Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ERIS, an endoplasmic reticulum IFN stimulator, activates innate immune signaling through dimerization

We report here the identification and characterization of a protein, ERIS, an endoplasmic reticulum (ER) IFN stimulator, which is a strong type I IFN stimulator and plays a pivotal role in response to both non–self-cytosolic RNA and dsDNA. ERIS (also known as STING or MITA) resided exclusively on ER membrane. The ER retention/retrieval sequence RIR was found to be critical to retain the protein on ER membrane and to maintain its integrity. ERIS was dimerized on innate immune challenges. Coumermycin-induced ERIS dimerization led to strong and fast IFN induction, suggesting that dimerization of ERIS was critical for self-activation and subsequent downstream signaling.
Strategies Adopted by Women Entrepreneurs to Ensure Small Business Success in the Nkonkobe Municipality, Eastern Cape

Abstract The important role women entrepreneur plays to combat unemployment should not be underestimated, especially in countries with growing unemployment rates such as South Africa. This study examined the strategies adopted by women entrepreneurs to ensure small business success in the Nkonkobe Municipality, Eastern Cape. The objectives of the study were to identify business strategies adopted by women entrepreneurs to remain sustainable and completely effective in the market. The study also identified the impact of financial challenges on failure of women entrepreneurs.The study adopted survey research design. A structured questionnaire was used to elicit information from the respondents and simple random sampling method was used to select the samples for this study. The instrument that was validated and its reliability measured was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings showed that the strategies adopted by women entrepreneurs have a positive effect on the success of small businesses. Recommendations were given to women entrepreneurs to take some time to study the nature of challenges other women have faced in business and possibly provide solutions to such issues before starting their own business.
A quantitative method for evaluating the stabilities of nucleic acids.

We report a general method for screening, in solution, the impact of deviations from canonical Watson-Crick composition on the thermodynamic stability of nucleic acid duplexes. We demonstrate how fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) can be used to detect directly free energy differences between an initially formed "reference" duplex (usually a Watson-Crick duplex) and a related "test" duplex containing a lesion/alteration of interest (e.g., a mismatch, a modified, a deleted, or a bulged base, etc.). In one application, one titrates into a solution containing a fluorescently labeled, FRET-active, reference duplex, an unlabeled, single-stranded nucleic acid (test strand), which may or may not compete successfully to form a new duplex. When a new duplex forms by strand displacement, it will not exhibit FRET. The resultant titration curve (normalized fluorescence intensity vs. logarithm of test strand concentration) yields a value for the difference in stability (free energy) between the newly formed, test strand-containing duplex and the initial reference duplex. The use of competitive equilibria in this assay allows the measurement of equilibrium association constants that far exceed the magnitudes accessible by conventional titrimetric techniques. Additionally, because of the sensitivity of fluorescence, the method requires several orders of magnitude less material than most other solution methods. We discuss the advantages of this method for detecting and characterizing any modification that alters duplex stability, including, but not limited to, mutagenic lesions. We underscore the wide range of accessible free energy values that can be defined by this method, the applicability of the method in probing for a myriad of nucleic acid variations, such as single nucleotide polymorphisms, and the potential of the method for high throughput screening.
Extension of a local backbone description using a structural alphabet: A new approach to the sequence‐structure relationship

Protein Blocks (PBs) comprise a structural alphabet of 16 protein fragments, each 5 Cα long. They make it possible to approximate and correctly predict local protein three‐dimensional (3D) structures. We have selected the 72 most frequent sequences of five PBs, which we call Structural Words (SWs). Analysis of four different protein data banks shows that SWs cover 92% of the amino acids in them and provide a good structural approximation for residues (i.e., sequences) 9 Cα long. We present most of them in a simple network that describes 90% of the overall residues and, interestingly, includes more than 80% of the amino acids present in coils. Analysis of the network shows the specificity and quality of the 3D descriptions as well as a new type of relation between local folds and amino acid distribution. The results show that the 3D structure of these protein data banks can be easily described by a combination of subgraphs included in the network. Finally, a Bayesian probabilistic approach improved the prediction rate by 4%.
Radiation exposure differentially affects songbird 8‐hydroxy‐2′‐deoxyguanosine plasma profiles: Ionizing radiation damage response in songbirds

The importance of understanding the effects of radiation exposure on wildlife is a critical responsibility of our stewardship of nuclear energy production. We tested the hypothesis that songbirds respond to exogenous radiation exposure with changes in plasma 8‐hydroxy‐2′‐deoxyguanosine (8‐OH‐dG). We exposed two species of songbirds, house sparrows (Passer domesticus; n = 12) and song sparrows (Melospiza melodia; n = 12), to one of four acute whole‐body radiation treatments: 75, 150, 300, or 600 mGy. We measured DNA damage by proxy as 8‐OH‐dG levels in the plasma at 0 hr (baseline), 36 hr, and 7 days post radiation. For both species, at all radiation treatments, 8‐OH‐dG levels increased significantly 36 hr following radiation exposure. However, songbird species differed significantly in response to treatment across time and between treatment groups. Song sparrows showed no significant changes in 8‐OH‐dG levels between 36 hr and Day 7. In contrast, house sparrows exposed to 300 and 600 mGy had significantly increased 8‐OH‐dG levels at Day 7 compared with 36 hr. This study demonstrates that in a controlled experiment, in isolation from other sources of genotoxicity, radiation exposure significantly affects songbirds. Our results suggest future research examining the effects of radiation on songbirds must consider using multiple species to assess the biological effects of radiation, as different species can show strikingly differentresponses to radiation dosage across time. Environ. Mol. Mutagen. , 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Nondestructive evaluation of large-area PZN-8%PT single crystal wafers for medical ultrasound imaging probe applications

A nondestructive quality evaluation and control procedure for large-area, [001]-cut PZN-8%PT wafers is described. The crystals were grown by the flux technique engineered to promote [001] layer growth of the crystals. The wafers were sliced parallel to the [001] layer growth plane. Curie temperature (T/sub c/) variations, measured with matching arrays of dot electrodes (of 5.0 mm in center-to-center spacing), were found to be better than /spl plusmn/4.01/spl deg/C both within wafers and from wafer to wafer. After selective dicing to give final wafers of narrower T/sub c/ distributions (e.g., /spl plusmn/ 3.0/spl deg/C or better), the wafers were coated with complete electrodes and poled at room temperature at 0.7-0.9 kV/mm. Typical overall properties of the poled wafers were: K/sub 3//sup T/ = 5, 200 (/spl plusmn/10% from wafer to wafer), tan /spl delta/ < 0.01 (all wafers), and k/sub t/ = 0.55 (/spl plusmn/5%) (all percentage variations are in relative percentages). Then, the distributions of K/sub 3//sup S/, tan /spl delta/, and k/sub t/ were measured by the array dot electrode technique. The variations in K/sub 3//sup S/ (hence K/sub 3//sup T/) and k/sub t/ within individual wafers were found to be within 10% and 5%, respectively. The dielectric loss values, measured at 1 kHz, were consistently low, being <0.01 throughout the wafers. The k/sub t/ values determined by the dot electrodes were found to be about 5% smaller than those obtained with the complete electrodes, which can be attributed to an increase in capacitance ratio due to the partial electroding. The k/sub 33/ values, deduced using the relation K/sub 3//sup S/ /spl ap/ (1 k/sub 33//sup 2/) K/sub 3//sup T/, from the mean K/sub 3//sup S/ and overall K/sub 3//sup T/ values, average 0.94 (/spl plusmn/2%). The present work shows that the distribution of T/sub c/ within wafers can be used as a convenient check for the uniformity in composition and electromechanical properties of PZN-8%PT single crystal wafers. Our results show that, to control /spl Delta/K/sub 3//sup T/ and /spl Delta/k/sub t/ within individual wafer to /spl les/ 10% and 5%, respectively, the variation in T/sub c/ within the wafer should be kept within /spl plusmn/3.0/spl deg/C or better.
Presentation of Cytosolically Stable Peptides by HLA-B27 Is Not Dependent on the Canonic Interactions of N-Terminal Basic Residues in the A Pocket1

HLA-B27 binds peptides with R at position 2. Additionally, a substantial fraction of the HLA-B27-bound peptide repertoire has basic residues at position 1. It is unclear whether this is determined by structural complementarity with the A pocket of the peptide-binding site, by the increased availability of peptides with dibasic N-terminal sequences resulting from their cytosolic stability, or both. To distinguish between these possibilities two B*2705 mutants were generated in which one or two A pocket surface residues stabilizing the peptidic R1 side chain were changed: E163T and E163T-W167S. Both mutants bound a large fraction of the constitutive peptide repertoire of B*2705. Moreover, 90 B*2705 ligands of known sequence were examined for their endogenous presentation by the mutants. The E163T mutation alone had a limited effect on binding of peptides with R1 or K1 and on the relative frequencies of N-terminal residues. However, it decreased the overall stability of the molecule. The E163T-W167S mutant also bound many of the B*2705 ligands with N-terminal basic residues, but its preference for G1 was significantly decreased. The results indicate that the capacity of HLA-B27 to bind peptides with N-terminal basic residues is largely independent of the canonic interactions that stabilize at least the R1 side chain. Thus, the prevalence of HLA-B27 ligands with dibasic N-terminal sequences may be significantly influenced by the increased availability of these peptides resulting from their cytosolic stability. This confers to HLA-B27 a unique capacity to present Ags generated in low amounts, but resistant to intracellular degradation.
Sexual dimorphism in autonomic changes and in the renin–angiotensin system in the hearts of mice subjected to thyroid hormone‐induced cardiac hypertrophy

What is the central question of this study? Based on the relevance of the renin–angiotensin system and the controversy regarding the role of the sympathetic nervous system in thyroid hormone‐related cardiac hypertrophy, the present study sought to establish whether there is a gender difference in activation of these systems and the degree of cardiac hypertrophy in mice. What is the main finding and its importance? Triiodothyronine increased sympathetic modulation and induced higher levels of cardiac angiotensin II in male than in female mice. This could explain the greater degree of cardiac hypertrophy induced by thyroid hormone found in the male mice.
Distributed Fault-Tolerant Control of Networked Uncertain Euler–Lagrange Systems Under Actuator Faults

This paper investigates the distributed fault-tolerant control problem of networked Euler-Lagrange systems with actuator and communication link faults. An adaptive fault-tolerant cooperative control scheme is proposed to achieve the coordinated tracking control of networked uncertain Lagrange systems on a general directed communication topology, which contains a spanning tree with the root node being the active target system. The proposed algorithm is capable of compensating for the actuator bias fault, the partial loss of effectiveness actuation fault, the communication link fault, the model uncertainty, and the external disturbance simultaneously. The control scheme does not use any fault detection and isolation mechanism to detect, separate, and identify the actuator faults online, which largely reduces the online computation and expedites the responsiveness of the controller. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed method, a test-bed of multiple robot-arm cooperative control system is developed for real-time verification. Experiments on the networked robot-arms are conduced and the results confirm the benefits and the effectiveness of the proposed distributed fault-tolerant control algorithms.
Constitutive expression of p55TNFR mRNA and mitogen‐specific up‐regulation of TNFα and p75TNFR mRNA in mouse brain

Serum tumor necrosis factor (TNF) functions as a mediator of the immune‐to‐brain axis. Numerous TNF receptor‐mediated effects on the nervous system are described but the knowledge about the regional and cellular expression of TNF receptor p55TNFR and p75TNFR in vivo is far from being complete. It is unclear whether TNF mediates its neuroimmune effects alone or in combination with other factors, e.g., bacterial mitogens. Here, we investigated the distribution of TNFα, p55TNFR, and p75TNFR in normal mouse brain and examined the stimulus‐specific effects of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB) on the expression of the cerebral TNF system. Both mitogens caused enhanced TNFα serum levels and induced c‐fos mRNA in the paraventricular nucleus but exhibited different effects on the cerebral gene expression of the TNF system. LPS but not SEB rapidly induced TNFα mRNA in circumventricular organs (CVOs) followed by spreading of TNFα mRNA into brain parenchyma close to the CVOs. The p55TNFR gene was constitutively expressed in many neurons with high levels in brainstem motor nuclei and in neurons of the sensory mesencephalic trigeminal nucleus. Moderate levels of p75TNFR mRNA were seen in single cells scattered throughout the brain in a pattern resembling microglia. Neither LPS nor SEB modulated the p55TNFR gene expression in any region or cell type of the brain, and LPS but not SEB induced p75TNFR mRNA in the CVOs. Thus, enhanced TNF serum levels able to stimulate c‐fos mRNA expression in the paraventricular nucleus did not necessarily result in a modulation of the cerebral TNF system. J. Comp. Neurol. 465:417–430, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
On Cox Processes And Credit Risky Bonds

We present an intensity based approach to modeling default risk and the term structure of credit risky bonds. Intensities of default are random but may depend on factors affecting the default-free term structure of interest rates. The framework is convenient for pricing derivative securities with risk of counterparty default and derivatives written on credit spreads. An extension of a Markovian model proposed by Jarrow, Lando and Turnbull is given and we discuss a notion of conditionally non-systematic default risk which is related to the use of empirically estimated hazard functions for pricing.
Mitochondria-targeted peptides prevent on contrast-induced acute kidney injury in the rats with hypercholesterolemia

Abstract Objective: The objective of this study is to evaluate the effect and mechanism of mitochondria-targeted peptides (MTP131 and SPI20) on contrast-induced acute kidney injury (CI-AKI) in rats with hypercholesterolemia. Method: Forty SD rats were randomly divided into normal diet group (NN, n = 8) and high cholesterol supplemented dietary group (HN, n = 32). At the end of 8 weeks, the group HN was divided into four subgroups. All Rats were given injection of either diatrizoate (10 mL/kg) or equal volume of normal saline, the rats pretreated with MTP131 or SPI20 were given injection with MTP131 or SPI 20 (3 mg/kg) by peritoneal cavity for 3 times. Blood, urine and renal tissue samples were prepared to determine biochemical parameters. The renal pathological changes were evaluated by hematoxylin and eosin staining and scored semiquantitatively, The protein expression of renal NOX4 was also measured by Western blotting. Results: In diatrizoate-injected rats, Serum creatinine (Scr), fractional excretion of sodium (FeNa%), fractional excretion of potassium (FeK%), pathological scores, renal malondialdehyde (MDA) content, the NADPH oxidase activity and the expression of NOX4 in kidney tissue were significantly increased (p < 0.01). In the groups pretreated with MTP131 or SPI20, the levels of Scr, FeNa%, FeK%, MDA content and NADPH oxidase activity in renal tissue decreased (p < 0.01), the levels of renal super oxygen dehydrogenises and ATPase activity increased (p < 0.01). The renal injuries induced by contrast media (CM) were alleviated. Conclusion: MTP131 and SPI20 might protect acute kidney injury induced by CM in rats with hypercholesterolemia.
Goodness-of-t Testing and Structure Learning of the Ising Model

In this note, we consider two algorithmic problems concerning the Ising model, structure learning and testing goodness-of-t, and survey some recent developments. • In the structure learning problem, we are interested in recovering its underlying graph structure given i.i. d. samples from a Ising model. A recent work by Klivans & Meka (2017) provides a nearly optimal algorithm for this problem in terms of both sample complexity and computational eciency. e algorithm also extends to t-wise Markov random elds. • e related problem of testing goodness-of-t is that of deciding whether a given set of samples from an unknown Ising model is drawn from a specic hypothesis model. A recent work by Daskalakis et al. (2018) provides the rst sample and time ecient testing algorithm.
Prognostic value of survivin in patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma: a meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Numerous studies have focused on the role of survivin in non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (NHLs), but evidence regarding the prognostic value of survivin with respect to overall survival (OS) in NHL remains controversial. The aim of this study is to gain a better insight about the direct relationship between survivin expression and patients' survival statuses. MATERIALS AND METHODS Relevant publications addressing the association between survivin expression and OS in NHL patients were selected from PubMed, Embase, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM), China National Knowledge Infrastructure Database (CNKI), China Science and Technology Journal Database (VIP), Wanfang Database and the Cochrane library. Studies were pooled and summary hazard ratios (HR) were calculated. Sensitivity analyses and publication bias were also conducted. Statistical analysis was performed by STATA 12.0 software. RESULTS 12 studies met the inclusion criteria. Combined HRs suggested that survivin overexpression had an unfavorable impact on NHL patients' survival (HR=1.55, 95% CI=1.12-2.13, P=0.008). Subgroup analyses according to the studies categorized by histological type, ethnicity, cutoff scores and follow-up period were also conducted, and all the above analyses supported the stability of the prognostic role of survivin. CONCLUSION Our findings suggest that survivin high expression might be a poor prognostic factor for patients with NHL. However, further large scale studies are needed to confirm these findings.
Postnatal adaptation of cerebral blood flow using near infrared spectroscopy in extremely preterm infants undergoing high‐frequency oscillatory ventilation

Aim: To determine cerebral blood flow using near infrared spectroscopy in extremely preterm infants undergoing high‐frequency oscillatory ventilation during the first three days of life. Low cerebral blood flow has been associated with both intra‐ventricular haemorrhage and periventricular leucomalacia. It is well established that cerebral blood flow increases over the first three days of life in extremely preterm infants who are conventionally ventilated with intermittent positive pressure ventilation. However, there is no information about cerebral blood flow in preterm babies undergoing high‐frequency oscillatory ventilation. In addition, there are concerns that high‐frequency oscillatory ventilation may be associated with an increased incidence of intra‐ventricular haemorrhage in premature infants. Methods: Thirteen appropriately grown, preterm infants of less than 28 wk gestation who were admitted to the neonatal unit at University College Hospital, London were studied using near infrared spectroscopy. Left ventricular output and right ventricular output were assessed echocardiographically. Results: Extremely preterm infants undergoing high‐frequency oscillatory ventilation have remarkably low cerebral blood flow in the first 12 h of life, median 6.7 (range 4.4‐11) mls. 100 g−1min−1 followed by an increase over the subsequent three days. Left ventricular output also increased over the first three days of life, whereas right ventricular output showed no clear relationship with time. Despite low cerebral blood flow only one infant had evidence of major cerebral injury.
TIMETABLE CONSTRUCTION USING GENERAL HEURISTIC TECHNIQUES

This paper investigates the use of a Hopfield-type neural network for timetable construction problems. This general heuristic method has provided good results in school timetabling. The main purpose of the paper is to describe the way we applied the neural network to produce feasible school timetables, which are polynomial time in the length of the input. When mapping a school timetabling problem onto a Hopfield-type neural network, the complexity of the network can become quite large. The incorporation of a genetic algorithm allows more complex scheduling problems to be solved more efficiently. Two examples, first on a simple and second on a ‘real’ data set, are used to demonstrate the potential on neural networks and genetic algorithms that seem to outperform traditional Operational Research methods in solving some NP-complete problems.