Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Enhanced detection of live bacteria using a dendrimer thin film in an optical biosensor.

Here we describe the detection of live Pseudomonas aeruginosa using a sensing film containing a fourth-generation hydroxy-terminated polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimer (i.e., G4-OH) and SYTOX Green fluorescent nucleic acid stain. The films are configured on simple, disposable plastic coupons or optical fibers and are interrogated using a miniature fiber-optic spectrometer. SYTOX Green is generally considered a dead cell stain because it is not able to cross the membranes of live cells. In the presence of PAMAM-OH (G4-OH) in water, the bacterial cell becomes permeable to the SYTOX dye and the fluorescence is significantly enhanced. The fluorescence increases with the bacteria concentration, and the intensity at 5.4 x 10(7) cells mL(-1) is 350% higher than the liquid controls without PAMAM-OH. We also demonstrate that dendrimers stabilize the sensing film. After drying and desiccation, the SYTOX Green/PAMAM-OH films are still able to quantitatively detect P. aeruginosa in water. Incorporation of glucose into the SYTOX Green/ PAMAM-OH film may improve the homogeneity of the film and enhances the fluorescence signal an additional 11-25%.
Tetraacylated lipopolysaccharide of Yersinia pestis can inhibit multiple Toll-like receptor-mediated signaling pathways in human dendritic cells.

BACKGROUND Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of plague, showed a temperature-dependent change in lipid A composition, with a reduced degree of acylation when bacteria were grown at 37 degrees C (tetraacylated) versus ambient temperature (hexaacylated). METHODS Human monocytes and monocyte-derived dendritic cells (DCs) were exposed to Y. pestis grown at 26 degrees C or 37 degrees C, to their corresponding lipopolysaccharides (LPS-26 degrees C or LPS-37 degrees C), and to ligands of different Toll-like receptors (TLRs), such as LPS from Escherichia coli (TLR4), lipoprotein (TLR2), polyinosinic-polycytidylic acid (poly-IC) (TLR9), and their combinations. Production of cytokines was measured, along with expression of surface markers of DC maturation. RESULTS Y. pestis grown at 37 degrees C or LPS-37 degrees C induced much lower production of cytokines (such as tumor necrosis factor alpha and interleukins 1beta, 10, and 12) by DCs than did Y. pestis grown at 26 degrees C or LPS-26 degrees C. Expression of the surface markers HLA-DR, CD86, and CD40 by DCs was also reduced in response to treatment with LPS-37 degrees C compared with LPS-26 degrees C. Pretreatment of DCs with LPS-37 degrees C inhibited subsequent stimulation with LPS-26 degrees C, control LPS from E. coli, lipoprotein, or poly-IC. CONCLUSIONS LPS-37 degrees C can inhibit stimulation of DCs not only via TLR4 signaling but also via TLR2 and TLR3. [corrected]
Neonatal Bacteraemia: A Population-based Study

The aims of this study were to explore the incidence of neonatal bacteraemia and identify the risk factors among neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) patients. The study included 3339 neonates admitted to the NICU of Ioannina University Hospital, North-Western Greece, during the 10-y period 1989-98. Logistic regression was used to assess the contribution of different risk factors to bacteraemia. A diagnosis of bacteraemia was made in 90 neonates (2.7%), 10 of whom (11%) died. Gram-negative bacilli, coagulase-negative Staphylococci and Streptococci were the most common pathogens: 42%, 34% and 17%, respectively. Premature rupture of membranes was the main risk factor for early-onset sepsis (relative risk 6.28) and respiratory distress syndrome was the main risk factor for late-onset sepsis (relative risk 5.70). The relative size of neonates for their gestational age did not appear to influence the risk of infection. Case fatality was higher for early- than for late-onset sepsis (relative risk 6.59). In conclusion, certain conditions were confirmed to predispose patients to neonatal bacteraemia; neonatal morbidity and mortality can be reduced by intervening to control these predisposing factors.
Global registration and stabilization of jittered and noisy airborne image sequences

This paper is concerned with the development and implementation of a registration and stabilization method in conjunction with airborne imaging applications. We consider the situations for which the camera motion and vibration collectively affect the noisy image sequence. The general routine presented in this work is a combination of two algorithms for global image registration and image stabilization. We use and present experiments with real image sequences to track a moving object in the direction of its motion trajectory.
Escape rates and singular limiting distributions for intermittent maps with holes

We study the escape dynamics in the presence of a hole of a standard family of intermittent maps of the unit interval with neutral fixed point at the origin (and finite absolutely continuous invariant measure). Provided that the hole (is a cylinder that) does not contain any neighborhood of the origin, the surviving volume is shown to decay at polynomial speed with time. The associated polynomial escape rate depends on the density of the initial distribution, more precisely, on its behavior in the vicinity of the origin. Moreover, the associated normalized push forward measures are proved to converge to the point mass supported at the origin, in sharp contrast to systems with exponential escape rate. Finally, a similar result is obtained for more general systems with subexponential escape rates; namely that the Cesaro limit of normalized push forward measures is generally singular, invariant and supported on the asymptotic survivor set.
A C‐terminal peptide of the GIRK1 subunit directly blocks the G protein‐activated K+ channel (GIRK) expressed in Xenopus oocytes

1 In order to find out the functional roles of cytosolic regions of a G protein‐activated, inwardly rectifying potassium channel subunit we studied block of GIRK channels, expressed in Xenopus laevis oocytes, by synthetic peptides in isolated inside‐out membrane patches. 2 A peptide (DS6) derived from the very end of the C‐terminus of GIRK1 reversibly blocked GIRK activity with IC50 values of 7.9 ± 2.0 or 3.5 ± 0.5 μg ml−1 (corresponding to 3.7 ± 0.9 or 1.7 ± 0.2 μmol l−1) for GIRK1/GIRK5 or GIRK1/GIRK4 channels, respectively. 3 Dose dependency studies of GIRK activation by purified βγ subunits of the G protein (Gβγ) showed that DS6 block of GIRK channels is not the result of competition of the peptide with functional GIRK channels for the available Gβγ. 4 Burst duration of GIRK channels was reduced, whereas long closed times between bursts were markedly increased, accounting for the channel block observed. 5 Block by the DS6 peptide was slightly voltage dependent, being stronger at more negative potentials. 6 These data support the hypothesis that the distal part of the carboxy‐terminus of GIRK1 is a part of the intrinsic gate that keeps GIRK channels closed in the absence of Gβγ.
Multiplex PCR-mediated Site-directed Mutagenesis for One-step Determination of Factor V Leiden and G20210A Transition of the Prothrombin Gene

2070 of venous thrombosis events and with a seven fold increased risk of venous tluombosis (odds ratio =6.6[95V0 CI: 3.6-12.0]) (2). Moreover, in individuals with both protein C deficiency and factor V Leiden the risk of thrombotic event is higher than in individuals with only one of these two abnormalities (3). Recently, Poort et al have described another common genetic variation associated with an increased risk of venous thrombosis. It involves aG202l0A transition in the 3' untranslated region of the protluombin
Better Think Before Agreeing Twice. Mere Agreement: A Similarity-Based Persuasion Mechanism

The present paper shows that people’s compliance with a request can be substantially increased if the requester first gets them to agree with a series of statements unrelated to the request, but selected to induce agreement. We label this effect the ‘mere agreement effect’, and present a two-step similarity-based mechanism to explain it. Across five studies, we show that induced mere agreement subtly causes respondents to view the presenter of the statements as similar to themselves, which in turn increases compliance with a request from that same person. We support the similarity explanation by showing that the effect of agreement on compliance is suppressed when agreement is induced to indicate dissimilarity with the interviewer, when the request is made by some other person, and when the artificially high level of agreement is made salient. We also validate the practical relevance of the mere agreement persuasion technique in a field study. We discuss how the mere agreement effect can be broadly used as a tool to increase cooperation and be readily implemented in marketing interactions.
Failure prediction analysis of an ACCC conductor subjected to thermal and mechanical stresses

In this work, the Aluminum Conductor Composite Core¿ (ACCC) was numerically investigated to evaluate stress distributions when subjected to thermal and mechanical loads. The thermal analysis was conducted to simulate the cooling cycle of the rod from 250°C to room temperature. Three types of mechanical loads were considered, namely axial tension, small bending, and large bending conditions. This was done to predict potential mechanical failure modes, which could reduce the short term performance of the conductors. It has been shown that the magnitudes of the residual thermal stresses in the composite core are low and insufficient to create internal mechanical damage during manufacturing. As expected, the axial tension analysis indicated that under extreme axial tensile loads the ACCC rod will fail catastrophically. The most important results were obtained through the bending analysis, especially under large displacement conditions. Under these conditions the ACCC rod will develop mechanical compressive damage in its carbon fiber/epoxy section if the rods are bent around relatively small mandrels either during transportation or installation.
Smart Solutions in Elderly Care Facilities with RFID System and Its Integration with Wireless Sensor Networks

Healthcare and medical advances have prolonged human life and thus have led to increasing numbers of elderly individuals. To make their lives more convenient, several ubiquitous technologies have been considered, including the RFID system, which can play a vital role in elderly care by caregivers as well as by elderly individuals themselves. Caregivers can take advantage of the RFID system by recording and tracking elderly individuals' belongings and assisting these individuals in healthcare provision by accessing their relevant information, among others. Similarly, the RFID system can help manage elderly individuals' daily lives by reminding them of their daily schedules (e.g., reminding them to take medicine on time) and tracking their personal belongings, among others. In addition, the RFID system can mitigate human errors such as medical mistakes, delays in service provision, and hassles in tracking and identifying patients and objects. This study provides a survey of solutions proposed in the literature and discusses the potential benefits of integrating the RFID system with sensors and applying the integrated system. In addition, the study addresses the opportunities, technological challenges, and research directions for the integrated RFID system in the context of smart solutions in elderly care facilities.
The risk for psychiatric illness in siblings of schizophrenics: the impact of psychotic and non‐psychotic affective illness and alcoholism in parents

Clarification of the nature of the liability to schizophrenia transmitted within families is a major goal of family studies. In the Roscommon Family Study, the risk in relatives of schizophrenic vs. control probands was significantly increased for psychotic affective illness (PAI), but not for non‐psychotic affective illness (NPAI) or alcoholism (ALC). We attempt to confirm these findings independently by examining, within families of schizophrenia spectrum probands, the relationship between PAI, NPAI and ALC in parents and the risk for schizophrenia spectrum disorders in siblings. A parental diagnosis of PA1 predicted a significantly increased risk for schizophrenia, affective illness and anxiety disorders in siblings. In particular, schizophrenia in siblings was predicted by a parental diagnosis of mood‐incongruent PAI. By contrast, neither a parental diagnosis of NPAI nor a parental diagnosis of ALC was associated with an increased risk for schizophrenia spectrum disorders in siblings. Consistent with our earlier findings, these results suggest that (a) the familial liability to schizophrenia is neither extremely nonspecific nor extremely specific and (b) PAI, and particularly mood‐incongruent PAI, may occur particularly in parents of schizophrenics because, although it reflects a significant familial liability to schizophrenia, it does not markedly impair the ability to marry and reproduce.
Adaptive beamforming based on nonuniform linear arrays with enhanced degrees of freedom

In traditional adaptive beamforming, the number of degrees of freedom is limited by the number of sensors in the array. In this paper, a new adaptive beamforming scheme is developed based on the nonuniform linear array structure, whose degrees of freedom can be much greater than the number of physical sensors in the array. In the proposed method, the original covariance matrix of the received array data is first processed to obtain a new matrix which has a larger size. Then this augmented covariance matrix is used to calculate the optimum weight vector of the beamformer. Based on the two level nested array, the proposed beamformer can provide O(N2) degrees of freedom by using only O(N) sensors. It can be used to reduce the implementation complexity of a large sensor array, where only a small number of sensors are selected to calculate the equivalent optimal weight coefficients for the original full array. Simulation results are provided to verify the performance improvement of the proposed beamformer.
The Importance of Preparation Classes for Taking the University Entrance Examination in Mathematics

In this paper we analyze a mathematics test taken by undergraduate candidates during the university entrance examinations for enrolment to the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Banja Luka University, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the academic year 2015/2016. We also analyze the importance of preparation classes for taking the university entrance examination, as well as the candidates’ achievement on the entrance examination relative to the secondary school attended and secondary school average score in mathematics. The results of the analysis are presented using descriptive statistics and relevant tests of the SPSS statistical analysis software package. A strong statistically significant difference, in terms of the number of points between the candidates who have attended preparatory classes and those who did not has been revealed.
Composition Modulo Powers of Polynomials

Modular composition is the problem to compose two univariate polynomials modulo a third one. For polynomials with coefficients in a finite field, Kedlaya and Umans proved in 2008 that the theoretical bit complexity for performing this task could be made arbitrarily close to linear. Unfortunately, beyond its major theoretical impact, this result has not led to practically faster implementations yet. In this paper, we study the more specific case of composition modulo the power of a polynomial. First we extend previously known algorithms for power series composition to this context. We next present a fast direct reduction of our problem to power series composition.
Biofilm Formation by Neisseria gonorrhoeae

ABSTRACT Studies were performed in continuous-flow chambers to determine whether Neisseria gonorrhoeae could form a biofilm. Under these growth conditions, N. gonorrhoeae formed a biofilm with or without the addition of 10 μM sodium nitrite to the perfusion medium. Microscopic analysis of a 4-day growth of N. gonorrhoeae strain 1291 revealed evidence of a biofilm with organisms embedded in matrix, which was interlaced with water channels. N. gonorrhoeae strains MS11 and FA1090 were found to also form biofilms under the same growth conditions. Cryofield emission scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy confirmed that organisms were embedded in a continuous matrix with membranous structures spanning the biofilm. These studies also demonstrated that N. gonorrhoeae has the capability to form a matrix in the presence and absence of CMP-N-acetylneuraminic acid (CMP-Neu5Ac). Studies with monoclonal antibody 6B4 and the lectins soy bean agglutinin and Maackia amurensis indicated that the predominate terminal sugars in the biofilm matrix formed a lactosamine when the biofilm was grown in the absence of CMP-Neu5Ac and sialyllactosamine in the presence of CMP-Neu5Ac. N. gonorrhoeae strain 1291 formed a biofilm on primary urethral epithelial cells and cervical cells in culture without loss of viability of the epithelial cell layer. Our studies demonstrated that N. gonorrhoeae can form biofilms in continuous-flow chambers and on living cells. Studies of these biofilms may have implications for understanding asymptomatic gonococcal infection.
Space harmonic modeling of fractional permanent magnet machines from star of slots

This work deals with the calculus of expressions for the complex winding factor from the star of slots directly obtained from the type of the fractional winding. Complex winding factor expressions have been obtained for Q slots and p pole pair combination and have been included in an analytical model based on spatial Fourier series. The model is achieved for a slotless stator and surface mounted permanent magnet rotor. The accuracy of the model is evaluated with FEM simulations for both slotted and slotless stator.
Results from the Supernova Photometric Classification Challenge

We report results from the Supernova Photometric Classification Challenge (SNPhotCC), a publicly released mix of simulated supernovae (SNe), with types (Ia, Ibc, and II) selected in proportion to their expected rates. The simulation was realized in the griz filters of the Dark Energy Survey (DES) with realistic observing conditions (sky noise, point-spread function, and atmospheric transparency) based on years of recorded conditions at the DES site. Simulations of non–Ia-type SNe are based on spectroscopically confirmed light curves that include unpublished non-Ia samples donated from the Carnegie Supernova Project (CSP), the Supernova Legacy Survey (SNLS), and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II (SDSS-II). A spectroscopically confirmed subset was provided for training. We challenged scientists to run their classification algorithms and report a type and photo- z for each SN. Participants from 10 groups contributed 13 entries for the sample that included a host-galaxy photo- z for each SN and nine entries for the sample that had no redshift information. Several different classification strategies resulted in similar performance, and for all entries the performance was significantly better for the training subset than for the unconfirmed sample. For the spectroscopically unconfirmed subset, the entry with the highest average figure of merit for classifying SNe Ia has an efficiency of 0.96 and an SN Ia purity of 0.79. As a public resource for the future development of photometric SN classification and photo- z estimators, we have released updated simulations with improvements based on our experience from the SNPhotCC, added samples corresponding to the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) and the SDSS-II, and provided the answer keys so that developers can evaluate their own analysis.
Confocal Laser Scanning Analysis of an Equine Oral Mast Cell Tumor with Atypical Expression of Tyrosine Kinase Receptor C-KIT

A 20-year-old female horse showed a nodular, firm, focal ulcerated mast cell tumor at the right dorsobuccal face of the tongue. Histologically, the nonencapsulated tumor consisted of dense, infiltrating aggregates of well-differentiated, Cresyl violet-positive mast cells accompanied by numerous eosinophils. Furthermore, they exhibited a strong, diffuse, intracytoplasmatic immunohistochemical signal for tryptase and a faint membrane-associated and perinuclear signal for tyrosine kinase receptor KIT. Confocal laser scanning microscopy confirmed an aberrant spatial colocalization of KIT in the Golgi apparatus, which may be the result of a defective protein processing within the tumor cells. The tumor was not associated with a poor prognosis.
Multiattribute SCADA-Specific Intrusion Detection System for Power Networks

The increased interconnectivity and complexity of supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems in power system networks has exposed the systems to a multitude of potential vulnerabilities. In this paper, we present a novel approach for a next-generation SCADA-specific intrusion detection system (IDS). The proposed system analyzes multiple attributes in order to provide a comprehensive solution that is able to mitigate varied cyber-attack threats. The multiattribute IDS comprises a heterogeneous white list and behavior-based concept in order to make SCADA cybersystems more secure. This paper also proposes a multilayer cyber-security framework based on IDS for protecting SCADA cybersecurity in smart grids without compromising the availability of normal data. In addition, this paper presents a SCADA-specific cybersecurity testbed to investigate simulated attacks, which has been used in this paper to validate the proposed approach.
Effect of defect size on PD pulse characteristics measured with high frequency current transformer in XLPE insulation

This paper presents study aimed at understanding the effect of defect size on characteristics of partial discharge (PD) pulse measured with high frequency current transformer (HFCT) in XLPE insulation. Four typical defects are established to introduce internal, surface, corona and floating discharges, the dimensions of the defects are varied in a certain range. The experiment is carried out at room temperature with relative humidity of ~ 40%. PDs are generated by applying a series of AC voltages to the defects, and are measured by the HFCT. The pulse shape parameters, including rise time, pulse width, magnitude and frequency distribution, are extracted. Obtained results show that the pulse shape is changed with the defect pattern. The parameters are dependent upon the defect size and are varied as a function of the voltage applied. It is suggested that the variation of defect size leads to the change in electric field and thereby results in the alteration of both initiation and formation processes of the discharge.