Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Detection of Salmonella spp. in veterinary samples by combining selective enrichment and real-time PCR

Rapid screening for enteric bacterial pathogens in clinical environments is essential for biosecurity. Salmonella found in veterinary hospitals, particularly Salmonella enterica serovar Dublin, can pose unique challenges for culture and testing because of its poor growth. Multiple Salmonella serovars including Dublin are emerging threats to public health given increasing prevalence and antimicrobial resistance. We adapted an automated food testing method to veterinary samples and evaluated the performance of the method in a variety of matrices including environmental samples (n = 81), tissues (n = 52), feces (n = 148), and feed (n = 29). A commercial kit was chosen as the basis for this approach in view of extensive performance characterizations published by multiple independent organizations. A workflow was established for efficiently and accurately testing veterinary matrices and environmental samples by use of real-time PCR after selective enrichment in Rappaport–Vassiliadis soya (RVS) medium. Using this method, the detection limit for S. Dublin improved by 100-fold over subculture on selective agars (eosin–methylene blue, brilliant green, and xylose–lysine–deoxycholate). Overall, the procedure was effective in detecting Salmonella spp. and provided next-day results.
Static test compaction for full-scan circuits based on combinational test sets and nonscan input sequences and a lower bound on the number of tests

A new class of static compaction procedures is described that generate test sets with reduced test application times for scan circuits. The proposed class of procedures combines the advantages of two earlier static compaction procedures, one that tends to generate large numbers of tests with a short primary input sequence included in every test and one that tends to generate small numbers of tests with a long, primary input sequence included in one of the tests. A procedure of the proposed class starts from an initial test set that has a large number of tests and long primary input sequences and it selects a subset of the tests and subsequences of their primary input sequences. It thus has the flexibility of finding an appropriate balance between the number of tests and the lengths of the primary input sequences in order to minimize the test application time. Several ways of computing the primary input sequences for the initial test set are considered. The most compact test sets are obtained when a test sequence for the nonscan circuit is available and this sequence is used as part of every test in the initial test set. However, it is shown that high levels of compaction can also be achieved without the overhead of test generation for the nonscan circuit. Specifically, we show that the industry practice of holding a primary input vector constant between scan operations can be accommodated. We estimate the ability of the procedure to achieve optimum test sets by computing a lower bound on the number of tests and demonstrating that the procedure achieves or approaches this lower bound.
UTILITY OF MEASURING EXHALED CARBON MONOXIDE (ECO) LEVEL IN ADDITION TO PULMONARY FUNCTION TEST (SPIROMETRY) IN THE MONITORING OF CHRONIC OBSTRUCTIVE PULMONARY DISEASE (COPD)

oxidant stress in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, asthma, bronchiectasis, cystic fibrosis patients. Quantification of lung oxidative stress in stable COPD patients by measuring ECO levels may also contribute to the understanding of the pathophysiology of COPD. Aims & Objective: To study the utility of measuring Exhaled Carbon Monoxide (ECO) level in addition to Pulmonary Function Test (Spirometry) in the monitoring of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Materials and Methods: COPD patients who were smokers and with a history of exposure to wood smoke (n =60) and healthy non-smokers as control (n =40) were selected as subjects by fulfilling the exclusion criteria as per the GOLD guidelines. Clinical examinations and spirometry including reversibility test were made following the standard protocol/procedure. ECO was measured using a MICRO III Smokerlyser. Results: The difference in level of ECO between COPD cases and healthy non-smokers was highly significant (F = 23.897; df = 98; p < 0.0001). The difference in the level of ECO among different groups (mild, moderate, severe and very severe) was highly significant (F=15.995; df =2; p
Decreasing Psychological Distress During the Diagnosis and Treatment of Pediatric Leukemia

A literature review was performed to explore the experiences of parents during their child's diagnosis of leukemia. The findings revealed that anxiety is a major reaction to the diagnosis. Because of the parents' reactions, communication barriers and parental role changes are established between the parent and child. The lack of communication between the parent and child during diagnosis and treatment and parental role changes produce negative outcomes. Negative outcomes place the parent and child at risk for experiencing anxiety years after the illness is treated. This literature review describes positive outcomes that can be accomplished by decreasing the anxiety of parents, which leads to a decrease in communication barriers and parental role changes during the new diagnosis of leukemia. Interventions are provided to increase the support and resources of parents during this phase of the disease. Future research may focus on interventions to decrease anxiety, which will increase communication, produce positive outcomes for treatment, and decrease stress years after the disease is treated.
Reconfigured Scan Forest for Test Application Cost, Test Data Volume, and Test Power Reduction

A new scan architecture called reconfigured scan forest is proposed for cost-effective scan testing. Multiple scan flip-flops can be grouped based on structural analysis that avoids new untestable faults due to new reconvergent fanouts. The proposed new scan architecture allows only a few scan flip-flops to be connected to the XOR trees. The size of the XOR trees can be greatly reduced compared with the original scan forest; therefore, area overhead and routing complexity can be greatly reduced. It is shown that test application cost, test data volume, and test power with the proposed scan forest architecture can be greatly reduced compared with the conventional full scan design with a single scan chain and several recent scan testing methods
The Camp Experience for Siblings of Pediatric Cancer Patients

Siblings of pediatric cancer patients experience difficulties coping and adapting to the experience of a cancer diagnosis. A variety of emotional and behavioral changes as well as somatic complaints have been reported. Children describe many negative changes after their sibling is diagnosed with cancer. Many social supports and therapeutic interventions have been proposed for siblings, one of which is a camp experience. The literature has demonstrated that camps have a positive impact and offer siblings of children with cancer a supportive peer environment. Camp encourages discussion with peers and health care providers and facilitates participation in activities that improve knowledge, social confidence, and self-esteem. Nurses can help siblings by recommending camp experiences, volunteering at camps, and adding a camp experiences to existing sibling support programs.
Endocrine Treatment of Prostate Cancer

Department of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology, P.O. Box 850, The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, Pennsylvania 17033 increase life expectancy and to relieve symptoms. If treatment were to be advocated in asymptomatic patients, the therapy should improve the length of patient survival. Rigorously controlled series from the Veterans Administration Cooperative Urological Research Group (VACURG) trials during the 1960s indicated no clear survival benefit from endocrine therapy at the time of diagnosis. Since then, standard practice involves withholding hormonal therapy until metastatic (stage D) disease is present. Patients with stage Al disease are observed, and patients with stage A2 and B tumors are treated either with radical prostatectomy or radiation therapy. Stage C patients receive radiation therapy, although some clinicians advocate initiating hormonal therapy for these patients before the development of symptoms (2, 3). Prospective randomized trials are required to determine the optimal management of stage C disease, and this remains an area of some controversy. Prostate Cancer
Tougher than hell.

Venus is closest in size and composition to Earth. It9s also our nearest neighbor. Yet for decades it has remained veiled. NASA hasn9t sent a mission there since 1989, and although Europe and Japan have sent orbiters there more recently, their investigations have stopped largely at the top of the planet9s thick sulfur clouds. No craft has touched down on the surface since 1985, when the Soviet Union sent the last in a series of Venus landers, and for good reason: At temperatures of 460°C and pressures of 90 bars, the spacecraft never survived more than a couple of hours. Now, researchers at NASA9s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, are developing computer chips, based on silicon carbide, that can handle the extreme environment. The chips could enable landers to survive on the surface for weeks instead of hours. By early next decade NASA may be able to land long-lived robots that could measure wind, temperature, chemistry, pressure, and seismic waves—data that could help decipher whether Venus9s interior is still geologically alive.
A Computing Resource Management Framework for Software-Defined Radios

Software-defined radio (SDR) is an emerging concept that leverages the design of software-defined and hardware- independent signal processing chains for radio communications. It introduces flexibility to wireless systems, facilitating the dynamic switch from one radio access technology to another or, in other words, the de and reallocation of computing resources from one SDR application to another. This paper introduces an SDR computing resource management framework. It accounts for several SDR system characteristics, including real-time computing requirements, limited computing resources, and heterogeneous multiprocessor platforms. The framework features the tw-mapping, a dynamic mapping algorithm that is apt for many cost functions and radio scenarios. The cost function proposal dynamically manages the available computing resources to satisfy the SDR computing constraints. Two SDR scenarios, based on representative SDR platforms and processing chains, and the corresponding simulation results demonstrate the framework's relevance and suitability for SDRs.
Microarchitectural Online Testing for Failure Detection in Memory Order Buffers

Technology scaling leads to burn-in phase out and higher postsilicon test complexity, which increases in-the-field failure rate due to both latent defects and actual errors, respectively. As a consequence, current reliability qualification methods will likely be infeasible. Microarchitecture knowledge of application runtime behavior offers a possibility to have low-cost continuous online testing techniques detect hard errors in the field. Whereas data can be protected with redundancy (like parity or ECC), there is a lack of mechanism for control logic. This paper proposes a microarchitectural approach for validating that the memory order buffer logic works correctly. Our design relies on a small cache-like structure that keeps track of the last store to each cached address. Each load is checked to have obtained the data from the youngest older producing store. We present three different implementations of this idea, offering different trade-offs for error coverage, performance overhead, and design complexity.
Prediction Router: A Low-Latency On-Chip Router Architecture with Multiple Predictors

Multi and many-core applications are sensitive to interprocessor communication latencies, suggesting the need for low-latency on-chip networks. We propose a low-latency router architecture that predicts the output channel to be used by the next packet transfer and speculatively completes the switch arbitration to reduce communication latency. The packets coming into the prediction routers are transferred without waiting for the routing computation and switch arbitration if the prediction hits. Thus, the primary concern for reducing communication latency is the hit rates of the prediction algorithms, which vary based on network environments, such as the network topology, routing algorithm, and traffic pattern. Although typical low-latency routers that skip one or more pipeline stages use a bypass data path that is based on a static or single bypassing policy (e.g., accelerating the packets moving in the same dimension), our prediction router architecture predictively forwards packets based on the prediction algorithm selected from among several candidates in response to the network environment. We analyze the prediction hit rates of five prediction algorithms on meshes, tori, fat trees, and Spidergons. Then, we present four case studies, each of which assumes different many-core architectures. We implemented the prediction routers for each case study by using a 45 nm CMOS process, and evaluated them in terms of the prediction hit rate, zero-load latency, hardware amount, and energy consumption. A typical prediction router with two or three predictors shows that although the area and energy are increased by 4.8-12.0 percent and 5.3 percent, respectively, up to 89.8 percent of the prediction hit rate is achieved in real applications, which provides favorable trade-offs between modest hardware/energy overheads and significant latency saving.
Evaluation of the Utility of a Transition Workbook in Preparing Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Survivors for Transition to Adult Services

Transition to adult care for adolescent and young adult survivors is challenging and is inclusive of several factors like knowledge and developmental, emotional, and social status of survivors and parents. This pilot study addressed the feasibility of a transition workbook, a method of preparing adolescent and young adults to transition to adult care. Using a mixed methods design, investigators also measured transition worry and readiness in 30 survivors. Support was provided throughout a 6-month period as survivors and parents completed the workbook. The workbook included sections about the treatment history of survivors, when and who to call for worrisome symptoms, prescriptions and insurance, educational goals for health practices and how to get there, and independent living. Twenty survivors completed the study and reported greater worry about leaving pediatric oncology but indicated the need to make changes to transition to adult care. Ambiguity and intimidation about transitioning to adult providers and comfort in pediatric setting were themes expressed by survivors. Results indicate the need for adult/pediatric collaborative transition programs using various standardized methods of addressing transition readiness and evaluation.
Biophysically Accurate Foating Point Neuroprocessors for Reconfigurable Logic

This paper presents a high-performance and biophysically accurate neuroprocessor architecture based on floating point arithmetic and compartmental modeling. It aims to overcome the limitations of traditional hardware neuron models that simplify the required arithmetic using fixed-point models. This can result in arbitrary loss of precision due to rounding errors and data truncation. On the other hand, a neuroprocessor based on a floating-point bio-inspired model, such as the one presented in this work, is able to capture additional cell properties and accurately mimic cellular behaviors required in many neuroscience experiments. The architecture is prototyped in reconfigurable logic obtaining a flexible and adaptable cell and network structure together with real time performance by using the available floating point hardware resources in parallel. The paper also demonstrates model scalability by combining the basic processor components that describe the soma, dendrite and synapse of organic cells to form more complex neuron structures.
The effect of normalization of Partial Directed Coherence on the statistical assessment of connectivity patterns: A simulation study

Partial Directed Coherence (PDC) is a spectral multivariate estimator for effective connectivity, relying on the concept of Granger causality. Even if its original definition derived directly from information theory, two modifies were introduced in order to provide better physiological interpretations of the estimated networks: i) normalization of the estimator according to rows, ii) squared transformation. In the present paper we investigated the effect of PDC normalization on the performances achieved by applying the statistical validation process on investigated connectivity patterns under different conditions of Signal to Noise ratio (SNR) and amount of data available for the analysis. Results of the statistical analysis revealed an effect of PDC normalization only on the percentages of type I and type II errors occurred by using Shuffling procedure for the assessment of connectivity patterns. No effects of the PDC formulation resulted on the performances achieved during the validation process executed instead by means of Asymptotic Statistic approach. Moreover, the percentages of both false positives and false negatives committed by Asymptotic Statistic are always lower than those achieved by Shuffling procedure for each type of normalization.
Bringing Translation Out of the Shadows: Translation as an Issue of Methodological Significance in Cross-Cultural Qualitative Research

Translation is an integral component of cross-cultural research that has remained invisible. It is commonly assumed that translation is an objective and neutral process, in which the translators are “technicians” in producing texts in different languages. Drawing from the field of translation studies and the findings of a translation exercise conducted with three bilingual Cantonese-English translators, the authors highlight some of the methodological issues about translation in cross-cultural qualitative research. They argue that only by making translation visible and through open dialogue can researchers uncover the richness embedded in the research data and facilitate multiple ways of knowing.
The Course of the Blood-Alcohol Curve After Consumption of Large Amounts of Alcohol under Realistic Conditions

ABSTRACT This article presents a review and appreciation of an article by Zink and Reinhardt (Z & R) dealing with the time-course of blood-alcohol curves and pharmacokinetic parameters in healthy men after they drank large amounts of alcohol under controlled real-world conditions. Here we present a reappraisal of this published study to highlight certain aspects of interest for forensic casework, such as when expert testimony is presented on the pharmacokinetics of ethanol. Healthy men, all regular drinkers, consumed large doses of alcohol (3.0–5.7 g/kg body weight) in a social setting for 5 to 10 hours. According to preference, the men drank beer, stomach bitters, or spirits in the company of a girlfriend or spouse. Food was available during the drinking session and the men were allowed to watch video films or play cards. Specimens of venous blood were taken from indwelling catheters every 15 to 30 minutes during and after the end of drinking and the concentrations of ethanol were determined in duplicate by both gas chromatography and enzymatic oxidation. The mean of the four measurements was used to plot concentration-time profiles of alcohol for each subject. The average Cmax was 2.65 g/kg (range 1.92–3.80 g/kg) and tmax occurred at 425 min (range 250–608 min) after the start of drinking. In five of the 14 drinking studies, Cmax occurred before the subjects finished their last drink; mean time to peak after the end of drinking was 2 min (range–56 to 50 min). The rate of alcohol elimination from blood was 0.167 g/kg/h on average (range 0.11 to 0. 26.g/kg/h) and only one subject exceeded 0.20 g/kg/h. The average volume of distribution of alcohol (Widmark's rho factor) was 1.05 (range 0.77–1.32), being considerably higher than expected from knowledge of the water content of the blood and the whole body. The abnormally high rho-factors suggest an appreciable pre-systemic metabolism of alcohol, either in the gut or the liver or both organs, when drinking continues for 5–10 hours. The rate of alcohol elimination from blood was not much different from many bolus dose drinking experiments (mean 0.15 g/kg/h). It seems that continuous heavy drinking for days or weeks is necessary to increase the activity of microsomal enzymes (CYP2E1) and cause a faster elimination rate of alcohol from blood. There were no unexpected irregularities in the concentrations of alcohol between successive blood samples, which does not support the notion of a so-called steepling effect in the post-absorptive state.
Network Variation and Fault Tolerant Performance Acceleration in Mobile Devices with Simultaneous Remote Execution

As mobile applications provide increasingly richer features to end users, it has become imperative to overcome the constraints of a resource-limited mobile hardware. Remote execution is one promising technique to resolve this important problem. Using this technique, the computation intensive part of the workload is migrated to resource-rich servers, and then once the computation is completed, the results can be returned to the client devices. To enable this operation, strong wireless connectivity is required. However, unstable wireless connections are the staple of real-life. This makes performance unpredictable, sometimes offsetting the benefits brought by this technique and leading to performance degradation. To address this problem, in this paper, we present a Simultaneous Remote Execution (SRE) model for mobile devices. Our SRE model performs concurrent executions both locally and remotely. Therefore, the worst-case execution time on fluctuating network condition is significantly reduced. In addition, SRE provides inherent tolerance for abrupt network failure. We designed and implemented an SRE-based offloading system consisting of a real smartphone and a remote server connected via 3G and Wifi networks. The experimental results under various real-life network variation scenarios show that SRE outperforms the alternative schemes in highly fluctuating network environments.
The Experiences of HIV-Positive Women Living in an African Village

Kenya has approximately 1.4 million adults infected with HIV/AIDS, with a national prevalence rate of approximately 7.4%. The majority of the Kenyan people have not participated in a Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) program and do not know their HIV status. This increases the likelihood of infecting others and spreading the disease. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore HIV-positive women’s experiences and perceptions about VCT programs. In-depth interviews were conducted with 29 rural women and 6 themes emerged: Living in fear, making the decision to be tested, the journey toward acceptance, changing behavior, planning for the future, and encouraging others to be tested. VCT programs are crucial in attaining goals related to the prevention and management of AIDS. By exploring these women’s experiences and perceptions, issues concerning AIDS and the acceptance and use of VCT may be better understood.