Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Small cationic antimicrobial peptides delocalize peripheral membrane proteins

Significance Multidrug-resistant bacteria present an acute problem to medicine, generating interest in novel antimicrobial strategies. Antimicrobial peptides currently are being investigated, both as antibiotics and as immunomodulatory agents. Many antimicrobial peptides interact with the bacterial membrane, a previously underexplored antibiotic target. We present a system-based study of the mode of action of small cationic peptides and the mechanisms that bacteria use to defend against them. We show that peptide integration into the membrane causes delocalization of essential peripheral membrane proteins. This delocalization impacts on two cellular processes, namely respiration and cell-wall biosynthesis. We describe a bacterial survival strategy in which mechanosensitive channels in the bacterial membrane establish osmoprotection against membrane-targeting bacteriolytic peptides. Understanding the peptides' mode of action and bacterial survival strategies opens up new avenues for devising peptide-based antibacterial strategies. Short antimicrobial peptides rich in arginine (R) and tryptophan (W) interact with membranes. To learn how this interaction leads to bacterial death, we characterized the effects of the minimal pharmacophore RWRWRW-NH2. A ruthenium-substituted derivative of this peptide localized to the membrane in vivo, and the peptide also integrated readily into mixed phospholipid bilayers that resemble Gram-positive membranes. Proteome and Western blot analyses showed that integration of the peptide caused delocalization of peripheral membrane proteins essential for respiration and cell-wall biosynthesis, limiting cellular energy and undermining cell-wall integrity. This delocalization phenomenon also was observed with the cyclic peptide gramicidin S, indicating the generality of the mechanism. Exogenous glutamate increases tolerance to the peptide, indicating that osmotic destabilization also contributes to antibacterial efficacy. Bacillus subtilis responds to peptide stress by releasing osmoprotective amino acids, in part via mechanosensitive channels. This response is triggered by membrane-targeting bacteriolytic peptides of different structural classes as well as by hypoosmotic conditions.
Use of direct and iterative solvers for estimation of SNP effects in genome-wide selection

The aim of this study was to compare iterative and direct solvers for estimation of marker effects in genomic selection. One iterative and two direct methods were used: Gauss-Seidel with Residual Update, Cholesky Decomposition and Gentleman-Givens rotations. For resembling different scenarios with respect to number of markers and of genotyped animals, a simulated data set divided into 25 subsets was used. Number of markers ranged from 1,200 to 5,925 and number of animals ranged from 1,200 to 5,865. Methods were also applied to real data comprising 3081 individuals genotyped for 45181 SNPs. Results from simulated data showed that the iterative solver was substantially faster than direct methods for larger numbers of markers. Use of a direct solver may allow for computing (co)variances of SNP effects. When applied to real data, performance of the iterative method varied substantially, depending on the level of ill-conditioning of the coefficient matrix. From results with real data, Gentleman-Givens rotations would be the method of choice in this particular application as it provided an exact solution within a fairly reasonable time frame (less than two hours). It would indeed be the preferred method whenever computer resources allow its use.
Digital People, Digital Places: Rethinking Privacy in a World of Geographic Information

With respect to the right of privacy, some of the most difficult concerns arise from the map, and especially the modern, computer-generated map. Maps support a view in which the local--and the private--are unimportant, as they represent the world in ways that make places seem fundamentally alike. By geocoding he location of people, places, and events, maps offer a universal set of identifiers, one much more difficult to regulate than traditional identifiers like the social security number. At the same time, they support the development of a system of geodemographic profiling in a way that creates "digital individuals" over whom most people have little control. And when these data are placed on a map, the problems are exacerbated, just to the extent that the reading of maps is a highly culturally determined practice; different people often interpret the same map in very different ways. This collection of problems suggests that in the context of a rapidly diffusing commercial mapping system, the traditional.
The impact of pre-hospital thrombolytic treatment on re-infarction rates: analysis of the Myocardial Infarction National Audit Project (MINAP)

Objective: To examine the frequency and determinants of re-infarction after thrombolytic treatment of ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). Design: Observational study of national registry. Setting: Emergency ambulance services and admitting hospitals in England and Wales. Patients: 35 356 patients with STEMI given thrombolytic treatment in 2005–6. Main outcome measures: Re-infarction during hospital admission. Results: For 22 391 patients (63.3%) the presence or absence of re-infarction was recorded, and 1460 (6.5%) had re-infarction. Re-infarction rates with in-hospital treatment were similar for reteplase (6.5%) and tenecteplase (6.4%). When the interval from pre-hospital treatment to hospital arrival was greater than 30 minutes re-infarction rates were 12.5% for reteplase, and 11.4% for tenecteplase. Overall, re-infarction rates were higher after pre-hospital treatment with tenecteplase than reteplase (9.6% vs 6.6%, p = 0.005). After multivariate analysis independent predictors of re-infarction for tenecteplase were pre-hospital treatment, OR 1.44 (95% CI 1.21 to 1.71, p<0.001) and weight in the highest quartile compared to the lowest, OR 1.66 (95% CI 1.19 to 2.31, p = 0.003). For reteplase neither factor predicted re-infarction. Bleeding was less common with pre-hospital treatment—overall 1.8% against 3.1%; intracerebral bleeding 0.4% against 0.7%. Conclusion: Pre-hospital treatment with tenecteplase was associated with higher re-infarction rates. Longer intervals from pre-hospital treatment to arrival in hospital were associated with high re-infarction rates for both tenecteplase and reteplase. Differences in the use of adjunctive anti-thrombotic therapy in the two treatment environments may underlie the differences in re-infarction rates and bleeding complications observed between pre-hospital and in-hospital thrombolytic treatment.
Evaluation of the LORA-CBF Routing Algorithm with Selective Gateway in an Ad Hoc WiMAX Network

Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks (VANETs) are characterized by their high mobility, where wireless links between vehicles unpredictably can change. This mobility makes it very challenging to establish and maintain a communication link in vehicular networks; therefore, networking in these kinds of networks has become a very intense area of study. Consequently, research of ad hoc routing and medium access control strategies has become an intensive part of current study. The research community has expressed considerable interest in introducing WiMAX as medium access technology and geographic strategies for routing algorithms. This work presents an evaluation of the LORA-CBF geographic routing algorithm that permits seamless communication in an ad-hoc WiMAX network. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-0209-0.ch008
Individual differences in sensitivity to reward: Association with electrophysiological responses to monetary gains and losses

Reward, such as monetary gain, and punishment, such as monetary loss, are capable of modifying the electrophysiological signals of the brain. Further, it is known that there are individual differences in the sensitivity for reward and punishment. This study set out to test the relationship between self-reported sensitivity to reward and sensitivity to punishment and electrophysiological brain responses to monetary gains and losses. Subjects filled out the modified Behavioral Inhibition System/Behavioral Activation System scales for measuring responsiveness to reward (RR) and responsiveness to punishment (RP), and performed a gambling task. The results showed that there was a significant positive correlation between scores on the RR scale and P3 amplitudes on the Fz electrode location to win, loss, and break even outcomes. There was no significant correlation, however, between scores on the RP scale and the P3 amplitudes to all outcomes. For the feedback-related negativity, no significant correlations with both the RR and RP scales were present. Thus individuals scoring high on RR seem to be generally more sensitive to outcomes (either positive or negative) during a task where they might receive a reward.
TALK - A Training Program to Encourage Lifelong Learning in School

Abstract. Lifelong learning (LLL) is a topic of high political relevance. Within the context of continuous social development toward an “information society,” individuals find themselves facing a number of challenges that they will not be able to surmount successfully if they are not willing to commit to learning over the entire course of their lifetimes. The persistent motivation to learn, as well as the correspondent learning skills, appears to be essential if one is to survive in a modern society. Schools, as a collective institution, have the task of laying the cornerstones of these skills. The present article introduces the training program TALK, which aims to provide teachers with the competencies to systematically implement the enhancement of LLL into their regular educational responsibilities. From the perspective of educational psychology, motivation, self-regulation, social skills, and cognitive abilities are developed as core aspects for LLL in a scholastic context. Building on these, the goals.
Relationships between blood selenium concentrations and grasping power, blood pressure, hematcrit, and hemoglobin concentrations in Japanese rural residents.

Relationships between blood selenium (Se) concentrations and grasping power, blood pressure, hematcrit and hemoglobin concentrations were investigated in Japanese rural residents (274 men of 20-83 years and 419 non-pregnant women of 20-82 years). The results are as follows.1) Blood Se concentrations were more positively correlated with grasping power and blood pressure in the normal men than in the normal women.2) Blood Se concentrations were positively correlated with both hematcrit and hemoglobin concentrations only in the normal women.3) Such relationships, observed in the normal subjects, were not so clear in the subjects with positive urinalysis or with abnormal cardiovascular findings.
Heliox in the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Objective: To determine if breathing helium oxygen mixtures in addition to conventional therapy in non-intubated adult chronic obstructive airways disease (COPD) patients reduces the arterial partial pressure of carbon dioxide (Paco2) more than conventional treatment alone, and confers an advantage in terms of the odds of intubation in the acute setting. Design: Meta-analysis. Setting: Diverse settings. Participants: Adult patients with a diagnosis of either stable severe or acute COPD. Main outcome measures: Decrease in partial pressure of arterial Paco2 and intubation rates. Results: Combination of the results from trials measuring change in Paco2 in COPD subjects receiving conventional therapy but breathing helium-oxygen estimated a reduction of 0.78 KPa (1.44–0.13) beyond that produced by conventional therapy with air-oxygen breathing (n = 234). Using quantitative and qualitative measures of validity it was found that most trials were unsatisfactory. Chief concerns were poor concealment of allocation and lack of blinding. Analysis excluding all papers with low methodological quality (Jadad<2) estimated the reduction in Paco2 conferred by use of Heliox breathing to be 0.22 KPa (+0.57 to −0.14). A non-significant reduction (p = 0.2). When combined, the results from trials measuring the intubation rates of patients treated conventionally or with Heliox (n = 121) the odds ratio of intubation was 0.096 (0.03–0.27). Conclusion: Definitive evidence of a beneficial role of Heliox in treatment of severe COPD is lacking and therefore its wide scale use cannot be recommended based on this analysis. However, as a beneficial effect of Heliox breathing was reported in all trials, further investigation with a well conducted randomised controlled trial is warranted.
Effects of a Seven Day Overload-Period of High-Intensity Training on Performance and Physiology of Competitive Cyclists

Objectives Competitive endurance athletes commonly undertake periods of overload training in the weeks prior to major competitions. This investigation examined the effects of two seven-day high-intensity overload training regimes (HIT) on performance and physiological characteristics of competitive cyclists. Design The study was a matched groups, controlled trial. Methods Twenty-eight male cyclists (mean ± SD, Age: 33±10 years, Mass 74±7 kg, VO2 peak 4.7±0.5 L·min−1) were assigned to a control group or one of two training groups for seven consecutive days of HIT. Before and after training cyclists completed an ergometer based incremental exercise test and a 20-km time-trial. The HIT sessions were ∼120 minutes in duration and consisted of matched volumes of 5, 10 and 20 second (short) or 15, 30 and 45 second (long) maximal intensity efforts. Results Both the short and long HIT regimes led to significant (p<0.05) gains in time trial performance compared to the control group. Relative to the control group, the mean changes (±90% confidence limits) in time-trial power were 8.2%±3.8% and 10.4%±4.3% for the short and long HIT regimes respectively; corresponding increases in peak power in the incremental test were 5.5%±2.7% and 9.5%±2.5%. Both HIT (short vs long) interventions led to non-significant (p>0.05) increases (mean ± SD) in VO2 peak (2.3%±4.7% vs 3.5%±6.2%), lactate threshold power (3.6%±3.5% vs 2.9%±5.3%) and gross efficiency (3.2%±2.4% vs 5.1%±3.9%) with only small differences between HIT regimes. Conclusions Seven days of overload HIT induces substantial enhancements in time-trial performance despite non-significant increases in physiological measures with competitive cyclists.
The discriminant validity of burnout and depression: A confirmatory factor analytic study

Health care workers (N=307) completed measures of burnout and depression as part of a study of personal and occupational sources of distress. A confirmatory factor analysis provided support for differentiating burnout and depression. The analysis confirmed the three-factor structure of the Maslach Burnout Inventory and s multiple factor structure for depression measures. The analysis also provided support for the existence of second-order factors of burnout and depression that accounted for the correlations among the primary factors within each syndrome. The implications of study for the construct validity of burnout and depression are discussed.
Formal Modeling and Verification of Operational Flight Program in a Small-Scale Unmanned Helicopter

AbstractFormal verification has played an important role in demonstrating correctness of safety-critical systems. Small-scale unmanned helicopters have been increasingly developed for various purposes such as scientific exploration and commercial or defense applications. The HELISCOPE project in Korea aims to develop a small-scale unmanned helicopter and its onboard embedded computing system for flight control and real-time transmission of multimedia data. This paper shares the authors’ experience on the formal verification of the operational flight program (OFP) developed in the project. Because the OFP provides real-time controls on various sensors and actuators, demonstration of its correctness through formal verifications has been strongly recommended. This paper focuses on real-time process communications among sensing processes, a monitoring process, and a controller process. They all share a common data area. Two different formal models were developed for the OFP and verified with the SPIN and UPPA.
On circuit clustering for area/delay tradeoff under capacity and pin constraints

In this paper, we propose an iterative area/delay tradeoff algorithm to solve the circuit clustering problem under the capacity constraint. It first finds an initial delay-considered area-optimized clustering solution by a delay-oriented depth first-search procedure. Then, an iterative procedure consisting of several reclustering techniques is applied to gradually trade the area for the performance. We then show that this algorithm can be easily extended to solve the clustering problem subject to both capacity and pin constraints. Experimental results show that our algorithm can provide a complete set of clustering solutions from the area-optimized one to the delay-optimized one for a given circuit. Furthermore, compared to the existing delay-optimized algorithms, this algorithm achieves almost the same performance but with much less area overhead. Therefore, this algorithm is very useful for solving the timing-driven circuit clustering problem.
Synaptic plasticity in spiking neural networks (SP2INN): a system approach

In this paper, we present a digital system called (SP/sup 2/INN) for simulating very large-scale spiking neural networks (VLSNNs) comprising, e.g., 1000000 neurons with several million connections in total. SP/sup 2/INN makes it possible to simulate VLSNN with features such as synaptic short term plasticity, long term plasticity as well as configurable connections. For such VLSNN the computation of the connectivity including the synapses is the main challenging task besides computing the neuron model. We describe the configurable neuron model of SP/sup 2/INN, before we focus on the computation of the connectivity. Within SP/sup 2/INN, connectivity parameters are stored in an external memory, while the actual connections are computed online based on defined connectivity rules. The communication between the SP/sup 2/INN processor and the external memory represents a bottle-neck for the system performance. We show this problem is handled efficiently by introducing a tag scheme and a target-oriented addressing method. The SP/sup 2/INN processor is described in a high-level hardware description language. We present its implementation in a 0.35 /spl mu/m CMOS technology, but also discuss advantages and drawbacks of implementing it on a field programmable gate array.
Effects of acute alcohol intoxication on human sensory orientation and postural control

Alcohol affects balance and is related to falls and injuries. Even though alcohol effects on balance and eye movement have been studied before we know less about the dose and time dependent effects and how each supportive sense to balance contributes during acute alcohol intoxication. The purpose was to investigate parallel effects of acute alcohol intoxication on balance (postural control), balance efficiency (adaptation) and its supporting senses. We included 25 healthy subjects on three different test occasions during acute alcohol intoxication of 0.06% and 0.1% blood alcohol concentration (BAC) and sober, ensured using a real time breath analyzer. Balance was evaluated with a balance force plate and a 3D-system for individual body segment detection. Spatial orientation and eye movements were measured. Foot sensation was measured when sober and the subjective feeling of intoxication was continuously followed. Instability was considerably higher at 0.1% BAC compared to 0.06% BAC and was more obvious in the medio-lateral (side to side) direction compared to the anterior-posterior (front and back). When standing balance is perturbed by vibration of the calf muscles, body movement increases. Repetition of these perturbations drives balance learning (adaptation) in sober subjects and the result is a reduction of body movement. When intoxicated however, normal adaptation is reduced or abolished. Whilst visual feedback is important for maintaining stability, it didn’t fully compensate for being intoxicated and contradictorily decreased medio-lateral stability. This could partly be explained by the impaired eye movements by intoxication. Additionally, being intoxicated increased visual dependence, i.e., the use of visual senses for positioning ourselves within the environment. Together, it illustrates that being intoxicated causes an over-reliance on visual senses which aren’t always helpful. When visual senses are absent, intoxicated subjects will rely upon foot mechanoreceptive sensation for standing balance, and change their balancing strategy by pivoting more prominently forwards and backwards around the knee level. One’s own perception of drunkenness matches slow eye movements as well as upper body movement. In summary, alcohol intoxication at levels common in society, has a widespread disturbing effect on the components of the human balance system, from each sensory system to the Central Nervous System’s integrative and cognitive processing, and also effects adaptive ability, the summation of which produces a complex attack on postural and oculomotor behaviors. (Less)
Differential gene expression in ACTH -secreting and non-functioning pituitary tumors.

OBJECTIVE Differential expression of several genes between ACTH-secreting pituitary tumors causing Cushing' disease (CD), silent corticotroph adenoma (SCA), and non-functioning pituitary tumors (NFT) was investigated. DESIGN AND METHODS We used tissue specimens from 35 pituitary tumors (12 CD, 8 SCA, and 15 NFT). Steady-state mRNA levels of the genes related to proopiomelanocortin (POMC) transcription, synthesis, processing, and secretion, such as neurogenic differentiation 1 (NeuroD1), T-box 19 (Tpit), corticotropin releasing hormone receptor (CRHR), vasopressin receptor 1b (V1bR), prohormone convertase (PC) 1/3 and PC2, 11beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (11beta-HSD) type 1 and type 2, glucocorticoid receptor alpha (GRalpha), annexin A1, histone deacetylase 2 (HDAC2), and BRM/SWI2-related gene 1, were determined by real-time RT-PCR. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION POMC and Tpit mRNA levels were greater in CD and SCA than those in NFT. NeuroD1 mRNA levels were less in CD than those in NFT, but almost comparable between SCA and NFT. PC1/3 mRNA levels were greater in CD, but less in SCA than those in NFT. PC2 mRNA levels in CD and SCA were less than those in NFT. CRHR, V1bR, and 11beta-HSD2 mRNA levels in CD were greater than those in SCA and NFT. HDAC2 mRNA levels in CD and SCA were lower than those in NFT. In conclusion, our study demonstrated that the genes related to transcription, synthesis, processing, and secretion of POMC are differentially regulated in ACTH-secreting pituitary tumors causing CD and SCA compared with those in NFT. This may partly explain the development of clinically active and inactive CD.
Parametric analysis of carbon nanotube organic solar cells

Different parameters of the organic solar cells have been analyzed and illustrated with necessary graphs and data. The analysis has dispersed within the different composition of Carbon nanotubes to the active layer of the photovoltaic. At first parameters like open circuit voltage and short circuit current are taken for different combination of CNT PV cells. These practically experimented values are collected from different research papers. Using these values series and shunt resistances are calculated from the PV cell equation. I-V curves are simulated using all these parameters. From the curves power conversion efficiency and Fill factor are obtained. Both the Efficiency and Fill factor simulated from I-V curves are more or less matched with practical data given in the research paper. In this paper we have mainly simulated the PV cell parameters and tried to correlate the values with the practical data.