Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Digital Commons@Becker Digital Commons

Catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs), a common cause of healthcare-associated infections, are caused by a diverse array of pathogens that are increasingly becoming antibiotic resistant. We analyze the microbial occurrences in catheter and urine samples from 55 human long-term cathe-terized patients collected over one year. Although most of these patients were prescribed antibiotics over several collection periods, their catheter samples remain colonized by one or more bacterial species. Examination of a total of 366 catheter and urine samples identify 13 positive and 13 negative genus co-occurrences over 12 collection periods, representing associations that occur more or less frequently than expected by chance. We ﬁ nd that for many patients, the microbial species composition between collection periods is similar. In a subset of patients, we ﬁ nd that the most frequently sampled bacteria, Escherichia coli and Enterococcus faecalis , co-localize on catheter samples. Further, co-culture of paired isolates recovered from the same patients reveals that E. coli signi ﬁ cantly augments E. faecalis growth in an arti ﬁ cial urine medium, where E. faecalis monoculture grows poorly. These ﬁ ndings suggest novel strategies to collapse polymicrobial CAUTI in long-term catheterized patients by targeting mechanisms that promote positive co-associations.
Explorer The role of antiparasite treatment experiments in assessing the impact of parasites on wildlife

It has become increasingly clear that parasites can have signiﬁcant impacts on the dynamics of wildlife populations. Recently, researchers have shifted from using observational approaches to infer the impact of parasites on the health and ﬁtness of individuals to using antiparasite drug treatments to test directly the consequences of infection. However, it is not clear the extent to which these experiments work in wildlife systems, or whether the results of these individual-level treatment experiments can predict the population-level consequences of parasitism. Here, we assess the results of treatment experiments, laying out the beneﬁts and limitations of this approach
charac-Prevalence and genotype of Mycoplasma bovis in beef cattle after arrival at a feedlot

Objective —To determine the prevalence of Mycoplasma bovis infection in the lungs of cattle at various times after arrival at a feedlot, to measure the relationship between clinical disease status and the concentration and genotype of M bovis within the lungs, and to investigate changes in the genotype of M bovis over time. Sample —Bronchoalveolar lavage ﬂuid (BALF) from 328 healthy or pneumonic beef cattle and 20 M bovis isolates obtained from postmortem samples. Procedures —The concentration of M bovis in BALF was determined via real-time PCR assays, and M bovis isolates from BALF were genotyped via ampliﬁed fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis. Results —Prevalence of M bovis in BALF was 1 of 60 (1.7%) at arrival to a feedlot and 26 of 36 (72.2%) and 36 of 42 (85.7%) at ≤ 15 days and 55 days after arrival, respectively. Neither the concentration nor the AFLP type of M bovis in BALF was correlated with clinical disease status. The M bovis AFLP type differed between early and later sampling periods in 14 of 17 cattle. Conclusions and Clinical Relevance —The ﬁndings implied spread of M bovis among calves and suggested that host factors and copathogens may determine disease outcomes in infected calves. Chronic pulmonary infection with M bovis may represent a dynamic situation of bacterial clearance and reinfection with strains of different AFLP type, rather than continuous infection with a single clone. These ﬁndings impact our understanding of why cattle with chronic pneumonia and polyarthritis syndrome inadequately respond to antimicrobial treatment. ( Am J Vet Res 2012;73:1932–1943)
New Observational Material about Seismic and Non-Seismic Tsunamis in Greece and Surrounding Areas from 1900 to 2023

A new set of observations has been compiled for tsunamis occurring in Greece and in the surrounding areas from 1900 to 2023. A variety of information sources has been collected and examined, including scientific and press reports, books, eyewitness accounts, pictorial and video material, and tide-gauge records. New material was also collected during our field surveys in the islands of Cephalonia, Karpathos, and Kos. Our investigation included 26 distinct events and revealed several tsunamis. The majority of them have remained unknown so far in the tsunami community. Our compilation also included little-known events for which further documentation has been provided. Among others, of particular importance is the collection of new information about the well-known tsunami associated with the 9 February 1948 large earthquake in Karpathos Island as well as the unknown so far series of local but powerful tsunamis generated during the seismic crisis of very strong earthquakes that destroyed the Ionian islands during August 1953. The new observational material collected is significant for the enrichment of existing tsunami catalogs with positive implications for better understanding the tsunami generation mechanisms and the assessment of tsunami hazards and risks.
Title: Consciousness, machines, and moral status

: In light of recent breakneck pace in machine learning, questions about whether near-future artificial systems might be conscious and possess moral status are increasingly pressing. This paper argues that as matters stand these debates lack any clear criteria for resolution via the science of consciousness. Instead, insofar as they are settled at all, it is likely to be via shifts in public attitudes brought about by the increasingly close relationships between humans and AI users. Section 1 of the paper I briefly lays out the current state of the science of consciousness and its limitations insofar as these pertain to machine consciousness, and claims that there are no obvious consensus frameworks to inform public opinion on AI consciousness. Section 2 examines the rise of conversational chatbots or Social AI, and argues that in many cases, these elicit strong and sincere attributions of consciousness, mentality, and moral status from users, a trend likely to become more widespread. Section 3 presents an inconsistent triad for theories that attempt to link consciousness, behaviour, and moral status, noting that the trends in Social AI systems will likely make the inconsistency of these three premises more pressing. Finally, Section 4 presents some limited suggestions for how consciousness and AI research communities should respond to the gap between expert opinion and folk judgment.
practices and use of

Migrants, having left their home society and community, often depend on electronic modes of communication to maintain contacts with distant friends and relations. Their practices illustrate the affordances provided by social media when face to face communication is not available. This paper describes the information and communication practices of Polish and Filipino nationals in Ireland, based on interviews with over sixty-five migrants in 2009. Migrants display increased dependence on the Internet as an information source and use various electronic media to maintain significant contacts with friends and relations in their home societies. Social media (including Web 2.0) practices have an impact on long distance relations that previous technologies have not had, due to differences in the way these technologies are utilized. Social media usage is a passive monitoring that complements the active communication of first generation technologies; this monitoring creates a background awareness and presence in terms of which active communication takes place, which facilitates bonding as well as bridging capital. This enables resilient and durable transnational links, while also facilitating greater mobility for migrants.
Determinants of Technical Efficiency among Smallholder Coffee Farmers in Kigoma Region , Tanzania

Collet' is one of the most important export •ommoditie.s' in Kigoma region. UnfOrtunately, production is still low and information on technical efficiene• has remained is scarce. This . sititly sets our to contribute towards efforts for improving coffee productivity to enhance the cash income of smallholder Arabica coffee farmers in Kigoma region, Tanzania. The present . study estimated the Technical Efficiency (TE) and inefficiency effects of inputs. The paper uses data collected from a sample of 122 farmers. Parameters of the generalized Cobb-Douglas stochastic frontier model for the production . system were estimated by a single stage Maximum Likelihood (ML) method for the technical efficiency and technical inefficiency effects using the Frontier version 4.1 c, a computer program for Stochastic Frontier Production. The results show that inorganic fertilizers. agrochemicals and labour are kcv inputs. The mean Technical Efficiency index is 68'! ;, indicating that farmers are technically inefficient, with a 32V'i, scope for increasing Technical Efficient (TE). The number of coffee trees and ti farmer's experience arc the main determinants of TE. The study recommends : farmers to increase application of productivity enhancing inputs. Moreover, there should be deliberate it/ICI-WI-Won on farm expansion, and training to engage youths in coffee production . since they tend to he more technically efficient thereby improving the production system's TE.
Application of Machine Learning in the Quantitative Analysis of the Surface Characteristics of Highly Abundant Cytoplasmic Proteins: Toward AI-Based Biomimetics

Proteins in the crowded environment of human cells have often been studied regarding nonspecific interactions, misfolding, and aggregation, which may cause cellular malfunction and disease. Specifically, proteins with high abundance are more susceptible to these issues due to the law of mass action. Therefore, the surfaces of highly abundant cytoplasmic (HAC) proteins directly exposed to the environment can exhibit specific physicochemical, structural, and geometrical characteristics that reduce nonspecific interactions and adapt to the environment. However, the quantitative relationships between the overall surface descriptors still need clarification. Here, we used machine learning to identify HAC proteins using hydrophobicity, charge, roughness, secondary structures, and B-factor from the protein surfaces and quantified the contribution of each descriptor. First, several supervised learning algorithms were compared to solve binary classification problems for the surfaces of HAC and extracellular proteins. Then, logistic regression was used for the feature importance analysis of descriptors considering model performance (80.2% accuracy and 87.6% AUC) and interpretability. The HAC proteins showed positive correlations with negatively and positively charged areas but negative correlations with hydrophobicity, the B-factor, the proportion of beta structures, roughness, and the proportion of disordered regions. Finally, the details of each descriptor could be explained concerning adaptative surface strategies of HAC proteins to regulate nonspecific interactions, protein folding, flexibility, stability, and adsorption. This study presented a novel approach using various surface descriptors to identify HAC proteins and provided quantitative design rules for the surfaces well-suited to human cellular crowded environments.
Phentolamine Mesylate Ophthalmic Solution Provides Lasting Pupil Modulation and Improves Near Visual Acuity in Presbyopic Glaucoma Patients in a Randomized Phase 2b Clinical Trial

Purpose Phentolamine mesylate ophthalmic solution (PMOS), applied to the eye topically, was shown previously to have beneficial effects in patients with dim light vision disturbances (DLD), including decreased pupil diameter (PD), improved best-corrected distance visual acuity (BCDVA), as well as lower intraocular pressure (IOP). The ORION-1 trial evaluated the long-term safety and efficacy of PMOS in a glaucomatous, presbyopic population. Patients and Methods In this randomized, double-masked, multi-center, placebo-controlled, multiple-dose Phase 2b trial, 39 patients with elevated IOP were randomized to receive one evening dose of study medication or placebo for 14 days. The primary outcome measure was mean change in diurnal IOP, and the key secondary outcome measures included changes in PD, distance-corrected near visual acuity (DCNVA), and conjunctival hyperemia. Results Use of 1% PMOS did not lead to a statistically significant decrease in diurnal IOP compared to placebo (P = 0.89) but trended toward a greater decrease in patients with lower IOP baselines. PMOS produced a statistically significant mean 20% PD reduction under both photopic and mesopic conditions that was sustained for 36 hours post-dosing. A statistically significant number of patients with PMOS compared to placebo demonstrated ≥1 line of improvement in photopic DCNVA at day 8 (P = 0.0018), day 15 (P = 0.0072), and day 16 (P = 0.0163), with a trend for 2- and 3-line improvements at all time points. There was no statistical difference in conjunctival hyperemia compared to placebo. Conclusion Although mean IOP was not lowered significantly, daily evening dosing of 1% PMOS was found to be well tolerated with no daytime conjunctival redness and demonstrated improvement in DCNVA with sustained PD reduction in a glaucomatous and presbyopic population. Smaller pupil size can have beneficial effects in improving symptoms of presbyopia and DLD, which will be the focus of further studies.
Archaeological genetics: a preliminary overview of the Iron Age Italian population

Recent studies suggest that Italian population shows a higher degree of internal genomic variability than other European populations. This scenario is the result of complex demographic dynamics, dating back mainly from Late Palaeolithic and Neolithic, but also dating to Metal Ages. In fact, numerous population movements occurred between the Mediterranean basin and the Middle East during the Metals Ages, a period that has determined the transformation of the first social organizations in ancient civilizations. During the 1st millennium BC, Italy appeared as a patchwork of different peoples, either whose origin remain still largely unresolved (e.g. Ligures, Veneti and, Etruscans), or that are known to have originated from specific migration processes (e.g. Celts in North-Western Italy; Greeks and Phoenician-Punic in Southern Italy, Sardinia, and Sicily). In this thesis, I focused my attention on the Italian Iron Age period, in particular on the ancient ‘Piceni’ (Case Study I) and ‘Punic’ (Case Study II) populations, and I analysed the ancient DNA (aDNA) of skeletal remains coming from the Novilara necropolis located in Central Italy (Case Study I), and from Tharros (Capo San Marco - Sardinia, IT) and Lilybaeum (Corso Gramsci - Sicily, IT) necropolises (Case Study II). I have applied different aDNA protocols and methods in order to obtain ancient mitochondrial DNA (HVS-I) (Case Study I and II) or complete genome (Case Study II). This research provides a pioneering survey on the ancient genetic diversity of Italy, contributing to disentangle the migration patterns and the relationships between ancient and presentday populations of the Mediterranean basin.
Characteristics of a Particle’s Incipient Motion from a Rough Wall in Shear Flow of Herschel–Bulkley Fluid

A numerical simulation of the Herschel–Bulkley laminar steady state shear flow around a stationary particle located on a sedimentation layer was carried out. The surface of the sedimentation layer was formed by hemispheres of the same radius as the particle. The drag force, lift force, and torque values were obtained in the following ranges: shear Reynolds numbers for a particle ReSH=2–200, corresponding to laminar flow; power law index n=0.6–1.0; and Bingham number Bn=0–10. A significant difference in the forces and torque acting on a particle in shear flow in comparison to the case of a smooth wall is shown. It is shown that the drag coefficient is on average 6% higher compared to a smooth wall for a Newtonian fluid but decreases with the increase in non-Newtonian properties. At the edge values of n=0.6 and Bn=10, the drag is on average 25% lower compared to the smooth wall. For a Newtonian fluid, the lift coefficient is on average 30% higher compared to a smooth wall. It also decreases with the increase in non-Newtonian properties of the fluid, but at the edge values of n=0.6 and Bn=10, it is on average only 3% lower compared to the smooth wall. Approximation functions for the drag, lift force, and torque coefficient are constructed. A reduction in the drag force and lifting force leads to an increase in critical stresses (Shields number) on the wall on average by 10% for incipient motion (rolling) and by 12% for particle detachment from the sedimentation bed.
Unseen Weapons: Bacterial Extracellular Vesicles and the Spread of Antibiotic Resistance in Aquatic Environments

This paper sheds light on the alarming issue of antibiotic resistance (ABR) in aquatic environments, exploring its detrimental effects on ecosystems and public health. It examines the multifaceted role of antibiotic use in aquaculture, agricultural runoff, and industrial waste in fostering the development and dissemination of resistant bacteria. The intricate interplay between various environmental factors, horizontal gene transfer, and bacterial extracellular vesicles (BEVs) in accelerating the spread of ABR is comprehensively discussed. Various BEVs carrying resistance genes like blaCTX-M, tetA, floR, and sul/I, as well as their contribution to the dominance of multidrug-resistant bacteria, are highlighted. The potential of BEVs as both a threat and a tool in combating ABR is explored, with promising strategies like targeted antimicrobial delivery systems and probiotic-derived EVs holding significant promise. This paper underscores the urgency of understanding the intricate interplay between BEVs and ABR in aquatic environments. By unraveling these unseen weapons, we pave the way for developing effective strategies to mitigate the spread of ABR, advocating for a multidisciplinary approach that includes stringent regulations, enhanced wastewater treatment, and the adoption of sustainable practices in aquaculture.
Aphids May Facilitate the Spread of Sclerotinia Stem Rot in Oilseed Rape by Carrying and Depositing Ascospores

Aphids and Sclerotinia stem rot in oilseed rape are often studied in isolation, and their relationship is rarely explored. Our field studies have revealed a significant positive correlation between the number of aphids and the incidence of Sclerotinia stem rot. Hence, starting with the colonizing stages of the two pests, Breveroryne brassicae was assessed for its potential to acquire, transmit, and inoculate Sclerotinia sclerotiorum by being sprayed with an ascospore suspension. Moreover, distinctions in aphid feeding behavior were examined between aphids on inoculated/uninoculated winter and spring oilseed rape plants or aphids, both with and without S. sclerotiorum ascospores, using electropenetrography (EPG). The results showed that aphid feeding followed by dropping ascospore suspension significantly increased the incidence of S. sclerotiorum. Ascospores were able to adhere to aphids and were carried by aphids to healthy plants, causing disease. The results of the EPG analysis indicated that aphid feeding behavior was significantly altered in all leaf tissue levels following infection with S. sclerotiorum. Specifically, aphids initiated their first puncture significantly sooner, began probing mesophyll cells earlier, had a significantly shorter pathway duration, and secreted saliva more frequently but reduced salivation prior to feeding and ingestion compared to aphids feeding on uninfected oilseed rape. Additionally, the feeding behavior of aphids carrying ascospores was markedly different from that of aphids not carrying ascospores, implying that ascospores directly influence aphid feeding behavior but that this influence appeared to be beneficial only for S. sclerotiorum infection. Aphids carrying ascospores started to puncture cells more quickly, with a significant increase in the frequency and duration of short probes and cell punctures, shortened pathway durations, and reduced salivation before feeding compared to aphids not carrying ascospores. It is clear that there is an interaction between aphids and S. sclerotiorum. The impact of S. sclerotiorum on aphid feeding behavior is directional, favoring the spread of the fungus.
Critical Analysis of Noise Pollution and Its Effect on Human Health

Noise pollution is an unseen threat. It cannot be seen, although it is present both on land and beneath the water. Any undesired or irritating sound that impacts the health and well-being of humans and other organisms is referred to as noise pollution. It is harmful to human health. According to WHO, more than 70 decibels of sound will be harmful to health. The average noise level in Kathmandu was 66.8 decibels (A), with high-traffic zones producing the most noise, followed by commercial, low-traffic, and residential zones. The main objective of this review paper is to identify the effect of noise pollution on human health. It is a review article. There are different kinds of effects explored in the previous studies such as hearing loss, sleep disruption, cardiovascular disease, social handicaps, reduced productivity, bad social behavior, irritation reactions, absenteeism, and accidents. Noise pollution is a significant problem in Nepal, particularly in Kathmandu. The studies suggest that the enforcement of noise standards and No Horn Regulation can be effective in reducing noise pollution. However, more efforts are needed to monitor and enforce these regulations. Noise pollution can cause a variety of health problems, and it is essential to take measures to reduce it to protect public health.
Postoperative outcomes after total sevoflurane inhalation sedation using a disposable delivery system (Sedaconda-ACD) in cardiac surgery

Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic prompted our team to develop new solutions for performing cardiac surgery without intravenous anesthetics due to a shortage of these drugs. We utilized an anesthetic conserving device (Sedaconda-ACD) to administer total inhaled anesthesia because specific vaporizers were unavailable for administering inhaled agents during cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) in our center. We documented our experience and postoperative cardiovascular outcomes. The primary outcome was the peak level of troponin, with secondary outcomes encompassing other cardiovascular complications. Material and methods A single-center retrospective study was conducted. We performed a multivariate analysis with a propensity score. This investigation took place at a large university referral center. Participants Adult patients (age ≥ 18) who underwent elective cardiac surgery with CPB between June 2020 to March 2021. Intervention During the inclusion period, two anesthesia protocols for the maintenance of anesthesia coexisted—total inhaled anesthesia with Sedaconda-ACD and our classic protocol with intravenous drugs during and after CPB. Primary endpoint Troponin peak level recorded after surgery (highest level recorded within 48 h following the surgery). Results Out of the 654 included patients, 454 were analyzed after matching (intravenous group = 297 and inhaled group = 157). No significant difference was found between the groups in postoperative troponin peak levels (723 ng/l vs. 993 ng/l–p = 0.2). Total inhaled anesthesia was associated with a decreased requirement for inotropic medications (OR = 0.53, 95% CI 0.29–0.99, p = 0.04). Conclusion In our cohort, the Sedaconda-ACD device enabled us to achieve anesthesia without intravenous agents, and we did not observe any increase in postoperative complications. Total inhaled anesthesia with sevoflurane was not associated with a lower incidence of myocardial injury assessed by the postoperative troponin peak level. However, in our cohort, the use of inotropic drugs was lower.