Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
2‐D structure of the Neurospora crassa plasma membrane ATPase as determined by electron cryomicroscopy.

Large, well‐ordered 2‐D crystals of the dodecylmaltoside complex of the Neurospora crassa plasma membrane H(+)‐ATPase grow rapidly on the surface of a polyethylene glycol‐containing mixture similar to that originally developed for growing 3‐D crystals of this integral membrane transport protein. Negative stain electron microscopy of the crystals shows that many are single layers. Cryoelectron microscopy of unstained specimens indicates that the crystals have a p6 layer group with unit cell dimensions of a = b = 167 A. Image processing of selected electron micrographs has yielded a projection map at 10.3 A resolution. The repeating unit of the ATPase crystals comprises six 100 kDa ATPase monomers arranged in a symmetrical ring. The individual monomers in projection are shaped like a boot. These results provide the first indications of the molecular structure of the H(+)‐ATPase molecule. They also establish the feasibility of precipitant‐induced surface growth as a rapid, simple alternative to conventional methods for obtaining 2‐D crystals of the integral membrane proteins useful for structure analysis.
Formate can differentiate between hyperhomocysteinemia due to impaired remethylation and impaired transsulfuration.

Formate can differentiate between hyperhomocysteinemia due to impaired remethylation and impaired transsulfuration. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab 301: E000-E000, 2011. First published September 20, 2011; 10.1152/ajpendo.00345. 2011. -We carried out a (1)H-NMR metabolomic analysis of sera from vitamin B(12)-deficient rats. In addition to the expected increases in methylmalonate and homocysteine (Hcy), we observed an approximately sevenfold increase in formate levels, from 64 μM in control rats to 402 μM in vitamin B(12)-deficient rats. Urinary formate was also elevated. This elevation of formate could be attributed to impaired one-carbon metabolism since formate is assimilated into the one-carbon pool by incorporation into 10-formyl-THF via the enzyme 10-formyl-THF synthase. Both plasma and urinary formate were also increased in folate-deficient rats. Hcy was elevated in both the vitamin B(12)- and folate-deficient rats. Although plasma Hcy was also elevated, plasma formate was unaffected in vitamin B(6)-deficient rats (impaired transsulfuration pathway). These results were in accord with a mathematical model of folate metabolism, which predicted that reduction in methionine synthase activity would cause increased formate levels, whereas reduced cystathionine β-synthase activity would not. Our data indicate that formate provides a novel window into cellular folate metabolism, that elevated formate can be a useful indicator of deranged one-carbon metabolism and can be used to discriminate between the hyperhomocysteinemia caused by defects in the remethylation and transsulfuration pathways.
Production of B‐group vitamins by two Azotobacter strains with phenolic compounds as sole carbon source under diazotrophic and adiazotrophic conditions

Azotobacter vinelandii strain ATCC 12837 and A. chroococcum strain H23 (CECT 4435) were able to grow on N‐free or NH4Cl‐amended chemically‐defined (Burk's) media, with protocatechuic acid (1–2 mmol l−1) or sodium p‐hydroxybenzoate (1–10 mmol l−1) as sole carbon (C) sources. At a concentration of 2 mmol l−1, both substrates supported nitrogen fixation (acetylene reduction assay) at similar or higher rates than bacteria grown in control media amended with 2 mmol l−1 sodium succinate as C source. The two strains produced the B‐group vitamins niacin, pantothenic acid, thiamine, riboflavin and biotin after 72 h of growth in chemically‐defined media with 2 mmol l−1 protocatechuic acid, sodium p‐hydroxybenzoate or sodium succinate as sole C source, either in N‐free media or in media amended with 0·1% NH4Cl. Quantitative production of all vitamins was affected by the use of the different C and N substrates.
Novel modulation factor quantifies the role of water molecules in protein interactions

Water molecules decrease the potential of mean force of a hydrogen bond (H‐bond), as well as modulate (de)solvation forces, but exactly how much has not been easy to determine. Crystallographic water molecules provide snapshots of optimal solutions for the role of solvent in protein interactions, information that is often ignored by implicit solvent models. Motivated by high‐resolution crystal structures, we describe a simple quantitative approach to explicitly incorporate the role of molecular water in protein interactions. Applications to protein–DNA interactions show that the accuracy of binding free‐energy estimates improves significantly if a distinction is made between H‐bonds that are desolvated (or only contact crystal waters), solvated by mobile waters trapped at the binding interface, or partially solvated through connections to bulk water. These different environments are modeled by a unique “water” scaling factor that decreases or increases the strength of hydrogen bonds depending on whether water contacts the acceptor or donor atoms or the bond is fully desolvated, respectively. Our empirical energies are fully consistent with mobile water molecules having a strong polarization effect in direct intermolecular interactions. Proteins 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A Review of Photocatalysts Prepared by Sol-Gel Method for VOCs Removal

The sol-gel process is a wet-chemical technique (chemical solution deposition), which has been widely used in the fields of materials science, ceramic engineering, and especially in the preparation of photocatalysts. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are prevalent components of indoor air pollution. Among the approaches to remove VOCs from indoor air, photocatalytic oxidation (PCO) is regarded as a promising method. This paper is a review of the status of research on the sol-gel method for photocatalyst preparation and for the PCO purification of VOCs. The review and discussion will focus on the preparation and coating of various photocatalysts, operational parameters, and will provide an overview of general PCO models described in the literature.
A General Dense Image Matching Framework Combining Direct and Feature-Based Costs

Dense motion field estimation (typically optical flow, stereo disparity and surface registration) is a key computer vision problem. Many solutions have been proposed to compute small or large displacements, narrow or wide baseline stereo disparity, but a unified methodology is still lacking. We here introduce a general framework that robustly combines direct and feature-based matching. The feature-based cost is built around a novel robust distance function that handles key points and ``weak'' features such as segments. It allows us to use putative feature matches which may contain mismatches to guide dense motion estimation out of local minima. Our framework uses a robust direct data term (AD-Census). It is implemented with a powerful second order Total Generalized Variation regularization with external and self-occlusion reasoning. Our framework achieves state of the art performance in several cases (standard optical flow benchmarks, wide-baseline stereo and non-rigid surface registration). Our framework has a modular design that customizes to specific application needs.
Is pushing constraints deeply into the mining algorithms really what we want?: an alternative approach for association rule mining

The common approach to exploit mining constraints is to push them deeply into the mining algorithms. In our paper we argue that this approach is based on an understanding of KDD that is no longer up-to-date. In fact, today KDD is seen as a human centered, highly interactive and iterative process. Blindly enforcing constraints already during the mining runs neglects the process character of KDD and therefore is no longer state of the art. Constraints can make a single algorithm run faster but in fact we are still far from response times that would allow true interactivity in KDD. In addition we pay the price of repeated mining runs and moreover risk reducing data mining to some kind of hypothesis testing. Taking all the above into consideration we propose to do exactly the contrary of constrained mining: We accept an initial (nearly) unconstrained and costly mining run. But instead of a sequence of subsequent and still expensive constrained mining runs we answer all further mining queries from this initial result set. Whereas this is straight forward for constraints that can be implemented as filters on the result set, things get more complicated when we restrict the underlying mining data. Actually in practice such constraints are very important, e.g. the generation of rules for certain days of the week, for families, singles, male or female customers etc. We show how to postpone such row-restriction constraints on the transactions from rule generation to rule retrieval from the initial result set.
Dual-Buck Full-Bridge Inverter With Hysteresis Current Control

This paper presents a dual-buck full-bridge inverter (DBFBI) to solve the shoot-through problem in conventional bridge-type inverters and reduce the voltage stress of the power device in the dual-buck half-bridge inverter (DBHBI). Hysteresis current control is used in the DBFBI. All switches and diodes operate at each half line cycle, and the freewheeling current flows through the independent freewheeling diodes instead of the body diodes of the switches, so the efficiency can be increased potentially. As the shoot-through problem does not exist in the DBFBI, dead time between the switches need not be set. The input-voltage utilization rate of the DBFBI is twice that of the DBHBI under the same output-voltage condition, i.e., the voltage stress of the power device in DBFBI is half that in the DBHBI. The operating principle, stability and relative stability analyses, and design guidelines and example are provided. Experimental results of a 1-kVA DBFBI verify the theoretical analysis. The comparisons among other inverters and the DBFBI show that the proposed inverter is very promising in 220-240-Vrms output-voltage and high-reliability applications, such as uninterruptible power supplies and grid-connected inverters.
Insights into the Virulence Traits of Streptococcus mutans in Dentine Carious Lesions of Children with Early Childhood Caries

Streptococcus mutans is an oral bacterium considered to play a major role in the development of dental caries. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of S. mutans in active and arrested dentine carious lesions of children with early childhood caries and to examine the expression profile of selected S. mutans genes associated with survival and virulence, within the same carious lesions. Dentine samples were collected from 29 active and 16 arrested carious lesions that were diagnosed in preschool children aged 2-5 years. Total RNA was extracted from the dentine samples, and reverse transcription quantitative real-time PCR analyses were performed for the quantification of S. mutans and for analyses of the expression of S. mutans genes associated with bacterial survival (atpD, nox, pdhA) and virulence (fabM and aguD). There was no statistically significant difference in the prevalence of S. mutans between active and arrested carious lesions. Expression of the tested genes was detected in both types of carious dentine. The pdhA (p = 0.04) and aguD (p = 0.05) genes were expressed at higher levels in arrested as compared to active lesions. Our findings revealed that S. mutans is part of the viable microbial community in active and arrested dentine carious lesions. The increase in expression of the pdhA and aguD genes in arrested lesions is likely due to the unfavourable environmental conditions for microbial growth, inherent to this type of lesions.
Posterior Circulation and High Prevalence of Ischemic Stroke among Young Pediatric Patients with Moyamoya Disease: Evidence of Angiography-Based Differences by Age at Diagnosis

We all know the infratentorial arteries are never involved in Moyamoya disease whereas the posterior cerebral ones are commonly affected. These authors sought to determine whether age-related differences in clinical manifestations were associated with age-related angiographic differences in 78 patients. In patients younger than 4 years of age, the prevalence of infarctions on MR images was highest, and along with severity of steno-occlusive lesions of the posterior cerebral artery, the prevalence was significantly higher than in older children (aged 4–7 years). The severity of steno-occlusive lesions in the internal carotid artery and the degree of transdural collaterals did not differ significantly. The prevalence of infarctions did not differ significantly in older children whereas ICA and PCA lesions and transdural collaterals correlated positively with diagnostic age. In conclusion, the high prevalence of infarctions diagnosed before 4 years of age and is associated with advanced steno-occlusive lesions of the PCA. In patients 4 years and older at diagnosis, transdural collaterals develop in parallel with advancement of ICA and PCA lesions, which may contribute to the nearly constant prevalence of completed strokes with permanent neurologic deficit. BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: At diagnosis, the primary clinical manifestations of pediatric Moyamoya disease are TIA or CSs. CSs are reported to be more prevalent in younger than in older children. We sought to determine whether age-related differences in clinical manifestations are associated with age-related angiographic differences. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We divided 78 patients diagnosed with Moyamoya disease before 16 years of age into four 4-year age groups and examined the relationships between age at diagnosis and clinical manifestations and angiographic and MR imaging findings. RESULTS: Among the 4 diagnostic age groups, in those younger than 4 years of age, the prevalence of CSs and of infarctions on MR images was highest, and along with severity of steno-occlusive lesions of the PCA, the prevalence was significantly higher than that in the next diagnostic age group (4–7 years), though the severity of steno-occlusive lesions in the ICA and the degree of transdural collaterals did not differ significantly. The prevalence of CSs and infarctions did not differ significantly in the 3 oldest diagnostic age groups, whereas ICA and PCA lesions and transdural collaterals correlated positively with diagnostic age. CONCLUSIONS: The high prevalence of CSs and infarctions in patients diagnosed before 4 years of age is associated with advanced steno-occlusive lesions of the PCA. In patients 4 years of age and older at diagnosis, transdural collaterals develop in parallel with advancement of ICA and PCA lesions, which may contribute to the nearly constant prevalence of CSs.
A cautionary tale on the efficiency of some adaptive monte carlo schemes

There is a growing interest in the literature for adaptive Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods based on sequences of random transition kernels fPng where the kernel Pn is allowed to have an invariant distribution …n not necessarily equal to the distribution of interest … (target distribution). These algorithms are designed such that as n ! 1, Pn converges to P, a kernel that has the correct invariant distribution …. Typically, P is a kernel with good convergence properties, but one that cannot be directly implemented. It is then expected that the algorithm will inherit the good convergence properties of P. The equi-energy sampler of (15) is an example of this type of adaptive MCMC. We show in this paper, that the asymptotic variance of this type of adaptive MCMC is always at least as large as the asymptotic variance of the Markov chain with transition kernel P. We also show by simulation that the difierence can be substantial.
Primary Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis in Hanoi, Viet Nam: Present Status and Risk Factors

Introduction Resistance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) to anti-tuberculosis (TB) drugs presents a serious challenge to TB control worldwide. We investigated the status of drug resistance, including multidrug-resistant (MDR) TB, and possible risk factors among newly diagnosed TB patients in Hanoi, the capital of Viet Nam. Methods Clinical and epidemiological information was collected from 506 newly diagnosed patients with sputum smear- and culture-positive TB, and 489 (96.6%) MTB isolates were subjected to conventional drug susceptibility testing, spoligotyping, and 15-locus variable numbers of tandem repeats typing. Adjusted odds ratios (aORs) were calculated to analyze the risk factors for primary drug resistance. Results Of 489 isolates, 298 (60.9%) were sensitive to all drugs tested. Resistance to isoniazid, rifampicin, streptomycin, ethambutol, and MDR accounted for 28.2%, 4.9%, 28.2%, 2.9%, and 4.5%, respectively. Of 24 isolates with rifampicin resistance, 22 (91.7%) were MDR and also resistant to streptomycin, except one case. Factors associated with isoniazid resistance included living in old urban areas, presence of the Beijing genotype, and clustered strains [aOR = 2.23, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.15–4.35; 1.91, 1.18–3.10; and 1.69, 1.06–2.69, respectively). The Beijing genotype was also associated with streptomycin resistance (aOR = 2.10, 95% CI 1.29–3.40). Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) coinfection was associated with rifampicin resistance and MDR (aOR = 5.42, 95% CI 2.07–14.14; 6.23, 2.34–16.58, respectively). Conclusion Isoniazid and streptomycin resistance was observed in more than a quarter of TB patients without treatment history in Hanoi. Transmission of isoniazid-resistant TB among younger people should be carefully monitored in urban areas, where Beijing strains and HIV coinfection are prevalent. Choosing an optimal treatment regimen on the basis of the results of drug susceptibility tests and monitoring of treatment adherence would minimize further development of drug resistance strains.
Confirmation of tPA Treatment Effect by Baseline Severity-Adjusted End Point Reanalysis of the NINDS-tPA Stroke Trials

Background and Purpose— Baseline severity-adjusted end point analysis, an emerging approach to the evaluation of primary end points in acute stroke trials, offers a novel means of adjusting trial analysis for baseline imbalances in presenting stroke severity among treatment groups, a factor that has complicated interpretation and reception of the results of the pivotal National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke tissue plasminogen activator (NINDS-tPA) trials. Methods— The sliding scale dichotomy end point responder analysis applied in recent acute ischemic stroke clinical trials was used to analyze NINDS-tPA stroke trials 1 and 2. Good outcomes were: 3-month Rankin scale=0 if pretreatment NIHSS scores were 1 to 7; 3-month Rankin scale=0 to 1 if pretreatment NIHSS scores were 8 to 14; 3-month Rankin scale=0 to 2 if pretreatment NIHSS scores were >14. Results— Both of the NINDS-tPA stroke trials showed a statistically significant beneficial treatment effect of tPA. In unadjusted analyses, in trial 1, good outcomes in tPA versus placebo patients were 39.6% versus 28.6% (odds ratio 1.64, P=0.049); in trial 2, 35.7% versus 24.2% (odds ratio 1.74, P=0.024). Among all 624 patients in trials 1 and 2 combined, good outcomes occurred in 37.5% versus 26.3% patients (odds ratio 1.68, P=0.0034). In the 91- to 180-minute onset to treatment time subgroup of patients among whom baseline severity imbalance was particularly severe, good outcomes were noted in 36.1% versus 24.0% (odds ratio 1.80, P=0.021). Odds ratios favoring tPA generally further increased after adjustment for 12 additional covariates known to predict acute stroke outcome. Conclusion— Baseline-adjusted severity end point reanalysis of the NINDS Stroke tPA trials confirms a beneficial treatment effect of intravenous tPA.
Preparation and properties of heat-shrinkable cross-linked low-density polyethylene

In this work, heat-shrinkable characteristics of a polyethylene compound were obtained by blending mixtures of low-density polyethylene with varying amount of peroxide. These were then extruded and molded to the required shape and then cross-linked by chemical means, followed by heating and stretching and then cooled to “freeze-in” the oriented polymer structure (elastic memory). A decrease in the melting point and heat of fusion (ΔHf), as determined from the DSC melting enthalpies, was observed with an increase in the dicumyl peroxide (DCP) concentration. Tests on the heat shrinkablity of the samples showed that the stretching temperature has a large effect on the shrinkage temperature. The results showed that by increasing the peroxide content, the shrinkage temperature was decreased. The elongation at break decreased with an increase in the DCP concentration. Increasing the temperature in lightly cross-linked samples (low percent DCP) resulted in a reduction in the elongation at break. Increasing the cross-linking density (DCP content) gave an opposite effect. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Adv Polym Techn 22: 112–119, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/adv.10041
Is Ultrasonography Useful in Predicting Thyroid Cancer in Children with Thyroid Nodules and Apparently Benign Cytopathologic Features?

Background/Aims: To assess whether the presence of certain findings on thyroid ultrasonography (US) correctly diagnoses malignancy even when a fine-needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) suggests a benign lesion. Methods: We reviewed the charts of 35 children and adolescents with a thyroid nodule who had had an US and a FNAB, and for whom final pathology was available. Results: The global accuracy of FNAB was 83%, with a sensitivity of 75% and a specificity of 94%. 14 FNABs suggested malignancy (40%), only 1 of which was a false positive (7%). By contrast, 5 of the 21 FNABs suggesting benign lesions were false negatives (24%). These 5 cases had US findings suggestive of malignancy. When FNAB suggested a benign lesion, US had a good sensitivity (80%) but a poor specificity and accuracy (50 and 57%, respectively); its negative predictive value was 90% and its positive predictive value 36%. Conclusions: US complements FNAB in the evaluation of thyroid nodules in children. A more aggressive approach is warranted in children with a thyroid nodule and a benign FNAB if US findings suggest malignancy.
Supervised Topic Segmentation of Email Conversations

We propose a graph-theoretic supervised topic segmentation model for email conversations which combines (i) lexical knowledge, (ii) conversational features, and (iii) topic features. We compare our results with the existing unsupervised models (i.e., LCSeg and LDA), and with their two extensions for email conversations (i.e., LCSeg+FQG and LDA+FQG) that not only use lexical information but also exploit finer conversation structure. Empirical evaluation shows that our supervised model is the best performer and achieves highest accuracy by combining the three different knowledge sources, where knowledge about the conversation has proved to be the most important indicator for segmenting emails.
Geostationary satellite based passive bistatic ISAR for coastal surveillance

The paper proposes a new passive bistatic ISAR mode for coastal surveillance based on the exploitation of the signals transmitted by telecommunication geostationary satellites. Specifically it is demonstrated that ISAR images with acceptable quality of ship targets could be obtained by using telecommunication geostationary satellites as opportunity transmitters and stationary passive devices, located near the coast, as receivers. The geostationary satellites assure a continuous and complete coverage of wide areas: moreover satellites available in the near future should also provide a bandwidth suitable for the achievement of medium slant range resolutions. Since in ISAR the target motion is exploited to obtain cross-range resolution, a network of stationary low cost receiving only devices could be therefore properly located on the coast to obtain ISAR images of ship targets of interest for the surveillance and monitoring of the maritime traffic.