Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Endoplasmic reticulum calcium release is modulated by actin polymerization

Intracellular calcium ions regulate the structure and functions of cytoskeletal proteins. On the other hand, recent studies have shown that the cytoskeleton, and actin filaments in particular, can modulate calcium influx through plasma membrane ligand‐ and voltage‐gated channels. We now report that calcium release from inositol trisphosphate (IP3) and ryanodine‐sensitive endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stores is modulated by polymerization and depolymerization of actin filaments in cultured hippocampal neurons. Depolymerization of actin filaments with cytochalasin D attenuates calcium release induced by carbamylcholine (CCh; a muscarinic agonist for IP3 pathway), caffeine (a ryanodine receptor agonist) and thapsigargin (an inhibitor of the ER calcium‐ ATPase) in both the presence and absence of extracellular calcium. Conversely, the actin polymerizing agent jasplakinolide potentiates calcium release induced by CCh, caffeine and thapsigargin. Cytochalasin D attenuated, while jasplakinolide augmented, thapsigargin‐induced JNK activation and neuronal cell death. Our data show that the actin cytoskeleton regulates ER calcium release, suggesting roles for actin in the various physiological and pathological processes that involve calcium release.
Modélisation mathématique et numérique du poumon humain

Nous proposons un modele mathematique integre du poumon dont l'approche repose sur une modelisation multibloc. L'arbre bronchique qui s'etend sur 24 generations est decompose en 3 niveaux. Dans les 6 premieres generations environ un ecoulement de Navier-Stokes est simule directement. L'ecoulement dans le 2eme niveau est regi par la loi de Poiseuille. Le 3eme niveau, siege des acini, est modelise par les deplacements d'un piston. Les deux derniers niveaux sont condenses en une nouvelle condition aux limites adaptee a la simulation de la ventilation et qui permet d'eviter le maillage de la partie geometriquement complexe. L'existence de solutions faibles pour ce systeme est etudiee. On propose egalement une discretisation en temps du systeme global ainsi que des simulations bi-dimensionnelles aussi bien d'un poumon sain que pathologique et notamment asthmatique.
Vitamin D-binding protein as it is understood in 2016: is it a critical key with which to help to solve the calcitriol conundrum?

Background The misnamed ‘vitamin’ D is actually the hormone calcitriol (1,25 dihydroxyhydroxyvitamin D). It has a central regulatory role in calcium metabolism, and more widely in the immune system. The prohormone calcifediol (25 hydroxyvitamin D) is more easily measured in the laboratory and is the analyte used in reference interval formulation. Being highly lipid soluble, both calcifediol and calcitriol travel in the bloodstream on carriage proteins, principally on vitamin D-binding protein. Summary This review reports our current understanding of vitamin D-binding protein. Its genetic determinants and their effect on it and secondarily on calcifediol concentrations and assays are described. Its complex interplay with parathyroid hormone is considered. The analytical state of the art is translated into the challenge it imposes clinically, in the formulation of reference intervals and in their use in advising and managing patients. Several recent challenges thrown up to laboratories by percipient clinicians highlight the dilemma vitamin D-binding protein poses. A way forward is suggested.
SHRIMP TRAWL DESIGN IMPROVEMENTS SUGGESTED FOR MEXICAN FISHERIES

In this paper the current shrimp trawl net designs used in Iceland are examined and the method of design is analysed. Various selectivity devices used in the world fisheries are reviewed in order to find a way to keep shrimp catch high and bycatch or discards low. The general situation in the Mexican shrimp fisheries is analysed and a new shrimp trawl net with selectivity devices is suggested.
The molecular architecture of the yeast spindle pole body core determined by Bayesian integrative modeling

A model of the core of the yeast spindle pole body (SPB) was created by a Bayesian modeling approach that integrated a diverse data set of biophysical, biochemical, and genetic information. The model led to a proposed pathway for the assembly of Spc110, a protein related to pericentrin, and a mechanism for how calmodulin strengthens the SPB during mitosis.
Multimodal Gold Nanoprobes for SERS Bioimaging

Growing number of studies report on the improved sensitivity of various imaging modalities in detecting abnormalities within tumours. Surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) microscopy is a novel optical imaging technique which is advantageous in terms of greater multiplexing capability, minimal or no photobleaching of the Raman reporters, better spatial resolution and low signal-to-noise ratio within complex biological environment. For the enhancement of the Raman vibrational signal in SERS bioimaging, gold nanoparticles (GNP) are the most viable among metal nanoparticles because of comparable ease in controlling its size distribution and biocompatibility, among other parameters. GNP based SERS nanoprobes can be synthesised by tagging Raman reporter and conjugating with target specific biomolecules. Because of GNP’s wide-ranging optical properties and narrow and distinct signal from SERS, other labelling methodologies like fluorescence microscopy, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), etc. can also be implemented along with SERS bioimaging, by tagging fluorophores, magnetic nanoparticles, etc. This review focuses on various structures and shapes of GNP, fabricating GNP based nanoprobes and the multiplexing and multi-modality capability of GNP based SERS nanoprobes.
Central America and El Salvador: The History of Telecommunication Services, Regulation, and the Digital Divide

This thesis examines how El Salvador has addressed the digital divide against its own aims and against those of other Central American countries—Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Honduras. It does this by, first, exploring the historical development of telecommunication services in the region from the mid-1800s to 2013. Second, drawing on literature and data from each country, as well as the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the World Bank, it evaluates how government policies have addressed the divide by examining the uptake of fixed-line, mobile phone, and internet services in the region. The evidence shows that sector liberalization in the region has yielded mixed results: while mobile phone services have expanded, fixed-line and internet services remain largely under-developed. Ultimately, this thesis finds that weak policymaking in El Salvador and the rest of the Central American countries—with the exception of Costa Rica—have led to unfulfilled universal service goals.
A Review and Meta-Analysis for Efficient Intrusion Detection on KDD Dataset

In any network based system and organization identifying the possible attacks is very crucial and important to perceive the data integrity and security. Researchers are working in this field and several works is in progress. Due to the immense use, frequently updating in the data structure and large number of intrusions nature variability there are lot of scope in this area in terms of intrusion detection and classification. The main aim of this paper is to explore the gaps in the previous techniques and find out the methodologies by which any kind of hybridization is possible which can be capable in improving the classification accuracy.
Localization and induction of the A2 virulence factor in Leishmania: evidence that A2 is a stress response protein

Leishmaniasis is a vector‐borne infectious disease with a wide range of pathologies depending on the species of Leishmania. Leishmania parasites are transmitted by the sand fly vector as promastigotes; within the mammalian host, Leishmania parasites differentiate into amastigotes and replicate in macrophages. The A2 protein from Leishmania donovani is expressed predominantly in amastigotes and therefore likely plays a role in survival in the mammalian host. In the present study, we have determined that the A2 protein colocalized with the Leishmania endoplasmic reticulum binding protein, BiP, was induced by stress and complexed with BiP following heat shock. The A2 gene in Leishmania major is a non‐expressed pseudogene, and we present evidence that ectopic expression of a transfected A2 gene in L. major enhanced its viability following heat shock. A2 may therefore play a role in protecting L. donovani from stress associated with infection in visceral organs, including the fever typically associated with visceral leishmaniasis. Interestingly, when comparing A2 protein localization, we also observed that the Leishmania secreted acid phosphatase SAcP protein was transported out of the parasite‐containing phagolysosome and was located throughout the macrophage cytoplasm in vesicles, providing the first example of a secreted Leishmania‐derived protein exiting the parasite‐containing phagolysosome.
Effect of correcting outcome data for case mix: an example from stroke medicine

Abstract Objective: To show the influence of variations in case mix on clinical outcome indicators for patients admitted to hospital with acute stroke. Design: “Before and after” cohort study, with prospective, consecutive identification of patients and prospective follow up; multiple logistic regression analyses to correct for case mix variations. Setting: University teaching hospital. Subjects: 216 patients with stroke identified before the introduction of an organised stroke service, and 252 patients with stroke identified after its introduction. Main outcome measures: Case fatality at 30 days and 12 months; for survivors at 12 months, proportions of patients who were independent (according to the Oxford handicap scale) and of those living at home. Results: Crude outcome data suggested that patients in the cohort identified after the introduction of the stroke service were significantly more likely to be alive, independent, and living at home than patients managed before the stroke service. After adjustment for age and sex these “improvements” were less impressive but still significant. After adjustment for many other possible prognostic indicators, however, the differences between the two groups for all four outcomes were non-significant, suggesting that the “improvements” may have been entirely due to differences in case mix between the two cohorts, rather than the new stroke service. Conclusions: Variations in case mix have a crucial influence on the interpretation of outcome data, and this is particularly important in non-randomised comparative studies. Such studies, comparing performance within and between different provider units, are likely to become increasingly common in the new reformed NHS. To allow meaningful interpretation, these studies must try to correct for case mix. Key messages Variations in case mix wield a vital influence over outcome The government has published clinical outcome indicators for several diseases in Scottish hospitals that have not been adequately corrected for case mix Interpretation of outcome data from non- randomised studies may be confounded by case mix, and researchers must try to adjust their data for case mix variables to allow meaningful comparisons
Social Media Modeling of Human Behavior in Natural Emergencies

During natural emergencies (e.g., hurricanes, tornadoes, storms), individuals can choose to avoid or leave areas of risk. Yet, often people choose to stay or travel to danger areas. Some may underestimate the danger; others may want to protect their property or families. Widespread social media use by these individuals can help us understand their motives and quantify their likelihood to engage in risky travel or decisions to stay. Social media data in such situations is not unlike sensor data; by tracking where individuals go and what they tweet about we can discover both temporal and spatial trends in human emotion and behavior during weather events. In this paper, we describe our extensible, distributed, real-time data collection and analysis pipeline that combines public streaming data from the National Weather Service and Twitter for subsequent exploration and analysis, including risk behavior modeling. Our pipeline leverages the open-source Apache Storm framework and the ELK (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) stack to process, filter, augment and index this streaming data for subsequent efficient retrieval. This work, which can be expanded to other social media (Facebook, Flickr, Instagram) is pathbreaking in several respects; first, it represents a novel integration of weather and social media data; second, our pipeline can be easily adapted to other analyzes by adding or removing processing components; and finally, this work represents the first (to our knowledge) quantification of human risk behavior using social media data in the form of average vectors and individual risk behavior indicators.
Simulation de la propagation d'onde non linéaire par les séries de Volterra

Une des etapes de la synthese sonore par modele physique consiste a resoudre la dynamique d'un resonateur excite par une force (action du musicien). Cette force et ses caracteristiques sont tres importantes puisqu'elles traduisent musicalement toute la gestuelle du musicien. Pour des amplitudes de force atteignant un certain seuil, l'hypothese de linearite n'est plus valable. Par exemple, les auditeurs peuvent entendre pour les nuances fortissimo une modification du timbre de l'instrument de musique. Le travail de cette these consiste a approximer la dynamique de modeles non lineaires par les series de Volterra (outil d'approximation de systemes faiblement non lineaires) afin d'ameliorer le realisme de la synthese. Ces modeles sont au nombre de trois : deux modeles de cordes prenant en compte la variation de tension (Kirchhoff et Kirchhoff-Carrier) et le modele de poutre de Reissner (dont la cinematique est definie a l'aide d'un groupe de Lie) afin d'exprimer le couplage entre les six degres de liberte. Pour chacun de ces modeles, le calcul des noyaux de Volterra (definissant la serie de Volterra) sera realise ainsi que la structure de simulation mise en oeuvre a partir des resultats obtenus.
Complete Definition of Immunological Correlates of Protection and Clearance of Hepatitis C Virus Infection: A Relevant Pending Task for Vaccine Development

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infects approximately 3% of global population. This pathogen is one of the main causes of chronic viral hepatitis, cirrhosis, and liver cancer, as well as the principal reason for liver transplant in Western countries. Therapy against HCV infection is effective in only half of treated patients. There is no vaccine available against HCV. Some vaccine candidates have reached the clinical trials but several factors, including the incomplete definition of immunological correlates of protection and treatment-related clearance have slowed down vaccine development. Precisely, the present review discusses the state of the art in the establishment of parameters related with immunity against HCV. Validity and limitations of the information accumulated from chimpanzees and other animal models, analysis of studies in humans infected with HCV, and relevance of aspects like type, strength, duration, and specificity of immune response related to successful outcome are evaluated in detail. Moreover, the immune responses induced in some clinical trials with vaccine candidates resemble the theoretical immunological correlates, raising questions about the validity of those correlates. When all facts are taken together, complete definition of immunological correlates for protection or treatment-related clearance is an urgent priority. A limited or wrong criterion with respect to this relevant matter might cause incorrect vaccine design and selection of immunization strategies or erroneous clinical evaluation.
Aerosol-cloud-climate interactions in the climate model CAM-Oslo

A new aerosol module is integrated on-line in the atmospheric GCM CAM-Oslo coupled to a slab ocean for equilibrium climate response studies. The response to an anthropogenic change in aerosols since pre-industrial times is compared with that of a future 63% increased CO2 level. The aerosol module calculates concentrations of sea-salt, mineral dust, sulphate, black carbon (BC) and particulate organic matter (POM). Look-up tables, constructed from first principles, are used to obtain optical parameters and cloud droplet numbers (CDNC) for any given aerosol composition. Anthropogenic aerosols thus produce a global near-surface cooling of 1.94Kand a 5.5% precipitation decrease, including amplifications by positive cloud feedbacks. In comparison, the CO2 increase gives a warming of 1.98 K and a 3.8% precipitation increase, causing slightly reduced sulphate, BC, POM and sea-salt burdens. A minor increase in mineral dust is ascribed to reduced subtropical precipitation downwind of Sahara over the Atlantic Ocean. The modelled indirect effects are probably overestimated, mainly due to neglected natural aerosol components and the diagnostic scheme for CDNC. Adding 15cm−3 to CDNC everywhere reduces the indirect forcing from −2.34 to −1.36 Wm−2, whilst solving a prognostic equation for CDNC reduces it from −2.34 to −1.44 Wm−2.
Internationalization of the higher education in Romania and EU countries

Internationalization of higher education has become a part of the globalization process. In this paper we analyze the internationalization of the higher education in Romania and EU countries, identifying the forms of the internationalization, the main statistical indicators available to measure the process of internationalization. The figures presented in this article show that although Romania took some measures to support the internationalization and the number of foreign students started to increase especially after 2007, it has one of the lowest rates of student mobility among EU countries. The asymmetry ratio of students’ mobility shows that Romania is not currently an attractive country for tertiary education. Only medicine seems to attract foreign students mainly because the tuition fee is much lower than in other European countries. The determinants of the student mobility were investigated through some simple regression models which showed that the GDP per capita and the ratio between the number of students and professors influence the decision to study abroad.
UV-induced G2 checkpoint depends on p38 MAPK and minimal activation of ATR-Chk1 pathway

Summary In response to UV light, single-stranded DNA intermediates coated with replication protein A (RPA) are generated, which trigger the ATR-Chk1 checkpoint pathway. Recruitment and/or activation of several checkpoint proteins at the damaged sites is important for the subsequent cell cycle arrest. Surprisingly, upon UV irradiation, Rad9 and RPA only minimally accumulate at DNA lesions in G2 phase, suggesting that only a few single-stranded DNA intermediates are generated. Also, little phosphorylated Chk1 is observed in G2 phase after UV-irradiation, and UV light fails to elicit efficient accumulation of typical DNA damage response proteins at sites of damage in this phase. By contrast, p38 MAPK is phosphorylated in G2 phase cells after UV damage. Interestingly, despite the lack of an obvious activation of the ATR-Chk1 pathway, only the combined inhibition of the ATR- and p38-dependent pathways results in a complete abrogation of the UV-induced G2/M arrest. This suggests that UV light induces less hazardous lesions in G2 phase or that lesions created in this phase are less efficiently processed, resulting in a low activation of the ATR-Chk1 pathway. UV-induced G2 checkpoint activation in this situation therefore relies on signalling via the p38 MAPK and ATR-Chk1 signalling cascades.
Proteomic Analysis of Putative Latex Allergens

Background: Extensive analysis of allergenic proteins is generally time-consuming and labor-intensive. Accordingly, a rapid and easy procedure for allergen identification is required. As sequence information on proteins and genes is accumulated in databases, it is becoming easier to identify a candidate protein using proteomic strategies, i.e. two-dimensional gel electrophoresis, site-specific fragmentation, mass spectrometry and then database search. In this study, we evaluated the usefulness of a proteomic strategy for identifying putative allergens through its application to latex proteins. Methods: Latex proteins were separated with two-dimensional gel electrophoresis, and putative allergens were visualized by IgE immunoblotting using pooled serum from latex-sensitive patients. The IgE-interactive proteins were cut out from the negatively stained two-dimensional gel and subjected to in-gel digestion by trypsin. Then the resulting peptides were analyzed with mass spectrometry. Based on the mass spectrometric data we obtained, the allergen candidates were assigned by a database search. Results: Five previously reported allergens and five new allergen candidates were identified with the proteomic approach without isolating the individual proteins. Less than 1 mg of crude latex protein was sufficient for the entire protocol. Because plural proteins can be processed in parallel, analysis of about 50 IgE-interactive proteins was accomplished within 1 week. Conclusions: Analysis of putative allergens with proteomic strategies (allergenomics) is a promising avenue for rapid and exhaustive research. The high resolving power of two-dimensional gel electrophoresis is superior to conventional gel electrophoresis. Moreover, the notable sensitivity and speed of mass spectrometry have pronounced advantages over the N-terminal sequencing that has generally been used for protein identification.
Diagnostic value of endobronchial ultrasound guided transbronchial needle aspiration in superior vena cava syndrome

Background The pathological diagnosis is of critical importance to the subsequent treatment for the pathients with superior vena cava syndrome (SVCS). The aim of this study is to report our experience in the diagnosis of SVCS by endobronchial ultrasound guided transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS‐TBNA). Methods The data of 520 patients who underwent EBUS‐TBNA from September 2009 to May 2012 at our institution were reviewed. Of these, there were 14 males and 6 females (mean age of 59.1 years) with SVCS who received EBUS‐TBNA that were included in the analysis. Results The mean short axis diameter of the paratracheal lesions was (3.32±1.79) cm (range, 1.69 to 9.50 cm) and 6 cases also had subcarinal lymph node enlargement with a mean short axis diameter of (2.14±0.49) cm (range, 1.73 to 3.01 cm). An average of 4.3 punctures was performed per lesion. Malignancy was confirmed in 16 cases (10 small cell carcinomas, 4 adenocarcinomas, 1 squamous cell carcinoma and 1 Hodgkin lymphoma). In two patients, pathological examination of tissue revealed no evidence of malignancy and for 13 to 24 months of follow‐up. One patient from whom adequate tissue was not obtained refused further surgical biopsy since he had undergone endovascular stenting of the SVC. One patient in whom a diagnosis was not obtained by EBUS‐TBNA underwent thoracoscopic biopsy and the final diagnosis was B cell non‐Hodgkin's lymphoma. The diagnosis accuracy of EBUS‐TBNA in SVCS was 18/20 patients. Conclusion EBUS‐TBNA is a highly effective and safe procedure for the diagnosis of SVCS.