Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Enterotoxigenic Bacteria in Food and Water from an Ethiopian Community

Food and water samples from an Ethiopian community were screened for the presence of enterotoxin-producing bacteria. Using the Chinese hamster ovary cell assay, 40 of 213 isolates (18.8%) produced heat-labile (LT) enterotoxin. These LT-producing isolates comprised 33 of 177 (18.6%) strains from 24 of 68 food samples (35.3%) and 7 of 36 (19.4%) isolates of 4 of 17 water samples (23.5%). One LT-producing strain each of Salmonella emek and of Shigella dysenteriae was found. Three pseudomonads, all LT producers, produced heat-stable enterotoxin as gauged by the suckling mouse test. Two strains of LT-enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli O68 were found in water samples. No enterotoxigenic E. coli were isolated from food samples, but 13 of the LT-producing strains were Enterobacter, Klebsiella, Serratia, and Proteus species, and 7 food samples yielded more than one species of enterotoxigenic bacterium. Of the enterotoxigenic isolates from food, 15 were oxidase-positive strains of the genera Aeromonas, Pseudomonas, Achromobacter, Flavobacterium, and Vibrio. LT-enterotoxigenic Enterobacter, Acinetobacter, Klebsiella, Proteus, Providencia, and Serratia species represented 20 of the food and water isolates. Culture supernatant fluids of representative strains of oxidase-positive and oxidase-negative species giving positive reactions in Chinese hamster ovary cell tests induced fluid accumulation in rabbit ileal loops. Eight of the food samples and two of the water samples contained more than one isolate or species of enterotoxigenic bacterium. The stability of the LT production by oxidase-positive bacteria and non-E. coli strains was assessed by the rabbit skin and adrenal cell tests after 9 months and 1 year of storage, respectively, in Trypticase soy broth with glycerol at −70°C. Only 33% of the oxidase-positive strains were still LT enterotoxigenic. Of the oxidase-negative strains, 50 and 33% were LT producing at 9 months and 1 year, respectively. None of the E. coli isolates, both enterotoxigenic and nonenterotoxigenic, possessed K88, K99, or colonization factor antigen. The survey demonstrates the presence in food and water of enterotoxigenic bacteria of the same species as those isolated from cases of infantile diarrhea in the same community, although a correlation between these sources and infantile diarrhea remains to be established.
Medium components effecting bacteriocin production by two strains of Lactobacillus plantarum ST414BZ and ST664BZ isolated from boza

Bacteriocins ST414BZ and ST664BZ, produced by Lactobacillus plantarum, inhibited the growth of a number of lactic acid bacteria, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Enterobacter cloacae. Optimal production of bacteriocin ST664BZ (12 800 AU/mL) was recorded in MRS broth with an initial pH of 6.0 and 6.5. Bacteriocin ST414BZ was produced in MRS broth at lower pH values, ranging from 6.5 to 5.0. Low levels of bacteriocin activity were produced in BHI, M17, 10% (w/v) soy flour and 10% (w/v) molasses, suggesting that specific nutrients are required for optimal production. Bacteriocin ST414BZ production doubled (from 12 800 to 25 600 AU/mL) in MRS broth with tryptone as sole nitrogen source, or when glucose was replaced with maltose. Bacteriocin ST664BZ production, on the other hand, was less influenced by changes in nitrogen content, but increased two-fold (to 25 600 AU/mL) when glucose was replaced with sucrose, maltose or mannose, or when MRS broth was supplemented with 2.0 g/L KH2 PO4. Enrichment of MRS broth with vitamins B12, B1 or C did not stimulate production of the two bacteriocins. Growth in the presence of DL-6,8-thioctic acid increased bacteriocin ST664BZ production to 25 600 AU/mL. Concluded from these results, optimal levels of bacteriocins ST414BZ and ST664BZ will be produced in boza enriched with tryptone and maltose.
Swiprosin‐1 is expressed in mast cells and up‐regulated through the protein kinase CβI/η pathway

Swiprosin‐1 exhibits the highest expression in CD8+ T cells and immature B cells and has been thought to play a role in lymphocyte physiology. Here we report that swiprosin‐1 is also expressed in mast cells and up‐regulated in both in vitro cultured mast cells by phorbol ester and in vivo model tissues of passive cutaneous anaphylaxis and atopic dermatitis. Targeted inhibition of the specific protein kinase C (PKC) isotypes by siRNA revealed that PKC‐βI/η are involved in the expression of swiprosin‐1 in the human mast cell line HMC‐1. In contrast, down‐regulation of swiprosin‐1 by A23187 or ionomycin suggests that calcium‐signaling plays a negative role. The ectopic expression of swiprosin‐1 augmented PMA/A23187‐induced NF‐κB promoter activity, and resulted in increased expression of cytokines. Moreover, knock‐down of swiprosin‐1 attenuated PMA/A23187‐induced cytokine expression. Collectively, these results suggest that swiprosin‐1 is a PKC‐βI/η‐inducible gene and it modulates mast cell activation through NF‐κB‐dependent pathway. J. Cell. Biochem. 108: 705–715, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Extending the Hierarchical Phrase Based Model with Maximum Entropy Based BTG

In the hierarchical phrase based (HPB) translation model, in addition to hierarchical phrase pairs extracted from bi-text, glue rules are used to perform serial combination of phrases. However, this basic method for combining phrases is not sufficient for phrase reordering. In this paper, we extend the HPB model with maximum entropy based bracketing transduction grammar (BTG), which provides content-dependent combination of neighboring phrases in two ways: serial or inverse. Experimental results show that the extended HPB system achieves absolute improvements of 0.9∼1.8 BLEU points over the baseline for large-scale translation tasks.
The Prevalence of Examiner-Diagnosed Clitoral Hood Adhesions in a Population of College-Aged Women

Objective. To determine the prevalence of clitoral hood adhesions in college-aged women. Materials and Methods. A retrospective review of medical records was conducted for 589 college-aged women undergoing a routine women's annual examination at a student health clinic by a single examiner (E.W.) using a standardized procedure. The severity of adhesions was classified and recorded by the examiner based on the extent of visualization of the clitoral glands and sulcus. Recorded age, sexual activity, contraceptive use, pregnancy, and marital status were abstracted from records. Results. Two thirds (393/589) of women were unaffected by any clitoral hood abnormality; of the affected, 58% (113/196) showed 25% involvement. Only 12% (24/196) showed adhesions involving 75% to ≥90% of the region (&khgr;2 = 857.1, 4 df, p <.0001). The youngest females, born after 1981, were at highest risk for being affected (compared with women born 1976-1981, adjusted OR = 1.7 [1.1, 2.6]). Relationships with other demographic and behavioral characteristics were not statistically significant. Conclusions. Adhesions may be more common than previous published reports imply. Study participants were evaluated for routine health screening and presented with few or no symptoms. These data suggest that adhesions may be a normal variant in otherwise asymptomatic college-aged women and that no treatment is necessary.
Changes in sleep disruption in the treatment of co-occurring posttraumatic stress disorder and substance use disorders.

Sleep disruption appears not only to reflect a symptom of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but also a unique vulnerability for its development and maintenance. Studies examining the impact of psychosocial treatments for PTSD on sleep symptoms are few and no studies to date of which we are aware have examined this question in samples with co-occurring substance use disorders. The current study is a secondary analysis of a large clinical trial comparing 2 psychological treatments for co-occurring PTSD and substance use disorders. Women (N = 353) completed measures of PTSD at baseline, end of treatment, and 3-, 6-, and 12-month follow-ups. Results indicated that the prevalence of insomnia, but not nightmares, decreased during treatment, and that 63.8% of participants reported at least 1 clinical-level sleep symptom at the end of treatment. Improvement in sleep symptoms during treatment was associated with better overall PTSD outcomes over time, χ(2) (1) = 33.81, p < . 001. These results extend the existing literature to suggest that residual sleep disruption following PTSD treatment is common in women with co-occurring PTSD and substance use disorders. Research on the benefits of adding sleep-specific intervention for those with residual sleep disruption in this population may be a promising future direction.
A Comparative Study of Grayscale Conversion Techniques Applied to Descriptor Based Tracking

In computer vision, gradient-based tracking is usually performed from monochromatic inputs. However, few researches consider the influence of the chosen color-to-grayscale conversion technique. This paper evaluates the impact of these conversion algorithms on tracking and homography calculation results, both being fundamental steps of augmented reality applications. Eighteen color-to-greyscale algorithms were investigated. These observations allowed to conclude that the methods can cause significant discrepancy in the overall performance. As a related finding, experiments also showed that pure color channels (R, G, B) yielded more stability and precision when compared to other approaches.
A survey of the year 2002 literature on applications of isothermal titration calorimetry.

Isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) is becoming widely accepted as a key instrument in any laboratory in which quantification of biomolecular interactions is a requisite. The method has matured with respect to general acceptance and application development over recent years. The number of publications on ITC has grown exponentially over the last 10 years, reflecting the general utility of the method. Here all the published works of the year 2002 in this area have been surveyed. We review the broad range of systems to which ITC is being directed and classify these into general areas highlighting key publications of interest. This provides an overview of what can be achieved using this method and what developments are likely to occur in the near future.
Concertina effect and facial aging: nonlinear aspects of youthfulness and skeletal remodeling, and why, perhaps, infants have jowls.

The effect of aging on the orbitomaxillary region is evaluated in the present study. The observation was made that infants look like aged individuals in terms of the midface soft-tissue contours of the midface. Because preliminary work has shown that the facial skeleton remodels throughout life, this observation led to the hypothesis that infants and older individuals appear similar because they have comparable skeletal dimensions, specifically in the orbitomaxillary region. The design is a retrospective analysis of three-dimensional computed tomographic scan data. Three groups of male subjects were studied: infant, ages 1 to 12 months (n = 5); youthful, ages 15 to 24 years (n = 13); and old, ages 53 to 76 years (n = 12). Orbital and zygomaticomaxillary vertical dimensions were measured in both medial and lateral planes between fixed anatomical landmarks. Results were compared by using analysis of variance, Student-Newman-Keuls, and Student's t tests. The findings show that skeletal remodeling is such that the ratio of the maxillary height to orbital height is greatest during youth; during infancy and old age, there is a short maxilla relative to a larger orbit. This finding is significant in the medial plane from orbital rim to pyriform aperture (p < 0.05). Furthermore, there is an actual decrease in vertical maxillary height in this medial plane (p < 0.01) from youth until old age, which occurs secondary to normal skeletal remodeling in the dentate individual. The combined effect of downward expansion of the orbital shelf and the upward migration of the pyriform effectively decreases the space available to support the overlying soft tissues of the midface. An accordion-like or "concertina" effect may lead to compression or restriction of the facial soft tissues over a relatively deficient bony platform. These results highlight the importance of skeletal remodeling in determining the soft-tissue contours of the aging face. The process of skeletal remodeling may also allow for a tentative definition of facial youthfulness. Infants are born with a short maxilla relative to a large orbit, and the maxillary wall is angled posteriorly. This ratio and angle change from infancy until youth, when there is a balance between the bony skeletal support and the overlying soft-tissue envelope, i.e., the skin, facial muscles, and adipose tissue. It is when skeletal remodeling continues past this point that a disharmony occurs. Because the ratio of maxilla/orbit, and the angle of the maxillary wall, in the older person reverts toward that of an infant, the attainment of youth occurs partly in a nonlinear or multimodal manner. This work is part of an emerging concept of facial aging, which we would term an integrated model of facial aging. This model allows facial aging to be viewed as a biological "system," in which there are primary and secondary factors that interact in the process of facial aging. Additional research such as this continues to suggest the importance of bony remodeling in facial aging.
A Throughput Evaluation of an Over-Distributed Antenna System with Limited Pilot Resources

SUMMARY A distributed antenna system, where the antennas of a base station are spatially distributed throughout the cell, can achieve better throughput at the cell edge than a centralized antenna system. On the other hand, the peak throughput degrades in general because each remote antenna unit has only a few antennas. To achieve both high peak and cell-edge throughputs, we need to increase the total number of antennas. However, this is not easy due to the pilot resource limitation when we use frequency division duplexing. In this paper, we propose using more antennas than pilot resources. The number mismatch between antennas and signals is solved by using a connection matrix. Here, we test two types of connection matrix: signal-distributing and signal-switching. Simulation results show that the sum throughput is improved by increasing the number of antenna elements per remote antenna unit under a constraint on the same number of pilot resources.
Control of DC-DC converters with pulse width modulation inputs

We consider a stabilization problem of DC-DC switching converters whose control input is given by pulse width modulation (PWM). In order to stabilize the DC-DC switching converter, this system is discretized. The discretized system is a nonlinear system for control input which is a duty ratio. Then, it is important to robustly stabilize an uncertain fixed point existed in the nonlinear system. In previous researches, it is investigated that steady-state blocking zeros of a stabilizing controller play an important role. Such a controller is called a washout controller. In this paper, we use washout control for locally stabilization of DC-DC converters.
Chiari Malformation

In recent years, TCD has been used to evaluate cerebral blood flow velocity (CBF-V) changes in migraine sufferers, during and between attacks (reviewed in ref. 1). In tension-type headache, however, vascular mechanisms of the pain have rarely been considered. Wallasch has used TCD to evaluate the interictal CBF-V changes in 21 patients with episodic tension-type headache (2). The author reports increased CBF-V and reduced pulsatility indices in the basal cerebral arteries. These findings are similar to the cerebrovascular alterations observed between attacks in patients with migraine and suggest an increase in vascular tone of the conductance vessels.
Diffusion affine projection sign algorithm for filtered-x active noise control

This paper proposes a diffusion filtered-x affine projection sign algorithm(DFxAPSA) for active noise control to improve robustness against impulsive noises and colored inputs. The proposed algorithm is obtained by minimizing the Li norm of a posterior error vector with constraint on adaptation update. The constraint prevents from dramatic change which is due to occurence of impulsive noises. Additionally, diffusion strategy is suitable to reduce the computational complexity by distributing computations of multichannel active noise control. With simulation results, the proposed algorithm shows better performance in the situation that inputs are correlated and impulsive noises occur.
A Fuzzy Least Squares Support Tensor Machines in Machine Learning

In the machine learning field, high-dimensional data are often encountered in the real applications. Most of the traditional learning algorithms are based on the vector space model, such as SVM. Tensor representation is useful to the over fitting problem in vector-based learning, and tensor-based algorithm requires a smaller set of decision variables as compared to vector-based approaches. We also would require that the meaningful training points must be classified correctly and would not care about some training points like noises whether or not they are classified correctly. To utilize the structural information present in high dimensional features of an object, a tensor-based learning framework, termed as Fuzzy Least Squares support tensor machine (FLSSTM), where the classifier is obtained by solving a system of linear equations rather than a quadratic programming problem at each iteration of FLSSTM algorithm as compared to STM algorithm. This in turn provides a significant reduction in the computation time, as well as comparable classification accuracy. The efficacy of the proposed method has been demonstrated in ORL database and Yale database. The FLSSTM outperforms other tensor-based algorithms, for example, LSSTM, especially when training size is small.
[Effects of music therapy and rhythmic exercise on quality of life, blood pressure and upper extremity muscle strength in institution-dwelling elderly women].

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of music therapy and rhythmic exercise on health related quality of life, blood pressure and upper extremity muscle strength in the institution-dwelling elderly women. METHODS The study was designed using a nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design. The participants consisted of 35 elders (18 in the experimental group and 17 in the control group). The music therapy and rhythmic exercise were developed by the investigators. The experimental group took part in this program twice a week for 8 weeks. The Short Form 36 health survey questionnaire, blood pressure and grasp power scale were used as instruments. The data were analyzed using SPSS 14.0. RESULTS Repeated measures ANOVA revealed that music therapy and rhythmic exercise had positive effects on quality of life, especially on vitality, general health and mental health. Also, there were statistically significant differences in diastolic blood pressure and upper extremity muscle strength between the pretest and posttest in the experimental group. CONCLUSION The study suggests that this program can be applied for older women in long-term facilities to improve quality of life, blood pressure and upper extremity muscle strength.
Advances in gene transfer into haematopoietic stem cells by adenoviral vectors

Until recently, the cells of haematopoietic origin were not considered good adenoviral (Adv) targets, primarily because they lacked the specific Adv receptors required for productive and efficient Adv infections. In addition, because of limitations inherent in Adv infections, such as short-term expression and a non-integrating nature, their application has been precluded from haematopoietic stem cell (HSC) and bone marrow transduction protocols where long-term expression has been required. Therefore, limited research utilising Adv-mediated gene transfer into haematopoietic cells had been conducted. With recent insights into the critical interactions between adenovirus (Adv) and cells, new Adv-mediated gene transduction strategies have now been reported that may overcome these limitations. These new strategies include Adv possessing synthetic polymer coatings, genetically modified capsid proteins or antibody-redirected fibres that can efficiently redirect and retarget Adv to transfer genes into HSC. Additionally, new hybrid Advs, engineered with both modified capsid proteins and novel cis-acting integration sequences, are also being developed which can efficiently deliver and integrate Adv delivered genes into HSC. This is an area of research that is now rapidly gaining momentum in terms of techniques and applications. Here we review the current status of adenovirus-based vectors as a means to achieve high-level gene transfer into haematopoietic cell types.
Perceptual uniformity in digital image representation and display

Digital image representation is perceptually uniform if a small perturbation of a component value—such as the digital code value used to represent red, green, blue, or luminance—produces a change in light output at a display that is approximately equally perceptible across the range of that value. Most digital image coding systems—including sRGB (used in desktop graphics), BT.709 (used in high-definition television, HD), Adobe RGB (1998) (used in graphics arts), and DCI P3 RGB (used in digital cinema)—represent colour component (pixel) values in a perceptually uniform manner. However, this behavior is not well documented and is often shrouded in confusion. This article surveys perceptual uniformity in digital imaging and attempts to clarify some widely misunderstood aspects of image coding. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 39, 6–15, 2014
Enhancing Comparator Extraction for Decision Making Process

Comparisons of different things plays crucial role while purchasing in human decision making process. Even though, decision making is common in our day-today life but requires proper sufficient knowledge and skills to know what should get compare and what will be substitutes so as to make good decision. To make decision process easy, in this paper we present a novel way to identify comparative questions and its comparators from user’s questions posted online. Also the issues of ambiguous entities raised in comparative questions are addressed. The experimental results on developed system for comparative questions with ambiguous and unambiguous entities are present. KeywordsComparative questions, Entity mining, Bootstrapping Algorithm, Sequential patterns,Inductive
Research on the Implementation of Porting uC/OS-II on the STM32F103 chip

This work show how to port μCOS-II kernel and to build the ARM cortex-m3 hardware platform. This program researches how to drive the basic external devices. This paper gives a detailed discussion that the driver programs of the underlying hardware is how to be expanded into the uC/OS_II to process the tasks from the platform. The applications can make the STM32 processor work normally by calling the functions of transplanted uC / OS_II. The system is an actual embedded real-time multi-task operating system. The speed of processing multi-tasks is faster than conventional micro-controller’s. Because this system can run the highest priority task without return to the while loop. At last, this paper gives the structure of the main framework, the code of the tasks. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.11591/telkomnika.v11i7. 2839