Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Molecular and Biochemical Characterization of the Skp2-Cks1 Binding Interface*

SCFSkp2 is a multisubunit E3 ubiquitin ligase responsible for ubiquitination of cell cycle inhibitor p27. Ubiquitination of p27 requires an adapter protein, Cks1, to be in direct association with Skp2. The exact interface between Skp2 and Cks1 has not been elucidated. Here we have reported the definition of the critical functional interface between Skp2 and Cks1. We have identified eight amino acid residues in two discrete regions of Skp2 that are engaged in Cks1 binding. Mutation of any of these eight residues alone or in combination results in the loss of Cks1 association and negates Skp2-dependent p27 ubiquitination. These eight amino acid residues map on the same side of the Skp2 structure and likely constitute a functional binding surface for Cks1. Four of the eight amino acid residues are located in the largely unstructured carboxyl-terminal tail region of Skp2. These results uncovered the specificity of the Skp2-Cks1 interaction and reveal a critical function for the structurally flexible carboxyl-terminal tail region of Skp2 in Cks1 recognition and substrate ubiquitination.
Valuing IT through Virtual Process Measurement ICIS Paper by Mark E Nissen Information and Operations Management University of Southern California School of Business Administration

The so called productivity paradox associated with information technology re mains the focus of active research in information systems One explanation involves the dearth of useful measures to assess the value of IT investments A review of the predominant approaches to such measurement reveals a number of serious weaknesses and fundamental limitations The research described in this paper addresses these limitations through a complementary methodology termed virtual process measure ment VPM Through VPM assessments of IT value are determined through the measurement of computer based process representations i e virtually as opposed to measuring their real counterparts in ongoing organizations this approach a ords a number of advantages that are unattainable through extant techniques In this paper the VPM methodology is discussed in considerable detail and examples from industry practice are used to demonstrate the use and utility of this approach The paper closes with a set of conclusions and some possible directions for continued research
Effect of 12-month intervention with lipid-based nutrient supplement on the physical activity of Malawian toddlers: a randomised, controlled trial

Abstract Physical activity is beneficial for children’s well-being. The effect of dietary supplementation on children’s physical activity in food-insecure areas remains little studied. We examined the effects of a lipid-based nutrient supplement (LNS) on children’s objectively measured physical activity in a randomised, controlled, outcome-assessor-blinded trial. Mothers of the children received one capsule daily of Fe-folic acid (IFA), one capsule containing eighteen micronutrients (MMN) or one 20 g sachet of LNS (containing twenty-two MMN, protein, carbohydrates, essential fatty acids and 494 kJ (118 kcal)) during pregnancy and for 6 months thereafter. Children in the IFA and MMN groups received no supplementation, and these groups were collapsed into a single control group; children in the LNS group received 20 g LNS from 6 to 18 months. We measured physical activity with accelerometers over 1 week at 18 months. The main outcome was mean vector magnitude counts/15 s. Of the 728 children at the beginning of child intervention at 6 months, 570 (78 %) provided sufficient data for analysis. The mean accelerometer counts for the 190 children in the LNS group and for the 380 children in the control group were 303 (sd 59) and 301 (sd 56), respectively (P for difference=0·65). LNS, given to mothers during pregnancy and 6 months postpartum and to their infants from 6 to 18 months of age, did not increase physical activity among 18-month-old children.
Selection of Auxiliary Objectives in the Travelling Salesman Problem using Reinforcement Learning

Auxiliary objectives may be used to reduce number of iterations of an evolutionary algorithm (EA). The corresponding approach is called multi-objectivization. We consider two multi-objectivization methods: EA+RL and MOEA+RL, where MOEA is a multi-objective EA, RL is reinforcement learning. In these methods, RL is used to select an objective during optimization process. In EA+RL only the selected objective is optimized, so a single-objective EA is used. In MOEA+RL the selected objective is optimized together with the target objective. Previously in these methods, RL for stationary environments was used. Recently, a new non-stationary RL algorithm was proposed. This algorithm was specially developed for the case when behaviour of auxiliary objectives changes during optimization process. However, this RL algorithm was tested only with EA+RL on some simple problems. In the present work we apply EA+RL and MOEA+RL with stationary and non-stationary RL to the travelling salesman problem (TSP) and compare them with the previously used multi-objectivization methods. We also analyze different types of auxiliary objectives for TSP. For the most of the considered problem instances, EA+RL and MOEA+RL for non-stationary environment perform better than the other considered methods.
Compact Representations of Videos Through Dominant and Multiple Motion Estimation

An explosion of on-line image and video data in digital form is already well underway. With the exponential rise in interactive information exploration and dissemination through the World-Wide Web (WWW), the major inhibitors of rapid access to on-line video data are costs and management of capture and storage, lack of real-time delivery, and nonavailability of content-based intelligent search and indexing techniques. The solutions for capture, storage, and delivery may be on the horizon or a little beyond. However, even with rapid delivery, the lack of efficient authoring and querying tools for visual content-based indexing may still inhibit as widespread a use of video information as that of text and traditional tabular data is currently. In order to be able to nonlinearly browse and index into videos through visual content, it is necessary to develop authoring tools that can automatically separate moving objects and significant components of the scene, and represent these in a compact form. Given that video data comes in torrents-almost a megabyte every 30th of a second-it will be highly inefficient to search for objects and scenes in every frame of a video. In this paper, we present techniques to automatically derive compact representations of scenes and objects from the motion information. Image motion is a significant cue in videos for the separation of scenes into their significant components and for the separation of moving objects. Motion analysis is useful in capturing the visual content of videos for indexing and browsing in two different ways. First, separation of the static scene from moving objects can be accomplished by employing dominant 2D/3D motion estimation methods. Alternatively, if the goal is to be able to represent the fixed scene too as a composition of significant structures and objects, then simultaneous multiple motion methods might be more appropriate. In either case, view-based summarized representations of the scene can be created by video compositing/mosaicing based on the estimated motions. We present robust algorithms for both kinds of representations: 1) dominant motion estimation based techniques which exploit a fairly common occurrence in videos that a mostly fixed background (scene) is imaged with or without independently moving objects, and 2) simultaneous multiple motion estimation and representation of motion video using layered representations. Ample examples of the representations achieved by each method are included in the paper.
Design exploration methodology for memristor-based spiking neuromorphic architectures with the Xnet event-driven simulator

We introduce an event-based methodology, and its accompanying simulator (“Xnet”) for memristive nanodevice-based neuromorphic hardware, which aims to provide an intermediate modeling level, between low-level hardware description languages and high-level neural networks simulators used primarily in neurosciences. This simulator was used to establish several results on Spike-Timing-Dependent Plasticity (STDP) modeling and implementation with Resistive RAM (RRAM), Conductive Bridge RAM (CBRAM) and Phase-Change Memory (PCM) type of memristive nanodevices. We present several simulation case studies that illustrate the event-based simulation strategies that we implemented, including unsupervised features extraction and Monte Carlo simulations. A discussion comparing event-based and fixed time-step simulation is included as well, and gives some metrics to guide the choice between the two depending on the application to simulate.
Dynamic Multipath Routing of Multi-Priority Traffic in Wireless Sensor Networks

We present a dynamic multipath routing protocol in which packets from different applications dynamically choose their paths by taking into account the price to be paid for taking each path and their ability to pay. We propose a mechanism in which the prices reflect congestion on routers and thus the waiting time for passing the router by a packet and ability to pay is defined by the application priority and the packet waiting time. These prices increase as usage of shorter routes increases. As a result, low priority applications tend to avoid paths with high prices. Instead, they go via low price routes which may be longer but faster to pass by avoid waiting for passage at congested routers. This enables high priority traffic to get through quickly via short paths as their priority (often representing their social value) enables them to pay high prices with little wait. Thus, our approach segregates traffic flows of different applications and lowers congestion and delays for all applications. We further show that our dynamic path allocation technique performs well both in normal and emergency situations in which network is partially damaged. Our dynamic pricing mechanism quickly adapts routing to the damaged network, increases utilization of the partial network and minimizes delays.
Analysis of modulation pattern and losses in inverter for PMSM drives

Voltage source inverter is widely used in adjustable speed system for permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM). The modulation pattern and the power switching devices losses calculation in the inverter directly affect the performance of the entire system. Sinusoidal pulse width modulation (SPWM) and space vector pulse width modulation (SVPWM) techniques used in the inverter are introduced; the relationships between the two patterns are discussed. The power switching devices losses are analyzed and compared between the two modulation strategies-SPWM and SVPWM. A PMSM controller is carried out and an experimental bench is developed. The conclusions should benefit the prediction and further investigations of the system efficiency, the losses study and inverterpsilas heat sinking system.
Lipoplexes and Tumours. A Review

The need for genotherapy to refocus its attention on to laboratory evaluation of better methods rather than proceeding to the clinic with semi-apt tools for genetic transfer has been highlighted in clinical study reports documented to date. Quintessential for tumour genotherapy is the ability to target abnormal cells, hence reducing exposure of normal cells to genetic material whilst maximizing gene dosage to tumour cells. This becomes increasingly important as genotherapy establishes itself in the clinic alongside the older modes of treatment. This review has discussed the applicability of lipoplexes for genotherapy of solid tumours. Lipoplexes have been used extensively for gene transfer into cells, such as cancerous cells, deficient for a certain gene product. While cationic liposomes have many advantages over other forms of delivery mechanisms, several problems hinder their use in-vivo. A closer examination of the physical limitations of current lipoplex preparations, the development and testing of novel formulations, combined with more attention to the cellular processes of cell membrane breaching and nuclear entry, may enhance gene delivery. Essential for tumour genotherapy is the ability to target these lipoplexes into tumour sites whilst reducing gene dosage to other normal tissues. Development of a better lipofection agent may indeed require a collaboration of the fields of physiology, cell biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, chemistry and membrane physics.
Expression and characterization of a lipase-related protein in the malpighian tubules of the Chinese oak silkworm, Antheraea pernyi

Abstract Lipases are ubiquitous enzymes in nature, which play a crucial role in fat metabolism by catalyzing the hydrolysis of triacylglycerol to free fatty acids and glycerol. However, reports concerning insect lipase are rare. In this study, we studied the expression and activity of a lipase-related protein from Antheraea pernyi (ApLRP). Recombinant ApLRP was expressed in Escherichia coli cells and used to raise rabbit anti-ApLRP polyclonal antibodies. ApLRP mRNA and protein expression were abundant in the midgut and malpighian tubules, respectively. After challenge with four different microorganisms (E. coli, Beauveria bassiana, Micrococcus luteus and nuclear polyhedrosis virus), the expression levels of ApLRP mRNA in midgut were inducted significantly compared with the control. The different pathogens induced different ApLRP gene expression patterns. The optimum temperature and pH for the enzyme's activity were 35°C and 7.0, respectively. ApLRP activity was stimulated in the presence of Mg2+, Na+, Ca2+ and b-mercaptoethanol; while Zn2+, Cu2+ and Fe3+ inhibited its activity. Detergents such as SDS, glycerol and Tween-20 increased the lipase activity by 20–30%. Our results indicated that ApLRP might play an important role in the innate immunity of insects.
CT evaluation of gastrointestinal stromal tumors treated with imatinib mesylate.

:10.2214/AJR.05. 5145 Evaluation of Gastrointestinal romal Tumors Treated with atinib Mesylate I read with great interest the article by Choi et [1] in the December 2004 issue of the AJR in ich they evaluated the response of gasintestinal stromal tumors after imatinib mesytreatment. The authors attempted to correlate changes in tumor density on CT with changes in the maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax) on FDG PET; they used 4 × 4 contingency tables and chi-square tests to assess associations between the grading of the average percentage of change in tumor density and in tumor size. In the 29 patients who underwent both CT and FDG PET in their study, no significant association was found between the percentage of change in tumor density on CT and the SUVmax on FDG PET (p = 0.3088, chi-square test). Because this study had a matched design and includes the data of repeated measurements in the same patient population, the use of the chi-square test for statistical evaluation is not appropriate. For correlated proportions, like those in the study of Choi et al. [1], the correct choice would be the McNemar test [2, 3]. However, the McNemar test is available only for 2 × 2 contingency tables, and, therefore, its use would necessitate combining the groups so that the data would fit into a 2 × 2 table. In fact, regarding the study purpose and the symmetric four grade scales used to evaluate tumor response, the most proper statistical solution for this study would be to use the kappa statistic; the kappa statistic is a common way to measure interobserver agreement [4, 5]. With use of the linear weighting kappa statistic, the authors would have been able to show the associations between the grade of changes in CT tumor density, tumor size, and SUVmax more comprehensively. Based on the data given in Tables 3 and 4 in the article by Choi et al. [1], the kappa value for the agreement between the grading of the change in SUVmax on FDG PET images and in tumor density on CT images is 0.31 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.09–0.52), whereas the agreement between the change in SUVmax and in the tumor size is 0.04 (95% CI = 0.00–0.09). This information might have led the authors to additional conclusions.
Thermography-Applications To The Manufacture And Nondestructive Characterization Of Composites

The increasing use of composite materials in military and commercial aircraft requires the development of improved quality control and nondestructive inspection techniques to assure their structural integrity and reliability. Infrared thermography is particularly useful for rapid scanning and detection of manufacturing inhomogeneities and inservice damage states in composites. The relationship between the surface thermal patterns and the interior damage is governed by the type of damage, thermal conductivity of the material and the distance between the surface and the damaged region. Applications of real-time thermography as a quality control technique for processing fiber reinforced composites, and as a nondestructive technique for monitoring growth and development of defects in composite laminates and rotor blades during low-frequency, high amplitude fatigue tests will be discussed. Applications of high frequency vibrothermography for characterizing composite structures will also be presented. This latter technique involves the use of high-frequency, low amplitude ultrasonic excitation of a sample.
A Programmable Event-driven Architecture for Evaluating Spiking Neural Networks

Spiking neural networks (SNNs) represent the third generation of neural networks and are expected to enable new classes of machine learning applications. However, evaluating large-scale SNNs (e.g., of the scale of the visual cortex) on power-constrained systems requires significant improvements in computing efficiency. A unique attribute of SNNs is their event-driven nature—information is encoded as a series of spikes, and work is dynamically generated as spikes propagate through the network. Therefore, parallel implementations of SNNs on multi-cores and GPGPUs are severely limited by communication and synchronization overheads. Recent years have seen great interest in deep learning accelerators for non-spiking neural networks, however, these architectures are not well suited to the dynamic, irregular parallelism in SNNs. Prior efforts on specialized SNN hardware utilize spatial architectures, wherein each neuron is allocated a dedicated processing element, and large networks are realized by connecting multiple chips into a system. While suitable for large-scale systems, this approach is not a good match to size or cost constrained mobile devices. We propose PEASE, a Programmable Event-driven processor Architecture for SNN Evaluation. PEASE comprises of Spike Processing Units (SPUs) that are dynamically scheduled to execute computations triggered by a spike. Instructions to the SPUs are dynamically generated by Spike Schedulers (SSs) that utilize event queues to track unprocessed spikes and identify neurons that need to be evaluated. The memory hierarchy in PEASE is fully software managed, and the processing elements are interconnected using a two-tiered bus-ring topology matching the communication characteristics of SNNs. We propose a method to map any given SNN to PEASE such that the workload is balanced across SPUs and SPU clusters, while pipelining across layers of the network to improve performance. We implemented PEASE at the RTL level and synthesized it to IBM 45 technology. Across 6 SNN benchmarks, our 64-SPU configuration of PEASE achieves 7.1×−17.5× and 2.6×−5.8× speedups, respectively, over software implementations on an Intel Xeon E5-2680 CPU and NVIDIA Tesla K40C GPU. The energy reductions over the CPU and GPU are 71×−179× and 198×−467×, respectively.
Joint Optimization for Power Scheduling and Transfer in Energy Harvesting Communications

This paper considers an energy harvesting communication system consisting of a communication link powered by the energy harvested from the natural environment and the energy wirelessly transferred from a remote dedicated energy source. We study three optimization approaches for this system: transmit power scheduling which allows the transmitter to sequentially optimize its transmit power, energy requesting which lets the transmitter to sequentially decide the amount of energy to be requested from the dedicated energy source, and a joint optimization approach for the transmitter to jointly decide the transmit power scheduling and energy requesting. We derive the optimal policy for each of the above approaches that can maximize the long-term average payoff of the communication link. We present numerical results to compare the performances of different optimizations under different settings and conditions.
ErbB2 Is Necessary for Induction of Carcinoma Cell Invasion by Erbb Family Receptor Tyrosine Kinases

The epidermal growth factor (EGF) family of tyrosine kinase receptors (ErbB1, -2, -3, and -4) and their ligands are involved in cell differentiation, proliferation, migration, and carcinogenesis. However, it has proven difficult to link a given ErbB receptor to a specific biological process since most cells express multiple ErbB members that heterodimerize, leading to receptor cross-activation. In this study, we utilize carcinoma cells depleted of ErbB2, but not other ErbB receptor members, to specifically examine the role of ErbB2 in carcinoma cell migration and invasion. Cells stimulated with EGF-related peptides show increased invasion of the extracellular matrix, whereas cells devoid of functional ErbB2 receptors do not. ErbB2 facilitates cell invasion through extracellular regulated kinase (ERK) activation and coupling of the adaptor proteins, p130CAS and c-CrkII, which regulate the actin-myosin cytoskeleton of migratory cells. Overexpression of ErbB2 in cells devoid of other ErbB receptor members is sufficient to promote ERK activation and CAS/Crk coupling, leading to cell migration. Thus, ErbB2 serves as a critical component that couples ErbB receptor tyrosine kinases to the migration/invasion machinery of carcinoma cells.
A silicon monolithic spiral transmission line balun with symmetrical design

In this work, a spiral transmission line balun has been fabricated on a high resistivity silicon substrate. The Marchand-type balun has been designed to have the same physical common ground points for the output transmission lines, which eliminates imbalance due to potential difference at the ground. Return loss is better than 17 dB in the frequency band of 1.6-4.1 GHz, especially 39 dB around 1.9 GHz. The amplitude imbalance is less than 0.3 dB throughout the bandwidth. The phase departure from 180/spl deg/ is less than 20 over the frequency range of 1.6-2.6 GHz. The balun is suitable for MMIC application.
A multi-objective evolutionary approach to the protein structure prediction problem

The protein structure prediction (PSP) problem is concerned with the prediction of the folded, native, tertiary structure of a protein given its sequence of amino acids. It is a challenging and computationally open problem, as proven by the numerous methodological attempts and the research effort applied to it in the last few years. The potential energy functions used in the literature to evaluate the conformation of a protein are based on the calculations of two different interaction energies: local (bond atoms) and non-local (non-bond atoms). In this paper, we show experimentally that those types of interactions are in conflict, and do so by using the potential energy function Chemistry at HARvard Macromolecular Mechanics. A multi-objective formulation of the PSP problem is introduced and its applicability studied. We use a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm as a search procedure for exploring the conformational space of the PSP problem.