Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Purification of recombinant Chlamydia trachomatis histone H1‐like protein Hc2, and comparative functional analysis of Hc2 and Hc1

The metabolically inactive developmental form of Chlamydia trachomatis, the elementary body, contains two very basic DNA‐binding proteins with homology to eukaryotic histone H1. One of these, Hc1, is relatively well characterized and induces DNA condensation in vitro, whereas the other, Hc2, is functionally virtually uncharacterized. In this study we describe the purification of Hc2, and a detailed comparative functional analysis of Hc2 and Hc1 is presented. By gel shift assays and electron microscopy, marked differences in the nucleic acid‐binding properties of Hc2 and Hc1 were observed. Furthermore, Hc2 was found to strongly inhibit translation and transcription in vitro. Our results imply that DNA condensation is not the only function of Hc2.
Validation study of the European Portuguese version of the Confusion Assessment Method (CAM)

ABSTRACT Background: The Confusion Assessment Method (CAM) is the most widely used delirium screening instrument. The aim of this study was to evaluate the reliability and validity of the European Portuguese version of CAM. Methods: The sample included elderly patients (≥65 years), admitted for at least 48 h, into two intermediate care units (ICMU) of Intensive Medicine and Surgical Services in a university hospital. Exclusion criteria were: score ≤11 on the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), blindness/deafness, inability to communicate and to speak Portuguese. For concurrent validity, a blinded assessment was conducted by a psychiatrist (DSM-IV-TR, as a reference standard) and by a trained researcher (CAM). This instrument was also compared with other cognitive measures to evaluate convergent validity. Inter-rater reliability was also assessed. Results: In this sample (n = 208), 25% (n = 53) of the patients had delirium, according to DSM-IV-TR. Using this reference standard, the CAM had a moderate sensitivity of 79% and an excellent specificity of 99%. The positive predictive value was 95%, indicating a strong ability to confirm delirium with a positive test result, and the negative predictive value was lower (93%). Good convergent validity was also found, in particular with Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) (rs = −0.676; p ≤0.01) and Digit Span Test (DST) forward (rs = −0.605; p ≤0.01), as well as a high inter-rater reliability (diagnostic k = 1.00; single items’ k between 0.65 and 1.00). Conclusion: Robust results on concurrent and convergent validity and good reliability were achieved. This version was shown to be a valid and reliable instrument for delirium detection in elderly patients hospitalized in intermediate care units.
Effects of Display Medium and Luminance Contrast on Concept Formation and EEG Response

Reading from a visual display terminal (VDT) has increased enormously with widespread computer use. Whether such reading affects higher cognitive processes requires study so the effect of display medium (LCD screen vs paper) and luminance contrast (1:3, 1:7, 1:11) on concept-formation performance and EEG responses was investigated. 96 men and 24 women participated in two concept-formation tasks (rule learning vs attribute and rule learning). Concept-formation performance and EEG responses were similar for stimuli displayed on paper or LCD screen. The concern that the screen may be detrimental to conception-formation performance was not confirmed; however, luminance contrast significantly affected time to complete a concept-formation task and EEG response. The middle contrast (1:7) had the smallest mean EEG power, so this contrast might be appropriate for cognitive performance. Participants' performance was significantly faster and EEG power lower for the rule-learning task than for an attribute and rule-learning task.
HARMONIC ANALYSIS OF LONG-TERM MODIS TIME-SERIES DATA FOR VEGETATION DYNAMICS IN HAWAII

Long-term MODIS vegetation index records were used to extract regularly-repeating seasonal and interannual greenness cycles in Hawaiian ecosystems using harmonic analysis. With two vegetation indices, NDVI and EVI, the MODIS system provided an opportunity to combine the two measures and create a hybrid approach to the leaf phenology study in a diversity of Hawaiian ecosystems. Despite data noise caused by variable meteorological conditions, the analysis effectively summarized the amplitudes and the frequencies of a series of sinusoidal harmonic terms based on 16-day vegetation index composite data. The amplitude of annual greenness quickly increased with mean annual precipitation (MAP) up to a 1000-1500mm range and declined rapidly thereafter. In wetter environments, where MAP was higher than 2000mm, NDVI values became saturated and EVI records showed that the amplitude of annual and biannual greenness cycles decreased gradually with MAP. MAP was also significantly correlated with the frequency of the first two predominant harmonics, the primary and the secondary harmonic terms. As MAP increased, the frequency of greenness cycles (or harmonic terms) increased. This pattern was observed among 12 land cover types selected from the Hawaii Gap Analysis Program’s land cover map. These land cover types were categorized into three phenological groups based on their mean frequency of greenness cycles and MAP.
Mechanism of reductive activation of cobalamin-dependent methionine synthase: an electron paramagnetic resonance spectroelectrochemical study.

The mechanism of reductive methylation of cobalamin-dependent methionine synthase (5-methyltetrahydrofolate:homocysteine methyltransferase, EC 2.1.1.13) has been investigated by electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroelectrochemistry. The enzyme as isolated is inactive, and its UV/visible absorbance and EPR spectra are characteristic of cob(II)alamin. There is an absolute requirement for catalytic amounts of AdoMet and a reducing system for the formation and maintenance of active enzyme during in vitro turnover. The midpoint potentials of the enzyme-bound cob(II)alamin/cob(I)alamin and cob(III)alamin/cob(II)alamin couples have been determined to be -526 +/- 5 and +273 +/- 4 mV (versus the standard hydrogen electrode), respectively. The presence of either CH3-H4folate or AdoMet shifts the equilibrium distribution of cobalamin species observed during reduction by converting cob(I)alamin to methylcobalamin. The magnitude of these shifts is however vastly different, with AdoMet lowering the concentration of cob(II)alamin at equilibrium by a factor of at least 3 X 10(7), while CH3-H4folate lowers it by a factor of 19. These studies of coupled reduction/methylation reactions elucidate the absolute requirement for AdoMet in the in vitro assay system, in which the ambient potential is approximately -350 mV versus the standard hydrogen electrode. At this potential, the equilibrium distribution of cobalamin in the presence of CH3-H4folate would be greatly in favor of the cob(II)alamin species, whereas in the presence of AdoMet the equilibrium favors methylated enzyme. In these studies, a base-on form of cob(II)alamin in which the dimethylbenzimidazole substituent of the corrin ring is the lower axial ligand for the cobalt has been observed for the first time on methionine synthase. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Altered Sleep Stage Transitions of REM Sleep: A Novel and Stable Biomarker of Narcolepsy.

OBJECTIVES To determine the diagnostic values, longitudinal stability, and HLA association of the sleep stage transitions in narcolepsy. METHODS To compare the baseline differences in the sleep stage transition to REM sleep among 35 patients with type 1 narcolepsy, 39 patients with type 2 narcolepsy, 26 unaffected relatives, and 159 non-narcoleptic sleep patient controls, followed by a reassessment at a mean duration of 37.4 months. RESULTS The highest prevalence of altered transition from stage non-N2/N3 to stage R in multiple sleep latency test (MSLT) and nocturnal polysomnography (NPSG) was found in patients with type 1 narcolepsy (92.0% and 57.1%), followed by patients with type 2 narcolepsy (69.4% and 12.8%), unaffected relatives (46.2% and 0%), and controls (39.3% and 1.3%). Individual sleep variables had varied sensitivity and specificity in diagnosing narcolepsy. By incorporating a combination of sleep variables, the decision tree analysis improved the sensitivity to 94.3% and 82.1% and enhanced specificity to 82.4% and 83% for the diagnosis of type 1 and type 2 narcolepsy, respectively. There was a significant association of DBQ1*0602 with the altered sleep stage transition (OR = 16.0, 95% CI: 1.7-149.8, p = 0.015). The persistence of the altered sleep stage transition in both MSLT and NPSG was high for both type 1 (90.5% and 64.7%) and type 2 narcolepsy (92.3% and 100%), respectively. CONCLUSION Altered sleep stage transition is a significant and stable marker of narcolepsy, which suggests a vulnerable wake-sleep dysregulation trait in narcolepsy. Altered sleep stage transition has a significant diagnostic value in the differential diagnosis of hypersomnias, especially when combined with other diagnostic sleep variables in decision tree analysis.
Anti-aging potential of a cream containing herbal oils and honey : Formulation and in vivo evaluation of effectiveness using non-invasive biophysical techniques

A topical oil in water type (o/w) emulsion containing pomegranate seed oil, grape seed oil, sesame oil and flower honey was developed in this study. In order to determine stability, the selected formulations were kept at room temperature (25±2°C) and accelerated conditions (40±2°C ve %75 relative humidity). Physicochemical and microbiological stability of the formulations were evaluated. In order to determine antiaging efficacy and safety of the selected formulation, various skin parameters such as moisture level, pH value, sebum content, roughness, mean size of skin pores and elasticity of the application area of 12 healthy female volunteers, 25-65 years old were assessed by non-invasive biophysical techniques. In addition to this, the panelists answered a preformed questionnaire to assess the performance of the product. A cosmetically acceptable and stable cream was developed regarding to the results of the stability studies. It was determined that the cream has not created any allergic reaction on volunteers based on the 48-hour patch test results. Results of the non-invasive biophysical tests have shown that the product increased skin moisture, elasticity and smoothness significantly (p<0,05), it protected skin pH and sebum content (p>0,05). In addition, the product decreased skin roughness and mean size of skin pores significantly (p<0,05).
The High Prevalence of Unsafe Sexual Behaviors Among Acute Psychiatric Inpatients Implications for AIDS Prevention

We conducted a study to determine the prevalence and sociodemographic distribution of unsafe sexual behaviors among psychiatric inpatients and to investigate an association between crack cocaine use and these behaviors. Two hundred thirty-nine patients admitted to two Philadelphia hospitals during a 12-month period were interviewed to obtain a detailed sexual history and substance abuse history. A history of multiple sex partners was reported by 42.6% of male patients and 13.0% of female patients (p < .01). A history of receptive anal intercourse in the past 6 months was reported by 11.6% of females and 2.1% of males (p < .05). Only about half the study subjects who were sexually active reported ever using a condom during the past 6 months. Crack cocaine use among males and cocaine use among females was statistically significantly associated with a history of having sex with a high risk partner. This study draws attention to the role of crack cocaine and other types of cocaine in the spread of human immunodeficiency virus infection in this population and the need for intensive acquired immunodeficiency syndrome prevention programs on inpatient psychiatric units.
A position error compensation way for sensorless linear motor drive using high frequency injection

This paper presents a method of improving sensorless control based on the high frequency injection (HFI) for linear motor. The d- and q-axis incremental self- and mutual-inductance are determined by finite element analysis. The estimated mover position error caused by the cross-coupling magnetic saturation between the d- and q-axis is quantitatively analyzed. The error caused by filters in a HFI system is analyzed based upon filter group delay theory. A simple-to-design on-line compensation method is proposed based upon filters and cross-coupling magnetic saturation in a HFI system, which minimizes the position error. Finally, the simulation and experiment show a significant improvement in the accuracy of the mover position estimation.
Priority-based Multi-Flight Path Planning with Uncertain Sector Capacities

The United States National Airspace System is currently operating at a level close to its maximum potential. The workload on the system, however, is only going to increase with the influx of unmanned aerial vehicles and soon, commercial space transportation systems. The traffic flow management is currently managed based on the flight path requests by the airline operators; while the minimum separation assurance between flights is handled strategically by air traffic control personnel. A more tactical approach would be to plan for a longer time horizon which is non-trivial given the uncertainties in the airspace due to weather. In this work, we consider a simplified model of the airspace as a grid of sectors and the uncertainties in the airspace are modeled as blocked sectors. In the modeled airspace with uncertainties, we schedule multiple flights using a dynamic shortest path algorithm. A novel cost function based on potential energy fields is proposed for use in the path planning algorithm to handle blocked sectors. A priority-based contention resolution scheme is proposed to extend the solution to multiple flights. We then demonstrate the proposed framework using a simulated test case.
Partial Gated Feedback Recurrent Neural Network for Data Compression Type Classification

Owing to the widespread use of digital devices such as mobile phones and tablet PCs that are capable of easily viewing contents, the number of digital crimes committed using these digital devices has increased. One of the most common digital crimes is to hide the header information of the compressed data, which makes the user’s data unusable. It is difficult to restore original data without the header because header contains the compression type. In this paper, we propose a Partial Gated Feedback Recurrent Neural Network (PGF-RNN) for the identification of lossless compression algorithms. We modify the gated recurrent units to improve the correlation of layers by grouping the fully-connected layers to effectively determine the characteristics of the compressed data. We emphasize on the temporal features, which consider a wide range of data, and spatial features from fully-connected layers to extract the feature vectors of each compression type. To improve the performance of the proposed PGF-RNN, we apply post-processing that considers the frequency of bit sequences on some compression types with similar compressed data. The proposed method is evaluated on 31 well-known lossless compression algorithms of the Association for Computational Linguistics dataset. The average top 1 accuracy of the proposed method is 92.63%.
An Intermediary's Perspective on Co-creation: Mechanisms for Knowledge Management

This paper focuses on the mechanisms for knowledge generation and sharing in the co-creation process. Using a case study of an innovation intermediary we describe in detail the technical and non-technical mechanisms employed in the co-creation process. From this, the study suggests that co-creation is a pragmatic and iterative process for knowledge management to occur. Next, it highlights how the adoption of open standards and a mind shift in sharing ideas provides a new way in creating value and circumvents the traditional models of intellectual property.
The effect of listener and speaker gender on the perception of rises in AusE

Australian English (AusE) uses High Rising Tunes at the end of questions and statements. However, it remains unclear whether listeners can distinguish between them perceptually. This study analyses the identification of questionand statement-rises in the absence of contextual information. Results suggest that identification is strongly influenced by speaker and listener gender. Specifically, it appears that male listeners use pitch differences in pitch accents for perceptual discrimination, just as they do in production, while female listeners rely on the speaker gender: female utterances are perceived as questions, male utterances as statements. Contrastingly, listener gender did not affect the interpretation of boundary tones: the highest tones are associated with questions, the lowest with statements. However, the middle step shows the bias for questions of female and statements of male speakers again. These results are important for L2 learners of AusE, and hearing impaired populations where subtle pitch differences are lost.
Immunological properties of Escherichia coli heat-stable enterotoxins: development of a radioimmunoassay specific for heat-stable enterotoxins with suckling mouse activity

Antiserum was raised against the purified heat-stable enterotoxin (ST) produced by enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli strain 431, a class II porcine enteropathogen. The antiserum was used to examine the antigenic determinants of STs produced by enterotoxigenic strains of different host origins and develop a sensitive radioimmunoassay specific for ST having biological activity in suckling mice and piglets (STA). The antiserum neutralized one effective dose of toxin at a dilution of 1:5,000 and neutralized approximately 40 microgram of toxin per ml of serum. In the radioimmunoassay, protein A-bearing staphylococci was used as the primary solid-phase adsorbent. The purified STs produced by a class I enteropathogen (strain 667) and by a bovine enterotoxigenic strain (B-41) exhibited patterns of competitive inhibition identical to those of homologous unlabeled strain 431 ST in the radioimmunoassay when specific antibody to strain 431 ST was used. The levels of ST in culture supernatants determined by the suckling mouse assay correlated with the concentrations of toxin measured by the radioimmunoassay. The antiserum was specific for STA produced by enterotoxigenic E. coli of porcine, bovine, and human origins and did not react with heat-labile enterotoxin or with ST that had biological activity in piglets but not in suckling mice (STB). These results suggest that STA molecules having different host origins share at least one antigenic determinant.
Simultaneous outer volume and blood suppression by quadruple inversion‐recovery

A new method has been developed for reduced field‐of‐view (FOV) imaging with simultaneous blood suppression. This method combines suppression of signals from the outer volume and inflowing blood by using a small‐FOV quadruple inversion‐recovery (SFQIR) preparative pulse sequence consisting of two double‐inversion pulse pairs separated by appropriate delays. Within each pair, inversion pulses are successively applied to the imaged slice and the slab orthogonal to the imaging plane with the thickness equal to the FOV size in the phase‐encoding direction. Each double inversion results in the reinversion of the magnetization in the central part of the FOV, while the outer areas of the FOV and inflowing blood remain inverted. The SFQIR module was implemented for single‐ and multislice acquisition with a fast spin‐echo readout sequence. Based on a theoretical model of the signal, the timing parameters of the sequence corresponding to the maximal suppression efficiency can be found by minimizing the variation of the normalized signal over the entire range of T1's that occur in tissues. The method was tested for black‐blood imaging of the aorta and carotid arteries, and the results demonstrated its ability to eliminate motion and flow artifacts, reduce scan time, and improve spatial resolution. Magn Reson Med, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Long Bone (Humerus, Femur, Tibia) Measuring Procedure in Cadavers

In this work, we present a measuring methodology for long bones of the limbs (humerus, femur, and tibia) of human corpses. Measurements of cadaveric height and long bone lengths were conducted on 72 corpses (20 females and 52 males) from the School of Medicine at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Additionally, these measurements were compared with those taken from dry bones of a subsample of individuals. Our results show marginal differences (TEM% = 0.59) between cadaveric and dry bone measurements, resulting from different osteometric technical procedures. This note outlines the measuring methodology, which will be subsequently used to create regression formulas for stature estimation.
Isolation , cloning and expression of the Brucella melitensis Omp 31 gene

Department of Biotechnology, Razi Vaccine and Serum Research Institute, Mashhad, Iran; Department of Biotechnology and Plant Breeding, College of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran; Department of Microbiology, School of Science, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran; Department of Brucella Vaccine Research and Production, Razi Vaccine and Serum Research Institute, Karaj, Iran; Immunology Research Center, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran
Pollen tube NAD(P)H oxidases act as a speed control to dampen growth rate oscillations during polarized cell growth.

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) produced by NAD(P)H oxidases play a central role in plant stress responses and development. To better understand the function of NAD(P)H oxidases in plant development, we characterized the Arabidopsis thaliana NAD(P)H oxidases RBOHH and RBOHJ. Both proteins were specifically expressed in pollen and dynamically targeted to distinct and overlapping plasma membrane domains at the pollen tube tip. Functional loss of RBOHH and RBOHJ in homozygous double mutants resulted in reduced fertility. Analyses of pollen tube growth revealed remarkable differences in growth dynamics between Col-0 and rbohh-1 rbohj-2 pollen tubes. Growth rate oscillations of rbohh-1 rbohj-2 pollen tubes showed strong fluctuations in amplitude and frequency, ultimately leading to pollen tube collapse. Prior to disintegration, rbohh-1 rbohj-2 pollen tubes exhibit high-frequency growth oscillations, with significantly elevated growth rates, suggesting that an increase in the rate of cell-wall exocytosis precedes pollen tube collapse. Time-lapse imaging of exocytic dynamics revealed that NAD(P)H oxidases slow down pollen tube growth to coordinate the rate of cell expansion with the rate of exocytosis, thereby dampening the amplitude of intrinsic growth oscillations. Using the Ca(2+) reporter Yellow Cameleon 3.6, we demonstrate that high-amplitude growth rate oscillations in rbohh-1 rbohj-2 pollen tubes are correlated with growth-dependent Ca(2+) bursts. Electrophysiological experiments involving double mutant pollen tubes and pharmacological treatments also showed that ROS influence K(+) homeostasis. Our results indicate that, by limiting pollen tube growth, ROS produced by NAD(P)H oxidases modulate the amplitude and frequency of pollen tube growth rate oscillations.