Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Distinct Contribution of the HtrA Protease and PDZ Domains to Its Function in Stress Resilience and Virulence of Bacillus anthracis

Anthrax is a lethal disease caused by the Gram-positive spore-producing bacterium Bacillus anthracis. We previously demonstrated that disruption of htrA gene, encoding the chaperone/protease HtrABA (High Temperature Requirement A of B. anthracis) results in significant virulence attenuation, despite unaffected ability of ΔhtrA strains (in which the htrA gene was deleted) to synthesize the key anthrax virulence factors: the exotoxins and capsule. B. anthracis ΔhtrA strains exhibited increased sensitivity to stress regimens as well as silencing of the secreted starvation-associated Neutral Protease A (NprA) and down-modulation of the bacterial S-layer. The virulence attenuation associated with disruption of the htrA gene was suggested to reflect the susceptibility of ΔhtrA mutated strains to stress insults encountered in the host indicating that HtrABA represents an important B. anthracis pathogenesis determinant. As all HtrA serine proteases, HtrABA exhibits a protease catalytic domain and a PDZ domain. In the present study we interrogated the relative impact of the proteolytic activity (mediated by the protease domain) and the PDZ domain (presumably necessary for the chaperone activity and/or interaction with substrates) on manifestation of phenotypic characteristics mediated by HtrABA. By inspecting the phenotype exhibited by ΔhtrA strains trans-complemented with either a wild-type, truncated (ΔPDZ), or non-proteolytic form (mutated in the catalytic serine residue) of HtrABA, as well as strains exhibiting modified chromosomal alleles, it is shown that (i) the proteolytic activity of HtrABA is essential for its N-terminal autolysis and subsequent release into the extracellular milieu, while the PDZ domain was dispensable for this process, (ii) the PDZ domain appeared to be dispensable for most of the functions related to stress resilience as well as involvement of HtrABA in assembly of the bacterial S-layer, (iii) conversely, the proteolytic activity but not the PDZ domain, appeared to be dispensable for the role of HtrABA in mediating up-regulation of the extracellular protease NprA under starvation stress, and finally (iv) in a murine model of anthrax, the HtrABA PDZ domain, was dispensable for manifestation of B. anthracis virulence. The unexpected dispensability of the PDZ domain may represent a unique characteristic of HtrABA amongst bacterial serine proteases of the HtrA family.
Banking Crises and Market Discipline in Indonesian Banking Industry

This study analyzes the effect of banking crises towards market discipline in Indonesia. This study uses two periods of crisis in Indonesia, which are banking crisis in 1997/1998 and banking crisis in 2008. The dependent variable is market discipline; while bank risks are the independet variables (insolvency, liquidity, and credit risks). The control variables are banking level (the percentage savings of the customer, bank’s size, bank’s overhead costs, and Lerner index); industrial level (banking concentration level, the bank development); and macroeconomic variables (the growth of the real gross domestic product and inflation rate). The variables examined by the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM). This study finds a fact that on average market discipline weakens after Indonesia's banking crisis in 1997/1998. On the contrary, this study found a fact that market discipline strengthens after Indonesia's banking crisis in 2008. Eventually, this study finds a fact that there is no difference in market discipline between the domestic bank and foreign bank after Indonesia's banking crisis in 2008.
ADL™: A Topic Model for Recognition of Activities of Daily Living in a SmartHome

We present an unsupervised approach for discovery of Activities of Daily Living (ADL) in a smart home. Activity discovery is an important enabling technology, for example to tackle the healthcare requirements of elderly people in their homes. The technique applied most often is supervised learning, which relies on expensive labelled data and lacks the flexibility to discover unseen activities. Building on ideas from text mining, we present a powerful topic model and a segmentation algorithm that can learn from unlabelled sensor data. The model has been evaluated extensively on datasets collected from real smart homes. The results demonstrate that this approach can successfully discover the activities of residents, and can be effectively used in a range of applications such as detection of abnormal activities and monitoring of sleep quality, among many others.
The Relationship Between Motivation for Learning and Academic Achievement among Basic and Advanced Level Students Studying Chinese as A Foreign Language in Years 3 to 6 at Ascot International School in Bangkok, Thailand

The purpose of this study was to determine the level of motivational goal orientation, and the relationship between the motivational goal orientation and academic achievement among basic and advanced level students studying Chinese as a foreign language in years 3 to 6 at Ascot International School in Bangkok, Thailand. The study respondents were 127 students studying Chinese as a foreign language in years 3 to 6 at Ascot International School in 2014. This study followed a quantitative research methodology employing both a questionnaire and unit quizzes to address the research objectives. There were two main parts included in the study: the level of motivational goal orientation and the relationship between motivational goal orientation and academic achievement among basic and advanced level students. In this study, the motivational goal orientation focused on intrinsic and extrinsic goal orientation. Based on the study objectives, there were eight main findings: 1) the level of intrinsic goal orientation of the basic class was high; 2) the level of intrinsic goal orientation of the advanced class was high; 3) the level of extrinsic goal orientation of the basic class was high; 4) The level of extrinsic goal orientation of advanced class was very high; 5) no significant relationship was found between intrinsic goal orientation and academic achievement among basic class students; 6) there is a significant relationship found between the intrinsic goal orientation and academic achievement among advanced class students; 7) there is a significant relationship found between the extrinsic goal orientation and academic achievement among basic class students ; 8) there is a significant relationship found between the extrinsic goal orientation and academic achievement among advanced class students.
Comparative Extracellular Proteomics of Aeromonas hydrophila Reveals Iron-Regulated Secreted Proteins as Potential Vaccine Candidates

In our previous study, several iron-related outer membrane proteins in Aeromonas hydrophila, a serious pathogen of farmed fish, conferred high immunoprotectivity to fish, and were proposed as potential vaccine candidates. However, the protective efficacy of these extracellular proteins against A. hydrophila remains largely unknown. Here, we identified secreted proteins that were differentially expressed in A. hydrophila LP-2 in response to iron starvation using an iTRAQ-based quantitative proteomics method. We identified 341 proteins, of which 9 were upregulated in response to iron starvation and 24 were downregulated. Many of the differently expressed proteins were associated with protease activity. We confirmed our proteomics results with Western blotting and qPCR. We constructed three mutants by knocking out three genes encoding differentially expressed proteins (Δorf01830, Δorf01609, and Δorf03641). The physiological characteristics of these mutants were investigated. In all these mutant strains, protease activity decreased, and Δorf01609, and Δorf01830 were less virulent in zebrafish. This indicated that the proteins encoded by these genes may play important roles in bacterial infection. We next evaluated the immune response provoked by the six iron-related recombinant proteins (ORF01609, ORF01830, ORF01839, ORF02943, ORF03355, and ORF03641) in zebrafish as well as the immunization efficacy of these proteins. Immunization with these proteins significantly increased the zebrafish immune response. In addition, the relative percent survival (RPS) of the immunized zebrafish was 50–80% when challenged with three virulent A. hydrophila strains, respectively. Thus, these extracellular secreted proteins might be effective vaccine candidates against A. hydrophila infection in fish.
Papez Circuit Observed by in vivo Human Brain With 7.0T MRI Super-Resolution Track Density Imaging and Track Tracing

The Papez circuit has been considered as an important anatomical substrate involved in emotional experience. However, the circuit remains difficult to elucidate in the human brain due to the resolution limit of current neuroimaging modalities. In this article, for the first time, we report the direct visualization of the Papez circuit with 7-Tesla super-resolution magnetic resonance tractography. Two healthy, young male subjects (aged 30 and 35 years) were recruited as volunteers following the guidelines of the institutional review board (IRB). Track density imaging (TDI) generation with track tracing was performed using MRtrix software package. With these tools, we were able to visualize the entire Papez circuit. We believe this is the first study to visualize the complete loop of the Papez circuit, including the perforant path (PP), thalamocortical fibers of the anterior nucleus (AN), and mammillothalamic tract (MTT), which were hitherto difficult to visualize by conventional imaging techniques.
Studying the Real-Time Interpretation of Novel Noun and Verb Meanings in Young Children

Decades of research show that children rely on the linguistic context in which novel words occur to infer their meanings. However, because learning in these studies was assessed after children had heard numerous occurrences of a novel word in informative linguistic contexts, it is impossible to determine how much exposure would be needed for a child to learn from such information. This study investigated the speed with which French 20-month-olds and 3-to-4-year-olds exploit function words to determine the syntactic category of novel words and therefore infer their meanings. In a real-time preferential looking task, participants saw two videos side-by-side on a TV-screen: one showing a person performing a novel action, and the other a person passively holding a novel object. At the same time, participants heard only three occurrences of a novel word preceded either by a determiner (e.g., “Regarde! Une dase! – “Look! A dase! ”) or a pronoun (e.g., “Regarde! Elle dase! ” – “Look! She’s dasing! ”). 3-to-4-year-olds exploited function words to categorize novel words and infer their meanings: they looked more to the novel action in the verb condition, while participants in the noun condition looked more to the novel object. 20-month-olds, however, did not show this difference. We discuss possible reasons for why 20-month-olds may have found it difficult to infer novel word meanings in our task. Given that 20-month-olds can use function words to learn word meanings in experiments providing many repetitions, we suspect that more repetitions might be needed to observe positive effects of learning in this age range in our task. Our study establishes nevertheless that before age 4, young children become able to exploit function words to infer the meanings of unknown words as soon as they occur. This ability to interpret speech in real-time and build interpretations about novel word meanings might be extremely useful for young children to map words to their possible referents and to boost their acquisition of word meanings.
Temporal and spatial variations of the absolute reflectivity of Jupiter and Saturn from 0.38 to 1.7 $\mu$m with PlanetCam-UPV/EHU

We provide measurements of the absolute reflectivity of Jupiter and Saturn along their central meridians in filters covering a wide range of visible and near-infrared wavelengths (from 0.38 to 1.7 $\mu$m) that are not often presented in the literature. We also give measurements of the geometric albedo of both planets and discuss the limb-darkening behavior and temporal variability of their reflectivity values for a period of four years (2012-2016). This work is based on observations with the PlanetCam-UPV/EHU instrument at the 1.23 m and 2.2 m telescopes in Calar Alto Observatory (Spain). The instrument simultaneously observes in two channels: visible (VIS; 0.38-1.0 $\mu$m) and short-wave infrared (SWIR; 1.0--1.7 $\mu$m). We obtained high-resolution observations via the lucky-imaging method. We show that our calibration is consistent with previous independent determinations of reflectivity values of these planets and, for future reference, provide new data extended in the wavelength range and in the time. Our results have an uncertainty in absolute calibration of 10--20\%. We show that under the hypothesis of constant geometric albedo, we are able to detect absolute reflectivity changes related to planetary temporal evolution of about 5-10\%.
An explorative analysis of the socialization of positive emotions: Insights from the consulting field

Common accounts on socialization are predominantly slanted towards cognitive conceptions. When emotions are considered, most of the time emphasis lays upon negative emotions. Against this background, this study refines prior research in two ways. First, we offer an emotion-oriented perspective of socialization processes. Second, we concentrate on the socialization of positive emotions. We confirm these assumptions by means of an explorative case study in the field of consulting firms. Results suggest that positive emotions play a crucial role throughout the different socialization phases, and can manifest themselves over time in a virtuous cycle. In addition, conventional notions on socialization agents are refined by this research, while arguing that clients ought to be taken similarly into consideration. The article concludes by offering managerial implications, as well as suggestions for future research activities with regard to the socialization of positive emotions. Key-words: positive emotions, socialization, consulting, case study Resumo. As perspectivas correntes sobre socializacao apresentam uma visao predominantemente cognitiva do assunto. Mesmo nos casos em que as emocoes sao levadas em conta, a maior parte das vezes a enfase e colocada nas emocoes negativas. Contrariamente a este quadro, este estudo refina a investigacao de duas grandes formas. Primeiro, oferecemos uma perspectiva do processo de socializacao orientada para as emocoes. Segundo, concentramo-nos na socializacao das emocoes positivas. De seguida, confirmamos os nossos pressupostos atraves de um estudo de caso exploratorio no campo das empresas de consultoria. Os resultados sugerem que as emocoes positivas desempenham um papel crucial ao longo das diferentes fases de socializacao, e podem manifestar-se ao longo do tempo, num ciclo virtuoso. Para alem disso, refinamos as nocoes convencionais sobre os agentes de socializacao, ao mesmo tempo que defendemos uma inclusao dos clientes neste processo. O artigo conclui com um conjunto de implicacoes para a gestao, bem como com sugestoes para futuros estudos relativos a socializacao das emocoes positivas. Palavras-chave: emocoes positivas, socializacao, consultoria, estudo de caso.
Pharmacist’s role in pharmacotherapeutic management of Alzheimer’s disease

Alzheimer Disease (AD) characterized by the progressive cognitive and functional impairment, is the most common form of dementia affecting people worldwide. In this study, we aimed to investigate the profile of patients with AD, the perception of caregivers about the disease and the role of pharmacist in the pharmacotherapy of AD by implementing a questionnaire for the caregivers of 44 patients with AD. 70% of the evaluated patients with AD is female gender and in 52% of the cases, hypertension co-exists with AD. The combination of memantine/donepezil (34%) was found the most commonly used pharmacological treatment in the patients which was associated with various adverse effects such as headache, insomnia, fatigue, and hallucinations. An average of 70% of the caregivers benefit from the pharmacists in regard to the use of drugs (94%), information about disease and side effects (48%) and drug-drug interactions (42%). Additionally, the 77% of caregivers who benefit from pharmacists were well satisfied with this support. In conclusion, patients with AD and their caregivers need a professional assistance regarding the use of drugs and modalities how to fight with the disease. Pharmacists play a significant role in both following the pharmacotherapy of AD patients and the education of caregivers. Thus, pharmacist’s role in the management of rational pharmacotherapy should be strengthened by providing a continued educational support.
Prevalence of Class 1, 2, and 3 Integrons and Biofilm Formation in Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumannii among ICU and non-ICU Patients

Copyright © 2016, Infection, Epidemiology and Medicine; Tarbiat Modares University. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International License, which permits copy and redistribute the material just in noncommercial usages, provided the original work is properly cited. Prevalence of Class 1, 2, and 3 Integrons and Biofilm Formation in Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumannii among ICU and nonICU Patients
Consumer Surplus from Energy Transitions

Energy transitions have led to major advances in human wellbeing. However, little evidence exists about the scale of the net benefits. By developing a new method for identifying the demand curve, this paper estimates the consumer surplus associated with heating, transport and lighting over more than two hundred years and identifies the gains from key energy transitions. For certain energy transitions, the increase was dramatic, reflecting the transformations in society and lifestyles that mobility and illumination provided in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Yet, the net benefits related to heating technologies only rose modestly. Finally, due to saturation effects of the demand for energy services, future technological developments and energy transitions may benefit consumers (though not necessarily society as a whole) less than those in the past.
Pollination ecology of cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum) in the Western Ghats, India

Heterogeneous agroforestry systems play an important role in maintaining animal pollinator diversity (Klein et al. 2003, Perfecto et al. 1996), most likely by extending floral resources in lean periods. An understanding of the mutualistic relationship between flower-visiting insects and crop species in such agroforestry systems (Kearns et al. 1998), particularly on the diversity of pollinator species, their spatio-temporal variations, foraging behaviour (Cunningham 2000, Greenleaf & Kremen 2006, Klein et al. 2003) and their pollination efficiency (Motten et al. 1981), is important as they are some of the crucial biological predictors of pollination success.
A direct proof of a theorem by Kolmogorov in hamiltonian systems

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Parmelina yalungana resurrected and reported from Alaska, China and Russia

Abstract Parmelina quercina is a well-studied foliose macro-lichen found on rocks and trees in the Northern Hemisphere. Recent studies support multiple species within P. quercina based on material from Europe, North America and western Asia. The identities of Parmelina quercina s.lat. reported from eastern Asia and Alaska remain unknown. We compared DNA sequences, secondary chemistry and morphological traits of Parmelina from Alaska, Russia and China. These data support the resurrection of Parmelina yalungana to accommodate eastern Asian and Alaskan material. Parmelina yalungana differs from congeners in ascospore dimensions, geographic range and molecular data from three gene loci. We place P. yalungana in the phylogenetic context of the P. quercina group using DNA from Alaskan and Russian material.
Relative efficiency of non-parametric error rate estimators in multi-group linear discriminant analysis

A Monte Carlo study was achieved to assess the relative efficiency of ten non-parametric error rate estimators in 2-, 3- and 5-group linear discriminant analysis. The simulation design took into account the number of variables (4, 6, 10, 18) together with the size sample n so that: n/p = 1.5, 2.5 and 5. Three values of the overlap, e of the populations were considered (e = 0.05, e = 0.1, e = 0.15) and their common distribution was Normal, Chi-square with 12, 8, and 4 df; the heteroscedasticity degree, Γ was measured by the value of the power function, 1- β of the homoscedasticity test related to (1-β = 0.05, 1-β = 0.4, 1-β = 0.6, 1-β = 0.8). For each combination of these factors, the actual error rate was empirically computed as well as the ten estimators. The efficiency parameter of the estimators was their relative error, bias and efficiency with regard to the actual error rate, empirically computed. The results showed the overall best performance e632 estimator. On the contrary, e0, epp, eppCV and eA recorded the lowest performance in terms of mean relative error and mean relative bias. The ranks of the estimators were not influenced by the number of groups but for high values of the later, the mean relative bias of the estimators tend to zero. Keywords: Error rate; Estimation; Efficiency; Multi-group; Linear rule; Simulation