Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Rapid Identification of Candida dubliniensis by Indirect Immunofluorescence Based on Differential Localization of Antigens on C. dubliniensis Blastospores and Candida albicans Germ Tubes

ABSTRACT There is a clear need for the development of a rapid and reliable test for the identification of Candida dubliniensis and for the discrimination of this species from Candida albicans. In the present study we have investigated the potential use of C. dubliniensis-specific antigens as a basis for its identification. We produced an anti-C. dubliniensis serum which, after adsorption with C. albicans blastospores, was found to differentially label C. dubliniensis isolates in an indirect immunofluorescence test. In this test, the antiserum reacted with blastospores and germ tubes of C. dubliniensis and with blastospores of Candida krusei and Rhodotorula rubra but did not react with blastospores of several otherCandida species including C. albicans. The antiserum also reacted with C. albicans germ tubes. The anti-C. dubliniensis adsorbed serum reacted with specific components of 25, 28, 37, 40, 52, and 62 kDa in the C. dubliniensis extract and with a variety of antigens from other yeast species. The antigens from non-C. dubliniensis yeasts showing reactivity with the anti-C. dubliniensis adsorbed serum are mostly expressed within the cell walls of these yeast species, and this reactivity does not interfere with the use of the anti-C. dubliniensis adsorbed serum in an indirect immunofluorescence test for the rapid identification of C. dubliniensis.
How Can the ICAC Help Foster the Wide-Spread Adoption of Company Anticorruption Programmes in Hong Kong?

By most measures, Hong Kong’s companies rank relatively poor in terms of adopting business measures aimed at preventing, detecting, and sanctioning corruption. Because Hong Kong anti-corruption law has focused on natural rather than legal persons, Hong Kong’s companies have hitherto had little incentive to adopt corporate policies and practices aimed at fighting corruption committed by its agents. In this brief, we argue that Hong Kong should adopt legal provisions similar to those in other upper-income countries (like the US, UK and Western Europe), which provide the incentives for companies to engage in some self-policing. Hong Kong law should penalise corporations for corruption committed by their agents. Such law should provide incentives for self-policing by offering limited relief from prosecution for companies which adopt generally effective, comprehensive and risk-focused anti-corruption programmes. Such law should introduce incentives for professional associations, business groups, accountants and other “stakeholders” to assist companies implement anti-corruption policies and practices. Corporate whistleblowing needs to be protected. We also recommend the restructuring of the ICAC’s Ethics Development Centre so can play a more effective role in helping companies adopt adequate anti-corruption measures.
Short-coupled variant of torsade de pointes. A new electrocardiographic entity in the spectrum of idiopathic ventricular tachyarrhythmias.

BACKGROUND Torsade de pointes is characterized not only by its particular ECG pattern but by its context of congenital or acquired long QT syndrome and the long coupling interval of the initial premature beat. METHODS AND RESULTS We observed 14 patients aged 34.6 +/- 10 years (mean +/- SD) with no structural heart disease who presented with syncope related to a typical ECG aspect of torsade de pointes. However, there was no evidence of long QT syndrome, and the torsade had the unusual particularity of an extremely short coupling interval of the first beat or of the isolated premature beats (245 +/- 28 milliseconds). In 10 cases they deteriorated into ventricular fibrillation. Four patients had a familial history of sudden death. Only 2 patients had a tachyarrhythmia inducible by programmed stimulation. At Holter recordings the heart rate variability was globally and significantly depressed, the vagal limb of the autonomic nervous system being predominantly affected. During a mean follow-up of 7 years there were 5 deaths (4 sudden). Nine patients are alive, 3 with implanted defibrillators and 6 treated with verapamil alone. Unlike the other types of antiarrhythmic agents including beta-blockers and amiodarone, verapamil is in our experience the only drug apparently active on the arrhythmias; however, it does not prevent sudden death. CONCLUSIONS The short-coupled variant of torsade de pointes should be identified because of their ECG pattern and the risk of sudden death in young adults with no structural heart disease.
AUTOMATIC ALGORITHM DEVELOPMENT USING NEW REINFORCEMENT PROGRAMMING TECHNIQUES

Reinforcement Programming (RP) is a new approach to automatically generating algorithms that uses reinforcement learning techniques. This paper introduces the RP approach and demonstrates its use to generate a generalized, in‐place, iterative sort algorithm. The RP approach improves on earlier results that use genetic programming (GP). The resulting algorithm is a novel algorithm that is more efficient than comparable sorting routines. RP learns the sort in fewer iterations than GP and with fewer resources. Experiments establish interesting empirical bounds on learning the sort algorithm: A list of size 4 is sufficient to learn the generalized sort algorithm. The training set only requires one element and learning took less than 200,000 iterations. Additionally RP was used to generate three binary addition algorithms: a full adder, a binary incrementer, and a binary adder.
Arabidopsis Anaphase-Promoting Complexes: Multiple Activators and Wide Range of Substrates Might Keep APC Perpetually Busy

The anaphase-promoting complex (APC), a multisubunit E3 ubiquitin ligase, is anessential regulator of the cell cycle from metaphase until S phase in yeast and metazoans.APC mediates degradation of numerous cell cycle-related proteins, including mitoticcyclins and its activation and substrate-specificity are determined by two adaptor proteins,Cdc20 and Cdh1. Plants have multiple APC activators and the Cdh1-type proteins, inaddition, are represented by two subclasses, known as Ccs52A and Ccs52B. TheArabidopsis genome contains five cdc20 genes as well as ccs52A1, ccs52A2 and ccs52B. InSchizosaccharomyces pombe, expression of the three Atccs52 genes elicited distinctphenotypes supporting non-redundant function of the AtCcs52 proteins. Consistent withthese activities, the AtCcs52 proteins were able to bind both to the yeast and theArabidopsis APCs. In synchronized Arabidopsis cell cultures the cdc20 transcripts werepresent from early G2 until the M-phase exit, ccs52B from G2/M to M while ccs52A1 andccs52A2 were from late M until early G2, suggesting consecutive action of these APCactivators in the plant cell cycle. The AtCcs52 proteins interacted with different subsets ofmitotic cyclins, in accordance with their expression profiles, either in free- or CDK-boundforms. Expression of most APC subunits was constitutive, whereas cdc27a and cdc27b,corresponding to two forms of apc3, and ubc19 and ubc20 encoding E2-C type ubiquitinconjugatingenzymes displayed differences in their cell cycle regulation. These dataindicate the existence of numerous APCCdc20/Ccs52/Cdc27 forms in Arabidopsis, which inconjunction with different E2 enzymes might have distinct or complementary functions atdistinct stages of the cell cycle.
Grb2‐associated binder‐1 plays a central role in the hepatocyte growth factor enhancement of hepatoma growth inhibition by K vitamin analog compound 5

Compound 5 (Cpd 5), a K vitamin analog, has been shown to inhibit Hep3B human hepatoma cell growth in cultures and rat hepatoma growth in vivo through prolonged epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)–extracellular response kinase (ERK) phosphorylation, and hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) synergizes with Cpd 5 to enhance the inhibition of Hep3B cell and rat hepatoma growth. To explore the mechanisms mediating the HGF/Cpd 5 synergy, we examined the possible involvement of the Grb2‐associated binder‐1 (Gab1) docking protein because it interacts with both EGFR and HGF receptor c‐Met pathways. We found that HGF enhanced Cpd 5–induced c‐Met phosphorylation at Tyr‐1349, a binding site for Gab1, resulting in increased c‐Met binding to Gab1, and induced strong and prolonged Gab1 tyrosine phosphorylation. Prolonged Gab1 phosphorylation by HGF/Cpd 5 in turn enhanced the ability of Gab1 to bind to protein tyrosine phosphatase SHP2 and enhanced the activation of its downstream mitogen‐activated protein kinase pathway. In contrast, this same HGF/Cpd 5 treatment inhibited Gab1 binding to phosphatidylinositol 3‐kinase (PI3K), leading to the inactivation of the PI3K‐Akt pathway. The inhibition of Akt phosphorylation by HGF/Cpd 5 further activated the Raf‐MEK‐ERK signaling cascade via an Akt‐Raf1 interaction, leading to strong and prolonged ERK phosphorylation. The transfection of Hep3B cells with mutated Gab1 (Gab1 Y627F), which had lost its ability to bind SHP2, antagonized HGF/Cpd 5–induced ERK phosphorylation, whereas the transfection of Hep3B cells with mutated Gab1 3YF, which lost its ability to bind PI3K, further enhanced HGF/Cpd 5–induced ERK phosphorylation and cell growth inhibition. Conclusion: Gab1 plays a central role in regulating HGF/Cpd 5 synergy in their actions on Hep3B cell growth inhibition. (HEPATOLOGY 2007;46:2003–2013.)
Impact of Vth shift on Ron in E/D-mode GaN-on-Si power transistors: Role of dynamic stress and gate overdrive

In this work, we revealed the impacts of V<sub>TH</sub> shift on R<sub>ON</sub> in enhancement-/depletion-mode (E/D-mode) GaN transistors under dynamic AC (1 k-1 MHz) stress. With newly developed fast dynamic characterization techniques, we achieved data acquisition within 120 ns after each stress pulse throughout the entire stress time ranging from 10<sup>-7</sup> s up to 10<sup>3</sup> s. V<sub>TH</sub> shift and the consequent R<sub>ON</sub> increase under dynamic stress, which are more relevant to high-frequency switching operation, exhibits frequency dependence and is smaller than that under conventionally used static stress. Furthermore, distinctive R<sub>ON's</sub> susceptibilities to V<sub>TH</sub> shift between E-mode and D-mode GaN transistors are revealed and analyzed. The correlation between V<sub>TH</sub> shift and R<sub>ON</sub> facilitates the assessment on how much V<sub>TH</sub> shift a GaN power switch can tolerate.
Innate Sociability: Self-Biased Conditioning

This article investigates fundamental requirements of an architectural framework on which social intelligence could be developed and proposes the self-biased (SB) conditioning scheme as a basis for development of social intelligence. The objective of SB conditioning is to develop a set of secondary responses in a social context. SB conditioning requires two kinds of components: a set of primary response networks and an associative memory. A primary response network is unique in this conditioning scheme. It includes three types of components: an activation node, an expectation node, and a motor center. This network, by its expectation node, presupposes an involvement by others, in a social context, and therefore it can be a basis of social intelligence. A few examples of social intelligence are shown with this SB conditioning scheme: “eagle alarm” call learning, attachment behavior, and sympathetic coupling. The topic of situated personal assistance is also introduced in relation to the proposed scheme.
MicroRNAs Regulate Key Effector Pathways of Senescence

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small (approximately 22 nt) noncoding endogenous RNA molecules that regulate gene expression and protein coding by base pairing with the 3′ untranslated region (UTR) of target mRNAs. miRNA expression is associated with cancer pathogenesis because miRNAs are intimately linked to cancer development. Senescence blocks cell proliferation, representing an important barrier that cells must bypass to reach malignancy. Importantly, certain miRNAs have been shown to have an important role during cellular senescence, which is also involved in human tumorigenesis. Therefore, therapeutic induction of senescence by drugs or miRNA-based therapies is a potential method to treat cancer by inducing a persistent growth arrest in tumors.
Virtual Machines' Load-Balancing in Inter-clouds

Virtualization is the fundamental technology enabler behind Cloud Computing (CC) whose services are provided via the instantiation of Virtual Machines (VMs). These instantiations follow mostly a stochastic pattern, depending mainly on the ad hoc timing when users request and release these services, and thus generating a dynamic load on the CC compute nodes. To cope with this inherent dynamicity, a load-balancing scheme is substantial for an optimal CC platform operation. Ideally, VMs need to be dynamically migrated from a Cloud site to another in order to balance between Cloud sites witnessing heavy and light loads. In this paper, we shed further light on inter-Cloud load-balancing subtleties, and delineate its strong correlation to VMs migration. We propose a novel idea for live VM-migration (soft-handoff VM migration) inspired from mobile computing. As a prerequisite, we implemented a simple load-balancing scheme, consisting on real-time tracking of VMs load in a real-world testbed interconnecting two Cloud sites.
Prognostic Implications of Creatine Kinase-MB Elevation After Percutaneous Coronary Intervention: Results From the Evaluation of Drug-Eluting Stents and Ischemic Events (EVENT) Registry

Background— Creatine kinase-MB (CK-MB) elevation after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) has been associated with increased risk for mortality. Although most studies have defined periprocedural myocardial infarction (pMI) as an elevation in CK-MB >3× upper limit of normal (ULN), use of different CK-MB assays and variation in site-specific definitions of the ULN may limit the value of such relative thresholds. Methods and Results— We used data from the multicenter Evaluation of Drug-Eluting Stents and Ischemic Events (EVENT) registry to examine the impact of variations in site-specific thresholds for CK-MB elevation on the incidence of pMI as well as the relationship between absolute peak levels of CK-MB after PCI and 1-year mortality. The study cohort consisted of 6347 patients who underwent nonemergent PCI and had normal CK-MB at baseline. Across the 59 study centers, the ULN for CK-MB ranged from 2.6 to 10.4 ng/mL (median, 5.0 ng/mL), and there was an inverse relationship between the site-specific ULN and the incidence of pMI (defined as CK-MB elevation >3× ULN). Although any postprocedure elevation of CK-MB was associated with an adverse prognosis, in categorical analyses, only CK-MB ≥50 ng/mL was independently associated with increased 1-year mortality (hazard ratio, 4.71; 95% confidence interval, 2.42 to 9.13; P<0.001). Spline analysis using peak CK-MB as a continuous variable suggested a graded, nonlinear relationship with 1-year mortality, with an inflection point at ≈30 ng/mL. Conclusions— Among unselected patients undergoing PCI, there is a graded relationship between CK-MB elevation after PCI and 1-year mortality that is particularly strong for large CK-MB elevations (>30 to 50 ng/mL). Future studies that include pMI as a clinical end point should consider using a core laboratory to assess CK-MB (to ensure consistency) and raising the threshold for defining pMI above current levels (to enhance clinical relevance).
Ecological and evolutionary genomics of marine photosynthetic organisms

Environmental (ecological) genomics aims to understand the genetic basis of relationships between organisms and their abiotic and biotic environments. It is a rapidly progressing field of research largely due to recent advances in the speed and volume of genomic data being produced by next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies. Building on information generated by NGS‐based approaches, functional genomic methodologies are being applied to identify and characterize genes and gene systems of both environmental and evolutionary relevance. Marine photosynthetic organisms (MPOs) were poorly represented amongst the early genomic models, but this situation is changing rapidly. Here we provide an overview of the recent advances in the application of ecological genomic approaches to both prokaryotic and eukaryotic MPOs. We describe how these approaches are being used to explore the biology and ecology of marine cyanobacteria and algae, particularly with regard to their functions in a broad range of marine ecosystems. Specifically, we review the ecological and evolutionary insights gained from whole genome and transcriptome sequencing projects applied to MPOs and illustrate how their genomes are yielding information on the specific features of these organisms.
Integrating players, reputation and ranking to manage cheating in MMOGs

In this paper, we propose an approach that uses in-game reputation as a solution to the problem of cheating in massively multiplayer online games. What constitutes cheating is however quite context-specific and subjective, and there is no universal view. Thus our approach aims to adjust to the particular forms of cheating to which players object rather than deciding a priori which forms of cheating should be controlled. The main feature of our approach is an architecture and model for maintaining player-based and context-appropriate trust and reputation measures, with the integration of these into the game's ranking system. When an avatar loses reputation, our approach intervenes to reduce its ranking. It is envisaged that players will come to attach value to reputation in its own right. We also present the results of relatively large-scale simulations of various scenarios involving sequences of encounters between players, with an initial implementation of our reputation and ranking model in place, to observe the impact on cheaters (and non-cheaters).
Collecting and making sense of video learning analytics

Teachers have employed online video as an element of their instructional media portfolio, alongside with books, slides, notes, etc. In comparison to other instructional media, online video affords more opportunities for recording of student navigation on a video lecture. Video analytics might provide insights into student learning performance and inform the improvement of teaching tactics. Nevertheless, those analytics are not accessible to learning stakeholders, such as researchers and educators, mainly because online video platforms do not share broadly the interactions of the users with their systems. As a remedy, we have designed an open-access video analytics system and employed it in a video-assisted course. In this paper, we present a longitudinal study, which provides valuable insights through the lens of the collected video analytics. In particular, we collected and analyzed students' video navigation, learning performance, and attitudes, and we provide the lessons learned for further development and refinement of video-assisted courses and practices.
Organic matter in carbonaceous meteorites: past, present and future research

Carbonaceous meteorites are fragments of ancient asteroids that have remained relatively unprocessed since the formation of the Solar System. These carbon-rich objects provide a record of prebiotic chemical evolution and a window on the early Solar System. Many compound classes are present reflecting a rich organic chemical environment during the formation of the planets. Recent theories suggest that similar extraterrestrial organic mixtures may have acted as the starting materials for life on Earth.
System management to comply with SLA availability guarantees in cloud computing

SLAs are common means to define specifications and requirements of cloud computing services in business relationships. The terms that define the guaranteed availability for a given period are fundamental to these contracts. In this context, a natural question for cloud providers is: How to guarantee the availability promised? This paper studies the level of availability offered to a virtual machine during an SLA period in clouds with different: size, redundancy, and fault tolerance techniques. Finally, this paper proposes the use of the SLA -budget for the implementation of smart policies in: i) the assignment of spare servers when virtual machines are restored. ii) the dynamic use of different fault tolerance licenses. Using such policies results in a considerable reduction of the probability of breaching the SLA guarantee, by making an efficient use of the cloud resources available. This paper is a first step in the design of SLA-aware cloud architectures.
Novel Method to Localize the Pupil in Eye Gaze Tracking Systems

In eye gaze tracking systems pupil localization is very significant task. Accurately localizing pupil within an eye image or in relative real time streaming video is still a challenge because the occlusion caused by eyelashes, eyelids and shadowing effects. In this paper we propose novel pupil positioning method to localize pupil in robust manner. This method is based on fusion of existing state-of-the-art eye localizing and pupil positioning methods. Proposed method gives improvement in accuracy and lowering the false detection.
Governance in der Erwachsenenbildung. Besseres Regieren durch Aushöhlung der Demokratie

Kann der Governance-Begriff zum besseren Verstandnis der Entwicklung der osterreichischen Erwachsenenbildungs-/Weiterbildungspolitik beitragen? Wie steht es um das Verhaltnis der Regierungsprozesse zu den demokratischen Entscheidungsprozessen? Wird die Wirksamkeit von Entscheidungen dadurch verbessert, dass die demokratische Grundlage der offentlichen Leistungserbringung geschmalert wird? Diese Fragen versucht der Beitrag auf einer analytischen Ebene auszuloten. Er reflektiert Missverstandnisse und Fehlkommunikationen rund um den Governance-Begriff. Die schwache theoretische Verankerung von Educational Governance in der Politikwissenschaft und die hohe normative Ladung Â– im unterstutzenden wie auch im kritischen Sinne Â– von vorhandenen Anwendungen des Konzepts auf das Bildungswesen werden ausgeleuchtet. Dann wird eine Anwendung des Governance-Konzeptes auf die Entwicklung der osterreichischen Erwachsenenbildung/Weiterbildung und insbesondere auf die LLL-Strategie versucht. Die Frage, inwieweit Governance-Ansatze eine Weiterentwicklung der EB/WB-Politik bewirkt haben bzw. bewirken konnen oder inwieweit sie eher die Okonomisierung und Entdemokratisierung befordern, bildet den Abschluss. (DIPF/Orig.) Can the term governance contribute to a better understanding of the development of Austrian adult education/continuing education policy? How are governance processes related to democratic decision-making? Is the effectiveness of decisions improved by diminishing the democratic basis for the provision of public services? This article attempts to analyse these and other questions. It reflects on misunderstandings and miscommunication surrounding the term governance. The weak theoretical anchoring of educational governance in political science and the great normative nature Â– in the supporting as well as critical sense Â– of existing applications of the concept to education are illuminated. An attempt is made to apply the governance concept to the development of Austrian adult education/continuing education and the policy of lifelong learning in particular. The article concludes by discussing to what extent governance approaches have resulted in or could result in further development of adult education/continuing education policy and to what extent they promote economization and the loss of democracy. (DIPF/Orig.)