Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Peptide-MHC heterodimers show that thymic positive selection requires a more restricted set of self-peptides than negative selection

T cell selection and maturation in the thymus depends on the interactions between T cell receptors (TCRs) and different self-peptide–major histocompatibility complex (pMHC) molecules. We show that the affinity of the OT-I TCR for its endogenous positively selecting ligands, Catnb-H-2Kb and Cappa1-H-2Kb, is significantly lower than for previously reported positively selecting altered peptide ligands. To understand how these extremely weak endogenous ligands produce signals in maturing thymocytes, we generated soluble monomeric and dimeric peptide–H-2Kb ligands. Soluble monomeric ovalbumin (OVA)-Kb molecules elicited no detectable signaling in OT-I thymocytes, whereas heterodimers of OVA-Kb paired with positively selecting or nonselecting endogenous peptides, but not an engineered null peptide, induced deletion. In contrast, dimer-induced positive selection was much more sensitive to the identity of the partner peptide. Catnb-Kb–Catnb-Kb homodimers, but not heterodimers of Catnb-Kb paired with a nonselecting peptide-Kb, induced positive selection, even though both ligands bind the OT-I TCR with detectable affinity. Thus, both positive and negative selection can be driven by dimeric but not monomeric ligands. In addition, positive selection has much more stringent requirements for the partner self-pMHC.
A Varying-Parameter Averaging Model of On-Line Brand Evaluations

Consumer evaluations of new brands evolve over time as information is acquired. We conceptualize the extent to which evaluations are updated in terms of the weight given to new information during information integration. Based on information processing theory, we derive hypotheses regarding the weights given to new information under different processing ability conditions. We then develop a varying-parameter averaging model that captures the hypothesized moderating effects of processing ability (i.e., time pressure and knowledge) and also takes into account order effects. Scale values and weights for information items are derived by estimating the model using continuous evaluations obtained in a process-tracing experiment that allows subjects to access information that they desire in any order. Results from model estimation support the hypothesis that compared with prior evaluations new information plays a larger role in evaluations of high (vs. low) ability subjects. Estimating order effects on weights when order is endogenous, we find a recency effect such that information seen later is given a greater weight than information seen earlier. However, this recency effect is reduced as category knowledge increases. We discuss the theoretical and methodological contributions of this research.
The Shortest-Known–Period Star Orbiting Our Galaxy’s Supermassive Black Hole

Close to a Black Hole At the center of our Galaxy, there is a black hole that is 4 million times as massive as the Sun. Using data from the Keck Observatory, Meyer et al. (p. 84) detected a star orbiting this black hole with a period of 11.5 years, the shortest period among the stars orbiting it. The star is the second well-sampled star with an orbital period under 20 years. Having detailed knowledge about two stars with short periods and full orbit coverage will be crucial in testing Einstein's theory of general relativity in the gravitational field close to a massive black hole. A star can help probe Einstein’s general relativity theory close to a black hole that is 4 million times as massive as the Sun. Stars with short orbital periods at the center of our Galaxy offer a powerful probe of a supermassive black hole. Over the past 17 years, the W. M. Keck Observatory has been used to image the galactic center at the highest angular resolution possible today. By adding to this data set and advancing methodologies, we have detected S0-102, a star orbiting our Galaxy’s supermassive black hole with a period of just 11.5 years. S0-102 doubles the number of known stars with full phase coverage and periods of less than 20 years. It thereby provides the opportunity, with future measurements, to resolve degeneracies in the parameters describing the central gravitational potential and to test Einstein’s theory of general relativity in an unexplored regime.
Respiratory virus modulation of host nucleocytoplasmic transport; target for therapeutic intervention?

The respiratory diseases caused by rhinovirus, respiratory syncytial virus, and influenza virus represent a large social and financial burden on healthcare worldwide. Although all three viruses have distinctly unique properties in terms of infection and replication, they share the ability to exploit/manipulate the host-cell nucleocytoplasmic transport system in order to replicate effectively and efficiently. This review outlines the various ways in which infection by these viruses impacts on the host nucleocytoplasmic transport system, and examples where inhibition thereof in turn decreases viral replication. The highly conserved nature of the nucleocytoplasmic transport system and the viral proteins that interact with it make this virus–host interface a prime candidate for the development of specific antiviral therapeutics in the future.
Compressive sensing recovery of spike trains using a structured sparsity model

The theory of Compressive Sensing (CS) exploits a well-known concept used in signal compression – sparsity – to design new, efficient techniques for signal acquisition. CS theory states that for a length-N signal x with sparsity level K, M = O(K log(N/K)) random linear projections of x are sufficient to robustly recover x in polynomial time. However, richer models are often applicable in real-world settings that impose additional structure on the sparse nonzero coefficients of x. Many such models can be succinctly described as a union of K-dimensional subspaces. In recent work, we have developed a general approach for the design and analysis of robust, efficient CS recovery algorithms that exploit such signal models with structured sparsity. We apply our framework to a new signal model which is motivated by neuronal spike trains. We model the firing process of a single Poisson neuron with absolute refractoriness using a union of subspaces. We then derive a bound on the number of random projections M needed for stable embedding of this signal model, and develop a algorithm that provably recovers any neuronal spike train from M measurements. Numerical experimental results demonstrate the benefits of our model-based approach compared to conventional CS recovery techniques.
Torque-Ripple Minimization of Switched Reluctance Machines Through Current Profiling

This paper presents a novel method of profiling the phase currents to minimize the torque ripple of a switched reluctance machine. The method is a combination of machine design and control algorithm. The minimization is accomplished in three steps: The first step is to design a machine that has symmetric torque characteristics with an extended flat portion, the second step is to find the required current profile through simulation, and the third step is the fine tuning of the profile. The simulation is done to verify the method through a coupling of the finite-element-based machine model and the Matlab/Simulink-based dynamic controller model. The coupled simulation considers the nonlinearities, electrical loss, magnetic loss, and mutual coupling. Experimental verification validated the torque-ripple minimization procedure.
General Semiparametric Shared Frailty Model Estimation and Simulation with frailtySurv

The R package frailtySurv for simulating and fitting semi-parametric shared frailty models is introduced. Package frailtySurv implements semi-parametric consistent estimators for a variety of frailty distributions, including gamma, log-normal, inverse Gaussian and power variance function, and provides consistent estimators of the standard errors of the parameters' estimators. The parameters' estimators are asymptotically normally distributed, and therefore statistical inference based on the results of this package, such as hypothesis testing and confidence intervals, can be performed using the normal distribution. Extensive simulations demonstrate the flexibility and correct implementation of the estimator. Two case studies performed with publicly available datasets demonstrate applicability of the package. In the Diabetic Retinopathy Study, the onset of blindness is clustered by patient, and in a large hard drive failure dataset, failure times are thought to be clustered by the hard drive manufacturer and model.
Ram-pressure stripped molecular gas in the Virgo spiral galaxy NGC 4522

IRAM 30 m 12 CO(1-0) and 12 CO(2-1) HERA observations are presented for the ram-pressure stripped Virgo spiral galaxy NGC 4522. The CO emission is detected in the galactic disk and the extraplanar gas. The extraplanar CO emission follows the morphology of the atomic gas closely but is less extended. The CO maxima do not appear to correspond to regions where there is peak massive star formation as probed by Ha emission. The presence of molecular gas is a necessary but not sufficient condition for star formation. Compared to the disk gas, the molecular fraction of the extraplanar gas is 30% lower and the star formation efficiency of the extraplanar gas is about 3 times lower. The comparison with an existing dynamical model extended by a recipe for distinguishing between atomic and molecular gas shows that a significant part of the gas is stripped in the form of overdense arm-like structures. It is argued that the molecular fraction depends on the square root of the total large-scale density. Based on the combination of the CO/Ha and an analytical model, the total gas density is estimated to be about 4 times lower than that of the galactic disk. Molecules and stars form within this dense gas according to the same laws as in the galactic disk, i.e. they mainly depend on the total large-scale gas density. Star formation proceeds where the local large-scale gas density is highest. Given the complex 3D morphology this does not correspond to the peaks in the surface density. In the absence of a confining gravitational potential, the stripped gas arms will most probably disperse; i.e. the density of the gas will decrease and star formation will cease.
DEK Is a Poly(ADP-Ribose) Acceptor in Apoptosis and Mediates Resistance to Genotoxic Stress

ABSTRACT DEK is a nuclear phosphoprotein implicated in oncogenesis and autoimmunity and a major component of metazoan chromatin. The intracellular cues that control the binding of DEK to DNA and its pleiotropic functions in DNA- and RNA-dependent processes have remained mainly elusive so far. Our recent finding that the phosphorylation status of DEK is altered during death receptor-mediated apoptosis suggested a potential involvement of DEK in stress signaling. In this study, we show that in cells committed to die, a portion of the cellular DEK pool is extensively posttranslationally modified by phosphorylation and poly(ADP-ribosyl)ation. Through interference with DEK expression, we further show that DEK promotes the repair of DNA lesions and protects cells from genotoxic agents that typically trigger poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase activation. The posttranslational modification of DEK during apoptosis is accompanied by the removal of the protein from chromatin and its release into the extracellular space. Released modified DEK is recognized by autoantibodies present in the synovial fluids of patients affected by juvenile rheumatoid arthritis/juvenile idiopathic arthritis. These findings point to a crucial role of poly(ADP-ribosyl)ation in shaping DEK's autoantigenic properties and in its function as a promoter of cell survival.
Desmoplasia and Chemoresistance in Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) occurs mainly in people older than 50 years of age. Although great strides have been taken in treating PDAC over the past decades its incidence nearly equals its mortality rate and it was quoted as the 4th leading cause of cancer deaths in the U.S. in 2012. This review aims to focus on research models and scientific developments that help to explain the extraordinary resistance of PDAC towards current therapeutic regimens. Furthermore, it highlights the main features of drug resistance including mechanisms promoted by cancer cells or cancer stem cells (CSCs), as well as stromal cells, and the acellular components surrounding the tumor cells—known as peritumoral desmoplasia—that affects intra-tumoral drug delivery. Finally, therapeutic concepts and avenues for future research are suggested, based on the topics discussed.
How Latent is Latent Semantic Analysis?

Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) is a statistical, corpus-based text comparison mechanism that was originally developed for the task of information retrieval, but in recent years has produced remarkably human-like abilities in a variety of language tasks. LSA has taken the Test of English as a Foreign Language and performed as well as non-native English speakers who were successful college applicants. It has shown an ability to learn words at a rate similar to humans. It has even graded papers as reliably as human graders. We have used LSA as a mechanism for evaluating the quality of student responses in an intelligent tutoring system, and its performance equals that of human raters with intermediate domain knowledge. It has been claimed that LSA's text-comparison abilities stem primarily from its use of a statistical technique called singular value decomposition (SVD) which compresses a large amount of term and document co-occurrence information into a smaller space. This compression is said to capture the semantic information that is latent in the corpus itself. We test this claim by comparing LSA to a version of LSA without SVD, as well as a simple keyword matching model.
Understanding Peer Exchange in BitTorrent Systems

Peer Exchange (PEX), in which peers directly exchange with each other lists of active peers in the torrent, has been widely implemented in modern BitTorrent clients for decentralized peer discovery. However, there is little knowledge about the behavior of PEX in operational systems. In this paper, we perform both passive measurements and Planetlab experiments to study the impact and properties of BitTorrent PEX. We first study the impact of PEX on the download efficiency of BitTorrent. We observe that PEX can significantly reduce the download time for some torrents. We then analyze the freshness, redundancy and spread speed of PEX messages. Finally, we also conduct large- scale Planetlab experiments to understand the impact of PEX on the overlay properties of BitTorrent.
[Caries status of the first permanent molar among 7- to 9-year-old children in Tangshan city and their correlation].

OBJECTIVE This study aims to investigate the caries status of the first permanent molar and primary tooth among 7- to 9-year-old children in Tangshan city and the correlation between caries of primary tooth and the first permanent molar. METHODS A stratified cluster sampling method was used on the basis of the Basic Approach of Oral Health Survey of WHO and the Guideline of the Third National Oral Health Survey. A total of 10 primary schools were randomly sampled in clusters that included 51 primary school sampling spots in Tangshan. The caries status of 1 794 children aged 7 years to 9 years was examined. RESULTS The prevalence rate of the first permanent molar caries was 47.49% (852/1 794), the mean number of DMFT was 1.30 ± 1.59, the mean number of DMFS was 1.96 ± 3.40, and the filling rate was only 2.35% (20/852). The preva- lence rate and mean DMFT of the first permanent molar caries showed significant difference between different ages and genders (P < 0.05). However, the mean DMFS of the first permanent molar caries only showed significant difference between the various ages (P < 0.05). The prevalence rate of the primary tooth caries was 83.11% (1 491/1 794), the mean number of dmft was 4.82 ± 3.55, the mean number of dmfs was 6.51 ± 5.61, and the filling rate was 12.41% (185/1 491). Caries of primary tooth was the first permanent molar caries risk factor [r = 0.277, OR = 5.736, P = 0.00, 95% CI (4.175, 7.881)]. Significant correlation was found between the caries of primary tooth and first permanent molar (r = 0.274, P < 0.001). CONCLUSION Caries status of the first permanent molar among 7- to 9-year-old children in Tangshan city is serious. Caries status of primary tooth may play an important role in predicting the first permanent molar caries in clinic and prevention.
On the Use of Magnetic Wedges in Axial Flux Permanent Magnet Machines

Axial flux permanent magnet (AFPM) machines are being increasingly used in a variety of industrial direct drive applications which benefit from their extreme axial compactness. In particular, slotted AFPM machines are of great interest since they allow to achieve high torque densities together with an acceptable constant power speed range. This paper analyzes a particular aspect related to the design of such machines, i.e., the use of soft-magnetic-composite wedges to close stator slots. This paper is the continuation of a previous investigation dedicated to the analysis of the no-load performance variation introduced by the magnetic wedges. Here, the attention is focused on the load performance by studying the effect of the wedges on d-q-axis stator flux linkages, torque production, and losses. The 2-D and 3-D finite element analyses are performed on a 10-kW AFPM machine, various magnetic wedge configurations are studied, and the load performance is compared with that of the same machine using nonmagnetic wedges, in terms of stator flux linkage, average and ripple torque, and magnetic losses. Finally, experimental tests and results on a full scale prototype machine mounting magnetic wedges are reported.
[Identification of major components of traditional Chinese medicine Naodesheng tablet by HPLC-DAD-MS(n)].

OBJECTIVE To identify the major components of traditional Chinese medicine Naodesheng tablet. METHODS A HPLC-DAD-MS(n) based method was developed to analyze and identify the major components of Naodesheng tablet. Separation was performed on an Agilent Zorbax SB-C(18) column (4.6 mm X 250 mm, i.d, 5 μm) with mobile phase consisting of water with 0.05 % formic acid and acetonitrile as gradient eluent at the flow rate of 0.5 ml.min(-1). RESULTS A total of 43 components were detected, among which 22 were identified by comparing their UV absorption profiles, the information of molecular Glucosyl puerarin weights, and structures provided by ESI-MS(n) with those of available standards and reference data, such as Safflor yellow A, 4'-O-Glucosyl puerarin, 3'-hydroxypuerarin, Genistein-8-C-apiosyl (1-6) glucoside, Puerarin, 6"-O-xylosyl puerarin, 6"-O-apiosyl puerarin, 3'-methoxy puerarin, 3'-methoxy-6"-o-xylosyl puerarin, Daidzin, Genistin, Pueroside A, Notoginsenoside R(1), Ginsenoside Re, Ginsenoside Rg1,Daidzein,Biochanin A,Ginsenoside Rb(1), Ginsenoside Rc, Ginsenoside Rb(2), Ginsenoside Rb(3), Ginsenoside Rd. CONCLUSION The proposed method can identify the main components of Naodesheng tablet and provide information for the quality control of this medicine.
Factors Influencing Community Broadband Centre Usage: A Case Study at Sabak Bernam Malaysia

In order to address the digital gaps of the rural community, many developing countries had implemented telecentres. In the context of Malaysia, various types of telecentres had been established in the rural areas and one of them is the Community Broadband Centre. Since its establishments, very few studies have attempted to investigate its usage and contributing factors among rural communities. Adopting the survey research methodology involving 155 respondents, this paper reports the findings of a study that investigated the factors that influenced the rural folks in using the Community Broadband Centre. Three variables namely, perceived usefulness, self-efficacy and facilitating conditions were found to be significant predictor of Community Broadband Centre use. The results of this study may be useful to the concerned parties in developing strategies for increasing Community Broadband Centre usage. KEYWORD: Telecentres, broadband community centre, ICT usage, Malaysia.
Iron Deposition on SWI-Filtered Phase in the Subcortical Deep Gray Matter of Patients with Clinically Isolated Syndrome May Precede Structure-Specific Atrophy

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Increasing evidence suggests that iron deposition is present in the later stages of MS. In this study we examined abnormal phase values, indicative of increased iron content on SWI-filtered phase images of the SDGM in CIS patients and HC. We also examined the association of abnormal phase with conventional MR imaging outcomes at first clinical onset. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Forty-two patients with CIS (31 female, 11 male) and 65 age and sex-matched HC (41 female, 24 male) were scanned on a 3T scanner. Mean age was 40.1 (SD = 10.4) years in patients with CIS, and 42.8 (SD = 14) years in HC, while mean disease duration was 1.2 years (SD = 1.3) in patients with CIS. MP-APT, NPTV, and normalized volume measurements were derived for all SDGM structures. Parametric and nonparametric group-wise comparisons were performed, and associations were determined with other MR imaging metrics. RESULTS: Patients with CIS had significantly increased MP-APT (P = .029) and MP-APT volume (P = .045) in the pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus compared with HC. Furthermore, the putamen (P = .004), caudate (P = .035), and total SDGM (P = .048) displayed significant increases in MP-APT volume, while MP-APT was also significantly increased in the putamen (P = .029). No global or regional volumetric MR imaging differences were found between the study groups. Significant correlations were observed between increased MP-APT volumes of total SDGM, caudate, thalamus, hippocampus, and substantia nigra with white matter atrophy and increased T2 lesion volume (P < .05). CONCLUSION: Patients with CIS showed significantly increased content and volume of iron, as determined by abnormal SWI-phase measurement, in the various SDGM structures, suggesting that iron deposition may precede structure-specific atrophy.
Use of pilot plant scale continuous fryer to simulate industrial production of potato chips: thermal properties of palm olein blends under continuous frying conditions

Binary blends of palm olein (PO) with sunflower oil (SFO), canola oil (CNO), and cottonseed oil (CSO) were formulated to assess their stability under continuous frying conditions. The results were then compared with those obtained in PO. The oil blends studied were: (1) 60:40 for PO + SFO; (2) 70:30 for PO + CNO; and (3) 50:50 for PO + CSO. The PO and its blends were used to fry potato chips at 180°C for a total of 56 h of operation. The evolution of analytical parameters such as tocols, induction period, color, p-anisidine value, free fatty acid, smoke point, polar compounds, and polymer compounds were evaluated over the frying time. Blending PO with unsaturated oils was generally proved to keep most qualitative parameters comparable to those demonstrated in PO. Indeed, none of the oils surpassed the legislative limits for used frying. Overall, it was noted that oil containing PO and SFO showed higher resistance toward oxidative and hydrolytic behaviors as compared to the other oil blends.