Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evidence that asymmetry of the membrane/cytoskeletal complex in human red blood cell ghosts is responsible for their biconcave shape

Significance The compositional basis for the biconcave shape of the human red blood cell is unknown. The present work used red blood cell ghosts, which retain the ability to become biconcave discs, which were centrifuged as spheres onto coated coverslips. It was found that during their centrifugation, they became oriented with a dense band located in an equatorial plane of the sphered ghost. When the ghosts were transformed into biconcave discs, they collapsed in place with the dense band in the rim. These shape changes were recorded microscopically. These results indicate that the biconcave shape depends on differences in the density between their rim and the dimple regions and specify that the underlying cytoskeletal complex is asymmetrically distributed. The main conclusion of the results reported in this article is that during centrifugation, sphered red blood cell ghosts become oriented in their attachment to a coverslip such that a dense band within the ghosts lies parallel to the centrifugal field. The result of the orientation of this dense band is that when the attached spherical ghosts are shrunken to become biconcave discs, they do so by directly collapsing on themselves without any lateral motion. This result is interpreted to suggest that a dense band, relative to the dimple, resides in the rim of the ghost and is responsible for its biconcave shape. These results confirm the conclusions reached in a previous publication in which there was the uncertainty that the shape change of the spherical ghosts to discs could not be directly imaged. The present work corrects this limitation by use of a chamber in which the tonicity of the solutions in the ghosts’ surround could be altered by perfusion coupled with constant microscopic imaging. The identity of the components that are responsible for the differences in the density (mass) between the rim and the dimple regions of the cytoskeletal/membrane complex in the biconcave disk are unknown. It is also unknown what forces apply or what the explanation is for the unique orientation of the dense band during the ghosts’ centrifugation, as described in this article. Nevertheless, the results reported in this article indicate the membrane’s underlying cytoskeletal complex is asymmetrically distributed.
Using a Partial Geometric Feature for Similarity Search of 3D Objects

Searching in a spatial database for 3D objects that are similar to a given object is an important task that arises in a number of database applications, for example, in medicine and CAD fields. Most of the existing similarity searching methods are based on global features of 3D objects. Developing a feature set or a feature vector of 3D object using their partial features is a challenging. In this paper, we propose a novel segment weight vector for matching 3D objects rapidly. We also describe a partial and geometrical similarity based solution to the problem of searching for similar 3D objects. As the first step, we split each 3D object into parts according to its topology. Next, we introduce a new method to extract the thickness feature of each part of every 3D object to generate its feature vector and a novel searching algorithm using the new feature vector. Finally, we present a novel solution for improving the accuracy of the similarity queries. We also present a performance evaluation of our stratagem. The experiment result and discussion indicate that the proposed approach offers a significant performance improvement over the existing approach. Since the proposed method is based on partial features, it is particularly suited to searching objects having distinct part structures and is invariant to part architecture.
QRD-Assisted Adaptive Modulation-Aided MIMO Systems

In this paper, we propose QR-decomposition (QRD)-based adaptive modulation (AM)-aided multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems. The proposed algorithm yields a tight lower bound of the free distance (FD), which determines the error probability of the detector in the high-signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) region. Thus, this QRD-based AM algorithm is capable of achieving near-optimal performance at low complexity because the full QRD, which imposes high complexity, is performed only once for each channel realization, regardless of the number of AM modes. Our simulation results show that the proposed algorithm exhibits a better bit-error-rate (BER) performance and reduced complexity compared with the existing algorithms.
Alpha-Synuclein Produces Early Behavioral Alterations Via Striatal Cholinergic Synaptic Dysfunction by Interacting with GluN 2 D N-Methyl-D-Aspartate Receptor Subunit Supplemental Information

Rats (2 per cage) and mice (4 per cage) were kept under regular lighting conditions (12 hr light/dark cycle) and given food and water ad libitum. All the procedures were conducted in conformity with the European Communities Council Directive of November 1986 (86/609/ECC), in accordance with protocols approved by the Animal Care and Use Committee at the Universities of Perugia (Italy), Lund (Sweden) and Cambridge (U.K.) and every effort was made to minimize animal suffering.
Secondary metabolites from the Colletotrichum gloeosporioides A12, an endophytic fungus derived from Aquilaria sinensis

Abstract Two new cyclohexene derivatives colletotricones A and B (1 and 2) and a new thiazole derivative colletotricole A (5), along with six known natural metabolites were isolated from the extract of Colletotrichum gloeosporioides A12, an endophytic fungus derived from Aquilaria sinensis. Among them, the colletotricones A and B possess a cyclohexenone skeleton, whereas the colletotricole A is a thiazole derivative. Their structures were fully assigned with the aid of extensive spectroscopic analysis and data from the literature. Moreover, cytotoxic activity in vitro of compounds 1 and 3–9 were evaluated against MCF-7, NCI-H460, HepG-2 and SF-268 tumour cell lines. The new compound 1 exhibited growth inhibitory activity against all the four tumour cell lines with IC50 values ranging from 15.7 to 46.8 μM.
Effect of temperature-dependent organic carbon decay on atmospheric pCO2

[1] Extendingy an almost universal observation that the rate of microbial activity increases with temperature, we propose that marine microbial activity was suppressed during previous glacial periods and allowed proportionally more organic carbon to be exported out of the surface ocean. A stronger organic carbon pump and therefore lower rain ratios of CaCO 3 to organic carbon may have contributed to the low atmospheric CO 2 content during the Last Glacial Maximum. Previous study of temperature-dependent export production (Laws et al., 2000) and our map of data-based, global distribution of the rain ratios lend support to today's rain ratios being controlled at least partly by temperature. A close examination with a high-resolution regional ocean ecosystem model indicates that the correlation between rain ratio and temperature is caused indeed by preferential remineralization of organic matter, but a part of the correlation is also driven by temperature-dependent community composition. An extrapolation of these results to the globe using a global carbon cycle box model with a module for sediments indicates that the drawdown of atmospheric CO 2 by the proposed mechanism is approximately 30 ppm. While this estimate is subject to uncertainty, the fact that it represents nearly one third of the glacial-interglacial variation in atmosphere pCO 2 suggests the potential importance of the new mechanism. Given the historical difficulty in explaining the full CO 2 amplitude with a single cause, we suggest that a set of multiple mechanisms were responsible and that the temperature-dependent POC degradation rate is one of them. We discuss two possible difficulties with our proposal that have to do with the potentially important role that ballasts play in organic carbon export and the possibility that enhanced biological pump is self limiting.
Realization of multiple human head detection and direction movement using Raspberry Pi

People gather in huge crowds during festive seasons and the streets get overcrowded during peak hours of traffic. Managing the crowd requires an intelligent monitoring technology. In this paper, we propose a method to manage the crowd by counting multiple humans in the scene by head detection. In our study, we develop a system using Raspberry Pi 3 board that detects the human heads and provide a count of humans in the region using OpenCV-Python. A Haar cascade classifier is trained for human head detection. The direction of movement is determined from the pixel values in consecutive frames. The results of the analysis will be helpful in managing the crowd in any area with high density of crowds.
Meta-Learning with Landmarking: A Survey

Everyday large amount of data is generated. Data mining is a technique that extracts significant information from raw data using different classifiers. Meta-learning is machine learning technique that supports data mining for choosing appropriate classifier. Instead of whole data set, meta-learning extracts features from meta-data. So, it is important to identify the best suitable classifier based on meta-features. Landmarking is uncommon meta-feature extraction technique present in metalearning. Instead of statistical measurement landmarking tries to determine position of training data in the areas of problem learning by directly measuring the performance of some simple and significant learning algorithms themselves. This paper is a survey of presented approach in landmarking area. A few research challenges are mentioned at the end of this paper.
Dynamic clustering for event detection and anomaly identification in video surveillance

This work introduces concepts and algorithms along with a case study validating them, to enhance the event detection, pattern recognition and anomaly identification results in real life video surveillance. The motivation for the work underlies in the observation that human behavioral patterns in general continuously evolve and adapt with time, rather than being static. First, limitations in existing work with respect to this phenomena are identified. Accordingly, the notion and algorithms of Dynamic Clustering are introduced in order to overcome these drawbacks. Correspondingly, we propose the concept of maintaining two separate sets of data in parallel, namely the Normal Plane and the Anomaly Plane, to successfully achieve the task of learning continuously. The practicability of the proposed algorithms in a real life scenario is demonstrated through a case study. From the analysis presented in this work, it is evident that a more comprehensive analysis, closely following human perception can be accomplished by incorporating the proposed notions and algorithms in a video surveillance event.
Software fault isolation with API integrity and multi-principal modules

The security of many applications relies on the kernel being secure, but history suggests that kernel vulnerabilities are routinely discovered and exploited. In particular, exploitable vulnerabilities in kernel modules are common. This paper proposes LXFI, a system which isolates kernel modules from the core kernel so that vulnerabilities in kernel modules cannot lead to a privilege escalation attack. To safely give kernel modules access to complex kernel APIs, LXFI introduces the notion of API integrity, which captures the set of contracts assumed by an interface. To partition the privileges within a shared module, LXFI introduces module principals. Programmers specify principals and API integrity rules through capabilities and annotations. Using a compiler plugin, LXFI instruments the generated code to grant, check, and transfer capabilities between modules, according to the programmer's annotations. An evaluation with Linux shows that the annotations required on kernel functions to support a new module are moderate, and that LXFI is able to prevent three known privilege-escalation vulnerabilities. Stress tests of a network driver module also show that isolating this module using LXFI does not hurt TCP throughput but reduces UDP throughput by 35%, and increases CPU utilization by 2.2-3.7x.
Bilingual word embedding with sentence similarity constraint for machine translation

In this work, we propose a context-based bilingual word embedding framework that leverages the information of large amount of parallel sentence pairs which share the same semantic meaning. Such information is abundantly available but has not been fully utilized in previous work of context-based bilingual word embedding models, which only exploit local contextual information through a short window sequence at the word level. To incorporate such information, we define a sentence similarity matching objective which is enforced as a constraint into the original bilingual word embedding objective. They are jointly optimized to better learn the bilingual word embedding. Experimental results show that the proposed model is superior to previous methods on machine translation quality.
The correlation between biological activity and diffusion-weighted MR imaging and ADC value in cases with prostate cancer.

PURPOSE Firstly, we aimed to investigate the correlation among dynamic contrasted magnetic resonance (MR) images, diffusion-weighted MR images, and apparent diffusion coefficent (ADC) values in patients with prostate cancer. Secondly, we aimed to investigate the roles of these variables on clinical risk classification and the biological behavior of the prostate cancer. METHODS A total of sixty with prostatic adenocarcinoma patients diagnosed between January 2011 and May 2013 were retrospectively included in the study. Risk classification of patients were evaluated as low-risk (Group 1) (n = 20) (Stage T1c-T2a, PSA < 10 ng/ml, Gleason Score < 7), moderate-risk (Group 2) (n = 18) (Stage T1b-T2c, PSA = 10-20 ng/ml, Gleason Score = 7) and high-risk (Group 3) (n = 22) (Stage > T3a, PSA > 20 ng/ml, Gleason Score > 7). Diffusion-weighted MR images, dynamic contrasted MR images, and ADC values of the prostates were correlated. RESULTS ADC values of the cases in Group 3 were lower than those of the other groups (p < 0.001). ADC values of the areas without malignancy did not differ significantly between groups (p > 0.05). Biological activity of the tumor tissue was determined by GS, while a negative correlation was observed between GSs and ADC values of the patients, (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION In tumors with higher Gleason scores, lower ADC values were obtained. These measured values can play a role in the noninvasive determination of the cellularity of the tumoral mass.
Outage analysis of spatial modulation in cognitive radio networks

Cognitive radio (CR) intelligently adapts particular transmission or reception parameter by sensing the environment. It has received great attention recently for its ability to improve spectrum efficiency by enabling secondary users to access spectrum resource, when it is being unoccupied by primary users. In this paper, spatial modulation technique is employed in overlay cognitive radio networks, in which the primary and secondary networks share the same spectrum band. In CR system model, the direct link between the primary transmitter and receiver is not available along with the Cognitive Radio transmitter assists the primary network as a relay to Decode-and-forward (DF) the transmitted symbols of the primary. Spatial modulation is used in the secondary transmitter to split the transmission space into two data in spatial domains. The secondary transmitter retransmits the primary symbols, while its own information is transmitted by the index of transmitting antenna, similar to space shift keying, without causing any interference to the primary receiver. Outage probability of the spatial modulation in cognitive radio networks is improved by using Transmit Antenna Selection (TAS) at the cognitive transmitter and Maximal Ratio Combiner (MRC) at the primary destination and cognitive destination. A closed form of outage probability expression is derived for primary and secondary destinations. Analytical simulations are also carried out in MATLAB software.
Implantable medical applications of lithium-ion technology

The requirements for implantable medical batteries include high energy density, reliable performance, and a long service lifetime. These requirements have typically been satisfied by lithium primary cells. However, many new and exciting medical devices are being developed which have energy requirements that cannot be satisfied by a reasonably sized primary cell. For these applications, a secondary cell will be required. Lithium-ion secondary cells are a suitable choice for many applications by virtue of their high energy and power density, low self-discharge, long service lifetimes, excellent safety characteristics, and lack of memory effect.
Decreased Gaq expression in T cells correlates with enhanced cytokine production and disease activity in systemic lupus erythematosus

Aberrant T cell immune responses appear central to the development of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). We previously reported that Gαq, the alpha subunit of Gq, regulates T and B cell immune responses, promoting autoimmunity. To address whether Gαq contributes to the pathogenesis of SLE, Gαq mRNA expression was studied using real time-PCR in PBMCs and T cells from SLE patients as well as age- and sex-matched healthy controls. Our results showed that Gαq mRNA expression was decreased in PBMCs and T cells from SLE patients compared to healthy individuals. Correlation analyses showed that Gαq expression in T cells from SLE patients was associated with disease severity (as per SLE Disease Activity Index), the presence of lupus nephritis, and expression of Th1, Th2 and Th17 cytokines. In keeping with clinical results, T-helper cell subsets (Th1, Th2 and Th17) were over-represented in Gαq knockout mice. In addition, Gαq expression in SLE T cells was negatively correlated with the expression of Bcl-2, an anti-apoptotic gene, and positively correlated with the expression of Bax, a pro-apoptotic gene. These data suggest that reduced Gαq levels in T cells may promote enhanced and prolonged T cell activation, contributing to the clinical manifestations of SLE.
Thalamic amnesia after infarct: The role of the mammillothalamic tract and mediodorsal nucleus

Editors' Note: In WriteClick this week, Dr. Pergola requests clarification on several methodologic points, including participant history, neuroimaging techniques, and statistical analysis, in reference to “Thalamic amnesia after infarct: The role of the mammillothalamic tract and mediodorsal nucleus. ” The authors respond to all questions in detail. Regarding “Blowing the whistle on sports concussions: Will the risk of dementia change the game? ” Dr. Albin and authors Edlow et al. discuss the complexities of translating scientific evidence into public policy. —Megan Alcauskas, MD, and Robert C. Griggs, MD Danet et al.1 are commendable for quantitatively associating thalamic lesions …
Using Peer Navigators to Address the Integrated Health Care Needs of Homeless African Americans With Serious Mental Illness.

OBJECTIVE The study examined the impact of a peer navigator program (PNP) developed by a community-based participatory research team and used with a group of African Americans with serious mental illness who were homeless. METHODS Sixty-seven research participants were randomly assigned to receive PNP or treatment as usual (control) for one year. Data on general health and mental health, recovery, and quality of life were collected at baseline and at four, eight, and 12 months. RESULTS Findings from group × trial analyses of variance of omnibus measures of the four constructs showed significant impact over the year for participants in PNP compared with those in the control group, with analyses showing small to moderate effect sizes: general health status (η2=.24), psychological experience of physical health (η2=.42), recovery (η2=.36), and quality of life (η2=.14). These differences emerged even though both groups showed significant reductions in homelessness and increases in insurance coverage. CONCLUSIONS Implications for improving in-the-field health care for this population are discussed. Whether these results occurred because navigators were peers per se needs to be examined in future research.
The Growth Constant of Odd Cutsets in High Dimensions

A cutset is a non-empty finite subset of ℤ d which is both connected and co-connected. A cutset is odd if its vertex boundary lies in the odd bipartition class of ℤ d . Peled [18] suggested that the number of odd cutsets which contain the origin and have n boundary edges may be of order e Θ(n/d) as d → ∞, much smaller than the number of general cutsets, which was shown by Lebowitz and Mazel [15] to be of order d Θ(n/d). In this paper, we verify this by showing that the number of such odd cutsets is (2+o(1)) n/2d .
Interactions of Salmonella enterica Serovar Typhimurium and Pectobacterium carotovorum within a Tomato Soft Rot

ABSTRACT Salmonella spp. are remarkably adaptable pathogens, and this adaptability allows these bacteria to thrive in a variety of environments and hosts. The mechanisms with which these pathogens establish within a niche amid the native microbiota remain poorly understood. Here, we aimed to uncover the mechanisms that enable Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium strain ATCC 14028 to benefit from the degradation of plant tissue by a soft rot plant pathogen, Pectobacterium carotovorum. The hypothesis that in the soft rot, the liberation of starch (not utilized by P. carotovorum) makes this polymer available to Salmonella spp. , thus allowing it to colonize soft rots, was tested first and proven null. To identify the functions involved in Salmonella soft rot colonization, we carried out transposon insertion sequencing coupled with the phenotypic characterization of the mutants. The data indicate that Salmonella spp. experience a metabolic shift in response to the changes in the environment brought on by Pectobacterium spp. and likely coordinated by the csrBC small regulatory RNA. While csrBC and flhD appear to be of importance in the soft rot, the global two-component system encoded by barA sirA (which controls csrBC and flhDC under laboratory conditions) does not appear to be necessary for the observed phenotype. Motility and the synthesis of nucleotides and amino acids play critical roles in the growth of Salmonella spp. in the soft rot. IMPORTANCE Outbreaks of produce-associated illness continue to be a food safety concern. Earlier studies demonstrated that the presence of phytopathogens on produce was a significant risk factor associated with increased Salmonella carriage on fruits and vegetables. Here, we genetically characterize some of the requirements for interactions between Salmonella and phytobacteria that allow Salmonella spp. to establish a niche within an alternate host (tomato). Pathways necessary for nucleotide synthesis, amino acid synthesis, and motility are identified as contributors to the persistence of Salmonella spp. in soft rots.