Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of two molecular diagnostic methods for identifying Beijing genotype of Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Background and Objectives: The Beijing family of Mycobacterium tuberculosis has been identified as a severe pathogen among this species and found in many clinical isolates during the last decade. Early identification of such genotype is important for better prevention and treatment of tuberculosis. The present study performed to compare the efficiency of Real-Time PCR and IS6110-Based Inverse PCR methods to identify the Beijing family. Materials and Methods: This study was carried out on 173 clinical isolates of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex in Golestan Province, northern Iran. DNA extraction performed by boiling and determining the Beijing and non-Beijing strains carried out using Real-Time PCR and IS6110-Based Inverse PCR. Results: In both Real-Time PCR and IS6110-Based Inverse PCR method, 24 specimens (13.9%) of the Beijing family were identified and the result of the IS6110-Based Inverse PCR method showed that all the Beijing strains in this region belonged to the Ancient Beijing sub-lineage. Conclusion: Although the efficacy of the two methods in the diagnosis of the Beijing family is similar, the IS6110-Based Inverse PCR is more applicable to the ability to detect new and old Beijing family.
CHOICE OF OVIPOSITION SITE IN PLEURODEMA BORELLII (LEPTODACTYLIDAE): IMPORTANCE OF CONSPECIFIC TADPOLE SIZE

Abstract Selection should favor individuals that can assess the quality of their future offspring′s habitat in terms of its physical features and the presence of competitors or predators. Studies have shown that the presence of tadpoles at a site may deter adults from ovipositing there as the tadpoles may become competitors for resources or predators on the smaller conspecifics. Here I investigate whether tadpole size influences oviposition site selection in the leptodactylid Pleurodema borellii. The study took place at a location in northwestern Argentina, where this species naturally occurs, during five consecutive years. Six identically-sized pools were placed near an artificial pond allowing the frogs to breed without interference. Number of adults present at each pool and number of foam nests were recorded. Tadpoles were divided into three size categories (small, medium, and large) and were sampled twice a week. Adult P. borellii significantly chose two out of six of the pools to lay their eggs when small tadpoles were present, whereas they significantly avoided all the pools when medium and large tadpoles were present. The results suggest that an important factor in oviposition site selection in P. borellii is tadpole size. Females accepted a location with small tadpoles, possibly an indicator of a suitable breeding site, but they avoided locations with medium and large tadpoles that could become potential competitors as well as predators on the new progeny.
A DIFFUSION EQUATION WITH A VARIABLE ORDER REACTION

This paper deals with the problem, { −∆u = λu x ∈ Ω u = 0 x ∈ ∂Ω, (P ) where Ω ⊂ R is a bounded smooth domain, λ > 0 is a parameter and the reaction order q(x) is a Hölder continuous positive function satisfying q(x) > 1 for all x ∈ Ω. The relevant feature here is that q is assumed to achieve the value one on ∂Ω. Assuming that q is subcritical our main result states the existence of a positive solution for all λ > 0. We also study its asymptotic behavior as λ → 0 and as λ → ∞. It should be noticed that the fact that q = 1 somewhere in ∂Ω gives rise to serious difficulties when looking for critical points of the functional associated with (P ). This work is a continuation of [13] where q is assumed to take values both greater and smaller than one in Ω but is constrained to satisfy q(x) > 1 on ∂Ω.
Dancing Memories: The Transience of Experience

This article reports and speculates about the dance composition called Público. Five performers used their own dancing memories to develop the creative material of this work. This corporal research was led due to sensations, perceptions and emotions. For this creation, autofiction was used to widen up possibilities for building meanings. In order to evaluate its creative trajectory, the relationship among memory, emotion and movement is hereby discussed. Also, studies carried out by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson give basis to the idea that time and memory are metaphorical concepts which are interrelated. These authors propose the notion of embodied; it underlines the correlation between past and present perceptions. John Dewey’s conception of aesthetic experience is also an approach here proposed. It is used with the view that part of the creation of the scenic structuring has been deviated from issues and necessities caused by the creative process.
Integration of semantic user proﬁle within a social recommendation system: semantic relevance measures characterization

We have earlier proposed an algorithm for computing recommendation in collaboration networks. This recommendation is based, on one hand, on the similarity between authors’ preferences and the submitted query and on the other hand, on the betweenness centrality of authors found on the search paths. We are now working on the elaboration of semantic user preferences by using a domain ontology. We propose diﬀerent categories of relevance measures. The basic relevance measure is the classical one which matches the preference terms to the query terms. The semantic relevance measure is the one that matches the semantic preferences to the query concept terms both extracted from the ontology deﬁ-nition. The semantic-structural relevance measure integrates the structural and hierarchical organization of concepts in the ontology.
Antifungal Activity of Chitosan on Two Postharvest Pathogens of Strawberry Fruits

Effect of chitosan coating on decay of strawberry fruits held at 13 C was investigated. Strawberry fruits were inoculated with spore suspensions of Botrytis cinerea or Rhizopus stolonifer and subsequently coated with chitosan solutions (10 or 15 mg/ml). After 14 days of storage, decay caused by B. cinerea or R. stolonifer was markedly reduced by chitosan coating. Decay was not reduced further when the concentration of chitosan coating was increased from 10 to 15 mg/ml. Coating intact strawberries with chitosan did not stimulate chitinase, chitosanase, or β-1,3-blucanase activities in the tissue as revealed by polyacrylamide gel assays (.)
MODELLING OF ANGLED JET IMPINGEMENT ON LARGE FLAT SURFACES

Releases of gases from pressurised storage can lead to the formation of momentum jets which may impinge on surfaces, or more generally, on the ground. Development of models to include impingement has been limited by a lack of suitable data for nonnormal impingement. This paper describes work that was performed to collect data on a small impinging momentum jet. The data was used to examine Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modelling and to extend an existing integral model. The effects of impingement of single phase momentum jets onto horizontal surfaces on velocity and concentration were measured for different fluid densities and impingement angles. The observed behaviour was between that for normal impingement and three-dimensional wall jets. Concentration decay downstream of the impingement region was faster than that observed for either free or three-dimensional wall jets. The data was used to examine the predictive capabilities of CFD for modelling impinging jets. Simple empirical correlations suitable for inclusion in integral jet models have been derived based on the observed behaviour. An existing integral jet model has been modified using these correlations, resulting in an improved agreement with the experimental data.
Encapsulation Rates of Three Encyrtid Parasitoids by Three Mealybug Species (Homoptera: Pseudococcidae) Found Commonly as Pests in Commercial Greenhouses

Abstract Encapsulation rates of the parasitoids Leptomastix dactylopii Howard, Leptomastix epona (Walker), and Anagyrus fusciventris (Girault) (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae) by the mealybugs Planococcus citri Risso, Pseudococcus viburni (Signoret), and Pseudococcus longispinus (Targioni-Tozzeti) (Homoptera: Pseudococcidae) were studied under controlled laboratory conditions. At 23°C, of the nine host–parasitoid combinations studied, encapsulation was absent only in the combination of L. dactylopii with P. citri. Complete encapsulation (100% of all parasitoid eggs) occurred with L. dactylopii on P. viburni and L. epona on P. citri. In all other combinations studied (six at 23°C and three at 28°C), various degrees of encapsulation were observed. At 23°C, rates of effective encapsulation (the percentage mealybugs in which encapsulation of all parasitoid eggs occurred) were 53.4% ( L. dactylopii in P. longispinus ), 33.4% ( L. epona in P. viburni ), 11.2% ( L. epona in P. longispinus ), 86.4% ( A. fusciventris in P. citri ), 69.6% ( A. fusciventris in P. viburni ), and 3.3% ( A. fusciventris in P. longispinus ). At 28°C, encapsulation of L. dactylopii in P. longispinus was significantly higher than that at 23°C (68.4% vs 53.8%, respectively). However, in A. fusciventris, encapsulation in P. viburni at 28°C was significantly lower than that at 23°C (36.5% vs 69.6%, respectively). Encapsulation rates of A. fusciventris in P. longispinus were not affected by the rearing temperature. Numbers of parasitoid eggs laid per host were similar for all host–parasitoid combinations (1.0–2.2); only L. epona in P. citri was significantly higher (2.2) than the other host–parasitoid combinations (1.0–1.5). Percentage parasitism of hosts was lowest for A. fusciventris in P. citri (16.3% vs 51.7–66.4%, for all other host–parasitoid combinations). Parasitoid larvae that emerged from encapsulated egg capsules were detected in some host–parasitoid combinations at 23 and 28°C. Such larval escape from encapsulation significantly increased mealybug mortality only for A. fusciventris on P. viburni (up 14.8%) as compared to all other combinations studied (0.7 to 2.6%). Differences in levels of encapsulation observed in these host–parasitoid combinations have practical implications for choice of appropriate parasitoids for biological control.
Predicting the occurrence of complaints within the customer journey based on process mining techniques

Over the last couple of years customer journey analysis has received a lot of attention. Companies would like to know as much as possible about their customers and their behaviour to improve their organisation. Current research mainly focuses on the visualization of customer journey data, while data-driven techniques to analyze customer journeys are often missing. This thesis aims to fill one of the gaps by creating an approach that is able to predict the outcome of customer journeys that occur infrequently. This thesis introduces the Variant Based Outcome Prediction Approach (VBOPA) to provide, to the best of the writers knowledge, the first attempt to create a repeatable approach to predict the outcome of customer journeys. The approach combines elements from customer journey analysis, process mining and data mining by taking the best of each of the domains. The approach is evaluated on a data set of a Dutch health insurer that contains customer journey data and where some journeys contain a complaint. The results show that the VBOPA reaches good prediction performance for the data set that shows the potential of the VBOPA. The VBOPA is also applied to the BPI 2017 Challenge log to show that it is generic and can also be applied to a different data set from a different context.
Diagnostic Prediction with Sequence-of-setsRepresentation Learning for Clinical Events

Electronic health records (EHRs) contain both ordered and unordered chronologies of clinical events that occur during a patient encounter. However, during data preprocessing steps, many predictive models impose a predefined order on unordered clinical events sets (e.g., alphabetical, natural order from the chart, etc.), which is potentially incompatible with the temporal nature of the sequence and predictive task. To address this issue, we proposeDPSS, which seeks to capture each patient's clinical event records as sequences of event sets. Foreach clinical event set, we assume that the predictive model should be invariant to the order of concurrent events and thus employ a novel permutation sampling mechanism. This paper evaluates the use of this permuted sampling method given different data-driven models for predicting a heart failure (HF) diagnosis in sub-sequent patient visits. Experimental results using the MIMIC-III dataset show that the permutation sampling mechanism offers improved discriminative power based on the area under the receiver operating curve (AUROC) and precision-recall curve (pr-AUC) metrics as HF diagnosis prediction becomes more robust to different data ordering schemes.
Evolution of the fish assemblage around a gas platform in the northern Adriatic Sea

Effects induced on the fish assemblage by the gas platform “Regina”, installed in October 1997 in the northern Adriatic Sea (depth 21 m), were investigated by monthly sampling with a trammel net near the platform and at an open-sea control site. Total catch rates did not differ appreciably between the two sites. However, the fish assemblage near the platform showed greater species richness and a higher Shannon-Wiener diversity index, mainly owing to the presence of reef-dwelling or partially attracted benthic and nekto-benthic fishes that are less common in the natural local sand-muddy bottom habitat. Similar seasonal patterns were observed at the two sites in terms of number of species, diversity, and total catch rates, with lowest values recorded in winter/spring. In terms of temporal evolution, number of species at the platform increased rapidly during the first year after deployment, followed by a levelling off in subsequent months. In contrast, catch rates obtained for different categories of species indicate a longer development time in terms of number of individuals and biomass. Copyright 2002 International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
987-992 Banerjee T.pmd

Blastocystis species (spp.) is an emerging pathogen. There are several unsolved issues linked to this parasite ranging from its nomenclature, commensal status, standardization of laboratory diagnostic methods, genotypes and treatment. Recently, there has been an increase in reports of Blastocystis spp. from symptomatic cases which provide enough evidence of its pathogenic potential. A range of signs and symptoms, from gastro-intestinal to cutaneous manifestations have been attributed to Blastocystis infection. Few reports have established an association between intestinal infection with Blastocystis spp. and skin manifestations in form of urticaria, palmoplantar pruritus and allergy with complete resolution of cutaneous lesions with eradication of the parasite. In this report, we describe a case of Steven Johnson’s syndrome (SJS) in a 6 years old girl along with infection with Blastocystis spp. marked by diarrhea and abdominal pain. Stool examination revealed the presence of all forms of the parasite with subsequent decrease in parasite burden and diarrhea over a period of time. Interestingly, the clearance of Blastocystis spp. from stool was followed by recovery from skin lesions and other symptoms. In this case, the course of SJS was clearly associated with Blastocystis infection. Though skin manifestation with Blastocystis infection has been previously reported, this is the first report of its association with SJS. This report indicates newer insights of the parasite that are less well studied.
Antioxidant and antimicrobial activities in the four species of marine microalgae isolated from Arabian Sea of Karnataka Coast

In the present study, four marine microalgae namely, Chaetoceros calcitrans, Skeletonema costatum, Chroococcus turgidus and Nannochloropsis oceanica were evaluated for their antioxidant and antimicrobial activities. Among the four microalgae, planktonic green alga, Nannochloropsis oceanica showed higher antioxidant potential (340.13 µmol AAE/g DW), radical scavenging activity (13.3 µmol GAE/g DW) and reducing power capacity (86.21 µmol GAE/g DW). Microalgae namely, Skeletonema costatum and Chroococcus turgidus showed chelating ability, whereas Nannochloropsis oceanica and Chaetoceros calcitrans did not. Total phenolic content of microalgae was highly correlated with the antioxidant activity. Methanol, ethanol and hexane extracts were screened for their antimicrobial activities against selective human pathogens. Extracts showed effective inhibitory activity against Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pyogenes and Bacillus subtilis. Hexane extract of Chroococcus turgidus showed significant inhibition (p<0.01) against Escherichia coli followed by ethanol extract of Skeletonema costatum against Streptococcus pyogenes. Antifungal activity was found only in Skeletonema costatum and Chroococcus turgidus. Findings have indicated promising antioxidant and antimicrobial activities of microalgae and they could be used to derive biologically active compounds of nutraceutical potential.
A Novel Structure for CCII Based SC Integrator Based on CCII with Reduced Number of Switches

This paper describes a new switched-capacitor (SC) integrator. This integrator not only has the advantages of conventional opamp based integrators but also has the capability of switching in high frequency due to inherent characteristics of second generation current conveyor (CCII). To implement integrator, 7 switches and nonoverlapping clock are used. Time shared use of internal CCII buffers is performed to make input output transfer function. The circuit is simulated by means of HSPICE and WAVEVIEW to confirm theoretical results in 0. 35μm technology.
Effect of Ferricyanide on Energy Production by Escherichia coli

SUMMARY: The reduction of ferricyanide by resting and actively growing Escherichia coli was studied. Under anaerobic conditions ferricyanide acted as a hydrogen acceptor for the complete oxidation of glucose and TCA cycle intermediates. However, reduction of ferricyanide was not coupled to ATP formation. The anaerobic molar growth yield from glucose in the presence of ferricyanide was even less than in its absence. Ferricyanide repressed the synthesis of formate hydrogenylase.
Host recognition and acceptance behaviour in two aphid parasitoid species: Aphidius ervi and Aphidius microlophii (Hymenoptera: Braconidae)

Abstract The host preference and acceptance behaviour of populations of Aphidius ervi Haliday and A. microlophii Pennacchio & Tremblay from southern Italy was investigated. In no host-choice conditions, A. ervi females showed significantly higher attack and oviposition rates on the natural host Acyrthosiphon pisum (Harris) than on the non-host aphid Microlophium carnosum (Buckton)(Homoptera: Aphididae). In contrast, A. microlophii, which specifically parasitizes M. carnosum in the field, attacked both aphid species. However, dissections showed that oviposition of A. microlophii occurred only in a few of the attacked Acyrthosiphon pisum and was significantly less frequent than in M. carnosum. These results were confirmed in experimental host-choice conditions, suggesting that Aphidius microlophii oviposition is possibly regulated by a host haemolymphatic kairomone. Hybrids obtained by crossing A. ervi females with A. microlophii males attacked and oviposited in both aphid species, suggesting that these behavioural events have a strong genetic basis. The oviposition into host or non-host aphids did not elicit an immune defence reaction. The presence of the host's food-plant had no evident close-range effects on parasitoid attack and oviposition in non-host aphids. Aphidius microlophii reared on the non-host aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum produced a significant higher number of mummies after a few generations, suggesting a possible role of larval and early adult conditioning in the host selection process. These results, together with those from previous studies, suggest that Aphidius ervi is best considered as a complex of differentiated populations, characterized by a varying degree of genetic divergence.
Identification of SNPs in ME1 gene and association analysis with meat quality traits in Chinese Red cattle

The objective of this study was to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in coding regions of bovine ME1 gene and to evaluate if the polymorphisms are associated with meat quality traits in Chinese Red cattle. Four SNPs were identified: NW_001495544:g.1721768G>A in exon 2, g.1653796T>A in exon 4, g.1649532G>A in exon 5, and g.1546272T>C in exon 12 and they were genotyped by applying the PCR- RFLP method. Statistical analysis showed that two SNPs, g.1649532G>A and g.1546272T>C, were significantly associated with cooking loss and pH (P A and g.1653796A>T SNPs for meat quality traits tested in Chinese Red cattle. This suggests that ME1 gene is a candidate that may have effects on meat quality traits in cattle.
Characterization of microsatellite loci in neotropical Heliconius butterflies

The Heliconius butterflies offer exceptional opportunities for the study of the ecology and evolution of mimicry. Despite previous reports of difficulties in the development of microsatellite loci in Lepidoptera, we characterize 15 polymorphic loci in H. erato that show promise for genetic mapping and population studies in this and other species. Levels of variation were high, in both numbers and size ranges of alleles. The loci showed broad amplification success across the genus and in two other genera. All loci that amplified in a population of H. melpomene were polymorphic.
ALYTUS COLLEGE ROLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS IN SOCIETY: CHALLENGES, TENDENCIES AND PERSPECTIVES

The article discusses the innovation activities of enterprises in Ukraine. Negative and positive risk factors of innovation are considered: limiting and stimulating factors, as well as factors hindering the dynamic development of innovation activity in Ukraine. Thanks to the research, other scientists conducted summing up the already known information, as well as discover the problems of innovation activities of Ukrainian enterprises and their solutions. For this aim we use the experience of Norway. Consider information about innovation clusters and find the possibility of using the experience of Norway for Ukraine.
Arbitrarily Primed PCR for Differentiation of Salmonella enteritidis Strains

Abstract Bakshi, C.S. , Singh, V.P., Sharma, B. , Malik, M. and Singh, R.K. 2000. Arbitrarily primed PCR for differentiation of Salmonella enteritidis strains. J. Appl. Anim. Res., 17: 291–295. Strains of Salmonella enteritidis of avian origin isolated from Bangalore and Pune in India were analysed by Arbitrarily Primed PCR (AP-PCR), which generated eight different patterns and enabled the discrimination among them. It was concluded that the technique could be of use in the epidemiological studies of S. enteritidis strains.
Anti-regression on manifolds with an application to 3D projective shape analysis

Given a random object X on a compact metric space M, provided with a “chord” distance induced by the Euclidean distance on the numerical space where M is embedded, one considers the Fréchet function, expected square of the chord distance from the random object X to a point on M. This function attains its maximum at a set of points, called the extrinsic antimean set. In case the extrinsic antimean set has one point only, that point is called extrinsic antimean of X. Given a pair of random objects (Y,X) on a product of object spaces N ×M, where M is compact and is embedded into a numerical space, the value of the anti-regression function at a point y on N as the conditional extrinsic antimean of X given Y = y. Here one gives necessary and sufficient conditions that insure that the antiregression function is well defined, and as an application one gives an example of extrinsic anti-regression in projective shape analysis for a clamshells species found in the Florida panhandle, where the predictor is age and the response is 3D projective shape. M.S.C. 2010: 62G08, 62H35.