Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Requirements for the self-directed replication of flock house virus RNA 1

The larger segment (RNA 1) of the bipartite, positive-sense RNA genome of the nodavirus flock house virus encodes the viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. Two nonstructural viral proteins are made during the self-directed replication of this RNA: protein A (110 kDa), the translation product of RNA 1 itself, and protein B (11 kDa), the translation product of a subgenomic RNA (RNA 3) that is produced from RNA 1 during replication. To examine the roles of these proteins in RNA replication, specialized T7 transcription plasmids that contained wild-type or mutant copies of flock house virus RNA 1 cDNA were constructed and used in cells infected with the vaccinia virus-T7 RNA polymerase recombinant to make full-length transcripts that directed their own replication. Sequences in the primary transcripts that extended beyond the ends of the authentic RNA 1 sequence inhibited self-directed RNA replication, but plasmids that were constructed to minimize these terminal extensions produced primary transcripts that replicated as abundantly as authentic RNA 1. Truncation or mutation of the open reading frame for protein A eliminated self-directed replication, although the mutant RNA 1 remained a competent template for replication by wild-type protein A supplied in trans. These results showed that protein A was essential for RNA replication and that the process was not inseparably coupled to complete translation of the template. In contrast, protein B could be eliminated without inhibiting replication by mutations that disrupted the second of the two overlapping open reading frames on RNA 3. Furthermore, a mutant of RNA 1 in which the first nucleotide of the RNA 3 region was changed from G to U replicated at levels as high as those of the wild type without making either RNA 3 or protein B. However, diminishing replication levels were observed during subsequent replicative passages of RNA from both the mutants that could not make protein B. Roles for this protein that could account for the subtle phenotype of these mutants are discussed.
Modulation of Cell Adhesion and Migration by the Histone Methyltransferase Subunit mDpy-30 and Its Interacting Proteins

We have previously shown that a subset of mDpy-30, an accessory subunit of the nuclear histone H3 lysine 4 methyltransferase (H3K4MT) complex, also localizes at the trans-Golgi network (TGN), where its recruitment is mediated by the TGN-localized ARF guanine nucleotide exchange factor (ArfGEF) BIG1. Depletion of mDpy-30 inhibits the endosome-to-TGN transport of internalized CIMPR receptors and concurrently promotes their accumulation at the cell protrusion. These observations suggest mDpy-30 may play a novel role at the crossroads of endosomal trafficking, nuclear transcription and adhesion/migration. Here we provide novel mechanistic and functional insight into this association. First, we demonstrate a direct interaction between mDpy-30 and BIG1 and locate the binding region in the N-terminus of BIG1. Second, we provide evidence that the depletion or overexpression of mDpy-30 enhances or inhibits cellular adhesion/migration of glioma cells in vitro, respectively. A similar increase in cell adhesion/migration is observed in cells with reduced levels of BIG1 or other H3K4MT subunits. Third, knockdown of mDpy-30, BIG1, or the RbBP5 H3K4MT subunit increases the targeting of β1 integrin to cell protrusions, and suppression of H3K4MT activity by depleting mDpy-30 or RbBP5 leads to increased protein and mRNA levels of β1 integrin. Moreover, stimulation of cell adhesion/migration via mDpy-30 knockdown is abolished after treating cells with a function-blocking antibody to β1 integrin. Taken together, these data indicate that mDpy-30 and its interacting proteins function as a novel class of cellular adhesion/migration modulators partially by affecting the subcellular distribution of endosomal compartments as well as the expression of key adhesion/migration proteins such as β1 integrin.
Retirement, Leisure Activity Engagement, and Cognition Among Older Adults in the United States

Objective: Retirement is a salient later-life transition that may influence cognition. Leisure activities can help individuals better adjust to life after significant life transitions. This study examined the role of leisure activity engagement in the relationship between retirement and cognition. Method: A path analysis (N = 2,827) was conducted using three waves of the Health and Retirement Study (2004, 2006, 2008) and its supplementary Consumption and Activities Mail Survey, to test the association between retirement (categorized as remained working, transitioned to retirement, remained retired) and cognition (memory, working memory, attention, and processing speed) via leisure (mental, physical, social, household) activity engagement. Results: Older adults who remained retired showed significantly lower cognition than those who remained working. Moreover, this negative association between retirement and cognition was attenuated by greater engagement mental activities. Discussion: Interventions that encourage mental activities among retired individuals are strongly suggested to help maintain cognitive function.
Barriers to Cervical Cancer Screening in Geneva (DEPIST Study)

ObjectivesCervical screening is only efficient if a large part of eligible women participate. Our aim was to identify sociodemographic barriers to cervical screening and consider self-reported reasons to postpone screening. MethodsBetween September 2011 and June 2015, a questionnaire addressing reasons for nonparticipation in cervical screening was completed by 556 women who had not undergone a Pap test in the preceding 3 years. Pearson &khgr;2 test was used to analyze differences between subgroups. Logistic regression was used to explore the association between sociodemographic characteristics and reasons for nonparticipation. ResultsThe main reasons for nonparticipation in cervical cancer screening were practical barriers, such as lack of time and the cost of screening. These barriers were more likely to be reported by working women, women who were not sexually active, and those without health insurance. Younger women, non-European women living in Switzerland, and childless women were more likely to have never participated in a screening program before (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 3.15; 95% CI, 1.41–6.98; aOR, 2.76; 95% CI, 1.48–5.16; aOR, 1.74; 95% CI, 1.03–2.99, respectively). ConclusionsPractical considerations seem to play a more important role in screening participation than emotional reasons and other beliefs. Particular attention should be paid to immigrant communities, where women seem more likely to skip cervical screening.
Sequence‐based prediction of protein–peptide binding sites using support vector machine

Protein–peptide interactions are essential for all cellular processes including DNA repair, replication, gene‐expression, and metabolism. As most protein–peptide interactions are uncharacterized, it is cost effective to investigate them computationally as the first step. All existing approaches for predicting protein–peptide binding sites, however, are based on protein structures despite the fact that the structures for most proteins are not yet solved. This article proposes the first machine‐learning method called SPRINT to make Sequence‐based prediction of Protein–peptide Residue‐level Interactions. SPRINT yields a robust and consistent performance for 10‐fold cross validations and independent test. The most important feature is evolution‐generated sequence profiles. For the test set (1056 binding and non‐binding residues), it yields a Matthews’ Correlation Coefficient of 0.326 with a sensitivity of 64% and a specificity of 68%. This sequence‐based technique shows comparable or more accurate than structure‐based methods for peptide‐binding site prediction. SPRINT is available as an online server at: http://sparks-lab.org/. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
First Impressions: A Survey on Computer Vision-Based Apparent Personality Trait Analysis

Personality analysis has been widely studied in psychology, neuropsychology, signal processing fields, among others. From the computing point of view, by far speech and text have been the most analyzed cues of information for analyzing personality. However, recently there has been an increasing interest form the computer vision community in analyzing personality starting from visual information. Recent computer vision approaches are able to accurately analyze human faces, body postures and behaviors, and use these information to infer apparent personality traits. Because of the overwhelming research interest in this topic, and of the potential impact that this sort of methods could have in society, we present in this paper an up-to-date review of existing computer vision-based visual and multimodal approaches for apparent personality trait recognition. We describe seminal and cutting edge works on the subject, discussing and comparing their distinctive features. More importantly, future venues of research in the field are identified and discussed. Furthermore, aspects on the subjectivity in data labeling/evaluation, as well as current datasets and challenges organized to push the research on the field are reviewed. Hence, the survey provides an up-to-date review of research progress in a wide range of aspects of this research theme.
Partial characterization of a novel amylase activity isolated from Tunisian Ficus carica latex

Context: A large number of plants still need to be investigated through screening of amylases suitable for industry. In the present study, and for the first time, we describe the amylolytic activity of Saint Pedro Ficus carica L. (Moraceae) crude latex of Kahli and Bidhi varieties. Objective: Effects of temperature, pH, metal ions, and inhibitors and compatibility with some commercial detergents were investigated for amylase activity. Materials and methods: Amylase activity was screened in crude latex using the DNS method and potato starch as a substrate. Analyses of amylolytic reaction products by thin-layer chromatography (TLC) and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) were performed. Results: Bidhi and Kahli amylases were active in optimal pH of 6.5 and 7 at 45°C, respectively, displaying a half life of 85 and 60 min, respectively, at 80°C, and they were very stable in a wide range of pH (4–12). Bidhi amylase activity increased to 260% by addition of 10−3 mM Fe2+ or 10−2 mM Cu2+, and was strongly inhibited by Mg2+ and EDTA. In the presence of Ca2+ and Mg2+, Kahli amylase activity was dramatically enhanced by 220 and 260%, respectively. The compatibility of both amylases with certain commercial detergents was also shown to be good as enzymes retained up to 98% of their activities after 30 min of incubation at 80°C. Discussion and conclusion: Analysis of amylolytic reaction products by TLC and HPLC suggested that Kahli amylase was an amyloglucosidase and Bidhi amylase was β-fructose, α(1–4) glucose. Bidhi amylase is a good choice for application in starch, food, detergents and medical industries.
FingerPing: Recognizing Fine-grained Hand Poses using Active Acoustic On-body Sensing

FingerPing is a novel sensing technique that can recognize various fine-grained hand poses by analyzing acoustic resonance features. A surface-transducer mounted on a thumb ring injects acoustic chirps (20Hz to 6,000Hz) to the body. Four receivers distributed on the wrist and thumb collect the chirps. Different hand poses of the hand create distinct paths for the acoustic chirps to travel, creating unique frequency responses at the four receivers. We demonstrate how FingerPing can differentiate up to 22 hand poses, including the thumb touching each of the 12 phalanges on the hand as well as 10 American sign language poses. A user study with 16 participants showed that our system can recognize these two sets of poses with an accuracy of 93.77% and 95.64%, respectively. We discuss the opportunities and remaining challenges for the widespread use of this input technique.
Influence of specimen size during accelerated weathering of wood-based structural panels

ABSTRACT Wood structural panels are commonly subjected to short-term accelerated weathering (AW) procedures to determine relative moisture durability for quality control and product development purposes. The panel edges contribute heavily to moisture uptake since edges represent the least resistant pathway for moisture intrusion. In full-size panels, the edge area to total surface area ratio is small, and moisture intrusion is primarily limited to panel faces. When small specimens are used, such as those in AW procedures, the ratio of edge area to total surface area increases and moisture intrusion at the edges may dominate, which is referred to as the edge effect. The purpose of this study was to determine if physical and mechanical properties of oriented strand board (OSB) and plywood after AW are influenced by specimen size. Specimen width was varied while thickness and length remained constant to understand if edge effects were present in small specimens with different edge area to total surface area ratios. Three AW procedures were evaluated to determine if the effect of specimen size depends on weathering method. No clear effect of specimen size on physical and mechanical properties of either composite type was found. Differences in flexural properties between specimen widths were observed for unweathered OSB, but similar property retention between specimen widths after AW indicated the same trend as the unweathered control. Plywood results were influenced by natural defects, resulting in high variability and absence of statistically significant differences. Lateral nail resistance connection properties of both OSB and plywood were highly variable for all treatment groups and were unaffected by weathering.
Cooperating Over Losses and Competing Over Gains: A Social Dilemma Experiment

Evidence from studies in international relations, the politics of reform, collective action and price competition suggests that economic agents in social dilemma situations cooperate more to avoid losses than in the pursuit of gains. To test whether the prospect of losses can induce cooperation, we let experimental subjects play the travelers dilemma in the gain and loss domain. Subjects cooperate substantially more over losses. Furthermore, our results suggest that this treatment effect is best explained by reference-dependent risk preferences and reference-dependent strategic sophistication. We discuss the implications of our results and relate our findings to other experimental games played in the loss domain.
Quantitative pathology of small intestinal coccidiosis caused by Eimeria maxima in young broilers.

The objective of this study was to apply a microscopic lesion scoring system for assessing the severity of experimental coccidiosis. To accomplish this objective, we examined the effects of varying doses of E. maxima in chicks by comparisons of gross and microscopic lesion scores, body weight gains, feed conversion ratios and faecal oocyst counts. In the battery trial, 3-day-old chicks inoculated with 2.5 x 10(3) or more oocysts had significantly lower growth rate than the controls. The mean feed conversion ratio for days 0 to 36 were significantly greater than those of 0 to 10 and 0 to 17 p.i. The intestinal gross lesion scores and microscopic lesion scores were significantly affected by days p.i. and oocyst dosage. In the floor pen trials, the mean adjusted body weights of 3- and 14-day-old chicks inoculated with 2.5 X 10(4) oocysts of the same strain of E. maxima were significantly lower than the controls. Gross and microscopic lesion scores regressed with significant (P<0.05) linearity on body weight gains. Under experimental conditions, both duodenal and jejunal microscopic lesion scores regressed with significant linearity on gross lesion scores.
Tactile Sense of the Surgeon in Determining Bone Density When Placing Dental Implant

Purpose:To evaluate the bone density using the surgeon's tactile sense and compare it to the Lekholm and Zarb classification and computed tomography (CT) scan to see if correlations exist. Materials and Methods:Fifty-two implants were inserted in 22 patients. The bone densities of recipient site were preoperatively determined by density value as Hounsfield Units (HU) using CT scans. According to the Lekholm and Zarb classification, the bone quality scored 1 to 4 on cross-sectional CT. The clinical hardness of recipient sites were assessed on drilling by the surgeon's tactile sense and recorded as D1-D4 based on Misch criteria. Linear regression analysis was used to evaluate the relationship between density values of implant sites. Results:The mean bone density was 536.94 ± 220.39 HU. There were 7.7% implants in bone type D1, 46.2% in D2, 32.7% in D3, and 13.5% in D4. Bone classification according to Lekholm and Zarb was significantly correlated to the surgeon's tactile sense (Spearman's rho = 0.36; P = 0.01) and with HU on CT images (Spearman's rho = −0.61; P < 0.001). The surgeon's tactile sense had a significant correlation with bone density in preoperative CT scans (Spearman's rho = −0.67; P < 0.001). A significant correlation was found between the bone density in HU with age (Spearman's rho = 0.34; P = 0.01). Conclusion:A high-quality cross-sectional CT may suffice as a site-specific preoperative diagnostic predictor that can confirm and complement the tactile sense of the surgeon to help differentiate good, moderate, and poor bone density.
Evaluation of Structural and Thermal Properties of Rubber and HDPE for Utilization as Binder Modifier

Today, high-performance requirements for asphalt pavements demand enhanced properties for bitumen to withstand the environmental condition and traffic demand. On the other hand, the rapid growth in population and economy results in a continuously increased material consumption, and subsequently waste generation. Among various waste materials, rubber and plastic, including high-density polyethylene (HDPE), constitute some part of the non-biodegradable solid wastes worldwide. Because of the great difficulties in managing the non-biodegradable wastes and the required volume of bitumen, the idea of using plastic and rubber as bitumen modifier in new asphalt mixtures appears to be an effective and meaningful utilization of these materials. As binder plays an important role in the final performance of the asphalt mixture, an understanding of modified binder properties is essential in designing an asphalt mixture. To this point, since compatibility of asphalt mixture with polymer is the most important factor in the blend of polymers and asphalt, the properties of the waste polymers were evaluated in this ongoing research by means of advanced thermal analysis and scanning electron microscope (SEM). This chapter presents the results of this experimental study to evaluate the properties of polymers as potential modifier for virgin bitumen in asphalt mixture.
Boron Segregation and Its Effects in Advanced High Strength Steel

Author: Luitjohan, Kara, E. PhD Institution: Purdue University Degree Received: August 2018 Title: Boron Segregation and its Effects in Advanced High Strength Steel Major Professor: David Johnson There is a current push in the automotive industry to increase the fuel economy of passenger vehicles. One method to achieve this goal is through the use of advanced high strength steels (AHSS). The higher strength of these steels allows for thinner gauge components to be implemented, reducing the weight of the vehicle and increasing the fuel economy. Included under the umbrella of AHSS are alloys containing small amounts of boron, 0.002 – 0.005 wt% B. The addition of boron leads to difficulties during commercial production, specifically via continuous casting. The casting difficulties are predicted to stem from a metatectic reaction,  →  + L, occurring in the iron-boron binary system. Depending on which thermodynamic database is utilized, this reaction is predicted to occur at different boron levels. To experimentally investigate the predicted metatectic reaction, levitation zone melting is used to control the boron segregation in two simple Fe-B binary alloys, and confocal scanning laser microscopy allows for in-situ observation of local microstructural changes as temperature is varied. Both experimental methods show evidence of a metatectic reaction providing a good comparison to predicted phase diagrams. Based on the experimental results, the metatectic reaction occurs over a broader range of compositions than predicted, from 0.0025 to ∼0.06 wt% B. The experimental technique successfully applied to the binary system is then used to investigate how the addition of carbon and other solute elements affect the metatectic reaction and subsequent solidification. When carbon is added to the Fe-B system, levitation zone melting results in a -bcc to -fcc peritectic jump as steady-state growth conditions are reached with respect to carbon segregation. Boron remains in solution until the last zone to solidify. Although the boron content throughout the directionally solidified zone remained below 5 ppm B, it has an impact on the microstructure as bainite forms where proeutectoid ferrite and pearlite are predicted from the carbon composition.
Automatic registration of CT and MR brain images using correlation of geometrical features

Describes an automated approach to register CT and MR brain images. Differential operators in scale space are applied to each type of image data, so as to produce feature images depicting "ridgeness". The resulting CT and MR feature images show similarities which can be used for matching. No segmentation is needed and the method is devoid of human interaction. The matching is accomplished by hierarchical correlation techniques. Results of 2-D and 3-D matching experiments are presented. The correlation function ensures an accurate match even if the scanned volumes to be matched do not completely overlap, or if some of the features in the images are not similar.
“Bursting the Assistance Bubble”: Designing Inclusive Technology with Children with Mixed Visual Abilities

Children living with visual impairments (VIs) are increasingly educated in mainstream rather than special schools. But knowledge about the challenges they face in inclusive schooling environments and how to design technology to overcome them remains scarce. We report findings from a field study involving interviews and observations of educators and children with/without VIs in mainstream schools, in which we identified the "teaching assistant bubble" as a potential barrier to group learning, social play and independent mobility. We present co-design activities blending elements of future workshops, multisensory crafting, fictional inquiry and bodystorming, demonstrating that children with and without VIs can jointly lead design processes and explore design spaces reflective of mixed visual abilities and shared experiences. We extend previous research by characterising challenges and opportunities for improving inclusive education of children with VIs in mainstream schools, in terms of balancing assistance and independence, and reflect on the process and outcomes of co-designing with mixed-ability groups in this context.