Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Culture-Dependent and -Independent Characterization of Microbial Communities Associated with a Shallow Submarine Hydrothermal System Occurring within a Coral Reef off Taketomi Island, Japan

ABSTRACT Microbial communities in a shallow submarine hydrothermal system near Taketomi Island, Japan, were investigated using cultivation-based and molecular techniques. The main hydrothermal activity occurred in a craterlike basin (depth, ∼23 m) on the coral reef seafloor. The vent fluid (maximum temperature, >52°C) contained 175 μM H2S and gas bubbles mainly composed of CH4 (69%) and N2 (29%). A liquid serial dilution cultivation technique targeting a variety of metabolism types quantified each population in the vent fluid and in a white microbial mat located near the vent. The most abundant microorganisms cultivated from both the fluid and the mat were autotrophic sulfur oxidizers, including mesophilic Thiomicrospira spp. and thermophilic Sulfurivirga caldicuralii. Methane oxidizers were the second most abundant organisms in the fluid; one novel type I methanotroph exhibited optimum growth at 37°C, and another novel type I methanotroph exhibited optimum growth at 45°C. The number of hydrogen oxidizers cultivated only from the mat was less than the number of sulfur and methane oxidizers, although a novel mesophilic hydrogen-oxidizing member of the Epsilonproteobacteria was isolated. Various mesophilic to hyperthermophilic heterotrophs, including sulfate-reducing Desulfovibrio spp. , iron-reducing Deferribacter sp. , and sulfur-reducing Thermococcus spp. , were also cultivated. Culture-independent 16S rRNA gene clone analysis of the vent fluid and mat revealed highly diverse archaeal communities. In the bacterial community, S. caldicuralii was identified as the predominant phylotype in the fluid (clonal frequency, 25%). Both bacterial clone libraries indicated that there were bacterial communities involved in sulfur, hydrogen, and methane oxidation and sulfate reduction. Our results indicate that there are unique microbial communities that are sustained by active chemosynthetic primary production rather than by photosynthetic production in a shallow hydrothermal system where sunlight is abundant.
Preclinical evaluation of Vaxfectin®-adjuvanted Vero cell-derived seasonal split and pandemic whole virus influenza vaccines

Increasing the potency and supply of seasonal and pandemic influenza vaccines remains an important unmet medical need which may be effectively accomplished with adjuvanted egg- or cell culture-derived vaccines. Vaxfectin®, a cationic lipid-based adjuvant with a favorable safety profile in phase 1 plasmid DNA vaccines trials, was tested in combination with seasonal split, trivalent and pandemic whole virus, monovalent influenza vaccines produced in Vero cell cultures. Comparison of hemagglutination inhibition (HI) antibody titers in Vaxfectin®-adjuvanted to nonadjuvanted vaccinated mice and guinea pigs revealed 3- to 20-fold increases in antibody titers against each of the trivalent influenza virus vaccine strains and 2- to 8-fold increases in antibody titers against the monovalent H5N1 influenza virus vaccine strain. With the vaccine doses tested, comparable antibody responses were induced with formulations that were freshly prepared or refrigerated at conventional 2–8°C storage conditions for up to 6 mo. Comparison of T-cell frequencies measured by interferon-gamma ELISPOT assay between groups revealed increases of between 2- to 10-fold for each of the adjuvanted trivalent strains and up to 22-fold higher with monovalent H5N1 strain. Both trivalent and monovalent vaccines were easy to formulate with Vaxfectin® by simple mixing. These preclinical data support further testing of Vaxfectin®-adjuvanted Vero cell culture vaccines toward clinical studies designed to assess safety and immunogenicity of these vaccines in humans.
SELF-DEPRECATIVE TENDENCIES IN SELF EVALUATION THROUGH SOCIAL COMPARISON

Three experiments based on Schwartz and Smith (1976) 's research were made, trying to explore the cultural differences of the process of self-evaluation. According to their findings, the greater the difference of performances between self and other, and/or the the smaller the variance in the other's performance, the higher is certainty about one's abillty level, regardless whether one is superior to the other or not. Experiment I failed to duplicate Schwartz & Smith's findings and showed strong self-deprecative tendencies in self-evaluation, however. Namely, the cartainty of self-evaluation was high when one is inferior to the other, regardless of the performance differences and the variance in other's performance. Experiment II also did not support Schwartz & Smith's hypothesis derived from the analogy with a t test for the difference of two means, in spite of the slightest situational implications for the srategic deprecating self-presentation. In experiment III, where subjects are to judge two others' ability level, the parametric metaphor hypothesis was supported. Implications of these findings for the strategic self-presentation and/or the self-evaluation processes through social comparison in Japanese culture were discussed.
Sialic acid is an indicator of inflammation due to cardiopulmonary bypass but not myocardial damage.

BACKGROUND The aim of the present study was to investigate whether serum sialic acid is associated with the inflammatory response of cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) or not, since cardiopulmonary bypass is known to produce a systemic inflammatory syndrome. METHODS In 20 patients in whom elective coronary bypass grafting was done, arterial and coronary sinus blood sampling was done simultaneously. The timing of samplings was 8-10 min after the institution of CPB, just before the application of aortic clamping (T1) and 2 min after cross clamp removal (T2), when there was coronary circulation, but no myocardial activation. RESULTS Sialic acid, CK-MB, lactate levels were significantly higher at T2 than those at T1 for both arterial and coronary sinus samples. Increase at T2 time point for SA, CK-MB and lactic acid at coronary sinus were closely correlated with the systemic increase of these substances also. Actually, increase of systemic and coronary sinus CK-MB levels was also correlated with the duration of aortic cross-clamping and cardiopulmonary bypass. Probably due to consumption, a negative correlation with the decrease of fibrinogen at coronary sinus was found with the duration of aortic cross-clamping. CONCLUSIONS Our study showed a strong and consistent association between serum SA concentration and the inflammatory process. There are previous reports that show sialic acid levels associated with ischemic insult to myocardium. We are able to show that serum TSA correlates well with some of the acute phase proteins but this was not true with ischemic markers after cardioplegic arrest.
Liver transplantation in adults with liver disease due to common variable immunodeficiency leads to early recurrent disease and poor outcome

Common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) is the most common form of primary immunodeficiency characterized by antibody deficiency, recurrent bacterial infections, and autoimmunity. Advanced chronic liver disease occurs in a subset of patients with CVID and manifests with various histological features, such as nodular regenerative hyperplasia, inflammation, fibrosis, and cholangiopathy. We present a case series characterizing the outcomes in adult patients transplanted for primary CVID‐related liver disease. We discuss the unique transplantation challenges faced in this primary immunodeficiency group including susceptibility to infections and early disease recurrence. There is a statistically significant decrease in 3‐year and 5‐year survival after liver transplantation in those with CVID‐related liver disease (55% at 3 and 5 years) compared with all‐comers (89% at 3 years, 81% at 5 years), prompting a need for discussion of suitability of transplantation in this group of patients as well as methods for reducing posttransplantation risk such as scrupulous search for infectious agents and reduction of immunosuppression. Liver Transplantation 24 171–181 2018 AASLD.
Homo‐ and heterotypic cell–cell contacts in Merkel cells and Merkel cell carcinomas: heterogeneity and indications for cadherin switching

Werling A M, Doerflinger Y, Brandner J M, Fuchs F, Becker J C, Schrama D, Kurzen H, Goerdt S & Peitsch W K (2011) Histopathology58, 286–303 Homo‐ and heterotypic cell–cell contacts in Merkel cells and Merkel cell carcinomas: heterogeneity and indications for cadherin switching
Production of Chemokines in Kawasaki Disease, Henoch-Schönlein Purpura and Acute Febrile Illness

We compared the production of three chemokines; interferon-γ-inducible protein-10 (IP-10), monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) and growth-related oncogene-α (Gro-α) that attracts monocytes or neutrophils, or both, in peripheral blood at acute stage of Kawasaki disease (n=29), Henoch-Schönlein purpura (n=15) and acute febrile illnesses (n=12). The production of the chemokines was assayed by ELISA. The plasma levels of IP-10 were markedly elevated in Kawasaki disease (538.6±336.4 pg/mL) and acute febrile illnesses (417.1±262.2 pg/mL) compared with in Henoch-Schönlein purpura (58.7±95.7 pg/mL) (p<0.05). The MCP-1 levels were elevated in Kawasaki disease (443.0±473.1 pg/mL) and acute febrile illnesses (328.6±261.1 pg/mL) compared with in Henoch-Schönlein purpura (82.9±79.0 pg/mL) (p<0.05). The Gro-α levels were elevated only in acute febrile illnesses (134.3±153.6 pg/mL) compared with in Kawasaki disease (31.8±22.1 pg/mL) or Henoch-Schönlein purpura (29.4±53.3 pg/mL) (p<0.05). According to these results, monocytes may play an important role in Kawasaki disease. In acute febrile illnesses, both monocytes and neutrophils may play an important role. By contrast, Henoch-Schönlein purpura may not be associated with the role of monocytes and neutrophils. Further studies using a larger number of cases are needed.
Talking to ten year olds about puberty, relationships and reproduction: an interpretative phenomenological analysis of fathers’ perceptions and practices.

This thesis employed Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to explore eight fathers’ perceptions and practices in talking to their ten year old children about puberty, relationships and reproduction. Eight fathers, of four girls and four boys respectively, participated in face to face interviews which were analysed idiographically initially, followed by analysis at the group level. Interpretations were then developed through synthesis of the findings with the wider literature and through critical application of a Foucauldian lens of governmentality and biopower. The results revealed a tension between the fathers’ cognitions, accounts and behaviours. Their practices were largely characterised by silence yet they reported positive attitudes towards children’s sexuality education and perceived themselves as equipped and willing to take on the role of sexuality educator. They also reported enjoying open relationships with their children. Interpretations centred on contradictions and conflict between the majority of the fathers’ aspirations and the compelling nature of the childhood innocence discourse as a technology of governmentality. Whilst all of the fathers felt that it was in their children’s interests to learn about sexuality, all but one adhered to hegemonic protective discourses and unquestioningly integrated their normalising effects into their fathering practices. In keeping with neoliberalist values, the fathers wished to minimise risk which they managed, paradoxically, by suppressing sexuality dialogue. A contradiction between cultural expectations and the conduct of fathering also emerged for seven of the eight fathers which appeared to relate to masculinities, gender ideologies and primary socialisation. This study has surfaced the power of subtle coercions of neoliberalist governmentality and the childhood innocence ideal in influencing fatherhood practices. However, by continuing the silence that largely characterises father-child sexuality communication, fathers are paradoxically potentially rendering their children more vulnerable both now and in the future. It is, therefore, essential that protective discourses are challenged and fathers are supported in talking to their children about sexuality in its broadest sense.
Wisdom of the Elders?

A common assumption is that individuals continue to accumulate ethnobiological knowledge throughout their lives, resulting in greater expertise among the elder generations. Alternative theoretical perspectives suggest that ethnobiological knowledge about animals should peak earlier in life, paralleling and facilitating the emergence of foraging proficiency among younger adults. We test these competing models among indigenous Nicaraguans with three measures of knowledge about fish behavior. Our results indicate that individuals exhibit considerable domain knowledge as relatively young adults. There is also a positive correlation between some measures of knowledge and fishing ability, suggesting that knowledge may promote and develop from specialization and the allocation of effort to fishing. These results imply a model of humans as flexible learners, assimilating ethnobiological knowledge via social learning and related experiences. Contrary to conventional perspectives, we suggest that age-related variation in knowledge among adults is attributable primarily to proximate factors, such as acculturation, time allocation to related productive tasks, and social-learning opportunities.
Effects of the blood parasite Leucocytozoon simondi on growth rates of anatid ducklings

The blood parasite Leucocytozoon simondi is often associated with heavy mortality of ducks and geese, especially domestic ones, in North America. In contrast, in a previous study we found no mortality from L. simondi in our wild stock of mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) and American black duck (Anas rubripes) ducklings. However, because parasites can slow growth, which could extend the interval during which ducklings are susceptible to predators, we tested for parasite effects on growth rates. We analysed growth rates over the first 20 days of life, based on tarsus length, culmen, bill width, body mass, and a principal component of structural size. Growth rates of infected ducklings were not lower than those of uninfected ducklings. Similarly, more intense infections did not have a greater effect on growth rates. Hence, growth rates were not negatively affected by L. simondi, which suggests that effects of this parasite on wild duck populations have been overestimated. Resume : L'hematozoaire Leucocytozoon simondi est souvent associe a un taux de mortalite eleve des canards et des oies en Amerique du Nord, surtout chez les varietes domestiques. En revanche, au cours d'une etude anterieure, nous n'avons pas observe de mortalite causee par L. simondi chez nos stocks sauvages de canetons du Canard colvert (Anas platyrhynchos) et du Canard noir (Anas rubripes). Cependant, etant donne que les parasites peuvent ralentir la croissance, ce qui a pour effet d'etirer la periode au cours de laquelle les canetons sont sujets a la predation, nous avons examine les effets des parasites sur les taux de croissance. Nous avons analyse les taux de croissance au cours
Two Languages, Two Minds

People make sense of objects and events around them by classifying them into identifiable categories. The extent to which language affects this process has been the focus of a long-standing debate: Do different languages cause their speakers to behave differently? Here, we show that fluent German-English bilinguals categorize motion events according to the grammatical constraints of the language in which they operate. First, as predicted from cross-linguistic differences in motion encoding, bilingual participants functioning in a German testing context prefer to match events on the basis of motion completion to a greater extent than do bilingual participants in an English context. Second, when bilingual participants experience verbal interference in English, their categorization behavior is congruent with that predicted for German; when bilingual participants experience verbal interference in German, their categorization becomes congruent with that predicted for English. These findings show that language effects on cognition are context-bound and transient, revealing unprecedented levels of malleability in human cognition.
Coverage Analysis for Low-Altitude UAV Networks in Urban Environments

Wireless access points on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are being considered for mobile service provisioning in commercial networks. To be able to efficiently use these devices in cellular networks it is necessary to first have a qualitative and quantitative understanding of how their design parameters reflect on the service quality experienced by the end user. In this paper we set up a scenario where a network of UAVs operating at a certain height above ground provide wireless service within coverage areas shaped by their directional antennas. We provide an analytical expression for the coverage probability experienced by a typical user as a function of the UAV parameters and demonstrate the performance trade-offs that occur as these parameters are varied.
Organizational and Professional Commitment in Professional and Nonprofessional Organizations

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1994 American Sociological Meetings, Los Angeles. This research was funded by the Alberta Law Foundation (Grant #6035) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Award #725-91-3002), and assistance was provided by the Law Society of Alberta. I wish to thank Charles W. Mueller for his helpful suggestions and advice on earlier drafts of this paper. This paper has also benefited greatly from the insightful and constructive comments of the editor, Stephen R. Barley, and the Managing Editor, Linda J. Pike, as well as the feedback provided by the three anonymous ASQ reviewers. This study of lawyers examines the degree to which professionals in general and lawyers in particular are committed to their profession and the organizations that employ them. I examine how the different structural arrangements of professional and nonprofessional organizations relate to lawyers' organizational and professional commitment. Results show that organizational commitment is highly dependent on perceived opportunities for career advancements and the criteria used in the distribution of rewards. Few of the structural characteristics are important in explaining professional commitment, and lawyers working in nonprofessional organizations are significantly less committed to the legal profession than those working in professional organizations. The results of this study suggest that future research must look beyond the structural characteristics of professionals' work settings if we want to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the factors affecting professional commitment. '
The structure and function of an RNA polymerase interaction domain in the PcrA/UvrD helicase

Abstract The PcrA/UvrD helicase functions in multiple pathways that promote bacterial genome stability including the suppression of conflicts between replication and transcription and facilitating the repair of transcribed DNA. The reported ability of PcrA/UvrD to bind and backtrack RNA polymerase (1,2) might be relevant to these functions, but the structural basis for this activity is poorly understood. In this work, we define a minimal RNA polymerase interaction domain in PcrA, and report its crystal structure at 1.5 Å resolution. The domain adopts a Tudor-like fold that is similar to other RNA polymerase interaction domains, including that of the prototype transcription-repair coupling factor Mfd. Removal or mutation of the interaction domain reduces the ability of PcrA/UvrD to interact with and to remodel RNA polymerase complexes in vitro. The implications of this work for our understanding of the role of PcrA/UvrD at the interface of DNA replication, transcription and repair are discussed.
Design of triple-band CMOS GPS receiver RF front-end

This letter describes the design of a triple-band Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver that simultaneously covers the L1, L2 and L5 frequency bands. The proposed receiver uses an imagerejection technique that can separate signals from the three frequency bands to three corresponding ports. It uses a single RF path containing a low-noise amplifier (LNA), and active and passive mixers with a pair of local oscillator signals. The triple-band GPS RF front-end chip is fabricated using 130 nm CMOS technology, and has a noise figure of less than 7.1 dB and an S11 coefficient of less than −10 dB in the frequency range 1.15-1.6 GHz. The experimental results demonstrate a 35-40 dB image rejection ratio at each output port with a power consumption of 7.2 mW (LNA and mixers) using a 1.2 V supply voltage.
Effect of Packet Loss on Collaborative Haptic Interactions in Networked Virtual Environments: An Experimental Study

It has been widely demonstrated that haptic interaction can enrich the sense of copresence of distributed users and improve their performance in collaborative virtual environments (CVEs). However, the influence of network traffic on haptic collaboration, particularly packet loss in haptic data streams, is still largely unknown. In order to investigate this effect, we designed and conducted a series of experiments on a simulated lossy network. First, a single-user interactive task was designed to estimate the just- noticeable packet loss threshold in terms of the length of burst loss (LBL). Second, a CVE was developed in which two users are required to work together on a goal-directed task through haptic collaboration. Experiments were performed to evaluate the users' task performance at different packet loss rates and their perception using subjective measurements. Finally, the effect of packet loss combined with network latency was investigated. The findings are: (1) the threshold LBL value for haptic discontinuity to become noticeable is 60.18 ms; (2) haptic collaboration performance is sensitive to packet loss rate; and (3) while the combined effect of packet loss and communication delay adversely affects collaborative haptic interactions, the influence due to packet loss rate is dominant when the delay is below a certain threshold. These results can serve as a guiding reference for the design and development of virtual telepresence systems with rich haptic collaborations.