Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Identification of RNA Binding Proteins Associated with Dengue Virus RNA in Infected Cells Reveals Temporally Distinct Host Factor Requirements

Background There are currently no vaccines or antivirals available for dengue virus infection, which can cause dengue hemorrhagic fever and death. A better understanding of the host pathogen interaction is required to develop effective therapies to treat DENV. In particular, very little is known about how cellular RNA binding proteins interact with viral RNAs. RNAs within cells are not naked; rather they are coated with proteins that affect localization, stability, translation and (for viruses) replication. Methodology/Principal Findings Seventy-nine novel RNA binding proteins for dengue virus (DENV) were identified by cross-linking proteins to dengue viral RNA during a live infection in human cells. These cellular proteins were specific and distinct from those previously identified for poliovirus, suggesting a specialized role for these factors in DENV amplification. Knockdown of these proteins demonstrated their function as viral host factors, with evidence for some factors acting early, while others late in infection. Their requirement by DENV for efficient amplification is likely specific, since protein knockdown did not impair the cell fitness for viral amplification of an unrelated virus. The protein abundances of these host factors were not significantly altered during DENV infection, suggesting their interaction with DENV RNA was due to specific recruitment mechanisms. However, at the global proteome level, DENV altered the abundances of proteins in particular classes, including transporter proteins, which were down regulated, and proteins in the ubiquitin proteasome pathway, which were up regulated. Conclusions/Significance The method for identification of host factors described here is robust and broadly applicable to all RNA viruses, providing an avenue to determine the conserved or distinct mechanisms through which diverse viruses manage the viral RNA within cells. This study significantly increases the number of cellular factors known to interact with DENV and reveals how DENV modulates and usurps cellular proteins for efficient amplification.
Performance of patients with schizophrenia on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST).

OBJECTIVE To directly compare the performance of patients with schizophrenia and control subjects on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). Specifically, we sought to verify if there are significant differences on the "classical" WCST measurements (perseverative errors and number of categories), as well as on more rarely reported scores, and assess the extent to which patients with schizophrenia can improve their performance with card-by-card instructions and continuous verbal reinforcement. DESIGN Prospective cross-sectional study. SETTING Psychiatry department in a university-affiliated hospital. PARTICIPANTS 30 patients with schizophrenia, diagnosed according to DSM-IV criteria, and 30 control subjects, matched to patients according to age and education. INTERVENTION The WCST was administered according to the criteria of Heaton, and a subgroup of the patients with schizophrenia was given a retest after an explanation of the WCST and verbal reinforcements. RESULTS Patients with schizophrenia succeeded on fewer categories (t = 23.3, p < 0.001), committed more perseverative errors (t = 15.6, p < 0.001), made more perseverative responses (t = 14.6, p < 0.001), needed more trials to succeed at the first category (t = 9.2, p < 0.003) and gave significantly lower conceptual level responses (t = 14.1, p < 0.001) than the controls. However, on retest, patients with schizophrenia committed significantly fewer perseverative errors (t = 5.1, p < 0.001) and showed higher conceptual level responses (t = -3.45, p < 0.003). CONCLUSION Consistent with a hypothesis of frontal dysfunction in schizophrenia, patients with schizophrenia tend to show a perseverative deficit; however, some are able to partially overcome this deficit when given verbal reinforcement.
On achievable security levels for lattice data hiding in the known message attack scenario

This paper presents a theoretical security analysis of lattice data hiding. The security depends on the secrecy of a dither signal that randomizes the codebook. If the same secret dither is used for watermarking multiple objects, an attacker can exploit the information leakage inherent to the lattice data hiding scheme in order to compute an estimate of the dither. Our analysis is aimed at measuring in an information-theoretic sense the amount of information that leaks from each watermarked signal, emphasizing the role of the embedding lattice on the achievable security level. The information leakage determines in a natural way the lowest dither estimation error attainable, which can be taken into account for design criteria. A comparison with spread spectrum methods in terms of security is also given.
Prostate mechanical imaging: 3-D image composition and feature calculations

We have developed a method and a device entitled prostate mechanical imager (PMI) for the real-time imaging of prostate using a transrectal probe equipped with a pressure sensor array and position tracking sensor. PMI operation is based on measurement of the stress pattern on the rectal wall when the probe is pressed against the prostate. Temporal and spatial changes in the stress pattern provide information on the elastic structure of the gland and allow two-dimensional (2-D) and three-dimensional (3-D) reconstruction of prostate anatomy and assessment of prostate mechanical properties. The data acquired allow the calculation of prostate features such as size, shape, nodularity, consistency/hardness, and mobility. The PMI prototype has been validated in laboratory experiments on prostate phantoms and in a clinical study. The results obtained on model systems and in vivo images from patients prove that PMI has potential to become a diagnostic tool that could largely supplant DRE through its higher sensitivity, quantitative record storage, ease-of-use and inherent low cost
Effects of Protein Kinase C Activator and Inhibitor on Adrenal Catecholamine Release in Response to Splanchnic Nerve Stimulation in Anesthetized Dogs

Effects of protein kinase C (PKC) activator and inhibitors on adrenal catecholamine release were examined in anesthetized dogs. Output of epinephrine (EPI) and norepinephrine (NE) was determined from adrenal venous blood by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with electrochemical detection. All drugs were infused intraarterially (i.a.) into the adrenal gland through the phrenic abdominal artery. Infusion of the PKC activator phorbol-12,13-dibutyrate (PDB 0.1 micrograms/min) increased EPI and NE output during basal state and enhanced increases in catecholamine output induced by splanchnic nerve stimulation (SNS 1 and 3 Hz). These effects of PDB were abolished by the PKC inhibitor staurosporine (SSP 0.3 microgram/min), when both drugs were infused simultaneously. Infusion of SSP (0.1, 0.3, and 1 micrograms/min) caused a dose-dependent inhibition of the SNS-induced increases in EPI and NE output. SNS-induced increases in catecholamine output were also inhibited by another PKC inhibitor polymyxin B (PMB 0.1, 0.3, and 1 micrograms/min) and by the phospholipase C (PLC) inhibitor neomycin (NM 0.3, 1, and 3 mg/min). SSP, PMB, and NM did not affect basal output of EPI and NE. These results suggest that activation of PKC promotes release of adrenal catecholamines and provide indirect evidence that activation of PKC and PLC may be involved in SNS-induced release of catecholamines from dog adrenal gland.
New oral anticoagulant drugs in cardiovascular disease

Summary Oral anticoagulation has been limited to vitamin K antagonists (VKAs) for over 60 years. VKAs are effective and recommended for the prevention of venous and arterial thromboembolism in cardiovascular disease, but their pharmacodynamics are difficult to predict and the highly variable interindividual and intraindividual response to treatment accounts for the need of continuous monitoring. This prompted the intensive exploration of numerous substances within the last decade in an attempt to meet the shortcomings of current oral anticoagulation with VKAs. The development and clinical investigation of two novel groups of oral anticoagulants targeting central factors of the coagulation system either factor Xa or thrombin (factor IIa) has now reached the daily clinical practice with the approval of the oral direct thrombin inhibitor dabigatran etexilate and the oral direct factor Xa inhibitor rivaroxaban. Ongoing clinical trials are investigating these substances and other novel oral anticoagulants with similar mechanisms of action in patients with atrial fibrillation and acute coronary syndromes. This review article discusses the clinical evaluation and pharmacological properties of novel oral anticoagulants in late and earlier stages of clinical development, thereby providing a critical analysis and an outlook on the future of oral anticoagulation in cardiovascular disease.
Network Loss Inference Using Unicast End-to-End Measurement

The fundamental objective of this work is to determine the extent to which unicast, end-to-end network measurement is capable of determining internal network losses. The major contributions of this paper are two-fold: we formulate a measurement procedure for network loss inference based on end-to-end packet pair measurements, and we develop a statistical modeling and computation framework for inferring internal network loss characteristics. Simulation experiments demonstrate the potential of our new frame-
Measuring Supermassive Black Holes in Distant Galaxies with Central Lensed Images

The supermassive black hole at the center of a distant galaxy can be weighed, in rare but realistic cases, when the galaxy acts as a strong gravitational lens. The central image that should be produced by the lens is either destroyed or accompanied by a second central image, depending on the mass of the black hole. We demonstrate that when a central image pair is detected, the mass of the black hole can be determined with an accuracy of ≲0.1 dex, if the form of the smooth mass distribution near the galaxy core is known. Uncertainty in the central mass distribution introduces a systematic error in the black hole mass measurement. However, even with nearly complete ignorance of the inner mass distribution, the black hole mass can still be determined to within a factor of 10. Central image pairs should be readily observable with future radio interferometers, allowing this technique to be used for a census of supermassive black holes in inactive galaxies at significant redshift (0.2 ≲ z ≲ 1.0).
Human Daily Activity Recognition for Healthcare Using Wearable and Visual Sensing Data

Wearable digital self-tracking technologies for monitoring individuals' health condition have become more accessible to the public in recent years with the development of connected portable devices, such as smart phones, smart watches, smart bands, and other personal biometric monitoring devices. Mining behavioural patterns from such wearable data along with other available sensory data, has the potential to offer an objective, insightful service in clinical professionals and healthcare. For example, accurate identification of human activities could help us provide a better patient recovery training guidance, or an early alarm of emergency that may happen to elder people, such as stroke, falls, etc. In this paper, we introduce an activity recognition system, which learns a nonlinear SVM algorithm to identify 20 different human activities from accelerometer and RGB-D camera data. Our early experimental results show that the proposed approach is promising and effective.
Cooperative and Intrusive Interruptions in Inter- and Intracultural Dyadic Discourse

This study examined whether culture plays a role in the use of interruption in simulated doctor-patient conversations. Participants were 40 Canadians and 40 Chinese who formed 40 dyads in four experimental conditions: Canadian speaker-Canadian listener, Chinese speaker-Chinese listener, Chinese speaker-Canadian listener, and Canadian speaker-Chinese listener. All conversations were videotaped and microanalyzed. The data generated four findings: (a) In the Chinese speaker-Chinese listener interactions, cooperative interruptions occurred more frequently than intrusive interruptions; (b) when Canadians served as doctors, the doctors performed significantly more intrusive interruptions than cooperative ones; (c) the two intercultural groups engaged in more unsuccessful interruptions than the two intracultural groups; and (d) in the intercultural conditions, the occurrences of intrusive interruptions were greater than cooperative interruptions. This phenomenon provides unequivocal support for communication accommodation theory. The findings point to a hypothesis that conversational interruption may be a pancultural phenomenon, whereas interruption styles may be culture specific.
On-Chip Nanoscale Capacitor Decoupling Architectures for Hardware Security

This paper presents new power analysis attack (PAA) countermeasures for nanoscale cryptographic devices. Specifically, three circuit level architectures called partial decoupling architecture, full decoupling architecture, and randomized switch box architecture are developed and analyzed. The architectures' primary feature is the use of on-chip nMOS gate capacitors as intermediate power storage elements to decouple the power supply from internal low-power modules processing sensitive data. The proposed countermeasures are algorithm independent and allow different tradeoffs between security protection and the incurred overheads. Test benches of the proposed architectures were simulated in 65-nm TSMC CMOS technology. A correlation PAA was performed for each test bench targeting a custom implementation of the advanced encryption standard subbytes operation. All architectures were found to resist the correlation PAA at the power supply, with the more complex architectures also offering protection against invasive attacks. The success value indicator was used to analyze the effectiveness of the countermeasures. It was found that all architectures provided a negative value at the power supply, showing protection against PAAs. We demonstrate that the use of nMOS gate capacitors can help to increase security and present a feasibility analysis focused on the needed decoupling capacitances.
Effect of air bubbles in the external auditory meatus on underwater hearing thresholds.

Thresholds of human hearing were obtained underwater for two conditions: (1) with the external auditory meatus completely water filled and (2) with a bubble of air trapped against the tympanic membrane. The first condition was accomplished by forcibly irrigating the external meatus underwater the second, by placing plugs in the ears in order to encapsulate air in the meatus until the head was underwater and the test with the plugs removed) initiated. Subjects were seven divers who were tested in DICORS at a depth of 12 ft; threshold SPLs were obtained free field by a modified Bekesy technique for the frequencies 125 Hz, 250 Hz, and 1, 2, and 8 kHz. Threshold shifts (re air) for both conditions of underwater hearing were consistent with those previously reported. SPLs for the two experimental conditions were virtually identical for all frequencies except 250 Hz, where hearing was 6 dB better for the water‐filled meatus condition. Apparently, the presence or absence of air bubbles in the external meatus con.
Terahertz Spectroscopy of Soft Condensed Matter: Single Methyl Branched n-Alkanes and Plastic-Crystals

Terahertz Spectroscopy of Soft Condensed Matter: Single Methyl Branched n-alkanes and Plastic-Crystals by Daniel Vincent Nickel Terahertz time-domain spectroscopy has long been recognized as a valuable tool for characterizing the far-IR range (0.1 THz to 10 THz) properties of innumerable condensed phase materials. Soft condensed matter, a broad subcategory of condensed matter, encompasses thermally and/or mechanically deformable phases such as liquids, liquidcrystals, plastic-crystals, and polymers. With comparatively more internal degrees of freedom and weaker atomic/molecular interactions, complex phase behavior and dynamics often emerge in these materials, which generally have not been explored in the THz range. Here, temperature-dependent THz-TDS is applied to three soft condensed matter systems. Using a custom designed reflection geometry spectrometer and a novel variable path length liquid sample cell, the isotropic polarizabilities of liquid phase methyl-branched n-alkanes and their linear structural isomers are characterized and compared in the THz range. In addition, the plastic-crystal’s succinonitrile and camphor are studied using transmission geometry THz-TDS. The THz range properties and dynamics characterized in these studies, from the structure-dependent isotropic polarizabilities of prototypical liquid hydrocarbons to the complex disorder/order transitions and correlated molecular dynamics of plastic-crystals, provide valuable fundamental insight into the behavior of soft condensed matter systems.
Automatic checking of eligibility in electronic voting protocolsusing mCRL2

Eligibility is one of the important security properties which must be satisfied in electronic voting systems. This property refers to legitimacy of voters and their right to vote only once. Due to insufficiency of an observational analysis to guarantee this property, formal methods are recently used to build trust on sensitive systems such as e-voting for all the involved parties. This paper reports our attempt to automatically check the eligibility property in electronic voting systems using the model checking approach. ThemCRL2 language and its toolset are also used to achieve such a checking. Two protocols, FOO92 and Lee&Kim, are modeled as case studies. Keywords-component;Formal Verification; Eligibility Property;
Obstacle avoidance on a mobile inverted pendulum robot

Optical flow and monocular vision have been used as a means of providing obstacle avoidance to a telerobotics platform. The robotic platform, controlled to avoid obstacles through an unstructured indoor environment, is of a small two wheeled coaxial robot (inverted pendulum). Suitable digital filtering techniques are developed to remove the effect of the robot's inherent self-stabilizing motion and other effects that corrupt the sensitive optical flow information. The proposed obstacle avoidance method worked well in real-time with some constraints such as slow turning motions and requiring sufficient track-able features in the image.
Curiosity driven incremental LDA agent active learning

This paper presented a novel active linear discriminant analysis (LDA) learning method in the form of curiosity-driven incremental LDA (cILDA) and multiple cILDA agents cooperative learning (mcILDA). The curiosity in psychology here is modelled mathematically as a discriminability residue in-between instance space and its corresponding eigenspace. As the learning proceeds, the curiosity of an individual agent updates over time by two incremental learning processes: One updates the characterization of eigenspace and another re-calculates the curiosity. In the multi-agent scenario, individual agent communicates and cooperates with each other at every learning stage to discover the discriminant characterization of the whole pattern. In the experiment, we described how the discriminative instances could be significantly selected based on the curiosity with, at most, minor sacrifices in learning rate and classification accuracy. The experimental results show that the proposed curiosity learning performs gracefully under different level of redundancy, and the proposed cILDA/mcILDA learning system is capable of learning less instances, but has more often an improved discrimination performance.
Corrossion Behavior of Ni-W-P Coating in Hypersaline Brine

To improve the corrosion resistance of N80steel, Ni-W-P coating was prepared by electroless deposition. The corrosion properties for Ni-W-P coating were investigated in hypersaline ground brine. Results of weight loss tests show that the corrosion resistance of the Ni-W-P coating is 10 times of N80steel in hypersaline brine at 90 °C. Electrochemical tests show that the current density of Ni-WP coated sample reduce from 7.94×10 μA/cm to 4.28×10 μA/cm, and the corrosion potential changes from –0.700 V to –0.398 V compared with N80steel. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) micrographs and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were used to evaluate the morphology and composition of the corrosion layer of Ni-W-P coating. The results show that severe intergranular corrosion appear in N80steel, whereas no intergranular corrosion occur in NiW-P coating. The chemical composition of the corrosion layer of Ni-W-P coating is NiO,WO3, phosphate, and hypophosphite which led to superior corrosion resistance in hypersaline brine. This study confirms that the Ni-W-P coating can be applied for corrosion protection in hypersaline environment. Keywords-Ni-W-P coating; hypersaline brine; corrosion; corrosion resistance;corrosion layer;
Theory of Protein Folding This Review Comes from a Themed Issue on Folding and Binding Edited Basic Concepts Perfect Funnel Landscapes and Common Features of Folding Mechanisms

Protein folding should be complex. Proteins organize themselves into specific three-dimensional structures, through a myriad of conformational changes. The classical view of protein folding describes this process as a nearly sequential series of discrete intermediates. In contrast, the energy landscape theory of folding considers folding as the progressive organization of an ensemble of partially folded structures through which the protein passes on its way to the natively folded structure. As a result of evolution, proteins have a rugged funnel-like landscape biased toward the native structure. Connecting theory and simulations of minimalist models with experiments has completely revolutionized our understanding of the underlying mechanisms that control protein folding. Introduction Protein folding should be complex. Proteins organize themselves into specific three-dimensional structures, through a myriad of conformational changes. Each con-formational change is itself a complex solvent-influenced event. So, in detail, a folding mechanism must involve a complex network of elementary reactions. However, simple empirical patterns of protein folding kinetics, such as linear free energy relationships, have been shown to exist. This simplicity is owed to the global organization of the landscape of the energies of protein conformations into a funnel (Figure 1). This organization is not characteristic of all polymers with any sequence of amino acids, but is a result of evolution. The discovery of simple kinetic patterns [1–5] and the existence of a theoretical framework based on the global properties of the energy landscape [6,7] have, in recent years, allowed a very fruitful collaboration between theory and experiment in the study of folding. This review focuses on recent achievements of this collaboration. We wish to highlight what can be learned from the simplest models and leave others to review the results of highly detailed all-atom simulation. The locations of atoms in proteins can be determined, in favorable cases, to an accuracy of less than 3 A ˚ using X-ray crystallography. This specificity of structure arises from the heterogeneity of the protein chain. The differing energies associated with positioning different residues near or far from each other or from solvent enable some structures to be more stable than others. If a sequence is chosen at random, the specificity of structure is still small — a variety of globally different structures have very low energies, but within a few k B T of each other. This mathematical observation has been the bane of computational protein structure prediction using energy functions. The native sequence …