Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Membrane Insertion and Biogenesis of the Turnip Crinkle Virus p9 Movement Protein

ABSTRACT Plant viral infection and spread depends on the successful introduction of a virus into a cell of a compatible host, followed by replication and cell-to-cell transport. The movement proteins (MPs) p8 and p9 of Turnip crinkle virus are required for cell-to-cell movement of the virus. We have examined the membrane association of p9 and found that it is an integral membrane protein with a defined topology in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membrane. Furthermore, we have used a site-specific photo-cross-linking strategy to study the membrane integration of the protein at the initial stages of its biosynthetic process. This process is cotranslational and proceeds through the signal recognition particle and the translocon complex.
Toxicology of FK-506 in the Lewis rat.

FK-506 (FK), like all other known immunosuppressive agents, may be expected to demonstrate certain undesirable side effects, eg, infection, neoplasia. These effects must currently be accepted as common to the immunosuppressed state. The present study was undertaken to explore whether other toxic effects peculiar to FK exist. Because most of our initial transplantation studies were performed in the rat, this animal was chosen as the first model for toxicological studies.
A Meta-Analysis of Interventions for Bereaved Children and Adolescents

The main objective of this review was to provide a quantitative and methodologically sound evaluation of existing treatments for bereavement and grief reactions in children and adolescents. Two meta-analyses were conducted: 1 on controlled studies and 1 on uncontrolled studies. The 2 meta-analyses were based on a total of 27 treatment studies published before June 2006. Hedges's g and Cohen's d were used as measures of effect size and a random-effects model was applied. Results yielded small to moderate effect sizes. Interventions for symptomatic or impaired participants tended to show larger effect sizes than interventions for bereaved children and adolescents without symptoms. Promising treatment models were music therapy and trauma/grief-focused school based brief psychotherapy.
A new Metric for the Evaluation of Dialog Act Classification ∗

The standard evaluation metrics for dialog act classifiers are based on the boolean outcome of the exact classification. For multidimensional tag sets, such as the ICSI-MRDA tag set, this is stricter than necessary, since the missclassification might be partial and this can be good enough for the application in which the classifier is embedded. We propose a new forgiving metric and show some preliminary results. Some future work is sketched.
Biology of Giardia lamblia

SUMMARY Giardia lamblia is a common cause of diarrhea in humans and other mammals throughout the world. It can be distinguished from other Giardia species by light or electron microscopy. The two major genotypes of G. lamblia that infect humans are so different genetically and biologically that they may warrant separate species or subspecies designations. Trophozoites have nuclei and a well-developed cytoskeleton but lack mitochondria, peroxisomes, and the components of oxidative phosphorylation. They have an endomembrane system with at least some characteristics of the Golgi complex and encoplasmic reticulum, which becomes more extensive in encysting organisms. The primitive nature of the organelles and metabolism, as well as small-subunit rRNA phylogeny, has led to the proposal that Giardia spp. are among the most primitive eukaryotes. G. lamblia probably has a ploidy of 4 and a genome size of approximately 10 to 12 Mb divided among five chromosomes. Most genes have short 5′ and 3′ untranslated regions and promoter regions that are near the initiation codon. Trophozoites exhibit antigenic variation of an extensive repertoire of cysteine-rich variant-specific surface proteins. Expression is allele specific, and changes in expression from one vsp gene to another have not been associated with sequence alterations or gene rearrangements. The Giardia genome project promises to greatly increase our understanding of this interesting and enigmatic organism.
Eddy Current Test for Detection of Foreign Material using Rotating Probe

There are several elements that affect on the integrity of steam generator tubes. One of the elements is loose parts located on outside of the tubes. It causes erosion which is possible to lead fatal defect like crack on the outside surface of the tubes. In this study, artificial loose parts on Inconel 690 tube are demonstrated and eddy current testing data of the region is acquired using rotating probe. Ferromagnetic and nonmagnetic foreign materials were used to demonstrate artificial loose parts. Eddy current channel of 100 KHz frequency shows definite signals of those foreign materials but stainless steel was not clearly detected. This result can be explained based on the electrical conductivity of the materials and it can be confirmed with lissajous window and C-scan. In addition, no indication was detected when the distance of the gap between the foreign materials and the tube is increased to more than 3 mm under this test condition. Based on these experimental inspections, we were able to find suitable methods for analyzing the signals obtained under various conditions that could occur when conducting steam generator eddy current test in NPP.
Progression of Aortic Valve Calcification: Association With Coronary Atherosclerosis and Cardiovascular Risk Factors

Background—Recent studies demonstrated an influence of atherosclerotic risk factors on the progression of aortic valve stenosis. The extent of aortic valve calcification (AVC) was also found to be a strong predictor of stenosis progression. We investigated the influence of the LDL cholesterol level (LDL), other standard cardiovascular risk factors, and the extent of coronary calcification (CC) on the progression of AVC quantified by electron beam tomography (EBT). Methods and Results—In 104 patients (64.7±8 years, 89 male) with an EBT scan positive for AVC, CC and AVC were quantified using a volumetric score. EBT was repeated at a mean interval of 15 months (10 to 36 months), and the progression of AVC and CC was determined. Patients were divided into 2 groups according to LDL: group 1, LDL≤3.36 mmol/L (130 mg/dL), 57 patients; group 2, LDL>3.36 mmol/L (130 mg/dL), 47 patients. Mean values for CC were 546±932 mm3 in scan 1 and 665±1085 mm3 in scan 2 for AVC 324±796 mm3 and 404±1076 mm3, respectively. The mean progression of CC was 27±37% (group 1, 16±22%; group 2, 39±46%, P ≤0.001) and of AVC was 25±38% (group 1, 9±22%; group 2, 43±44%, P ≤0.001). Conclusions—Quantification of AVC by EBT permits new insights into the progression of aortic valve sclerosis. We observed a strong influence of LDL cholesterol level on the progression of AVC and CC, suggesting that lipid-lowering therapy may decrease the progression of aortic valve calcification.
Cache-aided full-duplex small cells

Caching popular contents at the edge of the network can positively impact the performance and future sustainability of wireless networks in several ways, e.g., end-to-end access delay reduction and peak rate increase. In this paper, we aim at showing that non-negligible performance enhancements can be observed in terms of network interference footprint as well. To this end, we consider a full-duplex small-cell network consisting of non-cooperative cache-aided base stations, which communicate simultaneously with both downlink users and wireless backhaul nodes. We propose a novel static caching model seeking to mimic a geographical policy based on local files popularity and calculate the corresponding cache hit probability. Subsequently we study the performance of the considered network in terms of throughput gain with respect to its cache-free half-duplex counterpart. Numerical results corroborate our theoretical findings and highlight remarkable performance gains when moving from cache-free to cache-aided full-duplex small-cell networks.
Combination of Face Regions in Forensic Scenarios

This article presents an experimental analysis of the combination of different regions of the human face on various forensic scenarios to generate scientific knowledge useful for the forensic experts. Three scenarios of interest at different distances are considered comparing mugshot and CCTV face images using MORPH and SC face databases. One of the main findings is that inner facial regions combine better in mugshot and close CCTV scenarios and outer facial regions combine better in far CCTV scenarios. This means, that depending of the acquisition distance, the discriminative power of the facial regions change, having in some cases better performance than the full face. This effect can be exploited by considering the fusion of facial regions which results in a very significant improvement of the discriminative performance compared to just using the full face.
Genetic Diversity and Dynamic Distribution of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Isolates Causing Pulmonary and Extrapulmonary Tuberculosis in Thailand

ABSTRACT This study examined the genetic diversity and dynamicity of circulating Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains in Thailand using nearly neutral molecular markers. The single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-based genotypes of 1,414 culture-positive M. tuberculosis isolates from 1,282 pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) and 132 extrapulmonary TB (EPTB) patients collected from 1995 to 2011 were characterized. Among the eight SNP cluster groups (SCG), SCG2 (44.1%), which included the Beijing (BJ) genotype, and SCG1 (39.4%), an East African Indian genotype, were dominant. Comparisons between the genotypes of M. tuberculosis isolates causing PTB and EPTB in HIV-negative cases revealed similar prevalence trends although genetic diversity was higher in the PTB patients. The identification of 10 reported sequence types (STs) and three novel STs was hypothesized to indicate preferential expansion of the SCG2 genotype, especially the modern BJ ST10 (15.6%) and ancestral BJ ST19 (13.1%). An association between SCG2 and SCG1 genotypes and particular patient age groups implies the existence of different genetic advantages among the bacterial populations. The results revealed that increasing numbers of young patients were infected with M. tuberculosis SCGs 2 and 5, which contrasts with the reduction of the SCG1 genotype. Our results indicate the selection and dissemination of potent M. tuberculosis genotypes in this population. The determination of heterogeneity and dynamic population changes of circulating M. tuberculosis strains in countries using the Mycobacterium bovis BCG (bacillus Calmette-Guérin) vaccine are beneficial for vaccine development and control strategies.
Dual analysis of DNA microarrays

Microarray data represents the expression levels of genes for different samples and for different conditions. It has been a central topic in bioinformatics research for a long time already. Researchers try to discover groups of genes that are responsible for specific biological processes. Statistical analysis tools and visualizations have been widely used in the analysis of microarray data. Researchers try to build hypotheses on both the genes and the samples. Therefore, such analyses require the joint exploration of the genes and the samples. However, current methods in interactive visual analysis fail to provide the necessary mechanisms for this joint analysis. In this paper, we propose an interactive visual analysis framework that enables the dual analysis of the samples and the genes through the use of integrated statistical tools. We introduce a set of specialized views and a detailed analysis procedure to describe the utilization of our framework.
An efficient angle-based shape matching approach towards object recognition

The pixel-based contour map is one of the most common used shape representation methods for shape matching in object recognition field. However it is difficult to remain accurate and efficient at the same time when recognizing the objects with diversity of postures or different presence from different perspectives. To solve this problem, in this paper we propose an angle-based shape matching approach by introducing a new concept of angle-based features. Furthermore, the object recognition process adopting such angle-based shape matching approach is described in detail. With numerous experiments conducted on the Weizmann Horse dataset, we demonstrate that the proposed method is accurate, efficient and robust towards different poses and resolutions at the same time.
Killing two birds with one stone: trans-kingdom suppression of PAMP/MAMP-induced immunity by T3E from enteropathogenic bacteria

Within the past decade, remarkable similarities between the molecular organization of animal and plant systems for non-self discrimination were revealed. Obvious parallels exist between the molecular structures of the receptors mediating the recognition of pathogen- or microbe-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs/MAMPs) with plant pattern recognition receptors strikingly resembling mammalian Toll-like receptors. Mitogen-activated protein kinase cascades, leading to the transcriptional activation of immunity-associated genes, illustrate the conservation of whole molecular building blocks of PAMP/MAMP-induced signaling. Enteropathogenic Salmonella and Escherichia coli use a type three secretion system (T3SS) to inject effector proteins into the mammalian host cell to subvert defense mechanisms and promote gut infection. Lately, disease occurrence was increasingly associated with bacteria-contaminated fruits and vegetables and common themes have emerged with regard to whether and how effectors target innate immune responses in a trans-kingdom manner. We propose that numerous Salmonella or E. coli effectors may be active in planta and tend to target central components (hubs) of immune signaling pathways.
Evidence for de novo production of self-replicating and environmentally adapted RNA structures by bacteriophage Qbeta replicase.

Highly purified coliphage Qbeta replicase when incubated without added template synthesizes self-replicating RNA species in an autocatalytic reaction. In this paper we offer strong evidence that this RNA production is directed by templates generated de novo during the lag phase. Contamination of the enzyme by traces of RNA templates was ruled out by the following experimental results: (1) Additional purification steps do not eliminate this RNA production. (2) The lag phase is lengthened to several hours by lowering substrate or enzyme concentration. At a nucleoside triphosphate concentration of 0.15 mM no RNA is produced although the template-directed RNA synthesis works normally. (3) Different enzyme concentrations lead to RNA species of completely different primary structure. (4) Addition of oligonucleotides or preincubation with only three nucleoside triphosphates affects the final RNA sequence. (5) Manipulation of conditions during the lag phase results in the production of RNA structures that are adapted to the particular incubation conditions applied (e.g., RNA resistant to nuclease attack or resistant to inhibitors or even RNAs "addicted to the drug," in the sense that they only replicate in the presence of a drug like acridine orange). RNA species obtained in different experiments under optimal incubation conditions show very similar fingerprint patterns, suggesting the operation of an instruction mechanism. A possible mechanism is discussed.
A first implementation of in-transit buffers on myrinet gm software

Clusters of workstations (COWs) are becoming increasingly popular as a cost-effective alternative to parallel computers. In these systems, the interconnection network connects hosts using irregular topologies, providing the wiring flexibility, scalability, and incremental expansion capability required in this environment. Myrinet is the most popular network used to build COWs. It uses source routing with the up*/down* routing algorithm. In previous papers we proposed the In-Transit Buffer (ITB) mechanism that improves network performance by allowing minimal routing, balancing network traffic, and reducing network contention. The mechanism is based on ejecting packets at some intermediate hosts and later re-injecting them into the network. Moreover, the ITB mechanism does not require additional hardware as it can be implemented on the software running at Myrinet network adapters. In this paper, we present a first implementation of the ITB mechanism on Myrinet GM software. We show the changes required in packet format and the modifications performed in the Myrinet Control Program (MCP). In addition, both the overhead introduced by the new code and the cost of extracting and re-injecting packets are measured. Results show that, even for this simple implementation, code overhead is only about 125 ns per packet and the message latency increase for messages that use the ITB mechanism is around 1.3 per ITB. This is the first attempt to implement this mechanism, showing that a real implementation of ITBs is feasible on Myrinet COWs, and the associated overhead does not restrict the potential benefits of this mechanism.
Ancient origins of human developmental plasticity

Animals have the ability to alter development, physiology, growth, and behavior in response to different environmental conditions. These responses represent critical assessments of both external and internal factors. For example, the timing of metamorphosis, hatching, or birth depends on the trade‐offs between growth opportunity and mortality risk in the developmental habitat. Physiological sensors compute these trade‐offs as a function of energy balance and environmental stress, and effectors initiate physiological, developmental, and behavioral responses to these determinations. The neuroendocrine stress axis provides a means for animals to integrate information from multiple sources and to respond accordingly. Considerable evidence now supports the view that the secretion of hormones critical to development (corticosteroid and thyroid hormones) is controlled by a common neuroendocrine stress pathway involving corticotropin‐releasing factor (CRF) and related peptides. CRF produced in the hypothalamus stimulates the biosynthesis and secretion of both thyroid and corticosteroid hormones, leading to accelerated tadpole metamorphosis. Similarly, in mammals CRF of fetal and placental origin has been shown to influence the timing of birth. Studies in several experimental animal models and in humans show that early life experience can have long‐term phenotypic consequences. Furthermore, there is evidence that phenotypic expression is strongly influenced by the actions of stress hormones produced during development. The integrated neuroendocrine response to stress, and its role in timing critical life history transitions and establishing long‐term phenotypic expression, arose early in the evolution of vertebrates. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 17:44–54, 2005. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Power system data management and analysis using synchrophasor data

This paper provides a synchrophasor data analysis methodology that leverages statistical correlation techniques in order to identify data inconsistencies, as well as power system contingencies. Included in this analysis are the techniques for data management that are used to process the high-granularity and high-cardinality data gathered from synchrophasor sensors - also know as Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs). This research utilizes real, archived PMU data obtained from the Western Electric Coordinating Council (WECC) in order to show that this methodology is not only feasible, but extremely useful for power systems monitoring, decision support, and planning purposes. The results presented indicate preliminary identification of PMU data issues, as well as power system instabilities.
Comparison of Drug-Eluting Stents in Acute Myocardial Infarction Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease

Background/Aims To determine which drug-eluting stents are more effective in acute myocardial infarction (MI) patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Methods This study included a total of 3,566 acute MI survivors with CKD from the Korea Acute Myocardial Infarction Registry who were treated with stenting and followed up for 12 months: 1,845 patients who received sirolimus-eluting stents (SES), 1,356 who received paclitaxel-eluting stents (PES), and 365 who received zotarolimus-eluting stents (ZES). CKD was defined as an estimated glomerular filtration rate < 60 mL/min/1.73 m2 calculated by the modification of diet in renal disease method. Results At the 12-month follow-up, patients receiving ZES demonstrated a higher incidence (14.8%) of major adverse cardiac events (MACEs) compared to those receiving SES (10.1%) and PES (12%, p = 0.019). The ZES patients also had a higher incidence (3.9%) of target lesion revascularization (TLR) compared to those receiving SES (1.5%) and PES (2.4%, p = 0.011). After adjusting for confounding factors, ZES was associated with a higher incidence of MACE and TLR than SES (adjusted hazard ratio [HR], 0.623; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.442 to 0.879; p = 0.007; adjusted HR, 0.350; 95% CI, 0.165 to 0.743; p = 0.006, respectively), and with a higher rate of TLR than PES (adjusted HR, 0.471; 95% CI, 0.223 to 0.997; p = 0.049). Conclusions Our findings suggest that ZES is less effective than SES and PES in terms of 12-month TLR, and has a higher incidence of MACE due to a higher TLR rate compared with SES, in acute MI patients with CKD.
Pricing and Ordering Policies in a Supply Chain with Risk-Averse Retailer and Asymmetric Information

This paper studies the pricing and ordering policy of a two-echelon supply chain with a risk-neutral supplier and a risk-averse retailer, the risk aversion of the retailer is measured by CVaR. The retailer has accurate demand information while the supplier does not. The research shows that the uncertainty of the supplier on the demand will lead to a reduction of the supplier's expected profit, which also shows the value of information. Moreover, the uncertainty on the demand will lead to a biased forecast of the expected profit for the supplier.
POLÍMEROS NA OBTENÇÃO DE SISTEMAS DE LIBERAÇÃO DE FÁRMACOS POLYMERS IN DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEMS

Due to their broad range of applications, particularly for the controlled release of drugs, polymers are among the most widely used excipients in pharmaceutical technology. Selecting a polymer for a drug delivery system depends on its characteristics, as well as the properties of the drug substance and of the remaining ingredients of the formulation. Selecting a polymer is also influenced by the desired mechanism for drug release. To achieve specific drug release profiles, synthetic polymers may be chemically modified. Also, blending different polymers at different ratios may lead to specific drug release systems. Future developments in polymer sciences will be based on modifications of the chemical and physical properties of the polymers and on new combinations of copolymers able to provide a programmed and controlled release of a wide variety of drugs.