Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Genotyping of recent measles virus strains from Russia and Vietnam by nucleotide‐specific multiplex PCR

The nucleoprotein genes of 49 measles virus (MV) strains circulating in Russia between 2000 and 2006 and in Vietnam in 2003 were analyzed by genotype‐specific PCR and the results were compared with their sequences. The sequences revealed the presence of genotypes H1 and H2 in the center (Nha Trang) and the north (Hanoi) of Vietnam, respectively. The relative diversity of the H2 strains suggested an endemic circulation of these viruses in the capital. In contrast genotype H1 strains from Nha Trang were homogenous genetically, which may indicate a recent importation. The strains obtained from 12 different regions of the Russian Federation were assigned to the genotypes H1, D4, and D6. Most strains (81.4%) were correctly genotyped by a multiplex PCR method which was sensitive to genotype‐specific mutations [Kremer et al. (2004): J Clin Microbiol 42: 3017–3022]. Ambiguous or negative results for some clade H and genotype D6 strains were due to point mutations in the type‐specific primer binding sites. After exchanging a single nucleotide in both the clade H‐ and the genotype D6‐specific primers, all strains were assigned correctly to their genotype. A simplified procedure for use in Vietnam was developed to distinguish directly between genotypes H1 and H2 and any non‐H genotype. These results demonstrate that our multiplex PCR method can be adapted easily to new sequence variants or specific epidemiological situations, and thus be very useful for rapid genotyping of large number of samples even in laboratories which do not have sequencing facilities. J. Med. Virol. 79:987‐994, 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Morphological reconfiguration monitoring for homogeneous self-reconfigurable robots

Morphological computation (MC) has revolutionized robotic systems employing morphological properties (MP). Thus far, morphology has been mostly used to analyze morphological functionalities qualitatively after design phase of robotic systems. Furthermore, morphology has verified qualitative requirements, not modeled quantitative specifications. To fill this gap, we present a distributed algorithm to monitor module reconfiguration for homogeneous self-reconfigurable robots (HSRs) considering the size of modules. In this method, neighboring modules of a particular module occupy a spatial region called adjacency configuration (AC), whose size depends on the module size; then, we monitor occupancies by sweeping AC locally, so any detected collision represents a neighboring module. The algorithm is illustrated by 2-D and 3-D examples.
Instrumental and Expressive Structures in Small Groups

Bales's early view of relations between instrumental and expressive structures (dual leadership) and the work on legitimacy of instrumental structure to which it led is reviewed. Then, legitimacy of instrumental structure is conceptualized in terms of integration of distribution of members' skills and instrumental structure, showing that this integration creates distributive justice. Next, Blau's conception of primary and secondary differentiation and inequality structures is presented along with relevant work, showing that Blau's conception applies at an interpersonal rather than a group level. Finally, a conception of the expressive structure is presented. It is shown that this conception makes it possible to formulate the ways and conditions under which the expressive structure can compensate for illegitimacy (injustice) of the instrumental structure.
The influence of localized states on gate tunnel currents-modeling and simulation

In the numerical simulation of ultra-small MOSFETs with oxide thicknesses in the range 2 to 4 nm, gate leakage currents have to be modeled on a sound physical basis. The main mechanisms apart from oxide non-idealities are direct and resonant tunneling (Fowler-Nordheim tunneling at large biases). Applying a self-consistent simulation of direct tunneling using a fully analytical model, we study the impact of the confinement of carriers in the inversion channel (quasi 2D states) on the size of the direct tunnel current. This is achieved with a Poisson-Schrodinger solver integrated with the device simulator DESSIS-ISE, and by applying Bardeen's perturbational method.
A Novel Reconfigurable Execution Core for Merged DSP Microcontroller

The study presents an execution core which can be reconfigured either for calculation of digital convolution or for computation of discrete orthogonal transform by appropriate local buffer initialization of processing cells. It is shown that the data flow pattern can be changed by a single bit control signal. The proposed core can be connected to port 1 of Intel 8051 to derive the necessary control signals for reconfiguration. The core can be used as a pluggable module with existing microcontroller when DSP algorithms are required to be implemented. Using such execution core the computational load of the processor can be significantly reduced as the math-intensive components of the DSP algorithm is relegated to the execution core. The use of such pipelined core will not only caters to the need of real-time performance, but also it will facilitate scalability, reusability and flexibility for wide varieties of DSP functionalities.
Secondhand smoke exposure and mental health among children and adolescents.

OBJECTIVE To examine a potential association between biologically confirmed secondhand smoke exposure and symptoms of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Fourth Edition) (DSM-IV) major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and conduct disorder using a nationally representative sample of US children and adolescents. DESIGN Nationally representative cross-sectional survey of the United States. SETTING Continental United States. PARTICIPANTS Children and adolescents aged 8 to 15 years who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2001 to 2004. INTERVENTION Measurement of serum cotinine level to assess secondhand smoke exposure among nonsmokers. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES The DSM-IV symptoms were derived from selected modules of the National Institute of Mental Health's Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children Version IV, a structured diagnostic interview administered by trained lay interviewers. RESULTS Among nonsmokers, serum cotinine level was positively associated with symptoms of DSM-IV major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and conduct disorder after adjusting for survey design, age, sex, race/ethnicity, poverty, migraine, asthma, hay fever, maternal smoking during pregnancy, and allostatic load. Associations with serum cotinine level were more apparent for boys and for participants of non-Hispanic white race/ethnicity. CONCLUSIONS Our results are consistent with a growing body of research documenting an association between secondhand smoke exposure and mental health outcomes. Future research is warranted to establish the biological or psychological mechanisms of association.
Functional subgenomics of Clostridium thermocellum cellulosomal genes: Identification of the major catalytic components in the extracellular complex and detection of three new enzymes

Clostridium thermocellum produces the most efficient enzyme‐complex for the degradation of polysaccharides in biomass, the large extracellular cellulosome. The draft complete genomic sequence of Clostridium thermocellum was screened for open reading frames (ORF) containing cellulosomal dockerin sequences. Seventy‐one putative cellulosomal genes were detected. One third of these ORFs may be involved in cellulose hydrolysis. Most of the others showed homology to hemicellulases, pectinases, chitinases, glycosidases or esterases potentially involved in the unwrapping of cellulose fibers. To identify the predominant catalytic components, cellulosomes were purified and the components were separated by an adapted two‐dimensional gel electrophoresis technique. The apparent major spots were identified by MALDI‐TOF/TOF. Ten of the components were previously known: the structural protein CipA, the endo‐glucanases Cel8A, Cel5G, Cel9N, the cellobiohydrolases Cbh9A, Cel9K, Cel48S, the xylanases Xyn10C, Xyn10Z, and the chitinase Chi18A. In addition, three hitherto unknown major components were detected, Cel9R, Xyn10D and Xgh74A. These major components in the cellulosomal particles most probably constitute the essential enzymes for crystalline cellulose hydrolysis.
A Few Can Catch a Liar

Research suggests that most people cannot tell from demeanor when others are lying. Such poor performance is typical not only of laypeople but also of most professionals concerned with lying. In this study, three professional groups with special interest or skill in deception, two law-enforcement groups and a select group of clinical psychologists, obtained high accuracy in judging videotapes of people who were lying or telling the truth about their opinions. These findings strengthen earlier evidence that some professional lie catchers are highly accurate, and that behavioral clues to lying are detectable in real time. This study also provides the first evidence that some psychologists can achieve high accuracy in catching lies.
Indoor Location System Based on Discriminant-Adaptive Neural Network in IEEE 802.11 Environments

This brief paper presents a novel localization algorithm, named discriminant-adaptive neural network (DANN), which takes the received signal strength (RSS) from the access points (APs) as inputs to infer the client position in the wireless local area network (LAN) environment. We extract the useful information into discriminative components (DCs) for network learning. The nonlinear relationship between RSS and the position is then accurately constructed by incrementally inserting the DCs and recursively updating the weightings in the network until no further improvement is required. Our localization system is developed in a real-world wireless LAN WLAN environment, where the realistic RSS measurement is collected. We implement the traditional approaches on the same test bed, including weighted k -nearest neighbor (WKNN), maximum likelihood (ML), and multilayer perceptron (MLP), and compare the results. The experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm is much higher in accuracy compared with other examined techniques. The improvement can be attributed to that only the useful information is efficiently extracted for positioning while the redundant information is regarded as noise and discarded. Finally, the analysis shows that our network intelligently accomplishes learning while the inserted DCs provide sufficient information.
Camera model identification Based on hypothesis testing theory

This paper aims to study the problem of imaging device identification using the heteroscedastic property of uncompressed image noise. Noise variance depends on pixels intensity through two parameters which uniquely represent a camera model and hence, enable to identify imaging device. The decision problem is cast in the framework of hypothesis testing theory. First, the theoretical context in which both the inspected image parameters and imaging device properties are known is considered. The most powerful Likelihood Ratio Test (LRT) is presented and its detection performance is analytically calculated. Then, the practical situation when inspected image parameters are unknown, but imaging device properties remain known, is studied. Based on a simple yet efficient image model, the inspected image parameters are estimated. This leads to the designed Generalized Likelihood Ratio Test (GLRT) whose statistical performances are analytically given. Numerical simulations and experimentations on natural images show the relevance of the proposed approach.
Exploring an Unknown Cellular Environment

We investigate the exploration problem of a short-sighted mobile robot moving about in an unknown cellular room. In order to explore a cell, the robot must enter it. Once inside, the robot knows which of the 4 adjacent cells exist and which are boundary edges. The robot starts from a specified cell adjacent to the room’s outer wall; it visits each cell, and returns to the start. Our interest is in a short exploration tour, that is, in keeping the number of multiple cell visits small. For abitrary environments containing obstacles we provide a strategy producing tours of length S ≤ C + 12E +H−3, where C denotes the number of cells—the area—, E denotes the number of boundary edges—the perimeter—, and H is the number of obstacles.
Serious games for movement therapy after stroke

This paper details the development and testing of a serious-game based movement therapy aimed at encouraging stroke patients with upper limb motor disorders to practice physical exercises. The system contains a series of Virtual Reality (VR) games. A framework for VR movement therapy is described which consists of a number of serious games designed to encourage patients' physical activity in highly motivating, virtual environments where various factors such as size and gravity can be scaled to adapt to individual patient's abilities and in-game performance. Another goal of this study is to determine whether the provision of serious games based interventions improves motor outcome after stroke. A pilot study with 8 participants who have a first hemispheric stroke shows improvements on impairment measurement and functional measurement shortly after completion of the intervention and 6 weeks after the intervention. Despite its limitations the findings of this study support the effectiveness of serious games in the treatment of participants with hemiplegia. The study also raises awareness of the benefits of using serious games in movement therapy after stroke.
Reliability Analysis of Traditional and Ballistic Bench Press Exercises at Different Loads

Abstract The purpose of this study was to determine test–retest reliability for peak barbell velocity (Vpeak) during the bench press (BP) and bench press throw (BPT) exercises for loads corresponding to 20–70% of one-repetition maximum (1RM). Thirty physically active collegiate men conducted four evaluations after a preliminary BP 1RM determination (1RM·bw-1 = 1.02 ± 0.16 kg·kg-1). In counterbalanced order, participants performed two sessions of the BP in one week and two sessions of the BPT in another week. Recovery time between sessions within the same week was 48 hours and recovery time between sessions of different weeks was 120 hours. On each day of evaluation the individual load-velocity relationship at each tenth percentile (20–70% of 1RM) in a Smith machine for the BP or BPT was determined. Participants performed three attempts per load, but only the best repetition (highest Vpeak), registered by a linear position transducer, was analysed. The BPT resulted in a significantly lower coefficient of variation (CV) for the whole load–velocity relationship, compared to the BP (2.48% vs. 3.22%; p = 0.040). Test–retest intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) ranged from r = 0.94-0.85 for the BPT and r = 0.91-0.71 for the BP (p < 0.001). The reduction in the biological within-subject variation in BPT exercise could be promoted by the braking phase that obligatorily occurs during a BP executed with light or moderate loads. Therefore, we recommend the BPT exercise for a most accurate assessment of upper-body velocity.
BNGR-A25L and -A27 are two functional G protein–coupled receptors for CAPA periviscerokinin neuropeptides in the silkworm Bombyx mori

CAPA peptides, such as periviscerokinin (PVK), are insect neuropeptides involved in many signaling pathways controlling, for example, metabolism, behavior, and reproduction. They are present in a large number of insects and, together with their cognate receptors, are important for research into approaches for improving insect control. However, the CAPA receptors in the silkworm (Bombyx mori) insect model are unknown. Here, we cloned cDNAs of two putative CAPA peptide receptor genes, BNGR-A27 and -A25, from the brain of B. mori larvae. We found that the predicted BNGR-A27 ORF encodes 450 amino acids and that one BNGR-A25 splice variant encodes a full-length isoform (BNGR-A25L) of 418 amino acid residues and another a short isoform (BNGR-A25S) of 341 amino acids with a truncated C-terminal tail. Functional assays indicated that both BNGR-A25L and -A27 are activated by the PVK neuropeptides Bom-CAPA-PVK-1 and -PVK-2, leading to a significant increase in cAMP-response element–controlled luciferase activity and Ca2+ mobilization in a Gq inhibitor–sensitive manner. In contrast, BNGR-A25S was not significantly activated in response to the PVK peptides. Moreover, Bom-CAPA-PVK-1 directly bound to BNGR-A25L and -A27, but not BNGR-A25S. Of note, CAPA-PVK–mediated ERK1/2 phosphorylation and receptor internalization confirmed that BNGR-A25L and -A27 are two canonical receptors for Bombyx CAPA-PVKs. However, BNGR-A25S alone is a nonfunctional receptor but serves as a dominant-negative protein for BNGR-A25L. These results provide evidence that BNGR-A25L and -A27 are two functional Gq-coupled receptors for Bombyx CAPA-PVKs, enabling the further elucidation of the endocrinological roles of Bom-CAPA-PVKs and their receptors in insect biology.
Diaphragm Used with Replens Gel and Risk of Bacterial Vaginosis: Results from a Randomized Controlled Trial

Background. Bacterial vaginosis (BV) has been linked to female HIV acquisition and transmission. We investigated the effect of providing a latex diaphragm with Replens and condoms compared to condom only on BV prevalence among participants enrolled in an HIV prevention trial. Methods. We enrolled HIV-seronegative women and obtained a vaginal swab for diagnosis of BV using Nugent's criteria; women with BV (score 7–10) were compared to those with intermediate (score 4–6) and normal flora (score 0–3). During quarterly follow-up visits over 12–24 months a vaginal Gram stain was obtained. The primary outcome was serial point prevalence of BV during followup. Results. 528 participants were enrolled; 213 (40%) had BV at enrollment. Overall, BV prevalence declined after enrollment in women with BV at baseline (OR = 0.4, 95% CI 0.29–.56) but did not differ by intervention group. In the intention-to-treat analysis BV prevalence did not differ between the intervention and control groups for women who had BV (OR = 1.01, 95% CI 0.52–1.94) or for those who did not have BV (OR = 1.21, 95% CI 0.65–2.27) at enrollment. Only 2.1% of participants were treated for symptomatic BV and few women (5–16%) were reported using anything else but water to cleanse the vagina over the course of the trial. Conclusions. Provision of the diaphragm, Replens, and condoms did not change the risk of BV in comparison to the provision of condoms alone.
Neuronal cytoskeletal lesions induced in the CNS by intraventricular and intravenous aluminium maltol in rabbits

The antigenicity of neuronal cytoskeletal lesions was studied immunohistochemically in adult New Zealand white rabbits after intraventricular (subacute) and intravenous (chronic) administration of a water‐soluble aluminium compound, aluminium (Al) maltol. After short‐term intraventricular administration, rabbits developed widespread neuro‐fibrillary degeneration (NFD) involving pyramidal neurons of the isocortex and allocortex, projection neurons of the diencephalon, and nerve cells of the brain stem and spinal cord. There was a predilection for motor neuron involvement and for the infratentorial portions of the neuraxis. Perikarya and proximal neurites were especially affected. Bundles of 10 nm filaments were frequently present. Three of the animals treated intravenously for 12 weeks or longer displayed NFD in the oculomotor complex and in the pyramidal neurons of the occipital isocortex.
Some Morphological Characteristics of Perennial Ryegrass Genotypes and Correlations among Their Characteristics

The present study involved analysis of certain characteristics of the perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) genotypes collected from the natural flora of Ankara, and explores a correlation among them. In order to evaluate the plants for breeding purpose as per Turkey's environmental conditions, the perennial ryegrass plants were collected from natural pasture of Ankara in 2004 and were utilized for the study. Seeds of the collected plants were sown in pots and seedlings were prepared in a greenhouse. In 2005, the seedlings were transplanted at 50 × 50 cm intervals in Randomized Complete Blocks Design in an experimental field. In 2007 and 2008, data were recorded from the observations and measurements of 568 perennial ryegrasses. The plant characteristics, which were investigated, included re-growth time in spring, color, density, growth habit, tendency to form inflorescence, time of inflorescence, plant height, length of upper internode, spike length, leaf length, leaf width, leaf area, leaf shape, number of spikelets per spike, seed yield per spike and 1000 grain weight and the correlation analyses were made using this data. Correlation coefficients were estimated between all paired combinations of the studied traits. The yield components exhibited varying trends of association among themselves. Seed yield per spike showed significant and positive association with the number of spikelets per spike, 1000 grain weight, plant height, length of upper internode, spike length, leaf length, leaf width, leaf area and color, but significant and negative association with the growth habit and re-growth time in spring. Keywords—Correlation, morphological traits, Lolium perenne.
Gesloten uitbreiding: sociaal kapitaal in de derde en vierde levensfase

Het onderscheid tussen jonge en oude ouderen wordt vaak gemaakt. In deze bijdrage wordt het versrhil tussen deze twee levensfasen ter discussie gesteld. Betoogd wordt &t di t onderscheid teveel verabsoluteerd wordt: beide fmen worden gekenmeikt door vedies aan sociaal kapitaal. Wel is het zo dut verliezen zich opstapelen, zodut strategieen voor aanpassing onderscheid moeten maken tussen de beide levensjhen.
Distributed beamforming based directional spectrum sharing

As an important multi-antenna technique, beamforming can be applied to enable concurrent transmissions of Secondary Users (SUs) and Primary Users (PUs) in Cognitive Radio (CR) systems. In this way, new transmission opportunities when the channel is occupied by PUs, namely spatial or directional spectrum holes, are exploited. This paper proposes a distributed beamforming approach for directional spectrum sharing to improve the Quality-of-Service (QoS) of SUs in CR systems. In particular, an SU source broadcasts to a set of cognitive nodes that act as SU relays, which can form a distributed beamformer to forward messages in busy timeslots without causing harmful interference to PUs. By doing so, both cooperative diversity gain and power gain are achieved without consuming extra idle timeslots or temporal spectrum holes. To support various secondary traffics with different arrival patterns, we develop a series of distributed beamforming based opportunistic spectrum access schemes. Through rigorous analysis, we analyze the system performance in terms of the delay-limited outage probability, the average delay and average throughput etc. Furthermore, cross-layer optimization problems are formulated to optimize the system performance by selecting appropriate scheduling parameters. A substantial QoS gain can be obtained by distributed beamforming based directional spectrum sharing, compared to those without node cooperation or cooperative diversity schemes utilizing temporal spectrum holes only.