Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dimerization Is Required for Activation of eIF2 Kinase Gcn2 in Response to Diverse Environmental Stress Conditions*

In the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, starvation for amino acids induces phosphorylation of the α subunit of eukaryotic initiation factor 2α by Gcn2 protein kinase, leading to elevated translation of GCN4. Gcn4p is a transcriptional activator of hundreds of genes involved in remedying nutrient deprivation. In addition to a conserved kinase domain, Gcn2p has a regulatory region homologous to histidyl tRNA synthetase enzymes that binds uncharged tRNA that accumulates during amino acid starvation. Flanking the carboxyl terminus of the histidyl-tRNA synthetase-related domain is a region spanning 162 residues that participates in the activation of the protein kinase. Gel filtration and chemical cross-linking analysis of the recombinant carboxyl-terminal Gcn2 protein revealed that this region is a stable homodimer that is highly resistant to high concentrations of salt. Residue alterations in three hydrophobic segments and one segment with a proposed amphipathic α-helix in this Gcn2p carboxyl terminus blocked oligomerization, supporting the role of hydrophobic interactions in the dimerization interface of Gcn2p. Introduction of residue substitutions that impaired dimerization into the full-length protein prevented the ability of Gcn2p to phosphorylate its substrate eukaryotic initiation factor-2α and induce GCN4 translational expression in yeast cells subjected to a variety of stresses including amino acid limitation or exposure to rapamycin or high levels of NaCl. This latter stress can be overcome by addition of increasing amounts of K+ ions, indicating that the Na+/K+ ion balance is central to this stress induction. We conclude that dimerization involving hydrophobic segments in the carboxyl-terminal region is required for activation of Gcn2p in response to a multitude of stresses.
Total conflict redistribution rule for evidential fusion

Several rules have been emerged in order to overcome the abnormal behavior of Dempster's combination rule with counter-intuitive results. Existing rules to evidence combination modeling differ in the expressive power of the conflict management models. This motivates us to develop an alternative combination rule called Total Conflicting mass Redistribution (TCR). This redistribution is founded on weighting factors computed from the masses assigned to each set by the sources of information and those obtained by the conjunctive rule. Our TCR rule is evaluated and compared with some numerical examples reported in the literature. As a result, this rule gives intuitive interpretation for combining multiple-source information and provides reasonable results.
Knowledge of Genetics and Attitudes toward Genetic Testing among College Students in Saudi Arabia

Background: Genetic testing has been gradually permeating the practice of medicine. Health-care providers may be confronted with new genetic approaches that require genetically informed decisions which will be influenced by patients' knowledge of genetics and their attitudes toward genetic testing. This study assesses the knowledge of genetics and attitudes toward genetic testing among college students. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted using a multistage stratified sample of 920 senior college students enrolled at King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia. Information regarding knowledge of genetics, attitudes toward genetic testing, and sociodemographic data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire. Results: In general, students had a good knowledge of genetics but lacked some fundamentals of genetics. The majority of students showed positive attitudes toward genetic testing, but some students showed negative attitudes toward certain aspects of genetic testing such as resorting to abortion in the case of an untreatable major genetic defect in an unborn fetus. The main significant predictors of knowledge were faculty, gender, academic year, and some prior awareness of ‘genetic testing'. The main significant predictors of attitudes were gender, academic year, grade point average, and some prior awareness of ‘genetic testing'. Conclusion: The knowledge of genetics among college students was higher than has been reported in other studies, and the attitudes toward genetic testing were fairly positive. Genetics educational programs that target youths may improve knowledge of genetics and create a public perception that further supports genetic testing.
Continuing Plan Quality Optimisation

Finding high quality plans for large planning problems is hard. Although some current anytime planners are often able to improve plans quickly, they tend to reach a limit at which the plans produced are still very far from the best possible, but these planners fail to find any further improvement, even when given several hours of runtime. We present an approach to continuing plan quality optimisation at larger time scales, and its implementation in a system called BDPO2. Key to this approach is a decomposition into subproblems of improving parts of the current best plan. The decomposition is based on block deordering, a form of plan deordering which identifies hierarchical plan structure. BDPO2 can be seen as an application of the large neighbourhood search (LNS) local search strategy to planning, where the neighbourhood of a plan is defined by replacing one or more subplans with improved subplans. On-line learning is also used to adapt the strategy for selecting subplans and subplanners over the course of plan optimisation. Even starting from the best plans found by other means, BDPO2 is able to continue improving plan quality, often producing better plans than other anytime planners when all are given enough runtime. The best results, however, are achieved by a combination of different techniques working together.
Fluctuating Asymmetry: Methods, Theory, and Applications

Fluctuating asymmetry consists of random deviations from perfect symmetry in populations of organisms. It is a measure of developmental noise, which reflects a population’s average state of adaptation and coadaptation. Moreover, it increases under both environmental and genetic stress, though responses are often inconsistent. Researchers base studies of fluctuating asymmetry upon deviations from bilateral, radial, rotational, dihedral, translational, helical, and fractal symmetries. Here, we review old and new methods of measuring fluctuating asymmetry, including measures of dispersion, landmark methods for shape asymmetry, and continuous symmetry measures. We also review the theory, developmental origins, and applications of fluctuating asymmetry, and attempt to explain conflicting results. In the process, we present examples from the literature, and from our own research at “Evolution Canyon” and elsewhere.
Origin and fate of cardiac mesenchyme

The development of the embryonic heart is dependent upon the generation and incorporation of different mesenchymal subpopulations that derive from intra‐ and extra‐cardiac sources, including the endocardium, epicardium, neural crest, and second heart field. Each of these populations plays a crucial role in cardiovascular development, in particular in the formation of the valvuloseptal apparatus. Notwithstanding shared mechanisms by which these cells are generated, their fate and function differ profoundly by their originating source. While most of our early insights into the origin and fate of the cardiac mesenchyme has come from experimental studies in avian model systems, recent advances in transgenic mouse technology has enhanced our ability to study these cell populations in the mammalian heart. In this article, we will review the current understanding of the role of cardiac mesenchyme in cardiac morphogenesis and discuss several new paradigms based on recent studies in the mouse. Developmental Dynamics 237:2804–2819, 2008. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Research on the Cooperative Train Control Strategy to Reduce Energy Consumption

Based on the mature energy-saving strategy of a single train, the optimization of multiple trains' trajectories is studied. A cooperative control model is formulated with the utilization of the regenerative energy considered, which is used to calculate the total energy consumption of an electric subway system under various energy-saving control strategies. Taking the cooperative operation of two trains within the same section of an electrical system as an example, the front one adopt the optimal driving strategy with four modes of movement, which are the maximum traction, cruising, coasting, and the maximum braking by sequence. The latter is controlled by the strategy with four movement modes (mentioned earlier) and five movement modes (namely, the maximum traction, cruising/coasting, the maximum traction, coasting, and the maximum braking), respectively. The minimum energy consumption under different departure headway is calculated by using a heuristic algorithm. It turned out that the optimal energy-saving control strategy can be obtained with the departure headway given, and an energy-saving control strategy corresponding to the minimum energy consumption can be worked out too. The proposed energy-saving strategy can reduce energy consumption by 19.2% at the most.
A Rapid Plant Production Technique of Aloe vera. L for Commercialization

In recent times many techniques have been developed for mass production of high quality plants, amongst which In vitro regeneration of plants is widely used. Aloe vera which is frequently used as medicinal plant has a slow rate of growth mainly due to male sterility. Thus, In vitro culture of Aloe vera by using shoot tip as explant is used for commercial production. The process involves In vitro proliferation, In vitro rooting of the proliferated shoots and acclimatization of regenerated plantlets under ex vitro condition. The study on surface sterilization of explants revealed that 70% alcohol treatment for 1 minute followed by 0.10% HgCl2 for 2 minutes and ascorbic acid (1mg/l) for 10 minutes showed minimum microbial contamination without any toxicity to the explants. Explants gave the best response on medium containing 2.0 mg/l BAP + 0.5 mg/l NAA + 20.0 mg/l AdSO4, where greater number of explants (80%) were established in minimum duration (8 days). Multiple shoot proliferation and elongation were found to be the best on the medium supplemented with 4.0 mg/l BAP + 0.2 mg/l NAA + 20.0 mg/l AdSO4 in terms of maximum shoots per explants (23.8) with highest shoot length (4.22 cm). Highest rooting response (90%) with maximum roots per explants (10.8) having longest root length (6.8 cm) was found to be the best on medium supplemented with 2.0 mg/l IBA and 0.5 mg/l NAA. Plantlets with developed shoot and roots were then transferred for hardening and acclimatized under the greenhouse poly-tunnels where 90.00% of survival rate was achieved.
The Applicability of the Proposed IASLC Staging Revisions to Small Cell Lung Cancer (SCLC) with Comparison to the Current UICC 6th TNM Edition

Background: We examined the impact of the proposed Internal Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) tumor, node, metastasis (TNM) and stage grouping revisions on staging and survival outcome of small cell lung cancer (SCLC). Methods: A total of 10,660 SCLC patients from the California Cancer Registry between 1991 to 2005 with complete TNM staging were identified and reclassified according to the IASLC proposed TNM revisions and new stage groupings. Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results extent of disease codes were used to identify various T4 and M descriptors. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to identify prognostic factors. Results: Survival was correlated with the current UICC6 and IASLC proposed T descriptors. Patients without mediastinal lymph node involvement (N 0–1) had superior survival compared to patients with mediastinal lymph node involvement (N 2–3). The IASLC proposed stage grouping results in better separation of survival curves among early stage SCLC than the current Union Internationale Centre le Cancer (UICC) 6 stage groupings by both univariate and multivariate analyses. Pleural effusion (IASLC M1a) in SCLC had survival similar to other IASLC M1a categories (pericardial effusion, contralateral intrapulmonary metastasis) by pairwise hazard ratio comparisons. Conclusions: The IASLC proposed TNM staging changes result in better separation of stage-specific SCLC survival curves than the current UICC6 staging system. The new IASLC M1a descriptors (pleural effusion, pericardial effusion, and contralateral/bilateral intrapulmonary metastasis) adequately prognosticate SCLC patients as having metastatic disease.
Incremental Convex Minimization for Computing Collision Translations of Convex Polyhedra

The subject of this paper is an asymptotically fast and incremental algorithm for computing collision translations of convex polyhedra, where the problem at hand is reduced to determining collision translations of pairs of planar sections and minimizing a bivariate convex function. There are two main reasons, in our view, why the algorithm is worth consideration. On the one hand, the addressed proximity measure, namely collision translation, is not as widely studied as distance. On the other, its peculiar computation strategy may be interesting in itself, being well suited to work without initialization and also endowed with an inherently embedded mechanism to exploit spatial coherence. After outlining the main ideas of this novel approach and providing an estimation of the computational costs, we summarize a broad set of numerical experiments meant to explore extensively the behavior of the algorithm, both without and with initialization. Finally, in order to assess the efficacy and the potential of the approach under analysis, the attained performances are contrasted with those of other popular algorithms designed to compute distances between polyhedra. A thorough comparison of the reported query times and, more significantly, of the corresponding trends shows that the behavior of the collision translation algorithm is quite interesting, especially when used without initialization or under variable coherence, which should encourage further work on this approach.
Job Satisfication and External Effective Factors in Operating Room Nurses Working Educational Hospitals in 2015: A Cross-Sectional Questionnaire Study.

INTRODUCTION & AIM Identification of effective factors on job satisfaction can impact the efficiency and quality of health services and personal life. The Aim of this study was to investigate, Job Satisfaction and External Effective Factors in Operating Room Nurses Educational Hospitals of Zahedan in 2015. MATERIALS & METHODS This descriptive-analytical study was conducted on 137 operating room Nurses of Ali-Ebne-Abitaleb, Khatam-Al-Anbia and Alzahra hospital in Zahedan, Iran, enrolled through the convenience sampling in 2015. The data were collected by the valid and reliable job satisfaction standard questionnaire or Herzberg's Dual-Factor theory. To analyze the information, descriptive statistics, Chi-square & Pearson correlation test were applied by use of SPSS v. 21 software. FINDINGS The results found that the most effective factors of job satisfaction were job safety with an average 4/78, work qualification with an average 4/32 and suitable salary with an average 3/91 respectively. Only 45.98% of the nurses experienced moderate job satisfaction, and only 25.54% of them had high job satisfaction. Moreover, job satisfaction was significantly related to the type of employment (p=0. 019), work background (p=0. 029) and turn of work (p=0. 034). CONCLUSION The data of this study found that, notice and planning in preparing job safety, work qualification and proper salary may play a more effective role in improving employees' performance than any other factors.
FFT Implementation with Fused Floating-Point Operations

This paper describes two fused floating-point operations and applies them to the implementation of fast Fourier transform (FFT) processors. The fused operations are a two-term dot product and an add-subtract unit. The FFT processors use "butterfly” operations that consist of multiplications, additions, and subtractions of complex valued data. Both radix-2 and radix-4 butterflies are implemented efficiently with the two fused floating-point operations. When placed and routed using a high performance standard cell technology, the fused FFT butterflies are about 15 percent faster and 30 percent smaller than a conventional implementation. Also the numerical results of the fused implementations are slightly more accurate, since they use fewer rounding operations.
A Chinese Chan-BasedMind-Body Intervention Improves Sleep on Patients with Depression : A Randomized Controlled Trial

1 Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong 2 Integrative Neuropsychological Rehabilitation Center, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, New Territories, Hong Kong 3 Henan Songshan Research Institute for Chanwuyi, Henan 452470, China 4 Division II, Kwai Chung Hospital, New Territories, Hong Kong 5 Department of Special Education and Counselling, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, Tai Po, Hong Kong 6 Institute of Textiles and Clothing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong
PATHOLOGY OF IgA NEPHROPATHY

Idiopathic IgA Nephropathy (IgAN) has been recognized as the most common form of glomerulonephritis worldwide since its original description by Berger and Hinglais. Initially considered as a benign disease, the natural history has changed considerably with studies showing an incidence of chronic renal failure ranging from 20 to 40%. The highly variable clinical course has resulted in efforts to determine clinical, laboratory, and histologic features that predict the development of renal failure in IgAN. Light microscopic appearances and clinical features can vary considerably, reflecting the many patterns of histopathologic injury seen. Closely associated with IgAN is Henoch – Schonlein purpura (HSP), a small vessel systemic vasculitis characterized by small blood vessel deposition of IgA predominantly affecting the skin, joints, gut, and kidney. The nephritis of HSP is also characterized by mesangial IgA deposition and may be histologically indistinguishable from IgAN. This article focuses on IgAN considering especially information regarding its prevalance, histopathologigal, immunofluorescence findings and in particular, focussing on growing understanding of the pathogenesis of IgAN.
Does Stroke Subtype and Measurement Technique Influence Estimation of Cerebral Autoregulation in Acute Ischaemic Stroke?

Background: It is known that dynamic cerebral autoregulation (dCA) is acutely impaired following ischaemic stroke (IS). However, the influence of stroke subtype, the affected (AF) and unaffected (UA) hemispheres, and the effects of a methodological approach on dCA estimates in stroke are all inconclusive. Therefore, we studied cortical and subcortical acute IS (AIS) patients to test the primary hypotheses that (1) dCA is impaired in stroke subtypes when compared to controls, (2) dCA impairment is more pronounced in the AF compared with the UA hemisphere, and (3) similar results are obtained with both spontaneous blood pressure (BP) fluctuation techniques, and sudden induced BP changes by thigh cuff deflation. Methods: We assessed the dCA values in AIS patients and in healthy controls (n = 10). The AIS patient group consisted of anterior circulation cortical (n = 11) and subcortical (n = 11) strokes within 48 h of symptom onset. Cerebral blood flow velocity was measured using transcranial Doppler ultrasound, and BP measurements were recorded before, during and after the release of bilateral thigh cuffs in 10 controls (7 males) of a mean age of 59 ±15 years (range 31-75), 11 cortical strokes (7 males) of a mean of age 65 ± 19 years (range 25-88) and 11 subcortical strokes (7 males) of a mean age of 60 ± 18 years (range 39-85). Autoregulation index (ARI) estimates, calculated using spontaneous fluctuations and thigh cuff manoeuvre, were derived. Differences in ARI (Tiecks' model) were tested with repeated-measures ANOVA. Results: A total of 22 patients were included, comprising 11 subcortical (lacunar clinical syndrome) and 11 cortical strokes (total anterior circulation stroke/partial anterior circulation syndrome). Of the 10 control subjects, 1 later withdrew because of intolerance to the thigh cuffs. Similar ARI estimates were obtained in both groups, whether assessed from spontaneous fluctuations or thigh cuff measurements (p = 0.37). ARI differences were not significantly different between hemispheres for both control and stroke populations. ARI was significantly impaired in AIS patients compared to age-, sex- and BP-matched control subjects, with a greater impairment of dCA observed in cortical IS. Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that both spontaneous fluctuations and thigh cuff deflation techniques are able to provide reliable estimates of ARI, with the estimates from both spontaneous fluctuations and thigh cuff deflation techniques being in keeping with those reported elsewhere in the literature. dCA was impaired following AIS compared to controls when stroke subtype was considered. Importantly, no differences were observed between UA and AF. This has implications for the assessment of CA after stroke and reinforces the need to define a ‘gold standard' test for the investigation of CA.
Upper Crustal Structure and Earthquake Mechanism in the Xinfengjiang Water Reservoir, Guangdong, China

The Xinfengjiang Water Reservoir (XWR) in Guangdong, China, is one of the reservoirs that have triggered earthquakes of magnitudes greater than 6. Numerous earthquakes have occurred since the impoundment of the reservoir, making it one of the most active seismic zones in Guangdong. However, due to the lack of seismic stations, the detailed seismic structures and earthquake mechanisms within XWR have not been resolved, and the significance of XWR as a typical protracted earthquake location is not well judged. In this study, by collecting waveform data from both permanent and temporary stations from 2012 to 2015, we relocated 1,528 earthquakes and inverted both Vp and Vs structures from traveltimes of these earthquakes. Using waveform data, we also investigated focal mechanisms of earthquakes with magnitude greater than 1.5 in this region. Our results reveal fine crustal structure that has never been shown before and show complicated crust structure with several low‐velocity zones extending to 5–10 km depth under the major faults. Earthquake focal mechanisms show more dip‐slip faults than strike‐slip faults, and the two types of earthquakes are roughly divided by the reservoir boundary. The direction of principle stress of the earthquakes is northwest‐southeast, consistent with the direction of tectonic principal stress. Combining the above results, and investigation of historical earthquakes and water level change, we suggest that water loading cycle and diffusion play important role in XWR seismicity. They increase the pore pressure, make the earthquakes migrate to deeper depth, and change the type of earthquakes.