Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Design and characterization of ebolavirus GP prehairpin intermediate mimics as drug targets

Ebolaviruses are highly lethal filoviruses that cause hemorrhagic fever in humans and nonhuman primates. With no approved treatments or preventatives, the development of an anti‐ebolavirus therapy to protect against natural infections and potential weaponization is an urgent global health need. Here, we describe the design, biophysical characterization, and validation of peptide mimics of the ebolavirus N‐trimer, a highly conserved region of the GP2 fusion protein, to be used as targets to develop broad‐spectrum inhibitors of ebolavirus entry. The N‐trimer region of GP2 is 90% identical across all ebolavirus species and forms a critical part of the prehairpin intermediate that is exposed during viral entry. Specifically, we fused designed coiled coils to the N‐trimer to present it as a soluble trimeric coiled coil as it appears during membrane fusion. Circular dichroism, sedimentation equilibrium, and X‐ray crystallography analyses reveal the helical, trimeric structure of the designed N‐trimer mimic targets. Surface plasmon resonance studies validate that the N‐trimer mimic binds its native ligand, the C‐peptide region of GP2. The longest N‐trimer mimic also inhibits virus entry, thereby confirming binding of the C‐peptide region during viral entry and the presence of a vulnerable prehairpin intermediate. Using phage display as a model system, we validate the suitability of the N‐trimer mimics as drug screening targets. Finally, we describe the foundational work to use the N‐trimer mimics as targets in mirror‐image phage display, which will be used to identify D‐peptide inhibitors of ebolavirus entry.
Korean–English dual language immersion: perspectives of students, parents and teachers

This qualitative study examines the experiences of Korean-American students, parents and teachers in a newly instituted 50/50 Korean–English dual language immersion programme, where the majority of the students are of Korean descent. Based on home and school observations, as well as interviews with six Korean-American students and their parents and teachers, the data provided insights into the perceived benefits and challenges of participation in a dual language immersion programme. Although parents and children recognised the potential of the programme to develop bilingualism and biculturalism and foster stronger ethnic identity, they also perceived inequities in the ways in which the programme was organised and instruction was executed. The characteristics of the programme brought forth tensions for the parents and teachers in terms of expectations for language development in English vs. Korean, academic outcomes of bilingual vs. English-only education, parental involvement among Korean vs. non-Korean parents and instructional needs of Korean vs. non-Korean students. Furthermore, the analysis highlighted both shared perspectives as well as perspectives that were unique to children, parents and teachers arising from their different roles in the school. Implications for improved practices and policies for dual language immersion programmes for the less commonly taught languages are provided.
Discriminative Distance-Based Network Indices and the Tiny-World Property

In large networks, using the length of shortest paths as the distance measure has shortcomings. A well-studied shortcoming is that extending it to disconnected graphs and directed graphs is controversial. The second shortcoming is that a huge number of vertices may have exactly the same score. The third shortcoming is that in many applications, the distance between two vertices not only depends on the length of shortest paths, but also on the number of shortest paths. In this paper, first we develop a new distance measure between vertices of a graph that yields discriminative distance-based centrality indices. This measure is proportional to the length of shortest paths and inversely proportional to the number of shortest paths. We present algorithms for exact computation of the proposed discriminative indices. Second, we develop randomized algorithms that precisely estimate average discriminative path length and average discriminative eccentricity and show that they give $(\epsilon,\delta)$-approximations of these indices. Third, we perform extensive experiments over several real-world networks from different domains. In our experiments, we first show that compared to the traditional indices, discriminative indices have usually much more discriminability. Then, we show that our randomized algorithms can very precisely estimate average discriminative path length and average discriminative eccentricity, using only few samples. Then, we show that real-world networks have usually a tiny average discriminative path length, bounded by a constant (e.g., 2). Fourth, in order to better motivate the usefulness of our proposed distance measure, we present a novel link prediction method, that uses discriminative distance to decide which vertices are more likely to form a link in future, and show its superior performance compared to the well-known existing measures.
Altered Temporal Profile of Heat Shock Factor 1 Phosphorylation and Heat Shock Protein 70 Expression Induced by Heat Shock in Nucleus Tractus Solitarii of Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats

Background—We demonstrated recently that heat shock (HS)–induced heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) expression in bilateral nucleus tractus solitarii (NTS), the terminal site in the brain stem for primary baroreceptor afferents, confers cardiovascular protection against heatstroke by potentiating baroreceptor reflex (BRR) response. This study evaluated the hypothesis that altered regulation of HSP70 expression may be associated with the heightened susceptibility to heatstroke during hypertension. Methods and Results—Spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and normotensive Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rats anesthetized with propofol were used. Compared with WKY rats, significant induction in HSP70 or phosphorylation of heat shock factor 1 (HSF1), but not HSF2, in the NTS and potentiation of BRR response in SHR occurred earlier (4 versus 8 hours), reaching peak magnitude sooner (16 versus 24 hours), and declined more rapidly after a brief hyperthermic HS (42±0.5°C for 15 minutes). The protection conferred by HS against hypotension and bradycardia during the onset of heatstroke (45°C for 60 minutes), although effective, was less effective in SHR. Microinjection bilaterally into the NTS of the selective protein kinase A (PKA) inhibitor H-89 (100 pmol) or the selective PKC inhibitor calphostin C (100 pmol) significantly attenuated all of the above events induced in SHR by HS. However, only H-89 was effective in WKY rats. Conclusions—An altered temporal profile of HS-induced HSP70 expression or potentiation of BRR response by concurrent activation via both PKA and PKC pathways of phosphorylation of HSF1 in the NTS may be associated with greater susceptibility to heatstroke during hypertension.
Tyrosine phosphorylation of mitogen-activated protein kinases is necessary for activation of murine macrophages by natural and synthetic bacterial products

The purpose of these studies was to determine the intracellular signal transduction pathways of bacterial products in murine macrophages from lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-responder C3H/HeN and LPS-nonresponder C3H/HeJ mice. Both LPS and synthetic lipopeptide CGP 31362 (LPP) induced production of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) in C3H/HeN macrophages. In C3H/HeJ macrophages, however, TNF-alpha was induced only by incubation with LPP. Both LPS and LPP induced tyrosine phosphorylation on proteins with apparent molecular masses of 39, 41, and 45 kD (p35, p41, and p45) in C3H/HeN macrophages, whereas in C3H/HeJ macrophages, tyrosine phosphorylation was induced only by LPP. 20-h incubation with LPS or LPP downregulated TNF-alpha production/secretion and tyrosine phosphorylation in C3H/HeN macrophages induced by additional LPS or LPP. In C3H/HeJ macrophages, however, the downregulation of TNF-alpha production and tyrosine phosphorylation were observed only with LPP. Protein kinase assays, Western blotting analyses, phenyl-Sepharose chromatography, and immunocomplex kinase assay suggested that p45 and p39 were similar or identical to mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase 1 and 2, respectively. Pretreatment of macrophages with LPS or LPP did not change the amount of kinase proteins but inhibited the stimulation of kinase activity by the agents. These data suggest that MAP kinases are among target proteins involved in the transduction of LPS and LPP signals that lead to activation of murine macrophages to produce/secrete TNF.
The origins of face perception: specific versus non‐specific mechanisms

Many studies have demonstrated that newborns prefer upright faces over upside-down faces. Based on this evidence, some have suggested that faces represent a special class of stimuli for newborns and there is a qualitative difference between the processes involved in perception of facelike and non-facelike patterns (i.e. structural hypothesis). Others suggest that there is no reason to suppose that faces are different from other patterns, because faces, like any other class of visual stimuli, are subject to filtering by the properties of the visual system (i.e. sensory hypothesis). The core question that will be addressed in the present paper is whether, to manifest itself, face preference requires the unique structure of the face, represented by the relative spatial location of its internal features, or rather some more general properties that other stimuli may also possess. Evidence will be presented supporting the idea that newborns do not respond to facelike stimuli by ‘facedness’ but, rather, by some general structural characteristics that best satisfy the constraints of the immature visual system. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
An exploration of the role of principal inertia components in information theory

The principal inertia components of the joint distribution of two random variables X and Y are inherently connected to how an observation of Y is statistically related to a hidden variable X. In this paper, we explore this connection within an information theoretic framework. We show that, under certain symmetry conditions, the principal inertia components play an important role in estimating one-bit functions of X, namely f(X), given an observation of Y. In particular, the principal inertia components bear an interpretation as filter coefficients in the linear transformation of pf(X)|X into pf(X)|Y. This interpretation naturally leads to the conjecture that the mutual information between f(X) and Y is maximized when all the principal inertia components have equal value. We also study the role of the principal inertia components in the Markov chain B → X → Y → B̂, where B and B̂ are binary random variables. We illustrate our results for the setting where X and Y are binary strings and Y is the result of sending X through an additive noise binary channel.
Prognostic significance of metastasis-related microRNAs in early breast cancer patients with a long follow-up.

BACKGROUND Stability of microRNAs (miRNAs) in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissues enables their reliable analysis in archived FFPE tissue samples, which are an invaluable source for the evaluation of novel biomarkers. Especially in breast cancer, for which late relapses occur in many cases, analysis of miRNAs in FFPE tissues holds great potential, because it can lead to the discovery of novel biomarkers suitable for future routine clinical diagnostics for breast cancer. We investigated the prognostic significance of 6 metastasis-related miRNAs that can critically regulate various stages of migration and invasion and play critical roles in the multistep metastatic process. METHODS We quantified the expression of 6 mature miRNAs (namely miR-21, miR-205, miR-10b, miR-210, miR-335, and let-7a) by reverse-transcription quantitative PCR in FFPE tissues of 84 patients with early breast cancer and a long follow-up and 13 cancer-free breast tissue FFPE samples that were used as the control group. We further correlated individual miRNA over- or underexpression with the disease-free interval (DFI) and overall survival (OS). RESULTS Univariate analysis revealed that both miR-21 and miR-205 were significantly associated with DFI and only miR-205 with OS. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that miR-205 and miR-21 were independent factors associated with early disease relapse, whereas only miR-205 overexpression was associated with OS. CONCLUSIONS Our results clearly indicate that deregulation of metastasis-associated miRNAs in primary tumors is associated with clinical outcome in patients with early breast cancer and can differentiate patients with higher risk in well-characterized subgroups.
Finitely generated Magari algebras and arithmetic

Some consequences are studied of Shavrukov's theorem regarding the Magari algebras (diagonalizable algebras) that are embeddable in the Magari algebra of formal arithmetical theories. Semantic characterizations of faithfully interpretable modal propositional theories in a nite number of propositional letters are given, in particular for nitely axiomatizable ones. Supported by this theory computer aided calculations on the theories of lowest complexity in one propositional letter were executed leading to a complete list of 62 formulas that axiomatize such theories under which the 8 maximal ones of particular interest.
Análise Fatorial Confirmatória do Instrumento de Avaliação Neuropsicológica Breve Infantil - NEUPSILIN - Inf

Se examino la estructura interna del Instrumento de Evaluacion Neuropsicologica Breve Infantil - NEUPSILIN-Inf a traves de Analisis Factorial Confirmatorio (AFC). Participaron del estudio 840 ninos (421 de la ciudad de Sao Paulo, 419 de Porto Alegre, RS-Brasil), con edades entre seis y 12 anos (M=8,98, DE=1,98), entre el primer y sexto ano de primaria, de escuelas publicas y privadas. Se testaron modelos teoricos hipoteticos considerandose la organizacion original del instrumento y la literatura neuropsicologica. Se verifico adecuacion empirica de cinco de los siete modelos primeramente pensados: praxis constructivas, memoria verbal, memoria episodica y semantica, procesamiento visual y desempeno academico. Contrariamente a las hipotesis, el lenguaje se ajusto como un modelo de un factor, mientras memoria de trabajo, atencion y funciones ejecutivas fueron mas bien explicadas por un modelo de dos factores correlacionados. Se concluyo que el NEUPSILIN-Inf presenta evidencia de validez basada en la estructura interna y puede ser utilizado en la evaluacion neuropsicologica de ninos para examinar esos grupos de componentes neurocognitivos.
Anomia and deviant behaviour in marketing: some preliminary evidence

Anomia describes the individual’s lack of integration in social life. The construct has been linked to various types of activities and concepts but no research appears to have been undertaken linking it to deviant behaviour inmarketing. In this preliminary study the literature on anomia and deviant behaviour, specifically attitude toward fraudulent behaviour among retail employees and academic misconduct among students, are examined. Hypotheses are formulated, measurement instruments are identified and two surveys are carried out, one among employees of a large retail chain and another among business undergraduate students. The psychometric properties of the instruments are confirmed and relationships are investigated using regression equations. The implications for theory are considered, limitations are noted and directions for future research are indicated.
Distributed Policy Management and Comprehension with Classified Advertisements

Distributed systems present new challenges to resource management, which cannot be met by conventional systems that employ relatively static resource models and centralized allocators. Matchmaking paradigms based on identifying compatible classified advertisements (ClassAds) placed by providers and requesters of services work well in such environments. Condor is a production-quality distributed system with a distributed policy model that uses ClassAds for matchmaking. However, due to the distributed polices and dynamics of such environments, understanding why some ClassAds are not matched while others are can be a very complex task. We therefore present algorithms which not only identify problematic aspects of a policy, but also suggest modifications.
War and Children ' s Development and Personality 47 depression and deprivation of care and economic adversities form risks for insecure and disorganized attachment patterns

Children show great differences in their ways of appraising threat, seeking help, and expressing emotions when facing traumatic events. This chapter focuses on developmental and personality aspects of trauma responses. It is hypothesized that each developmental age provides children unique protecting resources, on one hand, and makes them vulnerable, on the other. These protecting and risk dynamics are analyzed among infants, toddlers, school-age children and adolescents. Concerning the link between personality and trauma, attachment theory and temperament research are viewed. The argument is that insecure-avoidant children are vulnerable due to their tendency to deny dangers, distrust others’ help and cope by distraction and withdrawal. Insecure-ambivalent children are at risk due to their exaggeration of danger and overactivation of negative emotions. Secure children in their part accurately perceive the trauma, trust in their own resources and others’ ability to help, and show balanced emotional, cognitive and behavioral responses. The implications for helping children to cope with war and military violence are discussed.
Information Fusion for Identity Verification

— In this paper we propose a novel approach for ascertaining human identity based on fusion of profile face and gait biometric cues The identification approach based on feature learning in PCA-LDA subspace, and classification using multivariate Bayesian classifiers allows significant improvement in recognition accuracy for low resolution surveillance video scenarios. The experimental evaluation of the proposed identification scheme on a publicly available database [2] showed that the fusion of face and gait cues in joint PCA-LDA space turns out to be a powerful method for capturing the inherent multimodality in walking gait patterns, and at the same time discriminating the person identity.
Multilanguage Interoperability in Distributed Systems : EXPERIENCE REPORT DRAFT

The Q system provides interoperability support for multilingual, heterogeneous component-based software systems. Initial development of Q began in 1988, and was driven by the very pragmatic need for a communication mechanism between a client program written in Ada and a server written in C. The initial design was driven by language features present in C, but not in Ada, or vice-versa. In time our needs and aspirations grew and Q evolved to support other languages, such as C++, Lisp, and Prolog. As a result of pervasive usage by the Arcadia SDE research project, usage levels and modes of the Q system grew and so more emphasis was placed upon portability, reliability, and performance. In that context we identi ed speci c ways in which programming language support systems can directly impede e ective interoperability. This necessitated extensive changes to both our conceptual model, and our implementation, of the Q system. We also discovered the need to support modes of interoperability far more complex than the usual client-server. The continued evolution of Q has allowed the architecture of Arcadia software to become highly distributed and component-based, exploiting components written in a variety of languages. In addition to becoming an Arcadia project mainstay, Q has also been made available to over 100 other sites. It is currently in use by SAIC, Loral, Stars project participants, and NASA Goddard. This paper summarizes key points that have been learned from this considerable base of experience.
Assessing student approaches to learning

The Learning Process Questionnaire (LPQ) and the Study Process Questionnaire (SPQ) are designed to assess the more important motives. strategies and approaches to learning of secondary and tertiary students. respectively. An approach to learning. in line with a metacognitively based theory of student learning is defined as a particular motive for learning that is associated with a congruent strategy. Three such approaches surface, deep, and achieving and one composite approach, deep-achieving, represent the most important ways in which students consistently approach academic tasks. Norms for each subscale and scale score arc available in deciles, separately for males and females, and in the case of the LPQ, for middle and senior high school, and in that of the SPQ. for CAE and university and for the faculties of arts, education, and science. Some data on the sampling, reliability, and validity are provided, and the use of the instruments in teaching, counseling, and research is discussed briefly.
Redefining Resistance: Towards an Islamic subculture in schools

Based on a critical ethnographic study of student narratives, this article examines Muslim student subcultures in Ontario schools. These subcultures embody a multisystemic framework for the continuity of Islamic beliefs and practices within this context. The social organisation of Muslim youth in schools represents nascent forms of Islamic subcultures and utilises, to varying extents, the politics of resistance to counteract their marginality and subordination as a religious minority in a secular public school system. This article challenges classical resistance theories in education which are predicated on the notion that anti-school behaviours are entrenched within class-based motives. The concept of resistance is redirected in this article to reflect alternative catalysts for student-based social action and educational critique that reflect the experiences of Muslim students. A mode of 'formalised resistance' will be introduced as a strategy used by Muslim students to resist marginalisation and develop the institutional conditions necessary for the development of an Islamic subculture in schools. The focus will also be upon how education has become an arena for contemporary cultural politics, and how Muslims use their religious identities to challenge Eurocentrism in school policies, practices and curriculum.
Toxicity studies of six types of carbon nanoparticles in a chicken-embryo model

In the present study, the toxicity of six different types of carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) was investigated using a chicken-embryo model. Fertilized chicken eggs were divided into the following treatment groups: placebo, diamond NPs, graphite NPs, pristine graphene, small graphene oxide, large graphene oxide, and reduced graphene oxide. Experimental solutions at a concentration of 500 μg/mL were administrated into the egg albumin. Gross pathology and the rate of survival were examined after 5, 10, 15, and 20 days of incubation. After 20 days of incubation, blood samples were collected and the weight of the body and organs measured. The relative ratio of embryo survival decreased after treatment all treatments except diamond NPs. There was no correlation between the rate of survival and the ζ-potential or the surface charge of the CNPs in solution. Body and organ weight, red blood-cell morphology, blood serum biochemical parameters, and oxidative damage in the liver did not differ among the groups. These results indicate that CNPs can remain in blood circulation without any major side effects, suggesting their potential applicability as vehicles for drug delivery or active compounds per se. However, there is a need for further investigation of their properties, which vary depending on production methods and surface functionalization.