Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Conformational transitions regulate the exposure of a DNA-binding domain in the RuvBL1–RuvBL2 complex

RuvBL1 and RuvBL2, also known as Pontin and Reptin, are AAA+ proteins essential in small nucleolar ribonucloprotein biogenesis, chromatin remodelling, nonsense-mediated messenger RNA decay and telomerase assembly, among other functions. They are homologous to prokaryotic RuvB, forming single- and double-hexameric rings; however, a DNA binding domain II (DII) is inserted within the AAA+ core. Despite their biological significance, questions remain regarding their structure. Here, we report cryo-electron microscopy structures of human double-ring RuvBL1–RuvBL2 complexes at ∼15 Å resolution. Significantly, we resolve two coexisting conformations, compact and stretched, by image classification techniques. Movements in DII domains drive these conformational transitions, extending the complex and regulating the exposure of DNA binding regions. DII domains connect with the AAA+ core and bind nucleic acids, suggesting that these conformational changes could impact the regulation of RuvBL1–RuvBL2 containing complexes. These findings resolve some of the controversies in the structure of RuvBL1–RuvBL2 by revealing a mechanism that extends the complex by adjustments in DII.
Oxidized messenger RNA induces translation errors

To investigate the effect of RNA oxidation on normal cellular functions, we studied the translation of nonoxidized and oxidized luciferase mRNA in both rabbit reticulocyte lysate and human HEK293 cells. When HEK293 cells transfected with nonoxidized mRNA encoding the firefly luciferase protein were cultured in the presence of paraquat, there was a paraquat concentration-dependent increase in the formation of luciferase short polypeptides (SPs) concomitant with an increase in 8-oxoguanosine. Short polypeptides were also formed when the mRNA was oxidized in vitro by the Fe–ascorbate–H2O2 metal-catalyzed oxidation system before its transfection into cells. Translation of the in vitro oxidized mRNA in rabbit reticulocyte lysate also led to formation of SPs. The SPs formed by either procedure contained the N-terminal and the C-terminal portions of the tagged luciferase. In addition, the oxidized mRNA was able to associate with ribosomes to form polysomes similar to those formed with nonoxidized mRNA preparations, indicating that the oxidized mRNAs are mostly intact; however, their translation fidelity was significantly reduced. Nevertheless, our results indicate that the SPs were derived from both premature termination of the translation process of the oxidized mRNA and the proteolytic degradation of the modified full-length luciferase resulting from translation errors induced by oxidized mRNA. In light of these findings, the physiological consequences of mRNA oxidation are discussed.
A novel high CMRR low voltage current output stage

In this work a novel CMOS Current Output Stage (COS) is presented whose Common-Mode Rejection Ratio is remarkably increased exploiting a novel Common Mode Feed Forward (CMFF) technique to compensate the output common mode signal. The complete stage is designed in 0. 13µm technology and simulated with ADS and Hspice. The proposed COS achieved 105dB CMRR and 85dB PSRR while can work under ±1V power supply. Compared to the traditional COS the CMRR and PSRR improvement are higher than 50dB and 30dB respectively.
The Angle Orthodontist Re : Correlation between body mass index and orthodontic treatment outcome

I would like to congratulate the authors of the article entitled ‘‘Correlation between body mass index and orthodontic treatment outcome’’, J. von Bremen, J. Wagner and S. Ruf. It raises some interesting issues regarding the interrelationship between BMI, patient cooperation, and quality of life, and how these affect orthodontic treatment. I did have a couple of questions/ comments regarding this study:
Improving the efficiency of the prediction system for anaerobic wastewater treatment process using Genetic Algorithm

Wastewater treatment methods are dynamic and have high non-linear behaviour. The significance of the influent disturbances and the bioreactor performances are generally predicted off- line in a laboratory, since there is no consistent on-line sensor available for the prediction. This work suggests the development of a neural network model for prediction of the values of the influent disturbances using Z-score as a normalization technique followed by Genetic Algorithm (GA) as a feature selection process to improve the speed and quality of the prediction accuracy. A Back Propagation Network (BPN) trained using Modified Levenberg-Marquardt (MLM) algorithm was efficiently utilized to develop a BPN for an Up-flow Anaerobic filter (UAF) for predicting the chemical oxygen demand (COD) level in the effluent. In this paper, MLM algorithm has been applied to train the BPN based on the normalized influent parameters of the cheese-dairy wastewater treatment using UAF. COD is an essential test for evaluating the quality of wastewater in terms of organic pollution load prior to discharge. The predicted COD level of BPN based on all influent parameters is compared with the predicted COD level of BPN based on selected influent features by genetic algorithm. Experimental results shows that the MSE , regression and the MAE obtained in BPN-MLM when using z-score normalization and genetic algorithm for feature selection are found satisfactory as it predicted the effluent COD level more accurately.
Testing Psychometric Properties of the 30-Item General Health Questionnaire

This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-30) given conflicting findings in the literature. A cross-sectional, nonexperimental research was used with a convenience sample of 271 American female health care professionals. Data were collected by using self-reported questionnaires. A series of exploratory factor analyses (EFAs), confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs), and structural equation modeling (SEM) were performed to examine underlying dimensions of the GHQ-30.Results from EFAs and CFAs revealed the three-factor composition (positive affect, anxiety, and depressed mood). All factor loadings were statistically significant, and one pair of error variance was allowed to be correlated. All factors contained questionnaire items with acceptable face validity and demonstrated good internal consistency reliability. Results from SEM further confirmed underlying constructs of the scale. To our knowledge, this is the first study that extensively tested the psychometric properties of the GHQ-30, taking both statistical and substantive issues into consideration.
Channel mismatch compensation in multichannel sampling circuits with weighted integration

Sampling circuits (SCs) with internal antialiasing filtering radically improve sampling procedure enabling a significant increase in dynamic range, agility, and scale of integration of the analog and mixed signal portions (AMPs) of the equipment. Since these SCs are inherently multichannel, the channel mismatch mitigation is one of the most important problems of their development. There are three possible approaches to this problem. The first approach includes design and implementation measures reducing the mismatch: placing all the channels on the same die, simplifying weight functions, appropriate circuit design, etc. This approach should always be used, but it is not always sufficient. The second approach is based on preventing any overlap of the sampled signal and mismatch error spectra. This enables rejection of the error spectrum in the digital portion (DP) of the equipment. Although the opportunity to totally reject the mismatch error spectrum is very attractive, it requires increase in sampling frequency proportional to the number of channels. This limits the area of application for the second approach. The third approach is adaptive compensation of the SC channel mismatch in the DP. This approach is most universal and flexible. Estimation of the SC channel mismatch can be performed either during the operation mode using the input signal (blind estimation), or using a special calibration signal. This paper analyses adaptive compensation of the SC channel mismatch with blind estimation. Since this compensation is performed in the digital domain, it is as accurate as the mismatch estimation. If the input signal used for the channel mismatch estimation is a stationary stochastic process, the accuracy of the estimation is proportional to the estimation time for a given type of the input signal. The requirements for the accuracy of the mismatch estimation are determined by the resolution of the analog-to-digital converter (A/D) used in the equipment. In the paper, the time necessary for the channel mismatch estimation is determined as a function of the number n of A/D bits for several types of the input signals. It has been shown that the required estimation time is proportional to (2n - 1)2, for all possible probability distributions of the input signal. Thus, this time grows very fast when the number of A/D bits increases. As a result, blind channel mismatch compensation becomes problematic when the number of A/D bits exceeds 12. The required estimation time also depends on the probability distribution of the receiver input signal. Among signals used in practice, the shortest estimation time corresponds to the signals that can be approximated by the sinewave with random phase, and the longest estimation time corresponds to the signals with Gaussian distribution.
The aerolysin membrane channel is formed by heptamerization of the monomer.

The cytolytic toxin aerolysin has been found to form heptameric oligomers by SDS‐PAGE electrophoresis, STEM mass measurements of single oligomers and image analysis of two‐dimensional membrane crystals. Two types of crystal, flat sheets and long regular tubes, have been obtained by reconstitution of purified protein and Escherichia coli phospholipids. A noise‐filtered image of the best crystalline sheets reveals a structure with 7‐fold symmetry containing a central strongly stain‐excluding ring that encircles a dark stain‐filled channel 17 A in diameter. The ring is surrounded by seven arms each made up of two unequal sized domains. By combining projected views and side‐views, a simplified model of the aerolysin channel complex has been constructed. The relevance of this structure to the mode of action of aerolysin is discussed.
Towards IASI-New Generation (IASI-NG): impact of improved spectral resolution and radiometric noise on the retrieval of thermodynamic, chemistry and climate variables

Besides their strong contribution to weather forecast improvement through data assimilation, thermal infrared sounders onboard polar-orbiting platforms are now playing a key role for monitoring atmospheric composition changes. The Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) instrument developed by the French space agency (CNES) and launched by Eumetsat onboard the Metop satellite series is providing essential inputs for weather forecasting and pollution/climate monitoring owing to its smart combination of large horizontal swath, good spectral resolution and high radiometric performance. EUMETSAT is currently preparing the next polar-orbiting program (EPS-SG) with the Metop-SG satellite series that should be launched around 2020. In this framework, CNES is studying the concept of a new instrument, the IASI-New Generation (IASI-NG), characterized by an improvement of both spectral and radiometric characteristics as compared to IASI, with three objectives: (i) continuity of the IASI/Metop series; (ii) improvement of vertical resolution; (iii) improvement of the accuracy and detection threshold for atmospheric and surface components. In this paper, we show that an improvement of spectral resolution and radiometric noise fulfill these objectives by leading to (i) a better vertical coverage in the lower part of the troposphere, thanks to the increase in spectral resolution; (ii) an increase in the accuracy of the retrieval of several thermodynamic, climate and chemistry variables, thanks to the improved signal-to-noise ratio as well as less interferences between the signatures of the absorbing species in the measured radiances. The detection limit of several atmospheric species is also improved. We conclude that IASI-NG has the potential for strongly benefiting the numerical weather prediction, chemistry and climate communities now connected through the European GMES/Copernicus initiative.
Motivating the difficult to teach

The Effective Teacher's Series List. Editor's Preface. Authors' Preface. Acknowledgements. Abbreviations. PART 1: MAKING SENSE OF MOTIVATION 1. Motivating Children who are Difficult to Teach: Whose Problem? 2. Ways of Understanding Motivation 3. Teaching and Motivational Style PART 2: INFLUENCES ON MOTIVATION 4. Ability and Attainment, Race and Gender 5. Subject, School and Teacher Influences 6. Transfer from Primary to Secondary School and Changes in the Secondary School Years 7. Children's Perspectives on Motivation PART 3: INFLUENCING MOTIVATION 8. Influencing Motivation: Children, their Goals and their Schools 9. Influencing Motivational Style: School and Teacher Effectiveness 10. References
Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology Open Access Mitogen-activated Protein Kinases in Normal and (pre)neoplastic Ovarian Surface Epithelium

Mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) are a group of serine/threonine kinases which are activated in response to a diverse array of extracellular stimuli and mediate signal transduction from the cell surface to the nucleus. It has been demonstrated that MAPKs are activated by external stimuli including chemotherapeutic agents, growth factors and reproductive hormones in ovarian surface epithelial cells. Thus, the MAPK signaling pathway may play an important role in the regulation of proliferation, survival and apoptosis in response to these external stimuli in ovarian cancer. In this article, an activation of the MAPK signaling cascade by several key reproductive hormones and growth factors in epithelial ovarian cancer is reviewed.
Estimating the Effect of Sexism on Perceptions of Property, White-Collar, and Violent Crimes

Prior research on the role of gender in perceptions of crime and sentencing has focused primarily on judicial outcomes (i.e., empirical differences in male/female sentencing), and some theorists have proposed the chivalry thesis to explain differential outcomes for male and female offenders. Although a prominent theory, the empirical validity of the chivalry thesis has been under scrutiny for decades. In light of this, I argue that gender differences in sentencing can be understood through examination of sexist attitudes and beliefs, and how these sexist attitudes and beliefs interact with characteristics of the offense and the offender to influence perceptions of crime and appropriate sentencing. To test this assertion, 671 respondents were assessed according to their sexist attitudes along both the benevolent and hostile dimensions of sexism, as well as to their perceptions of a series of violent, white collar, and property crime vignettes. Sexism scores were hypothesized not only to share significant associations with respondent's perceptions of crime, but also to interact with the type of crime committed and the gender of the offender to influence respondent's perceptions of the crimes in the vignettes. Results based on ordered logistic regressions suggest that both benevolent and hostile sexist attitudes interact with the type of crime committed and the gender of the offender to influence perceptions of crime seriousness, and sentence severity. Furthermore, when controlling for type of crime and sexist attitudes, female offenders tended to be given harsher ratings than men for violent and property crimes. When controlling for crime type and the gender of the offender, respondents with higher benevolent sexism scores perceived violent and property crimes to be more serious and thought sentencing should be more severe than either non-sexists, or respondents with higher hostile sexism scores. Finally, hostile sexists gave the harshest ratings for white-collar crime vignettes. Implications for existing theories and future studies are discussed.
Accounts of Single Fatherhood

ABSTRACT Relying on single fathers' accounts, this study examined the experience of single fatherhood and the communication practices between single fathers and their child. Single fathers also answered closed-ended questions. Results offer insight into the challenges and joys that single fathers experience. Single fathers clearly disclosed love for their child and a valuation of their relationship with their child, and expressed exasperation and dissatisfaction with the court system and negative perceptions of single fathers by society. More detailed information and discussion follow
Piecewise Rigid Scene Flow

Estimating dense 3D scene flow from stereo sequences remains a challenging task, despite much progress in both classical disparity and 2D optical flow estimation. To overcome the limitations of existing techniques, we introduce a novel model that represents the dynamic 3D scene by a collection of planar, rigidly moving, local segments. Scene flow estimation then amounts to jointly estimating the pixel-to-segment assignment, and the 3D position, normal vector, and rigid motion parameters of a plane for each segment. The proposed energy combines an occlusion-sensitive data term with appropriate shape, motion, and segmentation regularizers. Optimization proceeds in two stages: Starting from an initial super pixelization, we estimate the shape and motion parameters of all segments by assigning a proposal from a set of moving planes. Then the pixel-to-segment assignment is updated, while holding the shape and motion parameters of the moving planes fixed. We demonstrate the benefits of our model on different real-world image sets, including the challenging KITTI benchmark. We achieve leading performance levels, exceeding competing 3D scene flow methods, and even yielding better 2D motion estimates than all tested dedicated optical flow techniques.
Aerie: flexible file-system interfaces to storage-class memory

Storage-class memory technologies such as phase-change memory and memristors present a radically different interface to storage than existing block devices. As a result, they provide a unique opportunity to re-examine storage architectures. We find that the existing kernel-based stack of components, well suited for disks, unnecessarily limits the design and implementation of file systems for this new technology. We present Aerie, a flexible file-system architecture that exposes storage-class memory to user-mode programs so they can access files without kernel interaction. Aerie can implement a generic POSIX-like file system with performance similar to or better than a kernel implementation. The main benefit of Aerie, though, comes from enabling applications to optimize the file system interface. We demonstrate a specialized file system that reduces a hierarchical file system abstraction to a key/value store with fewer consistency guarantees but 20-109% higher performance than a kernel file system.
Defects Generation in SIO2/HFO2 Studied with Variable TCHARGE-TDIScharge Charge Pumping (VT2CP)

A variable t<sub>CHARGE</sub>-t<sub>DISCHARGE</sub> charge pumping (VT<sup>2</sup>CP) is used to investigate the creation of traps in the SiO<sub>2</sub> and HfO<sub>2</sub> separately in an ALD SiO<sub>2</sub>/HfO<sub>2</sub> metal gate stack. It is shown that by independently controlling the pulse low timing "discharging time" and high level timing "charging time", we are able to separate the traps in the interfacial SiO<sub>2</sub> from the traps in the HfO<sub>2</sub> and observe the creation of new traps in both constituent layers. During degradation the increase of traps, both in the SiO<sub>2</sub> as well as in the HfO<sub>2</sub>, follows a power law behavior as a function of time with an exponent ~0.32 and ~0.34 respectively independent of stress voltage. The voltage acceleration of creation of HfO<sub>2</sub> traps (-30) found using VT<sup>2</sup>CP is nearly identical of the TDDB (-27) confirming the earlier published model that TDDB occurs when the density of traps in the HfO<sub>2</sub> reaches a critical value. VT<sup>2</sup>CP can accurately detect degradation down to a much lower voltage than the dielectric breakdown measurement range and only one stress experiment combined with VT<sup>2</sup>CP is sufficient to determine the degradation at a given voltage, while a TDDB test requires many measurements in order to construct an accurate distribution of failure times.
Processes Through Which Adolescents Believe Romantic Relationships Influence Friendship Quality

ABSTRACT Little is known about how romantic relationships influence adolescents’ friendships. The purpose of this exploratory study was to identify behaviors through which adolescents believe romantic relationships influence friendship quality. Intimate exchange, co-rumination, encouragement, and conflict resolution were identified as processes through which romantic relationships influence friendship quality. Associations between these variables and friendship quality were investigated with 340 adolescents. Adolescents believed these processes occurred frequently within friendship. Gender differences suggest girls may be more sensitive to the influence of romantic partners on their friendships than are boys. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that greater intimacy, encouragement, compromise, and less co-rumination were associated with more positive beliefs about friendship quality when one friend has a girlfriend or boyfriend. Greater co-rumination and less encouragement were predictive of negative friendship quality. Thus, these processes may represent avenues through which romantic relationships positively and negatively influence friendship quality. Findings highlight the need to understand friendships as part of a complex social network that includes romantic ties.
Quinary structure modulates protein stability in cells

Significance Globular proteins perform many of the chemical reactions required for life. The prevailing model of globular protein structure, which is based on studies in dilute solutions, emphasizes the requirement for a well-packed hydrophobic interior, but minimizes the importance of the exterior, provided it is hydrophilic. We demonstrate that the exterior plays a significant role when a globular protein is studied under physiologically relevant conditions. By changing a surface residue we show that attractive interactions between the protein surface and the cytosol modulate the stability of the protein, even though the change has a negligible effect in dilute solution. Recognizing and quantifying such intracellular interactions will aid in understanding and manipulating the biological role of proteins. Protein quinary interactions organize the cellular interior and its metabolism. Although the interactions stabilizing secondary, tertiary, and quaternary protein structure are well defined, details about the protein–matrix contacts that comprise quinary structure remain elusive. This gap exists because proteins function in the crowded cellular environment, but are traditionally studied in simple buffered solutions. We use NMR-detected H/D exchange to quantify quinary interactions between the B1 domain of protein G and the cytosol of Escherichia coli. We demonstrate that a surface mutation in this protein is 10-fold more destabilizing in cells than in buffer, a surprising result that firmly establishes the significance of quinary interactions. Remarkably, the energy involved in these interactions can be as large as the energies that stabilize specific protein complexes. These results will drive the critical task of implementing quinary structure into models for understanding the proteome.