Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Nano-zymography Using Laser-Scanning Confocal Microscopy Unmasks Proteolytic Activity of Cell-Derived Microparticles

Cell-derived microparticles (MPs) are nano-sized vesicles released by activated cells in the extracellular milieu. They act as vectors of biological activity by carrying membrane-anchored and cytoplasmic constituents of the parental cells. Although detection and characterization of cell-derived MPs may be of high diagnostic and prognostic values in a number of human diseases, reliable measurement of their size, number and biological activity still remains challenging using currently available methods. In the present study, we developed a protocol to directly image and functionally characterize MPs using high-resolution laser-scanning confocal microscopy. Once trapped on annexin-V coated micro-wells, we developed several assays using fluorescent reporters to measure their size, detect membrane antigens and evaluate proteolytic activity (nano-zymography). In particular, we demonstrated the applicability and specificity of this method to detect antigens and proteolytic activities of tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA), urokinase and plasmin at the surface of engineered MPs from transfected cell-lines. Furthermore, we were able to identify a subset of tPA-bearing fibrinolytic MPs using plasma samples from a cohort of ischemic stroke patients who received thrombolytic therapy and in an experimental model of thrombin-induced ischemic stroke in mice. Overall, this method is promising for functional characterization of cell-derived MPs.
Attention and complacency

The problem of complacency is analysed, and it is shown that previous research that claims to show its existence is defective, because the existence of complacency can not be proved unless optimal behaviour is specified as a benchmark. Using gedanken experiments, it is further shown that, in general, not even with optimal monitoring can all signals be detected. Complacency is concerned with attention (monitoring, sampling), not with detection, and there is little evidence for complacent behaviour. To claim that behaviour is complacent is to blame the operator for failure to detect signals. This is undesirable, since so-called complacent behaviour may rather be the fault of poor systems design.
The effect of spot defects on the parametric yield of long interconnection lines

The effect of non-catastrophic (or soft) defects (i.e., neither short nor open) on long interconnection lines is analyzed and an estimate is derived for the frequency-dependent critical area for such lines. The analysis is based on a transmission-line model of interconnection lines, and the reflections caused by the defect are taken into account. This analysis results in an estimated prediction of the parametric yield, and a practical recommendation for a better jog insertion in VLSI routing.
Effects of Linked Selective Sweeps on Demographic Inference and Model Selection

The availability of large-scale population genomic sequence data has resulted in an explosion in efforts to infer the demographic histories of natural populations across a broad range of organisms. As demographic events alter coalescent genealogies, they leave detectable signatures in patterns of genetic variation within and between populations. Accordingly, a variety of approaches have been designed to leverage population genetic data to uncover the footprints of demographic change in the genome. The vast majority of these methods make the simplifying assumption that the measures of genetic variation used as their input are unaffected by natural selection. However, natural selection can dramatically skew patterns of variation not only at selected sites, but at linked, neutral loci as well. Here we assess the impact of recent positive selection on demographic inference by characterizing the performance of three popular methods through extensive simulation of data sets with varying numbers of linked selective sweeps. In particular, we examined three different demographic models relevant to a number of species, finding that positive selection can bias parameter estimates of each of these models—often severely. We find that selection can lead to incorrect inferences of population size changes when none have occurred. Moreover, we show that linked selection can lead to incorrect demographic model selection, when multiple demographic scenarios are compared. We argue that natural populations may experience the amount of recent positive selection required to skew inferences. These results suggest that demographic studies conducted in many species to date may have exaggerated the extent and frequency of population size changes.
WACA: Workload and cache aware load balancing policy for web services

The popularity of the web applications has shown rapid growth on Web Services and Cloud Computing. One of the major challenge in Web applications is that it need to process massive files and data-sets to respond to an increasing number of users requests. These data may range from multimedia data to sensor data. Along with the size of data, user satisfaction is an important constraint imposing Quality of Service requirements. Therefore the use of web clusters becomes necessary for numerous applications, fostering the need of efficient load distribution strategy. This article presents a new load balancing policy called Workload And Cache Aware load balancing (WACA) policy aimed at reducing the information retrieval time of the processor using Bloom Filter Based cache summaries. The WACA is a centralized load balancing algorithm which routes the incoming requests to the machine where the underlying data will most probably be in its cache without overloading any nodes in the cluster. The proposed policy was developed and tested on a load balancing framework called CLOUDIZER, and the performance of the strategy was compared over the traditional algorithms.
Stigmatization, Stress, and the Search for Belonging in Black Men Who Have Sex With Men Who Use Methamphetamine

Black men who have sex with men (BMSM) continue to be disproportionately affected by HIV. Methamphetamine use has been identified as a source of HIV risk in gay and bisexually identified men, yet the relationship between methamphetamine use and sexual risk among BMSM specifically remains unclear. The goal of this qualitative study was to investigate psychological, contextual, and developmental factors informing methamphetamine use and HIV risk behavior among a sample of heterosexual, gay, and bisexual BMSM (N = 52) in New York City. Methamphetamine use and sexual risk were associated with stress induced by stigmatization arising from and within larger dominant White gay culture, stigmatization incurred within the community, internalized homophobia, and stress induced by living under the shadow of the perceived inevitability of contracting HIV as BMSM. Methamphetamine use was associated with venues where participants could be sheltered from experiences of racism, homophobia, and dominant hegemonic images of Black masculinity, while exploring and developing same-sex desires, thereby instilling a sense of community belonging. Suggestions for culturally appropriate strategies for treating both methamphetamine use and HIV risk behaviors among BMSM are discussed.
Defect in regulated secretion of P-selectin affects leukocyte recruitment in von Willebrand factor-deficient mice

Stimulation of endothelial cells by various inflammatory mediators leads to release of Weibel–Palade bodies and therefore to exocytosis of both P-selectin (adhesion receptor for leukocytes) and von Willebrand factor (vWf) (platelet ligand). The potential role of vWf in leukocyte recruitment was investigated with the use of vWf-deficient mice. We report a strong reduction of leukocyte rolling in venules of vWf-deficient mice. Similarly, vWf deficiency led to a decrease in neutrophil recruitment in a cytokine-induced meningitis model as well as in early skin wounds. In all instances with an antibody that preferentially recognizes plasma membrane P-selectin, we observed a dramatic reduction in P-selectin expression at the cell surface of vWf-deficient endothelium. With confocal microscopy, we found that the typical rodlike shape of the Weibel–Palade body is missing in vWf −/− endothelial cells and that part of the P-selectin content in the vWf −/− cells colocalized with LAMP-1, a lysosomal marker. However, intracellular P-selectin levels were similar in tumor necrosis factor α- and lipopolysaccharide-activated cells of both genotypes. We conclude that the absence of vWf, as found in severe von Willebrand disease, leads to a defect in Weibel–Palade body formation. This defect results in decreased P-selectin translocation to the cell surface and reduced leukocyte recruitment in early phases of inflammation.
Cloning, molecular evolution and functional characterization of ZmbHLH16, the maize ortholog of OsTIP2 (OsbHLH142)

ABSTRACT The transcription factor ZmbHLH16, the maize ortholog of OsTIP2 (OsbHLH142), was isolated in the present study. Tissue expression analysis showed that ZmbHLH16 is preferentially expressed in male reproductive organs. Subcellular location analysis of ZmbHLH16 via rice protoplast indicated that it is located in the nucleus. Through nucleotide variation analysis, 36 polymorphic sites in ZmbHLH16, including 23 single nucleotide polymorphisms and 13 InDels, were detected among 78 maize inbred lines. Neutrality tests and linkage disequilibrium analysis showed that ZmbHLH16 experienced no significant evolutionary pressure. Yeast one-hybrid experiment showed that the first 80 residues in the N-terminus of ZmbHLH16 had transactivation activity, whereas the full length did not. Genome-wide coexpression analysis showed that 395 genes were coexpressed with ZmbHLH16. Among these genes, the transcription factor ZmbHLH51 had similar expression pattern and identical subcellular localization to those of ZmbHLH16. Subsequently, the interaction between ZmbHLH51 and ZmbHLH16 was verified by yeast two-hybrid experiment. Through yeast two-hybrid analysis of series truncated ZmbHLH16 fragments, we found not only the typical bHLH domain [175-221 amino acids (a.a.)], but also that the 81-160 a.a. and 241-365 a.a. of ZmbHLH16 could interact with ZmbHLH51. All these results lay the foundation for further understanding the functions of ZmbHLH16. Summary: ZmbHLH16, the maize ortholog of OsTIP2 (OsbHLH142), its subcellular location, molecular evolution, transcriptional activity domains and heterodimerization domains with ZmbHLH51 are analyzed.
Faith Development Theory and the Postmodern Problem of Foundations

James Fowler's (1981) faith development theory (FDT) for over 20 years has provided a theoretical foundation for a wide range of research projects in the psychology of religious development as well as generated lively critical scholarly response from other psychologists of religion. Frequently unexamined are the theological foundations of Fowler's project and the way in which his work weighs in on a matter significant for both philosophers and psychologists of religion: the postmodern problem of foundations, or whether it is possible to speak meaningfully of a universal human religious orientation or potentiality. This essay revisits the original theological inspiration for Fowler's work and then considers critiques that FDT has received from 2 quite different directions: from research psychologists and from theologically critical writers. By way of looking at how philosophical theologian Conn (1998) addressed the latter, we will be led back to find a possible answer to the problem of foundations in those very aspects of Fowler's theory that have provoked the most criticism from research psychologists, namely in its effort to find a place for the contributions of contemporary relational psychoanalysis.
Problems with Kendall's tau

This poster describes a potential problem with a relatively well used measure in Information Retrieval research: Kendall's Tau rank correlation coefficient. The coefficient is best known for its use in determining the similarity of test collections when ranking sets of retrieval runs. Threshold values for the coefficient have been defined and used in a number of published studies in information retrieval. However, this poster presents results showing that basing decisions on such thresholds is not as reliableas has been assumed.
Definitional Question-Answering Using Trainable Text Classifiers

Automatic question answering (QA) has gained increasing interest in the last few years. Question-Answering systems return an answer rather than a document. Definitional questions are questions such as Who is Alexander Hamilton? or what are fractals? Looking at logs of web search engines definitional questions occur quite frequently, suggesting it is an important type of questions. Analysis of previous work promotes the hypothesis that the use of a text classifier component improves performance of definitional-QA systems. This thesis serves as a proof of concept that using trainable text classifier improves definitional question answering. I present a naive heuristic-based QA system, investigate two text classifiers and demonstrate how integrating the text classifiers into definitional-QA system can improve the baseline system.
Design of an Expert System for Rice Kernel Identification using Optimal Morphological Features and Back Propagation Neural Network

In this paper, an algorithm for identifying five different varieties of rice, using the morphological features is presented. The proposed algorithm consists of several steps: image acquisition, segmentation, feature extraction, feature selection, and classification. Eighteen morphological features were extracted from rice kernels. The Set of features contained redundant, noisy or even irrelevant information so features were examined by four different algorithms. Finally six features were selected as the superior ones. A back propagation neural network-based classifier was developed to classify rice varieties. The overall classification accuracy was achieved as 98.4%. General Terms Pattern Recognition, Data Mining
Future Directions in Cognitive Engineering and Naturalistic Decision Making

Cognitive Engineering and Naturalistic Decision Making are presented as two related fields of endeavor that seek to understand how people process information and perform within complex systems and to develop ways of applying this knowledge within the design and training process This panel presents an overview of the current state of the art in this research domain and charts paths for needed developments in the field in the near future.
IgA Nephropathy Caused by Unusual Polymerization of IgA1 with Aberrant N-Glycosylation in a Patient with Monoclonal Immunoglobulin Deposition Disease

Immunoglobulin A nephropathy (IgAN) is a form of chronic glomerulonephritis characterized by the deposition of IgA immune complexes in the glomerular region. The cause of IgAN is unknown, but multiple mechanisms have been suggested. We previously reported a rare case of mesangioproliferative glomerulonephritis in a patient with monoclonal immunoglobulin deposition disease associated with monoclonal IgA1. In this study, we performed the detailed analyses of serum IgA1 from this patient in comparison with those from patients with mIgA plasma cell disorder without renal involvement and healthy volunteers. We found unusual polymerization of IgA1 with additional N-glycosylation distinctive in this patient, which was different from known etiologies. Glycan profiling of IgA1 by the lectin microarray revealed an intense signal for Wisteria floribunda agglutinin (WFA). This signal was reduced by disrupting the native conformation of IgA1, suggesting that the distinct glycan profile was reflecting the conformational alteration of IgA1, including the glycan conformation detected as additional N-glycans on both the heavy and light chains. This unusually polymerized state of IgA1 would cause an increase of the binding avidity for lectins. WFA specifically recognized highly polymerized and glycosylated IgA1. Our results of analysis in the rare case of a patient with monoclonal immunoglobulin deposition disease suggest that the formation of unusually polymerized IgA1 is caused by divergent mechanisms including multiple structural alterations of glycans, which contributes to IgA1 deposition and mesangium proliferation.
Improved upper bounds on the packet error probability of slotted and unslotted DS/SS systems

We consider a direct-sequence spread-spectrum multiple access communication system with convolutional coding and hard decision decoding. We calculate the packet error probability and throughput of this system. Previous bounds on packet error probability have relied on the worst case assumption of phase and chip synchronous interference. We present new bounds on packet error probability and throughput for the case of both slotted and unslotted systems. These new bounding techniques are based on two advances: an improved Chernoff bound on the error event probability of a convolutional code, and the use of moment space techniques. Numerical results indicate that these new bounds on packet error probability improve on previously reported bounds by more than an order of magnitude. We also examine the problem of choosing the optimum code rate which maximizes throughput. We compare the optimum code rate which results from the bounding technique to the optimum code rate derived from an approximation technique. Although the bounding technique and approximation technique yield very different results for throughput, the resulting choice of optimum code rate is similar.
An Autonomic -Interleaving Registry Overlay Network for Efficient Ubiquities Web Services Discovery Service

The Web Services infrastructure is a distributed computing environment for service-sharing. Mechanisms for Web services Discovery proposed so far have assumed a centralized and peer-to-peer (P2P) registry. A discovery service with centralized architecture, such as UDDI, restricts the scalability of this environment, induces performance bottleneck and may result in single points of failure. A discovery service with P2P architecture enables a scalable and an efficient ubiquities web service discovery service that needs to be run in self-organized fashions. In this paper, we propose an autonomic -interleaving Registry Overlay Network (RgON) that enables web-services' providers/consumers to publish/discover services' advertisements, WSDL documents. The RgON, doubtless empowers consumers to discover web services associated with these advertisements within constant D logical hops over constant K physical hops with reasonable storage and bandwidth utilization as shown through simulation.
From the Gut to the Brain: Journey and Pathophysiological Effects of the Food-Associated Trichothecene Mycotoxin Deoxynivalenol

Mycotoxins are fungal secondary metabolites contaminating food and causing toxicity to animals and humans. Among the various mycotoxins found in crops used for food and feed production, the trichothecene toxin deoxynivalenol (DON or vomitoxin) is one of the most prevalent and hazardous. In addition to native toxins, food also contains a large amount of plant and fungal derivatives of DON, including acetyl-DON (3 and 15ADON), glucoside-DON (D3G), and potentially animal derivatives such as glucuronide metabolites (D3 and D15GA) present in animal tissues (e.g., blood, muscle and liver tissue). The present review summarizes previous and very recent experimental data collected in vivo and in vitro regarding the transport, detoxification/metabolism and physiological impact of DON and its derivatives on intestinal, immune, endocrine and neurologic functions during their journey from the gut to the brain.
An examination of how husbands, as key stakeholders, impact the success of women entrepreneurs

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore: How do changes in the role of the husband affect the marriage of a woman entrepreneur? How do changes in the marriage affect the woman entrepreneur and her relationship with her business? Design/methodology/approach – A novel theoretical approach based on marriage contract theory, gender role ideology and psychological contracts was used. Qualitative methodology included analysis of multiple cases based on rich interview data gathered from 12 Scandinavian couples. Findings – Research revealed that the pattern of dominance between the husband and wife, the gender role ideologies of the two spouses, and the interaction between this pattern and the gender role ideologies, and overall level of marital harmony were key determinants of husbands’ spousal support. Research limitations/implications – Sample size and geographical limitations. Future research: exploring other cultural settings, further application of marriage and psychological contracts in female en.
DAY NEUTRAL FLOWERING Represses CONSTANS to Prevent Arabidopsis Flowering Early in Short Days[W][OA]

This work describes the flowering time gene DAY NEUTRAL FLOWERING (DNF), which acts in the same flowering pathway as CONSTANS (CO). DNF is a membrane-bound E3 ligase that represses CO expression and plays an important role in maintaining low levels of CO expression in short days; it is thus essential for the ability of the Arabidopsis plant to have a different flowering response in long and short days. The photoperiodic response in Arabidopsis thaliana requires the precise regulation of CONSTANS (CO) expression in relation to the light period during the day. In short days (SDs) levels of CO expression are normally low during the light period, and this results in delayed flowering compared with long days (LDs) when CO expression rises to high levels before the end of the light period. We identified a novel flowering time gene called DAY NEUTRAL FLOWERING (DNF) that acts in the same flowering pathway as CO. DNF is a membrane-bound E3 ligase that represses CO expression and plays an important role in maintaining low levels of CO expression in SDs. The effect of DNF on the rhythm of CO expression is essential for the photoperiodic response of Arabidopsis, enabling it to have a different flowering response in LDs and SDs.
Adaptive Compressed Sensing for the Fast Terahertz Reflection Tomography

In this paper, an adaptive compressed sensing is proposed in order to enhance the performance of fast tetrahertz reflection tomography. The proposed method first acquires data at random measurement points in the spatial domain, and estimates the regions in each tomographic image where much degradation is expected. Then, it allocates additional measurement points to those regions, so that more data are acquired adaptively at the regions prone to degradation, thereby improving the quality of the reconstructed tomographic images. The proposed method was applied to the T-ray reflection tomography system, and the image quality enhancement by the proposed method, compared to the conventional method, was verified for the same number of measurement points.