Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Antimycoplasma properties and application in cell culture of surfactin, a lipopeptide antibiotic from Bacillus subtilis

Surfactin, a cyclic lipopeptide antibiotic and biosurfactant produced by Bacillus subtilis, is well-known for its interactions with artificial and biomembrane systems (e.g., bacterial protoplasts or enveloped viruses). To assess the applicability of this antiviral and antibacterial drug, we determined the cytotoxicity of surfactin with a 50% cytotoxic concentration of 30 to 64 microM for a variety of human and animal cell lines in vitro. Concomitantly, we observed an improvement in proliferation rates and changes in the morphology of mycoplasma-contaminated mammalian cells after treatment with this drug. A single treatment over one passage led to complete removal of viable Mycoplasma hyorhinis cells from various adherent cell lines, and Mycoplasma orale was removed from nonadherent human T-lymphoid cell lines by double treatment. This effect was monitored by a DNA fluorescence test, an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and two different PCR methods. Disintegration of the mycoplasma membranes as observed by electron microscopy indicated the mode of action of surfactin. Disintegration is obviously due to a physicochemical interaction of the membrane-active surfactant with the outer part of the lipid membrane bilayer, which causes permeability changes and at higher concentrations leads finally to disintegration of the mycoplasma membrane system by a detergent effect. The low cytotoxicity of surfactin for mammalian cells permits specific inactivation of mycoplasmas without significant deleterious effects on cell metabolism and the proliferation rate in cell culture. These results were used to develop a fast and simple method for complete and permanent inactivation of mycoplasmas in mammalian monolayer and suspension cell cultures.
Controlled ink-jet printing and deposition of organic polymers and solid particles

In this letter, we present a technique for the deposition of inks, organic polymers and solid particles, using a fluid ejector. The ejector design is based on a flextensional transducer that excites axisymmetric resonant modes in a clamped circular membrane. It is constructed by bonding a thin piezoelectric annular ring to a thin, edge supported, circular membrane. Liquids or solid particles are placed behind one face of the membrane which has a small orifice (50–200 μm diam) at its center. By applying an ac signal across the piezoelectric element, continuous or drop-on-demand ejection of photoresist (Shipley Microposit S1400-21, S1400-27, S1805, and S1813), oil-based ink, water, or talcum powder [Mg3Si4O10(OH)2] has been achieved. Successful deposition of photoresist has been accomplished without spinning, and thus without waste. Patterning of 10 μm features, by baking, exposure, and developing, has revealed no defects in the deposition process. A boundary integral method was used to numerically simulate.
Effects of aqueous extracts from Quercus ilex l. root bark, Punica granatum l. fruit peel and Artemisia herba‐alba Asso leaves on ethanol‐induced gastric damage in rats

The gastroprotective effect of tannic acid and the aqueous extract of Quercus ilex L. root bark, Punica granatum L. fruit peel and Artemisia herba‐alba Asso leaves was investigated in the rat against ethanol‐induced damage. Tannic acid, Q. ilex and P. granatum extracts gave 100% precipitation of ovine haemoglobin in vitro, whereas A. herba‐alba extract was devoid of any protein‐binding property. Oral administration of these plant extracts or tannic acid induced a significant decrease in gastric lesions (47.7%–76%). The observed protection was more pronounced when the test solution was given at the same time with ethanol, except for Q. ilex extract. The acid content of the stomach was significantly increased by P. granatum (368%) and A. herba‐alba (251%) extracts prepared in ethanol. It is suggested that monomeric and polymeric polyphenols can strengthen the gastric mucosal barrier. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Assembly of Designed Oligonucleotides as an Efficient Method for Gene Recombination: A New Tool in Directed Evolution

A new and practical method for gene recombination with formation of libraries of mutant genes is presented. The method is based on the assembly of appropriately prepared oligonucleotides whose design is guided by sequence information. High recombination frequency with formation of full‐length products is achieved by controlled overlapping of the designed oligomers. This process (ADO) minimizes self‐hybridization of parental genes, which constitutes a significant advantage over conventional family shuffling as used in the directed evolution of functional enzymes. ADO was applied to the recombination of two lipase family genes from Bacillus subtilis (LipA and LipB). In a library of 3000 lipase variants created by this method, several were found that display increased enantioselectivity in a model reaction involving the hydrolysis of a meso‐diacetate.
An Energy-Constrained Video Retargeting Approach for Color-Plus-Depth 3D Video

Color-plus-depth 3D video is booming up with the growing popularity of depth-sensing camera. This imposes new challenges on video resizing since the information embedded in the depth and color video should be taken into consideration simultaneously. In this paper, we propose an energy-constrained video retargeting approach for color-plus-depth 3D video. We first build a 3D video visual attention (3DV-VA) computation model by combining gradient, saliency, motion and depth information. Then, an energy function is generated using spatial, temporal and 3DV-VA constraints. Finally, seam selection and carving operation is conducted to generate a retargeted 3D video. Experimental results on two types of 3D video sequences shows that the proposed approach produces better seam carving results than the related existing methods.
Sub-30-ps ECL circuit operation at liquid-nitrogen temperature using self-aligned epitaxial SiGe-base bipolar transistors

The authors report the operation of emitter coupled logic (ECL) circuits at liquid-nitrogen temperature using self-aligned epitaxial SiGe-base bipolar transistors. A minimum ECL gate delay of 28.1 ps at 84 K was measured; this is essentially unchanged from the room-temperature value of 28.8 ps at 310 K. This delay number was achieved under full logic-swing (500-mV) conditions and represents an improvement of greater than a factor of 2 over the best reported value for 84 K operation. Lower-power ECL circuits have switching speeds as fast as 51 ps at 2.2 mW (112-fJ power-delay product) at 84 K. These results suggest that silicon-based bipolar technology is suitable for very-high-speed applications in cryogenic computer systems. <<ETX>>
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Most chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) studies are based on information about patients from primary or tertiary care settings. These patients might not be typical of patients in the general population. This investigation involved examinations of individuals with CFS from a community-based study. A random sample of 18,675 in Chicago was inter-viewed by telephone. Individuals with chronic fatigue and at least four minor symptoms associated with CFS were given medical and psychiatric examinations. A group of physicians then diagnosed individuals with CFS, who were then subclassified based on three sociodemographic categories—gender, ethnicity, and work status. Sociodemographic subgroups were analyzed amid symptom severity, functional disability, coping, optimism, perceived stress, and psychiatric comorbidity. Women, minorities, and nonworking individuals with CFS reported greater levels of functional disability, symptom severity, and poorer psychosocial functioning than men, Caucasians, and working individuals, suggesting sociodemographic characteristics may be associated with poorer outcomes in urban, community-based samples of CFS individuals.
Low-Frequency Noise Analysis and Modeling in Vertical Tunnel FETs With Ge Source

This paper presents the low-frequency noise (LFN) behavior of vertical tunnel FETs (TFETs). The experimental input characteristics with different source compositions (Si and Ge) and different HfO2 thicknesses in the gate-stack (2 and 3 nm) are presented. A brief analog parameters analysis, including the transconductance, output conductance, and intrinsic voltage gain behavior under different bias conditions, shows that TFETs are promising for analog applications. For the LFN study, the standard number fluctuations model for MOSFETs was used in order to verify and compare the TFETs noise behavior, exploring the influence of different conduction mechanisms in each bias region. In the proposed model, the effective channel length (Leff) is replaced by the tunneling length, resulting in good agreement between the experimental data and the model. The temperature influence on the TFET noise behavior is also investigated.
Detection of transient and persistent feline leukaemia virus infections

A study was made of cats persistently or transiently viraemic with feline leukaemia virus (FeLV) following experimental oronasal infection. Cats of two ages were exposed to the virus. One group was infected when eight weeks old in the expectation that most of the cats would become persistently viraemic, and the second group when 16 weeks old, so that some would show signs of a transient infection and then recover. The periods following infection when virus was detectable in the blood and in the oropharynx were determined for each group. Three methods for detecting viraemia were compared: virus isolation, immunofluorescence on blood smears and an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). There was good overall agreement among the three tests in detecting virus-positive cats. Virus was found sooner after infection by virus isolation than by the other methods, and virus appeared in the blood slightly sooner in cats which developed persistent viraemia than in transiently viraemic cats. Infectious FeLV was isolated from the oropharynx of all of the persistently viraemic cats, in most cases simultaneously with virus in the plasma. Virus was also isolated from the mouth of most transiently viraemic cats. Under field conditions such transient excretion of virus lasting only a few days would rarely be detected in a single sampling. This might explain how FeLV is maintained in free range urban cats in the absence of a large number of cats with persistent active FeLV infection. For routine diagnosis, immunofluorescence would appear to offer the best chance of differentiating transient and persistent infections by FeLV.
Expression and refolding of functional fragments of the human lipopolysaccharide receptor CD14 in Escherichia coli and Pichia pastoris.

CD14 is a high-affinity cellular receptor specific for bacterial lipopolysaccharides (LPS), present in the bacterial cell wall. Binding of LPS to CD14 initiates the innate component of immune response and triggers a response that can lead to septic shock. In order to provide recombinant protein for the study of LPS-CD14 molecular interactions we have expressed human CD14 in Escherichia coli and Pichia pastoris. In bacteria, the protein was produced in high yield in the form of inclusion bodies. We have optimized the procedure for its refolding and generated correctly folded protein. A procedure to monitor the refolding efficiency by using conformation-specific anti-human CD14 monoclonal antibody has been established. A fragment of 152 amino acids of CD14 which retains the ability to bind LPS has been produced in a methylotrophic yeast, P. pastoris, expression system. The recombinant protein from yeast is glycosylated and secreted into the medium. The CD14 fragment was purified to homogeneity by immunoaffinity chromatography. Recombinant CD14 from both bacteria and yeast bind to LPS.
PROVABLY SECURED TWO SERVER HASH PASSWORD AUTHENTICATION

The techniques of secured socket layer (SSL) with client-side certificates for commercial web sites rely on a relatively weak form of password authentication. Browser sends a user’s plaintext password to a remote web server using SSL is vulnerable to attack. In common password attacks, hackers exploit the fact that web users often use the same password at many different sites. This has drawn attention on the need for new hash function designs. In addition the authentication systems which uses passwords stored in a central server is easily prone to attack. To overcome the problem of single server password attacks, the multi-server systems were proposed in which user communicates in parallel with several or all of the servers. Such system requires a large communication bandwidth, complex deployment, needs for synchronization at the user and quite expensive. Optimized two server system is proposed in our work. The proposal of our work presents a user interface, browser extension password hash, strengthens web password in a two server authentication system. The hash is implemented using a Pseudo Random Function keyed by the password. Since the hash output is tailored to meet server password requirements, the resulting hashed password is handled normally at the server with no server modifications. The two server authentication system is interfaced with client supported hash passwords with server session keys. The two server system contains, the front end service server interacts directly to the user and the back end control server visible to the service server. The users contact only the service server but these two servers are responsible for the authentication of the user. The user has a password which is transformed into two long secrets which are held by service server and control server.
Integer Programming Subject to Monomial Constraints

We investigate integer programs containing constraints of the type $\prod_{i\in I}x_i^{\alpha_i}=b$. Due to the number-theoretic nature of these constraints, standard methods based on linear algebra cannot be applied directly. Instead, we present a reformulation resulting in integer programs with linear constraints and polynomial objective functions, using prime decompositions of the right-hand sides $b$. Moreover, we show that minimizing a linear objective function with nonnegative coefficients over bivariate constraints is possible in polynomial time.
CORRELATION BETWEEN CHRONIC KIDNEY DISEASES AND HEMATOLGICAL DATA IN SABRATHA HOSPITAL IN LIBYA

In chronic kidney failure, there is impairment in the excretion of toxic non-volatile solutes, with consequent increase in the plasma concentrations of all metabolites derived mainly from protein metabolism, characterized by increased urea and creatinine, the prevalence and severity of anemia are related to the kidney disease stage and the relative deficiency or reduction in erythropoietin production is the main cause. This study aimed at checking the correlation between anemia and chronic kidney diseases in patients who underwent hemodialysis in Sabratha Hospital in the West of Libya. This study was conducted on 60 patients (36 males and 24 females) with chronic renal failure from October 2015 to April 2016 and a group of 40 (20 males and 20 females) individuals as control. The results of the study concluded that there is a correlation between progression of chronic kidney diseases and reduction in hemoglobin, red blood cells count, hematocrit, and serum iron. Keywords: Chronic kidney diseases, Chronic kidney disease, Anemia, Renal failure
Downregulation of Clock in circulatory system leads to an enhancement of fibrinolysis in mice

As a main component of circadian genes, clock plays not only an important role in circadian rhythm but also in the regulation of many physiological systems. The dysfunction of clock genes is associated with the development of various disorders. Many studies have investigated the association between clock genes and blood coagulation and the fibrinolytic system. The present study was designed to investigate the effect of downregulation of circulatory Clock on blood coagulation and fibrinolysis at the initial stage of active phase in male mice. Downregulation of the expression of the Clock gene by siRNA and, subsequently, its effect on the thrombotic potential and the expression of relative coagulative and/or fibrinolytic factors were investigated. It was found that the Clock interfered mice were less liable to thrombosis and showed prolonged prothrombin time (PT) and activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) at Zeitgeber time (ZT) 15. Meanwhile, these mice also showed an increase in factor VII (FVII) and a decrease in thrombomodulin (TM) and plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 (PAI-1) at ZT 15 at both transcriptional and translational levels. PT, APTT and mRNA expressions of fvii, tm and pai-1 were analyzed with the least-squares fit of a 24-h cosine function by single cosinor method; no circadian rhythm was determined in PT and APTT, and a higher amplitude of fvii in the Clock RNAi group was found with a circadian phase shift, while lower amplitudes of tm and pai-1 were found in the Clock RNAi group with nearly no phase shift. All these results suggest that downregulation of the Clock gene in circulatory system has an effect on factors involved in both blood coagulation and fibrinolysis resulting in an enhancement in mice. This may be considered as an indication that Clock regulates thrombotic homeostasis through the fibrinolytic system.
Short Term Hydrothermal Coordination Using Multi-Pass Dynamic Programming

on/off operation of thermal units. The PSM is always superior to the CEM on computational efficiency. The computation time of PSM does not significantly vary for different situations. The computation efficiency and its consistency are therefore two advantages for the PSM. The application of the PSM to coordinate hydro and thermal subsystems is simple and straight forward; thus, more effort can be devoted to the detailed modelling of the hydro sub-system, such as backwater curves, flood curves, tail-water curves, etc.
The problem of quality of life in medicine.

The use of the term "quality of life" to encompass the values and perceptions of patients has created doubt, confusion, and misunderstanding among practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and patients. The principal reason for this state of affairs is that a clear conceptual basis for quality-of-life measures is lacking. In this article, the current rationale for quality-of-life measurement in the health field is examined, and the drawbacks of the various models being used are outlined. Our suggestion is that quality of life as an outcome could be explored more clearly (ie, defined) if quality of life were replaced with a more easily handled notion such as that of "subjective health status. " However, the idea that the patient's perspective is as valid as that of the clinician when it comes to evaluating outcomes has a great deal of legitimacy and should certainly not be abandoned.
Recovery of bimodal locomotion in the spinal‐transected salamander, Pleurodeles waltlii

Electromyographic (EMG) analysis was used to provide an assessment of the recovery of locomotion in spinal‐transected adult salamanders (Pleurodeles waltlii). EMG recordings were performed during swimming and overground stepping in the same animal before and at various times (up to 500 days) after a mid‐trunk spinalization. Two–three weeks after spinalization, locomotor EMG activity was limited to the forelimbs and the body rostral to the transection. Thereafter, there was a return of the locomotor EMG activity at progressively more caudal levels below the transection. The animals reached stable locomotor patterns 3–4 months post‐transection. Several locomotor parameters (cycle duration, burst duration, burst proportion, intersegmental phase lag, interlimb coupling) measured at various recovery times after spinalization were compared with those in intact animals. These comparisons revealed transient and long‐term alterations in the locomotor parameters both above and below the transection site. These alterations were much more pronounced for swimming than for stepping and revealed differences in adaptive plasticity between the two locomotor networks. Recovered locomotor activity was immediately abolished by retransection at the site of the original spinalization, suggesting that the spinal cord caudal to the transection was reinnervated by descending brain and/or propriospinal axons, and that this regeneration contributed to the restoration of locomotor activity. Anatomical studies conducted in parallel further demonstrated that some of the regenerated axons came from glutamatergic and serotoninergic immunoreactive cells within the reticular formation.
All-cause mortality associated with atypical and conventional antipsychotics among nursing home residents with dementia: a retrospective cohort study.

OBJECTIVE A recent meta-analysis has indicated that, in patients with dementia, the use of atypical antipsychotics is associated with an excess mortality. Later observational studies have suggested that conventional antipsychotics may pose an even greater risk of death. None of these studies could evaluate the risk associated with single antipsychotics nor could they provide any conclusive evidence concerning the risk among nursing home residents. We conducted a retrospective cohort study to compare the risk of death associated with atypical and conventional antipsychotics in a large population of nursing home residents with dementia. METHOD We identified 6,524 new users of atypical antipsychotics and 3,205 new users of conventional antipsychotics living in 1,581 Medicare- or Medicaid-certified nursing homes in 5 US states during the years 1998-2000. The outcome measure was all-cause mortality, which was determined during 6-months of follow-up. RESULTS After adjusting for potential confounders relative to users of atypicals, the rate of death was increased for users of conventional antipsychotics (hazard ratio [HR], 1.26; 95% CI, 1.13-1.42). Relative to risperidone, a higher rate of death was documented for haloperidol (HR, 1.31; 95% CI, 1.13-1.53), phenothiazines (HR, 1.17; 95% CI, 1.00-1.38) and other conventional medications (HR, 1.32; 95% CI, 0.99-1.80). No atypical antipsychotic was associated with a differential risk relative to risperidone. CONCLUSIONS Conventional antipsychotics are associated with a higher risk of all-cause mortality than atypical agents. It seems advisable that they are not used in substitution for atypical antipsychotics among nursing home residents with dementia even when short-term therapy is being prescribed.
Incremental Joint Modelling for Dialogue State Tracking

Dialogue State Tracking (DST) is a crucial part of Dialogue Systems, as it provides a powerful mechanism to track the user and system’s contributions to the dialogue so that the system can determine the best next move in dialogue. In task-oriented Dialogue Systems the distribution over the set of dialogue slots with possible values is called the Dialogue State or State Belief. While there have been great improvements in DST technology in recent years, there remain two big disadvantages of traditional DST approaches: (1) different DST models are developed separately for different dialogue slots, therefore each model can only partially observe the dialogue; (2) Dialogue States are tracked in a turn-by-turn manner, which lacks flexibility for real-time Spoken Dialogue Systems. The second disadvantage has been recently addressed with LecTrack presented by Zilka and Jurcicek (2015). Aiming to improve on this work, we propose an Incremental Joint Model (IJM) as a novel approach to DST tasks.