Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Title Purpurin suppresses Candida albicans biofilm formation andhyphal development

A striking and clinically relevant virulence trait of the human fungal pathogen Candida albicans is its ability to grow and switch reversibly among different morphological forms. Inhibition of yeast-to-hypha transition in C. albicans represents a new paradigm for antifungal intervention. We have previously demonstrated the novel antifungal activity of purpurin against Candida fungi. In this study, we extended our investigation by examining the in vitro effect of purpurin on C. albicans morphogenesis and biofilms. The susceptibility of C. albicans biofilms to purpurin was examined quantitatively by 2,3-bis(2-methoxy-4-nitro-5-sulfo-phenyl)-2H-tetrazolium-5-carboxanilide reduction assay. Hyphal formation and biofilm ultrastructure were examined qualitatively by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Quantitative reverse transcription-PCR (qRT-PCR) was used to evaluate the expression of hypha-specific genes and hyphal regulator in purpurin-treated fungal cells. The results showed that, at sub-lethal concentration (3 mg/ml), purpurin blocked the yeast-to-hypha transition under hypha-inducing conditions. Purpurin also inhibited C. albicans biofilm formation and reduced the metabolic activity of mature biofilms in a concentration-dependent manner. SEM images showed that purpurin-treated C. albicans biofilms were scanty and exclusively consisted of aggregates of blastospores. qRT-PCR analyses indicated that purpurin downregulated the expression of hypha-specific genes (ALS3, ECE1, HWP1, HYR1) and the hyphal regulator RAS1. The data strongly suggested that purpurin suppressed C. albicans morphogenesis and caused distorted biofilm formation. By virtue of the ability to block these two virulence traits in C. albicans, purpurin may represent a potential candidate that deserves further investigations in the development of antifungal strategies against this notorious human fungal pathogen in vivo. Citation: Tsang PW-K, Bandara HMHN, Fong W-P (2012) Purpurin Suppresses Candida albicans Biofilm Formation and Hyphal Development. PLoS ONE 7(11): e50866. doi:10.1371/journal.pone. 0050866 Editor: Scott G. Filler, David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California Los Angeles, United States of America Received April 17, 2012; Accepted October 29, 2012; Published November 30, 2012 Copyright: 2012 Tsang et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: This work was partially supported by the Seeding Funding Programme for Basic Research from The University of Hong Kong (Project No. 201003159008 to PWKT), by the Research Fund for the Control of Infectious Diseases, the Food and Health Bureau of the Government of the HKSAR (RFCID 11100992 & 11101122 to PWKT). No additional external funding received for this study. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. * E-mail: pwktsang@hku.hk
Seeded Region Growing

We present here a new algorithm for segmentation of intensity images which is robust, rapid, and free of tuning parameters. The method, however, requires the input of a number of seeds, either individual pixels or regions, which will control the formation of regions into which the image will be segmented. In this correspondence, we present the algorithm, discuss briefly its properties, and suggest two ways in which it can be employed, namely, by using manual seed selection or by automated procedures. >
Aphasia after Stroke: Type, Severity and Prognosis

Aim: To determine the types, severity and evolution of aphasia in unselected, acute stroke patients and evaluate potential predictors for language outcome 1 year after stroke. Methods: 270 acute stroke patients with aphasia (203 with first-ever strokes) were included consecutively and prospectively from three hospitals in Copenhagen, Denmark, and assessed with the Western Aphasia Battery. The assessment was repeated 1 year after stroke. Results: The frequencies of the different types of aphasia in acute first-ever stroke were: global 32%, Broca’s 12%, isolation 2%, transcortical motor 2%, Wernicke’s 16%, transcortical sensory 7%, conduction 5% and anomic 25%. These figures are not substantially different from what has been found in previous studies of more or less selected populations. The type of aphasia always changed to a less severe form during the first year. Nonfluent aphasia could evolve into fluent aphasia (e.g., global to Wernicke’s and Broca’s to anomic), whereas a fluent aphasia never evolved into a nonfluent aphasia. One year after stroke, the following frequencies were found: global 7%, Broca’s 13%, isolation 0%, transcortical motor 1%, Wernicke’s 5%, transcortical sensory 0%, conduction 6% and anomic 29%. The distribution of aphasia types in acute and chronic aphasia is, thus, quite different. The outcome for language function was predicted by initial severity of the aphasia and by the initial stroke severity (assessed by the Scandinavian Stroke Scale), but not by age, sex or type of aphasia. Thus, a scoring of general stroke severity helps to improve the accuracy of the prognosis for the language function. One year after stroke, fluent aphasics were older than nonfluent aphasics, whereas such a difference was not found in the acute phase.
The occurrence of lipoteichoic acids in the membranes of gram-positive bacteria.

Glycerol teichoic acids have been found associated with the cytoplasmic membrane of all of the Gram-positive bacteria examined and it is believed that, unlike wall teichoic acids which are absent from some organisms, these membrane teichoic acids are characteristically present in all species (for reviews see Archibald, Baddiley & Blumsom, 1968; Baddiley, 1970, 1972). Wall teichoic acid is attached to the peptidoglycan of the wall through its terminal phosphate residue, but although it has been known for some time that membrane teichoic acid is associated with the outer surface of the membrane (Hay, Wicken & Baddiley, 1963; Shockman & Slade, 1964) the nature of this association has only recently been examined.
Spatial data stream multiplexing scheme for high-throughput WLANs

A novel scheme using spatial data stream multiplexing (SDSM) in the upcoming multiple-input multiple- output (MIMO)-based IEEE 802.11n physical layer is proposed. It is shown that with SDSM, the same data rate can be achieved by using less number of transmit and receive antennas and therefore this scheme can reduce the number of antennas which results in reducing mutual coupling effects, hardware costs and implementation complexities. The maximum data rates that can be achieved using a 2 � 2 MIMO system is 270 Mbps and for a4 � 4 MIMO system is 540 Mbps. The same data rates can be achieved using the SDSM technique which reduces the 2 � 2 MIMO system to 1 � 1 SISO system and the 4 � 4 MIMO system to a 2 � 2 MIMO system.
Odometria Visual para a Navegação Autônoma de VANT

O emprego de Veiculos Aereos Nao Tripulados (VANTs) apresenta um enorme crescimento, com muitas e diversas aplicacoes, tais como: monitoramento ecologico, agricultura de precisao, operacoes de busca e resgate e em projetos de engenharia, para citar alguns poucos exemplos. Um objetivo importante e realizar navegacao autonoma do VANT. Ha varias estrategias para desenvolver um sistema autonomo de voo, entre elas, o uso de sensor inercial combinado com o sinal de um sistema de navegacao por satelite, visao computacional e odometria visual. O ultimo esquema e o foco do presente artigo. A Odometria Visual e aplicada e testada no voo de VANT modelo helicoptero RMAX. Para implementar o sistema de posicionamento por OV, os algoritmos SURF e RANSAC foram empregados como descritor dos pontos de interesse e pos-processamento para remocao dos falsos pontos de correspondencia, respectivamente. O metodo da odometria visual apresenta um erro cumulativo, mas no teste realizado, o erro maximo de posicionamento registrado do VANT ficou abaixo de 20 m, que e aceitavel nas aplicacoes de interesse.
The 48-Pulse VSC-Based Generalized Interline Power-Flow Controller (GIPFC)

The generalized interline power-flow controller (GIPFC) is a voltage-source controller (VSC)-based flexible ac transmission system (FACTS) controller that can independently regularize the power-flow over each transmission line of a multiline system. This paper presents a modeling and performance analysis of GIPFC based on 48-pulsed voltage-source converters. This paper deals with a cascaded multilevel converter model, which is a 48-pulse (three levels) source converter. The voltage source converter described in this paper is a harmonic neutralized, 48-pulse GTO converter. The GIPFC controller is based on d-q orthogonal coordinates. The algorithm is verified using simulations in MATLAB/Simulink environment. Comparisons between Unified Power Flow Controller (UPFC) and GIPFC are also included.
Discriminative optimisation of large vocabulary recognition systems

Describes a framework for optimising the structure and parameters of a continuous-density HMM-based large-vocabulary speech recognition system using the maximum mutual information estimation (MMIE) criterion. To reduce the computational complexity of the MMIE training algorithm, confusable segments of speech are identified and stored as word lattices of alternative utterance hypotheses. An iterative mixture splitting procedure is also employed to adjust the number of mixture components in each state during training such that the optimal balance between number of parameters and available training data is achieved. Experiments are presented on various test sets from the Wall Street Journal database using the full SI-284 training set. These show that the use of lattices makes MMIE training practicable for very complex recognition systems and large training sets. Furthermore, experimental results demonstrate that MMIE optimisation of system structure and parameters can yield useful increases in recognition accuracy.
Deciphering the mystery of combined factor V and factor VIII deficiency

In 1954 Oeri et al. [1] described two young siblings with a lifelong history of a bleeding tendency related to a deficiency of both factor (F) V and FVIII. Reports of additional families in the late 1950s and 1960s [2–6] suggested that the common occurrence of FV and FVIII deficiencies was not a mere coincidence of parahemophilia and hemophilia A. This was further supported by the observation that in five of the eight families reported up to 1969, the affected individuals were descendents of parental consanguinity [5,6]. How could one explain the mechanism of an inherited disorder involving a gene located on the X-chromosome, and another gene located on an autosome? This enigma has attracted the interest of investigators in subsequent years who felt that understanding the pathogenesis of the disorder might shed light on the molecular genetics, synthesis, secretion, and biochemistry of FV and FVIII. The authors of this historical review were among those investigators who entered the arena, Uri Seligsohn in 1967, and David Ginsburg in 1995.
Semi-supervised Nuisance-attribute Networks for Domain Adaptation

How to overcome the training and test data mismatch in speaker verification systems has been a focus of research recently. In this paper, we propose a semi-supervised nuisance attribute network (SNAN) to reduce the domain mismatch in i-vectors and x-vectors. SNANs are based on the idea of nuisance attribute removal in inter-dataset variability compensation (IDVC). But instead of measuring the domain variability through the dataset means, SNANs use the maximum mean discrepancy (MMD) as part of their loss function, which enables the network to find nuisance directions in which domain variability is measured up to infinite moment. The architecture of SNANs also allows us to incorporate the out-of-domain speaker labels into the semi-supervised training process through the center loss and triplet loss. Using SNANs as a preprocessing step for PLDA training, we achieve a relative improvement of 11.8% in EER on NIST 2016 SRE compared to PLDA without adaptation. We also found that the semi-supervised approach can further improve SNANs’ performance.
The diagnostic value of Ki-67 and repp86 in distinguishing between benign and malignant mesothelial proliferations.

CONTEXT The differentiation of benign mesothelial proliferations from malignant mesotheliomas may be difficult, especially when evaluating small specimens from pleural biopsies. OBJECTIVE To explore the potential value of 2 proliferative cell markers, Ki-67 and restrictedly expressed proliferation-associated protein 86 kDa (repp86), in distinguishing between malignant mesothelioma (MM) and benign reactive mesothelial hyperplasia (MH). DESIGN Thirty-six cases of MM from 26 men and 10 women with a mean age of 62.9 years (range, 36-80 years) and 22 cases of benign reactive MH from 14 male and 8 female patients with a mean age of 51.5 years (range, 15- 88 years) were included in this study. The proliferative status of the lesions was assessed by immunohistochemistry using monoclonal antibodies to Ki-S2 (repp86) and Ki-S5 (Ki-67). The labeling indices were quantified. RESULTS The mean labeling indexes for Ki-67 in MM and benign reactive MH were 24.6% (range, 1%-66%) and 6.23% (range, 0%-25%), respectively. The mean labeling indexes for repp86 in MM and benign reactive MH were 26.3% (range, 0%-50%) and 3.26% (range, 0%- 21%), respectively. The average proliferative cell count was significantly higher in MM compared with benign reactive MH (P < .001). Furthermore, both markers showed a significant correlation in their expression in MM and benign reactive MH (r = 77.5, P < .001). Sensitivities of 88% and 92% and specificities of 92% and 94% were obtained at a cutoff point of 9% for Ki-67 and repp86, respectively. CONCLUSIONS Used in combination, Ki-67 and repp86 appear to be useful markers in differentiating MM from benign reactive MH.
An Effective of Dye Molecules with Cadmium Sulfide Nanorods in Dye Sensitized Solar Cell (DSSCs)

The aligned hexagonal cadmium sulfide nanorods (CdSNR) have been synthe-sized by hydrothermal technique at 200ºC on fluorine tin oxide (FTO) sub-strates. Dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) based on the photoelectrode core-shell CdSNR array with conductive polymers nanocomposite of polyaniline (PANI) and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxyl-thiophene)/poly(styrene-sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) were fabricated and designed with different types of dye molecules. DSSCs were characterized utilizing scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Raman scattering, energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and photocurrent-voltage (J-V) characteristic. Results show that under illumination (AM 1.5 G), the high power conversion energy (PCE) was achieved for CdSNR/PANI-PEDOT:PSS device when it sensitized with ruthenium (II) (dye N-719) of 0.91% and a short circuit current density (Jsc) of 4.21 mA/cm2 in comparison with the other devices, which sensitized with natural dyes. The high performance of the CdSNR/PANI-PEDOT:PSS-N719 device attributed to the wide range of absorption and photostability for N719. This work shows that the CdSNR with N719 can be appropriate candidate for photovoltaics device for their low cost fabrication procedure and excellent absorption.
A Low Cost Context Adaptive Arithmetic Coder for H.264/MPEG-4 AVC Video Coding

This paper presents a fast and low cost context adaptive binary arithmetic encoder for H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video coding standard through both algorithm level and architecture level optimizations. First in the algorithm level, we process the binarization and context generation in parallel to reduce the encoding iteration cycles to three or four cycles from five cycles in the previous design. Second, in the architecture level, we reduce the cycles of renormalization loops by employing one-skipping and bit-parallelism, and save hardware cost of arithmetic coder by merging three different modes. The implemented design shows that it can achieve the 333 MHz frequency with only 13.3K gate count.
Organizational characteristics as a justification of employment discrimination

Title of dissertation: ORGANIZATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS AS A JUSTIFICATION OF EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION Eric Siegel, Doctor of Philosophy, 2010 Dissertation directed by: Professor Charles Stangor Department of Psychology This research explores the processes behind discrimination within or ga izations using the Justification-Suppression (JS) model (Crandall & Eshlema n, 2006). According to the JS model, internal cognitions, called justifications, can disi hibit prejudice and cause discrimination. The policies and characteristics of an rganization can be a source of the justifications that lead to discrimination within organizati ons. To explore this hypothesis, participants completed a hiring simulation task. In this e xperiment, the racial makeup of the company was manipulated so that the company was eit her homogeneously White or racially diverse. In addition, company communications, in the form of e-mails, were manipulated to change the company’s tolerance for discriminati on. Both the demographics and communications manipulations led the participants to di criminate in their hiring decisions. When both demographics and communications indicated discrimination was acceptable, the degree of discrimination was gr e ter than when there was a single source of justification. This implies that an or ganization’s characteristics can lead to increased discrimination. ORGANIZATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS AS A JUSTIFICATION OF EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION By Eric Forrest Siegel Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2010 Advisory Committee: Professor Charles Stangor, Chair Professor Paul J. Hanges Professor Michael R. Dougherty Professor Cheri Ostroff Professor Seppo Iso -Ahola ©Copyright by Eric F. Siegel 2010
Broadband linear-to-circular polarization converter based on phosphorene metamaterial

We propose a broadband reflective linear-to-circular (LTC) polarization converter in a mid-infrared regime based on monolayer black phosphorus (phosphorene) metamaterial. The proposed converter consists of periodic unit cells, each cell of which is formed by multiple phosphorene layers, a dielectric layer, and a fully reflective gold mirror. In the frequency range of 14.20 and 23.10 THz, the magnitudes of the reflection coefficients are approximately equal and the phase difference value between the two orthogonal electric field components of the reflected wave is close to π/2 or −3π/2, which indicates the reflective wave can be deemed the circular polarization with the incidence of linearly polarized wave. The simulation results show that the relative bandwidth of LTC polarization conversion reaches 58% and 47.8%, respectively, when the pucker ridge alignment of the phosphorene is perpendicular to the y-direction and x-direction. Finally, the physical mechanism is revealed via the field decomposition and current distribution. This polarization converter has great potential for future applications in electronic measurement, photonic design, and in some other optoelectronic systems.
Towards a flexible data center fabric with source routing

An emerging architecture for software-defined data centers andWANs is the network fabric, where complex application-sensitive functions are factored out, leaving the network itself to provide a simple, robust high-performance data delivery abstraction. This requires performing route optimization, in real time and across a diverse choice of paths. A large variety of techniques have been proposed to provide path diversity for network fabrics. But, running up against the constraint of forwarding table size, these proposals are topology-dependent, complex, and still only provide limited path choice which (we show) can impact performance. We propose a simple approach to realize the vision of a flexible, high-performance fabric: the network should expose every possible path, allowing a controller or edge device maximum choice. To this end, we observe that source routing can be encoded and processed compactly into a single field, even in large networks, with OpenFlow 1.3. We show that, in addition to the expected decrease in required forwarding table size, source routing supports optimal throughput performance, in some cases significantly higher than some past proposals. We thus believe source routing offers a clean abstraction and efficient implementation for future network fabrics.
Cosmology with ultralight pseudo Nambu-Goldstone bosons.

We explore the cosmological implications of an ultralight pseudo Nambu-Goldstone boson. With global spontaneous symmetry breaking scale $f\ensuremath{\simeq}{10}^{18}\mathrm{GeV}$ and explicit breaking scale comparable to Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein neutrino masses, $M\ensuremath{\sim}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}3}\mathrm{eV}$, such a field, which acquires a mass ${m}_{\ensuremath{\varphi}}\ensuremath{\sim}{M}^{2}/f\ensuremath{\sim}{H}_{0}$, would currently dominate the energy density of the Universe. The field acts as an effective cosmological constant before relaxing into a condensate of nonrelativistic bosons. Such a model can reconcile dynamical estimates of the density parameter, ${\ensuremath{\Omega}}_{m}\ensuremath{\sim}0.2$, with a spatially flat universe, yielding ${H}_{0}{t}_{0}\ensuremath{\simeq}1$ consistent with limits from gravitational lens statistics.
Review of Security in VANET

Now a day, Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANET) are becoming more widespread as the accident statistics increase. VANET simply provides numerous safety applications to save folks lives while driving on road, it also eliminates accidents and damage to the vehicles and people. VANET is regarded as MANET which is a subgroup of Mobile Ad-hoc Networks. Vehicles moving at different speeds are treated as the nodes. The main intension of VANET is to enable communication between vehicle to vehicle and in between vehicle to infrastructure. Transportation system’s security, safety and efficiency are improved by using Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). As VANET is becoming more popular, a severe issue in this situation is security. Security of VANET is of great significance reason for this is disastrous accidents are caused by any vulnerability in VANET where accidents result in the loss of live and also loss of integrity of people. There is assurance about the protection of personal data moved through VANET but not to location, identity, and destination, among others due to security schemes and mechanisms. The challenges of security must be included during the design of VANET architecture, cryptographic algorithm, security protocols etc. security issues such as real time constraint Data Consistency Liability, High Mobility, Low tolerance for error, Key Distribution, Incentives. To successfully deploy VANET, security is one of the major issues such as protection from selfcentered vehicles that may block or jumble traffic, false notifications etc. That may harm and losses lives, which must be addressed. There are various types of attacks like DOS, sybli attack, reply, man in middle attack etc. Various solutions for these attacks are available such as SRAN (secure routing for adhoc network) routing protocol based on AODV (ad-hoc on demand distance vector) protocol, General Active Position Detectors, Digital Certificate, etc Providing security in VANET is a challenging issue.