Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Shared Protein Complex Subunits Contribute to Explaining Disrupted Co-occurrence

The gene composition of present-day genomes has been shaped by a complicated evolutionary history, resulting in diverse distributions of genes across genomes. The pattern of presence and absence of a gene in different genomes is called its phylogenetic profile. It has been shown that proteins whose encoding genes have highly similar profiles tend to be functionally related: As these genes were gained and lost together, their encoded proteins can probably only perform their full function if both are present. However, a large proportion of genes encoding interacting proteins do not have matching profiles. In this study, we analysed one possible reason for this, namely that phylogenetic profiles can be affected by multi-functional proteins such as shared subunits of two or more protein complexes. We found that by considering triplets of proteins, of which one protein is multi-functional, a large fraction of disturbed co-occurrence patterns can be explained.
EFFECTS OF ELECTROMYOSTIMULATION TRAINING ON MUSCLE STRENGTH AND POWER OF ELITE RUGBY PLAYERS

The present study investigated the influence of a 12-week electromyostimulation (EMS) training program performed by elite rugby players. Twenty-five rugby players participated in the study, 15 in an electrostimulated group and the remaining 10 in a control group. EMS was conducted on the knee extensor, plantar flexor, and gluteus muscles. During the first 6 weeks, training sessions were carried out 3 times a week and during the last 6 weeks, once a week. Iso-kinetic torque of the knee extensors was determined at different eccentric and concentric angular velocities ranging from = 120 to 360°·s-1. Scrummaging and full squat strength, vertical jump height and sprint-running times were also evaluated. After the first 6 weeks of EMS, only the squat strength was significantly improved (+ 8.3 ± 6.5%; p < 0.01). After the 12th week, the −120°·s-1 maximal eccentric, 120 and 240°·s-1 maximal concentric torque (p < 0.05), squat strength (+ 15.0 ± 8.0%; p < 0.001), squat jump (+ 10.0 ± 9.5%; p < 0.01), and drop jump from a 40-cm height (+ 6.6 ± 6.1%; p < 0.05) were significantly improved. No significant change was observed for the control group. A 12-week EMS training program demonstrated beneficial effects on muscle strength and power in elite rugby players on particular tests. However, rugby skills such as scrummaging and sprinting were not enhanced.
IRREDUCIBLE HEEGNER DIVISORS IN THE PERIOD SPACE OF ENRIQUES SURFACES

Reflection walls of certain primitive vectors in the anti-invariant sublattice of the K3 lattice define Heegner divisors in the period space of Enriques surfaces. We show that depending on the norm of these primitive vectors, these Heegner divisors are either irreducible or have two irreducible components. The two components are obtained as the walls orthogonal to primitive vectors of the same norm but of different type as ordinary or characteristic.
Eradication of Intracanal Enterococcus Faecalis Biofilm by Passive Ultrasonic Irrigation and RinsEndo System.

AIM The aim of the study was to compare the antimicrobial efficacy of three irrigation techniques after the use of standardized volume of NaOCl and with standardized time and irrigation. METHODOLOGY Forty-eight single rooted teeth were inoculated with an Enterococcus faecalis suspension for 24 h. The remaining six canals served as negative controls. The 36 root canals were randomly distributed into three experimental groups; group 1, conventional syringe irrigation; group 2, automated-dynamic irrigation (RinsEndo); group 3, passive ultrasonic irrigation (PUI). In the first protocol, the standardized volume of 3% NaOCl (20 mL) was used and in the second protocol, and standardized irrigation time (45 seconds) was used. Samples from root canals were cultured and the colony-forming units (CFUs) were counted. RESULTS When the volume of the irrigant was standardized, RinsEndo was more effective than PUI (p<0.01). When the irrigation time was standardized, there were no significant differences between any irrigation techniques (p>0.05). The RinsEndo group had the highest percentage of minimal counts of E. faecalis CFUs. CONCLUSIONS RinsEndo was more effective than PUI only when the volume of the irrigant was standardized. However, the RinsEndo provided higher bacterial reduction in both protocols when using the least amount of the irrigant and providing longer contact time.
Role of Age-Related Shifts in Rumen Bacteria and Methanogens in Methane Production in Cattle

Rumen microbiota are essential for maintaining digestive and metabolic functions, producing methane as a byproduct. Dairy heifers produce large amounts of methane based on fermentation of digested organic matter, with adverse consequences for feed efficiency and the environment. It is therefore important to understand the influence of host age on the relationship between microbiota and methane production. This study explored the age effect on the relationship between microbial communities and enteric methane production in dairy cows and heifers using high-throughput sequencing. Methane production and volatile fatty acid concentrations were age-related. Heifers (9–10 months) had lower methane production but higher methane production per dry matter intake (DMI). The acetate:propionate ratio decreased significantly with increasing age. Age-related microbiota changes in the rumen were reflected by a significant shift in bacterial taxa, but relatively stable archaeal taxa. Prevotella, Ruminococcus, Flavonifractor, Succinivibrio, and Methanobrevibacter were affected by age. This study revealed different associations between predominant bacterial phylotypes and Methanobrevibacter with increasing age. Prevotella was strongly correlated with Methanobrevibacter in heifers; howerver, in older cows (96–120 months) this association was replaced by a correlation between Succinivibrio and Methanobrevibacter. This shift may account for the age-related difference in rumen fermentation and methane production per DMI.
IL-10–Producing Regulatory B Cells in the Pathogenesis of Chronic Hepatitis B Virus Infection

A regulatory subset of B cells has been found to modulate immune responses in autoimmunity, infection, and cancer, but it has not been investigated in the setting of human persistent viral infection. IL-10 is elevated in patients with chronic hepatitis B virus infection (CHB), but its cellular sources and impact on antiviral T cells have not been addressed. We investigated the role of IL-10 and regulatory B cells in the pathogenesis of CHB. Serum IL-10 levels were studied longitudinally in patients with CHB undergoing spontaneous disease flares. There was a close temporal correlation between IL-10 levels and fluctuations in viral load or liver inflammation. Blockade of IL-10 in vitro rescued polyfunctional virus-specific CD8 T cell responses. To investigate the potential contribution of regulatory B cells, their frequency was measured directly ex vivo and after exposure to stimuli relevant to hepatitis B virus (HBV) (CpG or HBV Ags). IL-10–producing B cells were enriched in patients, and their frequency correlated temporally with hepatic flares, both after stimulation and directly ex vivo. Phenotypically, these cells were predominantly immature (CD19+CD24hiCD38hi) ex vivo; sorted CD19+CD24hiCD38hi cells suppressed HBV-specific CD8 T cell responses in an IL-10–dependent manner. In summary, these data reveal a novel IL-10–producing subset of B cells able to regulate T cell immunity in CHB.
The Bassian Isthmus and the major ocean currents of southeast Australia influence the phylogeography and population structure of a southern Australian intertidal barnacle Catomerus polymerus (Darwin)

Southern Australia is currently divided into three marine biogeographical provinces based on faunal distributions and physical parameters. These regions indicate eastern and western distributions, with an overlap occurring in the Bass Strait in Victoria. However, studies indicate that the boundaries of these provinces vary depending on the species being examined, and in particular on the mode of development employed by that species, be they direct developers or planktonic larvae dispersers. Mitochondrial DNA sequence analysis of the surf barnacle Catomerus polymerus in southern Australia revealed an east–west phylogeographical split involving two highly divergent clades (cytochrome oxidase I 3.5 ± 0.76%, control region 6.7 ± 0.65%), with almost no geographical overlap. Spatial genetic structure was not detected within either clade, indicative of a relatively long‐lived planktonic larval phase. Five microsatellite loci indicated that C. polymerus populations exhibit relatively high levels of genetic divergence, and fall into four subregions: eastern Australia, central Victoria, western Victoria and Tasmania, and South Australia. FST values between eastern Australia (from the eastern mitochondrial DNA clade) and the remaining three subregions ranged from 0.038 to 0.159, with other analyses indicating isolation by distance between the subregions of western mitochondrial origin. We suggest that the east–west division is indicative of allopatric divergence resulting from the emergence of the Bassian land‐bridge during glacial maxima, preventing gene flow between these two lineages. Subsequently, contemporary ecological conditions, namely the East Australian, Leeuwin, and Zeehan currents and the geographical disjunctions at the Coorong and Ninety Mile Beach are most likely responsible for the four subregions indicated by the microsatellite data.
Political Colleagues Matter: The Impact of Multiple Office-Holding on Intergovernmental Grants

This paper brings new evidence on the politics of intergovernmental grants. I focus on multiple office-holding (i.e. whether a local incumbent who has concurrently a seat at an upper layer of government gets more funds from this layer). By using a new panel database on French local governments’ accounts, I focus on grants counties allocate to municipalities. For identification, I rely on close electoral races. I find that aligned multiple office-holders (mayors who also have a seat in the majority group of the county council) get on average 28% more grants for their municipality than other municipal incumbents. Evidence on the heterogeneity of this effect suggests that grantors’ information on potential recipients, as well as local incumbents’ access to upper layers politicians, are key determinants in the allocation of intergovernmental transfers.
Defining Body Fatness in Adolescents: A Proposal of the Afad-A Classification

Aims Body mass index (BMI) shows several limitations as indicator of fatness. Using the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) reference and the World Health Organization (WHO) standard 2007 on the same dataset yielded widely different rates. At higher levels, BMI and the BMI cut-offs may be help in informing a clinical judgement, but at levels near the norm additional criteria may be needed. This study compares the prevalence of overweight and obesity using IOTF and WHO-2007 references and interprets body composition by comparing measures of BMI and body fatness (fat mass index, FMI; and waist-to-height ratio, WHtR) among an adolescent population. Methods and Results A random sample (n = 1231) of adolescent population (12–17 years old) was interviewed. Weight, height, waist circumference, triceps and subscapular skinfolds were used to calculate BMI, FMI, and WHtR. The prevalence of overweight and obesity were 12.3% and 15.4% (WHO standards) and 18.6% and 6.1% (IOTF definition). Despite that IOTF cut-offs misclassified less often than WHO standards, BMI categories were combined with FMI and WHtR resulting in the Adiposity & Fat Distribution for adolescents (AFAD-A) classification, which identified the following groups normal-weight normal-fat (73.2%), normal-weight overfat (2.1%), overweight normal-fat (6.7%), overweight overfat (11.9%) and obesity (6.1%), and also classified overweight at risk and obese adolescents into type-I (9.5% and 1.3%, respectively) and type-II (2.3% and 4.9%, respectively) depending if they had or not abdominal fatness. Conclusions There are differences between IOTF and WHO-2007 international references and there is a misclassification when adiposity is considered. The BMI limitations, especially for overweight identification, could be reduced by adding an estimate of both adiposity (FMI) and fat distribution (WHtR). The AFAD-A classification could be useful in clinical and population health to identify overfat adolescent and those who have greater risk of developing weight-related cardiovascular diseases according to the BMI category.
ThyNVM: Enabling software-transparent crash consistency in persistent memory systems

Emerging byte-addressable nonvolatile memories (NVMs) promise persistent memory, which allows processors to directly access persistent data in main memory. Yet, persistent memory systems need to guarantee a consistent memory state in the event of power loss or a system crash (i.e., crash consistency). To guarantee crash consistency, most prior works rely on programmers to (1) partition persistent and transient memory data and (2) use specialized software interfaces when updating persistent memory data. As a result, taking advantage of persistent memory requires significant programmer effort, e.g., to implement new programs as well as modify legacy programs. Use cases and adoption of persistent memory can therefore be largely limited. In this paper, we propose a hardware-assisted DRAM+NVM hybrid persistent memory design, Transparent Hybrid NVM (ThyNVM), which supports software-transparent crash consistency of memory data in a hybrid memory system. To efficiently enforce crash consistency, we design a new dual-scheme checkpointing mechanism, which efficiently overlaps checkpointing time with application execution time. The key novelty is to enable checkpointing of data at multiple granularities, cache block or page granularity, in a coordinated manner. This design is based on our insight that there is a tradeoff between the application stall time due to checkpointing and the hardware storage overhead of the metadata for checkpointing, both of which are dictated by the granularity of checkpointed data. To get the best of the tradeoff, our technique adapts the checkpointing granularity to the write locality characteristics of the data and coordinates the management of multiple-granularity updates. Our evaluation across a variety of applications shows that ThyNVM performs within 4.9% of an idealized DRAM-only system that can provide crash consistency at no cost.
Transport Capacity for Wireless Networks with Multi-User Links

The distance-weighted rate achievable in wireless networks that utilize multiple antennas and multi-user links is analyzed. The transport capacities of vector multiple-access and broadcast channels are given; these network topologies are used at the physical layer of an ad-hoc network to obtain achievable distance-weighted rate regions for a multiple-antenna wireless network. These regions are obtained by considering interfering multiple-access and broadcast channels in all possible link configurations. Multi-hop routing is shown to increase the capacity regions significantly. A centralized technique for link activation which results in networks with throughput close to capacity is developed. We give an analytic upper bound on the capacity and show that in networks with an asymptotically large number of nodes, the throughput grows with the number of antennas, as well as with the expected path loss between nodes. Numerical examples agree with the analysis and show the benefit of interfering multiple-access links over interfering broadcast or point-to-point links for a uniform per-node power constraint.
Heparin/dihydroergotamine for venous thrombosis prophylaxis: comparison of low‐dose heparin and low molecular weight heparin in hip surgery

In a prospective, double‐blind controlled study we have compared the prophylactic efficacy against deep vein thrombosis of low‐dose heparin + dihydroergotamine (A), low molecular weight heparin + dihydro‐ergotamine (B) and placebo (C). A total of three hundred and fifty‐six patients undergoing total hip replacement were randomized into three groups and 316 patients were analysed. All thrombi were verified by ascending phlebography. One‐third of the patients developed deep vein thrombosis in group A and B, differing significantly from group C. The operative blood loss in group B was higher than that in groups A and C. However, the number of patients transfused and their transfusion requirements did not differ. Severe bleeding occurred in one patient in each group. No deaths were registered during the study. Our study indicates that prophylactic treatment against postoperative deep vein thrombosis with low molecular weight heparin + dihydroergotamine once daily is as effective and safe as conventional low‐dose heparin + dihydroergotamine twice daily in patients undergoing total hip replacement. The once‐daily regimen has the advantage of better patient acceptance and less nursing time.
A morphic approach to combinatorial games: the Tribonacci case

We propose a variation of Wythoff's game on three piles of tokens, in the sense that the losing positions can be derived from the Tribonacci word instead of the Fibonacci word for the two piles game. Thanks to the corresponding exotic numeration system built on the Tribonacci sequence, deciding whether a game position is losing or not can be computed in polynomial time.
Comparison of classical and tunneling injection schemes in quantum-well lasers

We have compared classical and tunneling injection schemes using a rate equation description. A fraction parameter has been introduced that controls the injection. Dynamical laser parameters were calculated and compared for both injection schemes and to some recent experimental results. For a four-well laser, a maximum -3-dB bandwidth of 70 GHz and a threshold current of 3 mA were calculated.
Familial breast cancer

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy in women; it affects about one in eight women. Familial breast cancer typically presents earlier than sporadic breast cancer, and is more often bilateral than in sporadic cases. Ovarian cancer is more common in familial breast cancer. A large number of studies have confirmed an increased breast cancer risk in patients with a significant family history of breast cancer. The breast cancer genotype has an autosomal dominant pattern of transmission. This article considers familial breast cancer and various aspects of breast cancer management in primary care, including the genetics of familial breast cancer, and guidelines on referral to secondary care.
Before Biology: Geologic Habitability and Setting the Chemical and Physical Foundations for Life

The Earth is a habitable, dynamic planet, with plate tectonics creating a deep water and carbon cycle. These cycles regulate surface and atmospheric C and water abundances, and therefore long-term climate, which is vital to Earths habitability. The driving force behind plate tectonics is the convection of the mantle. The fact that the Earth transports its interior heat via convection instead of conduction is a result of a confluence of factors that include the internal energy budget as well as mantle size and composition. Relative to the Sun stars that host extrasolar planets vary in their refractory rock-building element proportions relative to Si by an order of magnitude. This variation will create terrestrial planets with unique mineralogies and dynamical behavior. How similar these planets are to Earth, chemically and physically, is the focus of this proposal with the end goal being to answer: “What variation in planetary chemical composition is capable of supporting the geochemical cycles necessary for life? ”
Portfolio optimization in secondary spectrum markets

In this paper, we address the spectrum portfolio optimization (SPO) question in the context of secondary spectrum markets, where bandwidth (spectrum access rights) can be bought in the form of primary and secondary contracts. While a primary contract on a channel provides guaranteed access to the channel bandwidth (possibly at a higher per-unit price), the bandwidth available to use from a secondary contract (possibly at a discounted price) is typically uncertain/stochastic. The key problem for the buyer (service provider) in this market is to determine the amount of primary and secondary contract units needed to satisfy uncertain user demand. We initially consider a single-region problem in which the spectrum contracts are valid only in the single-region in which the buyer wishes to provide service. We formulate the problem as one of minimizing the cost of the spectrum portfolio subject to constraints on bandwidth shortage. Two different forms of bandwidth shortage constraints are considered, namely, the demand satisfaction rate constraint, and the demand satisfaction probability constraint. While the SPO problem under demand satisfaction rate constraint is shown to be convex for all density functions, the SPO problem under demand satisfaction probability constraint is not convex in general. We derive some sufficient conditions for convexity for this case. The SPO problems can therefore be solved efficiently using standard convex optimization techniques. Later, we extend the problem formulation and the convexity results to the multiple-region setting, where the buyer's portfolio is intended to serve a set of disjoint geographical locations, each having its own customer demand. Finally, we perform a thorough simulation-based study of the single-region and the multiple-region problems for different choices of the problem parameters, and provide key insights regarding the portfolio composition and demonstrate the convexity of the efficient frontier. We provide several insights about the scaling behavior of the unit prices of the secondary contracts, as the stochastic characterization of the bandwidth available from secondary contracts change.
Ovulation, Female Competition, and Product Choice: Hormonal Influences on Consumer Behavior

Recent research shows that women experience nonconscious shifts across different phases of the monthly ovulatory cycle. For example, women at peak fertility (near ovulation) are attracted to different kinds of men and show increased desire to attend social gatherings. Building on the evolutionary logic behind such effects, we examined how, why, and when hormonal fluctuations associated with ovulation influenced women's product choices. In three experiments, we show that at peak fertility women nonconsciously choose products that enhance appearance (e.g., choosing sexy rather than more conservative clothing). This hormonally regulated effect appears to be driven by a desire to outdo attractive rival women. Consequently, minimizing the salience of attractive women who are potential rivals suppresses the ovulatory effect on product choice. This research provides some of the first evidence of how, why, and when consumer behavior is influenced by hormonal factors.