Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Relative merits of nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacers and mitochondrial CO1 and ND1 genes for distinguishing among Echinostoma species (Trematoda)

Cryptic species, belonging to the 37 collar-spine Echinostoma group, were distinguished using nuclear rDNA ITS (884 bases) and mtDNA CO1 (257 bases) and ND1 (530 bases) sequences. Sequences were obtained from five 37 collar-spine species, Echinostoma trivolvis, E. paraensei, E. caproni, E. revolutum and E. sp.I, a parthenogenetic isolate from Africa. Three geographic isolates of E. caproni were compared. Average sequence divergence among the 37 collar-spine species range from 2·2% in the rDNA ITS through 8% for the CO1 and 14% for the ND1. In addition, genes were sequenced from 2 non 37 collar-spine species, E. hortense and an undescribed Australian species, E. sp. (Aus). For each gene, distances of terminals from a predicted ancestral sequence were calculated. These indicated that ND1 is diverging significantly faster than the other 2 regions. In the CO1 gene most substitutions are synonymous and saturation has been reached for the majority of pairwise comparisons. The ND1 gene exhibits greater pairwise divergence but less evidence of saturation due to weaker conservation of first and second codon positions. The ITS has no amino acid coding constraints and displays no evidence of saturation. Although all 3 regions successfully distinguished the nominal species, ND1 appears to be the most informative region for investigating relationships within the 37 collar-spine group.
The Information Ecology of Social Media and Online Communities

Social media systems such as weblogs, photo- and link-sharing sites, Wikis and on-line forums are currently thought to produce up to one third of new Web content. One thing that sets these ``Web 2.0'' sites apart from traditional Web pages and resources is that they are intertwined with other forms of networked data. Their standard hyperlinks are enriched by social networks, comments, trackbacks, advertisements, tags, RDF data and metadata. We describe recent work on building systems that use models of the Blogosphere to recognize spam blogs, find opinions on topics, identify communities of interest, derive trust relationships, and detect influential bloggers.
Determining the length of static message for efficient use of FlexRay network

This paper presents a mathematical model to determine the optimal length of static messages that can achieve more efficient use of a FlexRay network. In order to determine the optimal length of static message, the proposed model evaluates the given set of messages with respect to a network utilization index, which is defined in this work. The efficient use of a FlexRay network is achieved by reallocating any static message whose length is equal or greater than the resulting value to the dynamic segment. The effectiveness of the proposed method is investigated by applying to the SAE benchmark data.
Benzyl isothiocyanate induces reactive oxygen species-initiated autophagy and apoptosis in human prostate cancer cells

Benzyl isothiocyanate (BITC) in cruciferous plants, which are part of the human diet, has been shown to induce apoptosis in various types of cancer. In this study, we show that BITC effectively suppresses the growth of cultured human prostate cancer cells (CRW-22Rv1 and PC3) by causing mitochondrial membrane potential loss, caspase 3/7 activation and DNA fragmentation. Furthermore, BITC induces ROS generation in these cells. The induction of apoptosis by BITC was significantly attenuated in the presence of N-acetylcysteine (NAC) and catalase (CAT), well-studied ROS scavengers. The induction of autophagy in BITC-treated cells were also diminished by the application of NAC or CAT. In addition, BITC-induced apoptosis and autophagy were both enhanced by the pretreatment of catalase inhibitor, 3-Amino-1,2,4-triazole (3-AT). Pretreatment with specific inhibitors of autophagy (3-methyladenine or bafilomycin A1) or apoptosis (Z-VAD-FMK) reduced BITC-induced autophagy and apoptosis, respectively, but did not abolish BITC-induced ROS generation. In conclusion, the present study provides evidences that BITC caused prostate cancer cell death was dependent on the ROS status, and clarified the mechanism underlying BITC-induced cell death, which involves the induction of ROS production, autophagy and apoptosis, and the relationship between these three important processes.
Label-Free Primary Screening and Affinity Ranking of Fragment Libraries Using Parallel Analysis of Protein Panels

The authors present fragment screening data obtained using a label-free parallel analysis approach where the binding of fragment library compounds to 4 different target proteins can be screened simultaneously using surface plasmon resonance detection. They suggest this method as a first step in fragment screening to identify and select binders, reducing the demanding requirements on subsequent X-ray or nuclear magnetic resonance studies, and as a valuable “clean-up” tool to eliminate unwanted promiscuous binders from libraries. A small directed fragment library of known thrombin binders and a general 500-compound fragment library were used in this study. Thrombin, blocked thrombin, carbonic anhydrase, and glutathione-S-transferase were immobilized on the sensor chip surface, and the direct binding of the fragments was studied in real time. Only 12 µg of each protein is needed for screening of a 3000-compound fragment library. For screening, a binding site-blocked target as reference facilitates the identification of binding site-selective hits and the signals from other reference proteins for the elimination of false positives. The scope and limitations of this screening approach are discussed for both target-directed and general fragment libraries. (Journal of Biomolecular Screening 2008:202-209)
Comparison of Different Scattering Mechanisms in the Ge (111), (110), and (100) Inversion Layers of nMOSFETs With Si nMOSFETs Under High Normal Electric Fields

In this paper, we report, for the first time, that surface roughness scattering is not necessarily the dominant scattering mechanism in the high-normal-field region of Ge nMOSFETs. This statement is quite different from the well-recognized situation in Si MOSFETs. In Ge(100), phonon scattering is dominant in the high-field region. Thus, it is difficult to increase the high-normal-field mobility in Ge(100) nMOSFETs by controlling the interface roughness. In contrast, because Ge(111) and Ge(110) are free of intervalley phonon scattering, the high-field mobility in Ge(111) and Ge(110) nMOSFETs could be enhanced by the Ge interface engineering. Furthermore, different from that in Si nMOSFETs, mobility limited by surface roughness scattering in Ge nMOSFETs shows a strong temperature dependence due to the valley occupancy change of electrons. The results in this paper should facilitate efforts to increase the high-normal-field mobility in Ge nMOSFETs.
Borderline Personality Disorder and Oxytocin: Review of Clinical Trials and Future Directions.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a common mental disorder characterized by a pervasive pattern of emotional Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a common mental disorder characterized by a pervasive pattern of emotional lability, impulsivity, interpersonal difficulties, identity disturbances, and disturbed cognition. Traditional pharmacotherapies are effective in treating some of these core symptoms but have only modest effects on the domain of interpersonal dysfunction of BPD. Thus there is a need to develop new, neurobiologically informed pharmacological treatments for BPD. This review focuses on the potential use of intranasal oxytocin (OXT), which has key roles in the regulation of complex social cognition and behaviors, to target symptoms of interpersonal dysfunction in BPD. Surprisingly, despite promising data on the prosocial effects of OXT, only 5 trials in BPD have been published to date. These trials show mixed results with on one hand, a decrease of emotional responses to stress and on the other hand, some "paradoxical" reactions with worsened interpersonal anxiety and decreased cooperative behavior. These mixed results are interpreted according to different theoretical models and also in light of some methodological limitations. Further studies are needed to understand the effect of OXT in patients with BPD and ongoing clinical trials will provide some answers to remaining questions on the use of OXT in BPD. Recommendations for future studies are also proposed in this review.
SNP deserts of Asian cultivated rice: genomic regions under domestication

When performing a genome‐wide comparison between indica (93‐11) and japonica (Nipponbare), we find 8% of the genome, which have an extremely low SNP rate (< 1 SNP/kb). Inside these ‘SNP deserts’, experimentally confirmed genes show increased Ka/Ks that indicate adaptive selection. To further elucidate this connection, we survey the level and pattern of genetic variation in both cultivated and wild rice groups, using 155 noncoding regions located within SNP deserts. The results suggest that cultivated rice has greatly reduced genetic variation within SNP deserts as compared to either the nondesert or corresponding genomic regions in wild rice. Consistent with this reduction in genetic variation, we find a biased distribution of derived allele frequency in the cultivated group, indicative of positive selection. Furthermore, over half of the confirmed, domestication‐related genes are found within SNP deserts, also suggesting that SNP deserts are strongly related to domestication, and might be the key sites in the process of domestication.
Emergence and evolution of informal roles during a canoe expedition

ABSTRACT This exploratory study was conducted to illuminate aspects relevant to the emergence and evolution of informal roles in a group during a canoe expedition. Following tenets of ethnography, the first author collected observational and interview (conversational and focus group) data while participating as a member of the expedition. Three general dimensions were revealed with regards to emerging and evolving informal roles: context aspects; role occupant aspects; and group member aspects. Informal roles were found to be important structural components which contributed to group productivity and harmony. Findings are discussed in relation to the broader literature while questions are raised regarding how informal roles have been conceptualized. Implications include considering how informal roles relate to individual (e.g. satisfaction) and group (e.g. cohesion) level constructs and how outdoor leaders may benefit from understanding how informal roles emerge and evolve.
Modeling patient perceptions of service recovery: The effects of perceived fairness on health center repatronage

Repatronage intentions towards Taiwanese health centers that had received patient complaints and implemented service recovery were investigated. Valid samples ( N = 168) were collected from the complaint behavior of patients resulting from their experiences of service failures in health centers. Results indicate that perceptions of distributive fairness and procedural fairness in health centers were related to repatronage intentions. In contrast, interactional fairness did not have the anticipated relationship with repatronage intentions. Consequently, health centers personnel should identify themselves with patients’ concerns and take a caring and sympathetic attitude towards them so as to encourage people to revisit the health centers.
Tracking cell proliferation using the far red fluorescent dye SNARF‐1

The [3H]thymidine incorporation assay and staining of living cells with fluorescent dyes like carboxyfluorescein diacetate, succinimidyl ester (CFSE) have evolved as valuable methods for studying T cell responses. To assess proliferation of cells already labeled by FITC, CFSE, GFP, or other “green” molecules or to simultaneously track two otherwise indistinguishable cell populations in mixed cell cultures, it would be desirable to have a dye with distinct fluorescent properties for this application.
On the transmit strategy for the interference MIMO relay channel in the low power regime

This paper studies the interference channel with two transmitters and two receivers in the presence of a MIMO relay in the low transmit power regime. A communication scheme combining block Markov encoding, beamforming, and Willems' backward decoding is used. With this scheme, we get an interference channel with channel gains dependent on the signal power. A power allocation for this scheme is proposed, and the achievable rate region with this power allocation is given. We show that, at low transmit powers, with equal power constraints at the relay and the transmitters, the interference channel with a MIMO relay achieves a sum rate that is linear in the power. This sum rate is determined by the channel setup. We also show that in the presence of abundant power at the relay, the transmit strategy is significantly simplified, and the MAC from the transmitters to the relay forms the bottle neck of the system from the sum rate point of view.
The engagement in classroom learning of years ten and eleven Western Australian students.

Firstly, the raters experienced differing levels of difficulty in identifying the respective subconstructs in the students. That is, the 11 items in the instrument presented varying levels of difficulty of affirmation. Secondly, the engagement scores differed by gender (boys displaying lower levels of engagement) and whether favourite or least favourite subject was reported (favourite subjects displaying higher levels of engagement). The year of schooling of the student and the subject area (e.g. English, Mathematics, Science, and Society and Environment) did not account for variance in engagement scores. The implications of these findings are discussed.
Elevated high‐sensitivity C‐reactive protein, a marker of advanced stage gastric cancer and postgastrectomy disease recurrence

Gastric cancer recurrence after curative surgery remains high. Although no preoperative marker of gastric cancer progression after radical gastrectomy exists, recent studies suggest that C‐reactive protein (CRP) is associated with cancer progression. Our study evaluated the significance of preoperative high‐sensitivity CRP (hs‐CRP) levels as a marker of disease progression after radical gastrectomy.
Pollinator biodiversity and floral resource use in Ecballium elaterium (Cucurbitaceae), a Mediterranean endemic

Pollinator biodiversity on Ecballium elaterium (L.) A. Richard was studied for 2 years at 2 sites in southern France. Six families, 15 genera, and 43 species of bees were collected from the flowers, and 33 bee species carried Ecballium pollen in their scopae. The numerically dominant species were Lasioglossum malachurum (Kirby), the honey bee, Apis mellifera L. , and Ceratina cyanea (Kirby). Few pollinators were observed in 1997 due to a drought. In 1996, mean forager density was slightly over one bee per 100 flowers throughout the flowering period. Most visitors (98%) were female bees which foraged for both pollen and nectar. Most visits (97%) were to staminate flowers and visitation to pistillate flowers was by deceit since these are nectarless. Behavior of nectar foragers on staminate flowers differed according to body size. Large bees foraged for nectar mostly in the afternoon after nectar sugar concentrations reached high values while smaller bees foraged for nectar throughout the day. Ecballium / bee / nectar / pollen / foraging / deceit pollination
Two novel surface model based inversion algorithms using multi-frequency polSAR data

The aim of this paper is to present two novel surface model based inversion algorithms using multifrequency and polSAR data. The first part of this work introduces a polarimetric scattering model using the integral equation model (IEM) with a transition model for the reflection coefficient. Polarimetric descriptors: the entropy (H), the anisotropy (A), and the mean alpha angle obtained from the Cloude/Pottier polarimetric decomposition theorem are employed for surface characterization. A new polarimetric parameter: the eigenvalue relative difference (ERD) is developed to overcome the anisotropy limitations in case of rough surfaces. Built on relevant polarimetric descriptors: H, alpha1 and ERD, two novel surface model based inversion algorithms using multifrequency polSAR data are presented. The first algorithm is built up in a "low frequency" (P to S band) - "high frequency" (C to K band) scheme. This algorithm retrieves the soil parameters by using multifrequency least-square fit
Characterization of Drosophila Tyramine β-HydroxylaseGene and Isolation of Mutant Flies Lacking Octopamine

Octopamine is likely to be an important neuroactive molecule in invertebrates. Here we report the molecular cloning of theDrosophila melanogaster gene, which encodes tyramine β-hydroxylase (TBH), the enzyme that catalyzes the last step in octopamine biosynthesis. The deduced amino acid sequence of the encoded protein exhibits 39% identity to the evolutionarily related mammalian dopamine β-hydroxylase enzyme. We generated a polyclonal antibody against the protein product of Tβh gene, and we demonstrate that the TBH expression pattern is remarkably similar to the previously described octopamine immunoreactivity inDrosophila. We further report the creation of null mutations at the Tβh locus, which result in complete absence of TBH protein and blockage of the octopamine biosynthesis. Tβh-null flies are octopamine-less but survive to adulthood. They are normal in external morphology, but the females are sterile, because although they mate, they retain fully developed eggs. Finally, we demonstrate that this defect in egg laying is associated with the octopamine deficit, because females that have retained eggs initiate egg laying when transferred onto octopamine-supplemented food.
Synthetic ALSPAC longitudinal datasets for the Big Data VR project

Three synthetic datasets - of observation size 15,000, 155,000 and 1,555,000 participants, respectively - were created by simulating eleven cardiac and anthropometric variables from nine collection ages of the ALSAPC birth cohort study. The synthetic datasets retain similar data properties to the ALSPAC study data they are simulated from (co-variance matrices, as well as the mean and variance values of the variables) without including the original data itself or disclosing participant information. In this instance, the three synthetic datasets have been utilised in an academia-industry collaboration to build a prototype virtual reality data analysis software, but they could have a broader use in method and software development projects where sensitive data cannot be freely shared.
A Multi-objective QoS Mechanism for Web Applications: Improved EFXCP

The research of QoS is concerned with multiple QoS requirements (multi-QR): queue delay, delay jitter and guaranteed throughput etc. As different QoS requirements have different attributes, it is hard to ensure multi-QR in one QoS mechanism. A common method to ensure multi-QR is normalizing multi-QR into one value range by a utility function and then finding the optimal solution of the utility function. However, although multi-QR are considered in such QoS mechanisms, in fact, no concrete QoS requirement can been strictly ensured, which may be embarrassing because web application usually requires one or more concrete QoS requirements to be satisfied strictly. Therefore, it is significant to design a real multi-objective QoS mechanism to satisfy different QoS requirements of various web applications. Our previous works proposed an efficient and fair explicit congestion control protocol (EFXCP) which can achieve excellent performance in terms of high link utilization, low queue delay, low delay jitter, etc. Because different web applications have different throughput requirements, to further satisfy throughput requirements of web applications, we extend EFXCP in this paper to implement an improved EFXCP (IEFXCP). Firstly, ToS field in IP header is utilized to classify different web applications, and then the relative fair bandwidth allocation is proposed between different types of web applications to preferentially ensure throughput requirements of high prior web applications. Therefore, IEFXCP can simultaneously satisfy multi-QR: queue delay, delay jitter and guaranteed throughput. The performance of IEFXCP is validated by extensive NS2 simulations over a wide range of network scenarios, the results show that IEFXCP is a real multi-objective QoS mechanism. DOI : http://dx.doi. org/10.11591/telkomnika.v12i2. 4009
Identification of Hepatic Niche Harboring Human Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemic Cells via the SDF-1/CXCR4 Axis

In acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients, the bone marrow niche is widely known to be an important element of treatment response and relapse. Furthermore, a characteristic liver pathology observed in ALL patients implies that the hepatic microenvironment provides an extramedullary niche for leukemic cells. However, it remains unclear whether the liver actually provides a specific niche. The mechanism underlying this pathology is also poorly understood. Here, to answer these questions, we reconstituted the histopathology of leukemic liver by using patients-derived primary ALL cells into NOD/SCID/Yc null mice. The liver pathology in this model was similar to that observed in the patients. By using this model, we clearly demonstrated that bile duct epithelial cells form a hepatic niche that supports infiltration and proliferation of ALL cells in the liver. Furthermore, we showed that functions of the niche are maintained by the SDF-1/CXCR4 axis, proposing a novel therapeutic approach targeting the extramedullary niche by inhibition of the SDF-1/CXCR4 axis. In conclusion, we demonstrated that the liver dissemination of leukemia is not due to nonselective infiltration, but rather systematic invasion and proliferation of leukemic cells in hepatic niche. Although the contribution of SDF-1/CXCR4 axis is reported in some cancer cells or leukemic niches such as bone marrow, we demonstrated that this axis works even in the extramedullary niche of leukemic cells. Our findings form the basis for therapeutic approaches that target the extramedullary niche by inhibiting the SDF-1/CXCR4 axis.
Inclusion seen by student teachers in special education: differences among Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish students

This article describes various views of special teacher students towards inclusion. In order to examine these, we analysed a series of statements made by students in Finland, Norway and Sweden. The specific aims were to see how these views can be seen as supportive or challenging for inclusion in schools. A questionnaire with one closed question and two open-ended questions was used in all countries. The results show that students in similar Nordic countries have different views about inclusion. Norwegian students mostly supported inclusion while Finnish students expressed the most reservations. The arguments about inclusion by Norwegian students were the most pupil-focused; those by Finns were teacher-focused, with Swedes being in between. The results seem to reflect the educational policy in these countries. Discussions, more information, as well as good models of inclusion seem to be needed. The implications of these findings for special and regular teacher education are also discussed.
A Comparative Analysis of Spiritualism in Three Indian Poets

The present paper is an analytical scrutiny into the spiritual. The theoretical lens is Deleuze's concept of the virtual; the paper takes the spiritual as the virtual which is actualized through the processes of individuation and plane of consistency. On the plane of consistency, the virtual becomes actual, or individualized, based on degree of power and speed; hence asymmetrical relation.