Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Directed evolution of Vibrio fischeri LuxR for increased sensitivity to a broad spectrum of acyl‐homoserine lactones

LuxR‐type transcriptional regulators play key roles in quorum‐sensing systems that employ acyl‐homoserine lactones (acyl‐HSLs) as signal molecules. These proteins mediate quorum control by changing their interactions with RNA polymerase and DNA in response to binding their cognate acyl‐HSL. The evolutionarily related LuxR‐type proteins exhibit considerable diversity in primary sequence and in their response to acyl‐HSLs having acyl groups of differing length and composition. Little is known about which residues determine acyl‐HSL specificity, and less about the evolutionary time scales required to forge new ones. To begin to examine such issues, we have focused on the LuxR protein from Vibrio fischeri, which activates gene transcription in response to binding its cognate quorum signal, 3‐oxohexanoyl‐homoserine lactone (3OC6HSL). Libraries of luxR mutants were screened for variants exhibiting increased gene activation in response to octanoyl‐HSL (C8HSL), with which wild‐type LuxR interacts only weakly. Eight LuxR variants were identified that showed a 100‐fold increase in sensitivity to C8HSL; these variants also displayed increased sensitivities to pentanoyl‐HSL and tetradecanoyl‐HSL, while maintaining a wild‐type or greater response to 3OC6HSL. The most sensitive variants activated gene transcription as strongly with C8HSL as the wild type did with 3OC6HSL. With one exception, the amino acid residues involved were restricted to the N‐terminal, ‘signal‐binding’ domain of LuxR. These residue positions differed from critical positions previously identified via ‘loss‐of‐function’ mutagenesis. We have demonstrated that acyl‐HSL‐dependent quorum‐sensing systems can evolve rapidly to respond to new acyl‐HSLs, suggesting that there may be an evolutionary advantage to maintaining such plasticity.
How Do 401(k)s Affect Saving? Evidence from Changes in 401(k) Eligibility

This paper investigates the effect of 401(k) eligibility on saving. To address the possibility that eligibility correlates across individuals with their unobserved tastes for saving, I examine a change in eligibility: some individuals are initially ineligible for their 401(k) but become eligible when they have worked at their firm long enough. I find that eligibility raises 401(k) balances. Other financial assets and net worth respond insignificantly to eligibility, but the confidence intervals do not rule out substantial responses. In response to eligibility, IRA assets increase, consistent with a "crowd-in" hypothesis, and accumulation of cars decreases. (JEL D14, E21, J26)
Simulation and optimization of traffic in a city

Optimal traffic light control is a multi-agent decision problem, for which we propose to use reinforcement learning algorithms. Our algorithm learns the expected waiting times of cars for red and green lights at each intersection, and sets the traffic lights to green for the configuration maximizing individual car gains. For testing our adaptive traffic light controllers, we developed the green light district simulator. The experimental results show that the adaptive algorithms can strongly reduce average waiting times of cars compared to three hand-designed controllers.
Performance Improvement of Phase-Based Correspondence Matching for Palmprint Recognition

The use of phase-based correspondence matching for biometric recognition makes it possible to find corresponding point pairs between images having nonlinear deformation. On the other hand, the optimal recognition performance cannot be exhibited due to simple approaches for matching score calculation and reference point placement. This paper proposes two techniques to improve performance of phase-based correspondence matching for contactless palmprint recognition. First technique analyzes location of corresponding points and defines a new matching score. Second one selects location of reference points suggested by a Difference of Gaussians (DoG) filter. Through a set of experiments using CASIA contactless palmprint database, we demonstrate that the proposed techniques improve performance of phase-based correspondence matching and exhibit good performance compared with conventional palmprint recognition algorithms.
Effect of mycorrhiza application on plant growth and nutrient uptake in cucumber production under field conditions

Mycorrhiza application in horticultural production in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Turkey has been studied under field conditions for several years. The effects of different arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) have been evaluated under field conditions for cucumber production. The parameters measured were seedling survival, plant growth and yield, and root colonization. In 1998 and 1999, Glomus mosseae and Glomus etunicatum inoculated cucumber seedlings were treated with and without P (100 kg P2O5 ha ‐1 ) application. A second experiment was set up to evaluate the response of cucumber to the inoculation with a consortia of indigenous mycorrhizae, G. mosseae, G. etunicatum, Glomus clarum, Glomus caledonium and a mixture of these four species. Inoculated and control non inoculated cucumber seedlings were established under field conditions in 1998, 2001, 2002 and 2004. Seedling quality, seedling survival under field conditions and yield response to mycorrhiza were tested. Fruits were harvested periodically; at blossom, plant leaves and root samples were taken for nutrient content and mycorrhizal colonization analysis respectively. The field experiment results showed that mycorrhiza inoculation significantly increased cucumber seedling survival, fruit yield, P and Zn shoot concentrations. Indigenous mycorrhiza inoculum was successful in colonizing plant roots and resulted in better plant growth and yield. The relative effectiveness of each of the inocula tested was not consistent in the different experiments, although inoculated plants always grew better than control no inoculated. The most relevant result for growers was the increased survival of seedlings. Additional key words: Cucumis sativus L. , horticulture, mycorrhizal species, plant nutrition.
‘Not Black and White, but Black and Red’: Anti-identity identity politics and #AllLivesMatter

This article critically examines #AllLivesMatter, which emerged as a rebuttal to #BlackLivesMatter, arguing, in spite of its universalist pretentions, that it represents a cloaked identitarian politics which through a hegemonic narrative (re)presents itself as a radically inclusionary counter-narrative. I argue All Lives Matter exemplifies an anti-identity identity politics by invoking rhetoric in opposition to racial identities while smuggling in a somewhat elastic ‘postracial’ neoliberal subject as the foundational identity around which this new mobilisation is organised. The article outlines a definition for anti-identity identity politics and uses this as a lens for analysing All Lives Matter in order to interrogate this keyword.
The Theory-to-Practice ePortfolio: An Assignment to Facilitate Motivation and Higher Order Thinking.

Instructors often use ePortfolios to facilitate deeper learning by providing an outlet for reflection, analysis, integrative thinking, and transfer of learning (Buyarski et al., 2015; Reynolds & Patton, 2014). In line with these objectives, I sought out to deepen learning and motivation on a required, semesterlong assignment in an introductory educational psychology course for preservice teachers that is linked to a practicum experience. The original assignment was a template in Microsoft Word in which students included a summary of each major theory learned in class, provided a teaching example, and wrote a reflection about each topic. The new assignment is titled the Theory-to-Practice (T2P) ePortfolio, given that the focus of the assignment was to serve as a venue through which students developed an understanding of how the theories they learned in class connected meaningfully to teaching and influenced their teaching philosophy. Thus, the assignment served as a portfolio of this development. Independent samples t tests revealed that students’ perceptions of usefulness in the course were significantly higher in the intervention groups and that ePortfolio assignment grades were significantly higher in the intervention groups. The assignment rubrics included dimensions from AAC&U VALUE rubrics measuring integrative learning, critical thinking, analysis, and written communication. The change in assignment format was positively associated with deeper learning on the assignment and perceived value in the larger course experience.
high-throughput screening Soluble domains of telomerase reverse transcriptase identified

Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein complex responsible for extending the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes. Structural and biophysical studies of this enzyme have been limited by the inability to produce large amounts of recombinant protein. Here we perform a high-throughput screen to map regions of the Tetrahymena thermophila TERT (Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase) protein that are overexpressed in a soluble form in Escherichia coli using a GFP-fusion system. Many of the soluble protein domains identified do not coincide with domains inferred from multiple sequence alignment, so screening for fluorescent colonies provided information not otherwise readily obtained. The method revealed an essential, independently folded N-terminal domain that was expressed and purified with high yield and found to be suitable for structural analysis. These results provide a tool for future structural and biophysical studies of TERT.
The Influence of Online Audition Programs used in Extracurricular Auditory Activities upon the Musical Auditory Ability

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article History: Received 28.11. 2017 Received in revised form 22.04. 2018 Accepted 05.06. 2018 Available online 18.06. 2018 The purpose of this study is to ascertain the influence of extracurricular auditory activities through “Online Audition Programs” upon the musical auditory ability of those who receive musical education. Mixed method has been used in the study. In the quantitative part of the study, an experimental study analysing the influence of online audition programs including the activities of musical hearing education upon students’ ability to hear. In the qualitative part of the study, however, students are applied semi-structured interview questionnaires with the purpose of following closely experimental group students’ auditory abilities and the change in their attitudes of learning methods; the students have been asked to comment on the application, its process and its results. The study group of the research consists of 38 junior students of Ataturk University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Musicology. In the experimental part of the study, “pre-test/post-test control group random design” has been used. The experimental process of the study takes 8 weeks. During the analysis of the data collected from the experimental process, Mann Whitney U test and Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test and statistical analysis methods have been used. In the qualitative part of the study, semi-structured interview questionnaire has been prepared with the purpose of applying to study group students and they have been analysed through the method of content analysis. In the experimental part of the study, it has been observed that there is a statistically significant difference between the pre-experiment and postexperiment grades of the study group students, that there has been an important influence of activities carried out through extracurricular online audition programs upon the improvement of musical auditory ability. In addition, as a result of the study, the students have stated that the programs are quite practical, and they enable to have opportunities to work with them anytime without having any trouble on time and place. Most of the participants stated that the experimental process has improved them in terms of voice, pitch, chord, string hearing and defining; some of them have also stated that these programs have become useful for solfege and dictation analysis. In addition, most of the participants mentioned that studying with these programs increased their motivation and made them attend the classes more willingly. © 2018 IOJES. All rights reserved
Who Is Welcoming and Who Is Not? An Attitudinal Analysis of Anti-Immigrant Sentiment in South Africa

ABSTRACT Recurrent xenophobic violence in South Africa highlights the strong undercurrent of popular opinion opposition to international immigrants. This article examines public attitudes towards the international immigrant community in South Africa and the factors influencing those attitudes. The author uses public opinion data from the 2014 South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS). The article will show that there is an asymmetry in the processes of opinion formation on immigrants in the country. The findings seemed to call into question the bipolarity of attitudinal measures used in public opinion studies of anti-immigrant sentiment. In addition, the author found that stereotypes about the harmful impact of international immigration were powerful drivers of public antipathy towards foreigners. Greater scrutiny of harmful stereotypes of foreign immigrants voiced by the media, politicians and national leaders is therefore needed.
Estimating Marginal Returns to Higher Education in the UK

A long-standing issue in the literature on education is whether marginal returns to education fall as education rises. If the population differs in its rate of return, a closely related question is whether marginal returns to higher education fall as a greater fraction of the population enrolls. This paper proposes a nonparametric method of estimating marginal treatment effects in heterogeneous populations, and applies it to this question, examining returns to higher education in the UK. The results indicate that marginal returns to higher education fall as the proportion of the population with higher education rises, consistent with the Becker Woytinsky Lecture hypothesis.
Clonal deletion of postthymic T cells: veto cells kill precursor cytotoxic T lymphocytes

Veto cell-mediated suppression of cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) responses has been proposed as one mechanism by which self-tolerance is maintained in mature T cell populations. We have previously reported that murine bone marrow cells cultured in the presence of high-dose interleukin 2 (IL-2) (activated bone marrow cells [ABM]) mediate strong veto suppressor function. To examine mechanisms by which ABM may suppress precursor CTL (p-CTL) responses, we used p-CTL generated from spleen cells of transgenic mice expressing a T cell receptor specific for H-2 Ld. It was demonstrated that the cytotoxic response by these p- CTL after stimulation with irradiated H-2d/k spleen cells was suppressed by DBA/2 (H-2d) ABM, but not by B10.BR (H-2k) ABM or dm1 (Dd, Ld mutant) ABM. Flow cytometry analysis with propidium iodide staining revealed that these p-CTL were specifically deleted by incubation with H-2d ABM, but not with H-2k ABM. These data indicate that ABM veto cells kill p-CTL with specificity for antigens expressed on the surface of the ABM, and that the mechanism for veto cell activity of ABM is clonal deletion of p-CTL.
Coarticulation in CV sequences: Locus Equation data

Background: Speech sounds are known to be influenced by the context in which they occur, and to be produced in an overlapping way. These processes are referred to by the term "coarticulation". Objective: The aim of the study was to compare the magnitude of anticipatory coarticulation of oral voiceless plosives by following vowels in four Australian languages, Arrernte, Burarra, Gupapuyngu, and Warlpiri. Methods: The corpus consists of approximately six hundred isolated real words spoken by eight female adult speakers of the four languages. Locus equations are calculated for intervocalic consonants /p,c,t,tr,k/ (where "/tr/" represents a voiceless oral retroflex plosive) and all following vowels in consonant‐vowel sequences. Measurement points are 0.1 and 0.5 into the vowel. The relationship between these two measurement points is linear and is expressed as a locus equation. The slope of the fitted line associated with the equation is a measure of the magnitude of coarticulation of the consonant by the following vowels. Results: There was a general tendency towards relatively highly coarticulated bilabial and velar plosives, weakly coarticulated retroflex plosives, and moderately coarticulated alveolar plosives. Results were variable for palatal plosives. These results are for the most part in accordance with findings for other Australian languages.
A research on the relationship between the section of university students and career adaptability

PurposeIt is aimed to support individual career adaptability with the knowledge and experience gained in university education. The purpose of this study is to determine the relation between the departments and the demographic variables that university students have and that carrer adaptablities. MethodologyThe reseach population is composed of students who attend vocatinal collages affiliated to Dumlupınar University. The face to face survey method was used to determine the relationship between students’ departments and demographic variables and career adaptability. “Personal Information Form” prepared by researchers and “Career Adaptabiliity Scale” developed by Savickas and Profel and adapted to Turkish by Kanten (2012) was used to determine the demographic characteristics of the participants in the research data. Career adaptability scale is divided into 4 sub-dimensions. These dimentios are anxiety, control, curiosity and trust. FindingsAs a result of the analyzes made, differences between carrer adaptability and gender and income of students were found. ConclusionIn addition, it was concluded that the results of the anxiety and trust sub-dimension of the students’ preffered departments and career adjustment abilities also differed.
Misogyny, Racism, and Islamophobia: Street Harassment at the Intersections

Veiled Muslim women are at an increased risk of street harassment in the current political and economic climate. Their visibility, combined with their popular portrayal as culturally dangerous or threatening means that they are vulnerable to receiving verbal and physical threats, which can be misogynistic and Islamophobic in nature. Drawing on 60 individual and 20 focus group interviews with Muslim women in the United Kingdom who wear the niqab (face veil) and had experienced harassment in public, this qualitative study details their lived experiences. It argues that an intersectional analysis is crucial to understanding the nuances of their lived experiences and the impact street harassment has on their lives. The findings demonstrate that street harassment can produce a hostile environment for veiled Muslim women, which can have a terrorizing effect, limiting their full participation in the public sphere.
The Relationship between Executive Function and Empathy: An fMRI Investigation in Healthy Adults

Theoretical models propose that executive function may play a role in empathy (to “share in” the emotion of another); however, the specific contribution of executive function to emotional empathic processing remains unclear. This study utilized neuroimaging and neuropsychological measures to examine the relationship between individual differences in executive function abilities (working memory, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, verbal fluency) and empathic responding during an empathy induction paradigm in 20 healthy participants. fMRI analyses revealed that prefrontal brain regions may be important for empathic responding, with empathy for positive emotions recruiting a greater number of prefrontal regions. Prefrontal activation was associated with working memory, but not with other executive function abilities. Findings suggest that working memory abilities contribute to affective empathic responding. INDEX WORDS: empathy, executive function, prefrontal cortex, working memory, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, verbal fluency THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EXECUTIVE FUNCTION AND EMPATHY: AN FMRI INVESTIGATION IN HEALTHY ADULTS.
A National Look at the High School Counseling Office: What Is It Doing and What Role Can It Play in Facilitating Students' Paths to College?.

This report uses recently released nationally representative High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09) data from Spring 2012 to examine American high schools’ counseling departments and the factors related to high school juniors’2 actions, plans, and beliefs surrounding their eventual college enrollment. More specifically, Part I of this report focuses on what high schools and their counseling offices are doing to help students make a transition to postsecondary education. To do so, it presents data on principals’ priorities for their counselors, how counselors are assigned, whether schools have college-focused counselors, counselors’ time commitments, counselors’ college preparation activities, whether schools follow their students beyond high school, students’ and parents’ interactions with counselors, and students’ perceptions of counselors’ influence on their thinking about postsecondary education.
Non-Invasive Evaluation of Cystic Fibrosis Related Liver Disease in Adults with ARFI, Transient Elastography and Different Fibrosis Scores

Background Cystic fibrosis-related liver disease (CFLD) is present in up to 30% of cystic fibrosis patients and can result in progressive liver failure. Diagnosis of CFLD is challenging. Non-invasive methods for staging of liver fibrosis display an interesting diagnostic approach for CFLD detection. Aim We evaluated transient elastography (TE), acoustic radiation force impulse imaging (ARFI), and fibrosis indices for CFLD detection. Methods TE and ARFI were performed in 55 adult CF patients. In addition, AST/Platelets-Ratio-Index (APRI), and Forns' score were calculated. Healthy probands and patients with alcoholic liver cirrhosis served as controls. Results Fourteen CF patients met CFLD criteria, six had liver cirrhosis. Elastography acquisition was successful in >89% of cases. Non-cirrhotic CFLD individuals showed elastography values similar to CF patients without liver involvement. Cases with liver cirrhosis differed significantly from other CFLD patients (ARFI: 1.49 vs. 1.13 m/s; p = 0.031; TE: 7.95 vs. 4.16 kPa; p = 0.020) and had significantly lower results than individuals with alcoholic liver cirrhosis (ARFI: 1.49 vs. 2.99 m/s; p = 0.002). APRI showed the best diagnostic performance for CFLD detection (AUROC 0.815; sensitivity 85.7%, specificity 70.7%). Conclusions ARFI, TE, and laboratory based fibrosis indices correlate with each other and reliably detect CFLD related liver cirrhosis in adult CF patients. CF specific cut-off values for cirrhosis in adults are lower than in alcoholic cirrhosis.