Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mechanisms of PTPσ-Mediated Presynaptic Differentiation

Formation of synapses between neurons depends in part on binding between axonal and dendritic cell surface synaptic organizing proteins, which recruit components of the developing presynaptic and postsynaptic specializations. One of these presynaptic organizing molecules is protein tyrosine phosphatase σ (PTPσ). Although the protein domains involved in adhesion between PTPσ and its postsynaptic binding partners are known, the mechanisms by which it signals into the presynaptic neuron to recruit synaptic vesicles and other necessary components for regulated transmitter release are not well understood. One attractive candidate to mediate this function is liprin-α, a scaffolding protein with well-established roles at the synapse. We systematically mutated residues of the PTPσ intracellular region (ICR) and used the yeast dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) protein complementation assay to screen for disrupted interactions between these mutant forms of PTPσ and its various binding partners. Using a molecular replacement strategy, we show that disrupting the interaction between PTPσ and liprin-α, but not between PTPσ and itself or another binding partner, caskin, abolishes presynaptic differentiation. Furthermore, phosphatase activity of PTPσ and binding to extracellular heparan sulfate (HS) proteoglycans are dispensable for presynaptic induction. Previous reports have suggested that binding between PTPσ and liprin-α is mediated by the PTPσ membrane-distal phosphatase-like domain. However, we provide evidence here that both of the PTPσ phosphatase-like domains mediate binding to liprin-α and are required for PTPσ-mediated presynaptic differentiation. These findings further our understanding of the mechanistic basis by which PTPσ acts as a presynaptic organizer.
Analysis of ferrichrome biosynthesis in the phytopathogenic fungus Ustilago maydis: cloning of an ornithine-N5-oxygenase gene

By using a non-enterobactin-producing enb-7 mutant of Salmonella typhimurium LT2 as a biological indicator, a novel screening method was developed for identifying mutants of Ustilago maydis defective in the biosynthesis of the siderophores ferrichrome and ferrichrome A. Two classes of siderophore mutations, both recessive, were isolated after mutagenesis of haploid cells of the corn smut fungus. Class I mutants no longer produced ferrichrome while retaining the ability to produce ferrichrome A; class II mutants were defective in the production of both ferrichrome and ferrichrome A. Genetic and biochemical data suggest that class II mutants are defective in the ability to hydroxylate L-ornithine to delta-N-hydroxyornithine, the first step in the biosynthesis of these siderophores. A genomic library of wild-type U. maydis DNA was constructed in the cosmid transformation vector pCU3, which contains a dominant selectable marker for hygromycin B resistance. Two cosmids, pSid1 and pSid2, were identified in this library by their ability to complement class II siderophore auxotrophs. The production of both siderophores was concomitantly restored in the majority of the resultant transformants. Transforming DNA could be recovered from the fungal, cosmid-containing transformants by in vitro packaging with lambda bacteriophage extracts. Alternatively, the clones could be identified by a sib selection procedure. Cotransformation was found to occur at a high frequency in the fungus and was used to determine that a 2.5-kilobase HindIII-NruI fragment in pSid1 was responsible for complementing the class II siderophore biosynthetic mutation.
A System-Level Control Strategy of Photovoltaic Grid-Tied Generation Systems for European Efficiency Enhancement

A European efficiency enhancement strategy for the grid-tied inverters with common dc bus and ac bus in parallel operation is proposed in this paper. Based on the inherent relationship between the dc bus voltage and the grid-feeding power, two dc bus voltage regulators with different output limits are employed in each grid-tied inverter. The operation of the dc bus voltage regulators depends on the grid-feeding power level. Therefore, the grid-tied inverter has priority up to the maximum efficiency operation point, and then, to operate at full load mode with the increase of the grid-feeding power. As a result, the European efficiency of the grid-tied system is improved without any communication link and extra hardware cost. The operation principle of the grid-tied inverter system is analyzed in detail with the implementation of the proposed control, and the design guidelines for key parameters are given and discussed. A prototype with three grid-tied inverters in parallel operation is built and experimental tests have been conducted on it in terms of steady-state performances and dynamic performances. The experimental results show that the operation modes of each grid-tied inverter depend on its sensing gain of the dc bus voltage. The European efficiency of the grid-tied inverter system with the conventional control and with the proposed control are 94.74% and 95.17%, respectively, which means the European efficiency has been enhanced by 0.43%. These results verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.
Towards the Fitting of Parametric 2D Sketches and 3D CAD Models to Point Clouds of Digitized Assemblies for Reverse Engineering

Following commonly used reverse engineering techniques, it is very difﬁcult to reconstruct editable CAD parts or assemblies that can later be used and modiﬁed in the Product Development Process (PDP). Traditional methods follow a sequential time-consuming patch-by-patch reconstruction strategy with cumbersome procedures in which designers usually have to face many issues (e.g. decomposition in patches, trimming and connection of the patches), and generally producing “dead” models that cannot be later modiﬁed as needed. This paper describes a new reverse engineering technique that allows ﬁtting of parametric CAD parts or an assembly to a reference point cloud to be reconstructed. The proposed ﬁtting method can also be applied to 2D conﬁgurations to adapt a parametric 2D sketch to a 2D point cloud section. The idea is to use a parametric CAD model or a parametric 2D sketch in an optimization algorithm allowing their perfect ﬁtting into the point cloud of a scanned mechanical assembly for efﬁcient reconstruction of good quality CAD models. Some well-known algorithms like ICP are also used to derive the orientation and position of pre-arranged CAD model or 2D sketch throughout the ﬁtting process. Both global and local ﬁttings are possible. The consistency of the CAD models is ensured by a modeler which updates the CAD models or 2D sketch according to the iterative dimensional modiﬁcations. The evaluation of the proposed approach is performed using as-scanned virtually generated point cloud.
Treatment with the radiolabeled somatostatin analog [177 Lu-DOTA 0,Tyr3]octreotate: toxicity, efficacy, and survival.

PURPOSE Despite the fact that most gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEPNETs) are slow-growing, median overall survival (OS) in patients with liver metastases is 2 to 4 years. In metastatic disease, cytoreductive therapeutic options are limited. A relatively new therapy is peptide receptor radionuclide therapy with the radiolabeled somatostatin analog [(177)Lu-DOTA(0),Tyr(3)]octreotate. Here we report on the toxicity and efficacy of this treatment, performed in over 500 patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS Patients were treated up to a cumulative dose of 750 to 800 mCi (27.8-29.6 GBq), usually in four treatment cycles, with treatment intervals of 6 to 10 weeks. Toxicity analysis was done in 504 patients, and efficacy analysis in 310 patients. RESULTS Any hematologic toxicity grade 3 or 4 occurred after 3.6% of administrations. Serious adverse events that were likely attributable to the treatment were myelodysplastic syndrome in three patients, and temporary, nonfatal, liver toxicity in two patients. Complete and partial tumor remissions occurred in 2% and 28% of 310 GEPNET patients, respectively. Minor tumor response (decrease in size > 25% and < 50%) occurred in 16%. Median time to progression was 40 months. Median OS from start of treatment was 46 months, median OS from diagnosis was 128 months. Compared with historical controls, there was a survival benefit of 40 to 72 months from diagnosis. CONCLUSION Treatment with [(177)Lu-DOTA(0),Tyr(3)]octreotate has few adverse effects. Tumor response rates and progression-free survival compare favorably to the limited number of alternative treatment modalities. Compared with historical controls, there is a benefit in OS from time of diagnosis of several years.
Towards Diverse Anime Face Generation: Active Label Completion and Style Feature Network

It is interesting to use an anime face as personal virtual image to replace the traditional sequence code. To generate diverse anime faces, this paper proposes a style-gender based anime GAN (SGA-GAN), where the gender is directly conditioned to ensure the gender differentiation, and style features serve as a condition to guarantee the style diversity. To extract style features, we train a style feature network (SFN) as a multi-task classiﬁer to simultaneously fulﬁll gender classiﬁcation, style classiﬁcation, and image quality estimation. To make full use of available data, partly labeled or unlabeled, during the SFN training, we propose a label completion method to actively complete the missing gender or style labels. The active label completion is essentially a weakly-supervised learning process through ensembling three distinct classiﬁers to improve the generalization capability. Experiments verify that the active label completion can improve the model accuracy and the style feature as a condition can make better the diversity of generated anime faces.
PAK1-mediated activation of ERK1/2 regulates lamellipodial dynamics

PAK1 is a member of the p21-activated kinase (PAK) family of serine/threonine kinases that are activated by the Rho GTPases Rac and Cdc42, and are implicated in regulating morphological polarity, cell migration and adhesion. Here we investigate the function of PAK1 in cell motility using macrophages derived from PAK1-null mice. We show that CSF1, a macrophage chemoattractant, transiently stimulates PAK1 and MAPK activation, and that MAPK activation is reduced in PAK1–/– macrophages. PAK1 regulates the dynamics of lamellipodium extension as cells spread in response to adhesion but is not essential for macrophage migration or chemotaxis towards CSF1. Following adhesion, PAK1–/– macrophages spread more rapidly and have more lamellipodia than wild-type cells; however, these lamellipodia were less stable than those in wild-type macrophages. ERK1/2 activity was reduced in PAK1–/– macrophages during adhesion, and inhibition of ERK1/2 activation in wild-type macrophages was sufficient to increase the spread area and mimic the lamellipodial dynamics of PAK1–/– macrophages. Together, these data indicate that PAK1 signals via ERK1/2 to regulate lamellipodial stability.
Cloning and Expression of a Helicobacter bilis Immunoreactive Protein

ABSTRACT In an effort to identify immunoreactive Helicobacter bilis antigens with potential for serodiagnosis, sera from mice experimentally infected with H. bilis were used to screen an H. bilis genomic DNA expression library. Among 17 immunoreactive clones, several contained sequences that encoded a predicted 167-kDa protein (P167). Five overlapping P167 peptides (P167A to P167E) of approximately 40 kDa each were generated and tested. Immune sera reacted with fragments P167C and P167D at dilutions of 1:1,600 and 1:6,400, respectively, and reacted with an H. bilis membrane extract at a dilution of 1:800 in an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Sera from mice experimentally infected with H. hepaticus did not react with P167C and P167D. Sera from mice naturally infected with H. bilis but not sera from mice naturally infected with H. hepaticus reacted with P167C and P167D. Hyperimmune sera against P167C peptide reacted with recombinant P167C and with a 120-kDa band in H. bilis lysates but did not react with a protein of the same size on immunoblots prepared from H. hepaticus, H. muridarum, or unrelated Borrelia burgdorferi and Campylobacter jejuni whole-cell lysates. Nevertheless, the P167A, P167B, P167C, and P167D primers, but not the P167E primers, amplified DNA from H. hepaticus, and all five primer sets amplified DNA from H. muridarum. These results suggest that P167 is an immunodominant, H. bilis-specific antigen that may have potential for use in serodiagnosis.
Cardiorespiratory and thermoregulatory response of working in fire-fighter protective clothing in a temperate environment

The cardiorespiratory and thermal responses of two intensities of treadmill exercise were compared for brief periods (12 min) in fire ensemble (FE) but without self contained breathing apparatus, and sports ensemble (SE), in a temperature environment. A further experiment explored the responses of subjects exercising in FE over a prolonged period (60 min). Eighteen male firefighters wearing either FE or SE walked on a level treadmill for 6 min at 5 km.h-1 increasing to 7 km.h-1 for 6 min. Following a recovery interval of 1 h, the exercise protocol was repeated in the second ensemble; the order of ensemble was balanced. Heart rate (HR), rectal temperature (Tre ), VO 2max and rating of perceived exertion (RPE) were monitored continuously under both ensembles. At 7 km.h-1, VO 2 was significantly higher (p<0.05) in FE (36.1 and 39.9 ml.kg-1.min-1) than in SE and represented 74% V O2 max. There were no changes T re. In experiment 2, following a rest interval of at least 36 h, eight subjects in FE walked on the treadmill at 6 km.h -1 (gradient 10%) for 60 min also in temperate conditions, where HR, T re and R PE were recorded at 10-min intervals. During the 60-min exercise in FE, HR reached 161 beats.min -1 and T re increased to 38.38°C. Despite considerable subject discomfort, T re remained below dangerous levels (38.48°C). When R PE were compared with a physiological strain index (PSI) calculated from T re and HR data over 60 min, there was no significant difference (p <0.05) with a correlation coefficient (r) of 0.98. The results suggest that R PE and PSI are closely related when exercise is sufficiently prolonged or intense to elevate T re and HR in fire-fighters wearing FE in temperate conditions. If further investigation confirms this relationship for hot humid conditions in which fire-fighters operate, then with training, it may provide individuals with a valid measure of dangerous levels of perceived heat strain.
Hybrid Function Representation with Distance Properties

This paper describes a novel framework allowing for a hybrid representation of heterogeneous objects. We consider the advantages and drawbacks of the conventional representations based on scalar fields of different kinds. The main result is introducing a hybrid representation called Hybrid Function Representation (HFRep) that preserves the advantages of the Function Representation (FRep) and Signed Distance Fields (SDFs) without their drawbacks. This new representation allows for obtaining a continuous smooth distance field in the Euclidean space for the FRep. We present the mathematical basics for our approach that uses the Discrete Distance Transform (DDT) and a step-function. The procedure for generation HFRep using continuous interpolation and smoothing techniques are also described. A few examples show how the approach works in practice.
Asteroid Escape: A Serious Game to Foster Teamwork Abilities

Teamwork skills have become a fundamental asset in the labor market. Modern organizations are increasingly implementing team building activities, aimed to improve or assess their employees’ skills. Research suggests that serious games could be promising tools capable to support the creation of engaging and effective team building experiences. However, the design and development of serious games targeting these activities is still sparse and requires further investigation. This work introduces Asteroid Escape , an immersive serious game for team building, whose design was based on theoretical models on teamwork effectiveness. Although conducted on a restricted user sample, preliminary experiments suggest that tools like the devised one could positively contribute to ongoing research and implementation efforts targeting the exploitation of technology-enhanced learning methods for the development of teamwork skills and, more in general, of so-called soft skills.
Making Gabor Noise Fast and Normalized

Gabor Noise is a powerful procedural texture synthesis technique, but it has two major drawbacks: It is costly due to the high required splat density and not always predictable because properties of instances can differ from those of the process. We bench performance and quality using alternatives for each Gabor Noise ingredient: point distribution, kernel weighting and kernel shape. For this, we introduce 3 objective criteria to measure process convergence, process stationarity, and instance stationarity. We show that minor implementation changes allow for 17-24x speed-up with same or better quality.
Font Specificity

We explore the concept of “image speciﬁcity” for fonts and introduce the notion of “font speciﬁcity”. The idea is that a font that elicits consistent descriptions from different people are more “speciﬁc”. We collect speciﬁcity-based data for fonts where participants are given each font and asked to describe it with words. We then analyze the data and characterize the qualitative features that make a font “speciﬁc”. Finally, we show that the notion of font speciﬁcity can be learned and demonstrate some speciﬁcity-guided applications.
Substance Abuse Treatment for Adolescents: How are Family Factors Related to Substance Use Change?

Abstract Parental involvement in adolescents' substance abuse treatment is highly recommended, even though the mechanisms explaining how this favors youths' recovery are not well understood. The present study examines the association between (1) changes in adolescents' substance use and parenting practices, as measured by adolescent self-disclosure and parental warmth; (2) changes in mothers' mental health and their parenting practices, and (3) parental use of services offered by substance abuse treatment centres, parenting practices and adolescent substance use. In total, 147 adolescents and 69 mothers participated in this study. Participants were assessed upon adolescent admission into treatment, as well as at three- and six-month follow-up. Results show an association between improved maternal mental health and greater parental warmth, as perceived by adolescents. In addition, greater parental use of treatment services was found to be associated with greater adolescent self-disclosure and greater reduction of adolescent substance use. Finally, greater adolescent self-disclosure and parental warmth were both associated with lower adolescent substance use. These findings underscore the need to facilitate parents' access to and involvement in treatment of adolescents. The parent-adolescent relationship and the mental health of parents are essential aspects to consider for interventions.
Perceptual Characteristics by Motion Style Category

Motion style is important as it characterizes a motion by expressing the context of the motion such as emotion and personality. Yet, the perception and interpretation of motion styles is subjective and may vary greatly from person to person. This paper investigates the perceptual characteristics of motion styles for a wide range of styles. After categorizing the motion styles, we perform user studies to examine the diversity of interpretations of motion styles and the association level between style motions and their corresponding text descriptions. Our study shows that motion styles have different interpretation diversity and association level according to their categories. We discuss the implications of these ﬁndings and recommend a method of labeling or describing motion styles
A 3D CAD Assembly Benchmark

Evaluating the effectiveness of the systems for the retrieval of 3D assembly models is not trivial. CAD assembly models can be considered similar according to different criteria and at different levels (i.e. globally or partially). Indeed, besides the shape criterion, CAD assembly models have further characteristic elements, such as the mutual position of parts, or the type of connecting joint. Thus, when retrieving 3D models, these characteristics can match in the entire model (globally) or just in local subparts (partially). The available 3D model repositories do not include complex CAD assembly models and, generally, they are suitable to evaluate one characteristic at a time and neglecting important properties in the evaluation of assembly similarity. In this paper, we present a benchmark for the evaluation of content-retrieval systems of 3D assembly models. A crucial feature of this benchmark regards its ability to consider the various aspects characterizing the models of mechanical assemblies.
Planar Abstraction and Inverse Rendering of 3D Indoor Environments

Scanning and acquiring a 3D indoor environment suffers from complex occlusions and misalignment errors. The reconstruction obtained from an RGB-D scanner contains holes in geometry and ghosting in texture. These are easily noticeable and cannot be considered as visually compelling VR content without further processing. On the other hand, the well-known Manhattan World priors successfully recreate relatively simple structures. In this article, we would like to push the limit of planar representation in indoor environments. Given an initial 3D reconstruction captured by an RGB-D sensor, we use planes not only to represent the environment geometrically but also to solve an inverse rendering problem considering texture and light. The complex process of shape inference and intrinsic imaging is greatly simplified with the help of detected planes and yet produces a realistic 3D indoor environment. The generated content can adequately represent the spatial arrangements for various AR/VR applications and can be readily composited with virtual objects possessing plausible lighting and texture.
Shape Correspondence with Isometric and Non-Isometric Deformations

The registration of surfaces with non-rigid deformation, especially non-isometric deformations, is a challenging problem. When applying such techniques to real scans, the problem is compounded by topological and geometric inconsistencies between shapes. In this paper, we capture a benchmark dataset of scanned 3D shapes undergoing various controlled deformations (articulating, bending, stretching and topologically changing), along with ground truth correspondences. With the aid of this tiered benchmark of increasingly challenging real scans, we explore this problem and investigate how robust current state-of-the-art methods perform in different challenging registration and correspondence scenarios. We discover that changes in topology is a challenging problem for some methods and that machine learning-based