Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Novel Route for F-box Protein-mediated Ubiquitination Links CHIP to Glycoprotein Quality Control*

In SCF (Skp1/Cullin/F-box protein) ubiquitin ligases, substrate specificity is conferred by a diverse array of F-box proteins. Only in fully assembled SCF complexes, it is believed, can substrates bound to F-box proteins become ubiquitinated. Here we show that Fbx2, a brain-enriched F-box protein implicated in the ubiquitination of glycoproteins discarded from the endoplasmic reticulum, binds the co-chaperone/ubiquitin ligase CHIP (C terminus of Hsc-70-interacting protein) through a unique N-terminal PEST domain in Fbx2. CHIP facilitates the ubiquitination and degradation of Fbx2-bound glycoproteins, including unassembled NMDA receptor subunits. These findings indicate that CHIP acts with Fbx2 in a novel ubiquitination pathway that links CHIP to glycoprotein quality control in neurons. In addition, they expand the repertoire of pathways by which F-box proteins can regulate ubiquitination and suggest a new role for PEST domains as a protein interaction motif.
Estudio experimental de la resistencia a la corrosión de un acero al carbono AISI-SAE 1020 implantado con iones de titanio

El metodo 3DII (Three-Dimensional Ion Implantation), de modificacion superficial, esta basado en una descarga pulsada de alto voltaje a bajas presiones. Los pioneros en el estudio de este tipo de descarga fueron Klarfeld, Pokrovskaya-Soboleva y McClure. En la UIS, el grupo FITEK ha implementado este metodo a escala semindustrial; los grupos GOTS, LEAM de la Escuela de Fisica y el Laboratorio de Difraccion de Rayos X estudian en conjunto las condiciones fisicas de las superficies implantadas; asi mismo el Grupo GIC de la Escuela de Ingenieria Metalurgica y Ciencia de Materiales y la Corporacion para la Investigacion de la Corrosion (CIC) analizan el efecto de este metodo para contrarrestar el fenomeno de la corrosion en aceros y aleaciones. Esta investigacion evalua el comportamiento frente a la corrosion en la superficie de cupones de acero AISI SAE 1020, sin tratamiento y modificados con iones de titanio, a energias de 5 y 10 keV y tiempos de exposicion a la dosis de implantacion de 6 y 12 minutos, sumergidos de 0 a 28 dias en solucion electrolitica de NaCl al 3%, utilizando pruebas de inspeccion visual, microscopia optica y tecnicas electroquimicas como: OCP, Rp, Extrapolacion de Tafel y EIS. Los resultados indican que los cupones con menor velocidad de corrosion fueron implantados con 5 k eV y un tiempo de 12 minutos, siendo inferiores en un 85% respecto a los cupones sin tratamiento superficial despues de 28 dias en la solucion. Los cupones implantados a 5 keV respecto a los de 10 keV mostraron mejores condiciones, deduciendo mayor estabilidad del pulso de descarga durante el proceso de implantacion para los primeros. Se concluye que esta tecnologia de tratamiento superficial es un mecanismo efectivo para mitigar el efecto de la corrosion en aceros de bajo contenido de carbono y baja aleacion expuestos a medios agresivos.
Pneumococcal conjugate vaccination and nasopharyngeal acquisition of pneumococcal serotype 19A strains.

CONTEXT The rapid increase in multiresistant serotype 19A as a cause of invasive and respiratory pneumococcal disease has been associated in time with the widespread implementation of 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccination (PCV-7) in several countries. Because spontaneous fluctuations in time and antibiotic selective pressure may have induced this serotype 19A increase, controlled studies are needed to assess the role of PCV-7. OBJECTIVE To examine the association of PCV-7 vaccination and nasopharyngeal acquisition of serotype 19A pneumococci, their clonal distribution, and antibiotic susceptibility. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PATIENTS Post hoc per-protocol completer's analysis as part of a randomized controlled trial of nasopharyngeal Streptococcus pneumoniae carriage enrolling 1003 healthy newborns with follow-up to the age of 24 months in The Netherlands, which has low antibiotic resistance rates. The study was conducted before widespread PCV-7 implementation in infants, between July 7, 2005, and February 14, 2008. Nasopharyngeal swabs were obtained at the age of 6 weeks and at 6, 12, 18, and 24 months. INTERVENTION Infants were randomly assigned to receive 2 doses of PCV-7 at 2 and 4 months; 2 + 1 doses of PCV-7 at 2, 4, and 11 months; or no dosage (unvaccinated control group). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Cumulative proportion of children with nasopharyngeal acquisition of a new serotype 19A strain from 6 through 24 months of age. RESULTS Nine hundred forty-eight children completed the study. Fifty-four nasopharyngeal serotype 19A carriage isolates from 318 in the 2-dose group, 66 isolates from 327 in the 2 + 1-dose group, and 33 isolates from 303 in the unvaccinated were collected from 6 weeks through 24 months. The cumulative proportion who tested positive for new nasopharyngeal serotype 19A acquisition from 6 through 24 months of age was significantly higher in those having received the 2 + 1-dose PCV-7 schedule (16.2%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 12.6%-20.6%) vs those who were unvaccinated (9.2%; 95% CI, 6.5%-13.0%; relative risk [RR], 1.75; 95% CI, 1.14-2.70) but not after a 2-dose schedule (13.2%; 95% CI, 9.9%-17.4%; RR, 1.43; 95% CI, 0.91-2.25). There were 28 different sequence types identified, including 6 new types. The proportion of children with new 19A acquisition who had used antibiotics in the last 6 months (18.7%) did not differ among groups. Five isolates were penicillin-intermediate susceptible and another 3 were nonsusceptible to erythromycin and azithromycin, all in the vaccine groups. CONCLUSION A 2 + 1-dose PCV-7 schedule was associated with an increase in serotype 19A nasopharyngeal acquisition compared with unvaccinated controls. TRIAL REGISTRATION clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00189020.
Depth separation and weight-width trade-offs for sigmoidal neural networks

Recent work has shown strong separation between the expressive power of depth2 and depth-3 neural networks. These separation results exhibit a function and an input distributions, so that the function is well-approximable in L2-norm on the input distribution by a depth-3 neural network of polynomial size but any depth-2 neural network that well-approximates it requires exponential size. A limitations of these results is that they work only for certain careful choices of functions and input distributions that are arguably not natural enough. We provide a simple proof of L2-norm separation between the expressive power of depth-2 and depth-3 sigmoidal neural networks for a large class of input distributions, assuming their weights are polynomially bounded. Our proof is simpler than previous results, uses known low-degree multivariate polynomial approximations to neural networks, and gives the first depth-2-vs-depth-3 separation that works for a large class of input distributions.
RAINING OF C ONVOLUTIONAL N EURAL N ETWORKS USING I NTEGER O PERATIONS

The state-of-the-art (SOTA) for mixed precision training is dominated by variants of low precision floating point operations, and in particular FP16 accumulating into FP32 Micikevicius et al. (2017). On the other hand, while a lot of research has also happened in the domain of low and mixed-precision Integer training, these works either present results for non-SOTA networks (for instance only AlexNet for ImageNet-1K), or relatively small datasets (like CIFAR-10). In this work, we train state-of-the-art visual understanding neural networks on ImageNet-1K dataset, with Integer operations on General Purpose (GP) hardware. In particular, we focus on Integer Fused-Multiply-and-Accumulate (FMA) operations which take two pairs of INT16 operands and accumulate results into an INT32 output.We propose a shared exponent representation of tensors, and develop a Dynamic Fixed Point (DFP) scheme suitable for common neural network operations. The nuances of developing an efficient integer convolution kernel is examined, including methods to handle overflow of the INT32 accumulator. We implement CNN training for ResNet-50, GoogLeNet-v1, VGG-16 and AlexNet; and these networks achieve or exceed SOTA accuracy within the same number of iterations as their FP32 counterparts without any change in hyper-parameters and with a 1.8X improvement in end-to-end training throughput. To the best of our knowledge these results represent the first INT16 training results on GP hardware for ImageNet-1K dataset using SOTA CNNs and achieve highest reported accuracy using half precision representation.
Liver Allograft Provides Immunoprotection for the Cardiac Allograft in Combined Heart–Liver Transplantation

When transplanted simultaneously, the liver allograft has been thought to have an immunoprotective role on other organs; however, detailed analyses in simultaneous heart–liver transplantation (SHLT) have not been done to date. We analyzed patient outcomes and incidence of immune‐mediated injury in 22 consecutive SHLT versus 223 isolated heart transplantation (IHT) recipients between January 2004 and December 2013, by reviewing 3912 protocol‐ and indication‐specific cardiac allograft biopsy specimens. Overall survival was similar (86.4%, 86.4%, and 69.1% for SHLT and 93.3%, 84.7%, and 70.0% for IHT at 1, 5, and 10 years; p = 0.83). Despite similar immunosuppression, the incidence of T cell–mediated rejection (TCMR) was lower in SHLT (31.8%) than in IHT (84.8%) (p < 0.0001). Although more SHLT patients had preexisting donor‐specific HLA antibody (22.7% versus 8.1%; p = 0.04), the incidence of antibody‐mediated rejection was not different in SHLT compared with IHT (4.5% versus 14.8%, p = 0.33). While the left ventricular ejection fraction was comparable in both groups at 5 years, the incidence and severity of cardiac allograft vasculopathy were reduced in the SHLT recipients (42.9% versus 66.8%, p = 0.03). Simultaneously transplanted liver allograft was associated with reduced risk of TCMR (odds ratio [OR] 0.003, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0–0.02; p < 0.0001), antibody‐mediated rejection (OR 0.04, 95% CI 0–0.46; p = 0.004), and cardiac allograft vasculopathy (OR 0.26, 95% CI 0.07–0.84; p = 0.02), after adjusting for other risk factors. These data suggest that the incidence of alloimmune injury in the heart allograft is reduced in SHLT recipients.
Health protective behavior scale: Development and psychometric evaluation

Objective A healthy lifestyle includes health protective and health promoting behaviors. Health promoting lifestyle profiles have been developed, but measures of health protective behavior are still lacking. This study sought to develop a health protecting behavior scale. Methods An initial item pool for the Health Protective Behavior Scale (HPBS) was generated based on read and referred literature and a single-item open-ended survey. An expert group screened this initial item pool using an item-level content validity index. Pilot testing was conducted. The degree of variation, the response rate, the item-total correlation coefficient, and the factor loading in factor analysis and item analysis were used to screen items using data of pilot testing. 454 subjects were recruited evaluate the psychometric properties of the HPBS. Analyses included internal consistency, test-retest reliability, factor analysis, parallel analysis, correlation analysis and criterion validity analysis. Results The final iteration of the HPBS was developed with 32 items and five dimensions: interpersonal support, general behavior, self-knowledge, nutrition behavior and health care. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, and test-retest reliability were 0.89 and 0.89 respectively. Correlation coefficients of the five dimensions ranged from 0.28 to 0.55. The Spearman correlation coefficient between the total scores on the WHOQOL-BREF and on the HPBS was 0.34. Conclusions HPBS has sufficient validity and reliability to measure health protective behaviors in adults.
On the coupling and transmission of transverse and longitudinal fields into fully metal-coated optical nano-probes

Fully-metal-coated near-field optical probes, based on a cantilever design, have been studied theoretically and experimentally. Numerical simulations prove that these structures allow non-zero modal emission of the electromagnetic field trough a 60 nm thick metallic layer, that is opaque when deposited on flat substrates. The far-field intensity patterns recorded experimentally correspond to the ones calculated for the fundamental and first excited LP modes. Moreover, this study demonstrates that a high confinement of the electromagnetic energy can be reached in the near-field, when illuminated with radially polarized light. Finally, it was verified that the confinement of the field depends on the volume of the probe apex. The coupling and transmission of transverse and longitudinal fields into the probes has been also investigated. Two kinds of probes with different metal coating roughness are considered. Transverse and longitudinal field distributions are obtained by focusing azimuthally and radially polarized beams produced by means of a liquid crystal plate. The focal plane is scanned using microfabricated probes in a collection mode configuration. It is found that the roughness of the metal coating plays an important role in the coupling strength of transverse fields into the probes: the relative coupling efficiency for transverse fields diminishes with a rough metal coating, while that of longitudinal fields does not.
Cost‐effectiveness of sitagliptin‐based treatment regimens in European patients with type 2 diabetes and haemoglobin A1c above target on metformin monotherapy

Objective: Sitagliptin is a novel oral incretin enhancer that acts by inhibiting the dipeptidyl peptidase 4 enzyme and is indicated in Europe as a treatment adjunct to metformin (MF), sulphonylurea (SU), MF plus SU and diet and exercise, in the management of type 2 diabetes mellitus. The objective of the current analysis was to evaluate the cost‐effectiveness of adding sitagliptin to the regimens of patients with haemoglobin A1c (HbA1C) above the International Diabetes Federation goal (6.5%) while on MF in six European countries: Austria, Finland, Portugal, Scotland (United Kingdom), Spain and Sweden.
NON-INTRUSIVE SENSOR FOR GAS FILL VERIFICATION OF INSULATED GLASS WINDOWS

A sensor capable of measuring the amount of oxygen (an unwanted component that is only present because of improper filling or seal failure) within an argon-filled insulated glass window has been designed, built and successfully tested. It operates by using the optical absorption of oxygen in the atmospheric A-band centered at 762 nm. Light emitted by an argon-filled surface glow discharge lamp is Zeeman-tuned on and off an oxygen absorption line using an AC-modulated electromagnet. In the presence of oxygen, the change in the measured intensity of the lamp, obtained using standard demodulation techniques, is proportional to the oxygen column density. Measurements using an industry-standard insulated glass window indicate that the sensor can measure the amount of oxygen in a nominally argon-filled IG window (with a window gap of 10 mm) with a precision of 0.50% oxygen using a 16 second integration time. This level of precision is well within the limits required by the IG window manufacturing industry for proper monitoring of newly manufactured window units.
International Journal of Nanomedicine Dovepress Hydrophobic Ion Pairing of an Insulin-sodium Deoxycholate Complex for Oral Delivery of Insulin

Insulin was complexed with sodium deoxycholate to form an insulin-sodium deoxycholate complex (Ins-SD-Comp) using an hydrophobic ion pairing method in aqueous phase to enhance the liposolubility of insulin. In order to obtain the maximal complexation efficiency, the molar ratio of sodium deoxycholate to insulin was found. The zeta potential method was used to confirm the optimal ratio for formation of Ins-SD-Comp. The structural characteristics of Ins-SD-Comp were assessed using the Fourier transform infrared method. The apparent partition coefficient of insulin increased upon the formation of Ins-SD-Comp. Based on the preliminary study, Ins-SD-Comp was encapsulated into poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) nanoparticles using an emulsion solvent diffusion method. The maximal encapsulation efficiency of Ins-SD-Comp into PLGA nanoparticles was 93.6% ± 2.81%, drug loading was about 4.8% ± 0.32%, and the mean diameter of the nanoparticles was 278 ± 13 nm. Biological activity and in vivo results revealed that the bioactivity of insulin was not destroyed during the preparation process. Ins-SD-Comp-loaded PLGA nanoparticles have the potential to reduce serum glucose levels and increase the oral bioavailability of insulin.
Formative evaluation on cultural tailoring breathing awareness meditation smartphone apps to reduce stress and blood pressure.

Background Chronic stress is an independent risk factor for essential hypertension (EH), cardiovascular disease (CVD), and is sometimes confronted by mal-adaptive coping behaviors (e.g., stress eating, excessive alcohol consumption, etc.). Pre-essential hypertension (preEH) is the leading predictor of future EH status. Breathing awareness meditation (BAM) can result in clinically beneficial blood pressure (BP) reductions, though face-to-face sessions presents barriers to reach those in need. The purpose of this study was to identify if a culturally tailored approach is needed in the design and preferences between groups of preEH African American and White adults toward using a smartphone BAM app, the Tension Tamer (TT) app. Methods TT includes audio delivered BAM instructions, real-time heart rate, feedback graphs and motivational reinforcement text messaging. Questionnaires and two focus groups each of African American and White adults, [n=34, mean age =43.1 years, (SD 13.8 years), 44.1% African American] were conducted to understand stress, EH knowledge, app usage along with feedback from a hands-on demonstration of TT. Grounded theory using NVivo 10 was used to develop themes and combined with the questionnaires in the analysis. Results No racial differences were found in the analysis including app use scenarios, preferences, knowledge, technology use or the attitudes and acceptance toward mobile health (mHealth) programs. Reported stress was high for African Americans [PSS-4: mean 6.87 (SD 3.3) versus mean 4.56 (SD 2.6); P=0.03]. Four main themes were found: (I) stress was pervasive; (II) coping strategies were both positive and negative; (III) BAM training was easy to incorporated; and (IV) tracking stress responses was useful. Responses suggest that additional personalization of app interfaces may drive ownership and adherence to protocols. Measures and reports of heart rate monitoring while in session were favorably viewed with low issues with confidentiality or trust issues on collected session data. Conclusions Results suggest that a culturally tailored approach may be unnecessary in the design of BAM apps. Further investigation is warranted for other racial groups, age ranges, and disease conditions.
Chemical composition of pre-monsoon air in the Indo-Gangetic Plain measured using a new air quality facility and PTR-MS: high surface ozone and strong influence of biomass burning

Abstract. One seventh of the world's population lives in the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) and the fertile region sustains agricultural food crop production for much of South Asia, yet it remains one of the most under-studied regions of the world in terms of atmospheric composition and chemistry. In particular, the emissions and chemistry of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that form surface ozone and secondary organic aerosol through photochemical reactions involving nitrogen oxides are not well understood. In this study, ambient levels of VOCs such as methanol, acetone, acetaldehyde, acetonitrile and isoprene were measured for the first time in the IGP. A new atmospheric chemistry facility that combines India's first high-sensitivity proton transfer reaction mass spectrometer, an ambient air quality station and a meteorological station, was used to quantify in situ levels of several VOCs and air pollutants in May 2012 at a suburban site in Mohali (northwest IGP). Westerly winds arriving at high wind speeds (5–20 m s−1) in the pre-monsoon season at the site were conducive for chemical characterization of regional emission signatures. Average levels of VOCs and air pollutants in May~2012 ranged from 1.2 to 2.7 nmol mol−1 for aromatic VOCs, 5.9 to 37.5 nmol mol−1 for the oxygenated VOCs, 1.4 nmol mol−1 for acetonitrile, 1.9 nmol mol−1 for isoprene, 567 nmol mol−1 for carbon monoxide, 57.8 nmol mol−1 for ozone, 11.5 nmol mol−1 for nitrogen oxides, 7.3 nmol mol−1 for sulfur dioxide, 104 μg m−3 for PM2.5 and 276 μg m−3 for PM10. By analyzing the one-minute in situ data with meteorological parameters and applying chemical tracers (e.g., acetonitrile for biomass burning) and inter-VOC correlations, we were able to constrain major emission source activities on both temporal and diel scales. Wheat residue burning caused massive increases (> 3 times the baseline values) for all the measured VOCs and primary pollutants. Other forms of biomass burning at night were also a significant source of oxygenated VOCs and isoprene (r2 with acetonitrile g0.5 for nighttime data), which is remarkable in terms of atmospheric chemistry implications. Surface ozone exceeded the 8 h national ambient air quality limit of 100 μg O3 m−3 (~50 ppbv) on a daily basis, except for 17 May 2012, when a severe dust storm event (PM2.5 > 800 μg m−3; PM10 > 2700 μg m−3) characterized by long-range transport from the west impacted the site. The novel data set and results point to the occurrence of high primary emissions of reactive VOCs. They also highlight the urgent need for establishing more comprehensive observational facilities in the IGP to constrain the spatial and seasonal variability of atmospheric chemical constituents. Such efforts will enable a mechanistic-level understanding of the in situ chemical processes controlling the formation of surface ozone, a necessary step for effective ozone mitigation and improvement of the regional air quality.
A novel Chromatiales bacterium is a potential sulfide oxidizer in multiple orders of marine sponges

Sponges are benthic filter feeders that play pivotal roles in coupling benthic-pelagic processes in the oceans that involve transformation of dissolved and particulate organic carbon and nitrogen into biomass. While the contribution of sponge holobionts to the nitrogen cycle has been recognized in past years, their importance in the sulfur cycle, both oceanic and physiological, has only recently gained attention. Sponges in general, and Theonella swinhoei in particular, harbour a multitude of associated microorganisms that could affect sulfur cycling within the holobiont. We reconstructed the genome of a Chromatiales (class Gammaproteobacteria) bacterium from a metagenomic sequence dataset of a T. swinhoei-associated microbial community. This relatively abundant bacterium has the metabolic capability to oxidize sulfide yet displays reduced metabolic potential suggestive of its lifestyle as an obligatory symbiont. This bacterium was detected in multiple sponge orders, according to similarities in key genes such as 16S rRNA and polyketide synthase genes. Due to its sulfide oxidation metabolism and occurrence in many members of the Porifera phylum, we suggest naming the newly described taxon Candidatus Porisulfidus.