Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
FlpS, the FNR-Like Protein of Streptococcus suis Is an Essential, Oxygen-Sensing Activator of the Arginine Deiminase System

Streptococcus (S.) suis is a zoonotic pathogen causing septicemia and meningitis in pigs and humans. During infection S. suis must metabolically adapt to extremely diverse environments of the host. CcpA and the FNR family of bacterial transcriptional regulators are important for metabolic gene regulation in various bacteria. The role of CcpA in S. suis is well defined, but the function of the FNR-like protein of S. suis, FlpS, is yet unknown. Transcriptome analyses of wild-type S. suis and a flpS mutant strain suggested that FlpS is involved in the regulation of the central carbon, arginine degradation and nucleotide metabolism. However, isotopologue profiling revealed no substantial changes in the core carbon and amino acid de novo biosynthesis. FlpS was essential for the induction of the arcABC operon of the arginine degrading pathway under aerobic and anaerobic conditions. The arcABC-inducing activity of FlpS could be associated with the level of free oxygen in the culture medium. FlpS was necessary for arcABC-dependent intracellular bacterial survival but redundant in a mice infection model. Based on these results, we propose that the core function of S. suis FlpS is the oxygen-dependent activation of the arginine deiminase system.
Is CEO Certification of Earnings Numbers Value-Relevant?

On June 27, 2002, the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States ordered the CEOs and CFOs of 688 large firms to certify the earnings numbers of their companies by 5:30PM EST, Aug 14, 2002. This paper uses this natural experiment to find that certification was not only a non-event for the certifiers around their certification date, but it was also a non-event for the non-certifiers around Aug 15, 2002. Further tests make us conclude that CEO's certification of earnings numbers is not value-relevant.
Estrogen Abolishes Protective Effect of Erythropoietin against Cisplatin-Induced Nephrotoxicity in Ovariectomized Rats

Introduction. Nephrotoxicity is one the side effect of cisplatin therapy and erythropoietin has been candidate as a nephroprotectant agent. However, its nephroprotective effect when it is accompained with estrogen has not been studied in female. Methods. 27 ovariectomized female Wistar rats divided into five groups. Groups 1 & 2 received estradiol valerate (0.5 mg/kg/week) for four weeks, and single dose of cisplatin (7 mg/kg, ip) was administrated at the end of week 3. Then the group 1 was treated with erythropoietin (100 U/kg/day), and the group 2 received vehicle during week 4. Groups 3 and 4 were treated similar to group 1 and 2, except for placebo instead estradiol valerate. Group5 (negative control) received placebo during the study. Animals were killed at the end of week 4. Results. In non-erythropoietin treated rats, cisplatin significantly increased the serum levels of blood urea nitrogen and creatinine (P < 0.05). However, these biomarkers significantly decreased by erythropoietin (P < 0.05). The weight loss, kidney weight, and kidney tissue damage score in rats treated with cisplatin but without estradiol were significantly less than the values in similar group when estradiol was present (P < 0.05). Conclusion. It seems that erythropoietin could protect the kidney against cisplatin-induced nephrotoxicity. This protective effect was not observed when estrogen was present.
Self‐consistent response of a galactic disc to vertical perturbations

We study the self-consistent, linear response of a galactic disc to vertical perturbations, as induced say by a tidal interaction. We calculate the self-gravitational potential corresponding to a non-axisymmetric, self-consistent density response of the disc using the Green’s function method. The response potential is shown to oppose the perturbation potential because the self-gravity of the disc resists the imposed potential, and this resistence is stronger in the inner parts of a galactic disc. For the m = 1 azimuthal wavenumber, the disc response opposes the imposed perturbation upto a radius that spans a range of 4-6 disc scale-lengths, so that the disc shows a net warp only beyond this region. This physically explains the well-known but so far unexplained observation (Briggs 1990) that warps typically set in beyond this range of radii. We show that the inclusion of a dark matter halo in the calculation only marginally changes (by � 10%) the radius for the onset of warps. For perturbations with higher azimuthal wavenumbers, the net signature of the vertical perturbations can only be seen at larger radii - for example beyond 7 exponential disc scale-lengths for m = 10. Also, for high m cases, the magnitude of the negative disc response due to the disc self-gravity is much smaller. This is shown to result in corrugations of the mid-plane density, which explains the puzzling scalloping with m = 10 detected in HI in the outermost regions � 30kpc in the Galaxy by Kulkarni et al. (1982).
Who is out there?: exploring the effects of trust and perceived risk on saas adoption intentions

Software as a Service (SaaS) is a relatively new organizational application sourcing alternative, offering organizations the option to access applications--via the Internet--that are remotely hosted on offsite servers instead of installing equivalent applications in-house, thus presumably saving costs. Although SaaS has been offered since the late 1990s, so far it has not become a dominant sourcing alternative for organizational core applications, in spite of the fact that most leading IT companies now offer remotely-hosted organization-wide applications. This study conceptualized and empirically tested a model of the effects of the perceived risk of SaaS and trust in the SaaS vendor community on the organizational intention to adopt SaaS at this early stage of the SaaS market. Three novel, risk-related constructs were developed: perceived risk of SaaS, perceived risk of systems unavailability, and perceived risk of data insecurity. Likewise, three new trust-related constructs were also conceived: trust in the SaaS vendor community, perceived capabilities and perceived reputation of the SaaS vendor community. An empirical test of the model demonstrated the negative effect of perceived risk and the positive effects of trust in, and the reputation of, the SaaS vendor community, on the intention to adopt SaaS. Trust in the SaaS vendor community was also found to strongly affect all three risk concepts.
Cognitive deficits in narcolepsy

The aim of the investigations was to explore the nature and the severity of cognitive deficits in narcolepsy patients. In two studies, narcolepsy patients were compared with matched control subjects on a range of attention, memory and executive control tasks. Impairments were only observed on attention and executive function tasks which involved higher demands on inhibition or task management abilities whereas relatively routine memory and attention tasks yielded intact performance in narcolepsy patients. The overall pattern of results indicates an executive control deficit in narcolepsy which might be related to a reduction of available cognitive processing resources because of the need for continuous allocation of resources to monitoring and maintenance of vigilance.
The influence of income inequality on economic growth in less developed and developed countries

Income inequality has long been the economic, social, political, and moral concern for countries. The issue of attaining a fair income distribution of the fruits of economic growth and development has even grown in mportance through time. Despite an extensive literature on inequality and growth, there remains considerable disagreement on the effect of inequality on growth. This study attempts to empirically re-evaluate the relationship between income inequality and economic growth with dynamic panel data approach for panel of 56 countries from 1960-2000. Unlike the previous approaches, this study employ a novel approach, Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) on dynamic panel data, namely differenced-GMM estimator developed by Arellano and Bond (1991) and recently extended by Blundell and Bond (1998). Advantages of using the GMM estimators to handle the possible country-specific fixed effects such as geographical and time invariant institutional characteristics. Furthermore, these estimators appropriately deal with omitted variable bias due to time invariant country specific effect and tackle the issue of endogeneity and measurement error in the regressors. This study shows that the influenced of income inequality on growth rate of real per capita GDP is significantly negative. This result is rather robust to the use of different specifications and estimation methods that yielded conflicting results in different studies, despite having used the same data sources. This negative impact of inequality on growth much weaker and positive, and statistical insignificant, for developed countries; however, it remains and negative and robust for less developed countries. The present study also finds equality of income is positively correlated to growth. Political economic literatures postulate two major channels linking inequality to lower growth. This study re-examined these approaches and find that income inequality stimulates social and political tension in societies and in turn socio-political uncertainties depress economic growth. This findings support the first approach namely, socio-political instability. Finally, in the frame work of endogenous fiscal policy, a second approach, this study's results are not supportive for "median voter hypothesis". Estimated result of this approach strongly suggests the positive impact of taxation on growth rather than negative as theory predict. The "median voter" theory of political behavior implies that if median voter is poor than mean voter (the income distribution is positively skewed and thus more unequal), then the median voter will prefer a progressive taxation on investment designed to redistribute income through higher transfer payment, which may lead to slower per capita GDP economic growth. Thus, this dissertation results do not support the idea that more equal societies grow faster because they generate fewer demands for redistribution and therefore fewer distortion.
A Human Connectivity Model for Opportunistic Mobile Systems

Opportunistic networking protocols have recently started to emerge in different contexts, ranging from vehicular communications and remote populations connectivity to wildlife monitoring. These protocols are mainly based on the ability to exploit asynchronous communication among hosts who can act as carriers for the messages which are first stored and transported, and then delivered when the destination is reached. At the heart of these protocols is the concept of hosts colocation and connectivity patterns. Often, however, the protocols are evaluated using mobility models which tend not to mirror the connectivity patterns of the domain in which the protocol needs to be applied, failing to give insight into the performance of the protocols in realistic settings. In this paper we propose a different approach: based on the assumption that opportunistic networking protocols are based on colocation (and connectivity), we present a model for connectivity patterns, which can be extracted from real data. To validate our approach, we show how we used the Dartmouth Campus traces as one of the inputs of our framework to generate connectivity traces with a similar behaviour.
Relationship between Helicobacter pylori status and serum pepsinogens as serologic markers in atrophic gastritis.

BACKGROUND/AIMS Serum pepsinogen levels are considered as a non-endoscopic blood test in the diagnosis of atrophic gastritis. The objective of the present study was to investigate whether there is any difference between pepsinogen levels in Helicobacter pylori-positive and -negative patients with atrophic gastritis, and to analyze the relationship between histopathology and pepsinogen levels after treatment in H. pylori-positive patients with atrophic gastritis. METHODS The study enrolled a total of 30 cases with atrophic gastritis (18 H. pylori-positive and 12 H. pylori-negative). The H. pylori-positive cases received a one-week eradication treatment. Initially for all and after the treatment for H. pylori-positive cases, serum pepsinogen I and II levels, anti-H. pylori IgG titration and histopathologic analysis were carried out. RESULTS In the H. pylori-positive patients with atrophic gastritis, the levels of pepsinogen I and pepsinogen I/II ratio were lower while the levels of pepsinogen II were higher compared to the H. pylori-negative patients (p<0.05 for all). The post-treatment serum pepsinogen I levels and pepsinogen I/II ratios did not change in the H. pylori-positive group, while the levels of pepsinogen II, H. pylori antibody titration and gastric atrophy degree remarkably decreased (p<0.05 for all). CONCLUSIONS In atrophic gastritis, the levels of serum pepsinogen and pepsinogen I/II ratio show a difference in H. pylori-negative versus -positive cases. Additionally, the usage of pepsinogen II as a serum marker in predicting the eradication of H. pylori with atrophic gastritis could be more reliable than pepsinogen I or the I/II ratio.
Evaluating Usability of an Electronic Health Record Smartphrase: Triage Nurses Use and Perceptions

Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems have the potential to be beneficial, but healthcare vendors are challenged to find ways to make them easier to work with and more productive. Systems and tools should be designed to enable nurse-patient engagement, seamlessly fit into practice, and be based on workflow needs. The usability of EHR systems is probably the key factor in making the design of the system fit healthcare providers’ workflow and display patient information clearly. A quantitative descriptive, non-experimental study was conducted to evaluate the usability of a new SmartPhrase interface tool embedded into the Epic EHR system. Twenty-three telephone triage nurses in a multi-site cancer center, located within the largest healthcare system in Rhode Island, were involved in designing and testing the interface tool. The task of the SmartPhrase tool is to permit quick and easy insertion of pretexted symptom assessment cues or phrases into a patient’s EHR. The SmartPhrase tool evolved as a basic unit of the Epic EHR in the Lifespan system, specifically as an electronic documentation feature that permits nurses to use pre-formatted text, statements, or structure note templates for cuing documentation. The specific SmartPhrase tool was developed in the context of a larger parent study to improve standardized telephone-triage symptom assessment for cancer patients. Generalized Linear Mixed Model was used to evaluate the usability of an EHR SmartPhrase tool to (1) determine the relationship between telephone triage nurses’ years of experience (in nursing, telephone triage, and oncology) and their perception of the usability of the SmartPhrase tool; (2) assess changes in self-perceived job performance six months following SmartPhrase implementation; and (3) determine the relationship between the telephone triage nurses’ evaluation of the SmartPhrase tool usability and actual tool utilization. The SmartPhrase tool, as evaluated by telephone triage nurses, was not perceived as particularly useful. Although the usability score was at an acceptable level, this may be indicative of usability problems requiring improvement. The variable contributing to the negative perception was years of oncology experience. The study results supported the premise that whereas high usability would increase self-perceived job performance, low usability would not do so or would decrease job performance. That is, more experienced oncology nurses are less likely to use the SmartPhrase tool. This result is useful and supports findings on fitting technology the workflow task in literature. For a tool to increase job performance, the tool must be highly useful.
Cooperative Astrocyte and Dendritic Spine Dynamics at Hippocampal Excitatory Synapses

Accumulating evidence is redefining the importance of neuron–glial interactions at synapses in the CNS. Astrocytes form “tripartite” complexes with presynaptic and postsynaptic structures and regulate synaptic transmission and plasticity. Despite our understanding of the importance of neuron–glial relationships in physiological contexts, little is known about the structural interplay between astrocytes and synapses. In the past, this has been difficult to explore because studies have been hampered by the lack of a system that preserves complex neuron–glial relationships observed in the brain. Here we present a system that can be used to characterize the intricate relationship between astrocytic processes and synaptic structures in situ using organotypic hippocampal slices, a preparation that retains the three-dimensional architecture of astrocyte–synapse interactions. Using time-lapse confocal imaging, we demonstrate that astrocytes can rapidly extend and retract fine processes to engage and disengage from motile postsynaptic dendritic spines. Surprisingly, astrocytic motility is, on average, higher than its dendritic spine counterparts and likely relies on actin-based cytoskeletal reorganization. Changes in astrocytic processes are typically coordinated with changes in spines, and astrocyte–spine interactions are stabilized at larger spines. Our results suggest that dynamic structural changes in astrocytes help control the degree of neuron–glial communication at hippocampal synapses.
Broad-Line Radio Galaxies: Jet Contribution to the Nuclear X-Ray Continuum

It is shown that for broad-line radio galaxies the strength of the nonthermal beamed radiation, when present, is always smaller than the accretion flow by a factor of <0.7 in the 2-10 keV band. This result has been obtained using the procedure adopted for disentangling the flat-spectrum radio quasar 3C 273. Although this implies a significantly smaller nonthermal flux in radio galaxies when compared to blazars, the jet component, if present, could be important at very high energies and thus easily detectable with GLAST.
The ROSAT Brightest Cluster Sample (BCS): The Cluster X-Ray Luminosity Function within z = 0.3

We present and discuss the X-ray luminosity function (XLF) of the ROSAT Brightest Cluster sample (BCS), an X-ray flux limited sample of clusters of galaxies in the northern hemisphere compiled from ROSAT All-Sky Survey data. The BCS allows the local cluster XLF to be determined with unprecedented accuracy over almost three decades in X-ray luminosity and provides an important reference for searches for cluster evolution at higher redshifts. We find the significance of evolution in both the XLF amplitude and in the characteristic cluster luminosity LX⋆ to be less than 1.8 σ within the redshift range covered by our sample thereby disproving previous claims of strong evolution within z ≲ 0.2.
Exploring the Roles of the Metal Ions in Escherichia coli Copper Amine Oxidase†,‡

To investigate the role of the active site copper in Escherichia coli copper amine oxidase (ECAO), we initiated a metal-substitution study. Copper reconstitution of ECAO (Cu-ECAO) restored only ∼12% wild-type activity as measured by kcat(amine). Treatment with EDTA, to remove exogenous divalent metals, increased Cu-ECAO activity but reduced the activity of wild-type ECAO. Subsequent addition of calcium restored wild-type ECAO and further enhanced Cu-ECAO activities. Cobalt-reconstituted ECAO (Co-ECAO) showed lower but significant activity. These initial results are consistent with a direct electron transfer from TPQ to oxygen stabilized by the metal. If a Cu(I)-TPQ semiquinone mechanism operates, then an alternative outer-sphere electron transfer must also exist to account for the catalytic activity of Co-ECAO. The positive effect of calcium on ECAO activity led us to investigate the peripheral calcium binding sites of ECAO. Crystallographic analysis of wild-type ECAO structures, determined in the presence and absence of EDTA, confirmed that calcium is the normal ligand of these peripheral sites. The more solvent exposed calcium can be easily displaced by mono- and divalent cations with no effect on activity, whereas removal of the more buried calcium ion with EDTA resulted in a 60−90% reduction in ECAO activity and the presence of a lag phase, which could be overcome under oxygen saturation or by reoccupying the buried site with various divalent cations. Our studies indicate that binding of metal ions in the peripheral sites, while not essential, is important for maximal enzymatic activity in the mature enzyme.
Predicting Domain Generation Algorithms with Long Short-Term Memory Networks

Various families of malware use domain generation algorithms (DGAs) to generate a large number of pseudo-random domain names to connect to a command and control (C&C) server. In order to block DGA C&C traffic, security organizations must first discover the algorithm by reverse engineering malware samples, then generating a list of domains for a given seed. The domains are then either preregistered or published in a DNS blacklist. This process is not only tedious, but can be readily circumvented by malware authors using a large number of seeds in algorithms with multivariate recurrence properties (e.g., banjori) or by using a dynamic list of seeds (e.g., bedep). Another technique to stop malware from using DGAs is to intercept DNS queries on a network and predict whether domains are DGA generated. Such a technique will alert network administrators to the presence of malware on their networks. In addition, if the predictor can also accurately predict the family of DGAs, then network administrators can also be alerted to the type of malware that is on their networks. This paper presents a DGA classifier that leverages long short-term memory (LSTM) networks to predict DGAs and their respective families without the need for a priori feature extraction. Results are significantly better than state-of-the-art techniques, providing 0.9993 area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for binary classification and a micro-averaged F1 score of 0.9906. In other terms, the LSTM technique can provide a 90% detection rate with a 1:10000 false positive (FP) rate---a twenty times FP improvement over comparable methods. Experiments in this paper are run on open datasets and code snippets are provided to reproduce the results.
Prosody guides the rapid mapping of auditory word forms onto visual objects in 6-mo-old infants

Human infants are predisposed to rapidly acquire their native language. The nature of these predispositions is poorly understood, but is crucial to our understanding of how infants unpack their speech input to recover the fundamental word-like units, assign them referential roles, and acquire the rules that govern their organization. Previous researchers have demonstrated the role of general distributional computations in prelinguistic infants’ parsing of continuous speech. We extend these findings to more naturalistic conditions, and find that 6-mo-old infants can simultaneously segment a nonce auditory word form from prosodically organized continuous speech and associate it to a visual referent. Crucially, however, this mapping occurs only when the word form is aligned with a prosodic phrase boundary. Our findings suggest that infants are predisposed very early in life to hypothesize that words are aligned with prosodic phrase boundaries, thus facilitating the word learning process. Further, and somewhat paradoxically, we observed successful learning in a more complex context than previously studied, suggesting that learning is enhanced when the language input is well matched to the learner's expectations.