Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
In Vitro Evaluation of Antimicrobial Activity of Lactic Acid Bacteria against Clostridium difficile

Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) has become a significant threat to public health. Although broad-spectrum antibiotic therapy is the primary treatment option for CDI. , its use has evident limitations. Probiotics have been proved to be effective in the treatment of CDI and are a promising therapeutic option for CDI. In this study, 4 strains of lactic acid bacteria (LAB), namely, Lactobacillus rhamnosus (LR5), Lactococ-cuslactis (SL3), Bifidobacterium breve (BR3), and Bifidobacterium lactis (BL3) were evaluated for their anti- C. difficile activity. Co-culture incubation of C. difficile (10^6 and 10^10 CFU/ml) with each strain of LAB indicated that SL3 possessed the highest antimicrobial activity over a 24-hr period. The cell-free supernatants of the 4 LAB strains exhibited MIC_50 values between 0.424 mg/ml (SL3) and 1.318 (BR3) mg/ml. These results may provide a basis for alternative therapies for the treatment of C. difficile-associated gut disorders.
Understanding the role of learning in the evolution of busy beavers: a comparison between the baldwin effect and a Lamarckian strategy

In this paper we study how individual learning interacts with an evolutionary algorithm in its search for good solutions to the Busy Beaver problem. Two learning strategies, the Baldwin Effect and Lamarckian learning, are compared with an extensive set of experiments. Results show that the Baldwin Effect is less sensitive to specific issues concerning the definition of the learning model and it is more effective in adjusting its learning power to maximise the search performance of the evolutionary algorithm. Some insight about the specific role that evolution and learning play during search is also presented.
Updating a hybrid rule base with new empirical source knowledge

Neurules are a kind of hybrid rules that combine a symbolic (production rules) and a connectionist (adaline unit) representation. Each neurule is represented as an adaline unit. One way that the neurules can he produced is from training examples (empirical source knowledge). However, in certain application fields not all of the training examples are available a priori. A number of them become available over time. In these cases, updating the corresponding neurules is necessary. In this paper, methods for updating a hybrid rule base, consisting of neurules, to reflect the availability of new training examples are presented The methods are efficient, since they require the least possible retraining effort and the number of the produced neurules is kept as small as possible.
Genetic studies of bipolar disorder in patients selected by their treatment response

SUMMARY Bipolar disorder (BD) is a major mood disorder with several genes of moderate or small effect contributing to the genetic susceptibility. It is also likely heterogeneous, which stimulated efforts to refine its clinical phenotype, studies investigating the link between BD susceptibility and response to a specific mood stabilizer appear to be one of the promising directions. In particular, excellent response to lithium prophylaxis has been described as a clinical marker of a more homogeneous subgroup of BD, characterized by an episodic course, low rates of co-morbid conditions, absence of rapid cycling, and a strong genetic loading. These results also suggest that lithium response clusters in families (independent of the increased familial loading for affective disorders), likely on a genetic basis. For almost 40 years, clinical studies have pointed to differences between lithium responders (LR) and non-responders (LNR). For instance, there is a higher frequency of BD in LR families. As well, investigations in offspring of LR and LNR probands show that the offspring of LR tend to manifest a higher frequency of affective disorders, less co-morbidity and an episodic course of the disorder, compared with the offspring of LNR, who had a broad range of psychopathology, a higher rate of co-morbidity and a chronic course of the disorder. A number of candidate genes have been studied in patients treated with lithium; of these, several showed an association in at least one study: cAMP responsive element binding protein (CREB), Xbox binding protein 1 (XBP-1), inositol polyphosphate-1-phosphatase (INNP1), serotonin transporter gene (5-HTT), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), phospholipase γ-1(PLCγ-1), dopamine receptors (D2 and D4), polyglutamine tracts, tyrosine hydroxylase, inositol monophosphatase (IMPA), mitochondrial DNA, and breakpoint cluster region (BCR) gene. Clinical studies have shown as well that the treatment response and outcome appear to be specific for the different types of mood stabilizers. Patients who respond to lithium exhibit qualitative differences from patients responding to other medications, such as valproate, carbamazepine or lamotrigine. Responders to carbamazepine had atypical clinical features, such as moodincongruent psychosis, an age at onset of illness below 30 years old, and a negative family history of mood disorders. Similarly, in a study comparing the phenotypic spectra in responders to lithium versus lamotrigine the probands differed with respect to clinical course (with rapid cycling and non-episodic course in the lamotrigine group) and co-morbidity, with the lamotrigine-responder group showing a higher frequency of panic attacks and substance abuse. In conclusion, pharmacogenetic studies may provide important clues to the nature of bipolar disorder and the response to long term treatment.
A dependent pathway of gene functions leading to chromosome segregation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Methyl-benzimidazole-2-ylcarbamate (MBC) inhibits the mitotic cell cycle of Saccharomyces cerevisiae at a stage subsequent to DNA synthesis and before the completion of nuclear division (Quinlan, R. A., C. I. Pogson, and K, Gull, 1980, J Cell Sci., 46: 341-352). The step in the cell cycle that is sensitive to MBC inhibition was ordered to reciprocal shift experiments with respect to the step catalyzed by cdc gene products. Execution of the CDC7 step is required for the initiation of DNA synthesis and for completion of the MBC-sensitive step. Results obtained with mutants (cdc2, 6, 8, 9, and 21) defective in DNA replication and with an inhibitor of DNA replication (hydroxyurea) suggest that some DNA replication required for execution of the MBC-sensitive step but that the completion of replication is not. Of particular interest were mutants (cdc5, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 23) that arrest cell division after DNA replication but before nuclear division since previous experiments had not been able to resolve the pathway of events in this part of the cell cycle. Execution of the CDC17 step was found to be a prerequisite for execution of the MBC- sensitive step; the CDC13, 16 and 23 steps are executed independently of the MBC-sensitive step; execution of the MBC-sensitive step is prerequisite for execution of the MBC-sensitive step; execution of the MBC-sensitive step is prerequisite for execution of the CDC14 and 23 steps. These results considerably extend the dependent pathway of events that constitute the cell cycle of S. cerevisiae.
Dataset Scaling and MapReduce Performance

Predicting execution behavior of MapReduce applications when scaling the input dataset presents a challenging problem. The difficulty lies in the distributed locations of input data and the distributed, virtualized compute resources that utilize different network substrates. The potential payoff lies in using small datasets and limited test runs to understand how applications will behave with "big data. " Our research has developed an in-depth understanding of MapReduce application performance and analyzed the impact of scaling input datasets. While we might expect that "embarrassingly parallel" MapReduce jobs should scale linearly with input dataset size, our results show that execution time sometimes increases nonlinearly. To verify our predictions, we identify a benchmark set of Map-, Shuffle-, and Reduce-intensive applications. Experimental results show that our execution-time analysis distinguishes four typical application behaviors when scaling input datasets.
Recent Advances in BLV Research

Different animal models have been proposed to investigate the mechanisms of Human T-lymphotropic Virus (HTLV)-induced pathogenesis: rats, transgenic and NOD-SCID/γcnull (NOG) mice, rabbits, squirrel monkeys, baboons and macaques. These systems indeed provide useful information but have intrinsic limitations such as lack of disease relevance, species specificity or inadequate immune response. Another strategy based on a comparative virology approach is to characterize a related pathogen and to speculate on possible shared mechanisms. In this perspective, bovine leukemia virus (BLV), another member of the deltaretrovirus genus, is evolutionary related to HTLV-1. BLV induces lymphoproliferative disorders in ruminants providing useful information on the mechanisms of viral persistence, genetic determinants of pathogenesis and potential novel therapies.
Regulatory Protein OmpR Influences the Serum Resistance of Yersinia enterocolitica O:9 by Modifying the Structure of the Outer Membrane

The EnvZ/OmpR two-component system constitutes a regulatory pathway involved in bacterial adaptive responses to environmental cues. Our previous findings indicated that the OmpR regulator in Yersinia enterocolitica O:9 positively regulates the expression of FlhDC, the master flagellar activator, which influences adhesion/invasion properties and biofilm formation. Here we show that a strain lacking OmpR grown at 37°C exhibits extremely high resistance to the bactericidal activity of normal human serum (NHS) compared with the wild-type strain. Analysis of OMP expression in the ompR mutant revealed that OmpR reciprocally regulates Ail and OmpX, two homologous OMPs of Y. enterocolitica, without causing significant changes in the level of YadA, the major serum resistance factor. Analysis of mutants in individual genes belonging to the OmpR regulon (ail, ompX, ompC and flhDC) and strains lacking plasmid pYV, expressing YadA, demonstrated the contribution of the respective proteins to serum resistance. We show that Ail and OmpC act in an opposite way to the OmpX protein to confer serum resistance to the wild-type strain, but are not responsible for the high resistance of the ompR mutant. The serum resistance phenotype of ompR seems to be multifactorial and mainly attributable to alterations that potentiate the function of YadA. Our results indicate that a decreased level of FlhDC in the ompR mutant cells is partly responsible for the serum resistance and this effect can be suppressed by overexpression of flhDC in trans. The observation that the loss of FlhDC enhances the survival of wild-type cells in NHS supports the involvement of FlhDC regulator in this phenotype. In addition, the ompR mutant exhibited a lower level of LPS, but this was not correlated with changes in the level of FlhDC. We propose that OmpR might alter the susceptibility of Y. enterocolitica O:9 to complement-mediated killing through remodeling of the outer membrane.
Winged Pea Aphids Can Modify Phototaxis in Different Development Stages to Assist Their Host Distribution

The pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum (Harris) (Hemiptera: Aphididae), shows wing polyphenism (winged and wingless morphs) in its life cycle. The winged morph is adapted for dispersal; its two developmental adult stages (for dispersal and reproduction) are based on its breeding periods. The two morphs show different phototactic behavior and the winged can change its preference to light according to the developmental stages. To determine the mechanism and ecological functions of phototaxis for A. pisum, we first investigated the phototaxis of the two aphid morphs at different stages and analyzed the phototactic response to lights of different wavelengths; the correlation between alate fecundity and their phototactic behaviors were then studied. Finally, we focused on the possible functions of phototaxis in aphid host location and distribution in combination with gravitaxis behaviors. Negative phototaxis was found for breeding winged adults but all the other stages of both winged and wingless morphs showed positive phototaxis. The reactions of the aphids to different wavelengths were also different. Nymph production in winged adults showed negative correlation to phototaxis. The dopamine pathway was possibly involved in these behavior modifications. We speculated that winged adults can use light for dispersal in the early dispersal stage and for position holding in the breeding stage. Based on our results, we assume that light signals are important for aphid dispersal and distribution, and are also essential for the pea aphids to cope with environmental changes.
A fuzzy behavior based microscopic traffic model

This paper deals with the problem of a human behavior based Microscopic Traffic Model. In this work, a fuzzified two point model is implemented for modeling the low level control behavior and a Fuzzy Multi Criteria Decision Making is implemented for modeling the high level control actions of the driver. As a result, different influential parameters such as the driver's age, mood, sex, etc. may be easily implemented in to the model and therefore guarantee a more natural outcome. This model can be used in automatically guided vehicles as a reference for natural driver behavior of individuals. The simulation results illustrate and verify the validity of the model.
Impact of the Zimbabwe youth empowerment fund : case study of Plumtree (2010-2012)

This research was an investigation of the impact of the youth development fund in the Plumtree district a case study from 2010 to 2012. The study intended to show the impact of the fund on the major problem of youth unemployment. In this study, 40 youth entrepreneurs who benefited from the fund were used as research subjects. The main research instrument was a questionnaire. It focused on the situation before the funding in 2010 and after the funding in 2012. The research established that there was a significant increase in employment, training became more widespread and there was a backlog in payment of national taxes. From these findings, the study recommended that funding be increased, training be maintained and tax awareness campaigns be started.
Cellular mechanisms for modulation of posture by octopamine and serotonin in the lobster

Injection of the monoamines octopamine and serotonin into the hemolymph of lobsters causes them to assume opposing static postures: octopamine causes a tonic extension of all extremities, while serotonin induces a tonic flexion. These amines have been shown previously to act as circulating neurohormones and to cause contraction of isolated exoskeletal muscles. The opposing postures elicited by amine injection do not appear to arise from peripheral actions, however, since serotonin and octopamine have similar effects on both flexor and extensor muscles. Instead, the amines are present within the central nervous system where they are probably released synaptically to activate coordinated patterns of tonic motor activity generating the observed postures. These motor patterns have been recorded from abdominal ganglia and involve the synchronized activation and inhibition of multiple excitatory and inhibitory motoneurons innervating the postural flexor and extensor muscles. These effects can be observed in an isolated abdominal ganglion. To begin a search for the cellular targets of amine action within the central nervous system, we recorded from identified postural motoneurons in abdominal ganglia. In two motoneurons that act to produce postural extension, octopamine reduced and serotonin raised the apparent threshold for action potential generation recorded in the somata. The amines do not significantly affect the resting potential or input resistance of the motoneurons measured in the cell bodies. Although the amine effect on motoneuron excitability could be due to actions directly on the motoneurons, our evidence suggests that at least part of the effect results from activation or inhibition of premotor interneurons: (1) an increase in EPSP frequency is observed in the motoneurons during octopamine superfusion, while a small decrease is observed during serotonin superfusion; (2) the amine effects on action potential threshold are abolished by cobalt ion. These results suggest that octopamine and serotonin have dual effects on posture: within the central nervous system, they act specifically to generate coordinated motor patterns for flexion or extension; as circulating neurohormones, they act nonspecifically to enhance the responses of exoskeletal muscles to motoneuronal activation.
Argument of knowledge of a bounded error

A protocol is introduced to show knowledge of a codeword of Goppa code and Goppa polynomial. Protocol does not disclosure any useful information about the codeword and polynomial coefficients. A related protocol is introduced to show Hamming weight of an error is below a threshold. Protocol does not disclosure codeword and weight of the error. Verifier only uses commitments to codeword components and coefficients while testing validity of statements. Both protocols are honest verifier zero knowledge.
Spatio-temporal tracking of myocardial deformations with a 4-D B-spline model from tagged MRI

Accurate delineation of the volumetric motion of the left ventricle (LV) of the heart from tagged magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an important area of research. The authors have built a system that takes extracted tag line features from short axis (SA) and long axis (LA) image sequences as input and fits a four-dimensional (4-D) time-varying B-spline model to the data by simultaneously fitting the model knot solids to MRI frames via matching three sequences of solid knot planes to the LV tag planes for 4-D tracking. Important advantages of the model are that reconstruction of tag surfaces, three-dimensional (3-D) material point localization, as well as displacement reconstruction are all achieved in a single step. The generated 3-D displacement fields are validated with a cardiac motion simulator, and 3-D motion fields capturing in vivo deformations in a porcine model with posterolateral myocardial infarction are illustrated.
Browsers or Buyers in Cyberspace? An Investigation of Factors Influencing Electronic Exchange

In its current form, the Internet is primarily a source of communication, information and entertainment but increasingly also a vehicle for commercial transactions. An understanding of reasons for purchasing on the World Wide Web is particularly relevant in the context of predictions made regarding electronic shopping in the future. In the paper, we focus on some of the antecedents to electronic exchange in the online context. In particular, what are some of the factors influencing online purchasing behavior? What is the role of privacy and security concerns in influencing actual purchase behavior? How do vendor and customer characteristics influence consumers' propensity to engage in transactions on the Internet? We analyze secondary data from an e-mail survey. The study has implications for both theory and practice. The findings extend our knowledge of factors influencing marketing exchange from the traditional setting to the internet context. In addition, the findings regarding factors enhancing the propensity to shop online have implications for internet retailers seeking to enlarge their online customer base.
Tracking entities in web archives: the LAWA project

Web-preservation organization like the Internet Archive not only capture the history of born-digital content but also reflect the zeitgeist of different time periods over more than a decade. This longitudinal data is a potential gold mine for researchers like sociologists, politologists, media and market analysts, or experts on intellectual property. The LAWA project (Longitudinal Analytics of Web Archive data) is developing an Internet-based experimental testbed for large-scale data analytics on Web archive collections. Its emphasis is on scalable methods for this specific kind of big-data analytics, and software tools for aggregating, querying, mining, and analyzing Web contents over long epochs. In this paper, we highlight our research on {\em entity-level analytics} in Web archive data, which lifts Web analytics from plain text to the entity-level by detecting named entities, resolving ambiguous names, extracting temporal facts and visualizing entities over extended time periods. Our results provide key assets for tracking named entities in the evolving Web, news, and social media.
Use of Internet of Things (IoT) in Healthcare: A Survey

In today's world of connectivity, with the advancement of Internet of Things (IoT) all entities are connected to each other by some communication means. The Internet of Things for the medical equipment will produce data that can go a long way in not only increasing equipment efficiency, but also patient health. The Internet of Things (IoT) is increasingly being recognized by industry and different services mainly in healthcare. This paper describes the various Internet of Things (IoT) enable devices and its practices in the area of healthcare for toddler, children, chronic care, monitoring of critical patients, operation theaters and medicine dispenser.
Qualitative cross-sectional study of the perceived causes of depression in South Asian origin women in Toronto

Objective To explore how South Asian origin women in Toronto, Canada, understand and explain the causes of their depression. Design Cross-sectional in-depth qualitative interviews. Setting Outpatient service in Toronto, Ontario. Participants Ten women with symptoms of depression aged between 22 and 65 years of age. Seven were from India, two from Sri Lanka and one from Pakistan. Four were Muslim, three Hindu and three Catholic. Two participants had university degrees, one a high school diploma and seven had completed less than a high school education. Eight were married, one was unmarried and one a widow. Results Three main factors emerged from the participant narratives as the causes of depression: family and relationships, culture and migration and socioeconomic. The majority of the participants identified domestic abuse, marital problems and interpersonal problems in the family as the cause of their depression. Culture and migration and socioeconomic factors were considered contributory. None of our study participants reported spiritual, supernatural or religious factors as causes of depression. Conclusion A personal–social–cultural model emerged as the aetiological paradigm for depression. Given the perceived causation, psycho-social treatment methods may be more acceptable for South Asian origin women.
The Monetary Transmission in the US and the Euro Area: Common Features and Common Frictions

This paper compares the monetary transmission mechanism in the US and the 3 largest economies of the euro area. We start by showing that the dynamic responses to a monetary policy shock in each of the four countries are analogous. A model with a small set of frictions that broadly accounts for these responses is then presented. The model incorporates nominal wage contracts, habits for preferences in consumption and the staggered adjustment of households. portfolios. A common characterization of the monetary transmission mechanism in the US and the main euro area countries is therefore attainable.