Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Engineering and use of (32)P-labeled human recombinant interleukin-11 for receptor binding studies.

Human interleukin-11 (hIL-11) is a pleiotropic cytokine that is involved in numerous biological activities such as hematopoiesis, osteoclastogenesis, neurogenesis and female fertility. IL-11 is obviously a key reagent to study the IL-11 receptors. However, conventional radio-iodination techniques lead to a loss of IL-11 bioactivity. Here, we report the construction and the production of a new recombinant human IL-11 (FP Delta IL-11). In this molecule, a specific phosphorylation site (RRASVA) has been introduced at the N-terminus of rhIL-11. It can be specifically phosphorylated by bovine heart protein kinase and accordingly, easily radiolabeled with (32)P. A high radiological specific activity (250,000 c.p.m x ng(-1) of protein) was obtained with the retention of full biological activity of the protein. The binding of (32)P-labeled FP Delta IL-11 to Ba/F3 cells stably transfected with plasmids encoding human IL-11 receptors alpha and beta chains (IL-11R alpha and gp130) was specific and saturable with a high affinity as determined from Scatchard plot analysis. Availability of this new ligand should prompt further studies on IL-11R structure, expression and regulation.
Stability of brain potentials, mental abilities, and cortical thickness

The purpose of the study was to test whether trial-to-trial variation in amplitude of the brain potentials P3a and P3b is related to age, intelligence (verbal and performance abilities), and brain volumetry. One hundred and thirty-three participants underwent neuropsychological testing and an event-related potential task, whereas a subgroup (n=72) also had magnetic resonance scans. Trial-to-trial variation in P3a amplitude correlated positively with age, and negatively with verbal and performance intelligence. Trial-to-trial variation in amplitude also correlated negatively with thickness in the temporoparietal junction and the precentral gyrus of the cerebral cortex, but these relationships were dependent on the influence of age. The results indicate that intraindividual variability should be used as a variable in the study of central nervous system function.
Product specifications.

The Thermo Scientific iCAP Q ICP-MS offers dramatically improved levels of performance, reliability, ease of use and flexibility compared to its predecessor, the Thermo Scientific XSERIES 2. The iCAP Q is the result of a series of technological and useability improvements derived from Thermo Scientific's wide of range of analytical instruments. With three models available, the iCAP Q ICP-MS is the ideal tool for a wide range of applications and market sectors, from routine 24/7 analysis to demanding high quality research. Thermo Scientific iCAP Q ICP-MS Dramatically Different ICP-MS The Thermo Scientific iCAP Q ICP-MS has been developed with groundbreaking technology to enable advanced highperformance analysis combined with total reliability and ultraflexibility. The radical design simplifies the user experience and dramatically improves laboratory efficiency.
Older Adults Capitalize on Contextual Information to Guide Search

Much has been learned about the age-related cognitive declines associated with the attentional processes that utilize perceptual features during visual search. However, questions remain regarding the ability of older adults to use scene information to guide search processes, perhaps as a compensatory mechanism for declines in perceptual processes. The authors had younger and older adults search pseudorealistic scenes for targets with strong or no spatial associations. Both younger and older adults exhibited reaction time benefits when searching for a target that was associated with a specific scene region. Eye movement analyses revealed that all observers dedicated most of their time to scanning target-consistent display regions and that guidance to these regions was often evident on the initial saccade of a trial. Both the benefits and costs related to contextual information were larger for older adults, suggesting that this information was relied on heavily to guide search processes towards the target.
Observational study of spinal muscular atrophy type 2 and 3: functional outcomes over 1 year.

OBJECTIVE To characterize the short-term course of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) in a genetically and clinically well-defined cohort of patients with SMA. DESIGN A comprehensive multicenter, longitudinal, observational study. SETTING The Pediatric Neuromuscular Clinical Research Network for SMA, a consortium of clinical investigators at 3 clinical sites. PARTICIPANTS Sixty-five participants with SMA types 2 and 3, aged 20 months to 45 years, were prospectively evaluated. INTERVENTION We collected demographic and medical history information and determined the SMN 2 copy number. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Clinical outcomes included measures of motor function (Gross Motor Function Measure and expanded Hammersmith Functional Motor Scale), pulmonary function (forced vital capacity), and muscle strength (myometry). Participants were evaluated every 2 months for the initial 6 months and every 3 months for the subsequent 6 months. We evaluated change over 12 months for all clinical outcomes and examined potential correlates of change over time including age, sex, SMA type, ambulatory status, SMN2 copy number, medication use, and baseline function. RESULTS There were no significant changes over 12 months in motor function, pulmonary function, and muscle strength measures. There was evidence of motor function gain in ambulatory patients, especially in those children younger than 5 years. Scoliosis surgery during the observation period led to a subsequent decline in motor function. CONCLUSIONS Our results confirm previous clinical reports suggesting that SMA types 2 and 3 represent chronic phenotypes that have relatively stable clinical courses. We did not detect any measurable clinical disease progression in SMA types 2 and 3 over 12 months, suggesting that clinical trials will have to be designed to measure improvement rather than stabilization of disease progression.
Intellectual realism in children's drawings of a familiar object with distinctive features.

FREEMAN, N. H. , and JIANIKOUN, R. Intellectual Realism in Children's Drawings of a Familiar Object with Distinctive Features. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1972, 43, 1116-1121. It has long been maintained that the child "draws what he knows rather than what he sees": Piaget argues that the mental image is a dominant factor in intellectual realism in drawing and copying up to about 7 or 8 years of age. Intellectual realism was investigated by using an object with long-term familiarity as a model. A cup was presented to children with the defining feature (the handle) not visible, and a nondefining feature (a painted flower) visible. There was a developmental trend in the tendency to stop including a handle in the copy and to start including the flower. This change from intellectual to visual realism occurred between 7 and 8 years of age. There may be several factors contributing to intellectual realism.
Regulation of Slug transcription in embryonic ectoderm by β‐catenin‐Lef/Tcf and BMP‐Smad signaling

Neural crest is formed at the boundary of epidermal and neural ectoderm. To understand the molecular mechanism of neural crest formation, we focused on the transcriptional regulation of the Slug gene. In the upstream sequence of the chicken Slug gene, we have identified potential binding sites for transcription factors, such as Lef/Tcf and Smad1. Transgenic mouse embryos carrying the chicken Slug promoter‐reporter gene showed a crest‐specific activation of the reporter, suggesting the isolated sequence included the cis‐regulatory elements to receive Slug‐inducing signals in the mouse neural crest. While these potential cis‐regulatory elements could be recognized and activated by corresponding transcription factors, such as Lef1 and Smad1, Wnt‐Lef‐β‐catenin signal failed to induce endogenous Slug expression in quail neural plate tissue prepared from forebrain and midbrain levels. In contrast, Slug expression and subsequent epithelial‐mesenchymal transition were effectively induced by BMP4. Consistently, while we could detect phosphorylation of Smad1 in the ectoderm including the neural plate and the neural fold region, the activation of a reporter gene for a detection of canonical Wnt signal activation was below the level of detection at the forebrain and midbrain levels. These observations indicated that in the anterior ectoderm BMP signal has a predominant role for Slug expression.
Rethinking behavioral synthesis for a better integration within existing design flows

Although very popular and largely wanted, behavioral synthesis was never widely accepted by designers. This paper analyzes the reasons for this failure and introduces a new generation of behavioral synthesis tools with more practical synthesis schemes. The main breakthrough of this new generation is the redefinition of the behavioral synthesis flow to better profit from the power of modern RTL and FSM synthesis. The synthesis results for two large design examples: a 2-million transistors ATM shaper and a motion estimator for a video codec (H261 standard) are shown. They illustrate the effectiveness of this new approach when compared with RT-level design methodologies.
Argemone oil induced cellular damage in the reproductive tissues of transgenic Drosophila melanogaster: Protective role of 70 kDa heat shock protein

We explored the reproductive toxicity of argemone oil and its principal alkaloid fraction in transgenic Drosophila melanogaster (hsp70‐lacZ) Bg9. The toxicity of argemone oil has been attributed to two of its physiologically active benzophenanthridine alkaloids, sanguinarine and dihydrosanguinarine. Freshly eclosed first instar larvae of transgenic Drosophila melanogaster were transferred to different concentrations of argemone oil and its alkaloid fraction contaminated food. Virgin flies that eclosed from the contaminated food were pair‐mated to look into the effect on reproduction. The study was further extended by investigating hsp70 expression and tissue damage in larval gonads, genital discs, and reproductive organs of adult fly. Our results showed that argemone oil was more cytotoxic than its principal alkaloid fraction. Moreover, it was the male fly that was more affected compared to its opposite number. The accessory glands of male reproductive system of the fly, which did not express hsp70, exhibited severe damage as evidenced by Trypan blue staining. This prompted us to explore the ultrastructural morphology of the gland, which showed acute signs of necrosis in both the cell types as evident by necrotic nuclei, higher vacuolization, and disorganized endoplasmic reticulum, decrease in the number of Golgi vesicles and disorganized, loosely packed filamentous structures in the lumen of the accessory gland, at the higher concentrations of the adulterant. The study showed the reproductive toxicity of argemone oil and its alkaloid fraction in transgenic Drosophila melanogaster and further confirmed the cytoprotective role of hsp70. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biochem Mol Toxicol 17:223–234, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/jbt.10082.
Plants Actively Avoid State Transitions upon Changes in Light Intensity: Role of Light-Harvesting Complex II Protein Dephosphorylation in High Light1[OPEN]

Phosphorylation state changes with light intensity maintain the excitation balance between photosystems by suppressing state transitions. Photosystem II (PSII) core and light-harvesting complex II (LHCII) proteins in plant chloroplasts undergo reversible phosphorylation upon changes in light intensity (being under control of redox-regulated STN7 and STN8 kinases and TAP38/PPH1 and PSII core phosphatases). Shift of plants from growth light to high light results in an increase of PSII core phosphorylation, whereas LHCII phosphorylation concomitantly decreases. Exactly the opposite takes place when plants are shifted to lower light intensity. Despite distinct changes occurring in thylakoid protein phosphorylation upon light intensity changes, the excitation balance between PSII and photosystem I remains unchanged. This differs drastically from the canonical-state transition model induced by artificial states 1 and 2 lights that concomitantly either dephosphorylate or phosphorylate, respectively, both the PSII core and LHCII phosphoproteins. Analysis of the kinase and phosphatase mutants revealed that TAP38/PPH1 phosphatase is crucial in preventing state transition upon increase in light intensity. Indeed, tap38/pph1 mutant revealed strong concomitant phosphorylation of both the PSII core and LHCII proteins upon transfer to high light, thus resembling the wild type under state 2 light. Coordinated function of thylakoid protein kinases and phosphatases is shown to secure balanced excitation energy for both photosystems by preventing state transitions upon changes in light intensity. Moreover, PROTON GRADIENT REGULATION5 (PGR5) is required for proper regulation of thylakoid protein kinases and phosphatases, and the pgr5 mutant mimics phenotypes of tap38/pph1. This shows that there is a close cooperation between the redox- and proton gradient-dependent regulatory mechanisms for proper function of the photosynthetic machinery.
Effects of nitrogen fertilizer and harvesting stage on photosynthetic pigments and phytol contents of Italian ryegrass silage.

This study aimed to investigate the effects of nitrogen (N) fertilizer application and harvesting stage on the contents of chlorophyll, phytol and carotenoids (β-carotene and lutein) in Italian ryegrass herbage before and after ensiling, and the extent of phytol preservation after ensiling. Three rates of N fertilizer (0, 60 and 120 kg N/ha) were applied by top-dressing as an additional fertilizer. The herbage harvested at booting stage (27 weeks of age) or heading stage (29 weeks of age) were wilted for 1 day, then ensiled for 60 days using a small-scale pouch system. In the pre-ensiled herbages, increasing N fertilizer application increased the contents of crude protein and photosynthetic pigments, and these contents were also higher at the booting stage compared with the heading stage. In the silage, increasing N fertilizer application also increased the contents of crude protein, the photosynthetic pigments and their derivatives (pheophytin and pheophorbide), while harvesting stage did not affect the contents of β-carotene, chlorophylls or pheophorbide. Nitrogen fertilizer application and early harvesting of herbage increased lutein and phytol contents in Italian ryegrass silage. Lutein and phytol in Italian ryegrass herbage are indicated to be well preserved during ensiling.
A stratified optimization method for a multivariate marine environmental monitoring network in the Yangtze River estuary and its adjacent sea

An efficient monitoring network is very important in accessing the marine environmental quality and its protection and management. In an estuary, there are fronts that separate distinctly different water masses and affect material transport, nutrient distribution, pollutant aggregation, and diffusion. This stratified heterogeneous surface neither satisfies the stationary requirements of kriging, nor can be handled adequately by removing a spatially continuous trend. This article presents a stratified optimization method for a multivariate monitoring network. In this method, principal component analysis (PCA) was used to reduce the dimensionality of the correlated targets, and the mean of surface with nonhomogeneity (MSN) method was adopted to produce the best linear unbiased estimator for a spatially stratified heterogeneous surface that failed to satisfy the requirements for a kriging estimate. The existing monitoring network in the Yangtze River estuary and its adjacent sea, which was designed by purposive sampling year ago was optimized as an illustration. The optimization consisted of two steps: reduce the redundant monitoring sites and then optimally add new sites to the remaining sites. After optimization, the inclusion of 51 sites in the monitoring network was found to produce a smaller total estimated error than that of the current network, which has 70 sites; moreover, the use of 55 sites can produce a higher precision of estimation for all three principal components (PCs) than that of the current 70 sites. The results demonstrated that the proposed method is suitable for optimizing environmental monitoring sites that have dominant stratified nonhomogeneity and that involve multiple factors.
Effect of Sulphate Acid Calalyzed Ethanol Cooking on Enzymatic Hydrolysis of Wheat Straw

Wheat straw is an abundant agricultural residue with low commercial value, and an alternative feedstock for the production of fuel ethanol. In the present study, ethanol cooking at temperatures of 170 and 190 &#8451;, with holding times of 30, 45, 60 min using sulphate acid as a catalyst was evaluated as pretreatment method for wheat straw by measuring glucose content and enzymatic hydrolysis yield. The results indicated that solubility of hemicellulose and enzymatic hydrolysis yield of cellulose increases as the pretreatment severity increases. The susceptibility of the pretreated wheat straw was greatly affected by the temperature and time of pretreatment. The highest glucose content (68.6%) and enzymatic hydrolysis yield (68.0 %) was obtained under the condition of 190&#8451; temperature and 60 minute residence time.
High-Speed Printing of Transistors: From Inks to Devices

The realization of a high-speed printing technique with high resolution and pattern fidelity is critical to making printed electronics a viable technology for electronics manufacturing. The printing requirements of printed electronics are substantially different that those of graphic arts. To make printed electronics a reality, it is necessary to deliver high resolution, good reproducibility, excellent pattern fidelity, high process throughput, and compatibility with the requisite semiconductor, dielectric, and conductor inks. In this paper, we review the physics of pattern formation from pixelated primitives, such as those that exist during inkjet and gravure printing, and will show how control of drop merging and drying can be used to produce high-fidelity shapes, including lines, squares, and intersections. We additionally discuss the physical underpinnings of gravure printing and inkjet printing, and show how these techniques can be scaled to produce high-fidelity highly scaled patterns, including sub-2 micron features at printing speeds of ~1 m/s. Finally, in conjunction with high-performance materials, we describe our realization of high-performance fully printed transistors on plastic, offering high-switching speed, excellent process throughput, and good fidelity over large areas.
Dietary extra-virgin olive oil and corn oil differentially modulate the mRNA expression of xenobiotic-metabolizing enzymes in the liver and in the mammary gland in a rat chemically induced breast cancer model

High extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) and corn oil diets differentially modulate experimental mammary carcinogenesis. We have investigated their influence on the initiation stage through the modulation of the expression of xenobiotic-metabolizing enzymes (XMEs) in the liver and the mammary gland. Female Sprague–Dawley rats were fed a low-fat (LF), high corn oil (HCO), or high EVOO (HOO) diet from weaning and gavaged with 7,12-dimethylbenz(a)anthracene (DMBA). The HCO diet increased the mRNA levels of the phase I enzymes CYP1A1, CYP1A2 and, to a lesser extent, CYP1B1, in the liver. The Aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) seemed to be involved in this upregulated CYP1 expression. However, a slight trend toward an increase in the mRNA levels of the phase II enzymes GSTP1 and NQO1 was observed with the HOO diet. At least in the case of GSTP1, this effect was linked to an increased Nrf2 transactivation activity. This different regulation of the XMEs expression led, in the case of the HCO diet, to a balance between the production of active carcinogenic compounds and their inactivation tilted toward phase I, which would stimulate DMBA-induced cancer initiation, whereas the HOO diet was associated with a slower phase I metabolism accompanied by a faster phase II detoxification, thus reducing the output of the active compounds to the target tissues. In the mammary gland, the differential effects of diets may be conditioned by the state of cell differentiation, sexual maturity, and hormone metabolism.
Electron-nuclear double resonance study of molecular librations of nitroxides in molecular glasses: quantum effects at low temperatures, comparison with low-frequency Raman scattering.

Pulsed electron-nuclear double resonance applied to 15N nitroxide spin probes in molecular glasses is shown to be very sensitive to measurement of the A(XX) principal value of the hyperfine interaction tensor. For molecules experiencing fast restricted orientational motions (molecular librations), this provides a precise tool to determine the motion-averaged value. For nitroxides in glycerol and o-terphenyl glasses, the observed temperature dependence below 40 K may be readily interpreted as arising from quantum effects in librations, when the thermal energy of a librating molecule becomes comparable with the elementary quantum of the oscillator. The estimated elementary quanta for nitroxide librations, approximately 60 cm(-1) in glycerol and approximately 90 cm(-1) in o-terphenyl, are found to match the characteristic frequencies of the vibrational spectral densities seen in low-frequency Raman scattering for these glasses. Above approximately 80 K in glycerol and above approximately 120 K in o-terphenyl, the temperature dependences manifest a kink with a slightly smaller slope than at lower temperatures.
Protocol for preserving privacy in distributed system (PPDS)

Preserving privacy in Big data is one of the most debated topics of computer security. The fast growing volume of data and the need of companies to extract value from that data creates new complicated and serious security challenges. Despite its wide spread, the common use and the popularity of Big data paradigm, significant risks and challenges are inherent to this new concept, especially when we talk about externalized treatment of sensitive data via insecure network. In this paper we tackle the privacy challenge in Big Data. We focus in special case of data processing. Several Bank agencies want to share data processing while protecting the privacy. We propose a new protocol of communication between agencies. This protocol is composed of three phases: authentication, node head selection and data linking. Some proof of concept are also given in this paper.