Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fate of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7 in apple cider with and without preservatives

A strain of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli serotype O157:H7 isolated from a patient in an apple cider-related outbreak was used to study the fate of E. coli O157:H7 in six different lots of unpasteurized apple cider. In addition, the efficacy of two preservatives, 0.1% sodium benzoate and 0.1% potassium sorbate, used separately and in combination was evaluated for antimicrobial effects on the bacterium. Studies were done at 8 or 25 degrees C with ciders having pH values of 3.6 to 4.0. The results revealed that E. coli O157:H7 populations increased slightly (ca. 1 log10 CFU/ml) and then remained stable for approximately 12 days in lots inoculated with an initial population of 10(5) E. coli O157:H7 organisms per ml and held at 8 degrees C. The bacterium survived from 10 to 31 days or 2 to 3 days at 8 or 25 degrees C, respectively, depending on the lot. Potassium sorbate had minimal effect on E. coli O157:H7 populations, with survivors detected for 15 to 20 days or 1 to 3 days at 8 or 25 degrees C, respectively. In contrast, survivors in cider containing sodium benzoate were detected for only 2 to 10 days or less than 1 to 2 days at 8 or 25 degrees C, respectively. The highest rates of inactivation occurred in the presence of a combination of 0.1% sodium benzoate and 0.1% potassium sorbate. The use of 0.1% sodium benzoate, an approved preservative used by some cider processors, will substantially increase the safety of apple cider in terms of E. coli O157:H7, in addition to suppressing the growth of yeasts and molds.
Measurement of Urine Relative Density Using Refractometer and Reagent Strips

Abstract The relative density of urine is the ratio of its density to that of water and depends on both the number and weight of solute particles in the sample, while osmolality depends only on the number of solute particles. Water metabolism is regulated by the interaction of the renal medullary countercurrent system with the circulating levels of antidiuretic hormone and thirst. The concentration of solids in urine can be measured by weighing, hydrometry, oscillations of a capillary tube, refractometry and reagent strip. These techniques, interrelated but not identical, are commonly used in hospital laboratories and in clinical wards. We compared the results obtained in 1725 urine samples of inpatients and outpatients using an automated refractometer to those obtained using two visually read dip stick tests. The correlation coefficients (Super Aution analyser vs. Aution Sticks 10 EA, Aution Sticks 10 EA vs. N-Multistix, Super Aution analyser vs. N-Multisticks were 0.663, 0.645 and 0.514, respectively) and the great dispersion of mountain plots demonstrates that different techniques are not interchangeable in the measurement of relative density. Since the results obtained after discarding the samples with pH higher than 7 and those containing glucose or protein were very similar to the ones reported above, the role of these interferents appears negligible in inducing the discrepancy.
Reduced Harm or Another Gateway to Smoking? Source, Message, and Information Characteristics of E-Cigarette Videos on YouTube

E-cigarettes are widely promoted on the Internet, but little is known about what kinds of information about them are available online. This study examines message, source, and health information characteristics of e-cigarette videos on the popular online video-sharing platform YouTube. A content analysis of 365 e-cigarette videos indicates that 85% of the videos were sponsored by marketers. These videos highlight e-cigarettes' economic and social benefits, featuring a low level of fear appeal and negative message valence and a high level of marketing information about e-cigarette products. They also convey certain health claims that have been proscribed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the prevalence of which warrants ongoing monitoring and regulatory guidelines for online e-cigarette marketing.
Managerial Entrenchment and the Market for Talent

This paper studies how the nature of managerial skills affects firms’ governance decisions. As required skills shift from firm specific toward more general abilities, replacing an underperforming CEO with an outside hire becomes more profitable for shareholders. Therefore, firms adopt stronger governance arrangements to limit the entrenchment of incumbent CEOs and exploit the improved opportunities offered by the market for talent. The analysis rationalizes the observed trend toward stronger corporate governance and offers novel empirical predictions concerning the relationship between managerial entrenchment, firm size, and the nature of managerial skills.
Tyrosine phosphorylation in brassinosteroid signaling

Brassinosteroids (BRs) regulate plant growth and development through a complex signal transduction pathway involving BRASSINOSTEROID INSENSITIVE 1 (BRI1), which is the BR receptor, and its co-receptor BRI1-ASSOCIATED KINASE 1 (BAK1). Both proteins are classified as Ser/Thr protein kinases. Recently, we reported that recombinant cytoplasmic domains (CD) of BRI1 and BAK1 also autophosphorylate on tyrosine residues and thus are dual-specificity kinases1. Two sites of Tyr autophosphorylation were identified that appear to have different effects on BRI1 function. Tyr-831 in the juxtamembrane domain is not essential for kinase activity but has a regulatory role, with phosphorylation of Tyr-831 causing inhibition of growth and delay of flowering. In contrast, Tyr-956 is located in subdomain IV of the kinase domain and is essential for kinase activity, and we are speculating that the free hydroxyl group at this position is essential and thus phosphorylation of Tyr-956 would inhibit BRI1 kinase activity. Expression of BRI1(Y831F)-Flag in the weak allele bri1-5 rescued the dwarf phenotype but plants had rounder leaves, increased shoot biomass, and flowered earlier than plants expressing the BRI1(wild type)-Flag in the bri1-5 background. To further elaborate on earlier results, we present additional phenotypic analysis of transgenic Arabidopsis plants expressing BRI1(Y831F)-Flag or site-directed mutants of other Tyr residues within the kinase domain. The results highlight the unique role of Tyr-831 in regulation of BR signaling in vivo. Elucidating the molecular basis for increased biomass accumulation in plants expressing BRI1(Y831F)-Flag may have applications for agriculture.
Lumped elements model for substrate noise coupling

A new lumped elements model for substrate parasitics in integrated circuits is introduced. The new model depends on frequency, contact's size, separation between contacts, and substrate conductivity. The model consists of four lumped elements that are evaluated using few numbers of simulations and curve fitting steps. A closed form expression has been provided for each lumped element. By evaluating these expressions, the model is used for any spacing distance between the aggressor contact and the victim one for arbitrary contact size. The introduced model shows very good agreement (<; 5% error) when compared against electromagnetic field solver simulations over frequency ranges up to 30GHz.
Diagnostic Computation of Moisture Budgets in the ERA-Interim Reanalysis with Reference to Analysis of CMIP-Archived Atmospheric Model Data

AbstractThe diagnostic evaluation of moisture budgets in archived atmosphere model data is examined. Sources of error in diagnostic computation can arise from the use of numerical methods different from those used in the atmosphere model, the time and vertical resolution of the archived data, and data availability. These sources of error are assessed using the climatological moisture balance in the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Interim Re-Analysis (ERA-Interim) that archives vertically integrated moisture fluxes and convergence. The largest single source of error arises from the diagnostic evaluation of divergence. The chosen second-order accurate centered finite difference scheme applied to the actual vertically integrated moisture fluxes leads to significant differences from the ERA-Interim reported moisture convergence. Using daily data, instead of 6-hourly data, leads to an underestimation of the patterns of moisture divergence and convergence by midlatitude transient eddies. A la.
An interference robust receive chain for UWB radio in SiGe BiCMOS

A fully integrated receive chain for UWB radio in SiGe BiCMOS is presented. The packaged device includes a wideband LNA, a mixer, and an IF filter and has an overall NF of 7.5 dB. The IIP3 of -3 dBm and the accurately controlled and steep filter characteristic enables a robust coexistence with systems working in the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands.
Improvement of Debt Financing of Enterprises in China

Financing activity is the first necessary procedure to enterprise existence and development. Study on financing is one of the most important parts of the theory on financial management. The practice of financial structure of enterprises in China is very different from the classic financing theory in developed countries. From this point, the paper gives the potential reasons of the difference and studies way to address them, which include the understanding and use of debt financing from the enterprise itself and the improvement of market environments of debt financing outside enterprises such as increasing financing channel, developing the credit system and improving the settlement mechanism between enterprises.
A Heuristic Moving Vehicle Location Prediction Technique Via Optimal Paths Selection with Aid of Genetic Algorithm and Feed Forward Back Propagation Neural Network

The moving object or vehicle location prediction based on their spatial and temporal information is an important task in many applications. Different methods were utilized for performing the vehicle movement detection and prediction process. In such works, there is a lack of analysis in predicting the vehicles location in current as well as in future. Moreover, such methods compute the vehicles movement by finding the topological relationships among trajectories and locations, whereas the representative GPS points are determined by the 30 m circular window. Due to this process, the performance of the method is degraded because such 30 m circular window is selected by calculating the error range in the given input image and such error range may vary from image to image. To reduce the drawback presented in the existing method, in this study a heuristic moving vehicle location prediction algorithm is proposed. The proposed heuristic algorithm mainly comprises two techniques namely, optimization GA algorithm and FFBNN. In this proposed technique, initially the vehicles frequent paths are collected by monitoring all the vehicles movement in a specific period. Among the frequent paths, the vehicles optimal paths are computed by the GA algorithm. The selected optimal paths for each vehicle are utilized to train the FFBNN. The well trained FFBNN is then utilized to find the vehicle movement from the current location. By combining the proposed heuristic algorithm with GA and FFBNN, the vehicles location is predicted efficiently. The implementation result shows the effectiveness of the proposed heuristic algorithm in predicting the vehicles future location from the current location. The performance of the heuristic algorithm is evaluated by comparing the result with the RBF classifier. The comparison result shows our proposed technique acquires an accurate vehicle location prediction ratio than the RBF prediction ratio, in terms of accuracy.
Is Narcissism — An Inflated Sense of Self — Increasing Among Emerging Adults ?

This article addresses the question of whether today’s emerging adults are excessively ‘‘narcissistic’’ as claimed by Jean Twenge and others. The answer is a decisive ‘‘no.’’ There is no persuasive evidence that scores on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) have risen among college students in recent decades. In any case, the NPI is a dubious measure of narcissism, and college students are a dubious sample of emerging adults. There is evidence that today’s emerging adults have high expectations and are confident in their abilities, but these qualities should be seen as psychological resources during a life stage that is often difficult. If it were true that their narcissism was rising and that narcissism leads to impulsive behavior, then impulsive behavior would also be rising, but in fact it is diminishing across multiple indicators. As a society, we can and should do more to support emerging adults, beginning with a halt to the negative stereotypes.
An exclusive-OR logic circuit based on controlled quenching of series-connected negative differential resistance devices

An exclusive-OR (XOR) logic circuit with clocked supply voltage based on the controlled quenching of series-connected negative differential resistance (NDR) devices is demonstrated. This controlled quenching process obeys a simple rule: the NDR device with the smallest peak current is always quenched first. In our present work, resonant-tunneling diodes provide the critical NDR feature, while FET's, which are integrated with RTD's in parallel, modulate the peak currents of NDR devices. The modulation of peak currents in different NDR devices directly controls the quenching sequence, and results in certain logic functions, one of which is XOR.
Parthenogenetic activation of Chinese hamster oocytes by chemical stimuli and its cytogenetic evaluation

This study was undertaken parthenogenetically to activate Chinese hamster oocytes in vitro by chemical stimuli. Oocytes were exposed to five different chemical agents, ethanol (EtOH), strontium chloride (SrCl2), cycloheximide (CHX), phorbol ester (PMA), and ionophore A23187 (IA23). No parthenogenetic activation was observed in the oocytes treated with 8% EtOH for 8–11 min, 1.7 mM and 5.0 mM SrCl2 for 1 hr, 100 μM and 400 μM CHX for 2 hr, and 81 nM and 162 nM PMA for 5 min. In contrast, 89.7% of oocytes parthenogenetically extruded the second polar body in treatment with 3 μM IA23 for 5 min, but only 22.6% of them formed a pronucleus and developed to 2‐cell embryos. The remaining ova stopped their cell cycle immediately after completion of the second meiotic division. They had unichromatid chromosomes (monads), which are called MIII chromosomes. Treatment with 5 μM IA23 for 5 min was so deleterious that >90% of oocytes were degenerated. However, oocyte activation was significantly improved when the treatment with 3 μM IA23 for 5 min was followed by treatment with 8% EtOH for 10 min, 100 μM CHX for 2 hr, 81 nM PMA for 5 min or 3 μM IA23 for 5 min: rates of pronuclear formation were 54.4%, 84.3%, 34.2%, and 54.6%, respectively. More than 80% of pronucleate ova successfully developed into 2‐cell stage. Additive treatment with 5 mM SrCl2 for 1 hr had no positive effect on pronuclear formation. Incidences of aneuploidy (4.6%) and structural chromosome aberrations (1.0%) in parthenogenons produced by combined stimuli of IA23 and CHX were not significantly different from those (3.8% and 1.6%, respectively) in female pronuclei of ova fertilized in vitro, showing that combined treatments with IA23 and CHX cause neither nondisjunction at the second meiotic division nor structural aberrations in MII chromosomes. The present technique for parthenogenetic activation of Chinese hamster oocytes may be useful as an assessment system to detect aneugenic and clastogenic effects of mutagens on mammalian oocytes. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 47:72–78, 1997. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Radiofrequency catheter ablation in a haemodynamically compromised premature neonate with hydrops fetalis

Abstract: A preterm infant was born at 35 weeks gestation after failed antenatal antiarrhythmic therapy. The infant had an incessant supraventricular tachycardia, impaired ventricular function and hypotension and failed to respond to adenosine, cardioversion and intravenous amiodarone. After resuscitation from cardiovascular collapse, a successful radiofrequency catheter ablation (RFA) of a left free wall atrioventricular pathway was performed at 24 h of age without extracorporeal support. The infant is normal on follow up at 12 months of age. Whilst most fetal and neonatal supraventricular tachyarrhythmias respond to antiarrhythmic medications and RFA is not required, this is the earliest RFA to be performed on a premature infant when antiarrhythmics have failed.
Combined Effects of Estrogen and Progesterone on the Anterior Cruciate Ligament

Previous studies from the authors’ laboratory have established the presence of estrogen and progesterone receptors in the human anterior cruciate ligament. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the combined effects of 1˘β-estradiol and progesterone on cell proliferation and procollagen synthesis of the human anterior cruciate ligament fibroblasts. Fibroblast proliferation and procollagen synthesis in response to logarithmic concentrations of 17β-estradiol (0.0025 ng/mL, 0.025 ng/mL, 0.25 ng/mL) and progesterone (1 ng/mL, 10 ng/mL, 100 ng/mL) were assessed with the measurement of 3H-thymidine incorporation and Types I and III procollagen specific equilibrium radioimmunoassays. On Days 1, 3, and 5 there was a dose dependent decrease in the fibroblast proliferation and procollagen Type I synthesis with increasing estradiol concentrations. The effect was attenuated with increasing progesterone concentrations. Controlling for estrogen levels, a dose dependent increase in fibroblast proliferation and procollagen Type I synthesis was observed with increasing progesterone concentrations. The effect was more pronounced at lower concentrations of estrogen, suggesting estrogen levels were the dominant factor. The effects of estrogen and progesterone became less apparent by Day 7. No significant differences in Type III procollagen synthesis were seen with varying estradiol concentrations at any of the designated times. These early physiologic changes in fibroblast proliferation and Type I procollagen synthesis may provide a biologic explanation for the increased anterior cruciate ligament injury rate observed in female athletes, suggesting the acute cyclical hormonal variations in the female athlete during menstruation predispose her to ligamentous injury.
Simple and accurate method of modeling Photovoltaic module: A different approach

This paper proposes a different method of modeling Photovoltaic (PV) System in uniform irradiance conditions. It provides a simple and accurate method of modeling PV system using a single diode model by considering series and shunt resistance. This model computes five parameters and is having better accuracy than the existing models in literature. The accuracy of the proposed modeling technique is validated by comparing the model with the experimental values and datasheet values. The proposed model can be extended for modeling the effect of non-uniform irradiance conditions on PV system and also to track the maximum power from the PV source under non-uniform irradiance conditions.
New York Power Authority Uses Decision Analysis to Schedule Refueling of Its Indian Point 3 Nuclear Power Plant

The New York Power Authority (NYPA) wanted to develop a 10-year schedule for refueling its Indian Point 3 Nuclear Power Plant (IP3) that balanced fish protection, which occurs when IP3 is shut down for refueling, and the costs of buying and loading fuel. We developed a decision analysis model to compare alternative strategies for refueling. It explicitly considered key uncertainties associated with future operation: how well IP3 operates, how long it takes to refuel, and when New York State is likely to deregulate the electric utility industry. The NYPA decision makers used the model to reinforce their choice of a refueling strategy. They were not surprised that more fish protection occurred with strategies that restricted the starting date for refueling to the third week in May, rather than allowing the starting date to float throughout the period from May through August. However, the decision makers were surprised that the more restrictive strategies also resulted in lower costs.
A tiny and multifunctional ICAP controller for dynamic partial reconfiguration system

As it optimizes the resource utilization of FPGA over time and space, Dynamic Partial Reconfiguration is an important feature of FPGA. The Internal Configuration Access Port (ICAP) controller is an important part of reconfiguration system with which to access the configuration registers of FPGA. By reducing the resources consumed by ICAP controller, more resources will be available for the reconfigurable modules and thus enhance the execution capabilities of reconfiguration system. This paper presents a tiny, multi-functional ICAP controller, and test results show that the ICAP controller consumes less resources compared with other controllers such as AXI_HWICAP, fault-tolerance ICAP, AC_ICAP and ZYCAP. Besides, the ICAP controller has the function of single event upsets (SEU) injection, which can be applied to study the influence of SEUs on reconfigurable system.
Training Effectiveness: A Perspective of Engaged vs. Disengaged Employees

HR practitioners time and again busy in finding the worth of their training programs. Outputs of training/ Training Effectiveness/ROI of training programs are taking a huge attention of any HR department in any organization. Often attention was paid to the training program itself, the training environment, the trainer and the organizational climate and culture to apply the same into work. But many a times the very important part i.e. trainees were left aside. Present research is an attempt to address this gap. Trainees though found to be an important factor in success of any training program often this factor is limited to theoretical analysis. Rarely organizations and particularly the training department dare to ponder this. The type of trainee or in other way the characteristic of a trainee is found to be influential in many of the researches earlier. Here the attempt is to measure the link between the level of engagement and the perception of training effectiveness of the same trainees. This will help the training department to be more cautious while choosing their trainees to deliver an effective training program to fetch a dream achieved.
Relationships and Networks

This chapter takes a fresh look at relationship marketing (RM) and business or industrial networks (BN) as sub-fields of the marketing discipline. Some scholars, including Gummesson and Grönroos, see these as nested and use relationship marketing as a generic term to cover the research on both consumer and business relationships and on inter-organizational networks. However, several authors have emphasized the dispersed origin of relationship marketing and suggested a need to explore the differences between business-to-business marketing relationships and consumer marketing (Egan, 2008; Eiriz and Wilson, 2006; Pels, 1999). Möller and Halinen (2000) claim that relationship marketing consists of two theoretically different and distinctive approaches: market-based RM (MRM) and networkbased RM (NRM). This view is supported by Mattsson (1997) who makes a clear distinction between the theoretical assumptions that provide the foundation for relationship marketing research and network research. 14