Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Detection of Group D Avian Rotaviruses among Layer Poultry from Western India

4 Abstract: Rotavirus is a major cause of gastroenteritis in infants and children worldwide and also in wide variety of mammalian and avian species. In the present study, 4 (7.84%) out of the 54 poultry faecal samples tested, were found positive by RNA-PAGE. The samples were of 60-65 weeks age layer poultry birds suffering from diarrhoea. All the PAGE positive samples resolved in to 11 segments with a migration pattern of 5:2:2:2 characteristic of group D avian rotavirus. All the positive samples were of short electropherotype in which segments 10 and 11 migrated very closely. Avian rotavirus samples subjected to VP4 and VP7 th th gene based RT-PCR did not amplified respective products. RNA-PAGE positive samples were further subjected to VP6 gene based RT-PCR amplification using specific primers. All the four positive samples yielded a specific product of 493 bp. The study reports first ever detection of Group D avian rotavirus in Western India.
Why Does Acute Hyperglycemia Worsen the Outcome of Transient Focal Cerebral Ischemia?: Role of Corticosteroids, Inflammation, and Protein O-Glycosylation

Background and Purpose— Hyperglycemia adversely affects the outcome of stroke. Global ischemia data support that the harmful effect of hyperglycemia is mediated by glucose-induced elevated plasma glucocorticoids. Here we sought to evaluate the negative effects of hyperglycemia on transient focal ischemia in the rat, and to test whether these could be prevented by inhibition of either corticosteroid production or neutrophil infiltration. Methods— Sprague-Dawley rats (n=217) were used. Ischemia was induced by 1 hour middle cerebral artery occlusion (n=196). Acute hyperglycemia was induced by IP injection of dextrose 30 minutes before ischemia. Neutrophil infiltration was blocked by neutropenia with vinblastine. Corticosterone synthesis was inhibited by chemical adrenalectomy with metyrapone. We measured MRI lesion and tissue infarct volumes, evaluated the neurological function, brain myeloperoxidase and matrix metalloproteinase-9 activities, and protein O-glycosylation. Results— Hyperglycemia significantly enhanced MRI diffusion-weighted imaging alterations, increased cortical, but not subcortical, infarct volume, worsened neurological score, and enhanced brain myeloperoxidase and matrix metalloproteinase-9 activities. Metyrapone did not prevent hyperglycemic brain damage despite successful reduction of plasma corticosterone. Yet, metyrapone tended to reduce cortical infarction and apparent diffusion coefficient lesion volume, indicating some negative contribution of corticosterone. Blocking neutrophil infiltration was also ineffective to prevent the harmful effect of hyperglycemia. A new finding was that O-linked glycosylation of cerebral proteins was increased under hyperglycemia. Conclusions— In transient middle cerebral artery occlusion, the hyperglycemia-exacerbated brain damage cannot be fully explained by the negative effects of plasma corticosteroids or neutrophil infiltration. The contribution of other intrinsic effects of high glucose, such as brain protein O-glycosylation, deserves further investigation.
Testing for Granger causality between stock prices and economic growth

This paper has focused on the relationship between stock market prices and growth. A Granger-causality analysis has been carried out in order to assess whether there is any potential predictability power of one indicator for the other. The conclusion that can be drawn is that stock market prices can be used in order to predict growth, but the opposite it is not true.
Acute Dietary Nitrate Intake Improves Muscle Contractile Function in Patients With Heart Failure: A Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Randomized Trial

Background—Skeletal muscle strength, velocity, and power are markedly reduced in patients with heart failure, which contributes to their impaired exercise capacity and lower quality of life. This muscle dysfunction may be partially because of decreased nitric oxide (NO) bioavailability. We therefore sought to determine whether ingestion of inorganic nitrate (NO3−) would increase NO production and improve muscle function in patients with heart failure because of systolic dysfunction. Methods and Results—Using a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized crossover design, we determined the effects of dietary NO3− in 9 patients with heart failure. After fasting overnight, subjects drank beetroot juice containing or devoid of 11.2 mmol of NO3−. Two hours later, muscle function was assessed using isokinetic dynamometry. Dietary NO3− increased (P<0.05–0.001) breath NO by 35% to 50%. This was accompanied by 9% (P=0.07) and 11% (P<0.05) increases in peak knee extensor power at the 2 highest movement velocities tested (ie, 4.71 and 6.28 rad/s). Maximal power (calculated by fitting peak power data with a parabola) was therefore greater (ie, 4.74±0.41 versus 4.20±0.33 W/kg; P<0.05) after dietary NO3− intake. Calculated maximal velocity of knee extension was also higher after NO3− ingestion (ie, 12.48±0.95 versus 11.11±0.53 rad/s; P<0.05). Blood pressure was unchanged, and no adverse clinical events occurred. Conclusions—In this pilot study, acute dietary NO3− intake was well tolerated and enhanced NO bioavailability and muscle power in patients with systolic heart failure. Larger-scale studies should be conducted to determine whether the latter translates into an improved quality of life in this population. Clinical Trial Registration—URL: http://www.clinicaltrials. gov. Unique identifier: NCT01682356.
The Memory Assessment Scales in the Detection of Incomplete Effort in Mild Head Injury

Despite differences in the constructs measured, the Memory Assessment Scales (MAS) remain an alternative to the Wechsler Memory Scales (WMS) as a broad-band instrument for assessing multiple aspects of attention and memory. Although a number of studies have examined indices of the WMS as indicators of malingering, few studies have similarly investigated the MAS. In this study, we examined the degree to which the MAS was effective in detecting incomplete effort in a clinical sample of patients referred for neuropsychological evaluation after mild head injury. Included in the sample were 21 financially compensable (FC) participants with alleged mild head injury and 21 participants who were not involved in litigation and suffered more serious head injuries. Examination of the four MAS domain indices indicated that Short-Term Memory was most useful at identifying incomplete effort. We also examined subscales of the MAS. Consistent with previous findings, brief tests such as Verbal and Visual Span had high rates of diagnostic sensitivity and specificity. Although tests based on a forced-choice recognition paradigm (e.g., Immediate and Delayed Visual Recognition) predicted group membership above chance levels, they failed to significantly add to prediction above Verbal and Visual Span subtests.
The yeasts Rho1p and Pkc1p regulate the transport of chitin synthase III (Chs3p) from internal stores to the plasma membrane

During cell stress, Saccharomyces cerevisiae increases the synthesis of chitin and glucans to strengthen and repair the cell wall. In this study, we show that under conditions of cell stress, the steady-state localization of chitin synthase III (Chs3p) shifts from internal stores (chitosomes) to the plasma membrane (PM). This redistribution occurs rapidly and requires the activators of the cell wall stress response signaling pathway, the G protein Rho1p, and the protein kinase Pkc1p, but not the cell integrity response mitogen-activated protein kinase cascade. Furthermore, expression of activated forms of Rho1p or Pkc1p, in the absence of cell stress, is sufficient to redistribute Chs3p to the PM. In cells deficient for both the clathrin adaptor complex 1 and Chs6p, where Chs3p is transported to the PM by an alternative bypass pathway, cell wall stress did not cause mobilization of Chs3p, suggesting that Rho1p/Pkc1p regulate Chs3p exit from the trans-Golgi network. The mobilization of an intracellular reservoir of Chs3p presents a novel opportunity to investigate the genetic basis of regulated vesicular traffic.
Tuning Microtubule‐Based Transport Through Filamentous MAPs: The Problem of Dynein

We recently proposed that regulating the single‐to‐multiple motor transition was a likely strategy for regulating kinesin‐based transport in vivo. In this study, we use an in vitro bead assay coupled with an optical trap to investigate how this proposed regulatory mechanism affects dynein‐based transport. We show that tau’s regulation of kinesin function can proceed without interfering with dynein‐based transport. Surprisingly, at extremely high tau levels – where kinesin cannot bind microtubules (MTs) – dynein can still contact MTs. The difference between tau’s effects on kinesin‐ and dynein‐based motility suggests that tau can be used to tune relative amounts of plus‐end and minus‐end‐directed transport. As in the case of kinesin, we find that the 3RS isoform of tau is a more potent inhibitor of dynein binding to MTs. We show that this isoform‐specific effect is not because of steric interference of tau’s projection domains but rather because of tau’s interactions with the motor at the MT surface. Nonetheless, we do observe a modest steric interference effect of tau away from the MT and discuss the potential implications of this for molecular motor structure.
Development of Ultra-Fine Grained Structure in AA 2099 and AA 2624 Aluminum Alloys

Abstract A study on the development of ultra-fine grained (UFG) structures in AA 2099-T8 and recently-developed AA 2624-T351 aluminum alloys was conducted using thermomechanical processing (TMP). Specimens were cryogenically-rolled to 70% thickness-reduction at −196 °C and artificially-aged at 200 °C, 250 °C, and 300 °C for times between 30 mins and 8 h. Analyses show that T1 (Al2CuLi) and δ′ (Al3Li) precipitates are dominant in AA 2099-T8 while AA 2624-T351 contains no precipitate. Upon cryo-rolling, hardness of AA 2099 decreased by ∼24%, while that of AA 2624 increased by ∼11%. The optimum ageing conditions for obtaining UFG structures in cryo-rolled AA 2099 and AA 2624 are 250 °C for 4 h and 250 °C for 1 h, respectively. It was found that dispersoids from the starting coarse-grained microstructure were inherited at every stage of TMP. New phase (S′) evolved in the interior of ultra-fine grains in AA 2624, while only T1 re-evolved in the UFG structure of AA 2099.
Flow coupling and stochastic ordering of throughputs in linear networks

Robust estimates for the performance of complicated queueing networks can be obtained by showing that the number of jobs in the network is stochastically comparable to a simpler, analytically tractable reference network. Classical coupling results on stochastic ordering of network populations require strong monotonicity assumptions which are often violated in practice. However, in most real-world applications we care more about what goes through a network than what sits inside it. This paper describes a new approach for ordering flows instead of populations by augmenting network states with their associated flow counting processes and deriving Markov couplings of the augmented state--flow processes.
Primary association of HLA-B51 with Behçet’s disease in Ireland

AIMS/BACKGROUND While a primary association of HLA-B51 with Behçet’s disease (BD) in Japanese and Mediterranean patients supports an immunogenetic predisposition, this link is unclear in north western Europe. This study assessed HLA associations with BD, and HLA-B51 with certain clinical characteristics, in the Republic of Ireland, which has an ethnically homogeneous population. METHODS HLA-A, HLA-B, and HLA-DR typing was performed in 24 BD patients, conforming to International Study Group criteria, and in blood donors, as controls. Patient records were retrospectively reviewed and patients reassessed clinically. RESULTS A highly significant HLA-B51 association (corrected exact p value = 0.002, relative risk = 6.3) with BD was determined, despite a low B51 prevalence (25%) in patients. No other HLA type was associated. There was a significant B51 link with male sex in BD patients but no association with age at first manifestation/diagnosis, eye involvement, cyclosporin A therapy, or poor visual acuity was determined. CONCLUSIONS This study supports a HLA-B51 immunogenetic predisposition, similar to Japanese patients, in Irish BD in an ethnically homogeneous population in north western Europe. However, owing to a low prevalence of B51 positivity in BD patients in Ireland, a multifactorial pathogenesis is suggested.
Designing Data Collection Methods for Applying Learning Analytics in Resource Constrained Schools

The use ofLearning Analytics (LA) has shown significant improvements in online learning environments. This paper intends to discuss the challenges of applyingLA in the context of elementary schools of India.Out of many challenges, we focus on solving the unavailability of school data in digital format. Most of the data in such schools is stored on physical mediums like notebooks. These schools also lack the critical resources like the availability of computing devices, internet and digitally literate manpower.As the primary outcome of this paper, we propose a data collection system, named as OSLA, which provides multiple ways of data collection in resource constrained environment. OSLA distributes the need of resources across different touchpoints to tolerate the unavailability of specific computing device, internet and digitally literate manpower.
Enhanced visualization of cerebral blood vessels for X-ray angiograms

Neurologists frequently use X-ray angiographic techniques in order to establish the optimal treatment or intervention procedure. Neurosurgeries performed at blood vessels level are difficult procedures because of the low accessibility in the human brain. Therefore, the establishment of a correct diagnosis based on angiographies is of paramount importance. Enhanced visualization of blood vessels by separating veins and arteries from background can help, in many cases, in giving a more accurate diagnosis. In this article, three methods for arteries and veins classification and enhanced visualization are presented. From our study, it results that, using coefficients of wavelet transform as parameters for the classification, a better visual representation of small vessels is achieved.
Investigation of anomalous room temperature conduction losses in normal metals at terahertz frequencies

A number of research groups worldwide have reported discrepancies between loss measurements and classical theoretical predictions for simple millimetre wave and sub-millimetre- wave structures. For the first time, a comprehensive survey of published experimental data for the room temperature surface resistance of normal metals, from DC up to the edge of the mid-infrared frequency range, has been undertaken. It has been found that, with the optical measurements performed within the far-IR region, there does not appear to be an anomalous intrinsic conduction loss phenomenon at room temperature; this is in direct contradiction to the findings of other research groups. This is because the non-optical measurement approaches adopted by Tischer, Schwab et al . a nd Battet al. are fundamentally flawed, since anomalous findings could be attributed to one or more of the factors discussed in this paper.
CONTROL OF GLYCOGEN LEVELS IN BRAIN 1

Abstract— Prolonged (6 hr) anaesthesia with phenobarbital in mice or rats results in a doubling or tripling of brain glycogen. Increases were also observed if high levels of plasma glucose were maintained for 6 hr. In alloxan diabetes brain glycogen was not elevated in spite of the high plasma glucose concentrations. However, administration of insulin to such diabetic animals, together with enough glucose to maintain high plasma levels, resulted in at least a doubling of brain glycogen in 6 hr. Phenobarbital can still increase brain glycogen in diabetic animals.
Using location information for scheduling in 802.15.3 MAC

In recent years, UWB has received much attention as a suitable physical layer (PHY) for wireless personal area networks (WPANS). UWB allows for low cost, low power, high bandwidth, short reach communication well suited for personal operating spaces. One of the key features offered by UWB is very accurate ranging between a transmitter/receiver pair. The IEEE 802.15. 3 is a MAC protocol that has been proposed for WPANs. In this MAC, a combination of CSMA/CA and TDMA is used to achieve channel scheduling. The TDMA component ensures only one transmitter/receiver pair within a piconet is active at any given time thereby ensuring an exclusion region that covers the whole piconet. In this paper, we propose a less stringent scheduling mechanism that allows for concurrent communication between UWB transmitter/receiver pairs within a piconet. Exclusion is necessary only when the communicating entities are close enough such that interference between them would adversely affect successful reception of data at the receivers. The piconet coordinator (PNC) uses the ranging information provided by UWB to accurately position transmitters and receivers. The PNC schedules parallel transmissions between distinct transmit/receive pairs as long as they do not interfere. We present the results of our simulations of our proposed modifications and show that the network throughput can be significantly increased with very little change to the 802.15. 3 MAC.
Searching for species in haloarchaea

Prokaryotic (bacterial and archaeal) species definitions and the biological concepts that underpin them entail clustering (cohesion) among individuals, in terms of genome content and gene sequence similarity. Homologous recombination can maintain gene sequence similarity within, while permitting divergence between, clusters and is thus the basis for recent efforts to apply the Biological Species Concept in prokaryote systematics and ecology. In this study, we examine isolates of the haloarchaeal genus Halorubrum from two adjacent ponds of different salinities at a Spanish saltern and a natural saline lake in Algeria by using multilocus sequence analysis. We show that, although clusters can be defined by concatenation of multiple marker sequences, barriers to exchange between them are leaky. We suggest that no nonarbitrary way to circumscribe “species” is likely to emerge for this group, or by extension, to apply generally across prokaryotes. Arbitrary criteria might have limited practical use, but still must be agreed upon by the community.
Group Prenatal Care and Perinatal Outcomes: A Randomized Controlled Trial

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether group prenatal care improves pregnancy outcomes, psychosocial function, and patient satisfaction and to examine potential cost differences. METHODS: A multisite randomized controlled trial was conducted at two university-affiliated hospital prenatal clinics. Pregnant women aged 14–25 years (n=1,047) were randomly assigned to either standard or group care. Women with medical conditions requiring individualized care were excluded from randomization. Group participants received care in a group setting with women having the same expected delivery month. Timing and content of visits followed obstetric guidelines from week 18 through delivery. Each 2-hour prenatal care session included physical assessment, education and skills building, and support through facilitated group discussion. Structured interviews were conducted at study entry, during the third trimester, and postpartum. RESULTS: Mean age of participants was 20.4 years; 80% were African American. Using intent-to-treat analyses, women assigned to group care were significantly less likely to have preterm births compared with those in standard care: 9.8% compared with 13.8%, with no differences in age, parity, education, or income between study conditions. This is equivalent to a risk reduction of 33% (odds ratio 0.67, 95% confidence interval 0.44–0.99, P=.045), or 40 per 1,000 births. Effects were strengthened for African-American women: 10.0% compared with 15.8% (odds ratio 0.59, 95% confidence interval 0.38–0.92, P=.02). Women in group sessions were less likely to have suboptimal prenatal care (P<.01), had significantly better prenatal knowledge (P<.001), felt more ready for labor and delivery (P<.001), and had greater satisfaction with care (P<.001). Breastfeeding initiation was higher in group care: 66.5% compared with 54.6%, P<. 001. There were no differences in birth weight nor in costs associated with prenatal care or delivery. CONCLUSION: Group prenatal care resulted in equal or improved perinatal outcomes at no added cost. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov, www.clinicaltrials. gov, NCT00271960 LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: I
Effects of Isradipine, an L-Type Calcium Channel Blocker on Permanent and Transient Focal Cerebral Ischemia in Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats

Permanent or transient focal cerebral ischemia was induced in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) using the intraluminal filament method. Successful occlusion of the middle cerebral artery (MCA) was achieved using 4/O filaments (terminal diameter 0.20-0.25 mm) coated with poly-L-lysine. The L-type calcium channel blocker isradipine (2.5 mg/kg) administered subcutaneously 30 min following permanent MCA occlusion significantly reduced the volume of ischemic brain damage in the cerebral hemisphere (25%; P = 0.0001), cerebral cortex (18%; P = 0.0034), and caudate nucleus (33%; P = 0.0002) when assessed at 24 h post-MCA occlusion. Isradipine did not affect the functional deficit (measured using a subjective neurological scoring system) induced by MCA occlusion. In SHR undergoing transient (2 h) MCA occlusion isradipine administered 30 min post-MCA occlusion produced a significant reduction (47%; P = 0.001) in hemispheric infarct volume, whereas isradipine administered at the onset of reperfusion did not confer any significant neuroprotection. No change in functional deficit was seen with isradipine with either dosing paradigm at 24 h post-MCA occlusion. These results demonstrate that the intraluminal filament method of MCA occlusion can be used in the SHR strain and also substantiates the neuroprotective efficacy of isradipine in SHR models of permanent and transient focal cerebral ischemia.
Vision-Inertial Hybrid Tracking for Robust and Efficient Augmented Reality on Smartphones

This paper aims at robust and efficient pose tracking for augmented reality on modern smartphones. Existing methods, relying on either vision analysis or motion sensing, are either too computationally expensive to achieve real-time performance on a smartphone, or too noisy to achieve sufficient robustness. This paper presents a hybrid tracking system which can achieve real-time performance with high robustness. Our system utilizes an efficient featureless method based on pixel-based registration to track the object pose on every frame. The featureless tracking result is revised from time to time by a feature-based method to reduce tracking errors. Both featureless and feature-based tracking results are sensitive to large motion blurs. To improve the robustness, an adaptive Kamlan filter is proposed to fuse the visual tracking results with the inertial tracking results computed form phone's built-in sensors. Our hybrid method is evaluated on a dataset consisting of 16 video clips with synchronized inertial sensing data. Experimental results demonstrated the superior performance of our method to state-of-the-art visual tracking methods [5, 12] on smartphones. The dataset will be made publicly available with the publication of this paper.