Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
H9N2 Avian Influenza Virus Protein PB1 Enhances the Immune Responses of Bone Marrow-Derived Dendritic Cells by Down-Regulating miR375

Polymerase basic protein 1 (PB1), the catalytic core of the influenza A virus RNA polymerase complex, is essential for viral transcription and replication. Dendritic cells (DCs) possess important antigen presenting ability and a crucial role in recognizing and clearing virus. MicroRNA (miRNA) influence the development of DCs and their ability to present antigens as well as the ability of avian influenza virus (AIV) to infect host cells and replicate. Here, we studied the molecular mechanism underlying the miRNA-mediated regulation of immune function in mouse DCs. We first screened for and verified the induction of miRNAs in DCs after PB1 transfection. Results showed that the viral protein PB1 down-regulated the expression of miR375, miR146, miR339, and miR679 in DCs, consistent with the results of H9N2 virus treatment; however, the expression of miR222 and miR499, also reduced in the presence of PB1, was in contrast to the results of H9N2 virus treatment. Our results suggest that PB1 enhanced the ability of DCs to present antigens, activate lymphocytes, and secrete cytokines, while miR375 over-expression repressed activation of DC maturation. Nevertheless, PB1 could not promote DC maturation once miR375 was inhibited. Finally, we revealed that PB1 inhibited the P-Jnk/Jnk signaling pathway, but activated the p-Erk/Erk signaling pathway. While inhibition of miR375 -activated the p-Erk/Erk and p-p38/p38 signaling pathway, but repressed the P-Jnk/Jnk signaling pathway. Taken together, results of our studies shed new light on the roles and mechanisms of PB1 and miR375 in regulating DC function and suggest new strategies for combating AIV.
Adaptivity: From Metabolism to Behavior

In this article, we propose some fundamental requirements for the appearance of adaptivity. We argue that a basic metabolic organization, taken in its minimal sense, may provide the conceptual framework for naturalizing the origin of teleology and normative functionality as it appears in living systems. However, adaptivity also requires the emergence of a regulatory subsystem, which implies a certain form of dynamic decoupling within a globally integrated, autonomous system. Thus, we analyze several forms of minimal adaptivity, including the special case of motility. We go on to explain how an open-ended complexity growth of motility-based adaptive agency, namely, behavior, requires the appearance of the nervous system. Finally, we discuss some implications of these ideas for embodied robotics.
Post-Fire Canopy Height Recovery in Canada's Boreal Forests Using Airborne Laser Scanner (ALS)

Canopy height data collected with an airborne laser scanner (ALS) flown across unmanaged parts of Canada's boreal forest in the summer of 2010 were used—as stand-alone data—to derive a least-squares polynomial (LSPOL) between presumed post-fire recovered canopy heights and duration (in years) since fire (YSF). Flight lines of the >25,000-km ALS survey intersected 163 historic fires with a known day of detection and fire perimeter. A sequential statistical testing procedure was developed to separate post-fire recovered canopy heights from pre-fire canopy heights. Of the 153 fires with >5 YSF, 121 cases (89%) could be resolved to a complete or partial post-fire canopy replacement. The estimated LSPOL can be used to estimate post-fire aboveground biomass and carbon sequestration in areas where alternative information is dated or absent. These LIDAR derived findings are especially useful as existing growth information is largely developed for higher productivity ecosystems and not applicable to these ecosystems subject to large wildfires.
Contour Drawing and Detection for Collaborative Context-Aware Mobile Training and Exploration

The active examination of a specific subject is essential for an effective learning experience and memory retention. Mobile, technology-driven exploration settings particularly suggest themselves for tapping into the potential of visual reinforcement and the generation effect in order to help establish relevant knowledge. In this paper, we introduce such an approach based on the in-situ contour drawing of items of interest. Developed both for single-user and collaborative scenarios, it enables users to receive immediate feedback on their input which can be evaluated locally and independent of connectivity status. The contour drawing activity constitutes a novel element of the CollaTrEx framework for collaborative context-aware mobile training and exploration. Its design and performance are discussed based on a prototypical implementation for tablet devices and an exemplary application.
Active seed selection for constrained clustering

Active learning for semi-supervised clustering allows algorithms to solicit a domain expert to provide side information as instances constraints, for example a set of labeled instances called seeds. The problem consists in selecting the queries to the expert that are likely to improve either the relevance or the quality of the proposed clustering. However, these active methods suﬀer from several limitations: (i) they are generally tailored for only one speciﬁc clustering paradigm or cluster shape and size, (ii) they may be counter-productive if the seeds are not selected in an appropriate manner and, (iii) they have to work eﬃciently with minimal expert supervision. In this paper, we propose a new active seed selection algorithm that relies on a k-nearest neighbors structure to locate dense potential clusters and eﬃciently query and propagate expert information. Our approach makes no hypothesis on the underlying data distribution and can be paired with any clustering algorithm. Comparative experiments conducted on real data sets show the eﬃciency of this new approach compared to existing ones.
Micro-grooving on quartz crystals by an abrasive air jet

An investigation of the micro-grooving performance of abrasive air jet (AAJ) on quartz crystals is presented and discussed. An experimental study was carried out first to understand the effect of process parameters on the major grooving performance measures such as groove depth, groove width, kerf taper, and surface roughness. Plausible trends for these grooving performance measures with respect to the various process variables, such as air pressure, nozzle traverse speed, jet impact angle, and abrasive mass flowrate, are discussed. It is found that AAJ is an effective technology for micromachining of quartz crystals and the grooving performance can be improved or optimized by selecting the process parameters properly. Predictive models are then developed for quantitatively estimating the micro-grooving performance. The models are finally verified by an experiment. It shows that the model predictions are in good agreement with the experimental results under the corresponding conditions.
Close Vicinity of PrP Expressing Cells (FDC) with Noradrenergic Fibers in Healthy Sheep Spleen

In naturally and experimentally occurring scrapie in sheep, prions invade the immune system and replicate in lymphoid organs. Here we analysed immunohistochemically, in seven spleens of 6-month-old healthy sheep, the nature of the cells expressing prion protein (PrP) potentially supporting prion replication, as well as their relationship with autonomic innervation. PrP was identified using either RB1 rabbit antiserum or 4F2 monoclonal antibody directed against AA 108–123 portion of the bovine and AA 79–92 of human prion protein respectively. Using double labelling analysis, we demonstrated that PrPc is expressed by follicular dendritic cells using a specific monoclonal antibody (CNA42). We also showed the close vicinity of these PrP expressing cells with noradrenergic fibers, using a polyclonal tyrosine hydroxylase antibody. Our results may help the study of the cellular requirements for the possible neuroinvasion from the spleen.
Realistic Finite‐Element Model for the Double‐Torsion Loading Configuration

The analytical approach to the double-torsion, constant-displacement-configuration technique has forced a strong oversimplification of the specimen model, and, therefore, of the strain field in classical applications. For the present study, accurate three-dimensional finite-element analysis was performed on a realistic specimen; that is, one with finite thickness, a groove, and an initial notch. The influence on the strain-energy release rate of the specimen width and length, the fracture length, the presence and shape of the side groove, the presence of an initial notch, and the curved shape of the fracture front was estimated from this analysis. Significant deviations from the classical analytical solution were found. The present results should reduce the discrepancies found among measurements made in various laboratories and that traditionally have prevented the development of effectively applicable fracture models.
Wear Resistance Improvement of Titanium Bearings by Laser Gas Nitriding

The influence of gas nitriding on commercial pure titanium and Ti-6Al-4V (Ti64) alloy bearings by using a Q-sw laser on the wear loss during rolling contact fatigue is investigated. By optimizing the laser processing parameters, such as laser scanning speed, power and beam diameter thin TiN coats of 0.5 to 3 µm were produced. Non-coated and coated bearings made of pure Titanium and Ti-6Al-4V alloy were tested in equal conditions and it was found that the titanium nitride layers significantly improve the rolling contact fatigue performance of titanium components. For tests up to 106 cycles the wear loss of the coated samples was at least ten fold lower than that of the uncoated ones and for 7.76 x 106 cycles, the wear resistance improved almost 100-fold.
MultiStack: Multi-Cloud Big Data Research Framework/Platform

With improving efficiency and cost effectiveness of public cloud systems, there has been a growing trend to complement in-house cloud environment with them. We propose an open solution to the problem of distributing jobs in a hybrid environment, as a substitute to hadoop systems which are cloud specific. The proposed system, MultiStack, is a big data orchestration platform for deploying big data jobs across multiple cloud providers. The specific architecture elaborated in this paper uses Amazon Web Services as the public cloud provider and Openstack as the private cloud framework. Our solution supports complete Hadoop ecosystem tools - hive, pig, Hbase, oozie etc. and on-demand scaling of Hadoop clusters. The proposed framework aims at reducing the Job completion time on workloads along with decrease in cost using Spot Instance provisioning compared to on-demand provisioning. This is achieved by providing two modes of operation: Proactive scheduling and Reactive scheduling, which takes into account user providing job characteristics(eg memory, cpu, etc), quota limitation and business objectives. From our experiments, we conclude that Multistack is able to reduce average job completion time by 30-37% with minimal increase in cost.
Investigation of Network Structure in Taiwan Automobile Industry

Many factors affected the supply chain network are almost based on inter-organizational relationships (IORs). Few supply chain scholars used social network analysis (SNA) to map communication between partners and figure out the supply chain network communication pattern, especially automobile industry. With SNA, the study finds out core-periphery structure, and explores four sub-groups (competition, co-design and developing, knowledge-sharing and proprietorship) in a large automobile network. Centrality is associated with perceived organizational function positively. The research suggested that perceptions of organizational performance are associated with the position in the network; central firms are more likely to perceive the organization performs well than those on the periphery.
Electrostatic effect of H1-histone protein binding on nucleosome repeat length

Within a simple biophysical model we describe the effect of electrostatic binding of H1 histone proteins on the nucleosome repeat length in chromatin. The length of wrapped DNA optimizes its binding energy to the histone core and the elastic energy penalty of DNA wrapping. The magnitude of the effect predicted from our model is in agreement with the systematic experimental data on the linear variation of nucleosome repeat lengths with H1/nucleosome ratio (Woodcock C L et al 2006 Chromos. Res. 14 17–25). We compare our model to the data for different cell types and organisms, with a widely varying ratio of bound H1 histones per nucleosome. We underline the importance of this non-specific histone-DNA charge-balance mechanism in regulating the positioning of nucleosomes and the degree of compaction of chromatin fibers in eukaryotic cells.
How to Misuse SMTP over TLS: A Study of the (In) Security of Email Server Communication

Electronic mail is one of the oldest and widely used services in the Internet. In this paper, an empirical study of the security properties of email server communication within the German IP address space range is presented. Instead of investigating end-user security or end-to-end encryption, we focus on the connections between SMTP servers relying on transport layer security. We analyze the involved ciphers suites, the certificates used and certificate authorities, and the behavior of email providers when communicating with improperly secured email servers. Conclusions drawn from this analysis lead to several recommendations to mitigate the security issues currently present in the email system as it is deployed in the Internet.
δn/δt measurements of sol-gel ZrO2 thin films

Sol-gel ZrO2 thin films deposited by dip-coating on various substrates are characterized. The film thickness, the refractive index and the thermo-optic coefficient (δn/δT) are measured using the prism coupler technique. The thickness of the uniform and good quality sol-gel films ranges between 100nm and 130nm, while the refractive index ranges between 1.9 and 2.1 at 25°C, depending on the substrate material and surface quality, and depending on some process parameters. The δn/δT measurements of the sol-gel ZrO2 thin films deposited on several substrates show that the TM refractive index always exhibits much higher dependence with respect to temperature than the TE refractive index. Such variations had not previously been reported and will require much attention and future study due to the importance of δn/δT for advanced optical telecommunications devices.
DTA‐Measurements to Determine the Thixoformability of Steels

Semi‐solid metallurgy (SSM), also known as “thixoforming” or “thixoprocessing”, is of special interest as a new potential manufacturing technology for components in the automobile, machine and electronic industries. The aim of this technology is to produce complex shapes which cannot be produced with conventional processing methods.
Efficacy and tolerability of venlafaxine extended release in patients with major depressive disorder.

BACKGROUND In this study we wanted to determine the efficacy and tolerability of venlafaxine extended release in patients with major depressive disorder. SUBJECTS AND METHODS 161 patients with major depressive disorder were included in an open-label, multicentre clinical study. All patients were treated with venlafaxine extended release in flexible doses ranging from 75 to 325 mg daily over an 8-week period. Efficacy measurements included the 17-item Hamilton Depression Scale, the Clinical Global Impression-Improvement scale (CGI-I), the Severity of Illness scale (CGI-S), and the Depression and Somatic Symptom Scale (DSSS). All scales were administered at baseline and at weeks 2, 4 and 8. RESULTS A total of 148 (91.2%) patients completed the study. After 8 weeks of treatment with venlafaxine extended release, response and remission rates were 93% and 45% respectively. At the end of the study, 52.7% of patients were rated on CGI-S with 2 or 1 (not ill/mildly ill) and on CGI-I 81.1% of patients were rated by the physician as much/very much improved. The severity of somatic symptoms such as headache, back pain, chest pain, tenderness of more than a half of body muscles, and fatigue or loss of energy decreased towards the end of the study (p<.0001). Adverse events caused discontinuation in 4.7% of patients. No significant changes of body mass (p=.237), Body Mass Index (p=.281), and heart rate (p=.840) were present, but systolic and diastolic blood pressure significantly decreased (p<.0001) towards the end of the study. CONCLUSION The data from this study indicate that venlafaxine XR is an efficient and safe therapeutic option for patients with major depressive disorder, with the additional effect of reducing associated painful physical symptoms.
Cooperative Teaching Project: A Model for Students at Risk

This article describes an innovative teaching model designed to impact students at risk with the cooperative efforts of regular and special education in Grades K-3. Evaluation outcomes are presented that show the model has a positive effect on individual student performance, total building progress as measured by curriculum based measurement, special education referrals, and attitudes of participating teachers.
Stereoselective Synthesis of β-L-Rhamnopyranosides

Stereoselective construction of 1,2-cis-β-l-rhamnopyranoside was achieved by our effective methodology using naphthylmethyl (NAP) ether-mediated intramolecular aglycon delivery (IAD). The complete stereoselective synthesis of the bacterial extracellular polysaccharide, α-l-Rhap-(1→3)-β-l-Rhap-(1→4)Glcp from Sphaerotilus natans, was successfully accomplished, clearly demonstrating that the NAP-IAD methodology is highly versatile.
Electrophoresis of soft particles: Analytic approximations

An approximate analytic expression is derived for the electrophoretic mobility of a weakly charged spherical soft particle (i.e., a hard particle covered with a weakly charged polyelectrolyte layer) on the basis of the general mobility expression for soft particles (Ohshima, H., J. Colloid Interface Sci. 2000, 228, 190–193). The obtained mobility expression, which reproduces various approximate results so far derived and gives some new mobility formulas, covers all types of weakly charged soft particles with arbitrary values of the thickness of polymer layer, the radius of the particle core, the electrophoretic softness, and the Debye length, including spherical polyelectrolytes with no particle core as well as spherical hard particles with no polyelectrolyte layer.
Neural Modulation Tuning Characteristics Scale to Efficiently Encode Natural Sound Statistics

The efficient-coding hypothesis asserts that neural and perceptual sensitivity evolved to faithfully represent biologically relevant sensory signals. Here we characterized the spectrotemporal modulation statistics of several natural sound ensembles and examined how neurons encode these statistics in the central nucleus of the inferior colliculus (CNIC) of cats. We report that modulation-tuning in the CNIC is matched to equalize the modulation power of natural sounds. Specifically, natural sounds exhibited a tradeoff between spectral and temporal modulations, which manifests as 1/f modulation power spectrum (MPS). Neural tuning was highly overlapped with the natural sound MPS and neurons approximated proportional resolution filters where modulation bandwidths scaled with characteristic modulation frequencies, a behavior previously described in human psychoacoustics. We demonstrate that this neural scaling opposes the 1/f scaling of natural sounds and enhances the natural sound representation by equalizing their MPS. Modulation tuning in the CNIC may thus have evolved to represent natural sound modulations in a manner consistent with efficiency principles and the resulting characteristics likely underlie perceptual resolution.
The cellular basis of tissue separation

The subdivision of the embryo into physically distinct regions is one of the most fundamental processes in development. General hypotheses for tissue separation based on differential adhesion or tension have been proposed in the past, but with little experimental support. During the last decade, the field has experienced a strong revival, largely driven by renewed interest in biophysical modeling of development. Here, I will discuss the various models of boundary formation and summarize recent studies that have shifted our understanding of the process from the simple juxtaposition of global tissue properties to the characterization of local cellular reactions. Current evidence favors a model whereby separation is controlled by cell surface cues, which, upon cell-cell contact, generate acute changes in cytoskeletal and adhesive properties to inhibit cell mixing, and whereby the integration of multiple local cues may dictate both the global morphogenetic properties of a tissue and its separation from adjacent cell populations.
Protein Profiling of Rat Ventral Prostate following Chronic Finasteride Administration

To better understand the effects of antiandrogens on the prostate, we investigated the changes in the proteome of rat ventral prostate (VP) following treatment with a well characterized 5α-reductase inhibitor, finasteride. Sprague-Dawley rats were treated daily by gavage with finasteride at 0, 1, 5, 25, and 125 mg/kg/day. Changes in plasma hormone levels as well as the weight and histology of sex accessory tissues were determined after 28 days of treatment and showed a dose-related decrease of VP weights together with a marked atrophy of the tissue visible at the macroscopic and microscopic levels. In addition, significant reductions in seminal vesicle and epididymis weights were noted. VP proteins were analyzed by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis: 37 proteins, mainly involved in protein synthesis, processing, and cellular trafficking and in metabolism, detoxification, and oxidative stress, were identified as modulated by finasteride. The prominent feature of this study is the demonstration of finasteride dose-dependent up-regulation of a protein similar to l-amino-acid oxidase 1 (Lao1). An up-regulation of this protein was also observed with the antiandrogen flutamide. Lao1 expression occurred as early as 48 h after antiandrogen administration and persisted throughout the treatment duration. Immunohistochemistry showed that this protein was only detectable in epithelial cells and secretory vesicles. Altogether these data point to a potential use of Lao1 to reveal antiandrogen-induced prostate injury.
An Avrami-based model for the description of the secondary crystallization of polymers

A mathematical model for the description of the overall crystallization of polymers has been developed which separates the pure geometric spreading of the semicrystalline superstructures from the increasing crystallinity inside these entities. The model uses the Avrami theory for the geometric part and a freely optional function for the increasing local crystallinity. The two functions are combined by a mathematical procedure called convolution. The free option of the local crystallinity function enables this model to permit calculation of this function, which is not accessible to direct measurement. Thus with given Avrami parameters and measured values of the time-dependent overall crystallinity, this function of the local crystallinity (secondary crystallization function) can be calculated. The model has been applied to test data produced by computer simulations.