Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
In Vitro Susceptibility Testing of Aspergillus and Non-Aspergillus Filamentous Moulds to Antifungal Agents: Evaluation of Three Different Methods

Abstract Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate the suitability of Sensititre YeastOne (SYO) method for susceptibility profiles’ determination of non-Aspergillus moulds and of E-test for Aspergillus spp. and non-Aspergillus moulds, in comparison with the M38-A reference broth microdilution (BMD) method. Material and Methods: A total of 33 clinical isolates of filamentous fungi were tested. Results: The agreement between E-test and BMD at ± 2 dilutions was 82.4%, 83.3% and 82.4% for amphotericin B, itraconazole and voriconazole, respectively. The agreement between SYO and BMD at ± 2 dilutions was 76.5%, 66.7% and 88.2% for amphotericin B, itraconazole and voriconazole, respectively. The majority of differing results are due to higher MICs with the reference method. In particular, SYO was unable to detect some of the potentially amphotericin B resistant strains. We found that both E-test and SYO method were reproducible and served as suitable methods for antifungal susceptibility testing of moulds. Conclusion: In conclusion, both E-test and SYO method are promising, but require further investigation to identify the optimum conditions for their use in testing of susceptibility profiles of filamentous fungi to antifungal agents.
Mouse Cntnap2 and Human CNTNAP2 ASD Alleles Cell Autonomously Regulate PV+ Cortical Interneurons

Human mutations in CNTNAP2 are associated with an array of neuropsychiatric and neurological syndromes, including speech and language disorders, epilepsy, and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We examined Cntnap2's expression and function in GABAergic cortical interneurons (CINs), where its RNA is present at highest levels in chandelier neurons, PV+ neurons and VIP+ neurons. In vivo functions were studied using both constitutive Cntnap2 null mice and a transplantation assay, the latter to assess cell autonomous phenotypes of medial ganglionic eminence (MGE)-derived CINs. We found that Cntnap2 constitutive null mutants had normal numbers of MGE-derived CINs, but had reduced PV+ CINs. Transplantation assays showed that Cntnap2 cell autonomously regulated the physiology of parvalbumin (PV)+, fast-spiking CINs; no phenotypes were observed in somatostatin+, regular spiking, CINs. We also tested the effects of 4 human CNTNAP2 ASD missense mutations in vivo, and found that they impaired PV+ CIN development. Together, these data reveal that reduced CNTNAP2 function impairs PV+ CINs, a cell type with important roles in regulating cortical circuits.
Elements Involved in Catabolite Repression and Substrate Induction of the Lactose Operon in Lactobacillus casei

ABSTRACT In Lactobacillus casei ATCC 393, the chromosomally encoded lactose operon, lacTEGF, encodes an antiterminator protein (LacT), lactose-specific phosphoenolpyruvate-dependent phosphotransferase system (PTS) elements (LacE and LacF), and a phospho-β-galactosidase. lacT, lacE, andlacF mutant strains were constructed by double crossover. The lacT strain displayed constitutive termination at a ribonucleic antiterminator (RAT) site, whereas lacE andlacF mutants showed an inducer-independent antiterminator activity, as shown analysis of enzyme activity obtained from transcriptional fusions of lac promoter (lacp) and lacpΔRAT with the Escherichia coli gusAgene in the different lac mutants. These results strongly suggest that in vivo under noninducing conditions, the lactose-specific PTS elements negatively modulate LacT activity. Northern blot analysis detected a 100-nucleotide transcript starting at the transcription start site and ending a consensus RAT sequence and terminator region. In a ccpA mutant, transcription initiation was derepressed but no elongation through the terminator was observed in the presence of glucose and the inducing sugar, lactose. Full expression oflacTEGF was found only in a man ccpA double mutant, indicating that PTS elements are involved in the CcpA-independent catabolite repression mechanism probably via LacT.
Do individual characteristics matter? The quality of work during the implementation of a workflow management system in a Dutch social insurance company

Do individual characteristics influence how the quality of work is related to the use of a workflow management system (WFM) in a Dutch social insurance organisation? This key question is addressed in this paper. Building upon DeLone and McLean's model, we investigated the effects of gender, age, education, system experience and computer skills on the relationship between the level of user satisfaction with a WFM system and the perceived quality of work. The expected effects of individual characteristics were tested using survey data collected from 143 end users of a large Dutch social insurance organisation that recently deployed a WFM system. The results of the regression analysis show that: 1) user satisfaction has a positive relationship with quality of work; 2) age has a significant moderating influence on the perceived quality of work; 3) gender and system experience have no moderating effects; 4) education and system computer skills (as individual characteristics) had a degree of moderating effects. These results imply that it is valuable to focus on older employees when deploying information technology as WFM systems, i.e., by improving their computer skills in particular.
Optimal Feature-set Selection Controlled by Pose-space Location

In this paper a novel feature subset selection method for model-based 3D-pose recovery is introduced. Many different kind of features were applied to correspondence-based pose recovery tasks. Every single feature has advantages and disadvantages based on the object’s properties like shape, texture or size. For that reason it is worthwhile to select features with special attention to object’s properties. This selection process was the topic of several publications in the past. Since the object’s are not static but rotatable and even flexible, their properties change depends on there pose configuration. In consequence the feature selection process has different results when pose configuration changes. That is the point where the proposed method comes into play: it selects and combines features regarding the objects pose-space location and creates several different feature subsets. An exemplary test run at the end of the paper shows that the method decreases the runtime and increases the accuracy of the matching process.
SEGMENTATION OF HYPERSPECTRAL IMAGE USING JSEG BASED ON UNSUPERVISED CLUSTERING ALGORITHMS

Hyperspectral image analysis is a complicated and challenging task due to the inherent nature of the image. The main aim of this work is to segment the object in hyperspectral scene using image processing technique. This paper address a novel approach entitled as Segmentation of hyperspectral image using JSEG based on unsupervised cluster methods. In the preprocessing part, single band is picked out from the hyperspectral image and then converts into false color image. The JSEG algorithm is segregate the false color image properly without manual parameter adjustment. The segmentation has carried in two major stages. To begin with, colors in the image are quantized to represent several classes which can be used to differentiate regions in the image. Besides, hit rate regions with cognate color regions merging algorithm is used. In region merging part, K-means, Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) and Fast K-Means weighted option (FWKM) algorithm are used to segregate the image in accordance with the color for each cluster and its neighborhoods. Experiment results of above clustering method could be analyzed in terms of mean, standard deviation, number of cluster, number of pixels, time taken, number of objects occur in the resultant image. FWKM algorithm results yields good performance than its counterparts.
Role of Cell Surface Structures in Biofilm Formation by Escherichia coli

This study aims to understand the relationship between capabilities of Escherichia coli strains to form biofilm and serotype groups expressed on cell surface. Sixteen strains of E. coli were originally isolated from different food processing lines in different Moroccan cities. Strains serotyped based on their O (somatic), H (flagellar), and K (capsular) surface antigen profiles using different antiserums. Biofilm assays carried out in 96-well microtiter dishes using the method of O’Toole et al. Our results show that no clear relation observed between origin and serotype groups. In the other hand, we observed that not all studied strains were able to form biofilm. Furthermore, combination of antigens H40 and K11 appears to be involved in biofilm formation. In fact, the H antigen seems to be implicated in the placement of the bacterial cells near the surface and the K antigen may play a role in physicochemical interactions between bacteria and inert surface.
Comparative efficacy of a new oxfendazole pour-on in cattle

was the likely cause of death. A further very seriously affected animal was destroyed after breaking a leg while being led from its stable. The remaining 10 affected horses recovered over a period of six to 13 months. In the second outbreak, eight thoroughbred mares from a total of 20 thoroughbreds (18 mares and two males) grazing the same pasture, were affected. Fifteen non-thoroughbred horses in adjacent paddocks were unaffected. One affected animal showed very severe clinical signs, compatible with grade 5 of Huntington's classification (Huntington and others 1989). In this mare, the onset of stringhalt was sudden, progressively worsened over three weeks and subsequently resolved after three months. The other
A critical analysis of bid pricing models and support tool

This paper presents the characteristics of widely known bidding strategy models. The main characteristic of such models is that they over-simplify the bidding situation and therefore are difficult to use to model real life bidding. A new model (ServPrice) is proposed to overcome the disadvantages of the current bidding models. The analysis of all these models is based on a number of criteria which have been selected from both a large literature review on bidding models, as well as from the author's field experience in bid pricing. The comparison of these models has been made using a real life case provided by the telecommunication industry: bidding for carrier services.
A hybrid routing protocol for wireless sensor networks with mobile sinks

Low power and lossy networks have been an active area of research due to their large number of potential applications in different environments like health, environment monitoring and entertainment domain. Numbers of protocols have been proposed for routing in these networks using metrics like hop count, delay, bandwidth etc. The working group of IETF has done one major contribution in form of a proactive gradient based routing protocol for low power and lossy networks (RPL). However, for a network having few mobile sinks calculating gradients using proactive approach is costly in terms of energy. This paper proposes a hybrid routing protocol for wireless sensor networks with mobile sinks. It proposes a combination of reactive and proactive approach to enhance RPL for efficiently handling movement of multiple sinks. DAGs are only maintained by nodes close to the sink within a certain zone. While the nodes outside the zone use on demand sink discovery to find the closest possible sink, without maintaining DAG. The frequency of zone creation messages and zone sizes can increase or decrease depending on the speed of sink. This helps to decrease the number of retransmissions resulting in low standing cost for maintain DAGs and enhances the network life time especially under average or high mobility of sink.
The effect of dietary Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus L.) on performance, egg quality characteristics and egg cholesterol content in laying hens

This research was carried out to determine the effect of Jerusalem artichoke (JA) with or without 5, 10% vetch (V) supplementation on performance, egg quality characteristics and egg cholesterol content. In the study, seventy-five 25 weeks-old commercial white laying hens were randomly divided into one control and 4 treatment groups each containing 15 hens. Control group was fed basal diet without JA or V. Treatment group 1, 2, 3 and 4 were fed diets containing 5% V, 5% JA, 5% JA + 5% V and 10% JA + 10% V, respectively. The feeding period lasted 16 weeks. In the study, it was determined that dried-ground JA contained dry matter, crude protein, ether extract, crude fibre, crude ash, inulin and metabolizable energy (ME) at the level of 93.30, 10.02, 0.36, 5.64, 9.05, 15.80% and 3 060 kcal/kg, respectively. At the end of the study, live weight was lower by 4.36-10.09% in the treatment group 10% JA + 10% V compared with the other groups, but feed efficiency was improved in this group. There were statistically significant differences between the groups in egg quality characteristics ( P 0.05). As a result, the addition of JA with or without V has no adverse effect on performance and egg quality in hens.
Assessment of the influence of direct tobacco smoke on infection and active TB management

Background Smoking is a risk factor for tuberculosis (TB) infection and disease progression. Tobacco smoking increases susceptibility to TB in a variety of ways, one of which is due to a reduction of the IFN-γ response. Consequently, an impaired immune response could affect performance of IFN-γ Release Assays (IGRAs). Objective In the present study, we assess the impact of direct tobacco smoking on radiological manifestations, sputum conversion and immune response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis, analyzing IFN-γ secretion by IGRAs. Methods A total of 525 participants were studied: (i) 175 active pulmonary TB patients and (ii) 350 individuals coming from contact tracing studies, 41 of whom were secondary TB cases. Clinical, radiological and microbiological data were collected. T-SPOT.TB and QFN-G-IT were processed according manufacturer’s instructions. Results In smoking patients with active TB, QFN-G-IT (34.4%) and T-SPOT.TB (19.5%) had high frequencies of negative results. In addition, by means of an unconditional logistic regression, smoking was a main factor associated with IGRAs’ false-negative results (aOR: 3.35; 95%CI:1.47–7.61; p<0.05). Smoking patients with active TB presented a high probability of having cavitary lesions (aOR: 1.88; 95%CI:1.02–3.46;p<0.05). Mean culture negativization (months) ± standard deviation (SD) was higher in smokers than in non-smokers (2.47±1.3 versus 1.69±1.4). Latent TB infection (LTBI) was favored in smoking contacts, being a risk factor associated with infection (aOR: 11.57; 95%CI:5.97–22.41; p<0.00005). The IFN-γ response was significantly higher in non-smokers than in smokers. Smoking quantity and IFN-γ response analyzed by IGRAs were dose-dependent related. Conclusions Smoking had a negative effect on radiological manifestations, delaying time of sputum conversion. Our data establish a link between tobacco smoking and TB due to a weakened IFN-γ response caused by direct tobacco smoke.
Dementia informal caregiver obtaining and engaging in food-related information and support services

As dementia progresses, caregivers increasingly have to manage the decline of food-related abilities with little outside information or input from support services The provision of food coping skills and knowledge can lessen the burden on caregivers. However, there is little research on caregivers’ perspectives on food-related services. This paper reports on a qualitative study to investigate informal caregivers’ experiences of, and views on, food-related information and support services in dementia. Twenty informal caregivers were interviewed and the transcripts from these interviews were analysed using both deductive and inductive thematic analysis. Four categories emerged. ‘Direct food-related Information’, covers written material, training, ‘Direct food-related informal support’: lunch clubs, ‘Indirect non-food related formal support services’ covers respite services and domestic help at home. Finally ‘no services required’ covers those who did not feel they needed any form of intervention due to confidence in managing food-related processes or having no change in dementia progression and food responsibility. Most caregivers will need different levels of information and support at different stages of dementia. It is necessary therefore to undertake ongoing individual assessment of food information and support needs.
Biomining of metals: how to access and exploit natural resource sustainably

Mining activities have been carried out for thousands of years and nowadays have an enormous worldwide use to obtain important metals of industrial use. These include copper, iron, gold and several others. Although modern mining companies have sustainable mining programs that include tailings management and external verifications, it is recognized that these industrial activities are responsible for a significant damage to the environment. Specially, technologies such as smelting and roasting generate very toxic emissions, including solid particles in the air, very large tailings and contribute to generate acid mine drainage (AMD) that affects humans health and all kinds of living plants, animals and microorganisms. Consequently, due to environmental restrictions, these methods are being replaced in many countries by less contaminating processes. On the other hand, the microbial solubilization of metals by bioleaching or biomining is successfully used in industrial operations, to extract several metals such as copper, gold and uranium.
Recent Trends in Hospital Nurse Staffing in the United States

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine recent trends in nurse staffing levels and nursing staff composition. Background: Recent trends in hospital nurse staffing have not been well described, and the effects of the 2007 to 2012 recession and 2008 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services rule change are unknown. Methods: A longitudinal study of unit-level data from the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators® (NDNQI®) and hospital-level data from the American Hospital Association (AHA) annual survey was conducted. Results: From 2004 to 2011, total nursing hours per patient day on general care units in NDNQI hospitals increased by 11.5%, and registered nurse (RN) hours per patient day by 22.9%. Trends were similar in AHA hospitals. Conclusions: Hospitals have steadily increased total nurse staffing levels by increasing RN staffing. Use of temporary RNs in hospitals plummeted from mid-2008. There were no apparent changes in staffing levels due to the recession and/or CMS rule change.
Time-frequency optimized spatial patterns for movement-related EEG decoding

The article presents a new method for motor-related EEG recognition which comprehensively optimizes the frequency-time-space features in a user-specific way. The method creates optimized time and frequency grids and adaptively selects channels for common spatial pattern (CSP) filters to enhance its power. The results show that the optimized features denotes a specific perspective to visualize frequency-time-spatial characteristics of motor-related EEGs, and can be used to achieve high classification accuracy.
Shylock's Children: Economics and Jewish Identity in Modern Europe

Throughout much of European history. Jews have been strongly associated with commerce and the money trade, rendered both visible and vulnerable, like Shakespeare's Shylock, by their economic distinctiveness. Shylock's Children tells the story of Jewish perceptions of this economic difference and its effects on modern Jewish identity. Derek Penslar explains how Jews in modern Europe developed the notion of a distinct "Jewish economic man," an image that grew ever more complex and nuanced between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries.
Some acoustic cues for synthesis of the /n-d/ distinction.

Listening tests, using confidence ratings, were carried out on acoustic cues for synthesis of the /n‐d/ distinction. The cues occurred in 30 different phrases produced by a series‐resonance. formant‐coded synthesizer with separate oral‐ and nasal‐tract analogs. The cue variations associated with the test sounds were (1) rate of offset of nasal‐tract excitation and complementary onset of oral‐tract excitation; (2) oral‐tract formant transition patterns during oral onset; and (3) presence or absence of nasal‐tract excitation during the consonant interval. The best n responses in listening were produced by presence of nasal‐tract excitation with slow offset and /n/‐modelled formant transitions. The best d responses required rapid oral onset, absence of nasal tract excitation, and /d/‐modelled formant transitions.
Low Levels of Serum Apolipoprotein AI and AII in Senile Dementia

Abstract: We studied the serum lipoprotein and apolipoprotein profiles in 44 patients with sporadic late‐onset Alzheimer's dementia and 43 patients with vascular dementia. The levels of high‐density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol were lower in both patient groups than in a control group. Apolipoprotein A I and A II levels have decreased in both the patient groups, especially in the vascular dementia group. The HDL‐cholesterol levels correlated positively with the level of apolipoprotein A I, but not with the level of apolipoprotein A II. The ratios of apolipoprotein A I/A II have increased in both the patient groups. The apolipoprotein A II levels have disproportionally decreased in the patient groups. The serum apolipoprotein A II may involve the pathological process in the patients with senile dementia.
Learning to Play Draughts using temporal difference learning with neural networks and databases

This paper describes several aspects of using temporal difference learning (TD) and neural networks to learn game evaluation functions, and the benefits of using databases. Experiments in tic-tac-toe and international draughts have been done to measure the effectiveness of using databases. The experiment of Tic-TacToe showed that training from database games resulted in better play than learning from playing against a random player. In the experiment of learning international draughts, the program reached after just a few hours of training a better level than a strong computer playing program and occasionally drew a very strong program. Thus, using temporal difference learning and neural networks on database games is a time-efficient way to reach a considerable level of play.