Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Coastal Strains of Marine Synechococcus Species Exhibit Increased Tolerance to Copper Shock and a Distinctive Transcriptional Response Relative to Those of Open-Ocean Strains

ABSTRACT Copper appears to be influencing the distribution and abundance of phytoplankton in marine environments, and cyanobacteria are thought to be the most sensitive of the phytoplankton groups to copper toxicity. By using growth assays of phylogenetically divergent clades, we found that coastal strains of marine Synechococcus species were more tolerant to copper shock than open-ocean strains. The global transcriptional response to two levels of copper shock were determined for both a coastal strain and an open-ocean strain of marine Synechococcus species using whole-genome expression microarrays. Both strains showed an osmoregulatory-like response, perhaps as a result of increasing membrane permeability. This could have implications for marine carbon cycling if copper shock leads to dissolved organic carbon leakage in Synechococcus species. The two strains additionally showed a common reduction in levels of photosynthesis-related gene transcripts. Contrastingly, the open-ocean strain showed a general stress response, whereas the coastal strain exhibited a more specifically oxidative or heavy-metal acclimation response that may be conferring tolerance. In addition, the coastal strain activated more regulatory elements and transporters, many of which are not conserved in other marine Synechococcus strains and may have been acquired by horizontal gene transfer. Thus, tolerance to copper shock in some marine Synechococcus strains may in part be a result of a generally increased ability to sense and respond in a more stress-specific manner.
Both Sp1 and Sp3 are responsible for p21waf1 promoter activity induced by histone deacetylase inhibitor in NIH3T3 cells

Histone deacetylase inhibitor‐induced expression of p21WAF1 is p53 independent. In the present study, we provide evidence that trichostatin A (TSA), a specific inhibitor of histone deacetylase, can elevate H3 and H4 acetylation and p21WAF1 expression in NIH3T3 cells at first. To identify the transcription factor which is responsible for histone deacetylase inhibitor‐induced expression of p21WAF1 and understand the potential events occurred during this process, we analyze the response of the mouse p21WAF1 promoter to TSA in detail. The region responsive to TSA treatment in the p21 promoter is located −100 bp upstream from transcription initiation site and contains a GC‐box. The mutation introduced into this GC‐box decreases most of the basal and TSA‐induced promoter activity. The results from gel‐shift assay show that Sp1 and Sp3 bind to this GC‐rich region. Cotransfection with Sp1 and/or Sp3 expression constructs elevate both basal and induced promoter activity, and this elevation is dependent on the present of the GC‐box. By contrast, cotransfection with reverse oriented Sp1 or Sp3 cDNA decreased basal and induced‐promoter activity, as well as GC‐box dependency. These findings provide physical and functional evidence which strongly indicated that both Sp1 and Sp3 are responsible for TSA‐induced transactivation of the murine p21WAF1 promoter in NIH3T3 cells. J. Cell. Biochem. 73:291–302, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The Changing Practice of Organisation Development

The practice of organisation development has changed dramatically over the years. Enquiries are made into factors that have influenced those changes and six of the latest trends in the practice of OD are presented. Implications of the research for OD practitioners are given. The research findings are derived from telephone interviews with 18 highly experienced and respected OD consultants.
Multifinger haptic interface for bimanual manipulation of virtual objects

A multi-finger haptic interface called MasterFinger for bimanual manipulation of virtual objects is described in this paper. The index fingers and the thumbs are inserted in their corresponding thimbles in order to perform virtual manipulations. A gimble with 3-rotational degree of freedom connects the thimble to a serial-parallel mechanical structure that is made up of 3 electro-mechanical actuators. This mechanism thereby provides 6 DoF of movement with force reflection in all directions. A distributed architecture has been implemented to simulate bimanual manipulations. This architecture is based on the use of a specific controller for each finger and a server computer that simulates the virtual manipulation in real time. Some experiments that evaluate the performance of the MasterFinger are described.
Relationship between speech intelligibility and listener effort in Malayalam-speaking individuals with hypokinetic dysarthria

Abstract Several attempts have been made to describe the perceptual characteristics of dysarthria. However, a large majority of these studies are in English, and hence there is a need to investigate dysarthric characteristics in other languages which have a rhythmic structure different than English. The objectives of this study were multifold. First, to describe the perceptual characteristics of hypokinetic dysarthria (HD) in Malayalam- (mora-timed language) speaking individuals. Second, to examine the effect of HD on the listeners' ratings of speech intelligibility and listener effort. Third, to investigate the relationship between speech intelligibility and listener effort, and fourth to study the effect of listeners' experience on the ratings of speech intelligibility and listener effort. Five sentences were recorded from eight Malayalam speakers with HD, and eight control speakers. These sentences were played to 10 naïve and 10 expert listeners. Listeners performed the following tasks: describing perceptual characteristics of HD, rating sentence intelligibility, and listener effort. Results showed that the most deviant perceptual characteristics were those related to articulation and rhythm. Lower speech intelligibility and increased listener effort were observed for individuals with HD than control speakers. Speech intelligibility proved to be a strong predictor of listener effort. Experience of the listener had no effect on speech intelligibility ratings, but showed a significant effect for listener effort ratings.
Guest Editors' Introduction: Dynamically Typed Languages

The languages discussed in this special issue have a long history, which is perhaps why some have had several different names over the years. One such language is Lisp, the second-oldest programming language. For years, many somewhat dismissively described languages such as Lisp as "scripting languages. " Today, we more commonly refer to them as dynamically typed languages, typified by Python and Ruby, and their impact is arguably greater than ever. This issue highlights the practical uses of such languages and shows how they're frequently a vehicle for innovation in the development sphere. This article is part of a special issue on dynamically typed languages.
Condition monitoring of outdoor polymeric insulators using wavelets and ANFIS

In the present work, laboratory based pollution performance tests are carried out on silicone rubber insulator under ac voltage at different pollution levels and relative humidity conditions with sodium chloride as a contaminant. Multi Resolution Signal Decomposition (MRSD) using Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) is employed to understand the time frequency characteristics of the leakage current signal. The surface conditions of the insulator such as normal conditions, short duration discharges and long duration arc were characterized by using the leakage current measurement, utilizing the multi resolution signal decomposition technique. The process of identification of surface condition of the insulator was automated using Adaptive-network-based fuzzy Inference system (ANFIS).
Secure degrees of freedom of the Gaussian MIMO interference channel

We consider the two-user multiple-input multiple- output (MIMO) interference channel with confidential messages (ICCM). We determine the exact sum secure degrees of freedom (s.d.o.f.) for the symmetric case of M antennas at both transmitters and N antennas at both receivers. We develop the converse by combining the broadcast channel with confidential messages (BCCM) cooperative upper bound, decodability upper bound for the IC with no secrecy constraints, and extensions of the secrecy penalty and role of a helper lemmas. We propose a novel achievable scheme for the 2 × 2 ICCM, which combines asymptotic real interference alignment with spatial interference alignment. Using this scheme, we provide achievable schemes for any M and N by proper vector space operations.
Skp1p and the F-Box Protein Rcy1p Form a Non-SCF Complex Involved in Recycling of the SNARE Snc1p in Yeast

ABSTRACT Skp1p–cullin–F-box protein (SCF) complexes are ubiquitin-ligases composed of a core complex including Skp1p, Cdc53p, Hrt1p, the E2 enzyme Cdc34p, and one of multiple F-box proteins which are thought to provide substrate specificity to the complex. Here we show that the F-box protein Rcy1p is required for recycling of the v-SNARE Snc1p inSaccharomyces cerevisiae. Rcy1p localized to areas of polarized growth, and this polarized localization required its CAAX box and an intact actin cytoskeleton. Rcy1p interacted with Skp1p in vivo in an F-box-dependent manner, and both deletion of its F box and loss of Skp1p function impaired recycling. In contrast, cells deficient in Cdc53p, Hrt1p, or Cdc34p did not exhibit recycling defects. Unlike the case for F-box proteins that are known to participate in SCF complexes, degradation of Rcy1p required neither its F box nor functional 26S proteasomes or other SCF core subunits. Importantly, Skp1p was the only major partner that copurified with Rcy1p. Our results thus suggest that a complex composed of Rcy1p and Skp1p but not other SCF components may play a direct role in recycling of internalized proteins.
Perceived Usefulness Of Information Technology: A Cross-National Model1

Abstract As the world globalizes and more multinationals operate in foreign locales, it is becoming increasingly important to understand how people react to information technology. In this paper, we use a combined social institutions and national culture approach to examine how these are related to one component of the technology acceptance model. Specifically, we hypothesize that three social institutions (degree of industrialization, degree of social inequality, and religiosity) and three national culture dimensions (uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, and individualism) are related to the perceived usefulness of information technology. Because of the cross-level nature of our study, we use Hierarchical Linear Modeling to test our hypotheses on 26,999 individuals from 24 nations. Results support four of the six hypotheses (degree of industrialization, degree of social inequality, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity). Results reject hypotheses for religiosity and individualism. Implications of our findings for future research and practice are discussed.
CASP8 -652 6N Del Polymorphism Contributes to Colorectal Cancer Susceptibility: Evidence from a Meta-Analysis

Objective Caspase-8 (CASP8) plays a central role in the apoptotic pathway and aberrant regulation of this pathway may cause cancers. Previous studies investigating the association between CASP8 -652 6N ins/del polymorphism and colorectal cancer (CRC) risk showed inconclusive results. We performed a meta-analysis of all available studies to investigate this association. Methods All studies published up to October 2013 on the association between CASP8 -652 6N ins/del polymorphism and CRC risk were identified by searching electronic databases PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane library. The association between CASP8 -652 6N ins/del polymorphism and CRC risk was assessed by odds ratios (ORs) together with their 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Results Six studies with 6,325 cases and 6,842 controls were included in the meta-analysis. We observed that the CASP8 -652 6N ins/del polymorphism was significantly correlated with CRC risk when all studies were pooled into the meta-analysis (ins/del vs. ins/ins: OR = 0.890, 95%CI 0.821–0.964, P = 0.004; del/del + ins/del vs. ins/ins: OR = 0.899, 95%CI 0.833–0.970, P = 0.006). In stratified analyses by ethnicity, source of control, and quality score, significant association was observed in Asians (ins/del vs. ins/ins: OR = 0.862, 95%CI 0.761–0.977, P = 0.020; del/del + ins/del vs. ins/ins: OR = 0.845, 95%CI 0.749–0.953, P = 0.006), population-based studies (ins/del vs. ins/ins: OR = 0.890, 95%CI 0.813–0.975, P = 0.012; del/del + ins/del vs. ins/ins: OR = 0.901, 95%CI 0.827–0.982, P = 0.018), and high quality studies. However, in subgroup analysis according to cancer location, no significant association was detected. Conclusions The present meta-analysis suggests that the CASP8 is a candidate gene for CRC susceptibility. The CASP8 -652 6N ins/del polymorphism may play a protective role in CRC development especially among Asians. Further large and well-designed studies are needed to confirm this association.
Supervised Classification and Gene Selection Using Simulated Annealing

Genomic data are often characterized by small cardinality and high dimensionality. For those data, a feature selection procedure could highlight the relevant genes and improve the classification results. In this paper we propose a wrapper approach to gene selection in classification of gene expression data using simulated annealing and SVM. The proposed approach can do global combinatorial searches through the space of possible input subsets, can handle cases with numerical, categorical or mixed inputs, and is able to find (sub-)optimal subsets of input variables giving very low classification errors. The method has been tested on the publicly available data sets Leukemia by Golub et al. and Colon by Alon at al. The experimental results highlight the capacity of the method to select minimal sets of relevant genes.
Book Review: Twentieth-Century Drama Dialogue as Ordinary Talk: Speaking Between the Lines by Susan Mandala, 2007. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. xiv + 138. ISBN: 0754651055 (hbk)

Language and Literature 2008 17(3) The reader is led beyond Beckett and Stoppard’s silence and into the worlds of Barbara Pym, Edith Wharton, Elie Wiesel, R. S. Thomas and Flannery O’Connor. In their variety, these are worlds of ‘acceptance, not understanding’ (p. 228) where ‘rain falls on the just and the unjust’ (p. xi), and where ‘The sky remains endless, showing nothing . Yet, as we have seen, for believers, that indifferent sky becomes an impartial one with a religious aspect, making it possible for them to see themselves as creatures under God’s heaven’ (p. 236). At first glance, D. Z. Phillips’s From Fantasy to Faith initially reads as the least academic book you’ll read this year. Those seeking Phillips’s ideas ungrounded in literature should read Faith After Foundationalism (1988) and Philosophy’s Cool Place (1999), among others. In From Fantasy to Faith, Phillips utilizes often metaphorical yet lucid explanation, and he provides ideas often defended only through only his own logic separate from intellectual history. In doing so, he dares us to believe in a project that is polyglot, synthetic and would suffer from reduction for application. The book was to be entitled Voices had not an editor found that title ‘indulgent’ (p. ix). Yet the original title is more appropriate, for the reader is asked to ponder the shortcomings of an intellectual’s faith in a robust yet strangely impotent language of skepticism, reductivism, and rationality. Phillips asks us to treat old arguments for God’s existence as separate when it comes to discussing religious faith and morality in academic settings, as well as in the non-academic world, which is quickly becoming (or always was) a world where belief contends with query, where unity contends with the layered ‘unity’ of plurality, and where religious identity and thought stand alongside nationality, history, and reason on the world stage. In this, the book is timely. Phillips wished to title the book Voices because ‘each voice, to varying degrees, has had its day with me’ (p. ix). Bold in form, palatable in idea, From Fantasy to Faith is a fitting closing statement from a notorious and polemical philosopher who relentlessly pursued the diversity of religious experience found in the world, culling its power, forms and meaning from the century’s literary treasures.
Characterization and expression analysis of WOX2 homeodomain transcription factor in Aegilops tauschii

The WUSCHEL (WUS)-related homeobox (WOX) gene family coordinates transcription during the early phases of embryogenesis. In this study, a putative WOX2 homolog was isolated and characterized from Aegilops tauschii, the donor of D genome of Triticum aestivum. The sequence consisted of 2045 bp, and contained an open reading frame (ORF), encoded 322 amino acids. The predicted protein sequence contained a highly conserved homeodomain and the WUS-box domain, which is present in some members of the WOX protein family. The full-length ORF was subcloned into prokaryotic expression vector pET-30a, and an approximately 34-kDa protein was expressed in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3) cells with IPTG induction. The molecular mass of the expressed protein was identical to that predicted by the cDNA sequence. Phylogenetic analysis suggested that Ae. tauschii WOX2 is closely related to the rice and maize orthologs. Quantitative PCR analysis showed that WOX2 from Ae. tauschii was primarily expressed in the seeds; transcription increased during seed development and declined after the embryos matured, suggesting that WOX2 is associated with embryo development in Ae. tauschii.
An Automatic Satellite Interpretation of Tropical Cyclone Patterns Using Elastic Graph Dynamic Link Model

In the past decades, satellite interpretation was one of the vital methods for the determination of weather patterns all over the world, especially for the identification of severe weather patterns such as tropical cyclones (TC). The method is based on Dvorak Technique8 which provides a means of the identification of the cyclone and its intensity. This is a kind of pattern-matching techniques and is based on some well-known TC templates for reference. Due to the high variation and complexity of cloud activities for the tropical cyclone patterns, meteorological analysts all over the world so far are still relying on subjective human justification for TC identification purposes. In this paper, an Elastic Graph Dynamic Link Model (EGDLM) is proposed to automate the satellite interpretation process and provides an objective analysis for tropical cyclones. The method integrates Dynamic Link Architecture (DLA) for neural dynamics and Active Contour Model (ACM) for contour extraction of TC patterns. Over 120 satellite pictures provided by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were used to evaluate the system, and 145 tropical cyclone cases that appeared in the period between 1990 to 1998 were extracted for the study. An overall correct rate for TC classification was found to be above 95%. For hurricanes with distinct "eye" formation, the model reported a deviation within 3 km from the "actual eye" location, which was obtained from the reconnaissance aircraft measurements of minimum surface pressure.
Immunoproteasome Assembly : Cooperative Incorporation of Interferon g ( IFN-g ) – inducible Subunits

From the * William S. Rowe Division of Rheumatology, Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio 45229; ‡ Department of Molecular Genetics and the § Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Cincinnati School of Medicine, Cincinnati, Ohio 45267; i Basel Institute for Immunology, CH-4005 Basel, Switzerland; and the ¶ Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee 37232
Hierarchical topic integration through semi-supervised hierarchical topic modeling

Lots of document collections are well organized in hierarchical structure, and such structure can help users browse and understand these collections. Meanwhile, there are a large number of plain document collections loosely organized, and it is difficult for users to understand them effectively. In this paper we study how to automatically integrate latent topics in a plain collection with the topics in a hierarchical structured collection. We propose to use semi-supervised topic modeling to solve the problem in a principled way. The experiments show that the proposed method can generate both meaningful latent topics and expand high quality hierarchical topic structures.
Exploration and Evaluation of Citation Networks

This paper deals with the definitions, explanations and testing of the PageRank formula modified and adapted for bibliographic networks. Our modifications of PageRank take into account not only the citations but also the co-authorship relationships. We verified the capabilities of the developed algorithms by applying them to the data from the DBLP digital library and subsequently by comparing the resulting ranks of the sixteen winners of the ACM SIGMOD E.F. Codd Innovations Award from the years 1992 till 2007. Such ranking, which is based on both the citation and co-authorship information, gives better and more fairminded results than the standard PageRank gives. The proposed method is able to reduce the influence of citation loops and gives the opportunity for farther improvements e.g. introducing temporal views into the citations evaluating algorithms.
Signatures of Cosmic Strings in the Cosmic Microwave Background

We report a search for signatures of cosmic strings in the the Cosmic Microwave Background data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe. We used a digital filter designed to search for individual cosmic strings and found no evidence for them in the WMAP CMB anisotropies to a level of $\Delta T/T \sim 0.29$ mK. This corresponds to an absence of cosmic strings with $ G\mu \ga 1.07 \times 10^{-5}$ for strings moving with velocity $v = c/\sqrt{2}$. Unlike previous work, this limit does not depend on an assumed string abundance. We have searched the WMAP data for evidence of a cosmic string recently reported as the CSL-1 object, and found an ``edge'' with 2$\sigma$ significance. However, if this edge is real and produced by a cosmic string, it would have to move at velocity $\ga$ 0.94c. We also present preliminary limits on the CMB data that will be returned by the PLANCK satellite for comparison. With the available information on the PLANCK satellite, we calculated that it would be twice as sensitive to cosmic strings as WMAP.
Management style as a mediator of the power distance‐influence tactics relationship

Purpose – The paper aims to examine whether power distance and management style predict social power choice and whether management style also acts as a mediator in a model linking all three variables.Design/methodology/approach – The study was conducted within the Israeli Police Force using regular patrol and special patrol units. A total of 40 captains or officers and 151 policemen/women completed scales assessing power distance, captain's managerial style, and influence tactics chosen by them in conflict situations. The data were analyzed from two different perspectives: captains and policemen.Findings – Harsh tactics were found to differ significantly by power distance whereas the parallel comparison for soft tactics was not significant. The mediation hypothesis tested separately on both samples was supported only for the subordinate group. Management style added significant variance for explaining the dependent variable and also mediated the relationship between power distance and harsh tactic choice.