Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Identification of a Novel Response Regulator, Crr1, That Is Required for Hydrogen Peroxide Resistance in Candida albicans

Candida albicans colonises numerous niches within humans and thus its success as a pathogen is dependent on its ability to adapt to diverse growth environments within the host. Two component signal transduction is a common mechanism by which bacteria respond to environmental stimuli and, although less common, two component-related pathways have also been characterised in fungi. Here we report the identification and characterisation of a novel two component response regulator protein in C. albicans which we have named CRR1 (Candida Response Regulator 1). Crr1 contains a receiver domain characteristic of response regulator proteins, including the conserved aspartate that receives phosphate from an upstream histidine kinase. Significantly, orthologues of CRR1 are present only in fungi belonging to the Candida CTG clade. Deletion of the C. albicans CRR1 gene, or mutation of the predicted phospho-aspartate, causes increased sensitivity of cells to the oxidising agent hydrogen peroxide. Crr1 is present in both the cytoplasm and nucleus, and this localisation is unaffected by oxidative stress or mutation of the predicted phospho-aspartate. Furthermore, unlike the Ssk1 response regulator, Crr1 is not required for the hydrogen peroxide-induced activation of the Hog1 stress-activated protein kinase pathway, or for the virulence of C. albicans in a mouse model of systemic disease. Taken together, our data suggest that Crr1, a novel response regulator restricted to the Candida CTG clade, regulates the response of C. albicans cells to hydrogen peroxide in a Hog1-independent manner that requires the function of the conserved phospho-aspartate.
An overview of health and safety in the Colorado cannabis industry

BACKGROUND Understanding worker health and safety in the rapidly growing legal U.S. cannabis industry is important. Although little published research exists, workers may be exposed to biological, chemical, and physical hazards. This study investigated the Colorado cannabis industry workforce and both physical and psychosocial hazards to worker health and safety. METHODS Two hundred and fourteen Colorado cannabis workers completed an online survey after in-person and online recruitment. Participants answered questions about their occupation, job tasks, general well-being, occupational health and safety, cannabis use, and tobacco use. RESULTS Colorado cannabis workers were generally job secure and valued safety. However, they regularly consumed cannabis, expressed low concerns about workplace hazards, reported some occupational injuries and exposures, and reported inconsistent training practices. CONCLUSIONS Working in the cannabis industry is associated with positive outcomes for workers and their organizations, but there is an imminent need to establish formal health and safety training to implement best practices.
A survey of browse plants trade in the upper east region of Ghana

The study was conducted in the Upper-East region of Ghana. The objective of the study was to assess the sources, harvesting and marketing of browse plants, and challenges associated with their harvesting and marketing. Four districts were randomly selected in the region. Three categories of semi-structured questionnaires were separately administered to respondents in sixteen Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) administrative zones (communities) and in four livestock and browse marketing centers in the study area. In all, a total of 200 respondents comprising of 80 small-holder livestock owners, 60 harvesters and 60 marketers of browse plants were interviewed. Six (6) browse species were identified as the common ones utilized by livestock farmers in the area. Gliricidia sepium was identified as the most common and preferred species. Community range lands are the major sources of these browse plants for harvesters and users. Both young and the elderly people of the opposite sex are involved in the harvesting and marketing of browse plants in the area. However, the female population forms the greater proportion (55%) in the harvesting and marketing of browse plants. Indigenous tools such as cutlasses, knifes, axes and sickles are used in the harvesting of browse plants in the area. Harvested plants are preserved by sun-drying, hay and silage preparation. Bush fire and low rainfall were considered as major factors limiting the harvesting and utilization of browse plants in the study area.
Affecting Behavior Change in Individuals With Diabetes Findings From the Study to Help Improve Early Evaluation and Management of Risk Factors Leading to Diabetes (SHIELD)

Purpose This study evaluated whether health knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of individuals with type 1 (T1DM) or type 2 (T2DM) diabetes mellitus and those at high or low risk of T2DM were reflected in healthy behaviors and whether these attributes differed for T2DM respondents who did or did not see a health educator. Methods SHIELD, a U.S. population-based study, included respondents (‡18 years of age) with T1DM (n = 366), T2DM (n = 3897), high risk (HR, n = 5449) defined as ‡3 of the following: abdominal obesity, high body mass index, dyslipidemia, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and low risk (LR, n = 5725) defined as £2 factors. Results T2DM respondents were more likely to receive health care professional recommendations to change their lifestyle habits (56%-62%) during their average 11 visits annually than the other groups (P < .0001). More T2DM and HR respondents tried losing weight, but fewer exercised regularly than T1DM and LR (P < .0001). T2DM respondents who saw a dietitian or health educator reported better current health and expectations for better future health, tried to make healthy food choices, and followed a prescribed eating plan than those who did not see these providers (P < .01). However, £30% of these T2DM respondents exercised regularly, or maintained desired weight. Conclusions SHIELD findings show that respondents know and understand that improving their diet or exercise will affect their health, but the majority of respondents have not translated it into a behavior. Interaction with health educators and patient-empowering support may improve the transition to behavior change.
Integration of GO annotations in Correspondence Analysis: facilitating the interpretation of microarray data

MOTIVATION The functional interpretation of microarray datasets still represents a time-consuming and challenging task. Up to now functional categories that are relevant for one or more experimental context(s) have been commonly extracted from a set of regulated genes and presented in long lists. RESULTS To facilitate interpretation, we integrated Gene Ontology (GO) annotations into Correspondence Analysis to display genes, experimental conditions and gene-annotations in a single plot. The position of the annotations in these plots can be directly used for the functional interpretation of clusters of genes or experimental conditions without the need for comparing long lists of annotations. Correspondence Analysis is not limited in the number of experimental conditions that can be compared simultaneously, allowing an easy identification of characterizing annotations even in complex experimental settings. Due to the rapidly increasing amount of annotation data available, we apply an annotation filter. Hereby the number of displayed annotations can be significantly reduced to a set of descriptive ones, further enhancing the interpretability of the plot. We validated the method on transcription data from Saccharomyces cerevisiae and human pancreatic adenocarcinomas. AVAILABILITY The M-CHiPS software is accessible for collaborators at http://www.mchips. org
Roles of Molecular Layer Interneurons in Sensory Information Processing in Mouse Cerebellar Cortex Crus II In Vivo

Background Cerebellar cortical molecular layer interneurons (MLIs) play essential roles in sensory information processing by the cerebellar cortex. However, recent experimental and modeling results are questioning traditional roles for molecular layer inhibition in the cerebellum. Methods and Main Results Synaptic responses of MLIs and Purkinje cells (PCs), evoked by air-puff stimulation of the ipsilateral whisker pad were recorded from cerebellar cortex Crus II in urethane-anesthetized ICR mice by in vivo whole-cell patch-clamp recording techniques. Under current-clamp (I = 0), air-puff stimuli were found to primarily produce inhibition in PCs. In MLIs, this stimulus evoked spike firing regardless of whether they made basket-type synaptic connections or not. However, MLIs not making basket-type synaptic connections had higher rates of background activity and also generated spontaneous spike-lets. Under voltage-clamp conditions, excitatory postsynaptic currents (EPSCs) were recorded in MLIs, although the predominant response of recorded PCs was an inhibitory postsynaptic potential (IPSP). The latencies of EPSCs were similar for all MLIs, but the time course and amplitude of EPSCs varied with depth in the molecular layer. The highest amplitude, shortest duration EPSCs were recorded from MLIs deep in the molecular layer, which also made basket-type synaptic connections. Comparing MLI to PC responses, time to peak of PC IPSP was significantly slower than MLI recorded EPSCs. Blocking GABAA receptors uncovered larger EPSCs in PCs whose time to peak, half-width and 10–90% rising time were also significantly slower than in MLIs. Biocytin labeling indicated that the MLIs (but not PCs) are dye-coupled. Conclusions These findings indicate that tactile face stimulation evokes rapid excitation in MLIs and inhibition occurring at later latencies in PCs in mouse cerebellar cortex Crus II. These results support previous suggestions that the lack of parallel fiber driven PC activity is due to the effect of MLI inhibition.
Wolf-Rayet stars probed by AMBER/VLTI

Massive stars deeply influence their surroundings by their luminosity and the injection of kinetic energy. So far, they have mostly been studied with spatially unresolved observations, although evidence of geometrical complexity of their wind are numerous. Interferometry can provide spatially resolved observations of massive stars and their immediate vicinity. Specific geometries (disks, jets, latitude-dependent winds) can be probed by this technique. The first observation of a Wolf-Rayet (WR) star (γ2 Vel) with the AMBER/VLTI instrument yielded to a re-evaluation of its distance and an improved characterization of the stellar components, from a very limited data-set. This motivated our team to increase the number of WR targets observed with AMBER. We present here new preliminary results that encompass several spectral types, ranging from early WN to evolved dusty WC. We present unpublished data on WR79a, a massive star probably at the boundary between the O and Wolf-Rayet type, evidencing some Wolf-Rayet broad emission lines from an optically thin wind. We also present new data obtained on γ2 Vel that can be compared to the up-to-date interferometry-based orbital parameters from North et al. (2007). We discuss the presence of a wind-wind collision zone in the system and provide preliminary analysis suggesting the presence of such a structure in the data. Then, we present data obtained on 2 dusty Wolf-Rayet stars: WR48a-b and WR118, the latter exhibiting some clues of a pinwheel-like structure from the visibility variations.
On jointly learning the parameters in a character-synchronous integrated speech and language model

A joint learning algorithm which enabled the parameters in an integrated speech and language model to be trained jointly, was proposed in this paper. The integrated model enhanced the spoken language system with high level knowledge, and operated in a character-synchronous mode. This integration model was tested on the task of recognizing isolated Chinese characters in the speaker independent mode with very large vocabulary of 90,495 words, and the performance of 88.26% character accuracy rate was obtained. In contrast, only 75.71% accuracy rate was achieved with the baseline system, which directly coupled the speech recognizer with a character bi-gram language module. Afterwards, the parameters of both speech and language modules were jointly adjusted according to their contribution in discrimination. The dynamic range variations among the parameters in different modules were also well tuned during the learning processes. After applying this procedure to the character-synchronous integration model, a very promising result of 94.16% character accuracy (75.96% error reduction rate) was obtained. <<ETX>>
Dental Tissue — New Source for Stem Cells

Stem cells have been isolated from many tissues and organs, including dental tissue. Five types of dental stem cells have been established: dental pulp stem cells, stem cells from exfoliated deciduous teeth, stem cells from apical papilla, periodontal ligament stem cells, and dental follicle progenitor cells. The main characteristics of dental stem cells are their potential for multilineage differentiation and self-renewal capacity. Dental stem cells can differentiate into odontoblasts, adipocytes, neuronal-like cells, glial cells, osteoblasts, chondrocytes, melanocytes, myotubes, and endothelial cells. Possible application of these cells in various fields of medicine makes them good candidates for future research as a new, powerful tool for therapy. Although the possible use of these cells in therapeutic purposes and tooth tissue engineering is still in the beginning stages, the results are promising. The efforts made in the research of dental stem cells have clarified many mechanisms underlying the biological processes in which these cells are involved. This review will focus on the new findings in the field of dental stem cell research and on their potential use in the therapy of various disorders.
A New Mechanistic Scenario for the Origin and Evolution of Vertebrate Cartilage

The appearance of cellular cartilage was a defining event in vertebrate evolution because it made possible the physical expansion of the vertebrate “new head”. Despite its central role in vertebrate evolution, the origin of cellular cartilage has been difficult to understand. This is largely due to a lack of informative evolutionary intermediates linking vertebrate cellular cartilage to the acellular cartilage of invertebrate chordates. The basal jawless vertebrate, lamprey, has long been considered key to understanding the evolution of vertebrate cartilage. However, histological analyses of the lamprey head skeleton suggest it is composed of modern cellular cartilage and a putatively unrelated connective tissue called mucocartilage, with no obvious transitional tissue. Here we take a molecular approach to better understand the evolutionary relationships between lamprey cellular cartilage, gnathostome cellular cartilage, and lamprey mucocartilage. We find that despite overt histological similarity, lamprey and gnathostome cellular cartilage utilize divergent gene regulatory networks (GRNs). While the gnathostome cellular cartilage GRN broadly incorporates Runx, Barx, and Alx transcription factors, lamprey cellular cartilage does not express Runx or Barx, and only deploys Alx genes in certain regions. Furthermore, we find that lamprey mucocartilage, despite its distinctive mesenchymal morphology, deploys every component of the gnathostome cartilage GRN, albeit in different domains. Based on these findings, and previous work, we propose a stepwise model for the evolution of vertebrate cellular cartilage in which the appearance of a generic neural crest-derived skeletal tissue was followed by a phase of skeletal tissue diversification in early agnathans. In the gnathostome lineage, a single type of rigid cellular cartilage became dominant, replacing other skeletal tissues and evolving via gene cooption to become the definitive cellular cartilage of modern jawed vertebrates.
The use of ion implantation for materials processing

Abstract : An interdisciplinary program on the use of ion implantation for materials processing is being conducted at NRL. This report describes the important factors in ion implantation science and technology and reports progress in the use of ion implantation to modify friction, wear, fatigue, corrosion, and optical properties of materials. (Author)
Epigenetic Control of Viral Life-Cycle by a DNA-Methylation Dependent Transcription Factor

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) encoded transcription factor Zta (BZLF1, ZEBRA, EB1) is the prototype of a class of transcription factor (including C/EBPalpha) that interact with CpG-containing DNA response elements in a methylation-dependent manner. The EBV genome undergoes a biphasic methylation cycle; it is extensively methylated during viral latency but is reset to an unmethylated state following viral lytic replication. Zta is expressed transiently following infection and again during the switch between latency and lytic replication. The requirement for CpG-methylation at critical Zta response elements (ZREs) has been proposed to regulate EBV replication, specifically it could aid the activation of viral lytic gene expression from silenced promoters on the methylated genome during latency in addition to preventing full lytic reactivation from the non-methylated EBV genome immediately following infection. We developed a computational approach to predict the location of ZREs which we experimentally assessed using in vitro and in vivo DNA association assays. A remarkably different binding motif is apparent for the CpG and non-CpG ZREs. Computational prediction of the location of these binding motifs in EBV revealed that the majority of lytic cycle genes have at least one and many have multiple copies of methylation-dependent CpG ZREs within their promoters. This suggests that the abundance of Zta protein coupled with the methylation status of the EBV genome act together to co-ordinate the expression of lytic cycle genes at the majority of EBV promoters.
Optimization of process parameters for L-methioninase production in Solid state fermentation by Aspergillus flavipes from Sesame oil cake

L-methioninase has received much attention for its tumor selective anticancer activity. This study investigates the production and optimization of extracellular L-methioninase enzyme using several agro-industrial residues by Aspergillus flavipes MTCC 6337 using SSF (solid state fermentation). Effect of process variables namely substrates, incubation period, temperature, moisture content, inoculum volume, initial pH, supplementary carbon and nitrogen source concentration and metal ions on the production of L-methioninase was studied one factor-a-time and accordingly, optimum conditions were determined. A. flavipes MTCC 6337 was cultured in sesame oil cake to produce Lmethioninase. The organism produced high levels of L-methioninase under optimized culture conditions on the 8th day of incubation at an optimum temperature 30°C, moisture content 60% (v/w), inoculum volume 3 ml and pH 8.0, by SSF. Enhanced production occurred on the addition of 1% (w/v) glucose, 0.8% (w/v) Lmethionine and MnSO4 as nutritional factors.
Designing globally optimal delta–sigma modulator topologies via signomial programming

We present a design methodology for globally optimizing the topologies of delta–sigma modulators (DSMs). Previous work cast the design task into a general non-convex, nonlinear programming problem, whereas we propose to recast it as a signomial programming problem. Convexification strategies are presented for transforming the signomial programming problem into its equivalent convex counterpart, thereby enabling the solution of globally optimal design parameters. It is also possible to include circuit non-ideal effects that affect the transfer function of the modulator into the formulation without affecting the computational efficiency. The proposed framework has been applied to topology synthesis problems of single-loop and multi-loop low-pass DSMs based on discrete-time circuitry. Numerical results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed approach over conventional nonlinear programming techniques. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Maternal and Infantile Adiponectin as Marker for Anthropometric Parameters of Lactating Mothers and their Breast-Fed Infants

Background: Breast milk adiponectin could play a role in the regulation of infants' growth during lactation. Aim of Work: The aim is to evaluate adiponectin concentration in human milk and to investigate its relationship with serum adiponectin concentration in lactating mothers and their breastfed infants and with anthropometric parameters of infants and mothers. Materials and Methods: Sixty healthy term infants and their healthy lactating mothers are included at infant age of 1 month then repeated again at the age of 4 months. All subjects included in this study were subjected to history, clinical examination, investigations including serum level of adiponectin of infants and their mothers by RIA test, human milk level of adiponectin by ELISA test. Results: There was a significant decrease in serum adiponectin of infant and mothers and maternal breast milk at the age of 4 months when compared to them at the age of 1 month. There was a significant positive correlation between infant serum adiponection, maternal serum adiponectin and breast milk adiponectin at infant's age of 1 month and at infant's age of 4 months. There was a significant negative correlation between maternal serum adiponectin and BMI of mothers. There was a significant negative correlation between infant serum adiponectin and their weight and length of infants at the age of 1 month and at the age of 4 months. Conclusions: There's a metabolic link between mothers and their infants through breast milk during the first 6 months of life. A gradual decline in adiponectin level in maternal breast milk is associated with a gradual increase in infant growth up to 6 months of age.
A test for clinal variation in Artemisia californica and associated arthropod responses to nitrogen addition

The response of plant traits to global change is of fundamental importance to understanding anthropogenic impacts on natural systems. Nevertheless, little is known about plant genetic variation in such responses or the indirect effect of environmental change on higher trophic levels. In a three-year common garden experiment, we grew the shrub Artemisia californica from five populations sourced along a 700 km latitudinal gradient under ambient and nitrogen (N) addition (20 kg N ha-1) and measured plant traits and associated arthropods. N addition increased plant biomass to a similar extent among all populations. In contrast, N addition effects on most other plant traits varied among plant populations; N addition reduced specific leaf area and leaf percent N and increased carbon to nitrogen ratios in the two northern populations, but had the opposite or no effect on the three southern populations. N addition increased arthropod abundance to a similar extent among all populations in parallel with an increase in plant biomass, suggesting that N addition did not alter plant resistance to herbivores. N addition had no effect on arthropod diversity, richness, or evenness. In summary, genetic variation among A. californica populations mediated leaf-trait responses to N addition, but positive direct effects of N addition on plant biomass and indirect effects on arthropod abundance were consistent among all populations.