Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Aflatoxins: A Global Concern for Food Safety, Human Health and Their Management

The aflatoxin producing fungi, Aspergillus spp. , are widely spread in nature and have severely contaminated food supplies of humans and animals, resulting in health hazards and even death. Therefore, there is great demand for aflatoxins research to develop suitable methods for their quantification, precise detection and control to ensure the safety of consumers’ health. Here, the chemistry and biosynthesis process of the mycotoxins is discussed in brief along with their occurrence, and the health hazards to humans and livestock. This review focuses on resources, production, detection and control measures of aflatoxins to ensure food and feed safety. The review is informative for health-conscious consumers and research experts in the fields. Furthermore, providing knowledge on aflatoxins toxicity will help in ensure food safety and meet the future demands of the increasing population by decreasing the incidence of outbreaks due to aflatoxins.
Hexagonal storage scheme for interleaved frame buffers and textures

This paper presents a storage scheme which statically assigns pixel/texel coordinates to multiple memory banks in order to minimize frame buffer and texture memory access load imbalance. In this scheme, the pixels stored in a particular memory bank are placed at the center and the vertices of hexagons packed in the frame buffer By making these hexagons close to regular so that the pixel placement is uniform and isotropic, frame buffer and texture memory accesses are evenly distributed over the memory banks. The analysis of memory access patterns in rendering typical 3D graphics scenes shows that the hexagonal storage scheme can reduce rendering performance degradation due to bank conflicts by an average of 10% compared to the traditional rectangular storage scheme.
High HIV-1 incidence, correlates of HIV-1 acquisition, and high viral loads following seroconversion among MSM

Background:HIV-1 incidence estimates and correlates of HIV-1 acquisition in African MSM are largely unknown. Methods:Since 2005, HIV-1-uninfected men who reported sex with men and women (MSMW) or sex with men exclusively (MSME) were followed at scheduled visits for collection of behavioural and clinical examination data and plasma for HIV-1 testing. Urethral or rectal secretions were collected from symptomatic men to screen for gonorrhoea. Poisson regression methods were used to estimate adjusted incidence rate ratios to explore associations between risk factors and incident HIV-1 infection. Plasma viral loads (PVLs) were assessed over 2 years following seroconversion. Results:Overall HIV-1 incidence in 449 men was 8.6 [95% confidence interval (CI) 6.7–11.0] per 100 person-years. Incidence was 5.8 (95% CI 4.2–7.9) per 100 person-years among MSMW, and 35.2 (95% CI 23.8–52.1) per 100 person-years among MSME. Unprotected sex, receptive anal intercourse, exclusive sex with men, group sex, and gonorrhoea in the past 6 months were strongly associated with HIV-1 acquisition, adjusted for confounders. PVL in seroconverters was more than 4 log10 copies/ml at 230 (73.4%) of 313 visits in MSMW and 153 (75.0%) of 204 visits in MSME. Conclusion:HIV-1 incidence is very high among MSM in coastal Kenya, and many seroconverters maintain high PVL for up to 2 years after infection. Effective HIV-1 prevention interventions, including treatment as prevention, are urgently needed in this population.
VERSION HU-EP-03 / 39 IFT-UAM / CSIC-03-37 LBNL-53843 , UCB-PTH-03 / 24 Chiral field theories from conifolds

We discuss the geometric engineering and large N transition for an N = 1 U(N) chiral gauge theory with one adjoint, one conjugate symmetric, one antisymmetric and eight fundamental chiral multiplets. Our IIB realization involves an orientifold of a non-compact Calabi-Yau A2 fibration, together with D5-branes wrapping the exceptional curves of its resolution as well as the orientifold fixed locus. We give a detailed discussion of this background and of its relation to the Hanany-Witten realization of the same theory. In particular, we argue that the T-duality relating the two constructions maps the Z2 orientifold of the Hanany-Witten realization into a Z4 orientifold in type IIB. We also discuss the related engineering of theories with SO/Sp gauge groups and symmetric or antisymmetric matter.
Tree Cluster of Text Data by NMF Based Neural Network

This paper proposes the tree clustering of text documents using non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) based neural network. The main problem of the tree clustering is to find the number of branches of a parent node of the tree and to find the significant attributes which can cluster the documents of each node. In advance if we don't know the exact number of branches then it is not applicable for tree clustering. The paper proposed the min-max correlation coefficient method for finding the number of branches and by reducing the NMF basis vectors dimension according to their probability and removing the common terms from the NMF basis vectors, the authors find the significant attributes to cluster the documents. The approach is also helpful for prepruning the tree. For the justification of the approaches the authors use the CLASSIC3 text database
Color Doppler Flow Analysis of Uterine and Ovarian Arteries before and after Tubal Sterilization: Electrocautery versus Pomeroy

Background/Aim: To compare the changes in uterine and ovarian artery blood flow following laparoscopic sterilization via bipolar cautery with Pomeroy tubal ligation via mini-laparotomy in patients who had voluntary surgical sterilization. Methods: Ninety consecutive fertile women applying for voluntary tubal ligation were recruited in this prospective study. Patients were allocated for either laparoscopic tubal ligation via bipolar electrocoagulation (group 1) or Pomeroy tubal ligation via mini-laparotomy (group 2) according to their preference. Color Doppler flow analysis of uterine and ovarian arteries were carried out on the 3rd day of the cycle prior to the procedure (D₀), on the 3rd postoperative day (D1) and on the 3rd day of the cycle, 3 months (D3) following the surgery. The significance of difference between the three measurements was analyzed by using analysis of variance. Results: Prior to surgery, the mean pulsatility index of the uterine artery, left and right ovarian arteries were 1.9 ± 0.3, 1.8 ± 0.3, 1.8 ± 0.2 in group 1 and 1.8 ± 0.08, 1.8 ± 0.08, 1.8 ± 0.07 in group 2, respectively. There was no statistically significant difference between group 1 and group 2 in terms of D₀ values (p > 0.05). 3rd postoperative day and 3rd month measurements of both uterine and ovarian arteries in group 1 and group 2 did not show any statistically significant difference from that of preoperative values (p > 0.05). Conclusion: No alternation in the flow of either ovarian or uterine arteries following tubal sterilization performed by bipolar electrocautery and Pomeroy’s technique was determined both in the immediate postoperative period and 3 months after the surgery.
Height-relaxed AVL rebalancing: a unified, fine-grained approach to concurrent dictionaries

We show that this problem can be studied through the self-reorganization of distributed systems of nodes controlled by local evolution rules in the line of the approach of Dijkstra and Scholten. This yields a much simpler algorithm that the ones previously known. Based on the basic rebalancing framework, we describe algorithms to manage concurrent insertion and deletion of keys. Finally, this approach is used to emulate other well known concurrent AVL algorithms. As a by-product, this solves in a very general setting an old question raised by H.T. Kung and P.L. Lehman: where should rotations take place to rebalance arbitrary search trees?
Temporal dissociation between lithium-induced changes in frontal lobe myo-inositol and clinical response in manic-depressive illness.

OBJECTIVE The most widely accepted hypothesis regarding the mechanism underlying lithium's therapeutic efficacy in manic-depressive illness (bipolar affective disorder) is the inositol depletion hypothesis, which posits that lithium produces a lowering of myo-inositol in critical areas of the brain and the effect is therapeutic. Lithium's effects on in vivo brain myo-inositol levels were investigated longitudinally in 12 adult depressed patients with manic-depressive illness. METHOD Medication washout (minimum 2 weeks) and lithium administration were conducted in a blinded manner. Regional brain myo-inositol levels were measured by means of quantitative proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy at three time points: at baseline and after acute (5-7 days) and chronic (3-4 weeks) lithium administration. RESULTS Significant decreases (approximately 30%) in myoinositol levels were observed in the right frontal lobe after short-term administration, and these decreases persisted with chronic treatment. The severity of depression measured by the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale also decreased significantly over the study. CONCLUSIONS This study demonstrates that lithium administration does reduce myo-inositol levels in the right frontal lobe of patients with manic-depressive illness. However, the acute myo-inositol reduction occurs at a time when the patient's clinical state is clearly unchanged. Thus, the short-term reduction of myo-inositol per se is not associated with therapeutic response and does not support the inositol depletion hypothesis as originally posited. The hypothesis that a short-term lowering of myo inositol results in a cascade of secondary signaling and gene expression changes in the CNS that are ultimately associated with lithium's therapeutic efficacy is under investigation.
Interaction of Bioactive Coomassie Brilliant Blue G with Protein: Insights from Spectroscopic Methods

The binding of coomassie brilliant blue G (CBB) to bovine serum albumin (BSA) was investigated under simulative physiological conditions employing different optical spectroscopic techniques viz., fluorescence emission, UV–visible absorption and FTIR. Fluorescence quenching data obtained at different temperatures suggested the presence of dynamic type of quenching mechanism. The binding constant of CBB-BSA and the number of binding sites (n) for CBB in BSA were calculated and found to be 4.20 × 104 M−1 and 0.96 respectively, at 302 K. The value of n close to unity indicated that the protein has a single class of binding sites for CBB. The thermodynamic parameters revealed that the hydrophobic forces played a major role in the interaction of CBB to BSA. The distance between the CBB and protein was calculated using the theory of Föster’s Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET). The conformational change in the secondary structure of BSA upon interaction with dye was investigated by synchronous fluorescence and FTIR techniques. Competitive binding studies were also carried out to know the location of binding of CBB on BSA.
Association of Tau Haplotype-Tagging Polymorphisms with Parkinson’s Disease in Diverse Ethnic Parkinson’s Disease Cohorts

Background: The overlap in the clinical and pathological features of tauopathies and synucleinopathies raises the possibility that the tau protein may be important in Parkinson’s disease (PD) pathogenesis. Several MAPT polymorphisms that define the tau H1 haplotype have been investigated for an association with PD with conflicting results; however, two meta-analyses support an association between haplotype H1 and PD. Methods: In this study, we recruited 508 patients and 611 healthy controls from Greek, Finnish and Taiwanese populations. We examined the possible genetic role of variation within MAPT in PD using haplotype-tagging single polymorphisms (SNPs) in these ethnically different PD populations. Results: We identified a moderate association at SNP rs3785883 in the Greek cohort for both allele and genotype frequency (p = 0.01, p = 0.05, respectively) as well as for SNP rs7521 (genotype p = 0.02) and rs242557 (p = 0.01 genotypic, p = 0.04 allelic) in the Finnish population. There were no significant differences in genotype or allele distribution between cases and controls in the Taiwanese cohort. Conclusion: We failed to demonstrate a consistent association between the MAPT H1 haplotype (delineated by intron 9 ins/del) and PD in three ethnically diverse populations. However, the data presented here suggest that subhaplotypes of haplotype H1 may confer susceptibility to PD, and that either allelic heterogeneity or different haplotype composition explain the divergent haplotype results.
A Novel cAMP-response Element, CRE1, Modulates Expression of nor-1 in Aspergillus parasiticus*

The level of aflatoxin accumulation in the filamentous fungus Aspergillus parasiticus is modulated by a variety of environmental cues. The presence of glucose (a preferred carbon source) in liquid and solid glucose minimal salts (GMS) growth media strongly stimulated aflatoxin accumulation. Peptone (a non-preferred carbon source) in peptone minimal salts (PMS) media stimulated only low levels of aflatoxin accumulation. Glucose stimulated transcription of the aflatoxin structural genes ver-1 and nor-1 to similar intermediate levels in liquid GMS, while on solid media, ver-1 transcription was stimulated to 20-fold higher levels than nor-1. PMS liquid and solid media stimulated very low or non-detectable levels of transcription of both genes. Electrophoretic mobility shift analysis using a nor-1 promoter fragment (norR) and A. parasiticus cell protein extracts revealed specific DNA-protein complexes of different mobility on GMS and PMS solid and liquid media. An imperfect cAMP-response element, CRE1, was identified in norR that mediated formation of the specific DNA-protein complexes. Mutation in CRE1 or AflR1 (AflR cis-acting site) caused up to a 3-fold decrease in cAMP-mediated stimulation of nor-1 promoter activity on GMS agar. South-Western blot analysis identified a 32-kDa protein that specifically bound to norR. p32 could be co-immunoprecipitated by anti-AflR antibody and co-purified with an AflR-maltose-binding protein fusion demonstrating a physical interaction between AflR and p32 in vitro. We hypothesize that p32 assists AflR in binding to the nor-1 promoter, thereby modulating nor-1 gene expression in response to environmental cues.
Hierarchical clustering of word class distributions

We propose an unsupervised approach to POS tagging where first we associate each word type with a probability distribution over word classes using Latent Dirichlet Allocation. Then we create a hierarchical clustering of the word types: we use an agglomerative clustering algorithm where the distance between clusters is defined as the Jensen-Shannon divergence between the probability distributions over classes associated with each word-type. When assigning POS tags, we find the tree leaf most similar to the current word and use the prefix of the path leading to this leaf as the tag. This simple labeler outperforms a baseline based on Brown clusters on 9 out of 10 datasets.
Forbidden Pairs of Disconnected Graphs Implying Hamiltonicity

Let H be a given graph. A graph G is said to be H‐free if G contains no induced copies of H. For a class H of graphs, the graph G is H ‐free if G is H‐free for every H∈H . Bedrossian characterized all the pairs {R,S} of connected subgraphs such that every 2‐connected {R,S} ‐free graph is hamiltonian. Faudree and Gould extended Bedrossian's result by proving the necessity part of the result based on infinite families of non‐hamiltonian graphs. In this article, we characterize all pairs {R,S} of (not necessarily connected) graphs such that there exists an integer n0 such that every 2‐connected {R,S} ‐free graph of order at least n0 is hamiltonian.
Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells from infants with MLL-AF4+ acute leukemia harbor and express the MLL-AF4 fusion gene

MLL-AF4 fusion is a hallmark genetic abnormality in infant B-acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) known to arise in utero. The cellular origin of leukemic fusion genes during human development is difficult to ascertain. The bone marrow (BM) microenvironment plays an important role in the pathogenesis of several hematological malignances. BM mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSC) from 38 children diagnosed with cytogenetically different acute leukemias were screened for leukemic fusion genes. Fusion genes were absent in BM-MSCs of childhood leukemias carrying TEL-AML1, BCR-ABL, AML1-ETO, MLL-AF9, MLL-AF10, MLL-ENL or hyperdiploidy. However, MLL-AF4 was detected and expressed in BM-MSCs from all cases of MLL-AF4+ B-ALL. Unlike leukemic blasts, MLL-AF4+ BM-MSCs did not display monoclonal Ig gene rearrangements. Endogenous or ectopic expression of MLL-AF4 exerted no effect on MSC culture homeostasis. These findings suggest that MSCs may be in part tumor-related, highlighting an unrecognized role of the BM milieu on the pathogenesis of MLL-AF4+ B-ALL. MLL-AF4 itself is not sufficient for MSC transformation and the expression of MLL-AF4 in MSCs is compatible with a mesenchymal phenotype, suggesting a differential impact in the hematopoietic system and mesenchyme. The absence of monoclonal rearrangements in MLL-AF4+ BM-MSCs precludes the possibility of cellular plasticity or de-differentiation of B-ALL blasts and suggests that MLL-AF4 might arise in a population of prehematopoietic precursors.
Nano-Scale Lateral Milling with Focused Ion Beam for Ultra-Smooth Optical Device Surface~!2009-12-16~!2010-02-18~!2010-04-21~!

The effect of the nano-scale lateral milling process using a focused ion beam (FIB) was studied in order to prepare a flat and smooth surface suitable for the growth of optical device structures such as a distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) mirror on a rough gallium nitride (GaN) surface. A high-quality, smooth, and flat surface is very essential for high precision space optics. It was fabricated using the nano-scale lateral milling process and was analyzed using an atomic force microscope. A regular geometric corrugation ripple with an amplitude of 18Å was achieved using a 30 KeV gallium ion-beam oriented at a normal angle of incidence operating at a beam current of 7nA. We suggest a simple engineering model for the formation of regular geometric ripples made by the serial cutting sequence of focused ion beam. This model can improve various device fabrications with a focused ion beam.
The CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model - A New Standard for Knowledge Sharing

The tutorial first addresses requirements and semantic problems to integrate digital information into large scale, meaningful networks of knowledge that support not only access to source documents but also use and reuse of integrated information. The pros and cons of developing global ontologies are discussed. It is argued that core ontologies of relationships are fundamental to schema integration and play a completely different role to that of specialist terminologies in practical knowledge management. The CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM) is presented as an example of such a global model. It is a core ontology and new ISO standard (ISO 21127, accepted September 2006), originally designed for the semantic integration of information from museums, libraries, and archives. It is a product of re-engineering the dominant underlying common concepts from representative data structures. It is not prescriptive, but provides a controlled language to describe common high-level semantics that allow for information integration at the schema level. The tutorial addresses part of the technology needed for information aggregation and integration in the global information environment, namely the question to which extent and in which form global schema integration is feasible. The ability of the CRM to support integration has been demonstrated in a large range of different domains including cultural heritage, e-science and biodiversity. Conceptual modeling by specializing such a well-tested core ontology not only reduces drastically development time and improves system quality, but provides basic semantic interoperability more or less for free. The tutorial will present characteristic applications.
Short-term effects of angiotensin II blockade on renal blood flow and sympathetic activity in awake rats.

To investigate the effects of an angiotensin II type 1 receptor antagonist (CV-11974) on renal blood flow and renal sympathetic nerve activity compared with a calcium antagonist (nicardipine), we measured both parameters in conscious spontaneously hypertensive rats aged 13 to 15 weeks. One to 2 days after surgery, CV-11974 (n = 9) and nicardipine (n = 8) were intravenously administered to decrease arterial pressure in a similar time course and degree of hypotension. CV-11974 increased renal blood flow by 23 +/- 4% at the maximal fall in mean arterial pressure (-32 +/- 1 mm Hg), and renal nerve activity increased by 70 +/- 7%. The maximal increase in renal blood flow (+27 +/- 4%) was observed when mean pressure was reduced by approximately 20 mm Hg. The maximal reduction of renal vascular resistance (-33 +/- 3%) correlated significantly with pretreatment levels of plasma renin concentration (r = -.792). In contrast, nicardipine produced a progressive reduction of renal blood flow and marked increases in heart rate and renal nerve activity. Increases in heart rate and nerve activity were greater than those with CV-11974 treatment (P < .001). At the maximal fall in mean pressure (-32 +/- 1 mm Hg), renal blood flow decreased by 23 +/- 4%, which was significantly correlated with percent changes in renal nerve activity (+150 +/- 11%, r = -.744). Renal denervation in another set of rats (n = 6) improved renal blood flow and renal vascular resistance responses to nicardipine. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Haptic subdivision: an approach to defining level-of-detail in haptic rendering

Soft objects are often desired in applications such as virtual surgery training. Soft object simulations are computationally intensive because object deformation involves numerically solving a large number of differential equations. However, realistic force feedback requires deformation be computed fast and graphic feedback requires deformation be highly detailed. In this paper, we propose an approach that balances these requirements by subdividing the area of interest on a relatively coarse mesh model. Thus we keep the number of nodes of the model under control so that the simulation can be run at a sufficiently high rate for force feedback. The model we use is based on a mass-spring model. When a portion of the surface is subdivided, new values of mass and spring constants are determined such that computed force feedback offers the user the same reaction force as before subdivision.
Compositionnalité et contextes issus de corpus comparables pour la traduction terminologique (Compositionality and Context for Bilingual Lexicon Extraction from Comparable Corpora) [in French]

Dans cet article, nous cherchons a mettre en correspondance de traduction des termes extraits de chaque partie monolingue d'un corpus comparable. Notre objectif concerne l'identification et la traduction de termes specialises. Pour ce faire, nous mettons en oeuvre une approche compositionnelle dopee avec des informations contextuelles issues du corpus comparable. Notre evaluation montre que cette approche ameliore significativement l'approche compositionnelle de base pour la traduction de termes complexes extraits de corpus comparables.