Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Identification of a Novel Gene for Biosynthesis of a Bacteroid-Specific Electron Carrier Menaquinone

Ubiquinone (UQ) has been considered as an electron mediator in electron transfer that generates ATP in Rhizobium under both free-living and symbiosis conditions. When mutated, the dmtH gene has a symbiotic phenotype of forming ineffective nodules on Astragalus sinicus. The gene was isolated from a Mesorhizobium huakuii 7653R transposon-inserted mutant library. The DNA sequence and conserved protein domain analyses revealed that dmtH encodes demethylmenaquinone (DMK) methyltransferase, which catalyzes the terminal step of menaquinone (MK) biosynthesis. Comparative analysis indicated that dmtH homologs were present in only a few Rhizobia. Real-time quantitative PCR showed dmtH is a bacteroid-specific gene. The highest expression was seen at 25 days after inoculation of strain 7653R. Gene disruption and complementation tests demonstrated that the dmtH gene was essential for bacteroid development and symbiotic nitrogen fixation ability. MK and UQ were extracted from the wild type strain 7653R and mutant strain HK116. MK-7 was accumulated under microaerobic condition and UQ-10 was accumulated under aerobic condition in M. huakuii 7653R. The predicted function of DmtH protein was confirmed by the measurement of methyltransferase activity in vitro. These results revealed that MK-7 was used as an electron carrier instead of UQ in M. huakuii 7653R bacteroids.
Primary and Secondary Prevention of Ischemic Stroke

Prevention of stroke and transient ischemic attack includes both conventional approaches to vascular risk factor management (blood pressure lowering, cholesterol reduction with statins, smoking cessation and antiplatelet therapy) and more specific interventions, such as carotid revascularization or anticoagulation for atrial fibrillation. The objective of this review is to discuss effective interventions for optimal primary and secondary stroke prevention.
Advanced Composite Constrained Layer Laminates

The properties of laminar structures composed of elastomer constrained between plies of advanced fiber reinforced resin composites are reviewed. These material combinations are found to be lightweight, corrosion resist ant, structural laminar composites with excellent vibration damping prop erties. Experimental results of dynamic mechanical loss factors and storage moduli measurements on these constrained layer laminates obtained using a resonance, forced vibration flexural beam technique are presented. The loss factors are measured as a function of composite laminate orientation (configuration) and composite fiber type. The data are finally analyzed in terms of the classical vibration damping theories for constrained layer laminates.
The Wetland Plant Manipulation Technology and Management Based on the Principle of Food Web in Damu Bay New Town Design

Based on the principle of food web, this present attempts to discuss various methods to manage the aquatic plant in the city. In the ecological design of urban waterscape, to design the habitat and recover the food web is very important. It can reduce and control pollution; protect and improve the ecological environment, water environment; and maintain the diversity, stability and continuity of the eco-system.
Knowledge Demand Specification for KMS Decision Support

For implementing a suiting KMS (Knowledge Management System) solution for SME, the demands with regard to knowledge and the specific systemic support should be clarified. Since information in general is the starting point for defining knowledge, the question arises how knowledge and information demand are interrelated. In addition: can this be used for the determination of the according knowledge demand. This paper presents our findings on the usage of the knowledge demand gained within the creation of a framework for value-oriented decision support for KMS for SME.
Small Molecule Interactions were Central to the Origin of Life

Many scientists believe life began with the spontaneous formation of a replicator. This idea has been supported by “prebiotic” syntheses carried out by chemists using modern apparatus and purified reagents. The probability that such reactions would take place spontaneously on the early Earth is minute. These points are illustrated here by considering the often cited oligomerization of activated RNA components by clay minerals. A more likely alternative for the origin of life is one in which a collection of small organic molecules multiply their numbers through catalyzed reaction cycles, driven by a flow of available free energy. Although a number of possible systems of this type have been discussed, no experimental demonstration has been made. The inclusion of a “driver” reaction, directly coupled to the energy source, may lead to a solution.
Future of optical lithography

The history of optical lithography is reviewed as a basis for discussing its future. The key methods used so far to boost the resolution are: the use of a higher numerical aperture, reduction of the exposure wavelength, and the introduction of resolution enhancement technologies. For the continued use of optical lithography in the future, the exposure wavelength must be reduced. The two approaches to doing this--a gradual reduction and a sudden, large reduction--are compared.
2D DOA estimation for coherently distributed source

In this paper, a novel two-dimensional direction of arrival (2D DOA) estimation method is proposed when coherently distributed source exists. The second-order statistics is formed to estimate the azimuth DOA with integral steering vector expressed as Schur-Hadamard product. And then the elevation DOA is estimated using advantage of the array configuration based on the eigenstructure between the steering matrix and the signal subspace of distributed sources. It has a lower computational complexity without any joint two-dimensional searching. Simulations results are included to demonstrate the performance of the proposed technique.
Visual field loss in patients with glaucoma who have asymmetric peripapillary focal arteriolar narrowing.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the relationship between peripapillary focal arteriolar narrowing and visual field defects. METHODS From our institutional practice, we identified 31 patients with glaucoma who had peripapillary focal arteriolar narrowing in only one eye and compared visual field data between the two eyes. Mean deviation (MD) and corrected pattern standard deviation (CPSD) were recorded using Humphrey visual field testing at the time proximal narrowing was apparent on the fundus photograph. Visual field data from subsets of patients with mild and severe narrowing were also compared. RESULTS The MD and CPSD were significantly worse in eyes with peripapillary focal arteriolar narrowing. The eyes with narrowing exhibited a mean MD of -8.77 +/- 8.27 dB and a mean CPSD of 5.01 +/- 3.42 dB. Eyes without narrowing displayed a mean MD of -4.52 +/- 6.64 dB and a mean CPSD of 3.01 +/- 2.68 dB (P =.003 for both). There was no significant difference in severity of the visual field defect between eyes with mild and severe arteriolar narrowing. CONCLUSION To our knowledge, this is the first study to show that the presence of peripapillary focal arteriolar narrowing is related to the severity of visual field loss in patients with glaucoma.
Vasodilator stress echocardiography for risk stratification of medically stabilized unstable angina.

AIMS The aims of this study were to assess the safety, feasibility and prognostic value of dipyridamole-atropine stress echo in patients with medically stabilized unstable angina. METHODS The initial population consisted of 173 patients consecutively admitted at two different Coronary Care Units with class IIIB unstable angina. Of these, 56 were excluded: five had poor acoustic window, 24 did not stabilize with medical therapy and underwent urgent coronary angiography, 26 evolved in non-Q wave myocardial infarction and one patient died. The remaining 117 patients underwent dipyridamole-atropine stress echo after 48 h without symptoms or electrocardiographic evidence of myocardial ischaemia. RESULTS No complications or side effects occurred. An ischaemic response was found in 61 patients. During follow-up (10+/-9 months), three cardiac deaths, eight infarctions, 13 unstable anginas, and seven late (>3 months from stress testing) revascularizations occurred. There were 22 events (36%) in patients with, and nine events (16%) in patients without, inducible ischaemia (P=0.01). At Cox analysis peak-stress wall-motion score index (HR=5.5; 95% CI, 1.9 to 15.5; P=0.0015), and admission ST-segment depression (HR=4.2; 95% CI, 1.7 to 10.7; P=0.0022) were independent predictors of spontaneous events (cardiac death, infarction, unstable angina). The 12-month event-free survival was 69% for ischaemic and 83% for non-ischaemic group (P=0.03). In considering major events as end-points (spontaneous events, and late revascularization), again multivariate prognostic indicators were peak-stress wall-motion score index (HR=14.2; 95% CI, 2.6 to 76.6; P=0.0021), and admission ST-segment depression (HR=3.1; 95% CI, 1.4 to 6.9; P=0.0055). The 12-month event-free survival rate was 58% for ischaemic and 81% for non-ischaemic group (P=0.002). With an interactive stepwise procedure, stress echo findings were found to provide incremental prognostic contribution to that of clinical data alone. CONCLUSIONS With proper selection of patients, dipyridamole-atropine stress echo is extremely safe and feasible in patients with medically stabilized unstable angina, and can be useful in identification of subjects at risk for future cardiac events.
Deep learning for superpixel-based classification of remote sensing images

Recently deep learning-based methods have demonstrated excellent performance on different artificial-intelligence tasks. Even though, in the last years, several related works are found in the literature in the remote sensing field, a small percentage of them address the classification problem. These works propose schemes based on image patches to perform pixel-based image classification. Due to the typical remote sensing image size, the main drawback of these schemes is the time required by the window-sliding process implied in them. In this work, we propose a strategy to reduce the time spent on the classification of a new image through the use of superpixel segmentation. Several experiments using CNNs trained with different sizes of patches and superpixels have been performed on the ISPRS semantic labeling benchmark. Obtained results show that while the accuracy of the classification carried out by using superpixels is similar to the results generated by pixel-based approach, the expended time is dramatically decreased by means of reducing the number of elements to label.
Insights into an Unusual Nonribosomal Peptide Synthetase Biosynthesis

The GE81112 tetrapeptides (1–3) represent a structurally unique class of antibiotics, acting as specific inhibitors of prokaryotic protein synthesis. Here we report the cloning and sequencing of the GE81112 biosynthetic gene cluster from Streptomyces sp. L-49973 and the development of a genetic manipulation system for Streptomyces sp. L-49973. The biosynthetic gene cluster for the tetrapeptide antibiotic GE81112 (getA-N) was identified within a 61.7-kb region comprising 29 open reading frames (open reading frames), 14 of which were assigned to the biosynthetic gene cluster. Sequence analysis revealed the GE81112 cluster to consist of six nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) genes encoding incomplete di-domain NRPS modules and a single free standing NRPS domain as well as genes encoding other biosynthetic and modifying proteins. The involvement of the cloned gene cluster in GE81112 biosynthesis was confirmed by inactivating the NRPS gene getE resulting in a GE81112 production abolished mutant. In addition, we characterized the NRPS A-domains from the pathway by expression in Escherichia coli and in vitro enzymatic assays. The previously unknown stereochemistry of most chiral centers in GE81112 was established from a combined chemical and biosynthetic approach. Taken together, these findings have allowed us to propose a rational model for GE81112 biosynthesis. The results further open the door to developing new derivatives of these promising antibiotic compounds by genetic engineering.
Concept and Role Forgetting in ALC Ontologies

Forgetting is an important tool for reducing ontologies by eliminating some concepts and roles while preserving sound and complete reasoning. Attempts have previously been made to address the problem of forgetting in relatively simple description logics (DLs) such as DL-Lite and extended . The ontologies used in these attempts were mostly restricted to TBoxes rather than general knowledge bases (KBs). However, the issue of forgetting for general KBs in more expressive description logics, such as and OWL DL, is largely unexplored. In particular, the problem of characterizing and computing forgetting for such logics is still open. In this paper, we first define semantic forgetting about concepts and roles in ontologies and state several important properties of forgetting in this setting. We then define the result of forgetting for concept descriptions in , state the properties of forgetting for concept descriptions, and present algorithms for computing the result of forgetting for concept descriptions. Unlike the case of DL-Lite, the result of forgetting for an ontology does not exist in general, even for the special case of concept forgetting. This makes the problem of how to compute forgetting in more challenging. We address this problem by defining a series of approximations to the result of forgetting for ontologies and studying their properties and their application to reasoning tasks. We use the algorithms for computing forgetting for concept descriptions to compute these approximations. Our algorithms for computing approximations can be embedded into an ontology editor to enhance its ability to manage and reason in (large) ontologies.
The Dimensions and Composition of Stereociliary Rootlets in Mammalian Cochlear Hair Cells: Comparison between High- and Low-Frequency Cells and Evidence for a Connection to the Lateral Membrane

The sensory bundle of vertebrate cochlear hair cells consists of actin-containing stereocilia that are thought to bend at their ankle during mechanical stimulation. Stereocilia have dense rootlets that extend through the ankle region to anchor them into the cuticular plate. Because this region may be important in bundle stiffness and durability during prolonged stimulation at high frequencies, we investigated the structure and dimensions of rootlets relative to the stereocilia in apical (low-frequency) and basal (high-frequency) regions of rodent cochleae using light and electron microscopy. Their composition was investigated using postembedding immunogold labeling of tropomyosin, spectrin, β-actin, γ-actin, espin, and prestin. The rootlets have a thick central core that widens at the ankle, and are embedded in a filamentous meshwork in the cuticular plate. Within a particular frequency region, rootlet length correlates with stereociliary height but between regions it changes disproportionately; apical stereocilia are, thus, approximately twice the height of basal stereocilia in equivalent rows, but rootlet lengths increase much less. Some rootlets contact the tight junctions that underlie the ends of the bundle. Rootlets contain spectrin, tropomyosin, and β- and γ-actin, but espin was not detected; spectrin is also evident near the apical and junctional membranes, whereas prestin is confined to the basolateral membrane below the junctions. These data suggest that rootlets strengthen the ankle region to provide durability and may contact with the lateral wall either to give additional anchoring of the stereocilia or to provide a route for interactions between the bundle and the lateral wall.
Cranial Growth and Variation in Edmontosaurs (Dinosauria: Hadrosauridae): Implications for Latest Cretaceous Megaherbivore Diversity in North America

The well-sampled Late Cretaceous fossil record of North America remains the only high-resolution dataset for evaluating patterns of dinosaur diversity leading up to the terminal Cretaceous extinction event. Hadrosaurine hadrosaurids (Dinosauria: Ornithopoda) closely related to Edmontosaurus are among the most common megaherbivores in latest Campanian and Maastrichtian deposits of western North America. However, interpretations of edmontosaur species richness and biostratigraphy have been in constant flux for almost three decades, although the clade is generally thought to have undergone a radiation in the late Maastrichtian. We address the issue of edmontosaur diversity for the first time using rigorous morphometric analyses of virtually all known complete edmontosaur skulls. Results suggest only two valid species, Edmontosaurus regalis from the late Campanian, and E. annectens from the late Maastrichtian, with previously named taxa, including the controversial Anatotitan copei, erected on hypothesized transitional morphologies associated with ontogenetic size increase and allometric growth. A revision of North American hadrosaurid taxa suggests a decrease in both hadrosaurid diversity and disparity from the early to late Maastrichtian, a pattern likely also present in ceratopsid dinosaurs. A decline in the disparity of dominant megaherbivores in the latest Maastrichtian interval supports the hypothesis that dinosaur diversity decreased immediately preceding the end Cretaceous extinction event.
Nurr1, an orphan nuclear receptor, is a transcriptional activator of endogenous tyrosine hydroxylase in neural progenitor cells derived from the adult brain.

Adult rat-derived hippocampal progenitor cells express many of the molecules implicated in midbrain dopaminergic determination, including FGF receptors 1, 2 and 3, the sonic hedgehog receptor components Smo and Ptc, and the region-specific transcription factors Ptx3 and Nurr1. Here we use undifferentiated progenitors to probe the events leading to the dopaminergic phenotype and find that the influences of Nurr1 can be temporally and mechanistically uncoupled from the patterning influences of sonic hedgehog and FGF-8 or the more generic process of neuronal differentiation itself. In gain-of-function experiments, Nurr1 is able to activate transcription of the tyrosine hydroxylase gene by binding a response element within a region of the tyrosine hydroxylase promoter necessary for midbrain-specific expression. This activation is mediated through a retinoid X receptor independent mechanism and occurs in all precursors, regardless of differentiation status. Overexpression of Nurr1 does not affect proliferation or stimulate neuronal differentiation and has no influence on the expression of other dopaminergic markers. This uncoupling of tyrosine hydroxylase expression from other dopaminergic markers suggests that the midbrain dopaminergic identity is dictated by a combination of pan-dopaminergic (e.g., Shh/FGF-8) and region-specific (Nurr1) mechanisms.
Fabrication of polyurethane molecular stamps for the synthesis of DNA microarray

Polyurethane based on polypropylene glycol (PPG) and Toluene diisocyanate (TDI) using 3,3'-dichloride-4,4'- methylenedianiline (MOCA) as the crosslinker is presented for the first time to fabricate molecular stamps (PU stamps) for the synthesis of DNA microarray with contact procedure. The predictability of the process is achieved by utilizing commercially available starting materials. SEM analysis of the morphology of PU stamps and master showed that PU elastometer could replicate subtly the motherboard's patterns with high fidelity. It was proved from the contact angle measurement that PU stamps surface has good affinity with acetonitrile, which guarantee the well-distribution of DNA monomers on patterned stamps. Laser confocal fluorescence microscopy images of oligonucleotide arrays confirmed polyurethane is an excellent material for molecular stamps.
Mid-Pliocene sea level and continental ice volume based on coupled benthic Mg/Ca palaeotemperatures and oxygen isotopes

Ostracode magnesium/calcium (Mg/Ca)-based bottom-water temperatures were combined with benthic foraminiferal oxygen isotopes in order to quantify the oxygen isotopic composition of seawater, and estimate continental ice volume and sea-level variability during the Mid-Pliocene warm period, ca 3.3–3.0 Ma. Results indicate that, following a low stand of approximately 65 m below present at marine isotope stage (MIS) M2 (ca 3.3 Ma), sea level generally fluctuated by 20–30 m above and below a mean value similar to present-day sea level. In addition to the low-stand event at MIS M2, significant low stands occurred at MIS KM2 (−40 m), G22 (−40 m) and G16 (−60 m). Six high stands of +10 m or more above present day were also observed; four events (+10, +25,+15 and +30 m) from MIS M1 to KM3, a high stand of +15 m at MIS K1, and a high stand of +25 m at MIS G17. These results indicate that continental ice volume varied significantly during the Mid-Pliocene warm period and that at times there were considerable reductions of Antarctic ice.
Mutation in E1, the Ubiquitin Activating Enzyme, Reduces Drosophila Lifespan and Results in Motor Impairment

Neurodegenerative diseases cause tremendous suffering for those afflicted and their families. Many of these diseases involve accumulation of mis-folded or aggregated proteins thought to play a causal role in disease pathology. Ubiquitinated proteins are often found in these protein aggregates, and the aggregates themselves have been shown to inhibit the activity of the proteasome. These and other alterations in the Ubiquitin Pathway observed in neurodegenerative diseases have led to the question of whether impairment of the Ubiquitin Pathway on its own can increase mortality or if ongoing neurodegeneration alters Ubiquitin Pathway function as a side-effect. To address the role of the Ubiquitin Pathway in vivo, we studied loss-of-function mutations in the Drosophila Ubiquitin Activating Enzyme, Uba1 or E1, the most upstream enzyme in the Ubiquitin Pathway. Loss of only one functional copy of E1 caused a significant reduction in adult lifespan. Rare homozygous hypomorphic E1 mutants reached adulthood. These mutants exhibited further reduced lifespan and showed inappropriate Ras activation in the brain. Removing just one functional copy of Ras restored the lifespan of heterozygous E1 mutants to that of wild-type flies and increased the survival of homozygous E1 mutants. E1 homozygous mutants also showed severe motor impairment. Our findings suggest that processes that impair the Ubiquitin Pathway are sufficient to cause early mortality. Reduced lifespan and motor impairment are seen in the human disease X-linked Infantile Spinal Muscular Atrophy, which is associated with mutation in human E1 warranting further analysis of these mutants as a potential animal model for study of this disease.
A Study on the Convergence of FingerHashing and a Secured Biometric System

Because biometrics-based authentication offers several advantages face to other authentication methods, it is important that such systems be designed to withstand attacks. Reliability and privacy for the public acceptance of the system are also important factors. BioHashing is presented as a new technique to moderate the impact of susceptible threats. The acceptance of this approach depends on whether it has low error rates and is tamper proof. We study so in this paper, the relevant advances in this area being more focused on fingerprint modality due to its widespread usage. We also consider a FingerHashing smartcard-based implementation and try to emphasize how this system can meet a secured biometric system.