Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Recent advances in the dissection of drought-stress regulatory networks and strategies for development of drought-tolerant transgenic rice plants

Advances have been made in the development of drought-tolerant transgenic plants, including cereals. Rice, one of the most important cereals, is considered to be a critical target for improving drought tolerance, as present-day rice cultivation requires large quantities of water and as drought-tolerant rice plants should be able to grow in small amounts of water. Numerous transgenic rice plants showing enhanced drought tolerance have been developed to date. Such genetically engineered plants have generally been developed using genes encoding proteins that control drought regulatory networks. These proteins include transcription factors, protein kinases, receptor-like kinases, enzymes related to osmoprotectant or plant hormone synthesis, and other regulatory or functional proteins. Of the drought-tolerant transgenic rice plants described in this review, approximately one-third show decreased plant height under non-stressed conditions or in response to abscisic acid treatment. In cereal crops, plant height is a very important agronomic trait directly affecting yield, although the improvement of lodging resistance should also be taken into consideration. Understanding the regulatory mechanisms of plant growth reduction under drought stress conditions holds promise for developing transgenic plants that produce high yields under drought stress conditions. Plant growth rates are reduced more rapidly than photosynthetic activity under drought conditions, implying that plants actively reduce growth in response to drought stress. In this review, we summarize studies on molecular regulatory networks involved in response to drought stress. In a separate section, we highlight progress in the development of transgenic drought-tolerant rice plants, with special attention paid to field trial investigations.
Multifunctional Protective PVC-ZnO Nanocomposite Coatings Deposited on Aluminum Alloys by Electrospinning

This paper reports the use of the electrospinning technique for the synthesis of nanocomposite micro/nanofibers by combining a polymeric precursor with hydrophobic behavior like polyvinyl chloride (PVC) with nanoparticles of a corrosion inhibitor like ZnO. These electrospun fibers were deposited on substrates of the aluminum alloy 6061T6 until forming a coating around 100 μm. The effect of varying the different electrospinning deposition parameters (mostly applied voltage and flow-rate) was exhaustively analyzed in order to optimize the coating properties. Several microscopy and analysis techniques have been employed, including optical microscopy (OM), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Water contact angle (WCA) measurements have been carried out in order to corroborate the coating hydrophobicity. Finally, their corrosion behavior has been evaluated by electrochemical tests (Tafel curves and pitting potential measurements), showing a relevant improvement in the resultant corrosion resistance of the coated aluminum alloys.
Piecewise smooth subdivision surfaces with normal control

In this paper we introduce improved rules for Catmull-Clark and Loop subdivision that overcome several problems with the original schemes, namely, lack of smoothness at extraordinary boundary vertices and folds near concave corners. In addition, our approach to rule modification allows the generation of surfaces with prescribed normals, both on the boundary and in the interior, which considerably improves control of the shape of surfaces.
Recruitment of Foreign Labour in Germany and Switzerland

A comparison between the Swiss and German migration policies might not seem very straightforward at first, even though the two countries are neighbours and share many structural features (i.e. economic, institutional, linguistic and cultural). After all, Switzerland continuously pursued a policy of labour immigration throughout the entire post-war era. Germany, however, in 1973 stopped recruitment of persons outside of the.
Evolution of multiple sclerosis lesions on serial contrast-enhanced T1-weighted and magnetization-transfer MR images.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Magnetization-transfer imaging is a technique that could provide indirect evidence of the characteristics of multiple sclerosis (MS) lesions. The purpose of this work was to study the evolution of MS lesions on T1-weighted MR images over time and to investigate changes in magnetization-transfer ratio (MTR) values of MS lesions with different initial appearances on contrast-enhanced T1-weighted images. METHODS Eleven patients with relapsing-remitting MS were studied with MR imaging. The MTRs were calculated for 47 lesions that had been classified according to their appearance on contrast-enhanced T1-weighted images. Each patient was examined at four time points over a 1-year period. The MTR changes observed in the selected lesions were compared with their initial T1-weighted appearance. RESULTS The lowest MTR values were initially found in hypointense nonenhancing lesions and in ring-enhancing lesions, with both types showing a hypointense center. Changes in MTR values were more dynamic and reversible in ring-enhancing than in hypointense nonenhancing plaques. Nodular-enhancing lesions had slightly lower initial MTRs than did isointense non-enhancing lesions. CONCLUSION The absence or presence of contrast uptake may indicate a different pathologic basis for hypointense MS lesions on T1-weighted MR images. These differences should be kept in mind when considering T1 lesion load as a surrogate marker of disability in MS.
A new optimization technique for optimal reactive power scheduling using Jaya algorithm

Optimal reactive power scheduling is one of the most complex and challenging problems in modern power system operation. This has recently gained intense attention from the scientist and researchers all over the world due to the introduction of liberalization or deregulation of electricity industry where reactive power is being traded as an ancillary service. This paper proposes an improved algorithm for optimal reactive power scheduling (ORPS) problem and a recently introduced simple yet powerful optimization technique called Jaya Algorithm (JA) is utilized for the same. The main advantage of the Jaya Algorithm is that it does not require any problem dependent control parameters. The optimal reactive power scheduling (ORPS) problem is formulated considering minimization of both losses and system cost satisfying several equality and inequality constraints. The algorithm described in this work is implemented on a standard test system for verifying its effectiveness and randomness. A comparison study of the simulation results is also performed with other modern heuristic techniques. The simulation results prove that it can produce acceptable results.
Instance Selection Improves Cross-Lingual Model Training for Fine-Grained Sentiment Analysis

Scarcity of annotated corpora for many languages is a bottleneck for training finegrained sentiment analysis models that can tag aspects and subjective phrases. We propose to exploit statistical machine translation to alleviate the need for training data by projecting annotated data in a source language to a target language such that a supervised fine-grained sentiment analysis system can be trained. To avoid a negative influence of poor-quality translations, we propose a filtering approach based on machine translation quality estimation measures to select only high-quality sentence pairs for projection. We evaluate on the language pair German/English on a corpus of product reviews annotated for both languages and compare to in-target-language training. Projection without any filtering leads to 23 % F1 in the task of detecting aspect phrases, compared to 41 % F1 for in-target-language training. Our approach obtains up to 47 % F1. Further, we show that the detection of subjective phrases is competitive to in-target-language training without filtering.
‘The nice thing about doctors is that you can sometimes get a day off school’: an action research study to bring lived experiences from children, parents and hospice staff into medical students' preparation for practice

Patient and public involvement in healthcare is important to ensure services meet their needs and priorities. Increasingly, patient experiences are being used to educate healthcare professionals. The potential contribution to medical education of children and parents using hospice services has not yet been fully explored. Objectives (1) To explore perceptions of what medical students must learn to become ‘good doctors’ among children, parents and staff in a hospice. (2) To collaborate with children/parents and staff to develop educational materials based on their lived experiences for medical students. (3) To assess feasibility of student-led action research in a children's hospice to develop research skills. Methods Prospective ethical approval received. Volunteer children (n=7), parents (n=5) and staff (n=6) were recruited from a children's hospice. Data were generated in audio-recorded semistructured focus groups, individual interviews and/or activity workshops. Participants discussed what newly qualified doctors’ needed to care for children with life-limiting conditions. Audio data were transcribed and combined with visual data for thematic analysis. Findings were refined by participant feedback. This paper presents thematic findings and educational material created from the project. Results Thematic analysis identified six learning themes: (1) treat children as individuals; (2) act as a person before being a doctor; (3) interpersonal communication; (4) appreciate the clinical environment; (5) learn from children, parents and other staff; (6) how to be a doctor as part of a team. The student researcher successfully developed qualitative research skills, coproducing materials with participants for sharing learning derived from lived experiences. Conclusions All participants were willing and able to make valuable contributions, and believed that this was a worthwhile use of time and effort. Further work is required to understand how best to integrate the experiences of children in hospices into medical education.
Inter- and intraclade neutralization of human immunodeficiency virus type 1: genetic clades do not correspond to neutralization serotypes but partially correspond to gp120 antigenic serotypes

We have studied genetic variation among clades A through E of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) at the levels of antibody binding to gp120 molecules and virus neutralization. We are unable to identify neutralization serotypes that correspond to the genetic clades. Instead, we observe that inter- and intraclade neutralization of primary isolates by HIV-1-positive sera is generally weak and sporadic; some sera show a reasonable degree of neutralization breadth and potency whereas others are relatively sensitive to neutralization, but no consistent pattern was found. However, a few sera were able to neutralize across clades with significant potency, an observation which may have implications for the feasibility of a broadly effective HIV-1 vaccine involving humoral immunity. Serological assays measuring anti-gp120 antibody binding also failed to identify serotypes that correspond precisely to the genetic clades, but some indications of clade-specific binding were observed, notably with sera from clades B and E. A representative protein for each clade (A through E) was selected on the basis of its specificity, defined as high seroreactivity with sera from individuals infected with virus of that clade and lower reactivity with sera from individuals infected with viruses from other clades. The seroreactivity patterns against these five proteins could be used to predict the genotype of the infecting virus with moderate success.
Prodromal Alzheimer s disease in subjects with Mild Cognitive Impairment predictive and diagnostic aspects

Ramakers, IHGB. , Visser, PJ. , Aalten, P., Kester, A. , Jolles, J. & Verhey, FRJ. The predictive value of affective symptoms for Alzheimer’s disease in subjects with Mild Cognitive Impairment: a 10-year follow- up study. The 11th International conference on Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders (ICAD), Chicago, July 2008
Impulsive noise remotion by inspection of the masked tones at PLC receivers

Impulsive noise (IN) consists of sudden short time peaks of high power which appear in communication channels from time to time. The IN influence on Power Line Communications (PLC) has been proved to be very harmful. A particular feature of PLC standards is the prohibition of signal power transmission at the frequency bands used by radio amateurs, which are referred to as the masked tones; however when IN arrives at the receiver, it is expected some IN leakage into these masked tones in the same way as into the rest of the PLC spectrum. We present an IN cancelling method which removes the IN from the received signal by analyzing the IN components at the masked tones.
Crassulacean Acid Metabolism and Epiphytism Linked to Adaptive Radiations in the Orchidaceae1[OA]

Species of the large family Orchidaceae display a spectacular array of adaptations and rapid speciations that are linked to several innovative features, including specialized pollination syndromes, colonization of epiphytic habitats, and the presence of Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM), a water-conserving photosynthetic pathway. To better understand the role of CAM and epiphytism in the evolutionary expansion of tropical orchids, we sampled leaf carbon isotopic composition of 1,103 species native to Panama and Costa Rica, performed character state reconstruction and phylogenetic trait analysis of CAM and epiphytism, and related strong CAM, present in 10% of species surveyed, to climatic variables and the evolution of epiphytism in tropical regions. Altitude was the most important predictor of photosynthetic pathway when all environmental variables were taken into account, with CAM being most prevalent at low altitudes. By creating integrated orchid trees to reconstruct ancestral character states, we found that C3 photosynthesis is the ancestral state and that CAM has evolved at least 10 independent times with several reversals. A large CAM radiation event within the Epidendroideae, the most species-rich epiphytic clade of any known plant group, is linked to a Tertiary species radiation that originated 65 million years ago. Our study shows that parallel evolution of CAM is present among subfamilies of orchids, and correlated divergence between photosynthetic pathways and epiphytism can be explained by the prevalence of CAM in low-elevation epiphytes and rapid speciation of high-elevation epiphytes in the Neotropics, contributing to the astounding diversity in the Orchidaceae.
Intracrine hepatopoietin potentiates AP‐1 activity through JAB1 independent of MAPK pathway

Many growth factors and cytokines are involved in liver regeneration. Of them, only hepatopoietin (HPO)/ALR (augmenter of liver regeneration) is a specifically hepatotrophic factor originally identified from the cytosol of regenerating or hyperplastic hepatic cells. Previous reports indicate that extracellular HPO triggers the MAPK pathway by binding its specific receptor on the cell surface. However, its function in the cytosol of hepatocytes is unclear. Here we identified that JAB1 (Jun activation domain‐binding protein 1), a co‐activator of AP‐1, which is essential for liver regeneration, specifically interacts with intracellular HPO. JAB1 colocalizes with HPO in nuclei of hepatic cells or COS‐7 cells. As an intracrine factor, the intracellular function of HPO is to increase c‐Jun phosphorylation independent of c‐Jun amino‐terminal kinase (JNK), extracellular signal‐regulated kinase (ERK) ‐1 and ‐2, and leads to potentiation of JAB1‐mediated AP‐1 activation. Amino acids 1‐63 of HPO molecule are sufficient to bind to JAB1, but the full‐length HPO is necessary for its intracellular signaling. Taken together, these results elucidate a novel mechanism of intracrine cytokine signaling by specifically modulating the AP‐1 pathway through JAB1, in a MAPK‐independent fashion.
Pseudomonas aeruginosa LasA Protease in Treatment of Experimental Staphylococcal Keratitis

ABSTRACT LasA protease is a staphylolytic endopeptidase secreted by Pseudomonas aeruginosa. We have examined the effectiveness of LasA protease in the treatment of staphylococcal keratitis caused by methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA) and methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) isolates in a rabbit model. Keratitis was induced by intrastromal injection of the bacteria. The eyes were treated topically, and the efficacy of LasA protease was compared to those of lysostaphin (a staphylolytic protease secreted by Staphylococcus simulans) and vancomycin. When treatment was initiated early (4 h) after infection, practically all of the MSSA- and MRSA-infected corneas were sterilized by LasA protease, and its efficacy in eradicating the bacteria was comparable to those of lysostaphin and vancomycin. By contrast, most of the control corneas were heavily infected, with median values of 4.5 × 106 (MSSA) and 5 × 105 (MRSA) CFU/cornea (P < 0.001). When treatment was initiated late (10 h) after infection, LasA protease reduced the numbers of CFU in both MSSA- and MRSA-infected corneas by 3 to 4 orders of magnitude compared to the numbers of CFU for the controls (median values, 1,380 and 30 CFU/cornea, respectively, for the treated animals compared to 1.2 × 106 and 5 × 105 CFU/cornea for the respective controls [P = 0.001]), and it was more effective than vancomycin in eradicating MRSA cells (P = 0.02). In both the early- and the late-treatment protocols, the clinical scores for eyes treated with LasA protease were significantly lower than those for the eyes of the corresponding controls and comparable to those for the lysostaphin- and vancomycin-treated eyes. We conclude that LasA protease is effective in the treatment of experimental S. aureus keratitis in rabbits and may have potential for the treatment of disease in humans.
The European lactase persistence genotype determines the lactase persistence state and correlates with gastrointestinal symptoms in the Hispanic and Amerindian Chilean population: a case–control and population-based study

Background The lactase persistent (LP) or lactase non-persistent (LNP) state in European adults is genetically determined by a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) located 13.9 kb upstream of the lactase (LCT) gene, known as LCT C>T−13910 (rs4988235). The LNP condition leads to an inability to digest the milk sugar lactose leading to gastrointestinal symptoms and can affect nutrient and calcium intake in certain populations. Objectives The authors studied a group of 51 Chilean patients to assess whether this SNP influences the LP/LNP state in this population, and determined the prevalence of LCT C>T−13910 genotypes in a representative sample of 216 Hispanics and 43 Amerindians with correlation to digestive symptoms. Design Case–control study done in Chilean patients with clinical suspicion of LNP that were assessed using clinical survey, hydrogen breath test (HBT) and SNP genotyping. The population sample of Hispanics and Amerindians was assessed by clinical survey and SNP genotyping. Results Of the 51 patients with clinical suspicion of LNP, 29 were HBT-positive. The CC genotype (LNP) was present in 89.7% of the patients with positive HBT and in only 4.7% of those with negative HBT. The prevalence of the CC genotype was 56.9% in the Hispanic population and 88.3% in Amerindians, and was associated with a higher self-reported clinical intolerance to ingestion of dairy products. Conclusion The LP/LNP state is determined by the LCT C>T−13910 variant in Chileans. This variant predicts digestive symptoms associated with the ingestion of lactose and is a good tool for the diagnosis of primary adult hypolactasia. The LCT T−13910 allele is rare in the Amerindian population and is suggestive of European ancestry in this contemporary population.
Direct healthcare costs of diabetes mellitus patients in Spain

Objectives. To estimate the healthcare resources spent by diabetic patients in Spain during the year 2002. Methods. The present work is a cost-of-illness study. Direct healthcare costs were estimated using rates of DM, based on primary and secondary sources of information. A range of prevalence from 5% to 6% of the adult population was determined. The total cost was composed of six items: insulin and oral hypoglycemic agents; other drugs; disposable and consumable goods (glucose test strips, needles and syringes); hospitalization; primary care visits; visits to specialists. Results. The estimated direct cost of DM during the year 2002 ranges from (euros)2.4 billion to (euros)2.67 billion. Hospital costs had the highest weight ((euros)933 million) in the total, followed by non-insulin, non-hypoglycemic-agent drugs ((euros)777-932 million). Much lower are the costs of insulin and oral hypoglycemic agents ((euros)311 million), primary care visits ((euros)181-272 million), specialized visits ((euros)127-145 million) and disposable elements ((euros)70-81 million). The per-diabetic, per-year cost ranges between (euros)1,290 to 1,476. Discussion. Despite our rather conservative approach to the issue, our findings demonstrate the high direct healthcare costs of diabetic patients. Likewise, they illustrate the magnitude of the costs of treatment of DM-related complications.
HLA and filariasis in Sri Lankans and Indians.

Similar HLA association was found in patients with elephantiasis in Sri Lankans and Southern Indians. HLA-B15 was observed in 13/44 (30%) Sri Lankan patients with elephantiasis compared to 1/27 (4%) Sri Lankan controls (p = .0058; RR = 10.9) and in 5/8 (28%) Southern Indian elephantiasis compared to 10/101 (10%) Southern Indian controls (p = 0.04; RR = 3.5). In combining the data, the significance of the difference of the frequency of B15 between patients with elephantiasis and controls was even more marked (p = 0.00045; corrected p = 0.012; RR = 4.4).
Accounting for Skewness Preferences in Investment Decisions ∗

In this paper we derive a performance measure which is the most natural extension of the Sharpe ratio. This measure takes into account the skewness of return distribution and we denote it as the Adjusted for Skewness Sharpe Ratio (ASSR). We show that maximizing the ASSR is consistent with maximizing expected utility. The investor’s preferences for skewness in the formula for the ASSR are given by a single parameter which is related to the first derivative of the investor’s risk tolerance with respect to wealth. The ASSR preserves the standard Sharpe ratio for zero skewness of returns, decreases ranking of investments with left-tail risk, and improves ranking of investments with right-tail potential. We illustrate the use of the ASSR in two different settings. First, we reconcile the investor’s skewness preferences with the demand for portfolio insurance. Second, we illustrate the use of the ASSR for comparing mutual fund performances.
Principal chiral model on superspheres

We investigate the spectrum of the principal chiral model (PCM) on odd- dimensional superspheres as a function of the curvature radius R. For volume-filling branes on S 3|2 , we compute the exact boundary spectrum as a function of R. The extension to higher dimensional superspheres is discussed, but not carried out in detail. Our results provide very convincing evidence in favor of the strong-weak coupling duality between supersphere PCMs and OSP(2S+2|2S) Gross-Neveu models that was recently conjectured by Candu and Saleur.