Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Identification and functional analysis of Joka2, a tobacco member of the family of selective autophagy cargo receptors

Two main mechanisms of protein turnover exist in eukaryotic cells: the ubiquitin-proteasome system and the autophagy-lysosomal pathway. Autophagy is an emerging important constituent of many physiological and pathological processes, such as response to nutrient deficiency, programmed cell death and innate immune response. In mammalian cells the selectivity of autophagy is ensured by the presence of cargo receptors, such as p62/SQSTM1 and NBR1, responsible for sequestration of the ubiquitinated proteins. In plants no selective cargo receptors have been identified yet. The present report indicates that structural and functional homologs of p62 and NBR1 proteins exist in plants. The tobacco protein, named Joka2, has been identified in yeast two-hybrid search as a binding partner of a small coiled-coil protein, a member of UP9/LSU family of unknown function, encoded by the UP9C gene strongly and specifically induced during sulfur deficiency. The typical domains of p62 and NBR1 are conserved in Joka2. Similarly to p62, Joka2-YFP has dual localization (cytosolic speckles and the nucleus); it forms homodimers and interacts with a member of the ATG8 family. Increased expression of Joka2 and ATG8f was observed in roots of tobacco plants grown for two days in nutrient-deficient conditions. Constitutive ectopic expression of Joka2-YFP in tobacco resulted in attenuated response (manifested by lesser yellowing of the leaves) to nutrient deficiency. In conclusion, Joka2, and presumably the process of selective autophagy, might constitute an important part of plant response to environmental stresses.
Spectral and temporal stimulus characteristics in the processing of abstract auditory features

The processing of abstract stimulus features in the human brain was studied by presenting the subjects with frequent standard tone pairs and infrequent deviant tone pairs. Both pairs varied randomly over a wide frequency and/or intensity range, there being no physically constant standard stimulus. The common feature of the standard pairs was the direction of change within the pair, e.g. the second tone was louder in intensity and/or higher in frequency than the first tone. Deviant pairs, having opposite feature-change direction, elicited the mismatch-negativity (MMN) event-related potential component. MMN was similar to deviations in the direction of frequency and intensity changes and showed no additivity for simultaneous changes in both feature directions. Moreover, MMN was elicited even when the within-pair interval exceeded the 200 ms limit of auditory temporal integration. Results demonstrate that extraction of abstract features is not limited to frequency-based rules, nor is it dependent on temporal integration mechanisms. The lack of MMN additivity between violations of multiple abstract rules suggests that the processing of higher-order inva-riances differs from that of simple physical features.
Arp2/3 Activity Is Necessary for Efficient Formation of E-cadherin Adhesive Contacts*

Classical cadherin adhesion molecules are fundamental determinants of cell-cell recognition that function in cooperation with the actin cytoskeleton. Productive cadherin-based cell recognition is characterized by a distinct morphological process of contact zone extension, where limited initial points of adhesion are progressively expanded into broad zones of contact. We recently demonstrated that E-cadherin ligation recruits the Arp2/3 actin nucleator complex to the plasma membrane in regions where cell contacts are undergoing protrusion and extension. This suggested that Arp2/3 might generate the protrusive forces necessary for cell surfaces to extend upon one another during contact assembly. We tested this hypothesis in mammalian cells by exogenously expressing the CA region of N-WASP. This fragment, which potently inhibits Arp2/3-mediated actin assembly in vitro, also effectively reduced actin assembly at cadherin adhesive contacts. Blocking Arp2/3 activity by this strategy profoundly reduced the ability of cells to extend cadherin adhesive contacts but did not affect cell adhesiveness. These findings demonstrate that Arp2/3 activity is necessary for cells to efficiently extend and assemble cadherin-based adhesive contacts.
Is the modulation of retinoid and retinoid‐associated signaling a future therapeutic strategy in neurological trauma and neurodegeneration?

The complex molecular pathways that mediate the effects of vitamin A and its derivatives, are increasingly recognized as a component of the repair capacity that could be activated to induce protection and regeneration in the mature nervous tissue. Retinoid and retinoid‐associated signaling plays an essential role in normal neurodevelopment and appears to remain active in the adult CNS. In this paper, we review evidence which supports the hypothesis of an activation of retinoid‐associated signaling molecular pathways in the mature nervous tissue and its significance in the context of neurodegenerative, trauma‐induced and psychiatric disorders, at spinal and supra‐spinal levels. Finally, we summarize the potential therapeutic avenues based on the modulation of retinoid targets undergoing reactivation under conditions of acute injury and chronic degeneration in the central nervous system, and discuss some of the unresolved issues linked to this treatment strategy.
The Effect of Mergers and Acquisitions on Bank Efficiency: Evidence from Bank Consolidation in Egypt

The paper examines the impact of mergers and acquisitions on the efficiency and profitability of Egyptian banks by using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to measure managerial efficiency and by traditional financial measures to capture changes in profitability and financial performance. The study compares the results of two periods, (2000-2003) as the pre consolidation period and (2007-2010) as the post consolidation period. The assumption is that banking efficiency improved post mergers and acquisitions and the empirical investigation aimed at verifying the empirical validity of the proposed hypothesis. The results showed that despite the fact that consolidation had a positive effect on managerial efficiency, banks’ capitalization and risk management practices, the banks’ intermediation function and banks’ profitability remained weak. Policy makers should design a strategy that promotes the channeling of deposits to productive lending by further promoting small and medium size enterprise lending and designing new innovative lending instruments that are well suited to the Egyptian market needs.
At the limbic–motor interface: disconnection of basolateral amygdala from nucleus accumbens core and shell reveals dissociable components of incentive motivation

Although it has long been hypothesized that the nucleus accumbens (NAc) acts as an interface between limbic and motor regions, direct evidence for this modulatory role on behavior is lacking. Using a disconnection procedure in rats, we found that basolateral amygdala (BLA) input to the core and medial shell of the NAc separately mediate two distinct incentive processes controlling the performance of goal‐directed instrumental actions, respectively: (i) the sensitivity of instrumental responding to changes in the experienced value of the goal or outcome, produced by specific satiety‐induced outcome devaluation; and (ii) the effect of reward‐related cues on action selection, observed in outcome‐specific Pavlovian–instrumental transfer. These results reveal, therefore, that dissociable neural circuits involving BLA inputs to the NAc core and medial shell mediate distinct components of the incentive motivational processes controlling choice and decision‐making in instrumental conditioning.
Combining ECC with modulation: performance comparisons

The author describes a technique for combining error correcting codes (ECC) with block-type modulation codes. Its performance is analyzed with respect to the traditional method in magnetic recording, which involves the concatenation of an ECC with a convolutional modulation code. Conditions under which the new method is superior to the concatenation scheme are established. In particular, the performance with respect to the (1, 7) and (2, 7) modulation constraints is analyzed. It is concluded that the new construction performs better in a noisy channel dominated by random errors. Cases in which relaxing the constraint k allows better global rates are also studied. <<ETX>>
Fatal pyogranulomatous myocarditis in 10 Boxer puppies

Over a period of 5 years, 10 pure-bred Boxer puppies, 9–16 weeks old, were presented with a history of sudden death and were diagnosed with pyogranulomatous myocarditis. The myocarditis was characterized by a mixed infiltrate composed predominantly of neutrophils and macrophages. In our retrospective study, original case records and archived materials were examined. All dogs were positive for Borrelia burgdorferi on immunohistochemistry (IHC). There was no evidence of infectious agents in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) heart tissue sections stained with hematoxylin and eosin, Ziehl–Neelsen, Gram, Grocott methenamine silver, Warthin–Starry, Von Kossa, and Steiner–Chapman stains. IHC for Chlamydia sp. , Toxoplasma gondii, Neospora caninum, West Nile virus, and canine parvovirus also yielded a negative result in all dogs. Polymerase chain reaction testing for vector-borne pathogens on heart tissue from 9 of the dogs (1 frozen and 8 FFPE samples) yielded positive results for 1 dog with B. burgdorferi as well as Anaplasma phagocytophilum in another dog. Subsequently, 2 additional cases were found in a French Bulldog and a French Bulldog–Beagle mix that had identical morphology, test results, age, and seasonality to these 10 Boxer dogs. The similarities in the seasonality, signalment of the affected dogs, and the gross and microscopic lesions suggest a common etiology. Positive IHC and morphologic similarities to human Lyme carditis indicate that B. burgdorferi is likely the agent involved. An additional consideration for these cases is the possibility of a breed-specific autoimmune myocarditis or potential predisposition for cardiopathogenic agents in young Boxers.
Validity of a taekwondo specific test to measure vo2peak and the heart rate deflection point.

This study investigated whether the progressive specific taekwondo test (PSTT) is a valid test to measure peak oxygen consumption (VO2PEAK) and the heart rate deflection point (HRDP) in taekwondo athletes. Eighteen male black belt athletes (25.3 ± 4.8 years; 8.2 ± 4.7 years of practice; 171.8 ± 4.7 cm; 76.1 ± 8.2 kg, and 13.1 ± 2.9% body fat) involved in regional and national level competitions performed the PSTT and an incremental treadmill test (IT). The following variables were analyzed: VO2PEAK, respiratory quotient, oxygen consumption at the HRDP (VO2HRDP), peak heart rate (HRPEAK), HRDP, and peak post-test blood lactate concentration. During the PSTT the peak kick frequency (FKPEAK) and kick frequency at the HRDP (FKHRDP) was also obtained. During the IT, the peak speed and the speed at the HRDP were identified by the DMAX method (the first and last points of the curve were connected by a straight line and the most distant point of the curve to the line was considered as the heart rate deflection point). No differences were observed between VO2 responses during the PSTT and IT (p>0.05). VO2PEAK and VO2HRDP presented bias (1.3 ml·kg·min and -0.78 ml·kg·min, respectively) derived from the Bland & Altman plots, with the 95% limits of agreement indicating that the differences between the two measures can reach 11% for VO2PEAK and 17% for VO2HRDP. The PSTT is a valid tool to assess aerobic power and capacity in taekwondo athletes based on direct comparisons to a treadmill test. The test presents more specific variables for the assessment and training of taekwondo athletes, such as FKPEAK and FKHRDP, which can be used to determine and control the effects of training and help coaches in prescribing training programs.
Voice Pathology Detection Using Deep Learning: a Preliminary Study

This paper describes a preliminary investigation of Voice Pathology Detection using Deep Neural Networks (DNN). We used voice recordings of sustained vowel /a/ produced at normal pitch from German corpus Saarbruecken Voice Database (SVD). This corpus contains voice recordings and electroglottograph signals of more than 2 000 speakers. The idea behind this experiment is the use of convolutional layers in combination with recurrent Long-Short-Term-Memory (LSTM) layers on raw audio signal. Each recording was split into 64 ms Hamming windowed segments with 30 ms overlap. Our trained model achieved 71.36% accuracy with 65.04% sensitivity and 77.67% specificity on 206 validation files and 68.08% accuracy with 66.75% sensitivity and 77.89% specificity on 874 testing files. This is a promising result in favor of this approach because it is comparable to similar previously published experiment that used different methodology. Further investigation is needed to achieve the state-of-the-art results.
Factors Affecting Dividend Policy on Non-Financial Companies in Indonesia

"Objective – The objective of this study is to obtain empirical evidence and analyse the factors that affect the dividend policy of non-financial firms listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange. The factors studied include liquidity, leverage, growth, price/earnings, size, earnings per share, price to book ratio, ownership, age of the firm, floating rate, profitability, and free cash flow. Methodology/Technique – The sampling method used in this study is purposive sampling, in which the samples are taken based on suitable characteristics of the population to generate representative samples. The total number of samples in this study are 105 non-financial firms listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange between 2011 and 2015. The hypothesis is tested by using multiple regression analysis. Findings – The results of this study show that earnings per share, price to book ratio, and floating rate affect the dividends policy while liquidity, leverage, growth, price/earnings, size, ownership, age of the firm, profitability, and free cash flow has no effect on dividend policy. Novelty – The study findings contribute the companies to establish an appropriate dividend policy to satisfy the interest of both parties that is companies future growth and its investors. "
Effects of IconÒ, a pyrethroid insecticide on early pregnancy of rats

IconÒ is a water miscible type II synthetic pyrethroid insecticide based on active ingredient lambda cyhalothrin (10% w/w). It is used in Sri Lanka as an adulticidal indoor spray against malaria vector mosquitoes. The goal of this study was to assess the effects of IconÒ on pregnancy outcome of rats when exposed during early pregnancy (days 1 / 7). IconÒ was gavaged daily for 7 consecutive days in three different doses; 63, 83, or 125 mg/kg/day (active ingredient; lambda cyhalothrin; 6.3, 8.3, 12.5 mg/kg/day), respectively. Several parameters of reproduction and preand post-natal development were monitored. The results show that IconÒ is detrimental to pregnancy outcome (in terms of quantal pregnancy, number of uterine implants, implantation index and foetal deaths) but induced no detectable developmental defects. The anti-reproductive effects of IconÒ were mainly due to increased pre-implantation losses. Enhancement of post-implantation losses played a subsidiary role. These effects resulted from multiple mechanisms: maternal toxicity, stress, uterotropic activity and embryo-foetotoxicity. Further progesterone had a protective effect against IconÒ induced anti-reproductive actions. Overall, the results suggest that exposure to IconÒ during early gestation may result in a threat to pregnancy.
Efficiency Analysis of Spark Ignition Giogas Genset for Electricity Power Generation

This research studied the influence of the ratio of load and maximum power of genset and usage time to the efficiency of electricity energy conversion using biogas as fuel. The experiment was done in Biogas Power System installed by Puslit Telimek LIPI in Baiturrahman Islamic Boarding School, West Java, Indonesia. The electricity energy was generated using modified Spark Ignition gasoline genset so that it can be fueled with 100% biogas. Genset efficiency was calculated based on genset load and thermal power of biogas consumed by the genset. The result showed that the genset efficiency is increased with the increasing of load and maximum power ratio. Usage time also significantly decreased the genset efficiency for biogas fuel without CO2, H2S, and water purification. For 5 kW new genset with 40% load, the average efficiency can reach 42.20%. Genset 2.5 kW with usage time 8 years has lower average efficiency as much as 11.76% for 40% load and 5.50% for 20% load. The efficiency of new genset is significant high, so that SI genset very potential to be implemented in a biogas system. To reach higher efficiency, purification process is needed especially to remove the CO2, H2S, and H2O.
Are Systemic Risk Measures Really Useful for Regulators?: An Assessment of the Estimation Risk

Systemic risk measures have gained popularity in the recent finance literature and they are widely applied for detecting systemic risk contributions of financial institutions. It has also been suggested that a regulator should base capital requirements upon the contribution to systemic risk of each single institution. We analyse market data based systemic risk measures such as Delta CoVaR, MES and SRISK. We find that the uncertainty about their estimates is high. Using bootstrap techniques, we develop a nonparametric hypothesis test to assess if these measures are statistically different between institutions. We find that it is hard to rank institutions using their CoVaR or MES, while SRISK gives good results. We conclude that confidence intervals, incorporating the uncertainty of the measure should be provided and that systemic risk measures should be applied with caution, especially when they are used for important purposes such as the design of a new regulatory framework, because they can lead to expensive bad decisions.
Melatonin improves health status and sleep in children with idiopathic chronic sleep-onset insomnia: a randomized placebo-controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the effect of melatonin treatment on health status and sleep in children with idiopathic sleep-onset insomnia. METHOD A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was conducted in a Dutch sleep center, involving 62 children, 6 to 12 years of age, who suffered more than 1 year from idiopathic chronic sleep-onset insomnia. Patients received either 5 mg melatonin or placebo at 7 pm. The study consisted of a 1-week baseline period, followed by a 4-week treatment. Health status was measured with the RAND General Health Rating Index (RAND-GHRI) and Functional Status II (FS-II) questionnaires. Lights-off time, sleep onset, and wake-up time were recorded in a diary, and endogenous dim light melatonin onset was measured in saliva. RESULTS The total scores of the RAND-GHRI and FS-II improved significantly more during melatonin treatment compared to placebo. The magnitude of change was much higher in the melatonin group than in the placebo group, with standardized response means for the RAND-GHRI of 0.69 versus 0.07 and for the FS-II of 1.61 versus 0.64. Melatonin treatment also significantly advanced sleep onset by 57 minutes, sleep offset by 9 minutes, and melatonin onset by 82 minutes, and decreased sleep latency by 17 minutes. Lights-off time and total sleep time did not change. CONCLUSIONS Melatonin improves health status and advances the sleep-wake rhythm in children with idiopathic chronic sleep-onset insomnia.
Community relations management systems in the minerals industry: Combining conventional and stakeholder-driven approaches

As part of a broader commitment to corporate social responsibility and sustainable development, major minerals companies are developing and implementing a management systems approach to community relations. While the application of management systems to community relations represents an advance over more traditional approaches to dealing with community issues, limitations of the systems paradigm need to be acknowledged. This paper explores some of these limitations, as well as offering a way forward that involves incorporating elements of the conventional management systems model into a more externally focused, stakeholder-driven and values-based approach. Implementing the 'hybrid' approach presents minerals companies with significant challenges and will require them to make a substantial investment in organisational capacity building. Companies will also have to be prepared to re-visit how they engage with external stakeholders and to contemplate greater external involvement in planning and performance review processes.
HUMAN FACTORS GUIDANCE FOR MAINTENANCE

Applying HF is not always straightforward and anecdotal evidence suggests that workplace interventions to address HF issues may not always be successful. To help the rail industry apply HF to rail vehicle maintenance and inspection tasks, a guidance package has recently been developed on behalf of Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB). This guidance package provides an archive of HF good practice relevant to maintenance and a 3-step systematic approach to help identify HF issues and then decide upon and apply appropriate HF solutions. The guidance package is currently under review and is due to be published in the near future.
Medication beliefs and structural barriers to treatment adherence among people living with HIV infection

Background: People living in poverty face multiple structural challenges to medication adherence including lack of transportation, inadequate housing and food insecurity. The degree to which individuals’ motivations to remain adherent may overcome structural barriers has received limited attention. Purpose: To examine whether medication necessity and concerns beliefs predict antiretroviral therapy (ART) adherence over and above structural adherence barriers associated with poverty. Methods: People living with HIV in a southern US city (N = 942) completed computerised interviews, an objective measure of adherence and HIV viral suppression obtained from medical records. Hierarchical logistic regression models were constructed to examine demographic and illness characteristics, structural barriers, mental health, substance use and medication necessity and concerns beliefs as predictors of ART adherence. Results: In multivariable models, current drug use and medication necessity and concerns beliefs predicted treatment adherence over and above demographic, health, mental health and structural factors. Conclusions: Medication beliefs are proximal and powerful motivating factors that predict adherence. Adherence interventions should directly address medication beliefs in developing strategies to manage barriers facing people with HIV living in poverty.
Advanced rotor fault diagnosis for DFIM based on Frequency Sliding and wavelet analysis under time-varying conditions

This paper investigates a new monitoring and diagnosis technique for the detection of electrical rotor faults in (DFIM) Doubly Fed Induction Machine for wind power systems under time-varying conditions. A new approach based on Frequency Sliding (FS) and Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) is here proposed in order to detect rotor faults dynamically over time. Moreover, a cyclic quantification of the fault extent over time was introduced for accurate rotor fault detection. Simulations and experimental results show the effectiveness of this new method in discriminating healthy from faulty rotor in time-varying operating conditions.