Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Matrix Domain Modulates HIV-1 Gag's Nucleic Acid Chaperone Activity via Inositol Phosphate Binding

ABSTRACT Retroviruses replicate by reverse transcribing their single-stranded RNA genomes into double-stranded DNA using specific cellular tRNAs to prime cDNA synthesis. In HIV-1, human tRNA3 Lys serves as the primer and is packaged into virions during assembly. The viral Gag protein is believed to chaperone tRNA3 Lys placement onto the genomic RNA primer binding site; however, the timing and possible regulation of this event are currently unknown. Composed of the matrix (MA), capsid (CA), nucleocapsid (NC), and p6 domains, the multifunctional HIV-1 Gag polyprotein orchestrates the highly coordinated process of virion assembly, but the contribution of these domains to tRNA3 Lys annealing is unclear. Here, we show that NC is absolutely essential for annealing and that the MA domain inhibits Gag's tRNA annealing capability. During assembly, MA specifically interacts with inositol phosphate (IP)-containing lipids in the plasma membrane (PM). Surprisingly, we find that IPs stimulate Gag-facilitated tRNA annealing but do not stimulate annealing in Gag variants lacking the MA domain or containing point mutations involved in PM binding. Moreover, we find that IPs prevent MA from binding to nucleic acids but have little effect on NC or Gag. We propose that Gag binds to RNA either with both NC and MA domains or with NC alone and that MA-IP interactions alter Gag's binding mode. We propose that MA's interactions with the PM trigger the switch between these two binding modes and stimulate Gag's chaperone function, which may be important for the regulation of events such as tRNA primer annealing.
Recent progress of chiral monolithic stationary phases in CEC and capillary LC

As the development of monolithic stationary phases in CEC and capillary LC, the monoliths specifically related with the enantioseparations taking the advantages of monolithic stationary phases have attracted increased research interest in this field. This short review describes recent progress with emphasis on the preparation of the chiral monolithic stationary phases along with brief discussion and perspective on the future development of chiral monolithic stationary phases in CEC and capillary LC.
A THEMIS:SHP1 complex promotes T-cell survival

THEMIS is critical for conventional T‐cell development, but its precise molecular function remains elusive. Here, we show that THEMIS constitutively associates with the phosphatases SHP1 and SHP2. This complex requires the adapter GRB2, which bridges SHP to THEMIS in a Tyr‐phosphorylation‐independent fashion. Rather, SHP1 and THEMIS engage with the N‐SH3 and C‐SH3 domains of GRB2, respectively, a configuration that allows GRB2‐SH2 to recruit the complex onto LAT. Consistent with THEMIS‐mediated recruitment of SHP to the TCR signalosome, THEMIS knock‐down increased TCR‐induced CD3‐ζ phosphorylation, Erk activation and CD69 expression, but not LCK phosphorylation. This generalized TCR signalling increase led to augmented apoptosis, a phenotype mirrored by SHP1 knock‐down. Remarkably, a KI mutation of LCK Ser59, previously suggested to be key in ERK‐mediated resistance towards SHP1 negative feedback, did not affect TCR signalling nor ligand discrimination in vivo. Thus, the THEMIS:SHP complex dampens early TCR signalling by a previously unknown molecular mechanism that favours T‐cell survival. We discuss possible implications of this mechanism in modulating TCR output signals towards conventional T‐cell development and differentiation.
Influence of the Purkinje-muscle junction on transmural repolarization heterogeneity.

AIMS To elucidate the properties of the PMJ and myocardium underlying these effects. Transmural heterogeneity of action potential duration (APD) is known to play an important role in arrhythmogenesis. Regions of non-uniformities of APD gradients often overlap considerably with the location of Purkinje-muscle junctions (PMJs). We therefore hypothesized that such junctions are novel sources of local endocardial and transmural heterogeneity of repolarization, and that remodelling due to heart failure modulates this response. METHODS AND RESULTS Spatial gradients of endocardial APD in left ventricular wedge preparations from healthy sheep (n = 5) were correlated with locations of PMJs identified through Purkinje stimulation under optical mapping. APD prolongation was dependent on proximity of the PMJ to the imaged surface, whereby shallow PMJs significantly modulated local APD when stimulating either Purkinje (P = 0.0116) or endocardium (P = 0.0123). In addition, we model a PMJ in 5 × 5× 10 mm transmural tissue wedges using healthy and novel failing human ventricular and Purkinje ionic models. Short distances of the PMJ to cut surfaces (<0.875 mm) revealed that APD maxima were localized to the PMJ in healthy myocardium, whereas APD minima were observed in failing myocardium. Amplitudes and spatial gradients of APD were prominent at functional PMJs and quiescent PMJs. Furthermore, increasing the extent of Purkinje fibre branching or decreasing tissue conductivity augmented local APD prolongation in both failing and non-failing models. CONCLUSIONS The Purkinje network has the potential to influence myocardial AP morphology and rate-dependent behaviour, and furthermore to underlie enhanced transmural APD heterogeneities and spatial gradients of APD in non-failing and failing myocardium.
The Crisis Response to a School-Based Hostage Event: A Case Study

During the past two decades there has been increased public, professional, and legislative interest in school crisis prevention and intervention. It is recommended that comprehensive crisis teams be established at the school, district, and community levels. A case study was conducted in which interviews were utilized to facilitate an increased understanding of the experiences of state crisis team members responding to a school-based crisis event and how crisis teams attempted a coordinated response. Data analysis revealed several themes related to the importance of knowing the school system, having prior crisis-related training, the need for role flexibility, expectations related to the response, personal impact of the response, and the need for self-care. School mental health professionals and crisis response teams can consider these themes and ways to address concerns related to these themes to improve crisis response efforts.
AN APPROACH TO THE PARASITISM GENES OF THE ROOT KNOT NEMATODE

Plant parasitic nematodes which are highly successful parasites evolved a very specialized feeding relationship with the host plant to cause the destructive root- knot disease. They initiate their parasitic relationship with the host by releasing their secretions into root cells which in turn stimulate the root cells of the host to become specialized feeding cells which are considered as the single source of nutrients essential for the nematode's survival. The parasitism genes expressed in nematode's esophageal gland cells encode secretory proteins that are released through its stylet to direct the interactions of the nematode with its host plants.
Family Involvement in Ownership and Management: Exploring Nonlinear Effects on Performance

Research on the performance of family firms is growing, but results are mixed, especially for nonlisted companies. Thus, on the basis of the co-presence of benefits and disadvantages of family involvement in ownership and management, we explored the presence of nonlinear effects of these two variables on performance. We run regression analyses on data drawn from 620 privately held family firms in Italy: A negative quadratic relationship between family involvement in management and performance was found, but we did not find any association between family involvement in ownership and performance. Our results suggest that in privately held firms the positive effects that previous literature associates with the presence of family managers do not appear strong enough to compensate for the disadvantages deriving from a nonmonetary goal orientation, nor do they compensate for the costs deriving from the need to solve conflicts between family managers and the impossibility of enlarging the company's social and intellectual capital through the employment of nonfamily managers. Moreover, the quadratic nature of the relationship calls for greater attention to be paid to these effects by family business owners, especially in those cases where family involvement in management is high.
Lexical Normalization of Spanish Tweets with Preprocessing Rules, Domain-specific Edit Distances, and Language Models

espanolPresentamos un sistema de normalizacion de tweets en espanol, que usa reglas de preproceso, un modelo de distancias de edicion adecuado al dominio y modelos de lengua para seleccionar candidatos de correccion segun el contexto. El sistema obtuvo resultados superiores a la media en la tarea Tweet-Norm de SEPLN 2013. EnglishWe present a system to normalize Spanish tweets, which uses preprocessing rules, a domain-appropriate edit-distance model, and language models to select correction candidates based on context. The system’s results at SEPLN 2013 Tweet-Norm task were above-average.
People Counting and Human Detection in a Challenging Situation

Reliable people counting and human detection is an important problem in visual surveillance. In recent years, the field has seen many advances, but the solutions have restrictions: people must be moving, the background must be simple, and the image resolution must be high. This paper aims to develop an effective method for estimating the number of people and locate each individual in a low resolution image with complicated scenes. The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, postprocessing steps are performed on background subtraction results to estimate the number of people in a complicated scene, which includes people who are moving only slightly. Second, an Expectation Maximization (EM)-based method has been developed to locate individuals in a low resolution scene. In this method, a new cluster model is used to represent each person in the scene. The method does not require a very accurate foreground contour. Third, the number of people is used as a priori for locating individuals based on feature points. Hence, the methods for estimating the number of people and for locating individuals are connected. The developed methods have been validated based on a 4-hour video, with the number of people in the scene ranging from 36 to 222. The best result for estimating the number of people has an average error of 10% over 51 test cases. Based on the estimated number of people, some results of the EM-based method have also been shown.
Wideband array developments for planned and future radio astronomy antennas

The radio astronomy community is engaged in the development of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). The SKA will have 10-100 times improved sensitivity and 105 times improved survey speed compared to existing radio telescopes. Besides dishes, Aperture Arrays (AA) are a promising concept: they potentially offer a very large field of view in theory only limited by the computing power and they hold promise for multioctave frequency coverage. Provided that e.g. polarimetric and calibration issues can be solved, this approach is the preferred solution for low frequency astronomy, with the SKA AA-low system, specified to run from 70 to 450 MHz, and the AA-mid system designed for 400-1420 MHz. This contribution will address some key issues to be solved using input from demonstrators.
Green function analytical method of solution of transport equation: modeling and simulation of the macroscopic LWR model as a distributed parameter system

The main aim of this paper is using the obtain transfer function of the macroscopic traffic flow model, as distributed parameter system, to simulate this model (fig. 1), then based on the obtain results characteristics to make analysis and for further works to use all this simulations for the synthesis and analysis of corresponding control algorithms depending of the needed conditions in transportation problem model. Using this exact method we obtain directly the plant transfer function for the traffic flow model viewed as a distributed parameter system. The entire physical phenomenon is presenting through the partial differential equations whose show the distribution in vehicles on the high ways. All the research is devoted on the transfer function result and his control system model. In the presenting paper we shown the verification of the analytical result of the model simulation thought the time and frequency characteristics analysis.
Risk Identification and Mitigation Processes for Using Scrum in Global Software Development: A Conceptual Framework

There is growing interest in applying agile practices in Global Software Development (GSD) projects. But project stakeholder distribution in GSD creates a number of challenges that make it difficult to use some agile practices. Moreover, little is known about what the key challenges or risks are, and how GSD project mangers deal with these risks while using agile practices. We conduct a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) following existing guidelines to identify primary papers that discuss the use of Scrum practices in GSD projects. We identify key challenges, due to global project distribution, that restrict the use of Scrum and explore the strategies used by project managers to deal with these challenges. Our findings are consolidated into a conceptual framework and we discuss various elements of this framework. This research is relevant to project managers who are seeking ways to use Scrum in their globally distributed projects.
Recovery of pathogenic bacteria from cerebrospinal fluid

We studied the conditions necessary for optimal recovery of bacteria from cerebrospinal fluid. Our results indicated that Streptopcoccus pneumoniae, Neisseria meningitidis, and Haemophilus influenzae can be quantitatively recovered in the sediment after centrifugation at 1,500 X g for 15 min. Equivalent numbers of bacteria were recovered by centrifugation or filtration of antibiotic-free cerebrospinal fluid; however, bacterial recovery by filtration was less effective with antibiotic-supplemented cerebrospinal fluid.
Findings of the 2011 Workshop on Statistical Machine Translation

This paper presents the results of the WMT11 shared tasks, which included a translation task, a system combination task, and a task for machine translation evaluation metrics. We conducted a large-scale manual evaluation of 148 machine translation systems and 41 system combination entries. We used the ranking of these systems to measure how strongly automatic metrics correlate with human judgments of translation quality for 21 evaluation metrics. This year featured a Haitian Creole to English task translating SMS messages sent to an emergency response service in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake. We also conducted a pilot 'tunable metrics' task to test whether optimizing a fixed system to different metrics would result in perceptibly different translation quality.
Monitoring large IP spaces with ClockView

The growing amounts of hosts that are placed into the networks represent an enormous challenge to most network administrators who have to monitor these hosts conscientiously. While automatically monitoring the network for slow or failing components has become common practice, defining an acceptable state of the system is only possible to a very limited extent and thus exploratory analysis tasks by real human analysts complement the analysis process. However, this is a problem of scale since it is infeasible to manually inspect thousands of hosts without proper visual support for the tasks of gaining an overview, focusing and retrieving details on demand. In this paper we present a design study to enable visual support for monitoring large IP spaces. In particular, the presented system features 1) a scalable glyph representation in the style of a clock for giving an overview of the activity over time of thousands of hosts in the network, 2) subnet and port views for focusing the analysis to a particular subset of the data and 3) detailed pixel matrix visualizations for interpreting concrete traffic patterns. Furthermore, the tool's feedback loop, which is implemented through interaction capabilities, allows for retrieving new details, refocusing and enhancing of the overview.
Is spatial intelligibility critical to the design of large-scale virtual environments?

This paper discusses the concept of 'intelligibility', a concept usually attributed to the design of real-world environments and suggests how it might be applied to the construction of virtual environments. In order to illustrate this concept, a 3d, online, collaborative environment, AlphaWorld, is analyzed in a manner analogous to spatial analysis techniques applied to cities in the real world. The outcome of this form of spatial analysis is that AlphaWorld appears to be highly 'intelligible' at the small-scale, 'local neighborhood' level, and yet is completely 'unintelligible' at a global level. This paper concludes with a discussion of the relevance of this finding to virtual environment design plus future research applications.
On the Complexity of Optimization Problems based on Compiled NNF Representations

Optimization is a key task in a number of applications. When the set of feasible solutions under consideration is of combinatorial nature and described in an implicit way as a set of constraints, optimization is typically NP-hard. Fortunately, in many problems, the set of feasible solutions does not often change and is independent from the user's request. In such cases, compiling the set of constraints describing the set of feasible solutions during an off-line phase makes sense, if this compilation step renders computationally easier the generation of a non-dominated, yet feasible solution matching the user's requirements and preferences (which are only known at the on-line step). In this article, we focus on propositional constraints. The subsets L of the NNF language analyzed in Darwiche and Marquis' knowledge compilation map are considered. A number of families F of representations of objective functions over propositional variables, including linear pseudo-Boolean functions and more sophisticated ones, are considered. For each language L and each family F, the complexity of generating an optimal solution when the constraints are compiled into L and optimality is to be considered w.r. t. a function from F is identified.
Effects of Potential Partners' Costume and Physical Attractiveness on Sexuality and Partner Selection

ABSTRACT Male and female college students in the United States (N = 224) viewed models who had been prerated for physical attractiveness and who were dressed in costumes representing one of three levels of socioeconomic status (SES). Subjects reported their willingness to engage with these stimulus persons in six relationships involving various levels of marital potential and sexual involvement. Models' costume status had greater effects on female subjects' willingness than on male subjects' willingness to enter all six relationships. This difference was larger when the physical attractiveness of models was low than when it was high. Costume status also affected female subjects' ratings of male models' attractiveness but did not affect male subjects' ratings of female models' attractiveness. Results supported eight hypotheses derived from evolutionary theory: In choosing partners, men and women weighed potential partners' SES and physical attractiveness differently, and these factors may have different be.
Improved Gait Symmetry in Hemiparetic Stroke Patients Induced During Body Weight-Supported Treadmill Stepping

Background: Body weight-supported treadmill training (BWSTT) is being investigated as an adjunct to conventional gait training for the treatment of hemiparetic stroke patients. The potential efficacy of the technique may, in part, be related to optimiz ing locomotor-related sensory inputs to the nervous system, which in turn may improve the timing and coordination of motor activity. Objectives and Methods : This pilot study evaluated the effects of varying two types of sensory inputs, limb load and treadmill belt speed, during BWSTT. We assessed the effects of three levels of body weight sup port (BWS) and three treadmill speeds on the single limb stance time ratio (SLSR) and the single limb loading ratio (SLLR) in four subacute hemiparetic stroke patients. In three additional subjects, we studied the effects on SLSR of changing only the level of BWS at the one treadmill speed equal to best overground speed. Results: In comparison to overground walking, treadmill walking increased the SLSR toward 1.0. Higher belt speeds generally did not alter this increase in symmetry. A significant rela tionship was also found between SLLR and BWS. Fifteen percent BWS was most often associated with a SLLR close to 1.0, independent of the treadmill speed. Conclusion: During BWSTT, the moving treadmill belt entrains greater symmetry of single limb stance time in hemiparetic subjects who otherwise step asymmetrically. Optimal limb loading and treadmill speeds can increase the symmetry of stepping-associated sen sory inputs, which may enhance the locomotor output derived from activity-depen dent plasticity. Key Words: Body weight support—Treadmill training—Stroke— Hemiparesis—Gait training.
Dose-dependent effect of dobutamine on chemoreflex activity in healthy volunteers.

AIMS beta-adrenergic agonists increase peripheral chemoreceptor sensitivity in humans. We tested the hypothesis that beta(1)-agonist-related increase in peripheral chemoreflex sensitivity is selective and dose-dependent. METHODS Using a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized, crossover study, we examined the effects of dobutamine (n = 17 healthy subjects) at perfusion rates of 2.5 microg kg(-1) min(-1) (D2.5) and 7.5 microg kg(-1) min(-1) (D7.5) on ventilation, haemodynamics and sympathetic nerve activity during normoxia, isocapnic hypoxia, posthypoxic maximal voluntary end-expiratory apnoea, hyperoxic hypercapnia and cold pressor test (CPT). We analysed the effect of pretreatment with atenolol on dobutamine-evoked chemosensitivity. RESULTS Dobutamine dose-dependently increased ventilation (placebo 6.7 +/- 0.5 vs. D2.5 7.8 +/- 0.4 vs. D7.5 8.7 +/- 0.4 l min(-1), P < 0.005) during normoxia, enhanced the ventilatory (placebo 14.4 +/- 0.6 vs. D2.5 17.3 +/- 0.8 vs. D7.5 22.5 +/- 1.9 l min(-1), P < 0.0001) and sympathetic (placebo + 215 +/- 31 vs. D2.5 + 285 +/- 19 vs. D7.5 + 395 +/- 50% of baseline, P < 0.03) responses at the fifth minute of isocapnic hypoxia and enhanced the sympathetic response to apnoea performed after hypoxia (increase after 5 min of hypoxia: + 290 +/- 43% for placebo vs.+ 360 +/- 21% for D2.5 vs. 537 +/- 69% for D7.5, P < 0.05). No differences were observed between dobutamine and placebo in the responses to hyperoxic hypercapnia and CPT. Atenolol inhibited the dobutamine-related hyperventilation and apnoea shortening during normoxia and hypoxia. CONCLUSION Dobutamine enhances peripheral chemosensitivity at low infusion rates selectively and in a dose-dependent manner. There is a beta(1) adrenoceptor component in dobutamine-evoked increase in peripheral chemosensititivity; however, a contribution of additional adrenoceptor subtypes cannot be excluded.