Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Automated Microbiological Detection/Identification System

An automated, computerized system, the AutoMicrobic System, has been developed for the detection, enumeration, and identification of bacteria and yeasts in clinical specimens. The biological basis for the system resides in lyophilized, highly selective and specific media enclosed in wells of a disposable plastic cuvette; introduction of a suitable specimen rehydrates and inoculates the media in the wells. An automated optical system monitors, and the computer interprets, changes in the media, with enumeration and identification results automatically obtained in 13 h. Sixteen different selective media were developed and tested with a variety of seeded (simulated) and clinical specimens. The AutoMicrobic System has been extensively tested with urine specimens, using a urine test kit (Identi-Pak) that contains selective media for Escherichia coli, Proteus species, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella-Enterobacter species, Serratia species, Citrobacter freundii, group D enterococci, Staphylococcus aureus, and yeasts (Candida species and Torulopsis glabrata). The system has been tested with 3,370 seeded urine specimens and 1,486 clinical urines. Agreement with simultaneous conventional (manual) cultures, at levels of 70,000 colony-forming units per ml (or more), was 92% or better for seeded specimens; clinical specimens yielded results of 93% or better for all organisms except P. aeruginosa, where agreement was 86%. System expansion in progress includes antibiotic susceptibility testing and compatibility with most types of clinical specimens.
Creating the Countryside: The Politics of Rural and Environmental Discourse

List of Tables, Figures, and Illustrations Acknowledgments 1. Introduction Peter Vandergeest and E. Melanie DuPuis Part I: Modernization and Marginalization 2. Stone Age New England: A Geology of Morals Michael M. Bell 3. The Farm as Firm: Rhetoric and the Remanufacturing of Basque Agrarian Production Peter Leigh Taylor Part II: People In and Out of Nature 4. In the Name of Nature: Ecology, Marginality, and Rural Land Use Planning during the New Deal E. Melanie DuPuis 5. "Reserving" Value: Conservation Ideology and State Protection of Resources Nancy Lee Peluso 6. Native Amazonians and the Making of the Amazon Wilderness: From Discourse of Riches and Sloth to Underdevelopment Bill Fisher 7. Reverence Is Not Enough: Ecological Marxism and Indian Adivasis Amita Baviskar 8. Caribbean Environmentalism: An Ambiguous Discourse Barbara Deutsch Lynch Part III: Constructing Rurality 9. Consuming Images: Making and Marketing Vermont as Distinctive Rural Place C. Clare Hinrichs 10. Real Villages: National Narratives of Development Peter Vandergeest Gendered Memory: Reconstructions of a Rural Place of Origin by Mexican Transnational Migrants Luin P. Goldring 11. Gendered Memory: Constructions of Rurality Among Mexican Transnational Migrants Luin Goldring About the Contributors Index
On the Generality of the Latitudinal Diversity Gradient

The decline of biodiversity with latitude has received great attention, but both the concise pattern and the causes of the gradient are under strong debate. Most studies of the latitudinal gradient comprise only one or few organism types and are often restricted to certain region or habitat types. To test for significant variation in the gradient between organisms, habitats, or regions, a meta‐analysis was conducted on nearly 600 latitudinal gradients assembled from the literature. Each gradient was characterized by two effect sizes, strength (correlation coefficient) and slope, and additionally by 14 variables describing organisms, habitats, and regions. The analysis corroborated the high generality of the latitudinal diversity decline. Gradients on regional scales were significantly stronger and steeper than on local scales, and slopes also varied with sampling grain. Both strength and slope increased with organism body mass, and strength increased with trophic level. The body mass–effect size relation varied for ecto‐ versus homeotherm organisms and for different dispersal types, suggesting allometric effects on energy use and dispersal ability as possible mechanisms for the body mass effect. Latitudinal gradients were weaker and less steep in freshwater than in marine or terrestrial environments and differed significantly between continents and habitat types. The gradient parameters were not affected by hemisphere or the latitudinal range covered. This analysis is the first to describe these general and significant patterns, which have important consequences for models aiming to explain the latitudinal gradient.
Does appearance matter in the interaction of children with autism with a humanoid robot

This article studies the impact of a robot’s appearance on interactions involving four children with autism. This work is part of the Aurora project with the overall aim to support interaction skills in children with autism, using robots as ‘interactive toys’ that can encourage and mediate interactions. We follow an approach commonly adopted in assistive robotics and work with a small group of children with autism. This article investigates which robot appearances are suitable to encourage interactions between a robot and children with autism. The children’s levels of interaction with and response to different appearances of two types of robots are compared: a small humanoid doll, and a life-sized ‘Theatrical Robot’ (a mime artist behaving like a robot). The small humanoid robot appeared either as a human-like ‘pretty doll’ or as a ‘robot’ with plain features. The Theatrical Robot was presented either as an ordinary human, or with plain clothing and a featureless, masked face. The results of these trials clearly indicate the children’s preference in their initial response for interaction with a plain, featureless robot over the interaction with a human-like robot. In the case of the life-size Theatrical Robot, the response of children towards the plain/robotic robot was notably more social and pro-active. Implications of these results for our work on using robots as assistive technology for children with autism and their possible use in autism research are discussed.
Genotyping of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus by Assaying for the Presence of Variable Elements Associated with mecA

ABSTRACT The region surrounding mecA in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is highly variable. We describe an approach for the rapid genotyping of MRSA by assaying for the presence or absence of variable or mobile elements previously shown to be associated with the mecA region.
Contents provider-assisted dynamic voltage scaling for low energy multimedia applications

This paper presents a new concept of DVS (dynamic voltage scaling) for multimedia applications. Many multimedia applications have a periodic property, but each period shows a large variation in terms of its execution time. Exact estimation of such variation is a crucial factor for low energy software execution with DVS technique. Previous DVS techniques focused only on end users (client sites) and their quality heavily depends on the accuracy of the worst case execution time estimation. This paper proposes that contents providers (server sites) supply the information of the execution time variations in addition to the content itself. This makes it possible to perform DVS independent to worst case execution time estimation. The extra work required by the contents provider for this purpose is fully compensated by the benefits for the end users because single content is often provided to many users. Experimental results show that our method greatly reduces the energy consumption of client systems compared to previous DVS techniques.
Ieee Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems 1 a Hybrid Strategy for Real-time Traffic Signal Control of Urban Road Networks

—The recently developed traffic signal control strategy TUC requires availability of a fixed signal plan that is sufficiently efficient in undersaturated traffic conditions. To drop this requirement, the wellknown Webster procedure for fixed signal control derivation at isolated junctions is employed appropriately for real-time operation based on measured flows. It is demonstrated via simulation experiments and field application that: (a) The developed real-time demand-based approach is a viable real-time signal control strategy for undersaturated traffic conditions; (b) it can indeed be used within TUC to drop the requirement for a pre-specified fixed signal plan; (c) it may, under certain conditions, contribute to more efficient results compared with the original TUC method.
Methodological and Conceptual Issues in the Study of Multifunctionality and Rural Development

Acareful analysis of the scale and depth of the more recent changes in rural areas reveals the contours of a new development trajectory. The key features of this trajectory are diversity and multifunctionality: diversity reflected in the actors involved, the particular activities undertaken and the patterns of motivation that emerge, and multifunctionality in the simultaneous and interrelated provision of different functions (Van der Ploeg et al. 2000). Researchers involved in rural development face a two-fold challenge. First, they must improve their understanding of multifunctionality and, second and more practically, they must acquire insights into the complex and interrelated processes that contribute to the development of rural areas. The aim of this article is to outline the complexity of those rural development processes that specifically relate to the phenomenon of multifunctionality. An attempt is made to structure the various patterns of multifunctionality found in the European countryside, and different levels of multifunctionality, key changes, linkages and influences have been identified. More specifically, an attempt is made to find adequate ways of unraveling and visualizing the complex interrelationships and changes involved in the rural development process. In addition, we have tried to improve our understanding of these interrelationships taking into account their spatial and temporal dimensions. Finally, we have tried to identify the data needed for a quantitative assessment of the changes taking place at the different levels of farm, farm household, other rural enterprises, region, multipliers, and substitution effects. In the discussion reference is made to several case studies from the impact research programme. 1
Multi-task logistic regression in brain-computer interfaces

A brain-computer interface (BCI) is used to enable communication between humans and machines by decoding elicited brain activity patterns. However, these patterns have been found to vary across subjects or even for the same subject across sessions. Such problems render the performance of a BCI highly specific to subjects, requiring expensive and time-consuming individual calibration sessions to adapt BCI systems to new subjects. This work tackles the aforementioned problem in a Bayesian multi-task learning (MTL) framework to transfer common knowledge across subjects and sessions for the adaptation of a BCI to new subjects. In particular, a recent framework, that is able to exploit the structure of multi-channel electroencephalography (EEG), is extended by a Bayesian hierarchical logistic regression decoder for probabilistic binary classification. The derived model is able to explicitly learn spatial and spectral features, therefore making it further applicable for identification, analysis and evaluation of paradigm characteristics without relying on expert knowledge. An offline experiment with the new decoder shows a significant improvement in performance on calibration-free decoding compared to previous MTL approaches for rule adaptation and uninformed models while also outperforming them as soon as subject-specific data becomes available. We further demonstrate the ability of the model to identify relevant topographies along with signal band-power features that agree with neurophysiological properties of a common sensorimotor rhythm paradigm.
Modulation of cardiovascular control mechanisms and their interaction.

It is generally held that the role of a specific control element can only be understood within its physiological environment. The reviewed studies make it clear that there is a potent interplay between locally produced substances such as adenosine, nitric oxide, prostaglandins, and various others all interacting with the central level of control. This can occur at central sites (e.g., nitric oxide in the brain) or in the periphery (e.g., neural influence on autoregulation). The interactions are more or less pronounced during specific physiological challenges. Furthermore, several of these interactions are altered under pathological circumstances, and in some cases, the interactions seem to maintain or even augment the severity of disease. When more than three parameters participate in an interaction, the resulting regulation may become extremely complex. If these parameters are nonlinearly coupled with each other, the only way to shed light onto the nature of control network is by treating it as a black box. With the use of spectral analysis or nonlinear methods, it is possible to disentangle the fundamental nature of the system in terms of the complexity and stability. Therefore, modern developments in cardiovascular physiology utilizing these techniques, some of which are derived from the "chaos theory," are reviewed.
On Data Classification of Cataract Patients for Selecting Intraocular Lens Power Formula

In this paper, we present a method of selecting intraocular lens (IOL) power formulas for cataract patients. The method is based on support vector machines (SVM's) and genetic algorithm (GA). We assume that each of patients' data belongs to one of the classes named by three power formulas. We therefore consider the formula selection to be the issue of classifying patients' data. Since three formulas have variables associated with axial length and corneal refractive power, we always employ them as elements in data. If there are elements probably useful in classifying the data, they are found by GA. We construct the final discrimination model by SVM learning using data with the above elements. The model consists of three coordinate spaces, each of which has two regions corresponding to two formulas. A space provides a potential solution. We finally take a majority of the potential solutions, and determine the formula suitable to some patient specified by it. We show that the proposed method achieves the most favorable percentage of concordance for the classification, if the two-point crossover technique is adopted in GA.
Escala de Autoestima de Rosenberg (EAR): validade fatorial e consistência interna

The aim of this study was to investigate the psychometrics properties of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSS) for adolescents. The sample was composed of 4.757 adolescents, with ages between 14 and 18 years old (M=15.77; SD=1.22) in nine Brazilian cities. Participants responded to an adapted version of the RSS for Brazil. Exploratory factorial analysis showed a bidimensional structure, with 51.4% of explained variance. This result was supported by confirmatory factor analysis. The internal consistency analysis by Cronbach alpha coefficient, composite reliability and extracted variance indicated good reliability. Differences in self-esteem for gender and age were not found. These findings show that RSS has satisfactory psychometric qualities and it’s a reliable instrument to assess self-esteem in Brazilian adolescents.
A secure data backup scheme using multi-factor authentication

Sensitive data stored in laptops or other mobile devices can easily be lost, stolen, misplaced or corrupted, the remote backup storage technique is used to address these issues; however, the backup server could not be fully trusted, the data should be encrypted in advance. Although the key is more easily protected due to the smaller size compared with the backup data, it is still impossible for ordinary human to remember. A user-centred design data backup scheme is proposed using multi-factor authentication. The user firstly selects a symmetrical key and divides it into three shares, then destroys the key. The key can easily be reconstructed by combining the shares stored in the user's smart card and the laptop. Even if the smart card or laptop is lost, the key can still be recovered with the password and biometrics. The proposed scheme not only achieves the required security goals but also is more robust and practical.
Maternal vitamin D levels during pregnancy and neonatal health: evidence to date and clinical implications

Low maternal vitamin D levels during pregnancy have been associated with a plethora of adverse neonatal outcomes, including small for gestational age and preterm births, detrimental effect on offspring bone and teeth development, and risk of infectious diseases. Although most observational studies indicate a significant linear relationship between maternal 25-hydroxyvitamin D and the above outcomes, some randomized controlled trials to date are inconclusive, mostly due to differences in study design and supplementation regimen. The currently available results indicate that vitamin D supplementation during pregnancy reduces the risk of preterm birth, low birth weight, dental caries of infancy, and neonatal infectious diseases such as respiratory infections and sepsis. This narrative review aims to summarize available trial results regarding the effect of low maternal vitamin D levels during pregnancy, in conjunction with neonatal outcomes on the field, with a discourse on the appropriate clinical approach of this important issue.
Reprogramming Primordial Germ Cells into Pluripotent Stem Cells

Background Specification of primordial germ cells (PGCs) results in the conversion of pluripotent epiblast cells into monopotent germ cell lineage. Blimp1/Prmt5 complex plays a critical role in the specification and maintenance of the early germ cell lineage. However, PGCs can be induced to dedifferentiate back to a pluripotent state as embryonic germ (EG) cells when exposed to exogenous signaling molecules, FGF-2, LIF and SCF. Methodology and Principal Findings Here we show that Trichostatin A (TSA), an inhibitor of histone deacetylases, is a highly potent agent that can replace FGF-2 to induce dedifferentiation of PGCs into EG cells. A key early event during dedifferentiation of PGCs in response to FGF-2 or TSA is the down-regulation of Blimp1, which reverses and apparently relieves the cell fate restriction imposed by it. Notably, the targets of Blimp1, which include c-Myc and Klf-4, which represent two of the key factors known to promote reprogramming of somatic cells to pluripotent state, are up-regulated. We also found early activation of the LIF/Stat-3 signaling pathway with the translocation of Stat-3 into the nucleus. By contrast, while Prmt5 is retained in EG cells, it translocates from the nucleus to the cytoplasm where it probably has an independent role in regulating pluripotency. Conclusions/Significance We propose that dedifferentiation of PGCs into EG cells may provide significant mechanistic insights on early events associated with reprogramming of committed cells to a pluripotent state.
Complex emotion categorization and tagging for Chinese

To understand emotion and make machine emotion is one of the goals of affective computing. In order to understand language from interface of machine, both the meaning and the emotion are necessary to be interpreted correctly. But until now the study of fine-grained theory of emotion is still full of challenges. In this paper, a novel method to analyze emotion category is proposed according to the statistics of affective word hierarchy in Dictionary of contemporary Chinese. The emotion hierarchy is called complex emotion. Firstly, over 7,000 common affective words have be annotated and their detailed explanations had been collected for an affective lexicon, then we analyze the consistent relationship in the affective lexicon and consequently 52 salient complex emotion state hierarchies are categorized and tagged by a lexical affective clustering algorithm. The complex emotions are compared to the traditional definitions of basic emotions in psychology and have been evaluated to be valid by kappa value in the experiment. Moreover we also have tagged the semantic orientation for the collected words.
Regularity Effects and the Phonological Deficit Model of Reading Disabilities: A Meta-Analytic Review.

This article presents a meta-analysis of spelling-to-sound regularity effects in individuals with reading disabilities and reading-level comparison groups. The phonological-deficit model of reading disabilities, coupled with the classic dual-route model of word recognition, has led to two predictions: (a) a specific deficit in the pseudoword reading of those with reading disabilities and (b) an absent or reduced regularity effect for those with reading disabilities relative to reading-level controls. Previous reviews confirm the first prediction. The present meta-analysis tested the second prediction. There was a clear effect of word regularity for individuals with reading disabilities, the magnitude of which did not differ from the word regularity effect for reading-level controls. The authors explore how the contradictory support for these 2 predictions is inconsistent with classic dual-route models of word reading and how connectionist models are consistent with the empirical findings on reading disability.
The influence of university image on student behaviour

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the influence of image on student satisfaction and loyalty.Design/methodology/approach – In order to accomplish the objectives proposed, a model reflecting the influence of image on student satisfaction and loyalty is applied. The model is tested through use of structural equations and the final sample is of 2,687 students.Findings – The model shows that image is the construct that most influences student satisfaction. The influence of image is also relevant on student loyalty.Research limitations/implications – In this paper, the constructs of image resulted in a reliability level of 0.846; future research is needed in order to find more reliable image measurement indicators.Practical implications – If higher education institutions have to compete through image, the first step to take is to measure the university image held by its students. It is proven by this paper that the construct which most influences student satisfaction in higher education is the .
Sex, spies and celluloid: Movie content preference, choice, and involvement

This study empirically tests the congruity between movie-content preference and choice on television, video, and at the cinema; and the impact of consumer involvement on this relationship. The results support the need to treat preference and choice differentially. Media type added little in way of explanation of changes in preference–choice congruence. Involvement with movie choice was found to vary by medium, yet correlational analysis showed that it did not unequivocally change the nature of preference–choice congruence. Nonetheless, further enquiry into the role of involvement is warranted before it is dismissed as irrelevant in the choice of leisure media products. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.