Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Anaerobic threshold: review of the concept and directions for future research.

The concentration of lactate in the blood is the result of (1) those processes which produce lactate and contribute to its appearance in the blood and (2) those processes which catabolize lactate after its removal from the blood. Consequently, the concentration of lactate in the blood provides minimal information about the rate of lactate production in muscle. The accumulation of lactate beyond the lactate threshold [T(lact)] does provide an indication that the mechanisms of lactate removal fail to keep pace with lactate production. Lactate is produced in skeletal muscle as a direct result of increased metabolic rate and glycolytic carbon flow. Factors which influence lactate production in muscle include: the Vmax of lactic dehydrogenase (LDH), which is several times greater than the combined activities of enzymes which provide alternative pathways of pyruvate metabolism; the kM of LDH for pyruvate, which is sufficiently low to assure maximal stimulation of LDH in the conversion of pyruvate to lactate; and the K'eq of pyruvate to lactate conversion, which exceeds 1000. Recent studies on dog gracilis muscle in situ clearly indicate that lactate production occurs in contracting pure red muscle for reasons other than an O2 limitation on mitochondrial ATP production. In addition to failure of the essential assumption of the anaerobic threshold [T(an)] hypothesis that there exist limitations on O2 availability in muscles of healthy individuals during submaximal exercise, several groups of investigators have produced results which indicate that parameters associated with changes in pulmonary minute ventilation [i.e., the ventilatory threshold, T(vent)] do not always track changes in blood lactate concentration. Therefore, the T(an) hypothesis fails on the bases of theory and prediction. A series of kinetic tracer experiments to better understand lactate kinetics during exercise is proposed.
Extended-spectrum β-lactamases producing Klebsiella pneumoniae isolated in two hospitals in Goiânia/Brazil: detection, prevalence, antimicrobial susceptibility and molecular typing

This study was developed to evaluate the prevalence of extended-spectrum β-lactamases (ESBL) producing Klebsiella pneumoniae in two hospitals (A and B) in Goiânia, GO, Brazil. The antimicrobial susceptibility of the isolates was determined using the MicroScan WalkAway (Dade Behring, USA). Tests to evaluate the genetic correlation between the isolates were also performed. For the ESBL phenotypic test, the Double-disk diffusion (DD) method was used. The strains isolated in Hospital B were submitted to DNA analysis by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). The study showed high prevalence of ESBL-producing K. pneumoniae (25% in hospital A and 66.7% in hospital B), with high rates of antimicrobial resistance. The most active compound was imipenem (100% susceptibility in vitro). The PFGE test showed similiarity in five strains and variability in six strains.The high prevalence of ESBL-producing Klebsiella may be due to individual selection and to dissemination of a common strain.
Procalcitonin-guided antibiotic use vs a standard approach for acute respiratory tract infections in primary care.

BACKGROUND Acute respiratory tract infections are the most common reason for antibiotic therapy in primary care despite their mainly viral etiology. A laboratory test measuring procalcitonin levels in blood specimens was suggested as a tool to reduce unnecessary prescribing of antibiotics. We consider whether antibiotic therapy guided by procalcitonin reduces the use of antibiotics without increasing the restrictions experienced by patients by more than 1 day. METHODS Fifty-three primary care physicians recruited 458 patients, each patient with an acute respiratory tract infection and, in the physician's opinion, in need of antibiotics. Patients were centrally randomized to either a procalcitonin-guided approach to antibiotic therapy or to a standard approach. For patients randomized to procalcitonin-guided therapy, the use of antibiotics was more or less strongly discouraged (procalcitonin level, < or =0.1 or < or =0.25 microg/L, respectively) or recommended (procalcitonin level, >0.25 microg/L). Follow-up data were collected at 7 days by treating physicians and at 14 and 28 days by blinded interviewers. RESULTS Adjusted for baseline characteristics, the mean increase at 14 days in days in which activities were restricted was 0.14 with procalcitonin-guided therapy (95% confidence interval [CI], -0.53 to 0.81 days), which met our criterion of an increase in days in which activities were restricted by no more than 1 day. With procalcitonin-guided therapy, the antibiotic prescription rate was 72% lower (95% CI, 66%-78%) than with standard therapy. Both approaches led to a similar proportion of patients reporting symptoms of ongoing or relapsing infection at 28 days (adjusted odds ratio, 1.0 [95% CI, 0.7-1.5]). CONCLUSIONS As an adjunct to guidelines, procalcitonin-guided therapy markedly reduces antibiotic use for acute respiratory tract infections in primary care without compromising patient outcome. In practice, this could be achieved with 1 to 2 procalcitonin measurements in patients for whom the physician intends to prescribe antibiotics.
Influenza Virus Assembly and Lipid Raft Microdomains: a Role for the Cytoplasmic Tails of the Spike Glycoproteins

ABSTRACT Influenza viruses encoding hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) glycoproteins with deletions in one or both cytoplasmic tails (HAt− or NAt−) have a reduced association with detergent-insoluble glycolipids (DIGs). Mutations which eliminated various combinations of the three palmitoylation sites in HA exhibited reduced amounts of DIG-associated HA in virus-infected cells. The influenza virus matrix (M1) protein was also found to be associated with DIGs, but this association was decreased in cells infected with HAt− or NAt− virus. Regardless of the amount of DIG-associated protein, the HA and NA glycoproteins were targeted primarily to the apical surface of virus-infected, polarized cells. The uncoupling of DIG association and apical transport was augmented by the observation that the influenza A virus M2 protein as well as the influenza C virus HA-esterase-fusion glycoprotein were not associated with DIGs but were apically targeted. The reduced DIG association of HAt− and NAt− is an intrinsic property of the glycoproteins, as similar reductions in DIG association were observed when the proteins were expressed from cDNA. Examination of purified virions indicated reduced amounts of DIG-associated lipids in the envelope of HAt− and NAt− viruses. The data indicate that deletion of both the HA and NA cytoplasmic tails results in reduced DIG association and changes in both virus polypeptide and lipid composition.
Joint Deep Exploitation of Semantic Keywords and Visual Features for Malicious Crowd Image Classification

General image classification approaches differentiate classes using strong distinguishing features but some classes cannot be easily separated because they contain very similar visual features. To deal with this problem, we can use keywords relevant to a particular class. To implement this concept we have newly constructed a malicious crowd dataset which contains crowd images with two events, benign and malicious, which look similar yet involve opposite semantic events. We also created a set of five malicious event-relevant keywords such as police and fire. In the evaluation, integrating malicious event classification with recognition output of these keywords enhances the overall performance on the malicious crowd dataset.
Continuous Software Testing in a Globally Distributed Project

In globally distributed software projects the testing expertise may be scattered across multiple locations. We describe and discuss a globally distributed agile project at DNV GL Software, a multinational provider of software for a safer, smarter and greener future in the energy, process and maritime industries. DNV GL Software is headquartered in Norway. The project is distributed across two locations with 12 team members in Norway and three testers in China. In a distributed agile team with little overlap in working hours the challenge is to coordinate tasks and test activities in a way that makes coordination and communication efficient. DNV GL Software believes in including the remote testers as part of the agile team, enabling self-managing, cross-functional virtual teams that are capable of taking the full responsibility for implementing and verifying one entire feature. To support the communication between testers in China and the rest of the team in Norway, the team needs a shared understanding of the goal of a release and how to collaborate. We conducted interviews with the team and representatives from different roles in the organization, and we performed retrospectives with the team. In this article we describe how continuous testing based on continuous and frequent feedback ensures knowledge sharing and safeguarding the quality of the system under development. We found the following enablers for a successful virtual agile team: coordination by mutual adjustment, dedicated testers and low turnover, shifting working hours, and self-management and autonomy. Non-technical factors, such as socio-technical and organizational factors, have a significant influence on the way software testing is performed in an agile virtual team. To be successful the organization needs to invest in bringing the remote testers closer to the rest of the team, as part of the virtual team.
Extended study towards performance improvement of Cloud-RAN

Cloud Radio Access Network (Cloud-RAN) has recently been proposed as a promising network architecture to maintain both profitability and quality of service of the ever-growing existing networks. This paper provides an extended optimization study of improving the performance of Cloud-RAN targeting minimized consumed power for the network. The minimization problem can be formulated as a Joint RRH selection and power minimization beamforming problem. We adapt a proposed greedy selection algorithm to decrease the number of active Remote Radio Heads (RRHs) and to optimize the transmitted power from RRHs to end users maintaining heterogeneous users' QoS requirements. A heuristics-driven approach has been proposed and applied to the optimization problem to further reach better optimum solutions of power consumption and to reduce the problem complexity. Simulation results coupled with a statistical analysis show that more reduction in both power consumption and complexity have been reached.
Exceptional cause of bowel obstruction: rectal endometriosis mimicking carcinoma of Rectum - a case report

Endometriosis with intestinal serosal involvement is not uncommon in women of childbearing age. However, endometriosis presenting as colon obstruction is rare and occurs in less than 1% of cases. The Lack of pathognomonic signs makes the diagnosis difficult, mostly because the main differential diagnosis is with neoplasm, even during the intervention. Reported here is a case of a 35-year –old woman presenting with bowel obstruction due to rectal endometriosis. The patient presented signs and symptoms of bowel obstruction. Colonoscopy and radiological findings were suggestive of rectal carcinoma. Surgeons performed an anterior resection with right salpingectomy. Histopathology diagnosed bowel endometriosis. This case demonstrates the difficulty of establishing an accurate pre- and intra- operative diagnosis and the ability of intestinal endometriosis to mimic colon cancer.
Calibrage et Reconstruction à l'aide de Parallélépipèdes et de Parallélogrammes

Dans cet article, nous nous interessons a l'usage des parallelepipedes et parallelogrammes dans les processus de calibrage et de reconstruction a partir d'images. Ces entites caracterisent de maniere naturelle des contraintes geometriques frequemment presentes dans les scenes d'environnements humains : le parallelisme et l'orthogonalite par exemple. Nous montrons en particulier que les caracteristiques intrinseques d'une camera sont completement determinees par celles d'un parallelepipede lorsqu'une image de ce parallelepipede est disponible, et inversement. Nous montrons que cette entre les caracteristiques intrinseques peut facilement etre exploitee pour calibrer une camera a partir de la projection d'un parallelepipede. Nous precisons de quelle maniere utiliser cette relation lorsqu'une ou quelques images sont disponibles, comment en particulier combiner les connaissances sur les cameras et sur les primitives utilisees. Ce contexte theorique s'applique aisement a la reconstruction a partir d'images et a la realite augmentee. Nous illustrons ces principes par des resultats pratiques sur des scenes pour lesquelles une ou quelques images non calibrees sont disponibles.
Evaluating Consistency of Best Professional Judgment in the Application of a Multiple Lines of Evidence Sediment Quality Triad

ABSTRACT The bioavailability of sediment-associated contaminants is poorly understood. Often, a triad of chemical concentration measurements, laboratory sediment toxicity tests, and benthic infaunal community condition is used to assess whether contaminants are present at levels of ecological concern. Integration of these 3 lines of evidence is typically based on best professional judgment by experts; however, the level of consistency among expert approach and interpretation has not been determined. In this study, we compared the assessments of 6 experts who were independently provided data from 25 California embayment sites and asked to rank the relative condition of each site from best to worst. The experts were also asked to place each site into 1 of 6 predetermined categories of absolute condition. We provided no guidance regarding assessment approach or interpretation of supplied data. The relative ranking of the sites was highly correlated among the experts, with an average correlation coefficient of 0.92. Although the experts' relative rankings were highly correlated, the categorical assessments were much less consistent, with only 1 site out of 25 assigned to the same absolute condition category by all 6 experts. Most of the observed categorical differences were small in magnitude and involved the weighting of different lines of evidence in individual assessment approaches, rather than interpretation of signals within a line of evidence. We attribute categorical differences to the experts' use of individual best professional judgment and consider these differences to be indicative of potential uncertainty in the evaluation of sediment quality. The results of our study suggest that specifying key aspects of the assessment approach a priori and aligning the approach to the study objectives can reduce this uncertainty.
FDM 3D Printing of Environmental Friendly and High Strength Bio-based PC Filaments for Baby Toys

: Due to the depletion of fossil oil and the increasing oil price, bio-plastic is currently topical. Bio-based plastics are synthesized from plant resources, unlike conventional petroleum-based counterparts. Therefore, the former minimizes global warming and reduces carbon dioxide emission. Fossil polycarbonate (PC)has good mechanical and optical properties, but its synthesis requires bisphenol-A and phosgene gas, which are toxic to humans. To address these problems, the fused deposition 3D printing process (hereafter, FDM) is studied using environmentally-friendly and high-strength bio-based PC. A comparisonof the environmental impact and tensile strength of fossil PC versus bio-based PC is presented herein, demon-strating that bio-based PC is more environmentally-friendly with higher tensile strength than fossil PC. The advantages of bio-based PC are applied in the FDM process for the fabrication of environmentally-friendly baby toys. fused deposition modeling (FDM), 3D printing, baby toys, Environmental friend-liness
Factors Associated with Trichomoniasis, Candidiasis and Bacterial Vaginosis

Of 6125 women attending an STD clinic from 1988 to 1991, 5365 (88%) were tested for vaginitis of whom 97 (1.8%) had trichomoniasis, 945 (17.6%) had candidiasis, 734 (13.7%) had bacterial vaginosis and 3628 (67.6%) were free of vaginal infection. Dual infections occurred in 49 (0.9%) patients. Independent predictors for trichomoniasis by multivariate analysis were being pregnant (odds ratio (OR)=2.4), having vaginal discharge or dysuria (OR=4.7), being Aboriginal (OR=4.3), being Asian (OR=5.0), being unemployed (OR=2.1) or tattoed (OR=1.9). Many factors, including use of oral contraception (OR=1.2) and current antibiotic medication (OR=1.5), had a small significant association with candidiasis. Independent predictors for bacterial vaginosis were having multiple sex partners in the past month (OR=1.6), being unmarried (OR=1.5), being unemployed (OR=1.3) being a prostitute (OR=1.5) and not currently using antibiotic medication (OR=2.5). The epidemiological profiles were consistent with trichomoniasis and bacterial vaginosis being sexually transmitted diseases with epidemiology different from that of gonorrhoea and chlamydia and different from each other, and candidiasis being a disease in which constitutional factors are more important than issues relating to sexual transmission.
Immune recognition of the surface associated antigen, Tc‐SAA‐1, from infective larvae of Teladorsagia circumcincta

A cDNA encoding a surface‐associated antigen was amplified by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (PCR) from RNA extracted from Teladorsagia circumcincta exsheathed third stage larvae (xL3). The protein encoded by this cDNA, Tc‐SAA‐1, displays 77% identity over 162 amino acid residues to a surface associated antigen from Ancylostoma caninum (Ac‐SAA‐1). Antiserum raised against a bacterially‐expressed recombinant form of Tc‐SAA‐1 reacted with a native protein in somatic and surface extracts of xL3 but not with L4 or adult parasites. Limited binding of anti‐Tc‐SAA‐1 antibody was observed on the cuticular surface of xL3 s, however, regions of localization underlying the cuticle were observed. Incubation of xL3 T. circumcincta with anti‐SAA rabbit serum failed to significantly inhibit penetration of the abomasal mucosa in vitro. IgA in abomasal mucus derived from sheep that had received a trickle infection of T. circumcincta bound recombinant Tc‐SAA‐1.
Animal Origins of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus: Insight from ACE2-S-Protein Interactions

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) was first described in November of 2002, when inhabitants of Guangdong province, China, presented with an influenza-like illness that began with headache, myalgia, and fever, often followed by acute atypical pneumonia, respiratory failure, and death. The novel disease was transmitted via droplets and fomites and through direct contact of patients with uninfected individuals. The outbreak spread over Asia and to Europe and North
Diversity of Mammalian Voltage‐Gated Sodium Channels

ABSTRACT: A variety of different isoforms of mammalian voltage‐gated sodium channels have been identified. These channels can be classified into three different types. Eight type 1 isoforms have been identified in the CNS, PNS, skeletal muscle, and heart. All of these channels have been expressed in exogenous systems, and all of the genes have been mapped. Three type 2 isoforms have been identified in heart, uterus, and muscle. These channels diverge from the type 1 channels in critical regions, and have not been functionally expressed, so their significance is unknown. A single isoform identified in the PNS may represent a third class of channels, in that it diverges from both type 1 and 2 channels. The type 3 channel has not been functionally expressed.
Real-time speaker identification and verification

In speaker identification, most of the computation originates from the distance or likelihood computations between the feature vectors of the unknown speaker and the models in the database. The identification time depends on the number of feature vectors, their dimensionality, the complexity of the speaker models and the number of speakers. In this paper, we concentrate on optimizing vector quantization (VQ) based speaker identification. We reduce the number of test vectors by pre-quantizing the test sequence prior to matching, and the number of speakers by pruning out unlikely speakers during the identification process. The best variants are then generalized to Gaussian mixture model (GMM) based modeling. We apply the algorithms also to efficient cohort set search for score normalization in speaker verification. We obtain a speed-up factor of 16:1 in the case of VQ-based modeling with minor degradation in the identification accuracy, and 34:1 in the case of GMM-based modeling. An equal error rate of 7% can be reached in 0.84 s on average when the length of test utterance is 30.4 s.
Gas Emissions and Olfactometry for Dairy Heifers

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This author wishes to express her gratitude to Dr. Gustavo Lascano for spearheading this experiment. Without his dairy nutrition expertise, guidance, and countless revisions this paper would not be possible. She would also like to thank A. Wheeler of the Penn State group who conducted this experiment for allowing her the opportunity to utilize their data for this manuscript. ABSTRACT The objective of this study was to determine any trends in odor evaluations and gas emissions of manure samples in heifers fed high/low concentrate and high/low forage diets. Heifers (n = 8) were enrolled randomly in a split plot design with diet type (high concentrate vs. low concentrate) as the whole plot and forage quality (4 different levels of corn stover within each diet type) as sub-plots in a 4-period (21d) 4X4 Latin square design. Total collection of urine and feces was performed on days 18-21 of each period. The feces to urine ratio (F:U) was determined on days 18 & 19, and used to collect a 200g of manure sample to place in a multi-chamber steady-state gas emission detection system. Gas concentrations were measured every 20min over a 24hr period.7. 0L odorous exhaust sweep air was taken from each chamber of the system after 1hr, and presented to trained panelists within 7hrs of manure collection. Panelists performed subjective odor evaluations for hedonic tone (quantified using 22-unit scale) and intensity (Labeled Magnitude Scale method 0-100) during their evaluation. A Triangular Forced-Choice method was used to determine detection threshold (DT) & recognition threshold (RT) of each sample. A significant difference between CO 2, CH 4 , and NH 3 emissions were found among the 8 diet types. CO2 emissions were significantly higher in the LC diet, and a positive correlation between CO2 & NH3 emissions was found. There was a linear decrease in CH4 emissions as % CST in LC diets increased. The highest average odor emission (8.58 OU m-2 sec-1) was found in the LC diet with 0% CST; while the lowest average odor emission (5.01 m-2 sec-1) was observed in the LC diet with 60% CST. Also, the mass of feces from HC heifers was 50% less than LC heifers, but HC urine excretion was 2.84 times higher, making the total manure excretion 22.7% higher in HC heifers than LC heifers (a factor that could have contributed to the odor and gas emission rates). In the end, this study …