Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Genome-Wide Gene Expression Analysis of the Switch between Acidogenesis and Solventogenesis in Continuous Cultures of Clostridium acetobutylicum

Clostridium acetobutylicum is able to switch from acidogenic growth to solventogenic growth. We used phosphate-limited continuous cultures that established acidogenic growth at pH 5.8 and solventogenic growth at pH 4.5. These cultures allowed a detailed transcriptomic study of the switch from acidogenesis to solventogenesis that is not superimposed by sporulation and other growth phase-dependent parameters. These experiments led to new insights into the physiological role of several genes involved in solvent formation. The adc gene for acetone decarboxylase is upregulated well before the rest of the sol locus during the switch, and pyruvate decarboxylase is induced exclusively for the period of this switch. The aldehyde-alcohol dehydrogenase gene adhE1 located in the sol operon is regulated antagonistically to the paralog adhE2 that is expressed during acidogenic conditions. A similar antagonistic pattern can be seen with the two paralogs of thiolase genes, thlA and thlB. Interestingly, the genes coding for the putative cellulosome in C. acetobutylicum are exclusively transcribed throughout solventogenic growth. The genes for stress response are only induced during the shift but not in the course of solventogenesis when butanol is present in the culture. Finally, the data clearly indicate that solventogenesis is independent from sporulation.
A perceptual subspace approach for speech enhancement

A Perceptual Constrained Generalized Singular Value Decomposition (PCGSVD)-based approach is proposed here for the enhancement of speech corrupted by colored noise. The proposed approach, called the PCGSVD-SDCE, uses the Spectral Domain Constrained (SDC) estimation method. Very carefully performed objective evaluations and subjective tests show that the PCGSVD-SDCE approach proposed here can offer improved speech quality and intelligibility, especially when the additive noise is nonwhite.
OpenCFU, a New Free and Open-Source Software to Count Cell Colonies and Other Circular Objects

Counting circular objects such as cell colonies is an important source of information for biologists. Although this task is often time-consuming and subjective, it is still predominantly performed manually. The aim of the present work is to provide a new tool to enumerate circular objects from digital pictures and video streams. Here, I demonstrate that the created program, OpenCFU, is very robust, accurate and fast. In addition, it provides control over the processing parameters and is implemented in an intuitive and modern interface. OpenCFU is a cross-platform and open-source software freely available at http://opencfu.sourceforge. net.
Environmental Research and Public Health Salivary Cortisol Reactivity in Preterm Infants in Neonatal Intensive Care: an Integrative Review

Recently, more and more researchers have been using salivary cortisol reactivity to evaluate stress in preterm infants in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The aim of this integrative literature review was to summarize the evidence of interventions leading to a change in salivary cortisol from the baseline in preterm infants in the NICU. The electronic databases of PubMed, CINAHL, Web of Science, and Scopus were searched for relevant studies. The inclusion criteria were studies with preterm infants exposed to an intervention evaluated by salivary cortisol reactivity before discharge from the NICU, which were published in English. In total, 16 studies were included. Eye-screening examination and heel lance provoked an increase in the salivary cortisol level. Music, prone position, and co-bedding among twins decreased the salivary cortisol level. Several studies reported a low rate of successful saliva sampling or did not use control groups. Future studies need to focus on non-painful interventions in order to learn more about salivary cortisol regulation in preterm infants. Moreover, these studies should use study designs comprising homogenous gestational and postnatal age groups, control groups, and reliable analysis methods that are able to detect cortisol in small amounts of saliva.
Sleep-Related Headache Syndromes

An association between headache and sleep is long recognized in the medical literature and deemed highly clinically relevant for at least a portion of headache sufferers. Sleep-related headaches are not well understood, but recent advances in the neurophysiology of sleep and headache shed light on common biological processes potentiating their association. Respective diagnostic nosologies for headache and sleep disorders offer limited guidance but are evolving to better represent the known associations. A rational approach based on the available empiricism can assist the clinician in the assessment and treatment of headache. Each headache evaluation should include at least a brief sleep history. Headaches that occur during or after sleep, so called morning headache, may be secondary to a sleep disorder and call for a specific treatment. This case is best established for sleep-related breathing disorders, and treatment of apnea often leads to resolution of the headache. Although pure sleep-related headaches, such as hypoxemia-related headache and hypnic headache, are less prevalent and more easily recognized, primary headaches are often impacted to some degree by sleep. Additionally, common headache medications and comorbid conditions alter sleep architecture. Management of primary headache may be facilitated by attention to sleep complaints.
SLEEP DISORDERS IN PARKINSON'S DISEASE

Sleep quality is one of the major sources of dissatisfaction among patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Insomnia, parasomnia and daytime sleep disorders are all common. The motor problems accompanying PD are well studied and documented, yet little is known about sleep and the other non‐motor problems. Dopaminergic medications, the neurochemical and neurodegenerative changes may all contribute to the pathogenesis of sleep disorders in PD. Subjective or objective sleepiness assessment should routinely be performed by physicians looking after PD patients. Patients should be informed of the risks associated with excessive daytime sleepiness. Management is difficult and should be targeted to the specific sleep disorder and its likely cause. Simple sleep measures such as sleep hygiene should be tried first before pharmacological treatment is initiated.
Unified Lowering Decision of Parametric Thinning in the Hypothesis Test Framework

Homotopic grayscale thinning leads to over-connected skeleton when applied on noisy images. To avoid this phenomenon, the parametric thinning relaxes the initial constraint by lowering low contrast crests, peaks and ends, according to a parameter related to the noise and contrast of the image and under the constraint of ascendant gray level processing. Even if the statistical control of this parameter leads to a local adjustment and to a standardization of the thinning parameter, this method still produces spurious branches. In fact, the lowering criterion for peak and end notions becomes unadapted while the image dynamic changes during the thinning process. To avoid this phenomenon, we propose to revise and unify these lowering criteria. Consequently, we update the statistical test design by taking into account the gray level of the treated pixels to better fit to lowerable pixels definition. Results of our contribution are compared to the initial parametric thinning.
Optimal Power Multicast Problem in Wireless Mesh Networks by Using a Hybrid Particle Swarm Optimization

Problem statement: Most mobile nodes in a wireless ad hoc network are powered by energy limited batteries; the limited battery lifet ime imposes a constraint on the network performance. Therefore, power consumption of network operations is critical and subject to optimization. Approach: A novel hybrid PSO was proposed for solving the minimum power multicast problem in wireless ad-hoc networks. The MPM problem has been mathematically formulated to a constrained optimization problem using hybrid PSO. Results: In results, we considered that the centralized algorithm requiring a global knowledge of the netwo rks is impractical in large wireless networks, the distributed version of the centralized algorithm re quiring multihop neighborhood information under the assumption that limited frequency band is available . Conclusion: A variety of simulations were conducted to examine the performance of the proposed approach and the results show that our algorithm consistently outperforms existing techniq ues.
International Finance Touches Nearly Every

aspect of the world economy, and it affects the welfare of billions of people. Foreign investors can contribute to economic growth, but they can also trigger severe economic crises. Governments and international organizations have similarly profound effects; their approaches to exchange rates, foreign aid, and financial regulations can mean the difference between prosperity and penury. Finally, the financial activities of firms and migrants can be crucial for economic welfare. Today, one cannot understand the world economy without studying international finance. This essay focuses on one major aspect of international finance: foreign investment. I begin by considering the rules governing foreign investment, which have varied in interesting ways across countries and over time. For example, some governments have used taxes and regulations to discourage cross-border investment; others have permitted funds to enter and exit their countries freely. Before World War I, investors had considerable latitude to acquire equity in foreign enterprises and lend to foreign governments. Between the two world wars, most countries imposed capital barriers. Although many have now removed the barriers, some continue to regulate the inflow and outflow of investments. I concentrate much of this essay on the theme of investment regulations for two reasons. First, research on the political and economic aspects of capital controls has proliferated in recent years. Scholars have amassed new data about regulatory policies and investment flows, and have used this newfound information to analyze the causes and effects of financial globalization. I introduce readers to the latest academic breakthroughs and suggest avenues for future research. Second, my focus on investment regulations complements the chapter by Milner in this volume on foreign trade. As Milner shows, there is a lively debate about why some countries are more protectionist than others, and about how protectionism affects economic performance. Academics have studied domestic and international influences on trade policy and assessed the explanatory power of ideology and material interests. I show that a parallel research program has taken place in international finance. Readers can, therefore, compare the uses of commercial and financial regulations. After reviewing the literature on investment regulations, I examine one especially
The influence of the shorting-vias on the integral characteristics of a microstrip resonator

The results of the simulation of electromagnetic characteristics of a microstrip disk resonator with shorting-vias with ground plane are presented. The influence of the number of shorting-vias and their geometrical location, with respect to the geometrical disc centre, on the integral characteristics of the radiating element have been investigated. In contrast to the well-known works, special attention is paid to changes in the spectral composition of the excited modes, location of the phase centres of excitation of certain types of oscillations and to matching the cavity with external circuits.
Diagnosis and management of primary ciliary dyskinesia

Primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) is an inherited autosomal-recessive disorder of motile cilia characterised by chronic lung disease, rhinosinusitis, hearing impairment and subfertility. Nasal symptoms and respiratory distress usually start soon after birth, and by adulthood bronchiectasis is invariable. Organ laterality defects, usually situs inversus, occur in ∼50% of cases. The estimated prevalence of PCD is up to ∼1 per 10 000 births, but it is more common in populations where consanguinity is common. This review examines who to refer for diagnostic testing. It describes the limitations surrounding diagnosis using currently available techniques and considers whether recent advances to genotype patients with PCD will lead to genetic testing and screening to aid diagnosis in the near future. It discusses the challenges of monitoring and treating respiratory and ENT disease in children with PCD.
Nighttime Parenting: How to Get Your Baby and Child to Sleep

Our professional services was released using a wish to function as a total on the web electronic catalogue that provides entry to multitude of PDF file guide catalog. You may find many di erent types of e-book as well as other literatures from our papers database. Distinct popular topics that spread on our catalog are famous books, answer key, examination test question and solution, manual example, skill guide, quiz example, user manual, consumer guidance, support instructions, maintenance handbook, and so forth.
Use of the Cytokinesis-Blocked Micronucleus Assay to Detect Gender Differences and Genetic Instability in a Lung Cancer Case–Control Study

Background: Although tobacco exposure is the predominant risk factor for lung cancer, other environmental agents are established lung carcinogens. Measuring the genotoxic effect of environmental exposures remains equivocal, as increases in morbidity and mortality may be attributed to coexposures such as smoking. Methods: We evaluated genetic instability and risk of lung cancer associated with exposure to environmental agents (e.g., exhaust) and smoking among 500 lung cancer cases and 500 controls using the cytokinesis-blocked micronucleus (CBMN) assay. Linear regression was applied to estimate the adjusted means of the CBMN endpoints (micronuclei and nucleoplasmic bridges). Logistic regression analyses were used to estimate lung cancer risk and to control for potential confounding by age, gender, and smoking. Results: Cases showed significantly higher levels of micronuclei and nucleoplasmic bridges as compared with controls (mean ± SEM = 3.54 ± 0.04 vs. 1.81 ± 0.04 and mean ± SEM = 4.26 ± 0.03 vs. 0.99 ± 0.03, respectively; P < 0.001) with no differences among participants with or without reported environmental exposure. No differences were observed when stratified by smoking or environmental exposure among cases or controls. A difference in lung cancer risk was observed between nonexposed male and female heavy smokers, although it was not statistically significant (I2 = 64.9%; P value for Q statistic = 0.09). Conclusions: Our study confirms that the CBMN assay is an accurate predictor of lung cancer and supports the premise that heavy smoking may have an effect on DNA repair capacity and in turn modulate the risk of lung cancer. Impact: Identifying factors that increase lung cancer risk may lead to more effective prevention measures. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 22(1); 135–45. ©2012 AACR.
Don't Let RAID Raid the Lifetime of Your SSD Array

Parity protection at system level is typically employed to compose reliable storage systems. However, careful consideration is required when SSD based systems employ parity protection. First, additional writes are required for parity updates. Second, parity consumes space on the device, which results in write amplification from less efficient garbage collection at higher space utilization. This paper analyzes the effectiveness of SSD based RAID and discusses the potential benefits and drawbacks in terms of reliability. A Markov model is presented to estimate the lifetime of SSD based RAID systems in different environments. In a single array, our preliminary results show that parity protection provides benefit only with considerably low space utilizations and low data access rates. However, in a large system, RAID improves data lifetime even when we take write amplification into account.
Closed-Chain Manipulation of Large Objects by Multi-Arm Robotic Systems

Closed kinematic chains are created whenever multiple robot arms concurrently manipulate a single object. The closed-chain constraint, when coupled with robot joint limits, dramatically changes the connectivity of the configuration space. We propose a regrasping move, termed “IK-switch,” which allows efficiently bridging components of the configuration space that are otherwise mutually disconnected. This move, combined with several other developments, such as a method to stabilize the manipulated object using the environment, a new tree structure, and a compliant control scheme, enables us to address complex closed-chain manipulation tasks, such as flipping a chair frame, which is otherwise impossible to realize using existing multi-arm planning methods.
Whole-grain wheat consumption reduces inflammation in a randomized controlled trial on overweight and obese subjects with unhealthy dietary and lifestyle behaviors: role of polyphenols bound to cereal dietary fiber.

BACKGROUND Epidemiology associates whole-grain (WG) consumption with several health benefits. Mounting evidence suggests that WG wheat polyphenols play a role in mechanisms underlying health benefits. OBJECTIVE The objective was to assess circulating concentration, excretion, and the physiologic role of WG wheat polyphenols in subjects with suboptimal dietary and lifestyle behaviors. DESIGN A placebo-controlled, parallel-group randomized trial with 80 healthy overweight/obese subjects with low intake of fruit and vegetables and sedentary lifestyle was performed. Participants replaced precise portions of refined wheat (RW) with a fixed amount of selected WG wheat or RW products for 8 wk. At baseline and every 4 wk, blood, urine, feces, and anthropometric and body composition measures were collected. Profiles of phenolic acids in biological samples, plasma markers of metabolic disease and inflammation, and fecal microbiota composition were assessed. RESULTS WG consumption for 4-8 wk determined a 4-fold increase in serum dihydroferulic acid (DHFA) and a 2-fold increase in fecal ferulic acid (FA) compared with RW consumption (no changes). Similarly, urinary FA at 8 wk doubled the baseline concentration only in WG subjects. Concomitant reduction in plasma tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) after 8 wk and increased interleukin (IL)-10 only after 4 wk with WG compared with RW (P = 0.04) were observed. No significant change in plasma metabolic disease markers over the study period was observed, but a trend toward lower plasma plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 with higher excretion of FA and DHFA in the WG group was found. Fecal FA was associated with baseline low Bifidobacteriales and Bacteroidetes abundances, whereas after WG consumption, it correlated with increased Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes but reduced Clostridium. TNF-α reduction correlated with increased Bacteroides and Lactobacillus. No effect of dietary interventions on anthropometric measurements and body composition was found. CONCLUSIONS WG wheat consumption significantly increased excreted FA and circulating DHFA. Bacterial communities influenced fecal FA and were modified by WG wheat consumption. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT01293175.
Identifying Similar Words and Contexts in Natural Language with SenseClusters

SenseClusters is a freely available intelligent system that clusters together similar contexts in natural language text. Thereafter it assigns identifying labels to these clusters based on their content. It is a purely unsupervised approach that is language independent, and uses no knowledge other than what is available in raw un-annotated corpora. In addition to clustering similar contexts, it can be used to identify synonyms and sets of related words. It has been applied to a diverse range of problems, including proper name disambiguation, word sense discrimination, email organization, and document clustering. SenseClusters is a complete system that supports feature selection from large corpora, several different context representation schemes, various clustering algorithms, the creation of descriptive and discriminating labels for the discovered clusters, and evaluation relative to gold standard data.
Towards effective indexing for very large video sequence database

With rapid advances in video processing technologies and ever fast increments in network bandwidth, the popularity of video content publishing and sharing has made similarity search an indispensable operation to retrieve videos of user interests. The video similarity is usually measured by the percentage of similar frames shared by two video sequences, and each frame is typically represented as a high-dimensional feature vector. Unfortunately, high complexity of video content has posed the following major challenges for fast retrieval: (a) effective and compact video representations, (b) efficient similarity measurements, and (c) efficient indexing on the compact representations. In this paper, we propose a number of methods to achieve fast similarity search for very large video database. First, each video sequence is summarized into a small number of clusters, each of which contains similar frames and is represented by a novel compact model called Video Triplet (ViTri). ViTri models a cluster as a tightly bounded hypersphere described by its position, radius, and density. The ViTri similarity is measured by the volume of intersection between two hyperspheres multiplying the minimal density, i.e., the estimated number of similar frames shared by two clusters. The total number of similar frames is then estimated to derive the overall similarity between two video sequences. Hence the time complexity of video similarity measure can be reduced greatly. To further reduce the number of similarity computations on ViTris, we introduce a new one dimensional transformation technique which rotates and shifts the original axis system using PCA in such a way that the original inter-distance between two high-dimensional vectors can be maximally retained after mapping. An efficient B+-tree is then built on the transformed one dimensional values of ViTris' positions. Such a transformation enables B+-tree to achieve its optimal performance by quickly filtering a large portion of non-similar ViTris. Our extensive experiments on real large video datasets prove the effectiveness of our proposals that outperform existing methods significantly.
Raising the Standards for Standards: A Call for Definitions

the mid-1980s, talk about quality education has been largely subsumed into one wordstandards. Questions of quality are frequently couched, embedded, and often obscured by this one, powerful term. In the shorthand of those who seek to disparage public education, as well as those who praise it, the term "standards" has become indispensable. Teachers are exhorted to have "high standards" for student performance; states establish standards for teachers, for students, for graduation, for college admission; the federal government mandates testing and more testing so that "high standards" can be assured. The educational enterprise is awash in standards, but little attention is paid to what the term really means. The idea of standards has been a part of the educational vocabulary since the beginning of public education, but standards moved to centerThe educational enterprise is awash in standards, but little attention is paid to what the term really means.