Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Aspergillus nidulans Proline Permease as a Model for Understanding the Factors Determining Substrate Binding and Specificity of Fungal Amino Acid Transporters*

Background: PrnB, different from Put4p, its Saccharomyces cerevisiae orthologue, is a highly specific l-proline transporter of Aspergillus nidulans. Results: Identification of 12 residues important for PrnB activity and/or specificity. Put4p-mimicking mutants of PrnB recognize other Put4p substrates. Conclusion: Residues variable in the yeast amino acid transporter (YAT) family determine transporter specificity. Significance: Understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying amino acid recognition and translocation through YATs. Amino acid uptake in fungi is mediated by general and specialized members of the yeast amino acid transporter (YAT) family, a branch of the amino acid polyamine organocation (APC) transporter superfamily. PrnB, a highly specific l-proline transporter, only weakly recognizes other Put4p substrates, its Saccharomyces cerevisiae orthologue. Taking advantage of the high sequence similarity between the two transporters, we combined molecular modeling, induced fit docking, genetic, and biochemical approaches to investigate the molecular basis of this difference and identify residues governing substrate binding and specificity. We demonstrate that l-proline is recognized by PrnB via interactions with residues within TMS1 (Gly56, Thr57), TMS3 (Glu138), and TMS6 (Phe248), which are evolutionary conserved in YATs, whereas specificity is achieved by subtle amino acid substitutions in variable residues. Put4p-mimicking substitutions in TMS3 (S130C), TMS6 (F252L, S253G), TMS8 (W351F), and TMS10 (T414S) broadened the specificity of PrnB, enabling it to recognize more efficiently l-alanine, l-azetidine-2-carboxylic acid, and glycine without significantly affecting the apparent Km for l-proline. S253G and W351F could transport l-alanine, whereas T414S, despite displaying reduced proline uptake, could transport l-alanine and glycine, a phenotype suppressed by the S130C mutation. A combination of all five Put4p-ressembling substitutions resulted in a functional allele that could also transport l-alanine and glycine, displaying a specificity profile impressively similar to that of Put4p. Our results support a model where residues in these positions determine specificity by interacting with the substrates, acting as gating elements, altering the flexibility of the substrate binding core, or affecting conformational changes of the transport cycle.
A Versatile Clustering Method for Electricity Consumption Pattern Analysis in Households

Analysis and modeling of electric energy demand is indispensable for power planning, operation, facility investment, and urban planning. Because of recent development of renewable energy generation systems oriented for households, there is also a great demand for analysing the electricity usage and optimizing the way to install electricity generation systems for each household. In this study, employing statistical techniques, a method to model daily consumption patterns in households and a method to extract a small number of their typical patterns are presented. The electricity consumption patterns in a household is modeled by a mixture of Gaussian distributions. Then, using the symmetrized generalized Kullback-Leibler divergence as a distance measure of the distributions, typical patterns of the consumption are extracted by means of hierarchical clustering. The statistical modeling of daily consumption patterns allows us to capture essential similarities of the patterns. By experiments using a large-scale dataset including about 500 houses' consumption records in a suburban area in Japan, it is shown that the proposed method is able to extract typical consumption patterns.
Hierarchical rank-based veiling light estimation for underwater dehazing

Current dehazing approaches are often hindered when scenes contain bright objects which can cause veiling light and transmission estimation methods to fail. This paper introduces a single image dehazing approach for underwater images with novel veiling light and transmission estimation steps which deal with issues arising from bright objects. We use features to hierarchically rank regions of an image and to select the most likely veiling light candidate. A region-based approach is used to find optimal transmission values for areas that suffer from oversaturation. We also locate background regions through superpixel segmentation and clustering, and adapt the transmission values in these regions so to avoid artefacts. We validate the performance of our approach in comparison to the state of the art in underwater dehazing through subjective evaluation and with commonly used quantitative measures.
Design of Rate-Compatible Serially Concatenated Convolutional Codes

Recently a powerful class of rate-compatible serially concatenated convolutional codes (SCCCs) have been proposed based on minimizing analytical upper bounds on the error probability in the error ﬂoor region. Here this class of codes is further investigated by combining analytical upper bounds with extrinsic information transfer charts analysis. Following this approach, we construct a family of rate-compatible SCCCs with good performance in both the error ﬂoor and the waterfall regions over a broad range of code rates.
Effect of fertilizer phosphorus placement depth on winter wheat yield

Field studies were conducted with winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L. 'Centurk 78') at nine locations in southwestern, central, and eastern Nebraska in 1982 and 1983 to determine the effect of phosphorus (P) placement depth (0, 5, 10, and 15 cm). As a comparison to these depths, seed placed P, soil surface placed P, and no P treatments were used. A rate of 11 kg P ha was applied. Soil great groups were either Argiustolls or Argiudos with surface soil Bray and Kurtz no. 1 P levels ranging from 4 to 9 mg kg and pH values ranging from 5.5 to 7.5. Grain yield was increased by added P in both years though magnitude of response varied at different locations. A linear and quadratic response to depth was evident in both years, though variation occurred between locations. Optium depths of P placement for maximum grain yield occurred at 11.9 cm in 1982 and 10.4 cm in 1983. No differences between either the best depth (10 cm) and seed treatments or the surface and seed treatments were found, indicating that, depending on management situations, these methods of P application could be used interchangeably. Total P uptake was increased by P applications in a manner similar to grain yield. Phosphorus uptake of the seed treatment and the best depth treatment at several growth stages (Feekes' stages 2.0, 6.0, 10.0, 10.5, and 11.4) was compared. An early advantage (stage 2.0) of the seed treatment was not evident at harvest, indicating that early P uptake is not necessary for maximum yield. The number of heads and seed weight were both increased due to applied P in both years and seed weight responded linearly to depth in 1982. No effect on the seed number per head was found. Additional Index Words: Triticum aestivum L. , yield components, P uptake, growth stages, banding, knifed-in P. View complete article To view this complete article, insert Disc 4 then click button8
The Characteristics and Limits of Rapid Visual Categorization

Visual categorization appears both effortless and virtually instantaneous. The study by Thorpe et al. (1996) was the first to estimate the processing time necessary to perform fast visual categorization of animals in briefly flashed (20 ms) natural photographs. They observed a large differential EEG activity between target and distracter correct trials that developed from 150 ms after stimulus onset, a value that was later shown to be even shorter in monkeys! With such strong processing time constraints, it was difficult to escape the conclusion that rapid visual categorization was relying on massively parallel, essentially feed-forward processing of visual information. Since 1996, we have conducted a large number of studies to determine the characteristics and limits of fast visual categorization. The present chapter will review some of the main results obtained. I will argue that rapid object categorizations in natural scenes can be done without focused attention and are most likely based on coarse and unconscious visual representations activated with the first available (magnocellular) visual information. Fast visual processing proved efficient for the categorization of large superordinate object or scene categories, but shows its limits when more detailed basic representations are required. The representations for basic objects (dogs, cars) or scenes (mountain or sea landscapes) need additional processing time to be activated. This finding is at odds with the widely accepted idea that such basic representations are at the entry level of the system. Interestingly, focused attention is still not required to perform these time consuming basic categorizations. Finally we will show that object and context processing can interact very early in an ascending wave of visual information processing. We will discuss how such data could result from our experience with a highly structured and predictable surrounding world that shaped neuronal visual selectivity.
How (not) to draw philosophical implications from the cognitive nature of concepts: the case of intentionality

Philosophers have often appealed to intuitive judgments in various thought experiments to support or reject particular theses. Experimental philosophy is an emerging discipline that examines the cognitive nature of such intuitive judgments. In this paper, we assess the methodological and epistemological status of experimental philosophy. We focus on the Knobe effect, in which our intuitive judgment of the intentionality of an action seems to depend on the perceived moral status of that action. The debate on the philosophical implications of the Knobe effect has been framed in terms of the distinction between the competence and performance of the concept of intentionality. Some scholars seem to suggest that the Knobe effect reflects the competence (or otherwise, the performance error) of the concept of intentionality. However, we argue that these notions are purely functional and thus do not have philosophical implications, without assuming normativism, which we see as problematic in a psychological methodology. Finally, focusing on the gap between competence and rationality, we suggest future directions for experimental philosophy.
Managing Aggression Using Cognitive-Behavioral Interventions: State of the Practice and Future Directions

Education professionals consistently rank disruptive/aggressive student behavior as persistent and troubling, reporting various types of maladaptive behaviors ranging from talking out in class to assault. Researchers suggest that childhood aggression accounts for a high proportion of the referrals to special education for emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). Teachers who work with students with EBD have traditionally relied on externally applied behavioral techniques to manage aggressive behavior, but researchers more recently have studied interventions that use traditional behavioral principles of behavior change along with cognitive components to increase student self-regulation, prevent or ameliorate aggressive behavior patterns, and increase constructive social interactions and long-term behavioral change. With this in mind, we examine aggression from a contextual social cognitive perspective, describe the cognitive-behavioral approach to intervention, provide examples of cognitive-behavioral programs aimed at reducing aggression and teaching appropriate replacement behaviors, and conclude with comments about the future direction of cognitive-behavioral interventions in classrooms for students with EBD
Construction of a chimeric lysin Ply187N-V12C with extended lytic activity against staphylococci and streptococci

Developing chimeric lysins with a wide lytic spectrum would be important for treating some infections caused by multiple pathogenic bacteria. In the present work, a novel chimeric lysin (Ply187N‐V12C) was constructed by fusing the catalytic domain (Ply187N) of the bacteriophage lysin Ply187 with the cell binding domain (146‐314aa, V12C) of the lysin PlyV12. The results showed that the chimeric lysin Ply187N‐V12C had not only lytic activity similar to Ply187N against staphylococcal strains but also extended its lytic activity to streptococci and enterococci, such as Streptococcus dysgalactiae, Streptococcus agalactiae, Streptococcus pyogenes, Enterococcus faecium and Enterococcus faecalis, which Ply187N could not lyse. Our work demonstrated that generating novel chimeric lysins with an extended lytic spectrum was feasible through fusing a catalytic domain with a cell‐binding domain from lysins with lytic spectra across multiple genera.
Scenario building for E-Government in 2020: Consolidating the results from regional workshops

E-government research is currently at a stage of consolidation and new orientation. Smaller steps of government modernization have in part been successfully implemented; larger ones still lie ahead of us. Within an EC funded project, a roadmap for e-government is being defined. Thereby, scenario building about the future is being used to grasp pictures of the future. From these future scenarios, research actions shall be derived. In this paper we present the results of the scenario building workshops in four regions for e-government in the year 2020. In total 15 scenarios were developed shaping aspects of different dimensions of alternative futures. A wide range of topics were addressed, varying from interoperability, division of power, corruption, cyber war to changing democratic systems, religious activities, participations and the role of individualisms in society. Next steps are to assess the scenario results in respect to the current EC agenda and to derive from there actions of research in order to ensure that desired futures will come true and that unwanted futures are being avoided
Are There Injury-Prone Children? A Critical Review of the Literature

Objectives: To review the evidence of general injury and pedestrian injury studies to determine if there are child behavioural, emotional, developmental, or physical characteristics that put children at higher risk for injury and, if there are such proneness risk factors, to determine their importance relative to other risk factors. Methods: This paper critically assesses 11 general child injury studies and 6 child pedestrian injury studies that have examined variables of child proneness. Information on study design, source of data, magnitude and significance of the risk factors identified, and study limitations are presented in separate sections. Results: A critical review of the literature suggests that aggression is a consistent risk factor for general injuries but not for pedestrian injuries, hyperactivity is inconsistently associated with all types of injuries, and both a general measure of behaviour problems and a measure of unsafe behaviour were found to be significantly related to pedestrian injuries. A look at the pedestrian injury literature suggests that child risk factors make a consistent but minor contribution to injuries in comparison with environmental and social risk factors. Conclusions: We need to address the environmental and social risk factors by educating parents about the roles of home stressors, poor supervision, and high-risk exposure in child injuries and by adding our voice to the efforts to bring into effect engineering and legislative interventions.
Cache-Enabled Heterogeneous Cellular Networks: Optimal Tier-Level Content Placement

Caching popular contents at <italic>base stations</italic> (BSs) of a <italic>heterogeneous cellular network</italic> (HCN) avoids frequent information passage from content providers to the network edge, thereby reducing latency and alleviating traffic congestion in backhaul links. The potential of caching at the network edge for tackling 5G challenges has motivated recent studies on optimal content placement in large-scale HCNs. However, due to the complexity of the network performance analysis, the existing strategies were mostly based on approximation, heuristics, and intuition. In general, optimal strategies for content placement in HCNs remain largely unknown and deriving them forms the theme of this paper. To this end, we adopt the popular random HCN model, where <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$K$ </tex-math></inline-formula> tiers of BSs are modeled as independent <italic>Poisson point processes</italic> distributed in the plane with different densities. Furthermore, the <italic>random caching</italic> scheme is considered, where each of a given set of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$M$ </tex-math></inline-formula> files with corresponding popularity measures is placed at each BS of a particular tier with a corresponding probability, called <italic>placement probability</italic>. The probabilities are identical for all BSs in the same tier but vary over tiers, giving the name <italic>tier-level content placement</italic>. We consider the network performance metric, <italic>hit probability</italic>, defined as the probability that a file requested by the typical user is delivered successfully to the user. Leveraging existing results on HCN performance, we maximize the hit probability over content placement probabilities, which yields the optimal tier-level placement policies. For the case of uniform received signal-to-interference (SIR) thresholds for successful transmissions for BSs in different tiers, the policy is in closed-form, where the placement probability for a particular file is proportional to the <italic>square-root of the corresponding popularity measure</italic> with an offset depending on BS caching capacities. For the general case of non-uniform SIR thresholds, the optimization problem is non-convex and a sub-optimal placement policy is designed by approximation, which has a similar structure as in the case of uniform SIR thresholds and shown by simulation to be close-to-optimal.
VALVULAR AND STRUCTURAL HEART DISEASES Original Studies Left Atrial Appendage Closure With Amplatzer Cardiac Plug in Atrial Fibrillation: Initial European Experience

Background: In most patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) and stroke, there is thrombotic embolization from the left atrial appendage (LAA). Percutaneous closure of the LAA is a novel alternative for the treatment of patients with AF at a high risk of stroke, in whom long-term anticoagulation therapy is not possible or not desired. This study details the initial experience with the Amplatzer Cardiac Plug (ACP) in humans. Methods: Investigator-initiated retrospective preregistry data collection to evaluate procedural feasibility and safety up to 24 hr after implantation of the ACP, a nitinol device designed for percutaneous trans-septal implantation in LAA of patients with paroxysmal, permanent, or persistent AF. Results: In 137 of 143 patients, LAA occlusion was attempted, and successfully performed in 132 (96%). There were serious complications in 10 (7.0%) patients (three patients with ischemic stroke; two patients experienced device embolization, both percutaneously recaptured; and five patients with clinically significant pericardial effusions). Minor complications were insignificant pericardial effusions in four, transient myocardial ischemia in two, and loss of the implant in the venous system in one patient. Conclusion: The implantation of the ACP device is a feasible method for percutaneous occlusion of the LAA. VC 2011 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Pulse Phase-Resolved Analysis of the High-Mass X-Ray Binary Centaurus X-3 over Two Binary Orbits

We present a detailed analysis of observations of the high-mass X-ray binary Cen X-3, spanning two consecutive binary orbits performed with the RXTE satellite in early March 1997. During this time Cen X-3 had a luminosity of L2 − 10 keV ∼ (4–5) × 1037 ergs s−1 and a pulse period of 4.814 s. The PCA and HEXTE light curves both show a clear reduction in count rate after midorbit for both binary revolutions. We therefore analyze two broadband spectra for each orbit, before and after midorbit. Consistent with earlier observations, these four joint PCA and HEXTE spectra can be well described using a phenomenological pulsar continuum model, including an iron emission line and a cyclotron resonance-scattering feature. While no strong spectral variations were detected, the second half of orbit 2 shows a tendency toward being softer and more strongly absorbed. In order to follow the orbital phase-dependent evolution of the spectrum in greater detail, we model spectra for shorter exposures, confirming that most spectral parameters show either a gradual or sudden change for the second half of the second orbit. A comparison with a simple wind model indicates the existence of an accretion wake in this system. We also present and discuss high-resolution pulse profiles for several different energy bands, as well as their hardness ratios. PCA and HEXTE spectra were created for 24 phase bins and fitted using the same model as in the phase-averaged case. Systematic pulse phase-dependent variations of several continuum and cyclotron line parameters were detected, most notably a significant increase of the cyclotron line energy during the early rise of the main peak, followed by a gradual decrease. We show that applying a simple dipole model for the magnetic field is not sufficient to describe our data.
EFFECT OF LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT ON EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE IN PAKISTAN

The study was aimed to examine the effect of leadership development on employee performance in Pakistan. This study was conducted considering five factors of leadership development, Le. coaching, training and development, empowerment, participation and delegation and it was found that the combined effect of these factors influences employee performance with 50%. However, rest of the 50% contribution towards employee performance other than leadership development factors can be the result of other factors such as: attitude, commitment, motivational factors, and trust in the organization, and other factors such as compensation, reward and bonuses etc. can also increase the employee performance. The five variables collectively as leadership development factors prove a synergic effect and increase the overall employee performance. The policy alternative should be that organizations must be cleared about the learning requirement of the employees. Therefore, both managers and employees must collaborate effectively and communicate the requisite for performance.
The Upper Bound on Knots in Neural Networks

Neural networks with rectified linear unit activations are essentially multivariate linear splines. As such, one of many ways to measure the "complexity" or "expressivity" of a neural network is to count the number of knots in the spline model. We study the number of knots in fully-connected feedforward neural networks with rectified linear unit activation functions. We intentionally keep the neural networks very simple, so as to make theoretical analyses more approachable. An induction on the number of layers $l$ reveals a tight upper bound on the number of knots in $\mathbb{R} \to \mathbb{R}^p$ deep neural networks. With $n_i \gg 1$ neurons in layer $i = 1, \dots, l$, the upper bound is approximately $n_1 \dots n_l$. We then show that the exact upper bound is tight, and we demonstrate the upper bound with an example. The purpose of these analyses is to pave a path for understanding the behavior of general $\mathbb{R}^q \to \mathbb{R}^p$ neural networks.