Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mice Hemizygous for a Pathogenic Mitofusin-2 Allele Exhibit Hind Limb/Foot Gait Deficits and Phenotypic Perturbations in Nerve and Muscle

Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 2A (CMT2A), the most common axonal form of hereditary sensory motor neuropathy, is caused by mutations of mitofusin-2 (MFN2). Mitofusin-2 is a GTPase required for fusion of mitochondrial outer membranes, repair of damaged mitochondria, efficient mitochondrial energetics, regulation of mitochondrial-endoplasmic reticulum calcium coupling and axonal transport of mitochondria. We knocked T105M MFN2 preceded by a loxP-flanked STOP sequence into the mouse Rosa26 locus to permit cell type-specific expression of this pathogenic allele. Crossing these mice with nestin-Cre transgenic mice elicited T105M MFN2 expression in neuroectoderm, and resulted in diminished numbers of mitochondria in peripheral nerve axons, an alteration in skeletal muscle fiber type distribution, and a gait abnormality.
Angiogenesis of the Frozen‐Thawed Human Fetal Ovarian Tissue at the Early Stage after Xenotransplantation and the Positive Effect of Salviae miltiorrhizae

Cryopreserving ovarian tissue followed by transplantation has been suggested to preserve fertility for young cancer survivors. However, ischemia in the early stage after transplantation causes massive follicle loss. The aim was to investigate the histological and ultrastructural characteristics of the frozen‐thawed human fetal ovarian tissue after xenotransplantation and the effects of Salviae miltiorrhizae (SM) on the angiogenesis. The human fetal ovarian tissues were frozen‐thawed, xenografted into the immunodeficient nu/nu mice, and then collected 2, 7, and 28 days after transplantation. SM was administered. Compared with that of the frozen‐thawed ovarian tissue, the total follicle number of the grafts was greatly reduced. Nearly half of the primordial follicles were damaged at different levels on day 2. Moreover, edema was prevalent in the stroma during the first week after the graft, especially on day 2. The microvessel density of the grafts was increased on day 2, reached a peak on day 7, and then declined on day 28. Both healthy primordial follicle proportion and the total healthy primordial follicles pool in the SM group were significantly higher than those of the control group (P = 0.003 and P = 0.001). We found a statistically significant difference of microvessel density between the two groups on day 2 (P < 0.001). In the frozen‐thawed fetal ovarian grafts, angiogenesis has been begun on day 2, and the first week is the critical time for the grafts to regain their function, in which SM can facilitate graft vascularization and improve the preservation of primordial follicles. Anat Rec, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Mechanism of action of penicillins: a proposal based on their structural similarity to acyl-D-alanyl-D-alanine.

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Implementing a Resilient Application Architecture for State Management on a PaaS Cloud

Platform as a Service Clouds typically lack direct support for application state management, and traditional state management techniques like clustering are not applicable as PaaS platforms offer little support for changing the underlying platform configuration. In this paper we build upon our earlier work where we proposed a session-state management architecture for Cloud called ReLoC, that uses loosely-coupled services and platform agnostic scalable messaging technology to propagate and save session states. Here, we present an actual implementation of the ReLoC onto a PaaS platform and an empirical evaluation of the original hypotheses of scalability and resilience of the proposed application architecture. We also present the challenges faced in implementing ReLoC on Heroku. The results indicate that ReLoC indeed allows applications to scale well and mitigates failures in individual application instances while maintaining state and hiding such failures from the users. The results also indicate that the performance degradation due to use of ReLoC is minimal and it is thus a promising approach for resilient user state management on PaaS Clouds.
PS-TLB: Leveraging page classification information for fast, scalable and efficient translation for future CMPs

Traversing the page table during virtual to physical address translation causes pipeline stalls when misses occur in the translation-lookaside buffer (TLB). State-of-the-art translation proposals typically optimize a single aspect of translation performance (e.g., translation sharing, context switch performance, etc.) with potential trade-offs of additional hardware complexity, increased translation latency, or reduced scalability. In this article, we propose the partial sharing TLB (PS-TLB), a fast and scalable solution that reduces off-chip translation misses without sacrificing the timing-critical requirement of on-chip translation. We introduce the partial sharing buffer (PSB) which leverages application page sharing characteristics using minimal additional hardware resources. Compared to the leading TLB proposal that leverages sharing, PS-TLB provides a more than 45% improvement in translation latency with a 9% application speedup while using fewer storage resources. In addition, the page classification and PS-TLB architecture provide further optimizations including an over 30% reduction of interprocessor interrupts for coherence, and reduced context switch misses with fewer resources compared with existing methods.
Comparison of two panels of monoclonal antibodies for determination of Chlamydia trachomatis serovars

A panel of monoclonal antibodies was developed for serovar typing of clinical isolates of Chlamydia trachomatis. The panel could distinguish all 15 established serovars from one another, although the hybridomas of the panel were developed by fusions of myeloma cells and spleen cells from mice immunized with antigen derived from the urogenital serovars D to L3. The typing assay was based on a dot enzyme immunoassay, and the monoclonal antibodies that were included in the panel reacted strongly in this assay. A collection of 289 clinical isolates from The Netherlands was typed. The observed serovar frequency distribution was 51 isolates of serovar D (17.6%), 103 isolates of serovar E (35.6%), 62 isolates of serovar F (21.5%), 28 isolates of serovar G (9.9%), 14 isolates of serovar H (4.8%), 2 isolates of serovar I' (0.7%), 20 isolates of serovar J (6.9%), and 9 isolates of serovar K (3.1%). These results were confirmed by typing these isolates with a panel of monoclonal antibodies purchased from the Washington Research Foundation, Seattle. No strain variation was observed within serovar D with both panels. However, restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis of the gene encoding the major outer membrane protein showed that 32 isolates were similar to the prototype D and 17 were similar to the variant D-. The two others showed a new restriction pattern. Our panel of monoclonal antibodies contained one monoclonal antibody that divided the serovar G isolates into two groups. This differentiation was confirmed by restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis, confining this difference to a known sequence variation in variable domain IV. These data support the subdivision of serovar G into serovars G (prototype strain UW-57) and Ga (prototype strain IOL-238).
Delivery Systems for the Direct Application of siRNAs to Induce RNA Interference (RNAi) In Vivo

RNA interference (RNAi) is a powerful method for specific gene silencing which may also lead to promising novel therapeutic strategies. It is mediated through small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) which sequence-specifically trigger the cleavage and subsequent degradation of their target mRNA. One critical factor is the ability to deliver intact siRNAs into target cells/organs in vivo. This review highlights the mechanism of RNAi and the guidelines for the design of optimal siRNAs. It gives an overview of studies based on the systemic or local application of naked siRNAs or the use of various nonviral siRNA delivery systems. One promising avenue is the the complexation of siRNAs with the polyethylenimine (PEI), which efficiently stabilizes siRNAs and, upon systemic administration, leads to the delivery of the intact siRNAs into different organs. The antitumorigenic effects of PEI/siRNA-mediated in vivo gene-targeting of tumor-relevant proteins like in mouse tumor xenograft models are described.
Increased expression of exon 2 deleted MEFV transcript in familial Mediterranean fever patients

A defect in MEFV gene expression regulation has been implicated in familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) etiopathophysiology. Here we show significantly higher expression level in second exon lacking MEFV transcript in FMF patients compared with healthy controls (P = 0.026). Our results also point out a possible role of exon 2 deleted MEFV transcript in FMF pathogenesis.
Holonic self-sustainable systems for electrical micro grids

The self-sustainability of micro grids is an important challenge in the smart grids field due to the need to balance the fast growing energy consumption, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase energy independence by using renewable resources. The use of decentralized paradigms, and particularly multi-agent systems and holonic control, enable to face this challenge by implementing intelligent mechanisms that allow an efficient management of the power flow. In this paper, a holonic based model is introduced, considering load scheduling and forecast mechanisms to improve the micro grids self-sustainability, and consequently reduce the energy cost and the energy dependency from the main utility. The designed holonic based model and strategies were developed by using the agent technology, and particularly the JADE framework, showing important improvements in the self-sustainability of micro grids working in different operating modes.
Iron Status of Cats with Chronic Kidney Disease

Background Iron deficiency is a proposed mechanism for the anemia that occurs in cats with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Minimal research investigating the iron status of these cats has been performed. Objective To compare indicators of iron status in cats with CKD versus healthy cats and cats with nonrenal illness (NRI). To compare indicators of iron status in anemic versus nonanemic cats with CKD. Animals Thiry‐nine client or employee owned healthy cats, 40 cats with CKD and 34 cats with NRI included. Methods Exclusion criteria included prior iron or erythropoiesis stimulating agent administration, blood transfusion, or concurrent CKD and NRI. Complete blood counts, serum chemistries, serum iron concentrations, total iron binding capacity (TIBC), and ferritin concentrations were measured and percent transferrin saturation (TSAT) calculated on all cats. Data were analyzed using nonparametric statistical testing. Results No statistically significant differences were detected among groups for iron concentration (P = .50), ferritin concentration (P = .47), or TSAT (P = .19). TIBC was significantly lower in CKD (median 262 μg/dL; IQR 233–302; range 165–488) versus healthy cats (median 316 μg/dL; IQR 272–345, range 196–464); (P = .0030). When comparing anemic (hemoglobin <9.5 g/dL) versus nonanemic cats with CKD, TSAT was significantly lower (P = .033) in anemic (median 20.2%; IQR 17.8–34.5; range 17.6–35.9) compared to nonanemic (median 29.0%; IQR 25.5–44.1; range 11.5–94.4). No statistically significant differences found for ferritin concentration (P = .94), iron concentration (P = .21) or TIBC (P = .97). Conclusions and Clinical Importance These results indicate that an iron deficient state exists in anemic cats with CKD and is more likely functional rather than absolute.
Meeting One's Twin: Perceived Social Closeness and Familiarity

Perceptions of social closeness and familiarity were assessed among 44 monozygotic (MZA) and 33 dizygotic (DZA) reunited twin pairs, and several individual twins and triplets. Significantly greater MZA than DZA closeness and familiarity were found. Closeness and familiarity ratings for co-twins exceeded those for nonbiological siblings with whom twins were raised. Correlations between perceptions of physical resemblance and social closeness and familiarity were positive and statistically significant. However, most correlations between social relatedness and contact time were non-significant. Associations between social relatedness and similarities in selected behavioral traits were also examined. The findings support various theoretical perspectives anticipating greater affiliation among close relatives than distant relatives.
Quality of Experience for Spatial Cognitive Systems within Multiple Antenna Scenarios

Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) adds a new dimension, the spatial one, to be optimized in Cognitive Radio (CR) by offering service simultaneously to more than one user. In this paper, statistical optimization techniques are applied to assess the performance of the Quality of Experience (QoE) in CR systems, where each user has different demands. A Multiuser scenario is considered where the transmitter can accomplish either a random or an opportunistic scheduling approach. Closed form expressions are derived for different scenarios and obtained for three QoE indicators in the system. The performance of primary and secondary users in such scenarios are mathematically formulated and compared their results to computer simulations.
Lark: Bringing Network Awareness to High Throughput Computing

High throughput computing (HTC) systems are widely adopted in scientific discovery and engineering research. They are responsible for scheduling submitted batch jobs to utilize the cluster resources. Current systems mostly focus on managing computing resources like CPU and memory, however, they lack flexible and fine-grained management mechanisms for network resources. This has increasingly been an urgent need as current batch systems may be distributed among dozens of sites around the globe like Open Science Grid. The Lark project was motivated by this need to re-examine how the HTC layer interacts with the network layer. In this paper, we present the system architecture of Lark and its implementation as a plugin of HTCondor which is a popular HTC software project. Lark achieves lightweight network virtualization at per-job granularity for HTCondor by utilizing Linux container and virtual Ethernet devices, this provides each batch job with a unique network address in a private network namespace. We extended HTCondor's description language, Class Ads, so users can specify networking requirements in the job submission script. HTCondor can perform matchmaking to make sure user-specified network requirements and resource-specific policies are fulfilled. We also extended the job agent, condor starter, so that it can manage and configure the job's network environment. Given this important building block as the core, we implement bandwidth management functionality at both the host and network levels utilizing software-defined networking (SDN). Our experiments and evaluations show that Lark can effectively manage network resources within the cluster with low overhead. It provides the users with better predictability of their job execution and the administrators more flexibility in network resource consumption policies.
Transient genetic transformation of embryogenic callus of Cocos nucifera

Coconut palm (Cocos nucifera) is a plant species recalcitrant to in vitro morphogenesis and no protocols for the genetic transformation of coconut tissues have been published. The present study aimed to develop a protocol for genetic transformation of this palm species; evaluating reporter genes, transformation methods, and conditions for the use of antibiotics to select transformed plant cells. The gene gusA was first used for Agrobacterium tumefaciens mediated transformation of coconut embryogenic calli. However, endogenous GUS-like activity was found in calli not co-cultured with bacteria. Then essays for Agrobacterium-mediated transformation were developed using green and red fluorescent genes. Both genes are suitable as reporter genes for coconut transformation. In order to establish a protocol for coconut genetic transformation, an approach was used that combined biobalistics to generate micro-wounds in explants, vacuum infiltration and co-culture with Agrobacterium tumefaciens (C58C1 + pER10W-35SRed containing the embryogenesis related gene WUSCHEL). Calli treated with the combined protocol showed red fluorescence with greater intensity and greater area than calli treated with either biobalistics or infiltration, followed by bacteria co-culture. PCR amplification of DNA extracts from transformed embryogenic callus produced a band with the expected size using WUSCHEL primers (862 bp). No band was obtained using the VirE2 primers. This is the first report of transient genetic transformation of C. nucifera and it is the first step toward a protocol that will be useful for the study of the role of genes of interest and for practical applications, such as the improvement of coconut micropropagation via somatic embryogenesis.
Minority Stress, Body Shame, and Binge Eating Among Lesbian Women

Minority stress, which includes discrimination as well as internalized negative attitudes, is an important factor associated with maladaptive health behaviors such as binge eating among sexual minority individuals. In addition, body shame and social anxiety are robust predictors of binge eating. We examined social anxiety and body shame as sequential mediators of the association between minority stress and binge eating among young adult lesbian women. We hypothesized that social anxiety would be a key factor linking minority stress to body shame and binge eating. Self-identified lesbian women (N = 496) completed online measures of minority stress, social anxiety, body shame, and binge eating. Structural equation modeling supported the hypothesized model. Discrimination and proximal sexual minority stress were associated with increased social anxiety. In turn, social anxiety was associated with more body shame, and body shame was related to binge eating. Results suggest the oppressive social environments created by the experience of minority stress may have adverse consequences for lesbian women’s body satisfaction and eating behaviors. Interventions that bolster coping with sexual minority stress and focus on reducing social anxiety, in addition to targeting eating behavior directly, may be particularly useful for lesbian women with eating disorders or binge eating. Online slides for instructors who want to use this article for teaching are available on PWQ's website at http://pwq.sagepub. com/supplemental
Leadership development methods and activities: content, purposes, and implementation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand the nature of leadership development (LD) methods adopted by companies operating in Syria by exploring the content, purpose, and the implantation of LD methods. Design/methodology/approach – Middle and top managers were asked via semi-structured interviews to describe the content, purposes, and implementation of LD practices. Findings – The findings revealed that the LD interventions are mixed between experiential learning and self and team analysis. Specifically, five major methods or activities used in Syria: action learning, coaching, feedback, rotation, and networking. These methods and activities were not only used for a specific purpose, but also for multiple purposes. Research limitations/implications – Research data were conducted during what was called the Arab Spring, which has negative implications not only on the participants, but also on the way they responded to questions. In addition, the for-profit sector was only involved in the study b.
Synthetic Training of Deep CNN for 3D Hand Gesture Identification

In this paper, we present some experiments and investigations on a synthetically-trained neural network for the 3D hand gesture identification problem. The training process of a deep-learning neural network typically requires a large amount of training data to converge to a valid recognition model. However, in practice, it is difficult to obtain a large set of tagged real-data for the training purposes. In this paper, we investigate the plausibility of combining a large set of computer-generated 3D hand images with few real-camera images to form the training data set for the 3D hand gesture recognition applications. It is shown that by adding 0.09% of real images to the synthetic training data set, the recognition accuracy are raised from 37.5% to 77.08% for the problem of identifying 24 classes of hand gestures of an unknown user whose hand was not used in the training data set. In this paper, we have shown that the effect of the few real images to the trained CNN models mainly falls upon the fully-connected layers.
A PULSED, PRECESSING JET IN CEPHEUS A

We present near-infrared H2, radio CO, and thermal infrared observations of the nearby massive star-forming region Cepheus A (Cep A). From H2 bow shocks arranged along four distinct jet axes, we infer that the massive protostellar source HW2 drives a pulsed, precessing jet that has changed its orientation by about 45° in roughly 104 years. The current HW2 radio jet represents the most recent event in this time series of eruptions. This scenario is consistent with the recent discovery of a disk around HW2, perpendicular to the current jet orientation, and with the presence of companions at projected distances comparable to the disk radius. We propose that the Cep A system formed by the disk-assisted capture of a sibling star by HW2. We present a numerical model of a 15 M☉ star with a circumstellar disk, orbited by a companion in an inclined, eccentric orbit. Close passages of the companion through or near the disk result in periods of enhanced accretion and mass loss, as well as forced precession of the disk and associated orientation changes in the jet. The observations reveal a second powerful outflow that emerges from radio source HW3c or HW3d. This flow is associated with blueshifted CO emission and a faint H2 bow shock to the east, and with HH 168 to the west. A collision between the flows from HW2 and HW3c/d may be responsible for X-ray and radio continuum emission in Cep A West.