Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Carotenoids are the likely precursor of a significant fraction of marine dissolved organic matter

Carotenoids, a common biochemical class, can be directly linked to long-term carbon storage in the ocean’s water column. The ocean’s biota sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) in part by producing dissolved organic matter (DOM) that persists in the ocean for millennia. This long-term accumulation of carbon may be facilitated by abiotic and biotic production of chemical structures that resist degradation, consequently contributing disproportionately to refractory DOM. Compounds that are selectively preserved in seawater were identified in solid-phase extracted DOM (PPL-DOM) using comprehensive gas chromatography (GC) coupled to mass spectrometry (MS). These molecules contained cyclic head groups that were linked to isoprenoid tails, and their overall structures closely resembled carotenoid degradation products (CDP). The origin of these compounds in PPL-DOM was further confirmed with an in vitro β-carotene photooxidation experiment that generated water-soluble CDP with similar structural characteristics. The molecular-level identification linked at least 10% of PPL-DOM carbon, and thus 4% of total DOM carbon, to CDP. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectra of experimental CDP and environmental PPL-DOM overlapped considerably, which indicated that even a greater proportion of PPL-DOM was likely composed of CDP. The CDP-rich DOM fraction was depleted in radiocarbon (14C age > 1500 years), a finding that supports the possible long-term accumulation of CDP in seawater. By linking a specific class of widespread biochemicals to refractory DOM, this work provides a foundation for future studies that aim to examine how persistent DOM forms in the ocean.
Neuregulin potentiates agrin-induced acetylcholine receptor clustering in myotubes

Agrin and neuregulin (HRG-&bgr;1) play complementary roles in synapse formation. While HRG-&bgr;1 induces transcriptional up-regulation of postsynaptic proteins, here we present evidence that it can potentiate agrin-induced acetylcholine receptor (AChR) clustering in C2 myotubes. Agrin induced maximal AChR clustering in 4 h. HRG-&bgr;1 treatment for 4 h produced no increase over basal AChR cluster numbers. When myotubes were treated for 4 h with 100 pM agrin, HRG-&bgr;1 augmented AChR cluster numbers by 2-fold compared to myotubes treated with 100 pM agrin alone. Thus, HRG-&bgr;1 can potentiate agrin-induced AChR clustering.
Improved plasma performance in tokamaks with negative magnetic shear.

A tokamak plasma configuration is reported that simultaneously improves on the maximum stable plasma pressure, the bootstrap current contribution, and kinetic stability to temperature and density gradient driven modes in toroidal geometry. It is characterized by negative magnetic shear in the plasma interior and a peaked pressure profile. Stability to the ideal low-[ital n] external kink modes requires a conducting shell at 1.3 times the plasma minor radius. This novel plasma configuration is promising for improved plasma performance in advanced tokamak experiments.
Diffusion tensor MR imaging in diffuse axonal injury.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Disruption of the cytoskeletal network and axonal membranes characterizes diffuse axonal injury (DAI) in the first few hours after traumatic brain injury. Histologic abnormalities seen in DAI hypothetically decrease the diffusion along axons and increase the diffusion in directions perpendicular to them. DAI therefore is hypothetically associated in the short term with decreased diffusion anisotropy. We tested this hypothesis by measuring the diffusion characteristics of traumatized brain tissue with use of diffusion tensor MR imaging. METHODS Five patients with mild traumatic brain injuries and 10 control subjects were studied with CT, conventional MR imaging, and diffusion tensor imaging. All patients were examined within 24 hours of injury. In each participant, diffusion tensor indices from homologous normal-appearing white matter regions of both hemispheres were compared. These indices were also compared between homologous regions of each patient and the control group. In two patients, diffusion tensor images from the immediate post-trauma period were compared with those at 1 month follow-up. RESULTS Patients displayed significant reduction of diffusion anisotropy in several regions compared with the homologous ones in the contralateral hemisphere. Such differences were not observed in the control subjects. Significant reduction of diffusion anisotropy was also detected when diffusion tensor results from the patients were compared with those of the controls. This reduction was often less evident 1 month after injury. CONCLUSION White matter regions with reduced anisotropy are detected in the first 24 hours after traumatic brain injury. Therefore, diffusion tensor imaging may be a powerful technique for in vivo detection of DAI.
In vivo comparison of the osseointegration of vacuum plasma sprayed titanium- and hydroxyapatite-coated implants.

For the last 15 years, orthopedic implants have been coated with hydroxyapatite (HA) to improve implant fixation. The osteoconductive effect of HA coatings has been demonstrated in experimental and clinical studies. However, there are ongoing developments to improve the quality of HA coatings. The objective of this study was to investigate whether a rough and highly crystalline HA coating applied by vacuum plasma spraying (VPS) had a positive effect on the osseointegration of special, high-grade titanium (Ti) implants with the same surface roughness. Ti alloy implants were coated (VPS) with special, high-grade Ti or HA. The osseointegration of the implants was evaluated by either light microscopy or pullout tests after 1, 2, and 4 weeks of unloaded implantation in the cancellous bone of 18 sheep. The interface shear strength increased significantly over all time intervals. By 4 weeks, values had reached approximately 10N/mm(2). However, the difference between the coatings was not significant at any time interval. Direct bone-implant contact was significantly different between the coatings after 2 and 4 weeks, and reached 46% for Ti and 68% for HA implants by 4 weeks. This study indicates that the use of a rough and highly crystalline HA coating, applied by VPS, enhances early osseointegration. Accelerated establishment of secondary implant fixation decreases the risk of early loosening.
Dengue and hepatitis E virus infection in pregnant women in Eastern Sudan, a challenge for diagnosis in an endemic area

Dengue fever and hepatitis E virus infection are both a public health problem in developing countries due to poor sanitation. Infection with viral hepatitis and dengue fever can present with similar clinical such and fever, headache and abortion. This study was conducted in Port-Sudan city in the eastern part of the country. ELISA and Real Time PCR tests were used to detect the infection. A total number of 39 pregnant women with a mean age 26 ±7.8 were included in the study. All of them had fever, 32 (92.3%) admitted with headache, 11 (28.2%) of them had vomiting, and abortion was reported in two cases (5.1%). The study showed that 4 (10.3%) of pregnant women were positive for the Hepatitis E virus, 5 (12.8%) positive for Dengue virus IgG, and only one sample (2.6%) was positive for IgM capture ELISA and real time PCR. Death due to hepatitis E infection was reported in one case with 7th month of pregnancy. Most of hepatitis cases were reported in the central sector of the Portsudan city. The diagnosis of hepatitis E virus and dengue virus in an endemic area is a great challenge for health care staff working in these areas. Both Dengue virus and Hepatitis E virus infection should be considered in pregnant women especially in similar settings.
INVESTIGATION ON MECHANICAL BEHAVIOUR OF SELF COMPACTING CONCRETE REINFORCED WITH STEEL FIBRES

Fibre reinforced self compacting concrete (SFRSCC) mingles the advantage of both Self compacting and fibre reinforced concrete. In the at hand investigation, the behavior and capability of SFRSCC in flexure and punching shear were tested by conducting experiments on prism and slab - column specimen to characterize the concrete reinforced with steel fibre volume fraction of 0.5 & 0.75%. Out of six concrete mixes considered for the study, three mixes were added with fibres and three without fibres. Flexural studies on prism resulted that incorporation of higher amount of steel fibres yielded higher toughness which enables the material to resist large deflections. Study on punching shear capacity reported that addition of fibres produced a substantial increase in capacity and is found to increase with addition of fibre dosage. Results indicated that at a constant volume fraction of fibres, improved performance in flexure and punching shear is observed in concrete mixes.
ICT Sector, Globalization and Urban Economic Growth: Evidence from Bangalore (India)

This paper aims at economic analysis of economic globalization and urban growth of Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India, as they are related to ICT sector. Overall analyses offer new insights and evidences for ICT sector as a major contributor for degree of economic globalization and urban economic growth, mainly driven by ICT services. Bangalore’s performance is remarkable compared to all-India level and OECD averages. These results offer empirical justification for continuing with and strengthening of public policies for promotion of globalizing and growth-oriented ICT sector in Bangalore with implications for comparable Indian and Asian cities.
Region Duplication Forgery Detection Technique Based on SURF and HAC

Region duplication forgery detection is a special type of forgery detection approach and widely used research topic under digital image forensics. In copy move forgery, a specific area is copied and then pasted into any other region of the image. Due to the availability of sophisticated image processing tools, it becomes very hard to detect forgery with naked eyes. From the forged region of an image no visual clues are often detected. For making the tampering more robust, various transformations like scaling, rotation, illumination changes, JPEG compression, noise addition, gamma correction, and blurring are applied. So there is a need for a method which performs efficiently in the presence of all such attacks. This paper presents a detection method based on speeded up robust features (SURF) and hierarchical agglomerative clustering (HAC). SURF detects the keypoints and their corresponding features. From these sets of keypoints, grouping is performed on the matched keypoints by HAC that shows copied and pasted regions.
Notch3 Is a Major Regulator of Vascular Tone in Cerebral and Tail Resistance Arteries

Objective—Notch3, a member of the evolutionary conserved Notch receptor family, is primarily expressed in vascular smooth muscle cells. Genetic studies in human and mice revealed a critical role for Notch3 in the structural integrity of distal resistance arteries by regulating arterial differentiation and postnatal maturation. Methods and Results—We investigated the role of Notch3 in vascular tone in small resistance vessels (tail and cerebral arteries) and large (carotid) arteries isolated from Notch3-deficient mice using arteriography. Passive diameter and compliance were unaltered in mutant arteries. Similarly, contractions to phenylephrine, KCl, angiotensin II, and thromboxane A2 as well as dilation to acetylcholine or sodium nitroprusside were unaffected. However, Notch3 deficiency induced a dramatic reduction in pressure-induced myogenic tone associated with a higher flow (shear stress)-mediated dilation in tail and cerebral resistance arteries only. Furthermore, RhoA activity and myosin light chain phosphorylation, measured in pressurized tail arteries, were significantly reduced in Notch3KO mice. Additionally, myogenic tone inhibition by the Rho kinase inhibitor Y27632 was attenuated in mutant tail arteries. Conclusions—Notch3 plays an important role in the control of vascular mechano-transduction, by modulating the RhoA/Rho kinase pathway, with opposite effects on myogenic tone and flow-mediated dilation in the resistance circulation.
Family history of cancer and the risk of endometrial cancer

To investigate the relationship between family history of cancer in first-degree relatives and the risk of endometrial cancer, we carried out a large multicentre case–control study in Italy between 1992 and 2006, including 454 endometrial cancer cases and 908 controls admitted in hospital for acute, non-neoplastic diseases. Conditional logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI). Relative to women with no family history of uterine cancer, the ORs were 2.1 (95% CI: 0.7–6.4) for those reporting a family history of endometrial cancer and 1.8 (95% CI: 1.0–3.2) for a family history of any uterine cancer. A family history of intestinal cancer was directly associated with endometrial cancer risk (OR=1.6; 95% CI: 1.0–2.7). Direct associations were found for a few other cancer sites. In conclusion, a family history of endometrial, uterine or intestinal cancer in first-degree relatives is associated with an increased risk of endometrial cancer.
The VIMOS-VLT deep survey luminosity dependence of clustering at z ≃ 1

We investigate the dependence of galaxy clustering on the galaxy intrinsic luminosity at high redshift, using the data from the First Epoch VIMOS-VLT Deep Survey (VVDS). The size (6530 galaxies) and depth (I_{AB}<24) of the survey allows us to measure the projected two-point correlation function of galaxies, w_p(r_p) for a set of volume-limited samples up to an effective redshift =0.9 and median absolute magnitude -19.6< M_B < -21.3. Fitting w_p(r_p) with a single power-law model for the real-space correlation function xi(r)=(r/r_0)^{-gamma}, we measure the relationship of the correlation length r_0 and the slope gamma with the sample median luminosity for the first time at such high redshift. Values from our lower-redshift samples (0.1
Low Rank Approximation and Decomposition of Large Matrices Using Error Correcting Codes

Low rank approximation is an important tool used in many applications of signal processing and machine learning. Recently, randomized sketching algorithms were proposed to effectively construct low rank approximations and obtain approximate singular value decompositions of large matrices. Similar ideas were used to solve least squares regression problems. In this paper, we show how matrices from error correcting codes can be used to find such low rank approximations and matrix decompositions, and extend the framework to linear least squares regression problems. The benefits of using these code matrices are the following. First, they are easy to generate and they reduce randomness significantly. Second, code matrices, with mild restrictions, satisfy the subspace embedding property, and have a better chance of preserving the geometry of an large subspace of vectors. Third, for parallel and distributed applications, code matrices have significant advantages over structured random matrices and Gaussian random matrices. Fourth, unlike Fourier or Hadamard transform matrices, which require sampling <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$O(k\log k)$ </tex-math></inline-formula> columns for a rank-<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$k$ </tex-math></inline-formula> approximation, the log factor is not necessary for certain types of code matrices. In particular, <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$(1+ \epsilon)$ </tex-math></inline-formula> optimal Frobenius norm error can be achieved for a rank-<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$k$ </tex-math></inline-formula> approximation with <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$O(k/ \epsilon)$ </tex-math></inline-formula> samples. Fifth, fast multiplication is possible with structured code matrices, so fast approximations can be achieved for general dense input matrices. Sixth, for least squares regression problem <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\min \|Ax-b\|_{2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> where <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$A\in {\mathbb R} ^{n\times d}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, the <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$(1+ \epsilon)$ </tex-math></inline-formula> relative error approximation can be achieved with <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$O(d/ \epsilon)$ </tex-math></inline-formula> samples, with high probability, when certain code matrices are used.
STiNG: A CC-NUMA Computer System for the Commercial Marketplace

"STiNG" is a Cache Coherent Non-Uniform Memory Access (CC-NUMA) Multiprocessor designed and built by Sequent Computer Systems, Inc. It combines four processor Symmetric Multi-processor (SMP) nodes (called Quads), using a Scalable Coherent Interface (SCI) based coherent interconnect. The Quads are based on the Intel P6 processor and the external bus it defines. In addition to 4 P6 processors, each Quad may contain up to 4 GBytes of system memory, 2 Peripheral Component Interface (PCI) busses for I/O, and a Lynx board. The Lynx board provides the datapath to the SCI-based interconnect and ensures system-wide cache coherency. STiNG is one of the first commercial CC-NUMA systems to be built. This paper describes the motivation for building STiNG as well as its architecture and implementation. In addition, performance analysis is provided for On-Line Transaction Processing (OLTP) and Decision Support System (DSS) workloads. Finally, the status of the current implementation is reviewed.
The gender effect in juvenile Huntington disease patients of Italian origin

We analyzed a population of juvenile Huntington disease (HD) subjects of Italian origin (n = 57). The main aim of this study was to analyze the gender effect of the affected parent on age at onset and clinical presentation of offspring with juvenile HD. We also analyzed molecular features of the disease, including CAG mutation length and GluR6 gene polymorphism, according to the affected parent's gender. The mutation length was longer in paternally than in maternally transmitted HD juvenile patients (P = 0.025), nevertheless a similar mean early onset in the two groups (P > 0.05). This data was even enforced by that obtained from the whole cohort of patients included in the databank (n = 600) where, in the presence of increased mean parent–child CAG repeat change in paternal vs. maternal meiotic transmissions (+7.3 vs. +0.7 CAG, P = 0.0002), the mean parent–child year‐of‐onset change was similar in the two groups (−10.4 and −7.0 years, P > 0.05). A lower TAA‐triplet in GluR6 was associated with an earlier age at onset in juvenile patients (P = 0.031, R2 = 0.10). When we added the GluR6 effect on age at onset to the CAG expanded number effect (P = 0.0001, R2 = 0.68) by multiple regression approach, the coefficient of determination R2 increased to 0.81. This effect in addition to the expanded CAG repeat number, found in juvenile and not in adult patients, was slightly enforced by paternal compared to maternal transmissions (R2=0.82). Our findings suggest the occurrence of a weaker effect of the paternal mutation on juvenile age at onset in our population, possibly amplified by other genetic factors, such as the TAA‐triplet length in the GluR6 gene. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Structural Features of the αβTCR Mechanotransduction Apparatus That Promote pMHC Discrimination

The αβTCR was recently revealed to function as a mechanoreceptor. That is, it leverages mechanical energy generated during immune surveillance and at the immunological synapse to drive biochemical signaling following ligation by a specific foreign peptide–MHC complex (pMHC). Here, we review the structural features that optimize this transmembrane (TM) receptor for mechanotransduction. Specialized adaptations include (1) the CβFG loop region positioned between Vβ and Cβ domains that allosterically gates both dynamic T cell receptor (TCR)–pMHC bond formation and lifetime; (2) the rigid super β-sheet amalgams of heterodimeric CD3εγ and CD3εδ ectodomain components of the αβTCR complex; (3) the αβTCR subunit connecting peptides linking the extracellular and TM segments, particularly the oxidized CxxC motif in each CD3 heterodimeric subunit that facilitates force transfer through the TM segments and surrounding lipid, impacting cytoplasmic tail conformation; and (4) quaternary changes in the αβTCR complex that accompany pMHC ligation under load. How bioforces foster specific αβTCR-based pMHC discrimination and why dynamic bond formation is a primary basis for kinetic proofreading are discussed. We suggest that the details of the molecular rearrangements of individual αβTCR subunit components can be analyzed utilizing a combination of structural biology, single-molecule FRET, optical tweezers, and nanobiology, guided by insightful atomistic molecular dynamic studies. Finally, we review very recent data showing that the pre-TCR complex employs a similar mechanobiology to that of the αβTCR to interact with self-pMHC ligands, impacting early thymic repertoire selection prior to the CD4+CD8+ double positive thymocyte stage of development.
Studying the Relevance of Breast Imaging Features

Breast screening is the regular examination of a woman’s breasts to find breast cancer in an initial stage. The sole exam approved for this purpose is mammography that, despite the existence of more advanced technologies, is considered the cheapest and most efficient method to detect cancer in a preclinical stage. We investigate, using machine learning techniques, how attributes obtained from mammographies can relate to malignancy. In particular, this study focus is on how mass density can influence malignancy from a data set of 348 patients containing, among other information, results of biopsies. To this end, we applied different learning algorithms on the data set using the WEKA tools, and performed significance tests on the results. The conclusions are threefold: (1) automatic classification of a mammography can reach equal or better results than the ones annotated by specialists, which can help doctors to quickly concentrate on some specific mammogram for a more thorough study; (2) mass density seems to be a good indicator of malignancy, as previous studies suggested; (3) we can obtain classifiers that can predict mass density with a quality as good as the specialist