Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Structural basis of PSGL‐1 binding to ERM proteins

P‐selectin glycoprotein ligand‐1 (PSGL‐1), an adhesion molecule with O‐glycosylated extracellular sialomucins, is involved in leukocyte inflammatory responses. On activation, ezrin–radixin–moesin (ERM) proteins mediate the redistribution of PSGL‐1 on polarized cell surfaces to facilitate binding to target molecules. ERM proteins recognize a short binding motif, Motif‐1, conserved in cytoplasmic tails of adhesion molecules, whereas PSGL‐1 lacks Motif‐1 residues important for binding to ERM proteins. The crystal structure of the complex between the radixin FERM domain and a PSGL‐1 juxtamembrane peptide reveals that the peptide binds the groove of FERM subdomain C by forming a β‐strand associated with strand β5C, followed by a loop flipped out towards the solvent. The Motif‐1 310 helix present in the FERM–ICAM‐2 complex is absent in PSGL‐1 given the absence of a critical Motif‐1 alanine residue, and PSGL‐1 reduces its contact area with subdomain C. Non‐conserved positions are occupied by large residues Met9 and His8, which stabilize peptide conformation and enhance groove binding. Non‐conserved residues play an important role in compensating for loss of binding energy resulting from the absence of conserved residues important for binding.
Identification of Human Parainfluenza Virus Type 2 (HPIV-2) V Protein Amino Acid Residues That Reduce Binding of V to MDA5 and Attenuate HPIV-2 Replication in Nonhuman Primates

ABSTRACT Human parainfluenza virus type 2 (HPIV-2), an important pediatric respiratory pathogen, encodes a V protein that inhibits type I interferon (IFN) induction and signaling. Using reverse genetics, we attempted the recovery of a panel of V mutant viruses that individually contained one of six cysteine-to-serine (residues 193, 197, 209, 211, 214, and 218) substitutions, one of two paired charge-to-alanine (R175A/R176A and R205A/K206A) substitutions, or a histidine-to-phenylalanine (H174F) substitution. This mutagenesis was performed using a cDNA-derived HPIV-2 virus that expressed the V and P coding sequences from separate mRNAs. Of the cysteine substitutions, only C193S, C214S, and C218S yielded viable virus, and only the C214S mutant replicated well enough for further analysis. The H174F, R175A/R176A, and R205A/K206A mutants were viable and replicated well. The H174F and R205A/K206A mutants did not differ from the wild-type (WT) V in their ability to physically interact with MDA5, a cytoplasmic sensor of nonself RNA that induces type I IFN. Like WT HPIV-2, these mutants inhibited IFN-β induction and replicated efficiently in African green monkeys (AGMs). In contrast, the C214S and R175A/R176A mutants did not bind MDA5 efficiently, did not inhibit interferon regulatory factor 3 (IRF3) dimerization or IFN-β induction, and were attenuated in AGMs. These findings indicate that V binding to MDA5 is important for HPIV-2 virulence in nonhuman primates and that some V protein residues involved in MDA5 binding are not essential for efficient HPIV-2 growth in vitro. Using a transient expression system, 20 additional mutant V proteins were screened for MDA5 binding, and the region spanning residues 175 to 180 was found to be essential for this activity.
Soccer injuries in Iceland

We investigated the frequency, cause and location of injuries in Icelandic elite soccer in 1991. The incidence of injuries for the individual player was 34.8 ± 5.7 per 1000 game‐hours and 5.9 ± 1.1 per 1000 practice‐hours. The most common types of injuries were muscle strains (29%), ligament sprains (22%), contusions (20%), and other injuries (29%). The frequency of reinjury was markedly high, where 44% of the strains and 58% of the sprains were registered as reinjuries. Strains occurred mainly during sprinting, sprains by tackling, and contusion during other contact. Significantly more injuries occurred on artificial turf than on grass or gravel in correlation to number of hours in games and practices. Teams who had the longest pre‐season preparation period obtained significantly fewer injuries during the season.
Detection of Porphyromonas gingivalisfrom Saliva by PCR by Using a Simple Sample-Processing Method

ABSTRACT Simple sample-processing methods for PCR detection ofPorphyromonas gingivalis, a major pathogen causing adult periodontitis, from saliva were studied. The ability to detect P. gingivalis from 118 salivary samples by PCR after boiling and Chelex 100 processing was compared with bacterial culture. P. gingivalis was detected three times more often by PCR than by culture. Chelex 100 processing of saliva proved to be effective in preventing PCR inhibition and was applied to determine the occurrence of P. gingivalis in saliva samples from 263 Finnish subjects between 5 and 80 years of age. The occurrence of P. gingivalis increased with age, and it was detected by PCR in the saliva of 5.0% of subjects between 5 and 10 years of age, 13.8% of subjects between 11 and 20 years of age, 13.4% of subjects between 21 and 30 years of age, and 63.3% of subjects between 31 and 80 years of age. The results indicate that P. gingivalis is a rare finding in saliva from periodontally healthy children and young adults but a frequent one in saliva from adult periodontitis patients.
Thyrotrophin receptor signaling dependence of Braf-induced thyroid tumor initiation in mice

Mutations of BRAF are found in ∼45% of papillary thyroid cancers and are enriched in tumors with more aggressive properties. We developed mice with a thyroid-specific knock-in of oncogenic Braf (LSL-BrafV600E/TPO-Cre) to explore the role of endogenous expression of this oncoprotein on tumor initiation and progression. In contrast to other Braf-induced mouse models of tumorigenesis (i.e., melanomas and lung), in which knock-in of BrafV600E induces mostly benign lesions, Braf-expressing thyrocytes become transformed and progress to invasive carcinomas with a very short latency, a process that is dampened by treatment with an allosteric MEK inhibitor. These mice also become profoundly hypothyroid due to deregulation of genes involved in thyroid hormone biosynthesis and consequently have high TSH levels. To determine whether TSH signaling cooperates with oncogenic Braf in this process, we first crossed LSL-BrafV600E/TPO-Cre with TshR knockout mice. Although oncogenic Braf was appropriately activated in thyroid follicular cells of these mice, they had a lower mitotic index and were not transformed. Thyroid-specific deletion of the Gsα gene in LSL-BrafV600E/TPO-Cre/Gnas-E1fl/fl mice also resulted in an attenuated cancer phenotype, indicating that the cooperation of TshR with oncogenic Braf is mediated in part by cAMP signaling. Once tumors were established in mice with wild-type TshR, suppression of TSH did not revert the phenotype. These data demonstrate the key role of TSH signaling in Braf-induced papillary thyroid cancer initiation and provide experimental support for recent observations in humans pointing to a strong association between TSH levels and thyroid cancer incidence.
A new, simple, nonradioactive, nontoxic in vitro assay to monitor corneal endothelial cell viability.

PURPOSE This study was designed to determine whether Alamar blue could be used to evaluate corneal endothelial cell viability in vitro. METHODS Alamar blue incorporates a proprietary redox indicator that changes color in response to metabolic activity. Primary rabbit endothelial cells were subcultured on 96-well plates at densities ranging from 1,250 to 40,000 cells per well. After 12 hours' incubation, Alamar blue was added to each well and absorbance measured hourly from 1 to 9 hours. Sodium azide-killed cells were used as a control. Alamar blue conversion was also compared with [3H]-thymidine incorporation in the presence or the absence of mitomycin C. RESULTS Alamar blue reduction demonstrated endothelial cell viability at all cell concentrations compared with that in killed-cell controls. The reduction varied proportionately with cell number and time, showing clearly significant differences. Conversely, [3H]-thymidine uptake demonstrated minimal DNA synthesis and little or no ability to distinguish cell number or viahility. CONCLUSIONS Alamar blue reduction measures endothelial cell viability and can readily differentiate cell concentrations. It demonstrates several advantages over [3H]-thymidine: It can assay nonproliferating endothelial cell metabolism, it allows rapid assessment of large numbers of samples, it can differentiate endothelial cell concentrations, it is nontoxic, it is nonradioactive and allows for simple disposal, it is less costly, and it allows for continuous monitoring of endothelial cell metabolism and viability.
Structural and Kinetic Properties of High and Low Molecular Mass Phosphoenolpyruvate Carboxylase Isoforms from the Endosperm of Developing Castor Oilseeds*

Phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEPC) is believed to play an important role in producing malate as a substrate for fatty acid synthesis by leucoplasts of the developing castor oilseed (COS) endosperm. Two kinetically distinct isoforms of COS PEPC were resolved by gel filtration chromatography and purified. PEPC1 is a typical 410-kDa homotetramer composed of 107-kDa subunits (p107). In contrast, PEPC2 exists as an unusual 681-kDa hetero-octamer composed of the same p107 found in PEPC1 and an associated 64-kDa polypeptide (p64) that is structurally and immunologically unrelated to p107. Relative to PEPC1, PEPC2 demonstrated significantly enhanced thermal stability and a much lower sensitivity to allosteric activators (Glc-6-P, Glc-1-P, Fru-6-P, glycerol-3-P) and inhibitors (Asp, Glu, malate) and pH changes within the physiological range. Nondenaturing PAGE of clarified extracts followed by in-gel PEPC activity staining indicated that the ratio of PEPC1:PEPC2 increases during COS development such that only PEPC1 is detected in mature COS. Dissimilar developmental profiles and kinetic properties support the hypotheses that (i) PEPC1 functions to replenish dicarboxylic acids consumed through transamination reactions required for storage protein synthesis, whereas (ii) PEPC2 facilitates PEP flux to malate in support of fatty acid synthesis. Interestingly, the respective physical and kinetic properties of COS PEPC1 and PEPC2 are remarkably comparable with those of the homotetrameric lowM r Class 1 and heteromeric highM r Class 2 PEPC isoforms of unicellular green algae.
Clinical use of a system for the automated recording and analysis of electrically evoked compound action potentials (ECAPs) in cochlear implant patients

Conclusion: The CustomSoundEP software can record ECAP traces in an automated manner and calculate the ECAP threshold from them. These values are in good agreement with those determined by audiologists. Manual optimization measurements, as needed when using the predecessor version 3 of the software, are done by the software itself in the newer system. Objectives: The programming of a cochlear implant speech processor is usually carried out in a subjective manner, influenced by the audiologist and the subject, and it takes considerable time. With increasing numbers of patients there is a growing need for a rapid and reliable technique to measure and analyse neural responses – one which could give suggestions for programming the speech processor and thus shorten the fitting procedure. Methods: In 30 patients, ECAP responses were recorded postoperatively in an automated procedure. ECAP thresholds were determined automatically by the AutoNRTTM (Automatic Neural Response Telemetry) software and visually by seven persons. Results: The time required to determine a TECAP threshold for a single electrode contact was found to be between 0.5 and 1 min.
Cross-domain Recommendation by Combining Feature Tags with Transfer Learning

Most recommender systems based on collaborative filtering aim to provide recommendations for a user in one domain. But data sparsity is a major problem for collaborative filtering techniques. Recently, many scholars have proposed recommendation models to alleviate the sparsity problem by transferring rating matrix in other domains. But different domains have different rating scales (e.g., rating scale may be 1-5 or 1-10). Simple process for the rating scale does not reflect the real situation. The diversity of rating scales may cause the opposite effect, making the recommendation results more imprecise. In this paper, we propose a transfer model which learning the common feature tags from other domain. This model ignores the difference of rating scales between two domains, and focus on studying the feature tags. Using its own rating values to fill the missing value. We first get the different types of users (items) based on non-negative matrix tri-factorization from auxiliary domain. The process we call the user (item) clustering. Than we can get a BP neural network which can judge the type of user according to user's feature tags by studying the features of different types of users (items). And we classify the user (items) which from target domain by exploiting the trained neural network and the users’ feature tags of target domain. Use the average rating values of the same type of users (items) to fill the missing value of target domain. We perform extensive experiments to show that our proposed model outperforms the state-ofthe-art CF methods for the cross-domain recommendation task.
Correlation between Stock Market and Monetary Market: Empirical Study of Hong Kong Market

To explore the complicated correlation between stock market and policy embedded monetary market in Hong Kong. Smooth transition regression stochastic volatility model is use to examine the real world time series like Hang Seng stock index and interbank offered interest rate. The results show nonlinear and negative relationship existed between stock index and interbank offered rate. When transition function in the nonlinear part is active the equity premium will be positive and when it is not active the model is in essence linear and the premium will be negative. Stock index is influenced greater by itself than interest rate, the results presents evidence of market efficiency in Hong Kong
SenseCam reminiscence and action recall in memory-unimpaired people

Case studies of memory-impaired individuals consistently show that reminiscing with SenseCam images enhances event recall. This exploratory study examined whether a similar benefit would occur for the consolidation of memories in memory-unimpaired people. We tested delayed recall for atypical actions observed on a lengthy walk. Participants used SenseCam, a diary, or no external memory aid while walking, followed by reminiscence with SenseCam images, diary entries, or no aid, either alone (self-reminiscence) or with the experimenter (social reminiscence). One week later, when tested without SenseCam images or diary entries, prior social reminiscence produced greater recall than self-reminiscence, but there were no differences between memory aid conditions for action free recall or action order recall. When methodological variables were controlled, there was no recall advantage for SenseCam reminiscence with memory-unimpaired participants. The case studies and present study differ in multiple ways, making direct comparisons problematic. SenseCam is a valuable aid to the memory impaired, but its mnemonic value for non-clinical populations remains to be determined.
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Networks Induced by Intracranial Stimulation May Help Defining the Epileptogenic Zone

Patients with medically intractable epilepsy often undergo invasive evaluation and surgery, with a 50% success rate. The low success rate is likely due to poor identification of the epileptogenic zone (EZ), the brain area causing seizures. This work introduces a new method using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with simultaneous direct electrical stimulation of the brain that could help localize the EZ, performed in five patients with medically intractable epilepsy undergoing invasive evaluation with intracranial depth electrodes. Stimulation occurred in a location near the hypothesized EZ and a location away. Electrical recordings in response to stimulation were recorded and compared to fMRI. Multiple stimulation parameters were varied, like current and frequency. The brain areas showing fMRI response were compared with the areas resected and the success of surgery. Robust fMRI maps of activation networks were easily produced, which also showed a significant but weak positive correlation between quantitative measures of blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) activity and measures of electrical activity in response to direct electrical stimulation (mean correlation coefficient of 0.38 for all acquisitions that produced a strong BOLD response). For four patients with outcome data at 6 months, successful surgical outcome is consistent with the resection of brain areas containing high local fMRI activity. In conclusion, this method demonstrates the feasibility of simultaneous direct electrical stimulation and fMRI in humans, which allows the study of brain connectivity with high resolution and full spatial coverage. This innovative technique could be used to better define the localization and extension of the EZ in intractable epilepsies, as well as for other functional neurosurgical procedures.
Limitation of Electric Arc Energy in LV Switches During Inductive Current Interruption

In this paper, the commutation and switching mechanisms between the operating low-voltage (LV) switch and parallel external branches are presented. Experiments for the limitation of electric arc energy during inductive current interruption were performed for three scenarios: 1) for standalone operated switch (base case), 2) for passive method of arc energy limitation (widely applied RC branch connected in parallel to operated switch), and 3) active method of electric arc energy limitation (current commutation into the external semiconductor branch controlled by the microprocessor system). A typical three-phase electromechanical LV switch with double arc quenching chamber was selected as the tested object. The following parameters were investigated: electric arc resistance, electric arc power, electric arc energy, as well as power and energy generated at the external branch connected in parallel to the operating switch. Measurements were performed for current interruption in a single-phase circuit. In addition, observations of a burning electric arc in the quenching arc chamber were registered by an ultraspeed camera (for two cases: base case and hybrid switching).
Role of tryptophan degradation in respiratory burst-independent antimicrobial activity of gamma interferon-stimulated human macrophages

To determine whether extracellular tryptophan degradation represents an oxygen-independent antimicrobial mechanism, we examined the effect of exogenous tryptophan on the intracellular antimicrobial activity of gamma interferon (IFN-gamma)-stimulated human macrophages. IFN-gamma readily induced normal monocyte-derived macrophages (MDM) to express indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) activity and stimulated MDM, alveolar macrophages, and oxidatively deficient chronic granulomatous disease MDM to degrade tryptophan. All IFN-gamma-activated, tryptophan-degrading macrophages killed or inhibited Toxoplasma gondii, Chlamydia psittaci, and Leishmania donovani. Although exogenous tryptophan partially reversed this activity, the increases in intracellular replication were variable for normal MDM (T. gondii [5-fold], C. psittaci [3-fold], L. donovani [2-fold]), chronic granulomatous disease MDM (T. gondii [2.5-fold], C. psittaci [5-fold]), and alveolar macrophages (T. gondii [1.5-fold], C. psittaci [1.5-fold]). In addition, IFN-alpha and IFN-beta also stimulated normal MDM to express IDO and degrade tryptophan but failed to induce antimicrobial activity, and IFN-gamma-treated mouse macrophages showed neither IDO activity nor tryptophan degradation but killed T. gondii and L. donovani. These results suggest that while tryptophan depletion contributes to the oxygen-independent antimicrobial effects of the activated human macrophage, in certain cytokine-stimulated cells, tryptophan degradation may be neither sufficient nor required for antimicrobial activity.
Model-Based Fault Detection and Isolation Scheme for a Rudder Servo System

This paper offers a model-based fault detection and isolation (FDI) scheme for a rudder servo system (RSS) that manages ship navigation. Inherent nonlinearities and unknown external disturbances present great challenges in applying FDI technologies to RSS in practice. This paper presents the derivation of the state equations and commonly encountered fault types of RSS from physical laws, and the design of five nonlinear unknown input observers (NUIOs) capable of eliminating the influences of unknown disturbance while detecting and isolating faults. In the NUIOs, no boundary assumption is made on the disturbance, and their parameter matrices are obtained using a linear-matrix-inequality method. Along with an algorithm that programs the logic rules for FDI, the model-based FDI scheme has been implemented on an actual RSS test rig for validating the RSS model and experimentally evaluating it in a real-world environment; both actuator and sensor faults are considered. Based on experimental tests, an adaptive threshold method is introduced to improve decision making and hence effectively eliminate false alarms. Experimental results show that the model-based scheme is efficient and can be used for online FDI.
Naltrexone (50 mg) Plus Psychotherapy in Alcohol-Dependent Patients: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

Background: Alcoholism is a chronic and potentially fatal disease. One of the therapeutic options is pharmacotherapy with the opioid antagonist naltrexone in combination with psychotherapy, Objectives: The objective of this review was to compare the clinical effectiveness of naltrexone (50 mg/day) versus that of a placebo in alcohol-dependent patients receiving psychotherapy, Methods: The clinical effectiveness of the treatment was assessed in accordance with the principles of systematic review, as outlined in the Cochrane Collaboration guidelines (Cochrane Reviewer’s Handbook) and the guidelines of the Polish Agency for Health Technology Assessment (AHTAPol), Results: Statistical significances in favor of the treatment modality were found in both the percentage of patients maintaining total abstinence and the percentage of relapsed patients, Conclusion: The analysis herein demonstrates that for short (12–16 weeks) period of treatment, a combination of naltrexone administration and psychotherapy results in high clinical efficacy with a safety profile comparable to that of the placebo in the treatment of alcohol-dependent patients. The side effects of naltrexone treatment are usually mild and transient.