Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mutations in the Cytoplasmic Domain of the Newcastle Disease Virus Fusion Protein Confer Hyperfusogenic Phenotypes Modulating Viral Replication and Pathogenicity

ABSTRACT The Newcastle disease virus (NDV) fusion protein (F) mediates fusion of viral and host cell membranes and is a major determinant of NDV pathogenicity. In the present study, we demonstrate the effects of functional properties of F cytoplasmic tail (CT) amino acids on virus replication and pathogenesis. Out of a series of C-terminal deletions in the CT, we were able to rescue mutant viruses lacking two or four residues (rΔ2 and rΔ4). We further rescued viral mutants with individual amino acid substitutions at each of these four terminal residues (rM553A, rK552A, rT551A, and rT550A). In addition, the NDV F CT has two conserved tyrosine residues (Y524 and Y527) and a dileucine motif (LL536-537). In other paramyxoviruses, these residues were shown to affect fusion activity and are central elements in basolateral targeting. The deletion of 2 and 4 CT amino acids and single tyrosine substitution resulted in hyperfusogenic phenotypes and increased viral replication and pathogenesis. We further found that in rY524A and rY527A viruses, disruption of the targeting signals did not reduce the expression on the apical or basolateral surface in polarized Madin-Darby canine kidney cells, whereas in double tyrosine mutant, it was reduced on both the apical and basolateral surfaces. Interestingly, in rL536A and rL537A mutants, the F protein expression was more on the apical than on the basolateral surface, and this effect was more pronounced in the rL537A mutant. We conclude that these wild-type residues in the NDV F CT have an effect on regulating F protein biological functions and thus modulating viral replication and pathogenesis.
Evaluation of several commercial biochemical and immunologic methods for rapid identification of gram-positive cocci directly from blood cultures

To develop laboratory methods for the rapid identification of gram-positive cocci from blood cultures, several commercial immunological and biochemical tests for identifying staphylococci and streptococci from two different blood culture systems (Thiol/TSB, Difco Laboratories; BACTEC, Johnston Laboratories, Inc.) were evaluated and compared with conventional identification methods. A total of 44 cultures contained Staphylococcus aureus as determined by conventional methods. Commercial immunological methods (six tested) ranged in overall sensitivity from 38.6 (Staphyloslide; BBL Microbiology Systems) to 77.3% (Staphaurex; Wellcome Diagnostics). All methods tested had 100% specificity. A total of 30 isolates of group D streptococci were tested with immunological and biochemical identification systems. The overall sensitivity ranged from 14.2% (Phadebact Group D; Pharmacia Diagnostics) to 100% with Streptex (Wellcome; immunological) and Identicult A-E (Scott Laboratories, Inc.; biochemical). The results of this study suggest that some reagents can be used to provide rapid identification of gram-positive cocci from blood cultures 24 h earlier than standard methods.
From Spiritual Emergency to Spiritual Problem: the Transpersonal Roots of the New DSM-IV Category

Religious or Spiritual Problem is a new diagnostic category (Code V62.89) in the 1994 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Although the acceptance of this new category was based on a proposal documenting the extensive literature on the frequent occurrence of religious and spiritual issues in clinical practice, the impetus for the proposal came from transpersonal clinicians whose initial focus was on spiritual emergencies-forms of distress associated with spiritual practices and experiences. The proposal grew out of the work of the Spiritual Emergence Network to increase the competence of mental health professionals in sensitivity to such spiritual issues. This article describes the rationale for this new category, the history of the proposal, transpersonal perspectives on spiritual emergency, types of religious and spiritual problems, differential diagnostic issues, psychotherapeutic approaches, and the likely increase in number of persons seeking therapy for spiritual problems. It also presents the preliminary findings from a database of religious and spiritual problems.
Spatial structure of lemming populations (Dicrostonyx groenlandicus) fluctuating in density

The pattern and scale of the genetic structure of populations provides valuable information for the understanding of the spatial ecology of populations, including the spatial aspects of density fluctuations. In the present paper, the genetic structure of periodically fluctuating lemmings (Dicrostonyx groenlandicus) in the Canadian Arctic was analysed using mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region sequences and four nuclear microsatellite loci. Low genetic variability was found in mtDNA, while microsatellite loci were highly variable in all localities, including localities on isolated small islands. For both genetic markers the genetic differentiation was clear among geographical regions but weaker among localities within regions. Such a pattern implies gene flow within regions. Based on theoretical calculations and population census data from a snap‐trapping survey, we argue that the observed genetic variability on small islands and the low level of differentiation among these islands cannot be explained without invoking long distance dispersal of lemmings over the sea ice. Such dispersal is unlikely to occur only during population density peaks.
Regionally Specific Distribution of Corticospinal Synapses Because of Activity-Dependent Synapse Elimination In Vitro

We have shown previously that the corticospinal tract (CST) with functional connections can be reconstructed in vitro in slice cocultures. Using that system, we stimulated the deep cortical layer and recorded field EPSPs (fEPSPs) along a 100 μm-interval lattice in the spinal gray matter. The specific, spatial synapse distribution on the dorsal side at 14 d in vitro (DIV) basically corresponded to the in vivo area in which CST axons terminate. Anterograde labeling of corticospinal axons with biocytin showed a similar terminal distribution on that side. In vitro development of synapse spatial distribution was investigated. fEPSPs were recorded all across the gray matter at 7 DIV, but amplitudes began to decrease on the ventral side at 9 DIV, dorsal-dominant distribution being nearly complete at 14 DIV. Anterograde labeling showed that the decrease in fEPSP amplitudes was associated with a decrease in the number of axon terminals on the ventral area. Decreases in the synaptic responses and terminals were blocked by applications of d-2-amino-5-phosphonovaleric acid and tetrodotoxin, whereas 6-cyano-7-nitroquinoxaline-2,3-dione had a partial effect. These findings suggest that this regressive event, which occurs during development, is activity and NMDA dependent. Retrograde labeling with two colors of beads and an electrophysiological study that investigated the axon reflex showed that at 7 DIV most corticospinal neurons project to both the ventral and dorsal spinal cord, indicating that synapse decrease on the ventral side is attributable primarily to axon branch elimination rather than to death of cortical cells that send axons solely to that side.
Consistency based completion approaches of incomplete preference relations in uncertain decision contexts

Uncertainty, hesitation and vagueness are inherent to human beings when articulating opinions and preferences. Therefore in decision making situations it might well be the case that experts are unable to express their opinions in an accurate way. Under these circumstances, various families of preference relations (PRs) have been proposed (linguistic, intuitionistic and interval fuzzy PRs) to allow the experts to manifest some degree of hesitation when enunciating their opinions. An extreme case of uncertainty happens when an expert is unable to differentiate the degree up to which one preference is preferred to another. Henceforth, incomplete preference relations are possible. It is worth to bear in mind that incomplete information does not mean low quality information, on the contrary, in many occasions experts might prefer no to provide information in other to keep consistency. Consequently mechanism to deal with incomplete information in decision making are necessary. This contribution presents the main consistency based completion approaches to estimate incomplete preference values in linguistic, intuitionistic and interval fuzzy PRs.
Communicating social media policies: evaluation of current practices

Purpose – The main purpose of this paper is to explore the main characteristics of corporate social media guidelines (SMG) and determine whether companies communicate these guidelines effectively to employees. Design/methodology/approach – An analysis of corporate SMG is conducted using the Competing Values Framework (CVF) formerly used to assess business and ethical codes. The sample is comprised of 20 multinational companies that publish their SMG online. Findings – The results indicate the majority of the guidelines received average scores across the CVF framework, which implies the guidelines barely manage to stimulate change, direct action, provide facts or emphasize the importance of building trust. Research limitations/implications – A possible limitation of the research could be the issue of interpretability of the features of the framework. Hence, the quality of the research depends on the quality of the training raters receive prior to the guideline rating process. Additionally, the researchers .
The Prostate 71 : 985 ^ 997 ( 2011 ) Disparities at Presentation , Diagnosis , Treatment , and SurvivalinAfricanAmericanMen , Affectedby ProstateCancer

BACKGROUND. Prostate cancer (PCa) remains the most common malignancy and the second leading cause of cancer death among men in the United States. PCa exhibits the most striking racial disparity, as African American men are at 1.4 times higher risk of being diagnosed, and 2–3 times higher risk of dying of PCa, compared to Caucasian men. The etiology of the disparity has not been clearly elucidated. The objective of this article is to critically review the literature and summarize the most prominent PCa racial disparities accompanied by proposed explanations. METHODS. The present literature on disparities at presentation, diagnosis, treatment, and survival of African American men affected by PCa was systematically reviewed. Original research as well as relevant review articles were included. RESULTS. African American men persistently present with more advanced disease than Caucasian men, are administered different treatment regimens than Caucasian men, and have shorter progression-free survival following treatment. In addition, African American men report more treatment-related side-effects that translates to the diminished quality of life (QOL). CONCLUSIONS. PCa racial disparity exists at stages of presentation, diagnosis, treatment regimens, and subsequent survival, and the QOL. The disparities are complex involving biological, socio-economic, and socio-cultural determinants. These mounting results highlight an urgent need for future clinical, scientific, and socio-cultural research involving transdisciplinary teams to elucidate the causes for PCa racial disparities. Prostate 71: 985–997, 2011. # 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Sensing the texture of surfaces by anthropomorphic soft fingertips with multi-modal sensors

This paper describes the development of a human-like multi-modal soft finger and its ability to sense the texture of objects. This fingertip has two silicon rubber layers of different hardness; strain gauges and PVDF films are randomly distributed as tactile sensors. Owing to the dynamics of the silicon between sensors, the fingertip is supposed to have several sensor modalities. Preliminary experiments show that the fingertip can detect the difference between the textures of objects (paper and wood).
Follow the norm! Terror management theory and the influence of descriptive norms.

Terror management research shows that mortality salience (MS) increases people’s attempts to live up to cultural standards. However, as cultures value very different and sometimes even contradictory standards, it is often difficult to derive specific predictions. Previous research identified the salience of injunctive norms (norms based on moral prescriptions) as an important moderator. We tested whether the influence of MS also depended on the salience of descriptive norms, which refer to what most people actually do in a particular situation. We, indeed, found that only when showing people that fellow ingroup members were optimistic (as opposed to pessimistic) that Germany would win the soccer world championship, did MS increase participants’ tendency to likewise express optimism about the team.
Implementation of an output feedback controller in operational space

This paper presents an operational space output feedback controller for non-redundant robot manipulators to achieve trajectory tracking without velocity measurements. The overall system can achieve a semi-global exponential stability (SGES) result for the position, orientation and velocity tracking errors as well as velocity observation errors. Experimental results of the proposed controller indicate good position and orientation tracking performance under parametric uncertainty and payload variations.
Clarifying the Measurement of Death Attitudes: A Factor Analytic Evaluation of Fifteen Self-Report Death Scales

A factor analysis of a representative population of fifteen death scales completed by 350 college students uncovered five orthogonal death-attitude factors. These factors were named Negative Evaluation of Death, Reluctance to Interact with the Dying, Negative Reaction to Pain, Reaction to Reminders of Death, and Preoccupation with Thoughts of Dying. These results support thanatological theory that death attitudes are multidimensional, that is, multiple death attitudes do co-exist and co-vary within individuals. The major implication of these findings concerns the need to differentiate and measure these separate death attitudes effectively.
The Evaluation of the virulence factors of clinical Candida isolates and the anti-biofilm activity of Elettaria cardamomum against multi-drug resistant Candida albicans

Background and Purpose: Today, treatment of life-threatening fungal infections, caused by Candida species, has become a major problem. In the present study, we aimed to evaluate the antifungal susceptibility patterns of different clinical Candida isolates, determine the virulence factors in multi-drug resistant (MDR) Candida species, and assess the anti-biofilm activity of Elettaria cardamomum against MDR Candida species. Materials and Methods: A total of 202 isolates from different Candida species were obtained from three governmental hospitals in Senthamangalam, Tiruchengode, and Namakkal, Tamil Nadu, India. The isolates were identified, using conventional methods. Candida species were tested for virulence factors such as biofilm, protease, and phospholipase activity. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of Elettaria cardamomum against MDR biofilm-forming C. albicans was determined, using plate and tube methods. Results: The identified Candida isolates (n=202) were C. albicans (74/202), C. glabrata (53/202), C. parapsilosis (44/202), C. tropicalis (15/202), and C. dubliniensis (16/202). The isolates were subjected to antifungal susceptibility testing and the virulence factors were determined. In terms of biofilm production, non-C. albicans species such as C. dubliniensis showed 75% activity. Also, regarding protease activity, C. parapsilosis (75%) showed the highest percentage of protease production. In addition, Candida species showed strong positivity for phospholipase activity (62.87%). In the MIC method, the acetonic extract completely inhibited biofilm production at a concentration of 125 µl (56.25 µg). In comparison with the ethanolic extract, the acetonic extract showed major activity against biofilm production. Conclusion: Based on the findings, pathogenic C. albicans species were inhibited by the ethanolic and acetonic extracts of E. cardamomum. In recent years, MDR and biofilm-forming pathogenic Candida species have been increasingly detected in clinical settings. Therefore, herbal derivatives might contribute to the treatment of infections without causing any side-effects and prevent the associated mortality.
Lack of effect of cADP-ribose and NAADP on the activity of skeletal muscle and heart ryanodine receptors.

The calcium release channels/ryanodine receptors (RyRs) are potential/putative targets of cADPR (cyclic ADP-ribose) action in many tissue systems. In striated muscles, where RyRs predominate, cADPR action on these channels is controversial. Here cADPR modulation of cardiac and skeletal muscle RyR channels was tested. We considered factors reported as necessary for cADPR action, such as the presence of calmodulin and/or FK binding proteins (FKBPs). We found: 1) The RyR channel isoforms were insensitive to cADPR (or its metabolite NAADP [nicotinic acid adenine dinucleotide phosphate]) under all conditions examined, as studied by: 1a) single channel recordings in planar lipid bilayers; 1b) macroscopic behavior of the RyRs in sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) microsomes (including crude microsome preparations likely to retain putative cADPR cofactors) at room temperature and at 37 degrees C (net energized Ca2+ uptake or passive Ca2+ leak); 2) [32P]cADPR did not bind significantly to SR microsomes; 3) cADPR did not affect FKBP association to SR membranes. We conclude that cADPR does not interact directly with RyRs or RyR-associated SR proteins. Our results under in vitro conditions suggest that c ADPR effects on Ca2+ signaling observed in vivo in mammalian striated muscle cells may reflect indirect modulation of RyRs or RyR-independent Ca2+ release systems.
Input Chains and Industrialization

A key aspect of industrialization is the adoption of increasing-returns-to-scale, industrial, technologies. Two other, well-documented aspects are that industrial technologies are adopted throughout intermediate-input chains and that they use intermediate inputs intensively relative to the technologies they replace. These features of industrial technologies combined imply that countries with access to similar technologies may have very different levels of industrialization and income, even if the degree of increasing returns to scale at the firm level is relatively small. Furthermore, a small improvement in the productivity of industrial technologies can trigger full-scale industrialization and a large increase in income.
Efficient Coarse-to-Fine Patch Match for Large Displacement Optical Flow

As a key component in many computer vision systems, optical flow estimation, especially with large displacements, remains an open problem. In this paper we present a simple but powerful matching method works in a coarse-to-fine scheme for optical flow estimation. Inspired by the nearest neighbor field (NNF) algorithms, our approach, called CPM (Coarse-to-fine PatchMatch), blends an efficient random search strategy with the coarse-to-fine scheme for optical flow problem. Unlike existing NNF techniques, which is efficient but the results is often too noisy for optical flow caused by the lack of global regularization, we propose a propagation step with constrained random search radius between adjacent levels on the hierarchical architecture. The resulting correspondences enjoys a built-in smoothing effect, which is more suited for optical flow estimation than NNF techniques. Furthermore, our approach can also capture the tiny structures with large motions which is a problem for traditional coarse-to-fine optical flow algorithms. Interpolated by an edge-preserving interpolation method (EpicFlow), our method outperforms the state of the art on MPI-Sintel and KITTI, and runs much faster than the competing methods.
Glycoprotein IIb/IIIa Receptor Antagonists and Risk of Bleeding: A Single‐Center Experience in 1020 Patients

The safety of glycoprotein (GP) IIb/IIIa inhibitors has been well documented in clinical trials. Although these trials have included a broad patient population, the strict enrollment criteria may have resulted in exclusion of patients at a higher risk of bleeding complications. The authors conducted a retrospective chart review of 1020 consecutive patients who received GP IIb/IIIa inhibitors and underwent percutaneous coronary intervention in a large community hospital. They used Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction (TIMI) criteria to define major or minor bleeding complications. Bleeding complications developed in 214 (21%) patients, with major bleeding in 89 (9%). Univariate predictors of bleeding were older age, lower body weight, elevated serum creatinine, higher activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT) level, history of diabetes mellitus (DM), peripheral vascular disease (PVD), congestive heart failure (CHF), and emergency procedure for acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Multivariate predictors of major bleeding were PVD (20% in bleeding group vs 11% in nonbleeders, odds ratio [OR] = 1.8, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.2–2.6, P < .004), age (68 ± 2 years, 95% CI = 66–70 in bleeding group vs 63 ± 13 years, 95% CI = 61.2–63 in nonbleeders, P < .001), and higher aPTT level (66 ± 27 seconds, 95% CI = 63–70 in bleeding group vs 53 ± 28 seconds, 95% CI = 51–56 in nonbleeders, P < .001). The risk of bleeding in the large community hospital setting may be higher than in randomized clinical trials. This increased risk is associated with higher hospitalization costs. Recognition of predictors of bleeding should further enhance the safety of these antiplatelet agents.
Hot spot temperature models based on top-oil temperature for oil immersed transformers

Thermal behaviors of transformers have a close relationship with the ageing processes of transformer insulation. In oil immersed transformers, feature temperatures such as top-oil temperature and hot spot temperature are recommended to be monitored online. To minimize the risk of failure and to extend the serving life time of transformers, both temperature rises should be controlled within certain range. However, it is difficult to monitor the hot spot temperature of the transformer. Commonly used method is to calculate the rise of the hot spot temperature based on top-oil temperature rise, as recommended in GB/T15164-94 (Chinese standard) and IEEE C57.91. Later on, electrical-thermal analogy models were developed and proved to be accurate in practice. These electrical-thermal models present heat transfer in the transformers as thermal circuits, where each component represents different thermal distribution in the transformers. General model for the thermal circuits were improved by combining fluid transfer theory into the exponential factors. This paper provides an experimental result which was measured from a 5 kV, 100 kVA transformer equipped with fiber optic probes and thermocouples. The paper also summarizes the most often used models for top-oil temperature and especially hot spot temperature calculation. Comments on both models are given in the paper.