Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CCT Chaperonin Complex Is Required for the Biogenesis of Functional Plk1

ABSTRACT Experiments from several different organisms have demonstrated that polo-like kinases are involved in many aspects of mitosis and cytokinesis. Here, we provide evidence to show that Plk1 associates with chaperonin-containing TCP1 complex (CCT) both in vitro and in vivo. Silencing of CCT by use of RNA interference (RNAi) in mammalian cells inhibits cell proliferation, decreases cell viability, causes cell cycle arrest with 4N DNA content, and leads to apoptosis. Depletion of CCT in well-synchronized HeLa cells causes cell cycle arrest at G2, as demonstrated by a low mitotic index and Cdc2 activity. Complete depletion of Plk1 in well-synchronized cells also leads to G2 block, suggesting that misfolded Plk1 might be responsible for the failure of CCT-depleted cells to enter mitosis. Moreover, partial depletion of CCT or Plk1 leads to mitotic arrest. Finally, the CCT-depleted cells reenter the cell cycle upon reintroduction of the purified constitutively active form of Plk1, indicating that Plk1 might be a CCT substrate.
Modeling and identification of human neuromusculoskeletal network based on biomechanical property of muscle

In this paper, we build a whole-body neuromusculoskeletal network model including somatic reflex, and identify its parameters through non-invasive measurements and statistical analysis. Such models are crucial for analyzing and estimating signals in the nervous system. Our neuromuscular model consists of two parts. The first part models the neuromuscular network that represents the relationships between the spinal nerve signals and muscle activities, which are then converted to muscle tensions using a physiological muscle dynamics model. The second part includes the feedback loops from muscle spindles and Golgi tendon organs to the spinal nerve that represent the somatic reflex using muscle length, velocity, and tension information. We demonstrate the consistency of the model by showing that a forward dynamics simulation of somatic reflex yields a motion similar to actual human response.
A novel PDMS based capacitive pressure sensor

In this paper, a capacitive pressure sensor for aeronautical applications is presented. The sensor mainly consists of a thin structured layer of Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) that is embedded between two metal films. In this application the structured PDMS layer is used as dielectric and as spring element. The optimal design of the sensor was determined using a finite element analysis. The technological implementation of the first test samples using microtechnology is shown. The static and dynamic characterization of the pressure sensor validates the high sensitivity and temporal resolution of the sensor.
Towards the deployment of a fully centralized Cloud-RAN architecture

In the framework of Network Function Virtualization (NFV), we address in this work the design and sizing of Cloud-RAN architectures. We concretely investigate the execution time of software-based Base Band Units (BBUs) on multi-core systems. Since Cloud-RAN requires a real-time behavior, we use parallel programming techniques in order to minimize the runtime of BBU functions. For an efficient utilization of computing resources, we investigate the relevance of resource pooling where a global scheduling algorithm allocates processing units to runnable BBU-jobs. We specifically examine the gain that can be obtained when applying data parallelism on the channel decoding BBU-function which is the most expensive one in terms of processing time. Performance results show a significant reduction in the runtime of PHY functions which enables the deployment of a fully centralized Cloud-RAN architecture.
Purification of PII and PII-UMP and In Vitro Studies of Regulation of Glutamine Synthetase in Rhodospirillum rubrum

ABSTRACT The PII protein from Rhodospirillum rubrumwas fused with a histidine tag, overexpressed in Escherichia coli, and purified by Ni2+-chelating chromatography. The uridylylated form of the PII protein could be generated in E. coli. The effects on the regulation of glutamine synthetase by PII, PII-UMP, glutamine, and α-ketoglutarate were studied in extracts from R. rubrumgrown under different conditions. PII and glutamine were shown to stimulate the ATP-dependent inactivation (adenylylation) of glutamine synthetase, which could be totally inhibited by α-ketoglutarate. Deadenylylation (activation) of glutamine synthetase required phosphate, but none of the effectors studied had any major effect, which is different from their role in the E. colisystem. In addition, deadenylylation was found to be much slower than adenylylation under the conditions investigated.
Physics of Quantum Light Emitters in Disordered Photonic Nanostructures

Nanophotonics focuses on the control of light and the interaction with matter by the aid of intricate nanostructures. Typically, a photonic nanostructure is carefully designed for a specific application and any imperfections may reduce its performance, i.e., a thorough investigation of the role of unavoidable fabrication imperfections is essential for any application. However, another approach to nanophotonic applications exists where fabrication disorder is used to induce functionalities by enhancing light‐matter interaction. Disorder leads to multiple scattering of light, which is the realm of statistical optics where light propagation requires a statistical description. We review here the recent progress on disordered photonic nanostructures and the potential implications for quantum photonics devices.
Immune to Situation: The Self-Serving Bias in Unambiguous Contexts

Traditionally, the self-serving bias has been investigated in ambiguous contexts in which participants work on tasks that measure novel abilities before making attributions without clear criteria for success or failure feedback. Prior studies have confirmed that the self-serving bias is pervasive in the general population, yet it varies significantly across situations involving ambiguous contexts. The present study features an unambiguous context encompassing interpersonal events that involved implicit causality (with the “self” as an actor or recipient), the inherent logic of which indicated attribution criteria. The aim of this study was to explore whether there is a self-serving bias in unambiguous contexts and to examine whether it is as sensitive to situation as it has been shown to be in ambiguous contexts. The results showed that, in an unambiguous context, participants exhibited self-serving bias in relation to attribution associated with negative interpersonal events. Additionally, the self-serving bias was greater in the actor condition relative to the recipient condition (Study 1), and this effect was not affected by the level of self-awareness, which was manipulated by the use or otherwise of a camera during the experiment (Study 2). Our findings provide evidence for the existence of the self-serving bias in unambiguous contexts. Moreover, the self-serving bias was shown to be immune to situation in unambiguous contexts, but it did depend on factors associated with the events per se, such as the actor versus recipient role that the self played in interpersonal events.
Modelling Foreign Exchange Rate Transaction Exposure of UK Insurance Companies: A Cash Flow-Based Methodology

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study the sensitivity of foreign exchange exposure through the cash flow estimation method using a sample of 59 UK insurance companies. This approach allows a decomposition of exposures into short- and long-term components. By revealing the nature of their cash flow exposures, companies can evaluate the effectiveness of their hedging programmes and focus their hedging efforts according to the nature of their exposures. Design/methodology/approach Martin and Mauer’s (2003, 2005) three-stage model is used to estimate foreign exchange rate transaction exposures for the sample of 65 UK insurance companies over the period 2004-2013. However, this paper has one important innovation to this method. Instead of the model used in previous papers, the paper uses a model from the actuarial field that was proposed by Blum et al. (2001) for modelling foreign exchange rates with their relevant constituents (inflation and interest rate). Findings The evidence shows that the currency transaction exposure for non-life insurers is greater than that of life insurers. Moreover, the author finds that large insurers exhibit lower frequencies of foreign exchange transaction exposure than small insurers. Originality/value The value of this paper comes from the fact that revealing the nature of cash flow exposures, companies can evaluate the effectiveness of their hedging programmes and focus their hedging efforts according to the nature of their exposures.
A rapid brain metabolic change in infants detected by fMRI

TO determine developmental changes of activity-related metabolism in human visual cortex, we performed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) from the neonatal period. A rapid metabolic changing pattern accompanying normal human brain maturation was revealed by fMRI with photic stimulation. Infants older than 8 weeks of age showed a stimulus-related signal decrease in the visual cortex, whereas younger neonates showed a signal increase. This inversion of response in infants suggests a change in oxygen consumption during neuronal activation, which is related to rapid synapse formation and accompanying increased metabolism. fMRI can detect dynamic metabolic changes during the brain maturation, and provides a new clue in the detection of abnormal brain development or CNS plasticity.
Utility of the Edmonton Frail Scale in identifying frail elderly patients during treatment of colorectal cancer.

BACKGROUND Frailty has been proposed by geriatricians as an indicator of functional age. The Edmonton Frail Scale (EFS) is a 15-point incremental scale; it is quick (<5 min), and simple to administer. We conducted an exploratory study to establish if the EFS add utility to clinician's expertise by determining if there was an association between EFS and receipt of chemotherapy in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. METHODS The EFS was administered to stage II-IV CRC patients ≥70 years. EFS assessment was completed by one of the investigators, with the treating oncology team blinded to the results. RESULTS A total of 46 patients were enrolled, and the EFS was reproduced in 32 patients at two visits (r=0.81; 95% CI: 0.64-0.90, P<0.0001). There was no correlation between the EFS and receipt of chemotherapy for the study population as a whole; however, exclusion of stage II patients showed a reduced likelihood of receiving chemotherapy with higher EFS scores (odds ratio 0.56; 95% CI: 0.37-0.85, P<0.01 per unit increment). A similar effect was observed after multivariable analysis (adjusting for performance status, age, stage and gender, odds ratio 0.41 95% CI: 0.18-0.96, P<0.05 per unit increment). CONCLUSIONS This exploratory study suggests that EFS can identify patients that oncologists may have thought were too frail for chemotherapy, independent of PS. Therefore, the EFS has the potential to add a reproducible, and quantifiable measure of frailty to the clinician's decision making toolset. A follow up study will employ the EFS in real-time, and determine if using the EFS can minimize complications and unplanned health care utilization in elderly cancer patients.
Low aquaporin-2 levels in polyuric DI 1/1 severe mice with constitutively high cAMP-phosphodiesterase activity

JØRGEN FRØKIAER,1,2 DAVID MARPLES,2,3 HEINZ VALTIN,4 JOHN F. MORRIS,5 MARK A. KNEPPER,6 AND SØREN NIELSEN2 1Department of Clinical Physiology, Aarhus University Hospital and Institute of Experimental Clinical Research, 2Department of Cell Biology, Institute of Anatomy, University of Aarhus, DK-8000 Aarhus, Denmark; 3Department of Physiology, University of Leeds, LS2 9NQ Leeds, United Kingdom; 4Department of Physiology, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755-3836; 5Department of Anatomy, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QX, United Kingdom; and 6Laboratory of Kidney and Electrolyte Metabolism, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892
A Fast Distributed Principal Component Analysis with Variance Reduction

Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) are widely used in dimension reduction, feature extraction, low-rank matrix approximation and so on. In large-scale applications, a common alternative is to use cluster which have multiple nodes and multiple cores to accelerate the time of solving problem. Most of the existing distributed PCA algorithm focus on reducing the communication, and there is little attention to the frequent waiting phenomenon caused by the synchronization mechanism. Meanwhile, most of these works are based on either the distributed memory of the processes-level parallelism or the shared memory of threads-level parallelism. In this paper, we propose a fast distributed PCA algorithm with variance reduced, which based on stochastic sampling and Stale Synchronous Parallel. Our algorithm contains the processes-level and threads-level parallelism. Experiments on the "Tianhe-2" super computer demonstrate that our algorithm has a good performance, speedup, and scalability.
Microvirin, a Novel α(1,2)-Mannose-specific Lectin Isolated from Microcystis aeruginosa, Has Anti-HIV-1 Activity Comparable with That of Cyanovirin-N but a Much Higher Safety Profile*

Microvirin (MVN), a recently isolated lectin from the cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa PCC7806, shares 33% identity with the potent anti-human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) protein cyanovirin-N (CV-N) isolated from Nostoc ellipsosporum, and both lectins bind to similar carbohydrate structures. MVN is able to inhibit infection by a wide variety of HIV-1 laboratory-adapted strains and clinical isolates of different tropisms and subtypes in peripheral blood mononuclear cells. MVN also inhibits syncytium formation between persistently HIV-1-infected T cells and uninfected CD4+ T cells and inhibits DC-SIGN-mediated HIV-1 binding and transmission to CD4+ T cells. Long term passaging of HIV-1 exposed to dose-escalating concentrations of MVN resulted in the selection of a mutant virus with four deleted high mannose-type glycans in the envelope gp120. The MVN-resistant virus was still highly sensitive to various other carbohydrate binding lectins (e.g. CV-N, HHA, GNA, and UDA) but not anymore to the carbohydrate-specific 2G12 monoclonal antibody. Importantly, MVN is more than 50-fold less cytotoxic than CV-N. Also in sharp contrast to CV-N, MVN did not increase the level of the activation markers CD25, CD69, and HLA-DR in CD4+ T lymphocytes, and subsequently, MVN did not enhance viral replication in pretreated peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Therefore, MVN may qualify as a useful lectin for potential microbicidal use based on its broad and potent antiviral activity and virtual lack of any stimulatory properties and cellular toxicity.
A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase III trial of erlotinib with or without a c-Met inhibitor tivantinib (ARQ 197) in Asian patients with previously treated stage IIIB/IV nonsquamous nonsmall-cell lung cancer harboring wild-type epidermal growth factor receptor (ATTENTION study).

BACKGROUND A previous randomized phase II study demonstrated that the addition of a c-Met inhibitor tivantinib to an epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitor erlotinib might prolong progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with previously treated, nonsquamous nonsmall-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). On a subset analysis, the survival benefit was greater in patients with wild-type EGFR (WT-EGFR) than in those with activating EGFR mutations. Herein, this phase III study compared overall survival (OS) between Asian nonsquamous NSCLC patients with WT-EGFR who received erlotinib plus tivantinib (tivantinib group) or erlotinib plus placebo (placebo group). METHODS A total of 460 NSCLC patients were planned to be randomized to the tivantinib or placebo group. Primary end point was OS. Secondary end points were PFS, tumor response, and safety. Tissue was collected for biomarker analysis, including c-Met and HGF expression. RESULTS Enrollment was stopped when 307 patients were randomized, following the Safety Review Committee's recommendation based on an imbalance in the interstitial lung disease (ILD) incidence between the groups. ILD developed in 14 patients (3 deaths) and 6 patients (0 deaths) in the tivantinib and the placebo groups, respectively. In the enrolled patients, median OS was 12.7 and 11.1 months in the tivantinib and the placebo groups, respectively [hazard ratio (HR) = 0.891, P = 0.427]. Median PFS was 2.9 and 2.0 months in the tivantinib and the placebo groups, respectively (HR = 0.719, P = 0.019). The commonly observed grade ≥ 3 adverse events in the tivantinib group were neutropenia (24.3%), leukopenia (18.4%), febrile neutropenia (13.8%), and anemia (13.2%). CONCLUSIONS This study was prematurely terminated due to the increased ILD incidence in the tivantinib group. Although this study lacked statistical power because of the premature termination and did not demonstrate an improvement in OS, our results suggest that tivantinib plus erlotinib might improve PFS than erlotinib alone in nonsquamous NSCLC patients with WT-EGFR. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER NCT01377376.
Multiple Self-Reported Concussions Are More Prevalent in Athletes With ADHD and Learning Disability

Objective:We evaluated how attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and learning disability (LD) are associated with concussion history and performance on standard concussion assessment measures. Based on previous reports that developmental disorders are associated with increased injury proneness and poorer cognitive performance, we anticipated that ADHD and LD would be associated with increased history of concussion and poorer baseline performance on assessment measures. Design:Cross-sectional study. Setting:Clinical research center. Participants:The study sample aggregated data from two separate projects: the National Collegiate Athletic Association Concussion Study and Project Sideline. Interventions:We analyzed preseason baseline data from 8056 high school and collegiate athletes (predominantly male football players) enrolled in prior studies of sport-related concussion. Main Outcome Measures:Measures included demographic/health history, symptoms, and cognitive performance. Results:Attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder and LD were associated with 2.93 and 2.08 times the prevalence, respectively, of 3+ historical concussions (for comorbid ADHD/LD the prevalence ratio was 3.38). In players without histories of concussion, individuals with ADHD reported more baseline symptoms, and ADHD and LD were associated with poorer performance on baseline cognitive tests. Interactive effects were present between ADHD/LD status and concussion history for self-reported symptoms. Conclusions:Neurodevelopmental disorders and concussion history should be jointly considered in evaluating concussed players. Clinical Relevance:Clinical judgments of self-reported symptoms and cognitive performance should be adjusted based on athletes' individual preinjury baselines or comparison with appropriate normative samples.
Landscapes of Care: Feminist Approaches in Global Public Relations

ABSTRACT This paper explores theoretical and practical implications of feminist theory—specifically standpoint theory, ethics of care, and related concepts from feminist geography—for global public relations, an area of theory and practice often associated with Western imperialism. Global public relations theory dictates that effective transnational campaigns should retain some global consistency but also be tailored to local publics. Textual analysis of global campaigns by a coalition of public and private organizations promoting handwashing in poor and agrarian communities worldwide revealed that effective campaigns had globally constant and locally responsive elements. Furthermore, the campaigns aligned with standpoint theory’s privileging of situated knowledge grounded in lived experiences, especially women’s. Last, effective global handwashing campaigns were motivated by an ethic of care and commitment to social change, showing relevance of feminist approaches for global public relations.
Higher education governance and policy in China: managing decentralization and transnationalism

Abstract China has experienced significant social, economic and political transformations since its economic reform started in the late 1970s. Considerable changes in its policy-making and implementation approaches have also emerged. Confronted with the intensified tension between the call for efficiency and strong pressure to improve social welfare, the Chinese government had no choice but to become instrumentally pragmatic in adopting different governance strategies to address the increasingly complex social, economic and political developments. Thus, neoliberal tenets were introduced. This article sets out to examine, against the wider policy context, how neoliberal tenets, particularly its emphasis on market principles, have been injected in higher education governance. This article aims to explore how the multi-faceted dynamics shaped the development of transnational higher education and influenced the governance of Sino-foreign cooperation universities.
Investigations on the development and topographic order of retinotectal axons: Anterograde and retrograde staining of axons and perikarya with rhodamine in vivo

Rhodamine‐B‐isothiocyanate (RITC) is shown to be a convenient and advantageous fluorescence tracer both for anterograde staining of retinal ganglion cell axons on the tectum and for retrograde staining of ganglion cell bodies in the retina of chick embryos. After intravitreal injection the dye is taken up by ganglion cells of the retina from the extracellular space and is transported anterogradely at about 10 mm/day up to the axonal growth cones on the tectum. RITC can be taken up by growing axons on the tectum and it is transported retrogradely at about 5 mm/day to the cell bodies in the retina. Local staining can be achieved if RITC is applied in its crystalline form. RITC is nontoxic for the cells and their axons, is resistant to histologi‐cal fixation procedures, and allows quick observation in vivo and on dissected stained tissue.
Changes in the transmembrane region of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 gp41 envelope glycoprotein affect membrane fusion

The charged amino acids near or within the membrane-spanning region of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 gp41 envelope glycoprotein were altered. Two mutants were defective for syncytium formation and virus replication even though levels of envelope glycoproteins on the cell or virion surface and CD4 binding were comparable to those of the wild-type proteins. Thus, in addition to anchoring the envelope glycoproteins, sequences proximal to the membrane-spanning gp41 region are important for the membrane fusion process.