Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Nematode-Induced Interference with Vaccination Efficacy Targets Follicular T Helper Cell Induction and Is Preserved after Termination of Infection

One-third of the human population is infected with parasitic worms. To avoid being eliminated, these parasites actively dampen the immune response of their hosts. This immune modulation also suppresses immune responses to third-party antigens such as vaccines. Here, we used Litomosoides sigmodontis-infected BALB/c mice to analyse nematode-induced interference with vaccination. Chronic nematode infection led to complete suppression of the humoral response to thymus-dependent vaccination. Thereby the numbers of antigen-specific B cells as well as the serum immunoglobulin (Ig) G titres were reduced. TH2-associated IgG1 and TH1-associated IgG2 responses were both suppressed. Thus, nematode infection did not bias responses towards a TH2 response, but interfered with Ig responses in general. We provide evidence that this suppression indirectly targeted B cells via accessory T cells as number and frequency of vaccine-induced follicular B helper T cells were reduced. Moreover, vaccination using model antigens that stimulate Ig response independently of T helper cells was functional in nematode-infected mice. Using depletion experiments, we show that CD4+Foxp3+ regulatory T cells did not mediate the suppression of Ig response during chronic nematode infection. Suppression was induced by fourth stage larvae, immature adults and mature adults, and increased with the duration of the infection. By contrast, isolated microfilariae increased IgG2a responses to vaccination. This pro-inflammatory effect of microfilariae was overruled by the simultaneous presence of adults. Strikingly, a reduced humoral response was still observed if vaccination was performed more than 16 weeks after termination of L. sigmodontis infection. In summary, our results suggest that vaccination may not only fail in helminth-infected individuals, but also in individuals with a history of previous helminth infections.
Toxicity of nanomaterials found in human environment

The US National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) defines nanotechnology as “the understanding and control of matter at dimensions between approximately 1 and 100 nm, where unique phenomena enable novel applications. ” Recent scientific reports available in the literature clearly demonstrate the potential benefits of nanotechnology in consumer and industrial products. More and more nanomaterials are expected to be used in consumer products. This is expected to lead to increased human exposure to nanomaterials in their daily lives. Therefore, the effect of nanomaterials present in human environment is an area of increasing scientific interest. The information presented in this review is obtained from the current literature. It indicates that nanomaterials found in human environment may have potential for toxicological effects. However, the current literature on toxicological effects of nanomaterials is diverse. The current data are presented from studies without harmonization. These studies have used different in vitro and in vivo test models, different sources of test nanomaterials, different methods for nanomaterial characterization, and different experimental conditions. Therefore, these data are hard to interpret. More research on nanomaterial characterization, biological interaction, toxicity, and health effects is needed. The test methods need to be validated. Positive and negative controls for nanotoxicity need to be identified. Toxicity data harmonization needs to be done. Therefore, general information is not currently available for risk evaluation of certain nanomaterials that might be present in consumer products or that may enter into the market in future. Standardized and validated methods are necessary for toxicity assessment of nanomaterials. Therefore, in the absence of standardized validated methods any specific regulatory testing requirements for nanomaterials are currently premature. We conclude that the benefits of nanomaterials found currently in human environment are many, but their overall adverse effects on human health are limited.
Please Continue to Hold: An Empirical Study on User Tolerance of Security Delays

We present the results of an experiment examining the extent to which individuals will tolerate delays when told that such delays are for security purposes. In our experiment, we asked 400 Amazon Mechanical Turk users to count the total number of times a certain term was repeated in a multi-page document. The task was designed to be conducive to cheating. We assigned subjects to four between-subjects conditions: one of these oﬀered a concrete security reason (virus-scanning) for the delay, another oﬀered only a vague security explanation, another did not mention security at all, and a control condition without a delay. We found that subjects were signiﬁcantly more likely to cheat or abandon the task when provided no explanation or a vague security explanation for the delay. However, when subjects were provided more explanation about the threat model and the protection ensured by the delay, they were not more likely to cheat than subjects in the control condition who faced no such delay. Our results thus contribute to the nascent literature on soft paternalistic solutions to security and privacy problems by suggesting that, when security mitigations cannot be made“free”for users, designers may incentivize compliant users’ behavior by intentionally drawing attention to the mitigation itself.
Identification of a new insertion element, similar to gram-negative IS26, on the lactose plasmid of Streptococcus lactis ML3

In Streptococcus lactis ML3, the lactose plasmid (pSK08) forms cointegrates with a conjugal plasmid (pRS01). It has been proposed that cointegration is mediated by insertion sequences (IS) present on pSK08 (D. G. Anderson and L.L. McKay, J. Bacteriol. 158:954-962, 1984). We examined the junction regions of the cointegrate pPW2 and the corresponding regions of pSK08 (donor) and pRS01 (target) and identified a new IS element on pSK08 (ISS1S) which was involved in and duplicated during formation of pPW2. ISS1S was 808 base pairs (bp) in size, had 18-bp inverted repeats (GGTTCTGTTGCAAAGTTT) at its ends, contained a single long open reading frame encoding a putative protein of 226 amino acids, and generated 8-bp direct repeats of target DNA during cointegrate formation. An iso-IS element, ISS1T, which is duplicated in some other cointegrate plasmids, was also found on pSK08. ISS1T was also 808 bp in size and was identical to ISS1S in sequence except for 4 bp, none of which altered the inverted repeats or amino acid sequence of the open reading frame. Comparison of ISS1 with gram-negative IS26 revealed strong homologies in size (820 bp), sequence of inverted repeats (GGCACTGTTGCAAA), size of direct repeats generated after cointegration (8 bp), and number, size, and amino acid sequence (44.5% identical) of the open reading of frame.
Cloning and Characterisation of Schistosoma japonicum Insulin Receptors

Background Schistosomes depend for growth and development on host hormonal signals, which may include the insulin signalling pathway. We cloned and assessed the function of two insulin receptors from Schistosoma japonicum in order to shed light on their role in schistosome biology. Methodology/Principal Findings We isolated, from S. japonicum, insulin receptors 1 (SjIR-1) and 2 (SjIR-2) sharing close sequence identity to their S. mansoni homologues (SmIR-1 and SmIR-2). SjIR-1 is located on the tegument basal membrane and the internal epithelium of adult worms, whereas SjIR-2 is located in the parenchyma of males and the vitelline tissue of females. Phylogenetic analysis showed that SjIR-2 and SmIR-2 are close to Echinococcus multilocularis insulin receptor (EmIR), suggesting that SjIR-2, SmIR-2 and EmIR share similar roles in growth and development in the three taxa. Structure homology modelling recovered the conserved structure between the SjIRs and Homo sapiens IR (HIR) implying a common predicted binding mechanism in the ligand domain and the same downstream signal transduction processing in the tyrosine kinase domain as in HIR. Two-hybrid analysis was used to confirm that the ligand domains of SjIR-1 and SjIR-2 contain the insulin binding site. Incubation of adult worms in vitro, both with a specific insulin receptor inhibitor and anti-SjIRs antibodies, resulted in a significant decrease in worm glucose levels, suggesting again the same function for SjIRs in regulating glucose uptake as described for mammalian cells. Conclusions Adult worms of S. japonicum possess insulin receptors that can specifically bind to insulin, indicating that the parasite can utilize host insulin for development and growth by sharing the same pathway as mammalian cells in regulating glucose uptake. A complete understanding of the role of SjIRs in the biology of S. japonicum may result in their use as new targets for drug and vaccine development against schistosomiasis.
Modélisation des ceintures de radiation d'électrons et d'ions de Jupiter

Dans les annees 50, James Van Allen demontra l'existence de regions de la magnetosphere terrestre constituees de particules energetiques, piegees par le champ magnetique : les ceintures de radiation. Les ceintures de radiation de la Terre ont fait l’objet de nombreux travaux de modelisation et sont etudiees depuis des annees au Departement Environnement SPatial (DESP) de l'ONERA. En 1998, le DESP a decide d’adapter le modele de ceintures de radiation de la Terre, Salammbo, au cas de Jupiter. Une premiere these a donc ete effectuee sur le sujet et un premier modele de ceintures de radiation d’electrons de Jupiter a ete developpe [Santos-Costa, 2001]. Le but de cette deuxieme these est de developper un modele de ceintures de radiation de protons et d’ions lourds. Afin de valider le modele developpe, des comparaisons entre les resultats de Salammbo et les observations sont indispensables. Or, la validation est difficile dans le cas des protons et des ions lourds car les mesures in-situ des sondes sont peu nombreuses et souvent contaminees par les electrons tres energetiques. Pour palier a ce probleme, un tres bon modele de ceintures de radiation d’electrons est essentiel pour confirmer ou infirmer la contamination des mesures de protons et d’ions lourds. Ainsi, parallelement au developpement du modele de ceintures de radiation de protons et d’ions lourds, le modele d’electrons, deja existant a ete ameliore. Les resultats de Salammbo ont ensuite ete compares aux differentes observations disponibles (mesures in-situ, observations radio astronomiques). Les differentes comparaisons montrent un tres bon accord entre les resultats de Salammbo et les observations.
Neutron-induced single-event-transient effects in ultrathin-body fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator MOSFETs

The neutron-induced single-event-transient (SET) response of 22-nm technology ultrathin-body fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator transistors is examined. Simulation results show that the impacts of ground plane doping and quantum effects on SETs are relatively small. The SET characteristics and collected charge are strike-location sensitive. The most SET-sensitive region in ultrathin-body fully-depleted SOI transistors is located near the drain region. The transient current peak is strongly affected by substrate bias. In contrast, the total collected charge depends only weakly on substrate bias. Circuits that are sensitive to total collected charge (e.g., SRAMs) may not be influenced by substrate bias, but substrate bias will impact the SET sensitivity of combinational logic.
Neuropsychological functions in patients with bipolar I and bipolar II disorder.

UNLABELLED The literature reports persistent cognitive impairments in patients with bipolar disorder even after prolonged remission. However, a majority of studies have focused only on bipolar I disorder (BP-I), primarily because bipolar II disorder (BP-II) is often underdiagnosed or misdiagnosed. More attention should be paid to the differences between BP-I and BP-II, especially the aspects of neuropsychological functioning. We examined the different neuropsychological functions in BP-I and BP-II patients and compared them with those of healthy controls. METHODS The study included 67 patients with interepisode bipolar disorder (BP-I: n = 30; BP-II: n = 37) and 22 healthy controls compared using a battery of neuropsychological tests that assessed memory, psychomotor speed, and certain aspects of frontal executive function. RESULTS The BP-I group performed poorly on verbal memory, psychomotor speed, and executive function compared to the BP-II and control groups. Both bipolar groups performed significantly less well than the control group on measures of working memory and psychomotor speed, while the BP-II group showed an intermediate level of performance in psychomotor speed compared to the BP-I and control groups. There was no difference between the groups on visual memory. CONCLUSIONS BP-I was characterized by reduced performance in verbal memory, working memory, psychomotor speed, and executive function, while BP-II patients showed a reduction only in working memory and psychomotor speed. Cognitive impairment existed in both subtypes of bipolar disorder, and was greater in BP-I patients. Rehabilitation interventions should take into account potential cognitive differences between these bipolar subtypes.
Statistics of Natural Movements Are Reflected in Motor Errors

Humans use their arms to engage in a wide variety of motor tasks during everyday life. However, little is known about the statistics of these natural arm movements. Studies of the sensory system have shown that the statistics of sensory inputs are key to determining sensory processing. We hypothesized that the statistics of natural everyday movements may, in a similar way, influence motor performance as measured in laboratory-based tasks. We developed a portable motion-tracking system that could be worn by subjects as they went about their daily routine outside of a laboratory setting. We found that the well-documented symmetry bias is reflected in the relative incidence of movements made during everyday tasks. Specifically, symmetric and antisymmetric movements are predominant at low frequencies, whereas only symmetric movements are predominant at high frequencies. Moreover, the statistics of natural movements, that is, their relative incidence, correlated with subjects' performance on a laboratory-based phase-tracking task. These results provide a link between natural movement statistics and motor performance and confirm that the symmetry bias documented in laboratory studies is a natural feature of human movement.
Equations of States in Statistical Learning for a Nonparametrizable and Regular Case

Many learning machines that have hierarchical structure or hidden variables are now being used in information science, artificial intelligence, and bioinformatics. However, several learning machines used in such fields are not regular but singular statistical models, hence their generalization performance is still left unknown. To overcome these problems, in the previous papers, we proved new equations in statistical learning, by which we can estimate the Bayes generalization loss from the Bayes training loss and the functional variance, on the condition that the true distribution is a singularity contained in a learning machine. In this paper, we prove that the same equations hold even if a true distribution is not contained in a parametric model. Also we prove that, the proposed equations in a regular case are asymptotically equivalent to the Takeuchi information criterion. Therefore, the proposed equations are always applicable without any condition on the unknown true distribution.
Effect of Hydroxymethyl Glutaryl Coenzyme A Reductase Inhibitor Therapy on High Sensitive C-Reactive Protein Levels

BackgroundProspective studies indicate that baseline levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), the prototypic marker of inflammation, are associated with an increased risk for cardiovascular events. Limited studies have examined therapies that influence high-sensitive CRP (hs-CRP) levels, especially in hyperlipidemic patients. Thus, we tested the effects of 3 hydroxymethyl glutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitors (statins), simvastatin (20 mg/d), pravastatin (40 mg/d), and atorvastatin (10 mg/d), on levels of hs-CRP in a randomized, double-blind, crossover trial of 22 patients with combined hyperlipidemia (LDL cholesterol >130 mg/dL and triglycerides of 200 to 600 mg/dL). Methods and ResultsAfter 6 weeks of an American Heart Association Step 1 diet, fasting blood samples were drawn at baseline and after 6 weeks of therapy with each drug. hs-CRP levels were significantly decreased after treatment with all 3 statins compared with baseline (median values: baseline, 2.6 mg/L; atorvastatin, 1.7 mg/L; simvastatin, 1.7 mg/L; and pravastatin, 1.9 mg/L;P <0.025). The reductions obtained with the 3 statins were similar. In addition, there was no significant effect on either plasma interleukin-6 or interleukin-6 soluble receptor levels. There was no relationship between reductions in hs-CRP and LDL cholesterol. ConclusionsPravastatin, simvastatin, and atorvastatin significantly decreased levels of hs-CRP. These data support an anti-inflammatory effect of these drugs.
Family gaps in income: A cross-national comparison

Using data on nine countries from the Luxembourg Income Study database, we estimate trajectories in gross and disposable family incomes for families following one of several stylized life-courses: marrying or partnering at age 24 but not having children; partnering at age 24 and having one child at age 27; partnering at age 24 and having two children, at ages 25 and 27; and partnering at age 24, having two children at ages 25 and 27, and then living without a partner from ages 30 to 39. Focusing mainly on women with a medium level of education, the majority of women in most of our countries, we find a clear clustering of countries. In general, family gaps in both gross and disposable family income are smallest in the Nordic countries, intermediate in the Anglo-American countries, and largest in the continental European countries. This clustering is very similar to patterns observed in the literature on family gaps in womens earnings and suggests that differences in earnings between women with different family histories are the major driver in the family gaps in gross and disposable incomes that we observe here.
Classifying Categorical Data by Rule-Based Neighbors

A new learning algorithm for categorical data, named CRN (Classification by Rule-based Neighbors) is proposed in this paper. CRN is a nonmetric and parameter-free classifier, and can be regarded as a hybrid of rule induction and instance-based learning. Based on a new measure of attributes quality and the separate-and-conquer strategy, CRN learns a collection of feature sets such that for each pair of instances belonging to different classes, there is a feature set on which the two instances disagree. For an unlabeled instance I and a labeled instance J, J is a neighbor of I if and only if they agree on all attributes of a feature set. Then, CRN classifies an unlabeled instance I based on I's neighbors on those learned feature sets. To validate the performance of CRN, CRN is compared with six state-of-the-art classifiers on twenty-four datasets. Experimental results demonstrate that although the underlying idea of CRN is simple, the predictive accuracy of CRN is comparable to or better than that of the state-of-the-art classifiers on most datasets.
AMRICA: an AMR Inspector for Cross-language Alignments

Abstract Meaning Representation (AMR), an annotation scheme for natural language semantics, has drawn attention for its simplicity and representational power. Because AMR annotations are not designed for human readability, we present AMRICA, a visual aid for exploration of AMR annotations. AMRICA can visualize an AMR or the difference between two AMRs to help users diagnose interannotator disagreement or errors from an AMR parser. AMRICA can also automatically align and visualize the AMRs of a sentence and its translation in a parallel text. We believe AMRICA will simplify and streamline exploratory research on cross-lingual AMR corpora.Meaning Representation (AMR), an annotation scheme for natural language semantics, has drawn attention for its simplicity and representational power. Because AMR annotations are not designed for human readability, we present AMRICA, a visual aid for exploration of AMR annotations. AMRICA can visualize an AMR or the difference between two AMRs to help users diagnose interannotator disagreement or errors from an AMR parser. AMRICA can also automatically align and visualize the AMRs of a sentence and its translation in a parallel text. We believe AMRICA will simplify and streamline exploratory research on cross-lingual AMR corpora.
Algorithm selection and hardware implementation for channel equalization in MB-OFDM Based UWB communications for indoor WPAN applications

Easy channel equalization for OFDM based UWB communications is considered to be one of its major advantages. Due to the format of transmission, the channel affects the signal only at discrete frequencies, and hence single-tap equalization is usually deemed sufficient. In this paper the selection of an efficient algorithm for equalization and its implementation is reported for indoor WPAN applications based on the ECMA-368/9 standard. The observed deficiency of interpolation techniques is explained and alternative algorithms are suggested. The algorithm with the best tradeoff between performance and resource utilization (area etc) is implemented in Verilog and simulated in Cadence IUS for correctness with success.
The quest for targeted delivery in colon cancer: mucoadhesive valdecoxib microspheres

The aim of the present study was to prepare valdecoxib, a cyclo-oxygenase-2 enzyme inhibitor, as a loaded multiparticulate system to achieve site-specific drug delivery to colorectal tumors. Film coating was done with the pH-sensitive polymer Eudragit S100 and sodium alginate was used as mucoadhesive polymer in the core. The microspheres were characterized by X-ray diffraction, differential scanning calorimetry, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and were evaluated for particle size, drug load, in vitro drug release, release kinetics, accelerated stability, and extent of mucoadhesion. The coated microspheres released the drug at pH 7.4, the putative parameter for colonic delivery. When applied to the mucosal surface of freshly excised goat colon, microspheres pretreated with phosphate buffer pH 7.4 for 30 minutes showed mucoadhesion. To ascertain the effect of valdecoxib on the viability of Caco-2 cells, the 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2yl) 2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) test was conducted using both valdecoxib and coated microspheres. In both cases, the percentage of dehydrogenase activity indicated a lack of toxicity against Caco-2 cells in the tested concentration range. Drug transport studies of the drug as well as the coated microspheres in buffers of pH 6 and 7.4 across Caco-2 cell monolayers were conducted. The microspheres were found to exhibit slower and delayed drug release and lower intracellular concentration of valdecoxib.