Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Rapid spread of carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae in New York City: a new threat to our antibiotic armamentarium.

BACKGROUND Carbapenem antibiotics are used to treat serious infections caused by extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-carrying pathogens. Carbapenem resistance has been unusual in isolates of Klebsiella pneumoniae. In this study, the prevalence and molecular epidemiologic characteristics of carbapenem-resistant K pneumoniae are analyzed, and the experience involving 2 hospital outbreaks is described. METHODS A citywide surveillance study was conducted in hospitals in Brooklyn. An observational study involving subsequent outbreaks at 2 hospitals was undertaken. Isolates were genetically fingerprinted by ribotyping and were examined for the presence of KPC-type carbapenem-hydrolyzing beta-lactamases. RESULTS Of 602 isolates of K pneumoniae collected during the citywide surveillance study, 45% had extended-spectrum beta-lactamases. Of the extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing isolates, 3.3% carried the carbapenem-hydrolyzing beta-lactamase KPC-2. Several isolates were reported by the clinical microbiology laboratories as being susceptible to imipenem. Although all the isolates were resistant using agar diffusion methods, minimal inhibitory concentrations of imipenem were substantially lower for several isolates using standard broth microdilution tests and were highly dependent on the inoculum used. Two hospitals experienced the rapid spread of carbapenem-resistant isolates involving 58 patients. Overall 14-day mortality for bacteremic patients was 47%. Most isolates belonged to a single ribotype. CONCLUSIONS Carbapenem-resistant K pneumoniae isolates are rapidly emerging in New York City. The spread of a strain that possesses a carbapenem-hydrolyzing beta-lactamase has occurred in regional hospitals. Because these isolates are resistant to virtually all commonly used antibiotics, control of their spread is crucial. However, automated systems used for susceptibility testing may not accurately identify all these isolates, which will severely hamper control efforts.
Heterogeneous Agent Beliefs and Clustered Volatility in Commodity Futures Market

We propose a multi-agent-based model of a futures market to analyze the characters of commodity futures price stylized facts. The model includes hedger agents and speculative agents. We use the Brenner's "stochastic belief learning model" to describe the speculative agents' beliefs learning process, which is a social learning process with local information. In our model, the bounded rational speculative agents have different learning capability and risk aversion degree, and they can learn both from individual and others' experiences. New market price is generated though a sealed-bid auction clearance mechanism. The simulation can reproduce the important observed stylized facts in futures markets price time series, including fat tails, clustered volatility, and long memory in returns distribution. Our results show clustered volatility in returns depends on the level of speculators' imitation behaviors. Social learning process leads to imitation behaviors and futures price volatility has close relation with large speculators' trading.
EFFECTS OF NEONATAL THYMECTOMY AND THYMUS GRAFT RESTORATION ON ALLOANTIGEN AND PHA STIMULATION OF WItOLE AND GRADIENT-SEPARATED SUB- :POPULATIONS OF SPLEEN CELLS

The thymus is influential in establishing and mainta ining elements of immune function throughout life (1, 2) and appears to be required for elicitation of delayed hypersens i t iv i ty reactions, for effective rejection of allografts (3, 4), for resistance to tumor induction (5, 6), and for response to certain classes of antigens (7, 8). The objective of the studies to be reported here was to examine further the role of the thymus in cellular recognition. The susceptibi l i ty of whole and albumin gradient-separated subpopulat ions of cells t aken from mice thymectomized at b i r th to s t imulat ion in vi t ro by alloantigens and P H A was assayed. The capaci ty of thymus grafts of differing origins to restore cellular react iv i ty was also explored. These studies confirm tha t the thymus is required for normal levels of responsiveness of lymphoid cells to p r imary s t imulat ion in vi t ro by alloantigens and PHA.
Network assisted auctioning for cognitive radios

In this paper, the use of a centralized server to assist cognitive radio users in accessing bands in licensed spectrums is proposed. Typical cognitive radios are opportunistic users of spectrum bands. Therefore, they must scan the spectrum to detect existing users in order to avoid interference. The use of a centralized server can remove the need for spectrum scanning if all users inform the server about their presence. The server will coordinate and distribute channels to cognitive radio users using auctioning mechanisms. Our approach removes the need for cognitive radio users to spectrum scan. Scanning can be costly in terms of time and power consumption. In addition, collisions between users due to hidden node problem can be removed. The use of a centralized server allows for higher layer solution that would allow users of different wireless technologies to communicate. Due to its flexibility of use across different wireless networks, SIP is adopted as the communication protocol between the central server and the primary and secondary users of the licensed spectrum. Using a SIP server to coordinate channel allocation through auctioning approach can generate revenue for the incumbent network. Results show that revenue can be generated while still meeting the goal of efficient spectrum utilization.
Identification of Adolescent Depression in Primary Care: A National Survey of Pediatricians and Family Practitioners

To assess whether primary care physicians inquire about depression and suicide as part of their general examination of adolescents 2) To identify symptoms and signs which may trigger physicians to inquire more about depression in adolescents 3) To assess whether certain problems which have been found to be correlated to adolescent depression such as substance abuse, school drop out, family history of depression, and attempted suicide will lead physician to ask about depression in adolescents 4) To assess the general comfort level of pediatricians and family practitioners in diagnosing and treating adolescent depression 5) To identify specific factors such as knowledge base, time constraint, and availability of financial and mental health resources which may influence physicians' level of comfort, identification, and treatment of adolescent depression 35) To compare pediatricians and family practitioners and evaluate for possible differences in the identification of adolescent depression in primary care III B. Over the past few years there has been increasing concern about adolescent depression in the medical literature. Reported prevalence rates of depression in adolescents have varied between 2.9% to 20%. One study found that 22.1% of adolescents reported symptoms indicative of deuression with 8.6% eventuallv diagnosed with maior deuressive disorder (Kandel and Davies. 1952). The public health impo&nc<of depression m adolescence is furtherunderlined by the finding that over the past decade rates of suicide in the young have increased steadily (Harrington and Dyer, 1993). In addition to suicide, adolescent depression is associated with other substantial impairment in functioning including drug and alcohol abuse, school drop-outs, and problems with the law. In terms of economic burden, studies have shown that patients with depression have an increase frequency of office visits and emergency room visits compared to non-depressed controls. Long term studies have shown that undiagnosed and untreated cases and cases of diagnosed severe depression have high risk of recurrence extending into adult life. It is well documented that neurobiological changes occur in patients with long-term untreated depression with the overall effect that the longer depression remains untreated, the harder it is to cure and the higher the risk of recurrence in the following years (Harrington, 1990). However, a disease cannot be treated if it goes undetected.
Effect of Host Species on the Distribution of Mutational Fitness Effects for an RNA Virus

Knowledge about the distribution of mutational fitness effects (DMFE) is essential for many evolutionary models. In recent years, the properties of the DMFE have been carefully described for some microorganisms. In most cases, however, this information has been obtained only for a single environment, and very few studies have explored the effect that environmental variation may have on the DMFE. Environmental effects are particularly relevant for the evolution of multi-host parasites and thus for the emergence of new pathogens. Here we characterize the DMFE for a collection of twenty single-nucleotide substitution mutants of Tobacco etch potyvirus (TEV) across a set of eight host environments. Five of these host species were naturally infected by TEV, all belonging to family Solanaceae, whereas the other three were partially susceptible hosts belonging to three other plant families. First, we found a significant virus genotype-by-host species interaction, which was sustained by differences in genetic variance for fitness and the pleiotropic effect of mutations among hosts. Second, we found that the DMFEs were markedly different between Solanaceae and non-Solanaceae hosts. Exposure of TEV genotypes to non-Solanaceae hosts led to a large reduction of mean viral fitness, while the variance remained constant and skewness increased towards the right tail. Within the Solanaceae hosts, the distribution contained an excess of deleterious mutations, whereas for the non-Solanaceae the fraction of beneficial mutations was significantly larger. All together, this result suggests that TEV may easily broaden its host range and improve fitness in new hosts, and that knowledge about the DMFE in the natural host does not allow for making predictions about its properties in an alternative host.
Immune-complex deposits in “pauci-immune” glomerulonephritis: a case report and brief review of recent literature

Anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)-associated glomerulonephritis is considered a “pauci-immune” disease, characterized by absent or mild glomerular tuft staining for immunoglobulin and/or complement. We describe a 72-year-old man with progressive renal failure over five months who was found to have P-ANCA associated crescentic glomerulonephritis. Renal biopsy also revealed immunofluorescence staining for Immunoglobulin G and C3. Treatment comprised corticosteroids, cyclophosphamide, and plasmapheresis but unfortunately kidney function did not recover, likely due to substantial interstitial fibrosis at diagnosis. This case illustrates that serologic evaluation for ANCAs should not be discounted when immune deposits are present. Prompt diagnosis is warranted.
Emerging Security Issues and Challenges in Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is an Internet-based computing solution which provides the resources in an effective manner. A very serious issue in cloud computing is security which is a major obstacle for the adoption of cloud. The most important threats of cloud computing are identified and understood in this survey. This paper covers the information about the threats such as- Multitenancy, Availability, Loss of control, Loss of Data, outside attacks, DOS attacks, malicious insiders, etc. The solutions to overcome some of these threats have also been highlighted in this paper.
A Refined Algorithm for Reachability Analysis of Updatable Timed Automata

Timed automata (TAs) are a widely-used model for formally analyzing real-time systems. Updatable Timed Automata (UTAs), extended from TAs, provide a more flexible way to adjust the value of clock during location switches. The reachability problem of some subclasses of UTAs is decidable. When considering an efficient implementation of these subclasses, the algorithm that is usually used is based on the notion of zones, implemented by Difference Bound Matrices (DBMs). However, similar to that of TAs, the zone-based algorithm is not sound when considering diagonal constraints on clocks, illustrated by a well-known counterexample. This paper proposes a sound zone-based algorithm by introducing extended DBM (EDBM). It refines the standard forward reachability analysis (FRA) algorithm. The correctness of the algorithm is proven and experimental results are given to show the efficiency of the implementation.
GRB Theory in the Fermi Era

Before the launch of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope there were only a handful of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) detected at high energies (above 100 MeV), while several different suggestions have been made for possible high-energy emission sites and mechanisms. Here I briefly review some of the theoretical expectations for high-energy emission from GRBs, outline some of the hopes for improving our understanding of GRB physics through Fermi observations of the prompt GRB emission or the early afterglow (first few hours after the GRB), and summarize what we have learned so far from the existing Fermi GRB observations (over its first half-year of operation). Highlights include the first detection of > GeV emission from a short GRB, as well as detailed temporal and spectral information for the first GRB with > GeV emission and a measured redshift, that has the highest measured apparent (isotropic equivalent) radiated energy output (for any GRB), the largest lower limit on the bulk Lorentz factor of the emitting region, and constrains possible Lorentz invariance violation by placing a robust lower limit on the quantum gravity mass. 1 Introduction: pre-Fermi high-energy GRB observations High-energy emission from GRBs was first detected by the Energetic Gamma-Ray Experiment Telescope (EGRET) on-board the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory (CGRO; 1991−2000). While EGRET detected only five GRBs with its Spark Chambers (20 MeV – 30 GeV) and a few GRBs with its Total Absorption Shower Counter (TASC; 1 − 200 MeV), these events already showed diversity. Most noteworthy are GRB 940217, with high-energy emission lasting up to ∼ 1.5 hr after the GRB including an 18 GeV photon after ∼ 1.3 hr, 1 and GRB 941017 which ∞
Landscaping and House Values: An Empirical Investigation

This article is the winner of the Real Estate Valuation manuscript prize (sponsored by The Appraisal Institute) presented at the 2001 American Real Estate Society Annual Meeting. This hedonic study investigates the effect of landscaping on house values, based on a detailed field survey of 760 single-family homes sold between 1993 and 2000 on the territory of the Quebec Urban Community. Environmental information includes thirty-one landscaping attributes of both houses and their immediate environment. By and large, a positive tree cover differential between the property and its immediate neighborhood, provided it is not excessive, translates into a higher house value. Findings also suggest that the positive price impact of a good tree cover in the visible surroundings is all the more enhanced in areas with a high proportion of retired persons. Finally, a high percentage of lawn cover as well as features such as flower arrangements, rock plants, the presence of a hedge, etc. all command a substantial market premium.
Interacting Domains of the HN and F Proteins of Newcastle Disease Virus

ABSTRACT The activation of most paramyxovirus fusion proteins (F proteins) requires not only cleavage of F0 to F1 and F2 but also coexpression of the homologous attachment protein, hemagglutinin-neuraminidase (HN) or hemagglutinin (H). The type specificity requirement for HN or H protein coexpression strongly suggests that an interaction between HN and F proteins is required for fusion, and studies of chimeric HN proteins have implicated the membrane-proximal ectodomain in this interaction. Using biotin-labeled peptides with sequences of the Newcastle disease virus (NDV) F protein heptad repeat 2 (HR2) domain, we detected a specific interaction with amino acids 124 to 152 from the NDV HN protein. Biotin-labeled HR2 peptides bound to glutathione S-transferase (GST) fusion proteins containing these HN protein sequences but not to GST or to GST containing HN protein sequences corresponding to amino acids 49 to 118. To verify the functional significance of the interaction, two point mutations in the HN protein gene, I133L and L140A, were made individually by site-specific mutagenesis to produce two mutant proteins. These mutations inhibited the fusion promotion activities of the proteins without significantly affecting their surface expression, attachment activities, or neuraminidase activities. Furthermore, these changes in the sequence of amino acids 124 to 152 in the GST-HN fusion protein that bound HR2 peptides affected the binding of the peptides. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that HN protein binds to the F protein HR2 domain, an interaction important for the fusion promotion activity of the HN protein.
Structural Similarity Measure for Color Images

images reveal more meaningful information to the human observers rather than grayscale ones. Regardless of the advantages of the existing well-known objective image quality measures, one of the common and major limitations of these measures is that they evaluate the quality of grayscale images only and don't make use of color information. In this paper we propose an improved method for image quality assessment that adds a color comparison to the criteria of the well-known Multiscale Structural Similarity index (MSSIM). We evaluated the new color image quality measure through human subjective experiments. Our human subjective evaluation data contains 25 reference images and 875 test images produced by five popular color quantization algorithms. Each of the quantized images was evaluated by twenty two subjects and more than 19200 individual human quality judgments were carried out to obtain the final mean opinion scores. We also tested the proposed method on TID2008 image database to further verify our results. These results indicate that adding color comparison improves MSSIM for many distortions in TID2008 and for assessing quantized images in our database. Keywordsquality assessment, Structural similarity index, Color quantization.
THE ROLE OF LOTTERIES IN PUBLIC FINANCE

operated by governments or quasi-public organizations in many countries of the world, the United States Government does not utilize them nor permit private enterprise to operate gambling games labeled as lotteries. However, some games of chance that are essentially lotteries are permitted in this country. In the state of Nevada most forms of gambling are legal. And, in a few states bingo has been legalized during the postwar period. The illegal operation of the " numbers game " also continues to be widespread. Total wagers on all forms of gambling in the United States, illegal and legal, commercial and noncommercial, may exceed $20 billion annually, of which perhaps as much as $3 billion represent the net loss to the betting public. The rapid rise and popularity of football (soccer) pools in several Western European countries during the last two or three decades and the even more recent introduction by the English Government of lottery bonds, in an at-
Do exchange rates move to address international macroeconomic imbalances

This paper provides empirical evidence on the effectiveness of movements in nominal exchange rates in smoothing cyclical imbalances between countries, as explained by the literature on optimal currency areas. We use restrictions from the Mundell-Flemming model (on which the theory of optimal currency areas is based) to identify VAR systems that explain the exchange rate movements and the relative output movements of potential members of a European Monetary Union (EMU). We find that the shocks that cause most of the variation in relative output do not seem to result in movements in nominal exchange rates. Moreover, the shocks that explain movements in nominal exchange rates are monetary in nature, rather than real. Such results make it hard to argue that the loss of exchange rate flexibility accompanying EMU would come at a significant cost to macroeconomic stability.
The Effect of Birthright Citizenship on Parental Integration Outcomes

The integration of immigrants is the subject of ongoing public debate, and devising measures to enable the assimilation of newcomers ranks high on the political agendas of many countries. This paper focuses on the legal institution of citizenship and analyzes the consequences of birthright citizenship introduced in Germany. We use the exogenous variation provided by the 1999 reform of the German nationality law to study the effect of children’s legal status on the integration of immigrant parents. We find that foreign-born parents are most likely to interact with the local community and use the German language if their children are entitled to German citizenship at birth.
Trainers' Attitudes towards Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, Current Care Guidelines, and Training

Objectives. Studies have shown that healthcare personnel hesitate to perform defibrillation due to individual or organisational attitudes. We aimed to assess trainers' attitudes towards cardiopulmonary resuscitation and defibrillation (CPR-D), Current Care Guidelines, and associated training. Methods. A questionnaire was distributed to CPR trainers attending seminars in Finland (N = 185) focusing on the updated national Current Care Guidelines 2011. The questions were answered using Likert scale (1 = totally disagree, 7 = totally agree). Factor loading of the questionnaire was made using maximum likelihood analysis and varimax rotation. Seven scales were constructed (Hesitation, Nurse's Role, Nontechnical Skill, Usefulness, Restrictions, Personal, and Organisation). Cronbach's alphas were 0.92–0.51. Statistics were Student's t-test, ANOVA, stepwise regression analysis, and Pearson Correlation. Results. The questionnaire was returned by 124/185, 67% CPR trainers, of whom two-thirds felt that their undergraduate training in CPR-D had not been adequate. Satisfaction with undergraduate defibrillation training correlated with the Nontechnical Skills scale (p < 0.01). Participants scoring high on Hesitation scale (p < 0.01) were less confident about their Nurse's Role (p < 0.01) and Nontechnical Skills (p < 0.01). Conclusion. Quality of undergraduate education affects the work of CPR trainers and some feel uncertain of defibrillation. The train-the-trainers courses and undergraduate medical education should focus more on practical scenarios with defibrillators and nontechnical skills.
Structural Biology and Crystallization Communications Crystallization of Sharpin Using an Automated Two-dimensional Grid Screen for Optimization

An N-terminal fragment of human SHARPIN was recombinantly expressed in Escherichia coli, purified and crystallized. Crystals suitable for X-ray diffraction were obtained by a one-step optimization of seed dilution and protein concentration using a two-dimensional grid screen. The crystals belonged to the primitive tetragonal space group P4 3 2 1 2, with unit-cell parameters a = b = 61.55, c = 222.81 A ˚. Complete data sets were collected from native and selenomethionine-substituted protein crystals at 100 K to 2.6 and 2.0 A ˚ resolution, respectively.
CVAP-Computational Vision and Active Perception Partial 3 D Reconstruction of Objects for Early Reactive Grasping

Grasping unknown objects in natural environments remains an open problem. An important question is how we devise simple, fast and robust methods that rely on minimal representations of objects. In this report, we present a stereo system that generates grasping hypotheses based on curve matching between two views. The contribution of the work is the use of dynamic time warping approach for enforcing the similarity between the curves in stereo images. This serves as the base for partial reconstruction of objects in 3D. We further show how the system can be used to generate elementary grasping actions or early reactive grasps.