julilili42/papers huggingface dataset:
Biofilms: A developmental niche for vancomycin-intermediate Staphylococcus aureus
2023-12-29

Staphylococcus aureus are gram-positive bacteria responsible for a wide array of diseases, ranging from skin and soft tissue infections to more chronic illnesses such as toxic shock syndrome, osteomyelitis, and endocarditis. Vancomycin is currently one of the most effective antibiotics available in treating patients infected with methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA), however the emergence of vancomycin-resistant S. aureus (VRSA), and more commonly vancomycin-intermediate S. aureus (VISA), threaten the future efficacy of vancomycin. Intermediate resistance to vancomycin occurs due to mutations within the loci of Staphylococcal genes involved in cell wall formation such as rpoB, graS, and yycG. We hypothesized the VISA phenotype may also arise as a result of the natural stress occurring within S. aureus biofilms, and that this phenomenon is mediated by the RecA/SOS response. Wildtype and recA null mutant/lexAG94E strains of S. aureus biofilms were established in biofilm microtiter assays or planktonic cultures with or without the addition of sub-inhibitory concentrations of vancomycin (0.063 mg/l - 0.25 mg/L ciprofloxacin, 0.5 mg/l vancomycin). Efficiency of plating techniques were used to quantify the subpopulation of biofilm-derived S. aureus cells that developed vancomycin-intermediate resistance. The results indicated that a greater subpopulation of cells from wildtype biofilms (4.16 × 10<sup>2</sup> CFUs) emerged from intermediate-resistant concentrations of vancomycin (4 μg/ml) compared with the planktonic counterpart (1.53 × 10<sup>1</sup> CFUs). Wildtype biofilms (4.16 × 10<sup>2</sup> CFUs) also exhibited greater resistance to intermediate-resistant concentrations of vancomycin compared with strains deficient in the recA null mutant (8.15 × 10<sup>1</sup> CFUs) and lexA genes (8.00 × 10<sup>1</sup> CFUs). While the VISA phenotype would be an unintended consequence of genetic diversity and potentially gene transfer in the biofilm setting, it demonstrates that mutations occurring within biofilms allow for S. aureus to adapt to new environments, including the presence of widely used antibiotics.
A quantum fluctuation description of charge qubits
2023-12-29

Abstract We consider a specific instance of a superconducting circuit, the so-called charge-qubit, consisting of a capacitor and a Josephson junction that we describe by means of the BCS microscopic model in terms of two tunnelling superconducting systems in the strong-coupling quasi-spin formulation. Then, by means of collective observables we derive the Hamiltonian governing the quantum behaviour of the circuit in the limit of a large number N of quasi-spins. Our approach relies on suitable quantum fluctuations , i.e. on collective quasi-spin operators, different from mean-field observables, that retain a quantum character in the large- N limit. These collective operators generate the Heisenberg algebra on the circle and we show that their dynamics reproduces the phenomenological one generated by the charge qubit Hamiltonian obtained by quantizing the macroscopic classical Hamiltonian of the circuit. The microscopic derivation of the emergent, large- N behaviour provides a rigorous setting to investigate more in detail both general quantum circuits and quantum macroscopic scenarios; in particular, in the specific case of charge-qubits, it allows to explicitly obtain the temperature dependence of the critical Josephson current in the strong coupling regime, a result not accessible using standard approximation techniques.
Atrial fibrillation as a novel risk factor for retinal stroke: A protocol for a population-based retrospective cohort study
2023-12-29

Central retinal artery occlusion (CRAO; retinal stroke or eye stroke) is an under-recognized, disabling form of acute ischemic stroke which causes severe visual loss in one eye. The classical risk factor for CRAO is ipsilateral carotid stenosis; however, nearly half of patients with CRAO do not have high-grade carotid stenosis, suggesting that other cardiovascular risk factors may exist for CRAO. Specifically, prior studies have suggested that cardioembolism, driven by underlying atrial fibrillation, may predispose patients to CRAO. We describe the design of an observational, population-based study in this protocol. We evaluate two specific objectives: 1) To determine if atrial fibrillation is an independent risk factor for CRAO after adjusting for medical and cardiovascular risk; 2) To determine if use of oral anticoagulation can modify the risk of CRAO for patients with atrial fibrillation. This protocol lays out our strategy for cohort definition, case and control definition, comorbidity ascertainment, and statistical methods.
The transnational prosocial activities of elite African footballers: an exploratory study of the costs and the benefits
2023-12-29

Abstract This paper explored the costs and the benefits of elite African players’ prosocial activities in their home countries. Through the players’ Twitter and Instagram posts and qualitative interviews, their prosocial activities were examined with regard to the costs and benefits for their career and life courses. The findings show that African players’ transnational prosocial acts are both altruistic (placing costs) and mutualistic (generating benefits). This exploratory paper adds to the existing literature by pointing out both the material and non-material consequences of players’ transnational social responsibility activities. Further, it reveals the complex implications of these practices. For example, while participation in the national team is often viewed primarily from the perspective of positive and beneficial contributions to players’ careers, it may also pose a very significant cost to African players, as they risk jeopardising their club careers. The practical implication of this study is that football governing bodies need to do more to eliminate administrative practices that discriminate against players based on their nationality and also ensure that African players who choose to honour national team duties are protected from undue disadvantages at their clubs arising from their international duties.
The Place of the Qurʾān and Islamic Theology in Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān and its Early English Receptions: A Study in Textual Citation and Excision
2023-12-29

Abstract This article on the place of the Qurʾān and Islamic theology in Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān constitutes a study in textual citation and excision articulated in two main parts. The first part of the article studies the interconnections between philosophy and theology in Ibn Ṭufayl’s (d. 581/1185) life and the references to the Qurʾān and to Islamic theology in his Risālat Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān . In the second part, I track the engagement with the Qurʾān and Islamic theology in the early-modern Latin and English variants of the tale. The article provides a detailed study of the Qurʾanic passages in translation, and reflects on practices of citation, excision and significant paratextual reorganisations. The article argues that the case is less one where the Qurʾān and Islamic theology are excised from the tale and vanish from view, than one where the tale is ‘de-Islamised’ so that it can serve intra-Christian and orientalist interests. The issue resides in making the Qurʾān and Islam epistemically dispensable and in disabling them as hermeneutic interlocutors to be reckoned with in a theological and philosophical debate.
Focus on melanotic neuroectodermal tumor of infancy
2023-12-30

Melanotic neuroectodermal tumor of infancy (MNTI) is a very rare benign neoplasm of probable neurocristic origin. It primarily affects children in the first year of life, with the median age at diagnosis of 4.5 months (range 0-804 months). It usually presents as a fast-growing, painless tumor developing within maxilla, skull bones or mandible but other locations are also possible, especially in older children. The cornerstone of treatment of MNTI is surgery, however local relapses after incomplete tumor excision are common, particularly in patients younger than 2 months of age. Rare cases of multiple recurrent, inoperable or metastatic MNTI pose therapeutic challenges. In such clinical scenarios, various regimens of neoadjuvant chemotherapy based on schemes for neuroblastoma or Ewing sarcoma have been used with partial regressions in some patients, enabling less mutilating delayed surgery. The use of radiotherapy is limited due to very young age of patients with MNTI. No targeted therapies have been found useful so far. Long-term prognosis of localized MNTI is favorable. However, extensive or recurrent lesions can result in functional or esthetic sequelae after surgical removal. Rare cases of malignant/metastatic tumors and MNTI diagnosed in older children have unfavorable outcomes. Further collaborative studies to establish standards of management in patients with MNTI are necessary to improve outcomes and diminish sequalae of surgery. This article presents a literature review on this very rare tumor entity, re-evaluated in the light of the experience gained in the national working groups joined together within the European Cooperative Study Group in Pediatric Rare Tumors (EXPeRT).
Differentiation of Salivary Gland and Salivary Gland Tumor Tissue via Raman Imaging Combined with Multivariate Data Analysis
2023-12-30

Salivary gland tumors (SGTs) are a relevant, highly diverse subgroup of head and neck tumors whose entity determination can be difficult. Confocal Raman imaging in combination with multivariate data analysis may possibly support their correct classification. For the analysis of the translational potential of Raman imaging in SGT determination, a multi-stage evaluation process is necessary. By measuring a sample set of Warthin tumor, pleomorphic adenoma and non-tumor salivary gland tissue, Raman data were obtained and a thorough Raman band analysis was performed. This evaluation revealed highly overlapping Raman patterns with only minor spectral differences. Consequently, a principal component analysis (PCA) was calculated and further combined with a discriminant analysis (DA) to enable the best possible distinction. The PCA-DA model was characterized by accuracy, sensitivity, selectivity and precision values above 90% and validated by predicting model-unknown Raman spectra, of which 93% were classified correctly. Thus, we state our PCA-DA to be suitable for parotid tumor and non-salivary salivary gland tissue discrimination and prediction. For evaluation of the translational potential, further validation steps are necessary.
German nominal number interpretation in an impaired mental lexicon
2023-12-31

Abstract There is an ongoing debate on how speakers and listeners process and interpret information in a morphological system that is very complex and not very transparent. A well-known test case is the German nominal number system. In this paper we employ discriminative learning (e.g., Ramscar &amp; Yarlett, 2007 ; Baayen et al., 2011 , 2019 ) to test whether discriminative learning networks can be used to better understand the processing of German number. We analyse behavioral data obtained from a patient with primary progressive aphasia ( Domahs et al., 2017 ), and the unimpaired system. We test a model that implements the traditional cues borrowed from the schema approach ( Köpcke, 1988 , 1993 ; Köpcke et al., 2021 ), and compare it to a model that uses segmental and phonotactic information only. Our results for the unimpaired system demonstrate that a model based on only biphones as cues is better able to predict the number of a given word-form than a model using structural phonological cues. We also test whether a discriminative learning model can predict the number decisions by the aphasic patient. The results demonstrate that a biphone-based discriminative model trained on the patient’s responses is superior to a structure-based model in approximating the patient’s behavior.
How direct is the link between words and images?
2023-12-31

Abstract Günther et al. (2022) investigated the relationship between words and images in which they concluded the possibility of a direct link between words and embodied experience. In their study, participants were presented with a target noun and a pair of images, one chosen by their model and another chosen randomly. Participants were asked to select the image that best matched the target noun. Building upon their work, we addressed the following questions. 1. Apart from utilizing visually embodied simulation, what other strategies subjects might have used? How much does this setup rely on visual information? Can it be solved using textual representations? 2. Do current visually-grounded embeddings explain subjects’ selection behavior better than textual embeddings? 3. Does visual grounding improve the representations of both concrete and abstract words? For this aim, we designed novel experiments based on pre-trained word embeddings. Our experiments reveal that subjects’ selection behavior is explained to a large extend on text-based embeddings and word-based similarities. Visually grounded embeddings offered modest advantages over textual embeddings in certain cases. These findings indicate that the experiment by Günther et al. (2022) may not be well suited for tapping into the perceptual experience of participants, and the extent to which it measures visually grounded knowledge is unclear.
Die Kritik am Corpus Hermeticum im 17. Jh. und die Folgen
2023-12-31

Abstract According to the narrative of previous research, the scepticism about the anciennity of the Corpus Hermeticum that arose in the 16th century, culminated in Isaac Casaubon’s (1559–1614) groundbreaking dating down of this corpus of writings. However, as the present study shows, the Protestant Casaubon is only one-sided perceived as the accomplisher of the critics of Hermes Trismegistus in the 17th century. Casaubon had, namely, a Catholic ally in his younger contemporary Dionysius Petavius (1583–1652), whose contribution was on a par with Casaubon’s and helped to shape the history of its impact up to the 19th century. Research has also ignored the fact that Casaubon’s critics did not do proper justice to the idea of anciennity. What does it mean and who in fact introduced it? These problems and their implications will also be discussed in this paper.
Inhering hylomorphic modes or hylomorphic modes of inherence?
2023-12-31

Abstract I analyze the Hylomorphism Argument in the anonymous Destructions of the Modes of Signifying ( DMS ), which attempts to reduce the Modist Inherence Thesis (MIT) to absurdity. I note that the Hylomorphism Argument rests on a misunderstanding of MIT, which posits distinct hylomorphic ways that modes inhere, rather than distinct hylomorphic modes. These hylomorphic inherence relations can be seen to ground the derivation scheme among modes and therefore the correspondence relation appealed to in the Modist Correspondence Thesis (MCT). This results in a formulation of MCT that more accurately represents Thomas of Erfurt’s understanding of it than the caricatures appealed to in the DMS author’s anti-modist arguments.
Efficacy of Lapatinib in Patients with HER2-Negative Metastatic Breast Cancer and HER2-Positive Circulating Tumor Cells—The DETECT III Clinical Trial
2024-01-01

Abstract Background The phenotypes of tumor cells change during disease progression, but invasive rebiopsies of metastatic lesions are not always feasible. Here we aimed to determine whether initially HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer (MBC) patients with HER2-positive circulating tumor cells (CTCs) benefit from a HER2-targeted therapy. Methods The open-label, interventional randomized phase III clinical trial (EudraCT Number 2010-024238-46, CliniclTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01619111) recruited from March 2012 until September 2019 with a follow-up duration of 19.5 months. It was a multicenter clinical trial with 94 participating German study centers. A total of 2137 patients with HER2-negative MBC were screened for HER2-positive CTCs with a final modified intention-to-treat population of 101 patients. Eligible patients were randomized to standard therapy with or without lapatinib. Primary study endpoints included CTC clearance (no CTCs at the end of treatment) and secondary endpoints were progression-free survival, overall survival (OS), and safety. Results In both treatment arms CTC clearance at first follow-up visit—although not being significantly different for both arms at any time point—was significantly associated with improved OS (42.4 vs 14.1 months; P = 0.002). Patients treated additionally with lapatinib had a significantly improved OS over patients receiving standard treatment (20.5 vs 9.1 months, P = 0.009). Conclusions DETECT III is the first clinical study indicating that phenotyping of CTCs might have clinical utility for stratification of MBC cancer patients to HER2-targeting therapies. The OS benefit could be related to lapatinib, but further studies are required to prove this clinical observation. ClinicalTrials.gov Registration Number: NCT01619111.
Spinocerebellar ataxia 27B: A novel, frequent and potentially treatable ataxia
2024-01-01

Abstract Hereditary ataxias, especially when presenting sporadically in adulthood, present a particular diagnostic challenge owing to their great clinical and genetic heterogeneity. Currently, up to 75% of such patients remain without a genetic diagnosis. In an era of emerging disease‐modifying gene‐stratified therapies, the identification of causative alleles has become increasingly important. Over the past few years, the implementation of advanced bioinformatics tools and long‐read sequencing has allowed the identification of a number of novel repeat expansion disorders, such as the recently described spinocerebellar ataxia 27B (SCA27B) caused by a (GAA)•(TTC) repeat expansion in intron 1 of the fibroblast growth factor 14 ( FGF14 ) gene. SCA27B is rapidly gaining recognition as one of the most common forms of adult‐onset hereditary ataxia, with several studies showing that it accounts for a substantial number (9–61%) of previously undiagnosed cases from different cohorts. First natural history studies and multiple reports have already outlined the progression and core phenotype of this novel disease, which consists of a late‐onset slowly progressive pan‐cerebellar syndrome that is frequently associated with cerebellar oculomotor signs, such as downbeat nystagmus, and episodic symptoms. Furthermore, preliminary studies in patients with SCA27B have shown promising symptomatic benefits of 4‐aminopyridine, an already marketed drug. This review describes the current knowledge of the genetic and molecular basis, epidemiology, clinical features and prospective treatment strategies in SCA27B.
Global Soil Salinity Estimation at 10 m Using Multi-Source Remote Sensing
2024-01-01

Salinization is a threat to global agricultural and soil resource allocation. Current investigations of global soil salinity are limited to coarse spatial resolution of the available datasets (&gt;250 m) and semiqualitative classification rules (five ranks). Based on these two limitations, we proposed a framework to quantitatively estimate global soil salt content in five climate regions at 10 m by integrating Sentinel-1/2 remotely sensed images, climate, parent material, terrain data, and machine learning. In hyper-arid and arid region, models established using Sentinel-2 and other geospatial data showed the highest accuracy with R 2 of 0.85 and 0.62, respectively. In semi-arid, dry sub-humid, and humid regions, models performed best using Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, and other geospatial data with R 2 of 0.87, 0.80, and 0.87, respectively. The accuracy of the global models is considerable with field validation in Iran and Xinjiang, and compared with digitized salinity maps in California, Brazil, Turkey, South Africa, and Shandong. The proportion of extremely saline soils in Europe is 10.21%, followed by South America (5.91%), Oceania (5.80%), North America (4.05%), Asia (1.19%), and Africa (1.11%). Climatic conditions, groundwater, and salinity index are key covariates in global soil salinity estimation. Use of radar data improves estimation accuracy in wet regions. The map of global soil salinity at 10 m provides a detailed, high-precision basis for soil property investigation and resource management.
Highly Significant Detection of X-Ray Polarization from the Brightest Accreting Neutron Star Sco X-1
2024-01-01

Abstract The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer measured with high significance the X-ray polarization of the brightest Z-source, Sco X-1, resulting in the nominal 2–8 keV energy band in a polarization degree of 1.0% ± 0.2% and a polarization angle of 8° ± 6° at a 90% confidence level. This observation was strictly simultaneous with observations performed by NICER, NuSTAR, and Insight-HXMT, which allowed for a precise characterization of its broadband spectrum from soft to hard X-rays. The source has been observed mainly in its soft state, with short periods of flaring. We also observed low-frequency quasiperiodic oscillations. From a spectropolarimetric analysis, we associate a polarization to the accretion disk at &lt;3.2% at 90% confidence level, compatible with expectations for an electron scattering dominated optically thick atmosphere at the Sco X-1 inclination of ∼44°; for the higher-energy Comptonized component, we obtain a polarization of 1.3% ± 0.4%, in agreement with expectations for a slab of Thomson optical depth of ∼7 and an electron temperature of ∼3 keV. A polarization rotation with respect to previous observations by OSO-8 and PolarLight, and also with respect to the radio-jet position angle, is observed. This result may indicate a variation of the polarization with the source state that can be related to relativistic precession or a change in the corona geometry with the accretion flow.
Handbook of X-ray and Gamma-ray Astrophysics
2024-01-01

The ground-based technique for imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes\\nbecame a rapidly developing and powerful branch of science. Thanks to this\\ntechnique, over 250 very high-energy gamma-ray sources of galactic and\\nextragalactic origin have been discovered. Many fundamental questions of\\nastrophysics, astro-particle physics, the physics of cosmic rays and cosmology\\nare the focus of this technique. In the past 33 years since the discovery of\\nthe first gamma-ray source, the Crab Nebula, the discipline has made remarkable\\nprogress. Today, the technology boasts highly sensitive telescopes capable of\\ndetecting a point source 100 times fainter than the standard candle, the Crab\\nNebula, in 25 hours of observation. Further developments in this technology led\\nto the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), the next-generation large instrument.\\nThe sensitivity of CTA will be several times higher than that of the current\\nbest instruments. This article presents a brief history of ground-based very\\nhigh energy gamma-ray astrophysics.\\n