Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An infrared spectroscopic study of the interactions of carbohydrates with dried proteins.

Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy was used to characterize the interaction of stabilizing carbohydrates with dried proteins. Freeze-drying of trehalose, lactose, and myo-inositol with lysozyme resulted in substantial alterations of the infrared spectra of the dried carbohydrates. In the fingerprint region (900-1500 cm-1), there were large shifts in the frequencies of bands, a decrease in absorbance, and a loss of band splitting. These effects mimic those of water on hydrated trehalose. Bands assigned to hydroxyl stretching modes (around 3350 cm-1) were decreased in intensity and shifted to higher frequencies in the presence of the protein. In complementary experiments, it was found that dehydration-induced shifts in the positions of amide I and amide II bands for lysozyme could be partially and fully reversed, respectively, when the protein was freeze-dried in the presence of either trehalose or lactose. In addition, the carboxylate band, which was not detectable in the protein dried without the sugar, was apparent when these sugars were present. myo-Inositol was less effective at shifting the amide bands, and the carboxylate band was not detected in the presence of this carbohydrate. Also tested was the concentration dependency of the carbohydrates' influence on the position of the amide II band for dried lysozyme. The results showed that the ability of a given concentration of a carbohydrate to shift this band back toward the position noted with the hydrated protein coincided, at least in the extreme cases, with the capacity of that same level of carbohydrate to preserve the activity of rabbit skeletal muscle phosphofructokinase during freeze-drying. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for detecting avian leukosis-sarcoma viruses.

Immunoglobulins from antiserum raised against chromatographically purified avian myeloblastosis virus (AMV) group-specific (gs) antigens were used in enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Readily discernible color was produced with 2--3 ng of AMV protein in microplate wells coated with 4 micrograms of salt-precipitated immunoglobulins. When a biological assay, i.e., phenotypic mixing (PM), was the criterion for the infectious status of specimens, the ELISA consistently identified a greater percentage of virus-positive specimens than direct complement-fixation (DCF) tests. Over 95% concordance was obtained between the ELISA and PM bioassays when meconia and whole-blood samples were tested. Moreover, three DCF(-) egg albumens from one virus shedder hen were positive by the direct ELISA. Complete agreement was found between a biological assay for endogenous virus and the ELISA when blood and albumens from inbred chickens were tested. The ELISA is a rapid and convenient alternative to the DCF test for identifying infected chickens in eradication programs, because virus-rich sources such as meconia and blood that are unsuitable for DCF can be tested directly.
Instability of the negative mass Schwarzschild naked singularity

We study the negative mass Schwarzschild spacetime, which has a naked singularity, and show that it is perturbatively unstable. This is achieved by first introducing a modification of the well-known Regge–Wheeler–Zerilli approach to black hole perturbations to allow for the presence of a ‘kinematic’ singularity that arises for negative masses, and then exhibiting exact exponentially growing solutions to the linearized Einstein's equations. The perturbations are smooth everywhere and behave nicely around the singularity and at infinity. In particular, the first-order variation of the scalar invariants can be made arbitrarily small everywhere as compared to the zeroth order terms. Our approach is also compared to a recent analysis that leads to a different conclusion regarding the stability of the negative mass Schwarzschild spacetime. We also comment on the relevance of our results to the stability of a more general negative mass, nakedly singular spacetimes.
Detection of human parvovirus B19 DNA in plasma pools and blood products derived from these pools: implications for efficiency and consistency of removal of B19 DNA during manufacture

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay was used to detect human parvovirus B19 DNA in 38 blood products and start plasma pools from five different manufacturers. The products examined were albumin, factor VIII, intravenous (i.v.) and intramuscular (i.m.) immunoglobulin batches. The majority of pools from all the manufacturers had detectable B19 DNA (64/75: 85%; ranging from 60% to 100% for individual manufacturers). B19 DNA was found in 3/12 albumin samples, in 7/7 factor VIII samples, 3/15 IVIG samples and 3/4 IMIG samples. The levels of B19 DNA in pools varied from 102 to 109 genome equivalents/ml, whereas the levels in products varied from 102 to 106 genome equivalents/ml, but there was no clear relationship between the levels of B19 DNA in start pools and final products. The levels of B19 DNA varied between different batches of the same product from a single manufacturer, possibly due to small variations in the processing parameters. In addition, there was some indication from the study of IVIG samples that treatment at low pH may result in removal of PCR‐detectable B19 DNA.
Controllable growth of layered selenide and telluride heterostructures and superlattices using molecular beam epitaxy

Layered materials are an actively pursued area of research for realizing highly scaled technologies involving both traditional device structures as well as new physics. Lately, non-equilibrium growth of 2D materials using molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) is gathering traction in the scientific community and here we aim to highlight one of its strengths, growth of abrupt heterostructures, and superlattices (SLs). In this work we present several of the firsts: first growth of MoTe_2 by MBE, MoSe_2 on Bi_2Se_3 SLs, transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) SLs, and lateral junction between a quintuple atomic layer of Bi_2Te_3 and a triple atomic layer of MoTe_2. Reflected high electron energy diffraction oscillations presented during the growth of TMD SLs strengthen our claim that ultrathin heterostructures with monolayer layer control is within reach.
Capacity Utilization of Council Designated Hospitals Before and after Conversion

It is argued that financial and non-financial ratios share very important information as far as hospital performance is concerned. Non-financial ratios carry vital information such as hospitals’ capacity utilization or capacity information (may include number of admissions, number of full time employees, number of beds in services, etc.) this study employs hospitals non-financial ratios to analyze capacity utilization of eight (8) Council Designated Hospitals (CDHs) before and after conversion. Findings revealed that before conversion hospitals were efficiently utilizing their capacity, conversion brought inefficiency in terms of increase in average length of stay (ALOS) and full time equivalent (FTEs), it is possible that increase in ALOS was the result of inefficient FTEs. It is obvious that if there was an increase in ALOS and FTEs inefficiency is high, then it could possibly result into the occupancy rate which does not reflect the hospitals efficiency. However, hospitals’ bed turnover was high over the study period while FTEs productivity was low particularly after conversion. In the totality of analysis of capacity utilization, the findings contend that after conversion number of inputs particularly FTEs were higher in relation to outputs. The study recommends that hospitals administrators should control and make efficient allocation of the resources so as to reduce excessive capacity in Council Designated Hospitals (CDHs).
Does an Electronic Stock Exchange Need an Upstairs Market?

We examine the Paris Bourse, whose electronic limit order market closely resembles the downstairs markets envisioned by theorists, to test several theoretical predictions regarding upstairs trading. We present direct evidence in support of the Grossman (1992) prediction that upstairs brokers lower execution costs by tapping into unexpressed liquidity, as actual execution costs upstairs are on average only 20% (35%) as large as they would be if block trades were executed against displayed (displayed and hidden) liquidity in the downstairs limit order book. Consistent with prior analyses, the Paris data also support the Seppi (1990) hypothesis that upstairs brokers certify trades as uninformed. We also find that participants in stocks with less restrictive crossing rules agree to outside-the-quote executions for more difficult trades and at times when downstairs liquidity is lacking. These likely represent trades that could not have been otherwise completed, suggesting that market quality can be enhanced by allowing participants more flexibility to execute blocks at prices outside the quotes.
Sensors : Predicting the future with simple convenience signals

Forecasting which products, restaurants, or websites will become popular is difficult. We introduce a general method for finding individuals whose behaviors act as leading indicators for the future popularity of a product, URL, place, or application. We call these individuals “sensors” and their behaviors “signals. ” Importantly, signals generated by sensors need not be elicited with any particular forecasting problem in mind in order to be helpful. We formulate the inclusion of sensors signals as a regularized regression problem which admits a simple and scalable estimation technique that finds a candidate set of sensors and incorporates their signals into any forecasting model. As an example, we apply our technique to identify sensors for the popularity of Facebook pages for musicians. Our method does not rely on causal effect of wordof-mouth: sensors can be useful either because they are individuals who are ahead of the taste curve (i.e. early adopters) or because they generate trends themselves (i.e. are influencers). Our next steps include a detailed comparison across more data sets, analysis of the demographics and local network structure of sensors, and applying qualitative methods to understand why and how they contribute to forecast accuracy.
GENETIC VARIATION IN A HOST‐PARASITE ASSOCIATION: POTENTIAL FOR COEVOLUTION AND FREQUENCY‐DEPENDENT SELECTION

Abstract. — Models of host‐parasite coevolution assume the presence of genetic variation for host resistance and parasite infectivity, as well as genotype‐specific interactions. We used the freshwater crustacean Daphnia magna and its bacterial microparasite Pasteuria ramosa to study genetic variation for host susceptibility and parasite infectivity within each of two populations. We sought to answer the following questions: Do host clones differ in their susceptibility to parasite isolates? Do parasite isolates differ in their ability to infect different host clones? Are there host clone‐parasite isolate interactions? The analysis revealed considerable variation in both host resistance and parasite infectivity. There were significant host clone‐parasite isolate interactions, such that there was no single host clone that was superior to all other clones in the resistance to every parasite isolate. Likewise, there was no parasite isolate that was superior to all other isolates in infectivity to every host clone. This form of host clone‐parasite isolate interaction indicates the potential for coevolution based on frequency‐dependent selection. Infection success of original host clone‐parasite isolate combinations (i.e., those combinations that were isolated together) was significantly higher than infection success of novel host clone‐parasite isolate combinations (i.e., those combinations that were created in the laboratory). This finding is consistent with the idea that parasites track specific host genotypes under natural conditions. In addition, correspondence analysis revealed that some host clones, although distinguishable with neutral genetic markers, were susceptible to the same set of parasite isolates and thus probably shared resistance genes.
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND SERVICE ORIENTATION OF HOTEL EMPLOYEES

Tourism researches are usually directed towards enhancing the customer experience. Contrary to such an effort, this research is based on the fact that employees in business organizations such as hotels represent an important element of business success, often neglected within other studies. Therefore, popular aspects of business, such as corporate social responsibility and service orientation are subjects of this study, but from employees’ point of view. The survey research was conducted within Kopaonik, a popular destination of Serbian tourism, among 212 hotel employees. Study examines is there a correlation between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and service orientation (SO), together with researching the employees’ job satisfaction (JS) and organizational trust (OT). The results indicate that OT and JS of hotel employees correlate with CSR and SO. The SO of hotel employees correlates with philanthropic, legal and economic aspects of CSR, while it could be said that it is in indirect correlation with the ethical dimension of this term. Female employees, as well as permanent ones, are more sensitive to ethical CSR dimension. The results also suggest that female respondents are slightly more service-oriented in comparison with males, but their SO is not conditional on whether the employees work seasonally or throughout the year in hotels at Kopaonik. Beside theoretical contribution, the results might have practical application in improving business performances.
Low latency variable length coding scheme for frame memory recompression

In frame memory recompression, decompression latency consists of two components, i.e., memory access cycles for compressed data fetch, and decompression time. Compared to most earlier works which mainly focused on the compression ratio and, therefore, only reducing memory access cycles, this paper proposes a low-latency variable-length coding method called non-zero bit selection scheme (NBS). The proposed NBS enables highly parallel decompression achieving a three-cycle decompression for an 8×8 block, compared to previous methods requiring as many as twelve clock cycles for the case of exponential Golomb code. It is notable that the proposed NBS scheme has achieved this without deterioration of the compression ratio. Experimental result on a number of full HD videos shows that the compression ratio of the proposed method is at least not worse than that obtained with the exponential Golomb code on the average, while reducing the decompression time to 25% compared to the exponential Golomb code.
Water oxidation chemistry of photosystem II

Photosystem II (PSII) uses light energy to split water into protons, electrons and O2. In this reaction, nature has solved the difficult chemical problem of efficient four-electron oxidation of water to yield O2 without significant amounts of reactive intermediate species such as superoxide, hydrogen peroxide and hydroxyl radicals. In order to use nature's solution for the design of artificial catalysts that split water, it is important to understand the mechanism of the reaction. The recently published X-ray crystal structures of cyanobacterial PSII complexes provide information on the structure of the Mn and Ca ions, the redox-active tyrosine called YZ and the surrounding amino acids that comprise the O2-evolving complex (OEC). The emerging structure of the OEC provides constraints on the different hypothesized mechanisms for O2 evolution. The water oxidation mechanism of PSII is discussed in the light of biophysical and computational studies, inorganic chemistry and X-ray crystallographic information.
Modelisation et simulation de variables regionalisees par des fonctions aleatoires stables

Dans cette these, nous proposons de travailler sur la classe des fonctions aleatoires stables pour la modelisation et simulation de variables regionalisees. Dans la premiere partie, nous abordons le probleme de la realisation d'une fonction de covariance. Nous proposons deux methodes permettant d'une part d'etablir, par une nouvelle approche, les principaux resultats concernant les processus auttoregressifs a moyennes mobiles et d'autre part de calculer les parametres associes. Enfin, nous abordons le probleme de la simulation conditionnelle pour lequel nous proposons une solution directe en voisinage glissant. Dans la seconde partie, nous introduisons les fonctions aleatoires stables. Apres un rapide rappel des definitions des lois stables reelles et vectorielles, nous abordons le probleme de l'adequation de ce modele (de variance infinie) aux variables regionalisees (de variance experimentale finie). Apres une etude des differentes methodes existantes, il nous est apparu qu'il n'existait pas de tests de stabilite performants. Nous proposons deux tests reposant sur l'etude de la fonction caracteristique experimentale. Cette etude permet dans le meme temps d'ameliorer les methodes d'estimation des parametres d'une loi stable, notamment pour les petits echantillons. Une fois l'hypothese de stabilite acceptee, il est indispensable de passer a l'etape de l'analyse structurale. Dans cette optique, nous avons developpe une methode d'estimation semi-parametrique des lois stables vectorielles. Si la methode fournit des resultats interessants dans le cadre d'une loi stable, il semble que la methode ne puisse pas etre utilisee pour l'estimation de toutes les lois finies dimensionnelles. Nous avons donc propose deux outils d'analyse structurale plus simples generalisant la notion de covariance, la fonction d'autocorrelation experimentale et l'alpha-variogramme. Apres une etude generale des fonctions aleatoir
Future weak lensing constraints in a dark coupled universe

Probing the dark matter clustering and its evolution with weak lensing surveys constitutes a unique tool to constrain interacting dark energy models. We focus here on weak lensing forecasts from future Euclid and LSST-like surveys combined with the expected results from the ongoing Planck cosmic microwave background satellite experiment. We find that these future data could constrain the dimensionless coupling between dark matter and dark energy to be smaller than a $\mathrm{\text{few}}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}2}$, improving the CMB-only constraint by at least 2 orders of magnitude. We also show that coupled cosmologies can substantially alter the constraints on cosmological parameters obtained from CMB experiments under the assumption of noninteracting cosmologies unless weak lensing data is considered.
Disparate Vitamin D Activity in the Prostate of Men with African Ancestry

Abstract : African American (AA) men are disproportionally affected by prostate cancer (PCa). AA men are not only at increased risk of PCa compared to American men of European descent (EA), but also are at the highest risk of aggressive PCa and death from PCa. Vitamin D3 deficiency increases PCa mortality, highlighting the importance of maintaining adequate vitamin D3 status for prostate health. Vitamin D3 is acquired in the diet or via UVB/sunlight-initiated synthesis in the skin. Cutaneous melanin absorbs UVB radiation, which leads to reduced vitamin D3 synthesis in darker pigmented skin. Consequently, 65% of AA men are vitamin D3 deficient compared to 20% of EA men. The level of skin pigmentation is correlated with the extent of African ancestry and serum vitamin D3 status. Besides vitamin D3 status, the activity of vitamin D3 is mediated by the vitamin D receptor (VDR) and determined by several cytochrome P450 metabolism enzymes that bioactivate/inactivate the active form of the hormone, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1,25D).
Use of a novel rapid preparation of fat-cell plasma membranes employing Percoll to investigate the effects of insulin and adrenaline on membrane protein phosphorylation within intact fat-cells.

1. A rapid method was developed for the preparation of plasma membranes from either isolated rat fat-cells or intact epididymal fat-pads with the use of density-gradient centrifugation in the presence of Percoll. On the basis of 5'-nucleotidase activity, the yield of plasma membranes was about 50% and purification over 10-fold. Activities of marker enzymes indicated that contamination by mitochondria and microsomal fraction was small. 2. Incorporation of 32Pi into proteins associated with plasma membranes within isolated fat-cells was investigated. Four major bands of labelled phosphoproteins were separated by sodium dodecyl sulphate/polyacrylamide-slab-gel electrophoresis; the apparent subunit mol.wts. were 67 000, 61 000, 26 000 and 20 000. None of these phosphoprotein bands corresponded to periodate/Schiff-staining glycoproteins. The extent of phosphorylation of the 61 000 mol.wt phosphoprotein band was increased by about 30 and 60% after exposure of fat-cells for 15 min to insulin or adrenaline respectively.
Community psychiatry in the United States 50 years after the Community Mental Health Centers Act

The two editorials written for this issue of EPS reflect seemingly different views on the 50 years since President Kennedy signed into law the Community Mental Health Centers Act in the United States. However, both Lisa Dixon and Michael Hogan point a similar direction for the future for the US and for other countries. Dixon reports on advances in treatment and implementation of evidence-based mental healthcare, particularly over the pastdecade.Hoganprovidesavisionof the futureaddressing the limitations in our systemof services, in spite of the advances reported by Dixon. Both see a brighter future building on the successes of the past 50 years. We editors are partnering for this set of editorials, just as we have agreed to partner with our two journals, Psychiatric Services and Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences, agreeing to share our Table of
Rearrangements of α‐helical structures of FlgN chaperone control the binding affinity for its cognate substrates during flagellar type III export

The bacterial flagellar type III export chaperones not only act as bodyguards to protect their cognate substrates from aggregation and proteolysis in the cytoplasm but also ensure the order of export through their interactions with an export gate protein FlhA. FlgN chaperone binds to FlgK and FlgL with nanomolar affinity and transfers them to FlhA for their efficient and rapid transport for the formation of the hook‐filament junction zone. However, it remains unknown how FlgN releases FlgK and FlgL at the FlhA export gate platform in a timely manner. Here, we have solved the crystal structure of Salmonella FlgN at 2.3 Å resolution and carried out structure‐based functional analyses. FlgN consists of three α helices, α1, α2 and α3. Helix α1 adopts two distinct, extended and bent conformations through the conformational change of N‐loop between α1 and α2. The N‐loop deletion not only increases the probability of FlgN dimer formation but also abolish the interaction between FlgN and FlgK. Highly conserved Asn‐92, Asn‐95 and Ile‐103 residues in helix α3 are involved in the strong interaction with FlgK. We propose that the N‐loop coordinates helical rearrangements of FlgN with the association and dissociation of its cognate substrates during their export.