Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Atomic force microscopy of chromatin arrays reveal non-monotonic salt dependence of array compaction in solution

Compaction of DNA in chromatin is a hallmark of the eukaryotic cell and unravelling its structure is required for an understanding of DNA involving processes. Despite strong experimental efforts, many questions concerning the DNA packing are open. In particular, it is heavily debated whether an ordered structure referred to as the “30 nm fibre” exist in vivo. Scanning probe microscopy has become a cutting edge technology for the high-resolution imaging of DNA- protein complexes. Here, we perform high-resolution atomic force microscopy of non-cross-linked chromatin arrays in liquid, under different salt conditions. A statistical analysis of the data reveals that array compaction is salt dependent in a non-monotonic fashion. A simple physical model can qualitatively explain the observed findings due to the opposing effects of salt dependent stiffening of DNA, nucleosome stability and histone-histone interactions. While for different salt concentrations different compaction states are observed, our data do not provide support for the existence of regular chromatin fibres. Our studies add new insights into chromatin structure, and with that contribute to a further understanding of the DNA condensation.
IMPROVED COURNOT MODEL OF GENERATION UNIT OUTPUT OF GENERATION COMPANIES UNDER INCOMPLETE INFORMATION IN ELECTRICITY MARKET

Assuming each generation company knows the market inverse demand function but does not know his rivals? operation costs, a Cournot model in which each generation company optimizes its generation unit output is presented in this paper in order to obtain the maximal benefit in oligopoly electricity market. If generation company抯 payoff function is concave and needs to be maximized, we can obtain the expected Cournot equilibrium state with technical constraints using the method of searching the Kuhn-Tucker points and solve the equation group of reaction functions of generation units. Several examples have been used to demonstrate the models. The test results show the proposed methodology is a useful tool for generation companies to optimize their resource and make their decision.
Differential Coupling of the Sphingosine 1-Phosphate Receptors Edg-1, Edg-3, and H218/Edg-5 to the Gi, Gq, and G12 Families of Heterotrimeric G Proteins*

Sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P) is one of several bioactive phospholipids that exert profound mitogenic and morphogenic actions. Originally characterized as a second messenger, S1P is now recognized to achieve many of its effects through cell surface, G protein-coupled receptors. We used a subunit-selective [35S]GTPγS binding assay to investigate whether the variety of actions exerted through Edg-1, a recently identified receptor for S1P, might be achieved through multiple G proteins. We found, employing both Sf9 and HEK293 cells, that Edg-1 activates only members of the Gi family, and not Gs, Gq, G12, or G13. We additionally established that Edg-1 activates Gi in response not only to S1P but also sphingosylphosphorylcholine; no effects of lysophosphatidic acid through Edg-1 were evident. Our assays further revealed a receptor(s) for S1P endogenous to HEK293 cells that mediates activation of G13 as well as Gi. Because several of the biological actions of S1P are assumed to proceed through the G12/13 family, we tested whether Edg-3 and H218/Edg-5, two other receptors for S1P, might have a broader coupling profile than Edg-1. Indeed, Edg-3 and H218/Edg-5 communicate not only with Gi but also with Gq and G13. These studies represent the first characterization of S1P receptor activity through G proteins directly and establish fundamental differences in coupling.
Profiling ribonucleotide modifications at full-transcriptome level: a step toward MS-based epitranscriptomics

The elucidation of the biological significance of RNA post-transcriptional modifications is hampered by the dearth of effective high-throughput sequencing approaches for detecting, locating, and tracking their levels as a function of predetermined experimental factors. With the goal of confronting this knowledge gap, we devised a strategy for completing global surveys of all ribonucleotide modifications in a cell, which is based on the analysis of whole cell extracts by direct infusion electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS). Our approach eschews chromatographic separation to promote instead the direct application of MS techniques capable of providing detection, differentiation, and quantification of post-transcriptional modifications (PTMs) in complex ribonucleotide mixtures. Accurate mass analysis was used to carry out database-aided identification of PTMs, whereas multistep tandem mass spectrometry (MSn) and consecutive reaction monitoring (CRM) provided the necessary structural corroboration. We demonstrated that heat-map plots afforded by ion mobility spectrometry mass spectrometry (IMS-MS) can provide comprehensive modification profiles that are unique for different cell types and metabolic states. We showed that isolated tRNA samples can be used as controlled sources of PTMs in standard-additions quantification. Intrinsic internal standards enable direct comparisons of heat-maps obtained under different experimental conditions, thus offering the opportunity to evaluate the global effects of such conditions on the expression levels of all PTMs simultaneously. This type of comparative analysis will be expected to support the investigation of the system biology of RNA modifications, which will be aimed at exploring mutual correlations of their expression levels and providing new valuable insights into their biological significance.
Feasibility study of adjustment for contamination and non‐compliance in a prostate cancer screening trial

The use of PSA as a screening test has become increasingly prevalent in the general population and therefore also in the control arm of the European Randomized study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC). We present a feasibility study and impact simulation of a secondary analysis, which imitates a situation where all participants in the study are managed according to their random assignment.
Effect of repeated transvaginal ultrasound-guided follicle aspiration on fertility in mares.

OBJECTIVE To determine whether performance of transvaginal ultrasound-guided follicle aspiration (TVUFA) repeatedly in mares adversely affects their fertility. DESIGN Historical prospective study. ANIMALS 23 mares that had never undergone TVUFA and 59 mares that had undergone TVUFA on 1 to 11 occasions. PROCEDURE Mares were classified into 4 groups according to the number of TVUFA procedures previously performed on the ovary in which ovulation occurred at the time of insemination as follows: group 1, 0 TVUFAs (control group, n = 23 mares); group 2, 1 or 2 TVUFAs (40 mare-cycles); group 3, 3 or 4 TVUFAs (21 mare-cycles); and group 4, 5 to 11 TVUFAs (13 mare-cycles). Each ovary and its associated number of TVUFAs were considered separately; therefore, some of the mares that underwent TVUFA were represented in > 1 group (1 mare was included in group 2 twice [once for each ovary]), and the sample size in groups 2, 3, and 4 was denoted as mare-cycles. Fertility was assessed as pregnancy rates in cycles in which mares were inseminated with fresh or cooled semen from 1 fertile stallion. RESULTS There were no significant differences in pregnancy rates among groups 1, 2, 3, and 4 (83%, 90%, 81%, and 85%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Results indicated that repeated performance of TVUFA (as many as 11 times) had no detectable adverse effect on fertility in mares. This finding is clinically important for situations when TVUFA is performed on fertile mares, whether for oocyte collection or other purposes.
Differential aging of the human striatum: a prospective MR imaging study.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Advancing age is associated with declines in motor function; understanding age-related changes in the basal ganglia, therefore, is imperative for comprehension of such functional changes. The purpose of this study was to examine the age, sex, and hemispheric differences in volume of the caudate nucleus, the putamen, and the globus pallidus. METHODS In a sample of 148 healthy right-handed adults (18-77 years old) with no evidence of age-related motor disorders, we estimated the volume of the head of the caudate nucleus, the putamen, and the globus pallidus from MR images. RESULTS The analyses revealed bilateral age-related shrinkage of the head of the caudate nucleus and the putamen in both sexes. In men, the age-related shrinkage of the caudate was stronger on the left, whereas, in women, the opposite trend was evident. In both sexes, age-related shrinkage of the right putamen was greater than of its left counterpart. The mild bilateral age-related shrinkage of the globus pallidus was observed only in men. In both sexes, we observed significant rightward asymmetry in the putamen, significant leftward asymmetry in the caudate, and no asymmetry in the globus pallidus. CONCLUSIONS Bilateral age-related shrinkage of the neostriatum is found in healthy adults. The shrinkage of the globus pallidus is less pronounced and may be restricted to men only.
Extraction of Fetal Heart-Rate Signal as the Time Event Series From Evenly Sampled Data Acquired Using Doppler Ultrasound Technique

Analysis of variability of fetal heart rate (FHR) is very important in prediction of the fetal wellbeing. The beat-to-beat variability is described quantitatively by the indices originated from invasive fetal electrocardiography which provides the FHR signal in a form of time event series. Today, monitoring instrumentation is based on Doppler ultrasound technology. We used two bedside fetal monitors with different processing methods for heartbeat detection and FHR signal determination: the autocorrelation and cross-correlation techniques. Both monitors provide the output signal in a form of evenly spaced samples. The goal of this paper is to present a new method for the FHR signal processing, which enables extraction of series of consecutive heartbeat intervals from the sampled signal. The proposed correction algorithms allow recognition and removal of the FHR signal distortions typical for fetal monitors-invalid and duplicated samples. The correction efficiency has been verified based on the FHR variability indices calculated for the sampled signal and the corresponding event series. For both monitors, considerable influence of the signal representation on indices values was noted. Concluding, we recommended implementing these algorithms in fetal surveillance system as a preprocessing stage for the determination of FHR variability indices.
Advanced high-speed flywheel energy storage systems for pulsed power applications

A flywheel energy storage system (FESS) for naval applications based around a high-speed surface mount permanent magnet synchronous machine (PMSM) is explored in this paper. A back-to-back converter controls the bi-directional flow of energy for charging and discharging the flywheel. At first, the impacts of power factor and armature reaction on the operation of the PMSM are discussed and then the developed control method is outlined. Finally, the operation of the FESS in the discharge mode with leading power factor and no armature reaction is explained. The overall system is simulated in PSIM package and the results are presented as a proof of what has been claimed.
Local Topology Preserved Tensor Models for Graph Matching

This paper proposes local topology preserved features in graph matching problem based on tensor technique. Many tensor based works paid much attention on catching many invariant feature tuples while local information for every single point to improve matching performance is also important. Here our proposed Local Topology Preserved Tensor (LTPT) models not only take into account of the neighbor structure but also employ the three-order tensor technique to keep the geometric consistency. Extensive experiments on the synthetic and real datasets show that LTPT performs better than the state-of-the-art graph matching methods.
Roles of Pneumococcal DivIB in Cell Division

ABSTRACT DivIB, also known as FtsQ in gram-negative organisms, is a division protein that is conserved in most eubacteria. DivIB is localized at the division site and forms a complex with two other division proteins, FtsL and DivIC/FtsB. The precise function of these three bitopic membrane proteins, which are central to the division process, remains unknown. We report here the characterization of a divIB deletion mutant of Streptococcus pneumoniae, which is a coccus that divides with parallel planes. Unlike its homologue FtsQ in Escherichia coli, pneumococcal DivIB is not required for growth in rich medium, but the ΔdivIB mutant forms chains of diplococci and a small fraction of enlarged cells with defective septa. However, the deletion mutant does not grow in a chemically defined medium. In the absence of DivIB and protein synthesis, the partner FtsL is rapidly degraded, whereas other division proteins are not affected, pointing to a role of DivIB in stabilizing FtsL. This is further supported by the finding that an additional copy of ftsL restores growth of the ΔdivIB mutant in defined medium. Functional mapping of the three distinct α, β, and γ domains of the extracellular region of DivIB revealed that a complete β domain is required to fully rescue the deletion mutant. DivIB with a truncated β domain reverts only the chaining phenotype, indicating that DivIB has distinct roles early and late in the division process. Most importantly, the deletion of divIB increases the susceptibility to β-lactams, more evidently in a resistant strain, suggesting a function in cell wall synthesis.
2nd Asia‐Pacific Regional Meeting of the International Working Group on Harmonization of Dementia Drug Guidelines: Meeting Report

&NA; The 2nd Asia‐Pacific regional meeting of the International Working Group on Harmonization of Dementia Drug Guidelines (IWGH) was held in Beijing, China in late 2002. Representatives from over a dozen countries convened to present data on dementia within the region and to share information on locally adapated outcome measures for use in dementia clinical trials. The IWGH recognized the competency and capability of many Asian sites and endorsed their inclusion in future multicenter clinical dementia research activities.
An efficient solver for Cache Miss Equations

Cache Miss Equations (CME) (S. Ghosh et al., 1997) is a method that accurately describes the cache behavior by means of polyhedra. Even though the computation cost of generating CME is a linear function of the number of references, solving them is a very time consuming task and thus trying to study a whole program may be infeasible. The paper presents effective techniques that exploit some properties of the particular polyhedra generated by CME. Such techniques reduce the complexity of the algorithm to solve CME, which results in a significant speedup when compared with traditional methods. In particular, the proposed approach does not require the computation of the vertices of each polyhedron, which has an exponential complexity.
Imbalance of International Payments,Economic Fluctuations and Quality of China's Economic Growth

This paper discusses the relationships between the imbalance of international payments and the quality of economic growth in theory.By adopting the methods of 3SLS and System-GMM,it conducts an empirical test with China's annual data from 1982 to 2011.The regression results show that the imbalance of international payments influences the changing quality of economic growth through the macroeconomic stability,that the imbalance of payments is negatively related to the quality of economic growth,among which the imbalance of current accounts has increased the volatility of economic growth,and that the imbalance of capital account is an important factor affecting the inflation volatility.Meanwhile,the economic growth volatility has also intensified the inflation volatility.Therefore,to adjust the imbalance of international payments is helpful in promoting macroeconomic stability and improving the quality of economic growth in China.
Factors influencing the willingness to pay for sustainable tourism: a case of mass tourism destinations

ABSTRACT The relationship between sustainability and tourists is complex. There has been little increase in the number of studies published over recent years focusing on the concept of ‘pro-sustainable’ tourists, or the tourist’s willingness to pay (WTP) for sustainability, making it increasingly difficult to identify key explanatory factors that determine tourists’ WTP for sustainable destinations. To provide a richer understanding of tourists’ heterogeneous preferences for sustainable destinations, this study allows us to determine current tourists’ attitude toward sustainability and to identify explanatory variables that influence their WTP to enjoy a more sustainable destination. This study surveyed tourists on the Western Costa del Sol (Spain), a mature sun and sand destination that is currently restructuring and facing several developmental challenges associated with sustainability.
Empirical Analysis of the Economic Growth and Environmental Quality Under the Influence of Industrialization and Urbanization:Based on Panel Data

The paper does research on China's economic growth forces—industrialization and urbanization on environmental quality, and on the influence of environmental protection on economic growth.According to the experience in the past,by econometric model and statistics,the paper measures the basic characteristics of the overall economic growth and Kuznets Curve of the structure effect of China from 1995 to 2008.We found the total GDP curve of industrial smoke and industrial dust emissions has the characteristics of inverted U-curve,which is the typical shape of environmental Kuznets curve.Environmental Kuznets curve of the total GDP of industrial wastewater has N-type curve characteristics,and the sulfur dioxide curve is linear increasing.The industrialization level curves of industrial waste water and sulfur dioxide are N-type curve.The industrial smoke industrialization curve is linear increasing.The urbanization level curves of industrial waste water,industrial sulfur dioxide and industrial dust are inverted curve of N-type,N-type and U -type,respectively.Considering the urban and rural reform and the research on Kutnets curve of structural effects of industrialization and urbanization is more meaningful than merely considering the traditional environmental Kuznets curve of overall economic growth,and it will be significant to deal with the relationship between China's economic development and environmental quality.
Smaller size and higher reliability for vertical chip mounted type power device

This paper presents a new structure of the power device to reduce the size and improve the reliability. Our conventional device with vertical chip mounting is half size of the former device and we proposed a new one for further miniaturization and higher reliability. The proposed device with top and bottom surfaces cooling which allows higher power density is 30% smaller than our conventional one with only the bottom surface cooling. Also, to evaluate the reliability, the finite element analysis (FEA) of the thermal stress and the power cycle tests which are commonly used in evaluating the reliability were performed. The thermal stress of the proposed device can be reduced by 40%, and the power cycle test results showed the high reliability.
Antigenic characterization of swine rotaviruses in Argentina

Fecal samples from 156 diarrheic piglets were collected from several herds located in two main breeding areas of Argentina. Rotaviruses were detected in 60 samples (38.4%) by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and in 55 samples by a group A-specific enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). All samples which were positive by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and negative by ELISA had elicited atypical electropherotypes resembling those of group B or C. ELISA-positive samples showing genome rearrangements were also detected (R.C. Bellinzoni, N.M. Mattion, O.R. Burrone, S.A. González, J.L. La Torre, and E.A. Scodeller, J. Clin. Microbiol. 25:952-954, 1987; N.M. Mattion, S.A. González, O.R. Burrone, R.C. Bellinzoni, J.L. La Torre, and E.A. Scodeller, J. Gen. Virol. 69:695-698, 1988). By subgrouping with monoclonal antibodies, it was found that of 32 positive samples, 13 belonged to subgroup I, 2 belonged to subgroup II, 2 samples had both specificities, and 15 samples were neither subgroup I nor subgroup II (non-I/II). In addition, 10 samples were adapted to grow in tissue culture, cloned, and serotyped by means of neutralization assays. Two samples were classified as serotype 5, and none of them were classified as serotype 4. The other strains showed only a one-way relationship with serotype 5 and can be tentatively classified as new porcine serotypes. Two samples with rearranged genomes had a one-way relationship with antiserum to human strain 69M, which displays a supershort electropherotype and was classified as a new human serotype (S. Matsuno, A. Hasegawa, A. Mukoyama, and S. Inouye, J. Virol. 54:623-624, 1985). At one farm, similar rearranged strains were detected during three successive years. Serotype changes were found between the isolates of the first and the second year, suggesting that a high degree of antigenic variability went on during continuous circulation of these strains in the field.
Overweight and obese children: mothers' strategies.

AIM This paper reports a study exploring the strategies a group of mothers of overweight and obese children were using and planned to use in the future to assist their children to achieve a healthy weight. BACKGROUND Over the past two decades, the prevalence of childhood obesity has grown exponentially to become a major public health concern. Extant literature suggests that childhood obesity is associated with a range of physical, social and psychological effects, including poor self-esteem, depression, social isolation, and cardio-vascular and other morbidity. Parents are known to be important in determining early eating and exercise habits, and their involvement is crucial to achieving positive child health outcomes. METHODS An exploratory-descriptive design informed by feminist research principles shaped the study, which was carried out in 2003-2004. Eleven mothers meeting the inclusion criteria took part in in-depth interviews. These were transcribed, and qualitatively analysed. FINDINGS Participants revealed sound understandings of the concept and ramifications of obesity. They had initiated a range of strategies including role modelling, developing opportunities for increased physical activity, reducing the use of junk food, and heightened awareness of how they used food. Participants viewed the problem as a family rather than an individual problem, and aimed many of the interventions at the entire family to avoid targeting the focus child. CONCLUSIONS Further research into how childhood obesity is managed within the context of family life is needed. Specifically, additional perspectives on how mothers from various socio-cultural groups address childhood obesity within family life, and longitudinal studies to explore the efficacy and sustainability of family-based lifestyle changes that are made in response to concerns about child weight issues. Additional research to explore the type and nature of family support that can best assist families to achieve sustainable lifestyle improvements is needed.