Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Resistance of Listeria monocytogenes to Stress Conditions Encountered in Food and Food Processing Environments

Listeria monocytogenes is a human food-borne facultative intracellular pathogen that is resistant to a wide range of stress conditions. As a consequence, L. monocytogenes is extremely difficult to control along the entire food chain from production to storage and consumption. Frequent and recent outbreaks of L. monocytogenes infections illustrate that current measures of decontamination and preservation are suboptimal to control L. monocytogenes in food. In order to develop efficient measures to prevent contamination during processing and control growth during storage of food it is crucial to understand the mechanisms utilized by L. monocytogenes to tolerate the stress conditions in food matrices and food processing environments. Food-related stress conditions encountered by L. monocytogenes along the food chain are acidity, oxidative and osmotic stress, low or high temperatures, presence of bacteriocins and other preserving additives, and stresses as a consequence of applying alternative decontamination and preservation technologies such high hydrostatic pressure, pulsed and continuous UV light, pulsed electric fields (PEF). This review is aimed at providing a summary of the current knowledge on the response of L. monocytogenes toward these stresses and the mechanisms of stress resistance employed by this important food-borne bacterium. Circumstances when L. monocytogenes cells become more sensitive or more resistant are mentioned and existence of a cross-resistance when multiple stresses are present is pointed out.
Aromatic hydrocarbon receptor provides a link between smoking and rheumatoid arthritis in peripheral blood mononuclear cells.

OBJECTIVES Epidemiology shows that smoking plays a central role in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The aim of this study was to evaluate the potential relationship between smoking, aromatic hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) and RA susceptibility. METHODS We performed a hospital-based, case-control study of patients with RA and healthy controls. Expressions of AHR, cytochrome P4501A1(CYP1A1), aromatic hydrocarbon receptor repressor (AHRR) genes were assessed in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and cultured cells using real-time PCR. The response of PBMCs to the AHR agonist, 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) and cigarette smoke extract (CSE) were cultured in vitro. RESULTS AHR and its downstream gene expressions were demonstrated in smoking rheumatoid PBMCs and non-smoking patients with significantly higher expression in smoking patients. The observation was consistent with the sensitivity of RA PBMCs to TCDD and CSE stimulation demonstrated in vitro. CONCLUSIONS Our study shows that smoking may be involved in the pathogenesis of RA by the AHR pathway.
Cancer in an Historic Washington DC African American Population and Its Geospatial Distribution

Background: Cancer continues to be a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the African American community but insights into the types and incidence of cancer 85 years ago have been virtually non-existent and little is known of its geospatial distribution. Historical information on cancer can shed light on current health disparities, particularly among African Americans. Objective: The aims of this study were to: (1) assess the frequencies of the cancer types present among Cobb Collection individuals; (2) compare these data with current research on cancer in African Americans; and (3) evaluate the pattern of cancer expression, including its geospatial distributions, as a cause of death between 1931 and 1969 in an historic African American subgroup and compare this pattern with the historic and contemporary patterns of cancer etiology and incidence. Methods: Systematic assessments of the existing clinical, demographic, and anatomical records in the Cobb Research Laboratory were made of individuals identified as dying from specific cancers from 1931 to 1969. These were compared with the national profiles of cancer during the historic time an individual died as well as the contemporary patterns of cancer deaths. Analysis of their residential addresses just prior to death were assessed using a commercial geographic information system. Each location was assigned a geospatial location and proximity between each site and clusters of sites were investigated. Results: Seventeen different cancer types were found within 28 individuals of the Cobb Collection between 1931 and 1969. The cancer types with the highest frequencies were carcinoma of stomach, lung, esophagus, larynx and bronchogenic carcinoma. Eighty-four percent of all cancer incidents occurred in males and 76% were among individuals identified as African American. Seventy-one percent of the highest incidence cancers were among African American males. Geospatial clustering was observed most noticeably in the redistribution of carcinoma of the esophagus. Conclusion: Our results provide historical depth to our knowledge of the common cancer causes of morbidity among African Americans of Washington DC from 1931 to 1969. We contrast these findings with national historical data on cancer etiology and ethnic disparities in incidence. Our study suggests that historic data can provide longitudinal depth to our understanding of the persistence of cancer susceptibilities in a vulnerable subgroup.
Too much nephrology? The CKD epidemic is real and concerning. A CON view.

The prevalence of chronic kidney disease (CKD) clearly depends on its definition, and the definition used most often is the one proposed by the Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes guidelines in 2012: 'CKD is defined as abnormalities of kidney structure or function, present for >3 months, with implications for health. ' Abnormality of kidney function is a glomerular filtration rate (GFR) <60 mL/min/1.73 m2, and the most frequently used marker of kidney damage is the presence of albuminuria [albumin excretion rate >30 mg/24 h or albumin/creatinine ratio (ACR) >30 mg/g (or 3 mg/mmol)]. However, two major aspects of this definition could explain why CKD prevalence is, in our view, overstated in most epidemiological studies. First, the fixed threshold at 60 mL/min/1.73 m2 is questionable because normal GFR decreases with age. This and the profound consequence it has on CKD epidemiology will be illustrated. The second aspect of the definition is the criterion of chronicity, which is ignored by the vast majority of epidemiological studies. In other words, confirming CKD (low GFR and/or high ACR) is mandatory. Indeed, a large proportion of subjects with a low first GFR level has a normal GFR level when tested a second time. The prevalence of CKD may hence, in fact, be considerably lower although still neither negligible nor irrelevant.
How do Multiple Pull Requests Change the Same Code: A Study of Competing Pull Requests in GitHub

GitHub is a widely used collaborative platform for global software development. A pull request plays an important role in bridging code changes with version controlling. Developers can freely and parallelly submit pull requests to base branches and wait for the merge of their contributions. However, several developers may submit pull requests to edit the same lines of code; such pull requests result in a latent collaborative conflict. We refer such pull requests that tend to change the same lines and remain open during an overlapping time period to as competing pull requests. In this paper, we conduct a study on 9,476 competing pull requests from 60 Java repositories in GitHub. The data are collected by mining pull requests that are submitted in 2017 from top Java projects with the most forks. We explore how multiple pull requests change the same code via answering four research questions, including the distribution of competing pull requests, the involved developers, the changed lines of code, and the impact on pull request integration. Our study shows that there indeed exist competing pull requests in GitHub: in 45 out of 60 repositories, over 31% of pull requests belong to competing pull requests; 20 repositories have more than 100 groups of competing pull requests, each of which is submitted by over five developers; 42 repositories have over 10% of competing pull requests with over 10 same lines of code. Meanwhile, we observe that attributes of competing pull requests do not have strong impacts on pull request integration, comparing with other types of pull requests. Our study provides a preliminary analysis for further research that aims to detect and eliminate conflicts among competing pull requests.
Speech Recognition with Frequency Domain LineaR Prediction

This paper deals with the main objective to design an efficient algorithm to enhance speech recognition. The conventional speech recognition does not work well in conditions of noise and reverberation. The accuracy and performance of an automatic speech recognition system is dependent on the feature vector generated which characterizes the signal. The feature extracted must be independent of speaker variability, noise and other parameters. Hence, the only solution is to have a more robust feature vector. The feature vector must be such that it models only the intelligible data and not influenced by artifacts in any form. The proposed feature vector with maximum accuracy is a combination of MFCC (Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients) and FDLP (Frequency Domain Linear Prediction) after applying Short Time Energy (STE) to find the highest energy indexed block of 400 samples. The chosen block is used for analysis. We have used Artificial Neural Network (ANN) for classification of samples (digits from 0–9)
Test of Reconfigurable Modules in Scan Networks

Modern devices often include several embedded instruments, such as BIST interfaces, sensors, calibration facilities. New standards, such as IEEE Std 1687, provide vehicles to access these instruments. In approaches based on reconfigurable scan networks (RSNs), instruments are coupled with scan registers, connected into chains and interleaved with reconfigurable modules. Such modules embed reconfigurable multiplexers that permit a selective access to different parts of the chain. A similar scenario is also supported by IEEE Std 1149.1-2013. The test of permanent faults affecting an RSN requires to shift test vectors throughout a certain number of network configurations. This paper presents some methodologies to select the list of configurations that perform the complete test of the reconfigurable modules of the RSN. In particular, one method is presented that, by construction, can be proved to be able to apply the test in the minimum amount of clock cycles. Other methods are sub-optimal in terms of test application time (TAT), but scale well on large circuits. In order to provide a comparison between the proposed methods, experimental results on some benchmark RSNs are provided.
A LSTM Based Model for Personalized Context-Aware Citation Recommendation

The rapid growth of scientific papers makes it difficult to find relevant and appropriate citations. Context-aware citation recommendation aims to overcome this problem by providing a list of scientific papers given a short passage of text. In this paper, we propose a long–short-term memory (LSTM)-based model for context-aware citation recommendation, which first learns the distributed representations of the citation contexts and the scientific papers separately based on LSTM, and then measures the relevance based on the learned distributed representation of citation contexts and the scientific papers. Finally, the scientific papers with high relevance scores are selected as the recommendation list. In particular, we try to incorporate author information, venue information, and content information in scientific paper distributed vector representation. Furthermore, we integrate author information of the given context in citation context distributed vector representation. Thus, the proposed model makes personalized context-aware citation recommendation possible, which is a new issue that few papers addressed in the past. When conducting experiments on the ACL Anthology Network and DBLP data sets, the results demonstrate the proposed LSTM-based model for context-aware citation recommendation is able to achieve considerable improvement over previous context-aware citation recommendation approaches. The personalized recommendation approach is also competitive with the non-personalized recommendation approach.
A Passivity-Based Control Strategy for Three-Phase Current Source Inverter Based on Interconnection and Damping Assignment

To reduce the limiting feature of switching frequency in the high power current source inverter (CSI) and minimize effects on CSI output performance, this paper proposes a interconnection and damping assignment passivity-based control (IDA-PBC) strategy for three-phase CSI. The lumped-parameter model of three-phase CSI with independent storage unit is established, moreover, its port-controlled Hamilton (PCH) model in Park reference frame is proposed. Based on solving the parametric partial differential equation of the interconnection and damping matrix, the design of the closed-loop system controller is studied in this paper, and the system stability is analyzed by Lyapunov function. Furthermore, simulation reports for three-phase CSI demonstrate the feasibility and efficiency of the introduced design, and show that the inverter has strong anti-interference ability to the load disturbance.
Controlled and Tunable Loading and Release of Vesicles by Using Gigahertz Acoustics

Abstract Controllable exchange of molecules between the interior and the external environment of vesicles is critical in drug delivery and micro/nano‐reactors. While many approaches exist to trigger release from vesicles, controlled loading remains a challenge. Herein, we show that gigahertz acoustic streaming generated by a nanoelectromechanical resonator can control the loading and release of cargo into and from vesicles. Polymer‐shelled vesicles showed loading and release of molecules both in solution and on a solid substrate. We observed deformation of individual giant unilamellar vesicles and propose that the shear stress generated by gigahertz acoustic streaming induces the formation of transient nanopores, with diameters on the order of 100 nm, in the vesicle membranes. This provides a non‐invasive method to control material exchange across membranes of different types of vesicles, which could allow site‐specific release of therapeutics and controlled loading into cells, as well as tunable microreactors.
New approach of serious games in ludic complements created for rehabilitation therapies in children with disabilities using Kinect

This document presents the study of the impact generated in rehabilitation therapies in children with disabilities by using interactive tools created with Kinect for the application of therapies in the Child Neurodevelopment Area of the Ecuadorian Institute of Social Security (IESS) - Cuenca, where the areas of special education, early stimulation, language therapy, physical therapy and occupational therapy converge. The development of serious games constitutes tools that break schemes of a linear therapeutic process, since it involves the knowledge of the professional with the interaction of "learning while playing", thus achieving the desired objectives in therapy.
Cross Site Scripting: Investigations in PHP Web Application

Web applications are now considered one of the common platforms to represent data and conducting service releases throughout the World Wide Web. A number of the most commonly utilised frameworks for web applications are written in PHP. They became main targets because a vast number of servers are running these applications throughout the world. This increase in web application utilisation has made it more attractive to both users and hackers. According to the latest web security reports and research, cross site scripting (XSS) is the most popular vulnerability in PHP web application. XSS is considered an injection type of attack, which results in the theft of sensitive data, cookies, and sessions. Several tools and approaches have focused on detecting this kind of vulnerability in PHP source code. However, it is still a current problem in PHP web applications. This paper describes the popularity of PHP technology among other technologies, and highlight the approaches used to detect the most common vulnerabilities on PHP web applications, which is XSS. In addition, the discussion and the conclusion with future direction of research within this domain are highlighted.
Simulation-based Holistic Functional Safety Assessment for Networked Cyber-Physical Systems

Functional safety is a major concern in today's networked cyber-physical systems such as connected machines, autonomous vehicles, and intelligent environments. Simulation is a well-known methodology for the assessment of functional safety. Simulation models of networked cyber-physical systems are very heterogeneous relying on digital hardware, analog hardware, and network domains. Current functional safety assessment is mainly focused on digital hardware failures while minor attention is devoted to analog hardware and not at all to the interconnecting network. We propose a holistic methodology for simulation-based safety assessment in which safety mechanisms are tested in a simulation environment reproducing the high-level behavior of digital hardware, analog hardware, and network. Also faults are tested at high abstraction level to speed up analysis.
Chance-Constrained Path Planning with Continuous Time Safety Guarantees

We extend chance-constrained path planning with direct method into continuous time. Chance-constrained path planning is a method to obtain the optimal path satisfying a spec-iﬁed risk (or probability of failure) value. Previous work expects trajectories’ states as discrete information with respect to time. This discretized encoding makes the conversion from probabilistic path planning to deterministic path planning easy. However, risk guarantees are only produced for the discrete time model. The probability of constraints violation in continuous time could be larger than the discretized risk values. To address this problem, we modiﬁed the constraint encoding and risk assessment method. First, we introduce a computationally efﬁcient mean path securing method, which uses fewer binary variables as compared with prior work. Second, we note that the deviation of the actual trajectory from the mean trajectory can be considered as a Brownian motion, for which the reﬂection principle holds in general. Therefore, we take advantage of the reﬂection principle to bound the probability of the constraint violation in continuous time. In numerical simulations, we conﬁrmed faster solu-tion generation, and the probability guarantees of the path in the continuous time model, with deterioration in the objective function.
Topology of the mesoscale connectome of the mouse brain

Abstract The wiring diagram of the mouse brain has recently been mapped at a mesoscopic scale in the Allen Mouse Brain Connectivity Atlas. Axonal projections from brain regions were traced using green fluoresent proteins. The resulting data were registered to a common three-dimensional reference space. They yielded a matrix of connection strengths between 213 brain regions. Global features such as closed loops formed by connections of similar intensity can be inferred using tools from persistent homology. We map the wiring diagram of the mouse brain to a simplicial complex (filtered by connection strengths). We work out generators of the first homology group. Some regions, including nucleus accumbens, are connected to the entire brain by loops, whereas no region has non-zero connection strength to all brain regions. Thousands of loops go through the isocortex, the striatum and the thalamus. On the other hand, medulla is the only major brain compartment that contains more than 100 loops.
Learning Deep Representations in Large Integrated Network for Graph Clustering

Social communities, which are closely related groups based on some characteristics, are common structures hidden in social networks. In general, users tend to cluster in a group because of similar interests or frequent interactions. The identification of such communities in the social networks is of methodological and practical value. Existing methods are limited in that user network needs learning from heterogeneous networks, the complete feature expression of each user is ignored. To address this challenge, we propose a novel model, called DeepInNet. This method obtains a comprehensive deep representation by learning the information of different modes, which are presented by the corresponding network structure and represent the heterogeneous information in the social network. To perform the task, DeepInNet first computes the various diffusion state of each node from the heterogeneous network as features. Given the integrated network representation, we introduced a stacked auto-encoder model to form the deep neural network and learn the deep representation. Such low-dimensional representations could be used to cluster interest communities in the social network quickly. DeepInNet has been tested with four real-world datasets include two large-scale datasets. It also has been compared with several common approaches to social network clustering. The experimental results show that the integrated deep representation found by DeepInNet may match well with the known social communities and it is able to outperform the state-of-the-art approaches to analyzing the large-scale social network.
Microwave Filter Based on Substrate Integrated Waveguide With Alternating Dielectric Line Sections

A new topology of microwave filter based on substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) with alternating dielectric line sections is presented in this letter. The two alternating sections are waveguides without and with a dielectric material acting, respectively, as the inverters and the resonant sections of the proposed filter. This topology allows to easily design and manufacture compact filters with lower losses and higher rejection band than other available SIW realizations. For validation purposes, a prototype of a four-pole bandpass filter, based on alternating dielectric line sections, has been designed and manufactured, including successful experimental results.
Diets containing pomegranate polyphenol and soy isoflavone attenuate contact hypersensitivity in mice

ABSTRACT Contact hypersensitivity (CHS) is frequently used as an animal model for human allergic contact dermatitis (ACD). Diets of pomegranate polyphenols (PPs) or soy isoflavones (SIs) each alleviated CHS symptoms; however, the effect of diets containing a mixture of PPs and SIs on CHS is unclear. We investigated the CHS-inhibitory effects of diets supplemented with a mixture of PPs and SIs at human physiologically relevant doses. Consuming the mixture of PPs and SIs attenuated ear swelling and reduced infiltration of Gr-1-positive cells. Ear swelling decreased in the PP and SI-treated mice compared to the SI-treated mice. The auricle tissues of the PP and SI-fed mice exhibited decreased production of CXCL2 and MCP-5 compared to the SI- and PP-treated mice, respectively. These results suggest that dietary supplementation with a mixture of PPs and SIs may have ACD-preventive effects and may prove more beneficial than supplementation with PPs or SIs alone. Graphical Abstract Consumption of PPs and SIs at doses physiologically relevant to humans attenuated contact hypersensitivity and reduced CXCL2 and MCP-5.