Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Expression of gamma interferon by simian immunodeficiency virus increases attenuation and reduces postchallenge virus load in vaccinated rhesus macaques

Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) infection of macaques is a model for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. We have previously reported the construction and characterization of an SIV vector with a deletion in the nef gene (SIV(delta nef)) and expressing gamma interferon (SIV(HyIFN)) (L. Giavedoni and T. Yilma, J. Virol. 70:2247-2251, 1996). We now show that rhesus macaques vaccinated with SIV(HyIFN) have a lower viral load than a group similarly immunized with SIV(delta nef). Viral loads remained low in the SIV(HyIFN)-vaccinated group even though SIV expressing gamma interferon could not be isolated after 6 weeks postimmunization in these animals. All immunized and two naive control macaques became infected when challenged with virulent SIV(mac251), at 25 weeks postvaccination. In contrast to the two naive controls that died by 12 and 18 weeks postchallenge, all vaccinated animals remained healthy for more than 32 weeks. In addition, postchallenge cell-associated virus load was significantly lower in SIV(HyIFN)-immunized animals than in the group vaccinated with SIV(delta nef). These findings indicate that cytokine-expressing viruses can provide a novel approach for development of safe and efficacious live attenuated vaccines for AIDS.
Genetic dissection of the roles of chaperones and proteases in protein folding and degradation in the Escherichia coli cytosol

We investigated the roles of chaperones and proteases in quality control of proteins in the Escherichia coli cytosol. In ΔrpoH mutants, which lack the heat shock transcription factor and therefore have low levels of all major cytosolic proteases and chaperones except GroEL and trigger factor, 5–10% and 20–30% of total protein aggregated at 30°C and 42°C respectively. The aggregates contained 350–400 protein species, of which 93 were identified by mass spectrometry. The aggregated protein species were similar at both temperatures, indicating that thermolabile proteins require folding assistance by chaperones already at 30°C, and showed strong overlap with previously identified DnaK substrates. Overproduction of the DnaK system, or low‐level production of the DnaK system and ClpB, prevented aggregation and provided thermotolerance to ΔrpoH mutants, indicating key roles for these chaperones in protein quality control and stress survival. In rpoH+ cells, DnaK depletion did not lead to protein aggregation at 30°C, which is probably the result of high levels of proteases and thus suggests that DnaK is not a prerequisite for proteolysis of misfolded proteins. Lon was the most efficient protease in degrading misfolded proteins in DnaK‐depleted cells. At 42°C, ClpXP and Lon became essential for viability of cells with low DnaK levels, indicating synergistic action of proteases and the DnaK system, which is essential for cell growth at 42°C.
Suppressing PTEN Activity by Tobacco Smoke Plus Interleukin-1&bgr; Modulates Dissociation of VE-Cadherin/&bgr;-Catenin Complexes in Endothelium

Objectives—Tobacco smoke (TS) interacts with inflammatory cytokines to produce endothelial dysfunction. We hypothesized that interleukin-1&bgr; (IL-1&bgr;) plus TS (TS/IL-1&bgr;) induces disassembly of endothelial junctional complexes of VE-cadherin/&bgr;-catenin by suppression of PTEN activity and investigated molecular mechanisms that modulate PTEN-deactivation in this situation. Methods and Results—TS/IL-1&bgr; exposure, which disrupted adherens junctions and induced nuclear &bgr;-catenin accumulation, increased tyrosine phosphorylation (p-Tyr) of VE-cadherin and &bgr;-catenin, and reduced PTEN activity. Overexpression or silencing of PTEN modulated p-Tyr of both VE-cadherin and &bgr;-catenin, changed assembly of adherens junction complexes, and altered nuclear &bgr;-catenin accumulation. In addition, inhibiting ROS production stimulated by TS/IL-1&bgr; decreased activation of Src, EGFR and p38MAPK, phosphorylation of PTEN, VE-cadherin and &bgr;-catenin, and abrogated the effect of TS/IL-1&bgr; to disorganize adherens junctions, resulting in reduced endothelial permeability and decreased nuclear &bgr;-catenin accumulation. Finally, exposure of ApoE−/− mice to cigarette smoke–induced phosphorylation of Src, EGFR, p-38MAPK, PTEN, and &bgr;-catenin, and disrupted VE-cadherin/&bgr;-catenin complexes in cardiovascular tissue. Conclusions—TS interaction with IL-1&bgr; modulates PTEN activity though the ROS/Src/EGFR-p38MAPK pathway. PTEN deactivation is essential to increase VE-cadherin and &bgr;-catenin p-Tyr and to disassemble VE-cadherin/&bgr;-catenin membrane complexes, events that lead to accumulation of &bgr;-catenin within the nucleus.
Mechanisms of carotid body chemoreflex dysfunction during heart failure

What is the topic of this review? Carotid body chemoreceptor activity is tonically elevated in heart failure and contributes to morbidity due to the reflex activation of sympathetic nerve activity and destabilization of breathing. The potential causes for the enhanced chemoreceptor activation in heart failure are discussed. What advances does it highlight? The role of a chronic reduction in blood flow to the carotid body due to cardiac failure and its impact on signalling pathways in the carotid body is discussed.
A comparative study of quality of life of families with children born with cleft lip and/or palate before and after surgical treatment

Objectives The aim of this study was to compare the quality of life (QoL) of parents/caregivers of children with cleft lip and/or palate before and after surgical repair of an orofacial cleft. Materials and Methods Families of subjects who required either primary or secondary orofacial cleft repair who satisfied the inclusion criteria were recruited. A preoperative and postoperative health-related QoL questionnaire, the ‘Impact on Family Scale’ (IOFS), was applied in order to detect the subjectively perceived QoL in the affected family before and after surgical intervention. The mean pre- and postoperative total scores were compared using paired t-test. Pre- and postoperative mean scores were also compared across the 5 domains of the IOFS. Results The proportion of families whose QoL was affected before surgery was 95.7%. The domains with the greatest impact preoperatively were the financial domain and social domains. Families having children with bilateral cleft lip showed QoL effects mostly in the social domain and 'impact on sibling' domain. Postoperatively, the mean total QoL score was significantly lower than the mean preoperative QoL score, indicating significant improvement in QoL (P<0.001). The mean postoperative QoL score was also significantly lower than the mean preoperative QoL score in all domains. Only 3.2% of the families reported affectation of their QoL after surgery. The domains of mastery (61.3%) with a mean of 7.4±1.8 and finance (45.1%) with a mean score of 7.2±1.6 were those showing the greatest postoperative impact. The proportion of families whose QoL was affected by orofacial cleft was markedly different after treatment (95.7% preoperative and 3.2% postoperative). Conclusion Caring for children with orofacial clefts significantly reduces the QoL of parents/caregivers in all domains. However, surgical intervention significantly improves the QoL of the parents/caregivers of these children.
Essays on equity option behavior surrounding macroeconomic announcements

This dissertation presents two empirical studies on equity option behavior around scheduled macroeconomic announcements. In the first essay, I analyze the predictive power of implied volatilities of S&P 500 options for underlying index returns on macroeconomic news days. I design a measure of uncertainty based on economist forecast dispersion. During high uncertainty announcements, the steepness of the implied volatility function strongly predicts negative next day returns on the S&P 500, implying that buying pressure on out-of-the-money puts precedes bad economic news. Firm-level implied volatilities for cyclical and high beta stocks also exhibit this behavior, indicating that options traders can predict the impact of announcements on individual stock returns. My findings are consistent with the notion that informed options traders can anticipate and capitalize on the upcoming macroeconomic news. In the second essay, delta-neutral straddles have high returns when realized volatility is higher than expected, or when price jumps occur. This makes a straddle an effective proxy for studying variance and jump risk. In my second essay, I analyze returns on S&P 500 delta-neutral straddles to obtain the size and sign of the variance and jump risk premiums on macroeconomic announcement days. Announcement day returns comprise over 77% of the total negative annualized returns on straddles, implying a vastly larger premium for insuring against changes in volatility and jumps around systematically released market news. In particular, on days when the Consumer Price Index, Non-Farm Payrolls, Industrial Manufacturing, and Industrial Production are announced, average returns are strongly negative ranging from -1.3% to -2.5%. In comparison, non-announcement days have average straddle returns of -0.1%, indicating that insurance for volatility and jumps resulting from random economic news shocks can essentially be obtained for free. However, straddles earn highly positive returns
The recreation mentoring program: a community engagement initiative for children.

INTRODUCTION Approximately one in five Ontario children show symptoms of significant mental health problems. These children exhibit impairments at home, at school and in the community, often with long-lasting effects. Involvement in structured community-based recreation programs may be protective for these children; however, they often encounter multiple barriers to participation (e.g., facility fees, lack of family or peer support, and reluctance to try new activities). METHOD The Recreation Mentoring Program is a community-wide program that reduces barriers to participation while providing an important relationship with a caring, young adult mentor. Trained volunteer mentors are matched with at-risk children, and meet regularly at a community recreation centre near the child's residence. The mentor's role is to: 1) stimulate participation in recreational programs, and 2) promote the child's continued participation after the mentorship ends. RESULTS Limited program evaluation suggests that the Recreation Mentoring Program engages at-risk children in community-based recreation, that it is operationally feasible, and that it produces high levels of client satisfaction. CONCLUSION The Recreation Mentoring Program holds promise as an effective community-based intervention for children with mental health problems.
Exploring quasi-geodesics on Stiefel manifolds in order to smooth interpolate between domains

Manifold-based algorithms are receiving increasing attention in computer vision and pattern recognition. Geodesic curves in the Graßmann manifold have proven to be very useful in modeling domain shift between a source and target domain, represented as subspaces. To obtain an invariant domain representation, the data is projected into a set of subspaces along the geodesic. In contrast to previous works that mainly explore intermediate subspaces along geodesics, in this paper we propose an alternative approach to address multiple source domain adaptation, by taking advantage of smooth interpolating curves on the Stiefel manifold to walk along a set of multiple domains. This aspect is particularly interesting in temporally or dynamically evolving events that are represented by discrete subsets of the data. To generate such curves, we apply a recent technique based on successive quasi-geodesic interpolation on the Stiefel manifold, that results from a modification of the Casteljau algorithm. To evaluate the usefulness of these smooth interpolating curves in pattern recognition problems, several experiments were conducted. We show the advantage of using such curves in multi-source unsupervised domain adaptation problems and in object recognition problems across dynamically evolving datasets.
Cabinet Leadership: Does It Mirror Democratic Change in Mexico?

Abstract An exploration of cabinet leadership in Mexico has always provided insights into political recruitment trends for leading policymakers. An examination of the present cabinet from 2012 through 2016 is valuable for four reasons. First, to what extent does the current leadership reflect changes in compositional patterns of the most influential policymakers as a result of a democratic electoral process dating from 2000? Second, does the return of the PRI reflect traditional patterns established by the last two PRI presidential administrations, or has the present cabinet taken on features that can be attributed to the two previous PAN administrations? Third, have significant patterns emerged, reflected in recent appointments, that suggest influential characteristics exercising broader influences in the future? Fourth, will the most influential cabinet figures under the PRI presidency reestablish their dominance as leading contenders for their party’s presidential election in 2018?
Lack of evidence for a role of HHV-6 in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease.

BACKGROUND Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common form of dementia worldwide, is associated with impairment in the mechanisms of the clearing of amyloid-β within a scenario of neuroinflammation. The etiopathogenesis of the AD is unclear, but a role for viral infection is suspected to play a role in initiating the disease. We recently described a positive correlation between high titers of HSV-1-specific antibodies (Ab) and the volumes of brain regions typically affected in disease. OBJECTIVE The exploration of a possible role for Herpesviridae in AD was extended by analyzing HHV-6-specific humoral immunity in individuals with AD or a diagnosis of amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), a condition that is often prodromic of the development of AD. METHODS 59 AD, 60 aMCI, and 61 age-matched healthy controls were enrolled in the study. Serum HHV-6 IgG antibody titers and avidity index were tested by ELISA. Two randomly selected subgroups of AD and aMCI in whom HHV-6 serum antibodies were detected underwent brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) by 1.5 T scanner. RESULTS HHV-6 seroprevalence, antibody titers, and avidity were similar in the three groups. No correlation was found between Ab titers or avidity and brain volumes, either overall or in the regions typically affected by disease. CONCLUSIONS The lack of any relation between humoral immune response against HHV-6 and AD and aMCI seems to rule out a role for this virus in the pathogenesis of AD.
The Potentiating Effect of an Accentuated Eccentric Load on Countermovement Jump Performance

Abstract Hughes, JD, Massiah, RG, and Clarke, RD. The potentiating effect of an accentuated eccentric load on countermovement jump performance. J Strength Cond Res 30(12): 3450–3455, 2016—Postactivation potentiation (PAP) following a bout of high-intensity exercise of short duration is known to produce both a fatigued and a potentiated state. There has been much research in the effectiveness of various PAP protocols, yet the type of dynamic muscle action utilized has seldom been investigated. Therefore, the present study aimed to assess whether an accentuated eccentric load (AE) could enhance subsequent performance. Eleven men (21 ± 2 years, 179.1 ± 6.9 cm, 83.2 ± 10.1 kg) performed 3 countermovement jumps (CMJs) before and 6 minutes after an AE and a back squat (BSq) PAP protocol. The participant's maximum CMJ height (cm) was determined before and after both protocol. A 2-way repeated measures analysis of variance was conducted to evaluate the effect of PAP condition and time on vertical jumping performance. A significant condition × time interaction was found (p = 0.02). Post hoc tests revealed that AE PAP had a significant (p = 0.03) potentiating effect on CMJ jump height. Whereas, the BSq PAP revealed no significant differences (p = 0.32). In conclusion, this study has shown that jump performance can be enhanced by eccentric muscle action when compared with a traditional BSq PAP protocol. This may provide a more practical method for coaches to enhance short-term explosive movements in athletic populations.
A rapid method for the measurement of the oxoreductase activity of 11beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase in granulosa-lutein cells from patients undergoing in-vitro fertilization.

The presence of 11beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (11beta-HSD; EC1.1.1.146), the enzyme responsible for the interconversion of cortisol and cortisone, in granulosa-lutein (GL) cells is associated with a poor outcome in in-vitro fertilization (IVF). We have developed a simple method of assessing the reductase component of 11beta-HSD in these cells which is sufficiently rapid to provide data on the enzyme's activity prior to embryo replacement. Cells were pooled from follicular aspirates and challenged with cortisone within 2 h of aspiration. Cortisol secretion was then measured by radioimmunoassay. Conversion of cortisone to cortisol was linear for up to 3 h and was completely inhibited by glycyrrhetinic acid, a specific 11beta-HSD inhibitor. Initial velocity rates were determined for eight cortisone concentrations (range 0.1-8 micromol/l), and the apparent Km calculated (1.6 +/- 0.4 micromol/l). There was no evidence of substrate/product inhibition and conversion of cortisone to cortisol was <2% in all experiments. In subsequent work, cells were challenged with cortisone (6 micromol/l) for 2 h. Cells challenged for 2 h immediately following purification from follicular aspirates produced varying amounts of cortisol (range 25-150 nmol/pooled follicles from each patient, n = 10 patients), while basal outputs were <6 nmol/l. Enzyme activity was also examined in cells on a per follicle basis from individual patients and found to vary considerably (e.g. 19, 53 and 36 nmol/l cortisol/1000 cells, three follicles). Having established the method for assessing 11beta-reductase activity within GL cells, we performed a small prospective study on a series of 20 patients examining the enzyme activity within 110 individual follicles. 11Beta-reductase activity varied greatly from patient to patient and from follicle to follicle ranging from <0.024-0.57 nmol cortisol/microg DNA but at present low patient numbers preclude a meaningful correlation between enzyme activity and pregnancy rate. In summary, we have developed a simple, rapid (<8 h) assay for detecting the reductase activity of 11beta-HSD in GL cells isolated from pooled or individual follicles. This procedure is sufficiently quick to aid in the choice of embryo for replacement.
(Mis)communicating through Conflicts: Chinese Restaurant Owners and Zimbabwean Employees in Johannesburg

ABSTRACT South Africa is home to the two largest populations of foreign nationals on the continent – migrants from China and Zimbabwe – and many of them are involved in the Chinese restaurant sector. Based on original ethnographic research, this paper examines the employment relationship between Chinese restaurant owners and Zimbabwean migrant workers. Several issues arising from cross-cultural misunderstandings are explored in this paper: miscommunication, attitudes and expectations, conflict resolution styles, lack of understanding racial diversity and a sense of cultural sensitivity. The Chinese concept of guanxi is discussed to examine the aspect of ‘proper’ workplace etiquette, since this cultural norm often indicates how one should act and negotiate according to one’s position in a given relationship. As my ethnographic data revealed, before coming to South Africa, most Chinese restaurant owners had no experience of operating a business, and none of their Zimbabwean employees had ever worked for Chinese people. This case study provides a concrete example of intercultural communications between two groups of migrants who are linguistically and culturally different, and how their everyday interaction is also complicated by the nature of their employer-employee relationship.
Fair or Unfair: The Moderating Effect of Sustainable CSR Practices on Anticipatory Justice Following Service Failure Recovery

This paper investigates the relative effect of anticipatory justice on organizational legitimacy and consumer trust that further leads to consumer citizenship behavior following service failure recovery in Taiwan. Further, the moderating role of sustainable corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices is explored. A causal relationship and survey design with a valid sample of 269 respondents was applied. Findings indicated that organizational legitimacy and consumer trust can be restored through anticipatory justice, in particular interpersonal justice and then further mediated consumer citizenship behavior. As a moderator, a high level of sustainable CSR practices had a significantly stronger effect on anticipatory justice and organizational legitimacy than the low level one but only had an effect on interpersonal justice and consumer trust after service recovery. Practical implications are provided for service providers. The value of this research proposes an integrated model with organizational legitimacy and sustainable CSR practice that has not yet been tested in the model of service recovery. In addition, sustainable CSR practice is proposed as a moderator (high and low) that is compared in the level of strength of the relationships. This moderation effect has not been found previously in the process of service recovery.
Bridging Gaps in the Agricultural Phosphorus Cycle from an Animal Husbandry Perspective—The Case of Pigs and Poultry

Since phosphorus (P) is an essential element for life, its usage and application across agricultural production systems requires great attention. Monogastric species such as pigs and poultry can significantly contribute to global food security but these animals remain highly dependent on the supply of mineral inorganic P in their feeds. Pig and poultry, which represent 70% of the global meat production, are also major P excretors and thus represent important sources of environmental P inputs. Balancing the P cycle within farming systems is crucial to achieve P sustainable and resilient livestock production. Therefore, the interconnection of animal feed, livestock farming, manure, and soil/aquatic ecosystems requires multidisciplinary approaches to improve P management. With regard to a sustainable agricultural P cycle, this study addresses aspects of feeding strategies and animal physiology (e.g., phase feeding, P conditioning, liquid feeding, phytase supplementation, genetics), soil agroecosystems (e.g., P cycling, P losses, P gains), reuse and recycling (e.g., manure, slaughter waste), measures of farmers’ economic performance (e.g., bio-economic models), and P governance/policy instruments (e.g., P quota, P tax). To reconcile the economic and ecological sustainability of animal husbandry, the strategic objective of future research will be to provide solutions for a sufficient supply of high-quality animal products from resource-efficient and economically competitive agro-systems which are valued by society and preserve soil and aquatic ecosystems.