae biofuel production can be feasible when a second function is added, such as wastewater treatment. Microalgae differ in uptake of phosphorus (P) and growth, making top performer identification fundamental. The objective of this screen was to identify dual‐purpose candidates capable of high rates of P removal and growth. Three freshwater – Chlorella sp. , Monoraphidium minutum sp. , and Scenedesmus sp. – and three marine – Nannochloropsis sp. , N. limnetica sp. , and Tetraselmis suecica sp. – species were batch cultured in 250 mL flasks over 16 days to quantitate total phosphorus (TP) removal and growth as a function of P loads (control, and 5, 10, and 15 mg L−1 enrichment of control). Experimental design used 100 μmol m−2 s−1 of light, a light/dark cycle of 14/10 h, and no CO2 enrichment. Phosphorus uptake was dependent on species, duration of exposure, and treatment, with significant interaction effects. Growth was dependant on species and treatment. Not all species showed increased P removal with increasing P addition, and no species demonstrated higher growth. Nannochloropsis sp and N. limnetica sp. performed poorly across all treatments. Two dual‐purpose candidates were identified. At the 10 mg L−1 treatment Monoraphidium minutum sp. removed 67.1% (6.66 mg L−1 ± 0.60 SE) of TP at day 8, 79.3% (7.86 mg L−1 ± 0.28 SE) at day 16, and biomass accumulation of 0.63 g L−1 ± 0.06 SE at day 16. At the same treatment Tetraselmis suecica sp. removed 79.4% (6.98 mg L−1 ± 0.24 SE) TP at day 8, 83.0% (7.30 mg L−1 ± 0.60 SE) at day 16, and biomass of 0.55 g L−1 ± 0.02 SE at day 16. These species merit further study using high‐density wastewater cultures and lipid profiling to assess suitability for a nutrient removal and biomass/biofuel production scheme.
Formaldehyde dismutase activities in Gram-positive bacteria oxidizing methanol

SUMMARY: Extracts of methanol-grown cells of Amycolatopsis methanolica and Mycobacterium gastri oxidized methanol and ethanol with concomitant reduction of N, N'-dimethyl-4-nitrosoaniline (NDMA). Anion-exchange chromatography revealed the presence of a single enzyme able to catalyse this activity in methanol- or ethanol-grown cells of M. gastri. A. methanolica, however, possessed two different enzymes, one of which was similar to the single enzyme found in M. gastri. The methanol: NDMA oxidoreductases (MNO) were purified to homogeneity from methanol-grown cells of A. methanolica and M. gastri. Both enzyme preparations showed similar relative molecular masses with subunits of M r 50000 and 49000, and native enzymes of M r 268000 and 255000 (gel-filtration data for A. methanolica and M. gastri, respectively). Both enzymes also displayed a similar substrate specificity. They were active with methanol and various other primary alcohols (yielding the corresponding aldehydes), polyols and formaldehyde. In addition, the MNO enzymes produced methylformate from methanol plus formaldehyde, and catalyzed formaldehyde dismutase and NADH-dependent formaldehyde reductase reactions. They did not possess NAD(P)+- or dye-linked alcohol dehydrogenase or oxidase activities.
Regulation of DNA Replication Fork Genes by 17β-Estradiol

The steroid hormone estrogen can stimulate mitogenesis in hormone-responsive breast cancer epithelial cells. This action is attributed to the transcriptional activity of the ER, a ligand-dependent transcription factor. However, the exact molecular mechanism underlying estrogen-induced proliferation has yet to be completely elucidated. Using custom cDNA microarrays containing many genes implicated in cell cycle progression and DNA replication, we examined the gene expression of a hormone-responsive breast cancer cell line (MCF-7) treated with a mitogenic dose of estrogen in the absence of confounding growth factors found in serum. Gene expression changes were monitored 1, 4, 12, 24, 36, and 48 h after estrogen stimulation so that RNA levels at critical times throughout cell cycle progression could be monitored. Significant changes include the altered transcript levels of genes implicated in transcription, cellular signaling, and cell cycle checkpoints. At time points during which increased numbers of cells were progressing through S phase, a majority of the genes associated with the DNA replication fork were also found to be induced. The coexpression of DNA replication fork genes by estrogen without the support of serum growth factors indicates an important estrogen regulatory component of the molecular mechanism driving estrogen-induced mitogenesis.
Remittance Investment Climate analysis: framework and methods to ascertain the local development potential of overseas remittances

ABSTRACT This paper presents the integrated mixed methods results and findings of four community-based studies on the local development potential of overseas remittances. We developed a Remittance Investment Climate (ReIC) analytical framework that outlines what the rural origins of overseas migrants need to see for their remittances to make productive contributions locally. This ReIC framework was piloted through a mixed methods tool called the Remittance Investment Climate Analysis in Rural Hometowns (RICART) and was conducted over a four-year period in four rural municipalities in the Philippines. The interactions between remittance owners (remitters abroad and their families) and their rural hometowns’ investment climate conditions were analyzed. The results and findings on remittances being saved, invested and parked as operational enterprises locally are contextualized per municipality. We find that the interventions by local authorities to improve investment conditions are important actions, but so are improving rural residents’ financial literacy levels, and their practices surrounding financial inclusion and financial functioning. The local development potential of remittances thus rests on conjoint actions to improve local investment climate conditions and regulations, and the financial capabilities of rural residents.
Tight translational control by the initiation factors eIF4E and eIF(iso)4E is required for maize seed germination

Abstract A characteristic mechanism of gene expression regulation during seed germination is the selective translation of mRNAs. Previous findings indicate that the two cap-binding complexes eIF4F (with eIF4E and eIF4G subunits) and eIF(iso)4F [with eIF(iso)4E and eIF(iso)4G subunits] are differentially expressed during maize seed germination. In addition, several studies in vitro have suggested that these factors may participate in selective mRNA translation. The translational activities of eIF4E and eIF(iso)4E were tested in vitro using transcripts from two different sets: dry (0 h) and 24-h-imbibed maize embryonic axes. In vitro translation of these mRNA pools in the presence of the recombinant eIF4E or eIF(iso)4E, and the native cap-binding complexes from dry- or 24-h-imbibed axes, produced different profiles of proteins which were visualized by two-dimensional protein gels and autoradiography. The data indicated that eIF(iso)4E was particularly required for translation of the stored mRNAs from dry seeds, and that eIF4E was unable to fully replace the eIF(iso)4E activity. In addition, the dry seed mRNA pool was translated by the cap-binding complex isolated from dry seeds better than by the complex isolated from 24-h-imbibed seeds, whereas the translational efficiency of the mRNA pool from 24-h-imbibed seeds was similar between the cap-binding complexes from these two stages. Interestingly, eIF(iso)4E was more abundant than eIF4E in dry seeds, while both cap-binding proteins were present at similar levels in 24-h-imbibed seeds. These results suggest that the ratio of eIF(iso)4E to eIF4E in the corresponding eIF4F complex is critical for the mechanisms of translational control during maize germination.
Influence of fatigue on head angular acceleration in judo high-intensity exercise

Background and Study Aim: Head injuries have become a serious problem in judo. For people to safely enjoy judo and with peace of mind, it is important to clarify the causes of head injury and undertake safety measures. The cognitive purpose of this study is the effects of high-intensity exercise fatigue on the angular acceleration of the head in judo. Material and Methods: We included 15 male members of a university judo club. For high-intensity exercise, seoi-nage was performed once every 2.5 seconds. An angular velocity sensor was used to calculate the angular acceleration of the subjects’ heads (200 Hz). Results: The maximum angular acceleration of the head immediately increased after high-intensity exercise (p<0.01). The forward flexion muscle strength of the neck increased (p<0.05) and the strength of posterior flexion did not change. Conclusions: Although the neck muscle strength was not reduced by high-intensity exercise, the maximum angular acceleration of the head increased, it may be related to the slow response of the neck muscle strength that is associated with head injury. Future safety measures should take into account that it is not enough to strengthen the neck muscle alone. Taking appropriate rest during exercise and not performing throwing exercises after high-intensity exercise will reduce the risk of head injury.
An Emperical Evidence on Customers’ Perception of Bank Services’ Quality in Cameroon

This study purport to investigate the perception of service delivery quality from banks customers in Cameroon. Specifically, the study examined customers‟ perception of service quality dimensions (tangibility, reliability, competence, and convenience) within some selected banks. In order to achieve these objectives a sample of 500 bank customers were chosen from the Littoral and South West Region by making use of a mixture of cluster, stratified, simple random and convenient sampling techniques. Data was collected with the help of a well-structured questionnaire, the resultant data were subsequently analyzed using descriptive statistics, Independent T-test and One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results among others indicated that the perception of bank services‟ quality by customers was positive for the tangibility, reliability and convenience dimensions but negative for the competence dimension. In addition, it was found that customers of Afriland First Bank, SGBC, BICEC, ECOBANK, UBA, Citi Bank and SCB had a more positive perception of bank services‟ quality in terms of tangibility and reliability than customers in CBC, UBC, NFCB and Atlantic Bank. Further, age and monthly income level greatly influence customer‟s perception of service quality, meanwhile gender had no significant influence on customers‟ perception of service quality. Policywise, banks should ameliorate on the competence dimension by making in-service training and refresher courses for employees. They should equally make banking more convenient for female customers, use age as a strategic tool and should train their employees effectively if they must succeed in this era of stiff competition.