Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characterization of Multidrug-Resistant Salmonella enterica Serovars Indiana and Enteritidis from Chickens in Eastern China

A total of 310 Salmonella isolates were isolated from 6 broiler farms in Eastern China, serotyped according to the Kauffmann-White classification. All isolates were examined for susceptibility to 17 commonly used antimicrobial agents, representative isolates were examined for resistance genes and class I integrons using PCR technology. Clonality was determined by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). There were two serotypes detected in the 310 Salmonella strains, which included 133 Salmonella enterica serovar Indiana isolates and 177 Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis isolates. Antimicrobial sensitivity results showed that the isolates were generally resistant to sulfamethoxazole, ampicillin, tetracycline, doxycycline and trimethoprim, and 95% of the isolates sensitive to amikacin and polymyxin. Among all Salmonella enterica serovar Indiana isolates, 108 (81.2%) possessed the bla TEM, floR, tetA, strA and aac (6')-Ib-cr resistance genes. The detected carriage rate of class 1 integrons was 66.5% (206/310), with 6 strains carrying gene integron cassette dfr17-aadA5. The increasing frequency of multidrug resistance rate in Salmonella was associated with increasing prevalence of int1 genes (rs = 0.938, P = 0.00039). The int1, bla TEM, floR, tetA, strA and aac (6')-Ib-cr positive Salmonella enterica serovar Indiana isolates showed five major patterns as determined by PFGE. Most isolates exhibited the common PFGE patterns found from the chicken farms, suggesting that many multidrug-resistant isolates of Salmonella enterica serovar Indiana prevailed in these sources. Some isolates with similar antimicrobial resistance patterns represented a variety of Salmonella enterica serovar Indiana genotypes, and were derived from a different clone.
Species-appropriate computer mediated interaction

Given the importance of our non-human companions, do we not want to extend social media to our nonhuman co-species? If "human computer interfaces" should be designed for "Anyone. Anywhere. " (the theme of CHI 2001), then why not for all species? Recent pioneering efforts have shown that computer mediated interactions between humans and dogs, cats, chickens, cows, hamsters, and other species are technically possible. These efforts excite the imagination and challenge our understanding the basic nature of computer mediated interaction.
Current Empirical Research on Evaluation Utilization

This paper reviews empirical research conducted during the past 15 years on the use of evaluation results. Sixty-five studies in education, mental health, and social services are described in terms of their methodological characteristics, their orientation toward dependent and independent variables, and the relationships between such variables. A conceptual framework is developed that lists 12 factors that influence use; six of these factors are associated with characteristics of evaluation implementation and six with characteristics of decision or policy setting. The factors are discussed in terms of their influence on evaluation utilization, and their relative influence on various types of use is compared. The paper concludes with a statement about implications for research and practice.
Security Consistency in Information Ecosystems : Structuring the Risk Environment on the Internet

The concepts of information ecosystems and multi agent systems are used to describe a security consistency model where, as a background, humans are presumed to act as Machiavellian beings, i.e. behaving selfishly. Based on this notion, we analyze behaviors initiated by network contaminants derived from the groupings marketing, espionage and malice, and their effects to an entire ecosystem. The contribution of this paper is a security consistency model, which illustrates a comprehensive and systemic view of the evolutionary risk environment in information networks.
Integrin β1-mediated acquired gefitinib resistance in non-small cell lung cancer cells occurs via the phosphoinositide 3-kinase-dependent pathway

The present study aimed to explore the role of integrin β1 and the relevant signaling pathways in acquired gefitinib resistance in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The inhibitory effects of gefitinib, with or without LY294002, on cellular proliferation were evaluated by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl) 2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide assay. Cell cycle progression and apoptosis were analyzed by flow cytometry, while western blotting was used to evaluate the expression of EGFR, phosphorylated (phospho)-EGFR, protein kinase B (Akt), phospho-Akt, extracellular signal-regulated kinase (Erk) and phospho-Erk. The gene expression profiles of PC9 and PC9/G cells were determined by DNA microarray. Integrin β1 was knocked down in PC9/G cells by transiently transfected short interfering RNA (siRNA). A scrambled siRNA sequence was used as a control. Apoptosis of transfected cells was determined by Annexin V-phycoerythrin-Cy5/propidium iodide staining. Sequencing products were amplified by nested PCR. The resistant index of PC9/G cells to gefitinib was ~138- to 256-fold higher than that of PC9 cells, and this resistance was accompanied by significant increase in integrin β1 expression in PC9/G cells. Knockdown of integrin β1 with short hairpin RNA in PC9/G cells markedly inhibited proliferation and enhanced apoptosis in response to gefitinib, restoring the sensitivity of PC9/G cells gefitinib. Phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt activation was observed in PC9/G cells in the presence of gefitinib and the sensitivity of PC9/G cells to gefitinib was also able to be restored by PI3K/Akt pathway inhibitor LY294002. Finally, knockdown of integrin β1 significantly reduced the levels of phospho-Akt. These findings suggest that integrin β1 signaling via the PI3K/Akt pathway may be a significant mechanism underlying gefitinib resistance, and may potentially present an alternative therapeutic target for the treatment of NSCLC unresponsive to EGFR inhibitors.
Physiological Determinants of the Candidate Physical Ability Test in Firefighters

Sheaff, AK, Bennett, A, Hanson, ED, Kim, Y-S, Hsu, J, Shim, JK, Edwards, ST, and Hurley, BF. Physiological determinants of the candidate physical ability test in firefighters. J Strength Cond Res 24(11): 3112-3122, 2010-The purpose of this study was to examine the relative importance of physiological characteristics during firefighting performance, as assessed by the Candidate Physical Ability Test (CPAT). Subjects included career and volunteer firefighters aged 18-39 (N = 33). Upper- and lower-body strength, muscle endurance, lower body muscle power, body composition analysis, aerobic capacity, anaerobic fitness, and the heart rate (HR) and blood pressure response to stair climbing were assessed to determine the physiological characteristics of the subjects. To quantify firefighting performance, the CPAT was administered by members of the fire service. Absolute and relative mean power during the Wingate anaerobic cycling test (WAnT), relative peak power during the WAnT, and absolute maximal oxygen uptake (&OV0312;o2max) were significantly higher in those who passed the CPAT (N = 18), compared to those who failed (N = 15; p < 0.01). Mean power during the WAnT, fatigue index during WAnT, absolute &OV0312;o2max, upper body strength, grip strength, and the HR response to stair climbing were significantly related to CPAT performance time (p < 0.01). Absolute &OV0312;o2max and anaerobic fatigue resistance during WAnT best predicted CPAT performance (Adj. R2 = 0.817; p < 0.001). Performance on the ceiling breach and pull was the only CPAT task that was not significantly related to the physiological characteristics assessed. Measures of anaerobic and cardiovascular fitness best predict overall CPAT performance, and individual task performance. Remedial programs aimed at improving firefighting performance should target anaerobic and aerobic fitness qualities.
Body-bias compensation technique for subthreshold CMOS static logic gates

This paper analyzes the performance of the conventional CMOS inverter, NAND-2 and NOR-2 static logic gates operating in the subthreshold region. The dependence of the drain currents on the process parameters can give rise to drive currents of NMOS and PMOS transistors that differ by an order of magnitude or even more. To compensate for this difference in currents, we propose three bias circuits in single-well processes that adjust the body voltage. Computer simulations using the AMS 0.8 /spl mu/m technology and the BSIM3v3 model were carried out to assess the compensation technique. A test chip was fabricated in both AMIS 1.5 /spl mu/m and TSMC0.35 /spl mu/m to further validate the proposal.
c-Cbl-Mediated Regulation of LAT-Nucleated Signaling Complexes

ABSTRACT The engagement of the T-cell receptor (TCR) causes the rapid recruitment of multiple signaling molecules into clusters with the TCR. Upon receptor activation, the adapters LAT and SLP-76, visualized as chimeric proteins tagged with yellow fluorescent protein, transiently associate with and then rapidly dissociate from the TCR. Previously, we demonstrated that after recruitment into signaling clusters, SLP-76 is endocytosed in vesicles via a lipid raft-dependent pathway that requires the interaction of the endocytic machinery with ubiquitylated proteins. In this study, we focus on LAT and demonstrate that signaling clusters containing this adapter are internalized into distinct intracellular compartments and dissipate rapidly upon TCR activation. The internalization of LAT was inhibited in cells expressing versions of the ubiquitin ligase c-Cbl mutated in the RING domain and in T cells from mice lacking c-Cbl. Moreover, c-Cbl RING mutant forms suppressed LAT ubiquitylation and caused an increase in cellular LAT levels, as well as basal and TCR-induced levels of phosphorylated LAT. Collectively, these data indicate that following the rapid formation of signaling complexes upon TCR stimulation, c-Cbl activity is involved in the internalization and possible downregulation of a subset of activated signaling molecules.
A fast algorithm for unsupervised incremental speaker adaptation

Speaker adaptation algorithms often require a rather large amount of adaptation data in order to estimate the new parameters reliably. We investigate how adaptation can be performed in real-time applications with only a few seconds of speech from each user. We propose a modified Bayesian codebook reestimation which does not need the computationally intensive evaluation of normal densities and thus speeds up the adaptation remarkably, e.g. by a factor of 18 for 24-dimensional feature vectors. We performed experiments in two real-time applications with very small amounts of adaptation data, and achieved a word error reduction of up to 11%.
An Intelligent Decision Support System for the Operating Theater: A Case Study

From long to short term planning, decision processes inherent to operating theater organization are often subject of empiricism, leading to far from optimal results. Waiting lists for surgery have always been a societal problem, which governments have been fighting with different management and operational stimulus plans. The current hospital information systems available in Portuguese public hospitals, lack a decision support system component that could help achieve better planning solutions. Thus, an intelligent decision support system has been developed, allowing the centralization and standardization of planning processes, improving the efficiency of the operating theater and tackling the waiting lists for surgery fragile situation. The intelligence of the system derives from data mining and optimization techniques, which enhance surgery duration predictions and operating rooms surgery schedules. Experimental results show significant gains, reducing overtime, undertime, and better resource utilization.
Renal Sympathetic Denervation in the Treatment of Resistant Hypertension

Arterial hypertension (HTN) is a major health problem worldwide. Treatment-resistant hypertension (trHTN) is defined as the failure to achieve target blood pressure despite the concomitant use of maximally tolerated doses of three different antihypertensive medications, including a diuretic. trHTN is associated with considerable morbidity and mortality. Renal sympathetic denervation (RDn) is available and implemented abroad as a strategy for the treatment of trHTN and is currently under clinical investigation in the United States. Selective renal sympathectomy via an endovascular approach effectively decreases renal sympathetic nerve hyperactivity leading to a decrease in blood pressure. The Symplicity catheter, currently under investigation in the United States, is a 6-French compatible system advanced under fluoroscopic guidance via percutaneous access of the common femoral artery to the distal lumen of each of the main renal arteries. Radiofrequency (RF) energy is then applied to the endoluminal surface of the renal arteries via an electrode located at the tip of the catheter. Two clinical trials (Symplicity HTN 1 and Symplicity HTN 2) have shown the efficacy of RDn with a post-procedure decline of 27/17mmHg at 12 months and 32/12 mmHg at 6 months, respectively, with few minor adverse events. Symplicity HTN-3 study is a, multi-center, prospective, single-blind, randomized, controlled study currently under way and will provide further insights about the safety and efficacy of renal denervation in patients with trHTN.
miRNA Profiling of Naïve, Effector and Memory CD8 T Cells

microRNAs have recently emerged as master regulators of gene expression during development and cell differentiation. Although profound changes in gene expression also occur during antigen-induced T cell differentiation, the role of miRNAs in the process is not known. We compared the miRNA expression profiles between antigen-specific naïve, effector and memory CD8+ T cells using 3 different methods-small RNA cloning, miRNA microarray analysis and real-time PCR. Although many miRNAs were expressed in all the T cell subsets, the frequency of 7 miRNAs (miR-16, miR-21, miR-142-3p, miR-142-5p, miR-150, miR-15b and let-7f) alone accounted for ∼60% of all miRNAs, and their expression was several fold higher than the other expressed miRNAs. Global downregulation of miRNAs (including 6/7 dominantly expressed miRNAs) was observed in effector T cells compared to naïve cells and the miRNA expression levels tended to come back up in memory T cells. However, a few miRNAs, notably miR-21 were higher in effector and memory T cells compared to naïve T cells. These results suggest that concomitant with profound changes in gene expression, miRNA profile also changes dynamically during T cell differentiation. Sequence analysis of the cloned mature miRNAs revealed an extensive degree of end polymorphism. While 3′end polymorphisms dominated, heterogeneity at both ends, resembling drosha/dicer processing shift was also seen in miR-142, suggesting a possible novel mechanism to generate new miRNA and/or to diversify miRNA target selection. Overall, our results suggest that dynamic changes in the expression of miRNAs may be important for the regulation of gene expression during antigen-induced T cell differentiation. Our study also suggests possible novel mechanisms for miRNA biogenesis and function.
Wireless sensor and actor q networks : research challenges qq

Wireless sensor and actor networks (WSANs) refer to a group of sensors and actors linked by wireless medium to perform distributed sensing and acting tasks. The realization of wireless sensor and actor networks (WSANs) needs to satisfy the requirements introduced by the coexistence of sensors and actors. In WSANs, sensors gather information about the physical world, while actors take decisions and then perform appropriate actions upon the environment, which allows a user to effectively sense and act from a distance. In order to provide effective sensing and acting, coordination mechanisms are required among sensors and actors. Moreover, to perform right and timely actions, sensor data must be valid at the time of acting. This paper explores sensor-actor and actor-actor coordination and describes research challenges for coordination and communication problems. 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
The Impact of Sports Magazine Consumption on Mesomorphic Body Standards and Self-sexualizing Behaviors: A Panel Study of Preadolescent Boys

The present three-wave panel study of 496 preadolescent boys (Mage = 11.36, SD = 1.07) examined the impact of sports magazine consumption on mesomorphic body standards and self-sexualizing behaviors (e.g., drinking shakes in order to gain muscle mass, choosing clothing to show off muscles). Grounded in social cognitive theory, we also examined the moderating role of reward sensitivity. Results revealed that boys who consumed more sports magazines at wave 1 (W1) were more likely to report personal mesomorphic standards and perceived mesomorphic standards for men and boys in general at wave 2 (W2). Additionally, W2 personal mesomorphic standards mediated the relationship between sports magazine consumption at W1 and self-sexualizing behaviors at wave 3. Reward sensitivity moderated the relationship between personal mesomorphic standards and self-sexualizing behaviors.
SMOS: The Challenging Sea Surface Salinity Measurement From Space

Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity, European Space Agency, is the first satellite mission addressing the challenge of measuring sea surface salinity from space. It uses an L-band microwave interferometric radiometer with aperture synthesis (MIRAS) that generates brightness temperature images, from which both geophysical variables are computed. The retrieval of salinity requires very demanding performances of the instrument in terms of calibration and stability. This paper highlights the importance of ocean salinity for the Earth's water cycle and climate; provides a detailed description of the MIRAS instrument, its principles of operation, calibration, and image-reconstruction techniques; and presents the algorithmic approach implemented for the retrieval of salinity from MIRAS observations, as well as the expected accuracy of the obtained results.
Planum temporale and Heschl gyrus volume reduction in schizophrenia: a magnetic resonance imaging study of first-episode patients.

BACKGROUND Magnetic resonance imaging studies in schizophrenia have revealed abnormalities in temporal lobe structures, including the superior temporal gyrus. More specifically, abnormalities have been reported in the posterior superior temporal gyrus, which includes the Heschl gyrus and planum temporale, the latter being an important substrate for language. However, the specificity of the Heschl gyrus and planum temporale structural abnormalities to schizophrenia vs affective psychosis, and the possible confounding roles of chronic morbidity and neuroleptic treatment, remain unclear. METHODS Magnetic resonance images were acquired using a 1.5-T magnet from 20 first-episode (at first hospitalization) patients with schizophrenia (mean age, 27.3 years), 24 first-episode patients with manic psychosis (mean age, 23.6 years), and 22 controls (mean age, 24.5 years). There was no significant difference in age for the 3 groups. All brain images were uniformly aligned and then reformatted and resampled to yield isotropic voxels. RESULTS Gray matter volume of the left planum temporale differed among the 3 groups. The patients with schizophrenia had significantly smaller left planum temporale volume than controls (20.0%) and patients with mania (20.0%). Heschl gyrus gray matter volume (left and right) was also reduced in patients with schizophrenia compared with controls (13.1%) and patients with bipolar mania (16.8%). CONCLUSIONS Compared with controls and patients with bipolar manic psychosis, patients with first-episode schizophrenia showed left planum temporale gray matter volume reduction and bilateral Heschl gyrus gray matter volume reduction. These findings are similar to those reported in patients with chronic schizophrenia and suggest that such abnormalities are present at first episode and are specific to schizophrenia.
Laboratory assessment of the influence of rice straw mulch size on soil loss

Abstract. Application of crop residues (mulch) over the soil surface is a common practice to control soil erosion and promote infiltration. This laboratory study aimed at investigating the effect of different rice straw mulch sizes on runoff and sediment transport. The experimental runs were conducted using a soil flume of adjustable slope and a rainfall simulator, considering bare soil and three different soil covers: 1, 2 and 5 t ha−1 application rates, for three sizes of rice straw mulch (10, 30 and 200 mm). The experimental results showed that for the same mulch application rate (by weight), the smaller mulch sizes (i.e. high surface coverage percentage) presented less soil loss. For example, 90 % soil loss reduction was achieved for smaller sizes of rice straw mulch and 80 % for the bigger size. The results of this study are an important contribution to the understanding of the soil loss process in small basins and to the definition of relevant soil conservation measures, at the plot/field scale.
Simple Cortical and Thalamic Neuron Models for Digital Arithmetic Circuit Implementation

Trade-off between reproducibility of neuronal activities and computational efficiency is one of crucial subjects in computational neuroscience and neuromorphic engineering. A wide variety of neuronal models have been studied from different viewpoints. The digital spiking silicon neuron (DSSN) model is a qualitative model that focuses on efficient implementation by digital arithmetic circuits. We expanded the DSSN model and found appropriate parameter sets with which it reproduces the dynamical behaviors of the ionic-conductance models of four classes of cortical and thalamic neurons. We first developed a four-variable model by reducing the number of variables in the ionic-conductance models and elucidated its mathematical structures using bifurcation analysis. Then, expanded DSSN models were constructed that reproduce these mathematical structures and capture the characteristic behavior of each neuron class. We confirmed that statistics of the neuronal spike sequences are similar in the DSSN and the ionic-conductance models. Computational cost of the DSSN model is larger than that of the recent sophisticated Integrate-and-Fire-based models, but smaller than the ionic-conductance models. This model is intended to provide another meeting point for above trade-off that satisfies the demand for large-scale neuronal network simulation with closer-to-biology models.
Localization for Lost Robots through Scene Recognition (May 2008)

Mobile robot localization is a common problem in the robotics community, yet many proposed solutions are hardware dependent, requiring various sensors with prior environment information, or solutions that require continuous feature tracking such as the simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) framework, where prior motion dynamics or accurate odometry is required. However, these localization techniques are not robust to handle localization for single-camera lost robots, where the system can encounter temporary lack of features to track, thus hindering the system lost without any method to recover and regain correspondence to the previously built map. In this paper, we present a technique that addresses these issues and achieves robust performance in localizing a lost robot through finding correspondence between the current scene and a previously built map.