Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Unique Kelch Domain Phosphatase in Plasmodium Regulates Ookinete Morphology, Motility and Invasion

Signalling through post-translational modification (PTM) of proteins is a process central to cell homeostasis, development and responses to external stimuli. The best characterised PTM is protein phosphorylation which is reversibly catalysed at specific residues through the action of protein kinases (addition) and phosphatases (removal). Here, we report characterisation of an orphan protein phosphatase that possesses a domain architecture previously only described in Plantae. Through gene disruption and the production of active site mutants, the enzymatically active Protein Phosphatase containing Kelch-Like domains (PPKL, PBANKA_132950) is shown to play an essential role in the development of an infectious ookinete. PPKL is produced in schizonts and female gametocytes, is maternally inherited where its absence leads to the development of a malformed, immotile, non-infectious ookinete with an extended apical protrusion. The distribution of PPKL includes focussed localization at the ookinete apical tip implying a link between its activity and the correct deployment of the apical complex and microtubule cytoskeleton. Unlike wild type parasites, ppkl– ookinetes do not have a pronounced apical distribution of their micronemes yet secretion of microneme cargo is unaffected in the mutant implying that release of microneme cargo is either highly efficient at the malformed apical prominence or secretion may also occur from other points of the parasite, possibly the pellicular pores.
Steady-state fluctuation relations for systems driven by an external random force

We experimentally study the fluctuations of the work done by an external Gaussian random force on two different stochastic systems coupled to a thermal bath: a colloidal particle in an optical trap and an atomic-force microscopy cantilever. We determine the corresponding probability density functions for different random forcing amplitudes ranging from a small fraction to several times the amplitude of the thermal noise. In both systems for sufficiently weak forcing amplitudes the work fluctuations satisfy the usual steady-state fluctuation theorem. As the forcing amplitude drives the system far from equilibrium, deviations of the fluctuation theorem increase monotonically. The deviations can be recasted to a single master curve which only depends on the kind of stochastic external force.
Trends in the diagnosis and management of hypertension: repeated primary care survey in South West England.

BACKGROUND Previous surveys identified a shift to nurse-led care in hypertension in 2010. In 2011 the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommended ambulatory (ABPM) or home (HBPM) blood pressure (BP) monitoring for diagnosis of hypertension. AIM To survey the organisation of hypertension care in 2016 to identify changes, and to assess uptake of NICE diagnostic guidelines. DESIGN AND SETTING Questionnaires were distributed to all 305 general practices in South West England. METHOD Responses were compared with previous rounds (2007 and 2010). Data from the 2015 Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) were used to compare responders with non-responders, and to explore associations of care organisation with QOF achievement. RESULTS One-hundred-and-seventeen practices (38%) responded. Responders had larger list sizes and greater achievement of the QOF target BP ≤150/90 mmHg. Healthcare assistants (HCAs) now monitor BP in 70% of practices, compared with 37% in 2010 and 19% in 2007 (P<0.001). Nurse prescribers alter BP medication in 26% of practices (11% in 2010, none in 2007; P<0.001). Of the practices, 89% have access to ABPM, but only 71% report confidence in interpreting results. Also, 87% offer HBPM, with 93% of these confident in interpreting results. CONCLUSION In primary care BP monitoring has devolved from GPs and nurses to HCAs. One in 10 practices are not implementing NICE guidelines on ABPM and HBPM for diagnosis of hypertension. Most practices express confidence interpreting HBPM results but less so with ABPM. The need for education and quality assurance for allied health professionals is highlighted, and for training in ABPM interpretation for GPs.
LBP: Robust Rate Adaptation Algorithm for SVC Video Streaming

Video streaming today accounts for up to 55% of mobile traffic. In this paper, we explore streaming videos encoded using scalable video coding (SVC) scheme over highly variable bandwidth conditions, such as cellular networks. SVC’s unique encoding scheme allows the quality of a video chunk to change incrementally, making it more flexible and adaptive to challenging network conditions compared to other encoding schemes. Our contribution is threefold. First, we formulate the quality decisions of video chunks constrained by the available bandwidth, the playback buffer, and the chunk deadlines as an optimization problem. The objective is to optimize a novel quality-of-experience metric that models a combination of the three objectives of minimizing the stall/skip duration of the video, maximizing the playback quality of every chunk, and minimizing the number of quality switches. Second, we develop layered bin packing (LBP) adaptation algorithm, a novel algorithm that solves the proposed optimization problem. Moreover, we show that LBP achieves the optimal solution of the proposed optimization problem with linear complexity in the number of video chunks. Third, we propose an online algorithm (online LBP) where several challenges are addressed, including handling bandwidth prediction errors and short prediction duration. Extensive simulations with real bandwidth traces of public datasets reveal the robustness of our scheme and demonstrate its significant performance improvement as compared with the state-of-the-art SVC streaming algorithms. The proposed algorithm is also implemented on a TCP/IP emulation test bed with real LTE bandwidth traces, and the emulation confirms the simulation results and validates that the algorithm can be implemented and deployed on today’s mobile devices.
Cutting Edge: β-Catenin–Interacting Tcf1 Isoforms Are Essential for Thymocyte Survival but Dispensable for Thymic Maturation Transitions

T cell factor 1 (Tcf1) is essential for T cell development; however, it remains controversial whether β-catenin, a known coactivator of Tcf1, has a role. Tcf1 is expressed in multiple isoforms in T lineage cells, with the long isoforms interacting with β-catenin through an N-terminal domain. In this study, we specifically ablated Tcf1 long isoforms in mice (p45−/−mice) to abrogate β-catenin interaction. Although thymic cellularity was diminished in p45−/− mice, transition of thymocytes through the maturation stages was unaffected, with no overt signs of developmental blocks. p45−/− thymocytes showed increased apoptosis and alterations in transcriptome, but these changes were substantially more modest than in thymocytes lacking all Tcf1 isoforms. These data indicate that Tcf1–β-catenin interaction is necessary for promoting thymocyte survival to maintain thymic output. Rather than being dominant-negative regulators, Tcf1 short isoforms are adequate in supporting developing thymocytes to traverse through maturation steps and in regulating the expression of most Tcf1 target genes.
Systemic Fate of the Adipocyte-Derived Factor Adiponectin

OBJECTIVE The adipocyte-derived secretory protein adiponectin has been widely studied and shown to have potent insulin-sensitizing, antiapoptotic, and anti-inflammatory properties. While its biosynthesis is well understood, its fate, once in circulation, is less well established. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Here, we examine the half-life of adiponectin in circulation by tracking fluorescently labeled recombinant adiponectin in the circulation, following it to its final destination in the hepatocyte. RESULTS Despite its abundant presence in plasma, adiponectin is cleared rapidly with a half-life of ∼75 min. A more bioactive version carrying a mutation at cysteine 39 is cleared within minutes. Even though steady-state levels of adiponectin differ between male and female mice, we failed to detect any differences in clearance rates, suggesting that differences in plasma are mostly due to differential production rates. In a metabolically challenged state (high-fat diet exposure or in an ob/ob background), adiponectin levels are reduced in plasma and clearance is significantly prolonged, reflecting a dramatic drop in adiponectin production levels. CONCLUSIONS Combined, these results show a surprisingly rapid turnover of adiponectin with multiple fat pads contributing to the plasma levels of adiponectin and clearance mediated primarily by the liver. It is surprising that despite high-level production and rapid clearance, plasma levels of adiponectin remain remarkably constant.
Spatiotemporal Movement Planning and Rapid Adaptation for Manual Interaction

Many everyday tasks require the ability of two or more individuals to coordinate their actions with others to increase efficiency. Such an increase in efficiency can often be observed even after only very few trials. Previous work suggests that such behavioral adaptation can be explained within a probabilistic framework that integrates sensory input and prior experience. Even though higher cognitive abilities such as intention recognition have been described as probabilistic estimation depending on an internal model of the other agent, it is not clear whether much simpler daily interaction is consistent with a probabilistic framework. Here, we investigate whether the mechanisms underlying efficient coordination during manual interactions can be understood as probabilistic optimization. For this purpose we studied in several experiments a simple manual handover task concentrating on the action of the receiver. We found that the duration until the receiver reacts to the handover decreases over trials, but strongly depends on the position of the handover. We then replaced the human deliverer by different types of robots to further investigate the influence of the delivering movement on the reaction of the receiver. Durations were found to depend on movement kinematics and the robot’s joint configuration. Modeling the task was based on the assumption that the receiver’s decision to act is based on the accumulated evidence for a specific handover position. The evidence for this handover position is collected from observing the hand movement of the deliverer over time and, if appropriate, by integrating this sensory likelihood with prior expectation that is updated over trials. The close match of model simulations and experimental results shows that the efficiency of handover coordination can be explained by an adaptive probabilistic fusion of a-priori expectation and online estimation.
Physical face cloning

We propose a complete process for designing, simulating, and fabricating synthetic skin for an animatronics character that mimics the face of a given subject and its expressions. The process starts with measuring the elastic properties of a material used to manufacture synthetic soft tissue. Given these measurements we use physics-based simulation to predict the behavior of a face when it is driven by the underlying robotic actuation. Next, we capture 3D facial expressions for a given target subject. As the key component of our process, we present a novel optimization scheme that determines the shape of the synthetic skin as well as the actuation parameters that provide the best match to the target expressions. We demonstrate this computational skin design by physically cloning a real human face onto an animatronics figure.
COLLABORATIVE INTENTIONALITY CAPITAL: OBJECT- ORIENTED INTERAGENCY IN MULTIORGANIZATIONAL FIELDS

I will argue that employees’ collective capacity to create organizational transformations and innovations is becoming a crucially important asset that gives a new, dynamic content to notions of social and collaborative capital. In philosophy, sociology, anthropology and cognitive science, such capacity is conceptualized as distributed agency or collective intentionality (e.g., Barnes, 2000, Meggle, 2002). The problem with theories of intentionality and agency is that they are seldom grounded in empirical observations or interventions in people’s daily realities and practices at work.
Contribution of NMDA and AMPA Receptors to Temporal Patterning of Auditory Responses in the Inferior Colliculus

Although NMDA receptors (NMDARs) are associated with synaptic plasticity, they form an essential part of responses to sensory stimuli. We compared contributions of glutamatergic NMDARs and AMPA receptors (AMPARs) to auditory responses in the inferior colliculus (IC) of awake, adult mustached bats. We examined the magnitude and temporal pattern of responses to tonal signals in single units before, during, and after local micro-iontophoretic application of selective antagonists to AMPARs [NBQX (1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-6-nitro-2,3-dioxo-benzo[f]quinoxaline-7-sulfonamide)] and NMDARs [CPP ((±)3-(2-carboxypiperazin-4-yl)-propyl-1-phosphonic acid)]. Combined blockade of AMPARs and NMDARs eliminated excitatory responses in nearly all neurons, whereas separate blockade of each receptor was quantitatively similar, causing substantial (>50%) spike reductions in ∼75% of units. The major result was that effects of receptor blockade were most closely related to the first-spike latency of a unit. Thus, AMPAR blockade substantially reduced spikes in all short-latency units (<12 ms) but never in long-latency units (≥12 ms). NMDAR blockade had variable effects on short-latency units but reduced spikes substantially for all long-latency units. There were no distinct contributions of AMPARs and NMDARs to early and late elements of responses. Thus, AMPAR blockade reduced early (onset) spikes somewhat more effectively than NMDAR blockade in short-latency units, but NMDAR blockade reduced onset spikes more effectively in long-latency units. AMPAR and NMDAR blockade were equally effective in reducing later elements of sustained responses in short-latency units, whereas NMDAR blockade was much more effective in long-latency units. These results indicate that NMDARs play multiple roles for signal processing in adult IC neurons.
The time-saving bias: Judgements, cognition and perception

Biases in people’s judgments of time saved by increasing the speed of an activity have been studied mainly with hypothetical scenarios (Svenson, 2008). The present study asked whether the classic time-saving bias persists as a perceptual bias when we control the speed of an activity and assess the perceived time elapsed at different speeds. Specifically, we investigated the time-saving bias in a driving simulator. Each participant was asked to first drive a distance at a given speed and then drive the same distance again at the speed she or he judged necessary to gain exactly three minutes in travel time compared to the first trip. We found that that the time-saving bias applies to active driving and that it affects the choice of driving speed. The drivers’ time-saving judgements show that the perception of the time elapsed while driving does not eliminate the time-saving bias.
The Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory CO Mapping Survey of the Taurus Molecular Cloud

The FCRAO Survey of the Taurus molecular cloud observed the 12CO and 13CO J = 1–0 emission from 98 deg2 of this important, nearby, star-forming region. This set of data with 45″ resolution comprises the highest spatial dynamic range image of an individual molecular cloud constructed to date and provides valuable insights to the molecular gas distribution, kinematics, and the star formation process. In this contribution, we describe the observations, calibration, data processing, and characteristics of the noise and line emission of the survey. The angular distribution of 12CO and 13CO emission over 1 km s−1 velocity intervals and the full velocity extent of the cloud are presented. These reveal a complex, dynamic medium of cold, molecular gas.
On the Usage of GPUs for Efficient Motion Estimation in Medical Image Sequences

Images are ubiquitous in biomedical applications from basic research to clinical practice. With the rapid increase in resolution, dimensionality of the images and the need for real-time performance in many applications, computational requirements demand proper exploitation of multicore architectures. Towards this, GPU-specific implementations of image analysis algorithms are particularly promising. In this paper, we investigate the mapping of an enhanced motion estimation algorithm to novel GPU-specific architectures, the resulting challenges and benefits therein. Using a database of three-dimensional image sequences, we show that the mapping leads to substantial performance gains, up to a factor of 60, and can provide near-real-time experience. We also show how architectural peculiarities of these devices can be best exploited in the benefit of algorithms, most specifically for addressing the challenges related to their access patterns and different memory configurations. Finally, we evaluate the performance of the algorithm on three different GPU architectures and perform a comprehensive analysis of the results.
Action and Valence Modulate Choice and Choice-Induced Preference Change

Choices are not only communicated via explicit actions but also passively through inaction. In this study we investigated how active or passive choice impacts upon the choice process itself as well as a preference change induced by choice. Subjects were tasked to select a preference for unfamiliar photographs by action or inaction, before and after they gave valuation ratings for all photographs. We replicate a finding that valuation increases for chosen items and decreases for unchosen items compared to a control condition in which the choice was made post re-evaluation. Whether choice was expressed actively or passively affected the dynamics of revaluation differently for positive and negatively valenced items. Additionally, the choice itself was biased towards action such that subjects tended to choose a photograph obtained by action more often than a photographed obtained through inaction. These results highlight intrinsic biases consistent with a tight coupling of action and reward and add to an emerging understanding of how the mode of action itself, and not just an associated outcome, modulates the decision making process.
Building Classifiers to Predict the Start of Glucose-Lowering Pharmacotherapy Using Belgian Health Expenditure Data

Early diagnosis is important for type 2 diabetes (T2D) to improve patient prognosis, prevent complications and reduce long-term treatment costs. We present a novel risk profiling approach based exclusively on health expenditure data that is available to Belgian mutual health insurers. We used expenditure data related to drug purchases and medical provisions to construct models that predict whether a patient will start glucose-lowering pharmacotherapy in the coming years, based on that patient's recent medical expenditure history. The design and implementation of the modeling strategy are discussed in detail and several learning methods are benchmarked for our application. Our best performing model obtains between 74.9% and 76.8% area under the ROC curve, which is comparable to state-of-the-art risk prediction approaches for T2D based on questionnaires. In contrast to other methods, our approach can be implemented on a population-wide scale at virtually no extra operational cost. Possibly, our approach can be further improved by additional information about some risk factors of T2D that is unavailable in health expenditure data.
Application of the 64-slice computed tomography as a diagnostic method in acute posttraumatic ischaemia of the upper limbs – 3 case reports

Summary Background: Acute limb ischaemia’ is a sudden, rapidly progressing inhibition of blood supply to a limb, characterised by appearance of new symptoms or by aggravation of the already existing ones, which may lead to amputation of the limb. Computed tomography angiography (CTA) performed with a multislice scanner belongs to methods used for arterial imaging in acute limb ischaemia. The main advantages of this method include: short examination time, low invasiveness, and possibility of a multiplanar and multivolume imaging of the vessels and adjacent tissues. Case Reports: We presented 3 cases of acute posttraumatic ischaemia of the upper limbs, diagnosed in the emergency setting with the use of a 64-slice CT scanner. Conclusions: The CTA examination performed with the 64-slice CT unit revealed high effectiveness when used for localisation of vascular pathologies resulting in acute ischaemia of the upper limbs. Owing to this rapid radiological diagnostic method, it is now possible to perform successful limb-saving surgeries and to introduce postoperative monitoring immediately after the procedure.
YopJ of Yersinia pseudotuberculosis is required for the inhibition of macrophage TNF‐α production and downregulation of the MAP kinases p38 and JNK

Exposure of macrophages to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) leads to production of the pro‐inflammatory cytokine, tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF‐α). Previous studies have suggested that pathogenic Yersinia spp. inhibit LPS‐mediated production of TNF‐α in macrophages, and that one of the Yop proteins secreted by the plasmid‐encoded type III pathway is required for this activity. We found that TNF‐α production was inhibited when J774A.1 murine macrophages were infected with wild‐type Y. pseudotuberculosis but not with an isogenic ysc mutant defective for Yop secretion. We inactivated multiple yop genes to identify which of these factors are required for the inhibition of TNF‐α production. A mutant unable to express yopJ was defective for the inhibition of TNF‐α production. Production of TNF‐α is regulated at the transcriptional and translational levels by several mitogen‐activated protein (MAP) kinases. The MAP kinases p38 and JNK underwent sustained activation in macrophages infected with the yopJ mutant. Conversely, p38 and JNK were downregulated in macrophages infected with the wild‐type strain. The ability of the yopJ mutant to downregulate p38 and JNK and to inhibit production of TNF‐α was restored by the expression of yopJ+in trans. Therefore, YopJ is required for Y. pseudotuberculosis to downregulate MAP kinases and inhibit the production of TNF‐α in macrophages.
Can Visible Cues of Search Results Tell Vendors' Reliability?

A search engine provides two distinct types of results, organic and paid, each of which uses different mechanisms for selecting and ranking relevant Web pages for a query. For an e-commerce query, vendors represented by websites in these organic and paid results are expected to have varying reliability ratings, such as a satisfactory or unsatisfactory score from the Business Bureau (BBB) based on overall customer experiences. In this paper we empirically examine how vendors’ reliability ratings in BBB are associated with cues (such as type of result, relative price, number of sites selling the product) that can be observed or derived from search results, and further we attempt to predict vendors’ BBB reliability ratings using those cues.
White matter abnormalities of the motor network in schizophrenia

Poster: "ECR 2011 / C-1946 / White matter abnormalities of the motor network in schizophrenia" by: "M. Keřkovský, T. Kasparek, P. Bednařik, J. Řehulova, A. Sprlakova-Pukova, M. Mechl; Brno/CZ"