Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Extracellular Enzyme Production and Synthetic Lignin Mineralization by Ceriporiopsis subvermispora

The ability of the white rot fungus Ceriporiopsis subvermispora to mineralize 14C-synthetic lignin was studied under different culture conditions, and the levels of two extracellular enzymes were monitored. The highest mineralization rates (28% after 28 days) were obtained in cultures containing a growth-limiting amount of nitrogen source (1.0 mM ammonium tartrate); under this condition, the levels of manganese peroxidase (MnP) and laccase present in the culture supernatant solutions were very low compared with cultures containing 10 mM of the nitrogen source. In contrast, cultures containing a limiting concentration of the carbon source (0.1% glucose) showed low levels of both enzymes and also very low mineralization rates compared with cultures containing 1% glucose. Cultures containing 11 ppm of Mn(II) showed a higher rate of mineralization than those containing 0.3 or 40 ppm of this cation. Levels of MnP and laccase were higher when 40 ppm of Mn(II) was used. Mineralization rates were slightly higher in cultures flushed daily with oxygen, whereas laccase levels were lower and MnP levels were approximately the same as in cultures maintained under an air atmosphere. The presence of 0.4 mM veratryl alcohol reduced both mineralization rates and MnP levels, without affecting laccase levels. Lignin peroxidase activity was not detected under any condition. Addition of purified lignin peroxidase to the cultures in the presence or absence of veratryl alcohol did not enhance mineralization rates significantly.
Stay Away From Me

This study attempts to identify the potential determinants of advertising avoidance in the context of personalized advertising media, including unsolicited commercial e-mail, postal direct mail, telemarketing, and text messaging. Using a self-administered survey (n = 442), the proposed model is tested with structural equation modeling analysis. The findings indicate that while ad skepticism partially mediates the relationship between ad avoidance and its three determinants (perceived personalization, privacy concerns, and ad irritation), both privacy concerns and ad irritation have a direct positive effect on ad avoidance. However, increased perceived personalization leads directly to decreased ad avoidance.
Delay Range Dependent Robust Passification for Singular Neutral Uncertain Systems with Time Varying Delays and Actuator Saturation

This paper focuses on robust passification for singular neutral systems with time varying delays and estimation of their domain of attraction considering bounded control effort (actuator saturation). The delays in states and state derivatives have upper and lower bounds. The system is assumed to have polytopic parametric uncertainties. Memory less state feedback controller for robust passification is synthesized. The delay range dependent sufficient conditions for robust passivity of closed loop system are derived in terms of Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs). The domain of attraction is estimated by solving an optimization problem in terms of LMIs to obtain less conservative results. Numerical example is presented at the end that shows the effectiveness of the proposed theoretical results.
Cardiac Response to Pressure Overload in the Rat: The Selective Alteration of In Vitro Directed RNA Translation Products

As cardiac hypertrophy develops, total cardiac RNA and protein synthesis increase significantly. We have identified specific messenger RNAs that change in predominance with the induction of pressure-overload-stimulated cardiac hypertrophy. Total cardiac RNA was isolated from rats either undergoing cardiac hypertrophy secondary to subdiaphragmatic aortic constriction or subjected to sham surgery. The products translated in vitro were separated by two-dimensional gel dectrophoresis and quantitated. The translation of four proteins decreased while the translation of four others increased in preparations from hypertrophied hearts compared with those from sham-treated rats. Two isoforms of creatine kinase M were translated in vitro. Only one of these isoforms decreased with cardiac hypertrophy, suggesting that the transcriptional or translational control for creatine kinase is much more complex than previously believed. Finally, since only eight of over 700 different translation products changed in relative predominance with cardiac hypertrophy, we conclude that the accumulation of existing RNA and protein products is the primary adaptive process responsible for cardiac hypertrophy.
Lamin A/C deficiency as a cause of familial dilated cardiomyopathy

Purpose of review Familial dilated cardiomyopathy is an underrecognized form of dilated cardiomyopathy. Lamin A/C deficiency is probably the most common cause of familial dilated cardiomyopathy. This review will focus on the emerging knowledge of epidemiology, diagnosis, and treatment of patients with lamin A/C deficiency, as well as possible disease mechanisms. Recent findings Screening of patients with dilated cardiomyopathy continues to indicate that lamin A/C deficiency is a significant cause. Multiple novel mutations have been found, suggesting that many mutations are limited to individuals or families. It is unknown how mutations cause the syndrome, although an animal model has shown that lamin A/C insufficiency causes apoptosis, particularly in the conduction system. Inheritance is predominantly autosomal dominant, but penetrance is variable. For symptomatic patients, the course is malignant, with conduction system disease, atrial fibrillation, heart failure, and sudden cardiac death. The data are contradictory, and currently, there is no clear marker for when a lamin A/C-deficient patient is at risk for sudden death. Summary Lamin A/C deficiency is an important cause of dilated cardiomyopathy, and diagnosis requires that clinicians have a high index of suspicion. Our knowledge of the mechanisms, diagnosis, and treatment of lamin A/C deficiency is incomplete. It is clear that patients with this condition have a malignant course and need to be followed aggressively.
The Influence of Response Lines on Response Behavior in the Context of Open-Question Formats

Research on questionnaire design has shown that respondents take a questionnaire’s formal aspects into account when formulating their answers to closed-ended questions (e.g., rating scales, multiple-choice questions). As similar research on open-response questions has been scanty, the objective of this study was to investigate the systematic influence of formal features of open-response questions on response behavior. Specifically, in two studies using different topics of opinion, we examined how the responses to open-ended questions vary as a function of the number of lines provided for the response. In both studies, increasing the number of response lines resulted in a constant increase in response length (quantity). It also resulted in an increase in the number of arguments in a response (quality) when only a few response lines were provided, which plateaued when many lines were provided. Overall, these results demonstrate that formal features of open-response questions implicitly communicate the expec.
Activation of Distinct α5β1-mediated Signaling Pathways by Fibronectin's Cell Adhesion and Matrix Assembly Domains

The interaction of cells with fibronectin generates a series of complex signaling events that serve to regulate several aspects of cell behavior, including growth, differentiation, adhesion, and motility. The formation of a fibronectin matrix is a dynamic, cell-mediated process that involves both ligation of the α5β1 integrin with the Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD) sequence in fibronectin and binding of the amino terminus of fibronectin to cell surface receptors, termed “matrix assembly sites,” which mediate the assembly of soluble fibronectin into insoluble fibrils. Our data demonstrate that the amino-terminal type I repeats of fibronectin bind to the α5β1 integrin and support cell adhesion. Furthermore, the amino terminus of fibronectin modulates actin assembly, focal contact formation, tyrosine kinase activity, and cell migration. Amino-terminal fibronectin fragments and RGD peptides were able to cross-compete for binding to the α5β1 integrin, suggesting that these two domains of fibronectin cannot bind to the α5β1 integrin simultaneously. Cell adhesion to the amino-terminal domain of fibronectin was enhanced by cytochalasin D, suggesting that the ligand specificity of the α5β1 integrin is regulated by the cytoskeleton. These data suggest a new paradigm for integrin-mediated signaling, where distinct regions within one ligand can modulate outside-in signaling through the same integrin.
Opérateurs de Confluence

In the logic based framework of knowledge representation and reasoning many operators have been defined in order to capture different kinds of change : revision, update, merging and many others. There are close links between revision, update, and merging. Merging operators can be considered as extensions of revision operators to multiple belief bases. And update operators can be considered as pointwise revision, looking at each model of the base, instead of taking the base as a whole. Thus, a natural question is the following one : Are there natural operators that are pointwise merging, just as update are pointwise revision ? The goal of this work is to give a positive answer to this question. In order to do that, we introduce a new class of operators : the confluence operators. These new operators can be useful in modelling negotiation processes.
Surface Diffusion of Graphs: Variational Formulation, Error Analysis, and Simulation

Surface diffusion is a (fourth-order highly nonlinear) geometric driven motion of a surface with normal velocity proportional to the surface Laplacian of mean curvature. We present a novel variational formulation for graphs and derive a priori error estimates for a time-continuous finite element discretization. We also introduce a semi-implicit time discretization and a Schur complement approach to solve the resulting fully discrete, linear systems. After computational verification of the orders of convergence for polynomial degrees 1 and 2, we show several simulations in one dimension and two dimensions with and without forcing which explore the smoothing effect of surface diffusion, as well as the onset of singularities in finite time, such as infinite slopes and cracks.
Machine Learning Approach for Language Identification & Transliteration

In this paper, we describe the system that we developed as part of our participation to the FIRE-2014 Shared Task on Transliterated Search. We participated only for Subtask 1 that focused on labeling the query words. The entire process consists of the following components: language identification of each word in text, named entity recognition and classification (NERC) and transliteration of Indian language words written in non-native scripts to the corresponding native Indic scripts. The proposed methods of language identification and NERC are based on supervised approaches, where we use several machine learning algorithms. Our transliteration framework is based on modified joint source channel model. Experiments on benchmark setup show that we achieve quite encouraging performance for both the pairs of languages, viz. Bangla-English and Hindi-English. It is also to be noted that we did not make use of heavy domain-specific resources and/or tools, and therefore this can be easily adapted to the other domains and/or languages.
A high-voltage class D audio amplifier for dielectric elastomer transducers

Dielectric Elastomer (DE) transducers have emerged as a very interesting alternative to the traditional electrodynamic transducer. Lightweight, small size and high maneuverability are some of the key features of the DE transducer. An amplifier for the DE transducer suitable for audio applications is proposed and analyzed. The amplifier addresses the issue of a high impedance load, ensuring a linear response over the midrange region of the audio bandwidth (100 Hz-3.5 kHz). THD+N below 0.1% are reported for the ± 300 V prototype amplifier producing a maximum of 125 Var at a peak efficiency of 95 %.
SPFH2 Mediates the Endoplasmic Reticulum-associated Degradation of Inositol 1,4,5-Trisphosphate Receptors and Other Substrates in Mammalian Cells*

Inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (IP3) receptors are endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membrane calcium channels that, upon activation, become substrates for the ER-associated degradation (ERAD) pathway. Although it is clear that IP3 receptors are polyubiquitinated upon activation and are transferred to the proteasome by a p97-based complex, currently nothing is known about the proteins that initially select activated IP3 receptors for ERAD. Here, we sought to identify novel proteins that associate with and mediate the ERAD of endogenous activated IP3 receptors. SPFH2, an uncharacterized SPFH domain-containing protein, rapidly associated with IP3 receptors in a manner that preceded significant polyubiquitination and the association of p97 and related proteins. SPFH2 was found to be an ER membrane protein largely residing within the ER lumen and in resting and stimulated cells was linked to ERAD pathway components, apparently via endogenous substrates undergoing degradation. Suppression of SPFH2 expression by RNA interference markedly inhibited IP3 receptor polyubiquitination and degradation and the processing of other ERAD substrates. Overall, these studies identify SPFH2 as a key ERAD pathway component and suggest that it may act as a substrate recognition factor.
Identification of a Novel Family of Laminin N-terminal Alternate Splice Isoforms

The laminins are a family of heterotrimeric basement membrane proteins that play roles in cellular adhesion, migration, and tissue morphogenesis. Through in silico analysis of the laminin-encoding genes, we identified a novel family of alternate splice isoforms derived from the 5′-end of the LAMA3 and LAMA5 genes. These isoforms resemble the netrins in that they contain a laminin N-terminal domain followed by a short stretch of laminin-type epidermal growth factor-like repeats. We suggest the terms LaNt (laminin N terminus) α3 and LaNt α5, for the predicted protein products of these mRNAs. RT-PCR confirmed the presence of these transcripts at the mRNA level. Moreover, they exhibit differential, tissue-specific, expression profiles. To confirm the existence of LaNt α3 protein, we generated an antibody to a unique domain within the putative polypeptide. This antibody recognizes a protein at the predicted molecular mass of 64 kDa by immunoblotting. Furthermore, immunofluorescence analyses revealed a basement membrane staining in epithelial tissue for LaNt α3 and LaNt α3 localized along the substratum-associated surface of cultured keratinocytes. We have also tested the functionality LaNt α3 through RNAi-mediated knockdown. Keratinocytes exhibiting specific knockdown of LaNt α3 displayed impaired adhesion, stress resistance, and reduced ability to close scratch wounds in vitro.
An information-theoretic approach to assess linguistic complexity

Linguistic complexity is one of the currently most hotly debated notions in linguistics. The long-standing assumption that all languages are of equal complexity (Bickerton 1995; Crystal 1987; Edwards 1994; Hockett 1958; O’Grady, Dobrovolsky, and Aronoff 1997) had remained unchallenged for much of the twentieth century. Recently, however, this dogma has been questioned and scrutinized (Kusters 2003; McWhorter 2001), and the notion of linguistic complexity has received a considerable amount of interest (Dahl 2004; Kortmann and Szmrecsanyi 2012; Miestamo, Sinnemäki, and Karlsson 2008; Sampson, Gil, and Trudgill 2009). Two central issues in the linguistic complexity debate are, firstly, the problem of finding a generally applicable definition of what exactly complexity is and secondly, how to measure this complexity.
Hunting and the classification of game animals among the wopkaimin

The Wcpkaimin are a small population of 700 hunter-horticulturalists living in the centre of New Guinea. They are one of several Mountain Ok-speaking peoples whose territories are distributed around the headwaters of the Fly and Sepik rivers (Fig. 1). The biotically diverse Wopkaimin ecosystem consists of four vegetation zones, Foothill, MidMountain, Moss and Upper Montane Rainforests, that range in altitude from 500m to 3000m (Fig. 2). There is a diverse range of game animals but access to them is limited by time, space and cultural availability. Time limits on accessibility include temporal scheduling of various subsistence activities and the limited effects of seasonality. Game animals are limited spatially because energy sources are not distributed equally in the eleven major biotopes occurring in the ecosystem (Hyndman 1982). Cultural availability places limitations on game animals due to factors of ethnoclassification and adaptation. These factors limiting the accessibility of game animals intricately influence Wopkaimin interaction within the web of matter and energy exchanges in their biophysical environment.
Chronic magnesium administration enhances oxidative glucose metabolism in thiazide treated hypertensive patients.

In newly-diagnosed untreated (n = 24) and thiazide treated (n = 18) hypertensive patients erythrocyte ion content and plasma ion and metabolite levels were determined. Thiazide treated patients had lower arterial blood pressure, plasma ion levels, erythrocyte magnesium and potassium content but higher fasting plasma insulin (66 +/- 7 v 87 +/- 8 pmol/L P < .02), triglycerides (1.88 +/- 0.24 v 2.34 +/- 0.44 mmol/L P < .05), free fatty acids (0.68 +/- 0.11 v 0.81 +/- 0.18 mmol/L P < .05). Subsequently, in a double-blind fashion and in random order thiazide diuretic treated patients were assigned to two groups: the first (n = 9) taking magnesium (15.8 mmol/day) and the other (n = 9) a placebo. Each treatment period lasted 8 weeks. At the end of each treatment period, each patient underwent blood sampling for determination of erythrocyte ion content and plasma ion and metabolite levels and was submitted to an euglycemic hyperinsulinemic (1 mU/kg/min for 120 min) glucose clamp. In this latter test D-3-H glucose infusion and indirect calorimetry allowed determination of glucose turnover parameters and substrate oxidation respectively. Chronic magnesium administration (CMA) raised fasting plasma (0.79 +/- 0.03 v 0.83 +/- 0.02 mmol/L, P < .05) and erythrocyte (1.98 +/- 0.08 v 2.35 +/- 0.03 mmol/L, P < .01) magnesium content. Along with insulin infusion, CMA improved glucose uptake, glucose metabolic clearance rate, and oxidative glucose metabolism. In the multiple linear regression analysis of the pooled basal data (n = 42), erythrocyte magnesium content displayed an independent correlation with basal plasma insulin levels (t = -2.08, P < .05). (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Effects of Varying the Experimental Design of a Cognitive Control Paradigm on Behavioral and Functional Imaging Outcome Measures

A number of experimental techniques are commonly used within the field of functional neuroimaging to measure successive cognitive processes within a single trial. This study evaluated three experimental techniques to assess the comparability of behavioral and functional outcome measures in a task involving higher-level cognitive processing while controlling for the task duration. Twelve participants completed a cognitive control paradigm using the three techniques. Each trial of the task consisted of a green or red cue followed by a Left or Right probe. Green cues indicated that participants should respond in the direction of the probe. Red cues indicated participants should overcome their automatic tendency and respond in the direction opposite to the probe. The slow technique involved a sufficiently long trial allowing the blood oxygenation level-dependent response to rise and return to baseline before the next trial. The jitter technique involved varying the interstimulus and intertrial intervals. The catch technique involved presenting some cue-only trials in the midst of cue-probe trials. Predicted brain regions were activated by all the experimental techniques combined including the middle frontal, anterior cingulate, and inferior parietal cortices. Although there were more commonalties than differences between the three experimental techniques, generally, it appeared that the slow technique was effective at detecting posterior activity; the jitter technique was effective at detecting probe-related activity; and the catch technique was effective at detecting cue-related activity, especially in prefrontal regions. Thus, experiments measuring successive cognitive processes may have differential detection power for every event in a trial.
CHLOROPLAST SHARING IN THE TASMANIAN EUCALYPTS

Abstract The biogeographic pattern of chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) haplotypes in Eucalyptus on the island of Tasmania is consistent with reticulate evolution, involving at least 12 Tasmanian species from the subgenus Symphyomyrtus. Intraspecific cpDNA polymorphism in 14 of 17 species is coupled with extensive sharing of identical haplotypes across populations of different species in the same geographic area. Haplotype diversity is lowest in central regions of Tasmania formerly occupied by alpine vegetation during glacial intervals and in northern regions that were periodically linked to continental Australia by land bridges. The observed distribution of several cpDNA haplotypes unique to Tasmania coincides with modeled locations of glacial refugia in coastal areas of Tasmania and shows the power of cpDNA in unraveling the complex history of past distributions of Eucalyptus. The results suggest that the model of evolution of the eucalypts should be reassessed to allow for the anastomosing effects of interspecific hybridization and introgression. Corresponding Editor: O. Savolainen
Measuring and assessing maintainability at the end of high level design

Software architecture appears to be one of the main factors affecting software maintainability. Therefore, in order to be able to predict and assess maintainability early in the development process one needs to be able to measure the high-level design characteristics that affect the change process. To this end, a measurement approach based on precise assumptions derived from the change process is proposed. The change process is based on object-oriented design principles and is partially language independent. Metrics for cohesion, coupling, and visibility are defined in order to capture the difficulty of isolating, understanding, designing and validating changes. <<ETX>>