Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Structural and functional plasticity of subcellular tethering , targeting and processing of RPGRIP 1 by RPGR isoforms

Mutations affecting the retinitis pigmentosa GTPase regulatorinteracting protein 1 (RPGRIP1) interactome cause syndromic retinal dystrophies. RPGRIP1 interacts with the retinitis pigmentosa GTPase regulator (RPGR) through a domain homologous to RCC1 (RHD), a nucleotide exchange factor of Ran GTPase. However, functional relationships between RPGR and RPGRIP1 and their subcellular roles are lacking. We show by molecular modeling and analyses of RPGR disease-mutations that the RPGR-interacting domain (RID) of RPGRIP1 embraces multivalently the shared RHD of RPGR1–19 and RPGRORF15 isoforms and the mutations are non-overlapping with the interface found between RCC1 and Ran GTPase. RPGR disease-mutations grouped into six classes based on their structural locations and differential impairment with RPGRIP1 interaction. RPGRIP1a1 expression alone causes its profuse self-aggregation, an effect suppressed by co-expression of either RPGR isoform before and after RPGRIP1a1 self-aggregation ensue. RPGR1–19 localizes to the endoplasmic reticulum, whereas RPGRORF15 presents cytosolic distribution and they determine uniquely the subcellular co-localization of RPGRIP1a1. Disease mutations in RPGR1–19, RPGRORF15, or RID of RPGRIP1a1, singly or in combination, exert distinct effects on the subcellular targeting, co-localization or tethering of RPGRIP1a1 with RPGR1–19 or RPGRORF15 in kidney, photoreceptor and hepatocyte cell lines. Additionally, RPGRORF15, but not RPGR1–19, protects the RID of RPGRIP1a1 from limited proteolysis. These studies define RPGRand cell-type-dependent targeting pathways with structural and functional plasticity modulating the expression of mutations in RPGR and RPGRIP1. Further, RPGR isoforms distinctively determine the subcellular targeting of RPGRIP1a1, with deficits in RPGRORF15-dependent intracellular localization of RPGRIP1a1 contributing to pathomechanisms shared by etiologically distinct syndromic retinal dystrophies.
Aggregation model of air conditioning load considering temperature sensor accuracy

The proportion of air conditioning load in power grid is increasing year by year, the cycle operating characteristics can be used to adjust the power demand, which can provide reserve capacity for power system. In order to describe the active power aggregated characteristics of air conditioning loads accurately, an accurate model should be established. On the basis of single air conditioning load model, the aggregation model for air conditioning loads is established by using Monte Carlo simulation method and according to the distribution characteristics of various parameters. The influence of the accuracy of temperature sensor parameters on the aggregated power characteristics of air conditioning load is analyzed. Simulation results show that the air conditioning load aggregation model considering the accuracy of temperature sensor is feasible and practical, providing the basis for the system load balancing control with the air conditioning loads.
Identification of Flexible Multiword Expressions with the Help of Dependency Structure Annotation

This paper presents our ongoing work on compilation of English multi-word expression (MWE) lexicon. We are especially interested in collecting flexible MWEs, in which some other components can intervene the expression such as “a number of” vs “a large number of” where a modifier of “number” can be placed in the expression and inherit the original meaning. We fiest collect possible candidates of flexible English MWEs from the web, and annotate all of their occurrences in the Wall Street Journal portion of Ontonotes corpus. We make use of word dependency strcuture information of the sentences converted from the phrase structure annotation. This process enables semi-automatic annotation of MWEs in the corpus and simultanaously produces the internal and external dependency representation of flexible MWEs.
Cloned Transgenic Swine Via In Vitro Production and Cryopreservation1

Abstract Ithas been notoriously difficult to successfully cryopreserve swine embryos, a task that has been even more difficult for in vitro-produced embryos. The first reproducible method of cryopreserving in vivo-produced swine embryos was after centrifugation and removal of the lipids. Here we report the adaptation of a similar process that permits the cryopreservation of in vitro-produced somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) swine embryos. These embryos develop to the blastocyst stage and survive cryopreservation. Transfer of 163 cryopreserved SCNT embryos to two surrogates produced 10 piglets. Application of this technique may permit national and international movement of cloned transgenic swine embryos, storage until a suitable surrogate is available, or the long-term frozen storage of valuable genetics.
Vulnerability evaluation of speaker verification under voice conversion spoofing: the effect of text constraints

Voice conversion, a technique to change one’s voice to sound like that of another, poses a threat to even high performance speaker verification system. Vulnerability of text-independent speaker verification systems under spoofing attack, using statistical voice conversion technique, was evaluated and confirmed in our previous work. In this paper, we further extend the study to text-dependent speaker verification systems. In particular, we compare both joint density Gaussian mixture model (JD-GMM) and unit-selection (US) spoofing methods and, for the first time, the performances of text-independent and text-dependent speaker verification systems in a single study. We conduct the experiments using RSR2015 database which is recorded using multiple mobile devices. The experimental results indicate that text-dependent speaker verification system tolerates spoofing attacks better than the text-independent counterpart. Index Terms: Speaker verification, text-dependent, textindependent, voice conversion, spoofing attack, security
The naturally occurring N6-threonyl adenine in anticodon loop of Schizosaccharomyces pombe tRNAi causes formation of a unique U-turn motif

Modified nucleosides play an important role in structure and function of tRNA. We have determined the solution structure of the anticodon stem–loop (ASL) of initiator tRNA of Schizosaccharomyces pombe. The incorporation of N6-threonylcarbamoyladenosine at the position 3′ to the anticodon triplet (t6A37) results in the formation of a U-turn motif and enhances stacking interactions within the loop and stem regions (i.e. between A35 and t6A37) by bulging out U36. This conformation was not observed in a crystal structure of tRNAi including the same modification in its anticodon loop, nor in the solution structure of the unmodified ASL. A t6A modification also occurs in the well studied anti-stem–loop of lys-tRNAUUU. A comparison of this stem–loop with our structure demonstrates different effects of the modification depending on the loop sequence.
Fractional order admittance control for physical human-robot interaction

In physical human-robot interaction (pHRI), the cognitive skill of a human is combined with the accuracy, repeatability and strength of a robot. While the promises and potential outcomes of pHRI are glamorous, the control of such coupled systems is challenging in many aspects. In this paper, we propose a new controller, fractional order admittance controller, for pHRI systems. The stability analysis of the new control system with human in-the-loop is performed and the interaction performance is investigated experimentally with 10 subjects during a task imitating a contact with a stiff environment. The results show that the fractional order controller is more robust than the standard admittance controller and helps to reduce the human effort in task execution.
Dissociation between Dorsal and Ventral Posterior Parietal Cortical Responses to Incidental Changes in Natural Scenes

Background The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) is thought to interact with the medial temporal lobe (MTL) to support spatial cognition and topographical memory. While the response of medial temporal lobe regions to topographical stimuli has been intensively studied, much less research has focused on the role of PPC and its functional connectivity with the medial temporal lobe. Methodology/Principle Findings Here we report a dissociation between dorsal and ventral regions of PPC in response to different types of change in natural scenes using an fMRI adaptation paradigm. During scanning subjects performed an incidental target detection task whilst viewing trial unique sequentially presented pairs of natural scenes, each containing a single prominent object. We observed a dissociation between the superior parietal gyrus and the angular gyrus, with the former showing greater sensitivity to spatial change, and the latter showing greater sensitivity to scene novelty. In addition, we observed that the parahippocampal cortex has increased functional connectivity with the angular gyrus, but not superior parietal gyrus, when subjects view change to the scene content. Conclusions/Significance Our findings provide support for proposed dissociations between dorsal and ventral regions of PPC and suggest that the dorsal PPC may support the spatial coding of the visual environment even when this information is incidental to the task at hand. Further, through revealing the differential functional interactions of the SPG and AG with the MTL our results help advance our understanding of how the MTL and PPC cooperate to update representations of the world around us.
eQTL Explorer: integrated mining of combined genetic linkage and expression experiments

The development of computational resources to visualize and explore data from combined genome-wide expression and linkage studies is essential for the development of testable hypotheses. eQTL Explorer stores expression profiles, linkage data and information from external sources in a relational database and enables simultaneous visualization and intuitive interpretation of the combined data via a Java graphical interface. eQTL Explorer provides a new and powerful tool to interrogate these very large and complex datasets.
Exact Simulation of Point Processes with Stochastic Intensities

Point processes with stochastic arrival intensities are ubiquitous in many areas, including finance, insurance, reliability, health care, and queuing. They can be simulated from a Poisson process by time scaling with the cumulative intensity. The paths of the cumulative intensity are often generated with a discretization method. However, discretization introduces bias into the simulation results. The magnitude of the bias is difficult to quantify. This paper develops a sampling method that eliminates the need to discretize the cumulative intensity. The method is based on a projection argument and leads to unbiased simulation estimators. It is exemplified for a point process whose intensity is a function of a jump-diffusion process and the point process itself. In this setting, the method facilitates the exact sampling of both the point process and the driving jump-diffusion process. Numerical experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the method.
LIMITING THE CLIENT BANDWIDTH OF BROADCASTING PROTOCOLS FOR VIDEOS ON DEMAND

Broadcasting protocols can lower the cost of video-ondemand services by more efficiently distributing all videos that are simultaneously watched by many viewers. The most efficient broadcasting protocols require a customer settop box capable of capturing data from five to seven video channels at the same time. We show how to modify existing broadcasting protocols so that their client bandwidth would never exceed three to four channels and apply our method to the fast broadcasting and the new pagoda broadcasting protocols. Our data show that this modification has only a moderate effect on the overall performance of the two protocols because their server bandwidth never increases by more than 15 percent.
Steering a robot with a brain-computer interface: Impact of video feedback on BCI performance

We present an experiment we carried out to determine the influence of the video feedback on the braincomputer interface performance of a system we designed to steer a humanoid robot. The interface is based on the wellknown steady-state visually evoked potentials and the stimuli are integrated into the live feedback from the robot's embedded camera. Five users controlled the HRP-2 humanoid in an experiment designed to measure the performance of the intentions' recognition system. A novel approach in the training phase is also experimented to understand and compensate performance loss due to the dynamic nature of the video feedback of the robot during walking motions. It results that this feedback induces a performance loss; we propose an effective solution to overcome this problem. The detailed results of these experiments are reported in this paper and we discuss the possible causes of performance loss under such conditions.
Differential effects of anxiety and depression on interoceptive accuracy

Background: Feedback from the body is assumed to be altered in depression. Nevertheless, empirical studies investigating this assumed relationship remain sparse. This study aimed to examine interrelations between the ability to perceive heartbeats accurately (interoceptive awareness), depressive symptoms, and anxiety in healthy participants. Methods: A well‐validated heartbeat perception task to measure interoceptive awareness together with two questionnaires indexing anxiety and depression were administered to 119 participants. Results: As main results we observed a negative correlation between heartbeat perception and depression. Only when focussing on high anxiety levels this negative correlation coefficient between depression and interoception remained significant. Conclusions: Our results highlight the possible relationship between depressive symptoms and interoceptive awareness and may have further implications for theoretical models of anxiety disorders and their treatment. Further research is required to examine the potential consequences of altering interoceptive awareness in healthy subjects in relation to depression and anxiety. Depression and Anxiety, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Activity estimation in radioimmunotherapy using magnetic nanoparticles.

OBJECTIVE Estimation of activity accumulated in tumor and organs is very important in predicting the response of radiopharmaceuticals treatment. In this study, we synthesized (177)Lutetium ((177)Lu)-trastuzumab-iron oxide nanoparticles as a double radiopharmaceutical agent for treatment and better estimation of organ activity in a new way by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). METHODS (177)Lu-trastuzumab-iron oxide nanoparticles were synthesized and all the quality control tests such as labeling yield, nanoparticle size determination, stability in buffer and blood serum up to 4 d, immunoreactivity and biodistribution in normal mice were determined. In mice bearing breast tumor, liver and tumor activities were calculated with three methods: single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), MRI and organ extraction, which were compared with each other. RESULTS The good results of quality control tests (labeling yield: 61%±2%, mean nanoparticle hydrodynamic size: 41±15 nm, stability in buffer: 86%±5%, stability in blood serum: 80%±3%, immunoreactivity: 80%±2%) indicated that (177)Lu-trastuzumab-iron oxide nanoparticles could be used as a double radiopharmaceutical agent in mice bearing tumor. Results showed that (177)Lu-trastuzumab-iron oxide nanoparticles with MRI had the ability to measure organ activities more accurate than SPECT. CONCLUSIONS Co-conjugating radiopharmaceutical to MRI contrast agents such as iron oxide nanoparticles may be a good way for better dosimetry in nuclear medicine treatment.
A Comparison of Multi-Ojective Evolutionary Algorithms in Fuzzy Rule-Based Systems Generation

In this paper we compare three Pareto-based multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) plus a variant of one of them proposed by the authors. We use MOEAs to identify fuzzy rule-based systems (FRBS) of the Mamdani type from numerical data. We use two objective functions, namely accuracy and complexity, in order to find a good tradeoff between them. Each MOEA produces an approximation of the Pareto optimal front and the histogram of the number of generated solutions as a function of the complexity level. We evaluate their performance using two standard benchmarks in chaotic time series forecasting problems. Time consumption is also compared, distinguishing between the time spent in fitness computation and the time spent by each algorithm overhead. We show that the variant proposed by the authors gives the best Pareto front approximation, without adding significant overhead
Microalbuminuria Reduction With Valsartan in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A Blood Pressure–Independent Effect

Background—Elevated urine albumin excretion (UAER) is a modifiable risk factor for renal and cardiovascular disease in type 2 diabetes. Blockade of the renin-angiotensin system lowers UAER, but whether this effect is independent of blood pressure (BP) reduction remains controversial. The MicroAlbuminuria Reduction With VALsartan (MARVAL) study was designed to evaluate the BP-independent effect of valsartan on UAER in type 2 diabetic patients with microalbuminuria. Methods and Results—Three hundred thirty-two patients with type 2 diabetes and microalbuminuria, with or without hypertension, were randomly assigned to 80 mg/d valsartan or 5 mg/d amlodipine for 24 weeks. A target BP of 135/85 mm Hg was aimed for by dose-doubling followed by addition of bendrofluazide and doxazosin whenever needed. The primary end point was the percent change in UAER from baseline to 24 weeks. The UAER at 24 weeks was 56% (95% CI, 49.6 to 63.0) of baseline with valsartan and 92% (95% CI, 81.7 to 103.7) of baseline with amlodipine, a highly significant between-group effect (P <0.001). Valsartan lowered UAER similarly in both the hypertensive and normotensive subgroups. More patients reversed to normoalbuminuria with valsartan (29.9% versus 14.5%;P =0.001). Over the study period, BP reductions were similar between the two treatments (systolic/diastolic 11.2/6.6 mm Hg for valsartan, 11.6/6.5 mm Hg for amlodipine) and at no time point was there a between-group significant difference in BP values in either the hypertensive or the normotensive subgroup. Conclusions—For the same level of attained BP and the same degree of BP reduction, valsartan lowered UAER more effectively than amlodipine in patients with type 2 diabetes and microalbuminuria, including the subgroup with baseline normotension. This indicates a BP-independent antiproteinuric effect of valsartan.
An optimal variable structure control with integral compensation for electrohydraulic position servo control systems

An approach using variable-structure control with integral compensation is presented for an electrohydraulic position servo control system to achieve accurate servo tracking in the presence of load disturbance and plant parameter variation. Simulations show that the proposed approach may give a rather accurate servo-tracking result and is fairly robust to plant parameter variation and load disturbance. >
Purification and characterization of mouse serum protein with specific binding affinity for C4 (Ss protein)

A new component of the complement (C). system, with a specific binding affinity for the activated Ss-protein (C4) has been identified in mouse serum. This protein, named Ss- (or C4)-binding protein (Ss-bp), was purified about 200 times from mouse plasma. Ss-bp is a heat stable (56 degrees C, 60 rain) β-globulin with a sedimentation coefficient in sucrose density ultracentrifugation of 10s. Its concentration in serum of adult male and female mice is 160 and 60 μg/ml, respectively. In EDTA-plasma, Ss and Ss-bp are not associated and can be separated by chromatography in Sephadex G-200. However, in serum Ss-bp binds tightly to Ss. The bonds between these proteins cannot be reversed by chelation of divalent cations. As a consequence of the formation of Ss/Ss-bp complexes, the properties of Ss-bp appear to be quite different in serum of mice with high (Ss-H) or low (Ss-L) levels of Ss-protein. In Ss-H serum, all of Ss- bp is bound to Ss. In Ss-L serum, Ss-bp is mostly free. Because the electrophoretic mobilities of free and complexed Ss-bp are quite different, Ss-bp appears to be polymorphic in serum (but not in EDTA- plasma). The strict dependency of the apparent electrophoretic mobility of Ss-bp on the levels of Ss in serum was demonstrated in a series of congenic mice and among the progeny of a cross between Ss-H and Ss-L strains of mice. Without exception, the slow and fast varieties of Ss-bp were associated with the Ss-L and Ss-H traits. Ss-bp of the slow variety can be transformed into the fast variety by addition of pure human C4, or C4-sufficient guinea pig serum, to Ss-L serum. In both instances Ss-bp formed stable complexes with C4 or a C4- derived peptide. These findings highlight the binding specificity of Ss- bp for the fourth component of the complement system, and in addition they demonstrate a functional homology between the Ss-protein and C4 from two different species.
Comparative toxicity and biochemical responses of certain pesticides to the mature earthworm Aporrectodea caliginosa under laboratory conditions

This study was conducted to investigate the toxicity of aldicarb, cypermethrin, profenofos, chlorfluazuron, atrazine, and metalaxyl toward mature Aporrectodea caliginosa earthworms. The effects of the LC25 values of these pesticides on the growth rate in relation to glucose, soluble protein, and activities of glutamic‐oxaloacetic transaminase (GOT), glutamic‐pyruvic transaminase (GPT), acid phosphatase (AcP), and alkaline phosphatase (AIP) were also studied. The results showed that aldicarb was the most toxic of the tested pesticides, followed in order by cypermethrin, profenofos, chlorfluazuron, atrazine, and metalaxyl. A reduction in growth rate was observed in all pesticide‐treated worms, which was accompanied by a decrease in soluble protein and an increase in transaminases and phosphatases. Relationships between growth rate, protein content, transaminases, and phosphatases provided strong evidence for the involvement of pesticidal contamination in the biochemical changes in earthworms, which can be used as a bioindicator of soil contamination by pesticides. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Environ Toxicol 18: 338–346, 2003.