Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Structural Analysis and Stochastic Modelling Suggest a Mechanism for Calmodulin Trapping by CaMKII

Activation of CaMKII by calmodulin and the subsequent maintenance of constitutive activity through autophosphorylation at threonine residue 286 (Thr286) are thought to play a major role in synaptic plasticity. One of the effects of autophosphorylation at Thr286 is to increase the apparent affinity of CaMKII for calmodulin, a phenomenon known as “calmodulin trapping”. It has previously been suggested that two binding sites for calmodulin exist on CaMKII, with high and low affinities, respectively. We built structural models of calmodulin bound to both of these sites. Molecular dynamics simulation showed that while binding of calmodulin to the supposed low-affinity binding site on CaMKII is compatible with closing (and hence, inactivation) of the kinase, and could even favour it, binding to the high-affinity site is not. Stochastic simulations of a biochemical model showed that the existence of two such binding sites, one of them accessible only in the active, open conformation, would be sufficient to explain calmodulin trapping by CaMKII. We can explain the effect of CaMKII autophosphorylation at Thr286 on calmodulin trapping: It stabilises the active state and therefore makes the high-affinity binding site accessible. Crucially, a model with only one binding site where calmodulin binding and CaMKII inactivation are strictly mutually exclusive cannot reproduce calmodulin trapping. One of the predictions of our study is that calmodulin binding in itself is not sufficient for CaMKII activation, although high-affinity binding of calmodulin is.
Use of Crystals for High Energy Photon Beam Linear Polarization Conversion into Circular

The possibility to convert the photon beam linear polarization into circular one at photon energies of hundreds GeV with the use of crystals is considered. The energy and orientation dependencies of refractive indexes are investigated in case of diamond, silicon and germanium crystal targets. To maximize the values for figure of merit, the corresponding crystal optimal orientation angles and thickness are found. The degree of circular polarization and intensity of photon beam are estimated and possibility of experimental realization is discussed.
Continuous retinal vessel diameter measurements: the future in retinal vessel assessment?

PURPOSE To establish an alternative method, sequential and diameter response analysis (SDRA), to determine dynamic retinal vessel responses and their time course in serial stimulation compared with the established method of averaged diameter responses and standard static assessment. METHODS SDRA focuses on individual time and diameter responses, taking into account the fluctuation in baseline diameter, providing improved insight into reaction patterns when compared with established methods as delivered by retinal vessel analyzer (RVA) software. SDRA patterns were developed with measurements from 78 healthy nonsmokers and subsequently validated in a group of 21 otherwise healthy smokers. Fundus photography and retinal vessel responses were assessed by RVA, intraocular pressure by contact tonometry, and blood pressure by sphygmomanometry. RESULTS Compared with the RVA software method, SDRA demonstrated a marked difference in retinal vessel responses to flickering light (P < 0.05). As a validation of that finding, SDRA showed a strong relation between baseline retinal vessel diameter and subsequent dilatory response in both healthy subjects and smokers (P = 0.001). The RVA software was unable to detect this difference or to find a difference in retinal vessel arteriovenous ratio between smokers and nonsmokers (P = 0.243). However, SDRA revealed that smokers' vessels showed both an increased level of arterial baseline diameter fluctuation before flicker stimulation (P = 0.005) and an increased stiffness of retinal arterioles (P = 0.035) compared with those in nonsmokers. These differences were unrelated to intraocular pressure or systemic blood pressure. CONCLUSIONS SDRA shows promise as a tool for the assessment of vessel physiology. Further studies are needed to explore its application in patients with vascular diseases.
RECOVERING ABILITY OF FREEZE-STRESSED SALMONELLA TYPHIMURIUM AND STAPHYLOCOCCUS AUREUS CELLS IN FROZEN SHRIMP

Viability of Salmonella typhimurium and Staphylococcus aureus in frozen shrimp sample was investigated. Shrimp slurry was sterilized and divided into two parts. The slurry samples were artificially inoculated with the above organisms separately, frozen and stored at – 24 0 C. S. typhimurium count was reduced by 3 log cycles after 8 weeks of storage at temperature, –24 0 C. Increment of one log cycle of S. aureus was observed after frozen storage at –24 0 C for 24 hours, and more than two log cycle reduction at the end of 8 weeks storage. The result revealed that S. aureus was more resistant than S. typhimurium under frozen temperature (-24 0 C). The construction of quality control charts for S. aureus and aerobic plate count by using reference samples helped to validate and monitor the test procedure. A chart was drawn by analyzing 14 reference samples. The mean values (MV), upper and lower warning limits (MV + 2*SD) and upper and lower control limits (MV + 3*SD) were transferred into the control charts. These control charts are ideal and useful to decide the quality of the results obtained from the analysis at the laboratory.
A fast leaf recognition algorithm based on SVM classifier and high dimensional feature vector

Plants are fundamental for human beings, so it's very important to catalog and preserve all the plants species. Identifying an unknown plant species is not a simple task. Automatic image processing techniques based on leaves recognition can help to find the best features useful for plant representation and classification. Many methods present in literature use only a small and complex set of features, often extracted from the binary images or the boundary of the leaf. In this work we propose a leaf recognition method which uses a new features set that incorporates shape, color and texture features. A total of 138 features are extracted and used for training a SVM model. The method has been tested on Flavia dataset (Wu et al., 2007), showing excellent performance both in terms of accuracy that often reaches 100%, and in terms of speed, less than a second to process and extract features from an image.
Testing automotive embedded systems under X-in-the-loop setups

The development of automotive electronics and software systems is often associated with high costs due to their multi-domain nature (including control engineering, electronics, hydraulics, mechanics, etc). The involvement of these different disciplines makes it difficult for control engineers to test their controllers with them being integrated in the whole system, in early development phases. By introducing the “XiL approach”, ETAS wants to leverage virtualization techniques in order to bring embedded systems to the desk of every developer. The XiL approach implies fast development cycles due to easy integration of software, vehicle and plant components on the PC. XiL strives for seamless transition between X-in-the-loop setups, with X representing any control model (M), software (S), or hardware (H) under test. This paper will outline this methodology with an engine management system example.
Evaluation of Burnout Levels of the Academic Staff and Research Assistants Working at Medical Faculties

Aim: It was aimed to evaluate the burnout levels of the academicians and research assistants employed at Medical Faculty of Selcuk University and Necmettin Erbakan University, and to investigate the factors affecting the level of burnout. Methods: This study included total 894 subjects; 564 faculty members and research assistants working at Necmettin Erbakan University and 330 faculty members and research staff employed at Faculty of Medicine, Selçuk University. A questionnaire consisting of 50 questions containing sociodemographic characteristics of the participants, and the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) were filled with face-to-face interviews. Results: Of the participants, 63.1% were working at the University of Necmettin Erbakan, and 36.9% at Selçuk University. While the mean emotional exhaustion (EE) (p<0.001) and depersonalization (DP) (p<0.001) scores of the physicians who work in basic medical sciences, the staff titled Prof. Dr. and Assoc. Prof. Dr., the physicians with administrative duties, the staff at/over 40 years old and the married physicians were statistically significantly lower than those of the staff employed in the other medical and surgical sciences, the staff with other titles, the physicians without administrative duties, the staff under 40 years old and the single staff respectively; personal success (PS) mean scores were statistically significantly higher (p<0.001). Conclusion: In particular, the supports reducing burnout and motivating should be provided and maintained to the physicians who are employed at such places especially as Faculties of Medicine which aims both to provide the highest level of health care in the region and to raise the physicians of the future.
Breaking Habits With Implementation Intentions: A Test of Underlying Processes

Implementation intentions specifying the replacement of a habitual response with an alternative response in a critical situation can overrule habits. In three experiments the cognitive effects of such counterhabitual implementation intentions were investigated. Results showed that implementation intentions eliminated the cognitive advantage of the habitual means in the “horse race” with the alternative response. That is, in the control condition, the habitual means was more accessible than the alternative means on encountering the critical situation, but this was no longer the case when implementation intentions were formulated. However, the cognitive advantage of the habitual means was not immediately replaced by an automatic activation of the alternative means. This suggests that formulating counterhabitual implementation intentions increases individuals’ flexibility to choose which behavior to perform in the critical situation but that actual behavior will depart from their habits only to the extent that individuals have strong alternative goal intentions.
Direct development in the lungless salamanders : what are the consequences for developmental biology , evolution and phylogenesis ?

Direct development is a widespread alternate reproductive mode in living amphibians that is characterized by evolutionary loss afthe free-living, aquatic larval stage. Courtship, mating, and oviposition occur on land, and the terrestrial egg hatches as a fully formed, miniature adult. While it is the most common reproductive mode in urodeles, development outside the reproductive tract of the female that proceeds directly to a terrestrial hatchling occurs in only a single lineage, the lungless salamanders of the family Plethodontidae. Evolution of direct development in plethodontids has contributed importantly to the extraordinary evolutionary success of this speciose, geographically widespread, and morphologically and ecologically diverse taxon. Developmental consequences and correlates include increased egg size and embryonic development time, loss of larval structures and ontogenetic repatterning, and altered pattern formation in organogenesis. Evolutionary and phylogenetic consequences and correlates include the loss of larval constraints and origin of morphological novelty, and frequent homoplasy. Analysis of direct development in an evolutionary context illustrates the complex interplay between processes of phylogenetic divergence and developmental biology, and substantiates the prominent role of developmental processes in both constraining phenotypic variation and promoting phenotypic diversity. Despite the proven suitability of directdeveloping plethodontid salamanders for laboratory and field study, knowledge of basic features of their developmental biology remains far below that available for many other urodeles. Examination of such features of these "non-model" organisms is an appropriate and deserving goal of future research.
On the Order Optimality of Large-scale Underwater Networks

Capacity scaling laws are analyzed in an underwater acoustic network with $n$ regularly located nodes on a square, in which both bandwidth and received signal power can be limited significantly. A narrow-band model is assumed where the carrier frequency is allowed to scale as a function of $n$. In the network, we characterize an attenuation parameter that depends on the frequency scaling as well as the transmission distance. Cut-set upper bounds on the throughput scaling are then derived in both extended and dense networks having unit node density and unit area, respectively. It is first analyzed that under extended networks, the upper bound is inversely proportional to the attenuation parameter, thus resulting in a highly power-limited network. Interestingly, it is seen that the upper bound for extended networks is intrinsically related to the attenuation parameter but not the spreading factor. On the other hand, in dense networks, we show that there exists either a bandwidth or power limitation, or both, according to the path-loss attenuation regimes, thus yielding the upper bound that has three fundamentally different operating regimes. Furthermore, we describe an achievable scheme based on the simple nearest-neighbor multi-hop (MH) transmission. We show that under extended networks, the MH scheme is order-optimal for all the operating regimes. An achievability result is also presented in dense networks, where the operating regimes that guarantee the order optimality are identified. It thus turns out that frequency scaling is instrumental towards achieving the order optimality in the regimes. Finally, these scaling results are extended to a random network realization. As a result, vital information for fundamental limits of a variety of underwater network scenarios is provided by showing capacity scaling laws.
Clinical Case Studies in Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Treatment

This manuscript provides a review of the clinical case study within the field of psychoanalytic and psychodynamic treatment. The method has been contested for methodological reasons and because it would contribute to theoretical pluralism in the field. We summarize how the case study method is being applied in different schools of psychoanalysis, and we clarify the unique strengths of this method and areas for improvement. Finally, based on the literature and on our own experience with case study research, we come to formulate nine guidelines for future case study authors: (1) basic information to include, (2) clarification of the motivation to select a particular patient, (3) information about informed consent and disguise, (4) patient background and context of referral or self-referral, (5) patient's narrative, therapist's observations and interpretations, (6) interpretative heuristics, (7) reflexivity and counter-transference, (8) leaving room for interpretation, and (9) answering the research question, and comparison with other cases.
HCT 116 Colon Carcinoma Cells via E-Cadherin Expression Regulates Anchorage-independent Growth ofWAF 1 p 21 Updated

The cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p21 has been characterized as an important effector of the tumor suppressor p53 and has been linked to various growth-regulatory processes. To identify a potential role of p21 in anchorage-dependent growth control, we analyzed a pair of HCT116 human colon carcinoma cell lines that differed only in their p21 status. We found that during suspension culture, HCT116 cells (which contain wildtype p53 and p21) continued to proliferate and formed compact multicellular spheroids (MCSs). In contrast, HCT116 cells engineered to lack functional p21 (HCTp212/2) were unable to form MCSs in suspension culture, ceased proliferation, and eventually died through apoptosis. The parental HCT116 cells underwent the same fate when treated with hyaluronidase, indicating that cell-cell contact might be required for survival in suspension culture. We established that E-cadherin was induced in HCT116 but not in HCTp212/2 cells and accounted for the formation of MCSs. Forced expression of E-cadherin or p21 in HCTp21 2/2 cells restored the ability to form MCSs and to grow independently of anchorage. Moreover, HCTp212/2 cells exhibited a severely reduced transformed phenotype and demonstrated greatly enhanced chemosensitivity in suspension culture. Thus, our results link an important regulator of the cell cycle machinery to the expression of a cell-cell adhesion molecule involved in tumor formation. Because our results indicate that loss of p21 severely impairs the ability of HCT cells to grow independently of anchorage, it may not be coincidental that inactivating mutations of this gene are very rarely found in tumor cells.
Awareness and Willingness to Use HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis amongst Gay and Bisexual Men in Scotland: Implications for Biomedical HIV Prevention

Objectives To investigate the awareness of, and willingness to use, HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), and willingness to take part in a PrEP study among gay and bisexual men in Scotland. Methods Cross-sectional survey of 17 gay commercial venues in Glasgow and Edinburgh in May 2011 (N = 1515, 65.2% response rate); 1393 are included in the analyses. Results Just under one-third of participants had heard of PrEP (n = 434; 31.2%), with awareness associated with being aged older than 35 years, talking to UAI partners about HIV, and with having had an HIV or STI test in the previous 12 months. Around half were willing to take part in a PrEP study (n = 695; 49.9%) or to take PrEP on a daily basis (n = 756; 54.3%). In multivariate analysis, willingness to take PrEP was associated with lower levels of education, regular gay scene attendance, ‘high-risk’ unprotected anal intercourse (UAI) and testing for HIV or STI in the previous 12 months. Reasons for not wanting to participate in a PrEP study or take PrEP included perceptions of low personal risk of HIV and concerns with using medication as an HIV prevention method. Conclusions There is a willingness to engage in new forms of HIV prevention and research amongst a significant number of gay and bisexual men in Scotland. Future biomedical HIV interventions need to consider the links between sexual risk behaviour, testing, and potential PrEP use.
Psychological Distance and Subjective Experience: How Distancing Reduces the Feeling of Difficulty

Psychological distance can reduce the subjective experience of difficulty caused by task complexity and task anxiety. Four experiments were conducted to test several related hypotheses. Psychological distance was altered by activating a construal mind-set and by varying bodily distance from a given task. Activating an abstract mind-set reduced the feeling of difficulty. A direct manipulation of distance from the task produced the same effect: participants found the task to be less difficult when they distanced themselves from the task by leaning back in their seats. The experiments not only identify psychological distance as a hitherto unexplored but ubiquitous determinant of task difficulty but also identify bodily distance as an antecedent of psychological distance.
Multiuser Diversity for the Cognitive Uplink with Generalized Fading and Reduced Primary's Cooperation

In cognitive multiple access networks, feedback is an important mechanism to convey secondary transmitter primary base station (STPB) channel gains from the primary base station (PBS) to the secondary base station (SBS). This paper investigates the optimal sum-rate capacity scaling laws for cognitive multiple access networks in feedback limited communication scenarios. First, an efficient feedback protocol called $K$-smallest channel gains ($K$-SCGs) feedback protocol is proposed in which the PBS feeds back the $\K$ smallest out of $N$ STPB channel gains to the SBS. Second, the sum-rate performance of the $K$-SCG feedback protocol is studied for three network types when transmission powers of secondary users (SUs) are optimally allocated. The network types considered are total-power-and-interference-limited (TPIL), interference-limited (IL) and individual-power-and-interference-limited (IPIL) networks. For each network type studied, we provide a sufficient condition on $\K$ such that the $K$-SCG feedback protocol is {\em asymptotically} optimal in the sense that the secondary network sum-rate scaling behavior under the $K$-SCG feedback protocol is the same with that under the full-feedback protocol. We allow distributions of secondary-transmitter-secondary-base-station (STSB), and STPB channel power gains to belong to a fairly general class of distributions called class $\mathcal{C}$-distributions that includes commonly used fading models.
Modulation Optimization Effect on Total Harmonic Distortion of Single Phase H-Bridge Inverter Based Selective Harmonics Elimination Technique

Specific odd harmonics can be mitigated by operating the simeconductor switches in H-bridge inverters at optimized switching angles of the PWM signals. These switching angles can be achieved by calculating a set of nonlinear equations using Selective Harmonic Elimination Pulse Width Modulation (SHE PWM) technique. Modulation index (m) is a significant parameter used to control the amplitude of the fundamental output voltage of DC-AC inverter. By changing the value of modulation index the Total Harmonics Distortion (THD) also will change. In this paper, the influence of varying modulation index on the THD, and the performance of H-bridge inverter using SHE PWM scheme is evaluated. To investigate the effect different conditions of modulation index and different number of nonlinear equations to calculate the switching angles to achieve a minimum THD, single phase H-bridge inverter is simulated in Matlab-Simulink.
An approach to the psychobiology of personality disorders

Human variability in temperament allows a unique natural experiment where reactivity, self-regulation, and experience combine in complex ways to produce an individual personality. Personality disorders may result from changes in the way past memories filter new information in situations of emotional involvement with others. According to this view, disorders are specific to their initiating circumstances rather than a general difficulty that might extend to classes of information processing remote from triggers for the disorder. A different view suggests a more general deficit in attentional control mechanisms that might extend to a wide range of situations far from those related to the core abnormality. This paper outlines methods for examining these views and presents data from the study of borderline personality disorder, arguing in favor of high negative emotionality being combined with a deficit in an executive attentional control network. Because this attentional network has already been well described in terms of anatomy, the cognitive operations involved, development, chemical modulators, and effects of lesions and candidate genes, these findings may have implications for understanding the disorder and its treatment. We consider these implications in terms of a general approach to the study of personality development and its disorders.