Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DNA Mimicry by Antirestriction and Pentapeptide Repeat (PPR) Proteins

Protein mimicry of DNA is a recently discovered direct mechanism of regulation of DNAdependent enzyme activity by means of proteins that mimic DNA structure and interact with a target enzyme and completely inhibit (or modulate) its activity. DNA-mimicking inhibitor proteins bind directly to the enzyme and thus blocks or alters the activity of the latter. Protein mimicry of DNA was first described in Ugi derived from PBS2 bacteriophage of Bacillus subtilis (Mol et al, 1995). This protein of 84 amino acid residues with a total charge of (–12) inhibits uracil-DNA glycosylase (UDG), an enzyme involved in DNA repair (Mol et al, 1995; Putnam & Tainer, 2005). Subsequently, this type of protein mimicry was found in the ribosomal elongation factor EF-G (tRNA-like motif), and in the dTAFII 230 component of eukaryotic transcription factor TFIID (DNA-like domain) (Liu et al., 1998). The family of DNA mimetics further includes DinI, a negative SOS response regulator in E. coli (Ramirez et al., 2000), and a nucleosome forming protein HI1450 of Haemophilus influenzae (Parsons et al., 2004). However, in most of these cases, only a part of the protein molecule is DNA-like, in contrast to antirestriction and pentapeptide repeat (PPR) proteins, whose entire structure mimics the B-form of DNA. For instance, the X-ray structure of Ugi reveals a domain similar to the B-form of DNA, but the molecule as a whole is globular. Note that, in Ugi, the crucial negative charges are those of E20, E28, and E31 in the N domain (Mol et al.,1995).
Short-run Dynamics of the Canadian Wood Pulp Industry: A Vector Autoregression Analysis

The short-run dynamic impacts of macroeconomic variables on the Canadian pulp industry and the interactions among pulp sector variables are investigated using the vector autoregression (VAR) approach. In contrast to the findings of earlier studies, our results show that an increase in the value of the Canadian dollar will result in an increase in pulp production. We also find that Canadian pulp exporters decrease their prices in response to a rise in the value of the Canadian dollar, suggesting that maintaining market share is important to Canadian pulp producers. Impulse response functions suggest that pulp price is more volatile than production in response to shocks in macroeconomic and pulp sector variables. This result is thought to be due to the inventory levels being maintained to follow a "production smoothing" strategy. We also find that pulp exports and domestic use of pulp are not very responsive to an increase in Canadian pulp price. This suggests that paper manufacturers' demand for pulp may be inelastic because of their capacity constraints.
A tryptophan amphiphilic tetramerization domain-containing acetylcholinesterase from the bovine lungworm, Dictyocaulus viviparus

Acetylcholine (ACh) is one of an array of neurotransmitters used by invertebrates and, analogous to vertebrate nervous systems, acetylcholinesterase (AChE) regulates synaptic levels of this transmitter. Similar to other invertebrates, nematodes possess several AChE genes. This is in contrast to vertebrates, which have a single AChE gene, transcripts of which are alternatively spliced to produce different types of the enzyme which vary at their C-termini. Parasitic nematodes have a repertoire of AChE genes which include those encoding neuromuscular AChEs and those genes which code for secreted AChEs. The latter proteins exist as soluble monomers released by the parasite during infection and these AChE are distinct from those enzymes which the nematodes use for synaptic transmission in their neuromuscular system. Thus far, Dictyocaulus viviparus is the only animal-parasitic nematode for which distinct genes that encode both neuromuscular and secreted AChEs have been defined. Here, we describe the isolation and characterization of a cDNA encoding a putative neuromuscular AChE from D. viviparus which contains a tryptophan amphiphilic tetramerization (WAT) domain at its C-terminus analogous to the common ‘tailed’ AChE form found in the neuromuscular systems of vertebrates and in the ACE-1 AChE from Caenorhabditis elegans. This enzyme differs from the previously isolated, D. viviparus neuromuscular AChE (Dv-ACE-2), which is a glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored variant analogous to vertebrate ‘hydrophobic’ AChE.
Preventing tobacco use among young people in India: Project MYTRI.

OBJECTIVES We assessed the effectiveness of a 2-year multicomponent, school-based intervention designed to reduce tobacco use rates among adolescents in an urban area of India. METHODS Students from 32 schools in Delhi and Chennai, India, were recruited and randomly assigned to an intervention or control group. Baseline, intermediate, and outcome data were collected from 2 cohorts of 6th- and 8th-grade students in 2004; 14,063 students took part in the study and completed a survey in 2004, 2005, or 2006. The intervention consisted of behavioral classroom curricula, school posters, a parental involvement component, and peer-led activism. The main outcome measures were self-reported use of cigarettes, bidis (small hand-rolled, often flavored, cigarettes), and chewing tobacco and future intentions to smoke or use chewing tobacco. RESULTS Findings showed that students in the intervention group were significantly less likely than were students in the control group to exhibit increases in cigarette smoking or bidi smoking over the 2-year study period. They were also less likely to intend to smoke or chew tobacco in the future. CONCLUSIONS School-based programs similar to the intervention examined here should be considered as part of a multistrategy approach to reducing tobacco use among young people in India.
Symptom interpretation and quality of life in patients with irritable bowel syndrome.

BACKGROUND Patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) are often believed to attribute unexplained symptoms to physical disorders. We tested this hypothesis by assessing symptom interpretation, symptom severity, and quality of life in patients attending hospital gastroenterology clinics. AIM The main aims of this study were: to assess the symptom attributional styles of hospital gastroenterological outpatients with IBS and non-IBS disorders in comparison with unselected patients attending their GP; to establish the relationships between attributional style, quality of life, and IBS severity score in hospital gastroenterology outpatients; and to test the hypothesis that the IBS severity score correlates with a somatising style of symptom attribution. DESIGN OF STUDY Systematic quantitative analysis. SETTING General practice and gastroenterology outpatient clincs. METHOD Patients attending hospital gastroenterology clinics were recruited prospectively and completed validated questionnaires. These were the Medical Outcome Survey (MOS SF-36), the IBS Severity Score, and the Symptom Interpretation Questionnaire (SIQ). The latter measures the tendency to interpret somatic symptoms in three ways: as a physical disorder (somatising attributional style), as an emotional response to stress (psychologising attributional style), or as a normal experience (normalising attributional style). The diagnosis of IBS was based on the Rome II criteria; the control groups comprised gastroenterology outpatients with non-IBS diagnoses and unselected patients attending general practice. RESULTS Quality of life in IBS patients attending hospital outpatients (n = 32, male:female ratio 9:23) was not significantly different from that of non-IBS patients (n = 70, male:female ratio 32:38). In all patient groups, the normalising style of symptom interpretation predominated; psychologising styles correlated with impaired quality of life in the mental health domains. In IBS patients, the tendency to seek a psychological explanation for physical symptoms correlated significantly with the severity of the abdominal pain. CONCLUSIONS Symptom interpretation does not differ between IBS and non-IBS patients referred to hospital gastroenterology clinics. The tendency to attribute somatic symptoms to a physical disorder does not explain why only a minority of IBS subjects seek medical attention. The idea that most IBS patients are committed to a somatic explanation of symptoms appears to be a myth.
Analytical Prediction of Magnetic Field Distribution in Spoke-Type Permanent-Magnet Synchronous Machines Accounting for Bridge Saturation and Magnet Shape

This paper presents an analytical model for the prediction of magnetic field distribution in spoke-type permanent-magnet synchronous machines with rectangular magnets and magnetic bridges. The influence of saturation is considered. The magnetic bridges are equivalent to fan-shaped saturation regions. On the basis of the same pole-arc angle and identical magnetic energy, one rectangular magnet is simplified to two fan-shaped regions. The entire field domain is divided into eight types of simple subdomains, i.e., shaft, inner magnetic bridge, inner fan-shaped magnet, outer fan-shaped magnet, outer magnetic bridge, air gap, slot opening, and slot. The effect of magnetic field caused by armature reaction on the saturation of magnetic bridges is considered. The analytical expression of each subdomain is derived and the field solution is obtained by the boundary conditions. The analytical results at the no-load and on-load conditions are verified with the finite-element method.
SHAPER: synthesis for hybrid FPGAs containing PLAs using reconvergence analysis

This work discusses the technology mapping problem on hybrid field programmable architectures (HFPA). HFPAs are realized using a combination of lookup tables (LUTs) and programmable logic arrays (PLAs). HFPAs provide the designers with the advantages of both LUT-based field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) and PLAs. Specifically, the use of PLAs leads to reduced area in mapping the given circuit. Designing of technology mapping methodologies which map a given circuit on to the HFPA that exploits the above-mentioned advantages is a problem of great research and commercial interest. This work presents SHAPER, which maps the circuits onto HFPAs using reconvergence analysis. Empirically, it is shown that SHAPER yields better area-reduction than the previous known algorithms.
Trends in the Research of Modern Terahertz Detectors: Plasmon Detectors

Terahertz (THz) wave detectors include Golay cells, bolometers, pyroelectric detectors, superconductor tunnel junction detectors (STJs), and Schottky-barrier diodes (SBDs). Of these, most (except STJs and SBDs) are of the thermoelectric type; they are highly sensitive, but the response speed is low. On the other hand, in SBDs operating at room temperature, the response is fast, but the sensitivity is rather low at high frequencies; this is due to the carrier transit-time effect. Therefore, a nonlinearity of the two-dimensional plasmons, quanta of collective excitation of electronic charge density waves, has attracted attention as a mechanism of fast and sensitive THz-wave rectification and detection. In this paper, technological trends in the research of modern THz detectors are reviewed, with an emphasis on plasmon-type detectors.
On the use of random weights in MOEA/D

MOEA/D is a decomposition-based multiobjective evolutionary algorithm that has attracted much attention in recent years. Its performance depends on the setting of weight vectors which are used for defining subproblems. In the case of irregular Pareto fronts (e.g, disconnected or degenerated), fixed setting of weight vectors in MOEA/D may not work well. In this paper, we propose an improved MOEA/D with both random and fixed weight vectors. Moreover, an external archive based on a modified ε-dominance strategy is used for storing nondominated solutions found by the proposed algorithm and assisting the generation of random weight vectors. Some experiments have been conducted to verify the efficiency and effectiveness of the improved MOEA/D on benchmark multiobjective test problems with irregular Pareto fronts. The experimental results show that the overall performance of the proposed algorithm is better than baseline MOEA/D and NSGA-II.
Exploiting stable features for iris recognition of defocused images

We present a novel approach for recognizing defocused iris images captured outside the Depth of Field (DOF) of cameras. Unlike existing approaches, we do not rely on special hardware or on computationally expensive image restoration algorithms. Instead, the proposed recognition approach exploits stable bits in the iris code representation which are robust to imaging noise. Experimental results based on over 15,000 images show that when compared to iris recognition of defocused images that relies on the entire code representation, the proposed method achieves an average recognition performance gain of over 2 times. Due to its low computational requirements, the proposed method is well suited for use as part of a multi-biometric system in ubiquitous systems.
Whole-Genome Sequencing of Seven Strains of Staphylococcus lugdunensis Allows Identification of Mobile Genetic Elements

Coagulase negative staphylococci are normal inhabitant of the human skin flora that account for an increasing number of infections, particularly hospital-acquired infections. Staphylococcus lugdunensis has emerged as a most virulent species causing various infections with clinical characteristics close to what clinicians usually observe with Staphylococcus aureus and both bacteria share more than 70% of their genome. Virulence of S. aureus relies on a large repertoire of virulence factors, many of which are encoded on mobile genetic elements. S. lugdunensis also bears various putative virulence genes but only one complete genome with extensive analysis has been published with one prophage sequence (φSL2) and a unique plasmid was previously described. In this study, we performed de novo sequencing, whole genome assembly and annotation of seven strains of S. lugdunensis from VISLISI clinical trial. We searched for the presence of virulence genes and mobile genetics elements using bioinformatics tools. We identified four new prophages, named φSL2 to φSL4, belonging to the Siphoviridae class and five plasmids, named pVISLISI_1 to pVISLISI_5. Three plasmids are homologous to known plasmids that include, amongst others, one S. aureus plasmid. The two other plasmids were not described previously. This study provides a new context for the study of S. lugdunensis virulence suggesting the occurrence of several genetic recombination’ with other staphylococci.
Household structure marriage and the institution of service in nineteenth-century rural England

The aim of this paper is threefold: first to present some data on household structure in two contrasting areas of rural England between 1851 and 1881; second to provide an analysis of the changing institutions of domestic and agrarian service; and third to relate the history of marriage and household formation in late nineteenth-century rural England to the hypothesis put forward recently by Hajnal that in preindustrial north west Europe the institution of service acted as an essential part of the mechanism by which marriage could be delayed with the result that population growth was under partial control. Data are from census enumerators books for two registration districts for the years 1851 1861 1871 and 1881. The findings concerning these two contrasting rural populations appear to support Hajnals hypothesis. "It does seem that domestic and in particular agrarian service acted as controls upon the mean age at first marriage and consequently upon the formation of new households. This control operated partly because of the prohibition upon marriage whilst in service and partly because service provided a means by which to acquire the wherewithal necessary to establish a new household. " (EXCERPT)
Working Group Report 3: Role of Models in Assessing New Agents for Caries Prevention

INTRODUCTION The group briefly reviewed the four specific aims of the conference and elected to focus on only two issues, the reliability and validity of models to predict potential clinical efficacy of new agents, both fluoride and non-fluoride, and the new research agenda. In principle, the group set out to cover a range of delivery vehicles. In reality, 80% of the time was devoted to toothpastes, although much that was said may be applicable to mouthrinses. Chewing gum was not dealt with at all, and dental restorative materials were covered only briefly. By way of process, the group listed all issues believed to be important, it talked about each of them, it strove to identify those on which there was consensus, and it prepared consensus and other recommendations accordingly.
Evaluation of the UCL Diabetes Self-management Programme (UCL-DSMP): A Randomized Controlled Trial

Self-management has been described as the cornerstone of care for diabetes. Many self-management studies are limited by poor methodology and poor descriptions of the intervention. The current study developed a theoretically based self-management programme for patients with type 2 diabetes, which was evaluated via a randomized controlled trial. At immediate post-intervention and three-month follow-up the intervention group showed significant improvement relative to controls on self-management behaviours, quality of life and illness beliefs. A trend towards improved HbA1c was also observed. Documentation in a manual and development of a training programme for facilitators ensures the programme is replicable.
Mechanisms of Winner-Take-All and Group Selection in Neuronal Spiking Networks

A major function of central nervous systems is to discriminate different categories or types of sensory input. Neuronal networks accomplish such tasks by learning different sensory maps at several stages of neural hierarchy, such that different neurons fire selectively to reflect different internal or external patterns and states. The exact mechanisms of such map formation processes in the brain are not completely understood. Here we study the mechanism by which a simple recurrent/reentrant neuronal network accomplish group selection and discrimination to different inputs in order to generate sensory maps. We describe the conditions and mechanism of transition from a rhythmic epileptic state (in which all neurons fire synchronized and indiscriminately to any input) to a winner-take-all state in which only a subset of neurons fire for a specific input. We prove an analytic condition under which a stable bump solution and a winner-take-all state can emerge from the local recurrent excitation-inhibition interactions in a three-layer spiking network with distinct excitatory and inhibitory populations, and demonstrate the importance of surround inhibitory connection topology on the stability of dynamic patterns in spiking neural network.
Structure and Function in Patients with Glaucomatous Defects Near Fixation

Purpose. To assess relations between perimetric sensitivity and neuroretinal rim area using high-resolution perimetric mapping in patients with glaucomatous defects within 10° of fixation. Methods. One eye was tested in each of 31 patients with open-angle glaucoma enrolled in a prospective study of perimetric defects within 10° of fixation. Norms were derived from 110 control subjects free of eye disease, aged 21 to 81 years. Perimetric sensitivity was measured using the 10-2 test pattern with the Swedish Interactive Threshold Algorithm (SITA) standard algorithm on the Humphrey Field Analyzer (HFA) II-i; Carl Zeiss Meditec), stimulus size III. Area of the temporal neuroretinal rim was measured using the Heidelberg retina tomograph 3. Decibel values were converted into linear units of contrast sensitivity averaged across locations corresponding to the temporal rim sector. Both measures were expressed as percent of mean normal, and the Bland-Altman method was used to assess agreement. Perimetric locations corresponding to the temporal sector were determined for six different optic nerve maps. Results. Contrast sensitivity was moderately correlated with temporal rim area (r2 >30%, p < 0.005). For all six optic nerve maps, Bland-Altman analysis found good agreement between perimetric sensitivity and rim area with both measures expressed as fraction of mean normal and confidence limits for agreement that were consistent with normal between-subject variability in control eyes. Conclusions. By using high-resolution perimetric mapping in patients with scotomas within 10° of fixation, we confirmed findings of linear relations between perimetric sensitivity and area of temporal neuroretinal rim and showed that the confidence limits for agreement in patients with glaucoma were consistent with normal between-subject variability.
Comparison of sea ice classification methods based on satellite scatterometer and radiometer data in the Weddell Sea, Antarctica

Abstract Information on sea ice type is an important factor for deriving sea ice parameters from satellite remote sensing data, such as sea ice concentration, extent and thickness. In this study, sea ice in the Weddell Sea was classified by the histogram threshold (HT) method, the Spreen model (SM) method from satellite scatterometer data and the strong contrast (SC) method from radiometer data, and this information was compared with Antarctic Sea Ice Processes and Climate (ASPeCt) sea ice-type ship-based observations. The results show that all three methods can distinguish the multi-year (MY) ice and first-year (FY) ice using Ku-band scatterometer data and radiometer data during the ice growth season, while C-band scatterometer data are not suitable for MY ice and FY ice discrimination using HT and SM methods. The SM model has a smaller MY ice classification extent than the HT method from scatterometer data. The classification accuracy of the SM method is the higher compared to ship-based observations. It can be concluded that the SM method is a promising method for discriminating MY ice from FY ice. These results provide a reference for further retrieval of long-term sea ice-type information for the whole of Antarctica.
Vacation at moderate and low altitude improves perceived health in individuals with metabolic syndrome.

BACKGROUND Recent data suggest that vacation may improve cardiovascular health, an effect possibly moderated by altitude. The aim of the present study was to study the effect of a 3-week vacation at moderate and low altitude on perceived health in individuals with increased cardiovascular risk. METHODS Seventy-two overweight males, both occupationally active and retired (mean age=56.6 +/- 7.2 years), with signs of metabolic syndrome were randomly assigned to identical sojourns at either moderate (1,700 m) or low (300 m) altitude and engaged in four 3- to 4-h heart-rate-controlled hiking tours per week. Perceived health was measured 2 weeks before vacation, at the beginning and end of vacation, and 7 weeks after vacation. RESULTS Fitness, recreational ability, positive and negative mood and social activities improved during vacation, independent of altitude and occupational status, although the day-to-day improvement in quality of sleep was delayed at moderate altitude. During the follow-up examinations, improvements in all reported aspects of health except for social activities were maintained. In comparison to retired individuals, active individuals showed a greater long-term improvement in social activities. CONCLUSION Vacation positively affects perceived health independent of altitude or occupational status in generally inactive overweight males.
[5,10,15,20-Tetrakis(4-methoxyphenyl)porphyrinato-κ4 N,N′,N′′,N′′′](trifluoromethanesulfonato-κO)iron(III)

The title compound, [Fe(CF3O3S)(C48H36N4O4)], is a five-coordinate iron(III) porphyrin complex with a trifluoromethanesulfonate anion as an axial ligand. The FeIII atom is displaced by 0.40 (1) Å towards the trifluoromethanesulfonate anion from the 24-atom mean plane of the porphyrin. The average Fe—Np distance is 2.044 (2) Å and the Fe—O distance is 2.001 (2) Å.