Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Inhalable Metal-Rich Air Particles and Histone H3K4 Dimethylation and H3K9 Acetylation in a Cross-sectional Study of Steel Workers

Background: Epidemiology investigations have linked exposure to ambient and occupational air particulate matter (PM) with increased risk of lung cancer. PM contains carcinogenic and toxic metals, including arsenic and nickel, which have been shown in in vitro studies to induce histone modifications that activate gene expression by inducing open-chromatin states. Whether inhalation of metal components of PM induces histone modifications in human subjects is undetermined. Objectives: We investigated whether the metal components of PM determined activating histone modifications in 63 steel workers with well-characterized exposure to metal-rich PM. Methods: We determined histone 3 lysine 4 dimethylation (H3K4me2) and histone 3 lysine 9 acetylation (H3K9ac) on histones from blood leukocytes. Exposure to inhalable metal components (aluminum, manganese, nickel, zinc, arsenic, lead, iron) and to total PM was estimated for each study subject. Results: Both H3K4me2 and H3K9ac increased in association with years of employment in the plant (p-trend = 0.04 and 0.006, respectively). H3K4me2 increased in association with air levels of nickel [β = 0.16; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.03–0.3], arsenic (β = 0.16; 95% CI, 0.02–0.3), and iron (β = 0.14; 95% CI, 0.01–0.26). H3K9ac showed nonsignificant positive associations with air levels of nickel (β = 0.24; 95% CI, –0.02 to 0.51), arsenic (β = 0.21; 95% CI, –0.06 to 0.48), and iron (β = 0.22; 95% CI, –0.03 to 0.47). Cumulative exposures to nickel and arsenic, defined as the product of years of employment by metal air levels, were positively correlated with both H3K4me2 (nickel: β = 0.16; 95% CI, 0.01–0.3; arsenic: β = 0.16; 95% CI, 0.03–0.29) and H3K9ac (nickel: β = 0.27; 95% CI, 0.01–0.54; arsenic: β = 0.28; 95% CI, 0.04–0.51). Conclusions: Our results indicate histone modifications as a novel epigenetic mechanism induced in human subjects by long-term exposure to inhalable nickel and arsenic.
Effectiveness of an ergonomic keyboard for typists with work related upper extremity disorders: a follow-up study.

OBJECTIVE To investigate whether long-term use of an ergonomic keyboard was effective in reducing symptom severity and improving functional status for individuals who experience symptoms of work related upper extremity disorders (WRUED). PARTICIPANTS Twenty-nine symptomatic workers employed by a single company. METHODS Participants were assessed after using an ergonomic keyboard for an average of 34 months. Symptom severity, clinical signs, functional status, and typing speed were measured and compared with baseline and six-month study data. RESULTS Repeated-measure analysis identified that participants maintained the improvement realized at the six-month study mark for symptom severity and functional status, and maintained their typing speed and accuracy. CONCLUSIONS The results of the study suggest that continuous ergonomic keyboard use was effective in maintaining improvements obtained after six months of use. The potential for ergonomic keyboard use in preventing injury in keyboard operators warrants further investigation.
String-pulling behaviour in a Harris's Hawk Parabuteo unicinctus

Variations on the string-pull experiment have been presented to a variety of avian species. Here, we present the results of a basic vertical string-pull task with a Harris's Hawk Parabuteo unicinctus. A 2-year-old subject retrieved a shielded food reward within 8 min on each of eight trials and spontaneously used solving techniques similar to corvids and parrots. Our data contribute to the small body of literature on raptor cognition by showing that it may be within the realm of at least one bird of prey species to perform the string-pull task similarly to avian species renowned for their high cognitive abilities.
Reasoning Over Visual Knowledge

In imagistic domains, such as Medicine, Meteorology and Geology, the tasks are accomplished through intensive use of visual knowledge, offering many challenges to the Computer Science. In this work we focus in an essential task accomplished in many imagistic domains: the visual interpretation task. We call visual interpretation the expert reasoning process that describes a cognitive path that starts with the visual perception of domain objects, involves the recognition of visual patterns in these objects and results in the understanding of the scene. We investigate the role played by foundational ontologies in problem solving methods involving visual information. We propose a cognitive model for visual interpretation that combines domain ontologies, ontologically well founded inferential knowledge structures based on the notion of perceptual chunks and PSM’s. The proposed model was effectively applied through a Problem-solving method to solve the task of visual interpretation of depositional processes, within the Sedimentary Stratigraphy domain.
Speaking Up to Higher-Ups: How Supervisors and Skip-Level Leaders Influence Employee Voice

In this qualitative research, we enhance understanding of leader influences on employee voice perceptions by examining which leaders influence these perceptions and why these influences occur. We conducted 89 interviews in a high-tech multinational corporation with employees at multiple levels in two manufacturing and two R&D units that differed significantly on “speak up”-related items on a company-wide employee survey. Systematic analysis of the interview data led us to conclude that a broad spectrum of leaders from supervisors to senior managers influences individual employee voice perceptions in both direct and indirect ways. For example, informants referred to “skip-level leaders,” those leaders two to five levels above themselves, as reasons to view voice as risky or futile nearly as often as they referred to immediate bosses. We present evidence related to “how” and “why” these patterns of influence occur by reviewing the direct and indirect modes of influence identified and by outlining the managerial functions that provide occasions for skip-level leaders to have direct influences on employee voice perceptions. We also point to differences in the specific echelons of leadership that were most influential across the units studied. We propose that multilevel, multileader influences on voice perceptions result naturally from modern workflows, the essential functions performed by skip-level leaders, and deep-seated employee attitudes about authority in hierarchical organizations. We propose further that differences in which levels of skip-level leadership are most critical to employee voice perceptions in different units depend on which leaders have the power to handle strategic contingencies and to resolve key uncertainties within particular work environments. Finally, we delve into the theoretical implications of our findings to offer a set of research propositions that can be tested in future research. Collectively, our findings point to a complex and nuanced picture of multilevel leader influences on employee voice perceptions with important practical implications for management.
Contribution of (1→3)-β-d-Glucan Chromogenic Assay to Diagnosis and Therapeutic Monitoring of Invasive Aspergillosis in Neutropenic Adult Patients: a Comparison with Serial Screening for Circulating Galactomannan

ABSTRACT Two noninvasive diagnostic tests, (1→3)-β-d-glucan (BG) (Glucatell) and galactomannan (GM) (Platelia Aspergillus), were used retrospectively in a twice-weekly screening for the diagnosis of invasive aspergillosis (IA) in 40 treatment episodes (one hospital visit per patient) in 40 neutropenic adult patients at high risk for IA. Five proven IA cases, three probable IA cases, and three possible IA cases were diagnosed. Diagnostic levels of both BG and GM were detected in 100% of patients with proven IA cases and in 66% of patients with probable IA cases. The kinetics of both markers in patients with IA were similar. The sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values for GM and BG were identical, namely, 87.5, 89.6, 70, and 96.3%, respectively. False-positive reactions occurred at a rate of 10.3% in both tests, but the patients showing false-positive results were different in each test. Both tests anticipated the clinical diagnosis, computed tomography abnormalities, and the initiation of antifungal therapy in most patients, but BG tended to become positive earlier than GM. A combination of the two tests improved the specificity (to 100%) and positive predictive value (to 100%) of each individual test without affecting the sensitivity and negative predictive values. In conclusion, BG and GM detection are useful tests for the diagnosis of IA in high-risk hematological patients, but a combination of the two tests was very useful to identify false-positive reactions by each test.
Discovering dimensions of perceived vocal expression in semi-structured, unscripted oral history accounts

What do people hear in expressive, unprompted speech? And how can their descriptions be transformed into a representative set of dimensions of vocal expression? This paper presents a methodology for collecting user description of vocal expression, transforms the user descriptions into a set of measurable expressive dimensions, and derives a representative feature set and baseline classifiers across these dimensions. The resulting classifiers recognized the top 13 dimensions over an oral history corpus, with a maximum unweighted recall score of 80.5%
Megakaryocytic Differentiation of K562 Cells Induced by PMA Reduced the Activity of Respiratory Chain Complex IV

Mitochondria are involved in the regulation of cell differentiation processes, but its function changes and molecular mechanisms are not yet clear. In this study, we found that mitochondrial functions changed obviously when K562 cells were induced to megakaryocytic differentiation by phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA). During the cell differentiation, the reactive oxygen species (ROS) level was increased, mitochondrial membrane potential declined and respiratory chain complex IV activity was decreased. Treatment with specific inhibitor of mitochondrial respiratory chain complex IV led to a significant inhibition in mitochondrial membrane potential and reduction of PMA-induced cell differentiation. However, treatment with cyclosporine A, a stabilization reagent of mitochondrial membrane potential, did not improve the down-regulation of mitochondrial respiratory chain complex IV induced by PMA. Furthermore, we found that the level of the complex IV core subunit COX3 and mitochondrial transport-related proteins Tim9 and Tim10 were decreased during the differentiation of K562 cells induced by PMA, suggesting an important role of these factors in mitochondrial functional changes. Our results suggest that changes in mitochondrial functions are involved in the PMA-induced K562 cell differentiation process, and the maintenance of the steady-state of mitochondrial functions plays a critical role in the regulation of cell differentiation.
Adenine-derived purines increase adenosine triphosphate (ATP) levels in the luteal cell: evidence that cell levels of ATP may limit the stimulation of adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate accumulation by luteinizing hormone.

To assess if amplification of LH-stimulated cAMP accumulation and steroidogenesis by adenine-derived purines may be due to an increase in cell ATP levels, dispersed and enriched rat luteal cells were incubated with the purines under short term culture conditions. Adenosine produced an increase of 2-fold or more in the cell content of ATP; basal levels were about 160 ± 25 pmol/105 cells. An increase in ATP was een as early as 5 min, and the effect was maximal within 15 min of incubation. Incubation alone had little effect on the steady state concentration of ATP, no detectable ATP was seen in the incubation media, and the cells degraded extracellular ATP at a rate of 1 nmol/min · 105 cells. Concentrations of LH up to 500 ng/ml and of prostaglandin F2α at concentrations up to 1 μM had no effect on cell ATP levels in the presence or absence of adenosine. Cell ATP levels were increased by ADP, AMP, adenosine, inosine, adenine, and hypoxanthine, and these effects were paralleled by an increase in cAMP accumula.
Structural and Dynamic Requirements for Optimal Activity of the Essential Bacterial Enzyme Dihydrodipicolinate Synthase

Dihydrodipicolinate synthase (DHDPS) is an essential enzyme involved in the lysine biosynthesis pathway. DHDPS from E. coli is a homotetramer consisting of a ‘dimer of dimers’, with the catalytic residues found at the tight-dimer interface. Crystallographic and biophysical evidence suggest that the dimers associate to stabilise the active site configuration, and mutation of a central dimer-dimer interface residue destabilises the tetramer, thus increasing the flexibility and reducing catalytic efficiency and substrate specificity. This has led to the hypothesis that the tetramer evolved to optimise the dynamics within the tight-dimer. In order to gain insights into DHDPS flexibility and its relationship to quaternary structure and function, we performed comparative Molecular Dynamics simulation studies of native tetrameric and dimeric forms of DHDPS from E. coli and also the native dimeric form from methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). These reveal a striking contrast between the dynamics of tetrameric and dimeric forms. Whereas the E. coli DHDPS tetramer is relatively rigid, both the E. coli and MRSA DHDPS dimers display high flexibility, resulting in monomer reorientation within the dimer and increased flexibility at the tight-dimer interface. The mutant E. coli DHDPS dimer exhibits disorder within its active site with deformation of critical catalytic residues and removal of key hydrogen bonds that render it inactive, whereas the similarly flexible MRSA DHDPS dimer maintains its catalytic geometry and is thus fully functional. Our data support the hypothesis that in both bacterial species optimal activity is achieved by fine tuning protein dynamics in different ways: E. coli DHDPS buttresses together two dimers, whereas MRSA dampens the motion using an extended tight-dimer interface.
Synthesis and Evaluation of a Conjugate Vaccine Composed of Staphylococcus aureus Poly-N-Acetyl-Glucosamine and Clumping Factor A

The increasing frequency, severity and antimicrobial resistance of Staphylococcus aureus infections has made the development of immunotherapies against this pathogen more urgent than ever. Previous immunization attempts using monovalent antigens resulted in at best partial levels of protection against S. aureus infection. We therefore reasoned that synthesizing a bivalent conjugate vaccine composed of two widely expressed antigens of S. aureus would result in additive/synergetic activities by antibodies to each vaccine component and/or in increased strain coverage. For this we used reductive amination, to covalently link the S. aureus antigens clumping factor A (ClfA) and deacetylated poly-N-β-(1–6)-acetyl-glucosamine (dPNAG). Mice immunized with 1, 5 or 10 µg of the dPNAG-ClfA conjugate responded in a dose-dependent manner with IgG to dPNAG and ClfA, whereas mice immunized with a mixture of ClfA and dPNAG developed significantly lower antibody titers to ClfA and no antibodies to PNAG. The dPNAG-ClfA vaccine was also highly immunogenic in rabbits, rhesus monkeys and a goat. Moreover, affinity-purified, antibodies to ClfA from dPNAG-ClfA immune serum blocked the binding of three S. aureus strains to immobilized fibrinogen. In an opsonophagocytic assay (OPKA) goat antibodies to dPNAG-ClfA vaccine, in the presence of complement and polymorphonuclear cells, killed S. aureus Newman and, to a lower extent, S. aureus Newman ΔclfA. A PNAG-negative isogenic mutant was not killed. Moreover, PNAG antigen fully inhibited the killing of S. aureus Newman by antisera to dPNAG-ClfA vaccine. Finally, mice passively vaccinated with goat antisera to dPNAG-ClfA or dPNAG-diphtheria toxoid conjugate had comparable levels of reductions of bacteria in the blood 2 h after infection with three different S. aureus strains as compared to mice given normal goat serum. In conclusion, ClfA is an immunogenic carrier protein that elicited anti-adhesive antibodies that fail to augment the OPK and protective activities of antibodies to the PNAG cell surface polysaccharide.
Effect of Acute Volume Loading on LV Function after Acute Cardiac Decentralization in Anesthetized Canines

The present study investigated the role of cardiac nerves on homeometric autoregulation in anesthetized dogs during acute volume loading. Ventricular pressure-volume loops (conductance catheter method) were constructed during acute volume loading with intact cardiac nerves (ICN) and after cardiac decentralization (DCN; bilateral ablation of thoracic vagosympathetic complexes, stellate ganglia and anterior and posterior ansae subclavia). Arterial pressure increased as expected after volume loading but no significant changes were observed for heart rate and other hemodynamic parameters. Coronary sinus venous oxygen content was also higher regardless of nerve status in response to the overall increase in cardiac work. Pressure-volume catheter data showed markedly higher end-systolic volumes after volume loading under ICN and DCN conditions; stroke volume (mL/beat) and stroke work (mL/mm Hg) were not changed but LV ejection fraction was significantly lower. End-diastolic volume and cardiac output did not change. In addition, systemic vascular resistance and tau were higher with volume loading but no differences between ICN and DCN were observed. These findings show that acute volume loading produces an immediate influence on LV function independent of cardiac nerve status.
Spiking Back Propagation Multilayer Neural Network Design for Predicting Unpredictable Stock Market Prices with Time Series Analysis

Stock prediction is, so far, one of the popular topics not only for research purposes but also for commercial applications. Owing to its importance, a well-established school of concepts and techniques, including fundamental and technical analysis, has developed in recent decades. However, because these techniques or tools are based on totally different analytical approaches, they often yield contradictory results. More importantly, these analytical tools are heavily dependent on human expertise and justification in areas such as the location of reversal (or continuation) patterns, market patterns, and trend prediction. Predicting stock data with traditional time series analysis has proven to be difficult. An artificial neural network may be more suitable for the task primarily because no assumption about a suitable mathematical model has to be made prior to forecasting. With their ability to discover patterns in nonlinear and chaotic systems, neural networks offer the ability to predict market directions more accurately than current techniques. Furthermore, a neural network has the ability to extract useful information from large sets of data, which often is required for a satisfying description of a financial time series. Our focus of study is to build neural network for stock market prediction. We propose to study feed forward back propagation network and their predictive accuracy. We propose to study architecture model of neural network and its different network parameters. The study attempts to understand network parameter like momentum, learning rate, number of neurons etc. We will compare architecture and result of above models. Our aim is to build best model by studying various parameters of the neural network. And also study other related model to compare accuracy of the model. In this study we have used R tool to implement the neural network [1]. We have taken closing price, turnover, global indices, interest rate, and inflation as a neural network input. We proposed to include other indicator like news, currency rate, and crude price as input to the neural network. We compared stock prediction accuracy by setting different network parameters. Subsequently, an attempt is made to build and evaluate a neural network with different network parameters. Technical as well as fundamental data are used as input to the network. In benchmark comparisons, the price prediction proves to be successful.
Real Exchange Rates and Real Interest Rate Differentials: A Present Value Interpretation

Although the real exchange rate - real interest rate (RERI) relationship is central to most open economy macroeconomic models, empirical support for the relationship is generally found to be rather weak. In this paper we re-investigate the RERI relationship using bilateral U.S. real exchange rate data spanning the period 1978 to 2007. Instead of testing one particular model, we build on Campbell and Shiller (1987) to propose a metric of the economic significance of the relationship. Our empirical results provide robust evidence that the RERI link is economically significant and that the real interest rate differential is a reasonable approximation of the expected rate of depreciation over longer horizons.
International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity Physical Activity across the Curriculum: Year One Process Evaluation Results

Background: Physical Activity Across the Curriculum (PAAC) is a 3-year elementary school-based intervention to determine if increased amounts of moderate intensity physical activity performed in the classroom will diminish gains in body mass index (BMI). It is a cluster-randomized, controlled trial, involving 4905 children (2505 intervention, 2400 control).