Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The hexameric structure of the human mitochondrial replicative helicase Twinkle

The mitochondrial replicative helicase Twinkle is involved in strand separation at the replication fork of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). Twinkle malfunction is associated with rare diseases that include late onset mitochondrial myopathies, neuromuscular disorders and fatal infantile mtDNA depletion syndrome. We examined its 3D structure by electron microscopy (EM) and small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and built the corresponding atomic models, which gave insight into the first molecular architecture of a full-length SF4 helicase that includes an N-terminal zinc-binding domain (ZBD), an intermediate RNA polymerase domain (RPD) and a RecA-like hexamerization C-terminal domain (CTD). The EM model of Twinkle reveals a hexameric two-layered ring comprising the ZBDs and RPDs in one layer and the CTDs in another. In the hexamer, contacts in trans with adjacent subunits occur between ZBDs and RPDs, and between RPDs and CTDs. The ZBDs show important structural heterogeneity. In solution, the scattering data are compatible with a mixture of extended hexa- and heptameric models in variable conformations. Overall, our structural data show a complex network of dynamic interactions that reconciles with the structural flexibility required for helicase activity.
Asymptotical Analysis of Several Multiple Description Scenarios with L≥ 3 Descriptions

This work compares theoretically the performance of several representative practical multiple description (MD) frameworks with L ≥ 3 symmetric descriptions. The first scenario is the classic unequal erasure protection (UEP) scheme using a successively refinable code (SRC) and Reed-Solomon codes. The second scenario is an improvement upon UEP by applying domain partitioning and permuted Reed-Solomon codes. The third scenario uses a finer partitioning and erasure correction via repetition codes. Additionally, the MD lattice vector quantizer and another recent MD scheme are considered in the comparison. The aforementioned MD schemes are compared in terms of the expected squared error asymptotically achievable as the rate R of a description approaches ∞, assuming independent description losses. Our analysis reveals that the improvement of the second scenario upon the first one when R → ∞ can reach up to 1.68 dB, but it approaches 0 as the description loss rate p goes to 0 and L approaches ∞. Additionally, we find that the first two schemes outperform the third one with an unbounded gain when R → ∞, as p→ 0 or L → ∞. Further, we show that the first three scenarios achieve unbounded improvements over the other two as R → ∞ and p → 0. On the other hand, we point out that some of the results of our asymptotic analysis rely on strong assumptions and therefore an experimental validation is needed before applying them to practical situations.
Competitive Information, Trust, Brand Consideration and Sales: Two Field Experiments

Two field experiments examine whether providing information to consumers regarding competitive products builds trust. Established theory suggests that (1) competitive information leads to trust because it demonstrates the firm is altruistic, and (2) trust leads to brand consideration and sales. In year 1, an American automaker provided experiential, product-feature, word-of-mouth, and advisor information to consumers in a 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 random-assignment field experiment that lasted six months. Main-effect analyses, conditional-logit models, and continuous-time Markov models suggest that competitive information enhances brand consideration and possibly sales and that the effects are mediated through trust. However, in a modification to extant theory, effects are significant only for positively valenced information. The year-2 experiment tested whether a signal that the firm was willing to share competitive information would engender trust, brand consideration, and sales. Contrary to many theories, the signal did not achieve these predicted outcomes because, in the year-2 experiment, consumers who already trusted the automaker were more likely to opt in to competitive information. In addition to interpreting the field experiments in light of extant theory, we examine cost effectiveness and describe the automaker's successful implementation of revised competitive-information strategies.
Sleep, Adenosine and Caffeine as Tools for The Early Diagnosis of Parkinson Disease

The information that has developed regarding Parkinson's Disease (PD) allowed to understand that there is a period of this disease, perhaps at least a decade, in which the classical features of PD are not detected as such, however, there are evidence of a series of non-motor manifestations, among which are: anosmia, constipation, psychiatric disorders such as major depression, generalized anxiety, and rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD). On the other hand the understanding of physiological mechanisms of sleep-wake cycle, have become remarkable tools to explore neurological and psychiatric disorders and complemented the information and treatments for those disorders. There is evidence that RBD can occur in half of people who will develop PD, about 10 year letter. The role of adenosine in sleep and caffeine intolerance is other aspects that are evident in the relation between PD and sleep. The detection of PD in early stages, may allow the implementation of the type of therapeutic strategies for neuroprotection. The general goal would be delay or reduce the clinical manifestations of PD in some patients.
Determining Hysteresis Thresholds for Edge Detection by Combining the Advantages and Disadvantages of Thresholding Methods

Hysteresis is an important technique for edge detection, but the unsupervised determination of its parameters is not an easy problem. In this paper, we propose a method for unsupervised determination of hysteresis thresholds using the advantages and disadvantages of two thresholding methods. The basic idea of our method is to look for the best hysteresis thresholds in a set of candidates. First, the method finds a subset and a overset of the unknown edge points set. Then, it determines the best edge map with the measure ¿2. Compared with a general method to determine the parameters of an edge detector, our method performs well and is less computationally complex. The basic idea of our method can be generalized to other pattern recognition problems.
Influencing User Choices in Interactive Narratives Using Indexter's Pairwise Event Salience Hypothesis

Indexter is a plan-based model of narrative that incorporates cognitive scientific theories about the salience — or prominence in memory — of narrative events. A pair of Indexter events can share up to five indices with one another: protagonist, time, space, causality, and intentionality. The pairwise event salience hypothesis states that a past event is more salient if it shares one or more of these indices with the most recently narrated event. In a previous study we used this model to predict users’ choices in an interactive story based on the indices of prior events. We now show that we can use the same method to influence them to make certain choices. In this study, participants read an interactive story with two possible endings. We influenced them to choose a particular ending by manipulating the salience of story events. We showed that users significantly favored the targeted ending.
Fertility and Social Change: The Neglected Contribution of Men's Approaches to Becoming Partners and Parents

Attitude survey and interview data are mobilised to address neglect of men's contribution to low fertility and wider social change in families and relationships. Men's attitudes are as relevant as women's to understanding fertility behaviour. However, fertility behaviour can only be understood in the context of a package of changes in gender relations and family life. Data from a random sample of men aged 18–49 surveyed in the Scottish Social Attitudes (SSA) survey 2005/06 are combined with in-depth interviews conducted in 2007 with 75 men aged 25–44 identified through the Scottish Household Survey as not living in co-resident partnership arrangements. Both datasets encompass the age span conventionally associated with having children and men who were the potential partners of women delaying a first child until their 30s. They allow consideration of the impact of social contact with parents and children on men's fertility intentions and how the role of provider features in men's views about parenting. The interviews focus on men who have fallen out of, or have not entered, co-resident partnerships and examine the relationship between partnering and parenting. In combination the data suggest how men act as a complementary or contradictory downward drag on women's fertility and that their role has been underestimated in understanding the package of family change of which low fertility is a part.
A New Approach to Response Sets in Analysis of a Test of Motivation to Achieve

GUMPGOOKIES is an objective-projective test of motivation to achieve in school, intended for children in an age range of three and a half to eight or possibly nine. Each item consists of a description of two imaginary figures called gumpgookies, and the task of the child is to indicate with which gumpgookie he identifies. For example: These gumpgookies should be working. This one is watching. This one is working. The first form of the test consisted of 100 items in which illustrations of gumpgookies were presented in left-hand or righthand positions and in which the left-hand figure was always described first. Factor analyses of data from this first form yielded factors which, although suggestive of substantive interpretations, seemed to be influenced by the positions of the answers and/or primacy versus recency, i.e., whether the keyed answer was presented first or last. Thus some factors were loaded for items with
The profitability of trading volatility using real-valued and symbolic models

There are two notions of volatility in literature: historical volatility and implied volatility. We concentrate on the latter by analyzing the profitability of a pure volatility trading strategy which is delta-neutral and independent of an option pricing model, for the German stock index DAX. Several very different methods ranging from linear and nonlinear, real-valued models to symbolic models of volatility changes are applied to predict the change in volatility to the next trading day and to gain profits by buying or selling straddles accordingly. The trading performance is evaluated for one historical and one implied volatility measure. The results are carefully evaluated concerning transaction costs, stationarity issues, and statistical significance. The main contribution of the paper is that, for the first time, the trading performance of models based on different modelling paradigms is compared.
Obesity Is Not a Predictor of Complications in Upper Extremity Surgery

Background: Obesity is an often-cited cause of surgical morbidity. As a result, many institutions have required screening prior to “clearing” obese individuals for surgery. However, it remains unclear whether such testing is warranted for obese patients prior to upper extremity procedures. This study reviews surgical outcomes to determine if obesity does predict operative morbidity following upper extremity surgery. Methods: The National Surgical Quality Improvement Program was queried for 18 Current Procedural Terminology codes, representing upper extremity fracture and arthroplasty procedures. Patients’ body mass index (BMI) and medical histories were examined as predictors for postoperative complications. Both individual and combined incidences of complications were compared between patients stratified as normal-weight (BMI < 30); obese (BMI 30-40); and morbidly obese (BMI> 40). Results: A total of 8,477 patients were identified over the 5-year study period; 5,303 had a BMI <30, 2,565 a BMI of 30 to 40 and 585 a BMI >40. With the exception of postoperative blood transfusions, there were no significant increases in the incidence rates of any complication event as a function of BMI class. The overall incidence of complications was 2.70 % for BMI <30; 2.74 % for BMI 30 to 40; and 1.54 % for BMI >40. Conclusions: Obesity is not a reliable predictor of complications following upper extremity surgery. Thus, requiring preoperative screening for obese patients may constitute an unnecessary burden on medical resources. Further study is needed to identify specific demographics that might serve as more accurate predictors of poor outcomes in obese patients undergoing surgery of the upper extremity.
Re-Os isotope and geochemical study of the Vredefort Granophyre: Clues to the origin of the Vredefort structure, South Africa

The origin of granophyric rock dikes (the Vredefort Granophyre) at the 2 Ga Vredefort structure in South Africa has been controversial. They have been interpreted as either impact melt or igneous intrusions. Most Vredefort Granophyre samples have considerably higher Os contents than the country rocks and 187Re/188Os and 187Os/188Os ratios that scatter about a 2 Ga isochron. Their initial 187Os/188Os ratios (at 2 Ga) overlap the meteoritic data range, indicating that all the granophyre samples contain some meteoritic Os. The Re-Os isotopic composition of the granophyre is significantly different from that of local precursor rocks and indicates that up to 0.2% of a chondritic component could be contained in the granophyre. Our results confirm the interpretation that the Vredefort Granophyre represents an impact melt rock.
Ensembles of codes over abelian groups

In this paper we study ensembles of Abelian group codes on symmetric channels. Our main example is the AWGN channel where the inputs are restricted to a GU constellation admitting Zopfm as a generating group. For codes which are Zopfm-free modules, we prove a sort of Shannon theorem which exactly characterizes which are the rates for which reliable transmission is possible. In particular we prove that for the 2r-PSK constellation, group codes over Zopf- do achieve Shannon capacity. Finally, we study the performance of low density Zopf codes and we prove average convergence rate of their word error probability
Colliding Waves in a Model Excitable Medium: Preservation, Annihilation, and Bifurcation

We analyze the transition from annihilation to preservation of colliding waves. The analysis exploits the similarity between the local and global phase portraits of the system. The transition is shown to be the infinite-dimensional analog of the creation and annihilation of limit cycles in the plane via a homoclinic Andronov bifurcation, and has parallels to the nucleation theory of first-order phase transitions. [S0031-9007(97)04203-8]
Retroviral lineage analysis of fibroblast growth factor receptor signaling in FGF2 inhibition of oligodendrocyte progenitor differentiation

Fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2) inhibits oligodendrocyte progenitor cell (OPC) differentiation during development and limits remyelination following chronic demyelination. The current study examines the mechanism underlying this effect of FGF2 expression on OPC differentiation. Retroviral lineage tracing demonstrates a direct in vivo effect of FGF receptor (FGFR) signaling on OPC differentiation. Retrovirus expressing a dominant negative FGFR construct (FGFRdn) and green fluorescent protein (GFP) was injected into the dorsal columns of postnatal day 7 (P7) mice followed by perfusion at P28. Among the GFP‐labeled cells, FGFRdn retrovirus generated a higher proportion of oligodendrocytes than did control infections. This result from FGFRdn expression in OPCs was similar to the result obtained in our previous study using control retrovirus in FGF2 null mice. Further, in vitro retroviral siRNA expression distinguishes the function of specific FGFR isoforms in OPC responses to FGF2. FGF2 inhibition of OPC differentiation was effectively blocked by siRNA targeted to FGFR1, but not FGFR2 or FGFR3. We propose a model of direct FGF2 activation of FGFR1 leading to inhibition of OPC differentiation. This signaling pathway may be an important regulator of oligodendrocyte generation during myelination in development and may perturb OPC generation of remyelinating oligodendrocytes in demyelinating disease. Published 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Are Dividends Disappearing? Dividend Concentration and the Consolidation of Earnings

Although the number of dividend paying industrials declines by more than 50% over the last two decades (Fama and French (2001a)), aggregate real dividends paid by industrials increase over the same period. Dividends increase despite a precipitous decline in the number of payers because (i) the reduction in payers occurs almost entirely among firms that pay very small dividends, and (ii) increased real dividends from the top payers swamp the modest dividend reduction associated with the loss of many small payers. These secular changes reflect high and increasing concentration in the supply of dividends which, in turn, reflect high and increasing earnings concentration. For example, 26 firms with real earnings of $1 billion-plus account for 63.4% and 46.8% of aggregate industrial earnings and dividends in 2000. Our findings on dividend concentration cast doubt on the empirical validity of the dividend clientele and signaling hypotheses.
Female pattern hair loss may be triggered by low oestrogen to androgen ratio.

OBJECTIVE In both sexes the androgenetic alopecia is known to be mediated by the conversion of circulating androgens into dihydrotestosterone within the hair follicle. However, there are a number of differences between male and female pattern baldness with estrogen known to be protective against hair loss in women. Since androgen levels in women with female pattern hair loss are mostly within the normal range, we decided to calculate the ratio of estrogens to androgens in order to find a putative trigger for their hair loss. METHODS We studied 20 premenopausal women with female pattern hair loss and 9 healthy women for serum levels of LH, FSH, estradiol, free and total testosterone, sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) and dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS) on the first day of their menstrual cycle. RESULTS Although the absolute levels of androgens were normal in both groups, the ratio of estradiol to free testosterone and the ratio of estradiol to DHEAS were significantly lower in patients than in the control group. CONCLUSIONS We put up a hypothesis that in the presence of a genetic susceptibility, it is the estrogen to androgen ratio, as represented by the ratio of estradiol to free testosterone that might be responsible for triggering female pattern hair loss in women.
Triglyceride High-Density Lipoprotein Ratios Predict Glycemia-Lowering in Response to Insulin Sensitizing Drugs in Type 2 Diabetes: A Post Hoc Analysis of the BARI 2D

Glycemic management is central in prevention of small vessel and cardiovascular complications in type 2 diabetes. With the plethora of newer medications and recommendations for a patient centered approach, more information is necessary to match the proper drug to each patient. We showed that BARI 2D, a five-year trial designed to compare two different glycemic treatment strategies, was suitable for assessing different responses according to different phenotypic characteristics. Treatment with insulin sensitizing medications such as thiazolidinediones and metformin was more effective in improving glycemic control, particularly in the more insulin resistant patient, when compared to the insulin provision strategy using insulin and or sulfonylureas. Triglyceride and high density lipoprotein ratio (TG/HDL-cholesterol ratio) was found to be a readily available and practical biomarker that helps to identify the insulin resistant patient. These results support the concept that not all medications for glycemic control work the same in all patients. Thus, tailored therapy can be done using phenotypic characteristics rather than a “one-size-fits-all approach. ”
The Effect of Digoxin in the Splanchnic Circulation in Ventricular Failure

Splanchnic hemodynamics were examined in 22 patients with heart disease, 16 of whom had evidence of ventricular insufficiency at the time of study. The response of the splanchnic vasculature to the exhibition of intravenous digoxin was also studied in nine of these subjects.Ventricular insufficiency was associated with splanchnic vasoconstriction proportional to a generalized increase in peripheral vascularresistance. Splanchnic blood volume was disproportionately increased with respect to total blood volume in patients having visceral congestion with right ventricular failure and combined ventricular failure. A significant relationship between central venous pressure and splanchnic blood volume was demonstrated in these cases. The greater elevation of the former than of the latter suggested the presence of splanchnic venoconstriction.The vascular readjustment to digoxin resulted in a relative intensification of the already existing vasoconstriction of the splanchnic bed as compared to the diffuse systemic vasodilatation which occurred at the same time as the consequence of the inotropic action of the drug: estimated splanchnic blood flow and splanchnic blood volume diminished at a time when systemic flow rose and peripheral vascular resistance decreased. The ultimate distribution of the volume of blood translocated out of the splanchnic bed during this process remains to be determined.
SOVA - A Tool for Semantic and Ontological Variability Analysis

Variability analysis in Software Product Line Engineering (SPLE) utilizes various software-related artifacts, including requirements specifications. Currently, measuring the similarity of requirements specifications for analyzing variability of software products mainly takes into account semantic considerations. This might lead to failure to capture important aspects of the software behavior as perceived by users. In this paper we present a tool, called SOVA – Semantic and Ontological Variability Analysis, which introduces ontological considerations to variability analysis, in addition to the semantic ones. The input of the tool is textual requirements statements organized in documents. Each document represents the expectations from or the characteristics of a different software product in a line, while each requirement statement represents an expected behavior of that software product. The output is a feature diagram representing the variability in the input set of requirements documents and setting the ground for behavioral domain analysis.