Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stable and low-cost mesoscopic CH3NH3PbI2 Br perovskite solar cells by using a thin poly(3-hexylthiophene) layer as a hole transporter.

Mesoscopic perovskite solar cells using stable CH3 NH3 PbI2 Br as a light absorber and low-cost poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) as hole-transporting layer were fabricated, and a power conversion efficiency of 6.64 % was achieved. The partial substitution of iodine with bromine in the perovskite led to remarkably prolonged charge carrier lifetime. Meanwhile, the replacement of conventional thick spiro-MeOTAD layer with a thin P3HT layer has significantly reduced the fabrication cost. The solar cells retained their photovoltaic performance well when they were exposed to air without any encapsulation, presenting a favorable stability. The combination of CH3 NH3 PbI2 Br and P3HT may render a practical and cost-effective solid-state photovoltaic system. The superior stability of CH3 NH3 PbI2 Br is also promising for other photoconversion applications.
Expression of unphosphorylated form of human double-stranded RNA-activated protein kinase in Escherichia coli.

Interferon (IFN)-inducible, double-stranded (dsRNA)-activated protein kinase (PKR) is a key mediator of the antiviral and antiproliferative effects of IFN. PKR is present within cells in a latent state. In response to binding dsRNA, the enzyme becomes activated, causing autophosphorylation and an increase in specific kinase activity. In order to study PKR and its inhibitors, a large amount of the enzyme in its latent, unphosphorylated state is required. When PKR is fused to glutathione S-transferase (GST-PKR) and the fusion protein is expressed in Escherichia coli, the PKR obtained is fully activated by autophosphorylation. Therefore, we have developed an expression plasmid in which both GST-PKR and bacteriophage lambda protein phosphatase (lambda-PPase) genes were placed downstream of a T7 promoter. After induction of expression, unphosphorylated GST-PKR was obtained in good yield, and purified to near homogeneity. The purified enzyme has dsRNA-dependent activation and phosphorylates the translation initiation factor eIF2 alpha. Using the recombinant protein, we analyzed the inhibition mechanisms of two viral inhibitors, vaccinia virus K3L protein and adenovirus virus-associated RNA I (VAI RNA). K3L inhibited both autophosphorylation of PKR and phosphorylation of eIF2 alpha, whereas VAI RNA inhibited only autophosphorylation. The separation of autophosphorylation and catalytic activity shows that the recombinant PKR is useful in analyzing the functions of PKR, its inhibitors, and its regulatory molecules. The coexpression system of protein kinase with lambda-PPase described here will be applicable to obtaining unphosphorylated and unactivated forms of other protein kinases.
The Limits of Leadership: Opinion Leaders in General Practice

Objective: To explore the importance and characteristics of opinion leaders in general practice, particularly in relationship to the use of laboratory tests. Design: Focus group discussions and a mailed survey. Subjects: Five focus groups (n = 29 participants) in four different municipalities and a random sample of 85 general practitioners (GPs) in Norway. Results: While Norwegian GPs recognised colleagues who were influential in determining how they practised, they found it difficult to identify opinion leaders specifically with respect to the use of laboratory tests. Opinion leaders were thought to be less important in influencing the use of laboratory tests than continuing medical education activities and practice guidelines, but more important than industry, patients or personal financial interests. Norwegian GPs recognised and characterised opinion leaders in much the same way as physicians in the USA. Influential colleagues were characterised as being good conveyers of information and willing to take time, as well as being up-to-date and having a high level of clinical expertise. GPs expressed a negative attitude towards ‘superspecialists’ who give advice without knowing the epidemiology of general practice, people who are arrogant and people who do not show respect towards GPs. Conclusions: The potential to identify and use opinion leaders to improve the use of laboratory tests by GPs in Norway appears to be limited.
Effects of colloidal resuscitation fluids on the neutrophil respiratory burst

BACKGROUND: Experimental studies have revealed that gelatin and HES produce increased neutrophil respiratory burst activity. It was investigated whether 3‐percent gelatin (MW 35,000) and three types of 6‐percent HES (MW 70,000; degree of substitution, 0.5; 200,000/0.5; 450,000/0.7) preparations can influence superoxide anion production during respiratory burst under clinical conditions.
First Steps Toward Successful Communication About Sexual Health Between Adolescents and Parents in Mexico

In this article reporting on our qualitative study, we describe changes in parent—adolescent sexual health communication following an intervention for parents of 10th graders in Mexico. The intervention was aimed to sensitize and develop skills for appropriate parent—child communication about the prevention of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), unplanned pregnancy, and birth control, and focused on encouraging condom use with emergency contraception backup. We conducted 66 in-depth interviews with adolescents and parents after the intervention. Following the principals of grounded theory, we carried out inductive analysis to create codes and organize central themes. Our findings identify previously undefined critical steps or movements important for parent—child communication about sex. When parents are sensitized to the risks their adolescent children face, it is easier to initiate communication about prevention. These initial movements are essential to achieve substantive conversation, and must be considered in future strategies that aim to promote parent—adolescent communication about sexuality and the prevention of STIs and unplanned pregnancy.
Fast‐to‐slow transformation and nuclear import/export kinetics of the transcription factor NFATc1 during electrostimulation of rabbit muscle cells in culture

Contractile activity imposed by chronic electrical stimulation of a primary skeletal muscle cell culture grown on microcarriers over several days led to an increase of slow myosin heavy chain I (MHCI) and a decrease of fast MHCII expression at mRNA and protein levels, indicating an ongoing fast‐to‐slow transformation. Only patterns with periods of continuous stimulation of > 5 min in a 45 min cycle were capable of inducing a fibre type transformation, and this was independent of the applied stimulation frequency over the range 1‐10 Hz. We have shown before that the calcineurin‐NFATc1 signalling pathway is indispensable in mediating MHCI upregulation during fibre type transformation. Therefore, subcellular localization of NFATc1 was studied immunocytochemically. This revealed that only one stimulation train lasting for > 5 min was sufficient to induce nuclear import of this factor, which was about complete after 20 min of continuous stimulation. For both induction of NFATc1 import and MHCI mRNA upregulation, the minimum stimulation interval of > 5 min was sufficient and stimulation frequency was not crucial between 1 and 10 Hz. Repetition of stimulation cycles, with pauses (< 40 min) shorter than the time required for complete export of NFATc1, led to an accumulation of NFATc1 in the nuclei with each cycle and thus to an amplification of the transformation signal during extended periods of electrostimulation. The temporal behaviour of NFATc import/export appears to determine the effectiveness of various electrostimulation protocols in inducing fast‐to‐slow fibre transformation.
Estimating stand transpiration in a Eucalyptus populnea woodland with the heat pulse method: measurement errors and sampling strategies.

Sap flow measurement techniques, such as the heat pulse (compensation) method, are practical means for estimating the water use of individual trees and are often the only reasonable alternative for measuring forest and woodland transpiration in complex heterogeneous terrain. The need to scale estimates of water use from a sample of individual stems to a stand (population) of known area may be satisfied by applying scalars of flux based on tree size or domain. We estimated the aggregate errors in applying the heat pulse technique to the estimation of stand transpiration in a poplar box (Eucalyptus populnea F.J. Muell.) woodland in southeastern Queensland, Australia, by a combination of precision analyses, experimental validation and Monte Carlo simulations of sampling errors. Errors in sap flux density measurements were approximately 13%. The potential error in the flux estimates for individual stems with stratified sampling of sap flux density with depth and bole quadrant based on four sensors was an additional 25%. Conducting wood area, diameter at 1.3 m, leaf area and domain based on Ecological Field Theory all proved excellent scalars of flux at the stand level. With a sample size of six trees stratified by diameter, coefficients of variation in scaling to the stand level were approximately 5% for any of these scalars. The greatest potential source of error in estimating stand transpiration by the heat pulse method was in the measurement of the fluxes of individual stems; scaling these measurements to a homogeneous stand of trees involved less uncertainty.
Evolution of the paralogous hap and iga genes in Haemophilus influenzae: evidence for a conserved hap pseudogene associated with microcolony formation in the recently diverged Haemophilus aegyptius and H. influenzae biogroup aegyptius

Certain non‐capsulate strains belonging to the Haemophilus influenzae/Haemophilus aegyptius complex show unusually high pathogenicity, but the evolutionary origin of these virulent phenotypes, termed H. influenzae biogroup aegyptius, is as yet unknown. The aim of the present study was to elucidate the mechanisms of evolution of two paralogous genes, hap and iga, which encode the adhesion and penetration Hap protein and the IgA1 protease respectively. Partial sequencing of hap and iga genes in a comprehensive collection of strains belonging to the H. influenzae/H. aegyptius complex revealed considerable genetic polymorphism and pronounced mosaic‐like patterns in both genes, but no evidence of intrastrain recombination between the two genes. A conserved hap pseudogene was present in all strains of H. aegyptius and H. influenzae biogroup aegyptius, each of which constituted distinct subpopulations as revealed by phylogenetic analysis. There was no evidence for a second, functional copy of the hap gene in these strains. The perturbed expression of the Hap serine protease appears to be associated with the formation of elongated bacterial cells growing in chains and a distinct colonization pattern on conjunctival cells, previously termed microcolony formation. The fact that individual hap pseudogenes differed from the ancestral sequence by zero to two positions within a 1.5 kb stretch suggests that the silencing event happened ≈ 2000–11 000 years ago. Divergence of H. aegyptius and H. influenzae biogroup aegyptius occurred subsequent to this genetic event. The loss of Hap protein expression may be one of the genetic events that facilitated exploitation of the conjunctivae as a new niche.
Ball-and-socket joint motion description using spherical medial representation

The close inter-relationship between shape and functionality of osteo-articular complexes is fundamental for understanding, modeling, and imaging. It is thus desirable to put forward theoretical and methodological principles that take benefit of this relationship. In this paper, we propose a new representation of spherical motions that is applied to ball-and-socket joint such as hip and shoulder. We have been developing Spherical Medial Representation (SM-Rep) based on skeletonisation over the sphere. While M-Rep provides a paradigm for 3D surface and image analysis, the resulting surface remains in a 3D vector space. Since the geometry of the unit sphere is quite different, especially geodesies, SM-Rep supplies consistent elements to overcome this issue. Example of application of this framework to hip is given.
SNP markers identify widely distributed clonal lineages of Phytophthora colocasiae in Vietnam, Hawaii and Hainan Island, China

Taro (Colocasia esculenta) is an important food crop, and taro leaf blight caused by Phytophthora colocasiae can significantly affect production. Our objectives were to develop single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers for P. colocasiae and characterize populations in Hawaii (HI), Vietnam (VN) and Hainan Island, China (HIC). In total, 379 isolates were analyzed for mating type and multilocus SNP profiles including 214 from HI, 97 from VN and 68 from HIC. A total of 1152 single nucleotide variant (SNV) sites were identified via restriction site-associated DNA (RAD) sequencing of two field isolates. Genotyping with 27 SNPs revealed 41 multilocus SNP genotypes grouped into seven clonal lineages containing 2–232 members. Three clonal lineages were shared among countries. In addition, five SNP markers had a low incidence of loss of heterozygosity (LOH) during asexual laboratory growth. For HI and VN, >95% of isolates were the A2 mating type. On HIC, isolates within single clonal lineages had A1, A2 and A0 (neuter) isolates. The implications for the wide dispersal of clonal lineages are discussed.
DataBase teaching tools

This paper is about how to improve the experience of students of the subject of database theory and practice, a subject many find somewhat daunting. It is by experiment that most scientists learn most about their discipline and in this paper the following ideas can be explored in simulations that in most cases use access to a database so that the exercises are personalised. The simulations are listed below. • Simple Entity-Relationship diagrams: Where simple Entity-Relationship diagrams can be composed from a set of components and their validity checked. • Entity-Relationships and tables that describe the entities: Where the student has to decide from tables of two entities the degree of participation and the participation conditions. With prompting the correct solution can be found and as many attempts as necessary are possible. • Structured Query Language (SQL): Given a database various SQL queries can input and the way that the queries are dealt with are shown in detail not just the final result. • Functional dependency: Given a table from a database this can used to find out whether there is any functional dependency between any of the columns and also to show what the primary key/s might be. • Normalisation: A topic that confuses may students. This allows table to be split into a number of sub-tables and the result can be tested as to whether the selected table can be joined together to form the original table. Each of these ideas has a simulation and these will be discussed in terms of how to run the simulation and explaining what the simulation is trying to teach. There are some third party software requirements and these will be explained together with the solution that is used for the demonstrations.
Capacity Analysis for Path Selection Based DF MIMO-OSTBC Cooperative Wireless Systems

In this paper, we analyze the ergodic capacity of a path selection based Decode-and-Forward (DF) MIMO-OSTBC cooperative wireless system. Closed form expressions are derived for the ergodic capacity considering the availability of full as well as partial CSI at the source. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the ergodic capacity of the MIMO-OSTBC DF cooperative relaying system and verify the analytical expressions derived. Interestingly, it is observed that while the availability of full CSI at the source generally leads to a higher capacity, its performance gain over the scenario with partial CSI is only marginal when either the source-destination or source-relay link is relatively strong.
Design and application of noncontinuously binding probes used for haplotyping and genotyping.

BACKGROUND Many methods for genotyping use melting temperature (Tm) of sequence-specific probes. Usually the probes hybridize to a continuous stretch of DNA that contains the variant(s). In contrast, hybridization of noncontinuous probes to a template can form bulges. This report generates guidelines for the design of noncontinuous probes. METHODS We used software to predict hybridization structures and Tms from 10 noncontinuous probes and 54 different templates. Predicted Tms were compared to existing experimental data. The bulging template's sequences (omitted in the probe) ranged in size from 1 to 73 nucleotides. In 36 cases, we compared observed and predicted DeltaTms between alleles complementary to the probe and mismatched alleles. In addition, using software that predicts effects of bulges, we designed a probe and then tested it experimentally. RESULTS The mean differences between predicted and observed Tms were 0.65 (2.51) degrees C with the Visual OMP software and 0.28 (1.67) degrees C with the MeltCalc software. DeltaTms were within a mean (SD) of 0.36 (1.23) degrees C (Visual OMP) and -0.01 (1.02) degrees C (MeltCalc) of observed values. An increase in the size of the template bulge resulted in a decrease in Tms. In 2 templates, the presence of a variant in the bulge influenced the experimental Tm of 2 noncontinuous probes, a result that was not predicted by the software programs. CONCLUSIONS The use of software prediction should prove useful for the design of noncontinuous probes that can be used as tools for molecular haplotyping, multiplex genotyping, or masking sequence variants.
Inserting a Nuclear Targeting Signal into a Replication-Competent Moloney Murine Leukemia Virus Affects Viral Export and Is Not Sufficient for Cell Cycle-Independent Infection

ABSTRACT The effects of inserting reported nuclear localization signals (NLSs) into the Moloney murine leukemia virus (Mo-MuLV) integrase (IN) protein, within a replication-competent viral construct, were studied. In contrast to the virus harboring IN fused to the simian virus 40 (SV40) large T antigen NLS (SV40 NLS) (J. A. Seamon, M. Adams, S. Sengupta, and M. J. Roth, Virology 274:412-419, 2000), a codon-modified SV40 NLS was stably expressed during viral propagation. Incorporation of the codon-modified SV40 NLS into IN, however, altered the packaging of the Gag-Pol precursor in the virus; viral particles contained decreased levels of reverse transcriptase (RT) and IN. In addition, the virus showed delayed kinetics of viral DNA synthesis upon infection. A panel of infectious MuLVs containing alternative IN-NLS fusions was generated and assayed for cell cycle-independent infection. Viral infection with the NLS-tagged proteins, however, remained dependent on passage of the cells through mitosis. This finding has direct implications for engineering murine-based retroviral vectors for gene therapy.
Validation of intramural intestinal microdialysis as a detector of intestinal ischaemia

Background: The purpose of this study was to validate intestinal microdialysis as a detector of intestinal ischaemia using measurements of glucose, lactate and glycerol from the jejunal wall. Methods: Based on a previous study, the cut‐off levels for the presence of regional intestinal ischaemia were defined for microdialysis glucose, lactate, glycerol and the lactate/glucose ratio. Changes of 60% in the metabolic compounds measured after 100 min were defined as the cut‐off level for ischaemia. The cut‐off levels were tested in a randomized, single‐blinded study. Ten pigs were used; occlusive ischaemia was performed by clamping a segment of the mesentery to the intestine. Four catheters were inserted per pig, two in the ischaemic segment and two in the non‐ischaemic segment. All catheters were numbered, randomly allocated and inserted in the intestine by the staff at the institute and unknown to the investigators. Results: One pig was excluded because the clamping was insufficient. Technical problems with the catheters were registered in 15% of cases owing to damage of the microdialysis membrane, dislocation, or incorrect placement. The predictive values of presence of ischaemia for glucose, lactate, glycerol and the lactate/glucose ratio were: 0.91, 1, 0.85 and 0.92, respectively. Conclusion: Using a 60% cut‐off limit measured after 100 min, intestinal ischaemia can be detected and excluded using intestinal microdialysis, but some technical problems remain that need further investigation.
Effects of active and passive recovery on lactate removal and subsequent isokinetic muscle function.

The effect of active and passive recovery on the removal of accumulated blood lactate and subsequent muscle function were tested using five male subjects. The experimental protocol consisted of two exercise sessions performed on a mechanical brake cycle ergometer at 150% VO2max for 60 seconds. Termination of the supramaximal work bouts were followed by a 20 minutes active recovery period cycling at 30% VO2max and a 20 minutes passive recovery period sitting quietly. Following the recovery modes, isokinetic measures of peak torque, total work output and fatigue were evaluated in the dominant quadricep muscle group. During the control test, exercise performance was limited to that of isokinetic evaluation. The order of the experimental and control tests were randomly assigned. Postexercise blood lactate levels prior to the isokinetic muscle test were 9.2 and 9.1 mM during the active and passive recovery conditions respectively. Blood lactate concentration during the control test was . 4 mM prior to the isokinetic muscle test. The rate of blood lactate disappearance was significantly greater during active recovery (3.5 mM) when compared with passive recovery (7.2 mM). Blood lactate concentration during the control test was significantly lower (.4 mM) in comparison to both active and passive lactate concentrations prior to the isokinetic muscle test. Despite significant differences in blood lactate between active and passive recovery conditions, there was no difference in isokinetic measures of maximal strength, work output and muscle fatigue between recovery modes. Further indication that lactate is unrelated to muscle function was the nonsignificant finding in muscle function between the control and experimental conditions. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Discovering Latent Semantics in Web Documents Using Fuzzy Clustering

Web documents are heterogeneous and complex. There exists complicated associations within one web document and linking to the others. The high interactions between terms in documents demonstrate vague and ambiguous meanings. Efficient and effective clustering methods to discover latent and coherent meanings in context are necessary. This paper presents a fuzzy linguistic topological space along with a fuzzy clustering algorithm to discover the contextual meaning in the web documents. The proposed algorithm extracts features from the web documents using conditional random field methods and builds a fuzzy linguistic topological space based on the associations of features. The associations of cooccurring features organize a hierarchy of connected semantic complexes called “CONCEPTS,” wherein a fuzzy linguistic measure is applied on each complex to evaluate 1) the relevance of a document belonging to a topic, and 2) the difference between the other topics. Web contents are able to be clustered into topics in the hierarchy depending on their fuzzy linguistic measures; web users can further explore the CONCEPTS of web contents accordingly. Besides the algorithm applicability in web text domains, it can be extended to other applications, such as data mining, bioinformatics, content-based, or collaborative information filtering, etc.