Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Penicillin tolerance genes of Streptococcus pneumoniae: the ABC‐type manganese permease complex Psa

Downregulation of the major autolysin in Streptococcus pneumoniae leads to penicillin tolerance, a feature that is characterized by the ability to survive but not grow in the presence of antibiotic. Screening a library of mutants in pneumococcal surface proteins for the ability to survive 10 × minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of penicillin revealed over 10 candidate tolerance genes. One such mutant contained an insertion in the known gene psaA, which is part of the psa locus. This locus encodes an ABC‐type Mn permease complex. Sequence analysis of adjacent DNA extended the known genetic organization of the locus to include two new open reading frames (ORFs), psaB, which encodes an ATP‐binding protein, and psaC, which encodes a hydrophobic transmembrane protein. Mutagenesis of psaB, psaC, psaA and downstream psaD resulted in penicillin tolerance. Defective adhesion and reduced transformation efficiency, as reported previously for a psaA− mutant, were phenotypes shared by psaB −, psaC − and psaD − knockout mutants. Western blot analysis demonstrated that the set of mutants expressed RecA, but none of them showed translation of the autolysin gene, which is located downstream of recA. The addition of manganese (Mn) failed to correct the abnormal physiology. These results suggest that this ABC‐type Mn permease complex has a pleiotropic effect on pneumococcal physiology including adherence and autolysis. These are the first genes suggested as being involved in triggering autolysin. The results raise the possibility that loss of function of PsaA, by vaccine‐induced antibody for instance, may promote penicillin tolerance.
Work ability assessment in prolonged depressive illness.

BACKGROUND Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a complex disease and therefore the assessment of work ability in patients with MDD is complicated. A checklist has been developed to support such assessment. AIMS To assess the mean score and variation of work ability assessments undertaken by Dutch insurance physicians (IPs) in five real case history vignettes of MDD patients on long-term sick leave, with and without the aid of a checklist. METHODS In a post-test-only randomized experiment, 25 IPs assessed work ability for five cases on a scale of 0-100 without the use of the checklist, while 21 IPs used the checklist. Differences between groups in mean and absolute variation of work ability were tested with independent t-tests. Intraclass correlation (ICC) analysis was used to determine inter-rater reliability. RESULTS When using the checklist, the mean work ability score of all vignettes was 3-12 points higher than without its use. There was no difference in the variation in work ability scores per vignette and between groups. ICC was 0.64 for both groups. CONCLUSIONS The use of the checklist increased the mean score of work ability but had no effect on the variation in scores between assessors. The inter-rater reliability was moderate, independent of the use of the checklist.
Measuring consumer knowledge of life insurance products in South Africa

The financial services industry is characterized by product suppliers having more information than consumers regarding product features and services. The purpose of this article is to explore this information asymmetry with particular reference to the life insurance industry. Financial advisors, acting as intermediaries, are charged with the task of resolving this asymmetry through mandatory disclosures demanded by regulation. In South Africa, the Financial Services Board (FSB) monitors, regulates and supervises the financial services industry through the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act of 2002 and The Code of Conduct for Financial Advisors. This paper distinguishes financial products from other products and highlights the need for disclosures regarding product features, by financial advisors. Using multistage sampling a national survey was conducted to establish whether consumers are knowledgeable of the features of basic insurance products. The findings were that consumers have a low to very low level of understanding of the features of basic insurance products. The study makes an important contribution to insurers’ understanding of consumers’ knowledge regarding the features of basic life insurance products. Furthermore, the findings would also contribute to insurers understanding the level to which intermediaries resolve the information asymmetry between product suppliers and consumers.
Is School-Based Height and Weight Screening of Elementary Students Private and Reliable?

The Institute of Medicine recommends school-based body mass index (BMI) screening as an obesity prevention strategy. While school nurses have provided height/weight screening for years, little has been published describing measurement reliability or process. This study evaluated the reliability of height/weight measures collected by school nurses and the privacy of the measurement process. Interrater reliability for height/weight measures was computed on 70 elementary students, comparing measurements collected by a trained researcher to those collected by 7 school nurses. Students arrived in small groups to private measurement spaces. Height agreement was 80% for younger and 85% for older students. Agreement for weight was 97% and 100%, respectively. Reliability for weight was very good. Reliability for height was good, but results suggest careful attention to the collection process is required. Nurses may benefit from regular training on measurement procedures. The results of this study suggest that school nurses provide BMI screening that is private and reliable.
News use across social media platforms 2016

As part of an ongoing examination of social media platforms and news, the Pew Research Centre has found that a majority of adults in the United States – 62% or around two thirds – access their news on social media, with 18% doing so often. The researchers analysed the scope and characteristics of social media news consumers across nine social networking sites, with Facebook coming out on top. News plays a varying role across the social networking sites studied. The survey shows that two-thirds of Facebook users (66%) access news on the site, nearly six-in-ten Twitter users (59%) access news on Twitter, and seven-in-ten Reddit users get news on that platform. On Tumblr, the figure sits at 31%, while for the other five social networking sites it is true of only about one-fifth or less of their user bases. Addressing the issue of news audiences overlapping on social media platforms, the researchers found that of those who access news using at least one of the sites, a majority (64%) access news on just one – most commonly Facebook. About a quarter (26%) get news on two social media sites. Just one-in-ten access news on three or more sites. The study is based on a survey conducted between 12 January and 8 February 2016 with 4,654 members of the Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel.
The relationship of thyroid cancer in the people of the Marshall Islands to potential exposure to radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing

T. Takahashi, M.J. Schoemaker, K.R. Trott, S.L. Simon, K. Fujimori, N. Nakashima, H. Ohtomo, M. Watanabe, S. Satomi, H. Saito Nagasaki University School of Medicine, 1-12-4 Nagasaki 852-8523, Japan London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London WC1E 7HT, UK St. Bartholomew’s and the Royal London School of Medicine and Dentistry, London EC1 6BQ, UK National Academy of Sciences, Washington DC 20418, USA Tohoku University School of Medicine, Seiryo-Machi 1-1 Aobaku, Sendai 980-8574, Japan
Growth requirements of human mammary epithelial cells in culture

Colony‐forming epithelial cells can be separated from the non‐dividing “foam cells” in human milk by differential adhesion to glass and freezing. The growth of such partially purified mammary epithelial cells is stimulated by co‐culture with non‐dividing feeder cells. Foam cells, mitomycin‐treated mouse fibroblast lines and human mammary fibroblasts and calf lens epithelial cells are all effective in promoting mammary epithelial cell growth. Contact between epithelial cells and feeders is not required for the growth‐promoting effect. The mitogenic effect of epidermal growth factor on mammary epithelial cells also requires feeder cell activity.
Protection against lethal lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) infection by immunization of mice with an influenza virus containing an LCMV epitope recognized by cytotoxic T lymphocytes

The reverse genetics system has made it possible to modify the influenza virus genome. By this method, we were able to assess influenza virus as a vaccine vector for protecting BALB/c mice against otherwise lethal lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) infection. A single dose of influenza virus [A/WSN/33 (H1N1)] bearing a cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-specific epitope of the LCMV nucleoprotein (residues 116 to 127) in the neuraminidase stalk protected mice against LCMV challenge for at least 4 months. The immunity was mediated by cytotoxic T lymphocytes and was haplotype specific, indicating that the observed protective response was solely a consequence of prior priming with the H-2d LCMV nucleoprotein epitope expressed in the recombinant influenza virus. We also found that as many as 58 amino acids could be inserted into the neuraminidase stalk without loss of viral function. These findings demonstrate the potential of influenza virus as a vaccine vector, with the neuraminidase stalk as a repository for foreign epitopes.
Exploring dynamic surface processes during silicate mineral (wollastonite) dissolution with liquid cell TEM

Most liquid cell transmission electron microscopy (LC TEM) studies focus on nanoparticles or nanowires, in large part because the preparation and study of materials in this size range is straightforward. By contrast, this is not true for samples in the micrometre size range, in large part because of the difficulties associated with sample preparation starting from a ‘bulk’ material. There are also many advantages inherent to the study of micrometre‐sized samples compared to their nanometre‐sized counterparts. Here, we present a liquid cell transmission electron study that employed an innovative sample preparation technique using focused ion beam (FIB) milling to fabricate micrometre‐sized electron transparent lamellae that were then welded to the liquid cell substrate. This technique, for which we have described in detail all of the fabrication steps, allows for samples having dimensions of several square micrometres to be observed by TEM in situ in a liquid. We applied this technique to test whether we could observe and measure in situ dissolution of a crystalline material called wollastonite, a calcium silicate mineral. More specifically, this study was used to observe and record surface dynamics associated with step and terrace edge movement, which are ultimately linked to the overall rate of dissolution. The wollastonite lamella underwent chemical reactions in pure deionized water at ambient temperature in a liquid cell with a 5‐ μ m‐spacer thickness. The movement of surface steps and terraces was measured periodically over a period of almost 5 h. Quite unexpectedly, the one‐dimensional rates of retreat of these surface features were not constant, but changed over time. In addition, there were noticeable quantitative differences in retreat rates as a function crystallographic orientation, indicating that surface retreat is anisotropic. Several bulk rates of dissolution were also determined (1.6–4.2 • 10−7 mol m−2 s−1) using the rates of retreat of representative terraces and steps, and were found to be within one order of magnitude of dissolution rates in the literature based on aqueous chemistry data.
On applying inductive logic programming to the Web

The Web has become an extremely large source of information and also a platform of various e-service including e-business, e-science, e-learning, e-government, etc. How to develop the new technology to discover useful knowledge from Web-based data is one of the challenges in the area of Web Intelligence. Inductive logic programming is the field defined as the intersection of machine learning and logic programming. Two strengths of inductive logic programming, namely, the expressive representation formalism and the use of background knowledge make it suitable to deal with Web-based data and then find useful rules for various applications for Web intelligence. This paper provides an overview on the recent various applications of inductive logic programming for Web intelligence.
Research on Relationship Between Urbanization Process and Carbon Emission Reduction in China

On the perspective of urbanization,using co-integration and Granger causality test,empirically analyzes the realistic relationship among carbon dioxide emissions and urbanization,economic growth,energy consumption,trade openness from 1978 to 2010.The results show: in the long run,economic growth,energy consumption and trade openness have positive influence on carbon dioxide emissions,but urbanization negative.In the short run,economic growth and energy consumption have strong positive influence on carbon dioxide emissions;but urbanization strong negative one.The relationship between trade openness and carbon dioxide emissions is hard to decide.From the viewpoint of causality,there exists mutual influence mechanism that interacts as both cause and effect between energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions;there exists one-way influence mechanism among economic growth,trade openness,urbanization and carbon dioxide emissions,and all the causalities possess characteristics of lag-phase to certain degree.The paper explains the empirical results one by one and proposes corresponding policy suggestions.
Interpolation techniques versus F-transform in application to image reconstruction

Many interpolation techniques are available for image reconstruction, with differences in time complexity, memory complexity and quality. In this article, we compare the application of bilinear interpolation, nearest neighbor interpolation and the F-transform approximation technique to the problem of image reconstruction. Based on our results, F-transform achieves the best results in terms of quality.
Correlates of Repeat and Recent Mammography for Women Ages 45 to 75 in the 2002 to 2003 Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS 2003)

Background: Most national-level mammography data are for ever-had and most-recent screening. There are few national-level data on rates of repeat, on-schedule mammography, and on the prevalence and correlates of repeat mammography. It is also important to investigate the similarity of correlates for repeat and recent mammography. Methods: Analyses were from data for women ages 45 to 75 in the 2002 to 2003 Health Information and National Trends Survey (HINTS 2003; N = 1,581). The two dependent variables were self-report of repeat mammography (two exams on schedule, based on an every-other-year interval) and recent mammography only (one mammogram within the past 2 years). Results: The prevalence of recent mammography was 81.6% (95% confidence interval, 79.1-84.1) and for repeat mammography was 72.2% (95% confidence interval, 69.0-75.4). An access to care variable combining insurance coverage and regular source of care was the strongest sociodemographic correlate of both mammography indicators. Most other sociodemographic variables were not associated with mammography status. Five psychosocial/behavioral variables were associated with both mammography indicators (smoking status, attention to health information, knowledge of screening interval, worry about breast cancer, and recent mood status). Correlates were very similar for repeat and recent mammography. Conclusions: Although access to care had the strongest association with mammography, psychosocial and behavioral variables did better as a group than the sociodemographic variables. A standard set of such variables should be considered for all national surveys. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2006;15(11):2093–101)
Cholecystokinin‐A receptors regulate photic input pathways to the circadian clock

Daily behaviors are strongly dominated by internally generated circadian rhythms, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. In mammals, photoentrainment of behaviors to light‐dark cycles involves signaling from both intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells and classic photoreceptor pathways to the suprachi‐ asmatic nucleus (SCN). How classic photoreceptor pathways work with the photosensitive ganglion cells, however, is not fully understood. Although cholecystokinin (CCK) peptide has been shown to be present in a variety of vertebrate retinas, its function at a systems level is also unknown. In the present study we examined a possible role of CCK‐A receptors in photoentrainment using CCK‐A receptor knockout mice. The lacZ reporter gene within a gene‐knockout cassette revealed precise localization of CCK‐A receptors in the circadian clock system. We demonstrated that CCK‐A receptors were located predominately on glycinergic amacrine cells but were rarely found on SCN neurons. Moreover, Ca2+ imaging analysis demonstrated that the CCK‐A agonist, CCK‐8 sulfate (CCK‐8s), mobilized intracellular Ca2+ in amacrine cells but not glutamate‐receptive SCN neurons. Furthermore, light pulse‐induced mPer1/mPer2 gene expression in SCN, behavioral phase shifts, and the pupillary reflex were significantly reduced in CCK‐A receptor knockout mice. These data indicate a novel function of CCK‐A receptors in the nonimage‐forming photoreception presumably via amacrine cell‐mediated signal transduction pathways. —Shimazoe, T. , Morita, M. , Ogiwara, S. , Kojiya, T. , Goto, J., Kamakura, M. , Moriya, T. , Shinohara, K. , Takiguchi, S. , Kono, A. , Miyasaka, K. , Funakoshi, A. , Ikeda, M. Chole‐cystokinin‐A receptors regulate photic input pathways to the circadian clock. FASEB J. 22, 1479–1490 (2008)
Finite element analysis of positive and negative discharge in atmospheric air

Positive and negative discharge mechanisms in atmospheric air have been numerically analyzed using a fully coupled finite element analysis. Until now, many research works have examined discharge analyses, but the discharge mechanism has not yet been explained in detail numerically. In a positive discharge, the electric field intensity at the streamer head can be enhanced owing to the superposition of a Laplacian field and a field from the positive space charge density. With this increased electric field intensity and attraction force between the negative electrode and positive space charge density, the positive streamer can move straight from the positive tip electrode to the negative plane electrode. In a negative discharge, the polarity of the electrode is reversed, and the positive space charge covers the negative electrode. Excess negative ions move toward the positive electrode, and a Trichel pulse is formed in the discharge current. To analyze this space charge propagation, we employed charge continuity equations for carriers such as electrons and positive and negative ions. These equations include ionization, attachment, and recombination effects, and Poisson's equation for electric fields. A secondary emission effect is included as a boundary condition on the cathode surface. Tip-plane electrodes were implemented in 2D axial symmetric model with a gap radius of 1 mm. To verify our numerical setup, the numerical results were compared with experimental data found in the previous literature.
Crystal structures of possible lysine decarboxylases from Thermus thermophilus HB8

TT1887 and TT1465 from Thermus thermophilus HB8 are conserved hypothetical proteins, and are annotated as possible lysine decarboxylases in the Pfam database. Here we report the crystal structures of TT1887 and TT1465 at 1.8 Å and 2.2 Å resolutions, respectively, as determined by the multiwavelength anomalous dispersion (MAD) method. TT1887 is a homotetramer, while TT1465 is a homohexamer in the crystal and in solution. The structures of the TT1887 and TT1465 monomers contain single domains with the Rossmann fold, comprising six α helices and seven β strands, and are quite similar to each other. The major structural differences exist in the N terminus of TT1465, where there are two additional α helices. A comparison of the structures revealed the elements that are responsible for the different oligomerization modes. The distributions of the electrostatic potential on the solvent‐accessible surfaces suggested putative active sites.
Why do young women smoke? VII COMT as a risk modifying gene for Nicotine dependence – role of gene–gene interaction, personality, and environmental factors

Catechol‐O‐methyltransferase (COMT) may be a risk modifying gene for Nicotine dependence (ND) rather than a direct susceptibility gene for this phenotype. Brain nicotinic cholinergic receptors modulate dopaminergic transmission, and several variants within the neighboring CHRNA5–CHRNA3 genes have been associated with ND. Therefore, it is biologically reasonable to study the interactive contribution of COMT and the CHRNA5 and CHRNA3 genes to ND.
Redox modification of Akt mediated by the dopaminergic neurotoxin MPTP, in mouse midbrain, leads to down‐regulation of pAkt

Impairment of Akt phosphorylation, a critical survival signal, has been implicated in the degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in Parkinson's disease. However, the mechanism underlying pAkt loss is unclear. In the current study, we demonstrate pAkt loss in ventral midbrain of mice treated with dopaminergic neurotoxin, 1‐methyl‐4‐phenyl‐1,2,3,6‐tetrahydropyridine (MPTP), when compared to ventral midbrain of control mice treated with vehicle alone. Thiol residues of the critical cysteines in Akt are oxidized to a greater degree in mice treated with MPTP, which is reflected as a 40% loss of reduced Akt. Association of oxidatively modified Akt with the phosphatase PP2A, which can lead to enhanced dephosphorylation of pAkt, was significantly stronger after MPTP treatment. Maintaining the protein thiol homeostasis by thiol antioxidants prevented loss of reduced Akt, decreased association with PP2A, and maintained pAkt levels. Overexpression of glutaredoxin, a protein disulfide oxidoreductase, in human primary neurons helped sustain reduced state of Akt and abolished MPP+‐mediated pAkt loss. We demonstrate for the first time the selective loss of Akt activity, in vivo, due to oxidative modification of Akt and provide mechanistic insight into oxidative stress‐induced down‐regulation of cell survival pathway in mouse midbrain following exposure to MPTP. —Durgadoss, L. , Nidadavolu, P., Khader Valli, R. , Saeed, U. , Mishra, M. , Seth, P., Ravindranath, R. Redox modification of Akt mediated by the dopaminergic neurotoxin MPTP, in mouse midbrain, leads to down‐regulation of pAkt. FASEB J. 26, 1473‐1483 (2012). www.fasebj. org