Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Weissella confusa (Basonym:Lactobacillus confusus) Bacteremia: a Case Report

ABSTRACT Infection with Lactobacillus is rare, and only a handful of species have been identified as being clinically significant: Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, and Lactobacillus leichmannii. The literature contains one case report of bacteremia caused by Weissella confusa(basonym: Lactobacillus confusus), but the clinical significance of the infection was unclear. We describe a case ofW. confusa bacteremia in a 46-year-old man with a history of abdominal aortic dissection and repair. This procedure was complicated by gut ischemia, which necessitated massive small bowel resection. He subsequently developed short-bowel syndrome, which required him to have total parenteral nutrition. He later developed anEnterococcus faecalis aortic valve endocarditis that required a coronary artery bypass graft and aortic root replacement with homograft and 6 weeks of intravenous ampicillin and gentamicin. Three months prior to his most recent admission, he was diagnosed withKlebsiella pneumoniae bacteremia and candidemia. At the present admission, he had fever (Tmax, 39.5°C) and chills of 2 days' duration and was admitted to the intensive care unit because of hemodynamic instability. Blood cultures grew K. pneumoniae and W. confusa in four of four blood culture bottles (both aerobe and anaerobe bottles). Imaging studies failed to find any foci of infection. A transesophageal echocardiogram revealed no vegetations. A culture of the patient's Hickman catheter tip was negative. The patient was treated with piperacillin-tazobactam and gentamicin. His condition improved, and he was discharged home, where he completed 4 weeks of piperacillin-tazobactam therapy. Lactobacillemia seldom results in mortality; however, it may be a marker of a serious underlying disease. It is usually seen in patients who have a complex medical history or in patients who receive multiple antibiotics. Lactobacillusspp. are generally associated with polymicrobial infections, and when isolated from the blood, they need to be considered possible pathogens. The presence of a vancomycin-resistant, gram-positive coccobacilli on a blood culture should alert clinicians to the possibility of bacteremia caused by W. confusa or other small gram-positive rods.
Phylogeography and speciation of colour morphs in the colonial ascidian Pseudodistoma crucigaster

Variation in pigmentation is common in marine invertebrates, although few studies have shown the existence of genetic differentiation of chromatic forms in these organisms. We studied the genetic structure of a colonial ascidian with populations of different colour morphs in the northwestern Mediterranean. A fragment of the c oxidase subunit 1 (COI) mitochondrial gene was sequenced in seven populations of Pseudodistoma crucigaster belonging to three different colour morphs (orange, yellow and grey). Maximum likelihood analyses showed two well‐supported clades separating the orange morph from the yellow‐grey morphotypes. Genetic divergence between these clades was 2.12%, and γST values between populations of the two clades were high (average 0.936), pointing to genetic isolation. Nested clade and coalescence analyses suggest that a past fragmentation event may explain the phylogeographical origin of these two clades. Non‐neutral mtDNA evolution is observed in our data when comparing the two clades, showing a significant excess of nonsynonymous polymorphism within the yellow–grey morphotype using the McDonald–Kreitman test, which is interpreted as further support of reproductive isolation. We conclude that the two clades might represent separate species. We compare the population genetic differentiation found with that estimated for other colonial and solitary ascidian species, and relate it to larval dispersal capabilities and other life‐history traits.
Empirical research in business process management - analysis of an emerging field of research

Purpose – The paper aims at providing a survey of the development of empirical research in business process management (BPM). It seeks to study trends in empirical BPM research and applied methodologies by means of a developed framework in order to identify the status quo and to assess the probable future development of the research field.Design/methodology/approach – In order to analyse the development of the research field a systematic literature review of empirical journal articles in the BPM context is conducted. The retrieved literature is analyzed by means of scientometric methods and a developed reference framework.Findings – The steadily growing number of published articles in empirical BPM research shows an increase in interest in the research field. Research interests, applied methodologies, the underlying research paradigm and the level of maturity of empirical BPM research differ depending on regional aspects. BPM gains importance in the industry as well as in the public administration context.
The Alcohol‐Related Problems Survey: Identifying Hazardous and Harmful Drinking in Older Primary Care Patients

OBJECTIVES: Older adults can incur problems at low levels of alcohol consumption because of age‐related physiological changes, declining health and functional status, and medication use. We have developed and tested a screening measure specifically for older people, the Alcohol‐Related Problems Survey (ARPS), to identify older adults with these risks.
Echocardiographic differentiation of pathological and physiological left ventricular hypertrophy

Left ventricular hypertrophy is a serious condition, strongly associated with the development of coronary artery disease, cerebrovascular disease, cardiac failure, sudden cardiac death, and overall mortality. 1‐4 In addition, regression of left ventricular hypertrophy is associated with reduction in all cause and cardiovascular mortality. The existence, therefore, of left ventricular hypertrophy in apparently healthy people has generated considerable interest ever since its initial description. 5 Debate has centred on two major issues. The first concerns the nature of left ventricular hypertrophy of athleticism: is it simply a physiological response to periodic myocardial loading or does it have a pathological component and therefore carry implications for long term prognosis? The second concerns the diagnosis of left ventricular hypertrophy of athleticism: is it possible to diVerentiate with confidence physiological left ventricular hypertrophy from pathological conditions?
The effect of payload length on QoS in IEEE 802.11s Wireless Mesh Networks

In recent years Wireless Mesh Networks (WMN) have gained lot of attention from service providers and industry due to low cost and instant deployment at both access and distribution level. The IEEE 802.11s standard addresses the need for such networks. In multi-hop networks, throughput decreases exponentially with the increase in number of hops. Thus providing QoS in multi-hop networks becomes a delicate process. The use of larger payloads can significantly enhance throughput and channel utilization. However, using larger payloads has some coupled tradeoffs. The selection of optimal payload length varies with the type of the data in the frame and flow requirements. This paper describes these tradeoffs and presents the effect of payload length on various QoS measures like throughput, jitter, packet loss ratio and end-to-end delay for different type of traffic classes and access categories.
Tobacco industry promotion of cigarettes and adolescent smoking.

CONTEXT Whether tobacco advertising and promotion increases the likelihood that youths will begin smoking has important public policy implications. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the association between receptivity to tobacco advertising and promotional activities and progress in the smoking uptake process, defined sequentially as never smokers who would not consider experimenting with smoking, never smokers who would consider experimenting, experimenters (smoked at least once but fewer than 100 cigarettes), or established smokers (smoked at least 100 cigarettes). DESIGN Prospective cohort study with a 3-year follow-up through November 1996. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS A total of 1752 adolescent never smokers who were not susceptible to smoking when first interviewed in 1993 in a population-based random-digit dial telephone survey in California were reinterviewed in 1996. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Becoming susceptible to smoking or experimenting by 1996. RESULTS More than half the sample (n=979) named a favorite cigarette advertisement in 1993 and Joe Camel advertisements were the most popular. Less than 5% (n=92) at baseline possessed a promotional item but a further 10%(n=172) were willing to use an item. While having a favorite advertisement in 1993 predicted which adolescents would progress by 1996 (odds ratio [OR] = 1.82; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.04-3.20), possession or willingness to use a promotional item was even more strongly associated with future progression (OR=2.89; 95% CI, 1.47-5.68). From these data, we estimate that 34% of all experimentation in California between 1993 and 1996 can be attributed to tobacco promotional activities. Nationally, this would be over 700000 adolescents each year. CONCLUSION These findings provide the first longitudinal evidence to our knowledge that tobacco promotional activities are causally related to the onset of smoking.
Policy Perspective: Ensuring Comprehensive Care and Support for Gender Nonconforming Children and Adolescents

Abstract Despite recent notable advances in societal equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals, youth who identify as trans* or gender nonconforming, in particular, continue to experience significant challenges accessing the services they need to grow into healthy adults. This policy perspective first offers background information describing this population, their unique healthcare needs, and obstacles when seeking care, including case study examples. The authors then provide recommendations for medical education, health systems, and insurance payers, as well as recommendations for school systems and broader public policy changes to improve the health and well-being of gender nonconforming youth.
Metabolic Profiling during Peach Fruit Development and Ripening Reveals the Metabolic Networks That Underpin Each Developmental Stage1[C][W]

Fruit from rosaceous species collectively display a great variety of flavors and textures as well as a generally high content of nutritionally beneficial metabolites. However, relatively little analysis of metabolic networks in rosaceous fruit has been reported. Among rosaceous species, peach (Prunus persica) has stone fruits composed of a juicy mesocarp and lignified endocarp. Here, peach mesocarp metabolic networks were studied across development using metabolomics and analysis of key regulatory enzymes. Principal component analysis of peach metabolic composition revealed clear metabolic shifts from early through late development stages and subsequently during postharvest ripening. Early developmental stages were characterized by a substantial decrease in protein abundance and high levels of bioactive polyphenols and amino acids, which are substrates for the phenylpropanoid and lignin pathways during stone hardening. Sucrose levels showed a large increase during development, reflecting translocation from the leaf, while the importance of galactinol and raffinose is also inferred. Our study further suggests that posttranscriptional mechanisms are key for metabolic regulation at early stages. In contrast to early developmental stages, a decrease in amino acid levels is coupled to an induction of transcripts encoding amino acid and organic acid catabolic enzymes during ripening. These data are consistent with the mobilization of amino acids to support respiration. In addition, sucrose cycling, suggested by the parallel increase of transcripts encoding sucrose degradative and synthetic enzymes, appears to operate during postharvest ripening. When taken together, these data highlight singular metabolic programs for peach development and may allow the identification of key factors related to agronomic traits of this important crop species.
International Shocks and Domestic Prices: How Large are Strategic Complementarities?

How strong are strategic complementarities in price setting across firms? In this paper, we provide a direct empirical estimate of firm price responses to changes in prices of their competitors. We develop a general framework and an empirical identification strategy to estimate the elasticities of a firm’s price response to both its own cost shocks and to the price changes of its competitors. Our approach takes advantage of a new micro-level dataset for the Belgian manufacturing sector, which contains detailed information on firm domestic prices, marginal costs, and competitor prices. The rare features of these data enable us to construct instrumental variables to address the simultaneity of price setting by competing firms. We find strong evidence of strategic complementarities, with a typical firm adjusting its price with an elasticity of 35% in response to the price changes of its competitors and with an elasticity of 65% in response to its own cost shocks. Furthermore, we find substantial heterogeneity in these elasticities across firms, with small firms showing no strategic complementarities and a complete cost pass-through, while large firms responding to their cost shocks and competitor price changes with roughly equal elasticities of around 50%. We show, using a tightly calibrated quantitative model, that these findings have important implications for shaping the response of domestic prices to international shocks.
Sex differences in gender role attitudes

Past sociological research has found that women have made the transition from traditional gender roles to more non-traditional and egalitarian patterns more quickly than have men. This study argued that such discrepant behavior results from the incongruent gender role attitudes of men and women. In particular, it was hypothesized that women would respond to measures of gender role attitudes in a way that is more congruent with egalitarian gender ideology, while men would reply in a way that corresponds to traditional views of gender. This prediction was tested using data from the 2002 Monitoring the Future (MTF) 12 th -Grade Survey, thereby providing a window into the contemporary and emerging gender ideology of young women and men. Results yielded highly significant sex differences regarding all three gender role attitude measures. Men were found to be much more likely than women to support a traditional gendered division of labor, to believe maternal employment to have negative effects on young children, and to regard maternal employment as an impediment to close mother-child relationships. However, men’s gender role beliefs were determined to be predominantly neutral— neither traditional nor egalitarian, rather than traditional. This suggests that greater levels of gender equality may arise as this young generation finds its place within social institutions.
Perceptions of Risk & Control : Understanding Acceptance of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems

With a marked increase in advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) being designed and deployed for cars, there is a logical emergence of studies that critically examine the influence these have on driver behavior and attitudes towards risk and safety. The research question addressed within this paper asks to what extent the level of perceived criticality or risk on the part of drivers influences their acceptance of advanced assistance.
Hepatitis C Virus Infection and Kidney Transplantation in 2014: What's New?

Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection remains an important health problem, which is associated with deleterious consequences in kidney transplant recipients. Besides hepatic complications, several extrahepatic complications contribute to reduced patient and allograft survival in HCV‐infected kidney recipients. However, HCV infection should not be considered as a contraindication for kidney transplantation because patient survival is better with transplantation than on dialysis. Treatment of HCV infection is currently interferon‐alpha (IFN‐α) based, which has been associated with higher renal allograft rejection rates. Therefore, antiviral treatment before transplantation is preferable. As in the nontransplant setting, IFN‐free treatment regimens, because of their greater efficacy and reduced toxicity, currently represent promising and attractive therapeutic options after kidney transplantation as well. However, clinical trials will be required to closely evaluate these regimens in kidney recipients. There is also a need for prospective controlled studies to determine the optimal immunosuppressive regimens after transplantation in HCV‐infected recipients. Combined kidney and liver transplantation is required in patients with advanced liver cirrhosis. However, in patients with cleared HCV infection and early cirrhosis without portal hypertension, kidney transplantation alone may be considered. There is some agreement about the use of HCV‐positive donors in HCV‐infected recipients, although data regarding posttransplant survival rates are controversial.
Tangles, Toxicity, and Tau Secretion in AD – New Approaches to a Vexing Problem

When the microtubule (MT)-associated protein tau is not bound to axonal MTs, it becomes hyperphosphorylated and vulnerable to proteolytic cleavage and other changes typically seen in the hallmark tau deposits (neurofibrillary tangles) of tau-associated neurodegenerative diseases (tauopathies). Neurofibrillary tangle formation is preceded by tau oligomerization and accompanied by covalent crosslinking and cytotoxicity, making tangle cytopathogenesis a natural central focus of studies directed at understanding the role of tau in neurodegenerative disease. Recent studies suggest that the formation of tau oligomers may be more closely related to tau neurotoxicity than the presence of the tangles themselves. It has also become increasingly clear that tau pathobiology involves a wide variety of other cellular abnormalities including a disruption of autophagy, vesicle trafficking mechanisms, axoplasmic transport, neuronal polarity, and even the secretion of tau, which is normally a cytosolic protein, to the extracellular space. In this review, we discuss tau misprocessing, toxicity and secretion in the context of normal tau functions in developing and mature neurons. We also compare tau cytopathology to that of other aggregation-prone proteins involved in neurodegeneration (alpha synuclein, prion protein, and APP). Finally, we consider potential mechanisms of intra- and interneuronal tau lesion spreading, an area of particular recent interest.
Characteristics of Domain Ontologies for Web Based Learning and their Application for Quality Evaluation

Domain ontology as an instrument for knowledge representation, sharing, reuse and interoperability takes an increasingly important role in the approaches for personalised intelligent e-learning architectures and systems. However, wider practical acceptance of domain ontology as an engineering product and as a part of web-based learning systems is still needed. We believe that one of the barriers for wider spreading of domain ontologies in different fields, including e-learning, is the problem of the design and maintenance of high quality ontologies. As the importance of the quality of learning resources is obvious, the quality of domain ontology for e-leaming is even more important, because ontology is intended to be re-used in design and implementation of various learning resources. In this paper, we analyse the quality-related characteristics of domain ontology. We propose a framework for evaluation of the quality of domain ontology for web-based learning. Further, we propose a model for ontology evaluation, based on its technical and complexity-related characteristics. We identify main conceptual (semantic) quality characteristics, and analyse the relationship between both types of ontology quality characteristics. Also we present an application of proposed framework to the evaluation of ontologies for web based learning.
Users‟ Perceptions of Mobile Phone Security: A Survey Study in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

—With the rapid growth of mobile phone devices, there is a growing need for user authentication for the protection of data and services, and to promote public trust. This paper explores the perceptions of mobile phone users in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) regarding the security of mobile phone devices. It presents a survey study aiming to determine the preferred authentication technique among mobile phone users. The questionnaire results indicate that mobile phone users require an advanced level of privacy protection for information stored on their mobile device. The results show that applying biometric authentication can meet the users' requirements for protecting sensitive information on their mobile device.
Using random subspace to combine multiple features for face recognition

LDA is a popular subspace based face recognition approach. However, it often suffers from the small sample size problem. When dealing with the high dimensional face data, the LDA classifier constructed from the small training set is often biased and unstable. In this paper, we use the random subspace method (RSM) to overcome the small sample size problem for LDA. Some low dimensional subspaces are randomly generated from face space. A LDA classifier is constructed from each random subspace, and the outputs of multiple LDA classifiers are combined in the final decision. Based on the random subspace LDA classifiers, a robust face recognition system is developed integrating shape, texture, and Gabor wavelet responses. The algorithm achieves 99.83% accuracy on the XM2VTS database.
Towards a Reconfigurable Nanocomputer Platform

Some ideas are presented for achieving lowoverhead reconfigurability in systems built from nanoscale components. Via three example circuits, it is demonstrated how it will be possible to exploit a number of alternative “ dimensions” – apart from the obvious spatial dimension to construct compact configurable cells. Configurabili ty based on dual gate transistors using RTD-based multi-valued logic and the variable resistance of phase-change films are shown. A high-density non-volatile reconfigurable cell is proposed in which a double junction spin filter tunnel junction is buil t on a vertical conducting pillar and integrated into a nearest neighbour-connected mesh. Some brief comments are made about how computing applications might exploit such a homogenous non-volatile processing mesh.