Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Branched-chain and aromatic amino acid catabolism into aroma volatiles in Cucumis melo L. fruit

The unique aroma of melons (Cucumis melo L., Cucurbitaceae) is composed of many volatile compounds biosynthetically derived from fatty acids, carotenoids, amino acids, and terpenes. Although amino acids are known precursors of aroma compounds in the plant kingdom, the initial steps in the catabolism of amino acids into aroma volatiles have received little attention. Incubation of melon fruit cubes with amino acids and α-keto acids led to the enhanced formation of aroma compounds bearing the side chain of the exogenous amino or keto acid supplied. Moreover, L-[13C6]phenylalanine was also incorporated into aromatic volatile compounds. Amino acid transaminase activities extracted from the flesh of mature melon fruits converted L-isoleucine, L-leucine, L-valine, L-methionine, or L-phenylalanine into their respective α-keto acids, utilizing α-ketoglutarate as the amine acceptor. Two novel genes were isolated and characterized (CmArAT1 and CmBCAT1) encoding 45.6 kDa and 42.7 kDa proteins, respectively, that displayed aromatic and branched-chain amino acid transaminase activities, respectively, when expressed in Escherichia coli. The expression of CmBCAT1 and CmArAT1 was low in vegetative tissues, but increased in flesh and rind tissues during fruit ripening. In addition, ripe fruits of climacteric aromatic cultivars generally showed high expression of CmBCAT1 and CmArAT1 in contrast to non-climacteric non-aromatic fruits. The results presented here indicate that in melon fruit tissues, the catabolism of amino acids into aroma volatiles can initiate through a transamination mechanism, rather than decarboxylation or direct aldehyde synthesis, as has been demonstrated in other plants.
Norm of a Bethe vector and the Hessian of the master function

We show that the norm of a Bethe vector in the $sl_{r+1}$ Gaudin model is equal to the Hessian of the corresponding master function at the corresponding critical point. In particular the Bethe vectors corresponding to non-degenerate critical points are non-zero vectors. This result is a byproduct of functorial properties of Bethe vectors studied in this paper. As another byproduct of functoriality we show that the Bethe vectors form a basis in the tensor product of several copies of first and last fundamental $sl_{r+1}$-modules.
Flipped Classroom Teaching and Learning Pedagogy in the Program Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation Graduate Course: Students’ Experiences

This article provides support to flipped classroom pedagogy in the preparation of graduate-level public health practitioners. We describe the participatory, interactive, collaborative, and liberating process of teaching and learning in the Program Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation course, and we provide the results of a cross-sectional study into students’ perceptions of this process. Our investigation found a significant positive correlation between students’ participation in class discussion and classroom learning experiences (Pearson r[49] = .40, p = .004). Study results confirm the students’ appreciation for the flipped classroom pedagogy. However, the results indicate no significant correlation between the students’ learning style preferences and participation in class discussion (t[46] = −0.94, p = .34) or classroom learning experiences (t[46] = 1.64, p = .11); likewise, there were no significant correlations between students’ academic achievement (i.e., GPA) and participation in class discussion (Spearman’s rho correlation: ρ sp [49] = .07, p = .60) or classroom learning experiences (Spearman’s rho correlation: ρ sp [49] = .17, p = .25). No significant association was found between both participation in class discussion and learning experiences, with demographic variables such as gender, age, semester in school, and type of employment. The current flipped classroom pedagogy allows for participation, growth, and development of all students enrolled in the course. We recommend more studies to further strengthen current evidence of the effectiveness of the flipped classroom pedagogical approach on both teaching and learning in public health courses.
Resveratrol Prevents Dendritic Cell Maturation in Response to Advanced Glycation End Products

Advanced glycation end products (AGEs), generated through nonenzymatic glycosylation of proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids, accumulate in the body by age thus being considered as biomarkers of senescence. Senescence is characterized by a breakdown of immunological self-tolerance, resulting in increased reactivity to self-antigens. Previous findings suggest that AGE and its receptor RAGE may be involved in the pathogenesis of autoimmune reactions through dendritic cell (DC) activation. The aim of this study was to investigate whether resveratrol, a polyphenolic antioxidant compound with tolerogenic effects on DCs, was able to counteract the mechanisms triggered by AGE/RAGE interaction on DCs. By immunochemical and cytofluorimetric assays, we demonstrated that in vitro pretreatment of human monocyte-derived DCs with resveratrol prevents DC activation in response to glucose-treated albumin (AGE-albumin). We found that resveratrol exerts an inhibitory effect on DC surface maturation marker and RAGE up-regulation in response to AGE-albumin. It also inhibited proinflammatory cytokine expression, allostimulatory ability upregulation, mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinases, and NF-κB activation in AGE-albumin-stimulated DCs. We suggest that resveratrol, by dismantling AGE/RAGE signaling on DCs may prevent or reduce increased reactivity to self-molecules in aging.
Order-Based Representation in Random Networks of Cortical Neurons

The wide range of time scales involved in neural excitability and synaptic transmission might lead to ongoing change in the temporal structure of responses to recurring stimulus presentations on a trial-to-trial basis. This is probably the most severe biophysical constraint on putative time-based primitives of stimulus representation in neuronal networks. Here we show that in spontaneously developing large-scale random networks of cortical neurons in vitro the order in which neurons are recruited following each stimulus is a naturally emerging representation primitive that is invariant to significant temporal changes in spike times. With a relatively small number of randomly sampled neurons, the information about stimulus position is fully retrievable from the recruitment order. The effective connectivity that makes order-based representation invariant to time warping is characterized by the existence of stations through which activity is required to pass in order to propagate further into the network. This study uncovers a simple invariant in a noisy biological network in vitro; its applicability under in vivo constraints remains to be seen.
The relationship between virtual body ownership and temperature sensitivity

In the rubber hand illusion, tactile stimulation seen on a rubber hand, that is synchronous with tactile stimulation felt on the hidden real hand, can lead to an illusion of ownership over the rubber hand. This illusion has been shown to produce a temperature decrease in the hidden hand, suggesting that such illusory ownership produces disownership of the real hand. Here, we apply immersive virtual reality (VR) to experimentally investigate this with respect to sensitivity to temperature change. Forty participants experienced immersion in a VR with a virtual body (VB) seen from a first-person perspective. For half the participants, the VB was consistent in posture and movement with their own body, and in the other half, there was inconsistency. Temperature sensitivity on the palm of the hand was measured before and during the virtual experience. The results show that temperature sensitivity decreased in the consistent compared with the inconsistent condition. Moreover, the change in sensitivity was significantly correlated with the subjective illusion of virtual arm ownership but modulated by the illusion of ownership over the full VB. This suggests that a full body ownership illusion results in a unification of the virtual and real bodies into one overall entity—with proprioception and tactile sensations on the real body integrated with the visual presence of the VB. The results are interpreted in the framework of a ‘body matrix’ recently introduced into the literature.
The spectatorship of portraits by naïve beholders.

The spectatorship of portraits by naive viewers (beholders) was explored in a single experiment. Twenty-five participants rated their liking for 142 portraits painted by Courbet (36 paintings), Fantin-Latour (36 paintings) and Manet (70 paintings) on a 4-point Likert scale. The portraits were classified in terms of focussed versus ambiguous nature of sitter gaze and the presence of salient features in the context beyond sitters. Participants rated portraits while having their eye movements recorded. The portraits were split into regions of interest (ROIs) defined by faces, bodies and context. Participants also completed individual difference measures of attention and task focus. Results showed naive spectatorship to be subject to attentional capture by faces. Paradoxically, the presence of salient features in the context amplified the attentional capture by faces through increasing participants liking of portraits. Attentional capture by faces was also influenced by sitter gaze and task focus. Unsurprisingly, the spectatorship of portraits by naive beholders is dominated by faces, but the extent of this dominance is influenced by exogenous and endogenous attentional factors.
Analysis of Influence of Basketball Game-Related Statistics on Final Result Based on Differences at the 2017 FIBA Asia Cup

Background: Many papers have been published on the topic of basketball players’ performance. Most of them have come from authors covering the field from USA and Europe, whereas the number of papers from the rest of the world, particularly Asia, has so far been small in numbers. Objectives: Evaluate the significance of the observed parameters in relation to the game outcome (winning/losing) at the last continental championship, 2017 FIBA Asia Cup. Methods: The sample of entity consisted of 40 games played at 2017 FIBA Asia Cup. The sample of variables consisted of 13 variables registered in the manner as set out by FIBA regulations and 15 derived (relative) variables. Accordingly, two basic models of regression were formed, i.e. absolute and relative, and they had the number of total points scored as their dependent variable. The correlation between the two models was performed by means of regression and correlation analysis of the two models - stepwise regression. Results: The obtained regression models and partial correlation indicate that winning and losing performance was heavily influenced in the absolute model, by the following: ΔFGM, ΔMFT, and ΔM3, accounting for 95.9% of difference. The second model extracted: ΔFG%, ΔTO%, ΔDR%, ΔPTS3%, and ΔFT%, accounting for 90.7% of difference between winning and losing teams. Conclusions: Considering the significance of shooting and defensive rebounding, basketball coaches have been strongly advised, in this and many previous works, to pay special attention to these segments of the game.
Characterization of Latent Social Networks Discovered through Computer Network Logs

The collection of true and complete measurements for social network analysis is often limited and costly. Indirect measurements from electronic data sources have opened new avenues for extracting valuable information on social patterns. While the analysis of proximity data and email communication are a few data sources that have been heavily studied, the analysis of computer network logs and their robustness in capturing latent social behavior is an under-explored area. In this paper, we investigate the richness of network logs in identifying latent social networks of users within an enterprise. Specifically, we model the observable network artifacts on a per-user basis, and embed each user in graphs representing the enterprise. We analyze the structural properties of these graphs and discover that the latent social network shares many of the distinguishing characteristics of those observed in the real-world.
Do Teacher Effect Estimates Persist when Teachers Move to Schools with Different Socioeconomic Environments? Working Paper 2008-20.

n “Do Teacher Effect Estimates Persist When Teachers Move to Schools with Different Socioeconomic Environments? ”—a paper presented at the February 2008 National Center on Performance Incentives research to policy conference—Sanders, Wright, and Langevin describe how teacher effectiveness outcomes are consistent when teachers switch between schools serving different student populations. They recommend that policy makers use highquality teacher effectiveness measures to determine which teachers should be incentivized to either move to, or remain in, schools serving high-needs student populations.
Retweet Behavior Prediction Using Hierarchical Dirichlet Process

The task of predicting retweet behavior is an important and essential step for various social network applications, such as business intelligence, popular event prediction, and so on. Due to the increasing requirements, in recent years, the task has attracted extensive attentions. In this work, we propose a novel method using non-parametric statistical models to combine structural, textual, and temporal information together to predict retweet behavior. To evaluate the proposed method, we collect a large number of microblogs and their corresponding social networks from a real microblog service. Experimental results on the constructed dataset demonstrate that the proposed method can achieve better performance than state-of-the-art methods. The relative improvement of the the proposed over the method using only textual information is more than 38.5% in terms of F1-Score.
Secure digital communication using discrete-time chaotic systems via indirect coupling synchronization

In this work, the synchronization of two indirectly coupled discrete-time chaotic systems is first demonstrated. Next, the result is then applied for presenting a secure communication system. The novelty of the proposed method lies on the generation of encryption key stream for discrete-time chaotic systems using indirect coupled synchronization. Simulation is performed for the proposed synchronization and communication system and it is shown that the message can be successfully recovered. Moreover, security analysis of the proposed method is also carried out to show that the technique is indeed potentially secure.
Detection of Inferred CCR5- and CXCR4-Using HIV-1 Variants and Evolutionary Intermediates Using Ultra-Deep Pyrosequencing

The emergence of CXCR4-using human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) variants is associated with accelerated disease progression. CXCR4-using variants are believed to evolve from CCR5-using variants, but due to the extremely low frequency at which transitional intermediate variants are often present, the kinetics and mutational pathways involved in this process have been difficult to study and are therefore poorly understood. Here, we used ultra-deep sequencing of the V3 loop of the viral envelope in combination with the V3-based coreceptor prediction tools PSSMNSI/SI and geno2pheno[coreceptor] to detect HIV-1 variants during the transition from CCR5- to CXCR4-usage. We analyzed PBMC and serum samples obtained from eight HIV-1-infected individuals at three-month intervals up to one year prior to the first phenotypic detection of CXCR4-using variants in the MT-2 assay. Between 3,482 and 10,521 reads were generated from each sample. In all individuals, V3 sequences of predicted CXCR4-using HIV-1 were detected at least three months prior to phenotypic detection of CXCR4-using variants in the MT-2 assay. Subsequent analysis of the genetic relationships of these V3 sequences using minimum spanning trees revealed that the transition in coreceptor usage followed a stepwise mutational pathway involving sequential intermediate variants, which were generally present at relatively low frequencies compared to the major predicted CCR5- and CXCR4-using variants. In addition, we observed differences between individuals with respect to the number of predicted CXCR4-using variants, the diversity among major predicted CCR5-using variants, and the presence or absence of intermediate variants with discordant phenotype predictions. These results provide the first detailed description of the mutational pathways in V3 during the transition from CCR5- to CXCR4-usage in natural HIV-1 infection.
Maternal body mass index during early pregnancy, gestational weight gain, and risk of autism spectrum disorders: Results from a Swedish total population and discordant sibling study

Background: Prenatal environmental factors such as maternal adiposity may influence the risk of offspring autism spectrum disorders (ASD), though current evidence is inconsistent. The objective of this study was to assess the relationship of parental BMI and gestational weight gain (GWG) with risk of offspring ASD in a population-based cohort study using family-based study designs. Methods: The cohort was based in Stockholm County, Sweden, including 333 057 individuals born 1984–2007, of whom 6420 were diagnosed with an ASD. We evaluated maternal body mass index (BMI) at first antenatal visit, GWG and paternal BMI at the time of conscription into the Swedish military as exposures using general estimating equation (GEE) models with logit link. Results: At the population level, maternal overweight/obesity was associated with increased risk of offspring ASD [odds ratio (OR)25 ≤ BMI < 30 1.31, 95% confidence interval = 1.21–1.41; ORBMI ≥ 30 1.94, 1.72–2.17], as was paternal underweight (ORBMI < 18.5, 1.19, 1.06–1.33) and obesity (ORBMI ≥ 30 1.47, 1.12–1.92) in mutually adjusted models. However, in matched sibling analyses, the relationship between elevated maternal BMI and ASD risk was not apparent. GWG had a U-shaped association with offspring ASD at the population level (ORinsufficient 1.22, 1.07–1.40; ORexcessive 1.23, 1.08–1.40). Matched sibling analyses were suggestive of elevated risk with excessive GWG (ORinsufficient 1.12, 0.68–1.84; ORexcessive 1.48, 0.93–2.38). Conclusions: Whereas population-level results suggested that maternal BMI was associated with ASD, sibling analyses and paternal BMI analyses indicate that maternal BMI may also be a proxy marker for other familial risk factors. Evidence is stronger for a direct link between GWG and ASD risk.
EARLY-TIME VLA OBSERVATIONS AND BROADBAND AFTERGLOW ANALYSIS OF THE FERMI/LAT DETECTED GRB 130907A

We present multi-wavelength observations of the hyper-energetic gamma-ray burst (GRB) 130907A, a Swift-discovered burst with early radio observations starting at ≈4 hr after the γ-ray trigger. GRB 130907A was also detected by the Fermi/LAT instrument and at late times showed a strong spectral evolution in X-rays. We focus on the early-time radio observations, especially at >10 GHz, to attempt to identify reverse shock signatures. While our radio follow-up of GRB 130907A ranks among the earliest observations of a GRB with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array, we did not see an unambiguous signature of a reverse shock. While a model with both reverse and forward shock can correctly describe the observations, the data is not constraining enough to decide upon the presence of the reverse-shock component. We model the broadband data using a simple forward-shock synchrotron scenario with a transition from a wind environment to a constant density interstellar medium (ISM) in order to account for the observed features. Within the confines of this model, we also derive the underlying physical parameters of the fireball, which are within typical ranges except for the wind density parameter (A*), which is higher than those for bursts with wind-ISM transition, but typical for the general population of bursts. We note the importance of early-time radio observations of the afterglow (and of well-sampled light curves) for unambiguously identifying the potential contribution of the reverse shock.
Applications of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells in Studying the Neurodegenerative Diseases

Neurodegeneration is the umbrella term for the progressive loss of structure or function of neurons. Incurable neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD) show dramatic rising trends particularly in the advanced age groups. However, the underlying mechanisms are not yet fully elucidated, and to date there are no biomarkers for early detection or effective treatments for the underlying causes of these diseases. Furthermore, due to species variation and differences between animal models (e.g., mouse transgenic and knockout models) of neurodegenerative diseases, substantial debate focuses on whether animal and cell culture disease models can correctly model the condition in human patients. In 2006, Yamanaka of Kyoto University first demonstrated a novel approach for the preparation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which displayed similar pluripotency potential to embryonic stem cells (ESCs). Currently, iPSCs studies are permeating many sectors of disease research. Patient sample-derived iPSCs can be used to construct patient-specific disease models to elucidate the pathogenic mechanisms of disease development and to test new therapeutic strategies. Accordingly, the present review will focus on recent progress in iPSC research in the modeling of neurodegenerative disorders and in the development of novel therapeutic options.
The prenatal use of antibiotics and the development of allergic disease in one year old infants. A preliminary study.

OBJECTIVES Recent research has suggested that the protective effect of natural infections may be due to their influence on the development of the immune system in early life. The purpose of the study was to determine whether maternal use of antibiotics during pregnancy is a risk factor for wheezing and allergy in early infancy. MATERIALS AND METHODS Nonsmoking women, aged 18-35 years, were enrolled in 2000/2001 from prenatal clinics during the second or third trimester of pregnancy. After delivery, newborns were followed-up every three months over one year and trained interviewers conducted a standardized interview with mothers on infants' health at each visit held every three-month. In total, 102 infants were followed over a one-year period and questionnaires on the use of various medications during pregnancy and potential risk factors for allergy and asthma were completed. Relative risk for persistent wheezing (9+ days over the follow-up) adjusted for potential confounders was significantly associated with the duration of antibiotic therapy, however, it was significant only if the antibiotic treatment took place in the second and the third trimester. RESULTS The adjusted relative risk was increasing by 14% with each day of using antibiotics compared with the reference group (RR = 1.14; 95% CI: 1.01-1.27). When usage of antibiotics was regarded as a dichotomous variable in the logistic model (cut-off point at 5 days), the estimated adjusted risk for persistent wheezing was 4.42 (95% CI: 1.05-18.8). The risk for hay fever due to exposure to antibiotics was 2.65 (95% CI: 1.03-6.81) and a corresponding estimate for eczema was 2.30 (95% CI: 0.91-5.80). CONCLUSIONS The study suggests that maternal use of antibiotics during pregnancy may prove to be a risk factor for persistent wheezing and development of allergy in early infancy.