Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Activation of particulate guanylate cyclase by Escherichia coli heat-stable enterotoxin is regulated by adenine nucleotides

Guanylate cyclase is regulated by adenine nucleotides in membranes of intestinal mucosal cells. Basal guanylate cyclase was activated about twofold by adenine nucleotides. Activation was specific for adenine, as compared with the pyrimidine nucleotides UTP and CTP. In addition, enzyme activation was obtained in the presence of saturating concentrations of GTP, the substrate for guanylate cyclase. The most potent adenine nucleotide was the nonhydrolyzable analog of ATP, adenosine 5'-O-(3-thiotriphosphate). Adenine nucleotide activation was specific for the particulate form of guanylate cyclase, as compared with the soluble form. Also, adenine nucleotides potentiated the activation of guanylate cyclase by the heat-stable enterotoxin produced by Escherichia coli. Indeed, enzyme activation by adenine nucleotides and toxin was greater than the sum of individual activations by these agents. Adenine nucleotides regulate guanylate cyclase by increasing the maximum velocity of the enzyme without altering its affinity for substrate or its cooperativity. In addition to stimulating guanylate cyclase, adenine nucleotides decreased the specific binding of the heat-stable enterotoxin to receptors in intestinal membranes. The coordinated regulation of the toxin-receptor interaction and guanylate cyclase activity by a process utilizing nonhydrolyzable analogs of a purine nucleotide is similar to the mechanisms involved in the hormone regulation of adenylate cyclase by guanine nucleotide-binding proteins. These data suggest that an adenine nucleotide-dependent protein may couple the toxin-receptor interaction to the regulation of particulate guanylate cyclase in intestinal membranes.
CBP/p300 in cell growth, transformation, and development.

CREB binding protein (CBP) and p300 were both identified initially in protein interaction assays–the former through its association with the transcription factor CREB (Chrivia et al. 1993) and the latter through its interaction with the adenoviral-transforming protein E1A (Stein et al. 1990; Eckner et al. 1994). The recognition that these two proteins, one involved in transcription and the other in cell transformation, had highly conserved sequences suggested that they had the potential to participate in a variety of cellular functions (Fig. 1). Several excellent reviews (Janknecht and Hunter 1996; Shikama et al. 1997; Giles et al. 1998) have addressed the transcriptional coactivator functions of CBP/p300; this review focuses on the involvement of these proteins in the complex biological processes that affect cell growth, transformation, and development.
MODELO DE TRES FACTORES EN ESPAÑA

El objetivo del estudio es identificar y aplicar el modelo de tres factores desarrollado por Fama y French. Se aplica, desde una perspectiva de serie temporal, para el mercado accionario espanol en el periodo de operacion del mercado continuo, esto es, enero de 1990 a octubre de 1999. Los resultados permiten corroborar que, en su conjunto, el modelo modificado de tres factores de Fama y French (1993, 1994, 1995 y 1996) es capaz de explicar una gran porcion de la varianza (84% en promedio y como minimo el 68%) de los retornos promedios de las diferentes carteras que han sido creadas usando uno o dos criterios de ordenamiento de la base de datos. Ademas, esta bondad de ajuste es altamente significativa, ya que su varianza es minima.
Children's Handwriting Evaluation Tools and Their Psychometric Properties

Handwriting is an important area of evaluation for pediatric therapists. In selecting a handwriting instrument, therapists must not only consider a child's area of handwriting difficulty, but also the psychometric properties of the instrument chosen. This paper reviews five commonly used children's handwriting evaluation tools: (a) Diagnosis and Remediation of Handwriting Problems; (b) Minnesota Handwriting Test; (c) Children's Handwriting Evaluation Scale-Manuscript; (d) Evaluation Tool of Children's Handwriting-Manuscript; and (e) Test of Legible Handwriting. Each assessment is described including how it is administered, the scoring system, the reliability and validity of each instrument, and purchase information. The strengths and weaknesses of each tool are discussed along with factors affecting handwriting evaluation.
Understanding GANs: the LQG Setting

Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) have become a popular method to learn a probability model from data. Many GAN architectures with different optimization metrics have been introduced recently. Instead of proposing yet another architecture, this paper aims to provide an understanding of some of the basic issues surrounding GANs. First, we propose a natural way of specifying the loss function for GANs by drawing a connection with supervised learning. Second, we shed light on the statistical performance of GANs through the analysis of a simple LQG setting: the generator is linear, the loss function is quadratic and the data is drawn from a Gaussian distribution. We show that in this setting: 1) the optimal GAN solution converges to population Principal Component Analysis (PCA) as the number of training samples increases; 2) the number of samples required scales exponentially with the dimension of the data; 3) the number of samples scales almost linearly if the discriminator is constrained to be quadratic. Moreover, under this quadratic constraint on the discriminator, the optimal finite-sample GAN performs simply empirical PCA.
Evidence that glypican is a receptor mediating β‐amyloid neurotoxicity in PC12 cells

Docking of β‐amyloid fibrils to neuronal or glial cell membranes may be an early, necessary and intervenable step during the progression of Alzheimer's disease. Formation of neurofibrillary tangles and amyloid plaques as well as neurotoxicity and inflammation may be direct or indirect consequences. In an attempt to find a receptor that mediates those effects, we assessed rat pheochromocytoma PC12 cell 3‐[4,5‐dimethylthiazol‐2‐yl]‐2,5‐diphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT) reduction after addition of β‐amyloid to the culture medium. Presence of competitive substances in the medium, cell‐surface treatment and specific block of cellular synthesis pathways helped to identify the heparan sulphate moiety of a glycosylphosphatidylinositol‐anchored protein likely to represent glypican as a possible receptor mediating β‐amyloid neurotoxicity.
The UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS TECHNICAL REPORT #260 PREDICTING PHENOLOGICAL EVENTS USING EVENT-HISTORY ANALYSIS BY SONG CAI

This paper presents an approach to phenology, one based on the use of a method developed by the authors for event history data. Of specific interest is the prediction of the so-called “bloom–date” of fruit trees in the agriculture industry and it is this application which we consider, although the method is much more broadly applicable. Our approach provides sensible estimate for a parameter that interests phenologists – Tbase, the thresholding parameter in the definition of the growing degree days (GDD). Our analysis supports scientists’ empirical finding: the timing of a phenological event of a prenniel crop is related the cumulative sum of GDDs. Our prediction of future bloom–dates are quite accurate, but the predictive uncertainty is high, possibly due to our crude climate model for predicting future temperature, the time-dependent covariate in our regression model for phenological events. We found that if we can manage to get accurate prediction of future temperature, our prediction of bloom–date is more accurate and the predictive uncertainty is much lower.
Communicating User Experience: "Wicked" Problems, Patchwork Personas, and the ICTD Project Lifecycle

Research in the ICT4D field implicates lack of user-centered design in the high rate of ICTD project failure. The field of user experience UX offers potentially fruitful approaches for user-centered design. In the ICTD context, these principles and methods clash with the triple constraints of project management time, scope and funding. This paper introduces the user persona from UX design as a powerful tool for considering the user's perspective within resource-constrained ICTD projects. Although personas appear simple, they introduce complex communicative affordances, pragmatic benefits, and risks to ICTD projects. A brief conclusion revisits the larger problem of ICTD project failure, and considers the potential role of personas in addressing this problem.
Normotensive Glaucoma and Risk Factors in Normotensive Eyes With Pseudoexfoliation Syndrome

PurposeTo evaluate the prevalence of normotensive glaucoma (NTG) in patients with pseudoexfoliation (PEX) syndrome. MethodsIn this prospective study, 178 eyes of 178 patients with PEX syndrome who had no previous history of antiglaucomatous treatment were evaluated in terms of NTG prevalence. NTG diagnosis was based on the presence of glaucomatous optic nerve head damage with glaucomatous visual field defects, open angles, and intraocular pressure (IOP) levels less than 22 mm Hg. Two groups of normotensive pseudoexfoliative eyes with or without glaucomatous findings were compared in terms of age, sex, the presence of systemic diseases and mean IOP, maximum IOP, and IOP fluctuation levels. ResultsThe IOP levels were below 22 mm Hg in 109 of the 178 eyes, and 24% (n=27) of those eyes were diagnosed as NTG. There were no significant differences between the eyes with or without glaucoma in terms of age, sex, and the presence of systemic diseases (P>0.05). The mean IOP, maximum IOP, and IOP fluctuation levels were significantly higher in eyes with NTG when compared with eyes without glaucoma (P<0.05). Univariate analysis revealed that significant risk factors associated with NTG in patients with PEX syndrome were higher mean IOP (≥14 mm Hg), higher maximum IOP (≥18 mm Hg), and greater IOP fluctuation (≥4 mm Hg). In multivariate analysis, these factors were higher maximum IOP and greater IOP fluctuation range (P=0.003, P<0.001, respectively). ConclusionsThere are glaucomatous findings in a significant proportion of normotensive patients with PEX syndrome. The high maximum IOP levels and greater IOP fluctuation range may be contributory factors in the pathogenesis of NTG in patients with PEX syndrome.
A Method for Defining the Mean Path Length of the Epstein Frame

This paper presents a method for the determination of the mean path length of the 25 cm Epstein frame. The proposed method employs two Epstein frames of different dimensions. A standard 25 cm and a revised 17.5 cm Epstein frame were built. The corner areas of the two frames were kept identical. By subtracting the absolute power loss (in watts) measured in strips of the same material by means of the two frames and combining it with the difference in size of the two frames, the exact mean path length of the Epstein frame can be accurately obtained for any magnetizing condition including the case of controlled distorted (nonsinusoidal) magnetization. Results indicate that material permeability and anisotropy are the most important factors that affect the mean path length, whereas the peak flux density and magnetizing frequency also play an important role
Prevision de trajectoires d'avions par reseaux de neurones

La prevision de trajectoires d'avions est un probleme crucial pour les systemes de gestion du traffic aerien. Des methodes de prevision utilisant des modelisations d'avion existent deja mais necessitent beaucoup de parametres en n'offrant qu'une precision moyenne. C'est pourquoi nous developpons une nouvelle approche nutilisant que peu d'informations initiales. La methode choisie est basee sur l'utilisation de reseaux de neurones auxquels on fait apprendre un ensemble de trajectoires avant de les utiliser pour en predire de nouvelles. Nous developpons trois methodes differentes qui permettent une prediction a long terme dans le plan vertical et a court et moyen terme dans le plan horizontal. L'une d'elles est capable d'integrer de nouvelles donnees au fur et a mesure que l'avion vole, ce qui lui permet de reagir aux eventuels changements de trajectoire et ainsi de parfaire la prevision. Les deux autres realisent la prediction meme lorsque l'avion ne vole pas. Nous introduisons aussi une structure de type melange hierarchique d'experts qui permet de regrouper le savoir emmagazine dans plusieurs reseaux, ainsi, il est possible de se passer de la connaissance du type d'avion etudie. Les methodes utilisant des reseaux de neurones sont ensuite comparees aux methodes a base de modeles avion. Nous montrons alors que les reseaux de neurones donnent de bien meilleurs resultats tout en permettant une prediction tres rapide. De plus, ne necessitant que tres peu de parametres au depart, ils sont applicables sur un plus grand nombre de cas.
Simplified dynamic models of variable speed wind turbines for frequency regulation studies

This paper discusses the application of reduced order dynamic models of deloaded wind turbine generators (WTGs) for primary frequency regulation studies. Both nonlinear and linear models have been investigated to analyze the inertial response capability of WTGs. The non-linear model is valid for a wide range of wind speeds. At constant wind speed, the non-linear model is linearized to obtain a first order transfer function linking the system frequency and WTG power output. The transfer function is shown to effectively emulate the deloaded WTG behavior like its non-linear model. In the context of wind farms, the non-linear model is further extended to study the effects of spatial smoothing.
Species delineation and genetic variation of Hiatella "arctica" (Bivalvia, Heterodonta) in the Mediterranean Sea

Hiatella ist eine marine Gattung innerhalb der Klasse Bivalvia, die mit Ausnahme von tropischen Gewassern weltweit vorkommt. Die Lebensweise von Hiatella ist vielfaltig: sie lebt in Felsspalten, epiphytisch oder epizoisch, oder auch im Gewebe von Schwammen. Die Schalenform ist masgeblich der okologischen Nische angepasst und demzufolge hoch variabel. Es ist nach dem heutigen Wissensstand unklar, wie viele Arten von Hiatella im Mittelmeer vorkommen. Zu diesem Zweck wurde in dieser Diplomarbeit ein molekularer Ansatz gewahlt. Es wurden vier Populationen im Mittelmeer anhand von molekularen Markern untersucht. Ein mitochondrialer Genbereich bestehend aus Teilen der COI, COIII, ATP6, 16SrRNA sowie zwei "non coding" Regionen, wurde sequenziert. Mit diesem Datensatz wurden eine Bayes’sche Analyse, eine Netzwerkanalyse sowie eine molekulare Varianzanalyse (AMOVA) durchgefuhrt. Die Analysen ergaben, dass alle Tiere conspezifisch sind. Weiters gibt es eine starke Korrelation zwischen genetischer Differenzierung und der geographischen Distanz. Diese molekularen Daten unterstutzen die Hypothese, dass es sich im Mittelmeer um eine einzige, phanotypisch variable Art handelt, die in dieser Studie als Hiatella „arctica“ bezeichnet wird. Die Oberflachenstromungen im Mittelmeer scheinen das Verbreitungspotential von Hiatella „arctica“ demzufolge nicht negativ zu beeinflussen. Mogliche Erklarungen fur die betrachtliche intraspezifische Variation liegen zum einen im hohen Verbreitungspotential der Larven, sowie der juvenilen und adulten Tieren. Andererseits kann durch die Fahigkeit, unterschiedliche Lebensraume zu besiedeln das Habitat als durchgehend betrachtet werden. Folglich scheint es im Mittelmeer mit Ausnahme der geographischen Distanz kaum physischen Barrieren zu geben, welche den Genfluss zwischen Populationen von Hiatella "arctica" einschranken.
On the Dynamic Maintenance of Data Replicas based on Access Patterns in A Multi-Cloud Environment

Cloud computing provides services and infrastructures to enable end-users to access, modify and share massive geographically distributed data. There are increasing interests in developing data-intensive (big data) applications in this computing environment that need to access huge datasets. Accessing such data in an efficient way is deterred with factors such as dynamic changes in resource availability, provision of diverse service quality by different cloud providers. Data replication has already been proven to be an effective technique to overcome these challenges. Replication offers reduced response time in data access, higher data availability and improved system load balancing. Once the replicas are created in a multi-cloud environment, it is of utmost importance to continuously support maintenance of these replicas dynamically. This is to ensure that replicas are located in optimal data center locations to minimize replication cost and to meet specific user and system requirements. First, this paper proposes a novel approach to distributed placement of static replicas in appropriate data center locations. Secondly, motivated by the fact that a multi-cloud environment is highly dynamic, the paper presents a dynamic replica maintenance technique that re-allocates replicas to new data center locations upon significant performance degradation. The evaluation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the presented dynamic maintenance technique with static placement decisions in a multi-cloud environment
Genome-Wide Identification of Cyclic Nucleotide-Gated Ion Channel Gene Family in Wheat and Functional Analyses of TaCNGC14 and TaCNGC16

Cyclic nucleotide gated channels (CNGCs) play multifaceted roles in plants, particularly with respect to signaling processes associated with abiotic stress signaling and during host-pathogen interactions. Despite key roles during plant survival and response to environment, little is known about the activity and function of CNGC family in common wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), a key stable food around the globe. In this study, we performed a genome-wide identification of CNGC family in wheat and identified a total 47 TaCNGCs in wheat, classifying these genes into four major groups (I–IV) with two sub-groups (IVa and IVb). Sequence analysis revealed the presence of several conserved motifs, including a phosphate binding cassette (PBC) and a “hinge” region, both of which have been hypothesized to be critical for the function of wheat CNGCs. During wheat infection with Pst, the transcript levels of TaCNGC14 and TaCNGC16, both members of group IVb, showed significant induction during a compatible interaction, while a reduction in gene expression was observed in incompatible interactions. In addition, TaCNGC14 and TaCNGC16 mRNA accumulation was significantly influenced by exogenously applied hormones, including abscisic acid (ABA), methyl jasmonate (MeJA), and salicylic acid (SA), suggesting a role in hormone signaling and/or perception. Silencing of TaCNGC14 and TaCNGC16 limited Pst growth and increased wheat resistance against Pst. The results presented herein contribute to our understanding of the wheat CNGC gene family and the mechanism of TaCNGCs signaling during wheat-Pst interaction.
Cellular mechanisms of posterior neural tube morphogenesis in the zebrafish

The zebrafish is a well established model system for studying neural development, yet neurulation remains poorly understood in this organism. In particular, the morphogenetic movements that shape the posterior neural tube (PNT) have not been described. Using tools for imaging neural tissue and tracking the behavior of cells in real time, we provide the first comprehensive analysis of the cellular events shaping the PNT. We observe that this tissue is formed in a stepwise manner, beginning with merging of presumptive neural domains in the tailbud (Stage 1); followed by neural convergence and infolding to shape the neural rod (Stage 2); and continued elongation of the PNT, in absence of further convergence (Stage 3). We further demonstrate that cell proliferation plays only a minimal role in PNT elongation. Overall, these mechanisms resemble those previously described in anterior regions, suggesting that, in contrast to amniotes, neurulation is a fairly uniform process in zebrafish. Developmental Dynamics 239:747–762, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Novel Pre-processing using Outlier Removal in Voice Conversion

Voice conversion (VC) technique modiﬁes the speech utter-ance spoken by a source speaker to make it sound like a target speaker is speaking. Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM)-based VC is a state-of-the-art method. It ﬁnds the mapping function by modeling the joint density of source and target speakers us-ing GMM to convert spectral features framewise. As with any real dataset, the spectral parameters contain a few points that are inconsistent with the rest of the data, called outliers . Until now, there has been very few literature regarding the effect of outliers in voice conversion. In this paper, we have explored the effect of outliers in voice conversion, as a pre-processing step. In order to remove these outliers, we have used the score distance, which uses the scores estimated using Robust Principal Component Analysis (ROBPCA). The outliers are determined by using a cut-off value based on the degrees of freedom in a chi-squared distribution. They are then removed from the training dataset and a GMM is trained based on the least outlying points. This pre-processing step can be applied to various methods. Experimental results indicate that there is a clear improvement in both, the objective ( 8 %) as well as the subjective ( 4 % for MOS and 5 % for XAB) results.
Effect of Phoenix dactylifera pollen grain on maturation of preantral follicles in NMRI mice

Introduction: Optimizing an ideal culture system that is comparable to follicle environment to obtain mature oocytes is one of the important criteria in in vitro maturation (IVM). Phoenix dactylifera L. commonly known as date palm is an important herb in Asia folk medicine that is used to improve fertility in women from ancient time. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of date palm pollen grain extract on IVM of mouse follicles. Methods: In this study follicles with 1 or 2 layers of granulosa cells and round oocytes were isolated from 2-3 weeks old female NMRI mice ovaries. Follicles were cultured in IVM media with different concentrations 0, 10, 20, 30, 40 μg/ml of palm pollen grain extract for 12 days. Then, the effect of date palm pollen grain on follicular growth and maturation were analyzed. Results: There was a significant increase in follicle growth and maturation rate in all treated groups as compared to the control group, but maturation rate was significantly higher in the presence of 20 μg/ml palm pollen grain. Conclusion: Supplementation of IVM media with date palm pollen grain extract improves the IVM of follicles.
The Tail that Wags the Economy: Belief-Driven Business Cycles and Persistent Stagnation

The Great Recession was a deep downturn with long-lasting effects on credit markets, labor markets and output. We explore a simple explanation: This recession has been more persistent than others because it was perceived as an extremely unlikely event before 2007. Observing such an episode led all agents to re-assess macro risk, in particular, the probability of tail events. Since changes in beliefs endure long after the event itself has passed and through its effects on prices and choices, it produces long-lasting effects on investment, employment and output. To model this idea, we study a production economy with agents who use standard econometric tools to estimate the distribution of aggregate shocks. When they observe a new shock, they re-estimate the distribution from which it was drawn. Even transitory shocks have persistent effects because, once observed, they stay forever in the agents' data set. We feed a time-series of US macro data into our model and show that our belief revision mechanism can explain the 12% downward shift in US trend output.