Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Structural analysis of a triple complex between the histone octamer, a Xenopus gene for 5S RNA and transcription factor IIIA.

This paper reports three experiments concerning the structural relationship between the Xenopus transcription factor IIIA (TFIIIA), the histone octamer and the Xenopus somatic gene for 5S RNA. Quantitative footprinting methods have been used in order to discover where and how TFIIIA and the histone octamer bind to the same gene independently and also in a triple complex. First, DNaseI and DNaseII protection experiments show that TFIIIA binds to positions 45‐97 within the gene, in agreement with other workers. Second, the histone octamer takes up a unique, well‐defined position with respect to DNA sequence. The nucleosome core extends to position 78 of the gene and therefore overlaps the TFIIIA binding region by approximately 35 bp. Third, it is shown that a triple complex can be formed between TFIIIA, the histone octamer and the 5S RNA gene. TFIIIA displaces the DNA from the histone surface in the 35‐bp region of overlap. This has led to a three‐dimensional model which explains how RNA polymerase III could interact simultaneously with transcription factors bound at the internal control region of the 5S RNA gene and the start point of transcription. The model also explains how histone H1 could repress transcription of 5S RNA genes.
Novel Slow-Light Reflector Composed of a Fiber Ring Resonator and Low-Reflectivity Fiber Bragg Grating

Slow-light components are attractive for many practical applications, such as narrow linewidth lasers and optical delay line. Characteristics of a novel slow-light reflector, which is composed of a fiber resonator and an extremely low reflectivity fiber Bragg grating (LRFBG), are proposed and analyzed theoretically and experimentally. Due to the light recirculating propagation in the fiber resonator by using a low split ratio coupler, the LRFBG inserted ring provides not only high reflectivity, but also an enlarged group delay, which shows a good slow-light property. In our research, the effective reflectance up to unity can be obtained when the FBG reflectivity and coupler split ratio reach to the critical values for lossless cases. Double peak resonant effects are also observed when the reflectivity of FBG is larger than the critical value. A supernarrow-linewidth fiber laser using the proposed slow-light reflector as its output cavity mirror is built experimentally to verify the analyzed results. It is believed that the proposed slow-light component will have some good applications due to the merits of compactness and low cost.
Abdominal obesity, waist circumference, body mass index, and echocardiographic measures in children and adolescents.

BACKGROUND Waist circumference (WC) may predict cardiovascular risk better than body mass index (BMI) in adults. The relationships between WC and echocardiographic measurements known to predict adult cardiovascular risk have not yet been explored in children. OBJECTIVE This investigation sought to investigate whether WC predicts echocardiographic measures of cardiac structure and function and whether WC is a better predictor of these outcomes than BMI. If associations between WC and measures of diastolic function are found, are they due to increased left ventricular (LV) mass and whether WC and LV mass have synergistic or antagonistic effects on measures of diastolic function? METHODS A total of 49 clinically normal children aged 3-19 years, including 17 with abdominal obesity, underwent detailed echocardiographic assessment to explore the associations between WC and various indices of systolic and diastolic function. Correlations, t-tests, and linear regressions were used for statistical testing. Results. Compared to subjects without abdominal obesity, those with abdominal obesity had increased left atrial dimensions, posterior wall thickness, and left ventricular (LV) mass index(2.7) (P < .05 for each comparison). Those with abdominal obesity also had altered LV filling patterns at the septal, lateral, and inferior wall by Doppler tissue imaging. WC was the sole predictor of, and was negatively associated with, the ratios of early peak velocity/late peak velocity at the septum, inferior wall, and right ventricle, and these associations were independent of LV mass (P < .001 for each comparison). Both BMI and WC were independent predictors of left ventricular mass index(2.7) (P= .001 and P= .05, respectively). CONCLUSIONS Otherwise normal children and adolescents with abdominal obesity had altered left ventricular diastolic function. These differences were often better predicted by WC than by BMI. Our findings suggest the importance of considering WC in future studies of the cardiovascular impact of childhood obesity.
Association Between Type D Personality, Depression, and Oxidative Stress in Patients With Chronic Heart Failure

Objective: To examine whether markers of oxidative stress differ as a function of Type D personality, depression, and chronic heart failure (CHF) etiology. Type D (distressed) personality and depression are related to poor cardiac prognosis. Because patients with CHF are characterized by increased oxidative stress, this may be a candidate mechanism responsible for the adverse prognosis in emotionally distressed patients with CHF. Methods: Serum levels of xanthine oxidase (XO), inducible heat shock protein (Hsp)70, and deoxyribonucleic acid damage marker 8-OHdG were measured in 122 patients, and effects of Type D, depression, and etiology were assessed. Results: CHF patients with Type D personality had lower levels of Hsp70 than non-Type D patients (6.48 ng/mL versus 7.85 ng/mL, p = .04, d = 0.26), and in case of an ischemic etiology, higher levels of XO (13.57 ng/mL versus 9.84 ng/mL, p = .01, d = 0.98). There were no significant univariate differences for depression. When adding depression as an additional independent variable in the Type D analysis, the effect of Type D personality remained significant (F = 5.460, p = .02) and was independent of depression (F = 0.942, p = .33). The ratio of XO to Hsp70 was significantly higher in Type D patients with CHF as compared with non-Type D patients (6.14 versus 2.83, p = .03, d = 0.39), independent of etiology class. Conclusion: CHF patients with Type D personality are characterized by an increased oxidative stress burden, apparent in the decreased antioxidant levels and an increased oxidative stress ratio. 8-OHdG = 8-hydroxy-2-deoxyguanosine; ACE = angiotensin-converting enzyme; CHF = chronic heart failure; ELISA = enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay; HF = heart failure; Hsp70 = heat shock protein 70; LVEF = left ventricular ejection fraction; MANOVA = multivariate analysis of variance; MDD = major depressive disorder; MI = myocardial infarction; NA = negative affectivity; ROS = reactive oxygen species; SI = social inhibition; TNF = tumor necrosis factor; XO = xanthine oxidase.
Cervical Adenocarcinoma In Situ

Cervical adenocarcinoma in situ is a rare disease. Eighteen patients with this disease seen at the University of Michigan Medical Center are reported, with a review of their clinical characteristics and pathologic data. These patients represented 9.2% of all endocervical adenocarcinomas seen during the study period. Their median age was 37 years, compared with a median age of 47 years in those women with invasive disease. Sixty percent presented with abnormal bleeding. Cone biopsy margins were examined in 12 patients, and accurately predicted the presence or absence of disease in ten of 12 hysterectomy specimens. One patient developed recurrent adenocarcinoma, and died of disease 16 years after initial diagnosis. Based on these data, it is suggested that hysterectomy and pelvic lymph node evaluation be used to treat these patients.
Entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance in different environmental settings

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and firm performance across different levels of environmental hostility and market growth. The contingency approach of two-way interactions of EO with each environmental variable is contrasted with the configurational approach of three-way interactions of EO simultaneously with different levels of both environmental variables. Design/methodology/approach – Hierarchical regression analysis is applied for the pooled data set of 163 Finnish and Russian small- and medium-sized enterprises, and supplemented with post hoc analysis of the differences in regression slopes across environmental configurations. Findings – Results show that EO is directly and positively associated with firm performance. However, the strength and direction of this relationship varies by configurations of the external environment variables. Firms achieve superior performance when adopting EO in environments with high levels of bo.
Global Analyses of Transcriptomes and Proteomes of a Parent Strain and an l-Threonine-Overproducing Mutant Strain

ABSTRACT We compared the transcriptome, proteome, and nucleotide sequences between the parent strain Escherichia coli W3110 and the l-threonine-overproducing mutant E. coli TF5015. DNA macroarrays were used to measure mRNA levels for all of the genes of E. coli, and two-dimensional gel electrophoresis was used to compare protein levels. It was observed that only 54 of 4,290 genes (1.3%) exhibited differential expression profiles. Typically, genes such as aceA, aceB, icdA, gltA, glnA, leu operon, proA, thrA, thrC, and yigJ, which are involved in the glyoxylate shunt, the tricarboxylic acid cycle, and amino acid biosynthesis (l-glutamine, l-leucine, proline, and l-threonine), were significantly upregulated, whereas the genes dadAX, hdeA, hdeB, ompF, oppA, oppB, oppF, yfiD, and many ribosomal protein genes were downregulated in TF5015 compared to W3110. The differential expression such as upregulation of thr operon and expression of yigJ would result in an accumulation of l-threonine in TF5015. Furthermore, two significant mutations, thrA345 and ilvA97, which are essential for overproduction of l-threonine, were identified in TF5015 by the sequence analysis. In particular, expression of the mutated thrABC (pATF92) in W3110 resulted in a significant incremental effect on l-threonine production. Upregulation of aceBA and downregulation of b1795, hdeAB, oppA, and yfiD seem to be linked to a low accumulation of acetate in TF5015. Such comprehensive analyses provide information regarding the regulatory mechanism of l-threonine production and the physiological consequences in the mutant stain.
Hemagglutination Test for Rapid Serodiagnosis of Human Pythiosis

ABSTRACT Human pythiosis is an emerging, life-threatening infectious disease, caused by the oomycete Pythium insidiosum. Thailand is an area where human pythiosis is endemic and the genetic blood disorder thalassemia is a predisposing factor. Patients with pythiosis present with arterial occlusions of the lower extremities, corneal ulcers, or chronic cutaneous infections. Diagnosis relies on time-consuming, relatively insensitive tests such as culture identification and immunodiffusion assay. Most patients undergo surgical removal of infected organs, and many die from the infection. Delayed diagnosis results in a poor prognosis. Here, we describe a hemagglutination (HA) test for rapid diagnosis of human pythiosis. Sheep red blood cells were coated with P. insidiosum protein extract and used in duplicated detection assays using serum samples from 33 patients with vascular (n = 27), cutaneous (n = 2), or ocular (n = 4) pythiosis and serum samples from 289 control patients with other infectious diseases (n = 77), with highly positive antinuclear antibody (n = 5), with thalassemia (n = 21), or with no known disorder (i.e., healthy blood donors) (n = 186). Based on receiver-operating characteristic analysis, a serum titer of 1:160 was selected as the cutoff point for the HA test. Serum samples that generated HA at the cutoff titer were read as positive, while samples that did not were read as negative. Positive results were obtained with the serum samples of all patients with vascular and cutaneous pythiosis and with two serum samples from the control group. Negative results were obtained with serum samples from all ocular pythiosis patients and the 287 remaining serum samples from the control group. Sensitivity and specificity of the HA were 88% and 99%, respectively. In conclusion, the HA test for detection of anti-Pythium antibodies is a simple, rapid, and reliable test for serodiagnosis of vascular and cutaneous pythiosis.
Cigarette smoking, alcohol, and nasopharyngeal carcinoma: a case-control study among U.S. whites.

BACKGROUND Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a relatively uncommon cancer in the United States. Its etiology among White Americans is not well known, but cigarette smoking has been implicated in some epidemiologic studies. PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to investigate the roles of cigarette use and alcohol consumption as risk factors for NPC in the United States. METHODS We conducted a case-control study using data from the National Mortality Followback Survey based on information from death certificates. In this study, we compared use of cigarettes and alcohol by 204 White American men and women who died of NPC with that by 408 who died of causes unrelated to cigarette smoking and alcohol use. RESULTS Risk of NPC increased in proportion to the amount and duration of smoking (with a more than threefold increase among persons smoking heavily) and declined following cessation of smoking. After controlling for smoking, we found an 80% excess risk of NPC among persons whose intake of alcohol was heavy. CONCLUSION Use of cigarettes and consumption of alcohol were found to be statistically significant risk factors for NPC. The findings are among the strongest to date indicating that use of cigarettes and perhaps alcohol may contribute to the etiology of these relatively rare cancers among Whites in the United States.
Edge distribution method for solving elliptic boundary value problems with boundary singularities.

Elliptic boundary value problems are difficult to treat in the vicinity of singularities, i.e., edges and corners, of the boundary. The concentration of electrical charge on the edges and corners of a conductor is perhaps the simplest example of such problems. Here we provide a rapid method for accurate treatment of these problems. It utilizes a Green's-function-based implementation of last-passage Monte Carlo diffusion methods. This is combined with a diffusion algorithm for the scaling of solutions to the Laplace equation near a corner singularity to yield the solution of a benchmark problem: the charge distribution near the edge and corner of a conducting cube.
Study on the comparative immunogenicity of a recombinant DNA hepatitis B vaccine containing pre‐S components of the HBV coat protein with non pre‐S containing vaccines

Abstract A new recombinant hepatitis B vaccine (SCI‐B‐VAC), derived from Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells and consisting of both the major S protein and the minor pre‐S1 and pre‐S2 proteins of the viral coat were compared with two yeast‐derived vaccines containing only S proteins (B‐Hepavac II and Engerix‐B) for immunogenicity in human volunteers in a randomized controlled study. Two hundred and ninety‐five healthy subjects completed the 12 month follow up. There was no difference in the mean age and sex distribution among the three study groups. Seroconversion rates for all the three groups were similar at months 6, 9 and 12. However, hepatitis B surface antibody (anti‐HBs) geometric mean titres (GMT) were significantly higher with 10 μg SCI‐B‐VAC and 20 μg Engerix‐B than with 10 μg B‐Hepavac‐II at months 6, 9 and 12. SCI‐B‐VAC at month 6 also showed a significantly higher anti‐HBs GMT than Engerix‐B (295 vs 143 miu/mL, P < 0.02).
Neuropsychological Differences Among Children With Asperger Syndrome, Nonverbal Learning Disabilities, Attention Deficit Disorder, and Controls

Confusion is present as to possible diagnostic differences between Asperger syndrome (AS) and Nonverbal learning disabilities (NLD) and the relation of these disorders to attentional difficulties. Three-hundred and forty-five children participated in this study in 5 groups; NLD, AS, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): Combined type, ADHD: Inattentive type, and controls. The NLD group showed particular difficulty on visual-spatial, visual-motor, and fluid reasoning measures compared to the other groups. There was also a significant verbal-performance IQ split in this group related to difficulty in social functioning. This study extends the findings from previous studies and extends these findings to differences between AS and NLD groups.
Identification of potential cell‐surface proteins in Candida albicans and investigation of the role of a putative cell‐surface glycosidase in adhesion and virulence

Cell‐surface proteins are attractive targets for the development of novel antifungals as they are more accessible to drugs than are intracellular targets. By using a computational biology approach, we identified 180 potential cell‐surface proteins in Candida albicans, including the known cell‐surface adhesin Als1 and other cell‐surface antigens, such as Pra1 and Csa1. Six proteins (named Csf1‐6 for cell‐surface factors) were selected for further biological characterization. First, we verified that the selected CSF genes are expressed in the yeast and/or hyphal form and then we investigated the effect of the loss of each CSF gene on cell‐wall integrity, filamentation, adhesion to mammalian cells and virulence. As a result, we identified Csf4, a putative glycosidase with an apparent orthologue in Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Utr2), as an important factor for cell‐wall integrity and maintenance. Interestingly, deletion of CSF4 also resulted in a defect in filamentation, a reduction in adherence to mammalian cells in an in vitro adhesion assay, and a prolongation of survival in an immunocompetent mouse model of disseminated candidiasis. A delay in colonization of key organs (e.g. kidney) was also observed, which is consistent with a reduction in virulence of the csf4‐deletion strain. These data indicate a key role for extracellular glycosidases in fungal pathogenesis and represent a new site for therapeutic intervention to cure and prevent fungal disease. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Public pensions and unmet medical need among older people: cross-national analysis of 16 European countries, 2004–2010

Background Since the onset of the Great Recession in Europe, unmet need for medical care has been increasing, especially in persons aged 65 or older. It is possible that public pensions buffer access to healthcare in older persons during times of economic crisis, but to our knowledge, this has not been tested empirically in Europe. Methods We integrated panel data on 16 European countries for years 2004–2010 with indicators of public pension, unemployment insurance and sickness insurance entitlement from the Comparative Welfare Entitlements Dataset and unmet need (due to cost) prevalence rates from EuroStat 2014 edition. Using country-level fixed-effects regression models, we evaluate whether greater public pension entitlement, which helps reduce old-age poverty, reduces the prevalence of unmet medical need in older persons and whether it reduces inequalities in unmet medical need across the income distribution. Results We found that each 1-unit increase in public pension entitlement is associated with a 1.11 percentage-point decline in unmet medical need due to cost among over 65s (95% CI −0.55 to −1.66). This association is strongest for the lowest income quintile (1.65 percentage points, 95% CI −1.19 to −2.10). Importantly, we found consistent evidence that out-of-pocket payments were linked with greater unmet needs, but that this association was mitigated by greater public pension entitlement (β=−1.21 percentage points, 95% CI −0.37 to −2.06). Conclusions Greater public pension entitlement plays a crucial role in reducing inequalities in unmet medical need among older persons, especially in healthcare systems which rely heavily on out-of-pocket payments.
SPONTANEOUS MUTATIONAL GENOTYPE‐ENVIRONMENT INTERACTION FOR FITNESS‐RELATED TRAITS IN DROSOPHILA MELANOGASTER

Spontaneous mutations were allowed to accumulate for 104–161 generations in 113–176 inbred lines, independently maintained by a single brother‐sister mating per generation, all of them derived from a completely homozygous population of Drosophila melanogaster. In each of two to three consecutive generations, all lines were scored for fecundity, egg‐to‐pupa and pupa‐to‐adult viabilities, both in the standard laboratory culture medium (ST) and in three harsh media differing from the former by a single factor: higher temperature (HT), higher NaCl concentration (HSC), or a much reduced concentration of nutrients (D). Relative to the standard medium, productivity (fecundity × viability) decreased by 25% (HT), 66% (HSC), and 80% (D). In each medium, mutational variances of those traits and mutational covariances between all possible pairs were calculated from the between‐line divergence (codivergence). Mutational correlations between character states in different media were also obtained. Because we used inbred lines, those estimates were mainly due to the accumulation of mildly detrimental mutations, deleterious mutations of large effect being underrepresented. For all traits, mutational heritabilities ranged from 1.41 × 10–4 to 11.24 × 10–4, and did not increase with intensified environmental harshness. Mutational correlations between character states in different media were usually not large (average absolute value 0.31), reflecting a high degree of environmental specificity of the mutations involved. In our results, mutations quasi‐neutral in ST conditions and mildly detrimental in more stressful media were not, as a class, important. Mutational correlations between fecundity and egg‐to‐pupa viability were small and positive in all media. Those involving pupa‐to‐adult viability were positive in HT, nonsignificant in HSC, and negative in ST and D, showing how the genetic covariance structure of quantitative traits in populations may change in variable environments.