Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Isolation and Characterization of a Hantavirus from Lemmus sibiricus: Evidence for Host Switch during Hantavirus Evolution

ABSTRACT A novel hantavirus, first detected in Siberian lemmings (Lemmus sibiricus) collected near the Topografov River in the Taymyr Peninsula, Siberia (A. Plyusnin et al., Lancet 347:1835–1836, 1996), was isolated in Vero E6 cells and in laboratory-bred Norwegian lemmings (Lemmus lemmus). The virus, named Topografov virus (TOP), was most closely related to Khabarovsk virus (KBR) and Puumala viruses (PUU). In a cross focus reduction neutralization test, anti-TOP Lemmus antisera showed titers at least fourfold higher with TOP than with other hantaviruses; however, a rabbit anti-KBR antiserum neutralized TOP and KBR at the same titer. The TOP M segment showed 77% nucleotide and 88% amino acid identity with KBR and 76% nucleotide and 82% amino acid identity with PUU. However, the homology between TOP and the KBR S segment was disproportionately higher: 88% at the nucleotide level and 96% at the amino acid level. The 3′ noncoding regions of KBR and the TOP S and M segments were alignable except for 113- and 58-nucleotide deletions in KBR. The phylogenetic relationships of TOP, KBR, and PUU and their respective rodent carriers suggest that an exceptional host switch took place during the evolution of these viruses; while TOP and KBR are monophyletic, the respective rodent host species are only distantly related.
Chemical and optical properties of marine boundary layer aerosol particles of the mid-Pacific in relation to sources and meteorological transport

Incorporating the direct effect of tropospheric aerosol on climate into global climate models involves coupling the optical properties of the aerosol with its physical and chemical properties. This coupling is strengthened if the optical, physical, and chemical properties of the individual aerosol components are known as well as how these properties depend on the air mass source and synoptic scale meteorology. To relate properties of the aerosol components to air mass sources over a wide range of meteorological conditions, two long latitudinal cruises were conducted in the central Pacific Ocean from 55°N to 70°S. Submicron non-sea-salt (nss) SO4= aerosol averaged about 35 to 40% of the submicron ionic mass as analyzed by ion chromatography and 6% of the total ionic mass, while supermicron nss SO4= aerosol contributed about 1% to the total ionic mass. About 1% of the remaining total ionic mass was composed of methanesulfonate and 90% was sea salt. Ionic mass fractions of nss SO4= aerosol were highest in regions having the longest marine boundary layer residence times or the largest source of marine or continental gas phase precursors. The calculated scattering by nss SO4= aerosol was highest in these same regions due to the dependence of scattering on particle size and the concentration of nss SO4= in the submicron size range. The calculated scattering by submicron sea salt was similar to that of the nss SO4= aerosol, indicating that its contribution to scattering in the marine boundary layer can be significant or even dominant depending on its mass concentration. Mass scattering efficiencies for nss SO4= at 30% RH ranged from 4.3 to 7.5 m2 g−1 and for submicron sea salt from 3.5 to 7.7 m2 g−1. Mass backscattering efficiencies for nss SO4= ranged from 0.41 to 0.58 m2 g−1 and for submicron sea salt from 0.33 to 0.63 m2 g−1. These values fall within the same range as others reported previously for the marine atmosphere.
Interpolating between random walk and rotor walk

We introduce a family of stochastic processes on the integers, depending on a parameter p∈[0,1] and interpolating between the deterministic rotor walk ( p=0 ) and the simple random walk ( p=1/2 ). This p‐rotor walk is not a Markov chain but it has a local Markov property: for each x∈ℤ the sequence of successive exits from x is a Markov chain. The main result of this paper identifies the scaling limit of the p‐rotor walk with two‐sided i.i. d. initial rotors. The limiting process takes the form 1−ppX(t) , where X is a doubly perturbed Brownian motion, that is, it satisfies the implicit equation 1 X ( t ) = B ( t ) + a sup ⁡ s ≤ t X ( s ) + b inf ⁡ s ≤ t X ( s ) for all t∈[0,∞) . Here B(t) is a standard Brownian motion and a,b<1 are constants depending on the marginals of the initial rotors on ℕ and −ℕ respectively. Chaumont and Doney have shown that Equation 1 has a pathwise unique solution X(t) , and that the solution is almost surely continuous and adapted to the natural filtration of the Brownian motion. Moreover, lim⁡sup⁡X(t)=+∞ and lim⁡inf⁡X(t)=−∞ . This last result, together with the main result of this paper, implies that the p‐rotor walk is recurrent for any two‐sided i.i. d. initial rotors and any 0
Audio thumbnailing using MPEG-7 low-level audio descriptors

In this paper we present an audio thumbnailing technique based on audio segmentation by similarity search. The segmentation is performed on MPEG-7 low level audio feature descriptors as a growing source of multimedia meta data. Especially for database applications or audio-on-demand services this technique could be very helpful, because there is no need to have access to the probably copyright protected original audio material. The result of the similarity search is a matrix which contains off-diagonal stripes representing similar regions, which are usually the refrains of a song and thus a very suitable segment to be used as audio thumbnail. Using the a priori knowledge that we search off-diagonal stripes which must represent several seconds of audio data and that the adjustment of the stripes must be characteristically, we implemented a filter to enhance the structure of the similarity matrix and to extract a relevant segment as an audio thumbnail.
An analytical delay model for RLC interconnects

We develop an analytical delay model based on first and second moments to incorporate inductance effects into the delay estimate for interconnection lines. Delay estimates using our analytical model are within 15% of SPICE-computed delay across a wide range of interconnect parameter values. We also extend our delay model for estimation of source-sink delays in arbitrary interconnect trees. For the small tree topology considered, we observe improvements of at least 18% in the accuracy of delay estimates when compared to the Elmore model (which is independent of inductance), even though our estimates are as easy to compute as the Elmore delay. The speedup of delay estimation via our analytical model is several orders of magnitude when compared to a simulation methodology such as SPICE.
On-Demand Resource-Sharing Mechanism Design in Two-Tier OFDMA Femtocell Networks

Femtocells are a promising technology to improve network performance with short-range, low-power, and cost-beneficial small base stations. There will be many prospective benefits by applying the femtocell technique to wireless communication standards such as the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), WiMAX, and Long-Term Evolution. This paper studies two main design issues in orthogonal frequency-division multiple-access (OFDMA) femtocell networks, i.e., resource sharing and femtocell access control. Unlike other previous works, our presented analysis encompasses modeling wireless users' selfish characteristic and private traffic information. In addition, this provides a more comprehensive perspective on self-organizing femtocell networks, where users optimize their performance in a distributed manner. Our contributions are threefold: 1) We design a resource allocation mechanism that gathers selfish users' true private traffic information. 2) The proposed mechanism achieves efficient and fair resource sharing. 3) Based on the proposed mechanism, we create incentives for subscribers to share their femtobase stations with general users. This further improves the overall system performance.
Effective Intrusion Detection Approach in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

intuitively, intrusions in an information system are the activities that violate the security policy of the system, and intrusion detection is the process used to identify intrusions. It is based on the beliefs that an intruder's behavior will be noticeably different from that of a legitimate user and that many unauthorized actions will be detectable. Intrusion detection systems (IDSs) are usually deployed along with other preventive security mechanisms, such as access control and authentication, as a second line of defense that protects information systems. Intrusion Detection in MANET is one of the major concerns in peer to peer networking scenario where mobile / wireless nodes communicate with each other without any pre-defined infra-structural setup. This paper presents an overview of various intrusion detection models, identifying its issues, discusses on design and proposes an intrusion detection system shortly, This paper aims to pioneer and to assort current techniques of Intrusion Detection System (IDS) aware MANET. MANET is infrastructure-less, pervasive in nature with multi-hop routing, without any centralized authority. To support these ideas, discussions regarding attacks and researches achievement on MANET are presented inclusively.
Association Between Saccular Function and Gait Speed: Data From the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging

Objective To investigate whether otolith function (saccular and utricular) is associated with walking performance. Study Design Cross-sectional analysis of observational data collected in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. Setting National Institute on Aging Intramural Research Program Clinical Research Unit at Harbor Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland. Patients Community-dwelling participants. Intervention(s) Cervical and ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (VEMPs) were used to assess saccular and utricular function, respectively. Main outcome measure(s) Cervical and ocular VEMP latency and amplitude responses and usual, rapid, and narrow (20 cm) gait speed assessed over a 6-m course. Results In 314 participants (mean age, 73.1 yr; range, 26–96 yr), cervical VEMP amplitude mediated the association between age and gait speed—particularly narrow walk speed—in both men and women. Cervical VEMP latency had an independent association with gait speed in age-, height-, and weight-adjusted analyses, although the direction of the association differed by sex. Greater cervical VEMP latency was associated with slower usual, rapid, and narrow gait speed in women but faster rapid gait speed in men. Neither the amplitude nor latency of ocular VEMP was associated with gait speed in men or women. Conclusion These findings suggest that age-related slowing of gait speed is in part mediated by the decreased magnitude of saccular response associated with age. The sex-related differential association between saccular response latency and gait speed requires further study.
Elongation of Peroxisomes as an Indicator for Efficient Dynamin-like Protein 1 Knock Down in Mammalian Cells

RNA interference has become a valuable tool to identify and investigate proteins involved in the formation of peroxisomes. We demonstrate that the elongation of peroxisomes serves as an excellent indicator for efficient knock down of dynamin-like protein 1 (DLP1) in mammalian cells. We took advantage of the silencing-dependent morphological changes of peroxisomes to compare different transfection methods and show that a single transfection of DLP1 siRNA by electroporation is sufficient to effectively silence DLP1. We present a fast, easy, and convenient protocol for efficient gene silencing in a large number of cells, which can be used for quantitative and biochemical studies.
Bit Level Synchronized MAC Protocol for Multireader RFID Networks

The operation of multiple RFID readers in close proximity results in interference between the readers. This issue is termed the reader collision problem and cannot always be solved by assigning them to different frequency channels due to technical and regulatory limitations. The typical solution is to separate the operation of such readers across time. This sequential operation, however, results in a long delay to identify all tags. We present a bit level synchronized (BLSync) MAC protocol for multi-reader RFID networks that allows multiple readers to operate simultaneously on the same frequency channel. The BLSync protocol solves the reader collision problem by allowing all readers to transmit the same query at the same time. We analyze the performance of using the BLSync protocol and demonstrate benefits of 40%–50% in terms of tag reading delay for most settings. The benefits of BLSync, first demonstrated through analysis, are then validated and quantified through simulations on realistic reader-tag layouts.
Budding yeast PAK kinases regulate mitotic exit by two different mechanisms

We report the characterization of the dominant-negative CLA4t allele of the budding yeast CLA4 gene, encoding a member of the p21-activated kinase (PAK) family of protein kinases, which, together with its homologue STE20, plays an essential role in promoting budding and cytokinesis. Overproduction of the Cla4t protein likely inhibits both endogenous Cla4 and Ste20 and causes a delay in the onset of anaphase that correlates with inactivation of Cdc20/anaphase-promoting complex (APC)–dependent proteolysis of both the cyclinB Clb2 and securin. Although the precise mechanism of APC inhibition by Cla4t remains to be elucidated, our results suggest that Cla4 and Ste20 may regulate the first wave of cyclinB proteolysis mediated by Cdc20/APC, which has been shown to be crucial for activation of the mitotic exit network (MEN). We show that the Cdk1-inhibitory kinase Swe1 is required for the Cla4t-dependent delay in cell cycle progression, suggesting that it might be required to prevent full Cdc20/APC and MEN activation. In addition, inhibition of PAK kinases by Cla4t prevents mitotic exit also by a Swe1-independent mechanism impinging directly on the MEN activator Tem1.
The AMU-UEdin Submission to the WMT 2017 Shared Task on Automatic Post-Editing

This work describes the AMU-UEdin sub-mission to the WMT 2017 shared task on Automatic Post-Editing. We explore multiple neural architectures adapted for the task of automatic post-editing of machine translation output. We focus on neural end-to-end models that combine both inputs mt and src in a single neural architecture, modeling { mt, src } → pe directly. Apart from that, we investigate the inﬂu-ence of hard-attention models which seem to be well-suited for monolingual tasks, as well as combinations of both ideas.
Chitosanase-based method for RNA isolation from cells transfected with chitosan/siRNA nanocomplexes for real-time RT-PCR in gene silencing

Chitosan, a well known natural cationic polysaccharide, has been successfully implemented in vitro and in vivo as a nonviral delivery system for both plasmid DNA and siRNA. While using chitosan/siRNA polyplexes to knock down specific targets, we have underestimated the effect of nucleic acids binding to chitosan when extracting RNA for subsequent quantitative PCR evaluation of silencing. In vitro transfection using chitosan/siRNA-based polyplexes reveals a very poor recovery of total RNA especially when using low cell numbers in 96 well plates. Here, we describe a method that dramatically enhances RNA extraction from chitosan/siRNA-treated cells by using an enzymatic treatment with a type III chitosanase. We show that chitosanase treatment prior to RNA extraction greatly enhances the yield and the integrity of extracted RNA. This method will therefore eliminate the bias associated with lower RNA yield and integrity when quantifying gene silencing of chitosan-based systems using quantitative real time PCR.
Link adaptation method based on mutual information for BDMA massive MIMO transmission system

Massive Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output (MIMO) technology that employs a very large number of antennas at the base station (BS), serves relatively fewer users jointly and simultaneously. Adaptive transmission technique in a large-scale MIMO wireless communication systems, can further enhance the reliability of the transmission links and improve the spectrum efficiency. This paper is based on beam division multiple access (BDMA) transmission scheme that simultaneously serves a small number of users via different beam set. We first introduce the massive MIMO model, then propose an effective adaptive transmission method to select channel quality indicator (CQI) parameter. In the proposed scheme, user equipment (UE) is required to calculate the mutual information (MI) between the finite discrete constellation input and the corresponding output over complex-valued vector channels, and compare with different mutual information thresholds, then feed back a CQI for each codeword to signal the supported adaptive modulation and coding scheme (MCS) to satisfy a given target codeword error ratio (CWER) constraint. Finally, simulation results show that the proposed adaptive transmission method combined with iterative receiver can obtain a high spectral efficiency while guaranteeing the given CWER target.
Interaction of Eukaryotic Translation Initiation Factor 4G with the Nuclear Cap-Binding Complex Provides a Link between Nuclear and Cytoplasmic Functions of the m7Guanosine Cap

ABSTRACT In eukaryotes the majority of mRNAs have an m7G cap that is added cotranscriptionally and that plays an important role in many aspects of mRNA metabolism. The nuclear cap-binding complex (CBC; consisting of CBP20 and CBP80) mediates the stimulatory functions of the cap in pre-mRNA splicing, 3′ end formation, and U snRNA export. As little is known about how nuclear CBC mediates the effects of the cap in higher eukaryotes, we have characterized proteins that interact with CBC in HeLa cell nuclear extracts as potential mediators of its function. Using cross-linking and coimmunoprecipitation, we show that eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4G (eIF4G), in addition to its function in the cytoplasm, is a nuclear CBC-interacting protein. We demonstrate that eIF4G interacts with CBC in vitro and that, in addition to its cytoplasmic localization, there is a significant nuclear pool of eIF4G in mammalian cells in vivo. Immunoprecipitation experiments suggest that, in contrast to the cytoplasmic pool, much of the nuclear eIF4G is not associated with eIF4E (translation cap binding protein of eIF4F) but is associated with CBC. While eIF4G stably associates with spliceosomes in vitro and shows close association with spliceosomal snRNPs and splicing factors in vivo, depletion studies show that it does not participate directly in the splicing reaction. Taken together the data indicate that nuclear eIF4G may be recruited to pre-mRNAs via its interaction with CBC and accompanies the mRNA to the cytoplasm, facilitating the switching of CBC for eIF4F. This may provide a mechanism to couple nuclear and cytoplasmic functions of the mRNA cap structure.
Generic architecture for multi-AUV cooperation based on a multi-agent reactive organizational approach

Because Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) have limited perception and communication capabilities, designing efficient AUV flotillas is challenging. Existing solutions are often strongly related to (1) a specific kind of mission and (2) the nature of the considered AUVs. So, it is difficult to reuse these approaches when switching to another mission context. This paper proposes a generic multi-agent based layered architecture for designing and specifying AUV flotillas at a high level of abstraction, regardless of the AUVs characteristics and skills. To this end, an organizational model is used to ease and regulate interactions between heterogeneous AUVs and combined with a behavioral reactive approach for limiting communication.
Adenylate cyclase toxin of Bordetella pertussis: production, purification, and partial characterization

Bordetella pertussis produces a number of virulence determinants which contribute to its pathogenicity. One factor, the adenylate cyclase toxin (ACT), has been suggested to directly penetrate human phagocytes and disrupt their normal function by direct production of intracellular cyclic AMP (cAMP). Experiments evaluating the production of cell-associated ACT in liquid cultures of B. pertussis 504 demonstrated that the greatest activity was observed during mid-log-phase growth. Urea extracts of cells harvested during the time of maximal ACT production have been used to purify the toxin with both biological and enzymatic activities. ACT is a protein with an apparent molecular mass of 220 kDa and an isoelectric point of 7.0. The specific activity of purified ACT is 17,000 mumol of cAMP formed per mg per min. The the biological specific activity of purified ACT is 6,250 nmol of intracellular cAMP formed per mg per min in 2 x 10(6) S49 lymphoma cells per ml. Preparations containing 8 micrograms of ACT completely abrogated the chemiluminescence response of 2 x 10(6) human neutrophils per ml.
Adaptive coding configuration for multi-resolution video coding

In this paper, we present the efficiency analysis of two sophisticated coding tools, multi-reference frame (MRF) and variable block size (VBS) that cost high computational complexity, in various spatial resolutions. The relationship between coding efficiency and spatial resolution is theoretically discovered. Based on the conclusion of the efficiency analysis that the efficiency improvement from sophisticated coding tools are gradually decreased in higher resolution, we propose an adaptive coding configuration for the encoding with various resolutions that yield significant complexity reduction with negligible RD performance decrease.
CXCR4 Inhibition Ameliorates Severe Obliterative Pulmonary Hypertension and Accumulation of C-Kit+ Cells in Rats

Successful curative treatment of severe pulmonary arterial hypertension with luminal obliteration will require a thorough understanding of the mechanism underlying the development and progression of pulmonary vascular lesions. But the cells that obliterate the pulmonary arterial lumen in severe pulmonary arterial hypertension are incompletely characterized. The goal of our study was to evaluate whether inhibition of CXC chemokine receptor 4 will prevent the accumulation of c-kit+ cells and severe pulmonary arterial hypertension. We detected c-kit+ cells expressing endothelial (von Willebrand Factor) or smooth muscle cell/myofibroblast (α-smooth muscle actin) markers in pulmonary arterial lesions of SU5416/chronic hypoxia rats. We found increased expression of CXC chemokine ligand 12 in the lung tissue of SU5416/chronic hypoxia rats. In our prevention study, AMD3100, an inhibitor of the CXC chemokine ligand 12 receptor, CXC chemokine receptor 4, only moderately decreased pulmonary arterial obliteration and pulmonary hypertension in SU5416/chronic hypoxia animals. AMD3100 treatment reduced the number of proliferating c-kit+ α-smooth muscle actin+ cells and pulmonary arterial muscularization and did not affect c-kit+ von Willebrand Factor+ cell numbers. Both c-kit+ cell types expressed CXC chemokine receptor 4. In conclusion, our data demonstrate that in the SU5416/chronic hypoxia model of severe pulmonary hypertension, the CXC chemokine receptor 4-expressing c-kit+ α-smooth muscle actin+ cells contribute to pulmonary arterial muscularization. In contrast, vascular lumen obliteration by c-kit+ von Willebrand Factor+ cells is largely independent of CXC chemokine receptor 4.