Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Some Secrets of Fluorescent Proteins: Distinct Bleaching in Various Mounting Fluids and Photoactivation of Cyan Fluorescent Proteins at YFP-Excitation

Background The use of spectrally distinct variants of green fluorescent protein (GFP) such as cyan or yellow mutants (CFP and YFP, respectively) is very common in all different fields of life sciences, e.g. for marking specific proteins or cells or to determine protein interactions. In the latter case, the quantum physical phenomenon of fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) is exploited by specific microscopy techniques to visualize proximity of proteins. Methodology/Principal Findings When we applied a commonly used FRET microscopy technique - the increase in donor (CFP)-fluorescence after bleaching of acceptor fluorophores (YFP), we obtained good signals in live cells, but very weak signals for the same samples after fixation and mounting in commercial microscopy mounting fluids. This observation could be traced back to much faster bleaching of CFP in these mounting media. Strikingly, the opposite effect of the mounting fluid was observed for YFP and also for other proteins such as Cerulean, TFP or Venus. The changes in photostability of CFP and YFP were not caused by the fixation but directly dependent on the mounting fluid. Furthermore we made the interesting observation that the CFP-fluorescence intensity increases by about 10 - 15% after illumination at the YFP-excitation wavelength – a phenomenon, which was also observed for Cerulean. This photoactivation of cyan fluorescent proteins at the YFP-excitation can cause false-positive signals in the FRET-microscopy technique that is based on bleaching of a yellow FRET acceptor. Conclusions/Significance Our results show that photostability of fluorescent proteins differs significantly for various media and that CFP bleaches significantly faster in commercial mounting fluids, while the opposite is observed for YFP and some other proteins. Moreover, we show that the FRET microscopy technique that is based on bleaching of the YFP is prone to artifacts due to photoactivation of cyan fluorescent proteins under these conditions.
Focus Theme Focus Theme Focus Theme Focus Theme Focus Theme Business Models for Electronic Markets Business Models for Electronic Markets Business Models for Electronic Markets Business Models for Electronic Markets Business Models for Electronic Markets

sive development in electronic commerce. The reasons for that are, of course, the Internet and the World Wide Web, which are making electronic commerce much more accessible. They offer easily usable and low cost forms of electronic commerce. Electronic commerce on the basis of the Internet is set to become a very important way of doing business. Forrester (1997) forecasts that business-to-business (B-to-B) electronic commerce will grow to $327 billion in the year 2002 — that is the value of goods and services traded via the Internet. This excludes the value of the hardware, software and services that are needed to perform electronic commerce, whose value is estimated at several hundred billions of dollars likewise. Between 1996 and 1997 electronic commerce has been growing at over 1000 percent per year. While such high growth rates will not be sustained, it is clear that electronic commerce will become pervasive: Datamonitor (1997) expects in 5 years time 630,000 US companies and 245,000 European companies to be involved in full-fledged integrated B-to-B electronic commerce. The Report on Electronic Commerce (1998) expects that the business-to-business penetration rate will grow from 10% in 1997 to 90% in 2001. Although the number of consumers on the Net by the year 2000 could be several 100 millions it is expected that business-to-business will constitute the larger part of electronic commerce. With the new medium — the Internet – also new ways of doing business are developing. Most of those that capture the public attention are consumer-oriented (such as Amazon.com, Tesco). Less publicity is given to the way the Internet can be used for business-to-business electronic commerce, although such commerce is a reality today (e.g. Cisco, General Electronic procurement, etc). New forms of electronic commerce are being piloted in many sectors of industry, for business-to-business, business-to-consumer and business-public administrations relationships. Advanced pilot experiments in new business models are being supported by the European Commission in the ESPRIT and ACTS Euro-pean research, technology development and demonstration programmes. This work is part of a more general framework of policy-making and programmes for global electronic commerce, which also addresses the legal and regulatory framework and other factors in the business environment. Abstract Abstract Abstract Abstract Abstract Electronic commerce over the Internet may be either complementary to traditional business or represent a whole new line of business. In either case, in view of the new features of the Internet, critical questions to …
Network sensing through smartphone-based crowdsourcing

Portolan is a crowdsourcing system, aimed at monitoring and measuring large-scale networks, that uses smartphones as mobile observation elements. Currently, Portolan is able to collect information about both wired and wireless networks, in particular it is used to obtain the graph of the Internet with unprecedented resolution and to associate performance indexes (received signal strength, maximum throughput) of cellular networks to geographic locations.
Dorsal root ganglion stimulation yielded higher treatment success rate for complex regional pain syndrome and causalgia at 3 and 12 months: a randomized comparative trial

Abstract Animal and human studies indicate that electrical stimulation of dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons may modulate neuropathic pain signals. ACCURATE, a pivotal, prospective, multicenter, randomized comparative effectiveness trial, was conducted in 152 subjects diagnosed with complex regional pain syndrome or causalgia in the lower extremities. Subjects received neurostimulation of the DRG or dorsal column (spinal cord stimulation, SCS). The primary end point was a composite of safety and efficacy at 3 months, and subjects were assessed through 12 months for long-term outcomes and adverse events. The predefined primary composite end point of treatment success was met for subjects with a permanent implant who reported 50% or greater decrease in visual analog scale score from preimplant baseline and who did not report any stimulation-related neurological deficits. No subjects reported stimulation-related neurological deficits. The percentage of subjects receiving ≥50% pain relief and treatment success was greater in the DRG arm (81.2%) than in the SCS arm (55.7%, P < 0.001) at 3 months. Device-related and serious adverse events were not different between the 2 groups. Dorsal root ganglion stimulation also demonstrated greater improvements in quality of life and psychological disposition. Finally, subjects using DRG stimulation reported less postural variation in paresthesia (P < 0.001) and reduced extraneous stimulation in nonpainful areas (P = 0.014), indicating DRG stimulation provided more targeted therapy to painful parts of the lower extremities. As the largest prospective, randomized comparative effectiveness trial to date, the results show that DRG stimulation provided a higher rate of treatment success with less postural variation in paresthesia intensity compared to SCS.
Metropolitan Housing Problems; Nature and Characteristics in Amhara Region

Urbanization is the process by which people are moving from rural to urban areas, which results in the formation of new life styles. Nowadays, it is highly contributing to the overall economic, social, cultural as well as infrastructural development of countries. Conversely, the prevalence of over urbanization results in the change in the dynamics and characteristics of housing problems. Though urban expansion has result in the birth of various housing problems, prevalent literatures and studies are not updated and limited in scale. Hence, to fill such gaps, this study is targeted at assessing the nature and characteristics of housing problems of metropolitan urban centers in Amhara region, namely Bahir Dar, Dessie and Gondar. To address this objective we have employed a crossectional descriptive research design. Specifically, 440 survey respondents were taken from Gondar (171) and Bahir Dar (167) and Dessie (102) were selected by considering land use classification and population density of each city. The result of the study revealed that there was a significant difference in the average age of respondents (F=14.54; α=.001) with the relatively oldest and the youngest residing in Bahir Dar (45.32) and Dessie (35.81) respectively. Though the amount of money spent on rent of residential place was not found to be statistically significant (F=.11; α=.90), its proportion relative to the income of the household was significantly higher for residents of the city of Gondar as compared to residents of the cities of Bahir Dar and Dessie. There is significant variation between the cities in terms of households hosting kitchen (χ2=16.50; α=.001) – in favor of the city of Gondar – and bathroom (χ2=32.99; α=.001) – in favor of Bahir Dar. On the other hand, the average number of rooms in a housing in each city was three which is not statistically significant (F=.14; α=.24). In terms of the ownership status of housing units, the majority of the study population live in privately owned houses at Bahir Dar (49%), whereas rent (from government (40%) and private owners (57)) was the dominant ownership pattern at Gondar. Congestion is the most felt and reported problem of housing in Gondar (51%) which contrasts with their reports on the status of pollution in their residential areas which is relatively lower (32%).
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Insight into the relationship of chlorophyll a fluorescence yield to the concentration of its natural quenchers in oxygenic photosynthesis (pholtostem II/S states of oxygen-evolving complex/quinone acceptors/Spinacia oleracea) ABSTRACT Fluorescence of chlorophyll a (Chia) is a noninvasive and very sensitive intrinsic probe of photosynthe-sis. It monitors the composition and orgnization of the pho-tosystems, the exciton energy tfer, the photochemistry, and the effects of various types ofstress on plats. It is the most used as well as the nmt abused tool In photosyntheis. Thus, an understanding of Its relatinship to photosynthesis has been of paramount Importance. Both the oxidized primary plas-toquinone, QA, and the oiddized primary reaction-center Chia, jM80+ (for short, P+), are known to be quenchers of Chia fluorescence yield (#r) of photosystem H. Flash-number dependence of Chi fluorescence yield shows either a period 4, due to the four-step charge-acculation process of water oxidation (donor side), or period 2 behavior, due to the two-step reduction of the plasoquinone QB (acceptor side) of photwystem H reaction centers. We provide here a hrther insight into the relationship of variable Chla fluorescence yield (iff) to the concentration of the two quenchers. The observed time dependence ofthe ratio of *rafter flash 3 to that after flash 1 (or fash 5) in spinach thylakolds at pH 6 can be explained if we suggest that 1/#t = a[PQAJ + b[P+] + c, where a, b, and c are constants. From this it follows that the quenching of Chia fluorescence by P680+ after a flash is dependent on QA: for low
Effects of Family Structure and the Experience of Parental Separation: A Study on Adolescents’ Well-Being

Large numbers of studies, mostly from the U.S., have addressed the effects of parental separation and divorce, pointing to disadvantages of children and adolescents growing up in separated families. However, evidence on this topic varies across countries and is limited for Germany. Using longitudinal data from waves 1 and 3 of the German Family Panel pairfam, we investigated differences in adolescents’ well-being by comparing stable nuclear families (n = 1968), single mother families (n = 360), and stepfather families (n = 214), as well as an additional smaller group of adolescents whose parents separated between waves 1 and 3 (“prospective separators”; n = 76). Adolescents’ satisfaction with different domains of life (family, education/work, and their general life satisfaction) as well as their self-esteem were used as indicators of well-being. A series of multiple regression analyses tested the effects of family structure on well-being at T1 and changes in well-being over time, controlling for various background factors. Furthermore, likely mediation effects of infrequent contact to the non-resident father and economic strain were tested. The findings show (relatively minor) effects of parental separation, namely lower well-being among youth1 in single mother families compared to nuclear families. Disadvantages of youth in single mother families could only be partly explained by the higher financial strain generally experienced in these families. Youth in stepfather families reported a similar overall well-being as adolescents in nuclear families, but indicated a greater decrease in family satisfaction over time. Pre-separation disadvantages among prospective separators were limited to greater dissatisfaction with school. Infrequent contact with the non-resident father did not affect adolescents’ well-being. Effects of family structure did not differ between boys and girls, but maternal education moderated the effects of family structure on adolescents’ life satisfaction. Overall, the findings are in line with other evidence from Germany, which points towards only limited disadvantages of youth in separated or divorced families.
Operational Decision Support in the Presence of Uncertainties

This book addresses the scientific domains of operations research, information science and statistics with a focus on engineering applications. The purpose of this book is to report on the implications of the loop equations formulation of the state estimation procedure of the network systems, for the purpose of the implementation of Decision Support (DS) systems for the operational control of the network systems. In general an operational DS comprises a series of standalone applications from which the mathematical modeling and simulation of the distribution systems and the managing of the uncertainty in the decision-making process are essential in order to obtain efficient control and monitoring of the distribution systems. The mathematical modeling and simulation forms the basis for detailed optimization of the network operations and the second one uses uncertainty based reasoning in order to reduce the complexity of the network system and to increase the credibility of its model. This book reports on the integration of the two aspects of operational DS into a single computational framework of loop network equations. The proposed DS system will be validated using case studies taken from the water industry. The optimal control of water distribution systems is an important problem because the models are non-linear and large-scale and measurements are prone to errors and very often they are incomplete.
The Impact of Sleep Quality on Cognitive Functioning in Parkinson's Disease

Abstract In healthy individuals and those with insomnia, poor sleep quality is associated with decrements in performance on tests of cognition, especially executive function. Sleep disturbances and cognitive deficits are both prevalent in Parkinson's disease (PD). Sleep problems occur in over 75% of patients, with sleep fragmentation and decreased sleep efficiency being the most common sleep complaints, but their relation to cognition is unknown. We examined the association between sleep quality and cognition in PD. In 35 non-demented individuals with PD and 18 normal control adults (NC), sleep was measured using 24-hr wrist actigraphy over 7 days. Cognitive domains tested included attention and executive function, memory and psychomotor function. In both groups, poor sleep was associated with worse performance on tests of attention/executive function but not memory or psychomotor function. In the PD group, attention/executive function was predicted by sleep efficiency, whereas memory and psychomotor function were not predicted by sleep quality. Psychomotor and memory function were predicted by motor symptom severity. This study is the first to demonstrate that sleep quality in PD is significantly correlated with cognition and that it differentially impacts attention and executive function, thereby furthering our understanding of the link between sleep and cognition. (JINS, 2012, 18, 108–117)
Defining clinical features of amiodarone induced optic neuropathy

Objective: To assess the degree and sources of current diagnostic inaccuracy of serial conventional cardiac markers and ECGs compared with the new diagnostic criteria for myocardial infarction, with specific reference to physician specialty and the prognostic value of troponin T. Design: Prospective, blinded observational study. Setting: University hospital. Patients and interventions: All suspected cardiac chest pain admissions for six months, with additional blinded measurement of CK-MB mass and troponin T. World Health Organization and new criteria myocardial infarction diagnoses were made by an expert panel. Main outcome measures: Diagnostic adjustment by expert panel; completeness of serial measurements; six months prognosis. Results: A complete set of serial cardiac markers was not taken in 38.7% of patients, this being twice as likely when managed by non-cardiologists than by cardiologists (p < 0.0001). The WHO myocardial infarction diagnosis was adjusted by the expert panel in 4% of cases, this being 90% more likely in patients admitted under non-cardiologists (p = 0.026). The new criteria for myocardial infarction identified an additional 27.3% of infarcts, with a diagnostic alteration in 12.0% of the cohort; 45.2% of these cases had a potentially preventable cause for diagnostic adjustment. Only troponin T (p = 0.0004), ST depression (p = 0.003), and heart failure (p = 0.016) were independently predictive of prognosis. Conclusions: Chest pain patients appear less likely to be fully and accurately assessed by non-cardiologists than by cardiologists. The new criteria for myocardial infarction identify ~25% of additional patients as MI, with potential additional advantages related to simplicity of diagnostic protocols. Troponin T was the most potent predictor of six month prognosis in an unselected cohort of chest pain admissions.
A Synergistic Analysis Method for Explaining Failed Regression Tests

We propose a new automated debugging method for regression testing based on a synergistic application of both dynamic and semantic analysis. Our method takes a failure- inducing test input, a buggy program, and an earlier correct version of the same program, and computes a minimal set of code changes responsible for the failure, as well as explaining how the code changes lead to the failure. Although this problem has been the subject of intensive research in recent years, existing methods are rarely adopted by developers in practice since they do not produce sufficiently accurate fault explanations for real applications. Our new method is significantly faster and more accurate than existing methods for explaining failed regression tests in real applications, due to its synergistic analysis framework that iteratively applies both dynamic analysis and a constraint solver based semantic analysis to leverage their complementary strengths. We have implemented our new method in a software tool based on the LLVMcompiler and the KLEE symbolic virtual machine. Our experiments on large real Linux applications show that the new method is both efficient and effective in practice.
Robust and Adaptive Surface Reconstruction using Partition of Unity Implicits

Implicit surface reconstruction from unorganized point sets has been recently approached with methods based on multi-level partition of unity. We improve this approach by addressing local approximation robustness and iso-surface extraction issues. Our method relies on the J1 A triangulation to perform both the spatial subdivision and the iso-surface extraction. We also make use of orthogonal polynomials to provide adaptive local approximations in which the degree of the polynomial can be adjusted to accurately reconstruct the surface locally. Finally, we compare our results with previous work to demonstrate the robustness of our method.
Exploiting spatial context constraints for automatic image region annotation

In this paper we conduct a relatively complete study on how to exploit spatial context constraints for automated image region annotation. We present a straight forward method to regularize the segmented regions into 2D lattice layout, so that simple grid-structure graphical models can be employed to characterize the spatial dependencies. We show how to represent the spatial context constraints in various graphical models and also present the related learning and inference algorithms. Different from most of the existing work, we specifically investigate how to combine the classification performance of discriminative learning and the representation capability of graphical models. To reliably evaluate the proposed approaches, we create a moderate scale image set with region-level ground truth. The experimental results show that (i) spatial context constraints indeed help for accurate region annotation, (ii) the approaches combining the merits of discriminative learning and context constraints perform best, (iii) image retrieval can benefit from accurate region-level annotation.
Suggested best practice for seismic monitoring and characterization of non-conventional reservoirs

General awareness of induced seismicity and gas leakage related to energy reservoir exploitation has been on the rise for several years (McGarr, 2002; Davies et al., 2013). This includes events from short-term fluid injection for reservoir simulation (Giardini, 2009; Atkinson, 2016), Long term hydrocarbon extraction (Van Thienen-Visser and Breuness, 2015), under¬ground storage of natural gas (Cesca et al., 2014), waster water (Ellsworth, 2013), and carbon dioxide (Zoback and Gorelick, 2012). High rates of felt induced events in previously quiet areas are now considered critical for public safety and social licence to operate (Petersen et al, 2016). Concerns about con¬tamination of ground water and climate effects have followed suit (Darrah et al., 2014; Davies et al., 2014). Prominent injection-induced seismicity that raised concerns are: the Preese Hall-1 frack-related M2.3 in the United King¬dom (de Pater and Baisch, 2011; Clark et al., 2014); an M~3.4 during the Basel, Switzerland, Geothermal project (Haring et al., 2008; Giardini, 2009), increased central-US water-disposal M>3 earthquakes (e.g. Ellsworth, 2013), and M~4 fracking-in¬duced events in Canada (Atkinson et al., 2016). In the case of gas leakage owing to loss of well integrity, industry long-run estimates range between a few per cent to as much as 50% (Burfatto et al., 2003). For non-conventional resource wells drilled since 2009 in Pennsylvania, well-inspec¬tion records suggest that as many as 40% have integrity issues (Davies et al. 2014; Ingraffea et al., 2014) and China (Lei et al., 2017). The proliferation of microearthquakes many times foreshad¬ows damaging ones and changes in well integrity. Substantial progress has been made in cost-effective, specialized seismic networks that can address these issues (e.g., Van der Baan et al., 2013). We describe these over a ~ 5 x 5 km reservoir in a ~10 x 10 km lease. As the optimal best practice, we suggest the monitoring scheme be integrated into a reservoir-management plan using Seismic Emission Tomography (SET; e.g. Sicking et al., 2017). In addition to adding value for fracture characterization and production management, only a portion of a permanent SET net is needed for regulatory compliance.