Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characterization of the translocon of the outer envelope of chloroplasts

The protein translocon of the outer envelope of chloroplasts (Toc) consists of the core subunits Toc159, Toc75, and Toc34. To investigate the molecular structure, the core complex was purified. This core complex has an apparent molecular mass of ∼500 kD and a molecular stoichiometry of 1:4:4–5 between Toc159, Toc75, and Toc34. The isolated translocon recognizes both transit sequences and precursor proteins in a GTP-dependent manner, suggesting its functional integrity. The complex is embedded by the lipids phosphatidylcholine and digalactosyldiacylglyceride. Two-dimensional structural analysis by EM revealed roughly circular particles consistent with the formation of a stable core complex. The particles show a diameter of ∼130 Å with a solid ring and a less dense interior structure. A three-dimensional map obtained by random conical tilt reconstruction of electron micrographs suggests that a “finger”-like central region separates four curved translocation channels within one complex.
Estimation of recent and long-term malaria transmission in a population by antibody testing to multiple Plasmodium falciparum antigens.

BACKGROUND Tools that estimate recent and long-term malaria transmission in a population would be highly useful for malaria elimination programs. METHODS The prevalence of antibodies to 11 Plasmodium falciparum antigens was assessed by cytometric bead assay or enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in 1000 people in a highland area of Kenya over 14 months, during a period of interrupted malaria transmission. RESULTS Antibodies differed by antigen in acquisition with age: rapid (>80% antibody positive by age 20 years, 5 antigens), moderate (>40% positive by age 20 years, 3 antigens), or slow (<40% positive by age 20 years, 3 antigens). Antibody seroreversion rates in the 14 months between samples decreased with age rapidly (7 antigens), slowly (3 antigens), or remained high at all ages (schizont extract). Estimated antibody half-lives in individuals >10 years of age were long (40 to >80 years) for 5 antigens, moderate (5-20 years) for 3 antigens, and short (<1 year) for 3 antigens. CONCLUSIONS Antibodies to P. falciparum antigens in malaria-endemic areas vary by age, antigen, and time since last exposure to P. falciparum. Multiplex P. falciparum antibody testing could provide estimates of long-term and recent malaria transmission and potentially of a population's susceptibility to future clinical malaria.
Enterovirus 71 encephalomyelitis and Japanese encephalitis can be distinguished by topographic distribution of inflammation and specific intraneuronal detection of viral antigen and RNA

K. T. Wong, K. Y. Ng, K. C. Ong, W. F. Ng, S. K. Shankar, A. Mahadevan, B. Radotra, I. J. Su, G. Lau, A. E. Ling, K. P. Chan, P. Macorelles, S. Vallet, M. J. Cardosa, A. Desai, V. Ravi, N. Nagata, H. Shimizu and T. Takasaki (2012) Neuropathology and Applied Neurobiology38, 443–453
Refuting the challenges of the developmental shift of polarity of GABA actions: GABA more exciting than ever!

During brain development, there is a progressive reduction of intracellular chloride associated with a shift in GABA polarity: GABA depolarizes and occasionally excites immature neurons, subsequently hyperpolarizing them at later stages of development. This sequence, which has been observed in a wide range of animal species, brain structures and preparations, is thought to play an important role in activity-dependent formation and modulation of functional circuits. This sequence has also been considerably reinforced recently with new data pointing to an evolutionary preserved rule. In a recent “Hypothesis and Theory Article,” the excitatory action of GABA in early brain development is suggested to be “an experimental artefact” (Bregestovski and Bernard, 2012). The authors suggest that the excitatory action of GABA is due to an inadequate/insufficient energy supply in glucose-perfused slices and/or to the damage produced by the slicing procedure. However, these observations have been repeatedly contradicted by many groups and are inconsistent with a large body of evidence including the fact that the developmental shift is neither restricted to slices nor to rodents. We summarize the overwhelming evidence in support of both excitatory GABA during development, and the implications this has in developmental neurobiology.
The Making of a ‘Classic’ in South East Asian Studies

What makes a ‘classic’ in South East Asian studies? In addressing this question, the paper compares and contrasts the features of two books written in the late 1940s and early 1950s: Teodoro Agoncillo's The Revolt of the Masses and George Kahin's Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia. It examines the subject position of the authors and the politico-academic contexts in which their works were written, assessed and consumed. Specifically, the paper explores the following questions. To what extent did scholarly merit define a ‘classic’? What features internal to particular area studies stimulated or impeded the making of a potential classic? What sort of political and academic architectures were conducive or unreceptive to potential candidates? In what ways, and to what extent, have the ‘rules of the game’ changed 60 years later?
The Effect of the Transtheoretical Model Approach Towards the Body Mass Index of Overweight and Obese Children in Makassar

BACKGROUND: Overweight and obesity is now ranked fifth as a global risk for the cause of death. Urban lifestyle is fueled by excessive food intake and lack of activity in overweight and obese children. The assessment of the children’s Body Mass Index (BMI) is one of the indicators to assess the nutritional status of children. One strategy that can be used is the transtheoretical model (TTM) approach which is behavior change that helps children and parents in making more effective decisions to reduce health-risk behaviors among children so that the children’s BMI can decrease. This study aims to identify the differences between children's BMI before and after the TTM approach. METHODS: This research was conducted in the district area of Tamalanrea and Biringkanaya, Makassar. The design used is the Quasy Experiment namely pre- and post-test with control group design. Research subjects were overweight or obese children in the 4th, 5th, and 6th grade of elementary school. The samples in the treatment group consisted of 31 participants, while the control group consisted of 33 participants which were selected using purposive sampling. Intervention research was conducted during a six month period by providing guide books on healthy lifestyle, visiting the families every month using questionnaires, and measurements of children’s height, weight and BMI using WHO’s AntrhoPlus software year 2007. RESULTS: Post-pretest results showed the average value of the treatment group’s BMI was -1.48 and the control group was 1.35. This means that the treatment group experienced a decrease in BMI after the application of TTM. The Mann Whitney test results indicate that there is a difference in the BMI pre-post intervention with the value of p=0.00 (>0.05). CONCLUSION: The overweight and obese children’s BMI was influenced by TTM approach. KEYWORDS: transtheoretical model, children’s BMI, overweight, obesity
From cultural knowledge to intercultural communicative competence: changing perspectives on the role of culture in foreign language teaching

Approaches to the concept of culture and teaching cultural competence in a foreign language classroom have been changing over the last decades. The paper summarises, compares, contrasts and evaluates four major approaches to teaching cultural competence in foreign language teaching, that is, knowledge-based approach, contrastive approach, Communicative Language Teaching and intercultural communicative competence approach.
Concealing to reveal: The informational role of Islamic dress

After the resurgence of headscarves throughout the Muslim world, some women adopted ‘more fundamentalist’ clothing styles, such as full-face veils, or began pietistic social movements. What explains this escalation and increasing diversity of Islamic dress and behavior? This paper analyzes how the spread of headscarves and Islamic dress since the 1970s undermined it as a signal of piety, which is a valuable yet hidden characteristic in many social interactions. As less pious women adopted the headscarf for myriad reasons, pious women adopted increasingly conservative dress and behavior to credibly signal their piety to uninformed observers and improve their marriage prospects. The spread of ‘fundamentalist’ behaviors does not necessarily imply a societal shift in piety, ideology, or support for political Islamists.
The weighted majority algorithm

The construction of prediction algorithms in a situation in which a learner faces a sequence of trials, with a prediction to be made in each, and the goal of the learner is to make few mistakes is studied. It is assumed that the learner has reason to believe that one of some pool of known algorithms will perform well but does not know which one. A simple and effective method, based on weighted voting, is introduced for constructing a compound algorithm in such a circumstance. It is called the weighted majority algorithm and is shown to be robust with respect to errors in the data. Various versions of the weighted majority algorithm are discussed, and error bounds for them that are closely related to the error bounds of the best algorithms of the pool are proved. <<ETX>>
Brain Cytochrome Oxidase in Alzheimer's Disease

Abstract: A recent demonstration of markedly reduced (‐50%) activity of cytochrome oxidase (CO; complex 4), the terminal enzyme of the mitochondrial enzyme transport chain, in platelets of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) suggested the possibility of a systemic and etiologically fundamental CO defect in AD. To determine whether a CO deficiency occurs in AD brain, we measured the activity of CO in homogenates of autopsied brain regions of 19 patients with AD and 30 controls matched with respect to age, postmortem time, sex, and, as indices of agonal status, brain pH and lactic acid concentration. Mean CO activity in AD brain was reduced in frontal (‐26%; p < 0.01), temporal (‐17%; p < 0.05), and parietal (‐16%; not significant, p= 0.055) cortices. In occipital cortex and putamen, mean CO levels were normal, whereas in hippocampus, CO activity, on average, was nonsignificantly elevated (20%). The reduction of CO activity, which is tightly coupled to neuronal metabolic activity, could be explained by hypofunction of neurons, neuronal or mitochondrial loss, or possibly by a more primary, but region‐specific, defect in the enzyme itself. The absence of a CO activity reduction in all of the examined brain areas does not support the notion of a generalized brain CO abnormality. Although the functional significance of a 16‐26% cerebral cortical CO deficit in human brain is not known, a deficiency of this key energy‐metabolizing enzyme could reduce energy stores and thereby contribute to the brain dysfunction and neurodegenerative processes in AD.
Role of Tumor Necrosis Factor-α in the Human Systemic Endotoxin-Induced Transcriptome

TNFα has been implicated in the pathogenesis of various inflammatory diseases. Different strategies to inhibit TNFα in patients with sepsis and chronic inflammatory conditions have shown contrasting outcomes. Although TNFα inhibitors are widely used in clinical practice, the impact of TNFα antagonism on white blood cell gene expression profiles during acute inflammation in humans in vivo has not been assessed. We here leveraged the established model of human endotoxemia to examine the effect of the TNFα antagonist, etanercept, on the genome-wide transcriptional responses in circulating leukocytes induced by intravenous LPS administration in male subjects. Etanercept pre-treatment resulted in a markedly dampened transcriptional response to LPS. Gene co-expression network analysis revealed this LPS-induced transcriptome can be categorized as TNFα responsive and non-responsive modules. Highly significant TNFα responsive modules include NF-kB signaling, antiviral responses and T-cell mediated responses. Within these TNFα responsive modules we delineate fundamental genes involved in epigenetic modifications, transcriptional initiation and elongation. Thus, we provide comprehensive information about molecular pathways that might be targeted by therapeutic interventions that seek to inhibit TNFα activity during human inflammatory diseases.
Three predominant proteins secreted by the human prostate gland

Analyses of the proteins of azoospermic ejaculates from subjects with defective seminal vesicles demonstrated that three prostatic‐secreted proteins were predominant. Prostatic acid phosphatase (PAP), prostate‐specific antigen (PSA; or γ‐seminoprotein), and β‐microsemi‐noprotein (β‐MSP; or β‐inhibin), were identified as the three predominant proteins secreted by the normal human prostate gland. Immunohistochemical localization of these proteins, in the epithelium of normal prostatic acini and ducts, with the avidin‐biotin complex procedure demonstrated that each PAP‐immunoreactive cell was invariably immunoreactive both with PSA‐and β‐MSP‐monospecific antisera as well.
Another look at fertility and social mobility.

Response to an article by Basil Zimmer in the same issue of the journal in which he contends that the classical hypothesis connecting social mobility with fertility was rejected in the Princeton Fertility Study because of a faulty mode of analysis. Arguing from the findings of a strong association in a sample of Aberdeen women Zimmer asserts taht if social origin and destination were taken into account that same relationship would have emerged in the US data. The evidence from the Princeton Study is reviewed and new evidence presented which confirms the original findings of no relationship. (Authors)
The influence of developed cavitation on the flow of a turbulent shear layer

Developed cavitation in a shear layer was studied experimentally in order to determine the effect that the growth and collapse of cavitation have on the dynamics of shear flows. Planar particle imaging velocimetry (PIV) was used to measure the velocity field, the vorticity, strain rates, and Reynolds stresses of the flow downstream of the cavitating and noncavitating shear layer; the flow pressures and void fraction were also measured. The flow downstream of a cavitating shear flow was compared to the noncavitating shear flow. For cavitating shear layers with void fractions of up to 1.5%, the growth rate of the shear layer and the mean flow downstream of the shear layer were modified by the growth and collapse of cavitation bubbles. The cross-stream velocity fluctuations and the Reynolds stresses measured downstream of the cavitating shear layer were reduced compared to the entirely noncavitating flow. This result is inconsistent with a scaling of the shear stress within the shear flow based on the mean flow. The decrease in the cross-stream fluctuations and Reynolds stresses suggests that the cavitation within the cores of strong streamwise vortices has decreased the coupling between the streamwise and cross-stream velocity fluctuations.
Some remarks on the size of bodies and black holes

We consider the application of stable marginally outer trapped surfaces to problems concerning the size of material bodies and the area of black holes. The results presented extend to general initial data sets (V, g, K) previous results assuming either maximal (trg K = 0) or time-symmetric (K = 0) initial data.
Content based indexing of images and video using face detection and recognition methods

This paper presents an image and video indexing approach that combines face detection and face recognition methods. Images of a database or frames of a video sequence are scanned for faces by a neural network-based face detector. The extracted faces are then grouped into clusters by a combination of a face recognition method using pseudo two-dimensional hidden Markov models and a k-means clustering algorithm. Each resulting main cluster consists of the face images of one person. In a subsequent step, the detected faces are labeled as one of the different people in the video sequence or the image database and the occurrence of the people can be evaluated. The results of the proposed approach on a TV broadcast news sequence are presented. It is demonstrated that the system is able to discriminate between three different newscasters and an interviewed person.
γ-Aminobutyric acid type A receptors modulate cAMP-mediated long-term potentiation and long-term depression at monosynaptic CA3–CA1 synapses

cAMP induces a protein-synthesis-dependent late phase of long-term potentiation (LTP) at CA3–CA1 synapses in acute hippocampal slices. Herein we report cAMP-mediated LTP and long-term depression (LTD) at monosynaptic CA3–CA1 cell pairs in organotypic hippocampal slice cultures. After bath application of the membrane-permeable cAMP analog adenosine 3′,5′-cyclic monophosphorothioate, Sp isomer (Sp-cAMPS), synaptic transmission was enhanced for at least 2 h. Consistent with previous findings, the late phase of LTP requires activation of cAMP-dependent protein kinase A and protein synthesis. There is also an early phase of LTP induced by cAMP; the early phase depends on protein kinase A but, in contrast to the later phase, does not require protein synthesis. In addition, the cAMP-induced LTP is associated with a reduction of paired-pulse facilitation, suggesting that presynaptic modification may be involved. Furthermore, we found that Sp-cAMPS induced LTD in slices pretreated with picrotoxin, a γ-aminobutyric acid type A (GABAA) receptor antagonist. This form of LTD depends on protein synthesis and protein phosphatase(s) and is accompanied by an increased ratio of failed synaptic transmission. These results suggest that GABAA receptors can modulate the effect of cAMP on synaptic transmission and thus determine the direction of synaptic plasticity.
Adaptive Dynamic Surface Control for a Hypersonic Aircraft Using Neural Networks

A hypersonic aircraft dynamic model is highly nonlinear because its flight conditions are usually determined at high altitude and Mach number. Therefore, there always exist differences between the dynamical model and real system, and uncertainties during the flight, thus, leading significant degradation of control performance. To solve the performance degradation problem, this paper proposes neural networks-based adaptive velocity and altitude tracking controllers. In order for that, the hypersonic aircraft model is transformed into an uncertain feedback system, which has both matched and unmatched uncertainties, by differentiating the velocity and altitude with respect to time. Then, the overall tracking control system is designed systematically by introducing virtual control inputs and dynamic surface control. During the design process, an inverse of an input gain matrix is directly trained and adapted to remove the matched uncertainty and controller singularity problem simultaneously. In addition, several adaptive elements with saturation functions are added to handle all the matched and unmatched uncertainties. The proposed controller guarantees the uniformly ultimate boundedness of the tracking error by utilizing deadzoned errors. Finally, numerical simulations with the uncertain hypersonic aircraft are performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Functional expression of TASK‐1/TASK‐3 heteromers in cerebellar granule cells

TASK‐1 and TASK‐3 are functional members of the tandem‐pore K+ (K2P) channel family, and mRNAs for both channels are expressed together in many brain regions. Although TASK‐1 and TASK‐3 subunits are able to form heteromers when their complementary RNAs are injected into oocytes, whether functional heteromers are present in the native tissue is not known. Using cultured cerebellar granule (CG) neurones that express mRNAs of both TASK‐1 and TASK‐3, we studied the presence of heteromers by comparing the sensitivities of cloned and native K+ channels to extracellular pH (pHo) and ruthenium red. The single‐channel conductance of TASK‐1, TASK‐3 and a tandem construct (TASK‐1/TASK‐3) expressed in COS‐7 cells were 14.2 ± 0.4, 37.8 ± 0.7 and 38.1 ± 0.7 pS (–60 mV), respectively. TASK‐3 and TASK‐1/TASK‐3 (and TASK‐3/TASK‐1) displayed nearly identical single‐channel kinetics. TASK‐3 and TASK‐1/TASK‐3 expressed in COS‐7 cells were inhibited by 26 ± 4 and 36 ± 2 %, respectively, when pHo was changed from 8.3 to 7.3. In outside‐out patches from CG neurones, the K+ channel with single channel properties similar to those of TASK‐3 was inhibited by 31 ± 7 % by the same reduction in pHo. TASK‐3 and TASK‐1/TASK‐3 expressed in COS‐7 cells were inhibited by 78 ± 7 and 3 ± 4 %, respectively, when 5 μm ruthenium red was applied to outside‐out patches. In outside‐out patches from CG neurones containing a 38 pS channel, two types of responses to ruthenium red were observed. Ruthenium red inhibited the channel activity by 77 ± 5 % in 42 % of patches (range: 72–82 %) and by 5 ± 4 % (range: 0–9 %) in 58 % of patches. When patches contained more than three 38 pS channels, the average response to ruthenium red was 47 ± 6 % inhibition (n= 5). These electrophysiological studies show that native 38 pS K+ channels of the TASK family in cultured CG neurones consist of both homomeric TASK‐3 and heteromeric TASK‐1/TASK‐3.
Trust and commitment through self-verification.

This research examines how self-processes and trust influence the development of commitment in society, thereby making social order possible. The central thesis is that the process ofself-verification leads directly and indirectly, through positive emotions and trust, to the development of committed relationships, positive emotional attachments, and a group orientation; all of these are characteristics of a stable social structure. At the same time, self-verification results in the accomplishment of the meaning structures and resource flows that define social structures. In the current study, we test the self-verification-commitment process with respect to the spousal identity for newly married couples during the first three years of their marriage. The results support the central thesis and underscore the importance of self-processes and trust in building and maintaining social structure.
Detection of Beat Cepheids in M33 and Their Use as a Probe of the M33 Metallicity Distribution

Our analysis of the deep CFHT M33 variability survey database has uncovered five beat Cepheids that are pulsating in the fundamental and first-overtone modes. With only the help of stellar pulsation theory and of mass-luminosity relations, derived from evolutionary tracks, we can accurately determine the metallicities Z of these stars. The [O/H] metallicity gradient of -0.16 dex kpc-1 that is inferred from the M33 galactocentric distances of these Cepheids and from their "pulsation" metallicities is in excellent agreement with the standard spectroscopic metallicity gradients that are determined from H II regions, early-B supergiant stars, and planetary nebulae. Beat Cepheids can thus provide an additional, independent probe of galactic metallicity distributions.