Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Randomized, Single-Blind, Controlled, Parallel Assignment Study of Exercise Versus Education as Adjuvant in the Treatment of Peripheral Neuropathic Pain

Objective:Some forms of chronic pain are receptive to exercise therapy for maintenance of pain relief. We evaluated the impact of a balanced exercise program in the management of human peripheral neuropathic pain compared with an educational intervention. Methods:This was a single-center, randomized, single-blind, controlled study using an intention-to-treat protocol. Patients with confirmed neuropathic pain and a pain score ≥4 (0 to 10 scale) on visual analog scale (VAS) continued their regular pain therapies and were randomized to 6 months of either a balanced exercise program or an educational program. VAS for pain severity was the primary outcome variable. Characteristics of pain, function, mood, anxiety, sleep, and quality of life along with Single Stage Treadmill Walking Test calculating maximal oxygen consumption (VO2) formed the secondary outcome measures. Results:Seventy-eight patients were screened and 54 participated, with 28 randomized to exercise and 26 randomized to education. A total of 19 (68%) and 20 patients (77%) completed exercise and education, respectively. VAS scores improved 17% for the exercise group as compared with 9% for the education group (P=0.08). The only secondary outcome measure demonstrating improvement was VO2, which improved in exercise participants (25.6±4.5 mL/kg/min at baseline vs. 28.9±3.8 mL/kg/min at 6 mo). Discussion:A balanced exercise program was beneficial for exercise capacity, but produced only a medium-sized effect without statistical significance. A small sample size and unexpectedly high dropout rates may have limited our ability to demonstrate statistically significant improvement in pain relief.
Environmental regulation of expression of virulence determinants in Bordetella pertussis

The trans-activator vir is required for expression of all virulence-associated genes in Bordetella pertussis. The nature of the global regulation of these factors by vir and environmental signals was examined by Northern blot analysis and with beta-galactosidase transcriptional fusions in five vir-regulated genes. Northern blots suggested that vir regulates at the level of transcription since Vir- organisms did not exhibit detectable mRNA from vir-regulated loci. Environmental signals such as high levels of salts, nicotinic acid, and 6-chloronicotinic acid or growth at low temperatures were examined. Of all of the cations and anions examined, only SO4 ions eliminated transcription of vir-regulated genes and reduced transcription of vir itself, suggesting that global regulation is obtained by modifying expression of the essential component, vir. Organisms grown on 6-chloronicotinic acid or quinaldic acid did not have detectable transcription from vir-regulated loci. Modulation by nicotinic acid, on the other hand, was strain dependent, acting at the level of transcription in strain 18-323 but not in Tohama I derivatives. Growth at lower temperatures reduced, but did not eliminate, transcription from vir-regulated loci. At 28 degrees C the ratio of pertussis toxin mRNA to recA mRNA (a non-vir-regulated factor) was equivalent to that at 37 degrees C, suggesting that transcription at low temperatures is reduced in a proportional manner and need not involve vir.
Humans Strengthen Bottom-Up Effects and Weaken Trophic Cascades in a Terrestrial Food Web

Ongoing debate about whether food webs are primarily regulated by predators or by primary plant productivity, cast as top-down and bottom-up effects, respectively, may becoming superfluous. Given that most of the world's ecosystems are human dominated we broadened this dichotomy by considering human effects in a terrestrial food-web. We studied a multiple human-use landscape in southwest Alberta, Canada, as opposed to protected areas where previous terrestrial food-web studies have been conducted. We used structural equation models (SEMs) to assess the strength and direction of relationships between the density and distribution of: (1) humans, measured using a density index; (2) wolves (Canis lupus), elk (Cervus elpahus) and domestic cattle (Bos taurus), measured using resource selection functions, and; (3) forage quality, quantity and utilization (measured at vegetation sampling plots). Relationships were evaluated by taking advantage of temporal and spatial variation in human density, including day versus night, and two landscapes with the highest and lowest human density in the study area. Here we show that forage-mediated effects of humans had primacy over predator-mediated effects in the food web. In our parsimonious SEM, occurrence of humans was most correlated with occurrence of forage (β = 0.637, p<0.0001). Elk and cattle distribution were correlated with forage (elk day: β = 0.400, p<0.0001; elk night: β = 0.369, p<0.0001; cattle day: β = 0.403, p<0.0001; cattle, night: β = 0.436, p<0.0001), and the distribution of elk or cattle and wolves were positively correlated during daytime (elk: β = 0.293, p <0.0001, cattle: β = 0.303, p<0.0001) and nighttime (elk: β = 0.460, p<0.0001, cattle: β = 0.482, p<0.0001). Our results contrast with research conducted in protected areas that suggested human effects in the food web are primarily predator-mediated. Instead, human influence on vegetation may strengthen bottom-up predominance and weaken top-down trophic cascades in ecosystems. We suggest that human influences on ecosystems may usurp top-down and bottom-up effects.
Structural models of the evolutionarily conservative central domain of silk-moth chorion proteins.

Silk-moth chorion proteins belong to a small number of families: A, B, C, Hc-A and Hc-B. The central domain is an evolutionarily conservative region in each family, of variable length and composition between families. This domain shows clear 6-fold periodicities for various amino acid residues, e.g. glycine. The periodicities, together with the well-documented prevalence of beta-sheet and beta-turn secondary structure of chorion proteins, strongly support a structural model in which four-residue beta-strands alternate with beta-turns, forming a compact antiparallel, probably twisted beta-sheet. Conformational analysis, aided by interactive graphics refinement and recent experimental findings, further suggest that this structure consists of beta-strands, alternating with I' and II' beta-turns, and apparently forms the basis for the molecular and supramolecular assembly of chorion.
Mid-infrared quantum cascade laser based trace gas technologies: Recent progress and applications in health and environmental monitoring

This talk will focus on recent advances in the development of sensors based on mid-infrared (mid-IR) semiconductor lasers for the detection, quantification and monitoring of trace gas species as well as their applications to medical diagnostics, environmental monitoring, industrial process control, and security. The development of compact trace gas sensors, in particular based on quantum cascade (QC) and interband cascade (IC) lasers, permits the targeting of strong fundamental rotational-vibrational transitions in the mid-IR, that are one to two orders of magnitude more intense than overtone transitions in the near-IR.
An aircraft electric power testbed for validating automatically synthesized reactive control protocols

Modern aircraft increasingly rely on electric power for subsystems that have traditionally run on mechanical power. The complexity and safety-criticality of aircraft electric power systems have therefore increased, rendering the design of these systems more challenging. This work is motivated by the potential that correct-by-construction reactive controller synthesis tools may have in increasing the effectiveness of the electric power system design cycle. In particular, we have built an experimental hardware platform that captures some key elements of aircraft electric power systems within a simplified setting. We intend to use this platform for validating the applicability of theoretical advances in correct-by-construction control synthesis and for studying implementation-related challenges. We demonstrate a simple design workflow from formal specifications to auto-generated code that can run on software models and be used in hardware implementation. We show some preliminary results with different control architectures on the developed hardware testbed.
Ciliary Neurotrophic Factor Induces Genes Associated with Inflammation and Gliosis in the Retina: A Gene Profiling Study of Flow-Sorted, Müller Cells

Background Ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF), a member of the interleukin-6 cytokine family, has been implicated in the development, differentiation and survival of retinal neurons. The mechanisms of CNTF action as well as its cellular targets in the retina are poorly understood. It has been postulated that some of the biological effects of CNTF are mediated through its action via retinal glial cells; however, molecular changes in retinal glia induced by CNTF have not been elucidated. We have, therefore, examined gene expression dynamics of purified Müller (glial) cells exposed to CNTF in vivo. Methodology/Principal Findings Müller cells were flow-sorted from mgfap-egfp transgenic mice one or three days after intravitreal injection of CNTF. Microarray analysis using RNA from purified Müller cells showed differential expression of almost 1,000 transcripts with two- to seventeen-fold change in response to CNTF. A comparison of transcriptional profiles from Müller cells at one or three days after CNTF treatment showed an increase in the number of transcribed genes as well as a change in the expression pattern. Ingenuity Pathway Analysis showed that the differentially regulated genes belong to distinct functional types such as cytokines, growth factors, G-protein coupled receptors, transporters and ion channels. Interestingly, many genes induced by CNTF were also highly expressed in reactive Müller cells from mice with inherited or experimentally induced retinal degeneration. Further analysis of gene profiles revealed 20–30% overlap in the transcription pattern among Müller cells, astrocytes and the RPE. Conclusions/Significance Our studies provide novel molecular insights into biological functions of Müller glial cells in mediating cytokine response. We suggest that CNTF remodels the gene expression profile of Müller cells leading to induction of networks associated with transcription, cell cycle regulation and inflammatory response. CNTF also appears to function as an inducer of gliosis in the retina.
The Synthesis Of Epr Differentiable Spinlabels And Their Coupling To Uridine

For EPR measurements of RNA, DNA, or proteins, the occurrence of the paramagnetic species is necessary. The aim of this work is to improve the synthesis of two different EPR spinlabels 2,2,6,6-tetra methyl-3,4-dehydro-piperidin-N-oxyl-4-acetylene (TEMPA) 6 and 15N-labeled TEMPA 6* and their coupling to uridine. The yield of the synthesis of TEMPA could be increased to 40% and the second nitroxide 2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-3,4-dehydro-piperidin-15N-oxyl-4-acetylene 6* could be synthesized with a yield of 11%.
Security in Voice Authentication

We evaluate the security of human voice password databases from an information theoretical point of view. More specifically, we provide a theoretical estimation on the amount of entropy in human voice when processed using the conventional GMM-UBM technologies and the MFCCs as the acoustic features. The theoretical estimation gives rise to a methodology for analyzing the security level in a corpus of human voice. That is, given a database containing speech signals, we provide a method for estimating the relative entropy (Kullback-Leibler divergence) of the database thereby establishing the security level of the speaker verification system. To demonstrate this, we analyze the YOHO database, a corpus of voice samples collected from 138 speakers and show that the amount of entropy extracted is less than 14-bits. We also present a practical attack that succeeds in impersonating the voice of any speaker within the corpus with a 98% success probability with as little as 9 trials. The attack will still succeed with a rate of 62.50% if 4 attempts are permitted. Further, based on the same attack rationale, we mount an attack on the ALIZE speaker verification system. We show through experimentation that the attacker can impersonate any user in the database of 69 people with about 25% success rate with only 5 trials. The success rate can achieve more than 50% by increasing the allowed authentication attempts to 20. Finally, when the practical attack is cast in terms of an entropy metric, we find that the theoretical entropy estimate almost perfectly predicts the success rate of the practical attack, giving further credence to the theoretical model and the associated entropy estimation technique.
JEIDA’s Bilingual Corpus and Other Corpora for NLP Research in Japan

The committee on text processing technology of JEIDA (Japan Electronics Industry Development Association) has been developing its bilingual corpus for research on machine translation systems since the 1996 Japanese fiscal year. An overview of this bilingual corpus is presented in this paper. And other linguistic data recently developed in Japan, which includes the RWC text database and the simple sentence data by the CRL and IPA.
Glycosome turnover in Leishmania major is mediated by autophagy

Autophagy is a central process behind the cellular remodeling that occurs during differentiation of Leishmania, yet the cargo of the protozoan parasite's autophagosome is unknown. We have identified glycosomes, peroxisome-like organelles that uniquely compartmentalize glycolytic and other metabolic enzymes in Leishmania and other kinetoplastid parasitic protozoa, as autophagosome cargo. It has been proposed that the number of glycosomes and their content change during the Leishmania life cycle as a key adaptation to the different environments encountered. Quantification of RFP-SQL-labeled glycosomes showed that promastigotes of L. major possess ∼20 glycosomes per cell, whereas amastigotes contain ∼10. Glycosome numbers were significantly greater in promastigotes and amastigotes of autophagy-defective L. major Δatg5 mutants, implicating autophagy in glycosome homeostasis and providing a partial explanation for the previously observed growth and virulence defects of these mutants. Use of GFP-ATG8 to label autophagosomes showed glycosomes to be cargo in ∼15% of them; glycosome-containing autophagosomes were trafficked to the lysosome for degradation. The number of autophagosomes increased 10-fold during differentiation, yet the percentage of glycosome-containing autophagosomes remained constant. This indicates that increased turnover of glycosomes was due to an overall increase in autophagy, rather than an upregulation of autophagosomes containing this cargo. Mitophagy of the single mitochondrion was not observed in L. major during normal growth or differentiation; however, mitochondrial remnants resulting from stress-induced fragmentation colocalized with autophagosomes and lysosomes, indicating that autophagy is used to recycle these damaged organelles. These data show that autophagy in Leishmania has a central role not only in maintaining cellular homeostasis and recycling damaged organelles but crucially in the adaptation to environmental change through the turnover of glycosomes.
STUDY OF ELECTRON, PHONON AND CRYSTAL STABILITY VERSUS THERMOELECTRIC PROPERTIES IN Mg2X (X = Si, Sn) COMPOUNDS AND THEIR ALLOYS

We present results of extensive theoretical and experimental investigations of Mg2Si and Mg2Sn and their Mg2Si1-xSnx alloys. Electronic and phonon properties of binary compounds were studied by ab initio calculations. Then, both compounds were synthesized by the solid-state reaction and electrical resistivity and thermopower was measured at high temperature (300–900 K). In both the compounds, the theoretical bandgaps (0.56 eV in Mg2Si and 0.16 eV in Mg2Sn) agree very well with the experimental values (0.6 eV in Mg2Si and 0.17 eV from activation law in Mg2Sn) upon applying the modified Becke–Johnson semilocal exchange potential and including spin–orbit coupling in the calculations. Calculated phonon spectra support crystal stability of both compounds. For Mg2Si, the contributions from Si and Mg are spread over all the spectrum (0–10 THz), whereas in the case of Mg2Sn, a gap opens around 4 THz with Sn and Mg contributions dominating in lower and higher energy range, respectively. The calculated heat capacity at low temperature (0–300 K) fairly agrees with available experimental data. The crystal structure of Mg2Si1-xSnx with x = 0, 0.25, 0.4, 0.75, 1 was studied by X-ray diffraction measurements. The alloy compositions exist in the ranges 0 < x < 0.4 and 0.6 < x < 1 and the obtained samples are almost single phased. Detailed crystal stability study with temperature revealed that all powder samples started to decompose into MgO, Si and Sn at ~ 630 K. For hot pressed bulk materials, the decomposition is much slower than in powder compounds but it still appears. Interestingly, thermoelectric properties measurements performed in Mg2Si1-xSnx show that both electrical resistivity and thermopower curves are repeatable during temperature cycles up to 770 K. On the other hand, temperature-dependent X-ray powder diffraction suggests that these compounds are not stable. Furthermore, electronic structure calculations of almost 40 impurities (s- and p-block, 3d and 4d transition metal elements) diluted in Mg2Si and Mg2Si0.75Sn0.25 were performed by the KKR-CPA method. Based on calculated impurity density of states the character of doping (n or p) is predicted, which, however, strongly depends on the substituted crystallographic site.
Micropropagation of an Exotic Ornamental Plant, Calathea crotalifera, for Production of High Quality Plantlets

A successful protocol was established for micropropagation in two selected varieties of exotic ornamental plants, Calathea crotalifera. The effects of different sterilization techniques, explant type, and the combination and concentration of plant growth regulators on shoots induction were studied. The axillary shoot buds explants sprouted from rhizomes in soil free conditions showed high induction rate of shoots with lowest contamination percentage when treated with combination of 30% (v/v) NaOCl, 70% (v/v) ethanol, and 0.3% (w/v) HgCl2. In the present study, the highest number of multiple shoots was obtained in MS basal medium supplemented with 3.5 mg/L 6-Benzylaminopurine (BAP), 1.0 mg/L 1-Naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA), 3% sucrose, and 6 g/L plant agar for both varieties and was used as multiplication medium. Microshoots were highly induced when the young shoot bud explants were incised longitudinally prior subculture. Chlorophyll analysis was studied to test the effects of activated charcoal and L-glutamine on reduction of necrosis problem. The maximum roots induction was recorded on MS medium supplemented with 1.0 mg/L 1-Naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) compared to indolebutyric acid (IBA). The complete regenerated plantlets were successfully acclimatized in the soilless medium under greenhouse condition. This is the first report of rapid mass propagation for C. crotalifera.
The Small Heat-shock Protein HspL Is a VirB8 Chaperone Promoting Type IV Secretion-mediated DNA Transfer*

Agrobacterium tumefaciens is a plant pathogen that utilizes a type IV secretion system (T4SS) to transfer DNA and effector proteins into host cells. In this study we discovered that an α-crystallin type small heat-shock protein (α-Hsp), HspL, is a molecular chaperone for VirB8, a T4SS assembly factor. HspL is a typical α-Hsp capable of protecting the heat-labile model substrate citrate synthase from thermal aggregation. It forms oligomers in a concentration-dependent manner in vitro. Biochemical fractionation revealed that HspL is mainly localized in the inner membrane and formed large complexes with certain VirB protein subassemblies. Protein-protein interaction studies indicated that HspL interacts with VirB8, a bitopic integral inner membrane protein that is essential for T4SS assembly. Most importantly, HspL is able to prevent the aggregation of VirB8 fused with glutathione S-transferase in vitro, suggesting that it plays a role as VirB8 chaperone. The chaperone activity of two HspL variants with amino acid substitutions (F98A and G118A) for both citrate synthase and glutathione S-transferase-VirB8 was reduced and correlated with HspL functions in T4SS-mediated DNA transfer and virulence. This study directly links in vitro and in vivo functions of an α-Hsp and reveals a novel α-Hsp function in T4SS stability and bacterial virulence.
Controllably local gene delivery mediated by polyelectrolyte multilayer films assembled from gene-loaded nanopolymersomes and hyaluronic acid

To explore a spatiotemporally controllable gene delivery system with high efficiency and safety, polyelectrolyte multilayer (PEM) films were constructed on titanium or quartz substrates via layer-by-layer self-assembly technique by using plasmid deoxyribonucleic acid-loaded lipopolysaccharide–amine nanopolymersomes (pNPs) as polycations and hyaluronic acid (HA) as polyanions. pNPs were chosen because they have high transfection efficiency (>95%) in mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and induce significant angiogenesis in zebrafish in conventional bolus transfection. The assembly process of PEM films was confirmed by analyses of quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, infrared, contact angle, and zeta potential along with atomic force microscopy observation. Quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation analysis reveals that this film grows in an exponential mode, pNPs are the main contributor to the film mass, and the film mass can be modulated in a relatively wide range (1.0–29 μg/cm2) by adjusting the deposition layer number. Atomic force microscopy observation shows that the assembly leads to the formation of a patterned film with three-dimensional tree-like nanostructure, where the branches are composed of beaded chains (pNP beads are strung on HA molecular chains), and the incorporated pNPs keep structure intact. In vitro release experiment shows that plasmid deoxyribonucleic acid can be gradually released from films over 14 days, and the released plasmid deoxyribonucleic acid exists in a complex form. In vitro cell experiments demonstrate that PEM films can enhance the adhesion and proliferation of MSCs and efficiently transfect MSCs in situ in vitro for at least 4 days. Our results suggest that a (pNPs/HA)n system can mediate efficient transfection in stem cells in a spatially and temporally controllable pattern, highlighting its huge potential in local gene therapy.
Calculating vegetation index based on the universal pattern decomposition method (VIUPD) using Landsat 8

This study introduced the vegetation index based on the universal pattern decomposition method (VIUPD) and then applied on a new sensor - Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI). VIUPD is a valuable sensor-independent spectral analysis method. Each pixel is described as the linear mixture of standard spectral patterns for water, vegetation, soil and supplementary patterns included when necessary. In the present paper, processing procedure about the data acquisition, radiometric calibration and atmospheric correction have been elaborated. The normalized reflectance (P) of four standard samples resampled to OLI has been listed. For validation of the results, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and VIUPD have been calculated for comparison. The results showed that VIUPD is more sensitive to the vegetation amount change even in the high vegetation coverage, while the NDVI is more rapidly saturated in high vegetation cover area. In addition, VIUPD is more sensitive to the soil background than NDVI.