Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Control of Chronic Mycobacterium tuberculosis Infection by CD4 KLRG1− IL-2–Secreting Central Memory Cells

The bacille Calmette–Guérin vaccine provides very efficient protection in standard animal models of Mycobacterium tuberculosis challenge. We show in this article that although bacille Calmette–Guérin controlled M. tuberculosis growth for 7 wk of infection, the protection was gradually lost as the infection entered the chronic phase. The regrowth of M. tuberculosis coincided with an almost complete disappearance of IL-2–producing CD4 T cells. Booster vaccination with a subunit vaccine (Ag85B-ESAT-6+CAF01) expanded IL-2+ CD4+ T cell coexpressing either TNF-α or TNF-α/IFN-γ, and the maintenance of this population in the late stage of infection was associated with enhanced control of bacterial growth. The IL-2+ CD4+ T cell subsets were KLRG1− (nonterminally differentiated), were found to be CD62Lhigh, and further maintained a pronounced proliferative and cytokine-producing potential in the draining lymph nodes, when the animals were challenged 2 y postvaccination. These results suggest that the CD4+ KLRG1− IL-2–secreting subsets are central memory T cells with the potential to continuously replenish the T cells at the site of infection and prevent attrition and functional exhaustion.
Menu Costs, Multi-Product Firms and Aggregate Fluctuations

I employ a large set of scanner price data collected in retail stores and document that (i) although the average magnitude of price changes is large, a substantial number of price changes are small in absolute value; (ii) the distribution of non-zero price changes has fat tails; and (iii) stores tend to adjust prices of goods in narrow product categories simultaneously. I extend the standard menu costs model to a multi-product setting in which firms face economies of scale in the technology of adjusting prices. The model, because of its ability to replicate this additional set of micro-economic facts, can generate aggregate fluctuations much larger than those in standard menu costs economies.
Identification of Plasmodium malariae, a Human Malaria Parasite, in Imported Chimpanzees

It is widely believed that human malaria parasites infect only man as a natural host. However, earlier morphological observations suggest that great apes are likely to be natural reservoirs as well. To identify malaria parasites in great apes, we screened 60 chimpanzees imported into Japan. Using the sequences of small subunit rRNA and the mitochondrial genome, we identified infection of Plasmodium malariae, a human malaria parasite, in two chimpanzees that were imported about thirty years ago. The chimpanzees have been asymptomatic to the present. In Japan, indigenous malaria disappeared more than fifty years ago; and thus, it is most likely inferred that the chimpanzees were infected in Africa, and P. malariae isolates were brought into Japan from Africa with their hosts, suggesting persistence of parasites at low level for thirty years. Such a long term latent infection is a unique feature of P. malariae infection in humans. To our knowledge, this is the first to report P. malariae infection in chimpanzees and a human malaria parasite from nonhuman primates imported to a nonendemic country.
The Morality of Killing

At first sight there doesn't seem to be any problem about killing. Most people would say that it is wrong to kill and that's all there is to it. The same opinion is proclaimed by many members of the Christian religion. They say that ‘Thou shalt not kill’ is an absolute command. But there are several issues involving the morality of killing where ordinary men, secular and religious alike, make judgements or evince perplexity which reveals that common sense morality is less clear about killing than it at first appears.
Parallel GPU Architecture Simulation Framework Exploiting Architectural-Level Parallelism with Timing Error Prediction

The performance analysis and study of large-scale many-core processor architectures require fast and highly accurate simulation techniques in order to reduce time consumption. State-of-the-art graphics processing units (GPUs), which are used extensively as coprocessors in the high-performance-computing area, also require fast simulation techniques because they have massively complex microarchitectures with thousands of processing elements. At present, however, GPU simulators do not have sufficient simulation speed for advanced software and architecture studies. In this study, we propose a new parallel simulation framework and a new parallel simulation technique for improving the simulation speed of GPUs. The proposed framework facilitates multithreaded simulation by exploiting the architectural-level parallelism and execution model parallelism of GPUs. In addition, an error predictive synchronization scheme based on a timing error prediction mechanism is used to minimize the cycle errors and simulator slowdown during parallel simulations. The experimental results obtained using a simulator with the proposed framework showed that the proposed technique provided a speedup of up to 8.9 times compared with an existing single-thread-based GPU simulator on a 16-core machine.
Monogenic Autoinflammatory Syndromes: State of the Art on Genetic, Clinical, and Therapeutic Issues

Monogenic autoinflammatory syndromes (MAISs) are caused by innate immune system dysregulation leading to aberrant inflammasome activation and episodes of fever and involvement of skin, serous membranes, eyes, joints, gastrointestinal tract, and nervous system, predominantly with a childhood onset. To date, there are twelve known MAISs: familial Mediterranean fever, tumor necrosis factor receptor-associated periodic syndrome, familial cold urticaria syndrome, Muckle-Wells syndrome, CINCA syndrome, mevalonate kinase deficiency, NLRP12-associated autoinflammatory disorder, Blau syndrome, early-onset sarcoidosis, PAPA syndrome, Majeed syndrome, and deficiency of the interleukin-1 receptor antagonist. Each of these conditions may manifest itself with more or less severe inflammatory symptoms of variable duration and frequency, associated with findings of increased inflammatory parameters in laboratory investigation. The purpose of this paper is to describe the main genetic, clinical, and therapeutic aspects of MAISs and their most recent classification with the ultimate goal of increasing awareness of autoinflammation among various internal medicine specialists.
Gain and Bandwidth Enhancement of a Spiral Antenna Using a Circularly Symmetric HIS

A circularly symmetric high-impedance surface (HIS) is used as a ground plane in the design of a low-profile two-arm spiral antenna. It is shown through simulations that an HIS with circular periodicity provides 16<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\%$</tex-math></inline-formula> and 11.3<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\%$ </tex-math></inline-formula> greater operational and fractional bandwidths, respectively, for spiral antennas compared to canonical rectangular HISs. It is also observed that with the aid of a circular HIS ground plane, the gain of the spiral antenna increases for 2.5 dB compared to when a rectangular HIS is used as a ground plane. Measurements are performed to validate the simulations; a very good agreement is indicated.
No fairytale… The benefits of the bedtime story

Today’s parents are inundated with new solutions to help young children improve their reading ability. For parents hoping to raise a literate child, the best option may be one that’s been around for generations: the bedtime story. This article will showcase recent work suggesting that early shared reading has valuable benefits, for both reading ability and also for a child’s language development. T he bedtime story has long been a carrot that tired and stressed young parents look forward to throughout their day. Like so little else in their lives, it lives up to the picture – an oasis of familial bliss that makes raising a family in today’s chaotic world worth it. What many of these bleary-eyed parents probably do not realise is that these
Gene Model 129 (Gm129) Encodes a Novel Transcriptional Repressor That Modulates Circadian Gene Expression*

Background: Circadian gene expression in mammals is driven by rhythmic CLOCK·BMAL1 activities. Results: Gm129 binds to the CLOCK·BMAL1 complex on DNA and represses its transcriptional activator activity to regulate the circadian gene expression phase. Conclusion: Gm129 is a novel circadian clock modulator. Significance: The discovery of Gm129 reveals a new regulatory component of circadian gene expression. The mammalian circadian clock is a molecular oscillator composed of a feedback loop that involves transcriptional activators CLOCK and BMAL1, and repressors Cryptochrome (CRY) and Period (PER). Here we show that a direct CLOCK·BMAL1 target gene, Gm129, is a novel regulator of the feedback loop. ChIP analysis revealed that the CLOCK·BMAL1·CRY1 complex strongly occupies the promoter region of Gm129. Both mRNA and protein levels of GM129 exhibit high amplitude circadian oscillations in mouse liver, and Gm129 gene encodes a nuclear-localized protein that directly interacts with BMAL1 and represses CLOCK·BMAL1 activity. In vitro and in vivo protein-DNA interaction results demonstrate that, like CRY1, GM129 functions as a repressor by binding to the CLOCK·BMAL1 complex on DNA. Although Gm129−/− or Cry1−/− Gm129−/− mice retain a robust circadian rhythm, the peaks of Nr1d1 and Dbp mRNAs in liver exhibit a significant phase delay compared with control. Our results suggest that, in addition to CRYs and PERs, the GM129 protein contributes to the transcriptional feedback loop by modulating CLOCK·BMAL1 activity as a transcriptional repressor.
Handwritten digits recognition based on improved label propagation algorith

Handwritten digits recognition is a practical problem in pattern recognition applications, is of academic and commercial interest. It plays an import role in digit recognition and optical character recognition. In this research work, a new method based on label propagation algorithm for handwritten digits recognition is presented. An entropy based feature extraction is hired to evaluate the confidence coefficient for each training digit character. The confidence coefficient will feedback to label propagation algorithm. The label propagation algorithm will retrain again by the guide of feedback from confidence coefficient. According to the experiment results, an overall high recognition rate 98% and recall rate 98% are achieved on the test dataset. It is proved that the proposed handwritten digits recognition algorithm is simple but effective.
Memory Processes and Gestural Performance in Apraxia

Apraxia is an impairment in the ability to pantomime or imitate gestures usually caused by a stroke more frequently to the left than the right hemisphere. Due to the complex nature of apraxia, disruptions to a number of different cognitive and motor processes have been proposed to underly this disorder. In order to examine disruptions to these processes the participation of a special population of people who have suffered a stroke has been enlisted. The role of memory has been particularly well elucidated in studies of this special population, as patients with left hemisphere damage exhibit a particular deficit in performing gestures from memory. In this paper, through use of a model depicting the stages involved in gestural production, the processes that might be affected at each stage by left hemisphere damage are examined. The implications of the “cognitive neuropsychology” approach for incorporating special populations into research in the movement sciences are considered.
Angular dependence of nonparabolicity factor of silicon band structure

This paper describes the angular dependence of the nonparabolicity factor of the silicon band structure and the influence of the angular dependence on the density of states. In order to investigate the angular dependence of the nonparabolicity factor of the band structure, we calculate the silicon band structure using the first principle calculation. In order to investigate the influence of the angular dependence on the density of states, we consider an average model to derive the average nonparabolicity factor from the information of the band structure in different directions. It is found that using the nonparabolicity factor and the effective mass in the seven directions, the average nonparabolicity factor is obtained 0.55 eV−1 which is close to 0.5 eV−1.
Proline responding1 Plays a Critical Role in Regulating General Protein Synthesis and the Cell Cycle in Maize[C][W][OPEN]

Proline plays an important role in plant cell responses to environmental stresses, but its potential biological functions in growth and development are not fully understood. Positional cloning and functional characterization of the classical maize seed mutant proline responding1 (pro1) gene demonstrate that proline plays regulatory roles in general protein synthesis and the cell cycle transition. Proline, an important amino acid, accumulates in many plant species. Besides its role in plant cell responses to environmental stresses, the potential biological functions of proline in growth and development are unclear. Here, we report cloning and functional characterization of the maize (Zea mays) classic mutant proline responding1 (pro1) gene. This gene encodes a Δ1-pyrroline-5- carboxylate synthetase that catalyzes the biosynthesis of proline from glutamic acid. Loss of function of Pro1 significantly inhibits proline biosynthesis and decreases its accumulation in the pro1 mutant. Proline deficiency results in an increased level of uncharged tRNApro AGG accumulation and triggers the phosphorylation of eukaryotic initiation factor 2α (eIF2α) in the pro1 mutant, leading to a general reduction in protein synthesis in this mutant. Proline deficiency also downregulates major cyclin genes at the transcriptional level, causing cell cycle arrest and suppression of cell proliferation. These processes are reversible when external proline is supplied to the mutant, suggesting that proline plays a regulatory role in the cell cycle transition. Together, the results demonstrate that proline plays an important role in the regulation of general protein synthesis and the cell cycle transition in plants.
Controle dos custos de agência de empresas negociadas na bovespa: os determinantes da eficiência dos conselhos de administração

O objetivo deste estudo consistiu em verificar em que condicoes os Conselhos de Administracao das empresas sao eficientes, considerando os criterios de eficiencia propostos pela teoria da agencia. A intencao foi encontrar os determinantes da independencia, do tamanho e da separacao das funcoes de CEO e de presidente do Conselho de uma amostra de empresas com acoes negociadas na Bovespa entre 1997 e 2006. Argumenta-se na literatura de governanca corporativa que a composicao dos Conselhos seja influenciada, principalmente, pela estrutura de propriedade e de controle e, tambem, pela estrutura financeira e por caracteristicas especificas das empresas. Estimaram-se, mediante a analise de dados em painel, modelos alternativos em que as variaveis representativas da concentracao de votos, da concentracao de propriedade e da identidade do controlador foram sendo incluidas, alternativamente, de modo a verificar a robustez dos relacionamentos. De maneira geral, constatou-se que o indicador “tamanho (medio) dos Conselhos” das empresas analisadas nao se mostrou elevado e que na maioria das empresas as funcoes de CEO e de presidente do Conselho sao exercidas por pessoas diferentes. Ao contrario, a participacao de conselheiros independentes mostrou-se reduzida. Quanto aos determinantes desses criterios de qualidade dos Conselhos, corroborou-se, de maneira geral, a hipotese de associacao significativa com a estrutura de propriedade e de controle da empresa.
Public Values Research in the 21st Century: Where We Are, Where We Haven’t Been, and Where We Should Go

This introductory article addresses current gaps and future challenges in PV research. It suggests avenues for viable PV research in the 21st century in terms of content, context, and methodologies. In doing so, it argues how the contributions to this special issue contribute to meeting some of these challenges and how they complement and sometimes confront each other. To conclude, this article shortly introduces each of the seven individual contributions that make up this special issue.
Modeling the Pre-Industrial Roots of Modern Super-Exponential Population Growth

To Malthus, rapid human population growth—so evident in 18th Century Europe—was obviously unsustainable. In his Essay on the Principle of Population, Malthus cogently argued that environmental and socioeconomic constraints on population rise were inevitable. Yet, he penned his essay on the eve of the global census size reaching one billion, as nearly two centuries of super-exponential increase were taking off. Introducing a novel extension of J. E. Cohen's hallmark coupled difference equation model of human population dynamics and carrying capacity, this article examines just how elastic population growth limits may be in response to demographic change. The revised model involves a simple formalization of how consumption costs influence carrying capacity elasticity over time. Recognizing that complex social resource-extraction networks support ongoing consumption-based investment in family formation and intergenerational resource transfers, it is important to consider how consumption has impacted the human environment and demography—especially as global population has become very large. Sensitivity analysis of the consumption-cost model's fit to historical population estimates, modern census data, and 21st Century demographic projections supports a critical conclusion. The recent population explosion was systemically determined by long-term, distinctly pre-industrial cultural evolution. It is suggested that modern globalizing transitions in technology, susceptibility to infectious disease, information flows and accumulation, and economic complexity were endogenous products of much earlier biocultural evolution of family formation's embeddedness in larger, hierarchically self-organizing cultural systems, which could potentially support high population elasticity of carrying capacity. Modern super-exponential population growth cannot be considered separately from long-term change in the multi-scalar political economy that connects family formation and intergenerational resource transfers to wider institutions and social networks.
A new therapeutic effect of simvastatin revealed by functional improvement in muscular dystrophy

Significance Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a lethal, degenerative muscle disease for which there is no effective treatment. Statins have been used for decades to improve cardiovascular health. In addition to lowering blood cholesterol levels, statins also reduce inflammation, oxidative stress, and fibrosis. These pathogenic processes all contribute to functional decline in DMD muscles. Therefore, we reasoned that statins could be a beneficial treatment for dystrophic muscles. In this study, we show that simvastatin dramatically improves muscle strength and fatigue resistance in DMD (mdx) mice. This result was accompanied by significantly reduced inflammation, oxidative stress, and fibrotic deposition in old, degenerated mdx muscle. These findings indicate that simvastatin is a promising, novel therapeutic approach for DMD and related muscle disorders. Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a lethal, degenerative muscle disease with no effective treatment. DMD muscle pathogenesis is characterized by chronic inflammation, oxidative stress, and fibrosis. Statins, cholesterol-lowering drugs, inhibit these deleterious processes in ischemic diseases affecting skeletal muscle, and therefore have potential to improve DMD. However, statins have not been considered for DMD, or other muscular dystrophies, principally because skeletal-muscle-related symptoms are rare, but widely publicized, side effects of these drugs. Here we show positive effects of statins in dystrophic skeletal muscle. Simvastatin dramatically reduced damage and enhanced muscle function in dystrophic (mdx) mice. Long-term simvastatin treatment vastly improved overall muscle health in mdx mice, reducing plasma creatine kinase activity, an established measure of muscle damage, to near-normal levels. This reduction was accompanied by reduced inflammation, more oxidative muscle fibers, and improved strength of the weak diaphragm muscle. Shorter-term treatment protected against muscle fatigue and increased mdx hindlimb muscle force by 40%, a value comparable to current dystrophin gene-based therapies. Increased force correlated with reduced NADPH Oxidase 2 protein expression, the major source of oxidative stress in dystrophic muscle. Finally, in old mdx mice with severe muscle degeneration, simvastatin enhanced diaphragm force and halved fibrosis, a major cause of functional decline in DMD. These improvements were accompanied by autophagy activation, a recent therapeutic target for DMD, and less oxidative stress. Together, our findings highlight that simvastatin substantially improves the overall health and function of dystrophic skeletal muscles and may provide an unexpected, novel therapy for DMD and related neuromuscular diseases.
Evolving Gaussian Mixture Models with Splitting and Merging Mutation Operators

Abstract This paper describes the evolutionary split and merge for expectation maximization (ESM-EM) algorithm and eight of its variants, which are based on the use of split and merge operations to evolve Gaussian mixture models. Asymptotic time complexity analysis shows that the proposed algorithms are competitive with the state-of-the-art genetic-based expectation maximization (GA-EM) algorithm. Experiments performed in 35 data sets showed that ESM-EM can be computationally more efficient than the widely used multiple runs of EM (for different numbers of components and initializations). Moreover, a variant of ESM-EM free from critical parameters was shown to be able to provide competitive results with GA-EM, even when GA-EM parameters were fine-tuned a priori.
Study of the linguistic variables of heart rate variability using fuzzy entropy

The aim of this investigation was to determine the fuzziness values of the variables that represent heart rate variability (HRV) for three age groups, using the fuzzy entropy function. We used one hundred and four waves taken from one-minute electrocardiogram (ECG) of males subjects 20-70 years old, this being a short-term HRV measure. In the time domain, the values of the variables SDNN, HR, STDHR, RMSSD, NN50, PNN50, Triangle, TINN, were calculated. In the frequency domain, spectral analysis of continuous power was conducted, quantifying the following powers: very low frequency (VLF,0-0.04 Hz), low frequency (LF, 0.04 to 0.15 Hz), high frequency (HF, 0.15-0.4 Hz), and the ratio of LF to HF (LF / HF). The existing literature on the subject states, that the three frequency bands into which the total power is divided are similar regardless the age, sex and the presence or absence of coronary disease. In the nonlinear domain the values of the variables SD1 and SD2, which describe short and long-term variability were calculated. Measures of the selected patients were taken in the evening after 10 minutes rest. Then the linguistic variables and linguistic terms were defined and such variables were fuzzyfied using triangular and trapezoidal fuzzy numbers. All the variables values in the proposed conditions, satisfy the property that HRV decreases with age. Then the fuzziness of the linguistic terms was analyzed using the continuous fuzzy entropy thus concluding that the variables in the time, frequency and nonlinear domains: SDNN, RMSSD, NN50, PNN50, LF, HF, SD1, SD2 corresponding to the first and second age group have the greatest disorder.