Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The role of acetogens in microbially influenced corrosion of steel

Microbially influenced corrosion (MIC) of iron (Fe0) by sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) has been studied extensively. Through a mechanism, that is still poorly understood, electrons or hydrogen (H2) molecules are removed from the metal surface and used as electron donor for sulfate reduction. The resulting ferrous ions precipitate in part with the sulfide produced, forming characteristic black iron sulfide. Hydrogenotrophic methanogens can also contribute to MIC. Incubation of pipeline water samples, containing bicarbonate and some sulfate, in serum bottles with steel coupons and a headspace of 10% (vol/vol) CO2 and 90% N2, indicated formation of acetate and methane. Incubation of these samples in serum bottles, containing medium with coupons and bicarbonate but no sulfate, also indicated that formation of acetate preceded the formation of methane. Microbial community analyses of these enrichments indicated the presence of Acetobacterium, as well as of hydrogenotrophic and acetotrophic methanogens. The formation of acetate by homoacetogens, such as Acetobacterium woodii from H2 (or Fe0) and CO2, is potentially important, because acetate is a required carbon source for many SRB growing with H2 and sulfate. A consortium of the SRB Desulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough and A. woodii was able to grow in defined medium with H2, CO2, and sulfate, because A. woodii provides the acetate, needed by D. vulgaris under these conditions. Likewise, general corrosion rates of metal coupons incubated with D. vulgaris in the presence of acetate or in the presence of A. woodii were higher than in the absence of acetate or A. woodii, respectively. An extended MIC model capturing these results is presented.
Trying to Make a Difference: A Critical Analysis of Health Care during Pregnancy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women

This paper critically examines pregnancy health care and services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, to explore the question of what might 'make a difference'. More antenatal care and in particular Aboriginal women attending for care earlier and more often, is often put forward as what is needed to improve pregnancy outcomes, as well as the health of future populations. However, evidence from epidemiological, clinical and health services research problematises this assertion. An alternative and preferable driver for the reform of maternity services for Aboriginal women would be to allow women themselves to have more said in decision making at both individual and institutional levels.
A synchronous charge extraction piezoelectric energy harvesting circuit based on precision active control peak detection with supplement energy

This paper proposes a cooperative power harvesting system. The system can harvest power from ambient vibration energy source with supplement thermal energy. It employs the Synchronous Charge Extraction (SCE) structure while a high-precision active peak detector is designed to control the switch, which consumes less power and is powered by thermoelectric power generation circuit. As a result, the energy harvesting efficiency of the piezoelectric energy harvesting circuit is improved by about 41.9%. The proposed circuit avoids the traditional rectifier bridge structure and outputs a stable DC voltage.
The Gestural Communication of Apes and Monkeys

Contents: M. Tomasello, J. Call, Introduction: Intentional Communication in Nonhuman Primates. J. Call, M. Tomasello, The Gestural Repertoire of Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). S. Pika, Gestures in Subadult Bonobos (Pan paniscus). K. Liebal, Gestures in Orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus). S. Pika, Gestures in Subadult Gorillas (Gorilla gorilla). K. Liebal, Gestures in Siamangs (Symphalangus syndactylus). N. Hesler, J. Fischer, Gestural Communication in Barbary Macaques (Macaca sylvanus): An Overview. J. Call, M. Tomasello, Comparing the Gestures of Apes and Monkeys. M. Tomasello, J. Call, Ape Gestures and the Origins of Language.
Effect of milking frequency on milk somatic cell count characteristics and mammary secretory cell damage in cows.

OBJECTIVES To examine whether once daily milking (ODM) increases somatic cell count (SCC) and causes changes in the proportion of macrophages, lymphocytes, or neutrophils in milk, and to examine whether ODM causes mammary secretory cell damage. DESIGN During 3 successive periods, cows were milked twice daily (days 1 through 4), once daily (days 5 through 10), and twice daily (days 11 through 14); thus, each cow served as its own control. Milk samples were collected during each milking for SCC, bovine serum albumin (BSA; except days 1 and 14), and N-acetyl-beta-D-glucosaminidase (NAGase) activity analyses. Differential cell counts were determined on days 2 (period 1), 5 and 8 (period 2), and 11 (period 3) in morning milk samples. ANIMALS 8 multiparous Jersey cows. PROCEDURES Cell counter (SCC), staining and counting (differential SCC), ELISA (BSA), and enzyme activity (NAGase). RESULTS Once daily milking increased SCC (total and concentration), percentage of neutrophils, and BSA (content and total mass); during subsequent twice daily milking, SCC decreased, but BSA content and percentage of neutrophils remained increased. Activity of NAGase was not affected by ODM. CONCLUSIONS ODM increases SCC, but this is not associated with damage to mammary secretory cells. The ODM-related sustained increase in BSA content coincided with an increase in neutrophil numbers, suggesting a causal relation.
Evolving Legacy System Towards E-Business

In e-business, addressing the technical issues alone is not enough to drive the evolution of existing legacy applications, but it is necessary to consider problems concerning the strict relationship that exists between the evolution of the legacy system and the evolution of the e-business process. In order to support the evolution, this chapter proposes a strategy for extracting the requirements for a legacy system evolution from the requirements of the e-business process evolution. The strategy includes a toolkit composed of a set of decision tables and a measurement framework, both referring to the organization, business processes, and legacy software systems. The decision tables allow the identification of the processes to be evolved, the actions to be performed on them and their activities, and the strategies to be adopted for evolving the information systems. The measurement framework aims at achieving a greater understanding of the processes and related problems, taking into account organizational and technological issues.
Perinatal Medical Variables Predict Executive Function Within a Sample of Preschoolers Born Very Low Birth Weight

The goal was to identify perinatal predictors of early executive dysfunction in preschoolers born very low birth weight. Fifty-seven preschoolers completed 3 executive function tasks: Dimensional Change Card Sort-Separated (inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility), Bear Dragon (inhibition and working memory), and Gift Delay Open (inhibition). Relationships between executive function and perinatal medical severity factors (gestational age, days on ventilation, size for gestational age, maternal steroids, and number of surgeries) and chronological age were investigated by multiple linear regression and logistic regression. Different perinatal medical severity factors were predictive of executive function tasks, with gestational age predicting Bear Dragon and Gift Open; and number of surgeries and maternal steroids predicting performance on Dimensional Change Card Sort-Separated. By understanding the relationship between perinatal medical severity factors and preschool executive outcomes, we can identify children at highest risk for future executive dysfunction, thereby focusing targeted early intervention services.
Cannabis as a Substitute for Alcohol: A Harm-Reduction Approach

Ninety-two Northern Californians who use cannabis as an alternative to alcohol obtained letters of approval from the author. Their records were reviewed to determine characteristics of the cohort and ef- ficacy of the treatment, which was defined as reduced harm to the pa- tient. All patients reported benefit, indicating that for at least a subset of alcoholics, cannabis use is associated with reduced drinking. The cost of alcoholism to individual patients and society at large warrants testing of the cannabis-substitution approach and study of the drug-of-choice phe- nomenon. (Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document De- livery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: Website:  2004 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.)
Type based service composition

Service matchmaking and composition has recently drawn increasing attention in the research community. Most existing algorithms construct chains of services based on exact matches of input/output types. However, this does not work when the available services only cover a part of the range of the input type. We present an algorithm that also allows partial matches and composes them using switches that decide on the required service at runtime based on the actual data type. We report experiments on randomly generated composition problems that show that using partial matches can decrease the failure rate of the integration algorithm using only complete matches by up to 7 times with no increase in the number of directory accesses required. This shows that composition with partial matches is an essential and useful element of web service composition.
Compétition entre écoles et ségrégation des élèves dans six espaces locaux européens

Cet article propose une analyse comparative de six espaces locaux urbains situes dans cinq pays europeens differents. Bien que les systemes scolaires etudies se distinguent par la nature des dispositifs mis en place pour reguler la repartition des eleves entre ecoles, on observe dans les six espaces des phenomenes de hierarchisation des ecoles et de segregation des eleves en fonction de leurs caracteristiques sociales et academiques. Pour comprendre comment des dispositifs de regulation differents produisent des effets en partie semblables, nous analysons les logiques d’action des familles et des ecoles et montrons comment ces acteurs entrent en competition sur cette question de la repartition des eleves, mobilisant des strategies adaptees au contexte local et aux dispositifs de regulation. L’inegalite des ressources, qui caracterise tout autant les etablissements que les familles, contribue ainsi, quels que soient les dispositifs de regulation, a fonder et a reproduire la segregation des eleves et la hierarchie des ecoles.
Trampling Through The Pleistocene: Does Taphonomy Matter at Cuddie Springs?

Abstract After 15 years of continuing investigation, analysis and publication of the sedimentary sequence at Cuddie Springs, the site and its contents continue to draw considerable attention from those investigating the timing and cause of the extinction of the megafauna. The archaeological record commences at Cuddie Springs around 36ka and overlaps with a record of a handful of megafauna species for up to 10,000 years. The main issue for those supporting the popularly cited 46ka terminal extinction date for megafauna are the ‘young’ dates for this site. Arguments have also been forwarded suggesting the sediments are reworked, that artefacts are intrusive in the megafaunal-bearing layers or that material has been redeposited in the claypan deposits as river bedload. These issues relate primarily to taphonomy, in particular site formation processes. However, interdisciplinary studies have shown that Cuddie Springs is an ephemeral lake in a landscape of low relief and within its sediments is preserved a highlystratified record of environment, fauna and humans that has formed over many millennia. Rather than an incoherent mix of material from multiple sources, the data point to an intact accumulation of fossil fauna which, in the upper layers, co-occurs with an archaeological record of human occupation.
Efficient Client Puzzles based on Repeated-Squaring

In this paper, we propose a new, nonparallelizable verification-efficient client puzzle. Our puzzle is based on repeated-squaring and enables efficient verification of the puzzle solution that is reported by the client (prover). Client puzzles based on repeated-squaring were first proposed by Rivest et al. in [1] and constitute one of the first examples of nonparallelizable puzzles. The main drawback of these puzzles was their high verification overhead. In this work, we show how this overhead can be significantly reduced by transferring the puzzle verification burden to the prover that executes the puzzle. Given a 1024-bit modulus, the improvement gain in the verification overhead of our puzzle when compared to the original repeatedsquaring puzzle is almost 50 times. We achieve this by embedding a secret – only known to the verifier – within the Euler trapdoor function that is used in repeatedsquaring puzzles. We provide a security proof for this construction. We further show how our puzzle can be integrated in a number of protocols, including those used for efficient protection against DoS attacks and for the remote verification of the computing performance of devices. We validate the performance of our puzzle on a large number of PlanetLab nodes.
D‐dimer testing in the diagnosis of cerebral vein thrombosis: a systematic review and a meta‐analysis of the literature

Summary. Background: Quantitative measurement of circulating D‐dimer, a product of fibrin degradation, has been shown to be a very useful diagnostic tool in the management of patients with suspected deep vein thrombosis and/or pulmonary embolism. Whether D‐dimer can play a similar role in the diagnostic approach to patients with suspected cerebral vein thrombosis (CVT) remains controversial.Methods: Studies evaluating the diagnostic accuracy of the D‐dimer test in the diagnosis of CVT were systematically searched for in the MEDLINE and EMBASE databases (up to July 2011). Weighted mean sensitivity and specificity with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated with a bivariate random‐effects regression approach.Results: Fourteen studies, for a total of 1134 patients, were included. D‐dimer accuracy was good, with a resulting weighted mean sensitivity of 93.9% (95% CI 87.5–97.1) and weighted mean specificity of 89.7% (95% CI 86.5–92.2), calculated with a bivariate approach. Potential risk factors for false‐negative D‐dimer results included isolated headache, longer duration of symptoms, and limited sinus involvement.Conclusions: Our findings suggest that D‐dimer may be a useful diagnostic tool in the management of patients with suspected CVT. Future prospective studies are warranted to confirm our preliminary findings.
Current Status and Future Perspectives on the Etiology of Esophageal Adenocarcinoma

Esophageal adenocarcinoma is the most common type of esophageal cancer in most Western countries and is an important contributor to overall cancer mortality. Most cases of esophageal adenocarcinoma are believed to arise from Barrett’s esophagus. Esophageal adenocarcinoma occurs more frequently in white men over 50 years old, as well as in people with frequent symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux, in smokers and in people who are obese. Higher consumption of fruit and vegetables, use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and infection with Helicobacter pylori have all been shown to reduce the risk of esophageal adenocarcinoma. Here, we review the epidemiological evidence for the major risk factors of esophageal adenocarcinoma and also discuss perspectives for future research.
ProfilePSTMM: capturing tree-structure motifs in carbohydrate sugar chains

MOTIVATION Carbohydrate sugar chains, or glycans, are considered the third major class of biomolecules after DNA and proteins. They consist of branching monosaccharides, starting from a single monosaccharide. They are extremely vital to the development and functioning of multicellular organisms because they are recognized by various proteins to allow them to perform specific functions. Our motivation is to study this recognition mechanism using informatics techniques from the data available. Previously, we introduced a probabilistic sibling-dependent tree Markov model (PSTMM), which we showed could be efficiently trained on sibling-dependent tree structures and return the most likely state paths. However, it had some limitations in that the extra dependency between siblings caused overfitting problems. The retrieval of the patterns from the trained model also involved manually extracting the patterns from the most likely state paths. Thus we introduce a profilePSTMM model which avoids these problems, incorporating a novel concept of different types of state transitions to handle parent-child and sibling dependencies differently. RESULTS Our new algorithms are more efficient and able to extract the patterns more easily. We tested the profilePSTMM model on both synthetic (controlled) data as well as glycan data from the KEGG GLYCAN database. Additionally, we tested it on glycans which are known to be recognized and bound to proteins at various binding affinities, and we show that our results correlate with results published in the literature.
Genetic and Environmental Influences on Infant Growth: Prospective Analysis of the Gemini Twin Birth Cohort

Objective Infancy is a critical period during which rapid growth potentially programs future disease risk. Identifying the modifiable determinants of growth is therefore important. To capture the complexity of infant growth, we modeled growth trajectories from birth to six months in order to compare the genetic and environmental influences on growth trajectory parameters with single time-point measures at birth, three and six months of age. Methods Data were from Gemini, a population sample of 2402 UK families with twins. An average 10 weight measurements per child made by health professionals were available over the first six months. Weights at birth, three and six months were identified. Longitudinal growth trajectories were modeled using SITAR utilizing all available weight measures for each child. SITAR generates three parameters: size (characterizing mean weight throughout infancy), tempo (indicating age at peak weight velocity (PWV)), and velocity (reflecting the size of PWV). Genetic and environmental influences were estimated using quantitative genetic analysis. Results In line with previous studies, heritability of weight at birth and three months was low (38%), but it was higher at six months (62%). Heritability of the growth trajectory parameters was high for size (69%) and velocity (57%), but low (35%) for tempo. Common environmental influences predominated for tempo (42%). Conclusion Modeled growth parameters using SITAR indicated that size and velocity were primarily under genetic influence but tempo was predominantly environmentally determined. These results emphasize the importance of identifying specific modifiable environmental determinants of the timing of peak infant growth.
Semiclassical analysis of spectral correlations in mesoscopic systems.

We consider the recently developed semiclassical analysis of the quantum-mechanical spectral form factor, which may be expressed in terms of classically definable properties. When applied to electrons whose classical behavior is diffusive, the results of earlier quantum-mechanical perturbative derivations, which were developed under a different set of assumptions, are reproduced. The comparison between the two derivations shows that the result depends not on their specific details, but to a large extent on the principle of quantum coherent superposition, and on the generality of the notion of diffusion
Nonclinical Addiction Recovery Support Services: History, Rationale, Models, Potentials, and Pitfalls 1

For more than 150 years, the transition from intractable addiction to stable recovery has often involved two quite different worlds: (1) professionally directed addiction treatment aimed at bio-psycho-social stabilization and recovery initiation, and (2) recovery mutual aid that has served as a medium of recovery initiation/stabilization and long-term recovery maintenance. A third sphere, nonclinical recovery support services, is rapidly emerging as a portal of entry into and a bridge between these two worlds. This article identifies factors related to the rapid growth of peer-based recovery support services, describes the organizational contexts in which they are being imbedded, outlines the variations in how the roles of recovery support specialists are being defined, and discusses the potentials and possible pitfalls of such services.
How do integrative practices influence patient-centered care?: An exploratory study comparing diabetes and mental health care.

BACKGROUND Integration between organizational units to achieve common goals has been of interest to health systems because of the potential to improve patient-centered care. However, the means by which integrative practices actually influence patient-centered care remain unclear. Whereas many studies claim a positive association between implementation of integrative practices and patient-centered care, others raise concerns that integrative practices may not necessarily improve patient-centered care. PURPOSE The aim of this study was to explore the mechanism by which integrative practices influence patient-centered care and to suggest a systematic approach for effective integration. APPROACH We conducted a qualitative study comparing diabetes and mental health services through focus groups with 60 staff members from one health maintenance organization. We developed quantitative indicators to support the suggested model. FINDINGS We identified a five-category framework of integrative practices that each directly and distinctively influences patient-centered care. Moreover, our findings suggest that integrative practices influence patient-centered care indirectly through creation of interdependent treatment competence, which enables providers to repeatedly deliver interdependent treatment in a flexible and adaptive way. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS Providers should carefully implement integrative practices considering patient and disease characteristics, as our findings suggest that more implementation of integrative practices is not necessarily better for patient-centered care. Specifically, optimal implementation refers to the collective implementation of different integrative practices and thus encompasses both the extent (i.e., the amount of currently implemented practices out of those considered important to implement) and the extensiveness (i.e., the amount relative to the implementation of other practices) that may lead to interdependent treatment competence and higher patient-centered care. We suggest a creative measurement method of comparing the relative implementation of integrative practices that may assist managers and policy makers in developing interdependent treatment competence.