Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Zebrafish take their cue from temperature but not photoperiod for the seasonal plasticity of thermal performance

SUMMARY Organisms adjust to seasonal variability in the environment by responding to cues that indicate environmental change. As most studies of seasonal phenotypic plasticity test only the effect of a single environmental cue, how animals may integrate information from multiple cues to fine-tune plastic responses remains largely unknown. We examined the interaction between correlated (seasonally matching) and conflicting (seasonally opposite) temperature and photoperiod cues on the acclimation of performance traits in male zebrafish, Danio rerio. We acclimated fish for 8 weeks and then tested the change in thermal dependence of maximum burst swimming and feeding rate between 8 and 38°C. We predicted that correlated environmental cues should induce a greater acclimation response than uncorrelated cues. However, we found that only temperature was important for the seasonal acclimation of performance traits in zebrafish. Thermal acclimation shifted the thermal performance curve of both traits. For maximum burst swimming, performance increased for each group near the acclimation temperature and reduced in environments that were far from their acclimation temperature. The feeding rate of cold-acclimated zebrafish was reduced across the test temperature range compared with that of warm-acclimated fish. Our study is the first that has found no effect of the covariation between temperature and photoperiod acclimation cues on locomotor performance in fishes. Our results support the intuitive idea that photoperiod may be a less important seasonal cue for animals living at lower latitudes.
The Effects of Higher Oil Prices on the Level of Consumer Prices in Jamaica: An Estimation of the Magnitude of the Pass-Through Effect for the Period 2001 to 2010

Higher oil prices on the world market over the last five years have been viewed with serious macroeconomic concerns in oil-importing countries. In Jamaica, questions have been raised about the extent to which higher oil prices has pushed up the recent high rate of inflation. Over the last five years (2006-2010), oil price increased by approximately 23.0 per cent, while inflation rose by 64.8 per cent. These increases, together with a high volatility in oil price, have serious implications for macroeconomic policy objectives given Jamaica’s high oil intensity ratio. This paper seeks to assess the inflationary effect of higher oil prices using the pass-through mechanism for the period 2001 to 2010, using monthly data.Studies have shown a decline in the magnitude of the pass-through effect of oil prices on inflation for developed countries and for a number of developing countries over the last three decades. Results derived from this study show that a one time 10 percentage points increase in oil price would push inflation up by approximately 0.017, 0.012 and 0.024 percentage points during the first three months, respectively, after the initial change in oil price.
Sharing the Burden: International Policy Cooperation in a Liquidity Trap

A collapse in aggregate demand concentrated in one country may have international spillover eects which lead 'natural real interest rates'to fall below zero in all coun- tries. We explore the optimal policy response to this type of shock, when governments cooperate on both …scal and monetary responses. The main focus of the analysis is to explore how both the transmission of shocks, and the optimal policy responses are aected by the degree of trade openness of each economy. With fully integrated trade, both countries enter a liquidity trap simultaneously, and the optimal policy response is to have identical, expansionary …scal packages. When trade is less than fully open, the source country is worst hit by the shock. Then the optimal policy response is to have …scal expansion in that country, a much smaller expansion in the foreign country, combined with relatively tight monetary policies in the foreign country. Strikingly, the foreign country may choose to have a positive policy interest rate, even though its 'natural real interest rate'is below zero. Thus, the optimal policy response to a global liquidity trap may dier substantially from the standard closed economy prescription.
Mucosal Immunity Induced by Pneumococcal Glycoconjugate

Host defenses against Streptococcus pneumoniae involve opsonophagocytosis mediated by antibodies and complement. Because the pneumococcus is a respiratory pathogen, mucosal immunity may play an important role in the defense against infection. The mechanism for protection in mucosal immunity consists of induction of immunity by the activation of lymphocytes within the mucosal-associated lymphoid tissues, transport of antigen-specific B and T cells from inductive sites through bloodstream and distribute to distant mucosal effector sites. Secretory IgA is primarily involved in protection of mucosal surfaces. Mucosal immunization is an effective way of inducing immune responses at mucosal surfaces. Several mucosal vaccines are in various stages of development. A number of mucosal adjuvants have been proposed. CpG oligodeoxynucleotide (ODN) has been shown to be an effective mucosal adjuvant for various antigens. Mucosal immunity induced by intranasal immunization was studied with a pneumococcal glycoconjugate, using CpG ODN as adjuvant. Mice immunized with type 9V polysaccharide (PS) conjugated to inactivated pneumolysin (Ply) plus CpG produced high levels of 9V PS IgG and IgA antibodies compared to the group that received the conjugate alone. High levels of subclasses of IgG1, IgG2 and IgG3 antibodies were also observed in sera of mice immunized with 9V PS-Ply plus CpG. In addition, high IgG and IgA antibody responses were observed in sera of young mice immunized with 9V PS-Ply plus CpG or the conjugate plus non-CpG compared with the group received the conjugate alone. These results reveal that mucosal immunization with pneumococcal glycoconjugate using CpG as adjuvant can confer protective immunity against pneumococcal infection.
Analysis of domain motions in large proteins

We present a new approach for determining dynamical domains in large proteins, either based on a comparison of different experimental structures, or on a simplified normal mode calculation for a single conformation. In a first step, a deformation measure is evaluated for all residues in the protein; a high deformation indicates highly flexible interdomain regions. The sufficiently rigid parts of the protein are then classified into rigid domains and low‐deformation interdomain regions on the basis of their global motion. We demonstrate the techniques on three proteins: citrate synthase, which has been the subject of earlier domain analyses, HIV‐1 reverse transcriptase, which has a rather complex domain structure, and aspartate transcarbamylase as an example of a very large protein. These examples show that the comparison of conformations and the normal mode analysis lead to essentially the same domain identification, except for cases where the experimental conformations differ by the presence of a large ligand, such as a DNA strand. Normal mode analysis has the advantage of requiring only one experimental structure and of providing a more detailed picture of domain movements, e.g. the splitting of domains into subdomains at higher frequencies. Proteins 1999;34:369–382. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Prophage Induction of Noninducible Coliphage 186

Coliphage 186 has been regarded as a member of the noninducible group of coliphages. Evidence that prophage 186 is induced by ultraviolet irradiation or by treatment with nalidixic acid or mitomycin C is now presented. The phage yields were similar to those from lysogens of the inducible phage lambda, and the induction required a recA+ host. A noninducible mutant of 186 was isolated from its heat-inducible derivative, 186cIts, that was no longer inducible by ultraviolet irradiation but remained heat inducible. That zygotic induction of 186 after transfer from a lysogenic male to a non-lysogenic recipient did not occur is indicated by the following findings: (i) there was only a slight increase in phage titer; (ii) similar levels of recombinants were obtained for markers adjacent or distal to the phage integration site, whether the recipient was lysogenic or not, and there was no effect on the gradient of marker transfer; (iii) lysogenic recombinants were readily found and the co-transfer of 186 with adjacent markers was the same to lysogenic or non-lysogenic recipients. Thus, 186 formed an inducible prophage that did not display zygotic induction. Nevertheless, it shared many properties with the noninducible phage P2 as outlined in the discussion.
Effect of 2‐(4‐Phenylpiperidino)cyclohexanol on Acetylcholine Release and Subcellular Distribution in Rat Striatal Slices

Abstract These experiments measured the effect of 2‐(4‐phenylpiperidino)cyclohexanol (AH5183) on the release of acetylcholine (ACh) and its subcellular distribution in slices of rat striatum incubated in vitro. The AH5183, a drug that blocks the uptake of ACh by isolated synaptic vesicles, reduced the release of ACh from slices stimulated to release transmitter in response to K+ depolarization. Tissue stimulated in the presence of AH5183 contained more ACh in a nerve terminal cytoplasmic fraction than did tissue stimulated in the drug's absence, but stimulation in AH5183's presence reduced the amount of ACh measured in fractions containing synaptic vesicles. The depletion of ACh caused by stimulating tissue in the presence of AH5183 was more evident in the fraction of nerve terminal ACh occluded within synaptic vesicles as isolated by gradient centrifuga‐tion (fraction D) than it was in other nerve terminal occluded stores. It is concluded that the synaptic vesicles isolated as fraction D under the present experimental conditions likely contain releasable transmitter. The AH5183 also depressed the spontaneous release of ACh from incubated slices of striatum and this effect was evident in the presence or the absence of medium Ca2+. It is suggested that this effect might indicate that the process of spontaneous ACh release measured neurochemically results, in part, from an AH5183‐sensitive carrier‐mediated process.
[Safety analysis for astronaut and the personal protective equipment].

Objective. To analyze and study astronaut and his personal equipment safety. Method. Three of the most widely used approaches, failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA), fault tree analysis (FTA) and system hazards analysis (SHA) were used. Result. It was demonstrated that astronaut and the personal equipment are subjected to various potential hazards, such as human errors, astronaut illness, fire or space suit emergency decompression, etc. Their causes, mechanisms, possible effects and criticality of some critical potential hazards were analyzed and identified in more details with considerations of the historic accidents of manned spaceflight. And the compensating provisions and preventive measures for each hazard were discussed. Conclusion. The analysis study may be helpful in enhancing the safety of the astronaut and its personal protective equipment.
Searching in Cloud Object Storage by Using a Metadata Model

In a Cloud environment, an independent service or model referred to as object storage is used for the management of persistent data. This model provides a virtualized pool of storage resources and can be accessed via Application Programming Interface (API) and/or simply a browser. Object storage is used to store the persistent data from various users through put/get methods and it also store the virtual machine images as objects. Cloud storage services are used by enterprises, home users and researchers to store their files that vary in size and formats. With the huge amount of stored data which is mostly unstructured, comes the related issue of finding the exact data relevant to the requirements of a user. In current offerings such as Amazon, Eucalyptus and Google, the contents or objects are defined by a key-value pair. These objects can be listed based on the key, but searching and finding contents with any other parameters (metadata) such as type, size, owner, time stamps etc., is not supported. In this paper we propose a metadata model that address the issue of collecting, adding, and storing metadata associated with objects in Eucalyptus Cloud. Furthermore, the stored metadata is utilized to provide the feature of fast, effective and efficient searching of contents in a Cloud.
Suppression of Cell Proliferation by Tissue Plasminogen Activator During the Early Phase After Balloon Injury Minimizes Intimal Hyperplasia in Hypercholesterolemic Rabbits

Thrombus formation is a key component of the pathogenesis of restenosis after arterial balloon injury. The purpose of this study was to determine whether intimal hyperplasia could be attenuated by infusion of recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (tPA). Forty-two Kurosawa and Kusanagi hypercholesterolemic rabbits were divided into tPA (n = 20) and control (n = 22) groups, the former receiving 7 days of continuous tPA infusion (0.6 mg/kg/day) via ear veins. The walls of the common iliac arteries were injured using 2.5-mm balloon catheters and then examined histologically 7, 14, 21, and 28 days later. Cell proliferation was assessed by immunohistochemical analysis of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), and transforming growth factor (TGF)-β immunohistochemistry was carried out to estimate cell proliferation and differentiation. It was observed that 28 days after balloon injury, intimal cross-sectional areas in the tPA group were significantly smaller than in controls (0.11 ± 0.03 mm2 vs. 0.57 ± 0.08 mm2, p < 0.01), as were ratios of the cross-sectional areas of the intima and media (0.21 ± 0.07 vs. 1.06 ± 0.18, p < 0.05). In addition, the numbers of PCNA-positive medial cells were significantly lower (0.06 ± 0.01 vs. 0.36 ± 0.08, p < 0.05) and TGF-β-positive vessel wall areas were significantly smaller in tPA-treated animals 7 days after balloon injury (0.47 ± 0.28% vs. 4.55 ± 1.44%, p < 0.05). Thus infusion of tPA after arterial balloon injury appears to decrease medial cell proliferation and suppress intimal hyperplasia.
Maturation of antibody avidity after primary human cytomegalovirus infection is delayed in immunosuppressed solid organ transplant patients

An IgG antibody avidity assay which uses urea to modify a commercial enzyme‐linked immu‐nosorbent assay (ELISA) has been investigated for its ability to distinguish primary human cy‐tomegalovirus (CMV) from recurrent or long‐term infection. Twenty‐four immunosuppressed solid organ transplant patients were studied. The avidity indices for IgG to CMV were low for 12 out of 13 patients with primary infection (mean 18%), high for all 11 patients with long‐term infection (mean 85%), and the 1 patient with primary infection showing an intermediate avidity index (51%) was found to have acquired passively large amounts of CMV immunoglobulin, presumably of high avidity, during therapy.
Clinical consequences of PKHD1 mutations in 164 patients with autosomal-recessive polycystic kidney disease (ARPKD).

BACKGROUND ARPKD is associated with mutations in the PKHD1 gene on chromosome 6p12. Most cases manifest peri-/neonatally with a high mortality rate in the first month of life while the clinical spectrum of surviving patients is much more variable than generally perceived. METHODS We examined the clinical course of 164 neonatal survivors (126 unrelated families) over a mean observation period of 6 years (range 0 to 35 years). PKHD1 mutation screening was done by denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography (DHPLC) for the 66 exons encoding the 4074 aa fibrocystin/polyductin protein. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION This is the first study that reports the long-term outcome of ARPKD patients with defined PKHD1 mutations. The 1- and 10-year survival rates were 85% and 82%, respectively. Chronic renal failure was first detected at a mean age of 4 years. Actuarial renal survival rates [end point defined as start of dialysis/renal transplantation (RTX) or by death due to end-stage renal disease (ESRD)] were 86% at 5 years, 71% at 10 years, and 42% at 20 years. All but six patients (92%) had a kidney length above or on the 97th centile for age. About 75% of the study population developed systemic hypertension. Sequelae of congenital hepatic fibrosis and portal hypertension developed in 44% of patients and were related with age. Positive correlations could further be demonstrated between renal and hepatobiliary-related morbidity suggesting uniform disease progression rather than organ-specific patterns. PKHD1 mutation analysis revealed 193 mutations (70 novel ones; 77% nonconservative missense mutations). No patient carried two truncating mutations corroborating that one missense mutation is indispensable for survival of newborns. We attempted to set up genotype-phenotype correlations and to categorize missense mutations. In 96% of families we identified at least one mutated PKHD1 allele (overall detection rate 76.6%) indicating that PKHD1 mutation screening is a powerful diagnostic tool in patients suspected with ARPKD.
Characterization of obstructive nonapneic respiratory events in moderate sleep apnea syndrome.

Obstructive nonapneic respiratory events (ONAREs, i.e., obstructive hypopneas [OHs] and respiratory effort related arousals [RERAs]) are clinically important as producing sleep fragmentation but are much more difficult to detect and classify than obstructive apneas. We characterized 1,061 ONAREs in 15 unselected patients with moderate sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS) according to the 1999 American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) Task Force recommendations concerning accurate skills for respiratory measurements (i.e., pneumotachograph and esophageal pressure [Pes]) and definitions of respiratory events. OHs were defined as > or = 50% decrease in flow or < 50% but > or = 30% decrease in flow associated with either a desaturation of > or = 3% or a cortical arousal. RERAs corresponded to a less than 30% decrease in flow associated with an arousal. OHs represented a large majority of the events (79.9%, n = 848). Among the events demonstrating a 30 to 50% reduction in flow (n = 392), the occurrence of a cortical arousal permitted the classification of 246 events as OHs (62.8%). RERAs represented only 5.3% of the events. Finally 14.8% of the events were classified as indeterminate owing to a < 50% and > or = 30% airflow decrease without arousal or desaturation or an airflow decrease less than 30% without arousal. The same level of DeltaPes was observed at the end of OHs and RERAs (21.9 +/- 5.5 versus 18.9 +/- 5.7 cm H(2)O respectively [NS]) whereas the reduction in flow was as expected, higher for OH (57.9 +/- 10.7 versus 21.3 +/- 4.9%). In a population of moderate OSAHS, OH represented the dominant type of ONAREs when RERAs should be considered as specific but relatively rare respiratory events. The occurrence and the recognition of a microarousal represented the key associated factor for classifying respiratory events as hypopneas. The high rate (15%) of unclassified events demonstrated some limitations in the AASM Task Force recommendations for definitions of respiratory events. Similar levels of DeltaPes found at the end of RERAs and OHs, although the reduction in flow was higher for OHs, suggest that different levels of collapsibility can exist throughout the night in a given patient.
Novel Polymorphisms of Adrenergic, Alpha-1B-, Receptor and Peroxisome Proliferator-activated Receptor Gamma, Coactivator 1 Beta Genes and Their Association with Egg Production Traits in Local Chinese Dagu Hens

Adrenergic, alpha-1B-, receptor (ADRA1B) and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma, coactivator 1 beta (PPARGC1B) genes are involved in regulation of hen ovarian development. In this study, these two genes were investigated as possible molecular markers associated with hen-housed egg production, egg weight (EW) and body weight in Chinese Dagu hens. Samples were analyzed using the polymerase chain reaction-single strand conformation polymorphism (PCR-SSCP) technique, followed by sequencing analysis. Two novel single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were identified within the candidate genes. Among them, an A/G transition at base position 1915 in exon 2 of ADRA1B gene and a T/C mutation at base position 6146 in the 3′-untranslated region (UTR) of PPARGC1B gene were found to be polymorphic and named SNP A1915G and T6146C, respectively. The SNP A1915G (ADRA1B) leads to a non-synonymous substitution (aspartic acid 489-to-glycine). The 360 birds from the Dagu population were divided into genotypes AA and AG, allele A was found to be present at a higher frequency. Furthermore, the AG genotype correlated with significantly higher hen-housed egg production (HHEP) at 30, 43, 57, and 66 wks of age and with a higher EW at 30 and 43 wks (p<0.05). For the SNP T6146C (PPARGC1B), the hens were typed into TT and TC genotypes, with the T allele shown to be dominant. The TC genotype was also markedly correlated with higher HHEP at 57 and 66 wks of age and EW at 30 and 43 wks (p<0.05). Moreover, four haplotypes were reconstructed based on these two SNPs, with the AGTC haplotype found to be associated with the highest HHEP at 30 to 66 wks of age and with higher EW at 30 and 43 wks (p<0.05). Collectively, the two SNPs identified in this study might be used as potential genetic molecular markers favorable in the improvement of egg productivity in chicken breeding.
A monolithic 512 point chirp Z transform processor

A monolithic analog 512 point chirp Z transform processor which calculates the discrete time Fourier transform will be described. A 6.1 × 5.5mm N-channel MOS chip includes premultiply, convolution and postmultiplication functions. Dynamic range of 63dB with operation from 1kHz to 1.5MHz has been measured.
Estimation of the Discrete Spectrum of Relaxations for Electromagnetic Induction Responses Using $\ell_{p}$-Regularized Least Squares for $0 \leq p \leq 1$

The electromagnetic induction response of a target can be accurately modeled by a sum of real exponentials. However, in practice, it is difficult to obtain the model parameters from measurements. We previously proposed a constrained linear method that can robustly estimate the model parameters when they are nonnegative. In this letter, we present a modified ℓp-regularized least squares algorithm, for 0 ≤ p ≤ 1, that eliminates the nonnegative constraint. An empirical method for choosing the regularization parameter is also studied. Using tests on synthetic data and laboratory measurements, the proposed method is shown to provide robust estimates of the model parameters in practice.