Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fc g RI-Targeted Fusion Proteins Result in Efficient Presentation by Human Monocytes of Antigenic and Antagonist T Cell Epitopes

A major challenge for using native or modified T cell epitopes to induce or suppress immunity relates to poor localization of peptides to antigen presenting cells (APCs) in vivo. In this study, we demonstrate enhanced presentation of antigenic and antagonistic peptides by targeting them to the type I Fc receptor for IgG (Fc g RI, CD64) on human monocytes. A Th epitope of tetanus toxoid, TT830, and the antagonistic peptide for TT830, TT833S, were genetically grafted into the constant region of the heavy chain of the humanized anti-CD64 mAb 22 and expressed as monovalent fusion proteins, Fab22-TT830 and Fab22-TT833S. These CD64-targeted peptides were up to 1,000and 100fold more efficient than the parent peptides for T cell stimulation and antagonism, respectively, suggesting that such fusion proteins could effectively increase the delivery of peptides to APCs in vivo. Moreover, the Fc g RI-targeted antagonistic peptide inhibited proliferation of TT830-specific T cells even when APCs were first pulsed with native peptide, a situation comparable with that which would be encountered in vivo when attempting to ameliorate an autoimmune response. These data suggest that targeted presentation of antagonistic peptides could lead to promising Ag-specific therapies for T cell–mediated autoimmune diseases. ( J. Clin. Invest. 1996. 98:2001–2007.)
Development and Validation of a Predictive Model for the Growth of Vibrio vulnificus in Postharvest Shellstock Oysters

ABSTRACT Postharvest growth of Vibrio vulnificus in oysters can increase risk of human infection. Unfortunately, limited information is available regarding V. vulnificus growth and survival patterns over a wide range of storage temperatures in oysters harvested from different estuaries and in different oyster species. In this study, we developed a predictive model for V. vulnificus growth in Eastern oysters (Crassostrea virginica) harvested from Chesapeake Bay, MD, over a temperature range of 5 to 30°C and then validated the model against V. vulnificus growth rates (GRs) in Eastern and Asian oysters (Crassostrea ariakensis) harvested from Mobile Bay, AL, and Chesapeake Bay, VA, respectively. In the model development studies, V. vulnificus was slowly inactivated at 5 and 10°C with average GRs of −0.0045 and −0.0043 log most probable number (MPN)/h, respectively. Estimated average growth rates at 15, 20, 25, and 30°C were 0.022, 0.042, 0.087, and 0.093 log MPN/h, respectively. With respect to Eastern oysters, bias (B f) and accuracy (A f) factors for model-dependent and -independent data were 1.02 and 1.25 and 1.67 and 1.98, respectively. For Asian oysters, B f and A f were 0.29 and 3.40. Residual variations in growth rate about the fitted model were not explained by season, region, water temperature, or salinity at harvest. Growth rate estimates for Chesapeake Bay and Mobile Bay oysters stored at 25 and 30°C showed relatively high variability and were lower than Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO)/WHO V. vulnificus quantitative risk assessment model predictions. The model provides an improved tool for designing and implementing food safety plans that minimize the risk associated with V. vulnificus in oysters.
Evaluating Processing Speed in Multiple Sclerosis: A Comparison of Two Rapid Serial Processing Measures

Processing speed deficits in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) are usually assessed with tests requiring rapid serial processing. Two such tests were compared here, the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT) and a computerized version of the Stroop test. The purpose of this study was to examine the concurrent validity of processing speed measures derived from the Stroop test and to relate these measures to disability ratings in a sample of 75 patients with relapsing-remitting MS. Patients evidenced slower processing speed than controls on both tests. Processing speed scores on the Stroop test were more closely related to patients’ disability status. These results demonstrate the usefulness of rapid serial processing tests in assessing what is increasingly recognized as the primary cognitive deficit in MS. A less-distressing approach than the item-paced performance required by the PASAT appears to be fully adequate for evaluating this deficit.
A Model of Prevention of Sports Concussion in Adults

Abstract This article discusses the definitions of prevention and presents a model that addresses multidimensional aspects of sports concussion prevention from the perspectives of epidemiology, education, environmental modification, enforcement, and evaluation. Epidemiology is helpful in identifying the incidence of concussion and the interventions most likely to reduce its occurrence. Education ensures that accurate information on concussion is communicated to stakeholders. Modifications in the physical and sociocultural environments may lessen the potential for injury and reduce the risk of concussion. Enforcement of legislation standards can be effective in concussion prevention, especially at the preinjury and injury phases. The evaluation dimension assesses the effectiveness of prevention programs and guides future program development. This five-E model explains concussion prevention as a recursive loop process. Each dimension is closely associated in the prevention of sports concussion.
Whole grains, type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, and hypertension: Links to the aleurone preferred over indigestible fiber

Higher whole grain cereal intakes are associated with substantially lower risks of type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, and hypertension. These reduced risks have been established in large prospective studies that now include millions of person‐years of follow‐up. We analyze the results of 11 major prospective studies to provide recommendations about whole grain consumption. The following review establishes the amount of whole grains that should ideally be consumed based on prospective evidence; defines the nature of whole grains; identifies that the whole grain evidence is robust and not due to confounding; and provides a detailed assessment of several potential mechanisms for the effect of whole grains on health. We draw the following conclusions. Firstly, to maintain health, 40 grams or more of whole grains should be consumed daily. This is about a bowl of whole grain breakfast cereal daily, but 80% of the population does not achieve this. Secondly, aleurone in bran is a critical grain component generally overlooked in favor of indigestible fiber. Live aleurone cells constitute 50% of millers' bran. They store minerals, protein, and the antioxidant ferulic acid, and are clearly more than just indigestible fiber. Finally, we suggest potential roles for magnesium, zinc, and ferulic acid in the development of chronic disease. If the results of prospective studies were applied to the life‐style practices of modern societies there exists the potential for enormous personal health and public financial benefits. © 2013 BioFactors, 2013
Neurotrophic and growth factor gene expression profiling of mouse bone marrow stromal cells induced by ischemic brain extracts

Treatment of rodents after stroke with bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) improves functional outcome. However, the mechanisms underlying this benefit have not been ascertained. This study focused on the contribution of neurotrophic and growth factors produced by BMSCs to therapeutic benefit. Rats were subjected to middle cerebral artery occlusion and the ischemic brain extract supernatant was collected to prepare the conditioned medium. The counterpart normal brain extract from non‐ischemic rats was employed as the experimental control. Using microarray assay, we measured the changes of the neurotrophin associated gene expression profile in BMSCs cultured in different media. Furthermore, real‐time RT‐PCR and fluorescent immunocytochemistry were utilized to validate the gene changes. The morphology of BMSCs, cultured in the ischemic brain‐conditioned medium for 12 h, was dramatically altered from a polygonal and flat appearance to a fibroblast‐like long and thin cell appearance, compared to those in the normal brain‐conditioned medium and the serum replacement medium. Forty‐four neurotrophin‐associated genes in BMSCs were identified by microarray assay under all three culture media. Twelve out of the 44 genes (7 neurotrophic and growth factor genes, 5 receptor genes) increased in BMSCs cultured in the ischemic brain‐conditioned medium compared to the normal brain‐conditioned medium. Real time RT‐PCR and immunocytochemistry validated that the ischemic brain‐conditioned medium significantly increased 6/7 neurotrophic and growth factor genes, compared with the normal brain‐conditioned medium. These six genes consisted of fibroblast growth factor 2, insulin‐like growth factor 1, vascular endothelial growth factor A, nerve growth factor beta, brain‐derived neurotrophic factor and epidermal growth factor. Our results indicate that transplanted BMSCs may work as ‘small molecular factories’ by secreting neurotrophins, growth factors and other supportive substances after stroke, which may produce therapeutic benefits in the ischemic brain.
APACHE II: A severity of disease classification system

This paper presents the form and validation results of APACHE II, a severity of disease classification system. APACHE II uses a point score based upon initial values of 12 routine physiologic measurements, age, and previous health status to provide a general measure of severity of disease. An increasing score (range 0 to 71) was closely correlated with the subsequent risk of hospital death for 5815 intensive care admissions from 13 hospitals. This relationship was also found for many common diseases.When APACHE II scores are combined with an accurate description of disease, they can prognostically stratify acutely ill patients and assist investigators comparing the success of new or differing forms of therapy. This scoring index can be used to evaluate the use of hospital resources and compare the efficacy of intensive care in different hospitals or over time.
SURFACE EXPLORATION ANALOGUE SIMULATIONS WITH A CREW SUPPORT ROBOT

Robots are likely to play an important part as support for future human exploration missions on Mars and Moon. Robotic assistants have the potential to improve the efficiency and safety of human surface activities. The control of robots in space is non-trivial because astronauts are limited in their movements by a bulky spacesuit and missing or reduced gravity. The EU funded project Moonwalk investigates technologies for robotic crew assistance and methods for performing earth analogue simulations. A hybrid leg/wheel system is used as the robotic platform, which is equipped with an omnidirecional camera to monitor the astronaut. The robot can be controlled by gestures which are detected with sensors attached to the human. In this paper we present the requirements, progress and outlook on the robotic system and the supporting technologies.
Proposal of international voluntary activities on establishing benchmark test schemes for AR/MR geometric registration and tracking methods

This is a proposal to the ISMAR community from Japanese AR/MR researchers for the future progress of AR/MR technology. We hope to expand our activities over the ISMAR community and call for international participants who would take part in a number of voluntary works. At the same time, this paper presents a current view of the outcomes of these activities may have be in due course.
Distributed energy management of microgrids with Dantzig-Wolfe decomposition

Distributed management of microgrids is a vital problem to provide scalability to the next-generation electricity grids. Energy management of interconnected microgrids yields an optimization problem with large number of variables. In this paper, Dantzig-Wolfe decomposition is employed to delegate the computational load to local controllers. Island and grid-connected modes of operation are compared, and it is shown that elastic loads in different microgrids display similar behavior in grid-connected mode.
Metabolic mapping of visual areas in the behaving cat: A[14C]2‐deoxyglucose study

Visually responsive cortical areas and subcortical nuclei were studied in the awake cat using the 2‐deoxyglucose technique. Visual input was confined to one hemisphere by unilaterally sectioning the optic tract, the corpus callosum and the commissura anterior. Within the intact hemisphere, numerous cortical regions were distinguishable in the autoradiographs due to differential labelling. Comparison of the intact with the visually deafferented hemisphere confirmed the visual character of eighteen cortical areas (areas 17, 18, 19, 20a, 20b, 21a, 21b, the posteromedial lateral, posterolateral lateral, anteromedial lateral, anterolateral lateral, dorsal lateral, ventral lateral, and posterior suprasylvian areas, the splenial and anterior ectosylvian sylvian areas, insular visual area and posterior area 7) and revealed the visual nature of an area in the posterior cingulate gyrus which had not been described previously. We refer to this area as cingulate visual area (CVA). This area exhibits a gradient in interhemispheric differences along a caudorostral axis similar to that observed in posterior area 7 which is in keeping with the strong and topographic connections between CVA and posterior area 7. These results support the validity of metabolic mapping for the characterisation of cortical areas. © 1995 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A Brazilian experience of the self transglutaminase-based test for celiac disease case finding and diet monitoring.

AIM To evaluate the effectiveness of a rapid and easy fingertip whole blood point-of-care test for celiac disease (CD) case finding and diet monitoring. METHODS Three hundred individuals, 206 females (68.7%) and 94 males (31.3%), were submitted to a rapid and easy immunoglobulin-A-class fingertip whole blood point-of-care test in the doctor's office in order to make immediate clinical decisions: 13 healthy controls, 6 with CD suspicion, 46 treated celiacs, 84 relatives of the celiac patients, 69 patients with dyspepsia, 64 with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), 8 with Crohn's disease and 9 with other causes of diarrhea. RESULTS Upper gastrointestinal endoscopy with duodenal biopsies was performed in patients with CD suspicion and in individuals with positive test outcome: in 83.3% (5/6) of the patients with CD suspicion, in 100% of the patients that admitted gluten-free diet transgressions (6/6), in 3.8% of first-degree relatives (3/79) and in 2.9% of patients with dyspepsia (2/69). In all these individuals duodenal biopsies confirmed CD (Marsh's histological classification). The studied test showed good correlation with serologic antibodies, endoscopic and histological findings. CONCLUSION The point-of-care test was as reliable as conventional serological tests in detecting CD cases and in CD diet monitoring.
Surface Amplification of L-Glutamate Using a Patterned Bienzymatic System for Biosensing Applications

Electronic sensing of neurotransmitter molecules is based on a diffusion-limited process, which requires the immobilization of biological recognition elements as close as possible to the active area of the sensor. Moreover, in many applications, the analyte concentration is very low. In particular, the in situ detection of neurotransmitter release from neurons is challenging due to the limited number of molecules secreted and their fast diffusion and reuptake immediately after release. In this paper, we present a method that allows for the local amplification of L-glutamate directly on the chip surface. Our approach is based on the surface patterning of a bienzymatic system consisting of glutamate oxidase (GLOD) and glutamic-pyruvate transaminase (GPT) that amplifies L-glutamate via a recycling process. The surface chemistry was optimized for maximal enzyme loading. The level of amplification was determined using a colorimetric assay. Coimmobilization of GLOD and GPT yielded at least a doubling of the signal, and increasing the surface concentrations of each enzyme led to amplification levels that approached those obtained in solution. We show that these enzymes can be patterned on substrates using a flip chip bonder for aligned microcontact printing. Furthermore, primary mouse hippocampal neurons were successfully cultured on these patterned surfaces and remained viable for at least five days. The enzymatic pattern was preserved on the substrate surface for the same time period. Lastly, amplification of L-glutamate released from neurons seven days in vitro was detected. Thus, we conclude that this bienzymatic system can ultimately be applied to biosensor surfaces for the in vitro detection of L-glutamate.
Cell Cycle-Regulated Processing of HEF1 to Multiple Protein Forms Differentially Targeted to Multiple Subcellular Compartments

ABSTRACT HEF1, p130Cas, and Efs/Sin constitute a family of multidomain docking proteins that have been implicated in coordinating the regulation of cell adhesion. Each of these proteins contains an SH3 domain, conferring association with focal adhesion kinase; a domain rich in SH2-binding sites, phosphorylated by or associating with a number of oncoproteins, including Abl, Crk, Fyn, and others; and a highly conserved carboxy-terminal domain. In this report, we show that the HEF1 protein is processed in a complex manner, with transfection of a single cDNA resulting in the generation of at least four protein species, p115HEF1, p105HEF1, p65HEF1, and p55HEF1. We show that p115HEF1 and p105HEF1 are different phosphorylation states of the full-length HEF1. p55HEF1, however, encompasses only the amino-terminal end of the HEF1 coding sequence and arises via cleavage of full-length HEF1 at a caspase consensus site. We find that HEF1 proteins are abundantly expressed in epithelial cells derived from breast and lung tissue in addition to the lymphoid cells in which they have been predominantly studied to date. In MCF-7 cells, we find that expression of the endogenous HEF1 proteins is cell cycle regulated, with p105HEF1 and p115HEF1 being rapidly upregulated upon induction of cell growth, whereas p55HEF1 is produced specifically at mitosis. While p105HEF1 and p115HEF1 are predominantly cytoplasmic and localize to focal adhesions, p55HEF1 unexpectedly is shown to associate with the mitotic spindle. In support of a role at the spindle, two-hybrid library screening with HEF1 identifies the human homolog of the G2/M spindle-regulatory protein Dim1p as a specific interactor with a region of HEF1 encompassed in p55HEF1. In sum, these data suggest that HEF1 may directly connect morphological control-related signals with cell cycle regulation and thus play a role in pathways leading to the progression of cancer.
Optimization of single-phase induction Motors-part I: maximum energy efficiency control

This work investigates the problem of efficiency optimization in capacitor-run single-phase induction motors. The double-revolving-field concept is employed in the theoretical analysis and a relation between the main and auxiliary stator currents is derived that accomplishes optimal efficiency under constant torque operation. A triac-based drive with an optimal efficiency voltage controller is proposed. The controller is easily implemented since an experimental procedure is used for adjusting its parameters. Moreover, the proposed control scheme satisfies all of the prerequisites of simplicity, reliability, and cost-effectiveness that are imposed by the utilization of a single-phase motor. Several experimental results are presented to validate the effectiveness of the proposed efficiency optimization control method.
The potential of 2D wavelet transforms for target detection in sea-clutter

Small target detection in sea clutter remains a challenging problem for radar operators. This paper investigates the potential of using a stationary wavelet transform (SWT) to improve target detection in medium grazing angle X-band sea-clutter. One level of the 2D SWT produces four sub-bands which highlight or suppress different features of the non-stationary sea-clutter. Once they have been individually reconstructed back to the original domain, both the amplitude statistics of the sub-bands and their relative detection performance are investigated. This analysis demonstrates a significant improvement when using a cell-averaging constant false alarm rate detection scheme in the time domain with targets that lie on or outside the endo-clutter region.
Genetic structure of Kurtzmaniella cleridarum, a cactus flower beetle yeast of the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts: speciation by distance?

We studied 95 isolates of the yeast species Kurtzmaniella cleridarum recovered from nitidulid beetles collected in flowers of cacti of the Sonoran Desert of southern Arizona and the Mojave Desert of California. They were characterized on the basis of mating type and ten polymorphic DNA markers in relation to their geographic distribution. Although all loci appeared to be free of strong linkage, the recovered haplotypes represented but a small fraction of possible combinations, indicating that abundant asexual reproduction of local genotypes accounts for much of population growth, even though the yeast is capable of sexual recombination in nature. Much of the genetic differentiation took place at the local level, indicating that gene flow across the various localities is limited. However, a relationship exists between overall genetic differentiation and geography over long distances. We estimated that populations separated by c. 1300 km would share no alleles in common and that such a separation might be enough to favor the onset of speciation.
Object segmentation for video coding

Object segmentation and tracking are problems within the scope of MPEG-4 standardization activities. This paper proposes a novel algorithm to extract and track the moving objects in the video sequences. A model-based tracking method is developed to localize the object in each frame of a video sequence. One distinctive property of this method is that the model of an object is acquired dynamically from the video sequence, rather than being provided a priori. Our method also allows the object to have large movement between two frames and to be partially occluded in several successive frames. To extract contiguous object boundaries, an active contour model is then applied to the binary image representation of the object model. Compared with the related work of Neri et al. (1998), the proposed algorithm can achieve a more accurate location of object boundaries.
Influence of thyroxine and n-propylthiouracil on nephro-toxicity of inorganic arsenic in rat

The effect of hyper or hypoactive thyroid on the renal toxicity of arsenic trioxide has been studied in rats. It was observed that pre-treatment of rats with thyroxine stimulates arsenic excretion in urine. The anti-thyroid drug n-propylthiouracil (PTU), inhibits the accumulation of arsenic in renal tissue. Both treatments affect the renal pathology. Histopathological lesions are less severe in PTU and arsenic-treated rats in comparison to thyroxine and arsenic-treated rats. Ultrastructural studies support light microscopical observations. An adaptive response was noticed against arsenic in PTU pre-treated rats. We attribute this response to decreased glutathione-S-transferase (GSH) activity and increased GSH synthesis in the kidney. A relationship between thyroidal activity and arsenic toxicity is suggested by present observations.