Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Susceptible Escherichia coli cells can actively excrete tetracyclines

Escherichia coli shows severalfold less susceptibility to tetracyclines when grown in enriched medium than in minimal medium. Transport studies with cells harvested from these media showed different handling of the drugs. Whereas an energy-dependent uptake of tetracycline and minocycline was observed in susceptible K-12 and wild-type E. coli strains grown in minimal medium, an active efflux of minocycline and, to a lesser extent, tetracycline was seen in cells grown in L broth and other enriched media. This efflux was replaced by an active uptake system after treatment of cells grown in L broth with EDTA. When assayed at a lower temperature (27 degrees C), even cells grown in minimal medium showed an efflux of minocycline. Everted membrane vesicles prepared from susceptible cells grown in minimal medium or L broth showed an energy-dependent accumulation of minocycline and tetracycline when supplied with certain divalent cations. These results suggest that an active efflux of tetracyclines occurs in susceptible E. coli but is not detected in cells grown in minimal medium because greater permeability of the outer membrane allows a more rapid active uptake. This efflux system is distinct from that specified by tetracycline resistance determinants. Since the active efflux of minocycline in cells grown in L broth disappeared at external antibiotic concentrations of greater than 100 microM, it may be saturable and so mediated by a membrane carrier.
Residential mobility, housing tenure and the labour market in Britain

Using data for 1991 to 1997 from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), this research investigates the reasons to move house and the extent and determinants of house moves. In particular, we examine the relationships between labour market dynamics and residential mobility. Panel data allow the study of the sequence of household moves and individual labour market status changes, enabling unique analysis of the relationship between residential and job mobility. Our findings suggest that the unemployed are more likely to move than employees. This supports the classical economic hypothesis that individuals move to escape unemployment, and suggests that the unemployed are not immobile. A desire to move motivated by employment reasons has the single largest positive impact on the probability of moving between regions. JEL Classification: J61; J64; R21; R23
New Forms of Employment

Societal and economic developments, such as the need for increased flexibility by both employers and workers, have resulted in the emergence of new forms of employment across Europe. These have transformed the traditional one-to-one relationship between employer and employee. They are also characterised by unconventional work patterns and places of work, or by the irregular provision of work. However, little is known about these ‘new forms of employment’, their distinctive features and the implications they have for working conditions and the labour market. To fill this knowledge gap, Eurofound conducted a Europe-wide mapping exercise to identify the emerging trends. This resulted in the categorisation of nine broad types of new employment forms. On the basis of this, the available literature and data were analysed; 66 case studies were also conducted and analysed to illustrate how these new employment forms operate in Member States and their effects on working conditions and the labour market.
Enzyme‐Linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for IgA and IgG antibodies to epstein‐barr‐virus ribonucleotide reductase in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma

661 bp coding for the carboxyl end of the large sub‐unit of EBV ribonucleotide reductase was cloned into the pMal plasmid vector. Purified recombinant protein was tested in IgG and IgA ELISAs. For the IgG assay, 81 out of 100 NPC patients tested positive, whereas for the IgA assay, 60 tested positive. Among 100 normal individuals, I tested positive for the IgG assay and 9 tested positive for the IgA assay. The IgG assay picked up 6 out of 19 NPC sera which were IFA‐VCA‐ and IFA‐EA‐negative for IgA antibodies. Hence the recombinant ribonucleotide reductase could have good potential as a diagnostic test for NPC or could serve as a complementary test to IFA.
Shifting sands: the changing nature of the early stage venture capital market in the UK

The UK early-stage venture capital market is currently experiencing major changes. With private funds - once the bedrock of start-up investment for entrepreneurs - moving away from the early stage, it is not just entrepreneurs but the economy as a whole that will be affected. The shift comes at a time when there is real pressure for the UK to build great global companies to match those of the US, India and China as well as a harsher environment in which to start a new business. But as long as investors continue drifting away from the smaller deals that new firms depend upon, many businesses will struggle to get a foothold.
Overcoming Ambulatory E-prescribing Adoption Challenges: Governments Shaping Innovation on Behalf of Individual Stakeholders

Ambulatory e-prescribing, at first glance, appears to be a straightforward automation effort that electronically connects an e-prescriber to an electronic network so an e-script can be sent to a pharmacist. The reality is much more complex. The successful implementation of e-prescribing requires stakeholder groups with both a direct and indirect involvement in the technology to cooperate together. By analyzing stakeholders, what becomes evident is that a single individual may actually belong to multiple stakeholder groups. This report brings up adoption issues that have not been emphasized or raised previously. These include the shift in tasks and responsibilities that result from the e-prescribing workflow. Recommendations are targeted to activities that government leaders can fund (e.g., research) or encourage stakeholders to consider. These recommendations show that e-prescribing is more than an automation project. The potential exists to bring diverse stakeholders together to work on collaborative solutions. Yet this stakeholder diversity also stymies the adoption necessary to bring these solutions to fruition.This working paper is a manuscript prepared for the IBM Center for the Business of Government.
Forceps Compared With Vacuum: Rates of Neonatal and Maternal Morbidity

OBJECTIVE: To compare perinatal outcomes between forceps- and vacuum-assisted deliveries. Our hypothesis was that the force vectors achieved in forceps delivery will lead to fewer shoulder dystocias, but greater perineal lacerations. METHODS: This was a retrospective cohort study of 4,120 term, cephalic, singleton, nonrotational operative vaginal deliveries at a single institution. Outcomes examined included rates of neonatal trauma, shoulder dystocia, and perineal lacerations. Potential confounders, including maternal age, birthweight, ethnicity, parity, station at delivery, episiotomy, attending physician, anesthesia, and length of labor, were controlled for using multivariate logistic regression. RESULTS: Among the 2,075 (50.4%) forceps- and 2,045 (49.6%) vacuum-assisted deliveries, the rate of shoulder dystocia was lower among women undergoing forceps delivery (1.5% compared with 3.5%, P < .001), as was the rate of cephalohematoma (4.5% compared with 14.8%, P < .001), whereas the rate of third- or fourth-degree perineal laceration was higher (36.9% compared with 26.8%, P < .001). These differences in perinatal complications persisted when controlling for the confounders listed above. The adjusted odds ratio for shoulder dystocia was 0.34 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.20–0.57), for cephalohematoma was 0.25 (95% CI 0.19–0.33), and for third- or fourth-degree lacerations was 1.79 (95% CI 1.52–2.10) when comparing forceps to vacuum. CONCLUSION: Vacuum-assisted vaginal birth is more often associated with shoulder dystocia and cephalohematoma. Forceps delivery is more often associated with third- and fourth-degree perineal lacerations. These differences in complications rates should be considered among other factors when determining the optimal mode of delivery. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: II-2
The Fourth Surface-Exposed Region of the Outer Membrane Protein P5-Homologous Adhesin of Nontypable Haemophilus influenzae Is an Immunodominant But Nonprotective Decoying Epitope1

Nontypable Haemophilus influenzae is a major cause of otitis media and other mucosal infections. After natural disease in children and experimental disease in chinchillas, we found a hierarchical pattern of immunodominance among the four surface-exposed regions of the P5-homologous adhesin, with the greatest response directed to region 4. However, Ab to region 4 is not protective. When this natural but biased response was refocused to region 3 by immunization, augmented bacterial clearance and protection from ascending otitis media was observed. Collectively, the data indicate that region 4 contains a highly immunodominant but nonprotective decoying epitope, the presence of which dampens the immune response to a subdominant but protective epitope in region 3.
Serum Levels of Type II Secretory Phospholipase A2 and the Risk of Future Coronary Artery Disease in Apparently Healthy Men and Women: The EPIC-Norfolk Prospective Population Study

Objectives—To study the prospective relationship between serum levels of type II secretory phospholipase A2 (sPLA2) and the risk of future coronary artery disease (CAD) in apparently healthy men and women. Methods and Results—We conducted a prospective nested case-control study among apparently healthy men and women aged 45 to 79 years. Cases (n=1105) were people in whom fatal or nonfatal CAD developed during follow-up. Controls (n=2209) were matched by age, sex, and enrollment time. sPLA2 levels were significantly higher in cases than controls (9.5 ng/mL; interquartile range [IQR], 6.4 to 14.8 versus 8.3 ng/mL; IQR, 5.8 to 12.6; P<0.0001). sPLA2 plasma levels significantly correlated with age, body mass index, systolic blood pressure, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels, and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels. Taking into account matching for sex and age and adjusting for body mass index, smoking, diabetes, systolic blood pressure, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, and CRP levels, the risk of future CAD was 1.34 (1.02 to 1.71; P=0.02) for people in the highest sPLA2 quartile, compared with those in the lowest (P for linearity=0.03). Conclusion—Elevated levels of sPLA2 were associated with an increased risk of future CAD in apparently healthy individuals. The magnitude of the association was similar to that observed between CRP and CAD risk, and both associations were independent.
Rehabilitation modality and onset differentially influence whisker sensory hypersensitivity after diffuse traumatic brain injury in the rat.

BACKGROUND As rehabilitation strategies advance as therapeutic interventions, the modality and onset of rehabilitation after traumatic brain injury (TBI) are critical to optimize treatment. Our laboratory has detected and characterized a late-onset, long-lasting sensory hypersensitivity to whisker stimulation in diffuse brain-injured rats; a deficit that is comparable to visual or auditory sensory hypersensitivity in humans with an acquired brain injury. OBJECTIVE We hypothesize that the modality and onset of rehabilitation therapies will differentially influence sensory hypersensitivity in response to the Whisker Nuisance Task (WNT) as well as WNT-induced corticosterone (CORT) stress response in diffuse brain-injured rats and shams. METHODS After midline fluid percussion brain injury (FPI) or sham surgery, rats were assigned to one of four rehabilitative interventions: (1) whisker sensory deprivation during week one or (2) week two or (3) whisker stimulation during week one or (4) week two. At 28 days following FPI and sham procedures, sensory hypersensitivity was assessed using the WNT. Plasma CORT was evaluated immediately following the WNT (aggravated levels) and prior to the pre-determined endpoint 24 hours later (non-aggravated levels). RESULTS Deprivation therapy during week two elicited significantly greater sensory hypersensitivity to the WNT compared to week one (p < 0.05), and aggravated CORT levels in FPI rats were significantly lower than sham levels. Stimulation therapy during week one resulted in low levels of sensory hypersensitivity to the WNT, similar to deprivation therapy and naïve controls, however, non-aggravated CORT levels in FPI rats were significantly higher than sham. CONCLUSION These data indicate that modality and onset of sensory rehabilitation can differentially influence FPI and sham rats, having a lasting impact on behavioral and stress responses to the WNT, emphasizing the necessity for continued evaluation of modality and onset of rehabilitation after TBI.
Exploring the association between cannabis use and depression.

AIM To examine the evidence on the association between cannabis and depression and evaluate competing explanations of the association. METHODS A search of Medline, Psychinfo and EMBASE databases was conducted. All references in which the terms 'cannabis', 'marijuana' or 'cannabinoid', and in which the words 'depression/depressive disorder/depressed', 'mood', 'mood disorder' or 'dysthymia' were collected. Only research studies were reviewed. Case reports are not discussed. RESULTS There was a modest association between heavy or problematic cannabis use and depression in cohort studies and well-designed cross-sectional studies in the general population. Little evidence was found for an association between depression and infrequent cannabis use. A number of studies found a modest association between early-onset, regular cannabis use and later depression, which persisted after controlling for potential confounding variables. There was little evidence of an increased risk of later cannabis use among people with depression and hence little support for the self-medication hypothesis. There have been a limited number of studies that have controlled for potential confounding variables in the association between heavy cannabis use and depression. These have found that the risk is much reduced by statistical control but a modest relationship remains. CONCLUSIONS Heavy cannabis use and depression are associated and evidence from longitudinal studies suggests that heavy cannabis use may increase depressive symptoms among some users. It is still too early, however, to rule out the hypothesis that the association is due to common social, family and contextual factors that increase risks of both heavy cannabis use and depression. Longitudinal studies and studies of twins discordant for heavy cannabis use and depression are needed to rule out common causes. If the relationship is causal, then on current patterns of cannabis use in the most developed societies cannabis use makes, at most, a modest contribution to the population prevalence of depression.
Biased introgression of mitochondrial and nuclear genes: a comparison of diploid and haplodiploid systems

Hybridization between recently diverged species, even if infrequent, can lead to the introgression of genes from one species into another. The rates of mitochondrial and nuclear introgression often differ, with some taxa showing biases for mitochondrial introgression and others for nuclear introgression. Several hypotheses exist to explain such biases, including adaptive introgression, sex differences in dispersal rates, sex‐specific prezygotic isolation and sex‐specific fitness of hybrids (e.g. Haldane's rule). We derive a simple population genetic model that permits an analysis of sex‐specific demographic and fitness parameters and measures the relative rates of mitochondrial and nuclear introgression between hybridizing pairs. We do this separately for diploid and haplodiploid species. For diploid taxa, we recover results consistent with previous hypotheses: an excess of one sex among the hybridizing migrants or sex‐specific prezygotic isolation causes a bias for one type of marker or the other; when Haldane's rule is obeyed, we find a mitochondrial bias in XY systems and a nuclear bias in ZW systems. For haplodiploid taxa, the model reveals that owing to their unique transmission genetics, they are seemingly assured of strong mitochondrial biases in introgression rates, unlike diploid taxa, where the relative fitness of male and female hybrids can tip the bias in either direction. This heretofore overlooked aspect of hybridization in haplodiploids provides what is perhaps the most likely explanation for differential introgression of mitochondrial and nuclear markers and raises concerns about the use of mitochondrial DNA barcodes for species delimitation in these taxa.
Towards Practical Obfuscation of General Circuits

Known approaches for obfuscating a circuit are only feasible in theory: the complexity polynomially depends on the security parameter and circuit measures, but with too large polynomials and/or holds only with large enough security parameters, which leaves the methods not implementable for almost all applications at a required security level, say 128 bits. In this work, we initiate the task of exploiting ideas from theoretical constructions towards practical obfuscation. The starting concern is: how much do empirical methods help to improve eﬃciency? We followed the approach of Zimmerman and Applebaum et al.: obfuscating the randomized encodings (RE) with Graded Encoding Scheme (GES) over composites. We gave a new design of RE which is based on a new pseudorandom function and a new garbled circuit from a pseudorandom generator, whose obfuscation only needs GES of degree linear with n , the number of input variables. We also developed various techniques that further reduce the degree by a signiﬁcant constant factor. These resulted a general obfuscator with code size (cid:16) (28 λ | C | + 2 c c )10 nλ (cid:17) GES( 5 n 2 c + 6 , λ ), where GES( µ, λ ) denotes the size of a single ring element of the Graded Encoding Scheme with multilinearity µ and security level λ . Based on our implementation of the required GES with a simpliﬁed CLT multi-linear map, we may assume GES( µ, λ ) ≈ µ 2 λ . When n = 128, we may get µ = 31; for example, our obfuscated AES will have code size < 10 14 bits, whereas no implementable solution is known prior to this work. Our construction achieves VBB security if our pseudorandom function and pseudorandom generator and application of the CLT multilinear map are all secure.
Pyroelectric and dielectric properties of ferroelectric ceramics for microwave tunable devices and infrared detector applications

This paper presents new results of low frequency pyroelectric behavior and dielectric constant tunability at microwave frequencies of novel lead-free ferro-piezoelectric ceramics with composition (Bi0.5Na0.5)0.96Ba0. 04TiO3, We show that these ceramics perform well as pyroelectric infrared detectors, with a sensitivity comparable to traditional lead-containing ceramics. For microwave tunable applications, the material presents a promising tunability of the dielectric constant in the range from 100 MHz to 3 GHz when moderate DC electric fields are applied. These results encourage the research on this material for new applications in the fields of microwave devices and infrared optoelectronics.
Flavobacterium johnsoniae Gliding Motility Genes Identified by mariner Mutagenesis

ABSTRACT Cells of Flavobacterium johnsoniae glide rapidly over surfaces. The mechanism of F. johnsoniae gliding motility is not known. Eight gld genes required for gliding motility have been described. Disruption of any of these genes results in complete loss of gliding motility, deficiency in chitin utilization, and resistance to bacteriophages that infect wild-type cells. Two modified mariner transposons, HimarEm1 and HimarEm2, were constructed to allow the identification of additional motility genes. HimarEm1 and HimarEm2 each transposed in F. johnsoniae, and nonmotile mutants were identified and analyzed. Four novel motility genes, gldK, gldL, gldM, and gldN, were identified. GldK is similar in sequence to the lipoprotein GldJ, which is required for gliding. GldL, GldM, and GldN are not similar in sequence to proteins of known function. Cells with mutations in gldK, gldL, gldM, and gldN were defective in motility and chitin utilization and were resistant to bacteriophages that infect wild-type cells. Introduction of gldA, gldB, gldD, gldFG, gldH, gldI, and gldJ and the region spanning gldK, gldL, gldM, and gldN individually into 50 spontaneous and chemically induced nonmotile mutants restored motility to each of them, suggesting that few additional F. johnsoniae gld genes remain to be identified.
Shock resistant and thermally reliable low Ag SAC solders doped with Mn Or Ce

In this study, the reliabilities of low Ag SAC alloys doped with Mn or Ce (SACM or SACC) were evaluated under JEDEC drop, dynamic bending, thermal cycling, and cyclic bending test conditions against eutectic SnPb, SAC105, and SAC305 alloys. The Mn or Ce doped low cost SAC105 alloys achieved a higher drop test and dynamic bending test reliability than SAC105 and SAC305, and exceeded SnPb for some test conditions. More significantly, being a slightly doped SAC105, both SACM and SACC matched SAC305 in thermal cycling performance. In other words, the low cost SACM and SACC achieved a better drop test performance than the low Ag SAC alloys plus the desired thermal cycling reliability of high Ag SAC alloys. The mechanism for high drop performance and high thermal cycling reliability can be attributed to a stabilized microstructure, with uniform distribution of fine IMC paricles, presumably through the inclusion of Mn or Ce in the IMC. The cyclic bending results showed SAC305 being the best, and all lead-free alloys are equal or superior to SnPb. The reliability test results also showed that NiAu is a preferred surface finish for BGA packages over OSP.
The role of play themes in non-directive play therapy

Describing the processes underlying play therapy is important for evidence based practice in child therapy. Employing play themes to describe children’s play session contents is in widespread use by practitioners, but an adequate classification of these themes for non-directive play therapy practice has not yet been established. This article sets out to fill this gap by first describing how themes can be distinguished and distilled from the contents of play therapy contents. Second, a classification of main themes and sub-themes with exemplars to illustrate these concepts which is compatible with non-directive play therapy practice is set out. Finally a pilot project with experienced play therapists to test this classification in practice is suggested, along with the research questions that will need to be investigated in the shorter and longer terms.
Blind Adaptive Estimation of Integral Nonlinear Errors in ADCs Using Arbitrary Input Stimulus

An adaptive digital test procedure for the static characterization of analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) is described in this paper. The proposed technique performs a blind and accurate estimation of the integral nonlinearity (INL) of the ADC under test (ADCUT) without requiring any particular test stimulus. Its practical implementation implies no modifications on the ADCUT analog section and needs a very simple low-cost digital logic, which makes this useful for: 1) simple digital automatic test equipment (ATE)-based ADC static test and 2) built-in self-test (BIST) for ADCs test working either in concurrent (online) or nonconcurrent (offline) modes. The validation of these test methods has been performed through realistic behavioral simulations including noise, mismatch, and nonlinear errors. Experimental results for a custom-designed pipeline ADC and for the commercial AD664 chip are also reported.