Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Draft Genome Sequence of Halomonas sp. Strain HAL1, a Moderately Halophilic Arsenite-Oxidizing Bacterium Isolated from Gold-Mine Soil

ABSTRACT We report the draft genome sequence of arsenite-oxidizing Halomonas sp. strain HAL1, isolated from the soil of a gold mine. Genes encoding proteins involved in arsenic resistance and transformation, phosphate utilization and uptake, and betaine biosynthesis were identified. Their identification might help in understanding how arsenic and phosphate metabolism are intertwined.
Tick salivary gland extract and interleukin-2 stimulation enhance susceptibility of lymphocytes to infection by Theileria parva sporozoites

Intracellular parasites show host cell specificity, and precise information on the range of host cells is a prerequisite for the identification of host molecules that account for the specificity and are involved in entry processes. The sporozoite stage of the tick-borne protozoan parasite Theileria parva binds to and enters bovine lymphocytes, but precise information on the susceptibility of other cell types present at the tick attachment site is unavailable. We quantitatively examined the susceptibility of cell types known to be present at the tick attachment site by a previously established in vitro assay. Apart from lymphocytes, sporozoites also bind to and enter macrophages and afferent lymph veiled cells; they do not bind to or enter fibroblasts, granulocytes, or erythrocytes. Sporozoites are not phagocytosed by the macrophages or veiled cells but enter them as they do lymphocytes. Since the tick attachment site is a region of cellular inflammation, we also examined the effects of agents known to be present in this area on lymphocyte susceptibility. Short-term preincubation of lymphocytes with tick salivary gland extract, with compounds that induce lymphocyte proliferation, or with interleukin-2 (IL-2), a cytokine produced by activated lymphocytes, increased host cell susceptibility by between 30 and 60%. The IL-2-induced increase in host cell susceptibility could be prevented by treating the lymphocytes with the monoclonal antibody IL-A 111, which reacts with the bovine IL-2 receptor alpha chain and inhibits IL-2-driven cell proliferation. The changes induced by tick salivary gland extract and IL-2 occurred in less than 90 min. Similarly, peripheral blood mononuclear cells from an animal previously immunized with a nonrelated antigen (trypanosome variant surface glycoprotein) and stimulated in vitro with the same antigen showed increases in host cell susceptibility of between 70 and 125%. In contrast, treatment of lymphocytes with gamma interferon did not induce any increase in host cell susceptibility.
Crack cocaine and cocaine hydrochloride. Are the differences myth or reality?

OBJECTIVE To review and discuss the differences and similarities between the use of crack cocaine and cocaine hydrochloride; and to determine how these findings might affect policies on the imprisonment and treatment of cocaine users. DATA SOURCES English-language publications were identified through a computerized search (using MEDLINE) between 1976 and 1996 using the search terms "smoked cocaine," "crack cocaine," "freebase," and "cocaine-base. " In addition, manual searches were conducted on references cited in original research articles, reviews, and an annotated bibliography, and on selected journals. STUDY SELECTION Only those articles that compared various routes of cocaine administration or types of cocaine (cocaine base or crack cocaine vs cocaine hydrochloride) were examined. DATA EXTRACTION Studies were reviewed to obtain information on the composition of the 2 forms of cocaine, and the prevalence, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, abuse liability, pattern of use, and consequences across the various routes of cocaine administration and forms of cocaine. CONCLUSION Cocaine hydrochloride is readily converted to base prior to use. The physiological and psychoactive effects of cocaine are similar regardless of whether it is in the form of cocaine hydrochloride or crack cocaine (cocaine base). However, evidence exists showing a greater abuse liability, greater propensity for dependence, and more severe consequences when cocaine is smoked (cocaine-base) or injected intravenously (cocaine hydrochloride) compared with intranasal use (cocaine hydrochloride). The crucial variables appear to be the immediacy, duration, and magnitude of cocaine's effect, as well as the frequency and amount of cocaine used rather than the form of the cocaine. Furthermore, cocaine hydrochloride used intranasally may be a gateway drug or behavior to using crack cocaine. Based on these findings, the federal sentencing guidelines allowing possession of 100 times more cocaine hydrochloride than crack cocaine to trigger mandatory minimum penalties is deemed excessive. Although crack cocaine has been linked with crime to a greater extent than cocaine hydrochloride, many of these crimes are associated with the addiction to cocaine. Therefore, those addicted individuals who are incarcerated for the sale or possession of cocaine are better served by treatment than prison.
Reliability and Validity of the Menopausal Symptom Scale

Menopausal symptom experiences differ by racial/ethnic group. Thus, health care professionals who use instruments to measure menopausal symptoms need to be aware of cultural sensitivities. The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Menopausal Symptom Scale among Korean women. Data from 229 Korean women between the ages of 40 and 65 years, selected by convenience sampling, were collected during 2010–2011. Psychometric properties were evaluated through content validity and item analysis, construct validity, discriminant validity, criterion-related validity, floor/ceiling effects, and internal consistency reliability. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed four factors explaining 65% of variance in the items. Discriminant validity and the criterion-related validity were supported. No significant floor/ceiling effects were found. Cronbach’s alpha values ranged from 0.90 to 0.95. The Menopausal Symptom Scale developed for Korean menopausal women appeared to be a valid and reliable instrument. It appeared that it measured psychological symptoms more comprehensively and in a culturally-specific or ethnic-specific manner in menopausal women of Asian or traditional cultures. It will be necessary to broaden the scale of research to other ethnic groups and countries to verify the psychometric properties specific to the ethnic group or country.
Malignant Mixedmullerian Tumor of Uterus: Rare Case & Rarer Diagnosis

Carcinosarcoma or malignant mixed mullerian tumor (MMMT) of uterus is a rare tumor, representing only 1-2 % of all uterine neoplasm. The pre-operative diagnosis of MMMT can be a challenge as no preoperative diagnostic test including endometrial biopsy, CT or MRI has enough sensitivity or specificity. We are reporting one such case of MMMT where endometrial biopsy failed to make a pre-operative diagnosis to highlight the fact that a definitive pre-operative diagnosis can only be made in a small proportion of such cases thus precluding optimal surgery in such cases. Keywords: Carcinosarcoma, Malignant mixed mullerian tumor, Endometrial biopsy.
Detecting Active Bot Networks Based on DNS Traffic Analysis

Abstract—One of the serious threats to cyberspace is the Bot networks or Botnets. Bots are malicious software that acts as a network and allows hackers to remotely manage and control infected computer victims. Given the fact that DNS is one of the most common protocols in the network and is essential for the proper functioning of the network, it is very useful for monitoring, detecting and reducing the activity of the Botnets. DNS queries are sent in the early stages of the life cycle of each Botnet, so infected hosts are identified before any malicious activity is performed. Because the exchange of information in the network environment and the volume of information is very high, Storing and indexing this massive data requires a large database. By using the DNS traffic analysis, we try to identify the Botnets. We used the data generated from the network traffic and information of known Botnets with the Splunk platform to conduct data analysis to quickly identify attacks and predict potential dangers that could arise. The analysis results were used in tests conducted on real network environments to determine the types of attacks. Visual IP mapping was then used to determine actions that could be taken. The proposed method is capable of recognizing known and unknown Bots.
The dynamics of consumer credit and household indebtedness in South Africa

The National Credit Act 34 of 2005 (NCA) – passed in March 2006 and came into full operation on 1 June 2007 – was introduced in response to the perceived wide-ranging consumer abuses and irresponsible market practices reported to be a result of weak, outdated and fragmented consumer credit laws. As such, one of the purposes of this Act is to protect credit consumers from over-indebtedness by aiding consumers’ decision making, and addressing imbalances in the negotiating power between consumers and credit providers with tools to inter alia, enforce disclosure and information sharing, prevent reckless lending, and improve consumer education. This chapter analyses the formulation and implementation of the NCA in the context of the prevention of consumer over-indebtedness. Particular attention is paid to the Act’s provisions that might have a direct influence on the application for and acceptance of debt – particularly those that affect consumers’ pre-contractual decision making. Provisions to alleviate over-indebtedness are outside the scope of this chapter. This study finds that the Act has the potential to deliver both individual protection (notably through its requirements on disclosures and fair contracting) and social protection (through registration of the main players, education and public awareness, etc.,) albeit with major shortcomings, including inadequacies in compliance monitoring. The study is based principally on information available in the literature and public record, particularly debates and hearings in the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee.
Comparison of the clinical features and clinical course of antimitochondrial antibody‐positive and ‐negative primary biliary cirrhosis

Reports from North America and Northern Europe have suggested that antimitochondrial antibody (AMA) negative primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) is a distinct chronic cholestatic liver disease with high prevalence of serum non‐organ‐specific autoantibodies other than AMA. To evaluate if such a peculiar serum immunoreactivity is associated with clinically relevant characteristics, we reviewed our experience with 297 Italian patients who have had a clinical and histological diagnosis of PBC and were regularly followed‐up at our Center from June 1974 to June 1994. AMA‐negative and AMA‐positive patients were compared in terms of biochemical and clinical features, and clinical outcome of the disease. At presentation, 30 of 297 patients (10%) tested negative for AMA by indirect immunofluorescence. Six of them tested positive for antimitochondrial M2 antibodies (AMA‐M2) by immunoblotting analysis, therefore, diagnosis of AMA‐negative PBC was made in 24 patients (8%). At the initial visit, AMA‐negative and AMA‐positive patients were similar in terms of biochemical and clinical features. Antinuclear and anti‐smooth‐muscle antibodies (ANA and ASMA) were more frequently positive in the AMA‐negative patients (71% vs. 31%, and 37% vs. 9%; both P = .0002). Incidence of complications of cirrhosis and development of liver failure resulting in death or referral for liver transplantation did not differ significantly between the two populations. In conclusion, data from this historical cohort study suggest that the distinct serological features of AMA‐negative PBC are not associated with substantial differences in the clinical spectrum or course of the disease.
A Semismooth Newton Method with Multidimensional Filter Globalization for l1-Optimization

Due to their property of enhancing the sparsity of solutions, $l_1$-regularized optimization problems have developed into a highly dynamic research area with a wide range of applications. We present a class of methods for $l_1$-regularized optimization problems that are based on a combination of semismooth Newton steps, a filter globalization, and shrinkage/thresholding steps. A multidimensional filter framework is used to control the acceptance and to evaluate the quality of the semismooth Newton steps. If the current Newton iterate is rejected a shrinkage/thresholding-based step with quasi-Armijo stepsize rule is used instead. Global convergence and transition to local q-superlinear convergence for both convex and nonconvex objective functions are established. We present numerical results and comparisons with several state-of-the-art methods that show the efficiency and competitiveness of the proposed method.
Expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and its two receptors (VEGF‐R1‐Flt1 and VEGF‐R2‐Flk1/KDR) in non‐small cell lung carcinomas (NSCLCs): correlation with angiogenesis and survival

The formation of new vessels (angiogenesis) is essential for primary tumour growth and metastasis and is induced by several angiogenic factors, including vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). The microvascular density (MVD) in tumours was assessed and the expression of VEGF and its receptors VEGF‐R1‐Flt1 and VEGF‐R2‐KDR/Flk1 was investigated in the different cellular compartments in vivo, in order to establish their interrelationship and their prognostic influence. Immunohistochemical study of 69 stage I–II non‐small cell lung carcinomas (NSCLCs) was performed on paraffin sections with CD34 antibody to estimate MVD, using a Chalkley eye‐piece graticule and VEGF, VEGF‐R1, and VEGF‐R2 antibodies. There was strong expression of VEGF and its receptors in tumour cells, endothelial cells, and stromal fibroblasts. In tumour cells, the level of VEGF was correlated with that of VEGF‐R1 ( p = 0·018) but not that of VEGF‐R2. In fibroblasts, high expression of VEGF was correlated with that of VEGF‐R1 ( p = 0·0001) and VEGF‐R2 ( p = 0·0001). In endothelial cells, expression of VEGF was correlated with that of VEGF‐R1 ( p < 0·0001) and VEGF‐R2 ( p = 0·04). The level of VEGF in fibroblasts was correlated with that of VEGF‐R1 ( p = 0·0028) and VEGF‐R2 ( p = 0·01) in endothelial cells. There was no correlation between the level of MVD and that of VEGF or VEGF‐R1 or VEGF‐R2. Neither the level of MVD, nor the level of expression of VEGF and VEGF receptors in any compartment influenced the patient's survival. In conclusion, although angiogenesis is essential for tumour growth, this study failed to demonstrate that MVD, VEGF, VEGF‐R1, and VEGF‐R2 are prognostic markers for stage I–II NSCLC. VEGF, however, might act as a direct autocrine growth factor for tumour cells via VEGF‐R1 and angiogenesis could be promoted in a paracrine loop, where VEGF is produced by fibroblasts and tumour cells and then binds to endothelial cells via induced VEGF receptors. VEGF and its receptors thus appear as relevant therapeutic targets in NSCLC. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
IMAGING SPECTROSCOPY AND LIGHT DETECTION AND RANGING DATA FUSION FOR URBAN FEATURES EXTRACTION

This study presents our findings on the fusion of Imaging Spectroscopy (IS) and LiDAR data for urban feature extraction. We carried out necessary preprocessing of the hyperspectral image. Minimum Noise Fraction (MNF) transforms was used for ordering hyperspectral bands according to their noise. Thereafter, we employed Optimum Index Factor (OIF) to statistically select the three most appropriate bands combination from MNF result. The composite image was classified using unsupervised classification (k-mean algorithm) and the accuracy of the classification assessed. Digital Surface Model (DSM) and LiDAR intensity were generated from the LiDAR point cloud. The LiDAR intensity was filtered to remove the noise. Hue Saturation Intensity (HSI) fusion algorithm was used to fuse the imaging spectroscopy and DSM as well as imaging spectroscopy and filtered intensity. The fusion of imaging spectroscopy and DSM was found to be better than that of imaging spectroscopy and LiDAR intensity quantitatively. The three datasets (imaging spectrocopy, DSM and Lidar intensity fused data) were classified into four classes: building, pavement, trees and grass using unsupervised classification and the accuracy of the classification assessed. The result of the study shows that fusion of imaging spectroscopy and LiDAR data improved the visual identification of surface features. Also, the classification accuracy improved from an overall accuracy of 84.6% for the imaging spectroscopy data to 90.2% for the DSM fused data. Similarly, the Kappa Coefficient increased from 0.71 to 0.82. on the other hand, classification of the fused LiDAR intensity and imaging spectroscopy data perform poorly quantitatively with overall accuracy of 27.8% and kappa coefficient of 0.0988.
Comparison of Graphene-Based Transverse Magnetic and Electric Surface Plasmon Modes

Dispersion properties and field distributions of graphene supported transverse magnetic (TM) and transverse electric (TE) surface plasmon (SP) modes in air-graphene-SiO2-Si structures have been investigated. The results show that graphene-based TM (TE) SPs are bound (lossy) modes, which decay into the air in the range of tens of micrometers (several thousand micrometers). In addition, when the thickness of the SiO2 layer is in the range of 200-300 nm, the influence of the Si substrate on the dispersion property is significant (negligible) for the TM (TE) modes. Furthermore, the effective indexes of the graphene TM (TE) modes increase with the increase (decrease) of the frequency. Compared with the traditional metal-based structures, graphene-based TM mode exhibits a better confinement but with a larger loss. The presented results are useful for the design of compact graphene-based optoelectronic devices.
A unifying theory of distributed processing (or, the Chutzpah one should expect when you invite a microarchitect into your sandbox)

Summary form only given. In this talk the author proposes to give us his understanding of distributed processing, how it differs fundamentally from non-distributed processing, and show that in this world of continually increasing complexity, it is the only paradigm that makes sense. Not surprisingly, the effective (and ineffective) uses of distributed processing are all around us. Several enlightening examples: an effective military, organized religion, the American game of football, and university education. The author discusses each. The author submits that these examples have a unifying theory that could be relevant to microarchitecture. The author describes it as a two-phased approach: preparation and execution. The microarchitect historically has designed central processing units. But to keep pace with current and future design points, including processing power that device technology continues to provide, distributed processing technology becomes essential. Along the way, the author introduces and explains the relevance of my levels of transformation, multichip processors, the refrigerator, and data flow.
Wireless Sensor Networks : A Comprehensive Comparison of Routing Protocols and Energy Efficient Techniques

Wireless sensor network is a network of randomly distributed autonomous sensors to oversee different environmental conditions. Contemporary enhancements in the field of wireless communications, memory, processor and radio technology have enabled the growth of low-cost sensor networks and sensor nodes which is proficient in sensing, communication and calculation. These sensor networks have tremendous applications in the various fields of life (Medical, military, industry, surveillance systems, etc.). Because of this large number of applications, there are copious routing protocols and techniques under which these sensor networks are accomplished. This survey presents the current state of the art of WSN’s, a collective knowledge of those routing protocols (S-MAC, MAC, IEEE 802.11, LEACH, and SPIN) and energy efficient techniques (clustering technique, directed diffusion technique) which are being implemented for their competent functioning. Further, those routing protocols will be discussed briefly and their different aspects and characteristics will be compared. Finally, a better idea among all these routing protocols and energy efficient techniques for WSN’s will be presented.
Fermi points and topological quantum phase transitions in a multi-band superconductor

The importance of models with an exact solution for the study of materials with non-trivial topological properties has been extensively demonstrated. The Kitaev model plays a guiding role in the search for Majorana modes in condensed matter systems. Also, the sp-chain with an anti-symmetric mixing among the s and p bands is a paradigmatic example of a topological insulator with well understood properties. Interestingly, these models share the same universality class for their topological quantum phase transitions. In this work we study a two-band model of spinless fermions with attractive inter-band interactions. We obtain its zero temperature phase diagram, which presents a rich variety of phases including a Weyl superconductor and a topological insulator. The transition from the topological to the trivial superconducting phase has critical exponents different from those of Kitaev’s model.
Transcranial Doppler Shortens the Time Between Clinical Brain Death and Angiographic Confirmation: A Randomized Trial

Background Brain death diagnosis relies on clinical signs, but confirmatory tests are legally mandatory in some countries. In France, transcranial Doppler (TCD) is not recognized as a legal test to confirm brain death. Nevertheless, experts recommend its use to determine the need for a legal confirmatory test. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that TCD shortens the time between clinical brain death and computed tomography angiography (CTA) confirmation. Methods We conducted a prospective randomized controlled study to evaluate the benefit of a TCD-directed strategy before performing the CTA to confirm brain death. Once the clinical diagnosis of brain death was established, subjects were randomized in a conventional group (CTA 6 hr later as recommended in France) or a TCD group (TCD examination every 2 hr until intracranial brain death flow patterns were found). Forty-four subjects were needed to show a difference of 2 hr between the two strategies. Results TCD strategy resulted in a shorter time between clinical diagnosis of brain death and CTA confirmation compared with conventional strategy (2.0 [1.3–2.6] vs. 7.2 [6.3–9.5] hr, P<0.0001). The number of brain CTA performed to confirm the diagnosis of brain death was not different between groups. Conclusions Our results suggest that TCD-directed strategy allows reducing the time between clinical diagnosis of brain death and CTA confirmation.