Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Identifying Components of the NF-κB Pathway in the Beneficial Euprymna scolopes-Vibrio fischeri Light Organ Symbiosis

ABSTRACT The Toll/NF-κB pathway is a common, evolutionarily conserved innate immune pathway that modulates the responses of animal cells to microbe-associated molecular patterns (MAMPs). Because MAMPs have been implicated as critical elements in the signaling of symbiont-induced development, an expressed sequence tag library from the juvenile light organ of Euprymna scolopes was used to identify members of the Toll/NF-κB pathway. Full-length transcripts were identified by using 5′ and 3′ RACE PCR. Seven transcripts critical for MAMP-induced triggering of the Toll/NF-κB phosphorylation cascade have been identified, including receptors, signal transducers, and a transcription factor. Further investigations should elucidate the role of the Toll/NF-κB pathway in the initiation of the beneficial symbiosis between E. scolopes and Vibrio fischeri.
Development of econometric methods to evaluate the gender pay gap using structure of earnings survey data

Europe Direct is a service to help you find answers to your questions about the European Union (*) Certain mobile telephone operators do not allow access to 00 800 numbers or these calls may be billed. Foreword The EU has a long-standing commitment to promoting gender equality, and the goal of eliminating inequalities and promoting equality between women and men is set out in Article 3(2) of the EC Treaty. One of the most important areas in this regard is the equal treatment of men and women in the labour market, particularly with respect to wages and salaries. In July 2007, the European Commission adopted a communication on the issue, 1 recalling the need to implement a series of measures in order to tackle the wage differences between women and men, including through the provision of better statistics and analysis of the factors influencing the wage differences. In this framework and on request of the Indicators Group of the Employment Committee of the Council and in coordination with the Directorate-General Employment and Social Affairs of the European Commission, Eurostat collects the Structural Indicator "Gender pay gap (GPG) in unadjusted form" on an annual basis. The unadjusted GPG is the relative difference between the average gross hourly earnings of women and men within the economy. 2 As an unadjusted indicator, the GPG gives an overall picture of gender inequalities in terms of pay and measures a concept which is broader than the concept underlying the principle of equal pay for equal work. In addition, the overall GPG figure does not take into account differences in individual characteristics of employed men and women, nor can it give an indication of the incidence and level of discrimination or segregation in the labour market. From the reference year 2006 onwards, this indicator is based on the Structure of Earnings Survey (SES), a rich employer-employee matched data set. 3 However, the SES 1 "Tackling the pay gap between women and men", COM(2007) 424 final 2 GPG = gross hourly earnings of male paid employees-gross hourly earnings of female paid employees % gross hourly earnings of male paid employees 3 The SES is set up by Council Regulation (EC) No 530/1999 of 9 March 1999 concerning structural statistics on earnings and on labour costs and Commission Regulation 1738/2005 amending Regulation (EC) No 1916/2000 as regards the definition and transmission of information on the structure of earnings. …
Fast Inter Mode Selection Algorithm for Motion Estimation in MPEG-4 AVC/JVT/H.264

The newest video coding standard H.264/AVC utilizes flexible block sizes and multiple reference frames to do motion estimation. Totally, there are seven possible types of block sizes to be selected in motion estimation. The exhaustive cost calculation for possible modes is required to find the motion vector. In order to reduce the computational complexity, this paper proposes a fast algorithm to select the block mode. The algorithm uses fuzzy inference with motion vector tightness and the variance of image intensity to determine whether it is necessary to do motion estimation with smaller size block mode. From the simulation result, the proposed fast algorithm can save at least 30% encoding time without sacrificing the picture quality and the bite rate efficiency.
Decentralized Sliding Mode Controller Based on Genetic algorithm and a Hybrid approach for Interconnected Uncertain Nonlinear Systems

A new type controller, recurrent fuzzy neural networks-fuzzy-sliding mode controller (FRNN-FSMC), is developed for a class of large-scale systems with unknown bounds of highorder interconnections and disturbances. The main purpose is to eliminate the chattering phenomenon and to overcome the problem of the equivalent control computation. The FRNNFSMC, which incorporates the recurrent fuzzy neural network (RFNN), fuzzy logic controller (FLC) and the SMC, can eliminate chattering using a fixed boundary layer around the switch surface. Within the boundary layer, where the FLC is applied, the chattering phenomenon, which is inherent in a SMC, is avoided by smoothing the switch signal. Moreover, to compute the equivalent controller, a feed-forward RFNN is used. The stability of the whole system is analyzed via the Lyapunov methodology. In this study, we propose an effective method to select some key controller parameters in an optimal manner by using the genetic algorithm (GA), so that a high performance of the overall system's response can be achieved. The effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed controller and optimization method were tested using highly interconnected nonlinear systems as examples.
An Evaluation of Rebuilding Policies for U.S. Fisheries

Rebuilding depleted fish populations is a priority of modern fisheries management. In the U.S., strong statutory mandates extend to both the goals and process by which stocks are to be rebuilt. However, the National Standard Guidelines that govern the implementation of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act may change to increase flexibility in rebuilding requirements. In this study we evaluate performance of the status quo approach to fish stock rebuilding in the United States against 3 alternatives that have been proposed to improve rebuilding outcomes. These alternatives either simplify the analytical requirements of rebuilding analyses or apply ‘best practices’ in fisheries management, thereby avoiding the need for rebuilding analyses altogether. We use a Management Strategy Evaluation framework to evaluate rebuilding options across 6 fish life history types and 5 possible real-world fishery scenarios that include options for stock assessment quality, multiple fleets, and the degree to which the stocks are overfished at the start of the analysis. We show that the status quo rebuilding plan and a harvest control rule that reduces harvest rates at low stock size generally achieve the best rebuilding outcomes across all life-history types and fishery scenarios. Both approaches constrain fishing in the short term, but achieve high catches in the medium and long term as stocks rebuild to productive levels. These results support a growing body of literature that indicates that efforts to end overfishing early pay off in the medium- to long-term with higher cumulative catches than the alternative.
Heterologous, Expression, and Characterization of Thermostable Glucoamylase Derived from Aspergillus flavus NSH9 in Pichia pastoris

A novel thermostable glucoamylase cDNA without starch binding domain (SBD) of Aspergillus flavus NSH9 was successfully identified, isolated, and overexpressed in Pichia pastoris GS115. The complete open reading frame of glucoamylase from Aspergillus flavus NSH9 was identified by employing PCR that encodes 493 amino acids lacking in the SBD. The first 17 amino acids were presumed to be a signal peptide. The cDNA was cloned into Pichia pastoris and the highest expression of recombinant glucoamylase (rGA) was observed after 8 days of incubation period with 1% methanol. The molecular weight of the purified rGA was about 78 kDa and exhibited optimum catalytic activity at pH 5.0 and temperature of 70°C. The enzyme was stable at higher temperature with 50% of residual activity observed after 20 min at 90°C and 100°C. Low concentration of metal (Mg++, Fe++, Zn++, Cu++, and Pb++) had positive effect on rGA activity. This rGA has the potential for use and application in the saccharification steps, due to its thermostability, in the starch processing industries.
The Challenges of Social Marketing of Organ Donation: News and Entertainment Coverage of Donation and Transplantation

ABSTRACT While great strides have been made in persuading the public to become potential organ donors, actual behavior has not yet caught up with the nearly universally favorable attitudes the public expresses toward donation. This paper explores the issue by situating the social marketing of organ donation against a broader backdrop of entertainment and news media coverage of organ donation. Organ donation storylines are featured on broadcast television in medical and legal dramas, soap operas, and other television serials approximately four times per month (not including most cable networks), and feature storylines that promote myths and fears of the organ donation process. National news and other non-fictionalized coverage of organ donation are even more common, with stories appearing over twenty times a month on average. These stories tend to be one-dimensional and highly sensationalized in their coverage. The marketing of organ donation for entertainment essentially creates a counter-campaign to organ donation, with greater resources and reach than social marketers have access to. Understanding the broader environmental context of organ donation messages highlights the issues faced by social marketing campaigns in persuading the public to become potential donors.
A Demonstration of TripleProv: Tracking and Querying Provenance over Web Data

The proliferation of heterogeneous Linked Data on the Web poses new challenges to database systems. In particular, the capacity to store, track, and query provenance data is becoming a pivotal feature of modern triple stores. In this demonstration, we present TripleProv: a new system extending a native RDF store to efficiently handle the storage, tracking and querying of provenance in RDF data. In the following, we give an overview of our approach providing a reliable and understandable specification of the way results were derived from the data and how particular pieces of data were combined to answer the query. Subsequently, we present techniques enabling to tailor queries with provenance data. Finally, we describe our demonstration and how the attendees will be able to interact with our system during the conference.
No Evidence of Metabolic Depression in Western Alaskan Juvenile Steller Sea Lions (Eumetopias jubatus)

Steller sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus) populations have undergone precipitous declines through their western Alaskan range over the last four decades with the leading hypothesis to explain this decline centering around changing prey quality, quantity, or availability for this species (i.e., nutritional stress hypothesis). Under chronic conditions of reduced food intake sea lions would conserve energy by limiting energy expenditures through lowering of metabolic rate known as metabolic depression. To examine the potential for nutritional stress, resting metabolic rate (RMR) and body composition were measured in free-ranging juvenile Steller sea lions (N = 91) at three distinct geographical locations (Southeast Alaska, Prince William Sound, Central Aleutian Islands) using open-flow respirometry and deuterium isotope dilution, respectively. Average sea lion RMR ranged from 6.7 to 36.2 MJ d−1 and was influenced by body mass, total body lipid, and to a lesser extent, ambient air temperature and age. Sea lion pups captured in the Aleutian Islands (region of decline) had significantly greater body mass and total body lipid stores when compared to pups from Prince William Sound (region of decline) and Southeast Alaska (stable region). Along with evidence of robust body condition in Aleutian Island pups, no definitive differences were detected in RMR between sea lions sampled between eastern and western populations that could not be accounted for by higher percent total body lipid content, suggesting that that at the time of this study, Steller sea lions were not experiencing metabolic depression in the locations studied.
Lessons in Safety Climate and Safety Practices from a California Hospital Consortium

Abstract : The Patient Safety Consortium included a group of 26 diverse hospitals in or near California. In 2001 and 2002, many consortium hospitals were surveyed using the Patient Safety Climate in Healthcare Organizations (PSCHO) tool to present quantitative measures of hospital safety climate and qualitative reports on safety practices over 2 years. Investigators engaged in discussions with consortium hospitals to elicit reports about their patient safety activities. Overall quantitative measures of safety climate remained approximately the same over the 2 years, although in some specific survey areas climate appeared to improve. Hospitals reported a range and mix of patient safety activities. While considered an essential enabler of safety, cultural change takes time. Significant hospital efforts appear to be underway, and attention to a number of lessons from past patient safety efforts may benefit future undertakings.
Vanishing points and lorries 1 )

In this paper, lorries in motorway scenes and their use in vanishing point estimation is studied. Lorries naturally arise in motorway scenes and provide a powerful way to compute three orthogonal vanishing points. Lorries are therefore so interesting, because features, e.g. blob centroid, on usual vehicles do only provide one vanishing point in traffic direction. Also the background of motorway scenes rarely provide edge information in vertical direction. But with three orthogonal vanishing points from a lorry and a square pixel camera with zero skew the calibration matrix can be estimated, the camera pose relative to the lorry can be computed and the real world lengths are known up to a scalar factor. To illustrate the vanishing point estimation, we developed an algorithm to detect corners of cuboid-shaped lorries. This algorithm was formulated as Constraint Satisfaction Problem which has shown to be an efficient and elegant solution. A camera matrix projecting a canonic world cube onto these corners delivers the three orthogonal vanishing points. We showed the applicability of this approach on four test images.
Resistive drift‐wave turbulence

Two‐dimensional resistive drift‐wave turbulence is studied by high‐resolution numerical simulations in the limit of small viscosity. Density and potential fluctuations are cross‐coupled by resistive dissipation, proportional to the adiabaticity parameter, C, which determines the character of the system: adiabatic (C≫1) or hydrodynamic (C≪1). Various cases are computed for 0.1≤C≤5. Energy spectra exhibit a maximum at some wave number k0(C) and an inertial range behavior for k≳k0. The transfer of energy and vorticity is directly computed and confirms the persistence of local cascade dynamics in all regimes: the familiar dual cascade for the E×B flow eddies, and the direct cascade to small scales for the density as it is advected by the eddies. Inertial range spectral power laws agree surprisingly well with simple scaling predictions. No prominent large‐scale long‐lived coherent structures are observed, an absence that is consistent with the statistical properties, which are found to be perfectly Gaussian fo.
Interpersonal Relationship Needs of Virtual Community Participation: A FIRO Perspective

Virtual communities (hereinafter as VCs) emerged as a new form of business model in electronic business field. Understanding motivations of members’ participation is essential to virtual community organizers. Arguing that interpersonal relationship needs are important to drive members’ participation, this paper used FIRO (Fundamental Interpersonal Relationship Orientation) as framework to explore why people participate in virtual communities. Data was collected in three large representative VCs and analyzed with ANOVA. It was found that people obtain information in virtual communities because they want to fulfill two kinds of needs—need for inclusion and need for affection; and people give information in virtual communities because they want to fulfill three types of needs—need for inclusion, need for control, and need for affection. This study thus contributed to the current knowledge of virtual communities by providing the integrative theoretical explanation and valid empirical results. This result is also meaningful to VC organizers.
In Vivo Serial MR Imaging of Magnetically Labeled Endothelial Progenitor Cells Homing to the Endothelium Injured Artery in Mice

Background Emerging evidence of histopathological analyses suggests that endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) play an important role in vascular diseases. Neointimal hyperplasia can be reduced by intravenous transfusion of EPCs after vascular injury in mice. Therefore, it would be advantageous to develop an in vivo technique that can explore the temporal and spatial migration of EPCs homing to the damaged endothelium noninvasively. Methodology/Principal Findings The left carotid common artery (LCCA) was injured by removal of endothelium with a flexible wire in Kunming mice. EPCs were collected by in vitro culture of spleen-derived mouse mononuclear cells (MNCs). EPCs labeling was carried out in vitro using Fe2O3-poly-L-lysine (Fe2O3-PLL). In vivo serial MR imaging was performed to follow-up the injured artery at different time points after intravenous transfusion of EPCs. Vessel wall areas of injured artery were computed on T2WI. Larger MR signal voids of vessel wall on T2WI was revealed in all 6 mice of the labeled EPC transfusion group 15 days after LCCA injury, and it was found only in 1 mouse in the unlabeled EPC transfusion group (p = 0.015). Quantitative analyses of vessel wall areas on T2WI showed that the vessel wall areas of labeled EPC transfusion group were less than those of unlabeled EPC transfusion group and control group fifteen days after artery injury (p<0.05). Histopathological analyses confirmed accumulation and distribution of transfused EPCs at the injury site of LCCA. Conclusions/Significance These data indicate that MR imaging might be used as an in vivo method for the tracking of EPCs homing to the endothelium injured artery.
Functional Characterization of Bacterial Communities Responsible for Fermentation of Doenjang: A Traditional Korean Fermented Soybean Paste

Doenjang samples were prepared in triplicate and their microbial abundance, bacterial communities, and metabolites throughout fermentation were analyzed to investigate the functional properties of microorganisms in doenjang. Viable bacterial cells were approximately three orders of magnitude higher than fungal cells, suggesting that bacteria are more responsible for doenjang fermentation. Pyrosequencing and proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy were applied for the analysis of bacterial communities and metabolites, respectively. Bacterial community analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that doenjang samples included Bacillus, Enterococcus, Lactobacillus, Clostridium, Staphylococcus, Corynebacterium, Oceanobacillus, and Tetragenococcus. These genera were found either in doenjang-meju or solar salts, but not in both, suggesting two separate sources of bacteria. Bacillus and Enterococcus were dominant genera during the fermentation, but their abundances were not associated with metabolite changes, suggesting that they may not be major players in doenjang fermentation. Tetragenococcus was dominant in 108 day-doenjang samples, when lactate, acetate, putrescine, and tyramine increased quickly as glucose and fructose decreased, indicating that Tetragenococcus might be primarily responsible for organic acid and biogenic amine production. Lactobacillus was identified as a dominant group from the 179-day samples, associated with the increase of γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and the decrease of galactose, indicating a potential role for this genus as a major GABA producer during fermentation. The results of this study clarified the functional properties of major bacterial communities in the doenjang fermentation process, contributing to the production of safe and high-quality doenjang.
Spatial Relations, Minimum Bounding Rectangles, and Spatial Data Structures

Spatial relations are important in numerous domains, such as Spatial Query Languages, Image and Multimedia Databases, Reasoning and Geographic Applications. This paper is concerned with the retrieval of topological and direction relations using spatial data structures based on Minimum Bounding Rectangles. We describe topological and direction relations between region objects and we study the spatial information that Minimum Bounding Rectangles convey about the actual objects they enclose. Then we apply the results in R-trees and their variations, R-trees and R*-trees, in order to minimize the number of disk accesses for queries involving topological and direction relations. We also investigate queries that express complex conditions in the form of disjunctions and conjunctions, and discuss possible extensions.
A Peripheral Mechanism for Behavioral Adaptation to Specific “Bitter” Taste Stimuli in an Insect

Animals have evolved several chemosensory systems for detecting potentially dangerous foods in the environment. Activation of specific sensory cells within these chemosensory systems usually elicits an aversive behavioral response, leading to avoidance of the noxious foods. Although this aversive behavioral response can be adaptive, there are many instances in which it generates “false alarms,” causing animals to reject harmless foods. To minimize the number of false alarms, animals have evolved a variety of physiological mechanisms for selectively adapting their aversive behavioral response to harmless noxious compounds. We examined the mechanisms underlying exposure-induced adaptation to specific “bitter” compounds inManduca sexta caterpillars. M. sextaexhibits an aversive behavioral response to many plant-derived compounds that taste bitter to humans, including caffeine and aristolochic acid. This aversive behavioral response is mediated by three pairs of bitter-sensitive taste cells: one responds vigorously to aristolochic acid alone, and the other two respond vigorously to both caffeine and aristolochic acid. We found that 24 hr of exposure to a caffeinated diet desensitized all of the caffeine-responsive taste cells to caffeine but not to aristolochic acid. In addition, we found that dietary exposure to caffeine adapted the aversive behavioral response of the caterpillar to caffeine, but not to aristolochic acid. We propose that the adapted aversive response to caffeine was mediated directly by the desensitized taste cells and that the adapted aversive response did not generalize to aristolochic acid because the signaling pathway for this compound was insulated from that for caffeine.
Workplace Democracy: A Review of Literature and Implications for Human Resource Development

Recent political, social and economic shifts have significantly changed the way work is carried out and in turn the democratization of organizations has suffered (Deetz, 1992). Technology, globalization, flatter organizational structures, improved skills and competencies and the need to manage knowledge prima facie offer workers opportunities to participate in decision-making and fully experience workplace democracy. It is axiomatic that as work becomes more technological and workers have more access to information that democracy would emerge. However, worker freedoms have shown little sign of increasing and with globalization of the workplace the hope of