Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Regulation of neutrophil‐mediated killing of Staphylococcus aureus and chemotaxis by c‐jun NH2 terminal kinase

The role of JNK in neutrophil chemotaxis and killing of microbial pathogens remains unclear. Using a recently described cell‐permeable peptide inhibitor of the JNK pathway, based on the JBD of JIP‐1, coupled to the protein transduction domain of HIV‐TAT (TAT‐JIP), in association with control peptides, we demonstrate that the JNK pathway plays a major role in regulating human neutrophil chemotaxis and killing of microbial pathogens. Serum‐opsonized Staphylococcus aureus elicited JNK activation and c‐jun phosphorylation. The activation of the JNK pathway and bactericidal activity were inhibited by the TAT‐JIP peptide. The stimulation of oxygen radical generation by S. aureus was dependent on the JNK signaling pathway, as was the phagocytosis of serum‐opsonized bacteria. Chemotaxis to activated serum complement but not random migration was inhibited by the TAT‐JIP peptide. The findings demonstrate a major role for the JNK signaling pathway in neutrophil‐mediated defense against microbial pathogens.
The Dual NOD1/NOD2 Agonism of Muropeptides Containing a Meso-Diaminopimelic Acid Residue

Muropeptides are fragments of peptidoglycan that trigger innate immune responses by activating nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain (NOD) 1 and NOD2. Muropeptides from Gram-negative bacteria contain a meso-diaminopimelic acid (meso-DAP) residue in either a terminal or a non-terminal position. While the former ones are known to be recognized by NOD1, much less is known about recognition of muropeptides with non-terminal meso-DAP, which are most abundant moieties of Gram-negative peptidoglycans. Here, we developed a novel system to assess biological activity of muropeptides, based on CRISPR/Cas9-mediated knockout (KO) of NOD1 and NOD2 genes in modified HEK293T cells. Using NOD1/NOD2 knockout and overexpression systems, as well as human monocytes and macrophages, we refine the current view of muropeptide recognition. We show that NOD2 can recognize different natural muropeptides containing a meso-DAP residue (preferably in a non-terminal position), provided they are present at micromolar concentrations. NOD2 accepts muropeptides with long and branched peptide chains and requires an intact N-acetylmuramyl residue. Muropeptides with non-terminal meso-DAP can activate NOD1 as well, but, in this case, probably require peptidase pre-processing to expose the meso-DAP residue. Depending on NOD1/NOD2 ratio in specific cell types, meso-DAP-containing muropeptides can be recognized either primarily via NOD2 (in monocytes) or via NOD1 (in monocyte-derived macrophages and HEK293T-derived cells). The dual NOD1/NOD2 agonism of meso-DAP-containing muropeptides should be taken into account when assessing cellular responses to muropeptides and designing muropeptide immunostimulants and vaccine adjuvants.
Low-rank Bandits with Latent Mixtures

We study the task of maximizing rewards from recommending items (actions) to users sequentially interacting with a recommender system. Users are modeled as latent mixtures of C many representative user classes, where each class specifies a mean reward profile across actions. Both the user features (mixture distribution over classes) and the item features (mean reward vector per class) are unknown a priori. The user identity is the only contextual information available to the learner while interacting. This induces a low-rank structure on the matrix of expected rewards r a,b from recommending item a to user b. The problem reduces to the well-known linear bandit when either user-or item-side features are perfectly known. In the setting where each user, with its stochastically sampled taste profile, interacts only for a small number of sessions, we develop a bandit algorithm for the two-sided uncertainty. It combines the Robust Tensor Power Method of Anandkumar et al. (2014b) with the OFUL linear bandit algorithm of Abbasi-Yadkori et al. (2011). We provide the first rigorous regret analysis of this combination, showing that its regret after T user interactions is˜O(C √ BT), with B the number of users. An ingredient towards this result is a novel robustness property of OFUL, of independent interest.
Samurai Accountant: A Theory of Auditing and Plunder

A risk neutral principal wishes to exact a payment from a risk neutral agent whose wealth he does not know, but may verify through a costly auditing procedure. We characterize efficient schemes for the principal when he is allowed to choose schedules for preaudit and postaudit payments and audit probabilities, subject to the constraint that only monetary incentives can be used and that the principal may never make a net payment to the agent. The main results are that efficient schemes involve preaudit payments which are increasing in the agent's wealth, audit probabilities are decreasing in the agent's wealth and also satisfy certain constraints as equalities. In general, such schemes involve stochastic auditing and rebates after an audit.
Shortest feasible paths with charging stops for battery electric vehicles

We study the problem of minimizing overall trip time for battery electric vehicles (EVs) in road networks. As battery capacity is limited, stops at charging stations may be inevitable. Careful route planning is crucial, since charging stations are scarce and recharging is time-consuming. We extend the Constrained Shortest Path (CSP) problem for EVs with realistic models of charging stops, including varying charging power and battery swapping stations. While the resulting problem is NP-hard, we propose a combination of algorithmic techniques to achieve good performance in practice. Extensive experimental evaluation shows that our approach (CHArge) enables computation of optimal solutions on realistic inputs, even of continental scale. Finally, we investigate heuristic variants of CHArge that derive high-quality routes in well below a second on sensible instances.
1 Windows 2000 Dependability

Windows 2000 development had two apparently contradictory goals, to add functionality whilst improving dependability to the end customer. This paper describes the difficulty in developing the processes to characterizing the dependability goals for Windows 2000. The paper further describes how Windows 2000 met those goals through addition of dependability features and comprehensive testing in laboratories and production environments. These goals could not be achieved solely through improvements to the operating systems but also required addressing additional issues, such as improving the installation process and quality of driver software. The development of Windows 2000 highlighted a number of research opportunities, discussed later in the paper, to impact the development and release of highly dependable software.
Defaults in stereoscopic and kinetic depth perception

This study presents three findings concerning the mechanisms of depth perception. First, the shape of the three–dimensional percept evoked by two–frame motion is defined solely by the rotation component around an axis in the frontoparallel plane; the visual system assigns a default value to this rotation component to arrive at a unique solution. Second, when the visual axes of two eyes are almost parallel, the visual system uses a default vergence value to reconstruct stereoscopic depth. Third, the default vergence and default rotation angles are highly correlated across subjects. This correlation implies that the two modalities share a common scaling default at an internal level.
Nonlinearities in stochastic clocks: trades and volume as subordinators of electronic markets

This paper discusses the possibility of recovering normality of asset returns through a stochastic time change, where the appropriate economic time is determined through a simple parametric function of the cumulative number of trades and/or the cumulative volume. The existing literature argues that the re-centred cumulative number of trades could be used as the appropriate stochastic clock of the market under which asset returns are virtually Gaussian. Using tick-data for FTSE-100 futures, we show that normality is not always recovered by conditioning on the re-centred number of trades. However, it can be shown that simply extending the approach to a nonlinear function can provide a better stochastic clock of the market.
Monetary and Fiscal Policy Dynamics in an Asymmetric Monetary Union

This paper investigates the dynamic effects of monetary and fiscal policy in a monetary union, which is characterized by asymmetric interest rate transmission. This asymmetry gives rise to intertemporal reversals in the relative effectiveness of policy on member country outputs. The direction and the number of these reversals depend on whether policies are unanticipated or anticipated. We also study the coordination between monetary and fiscal policy in a monetary union. Monetary policy may completely stabilize European output after unanticipated fiscal policy shocks. With anticipated fiscal policy shocks, complete stabilization throughout the overall adjustment process requires monetary policy to be time-inconsistent.
The Reliability and Validity of "Interpersonal Problems" Inventory

هلاقم تفايرد : 25 / 5 / 84 نارواد هب لاسرا : 1 ( 26 / 6 / 84 2 ( 26 / 6 / 84 3 ( 26 / 6 / 84 تفايرد نارواد رظن : 1 ( 24 / 7 / 84 2 ( 29 / 8 / 84 3 ( 30 / 7 / 84 تاحلاصا يارب لاسرا : 1 ( 30 / 8 / 84 2 ( 4 / 11 / 84 تاحلاصا تفايرد : 1 ( 4 / 10 / 84 2 ( 26 / 11 / 84 يياهن رواد هب لاسرا : 1 ( 12 / 10 / 84 2 ( 3 / 12 / 84 يياهن رواد رظن تفايرد : 1 ( 25 / 10 / 84 2 ( 7 / 12 / 84 هلاقم شريذپ : 3 / 2 / 85
The Alcohol and Other Drugs Education Program for Social Work Faculty: A Model for Immersion Training

This article presents the Alcohol and Other Drugs Education Program (ADEP) as a model for faculty training in evidence-based alcohol and other drug (AOD) identification and treatment. We make the case that AOD use is a serious social and public health issue and highlight faculty training as a strategic approach for addressing the pressing demand for clinical professionals who can provide AOD-related services. In turn, we describe the core elements of ADEP, including the program’s foundational assumptions and logic, guiding principles and design, situating ADEP within the context of other efforts to improve the quality of AOD-related clinical care.
Expertise, Cognitive Ability, and Age Effects on Pilot Communication

We investigated whether expertise reduced age-related declines in pilot communication, using multiple expertise measures and laboratory tasks varying in domain relevance. Younger, middle-aged, and older pilots and nonpilots listened to air traffic control messages that described an aircraft's route through an airspace, while they referred to a chart of that airspace. They read back each message, then answered a probe question about the aircraft's route. Pilots read back messages more accurately than did nonpilots, and younger participants were more accurate than older participants. Expertise and aging had similar effects on the probe task, suggesting that these groups were better able to interpret the air traffic control messages in relation to the chart, in order to create a situation model of the flight. Expertise did not moderate age-related declines on the aviation tasks studied here. There was, however, some evidence that more flying experience among older pilots (compared to younger pilots) helped buffer against age-related declines in cognitive resources, in order to maintain performance on the readback task. Measures of working memory capacity and spatial ability predicted communication performance, suggesting the importance of designing communication tasks that reduce demands on cognitive abilities and that support the use of domain knowledge.
The Macroeconomics of Low Inflation

THE CONCEPT of a natural unemployment rate has been central to most modern models of inflation and stabilization. According to these models, inflation will accelerate or decelerate depending on whether unemployment is below or above the natural rate, while any existing rate of inflation will continue if unemployment is at the natural rate. The natural rate is thus the minimum, and only, sustainable rate of unemployment, but the inflation rate is left as a choice variable for policymakers. Since complete price stability has attractive features, many economists and policymakers who accept the natural rate hypothesis believe that central banks should target zero inflation. We question the standard version of the natural rate model and each of these implications. Central to our analysis is the effect of downward nominal wage rigidity in an economy in which individual firms experience stochastic shocks in the demand for their output. We embed these features in a model that otherwise resembles a standard natural rate model and show there is no unique natural unemployment rate. Rather, the rate of unemployment that is consistent with steady inflation
Extracellular matrix remodelling properties of human fibrocytes

The fibrocytes are thought to serve as a source of newly deposited collagens I and III during reparative processes and in certain fibrotic disorders, but their matrix remodelling properties are incompletely understood. We evaluated their ability to produce several extracellular matrix (ECM) components, in comparison with fibroblasts, and to participate in collagen turnover. The collagen gene expression profile of fibrocytes differed from that of fibroblasts because fibrocytes constitutively expressed relatively high levels of the mRNA encoding collagen VI and significantly lower levels of the mRNA encoding collagens I, III and V. The proteoglycan (PG) gene expression profile was also different in fibrocytes and fibroblasts because fibrocytes constitutively expressed the mRNA encoding perlecan and versican at relatively high levels and the mRNA encoding biglycan and decorin at low and very low levels, respectively. Moreover, fibrocytes expressed the mRNA for hyaluronan synthase 2 at higher level than fibroblasts. Significant differences between the two cell populations were also demonstrated by metabolic labelling and analysis of the secreted collagenous proteins, PGs and hyaluronan. Fibrocytes constitutively expressed the scavenger receptors CD163 and CD204 as well as the mannose receptors CD206 and Endo180, and internalized and degraded collagen fragments through an Endo180‐mediated mechanism. The results of this study demonstrate that human fibrocytes exhibit ECM remodelling properties previously unexplored, including the ability to participate in collagen turnover. The observed differences in collagen and PG expression profile between fibrocytes and fibroblasts suggest that fibrocytes may predominantly have a matrix‐stabilizing function.
GENDER DIFFERENCES IN SEARCHING THE WEB

There has been a national call for increased use of computers and technology in schools. Currently, however, little is known about how students use and learn from these technologies. This study explores how eighth-grade students use the Web to search for, browse, and find information in response to a specific prompt (how mosquitoes find their prey). A previous analysis (Roy, Taylor & Chi, in press) found that boys performed significantly better on gaining target-specific (information directly related to the prompt) and target-related (information related to mosquitoes in general) knowledge than girls. The current paper explores this difference further by examining how students searched the Web for information. Each student’s search behavior was diagramed out and a series of six different “search moves” were derived. Statistical analysis of these search variables revealed that boys tended to employ a different search pattern from girls and that this variation in search behavior was related to the pattern of performance outcomes.
Translating Embeddings for Modeling Multi-relational Data

We consider the problem of embedding entities and relationships of multi-relational data in low-dimensional vector spaces. Our objective is to propose a canonical model which is easy to train, contains a reduced number of parameters and can scale up to very large databases. Hence, we propose TransE, a method which models relationships by interpreting them as translations operating on the low-dimensional embeddings of the entities. Despite its simplicity, this assumption proves to be powerful since extensive experiments show that TransE significantly outperforms state-of-the-art methods in link prediction on two knowledge bases. Besides, it can be successfully trained on a large scale data set with 1M entities, 25k relationships and more than 17M training samples.
Enduring consequences of early experiences: 40 year effects on survival and success among African elephants (Loxodonta africana)

Growth from conception to reproductive onset in African elephants (Loxodonta africana) provides insights into phenotypic plasticity, individual adaptive plastic responses and facultative maternal investment. Using growth for 867 and life histories for 2652 elephants over 40 years, we demonstrate that maternal inexperience plus drought in early life result in reduced growth rates for sons and higher mortality for both sexes. Slow growth during early lactation was associated with smaller adult size, later age at first reproduction, reduced lifetime survival and consequently limited reproductive output. These enduring effects of trading slow early growth against immediate survival were apparent over the very long term; delayed downstream consequences were unexpected for a species with a maximum longevity of 70+ years and unpredictable environmental experiences.
Pulmonary Function and Methacholine Challenge Tests in Patients with Ulcerative Colitis

Background Ulcerative colitis is an inflammatory chronic disease which is believed to be a multi organ condition. The prevalence of ulcerative colitis is reportedly increasing in Iran presenting with the same clinical characteristics as in developing countries. Pulmonary manifestations of ulcerative colitis are increasingly reported. In this study, we investigated the incidence of bronchial hyper-responsiveness (BHR) in ulcerative colitis (UC) patients. Materials and Methods Fifty-one UC patients with definite diagnosis referred to Shariati Hospital, Tehran, Iran, were selected to be evaluated with methacholine challenge test from October 2010 to October 2011. Patients were compared for their methacholine test outcome and its association with age, sex, diagnosis time, and disease activity. Results The median age was 41 (range 15 to 65) years. The median time of diagnosis was 7 (range <1 to 16) years. Forty-five percent were females, 18% had active disease and 13% had comorbidity. Nine percent of patients with UC had abnormal PFT in our study. Three cases (5%) had bronchial hyper-responsiveness that was not correlated with sex, age, time of diagnosis, or disease activity. Conclusion A small number of ulcerative colitis patients in our study had disturbed pulmonary function test which is in concord with the findings of other studies. However, higher rates of bronchial hyper-responsiveness have been reported in other studies. Confounding factors like cigarette smoking and medications, which were negative or minimal in our study, may influence the results.
MPT0B098, a Microtubule Inhibitor, Suppresses JAK2/STAT3 Signaling Pathway through Modulation of SOCS3 Stability in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Microtubule inhibitors have been shown to inhibit Janus kinase 2/signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (JAK2/STAT3) signal transduction pathway in various cancer cells. However, little is known of the mechanism by which the microtubule inhibitors inhibit STAT3 activity. In the present study, we examined the effect of a novel small-molecule microtubule inhibitor, MPT0B098, on STAT3 signaling in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Treatment of various OSCC cells with MPT0B098 induced growth inhibition, cell cycle arrest and apoptosis, as well as increased the protein level of SOCS3. The accumulation of SOCS3 protein enhanced its binding to JAK2 and TYK2 which facilitated the ubiquitination and degradation of JAK2 and TYK2, resulting in a loss of STAT3 activity. The inhibition of STAT3 activity led to sensitization of OSCC cells to MPT0B098 cytotoxicity, indicating that STAT3 is a key mediator of drug resistance in oral carcinogenesis. Moreover, the combination of MPT0B098 with the clinical drug cisplatin or 5-FU significantly augmented growth inhibition and apoptosis in OSCC cells. Taken together, our results provide a novel mechanism for the action of MPT0B098 in which the JAK2/STAT3 signaling pathway is suppressed through the modulation of SOCS3 protein level. The findings also provide a promising combinational therapy of MPT0B098 for OSCC.
Proposed Strategic Mandates for Ontario Universities: An Organizational Theory Perspective

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the Ontario-led strategic mandate agreement (SMA) planning exercise. Focusing on the self-generated strategic mandates of five universities (McMaster, Ottawa, Queen’s, Toronto, and Western), we asked how universities responded to this exercise of strategic visioning? The answer to this question is important because the SMA process is unique in Ontario, and universities’ responses revealed aspects of their self-understanding. We adopted an organizational theory approach to understand the structure and nature of universities as organizations and explored how they might confront pressures for change. Analysis of the universities’ own proposed strategic mandates found elements of both conformity and striking differentiation, even within this sample of five research-intensive university SMAs. Directions for further work on this planning exercise and on higher education reform more generally are discussed.
Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels and lung function in adults with asthma: the HUNT Study

The association between vitamin D status and lung function in adults with asthma remains unclear. We studied this cross-sectional association and possible modification by sex and allergic rhinitis in 760 adults (aged 19–55 years) with self-reported asthma in the Nord-Trøndelag Health Study. Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) level <50 nmol·L−1 was considered deficient. Lung function measurements included forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) % predicted, forced vital capacity (FVC) % predicted and FEV1/FVC ratio. Multiple linear regression models were used to estimate adjusted regression coefficients (β) and 95% confidence intervals. 44% of asthma adults had serum 25(OH)D levels <50 nmol·L−1. Its associations with lung function measures seemed to be modified by sex and allergic rhinitis (p<0.03 for three-way interaction term). Overall, a serum 25(OH)D level <50 nmol·L−1 was not associated with lung function measurements in subjects with allergic rhinitis in this asthma cohort. In men with asthma but without allergic rhinitis, however, a serum 25(OH)D level <50 nmol·L−1 was significantly associated with lower FEV1/FVC ratio (β=−8.60%; 95% CI: −16.95%– −0.25%). Low serum 25(OH)D level was not associated with airway obstruction in most asthma adults with the exception of men with asthma but without allergic rhinitis. Low 25(OH)D levels were not associated with airway obstruction in most asthma adults except for men with no allergy http://ow.ly/Dvq1H