Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Regulation of gene expression by trans‐encoded antisense RNAs

Members of a class of antisense RNAs are encoded by genes that are located at loci other than those of their target genes. Three examples of antisense RNA genes are discussed here. micF is found in Escherichia coli and other bacteria and functions to control outer membrane protein F levels in response to environmental stimuli. dicF is also found in E. coli and is involved in the regulation of cell division, lin‐4 is found in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans and functions during larval development. Nucleotide sequences of at least two of these genes appear to be phylogenetically conserved. The trans‐encoded antisense RNAs are small RNAs which display only partial complementarity to their target RNAs. Models for RNA/RNA interactions have been proposed. It is possible that currently known unlinked antisense RNA genes are part of a larger class of heretofore undiscovered regulatory RNA genes. Possible ways of detecting other unlinked antisense RNA genes are discussed.
Group A Streptococci from Invasive-Disease Episodes in Poland Are Remarkably Divergent at the Molecular Level

ABSTRACT Forty-one clinical isolates of group A streptococcus (GAS) were recovered in Poland from patients with severe invasive infections and were analyzed by phenotypic and genotypic techniques. All isolates were characterized by determining their susceptibilities to antimicrobial agents and by determining their types by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, multilocus sequence typing, emm typing, and the detection of five streptococcal pyrogenic exotoxin genes (speA, speB, speC, speF, ssa). The isolates studied were fully susceptible to penicillin G, levofloxacin, quinupristin-dalfopristin, and linezolid. Resistance to tetracycline, chloramphenicol, and erythromycin was detected in 46.3, 12.1, and 9.8% of the isolates, respectively. A total of 23 different emm sequence types were identified, of which emm1 and emm12 (19.5% each) were the most common, followed by emm81, emm44/61, and emm85. All the emm1 isolates had the speA2 allele. Twenty-three unrelated sequence types (STs) were identified, with the most frequent STs, ST28 and ST36, corresponding to emm1 and emm12, respectively. Six newly found STs (STs 375, 376, 377, 378, 379, and 385) corresponded to emm types 74, 102, 77, 76, 84 and 63, respectively. The emm1 type and the presence of speA2 gene were associated with the severity of GAS infections. This work presents the first molecular study on Polish invasive GAS isolates.
Fisherman's Acceptance of Information and Communication Technology Integration in Malaysia: Exploring the Moderating Effect of Age and Experience

This study used Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) design, in which 400 Malaysia fishermen from the four fishery districts namely Langkawi Island, Besut, Larut-Matang and Mersing were administered to explore the factors that influence their acceptance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) integration in Malaysia. The aim of this study was twofold: The primary purposes was to test the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) including performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE), social influence (SI) and facilitating conditions (FC) in the prediction of behavioral intention to use ICTs among Malaysia fishermen. Second, explore the moderating effects of age and experience linked between predictors and behavioral intention based on multi-group analysis. The findings of this study clearly show the model accounts for almost 25% of the variance in user intentions, with FC, PE and EE surfacing only as the key determinants for their behavioural intentions of ICT usage. In an additional analysis revealed that age significantly moderates purposed relationship between the overall UTAUT constructs and behavioral intention while the moderating effect of experience was only established in PE and EE. Finally, the result suggests support for the application of the model in studying the acceptance of ICT in fishing communities. The factors were found to be significant in this study should be taken into account in the implementation of ICT projects and another validation of the ICTs research model in similar research institutions in Malaysia is advised.
Association between mental distress, gastrointestinal symptoms, and health-care utilization in functional dyspepsia: a prospective 7-year follow-up study

Abstract Objective. The association between psychosocial factors and gastrointestinal symptoms is unclear. It has been proposed that they simply drive health-care seeking of patients. We therefore aimed to study whether mental distress would increase health-care utilization in functional dyspepsia (FD). Methods. 171 primary care FD patients completed questionnaires screening gastrointestinal symptoms, mental distress, and health-care utilization between 1993 and 2000. These included the Bowel Disease Questionnaire and 12-item General Health Questionnaire. The patients' medical records were reviewed in primary care centers, Kuopio University Hospital, local hospitals, and private clinics. Results. The majority of patients revisited their general practitioner (GP), and most of them were prescribed antisecretory medication. Repeated gastroscopy and lower gastrointestinal endoscopy were performed in 26% of the patients. A radiological reinvestigation, usually upper abdominal ultrasound, was performed in one-third. Nine percent were hospitalized due to gastrointestinal reasons. A single additional bowel symptom increased the probability of repeated endoscopy by 19%, a visit to the GP by 19%, and an inpatient period by 51%. Neither an increase in the dyspepsia score nor the presence of mental distress or suspicion of serious illness increased the probability of health-care utilization. Conclusion. There is no association between mental distress and health-care utilization for gastrointestinal symptoms.
Structure and dynamics of protein waters revealed by radiolysis and mass spectrometry

Water is critical for the structure, stability, and functions of macromolecules. Diffraction and NMR studies have revealed structure and dynamics of bound waters at atomic resolution. However, localizing the sites and measuring the dynamics of bound waters, particularly on timescales relevant to catalysis and macromolecular assembly, is quite challenging. Here we demonstrate two techniques: first, temperature-dependent radiolytic hydroxyl radical labeling with a mass spectrometry (MS)-based readout to identify sites of bulk and bound water interactions with surface and internal residue side chains, and second, H218O radiolytic exchange coupled MS to measure the millisecond dynamics of bound water interactions with various internal residue side chains. Through an application of the methods to cytochrome c and ubiquitin, we identify sites of water binding and measure the millisecond dynamics of bound waters in protein crevices. As these MS-based techniques are very sensitive and not protein size limited, they promise to provide unique insights into protein–water interactions and water dynamics for both small and large proteins and their complexes.
Modeling of Volumetric Properties of Organic Mixtures Based on Molecular Interactions

Mixing effects for thousands of compounds and their mixtures used in the process industry are rather difficult to be known, hence knowledge of thermodynamic properties such as densities, as well as excess molar volumes, VE, of organic mixtures at various temperatures is of great importance. Selection of systems for analysis should be based on molecular structure of the individual components, as well as their industrial and ecological significance. Mixing of the compounds with different and complex molecular structure leads to various intermolecular interactions, resulting in non-ideal behaviour of mixtures. Therefore, knowledge of volumetric properties of individual components and their mixtures helps in understanding the complex structure of liquids.
Verification and Control of Hybrid Systems - A Symbolic Approach

Hybrid systems describe the interaction of software, described by finite models such as finite-state machines, with the physical world, described by infinite models such as differential equations. This book addresses problems of verification and controller synthesis for hybrid systems. Although these problems are very difficult to solve for general hybrid systems, several authors have identified classes of hybrid systems that admit symbolic or finite models. The novelty of the book lies on the systematic presentation of these classes of hybrid systems along with the relationships between the hybrid systems and the corresponding symbolic models. To show how the existence of symbolic models can be used for verification and controller synthesis, the book also outlines several key results for the verification and controller design of finite systems. Several examples illustrate the different methods and techniques discussed in the book.
Perceptions of Air Quality and Sense of Place among Women in Northeast Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Research on environmental health risks suggests that public perceptions of risk may be greater than quantitative health risk assessments, especially amongst vulnerable groups such as women and immigrants. This study uses the environmental stress and coping framework to examine individual perceptions of air quality amongst Canadian-born and immigrant women in Northeast Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Furthermore, the study aims to determine the influence of sense of place on local environmental perceptions. Quantitative survey results suggest that Canadian-born residents have a higher absolute value of sense of place than immigrants. Qualitative focus group discussions suggest that, compared to immigrant women, Canadian-born women may be more aware, knowledgeable and concerned about larger-scale air quality issues; however, the tension between economic and environmental needs hinders their sense of control. Bringing the quantitative and qualitative data together suggests that sense of place may inform environmental perceptions.
Similarity interaction in information-theoretic self-organizing maps

In this paper, we propose a new information-theoretic computational method called ‘similarity interaction’ for improving visualization. Due to the fixed arrangement of neurons in the self-organizing maps, similarity between neurons is not necessarily a faithful representation of the actual similarity between neurons. To relax the fixed arrangement, we introduce a method called ‘similarity interaction’, because we integrate the information of connection weights into that of neurons. We applied our method to three problems, namely teaching assistant evaluation, automobile data, and dermatology data. In all three problems, we succeeded in demonstrating the better performance of our method through visual inspection and quantitative evaluation. Our method is the first step towards the interaction of multiple components in a neural network for finer representations of input patterns.
[Effects of Tongxinluo on neuron ultrastructure and endothelial cell self-repairing ability in hypoxia preconditioning mice].

OBJECTIVE To observe the ultrastructure changes of cerebral cortex neuron and endothelial cell in hypoxia preconditioning mice and the effects of Tongxinluo (TXL, Chinese traditional medilihe) on them. METHODS Mice were randomly divided into 4 groups: control group, hypoxia group, hypoxia preconditioning (HP) group and Tongxinluo (TXL) group. The hypoxia preconditioning mice were exposed by repetitive hypoxia for 5 runs. The animal's tolerance time of each hypoxia run was recorded. The ultrastructure change of cerebral neuron and endothelial cell were studied by electron microscope. RESULTS The hypoxic tolerance time in HP and TXL groups were significantly increased run by run. Compared with HP group, the tolerance time of TXL group were increased in every run. The ultrastructure of cerebral neuron and endothelial cell in hypoxia group changed obviously, mitochondrion and endoplasmic reticulum destroyed. However they were slighter in HP group than those in hypoxia group. The change in TXL group had no obvious differentce with control group and were slighter than those in HP group. CONCLUSION Hypoxia preconditioning shows that organism has a strong self-repairing ability. Tongxinluo self-repairing; could increase self-repairing ability and adaptive ability of mice to hypoxia obviously.
Synergism between Streptomycin and Penicillin: A Proposed Mechanism

Brief treatment of growing Escherichia coli with penicillin hastened subsequent killing of these cells by streptomycin. It also hastened the secondary uptake of streptomycin, which represents an increase in the number of freely accessible binding sites. In contrast, brief treatment with streptomycin failed to affect subsequent killing by penicillin. These findings suggest that the synergism of penicillin with streptomycin depends on the damaging effect of penicillin on the cell membrane, which promotes further damage by streptomycin and increases its subsequent access to intracellular sites. Observations on a streptomycin-resistant mutant are also reported.
Experimental adaptation to high and low quality environments under different scales of temporal variation

We investigated the role of the scale of temporal variation in the evolution of generalism in populations of the bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens. Replicate populations were propagated as batch cultures for approximately 1400 generations (192 days), in either high quality media only, low quality media only, or were alternated between the two at a range of temporal scales (between 1 and 48 days). Populations evolved in alternating media showed fitness increases in both media and the rate of alternation during selection had no effect on average fitness in either media. Moreover, the fitness of these populations in high quality media was the same as for populations evolved only in high quality media and likewise for low quality media. Populations evolved only in high or low quality media did not show fitness improvements in their nonselective media. These results indicate that cost‐free generalists can evolve under a wide range of temporal variation.
Local foods can meet micronutrient needs for women in urban Burkina Faso, but only if rarely consumed micronutrient‐dense foods are included in daily diets: A linear programming exercise

Women of reproductive age are at nutritional risk due to their need for nutrient-dense diets. Risk is further elevated in resource-poor environments. In one such environment, we evaluated feasibility of meeting micronutrient needs of women of reproductive age using local foods alone or using local foods and supplements, while minimizing cost. Based on dietary recall data from Ouagadougou, we used linear programming to identify the lowest cost options for meeting 10 micronutrient intake recommendations, while also meeting energy needs and following an acceptable macronutrient intake pattern. We modeled scenarios with maximum intake per food item constrained at the 75th percentile of reported intake and also with more liberal maxima based on recommended portions per day, with and without the addition of supplements. Some scenarios allowed only commonly consumed foods (reported on at least 10% of recall days). We modeled separately for pregnant, lactating, and nonpregnant, nonlactating women. With maxima constrained to the 75th percentile, all micronutrient needs could be met with local foods but only when several nutrient-dense but rarely consumed items were included in daily diets. When only commonly consumed foods were allowed, micronutrient needs could not be met without supplements. When larger amounts of common animal-source foods were allowed, all needs could be met for nonpregnant, nonlactating women but not for pregnant or lactating women, without supplements. We conclude that locally available foods could meet micronutrient needs but that to achieve this, strategies would be needed to increase consistent availability in markets, consistent economic access, and demand.
A High-Speed and Ultra Low-Power Subthreshold Signal Level Shifter

In this paper, we present a novel level shifter circuit converting subthreshold signal levels to super-threshold signal levels at high-speed using ultra low-power and a small silicon area, making it well-suited for low-power applications such as wireless sensor networks and implantable medical devices. The proposed circuit introduces a new voltage level shifter topology employing a level-shifting capacitor contributing to increase the range of conversion voltages, while significantly reducing the conversion delay. Such a level-shifting capacitor is quickly charged, whenever the input signal detects a low-to-high transition, in order to boost internal voltage nodes, and quickly reach a high output voltage level. The proposed circuit achieves a shorter propagation delay and a smaller silicon area for a given operating frequency and power consumption compared to other circuit solutions. Measurement results are presented for the proposed circuit fabricated in a 0.18- $\mu \text {m}$ TSMC technology. The proposed circuit can convert a wide range of the input voltages from 330 mV to 1.8 V, and operate over a frequency range of 100 Hz to 100 MHz. It has a propagation delay of 29 ns and a power consumption of 61.5 nW for input signals 0.4 V, at a frequency of 500-kHz, outperforming previous designs.
UNWANTED INTRUSIVE COGNITIONS IN THE OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE SPECTRUM DISORDERS: AN ANALYSIS IN CLINICAL SAMPLES

Objective: The Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum consists of a group of disorders that have high comorbidity with the obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and share some clinical and other features. Although there is a lack of agreement about which disorders should be included in the OC-spectrum, several authors consider that eating disorders (ED), and especially Anorexia Nervosa (AN), are firm candidates for the spectrum. Unwanted intrusive thoughts, urges, and repetitive behaviors (UIT) could be one of the psychopathologies shared by the OC-spectrum disorders, since they are the basis of OCD symptoms and also commonly experienced by ED patients. To examine the characteristics of UITs experienced by OCD and AN patients. Method: Sixty-one OCD and 34 AN Restrictive subtype patients completed a self-report measure designed to assess UITs with obsessional contents (OCD patients) and with eating disorder related contents (AN patients), and the dysfunctional appraisals and control strategies related to the most upsetting UIT experienced in the past three months. Results: Both the OCD and AN patients experienced their UIT with comparable frequency, and these intrusions induced similar negative emotional consequences, control difficulties, dysfunctional appraisals, and thought control strategies. Nonetheless, OCD patients scored higher on dysfunctional beliefs of responsibility, importance of UIT control, and overestimation of threat associated with the UIT, and also on the frequency of using some strategies to control the unwanted cognition. Conclusions: The propensity to experience UITs, their emotional consequences, and the tendency to appraise them in a dysfunctional way are shared by OCD and AN, although some differences also emerged among patients having one of the two disorders. The role of UITs as a transdiagnostic variable in the OC-spectrum warrants further investigation.
Association of the absence of palmaris longus tendon with an anomalous superficial palmar arch in the human hand

The normal arterial supply to the human hand is via the ulnar and radial arteries which unite mid‐palm to form a complete arch called the superficial palmar arch (SPA). From the SPA blood vessels pass anteriorly to supply the thumb and digits, and deeply to complete the deep palmar arch. Previous reports have documented anomalies of the SPA formation, and this may change the normal blood distribution to the thumb and the digits. There have also been reports of the absence of the palmaris longus tendon. A total of 47 embalmed cadaveric hands (some paired, some single) were dissected and the presence of an anomalous SPA was more frequently observed when the palmaris longus tendon was absent. This may be significant when considering the suitability of patients for hand surgery which involves interruption to the vascular supply to the hand, e.g. harvesting upper limb vessels for coronary artery grafting. The current techniques for assessing the vascular supply to the hand (Allens test and/or Doppler ultrasounding) are unreliable. Demonstration of a palmaris longus tendon in the living arm is easy and the use of this in combination with the other techniques may improve overall reliability.
Prevalence of Urinary Incontinence in Females Performing High-Impact Exercises

Abstract The aim of this cross-sectional study was to monitor the prevalence of symptoms of stress (SUI) and mixed urinary incontinence (MUI) in sportswomen performing high-impact exercises. A further objective was to compare the symptoms of urinary incontinence (UI) and quality of life in sportswomen. We used the International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire (ICIQ-SF), the Overactive Bladder Questionnaire (OAB-q), the Urinary Incontinence Quality of Life Scale (I-QOL) and the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ), short version. The group consisted of 503 sportswomen with a mean age of 21.1±3.6. The response rate was 71.15%. ICIQ-SF results confirmed mild difficulties with urine leakage in 72 (14.3%) sportswomen. Urinary leakage was not noted in 431 (85.7%) sportswomen. The OAB-q and I-QOL showed a significant difference, with pronounced symptoms of UUI and worse QOL in the group of sportswomen with urine leakage (p<0.000). The I-QOL recorded significantly worse parameters in the group of sportswomen with urine leakage (p<0.000). Prevalence of SUI was found in 68 (13.52%), and MUI was found in 4 (0.80%) sportswomen. Every seventh sportswoman (14.3%) in the study group had reported problems with UI when practising high-impact sporting activities, with a negative impact on QOL.
The synchronization of oestrus in cattle with progestagen-impregnated intravaginal sponges.

Summary. Two experiments were conducted to determine the efficacy for synchronization of oestrus and ovulation in cattle of 17\g=a\-acetoxy-9\g=a\\x=req-\ fluoro-11\g=b\-hydroxyprogesterone(`Cronolone') administered by daily intramuscular injections or by intravaginal sponge. In Experiment 1, cylindrical sponges were retained in 69\m=. \4% of heifers, while in Experiment `bunched' sponges were retained in 82\m=. \8% of cows. Daily intramuscular injection of blocked and in the majority Within 5 days of termination of treatment in Experiment 1 oestrus occurred in 65\m=. \0% of heifers after intramuscular treatment and 55\m=. \6% after intravaginal treatment, while 53\m=. \5% of cows in Experiment 2 were oestrous within 7 days of sponge withdrawal. Synchronization of oestrus appeared more precise after intravaginal than intramuscular treatment in Experiment 1, but this was not significant. describes two experiments designed to ascertain the efficacy of 'Cronolone' impregnanted intravaginal sponges for synchronization of oestrus in cattle. In the first, observations were made on the occurrence of oestrus during and after treatment with 'Cronolone' administered by daily intra¬ muscular injection or in intravaginal sponges. Fertility to insemination at the post-treatment oestrus was assessed. In the second experiment similar observations were made on the control of oestrus, and inseminations