Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Role of TolC in Klebsiella oxytoca resistance to antibiotics.

OBJECTIVES The Gram-negative human pathogen Klebsiella oxytoca is often resistant to several antibiotics such as fluoroquinolones, erythromycin, tetracycline, chloramphenicol and others. The aim of this study was to look at the mechanisms leading to this resistance and particularly the role of TolC and efflux mechanisms in determining resistance. METHODS Ciprofloxacin accumulation was measured spectrofluorometrically. Growth inhibition assays were performed in the presence or absence of carbonyl cyanide m-chlorophenylhydrazone (10 mg/L, final concentration). The genome of K. oxytoca was analysed for the existence of loci encoding tolC by PCR using primers for the Enterobacter aerogenes tolC gene and subsequently sequenced. A plasmid named pUC18TolC was constructed and inserted into Escherichia coli C600tolC,Tn5, and the function of TolC was analysed. The structure modelling was performed using the Modeller program. RESULTS The existence of the AcrAB efflux mechanism was demonstrated in the species, and a TolC-like protein, a channel-forming protein at the external membrane that allows the extrusion of antibiotics by the AcrAB efflux pump, was cloned, sequenced and a model proposed. CONCLUSIONS K. oxytoca express a functional TolC that lacks a fragment of six amino acids characteristic of the external loops of TolC in E. coli. This makes this species resistant to a few colicins.
Bearing Fault Diagnostics Based on Reconstructed Features

Rolling-element bearings are widely used in various mechanical and electrical systems. A reliable bearing fault diagnostic technique is critically needed in industries to recognize a bearing fault at its early stage so as to prevent system's performance degradation and malfunction. In this work, a genetic programming based feature reconstruction approach is proposed for bearing fault diagnostics. A new fitness measure is proposed to improve the GP operations in feature formulation. The original features are from the modified kurtosis ratio and the one-scale wavelet analysis. Investigation results show that the proposed method is an effective feature formulation tool; the reconstructed features are more robust against the variations in bearing geometry and operating conditions. The corresponding fault diagnostic reliability can be enhanced significantly. As a result, this work provides a promising technique and tool for bearing condition monitoring for real-world applications.
Sign recognition using depth image streams

A set of techniques is presented for extracting essential shape information from image sequences. Presented methods are (i) human detection, (ii) human body parts detection, and (iii) hand shape analysis, all based on depth image streams. In particular, representative types of hand shapes used in Japanese sign language (JSL) are recognized in a non-intrusive manner with a high recognition rate. An experimental JSL recognition system is built that can recognize over 100 words by using an active sensing hardware to capture a stream of depth images at a video rate. Experimental results are shown to validate our approach and characteristics of our approach are discussed
SMOG: A cloud platform for seamless wide area migration of online games

Highly interactive network applications such as online games are rapidly growing in popularity but remain challenging for game providers to support, due to their inherent need for low latency. While cloud computing has proven a useful infrastructure for other applications, existing cloud computing facilities are insufficient for games, due to the unpredictability of their workload, their demands on latency and scale, and the need to support game-specific requirements (e.g., players may wish to play with certain other players already in the game). In this work, we explore whether dynamic optimization of latency and scaling of games can be achieved by supplementing cloud computing infrastructure with seamless wide area virtual machine migration using network based route control. We propose SMOG, a framework that dynamically migrates game servers to their optimal location, and uses orchestrated route control to optimize the network path to the server to minimize observable effects of live server migration. Through deployment of a prototype implementation on a Tier-1 ISP's backbone and a user study, we found SMOG can decrease average end-user latency by up to 60% while performing migration in a manner transparent to game players. While this paper's focus is online games, SMOG is general enough to be used for a variety of latency-sensitive interactive applications such as video conferencing and interactive video streaming.
Linkage relationships of 19 enzyme Loci in maize.

Linkage relationships of 19 enzyme loci have been examined. The chromosomal locations of eight of these loci are formally reported for the first time in this paper. These localizations should assist in the construction of additional useful chromosome marker stocks, especially since several of these enzyme loci lie in regions that were previously poorly mapped. Six loci are on the long arm of chromosome 1. The arrangement is (centromere)-Mdh4-mmm-Pgm1-Adh1-Phi-Gdh1, with about 46% recombination between Mdh4 and Gdh1. -Linkage studies with a2 and pr have resulted in the localization of four enzyme genes to chromosome 5 with arrangement Pgm2-Mdh5-Got3-a2-(centromere)-pr-Got2. Pgm2 lies approximately 35 map units distal to a2 in a previously unmapped region of the short arm of 5, beyond ameiotic. -Approximately 23% recombination was observed between Mdh4 and Pgm1 on chromosome 1, while 17% recombination occurred between Mdh5 and Pgm2 on chromosome 5. Similarly, linkages between Idh1 and Mdh1, about 22 map units apart on chromosome 8, and between Mdh2 and Idh2, less than 5 map units apart on chromosome 6, were observed. Thus, segments of chromosomes 1 and 5 and segments of 6 and 8 may represent duplications on nonhomologous chromosomes.
New approach to the validity of the alcohol use disorders identification test: stratum-specific likelihood ratios analysis.

BACKGROUND Previous validation studies of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) used either the fixed-threshold approach or receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses. This study was aimed to conduct a stratum-specific likelihood ratio (SSLR) analysis on the validity of the AUDIT for detecting alcohol use disorders. METHODS A two-phase validation study was conducted among nonpsychiatric inpatients at a general hospital, using the AUDIT for phase 1 screening and the Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry for the phase 2 interview. All of the patients with positive screening results and a subsample of the patients with negative screening results were interviewed in the second phase. The validity of the AUDIT for current alcohol use disorders was estimated using the ROC first, and an SSLR analysis was performed subsequently. RESULTS In 422 inpatients who completed the screening, 193 had a negative result with a zero score, 103 had a negative result with a nonzero score, and 126 had a positive result. Twenty screened patients with a negative result and a nonzero score and 107 patients with a positive result were interviewed in the second phase, in which 59 patients were found to have current alcohol use disorders according to DSM-IV criteria. The area under the ROC curve of the AUDIT for current alcohol use disorders was 0.98. The sensitivity and specificity of the AUDIT at the optimal cutoff of 8 were 0.97 and 0.90, respectively. Three strata of the AUDIT scores (0-7, 8-13, and > or = 14) were derived for alcohol use disorders, with the SSLRs being 0.04, 3.67, and 49.72, and the corresponding posttest probabilities being 0.01, 0.42, and 0.91, respectively. CONCLUSIONS The AUDIT is a valid screening tool for alcohol use disorders, and the three strata derived from the SSLR analysis are informative and readily applicable in clinical practice.
T lymphocytes as a target of histamine action

Histamine is one of the most important biogenic amines in medicine and biology but its role in allergy, autoimmune and neoplastic diseases has not yet been fully defined. The last few years have brought many discoveries concerning important modulatory effects of histamine and its receptors on basic mechanisms of the immunological processes. The role of histamine H1 and H2 receptors in immunomodulation has been established. The immunomodulatory function of a newly described histamine H4 receptor has been revealed. One of the most important modulatory effects of histamine currently studied is its influence on T lymphocyte differentiation and function. Our present knowledge suggests that histamine may have a wider influence on various immunological processes than is now accepted; therefore, we need further studies to fully clarify the role of histamine and its receptors. This knowledge can bring new therapeutic solutions in allergies, autoimmune diseases and malignancies.
Synergistic Effects of Dust and Ammonia on the Occupational Health Effects of Poultry Production Workers

Abstract Objective. As production methods for livestock and poultry moved towards large industrial-scale confinement facilities, the occupational health community reported risks for respiratory illnesses in workers. Likely, greater risks for respiratory disease will occur with the continuing trend towards full-time confinement workers, who inspire a combination of bioaerosols, particulates, and gases.1-3 Although there have been numerous studies on the individual health effects of air contaminants inside confined animal production facilities, there have been no reports on the effects of combined exposures. The objective of this study was to investigate the combined health effects of air contaminants on poultry production workers. Sample Population. Two hundred and fifty-seven poultry production workers participated in this study. The workers represented various areas of the poultry industry, including turkey growing, broiler production, egg laying, and unloading/shakeling in poultry processing. Worker procedures pulmonary function testing was conducted before and after a four-hour work shift. The work environment was assessed for total and respirable dust, ammonia, endotoxin and CO2. The relationship of simultaneous total dust and ammonia exposures was examined by correlation, logistic modeling, and synergy index calculations. Results. Synergy between ammonia levels and airborne dust explained up to 43% and 63% of the decline (respectively for Forced Expiratory Volume (FEV) in one second and Forced Expiratory Flow ([FEF25-75]) in pulmonary function over the work shift. Furthermore, assessing the synergy index indicated the combined effect of dust and ammonia is from 53 to 156% (greater combined than individually). The proportion of health effect due to synergy is 35%-61%. Conclusions. Synergy of simultaneous dust and ammonia exposures in a working environment raises the question of redefining exposure limits for organic dust and ammonia when workers are exposed simultaneously to these substances. Clinical Relevance. Control of both dust and ammonia in livestock facilities is extremely important. Lack of control of both these contaminants will increase the risk of respiratory dysfunction to all exposed to this environment, including workers and veterinarians.
SiGe quantum wells for uncooled long wavelength infra-red radiation (LWIR) sensors

We demonstrate a novel single-crystalline high-performance thermistor material based on SiGe quantum well heterostructures. The SiGe/Si quantum wells are grown epitaxially on standard Si [001] substrates. Holes are used as charge carriers utilizing the discontinuities in the valence band structure. By optimizing design parameters such as the barrier height (by variation of the germanium content) and the fermi level Ef (by variation of the quantum well width and doping level) of the material, the layer structure can be tailored. Then a very high temperature coefficient of resistivity (TCR) can be obtained which is superior to the previous reported conventional thin film materials such as vanadium oxide and amorphous silicon. In addition, the high quality crystalline material promises very low 1/f-noise characteristics promoting an outstanding signal to noise ratio as well as well defined and uniform material properties. High-resolution X-ray diffraction was applied to characterize the thickness and Ge content of QWs. The results show sharp oscillations indicating an almost ideal super lattice with negligible relaxation and low defect density. The impact of growth temperature on the thermistor material properties was characterized by analyzing how the resulting strain primarily affects the performance of the TCR and 1/f noise. Results illustrate a value of 3.3 %/K for TCR with a low 1/f noise.
Low‐avidity anti‐HPA‐1a alloantibodies are capable of antigen‐positive platelet destruction in the NOD/SCID mouse model of alloimmune thrombocytopenia

BACKGROUND: Neonatal alloimmune thrombocytopenia (NAIT) is mostly caused by maternal antibodies against human platelet antigen 1a (HPA‐1a) expressed on glycoprotein (GP) IIb/IIIa. Accumulated evidence indicated that anti‐HPA‐1a could be overlooked by standard methods due to low avidity. Low‐avidity HPA‐1a antibodies were shown to be detectable by surface plasmon resonance (SPR). We sought to investigate the frequency and in vivo relevance of low‐avidity anti‐HPA‐1a.
Representing Context for Multiagent Trust Modeling

We present a universal mechanism that can be combined with existing trust models to extend their capabilities towards efficient modelling of the situational (context- dependent) trust. The mechanism describes the similarity between the situations using their distance in a metric space and defines a set of reference contexts in this space to which it associates the trustfulness data. The data associated with each reference context is updated and queried with the weight that decreases with distance between the current situation and the reference context. In the presented mechanism, we use Leader-Follower clustering to place the reference contexts to be representative of the data. In an empirical test, we show that context-aware models easily outperform the general trust when the situation has an impact on partner trustfulness and that their performance and efficiency is comparable with general trust models when the trustfulness is independent of the situation. Multi-context nature of the model also expands its use towards more advanced uses, allowing policy/norm learning from at the trust model at runtime, as well as reasoning based on uncertain identities.
EXTRACTION OF ROADS FROM AERIAL IMAGERY BASED ON GROUPING AND LOCAL CONTEXT

This paper addresses the automatic extraction of roads from aerial imagery. As only the automatic extraction of parts of the road network is possible in a single step, grouping is an inherent problem. For this a road extraction scheme based on iterative local grouping of “road objects” is proposed. Apart from geometric grouping cues and radiometric attributes also information about local context is integrated in the road model. Contextual information is used to evaluate situations where the verification of connection hypotheses using radiometric properties fails. Results show the validity of the proposed approach.
The classification of white blood cells.

The simulation of a system to perform an automated leukocyte differential has been achieved through the measurement of certain features or parameters on the cell image. Using photomicrographs on Kodachrome II-A film of Wright's stained leukocytes, the following four features have successfully separated five normal cell types (neutrophil, eosinophil, basophil, lymphocyte, and monocyte): 1) nucleus size; 2) nucleus color; 3) cytoplasm size; 4) cytoplasm color.
Method for adjacency information updating in IPv6 networks

In this paper we present a method of transmitting routing updates in IPv6 networks. Routing protocols that use discrete packets to send/receive routing updates are susceptible to instability in a limited bandwidth or lossy links environment. We study and compare our method with OSPF and EIGRP and show that it stabilizes more rapidly. By design, our method is robust and it is not susceptible to bandwidth limitation and to the degree of lost packets like other routing protocols.
Researcher-practitioner interaction

This workshop explores whether problems exist between HCI researchers and the practitioners who are consumers of research - and, if so, will endeavor to identify the dimensions of the problems and propose possible solutions. On the one hand, the workshop aims to articulate factors that may render the research literature inaccessible or irrelevant to practitioners and to suggest potential improvements. On the other hand, the workshop also aims to learn from researchers how their research could benefit from practitioner input.
Development of generic competencies and its association with secondary public examination performance: A tertiary STEM freshmen's perspective

The present paper examines the relationship between development of various kinds of generic competencies, and its association with secondary public examination performance, using a case study of tertiary STEM freshmen in Hong Kong. The result shows different trajectories of generic competencies development between STEM and non-STEM students prior to their entrance to tertiary education. The findings also show that Liberal Studies, as a key public examination subject, has positive association with the development of both creative thinking as well as critical thinking among STEM students.
Forming Limit Analyses of 590 MPa High Strength Steel Sheet Using Differential Work Hardening Model

A servo-controlled tension-internal pressure testing machine with an optical 3D deformation analysis system (ARAMIS®, GOM) was used to measure the multiaxial plastic deformation behavior of a 590MPa high strength steel sheet for a range of strain from initial yield to fracture. Tubular specimens were fabricated from the sheet sample by roller bending and laser welding. Many linear stress paths in the first quadrant of stress space were applied to the tubular specimens to measure the forming limit curve (FLC) and forming limit stress curve (FLSC), in addition to the contours of plastic work and the directions of plastic strain rates. It was found that the shapes of the measured work contours changed with the increase of work hardening (plastic work). The observed differential work hardening (DWH) behavior was approximated by changing the material parameters and the exponent of the Yld2000-2d yield function (Barlat et al, 2003) as a function of the equivalent plastic strain. The FLC and FLSC calculated using the Marciniak-Kuczyński-type (M-K) approach with the DWH model were in good agreement with the measurement.
Multi-robot remote driving with collaborative control

Multi-robot remote driving has traditionally been a difficult problem. Whenever an operator is often forced to divide his limited resources (attention, decision making, etc.) among multiple robots, control becomes complicated and performance quickly deteriorates as a result. To remedy this, we need to find ways to make command generation and coordination efficient, so that human-robot interaction is transparent and tasks are easy to perform. We discuss the use of collaboration, human-robot dialogue and waypoint-based driving for vehicle teleoperation. We then describe how these techniques can enable a single operator to effectively control multiple mobile robots.
Identification and characterization of AckA-dependent protein acetylation in Neisseria gonorrhoeae

Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the causative agent of gonorrhea, has a number of factors known to contribute to pathogenesis; however, a full understanding of these processes and their regulation has proven to be elusive. Post-translational modifications (PTMs) of bacterial proteins are now recognized as one mechanism of protein regulation. In the present study, Western blot analyses, with an anti-acetyl-lysine antibody, indicated that a large number of gonococcal proteins are post-translationally modified. Previous work has shown that Nε-lysine acetylation can occur non-enzymatically with acetyl-phosphate (AcP) as the acetyl donor. In the current study, an acetate kinase mutant (1291ackA), which accumulates AcP, was generated in N. gonorrhoeae. Broth cultures of N. gonorrhoeae 1291wt and 1291ackA were grown, proteins extracted and digested, and peptides containing acetylated-lysines (K-acetyl) were affinity-enriched from both strains. Mass spectrometric analyses of these samples identified a total of 2686 unique acetylation sites. Label-free relative quantitation of the K-acetyl peptides derived from the ackA and wild-type (wt) strains demonstrated that 109 acetylation sites had an ackA/wt ratio>2 and p-values <0.05 in at least 2/3 of the biological replicates and were designated as “AckA-dependent”. Regulated K-acetyl sites were found in ribosomal proteins, central metabolism proteins, iron acquisition and regulation proteins, pilus assembly and regulation proteins, and a two-component response regulator. Since AckA is part of a metabolic pathway, comparative growth studies of the ackA mutant and wt strains were performed. The mutant showed a growth defect under aerobic conditions, an inability to grow anaerobically, and a defect in biofilm maturation. In conclusion, the current study identified AckA-dependent acetylation sites in N. gonorrhoeae and determined that these sites are found in a diverse group of proteins. This work lays the foundation for future studies focusing on specific acetylation sites that may have relevance in gonococcal pathogenesis and metabolism.
Human Stressors Are Driving Coastal Benthic Long-Lived Sessile Fan Mussel Pinna nobilis Population Structure More than Environmental Stressors

Coastal degradation and habitat disruption are severely compromising sessile marine species. The fan shell Pinna nobilis is an endemic, vulnerable species and the largest bivalve in the Mediterranean basin. In spite of species legal protection, fan shell populations are declining. Models analyzed the contributions of environmental (mean depth, wave height, maximum wave height, period of waves with high energy and mean direction of wave source) versus human-derived stressors (anchoring, protection status, sewage effluents, fishing activity and diving) as explanatory variables depicting Pinna nobilis populations at a mesoscale level. Human stressors were explaining most of the variability in density spatial distribution of fan shell, significantly disturbing benthic communities. Habitat protection affected P. nobilis structure and physical aggression by anchoring reveals a high impact on densities. Environmental variables instead played a secondary role, indicating that global change processes are not so relevant in coastal benthic communities as human-derived impacts.
KAoS policy management for semantic Web services

Web Services power through explicit representations of Web resources underlying semantics and the development of an intelligent Web infrastructure that can fully exploit them. Semantic Web languages, such as OWL, extend RDF to let users specify ontologies comprising taxonomies of classes and inference rules. Both people and software agents can effectively use Semantic Web Services. ' Agents will increasingly use the combination of semantic markup languages and Semantic Web Services to understand and autonomously manipulate Web content in significant ways. Agents will discover, communicate, and cooperate with other agents and services and-as we' 11 describe -will rely on policy-based management and control mechanisms to ensure respect for human-imposed constraints on agent interaction. Policy-based controls of Semantic Web Services can also help govern interaction with traditional (nonagent) clients.