Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Significant disparity in base and sugar damage in DNA resulting from neutron and electron irradiation

In this study, a comparison of the effects of neutron and electron irradiation of aqueous DNA solutions was investigated to characterize potential neutron signatures in DNA damage induction. Ionizing radiation generates numerous lesions in DNA, including base and sugar lesions, lesions involving base–sugar combinations (e.g. 8,5′-cyclopurine-2′-deoxynucleosides) and DNA–protein cross-links, as well as single- and double-strand breaks and clustered damage. The characteristics of damage depend on the linear energy transfer (LET) of the incident radiation. Here we investigated DNA damage using aqueous DNA solutions in 10 mmol/l phosphate buffer from 0–80 Gy by low-LET electrons (10 Gy/min) and the specific high-LET (∼0.16 Gy/h) neutrons formed by spontaneous 252Cf decay fissions. 8-hydroxy-2′-deoxyguanosine (8-OH-dG), (5′R)-8,5′-cyclo-2′-deoxyadenosine (R-cdA) and (5′S)-8,5′-cyclo-2′-deoxyadenosine (S-cdA) were quantified using liquid chromatography–isotope-dilution tandem mass spectrometry to demonstrate a linear dose dependence for induction of 8-OH-dG by both types of radiation, although neutron irradiation was ∼50% less effective at a given dose compared with electron irradiation. Electron irradiation resulted in an exponential increase in S-cdA and R-cdA with dose, whereas neutron irradiation induced substantially less damage and the amount of damage increased only gradually with dose. Addition of 30 mmol/l 2-amino-2-(hydroxymethyl)-1,3-propanediol (TRIS), a free radical scavenger, to the DNA solution before irradiation reduced lesion induction to background levels for both types of radiation. These results provide insight into the mechanisms of DNA damage by high-LET 252Cf decay neutrons and low-LET electrons, leading to enhanced understanding of the potential biological effects of these types of irradiation.
BRCA1 Regulates IFI16 Mediated Nuclear Innate Sensing of Herpes Viral DNA and Subsequent Induction of the Innate Inflammasome and Interferon-β Responses

The innate immune system pattern recognition receptors (PRR) are the first line of host defenses recognizing the various pathogen- or danger-associated molecular patterns and eliciting defenses by regulating the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as IL-1β, IL-18 or interferon β (IFN-β). NOD-like receptors (NLRs) and AIM2-like receptors (ALRs) are cytoplasmic inflammasome sensors of foreign molecules, including DNA. IFI16, a sequence-independent nuclear innate sensor ALR, recognizes episomal dsDNA genomes of herpes viruses such as KSHV, EBV, and HSV-1 in the infected cell nuclei, forms an inflammasome complex with ASC and procaspase1, and relocates into the cytoplasm leading into Caspase-1 and IL-1β generation. IFI16 also induces IFN-β during HSV-1 infection via the cytoplasmic STING-TBK1-IRF3 pathway. Thus far, whether IFI16 recognizes foreign DNA directly or utilizes other host protein(s) is unknown. Here, we demonstrate that BRCA1, a DNA damage repair sensor and transcription regulator, is in complex with IFI16 in the host cell nucleus, and their association increases in the presence of nuclear viral genomes during de novo KSHV, EBV and HSV-1 infection, and in latent KSHV or EBV infection, but not by DNA damage responses (DDR) induced by bleomycin and vaccinia virus cytoplasmic dsDNA. BRCA1 is a constituent of the triggered IFI16-inflammasome and is translocated into the cytoplasm after genome recognition along with the IFI16-inflammasome. The absence of BRCA1 abrogated IFI16-viral genome association, inflammasome assembly, IFI16 cytoplasmic localization, and Caspase-1 and IL-1β production. The absence of BRCA1 also abolished the cytoplasmic IFI16-STING interaction, downstream IRF3 phosphorylation, nuclear translocation of pIRF3 and IFN-β production during de novo KSHV and HSV-1 infection. These findings highlight that BRCA1 plays a hitherto unidentified innate immunomodulatory role by facilitating nuclear foreign DNA sensing by IFI16, subsequent assembly and cytoplasmic distribution of IFI16-inflammasomes leading into IL-1β formation and the induction of IFN-β via cytoplasmic signaling through IFI16-STING, TBK1 and IRF3.
Evaluation of the Serum Zinc Level in Erosive and Non-Erosive Oral Lichen Planus

Statement of Problem: Lichen planus is a chronic inflammatory immunologic-based disease involving skin and mucosa. This disease is generally divided into two categories: erosive and non-erosive. Many etiologic factors are deliberated regarding the disease; however, the disorders of immune system and the role of cytotoxic T-lymphocytes and monocytes are more highlighted. Zinc is an imperative element for the growth of epithelium and its deficiency induces the cytotoxic activity of T-helper2 cells, which seems to be associated with lichen planus. Purpose: This study was aimed to evaluate the levels of serum zinc in erosive and non-erosive oral lichen planus (OLP) and to compare it with the healthy control group to find out any feasible inference. Materials and Method: A total of 22 patients with erosive oral lichen planus, 22 patients with non erosive OLP and 44 healthy individuals as the control group were recruited in this descriptive-comparative study. All the participants were selected from the referees to the department of oral medicine, school of dentistry, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. Serum zinc level was examined for all the individuals with liquid-stat kit (Beckman Instruments Inc.; Carlsbad, CA). Data were analyzed by adopting the ANOVA and Tukey tests, using SPSS 16 statistical software. Results: The mean age of patients with erosive and non-erosive LP was 41.7 and 41.3 years, respectively. The mean age of the healthy control group was 34.4 years . The mean serum zinc levels in the erosive and non erosive lichen planus groups and control groups were 8.3 (1.15), 11.15 (0.92) and 15.74 (1.75) μg/dl respectively. The difference was statistically significant (p< 0.05). Conclusion: The serum zinc levels were decreased in patients with erosive oral lichen planus. This finding may probably indicate the promising role of zinc in development of oral lichen planus.
Efficient implementation of the IAA-based Magnitude Squared Coherence estimator

Recently, a novel Magnitude Squared Coherence (MSC) estimator was proposed using the Iterative Adaptive Approach (IAA) algorithm. In this paper, we present a computationally efficient implementation of this estimator, exploiting the inherently low displacement rank of the necessary products of Toeplitz-like matrices, thereby allowing for the development of appropriate Gohberg-Semencul (GS) representations of these matrices. Together with relevant data dependent trigonometric polynomials, the presented implementation offers a substantial computational reduction as compared to earlier implementations. Numerical simulations along with theoretical complexity estimations illustrate the performance of the proposed algorithm.
Fitts' throughput and the speed-accuracy tradeoff

We describe an experiment to test the hypothesis that Fitts' throughput is independent of the speed-accuracy tradeoff. Eighteen participants used a mouse in performing a total of 5,400 target selection trials. Comparing nominal, speed-emphasis, and accuracy-emphasis conditions, significant main effects were found on movement time (ms) and error rate (%), but not on throughput (bits/s). In the latter case, failure to reject the null hypothesis of "no significant difference" (i.e., .05 < p < 1) is viewed as evidence supporting the constant-throughput hypothesis.
Ontology based semantic-predictive model for reconfigurable automation systems

Due to increasing product variety and complexity, capability to support reconfiguration is a key competitiveness indicator for current automation system within large enterprises. Reconfigurable manufacturing systems could efficiently reuse existing knowledge in order to decrease the required skills and design time to launch new products. However, most of the software tools developed to support design of reconfigurable manufacturing system lack integration of product, process and resource knowledge, and the design data is not transferred from domain-specific engineering tools to a collaborative and intelligent platform to capture and reuse design knowledge. The focus of this research study is to enable integrated automation systems design to support a knowledge reuse approach to predict process and resource changes when product requirements change. The proposed methodology is based on a robust semantic-predictive model supported by ontology representations and predictive algorithms for the integration of Product, Process, Resource and Requirement (PPRR) data, so that future automation system changes can be identified at early design stages.
Has the Inflation Process Changed

On 18-19 June 2004, the BIS held a conference on "Understanding Low Inflation and Deflation". This event brought together central bankers, academics and market practitioners to exchange views on this issue (see the conference programme in this document). This paper was presented at the workshop. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not those of the BIS.
The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies

Why in prosperous market democracies today do so many people regard themselves as unhappy? Robert Lane draws on extensive research in many fields to show that the main sources of well-being in advanced economies are friendships and a good family life; income has little to do with happiness once a person rises above the poverty level. Lane urges us to alter priorities and emphasise companionship over higher income.
STAT3-mediated signaling in the determination of rod photoreceptor cell fate in mouse retina.

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to determine the intracellular pathways by which ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF) and leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) negatively regulate the development of rod photoreceptors in the mouse retina. METHODS Retina explant cultures derived from timed-pregnant CD-1 mice were used to monitor rod photoreceptor differentiation. CNTF was used to activate the signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT)-3 and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signal transduction pathways. Activation of STAT3 and MAPK were manipulated by using dominant-negative STAT3 recombinant adenoviruses and a specific inhibitor of MAPK, respectively. Explanted retinas were harvested at distinct time points and processed for immunohistochemistry. RESULTS Blocking of the MAPK pathway by the MAPK inhibitor PD98059 did not affect normal development of rods in retina explants or the suppression of their appearance by treatment with CNTF. In contrast, activated STAT3 was necessary for suppression of the rod cell fate decision. A deficiency of the STAT3 pathway induced by a dominant negative STAT3 abolished inhibition of rod development by CNTF. CONCLUSIONS These results indicate that STAT3, but not MAPK, can critically regulate photoreceptor development during mouse retina development.
Taxonomies of Cyber Adversaries and Attacks: A Survey of Incidents and Approaches

In this paper we construct taxonomies of cyber adversaries and methods of attack, drawing from a survey of the literature in the area of cyber crime. We begin by addressing the scope of cyber crime, noting its prevalence and effects on the US economy. We then survey the literature on cyber adversaries, presenting a taxonomy of the different types of adversaries and their corresponding methods, motivations, maliciousness, and skill levels. Subsequently we survey the literature on cyber attacks, giving a taxonomy of the different classes of attacks, subtypes, and threat descriptions. The goal of this paper is to inform future studies of cyber security on the shape and characteristics of the risk space and its associated adversaries.
The effect of group training based on Lazarus multimodal therapy the happiness of women in Islamshahr , Iran

Introduction: The emotions are necessary for shaping and keeping interpersonal relations and interaction to others and family relationships. Having management skills of emotions and such awareness of abilities and self can help to optimize emotions and cognitive schema. Present study aimed to determine the effectiveness of the group training with multiple Lazarus approach on happiness among women. Materials and Methods: The statistical community of this clinical trial was all women referred to social working clinic of Aftab Shargh in Islamshahr (2013). 24 subjects who received low scores based on Oxford Happiness Questionnaire were selected through available sampling and randomly assigned in groups of experiment and control. Interventions based on Lazarus approach was done on the experimental group in 10 one hour sessions. All participants fulfilled the questionnaire. Data were collected by Oxford Happiness Questionnaire and analyzed by SPSS-19 software through analysis of covariance. Results: There is no significant difference between the mean scores of happiness among experimental and control groups in pre-test phase (P>0.05) but this difference is significant in post-interventional phase (P=0.001). Conclusion: Research results provide some evidence that the group training with multiple Lazarus approach is an appropriate skill for enhancing happiness in women. Therefore, in order to increase women’s happiness, it may be useful that the cognitive, effective and behavioral dimensions.
Stability of discontinuous retarded functional differential equations with applications

We present Lyapunov stability results, including converse theorems, for a class of discontinuous dynamical systems (DDS) determined by the solutions of retarded functional differential equations. We demonstrate the applicability of these results in the analysis of several specific important classes of DDS determined by functional differential equations and differential-difference equations.
Recovery of antimicrobial-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa from sputa of cystic fibrosis patients by culture on selective media.

OBJECTIVES To assess the utility of direct plating of whole sputa onto selective media as a means of identifying antimicrobial resistance in strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa from the sputa of patients with cystic fibrosis (CF). METHODS A total of 45 sputum samples from CF patients were cultured onto conventional culture media for isolation of P. aeruginosa and were also cultured directly onto Iso-Sensitest agar plates containing each of 10 antimicrobials incorporated at a 'breakpoint' concentration. A representative of each colonial type (morphotype) recovered from both routine media and selective media was tested for its susceptibility to 10 antimicrobials using a standard agar dilution MIC technique. RESULTS Of the samples shown to contain resistant strains, the proportion (%) detected using routine media and selective media, respectively, was: 42 and 100 for amikacin, 57 and 100 for gentamicin, 54 and 100 for tobramycin, 88 and 77 for aztreonam, 62 and 90 for ceftazidime, 70 and 97 for meropenem, 61 and 100 for piperacillin/tazobactam, 90 and 86 for temocillin, 66 and 100 for ticarcillin/clavulanic acid, and 80 and 90 for ciprofloxacin resistance. The increased rates of isolation on selective media were statistically significant (P < 0.05) for amikacin, gentamicin, tobramycin, meropenem, piperacillin/tazobactam and ticarcillin/clavulanic acid. CONCLUSIONS For most antimicrobials, selection of colonies from conventional media for antimicrobial susceptibility testing provided a considerable underestimation of resistance in P. aeruginosa. The use of selective media for the culture of whole sputum was effective for the detection of resistant isolates of P. aeruginosa.
Color Semantics for Image Indexing

We propose a color-based image descriptor that can be used for image indexing based on high-level semantic concepts. The descriptor is based on Kobayashi’s Color Image Scale, which is a system that includes 130 basic colors combined in 1170 three-color combinations. Each combination is labeled with one of 180 high-level semantic concepts, like ”elegant”, ”romantic”, ”provocative”, etc. Moreover, words are located in a twodimensional semantic space, and arranged into groups based on perceived similarity. From a modified approach for statistical analysis of images, involving transformations of ordinary RGBhistograms, a semantic image descriptor is derived, containing semantic information about both color combinations and single colors in the image. We show how the descriptor can be translated into different levels of semantic information, and used in indexing of multi-colored images. Intended applications are, for instance, image labeling and retrieval.
Co-ordination failure and the role of banks in the resolution of financial distress

This article discusses the out-of-court restructuring of the contractual obligations of a financially distressed firm, under conditions of asymmetric information among the firm’s creditors and in situations where a creditor bank makes concessions conditional on other creditors’ actions. I show that a bank’s conditional commitment to support the financially distressed firm may inject a degree of strategic solidity among other creditors and reduce the deadweight costs of inefficient liquidation. However, should a bank’s concession be made conditional on a high tendering rate by other creditors, this may negate the positive information externality of bank’s action. Low minimum tendering rates, on the other hand, may lead to multiple equilibria in creditors’ strategies; but, all those equilibria are shown to be Pareto improving of the unique equilibrium when there is no bank in the game.
Time Series Momentum and Macroeconomic Risk

The time series momentum strategy has been shown to deliver consistent profitability over a long time horizon. Funds pursuing these strategies are now a component of many institutional portfolios, due to the expectation of positive returns in equity bear markets. However, the return drivers of the strategy and its performance in other economic conditions are less well understood. The authors find evidence that the returns to the strategy are connected to the business cycle. Returns are positive in both recessions and expansions, but profitability is especially high in expansions. About 40% of returns are due to time varying factor-related risk exposure, consistent with rational asset pricing theories having a role in explaining the profitability of the strategy.
Fluorescence and absorption assessment of a lipid mTHPC formulation following topical application in a non-melanotic skin tumor model.

Although the benefits of topical sensitizer administration have been confirmed for photodynamic therapy PDT, ALA-induced protoporphyrin IX is the only sensitizer clinically used with this ad- ministration route. Unfortunately, ALA-PDT results in poor treatment response for thicker lesions. Here, selectivity and depth distribution of the highly potent sensitizer meso-tetrahydroxyphenylchlorin mTHPC, supplied in a novel liposome formulation was investigated following topical administration for 4 and 6h in a murine skin tumor model. Extraction data indicated an average ± standard deviation SD mTHPC concentration within lesions of 6.0±3.1 ng/mg tissue with no significant difference p0.05 between 4- and 6-h applica- tion times and undetectable levels of generalized photosensitivity. Ab- sorption spectroscopy and chemical extraction both indicated a sig- nificant selectivity between lesion and normal surrounding skin at 4 and 6h , whereas the more sensitive fluorescence imaging setup re- vealed significant selectivity only for the 4-h application time. Ab- sorption data showed a significant correlation with extraction, whereas the results from the fluorescence imaging setup did not cor- relate with the other methods. Our results indicate that this sensitizer formulation and administration path could be interesting for topical mTHPC-PDT, decreasing the effects of extended skin photosensitivity associated with systemic mTHPC administration. © 2007 Society of Photo-
Recognizing Functions in Binaries with Neural Networks

Binary analysis facilitates many important applications like malware detection and automatically fixing vulnerable software. In this paper, we propose to apply artificial neural networks to solve important yet difficult problems in binary analysis. Specifically, we tackle the problem of function identification, a crucial first step in many binary analysis techniques. Although neural networks have undergone a renaissance in the past few years, achieving breakthrough results in multiple application domains such as visual object recognition, language modeling, and speech recognition, no researchers have yet attempted to apply these techniques to problems in binary analysis. Using a dataset from prior work, we show that recurrent neural networks can identify functions in binaries with greater accuracy and efficiency than the state-of-the-art machine-learning-based method. We can train the model an order of magnitude faster and evaluate it on binaries hundreds of times faster. Furthermore, it halves the error rate on six out of eight benchmarks, and performs comparably on the remaining two.
Cerebellum Implicated in Sensory Acquisition and Discrimination Rather Than Motor Control

Recent evidence that the cerebellum is involved in perception and cognition challenges the prevailing view that its primary function is fine motor control. A new alternative hypothesis is that the lateral cerebellum is not activated by the control of movement per se, but is strongly engaged during the acquisition and discrimination of sensory information. Magnetic resonance imaging of the lateral cerebellar output (dentate) nucleus during passive and active sensory tasks confirmed this hypothesis. These findings suggest that the lateral cerebellum may be active during motor, perceptual, and cognitive performances specifically because of the requirement to process sensory data.
Hybrid CNN and Dictionary-Based Models for Scene Recognition and Domain Adaptation

Convolutional neural network (CNN) has achieved the state-of-the-art performance in many different visual tasks. Learned from a large-scale training data set, CNN features are much more discriminative and accurate than the handcrafted features. Moreover, CNN features are also transferable among different domains. On the other hand, traditional dictionary-based features (such as BoW and spatial pyramid matching) contain much more local discriminative and structural information, which is implicitly embedded in the images. To further improve the performance, in this paper, we propose to combine CNN with dictionary-based models for scene recognition and visual domain adaptation (DA). Specifically, based on the well-tuned CNN models (e.g., AlexNet and VGG Net), two dictionary-based representations are further constructed, namely, mid-level local representation (MLR) and convolutional Fisher vector (CFV) representation. In MLR, an efficient two-stage clustering method, i.e., weighted spatial and feature space spectral clustering on the parts of a single image followed by clustering all representative parts of all images, is used to generate a class-mixture or a class-specific part dictionary. After that, the part dictionary is used to operate with the multiscale image inputs for generating mid-level representation. In CFV, a multiscale and scale-proportional Gaussian mixture model training strategy is utilized to generate Fisher vectors based on the last convolutional layer of CNN. By integrating the complementary information of MLR, CFV, and the CNN features of the fully connected layer, the state-of-the-art performance can be achieved on scene recognition and DA problems. An interested finding is that our proposed hybrid representation (from VGG net trained on ImageNet) is also complementary to GoogLeNet and/or VGG-11 (trained on Place205) greatly.