Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Receptor-induced death in human natural killer cells: involvement of CD16

Propriocidal regulation of T cells refers to apoptosis induced by interleukin 2 (IL-2) activation with subsequent antigen receptor stimulation. We examined whether natural killer (NK) cells exhibited cytokine- and ligand-induced death similar to activated T cells. Peripheral NK cells were examined for ligand-induced death using antibodies to surface moieties (CD2, CD3, CD8, CD16, CD56), with and without prior activation of IL-2. Only those NK cells stimulated first with IL-2 and then with CD16 exhibited ligand-induced death; none of the other antibody stimuli induced this phenomenon. Next we examined various cytokines (IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-7, IL-12, IL-13, interferon alpha and gamma) that can activate NK cells and determined if CD16- induced killing occurred. Only IL-2 and IL-12 induced NK cell death after occupancy of this receptor by aggregated immunoglobulin or by cross-linking with antireceptor antibody. The CD16-induced death was inhibited by herbimycin A, indicating that cell death was dependent upon protein tyrosine kinases. Identical to T cells, the form of cell death for NK cells was demonstrated to be receptor-induced apoptosis. Overall these data indicate that highly activated NK cells mediate ligand-induced apoptosis via signaling molecules like CD16. Whereas the propriocidal regulation of T cells is antigen specific, this is not the case for NK cells due to the nature of the receptor. The clinical implications of this finding are considered.
Exports and Firm Performance: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment

This project uses a randomized field experiment in Egypt to examine the channels through which increasing market access can drive economic growth and reduce poverty. We focus on a particular export promotion intervention designed to match Egyptian Artisan carpet makers with Western buyers and evaluate several dimensions of the intervention. First, we explore whether increasing market access via exporting has a causal effect on enterprise performance. Second, we analyze the key firm-specific factors that are conducive for export success (vital information for improving the efficacy of such market access programs). Third, we examine if export market access increase the level and reduces the volatility of income during a period of violence and political instability.
Heme oxygenase-1: function, regulation, and implication of a novel stress-inducible protein in oxidant-induced lung injury.

Accumulating evidence suggests that oxidative stress plays a central role in the pathogenesis of many pulmonary diseases including adult respiratory distress syndrome, emphysema, asthma, bronchopulmonary dysplasia, and interstitial pulmonary fibrosis. The morbidity and mortality of these diseases remain high even with optimal medical management. In our attempts to devise new therapies for these disorders, it is crucial to improve our understanding of the basic mechanism(s) of oxidant-induced lung injury. A major line of investigation seeks to characterize the cellular and molecular responses of the lung to oxidant insults. Much progress has been made in our understanding of the role of the "classic" antioxidant enzymes (e.g., superoxide dismutase, catalase, glutathione peroxidase) in mediating the lung's resistance against oxidant lung injury. However, it is becoming clear that other oxidant-induced gene products may also play vital roles in the lung's adaptive and/or protective response to oxidative stress. One such stress-response protein is heme oxygenase-1, HO-1. Since the identification of HO-1 in 1968, many of the studies involving this enzyme were understandably focused on the regulation and function of HO-1 in heme metabolism. This emphasis is self-evident as HO-1 catalyzes the first and rate-limiting step in heme degradation. Interestingly, however, evidence accumulated over the past 25 years demonstrates that HO-1 is induced not only by the substrate heme but also by a variety of non-heme inducers such as heavy metals, endotoxin, heat shock, inflammatory cytokines, and prostaglandins. The chemical diversity of HO-1 inducers led to the speculation that HO-1, besides its role in heme degradation, may also play a vital function in maintaining cellular homeostasis. Further support for this hypothesis was provided by Tyrrell and colleagues who showed in 1989 that HO-1 is also highly induced by a variety of agents causing oxidative stress. Subsequently, many investigators have focused their attention on the function and regulation of HO-1 in various in vitro and in vivo models of oxidant-mediated cellular and tissue injury. The magnitude of HO-1 induction after oxidative stress and the wide distribution of this enzyme in systemic tissues coupled with the intriguing biological activities of the catalytic byproducts, carbon monoxide, iron, and bilirubin, makes HO-1 a highly attractive and interesting candidate stress-response protein which may play key role(s) in mediating protection against oxidant-mediated lung injury. This review will focus on the current understanding of the physiological significance of HO-1 induction and the molecular regulation of HO-1 gene expression in response to oxidative stress. We hope that this discussion will stimulate interest and investigations into a field which is still largely uncharted in the pulmonary research community.
Musical identities in transition: Solo-piano students’ accounts of entering the academy

The purpose of this study was to explore the identity work of adult instrumental students negotiating their entry to a prestigious music academy and the professional field of music. Ten classical solo-piano students’ accounts of their musical histories and experiences were collected through research interviews. The thematic analyses presented suggest that comparative dynamics between self and other(s) are key mediators of students’ musical identity work. The analyses explore how students’ identity work was resourced both by the discursive (re)contextualization and harnessing of entrance test results and their accounts of their early experiences of being in the academy. The salience of key musical practices and the significance of listening, as well as being overheard practising, are also considered. In addition, the analyses reveal how constructions of practice ‘norms’, ‘exceptionality’ and ‘typical’ life-courses and trajectories enter into students’ identity work.
An Achievable Rate Region for the Three-User Interference Channel Based on Coset Codes

We consider the problem of communication over a three-user discrete memoryless interference channel (3-IC). The current known coding techniques for communicating over an arbitrary 3-IC are based on message splitting, superposition coding, and binning using independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) random codebooks. In this paper, we propose a new ensemble of codes-partitioned coset codes (PCCs)-that possess an appropriate mix of empirical and algebraic closure properties. We develop coding techniques that exploit the algebraic closure property of PCC to enable interference alignment over general 3-IC. We analyze the performance of the proposed coding technique to derive an achievable rate region for the general discrete 3-IC. Additive and non-additive examples are identified for which the derived achievable rate region is the capacity, moreover, strictly larger than the current known largest achievable rate regions based on the i.i. d. random codebooks.
Suppression of Vimentin Phosphorylation by the Avian Reovirus p17 through Inhibition of CDK1 and Plk1 Impacting the G2/M Phase of the Cell Cycle

The p17 protein of avian reovirus (ARV) causes cell cycle retardation in a variety of cell lines; however, the underlying mechanism(s) by which p17 regulates the cell cycle remains largely unknown. We demonstrate for the first time that p17 interacts with CDK1 and vimentin as revealed by reciprocal co-immunoprecipitation and GST pull-down assays. Both in vitro and in vivo studies indicated that direct interaction of p17 and CDK1/vimentin was mapped within the amino terminus (aa 1–60) of p17 and central region (aa 27–118) of CDK1/vimentin. Furthermore, p17 was found to occupy the Plk1-binding site within the vimentin, thereby blocking Plk1 recruitment to CDK1-induced vimentin phosphorylation at Ser 56. Interaction of p17 to CDK1 or vimentin interferes with CDK1-catalyzed phosphorylation of vimentin at Ser 56 and subsequently vimentin phosphorylation at Ser 82 by Plk1. Furthermore, we have identified upstream signaling pathways and cellular factor(s) targeted by p17 and found that p17 regulates inhibitory phosphorylation of CDK1 and blocks vimentin phosphorylation at Ser 56 and Ser 82. The p17-mediated inactivation of CDK1 is dependent on several mechanisms, which include direct interaction with CDK1, p17-mediated suppression of Plk1 by activating the Tpr/p53 and ATM/Chk1/PP2A pathways, and p17-mediated cdc25C degradation via an ubiquitin- proteasome pathway. Additionally, depletion of p53 with a shRNA as well as inhibition of ATM and vimentin by inhibitors diminished virus yield while Tpr and CDK1 knockdown increased virus yield. Taken together, results demonstrate that p17 suppresses both CDK1 and Plk1functions, disrupts vimentin phosphorylation, causes G2/M cell cycle arrest and thus benefits virus replication.
Teaching young children: perceived satisfaction and stress

This paper explores how early years teachers feel about their work. Responses to an open-ended questionnaire indicated that teachers found working with young children both satisfying and rewarding. However, they felt they were being impeded by external factors, such as educational change and current curriculum initiatives, which caused them stress. More specifically, teachers expressed frustration in implementing policies that they felt were contrary to their own pedagogical understandings and professional values. It is concluded that teachers need to be more actively involved with consultation processes that affect their work.
Solution nuclear magnetic resonance structure of a protein disulfide oxidoreductase from Methanococcus jannaschii

The solution structure of the protein disulfide oxidoreductase Mj0307 in the reduced form has been solved by nuclear magnetic resonance. The secondary and tertiary structure of this protein from the archaebacterium Methanococcus jannaschii is similar to the structures that have been solved for the glutaredoxin proteins from Escherichia coli, although Mj0307 also shows features that are characteristic of thioredoxin proteins. Some aspects of Mj0307's unique behavior can be explained by comparing structure‐based sequence alignments with mesophilic bacterial and eukaryotic glutaredoxin and thioredoxin proteins. It is proposed that Mj0307, and similar archaebacterial proteins, may be most closely related to the mesophilic bacterial NrdH proteins. Together these proteins may form a unique subgroup within the family of protein disulfide oxidoreductases.
Refining the association between intergroup contact and intergroup forgiveness in Northern Ireland: Type of contact, prior conflict experience, and group identification

We conducted a secondary analysis of a general sample of the population in Northern Ireland, including a significant proportion of respondents with “personal experience” of the sectarian conflict, to provide a refined test of whether contact was associated with more forgiveness and less prejudice. We tested the association between two measures of intergroup contact (outgroup friendship and generic contact) and both intergroup forgiveness and prejudice among people who varied in their personal experience of conflict, while simultaneously considering the role of ingroup identification as an inhibitor of forgiveness, and accounting for relevant demographic variables. Contact was positively associated with forgiveness, marginally more so in the case of friendship than general outgroup contact, whereas both conflict experience and identification were negatively associated with forgiveness. While outgroup friendship robustly predicted forgiveness, generic outgroup contact was moderated by conflict experience and ingroup identification. Effects of both forms of contact on prejudice were not moderated. Results are discussed in terms of the greater impact of friendship contact, forgiveness as a more demanding criterion, and the need to pursue research on intergroup forgiveness among large samples of people directly impacted by the events for which forgiveness is relevant.
A Common Allele on Chromosome 9 Associated with Coronary Heart Disease

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is a major cause of death in Western countries. We used genome-wide association scanning to identify a 58-kilobase interval on chromosome 9p21 that was consistently associated with CHD in six independent samples (more than 23,000 participants) from four Caucasian populations. This interval, which is located near the CDKN2A and CDKN2B genes, contains no annotated genes and is not associated with established CHD risk factors such as plasma lipoproteins, hypertension, or diabetes. Homozygotes for the risk allele make up 20 to 25% of Caucasians and have a ∼30 to 40% increased risk of CHD.
Self-organizing QRS-wave recognition in ECG using neural networks

The author has developed a self-organizing QRS-wave recognition system for electrocardiograms (ECGs) using neural networks. An ART2 (adaptive resonance theory) network was employed in this self-organizing neural-network system. The system consists of a preprocessor, an ART2, network, and a recognizer. The preprocessor detects R points in the ECG and divides the ECG into cardiac cycles. A QRS-wave is the part of the ECG that is between a Q point and an S point. The input to the ART2 network is one cardiac cycle from which the ART2 network indicates the approximate locations of both the Q and S points. The recognizer establishes search regions for the Q and S points. Then, it locates the Q and S points in each search region. The system uses this method to recognize a QRS-wave. Then, the ART2 network learns the new QRS-wave pattern from the incoming ECG. The ART2 network self-organizes in response to the input ECG. The average recognition error of the present system is less than 1 ms in the recognition of the Q and S points.
Pax6 Is Required for Normal Cell-Cycle Exit and the Differentiation Kinetics of Retinal Progenitor Cells

The coupling between cell-cycle exit and onset of differentiation is a common feature throughout the developing nervous system, but the mechanisms that link these processes are mostly unknown. Although the transcription factor Pax6 has been implicated in both proliferation and differentiation of multiple regions within the central nervous system (CNS), its contribution to the transition between these successive states remains elusive. To gain insight into the role of Pax6 during the transition from proliferating progenitors to differentiating precursors, we investigated cell-cycle and transcriptomic changes occurring in Pax6 - retinal progenitor cells (RPCs). Our analyses revealed a unique cell-cycle phenotype of the Pax6-deficient RPCs, which included a reduced number of cells in the S phase, an increased number of cells exiting the cell cycle, and delayed differentiation kinetics of Pax6 - precursors. These alterations were accompanied by coexpression of factors that promote (Ccnd1, Ccnd2, Ccnd3) and inhibit (P27 kip1 and P27 kip2) the cell cycle. Further characterization of the changes in transcription profile of the Pax6-deficient RPCs revealed abrogated expression of multiple factors which are known to be involved in regulating proliferation of RPCs, including the transcription factors Vsx2, Nr2e1, Plagl1 and Hedgehog signaling. These findings provide novel insight into the molecular mechanism mediating the pleiotropic activity of Pax6 in RPCs. The results further suggest that rather than conveying a linear effect on RPCs, such as promoting their proliferation and inhibiting their differentiation, Pax6 regulates multiple transcriptional networks that function simultaneously, thereby conferring the capacity to proliferate, assume multiple cell fates and execute the differentiation program into retinal lineages.
Academic Performance of Immigrant and U.S.-Born Mexican Heritage Students: Effects of Schooling in Mexico and Bilingual/English Language Instruction

This study examined generation differences in achievement among 2,167 high school students who identified themselves as Mexican or Mexican American, reported whether they were born in the U.S. or outside of the U.S., and reported being in the general or academic track. Based on student self-reported grade point average (GPA), immigrant students in general-track courses and college preparatory courses reported higher grades than third-generation students. However, regardless of place of birth, general-track and college-track students who received some schooling in Mexico reported higher grades than students with no schooling in Mexico. Finally, regardless of immigrant status, college-track students who received some ESL/bilingual education reported higher grades than students who had not received any second language instruction. These findings support the paradoxical findings on generation differences that show that immigrants perform better academically than U.S.-born Mexican heritage students. However, our findings demonstrate that immigrant status alone does not lead to higher grades; rather, prior school history in Mexico, academic track, and bilingual/ESL assistance are all important in understanding the generation difference effect.
SATzilla: Portfolio-based Algorithm Selection for SAT

It has been widely observed that there is no single "dominant" SAT solver; instead, different solvers perform best on different instances. Rather than following the traditional approach of choosing the best solver for a given class of instances, we advocate making this decision online on a per-instance basis. Building on previous work, we describe SATzilla, an automated approach for constructing per-instance algorithm portfolios for SAT that use so-called empirical hardness models to choose among their constituent solvers. This approach takes as input a distribution of problem instances and a set of component solvers, and constructs a portfolio optimizing a given objective function (such as mean runtime, percent of instances solved, or score in a competition). The excellent performance of SATzilla was independently verified in the 2007 SAT Competition, where our SATzilla07 solvers won three gold, one silver and one bronze medal. In this article, we go well beyond SATzilla07 by making the portfolio construction scalable and completely automated, and improving it by integrating local search solvers as candidate solvers, by predicting performance score instead of runtime, and by using hierarchical hardness models that take into account different types of SAT instances. We demonstrate the effectiveness of these new techniques in extensive experimental results on data sets including instances from the most recent SAT competition.
Nitrogen oxide emission modeling for boiler combustion using accurate online support vector regression

Using the data of boiler combustion, an accurate online support vector regression (AOSVR) model of the Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) emission property is built. After the training and the testing, the result shows that AOSVR is a good tool for modeling with small sample data, compared with the method of SVR and artificial neural network (ANN). The model can estimate the NOx emission accurately under different conditions when the load or other parameters changes. The accuracy of this model can also meets the demand of the combustion optimization. The result shows that this new model has a good learning efficiency and prediction accuracy because the algorithm can update the parameters of the model by itself as time and other parameters change.
THE ACS LCID PROJECT. I. SHORT-PERIOD VARIABLES IN THE ISOLATED DWARF SPHEROIDAL GALAXIES CETUS AND TUCANA

We present the first study of the variable star populations in the isolated dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs) Cetus and Tucana. Based on Hubble Space Telescope images obtained with the Advanced Camera for Surveys in the F475W and F814W bands, we identified 180 and 371 variables in Cetus and Tucana, respectively. The vast majority are RR Lyrae stars. In Cetus, we also found three anomalous Cepheids (ACs), four candidate binaries and one candidate long-period variable (LPV), while six ACs and seven LPV candidates were found in Tucana. Of the RR Lyrae stars, 147 were identified as fundamental mode (RRab) and only eight as first-overtone mode (RRc) in Cetus, with mean periods of 0.614 and 0.363 day, respectively. In Tucana, we found 216 RRab and 82 RRc giving mean periods of 0.604 and 0.353 day. These values place both galaxies in the so-called Oosterhoff Gap, as is generally the case for dSph. We calculated the distance modulus to both galaxies using different approaches based on the properties of RRab and RRc, namely, the luminosity–metallicity and period–luminosity–metallicity relations, and found values in excellent agreement with previous estimates using independent methods: (m − M)0,Cet = 24.46 ± 0.12 and (m − M)0,Tuc = 24.74 ± 0.12, corresponding to 780 ± 40 kpc and 890 ± 50 kpc. We also found numerous RR Lyrae variables pulsating in both modes simultaneously (RRd): 17 in Cetus and 60 in Tucana. Tucana is, after Fornax, the second dSph in which such a large fraction of RRd (∼17%) has been observed. We provide the photometry and pulsation parameters for all the variables, and compare the latter with values from the literature for well studied dSph of the Local Group and Galactic globular clusters. The parallel WFPC2 fields were also searched for variables, as they lie well within the tidal radius of Cetus, and at its limit in the case of Tucana. No variables were found in the latter, while 15 were discovered in the outer field of Cetus (11 RRab, three RRc, and one RRd), even though the lower signal-to-noise ratio of the observations did not allow us to measure their periods accurately. We provide their coordinates and approximate properties for completeness.
An exploratory study into the construct validity of a reading comprehension test: triangulation of data sources

Recent research in reading comprehension has focused on the processes of reading, while recent thinking in language testing has recognized the impor tance of gathering information on test taking processes as part of construct validation. And while there is a growing body of research on test-taking strate gies in language testing, as well as research into the relationship between item content and item performance, no research to date has attempted to examine the relationships among all three - test taking strategies, item content and item performance. This study thus serves as a methodological exploration in the use of information from both think-aloud protocols and more commonly used types of information on test content and test performance in the investigation of construct validity.
High-Density and Low-Leakage-Current MIM Capacitor Using Stacked $\hbox{TiO}_{2}/\hbox{ZrO}_{2}$ Insulators

We have fabricated high-kappa Ni/TiO<sub>2</sub>/ZrO<sub>2</sub>/TiN metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitors. A low leakage current of 8 times 10<sup>-8</sup> A/cm<sup>2</sup> at 125degC was obtained with a high 38- fF/mum<sup>2</sup> capacitance density and better than the ZrO<sub>2</sub> MIM capacitors. The excellent device performance is due to the lower electric field in 9.5-nm-thick TiO<sub>2</sub>/ZrO<sub>2</sub> devices to decrease the leakage current and to a higher kappa value of 58 for TiO<sub>2</sub> as compared with that of ZrO<sub>2</sub> to preserve the high capacitance density.