Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
In Vitro Properties of the Conserved Mammalian Protein hnRNP D Suggest a Role in Telomere Maintenance

ABSTRACT Mammalian chromosomes terminate with a 3′ tail which consists of reiterations of the G-rich repeat, d(TTAGGG). The telomeric tail is the primer for replication by telomerase, and it may also invade telomeric duplex DNA to form terminal lariat structures, or T loops. Here we show that the ubiquitous and highly conserved mammalian protein hnRNP D interacts specifically with the G-rich strand of the telomeric repeat. A single gene encodes multiple isoforms of hnRNP D. All isoforms bind comparably to the G-rich strand, and certain isoforms can also bind tightly and specifically to the C-rich telomeric strand. G-rich telomeric sequences readily form structures stabilized by G-G pairing, which can interfere with telomere replication by telomerase. We show that hnRNP D binding to the G-rich strand destabilizes intrastrand G-G pairing and that hnRNP D interacts specifically with telomerase in human cell extracts. This biochemical analysis suggest that hnRNP D could function in vivo to destabilize structures formed by telomeric G-rich tails and facilitate their extension by telomerase.
TDR-based pipe leakage detection and location using Bayesian inference

TDR is used to detect and locate the water leakages at pipe joint. A wire attached on the pipe surface is soaked by water when the leakage occurs and it affects the characteristic impedance of the wet part, leading to the change of the reflected signal. To infer the leakage from the TDR signal, we used the finite difference time domain based forward model which provides output of the TDR signal given the configuration of the transmission line. Then by solving the inverse problem using Bayesian inference, the locations and the number of leakages are found. The suggested method is validated for multiple leakages which has complex signal to interpret.
The characteristical analysis of the synthetic basis function method

Synthetic basis function method is a cutting-edge technology in analyzing the scattering problem of arbitrarily complex objects. Compared with the traditional method of moment, it significantly reduces the memory requirements of the system, and is especially suitable for solving problems of periodic structures. In this paper, synthetic basis function method is implemented and verified. Besides, further research indicates that the computational accuracy and cost can't be optimized at the same time, but both of them can be controlled by truncation error.
Studies of Electron Trapping in ZnO Semiconductor

It has been recently discovered that electron injection into Phosphorus-, Lithium-, Antimonyor Nitrogen-doped ZnO semiconductor, using electron beam from a Scanning Electron Microscope, as well as a forward bias application to the p-n junction or Schottky barrier, leads to a multiple-fold increase of minority carrier diffusion length and lifetime (1-4). It has also been demonstrated that forward biasing a ZnO-based photovoltaic detector results in a several-fold responsivity enhancement due to a longer minority carrier diffusion length in the detector’s p-region as a result of electron injection (5, 6). The observed electron injection effects were attributed to the charging of the metastable centers associated with the above-referenced impurities.
Development of episomal vectors carrying a nourseothricin‐resistance marker for use in minimal media for Schizosaccharomyces pombe

In the post‐genomic era, an immediate challenge is to assign biological functions to novel proteins encoded by the genome. This challenge requires the use of a simple organism as a genetic tool and a range of new high‐throughput techniques. Schizosacchromyces pombe is a powerful model organism used to investigate disease‐related genes and provides useful tools for the functional analysis of heterologous genes. To expand the current array of experimental tools, we constructed two series of Sz. pombe expression vectors, i.e. general and Gateway vectors, containing nourseothricin‐resistance markers. Vectors carrying nourseothricin‐resistance markers possess advantages in that they do not limit the parental strains with auxotrophic mutations with respect to availability for use in clone selection and can be used together with vectors carrying nutrient markers in minimal media. We modified the pSLF173, pSLF273 and pSLF373 vectors carrying a triple haemagglutinin epitope (3×HA) and an Ura4 marker. The vectors described here contain the nmt1 promoter with three different episomal expression strengths for proteins fused with 3×HA, EGFP or DsRed at the N‐terminus. These vectors represent an important contribution to the genome‐wide investigation of multiple heterologous genes and for functional and genetic analysis of novel human genes. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Context based multiple railway object recognition from mobile laser scanning data

In this paper, we present a context based multiple railway object recognition method from mobile laser scanning data. This research makes use of contextual information for classification, which is retrieved from the unlabeled neighborhood as feature vector. The interaction (object context) among object labels is also utilized to enforce local smoothness constraint. The model we use to incorporate contextual information is Conditional Random Field (CRF). By maximizing the object label agreement in the local neighborhood, CRF could improve the classification results obtained from local GMM-EM classifier. The proposed method was validated with mobile laser scanning data using cross validation.
Strategies and analysis techniques for functional program optimization

Los sistemas informaticos desempenan un papel importante en la moderna sociedad de la informacion. Sin embargo, la baja calidad del software y su bajo nivel de abstraccion inhiben la necesaria confianza de los usuarios finales y desarrolladores de sistemas en la ingenieria de la programacion. La correccion de programas informaticos a traves de una teoria matematica de la computacion es el primordial interes de la teoria de la programacion y de su aplicacion a la ingenieria de la programacion a gran escala. Los metodos formales proveen a la ingenieria de la programacion del adecuado marco cientifico y tecnologico para convertirse en una ingenieria real, tan predecible como son la ingenieria de caminos, canales y puertos o la ingenieria industrial. De hecho, el uso durante todas las etapas del desarrollo de programas, de lenguajes de programacion declarativos basados en reglas, asegura la utilizacion de metodologias formales correctas y certificadas a lo largo del proceso de produccion de programas. Los programas se describen normalmente como sistemas de reescritura de terminos en los lenguajes de programacion declarativos basados en reglas. La ejecucion de un programa consiste en reducir (o reescribir) terminos de entrada en terminos de salida con la aplicacion de una secuencia de reglas. El estrechamiento es una extension de la reescritura para sistemas de reescritura de terminos que permite la instanciacion de variables en los terminos de entrada con el objetivo de activar pasos de reescritura en la expresion instanciada. La reescritura (asi como el estrechamiento) son en general indecidibles, es decir no se puede determinar si un termino se reescribe (o estrecha) a otro. El espacio de reduccion asociado a un termino de entrada es enorme debido a las diferentes posibilidades de seleccion de los subterminos a reducir y las reglas aplicables a dichos subterminos. Esta situacion se agrava en el caso del estrechamiento debido al proceso de instanciacion. Esta tesis afronta el problema de como definir metodos eficientes para mejorar el comportamiento computacional de los sistemas de reescritura de terminos, es decir, restringir el espacio de reduccion asociado a un termino de entrada selecionando que terminos y/o reglas seran usados por la reescritura (o el estrechamiento).
Sociodemographic Factors Associated With Self-Reported Exercise and Physical Activity Behaviors and Attitudes of South Australians

Objective: To determine self-reported physical activity barriers, behaviors, and beliefs about exercise of a representative sample and to identify associated sociodemographic factors. Method: Face-to-face interviews conducted between September and December 2008, using a random stratified sampling technique. Results: Barriers injury and illness were associated with being older, single, and not engaged in full-time work; lack of time was associated with being married, younger, female, and working full-time; and lack of motivation and cost were associated with being younger than 65 years. Advancing age was significantly associated (p < .001) with reduced physical activity. Factors including age, education, marital status, and area of residence were all associated with preferences for environment to exercise in, while all age groups (74%) felt that walking was the most important type of exercise for older adults. Discussion Barriers to physical activity participation are multifaceted with different sociodemographic factors associated with different barriers. A better understanding of these factors may improve uptake of and adherence to exercise programs across the ages.
Design and Implementation of Smart Home Control System Based on Power Line Communication

This paper focuses on design of smart home control system based on powerline communication. Power line communication (PLC) technology is proved to be useful for control applications. It is most widely useful in home automation, automotive and internet access applications. The aim of the project is to design a power line communication modem Circuit to monitor and control the home appliances. This project will discuss on the required protocol and knowledge involved in the power line modem design. The information onthe concept of modulation schemes are introduced, how signal will transmit through the power line and the practical design of power line communication modem will be discussed.
Joint TOA/DOA measurements for spatio-temporal characteristics of 2.4 GHz indoor propagation channel

The aim of this paper is to present a new system based on five-port reflectometers, which measures direction of arrival (DOA) in azimuth plane and propagation time of arrival (TOA) of incoherent signals and coherent signals simultaneously for indoor communication applications. The receiver operating at 2.4 GHz consists of seven five-ports and a uniform linear array (ULA) of seven quasi-Yagi antennas. The spatio-temporal signal processing method is also proposed. Estimation procedure for joint DOA and TOA is based on the multiple signal classification (MUSIC) algorithm associated with spatial smoothing pre-processing (SSP) and the frequency domain sounding technique. It is clear from the simulation results and measurement results that it is possible to measure simultaneously TOA and DOA using five-port technique
Twenty years of external quality assurance in clinical cell analysis — A tribute to Jean‐Luc D'Hautcourt

External quality assurance (EQA) programs in clinical cell analysis are now a consolidated item of laboratory practice. All the flow cytometric testings with an impact on clinical decision making have been submitted to regular EQA programs during the last 20 years, and this has produced internationally homogeneous guidelines, with a remarkable improvement in result reproducibility.
The importance of Th2‐like cells in the pathogenesis of airway allergic inflammation

During the last 20 years a great research efFort has been made to clarify the complex mechanisms which regulate IgE antibody production. In this regard substantial progress has been made since it was shown that IL-4 and T/B-cell interactions are essential for the induction of human TgE synthesis, whereas IFN-y plays a negative regulatory role. However. , more recently it has become quite clear that the reaction of inhaled allergens with IgE specific antibodies bound to Fĉ ^Rl receptors on the surface of mast cells and basophils and the subsequent release of traditional mediators is not sufficient per se to account for the persistent histological,, pathophysiological and clinical alterations that characterize the allergic respiratory disorders. In this connection it has been reasonable to address studies on the possible involvement of other kinds of cells such as, for example,, T-cells,, and of other mediators, such as cytokines.
Formation of a left-handed RNA double helix: energetics of the A-Z transition of poly[r(G-C)] in concentrated NaClO4 solutions.

Ultraviolet spectroscopic and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) studies have shown that poly[r(G-C)] in a solution of 4 M NaClO4 undergoes a transition to a left-handed Z-RNA helix upon raising the temperature to 60 degrees C [Hall, K. , Cruz, P., Tinoco, I. , Jr., Jovin, T. M. , & van de Sande, J. H. (1984) Nature (London) 311, 584-586]. In the present report, the transition temperature of this particular order/order transition is shown to increase with decreasing NaClO4 concentration to about 110 degrees C, above which only the helix-to-random coil transition is detectable. The reversibility and cooperativity of the helix/helix conversion has facilitated the quantitative evaluation of the transition enthalpy by means of differential scanning microcalorimetry. In 5 M NaClO4, the transition temperature is 43 degrees C, the conversion enthalpy 4.2 kJ (1.0 kcal) per mole of base pair, and the corresponding entropy change 13 J (3.1 cal) deg-1. The van't Hoff enthalpy for the same process, determined from the temperature dependence of the optical transition, is 0.26 MJ (62 kcal) per mole of cooperative unit. The ratio of the two enthalpy values yields an apparent cooperative length for the A-Z transition of poly[r(G-C)] of approximately 60 base pairs, indicative of a concerted all-or-none process.
Memory failure has different mechanisms in subcortical stroke and Alzheimer's disease

Patients with extensive subcortical cerebrovascular disease may have impaired memory, often despite the absence of medial temporal or diencephalic strokes. In this group, episodic memory failure may arise from frontal lobe dysfunction based on disruption of frontosubcortical loops caused by lacunae. We tested this idea by studying cognitively impaired subcortical stroke (CIS) patients and Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients with [18F]‐fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography using a continuous verbal memory task during the period of tracer uptake. Patients were matched on severity of cognitive impairment and overall memory task performance. As hypothesized, we found a double dissociation in the relations between metabolism and memory in these groups, such that memory in CIS (but not in AD) correlates with prefrontal lobe metabolism, whereas in AD (but not in CIS), memory correlates with left hippocampal and temporal lobe metabolism. Analysis of memory subscores showed that CIS patients made more errors on short‐delay trials, which is consistent with working memory failure. It seems that different pathogenic mechanisms underlie episodic memory failure in subcortical cerebrovascular disease and AD. Ann Neurol 2000;48:275–284
Synchronization of the small-world neuronal network with unreliable synapses

As is well known, synchronization phenomena are ubiquitous in neuronal systems. Recently a lot of work concerning the synchronization of the neuronal network has been accomplished. In these works, the synapses are usually considered reliable, but experimental results show that, in biological neuronal networks, synapses are usually unreliable. In our previous work, we have studied the synchronization of the neuronal network with unreliable synapses; however, we have not paid attention to the effect of topology on the synchronization of the neuronal network. Several recent studies have found that biological neuronal networks have typical properties of small-world networks, characterized by a short path length and high clustering coefficient. In this work, mainly based on the small-world neuronal network (SWNN) with inhibitory neurons, we study the effect of network topology on the synchronization of the neuronal network with unreliable synapses. Together with the network topology, the effects of the GABAergic reversal potential, time delay and noise are also considered. Interestingly, we found a counter-intuitive phenomenon for the SWNN with specific shortcut adding probability, that is, the less reliable the synapses, the better the synchronization performance of the SWNN. We also consider the effects of both local noise and global noise in this work. It is shown that these two different types of noise have distinct effects on the synchronization: one is negative and the other is positive.
Production of Non-pathogenic Human Monoclonal Antibodies to Desmoglein 3 from Pemphigus Vulgaris Patient

Pemphigus vulgaris is a potentially fatal autoimmune mucocutaneous disease associated with production of IgG autoantibodies to desmoglein 3, a 130 kDa epidermal protein. To further characterize the epitope(s) of pemphigus vulgaris antigen we established two human-human hybridoma by fusion of the peripheral blood mononuclear cells with a human and mouse heterohybridoma. These hybridomas designated as MAb Dsg-3: 06 and MAb Dsg-3: 10 and stable in culture and demonstrated yield of monoclonal antibodies specific for pemphigus vulgaris. Immunofluorescence, immunoblot, ELISA assays demonstrated that both the monoclonal antibodies bind to the intercellular cement substance and to 130 kDa protein present in the skin and specifically binds to recombinant desmoglein 3 protein, but not to desmoglein 1 protein. The IgG subclass distribution study demonstrated that both the antibodies are of IgG1 subclass in nature. Both the antibodies were non-pathogenic as demonstrated in vitro by their inability to produce acantholysis in normal human skin in organ culture or in vivo by the induction of disease in neonatal BALB/c mice. The relevance and value of these monoclonal antibodies in the pathogenesis of pemphigus vulgaris is discussed.
Staphylococcus aureus CidA and LrgA Proteins Exhibit Holin-Like Properties

ABSTRACT The Staphylococcus aureus cid and lrg operons are known to be involved in biofilm formation by controlling cell lysis and the release of genomic DNA, which ultimately becomes a structural component of the biofilm matrix. Although the molecular mechanisms controlling cell death and lysis are unknown, it has been hypothesized that the cidA and lrgA genes encode holin- and antiholin-like proteins and function to regulate these processes similarly to bacteriophage-induced death and lysis. In this study, we focused on the biochemical and molecular characterization of CidA and LrgA with the goal of testing the holin model. First, membrane fractionation and fluorescent protein fusion studies revealed that CidA and LrgA are membrane-associated proteins. Furthermore, similarly to holins, CidA and LrgA were found to oligomerize into high-molecular-mass complexes whose formation was dependent on disulfide bonds formed between cysteine residues. To determine the function of disulfide bond-dependent oligomerization of CidA, an S. aureus mutant in which the wild-type copy of the cidA gene was replaced with the cysteine mutant allele was generated. As determined by β-galactosidase release assays, this mutant exhibited increased cell lysis during stationary phase, suggesting that oligomerization has a negative impact on this process. When analyzed for biofilm development and maturation, this mutant displayed increased biofilm adhesion in a static assay and a greater amount of dead-cell accumulation during biofilm maturation. These studies support the model that CidA and LrgA proteins are bacterial holin-/antiholin-like proteins that function to control cell death and lysis during biofilm development.
Increased Mean Platelet Volume in Deep Vein Thrombosis Patients With Cancer

Background: Patients who have malignancy have an increased risk of thromboembolism. Thromboembolic events occur in 4-20% of cancer patients. Mean platelet volume (MPV) is a machine-calculated measurement of platelet size from the blood that is usually reported in the blood tests as part of the CBC. In this study, we aimed to determine whether there is any relationship between MPV and DVT in cancer patients. Methods: Outpatient oncology clinic records were searched between the period of 2006 and 2012 and 77 cancer patients with acute DVT were enrolled into the study. Results: There were no statistically significant differences between the groups with regard to the age, gender, and laboratory parameters except MPV. MPV values were significantly higher in patients with DVT (8.6 ± 1.3 vs 7.7 ± 0.7, P < 0.001). The most common cancer types were colorectal, gynecologic and breast cancer in DVT patients. In the DVT group 46% of cancer was adenocarcinoma. Conclusion: We have shown that MPV was significantly elevated in cancer patients with DVT compared to the cancer patients without DVT. Chemotherapy is one of the major risk factor for DVT in cancer patients. Chemotherapy regimens may increase MPV and so might trigger thromboembolism in cancer patients. Being metastatic or nonmetastatic is not a risk factor for increased MPV. doi: http://dx.doi. org/10.4021/jh85w
Design of a compact size UWB planar antenna with WiMAX band rejection

A compact monopole ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna with WiMAX band rejection is proposed. The proposed antenna is optimized to be 12 × 18 mm2 in size and cover the frequency band from 3.1 to 11 GHz with rejection of the WiMAX band. The antenna is simulated, fabricated, and tested; the measured results show good agreement with the simulation results. The proposed antenna presents satisfactory radiation characteristics.
Contributions à l'étude des marchés discontinus par le calcul de Malliavin

La constatation que les prix des actifs boursiers sautent brusquement a conduit a etudier des modeles de marches avec sauts. Cette these va dans cette direction. On y considere des marches diriges par des martingales normales qui ont la propriete de representation chaotique: les martingales verifiant une equation de structure deterministe, la martingale d'Azema, etc. On trouve des strategies de couverture pour les options europeennes, asiatiques et Lookback soit par la formule d'Ito, soit par la formule de Clark-Ocone selon la plus appropriee. L'application du calcul de Malliavin au calcul des Greeks est traitee pour les options asiatiques dans le cas d'un marche dirige par un processus de Poisson. On traite aussi de couverture dans un modele a volatilite stochastique avec sauts ou le prix de l'actif risque est dirige par un processus somme d'un mouvement brownien et d'un processus de Poisson 2-dimensionnels. Le marche est incomplet et il existe une infinite de mesures martingales equivalentes. On minimise l'entropie pour choisir telle mesure. Sous celle-ci on calcule la strategie minimisant la variance.
A swarm optimization based load frequency control application in a two area thermal power system

In this paper, a swarm optimization based optimal proportional-plus-integral (PI) controller is designed for load frequency control (LFC) of a two area thermal power system with governor dead-band. The design is determined an optimization problem and a novel cost function is derived for increasing the performance of convergence to the solution. To optimize the parameters of the cost functions and the PI-controller, the craziness based particle swarm optimization (CRAZYPSO) algorithm is used. The results show that the proposed control method is provided better performance for dynamic responses of the power system.