Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Primer registro del gasterópodo "Lesueurilla" y euomphalomorfos afines en el Ordovícico Inferior de Argentina y España: Su interés paleobiogeográfico

Se identifica el gasteropodo Lesueurilla, asi como una forma afin al mismo, en dos nuevas localidades del Ordovicico Inferior perigondwanico, que a su vez suponen el primer registro de estos euomphalomorfos en Espana y Argentina. La localidad argentina (con cf. Lesueurilla sp.) corresponde al Miembro Loma del Kilometro (Arenig medio) de la Formacion Suri, y se emplaza en el estratotipo de esta unidad en la Sierra de Narvaez (Sistema de Famatina, provincia de Catamarca). El material espanol (Lesueurilla sp.) deriva de la parte mas baja de una unidad de pizarras verdes, datada como Arenig inferior, que aflora en el sinclinal del Valle, al oeste de Cazalla de la Sierra (Sevilla: Zona de Ossa-Morena). Los nuevos registros de Lesueurilla se comparan con otros hallazgos perigondwanicos del genero en Marruecos, Francia y la Republica Checa, relativos a la especie L. prima (Barrande in Perner), que reafirman las relaciones paleobiogeograficas existentes durante el Ordovicico entre todos estos territorios, y parte de los cuales son tambien brevemente revisados
The Central Nervous System of Vertebrates

The authors are favored with a tidy, literate style, and the book makes straightforward reading. Illustrations are provided of each condition described and of the use of special techniques such as gel diffusion and immunofluorescence. These are of average quality, but are excellent when derived from the authors' own work, as on Sj6gren's disease. Each chapter has a fairly inclusive bibliography (221 references in the thyroid chapter for example). There are the usual minor, but always unfortunate, lapses in typography (Jankovic becomes Janovic throughout). All in all, this is an excellent, up to date book, which may be read with substantial profit by anyone entering the field and which adds new material for those already conversant with earlier volumes in this field.
Nonnative Processing of Verbal Morphology: In Search of Regularity

There is little agreement on the mechanisms involved in second language (L2) processing of regular and irregular inflectional morphology and on the exact role of age, amount, and type of exposure to L2 resulting in differences in L2 input and use. The article contributes to the ongoing debates by reporting the results of two experiments on Russian verb generation and recognition in a lexical decision task (LDT) with priming by highly proficient late L2 learners, early interrupted (heritage) learners, and adult native speakers of Russian. Inflected verbs varying in regularity, type, and token (lemma) frequency were used. The experiments document the role of obligatory decomposition and complex allomorphy involved in (de)composition and mapping as well as type and token frequency in L1 and L2 verb generation and lexical access, with no sharp division between regular and irregular verbs. The results are inconsistent with either the dual-system or the single-system approach to morphological processing, and are compatible with "hybrid" theories combining rule-based decomposition and input-frequency-based probabilistic mechanisms. All of the verb types showed priming effects, both in native and nonnative lexical access. However, the degree of facilitation depended on decomposition costs for different verb types only in normative participants. The study also shows differences in early (heritage) and late L2 learners. In the production task, heritage speakers outperformed L2 learners in real, but not novel, verb generation and in the use of the regular default pattern, whereas L2 learners showed an advantage in the use of the cue-based complex morphological pattern. In the priming task, heritage speakers were faster than late L2 learners and insensitive to morphological complexity, whereas L2 learners showed longer latencies in response to the verbs with complex inflectional morphology. These differences are associated with the differences in their respective language learning backgrounds. It is tentatively suggested that these two groups of learners may rely on different processing mechanisms and, possibly, neural paths.
Simultaneous silencing of isoamylases ISA1, ISA2 and ISA3 by multi-target RNAi in potato tubers leads to decreased starch content and an early sprouting phenotype

Isoamylases hydrolyse (1–6)-alpha-D-glucosidic linkages in starch and are involved in both starch granule formation and starch degradation. In plants, three isoamylase isoforms with distinct functions in starch synthesis (ISA1 and ISA2) and degradation (ISA3) have been described. Here, we created transgenic potato plants with simultaneously decreased expression of all three isoamylases using a chimeric RNAi construct targeting all three isoforms. Constitutive expression of the hairpin RNA using the 35S CaMV promoter resulted in efficient silencing of all three isoforms in leaves, growing tubers, and sprouting tubers. Neither plant growth nor tuber yield was effected in isoamylase-deficient potato lines. Interestingly, starch metabolism was found to be impaired in a tissue-specific manner. While leaf starch content was unaffected, tuber starch was significantly reduced. The reduction in tuber starch content in the transgenic plants was accompanied by a decrease in starch granules size, an increased sucrose content and decreased hexose levels. Despite the effects on granule size, only little changes in chain length composition of soluble and insoluble glucose polymers were detected. The transgenic tubers displayed an early sprouting phenotype that was accompanied by an increased level of sucrose in parenchyma cells below the outgrowing bud. Since high sucrose levels promote sprouting, we propose that the increased number of small starch granules may cause an accelerated turnover of glucan chains and hence a more rapid synthesis of sucrose. This observation links alterations in starch structure/degradation with developmental processes like meristem activation and sprout outgrowth in potato tubers.
BRCA1 Tumor Suppression Depends on BRCT Phosphoprotein Binding, But Not Its E3 Ligase Activity

The properties of breast cancer susceptibility protein required for tumor suppression have been explored. Germline mutations of the breast cancer 1 (BRCA1) gene are a major cause of familial breast and ovarian cancer. The BRCA1 protein displays E3 ubiquitin ligase activity, and this enzymatic function is thought to be required for tumor suppression. To test this hypothesis, we generated mice that express an enzymatically defective Brca1. We found that this mutant Brca1 prevents tumor formation to the same degree as does wild-type Brca1 in three different genetically engineered mouse (GEM) models of cancer. In contrast, a mutation that ablates phosphoprotein recognition by the BRCA C terminus (BRCT) domains of BRCA1 elicits tumors in each of the three GEM models. Thus, BRCT phosphoprotein recognition, but not the E3 ligase activity, is required for BRCA1 tumor suppression.
Inhibition of Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinase or Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase Kinase Leads to Suppression of p34cdc2 Kinase Activity and Meiotic Progression Beyond the Meiosis I Stage in Porcine Oocytes Surrounded with Cumulus Cells

Abstract In this study, the effects of U0126 that inhibits the activity of mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase kinase (MEK), and LY294002, which is a phosphatidylinositol (PI) 3-kinase inhibitor, on meiotic progression beyond the metaphase I (MI) stage in porcine oocytes were examined. Cumulus-oocyte complexes (COCs) were cultured for 22 h with 50 μM LY294002 or 10 μM U0126 following cultivation for the initial 22 h. MAP kinase activity in oocytes cultured with LY294002 or U0126 was significantly lower than that in control oocytes cultured for up to 44 h. U0126 and LY294002 significantly decreased p34cdc2 kinase activity and the proportion of oocytes reaching the MII stage compared to those in control oocytes. Oocytes denuded after COCs had been cultured for 22 h were cultured further for 22 h with U0126 or LY294002. In the denuded oocytes, U0126 suppressed MAP kinase activity, p34cdc2 kinase activity, and meiotic progression to the MII stage; however, LY294002 did not significantly affect the activity of these kinases and meiotic progression. These results suggest that increasing MAP kinase activity in oocytes via the PI 3-kinase signaling pathway in cumulus cells is involved in the stimulation of maturation promoting factor, leading to meiotic progression beyond the MI to MII stage in porcine oocytes.
On the Impact of Injection Schemes on Transition in Hypersonic Boundary Layers

Abstract : Three geometries are explored for injecting CO2 into the boundary layer of a sharp five degree half-angle cone. The impact of the injection geometry, namely discrete injection holes or a porous conical section, on tripping the boundary layer is examined, both with and without injected flow. The experiments are conducted at Caltech's T5 reflected shock tunnel. Two different air free-stream conditions are explored. For the discrete-hole injectors, the diameter for the injection holes is 0.75 mm nominally and the length to diameter ratio is about 30. One injector has a single row of holes and the other has four rows. With the 4-row geometry fully turbulent heat transfer values are measured within four centimeters of the last injection row for both free-stream conditions. The 1-row injector results on a reduction of 50% in the transition Reynolds number. The porous injector does not move the transition Reynolds number upstream by itself with no injection flow.
Structural Adaptation of a Protein to Increased Metal Stress: NMR Structure of a Marine Snail Metallothionein with an Additional Domain.

In this study, we present an NMR structure of the metallothionein (MT) from the snail Littorina littorea (LlMT) in complex with Cd2+ . LlMT is capable of binding 9 Zn2+ or 9 Cd2+ ions. Sequence alignments with other snail MTs revealed that the protein is likely composed of three domains. The study revealed that the protein is divided into three individual domains, each of which folds into a single well-defined three-metal cluster. The central α2 and C-terminal β domains are positioned with a unique relative orientation. Two variants with longer and shorter linkers were investigated, which revealed that specific interdomain contacts only occurred with the wild-type linker. Moreover, a domain-swap mutant in which the highly similar α1 and α2 domains were exchanged was structurally almost identical. It is suggested that the expression of a three-domain MT confers an evolutionary advantage on Littorina littorea in terms of coping with Cd2+ stress and adverse environmental conditions.
Classification hiérarchisée des numérations écrites

Je me propose de commenter dans les lignes qui vont suivre la Classification hiérarchisée des numérations écrites, laquelle se présente sous forme de deux tableaux si condensés qu'un texte d'accompagnement est indispensable. J'espère montrer, par cette étude, qu'un tel sujet n'est simple que du seul point de vue mathématique. Une numération écrite bien conçue ne fait que traduire avec des signes conventionnels une numération parlée que l'on doit supposer bien organisée, ce qui représente une concentration de pensée telle qu'il est indispensable de lui consacrer un temps de réflexion. Il a existé en Grèce, très anciennement, un système d'écriture des nombres qui représentait les vingt-quatre premiers nombres entiers par les vingt-quatre lettres de l'alphabet, on ne peut donner à un tel système le nom de numération écrite. S'il ne s'élève pas au-dessus de ce stade rudimentaire il s'agit d'une simple correspondance établie entre les vingt-quatre premiers nombres entiers et les vingt-quatre signes de l'alphabet ; on ne peut parler que d'énumération.
New evidences of glass transitions and microstructures of soy protein plasticized with glycerol.

Soy protein isolate (SPI) and glycerol were mixed under mild (L series) and severe (H series) mixing conditions, respectively, and then were compression-molded at 140 degrees C and 20 MPa to prepare the sheets (SL and SH series). The glass transition behaviors and microstructures of the soy protein plasticized with glycerol were investigated carefully by using differential scanning calorimetry and small-angle X-ray scattering. The results revealed that there were two glass transitions in the SPI/glycerol systems. When the glycerol contents ranged from 25 to 40 wt. -%, all of the SL- and SH-series sheets showed two glass transition temperatures (T(g1) and T(g2)) corresponding to glycerol-rich and protein-rich domains, respectively. The T(g1) values of the sheets decreased from -28.5 to -65.2 degrees C with an increase of glycerol content from 25 to 50 wt. -%, whereas the T(g2) values were almost invariable at about 44 degrees C. The results from wide-angle X-ray diffraction and small-angle X-ray scattering indicated that both protein-rich and glycerol-rich domains existed as amorphous morphologies, and the radii of gyration (R(g)) of the protein-rich domains were around 60 nm, a result suggesting the existence of stable protein domains. The results above suggest that protein-rich domains were composed of the compact chains of protein with relatively low compatibility to glycerol and glycerol-rich domains consisted of relative loose chains that possessed good compatibility with glycerol. The significant microphase separation occurred in the SPI sheets containing more than 25 wt. -% glycerol, with a rapid decrease of the tensile strength and Young's modulus. [illustration in text].
Two ribosome recruitment sites direct multiple translation events within HIV1 Gag open reading frame

Abstract In the late phase of the HIV virus cycle, the unspliced genomic RNA is exported to the cytoplasm for the necessary translation of the Gag and Gag-pol polyproteins. Three distinct translation initiation mechanisms ensuring Gag production have been described with little rationale for their multiplicity. The Gag-IRES has the singularity to be located within Gag ORF and to directly interact with ribosomal 40S. Aiming at elucidating the specificity and the relevance of this interaction, we probed HIV-1 Gag-IRES structure and developed an innovative integrative modelling strategy to take into account all the gathered information. We propose a novel Gag-IRES secondary structure strongly supported by all experimental data. We further demonstrate the presence of two regions within Gag-IRES that independently and directly interact with the ribosome. Importantly, these binding sites are functionally relevant to Gag translation both in vitro and ex vivo. This work provides insight into the Gag-IRES molecular mechanism and gives compelling evidence for its physiological importance. It allows us to propose original hypotheses about the IRES physiological role and conservation among primate lentiviruses.
Post-Socialist International Migration: The Case of China-to-South Korea Ethnic Labour Migration

This paper examines an atypical south-north labour migration that emerged in the post-socialist international migration system: China-to-South Korea ethnic labour migration. Over the past decade, South Korea has experienced an unprecedented increase in the arrival of foreign labour. The majority of workers come from the People's Republic of China. Based on a contextual multivariate analysis of primary survey data on 525 predominantly undocumented Korean Chinese labour migrants in Seoul, this study reveals the underexplored economic dimension of ethnic migration in Northeast Asia. Empirical findings on this source of migrant labour in South Korea demonstrate that the China-to-South Korea ethnic population movement is an important yet an unknown dimension of the post-socialist global migration regime that is marked by the New Economics of international labour migration. The study suggests that ethnic migration from a socialist transition economy to a capital-rich economy linked through ancestral connections must be reconsidered in the context of the changing global migration and demographic landscapes, rather than the ethno-nationally romanticised view of the return of diaspora.
Physical activity and risk of severe gastrointestinal hemorrhage in older persons.

OBJECTIVE To assess whether regular physical activity is associated with a decreased risk of severe gastrointestinal hemorrhage (GIH) in older persons. DESIGN Cohort study with 3 years of follow-up. SETTING Three communities of the Established Populations for Epidemiologic Studies of the Elderly. PARTICIPANTS A total of 8205 persons aged 68 years or older, yielding 22,277 person-years of follow-up. MEASUREMENTS The occurrence of severe GIH was defined as either a hospital discharge diagnosis of gastrointestinal bleeding associated with blood transfusion or death during the hospital stay or a nonhospital death with mention of GIH on the death certificate. Physical activity was measured by self-reported frequency of walking, gardening, or doing vigorous physical activity. Those participants doing the activity three times per week or more were compared with the remaining participants. Adjusted relative risks (RRs) of GIH were controlled for age, gender, body mass index, blood pressure, chronic conditions, number of hospital admissions in the past year, and number and types of drugs taken. RESULTS Severe GIH occurred in 241 participants (rate, 10.8 per 1000 person-years). After adjusting for potential confounding variables, the RRs and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for severe GIH associated with walking, gardening, and vigorous physical activity were 0.6 (0.4 to 0.8), 0.8 (0.5 to 1.1), and 0.7 (0.4 to 1.2), respectively. The RR associated with a summary variable for the three activities was 0.7 (95% CI, 0.5 to 0.9). These results were consistent after stratifying on health status and disability or by excluding those who were not mobile, ie, not able to walk half a mile or climb a flight of stairs. CONCLUSIONS Regular physical activity is associated with a decreased risk for severe GIH in older persons.
Data and models for statistical parsing with combinatory categorial grammar

This dissertation is concerned with the creation of training data and the development of probability models for statistical parsing of English with Combinatory Categorial Grammar (CCG). Parsing, or syntactic analysis, is a prerequisite for semantic interpretation, and forms therefore an integral part of any system which requires natural language understanding. Since almost all naturally occurring sentences are ambiguous, it is not sufficient (and often impossible) to generate all possible syntactic analyses. Instead, the parser needs to rank competing analyses and select only the most likely ones. A statistical parser uses a probability model to perform this task. I propose a number of ways in which such probability models can be defined for CCG. The kinds of models developed in this dissertation, generative models over normal-form derivation trees, are particularly simple, and have the further property of restricting the set of syntactic analyses to those corresponding to a canonical derivation structure. This is important to guarantee that parsing can be done efficiently. In order to achieve high parsing accuracy, a large corpus of annotated data is required to estimate the parameters of the probability models. Most existing wide-coverage statistical parsers use models of phrase-structure trees estimated from the Penn Treebank, a 1-million-word corpus of manually annotated sentences from the Wall Street Journal. This dissertation presents an algorithm which translates the phrase-structure analyses of the Penn Treebank to CCG derivations. The resulting corpus, CCGbank, is used to train and test the models proposed in this dissertation. Experimental results indicate that parsing accuracy (when evaluated according to a comparable metric, the recovery of unlabelled word-word dependency relations), is as high as that of standard Penn Treebank parsers which use similar modelling techniques. Most existing wide-coverage statistical parsers use simple phrase-structure grammars whose syntactic analyses fail to capture long-range dependencies, and therefore do not correspond to directly interpretable semantic representations. By contrast, CCG is a grammar formalism in which semantic representations that include long-range dependencies can be built directly during the derivation of syntactic structure. These dependencies define the predicate-argument structure of a sentence, and are used for two purposes in this dissertation: First, the performance of the parser can be evaluated according to how well it recovers these dependencies. In contrast to purely syntactic evaluations, this yields a direct measure of how accurate the semantic interpretations returned by the parser are. Second, I propose a generative model that captures the local and non-local dependencies in the predicate-argument structure, and investigate the impact of modelling non-local in addition to local dependencies.
Trends in Marijuana Use Among Pregnant and Nonpregnant Reproductive-Aged Women, 2002-2014

Between 2001 and 2013, marijuana use among US adults more than doubled, many states legalized marijuana use, and attitudes toward marijuana became more permissive.1 In aggregated 2007–2012 data, 3.9% of pregnant women and 7.6% of non-pregnant reproductive-aged women reported past-month marijuana use.2 Although the evidence is mixed, human and animal studies suggest that prenatal marijuana exposure may be associated with poor offspring outcomes (e.g., low birthweight; impaired neurodevelopment). 3 The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends that pregnant women and women contemplating pregnancy be screened for and discouraged from using marijuana and other substances.4 Whether marijuana use has changed over time among pregnant and non-pregnant reproductive-aged women is unknown.
Seroprevalence of West Nile virus in horses in different Moroccan regions

Abstract West Nile virus‐associated disease is one of the most widespread vector‐borne diseases in the world. In Morocco, the first cases were reported in horses in 1996 and the disease re‐emerged in 2003 and in 2010. The objective of this work was to study the epidemiological situation of WNV‐associated infection in Morocco, by quantifying the seroprevalence of anti‐WNV IgM and IgG antibodies in horses in different bioclimatic regions‐zones of Morocco in 2011. During the months of May, June and July 2011, 840 serum samples were collected from horses in four regions characterized by different environmental and climatic features such as altitude, temperature and precipitation. These environmental‐climatic regions are: the Atlantic plateaus of the Gharb and pre‐Rif region, the North Atlasic plains and plateaus region, the Atlas Mountains and pre‐Atlas region and the plains and plateaus of the Oriental region. All samples were tested for the anti‐WNV IgG antibodies by ELISA and positive sera were confirmed by virus neutralization (VN). An anti‐WNV antibody prevalence map was developed. A total of 261 samples (31%) were found positive by both techniques. The prevalence of the infection was higher in the Atlantic plateaus of the Gharb and pre‐Rif region, in the northern part of the country. Available data concerning the previous WNV‐associated disease outbreaks in Morocco and the preliminary results of this serological survey suggest that the Moroccan northwest is the region at highest risk for WNV circulation. In this region, the climate is more humid with higher rainfall than other regions and milder winter temperatures exist. In the same area, the presence of migratory bird settlements may affect the risk of virus introduction and amplification.