Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Core of the partner switching signalling mechanism is conserved in the obligate intracellular pathogen Chlamydia trachomatis

Chlamydia trachomatis is an obligate intracellular bacterial pathogen that can cause sexually transmitted and ocular diseases in humans. Its biphasic developmental cycle and ability to evade host‐cell defences suggest that the organism responds to external signals, but its genome encodes few recognized signalling pathways. One such pathway is predicted to function by a partner switching mechanism, in which key protein interactions are controlled by serine phosphorylation. From genome analysis this mechanism is both ancient and widespread among eubacteria, but it has been experimentally characterized in only a few. C. trachomatis has no system of genetic exchange, so here an in vitro approach was used to establish the activities and interactions of the inferred partner switching components: the RsbW switch protein/kinase and its RsbV antagonists. The C. trachomatis genome encodes two RsbV paralogs, RsbV1 and RsbV2. We found that each RsbV protein was specifically phosphorylated by RsbW, and tandem mass spectrometry located the phosphoryl group on a conserved serine residue. Mutant RsbV1 and RsbV2 proteins in which this conserved serine was changed to alanine could activate the yeast two‐hybrid system when paired with RsbW, whereas mutant proteins bearing a charged aspartate failed to activate. From this we infer that the phosphorylation state of RsbV1 and RsbV2 controls their interaction with RsbW in vivo. This experimental demonstration that the core of the partner switching mechanism is conserved in C. trachomatis indicates that its basic features are maintained over a large evolutionary span. Although the molecular target of the C. tra‐chomatis switch remains to be identified, based on the predicted properties of its input phosphatases we propose that the pathway controls an important aspect of the developmental cycle within the host, in response to signals external to the C. trachomatis cytoplasmic membrane.
Effects of Idebenone on Color Vision in Patients With Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy

Background:The authors investigated the correlation of protan and tritan color vision with disease characteristics in Leber hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON). The authors also characterized the therapeutic potential of idebenone in protecting patients from developing dyschromatopsia in LHON. Methods:Color contrast data of 39 LHON patients participating in a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled intervention study were evaluated. Patients reported disease onset <5 years before enrolment and were genetically confirmed. Protan and tritan color contrast sensitivity was measured using a computer graphics method in patients receiving idebenone (Catena; 900 mg/d; N = 28) or placebo (N = 11) for 6 months. Results:Mean age of patients was 28.1 years, 87.2% were men, 76.9% carried the m11778G>A mutation, and mean duration since onset was 2 years. Assessing protan and tritan color vision at baseline revealed a high degree of color confusion even in young patients (<25 years) and with a short history of disease (<1 year). Treatment with idebenone improved tritan color vision compared with placebo (P = 0.008 at week 24); a similar trend was seen for protan. The effect of idebenone was most prominent in patients with discordant visual acuity (interocular difference of logMAR >0.2). In this subgroup, the treatment effect at week 24 was 20.4% (P = 0.005) in favor of idebenone for the tritan color domain and 13.5% (P = 0.067) for the protan domain. Conclusion:This study confirms that protan and tritan color confusion is an early symptom in LHON. Treatment with idebenone can protect from loss of color vision, particularly in patients who are at imminent risk of further vision loss.
Altered metabolic landscape in IDH‐mutant gliomas affects phospholipid, energy, and oxidative stress pathways

Heterozygous mutations in NADP‐dependent isocitrate dehydrogenases (IDH) define the large majority of diffuse gliomas and are associated with hypermethylation of DNA and chromatin. The metabolic dysregulations imposed by these mutations, whether dependent or not on the oncometabolite D‐2‐hydroxyglutarate (D2HG), are less well understood. Here, we applied mass spectrometry imaging on intracranial patient‐derived xenografts of IDH‐mutant versus IDH wild‐type glioma to profile the distribution of metabolites at high anatomical resolution in situ. This approach was complemented by in vivo tracing of labeled nutrients followed by liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC‐MS) analysis. Selected metabolites were verified on clinical specimen. Our data identify remarkable differences in the phospholipid composition of gliomas harboring the IDH1 mutation. Moreover, we show that these tumors are characterized by reduced glucose turnover and a lower energy potential, correlating with their reduced aggressivity. Despite these differences, our data also show that D2HG overproduction does not result in a global aberration of the central carbon metabolism, indicating strong adaptive mechanisms at hand. Intriguingly, D2HG shows no quantitatively important glucose‐derived label in IDH‐mutant tumors, which suggests that the synthesis of this oncometabolite may rely on alternative carbon sources. Despite a reduction in NADPH, glutathione levels are maintained. We found that genes coding for key enzymes in de novo glutathione synthesis are highly expressed in IDH‐mutant gliomas and the expression of cystathionine‐β‐synthase (CBS) correlates with patient survival in the oligodendroglial subtype. This study provides a detailed and clinically relevant insight into the in vivo metabolism of IDH1‐mutant gliomas and points to novel metabolic vulnerabilities in these tumors.
#ounting the Poor: Another Look at the Poverty Profile

When the C’ouncil of Economic Advisors used trnnual income of less than $3,000 to define families living in poverty, it noted that this was a crude and approximate measure. Obviously the am.ount of cash inco? ne T*equired to maintain any given level of living will be different for the family of two and the family of eight, for the person living in a large metropolitan area and a person of the same age and sex living on a farm,. An article published in the July 1963 issue of the Bulletin, u Children of the Poor,” suggested one way of deriving rough measure8 of the amounts needed by families of differen.t size. This analysis has now been carried considerably further to define equivalent incomes at a poverty level for a large number of different family types. The Social Security AdminGtration obtained f om the Bureau of the Census special tabulations db m the March 1964 Current Population Survey classifying families and unrelated individuals as above or below these poverty cutoff points. The method used to derive this variable poverty line is described in the following artiole, which also gives a summary picture of the groups who fell below the line on the basis of their 1963 incomes. The total nwmber of poor remains about the same as when the cruder mea.yure of income ia used, but the compo.sition of the group is notabl? y different. This a.rticle deals primarily with fa.milies of two or more persons. A subsequent article will analyze the situation of unrelated individuuls and of aged persons living in families headed by younger persons. The differences between Negro and white fami&s and individuals will also be f xamined in more de tail. The method of measuring equivalent levels of 7iving that is presented here is still relatively crude. The DivzXon of Research and Stat&tics is attempting to develop more refined nwaswres based on the relationship of income and consum,p-
Cache Coherence Scheme for HCS-Based CMP and Its System Reliability Analysis

In previous work, a new network switch architecture, hybrid circuit-switched (HCS) network, has been proposed and evaluated. In doing so, it has been studied for use in a multi-processor system, with a focus on power and throughput. However, cache coherence and its connection with chip reliability have not been fully studied previously for multi-processor systems. In this paper, we study this problem by discussing the implementation of cache coherence on a HCS-based chip multi-processor and present a way to model the reliability of these protocols based on fault tree analysis and two-terminal networking models. We focus our efforts on three cache coherence protocols: Write-Once, Modified, Exclusive, Shared, Invalid (MESI), and Modified, Owned, Exclusive, Shared, Invalid (MOESI), and obtain expressions for the reliability probabilities of the system. Our results show that the Write-Once protocol is 14% less reliable than MOESI, while the MESI protocol is 2.5% less reliable than MOESI. We also demonstrate that the reliability of these protocols are 40.22% and 59.83% better, on average, when implemented on an HCS network rather than an elastic buffer-based network or a bus-based network, respectively.
Nanosuspension: A Review

Solubility is the significant component for medication adequacy, freedom of the course of administration Gigantic proportions of recently discovered medications are water insoluble, and hence poorly bioavailable adding to forsook improvement effort. These soâknown as Brickellia' competitors can now be conveyed through detailing them into Nanosuspension. Nanosuspension technological know-how solved the drawback of medications which are inadequately watery dissolvable and less bioavailability. Steadiness and bioavailability of the medications can be expanded by means of the Nanosuspension technology. Coaching of Nanosuspension is simple and relevant to all medicinal drugs which are fluid insoluble. Nanosuspensions are readied through utilizing wet mill, high strain homogenizer, emulsionâsolvent evaporation, melt emulsification approach and super significant fluid systems. Nanosuspension can be prepared with the aid of using stabilizers, natural and organic solvents and different components such as buffers, salts, polyols, osmogent and cry protectant. Nanosuspensions can likewise be delivered with the aid of oral, parenteral, aspiratory and visual courses. Nanosuspensions can additionally be used for distinct drug supply when included in the ocular inserts and mucoadhesive hydrogels.
Short-term second language and music training induces lasting functional brain changes in early childhood.

Immediate and lasting effects of music or second-language training were examined in early childhood using event-related potentials. Event-related potentials were recorded for French vowels and musical notes in a passive oddball paradigm in thirty-six 4- to 6-year-old children who received either French or music training. Following training, both groups showed enhanced late discriminative negativity (LDN) in their trained condition (music group-musical notes; French group-French vowels) and reduced LDN in the untrained condition. These changes reflect improved processing of relevant (trained) sounds, and an increased capacity to suppress irrelevant (untrained) sounds. After 1 year, training-induced brain changes persisted and new hemispheric changes appeared. Such results provide evidence for the lasting benefit of early intervention in young children.
Beyond Fano's inequality: bounds on the optimal F-score, BER, and cost-sensitive risk and their implications

Fano's inequality lower bounds the probability of transmission error through a communication channel. Applied to classification problems, it provides a lower bound on the Bayes error rate and motivates the widely used Infomax principle. In modern machine learning, we are often interested in more than just the error rate. In medical diagnosis, different errors incur different cost; hence, the overall risk is cost-sensitive. Two other popular criteria are balanced error rate (BER) and F-score. In this work, we focus on the two-class problem and use a general definition of conditional entropy (including Shannon's as a special case) to derive upper/lower bounds on the optimal F-score, BER and cost-sensitive risk, extending Fano's result. As a consequence, we show that Infomax is not suitable for optimizing F-score or cost-sensitive risk, in that it can potentially lead to low F-score and high risk. For cost-sensitive risk, we propose a new conditional entropy formulation which avoids this inconsistency. In addition, we consider the common practice of using a threshold on the posterior probability to tune performance of a classifier. As is widely known, a threshold of 0.5, where the posteriors cross, minimizes error rate--we derive similar optimal thresholds for F-score and BER.
The Biosynthesis of A2E, a Fluorophore of Aging Retina, Involves the Formation of the Precursor, A2-PE, in the Photoreceptor Outer Segment Membrane*

The autofluorescent lipofuscin that accumulates in retinal pigment epithelial cells with age may contribute to an age-related decline in cell function. The major lipofuscin fluorophore, A2E, is a pyridinium bisretinoid. We previously proposed that the biogenesis of A2E involves the following: (i) formation of the Schiff base, N-retinylidene phosphatidylethanolamine from all-trans-retinal and phosphatidylethanolamine in the photoreceptor outer segment membrane; (ii) further reaction ofN-retinylidene phosphatidylethanolamine with retinal to yield phosphatidylethanolamine-bisretinoid, A2-PE; (iii) hydrolysis of A2-PE to generate A2E. To provide evidence for this biogenic scheme, all-trans-retinal was reacted with dipalmitoyl-l-α-phosphatidylethanolamine to yield DP-A2-PE (A2-PE), as confirmed by UV, with mass spectrometry revealing the molecular ion at m/z 1222.9 (C77H124O8PN) accompanied by product ion at m/z 672.8, representing the phosphoryl-A2E fragment of A2-PE. In reaction mixtures of retinal and outer segments and in samples of Royal College of Surgeons rat retina containing outer segment membranous debris, A2-PE was detected as a series of high performance liquid chromatography peaks, each with UV similar to reference A2-PE. By mass spectrometry, A2-PE consisted of multiple peaks, representing fatty acids with different chain lengths, and the phosphoryl-A2E moiety, m/z 673. Incubation of the retinal/outer segment reaction mixture with phospholipase D generated A2E, as detected by high performance liquid chromatography, thus confirming A2-PE as the A2E precursor.
Effective Connectivity within Human Primary Visual Cortex Predicts Interindividual Diversity in Illusory Perception

Visual perception depends strongly on spatial context. A classic example is the tilt illusion where the perceived orientation of a central stimulus differs from its physical orientation when surrounded by tilted spatial contexts. Here we show that such contextual modulation of orientation perception exhibits trait-like interindividual diversity that correlates with interindividual differences in effective connectivity within human primary visual cortex. We found that the degree to which spatial contexts induced illusory orientation perception, namely, the magnitude of the tilt illusion, varied across healthy human adults in a trait-like fashion independent of stimulus size or contrast. Parallel to contextual modulation of orientation perception, the presence of spatial contexts affected effective connectivity within human primary visual cortex between peripheral and foveal representations that responded to spatial context and central stimulus, respectively. Importantly, this effective connectivity from peripheral to foveal primary visual cortex correlated with interindividual differences in the magnitude of the tilt illusion. Moreover, this correlation with illusion perception was observed for effective connectivity under tilted contextual stimulation but not for that under iso-oriented contextual stimulation, suggesting that it reflected the impact of orientation-dependent intra-areal connections. Our findings revealed an interindividual correlation between intra-areal connectivity within primary visual cortex and contextual influence on orientation perception. This neurophysiological-perceptual link provides empirical evidence for theoretical proposals that intra-areal connections in early visual cortices are involved in contextual modulation of visual perception.
Rhinovirus bronchiolitis and recurrent wheezing: 1-year follow-up

The association between bronchiolitis and recurrent wheezing remains controversial. In this prospective study, we assessed risk factors for recurrent wheezing during a 12-month follow-up in 313 infants aged <12 months hospitalised for their first episode of bronchiolitis. Demographic, clinical and laboratory data were obtained with a questionnaire and from medical files. A total of 14 respiratory viruses were concurrently assayed in nasal washings. Parents were interviewed 12 months after hospitalisation to check whether their infants experienced recurrent wheezing. The rate of recurrent wheezing was higher in infants with bronchiolitis than in controls (52.7 versus 10.3%; p<0.001). Multivariate analysis identified rhinovirus (RV) infection (OR 3.3, 95% CI 1.0–11.1) followed by a positive family history for asthma (OR 2.5, 95% CI 1.2–4.9) as major independent risk factors for recurrent wheezing. In conclusion, the virus most likely to be associated with recurrent wheezing at 12 months after initial bronchiolitis is RV, a viral agent that could predict infants prone to the development of recurrent wheezing.
Integrated pest management in western flower thrips: past, present and future

Abstract Western flower thrips (WFT) is one of the most economically important pest insects of many crops worldwide. Recent EU legislation has caused a dramatic shift in pest management strategies, pushing for tactics that are less reliable on chemicals. The development of alternative strategies is therefore an issue of increasing urgency. This paper reviews the main control tactics in integrated pest management (IPM) of WFT, with the focus on biological control and host plant resistance as areas of major progress. Knowledge gaps are identified and innovative approaches emphasised, highlighting the advances in ‘omics’ technologies. Successful programmes are most likely generated when preventive and therapeutic strategies with mutually beneficial, cost‐effective and environmentally sound foundations are incorporated. © 2017 The Authors. Pest Management Science published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.
No Knowledge Without Processes - Process Mining as a Tool to Find Out What People and Organizations Really Do

Recently, process mining emerged as a new scientific discipline on the interface between process models and event data. Whereas conventional Business Process Management (BPM) approaches are mostly model-driven with little consideration for event data, the increasing availability of high-quality data enables management decisions based on "evidence" rather than PowerPoints or Visio diagrams. Process mining can be used to (better) configure BPM systems and check compliance. Moreover, the high-quality event logs of BPM systems allow for advanced forms of process mining such as prediction, recommendation, and trend analysis. The challenge is to turn torrents of event data ("Big Data") into valuable insights related to performance and compliance. The results can be used to identify and understand bottlenecks, inefficiencies, deviations, and risks. Process mining helps organizations to "mine their own business": they are enabled to discover, monitor and improve real processes by extracting knowledge from event logs. In his talk, prof. Wil van der Aalst will provide an overview of this exciting field that will become more and more important for BPM.
A Parallelization Domain Oriented Multilevel Graph Partitioner

In this paper we present a novel multilevel graph partitioning algorithm, KACE, which uses knowledge about the domain and employs several graph transformation techniques. Both functional and structural parallelism in the sequential code are explored to improve the quality of parallel tasks. Statistical information about communication times between nodes as a function of message size and/or other factors are used to have a better estimate of balancing factors, code replication, and synchronization penalties. This enables us to use a task cohesion algorithm to obtain a coarse version of the partitioned graph. Many of KACE's parameters are shown to have definite impact on the parallelized program code.
Beyond the syndemic: condom negotiation and use among women experiencing partner violence

ABSTRACT Background: HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) disproportionately affect women who experience intimate partner violence (IPV). Objective: The current study (1) applied a syndemic framework to study the collective effects of problematic drug use, hazardous drinking, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on fear of condom negotiation, condom negotiation, and condom use and (2) evaluated condom negotiation (controlling for fear of condom negotiation) as a mediator of the association between syndemic severity and condom use among low-income IPV-exposed women. Methods: Participants were 158 women living in the community and experiencing ongoing IPV who completed face-to-face, computer-assisted interviews. Results: Almost three-fourths of the participants reported problematic drug use, hazardous drinking, depression, and/or PTSD; many of these factors were correlated, indicating a syndemic. Multivariate logistic and linear regression analyses revealed associations between syndemic severity and fear of condom negotiation (OR = 1.57, p = .02), condom negotiation (β = −8.51, p = .001), and condom use (β = −8.26, p = .01). Meditation analyses identified condom negotiation as a mediator of the association between syndemic severity and condom use (effect = −6.57, SE = 2.01, [95% CI: −10.66, −2.77]). Conclusions: Results fill a critical gap in previous research by identifying condom negotiation as a mechanism through which this syndemic affects condom use. Prevention and intervention programs should consider addressing condom negotiation to reduce sexual risk among this high-risk population. Further, because IPV-exposed women may experience fear related to condom negotiation, it is critical that prevention and intervention efforts for this population offer skills to safely negotiate condom use, increase condom use, and reduce STI and HIV risk.
Synthesis and Characterization of few layered Graphene oxide Prepared using ChemicalExfoliation method

ABSTRACT Nano graphene oxide was prepared through chemical exfoliation known as modified Hummers method. The hydrophilic, yellow colored solution was evident for higher degree of oxidation. The formation of oxygen containing functional was analyzed using FTIR and theπ electron excitation was observed at 230 nm using UV-Visible spectra. Functional groups and their influence on its structure were analyzed using X-ray diffraction and thermo gravimetric analysis. Thesurface and morphology of the layered graphene oxide werestudied using Atomic Force Microscope and Transmission Electron Microscope. In future, the graphene oxide will be the promising material in wide range of application including electronics and nanomedicine. Index Terms : Atomic Force Microscope, Chemical exfoliation, Graphene oxide, TransmissionElectron Microscope, Thermal analysis, 1. Introduction Graphene oxide (GO) is an atomic sheet of graphite carrying oxygenated functional groups on its basal planes and at its edges and the resulting structure contains mixture of sp
Emitter position and velocity estimation given time and frequency differences of arrival

Consider the problem of estimating the position and the velocity of an emitter given time and frequency differences of arrival acquired by a passive sensor array. By jointly eliminating the non-linear nuisance parameters of the model using an appropriate orthogonal projection, we obtain a least squares estimator of the parameters of interest. The advantage of the proposed estimator is the reduction of the computational complexity by an order of the number of sensors in the array.