Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Aflatoxin Regulations in a Network of Global Maize Trade

Worldwide, food supplies often contain unavoidable contaminants, many of which adversely affect health and hence are subject to regulations of maximum tolerable levels in food. These regulations differ from nation to nation, and may affect patterns of food trade. We soughtto determine whether there is an association between nations' food safety regulations and global food trade patterns, with implications for public health and policymaking. We developed a network model of maize trade around the world. From maize import/export data for 217 nations from 2000–2009, we calculated basic statistics on volumes of trade; then examined how regulations of aflatoxin, a common contaminant of maize, are similar or different between pairs of nations engaging in significant amounts of maize trade. Globally, market segregation appears to occur among clusters of nations. The United States is at the center of one cluster; European countries make up another cluster with hardly any maize trade with the US; and Argentina, Brazil, and China export maize all over the world. Pairs of nations trading large amounts of maize have very similar aflatoxin regulations: nations with strict standards tend to trade maize with each other, while nations with more relaxed standards tend to trade maize with each other. Rarely among the top pairs of maize-trading nations do total aflatoxin standards (standards based on the sum of the levels of aflatoxins B1, B2, G1, and G2) differ by more than 5 µg/kg. These results suggest that, globally, separate maize trading communities emerge; and nations tend to trade with other nations that have very similar food safety standards.
Predicting Protein-Protein Interaction Sites using Radial Basis Function Neural Networks

Identifying protein-protein interaction sites is crucial for understanding of the principles of biological systems and processes, as well as mutant design. This paper describes a novel method that can predict protein interaction sites in heterocomplexes using information of evolutionary conservation and spatial sequence profile. A predictor was generated to distinguish the interface residues from protein surface region by radial basis neural networks, which is trained by expectation maximization algorithm. Based on a non-redundant data set of heterodimers consisting of 75 protein chains, the efficiency and the effectiveness of our proposed approach can be validated by a better performance such as the accuracy of 0.60, the sensitivity of 58.3% and the specificity of 59.9%.
Discovery of a Double Ring in the Dwarf Galaxy Markarian 409

We report the discovery of a double ring of emission-line regions around the nucleus of the blue compact dwarf galaxy Mrk 409 as seen by deep, ground-based Hα images. Echelle spectroscopy obtained at Magellan I with MIKE shows the presence of ionized gas flowing out of the galaxy from a very massive (≥7 × 106 M☉) nuclear starburst with projected expansion velocities of ~50 km s-1. Different scenarios for the formation of these rings are discussed. While the innermost, nuclear ring is most probably formed by the interaction of a starburst-driven shock with the surrounding interstellar medium, the origin of the outer ring is less clear.
CellsActivation of Macrophages/Antigen-Presenting Immunization Through In Vivo Transfection and Specific Immune Induction Following DNA-Based

The initiation of an adaptive immune response requires Ag presentation in combination with the appropriate activation signals. Classically, Ag presentation and immune activation occur in the lymph node and spleen, where a favorable organ architecture and rich cellular help can enhance the process. Recently, several investigators have reported the use of DNA expression cassettes to elicit cellular and humoral immunity against diverse pathogens. Although the immune mechanisms involved are still poorly understood, plasmid inoculation represents a model system for studying immune function in response to invading pathogens. In this report, we demonstrate the presence of activated macrophages or dendritic cells in the blood lymphocyte pool and peripheral tissues of animals inoculated with DNA expression cassettes. These cells are directly transfected in vivo, present Ag, and display the surface proteins CD80 and CD86. Our studies indicate that these cells function as APC and can activate naive T lymphocytes. They may represent an important ﬁrst step APC in genetic immunization and natural infection. The Journal of Immunology, 1998, 160: 5707–5718.
Multi-user sum-rate capacity for ultra-wideband radio

This paper studies the fundamental transmission limits for ultra wideband (UWB) downlink broadcast channels. The significant contribution of this article is demonstrating the effectiveness of adaptive frequency allocation in UWB systems. We derive an expression for the ergodic sum-rate capacity of an UWB channel with perfect channel knowledge, and show the advantage of an adaptive system that uses channel state information (CSI), over a conventional, non-adaptive system. A capacity achieving system is also proposed. In this system, the transmitter assigns each frequency band to the user that has the best channel gain, and adaptively changes the bandwidth allocation according to the known channel state. The sum-rate capacity can be achieved in a fast fading channel. For a slow fading channel the system must apply fair scheduling to ensure service to all users, and the optimization must be performed for each channel realization. In this case, we also take advantage of the wide bandwidth of the UWB system and show the advantage of an frequency adaptive systems over non frequency adaptive systems
The Lyman-alpha forest and heavy-element systems of GB1759+7539

We present observations of the high-redshift QSO GB1759+7539 (zem=3.05) obtained with HIRES on the 10-m Keck telescope. The spectrum has a resolution of FWHM=7 km s-1, and a typical signal-to-noise ratio per 2 km s−1 pixel of ∼25 in the Lyα forest region, and ∼60 longward of the Lyα emission. The observed Lyα forest systems have a mean redshift of 〈z〉=2.7. The H i column density distribution is well described by a power-law distribution with index β=1.68±0.15 in the range 13.5<log N<14.5. The Doppler width distribution is consistent with a Gaussian distribution of mean b=26 km s-1, and standard deviation σ=12 km s-1, with a cut-off at b=20 km s-1. There is marginal evidence of clustering along the line of sight over the velocity range 100<Δv<250 km s-1. The one-point and two-point joint probability distributions of the transmitted flux for the Lyα forest are calculated, and shown to be very insensitive to the heavy-element contamination. We could find no evidence of Voigt profile departures caused by infalling gas, as observed in the simulated forest spectra. 12 heavy-element absorption systems were identified, including damped Lyman-alpha (DLA) systems at zabs=2.62 and 2.91. The C, N, O, Al, Si, P, S, Mg, Fe and Ni absorption features of these systems were studied, and the elemental abundances calculated for the weak unsaturated lines. The systems have metallicities of Z2.62≃1/20 Z⊙ and Z2.91≃1/45 Z⊙. Both systems appear to have a low dust content. They show an overabundance of α-elements relative to Fe-peak elements, and an underabundance of odd atomic number elements relative to even. Nitrogen was observed in both systems, and found to be underabundant relative to oxygen, in line with the time-delay model of primary nitrogen production. C ii* was also seen, allowing us to determine an upper limit to the cosmic microwave background temperature at z=2.62 of TCMB<12.9 K.
Toll-like receptors in prostate infection and cancer between bench and bedside

Toll‐Like receptors (TLRs) are a family of evolutionary conserved transmembrane proteins that recognize highly conserved molecules in pathogens. TLR‐expressing cells represent the first line of defence sensing pathogen invasion, triggering innate immune responses and subsequently priming antigen‐specific adaptive immunity. In vitro and in vivo studies on experimental cancer models have shown both anti‐ and pro‐tumoural activity of different TLRs in prostate cancer, indicating these receptors as potential targets for cancer therapy. In this review, we highlight the intriguing duplicity of TLR stimulation by pathogens: their protective role in cases of acute infections, and conversely their negative role in favouring hyperplasia and/or cancer onset, in cases of chronic infections. This review focuses on the role of TLRs in the pathophysiology of prostate infection and cancer by exploring the biological bases of the strict relation between TLRs and prostate cancer. In particular, we highlight the debated question of how reliable mutations or deregulated expression of TLRs are as novel diagnostic or prognostic tools for prostate cancer. So far, the anticancer activity of numerous TLR ligands has been evaluated in clinical trials only in organs other than the prostate. Here we review recent clinical trials based on the most promising TLR agonists in oncology, envisaging a potential application also in prostate cancer therapy.
Corruption and Political Participation in Hungary: Testing Models of Civic Engagement

Extant literature concludes that corruption may have a devastating effect on economic growth and institutional trust in transitional democracies, but scholars remain divided on how malfeasance influences political behavior. In this article, we explore the likelihood of a mobilization effect of corruption in a post-communist setting. We argue that the indicators used in previous scholarship on corruption vary in important ways and may affect citizen incentives for participation differently. In particular, we hypothesize and then assess whether actual experience with bribery, perceptions of widespread corruption, and concerns about increase of corruption in the future encourage individuals to engage in different sets of activities. Original data from a 2014 post-election survey in Hungary are used for empirical tests of several regression models. Our findings suggest that the type of corruption assessment is important for the specific political activity in which a citizen would engage.
Studies of Olfactory System Neural Plasticity: The Contribution of the Unilateral Naris Occlusion Technique

Unilateral naris occlusion has long been the method of choice for effecting stimulus deprivation in studies of olfactory plasticity. A significant body of literature speaks to the myriad consequences of this manipulation on the ipsilateral olfactory pathway. Early experiments emphasized naris occlusion's deleterious and age-critical effects. More recent studies have focused on life-long vulnerability, particularly on neurogenesis, and compensatory responses to deprivation. Despite the abundance of empirical data, a theoretical framework in which to understand the many sequelae of naris occlusion on olfaction has been elusive. This paper focuses on recent data, new theories, and underappreciated caveats related to the use of this technique in studies of olfactory plasticity.
The sedimentation of flexible filaments

Abstract The dynamics of a flexible filament sedimenting in a viscous fluid are explored analytically and numerically. Compared with the well-studied case of sedimenting rigid rods, the introduction of filament compliance is shown to cause a significant alteration in the long-time sedimentation orientation and filament geometry. A model is developed by balancing viscous, elastic and gravitational forces in a slender-body theory for zero-Reynolds-number flows, and the filament dynamics are characterized by a dimensionless elasto-gravitation number. Filaments of both non-uniform and uniform cross-sectional thickness are considered. In the weakly flexible regime, a multiple-scale asymptotic expansion is used to obtain expressions for filament translations, rotations and shapes. These are shown to match excellently with full numerical simulations. Furthermore, we show that trajectories of sedimenting flexible filaments, unlike their rigid counterparts, are restricted to a cloud whose envelope is determined by the elasto-gravitation number. In the highly flexible regime we show that a filament sedimenting along its long axis is susceptible to a buckling instability. A linear stability analysis provides a dispersion relation, illustrating clearly the competing effects of the compressive stress and the restoring elastic force in the buckling process. The instability travels as a wave along the filament opposite the direction of gravity as it grows and the predicted growth rates are shown to compare favourably with numerical simulations. The linear eigenmodes of the governing equation are also studied, which agree well with the finite-amplitude buckled shapes arising in simulations.
Protective Effect of Qiliqiangxin Capsule on Energy Metabolism and Myocardial Mitochondria in Pressure Overload Heart Failure Rats

Qiliqiangxin capsule (QL) was developed under the guidance of TCM theory of collateral disease and had been shown to be effective and safe for the treatment of heart failure. The present study explored the role of and mechanism by which the herbal compounds QL act on energy metabolism, in vivo, in pressure overload heart failure. SD rats received ascending aorta constriction (TAC) to establish a model of myocardial hypertrophy. The animals were treated orally for a period of six weeks. QL significantly inhibited cardiac hypertrophy due to ascending aortic constriction and improved hemodynamics. This effect was linked to the expression levels of the signaling factors in connection with upregulated energy and the regulation of glucose and lipid substrate metabolism and with a decrease in metabolic intermediate products and the protection of mitochondrial function. It is concluded that QL may regulate the glycolipid substrate metabolism by activating AMPK/PGC-1α axis and reduce the accumulation of free fatty acids and lactic acid, to protect cardiac myocytes and mitochondrial function.
Influence of the Aqueous Environment on Protein Structure - A Plausible Hypothesis Concerning the Mechanism of Amyloidogenesis

The aqueous environment is a pervasive factor which, in many ways, determines the protein folding process and consequently the activity of proteins. Proteins are unable to perform their function unless immersed in water (membrane proteins excluded from this statement). Tertiary conformational stabilization is dependent on the presence of internal force fields (nonbonding interactions between atoms), as well as an external force field generated by water. The hitherto the unknown structuralization of water as the aqueous environment may be elucidated by analyzing its effects on protein structure and function. Our study is based on the fuzzy oil drop model—a mechanism which describes the formation of a hydrophobic core and attempts to explain the emergence of amyloid-like fibrils. A set of proteins which vary with respect to their fuzzy oil drop status (including titin, transthyretin and a prion protein) have been selected for in-depth analysis to suggest the plausible mechanism of amyloidogenesis.
Musketeer: all for one, one for all in data processing systems

Many systems for the parallel processing of big data are available today. Yet, few users can tell by intuition which system, or combination of systems, is "best" for a given workflow. Porting workflows between systems is tedious. Hence, users become "locked in", despite faster or more efficient systems being available. This is a direct consequence of the tight coupling between user-facing front-ends that express workflows (e.g., Hive, SparkSQL, Lindi, GraphLINQ) and the back-end execution engines that run them (e.g., MapReduce, Spark, PowerGraph, Naiad). We argue that the ways that workflows are defined should be decoupled from the manner in which they are executed. To explore this idea, we have built Musketeer, a workflow manager which can dynamically map front-end workflow descriptions to a broad range of back-end execution engines. Our prototype maps workflows expressed in four high-level query languages to seven different popular data processing systems. Musketeer speeds up realistic workflows by up to 9x by targeting different execution engines, without requiring any manual effort. Its automatically generated back-end code comes within 5%--30% of the performance of hand-optimized implementations.
Dry and flexible elastomer electrodes outperform similar hydrogel and Ag/AgCl electrodes

Dry and flexible electrodes were prepared by using an electrically conductive silicone elastomer containing silver fillers, patent pending. The conductive silicone elastomers have been known to exhibit sufficiently low electrical resistivity for measurement of biological signals. The aim of this study was to characterize the dry silicone elastomer electrode with respect to the impedance of the electrode-skin interface, and to compare it with commercially available surface stimulating electrodes. With the exception of one electrode, the dry silver-filled silicone electrodes surpassed the traditional hydrogel and pre-gelled silver/silver chloride electrodes of the same size and composition and exhibited lower skin-to-electrode impedance at low frequency ranges.
Experiencias de formación como investigadores educativos de estudiantes de un programa de doctorado en educación

Entre los estudios que en Mexico abordan, al menos parcialmente, la formacion de investigadores en educacion, predominan los de tipo diagnostico y de reportes de diversos datos estadisticos vinculados al estado que guardan los programas de doctorado. Sin embargo, se dejan de lado las experiencias vividas por los estudiantes durante el proceso de formacion doctoral. El objetivo de la investigacion es describir, interpretar y clasificar las experiencias del estudiante durante su proceso formativo, a traves de los componentes formativos de tipo personal (experiencial), academico (estructurante) e institucional (estructural). La investigacion es de tipo cualitativo, descriptivo e interpretativo, se utilizo el relato de 20 participantes, 34% de la poblacion. De 20 relatos se derivaron 89 vinetas en las que se identificaron y codificaron 7 categorias tipologicas: 3 tipos de narrativa segun la organizacion cognitiva del relato y 4 tipos de apreciacion emocional de la experiencia. Se identificaron y codificaron en 4 categorias 20 dimensiones de la experiencia. Se concluye que la experiencia formativa del estudiante en este programa de doctorado, transita en un proceso adaptativo, que implica un anclaje de interaccion y contraste, de sus competencias academicas y condiciones personales con los soportes del programa y la cobertura del plan de estudios.
Effect of fortified complementary food supplementation on child growth in rural Bangladesh: a cluster-randomized trial

A five‐arm RCT was conducted in rural Bangladesh to test the effect of two local, lipid‐based foods (chickpea and rice‐lentil), WSB++ and Plumpy'doz (PD) provided daily to children (n=5536) from 6 to 18 mo with nutrition counseling vs. nutrition counseling alone (control) on outcomes of stunting, wasting and growth. The daily food portions provided substantial proportions of micronutrient requirements and ~125 and 250 kcal of energy to children from 6 until 12 and 12 until 18 mo of age, respectively. Anthropometric measurements were taken at 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18 mo of age. Growth deceleration occurred in all groups from 6 to 18 mo of age but monthly deceleration in LAZ and length was lower in the PD, chickpea and rice‐lentil groups, and when adjusted for baseline, in the WSB++ group. Mean length and LAZ at 18 months were significantly higher by 0·27‐0·30 cm and 0.07‐0.10, respectively, and length deficits lower by 0·23‐0·27 cm in all four food groups. The prevalence of stunting was lower by 4‐6% in the PD, chickpea, and WSB++ groups. Prevalence of wasting at 18 mo was not different between groups, but cumulative incidence was lower by 17% in the PDz group (relative risk: 0·83, 95% CI: 0·72, 0·97). Foods provided in the study were deemed equivalent to PD.
A detailed physical model for ion implant induced damage in silicon

A unified physically based ion implantation damage model has been developed which successfully predicts both the impurity profiles and the damage profiles for a wide range of implant conditions for arsenic, phosphorus, BF/sub 2/, and boron implants into single-crystal silicon. In addition, the amorphous layer thicknesses predicted by this new damage model are also in excellent agreement with experimental measurements. This damage model is based on the physics of point defects in silicon, and explicitly simulates the defect production, diffusion, and their interactions which include interstitial-vacancy recombination, clustering of same type of defects, defect-impurity complex formation, emission of mobile defects from clusters, and surface effects for the first time. New computationally efficient algorithms have been developed to overcome the barrier of the excessive computational requirements. In addition, the new model has been incorporated in the UT-MARLOWE ion implantation simulator, and has been developed primarily for use in engineering workstations. This damage model is the most physical model in the literature to date within the framework of the binary collision approximation (BCA), and provides the required, accurate as-implanted impurity profiles and damage profiles for transient enhanced diffusion (TED) simulation.
Cardiovascular Consequences of Cortisol Excess

Cushing's syndrome is a consequence of primary or, more commonly, secondary oversecretion of cortisol. Cardiovascular disease is the major cause of morbidity and mortality in Cushing's syndrome, and excess risk remains even in effectively treated patients. The cardiovascular consequences of cortisol excess are protean and include, inter alia, elevation of blood pressure, truncal obesity, hyperinsulinemia, hyperglycemia, insulin resistance, and dyslipidemia. This review analyses the relationship of cortisol excess, both locally and at tissue level, to these cardiovascular risk factors, and to putative mechanisms for hypertension. Previous studies have examined correlations between cortisol, blood pressure, and other parameters in the general population and in Cushing's syndrome. This review also details changes induced by short-term cortisol administration in normotensive healthy men.
The reliability of user authentication through keystroke dynamics

When typing on a keyboard a user can be authenticated through what he/she types (username, password), but also through how he/she types, that is, through keystroke dynamics. We study whether authentication through keystroke dynamics is sufficiently reliable as a security instrument to be used together with the more standard instruments. Based on a data set of 1254 participants who typed the same username and password, 20 times each, we develop a test statistic and obtain the power of our test. We conclude that keystroke dynamics can be a reliable security instrument for authentication, if used together with other instruments. It seems more suitable for authentication (verification) than for identification. Dwell times (how long a key is held pressed) are more discriminatory and therefore more powerful than flight times (time between consecutive press times).