Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Group B Streptococcus GAPDH Is Released upon Cell Lysis, Associates with Bacterial Surface, and Induces Apoptosis in Murine Macrophages

Glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenases (GAPDH) are cytoplasmic glycolytic enzymes that, despite lacking identifiable secretion signals, have been detected at the surface of several prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms where they exhibit non-glycolytic functions including adhesion to host components. Group B Streptococcus (GBS) is a human commensal bacterium that has the capacity to cause life-threatening meningitis and septicemia in newborns. Electron microscopy and fluorescence-activated cell sorter (FACS) analysis demonstrated the surface localization of GAPDH in GBS. By addressing the question of GAPDH export to the cell surface of GBS strain NEM316 and isogenic mutant derivatives of our collection, we found that impaired GAPDH presence in the surface and supernatant of GBS was associated with a lower level of bacterial lysis. We also found that following GBS lysis, GAPDH can associate to the surface of many living bacteria. Finally, we provide evidence for a novel function of the secreted GAPDH as an inducer of apoptosis of murine macrophages.
Technology scaling impact on embedded ADC design for telecom receivers

This paper is concerned with the impact of technology scaling on the choice of A/D converters in telecom receivers. It is shown that the trend of diminishing feature size, together with better matching of passive components, allows the use of A/D topologies traditionally confined to low-frequency, medium-resolution applications. The design of a 10 bit 20 MS/s ADC using the successive approximation algorithm is presented in order to validate the presented concepts. By using a deep-submicron technology, the speed of the chosen architecture is pushed to meet the desired output rate.
H2 active jets in the near IR as a probe of protostellar evolution

We present an in-depth near-IR analysis of a sample of H 2 outflows from young embedded sources to compare the physical properties and cooling mechanisms of the different flows. The sample comprises 23 outflows driven by Class 0 and I sources having low-intermediate luminosity. We have obtained narrow band images in H 2 2.12 μ m and [$\ion{Fe}{ii}$] 1.64 μ m and spectroscopic observations in the range 1-2.5 μ m. From [$\ion{Fe}{ii}$] images we detected spots of ionized gas in ~74% of the outflows which in some cases indicate the presence of embedded HH-like objects. H 2 line ratios have been used to estimate the visual extinction and average temperature of the molecular gas. A v values range from ~2 to ~15 mag; average temperatures range between ~2000 and ~4000 K. In several knots, however, a stratification of temperatures is found with maximum values up to 5000 K. Such a stratification is more commonly observed in those knots which also show [$\ion{Fe}{ii}$] emission, while a thermalized gas at a single temperature is generally found in knots emitting only in molecular lines. Combining narrow band imaging (H 2 , 2.12 μ m and [$\ion{Fe}{ii}$], 1.64 μ m) with the parameters derived from the spectroscopic analysis, we are able to measure the total luminosity of the H 2 and [$\ion{Fe}{ii}$] shocked regions ($L_{\rm H_2}$ and $L_{[\ion{Fe}{ii}]}$) in each flow. H 2 is the major NIR coolant with an average $L_{\rm H_2}$/$L_{[\ion{Fe}{ii}]}$ ratio of ~10 2 . We find that ~83% of the sources have a $L_{\rm H_2}$/ L bol ratio ~0.04, irrespective of the Class of the driving source, while a smaller group of sources (mostly Class I) have $L_{\rm H_2}$/ L bol an order of magnitude smaller. Such a separation reveals the non-homogeneous behaviour of Class I, where sources with very different outflow activity can be found. This is consistent with other studies showing that among Class I one can find objects with different accretion properties, and it demonstrates that the H 2 power in the jet can be a powerful tool to identify the most active sources among the objects of this class.
Mycoplasma pneumoniae Induces Chronic Respiratory Infection, Airway Hyperreactivity, and Pulmonary Inflammation: a Murine Model of Infection-Associated Chronic Reactive Airway Disease

ABSTRACT Because chronic Mycoplasma pneumoniae respiratory infection is hypothesized to play a role in asthma, the potential of M. pneumoniae to establish chronic respiratory infection with associated pulmonary disease was investigated in a murine model. BALB/c mice were intranasally inoculated once with M. pneumoniae and examined at 109, 150, 245, 368, and 530 days postinoculation. M. pneumoniae was detected in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid by culture or PCR in 70 and 22% of mice at 109 and 530 days postinoculation, respectively. Lung histopathology was normal up to 368 days postinoculation. At 530 days, however, 78% of the mice inoculated with M. pneumoniae demonstrated abnormal histopathology characterized by peribronchial and perivascular mononuclear infiltrates. A mean histopathologic score (HPS) at 530 days of 5.1 was significantly greater (P < 0.01) than that for controls (HPS score of 0). Serum anti-M. pneumoniae immunoglobulin G was detectable in all of the mice inoculated with M. pneumoniae and was inversely correlated with HPS (r = −0.95, P = 0.01) at 530 days postinoculation. Unrestrained whole-body plethysmography measurement of enhanced pause revealed significantly elevated airway methacholine reactivity in M. pneumoniae-inoculated mice compared with that in controls at 245 days (P = 0.03) and increased airway obstruction at 530 days (P = 0.01). Murine M. pneumoniae respiratory infection can lead to chronic pulmonary disease characterized by airway hyperreactivity, airway obstruction, and histologic inflammation.
GMC formation by agglomeration and self gravity

We investigate the formation of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) in spiral galaxies through both agglomeration of clouds in the spiral arms, and self gravity. The simulations presented include two-fluid models, which contain both cold and warm gas, although there is no heating or cooling between them. We find agglomeration is predominant when both the warm and cold components of the interstellar medium are effectively stable to gravitational instabilities. In this case, the spacing (and consequently mass) of clouds and spurs along the spiral arms is determined by the orbits of the gas particles and correlates with their epicyclic radii (or equivalently spiral shock strength). Notably GMCs formed primarily by agglomeration tend to be unbound associations of many smaller clouds, which disperse upon leaving the spiral arms. These GMCs are likely to be more massive in galaxies with stronger spiral shocks or higher surface densities. GMCs formed by agglomeration are also found to exhibit both prograde and retrograde rotation, a consequence of the clumpiness of the gas. At higher surface densities, self gravity becomes more important in arranging both the warm and cold gas into clouds and spurs, and determining the properties of the most massive GMCs. These massive GMCs can be distinguished by their higher angular momentum, exhibit prograde rotation and are more bound. For a 20 M ⊙ pc -2 disc, the spacing between the GMCs fits both the agglomeration and self gravity scenarios, as the maximum unstable wavelength of gravitational perturbations in the warm gas is similar to the spacing found when GMCs form solely by agglomeration.
An Institutional Perspective on the Adoption of Green IS & IT

This article examines how institutional pressures affect the adoption of green IS & IT across organizations. From the natural-resource-based perspective, it examines green IS & IT practices with strategic foci on pollution prevention, product stewardship, and sustainable development. Each category incorporates the separate roles played by IT (as a problem) and IS (as a solution). The partial least square method was employed to analyze the survey replies from 75 organizations. The results show that mimetic and coercive pressures significantly drive green IS & IT adoption. In particular, outcome-based imitation and imposition-based coercion represent major institutional processes. The results also suggest the complementary relationship between mimetic and coercive pressures. Such interaction significantly motivates the green IS & IT adoption focusing on product stewardship. These findings contribute to existing knowledge on the pro-environmental behaviors of organizations, demonstrate the interaction between institutional forces, and further current understanding of green IS & IT adoption The study concludes with a general discussion of eco-goals and their relationship to institutional theory before considering the implications and directions for research and practice.
Efficacy of a 12-Week Simeprevir Plus Peginterferon/Ribavirin (PR) Regimen in Treatment-Naïve Patients with Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) Genotype 4 (GT4) Infection and Mild-To-Moderate Fibrosis Displaying Early On-Treatment Virologic Response

Background HCV GT4 accounts for up to 20% of HCV infections worldwide. Simeprevir, given for 12 weeks as part of a 24- or 48-week combination regimen with PR is approved for the treatment of chronic HCV GT4 infection. Primary study objectives were assessment of efficacy and safety of simeprevir plus PR in treatment-naïve patients with HCV GT4 treated for 12 weeks. Primary efficacy outcome was sustained virologic response 12 weeks post-treatment (SVR12). Additional objectives included investigation of potential associations of rapid virologic response and baseline factors with SVR12. Methods This multicentre, open-label, single-arm study (NCT01846832) evaluated efficacy and safety of simeprevir plus PR in 67 patients with HCV GT4 infection. Patients were treatment-naïve, aged 18–70 years with METAVIR F0–F2 fibrosis. Patients with early virologic response (HCV RNA <25 IU/mL [detectable/undetectable in IL28B CC patients or undetectable in IL28B CT/TT patients] at Week 2 and undetectable at Weeks 4 and 8) were eligible to stop all treatment at the end of Week 12, otherwise PR therapy was continued to Week 24. Results Of 67 patients treated, 34 (51%) qualified for 12-week treatment including all but one patient with IL28B CC genotype (14/15). All patients in the 12-week group had undetectable HCV RNA at end of treatment, and 97% (33/34) achieved SVR12. No new safety signals with simeprevir plus PR were identified. The proportion of patients experiencing Grade 3–4 adverse events was lower in the 12-week group than in the 24-week group. Conclusions Our findings on simeprevir plus PR therapy shortened to 12 weeks in patients with HCV GT4 infection with favourable baseline characteristics and displaying early on-treatment virologic response are encouraging. No new safety signals were associated with simeprevir plus PR in this study. Trial Registration NCT01846832
Android Privacy Information Encoding Mechanism (APIEM)

This paper proposes APIEM as an encoding mechanism for privacy information in Android system. By encoding privacy information in cursor queried from database and decoding them before drawing to the screen, the text-based privacy information can be protected from leaking by third-party applications. APIEM provides more protection and has less overhead compared to traditional taint and trace methods.
TOWARDS A THEORY OF CAUSAL IMPLICATION

We present a formal theory of causal implication, which allows to reason about causeeffect relationship in a more satisfactory way than the classical calculus of proposition. In this paper only implicational subsystem is presented, but it easily extends to other propositional conjuncts and quantification. The system could serve as an underlying formalism for the development of rule-based expert systems.
Every Student Counts: The Role of Federal Policy in Improving Graduation Rate Accountability. Policy Brief.

The proportion of students who graduate from high school is an essential indicator of the public education system’s success. Today we know that performance on this indicator in schools throughout the country has been dismal; nearly one third of the nation’s students do not receive a regular diploma within four years of entering high school. 1 In fact, the national graduation rate has hovered around 70 percent for the past several decades, 2
Bridging Cultural Diversity through E-mail

Abstract The implementation of global virtual teams presents modern organizations with significant challenges, such as a multicultural workforce and the use of information and communication technology. Cultural diversity increases teamwork complexity and may weaken a team's effectiveness and jeopardize its viability. Selection and implementation of appropriate information technology may facilitate group processes and overcome potential barriers created by team heterogeneity. This study illustrates how e-mail mitigates intercultural miscommunication. Interviews with 41 global virtual team members in nine countries, who were employed by a multinational corporation, were transcribed and analyzed. The use of e-mail improves language accuracy, mitigates intercultural miscommunication resulting from verbal differences among team members, and eliminates nonverbal differences. Only future studies can determine the extent of this mitigation.
A Language-based Approach to Unifying Events and Threads

This paper presents a language-based technique to unify two seemingly opposite programming models for building massively concurrent network services: the eventdriven model and the multithreaded model. The result is a unified concurrency model providing both thread abstractions and event abstractions. Using this model, each component in an application can be implemented using the appropriate abstraction, simplifying the design of complex, multithreaded systems software. This paper shows how to implement the unified concurrency model in Haskell, a pure, lazy, functional programming language. It also demonstrates how to use these techniques to build an application-levelthread library with support for multiprocessing and asynchronous I/O mechanisms in Linux. The thread library is typesafe, is relatively simple to implement, and has good performance. Application-level threads are extremely lightweight (scaling to ten million threads) and our scheduler, which is implemented as a modular and extensible event-driven system, outperforms NPTL in I/O benchmarks.
Robust High-Capacity Audio Watermarking Based on FFT Amplitude Modification

This paper proposes a novel robust audio watermarking algorithm to embed data and extract it in a bit-exact manner based on changing the magnitudes of the FFT spectrum. The key point is selecting a frequency band for embedding based on the comparison between the original and the MP3 compressed/decompressed signal and on a suitable scaling factor. The experimental results show that the method has a very high capacity (about 5kbps), without significant perceptual distortion (ODG about -0.25) and provides robustness against common audio signal processing such as added noise, filtering and MPEG compression (MP3). Furthermore, the proposed method has a larger capacity (number of embedded bits to number of host bits rate) than recent image data hiding methods.
Estimating the readability of handwritten text - a Support Vector Regression based approach

This paper presents a new approach to estimating the readability of handwritten text. The estimation task is posed as a regression problem. A novel support vector regression (SVR) system is used to estimate the recognition rate of a text recognizer on a given text. The estimated recognition rates are used to classify text as either readable or unreadable. Unreadable text can then be filtered out prior to recognition, thus avoiding needless recognition attempts or a high cost caused by manual correction. The system is systematically evaluated on a data set of 1,830 text lines from 50 writers.
Economic Growth and Labour Market in Cameroon

How do Growth affects labor market’s work? This question is important, because, labor market plays a key role in determining the success of poverty reduction policies. Using the times series data, we have been able to confirm the prediction of theory which present a positive effect of growth on the labor market’s work. However, this effect is not strong, and calls to the reinforcement of growth and the set up of pro investment incentives as well as in the level of good and knowledge production.
A Study of Key Success Factors for Supply Chain Management System in Semiconductor Industry

Developing a supply chain management (SCM) system is costly, but important. However, because of its complicated nature, not many of such projects are considered successful. Few research publications directly relate to key success factors (KSFs) for implementing and operating a SCM system. Motivated by the above, this research proposes two hierarchies of KSFs for SCM system implementation and operation phase respectively in the semiconductor industry by using a two-step approach. First, a literature review indicates the initial hierarchy. The second step includes a focus group approach to finalize the proposed KSF hierarchies by extracting valuable experiences from executives and managers that actively participated in a project, which successfully establish a seamless SCM integration between the world's largest semiconductor foundry manufacturing company and the world's largest assembly and testing company. Finally, this research compared the KSF's between the two phases and made a conclusion. Future project executives may refer the resulting KSF hierarchies as a checklist for SCM system implementation and operation in semiconductor or related industries.
Neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by fertility-sparing surgery for women with stage IB1 cervical cancer

Fertility-sparing surgery was optimal to patients with tumor diameter smaller than 2 cm. For patients with larger tumors, neoadjuvant chemotherapy can debulk the tumor and offer the chance of surgery. We report 2 cases of stage IB1 cervical cancer treated by neoadjuvant chemotherapy and fertility-sparing surgery. Relevant literature was reviewed. Its safety, efficacy, and reproductive outcome need to be validated in the future.
Energy Attack on Server Systems

Power management has become increasingly important for server systems. Numerous techniques have been proposed and developed to optimize server power consumption and achieve energy proportional computing. However, the security perspective of server power management has not yet been studied. In this paper, we investigate energy attacks, a new type of malicious exploits on server systems. Targeted solely at abusing server power consumption, energy attacks exhibit very different attacking behaviors and cause very different victim symptoms from conventional cyberspace attacks. First, we unveil that today's server systems with improved power saving technologies are more vulnerable to energy attacks. Then, we demonstrate a realistic energy attack on a standalone server system in three steps: (1) by profiling energy cost of an open Web service under different operation conditions, we identify the vulnerabilities that subject a server to energy attacks; (2) exploiting the discovered attack vectors, we design an energy attack that can be launched anonymously from remote; and (3) we execute the attack and measure the extent of its damage in a systematic manner. Finally, we highlight the challenges in defending against energy attacks.
ZCURVE 3.0: identify prokaryotic genes with higher accuracy as well as automatically and accurately select essential genes

In 2003, we developed an ab initio program, ZCURVE 1.0, to find genes in bacterial and archaeal genomes. In this work, we present the updated version (i.e. ZCURVE 3.0). Using 422 prokaryotic genomes, the average accuracy was 93.7% with the updated version, compared with 88.7% with the original version. Such results also demonstrate that ZCURVE 3.0 is comparable with Glimmer 3.02 and may provide complementary predictions to it. In fact, the joint application of the two programs generated better results by correctly finding more annotated genes while also containing fewer false-positive predictions. As the exclusive function, ZCURVE 3.0 contains one post-processing program that can identify essential genes with high accuracy (generally >90%). We hope ZCURVE 3.0 will receive wide use with the web-based running mode. The updated ZCURVE can be freely accessed from http://cefg.uestc. edu.cn/zcurve/ or http://tubic.tju. edu.cn/zcurveb/ without any restrictions.
The 2003/2004 Superoutburst of SDSS J013701.06-091234.9

We report on time-resolved photometry of the superoutburst of an SU UMa-type dwarf nova, SDSS J013701.06−091234.9, in 2003 December–2004 January. The obtained light curves definitely show superhumps with a period of 0.056686(12)d, which is one of the shortest superhump periods among those of SU UMa-type dwarf novae ever observed. Considering quiescent photometric studies, we estimated the fractional superhump excess to be 0.024. Spectroscopic observations by Szkody et al. (2003, AJ, 126, 1499) provided evidence for TiO bands despite the short orbital period, implying that the system has a luminous secondary star. We have drawn a color–color diagram of SU UMa-type dwarf novae in quiescence using 2MASS archives, revealing that the location of this star in the color-color diagram deviates from the general trend. The distance to the system was roughly estimated to be 300 ±80pc, using the empirical period–absolute magnitude relation and based on the proper motion.
Choosing the optimal BLAS and LAPACK library

Most geodetic applications require the assembly and soluti on of linear equation systems. The BLAS (Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms) and LAPACK (Linear Algebra Package) h ave established itself as quasi-standard for linear algebr a computational routines. The performance that can be achiev ed with a program making use of these routines is largely dependent on the performance of the chosen BLAS and LAPACK li brary. This article investigates the performance of several BLAS a nd LAPACK implementations on three common PC architectures. A number of test computations have been made , using a program for spherical harmonic analysis with least squares. Based on the results, recommendations for the opti mal library for each architecture are made.
Role of M-CSF-dependent macrophages in colitis is driven by the nature of the inflammatory stimulus.

Although macrophages are considered a critical factor in determining the severity of acute inflammatory responses in the gut, recent evidence has indicated that macrophages may also play a counterinflammatory role. In this study, we examined the role of a macrophage subset in two models of colitis. Macrophage colony-stimulating factor (M-CSF)-deficient osteopetrotic mice (op/op) and M-CSF-expressing heterozygote (+/? ) mice were studied following the induction of colitis by either dinitrobenzene sulfonic acid (DNBS) or dextran sulfate sodium (DSS). DNBS induced a severe colitis in M-CSF-deficient op/op mice compared with +/? mice. This was associated with increased mortality and more severe macroscopic and microscopic injury. Colonic tissue myeloperoxidase (MPO) activity as well as concentrations of TNF-alpha, IL-1beta, and IL-6 were higher and IL-10 lower in op/op mice with DNBS colitis. The severity of inflammation and mortality was attenuated in op/op mice that had received human recombinant M-CSF prior to the induction of colitis. In contrast, op/op mice appeared less vulnerable to colitis induced by DSS. Macroscopic damage, microscopic injury, MPO activity, and tissue concentrations of TNF-alpha, IL-1beta, and IL-6 were all lower in op/op mice compared with +/? mice with DSS colitis, and no changes were seen in IL-10. Macrophage inflammatory protein-1alpha concentrations were increased in op/op but not +/? mice following colitis induced by DNBS but not DSS. These results indicate that M-CSF-dependent macrophages may play either a pro- or counterinflammatory role in acute experimental colitis, depending on the stimulus used to induce colitis.