Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Antimicrobial Resistance Pattern of Uropathogens with Special Reference to Escherichia Coli , among Patients with Urinary Tract Infection in a Tertiary Care Hospital in South India

Increasing antimicrobial resistance among uropathogens is of great concern at present. The present scenario may be due to irrational use of antibiotics to treat urinary tract infections. Objective of the study is to know the antimicrobial resistance pattern of uropathogens among patients with Urinary Tract Infection(UTI). Clean Catch Midstream urinary samples were collected from 756 patients clinically suspected to have UTI , by standard methods processed and isolates identified by standard biochemical reactions. The antibiotic susceptibility testing was done by KirbyBauer Disc diffusion method according to CLSI guidelines. Escherichia coli was the commonest isolate followed by Klebsiella spp, Pseudomonas aeruginosa,,Proteus spp, Candida spp, Acinetobacter spp, Staphylococcus aureus and Enterococcus faecalis and Citrobacter koseri. Most of the bacteria exhibited resistance to quinolones, gentamicin, cephalosporins and trimethoprin sulphamethoxazole. E.coli was sensitive to amikacin and imipenem. Uropathogens are becoming resistant to commonly used antibiotics. Urine culture sensitivity should be done in patients with UTI before starting antibiotics and irrational use of antibiotics should be abandoned.
A cooperative network of reconfigurable stair-climbing robots

The work area of a team of small robots is limited by their inability to traverse a very common obstacle: stairs. We present a complete integrated control architecture and communication strategy for a system of reconfigurable robots that can climb stairs. A modular robot design is presented which allows the robots to dynamically reconfigure to traverse certain obstacles. This work investigates the implementation of a system of autonomous robots which can cooperatively reconfigure themselves to collectively traverse obstacles such as stairs. We present a complete behavior and communication system which facilitates this autonomous reconfiguration. The behavior and communication systems are validated by implementing them on a mobile robot platform synthesized specifically for this research. Experimental trials showed that the implementation of the behavior control systems was successful. Several successful stair climbing trials were accomplished. Improvements to the mechanical design are proposed
Flow Invariant Subspaces for Lattice Dynamical Systems

Stewart et al. have shown that flow invariant subspaces for coupled networks are equivalent to a combinatorial notion of a balanced coloring. Wang and Golubitsky have classified all balanced two colorings of planar lattices with either nearest neighbor (NN) or both nearest neighbor and next nearest neighbor coupling (NNN). This classification gives a rich set of patterns and shows the existence of many nonspatially periodic patterns in the NN case. However, all balanced two-colorings in the NNN case on the square and hexagonal lattices are spatially periodic. We survey these and new results showing that all balanced k-colorings in the NNN case on square lattices are spatially periodic. 2000 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary: 37C10, 37C20; Secondary: 34A34. This research was supported in part by NSF Grant DMS-0244529 and ARP Grant 0036520032-001. The work of FA was supported in part by a grant from FAPESP. c ©0000 American Mathematical Society
Regions of Byr4, a Regulator of Septation in Fission Yeast, That Bind Spg1 or Cdc16 and Form a Two-component GTPase-activating Protein with Cdc16*

In the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, septation and constriction of the actomyosin ring for cell division are positively regulated by the Spg1 GTPase, a member of the Ras superfamily. Spg1 is negatively regulated by Byr4 and Cdc16, which together form a two-component GTPase-activating protein for the Spg1 GTPase. To better understand how Byr4 regulates septation, Byr4 mutants were tested for in vitro functions. This analysis revealed that Byr4 contained one Cdc16-binding site and four Spg1-binding sites (SBS), designated SBS1–SBS4. Although mutants with a single SBS bound Spg1 and inhibited GTP dissociation, the equilibrium binding affinity of these mutants was 28–280-fold weaker than Byr4. Because some Byr4 mutants with multiple SBSs bound Spg1 tighter than the corresponding mutants with a single SBS, multiple SBSs probably interact to cause the high affinity binding of Byr4 to Spg1. A region of Byr4 that bound Spg1, SBS4, and the region that bound Cdc16, Cdc16-binding site, was necessary and sufficient to form Cdc16-dependent Spg1GAP activity that was similar to that of wild-type Byr4 with Cdc16.
Nitration of Protein Without Allergenic Potential Triggers Modulation of Antioxidant Response in Type II Pneumocytes

Inhalation of nitrogen and reactive oxygen species (ROS) is known to induce lung inflammation, which is prevented by enzymatic and nonenzymatic antioxidant systems. These agents form nitrated allergens that were shown to enhance allergenicity. The aim of this study was to examine the influence of nitrated proteins on inflammation and antioxidant status of the lung. Ovalbumin (OVA) in nitrated form (nOVA) was intraperitoneally (ip) injected in mice for sensitization and in nitrated or unmodified form for challenge to induce allergic bronchial inflammation. To study the allergen potential of unrelated protein and verify cross-reactivity, nitrated and unmodified keyhole limpet hemocyanin (nKLH, KLH) was used for challenge. Challenge with OVA or nOVA reduced lung function and increased eosinophilia and protein content in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF). Challenge with nitrated or native OVA or KLH elevated glutathione (GSH) ratio in type II pneumocytes. Reduced mRNA expression of glutathione peroxidase (GPX) 3, glutathione reductase (GR), superoxide dismutase (SOD) 2, and catalase (CAT) was most prominent after challenge with nitrated OVA and nitrated KLH, respectively. Challenge with nOVA enhanced SOD1 mRNA reduction. Immunostaining of GPX 3 and SOD2 increased after challenge with OVA or nOVA, while reactivity of GR and reactivity of SOD2 were reduced after challenge with KLH or nKLH. SOD1 immunostaining was diminished after challenge with nonnitrated OVA or KLH. CAT immunoreaction was similar in all groups. Nitrated proteins without allergenic potential triggered mRNA reduction of antioxidants in type II cells after sensitization with a nitrated allergen but did not induce bronchial inflammation.
Inhibition of dendritic cell differentiation and accumulation of myeloid-derived suppressor cells in cancer is regulated by S100A9 protein

Accumulation of myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) associated with inhibition of dendritic cell (DC) differentiation is one of the major immunological abnormalities in cancer and leads to suppression of antitumor immune responses. The molecular mechanism of this phenomenon remains unclear. We report here that STAT3-inducible up-regulation of the myeloid-related protein S100A9 enhances MDSC production in cancer. Mice lacking this protein mounted potent antitumor immune responses and rejected implanted tumors. This effect was reversed by administration of wild-type MDSCs from tumor-bearing mice to S100A9-null mice. Overexpression of S100A9 in cultured embryonic stem cells or transgenic mice inhibited the differentiation of DCs and macrophages and induced accumulation of MDSCs. This study demonstrates that tumor-induced up-regulation of S100A9 protein is critically important for accumulation of MDSCs and reveals a novel molecular mechanism of immunological abnormalities in cancer.
Sex differences in patient acceptance of cardiac transplant candidacy.

BACKGROUND The overwhelming majority of cardiac transplant recipients are men. This can be partially explained by the earlier age at which heart failure develops in men. However, an underrepresentation of women also may reflect physician referral or selection biases or differences in patients' access to or acceptance of heart transplantation. METHODS AND RESULTS We investigated whether sex bias occurred in the transplant candidate selection process at a single cardiac transplant center. We prospectively evaluated 386 individuals < 70 years of age (295 men, 91 women) referred for management of moderate to severe heart failure and/or cardiac transplant evaluation. Age, race, sex, heart failure type, New York Heart Association class, left ventricular ejection fraction, peak exercise oxygen consumption, disease duration, resting hemodynamic measurements, comorbidity index score, health insurance coverage, and estimated household income were recorded. For patients not accepted for transplantation, the reason for rejection was also obtained. Univariable and multivariable (logistic regression) analyses were performed comparing men and women and patients accepted and those not accepted for cardiac transplantation. Female sex was independently associated with rejection for cardiac transplantation (odds ratio, 2.57; P = .01). However, the reason for rejection (odds ratio, 2.57; P = .01). However, the reason for rejection was more likely to be patient self-refusal for women than for men (29% versus 9%), and female sex was independently associated with patient self-refusal (odds ratio, 4.68; P = .003). When patients who refused transplant were reclassified as accepted for transplant, female sex was no longer associated with nonacceptance. However, lower patient income was associated with nonacceptance for transplant. CONCLUSIONS We found no evidence of sex bias in the selection of cardiac transplant recipients at our center. These findings suggest that the underrepresentation of women among cardiac transplant recipients may result, in part, from a sex difference in treatment preference, with a decreased willingness of women to undergo transplantation. The reasons for the difference in acceptance rates between men and women need to be elucidated.
TIMING OF ACUTE MACULA-ON RHEGMATOGENOUS RETINAL DETACHMENT REPAIR

Purpose: To determine if same-day or next available surgery changed the outcome of patients presenting with acute macula-on rhegmatogenous retinal detachments. Methods: A retrospective review of patients presenting with acute macula-on rhegmatogenous retinal detachments treated with small-gauge vitrectomy was performed. Data collection included subjects' demographics, duration of symptoms, location and extent of the retinal detachment, and timing of surgery. The primary outcome was anatomical and functional success rate for patients having same-day surgery compared with those for whom surgery was delayed. Results: One hundred and fourteen patients were included in this study. Sixty-two patients operated on day of presentation, 46 patients operated the day after presentation, and in 6 patients, surgery was delayed from 2 to 5 days. Time to surgery in hours ranged between 1 and 120 hours (mean 14.5 ± 15.05 hours). Retinal reattachment was achieved in 95.6% of patients, with 80% requiring only one procedure. Mean initial visual acuity was logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution 0.42 (SD 0.6), and mean final visual acuity was logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution 0.39 (SD 0.67) (P = 0.53). Time to surgery was not found to effect final anatomical outcome (P = 0.56). No statistically significant association was observed between change in visual acuity and time to surgery (P = 0.99). Conclusion: Modest delay in timing of surgery for macula-on rhegmatogenous retinal detachment did not adversely impact on patients' outcome.
Biogenic Magnetite Formation through Anaerobic Biooxidation of Fe(II)

ABSTRACT The presence of isotopically light carbonates in association with fine-grained magnetite is considered to be primarily due to the reduction of Fe(III) by Fe(III)-reducing bacteria in the environment. Here, we report on magnetite formation by biooxidation of Fe(II) coupled to denitrification. This metabolism offers an alternative environmental source of biogenic magnetite.
Replay Debugging for the Datacenter

Debugging large-scale, data-intensive, distributed applications running in a datacenter ("datacenter applications") is complex and time-consuming. The key obstacle is non-deterministic failures—hard-to-reproduce program misbehaviors that are immune to traditional cyclic debugging techniques. Datacenter applications are rife with such failures because they operate in highly non-deterministic environments: a typical setup employs thousands of nodes, spread across multiple datacenters, to process terabytes of data per day. In these environments, existing methods for debugging non-deterministic failures are of limited use. They either incur excessive production overheads or don't scale to multi-node, terabyte-scale processing. To help remedy the situation, we have built a new deterministic replay tool. Our tool, called DCR, enables the reproduction and debugging of non-deterministic failures in production datacenter runs. The key observation behind DCR is that debugging does not always require a precise replica of the original datacenter run. Instead, it often suffices to produce some run that exhibits the original behavior of the control-plane —the most error-prone component of datacenter applications. DCR leverages this observation to relax the determinism guarantees offered by the system, and consequently, to address key requirements of production datacenter applications: lightweight recording of long-running programs, causally consistent replay of large-scale clusters, and out-of-the box operation with existing, real-world applications running on commodity multiprocessors.
Total and cause-specific mortality by moderately and markedly increased ferritin concentrations: general population study and metaanalysis.

BACKGROUND Previous population-based studies of plasma ferritin concentration have not revealed a relationship with total mortality. We tested the possible association of increased ferritin concentrations with increased risk of total and cause-specific mortality in the general population. METHODS We examined total and cause-specific mortality according to baseline plasma ferritin concentrations in a Danish population-based study (the Copenhagen City Heart Study) of 8988 individuals, 6364 of whom died (median follow-up 23 years). We also included a metaanalysis of total mortality comprising population-based studies according to ferritin quartiles or tertiles. RESULTS Multifactorially adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) for total mortality for individuals with ferritin ≥200 vs <200 μg/L were 1.1 (95% CI 1.1-1.2; P = 0.0008) overall, 1.1 (1.0-1.2; P = 0.02) in men, and 1.2 (1.0-1.3; P = 0.03) in women. Stepwise increasing concentrations of ferritin were associated with a stepwise increased risk of premature death overall (log rank, P = 2 × 10(-22)), with median survival of 55 years at ferritin concentrations ≥600 μg/L, 72 years at 400-599 μg/L, 76 years at 200-399 μg/L, and 79 years at ferritin <200 μg/L. The corresponding HR for total overall mortality for ferritin ≥600 vs <200 μg/L was 1.5 (1.2-1.8; P = 0.00008). Corresponding adjusted HRs for ferritin ≥600 vs <200 μg/L were 1.6 (1.1-2.3; P = 0.01) for cancer mortality, 2.9 (1.7-5.0; P = 0.0001) for endocrinological mortality, and 1.5 (1.1-2.0; P = 0.01) for cardiovascular mortality. The metaanalysis random effects odds ratio for total mortality for ferritin upper vs reference quartile or tertile was 1.0 (0.9-1.1; P = 0.3) (P heterogeneity = 0.5). CONCLUSIONS Moderately to markedly increased ferritin concentrations represent a biological biomarker predictive of early death in a dose-dependent linear manner in the general population.
Approximate Reduction of Heterogenous Nonlinear Models With Differential Hulls

We present a model reduction technique for a class of nonlinear ordinary differential equation (ODE) models of heterogeneous systems, where heterogeneity is expressed in terms of classes of state variables having the same dynamics structurally, but which are characterized by distinct parameters. To this end, we first build a system of differential inequalities that provides lower and upper bounds for each original state variable, but such that it is homogeneous in its parameters. Then, we use two methods for exact aggregation of ODEs to exploit this homogeneity, yielding a smaller model of size independent of the number of heterogeneous classes. We apply this technique to two case studies: a multiclass queuing network and a model of epidemics spread.
A low-cost highly-portable tactile display based on shape memory alloy micro-actuators

This paper presents a new concept of low-cost, high-resolution, lightweight, compact and highly-portable tactile display. The prototype consists of an array of 8 /spl times/ 8 upward/downward independent moveable pins based on shape memory alloy (SMA) technology. Each actuator is capable of developing a 320 mN pull force at 1.5 Hz bandwidth by using simple forced-air convection. The proposed concept allows the development of 60 g weight tactile devices of compact dimensions easily carried in the user's hand. SMA active element, tactile actuator and tactile display are presented and discussed.
Presynaptic mitochondrial morphology in monkey prefrontal cortex correlates with working memory and is improved with estrogen treatment

Significance Human and nonhuman primates are vulnerable to age- and menopause-related decline in working memory, a cognitive function reliant on the energy-demanding excitation of prefrontal cortex (PFC) neurons. The number and strength of presynaptic boutons providing inputs to these PFC neurons regulate their excitability. We show that poor working memory in rhesus monkeys is associated with a higher incidence of presynaptic boutons harboring malformed, donut-shaped mitochondria that form abnormally small synaptic contacts. Surgically induced menopause results in working memory impairment and a concomitant increase in presynaptic donut-shaped mitochondria, both of which are reversed by estradiol treatment. Our findings suggest that hormone replacement therapy benefits cognitive aging, in part, by promoting mitochondrial and synaptic health in the PFC. Humans and nonhuman primates are vulnerable to age- and menopause-related decline in working memory, a cognitive function reliant on the energy-demanding recurrent excitation of neurons within Brodmann’s Area 46 of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). Here, we tested the hypothesis that the number and morphology (straight, curved, or donut-shaped) of mitochondria in dlPFC presynaptic boutons are altered with aging and menopause in rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) and that these metrics correlate with delayed response (DR) accuracy, a well-characterized measure of dlPFC-dependent working memory. Although presynaptic bouton density or size was not significantly different across groups distinguished by age or menses status, DR accuracy correlated positively with the number of total and straight mitochondria per dlPFC bouton. In contrast, DR accuracy correlated inversely with the frequency of boutons containing donut-shaped mitochondria, which exhibited smaller active zone areas and fewer docked synaptic vesicles than those with straight or curved mitochondria. We then examined the effects of estrogen administration to test whether a treatment known to improve working memory influences mitochondrial morphology. Aged ovariectomized monkeys treated with vehicle displayed significant working memory impairment and a concomitant 44% increase in presynaptic donut-shaped mitochondria, both of which were reversed with cyclic estradiol treatment. Together, our data suggest that hormone replacement therapy may benefit cognitive aging, in part by promoting mitochondrial and synaptic health in the dlPFC.
Emerging Market Business Cycles Revisited: Learning About the Trend

The data reveal that emerging markets do not differ from developed countries with regards to the variance of permanent TFP shocks relative to transitory. They do differ, however, in the degree of uncertainty agents face when formulating expectations. Based on these observations, we build an equilibrium business cycle model in which the agents cannot perfectly distinguish between the permanent and transitory components of TFP shocks. When formulating expectations, they assign some probability to TFP shocks being permanent even when they are purely transitory. This is sufficient for the model to produce "permanent-like" effects in response to transitory shocks. The imperfect information model calibrated to Mexico predicts a higher variability of consumption relative to output and a strongly negative correlation between the trade balance and output, without the predominance of trend shocks. The same model assuming perfect information and calibrated to Canada accounts for developed country business cycle regularities. The estimated relative variance of trend shocks in these two models is similar.
Space-time Averages of Classical Physical Fields

A review on the main results concerning the algebraic and differential properties of the averaging and coordination operators and the properties of the space-time averages of macroscopic gravity is given. The algebraic and differential properties of the covariant space-time averaging procedure by means of using the parallel transportation averaging bivector operator are analyzed. The structure of the pseudo-Riemannian space-time manifolds of general relativity averaged by means of this procedure is discussed. A comparison of both procedures is given and the directions of further development of space-time averaging procedures of the physical classical fields are outlined.
A Physical Activity Program Improves Behavior and Cognitive Functions in Children With ADHD

Objective: The objective of this study is to explore the effects of a moderate- to high-intensity physical activity program on fitness, cognitive functions, and ADHD-related behavior in children with ADHD. Method: Fitness level, motor skills, behaviors, and cognitive functions are assessed by standardized tests before and after a 10-week training or control period. Results: Findings show that participation in a physical activity program improves muscular capacities, motor skills, behavior reports by parents and teachers, and level of information processing. Conclusion: A structured physical activity program may have clinical relevance in the functional adaptation of children with ADHD. This supports the need for further research in the area of physical activity with this population.
Accelerating service restoration in the transmission grid

Electric power systems constitute the fundamental infrastructure of modern society. Though continental in scale, they have virtually penetrated across places. Thus, access to electricity is a challenge during the blackout situation. Though failures are rare events, when they occur cause an catastrophic effect on the society on the whole. The services have to be restored as quickly as possible in order to minimize its consequences. Therefore, it is essential to be aware of the concepts and issues in the entire restoration process along with the mechanisms that need to be developed for quicker dissemination of information. This paper thus explores the need and the challenges encountered for restoration especially in the transmission sector. The paper further elaborates the use of artificial neural network (ANN) for determining the affected nodes and the restoration plan to be executed. This is followed by the providing the quantitative evaluation of the system developed.