Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interaction of agitoxin2, charybdotoxin, and iberiotoxin with potassium channels: Selectivity between voltage‐gated and Maxi‐K channels

To gain insight into the molecular determinants that define the specificity of interaction of pore‐blocking peptides, such as agitoxin 2 (AgTX2), charybdotoxin (ChTX), and iberiotoxin (IbTX) with the Shaker‐type voltage‐gated potassium channel Kv1.3, or the large‐conductance Ca2+‐activated K+ (Maxi‐K) channel, homology models of these channels were generated based on the crystal structure of the bacterial, KcsA, potassium channel. Peptide–channel complexes were analyzed to evaluate the predicted interaction interfaces between the peptides and the channels' outer vestibules. The docking model, for either AgTX2 or ChTX with the Kv1.3 channel, predicts a novel hydrogen bonding interaction between the Asn30 side‐chain of the peptide and the Asp381 side‐chain of the channel. This interaction is consistent with the >500‐fold decreased potency of both AgTX2 and ChTX mutants at position 30 for the Shaker channel [(Ranganathan et al., Neuron 1996;16:131–139) ; (Goldstein et al., Neuron 1994;12:1377–1388 )]. This hydrogen bonding interaction also suggests that Gly30 in IbTX may be the critical determinant for its lack of activity against Shaker Kv channels. The model of the Maxi‐K channel reveals a narrower and more structurally restrained outer vestibule in which the aromatic residues Phe266 and Tyr294 may stabilize binding of IbTX and ChTX by π–π stacking with the aromatic residues Trp14 and Tyr36 of the peptides. This study also suggests that the extra net negative charge of IbTX is not related to the selectivity of this peptide for the Maxi‐K channel. Proteins 2003;52:146–154. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
To Go or to Stay: Age Differences in Cognitive Foraging

To Go or to Stay: Age Differences in Cognitive Foraging Jessie Chin University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Wai-Tat Fu University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Elizabeth Stine-Morrow University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Abstract: Cognitive foraging used the metaphor of animal foraging over patches of food to study how people allocate time to multiple resources for obtaining information. We used the word search puzzle paradigm to examine age differences in cognitive foraging behavior, especially when younger and older adults switch between patches (i.e., word puzzles). Results showed that older adults were able to adjust their departure time and switch frequencies depending on patch densities and switch time costs, and found as many words as younger adults in the puzzles despite their age-related change in processing capacities. Although older adults needed more time to find a new word in the puzzle, they adaptively persisted longer and switched fewer times between puzzles than younger adults to improve their performance. The connections between age differences in information uptake rates and the time to switch to different patches were also discussed.
Oracle MCG: A first peek into COCO Detection Challenges

The recently presented COCO detection challenge will most probably be the reference benchmark in object detection in the next years. COCO is two orders of magnitude larger than Pascal and has four times the number of categories; so in all likelihood researchers will be faced with a number of new challenges. At this point, without any finished round of the competition, it is difficult for researchers to put their techniques in context, or in other words, to know how good their results are. In order to give a little context, this note evaluates a hypothetical object detector consisting in an oracle picking the best object proposal from a state-of-the-art technique. This oracle achieves a AP=0.292 in segmented objects and AP=0.317 in bounding boxes, showing that indeed the database is challenging, given that this value is the best one can expect if working on object proposals without refinement.
Patterns of Recurrence in Stage I Endometrioid Endometrial Adenocarcinoma With Lymphovascular Space Invasion

Objective The objective of this study was to determine the patterns of recurrence of stage IB–IIA endometrioid endometrial adenocarcinoma (EMCA) with lymphovascular invasion (LVSI). Methods A multicenter retrospective study of 1988 International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stage IB–IIA EMCA patients with LVSI treated with surgery with or without radiation was conducted. Those with papillary serous or clear cell histologies and women treated with chemotherapy were excluded. Data regarding surgical-pathologic factors, treatment, and outcome were collected. Data were analyzed using χ2 test, Kaplan-Meier estimates, and Cox multivariate proportional hazards models. Results From 1997 to 2008, we identified 131 patients with LVSI who met entry criteria among 5 institutions. Median age was 67 years (25%–75%: 60–75 years), and median follow-up was 4.25 years (25%–75%: 3–10 years). Following surgery, 45 patients were observed (Obs), and 86 patients received adjuvant radiation. We observed 30 total relapses 30/131 (23%): 11/45 (24%) in the Obs group and 19/86 (22%) in the adjuvant radiation group. Recurrence rates were similar between staged and unstaged patients: 24% (20/84) and 21% (10/47), respectively. Among Obs patients, 82% of relapses were local, whereas in patients treated with adjuvant radiation, 84% were distant. Relapses were significantly associated with invasion of the lower uterine segment (LUS) (P = 0.035). Both cancer-related survival and overall survival (OS) were not significantly impacted by adjuvant radiation, because of distant failure rates. Adjuvant radiation significantly improved pelvic control (P = 0.007). In a multivariate analysis, OS correlated with LUS invasion (P = 0.008) and was borderline-associated with stage (P = 0.06), whereas age (P = 0.12), grade (P = 0.31), myometrial invasion (P = 0.99), and radiation treatment (P = 0.23) were not. Conclusions Overall recurrence rates for stage IB–IIA EMCA patients with LVSI are high (23%). Although adjuvant radiation therapy improved pelvic control, it did not impact recurrence rates, cancer-related survival, and OS, likely secondary to distant failures. The role of systemic therapy with or without radiotherapy for early-stage EMCA with LVSI should be evaluated, particularly in patients with high-grade tumors or involvement of the LUS.
The Functions of Worry in Uncontrollable Situations – Perceived Effects of Worry and the Feeling of Being in Control

The current study investigated the correspondence between positive beliefs about worry and the actual functions of worry, as they are perceived on the spot, in a stressful, uncontrollable circumstance. Participants (N = 79) were immersed in a stressful and uncontrollable situation, that of an impromptu speech. Half of the participants were randomly assigned into the experimental condition and were instructed to worry in relation to the forthcoming presentation, while the others were allocated to a mental distraction task condition. Results showed that, while worrying, individuals did not report the expected effects of worry and did not obtain a higher sense of control. Therefore, even if individuals generally think that worry is beneficial, they do not experience such benefits while worrying.
FTW: fast similarity search under the time warping distance

Time-series data naturally arise in countless domains, such as meteorology, astrophysics, geology, multimedia, and economics. Similarity search is very popular, and DTW (Dynamic Time Warping) is one of the two prevailing distance measures. Although DTW incurs a heavy computation cost, it provides scaling along the time axis. In this paper, we propose FTW (Fast search method for dynamic Time Warping), which guarantees no false dismissals in similarity query processing. FTW efficiently prunes a significant number of the search cost. Experiments on real and synthetic sequence data sets reveals that FTW is significantly faster than the best existing method, up to 222 times.
Balancing clusters to reduce response time variability in large scale image search

Many algorithms for approximate nearest neighbor search in high-dimensional spaces partition the data into clusters. At query time, for efficiency, an index selects the few (or a single) clusters nearest to the query point. Clusters are often produced by the well-known k-means approach since it has several desirable properties. On the downside, it tends to produce clusters having quite different cardinalities. Imbalanced clusters negatively impact both the variance and the expectation of query response times. This paper proposes to modify k-means centroids to produce clusters with more comparable sizes without sacrificing the desirable properties. Experiments with a large scale collection of image descriptors show that our algorithm significantly reduces the variance of response times without severely impacting the search quality.
Walking and talking-sharing best practice

Moving towards more communication intensive organizations where work tends to become more mobile there is a growing need to support learning among knowledge workers. This paper reports on a study of a group of knowledge workers, working both closely together and sometimes geographically separated was carried out in order to find out how and when learning took place and when the need for learning was obvious and perhaps not satisfied. The interviews and observations indicated that the need for more flexible learning possibilities exceeds the ones provided. The results from the study are analyzed and discussed, after which we suggest pointers for design divided into the categories: walking around, around meetings, formalizing intuition and sharing feelings.
Failed node replacement policies for maximising sensor network lifetime

A failed node can create coverage and connectivity holes in a sensor network. In order to maintain network effectiveness, failed nodes should be replaced. A new concept, called policy for failed node replacement, has been given to improve the network operational lifetime by repairing network holes created by failed nodes. These policies can be incorporated in any topology control algorithms. In the Directed Furthest Node First (DFNF) policy, an active node repairs the hole using one of its deactivated neighbours, selected based on distances from the hole. Weighted Directed Furthest Node First (WDFNF) selects replacements by considering both the distance and direction of a node. In Best Fit Node (BFN) policy, all the active nodes adjacent to a coverage hole participate in the replacement procedure. BFN can efficiently handle the network holes with higher computational complexities, however, the simulation result shows that DFNF and WDFNF can maintain the same network lifetime as BFN when network condition was extremely dense.
The benefits of discussing suicide with Alaska native college students: qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews.

Suicide represents a significant health disparity for communities in rural Alaska, and has implications for mental health among people who have lost loved ones from suicide. A qualitative interview study was conducted to examine the ways in which suicide has affected the lives of college students who have migrated from rural villages to an urban university (N = 25). The present research represents a secondary aim of the study-specifically, we examined the affective responses of Alaska Native college students from rural villages after completing in-depth semistructured interviews about their experiences related to suicide. Debriefing questions posed at the conclusion of the interviews revealed that the majority of participants (n 16) stated they felt "better" after completing the interview, and no participants reported feeling "worse. " No participant required the use of the safety plan developed in case of severe emotional distress. All participants indicated they would be interested in participating in future research. Analysis of questions pertaining to the interview experience revealed the salience of foundation (the participant's prior experience discussing issues like suicide), process (the interview questions and questioning style), and outcomes (the challenges and benefits of participation described by the respondent). Findings provided important insights concerning the experience of discussing past trauma, perceived importance of research addressing coping with suicide, and the influence of past experiences in the process of talking about suicide.
Fast implementation of DGEMM on Fermi GPU

In this paper we present a thorough experience on tuning double-precision matrix-matrix multiplication (DGEM-M) on the Fermi GPU architecture. We choose an optimal algorithm with blocking in both shared memory and registers to satisfy the constraints of the Fermi memory hierarchy. Our optimization strategy is further guided by a performance modeling based on micro-architecture benchmarks. Our optimizations include software pipelining, use of vector memory operations, and instruction scheduling. Our best CUDA algorithm achieves comparable performance with the latest CUBLAS library1. We further improve upon this with an implementation in the native machine language, leading to 20% increase in performance. That is, the achieved peak performance (efficiency) is improved from 302Gflop/s (58%) to 362Gflop/s (70%).
A model-based objective evaluation of eye movement correction in EEG recordings

We present a method to quantitatively and objectively compare algorithms for correction of eye movement artifacts in a simulated ongoing electroencephalographic signal (EEG). A realistic model of the human head is used, together with eye tracker data, to generate a data set in which potentials of ocular and cerebral origin are simulated. This approach bypasses the common problem of brain-potential contaminated electro-oculographic signals (EOGs), when monitoring or simulating eye movements. The data are simulated for five different EEG electrode configurations combined with four different EOG electrode configurations. In order to objectively compare correction performance for six algorithms, listed in Table III, we determine the signal to noise ratio of the EEG before and after artifact correction. A score indicating correction performance is derived, and for each EEG configuration the optimal correction algorithm and the optimal number of EOG electrodes are determined. In general, the second-order blind identification correction algorithm in combination with 6 EOG electrodes performs best for all EEG configurations evaluated on the simulated data.
Association of Urinary Cadmium with Mortality in Patients at a Coronary Care Unit

Background Determine the effect of the day 1 urinary excretion of cadmium (D1-UE-Cd) on mortality of patients admitted to a coronary care unit (CCU). Methods A total of 323 patients were enrolled in this 6-month study. Urine and blood samples were taken within 24 h after CCU admission. Demographic data, clinical diagnoses, and hospital mortality were recorded. The scores of established systems for prediction of mortality in critically ill patients were calculated. Results Compared with survivors (n = 289), non-survivors (n = 34) had higher levels of D1-UE-Cd. Stepwise multiple linear regression analysis indicated that D1-UE-Cd was positively associated with pulse rate and level of aspartate aminotransferase, but negatively associated with serum albumin level. Multivariate Cox analysis, with adjustment for other significant variables and measurements from mortality scoring systems, indicated that respiratory rate and D1-UE-Cd were independent and significant predictors of mortality. For each 1 μg/day increase of D1-UE-Cd, the hazard ratio for CCU mortality was 3.160 (95% confidence interval: 1.944–5.136, p < 0.001). The chi-square value of Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of-fit test for D1-UE-Cd was 10.869 (p = 0.213). The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for D1-UE-Cd was 0.87 (95% confidence interval: 0.81–0.93). Conclusions The D1-UE-Cd, an objective variable with no inter-observer variability, accurately predicted hospital mortality of CCU patients and outperformed other established scoring systems. Further studies are needed to determine the physiological mechanism of the effect of cadmium on mortality in CCU patients.
Enantioseparation of ofloxacin in urine by capillary electrokinetic chromatography using charged cyclodextrins as chiral selectors and assessment of enantioconversion

A method was developed for the enantioseparation of ofloxacin, a member of the fluoroquinolones, using an anionic cyclodextrin‐derivative with or without combination with a neutral cyclodextrin‐derivative, as the chiral selector (s) in an electrokinetic chromatography system. The best results were obtained with 0.35 mM sulfated β‐cyclodextrin dissolved in a 50 mM phosphate buffer, pH 2.5, and at 15°C. Under these conditions, a resolution of 2 was readily achieved. Furthermore, under adequate separation conditions, studies were performed in order to assess possible in vitro and in vivo enantioconversion of levofloxacin. The current method allows detection of 2 μg R‐(+)‐ofloxacine/mL diluted urine without the necessity of sample cleanup.
Hysteresis modeling for IPMC actuators with rate-dependent Preisach model

Ionic polymer-metal composites(IPMCs) is a class of new smart materials, which can generate large bending motions under a low driving voltage, and this property of IPMCs can be used as artificial muscle driving devices without the traditional components. However, one strong non-smooth nonlinearity, hysteresis, exists between its bending curvature and the applied input voltage. The hysteresis curve is altered with the change of the input voltage rate, which causes the hysteresis in IPMCs with rate-dependent characteristics. In this paper, one modified Preisach hysteresis model is proposed to describe the rate-dependent hysteresis in IPMCs. In order to identify the effectiveness of the proposed modeling method, the comparison results between the experiment measured output and the computing output are given in this paper.
The endurance shuttle walking test: a responsive measure in pulmonary rehabilitation for COPD patients

Background: The endurance shuttle walk test (ESWT) is a standardized externally controlled constant paced field test for the assessment of endurance capacity in chronic lung disease. The ESWT has been advocated as a simple, acceptable, repeatable and responsive outcome measure for COPD patients undergoing pulmonary rehabilitation, but has not been formally compared with the more commonly used field walking test, the six-minute walk (6MW). We aimed to determine: 1) the responsiveness of the ESWT in COPD patients attending a hospital-based pulmonary rehabilitation programme, and 2) to compare the responsiveness of the ESWT with the 6MW. Methods: Consecutive COPD patients, referred for a standard 8 week pulmonary rehabilitation programme, were recruited. Outcome parameters studied at baseline and completion of rehabilitation programme (8 weeks) included spirometric lung volumes, resting oxygen saturation, breathlessness scored pre and post exercise (modified Borg dyspnoea score), 6MW, ESWT, health-related quality of life (Chronic Respiratory Questionnaire) and Hospital Anxiety and Depression (HAD) scale. The incremental shuttle was employed to predict V02 peak; 85% V02 peak was used to determine the walk speed for the ESWT. Results: Twenty stable COPD patients (11 male), mean (SD), age 71, (9) FEV1 0.95 (0.51), resting SP02 95% (2) 6MW distance (m) 351 (104) and ESWT distance (m) 313 (193) were studied. Three patients did not complete their rehabilitation programme. Following rehabilitation, there were significant improvements in 6MW, ESWT, total CRQ and anxiety domain (HAD). The 6MW distance increased by 17% (47 m 95%CI 3, 90), while the ESWT increased by 92% (302 m 95%CI 104, 501). Conclusion: The ESWT is a simple, acceptable and highly responsive outcome measure for COPD patients undergoing a pulmonary rehabilitation programme. The ESWT has potential advantages in that it may be more responsive than the 6MW.
Suramin Inhibits Hsp104 ATPase and Disaggregase Activity

Hsp104 is a hexameric AAA+ protein that utilizes energy from ATP hydrolysis to dissolve disordered protein aggregates as well as amyloid fibers. Interestingly, Hsp104 orthologues are found in all kingdoms of life except animals. Thus, Hsp104 could represent an interesting drug target. Specific inhibition of Hsp104 activity might antagonize non-metazoan parasites that depend on a potent heat shock response, while producing little or no side effects to the host. However, no small molecule inhibitors of Hsp104 are known except guanidinium chloride. Here, we screen over 16,000 small molecules and identify 16 novel inhibitors of Hsp104 ATPase activity. Excluding compounds that inhibited Hsp104 activity by non-specific colloidal effects, we defined Suramin as an inhibitor of Hsp104 ATPase activity. Suramin is a polysulphonated naphthylurea and is used as an antiprotozoal drug for African Trypanosomiasis. Suramin also interfered with Hsp104 disaggregase, unfoldase, and translocase activities, and the inhibitory effect of Suramin was not rescued by Hsp70 and Hsp40. Suramin does not disrupt Hsp104 hexamers and does not effectively inhibit ClpB, the E. coli homolog of Hsp104, establishing yet another key difference between Hsp104 and ClpB behavior. Intriguingly, a potentiated Hsp104 variant, Hsp104A503V, is more sensitive to Suramin than wild-type Hsp104. By contrast, Hsp104 variants bearing inactivating sensor-1 mutations in nucleotide-binding domain (NBD) 1 or 2 are more resistant to Suramin. Thus, Suramin depends upon ATPase events at both NBDs to exert its maximal effect. Suramin could develop into an important mechanistic probe to study Hsp104 structure and function.
The effect of local cryotherapy on subjective and objective recovery characteristics following an exhaustive jump protocol

The purpose of this controlled trial was to investigate the effects of a single local cryotherapy session on the recovery characteristics over a period of 72 hours. Twenty-two young and healthy female (n=17; mean age: 21.9±1.1 years) and male (n=5;mean age: 25.4±2.8 years) adults participated in this study. Following an exhaustive jump protocol (3×30 countermovement jumps), half of the participants received either a single local cryotherapy application (+8°C) or a single local thermoneutral application (+32°C) of 20-minute duration using two thigh cuffs. Subjective measures of recovery (delayed-onset muscle soreness and ratings of perceived exertion) and objective measures of recovery (vertical jump performance and peak power output) were assessed immediately following the postexercise applications (0 hours) and at 24 hours, 48 hours, and 72 hours after the jump protocol. Local cryotherapy failed to significantly affect any subjective recovery variable during the 72-hour recovery period (P>0.05). After 72 hours, the ratings of perceived exertion were significantly lower in the thermoneutral group compared to that in the cryotherapy group (P=0.002). No significant differences were observed between the cryotherapy and the thermoneutral groups with respect to any of the objective recovery variables. In this experimental study, a 20-minute cryotherapy cuff application failed to demonstrate a positive effect on any objective measures of recovery. The effects of local thermoneutral application on subjective recovery characteristics were superior when compared to the effects of local cryotherapy application at 72 hours postapplication.