Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of oral administration of various essential oils on blood metabolites, intestine development, microbial enumeration and meat quality in broilers

A total of eighty 21-day-olds (1.1±0.01kg) ROSS 308 broilers were randomly allocated into 4 groups, with 20 replicates per group and 1 chicken per replicate per cage. Three experimental groups (CAR, THY, ORE group) were given oral administration of 200ìL essential oils (carvacrol, thyme and oregano) at 18:00h every day. The results showed no significant differences on blood metabolites among each group (P>0.05). The villus height of the small intestines in the CAR group increased significantly (P less than 0.05) from 1360.10 to 1552. 54ìm as compared to the control group, the goblet cell counts in the THY and ORE groups significantly increased by 20.91% (P less than 0.05) and 31.82% (P less than 0.05), respectively, compared to the control group. The E.coli and Salmonella in ORE group significantly decreased by 11.16% (P less than 0.05) and 9.54% (P less than 0.05), respectively, compared to the control group. The Redness (a*) values of the muscles of the CAR and ORE groups were observed to increase significantly (P less than 0.05) from 3.58 to 7.95 and 6.86, respectively, compared to the control group. In conclusion, oral administration of the essential oils carvacrol, thyme, and oregano promoted intestinal development, improved the intestinal environment and the meat quality of broilers.
Cognitive performance in pain is predicted by effort, not goal desire

Background Pain’s disruptive effects on cognition are well documented. The seminal goal-pursuit account of pain suggests that cognitive disruption is less likely if participants are motivated to attended to a focal goal and not a pain goal. Objectives Existing theory is unclear about the conceptualisation and operationalisation of ‘focal goal’. This study aims to clarify how goals should be conceptualised and further seeks to test the theory of the goal-pursuit account. Methods In a pre-registered laboratory experiment, 56 participants completed an arithmetic task in high-reward/low-reward and pain/control conditions. Pain was induced via cold-water immersion. Results High levels of reported effort exertion predicted cognitive-task performance, whereas desire for rewards did not. Post-hoc analyses further suggest that additional effort in the pain condition compensated for pain’s disruptive effects, but when this extra effort was not exerted, performance deficits were observed in pain, compared to control, conditions. Conclusion Results suggest that ‘motivation’, or commitment to a focal goal, is best understood as effort exertion and not as a positive desire to achieve a goal. These results solidify existing theory and aid researchers in operationalising these constructs.
Schistosoma mansoni infection risk for school-aged children clusters within households and is modified by distance to freshwater bodies

Background The interaction of socio-demographic and ecological factors with Schistosoma mansoni (S. mansoni) infection risk by age and the household clustering of infections between individuals are poorly understood. Methods This study examined 1,832 individuals aged 5–90 years across 916 households in Mayuge District, Uganda. S. mansoni infection status and intensity were measured using Kato-Katz microscopy. Socio-demographic and ecological factors were examined as predictors of infection status and intensity using logistic and negative binomial regression models, respectively, with standard errors clustered by household. A subgroup analysis of children was conducted to examine the correlation of infection status between children and their caretakers. Findings Infection varied within age groups based on the distance to Lake Victoria. Children aged 9–17 years and young adults aged 18–29 years who lived ≤0.50km from Lake Victoria were more likely to be infected compared to individuals of the same age who lived further away from the lake. Infections clustered within households. Children whose caretakers were heavily infected were 2.67 times more likely to be infected. Conclusion These findings demonstrate the focality of schistosome transmission and its dependence on socio-demographic, ecological and household factors. Future research should investigate the sampling of households within communities as a means of progressing towards precision mapping of S. mansoni infections.
Implementation of a real-time mobile channel simulator using a DSP chip

The problem of implementing a real-time channel simulator that can be used to test mobile communications equipment in the laboratory is considered. The objective of the design is to replicate the statistical characteristics of the multipath fading environment on a single-chip, fixed-point 16-b digital signal processor (DSP). The simulator design permits the user to select the simulation parameters, including vehicular speed, carrier frequency, ratio between the line-of-sight component and the multipath component, and the variance of average power. The design is based on variable-sampling-rate DSP techniques, and offers a novel solution to suppress the aliasing terms at intermediate stages where access to analog filters is cumbersome and costly. >
Fermentation processes engineering in the food industry

Applications of Metabolic Engineering in the Production of Fermented Foods and Food Ingredients Dimitris Charalampopoulos and Colin Webb Isolation, Improvement, and Preservation of Microbial Cultures Syed G. Dastager Physical and Chemical Factors Affecting Fermentation in Food Processing Antonella Amore and Vincenza Faraco Upstream Operations of Fermentation Processes Parameswaran Binod, Raveendran Sindhu, and Ashok Pandey Theoretical Tools to Predict Physicochemical Properties of Industrial Foods and Cultivation Media Andre Lebert Characterization of Bioreactors Using Computational Fluid Dynamics Christophe Vial and Youssef Stiriba Laboratory and Industrial Bioreactors for Submerged Fermentations Parvinder Kaur, Ashima Vohra, and Tulasi Satyanarayana Laboratory and Industrial Bioreactors for Solid-State Fermentation Jose Angel Rodriguez-Leon, Daniel Ernesto Rodriguez-Fernandez, and Carlos Ricardo Soccol Downstream Operations of Fermented Products Julio Cesar de Carvalho, Adriane Bianchi Pedroni Medeiros, Daniel Ernesto Rodriguez-Fernandez, Luiz Alberto Junior Letti, Luciana Porto de Souza Vandenberghe, Adenise Lorenci Woiciechowski, and Carlos Ricardo Soccol Instrumentation and Control of Industrial Fermentative Processes Alexandre Francisco de Moraes Filho, Alysson Hikaru Shirai,Wilerson Sturm, and Dario Eduardo Amaral Dergint Fermented Foods and Human Health Benefits of Fermented Functional Foods Juliano De Dea Lindner, Ana Lucia Barretto Penna, Ivo Mottin Demiate, Caroline Tiemi Yamaguishi, Maria Rosa Machado Prado, and Jose Luis Parada Industrial Fermentation for Production of Alcoholic Beverages Saurabh Jyoti Sarma, Mausam Verma, and Satinder Kaur Brar Production of Dairy Products Luciana Porto de Souza Vandenberghe, Caroline Tiemi Yamaguishi, Cristine Rodrigues, Maria Rosa Prado, Michele Rigon Spier, Adriane Bianchi Pedroni Medeiros, and Julio Cesar de Carvalho Dairy and Nondairy Probiotic Products and Beverages Jean-Luc Tholozan and Jean-Luc Cayol Bioadditives Produced by Fermentation Juliano Lemos Bicas, Mario Roberto Marostica Junior Francisco Fabio Cavalcante Barros, Gustavo Molina, and Glaucia Maria Pastore Microalgae for Food Production Jorge Alberto Vieira Costa and Michele Greque de Morais Biorefinery Concept Applied to Valorization of Agro-Food Coproducts and Wastes: Integrated Process for Waste Recycling and Effluent Treatment Carlos Ricardo Soccol, Susan Grace Karp, Paula Fernandes de Siqueira, Cassia Tiemi Nemoto Sanada, Vanete Thomaz-Soccol, and Ashok Pandey Index
Morphological and Biological Characteristics of Amidostomum Anseris (Nematoda, Amidostomatidae) from Anser anser domesticus

Abstract Morphological characteristics were studied in adult and embryonic Amidostomum anseris (Zeder, 1800) obtained from domestic goose Anser anser domesticus Linnaeus, 1758. The studied characters included species-specific morphometric indices of male and female specimens and differential characters of sex-related dimorphism in that species. Stages and periods of embryonic development, and viability of the nematodes were studied at laboratory conditions. Size dimorphism in A. anseris was considerable, females were significantly larger (by 10.09–27.98 %) than males by 11 parameters. Additional metric characters were proposed to enhance effectiveness of differentiation of female and male A. anseris specimens. Under laboratory conditions, embryonic development of A. anseris occurs in four stages: blastomere cleavage; larval formation; formation of non-infective larvae I and II; formation of infective larva III which hatches from the egg. Infective larvae develop at 23 °С in six days, and their viability was up to 78.33 ± 2.08 %.
Conceptual Roles of Evolvability across Evolutionary Biology: Between Diversity and Unification

A number of biologists and philosophers have noted the diversity of interpretations of evolvability in contemporary evolutionary research. Different clusters of research identified by co-citation patterns or shared methodological orientation sometimes concentrate on distinct conceptions of evolvability. We examine five different activities where the notion of evolvability plays conceptual roles in evolutionary biological investigation: setting a research agenda, characterization, explanation, prediction, and control. Our analysis of representative examples demonstrates how different conceptual roles of evolvability are quasi-independent and yet exhibit important relationships across scientific activities. It also provides us with the resources to detail two distinct strategies for how evolvability can help to synthesize disparate areas of research and thereby potentially serve as a unifying concept in evolutionary biology.
Differentiated control of web traffic: a numerical analysis

Internet measurements show that the size distribution of Web-based transactions is usually very skewed; a few large requests constitute most of the total traffic. Motivated by the advantages of scheduling algorithms which favor short jobs, we propose to perform differentiated control over Web-based transactions to give preferential service to short web requests. The control is realized through service semantics provided by Internet Traffic Managers, a Diffserv-like architecture. To evaluate the performance of such a control system, it is necessary to have a fast but accurate analytical method. To this end, we model the Internet as a time-shared system and propose a numerical approach which utilizes Kleinrock's conservation law to solve the model. The numerical results are shown to match well those obtained by packet-level simulation, which runs orders of magnitude slower than our numerical method.
Experiences of Families with Adult Home Invasive Mechanical Ventilation Patients

Adult home mechanical ventilation (HMV) represents a small but growing vulnerable population in the community. Caring for these patients exposes families to many positive and negative experiences. This study aimed to synthesize the existing qualitative research that examined family members' experiences of caring for adult patients using HMV. Medline, PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, and Web of Science were searched for qualitative studies conducted with family caregivers of adult patients receiving HMV. Thematic synthesis was conducted to interpret the findings. The GRADE-CERQual approach was used to assess the level of confidence. After completion of the screening process, 11 studies were included. The main theme from the meta-synthesis was the Experience of changing as a person. Families' experiences were divided into three stages over time: (1) Mixed feelings, (2) Challenging, and (3) Continuity. Family experiences illustrate that teamwork with an interprofessional approach based on patient and family needs is required to deliver care, improve clinical outcomes, reduce adverse experiences, and increase family satisfaction.
Colistin-phage combinations decrease antibiotic resistance in Acinetobacter baumannii via changes in envelope architecture

ABSTRACT Multidrug-resistant bacterial infections are becoming increasingly common, with only few last-resort antibiotics such as colistin available for clinical therapy. An alternative therapeutic strategy gaining momentum is phage therapy, which has the advantage of not being affected by bacterial resistance to antibiotics. However, a major challenge in phage therapy is the rapid emergence of phage-resistant bacteria. In this work, our main aim was to understand the mechanisms of phage-resistance used by the top priority pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii. We isolated the novel phage Phab24, capable of infecting colistin-sensitive and -resistant strains of A. baumannii. After co-incubating Phab24 with its hosts, we obtained phage-resistant mutants which were characterized on both genotypic and phenotypic levels. Using whole genome sequencing, we identified phage-resistant strains that displayed mutations in genes that alter the architecture of the bacterial envelope at two levels: the capsule and the outer membrane. Using an adsorption assay, we confirmed that phage Phab24 uses the bacterial capsule as its primary receptor, with the outer membrane possibly serving as the secondary receptor. Interestingly, the phage-resistant isolates were less virulent compared to the parental strains in a Galleria mellonella infection model. Most importantly, we observed that phage-resistant bacteria that evolved in the absence of antibiotics exhibited an increased sensitivity to colistin, even though the antibiotic resistance mechanism per se remained unaltered. This increase in antibiotic sensitivity is a direct consequence of the phage-resistance mechanism, and could potentially be exploited in the clinical setting.
The Stop‐tabac smartphone application for smoking cessation: a randomized controlled trial

Abstract Aims To test whether the Stop‐tabac smartphone application (app) increased smoking cessation rates. Design A two‐arm, parallel‐group, individually randomized, double‐blind, controlled trial. Setting and Participants A total of 5293 daily smokers (Stop‐tabac = 2639, control = 2654) enrolled on app stores and on the internet in 2019–20, who lived in France or Switzerland. Intervention and comparator The Stop‐tabac application includes immediate feedback during episodes of craving and withdrawal; individually tailored counseling messages with notifications sent during 6 months; a discussion forum; fact sheets; modules on nicotine replacement therapy and e‐cigarettes; and calculators of cigarettes not smoked, money saved and days of life gained since quitting. The control application included five brief pages and calculators as above. Measurements Primary outcome: self‐reported smoking cessation after 6 months (no puff of tobacco in the past 4 weeks), with non‐responders counted as smokers. Secondary outcome: self‐reported use of nicotine medications. Findings Participants were aged 36 years on average; 66% were women who smoked 15 cigarettes/day, and 64% screened positive for depression. Stop‐tabac participants used the app over a longer period than control participants (23 versus 11 days, P < 0.001). Smoking cessation rates after 6 months were 9.9% in the Stop‐tabac group versus 10.3% in the control group (odds ratio = 0.96, 95% confidence interval = 0.80–1.45, P = 0.63). Rates of use of nicotine medications after entry in the study were 38 versus 30% after 6 months (χ2 = 8.3, P = 0.004) in the Stop‐tabac and control groups. After 6 months, 26% of participants in the Stop‐tabac group and 8% in the control group said that the app helped them ‘a lot’ or ‘enormously’ to quit smoking (χ2 = 113, P < 0.001). Conclusions In smokers enrolled on the app stores and the internet, allocation to the Stop‐tabac smoking cessation app did not increase smoking cessation rates, but increased rates of use of nicotine medications.
Novel bow-tie antenna on artificial magnetic conductor for 5.8 GHz radio frequency identification tags usable with metallic objects

A novel combination of coplanar waveguide-fed double bow-tie slot antenna and artificial magnetic conductor, which meets the requirements of 5.8 GHz super high frequency radio frequency identification tag antenna usable on metallic objects is presented. The electrical characteristics of the embedded structure are evaluated using finite-element method and method of moment techniques. The manufactured prototypes are characterised in terms of return loss, gain and radiation pattern measurements in an anechoic chamber, both alone and on a metallic plate.
A review of the therapeutic and biological effects of edible and wild mushrooms

ABSTRACT Throughout history, mushrooms have occupied an inseparable part of the diet in many countries. Mushrooms are considered a rich source of phytonutrients such as polysaccharides, dietary fibers, and other micronutrients, in addition to various essential amino acids, which are building blocks of vital proteins. In general, mushrooms offer a wide range of health benefits with a large spectrum of pharmacological properties, including antidiabetic, antioxidative, antiviral, antibacterial, osteoprotective, nephroprotective, hepatoprotective, etc. Both wild edible and medicinal mushrooms possess strong therapeutic and biological activities, which are evident from their in vivo and in vitro assays. The multifunctional activities of the mushroom extracts and the targeted potential of each of the compounds in the extracts have a broad range of applications, especially in the healing and repair of various organs and cells in humans. Owing to the presence of the aforementioned properties and rich phytocomposition, mushrooms are being used in the production of nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals. This review aims to provide a clear insight on the commercially cultivated, wild edible, and medicinal mushrooms with comprehensive information on their phytochemical constituents and properties as part of food and medicine for futuristic exploitation. Future outlook and prospective challenges associated with the cultivation and processing of these medicinal mushrooms as functional foods are also discussed.
Evaluating the Validity of Apache Ii as a Predictor of Icu Mortality for the Critically Ill Patients at Knh’scritical Care Units

Introduction:Though most patients survive their critical illness after intensive care, another proportion are readmitted or die in hospital. While some of the risk factors for poor outcome are known, few are modifiable. It is now common to use tools that predict short term and long-term survival to guide care and cost management. The performance of these tools is quite variable especially when applied to different cohorts of patients. Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) II tool is most commonly used for audit and clinical purposes and to provide general measure of severity of disease. Study Objectives: The objective of the study was to evaluate the validity of APACHE II scoring system as a predictor of mortality in KNH ICU. Study Methods: This was a quantitative retrospective cross-sectional study. Stratified random sampling was used to select 180 files of patients admitted in ICU for the period January to December2017. The selected fileswere evaluated after approval from the Ethics and Review Committee. An APACHE II score was calculated by summing up the various diagnostic category weightings. A binary logistics regression was done to examine whether APACHE II score correctly predicts mortality. Tests of Calibration to assess the correspondence between the expected probability of mortality and actual observed mortality was done using a Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness of fit test. The area under the resultant curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was calculated to assess for discrimination. Results:The mortality rate reported in this study was high at 31.1% with a mean APACHE II score of 20.58, the expected mortality rate also stood at 31.1%. Moreover, the mean APACHE II score was significantly higher in non-survivors when compared to survivors (p < 0.001). The study revealed that APACHE II score is an excellent predictor for mortality as ROC curve was found to be 0.889 with an optimum cut-off value of 20.5 with sensitivity 87.5% and specificity 79.0%. Recommendations: The researcher recommends that APACHE II be used in stratifying patients according to their degree of severity of illness at admission to ICU.
Potentially inappropriate brain CT-scan requesting in the emergency department: A retrospective study in patients with neurologic complaints

Background: Potentially inappropriate brain CT scan requesting in the emergency department imposes extra charges to the healthcare system and patients. Besides, the unnecessary radiation exposure may cause irreparable damage to the patient. In this study we investigated the percentage of potentially inappropriately conducted brain CT scan for different chief complaints in non-traumatic patients presented to our emergency department. Material and methods: 160 patients aged over 18 years old with chief complaints other than trauma, referred to the emergency department of Imam Hossein Hospital (Tehran, Iran), were enrolled in this study. Data were collected from medical records; the inclusion criteria was patients older than 18 years with chief complaint other than trauma. Results: 160 people aged 18 to 100 years old enrolled in this study, 83 (51.87%) were male and 77 (48.13%) were female. There was no statistically significant difference in terms of potentially inappropriate brain CT between different age groups. Percentage of potentially inappropriate CT according to chief complaints were as follows: 4.8% for dysarthria, 0% for right and left hemiplegia, 9.1% for decreased level of consciousness, 30% for nausea and vomiting, 41.7% for generalized weaknesses, 0% for seizures, 55.6% for vertigo, 25% for headache, and 57.7% for other complaints. There was a statistically significant association between chief complaints and potentially inappropriate brain CT scan requests (p-value = 0.001). Conclusion: Considering the significant percentage of potentially inappropriate brain CT scan requests for non-traumatic patients in the setting of emergency department, it is critical for healthcare policymakers to propose practical guidelines and supervise their application. (www.actabiomedica.it)
On the CRONE Suspension

This paper studies robust control and advanced suspension of vehicles with focus on the CRONE suspension system that is based on non-integer derivation. After first describing the principle of the CRONE suspension and its model, the paper develops the synthesis method of the suspension. It then describes the constrained optimization to determine CRONE suspension parameters. Frequency and time responses are examined, showing the robustness of both the resonance and damping ratios versus load variation.