Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Molecular evolution of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses in Bangladesh between 2007 and 2012

In Bangladesh, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus subtype H5N1 was first detected in February 2007. Since then the virus has become entrenched in poultry farms of Bangladesh. There have so far been seven human cases of H5N1 HPAI infection in Bangladesh with one death. The objective of the present study was to investigate the molecular evolution of H5N1 HPAI viruses during 2007 to 2012. Partial or complete nucleotide sequences of all eight gene segments of two chicken isolates, five gene segments of a duck isolate and the haemagglutinin gene segment of 18 isolates from Bangladesh were established in the present study and subjected to molecular analysis. In addition, full-length sequences of different gene segments of other Bangladeshi H5N1 isolates available in GenBank were included in the analysis. The analysis revealed that the first introduction of clade 2.2 virus in Bangladesh in 2007 was followed by the introduction of clade 2.3. 2.1 and 2.3. 4 viruses in 2011. However, only clade 2.3. 2.1 viruses could be isolated in 2012, indicating progressive replacement of clade 2.2 and 2.3. 4 viruses. There has been an event of segment re-assortment between H5N1 and H9N2 viruses in Bangladesh, where H5N1 virus acquired the PB1 gene from a H9N2 virus. Point mutations have accumulated in Bangladeshi isolates over the last 5 years with potential modification of receptor binding site and antigenic sites. Extensive and continuous molecular epidemiological studies are necessary to monitor the evolution of circulating avian influenza viruses in Bangladesh.
Activity-Dependent Regulation of NMDAR1 Immunoreactivity in the Developing Visual Cortex

NMDA receptors have been implicated in activity-dependent synaptic plasticity in the developing visual cortex. We examined the distribution of immunocytochemically detectable NMDAR1 in visual cortex of cats and ferrets from late embryonic ages to adulthood. Cortical neurons are initially highly immunostained. This level declines gradually over development, with the notable exception of cortical layers 2/3, where levels of NMDAR1 immunostaining remain high into adulthood. Within layer 4, the decline in NMDAR1 immunostaining to adult levels coincides with the completion of ocular dominance column formation and the end of the critical period for layer 4. To determine whether NMDAR1 immunoreactivity is regulated by retinal activity, animals were dark-reared or retinal activity was completely blocked in one eye with tetrodotoxin (TTX). Dark-rearing does not cause detectable changes in NMDAR1 immunoreactivity. However, 2 weeks of monocular TTX administration decreases NMDAR1 immunoreactivity in layer 4 of the columns of the blocked eye. Thus, high levels of NMDAR1 immunostaining within the visual cortex are temporally correlated with ocular dominance column formation and developmental plasticity; the persistence of staining in layers 2/3 also correlates with the physiological plasticity present in these layers in the adult. In addition, visual experience is not required for the developmental changes in the laminar pattern of NMDAR1 levels, but the presence of high levels of NMDAR1 in layer 4 during the critical period does require retinal activity. These observations are consistent with a central role for NMDA receptors in promoting and ultimately limiting synaptic rearrangements in the developing neocortex.
On the improvement of the ductility of molybdenum by spinel (MgAl2O4) particles

Abstract In a 1967 patent, D. M. Scruggs found that the room temperature ductility of molybdenum is improved by adding several volume percent of MgAl2O4 spinel particles. The present work substantiates Scruggs’ claim – with increasing MgAl2O4 volume fraction the ductility of Mo– MgAl2O4 is found to pass through a maximum near 2.5 vol%. Scruggs postulated that gettering of detrimental impurities was responsible for this effect. In the present work, fracture initiated at microcracks that formed on the Mo– MgAl2O4 specimen surfaces during tensile testing. The ductility maximum is interpreted in terms of the change in the microcrack size (which is assumed to scale with the grain size) and the ultimate tensile stress, as the MgAl2O4 volume fraction increases. Fracture occurs once a critical local stress-intensity factor, which is approximately independent of the MgAl2O4 volume fraction, is reached.
Associations of Objectively Assessed Physical Activity and Sedentary Time with All-Cause Mortality in US Adults: The NHANES Study

Background Sedentary behavior is related to increased mortality risk. Whether such elevated risk can be offset by enhanced physical activity has not been examined using accelerometry data. Materials and Methods We examined the relations of sedentary time and physical activity to mortality from any cause using accelerometry data among 1,677 women and men aged 50 years or older from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2003–2004 cycle with follow-up through December 31, 2006. Results During an average follow-up of 34.67 months and 4,845.42 person-years, 112 deaths occurred. In multivariate Cox proportional hazard models, greater sedentary time (≥ median of 8.60 hours/day) was associated with increased risk of mortality from any cause (relative risk (RR) = 2.03; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.09-3.81). Low level of moderate to vigorous physical activity (< median of 6.60 minutes/day) was also related to enhanced all-cause mortality risk (RR = 3.30; 95% CI = 1.33-8.17). In combined analyses, greater time spent sedentary and low levels of moderate to vigorous physical activity predicted a substantially elevated all-cause mortality risk. As compared with the combination of a low sedentary level and a high level of moderate to vigorous physical activity, the risks of mortality from all causes were 4.38 (95% CI = 1.26-15.16) for low levels of both sedentary time and physical activity, 2.79 (95% CI = 0.77-10.12) for greater time spent sedentary and high physical activity level, and 7.79 (95% CI = 2.26-26.82) for greater time spent sedentary and low physical activity level. The interaction term between sedentary time and moderate to vigorous physical activity was not statistically significant (p = 0.508). Conclusions Both high levels of sedentary time and low levels of moderate to vigorous physical activity are strong and independent predictors of early death from any cause. Whether a high physical activity level removes the increased risk of all-cause mortality related to sedentariness requires further investigation.
Isolation and analysis of the Xanthomonas alkyl hydroperoxide reductase gene and the peroxide sensor regulator genes ahpC and ahpF-oxyR-orfX

From Xanthomonas campestris pv. phaseoli, we have isolated by two independent methods genes involved in peroxide detoxification (ahpC and ahpF), a gene involved in peroxide sensing and transcription regulation (oxyR), and a gene of unknown function (orfX). Amino acid sequence analysis of AhpC, AhpF, and OxyR showed high identity with bacterial homologs. OrfX was a small cysteine-rich protein with no significant homology to known proteins. The genes ahpC, ahpF, oxyR, and orfX were arranged in a head-to-tail fashion. This unique arrangement was conserved in all of the Xanthomonas strains tested. The functionalities of both the ahpC and oxyR genes were demonstrated. In X. campestris pv. phaseoli, increased expression of ahpC alone conferred partial protection against growth retardation and killing by organic hydroperoxides but not by H2O2 or superoxide generators. These genes are likely to have important physiological roles in protection against peroxide toxicity in Xanthomonas.
Infrastructure Sharing as an Opportunity to Promote Competition in Local Access Networks

Telecom infrastructures are facing unprecedented challenges, with increasing demands on network capacity. Today, network operators must determine how to expand the existing access network infrastructure into networks capable of satisfying the user’s requirements. Thus, in this context, providers need to identify the technological solutions that enable them to profitably serve customers and support future needs. However, the identification of the “best” solution is a difficult task. Although the cost of bandwidth in the active layer has reduced significantly (and continually) in recent years, the cost of the civil works—such as digging and trenching—represents a major barrier for operators to deploy NGA infrastructure. Duct is a critical part of the next-generation access networks, and its sharing would reduce or eliminate this capital cost and this barrier to entry. The aim of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the economics of broadband access networks technologies (wireline and wireless), their role in the deployment of several services in different regions, and the development of competition in the access networks.
Multiple Isoforms of Heparan Sulfate d-Glucosaminyl 3-O-Sulfotransferase

3-O-Sulfated glucosaminyl residues are rare constituents of heparan sulfate and are essential for the activity of anticoagulant heparan sulfate. Cellular production of the critical active structure is controlled by the rate-limiting enzyme, heparan sulfate d-glucosaminyl 3-O-sulfotransferase-1 (3-OST-1) (EC 2.8.2.23). We have probed the expressed sequence tag data base with the carboxyl-terminal sulfotransferase domain of 3-OST-1 to reveal three novel, incomplete human cDNAs. These were utilized in library screens to isolate full-length cDNAs. Clones corresponding to predominant transcripts were obtained for the 367-, 406-, and 390-amino acid enzymes 3-OST-2, 3-OST-3A, and 3-OST-3B, respectively. These type II integral membrane proteins are comprised of a divergent amino-terminal region and a very homologous carboxyl-terminal sulfotransferase domain of ∼260 residues. Also recovered were partial length clones for 3-OST-4. Expression of the full-length enzymes confirms the 3-O-sulfation of specific glucosaminyl residues within heparan sulfate (Liu, J., Shworak, N. W., Sinaÿ, P., Schwartz, J. J. Zhang, L., Fritze, L. M. S., and Rosenberg, R. D. (1999) J. Biol. Chem. 274, 5185–5192). Southern analyses suggest the human 3OST1, 3OST2, and 3OST4 genes, and the corresponding mouse isologs, are single copy. However, 3OST3A and 3OST3B genes are each duplicated in humans and show at least one copy each in mice. Intriguingly, the entire sulfotransferase domain sequence of the 3-OST-3B cDNA (774 base pairs) was 99.2% identical to the same region of 3-OST-3A. Together, these data argue that the structure of this functionally important region is actively maintained by gene conversion between 3OST3A and 3OST3B loci. Interspecific mouse back-cross analysis identified the loci for mouse3Ost genes and syntenic assignments of corresponding human isologs were confirmed by the identification of mapped sequence-tagged site markers. Northern blot analyses indicate brain exclusive and brain predominant expression of 3-OST-4 and 3-OST-2 transcripts, respectively; whereas, 3-OST-3A and 3-OST-3Bisoforms show widespread expression of multiple transcripts. The reiteration and conservation of the 3-OST sulfotransferase domain suggest that this structure is a self-contained functional unit. Moreover, the extensive number of 3OST genes with diverse expression patterns of multiple transcripts suggests that the novel 3-OST enzymes, like 3-OST-1, regulate important biologic properties of heparan sulfate proteoglycans.
Using Experiments to Improve Ideal Point Estimation in Text with an Application to Political Ads ∗

Researchers are rapidly developing new automated techniques to scale political speech on an ideological dimension. Yet, the task has proven difficult across many settings. Political advertisements, in particular, have eluded such efforts. Candidates air relatively few ads, containing limited policy information, and there is little agreement about how to model political speech in the campaign, much less in general. Rather than model the underlying ideological structure of words, I develop an experimental approach to directly measure the content of political ads. I randomly assign ads to subjects, recruited in a large-N survey, who are asked to guess the party (or ideological leaning) of the featured candidate. Ads are then scaled as their expected partisan guessing score. This score is well-measured given random assignment and subject recruitment, and can be used in a supervised learning approach to scale other ad text. Due to the inferential nature of the task, subjects are less likely to exhibit bias in their guessing. Further, I show that the average partisan signal in ads is synonymous with an ideological dimension in the minds of respondents. I implement a number of tests to assess party guessing as a way to scale ads, each of which indicate remarkable reliability and validity in the approach. Finally, I explore ways to scale up the guessing task to a much larger set of ads. Beyond scaling ads, the inferential approach outlined here can be generalized to measure a much wider array of dimensions contained in speech and text data.
Association of Pulmonary Tuberculosis and Diabetes in Mexico: Analysis of the National Tuberculosis Registry 2000–2012

Background Tuberculosis (TB) remains a public health problem in Mexico while the incidence of diabetes mellitus type 2 (DM) has increased rapidly in recent years. Objective To describe the trends of incidence rates of pulmonary TB associated with DM and not associated with DM and to compare the results of treatment outcomes in patients with and without DM. Materials and Methods We analysed the National Tuberculosis Registry from 2000 to 2012 including patients with pulmonary TB among individuals older than 20 years of age. The association between DM and treatment failure was analysed using logistic regression, accounting for clustering due to regional distribution. Results In Mexico from 2000 to 2012, the incidence rates of pulmonary TB associated to DM increased by 82.64%, (p <0.001) in contrast to rates of pulmonary TB rate without DM, which decreased by 26.77%, (p <0.001). Patients with a prior diagnosis of DM had a greater likelihood of failing treatment (adjusted odds ratio, 1.34 (1.11–1.61) p <0.002) compared with patients who did not have DM. There was statistical evidence of interaction between DM and sex. The odds of treatment failure were increased in both sexes. Conclusion Our data suggest that the growing DM epidemic has an impact on the rates of pulmonary TB. In addition, patients who suffer from both diseases have a greater probability of treatment failure.
The Role of Intestinal Barrier Function in Early Life in the Development of Colitis

The human intestine has the dual role of allowing absorption of nutrients while also acting as a barrier to prevent pathogens and toxins from entering the body and potentially causing disease. In the immature infant intestine this barrier is underdeveloped and large quantities of macromolecules cross the epithelium into systematic circulation. Consequently infants are susceptible to conditions such as infectious diarrhoea, necrotising enterocolitis and allergic gastroenteropathy (Schreiber & Walker, 1988). It is essential that the infant intestinal barrier matures appropriately because barrier dysfunction in adulthood is a critical factor in predisposition to intestinal diseases (Groschwitz & Hogan, 2009) and is associated with autoimmune diseases in other parts of the body (Cereijido et al., 2007).
Negative correlation learning for classification ensembles

This paper proposes a new negative correlation learning (NCL) algorithm, called AdaBoost.NC, which uses an ambiguity term derived theoretically for classification ensembles to introduce diversity explicitly. All existing NCL algorithms, such as CELS [1] and NCCD [2], and their theoretical backgrounds were studied in the regression context. We focus on classification problems in this paper. First, we study the ambiguity decomposition with the 0–1 error function, which is different from the one proposed by Krogh et al. [3]. It is applicable to both binary-class and multi-class problems. Then, to overcome the identified drawbacks of the existing algorithms, AdaBoost.NC is proposed by exploiting the ambiguity term in the decomposition to improve diversity. Comprehensive experiments are performed on a collection of benchmark data sets. The results show AdaBoost.NC is a promising algorithm to solve classification problems, which gives better performance than the standard AdaBoost and NCCD, and consumes much less computation time than CELS.
UBB mining: finding unexpected browsing behaviour in clickstream data to improve a Web site's design

This paper describes a novel Web usage mining approach to discover patterns in the navigation of Web sites known as unexpected browsing behaviours (UBBs). By reviewing these UBBs, a Web site designer can choose to modify the design of their Web site or redesign the site completely. UBB mining is based on the continuous common subsequence (CCS), a special instance of common subsequence (CS), which is used to define a set of expected routes. The predefined expected routes are then treated as rules and stored in a rule base. By using the predefined route and the UBB mining algorithm, interesting browsing behaviours can be discovered. This paper introduces the format of the expected route and describes the UBB algorithms. The paper also describes a series of experiments designed to evaluate how well UBB mining algorithms work.
Emotional Voice Conversion Using Neural Networks with Different Temporal Scales of F0 based on Wavelet Transform

An artiﬁcial neural network is one of the most important models for training features of voice conversion (VC) tasks. Typically, neural networks (NNs) are very effective in processing nonlinear features, such as mel cepstral coefﬁcients (MCC) which represent the spectrum features. However, a simple representation for fundamental frequency (F0) is not enough for neural networks to deal with an emotional voice, because the time sequence of F0 for an emotional voice changes drastically. There-fore, in this paper, we propose an effective method that uses the continuous wavelet transform (CWT) to decompose F0 into different temporal scales that can be well trained by NNs for prosody modeling in emotional voice conversion. Meanwhile, the proposed method uses deep belief networks (DBNs) to pre-train the NNs that convert spectral features. By utilizing these approaches, the proposed method can change the spectrum and the prosody for an emotional voice at the same time, and was able to outperform other state-of-the-art methods for emotional voice conversion.
Can microscale fracture tests provide reliable fracture toughness values? A case study in silicon

Fracture toughness testing of materials at the micrometer scale has become essential due to the continuing miniaturization of devices accompanied by findings of size effects in fracture behavior. Many techniques have emerged in the recent past to carry out fracture toughness measurements at the relevant micro and nanolength scales, but they lack ASTM standards that are prescribed for bulk scale tests. Also, differences in reported values arise at the microscale due to the sample preparation technique, test method, geometry, and investigator. To correct for such discrepancies, we chose four different fracture toughness test geometries in practice, all of them micromachined in the focused ion beam (FIB), to investigate the fracture toughness of Si(100) at the micrometer scale. The average K _IC that emerges from all four cases is a constant (0.8 MPa m^1/2). The advantages and limitations of each of these geometries in terms of test parameters and the range of materials that can be tested are discussed.
Home Alone Faint Detection Surveillance System Using Thermal Camera

Fainting is the unwanted event occur amongst the senior citizens, patients or pregnant women. This event can cause physical injuries or even mental problems. In this paper, we proposed a simple faint detection algorithm apply into a thermal imaging camera to monitor the fainting event. In addition, this system is to allow the immediate treatment can be carried out for life saving purposes when there are people fainting. Experimental results on sample images show that the proposed surveillance system achieved high accuracy of 96.15% for poor lighting condition and 86.19% in indoor in detecting the human faint event.
Search for a Suitable Ohmic Metallization Scheme to GaN/AlGaN Heterostructures for Sub-Micron Devices

Ohmic properties, thermal stability and surface morphology of Al-based and non-aluminium metallizations are investigated in dependence on the annealing temperature and initial composition. Non-aluminium contacts show poor ohmic properties, while contact resistivity of 3.47x10-5 Ω. cm2 is achieved for Ti/Al/Ti/Au metallization with a former-Ti/Al ratio of (30 wt.% /70 wt.%). Thermal properties of the Al-based metallization are improved by application of Mo layer as a barrier under the upper Au film of the contact structure. These contacts show excellent thermal stability at operating temperatures as high as 400oC. The less Al amount in the contact composition and Mo barrier layer contribute to the smoother surface and better edge acuity.
STAT5 as a molecular regulator of proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis in hematopoietic cells

Signal transducers and activators of transcription (STATs) play key roles in growth factor‐mediated intracellular signal transduction. In the present study using a constitutively active STAT5 mutant, we show that STAT5 has pleiotropic functions regulating cell proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis in an IL‐3‐dependent Ba/F3 cell line. The mutant STAT5 possessed constitutive tyrosine phosphorylation and DNA binding activity, induced expression of bcl‐xL and pim‐1 in the absence of IL‐3 in Ba/F3 cells, and rendered Ba/F3 cells factor‐independent. Unexpectedly, IL‐3 treatment of the factor‐independent Ba/F3 cells expressing the constitutively active STAT5 resulted in apoptosis within 24 h, or differentiation followed by cell death. In these cells, mRNA expression of growth inhibitory genes downstream of STAT5 such as CIS, JAB/SOCS‐1/SSI‐1, and p21WAF1/Cip1 was highly induced, correlating with prolonged hyper‐phosphorylation of the mutant STAT5 after IL‐3 stimulation. Of the STAT5‐regulated genes, we found that constitutive expression of JAB/SOCS‐1/SSI‐1 was sufficient to induce apoptosis of Ba/F3 cells, while p21WAF1/Cip1 could induce differentiation of these cells. In contrast, constitutive expression of pim‐1 was sufficient to induce IL‐3‐independent growth of Ba/F3 cells. These findings suggest that a single transcription factor regulates cell fate by varying the intensity and duration of the expression of a set of target genes.
Chamseddine-Frohlich-Grandjean Metric and Localized Higgs Coupling in Noncommutative Geometry

We propose a geometrized Higgs mechanism based on the gravitational sector in the Connes-Lott formulation of the standard model, which has been constructed by Chamseddine, Fr$\ddot{o}$hlic and Grandjean. The point of our idea is that Higgs-like couplings depend on the local coordinates of the four-dimensional continuum,$M_4$. The localized couplings can be calculated by the Wilson loops of the $U(1)_{EM}$ gauge field and the connection, which is defined on $Z_2\times{M_4}$.