Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mutational analysis of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) accessory genes: requirement of a site in the nef gene for HIV-1 replication in activated CD4+ T cells in vitro and in vivo

Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) accessory genes including nef, vif, and vpr are important factors that determine the replication and pathogenesis of HIV-1. The state of activation is also important for the replication of HIV-1. We evaluated the properties of nef-, vif-, and vpr-minus macrophage-tropic HIV-1(JR) CSF in primary CD4+ Th1- or Th2-like cell cultures which had been activated through CD3 molecules in the presence of interleukin-2 (IL-2) and IL-12 (Th1-like culture) or IL-4 (Th2-like culture), respectively. In activated Th1- or Th2-like cultures, replication of nef-minus HIV-1(JR-CSF) was markedly lower than that of wild-type HIV-1. Subsequent analysis by site-directed mutagenesis showed that (i) the presence of an acidic amino acid-rich domain (amino acid residues 72 to 75) in the Nef protein was critical for the enhancement of viral DNA synthesis, resulting in increased virus growth rate, and (ii) prolines that form part of Src homology 3 binding domain were not essential for viral replication. We also confirmed the importance of sites by using an HIV-1-infected animal model, the hu-PBL-SCID mouse system, representing HIV-1 replication and pathogenesis in activated CD4+ T cells in vivo. These results indicate that Nef accelerates viral replication in activated CD4+ T cells.
Long-time asymptotic solution structure of Camassa-Holm equation subject to an initial condition with non-zero reflection coefficient of the scattering data

In this article we numerically revisit the long-time solution behavior of the Camassa-Holm equation. The finite difference solution of this integrable equation is sought subject to the newly derived initial condition with Delta-function potential. Our underlying strategy of deriving a numerical phase accurate finite difference scheme in time domain is to reduce the numerical dispersion error through minimization of the derived discrepancy between the numerical and exact modified wavenumbers. Additionally, to achieve the goal of conserving Hamiltonians in the completely integrable equation of current interest, a symplecticity-preserving time-stepping scheme is developed. Based on the solutions computed from the temporally symplecticity-preserving and the spatially wavenumber-preserving scheme, the long-time asymptotic CH solution characters can be accurately depicted in distinct regions of the space-time domain featuring with their own quantitatively very different solution behaviors. We also aim to numerically confirm that in the two transition zones their long-time asymptotics can indeed be described in terms of the theoretically derived Painleve transcendents. Another attempt of this study is to numerically exhibit a close connection between the presently predicted finite-difference solution and the solution of the Painleve ordinary differential equation of type II in two different transition zones.
Signatures in online handwriting recognition

We investigate the use of iterated integral signatures as a representation of handwritten characters for improved machine recognition, using data from Pendigits and Assamese. We compare methods for including information about pen-liftings in multi-stroke characters and show that the ink dimension is most useful. We show that much useful information is lost when moving to a rotationally-invariant representation.
Literature Review: Mitigation of Atmospheric Turbulence Impact on Long Distance Imaging System with Various Methods

A consequence of non-stationary random distribution of refractive index in layer of atmosphere is air turbulence. Numerous methods have been developed to mitigate the impact of turbulence on performance of imaging system. This paper is a comprehensive, critical review of atmospheric turbulence; nature, cause and impacts on imaging with distance and exposure time, We present existing restoration algorithms and MEMS/MOEMS based adaptive optics to correct geometric deformation and time-/space-varying blur with their results to get high quality image from image sequences or videos affected by turbulent flow of air in atmosphere.
Density-related effects on the infectivity and aggressiveness of a sterilising smut in a wild population of Digitaria sanguinalis.

Understanding host-pathogen evolutionary dynamics needs characterisation and quantification of processes occurring at many spatiotemporal scales. With this aim, the effects of smut on a naturally infected population of the summer annual Digitaria sanguinalis were followed for 4 years in an uncropped field. The main purpose of the study was to quantify the effects of within-population density on the infectivity and the aggressiveness of the pathogen in a range of densities that occurred naturally. The infectivity-related variable measured was the proportion of smutted plants at the end of each growing season; proportions were analysed using a generalised linear model with a binomial distribution considering the year, the density and their interaction as effects. The aggressiveness-related variables chosen were the number of smutted inflorescences per plant and per area, obtained over the last 2 years; they were analysed by means of ancova considering disease status (seeded or smutted), year, density and all the interactions between them. Although the disease is monocyclic, results showed clearly that infectivity increased with plant density. The number of inflorescences per plant was 1.5 times higher in smutted plants than in healthy plants throughout the range of densities. This variable declined when density increased, but as the infectivity increased at a higher rate, the aggressiveness also increased with density. The surprising results on infectivity are discussed in the context of current knowledge of plant-pathogen interaction dynamics, as well as neighbour effects on pathogen aggressiveness. Moreover, the results could be useful to develop weed biological control strategies.
Using the inverse normal combination test for analysing a trial with continuous endpoint and potential sample size reassessment

1 Define the type of design to be used for the analysis First, load the rpact package library(rpact) packageVersion("rpact") # version should be version 2.0.5 or later ## [1] '3.1. 1' Since we want to illustrate a design where at interim stages we are able to perform data-driven sample size adaptations, we use the inverse normal combination test for combining the p-values from the stages of the trial. We want to use a three stage design with O‘Brien and Fleming boundaries and additionally want to consider futility bounds -0.5 and 0.5 for the test statistics at the interim stages. Accordingly, # Example of an inverse normal combination test: designIN <getDesignInverseNormal(futilityBounds = c(-0.5, 0.5)) defines the design to be used for this purpose. By default, this is a design with equally spaced information rates and one sided α = 0.025. The critical values can be displayed on the z-value or the p-value scale:
Effects of Moderate Intensity Physical Training in Neonatal Alloxan- Administered Rats

Newborn rats (6 days old) received alloxan intraperitoneally (A= 250 mg/kg b.w). Rats injected with vehicle (citrate buffer) were used as controls (C). After weaning, half of the animals were submitted to 1 hour/day, 5 days/week swimming and with supporting overload of 5% b.w. At 28 days, no signi fi cant differences were found among the groups in fasting glycemia and insulinemia. At 60 days, the fasting glycemia (30 min after oral glucose administration) was higher in alloxan than in controls groups and lower in the alloxan group submitted to training than in the correspondent sedentary group. The glucose tolerance of the alloxan rats was reduced in comparison to controls, both at 28 and 60 days, since the area under the blood glucose curve during the OGTT was higher in the alloxan than in the control. No difference was found among the groups both at 28 and 60 days in the HOMA index. However, a slight reduction was observed in the values of the trained groups suggesting slightly increased insulin sensitivity in the animals. These results suggest that this diabetes mellitus animal model presents interesting characteristics for the study of the role of the physical exercise in diabetes outcome.
Child Poverty and Changes in Child Poverty in Rich Countries Since 1990

This paper documents levels and changes in child poverty rates in 12 OECD countries using data from the Luxembourg Income Study project, and focusing upon an analysis of the reasons for changes over the 1990s. The objective is to uncover the relative role of income transfers from the state in determining the magnitude and direction of change in child poverty rates, holding other demographic and labour market factors constant. As such the paper offers a cross-country overview of child poverty, changes in child poverty, and the impact of public policy in North America and Europe.
Is Flibanserin Meaningfully Superior to Placebo?

We acknowledge a recent critique by Balon and Segraves (2017) of the efficacy of psychotherapy and of flibanserin for treating hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD). Two points need to be addressed further than we already have (Pyke & Clayton, 2015). One point relates to their onesentence summary, and skeptical question, about the superiority of flibanserin over placebo: “Is one-half additional satisfying sexual events per month clinically significant? ” Satisfying sexual events (SSE) has been roundly criticized as an inappropriate measure in HSDD (for a summary, see Kingsberg & Althof, 2011) because it is not part of the disorder’s definition, it is poorly correlated with the definitional constructs of HSDD (loss of sexual desire and distress related to that loss), it has high placebo response, and, as a count of events, it lacks the needed psychometric properties of a valid measure (Food and Drug Administration [FDA], 2014). Worse, its distribution is highly right-skewed (in the flibanserin Phase 3 trials, baseline values varied from 0 to over 30 yet the mean was about 1.5), so the only appropriate statistical analysis is nonparametric, an argument of Boehringer Ingelheim (the original sponsor of the drug) that was accepted by the FDA (FDA, 2010). For SSE, the extreme variation from a normal distribution is poorly captured by using a mean and a standard deviation as expressions of central tendency and variance. Thus, statistics on effect size, such as Cohen’s d, are invalid as expressions of the magnitude of superiority of drug over placebo for this measure. On the other hand, on validated endpoints of the two constructs relevant to HSDD (sexual desire and related sexual distress), the change with drug or placebo from baseline to end of treatment can be used to provide valid information about effect size of treatments. Using baseline standard deviation and mean change in the three flibanserin Phase 3 trials (Table 1), we calculated effect size as Cohen’s d. Values from 0.2 to 0.4 can be designated as small, values 0.5 to 0.7 as moderate, and values of 0.8 or more as large (Cohen, 1992). Pill placebo treatment for 24 weeks was associated with moderate to large treatment effect sizes, namely 0.5 to 1.0 (median of the six values, 0.80). Drug treatment was associated with large effect sizes, from 0.83 to 1.43 (median, 1.16). Drug-placebo differences in effect size were 0.31 to 0.50, with a median of 0.43, showing a small-to-moderate differential effect size. Thus, it is not only statistical significance (arguably based as much on a large sample size as on clinically
Parking Trajectory Planning Using Multiresolution State Roadmaps

This paper presents a trajectory planning method for automated parking that makes use of multiresolution roadmaps. The proposed roadmap generation algorithm takes as an input manually designed geometric information of a parking lot consisting of parking space layout, obstacle configuration, and a set of geometric features called guidelines. It constructs a roadmap by dividing the guidelines in multiple resolutions until it achieves enough coverage over the set of safe trajectories satisfying vehicle kinematics, curvature limit, and collision-avoidance. Using this roadmap, a complex parking trajectory composed of both forward and reverse motions can be computed with small online computation cost. The proposed method is evaluated in both numerical simulations and real experiments.
Smell identification function as a severity and progression marker in Alzheimer's disease

ABSTRACT Background: Olfactory dysfunction, impaired smell identification in particular, is known as a diagnostic and a marker of conversion in Alzheimer's disease (AD). We aimed to evaluate the associations of olfactory identification impairments with cognition, illness severity, and progression in AD patients. Methods: Fifty-seven outpatients with late onset mild to moderate AD and 24 elderly non-demented controls (NDC) were assessed, at baseline and after three months, for Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test (UPSIT), and Bristol Activities of Daily Living and Neuropsychiatry Inventory. AD participants were classified as Rapid Cognitive Decliners (RCD) defined on a priori with a loss of ≥2 points in MMSE within the previous six months. Results: AD participants had lower olfactory scores than NDC. RCD had lower olfaction scores compared with Non-Rapid Cognitive Decliners (NRCD). Although the baseline UPSIT scores were associated with baseline MMSE scores, it did not interact significantly with change in MMSE over the follow-up period. Using a median split for olfactory scores, the AD participants were classified as Rapid Olfactory Progressors (ROP) (UPSIT ≤ 15) and Slow Olfactory Progressors correlating significantly with RCD/NRCD groups. The ROP group with higher olfactory impairment indicated more symptomatic illness or severity, i.e. lower cognition, higher functional dependence, and presence of behavioral symptoms. Conclusions: Our study supports association of smell identification function with cognition and its utility as an adjunct clinical measure to assess severity in AD. Further work, including larger longitudinal studies, is needed to explore its value in predicting AD progression.
Gearless Variable Speed Wind Turbine In Ac/Dc Hybrid Microgrid By Using Fuzzy Logic Controller

The wind energy plays a vital role to meet the energy demand by making pollution free environment. It is a major challenge for wind turbine generator for generation of maximum power from the fluctuating wind. Presently, a fixed speed generation wind meet the desire energy demand of the customer which improve the efficiency and its power quality. Most of the turbines are designed for its the variable speed, having a gear box coupled with it. However, the application of gearbox causes major problems to the system when it suffers from internal faults and its malfunctioning. To avoid these problems and regular maintenance, the power electronics converter arises its head by doing the replacement of gearbox. Here, a sensor less speed estimator is proposed to estimate the speed of turbine without mechanical sensor. Grid connected wind electricity generation shows the highest rate of growth of any form of electricity generation which achieves the global annual growth rate in the order of 20-25%. Grid integration issues are the major challenges for the expansion of wind power. In this paper dynamic response of squirrel cage induction generator (SCIG) and Doubly fed induction generator are analyzed by varying the wind speed and occurrence of fault
Organicity measures following repeated LSD ingestion.

TWO animal experiments have indicated that relatively large doses of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) can produce changes in central nervous system (CNS) function which persist for periods of time considerably longer than are usually estimated as necessary for drug detoxication. Adey 1 reports cats given a single dose of LSD in amounts of 80µg/kg showed disruption of conditioned responses and accompanying electroencephalographic (EEG) changes which persisted for 20 days. Sharpe et al 2 found that two of four squirrel monkeys given daily doses of from 10 to 40µg/kg required four to six months after discontinuing the drug to regain the predrug level of proficiency for difficult visual size discrimination tasks. Otis replicated this experiment using a larger sample and doses of frim 10 to 100µg/kg. He found similar impairment of both easy and difficult discrimination lasting for several weeks (L.S. Otis, written communication, March 7, 1969). Single
Exact rounding of certain elementary functions

An algorithm is described which produces exactly rounded results for the functions of reciprocal, square root, 2/sup x/, and log 2/sup x/. Hardware designs based on this algorithm are presented for floating point numbers with 16- and 24-b significands. These designs use a polynomial approximation in which coefficients are originally selected based on the Chebyshev series approximation and are then adjusted to ensure exactly rounded results for all inputs. To reduce the number of terms in the approximation, the input interval is divided into subintervals of equal size and different coefficients are used for each subinterval. For floating point numbers with 16-b significands, the exactly rounded value of the function can be computed in 51 ns on a 20-mm/sup 2/ chip. For floating point numbers with 24-b significands, the functions can be computed in 80 ns on a 98-mm/sup 2/ chip. <<ETX>>
A novel approach for gesture control video games based on perceptual features: modelling, tracking and recognition

Gesture recognition has been an attractive research area for decades. Recently, the video game industry has become the major driving force for the development of advanced gesture control technologies. Conventional video games are controlled via physical devices. In contrast, the emerging trend is using camera-based human computer interface (HCI) to capture human gestures and control game playing directly. This paper presents a novel approach for facilitating the development of gesture control-based video games. A time-of-flight (TOF) camera is adopted to provide both depth and greyscale image sequences. 3D perceptual gesture features are extracted and grouped into a generic gesture representation for target gesture recognition. The game control parameters are derived from the recognised gestures on the fly. This framework includes five key modules: 1) perceptual feature extraction; 2) object tracking by perceptual grouping; 3) representation and modelling; 4) gesture recognition; 5) game control parameter generation. A proof-of-concept dart game is implemented for demonstration and evaluation.
Genetic Variation in Calcium-Sensing Receptor and Risk for Colon Cancer

Background: Experimental and epidemiologic studies have suggested that high calcium intake is associated with decreased colon cancer risk, yet very limited data are available for candidate genes in the calcium–vitamin D pathway and colon cancer risk. To address this, we evaluated whether calcium-sensing receptor (CASR) single-nucleotide polymorphisms are associated with colon cancer risk. We also examined interactions among CASR, calcium, and vitamin D intake and previously genotyped vitamin D–related genes. Methods: We conducted a large multicenter population-based case-control study of 1,600 cases and 1,949 controls. Seventeen tagging single-nucleotide polymorphisms for CASR were selected from common single-nucleotide polymorphisms (minor allele frequency, ≥5%) based on resequencing data. Haplotypes were estimated and evaluated using HaploStats. Results: We did not observe an association between any CASR genotypes or haplotypes and colon cancer risk overall. However, when stratified by anatomic site, statistically significant associations were seen with risk for proximal colon cancer [rs10934578 TT: odds ratio, 1.35; 95% confidence interval (95% CI), 1.01-1.81; rs12485716 AG/AA: odds ratio, 0.84; 95% CI, 0.71-1.00; rs4678174 CT/CC: odds ratio, 0.83; 95% CI, 0.70-0.98; rs2270916 CC: odds ratio, 0.43; 95% CI, 0.19-0.97]. Concordantly, we observed a suggested association for a CASR haplotype (rs4678174, rs2270916) with risk for proximal colon cancer (global P = 0.08). We did not observe any meaningful gene-environment (calcium and vitamin D) or gene-gene (CYP24A1, CYP27B1, and VDR) interactions with CASR genotypes and colon cancer risk. Conclusion: Our study does not provide evidence for an overall association between CASR single-nucleotide polymorphisms and colon cancer; however, results suggest a possible role of CASR on proximal colon cancer, and subsite differences are consistent with known calcium biology. Nonetheless, these findings require confirmation. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2008;17(10):2755–65)
Four Weeks of Supplementation With Isolated Soy Protein Attenuates Exercise-Induced Muscle Damage and Enhances Muscle Recovery in Well Trained Athletes: A Randomized Trial

Background The effects of consumption of isolated soy protein (ISP) for a chronic period (4 weeks) on exercise induced muscle damage (EIMD) in athletic population have never been explored. Objectives To examine the effects of ISP on muscle damage indices elicited via a bout of damaging exercise. Patients and Methods Forty males (20 boxers, 20 cyclists) aged 18 - 28 years were randomly assigned to two groups (ISP and Placebo) (n = 20). All participants who engaged themselves in specific, regular training of 30 hours a week during the competitive season were included in the study. Participants consumed the supplement and the placebo for 4 weeks. The damaging exercise consisted of 100 consecutive drop-jumps. Pre and post supplementation readings of the criterion variables, highly sensitive C reactive protein (hs-cRP), creatine Kinase (CK), myeloperoxidase (MPO), isometric muscle strength, maximum aerobic capacity (VO2 max), heart rate (HR) and muscle soreness were obtained at baseline (Day 1), at 24 hours (Day 2) and at 48 hours (Day 3) following EIMD. Results Differences were observed in pre and post supplementation values (P < 0.05) indicating the effectiveness of soy protein in attenuating muscle damage and enhancing muscle recovery. Conclusions Our findings suggest that soy protein; a vegetable based supplement is effective, in ameliorating the negative effects of EIMD in trained athletic population.