Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characterization of four outer membrane proteins that play a role in utilization of starch by Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron

Results of earlier work had suggested that utilization of polysaccharides by Bacteroides spp. did not proceed via breakdown by extracellular polysaccharide-degrading enzymes. Rather, it appeared that the polysaccharide was first bound to a putative outer membrane receptor complex and then translocated into the periplasm, where the degradative enzymes were located. In a recent article, we reported the cloning and sequencing of susC, a gene from Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron that encoded a 115-kDa outer membrane protein. SusC protein proved to be essential for utilization not only of starch but also of intermediate-sized maltooligosaccharides (maltose to maltoheptaose). In this paper, we report the sequencing of a 7-kbp region of the B. thetaiotaomicron chromosome that lies immediately downstream of susC. We found four genes in this region (susD, susE, susF, and susG). Transcription of these genes was maltose inducible, and the genes appeared to be part of the same operon as susC. Western blot (immunoblot) analysis using antisera raised against proteins encoded by each of the four genes showed that all four were outer membrane proteins. Protein database searches revealed that SusE had limited similarity to a glucanohydrolase from Clostridium acetobutylicum and SusG had high similarity to amylases from a variety of sources. SusD and SusF had no significant similarity to any proteins in the databases. Results of 14C-starch binding assays suggested that SusD makes a major contribution to binding. SusE and SusF also appear to contribute to binding but not to the same extent as SusD. SusG is essential for growth on starch but appears to contribute little to starch binding. Our results demonstrate that the binding of starch to the B. thetaiotaomicron surface involves at least four outer membrane proteins (SusC, SusD, SusE, and SusF), which may form a surface receptor complex. The role of SusG in binding is still unclear.
Medienqualitäten beim eLearning: Vom Transport zur Transformation von Wissen

Mediale Qualitäten wie Interaktivität oder Mehrwerte wie Zeit- und Ortsunabhängigkeit sind zu undifferenzierte und zu heterogene Konzepte, um die Potenziale digitaler Medien angemessen charakterisieren zu können. Über das Tripel Responsivität, Objektorientierung und Medialität wird eine neue Sicht begründet, die statt des traditionellen Transports von Wissensträgern ihre verteilte, d. h. ko-aktive Bearbeitung ins Zentrum der Betrachtung rückt. Media qualities like interactivity or added values such as independency of time and space are too general and heterogeneous concepts to characterize the potentials of digital media. In this article the fundament for a new perspective is cast based on the triplet responsivity, object-orientation and mediality. In contrast to the traditional transportation of knowledge carriers it emphasizes the distributive, i.e. co-active manipulation of knowledge. Des qualités des médias telles l'interactivité ou la plus-valeur comme l'indépendance de temps et de lieu se révèlent des conceptions trop générales et trop hétérogènes pour charactériser de façon adéquate les potentiaux des médias numérisés. Une nouvelle vue est fondée par le triple de la responsivité, l'orientation à l'objet et la médialité qui, au lieu du transport traditionnel de porteurs de savoir, met au centre de la considération le traitement réparti, c'està- dire co-actif.
Color removal method preserving local contrast

A usual color-to-gray conversion only considers lightness components, and differences of colors are sometimes not reflected in monochrome images because three-dimension data which is RGB color components is converted in one-dimensional gray level. Gooch et al. have proposed a color removal method that considers the difference of colors which is named as the Color2Gray algorithm. Although the Colo2Gray algorithm can obtain good results in many cases, we can still improve it. In this paper, we propose a new color-to-gray conversion which attaches importance to the local contrast improvement. The proposed method evaluates the local contrast by computing the local variance of pixel values in an input color image and using it, high contrast monochrome image is obtained. Experiments show the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Investigating the Natural Course and Treatment of Vascular Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease: Parallel Study Populations in Two Randomized, Placebo‐Controlled Trials

Propentofylline is a glial cell modulator that has been shown to interfere with neuroinflammatory processes linked to the pathologic activation of microglial cells and reactive astrocytes — common elements in the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD). 1 Propentofylline has been efficacious in both dementia subtypes, as seen in early Phase II studies,2 and its mechanism of action suggests that it may interfere with the underlying disease process rather than simply providing symptomatic relief. Two recent studies, one in AD and one in VaD, confirmed propentofylline’s efficacy; in addition, randomized withdrawal and delayed onset of treatment segments of these trials indicated a potential effect on disease progression.3 Most of the 37 study centers in Europe and Canada participated in both trials, providing a data set that could be used for comparisons between the AD and the VaD populations without concerns regarding intercenter variability. NINCDS/ADRDA4 and NINDS/AIREN criteria5 were used for defining probable AD and possible/probable VaD patients, respectively. Due to the long treatment periods of 72 (AD) and 48 (VaD) weeks, the severity of the disease was limited to baseline MMSE scores of 18 to 26 for AD patients and 15 to 26 for VaD patients. Centralized ratings of CT and MRI scans were performed prior to enrollment to enhance the homogeneity of the patient populations (particularly the VaD population). 6
Based on the Network Degeneration Hypothesis: Separating Individual Patients with Different Neurodegenerative Syndromes in a Preliminary Hybrid PET/MR Study

The network degeneration hypothesis (NDH) of neurodegenerative syndromes suggests that pathologic brain changes distribute primarily along distinct brain networks, which are characteristic for different syndromes. Brain changes of neurodegenerative syndromes can be characterized in vivo by different imaging modalities. Our aim was to test the hypothesis whether multimodal imaging based on the NDH separates individual patients with different neurodegenerative syndromes. Methods: Twenty patients with Alzheimer disease (AD) and 20 patients with frontotemporal lobar degeneration (behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia [bvFTD, n = 11], semantic dementia [SD, n = 4], or progressive nonfluent aphasia [PNFA, n = 5]) underwent simultaneous MRI and 18F-FDG PET in a hybrid PET/MR scanner. The 3 outcome measures were voxelwise values of degree centrality as a surrogate for regional functional connectivity, glucose metabolism as a surrogate for regional metabolism, and volumetric-based morphometry as a surrogate for regional gray matter volume. Outcome measures were derived from predefined core regions of 4 intrinsic networks based on the NDH, which have been demonstrated to be characteristic for AD, bvFTD, SD, and PNFA, respectively. Subsequently, we applied support vector machine to classify individual patients via combined imaging measures, and results were evaluated by leave-one-out cross-validation. Results: On the basis of multimodal voxelwise regional patterns, classification accuracies for separating patients with different neurodegenerative syndromes were 77.5% for AD versus others, 82.5% for bvFTD versus others, 97.5% for SD versus others, and 87.5% for PNFA versus others. Multimodal classification results were significantly superior to unimodal approaches. Conclusion: Our finding provides initial evidence that the combination of regional metabolism, functional connectivity, and gray matter volume, which were derived from disease characteristic networks, separates individual patients with different neurodegenerative syndromes. Preliminary results suggest that employing multimodal imaging guided by the NDH may generate promising biomarkers of neurodegenerative syndromes.
Drug delivery strategies for poorly water-soluble drugs

The drug candidates coming from combinatorial chemistry research and/or the drugs selected from biologically based high-throughput screening are quite often very lipophilic, as these drug candidates exert their pharmacological action at or in biological membranes or membrane-associated proteins. This challenges drug delivery institutions in industry or academia to develop carrier systems for the optimal oral and parenteral administration of these drugs. To mention only a few of the challenges for this class of drugs: their oral bioavailability is poor and highly variable, and carrier development for parenteral administration is faced with problems, including the massive use of surface-active excipients for solubilisation. Formulation specialists are confronted with an even higher level of difficulties when these drugs have to be delivered site specifically. This article addresses the emerging formulation designs for delivering of poorly water-soluble drugs.
A hybrid computational model for spoken language understanding

This paper shows that the integration of statistical and connectionist methods can greatly enhance human-computer interaction through speech. The research approach is inspired by recent advances in high performance automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems and neurocognitive researches of natural language understanding (NLU). And a modest hybrid computational model is proposed and implemented to achieve intelligent spoken language understanding (SLU) in an information retrieval system.
Embedding or uprooting? The effects of international labour migration on rural households in Armenia

The impact of international labour migration on human wellbeing and socioeconomic development in communities of origin is an important yet understudied issue in contemporary migration research. This study examines whether men's labour migration from rural Armenia to Russia and other international destinations enhances the economic and social connections of the left-behind households to their communities or, on the contrary, undermines those connections and encourages household members' own migration. Using survey data, it compares families of migrants and non-migrants with respect to ownership of productive and major non-productive assets in the community and women's non-farm labour force participation, their social engagement in the village, and their desires to migrate abroad. The results of statistical tests indicate that men's migration is negatively associated with households' asset ownership and with women's non-farm employment. The results for women's social engagement in their villages are less consistent. Finally, regardless of economic attachment, social engagement, and a host of other factors, wives of migrants were significantly more likely to wish to move abroad than women married to non-migrants, and the difference in propensity to emigrate between migrants' and non-migrants' wives increases with duration of husband's migration. We situate these findings in the context of Central Eurasia's international labour migration system and discuss their implications for future migration trends and for socioeconomic development of Armenia and similar settings.
Causes of Death Among Patients With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a debilitating illness affecting thousands of individuals. At the present time, there are few studies that have investigated causes of death for those with this syndrome. The authors analyzed a memorial list tabulated by the National CFIDS Foundation of 166 deceased individuals who had had CFS. There were approximately three times more women than men on the list. The three most prevalent causes of death were heart failure, suicide, and cancer, which accounted for 59.6% of all deaths. The mean age of those who died from cancer and suicide was 47.8 and 39.3 years, respectively, which is considerably younger than those who died from cancer and suicide in the general population. The implications of these findings are discussed.
Learning As Support For Organizational Innovation: Possibilities And Limitations

Abstract The present article tells an intervention story where two collectives, from business and academia, came together to address a business problem through collaborative action research. Among other things, the project created new ways of learning and therefore, knowing about the “business problem. ” The author argues that in order to talk about an organizational intervention in a learning context, it was helpful to focus observation at the level of practice, in this case the different learning practices brought to the project by the organization and the research group. The “scientific narrative” focuses on how the two practices interacted. The present story's plot revolves around the following questions: What happens when one collective—used to a particular style of learning—decides to engage with another collective with a different approach to learning and what are the consequences for organizational innovation?
The developmental clock of dental enamel: a test for the periodicity of prism cross‐striations in modern humans and an evaluation of the most likely sources of error in histological studies of this kind

Dental tissues contain regular microscopic structures believed to result from periodic variations in the secretion of matrix by enamel‐ and dentine‐forming cells. Counts of these structures are an important tool for reconstructing the chronology of dental development in both modern and fossil hominids. Most studies rely on the periodicity of the regular cross‐banding that occurs along the long axis of enamel prisms. These prism cross‐striations are widely thought to reflect a circadian rhythm of enamel matrix secretion and are generally regarded as representing daily increments of tissue. Previously, some researchers have argued against the circadian periodicity of these structures and questioned their use in reconstructing dental development. Here we tested the periodicity of enamel cross‐striations – and the accuracy to which they can be used – in the developing permanent dentition of five children, excavated from a 19th century crypt in London, whose age‐at‐death was independently known. The interruption of crown formation by death was used to calibrate cross‐striation counts. All five individuals produced counts that were strongly consistent with those expected from the independently known ages, taking into account the position of the neonatal line and factors of preservation. These results confirm that cross‐striations do indeed reflect a circadian rhythm in enamel matrix secretion. They further validate their use in reconstructing dental development and in determining the age‐at‐death of the remains of children whose dentitions are still forming at the time of death. Significantly they identify the most likely source of error and the common difficulties encountered in histological studies of this kind.
Tobacco associated mortality in Mumbai (Bombay) India. Results of the Bombay Cohort Study.

BACKGROUND Little is known about the excess mortality from forms of tobacco use other than cigarette smoking that are widely prevalent in India, such as bidi smoking and the various forms of smokeless tobacco use. We report on absolute and relative risks of mortality among various kinds of ever tobacco users vs never-users in the city of Mumbai, India. METHODS Using the Mumbai voters' list as the selection frame, 99 570 individuals aged > or = 35 years were interviewed at their homes during 1992-94. At active follow-up (during 1997-99) after 5.5 years, 97 244 (97.7%) were traced. Among these, 7531 deaths (4119 men, 3412 women) were recorded, of which 89% died within study area. It was possible to abstract cause of death information from the records of the municipal corporation for 5470 deaths. These were coded using ICD 10. RESULTS The adjusted relative risk was 1.37 (95% CI 1.23-1.53) for (men) cigarette smokers and 1.64 (95% CI 1.47-1.81) for bidi smokers, with a significant dose-response relationship for number of bidis or cigarettes smoked. Women were essentially smokeless tobacco users; the adjusted relative risk was 1.25 (95% CI 1.15-1.35). The risk of deaths from respiratory diseases (RR 2.12, 95% CI 1.57-2.87), tuberculosis (RR 2.30, 95% CI 1.68-3.15), and neoplasms (RR 2.60, 95% CI 1.78-3.80) were significantly high in male smokers than never tobacco users. CONCLUSIONS Bidi is no less hazardous than cigarette smoking, and smokeless tobacco use may also result in significantly increased mortality.
Bullying and Aggressive Behavior among Health Care Providers: Literature Review

Bullying is defined by American Psychological Association as an aggressive behavior which is intended to cause distress or harm and that involves an imbalance of power or strength between the aggressor and the victim. Bullying in the workplace is angering enough people these days to be fueling a nationwide grass-roots legislative effort to force companies to draft and enforce policies aimed at stopping it. Requiring such policies, according to those pushing the legislation, is not an attempt to spawn lawsuits, but an effort to force organizations to deal with the problem. Bullying is blamed for unnecessarily creating high costs of turnover, insurance claims and thwarted productivity. Disruptive behavior has been observed in almost all members of the healthcare team from physicians and nurses to pharmacy, radiology, and laboratory staff members. Physician behavior, however, may have the greatest impact because of the position of authority that doctors hold as members of the healthcare team. A team member may, from fear of intimidation or patronization, withhold valuable or even critical input, such as a medication error or a breakdown in adherence to safety protocols. Hospitals, departments and individual personnel need to develop a higher level of awareness of the problem both in others and in them. Anti-bullying policies should be given a higher profile.
Components of metabolic syndrome are independent predictors of mortality in patients with chronic liver disease: a population-based study

Objective Chronic liver disease (CLD) is a major cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide. The aim of this study was to assess the overall and liver-related mortality and their predictors in patients with CLD using population data. Methods The Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) and linked mortality data were utilised. Participants from NHANES III (1988–1994) and their mortality status were updated by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) as of 31 December 2006. In this study, the aetiology of CLD was based on available serological tests and clinical data. Each diagnostic cohort was compared with a cohort without liver disease using stratum-specific χ2. The Cox proportional hazard model was used for analysis, and HRs adjusted for all major confounders; overall mortality and cause-specific mortality were calculated for each type of liver disease. All analyses were run using SAS-callable SUDAAN 10.0 functions using remote access to the CDC Research Data Center server with restricted use linked mortality data. Results The study cohort included 15 866 NHANES III participants with complete clinical, demographic, laboratory and mortality follow-up data. Of these, 235 subjects had alcohol-related liver disease (ALD), 66 had chronic hepatitis B (CH-B), 264 had chronic hepatitis C (CH-C), 991 were presumed to have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and 505 had other liver disease. Additionally, 13 004 subjects without evidence of liver disease served as controls. The analysis shows that type II diabetes (DM) and/or insulin resistance (IR) are independent predictors of overall mortality in CH-B, NAFLD and ALD (p <0.05). Additionally, DM, IR, obesity and metabolic syndrome could be independent predictors of liver-related mortality in CH-C, NAFLD and ALD. Conclusions Components of metabolic syndrome are associated with overall and liver-related mortality in subjects with CLD.
Physical activity and risk of neurodegenerative disease: a systematic review of prospective evidence

Background The association between physical activity and risk of neurodegenerative diseases is not well established. We therefore aimed to quantify this association using meta-analytical techniques. Method We searched Medline, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and Web of Science databases from 1990 to 2007 for prospective epidemiological studies of physical activity and incident dementia, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. We excluded studies of physical activity and cognitive decline without diagnosis of a neurodegenerative disease. Information on study design, participant characteristics, measurement of exposure and outcome variables, adjustment for potential confounding, and estimates of associations was abstracted independently by the two investigators. Results We included 16 prospective studies in the overall analysis, which incorporated 163797 non-demented participants at baseline with 3219 cases at follow-up. We calculated pooled relative risk (RR) using a random effects model. The RR of dementia in the highest physical activity category compared with the lowest was 0.72 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.60–0.86, p<0.001], for Alzheimer's, 0.55 (95% CI 0.36–0.84, p=0.006), and for Parkinson's 0.82 (95% CI 0.57–1.18, p=0.28). Conclusions Our results suggest that physical activity is inversely associated with risk of dementia. Future studies should examine the optimal dose of physical activity to induce protection, which presently remains unclear.
Runtime identification of cache conflict misses: The adaptive miss buffer

This paper describes the miss classification table, a simple mechanism that enables the processor or memory controller to identify each cache miss as either a conflict miss or a capacity (non-conflict) miss. The miss classification table works by storing part of the tag of the most recently evicted line of a cache set. If the next miss to that cache set has a matching tag, it is identified as a conflict miss. This technique correctly identifies 88% of misses.Several applications of this information are demonstrated, including improvements to victim caching, next-line prefetching, cache exclusion, and a pseudo-associative cache. This paper also presents the adaptive miss buffer (AMB), which combines several of these techniques, targeting each miss with the most appropriate optimization, all within a single small miss buffer. The AMB's combination of techniques achieves 16% better performance than any single technique alone.