Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intellimote: a hybrid classifier for classifying learners' emotion in a distributed e-learning environment

A huge collection of textual, graphical, audio, and video contents are readily available on the Internet to be used for the purpose of learning. Sentimental feedbacks of learners posted at the end of many of these contents may be considered as genuine reactions of the learners who have gone through the contents. Such learners’ sentiments are important inputs for judging the acceptability of a learning material. Analyzing such feedbacks using sentiment analysis techniques can identify the best reusable learning contents that may be used for developing new courseware. This can significantly reduce the time and effort of authoring, which is otherwise a difficult, time-consuming, and costly affair. This methodology can also be used for continuous assessment on the learning materials released for use. This paper presents a machine learning-based approach for emotion analysis in e-learning materials. It describes the design and experimental use of a sentiment analysis classifier that uses classifier combination rules to combine polarity scoring and a support vector machine (SVM). The present approach also gives an opportunity for users to train a lexicon on a very specialized set of data, pertaining to the domain of usage. This helps either to enhance polarity scores of certain words that appear more frequently or to add words that are completely missing from the lexicon, and contributes a great deal in determining the polarity scores.
Detection of equine infectious anaemia virus in native Japanese ponies

EQUINE infectious anaemia (EIA) is a persistent infectious disease of horses caused by Equine infectious anaemia virus (EIAV), a member of the lentivirus subfamily (Linial and others 2005). EIAV causes acute, chronic and subclinical diseases in horses characterised by repeated recurrence of febrile attacks, anaemia, ventral oedema, anorexia and weight loss. Like human immunodeficiency virus and other lentiviruses, EIAV causes a lifelong persistent infection (Montelaro and others 1993). The virus appearing in recurrent fever bouts is an antigenically variant virus, which cannot be neutralised by an antibody produced before recrudescence (Kono and others 1973). Sporadic outbreaks of EIA have been recently reported in several European countries (Quinlivan and others 2007, Cappelli and others 2011). The latest EIA outbreak was reported in 1993 in the Iwate prefecture of Japan and no EIA has been identified since (Animal Hygiene Weekly 45(19): p145, 1993, issued by Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Japan). However, two native Japanese ponies of the Misaki breed, (No. 1: two-year-old male from Miyazaki prefecture and No. 2: five-year-old gelding from Fukuoka prefecture) were found to be serially affected with EIA in March and April, 2011 in Japan (Fig 1) (OIE 2011). Although the ponies were housed independently in different locations, Miyazaki and Fukuoka prefectures, both had originated from Cape Toi (Toimisaki), Kushima, Miyazaki. Diagnosis of infection with EIAV was based on the detection of EIAV-specific serum antibody using the agar gel immunodiffusion …
RNA Silencing of Dengue Virus Type 2 Replication in Transformed C6/36 Mosquito Cells Transcribing an Inverted-Repeat RNA Derived from the Virus Genome

ABSTRACT Double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) initiates cellular posttranscriptional responses that are collectively called RNA silencing in a number of different organisms, including plants, nematodes, and fruit flies. In plants, RNA silencing has been associated with protection from virus infection. In this study, we demonstrate that dsRNA-mediated interference also can act as a viral defense mechanism in mosquito cells. C6/36 (Aedes albopictus) cells were stably transformed with a plasmid designed to transcribe an inverted-repeat RNA (irRNA) derived from the genome of dengue virus type 2 (DEN-2) capable of forming dsRNA. Clonal cell lines were selected with an antibiotic resistance marker and challenged with DEN-2. The cell lines were classified as either susceptible or resistant to virus replication, based on the percentage of cells expressing DEN-2 envelope (E) antigen 7 days after challenge. Eight out of 18 (44%) cell lines designed to express irRNA were resistant to DEN-2 challenge, with more than 95% of the cells showing no DEN-2 antigen accumulation. One of the DEN-2-resistant cell lines, FB 9.1, was further characterized. DEN-2 genome RNA failed to accumulate in FB 9.1 cells after challenge. Northern blot hybridization detected transcripts containing transgene sequences of both sense and antisense polarity, suggesting that DEN-2-specific dsRNA was present in the cells. In addition, a class of small RNAs 21 to 25 nucleotides in length was detected that specifically hybridized to labeled sense or antisense DEN-2 RNA derived from the target region of the genome. These observations were consistent with RNA silencing as the mechanism of resistance to DEN-2 in transformed mosquito cells.
Soybean Inventory and Forward Curve Dynamics

We present two results concerning soybean prices. First, we exhibit a simple relationship between stocks and price volatility. The observation of an increasing price volatility with decreasing inventory is often mentioned in the literature, but has so far been documented using a proxy for inventory (see Fama and French 1987, 1988; Litzenberger and Rabinowitz 1995). Instead, we reconstruct a yearly, quarterly, and monthly database of worldwide soybean inventories using aggregate data from the United States, Brazil, and Argentina. We show that under all time scales, price volatility is an increasing linear function of inverse inventory, which we term "scarcity. " Second, we show how the addition of the factor scarcity in a state-variable approach to the dynamics of the term structure of soybean forward prices improves the quality of the fit. We document this property on a 25-year database of CBOT futures contracts and show that the superior accuracy also affects long-maturity futures contracts, an important property for the valuation of long-term origination contracts between producing countries and the agrifood industry.
Evolving Techniques for Mitral Valve Reconstruction

ObjectiveTo analyze the effectiveness of new techniques of mitral valve reconstruction (MVR) that have evolved over the last decade, such as aggressive anterior leaflet repair and minimally invasive surgery using an endoaortic balloon occluder. Summary Background DataMVR via conventional sternotomy has been an established treatment for mitral insufficiency for over 20 years, primarily for the treatment of patients with posterior leaflet prolapse. MethodsBetween June 1980 and June 2001, 1,195 consecutive patients had MVR with ring annuloplasty. Conventional sternotomy was used in 843 patients, minimally invasive surgery in 352 (since June 1996). Anterior leaflet repair was performed in 374 patients, with increasing use over the last 10 years. Follow-up was 100% complete (mean 4.6 years, range 0.5–20.5). ResultsHospital mortality was 4.7% overall and 1.4% for isolated MVR (1.1% for minimally invasive surgery vs. 1.6% for conventional sternotomy;P = .4). Multivariate analysis showed the factors predictive of increased operative risk to be age, NYHA functional class, concomitant procedures, and previous cardiac surgery. The 5-year results for freedom from cardiac death, reoperation, and valve-related complications among the 782 patients with degenerative etiology are, respectively, as follows (P > .05 for all end points): for anterior leaflet repair, 93%, 94%, 90%; for no anterior leaflet repair, 91%, 92%, 91%; for minimally invasive surgery, 97%, 89%, 93%; and for conventional sternotomy, 93%, 94%, 90%. ConclusionsThese findings indicate that late results of MVR after minimally invasive surgery and after anterior leaflet repair are equivalent to those achievable with conventional sternotomy and posterior leaflet repair. These options significantly expand the range of patients suitable for mitral valve repair surgery and give further evidence to support wider use of minimally invasive techniques.
Brain Ischemia Significantly Alters microRNA Expression in Human Peripheral Blood Natural Killer Cells

Brain ischemia induces systemic immunosuppression and increases a host's susceptibility to infection. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are molecular switches in immune cells, but the alterations of miRNAs in human immune cells in response to brain ischemia and their impact on immune defense remain elusive. Natural killer (NK) cells are critical for early host defenses against pathogens. In this study, we identified reduced counts, cytokine production, and cytotoxicity in human peripheral blood NK cells obtained from patients with acute ischemic stroke. The extent of NK cell loss of number and activity was associated with infarct volume. MicroRNA sequencing analysis revealed that brain ischemia significantly altered miRNA expression profiles in circulating NK cells, in which miRNA-451a and miRNA-122-5p were dramatically upregulated. Importantly, inhibition of miR-451a or miR-122-5p augmented the expression of activation-associated receptors in NK cells. These results provide the first evidence that brain ischemia alters miRNA signatures in human NK cells.
On the stochastic properties of single ion channels

It is desirable to be able to predict, from a specified mechanism, the appearance of currents that flow through single ion channels (a) to enable interpretation of experiments in which single channel currents are observed, and (b) to allow physical meaning to be attached to the results observed in kinetic (noise and relaxation) experiments in which the aggregate of many single channel currents is observed. With this object, distributions (and their means) are derived for the length of the sojourn in any specified subset of states (e. g. all shut states). In general these are found to depend not only on the state in which the sojourn starts, but also on the state that immediately follows the sojourn. The methods described allow derivation of the distribution of, for example, (a) the number of openings, and total length of the burst of openings, that may occur during a single occupancy, and (b) the apparent gap between such bursts. The methods are illustrated by their application to two simple theories of agonist action. The Castillo-Katz (non-cooperative) mechanism predicts, for example, that the number of openings per occupancy, and the apparent burst length, are independent of agonist concentration whereas a simple cooperative mechanism predicts that both will increase with agonist concentration.
Spectral Analysis of the Left and Right Hand Radial Artery Doppler Signals using the Welch Method to Diagnose Rheumatoid Arthritis Disease

In this study, 40 healthy control group and 40 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and Doppler signal from radial artery of the left and right hand were recorded. This non-parametric Welch Periodogram method to signal attributes of the signs were removed and the artificial neural network (ANN) classification method was utilized in order to recognize diseased and healthy control group individuals. Then, multilayer feed forward ANN trained with a Levenberg Marquardt (LM) back propagation algorithm was applied to lineament extracted from left and right hand Radial artery Doppler signals for classifying RA disease. The combination of Welch Periodogram method with ANN achieved the classification accuracies of 91.25 % left hand and 90 % right hand Radial artery Doppler signals in the diagnosis of RA disease. Radial artery left hand and right hand for the ROC curves and AUC values were calculated. DAS 28 for RA showing the extent of disease, classification of result values was correlated with each other. The suggested approach in this study is of potential to help with the early diagnosis of RA disease for the specialists who dealing with this subject. Keywords— Rheumatoid Arthritis, Radial Artery, Welch Periodogram Method, Artificial Neural Networks, Back Propagation Algorithm of LM
Dicer- and Bulge Stem Cell-Dependent MicroRNAs During Induced Anagen Hair Follicle Development

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a major class of conserved non-coding RNAs that have a wide range of functions during development and disease. Biogenesis of canonical miRNAs depend on the cytoplasmic processing of pre-miRNAs to mature miRNAs by the Dicer endoribonuclease. Once mature miRNAs are generated, the miRNA-induced silencing complex (miRISC), or miRISC, incorporates one strand of miRNAs as a template for recognizing complementary target messenger RNAs (mRNAs) to dictate post-transcriptional gene expression. Besides regulating miRNA biogenesis, Dicer is also part of miRISC to assist in activation of the complex. Dicer associates with other regulatory miRISC co-factors such as trans-activation responsive RNA-binding protein 2 (Tarbp2) to regulate miRNA-based RNA interference. Although the functional role of miRNAs within epidermal keratinocytes has been extensively studied within embryonic mouse skin, its contribution to the normal function of hair follicle bulge stem cells (BSCs) during post-natal hair follicle development is unclear. With this question in mind, we sought to ascertain whether Dicer-Tarpb2 plays a functional role within BSCs during induced anagen development by utilizing conditional knockout mouse models. Our findings suggest that Dicer, but not Tarbp2, functions within BSCs to regulate induced anagen (growth phase) development of post-natal hair follicles. These findings strengthen our understanding of miRNA-dependency within hair follicle cells during induced anagen development.
Dependency Distance Differences across Interpreting Types: Implications for Cognitive Demand

Interpreting is generally recognized as a particularly demanding language processing task for the cognitive system. Dependency distance, the linear distance between two syntactically related words in a sentence, is an index of sentence complexity and is also able to reflect the cognitive constraints during various tasks. In the current research, we examine the difference in dependency distance among three interpreting types, namely, simultaneous interpreting, consecutive interpreting and read-out translated speech based on a treebank comprising these types of interpreting output texts with dependency annotation. Results show that different interpreting renditions yield different dependency distances, and consecutive interpreting texts entail the smallest dependency distance other than those of simultaneous interpreting and read-out translated speech, suggesting that consecutive interpreting bears heavier cognitive demands than simultaneous interpreting. The current research suggests for the first time that interpreting is an extremely demanding cognitive task that can further mediate the dependency distance of output sentences. Such findings may be due to the minimization of dependency distance under cognitive constraints.
Effects of a Controlled Diet Supplemented with Chickpeas on Serum Lipids, Glucose Tolerance, Satiety and Bowel Function

Objective: To compare the effect of a diet supplemented with chickpeas to a wheat-based diet of similar fibre content on serum lipids, glucose tolerance, satiety and bowel function. A third, lower-fibre wheat diet provided further information on dietary fibre quantity and bowel function and satiety. Method: Twenty-seven free-living adults followed two randomized, crossover dietary interventions each of five weeks duration. The chickpea diet included canned drained chickpeas, bread and shortbread biscuits containing 30% chickpea flour. The wheat diet included high-fibre wheat breakfast cereals and wholemeal bread. The diets were isoenergetic to the participants’ usual diet, matched for macronutrient content and controlled for dietary fibre. Following on from the second randomised intervention, a sub-group of 18 participants underwent a third, isoenergetic lower-fibre wheat diet that included low-fibre breakfast cereals and bread. Results: Repeated measures ANOVA revealed reductions in serum TC of 0.25 mmol/L (p < 0.01) and LDL-C of 0.20 mmol/L (p = 0.02) following the chickpea diet compared to the wheat. An unintended significant increase in PUFA and corresponding decrease in MUFA consumption occurred during the chickpea diet and statistical adjustment for this reduced but did not eliminate the effect on serum lipids. There was no significant difference in glucose tolerance. Perceived general bowel health improved significantly during the chickpea diet although there was considerable individual variation. Some participants reported greater satiety during the chickpea diet. Conclusions: The small but significant decrease in serum TC and LDL-C during the chickpea diet compared to the equivalent fibre wheat diet was partly due to unintentional changes in macronutrient intake occurring because of chickpea ingestion. If dietary energy and macronutrients were not controlled, chickpea consumption might result in greater benefits via influence on these factors.
A Multiple Indicators Model for Volatility Using Intra-Daily Data

Many ways exist to measure and model financial asset volatility. In principle, as the frequency of the data increases, the quality of forecasts should improve. Yet, there is no consensus about a true' or best' measure of volatility. In this paper we propose to jointly consider absolute daily returns, daily high-low range and daily realized volatility to develop a forecasting model based on their conditional dynamics. As all are non-negative series, we develop a multiplicative error model that is consistent and asymptotically normal under a wide range of specifications for the error density function. The estimation results show significant interactions between the indicators. We also show that one-month-ahead forecasts match well (both in and out of sample) the market-based volatility measure provided by an average of implied volatilities of index options as measured by VIX.
Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) Derivatives: Innovative Conductive Polymers for Bioelectronics

Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)s are the conducting polymers (CP) with the biggest prospects in the field of bioelectronics due to their combination of characteristics (conductivity, stability, transparency and biocompatibility). The gold standard material is the commercially available poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS). However, in order to well connect the two fields of biology and electronics, PEDOT:PSS presents some limitations associated with its low (bio)functionality. In this review, we provide an insight into the synthesis and applications of innovative poly(ethylenedioxythiophene)-type materials for bioelectronics. First, we present a detailed analysis of the different synthetic routes to (bio)functional dioxythiophene monomer/polymer derivatives. Second, we focus on the preparation of PEDOT dispersions using different biopolymers and biomolecules as dopants and stabilizers. To finish, we review the applications of innovative PEDOT-type materials such as biocompatible conducting polymer layers, conducting hydrogels, biosensors, selective detachment of cells, scaffolds for tissue engineering, electrodes for electrophysiology, implantable electrodes, stimulation of neuronal cells or pan-bio electronics.
A protein secretion system linked to bacteroidete gliding motility and pathogenesis

Porphyromonas gingivalis secretes strong proteases called gingipains that are implicated in periodontal pathogenesis. Protein secretion systems common to other Gram-negative bacteria are lacking in P. gingivalis, but several proteins, including PorT, have been linked to gingipain secretion. Comparative genome analysis and genetic experiments revealed 11 additional proteins involved in gingipain secretion. Six of these (PorK, PorL, PorM, PorN, PorW, and Sov) were similar in sequence to Flavobacterium johnsoniae gliding motility proteins, and two others (PorX and PorY) were putative two-component system regulatory proteins. Real-time RT-PCR analysis revealed that porK, porL, porM, porN, porP, porT, and sov were down-regulated in P. gingivalis porX and porY mutants. Disruption of the F. johnsoniae porT ortholog resulted in defects in motility, chitinase secretion, and translocation of a gliding motility protein, SprB adhesin, to the cell surface, providing a link between a unique protein translocation system and a motility apparatus in members of the Bacteroidetes phylum.
Optimal protein structure alignments by multiple linkage clustering: application to distantly related proteins.

A fully automatic procedure for aligning two protein structures is presented. It uses as sole structural similarity measure the root mean square (r.m.s.) deviation of superimposed backbone atoms (N, C alpha, C and O) and is designed to yield optimal solutions with respect to this measure. In a first step, the procedure identifies protein segments with similar conformations in both proteins. In a second step, a novel multiple linkage clustering algorithm is used to identify segment combinations which yield optimal global structure alignments. Several structure alignments can usually be obtained for a given pair of proteins, which are exploited here to define automatically the common structural core of a protein family. Furthermore, an automatic analysis of the clustering trees is described which enables detection of rigid-body movements between structure elements. To illustrate the performance of our procedure, we apply it to families of distantly related proteins. One groups the three alpha + beta proteins ubiquitin, ferredoxin and the B1-domain of protein G. Their common structure motif consists of four beta-strands and the only alpha-helix, with one strand and the helix being displaced as a rigid body relative to the remaining three beta-strands. The other family consists of beta-proteins from the Greek key group, in particular actinoxanthin, the immunoglobulin variable domain and plastocyanin. Their consensus motif, composed of five beta-strands and a turn, is identified, mostly intact, in all Greek key proteins except the trypsins, and interestingly also in three other beta-protein families, the lipocalins, the neuraminidases and the lectins. This result provides new insights into the evolutionary relationships in the very diverse group of all beta-proteins.
Direct cloning into the Autographa californica nuclear polyhedrosis virus for generation of recombinant baculoviruses.

The insect virus, Autographa californica nuclear polyhedrosis virus (AcMNPV), is the prototype of the family Baculoviridae (1). The genome consists of a double-stranded, circular, supercoiled DNA molecule of 128,000 base pairs (2) which codes for about 80 genes. The first reports of the use of AcMNPV as an expression vector were published by Smith et al. (3) and Pennock al. Recombinant viruses are usually constructed by in vivo homologous recombination of viral DNA and suitable transfer plasmids (5 - 13), containing the target gene and flanking viral sequences. To facilitate the identification and isolation of the recombinant virus, reporter genes have been included in the transfer vectors (14, 15). Also, linearized viral DNA (16) and linearized viral deletion mutants (17) have been described to dramatically increase the proportion of recombinant virus. baculoviruses