Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Influence of adjuvants on protection induced by a recombinant fusion protein against malarial infection

Previously, we described a protective immune response induced by the carboxyl-terminal region of the merozoite surface protein-1 (MSP-1) from the rodent malarial parasite Plasmodium yoelii yoelii 17XL, expressed as a fusion protein and designated glutathione S-transferase (GST)-PYC2. We also demonstrated that the humoral response induced by GST-PYC2 was the primary mechanism by which immunized animals controlled their blood-stage infections. We have now examined the influence of several adjuvants on the immune response to the GST-PYC2 fusion protein. While alum, Freund's adjuvant, Ribi adjuvant system, and TiterMax were efficacious in eliciting a protective response with GST-PYC2 in BALB/c mice, saponin failed to induce protection, although significant levels of PYC2-specific antibodies were produced in all immunized animals. This protection depended on the mouse strain since immunization of Swiss Webster mice with GST-PYC2 in alum did not produce levels of PYC2-specific antibodies comparable to those in BALB/c mice nor did it induce any demonstrable level of protection against parasite challenge. Swiss Webster mice were protected, however, when immunized with GST-PYC2 in other adjuvants. Immunization with PYC2, isolated free of GST induced lower levels of antigen-specific antibody; only those animals given PYC2 in Freund's adjuvant demonstrated a significant degree of protection, suggesting the possibility (of additional cellular effector mechanisms. These findings demonstrate that adjuvant, host genotype, and the fine specificity of the response significantly influence the protection induced by the carboxyl terminus of MSP-1 in vivo and illustrate the need to consider these factors in evaluating MSP-1 as a vaccine component.
Practices of global capital: gaps, cracks and ironies in transnational call centres in India

Abstract In this article I document practices of globalization in a newly emerging transnational labour force – call centre workers in New Delhi, India, who provide voice-to-voice service to clients dialling toll-free numbers in North America. Recent theorists have focused on how capitalism is continually under construction, and how heterogeneous groups of workers play active roles in relation to transnational corporate processes. Accordingly, I trace three practices that constitute transnational call centre work –scripting, synchronicity and locational masking – and examine how Indian workers negotiate these practices. I argue that the transnationalization of voice-to-voice service work provides the opportunity for Indian workers to construct ‘Americans’ and situate their own jobs within global labour markets. Drawing on interviews with call centre workers, managers and trainers in India, I explore the ways in which analyses of the practices of globalization provides an insight on workers' attempts to enhance their quality of life vis-a-vis transnational capitalism.
Performance and training standards for endovascular ischemic stroke treatment

Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the USA, Canada, Europe, and Japan. According to the American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association, there are now 750 000 new strokes that occur each year, resulting in 200 000 deaths, or 1 of every 16 deaths, per year in the USA alone. Endovascular therapy for patients with acute ischemic stroke is an area of intense investigation. The American Stroke Association has given a qualified endorsement of intra-arterial thrombolysis in selected patients. Intra-arterial thrombolysis has been studied in two randomized trials and numerous case series. Although two devices have been granted FDA approval with an indication for mechanical stroke thrombectomy, none of these thrombectomy devices has demonstrated efficacy for the improvement of patient outcomes. The purpose of the present document is to define what constitutes adequate training to perform neuroendovascular procedures in patients with acute ischemic stroke and what performance standards should be adopted to assess outcomes. These guidelines have been written and approved by multiple neuroscience societies which historically have been directly involved in the medical, surgical and endovascular care of patients with acute stroke. The participating member organizations of the Neurovascular Coalition involved in the writing and endorsement of this document are the Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery, the American Academy of Neurology, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons/Congress of Neurological Surgeons Cerebrovascular Section, and the Society of Vascular & Interventional Neurology.
Female-mediated causes and consequences of status change in a social fish

In highly social species, dominant individuals often monopolize reproduction, resulting in reproductive investment that is status dependent. Yet, for subordinates, who typically invest less in reproduction, social status can change and opportunities to ascend to dominant social positions are presented suddenly, requiring abrupt changes in behaviour and physiology. In this study, we examined male reproductive anatomy, physiology and behaviour following experimental manipulations of social status in the cooperatively breeding cichlid fish, Neolamprologus pulcher. This unusual fish species lives in permanent social groups composed of a dominant breeding pair and 1–20 subordinates that form a linear social dominance hierarchy. By removing male breeders, we created 18 breeding vacancies and thus provided an opportunity for subordinate males to ascend in status. Dominant females play an important role in regulating status change, as males successfully ascended to breeder status only when they were slightly larger than the female breeder in their social group. Ascending males rapidly assumed behavioural dominance, demonstrated elevated gonadal investment and androgen concentrations compared with males remaining socially subordinate. Interestingly, to increase gonadal investment ascending males appeared to temporarily restrain somatic growth. These results highlight the complex interactions between social status, reproductive physiology and group dynamics, and underscore a convergent pattern of reproductive investment among highly social, cooperative species.
Oxidation of aflatoxin B1 by bacterial recombinant human cytochrome P450 enzymes.

Human cytochromes P450 (P450) 1A2 and P450 3A4 were expressed in Escherichia coli, purified, and used in reconstituted oxidation systems. The optimal system for P450 3A4 included a mixture of phospholipids, sodium cholate, cytochrome b5, GSH, and MgCl2. Relatively high catalytic activities were obtained with such a system for aflatoxin (AF) B1 3 alpha-hydroxylation and 8,9-epoxidation. P450 3A4 was more active than P450 1A2 in forming genotoxic AFB1 oxidation products. Analysis of the AFB1 products indicated that P450 3A4 formed AFQ1 and the exo-8,9-epoxide; P450 1A2 formed AFM1, a small amount of AFQ1, and both the exo- and endo-8,9-epoxides. The endo epoxide is essentially nongenotoxic in the umu test, as found previously in bacterial mutagenicity assays [Iyer, R. S. , Coles, B. F. , Raney, K. D. , Thier, R. , Guengerich, F. P., and Harris, T. M. (1994) J. Am. Chem. Soc. 116, 1603-1609]. 7,8-Benzoflavone (alpha-naphthoflavone, alpha NF) stimulated AFB1 (exo) 8,9-epoxidation and inhibited 3 alpha-hydroxylation in human liver microsomes and a reconstituted P450 3A4 system but was a potent inhibitor of all reactions catalyzed by P450 1A2. Plots of AFB1 3 alpha-hydroxylation and 8,9-epoxidation vs AFB1 concentration were sigmoidal in both human liver microsomes and the reconstituted P450 3A4 system. The results are consistent with the view that P450 3A4 is a major human liver P450 enzyme involved in AFB1 activation, although the in vivo situation may be more complex due to the presence of the enzyme in the gastrointestinal tract.
Single-trial P300 detection in healthy and ALS subjects by means of a genetic algorithm

P300 is a potential widely used in brain-computer interfaces (BCI ), as P300 is an innate response that does not require training on the part of the user. In the literature several classification algorithms have been used (e.g., Linear Discriminant Analysis, Stepwise Discriminant Analysis, Support Vector Machines), and, typically, first the P300 relevant features are extracted from the EEG signal, then they are fed into the classifier. From this, it becomes clear that feature extraction is the key point, and doing it by hand can be at the same time cumbersome and suboptimal. In this paper, we face the issue of automatic feature extraction by using a genetic algorithm (GA) able to retrieve the relevant aspects of the signal to be classified in an automatic fashion. We do not use GA for feature selection or classifier optimization; instead, we learn directly from the signal which are the features we should use in our classifier. The approach has been used for single-sweep classification with a logistic classifier on a group of 10 subjects affected by ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), hospitalized in the S. Camillo structure, and a group of 4 healthy subjects, voluntarily participating to the study. Results are promising, reaching up to 95% accuracy for some subjects; moreover, the features extracted by the GA turn out to be related to the P300 activity and can provide insights about the most interesting regions and time to classify P300s.
Methods for Evaluating Value-at-Risk Estimates

Beginning in 1998, U.S. commercial banks with significant trading activities must hold capital against their defined market risk exposure. Under the current regulatory guidelines, this capital charge is a function of banks' own value-at-risk (VaR) estimates. Two hypothesis-testing methods for evaluating VaR estimates have been proposed; namely, the binomial and the interval forecast methods. As shown in a simulation exercise, the tests generally have low power and thus are prone to misclassifying inaccurate VaR estimates as "acceptably accurate". An alternative evaluation method, based on loss functions that capture specific regulatory concerns, is proposed. Simulation results indicate that this method is capable of distinguishing between VaR estimates generated by accurate and alternative VaR models. The additional information provided by this method, as well as its flexibility with respect to the specification of the loss function, make a reasonable case for its use in the regulatory evaluation of VaR estimates.
Analyzing and predicting question quality in community question answering services

Users tend to ask and answer questions in community question answering (CQA) services to seek information and share knowledge. A corollary is that myriad of questions and answers appear in CQA service. Accordingly, volumes of studies have been taken to explore the answer quality so as to provide a preliminary screening for better answers. However, to our knowledge, less attention has so far been paid to question quality in CQA. Knowing question quality provides us with finding and recommending good questions together with identifying bad ones which hinder the CQA service. In this paper, we are conducting two studies to investigate the question quality issue. The first study analyzes the factors of question quality and finds that the interaction between askers and topics results in the differences of question quality. Based on this finding, in the second study we propose a Mutual Reinforcement-based Label Propagation (MRLP) algorithm to predict question quality. We experiment with Yahoo! ~Answers data and the results demonstrate the effectiveness of our algorithm in distinguishing high-quality questions from low-quality ones.
Prevalence and pattern of neuropsychological impairment in human immunodeficiency virus-infected/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) patients across pre- and post-highly active antiretroviral therapy eras: A combined study of two cohorts

The objective of this study was to assess the prevalence and pattern of neuropsychological impairment in cohorts of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected individuals across pre- and post-HAART (highly active antiretroviral therapy) eras. Two cohorts of HIV-infected individuals attending tertiary referral hospital outpatient clinics were studied. The cohorts represented two eras of antiretroviral medication: monotherapy (n = 51) and HAART (n = 90). Each was compared in nine neuropsychological domains in regard to the prevalence as well as pattern of neuropsychological impairment. Because the authors intended to characterize the prevalence and pattern of neuropsychological deficits in nondemented advanced HIV-infected individuals, patients with a current diagnosis of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) dementia complex were not included. The prevalence of impairment was not significantly different across pre-HAART and HAART eras using a standard criterion to define impairment: −2 SD in two neuropsychological measures (41.1%/38.8%). Prevalence of deficits was not significantly reduced in patients with undetectable plasma viral load. The pattern of neuropsychological impairment was different across pre-HAART and HAART eras, with an improvement in attention, verbal fluency, visuoconstruction deficits, but a deterioration in learning efficiency and complex attention. This change remained even in patients with an undetectable plasma viral load, although the severity was partially diminished. Neuropsychological deficits remain common in the HAART era, essentially uninfluenced by HAART. The finding that some neuropsychological functions are improving while other are deteriorating indicates that these deficits do not reflect “burnt out” damage but rather that there is an active intracerebral process occurring, the nature of which is still to be determined.
Improving the Beam Propagation Method for TM Polarization

The beam propagation method (BPM) has been widely used in numerical simulations of optical waveguides that vary slowly in the propagation direction. However, when BPM is used over a large propagation distance, a significant amplitude error in the coefficient of the leading propagating mode can be observed. Energy conserving corrections and the single scatter approximation have been used to improve the accuracy of the BPM.
No effect of ascorbate on cutaneous vasodilation and sweating in older men and those with type 2 diabetes exercising in the heat

Aging and chronic disease such as type 2 diabetes (T2D) are associated with impairments in the body's ability to dissipate heat. To reduce the risk of heat‐related injuries in these heat vulnerable individuals, it is necessary to identify interventions that can attenuate this impairment. We evaluated the hypothesis that intradermal administration of ascorbate improves cutaneous vasodilation and sweating in older adults via nitric oxide synthase (NOS)‐dependent mechanisms during exercise in the heat and whether these improvements, if any, are greater in individuals with T2D. Older males with (n = 12, 61 ± 9 years) and without (n = 12, 64 ± 7 years) T2D performed two 30‐min bouts of cycling at a fixed rate of metabolic heat production of 500 W (~70% peak oxygen uptake) in the heat (35°C); each followed by a 20‐ and 40‐min recovery, respectively. Cutaneous vascular conductance (CVC) and sweat rate were measured at four intradermal microdialysis sites treated with either (1) lactated Ringer (Control), (2) 10 mmol/L ascorbate (an antioxidant), (3) 10 mmol/L L‐NAME (non‐selective NOS inhibitor), or (4) a combination of ascorbate + L‐NAME. In both groups, ascorbate did not modulate CVC or sweating during exercise relative to Control (all P > 0.05). In comparison to Control, L‐NAME alone or combined with ascorbate attenuated CVC during exercise (all P ≤ 0.05) but had no influence on sweating (all P > 0.05). We show that in both healthy and T2D older adults, intradermal administration of ascorbate does not improve cutaneous vasodilation and sweating during exercise in the heat. However, NOS plays an important role in mediating cutaneous vasodilation.
Dexterous Manipulation Using Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning

On a novel pneumatic four-finger gripper with three degrees of freedom per finger we apply reinforcement learning to learn dexterous manipulation of objects. In order to reduce the search space, we implemented hierarchical learning on two levels. Low-level learning is used for basic movement primitives like grabbing, lifting or rotation of an object around three cartesian axes, whereas in high-level learning we use the already learned low-level actions to find a policy that enables the gripper to move a target point on the surface of a sphere to the top position in a few seconds. It turns out that Q-learning with a finite stateand action space solves the learning task very well. Additional videos are available at [1]. Note to the reviewers: The password for the videos is: DMUHRL (initials of the paper title). Access to the videos will be opened prior to the workshop.
Situated support for choice of representation

As more and more companies are augmenting their data to include semantics it is imperative that the choices made when choosing the modelling language are well founded in knowledge about the language and the domain in question. This work demonstrates how the semiotic quality framework can facilitate the choice of the most suited language for a real world application. Computational and situated features are introduced as an extension to the framework.
Conceptualising the Network Society in Malaysia

Various studies have confirmed the existence of a network society in Malaysia. They generally identify its presence through aggregated individual level attributes, such as possession and usage of computer and the Internet, access to computer and the Internet, and benefits received by the network societal members. This society is widely said to be the outcome of the Malaysian government's efforts to counter increasing challenges and impacts of globalisation and ICT waves since the 1990s; in particular, the digital divide within the society. However, a review of the studies has led the authors of this article to highlight some limitations in the conceptualisation of the notions 'network society' and 'network'. Thus, the nature of the network society has not been well-understood. In this article, the authors draw upon some illuminating characteristics that have been provided by the studies to produce a conceptual framework that will serve as a useful analytical tool for a broader alternative and sociological understanding of the character of the network society and digital divide issues in Malaysia.
Flux (2): Comparison of Molecular Mutation and Crossover Operators for Ligand-Based de Novo Design

We implemented a fragment-based de novo design algorithm for a population-based optimization of molecular structures. The concept is grounded on an evolution strategy with mutation and crossover operators for structure breeding. Molecular building blocks were obtained from the pseudo-retrosynthesis of a collection of pharmacologically active compounds following the RECAP principle. The influence of mutation and crossover on the course of optimization was assessed in redesign studies using known drugs as template structures. A topological atom-pair descriptor grounded on potential pharmacophore points was used as a molecular descriptor, and the Manhattan distance between the template and candidate molecules served as a fitness function. Exclusive use of the crossover operator yielded few unique compounds and often resulted in premature convergence of the optimization process, whereas exclusive use of the mutation operator resulted in diverse high-quality structures. Combinations of crossover and mutation yielded the overall best results. The majority of the designed structures exhibit a chemically reasonable architecture; chiral centers are rare, and unfavorable connections of building blocks are infrequent. We conclude that this fragment-based design principle is suited as an idea generator for the automated design of novel leadlike molecules.
Objective Relaxation Algorithm for Reliable Simulation-Driven Size Reduction of Antenna Structures

This letter investigates reliable size reduction of antennas through electromagnetic-driven optimization. It is demonstrated that conventional formulation of the design task by direct footprint miniaturization with imposing constraints on electrical performance parameters may not lead to optimum results. The reason is that—in a typical antenna structure—only a few geometry parameters explicitly determine the antenna footprint, and therefore sensitivity of antenna size to other parameters is zero. At the same time, finding the genuine optimum requires adjustment of all parameters as the optimum is determined by the tradeoff between the size and other figures of merit such as reflection characteristic. Here, an alternative design methodology is proposed that involves relaxation between size reduction and matching improvement. Our methodology is demonstrated using two examples of ultrawideband antenna structures. It is superior over the conventional approach in terms of the optimized antenna size achieved. Experimental validation of the results is also provided.
Improving the neural mechanisms of cognition through the pursuit of happiness

This paper reviews evidence on the neural basis of how positive mood states can modulate cognition, particularly during creative problem-solving. Studies performed over the past few decades demonstrate that individuals in a positive mood engage in a broader scope of attention, enhancing their access to distant and unusual semantic associations, and increasing task-shifting and problem-solving capacities. In this review, we summarize these behavioral studies; we then present recent findings on the changes in brain activation patterns that are induced by a positive mood when participants engage in problem-solving tasks and show how these relate to task performance. Additionally, we integrate findings on the neuromodulatory influence of positive mood on cognition as mediated by dopaminergic signaling in the prefrontal cortex and we describe how this system can go awry during pathological states of elevated mood as in mania. Finally, we describe current and future research directions using psychotherapeutic and real-time fMRI neurofeedback approaches to up-regulate positive mood and facilitate optimal creative cognitive performance. We conclude with some speculations on the clinical implications of this emerging area of research.