Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Immunosurveillance and Immunoediting of Breast Cancer via Class I MHC Receptors

How NK cells are involved in immunosurveillance of solid tumors was examined using mice with and without inhibitory NK receptors. Tumors were molded by environmental immune pressure, editing MHC class I expression as needed to evade immunity. Ly49 receptors, which recognize “self” class I major histocompatibility complex (MHC-I) molecules, enable natural killer (NK) cells to detect loss of MHC-I expression on transformed and virally infected cells. The impact of NK cell–mediated MHC-I surveillance on immunoediting of breast cancer is still not fully understood. This work assesses the impact of Ly49 receptors on tumor development in terms of cancer control and in driving immune-evading cancer mutations. Genetically modified Ly49-deficient mice and those lacking NK cells through antibody depletion were less able to control E0771-derived mammary tumors in an MHC-I–dependent fashion. Similarly, Ly49-deficient MMTV-PyVT–transgenic mice developed spontaneous mammary tumors faster than Ly49-sufficient MMTV-PyVT mice. Fewer CD69+ and granzyme B+ NK cells were detected among the tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes in Ly49-deficient than in Ly49-sufficient MMTV-PyVT mice. Furthermore, tumors from Ly49-deficient mice displayed reduced MHC-I expression, suggesting that tumors growing in these mice lacked an Ly49-derived pressure to maintain MHC-I expression. These same MHC-I-low tumors from Ly49-deficient mice were unable to flourish when transferred to Ly49-sufficient hosts, confirming that this tumor mutation was in response to an Ly49-deficient environment. This work demonstrates a role for Ly49 receptors in the control of mammary cancer, and provides evidence to support a model of tumor immunoediting, in which selective pressures from the immune system drive immune-evasive cancer mutations. Cancer Immunol Res; 5(11); 1016–28. ©2017 AACR.
Cell-mediated immunity and specific serum factors in human cancer: the leukocyte adherence inhibition test.

Blood leukocytes from patients with cancer (malignant melanoma; adenocarcinoma of colon, rectum, and breast) reacted with aqueous extracts of tumors of the corresponding type, with the result that adherence of the leu kocytes to glass was diminished. Leukocytes from normal individuals did not react. The leukocyte adherence inhibition (LAI) test could be completed in a few hours. Sera from tumor-bearing patients blocked the LAI reaction of their own leukocytes or leukocytes from other patients with the same type of tumor. Serum blocking activity was lost soon after surgical removal of the tumor; the patient’s serum then became unblocking. The LAI technique gave consistent results in a series of patients, analogous to those reported with the lymphocyte cytotoxicity test, and was easier and quicker.
Religion among Academic Scientists: Distinctions, Disciplines, and Demographics

The religiosity of scientists is a persistent topic of interest and debate among both popular and academic commentators. Researchers look to this population as a case study for understanding the intellectual tensions between religion and science and the possible secularizing effects of education. There is little systematic study, however, of religious belief and identity among academic scientists at elite institutions, leaving a lacuna of knowledge in this area. This absence of data exists at a time when the intersection between religion and science is reaching heightened public attention. Especially with increased tensions surrounding teaching evolution in the public schools, understanding what kind of resources scientists have (particularly in terms of their own religious beliefs and practices) to transmit science to a broader religiously-motivated public is crucial. Using data from a recent survey of academic scientists at twenty-one elite U.S. research universities, we compare the religious beliefs and practices of natural and social scientists within seven disciplines as well as academic scientists to the general population. We find that field-specific and interdisciplinary differences are not as significant in predicting religiosity as other research suggests. Instead, demographic factors such as age, marital status, and presence of children in the household are the strongest predictors of religious difference among scientists. In particular, religiosity in the home as a child is the most important predictor of present religiosity among this group of scientists. We discuss the relevance these findings have for understanding issues related to current theory and public debate about the intersection between religion and science.
Effect of Nutrients on Physiological Properties of Clostridium botulinum Type E

Eight strains of Clostridium botulinum type E out of twelve tested showed good growth and normal cell morphology in a synthetic medium containing choline. Growth and toxin production by a representative strain was not influenced by repeated subculturing. In the chemically defined medium, acetylcholine, N,N-dimethylethanolamine, and lecithin could replace choline to get normal cell division and cell morphology of C. botulinum type E. Choline could not be replaced by ethanolamine, N-methylethanolamine, or betaine. A toxigenic strain of C. botulinum type E showed proteolytic, lipolytic, and lecithinase activity in complex media but not in a synthetic medium. On prolonged incubation in the high temperature range of growth, the toxicity of the culture filtrate decreased in a complex, but not in a synthetic medium. The implications of these findings are discussed.
Patrones motivacionales en estudiantes universitarios: características diferenciales

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar los patrones motivacionales en estudiantes universitarios y sus caracteristicas diferenciales en determinadas variables cognitivo-motivacionales (concepciones de capacidad, persistencia, capacidad percibida, estrategias de aprendizaje y rendimiento academico). Los resultados del estudio identificaron 3 "clusters" de estudiantes con distintas orientaciones motivacionales y con diferencias importantes en algunas variables cognitivo-motivacionales.
Group-signature schemes on constrained devices: the gap between theory and practice

Group-signature schemes allow members within a predefined group to prove specific properties without revealing more information than necessary. Potential areas of application include electronic IDs (eIDs) and smartcards, i.e., resource-constrained environments. Though literature provides many theoretical proposals for group-signature schemes, practical evaluations regarding the applicability of such mechanisms in resource-constrained environments are missing. In this work, we investigate four different group-signature schemes in terms of mathematical operations, signature length, and the proposed revocation mechanisms. We also use the RELIC toolkit to implement the two most promising of the investigated group-signature schemes---one of which is going to be standardized in ISO/IEC 20008---for the AVR microcontroller. This allows us to give practical insights into the applicability of pairings on the AVR microcontroller in general and the applicability of group-signature schemes in particular on the very same. Contrary to the general recommendation of precomputing and storing pairing evaluations if possible, we observed that the evaluation of pairings might be faster than computations on cached pairings.
Distances in the directed configuration model

We analyze the distribution of the distance between two nodes, sampled uniformly at random, in digraphs generated via the directed configuration model. Under the assumption that the covariance between the in-degree and out-degree is finite, we show that the distance grows logarithmically in the size of the graph. In contrast with the undirected case, this can happen even when the variance of the degrees is infinite. The main tool in the analysis is a new coupling between a breadth-first graph exploration process and a suitable branching process based on the Kantorovich-Rubinstein metric. This coupling holds uniformly for a much larger number of steps in the exploration process than existing ones, and is therefore of independent interest.
Macromolecules increase the channeling of ADP from externally associated hexokinase to the matrix of mitochondria.

Macromolecules can restore the morphological changes in the outer mitochondrial compartment that occur upon isolation of the organelle. They decrease the volume of the intermembrane space and increase the number of intermembrane contact sites. In this study, we investigated the effects of macromolecules on one of the processes occurring in the mitochondrial outer compartment and for which the native structure might be important, i.e. the ADP supply from outer-membrane-bound hexokinase-I to oxidative phosphorylation. With the use of a reconstituted system in which rat liver mitochondria and extramitochondrial pyruvate kinase compete for ADP generated by hexokinase, it was shown that (a) part of the ADP generated by mitochondrially associated hexokinase is not accessible to pyruvate kinase and is channeled into the mitochondrion, (b) in the presence of 10% (mass/vol.) macromolecules (i.e. dextran M20 or BSA) the pyruvate kinase inaccessible fraction increases from 19% to 31% of the ADP produced by hexokinase, (c) the ADP channeling is a characteristic property of bound hexokinase, and (d) the increased channeling induced by macromolecules can neither be explained by direct effects of these macromolecules on the basic respiratory properties of rat liver mitochondria, nor by direct effects of the kinetic properties of hexokinase-I. ATP and ADP determinations were performed in hexokinase/mitochondria incubation mixtures in the presence of macromolecules. These determinations showed that an important consequence of the channeling capacity of bound hexokinase is that lower extramitochondrial ADP levels and consequently higher extramitochondrial ATP/ADP ratios are maintained than when hexokinase is not bound. The experimental data demonstrate that the ADP channeling activity associated with bound hexokinase leads to the formation of two ADP concentration gradients, one across the outer membrane and one between bound hexokinase and the bulk phase.
Predicting "Essential" Genes across Microbial Genomes: A Machine Learning Approach

Essential genes constitute the minimal set of genes an organism needs for its survival. Identification of essential genes is of theoretical interest to genome biologist and has practical applications in medicine and biotechnology. This paper presents and evaluates machine learning approaches to the problem of predicting essential genes in microbial genomes using solely sequence derived input features. We investigate three different supervised classification methods -- Support Vector Machine (SVM), Artificial Neural Network (ANN), and Decision Tree (DT) -- for this binary classification task. The classifiers are trained and evaluated using 37830 examples obtained from 14 experimentally validated, taxonomically diverse microbial genomes whose essential genes are known. A set of 52 relevant genomic sequence derived features is used as input for the classifiers. The models were evaluated using novel blind testing schemes Leave-One-Genome-Out (LOGO) and Leave-One-Taxon-group-Out (LOTO) and 10-fold stratified cross validation (10-f-cv) strategy on both the full multi-genome datasets and its class imbalance reduced variants. Experimental results (10 X 10-f-cv) indicate SVM and ANN perform better than DT with Area under the Receiver Operating Characteristics (AU-ROC) scores of 0.80, 0.79 and 0.68 respectively. This study demonstrates that supervised machine learning methods can be used to predict essential genes in microbial genomes by using only gene sequence and features derived from it. LOGO and LOTO Blind test results suggest that the trained classifiers generalize across genomes and taxonomic boundaries.
Resonant Switched-Capacitor Voltage Regulator With Ideal Transient Response

A new, small and efficient voltage regulator, realized using a resonant switched-capacitor converter technology, is introduced. Voltage regulation is implemented by means of simple digital pulse density modulation. It displays an ideal transient response with a zero-order nature to all disturbance types. The newly developed topology acts as a gyrator with a wide range of voltage conversion ratios (below as well as above unity) with constant efficiency characteristics for the entire operation range. The operation of the voltage regulator is verified on a 20 W experimental prototype, demonstrating ideal transient recovery without over/undershoots in response to load and line transients. Simple design guidelines for the voltage regulation system are provided and verified by experiments.
Inhibition of DAI-dependent necroptosis by the Z-DNA binding domain of the vaccinia virus innate immune evasion protein, E3

Significance The host interferon system is a potent antiviral system, responsible for protecting vertebrate organisms against virus infection. In this paper we demonstrate that the N terminus of the vaccinia virus innate immune evasion protein, E3, is necessary to inhibit the action of interferon. Interferon-treated cells infected with virus encoding an E3 deleted of the N-terminal domain die rapidly. This death is dependent on the host RIPK3 protein, which is a mediator of programmed necrotic death, and on DAI, which is a sensor of virus infection. Since both E3 and DAI contain Z-DNA binding domains, we hypothesize that the cellular DAI virus sensor and the viral antiinterferon E3 protein compete for binding to a vaccinia virus-induced Z-nucleic acid, pathogen-associated molecular pattern. Vaccinia virus (VACV) encodes an innate immune evasion protein, E3, which contains an N-terminal Z-nucleic acid binding (Zα) domain that is critical for pathogenicity in mice. Here we demonstrate that the N terminus of E3 is necessary to inhibit an IFN-primed virus-induced necroptosis. VACV deleted of the Zα domain of E3 (VACV-E3LΔ83N) induced rapid RIPK3-dependent cell death in IFN-treated L929 cells. Cell death was inhibited by the RIPK3 inhibitor, GSK872, and infection with this mutant virus led to phosphorylation and aggregation of MLKL, the executioner of necroptosis. In 293T cells, induction of necroptosis depended on expression of RIPK3 as well as the host-encoded Zα domain-containing DNA sensor, DAI. VACV-E3LΔ83N is attenuated in vivo, and pathogenicity was restored in either RIPK3- or DAI-deficient mice. These data demonstrate that the N terminus of the VACV E3 protein prevents DAI-mediated induction of necroptosis.
Validation of a Reader Self Perception Scale (RSPS2) for Use in Grades 7 and Above

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Unprecedented Opportunities and Promise for Cancer Prevention Research

Cancer prevention encompasses a wide range of highly developed science and clinical impact. Enunciating these two aspects in the same breath highlights the crucial link between them. The breadth and excitement of current opportunities in the science of cancer prevention have never been greater. Major avenues of such research include the extent and effect of premalignancy, the molecular underpinnings of carcinogenesis and related prevention targets, in vitro model systems of the progression of normal human epithelial cells to tumorigenesis, molecular risk stratification and pharmacogenomic approaches, and many more. We describe the clinical impacts of cancer prevention (with examples in the areas of molecular targeting, vaccines, epidemiology, and behavioral science) and the stage-setting science that facilitated them. In addition, discussed are new prevention opportunities such as interactions between stromal and microenvironmental factors, the control of premalignant stem cell phenotypes through epigenetic reprogramming, and neoplastic cells and various stress responses including those involving telomere biology. The promise of this science, particularly integrative, interdisciplinary research, is to hasten the ability of clinical prevention to reduce the burden of cancer. Cancer Prev Res; 3(4); 394–402. ©2010 AACR.
A real-time bimanual 3D interaction method based on bare-hand tracking

We present a vision-based gesture interaction technique that is capable of tracking both hands in real-time. By only recovering features calculated from images, large amount of computation for 3D reconstructing and features tracking in 3D voxel grid is avoided. Thus, our system becomes an ideal tool for bimanual 3D gesture interaction, which needs neither markers nor gloves. Experimental results show that our method can complete the same pipeline with much less computational resource compared to existing ones. What's more, the application interface shows the effectiveness and intuitiveness of our bimanual tracking method.
Resilient 3D hierarchical architected metamaterials

Significance Fractal-like architectures exist in natural materials, like shells and bone, and have drawn considerable interest because of their mechanical robustness and damage tolerance. Developing hierarchically designed metamaterials remains a highly sought after task impaired mainly by limitations in fabrication techniques. We created 3D hierarchical nanolattices with individual beams comprised of multiple self-similar unit cells spanning length scales over four orders of magnitude in fractal-like geometries. We show, through a combination of experiments and computations, that introducing hierarchy into the architecture of 3D structural metamaterials enables the attainment of a unique combination of properties: ultralightweight, recoverability, and a near-linear scaling of stiffness and strength with density. Hierarchically designed structures with architectural features that span across multiple length scales are found in numerous hard biomaterials, like bone, wood, and glass sponge skeletons, as well as manmade structures, like the Eiffel Tower. It has been hypothesized that their mechanical robustness and damage tolerance stem from sophisticated ordering within the constituents, but the specific role of hierarchy remains to be fully described and understood. We apply the principles of hierarchical design to create structural metamaterials from three material systems: (i) polymer, (ii) hollow ceramic, and (iii) ceramic–polymer composites that are patterned into self-similar unit cells in a fractal-like geometry. In situ nanomechanical experiments revealed (i) a nearly theoretical scaling of structural strength and stiffness with relative density, which outperforms existing nonhierarchical nanolattices; (ii) recoverability, with hollow alumina samples recovering up to 98% of their original height after compression to ≥50% strain; (iii) suppression of brittle failure and structural instabilities in hollow ceramic hierarchical nanolattices; and (iv) a range of deformation mechanisms that can be tuned by changing the slenderness ratios of the beams. Additional levels of hierarchy beyond a second order did not increase the strength or stiffness, which suggests the existence of an optimal degree of hierarchy to amplify resilience. We developed a computational model that captures local stress distributions within the nanolattices under compression and explains some of the underlying deformation mechanisms as well as validates the measured effective stiffness to be interpreted as a metamaterial property.
Resources Flows Asymmetries in Strict Nash Networks with Partner Heterogeneity

This paper introduces a partner heterogeneity assumption in the one-way flow model of Bala and Goyal (2000, [1]). Our goal consists in the characterization of strict Nash networks with regard to the set of resources obtained by players. We use the notion of condensation network which allows us to divide the population in sets of players who obtain the same resources and we order these sets according to the resources obtained. Accordingly, we can examine the relationship between heterogeneity and asymmetries in networks. We establish that the nature of heterogeneity plays a crucial role on asymmetries observed in equilibrium networks.
An approximate Newton method for distributed optimization

Agents of a network have access to strongly convex local functions fi and attempt to minimize the aggregate function f(x) = Σi=1nfi(x) while relying on variable exchanges with neighboring nodes. Various methods to solve this distributed optimization problem exist but they all rely on first order information. This paper introduces Network Newton, a method that incorporates second order information via distributed evaluation of approximations to Newton steps. The method is shown to converge linearly and to do so while exhibiting a quadratic phase. Numerical analyses show substantial reductions in convergence times relative to existing (first order) alternatives.
Examining the language performances of children with and without specific language impairment: contributions of phonological short-term memory and speed of processing.

PURPOSE This study investigated the effects of processing speed and phonological short-term memory (PSTM) on children's language performance. METHOD Forty-eight school-age children with specific language impairment (SLI) and age peers completed auditory detection reaction time (RT) and nonword repetition tasks, the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Revised (CELF-R; E. Semel, E. Wiig, & W. Secord, 1987), and a word recognition RT task. Correlation and regression were used to determine unique and shared contributions to variance among measures. RESULTS Children with SLI were outperformed by age peers on each task. Auditory detection RT was correlated with nonword repetition (NWR) in each group. However, both variables covaried with age, and auditory detection RT did not contribute unique variance to NWR in either group. For the SLI group, NWR predicted unique variance in CELF-R performance (about 15%); auditory detection RT predicted a smaller amount of unique variance in the word recognition RT task (about 9%). CONCLUSION Processing speed and PSTM measures covaried with chronological age. Processing speed was associated with offline language performance only through association with PSTM. Processing speed contributed to online language performance, suggesting that speed is associated with processing more familiar language material (i.e., lexical content and structure) than less familiar material (e.g., various content on the CELF-R).
Dynamic partitioning of signature files

The signature file access method has proved to be a convenient indexing technique, in particular for text data Because it can deal with unformatted data, many application domains have shown interest in signature file techniques, e.g., office information systems, statistical and logic databases. We argue that multimedia databases should also take advantage of this method, provided convenient storage structures for organizing signature tiles are available, Our main concern here is the dynamic organization of signatures based on a partitioning paradigm called Quick Filter. A signature file is partitioned by a hashing function and the partitions are orgamzed by linear hashing, Thorough performance evaluation of the new scheme is provided, and it is compared with single-level and multdevel storage structures Results show that quick filter is economical in space and very convenient for applications dealing with large files of dynamic data, and where user queries result in signatures with high weights. These characteristics are particularly interesting for multimedia databases, where integrated access to attributes, text and images must be provided.