Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Autoimmunity (or Not) in Atopic Dermatitis

Atopic dermatitis (AD), one of the most frequent inflammatory skin diseases worldwide, is believed to result from a disturbed skin barrier as well as aberrant immune reactions against per se harmless allergens. Starting mostly during childhood with a chronic, remitting relapsing course, the disease can persist into adulthood in about one fifth of patients. Immune reactions to self-proteins have been observed in AD patients already in the beginning of the Twentieth century, when human cellular extracts were shown to provoke skin lesions. However, the term “autoimmunity” has never been claimed, since AD is first and foremost an atopic disease. In contrast, this IgE-hallmarked autoreactivity was termed “autoallergy” and is ongoing discussed regarding its impact on the disease. Since severely affected patients tend to develop IgE-hypersensitivity reactions to numerous environmental allergens, the impact of immune responses to self-proteins is difficult to determine. On the other hand: any autoreactivity, irrespective of the magnitude, implicates the potential of driving the chronification of the disease while shaping the immune response. This review article revisits the observations made on autoallergy from an actual point of view and tries to approach the question whether these still point to a contribution to the disease.
Investigating the role of Neurospora RNA-Dependent RNA Polymerase-3 in quelling and meiotic silencing by unpaired DNA

RNA interference (RNAi) is a conserved defense system against viruses and transposons which is mediated by small non-coding RNAs. The filamentous fungus Neurospora crassa has served as a valuable model for RNAi studies that greatly expand our knowledge on this complex phenomenon. In Neurospora, there are two post-transcriptional gene silencing pathways, quelling occurs during vegetative growth and is triggered by the presence of transgenes, whereas meiotic silencing by unpaired DNA (MSUD) occurs during meiosis and is induced by unpaired DNA. RNA-dependent RNA polymerases (RdRP) are key components of RNAi pathways responsible for the synthesis of double-stranded RNA. The Neurospora genome encodes three RdRPs; QDE-1 and SAD-1 are required for quelling and MSUD respectively, while the function of the third RdRP is unknown. It is interesting to ask why Neurospora possesses multiple RdRPs and what role these RdRPs play in gene silencing.In this work, I used classical genetic and molecular biology techniques to establish whether RdRP-3 plays a role in quelling or/and in MSUD. Phylogenetic analysis of RdRP proteins from different organisms places RdRP-3 in a group containing Cyptococcus neoformas RDP1 that is known to be involved in RNAi. However, when only the highly conserved RdRP-domain is used, RdRP-3 is with higher confidence, placed in a group with fungal RdRPs of unknown function. Results of quelling and MSUD assays show that the rdrp-3? mutant does not affect silencing efficiency of either quelling or MSUD. Hence, tools that can be used to aid further charaterisation of RdRP-3 were constructed. RdRP-3 was tagged with gfp at its endogenous locus to allow the study of RdRP-3? s cellular localisation. This strain exhibited growth defects and unfortunately no GFP signal was detected in hyphae or conidia by confocal microscopy. Additionally, because it has been previously shown that rdrp-3 is a dsRNA? activated gene highly induced in the presence of dsRNA, I generated strains expressing albino-1 dsRNA from an inducible promoter. This construct was placed in the wild-type, rdrp-3? mutant and in the rdrp-3gfp-tagged background, and the system was validated by RT-PCR analysis. When dsRNA albino-1 was induced in the rdrp-3gfp-tagged background still no GFP signal was detected. Nevertheless, in the WT and in the rdrp-3? , upon induction of albino-1 dsRNA, albino-1 mRNA levels decrease and rdrp-3 and NCU07036 mRNA increase as expected. These strains will be used in future to compare gene expression in response to dsRNA in the presence and absence of rdrp-3. In conclusion, the function of RdRP-3 still largely remains unknown, tools created here can be used to explore the possible function of RdRP-3 in response to dsRNA.
ELECTROMYOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS OF TAI CHI CHUAN: A PILOT STUDY

This investigation determined the electromyographical characteristic of the Tai Chi Chuan. An experienced Tai Chi Chuan Master was asked to perform the basic movements of Ward off, Roll Back, Press and Push. Both “gentle practising mode” and “strenuous defense mode” were performed. The Push movement was used for data analysis. The results revealed that the large muscle groups of the entire body were activated during Tai Chi Chuan. In most of the time, the work of muscles was quite low in both modes. However, it could generate a peak electromyographic activity as high as the fourth times of the maximal voluntary contraction in the ”strenuous defense mode”. It’s ability for defense combat shouldn’t be neglected. The results also demonstrated that Tai Chi Chuan involves the work of muscles of the trunk and the lower limbs greater than the upper limbs.
Liberalizing Electoral Outcomes in Competitive Authoritarian Regimes

In the wake of the third wave of democratization, competitive authoritarianism has emerged as a prominent regime type. These regimes feature regular, competitive elections between a government and an opposition, but the incumbent leader or party typically resorts to coercion, intimidation, and fraud to attempt to ensure electoral victory. Despite the incumbent’s reliance on unfair practices to stay in power, such elections occasionally result in what we call a “liberalizing electoral outcome” (LEO), which often leads to a new government that is considerably less authoritarian than its predecessor. Using a “nested” research design that employs both cross-national statistical analysis and a case study of Kenya, we seek to explain how and why LEOs occur. Our findings highlight in particular the importance of the choices made by opposition elites to form a strategic coalition for the purpose of mounting a credible challenge to the ruling party or candidate in national elections.
Event-related potentials in an associative word pair learning paradigm

The study investigated the effect of unintentional learning of semantically unrelated word pairs on event-related brain potentials. Two experiments were conducted, in whose acquisition phase participants listened to five pairs of semantically unrelated words, each pair being repeated twenty times. In the test phase of Experiment 1, these “old” pairs were presented mixed with “new” pairs containing other words. In the test phase of Experiment 2, a third condition was added in which the first word in a pair was one of the words presented during acquisition but the second word was new. In both experiments, the second word in new word pairs elicited an N400 and a late (550-1000 ms) frontal positivity. The amplitude of the N400 to new second words in Experiment 2 was significantly larger when the first word in the pair was an old (previously learnt) word, as compared with the condition in which both first and second words were new. The results indicate that, in addition to a repetition effect, unintentional learning of word pairs results in building new associations between previously unrelated words.
Quantum probes for the cutoff frequency of Ohmic environments

Quantum probing consists of suitably exploiting a simple, small, and controllable quantum system to characterize a larger and more complex system. Here, we address the estimation of the cutoff frequency of the Ohmic spectral density of a harmonic reservoir by quantum probes. To this aim, we address the use of single-qubit and two-qubit systems and different kinds of coupling with the bath of oscillators. We assess the estimation precision by the quantum Fisher information of the sole quantum probe as well as the corresponding quantum signal-to-noise ratio. We prove that, for most of the values of the Ohmicity parameter, a simple probe such as a single qubit is already optimal for the precise estimation of the cutoff frequency. Indeed for those values, upon considering a two-qubit probe either in a Bell or in separable state, we do not find improvement to the estimation precision. However, we also showed that there exist few conditions where employing two qubits in a Bell state interacting with a common bath is more suitable for precisely estimating the cutoff frequency.
Genetic structure and allelic richness of the wheat core collection for association mapping of yield

Knowledge about genetic structure and allelic diversity of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) collections is a key to developing modern wheat cultivars, able to cope with various abiotic and biotic stress factors, through purposeful selection of parents. Further, information about population structure of a material is the first prerequisite of association mapping, which prevents declaring of spurious marker-trait associations. The aim of this study was to assess genetic diversity and presence of population structure within the panel of wheat accessions chosen for association mapping of yield and yield related traits in wheat. The material consisting of 282 wheat accessions, highly variable for 10 agronomically important traits, was evaluated using microsatellite markers that were distributed all over three wheat genomes. The 397 alleles were detected at 31 SSR markers, with an average number of 12.4. The highest diversity was detected at microsatellite loci from B genome, while the lowest number of alleles was observed for D genome. Structure analysis indicated the existence of three subpopulations, where genotypes were grouped according to their origin as well as pedigree data. In each subpopulation, private alleles were detected, indicating informativeness of analysed microsatellite loci for the elucidation of population structure. Statistically significant differences among groups were observed for 8 out of 10 wheat agronomically important traits, while PCA did not show a clear separation of genotypes. The analysed wheat accessions demonstrated a sufficiently high level of genetic diversity, considering both molecular and phenotypic data, which makes them suitable for the association study of breeding traits in wheat.
Deterministic all-optical switching of synthetic ferrimagnets using single femtosecond laser pulses

We experimentally demonstrate single-pulse all-optical switching in Pt/Co/Gd stacks using linearly polarized laser pulses. This shows that thermal single-pulse switching is not limited to ferrimagnetic alloys, but is also possible in ferrimagnetic multilayers that are highly suitable for future applications due to easy fabrication and (interface) engineering. Moreover, it is shown that the threshold fluence needed for the optical switch strongly depends on the thickness of the Co layer, with a remarkable low threshold fluence of ≈1.2 mJ/cm2 for a Co thickness of 0.8 nm. Lastly, helicity-dependent measurements showed no significant effect of the magnetic circular dichroism in these thin magnetic layers.
Readthrough errors purge deleterious cryptic sequences, facilitating the birth of coding sequences

De novo protein-coding innovations sometimes emerge from ancestrally non-coding DNA, despite the expectation that translating random sequences is overwhelmingly likely to be deleterious. The “pre-adapting selection” hypothesis claims that emergence is facilitated by prior, low-level translation of non-coding sequences via molecular errors. It predicts that selection on polypeptides translated only in error is strong enough to matter, and is strongest when erroneous expression is high. To test this hypothesis, we examined non-coding sequences located downstream of stop codons (i.e. those potentially translated by readthrough errors) in Saccharomyces cerevisiae genes. We identified a class of ‘fragile’ proteins under strong selection to reduce readthrough, which are unlikely substrates for co-option. Among the remainder, sequences showing evidence of readthrough translation, as assessed by ribosome profiling, encoded C-terminal extensions with higher intrinsic structural disorder, supporting the pre-adapting selection hypothesis. The cryptic sequences beyond the stop codon, rather than spillover effects from the regular C-termini, are primarily responsible for the higher disorder. Results are robust to controlling for the fact that stronger selection also reduces the length of C-terminal extensions. These findings indicate that selection acts on 3’ UTRs in S. cerevisiae to purge potentially deleterious variants of cryptic polypeptides, acting more strongly in genes that experience more readthrough errors.
A model for noise annoyance based on notice-events (invited paper)

Exposure effect relationships for environmental noise annoyance have been based on Ldn or Lden, two measures based on energy averaging LAeq. For event based sources, typically, event sound level is traded for number of events in modeling the impact of noise on annoyance. Clearly, a more unified theory for noise annoyance is needed to account fully for the effect of such trade-offs. The model presented in this paper is grounded in the hypothesis that noise annoyance is primarily determined by noticed intruding sounds. The model starts by careful prediction of the occurrence of ’notice-events’. It takes into account signal to noise ratio of the target sound with respect to the ambient (natural) background level, the indoor background level, the activity the listener is engaged in, etc. Noticed events are appraised via an emotional and a cognitive path. As a test case, our model is applied to annoyance and acoustic data from a field experiment in a natural setting in which participants were engaged in other activities than focused listening to sounds. Target sounds were train noise with varying event intensity and number of events, and free flow road traffic noise from highways and roads. The outdoor background levels were 39-49 dBA.
Layout-Independent Wireless Facility Constructing and Scheduling for Data Center Networks

The control packets in the data center networks (DCNs) have to contest with the data packets although they are usuallymuch shorter in size and much more important in network management. Moreover, the uneven distribution of the packets may create potential traffic hotspots in the DCN which could degrade network performance drastically. To bridge these gaps, a layout-independent constructing algorithm and a scheduling method are put forward towards layout-independent wireless facility in data centers. First of all, a conflict aware spanning tree algorithm is developed to construct the wireless facility network (WFN). Secondly, a scheduling method which contains three steps, route calculation, traffic estimation, and flow scheduling, is presented. In the route calculation step, a route set between each node pair is calculated in advance for later usage.The scheduler estimates the traffic loads on the links on a regular basis in the traffic estimation step. Then, arrived data and control flows are scheduled according to multiple policies based on given route sets and scheduling objectives in the flow scheduling step. Finally, a series of experiments have been conducted on NS3 based on two typical data center layouts. Experimental results in both scenarios have validated our proposal’ effectiveness.
Analysis and Research on Security Mechanism of Mobile Intelligent Terminal Operating System

From the aspects of production and characteristic of mobile intelligent terminal operating system, and its application on mobile phones, etc., this article mainly introduces the development of mobile intelligent terminal operating system. The paper also analyzes the security problems of mobile intelligent terminal operation system, and the main mobile intelligent terminal operating system security mechanism. The study points out the development direction of the mobile intelligent terminal operating system security technology.
A Shape-Based Method for Continuous Low-Thrust Trajectory Design between Circular Coplanar Orbits

The shape-based method can provide suitable initial guesses for trajectory optimization, which are useful for quickly converging a more accurate trajectory. Combined with the optimal control theory, an optimized shape-based method using the finite Fourier series is proposed in this paper. Taking the flight time-fixed case and the time-free case into account, respectively, the optimized shape-based method, which considers the first-order optimal necessary conditions, can guarantee that not only an orbit designed during the preliminary phase is optimal, but also the thrust direction is not constrained to be tangential. Besides, the traditional shape-based method using the finite Fourier series, in which the thrust direction is constrained to be tangential, is developed for the time-free case in this paper. The Earth-Mars case and the LEO-GEO case are used to verify the optimized shape-based method’s feasibility for time-fixed and time-free continuous low-thrust trajectory design between circular coplanar orbits, respectively. The optimized shaped-based method can design a lower cost trajectory.
Changing Consumer Buying Habits in Developing Countries: A Disaggregate Demand Analysis for Fruits and Vegetables in Vietnam

Food systems in developing countries are currently undergoing a rapid transformation, with important implications for local farmers, wholesalers, and retailers. While supply side aspects of this transformation have been analyzed previously, issues of consumer demand have received much less attention. This paper analyzes changing consumption habits for fresh fruits and vegetables in Vietnam, using household survey data and a demand systems approach. Demand for products from modern supply chains - particularly modern retailers and non-traditional imports - is highly income elastic. Also, supermarket expansion impacts on consumer demand. This implies a continued restructuring of the food sector in the further process of economic development.
‘ There ’ s a hell of a noise ’ : living with a hearing loss in residential care

Background: hearing loss is common in older age. Research with older people in residential care settings has identified high prevalence of hearing loss and low uptake of hearing aids. Hearing loss in these settings is associated with reduced social engagement. Although hearing aids remain the default treatment for presbyacusic hearing loss, these are not well used. We do not know what other modifiable factors contribute to communication problems for older people with hearing loss living in residential care. Objectives: to explore the factors affecting communicating with a hearing loss in residential care. Methods: an ethnographic study in two residential care homes comprised 19 sessions of observation, and in-depth interviews with 18 residents. Observations explored communication behaviour in everyday interactions, including mealtimes, structured groups and informal group activities. Interviews were informed by the observations and identified reasons for these behaviours and communication preferences. Observational data were recorded in field notes and interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. Analysis was conducted using constant comparison methods. Results: hearing loss affected whether residents were able to access social opportunities. Two key themes influenced this (i) contextual issues compounded communication difficulties and (ii) environmental noise restricted the residents’ communication choices. Problems were observed at every mealtime and during formal and informal group activities. The use of hearing aids and access to hearing services did not improve social engagement. Conclusions: environmental and social factors are key to maximising communication opportunities. Improvements to communication in residential care settings could be based on changes in these with input from residents and staff. Further work is needed to develop effective communication strategies in residential care.
Exploiting of Streptomyces bottropensis as creator for silver nanoparticles inhibiting growth of microbes

Nanotechnology can be defined as an investigation for the design, synthesis, and manipulation of structure of particles with dimension smaller than 100 nm. Nanotechnology has a variety of applications in fields such as optics, electronics, biomedicine (Jain et al., 2011; Klaus-Jeorger et al., 2001), magnetics, mechanics, catalysis, energy science (Dura n et al., 2005), etc. Thus, developing different branches of nanotechnology definitely results in developing the related sciences, and is a significantly goal of scientific research (Mohanpuria et al., 2008; Bhattacharya and Gupta, 2005). Nanoparticles are at the important advantage of the quickly emergent field of nanotechnology and they are currently made by chemical and physical approaches. The development of environmentally friendly, kindly and green process technologies for the production of nanoparticles with a range of chemical and physical properties is one of the challenges ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 2 Number 9 (2013) pp. 288-298 http://www.ijcmas. com
Human oral microbiome characterization and its association with environmental microbiome revealed by the Earth Microbiome Project

The oral cavity is an important window for the microbial communication between environment and the human body. The oral microbiome plays an important role in human health. Here, we analyzed 447 datasets from human oral samples published by the Earth Microbiome Project (EMP). The microbes in these human oral samples were taxonomically assigned to at least 266 genera of 18 bacterial and archaeal phyla. Among them, 11 genera with the relative abundance more than 1% were identified as 5 different bacterial phyla. Compared with 815 samples from human gut, nose/pharynx and skin, the oral microbiome showed significantly lower diversity and possessed fewer unknown species than those of other body parts, and had distinct differences in species composition from other body parts. In addition, the oral microbiome showed significant differences in the populations of different countries, which may be determined by the living environment and lifestyle/dietary habits. Finally, the correlation analysis showed highly similarity between the oral microbiome and the microbiomes of Aerosol (non-saline) and Surface (non-saline), two types of environmental microbial habitats related closely to human. Together, these findings expand our understanding to the human oral microbiome.
Morphological, Molecular Identification and SSR Marker Analysis of a Potential Strain of Trichoderma/Hypocrea for Production of a Bioformulation

Seven different strains of Trichoderma are isolated from wilt infected leguminous crops of an Indian state and tested for their antagonistic activity against Fusarium (soil borne pathogen) which is expressed as a zone of inhibition in the culture plates. The seven strains are identified as Trichoderma viride, T. harzianum, T. asperellum, T. koningii, T. atroviride, T. longibrachiatum, and T. virens. Upon successful identification, morphological description and sequencing of the isolated strains with the help of universal ITS primers, the sequences are submitted to NCBI and allotted with the accession numbers JX119211, KC800922, KC800921, KC800924, KC008065, JX978542 and KC800923, respectively. Genetic variability studies reveal that a percentage of polymorphism in SSRs is obtained within the seven strains of Trichoderma species which is comparatively higher (>77%) than with RAPD primers (~50%). This study aims at selecting the best strain of Trichoderma species (Trichoderma viride 01PP) and then preparing a simple bioformulation that is cheap, easy to apply and readily accessible to the farmers. Shelf life of the prepared bioformulation is even checked for 180 days and it is concluded that the number of propagules start declining from 30th day onwards when the bioformulation is prepared in talc as a carrier material.