Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
High-Level Vancomycin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Isolates Associated with a Polymicrobial Biofilm

ABSTRACT Glycopeptides such as vancomycin are the treatment of choice for infections due to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. This study describes the identification of high-level vancomycin-resistant S. aureus (VRSA) isolates in a polymicrobial biofilm within an indwelling nephrostomy tube in a patient in New York. S. aureus, Enterococcus faecalis, Enterococcus faecium, Micrococcus species, Morganella morganii, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa were isolated from the biofilm. For VRSA isolates, vancomycin MICs ranged from 32 to >128 μg/ml. VRSA isolates were also resistant to aminoglycosides, fluoroquinolones, macrolides, penicillin, and tetracycline but remained susceptible to chloramphenicol, linezolid, rifampin, and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole. The vanA gene was localized to a plasmid of ∼100 kb in VRSA and E. faecium isolates from the biofilm. Plasmid analysis revealed that the VRSA isolate acquired the 100-kb E. faecium plasmid, which was then maintained without integration into the MRSA plasmid. The tetracycline resistance genes tet(U) and tet(S), not previously detected in S. aureus isolates, were identified in the VRSA isolates. Additional resistance elements in the VRSA isolate included a multiresistance gene cluster, ermB-aadE-sat4-aphA-3, msrA (macrolide efflux), and the bifunctional aminoglycoside resistance gene aac(6′)-aph(2")-Ia. Multiple combinations of resistance genes among the various isolates of staphylococci and enterococci, including vanA, tet(S), and tet(U), illustrate the dynamic nature of gene acquisition and loss within and between bacterial species throughout the course of infection. The potential for interspecies transfer of antimicrobial resistance genes, including resistance to vancomycin, may be enhanced by the microenvironment of a biofilm.
Comparisons of the cost-effectiveness among hospital chronic care, nursing home placement, home nursing care and family care for severe stroke patients.

AIM This study compared the cost and effectiveness of long-term institutional care and home care for stroke patients with severe physical disabilities. BACKGROUND Whether home care is more economical or effective than institutional care for patients with chronic illnesses remains controversial when the cost of family labour is considered. Thus, decisions concerning the appropriate type of care setting for patients with severe chronic illness remain difficult. METHODS From November 1995 to March 1996, 313 hospitalized stroke patients with severe physical disabilities treated at one of five hospitals in the Taipei metropolitan area were followed from the day of hospital discharge until the third month after discharge. These 313 patients were divided into four groups as follows: (1) 106 who were admitted to a chronic care unit in a hospital, (2) 60 who were admitted to nursing homes, (3) 60 who received professional home nursing care and (4) 87 who returned home without receiving professional care. The change of physical functional status in the patient was examined as the difference between activities of daily living (ADL) scores measured at discharge and at the end of the third month after discharge. RESULTS Information on family costs for caregiving, including pay for long-term services utilized, labour costs for caregiving and out-of-pocket expenditures for miscellaneous materials was obtained during a weekly telephone interview. The results indicated that caring for patients in their own homes was not only more expensive but was also less effective in improving ADL scores than caring for patients in nursing homes and in chronic care units of hospitals. CONCLUSIONS The results suggest that caring for patients with severe physical disabilities in institutions is more appropriate than caring of them at home.
The effects of feeding, weaning and scheduling procedures on childhood adjustment and the formation of oral symptoms.

Psychoanalysts and psychoanalytically oriented psychologists, psychiatrists, and pediatricians have frequently stressed that the infant's early feeding experiences have special significance for the determination of certain adult personality characteristics (e.g., dependence, pessimism, hostility) and for the formation of certain symptoms such as finger-sucking, nailbiting, and stuttering, which are generally considered to be expressions of "conflicts around oral-erotic impulses" (2, p. 491). The development of the so-called oral personality and/or symptoms indicative of oral conflict and frustration may best be avoided, according to the analytic writings, if the infant finds his early feeding experiences gratifying. Breast feeding, a prolonged period of nursing, gradual weaning, and self demand schedules have been recommended as means of promoting feeding gratification and, thus, secure symptom-free personalities. In general, systematic and empirical studies have failed to support these analytic notions. After an extensive review of the relevant experimental literature, Orlansky concluded that "a specific discipline does not exert a specific invariable psychological influence upon the child" (6, p. 7). Most of the studies reported in the literature have been concerned with the relationship between certain aspects of feeding experience and general characteristics of childhood and adult personality such as timidity (7), intelligence (4), confidence (7), security (5), affection (7), and personality traits (I2). Only two studies (i, 9) have been concerned with the presence or absence of "oral symptoms" in children. Moreover, only the psychoanalytic hypotheses concerning breast feeding have been investigated with large groups of subjects; the influences of the type of weaning procedures used (gradual or abrupt) and feeding on demand or regular schedules have not been systematically studied. In concluding their own study on the effect of length of breast feeding on childhood personality, Peterson and Spano conclude: "Since duration as such shows no relationships (with personality),
The role of microbes and autoimmunity in the pathogenesis of neuropsychiatric illness

Purpose of reviewTo illustrate how microbes might participate in the pathogenesis of neuropsychiatric illness by triggering the production of autoantibodies that bind to brain targets. Recent findingsSome studies link exposure to infectious agents to development of brain disorders; others have identified autoantibodies in individuals with these conditions without finding evidence of pathogens. Neither line of work demonstrates consistent associations between a specific neuropsychiatric disease and a particular environmental trigger or immune marker. Growing evidence suggests that the microbiome conditions host immunity to microbes and xenobiotics, and regulates autoimmune responses that can affect the central nervous system (CNS). The presence of CNS receptors for cytokines and other immune molecules underscores the importance of brain–immune crosstalk in maintaining normal function. An increased prevalence of familial autoimmunity, exposure to pathogens prenatally and postnatally, and findings of antibrain antibodies is common in disorders as diverse as schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder and autism, and suggests that differences in exposure timing and genetic vulnerability toward autoimmunity are important determinants of neuropsychiatric outcomes. SummaryMicrobes, both pathogenic and commensal, can induce autoantibodies that bind to brain and affect behavior in susceptible hosts. Interventions that correct the microbial balance or diminish autoantibody binding may be effective in diverse neuropsychiatric conditions mediated by autoimmunity.
Improving Web-Catalog Design for Easy Product Search

Building intuitive web sites is important for online businesses as positive experiences toward the virtual storefront could translate to customer goodwill and repeat visits. Streamlining web-site navigation is further motivated by the availability of comprehensive site-visit traces such as shopping carts and click-stream logs. We incorporate such sales and browsing patterns for the autonomous design of web catalogs by reducing the expected click count it takes to find related items. We first model catalog design as a task of placing items onto catalog pages, leading to a quadratic assignment formulation. For a more extensive redesign, such as when the number and location of links on each page are also decision variables, we propose a two-stage optimization procedure to ensure that click-count reduction is not achieved at the cost of excessive page cluttering. Our analysis reveals that an optimized catalog is robust against shifts in browsing behavior and that simplistic interfaces are preferred for users at either end of the experience spectrum. Using genetic algorithms, we find catalog designs that significantly outperform those found with a traditional greedy heuristic.
Prion Diagnosis: Application of Real-Time Quaking-Induced Conversion

Prions composed of pathogenic scrapie prion protein (PrPSc) are infectious pathogens that cause progressive neurological conditions known as prion diseases or transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. Although these diseases pose considerable risk to public health, procedures for early diagnosis have not been established. One of the most recent attempts at sensitive and specific detection of prions is the real-time quaking-induced conversion (RT-QuIC) method, which measures the activity of PrPSc aggregates or amyloid formation triggered by PrPSc seeds in the presence of recombinant PrP. In this review, we summarize prions, prion diseases, and current approaches to diagnosis, including the principle, conditions for assay performance, and current diagnostic applications of RT-QuIC.
Distributed Sensor Censoring for Detection in Sensor Networks Under Communication Constraints

In this paper, we describe procedures in determin- ing distributed signaling scheme for a bandwidth constrained sensor network. In particular, for a decentralized detection problem and assuming an on/off keying at each sensor and with a per-sensor communication constraint, we derive necessary conditions for optimal distributed on/off keying at local sensors. The formulation and the obtained necessary conditions lead to a person-by-person optimal design which minimizes the average error probability at the fusion center. Numerical results are presented to study the impact of the communication constraint on the sensor censoring scheme and the detection performance.
Coexistence and Dynamical Connections between Hyperchaos and Chaos in the 4D Rössler System: A Computer-Assisted Proof

It has recently been reported [P. C. Reich, Neurocomputing, 74 (2011), pp. 3361--3364] that it is quite difficult to distinguish between chaos and hyperchaos in numerical simulations which are frequently “noisy. ” For the classical four-dimensional (4D) Rossler model [O. E. Rossler, Phys. Lett. A, 71 (1979), pp. 155--157] we show that the coexistence of two invariant sets with different nature (a global hyperchaotic invariant set and a chaotic attractor) and heteroclinic connections between them give rise to long hyperchaotic transient behavior, and therefore it provides a mechanism for noisy simulations. The same phenomena is expected in other 4D and higher-dimensional systems. The proof combines topological and smooth methods with rigorous numerical computations. The existence of (hyper)chaotic sets is proved by the method of covering relations [P. Zgliczynski and M. Gidea, J. Differential Equations, 202 (2004), pp. 32--58]. We extend this method to the case of a nonincreasing number of unstable directio.
Silica microtoroid and its applications

We review the whispering gallery type microtoroid resonator fabricated on a silicon chip. Using this structure, an Erbium doped silica green laser through three-photon-absorption process is demonstrated and an on-chip Raman laser operating at single mode with fundamental linewidth as low as 3-Hz is reported.
T Cell Leukemia-1 Modulates TCR Signal Strength and IFN-γ Levels through Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinase and Protein Kinase C Pathway Activation1

A signaling role for T cell leukemia-1 (TCL1) during T cell development or in premalignant T cell expansions and mature T cell tumors is unknown. In this study, TCL1 is shown to regulate the growth and survival of peripheral T cells but not precursor thymocytes. Proliferation is increased by TCL1-induced lowering of the TCR threshold for CD4+ and CD8+ T cell activation through both PI3K-Akt and protein kinase C-MAPK-ERK signaling pathways. This effect is submaximal as CD28 costimulation coupled to TCL1 expression additively accelerates dose-dependent T cell growth. In addition to its role in T cell proliferation, TCL1 also increases IFN-γ levels from Th1-differentiated T cells, an effect that may provide a survival advantage during premalignant T cell expansions and in clonal T cell tumors. Combined, these data indicate a role for TCL1 control of growth and effector T cell functions, paralleling features provided by TCR-CD28 costimulation. These results also provide a more detailed mechanism for TCL1-augmented signaling and help explain the delayed occurrence of mature T cell expansions and leukemias despite tumorigenic TCL1 dysregulation that begins in early thymocytes.
Using video-based observation to shape the design of a new technology

A common problem in the development of software is that the designers either overlook certain aspects of the users' situations or do not have access to them. Not all projects are plagued by this kind of oversight, but it is widespread in the development of single-user systems and is compounded when we turn to systems designed to support collaborative work.
An integrated framework for benchmarking e-government projects

Governments worldwide are using e-Governance to improve efficiency and effectiveness of public administration systems and service delivery. The digitally dynamic nature of the world today represents an opportunity for developing countries to fully embrace e-Governance and thereby contributing to meeting the needs of the citizenry. Successful implementation of e-governance projects ought to be guided by sound mechanisms to minimize failure and ensure a positive impact. Frameworks such as e-Readiness, strategy-based and maturity as well as stage-based e-governance frameworks seldom focus on monitoring and evaluation of projects and lack emphasis on the project life-cycle. We hereby rely on the foregoing shortcomings to propose an integrated framework for benchmarking the implementation of e-governance projects. Our suggested framework represents an important tool to be relied upon by stakeholders to increase accountability on e-governance projects and maximize their chance for success.
Organizações do conhecimento: infra-estrutura, pessoas e tecnologias

E uma obra coletiva e destaca-se no universo academico por abordar e discutir um modelo teorico para novas formas de gestao, possibilitando um olhar especial as pessoas na organizacao, atrelado a infra-estrutura e tecnologia como forma de auxilio e nao de exclusao dos colaboradores no contexto organizacional. E um convite aos estudiosos e profissionais da area de gestao, permitindo uma reflexao sobre estilos de lideranca, cultura organizacional, gestao do conhecimento e pessoas, novas tecnologias entre outras abordagens.
1 Two spatially distinct Kinesin-14 Pkl 1 and Klp 2 generate collaborative inward forces against Kinesin-5 Cut 7 in S . pombe

Kinesin motors play central roles in bipolar spindle assembly. In many eukaryotes, spindle pole separation is driven by Kinesin-5 that generates outward force. This outward force is balanced by antagonistic inward force elicited by Kinesin-14 and/or Dynein. In fission yeast, two Kinesin-14s, Pkl1 and Klp2, play an opposing role against Kinesin-5/Cut7. However, how these two Kinesin-14s coordinate individual activities remains elusive. Here we show that while deletion of either pkl1 or klp2 rescues temperature sensitive cut7 mutants, only pkl1 deletion can bypass the lethality caused by cut7 deletion. Pkl1 is tethered to the spindle pole body, while Klp2 is localized along the spindle microtubule. Forced targeting of Klp2 to the spindle pole body, however, compensates for Pkl1 functions, indicating that cellular localizations, rather than individual motor specificities, differentiate between the two Kinesin-14s. Interestingly, human Kinesin-14/HSET can replace either Pkl1 or Klp2. Moreover, overproducing HSET induces monopolar spindles, reminiscent of the phenotype of Cut7 inactivation. Taken together, this study has uncovered the biological mechanism of how two different Kinesin-14s exert their antagonistic roles against Kinesin-5 in a spatially distinct manner. peer-reviewed) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not . http://dx.doi. org/10.1101/205815 doi: bioRxiv preprint first posted online Oct. 19, 2017;
Gene amplification confers glyphosate resistance in Amaranthus palmeri

The herbicide glyphosate became widely used in the United States and other parts of the world after the commercialization of glyphosate-resistant crops. These crops have constitutive overexpression of a glyphosate-insensitive form of the herbicide target site gene, 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase (EPSPS). Increased use of glyphosate over multiple years imposes selective genetic pressure on weed populations. We investigated recently discovered glyphosate-resistant Amaranthus palmeri populations from Georgia, in comparison with normally sensitive populations. EPSPS enzyme activity from resistant and susceptible plants was equally inhibited by glyphosate, which led us to use quantitative PCR to measure relative copy numbers of the EPSPS gene. Genomes of resistant plants contained from 5-fold to more than 160-fold more copies of the EPSPS gene than did genomes of susceptible plants. Quantitative RT-PCR on cDNA revealed that EPSPS expression was positively correlated with genomic EPSPS relative copy number. Immunoblot analyses showed that increased EPSPS protein level also correlated with EPSPS genomic copy number. EPSPS gene amplification was heritable, correlated with resistance in pseudo-F2 populations, and is proposed to be the molecular basis of glyphosate resistance. FISH revealed that EPSPS genes were present on every chromosome and, therefore, gene amplification was likely not caused by unequal chromosome crossing over. This occurrence of gene amplification as an herbicide resistance mechanism in a naturally occurring weed population is particularly significant because it could threaten the sustainable use of glyphosate-resistant crop technology.
Electrical current and carrier density in degenerate materials with nonuniform band structure

This paper reviews and extends the theory of electron and hole motion and density in solids with position-dependent band structure. This includes materials with graded composition, like heterojunctions, with nonuniform temperature or strain, and devices with highly doped regions, like the emitter region of modern bipolar transistors and solar cells. Size effects, such as those in short-channel MOS transistors, are not considered. Changes in the energy band edges due to spatial variations in electron affinity and bandgap and changes in the density of states produce terms in the carrier- and current-density equations in addition to those found in the conventional Shockley model. This paper emphasizes the physical concepts underlying these modifications and provides a theoretical framework from which experimental results can be correctly interpreted. The new effects are derived and discussed. Areas which require further research are pointed out. The paper discusses the validity and meaning of a nonuniform band structure. The general energy-band diagram relating the electrostatic potential, the electron affinity, and the bandgap is given. Expressions for current density are derived from a solution of the Boltzmann equation. Expressions for nonequilibrium carrier densities are presented. The effective mass approximation and the rigid band model are discussed. The concepts of generalized drift and diffusion are established and alternative formulations are given. Various device applications including minority-carrier flow in quasi-neutral regions are also given.
Interferon consensus sequence-binding protein, a member of the interferon regulatory factor family, suppresses interferon-induced gene transcription

We previously isolated a cDNA clone encoding interferon consensus sequence-binding protein (ICSBP), a member of the interferon regulatory factor (IRF) family, that binds to the interferon (IFN)-stimulated response element (ISRE) of many IFN-regulated genes. In this investigation, we studied the functional role of ICSBP by transient cotransfection of ICSBP cDNA with IFN-responsive reporter genes into the human embryonal carcinoma cell line N-Tera2. These cells were shown not to express ICSBP or IRF-2, thus allowing functional analysis of transfected cDNAs. Cotransfection of ICSBP into cells treated with retinoic acid or any of the IFNs (alpha, beta, or gamma) repressed expression of a chloramphenicol acetyltransferase reporter driven by the major histocompatibility complex class I gene promoter. Similarly, ICSBP repressed expression of chloramphenicol acetyltransferase reporters driven by the ISREs of the 2'-5' oligoadenylate synthetase, guanylate-binding protein, and ISG-15 genes in IFN-treated cells. The repression was dependent on the presence of the ISRE in the reporter. Deletion analysis showed that the putative N-terminal DNA binding domain of ICSBP by itself is capable of mediating the repression. Using the same cotransfection conditions as for ICSBP, a similar repression of these reporters was observed with IRF-2. Finally, ICSBP repressed the IRF-1-mediated induction of major histocompatibility complex class I and IFN-beta reporters in the absence of IFN or retinoic acid. Taken together, these results suggest that ICSBP is a negative regulatory factor capable of repressing transcription of target genes induced by IFN, retinoic acid, or IRF-1.
The upper end of climate model temperature projections is inconsistent with past warming

Climate models predict a large range of possible future temperatures for a particular scenario of future emissions of greenhouse gases and other anthropogenic forcings of climate. Given that further warming in coming decades could threaten increasing risks of climatic disruption, it is important to determine whether model projections are consistent with temperature changes already observed. This can be achieved by quantifying the extent to which increases in well mixed greenhouse gases and changes in other anthropogenic and natural forcings have already altered temperature patterns around the globe. Here, for the first time, we combine multiple climate models into a single synthesized estimate of future warming rates consistent with past temperature changes. We show that the observed evolution of near-surface temperatures appears to indicate lower ranges (5–95%) for warming (0.35–0.82 K and 0.45–0.93 K by the 2020s (2020–9) relative to 1986–2005 under the RCP4.5 and 8.5 scenarios respectively) than the equivalent ranges projected by the CMIP5 climate models (0.48–1.00 K and 0.51–1.16 K respectively). Our results indicate that for each RCP the upper end of the range of CMIP5 climate model projections is inconsistent with past warming.