Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The C-terminal Domain of Pediocin-like Antimicrobial Peptides (Class IIa Bacteriocins) Is Involved in Specific Recognition of the C-terminal Part of Cognate Immunity Proteins and in Determining the Antimicrobial Spectrum*

The pediocin-like bacteriocins contain two domains: a cationic N-terminal β-sheet domain that mediates binding of the bacteriocin to the target cell surface and a more hydrophobic C-terminal hairpin-like domain that penetrates into the hydrophobic part of the target cell membrane. The two domains are joined by a hinge, which enables movement of the domains relative to each other. In this study, 12 different hybrid bacteriocins were constructed by exchanging domains between 5 different bacteriocins. The hybrid bacteriocins were by and large highly potent (i.e. similar potencies as the parental bacteriocins) when constructed such that the recombination point was in the hinge region, indicating that the two domains function independently. The use of optimal recombination points was, however, crucial. Shifting the recombination point just one residue from the hinge could reduce the activity of the hybrid by 3–4 orders of magnitude. Most interestingly, the active hybrids displayed target cell specificities similar to those of the parental bacteriocin from which their membrane-penetrating C-terminal hairpin domain was derived. The results also indicate that the negatively charged aspartate reside in the hinge of most pediocin-like bacteriocins interacts with the C-terminal hairpin domain, perhaps by interacting with the positively charged residue that is present at one of the last three positions in the C-terminal end of most pediocin-like bacteriocins. Bacteria that produce pediocin-like bacteriocins also produce a cognate immunity protein that protects the producer from being killed by its own bacteriocin. Four different active hybrid immunity proteins constructed by exchanging regions between three different immunity proteins were tested for their ability to confer immunity to the hybrid bacteriocins. The results showed that the C-terminal half of the immunity proteins contains a region that directly or indirectly specifically recognizes the membrane-penetrating C-terminal hairpin domain of pediocin-like bacteriocins. The implications these results have on how pediocin-like bacteriocins and their immunity proteins interact with cellular specificity determinants (for instance a putative bacteriocin receptor) are discussed.
Export Diversification and Growth in Pakistan: An Empirical Investigation from 1972 to 2015

This paper addresses three issues (a) it attempts to estimate whether product and geographical export diversification has contributed to GDP growth during the 1972-2015 period, (b) identify the determinants of export diversification during this period and (c) ascertain whether a structural break in the export diversification-GDP growth relationship has occurred after 2000, since when policy of liberalization has been pursued. We find a significant though modest positive association between export diversification and GDP growth during 1972-2015 and some evidence that this relationship though remaining statistically significant, however, it somewhat weakened during the liberalization period 2000-2015. We also find that private sector credit and human capital growth and favorable movements in Pakistan’s aggregate terms of trade are negatively associated with product export diversification. Export diversification is currently a policy priority; however, the government’s emphasis has been geographical – not product – export diversification. Our estimations show no positive significant relationship between geographical export diversification and GDP growth. We therefore suggest that incentives should be provided to induce Pakistani exporters to attempt to penetrate global value chain in product areas in which they already have a presence by linking their business strategies to carefully selected leading global market players.
Ultraviolet—Visible Spectroelectrochemistry of Chemisorbed Molecular Layers on Optically Transparent Carbon Electrodes

Pyrolysis of diluted commercial photoresist spun onto quartz slides yields optically transparent graphitic films. Transparent carbon electrodes ∼6 nm thick can be reproducibly prepared, with a maximum absorbance in the ultraviolet–visible (UV-vis) range of 0.25 at 270 nm. These electrodes are sufficiently conductive for electrochemistry, enabling modification of the surface via diazonium ion reduction and spectroelectrochemistry. Good quality ultraviolet–visible absorption spectra of covalently bonded molecular layers of nitroazobenzene, nitrobiphenyl, and azobenzene, with thicknesses of 1.4–4 nm, were obtained after subtracting the spectrum of the unmodified substrate. The spectra of all three molecules immobilized on the carbon surface showed red shifts of the absorption maxima relative to a solution of free molecules, indicating substantial electronic interactions between chemisorbed molecules and the π system of the substrate and/or intermolecular coupling. Spectroelectrochemical measurements show that reduction of free and chemisorbed molecules produce new absorption features in the 500–800 nm range; these spectral changes are partially reversible upon repeated potential cycling. Finally, density functional calculations correlate the new bands to the formation of anion radical or “methide” species that have more extensive electron delocalization than the parent molecules. The results from this work are useful for linking structural transformations in molecular layers “buried” under conductive top contacts in a type of molecular junction to changes in the electronic properties of the junction.
An Indirect Data-Driven Method for Trajectory Tracking Control of a Class of Nonlinear Discrete-Time Systems

This paper presents an indirect data-driven method for the trajectory tracking control problem of a class of nonlinear discrete-time systems, which have unknown dynamics. This method first establishes an approximate model of the controlled object using historical I/O data and neural network; then, designs and adjusts the feedback gain matrix online using measured output data and previous estimates. This is an adaptive control process of prediction, estimation, and adjustment, which needs to solve some nonlinear optimization problems online, can overcome the adverse effects of the modeling errors caused by neural networks, and is the key to making the system output asymptotically track the reference trajectory. The convergence analysis and simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness and feasibility of the presented method. In addition, based on Lagrange's mean value theorem, we also give an online linearization technique which is applicable to nonlinear discrete-time systems, whose dynamic models have continuous partial derivatives with respect to the input and the output.
Innovation and economic growth in old and new member states of the European Union

Abstract This study examines the innovation–growth nexus in the European Union (EU) countries over the period 1993–2011. The system generalised method of moments estimator was used to test whether patent activities and different research and development (R&D) outlays affect economic growth in the old (EU-15) and new (EU-13) member states differently. The authors have found no significant impact of R&D on the growth and positive relationship between patent activities and growth in the EU-13. The results suggest that there may be no single recipe for growth for the EU and raise the question of whether setting common numerical targets in the EU innovation policy makes economic sense.
Derivation of operation mode for flying capacitor topology applied to three-level DAB converter

This paper discusses a Dual Active Bridge (DAB) DC-DC converter utilizing to three-level flying capacitor topology for a battery conversion system. With applying to a multi-level topology, the voltage stress is reduced in all switches. In addition, the low order harmonic components are reduced due to five-level waveform. In a two-level DAB converter, the efficiency becomes low when the input voltage is not closed to the nominal voltage. In order to improve the efficiency at the input voltage fluctuation, this paper also proposes the operation mode of the three-level DAB converter at the input voltage fluctuation. The output voltage waveform of the inverter is determined by the relationship among the efficiency of the two modes which are so called the full-bridge mode and the half-bridge mode. In this paper, the changing point between the half-bridge and the full-bridge mode is derived using the loss calculation. In the simulation, the ZVS range and the inductor current are compared with the two-level and the three-level inverter. It is confirmed that the ZVS range is extended by 60%. In addition, the fundamental operation of the proposed DAB converter is confirmed by the experimental results.
Temperature and time interval for culture of postmortem neurons from adult rat cortex

For a model of neurological disease and ischemia, we extended recent work to culture adult postmortem rat brain neurons. Frontal cortex sections were removed from adult rats immediately following sacrifice and at different postmortem intervals and with the brain at either 22°C or 4°C. Brain could be stored four times longer at 4°C between sacrifice and neuronal disaggregation to achieve the same 20% recovery of live cells from those plated compared to 22°C. Each milligram of rat frontal cortex was estimated by the optical disector method to contain 160,000 neurons. When cells were isolated as rapidly as possible, 9% of the neurons originally present in the brain were viable. Various postmortem intervals from 2 to 24 hr resulted in a reduction from 6% to 3% of the cells originally present. After 5 days in culture, viable neurons were 23–42% of those isolated. Neuron‐like cells that survived represented 40–75% of the viable cells, or 0.5–2.75% of those originally estimated to be present in the brain. Electrophysiology experiments show that cells isolated 0 and 24 hr postmortem had neuronal electrical properties, including an average resting membrane potential of –48 mV, voltage‐sensitive currents, and action potentials. Neuron‐like cells were immunoreactive for neuron‐specific enolase, neurofilament 200, glutamate, MAP2, and tau after 2 weeks in culture. These experiments show that neuron‐like cells can be reliably cultured from adult rat cortex up to 6 hr postmortem when stored at 22°C and up to 24 hr postmortem when stored at 4°C. These findings should encourage donation of human postmortem brain neurons for studies on ischemia, adult pharmacology, and neurological disease. J. Neurosci. Res. 64:311–321, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The Impact of the Hai Yang Shi You 981 Event on Vietnam’s Stock Markets

This study examines the extent to which the Hai Yang Shi You 981 (HD-981) event, the sudden deployment of a Chinese oil rig in disputed territorial waters near Paracel Islands in May 2014, affected the stock market performance of 20 sectors of the Vietnamese economy. The impact was measured in terms of stock returns, using daily data on stock market indices. The results strongly indicate that the HD-981 event significantly and negatively affected the overall performance of Vietnam’s stock markets. There is, however, considerable variation across sectors. While most sectors which are heavily dependent on the economy of China were adversely affected, the impact on some sectors was negligible. By conducting this study on Vietnam’s stock markets, we hope to generate implications and lessons for other emerging markets in the region. JEL Classification: G1, G14, C58
Benchmark dataset for mid-price forecasting of limit order book data with machine learning methods

Managing the prediction of metrics in high-frequency financial markets is a challenging task. An efficient way is by monitoring the dynamics of a limit order book to identify the information edge. This paper describes the first publicly available benchmark dataset of high-frequency limit order markets for mid-price prediction. We extracted normalized data representations of time series data for five stocks from the NASDAQ Nordic stock market for a time period of ten consecutive days, leading to a dataset of ~4,000,000 time series samples in total. A day-based anchored cross-validation experimental protocol is also provided that can be used as a benchmark for comparing the performance of state-of-the-art methodologies. Performance of baseline approaches are also provided to facilitate experimental comparisons. We expect that such a large-scale dataset can serve as a testbed for devising novel solutions of expert systems for high-frequency limit order book data analysis.
Modification of Bacteriophage φ25 Adsorption to Bacillus subtilis by Concanavalin A

The phytohemagglutinin, concanavalin A (Con A), interacts specifically and reversibly with the α-d-glucose-substituted polyglycerol phosphate teichoic acids of Bacillus subtilis 168. Teichoic acids from nonglucosylated strains (mutants resistant to phage φ25) interact weakly, if at all, with Con A. Prior treatment of glucosylated cell walls with Con A results in a concentration-dependent inhibition of phage φ25 adsorption. The inhibition of adsorption to glucosylated cell walls occurs immediately upon the formation of the Con A-cell wall complex and is reversed upon dissociation of the complex by addition of α-methyl glucose. Examination of the interaction between Con A and whole cells, cell walls, or wall digests from glucosylated (phage-sensitive) and non-glucosylated (phage-resistant) strains further demonstrates the specificity of the reaction. A conditional phage φ25-resistant mutant only forms complexes with Con A when grown under permissive conditions.
The SWI/SNF ATPases Are Required for Triple Negative Breast Cancer Cell Proliferation

The Brahma (BRM) and Brahma‐related Gene 1 (BRG1) ATPases are highly conserved homologs that catalyze the chromatin remodeling functions of the multi‐subunit human SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling enzymes in a mutually exclusive manner. SWI/SNF enzyme subunits are mutated or missing in many cancer types, but are overexpressed without apparent mutation in other cancers. Here, we report that both BRG1 and BRM are overexpressed in most primary breast cancers independent of the tumor's receptor status. Knockdown of either ATPase in a triple negative breast cancer cell line reduced tumor formation in vivo and cell proliferation in vitro. Fewer cells in S phase and an extended cell cycle progression time were observed without any indication of apoptosis, senescence, or alterations in migration or attachment properties. Combined knockdown of BRM and BRG1 showed additive effects in the reduction of cell proliferation and time required for completion of cell cycle, suggesting that these enzymes promote cell cycle progression through independent mechanisms. Knockout of BRG1 or BRM using CRISPR/Cas9 technology resulted in the loss of viability, consistent with a requirement for both enzymes in triple negative breast cancer cells. J. Cell. Physiol. 9999: 2683–2694, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
An Initial Experience with “Team Learning” in Medical Education

Team learning is an approach to large-group teaching that combines the strengths of small-group interactive learning with teacher-driven content delivery. Team learning has been used successfully in professional disciplines other than medicine. The authors describe a field test of team learning in the setting of an internal medicine residency noontime lecture in the spring of 2000 at Baylor College of Medicine. They surveyed residents on their attitudes toward the usefulness of the lecture content before and after the session and surveyed them on their engagement in learning. Residents reported their engagement as high and demonstrated favorable changes in their attitudes about the usefulness of the lecture content to their daily medical practice. The authors describe their adaptation of the team-learning approach and conclude that team learning may be a useful new pedagogic tool in medical education.
The effect of different foot and hand set-up positions on backstroke start performance

Abstract Foot and hand set-up position effects were analysed on backstroke start performance. Ten swimmers randomly completed 27 starts grouped in trials (n = 3) of each variation, changing foot (totally immersed, partially and totally emerged) and hand (lowest, highest horizontal and vertical) positioning. Fifteen cameras recorded kinematics, and four force plates collected hands and feet kinetics. Standardised mean difference and 95% confidence intervals were used. Variations with feet immersed have shown lower vertical centre of mass (CM) set-up position (0.16 m), vertical impulse exerted at the hands, horizontal and vertical impulse exerted at the feet (0.28, 0.41, 0.16 N/BW.s, respectively) than feet emerged with hands horizontal and vertically positioned. Most variations with feet partially emerged exhibited higher and lesser vertical impulse exerted at hands than feet immersed and emerged (e.g. vertical handgrip, 0.13, 0.15 N/BW.s, respectively). Variation with feet emerged and hands on the lowest horizontal handgrip depicted shorter horizontal (0.23, 0.26 m) and vertical CM positioning at flight (0.16, 0.15 m) than the highest horizontal and vertical handgrip, respectively. Start variations have not affected 15-m time. Variations with feet partially or totally emerged depicted advantages, but focusing on the entry and underwater biomechanics is relevant for a shorter start time.
A DFT Study of Structural and Bonding Properties of Complexes Obtained from First-Row Transition Metal Chelation by 3-Alkyl-4-phenylacetylamino-4,5-dihydro-1H-1,2,4-triazol-5-one and Its Derivatives

Density functional calculations were used to explore the complexation of 3-alkyl-4-phenylacetylamino-4,5-dihydro-1h-1,2,4-triazol-5-one (ADPHT) derivatives by first-row transition metal cations. Neutral ADPHT ligand and mono deprotonated ligands have been used. Geometry optimizations have been performed in gas-phase and solution-phase (water, benzene, and N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF)) with B3LYP/Mixed I (LanL2DZ for metal atom and 6-31+G(d,p) for C, N, O, and H atoms) and with B3LYP/Mixed II (6-31G(d) for metal atom and 6-31+G(d,p) for C, N, O, and H atoms) especially in the gas-phase. Single points have also been carried out at CCSD(T) level. The B3LYP/Mixed I method was used to calculate thermodynamic energies (energies, enthalpies, and Gibb energies) of the formation of the complexes analyzed. The B3LYP/Mixed I complexation energies in the gas phase are therefore compared to those obtained using B3LYP/Mixed II and CCSD(T) calculations. Our results pointed out that the deprotonation of the ligand increases the binding affinity independently of the metal cation used. The topological parameters yielded from Quantum Theory of Atom in Molecules (QTAIM) indicate that metal-ligand bonds are partly covalent. The significant reduction of the proton affinity (PA) observed when passing from ligands to complexes in gas-phase confirms the notable enhancement of antioxidant activities of neutral ligands.
The role of partisan cues on voters’ mobilization in a referendum

ABSTRACT Even though partisan cues are widely recognized as a primary force shaping voter behaviour in a referendum, their effect on a decision whether to attend or abstain from voting has not yet been carefully studied. Our analysis of the pre-referendum survey data gathered before the 2015 citizen-initiated referendum in Slovakia leads to two important conclusions: First, parties’ recommendations whether to attend or abstain from voting influence voters’ behaviour in a similar fashion as their suggestions for which side to vote for. Moreover, in certain institutional settings, the partisan cues related to mobilization have an even stronger impact on voters than endorsements for who or what to vote for. Second, the provided party recommendations must be unambiguous and clear. Lower clarity cues are reflected in voters’ behaviour to a lesser extent.
The best defense is a good offense: Countering black box attacks by predicting slightly wrong labels

Black-Box attacks on machine learning models occur when an attacker, despite having no access to the inner workings of a model, can successfully craft an attack by means of model theft. The attacker will train an own substitute model that mimics the model to be attacked. The substitute can then be used to design attacks against the original model, for example by means of adversarial samples. We put ourselves in the shoes of the defender and present a method that can successfully avoid model theft by mounting a counter-attack. Specifically, to any incoming query, we slightly perturb our output label distribution in a way that makes substitute training infeasible. We demonstrate that the perturbation does not affect the ordinary use of our model, but results in an effective defense against attacks based on model theft.
Evaluation of the efficacy of etoricoxib in ankylosing spondylitis: results of a fifty-two-week, randomized, controlled study.

OBJECTIVE To assess the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of etoricoxib, a cyclooxygenase 2 (COX-2) selective inhibitor, administered continuously over 52 weeks for the treatment of ankylosing spondylitis (AS). METHODS This 2-part, multicenter, double-blind, parallel-group, 52-week study evaluated 2 doses of etoricoxib (90 and 120 mg) compared with naproxen at 1,000 mg. A 6-week, active-comparator- and placebo-controlled period (part I) was followed by a 46-week active-comparator-controlled period (part II). The primary outcome measures (on 100-mm visual analog scales) were patient's assessment of spine pain, patient's global assessment of disease activity, and the Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Functional Index. RESULTS Of the 387 patients randomized to receive treatment, 301 (77.8%) completed part I and 284 (75.9%) completed part II. Compared with placebo over 6 weeks, those receiving 90 mg etoricoxib, 120 mg etoricoxib, and naproxen demonstrated significantly (P < 0.001) greater improvement in all primary end points; treatment effects (expressed as the difference in least squares mean change versus placebo) were 21-29 mm for spine pain, 18-25 mm for disease activity, and 11-15 mm for function. Compared with patients receiving naproxen, significantly greater improvement in all primary end points was demonstrated in the combined group receiving either 90 mg etoricoxib or 120 mg etoricoxib over 6 weeks, in each individual etoricoxib treatment group over 6 weeks, and in the combined etoricoxib group over 1 year (all P < 0.05); results for secondary and exploratory end points were generally consistent with those from the primary analysis. Among all groups, there were no significant differences in the incidence of overall clinical, drug-related, or serious adverse experiences (AEs) and discontinuations due to AEs. Safety observations during part II were generally consistent with those in part I. CONCLUSION Etoricoxib at doses of 90 mg and 120 mg demonstrated superior efficacy compared with placebo over 6 weeks, and compared with naproxen over 1 year. These study results demonstrate that etoricoxib is generally safe, well-tolerated, and efficacious for the treatment of AS.