Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The structural kinetics of switch-1 and the neck linker explain the functions of kinesin-1 and Eg5

Significance The kinesins are molecular motors that couple ATP binding to movement. Although crystallographic and cryo-EM methods have identified the structural changes that occur in several kinesins, the images they generate are static pictures that provide no insight into how dynamic these conformations are or how they are coupled together to generate force. We have addressed this through a novel combination of time-resolved fluorescence and transient-state kinetics to measure the conformational equilibria between two key domains in two functionally distinct kinesins: kinesin-1 and Eg5. Our results are significant because they provide a unique insight into how conformational dynamics vary between two kinesins with different functions, and explain the distinct enzymologies these two kinesins have. Kinesins perform mechanical work to power a variety of cellular functions, from mitosis to organelle transport. Distinct functions shape distinct enzymologies, and this is illustrated by comparing kinesin-1, a highly processive transport motor that can work alone, to Eg5, a minimally processive mitotic motor that works in large ensembles. Although crystallographic models for both motors reveal similar structures for the domains involved in mechanochemical transduction—including switch-1 and the neck linker—how movement of these two domains is coordinated through the ATPase cycle remains unknown. We have addressed this issue by using a novel combination of transient kinetics and time-resolved fluorescence, which we refer to as “structural kinetics,” to map the timing of structural changes in the switch-1 loop and neck linker. We find that differences between the structural kinetics of Eg5 and kinesin-1 yield insights into how these two motors adapt their enzymologies for their distinct functions.
Brief Assessment of Motor Function: Content Validity and Reliability of the Upper Extremity Gross Motor Scale

ABSTRACT Content validity and reliability of the Brief Assessment of Motor Function (BAMF) Upper Extremity Gross Motor Scale (UEGMS) were evaluated in this prospective, descriptive study. The UEGMS is one of five BAMF ordinal scales designed for quick documentation of gross, fine, and oral motor skill levels. Designed to be independent of age and diagnosis, it is intended for use for infants through young adults. An expert panel of 17 physical therapists and 13 occupational therapists refined the content by responding to a standard questionnaire comprised of questions, which asked whether each item should be included, is clearly worded, should be reordered higher or lower, is functionally relevant, and is easily discriminated. Ratings of content validity exceeded the criterion except for two items, which may represent different perspectives of physical and occupational therapists. The UEGMS was modified using the quantitative and qualitative feedback from the questionnaires. For reliability, five raters scored videotaped motor performances of 10 children. Coefficients for inter-rater (0.94) and intra-rater (0.95) reliability were high. The results provide evidence of content validity and reliability of the UEGMS for the assessment of UEGM skill.
Predicting skill from gameplay input to a first-person shooter

One way to make video games more attractive to a wider audience is to make them adaptive to players. The preferences and skills of players can be determined in a variety of ways, but should be done as unobtrusively as possible to keep the player immersed. This paper explores how gameplay input recorded in a first-person shooter can predict a player's ability. As these features were able to model a player's skill with 76% accuracy, without the use of game-specific features, we believe their use would be transferable across similar games within the genre.
Sub-percolative composites for dielectric elastomer actuators

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEA) based on Maxwell-stress induced deformation are considered for many potential applications where high actuation strain and energy are required. However, the high electric field and voltage required to drive them limits some of the applications. The high driving field could be lowered by developing composite materials with high-electromechanical response. In this study, a sub-percolative approach for increasing the electromechanical response has been investigated. Composites with conductive carbon black (CB) particles introduced into a soft rubber matrix poly-(styrene-co-ethylene-co-butylene-co-styrene) (SEBS) were prepared by a drop-casting method. The resulting composites were characterized by dielectric spectroscopy, tensile tests, and for electric breakdown strength. The results showed a substantial increase of the relative permittivity at low volume percentages, thereby preserving the mechanical properties of the base soft polymer material. Young's modulus was found to increase with content of CB, however, due to the low volume percentages used, the composites still retain relatively low stiffness, as it is required to achieve high actuation strain. A serious drawback of the approach is the large decrease of the composite electric breakdown strength, due to the local enhancement in the electric field, such that breakdown events will occur at a lower macroscopic electric field.
Serum CCL-18 level is a risk factor for COPD exacerbations requiring hospitalization

Introduction Chemokine (C-C motif) ligand 18 (CCL-18) has been shown to be elevated in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients. This study primarily aimed to evaluate whether the serum CCL-18 level differentiates the frequent exacerbator COPD phenotype from infrequent exacerbators. The secondary aim was to investigate whether serum CCL-18 level is a risk factor for exacerbations requiring hospitalization. Materials and methods Clinically stable COPD patients and participants with smoking history but normal spirometry (NSp) were recruited for the study. Modified Medical Research Council Dyspnea Scale, COPD Assessment Test, spirometry, and 6-min walking test were performed. Serum CCL-18 levels were measured with a commercial ELISA Kit. Results Sixty COPD patients and 20 NSp patients were recruited. Serum CCL-18 levels were higher in COPD patients than those in NSp patients (169 vs 94 ng/mL, P<0.0001). CCL-18 level was significantly correlated with the number of exacerbations (r=0.30, P=0.026), although a difference in CCL-18 values between infrequent and frequent exacerbator COPD (168 vs 196 ng/mL) subgroups did not achieve statistical significance (P=0.09). Serum CCL-18 levels were significantly higher in COPD patients who had experienced at least one exacerbation during the previous 12 months. Overall, ROC analysis revealed that a serum CCL-18 level of 181.71 ng/mL could differentiate COPD patients with hospitalized exacerbations from those who were not hospitalized with a 88% sensitivity and 88.2% specificity (area under curve: 0.92). Serum CCL-18 level had a strong correlation with the frequency of exacerbations requiring hospitalization (r=0.68, P<0.0001) and was found to be an independent risk factor for hospitalized exacerbations in the multivariable analysis. Conclusion CCL-18 is a promising biomarker in COPD, as it is associated with frequency of exacerbations, particularly with severe COPD exacerbations requiring hospitalization, as well as with functional parameters and symptom scores.
If You Can’t Beat Them Join Them: Handcrafted Features Complement Neural Nets for Non-Factoid Answer Reranking

We show that a neural approach to the task of non-factoid answer reranking can benefit from the inclusion of tried-and-tested handcrafted features. We present a neural network architecture based on a combination of recurrent neural networks that are used to encode questions and answers, and a multilayer perceptron. We show how this approach can be combined with additional features, in particular, the discourse features used by previous research. Our neural approach achieves state-of-the-art performance on a public dataset from Yahoo! Answers and its performance is further improved by incorporating the discourse features. Additionally, we present a new dataset of Ask Ubuntu questions where the hybrid approach also achieves good results.
The Domains of Stroke Recovery: A Synopsis of the Literature

ABSTRACT Stroke is a leading cause of serious long-term disability in the United States. The neurological insult following a stroke may leave the survivor with a chronic illness encompassing a lifetime of recovery. Recovery for the stroke survivor entails more than the return of function. A synopsis of the literature indicates that there are three domains of stroke recovery: physical, psychological, and social. There are six categories that comprise the three domains: cognition, function, health perception, self-concept, relationships, and role change. Stroke is a multifaceted and complex disease. Individual aspects of stroke recovery do not occur in isolation and cannot be separated from one another. In the future, studies involving the integration of the domains of stroke recovery are needed to understand the interactive processes that support recovery.
The death of massive stars – I. Observational constraints on the progenitors of Type II-P supernovae

The progenitors of many type II core-collapse supernovae have now been identified directly on pre-discovery imaging. Here we present an extensive search for the progenitors of type Ibc supernovae in all available pre-discovery imaging since 1998. There are 12 type Ibc supernovae with no detections of progenitors in either deep ground-based or Hubble Space Telescope archival imaging. The deepest absolute BV R magnitude limits are between 4 m and 5 m . We compare these limits with the observed Wolf-Rayet population in the Large Magellanic Cloud and estimate a 16 per cent probability we have failed to detect such a progenitor by chance. Alternatively the progenitors evolve significantly before core-collapse or we have underestimated the extinction towards the progenitors. Reviewing the relative rates and ejecta mass estimates from lightcurve modelling of Ibc SNe, we find both incompatible with Wolf-Rayet stars with initial masses > 25M⊙being the only progenitors. We present binary evolution models that fit these observational constraints. Stars in binaries with initial masses . 20M⊙lose their hydrogen envelopes in binary interactions to become low mass helium stars. They retain a low mass hydrogen envelope until � 10 4 years before core-collapse; hence it is not surprising that galactic analogues have been difficult to identify.
A Dynamic Noise Primitive for Coherent Stylization

We present a new solution for temporal coherence in non‐photorealistic rendering (NPR) of animations. Given the conflicting goals of preserving the 2D aspect of the style and the 3D scene motion, any such solution is a tradeoff. We observe that primitive‐based methods in NPR can be seen as texture‐based methods when using large numbers of primitives, leading to our key insight, namely that this process is similar to sparse convolution noise in procedural texturing. Consequently, we present a new primitive for NPR based on Gabor noise, that preserves the 2D aspect of noise, conveys the 3D motion of the scene, and is temporally continuous. We can thus use standard techniques from procedural texturing to create various styles, which we show for interactive NPR applications. We also present a user study to evaluate this and existing solutions, and to provide more insight in the trade‐off implied by temporal coherence. The results of the study indicate that maintaining coherent motion is important, but also that our new solution provides a good compromise between the 2D aspect of the style and 3D motion.
The properties of cotton-Tencel and cotton-Promodal blended yarns spun in different spinning systems

In this study, structural, physical and mechanical properties of cotton-Tencel and cotton-Promodal blended ring, compact and vortex spun yarns were compared. Yarn properties such as hairiness, unevenness, imperfections, diameter, density, roughness, roundness, breaking force and elongation were evaluated. In general, hairiness values of ring yarns are the highest and vortex yarns are the lowest. In regard to unevenness, compact yarns have the best and vortex yarns have the worst values. When the effect of spinning systems is evaluated in terms of breaking force and elongation, results show that compact yarns have the highest values whereas vortex yarns have the lowest. In addition, effects of different blend ratios on a yarn’s structural, physical and mechanical properties were examined by using 100% cotton, 100% regenerated cellulosic fibre and 67%—33%, 50%—50%, 33%—67% cotton-regenerated cellulosic fibre blended yarns. In general, an increasing ratio of regenerated cellulosic fibre content in the blend decreases unevenness, imperfections, diameter and roughness values; on the other hand it increases breaking force, elongation, density and shape values. Effect of blend type is also statistically significant for many yarn properties. Mainly, it can be seen that while cotton-Promodal yarns have better physical properties, cotton-Tencel yarns have better mechanical properties.
Explaining Recommendations: Satisfaction vs. Promotion

Recommender systems have become a popular technique for helping users select desirable books, movies, music and other items. Most research in the area has focused on developing and evaluating algorithms for efficiently producing accurate recommendations. However, the ability to effectively explain its recommendations to users is another important aspect of a recommender system. The only previous investigation of methods for explaining recommendations showed that certain styles of explanations were effective at convincing users to adopt recommendations (i.e. promotion) but failed to show that explanations actually helped users make more accurate decisions (i.e. satisfaction). We present two new methods for explaining recommendations of contentbased and/or collaborative systems and experimentally show that they actually improve user’s estimation of item quality.
A Novel Compact UHF RFID Tag Antenna Designed With Series Connected Open Complementary Split Ring Resonator (OCSRR) Particles

A novel compact planar antenna for passive UHF radio frequency identification (RFID) tags is presented. Instead of using meander-line sections, much smaller open complementary split ring resonator (OCSRR) particles are connected in series to create a small dipole with a conjugate match to the power harvesting circuit on the passive RFID tag. The manufactured (prototype) OCSRR RFID tag presented here has an antenna input impedance of 15.8 + J142.5 Ω at a frequency of 920 MHz and a max read range of 5.48 m. This performance is achieved with overall tag dimensions of 0. 036λ0 × 0. 17λ0 where λ0 is the free space wavelength of 920 MHz.
Vulnerabilities in Epidemic Forwarding

We identify vulnerabilities in epidemic forwarding. We address broadcast applications over wireless ad-hoc networks. Epidemic forwarding employes several mechanisms such as inhibition and spread control, and each of them can be implemented using alternative methods. Thus, the existence of vulnerabilities is highly dependent on the methods used. We examine the links between them. We classify vulnerabilities into two categories: maliccious and rational. We examine the effect of the attacks according to the number of attackers and the different network settings such as density, mobility and congestion. We show that malicious attacks are hard to achieve and their impacts are scenario dependent. In contrast, rational attackers always obtain a significant benefit. The evaluation is carried out using detailed realistic simulations over networks with up to 1000 nodes. We consider static scenarios, as well as vehicular networks.
Socioeconomic Stereotypes among Undergraduate College Students

Classism, i.e., socioeconomic stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination that college students direct toward their peers, was examined. A sample of 53 undergraduate students (36 women and 17 men), ages 18 to 22 years (M=19.0, SD = 1.2), were recruited from psychology courses. Utilizing a computer-administered questionnaire, participants were randomly assigned to rate a fictitious student whose family income was specified as among the lowest or highest at the college. Upper Income targets were rated as more sociable, judgmental, attractive, more likely to use alcohol and drugs, and more likely to belong to a fraternity or sorority. Lower Income targets were rated as more likable, agreeable, conscientious, intelligent, creative, and better able to maintain close friendships. Research directed toward the middle class could help fill a gap in the classism literature. Research on classism in higher education could clarify this potentially divisive issue among undergraduates.
Bilingual Lexicon Generation Using Non-Aligned Signatures

Bilingual lexicons are fundamental resources. Modern automated lexicon generation methods usually require parallel corpora, which are not available for most language pairs. Lexicons can be generated using non-parallel corpora or a pivot language, but such lexicons are noisy. We present an algorithm for generating a high quality lexicon from a noisy one, which only requires an independent corpus for each language. Our algorithm introduces non-aligned signatures (NAS), a cross-lingual word context similarity score that avoids the over-constrained and inefficient nature of alignment-based methods. We use NAS to eliminate incorrect translations from the generated lexicon. We evaluate our method by improving the quality of noisy Spanish-Hebrew lexicons generated from two pivot English lexicons. Our algorithm substantially outperforms other lexicon generation methods.
Modelling the out-of-plane behaviour of paperboard

SUMMARY: A material model consisting of a continuum and an interface model was proposed. When the models are used together the mechanical properties of paperboard can be accounted for. The continuum model was elastic-plastic in shear and compression, while only elastic in tension. In the continuum model two different yield surfaces were used to initiate plastic deformation; one for compression and one for combined shear and normal stresses. The elastic-plastic interface model accounts for separation in the normal and tangential directions. The models have been numerically implemented into the finite element software Abaqus (2007). The implementations were used to show that the response of a cyclic tension and cyclic compression test can be predicted. Moreover, simulations with combined compression and shear stresses were presented.
Dynamics of bid optimization in online advertisement auctions

We consider the problem of online keyword advertising auctions among multiple bidders with limited budgets, and study a natural bidding heuristic in which advertisers attempt to optimize their utility by equalizing their return-on-investment across all keywords. We show that existing auction mechanisms combined with this heuristic can experience cycling (as has been observed in many current systems), and therefore propose a modified class of mechanisms with small random perturbations. This perturbation is reminiscent of the small time-dependent perturbations employed in the dynamical systems literature to convert many types of chaos into attracting motions. We show that the perturbed mechanism provably converges in the case of first-price auctions and experimentally converges in the case of second-price auctions. Moreover, the point of convergence has a natural economic interpretation as the unique market equilibrium in the case of first-price mechanisms. In the case of second-price auctions, we conjecture that it converges to the "supply-aware" market equilibrium. Thus, our results can be alternatively described as a tâtonnement process for convergence to market equilibriumin which prices are adjusted on the side of the buyers rather than the sellers. We also observe that perturbation in mechanism design is useful in a broader context: In general, it can allow bidders to "share" a particular item, leading to stable allocations and pricing for the bidders, and improved revenue for the auctioneer.
Modeling neuronal current MRI signal with human neuron

Up to date, no consensus has been achieved regarding the possibility of detecting neuronal currents by MRI (ncMRI) in human brain. To evaluate the detectability of ncMRI, an effective way is to simulate ncMRI signal with the realistic neuronal geometry and electrophysiological processes. Unfortunately, previous realistic ncMRI models are based on rat and monkey neurons. The species difference in neuronal morphology and physiology would prevent these models from simulating the ncMRI signal accurately in human subjects. The aim of this study is to bridge this gap by establishing a realistic ncMRI model specifically for human cerebral cortex. In this model, the ncMRI signal was simulated using anatomically reconstructed human pyramidal neurons and their biophysical properties. The modeling results showed that the amplitude of ncMRI signal significantly depends on the density of synchronously firing neurons and imaging conditions such as position of imaging voxel, direction of main magnetic field (B0) relative to the cortical surface and echo time. The results indicated that physiologically‐evoked ncMRI signal is too weak to be detected (magnitude/phase change ≤ −1.4 × 10−6/0.02°), but the phase signal induced by spontaneous activity may reach a detectable level (up to 0.2°) in favorable conditions. Magn Reson Med, 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
BALB/c Mice Deficient in CD4+ T Cell IL-4Rα Expression Control Leishmania mexicana Load although Female but Not Male Mice Develop a Healer Phenotype

Immunologically intact BALB/c mice infected with Leishmania mexicana develop non-healing progressively growing lesions associated with a biased Th2 response while similarly infected IL-4Rα-deficient mice fail to develop lesions and develop a robust Th1 response. In order to determine the functional target(s) for IL-4/IL-13 inducing non-healing disease, the course of L. mexicana infection was monitored in mice lacking IL-4Rα expression in specific cellular compartments. A deficiency of IL-4Rα expression on macrophages/neutrophils (in LysMcreIL-4Rα−/lox animals) had minimal effect on the outcome of L. mexicana infection compared with control (IL-4Rα−/flox) mice. In contrast, CD4+ T cell specific (LckcreIL-4Rα−/lox) IL-4Rα−/− mice infected with L. mexicana developed small lesions, which subsequently healed in female mice, but persisted in adult male mice. While a strong Th1 response was manifest in both male and female CD4+ T cell specific IL-4Rα−/− mice infected with L. mexicana, induction of IL-4 was manifest in males but not females, independently of CD4+ T cell IL-4 responsiveness. Similar results were obtained using pan-T cell specific (iLckcreIL-4Rα−/lox) IL-4Rα−/− mice. Collectively these data demonstrate that upon infection with L. mexicana, initial lesion growth in BALB/c mice is dependent on non-T cell population(s) responsive to IL-4/IL-13 while progressive infection is dependent on CD4+ T cells responsive to IL-4.