Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Expression and immunological properties of the five subunits of pertussis toxin

Pertussis toxin, a protein composed of five different subunits, is responsible for the pathogenicity of Bordetella pertussis and is the main component of a new vaccine against whooping cough. The genes coding for the five subunits, recently cloned and sequenced, are organized as an operon. We approached the problem of expression of the five genes in Escherichia coli and, although we obtained high levels of transcription of the native pertussis toxin genes, the amount of proteins produced was very low or undetectable. To obtain suitable expression of each of the five subunits, we fused their genes to the gene coding for the DNA polymerase of MS2 in the expression vector pEx31. A total of 5 to 30 mg of purified fusion proteins could be obtained from 1 liter of culture. The purified fusion proteins were used to immunize rabbits to obtain sera against each of the five subunits. These sera, although able to recognize the toxin in an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and the corresponding subunits in Western blots, were not able to protect CHO cells from the action of pertussis toxin. Mice immunized with the five subunits were not protected from an intracerebral challenge with B. pertussis. Subunits S2 and S3, which are 67% homologous, were shown to cross-react immunologically. The fused subunit S1 was able to ADP-ribosylate transducin as efficiently as the native pertussis toxin.
Machine Learning and Databases: The Sound of Things to Come or a Cacophony of Hype?

Machine learning seems to be eating the world with a new breed of high-value data-driven applications in image analysis, search, voice recognition, mobile, and office productivity products. To paraphrase Mike Stonebraker, machine learning is no longer a zero-billion-dollar business. As the home of high-value, data-driven applications for over four decades, a natural question for database researchers to ask is: what role should the database community play in these new data-driven machine-learning-based applications?
The impact of clinical depression on working memory

Introduction. Both Channon, Baker, and Robertson (1993) and Hartlage, Alloy, Vazquez, and Dykman (1993) claim that working memory impairment in depressed patients is limited to Baddeley's (1996) central executive and does not affect either the phonological loop or the visuospatial scratchpad. Our key questions were: (1) is there an impairment of working memory in depression and which elements does it effect; (2) is another major clinical group also affected and in what ways, and finally, (3) how do these groups vary when compared with each other and with normals? Thus we sought to locate a depression-specific effect and define its extent. Methods. We tested 35 depressed patients, using both 24 anxiety patients and 29 normal controls as comparisons. Several tasks were used so that we could differentiate between the three key aspects of working memory. Results. Contrary to Channon et al., we found that depression affects the allocation of attention and all elements of working memory. The depression group showed a distinct performance profile, with impairments occurring on measures of both the phonological loop and visuospatial sketch pad. On measures of central executive functioning, both depression and anxiety groups showed comparable levels of impairment when compared with the control group. Conclusions. We propose that the source of general disruption in both depressed and anxious patients may be a competition between attempts to direct attentional resources to the task in hand and away from the distractive and intrusive effects of automatic negative thoughts.
Eight‐channel transmit/receive body MRI coil at 3T

Multichannel transmit magnetic resonance imaging (MR) systems have the potential to compensate for signal‐intensity variations occurring at higher field strengths due to wave propagation effects in tissue. Methods such as RF shimming and local excitation in combination with parallel transmission can be applied to compensate for these effects. Moreover, parallel transmission can be applied to ease the excitation of arbitrarily shaped magnetization patterns. The implementation of these methods adds new requirements in terms of MRI hardware. This article describes the design of a decoupled eight‐element transmit/receive body coil for 3T. The setup of the coil is explained, starting with standard single‐channel resonators. Special focus is placed on the decoupling of the elements to obtain independent RF resonators. After a brief discussion of the underlying theory, the properties and limitations of the coil are outlined. Finally, the functionality and capabilities of the coil are demonstrated using RF measurements as well as MRI sequences. Magn Reson Med 58:381–389, 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Comparison of hyperbaric oxygen and dapsone therapy for loxosceles envenomation.

OBJECTIVE To determine whether hyperbaric O2 (HBO), dapsone, or HBO plus dapsone affects lesion size in a swine model of Loxosceles envenomation. METHODS In a randomized controlled animal laboratory experiment, 32 piglets were assigned to 1 of 4 equal groups. Each piglet received 15 microliters, of purified venom intradermally on day zero. Group 1 received no treatment; group 2 received HBO at 2 atm for 2 hours on days 1-3; group 3 received 50 mg of dapsone orally on days 1-3; and group 4 received dapsone 50 mg orally and HBO at 2 atm for 2 hours on days 1-3. On days 1-7, 14, and 21, an investigator blinded to the treatment groups measured necrosis and induration. Mean necrosis and induration rates were compared using analysis of variance for repeated measures. RESULTS Comparing groups on any day, no significant difference was noted in necrosis, induration, reduction in necrosis from day 1, or rate of change in lesion size from days 1-7. A difference was seen in the reduction of induration between all 3 treatment groups and the control group on days 7 and 14 only. The sample size permitted a power of 0.8 to detect a 12-mm mean change in lesion size. CONCLUSION Compared with the control, neither dapsone, HBO, nor the combination of dapsone and HBO reduced necrosis from Loxosceles envenomation on days 3-21. An increase was seen in the rate of reduction in induration between all 3 treatment groups and the control group on days 7-21. However, the magnitude of this effect was clinically insignificant. In this animal model, treatment with either dapsone or HBO or a combination offers little clinical benefit in Loxosceles envenomation.
Pigpen, a nuclear coiled body component protein, is involved in angiogenesis

We previously reported that puromycin‐insensitive leucyl‐specific aminopeptidase (PILSAP) is required for vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)‐ and basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF)‐induced angiogenesis and for endothelial differentiation from embryonic stem (ES) cells via the aminopeptidase activity of PILSAP. In this study, we searched for molecules that function during angiogenesis with PILSAP. We performed proteome analysis of nuclear extracts from embryoid bodies (EBs) made from ES cells transfected with mutant PILSAP lacking aminopeptidase activity and mock EBs. We identified pigpen, a 67‐kDa nuclear coiled body component protein. Immunoprecipitation and western blotting demonstrated the binding of PILSAP and pigpen in endothelial cells (ECs), and this interaction was enhanced by VEGF and bFGF. Pigpen was reported to be expressed in actively growing ECs such as those in embryos and tumors. However, whether Pigpen is involved in angiogenesis is not known. Therefore, we examined the effect of pigpen on angiogenesis by silencing pigpen with siRNA (siPigpen). Compared with scrambled RNA (scrPigpen), transfection of siPigpen into mouse ECs inhibited proliferation, migration, and network formation. These results were confirmed with other two siRNAs. Moreover, siPigpen suppressed bFGF‐induced angiogenesis in a Matrigel plug assay, and injection of siPigpen into Lewis lung carcinoma cell tumors implanted subcutaneously into 5‐week‐old C57/BL male mice prevented tumor growth and tumor angiogenesis. These data indicate that Pigpen is involved in angiogenesis and that pigpen may be a target for blocking tumor angiogenesis.
Kinetic mechanism for HIV-1 neutralization by antibody 2G12 entails reversible glycan binding that slows cell entry

Despite structural knowledge of broadly neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (NMAbs) complexed to HIV-1 gp120 and gp41 envelope glycoproteins, virus inactivation mechanisms have been difficult to prove, in part because neutralization assays are complex and were previously not understood. Concordant with recent evidence that HIV-1 titers are determined by a race between entry of cell-attached virions and competing inactivation processes, we show that NMAb 2G12, which binds to gp120 N-glycans with α (1, 2)-linked mannose termini and inhibits replication after passive transfer into patients, neutralizes by slowing entry of adsorbed virions. Accordingly, apparent neutralization is attenuated when a kinetically competing virus inactivation pathway is blocked. Moreover, removing 2G12 from media causes its dissociation from virions coupled to accelerated entry and restored infectivity, demonstrating the reversibility of neutralization. A difference between 2G12 dissociation and infectivity recovery rates implies that the inhibited complexes at virus–cell junctions contain several 2G12’s that must dissociate before entry commences. Quantitative microscopy of 2G12 binding and dissociation from single virions and studies using a split CCR5 coreceptor suggest that 2G12 competitively inhibits interactions between gp120’s V3 loop and the tyrosine sulfate-containing CCR5 amino terminus, thereby reducing assembly of complexes that catalyze entry. These results reveal a unique reversible kinetic mechanism for neutralization by an antibody that binds near a critical V3 region in the glycan shield of gp120.
Dickens and theatre

Dickens and theatre? It comes down to what you might mean by “and. ” If you mean something like: could Dickens come into the theater as a participant, I'd say, certainly not. Oh yes, he tried. But early on he found he couln't. And thereafter he didn't. That may seem surprising. Dickens is by every standard account the most theatrical of Victorian novelists. This Companion would be thought considerably less companionable if it lacked a chapter on Dickens and theatre (though perhaps not this chapter on Dickens and theatre). All his life Dickens paid fierce, unremitting attention to other people’s plays and to other people’s performances. What he saw he regularly purloined, and then transformed into fiction. He probably knew as much about the practical work of theaters as anyone working on a nineteenth-century stage. (Here I should point out that, following the practice in theatre studies, I am spelling as theatre anything like a playhouse, particularly a professional playhouse, and as theater, the practice or theory of performance.) Acting obsessed him. He supported actors experiencing financial hard times and even dreamed of the great actor Macready as his desirable double. His novels were quickly adapted to the stage, not just as they appeared, but, through the vagaries of serial publication, often even before they appeared (in book form).
Mountain glacier velocity variation during a retreat/advance cycle quantified using sub-pixel analysis of ASTER images

Abstract Coverage of ice velocities in the central part of the Southern Alps, New Zealand, is obtained from feature tracking using repeat optical imagery in 2002 and 2006. Precise orthorectification, co-registration and correlation is carried out using the freely available software COSI-Corr. This analysis, combined with short times between image acquisitions, has enabled velocities to be captured even in the accumulation areas, where velocities are lowest and surface features ephemeral. The results indicate large velocities for mountain glaciers (i.e. up to ∼5 m d−1) as well as dynamic changes in some glaciers that have occurred between 2002 and 2006. For the steep and more responsive Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers the speed increased at the glacier snout during the advance period, while the low-angled and debris-covered Tasman Glacier showed no measurable velocity change. Velocity increases on the steeper glaciers are the result of an observed thickening and steepening of the glacier tongues as they moved from a retreat phase in 2002 to an advance phase in 2006. This contrasting behaviour is consistent with historic terminus position changes. The steeper glaciers have undergone several advance/retreat cycles during the observation period (1894 to present), while the low-angled glacier showed little terminus response until retreat resulting from the accelerating growth of a proglacial lake commenced in 1983.
HEALTH ECONOMIC EVALUATIONS USING DECISION ANALYTIC MODELING

Objectives: Decision analytic modeling allows a rational, feasible, scientific, and timely approach to measure the efficiency of new medical technologies in health care by using the best available evidence of different sources to produce detailed estimates of the clinical and economic consequences of different healthcare interventions. The aim of this article has been twofold: first, to state the benefit, usefulness, and limitations of decision analytic modeling; and second, to propose a list of steps that should be considered when carrying out this sort of analysis in order to increase its credibility and validity for medical decision making. Methods: After having read the published literature about decision analytic models, a checklist was created, listing the paramount items and points that should always be followed when carrying out disease modeling. Results: A checklist with 13 items and steps to be taken was drawn up to ensure that all important methodologic aspects are considered when performing and assessing decision analytic modeling, thereby constituting a standard guide to good modeling practices. In addition, a set of limitations inherent to the use of decision analytic models is also contemplated, along with a list of recommendations increasing their validity and utility. Conclusions: Health economic assessments will continue to be an important tool for the correct allocation of resources, and disease analytic modeling will be a potentially invaluable tool in assisting decision makers in this task.
Auditory selectivity for acoustic features that confer species recognition in the túngara frog

SUMMARY In anurans, recognition of species-specific acoustic signals is essential to finding a mate. In many species, behavioral tests have elucidated which acoustic features contribute to species recognition, but the mechanisms by which the brain encodes these species-specific signal components are less well understood. The túngara frog produces a `whine' mating call that is characterized by a descending frequency sweep. However, much of the signal is unnecessary for recognition, as recognition behavior can be triggered by a descending two-tone step that mimics the frequency change in a portion of the whine. To identify the brain regions that contribute to species recognition in the túngara frog, we exposed females to a full-spectrum whine, a descending two-tone step that elicits recognition, the reversed two-tone step that does not elicit recognition, or no sound, and we measured expression of the neural activity-dependent gene egr-1 in the auditory brainstem and thalamus. We found that the behavioral relevance of the stimuli was the best predictor of egr-1 expression in the laminar nucleus of the torus semicircularis but not elsewhere. That is, the laminar nucleus responded more to the whine and the two-tone step that elicits recognition than to the reversed two-tone step. In contrast, in other brainstem and thalamic nuclei, whines induced egr-1 expression but tones did not. These data demonstrate that neural responses in the laminar nucleus correspond to behavioral responses of females and they suggest that the laminar nucleus may act as a feature detector for the descending frequencies characteristic of conspecific calls.
An Unified Image Tagging System Driven by Image-Click-Ads Framework

With the exponential growth of web image data, image tagging is becoming crucial in many image based applications such as object recognition and content-based image retrieval. Despite the great progress achieved in automatic recognition technologies, none has yet provided a satisfactory solution to be widely useful in solving generic image recognition problems. So far, only manual tagging can provide reliable tagging results. However, such work is tedious, costly and workers have no motivation. In this paper, we propose an online image tagging system, EyeDentifyIt, driven by image-click-ads framework, which motivates crowdsourcing workers as well as general web users to tag images at high quality for low cost with low workload. A series of usability studies are presented to demonstrate how EyeDentifyIt provides improved user motivations and requires less workload, compared to state-of-the-art approaches.
PARC: Power aware routing and clustering scheme for wireless sensor networks

In wireless sensor networks constructed from battery driven nodes, it is difficult to supply electric power to the nodes. Because of this, the power consumption must be reduced. To cope with this problem, clustering techniques have been proposed. EACLE is a method that uses a clustering technique. In EACLE, the route selection is executed independently after the CH (Cluster Head) selection. These two phase controls increase overheads and reduce the battery power, which leads to shorten the lifetime of wireless sensor networks. This paper proposes a novel routing and clustering method called PARC for wireless sensor networks that reduces these overheads by integrating the cluster selection phase and the route construction phase into a single phase. However, PARC has a following weak point that the batteries of CHs around the sink node are depleted earlier than the other nodes and the sink node cannot collect sensing data. This phenomenon is called a hot spot problem. In order to cope with this problem of PARC, we propose PARC+, which extends the CH selection method of PARC such as more nodes around the sink can be selected as a CH node. We evaluate our proposed methods by simulation experiments and show its effectiveness.
An efficient way to find frequent pattern with dynamic programming approach

Data mining place viral aspect in many of the applications like market-basket analysis, fraud detection etc. In data mining association rule mining and frequent pattern mining, both are key feature of market-basket analysis. In a given large amount of transnational database where each record consists of items purchased by customer at store. One of the basic market basket analysis algorithm is an Apriori, which generate all candidates item-set frequent pattern. In this research paper we describe the improved candidate 1-itemsets generation and candidate 2-itemsets generation from traditional technique. This algorithm utilizes the dynamic programming approach to facilitate fast candidate itemset generation and searching. We have compared results with previous approach that optimize the database scans and eliminate duplicate candidate itemset generation. This technique helps research scholar.
Message Passing Based Time Synchronization in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey

Various protocols have been proposed in the area of wireless sensor networks in order to achieve network-wide time synchronization. A large number of proposed protocols in the literature employ a message passing mechanism to make sensor node clocks tick in unison. In this paper, we first classify Message Passing based Time Synchronization (MPTS) protocols and then analyze them based on different metrics. The classification is based on the following three criteria: structure formation of the network affected by the synchronization protocol, frequency of synchronization process (synchronization interval), and synchronization message overhead. Proposed protocols are analyzed and evaluated from different perspectives based on available data. A comparison table of the reviewed protocols is presented according to the evaluation metrics. Finally, some potential methods will be proposed to improve the synchronization process.
Molecular mechanisms regulating molting in a crustacean

Crustacean growth and development is characterized by periodic shedding (ecdysis) and replacement of the rigid exoskeleton. Secretions of the X‐organ sinus gland complex control the cellular events that lead to growth and molting. Western blot and ELISA results showed a progressive increase in growth arrest‐specific protein (Gas7) from early postmolt stage to a maximum at late postmolt stage. Phosphorylation of ERK2, a downstream signaling protein, was also identified in the subsequent stages. ERK2 phosphorylation resulted in the expression of molt‐inhibiting hormone (MIH). Specific ERK inhibitors (PD98059 and UO126) exhibited the ability to reduce the molting duration of Fenneropenaeus indicus from 12–14 days to 7–8 days, suggesting that the ERK1/2 signaling pathway is responsible for the expression of MIH, which controls the molt cycle. We have identified the stage‐specific expression of Gas7 (≈ 48 kDa) in the X‐organ sinus gland complex of eyestalk which is involved in the downstream signaling of the ERK1/2 pathway regulating the expression of MIH during the molt cycle of the white shrimp, F. indicus. These are the first data showing an association between the Gas7 signal‐transduction process and regulation of the molt cycle and provides an alternative molecular intervention mechanism to the traditional eyestalk ablation in crustaceans.
Food-to-Person Interaction: How to Get Information About What We Eat?

In recent years, people have become more concerned about what they eat. In order to understand if the food is fresh and nutritious, people rely on their senses and the information on food labels. But what if we could communicate with food directly? In this paper, we focus on a new way to provide information about the food items. We conducted research on how people could interact with food: by text and voice communication. Firstly, we prepared a list of "questions-to-food" which are of interest to the people. Secondly, we built and tested two prototypes with eight random users: students, office workers and food caterers. We then analyzed the obtained data and identified which communication approach triggered more emotions. We found out voice communication can start a new way of interaction between people and food. Also, we proposed some technical solutions for the implementation of our prototypes in the future.