Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Processed Amino-Terminal Fragment of Human TLR7 Acts as a Chaperone To Direct Human TLR7 into Endosomes

TLR7 mediates innate immune responses to viral RNA in endocytic compartments. Mouse and human (h)TLR7 undergo proteolytic cleavage, resulting in the generation of a C-terminal fragment that accumulates in endosomes and associates with the signaling adaptor MyD88 upon receptor triggering by TLR7 agonists. Although mouse TLR7 is cleaved in endosomes by acidic proteases, hTLR7 processing can occur at neutral pH throughout the secretory pathway through the activity of furin-like proprotein convertases. However, the mechanisms by which cleaved hTLR7 reaches the endosomal compartment remain unclear. In this study, we demonstrate that, after hTLR7 proteolytic processing, the liberated amino (N)-terminal fragment remains bound to the C terminus through disulfide bonds and provides key trafficking information that ensures correct delivery of the complex to endosomal compartments. In the absence of the N-terminal fragment, the C-terminal fragment is redirected to the cell surface, where it is functionally inactive. Our data reveal a novel role for the N terminus of hTLR7 as a molecular chaperone that provides processed hTLR7 with the correct targeting instructions to reach the endosomal compartment, hence ensuring its biological activity and preventing inadvertent cell surface responses to self-RNA.
The Neural Basis of Social Cognition and Its Relationship to Social Functioning in Young People at Risk for Schizophrenia

These three studies seek to contribute to the neurological characterization of the development of schizophrenia as well as begin to branch into understanding how neuroanatomical structure and function may relate to specific deficits in social cognition and social functioning within in this population. Paper #1 investigates the relationship between brain structure in young adults at clinical high risk for schizophrenia and social functioning. Paper #2 expands upon the findings of paper #1 by looking at brain structure, social cognition, and social functioning in children and risk for psychosis. Finally, paper #3 focuses on brain function for theory of mind in typically developing children and its relationship to social cognition and social functioning. Investigating the neural mechanisms underlying social cognitive deficits and social functioning impairment in young adults and children at risk for schizophrenia will contribute to the field’s understanding of the development of this disorder.
The Neural Circuitry of Reward Processing in Complex Social Comparison: Evidence from an Event-Related fMRI Study

In this study, Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was conducted to investigate the mechanisms by which the brain activity in a complex social comparison context. One true subject and two pseudo-subjects were asked to complete a simple number estimate task at the same time which including upward and downward comparisons. Two categories of social comparison rewards (fair and unfair rewards distributions) were mainly presented by comparing the true subject with other two pseudo-subjects. Particularly, there were five conditions of unfair distribution when all the three subjects were correct but received different rewards. Behavioral data indicated that the ability to self-regulate was important in satisfaction judgment when the subject perceived an unfair reward distribution. fMRI data indicated that the interaction between the ventral striatum and the prefrontal cortex was important in self-regulation under specific conditions in complex social comparison, especially under condition of reward processing when there were two different reward values and the subject failed to exhibit upward comparison.
Decomposition Approaches for Virtual Network Embedding With One-Shot Node and Link Mapping

Network virtualization is a promising new resource management approach that allows customized virtual networks (VNs) to be multiplexed on a shared physical infrastructure. In this paper, our focus is on the embedding of VN resources onto this infrastructure. Since this problem is known to be NP-hard, embedding proposals in literature are heuristic-based approaches that restrict the problem space in different dimensions. Limitations of these proposals are: (1) as embedding of VN links and nodes is performed in two separate stages, it may ensue in a high blocking of VN requests and a less efficient usage of substrate resources; and (2) as pricing of embedding resources is based on linear functions, it triggers no competition among VN users in order to maximize infrastructure provider profits. These drawbacks motivate us to propose a mathematical model that makes use of large-scale optimization tools and proposes a Column Generation (CG) formulation of the problem, coupled with branch-and-bound technique or rounding-off heuristic. We also propose a periodical planning of embedding process where profitable VN requests are selected through an auction mechanism. In our experiments with different substrate network topologies and many different VN request patterns, we show a clear advantage of auction-based CG models over present benchmarks .
Exploring event‐related brain dynamics with tests on complex valued time–frequency representations

A question subject to intense debate is whether scalp‐recorded event‐related brain potentials are due to phase resetting of the ongoing electroencephalogram (EEG) or rather to the superimposition of time‐locked components on background activity. The two hypotheses are usually assessed by means of statistics in the time–frequency domain, for example, through wavelet transformation of multiple EEG trials that yield for each time and frequency a scatter plot of complex values coefficients. Currently, intertrial phase correlation (phase locking or phase coherence) is taken as evidence for phase resetting at a given frequency and latency. Here we present a formal analysis using a complex t‐statistic to illustrate that such measures are, in effect, tests for the mean vector of the repeated trials, and as such on their own are inappropriate measures of phase resetting. We also propose simple t‐like statistics for testing changes in (i) the mean (presence of an event‐related potential), (ii) the amplitude variance (presence of (de)synchronization) and (iii) the concentration of phases (phase locking). The first two statistics are found to be proper measures of the presence of a non‐zero mean activity and induced activity, respectively. In the third case, two different tests are introduced: one based on measuring the alignment of coefficients in the complex plane and another derived from the argument that phase locking persists when the mean of the coefficients is removed. Both statistics gave unambiguous evidence of the presence of phase locking suggesting that they constitute promising tools in the analysis of event‐related brain dynamics. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Joining, Constructing and Benefiting from the Global Workplace: Transnational Professionals in the Building-Design Industry

More and more professionals, and other key contributors to transnational capitalism, find themselves working overseas at some point during their careers and this trend seems set to continue. However, while a great deal of research has now been carried out on other kinds of transnationals, especially migrants, we are much less well informed about the key players who contribute towards the working of an ever more globalized economy. In particular, we know little about the reasons why professionals and others embark on overseas employment, how they perceive and deal with their experiences and what consequences prolonged overseas encounters may have both for their individual careers and skill endowments and for their companies and indeed the global economy as a whole. Moreover, the central importance for these professionals of patterns of sociality built around close interpersonal relations and embedded within concrete locations in enabling them to cope with the global workplace and to perform competently for their companies – despite, and indeed because of, their encapsulation within a highly competitive economic system increasingly dispersed over vast distances, dependent upon the space of flows – requires much more investigation. This exploratory study of architects and related professionals, working for large cosmopolitan firms in the building-design industry, tries to make a contribution towards deepening our understanding of these issues.
Multidimensional Routing Protocol in Human-Associated Delay-Tolerant Networks

Human-associated delay-tolerant networks (HDTNs) are new networks where mobile devices are associated with humans and can be viewed from multiple dimensions including geographic and social aspects. The combination of these different dimensions enables us to comprehend delay-tolerant networks and consequently use this multidimensional information to improve overall network efficiency. Alongside the geographic dimension of the network, which is concerned with geographic topology of routing, social dimensions such as social characters can be used to guide the routing message to improve not only the routing efficiency for individual nodes, but also efficiency for the entire network. We propose a multidimensional routing protocol (M-Dimension) for the human-associated delay-tolerant networks which uses local information derived from multiple dimensions to identify a mobile node more accurately. The importance of each dimension has been measured by the weight function and it is used to calculate the best route. The greedy routing strategy is applied to select an intermediary node to forward message. We compare M-Dimension to the existing benchmark routing protocols via MIT reality Data Set and INFOCOM 2006 Data Set, which are real human-associated mobile network trace files. The results of our simulations show that M-Dimension significantly increases the average success ratio with a competitive end-to-end delay when compared with other multicast DTNs routing protocols.
Reply: Collective Action and the Empirical Content of Stochastic Learning Models1

We are grateful for the opportunity that Bendor, Diermeier, and Ting (hereafter BDT) have provided to address important questions about the empirical content of learning theoretic solutions to the collective action problem. They discuss two well-known classes of adaptive models— stochastic learning models like that of Bush and Mosteller (1955) that have been applied to collective action and social exchange (Macy 1990, 1991a, 1991b, 1993; Macy and Flache 2002; Flache and Macy 2002) and theories of satisficing in organizational behavior advanced by Simon (1955) and Cyert and March (1963). According to Popper (1974, p. 986), when ad hoc assumptions are introduced “to explain a particular difficulty” and these assumptions “cannot be tested independently,” the theory is immunized from refutation. A theory that can explain anything can explain nothing, hence it lacks empirical content. Popper pointed to Darwinism as an example of a theory that is “almost tautological” (Popper 1978). Consequentialist explanations— such as those based on rational choice, natural selection, or reinforcement learning—lack empirical content when any outcome can be explained by proposing some preference, fitness, or aspiration that cannot be tested independently of the outcomes they explain. [. ]
Tissue-specific control of glandular kallikreins.

Glandular kallikreins are kinin-generating serine proteases found in the salivary glands, pancreas, reproductive organs, and kidney and in their secretions. They are physico-chemically, enzymatically, and immunologically identical but it is not known whether they perform similar functions at these separate anatomical sites. A specific radioimmunoassay was used to measure immunoreactive kallikrein in these tissues of the rat after various stimuli. Salt depletion significantly increased kallikrein in the kidney from 2.35 +/- 0.17 to 4.11 +/- 0.27 microgram/g tissue (P less than 0.01, 16 DF) and in the salivary glands from 16.8 +/- 2.1 to 24.2 +/- 0.9 mg/g tissue (P less than 0.01, 16 DF), but did not change pancreatic kallikrein. Deoxycorticosterone (2.4 mg s.c. over 8 days) led to a doubling in kidney kallikrein, from 2.35 +/- 0.17 to 5.27 +/- 0.56 microgram/g tissue (P less than 0.01, 18 DF), without changing salivary gland or pancreatic kallikrein, whereas testosterone (240 micrograms/day s.c. over 15 days) significantly increased salivary gland kallikrein from 26.6 +/- 2.1 to 42.2 +/- 1.8 mg/g tissue (P less than 0.01, 18 DF) with no increase in kidney or pancreatic kallikrein. Accordingly, the glandular kallikreins in these tissues vary independently, which suggests they are under different electrolyte and endocrine control and may perform different physiological functions at each anatomical site.
Ultrasound-Assisted Extraction and Identification of Natural Antioxidants from the Fruit of Melastoma sanguineum Sims

The fruit of Melastoma sanguineum Sims is an edible and sweet wild fruit. In our previous study, the fruit was found to have a strong antioxidant property. In this study, an ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) method was developed to extract natural antioxidants from the fruit of Melastoma sanguineum Sims, and a response surface methodology was used to optimize the conditions of UAE to maximize the extraction efficiency. The influence of five independent extraction parameters (ethanol concentration, solvent/material ratio, extracting time, temperature, and ultrasound power) on the extraction efficiency were investigated using a single factor experiment, and then a central composite rotatable design was used to investigate the interaction of three key parameters. The results showed that the optimal extraction conditions were 42.98% ethanol, 28.29 mL/g solvent/material ratio, 34.29 min extracting time, 60 °C temperature, and 600 W ultrasound power. Under these conditions, the Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC) value of the extracts was 1074.61 ± 32.56 μmol Trolox/g dry weight (DW). Compared with conventional maceration (723.27 ± 11.61 μmol Trolox/g DW) and Soxhlet extraction methods (518.37 ± 23.23 μmol Trolox/g DW), the UAE method improved the extraction efficiency, in a shorter period of time. In addition, epicatechin gallate, epicatechin, rutin, epigallocatechin, protocatechuic acid, chlorogenic acid, and quercetin, were identified and quantified in the fruit extracts of Melastoma sanguineum Sims by UPLC-MS/MS.
Accurate localization for mobile device using a multi-planar city model

This paper presents a novel method for estimating the unknown 6DOF pose of a mobile device. The method is based on matching between the mobile image and the virtual city model which is merely composed of 3D points on planar building facade. The main contributions of this paper are as follows: firstly, we design a new plane generation strategy which fuses the 3D model points, photo homography and the orientation of the buildings together within RANSAC framework. Secondly, we propose a novel energy-based method which can parallel solve the mobile poses as well as the best 2D-3D matches. Thirdly, a client/server mode is established to support a speedy localization experience on the mobile devices. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first implementation that uses such a multi-planar model to accurately locate the mobile device in a scene of city scale. Experiment shows that the localization performance becomes faster and more robust comparing with other methods when adding the multi-planar information of the buildings to localization algorithm.
Improving the Writing, Knowledge, and Motivation of Struggling Young Writers: Effects of Self-Regulated Strategy Development With and Without Peer Support

Writing development involves changes that occur in children’s strategic behavior, knowledge, and motivation. The authors examined the effectiveness of self-regulated strategy development (SRSD), a strategy instructional model designed to promote development in each of these areas. Instruction focused on planning and writing stories and persuasive essays. The addition of a peer support component to SRSD instruction aimed at facilitating maintenance and generalization effects was also examined. SRSD had a positive impact on the writing performance and knowledge of struggling second-grade writers attending urban schools serving a high percentage of low-income families. In comparison with children in the Writers’ Workshop condition, SRSD-instructed students were more knowledgeable about writing and evidenced stronger performance in the two instructed genres (story and persuasive writing) as well as two uninstructed genres (personal narrative and informative writing). Moreover, the peer support component augmented SRSD instruction by enhancing specific aspects of students’ performance in both the instructed and uninstructed genres.
Interacting in pairs in a test of oral proficiency: Co-constructing a better performance

This study, framed within sociocultural theory, examines the interaction of adult ESL test-takers in two tests of oral proficiency: one in which they interacted with an examiner (the individual format) and one in which they interacted with another student (the paired format). The data for the eight pairs in this study were drawn from a larger study comparing the two test formats in the context of high-stakes exit testing from an Academic Preparation Program at a large Canadian university. All of the test-takers participated in both test formats involving a discussion with comparable speaking prompts. The findings from the quantitative analyses show that overall the test-takers performed better in the paired format in that their scores were on average higher than when they interacted with an examiner. Qualitative analysis of the test-takers' speaking indicates that the differences in performance in the two test formats were more marked than the scores suggest. When test-takers interacted with other students in the paired test, the interaction was much more complex and revealed the co-construction of a more linguistically demanding performance than did the interaction between examiners and students. The paired testing format resulted in more interaction, negotiation of meaning, consideration of the interlocutor and more complex output. Among the implications for test theory and practice is the need to account for the joint construction of performance in a speaking test in both construct definitions and rating scales.
The Political Dimension in Health Care Technology Assessment Programs

This article considers technology assessment (TA) to be a comprehensive form of policy research. Technology assessment must then have a relation to policy-making; in the area of health care, TA must relate to such political decisions as resource allocation. Since policies are determined politically, i.e., by factors such as power and influence, technology assessment is, or should be, part of a political process. Technology assessment seems to be developing predominantly as a technical and professional activity, carried out in centers with no relation to the policy-making process. While the impact of technology on health, as well as such broader impacts as those on financial costs, is a key concern, political considerations and political decision-making must always be an important dimension in health care TA.
Pedestrian detection from salient regions

Classic algorithms of pedestrian detection usually locate the latent position via sliding window techniques, which resize the matching window and/or original images at different scales and scan the image. However, this method has two main drawbacks. First, resizing at a fix rate cannot search through the whole scale space, resulting in the failure of accurate object location. Second, resizing and scanning at various scales is usually time-consuming, which is improper for practical applications. To conquer the above difficulties, a novel pedestrian detection method with salient information is proposed. In this paper, the salient detection model and the traditional covariance matrix descriptor are combined in a Bayesian framework to detect pedestrians in the still image. Finally, the efficiency of our approach compared with state-of-the-art results is demonstrated on the public INRIA dataset.
Impact of Modality Choice on Rates of Hospitalization in Patients Eligible for Both Peritoneal Dialysis and Hemodialysis

♦ Background: Hospitalization rates are a relevant consideration when choosing or recommending a dialysis modality. Previous comparisons of peritoneal dialysis (PD) and hemodialysis (HD) have not been restricted to individuals who were eligible for both therapies. ♦ Methods: We conducted a multicenter prospective cohort study of people 18 years of age and older who were eligible for both PD and HD, and who started outpatient dialysis between 2007 and 2010 in four Canadian dialysis programs. Zero-inflated negative binomial models, adjusted for baseline patient characteristics, were used to examine the association between modality choice and rates of hospitalization. ♦ Results: The study enrolled 314 patients. A trend in the HD group toward higher rates of hospitalization, observed in the primary analysis, became significant when modality was treated as a time-varying exposure or when the population was restricted to elective outpatient starts in patients with at least 4 months of pre-dialysis care. Cardiovascular disease, infectious complications, and elective surgery were the most common reasons for hospital admission; only 23% of hospital stays were directly related to complications of dialysis or kidney disease. ♦ Conclusions: Efforts to promote PD utilization are unlikely to result in increased rates of hospitalization, and efforts to reduce hospital admissions should focus on potentially avoidable causes of cardiovascular disease and infectious complications.