gebhart/patrepeval huggingface dataset:
Biology of <i>Clostridium difficile</i>: Implications for Epidemiology and Diagnosis (2010)

Clostridium difficile is an anaerobic, spore-forming, gram-positive rod that causes a spectrum of antibiotic-associated colitis through the elaboration of two large clostridial toxins and other virulence factors. Since its discovery in 1978 as the agent responsible for pseudomembranous colitis, the organism has continued to evolve into an adaptable, aggressive, hypervirulent strain. Advances in molecular methods and improved animal models have facilitated an understanding of how this organism survives in the environment, adapts to the gastrointestinal tract of animals and humans, and accomplishes its unique pathogenesis. The advances in microbiology have been accompanied by some important clinical observations including increased rates of C. difficile infection, increased virulence, and multiple outbreaks. The major new risk is fluoroquinolone use; there is also an association with proton pump inhibitors and increased recognition of cases in outpatients, pediatric patients, and patients without recent antibiotic use. The combination of more aggressive strains with mobile genomes in a setting of an expanded pool of individuals at risk has refocused attention on and challenged assumptions regarding diagnostic gold standards. Future research is likely to build upon the advancements in phylogenetics to create novel strategies for diagnosis, treatment, and prevention.
MECHANISM OF GLUCOSE TRANSPORT ACROSS THE YEAST CELL MEMBRANE (1962)

Cirillo, Vincent P. (Seton Hall College of Medicine and Dentistry, Jersey City, N.J.). Mechanism of glucose transport across the yeast cell membrane. J. Bacteriol. 84:485-491. 1962.-The kinetics of d-glucose and l-sorbose transport was studied in Saccharomyces cerevisiae inhibited with iodoacetic acid under nitrogen to prevent glucose metabolism. d-Glucose was found to compete with l-sorbose for a common membrane transport system with an apparent affinity greater than 25 times that of sorbose. A comparison of the net rate of glucose and sorbose transport at 50 and 500 mm external concentration showed that glucose transport is greater than that of sorbose from the lower concentration, but sorbose transport is greater than glucose at the higher concentration. This reversal of transport rate of two sugars with markedly different affinities is predicted by the membrane carrier theory. A further prediction of carrier theory was confirmed by the demonstration that the rate of glucose transport into fructose-loaded cells is greater than into unloaded cells.
Quality Assurance Strategies in Microtask Crowdsourcing (2016)

Crowdsourcing is the outsourcing of a unit of work to a crowd of people via an open call for contributions. While there are various forms of crowdsourcing, such as open innovation, civic engagement and crowdfunding in this work we specifically focus on microtasking. Microtasking is a branch of crowdsourcing, where a work is presented as a set of identical microtasks, each requiring contributors only several minutes to complete usually in exchange for a reward of less than 1 USD. Labeling images, transcribing documents, analyzing sentiments of short sentences and cleaning datasets are popular examples of work which could be solved as microtasks. Available up to date microtask crowdsourcing platforms, such as CrowdFlower and Amazon Mechanical Turk, allow thousands of microtasks to be solved in parallel by hundreds of contributors available online. To tackle the problem of quality in microtask crowdsourcing, it is necessary to study different quality attributes, to investigate what causes low quality of results and slow task execution in microtask crowdsourcing, to identify effective methods to both assess and assure that these quality attributes are of high level. We conducted the most extensive literature review analysis of quality attributes, assessment and assurance techniques ever done in the area of microtasking and crowdsourcing in general. We further advanced the state of the art in three research tracks: i) Improving accuracy and execution speed (the major track), where we monitor in-page user activity of each individual worker, automatically predict abandoned assignments causing delays and assignments with low quality of results, and relaunch them to other workers using our tool ReLauncher; ii) Crowdsourcing complex processes, where we introduce BPMN-extensions to design business processes of both crowd and machine tasks, and the crowdsourcing platform Crowd Computer to deploy these tasks; and iii) Improving workers user experience, where we identify problems workers face searching for tasks to work on, address these problems in our prototype of the task listing interface and introduce a new mobile crowdsourcing platform, CrowdCafe, designed in a way to optimize task searching time and to motivate workers with tangible rewards, such as a coffee.
Metals tolerance in moderately thermophilic isolates from a spent copper sulfide heap, closely related to Acidithiobacillus caldus, Acidimicrobium ferrooxidans and Sulfobacillus thermosulfidooxidans (2008)

Selective enrichments enabled the recovery of moderately thermophilic isolates with copper bioleaching ability from a spent copper sulfide heap. Phylogenetic and physiological characterization revealed that the isolates were closely related to Sulfobacillus thermosulfidooxidans, Acidithiobacillus caldus and Acidimicrobium ferrooxidans. While isolates exhibited similar physiological characteristics to their corresponding type strains, in general they displayed similar or greater tolerance of high copper, zinc, nickel and cobalt concentrations. Considerable variation was found between species and between several strains related to S. thermosulfidooxidans. It is concluded that adaptation to metals present in the bioleaching heap from which they were isolated contributed to but did not entirely explain high metals tolerances. Higher metals tolerance did not confer stronger bioleaching performance, suggesting that a physical, mineralogical or chemical process is rate limiting for a specific ore or concentrate.
Speckle motion artifact under tissue rotation (1994)

Speckle patterns in ultrasound images may move in a way which bears no simple relationship to the motion of the corresponding tissues. In some instances the speckle motion replicates the underlying tissue motion, in others it does not. The authors name "speckle motion artifact" the difference between the speckle and the underlying tissue motion. An echographic image formation model is used to study the motion artifact produced by a rotating phantom and observed by a linear scan imaging system with a Gaussian beam. The authors propose that when the tissue is modeled as a random array of small and numerous scatterers, such motion aberration be accounted for by the 2D phase characteristics of the imaging system. An analytic prediction of this motion artifact in relation to the imaging system characteristics (beam width, transducer frequency, pulse duration) is presented. It is shown that the artifact results from the curvature of the system point spread function, which in turn determines the curvature of the 2D phase characteristics. To the authors' knowledge, it is the first time a comprehensive model of ultrasonic speckle motion artifact is presented. The model has been developed to study rotation-induced artifact; the method is however quite general and can be extended to study the effects of other tissue motion, in particular deformation and shear.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>
Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor-γ Receptor Ligand Partially Prevents the Development of Endometrial Explants in Baboons: A Prospective, Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Study (2010)

A prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled study was conducted in a baboon model to determine if a thiazolidinedione agonist of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma, pioglitazone, can impede the development of endometriosis. Endometriosis was induced using laparoscopic, intrapelvic injection of eutopic menstrual endometrium, previously incubated with placebo or pioglitazone for 30 min, in 12 female baboons with a normal pelvis that had undergone at least one menstrual cycle since the time of captivity. At this point, the 12 baboons were randomized into two groups and treated from the day of induction. They received either PBS tablets (n = 6, placebo control, placebo tablets once a day by mouth) or pioglitazone (n = 6, test drug, 7.5 mg by mouth each day). A second and final laparoscopy was performed in the baboons to record the extent of endometriotic lesions between 24 and 42 d after induction (no difference in length of treatment between the two groups, P = 0.38). A videolaparoscopy was performed to document the number and surface area of endometriotic lesions. The surface area and volume of endometriotic lesions were significantly lower in pioglitazone treated baboons than the placebo group (surface area, 48.6 vs. 159.0 mm(2), respectively, P = 0.049; vol, 23.7 vs. 131.8 mm(3), respectively, P = 0.041). The surface area (3.5 vs. 17.8 mm(2), P = 0.017, pioglizatone vs. placebo) and overall number (1.5 vs. 9.5, P = 0.007, pioglizatone vs. placebo) of red lesions were lower in the pioglitazone group. A peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma ligand, pioglitazone, effectively reduced the initiation of endometriotic disease in the baboon endometriosis model. Using this animal model, we have shown that thiazolidinedione is a promising drug for preventive treatment of endometriosis.
A feasibility study for the design of a web-based course delivery system : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Computer Science at Massey University (2001)

This thesis presents a feasibility study for the design of a new web-based course delivery system-Technology Integrated Learning Environments (TILE), which has flexible online and offline delivery modes and new functionality such as knowledge presentation and free-form querying, adaptation in computer assisted self-learning modules and curriculum planning. The issues covered in this thesis include all relevant technical problems such as crossplatform support, Java security restrictions, client/server architecture selection and firewall restrictions. All problems associated with these issues have been solved during the system design phase. And the resulting system architecture model is presented. System environments such as selections of the client and the server side database, web server and server-side technique are also discussed. System functionality analysis, interface and functionality design and database design on both the client side and the server side are all finished. A running system prototype with part of the designed functionality has been set up which proves the correctness of the system design. A complementary Java application is also developed to enable the system administrator to set up database based on an XML configuration file. Further study of the generic system model is now continuing within a large international research project.
An FPGA based generic framework for high speed sum of absolute difference implementation (2009)

In this paper we present a hardware architecture for the Sum of Absolute Difference (SAD) technique. This paper also gives the design details and the implementation results for an FPGA based core that permits realisation of a high speed matching algorithm for real time image processing applications. The matching criterion chosen is the SAD algorithm The implementation provides the correct position of the target within the frame/image. The ease of implementation lies in the fact that the core is highly parameterized and therefore can cater effectively to the needs of different sizes and resolutions of images and filters. The high speed and the low area of silicon usage make it useful for a number of image processing applications. The paper also gives a review of different hardware architectures. © EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2009.
Detection of blood‐transmissible agents: can screening be miniaturized? (2010)

Transfusion safety relating to blood-transmissible agents is a major public health concern, particularly when faced with the continuing emergence of new infectious agents. These include new viruses appearing alongside other known reemerging viruses (West Nile virus, Chikungunya) as well as new strains of bacteria and parasites (Plasmodium falciparum, Trypanosoma cruzi) and finally pathologic prion protein (variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease). Genomic mutations of known viruses (hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus, human immunodeficiency virus) can also be at the origin of variants susceptible to escaping detection by diagnostic tests. New technologies that would allow the simultaneous detection of several blood-transmissible agents are now needed for the development and improvement of screening strategies. DNA microarrays have been developed for use in immunohematology laboratories for blood group genotyping. Their application in the detection of infectious agents, however, has been hindered by additional technological hurdles. For instance, the variability among and within genomes of interest complicate target amplification and multiplex analysis. Advances in biosensor technologies based on alternative detection strategies have offered new perspectives on pathogen detection; however, whether they are adaptable to diagnostic applications testing biologic fluids is under debate. Elsewhere, current nanotechnologies now offer new tools to improve the sample preparation, target capture, and detection steps. Second-generation devices combining micro- and nanotechnologies have brought us one step closer to the potential development of innovative and multiplexed approaches applicable to the screening of blood for transmissible agents.
An experimental comparison of multiple vocoder types (2013)

This paper presents an experimental comparison of a broad range of the leading vocoder types which have been previously described. We use a reference implementation of each of these to create stimuli for a listening test using copy synthesis. The listening test is performed using both Lombard and normal read speech stimuli, and with two types of question for comparison. Multi-dimensional Scaling (MDS) is conducted on the listener responses to analyse similarities in terms of quality between the vocoders. Our MDS and clustering results show that the vocoders which use a sinusoidal synthesis approach are perceptually distinguishable from the source-filter vocoders. To help further interpret the axes of the resulting MDS space, we test for correlations with standard acoustic quality metrics and find one axis is strongly correlated with PESQ scores. We also find both speech style and the format of the listening test question may influence test results. Finally, we also present preference test results which compare each vocoder with the natural speech.
A review of the North American Bembidiinae (1918)

(Uploaded by Plazi from the Biodiversity Heritage Library) No abstract provided.
Evidence for Increased Somatic Cell Mutations at the Glycophorin A Locus in Atomic Bomb Survivors (1987)

A recently developed assay for somatic cell mutations was used to study survivors of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima. This assay measures the frequency of variant erythrocytes produced by erythroid precursor cells with mutations that result in a loss of gene expression at the polymorphic glycophorin A (GPA) locus. Significant linear relations between variant frequency (VF) and radiation exposure were observed for three different variant cell phenotypes. The spontaneous and induced VFs agree with previous measurements of radiation-induced mutagenesis in other systems; this evidence supports a mutational origin for variant cells characterized by a loss of GPA expression and suggests that the GPA assay system may provide a cumulative dosimeter of past radiation exposures. VFs for some survivors differ dramatically from the calculated dose response, and these deviations appear to result primarily from statistical fluctuations in the number of mutations in the stem-cell pool. These fluctuations allow one to estimate the number of long-lived hemopoietic stem cells in humans.
The Global Pattern of Urbanization and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Last Three Decades (2014)

The relationship between urbanization and economic growth has been perplexing. In this paper, we identify the pattern of global change and the correlation of urbanization and economic growth, using cross-sectional, panel estimation and geographic information systems (GIS) methods. The analysis has been carried out on a global geographical scale, while the timescale of the study spans the last 30 years. The data shows that urbanization levels have changed substantially during these three decades. Empirical findings from cross-sectional data and panel data support the general notion of close links between urbanization levels and GDP per capita. However, we also present significant evidence that there is no correlation between urbanization speed and economic growth rate at the global level. Hence, we conclude that a given country cannot obtain the expected economic benefits from accelerated urbanization, especially if it takes the form of government-led urbanization. In addition, only when all facets are taken into consideration can we fully assess the urbanization process.
Recommendation Systems for Tourism Based on Social Networks: A Survey (2019)

Nowadays, recommender systems are present in many daily activities such as online shopping, browsing social networks, etc. Given the rising demand for reinvigoration of the tourist industry through information technology, recommenders have been included into tourism websites such as Expedia, Booking or Tripadvisor, among others. Furthermore, the amount of scientific papers related to recommender systems for tourism is on solid and continuous growth since 2004. Much of this growth is due to social networks that, besides to offer researchers the possibility of using a great mass of available and constantly updated data, they also enable the recommendation systems to become more personalised, effective and natural. This paper reviews and analyses many research publications focusing on tourism recommender systems that use social networks in their projects. We detail their main characteristics, like which social networks are exploited, which data is extracted, the applied recommendation techniques, the methods of evaluation, etc. Through a comprehensive literature review, we aim to collaborate with the future recommender systems, by giving some clear classifications and descriptions of the current tourism recommender systems.
Implementation of Stack Data Placement and Run Time Management Using a Scratch-Pad Memory for Energy Consumption Reduction of Embedded Applications (2011)

Memory accesses are a major cause of energy consumption for embedded systems. This paper presents the implementation of a fully software technique which places stack and static data into a scratch-pad memory (SPM) in order to reduce the energy consumed by the processor while accessing them. Since an SPM is usually too small to include all these data, some of them must be left into the external main memory (MM). Therefore, further energy reduction is achieved by moving some stack data between both memories at run time. The technique employs integer linear programming in order to find at compile time the optimal placement of static data and management of the stack and implements it by inserting stack operations inside the code. Experimental results show that with an SPM of only 1KB, our technique is able to exploit it for reducing the energy consumption related to the static and stack data accesses by more than 90% for several applications and on an average by 57% compared to the case where these data are fully placed into the main memory.
Island Carib Origins: Evidence and Nonevidence (1990)

Origin stories collected among the indigenous peoples in the Windward Islands during the early colonial period have been interpreted as indicating a mainland Carib affiliation for the islanders. This interpretation gave rise to efforts in the present century to identify the archaeological correlate of the presumed late prehistoric or protohistoric migration of Cariban speakers into the Lesser Antilles. Recent debate centers around two models. One of these associates the supposed migration of mainland Caribs into the Lesser Antilles with the advent of the Suazey ceramic complex in the twelfth century; the other implies either a protohistoric migration or an episode of rapid acculturation of island populations to South American mainland Carib culture in the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries. A review of relevant archaeological, historical, and linguistic evidence provides little support for either of these models. Instead, the so-called “Island Caribs” were Arawakan speakers, probably longtime residents of the Windward Islands whose cultural and linguistic connections with the mainland Caribs probably were the products of contacts related to trade and alliance.
Dual workfunction Ni-silicide/HfSiON gate stacks by phase-controlled full-sificidation (PC-FUSI) technique for 45nm-node LSTP and LOP devices (2005)

We present a new threshold-voltage (Vth) control technique for fully-silicided (FUSI) metal/high-k gate stacks which are suitable for 45nm-node LOP and LSTP CMOS. The key is the phase control of FUSI Ni-silicide by changing Ni film thickness prior to silicidation anneal. As a result, Ni/sub 3/Si and NiSi/sub 2/ are formed whose effective workfunctions (WFs) on HfSiON are found to be 4.8eV and 4.4eV, respectively, being largely displaced from Si-midgap by /spl plusmn/0.2eV. Meanwhile, the dopant segregation method, known to be successful in Vth-control of NiSi on SiO/sub 2/, did not work on HfSiON. With Ni/sub 3/Si-PMOS and NiSi/sub 2/-NMOS transistors, a wide range of Vth-tuning is achieved coping with both LSTP and LOP requirements. At the same time, leakage suppression merit is better than the 45nm-node targets at electrical thickness (Tinv) around 2.0 nm. Also, our phase-controlled fully silicided (PC-FUSI) devices show excellent mobility characteristics.
Farnesyltransferase inhibitors as anticancer agents: critical crossroads. (2004)

Farnesyltransferase (FT) inhibitors were originally designed as anticancer agents, and were thought to act by inhibiting the farnesylation of mutant Ras proteins. However, these compounds were subsequently demonstrated to have antitumor effects even in the absence of Ras mutations and it has now become clear that other protein targets are involved. This article discusses the preclinical and clinical development of FT inhibitors. To date, tipifarnib (Zarnestra; Janssen Pharmaceutica NV) and lonafarnib (Sarasar; Schering-Plough Research Institute) are the only two FT inhibitors to have been evaluated in phase III clinical trials. The clinical results of these two compounds are presented below, with emphasis on ways of enhancing the possibility of a successful FT inhibitor anticancer drug. Details of new FT inhibitors disclosed since the beginning of 2003 are also included.