Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ribonuclease III mechanisms of double-stranded RNA cleavage

Double‐stranded(ds) RNA has diverse roles in gene expression and regulation, host defense, and genome surveillance in bacterial and eukaryotic cells. A central aspect of dsRNA function is its selective recognition and cleavage by members of the ribonuclease III (RNase III) family of divalent‐metal‐ion‐dependent phosphodiesterases. The processing of dsRNA by RNase III family members is an essential step in the maturation and decay of coding and noncoding RNAs, including miRNAs and siRNAs. RNase III, as first purified from Escherichia coli, has served as a biochemically well‐characterized prototype, and other bacterial orthologs provided the first structural information. RNase III family members share a unique fold (RNase III domain) that can dimerize to form a structure that binds dsRNA and cleaves phosphodiesters on each strand, providing the characteristic 2 nt, 3′‐overhang product ends. Ongoing studies are uncovering the functions of additional domains, including, inter alia, the dsRNA‐binding and PAZ domains that cooperate with the RNase III domain to select target sites, regulate activity, confer processivity, and support the recognition of structurally diverse substrates. RNase III enzymes function in multicomponent assemblies that are regulated by diverse inputs, and at least one RNase III‐related polypeptide can function as a noncatalytic, dsRNA‐binding protein. This review summarizes the current knowledge of the mechanisms of catalysis and target site selection of RNase III family members, and also addresses less well understood aspects of these enzymes and their interactions with dsRNA. WIREs RNA 2014, 5:31–48. doi: 10.1002/wrna.1195
The role of defense mechanisms and hope on change in negative affect

Research has attempted to improve therapeutic outcomes and help clients cope with negative events. Psychoanalytic theory uses defense mechanisms to explain the unconscious ways in which people cope. Hope is another concept commonly studied by clinical psychologists to better explain people’s varying ability to cope. This study looked at how individual defense mechanisms and hope influence change in negative affect following recollection of two events, one academic and one relational, that resulted in negative outcomes during the past year. Negative affect was measured before and after recall to measure affective change. Multiple regression analyses were calculated to measure the main effects of hope and individual defense mechanisms (projection, isolation, altruism, and anticipation) on change in negative affect. Results showed that hope had a main effect in all regressions, with higher hope resulting in lower levels of negative affect at time two. Projection was the only defense mechanism that had a main effect, with higher levels of projection leading to higher levels of negative affect. While psychodynamic theory emphasizes the importance of individual defense mechanisms in coping, these results suggest that only certain defense mechanisms have a role in change in negative affect. While more research is needed, this could suggest that coping may have less to do with defense style and more to do with hope.
Cultivation and Serological Characterization of a Human Theiler's-Like Cardiovirus Associated with Diarrheal Disease

ABSTRACT Cardioviruses (e.g., Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis virus [TMEV]) are members of the Picornaviridae family that cause myocarditis and encephalitis in rodents. Recently, several studies have identified human cardioviruses, including Saffold virus (SAFV) and a related virus named human TMEV-like cardiovirus (HTCV). At least eight cardiovirus genotypes are now recognized, with SAFV and most strains of HTCV belonging to genotypes 1 and 2, respectively; genotype 2 strains are the most common in the population. Although a genotype 3 cardiovirus has recently been cultured (SAFV-3), the genotype 1 and 2 cardioviruses have been difficult to propagate in vitro, hindering efforts to understand their seroprevalence and pathogenicity. Here we present the isolation and characterization of a genotype 2 human cardiovirus (HTCV-UC6). Notably, successful cultivation of HTCV-UC6 from stool required the addition of cytokine-blocking antibodies to interrupt downstream antiviral pathways. Unlike SAFV-3, HTCV-UC6 exhibited slow replication kinetics and demonstrated only a moderate cytopathic effect. Serologic assays revealed that 91% of U.S. adults carry antibodies to the genotype 2 cardioviruses, of which 80% generate neutralizing antibodies, in agreement with previous data showing that cardiovirus infection is widespread in humans. We also demonstrate an acute cardiovirus seroconversion event in a child with diarrhea and vomiting, thus reporting for the first time evidence linking cardiovirus infection to diarrheal disease in humans.
The importance of pegaptanib sodium treatment for patients with vascular active vitreoretinopathy

The aim of the present study was to report the importance of pegaptanib sodium (PGSD) injection treatment for vascular active vitreoretinopathy (VAVR). A total of 82 patients with VAVR diagnosed by increasing subretinal exudation were enrolled and received a single intravitreal injection of PGSD. The efficacies of PGSD for patients with VAVR were analyzed using photography, fluorescein angiography and optical coherence tomography. The pathological changes in vascular activity, amount of exudation and visual acuity between the PGSD, and placebo group were also compared. The results demonstrated that the PGSD injection significantly decreased subretinal exudation and leakage compared with the placebo when assessed using fluorescein angiography in a 12-month follow-up. It was observed that the PGSD injection inhibited inflammatory cytokines interleukin-1β and tumor necrosis factor α for patients with VAVR compared with the placebo. Furthermore, results demonstrated that the average inflammation score and intraocular pressure was significantly decreased compared with the placebo. Visual acuity was improved from 1.3 to 0.7 in the majority of patients in the PGSD group. In conclusion, the outcomes of the present study indicate that the PGSD intravitreal injection is an efficient treatment option for patients with VAVR.
Particle filter framework for salient object detection in videos

Salient object detection in videos is challenging because of the competing motion in the background, resulting from camera tracking an object of interest, or motion of objects in the foreground. The authors present a fast method to detect salient video objects using particle filters, which are guided by spatio-temporal saliency maps and colour feature with the ability to quickly recover from false detections. The proposed method for generating spatial and motion saliency maps is based on comparing local features with dominant features present in the frame. A region is marked salient if there is a large difference between local and dominant features. For spatial saliency, hue and saturation features are used, while for motion saliency, optical flow vectors are used as features. Experimental results on standard datasets for video segmentation and for saliency detection show superior performance over state-of-the-art methods.
Human Milk Oligosaccharides Important for Infant Defense

Human milk is the “gold standard” nutrition for infants. Human milk contains all necessary nutrients needed for infant growth and developments. Human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) are important functional ingredients found in human milk, in addition to standard nutrients. They have complex structure and represent third predominant components in human milk. Functions of HMOs are not fully understood but it is thought that they play an important role in the development of immune system, the prevention of pathogenic infection and, in the modulation of infant gut microbiota. HMOs are indigestible to human digestive enzymes and act as prebiotics. Study shows that HMOs favors promoting the colonisation of Bifidobacteria, which is found to be beneficial and major microbiome in the gut of breast-fed infants. HMOs show anti pathogenic effects and may protect infants from different pathogenic microorganisms such as, Campylobacter jejuni, Campylobacter pylori, Escherichia coli, Vibrio cholera and Rotavirus. HMOs may provide specific and/or non-specific immune defense to infants via various mechanisms. They may shape the growth of intestinal microflora, may prevent the attachment of pathogenic microorganisms to intestinal cells and may influence inflammatory processes by reducing leukocyte binding to endothelial cells. In vivo defense functions of HMOs in the human milk-fed infants have not been established yet. Future research may focus on to elucidate and verify the beneﬁcial effects of HMOs for the breast-fed infant, as well as impact of HMOs to the health of the breast-feeding mother and the composition of other milk components.
The Pragmatic Functions and the Translatability of＂Tayib＂ in Jordanian Spoken Arabic

Discourse markers are functional and meaningful in discourse, as they orient the interlocutors to comprehend the meaning communicated in discourse as a whole. This study aims at studying the pragmatic functions of the Arabic term Tayyib and its cognate Tabb and its translatability in JSA (Jordanian Spoken Arabic). The data analyzed consisted of 18-videotaped dyadic conversations, each conversation lasted for 30 minutes. Discourse analysis, conversation analysis, and relevance theory were employed as a theoretical framework for this study. The study concludes that the discourse marker tayyib and its cognate tabb are functional, and convey ten pragmatic functions in JSA.
Software reliability engineering study of a large-scale telecommunications software system

Software reliability is a crucial performance factor of telecommunications network elements and operational systems. This paper describes the state-of-practice software reliability engineering (SRE) methods that we selected and organized into an SRE framework for use at Bellcore. This framework comprises several SRE methods: determination of a reliability objective for a product, development and use of operational profiles, reliability modeling and estimation (prediction) to manage system testing, estimation of the product's reliability in the field, and subsequent validation of this estimate using actual field data. Reliability modeling involves assessment of several models according to their predictive accuracy and the use of the most accurate model for reliability estimation. We have successfully tested this framework on several pilot projects. As part of these projects, we tested the usefulness of three different reliability modeling tools [the Economic Stop-Test Model (ESTM), Computer-Aided Software Reliability Estimation (CASRE) and Software Reliability Modelling Programs (SRMP)], as well as several different system test time metrics. This paper describes one of these pilot projects, involving a large operational system for networks.
Learning and Adaptation as a Source of Market Failure

In the developed model, without knowing the trading strategies of the other traders in a financial market, traders cannot derive a rational expectations equilibrium. In a dynamic setting, market participants employ learning and adaptation to develop trading strategies to accommodate for this information de ficiency. Model-consistent use of market-based information generally improves price performance. It can also produce episodes of extreme sudden mispricing despite model generated historical support for its use. Simulations examine the impact of information constraints and bounded rationality on general price efficiency and sudden market mispricing.
Breadth-first search and its application to image processing problems

This paper explores the use of breadth-first graph traversal for the processing of digital images. It presents efficient algorithms for eroding, dilating, skeletonizing, and distance-transforming regions. These algorithms work by traversing regions in a breadth-first manner using a queue for storage of unprocessed pixels. They use memory efficiently--pixels are removed from the queue as soon as their processing has been completed--and they process only pixels in the region (and their neighbors), rather than requiring a complete scan of the image. The image is still represented as a pixel matrix in memory; the graph is just a convenient framework for thinking about the algorithms.
Correlation between insulin resistance and serum ghrelin in non-diabetic ankylosing spondylitis patients undergoing anti-TNF-α therapy.

OBJECTIVES To evaluate whether anti-TNF-α therapy (infliximab) administration alters circulating levels of ghrelin, an anti-inflammatory gastric peptide. We also assessed possible associations of circulating ghrelin concentrations with CRP and ESR levels, metabolic syndrome, demographic characteristics and other adipokines in ankylosing spondylitis (AS) patients. METHODS We studied 30 consecutive non-diabetic AS patients, without history of cardiovascular (CV) events, on periodical treatment with infliximab. Serum ghrelin levels were determined immediately prior to and after an infliximab infusion. Correlations of ghrelin serum levels with disease activity, systemic inflammation and metabolic syndrome were assessed. Potential changes in ghrelin concentration following an infusion of infliximab were analysed. RESULTS We observed a negative correlation between ghrelin concentration and insulin resistance (HOMA-IR immediately before infliximab infusion- at time 0 and at the end of infliximab infusion- at time 120') (r=-0.496; p=0.01 at time 0; r=-0.393; p=0.047 at time 120', respectively). We also found a positive correlation with insulin sensitivity (QUICKI) (r=0.415; p=0.035 at time 0; r=0.465; p=0.017 at time 120'). A correlation was found between ghrelin and resistin prior to infliximab infusion (r=0.429; p=0.046), and a negative correlation between serum ghrelin levels at time 0 and triglycerides (r=-0.416; p=0.035). No differences in ghrelin levels according to specific clinical features of the disease were seen. A single infliximab infusion led to mild but not significant increase in ghrelin serum concentration. CONCLUSIONS In AS patients undergoing periodical treatment with anti-TNF-α monoclonal antibody-infliximab a link between insulin resistance and serum ghrelin concentration was observed.
Health‐related quality of life of patients with advanced breast cancer treated with everolimus plus exemestane versus placebo plus exemestane in the phase 3, randomized, controlled, BOLERO‐2 trial

The randomized, controlled BOLERO‐2 (Breast Cancer Trials of Oral Everolimus) trial demonstrated significantly improved progression‐free survival with the use of everolimus plus exemestane (EVE + EXE) versus placebo plus exemestane (PBO + EXE) in patients with advanced breast cancer who developed disease progression after treatment with nonsteroidal aromatase inhibitors. This analysis investigated the treatment effects on health‐related quality of life (HRQOL).
Dirty data vulnerability mitigation by means of sharing management in cache coherence protocols

In this paper, a comprehensive study is firstly conducted to determine the effects of cache coherence protocols on the characteristics of cache memories in current multi-core processors. The main focus of this study is to analyze the effects of coherence protocols on the susceptibility of last level caches. The outcomes of this analysis indicate that differences in handling dirty data items play an important role to make distinction in favor of or against a cache coherence protocol. Based on the results of first step, two efficient schemes are introduced to manage sharing of the dirty data items among different same-level caches. These schemes are built on an effective LRU-based prediction that helps to determine the cores which will access dirty cache blocks in the near future. The proposed schemes leads to about 13% improvement in vulnerability factor, with no performance degradation and with negligible bandwidth overhead compared to previous cache coherence protocols.
Exploring Early and Future Use of DNP Prepared Nurses Within Healthcare Organizations

A strategy to gather data on DNP utilization and impact was designed using Donabedian’s conceptual model and was piloted by surveying chief nursing officers (CNOs) leading Michigan’s public and teaching hospital systems. Few of the responding CNOs reported currently employing DNP-prepared nurses. The majority reported gaps in knowledge related to role expectations and projected outcomes from a DNP-prepared nurse. Nurse leaders should become familiar with the role competencies of the DNP in order to maximize the potential contribution of this new level of care provider to improving care quality and access.
Interpretation of the auto-mutual information rate of decrease in the context of biomedical signal analysis. Application to electroencephalogram recordings

The mutual information (MI) is a measure of both linear and nonlinear dependences. It can be applied to a time series and a time-delayed version of the same sequence to compute the auto-mutual information function (AMIF). Moreover, the AMIF rate of decrease (AMIFRD) with increasing time delay in a signal is correlated with its entropy and has been used to characterize biomedical data. In this paper, we aimed at gaining insight into the dependence of the AMIFRD on several signal processing concepts and at illustrating its application to biomedical time series analysis. Thus, we have analysed a set of synthetic sequences with the AMIFRD. The results show that the AMIF decreases more quickly as bandwidth increases and that the AMIFRD becomes more negative as there is more white noise contaminating the time series. Additionally, this metric detected changes in the nonlinear dynamics of a signal. Finally, in order to illustrate the analysis of real biomedical signals with the AMIFRD, this metric was applied to electroencephalogram (EEG) signals acquired with eyes open and closed and to ictal and non-ictal intracranial EEG recordings.
Audiovisual generation of social attitudes from neutral stimuli

The focus of this study is the generation of expressive audiovisual speech from neutral utterances for 3D virtual actors. Taking into account the segmental and suprasegmental aspects of audiovisual speech, we propose and compare several computational frameworks for the generation of expressive speech and face animation. We notably evaluate a standard frame-based conversion approach with two other methods that postulate the existence of global prosodic audiovisual patterns that are characteristic of social attitudes. The proposed approaches are tested on a database of " Exercises in Style " [1] performed by two semi-professional actors and results are evaluated using crowdsourced perceptual tests. The first test performs a qualitative validation of the animation platform while the second is a comparative study between several expressive speech generation methods. We evaluate how the expressiveness of our audiovisual performances is perceived in comparison to resynthesized original utterances and the outputs of a purely frame-based conversion system.
Releasing the Cheetahs : Organizing the Unplanned in Product Development

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate on the seemingly dichotomy between structure and chaos in the innovation literature. The paper illustrates how organizations simultaneously use rigid plans and remain flexible, by deliberate but unplanned initiations of small temporary teams in order to solve non-predicted problems. This phenomenon is labeled " cheetah teams ". Anchored in three qualitative case studies, the paper analyzes the effects of using cheetah teams to manage the unplanned qualities of product development projects. The conclusion is that effective project planning is built on the assumption that the unplanned will be managed on an ad hoc basis during project execution. Cheetah teams constitute an example of one such ad hoc mechanism.
A Parallel Algorithm for Finding All Pairs κ-Mismatch Maximal Common Substrings

We present an efficient parallel algorithm for the following problem: Given an input collection D of n sequences of total length N, a length threshold f and a mismatch threshold κ, report all κ-mismatch maximal common substrings of length at least f over all pairs of strings in D. This problem is motivated by clustering and assembly applications in computational biology, where D is a collection of millions of short DNA sequences. Sequencing errors and massive size of these datasets necessitate efficient parallel approximate sequence matching algorithms. We present a novel distributed memory parallel algorithm that solves this approximate sequence matching problem in O ((N/p log N + occ)logk N) expected time and takes only O(logk+1 N) expected rounds of global communications, under some realistic assumptions, where p is the number of processors and occ is the output size. To our knowledge, this is the first provably sub-quadratic time algorithm for solving this problem. We demonstrate the performance and scalability of our algorithm using large high throughput sequencing data sets.
Active Music Listening Interfaces Based on Signal Processing

This paper introduces our research aimed at building "active music listening interfaces". This research approach is intended to enrich end-users' music listening experiences by applying music-understanding technologies based on signal processing. Active music listening is a way of listening to music through active interactions. We have developed seven interfaces for active music listening, such as interfaces for skipping sections of no interest within a musical piece while viewing a graphical overview of the entire song structure, for displaying virtual dancers or song lyrics synchronized with the music, for changing the timbre of instrument sounds in compact-disc recordings, and for browsing a large music collection to encounter interesting musical pieces or artists. These interfaces demonstrate the importance of music-understanding technologies and the benefit they offer to end users. Our hope is that this work will help change music listening into a more active, immersive experience.
11 Postcards from the Edge

Environmental issues, while of growing interest, have been outside the main focus of business scholarship. This position on the periphery may have been a good thing. It allowed scholars of business and the environment to consider unusual theories and evaluate overlooked phenomenon. In doing so, they have created a body of research providing new insights into two topics of mainstream interest: (a) the sources of competitive advantage and (b) the origin and function of self-regulatory institutions.