Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Five Years of Antimalarial Resistance Marker Surveillance in Gaza Province, Mozambique, Following Artemisinin-Based Combination Therapy Roll Out

Antimalarial drug resistance is a major obstacle to malaria control and eventual elimination. The routine surveillance for molecular marker of resistance is an efficient way to assess drug efficacy, which remains feasible in areas where malaria control interventions have succeeded in substantially reducing malaria transmission. Community based asexual parasite prevalence surveys were conducted annually in sentinel sites in Gaza Province, Mozambique from 2006 until 2010, before, during and after antimalarial policy changes to artesunate plus sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine in 2006 and to artemether-lumefantrine in 2008. Genetic analysis of dhfr, dhps, crt, and mdr1 resistant genes was conducted on 3 331 (14.4%) Plasmodium falciparum PCR positive samples collected over the study period from 23 229 children aged 2 to 15 years. The quintuple dhfr/dhps mutation associated with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine resistance increased from 56.2% at baseline to 75.8% by 2010. At baseline the crt76T and mdr186Y mutants were approaching fixation, 96.1% and 74.7%, respectively. Following the deployment of artemisinin-based combination therapy, prevalence of both these chloroquine-resistance markers began declining, reaching 32.4% and 30.9%, respectively, by 2010. All samples analysed over the 5-year period possessed a single copy of the mdr1 gene. The high and increasing prevalence of the quintuple mutation supports the change in drug policy from artesunate plus sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine to artemether-lumefantrine in Mozambique. As chloroquine related drug pressure decreased in the region, so did the molecular markers associated with chloroquine resistance (crt76T and mdr186Y). However, this reversion to the wild-type mdr186N predisposes parasites towards developing lumefantrine resistance. Close monitoring of artemether-lumefantrine efficacy is therefore essential, particularly given the high drug pressure within the region where most countries now use artemether-lumefantrine as first line treatment.
Heterogeneity of Powdery Mildew Resistance Revealed in Accessions of the ICARDA Wild Barley Collection

The primary genepool of barley comprises two subspecies – wild barley (Hordeum vulgare subsp. spontaneum) and cultivated barley H. vulgare. subsp. vulgare. The former originated 5.5 million years ago in southwest Asia and is the immediate ancestor of cultivated barley, which arose around 10,000 years ago. In this study, the specific resistance of a set of 146 wild barley accessions, maintained by the International Center for Agriculture Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), to 32 isolates of barley powdery mildew caused by Blumeria graminis f. sp. hordei was evaluated. The set comprised 146 heterogeneous accessions of a previously tested collection. Seed was obtained by single seed descent and each accession was usually represented by five single plant progenies. In total, 687 plant progenies were tested. There were 211 phenotypes of resistance among the accessions, 87 of which were found in single plants, while 202 plants contained the eight most common phenotypes. The most frequent phenotype was found in 56 plants that were susceptible to all pathogen isolates, whereas the second most frequent phenotype, which occurred in 46 plants, was resistant to all isolates. The broad resistance diversity that was revealed is of practical importance and is an aid to determining the extent and role of resistance in natural ecosystems.
ECG signal acquisition within a continuous LF powered region

Neither unwanted MPI signals due to the presence of ECG electrode material within the sensitive Tx/Rx DF nor ECG signal perturbations caused by the 25 kHz DF excitation field have been detected for either electrode type. However, in case of electrode type [A] the maximum observed electrode temperature was 48.8 °C (c.f. Fig 1 LEFT) whereas a temperature of more than 115 °C (c.f. Fig. 1 RIGHT) has been detected in case of electrode type [B].
Changes of nerve growth factor synthesis in nonneuronal cells in response to sciatic nerve transection

The intact sciatic nerve contains levels of nerve growth factor (NGF) that are comparable to those of densely innervated peripheral target tissues of NGF-responsive (sympathetic and sensory) neurons. There, the high NGF levels are reflected by correspondingly high mRNANGF levels. In the intact sciatic nerve, mRNANGF levels were very low, thus indicating that the contribution of locally synthesized NGF by nonneuronal cells is small. However, after transection an increase of up to 15-fold in mRNANGF was measured in 4-mm segments collected both proximally and distally to the transection site. Distally to the transection site, augmented mRNANGF levels occurred in all three 4-mm segments from 6 h to 2 wk after transection, the longest time period investigated. The augmented local NGF synthesis after transection was accompanied by a reexpression of NGF receptors by Schwann cells (NGF receptors normally disappear shortly after birth). Proximal to the transection site, the augmented NGF synthesis was restricted to the very end of the nerve stump that acts as a "substitute target organ" for the regenerating NGF-responsive nerve fibers. While the mRNANGF levels in the nerve stump correspond to those of a densely innervated peripheral organ, the volume is too small to fully replace the lacking supply from the periphery. This is reflected by the fact that in the more proximal part of the transected sciatic nerve, where mRNANGF remained unchanged, the NGF levels reached only 40% of control values. In situ hybridization experiments demonstrated that after transection all nonneuronal cells express mRNANGF and not only those ensheathing the nerve fibers of NGF-responsive neurons.
Aging Is Associated in the 344/N Fischer Rat with Decreased Stress Responsivity of Central and Peripheral Catecholaminergic Systems and Impairment of the Hypothalamic‐Pituitary‐Adrenal Axis

The effects of acute stress on various indices of sympatho-adrenal, sympathoneural functions and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis were examined both at central and peripheral sites in healthy, intact male Fischer 344/N rats of increasing age. Extracellular fluid (ECF) levels of norepinephrine (NE), its metabolites dihydroxyphenylglycol (DHPG), and methoxyhydroxyphenylglycol (MHPG), and of the dopamine metabolite dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC), were measured 24 h after implantation of a microdialysis probe in the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) of the hypothalamus, and samples collected at 30-min. intervals during immobilization (IMMO). ECF levels of NE, DHPG, MHPG, and DOPAC were at baseline similar in both age groups, and all increased significantly in response to IMMO. The IMMO-induced increases in ECF levels of NE and MHPG were, however, significantly smaller in old than in young rats. Plasma levels of the dihydroxyphenylalanine (DOPA), -NE, epinephrine (EPI), DHPG, MHPG, dopamine (DA), DOPAC and HVA, were determined in different groups of young and old rats, cannulated in the tail artery, at baseline, and after 5, 30, 60, and 120 min of IMMO. Basal levels of DOPA, DHPG, MHPG, DA, DOPAC, HVA, NE and EPI were significantly higher in old than in young rats, and increased in plasma during IMMO. However, the magnitude of the increase in the majority of these compounds was significantly smaller in old than in young rats. Basal plasma levels of ACTH were similar among age groups, and basal plasma levels of corticosterone showed a significant aging-associated decline. Two i.v. doses (2 and 20 micrograms/kg BW) of rat CRF elicited significantly greater and delayed ACTH, and greater corticosterone responses in older rats, consistent with the pattern encountered in hypothalamic CRF deficiency. An i.v. injection of ACTH evoked lower corticosterone responses in the older (18 and 24 month old) than in the younger (2 and 8 month old) groups of rats, consistent with secondary adrenocortical atrophy in older animals. Steady-state mRNA levels of mineralocorticoid and glucocorticoid receptors were significantly decreased in the hippocampus of the 8-, 18-, and 24-month-old rats, compatible with maturational rather than senescent changes. CRF mRNA levels in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus, and levels of POMC mRNA in the anterior pituitary were significantly reduced with age. In conclusion, in this strain of rats, aging is associated with diminished responsiveness of central, and peripheral catecholaminergic systems to acute stress, and progressive hypothalamic CRH deficiency.
Characterization of regular linear-phase paraunitary filter banks using dyadic-based structures

We re-examine the design of structurally regular linear-phase (LP) paraunitary filter banks (PUFBs) via a general framework without the LP constraint, and show that by a suitable choice of parameterization, the general regularity theory simplifies significantly under the LP assumption. A new geometric condition for regularity is presented which is essentially equivalent to but simpler than that in Oraintara et al. (2001). A connection between the general-purpose dyadic-based building block and the order-one LP building block used in the GenLOT structure is established.
Removal of Right or Left Frontal Lobes in Man*

In the early days of the neurological renaissance that followed the discovery of localized function in the cerebral hemispheres the frontal lobes seemed to select themselves as the seats of the intelligence by a process of exclusion. Once the motor, the sensory, the visual, the auditory, and the olfactory areas had been roughed out upon the, cortex and the tracts coming to and from them plotted with gradually increasing certainty (a task to this day unc'ompleted), it was but natural that speculation should 'be busy with those large areas still remaining which were unresponsive to stimulation and often, but not always, curiously " silent" to destructive or disease processes in man. Those of us who " teethed" in study twenty-five years ago did so on the cortical maps of Flechsig, Elliot Smith, Campbell, Brodmann, and the Vogts, and learned that the grey matter consisted of numerous areas with different developmental histories and with different histological s:ructures. This was true not only of the projection areas but also of the various association areas, and it was demonstrable that the frontal lobes, like other parts, had not one single homogeneous structure, but were subdivisible again into several cantonments, the most posterior of which formed the motor cortex. The work of Ferrier, of Horsley, and of Sherrington in particular, allotted definite functions to the different parts of that latter area, though our knowledge even of the apparently simple motor cortex is not yet complete (see, for example, the revival of interest excited by J. F. Fulton (1932), then by F. M. R. Walshe (1935), and more recently by D. E. Denny-Brown).
Antimicrobial Action of Carvacrol at Different Stages of Dual-Species Biofilm Development by Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella enterica Serovar Typhimurium

ABSTRACT The effects of carvacrol, a natural biocide, on dual-species biofilms formed by Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium were investigated with a constant-depth film fermentor. Biofilm development reached a quasi-steady state in 12 days at 25°C with S. aureus predominance (≈99%). Cryosectional analysis detected viable S. aureus and S. enterica serovar Typhimurium at depths of 320 and 180 μm from the film surface, respectively. Carvacrol pulses (1.0 mmol/h) inhibited S. aureus by 2.5 log CFU/biofilm during the early stages of film formation, ultimately causing a significant reduction (P < 0.001) of the staphylococcal population at quasi-steady state. Initial carvacrol pulsing elicited a 3 log CFU/biofilm reduction in viable S. enterica serovar Typhimurium, and additional periodic carvacrol pulses instigated significant inhibition of salmonellae (1 to 2 log CFU/biofilm) during biofilm development. Carvacrol pulsing reduced protein levels fivefold (P < 0.001) during initial biofilm development. Comparative studies with a peroxide-based commercial sanitizer (Spor-Klenz RTU) revealed that this commercial sanitizer was more biocidal than carvacrol during early biofilm development. When the biofilm reached quasi-steady state, however, periodic pulses with 1 mmol of carvacrol per h (P = 0.021) elicited a significantly higher inhibition than Spor-Klenz RTU (P = 0.772). Dual-species microcolonies formed under the influence of continuously fed low carvacrol concentrations (1.0 mmol/h) but failed to develop into a mature quasi-steady-state biofilm and did not reach any stage of film formation in the presence of high concentrations (5.0 mmol/h). These data show that carvacrol is an effective natural intervention to control dual-species biofilm formation.
Short-Term Violent Video Game Play by Adolescents Alters Prefrontal Activity During Cognitive Inhibition

Prior research has indicated an association between exposure to violent media and aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior, potentially as a result of effects on inhibitory mechanisms. However, the role of violence in video games in modulating subsequent neural activity related to cognitive inhibition has received little attention. To examine short-term effects of playing a violent video game, 45 adolescents were randomly assigned to play either a violent or a nonviolent video game for 30 minutes immediately prior to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). During the fMRI procedure, participants performed a go/no-go task that required them to press a button for each target stimulus and withhold the response for non-target stimuli. Participants who played the violent game demonstrated a lower BOLD response in right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) when responses were appropriately inhibited. The DLPFC is involved with executive functioning, including suppression of unwanted thoughts and behaviors. In addition, responses in the DLPFC demonstrated stronger inverse connectivity with precuneus in the nonviolent game players. These results provide evidence that playing a violent video game can modulate prefrontal activity during cognitive inhibition.
Recherche de voies de passage au « développement durable » et réflexivité institutionnelle. Retour sur les prétentions à la gestion d'une transition générale

The realization of a “sustainable development” tends increasingly to be thought in terms of a necessary transition to achieve. This article aims at analyzing how this perspective has penetrated in institutional spheres and showing how it is the product and the vector of a form of collective reflexivity that also has implications in activities of government. It is then a matter of grasping how the transition to “sustainable development” has become an object of reflection, but also an object of enunciation and an object of government.
Partijen en partijsystemen in Nederland en Vlaanderen.

Lipset and Rokkan have pointed at the fact that parties and electoral patterns of competition can display a remarkably high level of stability. This stability-the constant reproduction ofthe same patterns - is what we take in this article as the definition for the institutionalization of parties and party systems. Both Belgium and the Netherlands can however be considered to be countries in which the consociational tradition has rather institutionalized the parties (through solid pillarized links with society) and not so much the less relevant patterns of electoral competition. We therefore look at a number of indicators that give us information about the way in which and the extent to which the traditional party actors in both countries face processes of de-institutionalization. Evolutions in voterturnout, membership numbers, preference voting and floating voters do indeed show that parties are losing their link with society. We then look at the way in which the parties themselves react to these developments, both by trying to change themselves (ideological and organizational change) and by trying to change the institutional architecture of the country. We conclude with some thoughts about the consequences ofthis party change for the already very weak structure of electoral competition. Both the parties and the party system seem indeed to be confronted with a lack of structure. The future of parties and party systems in the Netherlands and in Belgium is very unclearand unpredictable.
Joint Action, Interactive Alignment, and Dialog

Dialog is a joint action at different levels. At the highest level, the goal of interlocutors is to align their mental representations. This emerges from joint activity at lower levels, both concerned with linguistic decisions (e.g., choice of words) and nonlinguistic processes (e.g., alignment of posture or speech rate). Because of the high-level goal, the interlocutors are particularly concerned with close coupling at these lower levels. As we illustrate with examples, this means that imitation and entrainment are particularly pronounced during interactive communication. We then argue that the mechanisms underlying such processes involve covert imitation of interlocutors' communicative behavior, leading to emulation of their expected behavior. In other words, communication provides a very good example of predictive emulation, in a way that leads to successful joint activity.
Career: The Subjective Approach*

MOST DISCOURSES on and investigations of the subject of career have considered it, at least in its theoretical form, in an "objective" sense, if we may use that term as a shorthand label to identify a stance which approaches this phenomenon in a way not directly connected with the personal viewpoints of the people under study. For instance, this is evident in the traditional definitions of career, such as that put forth by Becker and paraphrased from Oswald Hall: a career is:
Optimizing temporal queries: efficient handling of duplicates

Recent research in the area of temporal databases has proposed a number of query languages that vary in their expressive power and the semantics they provide to users. These query languages represent a spectrum of solutions to the tension between clean semantics and efficient evaluation. Often, these query languages are implemented by translating temporal queries into standard relational queries. However, the compiled queries are often quite cumbersome and expensive to execute even using state-of-the-art relational products. The paper presents an optimization technique that produces more efficient translated SQL queries by taking into account the properties of the encoding used for temporal attributes. For concreteness, this translation technique is presented in the context of SQL/TP; however these techniques are also applicable to other temporal query languages.
A Novel ZCS-PWM Flyback Converter With a Simple ZCS-PWM Commutation Cell

This paper proposes a novel zero-current-switching pulsewidth-modulation (ZCS-PWM) flyback dc/dc converter using a simple ZCS-PWM commutation cell. The main switch and auxiliary switch operate at ZCS turn-on and turn-off conditions, and all uncontrolled devices in the proposed converter operate at zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) turn-on and turn-off. In addition, given constant frequency and decreasing commutation losses, the proposed converter has no additional current stress and conduction loss in the main switch compared to the conventional hard switching flyback converter. The averaging approach is used to estimate and examine the steady-state of the proposed converter. The principle of operation, theoretical analysis, and experimental results of the new ZCS-PWM flyback converter, rated 150 W and operating at 80 kHz, are provided in this paper to verify the performance of the proposed converter.
Multirate digital control system design using lifting technique

The conventional multirate pole-zero assignment method has the intersample ripple problem. In order to remedy the intersample ripple, a constraint on the controller parameters using the final value theorem was proposed. Recently a computationally efficient fixed order multirate digital control system design using discrete-time state matching was proposed. And it was shown that the multirate digital control system does not have ripples in control command. In this paper, we present that the compensator obtained by the discrete-time state matching method is in a special form of those designed using the conventional multirate pole-zero assignment method. We also show that the controller obtained can be formulated using feedforward and feedback compensators.
It’s not NICE to discriminate

NICE must not say people are not worth treating The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has proposed that drugs for the treatment of dementia be banned to National Health Service (NHS) patients on the grounds that their cost is too high and “outside the range of cost effectiveness that might be considered appropriate for the NHS”i.1 This is despite NICE’s admission that these drugs are effective in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and despite NICE having approved even more expensive treatments. The effect is that thousands of Alzheimer’s patients will be denied the only treatment available. It is difficult to think of this as anything but wickedness or folly or more likely both. At the same time, and with no apparent sense of irony, NICE has launched a public consultation document3 on its guidelines on social value judgments. As we shall see these guidelines are ethically illiterate as well as socially divisive. Assuming permanently scarce resources it is clearly crucial that such healthcare resources as are available are not wasted. This point is often made in terms of cost effectiveness and it is argued, not implausibly, that to talk of cost effectiveness implies that we are able to measure just how cost effective each treatment is. To do so of course we need a standard of measurement. NICE has adopted the ubiquitous, but justly infamous QALY, the Quality Adjusted Life Year. The QALY combines life expectancy after treatment with measures of the expected quality of that life. There are two ways in which QALYS can be used. They might be used to determine which of rival therapies to give to a particular patient or which procedure to use to treat a particular condition, in short which of two different treatments is the more …
The Distribution of Environmental Risks: Analytical Methods and French Data

The existence of environment-related health risks is now being acknowledged in France. According to estimates by the French Ministry of Ecology and Sustainable Development, 30,000 premature deaths per year and 7% to 20% of cancers may be linked to environmental factors such as diffuse source pollution (motor vehicles, pesticides) and point source pollution (incinerators, landfills, industrial facilities). Social inequalities in exposure to environmental risks have been observed in many industrialized countries (United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Germany). France is also directly concerned by this question: are we all equal in the face of pollution, or are the most disadvantaged populations also those with the highest exposure? This paper reviews the current state of methodological and analytical knowledge on the social distribution of environmental risks with a view to stimulating further research on this issue in France.