Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Matrix Protein of Nipah Virus Targets the E3-Ubiquitin Ligase TRIM6 to Inhibit the IKKε Kinase-Mediated Type-I IFN Antiviral Response

For efficient replication, viruses have developed mechanisms to evade innate immune responses, including the antiviral type-I interferon (IFN-I) system. Nipah virus (NiV), a highly pathogenic member of the Paramyxoviridae family (genus Henipavirus), is known to encode for four P gene-derived viral proteins (P/C/W/V) with IFN-I antagonist functions. Here we report that NiV matrix protein (NiV-M), which is important for virus assembly and budding, can also inhibit IFN-I responses. IFN-I production requires activation of multiple signaling components including the IκB kinase epsilon (IKKε). We previously showed that the E3-ubiquitin ligase TRIM6 catalyzes the synthesis of unanchored K48-linked polyubiquitin chains, which are not covalently attached to any protein, and activate IKKε for induction of IFN-I mediated antiviral responses. Using co-immunoprecipitation assays and confocal microscopy we show here that the NiV-M protein interacts with TRIM6 and promotes TRIM6 degradation. Consequently, NiV-M expression results in reduced levels of unanchored K48-linked polyubiquitin chains associated with IKKε leading to impaired IKKε oligomerization, IKKε autophosphorylation and reduced IFN-mediated responses. This IFN antagonist function of NiV-M requires a conserved lysine residue (K258) in the bipartite nuclear localization signal that is found in divergent henipaviruses. Consistent with this, the matrix proteins of Ghana, Hendra and Cedar viruses were also able to inhibit IFNβ induction. Live NiV infection, but not a recombinant NiV lacking the M protein, reduced the levels of endogenous TRIM6 protein expression. To our knowledge, matrix proteins of paramyxoviruses have never been reported to be involved in innate immune antagonism. We report here a novel mechanism of viral innate immune evasion by targeting TRIM6, IKKε and unanchored polyubiquitin chains. These findings expand the universe of viral IFN antagonism strategies and provide a new potential target for development of therapeutic interventions against NiV infections.
Art as experience

In Art as Experience, Dewey brings together the deep and enduring connection between art and human experience. Art is understood not as a commodity or solitary object but as an intensely meaningful expression and transfiguration of life. At the core of his argument, Dewey underscores the necessity of approaching art’s creation and interpretation as a continuous process – a paradigm that has laid the theoretical foundation for my practice as an artist, children’s curator and PhD researcher. Like Charles Darwin, Dewey defines experience as the interaction between a being and its exterior world. The connection between art and experience is theorised as both an expression of the human who created it and within the personal experience of the viewer. The first resulting from an “impulsion” to create an outward expression of one’s internal construct through the selection and arrangement of materials, the latter being a consequence of individual interpretation. Both these perceptions are assemblages within one’s mind and are therefore always individually constructed. An authentic aesthetic experience necessitates continuous interaction between a being and art. Such a connection catalyses the metamorphosis of both entities through the merging of things – physical, social, emotional, sensual, intellectual and practical – that were previously external to one another. From this, a being’s subjective interpretation of its environment becomes the stimulus for intrinsic transformation. Art as Experience is regarded as one of the most significant contributions to aesthetic theory. The principles, concepts and philosophies presented in the text have influenced a myriad of theorists such as Elliot Eisner, Maxine Greene and Philip W. Jackson. The text’s modern-day legacy continues through the persistent contribution that art, creativity and aesthetics make to education.
The Psychology of Financial Decision Making : A Case for Theory-Driven Experimental Enquiry

This paper has three main parts. We first present a brief survey of the behavioral anomalies in the finance literature classified as: price and return effects, volume and volatility effects, time series patterns and other miscellaneous effects. For each category, we find that the empirical literature offers a multitude of explanations. We then develop a theoretical information-processing framework to examine the psychology of financial decision making. Many extant behavioral anomalies noted in the finance literature can be derived from this framework. The theoretical framework comprises both cognitive and motivational antecedents of bias in financial decision making. The model posits five stages at which cognitive biases may arise: perception, memory-retrieval, information integration, making a judgment, and behavior. Motivational effects are theorized as either directly affecting the manner in which information is processed, or indirectly moderating the likelihood that cognitive biases will occur. Finally we present the main thesis of the paper that theory-driven experimental analysis enables clarification amongst competing explanations, and should complement existing empirical paradigms. We illustratively use the model to examine financial decision making biases in the choice between value and glamour stocks. Across a systematic series of 5 mini-experiments, we find support that the primary antecedent driving choices between value and glamour stocks is cognitive. Concluding thoughts reinforcing the need to examine the why of a seeming anomaly are offered for both finance theorists as well as practitioners. The Psychology of Financial Decision Making: A Case for Theory-Driven Experimental Enquiry
A CIRCULAR FRACTAL UWB ANTENNA BASED ON DESCARTES CIRCLE THEOREM WITH BAND REJECTION CAPABILITY

A novel planar circular Apollonian fractal shaped UWB monopole antenna with band rejection capability is presented in this paper. The antenna performs satisfactorily in the frequency range 1.8{10.6GHz which gives a wide impedance bandwidth of 142% for VSWR within 2. The proposed antenna has the capability to reject the frequency band 5.125{5.825GHz assigned for IEEE802.11a and HIPERLAN/2. This is achieved by a pair of narrow band resonant L-shaped slots in the CPW ground plane. The antenna exhibits satisfactory omnidirectional radiation characteristics throughout its operating band. The measured peak gain varies from 2dBi to 6dBi in the entire UWB band except the notch band. The performances of time domain characteristic is satisfactory with a group delay variation of 1ns that shows the antenna is non dispersive. To ensure the usefulness of the proposed antenna in pulse communications systems, the correlation between the time-domain transmitting antenna input signal and the receiving antenna output signal is calculated. This antenna can be efiectively used for medical imaging and military radar system along with other common UWB applications.
The Hippo transducer TAZ as a biomarker of pathological complete response in HER2-positive breast cancer patients treated with trastuzumab-based neoadjuvant therapy

Activation of the Hippo transducer TAZ is emerging as a novel oncogenic route in breast cancer and it has been associated with breast cancer stem cells. Additionally, TAZ expression has been linked with HER-2 positivity. We investigated the association between TAZ expression and pathological complete response in HER2-positive breast cancer patients treated with trastuzumab-based neoadjuvant therapy. TAZ was assessed in diagnostic core biopsies by immunohistochemistry. To categorize samples with low TAZ and samples with high TAZ we generated a score by combining staining intensity and cellular localization. The pathological complete response rate was 78.6% in patients with low TAZ tumors and 57.6% in patients with high TAZ tumors (p=0.082). In HER2-enriched tumors there was no significant association between TAZ and pathological complete response, whereas in the luminal B subtype the pathological complete response rate was 82.4% in tumors with low TAZ and 44.4% in tumors with high TAZ (p=0.035). This association remained statistically significant when restricting our analysis to triple-positive tumors with expression of both estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor ≥ 50% (p=0.035). Results from this exploratory study suggest that the TAZ score efficiently predicts pathological complete response in Luminal B, HER2-positive breast cancer patients who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy and trastuzumab.
Multiflavor Correlation Functions in non-Abelian Gauge Theories at Finite Density in two dimensions

We compute vacuum expectation values of products of fermion bilinears for two-dimensional Quantum Chromodynamics at finite flavored fermion densities. We introduce the chemical potential as an external charge distribution within the path-integral approach and carefully analyse the contribution of different topological sectors to fermion correlators. We show the existence of chiral condensates exhibiting an oscillatory inhomogeneous behavior as a function of a chemical potential matrix. This result is exact and goes in the same direction as the behavior found in QCD_4 within the large N approximation.
When do you light a fire?: capturing tobacco use with situated, wearable sensors

An important step towards assessing smoking behavior is to detect and log smoking episodes in an unobtrusive way. Detailed information on an individual's consumption can then be used to highlight potential health risks and behavioral statistics to increase the smoker's awareness, and might be applied in smoking cessation programs. In this paper, we present an evaluation of two different monitoring prototypes which detect a user's smoking behavior, based on augmenting a lighter. Both prototypes capture and record instances when the user smokes, and are sufficiently robust and power efficient to allow deployments of several weeks. A real-world feasibility study with 11 frequently-smoking participants investigates the deployment and adoption of the system, hinting that smokers are generally unaware of their daily smoking patterns, and tend to overestimate their consumption.
Effort vs. Concentration: The Asymmetric Impact of Pressure on NBA Performance 1

How and why does performance change under pressure? Psychologists have argued that pressure can both distract, motivate and generate too much self-focus (thinking about the details of how one should accomplish a goal, as opposed to “just doing it"). Studies have implicated self-focus as the key factor in pressure-associated performance declines. To understand if these results extend to highly trained experts, we examine two fundamentally different actions within the context of the same professional sport, basketball. The first action, free throw shooting, requires quiet concentration, while the second, offensive rebounding, is based on effort exerted in the heat of the moment. Home vs. Away variation allows us to understand how a supportive audience moderates the impact of pressure. Using a dataset over 1.3 million possessions and 360,000 free-throws, we find that home free throw shooters do significantly worse in clutch situations, with the effect being larger for poor shooters. Road players show no change in behavior under pressure, indicating distraction plays a limited role in this task. In stark contrast, the home team gets significantly better at offensive rebounding in pressure packed moments, while again the road team shows no relationship between performance and pressure. The results show a clear asymmetric impact of a supportive audience—it can both inspire effort and lead to detrimental self-focus, even for experienced agents. From a sports perspective, it shows how the traditional notion of home-court advantage is not inconsistent with some pressure-related disadvantages (“home choke").
Influence of the Cyp1B1 L432V Gene Polymorphism and Exposure to Tobacco Smoke on Cyp1B1 mRNA Expression in Human Leukocytes

Cytochrome P450 1B1 (CYP1B1), a phase I enzyme, is involved in the activation of a broad spectrum of procarcinogens. An association of the Cyp1B1 L432V polymorphism with diverse types of cancer, as well as an impact on the catalytic activity of the enzyme, has been described. To show the functional impact of the allelic variant Cyp1B1*3, we investigated the quantitative Cyp1B1 mRNA expression in a population of smokers, nonsmokers, and ex-smokers and determined their genotypes. Detection of the L432V polymorphism in exon 3 of the Cyp1B1 gene was performed by rapid capillary polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with melting curve analysis. For quantitative comparison of Cyp1B1 mRNA levels, real-time PCR was performed using SYBR Green fluorescence in a LightCycler system. Calculations of expression were made with the 2–ΔΔCT method. In comparing relative Cyp1B1 mRNA expression, highly significant differences between the two homozygote genotypes *1/*1 and *3/*3 (0.185 ± 0.027, n = 118 versus 0.071 ± 0.013, n = 56; p = 0.000), as well as between the heterozygote genotype *1/*3 and the homozygote genotype *3/*3 (0.178 ± 0.025, n = 171 versus 0.071 ± 0.013, n = 56; p = 0.000), were revealed. Significant differences between the genotypes were also detected within the subgroups of smokers, nonsmokers, and ex-smokers. No significant differences were determined in comparing the relative Cyp1B1 mRNA expression with regard to tobacco smoke exposure. Our results suggest that genotypes carrying the C allele (*1/*1 and *1/*3) at Cyp1B1 L432V polymorphism have a significantly higher Cyp1B1 mRNA expression compared with the genotype without the C allele (*3/*3). Gene expression of Cyp1B1 mRNA cannot be used as a biomarker for exposure of tobacco smoke.
Towards Web-Scale Workﬂows for Film Production

The screen business encompasses all creative and management aspects related to ﬁlm, television, and new media content, from concept to production and distribution. Companies in this industry face increasing competition due to market globalisation. To stay competitive, they are turning to contemporary technology-enabled business improvement methods, such as business process management. Processes in the screen business, particularly ﬁlm production, generally consist of highly interdependent steps that manipulate heterogeneous data and involve a variety of stakeholders in a distributed and mobile work environment. Despite its potential beneﬁts, the use of work-ﬂow systems for automating ﬁlm production processes is largely unexplored. This paper presents a case study that highlights some of the key challenges that lie ahead on the road to Web-scale workﬂows for ﬁlm production.
The potential role of Bismide alloys in future photonic devices

In a similar manner to the dilute nitrides, the incorporation of Bismuth in semiconductors such as GaAs is predicted to lead to a band-anti-crossing effect (in the valence band) causing a large band gap bowing. In addition, the large size of Bismuth atoms gives rise to a large spin-orbit splitting. This opens-up interesting new possibilities for efficient photonic devices, such as near- and mid-infrared lasers which are more thermally stable and less susceptible to losses compared to conventional InP-based devices. Since Bismuth principally influences the valence band, while nitrogen influences the conduction band, combining Bismuth and Nitrogen in III–V alloys offers huge potential for engineering the conduction and valence band offsets, the band gap and spin-orbit splitting, with wide scope for the design of photonic devices.
Electronically probed measurements of MEMS geometries

Measurement of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) geometry is critical for device design and simulation, material property extraction, and post-fabrication trimming. In this paper electrostatically driven laterally resonant comb-drive test structures with prescribed changes in spring width are used to ascertain systematic variations in process offsets (edge biases) and sidewall angles. The technique is both in situ and nondestructive. An analytical model for the resonant frequency, tuned with three-dimensional (3-D) simulations using MEMCAD, includes effects of a distributed mass, residual stress, and compliant supports. The model is corroborated by 3-D numerical simulations to validate the extraction approach. Fits of this model to experimental data determine the offset and sidewall angle of polysilicon devices fabricated by the Multi-User MEMS Processes of the Microelectronics Center of North Carolina, Research Triangle Park, NC.
THROMBOSIS AND HEMOSTASIS The thromboprotective effect of bortezomib is dependent on the transcription factor Kruppel-like factor 2 ( KLF 2 )

Cancer is associated with a high risk of thrombosis. Among hematologic malignancies, multiple myeloma (MM) has an especially high rate of both arterial and venous thrombotic events (VTEs). Further, patients treated with the immunomodulatory drugs (IMiDs) thalidomide and lenalidomide experience a substantially elevated VTE risk (15% to 30%). In sharp contrast, MM patients receiving proteasome inhibitor bortezomib (BZ) have a VTE risk that is less than 4%. BZ treatment in hypertensive rat models consistently decreases arterial thrombosis. Although in vitro and ex vivo studies show that BZ inhibits platelet aggregation, the magnitude of this effect is not sufficient for explaining the profound decrease in VTEs noted with BZ. Consequently, alternative mechanisms are likely operative and account for the antithrombotic effects of BZ. Kruppel-like factor 2 (KLF2) is amember of the zincfinger family of transcription factors, which are highly expressed in endothelial and hematopoietic cells. Studies in our laboratory identified KLF2 as a key regulator of endothelial and myeloid inflammation with favorable antithrombotic properties. Further, studies conducted by us and others reveal that BZ induces KLF2 messenger RNA (mRNA) in endothelial and hematopoietic cells. Because endothelial and hematopoietic cells are centrally involved in thrombotic events, we hypothesized that the antithrombotic effect noted with BZ may be KLF2 dependent.
Community Detection via Measure Space Embedding

We present a new algorithm for community detection. The algorithm uses random walks to embed the graph in a space of measures, after which a modification of k-means in that space is applied. The algorithm is therefore fast and easily parallelizable. We evaluate the algorithm on standard random graph benchmarks, including some overlapping community benchmarks, and find its performance to be better or at least as good as previously known algorithms. We also prove a linear time (in number of edges) guarantee for the algorithm on a p, q-stochastic block model with where p ≥ c · N- ½+ ∊ and p - q ≥ c′ √pN- ½+ ∊ log N.
Epidemiology of Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms: Emphasis on the Status in Korea

A comprehensive and correct understanding of epidemiologic finding about lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) is important for several reasons. First, LUTS are highly prevalent in both genders all around the world and are expected to be a major concern to physicians in the near future because of the rapid rise in the elderly population. Second, it is crucial to observe trends in prevalence when national health care policy is established. By using a Medline search with various terms related to LUTS and prevalence, a review of epidemiologic studies was undertaken with an emphasis on the status in Korea. Despite the suggestions made by the International Continence Society, the lack of uniform definitions and the lack of a unified threshold of symptoms are the biggest obstacles in epidemiologic study with regard to LUTS. Most Korean epidemiologic studies on LUTS have been reported since 2000 and reveal that the prevalences of specific clinical conditions, such as LUTS, benign prostatic hyperplasia, overactive bladder, and detrusor underactivity, are in line with prevalences in Western counties. However, the prevalence of nocturia is somewhat different from that in Western countries. Many epidemiologic studies of LUTS have provided us with valuable information and a better understanding of the clinical conditions. Given that the impact of these clinical conditions on quality of life and health care cost will be emphasized more in the near future, more studies on optimal management approaches to LUTS are needed on the basis of this knowledge.
Automatic Calibration of the Fundamental Diagram and Empirical Observations on Capacity

This paper will present a method for automated, empirical calibration of freeway traffic flow characteristics. The method uses 5-min flow and density values for a section of freeway and rapidly and reliably estimates key parameters such as free flow speed, capacity, critical density, congestion wave speed and jam density, which are key inputs to many macroscopic traffic simulation models. The method consists of data filtering, capacity identification, and approximate quantile regression steps. The method was used to calibrate a cell transmission model of Interstate-880 in San Francisco Bay Area, California, a 40-mile long urban freeway with lots of recurrent and non-recurrent congestion and with dozens of loop detector stations. The calibrated model reproduced the observed traffic congestion behavior within 9% error for performance measures VMT (vehicle miles traveled), VHT (vehicle hours traveled) and total flow. Also, the empirical results suggest that capacity, defined as the maximum observed 5-minute flow rate over several days, differs from breakdown flow, defined as the flow that is observed just before the freeway section becomes congested.
Targeted Metabolomics Identifies Reliable and Stable Metabolites in Human Serum and Plasma Samples

Background Information regarding the variability of metabolite levels over time in an individual is required to estimate the reproducibility of metabolite measurements. In intervention studies, it is critical to appropriately judge changes that are elicited by any kind of intervention. The pre-analytic phase (collection, transport and sample processing) is a particularly important component of data quality in multi-center studies. Methods Reliability of metabolites (within-and between-person variance, intraclass correlation coefficient) and stability (shipment simulation at different temperatures, use of gel-barrier collection tubes, freeze-thaw cycles) were analyzed in fasting serum and plasma samples of 22 healthy human subjects using a targeted LC-MS approach. Results Reliability of metabolite measurements was higher in serum compared to plasma samples and was good in most saturated short-and medium-chain acylcarnitines, amino acids, biogenic amines, glycerophospholipids, sphingolipids and hexose. The majority of metabolites were stable for 24 h on cool packs and at room temperature in non-centrifuged tubes. Plasma and serum metabolite stability showed good coherence. Serum metabolite concentrations were mostly unaffected by tube type and one or two freeze-thaw cycles. Conclusion A single time point measurement is assumed to be sufficient for a targeted metabolomics analysis of most metabolites. For shipment, samples should ideally be separated and frozen immediately after collection, as some amino acids and biogenic amines become unstable within 3 h on cool packs. Serum gel-barrier tubes can be used safely for this process as they have no effect on concentration in most metabolites. Shipment of non-centrifuged samples on cool packs is a cost-efficient alternative for most metabolites.