Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Rhodobacter capsulatus genes involved in early steps of the bacteriochlorophyll biosynthetic pathway

Three open reading frames in the Rhodobacter capsulatus photosynthesis gene cluster, designated F0, F108, and F1025, were disrupted by site-directed mutagenesis. Mutants bearing insertions in these reading frames were defective in converting protoporphyrin IX to magnesium-protoporphyrin monomethyl ester, protochlorophyllide to chlorophyllide a, and magnesium-protoporphyrin monomethyl ester to protochlorophyllide, respectively. These results demonstrate that the genes examined most likely encode enzyme subunits that catalyze steps common to plant and bacterial tetrapyrrole photopigment biosynthetic pathways. The open reading frames were found to be part of a large 11-kilobase operon that encodes numerous genes involved in early steps of the bacteriochlorophyll a biosynthetic pathway.
Ebbinghaus illusion in the tactile modality

In this paper, we report the first evidence for the existence of the Ebbinghaus illusion in the tactile modality. Participants were asked to explore bimanually two sets of Ebbinghaus circles while blindfolded. The results shows that the participants are more likely to be deceived when an illusion-induced stimulus is present than when a control stimulus (no illusion) is present. These results contribute to the perception-action debate. The existence of the tactile equivalent of the Ebbinghaus illusion weighs in favor of the two-stream hypothesis that assumes the existence of separated pathways for action and perception.
Recent advances using FcRn overexpression in transgenic animals to overcome impediments of standard antibody technologies to improve the generation of specific antibodies

This review illustrates the salutary effects of neonatal Fc receptor (FcRn) overexpression in significantly improving humoral immune responses in the generation of antibodies for immunotherapy and diagnostics. These include: (1) improved IgG protection; (2) augmented antigen-specific humoral immune response with larger numbers of antigen specific B cells, thus offering a wider spectrum of clones; (3) generation of antibodies against weakly immunogenic antigens; (4) significant improvements in the number and substantial developments in the diversity of hybridomas. FcRn transgenesis thus confers a number of practical benefits, including faster antibody production, higher antibody yields and improved generation of hybridomas for monoclonal antibody production. Notably, these efficiencies in polyclonal antibody production were also demonstrated in FcRn transgenic rabbits. Overall, FcRn transgenic animals yield more antibodies and provide a route to the generation of antibodies against antigens of low immunogenicity that are difficult to obtain using currently available methods.
Tourism Entrepreneurship Performance

Drawing on theories from environmental psychology, social psychology, and entrepreneurship, this study examines a nonrecursive (simultaneous equation) model of entrepreneurs’ place identity, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and performance across male and female tourism entrepreneurs. Data were collected from 150 male and 148 female tourism business owners in Australia. The results found that place identity (sense of identity with their town of residence) was positively related to entrepreneurial self-efficacy (beliefs in their capabilities as entrepreneurs). Furthermore, self-efficacy is a direct driver of performance, and not vice versa, for both male and female entrepreneurs. However, multigroup invariance analysis suggests that the nonrecursive model is partially moderated by the entrepreneurs’ gender. The relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and performance was significantly greater for the male group. The findings have implications for scholars in tourism and entrepreneurial studies, and for policy makers trying to support the sustainable development of tourism destinations.
Work and Family: Satisfaction, Stress, and Spousal Support

Married veterinarians (N = 242) provided information regarding work satisfaction, work-related stress, marital-family stress, and spousal support for career. Female veterinarians reported significantly greater effect of marital/family stress on career and less perceived spousal support for career than did their male counterparts. Areas of greatest work dissatisfaction for both genders were income and time required at work. No differences emerged between men and women on various measures of work satisfaction. In addition, no difference was found between the genders in the effect of work-related stress on career.
Contact Reduces Transprejudice: A Study on Attitudes towards Transgenderism and Transgender Civil Rights in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT This paper examines the relationship between Hong Kong Chinese people's contact with transgender/transsexual (TG/TS) people and attitudes toward transgenderism and transgender civil rights, based on Allport's Contact Hypothesis. The term transprejudice is introduced to refer to the negative valuing, stereotyping and discriminatory treatment of TG/TS people. Data are presented from a population-based survey with a random sample of 856 Hong Kong Chinese persons aged between 15 and 64, using the Chinese Attitudes towards Transgenderism and Transgender Civil Rights Scale (CATTCRS). Attitudes, assessed on both personal and institutional dimensions, are examined in relation to participants’ gender, age, educational level, religiosity, and previous contact with transpeople. Results suggest that previous contact with transpeople was significantly associated with attitudes reflected in the scale; decreased social distance, decreased social discrimination, and decreased transprejudice, increased awareness of discrimination against transpeople, increased support for equal opportunities, increased support for post-operative transsexual civil rights, and increased support for anti-discrimination legislation. Our findings support the contact hypothesis, that contact has a positive effect on attitudes towards TG/TS persons. We discuss the implications of these findings for public education interventions and public policy, as well as for research.
Body mass‐corrected molecular rate for bird mitochondrial DNA

Mitochondrial DNA remains one of the most widely used molecular markers to reconstruct the phylogeny and phylogeography of closely related birds. It has been proposed that bird mitochondrial genomes evolve at a constant rate of ~0.01 substitution per site per million years, that is that they evolve according to a strict molecular clock. This molecular clock is often used in studies of bird mitochondrial phylogeny and molecular dating. However, rates of mitochondrial genome evolution vary among bird species and correlate with life history traits such as body mass and generation time. These correlations could cause systematic biases in molecular dating studies that assume a strict molecular clock. In this study, we overcome this issue by estimating corrected molecular rates for birds. Using complete or nearly complete mitochondrial genomes of 475 species, we show that there are strong relationships between body mass and substitution rates across birds. We use this information to build models that use bird species’ body mass to estimate their substitution rates across a wide range of common mitochondrial markers. We demonstrate the use of these corrected molecular rates on two recently published data sets. In one case, we obtained molecular dates that are twice as old as the estimates obtained using the strict molecular clock. We hope that this method to estimate molecular rates will increase the accuracy of future molecular dating studies in birds.
Skeletal PET with 18F-Fluoride: Applying New Technology to an Old Tracer*

Although 18F-labeled NaF was the first widely used agent for skeletal scintigraphy, it quickly fell into disuse after the introduction of 99mTc-labeled bone-imaging agents. Recent comparative studies have demonstrated that 18F-fluoride PET is more accurate than 99mTc-diphosphonate SPECT for identifying both malignant and benign lesions of the skeleton. Combining 18F-fluoride PET with other imaging, such as CT, can improve the specificity and overall accuracy of skeletal 18F-fluoride PET and probably will become the routine clinical practice for 18F-fluoride PET. Although 18F-labeled NaF and 99mTc-diphosphonate have a similar patient dosimetry, 18F-fluoride PET offers shorter study times (typically less than 1 h), resulting in a more efficient workflow, improved patient convenience, and faster turnarounds of reports to the referring physicians. With the widespread availability of PET scanners and the improved logistics for the delivery of 18F radiopharmaceuticals, prior limitations to the routine use of 18F-fluoride bone imaging have largely been overcome. The favorable imaging performance and the clinical utility of 18F-fluoride PET, compared with 99mTc-diphosphonate scintigraphy, support the reconsideration of 18F-fluoride as a routine bone-imaging agent.
Challenges and Opportunities for Improving Community College Student Success

Many of the democratizing opportunities provided by community colleges are diminished in the eyes of policy makers by inadequate rates of success. In particular, large proportions of students who enter community colleges do not persist for longer than a semester, complete a program, or attain a credential. This review critically examines academic and policy research in search of explanations, emphasizing what is known about challenges stemming from three levels of influence: the macro-level opportunity structure; institutional practices; and the social, economic, and academic attributes students bring to college. It provides examples of how factors operating at each level affect rates of success at key times, including the initial transition to college, the experience of remedial education, and persistence through credit-bearing coursework. The article also discusses potential and ongoing reforms that could increase rates of community college success by addressing one or more areas of influence (the macro, the institutional, or the individual). It is concluded that increasing success in the open-access, public 2-year sector requires reforms directed at multiple levels and cannot be achieved with either student- or institution-focused incentives alone.
A variable that may affect individual differences in the child‐directed speech of Japanese women

Sixty-one single Japanese-speaking women between the ages of 18 and 26 years were recorded as they read aloud picture books to a young child and as they conversed with another Japanese-speaking woman. When their utterances were acoustically compared between the two settings with regard to prosodic features, both the average pitch and pitch excursions exhibited a significant increase when interacting with the child in 17 of the 61 women. In 36 of the remaining 44 subjects, neither of these parameters showed such changes. This individual variability was not related to the subjects' liking for picture books, previous experience with reading or being read them, or with baby-sitting. The only variable that could explain the results was whether the subjects had grown up with one or more siblings or as only children. If they were only children, the prosodic modification was significantly less likely to occur
A Character Model with Moral Emotions: Preliminary Evaluation

In literary and drama criticism, emotions, and moral emotions in particular, have been pointed out as one of characterizing features of stories. In this paper, we propose to model story characters as value-based emotional agents, who appraise their own and others' actions based on their desires and values, and feel the appropriate moral emotions in response to narrative situations that challenge their goals and values. In order to validate the appropriateness of the agent model for narrative characters, we ran an experiment with human participants aimed at comparing their expectations about characters' emotions with the predictions of the value-based model of emotional agent. The results of the experiment show that the participants' expectations meet the predictions of the model.
Subjective hypnotic efficacy of trazodone and zolpidem in DSMIII–R primary insomnia

Trazodone is an antidepressant which is used at low doses as a hypnotic. The hypnotic efficacy of trazodone in non‐depressed insomniacs is unknown, especially in comparison to hypnotic medications such as zolpidem. Following a placebo screening week, DSM‐IIIR defined primary insomniacs were randomized into a parallel‐group, double‐blind, 14‐day comparison of trazodone 50 mg, zolpidem 10 mg and placebo. Patients completed daily morning questionnaires and weekly office visits. Self‐reported sleep latencies were compared by the Cox proportional hazards regression technique; self‐reported sleep duration by ANOVA. During treatment Week 1, both drugs produced significantly shorter self‐reported sleep latencies and longer self‐reported sleep durations than placebo. Self‐reported sleep latency was significantly shorter with zolpidem than with trazodone. During Week 2, only the zolpidem group maintained a significantly shorter sleep latency than the placebo group, and self‐reported sleep duration did not vary significantly among groups. The incidence of adverse events was low in all groups. Both trazodone and zolpidem improved self‐reported sleep latency and duration of non‐depressed, primary insomniacs; zolpidem was somewhat more efficacious at the doses studied. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Infectivity of a Pseudorabies Virus Mutant Lacking Attachment Glycoproteins C and D

ABSTRACT Initiation of herpesvirus infection requires attachment of virions to the host cell followed by fusion of virion envelope and cellular cytoplasmic membrane during penetration. In several alphaherpesviruses, glycoprotein C (gC) is the primary attachment protein, interacting with cell-surface heparan sulfate proteoglycans. Secondary binding is mediated by gD, which, normally, is also required for penetration. Recently, we described the isolation of a gD-negative infectious pseudorabies virus (PrV) mutant, PrV gD− Pass (J. Schmidt, B. G. Klupp, A. Karger, and T. C. Mettenleiter, J. Virol. 71:17–24, 1997). In PrV gD− Pass, attachment and penetration occur in the absence of gD. To assess the importance of specific attachment for infectivity of PrV gD− Pass, the gene encoding gC was deleted, resulting in mutant PrV gCD− Pass. Deletion of both known attachment proteins reduced specific infectivity compared to wild-type PrV by more than 10,000-fold. Surprisingly, the virus mutant still retained significant infectivity and could be propagated on normal noncomplementing cells, indicating the presence of another receptor-binding virion protein. Selection of bovine kidney (MDBK) cells resistant to infection by PrV gCD− Pass resulted in the isolation of a cell clone, designated NB, which was susceptible to infection by wild-type PrV but refractory to infection by either PrV gCD− Pass or PrV gD− Pass, a defect which could partially be overcome by polyethylene glycol (PEG)-induced membrane fusion. However, even after PEG-induced infection plaque formation of PrV gCD− Pass or PrV gD− Pass did not ensue in NB cells. Also, phenotypic gD complementation of PrV gCD− Pass or PrV gD−Pass rescued the defect in infection of NB cells but did not restore plaque formation. Glycosaminoglycan analyses of MDBK and NB cells yielded identical results, and NB cells were normally susceptible to infection by other alphaherpesviruses as well as vesicular stomatitis virus. Infectious center assays after PEG-induced infection of NB cells with PrV gD− Pass on MDBK cells indicated efficient exit of virions from infected NB cells. Together, our data suggest the presence of another receptor and receptor-binding virion protein which can mediate PrV entry and cell-to-cell spread in MDBK cells.
Study of Heat Localization in HTS Wires at Overload Conditions

A common problem of superconducting devices is to survive during a fault with a current overload. At a fault, superconducting device will have strong overheating and burning out is possible. The problem becomes more serious in case if a high-temperature superconducting (HTS) wire has a weak point where the critical current is less than the average over a wire. Such a weak point could be the point of origination of strong overheating within a very localized area. This can lead to burning and destroying of an HTS device. To study this problem, we developed the experimental setup with the spatial resolution 2 mm and the time resolution 1 ms to observe a local temperature/voltage evolution in HTS tapes overloaded by currents. The preliminary experiments were performed to measure local heat/voltage development on 2G HTS tapes with an artificial weak point. Local heat/voltage evolutions have been measured and compared with calculations by our model developed earlier.
Quantitative multi-pinhole small-animal SPECT: uniform versus non-uniform Chang attenuation correction

Attenuation of photon flux on trajectories between the source and pinhole apertures affects the quantitative accuracy of reconstructed single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) images. We propose a Chang-based non-uniform attenuation correction (NUA-CT) for small-animal SPECT/CT with focusing pinhole collimation, and compare the quantitative accuracy with uniform Chang correction based on (i) body outlines extracted from x-ray CT (UA-CT) and (ii) on hand drawn body contours on the images obtained with three integrated optical cameras (UA-BC). Measurements in phantoms and rats containing known activities of isotopes were conducted for evaluation. In 125I, 201Tl, 99mTc and 111In phantom experiments, average relative errors comparing to the gold standards measured in a dose calibrator were reduced to 5.5%, 6.8%, 4.9% and 2.8%, respectively, with NUA-CT. In animal studies, these errors were 2.1%, 3.3%, 2.0% and 2.0%, respectively. Differences in accuracy on average between results of NUA-CT, UA-CT and UA-BC were less than 2.3% in phantom studies and 3.1% in animal studies except for 125I (3.6% and 5.1%, respectively). All methods tested provide reasonable attenuation correction and result in high quantitative accuracy. NUA-CT shows superior accuracy except for 125I, where other factors may have more impact on the quantitative accuracy than the selected attenuation correction.
A multi‐rater assessment of organizational commitment: are self‐report measures biased?

Most investigations of organizational commitment have been conducted using self-report measures, however, the veracity of self-reports is often questioned. In a sample of 79 public-sector administrative staff, we assessed two types of organizational commitment (affective and continuance) from the perspective of three different sources of raters (self, peer, and supervisor) to test three explanations of the factors influencing self-report measures (observational opportunities, simple defensiveness, and moderated defensiveness). The pattern of correlations among the measures, analyzed using the composite direct product multitrait–multirater approach, suggested that self-report commitment measures are affected mainly by observations or experiences of the self-reporter rather than by systematic bias related to defensive responding. This increases our confidence that scores from self-report measures of affective and continuance commitment are veridical. Further, self- and peer-based measures of commitment were largely redundant in the prediction of a job-performance criterion whereas supervisory measures added unique predictive variance. Implications are discussed.
The effects of mixed mode survey designs on simple and complex analyses

We compare two alternative mixed mode survey designs with face-to-face data collection in terms of differences in estimates. Both mixed mode designs involve face-to-face, telephone and web interviewing. One design uses modes sequentially; the other offers respondents an explicit choice of mode. All three samples are probability samples of the Dutch population, selected from the same frame in the same way and administered the same survey instrument, namely the questionnaire of round 4 of the European Social Survey. We find differences and consequently urge caution in comparing estimates based on data collected using different (mixes of) modes.
Design and Performance Analysis of Fiber Wireless Networks

A Fiber-Wireless (FiWi) network integrates a passive optical network (PON) with wireless mesh networks (WMNs) to provide high speed backhaul via the PON while offering the flexibility and mobility of a WMN. Generally, increasing the size of a WMN leads to higher wireless interference and longer packet delays. The partitioning of a large WMN into several smaller WMN clusters, whereby each cluster is served by an Optical Network Unit (ONU) of the PON, is examined. Existing WMN throughputdelay analysis techniques considering the mean load of the nodes at a given hop distance from a gateway (ONU) are unsuitable for the heterogeneous nodal traffic loads arising from clustering. A simple analytical queuing model that considers the individual node loads to accurately characterize the throughput-delay performance of a clustered FiWi network is introduced. The accuracy of the model is verified through extensive simulations. It is found that with sufficient PON bandwidth, clustering substantially improves the FiWi network throughput-delay performance by employing the model to examine the impact of the number of clusters on the network throughput-delay performance. Different traffic models and network designs are also studied to improve the FiWi network performance.
Art as process and product: patronage and the problem of change in Tuareg blacksmith/artisan roles

Abstract This article contributes to recent dialogues in anthropology and African humanities on the problematic translation and application of Western and non-Western aesthetic concepts—for example, ‘authentic’ ‘original’ and ‘touristic’—in the domain of artisan practices. It analyses, compares and contrasts art patronage among the Nigérien Tuareg in rural and urban social settings. The role of Tuareg ‘smiths’, a word variously translated in local conversation and ethnographic literature as ‘artisans’, ‘technicians’ and ‘jewellers’, suggests a need to revise cross-cultural perspectives on the ceremonial, aesthetic and commercial aspects of artisan activity. The article focuses upon changing roles, the materials craftsmen use and the beliefs surrounding blacksmiths. It argues that these complexes of action and belief have a bearing not solely upon art products but also on ritual and socio-economic processes to which producer, patron and audience contribute in different settings and contexts. Résumé Cet article contribue aux récents dialogues en antropologie et humanités africaines sur la traduction problématique et l'application des concepts occidentaux et non-occidentaux d'esthétique, par exemple, “authentique”, “original” et “touristique”, dans le domaine des pratiques artisanales. Il analyse, compare et contraste le patronage artistique parmi les Touaregs Nigériens dans des contextes sociaux ruraux et urbains. Le rôle du “forgeron” chez les Touaregs, un mot traduit de façon diverse dans les conversations locales et la littérature ethnographique, par “artisan”, “technicien”, et “bijoutier”, suggère le besoin de réviser les différentes perspectives culturelles sur les aspects céremoniaux, esthétiques et commerciaux de l'activité artisanale. Cet article se concentre sur les rôles changeants, le matériel que les artisans utilisent, et les croyances qui entourent les forgerons. Il soutient que ces actions et ces croyances complexes n'ont pas seulement une influence sur les produits artistiques mais aussi sur les processus socio-économiques auxquels les producteurs, la clientèle, et le public contribue dans des milieux et contextes différents.