Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Potentiometric analysis of the flavin cofactors of neuronal nitric oxide synthase.

Midpoint reduction potentials for the flavin cofactors in the reductase domain of rat neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) in calmodulin (CaM)-free and -bound forms have been determined by direct anaerobic titration. In the CaM-free form, the FMN potentials are -49 +/- 5 mV (oxidized/semiquinone) -274 +/- 5 mV (semiquinone/reduced). The corresponding FAD potentials are -232 +/- 7, and -280 +/- 6 mV. The data indicate that each flavin can exist as a blue (neutral) semiquinone. The accumulation of blue semiquinone on the FMN is considerably higher than seen on the FAD due to the much larger separation (225 mV) of its two potentials (cf. 48 mV for FAD). For the CaM-bound form of the protein, the midpoint potentials are essentially identical: there is a small alteration in the FMN oxidized/semiquinone potential (-30 +/- 4 mV); the other three potentials are unaffected. The heme midpoint potentials for nNOS [-239 mV, L-Arg-free; -220 mV, L-Arg-bound; Presta, A. , Weber-Main, A. M. , Stankovich, M. T. , and Stuehr, D. J. (1998) J. Am. Chem. Soc. 120, 9460-9465] are poised such that electron transfer from flavin domain is thermodynamically feasible. Clearly, CaM binding is necessary in eliciting conformational changes that enhance flavin to flavin and flavin to heme electron transfers rather than causing a change in the driving force.
Notes on the data analysis in high-energy astrophysics

These notes were originally prepared as additional material for the lessons I have given at the summer school Gamma-ray Astrophysics and Multifrequency: Data analysis and astroparticle problems, organized by the Department of Physics of the University of Perugia (Italy) on July 3-7, 2006. The necessarily limited time of the lessons forced to a drastic selection of the topics and, therefore, I have thought it was useful to complete the slides of the presentation with the notes you find in these few pages. These notes are a kind of ``link'' between the theoretical approach of the University lessons and the practice of the real use. During these years, I have seen that this material is useful for students that are beginning their thesis on research topics based on the use and the interpretation of data from X- and gamma-ray satellites. Therefore, I have thought to update the content of these notes, to translate them into English and to post on arXiv, in order to make them available to a larger public, hoping to give a useful help to other beginners. Since the public is basically composed of graduating students, I have assumed a well-grounded knowledge of basic astrophysics, the principles of instrumentation for physical sciences and the statistical analysis. Therefore, I have focused my notes on the practical issues and given some bibliographic references, just some advice, just to draw the attention on some points that are too much detailed for a university lesson. Nevertheless, the bibliography should be also a good starting point for those who want to further explore these topics.
A particle accelerated CFD-BEM technique applied to aeroacoustic scattering

A particle accelerated computational fluid dynamics (CFD) - boundary element method (BEM) technique is proposed that allows the total sound pressure field produced by low Mach number flow past a rigid body to be predicted. An incompressible CFD solver is used to calculate the transient hydrodynamic flow field. The CFD/BEM coupling technique is then used to compute the acoustic pressure and pressure gradient incident on the body. The incident acoustic field is calculated based on a near-field solution of Lighthill’s analogy. Numerical techniques are employed to accurately evaluate the strongly singular and hypersingular surface and volume integrals. A particle condensation technique is applied to accelerate the incident field computations and reduce the amount of data that must be stored during the CFD analysis. The incident field is then combined with a BEM model of the body to predict the scattered sound pressure field. The BEM model solves the Burton-Miller boundary integral equations to guarantee a unique solution at all frequencies. Results from the particle accelerated CFD-BEM technique are presented for flow past a circular cylinder with Reynolds number, ReD=100 and Mach number, M=0.02. The directivity of the sound pressure field at the vortex shedding frequency and its harmonics predicted using the condensation technique are compared with non-condensed results as well as results obtained using Curle’s analogy.
Characterization of topological structure on complex networks.

Characterizing the topological structure of complex networks is a significant problem especially from the viewpoint of data mining on the World Wide Web. "Page rank" used in the commercial search engine Google is such a measure of authority to rank all the nodes matching a given query. We have investigated the page-rank distribution of the real Web and a growing network model, both of which have directed links and exhibit a power law distributions of in-degree (the number of incoming links to the node) and out-degree (the number of outgoing links from the node), respectively. We find a concentration of page rank on a small number of nodes and low page rank on high degree regimes in the real Web, which can be explained by topological properties of the network, e.g., network motifs, and connectivities of nearest neighbors.
The Twin Ds: Optimal Default and Devaluation

A salient characteristic of sovereign defaults is that they are typically accompanied by large devaluations. This paper presents new evidence of this empirical regularity known as the Twin Ds and proposes a model that rationalizes it as an optimal policy outcome. The model combines limited enforcement of debt contracts and downward nominal wage rigidity. Under optimal policy, default is shown to occur during contractions. The role of default is to free up resources for domestic absorption, and the role of exchange rate devaluation is to lower the real value of wages, thereby reducing involuntary unemployment. (JEL E24, E32, E52, F31, F34, F41)
Development of a Novel Spherical Actuator With Two Degrees of Freedom

This paper describes the design and implementation of a novel spherical actuator that can generate two tilt-motion degrees of freedom. Voice coil motors were adopted as actuators in a spherical actuator to utilize their simple driving principle and constant torque coefficient characteristic. The sensing and guiding mechanism was built inside the proposed spherical actuator and enabled compactness and ease of connection to other application systems. The actuator was designed using a design optimization framework to obtain high torque. A prototype actuator was manufactured with optimally designed parameters, and its performance was evaluated.
Major Histocompatibility Complex Class I Restricted Cytotoxic T Cells Specific for Natural Melanoma Peptides Recognize Unidentified Shared Melanoma Antigen ( s ) 1

CTLs were generatedin vitro from two healthy donors and one melanoma patient by stimulation of CD8 T cells with autologous dendritic cells pulsed with natural melanoma peptides (NMPs), obtained by acid treatment of HLA-matched melanoma cells. CTLs showed MHC class I-restricted melanoma-specific cytolytic activity. Importantly, CTLs from the patient, induced with NMPs obtained from an allogeneicHLA-Amatched melanoma, killed the autologous tumor. COS-7 cells cotransfected with the cDNA of 13 melanoma antigens and theHLA-A1-restricting allele did not induce cytokines release from NMP-specific CTLs, suggesting that they recognize unidentified shared melanoma antigens and that they may be valuable for identification of new tumor antigens. These results strongly support the use of autologous and/or allogeneic NMPpulsed dendritic cells as cancer vaccines in patients whose neoplasms do not express or have lost expression of known tumor antigens.
Ethiopian health care professionals’ knowledge, attitude, and interests toward pharmacogenomics

Background Pharmacogenomics is a field of science which studies the impact of inheritance on individual variation in medication therapy response. Aim We assessed healthcare professionals’ knowledge, attitude, and interest toward pharmacogenomics. Methods A cross-sectional survey was conducted using a 32-item questionnaire among physicians, nurses, and pharmacists who were working at the University of Gondar Referral and Teaching Hospital in northwest Ethiopia. Descriptive statistics was applied, and the categorical variables were summarized as frequency and percentages. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) test was performed to compare mean scores among health professionals. A p-value of <0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results Of 292 health professionals who responded, the majority were male (60%) and the mean age of study participants was 27.00 (±4.85 SD) years. The mean knowledge scores of all participants, pharmacists, physicians, and nurses were 2.343±1.109, 2.671±1.059, 2.375±1.093, and 2.173±1.110, respectively. Based on the ANOVA test, a statistically significant difference was noted in mean knowledge score between pharmacists and nurses (p=0.002). More than two-thirds (67.33%) of nurses, 42.86% of pharmacists, and 40.27% of physicians who participated did not know that genetic variations can account for as much as 95% of the variability in drug disposition and effects. The ability to accurately apply their knowledge to drug therapy selection, dosing, or monitoring parameter was reported by 35.3% of the participants. More than two-thirds (69.2%) of participants thought that pharmacogenomic testing will allow the identification of the right drug with less side effects. Most of the participants (83.2%) also requested to have training on pharmacogenomics. Conclusion Participants showed limited knowledge, but they had positive attitude toward pharmacogenomics. Educational programs focusing on pharmacogenomic testing and its clinical application need to be emphasized.
Subcritical Water Hydrolysis Effectively Reduces the In Vitro Seeding Activity of PrPSc but Fails to Inactivate the Infectivity of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Prions

The global outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) has been attributed to the recycling of contaminated meat and bone meals (MBMs) as feed supplements. The use of MBMs has been prohibited in many countries; however, the development of a method for inactivating BSE prions could enable the efficient and safe use of these products as an organic resource. Subcritical water (SCW), which is water heated under pressure to maintain a liquid state at temperatures below the critical temperature (374°C), exhibits strong hydrolytic activity against organic compounds. In this study, we examined the residual in vitro seeding activity of protease-resistant prion protein (PrPSc) and the infectivity of BSE prions after SCW treatments. Spinal cord homogenates prepared from BSE-infected cows were treated with SCW at 230–280°C for 5–7.5 min and used to intracerebrally inoculate transgenic mice overexpressing bovine prion protein. Serial protein misfolding cyclic amplification (sPMCA) analysis detected no PrPSc in the SCW-treated homogenates, and the mice treated with these samples survived for more than 700 days without any signs of disease. However, sPMCA analyses detected PrPSc accumulation in the brains of all inoculated mice. Furthermore, secondary passage mice, which inoculated with brain homogenates derived from a western blotting (WB)-positive primary passage mouse, died after an average of 240 days, similar to mice inoculated with untreated BSE-infected spinal cord homogenates. The PrPSc accumulation and vacuolation typically observed in the brains of BSE-infected mice were confirmed in these secondary passage mice, suggesting that the BSE prions maintained their infectivity after SCW treatment. One late-onset case, as well as asymptomatic but sPMCA-positive cases, were also recognized in secondary passage mice inoculated with brain homogenates from WB-negative but sPMCA-positive primary passage mice. These results indicated that SCW-mediated hydrolysis was insufficient to eliminate the infectivity of BSE prions under the conditions tested.
A reseeding technique for LFSR-based BIST applications

In this paper, we describe a new design methodology for LFSR-based test pattern generators (TPG). Multiple seeds are produced by the TPG itself to deal with hard-to-detect faults, and this function is achieved without using a ROM to store the seeds. A reseeding logic is incorporated in the TPG, which loads new seeds into the LFSR whenever specific states are reached. In this way, useless test vectors are skipped and thus the test application time can be greatly reduced. We experiment the design methodology by applying it to some MCNC benchmark circuits, and the results show that TPGs designed with this technique require much less hardware overhead than the previous known reseeding techniques.
Differential expression of nitric oxide synthases (NOS 1‐3) in human skeletal muscle following exercise countermeasure during 12 weeks of bed rest

Adaptive changes of major body systems in astronauts during spaceflight can be simulated by strict anti‐orthostatic head‐down tilt (HDT) bed rest (BR), a ground‐based microgravity (μG) model that provides a meaningful opportunity to study atrophy mechanisms and possible countermeasures under controlled experimental conditions. As nitric oxide (NO) signaling is linked to muscle activity, we investigated altered expression of the three major isoforms of nitric oxide synthase (NOS 1–3) at cellular compartments during prolonged HDT BR without (control group) and with resistance exercise interventions (exercise group) using a flywheel ergometer (FWE). Atrophy detected in mixed (fast–slow) m. vastus lateralis (VL) and slow‐type m. soleus (SOL) myofiber Types I and II (minus 35–40% of myofiber cross‐sectional area) was prevented by FWE training. Concomitant to muscle atrophy, reduced NOS 1 protein and immunostaining was found in VL not in SOL biopsies. In trained VL, NOS 1 protein and immunostaining at myofibers II were significantly increased at the end of BR. Exercise altered NOS 2/caveolin 3 co‐immunostaining patterns of subsarcolemmal focal accumulations in VL or SOL myofibers, which suggests reorganization of sarcolemmal microdomains. In trained VL, increased capillary‐ to‐fiber (C/F) ratio and NOS 3 protein content were documented. Activity‐linked NO signaling may be widespread in skeletal muscle cellular compartments that may be directly or indirectly impacted by adequate exercise countermeasure protocols to offset the negative effects induced by disuse, immobilization, or extended exposure to microgravity.
Talk about fiction

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Talk about fiction François Recanati
Méthodologies de conception pour multiprocesseurs sur circuits logiques programmables

L'augmentation continue de la capacite d'integration d'une part, la complexite croissante des applications embarquees d'autre part, ont conduit aux systemes sur puce (SoC) puis aux systemes multiprocesseurs sur puce (MPSoC). Le probleme fondamental associe a ces systemes sur puces de grande taille est celui des methodologies de conception et de la crise de productivite en resultant ne permettant pas d'exploiter de maniere efficace ces circuits. Cette crise de productivite est le resultat d'approches ad-hoc et manuelle de la conception alors que le probleme doit etre pose comme un probleme d'optimisation multi-objectif dont la resolution doit faire appel a des techniques d'optimisation automatique. Dans cette these, nous presentons une methodologie de conception pour les systemes multiprocesseurs sur circuits logiques programmables, dont l'originalite porte sur trois aspects : (1) l'exploration evolutionnaire multi objectif de l'espace de conception afin de mener une recherche intelligente, (2) l'utilisation des circuits logiques programmables de grande taille pour l'evaluation rapide par emulation largement superieure a la simulation, et enfin (3) l'utilisation de la synthese MPSoC depuis un langage de programmation parallele haut niveau (Occam) et de la prise en compte du monitoring sur puce. Des cas d'etudes sur circuits ont demontre l'efficacite d'une telle methodologie pour resoudre le probleme de la crise de productivite de la conception.
Nonlinear dynamics and chaos in an OLG growth model with endogenous labour supply and multiplicative external habits

This paper analyses the mathematical properties of an overlapping generations growth model with endogenous labour supply and mult iplicative external habits. The dynamics of the economy is characterised by a two-dimensional m ap describing the time evolution of capital and labour supply. We show that if the relative importa nce of external habits in the utility function is sufficiently high, multiple (determinate or indeter minate) fixed points and poverty traps can exist. In addition, cyclical or quasi-cyclical behaviour a nd/or coexistence of attractors may occur. Endogenous preferences represent a topic of greater importance in economic theory. In particular, they influence individual choices about consumption and saving paths over time, and can be responsible of endogenous fluctuations and nonlinear dynamics in macroeconomic variables (e.g., per capita output). This study examines an economic growth model with overlapping generations where habit formation is a source of local and global bifurcations.
Understanding susceptibility to phishing emails: Assessing the impact of individual differences and culture

In a lab-based empirical study, we examined how individual differences and an aspect of national culture impacted on participants’ responses to phishing and spear-phishing emails. Results showed that the strongest predictor of the participants’ ability to detect these malicious emails was cultural orientation towards the needs of the individual rather than the needs of society. For both types of emails, there was also a positive association between self-reported information security awareness and detection ability. Impulsivity in decision making predicted poorer detection of phishing emails, but not spear-phishing emails, and different personality traits predicted detection ability for the two email types.
Structural Basis of Protein-bound Endogenous Aldehydes

4-Hydroxy-2-nonenal (HNE), a major racemic product of lipid peroxidation, reacts with histidine to form a stable HNE-histidine Michael addition-type adduct possessing three chiral centers in the cyclic hemiacetal structure. In the present study, we characterized configurational isomers of a HNE-N α-acetylhistidine adduct by NMR spectroscopy and by molecular orbital calculations. In addition, we raised monoclonal antibodies against (R)-HNE-histidine and (S)-HNE-histidine adducts, characterized their specificities, and examined in vivo localizations of each adduct under oxidative stress. To facilitate structural characterization of the configurational isomers of an HNE-histidine adduct, we prepared the (R)-HNE-histidine and (S)-HNE-histidine adducts by incubatingN α-acetylhistidine with each HNE enantiomer, both of which provided two peaks (Ra and Rb from (R)-HNE-histidine and Sa and Sb from (S)-HNE-histidine adducts) in reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography. The NMR analysis showed that each peak was a mixture of two diastereomers. In addition, the analysis of the nuclear Overhauser effect enabled the determination of configurations of the eight isomers. The relative amounts of these isomers in the NMR analysis correlated with the relative energies calculated by molecular orbital methods. On the other hand, using (R)-HNE-modified and (S)-HNE-modified keyhole limpet hemocyanins as the antigens, we raised the monoclonal antibodies, mAbR310 and mAbS412, which enantioselectively recognized the (R)-HNE-histidine and (S)-HNE-histidine adducts, respectively. Among the mixtures (Ra, Rb, Sa, and Sb) of diastereomers, mAbR310 showed the highest immunoreactivity to Rb (the mixture of 2R,4S,5R and 2S,4S,5R isomers), whereas mAbS412 preferentially recognized Sa (the mixture of 2R,4S,5S and 2S,4S,5S isomers). The presence of (R)-HNE and (S)-HNE epitopes in vivo was immunohistochemically examined in the kidney of rats exposed to the renal carcinogen, ferric nitrilotriacetate, by which nuclear and cytosolic stainings with mAbR310 and mAbS412, respectively, were detected.
Peripheral lymphocytes of clinically non‐progressor patients harbor inactive and uninducible HIV proviruses

The HIV viral burden and RNA expression in a selected group of infected, clinically non‐progressor patients were investigated. Five fast‐progressor patients and 10 AIDS cases were included as controls. The HIV viral load was investigated by semiquantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in adherent macrophages and in genomic and extragenomic fractions of lymphocytes. HIV DNA was not found in macrophages in the non‐progressor subjects, was weakly positive in 2 of 5 fast‐progressors and strongly positive in most of the AIDS patients. The number of HIV proviruses found in lymphocytes of the non‐progressor subjects varied from 5 to 160 copies/μg DNA, values ten times lower than those recorded in fast‐progressors and AIDS patients. The extragenomic HIV DNA (2 LTR forms) was absent or barely detectable in the lymphocytes from non‐progressors and abundant in the other groups. HIV RNA was not found in the lymphocytes of all non‐progressors. This may indicate that a latent state of HIV provirus exists in the lymphocytes of these subjects. To investigate this point, cultivation and stimulation with PHA (phytohemoagglutinin) and PMA (phorbol 12‐myristate 13‐acetate) of lymphocytes from these subjects were attempted but after 6 days HIV RNA (RT‐PCR for gag region) was still absent or barely detectable in these patients. There are no other reports of the absence of HIV provirus induction in lymphocytes from infected individuals. If confirmed in a larger number of patients, such non‐inducibility might serve as a predictor marker of progression of the disease. © 1995 Wiley‐Liss, Inc. © 1995 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.