Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Molecular Characterization and Distribution of Genes Encoding Members of the Type III Effector NleA Family among Pathogenic Escherichia coli Strains

ABSTRACT In this study, we investigated the occurrence of the previously described gene nleA4795 and variants of nleA, putatively encoding non-locus-of-enterocyte-effacement-encoded type III effector proteins with functions that are unknown. nleA variants were detected in 150 out of 170 enteropathogenic Escherichia coli strains and enterohemorrhagic E. coli strains, two of them being eae negative. Besides the known variants nleA4795, Z6024, and the espI-like gene, 11 novel nleA variants with different lengths and sequence identities at the deduced amino acid level (between 71% and 96%) have been identified. Whereas most of the serogroups associated with more severe disease were quite homogenous with respect to the presence of a particular nleA variant, other serogroups were not. Moreover, Southern blot hybridization revealed that certain strains carry two copies of nleA in their chromosome, frequently encoding different variants. In most cases, the open reading frame of one of the copies was disrupted, usually by an insertion element. Furthermore, transmission of the type III effector-encoding gene could be shown by transduction of nleA-carrying bacteriophages to a laboratory E. coli strain.
Some Effects of a Topical Collagen-Based Matrix on the Microcirculation and Wound Healing in Patients With Chronic Venous Leg Ulcers: Preliminary Observations

Themicrocirculation of the wound bed is a key parameter for improving granulation tissue formation and, hence, wound healing. The aim of this study was to determine whether a wound dressing comprising collagen/oxidized regenerated cellulose has effects over a short term on wound healing. Wounds were evaluated using a clinical wound score; pain associated with wounds was measured using a visual analogue scale. Wound microcirculation was evaluated using a technique based on noncontact remission spectroscopy. A prospective trial was performed in 40 patients with chronic venous leg ulcers (mean age 74 years; range, 43-93 years; 25 females and 15 males). Patients in group A were treated with PROMOGRAN® Matrix (Johnson& Johnson, New Brunswick, NJ) combined with “good” ulcer care for 2 weeks. Control group B consisted of 10 patientswho received only good ulcer care. The authors measured a favorable clinical response in 76.9% (group A) versus 66.7% (group B). Themean reduction of ulcer area was statistically significant in group A (P < .05). The wound score improved in group A from 2.28 ± 1.24 (before treatment) increasing to 3.72 ± 1.57 (after 1 week; P < .00023) and 4.92 ± 1.68 (after 2 weeks; P < .000027). In group B, the score improved from 1.44 ± 1.33 (before treatment) to 3.22 ± 1.30 (after 1 week; P < .0077). The mean visual analogue pain score before treatment was 8.72 (group A) and 7.88 (group B) (ns,P > .05). After 1 week of treatment, the score dropped to 5.76 (group A) and 6.66 (group B). In the second week, group A patients had a mean pain score of 3.84 compared with the pain score before treatment (P < .05). After 1 week of treatment, in group A there was a decrease in remission spectroscopy, which is considered to reflect an improvement in microcirculation.
Preserving location privacy in wireless lans

The broadcast and tetherless nature of wireless networks and the widespread deployment of Wi-Fi hotspots makes it easy to remotely locate a user by observing her wireless signals. Location is private information and can be used by malicious individuals for blackmail, stalking, and other privacy violations. In this paper, we analyze the problem of location privacy in wireless networks and present a protocol for improving location privacy. Our basic approach is to obfuscate several types of privacy-compromising information revealed by a mobile node, including sender identity, time of transmission, and signal strength. Our design is driven by real-system implementation and field experiments along with analysis and simulations. Our system allows users to choose the level of privacy they desire, thereby increasing the performance of less private users (while not sacrificing private users' privacy at the same time). We evaluated our system based on real-life mobility data and wireless LAN coverage. Our results show that a user of our system can be indistinguishable from a thousand users in the same coverage area.
Efficient Pose Estimation in Social Insects Residing in Colonies Using DeepPoseKit

Pose estimation is vital for figuring out how insects that live in colonies interact and conduct themselves, providing significant insights into their social dynamics and group decision-making. For the purpose of examining numerous aspects of insect behavior, such as feeding patterns, communication, and movement, accurate and effective pose estimation techniques are essential. Deep learning algorithms have become effective tools for pose estimation tasks over a wide range of domains in recent years. This research describes the use of DeepPoseKit, an advanced deep learning framework, for posture estimation of insects such as ants and termites which reside within colonies. A data set of high-definition footage of the insects striking various stances are used to train and evaluate the system. Our work includes the creation of an annotation collection, initialization of the annotations, and training of the model. The method offers a potent tool for behavior analysis and identifying fresh targets for intervention, which has the potential to revolutionize the area of insect study
Evaluation of Spectrum Occupancy in Spain for Cognitive Radio Applications

Cognitive radio (CR) has been identified as a promising solution to the so-called spectrum scarcity problem. The basic idea of this paradigm is to allow unlicensed users to access in an opportunistic and non-interfering manner some licensed bands that are temporarily unoccupied by licensed users. CR is expected to significantly increase current spectrum usage. However, before this paradigm can turn into reality, a full understanding of the dynamic usage of spectrum is required. Current spectrum utilization has already been evaluated in some measurement campaigns. However, most of them were performed in USA and therefore evaluated the American spectrum regulation and utilization. Few studies have been carried out in other places. In this context, this paper presents spectrum occupancy measurements conducted in the frequency range from 75 MHz to 3 GHz in an outdoor environment in urban Barcelona, Spain. The measurements are analyzed and compared to the official spectrum regulations. The obtained results demonstrate the existence of a significant amount of spectrum available for the deployment of future CR networks.
Synaptic basis for developmental plasticity in a birdsong nucleus

The development and adult production of birdsong are subserved by specialized brain nuclei, including the robust nucleus of the archistriatum (RA), and its afferents originating in the caudal nucleus of the ventral hyperstriatum (HVc) and the lateral portion of the magnocellular nucleus of the anterior neostriatum (L-MAN). An in vitro brain slice preparation was used to characterize the electrophysiological properties of L-MAN and HVc axonal synapses within RA and to examine how these synaptic connections change during the course of song development. Electrical stimulation of L-MAN and not HVc fibers evoked excitatory synaptic potentials from virtually all RA neurons in brain slices prepared from male and female zebra finches less than 25 d of age. These “L-MAN” EPSPs were blocked substantially by the NMDA receptor antagonist D(-)-2-amino-5-phosphonopentanoic acid (D-APV; 50–100 microM) and by hyperpolarization of the postsynaptic membrane. In contrast, when slices were prepared from male finches greater than 35 d of age, electrical stimulation of the L-MAN and the HVc fiber tracts evoked synaptic responses from over 70% of RA neurons. Although the L-MAN EPSPs resembled those seen in RA before day 25, the “HVc” EPSPs were relatively insensitive to D-APV, but almost completely abolished by 6-cyano-7-nitroquinoxaline-2,3-dione, a non-NMDA glutamate receptor antagonist. These experiments indicate that L-MAN and HVc axons make pharmacologically distinct synapses on the same RA neurons, and that these synapses first form at different stages during development.
Mind the Gap: Reconnecting Architecture and OS Research

The goal of a computer system is to run an application workload securely, reliably, efficiently, and fast. A computer's hardware architecture and operating system exist to support this goal, and it would be nice if they cooperated as effectively as possible. Yet there is a growing gap between architectural research and OS research, which seems to be the result of poor communication about what actually matters. In this paper, we discuss this gap and what to do about it. We illustrate the opportunities for closing the gap using examples from some recent OS research.
Modulation of release of neutrophil chemotactic factor (NCF)

I accept Dr Austen's premise that in man il would be helpful to identify and measure a mediator as an indicator of mast cell degranulation and a guide as to what is going on in allergic reactions. We too have been pursuing this goalwith some assistance from Dr Zweiman and Dr Atkins in Philadelphia—and have been measuring the release of neutrophil chemotactic factor (NCF) as an index of mast cell involvement following bronchial challenge, although the final corroboration as to whether NCF originates from lung mast ceils requires further investigation. We have been interested in neutrophil chemotactic activity since the demonstration by Atkins and his co-workers ofthe release of NCF during antigen-induced bronchospasm (Atkins et ai. 1977). There are many ways in which to induce bronchospasm in man, for example by challenge with histamine, sulphur dioxide, antigen or exercise, and the obvious question is are mediators released in each case'? From our experimental work with antigen challenge there is a rapid increase above the basal level (100",,) in the amount of NCF in venous blood which is maximal at about 10 min after challenge and then declines over the next 20 min. as shown in Fig I. Dr Zweiman. in fact, has demonstrated that the mediator persists in the blood in small quantities lor up to 24 hr following antigen challenge (Atkins, Norman & Zweiman. 1978). What is the specificity of this mediator? To look at this we have taken two individuals and compared the effect of antigen and histamine challenge in the first subject (RA) and antigen and sulphur dioxide challenge in the second subject (GL), on the release of NCF and the induced fall in the I second forced expiratory volume (FEV|). Figure 2 illustrates the results we obtained. In the first subject, both antigen challenge and histamine challenge induced a marked fall in the FEV) but NCF release only occurred following challenge with antigen. In the second subject, both antigen and sulphur dioxide induced a fall in the FEV I but again only antigen challenge produced a significant increase in the release of NCF. So, with histamine and sulphur dioxide challenge bronchoconstriction was
Multiple Agent Event Detection and Representation in Videos

We propose a novel method to detect events involving multiple agents in a video and to learn their structure in terms of temporally related chain of sub-events. The proposed method has three significant contributions over existing frameworks. First, in order to learn the event structure from training videos. we present the concept of a video event graph, which is composed of temporally related sub-events. Using the video event graph, we automatically encode the event dependency graph. The event dependency graph is the learnt event model that depicts the frequency of occurrence of conditionally dependent sub-events. Second. we pose the problem of event detection in novel videos as clustering the maximally correlated sub-events, and use normalized cuts to determine these clusters. The pIincipal assumption made in this work is that the events are composed of highly correlated chain of sub-events. that have high weights (association) within the cluster and relatively low weights (disassociation) between clusters. These weights (between sub-events) are the likelihood estimates obtained from the event models. Last, we recognize the importance of representing the variations in the temporal order of sub-events. occurring in an event, and encode the probabilities directly into our representation. We show results of our learning, detection, and representation of events for videos in the meeting, surveillance, and railroad monitoring domains.
Lepton flavor violation in the left-handed slepton production at future lepton colliders

The Super-Kamiokande atmospheric neutrino data suggest the existence of a large lepton-flavor violating (LFV) interaction in the higher energy scale. If the minimal supersymmetric standard model is extended to have right-handed neutrinos, the left-handed sleptons in the second and third generations are expected to have LFV masses in the minimal supergravity scenario. In this article we study the LFV signals in the left-handed slepton production at ${\ensuremath{\mu}}^{+}{\ensuremath{\mu}}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ colliders and ${e}^{+}{e}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ linear colliders (LC's), ${\ensuremath{\mu}}^{+}{\ensuremath{\mu}}^{\ensuremath{-}}{(e}^{+}{e}^{\ensuremath{-}})\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\tau}\ensuremath{\mu}+4 \mathrm{jets}+E/$ and ${\ensuremath{\mu}}^{+}{\ensuremath{\mu}}^{\ensuremath{-}}{(e}^{+}{e}^{\ensuremath{-}})\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\tau}\ensuremath{\mu}l+2 \mathrm{jets}+E/$. The main background comes from decay of a tau lepton into a muon in the lepton-flavor conserving slepton pair production. They are significantly reduced by the energy and the impact parameter cuts for the muon. At ${\ensuremath{\mu}}^{+}{\ensuremath{\mu}}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ colliders (LC's) it may be possible to reach the mixing angle $\mathrm{sin}2{\ensuremath{\theta}}_{\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\nu}}}\ensuremath{\gtrsim}0.1(0.5)$ and the mass difference $\ensuremath{\Delta}{m}_{\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\nu}}}\ensuremath{\gtrsim}0.1(0.4)$ GeV for sneutrinos in the second and third generations at the statistical significance of $3\ensuremath{\sigma}$. Such a small mass difference and a mixing angle may be induced radiatively even if the Yukawa coupling constant for the tau neutrino is of the order of 0.1.
A Fair Incentive Mechanism for Crowdsourcing in Crowd Sensing

Crowd sensing (CS) is a new paradigm of collecting large amounts of sensing information from a crowd. Unfortunately, not everyone is willing to participate in sensing tasks or provide high-quality information. Offering incentives is a common method of increasing the success of CS. Existing incentive mechanisms based on auction models lack deep consideration regarding the effects of malicious competition behavior and the “free-riding” phenomenon in crowdsourcing services. The design proposed in this paper focuses on an incentive mechanism based on a reverse auction. First, the crowdsourcing system incentive model is built. Second, an incentive mechanism is proposed based on an auction which combines the concepts of reverse auctions and Vickrey auctions. Next, proof that the mechanism is computationally efficient, individually rational, budget-balanced, truthful, and honest is provided. Simulation results indicate that the proposed incentive mechanism can effectively improve fairness of the bids and the quality of the sensed data.
Selective control of electron and hole tunneling in 2D assembly

A novel triode device controlled by a carrier type (namely, “carristor”) with ultrahigh on/off and rectification ratios is introduced. Recent discoveries in the field of two-dimensional (2D) materials have led to the demonstration of exotic devices. Although they have new potential applications in electronics, thermally activated transport over a metal/semiconductor barrier sets physical subthermionic limitations. The challenge of realizing an innovative transistor geometry that exploits this concern remains. A new class of 2D assembly (namely, “carristor”) with a configuration similar to the metal-insulator-semiconductor structure is introduced in this work. Superior functionalities, such as a current rectification ratio of up to 400,000 and a switching ratio of higher than 106 at room temperature, are realized by quantum-mechanical tunneling of majority and minority carriers across the barrier. These carristors have a potential application as the fundamental building block of low–power consumption electronics.
Exercise Effects on Sleep Physiology

This mini-review focuses on the effects of exercise on sleep. In its early days, sleep research largely focused on central nervous system (CNS) physiology using standardized tabulations of several sleep-specific landmark electroencephalogram (EEG) waveforms. Though coarse, this method has enabled the observation and inspection of numerous uninterrupted sleep phenomena. The research on the effects of exercise on sleep began, in the 1960s, with a focus primarily on sleep related EEG changes (CNS sleep). Those early studies found only small effects of exercise on sleep. However, more recent sleep research has explored not only CNS functioning, but somatic physiology as well. Sleep should be affected by daytime exercise, as physical activity alters endocrine, autonomic nervous system (ANS), and somatic functions. Since endocrinological, metabolic, and autonomic changes can be measured during sleep, it should be possible to assess exercise effects on somatic physiology in addition to CNS sleep quality, evaluated by standard polysomnographic (PSG) techniques. Additional measures of somatic physiology have provided enough evidences to conclude that the auto-regulatory, global regulation of sleep is not the exclusive domain of the CNS, but it is heavily influenced by inputs from the rest of the body.
Intermediate‐ to Long‐Term Longevity and Incidence of Revision of the Modified Broström‐Gould Procedure for Lateral Ankle Ligament Repair: A Systematic Review

&NA; The Broström‐Gould procedure is an effective procedure for chronic lateral ankle instability. However, long‐term studies are limited, and the durability of this procedure remains unclear. A systematic review of the published data was undertaken to determine the outcomes and incidence of revision after long‐term follow‐up. Eleven studies involving 669 Broström‐Gould procedures met the inclusion criteria. The revision rate was 1.2% at a weighted mean follow‐up period of 8.4 years. Our systematic review of the available data revealed that the Broström‐Gould procedure results in low revision rates for chronic lateral ankle instability. However, additional prospective comparative analyses are needed regarding this topic. &NA; Level of Clinical Evidence: 3
The Role of Underlying Structure in Text Generation

While a coherent organization is necessary for the generation of a multisentential paragraph, this organization itself conveys information, such as what knowledge is primary and what is secondary, and which of the various possible relationships between the pieces of knowledge the speaker wishes to make explicit. The organization of the message is an integral part of the message. Given this, it is wrong to assign the task of text structuring to any component other than the one that desires to convey the message in the first place. This paper describes George, a proposed system that organizes its text before the task of generation is begun. Particular attention is given to a new knowledge base paradigm called functional hierarchy, which is designed to facilitate explanation generation, and how it can be used to build Rhetorical Structure Theory representations that specify text organization before actual generation is begun.
Phytotoxins Produced by Fungi Associated with Grapevine Trunk Diseases

Up to 60 species of fungi in the Botryosphaeriaceae family, genera Cadophora, Cryptovalsa, Cylindrocarpon, Diatrype, Diatrypella, Eutypa, Eutypella, Fomitiporella, Fomitiporia, Inocutis, Phaeoacremonium and Phaeomoniella have been isolated from decline-affected grapevines all around the World. The main grapevine trunk diseases of mature vines are Eutypa dieback, the esca complex and cankers caused by the Botryospheriaceae, while in young vines the main diseases are Petri and black foot diseases. To understand the mechanism of these decline-associated diseases and the symptoms associated with them, the toxins produced by the pathogens involved in these diseases were isolated and characterised chemically and biologically. So far the toxins of only a small number of these decline fungi have been studied. This paper presents an overview of the toxins produced by the most serious of these vine wood pathogens: Eutypa lata, Phaeomoniella chlamydospora, Phaeoacremonium aleophilum and some taxa in the Botryosphaeriaceae family, and examines how these toxins produce decline symptoms. The chemical structure of these metabolites and in some cases their vivotoxin nature are also discussed.
Evolutionary Origins and Functions of the Carotenoid Biosynthetic Pathway in Marine Diatoms

Carotenoids are produced by all photosynthetic organisms, where they play essential roles in light harvesting and photoprotection. The carotenoid biosynthetic pathway of diatoms is largely unstudied, but is of particular interest because these organisms have a very different evolutionary history with respect to the Plantae and are thought to be derived from an ancient secondary endosymbiosis between heterotrophic and autotrophic eukaryotes. Furthermore, diatoms have an additional xanthophyll-based cycle for dissipating excess light energy with respect to green algae and higher plants. To explore the origins and functions of the carotenoid pathway in diatoms we searched for genes encoding pathway components in the recently completed genome sequences of two marine diatoms. Consistent with the supplemental xanthophyll cycle in diatoms, we found more copies of the genes encoding violaxanthin de-epoxidase (VDE) and zeaxanthin epoxidase (ZEP) enzymes compared with other photosynthetic eukaryotes. However, the similarity of these enzymes with those of higher plants indicates that they had very probably diversified before the secondary endosymbiosis had occurred, implying that VDE and ZEP represent early eukaryotic innovations in the Plantae. Consequently, the diatom chromist lineage likely obtained all paralogues of ZEP and VDE genes during the process of secondary endosymbiosis by gene transfer from the nucleus of the algal endosymbiont to the host nucleus. Furthermore, the presence of a ZEP gene in Tetrahymena thermophila provides the first evidence for a secondary plastid gene encoded in a heterotrophic ciliate, providing support for the chromalveolate hypothesis. Protein domain structures and expression analyses in the pennate diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum indicate diverse roles for the different ZEP and VDE isoforms and demonstrate that they are differentially regulated by light. These studies therefore reveal the ancient origins of several components of the carotenoid biosynthesis pathway in photosynthetic eukaryotes and provide information about how they have diversified and acquired new functions in the diatoms.