Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The β-Lactam Resistance Protein Blr, a Small Membrane Polypeptide, Is a Component of the Escherichia coli Cell Division Machinery

ABSTRACT In Escherichia coli, cell division is performed by a multimolecular machinery called the divisome, made of 10 essential proteins and more than 20 accessory proteins. Through a bacterial two-hybrid library screen, we identified the E. coli β-lactam resistance protein Blr, a short membrane polypeptide of 41 residues, as an interacting partner of the essential cell division protein FtsL. In addition to FtsL, Blr was found to associate with several other divisomal proteins, including FtsI, FtsK, FtsN, FtsQ, FtsW, and YmgF. Using fluorescently tagged Blr, we showed that this peptide localizes to the division septum and that its colocalization requires the presence of the late division protein FtsN. Although Blr is not essential, previous studies have shown that the inactivation of the blr gene increased the sensitivity of bacteria to β-lactam antibiotics or their resistance to cell envelope stress. Here, we found that Blr, when overproduced, restores the viability of E. coli ftsQ1(Ts) cells, carrying a thermosensitive allele of the ftsQ gene, during growth under low-osmotic-strength conditions (e.g., in synthetic media or in Luria-Bertani broth without NaCl). In contrast, the inactivation of blr increases the osmosensitivity of ftsQ1(Ts) cells, and blr ftsQ1 double mutants exhibit filamentous growth in LB broth even at a moderate salt concentration (0.5% NaCl) compared to parental ftsQ1(Ts) cells. Altogether, our results suggest that the small membrane polypeptide Blr is a novel component of the E. coli cell division apparatus involved in the stabilization of the divisome under certain stress conditions.
Formation of metal clusters in halloysite clay nanotubes

Abstract We developed ceramic core-shell materials based on abundant halloysite clay nanotubes with enhanced heavy metal ions loading through Schiff base binding. These clay tubes are formed by rolling alumosilicate sheets and have diameter of c.50 nm, a lumen of 15 nm and length ~1 μm. This allowed for synthesis of metal nanoparticles at the selected position: (1) on the outer surface seeding 3–5 nm metal particles on the tubes; (2) inside the tube’s central lumen resulting in 10–12 nm diameter metal cores shelled with ceramic wall; and (3) smaller metal nanoparticles intercalated in the tube’s wall allowing up to 9 wt% of Ru, and Ag loading. These composite materials have high surface area providing a good support for catalytic nanoparticles, and can also be used for sorption of metal ions from aqueous solutions.
Ambivalent Sexism and Attitudes Toward Wife Abuse in Turkey and Brazil

Men and women in Turkey and Brazil completed the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (Glick & Fiske, 1996) and measures of attitudes about wife abuse. In both nations hostile sexism (HS) and benevolent sexism (BS) positively correlated with attitudes that legitimize abuse. Regression analyses revealed that HS accounted for unique variance, but BS (once HS was controlled) was unrelated to wife abuse attitudes. These results: (a) add to the evidence for the cross-cultural validity of ambivalent sexism, (b) suggest that HS supports the justification of violence against wives, and (c) imply that the ostensible protectiveness of BS is contingent, failing to shield women from abuse if they are deemed to have challenged a husband's authority or violated conventional gender roles.
Interference in eyewitness and earwitness recognition

Face identification and voice identification were examined using a standard old/new recognition task in order to see whether seeing and hearing the target interfered with subsequent recognition. Participants studied either visual or audiovisual stimuli prior to a face recognition test, and studied either audio or audiovisual stimuli prior to a voice recognition test. Analysis of recognition performance revealed a greater ability to recognise faces than voices. More importantly, faces accompanying voices at study interfered with subsequent voice identification but voices accompanying faces at study did not interfere with subsequent face identification. These results are similar to those obtained in previous research using a lineup methodology, and are discussed with respect to the interference that can result when earwitnesses are also eyewitnesses.
Sparse Signal Recovery for ultrasonic detection and reconstruction of shadowed flaws

In this paper we propose a method to improve the detection of shadowed flaws in ultrasonic non-destructive testing (NDT). The B-scans are expressed in the context of Sparse Signal Recovery (SSR), where the shadowing effect is incorporated during the reconstruction: Whenever a new defect is found, its shadow on all other dictionary atoms is determined and the dictionary is updated accordingly. We develop models for determining the affected dictionary entries as well as for the intensity of the attenuation due to the shadow. Using Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (OMP), we demonstrate that the proposed method significantly improves the reconstruction amplitudes, i.e., the detection reliability, compared to conventional detection without incorporation of shadowing.
Reliability and Factor Structure of the Autism Spectrum Disorders-Behavior Problems for Adults (ASD-BPA) With Intellectual Disabilities and Autism

This study was designed to establish the initial psychometric properties of the first scale specifically developed for behavior problems of adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and intellectual disability (ID). The Autism Spectrum Disorders-Behavior Problems for Adults (ASD-BPA) consists of 20 items in which raters indicate if each item is a “problem” or “no problem. ” One hundred seventy-one adults with ASD and ID from two developmental centers participated. The majority of participants (88%) had profound ID. Inter-rater, test-retest, and internal consistency correlation coefficients were computed. Item and factor analyses were also examined and a four-factor model was chosen including Aggression/Destruction, Stereotypy, Self-Injurious Behavior, and Disruptive Behavior. Reliability was moderate to good, internal consistency was very good, and model fit was good. The ASD-BPA may prove to be a useful tool for future research in delineating aspects of problem behaviors in adults that are associated with ASD symptoms. In addition, this research may also distinguish behaviors associated with ASD versus cormorbid psychopathology and/or ID, thus providing implications for clinical practice.
The effects of indoor particles on blood pressure and heart rate among young adults in Taipei, Taiwan.

UNLABELLED This study aims to evaluate whether indoor particles are associated with elevated blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR). We recruited 40 young, healthy students from universities in Taipei. We made four home visits in which we took consecutive 48-h measurements of systolic BP, (SBP) diastolic BP (DBP), and HR in each participant. Particulate matter less than 10 microm in diameter (PM(10)), 2.5 microm in diameter (PM(2.5)), and nitrogen dioxide levels were measured at each participant's home. Participants were asked to keep their windows open during the first two visits, and keep their windows shut during the last two visits. We used linear mixed-effects models to associate BP and HR with indoor air pollutants averaged over 1- to 8-h periods prior to physiological measurements. We found indoor PM(10) and PM(2.5) exposures at 1- to 4-h means were associated with an elevation in SBP, DBP, and HR. Effects of indoor PM(10) and PM(2.5) on BP and HR were greatest during the visits with windows open. During windows-closed visits, participants showed no significant change in BP and HR with indoor PM(10) exposure. We concluded that exposures to infiltrated outdoor particles are associated with short-term increases in BP and HR in young and healthy students. Closing windows can reduce indoor PM concentrations and modify the effect of PM(10) on BP and HR in young adults. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS Particulate matter exposure, high blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR) have been reported to be associated with increased risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Exposure to indoor particles is found to be associated with Elevated BP and HR. Closing windows may reduce indoor particles concentrations and modify the effect of particles on BP and HR in young adults in heavily polluted cities.
Differences Between Treadmill Running and Treadmill Roller Skiing

This study compared the physiological responses of 12 top Nordic skiers to treadmill running (TR) and treadmill roller-ski skating (RS). The skiers underwent TR and RS on randomized, separate days to volitional exhaustion. Expired gas parameters and blood lactate measurements were taken during the stepwise protocols. Peak heart rates, &OV0312;O2′, VE′ and blood lactate were significantly lower during RS (p < 0.05), even though no difference in respiratory exchange quotient was evident. Submaximal &OV0312;O2 values were significantly lower at intensities above 84% peak heart rate, and blood lactate was significantly higher for a given submaximal &OV0312;O2 for RS. Mean lactate break-point heart rates did not differ between protocols. However, &OV0312;O2′, VE′, and blood lactate at lactate break point differed significantly between TR and RS. This indicates that peak physiological parameters for RS are different than for TR and that sport-specific testing is appropriate for determining training intensity zones.
Dendritic Spikes in Apical Dendrites of Neocortical Layer 2/3 Pyramidal Neurons

Layer 2/3 (L2/3) pyramidal neurons are the most abundant cells of the neocortex. Despite their key position in the cortical microcircuit, synaptic integration in dendrites of L2/3 neurons is far less understood than in L5 pyramidal cell dendrites, mainly because of the difficulties in obtaining electrical recordings from thin dendrites. Here we directly measured passive and active properties of the apical dendrites of L2/3 neurons in rat brain slices using dual dendritic–somatic patch-clamp recordings and calcium imaging. Unlike L5 cells, L2/3 dendrites displayed little sag in response to long current pulses, which suggests a low density of Ih in the dendrites and soma. This was also consistent with a slight increase in input resistance with distance from the soma. Brief current injections into the apical dendrite evoked relatively short (half-width 2–4 ms) dendritic spikes that were isolated from the soma for near-threshold currents at sites beyond the middle of the apical dendrite. Regenerative dendritic potentials and large concomitant calcium transients were also elicited by trains of somatic action potentials (APs) above a critical frequency (130 Hz), which was slightly higher than in L5 neurons. Initiation of dendritic spikes was facilitated by backpropagating somatic APs and could cause an additional AP at the soma. As in L5 neurons, we found that distal dendritic calcium transients are sensitive to a long-lasting block by GABAergic inhibition. We conclude that L2/3 pyramidal neurons can generate dendritic spikes, sharing with L5 pyramidal neurons fundamental properties of dendritic excitability and control by inhibition.
Low Demographic Variability in Wild Primate Populations: Fitness Impacts of Variation, Covariation, and Serial Correlation in Vital Rates

In a stochastic environment, long‐term fitness can be influenced by variation, covariation, and serial correlation in vital rates (survival and fertility). Yet no study of an animal population has parsed the contributions of these three aspects of variability to long‐term fitness. We do so using a unique database that includes complete life‐history information for wild‐living individuals of seven primate species that have been the subjects of long‐term (22–45 years) behavioral studies. Overall, the estimated levels of vital rate variation had only minor effects on long‐term fitness, and the effects of vital rate covariation and serial correlation were even weaker. To explore why, we compared estimated variances of adult survival in primates with values for other vertebrates in the literature and found that adult survival is significantly less variable in primates than it is in the other vertebrates. Finally, we tested the prediction that adult survival, because it more strongly influences fitness in a constant environment, will be less variable than newborn survival, and we found only mixed support for the prediction. Our results suggest that wild primates may be buffered against detrimental fitness effects of environmental stochasticity by their highly developed cognitive abilities, social networks, and broad, flexible diets.
International Organizations and Government Transparency: Linking the International and Domestic Realms

In recent years there has been an increased interest in political science in the concept of “transparency. ” The literature has emphasized the effects that government transparency can have, especially on democratic consolidation. Yet there has been very little research focusing on the causes of transparency. This study discusses some of the possible factors affecting government transparency and offers several aggregate tests of their relevance. It emphasizes the mechanisms through which governments adopt institutions supporting transparency in order to signal to their societies and to external actors that the information they offer is indeed credible. It argues that such signals are more likely to be offered as the public receives increasing amounts of alternative information from international organizations. The discussion thus links processes taking place at the international level with those in the domestic realm.
Articulating the Relationship Between Language, Literature, and Culture: Toward a New Agenda for Foreign Language Teaching and Research

Today, university teachers of foreign language (FL) in the U.S. face a pedagogical environment in which two camps have developed, one basing its emphasis on communicative competence, the other on the importance of exposure to culture and, especially, literature. The reliance of the former on data from empirical studies often conflicts with the feelings of the latter that nonquantitative, intuitional aspects of language learning are essential to language acquisition. However, much research into the role of culture and literature in language learning remains to be done so that these feelings may be articulated and applied systematically to the development of materials, syllabi, and curricula. Areas in which such articulation might take place include: (a) the extent to which language itself is laden with affect that may be catalyzed as an inducement to learning; (b) the extent to which the affective element is embedded in the nature of symbolic expression—and thus metaphor, myth, and literature; (c) the specific ways in which language and literature may encode culture and have an affective impact on learners in the classroom. Research already exists that lends itself to a close examination of these areas. By taking advantage of that research, FL teaching in the U.S. could establish the importance of literature and culture in the language classroom in ways that would solidify its role in an environment fraught with transformation and change.
LPV model order selection in an LS-SVM setting

In parametric identification of Linear Parameter-Varying (LPV) systems, the scheduling dependencies of the model coefficients are commonly parameterized in terms of linear combinations of a-priori selected basis functions. Such functions need to be adequately chosen, e.g., on the basis of some first-principles or expert's knowledge of the system, in order to capture the unknown dependencies of the model coefficient functions on the scheduling variable and, at the same time, to achieve a low-variance of the model estimate by limiting the number of parameters to be identified. This problem together with the well-known model order selection problem (in terms of number of input lags, output lags and input delay of the model structure) in system identification can be interpreted as a trade-off between bias and variance of the resulting model estimate. The problem of basis function selection can be avoided by using a non-parametric estimator of the coefficient functions in terms of a recently proposed Least-Square Support-Vector-Machine (LS-SVM) approach. However, the selection of the model order still appears to be an open problem in the identification of LPV systems via the LS-SVM method. In this paper, we propose a novel reformulation of the LPV LS-SVM approach, which, besides of the non-parametric estimation of the coefficient functions, achieves data-driven model order selection via convex optimization. The properties of the introduced approach are illustrated via a simulation example.
Flex-grid/SDM backbone network design with inter-core XT-limited transmission reach

Spatial division multiplexing (SDM) has been presented as a key solution to circumvent the nonlinear Shannon limit of standard single-core fibers. To implement SDM, multi-core fiber (MCF) technology becomes a top candidate that is leveraged by the very low inter-core crosstalk (XT) measurements obtained in real laboratory MCF prototypes with up to 22 cores. In this work, we concentrate on the design of MCF-enabled optical transport networks. To this goal, we present a methodology to estimate the worst-case transmission reach of the optical signals (at different bit rates and modulation formats) across MCFs given real laboratory XT measurements. Next, we present an optimal integer linear programming (ILP) formulation for the design of a flex-grid/SDM optical transport network that makes use of the transmission reach estimations. Additionally, an effective simulated annealing (SA)-based heuristic able to solve large problem instances with reasonable execution times is presented. Once the proposed heuristic is adequately tuned and validated, we use it to compare the resource utilization in MCF-enabled network scenarios against currently available multi-fiber link solutions. Numerical results reveal very close performances with up to 19 cores/fibers in national backbone network scenarios and up to 12 cores/fibers in long-haul continental ones.
Embeddedness, context, proximity and control

In this paper, we discuss the notion of embeddedness in relation to knowledge and knowledge processes. We distinguish embeddedness in terms of institutional contexts, in terms of clusters and networks, and in terms of spatial proximity. An overview of empirical cases of knowledge processes leads to the conclusion that spatial proximity is not inherently important to these processes. Spatial concentration of knowledge processes may nevertheless occur for other reasons.
Genetic Maternity and Paternity in a Local Population of Armadillos Assessed by Microsatellite DNA Markers and Field Data

Genetic data from polymorphic microsatellite loci were employed to estimate paternity and maternity in a local population of nine‐banded armadillos (IDasypus novemcinctus) in northern Florida. The parentage assessments took advantage of maximum likelihood procedures developed expressly for situations when individuals of neither gender can be excluded a priori as candidate parents. The molecular data for 290 individuals, interpreted alone and in conjunction with detailed biological and spatial information for the population, demonstrate high exclusion probabilities and reasonably strong likelihoods of genetic parentage assignment in many cases; low mean probabilities of successful reproductive contribution to the local population by individual armadillo adults in a given year; and statistically significant microspatial associations of parents and their offspring. Results suggest that molecular assays of highly polymorphic genetic systems can add considerable power to assessments of biological parentage in natural populations even when neither parent is otherwise known.
Export of major cell surface proteins is blocked in yeast secretory mutants

The transport of newly synthesized proteins to the yeast cell surface has been analyzed by a modification of the technique developed by Kaplan et al. (Kaplan, G., C. Unkeless, and Z.A. Cohn, 1979, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 76:3824-3828). Cells metabolically labeled with (35)SO(4)(2-) are treated with trinitrobenzenesulfonic acid (TNBS) at 0 degrees C under conditions where cell-surface proteins are tagged with trinitrophenol (TNP) but cytoplasmic proteins are not. After fractionation of cells into cell wall, membrane and cytoplasmic samples, and solubilization with SDS, the tagged proteins are immunoprecipitated with anti-TNP antibody and fixed staphylococcus aureus cells. Analysis of the precipitates by SDS gel electrophoresis and fluorography reveals four major protein species in the cell wall (S(1)-S(4)), seven species in the membrane fraction (M(1)-M(7)), and no tagged proteins in the cytoplasmic fraction. Temperature-sensitive mutants defective in secretion of invertase and acid phosphatase (sec mutants; Novick, P., C. Field, and R. Schekman, 1980, Cell, 21:204-215) are also defective in transport of the 11 major cell surface proteins at the nonpermissive temperature (37 degrees C). Export of accumulated proteins is restored in an energy- dependent fashion when secl cells are returned to a permissive temperature (24 degrees C). In wild-type cells the transit time for different surface proteins varies from less than 8 min to about 30 min. The asynchrony is developed at an early stage in the secretory pathway. All of the major cell wall proteins and many of the externally exposed plasma membrane proteins bind to concanavalin A. Inhibition of asparagine-linked glycosylation with tunicamycin does not prevent transport of several surface proteins.
A Global Solution to Local Urban Crises?Comparing Discourses on Business Improvement Districts in Cape Town and Hamburg

Abstract This paper presents findings from research on the globalization of Business Improvement Districts (BIDs). Across a wide range of urban contexts, Business Improvement Districts are presented as prime strategies for resolving what is framed as an urban crisis and a crisis of urban public space. Building on a discourse analytical approach and on recent debates on mobile policies, I argue for a place sensitive approach that starts from the local and takes local trajectories seriously, but at the same time engages in comparative research. The case studies from Hamburg and Cape Town focus on public discourses in the early years of the implementation of BIDs in the respective contexts. After presenting brief descriptions of these discourses and the rationalization within different urban and national contexts, I highlight the links the discourses on BIDs establish, with notions of international best practices and international showcases; the way BIDs reframe notions of public space; and the way BIDs are constituted as the legitimate voice of the local common good. [Key words: comparative urbanism, discourse analysis, business improvement districts, urban policy mobilities].