Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Alternative AOAC sporicidal test carrier for evaluating peracetic acid-based sterilants (modification of AOAC official method 966.04).

Dacron suture loops were demonstrated to be inert, consistent carriers in the presence of peracetic acid-based sterilants, whereas black silk sutures had a variable preparation process and interacted with peracetic acid. In addition, Dacron suture loops provided comparable spore loading to black silk suture loops and an HCI resistance of > or = 2 min. These results indicate that black silk suture loops are not appropriate carriers for assessing peracetic acid-based sterilants, and Dacron loops are an acceptable alternative. This finding is consistent with the Office of Science and Technology Laboratory (Center for Devices and Radiological Health) study which determined that "polyester suture material is a viable alternative to silk for the AOAC sporicidal test for liquid disinfectants. "
Methods for staining amyloid in tissues: a review.

The traditional way of identifying amyloid in tissue sections has been staining with Congo red and demonstration of green birefringence under crossed polarizers. The original method of Congo red staining, described by Bennhold in 1922, has undergone several modifications to improve its sensitivity, specificity, and reliability. The most common modification is the alkaline Congo red method described by Puchtler and co-workers in 1962. Specificity is improved by using freshly prepared stain and a staining solution fully saturated with sodium chloride. Amyloid proteins can be further distinguished by autoclaving or by treating the tissue with potassium permanganate or alkaline guanidine. Autoclaving the tissues at 120 C for 30 min causes protein AA to lose its affinity for Congo red. Prolongation of autoclaving to 120 min abolishes the Congophilia of protein AL, but prealbumin-related amyloid shows little or no change. Treatment of the tissue with potassium permanganate causes protein AA and B2-microglobulin amyloid to lose their affinity to Congo red. Protein AA fails to stain with Congo red after treatment with alkaline guanidine for 1 min and protein AL and systemic senile amyloid protein (SSA) after 2 hr. Familial amyloid protein (FAP), prealbumin type, can stand 2 hr of alkaline guanidine treatment without losing its ability to stain with Congo red. Other methods of detection of amyloid include fluorescent stains, e.g., thioflavin T or S, and metachromatic stains such as crystal violet. Immunofluorescence and immunoperoxidase methods are used to identify and classify amyloid proteins in tissues. Antibodies against the P component, proteins AA and AL and FAP have been used with great precision. Due to cross-reactivity, these methods do not differentiate between some types of familial and senile systemic amyloidosis.
Deadlock-Free Multicast Routing Algorithm for Wormhole-Switched Mesh Networks-on-Chip

An important service in distributed systems, as multi-processors, is the ability to transmit multicast messages. Cache coherence protocols and parallel algorithms are examples of applications requiring multicast messages. To transmit a multicast message to n targets, in networks-on-chip without multicast service, the source router must transmit n identical messages. Few works in the literature describe multicasting in NoCs. The goal of this work is to implement a deadlock free routing algorithm for wormhole-switched mesh NoCs, enabling to transmit simultaneous multicast messages. The dual-path multicast algorithm, used in multicomputers, is adapted to NoCs in this work. The dual-path multicast algorithm is implemented for circuit and packet switching. The evaluation comprises: (i) comparison between the algorithms; (ii) NoC performance as a function of the percentage of injected multicast messages; (iii) performance gains obtained with the dual-path algorithm when compared to the transmission of single unicast messages.
Genetic variants of DNMT3A and systemic lupus erythematosus susceptibility

Abstract Objectives. A significant increase in DNA methyltransferase 3A (DNMT3A) transcript levels has recently been demonstrated in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients as compared to healthy individuals. Methods. Employing high resolution melting curve analysis (HRM) and PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis, we assessed the frequency of five single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of this gene: rs2289195, rs7590760, rs13401241, rs749131 and rs1550117, situated in different linkage disequilibrium blocks of the DNMT3A gene in two hundred and fifty seven women with SLE and six hundred and twenty five controls. Results. The lowest p values of the trend test were observed for the DNMT3A -448A> G (rs1550117) SNP (ptrend = 0.0111). We also found that, in a dominant inheritance model, the DNMT3A -448A> G SNP may protect from SLE development [odds ratio (OR) = 0.494 (0.294–0.830), p = 0.0068, pcorr = 0.034]. Furthermore, we observed that the DNMT3A -448A > G SNP in dominant inheritance models may protect from immunologic manifestations of SLE [OR = 0.1753 (95% CI = 0.04976–0.6176, p = 0.0026, pcorr = 0.0468). Conclusions. Our study demonstrates that the DNMT3A -448A> G SNP might protect from SLE and its immunologic manifestations in a sample from the Polish population.
Experimental investigation of surface flashover characteristics in vacuum

This paper devotes itself to the experimental study on surface flashover characteristics of insulating material, which is closely connected to the compact pulsed power system operating in vacuum. The rated voltage of the pulsed power source is several kV and the peak current is several kA. To simulate the actual operating condition and possible failure mode of pulsed power system, a series of experiments are performed to validate the adaptability of high pulsed power device in vacuum. This paper concentrates on the mechanism of surface flashover in vacuum and corresponding influence factors. Different metal electrode materials, different creepage distances and the interference effect of hot plasma have been studied. Research indicates that external plasma plays a key role in the formation of surface flashover. In medium vacuum (1×10-3 Pa), the surface flashover voltage of 3mm surface creeping distance on organic glass is above 17 kV; But if there is external plasma source, the flashover voltage would reduce significantly with the increase of plasma density; flashover voltage would rush to 1 kV or lower. Based on the experiment study, some measures are taken on the several kilovolts pulsed power source (PPS) produced in prior work. The device can operate stably in the vacuum of 10-3 Pa.
The Less Invasive Stabilization System in the Treatment of Complex Fractures of the Tibial Plateau: Short-term Results

Objectives: To report on the use of a new plating system in the treatment of high-energy tibial plateau fractures using minimally invasive stabilization techniques. Design: Prospective, consecutive patient series. Setting: University Level I trauma center. Patients: Thirty-seven patients with 39 fractures of the tibial plateau were treated using specialty plates. All fractures were OTA class 41C. Ten of the fractures were open, including eight Gustilo and Anderson Type IIIA and two Type IIIB. Thirty-three patients with 34 fractures had follow-up of at least 12 months. Intervention: Internal fixation with the Less Invasive Stabilization System (LISS, Synthes USA, Paoli, PA) using minimally invasive techniques. Main Outcome Management: To determine clinical outcome, time to union, fracture alignment, articular step-off, incidence of complications, Short Form-36 outcome scores, and Lysholm knee scores in patients with associated ligament injuries. Results: All 34 of the fractures healed without additional surgical intervention or bone grafting. The mean follow-up in our series was 21 months, with a range of 12 to 38 months. Twenty-nine patients with 30 fractures had follow-up of greater than 1 year. The average time to radiographic callus was 6.1 weeks, and the average time to complete union was 15.6 weeks. The articular step-off average was 0.8 mm, with a range of 0 to 5 mm. The postoperative alignment demonstrated 1 patient with a malalignment of 5° procurvatum and 1 patient with 4° of valgus. There were two superficial wound infections and no cases of deep infection or osteomyelitis. Conclusions: The use of LISS plates appears to stabilize complex fractures of the tibial plateau with a low incidence of complications. The LISS system functioned well in maintaining alignment and obtaining union in these high-energy fractures.
Unattended Distractor-Induced Priming in a Visual Selective Attention Task: N400 Effects in the Abse

Abstract: Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 24 subjects in a visual selective-attention task in which two words were each presented both in a prime display and in a probe display with the target word defined by color. Subjects' task for the prime display was a physical one (target word presented in upper or lower case letters), while the probe display task was a lexical decision. In addition to a neutral condition, four conditions were realized by varying the target probe: The target probe word was (1) a repetition of the target prime (attended repetition), (2) a semantically associated word to the target prime (attended semantic), (3) a repetition of the distractor prime (unattended repetition), or (4) a word semantically associated to the distractor prime (unattended semantic). An attended semantic and an attended repetition priming effect was observed by means of both RT and N400. The N400 differentiated between these two attended priming conditions while RT did not. No unattended prim.
Regulated release of VWF and FVIII and the biologic implications

von Willebrand factor (VWF) performs a critical function in platelet binding at the site of vascular injury and also serves as the carrier protein for coagulation factor FVIII (FVIII), protecting it from proteolytic degradation in plasma. Both proteins undergo rapid, regulated release in response to DDAVP administration in patients with mild hemophilia A or von Wille‐brand disease. Here, we attempt to summarize our current understanding of the establishment of the regulated storage pool of VWF and FVIII. The data presented indicate that regulated secretion of both proteins occurs only if there is endogenous synthesis of FVIII together with VWF. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
KU-ISPL Speaker Recognition Systems under Language mismatch condition for NIST 2016 Speaker Recognition Evaluation

Korea University Intelligent Signal Processing Lab. (KU-ISPL) developed speaker recognition system for SRE16 fixed training condition. Data for evaluation trials are collected from outside North America, spoken in Tagalog and Cantonese while training data only is spoken English. Thus, main issue for SRE16 is compensating the discrepancy between different languages. As development dataset which is spoken in Cebuano and Mandarin, we could prepare the evaluation trials through preliminary experiments to compensate the language mismatched condition. Our team developed 4 different approaches to extract i-vectors and applied state-of-the-art techniques as backend. To compensate language mismatch, we investigated and endeavored unique method such as unsupervised language clustering, inter language variability compensation and gender/language dependent score normalization.
Generating association rules from semi-structured documents using an extended concept hierarchy

Most data mining research has focused on generating rules within databases containing structured values while essentially ignoring tlte potentially valuable information that exists in t! le tmstructured blocks of text. This paper suggests an approach for generatirrg association rules that relates structured data values fo concepts extracted from unstructured data. Our approach involves the use of an extended concept hierarchy (ECH) to maintain parent, child, and sibling relaGonships between concepts. This structure allows us to generate rules that relate a given concept in the ECH and a given structured attribute value to the neighbors of the given concept in the ECH. We also describe an ejicient implementation of the ECH that keeps track of concepts and pointers to documents associated with them Experimental results on documents from the ABUInfonn In/ormation Retrieval System are presented
Graph-based dimensionality reduction for KNN-based image annotation

KNN-based image annotation method is proved to be very successful. However, it suffers from two issues: (1) high computational cost; (2) the difficulty of finding semantically similar images. In this paper, we propose a graph-based dimensionality reduction method to solve the two problems by adapting the locality sensitive discriminant analysis method [1] to multi-label setting. We first determine relevant and irrelevant images based on label information and construct relevant and irrelevant graphs by focusing on the visually similar relevant and irrelevant images. A linear feature transformation matrix is derived by considering the two graphs. The transformation can map the images to a low-dimensional subspace in which neighborhood relevant images are pulled closer while irrelevant images are pushed away. Thus the new feature after dimensionality reduction is quite fit for KNN-based image annotation. Experiments on the Corel dataset also demonstrate the effectiveness of our dimensionality reduction method for KNN-based image annotation.
A Two-Component Regulatory System Interconnects Resistance to Polymyxins, Aminoglycosides, Fluoroquinolones, and β-Lactams in Pseudomonas aeruginosa

ABSTRACT Constitutive overexpression of the active efflux system MexXY/OprM is a major cause of resistance to aminoglycosides, fluoroquinolones, and cefepime in clinical strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Upregulation of this pump often results from mutations occurring in mexZ, the local repressor gene of the mexXY operon. In this study, analysis of MexXY-overproducing mutants selected in vitro from reference strain PAO1Bes on amikacin (at a concentration 1.5-fold higher than the MIC) led to identification of a new class of mutants harboring an intact mexZ gene and exhibiting increased resistance to colistin and imipenem in addition to aminoglycosides, fluoroquinolones, and cefepime. Reverse transcription-quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) experiments on a selected clone named PAOW2 demonstrated that mexXY overexpression was independent of mexZ and the PA5471 gene, which is required for drug-dependent induction of mexXY. Furthermore, the transcript levels of the oprD gene, which encodes the carbapenem-selective porin OprD, were found to be reduced drastically in PAOW2. Whole-genome sequencing revealed a single mutation resulting in an M59I substitution in the ParR protein, the response regulator of the ParRS two-component regulatory system (with ParS being the sensor kinase), which is required for adaptive resistance of P. aeruginosa to polycationic peptides such as colistin. The multidrug resistance phenotype was suppressed in PAOW2 by deletion of the parS and parRS genes and conferred to PAO1Bes by chromosomal insertion of the mutated parRS locus from PAOW2. As shown by transcriptomic analysis, only a very small number of genes were expressed differentially between PAOW2 and PAO1Bes, including the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) modification operon arnBCADTEF-ugd, responsible for resistance to polycationic agents. Exposure of wild-type PAO1Bes to different polycationic peptides, including colistin, was shown to result in increased mexY and repressed oprD expression via ParRS, independent of PA5471. In agreement with these results, colistin antagonized activity of the MexXY/OprM substrates in PAO1Bes but not in a ΔparRS derivative. Finally, screening of clinical strains exhibiting the PAOW2 resistance phenotype allowed the identification of additional alterations in ParRS. Collectively, our data indicate that ParRS may promote either induced or constitutive multidrug resistance to four different classes of antibiotics through the activation of three distinct mechanisms (efflux, porin loss, and LPS modification).
Aerobic bacteria occurring in the hind-gut of the cockroach, Blatta orientalis

SUMMARY Methods are described for the isolation and identification of aerobic bacteria occurring naturally in the hind-gut of the cockroach Blatta orientalis captured from a number of wild sources, to establish whether or not human pathogens occurred naturally within the gut. During the investigation an organism was frequently found which could not be classified in any described species, and for which we propose the name Escherichia blattae.
Usability Evaluation of Software Systems using Fuzzy Multi- Criteria Approach

Over the past few decades, Usability has emerged as an extremely important quality factor. Many methods have so far been proposed for usability evaluation but they lack in one way or another. This paper proposes a method for software usability quantification using the fuzzy multiple criteria weighted average approach. This approach has been chosen due to the highly unpredictable nature of the attributes on which usability depends. A case study is presented to prove the feasibility of the
Inhibition of neddylation regulates dendritic cell functions via Deptor accumulation driven mTOR inactivation

Neddylation, a newly identified post-translational modification, is significant for the activity and stability of target proteins. The exact role of neddylation in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease, specifically those mediated by dendritic cells (DCs), was still rarely reported. Here, we showed that inhibition of neddylation protected mice from mucosal inflammation. Targeting neddylation also inhibited DC maturation characterized by reduced cytokine production, down-regulated costimulatory molecules and suppressed capacity in allogeneic T cell stimulation. Additionally, inactivation of neddylation promotes caspase dependent apoptosis of DCs. These phenomena were attributed to the inactivation of mTOR, which was caused by Cullin-1 deneddylation induced Deptor accumulation. Together, our findings revealed that neddylation inhibition suppressed DC functions through mTOR signaling pathway and provided a potential therapeutic opportunity in inflammatory bowel diseases.
A Performance Comparison of Equation-Based and GAIMD Congestion Control in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Fast-growing applications like streaming media make TCP a poor fit. Because the UDP protocol lacks congestion control, equation-based and AIMD-based congestion control schemes have been two promising alternative to TCP for real-time multimedia streaming over the Internet. Past studies have shown that they are able to maintain throughput smoothness and achieve reasonable fairness with competing TCP flows in wireline networks. However, their behavior remains not clear in mobile ad hoc network (MANET). In this paper, we compare the general AIMD-based congestion control mechanism (GAIMD) with equation-based congestion control mechanism (TFRC TCP-friendly rate control) over a wide range of MANET scenario, in terms of throughput fairness and smoothness. Our results show that TFRC and GAIMD (0.2, 0.125) are able to maintain throughput smoothness in MANET, but at the same time, they obtain less throughput than the competing TCP flows. Our results also show that TFRC changes its sending rate more smoothly than GAIMD (0.2, 0.125) does, but it gets the least throughput compares with TCP and GAIMD (0.2, 0.125).
The Research of the Niche Particle Swarm Optimization Based on Self-Adaptive Radius Technology

The particle swarm optimization (PSO) first proposed by Eberhart and Kennedy, is a computational intelligence technique. The algorithm has shortcoming of premature convergence and slow convergence at the latter phase. In order to avoid these shortcomings we put forward the niche particle swarm optimization based on self-adaptive radius. This algorithm is proposed by the particle swarm optimization and Niche technology, it solves the PSO’s problem of premature convergence and slow convergence in latter phase and it improves the sharing mechanism at the role of algorithms through self-adaptive radius technology. Niche population is constituted by the particle which has the similar distance, then every particle is evolved by the PSO in each niche population, and the best individual is preserved in next generation. The algorithm is terminated until the satisfactory fitness value is found. The performance of NPSO is validated by Ackley function.
Faster Coordinate Descent via Adaptive Importance Sampling

Coordinate descent methods employ random partial updates of decision variables in order to solve huge-scale convex optimization problems. In this work, we introduce new adaptive rules for the random selection of their updates. By adaptive, we mean that our selection rules are based on the dual residual or the primal-dual gap estimates and can change at each iteration. We theoretically characterize the performance of our selection rules and demonstrate improvements over the state-of-the-art, and extend our theory and algorithms to general convex objectives. Numerical evidence with hinge-loss support vector machines and Lasso confirm that the practice follows the theory.
The Role of Culture, Workgroup Membership, and Organizational Status on Cooperation and Trust: An Experimental Investigation

We examined how interactions among participants' cultural backgrounds (e.g., Australian vs. Singaporean) and multiple subgroups (e.g., cultural group membership, workgroup membership, organizational status) affect trust and cooperation in the workplace. University students (120 Australians, 120 Singaporeans) responded to hypothetical scenarios of cooperation and trust in the workplace. The results indicated that, for both Australians and Singaporeans, trust and cooperation were more strongly influenced by workgroup membership and organizational status than by cultural group membership. Participants trusted and cooperated more with work in-group members than with work out-group members, and trusted and cooperated more with superiors than with peers. Theoretical implications are discussed.
O PERATOR I NTERACTION WITH C ENTRALIZED VERSUS D ECENTRALIZED UAV A RCHITECTURES

There has been significant recent research activity attempting to streamline Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) operations and reduce staffing in order to invert the current many-to-one ratio of operators to vehicles. Centralized multiple UAV architectures have been proposed where a single operator interacts with and oversees every UAV in the network. However, a centralized network requires significant operator cognitive resources. Decentralized multiple UAV networks are another, more complex possible architecture where an operator interacts with an automated mission and payload manager, which coordinates a set of tasks for a group of highly autonomous vehicles. While a single operator can maintain effective control of a relatively small network of centralized UAVs, decentralized architectures are more scalable, particularly in terms of operator workload, and more robust to single points of failure. However, in terms of operator workload, the ultimate success of either a centralized or decentralized UAV architecture is not how many vehicles are in the network per se, but rather how many tasks the group of vehicles generates for the operator and how much autonomy is on board these vehicles. Task-based control of UAV architectures with higher degrees of autonomy (i.e., decentralized networks) can mitigate cognitive overload and reduce workload. Mutually exclusive boundaries for humans and computers in multiple UAV systems should not be the goal of designers for either centralized or decentralized architectures, but rather more effort needs to be spent in defining mutually supportive roles such that humans and computers complement one another.