Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Influence of Humans on Evolution and Mobilization of Environmental Antibiotic Resistome

The clinical failure of antimicrobial drugs that were previously effective in controlling infectious disease is a tragedy of increasing magnitude that gravely affects human health. This resistance by pathogens is often the endpoint of an evolutionary process that began billions of years ago in non–disease-causing microorganisms. This environmental resistome, its mobilization, and the conditions that facilitate its entry into human pathogens are at the heart of the current public health crisis in antibiotic resistance. Understanding the origins, evolution, and mechanisms of transfer of resistance elements is vital to our ability to adequately address this public health issue.
Comparative protein modeling of spermidine synthase from Plasmodium falciparum: A potential target for anti-malarial drug therapy

Malaria, caused by protozoan parasites of the genus Plasmodium, affects up to 500 million individuals and kills over 1 million people every year. The increasing resistance of the malaria parasites has enforced strategies for finding new drug targets. In recent years, enzymes associated with the polyamine metabolism have attracted attention as drug targets. Cytosolic Plasmodium falciparum spermidine synthase (PfPAPT) is a potential target for antimalarial chemotherapy. Contrasting with the other enzymes involved in the parasite polyamine amine biosynthesis, little information is available about this enzyme, and its crystallographic structure is unknown yet. In this paper I propose a theoretical low-resolution 3D model for PfPAPT based on crystal structure of the Arabidopsis thaliana, by multiple alignment followed by intensive optimization; validation and dynamic simulations in water. Comparison between the active sites of PfPAPT and human PAPT revealed key differences that could be useful for the design of new selective inhibitors of Plasmodium PAPT.
Somatotopic Organization of the Primate Basal Ganglia

Somatotopic organization is a fundamental and key concept to understand how the cortico-basal ganglia loop works. It is also indispensable knowledge to perform stereotaxic surgery for movement disorders. Here I would like to describe the somatotopic organization of the basal ganglia, which consist of the striatum, subthalamic nucleus, globus pallidus, and substantia nigra. Projections from motor cortical regions representing different body parts terminate in different regions of these nuclei. Basal ganglia neurons respond not only to the stimulation of the corresponding regions of the motor cortices, but also to active and passive movements of the corresponding body parts. On the basis of these anatomical and physiological findings, somatotopic organization can be identified in the motor territories of these nuclei in the basal ganglia. In addition, projections from functionally interrelated cortical areas partially converge through the cortico-basal ganglia loop, but nevertheless the somatotopy is still preserved. Disorganized somatotopy may explain, at least in part, the pathophysiology of movement disorders, such as Parkinson's disease and dystonia.
Nongranulomatous Uveitis as the First Manifestation of Syphilis

Purpose The incidence of syphilis appears to be increasing in recent years. Although any structure of the eye can be involved in syphilis, isolated unilateral anterior uveitis as an initial sign of the disease is rare. We report a case of ocular syphilis presenting as a mild unilateral, nongranulomatous, anterior uveitis in an otherwise asymptomatic patient. Case Report A 64-year-old white male patient presented with a 3-day history of mildly reduced vision, photophobia, and pain in his left eye. The patient denied prior occurrences, and no contributing ocular or medical history was elicited. Entering corrected distance acuities were 20/25+ in the right eye and 20/20- in the left eye. Slit lamp examination of the left eye revealed a moderate circumlimbal flush, numerous fine keratic precipitates, and mild-to-moderate white blood cells in the anterior chamber. The patient was diagnosed as having acute, idiopathic, nongranulomatous, anterior uveitis, and topical steroid/cycloplegic treatment was initiated. Despite an initially positive, although somewhat sluggish response to treatment, the patient’s uveitis suddenly worsened on day 44, exhibiting increased anterior chamber cells, several mutton-fat keratic precipitates, and elevated intraocular pressure. Systemic diagnostic workup led to the diagnosis of neurosyphilis, and the patient subsequently admitted to high-risk sexual behaviors. Treatment with intravenous aqueous penicillin-G 24 million units per day for 14 days led to complete resolution of uveitis. The case was reported to the local health department within 24 h of syphilis diagnosis. Conclusions Syphilis, although an uncommon cause of ocular inflammation, is a highly contagious, but curable disease. Given its potentially devastating neurologic consequences, syphilis should be considered in all patients presenting with uveitis. A high index of clinical suspicion and a detailed sexual history are crucial for the accurate and timely diagnosis of ocular syphilis.
Environmental exposures: psychological stress

There are many components within the immune system upon which the psychological states could impact. A simplified outline of the immune system and its development and responsiveness is noted in Figure 1. Mechanisms by which emotional and psychological states might influence the immune system include neural and endocrine systems.5The endocrine systems involve hypothalamic-pituitaryadrenal axis with the production of gluococorticoids, opioids and catecholamines. The latter can, of course, be produced by other tissues as well. Catecholamine production has been shown to be increased by stress and can have an impact on immune cell functions. Receptors of glucocorticoids and for catecholamines do exist on lymphocytes. Nerve innervation has been demonstrated to all
Metabolic Fluxes in an Illuminated Arabidopsis Rosette[W][OA]

Kinetic flux profiling has been extensively used in unicellular bacterial systems to study primary metabolism. We present a framework for its use in estimating photosynthetic fluxes in land plants. The resulting flux estimates are benchmarked against published flux estimates. Photosynthesis is the basis for life, and its optimization is a key biotechnological aim given the problems of population explosion and environmental deterioration. We describe a method to resolve intracellular fluxes in intact Arabidopsis thaliana rosettes based on time-dependent labeling patterns in the metabolome. Plants photosynthesizing under limiting irradiance and ambient CO2 in a custom-built chamber were transferred into a 13CO2-enriched environment. The isotope labeling patterns of 40 metabolites were obtained using liquid or gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. Labeling kinetics revealed striking differences between metabolites. At a qualitative level, they matched expectations in terms of pathway topology and stoichiometry, but some unexpected features point to the complexity of subcellular and cellular compartmentation. To achieve quantitative insights, the data set was used for estimating fluxes in the framework of kinetic flux profiling. We benchmarked flux estimates to four classically determined flux signatures of photosynthesis and assessed the robustness of the estimates with respect to different features of the underlying metabolic model and the time-resolved data set.
Improvement of hypertension management by structured physician education and feedback system: cluster randomized trial

Introduction We aimed to assess whether hypertension management with a structured physician information program and a feedback system leads to improved blood pressure (BP) control and cardiovascular outcomes. Methods Cluster randomized (3: 1), open, monitored, multicenter trial in Germany. Primary care-based physicians in the information group (IG) received detailed training on hypertension guidelines, feedback on target-level attainment, and a reminder to intensify treatment after each patient visit, whereas the observation/control group (CG) did not receive any such measures. A three-level mixed model was developed. Time-independent level differences between groups, group-independent changes, and nonparallel group-specific changes over time were tested. Results A total of 15 041 (78.1%) hypertensive patients were in the IG and 4213 (21.9%) in the CG. By 1-year follow-up, 82.9% of patients in the IG and 81.5% in the CG remained in the study. The guideline-oriented BP target was attained by 56.8% in the IG and 52.5% in the CG (+ 4.3%, P = 0.03), whereas the individual BP target was attained by 57.0% in the IG and 51% in the CG (P = NS). BP control in the IG was achieved 2 months earlier on average. Clinical inertia, defined as the absence of medication changes, despite noncontrol of BP, occurred significantly less often in the IG group. One-year cardiovascular outcomes did not differ between groups. Conclusion The delivery of systematic information in connection with a feedback system reduces clinical inertia and improves guideline adherence. Although compared with earlier studies, the hypertension control rates obtained are higher, there is still considerable room for improvement. Eur J Cardiovasc Prev Rehabil 17:271-279 © 2010 The European Society of Cardiology
Production of Cellulose and Curli Fimbriae by Members of the Family Enterobacteriaceae Isolated from the Human Gastrointestinal Tract

ABSTRACT Citrobacter spp. , Enterobacter spp. , and Klebsiella spp. isolated from the human gut were investigated for the biosynthesis of cellulose and curli fimbriae (csg). While Citrobacter spp. produced curli fimbriae and cellulose and Enterobacter spp. produced cellulose with various temperature-regulatory programs, Klebsiella spp. did not show pronounced expression of those extracellular matrix components. Investigation of multicellular behavior in two Citrobacter species and Enterobacter sakazakii showed an extracellular matrix, cell clumping, pellicle formation, and biofilm formation associated with the expression of cellulose and curli fimbriae. In those three strains, the csgD-csgBA region and the cellulose synthase gene bcsA were conserved. PCR screening for the presence of csgD, csgA and bcsA revealed that besides Klebsiella pneumoniae and Klebsiella oxytoca, all species investigated harbored the genetic information for expression of curli fimbriae and cellulose. Since Citrobacter spp. , Enterobacter spp. , and Klebsiella spp. are frequently found to cause biofilm-related infections such as catheter-associated urinary tract infections, the human gut could serve as a reservoir for dissemination of biofilm-forming isolates.
Eye–Hand Coordination during Learning of a Novel Visuomotor Task

We investigated how gaze behavior and eye–hand coordination change when subjects learned a challenging visuomotor task that required acquisition of a novel mapping between bimanual actions and their visual sensory consequences. By applying isometric forces and torques to a rigid tool held freely between the two hands, subjects learned to control a cursor on a computer screen to hit successively displayed targets as quickly as possible. The learning occurred in stages that could be distinguished by changes in performance (target–hit rate) as well as by gaze behavior and eye–hand coordination. In a first exploratory stage, the hit rate was consistently low, the cursor position varied widely, and gaze typically pursued the cursor. In a second skill acquisition stage, the hit rate improved rapidly, and gaze fixations began to mark predictively desired cursor positions, indicating that subjects started to program spatially congruent eye and hand motor commands. In a third skill refinement stage, performance continued to improve gradually, and gaze shifted directly toward the target. We suggest that during the exploratory stage, the learner attempts to establish basic mapping rules between manual actions and eye-movement commands. In this process, subjects may establish correlations between hand motor commands and their visual sensory consequences, primarily in fovea-anchored, gaze-centered coordinates, and correlations between recent hand motor commands and eye motor commands. The established mapping rules are then implemented and refined in the skill acquisition and refinement stages.
Study on Perspectives of Energy Production Systems and Climate Change Risks in Nigeria

In recent times, energy has been the hottest globally discussed subject. On the other hand, environment is the most resilient victim of the energy debate. Consequently, energy and environment are the world’s most unlikely allies. Energy extraction, distribution or consumption constitutes a major cause of environmental pollution. The environmental pollutants from energy related activities are greenhouse gases. Although, cement manufacturing, construction or transportation activities do contribute to environmental pollution, the greenhouse gas emission from energy activities is two-fold: the emission from exploration and that from consumption. The combustion of energy fuels generate nitrogen oxidesa group of highly reactive and acidifying gases unlike suspended particles produced from cement manufacturing. In a photochemical process, nitrogen oxides are oxidized to nitric acid and it contributes to acid rain formation. Also, there is a consensus that fossil fuel based energy production and use are the main sources of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions as shown in figure 1. These substances have many consequences for the health of human being, plants and estate property [1, 2]. The foregoing facts present energy production and utilization as high risk factors to the environment despite their huge benefits to the society.
Integration of Vision , Force and Tactile Sensing for Grasping

Most robotic hands are either sensorless or lack the ability to report accurate position and force information relating to contact. This paper describes a robotic hand system that uses a limited set of native joint position and force sensing along with custom designed tactile sensors and real-time vision modules to accurately compute finger contacts and applied forces for grasping tasks. A number of experiments are described that show how these sensors can be combined to increase the capabilities of a robotic hand for grasping and manipulation tasks.
Clinical and economic burden of adverse drug reactions

Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are unwanted drug effects that have considerable economic as well as clinical costs as they often lead to hospital admission, prolongation of hospital stay and emergency department visits. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are the main premarketing methods used to detect and quantify ADRs but these have several limitations, such as limited study sample size and limited heterogeneity due to the exclusion of the frailest patients. In addition, ADRs due to inappropriate medication use occur often in the real world of clinical practice but not in RCTs. Postmarketing drug safety monitoring through pharmacovigilance activities, including mining of spontaneous reporting and carrying out observational prospective cohort or retrospective database studies, allow longer follow-up periods of patients with a much wider range of characteristics, providing valuable means for ADR detection, quantification and where possible reduction, reducing healthcare costs in the process. Overall, pharmacovigilance is aimed at identifying drug safety signals as early as possible, thus minimizing potential clinical and economic consequences of ADRs. The goal of this review is to explore the epidemiology and the costs of ADRs in routine care.
The Foundations of Decision Analysis

Decision analysis has emerged from theory to practice to form a discipline for balancing the many factors that bear upon a decision. Unusual features of the discipline are the treatment of uncertainty through subjective probability and of attitude toward risk through utility theory. Capturing the structure of problem relationships occupies a central position; the process can be visualized in a graphical problem space. These features are combined with other preference measures to produce a useful conceptual model for analyzing decisions, the decision analysis cycle. In its three phases? deterministic, probabilistic, and informational? the cycle progressively determines the importance of variables in deterministic, probabilistic, and economic environments. The ability to assign an economic value to the complete or partial elimination of uncertainty through experimentation is a particularly important characteristic. Recent applications in business and government indicate that the increased logical scope afforded by decision analysis offers new opportunities for rationality to those who wish it.
Modeling Tag-Aware Recommendations Based on User Preferences

A recommender system aims at recommending items that users might be interested in. With an increasing popularity of social tagging systems, it becomes urgent to model recommendations on users, items, and tags in a unified way. In this paper, we propose a framework for studying recommender systems by modeling user preferences as a relation on (user, item, tag) triples. We discuss tag-aware recommender systems from two aspects. On the one hand, we compute associations between users and items related to tags by using an adaptive method and recommend tags to users or predict item properties for users. On the other hand, by taking the similarity-based recommendation as a case study, we discuss similarity measures from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives and k-nearest neighbors and reverse k-nearest neighbors for recommendations.
Bioactivity studies on Musa seminifera Lour

Background: Musa seminifera Lour is a tree-like perennial herb that has been used in folk medicine in Bangladesh to heal a number of ailments. Objective: To evaluate the antioxidant, analgesic, antidiarrheal, anthelmintic activities, and general toxicity of the ethanol extract of the roots. Materials and Methods: The extract was assessed for free-radical-scavenging activity by the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay, total phenolic content (TPC) by the Folin Ciocalteu reagent, antioxidant activity by the ferric reducing power assay, analgesic activity by the acetic acid-induced writhing and hot-plate tests, antidiarrheal activity by the castor oil-induced diarrhea model in mice, anthelmintic activity on Paramphistomum cervi and Haemonchus contortus, and general toxicity by the brine shrimp lethality assay. Results: The extract showed free-radical-scavenging activity with an IC50 value of 44.86 μg/mL. TPC was 537.89 mg gallic acid equivalent/100 g of dried plant material. It showed concentration-dependent reducing power, and displayed 42.11 and 69.32% writhing inhibition at doses of 250 and 500 mg/kg body weight, respectively. The extract also significantly raised the pain threshold at the above-mentioned dose levels. In vivo antidiarrheal property was substantiated by significant prolongation of latent period and decrease in total number of stools compared with the control. The LC50 against brine shrimp nauplii was 36.21 μg/mL. The extract exhibited dose-dependent decrease in paralysis and death time of the helminths. Conclusion: The above results demonstrated that the plant possesses notable bioactivities and somewhat supports its use in folk medicine.
Simultaneous adenocarcinoma in situ and epidermoid carcinoma in situ. Report of two cases

Two cases of combined epidermoid carcinoma in situ and adenocarcinoma in situ of the uterine cervix are presented. The histologic appearances are interpreted as representing divergence of the tumor patterns from a common stem and confirming the bipotency of the subcylindrical (reserve) cell, the progenitor of the majority of cervical carcinomata. Differences in cells exfoliated from these tumors may alert the cytologist to the presence of combined cervical tumor patterns.
Benefits of Bandwidth Feedback in Learning a Complex Gymnastic Skill

The aim of this study was to examine the effects of two different frequencies of feedback during the process of learning a complex gymnastic skill, the round-off salto backward tucked. Thirty male acrobats participated in the study. They were randomly assigned to two groups: B - bandwidth feedback (n=15) or C - 100% feedback (n=15). Group B was provided with error information regarding the key elements of movement techniques only (bandwidth feedback). Our research demonstrates the advantage of augmented feedback information related to errors in the key elements. Information about errors in the key elements during learning a complex gymnastic skill prevents the gymnast from becoming overwhelmed, which promotes better motor control. These results provide support for the generalisation of bandwidth feedback principles to a complex task. Our research shows that the guidance hypothesis can also be tested in practical settings for a complex movement task.
GPS Antenna with Metallic Conical Structure for Anti - Jamming Applications

This paper presents a cost efiective and simple anti- jamming method for global positioning system (GPS) antennas in the GPS L1 (1.563{1.587GHz) band. The proposed structure is composed of a metallic conical structure with a microstrip patch antenna, which is selected as the basic element. To overcome intentional jamming signals coming from low elevation angles, the structure is applied around the low proflle patch antenna. It is found that the maximum anti- jamming performance is achieved when the lower diameter (l), height (h), and upper diameter (d) of the structure are 90, 190, and 380mm, respectively. The experimental results show that the peak gain in the horizontal plane for the jamming signal decreases by about 6.2dB from i6:16 to i12:36dBic, while the peak gain in the vertical plane for the GPS signal increases by about 5.58dB from 1.32 to 6.9dBic. Moreover, it is shown that an improvement in the circular polarization (CP) characteristics is also obtained with the proposed structure. The measured fractional bandwidth is about 3.7% (1.561{1.62GHz).