Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An investigation into distribution of serotypes and antimicrobial resistance patterns of Streptococcus suis isolates from clinical cases and healthy carrier pigs

AN INVESTIGATION INTO DISTRIBUTION OF SEROTYPES AND ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE PATTERNS OF STREPTOCOCCUS SUIS ISOLATES FROM CLINICAL CASES AND HEALTHY CARRIER PIGS Emily Rose Arndt Advisors: University of Guelph, 2017 Dr. Robert Friendship, Dr. Vahab Farzan, and Dr. Janet MacInnes The distribution of Streptococcus suis serotypes and antimicrobial resistance patterns in clinical cases and healthy carrier pigs was investigated. Isolates were confirmed as S. suis by various biochemical techniques and serotyped using multiplex PCR amplification. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed using the disk diffusion method. Recovery of S. suis was more likely in samples from suckling and nursery piglets than from sows and finishers (P <0.001), and more commonly recovered from healthy pigs as opposed to sick pigs (P <0.01). Samples from pigs in a continuous flow system were more likely to be found to be S. suis positive than those from pigs in an all-in/all-out system (P <0.01). Twenty-two different serotypes were identified, with types 5, 9, and 31 being the most common types isolated. Most isolates (94.5%) were resistant to at least one antimicrobial agent. A low prevalence of resistance was seen against ampicillin, ceftiofur, and florfenicol (<1.0%), while a high prevalence of resistance against tetracycline (84.2%), tiamulin (65.2%), and spectinomycin (40.4%) and an intermediate level of resistance to trimethoprim/sulfa (13.2%) was identified.
A Ringdown Breath Acetone Analyzer: Performance and Validation Using Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

Acetone in exhaled breath is a potential biomarker of diabetes mellitus (DM) and elevated breath acetone concentrations have been observed in DM patients. One of the near real-time and online breath acetone analysis techniques is cavity ringdown spectroscopy (CRDS) that has been demonstrated for breath acetone measurements in human subjects including diabetic patients in a clinic. In this work, we have constructed a ringdown breath acetone analyzer for the purpose of instrument validation. Its detection capabilities, such as limit of detection, baseline stability, detection sensitivity, and reproducibility, were investigated. For the first time, a ringdown acetone breath analyzer has been validated using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), which is typically referred to as the golden standard method for trace gas analysis. The GC-MS validation challenged the analyzer’s response to various breath acetone concentrations and its quantitative measurement accuracy. Subsequently, 25 subjects including 19 healthy and 6 diabetic people were tested using the validated ringdown breath acetone analyzer. Comparison of the testing results shows that this ringdown breath acetone analyzer can be used for reliable real-time, online breath acetone analysis in a clinic.
The chemical evolution of the Proterozoic biosphere

The chemical evolution of the Proterozoic biosphere is not a well comprehended topic. Major gaps exist in the redox record which documents the ocean’s transition from a dominantly ferruginous state throughout most of the Proterozoic, to widespread deep ocean oxygenation during the Late Neoproterozoic. Between ~1.85 – 0.54 Ga, significant developments in biological evolution also occurred with the emergence of macroscopic eukaryotes followed by the radiation of metazoans. A strong link between stably oxygenated marine environments and the radiation of increasingly complex organisms is observed across the literature. However, there is little understood concerning nutrient availability during the Proterozoic, another major governing factor in biological development. Phosphorus is considered the ultimate limiting nutrient for oxygen production over geological timescales through organic carbon burial, and is thus vital to consider in discussing the chemical evolution of the Proterozoic biosphere. Through the application of multiple palaeoredox proxies (iron speciation and trace metal analyses) alongside a newly adapted phosphorus speciation method, this research aims to add to the current record of Proterozoic redox to assess if the chemical evolution of the ocean had a potential effect on the biogeochemical phosphorus cycle, and thus the development of complex organisms. The sedimentary successions from the ~1.8 – 1.4 Ga Yanshan Basin in North China, and the 1.6 – 1.0 Ga Bashkir Meganticlinorium in Russia uncovered dynamically evolving water column chemistry. Their palaeoredox signals contrast to other basins from this time period and highlight the significant spatial and temporal heterogeneity that occurred across the Proterozoic ocean. Analysis of phosphorus-bound phases within marine sediments from the Late Palaeoproterozoic Yanshan Basin and the Ediacaran White Sea (Kel’tma and Kostovo cores), Avalon Peninsula, Cariboo Mountains and the Upper Ungoolya Group, Officer Basin confirmed that water column redox, and a basin’s depositional environment, were the dominant controls on the Proterozoic phosphorus cycle. This is the first geochemical record of phosphorus burial mechanisms in Proterozoic marine sediments as all other studies have been modelling based, or focused on BIFs and total phosphorus content. The research presented here provides a crucial insight into the feedbacks between ocean redox and nutrient availability during a dynamic period of Earth’s history.
Genotypic characterization of Listeria monocytogenes isolated from foodstuffs and farm animals in Poland

Twenty six Listeria monocytogenes strains were isolated from foodstuffs and animal clinical cases and analysed by genotyping including ITS profiling, REP- and ERIC-PCR and PFGE. Analysis of DNA banding generated by ITS profiling revealed the presence of just three different genotypes. With the use of REP-PCR, ten different DNA patterns could be discriminated among the analysed isolates. ERIC-PCR and PFGE gave similar results. With the first method, 13 different DNA patterns were found, with the latter one – 14 different genotypes. Based on data obtained by the ERIC-PCR and PFGE it was shown that the majority of food-derived L. monocytogenes represent different genotypes than clinical isolates recovered from infected animals.
A review of the strategic HR role in Australian organizations

This study analyses 1372 on-line responses to a national survey of the membership of the professional body of the Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI). The results indicate that HR professionals have strengthened their strategic positioning within Australian organizations but there is also evidence of a potential narrowing of the HR professional’s career path, and a failure to provide HR metric information to management. Despite strategic progress, therefore, the restricted career breadth of HR professionals and inadequate measures of HR’s contribution to the bottom line may ultimately impact on the credibility of those involved in the HR function and moderate the successful continuation of the involvement of HR at the senior decision-making level.
Mitochondrial DNA variation in wild and hatchery populations of northern pike, Esox lucius L.

Esox lucius is an economically important freshwater species. Mitochondrial cytb, 12SrRNA, and 16SrRNA gene sequences were used in order to clarify the genetic variation and population structure in three E. Lucius populations, i.e., one Wild population (W) and two hatchery populations (Hatchery Population I-HPI and Hatchery Population II-HPII). A total of 55 individuals, with 19 from wild and 18 from each hatchery population, were sequenced. The results are as follows: 1) cytb. Eleven variable sites defined eight distinct haplotypes, with 1137 base pairs (bp) complete cytb sequences. The nucleotide diversity (π) values were W 0.009%, HPI 0.075% and HPII 0.068%, respectively. Genetic distances within and between populations were both between 0 and 0.1%. Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) analysis revealed that variation within populations accounts for 98.49% of total variation. 2) 12SrRNA. We obtained 380 bp consensus 12SrRNA sequence and found little variation among the 55 sequences. 3) 16SrRNA. Twelve variable sites defined seven haplotypes, with 519 bp consensus 16SrRNA sequence. The π values were W 0.041%, HPI 0.310% and HPII 0.021%, respectively. Genetic distances were between 0 and 0.3% within populations and from 0 to 0.2% between populations. AMOVA disclosed that variation within populations accounts for 91.79% of total variation. Variation within populations is the main source of total variation. The results suggest that low genetic variation can be found in both wild and hatchery populations of E. lucius, and the effect of genetic drift and adaptation to culture conditions gradually emerged under only two generations’ artificial cultivation.
I INTENSITY BASED FIBER OPTIC DEFLECTION SENSOR

In this work, a low cost intensity based intrinsic fiber optic deflection sensor has been developed. This can be used to measure or detect angular displacement of articulated arm. Experimental results show that the sensor output is linear up to a certain degree of angular displacement and constant beyond that. The deflection sensor finds its application in office equipments, medical equipments, general automation, locking mechanisms, positioning systems and robotic arm control systems.
Biosensors and nanomaterials and their application for mycotoxin determination

Mycotoxin analysis and detection in food and drinks is vital for ensuring food quality and safety, eliminating and controlling the risk of consuming contaminated foods, and complying with the legislative limits set by food authorities worldwide. Most analysis of these toxins is still conducted using conventional methods; however, biosensor methods are currently being developed as screening tools for use in field analysis. Biosensors have demonstrated their ability to provide rapid, sensitive, robust and cost-effective quantitative methods for on-site testing. The development of biosensor devices for different mycotoxins has attracted much research interest in recent years with a range of devices being designed and reported in the scientific literature. However, with the advent of nanotechnology and its impact on the evolution of ultrasensitive devices, mycotoxin analysis is also benefiting from the advances taking place in applying nanomaterials in sensors development. This paper reviews the developments .
Interdisciplinary Learning: A cognitive-epistemological foundation1

A more robust understanding of human-resource interactions is needed to strengthen theories about collective action and sustainable governance. This comparative study [of publicly shared environmental resources] highlights how trust, communication, and social obligation depend on social histories of resource systems and types of collective action problems, largely explaining why local institutions [in Ecuador] encourage individuals to uphold mangrove forest conservation but have little effect on cooperation in fisheries .
A Comprehensive Model of the Near-Earth Magnetic Field: Phase 3

The near-Earth magnetic field is due to sources in Earth's core, ionosphere, magnetosphere, lithosphere, and from coupling currents between ionosphere and magnetosphere and between hemispheres. Traditionally, the main field (low degree internal field) and magnetospheric field have been modeled simultaneously, and fields from other sources modeled separately. Such a scheme, however, can introduce spurious features. A new model, designated CMP3 (Comprehensive Model: Phase 3), has been derived from quiet-time Magsat and POGO satellite measurements and observatory hourly and annual means measurements as part of an effort to coestimate fields from all of these sources. This model represents a significant advancement in the treatment of the aforementioned field sources over previous attempts, and includes an accounting for main field influences on the magnetosphere, main field and solar activity influences on the ionosphere, seasonal influences on the coupling currents, a priori characterization of ionospheric and magnetospheric influence on Earth-induced fields, and an explicit parameterization and estimation of the lithospheric field. The result of this effort is a model whose fits to the data are generally superior to previous models and whose parameter states for the various constituent sources are very reasonable.
Number-average size model for geological systems and its application in economic geology

Abstract. Various natural objects follow a number-size relationship in the fractal domain. In such relationship, the accumulative number of the objects beyond a given size shows a power-law relationship with the size. Yet in most cases, we also need to know the relationship between the accumulative number of the objects and their average size. A generalized number-size model and a number-average size model are constructed in this paper. In the number-average size model, the accumulative number shows a power-law relationship with the average size when the given size is much less than the maximum size of the objects. When the fractal dimension Ds of the number-size model is smaller than 1, the fractal dimension Ds of the number-average size model is almost equal to 1; and when Ds > 1, the Dm is approximately equal to Ds. In mineral deposits, according to the number-average size model, the ore tonnage may show a fractal relationship with the grade, as the cutoff changes for a single ore deposit. This is demonstrated by a study of the relationship between tonnage and grade in the Reshuitang epithermal hot-spring gold deposit, China.
Conceptual and Methodological Issues in the Analysis of Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Dyadic Data

This chapter provides an introduction to the analysis of nonindependent data from dyads. We begin by examining current practices regarding dyadic and group research in social and personality psychology and compare those findings with our original survey of research published in 2008 and 2009. We then present basic definitions, as well as a brief introduction to multilevel modeling and structural equation modeling for dyads. We present SPSS and Mplus syntax to specify the models we describe. We then discuss cross-sectional and longitudinal dyadic designs and provide examples of how these have been used to advance social and personality psychological science. For cross-sectional designs we provide details of the actor–partner interdependence model and two other dyadic models as alternatives—the common fate model and the mutual influence model. For longitudinal designs, we discuss dyadic growth models.
WAVELET-BASED AUDIO FEATURES FOR ACOUSTIC SCENE CLASSIFICATION Technical Report

This report describes a submission for IEEE AASP Challenge on Detection and Classification of Acoustic Scenes and Events (DCASE) 2018 for Task 1 (acoustic scene classification (ASC)), sub-task A (basic ASC) and sub-task B (ASC with mismatched recording devices). We use two wavelet-based features in a scorefusion framework to achieve the goal. The first feature applies wavelet transform to log mel-band energies, while the second does a high-Q wavelet transformation on the frames of raw signal. The two features are found to be complementary so that the fused system relatively outperforms the deep-learning based baseline system by 17% for sub-task A and 26% for sub-task B with the development dataset provided for the respective sub-tasks.
Facing pseudoprogression after radiotherapy in low grade gliomas

Pseudoprogression has been defined as a transient increase in the contrast enhancement within the treated tumour after radiotherapy, which eventually subsides without any change in the anti-cancer therapy (1,2). This constitutes most likely a subacute post-treatment effect of radiotherapy characterised by a local inflammatory reaction on tumour cells and/or vascular injury resulting in increased permeability (1,2). The concept of pseudoprogression was initially developed in adults with high-grade gliomas treated with radiotherapy +/− alkylating agents (3); and it has subsequently been extended to other brain tumours, including low-grade gliomas (LGG). Pseudoprogression has been reported to occur more frequently when temozolomide is combined with radiotherapy (4,5), although the magnitude of this effect yet remains to be established (3). Pseudoprogression can produce a clinical impact both at an individual and at a population level. Firstly, increased contrast enhancement in adults with LGG is highly suggestive of malignant transformation (6), so undiagnosed pseudoprogression may cause major distress for the patients and their families, and can even result in initiation of a new anti-cancer therapy inappropriately. Secondly, because failure to exclude patients with pseudoprogression at the time of enrolment in clinical trials may lead to falsely elevated response rates (1). And finally, because failure to identify pseudoprogression whilst on trial, limits the validity of progression-free survival as a primary endpoint (1). Hence, a better understanding and diagnosis of pseudoprogression is crucial to ensure adequate clinical management and to minimise hindrance to clinical trials.
First-Principles Investigation of C-H Bond Scission and Formation Reactions in Ethane, Ethene, and Ethyne Adsorbed on Ru(0001).

We have studied all possible elementary reactions (including isomerization reactions) involved in the interaction of CH4 (methane), CH3CH3 (ethane), CH2CH2 (ethene), and CHCH (ethyne) with the Ru(0001) surface using density functional theory based first-principles calculations. Site preference and adsorption energies for all the reaction intermediates and activation energies for the elementary reactions are calculated. From the calculated adsorption and activation energies, we find that dehydrogenation of the adsorbates is thermodynamically favored in agreement with experiments. Dehydrogenation of CH (methylidyne) is the most difficult in the dehydrogenation of CH4 (methane). CH3CH3 (ethane), CH2CH2 (ethene), and CHCH (ethyne) dehydrogenate through the CH3C (ethylidyne) intermediate. Of the five possible pathways for the production of CH3C (ethylidyne), the CH2CH (ethenyl)–CH2C (ethenylidene) pathway is the most dominant. In the case of ethene, the ethynyl–ethenylidene pathway is also the dominant pathway.
Convergence of HX Preconditioner for Maxwell's Equations with Jump Coefficients (ii): The Main Results

This paper is the second one of two serial articles, whose goal is to prove convergence of HX Preconditioner (proposed by Hiptmair and Xu, 2007) for Maxwell's equations with jump coefficients. In this paper, based on the auxiliary results developed in the first paper (Hu, 2017), we establish a new regular Helmholtz decomposition for edge finite element functions in three dimensions, which is nearly stable with respect to a weight function. By using this Helmholtz decomposition, we give an analysis of the convergence of the HX preconditioner for the case with strongly discontinuous coefficients. We show that the HX preconditioner possesses fast convergence, which not only is nearly optimal with respect to the finite element mesh size but also is independent of the jumps in the coefficients across the interface between two neighboring subdomains.
A Matter of Shoes: The Analysis of Desired Attributes of Shoes and Its Retail Shops from Bangkok Consumers' Perspectives

Through several statistical tests, this two staged research aims to study desired attributes of shoes and its retail shop. Four hundred fifty one samples were collected. In the first stage, the research analysed the level of importance of 50 factors drawn upon 6 retailing mix framework. The factors that were ranked “most important” and “highly important” were then selected for second stage analysis by using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA). Based on EFA analysis, six new critical latent factors were grouped and named as, “Well Trained and Experienced Salesforce”, “Product Quality and Functions”, “Attractive Store and Product Presentation”, “Price and Perceived Value”, “Health and Comfort”, and “Fashion and Trends”. The research further explored if there was a significant difference of such factors on “Gender”, “Income Level” and “Age” of consumers. “Gender” and “Age” were confirmed to be the other drivers that could alter consumers’ perspectives toward the desired attributes of shoes and its retail shops. The shoe manufacturers and retailers are urged to take all these desired attributes into their consideration when they plan to develop and launch new shoe collections to market.
Assimilating remotely sensed cloud optical thickness into a mesoscale model

Abstract. The Advanced Regional Prediction System, a mesoscale atmospheric model, is applied to simulate the month of June 2006 with a focus on the near surface air temperatures around Paris. To improve the simulated temperatures which show errors up to 10 K during a day on which a cold front passed Paris, a data assimilation procedure to calculate 3-D analysis fields of specific cloud liquid and ice water content is presented. The method is based on the assimilation of observed cloud optical thickness fields into the Advanced Regional Prediction System model and operates on 1-D vertical columns, assuming that the horizontal background error covariance is infinite, i.e. an independent pixel approximation. The rationale behind it is to find vertical profiles of cloud liquid and ice water content that yield the observed cloud optical thickness values and are consistent with the simulated profile. Afterwards, a latent heat adjustment is applied to the temperature in the vertical column. Data from several meteorological stations in the study area are used to verify the model simulations. The results show that the presented assimilation procedure is able to improve the simulated 2 m air temperatures and incoming shortwave radiation significantly during cloudy days. The scheme is able to alter the position of the cloud fields significantly and brings the simulated cloud pattern closer to the observations. As the scheme is rather simple and computationally inexpensive, it is a promising new technique to improve the surface fields of retrospective model simulations for variables that are affected by the position of the clouds.
FEASIBILITY OF SMARTPHONE BASED PHOTOGRAMMETRIC POINT CLOUDS FOR THE GENERATION OF ACCESSIBILITY MAPS

Abstract. Accessible cities with accessible services are an old claim of people with reduced mobility. But this demand is still far away of becoming a reality as lot of work is required to be done yet. First step towards accessible cities is to know about real situation of the cities and its pavement infrastructure. Detailed maps or databases on street slopes, access to sidewalks, mobility in public parks and gardens, etc. are required. In this paper, we propose to use smartphone based photogrammetric point clouds, as a starting point to create accessible maps or databases. This paper analyses the performance of these point clouds and the complexity of the image acquisition procedure required to obtain them. The paper proves, through two test cases, that smartphone technology is an economical and feasible solution to get the required information, which is quite often seek by city planners to generate accessible maps. The proposed approach paves the way to generate, in a near term, accessibility maps through the use of point clouds derived from crowdsourced smartphone imagery.