Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Legionella Subvert the Functions of Rab1 and Sec22b to Create a Replicative Organelle

Legionella pneumophila is a bacterial pathogen that infects eukaryotic host cells and replicates inside a specialized organelle that is morphologically similar to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). To better understand the molecular mechanisms governing transport of the Legionella-containing vacuole (LCV), we have identified host proteins that participate in the conversion of the LCV into a replicative organelle. Our data show that Rab1 is recruited to the LCV within minutes of uptake. Rab1 recruitment to the LCV precedes remodeling of this compartment by ER-derived vesicles. Genetic inhibition studies demonstrate that Rab1 is important for the recruitment of ER-derived vesicles to the LCV and that inhibiting Rab1 function abrogates intracellular growth of Legionella. Morphological studies indicate that the Sec22b protein is located on ER-derived vesicles recruited to the LCV and that Sec22b is delivered to the LCV membrane. Sec22b function was found to be important for biogenesis of the specialized organelle that supports Legionella replication. These studies demonstrate that Legionella has the ability to subvert Rab1 and Sec22b function to facilitate the transport and fusion of ER-derived vesicles with the LCV, resulting in the formation of a specialized organelle that can support bacterial replication.
SERIAL POSITION AND DISTANCE EFFECTS IN VISUAL WORKING MEMORY

Numerous studies have identified and explored the factors that affect order information processing in verbal working memory (WM), whereas little is known about order maintenance in visual WM. To gain better insight into the possible mechanisms of representing order in visual WM, we assessed the extent of serial position and item distance effects on visual WM. 20 students performed a visual WM task. They were asked to encode and maintain either the identity or temporal order of four visual stimuli. The results revealed recency and distance effects congruent with previous studies of verbal WM, however, no primacy effect in accuracy results was detected. Distance was revealed to be closely intertwined with recency, making it difficult to estimate their separate effects on order recognition. These results suggest that order coding in visual WM involves the use of a magnitude of codes similar to those employed in number processing and
A CD4+ cytotoxic T-lymphocyte clone to a conserved epitope on human immunodeficiency virus type 1 p24: cytotoxic activity and secretion of interleukin-2 and interleukin-6

A CD4+ cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) clone, established from the peripheral blood of a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-seropositive donor, lysed autologous target cells that were infected with a recombinant vaccinia virus containing the gag gene of HIV type 1 and target cells pulsed with p24gag construct expressed in Escherichia coli. The recognition of the HLA-DQ-restricted epitope by this clone was further defined by using overlapping synthetic peptides. The epitope recognized by this CD4+ CTL clone (amino acids 140 to 148) overlaps with a CD8+ epitope and is highly conserved among all isolates of HIV type 1 that have been sequenced. Production and secretion of lymphokines such as interleukin-2 and interleukin-6 after specific antigenic stimulation were demonstrated by this gag-specific CD4+ CTL clone.
Silent Myocardial Ischemia in Middle-Aged Asymptomatic Patients With Type 2 Diabetes in Turkish Population

The authors investigated silent myocardial ischemia in unselected consecutive middle-aged asymptomatic patients with type 2 diabetes without any evidence of coronary heart disease documented by treadmill exercise test. Ninety asymptomatic patients with type 2 diabetes (48 men; mean age: 49 ±6 years) were included in the study. Mean duration of diabetes in the study group was 4 ±4.2 years (range 1 to 21 years); 38% of the study population, diabetes duration was only 1 year). All patients were subjected to treadmill exercise test with Bruce protocol. A positive test was noted in 4 of 90 (4%) study patients. Two male patients (4%) and 2 (4%) women patients developed exercise-induced ST-segment depression, but none had concomitant chest pain. Diabetics with silent myocardial ischemia were older (55 ±3 years vs 49 ±6 years, p = 0.04) than those without silent myocardial ischemia. Also, diabetics with silent myocardial ischemia had higher fibrinogen level (372 ±51 vs 307 ±71 mg/dL, p = 0.04) than diabetics without silent myocardial ischemia. In treadmill exercise test, diabetics with silent myocardial ischemia had lower total exercise time and peak workload (375 ±30 vs 474 ±115 seconds, p = 0.04; 7.3 ±0.5 vs 8.9 ±1.9, p = 0.04, respectively) than without silent myocardial ischemia. Insulin resistance is associated with a variety of atherosclerosis risk factors. Exercise test findings show increased cardiac sympathetic activity and parasympathetic withdrawal in increased insulin resistance.
Hybrid implementation of error diffusion dithering

Many image filtering operations provide ample parallelism, but progressive non-linear processing of images is among the hardest to parallelize due to long, sequential, and non-linear data dependency. A typical example of such an operation is error diffusion dithering, exemplified by the Floyd-Steinberg algorithm. In this paper, we present its parallelization on multicore CPUs using a block-based approach and on the GPU using a pixel based approach. We also present a hybrid approach in which the CPU and the GPU operate in parallel during the computation. High Performance Computing has traditionally been associated with high end CPUs and GPUs. Our focus is on everyday computers such as laptops and desktops, where significant compute power is available on the GPU as on the CPU. Our implementation can dither an 8K × 8K image on an off-the-shelf laptop with an Nvidia 8600M GPU in about 400 milliseconds when the sequential implementation on its CPU took about 4 seconds.
FIRST RECORD OF A TWIN BIRTH IN CHIMPANZEES OF THE MAHALE MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK, TANZANIA

Newborn chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) twins were observed in the Mahale Mountains National Park. This is the first observation at Mahale of a multi­ ple birth from 135 births recorded during 29 years of research at this site. On 22 January 1994, a ca.16-year-old female was first seen with her female twins. Each infant was esti­ mated to be only two-thirds the normal size, but their combined weight and the double amount of attention that had to be given to their care made the mother's burden very heavy. She had to pay close attention to the infants even when she rested. The mother often stopped to rest every lG-20 m while traveling, and often walked bipedally for 2-3m at a time, gripping the twins by the nape of their necks. She was never seen to lift the infants to her nipples although they often showed oral rooting for nipple behavior and vocalized in distress. When the mother was next seen on 29 January, her twins were gone.
L’éducation à la sexualité : conceptions d’enseignants et futurs enseignants de trois pays maghrébins (Tunisie, Maroc, Algérie)

Nowadays, sex education takes part in the development of the citizenship values and it contributes to public health. It participates not only to the biological and medical dimensions, but also to the psychological and social dimensions. Teachers play a key role in the sexual health education . This paper analyses the teachers’ and future teachers' conceptions about sex education from three Maghreb countries: Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria. Data were obtained from a questionnaire elaborated and validated in the European BIOHEAD-Citizen research project. Responses were received from 1306 teachers from the three countries who completed the questionnaire. The multivariate statistical analyses employed in the present study permit us to identify important differences and some convergences between the three countries. This analysis show also significant correlations between teachers’ conceptions about sex education and their religious and political opinions. The teacher’s conceptions and values about sex education (for example abortion or homosexuals' rights) vary significantly from country to country but they also vary according to religious beliefs and the level of religious practice. Other differences are related to the age at which certain topics of sexual education should be taught for the first time at school by teachers and/or external specialists. The discussion compares these results to those obtained in France from the same questionnaire, showing homogeneity of the three countries, beyond their differences. Finally, the implications of these findings for teachers training and the issues for implementing the most effective sex education in the three countries were discussed.
The Drosophila ubiquitin-specific protease Puffyeye regulates dMyc-mediated growth

The essential and highly conserved role of Myc in organismal growth and development is dependent on the control of Myc protein abundance. It is now well established that Myc levels are in part regulated by ubiquitin-dependent proteasomal degradation. Using a genetic screen for modifiers of Drosophila Myc (dMyc)-induced growth, we identified and characterized a ubiquitin-specific protease (USP), Puffyeye (Puf), as a novel regulator of dMyc levels and function in vivo. We show that puf genetically and physically interacts with dMyc and the ubiquitin ligase archipelago (ago) to modulate a dMyc-dependent cell growth phenotype, and that varying Puf levels in both the eye and wing phenocopies the effects of altered dMyc abundance. Puf containing point mutations within its USP enzymatic domain failed to alter dMyc levels and displayed no detectable phenotype, indicating the importance of deubiquitylating activity for Puf function. We find that dMyc induces Ago, indicating that dMyc triggers a negative-feedback pathway that is modulated by Puf. In addition to its effects on dMyc, Puf regulates both Ago and its cell cycle substrate Cyclin E. Therefore, Puf influences cell growth by controlling the stability of key regulatory proteins.
Balancing the Self

The vestibular system is composed of otolith organs and semi-circular canals that encode linear and angular accelerations, as well as the position of the head with respect to gravity. Thus, the detection of self-motion, the distinction between self- and object-motion, as well as gaze stabilisation and maintenance of postural stability are the core vestibular functions. Recent research shows that vestibular information interacts with higher-level cognitive processes, such as space perception, attention orienting, body schema and bodily self-consciousness. In order to contribute to these faculties, vestibular information is dynamically combined with visual, somatosensory and proprioceptive signals. In the present thesis we explore such multimodal interactions using a human centrifuge (rotating chair). In Part 1 we show that visual and vestibular cues are integrated in accordance with statistical optimality even when large directional conflicts are introduced between these modalities. Participants were significantly better in discriminating rotation magnitude when simultaneously presented with visual and vestibular cues, as compared to each modality independently, despite the fact that the axes of rotation implied by the two cues were different (Study 1). We also demonstrate that visuo-vestibular integration is present and optimal in patients with unilateral vestibular loss (Study 2). Part 2 of the present thesis examined vestibularsomatosensory interactions. We show that vestibular stimulation in the form of passive whole-body rotations increases tactile sensitivity at the fingertips, as compared to a no-rotation baseline (Study 3). We also demonstrate that the effect of vestibular stimulation on touch is not direct, but mediated by visual information about self-motion: visual and vestibular cues first combine, and only subsequently influence tactile sensitivity (Study 4). In Part 3 of this thesis, we explored how vestibular stimulation affects visual attention and awareness. We show that when acting as an exogenous cue, vestibular stimulation orients attention at short cue-to-target delays. When acting as an endogenous cue, vestibular stimulation strongly orients attention at all cue-to-target delays (Study 5). Vestibular stimulation also affects visual awareness. Using a continuous flash suppression paradigm to suppress an optic flow stimulus during passive whole-body rotations, we show that optic flow that is congruent (i.e. counterdirectional) with the direction of the vestibular rotation breaks suppression faster than incongruent optic flow (Study 6). In sum, our findings refine the existing knowledge on multisensory processing in general and vestibular interactions with other senses in particular. Our results are of relevance for the understanding of how visual, vestibular, proprioceptive and somatosensory information are combined by the brain in order to form a coherent representation of the self in space.
Covariate selection in pharmacometric analyses: a review of methods

Covariate selection is an activity routinely performed during pharmacometric analysis. Many are familiar with the stepwise procedures, but perhaps not as many are familiar with some of the issues associated with such methods. Recently, attention has focused on selection procedures that do not suffer from these issues and maintain good predictive properties. In this review, we endeavour to put the main variable selection procedures into a framework that facilitates comparison. We highlight some issues that are unique to pharmacometric analyses and provide some thoughts and strategies for pharmacometricians to consider when planning future analyses.
Characterization of radiation-induced apoptosis in the small intestine and its biological implications.

The small intestine with its high cell proliferation, well-accepted hierarchy, high radiation susceptibility and low cancer incidence is a useful model for studying the controls of cell replacement. Apoptosis, which represents part of the overall homeostatic process, occurs spontaneously at the stem cell position in the crypts, and very small doses of radiation elevate the levels of apoptosis rapidly in this region. Other cytotoxic agents also target cells in this region including several mutagenic chemicals. Yet other drugs target cells at higher positions in the crypt indicating that all crypt cells possess the programme for apoptosis, but this is normally suppressed in many of the cells. In contrast, high doses of radiation are required to reproductively sterilize the crypts and, using clonal regeneration techniques, the number of clonogenic cells is dependent on the levels of damage induced (dose), i.e. the more injury that is induced the greater number of cells that are recruited into the clonogenic compartment. All doses of radiation trigger rapid changes in proliferation in the stem cell region which suggests that the detection of the induced cell death (even small levels, such as one apoptotic cell per crypt) is efficient and has rapid consequences. p53 may be involved in this damage recognition and apoptosis initiation. The studies to date suggest that apoptosis plays an important role in this tissue in terms of its homeostasis and its protection against carcinogenesis by removal of potentially carcinogenic damaged cells.
A Novel Piecewise Linear Slope Compensation Circuit in Peak Current Mode Control

To solve the excessive compensation problem that affects the performances of the peak current mode (PCM) controlled converter system, a novel slope compensation circuit named piecewise linear slope compensation was proposed, which provides compensation signals with different slopes according to different duty cycles. The design principles were introduced and the practical circuit was composed and optimized at length. The piecewise linear slope compensation circuit was designed and simulated in 1.5 mum HV BCD process. Simulation results were consistent with expectations well, which showed that the circuit has greatly improved the output current capacity and transient response of the DC/DC power supply system.
Surviving Two Critiques by Block? The Resilient Big Five Have Emerged as the Paradigm for Personality Trait Psychology

In a career spanning more than 50 years, Jack Block has made numerous important contributions, especially in the fields of personality assessment, development, and structure. Block also spent a surprising amount of time and effort criticizing the work of others. In all, he has published more than 25 critiques, including some directed at colleagues in his own department (e.g., Block, 1989, 1995).
Cost-effectiveness analysis for determining optimal cut-off of immunochemical faecal occult blood test for population-based colorectal cancer screening (KCIS 16)

Objectives: We aimed to determine the optimal cut-off of the immunochemical faecal occult blood test (iFOBT) by using cost-effectiveness analysis. Methods: A total of 22,672 subjects aged 50 years or older were invited to have an uptake of iFOBT. We collected data from screen-detected cases for the cut-off above 100 ng/mL and obtained interval cancers from a nationwide cancer registry for a cut-off below 100 ng/mL. We found a total of 65 colorectal cancer (CRC) cases, including 43 detected by screen and 22 diagnosed between screens (interval cases). The optimal cut-off was first determined by receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve analysis. Formal economic evaluation was further applied to identifying the optimal cut-off by assessing the minimum incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER), an indicator for cost per life year gained (effectiveness), given a series of cut-offs of iFOBT, ranging from 30 to 200 ng/mL compared with no screening. Results: ROC curve analysis found the optimal cut-off of iFOBT to be 100 ng/mL at which the sensitivity, false-positive and odds of being affected given a positive result were 81.5% (70.2%–89.2%), 5.7% (5.4%–6.0%) and 1.24 (1.19–1.32), respectively. The area under ROC curve was 0.87 (0.81–0.93). In economic appraisal, the screening programme irrespective of any cut-off dominated (less cost and more effectiveness) over the control group. The optimal cut-off (the lowest ICER) was 110 ng/mL at which an average of 0.054 life year was gained and that of 950 ($US) was saved. Conclusions: We used cost-effectiveness to identify 110 ng/mL as the optimal cut-off of iFOBT in a Taiwanese population-based screening for CRC. Our model provides a useful approach for health policy-makers in designing population-based screening for CRC to determine the optimal cut-off of iFOBT when cost and effectiveness need to be taken into account.
Ensemble and Multiple Kernel Regressors: Which Is Better?

SUMMARY For the last few decades, learning with multiple kernels, represented by the ensemble kernel regressor and the multiple kernel re-gressor, has attracted much attention in the ﬁeld of kernel-based machine learning. Although their e ﬃ cacy was investigated numerically in many works, their theoretical ground is not investigated su ﬃ ciently, since we do not have a theoretical framework to evaluate them. In this paper, we introduce a uniﬁed framework for evaluating kernel regressors with multiple kernels. On the basis of the framework, we analyze the generalization errors of the ensemble kernel regressor and the multiple kernel regressor, and give a su ﬃ cient condition for the ensemble kernel regressor to outperform the multiple kernel regressor in terms of the generalization error in noise-free case. We also show that each kernel regressor can be better than the other without the su ﬃ cient condition by giving examples, which supports the importance of the su ﬃ cient condition.
Drug-Induced Plasticity Contributing to Heightened Relapse Susceptibility: Neurochemical Changes and Augmented Reinstatement in High-Intake Rats

A key in understanding the neurobiology of addiction and developing effective pharmacotherapies is revealing drug-induced plasticity that results in heightened relapse susceptibility. Previous studies have demonstrated that increased extracellular glutamate, but not dopamine, in the nucleus accumbens core (NAcc) is necessary for cocaine-induced reinstatement. In this report, we examined whether drug-induced adaptations that are necessary to generate cocaine-induced reinstatement also determine relapse vulnerability. To do this, rats were assigned to self-administer cocaine under conditions resulting in low (2 h/d; 0.5 mg/kg/infusion, i.v.) or high (6 h/d; 1.0 mg/kg/infusion, i.v.) levels of drug intake since these manipulations produce groups of rats exhibiting differences in the magnitude of cocaine-induced reinstatement. Approximately 19 d after the last session, cocaine-induced drug seeking and extracellular levels of glutamate and dopamine in the NAcc were measured. Contrary to our hypothesis, high-intake rats exhibited a more robust cocaine-induced increase in extracellular levels of dopamine but not glutamate. Further, increased reinstatement in high-intake rats was no longer observed when the D1 receptor antagonist SCH-23390 was infused into the NAcc. The sensitized dopamine response to cocaine in high-intake rats may involve blunted cystine–glutamate exchange by system xc−. Reduced 14C-cystine uptake through system xc− was evident in NAcc tissue slices obtained from high-intake rats, and the augmented dopamine response in these rats was no longer observed when subjects received the cysteine prodrug N-acetyl cysteine. These data reveal a role for drug-induced NAcc dopamine in heightened relapse vulnerability observed in rats with a history of high levels of drug intake.
The clearinghouse: a decentralized agent for locating named objects in a distributed environment

The problem of naming and locating objects in a distributed environment is considered, and the clearinghouse, a decentralized agent for supporting the naming of these "network-visible" objects, is described. The objects "known" to the clearinghouse are of many types and include workstations, file servers, print servers, mail servers, clearinghouse servers, and human user. All objects known to the clearinghouse are named using the same convention, and the clearinghouse provides information about objects in a uniform fashion, regardless of their type. The clearinghouse also supports aliases. The clearinghouse binds a name to a set of properties of various types. For instance, the name of a user may be associated with the location of his local workstation, mailbox, and nonlocation information such as password and comments. The clearinghouse is decentralized and replicated. Tha t is, instead of one global clearinghouse server, there are many local clearinghouse servers, each storing a copy of a portion of the global database. The totality of services supplied by these clearinghouse servers is called "the clearinghouse. " Decentralization and replication increase efficiency, security, and reliability. A request to the clearinghouse to bind a name to its set of properties may originate anywhere in the system and be directed to any clearinghouse server. A clearinghouse client need not be concerned with the question of which clearinghouse server actually contains the binding-the clearinghouse stub in the client in conjunction with distributed clearinghouse servers automatically fmds the mapping ff it exists. Updates to the various copies of a mapping may occur asynchronously and be interleaved with requests for bindings of names to properties; updates to the various copies are not treated as indivisible transactions. Any resulting inconsistency between the various copies is only transient: the clearinghouse automatically arbitrates between conflicting updates to restore consistency.