Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Colonization and Internalization of Salmonella enterica in Tomato Plants

ABSTRACT The consumption of fresh tomatoes has been linked to numerous food-borne outbreaks involving various serovars of Salmonella enterica. Recent advances in our understanding of plant-microbe interactions have shown that human enteric pathogenic bacteria, including S. enterica, are adapted to survive in the plant environment. In this study, tomato plants (Solanum lycopersicum cv. Micro-Tom) grown in sandy loam soil from Virginia's eastern shore (VES) were inoculated with S. enterica serovars to evaluate plausible internalization routes and to determine if there is any niche fitness for certain serovars. Both infested soil and contaminated blossoms can lead to low internal levels of fruit contamination with Salmonella. Salmonella serovars demonstrated a great ability to survive in environments under tomato cultivation, not only in soil but also on different parts of the tomato plant. Of the five serovars investigated, Salmonella enterica serovars Newport and Javiana were dominant in sandy loam soil, while Salmonella enterica serovars Montevideo and Newport were more prevalent on leaves and blossoms. It was also observed that Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium had a poor rate of survival in all the plant parts examined here, suggesting that postharvest contamination routes are more likely in S. Typhimurium contamination of tomato fruit. Conversely, S. Newport was the most prevalent serovar recovered in both the tomato rhizosphere and phyllosphere. Plants that were recently transplanted (within 3 days) had an increase in observable internalized bacteria, suggesting that plants were more susceptible to internalization right after transplant. These findings suggest that the particular Salmonella serovar and the growth stage of the plant were important factors for internalization through the root system.
Mobile Phone-Based Microscopy, Sensing, and Diagnostics

Mass production of consumer electronics devices and market competition have provided users with cost-effective, compact, and high-performance products with high-end components including digital cameras, graphics processing units, and various sensors. This opened up the opportunity for researchers, and even citizen scientists, to develop novel imaging, sensing, and diagnostics platforms using mobile phones as an underlying platform. Mobile phones' hardware and software technical capabilities, wireless connectivity, and wide-spread use, in billions, have made them ideal, especially to address the global demand for accurate, sensitive, cost-effective, and field-portable measurement devices that can be used in remote and resource-limited settings around the world. This Review focuses on these recent advances in the use of mobile phone-based imaging and sensing techniques for point of care applications, including microscopy and diagnostic testing. The achievements demonstrated so far illustrate the potential to globally transform and democratize measurement science in general, with a significant impact for scientists, engineers, and educators.
Value of Cloud Computing by the View of Information Resources

Recent researches on Cloud Computing suggest that it is a new business model which can bring big benefits in sharing Information Resources to many companies and users. This paper analyzes some definitions of Cloud Computing and its features. To emphasize the future applications, the paper lists some instances about it. After that, it mines some values of Cloud Computing by the view of Information Resources, such as technology, economics and discipline. Just as a coin has two sides, though the Cloud Computing will take an important role in people's daily life, it brings some problems to the society. The paper puts forward some challenge problems which Cloud Computing will be faced with.
Screening of Medicinal Plants for Secondary Metabolites

The traditional medicine involves the use of different plant extracts or the bioactive constituents. This type of study provides the health application at affordable cost. Secondary metabolites are responsible for medicinal activity of plants. Hence in the present study phytochemical screening of some important medicinal plants was carried out. Qualitative phytochemical analysis of these plants confirm the presence of various phytochemicals like saponins, terpenoids, steroids, anthocyanins, coumarins, fatty acids, tannins, leucoanthocyanins and emodins. The results suggest that the phytochemical properties for curing various ailments and possess potential antioxidant and leads to the isolation of new and novel compounds.
Theory of open quantum systems

A quantum dissipation theory is constructed with the system–bath interaction being treated rigorously at the second-order cumulant level for both reduced dynamics and initial canonical boundary condition. The theory is valid for arbitrary bath correlation functions and time-dependent external driving fields, and satisfies correlated detailed-balance relation at any temperatures. The general formulation assumes a particularly simple form in driven Brownian oscillator systems in which the correlated driving-dissipation effects can be accounted for exactly in terms of local-field correction. Remarks on a class of widely used phenomenological quantum master equations that neglects the bath dispersion-induced dissipation are also made in contact with the present theory.
Subvalvular left ventricular aneurysms. A report of 5 Ugandan cases.

The pathological features of 5 cases of subvalvular cardiac aneurysms occurring in Uganda over a 13-year period are described; 3 were subaortic and 2 were submitral. One of the latter was atypical in that the aneurysm arose at some distance below thefibrous mitral ring and was associated with endomyocardialfibrosis. In 2 cases where the coronary sinus and its ostium was examined, no abnormality was detected. Previous descriptions of the pathological aspects ofsubvalvular aneurysms are briefly reviewed. Coronary artery disease and post-infarction cardiac
Management of Myofascial Trigger Point Pain

Successful management of myofascial trigger point (MTrP) pain depends on the practitioner finding all of the MTrPs from which the pain is emanating, and then deactivating them by one of several currently used methods. These include deeply applied procedures, such as an injection of a local anaesthetic into MTrPs and deep dry needling (DDN), and superficially applied ones, including an injection of saline into the skin and superficial dry needling (SDN) at MTrP sites. Reasons are given for believing that DDN should be employed in cases where there is severe muscle spasm due to an underlying radiculopathy. For all other patients SDN is the treatment of choice. Following MTrP deactivation, correction of any postural disorder likely to cause MTrP reactivation is essential, as is the need to teach the patient how to carry out appropriate muscle stretching exercises. It is also important that the practitioner excludes certain biochemical disorders.
Photo-inactivation of viruses in therapeutical plasma.

Photodynamic virus inactivation of human fresh plasma is achieved by illuminating single units of plasma in their plastic containers with light from fluorescent tubes in the presence of the phenothiazine dye methylene blue. The effective dye concentration is 1 microM, i.e. approx. 300 micrograms per litre of plasma. Under the conditions used, all enveloped viruses tested so far have been sensitive to photodynamic treatment, although some had to be illuminated for a longer time than others. For example, under production conditions the infectivity of SFV-containing plasma was reduced by more than 7 log10 within five minutes, whereas 30 minutes were required to reduce the infectivity of plasma containing VSV by c. 5 log10. Among the non-enveloped viruses tested some were sensitive to photodynamic treatment (e.g. SV40 and calicivirus) and some were not (e.g. encephalomyocarditis and polioviruses). Using the optimized procedure, plasma proteins remain largely unaffected. Photodynamically treated fresh frozen plasma (FFP) has been routinely produced and distributed since February 1992. Requested reporting of adverse drug reactions indicates that the virus inactivated product is a well tolerated as conventional FFP.
The Relation between Perceptual Deficits after Stroke and Independence in Activities of Daily Living

The impact of perceptual difficulties on daily life was evaluated using standardised procedures. One hundred and fifty stroke patients (75 right hemiplegic and 75 left hemiplegic) of all ages, admitted consecutively to two general hospitals, were assessed one month after stroke. They were assessed on the Rivermead Perceptual Assessment Battery to identify perceptual difficulties and on an activities of daily living (ADL) scale. Patients without perceptual deficits were more often independent than those with perceptual deficits. On simple ADL tasks, left hemiplegic patients were more often independent than right hemiplegic patients, but not on more complex ones. There was a significant correlation between perceptual abilities and independence in all ADL scales. There was no correlation between visual neglect and independence in ADL in left hemiplegic patients.
Focused crawling in the ALVIS semantic search engine

The EU project ALVIS - Superpeer Semantic Search Engine, aiming at developing an Open Source prototype of a peer-to-peer, semantic based search engine, is brie°y presented. A focused (or topic speci¯c) crawler, responsible for creating topic-speci¯c databases within ALVIS, is presented in more detail. It is based on a combination of a standard Web crawler and an automated subject classi¯er. The topic focus is provided by an ontology that is used as topic de¯nition. When a document have been deemed relevant further processing (like character set normalization, language identi ¯cation and simple text segmentation), is done in preparation for the ALVIS processing pipeline. (Less)
ANPD Strategic Plan: Organizational Transformation.

As promised during the Association for Nursing Professional Development (ANPD) 2015 Business Meeting, the Strategic Plan for 2016Y2018 was unveiled. The Board of Directors is very excited by the transformative nature of ANPD’s new strategic plan. ANPD is moving beyond simple improvement of past performance toward a new future limited only by the imagination and energy of its members. The strategic plan allows ANPD to realize its vision, ‘‘ANPD is the thought and practice leader for nursing professional development. ’’
Prediction of Protein-protein Interaction Sites at Interface Topology Level

Protein-protein interactions play a crucial role in many biological processes such as immune response, enzyme catalysis, and signal transduction. Identifying the interacting sites between the proteins is important for understanding the functional mechanisms, and is crucial for drug development. Interaction profile hidden Markov model (ipHMM) was shown to be an effective tool for modeling protein-ligand interaction site in previous study. In this study, the ipHMM was applied to predict protein-protein interaction site by taking into account of interacting partner and topology information. Particularly, it was found that the performance of ipHMM at domaindomain interaction (DDI) family level was significantly lower for DDI families with multiple topology interfaces. To address this problem, we proposed to develop ipHMM at DDI interface topology level. The performance of interacting site prediction was significantly improved. The average sensitivity/recall was improved from 36.6% to 74.0%. The average precision was improved from 49.1% to 75.9%. The Matthews correlation coefficient was improved from 46.4% to 77.3%.
An Examination of the Factors that Dictate the Relative Weighting of Feedback and Feedforward Input for Speech Motor Control

Speech is arguably the most important form of human communication. Fluent speech production relies on auditory feedback for the planning, execution, and monitoring of speech movements. Auditory feedback is particularly important during the acquisition of speech, however, it has been suggested that over time speakers rely less on auditory feedback as they develop robust sensorimotor representations that allow speech motor commands to be executed in a feedforward manner. The studies reported in this thesis recorded speaker’s vocal and neural responses to altered auditory feedback in order to explore the factors that dictate the relative importance of auditory feedback for speech motor control. More specifically, studies 1 through 3 examined how the role of auditory feedback changes throughout development, while studies 4 and 5 examined the relationship between vocal variability and auditory feedback control, and lastly study 6 looked at how the predictability of auditory feedback errors influences the role of auditory feedback for speech motor control. Results of the first study demonstrated that toddlers use auditory feedback to regulate their speech motor commands, supporting the long held notion that auditory feedback is important during the acquisition of speech. While mapping out the developmental trajectory of vocal and event related potential responses to altered auditory feedback, the second study demonstrated that vocal variability, rather than age, best predicts responses to altered auditory feedback. Importantly, this suggests that the maturation of the speech motor control system is not strictly dependent on age. The third study in this thesis demonstrated that children and adults show similar rates of sensorimotor adaptation, suggesting that once speech is acquired, speakers are proficient at using sensory information to modify the planning of future speech motor commands. However, since adults produced larger compensatory responses, these results also suggested that adults are more proficient at comparing incoming auditory feedback with the feedback predicted by their sensorimotor representations, as a result of possessing more precisely mapped sensorimotor representations. The results of studies four and five demonstrated that vocal variability can be used to predict the size of compensatory responses and sensorimotor adaptation to changes in one’s auditory feedback, respectively. Furthermore, these studies demonstrated that increased variability was related to increased auditory feedback control of speech. Finally, the sixth study in this thesis demonstrated that experimentally induced predictability and variability can be used to induce increases in feedforward and auditory feedback control, respectively. In conclusion, the results reported in this thesis demonstrate that age and vocal variability, both naturally occurring and experimentally induced, are important determinants of the role of auditory feedback in speech motor control.
Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio Is a Potential Prognostic Biomarker in Patients with Ovarian Cancer: A Meta-Analysis

Background and Aims Plenty of studies were conducted to explore the prognostic significance of neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) in ovarian cancer with contradictory results. This study aims to summarize the prognostic significance of NLR in patients with ovarian cancer. Methods A literature search in PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Embase was conducted. The endpoints were progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). Results Eleven studies involving a total of 2,892 patients were identified. The results indicated that patients with high NLR had shorter PFS compared to patients with low NLR in ovarian cancer (HR = 1.55, 95% CI = 1.15–2.08, p = 0.004, and I2 = 61%). Similarly, high NLR was related to shorter OS (HR = 1.51, 95% CI = 1.03–2.23, p = 0.04, and I2 = 85%). Moreover, high NLR was significantly associated with shorter PFS when the NLR cut-off was less than 3.3 (p = 0.03) or when treatment is operation (p = 0.002). In addition, high NLR was distinctly related to worse OS in Asian people (p = 0.04) or operation (p = 0.04). Conclusion High NLR was associated with shorter PFS and shorter OS in ovarian cancer. NLR is potentially a promising prognostic biomarker in patients with ovarian cancer.
The mechanism of bone marrow‐derived (B) lymphocyte activation. II. A “second signal” for antigen‐specific activation provided by flagellin and lipopolysaccharide

Evidence is presented that the activity of polymerized flagellin (POL) in allowing spleen cells from congenitally athymic (nu/nu) mice to respond in vitro to the thymus‐dependent antigen fowl IgG (FGG), is due to an intrinsic property of the POL molecule, rather than to some minor contamination of the preparation by lipopolysaccharide (LPS). While LPS prepared from the same Salmonella strain as was the POL was shown to be active in the present system, the potency of the LPS was not sufficient to account simply for the activity of the POL preparation in the light of its possible endotoxin content. Additionally, the activity of the POL was shown to be susceptible to treatment by the proteolytic enzymes, trypsin and pepsin. Thus, it is shown that two substances, one a protein, the other a LPS, share the property of allowing bone marrow‐derived (B) cells to be triggered by antigen in the absence of thymus‐derived (T) cells. A basis for the common action of LPS and the protein POL was sought in their shared polymeric nature. However, the monomeric form of flagellin, even when oxidized so that it did not repolymerize under stringent conditions, was still active, suggesting that the situation is more complex.
Neurons : Fact , Hypothesis , or Fantasy An Intracellular Renin-Angiotensin System in

Int. Union Physiol. Sci./Am. Physiol. Soc. ESSN: 1548-9221. Visit our website at http://www.the-aps.org/. December by the American Physiological Society, 9650 Rockville Pike, Bethesda MD 20814-3991. © 2008 physiological developments. It is published bimonthly in February, April, June, August, October, and (formerly published as News in Physiological Science) publishes brief review articles on major Physiology by gest on O cber 9, 2016 http://physioline.physiology. org/ D ow nladed fom
Optimising the activation cycle of Turbo Decoders using three-dimensional extrinsic information transfer charts

In this study, activation cycle of turbo detection system is investigated using three-dimensional extrinsic information transfer charts. Turbo detection typically employs an iterative process of information transfer with a fixed activation schedule. In the proposed work, the activation cycle of different component decoders is adapted for each signal-to-noise ratio value using information obtained from extrinsic information transfer charts. The objective is to reach the desired reliability of estimates at a lower complexity and for that purpose an exhaustive tree search-based message passing algorithm has been adopted. The results are validated by showing that the optimum activation cycles are similar to that of fixed scheduler with matched component decoders. The resulting bit error rate curves closely approach and in some cases excel the results obtained for the fixed activation while operating at only a fraction of their complexity.
Influence of Carbon Nanotube Clustering on Mechanical and Electrical Properties of Cement Pastes

Given the continued challenge of dispersion, for practical purposes, it is of interest to evaluate the impact of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) at different states of clustering on the eventual performance properties of cement paste. This study evaluated the clustering of MWCNTs and the resultant effect on the mechanical and electrical properties when incorporated into cement paste. Cement pastes containing different concentrations of MWCNTs (up to 0.5% by mass of cement) with/without surfactant were characterized. MWCNT clustering was assessed qualitatively in an aqueous solution through visual observation, and quantitatively in cement matrices using a scanning electron microscopy technique. Additionally, the corresponding 28-day compressive strength, tensile strength, and electrical conductivity were measured. Results showed that the use of surfactant led to a downward shift in the MWCNT clustering size distribution in the matrices of MWCNT/cement paste, indicating improved dispersion of MWCNTs. The compressive strength, tensile strength, and electrical conductivity of the composites with surfactant increased with MWCNT concentration and were higher than those without surfactant at all concentrations.
An Alternating-Phase Fed Single-Layer Slotted Waveguide Array with a Sector Shaped Beam for Millimeter-Wave Radar Applications

SUMMARY This paper presents design of an alternating-phase fed single-layer slotted waveguide array for a sector shaped beam in the Eplane radiation pattern. A sector beam pattern is very effective for radar applications for detecting obstacles in a certain angular range without mechanical or electronic scanning. The sector shaped beam with 13 degree beam width is synthesized by a cascade of T-junctions in the feed waveguide which excite the radiating waveguides with a longitudinal shunt slot array. In order to realize the required excitation distribution of the radiating waveguides for the sector shaped beam, 30 T-junctions with symmetrical arrangement are designed by tuning a width of the coupling window, an offset of the window, and a width of the feed waveguide cascaded to the subsequent T-junction, respectively. Design and measurement are performed in 60 GHz band. The prototype antenna assembles easily; the slotted plate is just tacked on the groove feed structure and is fixed by screws at the periphery, which is the key advantage of the alternating-phase fed arrays. The measured sector pattern with low sidelobe level agrees well with the predicted one. Validity of the sector beam design as well as the performance
Melatonin, the circadian multioscillator system and health: the need for detailed analyses of peripheral melatonin signaling

Abstract: Evidence is accumulating regarding the importance of circadian core oscillators, several associated factors, and melatonin signaling in the maintenance of health. Dysfunction of endogenous clocks, melatonin receptor polymorphisms, age‐ and disease‐associated declines of melatonin likely contribute to numerous diseases including cancer, metabolic syndrome, diabetes type 2, hypertension, and several mood and cognitive disorders. Consequences of gene silencing, overexpression, gene polymorphisms, and deviant expression levels in diseases are summarized. The circadian system is a complex network of central and peripheral oscillators, some of them being relatively independent of the pacemaker, the suprachiasmatic nucleus. Actions of melatonin on peripheral oscillators are poorly understood. Various lines of evidence indicate that these clocks are also influenced or phase‐reset by melatonin. This includes phase differences of core oscillator gene expression under impaired melatonin signaling, effects of melatonin and melatonin receptor knockouts on oscillator mRNAs or proteins. Cross‐connections between melatonin signaling pathways and oscillator proteins, including associated factors, are discussed in this review. The high complexity of the multioscillator system comprises alternate or parallel oscillators based on orthologs and paralogs of the core components and a high number of associated factors with varying tissue‐specific importance, which offers numerous possibilities for interactions with melatonin. It is an aim of this review to stimulate research on melatonin signaling in peripheral tissues. This should not be restricted to primary signal molecules but rather include various secondarily connected pathways and discriminate between direct effects of the pineal indoleamine at the target organ and others mediated by modulation of oscillators.