Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bacteriocins as Potential Anticancer Agents

Cancer remains one of the leading causes of deaths worldwide, despite advances in its treatment and detection. The conventional chemotherapeutic agents used for the treatment of cancer have non-specific toxicity toward normal body cells that cause various side effects. Secondly, cancer cells are known to develop chemotherapy resistance in due course of treatment. Thus, the demand for novel anti-cancer agents is increasing day by day. Some of the experimental studies have reported the therapeutic potential of bacteriocins against various types of cancer cell lines. Bacteriocins are ribosomally-synthesized cationic peptides secreted by almost all groups of bacteria. Some bacteriocins have shown selective cytotoxicity toward cancer cells as compared to normal cells. This makes them promising candidates for further investigation and clinical trials. In this review article, we present the overview of the various cancer cell-specific cytotoxic bacteriocins, their mode of action and efficacies.
Model Structure of Human APOBEC3G

Background APOBEC3G (apolipoprotein B mRNA-editing enzyme, catalytic polypeptide-like 3G) has antiretroviral activity associated with the hypermutation of viral DNA through cytosine deamination. APOBEC3G has two cytosine deaminase (CDA) domains; the catalytically inactive amino-terminal domain of APOBEC3G (N-CDA) carries the Vif interaction domain. There is no 3-D structure of APOBEC3G solved by X-ray or nuclear magnetic resonance. Methodology/Principal Findings We predicted the structure of human APOBEC3G based on the crystal structure of APOBEC2. To assess the model structure, we evaluated 48 mutants of APOBEC3G N-CDA that identify novel variants altering ΔVif HIV-1 infectivity and packaging of APOBEC3G. Results indicated that the key residue D128 is exposed at the surface of the model, with a negative local electrostatic potential. Mutation D128K changes the sign of that local potential. In addition, two novel functionally relevant residues that result in defective APOBEC3G encapsidation, R122 and W127, cluster at the surface. Conclusions/Significance The structure model identifies a cluster of residues important for packaging of APOBEC3G into virions, and may serve to guide functional analysis of APOBEC3G.
Exploring the Diversity and Distribution of Neotropical Avian Malaria Parasites – A Molecular Survey from Southeast Brazil

Southeast Brazil is a neotropical region composed of a mosaic of different tropical habitats and mountain chains, which allowed for the formation of bird-rich communities with distinct ecological niches. Although this region has the potential to harbor a remarkable variety of avian parasites, there is a lack of information about the diversity of malarial parasites. We used molecular approaches to characterize the lineage diversity of Plasmodium and Haemoproteus in bird communities from three different habitats in southeast Brazil based on the prevalence, richness and composition of lineages. We observed an overall prevalence of 35.3%, with a local prevalence ranging from 17.2% to 54.8%. Moreover, no significant association between prevalence and habitat type could be verified (p>0.05). We identified 89 Plasmodium and 22 Haemoproteus lineages, with 86% of them described for the first time here, including an unusual infection of a non-columbiform host by a Haemoproteus (Haemoproteus) parasite. The composition analyses of the parasite communities showed that the lineage composition from Brazilian savannah and tropical dry forest was similar, but it was different from the lineage composition of Atlantic rainforest, reflecting the greater likeness of the former habitats with respect to seasonality and forest density. No significant effects of habitat type on lineage richness were observed based on GLM analyses. We also found that sites whose samples had a greater diversity of bird species showed a greater diversity of parasite lineages, providing evidence that areas with high bird richness also have high parasite richness. Our findings point to the importance of the neotropical region (southeast Brazil) as a major reservoir of new haemosporidian lineages.
Extracting Ground-Truth Information from MIDI Files: A MIDIfesto

MIDI ﬁles abound and provide a bounty of information for music informatics. We enumerate the types of information available in MIDI ﬁles and describe the steps necessary for utilizing them. We also quantify the reliability of this data by comparing it to human-annotated ground truth. The results suggest that developing better methods to leverage information present in MIDI ﬁles will facilitate the creation of MIDI-derived ground truth for audio content-based MIR.
Author ' s personal copy Perceived academic effects of instant messaging use

College students use information and communication technologies at much higher levels and in different ways than prior generations. They are also more likely to multitask while using information and communication technologies. However, few studies have examined the impacts of multitasking on educational outcomes among students. This study fills a gap in this area by utilizing a large-sample webbased survey of college student technology usage to examine how instant messaging and multitasking affect perceived educational outcomes. Since multitasking can impede the learning process through a form of information overload, we explore possible predictors of academic impairment due to multitasking. Results of this study suggest that college students use instant messaging at high levels, they multitask while using instant messaging, and over half report that instant messaging has had a detrimental effect on their schoolwork. Higher levels of instant messaging and specific types of multitasking activities are associated with students reporting not getting schoolwork done due to instant messaging. We discuss implications of these findings for researchers studying the social impacts of technology and those in higher education administration. 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
The effects of classroom and school environments on student engagement: the case of high school students in Abu Dhabi public schools

Abstract Drawing on data from a merged data set from a student survey and a parent survey that were conducted in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi in 2013, this article uses a multilevel framework to investigate the effects of individual characteristics and the classroom and school environments on high school students’ school engagement in a modernising education system that is different from Western ones. The results of the three-level model revealed that while students’ attributes remained strong predictors of their school engagement, the social and organisational environment of classrooms and school also greatly shaped the extent to which students emotionally and cognitively engaged with their school and learning. This study provided evidence to support the interactive nature of the impact of multilevel environments on student engagement. The policy and research implications were also discussed in the empirical context of Abu Dhabi.
International Journal of Hospitality Management How Can Integrated Marketing Communications and Advanced Technology Influence the Creation of Customer-based Brand Equity? Evidence from the Hospitality Industry

Keywords: Integrated marketing communications Advanced technology Brand equity Brand image Perceived quality Brand loyalty a b s t r a c t As the most recent approach of communication management, the integrated marketing communication (IMC) programmes, enhanced by the advancements in information and communication technology (ICT), are considered an important contribution to the brand equity building. However, hardly any research has been done on the role of this new communication practice in the hospitality industry. Moreover, previous studies have mainly focused on managers' opinions, overlooking customers' perceptions of both marketing communications and advanced technology. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to examine, from the customer perspective, the impact of integrated marketing communications on hotel brand equity, considered as a multidimensional construct composed of brand image, perceived quality, and brand loyalty. In addition, the moderating role of advanced technology on these relationships is tested. While the findings show positive relationships between the studied constructs, the moderating role of technology is not corroborated.
Detector decoy quantum key distribution

Photon number resolving detectors can enhance the performance of many practical quantum cryptographic setups. In this paper, we employ a simple method to estimate the statistics provided by such a photon number resolving detector using only a threshold detector together with a variable attenuator. This idea is similar in spirit to that of the decoy state technique, and is especially suited to those scenarios where only a few parameters of the photon number statistics of the incoming signals have to be estimated. As an illustration of the potential applicability of the method in quantum communication protocols, we use it to prove security of an entanglement-based quantum key distribution scheme with an untrusted source without the need for a squash model and by solely using this extra idea. In this sense, this detector decoy method can be seen as a different conceptual approach to adapt a single-photon security proof to its physical, full optical implementation. We show that in this scenario, the legitimate users can now even discard the double click events from the raw key data without compromising the security of the scheme, and we present simulations on the performance of the BB84 and the 6-state quantum key distribution protocols.
How Transformational Leadership Supports Intrinsic Motivation and Public Service Motivation: The Mediating Role of Basic Need Satisfaction

Motivating public service employees to greater effort is a key issue for managers and scholars. Transformational leadership concerns behaviors to develop, share, and sustain a vision for the organization and has been suggested as an important lever in this respect. However, we know little about the processes by which transformational leadership may stimulate work motivation. Integrating transformational leadership, public service motivation (PSM), and self-determination theory, this article sheds light on the psychological mechanisms underlying the motivational effects of transformational leadership. According to structural equation modeling, the relationships between transformational leadership and two types of autonomous work motivation—intrinsic motivation and PSM—are mediated by the satisfaction of the basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Our findings support the claim that the motivational effects of transformational leadership are mediated by need satisfaction, but also that satisfaction of individual needs is not equally important for intrinsic motivation and PSM, respectively.
Parental Socialization Styles and Psychological Adjustment. A Study in Spanish Adolescents

Contributing to the current debate in the literature about the optimal educational parenting style that benefits the best psychosocial adjustment of children, the aim of this study was to analyze which parenting style is related to the best psychological adjustment among Spanish adolescents. Participants in the study were 772 adolescents, 358 males (46.4%) and 414 females (53.6%) between 12 and 17 years old (M = 14.95, SD = 1.59). Families were classified according to their parenting style (authoritative, indulgent, authoritarian, or neglectful). Self-concept and psychological maladjustment in their multidimensional measures were assessed as criteria. Results showed that indulgent style, fundamentally based on affection and not on parental imposition, is related to the best results on the criteria assessed. The importance of parental affective involvement in the socialization of their children for the adequate psychological and emotional adjustment of Spanish adolescents is highlighted.
Monozygotic twins with CAPN5 autosomal dominant neovascular inflammatory vitreoretinopathy

Background The purpose of this study was to describe the clinical findings in a set of monozygotic twins with autosomal dominant neovascular inflammatory vitreoretinopathy (ADNIV) over a 23-year period. Methods A pair of female twins were examined between 26 and 49 years of age. The concordance and discordance of their clinical features were determined. The CAPN5 gene was sequenced using genomic DNA. Results Both twins of an affected father demonstrated Stage I ADNIV with mild vitreous cells and a negative b-wave on electroretinography. Genetic analysis confirmed a guanine to thymine nucleotide (c.728G>T, pArg243Leu) mutation in the CAPN5 gene. Over the course of 23 years, each twin progressed to stage III disease, showing posterior uveitis, cystoid macular edema, intraocular fibrosis, early retinal neovascularization, retinal degeneration, and cataract. Disease progression varied moderately between each twin and was asymmetrical between eyes. Twin A had 20/70 and 20/125 in the right and left eye, respectively, and underwent vitrectomy surgery and intravitreal injections with bevacizumab for recurrent cystoid macular edema. Twin B maintained 20/20 and 20/40 in the right and left eye, respectively without intervention. Conclusion There was asymmetry between the eyes and some discordance in the rate of disease progression in these monozygotic twins with ADNIV. The overall high disease concordance suggests genetic factors play a major role in clinical manifestations in CAPN5 vitreoretinopathy.
Multidisciplinary Pharmacotherapeutic Options for Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) are multidisciplinary liver diseases that often accompany type 2 diabetes or metabolic syndrome, which are characterized by insulin resistance. Therefore, effective treatment of type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome should target not only the cardiometabolic abnormalities, but also the associated liver disorders. In the last decade, it has been shown that metformin, thiazolidinediones, vitamin E, ezetimibe, n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, renin-angiotensin system (RAS) blockers, and antiobesity drugs may improve hepatic pathophysiological disorders as well as clinical parameters. Accordingly, insulin sensitizers, antioxidative agents, Niemann-Pick C1-like 1 (NPC1L1) inhibitors, RAS blockers, and drugs that target the central nervous system may represent candidate pharmacotherapies for NAFLD and possibly NASH. However, the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of long-term treatment (potentially for many years) with these drugs have not been fully established. Furthermore, clinical trials have not comprehensively examined the efficacy of lipid-lowering drugs (i.e., statins, fibrates, and NPC1L1 inhibitors) for the treatment of NAFLD. Although clinical evidence for RAS blockers and incretin-based agents (GLP-1 analogs and dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitors) is also lacking, these agents are promising in terms of their insulin-sensitizing and anti-inflammatory effects without causing weight gain.
Advice in surveying the general public over the internet

Summary: The advancements reported here come not from trying to fit the general public to the Internet (e.g. volunteer samples, email contacts only and payments afterwards) but instead trying to fit survey requests to people's normal lives. This approach includes adopting a mixed-mode data collection strategy that relies on mail contact to deliver incentives and an orchestrated approach to encouraging people to respond to those modes in sequence. The development of new ways of thinking about data collection practices was needed when telephone RDD methods began to replace personal interviewing in the 1970's, just as new thinking is now needed for encouraging Internet surveying in the 2010's. As a result, widespread use of the Internet for surveys of the general public now seems feasible, and the authors are eagerly looking forward to the invention of methodologies that will reduce the many difficulties in doing surveys.
Patterns of association between real-world performance and measures of executive function

This study examined the canonical relationships between a set of real-world performance measures and a set of executive function measures with a sample of community based individuals with schizophrenia (N=80). Participants were given a battery of cognitive tests and evaluated with a real-world performance measure, the Test of Grocery Shopping Skills (TOGSS). Using canonical correlation analysis, executive functions of planning, problem-solving, working memory, and task persistence were significantly related to grocery shopping efficiency and accuracy. Two canonical variates with moderate correlations (.547 and .519) explain that 30% of the variance in the executive function and grocery shopping measures was shared. These results identify patterns of association between executive function performance and the independent living skill of grocery shopping.
THE ROLE OF SYNAPTIC DYNAMICS AND HETEROGENEITY 4 IN NEURONAL LEARNING OF TEMPORAL CODE

Abbreviated title: stochastic dynamic synapses in neural decoding 13 14 15 *Correspondence should be addressed to Vitaly A. Klyachko, 425 S. Euclid Ave, Campus Box 16 8228, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110. E-mail: 17 klyachko@wustl.edu, Tel: (314) 362-5517, Fax: (314) 362-7463. 18 19 20 21 22 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 23 This work was supported in part by grants to V.K. from the NINDS and Whitehall Foundation. 24 We thank Dr. Valeria Cavalli, and Diana Owyoung for their constructive comments on the 25 manuscript. 26 Articles in PresS. J Neurophysiol (August 7, 2013). doi:10.1152/jn.00454. 2013
Newly synthesized catalytic and regulatory components of adenylate cyclase are expressed in neurites of cultured sympathetic neurons

Forskolin- and guanine nucleotide-stimulated adenylate cyclase activities were measured in microdissected sections of neurites from small explants and in dispersed cell cultures of sympathetic ganglion neurons to determine whether a competent system for regulated formation of cAMP, consisting of both catalytic units of adenylate cyclase and regulatory GTP binding proteins, is synthesized during neurite outgrowth and where it is distributed in the neuron. An increase in both guanine nucleotide- and forskolin-dependent activity of adenylate cyclase occurred concomitantly with neurite outgrowth and was directly proportional to neurite length. Separate analysis of adenylate cyclase activity in explant cell bodies or neurites showed that the increased activity was localized entirely in the neurites, while activity in the cell bodies remained virtually constant during growth. Concentric sections of neurites of approximately 500 microns width, which contained similar volumes of neurites as determined with the indicator BCECF (Rink et al., 1982), produced similar levels of cAMP, indicating an even distribution of adenylate cyclase in the neurites. Cell bodies, when stimulated by GTP gamma S, produced 236 +/- 46 attomol cAMP/min (30 degrees C)/cell body and an additional 52.6 +/- 20 attomol cAMP/min (30 degrees C)/neuron were produced with each day of neurite growth (approximately 400 microns). Assuming a turnover number of 2000 min-1, cell bodies and neurites were calculated to contain similar densities of catalytic unit molecules on their surface (9–28 molecules/micron 2). An abundant GTP binding protein, detected by ADP-ribosylation with pertussis toxin, was also widely distributed in the neuron. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Group Sparsity Tensor Factorization for Re-Identification of Open Mobility Traces

Re-identification attacks based on a Markov chain model have been widely studied to understand how anonymized traces are linked to users. This approach is known to enable users to be re-identified with high accuracy when an adversary trains a personalized transition matrix for each target user using a large amount of training data, and when all of the anonymized traces are from the target users. In reality, however, the amount of training data for each target user can be very small, since many users disclose only a small amount of their location information to the public. In addition, many of the anonymized traces are from “non-target” users, whose personalized transition matrices cannot be trained in advance. This paper aims to quantify the risk of re-identification in the realistic situation explained earlier. We first utilize the fact that spatial data can form a group structure, and propose group sparsity tensor factorization to effectively train the personalized transition matrices from a small number of training traces. We second formulate a re-identification attack in an “open” scenario, where many of the anonymized traces are from non-target users. Specifically, we regard this type of attack as a biometric verification (or identification) task, and propose a framework and an algorithm for performing this task using a population transition matrix, which is computed from personalized transition matrices. Our experimental results using three real data sets show that a training method using tensor factorization significantly outperforms the maximum likelihood estimation method, and is further improved by incorporating group sparsity regularization.
HIV Prevalence and Incidence among Sexually Active Females in Two Districts of South Africa to Determine Microbicide Trial Feasibility

Background The suitability of populations of sexually active women in Madibeng (North-West Province) and Mbekweni (Western Cape), South Africa, for a Phase III vaginal microbicide trial was evaluated. Methods Sexually active women 18–35 years not known to be HIV-positive or pregnant were tested cross-sectionally to determine HIV and pregnancy prevalence (798 in Madibeng and 800 in Mbekweni). Out of these, 299 non-pregnant, HIV-negative women were subsequently enrolled at each clinical research center in a 12-month cohort study with quarterly study visits. Results HIV prevalence was 24% in Madibeng and 22% in Mbekweni. HIV incidence rates based on seroconversions over 12 months were 6.0/100 person-years (PY) (95% CI 3.0, 9.0) in Madibeng and 4.5/100 PY (95% CI 1.8, 7.1) in Mbekweni and those estimated by cross-sectional BED testing were 7.1/100 PY (95% CI 2.8, 11.3) in Madibeng and 5.8/100 PY (95% CI 2.0, 9.6) in Mbekweni. The 12-month pregnancy incidence rates were 4.8/100 PY (95% CI 2.2, 7.5) in Madibeng and 7.0/100 PY (95% CI 3.7, 10.3) in Mbekweni; rates decreased over time in both districts. Genital symptoms were reported very frequently, with an incidence of 46.8/100 PY (95% CI 38.5, 55.2) in Madibeng and 21.5/100 PY (95% CI 15.8, 27.3) in Mbekweni. Almost all (>99%) participants said that they would be willing to participate in a microbicide trial. Conclusion These populations might be suitable for Phase III microbicide trials provided that HIV incidence rates over time remain sufficiently high to support endpoint-driven trials.