Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Peptide‐specific activation of cytolytic CD4+ T lymphocytes against tumor cells bearing mutated epitopes of K‐ras p21

Alterations in the ras p21 protein have been associated with both rodent and human neoplasia. Thus, mutated ras p21 proteins may bear unique antigenic epitopes for immune recognition, such as by T cells, which have been implicated in host antitumor activity. Synthetic peptides that mimic segments of mutated ras p21 have been reported to be immunogenic in mice in vivo, although detailed functional analyses remains undefined. Here, in a murine model, we explored and characterized distinct effector properties of host‐derived T lymphocytes reactive to mutated ras peptides, which was consistent with the CD4+ T helper type 1 (Th1) subset. BALB/c mice (H‐2d) were immunized with a purified peptide, 13 amino acids in length, containing the substitution of Gly (G12) to Val (V12) at position 12, which is commonly found in human carcinomas. An αβ T cell receptor‐positive, CD3+, CD4+, CD8− T cell line was established, which expressed peptide‐specific proliferation. Cytokine assays revealed the production of interleukin‐2, interferon‐γ, tumor necrosis factor and granulocytemacrophage colony‐stimulating factor. Moreover, antigen‐specific cytotoxicity was demonstrable against: (1) Iad‐bearing A20 tumor cells incubated with exogenously bound V12 peptide; and (2) A20 tumor cells transduced with the K‐ras p21 oncogene encoding the corresponding point mutation. CD4+‐mediated cytotoxicity was major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II‐restricted, as revealed by the absence of lysis against MHC class II− P815 targets, inhibition of A20 lysis with anti‐Iad monoclonal antibodies, and induction of lysis against L cell targets transfected with EαAβd. Independent isolation of a second CD4+ V12 line revealed a very similar cytolytic and MHC class II‐restricted profile. Overall, these data demonstrated that peptide immunization produced a CD4+ Th1 response that specifically recognized tumor cells expressing endogenous activated K‐ras epitopes, which may have implications for the development of peptide‐based active immunotherapies.
Childhood Poverty, Early Motherhood and Adult Social Exclusion

Childhood poverty and early parenthood are both high on the current political agenda. The key new issue that this research addresses is the relative importance of childhood poverty and of early motherhood as correlates of outcomes later in life. How far are the 'effects' of early motherhood on later outcomes due to childhood precursors, especially experience of childhood poverty? Subsidiary questions relate to the magnitude of these associations, the particular levels of childhood poverty that prove most critical, and whether, as often assumed, only teenage mothers are subsequently disadvantaged, or are those who have their first birth in their early twenties similarly disadvantaged? The source of data for this study is the National Child Development Study. We examine outcomes at age 33 for several domains of adult social exclusion: welfare, socio-economic, physical health, emotional well-being and demographic behaviour. We control for a wide range of childhood factors: poverty; social class of origin and of father; mother's and father's school leaving age; family structure; housing tenure; mother's and father's interest in education; personality attributes; performance on educational tests; and contact with the police by age 16. There are clear associations for the adult outcomes with age at first birth, even after controlling for childhood poverty and the other childhood background factors. Moreover, we demonstrate that the widest gulf in adult outcomes occurs for those who enter motherhood early (before age 23), though further reinforced by teenage motherhood for most adult outcomes. We also show that any experience of childhood poverty is clearly associated with adverse outcomes in adulthood, with reinforcement for higher levels of childhood poverty for a few outcomes.
The complexity of the visual cells and visual pathways of the sturgeon

The visual cells in the retinae of the sturgeon were studied by scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Our investigations revealed the presence of rods, two types of single cones, one type of double cone (two nonidentical cone components adhered together), and one type of twin cone (two identical cone components adhered together). In some of the cones, large glycogen bodies were present in the inner segments and all cones contained oil droplets. Such cone morphology was very similar to that described in the retinae of higher vertebrates, for example the chicken. DiI tracing of retinofugal pathways following uniocular injection demonstrated their bilateral localization and extensive termination in the diencephalon and mesencephalon of both sides. Fibers also crossed over from one side to another through commissures, including the posterior commissure. The complexity of the pathway surpassed that of the teleosts and further indicated the evolutionary importance of this fish. Microsc. Res. Tech. 65:122–129, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Dissecting Antibodies Induced by a Chimeric Yellow Fever–Dengue, Live-Attenuated, Tetravalent Dengue Vaccine (CYD-TDV) in Naive and Dengue-Exposed Individuals

Sanofi Pasteur has developed a chimeric yellow fever-dengue, live-attenuated, tetravalent dengue vaccine (CYD-TDV) that is currently approved for use in several countries. In clinical trials, CYD-TDV was efficacious at reducing laboratory-confirmed cases of dengue disease. Efficacy varied by dengue virus (DENV) serotype and prevaccination dengue immune status. We compared the properties of antibodies in naive and DENV-exposed individuals who received CYD-TDV. We depleted specific populations of DENV-reactive antibodies from immune serum samples to estimate the contribution of serotype-cross-reactive and type-specific antibodies to neutralization. Subjects with no preexisting immunity to DENV developed neutralizing antibodies to all 4 serotypes of DENV. Further analysis demonstrated that DENV4 was mainly neutralized by type-specific antibodies whereas DENV1, DENV2, and DENV3 were mainly neutralized by serotype cross-reactive antibodies. When subjects with preexisting immunity to DENV were vaccinated, they developed higher levels of neutralizing antibodies than naive subjects who were vaccinated. In preimmune subjects, CYD-TDV boosted cross-reactive neutralizing antibodies while maintaining type-specific neutralizing antibodies acquired before vaccination. Our results demonstrate that the quality of neutralizing antibodies induced by CYD-TDV varies depending on DENV serotype and previous immune status. We discuss the implications of these results for understanding vaccine efficacy.
Use of statins and reduced risk of recurrence of VTE in an older population

Summary We aimed to determine whether statin use is associated with a decreased risk of recurrent venous thromboembolism (VTE) in older patients. We used a pre-assembled cohort of patients at least 65 years of age diagnosed with incident VTE between January 1, 1994 and December 31, 2004 in the province of Québec, Canada and followed until December 31, 2005. Time-dependent Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) and 95 % confidence intervals (CIs) of recurrent VTE associated with current and past use of statins, compared with non-use. The cohort included 25,681 patients with incident VTE. During a mean follow-up of 3.0 years, there were 2343 recurrent VTE events (rate: 3.1 per 100 personyears). Compared with non-use, current use of statins was associated with a decreased risk of VTE recurrence (rates: 1.55 vs 3.47 per 100 per year, respectively; HR: 0.74, 95 % CI: 0.61–0.89), while no association was observed with past use (HR: 0.98, 95 % CI: 0.76–1.25). In a secondary analysis, longer durations of statin use were associated with greater risk reductions (0–6 months, HR 0.82, 95 % CI: 0.67–1.01; 6–12 months, HR 0.62, 95 % CI: 0.43–0.90; ≥ 12 months, HR: 0.50, 95 % CI: 0.33–0.74; p-value for trend ≤ 0.001). The use of statin was associated with a decreased risk of recurrent VTE in older patients. This study supports the need for randomised controlled trials to assess the efficacy and safety of statins in the long-term treatment of VTE.
nergy-aware load monitoring for improving battery life of mobile eer-to-peer nodes

In this article, we propose an energy-aware load monitoring model, called e-Mon, for enabling energyaware load balancing in Peer-to-Peer (P2P) systems. P2P is a scalable and self-organizing technology for utilizing computational resources of the end-user devices for the benefit of a computing system. In P2P systems, the need for fair balance of load is crucial since the end-users need to be incentivized to participate in the system. The short battery life, caused by additional strain on the computational resources of the end-user devices, is a significant negative incentive factor for mobile end-users of current P2P systems. The e-Mon model, proposed in this article, enables moving load from energy-critical to less energy-critical nodes in P2P systems. This is done by including the energy status of a peer node as one of the factors defining a node’s load. The model helps saving the energy of mobile P2P nodes,
What if they knocked down the library and nobody noticed? The failure to detect large changes to familiar scenes

The purpose of the current study was to investigate people's ability to detect changes to familiar scenes. College students were asked either to identify what was wrong with a picture of a familiar location on their college campus (e.g., the library had been removed from the scene), or to estimate the difficulty of change detection for a hypothetical cohort performing the same task. Performance in the change-detection condition was extremely poor, even when changes were large. Participants who were familiar with the scenes and those who were unfamiliar with the scenes both overestimated the actual levels of change-detection performance. A follow-up analysis indicated that the participants who were unfamiliar with the scenes produced estimations of difficulty that were highly correlated with the mathematical area of the change, whereas participants who were familiar with the scenes produced estimations of difficulty that were highly correlated with the actual difficulty of change detection. The results indicate that people's visual long-term memory for familiar scenes lacks the precision to be able to effectively identify even large-scale changes, although subjectively people believe this should be relatively easy.
Gastric Adenocarcinoma and Helicobacter pylori Infection

California Department of Health Services: Domoic acid intoxication. Calif Morbidity, May 1, 1992, Nos. 17 and 18 Dickey RW, Fryxell GA, Granade HR, Roelke D: Detection of the marine toxins okadaic acid and domoic acid in shellfish and phytoplankton in the Gulf of Mexico. Toxicon 1992; 30:355-359 Perl TM, Bedard L, Kosatsky T, Hockin JC, Todd ECW, Remis RS: An outbreak of toxic encephalopathy caused by eating mussels contaminated with domoic acid. N Engl J Med 1990; 322:1775-1780 Teitelbaum J, Zatorre RJ, Carpenter S, et al: Neurologic sequelae of domoic acid intoxication due to the ingestion of contaminated mussels. N Engl J Med 1990; 322:1781-1787
Minimum number of pneumococci required for capsular antigen to be detectable by latex agglutination

Forty-eight strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae were tested in vitro to determine the minimum number required for pneumococcal capsular antigen to be detectable by latex agglutination. It was found that 10(6) to 10(7) microorganisms per ml were needed and that antigen remained detectable even when viable pneumococci could no longer be demonstrated.
Keynote address: access to data in NASA's Earth observing system

Experience has demonstrated clearly the need for a functional data system for collecting, processing, managing, and distributing Earth science data, particularly satellite remote sensing data. The start of NASA’s Earth Observing System (EOS) has created a new need for a comprehensive data system to handle the large amount of remotely sensed data anticipated from the EOS instruments, the related in situ observations, measurements from other satellites, and scientific data products. The estimated data volume at the end of the century exceeds 1 TB/day. The information system (EOSDIS) to store, manage, and provide access to these data is as critical to the success of the mission as the measurements from the satellites. EOSDIS has evolved through several stages, establishing a precedent for continued evolution of a system whose goal is to provide useful data and information to working Earth scientists.
Growing in Debt: the &Apos;Farm Crisis&Apos; and Public Policy

U.S. farms, and with them agricultural lending institutions, are currently experiencing their most severe stress since the 1930s. As international trade in farm products has expanded, so has the sensitivity of farm incomes to fluctuations in domestic and world economic conditions. Thus, while price stabilization, acreage reduction, and related policies in place since the 1930s were relatively successful in stabilizing farm income during the 1950s and 1960s, they are likely to be less effective in achieving this goal in the future. Our analysis of state-level panel data indicates that disruptions in agricultural credit markets can have real effects on farm output. That finding is consistent with the conventional wisdom that, unlike credit markets for large firms or for firms for which monitoring is less costly, agricultural financial markets require close customer arrangements. Local financial institutions, for which such relationships are best developed, are often unable for institutional reasons to diversify their loan risks either within agriculture or across other geographically separated activities. The deviations from perfect markets indicate an economic rationale -- in addition to the usual political, social, and national defense rationales -- for government intervention in agricultural credit markets. Our empirical evidence supports the view that maintaining customer relationships in agricultural finance is important. Because of the Farm Credit System's ability to pool agricultural loan risks nationally and its access to national capital markets, it will continue to be an important lender in agricultural credit markets.
Comparative Analysis of Managerial Ownership and Its Effect on Corporate Performance in Selected Asian and European Transition Economies

This paper analyzes determinants and consequences of managerial ownership within ownership structures of the selected European and Asian transition countries. Focus of the analysis is the influence of the specific unification of ownership and control on corporate performance. Findings in the paper are based on research that produced empirical data for Croatia which is subsequently compared with evidence from other Asian and European transition countries facing the same issues. Consequently, transitional ownership structures, influenced by actual privatization process, like emergent corporate governance mechanisms, highly concentrated ownership and undeveloped markets for corporate control are also described. Research findings show that direct or indirect managerial ownership are important phenomena in transition countries, research has also shown that stable and concentrated managerial ownership have positive effects on firms' profitability in the observed transitional environments.
DPSO Based SEPIC Converter in PV System under Partial Shading Condition

— This paper proposes an improved Maximum Power Point Tracking of PhotoVoltaic system using Deterministic Partical Swarm Optimization technique. This method has the ability to track the maximum power under varying environmental conditions i.e. partial shading conditions. The advantage of this method, particles moves in the restricted value of velocity to achieve the maximum power. SEPIC converter is employed to boost up the voltage of PV system. To estimate the value of the proposed method, MATLAB simulation carried out under partial shading condition.
Detection of Respiratory Syncytial Virus and Human Metapneumovirus in Children with Respiratory Tract Infection by Use Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction

Background: Respiratory tract illness is a major cause of morbidity and mortality among children, elderly and immunocompromised patients worldwide. Objective: To determine the infection rate of respiratory syncytial virus and human metapneumovirus among children with respiratory tract infection in Baghdad city. Patients and Methods: A cross sectional study was based on the processing of nasopharyngeal swabs from 150 children with acute respiratory tract infections, (81) males and (69)females; aged under five years old, who was admitted to Al-Imamin Al-Kadhimin Medical City and Pediatrics Protection Hospital in Baghdad during the period from December 2017 till April 2018. Nasopharyngeal swabs were collected from each participant and stored as frozen at -70 °C to use for RNA extraction and real timepolymerase chain reaction. Results: Out of all these samples, 54 samples were positive for respiratory syncytial virus (36%) and human metapneumovirus (1.33%). The infection rate of respiratory syncytial virus is more common in males (57.41%) than females and in children ≤ one year (37.04%) also high frequency were noticed among patients live in an urban area (72.22%) (50%) respectively and winter. According to different clinical feature, fever, cough, and wheezing were more common. Conclusion: The infection rate of respiratory syncytial virus was more than human metapneumovirus in children with respiratory tract infection using real time-PCR technique and the clinical manifestations were more common during respiratory syncytial virus and human metapneumovirus infection are cough, fever, wheezing.
Subchronic toxicity (90-day) study with para-nonylphenol in rats.

As a component to the risk assessment process for para-nonylphenol (NP; CASRN 84852-15-3), a 90-day study was conducted in rats following U.S. EPA TSCA guidelines and Good Laboratory Practice regulations. NP was administered to four groups of rats at dietary concentrations of 0, 200, 650, or 2000 ppm which corresponded to approximate dietary intakes of 0, 15, 50, or 150 mg/kg/day, respectively. There were 25 rats/sex/group in the control and high-dose groups and 15 rats/sex/group in the low- and middose groups. Ten of the 25 rats/sex in the control and high-dose groups were designated as recovery animals and were maintained on control diets for 4 weeks after completion of the 90-day exposure period to assess the reversibility of any effects which might be observed. To evaluate for the possible weak estrogen-like activity that has been reported for NP in a number of screening assays, estrous cyclicity was monitored using vaginal cytology during Week 8 of the study, and sperm count, motility, and morphology were evaluated at termination. In-life effects from NP exposure were limited to small decreases in body weight and food consumption in the 2000-ppm dose group. Postmortem measurements at Week 14 indicated a dose-related kidney weight increase in males and a decrease in renal hyaline globules/droplets in males from the high-dose group. The kidney weights showed complete recovery following the 4-week postdosing recovery period. Due to the small magnitude of the changes (i.e., all weights were within or near laboratory historical control values) and the lack of correlating clinical or histopathological changes, the kidney weight alterations were not considered toxicologically significant. The biological significance of reduced hyaline in the kidneys of male rats from the high-dose group is uncertain. Renal tubular hyaline is associated with the rat-specific protein, alpha-2u-globulin, and, therefore, this finding was not considered toxicologically relevant to humans. No other effects attributable to NP were observed. No changes were observed for estrous cycling, sperm evaluations, or effects on endocrine organs. NP, therefore, did not manifest any estrogen-like activity as measured in these parameters at dietary concentrations as high as 2000 ppm, the maximum dose administered in this study. Based on the minor findings for the 2000-ppm dose group, the NOAEL (no-observed-adverse-effect level) for NP in this study is considered to be 650 ppm in the diet, corresponding to an approximate intake of 50 mg/kg/day.
The regulatory interplay between membrane‐integrated sensors and transport proteins in bacteria

Bacteria sense environmental stimuli and transduce this information to cytoplasmic components of the signal transduction machinery to cope with and to adapt to ever changing conditions. Hence, bacteria are equipped with numerous membrane‐integrated proteins responsible for sensing such as histidine kinases, chemoreceptors and ToxR‐like proteins. There is increasing evidence that sensors employ transport proteins as co‐sensors. Transport proteins are well‐suited information carriers as they bind low‐molecular‐weight molecules in the external medium and transport them into the cytoplasm, allowing them to provide dynamic information on the metabolic flux. This review explores the sensing capabilities of secondary permeases, primary ABC‐transporters, and soluble substrate‐binding proteins. Employing transporters as co‐sensors seems to be a sophisticated and probably widely distributed mechanism.
Storytelling through Art: Teaching the History of Indonesia with Video Games

Games nowadays have been associated with the decline of a child’s academic performance. Whether this is true or not, it remains to be seen, as there’s no link that has been found between the two after several researchers conducted their own research. This paper’s aim is to discuss whether the game art motivates the user to find out more about the topic that are brought up in the said game, which in this case is the history of Indonesia, specifically from the periods of just before and during the Japanese Occupation to the Declaration of Indonesia’s Independence in 1945. Aside from accurate depiction of objects, buildings or events, another question posed is whether the chosen art style conveys the atmosphere of the situation depicted, and if it helps with the storytelling of the game.