Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Wall Teichoic Acids Facilitate the Release of Toxins from the Surface of Staphylococcus aureus

The production and release of cytolytic toxins is a critical aspect for the pathogenicity of many bacterial pathogens. In this study, we demonstrate a role for wall teichoic acids, molecules that are anchored to the peptidoglycan of the bacterial cell wall, in the release of toxins from S. aureus cells into the extracellular environment. ABSTRACT A major feature of the pathogenicity of Staphylococcus aureus is its ability to secrete cytolytic toxins. This process involves the translocation of the toxins from the cytoplasm through the bacterial membrane and the cell wall to the external environment. The process of their movement through the membrane is relatively well defined, involving both general and toxin-specific secretory systems. Movement of the toxins through the cell wall was considered to involve the passive diffusion of the proteins through the porous cell wall structures; however, recent work suggests that this is more complex, and here we demonstrate a role for the wall teichoic acids (WTA) in this process. Utilizing a genome-wide association approach, we identified a polymorphism in the locus encoding the WTA biosynthetic machinery as associated with the cytolytic activity of the bacteria. We verified this association using an isogenic mutant set and found that WTA are required for the release of several cytolytic toxins from the bacterial cells. We show that this effect is mediated by a change in the electrostatic charge across the cell envelope that results from the loss of WTA. As a major target for the development of novel therapeutics, it is important that we fully understand the entire process of cytolytic toxin production and release. These findings open up a new aspect to the process of toxin release by a major human pathogen while also demonstrating that clinical isolates can utilize WTA production to vary their cytotoxicity, thereby altering their pathogenic capabilities. IMPORTANCE The production and release of cytolytic toxins is a critical aspect for the pathogenicity of many bacterial pathogens. In this study, we demonstrate a role for wall teichoic acids, molecules that are anchored to the peptidoglycan of the bacterial cell wall, in the release of toxins from S. aureus cells into the extracellular environment. Our findings suggest that this effect is mediated by a gradient of electrostatic charge which the presence of the negatively charged WTA molecules create across the cell envelope. This work brings an entirely new aspect to our understanding of the cytotoxicity of S. aureus and demonstrates a further means by which this major human pathogen can adapt its pathogenic capabilities.
The Impact of Insufficient Sleep on Combat Mission Performance

ABSTRACT A significant concern for the U.S. military is the inability of service members to obtain sufficient sleep during combat deployments as it directly affects the health and readiness of the force. The performance deficits that result from sleep loss are well known, and the implications of such deficits include increased risk for accidents and mistakes. This study assessed the relationship between average daily sleep duration and combat mission performance. Anonymous survey data were collected from U.S. Army combat platoons deployed to Afghanistan in 2013. Participants reported getting between five and six hours of sleep per day, and 14.6% of soldiers reported accidents that affected the mission, with half of these (51%) attributed to sleepiness. A logistic regression showed a significant association between the number of hours of sleep and the incidence of accidents or mistakes that affected the mission. In addition, 34.1% of soldiers reported falling asleep on guard duty, which was also significantly associated with the number of hours of sleep per day. This is the first report to our knowledge on the relationship between sleep and performance in a deployed environment and confirms that soldiers obtain significantly less sleep than the recommended seven to eight hours per day.
Spill, Transport and Fate Model (STFM): Development and Validation

The Spill, Transport and Fate Model (STFM) is a new computational tool for modeling oil spills in Brazilian waters, developed at the Institute of Astronomy, Geophysics and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of São Paulo. The STFM was designed to assist in the analysis of environmental impact and water quality, for academic purposes and for environmental licensing studies. This work presents the formulation of the model, performance evaluations and validation of the results. These are necessary phases for the model to be made available to the public. Keywords: offshore contamination STFM, oil model, oil spill, water quality.
Identification of TPS and TPP gene families in Cannabis sativa and their expression under abiotic stresses

Trehalose is a nonreducing disaccharide that is widely distributed in organisms and has different biological functions in different species. In plants, trehalose is involved in the regulation of the response to a variety of environmental stresses (Paul et al. 2008). Trehalose has a stronger ability to bind water than other sugars (Lerbret et al. 2005). Trehalose can maintain the biological structure and function of biomolecules by replacing water, concentrating water around biomolecules or in the form of a vitrification agent under the conditions of water shortage or freezing (Sundaramurthi et al. 2010, Hackel et al. 2012). Because trehalose has a strong anti dehydration effect,
Transit Times and StorAge Selection Functions in Idealized Hillslopes With Steady Infiltration

Spatially integrated transport models have been applied widely to model hydrologic transport. However, we lack simple and process‐based theoretical tools to predict the transport closures—transit time distributions (TTDs) and StorAge Selection (SAS) functions. This limits our ability to infer characteristics of hydrologic systems from tracer observations and to make first‐order estimates of SAS functions in catchments where no tracer data is available. Here we present a theoretical framework linking TTDs and SAS functions to hydraulic groundwater theory at the hillslope scale. For hillslopes where the saturated hydraulic conductivity declines exponentially with depth, analytical solutions for the closures are derived that can be used as hypotheses to test against data. In the simplest form, the hillslope SAS function resembles a uniform or exponential distribution (corresponding to flow pathways in the saturated zone) offset from zero by the storage in the unsaturated zone that does not contribute to discharge. The framework is validated against nine idealized virtual hillslopes constructed using a 2‐D Richards equation‐based model, and against data from tracer experiments in two artificial hillslopes. Modeled internal age, life expectancy, and transit time structures reproduce theoretical predictions. The experimental data also support the theory, though further work is needed to account for the effects of time‐variability. The shape and tailing of TTDs and their power spectra are discussed. The theoretical framework yields several dimensionless numbers that can be used to classify hillslope scale flow and transport dynamics and suggests distinct water age structures for high or low Hillslope number.
Climate change and economic activity: Evidence from US states

We investigate the long-term macroeconomic effects of climate change across 48 U.S. states over the period 1963-2016 using a novel econometric strategy that links devia­ tions of temperature and precipitation (weather) from their long-term moving-average historical norms (climate) to various state-specific economic performance indicators at the aggregate and sectoral levels. We show that climate change has a long-lasting adverse impact on real output in various states and economic sectors, and on labour productivity and employment in the United States. Moreover, in contrast to most cross-country results, our within U.S. estimates tend to be asymmetrical with respect to deviations of climate variables (including precipitation) from their historical norms.
Particle Swarm Genetic Algorithm and Its Application

To solve the problems of slow convergence speed and tendency to fall into the local optimum of the standard particle swarm optimization while dealing with nonlinear constraint optimization problem,a particle swarm genetic algorithm is designed.The proposed algorithm adopts feasibility principle handles constraint conditions and avoids the difficulty of penalty function method in selecting punishment factor,generates initial feasible group randomly,which accelerates particle swarm convergence speed,and introduces genetic algorithm crossover and mutation strategy to avoid particle swarm falls into the local optimum.Through the optimization calculation of the typical test functions,the results show that particle swarm genetic algorithm has better optimized performance.The algorithm is applied in nuclear power plant optimization,and the optimization results are significantly.
Response of Common and Rare Beetle Species to Tree Species and Vertical Stratification in a Floodplain Forest

Simple Summary The vertical structure and the tree species in a forest have a strong influence on the communities of wood-inhabiting beetles. Little is known about how this influence varies between rare and common beetle species. We compared alpha and beta diversity patterns of common and rare species in the canopy of the Leipzig floodplain forest to assess their response to vertical structuring of the canopy and tree species. We assessed rarity firstly by using red list status and secondly based on the abundances of the beetle species. The understory displayed a significantly higher number of common species than the tree canopy. Conversely, the canopy harbored a higher number of rare species. The beetles’ beta diversity patterns were predominantly shaped by differences in species composition, not by differences in species richness. Vertical structure had a higher influence on the beetle communities than tree species. Both factors had a higher influence on common than on rare beetle species. Our results indicate that studies carried out in the understory alone do not allow drawing conclusions regarding the biodiversity in the forest canopy, and thus regarding the overall community structure of xylobiont beetles in the canopy. Abstract Vertical stratification and host tree species are factors with a high influence on the structure of communities of xylobiont beetles. However, little is known about how this influence varies between common and rare species. Based on estimated species richness, we compared alpha and beta diversity patterns of common and rare species in the canopy of the Leipzig floodplain forest to assess their response to vertical stratification and tree species. We used two measures of rarity: threat level in red lists and abundance based on octaves. The understory displayed a significantly higher number of common species than the canopy strata. Conversely, the canopy strata harbored a higher number of rare species. Turnover was always dominant over richness differences in beta diversity partitions. Using Raup–Crick null models and non-metric multidimensional scaling, we found that the vertical strata accounted for 19% of the overall beta diversity of common species and for 15% of the overall beta diversity of rare species. The tree species accounted for 7% of the overall beta diversity of the common species and 3% of the beta diversity of the rare species. Our results indicate that studies carried out in the understory alone do not allow drawing conclusions regarding the biodiversity in the canopy strata, and thus regarding the overall community structure of xylobiont beetles in the canopy.
A novel computing stochastic algorithm to solve the nonlinear singular periodic boundary value problems

In this work, a class of singular periodic nonlinear differential systems (SP-NDS) in nuclear physics is numerically treated by using a novel computing approach based on the Gudermannian neural networks (GNNs) optimized by the mutual strength of global and local search abilities of genetic algorithms (GA) and sequential quadratic programming (SQP), i.e. GNNs-GA-SQP. The stimulation of offering this numerical computing work comes from the aim of introducing a consistent framework that has an effective structure of GNNs optimized with the backgrounds of soft computing to tackle such thought-provoking systems. Two different problems based on the SPNDS in nuclear physics will be examined to check the proficiency, robustness and constancy of the GNNs-GA-SQP. The outcomes obtained through GNNs-GA-SQP are compared with the true results to find the worth of designed procedures based on the multiple trials.
Wind Power Correlation Analysis Based on Hybrid Copula

Wind power is a new stochastic variable in the power system operation and dispatch,the correlation of wind power generation should be quantified to determine the variability of power flows,the system uncertainty and operational risk. This paper analyzes the tail dependency of wind power first,and then improves a hybrid Copula method to model the wind power dependency considering the dependency structure. The method constructs a hybrid Copula which can describe the tail characteristic by linear weight,then uses the expectation maximization( EM) algorithm to evaluate the parameter,the analysis results of two typical wind farms show that hybrid Copula can accurately describe the correlation structure of wind power,and the correlation index and tail correlation index can be easily calculated based on the correlation measure theory of Copula.
Motivation, social work and immigration: Job satisfaction according to a qualitative and quantitative evaluation

This research is aimed at examining the motivational elements that the social worker specialised in immigration considers as determinants of their job satisfaction and dissatisfaction. An instrument was designed and validated to collect these perceptions in quantitative and qualitative terms, among a sample composed of 100 social services professionals from 43 localities in Galicia, Spain. The findings report that, while labour satisfaction is associated with intrinsic aspects of their job (such as personal self-fulfilment and constant contact with clients), the main sources of dissatisfaction relate to organisational and extrinsic work aspects (like workload, lack of support or excess of bureaucracy).
Optimal design of capacitors in readout integrated circuit for snapshot UV FPA

Design of the pixel circuit of the Readout Integrated Circuit(ROIC) for snapshot Ultraviolet Focal Plane Array(UV FPA),while including a preamplifier,a sample/hold circuit,a multiplexer switch and a buffering follower,is always a challenge for higher performance in a limited layout area.The capacitors,such as an integration capacitor,sample/hold capacitor,and compensation capacitor in Op-amp,take up a lot of space in CMOS layout.In this paper,the noise of each stage in the ROIC was analyzed,and then the total output noise voltage was calculated.Based on the relation between output noise voltage and capacitors,the optimized capacitor ratio in ROIC was found so as to achieve the lowest noise level.It is shown that when the values of capacitors are selected as 1.1,0.4,1.2 pF respectively,the total output noise reached its minimum of 172 μV.
Homology Modeling, Structure and Active Site Prediction of Stem Rust Resistant Protein in Wheat

Homology modeling is very helpful tool which produces 3D models when the target and template are closely related. The stem rust resistance gene Rpg1 encodes RPG1 protein, which plays a complex role in stem rust resistance. Homology modeling of RPG1 is important to study its role and pathway. The homology modeling of this protein was done using MODELLER 9.11. Then models of same proteins were superimposed to check the validation. NIH server containing tools, ERRAT was used to evaluate the 3D structure of protein RPG1, ERRAT score for this model was 77%. This score was further improved by doing loop optimization of RPG1 using similar tool. It was improved upto 80%. 3D model of stem rust resistance was further used to analyze the activity of protein. Active sites of RPG1 were detected by using ADDS (Automated active sites detection, docking and scoring). Total of 15 active sites were identified and active sites with highest score were used in further studies. The information achieved may be useful to understand the biology of stem rust disease in wheat which may further help to manipulate the disease mechanism.
Magnetic Field Effects on Thermal Nanofluid Flowing through Vertical Stenotic Artery: Analytical Study

The present investigation represents the first complete illustration of nanofluids flow. The effectiveness of wall slip and heat transfer on magnetohydrodynamic nanofluids flow over porous media in vertical stenotic artery with catheter has been analyzed. By considering the long-wavelength with low-Reynolds number approximation, a mathematical solution was derived to velocity, stream function, pressure difference, and temperature. The nanoparticle’s concentration, amplitude ratio, catheter size, and flow rate have been used to extract the pressure difference. This study analyzes the interaction effect of slip and thermal conditions on nanoparticles fluid suspension with a catheter in a vertical stenotic artery with/without the presence of magnetic field and porosity. The results are helpful for understanding the role of the engineering applications of nanofluids in biomedicine and some other applications. The results of this paper reveal that the nanoparticles concentration has little effect on the velocity, and the concentration, slipping, and porosity of the nanoparticles decreases the thermal energy.
Study on the Influencing Factors of the Disc Cutter Performance

The cutting performance of the disc cutter is the key factor to determine the tunneling efficiency and reliability of the shield machine.Rock fragmentation process was simulated with the large finite element software LS-DYNA,and the disc cutter performance with the different working parameters and structure parameters was analyzed through LS-DYNA in this article.Then the experiment with different working parameters was conducted on the rotary cutting experiment table of 100 tons.From the result of simulation and experiment,we found the cutting speed and cutting depth had a great effect on the cutting force,and the blade width had a weak influence on the cutting force.Compared with the cutting speed of 1.0rpm/min,when it changed to 3.6rpm/min,the vertical force increased by 29.2%,the side force increased by 51.3% and the roll force increased by 21.9%.
Older forensic mental healthcare patients in England: demographics, physical health, mental wellbeing, cognitive ability and quality of life

Background Older individuals (e.g., 55 years and over) constitute a growing proportion of the forensic mental health patient population. As a group, they are vulnerable to health outcomes similar to other individuals with serious mental disorders of the same age; however, these concerns can be compounded by complex forensic-related care backgrounds and clinical presentations, lengthy periods of time spent in prison or psychiatric hospitals, substance use histories, and crime perpetration or victimisation. The healthcare needs and strengths of this group are not well understood. The aim of this study was to identify and describe the demographic, physical health, mental wellbeing, cognitive ability, and quality of life profiles of older forensic patients in community, low, medium, and high security settings in England. Methods A cross-sectional quantitative study design was used. N=37 forensic patients aged 55 years and over completed six questionnaires. Data were also collected from patient records. Results Most patients were male and were diagnosed with psychosis. The most frequently committed index offence types were violent offences. Patients were prescribed 7.6 medications on average and had average anticholinergic effect on cognition scores of 2.4. Nearly half the sample had diabetes, with an average BMI score of 31.7 (indicating obesity). Possible cognitive impairment was identified in 65% of the sample. Patients’ assessments of their recovery-related quality of life and mental wellbeing were comparable to published UK general population values. Assessments of quality of life were positively correlated with the ability to undertake everyday activities and cognitive performance. Conclusions We suggest that forensic services are well-placed to provide holistic mental and physical care to this group but that they should co-develop with patients a greater range of age-appropriate meaningful activities that are mindful of mobility issues and consider implementing more cognition-based and physical health interventions.
Infantile melanoma: early diagnosis by total body mapping in dysplastic nevus syndrome

Melanoma is a rare neoplasm in the pediatric population, and it is even rarer in children under 10 years of age. Total body mapping constitutes a low-cost and non-invasive method that increases diagnostic accuracy in evaluating pigmented lesions, especially in high-risk patients. We reported the case of a 9-year boy with dysplastic nevus syndrome, in which one lesion presented a subtle change (asymmetry of structures) within a 6-months follow-up. Its excision resulted in melanoma with a Breslow thickness of 1 mm and a negative sentinel lymph node. Total body mapping reduces the number of unnecessary excisions. It allows diagnosis of melanomas in early and potentially curable stages, especially in children and patients with risk factors such as dysplastic nevus syndrome. We report this case due to the rarity of the neoplasia in this age group and also to demonstrate the importance of sequential digital dermoscopy in early diagnosis of melanoma in this population.
Design of the Intelligent Stop-reporting System in the Bus

This paper introduces a new method to design a stop-reporting system in the bus. It provides a new principle, which is based on single-chip computers AT89S52, code chip LC7461 and the voice chip ISD25120. It can give the information of platform by broadcasting automatically when the bus arrives the platform.It can relieve the driver's work, so the security of the bus is more guaranteed. It has broad application, and suits to be used widely.
Relational and Technological Assessment of CRM Providers: A Multifactor Study

ABSTRACT The study examines how customers of relationship software provider perceive the technology they use and assess the relational elements of the exchange relationship. This study proposes and empirically tests a model integrating two technology components (positive prior experience and quality of technology) and four relational constructs (reputation, trust, risk, and overall relational satisfaction), and how these factors influence loyalty to a customer relationship management system provider. The findings suggest that both technology and relational factors influence loyalty. This paper provides a framework that highlights the technology and relational factors influencing loyalty to the CRM software provider, which is key to continuance.