Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
New Insights into the Regulation of Cell-Surface Signaling Activity Acquired from a Mutagenesis Screen of the Pseudomonas putida IutY Sigma/Anti-Sigma Factor

Cell-surface signaling (CSS) is a signal transfer system that allows Gram-negative bacteria to detect environmental signals and generate a cytosolic response. These systems are composed of an outer membrane receptor that senses the inducing signal, an extracytoplasmic function sigma factor (σECF) that targets the cytosolic response by modifying gene expression and a cytoplasmic membrane anti-sigma factor that keeps the σECF in an inactive state in the absence of the signal and transduces its presence from the outer membrane to the cytosol. Although CSS systems regulate bacterial processes as crucial as stress response, iron scavenging and virulence, the exact mechanisms that drive CSS are still not completely understood. Binding of the signal to the CSS receptor is known to trigger a signaling cascade that results in the regulated proteolysis of the anti-sigma factor and the activation of the σECF in the cytosol. This study was carried out to generate new insights in the proteolytic activation of CSS σECF. We performed a random mutagenesis screen of the unique IutY protein of Pseudomonas putida, a protein that combines a cytosolic σECF domain and a periplasmic anti-sigma factor domain in a single polypeptide. In response to the presence of an iron carrier, the siderophore aerobactin, in the extracellular medium, IutY is processed by two different proteases, Prc and RseP, which results in the release and activation of the σIutY domain. Our experiments show that all IutY mutant proteins that contain periplasmic residues depend on RseP for activation. In contrast, Prc is only required for mutant variants with a periplasmic domain longer than 50 amino acids, which indicates that the periplasmic region of IutY is trimmed down to ~50 amino acids creating the RseP substrate. Moreover, we have identified several conserved residues in the CSS anti-sigma factor family of which mutation leads to constitutive activation of their cognate σECF. These findings advance our knowledge on how CSS activity is regulated by the consecutive action of two proteases. Elucidation of the exact mechanism behind CSS activation will enable the development of strategies to block CSS in pathogenic bacteria.
Content Based Leaf Image Retrieval (CBLIR) Intended for e-commerce

This paper proposes an efficient computer-aided Plant Image Retrieval method based on plant leaf images using Shape and Texture features intended for e-commerce particularly in medical industry, botanical gardening, house plant identification etc. Log-Gabor wavelet is applied to the input image for texture feature extraction. Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) is incorporated to extract the feature points of the leaf image. Scale Invariant Feature Transform transforms an image into a large collection of feature vectors, each of which is invariant to image translation, scaling, and rotation. Results on a database of 500 plant images belonging to 45 different types of plants with different orientations scales, and translations show that proposed method outperforms the recently developed methods by giving 97.9% of retrieval efficiency for 20, 50, 80 and 100 retrievals.
Plaque triclosan concentration and antimicrobial efficacy of a new calcium carbonate toothpaste with 0.3% triclosan compared to a marketed 0.3% triclosan toothpaste.

OBJECTIVE To compare the delivery and retention of triclosan in dental plaque, and to compare the antibacterial efficacy of a newly developed toothpaste to a marketed calcium carbonate toothpaste. METHODS Two clinical delivery/retention studies were carried out to determine the concentration of triclosan in plaque 10 minutes, and two and four hours after brushing with a new triclosan-containing toothpaste with magnesium aluminium silicate or a marketed triclosan-containing toothpaste. Both studies had a double-blind, randomized, complete cross-over design. Supragingival plaque samples (minimum 2 microg) were taken from smooth surfaces of all teeth (1-7) in all four quadrants for the 10-minute plaque measurements and in two randomly allocated quadrants at the two- and four-hour time points. Triclosan concentration was measured by HPLC. Antibacterial efficacy was evaluated in vitro using a biofilm formation approach. Three replicate experiments were carried out to check for repeatability and consistency of the assay. Toothpaste slurries were prepared by stirring one part by weight of each toothpaste with two parts by weight of deionized water. An overnight culture suspension of Streptococcus mutans (ATCC 25175) was prepared and then adjusted to give a bacterial count of approximately 10(7) CFU/ml. Sterile HAP discs were used as substrate and treated with the toothpaste slurry before inoculation with the standardized culture suspension of S. mutans. Following incubation in brain heart infusion (BHI) broth containing 2% sucrose for four hours, standard Total Viable Count (TVC) procedures were carried out and colonies counted (log10 values). RESULTS Brushing with the new calcium carbonate/triclosan toothpaste resulted in a higher triclosan concentration in plaque after 10 minutes, and two and four hours compared to a marketed triclosan toothpaste. The increase ranged from 14% to 35% and was statistically significant (p < 0.05). The antibacterial efficacy of the new calcium carbonate/triclosan toothpaste, measured four hours after application, was greater than that of a marketed toothpaste with 0.3% triclosan. The difference was statistically significant (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION The new calcium carbonate toothpaste with 0.3% triclosan and magnesium aluminium silicate demonstrated significantly greater efficacy four hours post-brushing both in terms of in vivo delivery and in vitro antibacterial action compared to a marketed calcium carbonate toothpaste with 0.3% triclosan.
How Does Legalization of Physician-Assisted Suicide Affect Rates of Suicide?

Objectives Several US states have legalized or decriminalized physician-assisted suicide (PAS) while others are considering permitting PAS. Although it has been suggested that legalization could lead to a reduction in total suicides and to a delay in those suicides that do occur, to date no research has tested whether these effects can be identified in practice. The aim of this study was to fill this gap by examining the association between the legalization of PAS and state-level suicide rates in the United States between 1990 and 2013. Methods We used regression analysis to test the change in rates of nonassisted suicides and total suicides (including assisted suicides) before and after the legalization of PAS. Results Controlling for various socioeconomic factors, unobservable state and year effects, and state-specific linear trends, we found that legalizing PAS was associated with a 6.3% (95% confidence interval 2.70%–9.9%) increase in total suicides (including assisted suicides). This effect was larger in the individuals older than 65 years (14.5%, CI 6.4%–22.7%). Introduction of PAS was neither associated with a reduction in nonassisted suicide rates nor with an increase in the mean age of nonassisted suicide. Conclusions Legalizing PAS has been associated with an increased rate of total suicides relative to other states and no decrease in nonassisted suicides. This suggests either that PAS does not inhibit (nor acts as an alternative to) nonassisted suicide, or that it acts in this way in some individuals but is associated with an increased inclination to suicide in other individuals.
Traducción y adaptación de la Altman Self-Rating Mania Scale al ámbito español

INTRODUCTION The aim of the present study is the translation, adaptation and validation in the Spanish environment of a self-rating of mania scale, the Altman Self-Rating Scale for Mania (ASRM), to fulfill a need in our environment in the self-rating of mania. METHODS The scale was translated, and then a back translation was done. This was sent to the author of the original scale. The scale was administered to a sample of 74 patients with bipolar disorder, divided into two groups, one formed by patients with acute mania (n=35) and the other one constituted by asymptomatic patients (n=39). Concurrently we applied the Clinician Administered Rating Scale for Mania (CARS-M) and the Numeric Evaluation Scale (NES). RESULTS High internal consistency, high and significant correlation with the CARS-M mania sub-scale, as well as with the NES and very significant differences between the two groups in the scale score were found. The ROC curve indicates excellent adjustment of the scale, when discriminating among bipolar patients with and without manic symptoms. The factorial analysis provided a single factor that accounts for 62% of the total variance. CONCLUSIONS The Altman Self-Rating Mania Scale is shown to be a reliable and valid self-rating instrument to assess the presence and intensity of manic symptoms. It makes it possible to carry out simple and quick assessments of the patient's state, can be used for research as clinical objectives and can also be a screening instrument.
Optimization and Evaluation of a Multimedia Streaming Service on Hybrid Telco cloud

With recent developments in cloud computing, a paradigm shift from rather static deployment of resources to more dynamic, on-demand practices means more flexibility and better utilization of resources. This demands new ways to efficiently configure networks. In this paper, we will characterize a class of competitive cloud services that telecom operators could provide based on the characteristics of telecom infrastructure through an applicable streaming service architecture. Then, we will model this architecture as a cost-based mathematic model. This model provides a tool to evaluate and compare the cost of software services for different telecom network topologies and deployment strategies. Additionally, with each topology it acts as a means to characterize the deployment solution that yields the lowest resource usage over the entire network. These applications are illustrated through numerical analysis. Finally, a proof-of-concept prototype is deployed to shows dynamic properties of the service in the architecture and the model above.
CG-OoO

We introduce the Coarse-Grain Out-of-Order (CG-OoO) general-purpose processor designed to achieve close to In-Order (InO) processor energy while maintaining Out-of-Order (OoO) performance. CG-OoO is an energy-performance-proportional architecture. Block-level code processing is at the heart of this architecture; CG-OoO speculates, fetches, schedules, and commits code at block-level granularity. It eliminates unnecessary accesses to energy-consuming tables and turns large tables into smaller, distributed tables that are cheaper to access. CG-OoO leverages compiler-level code optimizations to deliver efficient static code and exploits dynamic block-level and instruction-level parallelism. CG-OoO introduces Skipahead, a complexity effective, limited out-of-order instruction scheduling model. Through the energy efficiency techniques applied to the compiler and processor pipeline stages, CG-OoO closes 62% of the average energy gap between the InO and OoO baseline processors at the same area and nearly the same performance as the OoO. This makes CG-OoO 1.8× more efficient than the OoO on the energy-delay product inverse metric. CG-OoO meets the OoO nominal performance while trading off the peak scheduling performance for superior energy efficiency.
Cognitive performance and poor long-term functional outcome after young stroke

Objective: To investigate the influence of cognitive performance on long-term functional outcome after ischemic stroke (IS) in young adults aged 18 through 50 years (young IS). Methods: This study is part of a prospective cohort study among 277 stroke survivors with a young IS admitted to our department between January 1, 1980, and November 1, 2010. Functional outcome was assessed during follow-up between 2009 and 2012 with the modified Rankin Scale (mRS) and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living scale (IADL). Extensive neuropsychological investigation was performed. Logistic regression was used to calculate odds ratios (ORs) for a poor functional outcome (mRS >2 or IADL <8) for the 7 cognitive domains adjudicated for confounders. Cognitive function (continuous) as well as cognitive impairment (dichotomous) were studied. Results: Only decline in working memory (OR 0.3, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.1–0.6) was associated with poor functional outcome on the mRS. Except for decline in processing speed (OR 0.5, 95% CI 0.3–0.8) and working memory (OR 0.4, 95% CI 0.2–0.7), no relation was found with poor functional outcome on IADL. Impairment in none of the individual cognitive domains was related to long-term functional outcome, although impairment in global cognitive function was related to a poor functional outcome on the IADL (OR 4.8, 95% CI 1.7–14.0). Conclusions: On average, 11 years after young IS there was no clear relationship between long-term cognitive deficits and long-term functional outcome or IADL, stressing the need for further prospective studies with further development of sensitive measures of functional prognosis.
Energy saving and network performance: a trade-off approach

Power consumption of the Information and Communication Technology sector (ICT) has recently become a key challenge. In particular, actions to improve energy-efficiency of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are becoming imperative. To this purpose, in this paper we focus on reducing the power consumption of access nodes in an ISP network, by controlling the amount of service capacity each network device has to offer to meet the actual traffic demand. More specifically, we propose a Green router (G-router) implementing a congestion control technique named Active Window Management (AWM) coupled with a new capacity scaling algorithm named Energy Aware service Rate Tuner Handling (EARTH). The AWM characteristics allow to detect whether a waste of energy is playing out, whereas EARTH is aimed at invoking power management primitives at the hardware level to precisely control the current capacity of access nodes and consequently their power consumption. We test the benefits of the AWM-EARTH mechanism on a realistic scenario. Results show that the capacity scaling technique can save up to 70% of power consumption, while guaranteeing Quality of Service and traffic demand constraints.
Visualization of Protein Interactions in Living Cells Using Bimolecular Luminescence Complementation (BiLC)

The number of intracellular protein‐protein interactions (PPIs) far exceeds the total number of proteins encoded by the genome. Dynamic cellular PPI networks respond to external stimuli and endogenous metabolism in order to maintain homeostasis. Many PPIs are directly involved in disease pathogenesis and/or resistance to therapeutics; they therefore represent potential drug targets. A technology generally termed ‘bimolecular complementation’ relies on the physical splitting of a molecular reporter (such as a fluorescent or luminescent protein) and fusion of the resulting two fragments to a pair of interacting proteins. When these proteins interact, they effectively reconstitute the activity of the molecular reporter (typically leading to increased fluorescence or luminescence). This unit describes the selection and development of bimolecular luminescence complementation (BiLC) assays for reporting intracellular PPIs, and provides examples in which BiLC was used to identify small molecules that can modulate PPIs. © 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Multiple access channel with partial and controlled cribbing encoders

In this paper we consider the multiple access channel (MAC) with partial cribbing encoders which means that each encoder obtains a deterministic function of the other encoder output, possibly with delay. The partial cribbing is especially motivated by the additive noise Gaussian MAC since perfect cribbing results in the degenerated case of full cooperation between the encoders and requires an infinite entropy link. We derive a single letter characterization of the capacity of MAC with partial cribbing for the cases of causal and strictly causal partial cribbing. Several numerical examples such as quantized cribbing are presented.We further consider and derive the capacity region where the cribbing depends on actions that are function of the previous cribbed observations. In particular, we consider a scenario where the action is “to crib or not to crib” and show that a naive time-sharing strategy is not optimal.
N-Terminal Mutants of Herpes Simplex Virus Type 2 gH Are Transported without gL but Require gL for Function

ABSTRACT Glycoprotein H (gH) is conserved among all herpesviruses and is essential for virus entry and cell fusion along with gL, gB, and, in most alphaherpesviruses, gD. Within the gH/gL heterodimer, it is thought that gH accounts for the fusion function and gL acts as a chaperone for the folding and transport of gH. Here, we found that the N terminus of gH2 contains important elements involved in both its folding and its transport. Our conclusions are based on the phenotypes of a series of gH deletion mutants in which the signal sequence (residues 1 to 18) was retained and N-terminal residues were removed up to the number indicated. The first mutant, gH2Δ29 (deletion of residues 19 to 28), like wild-type (WT) gH, required gL for both transport and function. To our surprise, two other mutants (gH2Δ64 and gH2Δ72) were transported to the cell surface independent of gL but were nonfunctional, even when complexed with gL. Importantly, a fourth mutant (gH2Δ48) was transported independent of gL but was functional only when complexed with gL. Using a panel of monoclonal antibodies against gH2, we found that when gH2Δ48 was expressed alone, its antigenic structure differed from that of gH2Δ48/gL or gH2-WT/gL. Mutation of gH2 residue R39, Y41, W42, or D44 allowed gL-independent transport of gH. Our results also show that gL is not merely required for gH transport but is also necessary for the folding and function of the complex. Since gH2Δ64/gL and gH2Δ72/gL were nonfunctional, we hypothesized that residues critical for gH/gL function lie within this deleted region. Additional mutagenesis identified L66 and L72 as important for function. Together, our results highlight several key gH residues: R39, Y41, W42, and D44 for gH transport and L66 and L72 for gH/gL structure and function.
Mining and cropping common objects from images

Discovering common objects that appear frequently in a number of images is a challenging problem, due to (1) the appearance variations of the same common object and (2) the enormous computational cost involved in exploring the huge solution space, including the location, scale, and the number of common objects. We characterize each image as a collection of visual primitives and propose a novel bottom-up approach to gradually prune local primitives to recover the whole common object. A multi-layer candidate pruning procedure is designed to accelerate the image data mining process. Our solution provides accurate localization of the common object, thus is able to crop the common objects despite their variations due to scale, view-point, lighting condition changes. Moreover, it can extract common objects even with few number of images. Experiments on challenging image and video datasets validate the effectiveness and efficiency of our method.
High-Efficiency Multilevel Flying-Capacitor DC/DC Converter for Distributed Renewable Energy Systems

This paper presents a high-efficiency multilevel flying-capacitor (FC) dc/dc power conversion with a lower passive component rating and power device count for distributed renewable energy systems. A resonant technique is adopted for the proposed dc/dc converter to achieve zero-current switching (ZCS) for all switches. Theoretical analysis is carried out for the proposed quintuple topology with three active switches. The proposed converter is evaluated to the conventional FC converter, in terms of the component rating and count, to highlight its advantages with respect to the power density and cost. The experimental results of a 1-kW prototype FC converter are presented to validate the theoretical analysis and principles, as well as attest the feasibility of the proposed topologies.
Insulin‐like growth factor binding protein‐2 mediates the inhibition of DNA synthesis by transforming growth factor‐β in mink lung epithelial cells * †

Insulin‐like growth factor binding protein‐3 (IGFBP‐3) has been proposed to mediate the growth inhibitory effects of transforming growth factor (TGF)‐β in breast and prostate cancer cells. Both TGF‐β and exogenous IGFBP‐3 inhibit DNA synthesis in Mv1 mink lung epithelial cells (CCL64). The present study asks whether IGFBPs synthesized by CCL64 cells mediate growth inhibition by TGF‐β. CCL64 cells synthesize and secrete a single 34‐kDa IGFBP that was identified as IGFBP‐2 by immunoprecipitation and immunodepletion. Recombinant bovine IGFBP‐2 inhibited CCL64 DNA synthesis in serum‐free media in an IGF‐independent manner. Coincubation with Leu60‐IGF‐I, an IGF‐I analog that binds to IGFBPs with higher affinity than to IGF‐I receptors, decreased the inhibition by bIGFBP‐2. Leu60‐IGF‐I also decreased the inhibition of CCL64 DNA synthesis by TGF‐β by up to 70%, whereas Long‐R3‐IGF‐I, an IGF‐I analog with higher affinity for IGF‐I receptors than for IGFBPs, did not decrease inhibition, suggesting that the effect of Leu60‐IGF‐I resulted from its forming complexes with endogenous IGFBPs. Leu60‐IGF‐I did not decrease TGF‐β stimulation of a Smad3‐dependent reporter gene. Following incubation of intact CCL64 cells with bIGFBP‐2 at 0°C, bIGFBP‐2 was recovered in membrane fractions; membrane association was abolished by coincubation with Leu60‐IGF‐I. If exogenous and secreted IGFBP‐2 must bind to CCL64 cells to inhibit DNA synthesis, Leu60‐IGF‐I might reduce the inhibition of DNA synthesis by bIGFBP‐2 or TGF‐β by inhibiting the association of IGFBP‐2 in the media with CCL64 cells. Since TGF‐β does not increase IGFBP‐2 abundance, we propose that TGF‐β sensitizes CCL64 cells to the latent growth inhibitory activity of endogenous IGFBP‐2 by potentiating an intracellular IGFBP‐2 signaling pathway or by promoting the association of secreted IGFBP‐2 with the plasma membrane. J. Cell. Physiol. 190: 63–73, 2002. Published 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
An effective model for anomaly IDS to improve the efficiency

We all know that the information passed through internet is in terms of packets. The alerts produced by all the existing intrusion detection systems are false alerts which can cause to decrease the efficiency and the accuracy is also low. The alerts generated by all the existing intrusion detection systems are isolated alerts and they will focuses on low-level attacks. So in this research paper diverse data mining techniques are used to reduce false alarm rate in intrusion detection system and for improving its' efficiency. The techniques which are used here are K-Nearest Neighbor, K-Means and Decision Table Majority rule based. This research operates on the KDD'99 dataset for diverse invasion recognition systems. In this paper we first apply the grouping on the KDD'99 dataset then it can be classified into four categories as U2R, R2L, DoS and Probe. The important goal of this paper is to decrease the false positive rate of IDS and attempt to improve its efficiency.