Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Compatible Solutes of the Hyperthermophile Palaeococcus ferrophilus: Osmoadaptation and Thermoadaptation in the Order Thermococcales

ABSTRACT The effect of salinity and growth temperature on the accumulation of intracellular organic solutes was examined in the hyperthermophilic archaeon Palaeococcus ferrophilus. The genus Palaeococcus represents a deep-branching lineage of the order Thermococcales, which diverged before Thermococcus and Pyrococcus. Palaeococcus ferrophilus accumulated mannosylglycerate, glutamate, and aspartate as major compatible solutes. Unlike members of the genera Pyrococcus and Thermococcus, Palaeococcus ferrophilus did not accumulate di-myo-inositol phosphate, a canonical solute of hyperthermophiles. The level of mannosylglycerate increased in response to both heat and salt stress; glutamate increased at supraoptimal growth temperatures, whereas aspartate increased at supraoptimal salt concentration. Proline, alanine, and trehalose were also found in lesser amounts, but their levels did not respond significantly to any of the stresses imposed. Additionally, the genes involved in the synthesis of mannosylglycerate in Palaeococcus ferrophilus and Thermococcus litoralis were identified. In both organisms the synthesis proceeds via the two-step pathway comprising mannosyl-3-phosphoglycerate synthase (MPGS) (EC 2.4.1.217) and mannosyl-3-phosphoglycerate phosphatase (MPGP) (EC 3.1.3.70). The mpgS and mpgP genes of Palaeococcus ferrophilus were expressed in Escherichia coli and the proteins were characterized. MPGS had maximal activity at 90°C and pH near 7.0, and was strictly dependent on Mg2+. MPGP had optimal activity at 90°C and pH 6.0 and was barely dependent on Mg2+. The half-life values for inactivation of MPGS and MPGP at 83°C were 18 and 25 min, respectively. A comparative discussion of the osmo- and thermoadaptation strategies in these three genera of the Thermococcales is presented.
Connection sharing on top of a virtualization layer to support Vehicular Cloud Computing

The vision of Vehicular Cloud Computing (VCC) is to harness the wealthy resources contributed by groups of vehicles to enable innovative information services on the road. We present an approach to support VCC on top of a virtualization layer, with the vehicles cooperating to create an infrastructure of virtual nodes that enable persistent storage of cloud state information. We present the architecture and the main procedures of the virtualization layer, along with simulation results for the new computing and networking model named Vehicular Cloud Networking (VCN).
Comparison of Taste Threshold in Smokers and Non-Smokers Using Electrogustometry and Fungiform Papillae Count: A Case Control Study.

INTRODUCTION Smoking in long term is not only responsible for cancerous changes but is also one of the reasons of altered taste sensation in smokers. These taste changes are hypothesized to be due to reduction in density of fungiform papillae on the dorsum of the tongue. AIM The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between fungiform papillae count, blood Red Cell Distribution Width (RDW) and electrogustometric thresholds in smokers and non-smokers. MATERIALS AND METHODS Fungiform papillae count was assessed using digital photography and imaging software while electrogustometric thresholds were assessed using modified Transcutaneous Electric Nerve Stimulation (TENS) machine in 30 smokers and 30 non-smokers. The subjects also underwent RDW evaluation. The data collected was analyzed using Pearson's correlation coefficient. RESULTS Fungiform papillae counts in smokers were less than those of non-smokers and an inverse relationship was detected between smoking and fungiform papillae count. Electrogustometric thresholds were more in smokers than non-smokers and showed direct relationship with smoking. RDW was significantly more in smokers compared to non-smokers. An inverse relationship was observed between fungiform papillae count and RDW. CONCLUSION Our results suggest that smokers have a high taste threshold because of decrease in the number of fungiform papillae on the tongue and RDW values do show an inverse relationship with fungiform papillae density which depicts subclinical nutritional deficiency bringing atrophic changes in tongue.
Paradoxical Action of Penicillin G on Staphylococcus aureus: a Time Study of the Effect of a Zonal Antibiotic Concentration Gradient on Bacterial Growth

The killing rate of a zonal concentration gradient of penicillin G on Staphylococcus aureus was studied by using a previously described triple-layer technique, enzymatic inactivation of the antibiotic, and an automatic image analyzer. This gradient determines a target image, whose center is the reservoir of antibiotic (constituted by a paper disk containing 100 U of penicillin G) and whose successive concentric zones are: a zone of slow bactericidal activity (corresponding to high levels of penicillin G), a zone of maximal bactericidal activity (corresponding to optimal levels of penicillin G), and a zone of overgrowth situated in front of the antibiotic wave.
'MoleBot': An Organic User-Interface-Based Robot That Provides Users with Richer Kinetic Interactions

We introduce a new type of organic user interface that displays a 3D robotic creature, ‘MoleBot’ to provide a ludic experience inspired by traditional board games. To ensure fluid motions of the molehills cast by the ‘MoleBot’, the table surface combines horizontal rigidity with the vertical flexibility of over 15,000 movable pins. Users are enabled to kinetically interact with this creature via a joystick or gestural commands. We conducted user study sessions with 12 participants and classified the observed spontaneous play activities into 4 distinct categories: (1) enjoying simple ludic experience, (2) competing in skills, (3) mimicking realworld sports and (4) playing with a companion. In addition, a focusgroup interview with six video scenarios was conducted to explore the idea of potential applications and it was suggested that the ‘MoleBot’ can be used in interactive boardgaming environments and kinetically informative tabletops.
Adipokinins in pregnancies at risk of preterm delivery*

Abstract Objective: To compare adipokinins between women experiencing preterm labor (PTL) and prior preterm deliveries (PTD). Study design: In this prospective observational cohort, 110 women with a singleton <35 weeks at increased risk of PTD were studied. Serum leptin, adiponectin, and resistin were obtained at three times (23–34 weeks, 35–36 weeks, at delivery) and analyzed via enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The adipokinins were compared across time and between PTL (n = 59) and prior PTD (n = 51) groups using generalized estimated equation models. Results: There were no differences in leptin, adiponectin, or resistin levels over the three times between the PTL and PTD groups. There was a trend toward higher leptin levels (p = 0.06 unadjusted analysis, p = 0.09 adjusted analysis) at 23–34 weeks. When stratified by body mass index (BMI), there were differences in leptin (p < 0.001 for BMI < 30; p = 0.77 for BMI ≥ 30) and adiponectin (p = 0.04 for BMI < 30; p = 0.09 for BMI ≥ 30), but not in resistin over the three times between the PTL and prior PTD groups. Conclusion: There were no significant differences in adipokinins in women with PTL and a prior PTD. The trends toward higher leptin levels at 23–34 weeks in women with PTL may represent a compensatory response and require further evaluation in the study of treatments for PTL.
Automated risk assessment tool for pregnancy care

Clinical decision support systems augment the quality of medical care by aiding healthcare workers in the evaluation and management of complicated cases. Clinical decision support systems are especially instrumental in quickly assessing the criticality of pregnancy as it involves interpreting multiple maternal and fetal parameters. We propose a machine learning approach for early determination of the risk category of pregnancy based on patterns gleaned from profiles of known clinical parameters. In particular, we demonstrate the usefulness of classification and regression trees in solving multivariate problems in obstetric care since the decision making process and the importance of specific parameters are clearly illustrated in the tree. As proof of concept, an application use case has been presented.
Design of a robust method to acquire EOG signals using Bio-medical signal processing

Bio-medical electronic systems are designed not only to improve methods of diagnosis in healthcare but also to enhance the daily life of the people who are physically challenged. In this paper a complete analog based Biomedical electronic system is proposed to aid people affected with Paralysis, Quadriplegia and Hemiparesis to interact using their eye motor coordination. The electrooculogram signals (EOG) are processed using an analog front end system and decoded to actuate necessary action. Three gestures are recognized and the experimental results of the system are obtained on LabVIEW. The application of the system is demonstrated by allowing the user to communicate with the computer using his eye movements.
THE SELECTIVE NEURONAL UPTAKE AND RELEASE OF [3H]DL‐2,4‐DIAMINOBUTYRIC ACID BY RAT CEREBRAL CORTEX

Abstract— At 25°C the accumulation of [3H]dl‐2,4‐diaminobutyric acid (DABA) into small rat cortical slices was linear with time and a tissue: medium ratio of 35:1 was attained after 60 min. At 37°C the uptake was no longer linear and the tissue: medium ratio at 60 min was 66:1. Uptake was unaffected by the addition of 10 μm‐AOAA and dependent on the presence of Na+ in the incubation media. The uptake was shown to have a high affinity component with a Km of 20.7 μm and a Vmax of 28.6 nmol/g/min. IC50's for the inhibition of [3H]DABA uptake by dl‐DABA, l‐DABA and GABA were 80, 40 and 17 μm respectively. Two mmβ‐alanine, however, caused less than 13% inhibition of [3H]DABA uptake. Electron microscopic autoradiographs showed the [3H]DABA to be accumulated by 22% of the identifiable nerve terminals and, after 14 days exposure, the density of silver grains over nerve terminals was 36–38 times higher than that over the rest of the electron micrograph. On the other hand, [3H]DABA was not taken up into rat sensory ganglia and light level autoradiography showed the small amount of [3H]DABA accumulated by the ganglia to be evenly distributed throughout the tissue. Both electrical stimulation for 30 s and exposure of the tissue to a medium containing 47 mm‐K+ for 2 min caused a marked increase in the efflux of [3H]DABA from the tissue. Both these effects were abolished by a reduction in Ca2+ concentration and an increase in the Mg2+ concentration of the superfusing medium. These results suggest that l‐DABA acts as a ‘false transmitter’ for the neuronal uptake, storage and release of GABA.
Decreased reactivity of SSPE strains of measles virus with antibody.

Six strains of measles virus isolated from five patients with subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) were found to be less reactive in neutralization tests than classical wild or vaccine strains. This difference in reactivity was observed with sera from patients convalescing from measles, from patients with SSPE, and from rabbits immunized with SSPE, wild, or vaccine strains. Variants, which in neutralization tests reacted like the SSPE strains, were isolated from classical wild and vaccine strains. These findings support the hypothesis that SSPE strains are variants that emerge from classical measles virus under selective pressures in the patients. Although poorly reactive virus that is isolated from a patient with SSPE may simply represent the most persistent genome of measles virus, it is also possible that the viral characteristic that determines decreased reactivity with antibody, or some associated trait, allows this variant to produce SSPE.
"Thanks for sharing that": ruminators and their social support networks.

Receiving positive social support after a trauma generally is related to better adjustment to the trauma. The personality of trauma survivors may affect the extent to which they seek social support, their perceived receipt of social support, and the extent to which they benefit from social support. The authors hypothesized that people with a ruminative coping style, who tended to focus excessively on their own emotional reactions to a trauma, compared to those without a ruminative coping style, would seek more social support, and would benefit more from social support, but would report receiving less social support. These hypotheses were confirmed in a longitudinal study of people who lost a loved one to a terminal illness.
The Weird and Wonderful World of Bacterial Ribosome Regulation

ABSTRACT In every organism, translation of the genetic information into functional proteins is performed on the ribosome. In Escherichia coli up to 40% of the cell's total energy turnover is channelled toward the ribosome and protein synthesis. Thus, elaborate networks of translation regulation pathways have evolved to modulate gene expression in response to growth rate and external factors, ranging from nutrient deprivation, to chemical (pH, ionic strength) and physical (temperature) fluctuations. Since the fundamental players involved in regulation of the different phases of translation have already been extensively reviewed elsewhere, this review focuses on lesser known and characterized factors that regulate the ribosome, ranging from processing, modification and assembly factors, unusual initiation and elongation factors, to a variety of stress response proteins.
Coronary artery bypass grafting: social support for patients and their significant others.

BACKGROUND Patients and significant others may experience physical and psychological stress symptoms during the recovery time from coronary artery bypass surgery. It has been shown that social support is associated with health and well-being in various situations. It is important to study how patients and significant others describe the social support received. AIM AND OBJECTIVE To describe social support for bypass surgery patients and their significant others from the social network and nurses during hospitalization and the association between demographic variables and support received from nurses. DESIGN A descriptive study using a questionnaire. This was a pilot study. METHOD Questionnaires were mailed to 146 subjects and 103 responded. The questionnaires included background variables, the Social Support from the Social Network Scale and the Support from Nurses during Hospitalization Scale. RESULTS In most cases, the spouse, children and friends were the major sources of support for patients and significant others. Patients reported equal amounts of both affect and aid or concrete support while significant others reported the highest level of affect and the lowest level of affirmation from the social network. Patients and significant others reported the highest level of affirmation and the lowest level of aid from nurses during hospitalization. CONCLUSIONS Relatives are important sources of support for bypass surgery patients and their significant others. Patients reported higher levels of all types of social support from both the social network and nurses than did significant others. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE The provision of nursing support for significant others can be enhanced by focusing nursing care on the whole family. This would promote the health of the whole family.
Dinámica de salarios urbanos en Colombia: segmentación o integración en secundaria y universidad

El desempleo no es un problema de destinos causados por culpas inolvidables. El desempleo es el resultado de una interaccion de efectos sumamente complejos, una interaccion que afecta a las personas que estan insertas en el marco constitucional del Estado, los mercados y la sociedad. El desempleo indica la existencia de fallas en la organizacion de los factores de la produccion y de sus procesos economicos esenciales. Asi las cosas, es necesario analizar los puntos debiles para tratar de encontrar soluciones al problema. El libro que hoy se pone a consideracion de la comunidad academica, aborda partiendo de diferentes perspectivas, el analisis de varios de los factores sociales que en nuestro medio inciden sobre el empleo, los ingresos familiares y la generacion de oportunidades de progreso para la poblacion economicamente activa
Learning Set Acquisition: Problem Solving Strategies Employed by Reading Disabled and Normal Children

A number of characteristics have been attributed to reading disabled children, primarily through the use of correlational statistical techniques. This investigation looked directly at the learning process of reading disabled children, by comparison of reading disabled and normal children's responses to a conditional discrimination learning set (LS) task. Errors made by both groups were analyzed to determine if different problem -solving strategies were employed by reading disabled and normal children when attempting to solve the learning task. The results of this investigation indicate that normal children are more adept at solving the LS task than the reading disabled children. Children comprisirtg the two groups also used different strategies for solving the learning task, as the reading disabled children tended to be more rigid in their approach, while normal children were more willing to try varying responses and take chances. The results of this study offer a direction for future research leading to possible reading remediation strcrtegies. Investigation of strategies used in the learning-to-learn process, as well as methods for facilitating (or programming) generalization, offers a perspective on reading problems which is as yet unexplored.
M AAT : Multi-Stage Attack Attribution in Enterprise Systems using Software Defined Networks

Multi-layer distributed systems, such as those found in corporate systems, are often the target of multistage attacks. Such attacks utilize multiple victim machines, in a series, to compromise a target asset deep inside the corporate network. Under such attacks, it is difficult to identify the upstream attacker’s identity from a downstream victim machine because of the mixing of multiple network flows. This is known as the attribution problem in security domains. We present MAAT, a system that solves such attribution problems for multi-stage attacks. It does this by using moving target defense, ie, shuffling the assignment of clients to server replicas, which is achieved through software defined networking. As alerts are generated, MAAT maintains state about the level of risk for each network flow and progressively isolates the malicious flows. Using a simulation, we show that MAAT can identify single and multiple attackers in a variety of systems with different numbers of servers, layers, and clients. Received on 10 November 2017; accepted on 13 November 2017; published on 7 December 2017
Intimate partner violence at a tertiary institution.

BACKGROUND Intimate partner violence (IPV) is actual or threatened physical, sexual, psychological, emotional or stalking abuse by an intimate partner. Despite the high prevalence of IPV in South Africa (SA), there is a paucity of data on university students training in fields where they are likely to have to manage the after-effects of such events in their personal capacity in the future. OBJECTIVES To ascertain the prevalence of IPV in an SA tertiary institution population with a diverse demographic profile. METHODS Students from the faculty of health sciences and the faculty of humanities, social work department, completed an anonymous questionnaire. Students were made aware of psychological counselling available to them. RESULTS Responses were obtained from 1 354 of 1 593 students (85.0%) (67.8% female, 45.9% black, 32.7% white, 16.6% Indian, 4.8% coloured). Of the respondents, 53.0% indicated that they were in a relationship. The prevalence of any type of IPV (sexual, physical or emotional abuse) among all respondents was 42.6%. Emotional abuse was reported by 54.9% of respondents, physical abuse by 20.0% and sexual abuse by 8.9%. Thirty-five females (6.5% of respondents who had suffered IPV) indicated that they had been emotionally, physically and sexually abused. Fourteen percent identified themselves as perpetrators of abuse, but only three perpetrators of sexual abuse reported having also been victims of sexual abuse. Most respondents (58.7%) knew where to get help. CONCLUSION The extent of IPV among the medical and social work students sampled was found to be unacceptably high, both as victims and as perpetrators. As a result of their exposure to IPV, these individuals may have difficulty in managing patients who have been subjected to abuse.
A free-piston PM linear generator in vernier topology using quasi-Halbach-excitation

This paper deals with the investigation of a linear generator used in an internal combustion engine. The introduction reviews the state of the art of free-piston linear generators. Then, the mechanical structure of this generator is presented. The main part treats a finite-element-analysis (FEA) of the generator comparing different armature magnetizations with the numeric simulation program FLUX. A cylindrical design with radial, axial and a quasi-Halbach magnetization in Vernier topology is examined. The number of pole-pairs in a Vernier machine differs by one from stator teeth in principle. This paper is focusing on a Vernier machine with five armature pole-pairs coinciding within six stator teeth (Vernier 5/6). Several geometric parameters, like height of the magnets, slot pitch ratio or length of the magnets are varied in order to find the optimal design with regard to a high thrust force and low force ripple. The paper concludes with the determination of losses and electrical efficiency.
Integrating Multiple Source Data to Enhance Variation and Weaken the Blooming Effect of DMSP-OLS Light

Defense Meteorological Satellite Program/Operational Linescan System (DMSP-OLS) nighttime light has proved to be an effective tool to monitor human activities, especially in mapping urban areas. However, the inherent defects of DMSP-OLS light including saturation and blooming effects remain to be tackled. In this study, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) product of the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer/Normalized Difference Vegetation Index 1-Month (MODND1M), the temperature product of Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer/Land Surface Temperature 1-Month (MODLT1M) and DMSP-OLS light were integrated to establish the Vegetation Temperature Light Index (VTLI), aiming at weakening the saturation and blooming effects of DMSP-OLS light. In comparison with DMSP-OLS nighttime light, this new methodology achieved the following improvements: (1) the high value (30%–100%) range of VTLI was concentrated in the urban areas; (2) VTLI could effectively enhance the variation of DMSP-OLS light, especially in the urban center; and (3) VTLI reached convergence faster than Vegetation Adjusted Normalized Urban Index (VANUI). Results showed that the urban areas extracted by VTLI were closer to those from Landsat TM images with the accuracy of kappa coefficients in Beijing (0.410), Shanghai (0.718), Lanzhou (0.483), and Shenyang (0.623), respectively. Thus, it can be concluded that the proposed index is able to serve as a favorable option for urban areas mapping.