Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stress Granules Regulate Double-Stranded RNA-Dependent Protein Kinase Activation through a Complex Containing G3BP1 and Caprin1

ABSTRACT Stress granules (SGs) are dynamic cytoplasmic repositories containing translationally silenced mRNAs that assemble upon cellular stress. We recently reported that the SG nucleating protein G3BP1 promotes antiviral activity and is essential in double-stranded RNA-dependent protein kinase (PKR) recruitment to stress granules, thereby driving phosphorylation of the α subunit of eukaryotic initiation factor 2 (eIF2α). Here, we delineate the mechanism for SG-dependent PKR activation. We show that G3BP1 and inactive PKR directly interact with each other, dependent on both the NTF2-like and PXXP domains of G3BP1. The G3BP1-interacting protein Caprin1 also directly interacts with PKR, regulates efficient PKR activation at the stress granule, and is also integral for the release of active PKR into the cytoplasm to engage in substrate recognition. The G3BP1-Caprin1-PKR complex represents a new mode of PKR activation and is important for antiviral activity of G3BP1 and PKR during infection with mengovirus. Our data links stress responses and their resultant SGs with innate immune activation through PKR without a requirement for foreign double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) pattern recognition. IMPORTANCE Our previous work indicates that stress granules have antiviral activity and mediate innate immunity through functions of G3BP1; however, the mechanistic details of these functions were not resolved. We show that much of the antiviral activity of stress granules is contingent on the function of PKR in a complex with G3BP1 and Caprin1. The PKR-G3BP1-Caprin1 complex undergoes dynamic transitioning within and outside stress granules to accomplish PKR activation and translational repression. This mechanism appears to function distinctly from canonical pattern recognition of double-stranded RNA by PKR. Therefore, this mechanism bridges the stress response with innate immunity, allowing the cell to respond to many cellular stressors and amplify the pathogen pattern recognition systems of innate immunity. Our previous work indicates that stress granules have antiviral activity and mediate innate immunity through functions of G3BP1; however, the mechanistic details of these functions were not resolved. We show that much of the antiviral activity of stress granules is contingent on the function of PKR in a complex with G3BP1 and Caprin1. The PKR-G3BP1-Caprin1 complex undergoes dynamic transitioning within and outside stress granules to accomplish PKR activation and translational repression. This mechanism appears to function distinctly from canonical pattern recognition of double-stranded RNA by PKR. Therefore, this mechanism bridges the stress response with innate immunity, allowing the cell to respond to many cellular stressors and amplify the pathogen pattern recognition systems of innate immunity.
Association of TNF-α –308G/A, SP-B 1580 C/T, IL-13 –1055 C/T gene polymorphisms and latent adenoviral infection with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in an Egyptian population

Introduction Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a leading cause of disability and death. The most common cause of COPD is smoking. There is evidence suggesting that genetic factors influence COPD susceptibility and variants in several candidate genes have been significantly associated with COPD. In this study, we aimed to investigate the possible association of the TNF-α –308, SPB+1580, IL-13 –1055 gene polymorphisms and latent adenovirus C infection with COPD in an Egyptian population. Material and methods Our study included 115 subjects (75 smokers with COPD, 25 resistant smokers and 15 non-smokers) who were subjected to spirometric measurements, identification of adenovirus C and genotyping of TNF-α –308G/A, SP-B+1580 C/T and IL-13 –1055 C/T polymorphisms by real-time PCR. Results The adenovirus C gene was identified in all subjects. The distribution of TNF-α genotypes showed no significant differences between different groups. However, homozygous A genotype was associated with a significant decrease in FEV1, FEV1/FVC and FEF25/75% of predicted in COPD (p < 0.05). As regards SP-B genotypes, resistant smokers had a significantly higher homozygous T genotype frequency compared to COPD and non smokers (p = 0.005). Interleukin 13 genotypes showed no significant difference between different groups. There was a significant decrease in FEF25/75% of predicted in T allele carriers in COPD patients (p = 0.001). Conclusions The COPD is a disease caused by the interaction of combined genes and environmental influences, in the presence of smoking and latent adenovirus C infection, TNF-α –308A, SPB +1580 T and IL-13 –1055 T polymorphisms predispose to the development of COPD.
The impact of genetic variation in Cacna1c and prepubertal stress on hippocampal function

Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are examples of disabling psychiatric conditions caused by both genetic and environmental factors. Genome-wide association studies have consistently demonstrated that variation in the gene calcium voltage-gated channel subunit alpha1C (CACNA1C) increases risk for psychiatric disorders. Early life stress has also been reliably and convincingly associated with increased risk for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. This thesis presents results concerning how genetic variation in Cacna1c and prepubertal stress can affect hippocampal function and structure, potentially through interacting together. PPS is shown to decrease Cacna1c in the CA1 and CA3 of the hippocampal formation, which is also seen in a small cohort of human ELS samples, suggesting a translational aspect of this work (Chapter 3). Delay, trace and unpaired auditory fear conditioning were conducted in Cacna1c+/- (Chapter 4) and PPS rats (Chapter 5) to examine how associative learning was processed within the hippocampus and amygdala in these animals. Both Cacna1c+/- rats and PPS rats demonstrate disrupted trace fear conditioning, a paradigm that explicitly requires the hippocampus. Trace conditioning has been associated with adult hippocampal neurogenesis, a process that is decreased at the cell proliferation level in Cacna1c+/- rats (Chapter 6), whereas PPS rats have increased immature neurons (Chapter 6). Environmental enrichment in Cacna1c+/- rats was not sufficient to correct these behavioural and molecular deficits (Chapter 8). Finally, Cacna1c+/- animals show PV and GAD67 expression changes in the dentate gyrus, suggesting a potential inhibitory deficit (Chapter 7). These results contribute to the literature implicating Cacna1c, stress and the hippocampus in the development of mental disorders.
Impact of Advertisements during Channel Zapping on Quality of Experience

Nowadays various digital television services are available. However, the user of these services experiences longer delays than the traditional analog TV while switching from channel to channel. The digital TV operator usually displays a black screen with the channel number during zapping. However, it could be interesting for the TV viewer, if the operator displays a screen with information instead of just a black screen. This information may be an advertisement, information about the target channel, personalized content of the user etc. In this paper, we describe a subjective experiment where the Quality of Experience (QoE) of channel zapping was quantified, while displaying a random set of advertisement pictures during zapping. It is found that, for longer zapping times, advertisements give better QoE than the black screen. However, when zapping times are small,users prefer a black screen over a glance of an advertisement picture.
Interpersonal entrainment in Indian instrumental music performance: Synchronization and movement coordination relate to tempo, dynamics, metrical and cadential structure

Two complementary aspects of interpersonal entrainment – synchronization and movement coordination – are explored in North Indian classical instrumental music, in the auditory and visual domains respectively. Sensorimotor synchronization (SMS) is explored by analysing pairwise asynchronies between the event onsets of instrumental soloists and their tabla accompanists, and the variability of asynchrony by factors including tempo, dynamic level and metrical position is explored. Movement coordination is quantified using cross wavelet transform (CWT) analysis of upper body movement data, and differences in CWT Energy are investigated in relation to the metrical and cadential structures of the music. The analysis demonstrates that SMS within this corpus varies significantly with tempo, event density, peak levels and leadership. Effects of metrical position on pairwise asynchrony are small and offer little support for the hypothesis of lower variability in synchronization on strong metrical positions; a larger difference was found at cadential downbeats, which show increased melody lead. Movement coordination is greater at metrical boundaries than elsewhere, and most strikingly is greater at cadential than at other metrical downbeats. The implications of these findings for understanding performer coordination are discussed in relation to ethnographic research on the genre.
A Comparison of the Pitfall Trap, Winkler Extractor and Berlese Funnel for Sampling Ground-Dwelling Arthropods in Tropical Montane Cloud Forests

Abstract Little is known about the ground-dwelling arthropod diversity in tropical montane cloud forests (TMCF). Due to unique habitat conditions in TMCFs with continuously wet substrates and a waterlogged forest floor along with the innate biases of the pitfall trap, Berlese funnel and Winkler extractor are certain to make it difficult to choose the most appropriate method to sample the ground-dwelling arthropods in TMCFs. Among the three methods, the Winkler extractor was the most efficient method for quantitative data and pitfall trapping for qualitative data for most groups. Inclusion of floatation method as a complementary method along with the Winkler extractor would enable a comprehensive quantitative survey of ground-dwelling arthropods. Pitfall trapping is essential for both quantitative and qualitative sampling of Diplopoda, Opiliones, Orthoptera, and Diptera. The Winkler extractor was the best quantitative method for Psocoptera, Araneae, Isopoda, and Formicidae; and the Berlese funnel was best for Collembola and Chilopoda. For larval forms of different insect orders and the Acari, all the three methods were equally effective.
Physics and modeling of small scale turbulencefor Large

An important open question for Large Eddy Simulation (LES) of turbulent ow is whether the subgrid-scales (smaller than) and the associated stresses can be described by universal models. This question is examined in terms of the subgrid dissipation rate, which represents the rate at which large-scale turbulent kinetic energy or scalar uctuations are transferred to, or from, the unresolved scales. This variable is of central importance in LES. In order to ascertain the dependence of SGS dissipation upon large scales and the degree of universality of subgrid models, various high Reynolds number ows are studied. Hot-wire data (yielding, so far, 1-D surrogates only) in the turbulent plane wake (at Re D = 8 10 4) shows that the phase-averaged surrogate SGS dissipation rate is very much aaected by the presence of coherent (KK armm an) vortices which occur at scales much larger than the lter scale, and that the eeect persists down to very small scales. Strong eeects of large-scale coherent structures are also observed in the atmospheric surface layer, as deduced from sonic anemometry data of the surrogate subgrid temperature variance dissipation. In comparing how diierent models reproduce the observed distribution of conditional SGS dissipation, the similarity model is found to capture the main features of the observed conditional SGS dissipation, while the Smagorinsky model gives less realistic distributions. The dynamic Smagorinsky model is able to reproduce the distribution, if the coeecient is obtained by means of conditional averaging. Thus, the experimental results (as well as numerical results by several other authors) show that there exists strong dependence of small scales upon the large ones. While the results weaken hopes for universality, they show thatìearning' from resolved scales about the local state of turbulence appears to improve the realism of the models. However, much depends on the details of how this learning process is implemented. For instance, in the localized dynamic models, problematic features such as unphysically high levels of intermittency can occur. This is demonstrated by detailed analysis of DNS of isotropic turbulence.
Am I a Leader? Female Students Leadership Identity Development.

This grounded theory study aimed to understand the process of leadership identity development experienced by traditional-aged female undergraduate college students. The findings led to a model for leadership identity development consisting of four phases. Students’ leadership identity development progressed from views of leadership as external to self to positional leaders to incorporation of self-as-leader whether in a position or not. The final phase reflected a shift to leading for social change. In the early phases of the model, the female students in this study saw gender as irrelevant to them as leaders even though they recognized societal views of female leaders as weaker or less capable. In later phases they understood how being female mattered, and by Phase 4 they recognized a need to take a stand on societal issues related to gender and race.
“I am now confident”: academic service-learning as a context for addressing math anxiety in preservice teachers

ABSTRACT Children’s early numeracy knowledge predicts later academic performance, yet many children do not experience optimal math instruction. This study investigated the impact of academic service-learning (ASL) in an early childhood teacher preparation math course and answered the following research question: Was the ASL experience effective in improving students’ dispositions and self-efficacy for teaching early math? Participants included nine undergraduates in an early childhood teacher preparation course and thirteen 2- to 5-year-old children from ten culturally and linguistically diverse families. Results of this mixed-methods study indicated the university students expressed considerable math anxiety near the beginning of the course, yet they believed in the importance of math and aspired to support children’s math. Students articulated challenges and assumptions related to supporting early math. A key finding was that, across the ASL experience, students experienced a shift away from anxiety and toward self-efficacy for teaching math and a disposition to advocate for early math. Children’s math knowledge was also assessed and was significantly higher post-ASL than pre-ASL. The article concludes with a discussion of the obligation of early childhood teacher preparation programs to address possible math anxiety among preservice teachers and provide experiences that help students build self-efficacy for teaching math.
Automatic Packing Mechanism for Simplification of the Scheduling in Profinet IRT

In order to support very small cycle times, Profinet isochronous real-time (IRT) was improved by implementing the dynamic frame packing (DFP) mechanism. It turned out that DFP is relatively efficient, but it still has two crucial drawbacks. The complex scheduling has to be recalculated every time the network structure is modified. Furthermore, DFP only operates efficiently in line topology. This study presents a proposal for further improvements of Profinet IRT by implementing an automatic packing mechanism (APM). The main advantage of APM lies in the fact that a dedicated scheduling algorithm is not required. Furthermore, APM achieves approximately the same performance as DFP in line topology, but it has a distinctive advance in star or tree topologies. This paper also presents experimental validation results that prove the functionality of the approach. APM could be implemented with only minor modifications of the media access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) hardware to improve the flexibility of Profinet IRT.
An approach to compare the developments in performance of multicarrier CDMA system

In last two decades there has been tremendous efforts for research of digital wireless communication system. The coming generation of wireless communication system is demanding for better quality of service with high spectral efficiency and data rate. To meet the demand of high data rate transmission with good quality a novel system is available i.e. multi-carrier Code Division Multiple Access (MC-CDMA). It is a fusion of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technique. The objective of this paper is to provide a comparative study on performance enhancement of Multicarrier CDMA system. This comparison illustrates, how can performance of MC-CDMA system parameters such as BER, Capacity, MAI reduction, PAPR, System complexity etc. can be improved with various algorithms and techniques. This paper will be very informative for the interested researcher to continue their research in the field of CDMA wireless communication.
High prevalence of smoking among patients with suspected tuberculosis in South Africa

There is growing evidence that tobacco smoking is an important risk factor for tuberculosis (TB). There are no data validating the accuracy of self-reported smoking in TB patients and limited data about the prevalence of smoking in TB patients from high-burden settings. We performed a cross-sectional analysis of 500 patients with suspected TB in Cape Town, South Africa. All underwent comprehensive diagnostic testing. The accuracy of their self-reported smoking status was determined against serum cotinine levels. Of the 424 patients included in the study, 56 and 60% of those with active and latent TB infection (LTBI), respectively, were current smokers. Using plasma cotinine as a reference standard, the sensitivity of self-reported smoking was 89%. No statistically significant association could be found between smoking and active TB or LTBI. In Cape Town, the prevalence of smoking among patients with suspected and confirmed TB was much higher than in the general South African population. Self-reporting is an accurate measure of smoking status. These results suggest the need to actively incorporate tobacco cessation programmes into TB services in South Africa.
Wall effects on granular heap stability

We investigate the effects of lateral walls on the angle of movement and on the angle of repose of a granular pile. Our experimental results for beads immersed in water are similar to previous results obtained in air and to recent numerical simulations. All of these results, showing an increase of pile angles with a decreasing gap width, are explained by a model based on the redirection of stresses through the granular media. Two regimes are observed depending on the bead diameter. For large beads, the range of wall effects corresponds to a constant number of beads, whereas it corresponds to a constant characteristic length for small beads as they aggregate via van der Waals forces.
Exploring Crowd Consistency in a Mechanical Turk Survey

Crowdsourcing can provide a platform for evaluating software engineering research. In this paper, we aim to explore characteristics of the worker population on Amazon's Mechanical Turk, a popular micro task crowdsourcing environment, and measure the percentage of workers who are potentially qualified to perform software- or computer science- related tasks. Through a baseline survey and two replications, we measure workers' answer consistency as well as the consistency of sample characteristics. In the end, we deployed 1,200 total surveys that were completed by 1,064 unique workers. Our results show that 24% of the study participants have a computer science or IT background and most people are payment driven when choosing tasks. The sample characteristics can vary significantly, even on large samples with 300 participants. Additionally, we often observed inconsistency in workers' answers for those who completed two surveys; approximately 30% answered at least one question inconsistently between the two survey submissions. This implies a need for replication and quality controls in crowdsourced experiments.
A 'super' star cluster grown old: the most massive star cluster in the Local Group

We independently redetermine the reddening and age of the globular cluster (GC) 037−B327 in M31 by comparing independently obtained multicolour photometry with theoretical stellar population synthesis models. 037−B327 has long been known to have a very large reddening value, which we confirm to be E(B − V ) = 1.360 ± 0.013, in good agreement with the previous results. We redetermine its most likely age at 12.4 ± 3.2 Gyr. 037−B327 is a prime example of an unusually bright early counterpart to the ubiquitous ‘super’ star clusters presently observed in most high-intensity star-forming regions in the local Universe. In order to have survived for a Hubble time, we conclude that its stellar initial mass function (IMF) cannot have been top-heavy. Using this constraint, and a variety of simple stellar population (SSP) models, we determine a photometric mass of MGC = (3.0± 0.5)× 10 7 M� , somewhat depending on the SSP models used, the metallicity and age adopted and the IMF representation. This mass, and its relatively small uncertainties, makes this object the most massive star cluster of any age in the Local Group. Assuming that the photometric mass estimate thus derived is fairly close to its dynamical mass, we predict that this GC has a (onedimensional) velocity dispersion of the order of (72 ± 13) km s −1 . As a surviving ‘super’ star
A Study on Adoption Factors of Korean Smartphone Users: A Focus on TAM (Technology Acceptance Model) and UTAUT (Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology)

The purpose of this study is to evaluate TAM and UTAUT’s applicability in Korean smartphone users. To accomplish this objective, this study reviews various literatures and is developed a research model based on TAM(Technology Acceptance Model) and UTAUT(Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology). To examine the research model, we collected data at Jinju area in Korea. We used a structural equation model analysis known as PLS to verify the research hypotheses. The results indicate that TAM and UTAUT are valuable tool for predicting intentions to smartphone usage.