Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Molecular characterization of staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec and virulence encoding genes in methicillin-resistant staphylococci at a medical center in Lebanon

Background: Methicillin-resistant staphylococci (MRS) are major human pathogens accounting for most hospital-acquired (HA) and community acquired (CA) infections worldwide. The recent increase in MRS in a medical center in Lebanon elicited the determination of SCCmec types, genotypes, and prevalence of Panton-Valentine leucociden (PVL) and toxic shock syndrome toxin-1 (TSST-1) among the MRS isolates. Methods: Thirty-six MRS isolates collected between October 2010 and September 2011 at a medical center, Lebanon were typed using phenotypic and genotypic methods. Antimicrobial susceptibility was determined using the disk diffusion agar method. SCCmec typing was performed by multiplex PCR and sequence analysis. The prevalence of the genes encoding PVL and TSST-1 virulence factors and their transcription levels, were determined respectively by PCR and semi-quantitative real-time PCR. The genomic relatedness of the isolates was assessed by random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis.Results: Antimicrobial susceptibility revealed three distinct antibiotypes. The predominant SCCmec type found among the MRS isolates was type IVa (51%). Twenty-nine percent harbored SCCmec type III and 14% harbored SCCmec type II. One isolate harbored SCCmec type IVc, and another harbored SCCmec type I. All methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolates were negative for the gene encoding for PVL, and two were positive for the gene encoding for TSST-1. RAPD analysis demonstrated high genomic diversity among the MRS isolates.Conclusion: This study demonstrated the SCCmec types and the clonality of the MRS strains, allowing the differentiation between HA and CA-MRS strains. CA-MRS have increased in the hospital environment and rendered highly resistant to erythromycin and clindamycin.
Estimating Reachable Sets with Scenario Optimization

Many practical systems are not amenable to the reachability methods that give guarantees of correctness, since they have dynamics that are strongly nonlinear, uncertain, and possibly unknown. While reachable sets for these kinds of systems can still be estimated in a data-driven way, data-driven methods typically do not guarantee the validity of their results. However, certain data-driven approaches may be given a probabilistic guarantee of correctness, by reframing the problem as a chance-constrained optimization problem that is solved with scenario optimization. We apply this approach to the problem of approximating a reachable set by a norm ball from data. The method requires only O ( n 2 ) sample trajectories and the solution of a convex problem. A variant of the method restricted to axis-aligned norm balls requires only O ( n ) samples.
The Causality for Climate Competition

Understanding the complex interdependencies of processes in our climate system has become one of the most critical challenges for society with our main current tools being climate modeling and observational data analysis, in particular observational causal discovery. Causal discovery is still in its infancy in Earth sciences and a major issue is that current methods are not well adapted to climate data challenges. We here present an overview of a NeurIPS 2019 competition on causal discovery for climate time series. The Causality 4 Climate (C4C) competition was hosted on the benchmark platform www.causeme. net. C4C offers an extensive number of climate model-based time series datasets with known causal ground truth that incorporate the main challenges of causal discovery in climate research. We give an overview over the benchmark platform, the challenges modeled, how datasets were generated, and implementation details. The goal of C4C is to spur more focused methodological research on causal discovery for understanding our climate system.
Game Theory and the Frequency Selective Interference Channel

T he success of unlicensed broadband communication has led to very rapid deployment of communication networks that work independently of each other using a relatively narrow spectrum. For example, the 802.11g standard uses the industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) band that has a total bandwidth of 80 MHz. This band is divided into 12 partially overlapping bands of 20 MHz. These technologies could become the victims of their own success, since the relatively small number of channels and the massive use of the technology in densely populated metropolitan areas can cause significant mutual interference. This is especially important for high quality real-time distribution of multimedia content that is intolerant to errors as well as latency. Existing 802.11 [wireless fidelity (WiFi)] networks have very limited means to coordinate spectrum with other interfering systems. It would be highly desirable to reduce the interference environment, for instance by distributed spectral coordination between different access points. Another option is centralized access points such as 802.16 [worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMax)], where resources are allocated centrally by a single base station. Advanced digital subscriber line (DSL) systems such as ADSL2 and VDSL are facing a similar situation. These systems are currently limited by crosstalk between lines. As such, the DSL environment is another example of a frequency selective interference channel. While the need to operate over interference limited frequency selective channels is clear in many of the current and future communication technologies, the theoretical situation is much less satisfying. The capacity region of the interference channel is still open (see [1] for a short overview) even for the fixed channel two-user case. Recently, major advances in understanding the situation for flat channels under weak interference have been made. It can be shown that Game Theory and the Frequency Selective Interference Channel
Maintenance of polyploidy-associated transcriptional gene silencing in Arabidopsis thaliana

Die Vervielfachung des gesamten Chromosomensatzes (Polyploidisierung) kommt bei Pflanzen haufig vor und spielt eine entscheidende Rolle in der Evolution und der Pflanzenzuchtung. Der Erfolg polyploider Pflanzen beruht teilweise auf Konsequenzen der Genomverdoppelung: Veranderungen in der Genomorganisation und der epigenetischen Genregulation, die letztendlich zur Diversifizierung polypoider Spezies fuhren. Deshalb wird vermutet, dass die mit der Polyploidisierung im Zusammenhang stehenden molekularen Veranderungen fur das Anpassungspotential der Pflanzen ungemein wichtig sind. Als Modell fur die Erforschungen epigenetischer Diversitat in polyploiden Pflanzen wurde ein Hygromycinresistenz-Transgen (HPT) in Arabidopsis thaliana verwendet, welches durch polyploidie-abhangige epigenetische Mechanismen inaktiviert und in dieser Form an alle nachkommenden Generationen weitergegeben wurde (Mittelsten Scheid et al. 2003). Die vorliegende Arbeit beruht auf Untersuchungen der molekularen Mechanismen der polyploidie-assoziierten transkriptionellen Geninaktivierung (engl.: PA-TGS). Zu diesen Zweck wurde ein "forward genetics" screen durchgefuhrt.
Hemodynamic Rounds Recent Advances in Hemodynamics : Noncoronary Applications of a Pressure Sensor Angioplasty Guidewire

The use of the pressure sensor coronary guidewire is expanding into the peripheral circulation as well as into the realm of valvular heart disease. Small mechanistic studies and case reports have described the use of pressure wire technology in the renal and femoral arteries as well as in mechanical aortic valves. The use of this technology to measure hemodynamically significant stenoses in noncoronary locations will be discussed and a review of basic and more advanced hemodynamics in relation to problems encountered in clinical practice will be provided. ' 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Bias-regularised Neural-Network Metamodelling of Insurance Portfolio Risk

Deep learning models have attracted considerable attention in metamodelling of financial risks for large insurance portfolios. Those models, however, are generally trained in disregard of the collective nature of the data in the portfolio under study. Consequently, the training procedure often suffers from slow convergence, and the trained model often has poor accuracy. This is particularly evident in the presence of extreme individual contracts. In this paper, we advocate the view that the training of a meta-model for a portfolio should be guided by portfolio-level metrics. In particular, we propose an intuitive loss regulariser that explicitly accounts for the portfolio-level bias. Further, this training regulariser can be easily implemented with the minibatch stochastic gradient descent commonly used in training deep neural networks. Empirical evaluations on both simulated data and a benchmark dataset show that the regulariser yields more stable training, resulting in faster convergence and more reliable portfolio-level risk estimates.
Editorial Comment Functional Side-Branch Stenosis After Cross-Over Stenting: It has Always Been a Matter of Plaque

Despite advances in catheter-based technology, coronary artery bifurcations continue to defy operators. In fact for decades, we have been fascinated by the diverse morphology of coronary bifurcations (i.e., degree of angulations, various branch sizes, and patterns of plaque distribution) along with the erratic changes in luminal size exhibited after cross-over stenting. Currently, a large body of evidence supports main branch (MB) stenting with provisional side branch (SB) stenting as the primary strategy for the vast majority of bifurcations [1]. With this strategy, poststenting SB narrowing occurs often. Recently, a serial intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) imaging study elucidated the mechanism responsible for SB narrowing following cross-over stenting [2]. In that study, a reduction in luminal size at the SB ostium site was observed in 78% of bifurcations. This reduction was chiefly related to the modification in bifurcation angles (carina shift) and, to a lesser extent, an increase in plaque burden at the SB ostium site (plaque shift) [2]. Nonetheless, several reports have shown that most jailed SB do not bare physiological significance [1] and may not warrant further intervention [1]. In this issue of Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions, Kang et al. further extend the evidence by illustrating the role of these two mechanisms (carina shift and plaque shifts) in the causation of functional stenosis at the SB ostium [3]. In 40 patients undergoing single stent cross-over stenting, 31 (78%) had >10% reduction in minimum luminal area at the SB ostium. In the setting of luminal narrowing, carina shift was found in 97% of cases, whereas the presence of plaque shift was less common. Meanwhile, a fractional flow reserve (FFR) value <0.8 was found only in 6 (15%) patients. In those individuals with functional stenosis, the detection of plaque shift was common (83%), whereas carina shift was not (20%). Importantly, functional SB stenosis was strongly related to the baseline severity (low minimum luminal area and large plaque burden) at the SB ostium and MB carina. These parameters of baseline severity may identify patients at greater risk for plaque shift, and eventually, functional deterioration of the SB lumen. Although these preliminary results highlight the potential use of IVUS for the baseline evaluation of coronary bifurcations, the low rate of functional SB stenosis after crossover stenting along with the recent introduction of very effective and safe drug-eluting stents may argue against the routine use of IVUS during the percutaneous treatment of coronary bifurcations. After many decades, the debate about the precise role of IVUS during percutaneous coronary interventions continues.
Evaluation of Orographic Cloud Seeding Using a Bin Microphysics Scheme: Three-Dimensional Simulation of Real Cases

The University of Pécs and NCAR Bin (UPNB) microphysical scheme was implemented into the mesoscale Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) Model that was used to study the impact of silver iodide (AgI) seeding on precipitation formation in winter orographic clouds. Four different experimental units were chosen from the Wyoming Weather Modification Pilot Project to simulate the seeding effect. The results of the numerical experiments show the following: (i) Comparisons with the soundings, snow gauges, and microwave radiometer data indicate that the three-dimensional simulations with detailed microphysics reasonably represent both the dynamics and the microphysics of real clouds. (ii) The dispersion of the AgI particles from the simulated ground-based seeding was effective because of turbulent mixing. (iii) In the investigated cases (surface temperature is less than 0°C), surface precipitation and precipitation efficiency show low susceptibility to the concentrations of cloud condensation nuclei and natural ice nucleating particles. (iv) If the available liquid water content promotes the enhancement of the number of snowflakes by diffusional growth, the surface precipitation can be increased by more than 5%. A novel parameter relevant to orographic clouds, horizontally integrated liquid water path (LWP), was evaluated to find the relation between seeding efficiency and liquid water content. The impact of seeding is negligible if the horizontal LWP is less than 0.1 mm and is apparent if the horizontal LWP is larger than 1 mm, as based on the cases investigated in this study.
Contribution of potassium channels to myogenic response in skeletal muscle arterioles: effects of age and fiber type

Contribution of Potassium Channels to Myogenic Response in Skeletal Muscle Arterioles: Effects of Age and Fiber Type. (August 2005) Se Jeong Kim, B.Ed., Kyungsung University; M.Ed., Yonsei University Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Judy Muller-Delp In isolated skeletal muscle arterioles, increasing transmural pressure causes an increase in constriction. This active myogenic response varies with age and fiber type. Increased transmural pressure activates both Ca-activated (KCa) potassium channels and voltage-dependent (Kv) potassium channels; these channels have a role in the negativefeedback pathways that modulate depolarization and myogenic constriction. We tested the hypothesis that increased KCa channel and Kv channel activity contribute to reduced myogenic responsiveness in skeletal muscle arterioles of aged rats. 1A arterioles were isolated from soleus, an oxidative muscle, and superficial gastrocnemius, a glycolytic muscle, of young (4 mos) and aged (24 mos) Fischer 344 rats. Myogenic responses were assessed by increasing intraluminal pressure (0-140 cm H2O) in increments of 20cm H2O. Vasoconstrictor response were determined in response to increasing concentrations of the KCa channel blocker, charybdotoxin (CTX; 10 to 10 M) and the Kv channel blocker, 4-Aminopyridine (4-AP; 10 to 10 M). To determine the role of potassium channels in modulating the myogenic response, cannulated arterioles from soleus and gastrocnemius were incubated with CTX (50 nM) and 4-AP (5mM) for 15 minutes prior to evaluation of the myogenic response. Increased Kv channel activity contributes to reduced myogenic
A Reduced High-Order Compact Finite Difference Scheme Based on POD Technique for the Two Dimensional Extended Fisher-Kolmogorov Equation

In this paper, we mainly utilize the reduced sixorder compact finite difference scheme (R-CFDS6) based on proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and operator splitting method (R-CFDS6-OSM) to solve the two-dimensional Fisher-Kolmogorov equation and extended Fisher-Kolmogorov equation. Toward this end, the CFDS6 is built to attain high accuracy for one-dimensional extended Fisher-Kolmogorov equation. Then by means of the operator splitting method, the two-dimensional extended Fisher-Kolmogorov equation has been converted into a succession of one-dimensional equations successfully, which can be solved easily with CFDS6 compared with Alternating direction implicit method. Finally, by POD method, we develop the R-CFDS6-OSM with fewer unknowns and sufficiently high accuracy to improve the computational efficiency of CFDS6 and furnish the algorithm procedure of R-CFDS6-OSM. Some numerical examples are carried out to validate the high accuracy, effectiveness and feasibility of the R-CFDS6-OSM for the numerical solution of 2D FisherKolmogorov equation.
Interpolasi Cubic Spline

Diketahui suatu fungsi f(x) (Figure 1) yang dibatasi oleh intervaldanb, dan memiliki sejumlah titik dataa = x0 < x1 < . < xn = b. Interpolasi cubic splineS(x) adalah sebuah potongan fungsi polinomial kecil-kecil (Figure 2) berdera jat tiga (cubic) yang menghubungkan dua titik data yang bersebelahan dengan ketentuan sebagai b erikut: 1. Sj(x) adalah potongan fungsi yang berada pada sub-interval dari xj hinggaxj+1 untuk nilai j = 0, 1, . , n − 1;
Do the Innovation Index of the Regions and the Sectors of Belonging Affect the Performance of the ASOs?

The considerable economic contribution of academic spin-offs (ASOs) has drawn numerous scholars’ attention to explore the factors that influence their development (Hossinger, 2020). The growing attention on these issues has led researchers to investigate the drivers and success factors that have the greatest impact on the performance of ASOs.This paper has been designed with a dual purpose. On the one hand, the document aims to examine how much a region's innovation index reflects positively on the performance of ASOs. On the other hand, the paper also examines in which sectors the impact of innovation on the performance of ASOs emerges most. The research hypotheses of these paintings were explored in an empirical study of 1,007 Italian spin-offs over a time range from 2010 to 2019. To carry out the analysis, a panel model with fixed effects was used, with an unbalanced dataset.
Analysis of internet trends related to medications for COVID-19in ten countries with the highest number of cases

During the last months, the pandemic generated by coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 moved governments, research groups and health organizations to plan, test and execute health policies. At the beginning, the treatment was not clear but in the next months, research groups have conducted studies to recommend or ban some medicines. At the same time, countries with most cases were changing from Asia, Europe to America. Different treatments and medications have been tested and recommended in many countries. such as Hydroxycloroquine ,Ivermectin, Azithromycin, Dexamethasone, Prednisone, Desivir . This paper is a preliminary study about what people are searching on Internet, considering ten countries with most cases in the world such as Chile, Spain, United Kingdom, Brazil, United States, India, Russia, South Africa, Peru, Mexico.
Robust Optimization Approaches for Routing and Scheduling of Multi-Skilled Teams under Uncertain Job Skill Requirements

We consider a combined problem of teaming and scheduling of multi-skilled employees that have to perform jobs with uncertain qualification requirements. We propose two modeling approaches that generate solutions that are robust to possible data variations. Both approaches use variants of budgeted uncertainty, where deviations in qualification requirements are bounded by a constraint. In the first approach, we aggregate uncertain constraints to ensure that the total number of job qualifications present at a job are not less than a worst-case value. We show that these values can be computed beforehand, resulting in a robust model with little additional complexity compared with the nominal model. In our second approach, we bound the overall qualification deviation over all jobs. While this approach is more complex, we show that it is still possible to derive a compact problem formulation by using a linear programming formulation for the adversarial problem based on a dynamic program. The performance of both approaches is analyzed on a test bed of instances which were originally provided for a deterministic problem version. Our experiments show the effectiveness of the proposed approaches in the presence of data uncertainty and reveal the price and gain of robustness.
Oxidative DNA damage

Sev eral char ac ter is tics of the ba sic types of ox i da tive DNA dam age are ana lysed in the pres ent work. They are as fol lows: base and sugar mod i fi ca tions le sions, sin gle-strand and dou ble-strand breaks, apurinic/apyrimidinic sites and DNA-pro teins cross-links. The chem i cal struc ture of the most in ves ti gated types of ox i da tive DNA dam age is shown. The most com mon genotoxic agents (re ac tive ox y gen spe cies, free rad i cals, alkylating agents) are also dis cussed. The meth ods of iden ti fi ca tion and mea sure ment of ox i da tive DNA dam age are con sid ered.
An Investigation on the Population Structure of Green Tiger Shrimp Penaeus semisulcatus (De Hann, 1844) of Kerala Coast

The present investigation was carried out to detect the variation in the morphometric characters and also by the biochemical methods (protein and enzyme profile) of Penaeus semisulcatus . A set of four morphometric variables, the depth of the abdomen (SSD) at the mid-point of the sixth segment; depth of the abdomen (SAD) at the intersection of the second and third segments, partial carapace length (PCL) from the posterior margin of the orbit to the posterior edge of the carapace; width of the carapace (CW) at the point of the last dorsal rostral tooth were measured. Among the four variables measured sixth segment depth (SSD) showed the highest correlation with the tail weight (TLW). Considerable differences are not seen, indicating the samples collected from Kochi and Calicut belongs to a single morphological stock . Biochemical analysis of protein and enzymes - Aldehyde oxidase (AO), Aldolase (FBALD), Octanol dehydrogenase (ODH), and Esterase (EST) by Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis (PAGE) was conducted on P. semisulcatus collected from selected landing centres such as Kochi and Calicut of west coast of Kerala. Considerable differences in banding patterns were not found in the stocks obtained from Calicut and Kochi and can be related to the fact that the genetic makeup is similar (Homozygous).
Efeito do fósforo na formação da simbiose micorrízica vesicular-arbuscular

Foi examinado o efeito do fosforo (P) na formacao da simbiose micorrizica vesicular-arbuscular (MVA). Com uso de uma câmara de crescimento do tipo hidroponica, foram fornecidos niveis crescentes de P a plântulas de soja ( Glycine max L. Merrill). O fornecimento de P ate 600 mM nao teve efeito na germinacao de clamidosporos de Glomus mosseae na rizosfera. Isto sugere que P controla a formacao da simbiose MVA em algum estagio depois que a germinacao dos esporos tenha ocorrido. A adicao ao solo de pequenas doses de P aumentou a taxa fotossintetica e o teor de acucares nas raizes da soja. Bioensaios usando extratos de raizes de plantas adubadas com diferentes niveis de P mostraram efeitos diferenciados sobre a germinacao de esporos de G. mosseae e Gigaspora margarita in vitro . Extratos de plantas bem supridas em P tiveram teores mais elevados de acucares e mostraram efeito inibitorio na germinacao dos esporos. Estes dados permitem a formulacao da hipotese de que o P controla o grau de colonizacao das raizes pelos fungos endomicorrizicos atraves de seu efeito no metabolismo de carboidrato da planta hospedeira. A relacao entre a disponibilidade de P no solo e a resposta em crescimento da soja devido a micorrizacao e, igualmente, discutida.