Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The eclipsing intermediate polar V597 Pup (Nova Puppis 2007)

Photometric observations of V597 Pup made in 2008, 9.1 mag below maximum, 4 months after eruption, showed no certain orbital modulation but exhibited a quintuplet of oscillations centred on a period 261.9 s and uniform splitting at a frequency ∼2.68 h−1. One year later, the system had fallen in brightness by a further 2.5 mag, showed deep eclipses with a period of 2.6687 h, and the 261.9 s modulation at a reduced amplitude. There is often power near the ‘subharmonic’ at 524 s showing that the shorter periods observed are actually first harmonics. V597 Pup is thus an intermediate polar, and is in the ‘orbital period gap’. Furthermore, it is the first to show a prominent secondary eclipse, caused by passage of the optically thick disc in front of the irradiated side of the secondary star.
Multiple Hsp70 Isoforms in the Eukaryotic Cytosol: Mere Redundancy or Functional Specificity?

Hsp70 molecular chaperones play a variety of functions in every organism, cell type and organelle, and their activities have been implicated in a number of human pathologies, ranging from cancer to neurodegenerative diseases. The functions, regulations and structure of Hsp70s were intensively studied for about three decades, yet much still remains to be learned about these essential folding enzymes. Genome sequencing efforts revealed that most genomes contain multiple members of the Hsp70 family, some of which co-exist in the same cellular compartment. For example, the human cytosol and nucleus contain six highly homologous Hsp70 proteins while the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae contains four canonical Hsp70s and three fungal-specific ribosome-associated and specialized Hsp70s. The reasons and significance of the requirement for multiple Hsp70s is still a subject of debate. It has been postulated for a long time that these Hsp70 isoforms are functionally redundant and differ only by their spatio-temporal expression patterns. However, several studies in yeast and higher eukaryotic organisms challenged this widely accepted idea by demonstrating functional specificity among Hsp70 isoforms. Another element of complexity is brought about by specific cofactors, such as Hsp40s or nucleotide exchange factors that modulate the activity of Hsp70s and their binding to client proteins. Hence, a dynamic network of chaperone/co-chaperone interactions has evolved in each organism to efficiently take advantage of the multiple cellular roles Hsp70s can play. We summarize here our current knowledge of the functions and regulations of these molecular chaperones, and shed light on the known functional specificities among isoforms.
Automatic Classification of Human Body Postures Based on the Truncated SVD

In this experimental study, we propose the use of Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) coefficients as features to automatically classify human body postures. The classification process uses images extracted from a fixed camera video. A background subtraction technique is applied for human body segmentation. A truncated SVD is performed by selecting significant magnitude coefficients. And the height-width ratio of the human body is also included in the set of features. The classification is then performed using an Artificial Neural Network (ANN). Four body postures are considered in our experiments, namely: standing, bending, sitting, and lying. Evaluation results show that the proposed method achieved 90.46% classification accuracy. Truncated SVD coefficients and height-width ratio as body posture features are thus appropriate descriptors to achieve high classification accuracy. Also, the proposed method yields the best classification accuracy compared to well-known classification methods.
DEVELOPING LEARNERS’ AUTONOMY THROUGH LANGUAGE LEARNING STRATEGY TRAINING AT ENGLISH DEPARTMENT OF UNIVERSITY OF BRAWIJAYA

Second language acquisition has become a big issue in recent years and it leads to the study of transfer. As there are many problems faced by the lecturers deal with the students’ pronunciation, then this paper is aimed at revealing and describing the errors in pronouncing English sounds made by the English learners because of the negative transfer from their first language (L1). Mix method was used in this study, it began with the qualitative one and then to know the percentage of each data, quantitative one was applied. The data were got from the recording of speaking activities and interview and then it was transcribed into broad transcription. This study does not include the narrow transcription, therefore no suprasegmental features found in this paper. The results of this study revealed that most of the students made some errors in pronouncing English sounds which they cannot found in their first language such as the sound /ae/, /∫/, /θ/, /ð/, and /ʒ /. The result is hoped to be able to give some input to the English teacher and lecturer on the common errors made by the students in pronouncing English sounds and lead them to improve their teaching methods in order to help their students in pronouncing new sounds found in the target language. Keywords: Error, language transfer
DTI Noise Reduction Using Anisotropic Filtering

Diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DTI) is the main non-invasive utility to reveal the information of local diffusivity of white matter and other fibrous human tissues. Because the diffusion weighted image (DWI) which is used to acquire DTI is sensitive to noise, effective noise removal is required to improve the accuracy of the DTI data and its subsequent applications. Instead of denoise the DWI in different direction separately, in this paper an anisotropic filtering method which synthetically considering the structure information and characteristic of the DTI is proposed. The eigenvalue and eigenvector of the smoothing structure tensor is reconstructed to denoise and keep the structure characteristic simultaneously. By the method, denoising simulations using a synthetic DTI dataset and experiments using an in vivo brain DTI dataset have been done. The results of the simulations and experiments demonstrate that using the method proposed the noise can be removed significantly and is more effective compared with the common methods.
Genetic engineering of human stem cells for enhanced angiogenesis using biodegradable polymeric nanoparticles

Stem cells hold great potential as cell-based therapies to promote vascularization and tissue regeneration. However, the use of stem cells alone to promote angiogenesis remains limited because of insufficient expression of angiogenic factors and low cell viability after transplantation. Here, we have developed vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) high-expressing, transiently modified stem cells for the purposes of promoting angiogenesis. Nonviral, biodegradable polymeric nanoparticles were developed to deliver hVEGF gene to human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) and human embryonic stem cell-derived cells (hESdCs). Treated stem cells demonstrated markedly enhanced hVEGF production, cell viability, and engraftment into target tissues. S.c. implantation of scaffolds seeded with VEGF-expressing stem cells (hMSCs and hESdCs) led to 2- to 4-fold-higher vessel densities 2 weeks after implantation, compared with control cells or cells transfected with VEGF by using Lipofectamine 2000, a leading commercial reagent. Four weeks after intramuscular injection into mouse ischemic hindlimbs, genetically modified hMSCs substantially enhanced angiogenesis and limb salvage while reducing muscle degeneration and tissue fibrosis. These results indicate that stem cells engineered with biodegradable polymer nanoparticles may be therapeutic tools for vascularizing tissue constructs and treating ischemic disease.
Image Quality under Chromatic Impairments

The influence of chromatic impairments on the perceived image quality is studied in this article. Under the D65 standard illuminant, a set of hyperspectral images were represented into the CIELAB color space, and the corresponding chromatic coordinates were subdivided into clusters with the k-means algorithm. Each color cluster was shifted by a predefined chromatic impairment ΔE*ab with random direction in a*b* chromatic coordinates only. Applying impairments of 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15 in a*b* coordinates to five hyperspectral images a set of modified images was generated. Those images were shown to subjects that were asked to rank their quality based on their naturalness. The Mean Opinion Score of the subjective evaluations was computed to quantify the sensitivity to the chromatic variations. This article is also complemented with an objective evaluation of the quality using several state-of-the-art metrics and using the CIEDE2000 color difference among others. Analyzing the correlations between subjective and objective quality evaluation helps us to conclude that the proposed quality estimators based on the CIEDE2000 provide the best representation. Moreover, it was concluded that the established quality metrics only become reliable by averaging their results on each color component.
Latent perceptual mapping with data-driven variable-length acoustic units for template-based speech recognition

In recent work, we introduced Latent Perceptual Mapping (LPM) [1], a new framework for acoustic modeling suitable for template-like speech recognition. The basic idea is to leverage a reduced dimensionality description of the observations to derive acoustic prototypes that are closely aligned with perceived acoustic events. Our initial work adopted a bag-of-frames strategy to represent relevant acoustic information within speech segments. In this paper, we extend this approach by better integrating temporal information into the LPM feature extraction. Specifically, we use variable-length units to represent acoustic events at the supra-frame level, in order to benefit from finer temporal alignments when deriving the acoustic prototypes. The outcome can be viewed as a generalization of both conventional template-based approaches and recently proposed sparse representation solutions. This extension is experimentally validated on a context-independent phoneme classification task using the TIMIT corpus.
Impaired NK Cell Responses to Pertussis and H1N1 Influenza Vaccine Antigens in Human Cytomegalovirus-Infected Individuals

NK cells contribute to postvaccination immune responses after activation by IL-2 from Ag-specific memory T cells or by cross-linking of the low-affinity IgG receptor, CD16, by Ag–Ab immune complexes. Sensitivity of NK cells to these signals from the adaptive immune system is heterogeneous and influenced by their stage of differentiation. CD56dimCD57+ NK cells are less responsive to IL-2 and produce less IFN-γ in response to T cell–mediated activation than do CD56bright or CD56dimCD57− NK cells. Conversely, NK cell cytotoxicity, as measured by degranulation, is maintained across the CD56dim subsets. Human CMV (HCMV), a highly prevalent herpes virus causing lifelong, usually latent, infections, drives the expansion of the CD56dimCD57+NKG2C+ NK cell population, skewing the NK cell repertoire in favor of cytotoxic responses at the expense of cytokine-driven responses. We hypothesized, therefore, that HCMV seropositivity would be associated with altered NK cell responses to vaccine Ags. In a cross-sectional study of 152 U.K. adults, with HCMV seroprevalence rate of 36%, we find that HCMV seropositivity is associated with lower NK cell IFN-γ production and degranulation after in vitro restimulation with pertussis or H1N1 influenza vaccine Ags. Higher expression of CD57/NKG2C and lower expression of IL-18Rα on NK cells from HCMV seropositive subjects do not fully explain these impaired responses, which are likely the result of multiple receptor–ligand interactions. This study demonstrates for the first time, to our knowledge, that HCMV serostatus influences NK cell contributions to adaptive immunity and raises important questions regarding the impact of HCMV infection on vaccine efficacy.
Comparison of Diagnostic Accuracy between Octopus 900 and Goldmann Kinetic Visual Fields

Purpose. To determine diagnostic accuracy of kinetic visual field assessment by Octopus 900 perimetry compared with Goldmann perimetry. Methods. Prospective cross section evaluation of 40 control subjects with full visual fields and 50 patients with known visual field loss. Comparison of test duration and area measurement of isopters for Octopus 3, 5, and 10°/sec stimulus speeds. Comparison of test duration and type of visual field classification for Octopus versus Goldmann perimetry. Results were independently graded for presence/absence of field defect and for type and location of defect. Statistical evaluation comprised of ANOVA and paired t test for evaluation of parametric data with Bonferroni adjustment. Bland Altman and Kappa tests were used for measurement of agreement between data. Results. Octopus 5°/sec perimetry had comparable test duration to Goldmann perimetry. Octopus perimetry reliably detected type and location of visual field loss with visual fields matched to Goldmann results in 88.8% of results (K = 0.775). Conclusions. Kinetic perimetry requires individual tailoring to ensure accuracy. Octopus perimetry was reproducible for presence/absence of visual field defect. Our screening protocol when using Octopus perimetry is 5°/sec for determining boundaries of peripheral isopters and 3°/sec for blind spot mapping with further evaluation of area of field loss for defect depth and size.
A New Network Intrusion Detection Algorithm based on Radial Basis Function Neural Networks Classifier

In this work we assumed that anomalies are not concentrated. This assumption can be specified by choosing a reference measure μ which determines a density and a level value ρ. The density then quantifies the degree of concentration and the density level ρ establishes a threshold on the degree that determines anomalies. Hence the reference measure μ and parameter ρ play key roles in the definition of anomalies. Unlike the intrusion detection methods based on supervised methods, the new method dose not needs any labeled data set. So this method is fit to solve the network intrusion detection problems while it difficult to obtain the label data. We proposed a new method to design RBF classifier apply this algorithm to estimate density level set for the data set
DRhoGEF2 Regulates Cellular Tension and Cell Pulsations in the Amnioserosa during Drosophila Dorsal Closure

Coordination of apical constriction in epithelial sheets is a fundamental process during embryogenesis. Here, we show that DRhoGEF2 is a key regulator of apical pulsation and constriction of amnioserosal cells during Drosophila dorsal closure. Amnioserosal cells mutant for DRhoGEF2 exhibit a consistent decrease in amnioserosa pulsations whereas overexpression of DRhoGEF2 in this tissue leads to an increase in the contraction time of pulsations. We probed the physical properties of the amnioserosa to show that the average tension in DRhoGEF2 mutant cells is lower than wild-type and that overexpression of DRhoGEF2 results in a tissue that is more solid-like than wild-type. We also observe that in the DRhoGEF2 overexpressing cells there is a dramatic increase of apical actomyosin coalescence that can contribute to the generation of more contractile forces, leading to amnioserosal cells with smaller apical surface than wild-type. Conversely, in DRhoGEF2 mutants, the apical actomyosin coalescence is impaired. These results identify DRhoGEF2 as an upstream regulator of the actomyosin contractile machinery that drives amnioserosa cells pulsations and apical constriction.
Modeling of brownian-bridge-based analysis of the segmental D/A converters yield

According to the stochastic process of Brownian bridge theory, a DAC model of INL and segment ratio is presented based on the INL probability density for segmental current-steering DAC. The approximate formula for influence of chip yield in the current mismatch is obtained and the model is carried out by Monte Carlo simulation method. It is demonstrated that DAC yield is lower compared using thermometer-code to using binary-code in the low-bits. When transform bits N<12, the greater binary-code(>[N/2]), the higher yield. Binary-code bits is not suitable for large when N≥12.
Autonomous cooperation technique to achieve fault tolerance in service oriented community system

The advancement of mobile telecommunication and wireless technologies is required to provide local but familiar services in daily life, which has not been satisfied through the global services on the Internet. In retail business under evolving market, users request access to unknown but appropriate services based on their preference and situation, and retailers need to be aware of the current requirements of the majority of consumers in specific local trade areas. Because of the transience of the requirements of the users in their trade-areas, the services require being temporary and having the time limit. Therefore the areas of the services need to become narrower with the time. The concept of the service oriented community has been proposed to satisfy both the users and the retailers requirements. It consists of members in the specified area based on services, and they cooperate with each other in order to get mutual benefits. For realization of the service oriented community, the systems require flexibility for the effective provision of the services and fault tolerance for the stable service. In the service oriented community system, the Time Distance has been introduced as the efficient measure of the distance between the users and the retailers. The Time Distance Oriented Service System architecture has been proposed to satisfy these requirements for flexible and stable services, where the nodes are autonomously distribute services and reduce the service area based on the time distance. Here autonomous cooperation technique for achieving fault tolerance is proposed in order to satisfy the requirement of high service availability.
Involvement of Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor in Spatial Memory Formation and Maintenance in a Radial Arm Maze Test in Rats

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) regulates both short-term synaptic functions and activity-dependent synaptic plasticity such as long-term potentiation. In the present study, we investigated the role of BDNF in the spatial reference and working memory in a radial arm maze test. The radial arm maze training resulted in a significant increase in the BDNF mRNA expression in the hippocampus, although the expression in the frontal cortex did not change. When spatial learning was inhibited by treatment with 7-nitroindazole, an inhibitor of brain nitric oxide synthase, the increase in the hippocampal BDNF mRNA did not occur. To clarify the causal relation between BDNF mRNA expression and spatial memory formation, we examined the effects of antisense BDNF treatment on spatial learning and memory. A continuous intracerebroventricular infusion of antisense BDNF oligonucleotide resulted in an impairment of spatial learning, although the sense oligonucleotide had no effect. Treatment with antisense, but not sense, BDNF oligonucleotide was associated with a significant reduction of BDNF mRNA and protein levels in the hippocampus. Furthermore, treatment with antisense BDNF oligonucleotide in rats, which had previously acquired spatial memory by an extensive training, impaired both reference and working memory. There were no differences in locomotor activity, food consumption, and body weight between the antisense and sense oligonucleotide-treated rats. These results suggest that BDNF plays an important role not only in the formation, but also in the retention and/or recall, of spatial memory.
Escaping local optima with penalties in distributed iterative improvement search.

The advantages offered by iterative improvement search make it a popular technique for solving problems in centralised settings. However, the key challenge with this approach is finding effective strategies for dealing with local optima. Such strategies must push the algorithm away from the plateaux in the objective landscape and prevent it from returning to those areas. A wide variety of strategies have been proposed for centralised algorithms, while the two main strategies in distributed iterative improvement remain constraint weighting and stochastic escape. In this paper, we discuss the two phased strategy employed in Distributed Penalty Driven Search (DisPeL) an iterative improvement algorithm for solving Distributed Constraint Satisfaction problems. In the first phase of the strategy, agents try to force the search out of the local optima by perturbing their neighbourhoods; and use penalties, in the second phase, to guide the search away from plateaux if perturbation does not work. We discuss the heuristics that make up the strategy and provide empirical justification for their inclusion. We also present some empirical results using random non-binary problems to demonstrate the effectiveness of the strategy.
Novel inhibitors are cytotoxic for myeloma cells with NFkB inducing kinase-dependent activation of NFkB

NFkB activity is critical for survival and proliferation of normal lymphoid cells and many kinds of B-cell tumors, including multiple myeloma (MM). NFkB activating mutations, which are apparent progression events, enable MM tumors to become less dependent on bone marrow signals that activate NFkB. Mutations that activate NFkB-inducing kinase (NIK) protein are the most prevalent among the many kinds of NFkB mutations in MM tumors. NIK is the main activating kinase of the alternative NFkB pathway, although over-expression of NIK also can activate the classical pathway. Two NIK inhibitors and an isomeric control were tested with human myeloma cell lines. These specific NIK inhibitors are selectively cytotoxic for cells with NIK-dependent activation of NFkB. Combination therapy targeting NIK and IKKbeta (as a main kinase of the classical NFkB pathway) represents a promising treatment strategy in MM. NIK inhibitors can also be useful tool for assessing the role of NIK and alternative NFkB pathway in different cells.
An Antifungal Protein from the Marine Bacterium Streptomyces sp. Strain AP77 Is Specific for Pythium porphyrae, a Causative Agent of Red Rot Disease in Porphyra spp

ABSTRACT A novel antifungal protein (SAP) was found in the culture supernatant of a marine bacterium, Streptomyces sp. strain AP77, and was purified. This protein was characterized by chemical, biochemical, and biological analyses. By using gel filtration, the molecular mass of SAP was estimated to be 160 kDa. Structural analysis of SAP by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry suggested that SAP is composed of three heterologous protein subunits of 41.7 kDa (SAP1), 21.7 kDa (SAP2), and 18.7 kDa (SAP3) at a molar ratio of 1:1:5 (or 1:1:6). N-terminal amino acid sequence analysis and a homology search revealed that SAP1, SAP2, and SAP3 exhibit 64.3, 68.4, and 86.7% similarity to three Streptomyces coelicolor polypeptides, puromycin resistance protein (Pur8), a conserved hypothetical protein, and bacterioferritin, respectively. The MIC of purified SAP against Pythium porphyrae was determined to be 1.6 μg/disk, whereas no inhibitory effect was observed at concentrations up to 100 μg/disk against most of the fungal and bacterial strains tested; the only exception was relatively strong antifungal activity against Pythium ultimum (MIC, 6.3 μg/disk). In vitro and in vivo toxicity tests demonstrated that SAP showed no toxicity against Porphyra yezoensis cells, human normal dermal fibroblasts, and mice at doses up to 700 μg/ml (for 24 h), 250 μg/ml (for 12 h), and 75 mg/kg (for 35 days), respectively. SAP was labile when it was subjected to a heated-air drying treatment, which is a great advantage in food production procedures. These results indicated that Streptomyces sp. strain AP77 might be useful as a gene source for safe transgenic Porphyra breeding for tolerance to Pythium infection.