Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Correlation of two-hybrid affinity data with in vitro measurements

Since their introduction, the interaction trap and other two-hybrid systems have been used to study protein-protein interactions. Despite their general use, little is known about the extent to which the degree of protein interaction determined by two-hybrid approaches parallels the degree of interaction determined by biochemical techniques. In this study, we used a set of lexAop-LEU2 and lexAop-lacZ reporters to calibrate the interaction trap. For the calibration, we used two sets of proteins, the Myc-Max-Mxi1 helix-loop-helix proteins, and wild-type and dimerization-defective versions of the lambda cI repressor. Our results indicate that the strength of interaction as predicted by the two-hybrid approach generally correlates with that determined in vitro, permitting discrimination of high-, intermediate-, and low-affinity interactions, but there was no single reporter for which the amount of gene expression linearly reflected affinity measured in vitro. However, some reporters showed thresholds and only responded to stronger interactions. Finally, some interactions were subject to directionality, and their apparent strength depended on the reporter used. Taken together, our results provide a cautionary framework for interpreting affinities from two-hybrid experiments.
RGD-containing peptides inhibit the synthesis of myelin-like membrane by cultured oligodendrocytes

A synthetic peptide derived from the fibronectin cell-binding domain, GRGDSP, inhibits the adhesion of rat oligodendrocytes to a number of substrates. However, while GRGDSP inhibited the adhesion of cells in a short term adhesion assay, the presence of the peptide did not prevent cells from adhering and thriving in longer term culture. The morphological characteristics of individual cells cultured with 0.1 mg/ml GRGDSP were similar to untreated cultures; small rounded cell bodies radiating numerous fine processes. Peptide-treated cultures were inhibited in their ability to produce myelin specific components. The characteristic developmental peak in sulfolipid synthesis which occurs both in vivo and in vitro was completely inhibited when cells were cultured with GRGDSP. In addition, the synthesis of myelin basic protein was inhibited. Ultrastructurally, cells treated with GRGDSP showed a greatly reduced number of multilamellar myelin-like membrane figures than cells grown without peptide or those grown with GRADSP. Cultured oligodendrocytes did not become sensitive to inhibition of sulfolipid synthesis by GRGDSP until a period immediately preceding the peak in sulfolipid biosynthesis. The effects of pretreatment with peptide for 5 d before this time were completely reversible. Pretreatment which extended into the time of peak myelin synthesis resulted in permanent impairment in the cell's ability to synthesize sulfolipid. The oligodendrocyte's ability to synthesize a myelin-like membrane in culture is, in part, inherent since it occurs in the absence of neurons. The present results indicate that myelin membrane production is also subject to external control since it appears that occupancy of an RGD-dependent cell surface receptor during a critical period of in vitro development is required for the oligodendrocyte to produce myelin-like membrane.
Effects of mammalian herbivore declines on plant communities: observations and experiments in an African savanna

Herbivores influence the structure and composition of terrestrial plant communities. However, responses of plant communities to herbivory are variable and depend on environmental conditions, herbivore identity and herbivore abundance. As anthropogenic impacts continue to drive large declines in wild herbivores, understanding the context dependence of herbivore impacts on plant communities becomes increasingly important. Exclosure experiments are frequently used to assess how ecosystems reorganize in the face of large wild herbivore defaunation. Yet in many landscapes, declines in large wildlife are often accompanied by other anthropogenic activities, especially land conversion to livestock production. In such cases, exclosure experiments may not reflect typical outcomes of human‐driven extirpations of wild herbivores. Here, we examine how plant community responses to changes in the identity and abundance of large herbivores interact with abiotic factors (rainfall and soil properties). We also explore how effects of wild herbivores on plant communities differ between large‐scale herbivore exclosures and landscape sites where anthropogenic activity has caused wildlife declines, often accompanied by livestock increases. Abiotic context modulated the responses of plant communities to herbivore declines with stronger effect sizes in lower‐productivity environments. Also, shifts in plant community structure, composition and species richness following wildlife declines differed considerably between exclosure experiments and landscape sites in which wild herbivores had declined and were often replaced by livestock. Plant communities in low wildlife landscape sites were distinct in both composition and physical structure from both exclosure and control sites in experiments. The power of environmental (soil and rainfall) gradients in influencing plant response to herbivores was also greatly dampened or absent in the landscape sites. One likely explanation for these observed differences is the compensatory effect of livestock associated with the depression or extirpation of wildlife. Synthesis. Our results emphasize the importance of abiotic environmental heterogeneity in modulating the effects of mammalian herbivory on plant communities and the importance of such covariation in understanding effects of wild herbivore declines. They also suggest caution when extrapolating results from exclosure experiments to predict the consequences of defaunation as it proceeds in the Anthropocene.
Safety of denosumab in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis or low bone mineral density: a meta-analysis.

PURPOSE The aim of this meta-analysis was to assess the safety of denosumab in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis or low bone mineral density (BMD). METHODS Safety of denosumab was compared with placebo or bisphosphonates. A systematic literature search without language restriction was conducted up to January, 2014. The RevMan 5.1 software was used for statistical analysis. RESULTS A total of 11 English literatures were eventually identified. The pooled data in the overall analysis revealed that there was no significant difference when compared denosumab with placebo or bisphosphonates in any adverse events (AAE) (RR=0.99, 95% CI=0.98-1.01, p=0.29), serious adverse event (SAE) (RR=1.05, 95% CI=0.98-1.13, p=0.18), neoplasm/cancer (RR=1.14, 95% CI=0.95-1.37, p=0.16) and deaths (RR=0.77, 95% CI=0.57-1.04, p=0.09). However, significant differences were found when compared denosumab with placebo or bisphosphonates in SAE related to infection (RR=1.23, 95% CI=1.00-1.52, p=0.05) and non-vertebral fracture (RR=0.86, 95% CI=0.74-1.00, p=0.05). Subgroup analysis was performed by the type of drugs which was used in the control group. The results of subgroup analysis did not demonstrate the differences between denosumab and bisphosphonates in SAE related to infection (RR=1.13, 95% CI=0.63-2.03) and non-vertebral fracture (RR=1.31, 95% CI=0.87-1.98). CONCLUSIONS Compared to placebo, denosumab treatment significantly decreased the risk of non-vertebral fracture but increased the risk of SAE related to infection in the postmenopausal women with osteoporosis or low BMD. However, no difference between the safety of denosumab and bisphosphonates was found.
Mutations in the thrombomodulin gene are rare in patients with severe thrombophilia

Summary. Because thrombomodulin plays a key role in the protein C pathway, we evaluated the contribution of thrombomodulin gene mutations to venous thrombosis. We examined 38 patients with recurrent, documented thrombotic events at a young age and a positive family history. Twelve individuals with low levels of soluble thrombomodulin in plasma were also studied. Finally, the allelic frequency of the Ala455Val polymorphism was estimated in 192 patients with at least one thrombotic event and in 369 age‐ and sex‐matched asymptomatic controls. Two mutations were identified; G/A−201, in a severely thrombophilic patient and G/T 1456, in a patient with low soluble thrombomodulin levels. The first mutation has been reported by some, but not others, to be associated with moderately reduced levels of thrombomodulin. The second was identified previously in a patient with low soluble thrombomodulin, but expression studies failed to show functional changes in the mutant. Thrombomodulin gene mutations thus appear to be rare even in highly selected thrombophilic patients, and possibly functionally irrelevant. The allelic frequency of the Ala455Val polymorphism was identical in patients and controls. Considering the lack of a phenotype and the costly screening procedure, we recommend that thrombomodulin defects be sought only for research purposes.
Theory of mind development and social understanding.

Abstract A cross-sectional, correlational study of 30 children, 3 to 5 years old, investigated relations between their theory of mind development and social interaction, controlling for age and general language ability. Children's overall performance on 4 standard false belief tasks was associated with their production of joint proposals and explicit role assignments during a 10 minute session of pretend play, False belief task performance was not associated with the child's total amount of pretend play or with a measure of empathic concern. We discuss the significance of an association between a laboratory measure of theory of mind development and children's behaviour observed in a naturalistic setting. We argue that the description and explanation of children's theory of mind and social understanding is best pursued through the combined efforts of experimenters and ethologists.
Evaluation of short-term traffic forecasting algorithms in wireless networks

Our goal is to characterize the traffic load in an IEEE 802.11 infrastructure. This can be beneficial in many domains, including coverage planning, resource reservation, and network monitoring for anomaly detection, and producing more accurate simulation models. We conducted an extensive measurement study of wireless users on a major university campus using the IEEE 802.11 wireless infrastructure. This paper proposes and evaluates several traffic forecasting algorithms based on various traffic models that employ the periodicity, recent traffic history, and flow-related information. Finally, it discusses the impact of time-scale and history on the prediction accuracy
Work/life balance: senior management champions or laggards?

Purpose – This paper seeks to examine the experience of, and attitudes towards, work/life balance (WLB) by female and male senior managers in a major Irish organisation for which WLB is now a strategic corporate objective.Design/methodology/approach – Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected using an electronic questionnaire survey designed to obtain the views of female and male managers on strategies that would contribute to a better gender balance, promote diversity and raise leadership capacity in the organisation. Work/life balance emerged as a major issue in impeding the career progression of female managers. All female managers and a sample of male managers were surveyed. This paper concentrates on the responses of the two senior management grades below Executive Director on the issue and strategies to promote work/life balance. Additional qualitative data were drawn from interviews (with eight women and five men) and three focus group sessions with all male, all female and mixed gender.
Effect of a Food-Related Lifestyle on the Consumption of and Satisfaction with Korean Foods, and Intention to Revisit

This study aimed to look into a comparison of the demographical characteristics concerning behavior toward the consumption of and satisfaction with Korean foods, and intention to repurchase Korean foods by identifying the food-related lifestyles of Korean consumers. As a result of research, food-related lifestyle was divided into five dimensions, namely the pursuit of health, convenience, safety, economic efficiency, and the pursuit of taste factors. Consumers` food-related lifestyles were confirmed to exhibit a significant difference according to demographic characteristics, such as gender, residential area, age, occupation, educational background, and income, and to the characteristics of their consumption behavior of Korean foods. In detail, the food-related lifestyles of consumers in their twenties showed a higher tendency for convenience and the pursuit of taste factors, and consumers in their forties or over were likely to pursue both economic efficiency and taste factors at the same time. Overall, the pursuit of safety was discovered as being the highest tendency. Also, the food-related lifestyle that most significantly affected satisfaction with Korean foods appeared to be health and the pursuit of taste factors, and satisfaction were found to have a significant effect on the intention to revisit.
Code reusability tools for programming mobile robots

This paper describes two initiatives aiming at improving code reusability for programming mobile robots: robotflow/flowdesigner, a data-flow programming environment; MARIE (mobile and autonomous robotics integration environment), a programming environment allowing multiple applications, programs and tools, to operate on one or multiple machines/OS and work together on a mobile robot implementation. Robotflow/flowdesigner's objective is to provide a modular, graphical programming environment that would help visualize and understand what is really happening in the robot's control loops, sensors, actuators, by using graphical probes. MARIE aims at avoiding making an exclusive choice on particular programming tools, making it possible to reuse code and applications.
NTCIR-12 MathIR Task Overview

We present an overview of the NTCIR-12 MathIR Task, ded-icated to information access for mathematical content. The MathIR task makes use of two corpora. The ﬁrst corpus contains excerpts from technical articles in the arXiv, while the second corpus contains English Wikipedia articles. For each corpus, there were two subtasks. Three subtasks contain queries with keywords and formulae ( arXiv-main , Wiki-main , and arXiv-simto ), while the fourth considers isolated formula queries ( Wiki-formula ). In this overview paper, we summarize the task design, corpora, submitted runs, results, and the approaches used by participating groups.
A Static Analysis Framework for Livelock Freedom in CSP

In a process algebra with hiding and recursion it is possible to create processes which compute internally without ever communicating with their environment. Such pro- cesses are said to diverge or livelock. In this paper we show how it is possible to con- servatively classify processes as livelock-free through a static analysis of their syntax. In particular, we present a collection of rules, based on the inductive structure of terms, which guarantee livelock-freedom of the denoted process. This gives rise to an algorithm which conservatively ags processes that can potentially livelock. We illustrate our approach by applying both BDD-based and SAT-based implementations of our algorithm to a range of benchmarks, and show that our technique in general substantially outperforms the model checker FDR whilst exhibiting a low rate of inconclusive results.
Krankheitskosten neurologischer Erkrankungen in Deutschland

Zusammenfassung Ziel dieser Arbeit ist, eine systematische Übersicht deutscher Krankheitskostenstudien (KKS) neurologischer Erkrankungen vorzulegen. Krankheitskostenstudien dienen als Referenzmaßstäbe für ökonomische Analysen und liefern wichtige Informationen zur Ressourcenallokation für Entscheidungsträger im Gesundheitswesen. Anhand einer systematischen Literaturrecherche wurden KKS neurologischer Erkrankungen identifiziert und mittels eines strukturierten Fragebogens ausgewertet. Insgesamt entsprachen 52 Arbeiten den Suchkriterien (Multiple Sklerose 6, Schlaganfall 11, Migräne/Kopfschmerz 6, Epilepsie 4, M. Alzheimer 8, M. Parkinson 15, Dystonie 2). Für Ataxie, Schwindel, ALS und ZNS-Tumoren konnten keine KKS gefunden werden. Die Auswertung der Literatur ergab, dass für viele neurologischen Erkrankungen in Deutschland keine validen Studien zur Verfügung stehen, die das Ausmaß der ökonomischen Belastung für das Gesundheitssystem erkennen lassen würden. Die vorgestellten KKS verdeutlichen die Schwierigkeiten, Kosten, Nutzen und Ressourcenverbrauch neurologischer Erkrankungen transparent darzustellen. Diese Daten sind jedoch wichtig, um eine rationale Diskussion zur Allokation der Ressourcen führen zu können.
On the relation between social class and prejudice: The roles of education. income and ideological attitudes

Prejudice is more prevalent among members of the working class than among members of the middle or upper class. It is still a matter of discussion whether education works to suppress prejudice among upper class members or, on the contrary, to enhance genuinely tolerant attitudes. We propose that (i) two indicators of social class—income and education—independently predict prejudice toward multiple targets as follows: lower levels of income and education are associated with higher levels of prejudice. (ii) The connection between social class and prejudice is explained by the endorsement of system-legitimating ideological attitudes, namely right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO). We tested these hypotheses in four studies using cross-sectional surveys in Europe (Studies 1 and 2, Ns = 11 330 and 2640) and longitudinal data from Germany and Chile (Studies 3 and 4, Ns = 343 and 388). Results show that education and income exert independent negative effects on prejudice. The effect of education is stronger than the effect of income, which is not stable across countries. The relationships between income and prejudice and education and prejudice are mediated by RWA and SDO. We conclude that people of the working class generally endorse an ideological configuration that is well suited for legitimating the social system. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis: linkage to HLA demonstrated by allele sharing in affected sibpairs.

OBJECTIVE To test for linkage between the HLA region and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA), with stratification by onset and course types, in a cohort of affected sibling pairs (ASPs). METHODS Eighty pairs of siblings with JRA who were registered with the Research Registry for JRA ASPs (sponsored by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases) were typed for HLA-DR. The observed ratio of sharing of none, one, or both parental DR alleles was compared against the expected ratio of 1:2:1 by goodness-of-fit chi-square tests. A group of 265 unrelated control subjects served as a comparison population for HLA-DR allele frequencies among patients, by Fisher's exact test. RESULTS Overall, there was excess sharing of 2 DR alleles among ASPs with JRA. The observed ratio of sharing 0, 1, or 2 DR alleles was 8:40:32, instead of the expected ratio of 20:40:20 (P < 0.001). When stratified by JRA onset type, excess allele sharing was demonstrated among ASPs who were concordant for onset type (P = 0.002). This was true for both pauciarticular and polyarticular onset. When stratified by disease course, excess allele sharing was also demonstrated among ASPs who were concordant for disease course (P < 0.001). This was true for both the pauciarticular and the polyarticular course. Among the 32 ASPs who shared two DR alleles, 5 pairs had both DR8 and DR11, which was significantly more frequent (P < 0.0001) than the incidence in the control group (n = 0). CONCLUSION This study of an independent cohort of multiplex families confirms the previously reported linkage between pauciarticular JRA and the HLA-DR region that was identified using a different analytic method in a cohort of simplex families. Additionally, this study establishes evidence for linkage between polyarticular JRA and the HLA-DR region.
Marxism, Feminism and South African Studies

Our understanding of South African society has been radically revised and deepened over the past decade but the recent radical revision of South African history, sociology and politics has not, by and large, been interwoven with feminist re-interpretations of conventional wisdoms. There has, of course, recently been a growth of interest in the study of women in South Africa. But this field has remained largely segregated, with all its attendant risks of ghettoisation. Thus with a few outstanding exceptions, there is a lack of awareness on the part of many radical South African scholars not concerned centrally with issues of gender, of the major issues which feminists have raised about social explanation. And, concomitantly, writers concerned centrally with the analysis of gender have not often extended their findings into wider fields of social analysis. The resulting loss to both Marxism and feminism may in part be attributed to the absence of a significant South African feminist movement. Just as the 'prior insights' of bourgeois political economy provided Marx with the basis for many of his own discoveries, so the thrusting and revolutionary insights of radical feminists in Western Europe and the United States have provoked a spate of original and creative thought. On the basis of their uncompromising insistence on the need to conceptualise gender relations, socialist and Marxist feminists have revised and deepened our understanding of the wider relations between gender, class and capitalism and have been led to challenge some of Marxism's own unquestioned tenets. Had radical feminists of the stature of Firestone' or Millett2 been confronted with the South African reality, their first aim would have been to establish the 'patriarchal' (to use their term) character of this society. This is not difficult to do. On the cultural level the Sunday Times, self-appointed arbiter and defender of male domination against the (usually mythical) attacks on it by lunatic libbers, provides an ex-
The Effects of Perceived Fairness and Communication on Honesty and Collusion in a Multi-Agent Setting

ABSTRACT: This study examines how two factors, the agents’ perceptions regarding the fairness of the principal and inter-agent communication, affect agents’ behaviors under a peer reporting system. Analytical models show that when agents can observe each other’s actions and local signals, a peer reporting system with a verification mechanism (using one agent’s information to verify the other’s) and a reward for truthful whistleblowing can induce agents to report honestly and thereby help the principal achieve the first-best outcome. However, behavioral research suggests that the agents’ perception regarding the fairness of the principal, as well as communication among agents, may affect how honestly agents report. The results of my experiment show that, under a peer reporting system with a high reward for whistleblowing, the agents’ perception regarding the fairness of the principal positively affects the agents’ reporting honesty and negatively affects their explicit attempts at collusion. Communication .