Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
β(1-3)Glucanosyltransferase Gel4p Is Essential for Aspergillus fumigatus

ABSTRACT The β(1-3)glucanosyltransferase GEL family of Aspergillus fumigatus contains 7 genes, among which only 3 are expressed during mycelial growth. The role of the GEL4 gene was investigated in this study. Like the other Gelps, it encodes a glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored protein. In contrast to the other β(1-3)glucanosyltransferases analyzed to date, it is essential for this fungal species.
Proteome changes in the plasma of Papilio xuthus (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae): effect of parasitization by the endoparasitic wasp Pteromalus puparum (Hymenoptera: Pteromalidae)

Although the biochemical dissection of parasitoid-host interactions is becoming well characterized, the molecular knowledge concerning them is minimal. In order to understand the molecular bases of the host immune response to parasitoid attack, we explored the response of Papilio xuthus parasitized by the endoparasitic wasp Pteromalus puparum using proteomic approach. By examining the differential expression of plasma proteins in the parasitized and unparasitized host pupae by two-dimensional (2D) electrophoresis, 16 proteins were found to vary in relation to parasitization compared with unparasitized control samples. All of them were submitted to identification by mass spectrometry coupled with a database search. The modulated proteins were found to fall into the following functional groups: humoral or cellular immunity, detoxification, energy metabolism, and others. This study contributes insights into the molecular mechanism of the relationships between parasitoids and their host insects.
The Mattis Dementia Rating Scale

Article abstract We administered the Mattis Dementia Rating Scale (MDRS) to 1,001 healthy volunteers, aged 50 to 80 years, randomly selected from our community. Multivariate regression analysis revealed educational level (p = 0.000004) and age (p = 0.00001), but no other sociodemographic or risk factors for stroke, to be significantly associated with the MDRS score. The age- and education-specific lowest quintile cutoff scores ranged from 140 in subjects aged 50 to 59 years with at least college experience to 130 in subjects aged 70 to 80 years with only 4 to 9 years of schooling. These percentile distributions obtained for decades of age and different levels of education should be useful reference values for clinicians and investigators when applying the MDRS to assess cognitive functioning.
Multidisciplinary Approaches for Characterizing Synaptic Vesicle Proteins

Investigation of synaptic vesicle membrane proteins using multidisciplinary approaches, particularly to characterize synaptic vesicle proteins in synapses, can greatly advance our knowledge of the molecular mechanisms involved in synaptic vesicle exocytosis and neurotransmission. Three approaches are presented in this unit to identify and characterize synaptic vesicle proteins. The first is a subcellular fractionation method used to isolate synaptic vesicles from rat brain synaptosomal preparations, which can then be used in a variety of biochemical studies on synaptic vesicle proteins. The second is a detailed procedure for pre‐embedding immunogold staining and electron microscopic observation, techniques that permit the morphological identification of synaptic vesicle proteins in individual vesicles at the intact synapse. Finally, a protocol for immunocytochemical staining of cultured hippocampal neurons for light microscopic examination is provided, which allows one to stain multisynaptic vesicle proteins and determine their localization in relation to other proteins or subcellular structures in synapses.
The Coxiella burnetii Cryptic Plasmid Is Enriched in Genes Encoding Type IV Secretion System Substrates

ABSTRACT The intracellular bacterial pathogen Coxiella burnetii directs biogenesis of a phagolysosome-like parasitophorous vacuole (PV), in which it replicates. The organism encodes a Dot/Icm type IV secretion system (T4SS) predicted to deliver to the host cytosol effector proteins that mediate PV formation and other cellular events. All C. burnetii isolates carry a large, autonomously replicating plasmid or have chromosomally integrated plasmid-like sequences (IPS), suggesting that plasmid and IPS genes are critical for infection. Bioinformatic analyses revealed two candidate Dot/Icm substrates with eukaryotic-like motifs uniquely encoded by the QpH1 plasmid from the Nine Mile reference isolate. CpeC, containing an F-box domain, and CpeD, possessing kinesin-related and coiled-coil regions, were secreted by the closely related Legionella pneumophila Dot/Icm T4SS. An additional QpH1-specific gene, cpeE, situated in a predicted operon with cpeD, also encoded a secreted effector. Further screening revealed that three hypothetical proteins (CpeA, CpeB, and CpeF) encoded by all C. burnetii plasmids and IPS are Dot/Icm substrates. By use of new genetic tools, secretion of plasmid effectors by C. burnetii during host cell infection was confirmed using β-lactamase and adenylate cyclase translocation assays, and a C-terminal secretion signal was identified. When ectopically expressed in HeLa cells, plasmid effectors trafficked to different subcellular sites, including autophagosomes (CpeB), ubiquitin-rich compartments (CpeC), and the endoplasmic reticulum (CpeD). Collectively, these results suggest that C. burnetii plasmid-encoded T4SS substrates play important roles in subversion of host cell functions, providing a plausible explanation for the absolute maintenance of plasmid genes by this pathogen.
Older Adults' Perspectives on HIV/AIDS Prevention Strategies for Rural Kenya

HIV/AIDS is devastating sub-Saharan Africa with great impact in the rural communities. Though prevention is the mainstay of various responses to the epidemic, communication strategies used to influence risk perception and motivate behavior change are culturally inappropriate, hence the lack of success. The bulk of prevention efforts target the 15–49 age group, resulting in limited knowledge and understanding of HIV/AIDS in adults over age 50 who are considered at a lower or no risk of infection. This paper addresses older adults as a key segment of the population in HIV/AIDS prevention given the increasing number that is living with the disease or newly infected. Many older adults are also caregivers of those infected and affected by the disease. As cultural, social, political, and opinion leaders in rural Kenya, older adults are in a position to influence attitudes and behaviors of their community members, but they have not been involved in the current intervention strategies. Through application of a participatory and culture-centered approach, the study sought views of older adults on the factors contributing to the epidemic in rural Kenya and their opinions on effective prevention strategies that are culturally appropriate. Several recommendations are made for a culture-specific HIV/AIDS prevention intervention for rural Kenya.
Applying Partial Power-Gating to Direction-Sliced Network-on-Chip

Network-on-Chip (NoC) is one of critical communication architectures for futuremany-core systems. As technology is continually scaling down, on-chip network meets the increasing leakage power crisis. As a leakage power mitigation technique, power-gating can be utilized in on-chip network to solve the crisis. However, the network performance is severely affected by the disconnection in the conventional power-gated NoC. In this paper, we propose a novel partial power-gating approach to improve the performance in the power-gated NoC. The approach mainly involves a direction-slicing scheme, an improved routing algorithm, and a deadlock recovery mechanism. In the synthetic traffic simulation, the proposed design shows favorable power-efficiency at low-load range and achieves better performance than the conventional power-gated one. For the application trace simulation, the design in the mesh/torus network consumes 15.2%/18.9% more power on average, whereas it can averagely obtain 45.0%/28.7% performance improvement compared with the conventional power-gated design. On balance, the proposed design with partial power-gating has a better tradeoff between performance and power-efficiency.
Analytical Methodologies for the Assessment of Phthalate Exposure in Humans

ABSTRACT Screening and quantification of phthalate metabolites in biological matrices provide information on the phthalate exposure. The preferred tool for the determination of phthalate metabolites is liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry, typically preceded by a sample extraction step. Method development for the determination of phthalate metabolites by hyphenated techniques faces challenges due to the widespread occurrence of phthalates in the laboratory and sample collection materials that impairs their accurate quantification. Here, the analytical methods that have been developed for the determination of biomarkers of phthalates in various matrices are presented, and limitations and challenges in these applications are discussed.
A Hybrid Genetic Algorithm for the Sequence Dependent Flow-Shop Scheduling Problem

Flow-shop scheduling problem (FSP) deals with the scheduling of a set of jobs that visit a set of machines in the same order. The FSP is NP-hard, which means that an efficient algorithm for solving the problem to optimality is unavailable. To meet the requirements on time and to minimize the make-span performance of large permutation flow-shop scheduling problems in which there are sequence dependent setup times on each machine, this paper develops one hybrid genetic algorithms (HGA). Proposed HGA apply a modified approach to generate population of initial chromosomes and also use an improved heuristic called the iterated swap procedure to improve initial solutions. Also the author uses three genetic operators to make good new offspring. The results are compared to some recently developed heuristics and computational experimental results show that the proposed HGA performs very competitively with respect to accuracy and efficiency of solution. Keywords—Hybrid genetic algorithm, Scheduling, Permutation flow-shop, Sequence dependent
Bilateral Exchange Rates and Jobs

We study the labor market effects of realignment in fixed bilateral exchange rates, such as China's peg to the US dollar. We employ the open economy model by de Melo and Robinson to identify the core parameters of the real, trade side of the economy driving the unemployment effects of bilateral exchange rate realignment. A small open economy version of the model is explored analytically and a large multicountry version numerically. Analytics in the small open economy model show that unemployment effects of adjusting of a bilateral peg hinge on the fraction exported to and imported from the trading partner. A larger fraction exported to and a smaller fraction imported from the trading partner make it more likely that revaluation of a trading partner's currency has beneficial effects. Numerics in the large economy model show that Chinese revaluation can generate both positive and negative unemployment effects depending upon underlying parameter values. Adverse unemployment effects can go along with an improving trade balance.
Regulation of the c-met Proto-oncogene Promoter by p53*

In the present study, we have investigated the possible involvement of p53 in the transcriptional regulation of the c-met gene. Cotransfection of various c-metpromoter reporter vectors with p53 expression plasmids demonstrated that only wild-type p53 but not tumor-derived mutant forms of p53 resulted in a significant enhancement of c-met promoter activity. Functional assays revealed that the p53 responsive element in the c-met promoter region is located at position −278 to −216 and confers p53 responsiveness not only in the context of the c-met promoter but also in the context of a heterologous promoter. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays using purified recombinant p53 protein showed that the p53 binding element identified within the c-met promoter specifically binds to p53 protein. Induction of p53 by UV irradiation in RKO cells that express wild-type p53 increased the level of the endogenous c-metgene product and p21 WAF1/CIP1 , a known target of p53 regulation. On the other hand, in RKO cells in which the function of p53 is impaired either by stable transfection of a dominant negative form of p53 or by HPV-E6 viral protein, no induction of the endogenous c-met gene or p21 WAF1/CIP1 was noted by UV irradiation. These results suggest that the c-met gene is also a target of p53 gene regulation.
Sinus Lift versus Short Implants: Results of a Prospective Radiologic Study and Critical Review of Minimally Invasive Transcrestal Sinus Lift Procedures

Introduction: The current discussion about the use of short implants to avoid bone-augmentation (“sinus lift”) in the lateral maxilla remains a controversial topic and is increasingly at odds with the reality of evolutionary biology. Aim of the study was to determine the percentage of cases from a large routine patient-sample in which short implants might be suitable to avoid sinus lift procedures. Materials and Methods: From January 2012 to June 2015, all patients in three general dental practices in Austria with at least one subantral edentulous area were subjected to routine panoramic X-ray screening. The subantral alveolar ridge heights and the mesial extension of the maxillary sinus towards the canine fossa were measured. Statistics were performed by Excel data analysis (mean value, standard deviation). Results: 2837 patients were screened with 2837 panoramic radiographs presenting 3528 edentulous subantral regions and the subantral bone heights of 5674 maxillary sinuses were surveyed. 57.43% revealed subantral alveolar ridge heights of 4 mm or less; 24.43% of all measure-points indicated a maximum alveolar ridge height of 6 mm. In 39.32% of cases, the pneumatisation of the maxillary sinuses with a subantral residual ridge height of 6 mm or less extended as far as the anatomical position of the second premolars, in 20.51% as far as the position of the first premolar and in 10.84% as far as the canine fossa. Discussion: The sinus lift procedure will continue to be one of the basic standard surgical procedures carried out by practice-based dental surgeons who perform implant surgery since in at least two thirds of the cases short implants with lengths of less than 6 mm cannot be applied. Preference should be given to sinus lift-procedures, which can be learned safely with a minimum of time-effort, least risk of failure and lowest possible level of patient morbidity. Transcrestal hydrodynamic ultrasonic sinus lift-procedures with piezotomes seem to fulfill these basic demands.
Architecture-Level Software Performance Models for Online Performance Prediction

Proactive performance and resource management of modern IT infrastructures requires the ability to predict at run-time, how the performance of running services would be affected if the workload or the system changes. In this thesis, modeling and prediction facilities that enable online performance prediction during system operation are presented. Analyses about the impact of reconfigurations and workload trends can be conducted on the model level, without executing expensive performance tests.
Detection of Tumors with 19F Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Previous 19F magnetic resonance imaging studies showed that the reticuloendothelial system can be imaged with an emulsion of perfluorooctyl bromide (PFOB). Similar techniques can be used to detect previously implanted RIF-1 tumors in mice after intravenous PFOB administration. Accumulation of PFOB within these neoplasms is due to egress of the emulsion through tumor capillary fenestrations. This is the first report in which 19F MRI and PFOB are used to detect tumors. This technique may allow clinical detection of cancer with 19F MRI.
Self-Association and Mapping of the Interaction Domain of Hepatitis E Virus ORF3 Protein

ABSTRACT Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a major human pathogen in the developing world. In the absence of an in vitro culture system, very little information on the basic biology of the virus exists. A small protein (∼13.5 kDa) of unknown function, pORF3, is encoded by the third open reading frame of HEV. The N-terminal region of pORF3 is associated with the cytoskeleton using one of its hydrophobic domains. The C-terminal half of pORF3 is rich in proline residues and contains a putativesrc homology 3 (SH3) binding domain and a mitogen-activated protein kinase phosphorylation site. In this study, we demonstrate that pORF3 can homodimerize in vivo, using the yeast two-hybrid system. We have isolated a 43-amino-acid interaction domain of pORF3 which is capable of self-association in vivo and in vitro. The overlap of the dimerization domain with the SH3 binding and phosphorylation domains suggests that pORF3 may have a dimerization-dependent regulatory role to play in the signal transduction pathway.
Consensus with written messages under link faults

This paper shows that deterministic consensus with written messages is possible in presence of link faults and compromised signatures. Relying upon a suitable perception-based hybrid fault model that provides different categories for both node and link faults, we prove that the authenticated Byzantine agreement algorithms OMHA and ZA of Gong, Lincoln and Rushby (1995) can be made resilient to f/sub l/ link faults per node by adding 3f/sub l/ and 2f/sub l/ nodes, respectively. Both algorithms can also cope with compromised signatures if the affected nodes are considered as arbitrary faulty. Authenticated algorithms for consensus are therefore reasonably applicable even in wireless systems, where link faults and intrusions are the dominating source of errors.
Amenorrhea in eating disorders: Poor stability of symptom after a one-year treatment

OBJECTIVE: To examine whether patients with Eating Disorders (ED) who restore menses differ from those who remain amenorrheic after treatment and to provide longitudinal data about this debated criterion of Anorexia Nervosa (AN). METHODS: 184 outpatients were recruited: 50 patients with AN Restrictive type, 75 amenorrheic Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS) patients, 24 patients who recovered from AN with persistent amenorrhea, and 35 amenorrheic patients without ED. All participants were clinically assessed by psychiatrists and gynaecologists at the beginning of treatment and at the one-year follow-up. They also completed several psychometric tests: Eating Disorder Inventory- 2, Temperament and Character Inventory, and Beck Depression Inventory. RESULTS: After treatment, a large portion of the sample resumed menses but very few recovered completely from the ED. No psychopathological variables could clearly predict the recovery of menses in the different groups. However, Body Mass Index and some biological variables were associated with restoration of menses in ED patients. CONCLUSION: Resumption of menses was not associated with a less severe eating symptomatology at the beginning of treatment nor with unequivocal psychopathological changes after treatment. It is important that clinicians consider not only the presence or absence of regular menses but also that they improve both ED screening and assessment in amenorrheic patients. Amenorrhea does not seem to represent a specific predictor of severity of illness or to show prognostic value.
On ‘a simple three‐party password‐based key exchange protocol’

In 2009, Huang (Int. J. Commun. Syst., 22, 857–862) proposed a simple and efficient three‐party password‐based key exchange protocol without server's public key. This work shows that the protocol could be vulnerable to an undetectable online password guessing attack. Furthermore, an improved protocol is proposed to avoid the attack. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Fuzzy Rule Based Quality Measures for Adaptive Multimodal Biometric Fusion at Operation Time

Sample quality variation at operation time is one of the major concerns of real time biometric authentication and surveillance systems. Quality deviations of samples affect the performance of many benchmark biometric trait recognition systems. Moreover, large variation between enrolled and probe samples is very uncertain since it may arise at operation time for various reasons. In this paper, a novel adaptive multimodal biometric system is presented that can adapt the uncertainty of the quality degradation during operation. Fuzzy rule based method is applied for the first time to calculate the quality score of template-probe pairs dynamically. Feature extraction is accomplished using a novel shift invariant multi-resolution fusion approach. Finally, face and ear modalities are fused adaptively at rank level based on the quality scores. Proposed method relies more on good quality samples and disregards misclassification of poor quality samples. Experimental results demonstrate significant performance improvement of the proposed adaptive multimodal approach over baseline i.e. non-adaptive method.
Analysis on Supervised Neighborhood Preserving Embedding

: Neighborhood Preserving Embedding (NPE) is an un-supervised dimensionality reduction technique. Hence, it is lacking of discriminative capability. Zeng and Luo have proposed Supervised Neighborhood Preserving Embedding (SNPE), which uses class information of training samples to better describe data intrinsic structure. The robustness of SNPE has been demonstrated since it yields promising recognition results. However, there is no theoretical analysis to explain the good performance. Here, we show analytically that the neighborhood discriminant criterion, which manifested in the objective function of SNPE, is close resembled to Fisher discriminant criterion. SNPE is evaluated in ORL and PIE face databases. The inclusion of class information in data learning results superior performance of SNPE to NPE.
SHA-2 hardware core for virtex-5 FPGA

Hash functions play an important role in modern cryptography. They are widely used to provide services of data integrity and authentication. The hash algorithms are based on performing a number of complex operations on the input data that require a significant amount of computing resources especially when the input data are huge. Thus, hardware implementation is far more suitable, for security and performances execution issues, compared to the corresponding software implementations. Hash functions perform internal operations in an iterative fashion, which open the possibility of exploring several implementation strategies. In this paper, we are concerned by optimizing the hardware implementation of the SHA-256 algorithm on virtex-5 Xilinx FPGA. Our main contribution is to design a compact SHA-256 core and to speed-up its critical paths. These are respectively seven and six words addition. The CS (Carry Save) representation is advantageously used to overcome the carry propagation, until the last addition. Special efforts were made to design, at the LUT level, the two components (compressors 7:2 and 6:2) which are the key features of our design; their delay is data path independent and equivalent to the delay of two LUT6. The resulting architecture is compact and operates at 170 MHz with throughput of 1.36 Gbps.