Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The present status of Golden Rice

The development of Golden Rice to date has taken longer than anticipated. It has been proven to have the potential to assist in the alleviation of an important public health problem, vitamin A deficiency, affecting millions. Complying with the highly precautionary, and now proven unnecessary, UN Cartagena Protocol for Biosafety has impeded scientific progress and scientific collaboration, particularly by delaying the selection of phenotypes grown in the open field. So far therefore, Golden Rice has not been able to assist in combatting vitamin A deficiency, identified by the UN as an important public health target for 25 years, and which continues to cause preventable deaths and blindness. However, the inventor's original vision of the donation of the technology to assist the resource poor who want to benefit from it remains firm and achievable, subject to continuing philanthropic and public sector funding. Keywords Golden Rice; vitamin A deficiency; Syngenta; IRRI; Cartagena Protocol for Biosafety; nutrition; public health; rice; UNICEF; UN; WHO
An embedded tactile and force sensor for robotic manipulation and grasping

A new fully embedded tactile/force sensor system is presented. The sensor has been designed to be installed on a dextrous robot gripper (MAC-HAND). The tactile sensor consists of a matrix of 64 electrodes, etched on a flexible PCB covered by a conductive rubber layer. The force sensor is an off-the-shelf integrated three components micro-joystick. The analog and digital electronics is fully embedded with the sensor that is a self-standing module mounted on each finger phalange
Muslim patients and health disparities in the UK and the US

This article provides a framework for understanding how Muslim identity, and the current social and political contexts in which it is shaped, affects the health of Muslims in the UK and the US, and the quality of health care they receive. Key medical and public health literature that addresses health concerns related to Muslim communities in the UK and the US is reviewed. Few data exist specific to health disparities for Muslim minorities. However, the article focuses on emerging studies concerning the consequences of “Islamophobia” for the physical and mental health and health care of Muslim families and children. We argue that, despite substantive structural differences in the health care systems of the UK and the US, social structural and political forces play similar roles in the health of Muslim children in both countries. Finally, we call for significant cultural and institutional adjustments in health care settings and further research studies to provide specific data to address health disparities for these growing and diverse populations.
Delay-bounded and minimal energy broadcast in satellite networks with multi-power levels

There has been explosive growth of satellite applications in the past decades. Broadcast is a fundamental operation in satellite networks, which is required for satellites self-organization, routing discovery, coordination and collaborations. In this paper, we study the problem of delay bounded and energy efficient broadcast in satellite networks. Broadcast routing is a challenging issue in satellite networks due to highly dynamic change and intermittent connectivity of the network. We propose a method that is based on a Multi-power Level Multi-Transmission (MLMT) Space-Time Graph. The algorithm repeatedly finds the most energy efficient ‘caterpillars’ in the graph, and merges caterpillars into an energy efficient broadcast tree. Simulations have been conducted in the real satellite constellations and the results show our proposed scheme has achieved good performance compared with other broadcast algorithms.
Development of IGF Signaling Antibody Arrays for the Identification of Hepatocellular Carcinoma Biomarkers

Purpose Our objective was to develop a system to simultaneously and quantitatively measure the expression levels of the insulin-like growth factor (IGF) family proteins in numerous samples and to apply this approach to profile the IGF family proteins levels in cancer and adjacent tissues from patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Experimental Design Antibodies against ten IGF family proteins (IGF-1, IGF-1R, IGF-2, IGF-2R, IGFBP-1, IGFBP-2, IGFBP-3, IGFBP-4, IGFBP-6, and Insulin) were immobilized on the surface of a glass slide in an array format to create an IGF signaling antibody array. Tissue lysates prepared from patient's liver cancer tissues and adjacent tissues were then applied to the arrays. The proteins captured by antibodies on the arrays were then incubated with a cocktail of biotinylated detection antibodies and visualized with a fluorescence detection system. By comparison with standard protein amount, the exact protein concentrations in the samples can be determined. The expression levels of the ten IGF family proteins in 25 pairs of HCC and adjacent tissues were quantitatively measured using this novel antibody array technology. The differential expression levels between cancer tissues and adjacent tissues were statistically analyzed. Results A novel IGF signaling antibody array was developed which allows the researcher to simultaneously detect ten proteins involved in IGF signal pathway with high sensitivity and specificity. Using this approach, we found that the levels of IGF-2R and IGFBP-2 in HCC tissues were higher than those in adjacent tissues. Conclusion Our IGF signaling antibody array which can detect the expression of ten IGF family members with high sensitivity and specificity will undoubtedly prove a powerful tool for drug and biomarker discovery.
Genomics Review of Holocellulose Deconstruction by Aspergilli

SUMMARY Biomass is constructed of dense recalcitrant polymeric materials: proteins, lignin, and holocellulose, a fraction constituting fibrous cellulose wrapped in hemicellulose-pectin. Bacteria and fungi are abundant in soil and forest floors, actively recycling biomass mainly by extracting sugars from holocellulose degradation. Here we review the genome-wide contents of seven Aspergillus species and unravel hundreds of gene models encoding holocellulose-degrading enzymes. Numerous apparent gene duplications followed functional evolution, grouping similar genes into smaller coherent functional families according to specialized structural features, domain organization, biochemical activity, and genus genome distribution. Aspergilli contain about 37 cellulase gene models, clustered in two mechanistic categories: 27 hydrolyze and 10 oxidize glycosidic bonds. Within the oxidative enzymes, we found two cellobiose dehydrogenases that produce oxygen radicals utilized by eight lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases that oxidize glycosidic linkages, breaking crystalline cellulose chains and making them accessible to hydrolytic enzymes. Among the hydrolases, six cellobiohydrolases with a tunnel-like structural fold embrace single crystalline cellulose chains and cooperate at nonreducing or reducing end termini, splitting off cellobiose. Five endoglucanases group into four structural families and interact randomly and internally with cellulose through an open cleft catalytic domain, and finally, seven extracellular β-glucosidases cleave cellobiose and related oligomers into glucose. Aspergilli contain, on average, 30 hemicellulase and 7 accessory gene models, distributed among 9 distinct functional categories: the backbone-attacking enzymes xylanase, mannosidase, arabinase, and xyloglucanase, the short-side-chain-removing enzymes xylan α-1,2-glucuronidase, arabinofuranosidase, and xylosidase, and the accessory enzymes acetyl xylan and feruloyl esterases.
Image tag completion by low-rank factorization with dual reconstruction structure preserved

A novel tag completion algorithm is proposed in this paper, which is designed with the following features: 1) Low-rank and error s-parsity: the incomplete initial tagging matrix D is decomposed into the complete tagging matrix A and a sparse error matrix E. However, instead of minimizing its nuclear norm, A is further factorized into a basis matrix U and a sparse coefficient matrix V, i.e. D = UV + E. This low-rank formulation encapsulating sparse coding enables our algorithm to recover latent structures from noisy initial data and avoid performing too much denoising; 2) Local reconstruction structure consistency: to steer the completion of D, the local linear reconstruction structures in feature space and tag space are obtained and preserved by U and V respectively. Such a scheme could alleviate the negative effect of distances measured by low-level features and incomplete tags. Thus, we can seek a balance between exploiting as much information and not being mislead to suboptimal performance. Experiments conducted on Corel5k dataset and the newly issued Flickr30Concepts dataset demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method.
eNOS Activity Is Reduced in Senescent Human Endothelial Cells: Preservation by hTERT Immortalization

Advanced age is associated with endothelial dysfunction and increased risk for atherosclerosis. However, the mechanisms for these observed effects are not clear. To clarify the association between aging and loss of endothelial function, young human aortic endothelial cells (HAECs), senescent HAECs transfected with control vector, and immortalized HAECs containing human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) were compared for expression of endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) and production of NO. To investigate a specific function modulated by endothelial NO, adhesion of monocytes under basal conditions as well as after exposure to TNF-&agr; was assessed. A decrease in eNOS mRNA, protein, and activity was observed in endothelial cells at senescence as compared with young HAEC; this effect was blunted in hTERT cells. In all cells, shear stress induced a greater increase in the expression of eNOS protein with the final result being higher levels in hTERT compared with senescent cells. Basal monocyte binding was significantly elevated on aged endothelial cells compared with parental and hTERT cells. Exposure of TNF-&agr; resulted in a 2-fold increase in monocyte adhesion in senescent cells, whereas this effect was reduced in cells transfected with hTERT. Prior exposure to fluid flow significantly reduced subsequent monocyte adhesion in all groups. These studies demonstrate that replicative aging results in decreased endothelial expression of eNOS accompanied by enhanced monocyte binding. Stable expression of hTERT results in endothelial cells with a younger phenotype with greater amount of eNOS and NO activity. Thus, telomerase transfection may have important functional consequences on endothelial cells.
Seeding the Technology S-Curve ? The Role of Early Adopters in Technology Diffusion

In October 2014, all 4,494 undergraduates at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were given access to Bitcoin, the first decentralized digital currency to solve the problems that had plagued computer scientists’ early attempts at creating digital cash. As a unique feature of the experiment, students who would generally adopt only mature and established technologies were placed into an early-adopter condition: suddenly they had to decide to either learn more about Bitcoin and try to use it, to bet on its volatile future by holding it, or to simply cash out and convert it into US dollars. In this paper, we explore the students’ response to the digital currency, and in particular how randomly delaying different types of students relative to their peers affected their adoption decision. Our results point to a novel mechanism through which early-adopters may influence technology adoption, and ultimately technology S-curves: whereas the existing literature has stressed the positive, network-effect building role of individuals who seek early adopter status, our data suggests that they can also be an obstacle to diffusion. If early-adopters derive consumption utility from being first among their peer group in embracing new technology trends, excluding them from early access has a strong effect on the likelihood that they will ignore the technology. Moreover, their behavior seems to generate negative spillovers on adoption by their peers. The experimental nature of our data, combined with fine-grained information about individual outcomes, allows us to cleanly estimate the causal effect of short delays on adoption. Small changes in the initial availability of a technology among different types of users have a lasting effect on its potential: Seeding a technology while ignoring early adopters’ needs for distinctiveness is counterproductive.
Welcoming global perspectives.

2 01 6 M A H ea lth ca re L td I have just returned from the 4th World Congress on Vascular Access (WoCoVA) in Lisbon, Portugal, where over 900 delegates from over 50 countries gathered over 3 days. The UK was well-represented both by delegates and speakers, and on the last day NIVAS (UK National Infusion and Vascular Access Society) hosted a final session with board members Andrew Bodenham and Tim Jackson giving presentations on two very different but related topics. Andrew Bodenham presented the new consensus guidelines from the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland (AAGBI) on safe vascular access (Bodenham et al, 2016). While these guidelines are focused on anaesthetic practice, they provide good evidence and consensus for all vascular access practice, particularly for inpatients. The guidelines highlight the continuing morbidity and mortality associated with vascular access, and the availability of new technology and evidence. They are very valuable, both to support current practices and to lobby for improvements. I have had many conversations with people who struggle to persuade their organisation that nurseled vascular access services would benefit both patients and the hospital. So it is always good to have standards and guidelines to support business cases and, in this document, there is the statement:
Fata Morgana - a presentation system for product design

Mobile augmented reality applications promise substantial savings in time and costs for product designers, in particular, for large products requiring scale models and expensive clay mockups (e.g., cars). Such applications are novel and introduce interesting challenges when attempting to describe them to potential users and stakeholders. For example, it is difficult, a priori, to assess the nonfunctional requirements of such applications and anticipate the usability issues that the product designers are likely to raise. In this paper, we describe our efforts to develop a proof-of-concept AR system for car designers. Over the course of a year, we developed two prototypes, one within a university context, the other at a car manufacturer. The lessons learned from both efforts illustrate the technical and human challenges encountered when closely collaborating with the end user in the design of a novel application.
Using Meta-Analysis to Increase Power in Differential Prediction Analyses

Meade and Tonidandel (2010) correctly note several of the interpretive and statistical problems associated with the analysis of differential prediction. These include, most notably, problems with low statistical power. However, modern techniques of meta-analysis can alleviate this problem by combining the regression analyses from multiple smaller sample studies, thereby reducing standard errors for the regression coefficients and increasing statistical power. In addition, these meta-analytic techniques can provide more accurate estimates of intercept differences, allowing for more accurate interpretation of differential prediction analyses. This commentary will serve two purposes. First, I will briefly introduce these meta-analytic techniques and discuss some of the analytic care that must be taken in primary studies assessing differential prediction. This directly addresses concerns regarding statistical power discussed in the focal article. Second, I will note additional research questions that can be addressed using these meta-analytic techniques, which can help build theory and recommendations for practice.
Cell Cycle-Dependent Regulation of Human DNA Polymerase α-Primase Activity by Phosphorylation

ABSTRACT DNA polymerase α-primase is known to be phosphorylated in human and yeast cells in a cell cycle-dependent manner on the p180 and p68 subunits. Here we show that phosphorylation of purified human DNA polymerase α-primase by purified cyclin A/cdk2 in vitro reduced its ability to initiate simian virus 40 (SV40) DNA replication in vitro, while phosphorylation by cyclin E/cdk2 stimulated its initiation activity. Tryptic phosphopeptide mapping revealed a family of p68 peptides that was modified well by cyclin A/cdk2 and poorly by cyclin E/cdk2. The p180 phosphopeptides were identical with both kinases. By mass spectrometry, the p68 peptide family was identified as residues 141 to 160. Cyclin A/cdk2- and cyclin A/cdc2-modified p68 also displayed a phosphorylation-dependent shift to slower electrophoretic mobility. Mutation of the four putative phosphorylation sites within p68 peptide residues 141 to 160 prevented its phosphorylation by cyclin A/cdk2 and the inhibition of replication activity. Phosphopeptide maps of the p68 subunit of DNA polymerase α-primase from human cells, synchronized and labeled in G1/S and in G2, revealed a cyclin E/cdk2-like pattern in G1/S and a cyclin A/cdk2-like pattern in G2. The slower-electrophoretic-mobility form of p68 was absent in human cells in G1/S and appeared as the cells entered G2/M. Consistent with this, the ability of DNA polymerase α-primase isolated from synchronized human cells to initiate SV40 replication was maximal in G1/S, decreased as the cells completed S phase, and reached a minimum in G2/M. These results suggest that the replication activity of DNA polymerase α-primase in human cells is regulated by phosphorylation in a cell cycle-dependent manner.
Comparison between Whole and Intact Parathyroid Hormone Assays

The standard measurement of parathyroid hormone (PTH) is the intact PTH (iPTH) assay, which is used for approximately 90% of Japanese dialysis patients. The iPTH assay reacts not only with 1–84 PTH, but also with large truncated fragments of non‐1–84 PTH, including 7–84 PTH. On the other hand, the whole PTH assay is specific for 1–84 PTH. The aim of the current study was to define the validity of both whole and intact PTH assays. A total of 738 hemodialysis patients were enrolled from twelve dialysis services. The serum PTH level was evaluated by both intact and whole PTH assays simultaneously. Non‐1–84 PTH was determined by subtracting the whole PTH value from that of the intact PTH assay. The median level of whole PTH was 121 pg/mL, and that of iPTH was 210 pg/mL. The whole PTH assay had a very high correlation with the iPTH assay (r = 0.870, P < 0.001). For 43 out of 738 patients (5.8%) the value for intact PTH—whole PTH was <0. Both assays significantly correlated with non‐1–84 PTH (P < 0.001), while the iPTH assay, particularly, had a very high correlation with non‐1–84 PTH (r = 0.791). As a whole, 18% of the total population was misclassified into a different Japanese guideline category. Stratified by Japanese guideline classifications, 28% of patients within an iPTH target range were misclassified. Using Bland–Altman plot analysis, as the serum PTH level increased, there was a large difference between two assays. Both PTH assays correlate strongly, although the whole PTH assay may be more useful for precise evaluation of PTH function than the iPTH assay.
Temporal Behavior of Capsule Enlargement by Cryptococcus neoformans

ABSTRACT Microbial capsules are important virulence traits that mediate cell-host interactions and provide protection against host immune defense mechanisms. Cryptococcus neoformans is a yeast-like fungus that is capable of synthesizing a complex polysaccharide (PS) capsule that is required for causing disease. Microscopic visualization of capsule enlargement is difficult, because the capsule is a highly hydrated structure with an index of refraction that is very close to that of aqueous medium. In this study, we took advantage of the capsular reaction (“quellung” effect) produced by IgM monoclonal antibody (MAb) 13F1 to increase the refraction index difference between capsule and medium such that we visualized the capsule using differential interference contrast (DIC) microscopy. Time-lapse size measurements allowed us to quantify the growth rate of the capsule relative to that of the cell body. The increase in capsule volume per unit of time was consistent with a logistic variable slope model in which the capsule's final size was proportional to the rate of its growth. The rate of capsule growth (0.3 to 2.5 µm3/min) was at least 4-fold faster than the rate of cell body growth (0.1 to 0.3 µm3/min), and there was large cell-to-cell variation in the temporal kinetics of capsule and cellular growth. Previous to the first cellular replication event, both the capsule and cell body enlarged simultaneously, and their differences showed monotonic growth, which was affected only by its rate of volume increase per unit of time. Using these results, we provide an updated model for cryptococcal capsule biogenesis.
Some are more equal than others

The microbial communities found in the mammalian large intestine and rumen efficiently degrade many recalcitrant substrates that are resistant to the host’s digestive enzymes. These communities are known from molecular profiling to be highly diverse at the species and strain level, but it may be that only certain specialized organisms (“keystone species”) have the ability to initiate degradation of such substrates, thus releasing energy on which the rest of the community depends. We have recently reported that Ruminococcus bromii has a superior ability to degrade certain forms of particulate resistant starch (RS) when compared with other highly abundant species of amylolytic bacteria found in the human colon and have presented evidence that this bacterium provides an example of a keystone species within the microbial community with respect to RS fermentation. The concept of keystone species can be equally relevant to other activities, e.g., those involved in stabilizing the community.
The evolution of ATPase activity in SMC proteins

The SMC (structural maintenance of chromosomes) proteins are a highly conserved and ubiquitous family of ATPases, found in nearly all living organisms examined, where they play crucial roles in transmission of the hereditary material. However, the extent to which efficient ATP hydrolysis is required for SMC function has been a matter of some debate. Here we investigate the potential functional significance of ATP binding and hydrolysis in different eukaryotic SMC proteins, both by comparing the conservation of conserved ATPase motifs and by exploring potential coevolution between associated domains. In this way, we have been able to account for the reduced requirement for ATPase activity in cohesin's SMC3 and demonstrate the greater apparent conservation requirements for such activity in condensin SMC proteins. Finally, we explore possible interactions between the SMC and non‐SMC components of the condensin complex that are required for full condensin activity and may modulate ATPase activity in the holocomplex. Proteins 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.