Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gating properties of girk channels activated by gαo‐ and Gαi‐Coupled Muscarinic m2 Receptors in Xenopus Oocytes: The Role of Receptor Precoupling in RGS Modulation

‘Regulators of G protein Signalling’ (RGSs) accelerate the activation and deactivation kinetics of G protein‐gated inwardly rectifying K+ (GIRK) channels. In an apparent paradox, RGSs do not reduce steady‐state GIRK current amplitudes as expected from the accelerated rate of deactivation when reconstituted in Xenopus oocytes. We present evidence here that this kinetic anomaly is dependent on the degree of G protein‐coupled receptor (GPCR) precoupling, which varies with different Gαi/o‐RGS complexes. The gating properties of GIRK channels (Kir3.1/Kir3.2a) activated by muscarinic m2 receptors at varying levels of G protein expression were examined with or without the co‐expression of either RGS4 or RGS7 in Xenopus oocytes. Different levels of specific m2 receptor‐Gα coupling were established by uncoupling endogenous pertussis toxin (PTX)‐sensitive Gαi/o subunits with PTX, while expressing varying amounts of a single PTX‐insensitive subunit (Gαi1(C351G), Gαi2(C352G), Gαi3(C351G), GαoA(C351G), or GαoB(C351G)). Co‐expression of each of the PTX‐insensitive Gαi/o subunits rescued acetylcholine (ACh)‐elicited GIRK currents (IK,ACh) in a concentration‐dependent manner, with Gαo isoforms being more effective than Gαi isoforms. Receptor‐independent ‘basal’ GIRK currents (IK,basal) were reduced with increasing expression of PTX‐insensitive Gα subunits and were accompanied by a parallel rise in IK,ACh. These effects together are indicative of increased Gβγ scavenging by the expressed Gα subunit and the subsequent formation of functionally coupled m2 receptor‐G protein heterotrimers (Gα(GDP)βγ). Co‐expression of RGS4 accelerated all the PTX‐insensitive Gαi/o‐coupled GIRK currents to a similar extent, yet reduced IK,ACh amplitudes 60‐90 % under conditions of low Gαi/o coupling. Kinetic analysis indicated the RGS4‐dependent reduction in steady‐state GIRK current was fully explained by the accelerated deactivation rate. Thus kinetic inconsistencies associated with RGS4‐accelerated GIRK currents occur at a critical threshold of G protein coupling. In contrast to RGS4, RGS7 selectively accelerated Gαo‐coupled GIRK currents. Co‐expression of Gβ5, in addition to enhancing the kinetic effects of RGS7, caused a significant reduction (70‐85 %) in steady‐state GIRK currents indicating RGS7‐Gβ5 complexes disrupt Gαo coupling. Altogether these results provide further evidence for a GPCR‐Gαβγ‐GIRK signalling complex that is revealed by the modulatory affects of RGS proteins on GIRK channel gating. Our functional experiments demonstrate that the formation of this signalling complex is markedly dependent on the concentration and composition of G protein‐RGS complexes.
Transition animations support orientation in mobile interfaces without increased user effort

Some animations in mobile user interfaces aim at supporting user orientation by facilitating users to build a mental model of the UI's structure. Possible drawbacks are that animations are time-consuming and that complex and distracting animations may increase users' mental workload. These effects of orientation animations are investigated in an empirical study. Participants either used an animated or a non-animated version of a mobile movie recommender app. The results imply that animations can support users in building more accurate mental models of the app's structure and enhance gesture-based interaction. No additional costs in terms of time or mental workload were incurred when using the animations. Thus, lightweight orientation animations can have large potential benefits at little cost.
Detection of novel respiratory viruses from influenza‐like illness in the Philippines†

Several novel viruses have been recently identified in respiratory samples. However, the epidemiology of these viruses in tropical countries remains unclear. The aim of the present study was to provide an overview of the epidemiology of novel respiratory viruses, including human metapneumovirus, human bocavirus, new subtypes of human coronavirus (NL63 and HKU1), KI virus, WU virus, and Melaka virus in the Philippines, a tropical country. Nasopharyngeal aspirates from 465 patients with influenza‐like illness were collected in 2006 and 2007. Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) and PCR were performed to detect viruses from culture‐negative specimens. Human metapneumovirus, human bocavirus, human coronavirus HKU1, KI virus, and WU virus were detected for the first time in the Philippines; Melaka virus was not found. J. Med. Virol. 82:1071–1074, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Comparison of body mass index and triceps skinfold at 5 years and young adult body mass index, waist circumference and blood pressure

Aim: To examine which measure of obesity at 5 years, body mass index (BMI) or triceps skinfold thickness, is most strongly associated with 21‐year risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD), including BMI, waist circumference (WC), systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP).
Local Manifold Learning-Based $k$ -Nearest-Neighbor for Hyperspectral Image Classification

Approaches to combine local manifold learning (LML) and the k -nearest-neighbor (kNN) classifier are investigated for hyperspectral image classification. Based on supervised LML (SLML) and kNN, a new SLML-weighted kNN (SLML-W kNN) classifier is proposed. This method is appealing as it does not require dimensionality reduction and only depends on the weights provided by the kernel function of the specific ML method. Performance of the proposed classifier is compared to that of unsupervised LML (ULML) and SLML for dimensionality reduction in conjunction with the kNN (ULML- kNN and SLML-k NN). Three LML methods, locally linear embedding (LLE), local tangent space alignment (LTSA), and Laplacian eigenmaps, are investigated with these classifiers. In experiments with Hyperion and AVIRIS hyperspectral data, the proposed SLML-WkNN performed better than ULML- kNN and SLML-k NN, and the highest accuracies were obtained using weights provided by supervised LTSA and LLE.
Natural Killer Cells in Bal and Peripheral Blood of Patients with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF)

Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis/Usual Interstitial Pneumonia (IPF/UIP) represents the most important interstitial pneumonia. A Th2 cytokine pathway predominance, favouring collagen deposition, associated to a deficit in IFN-γ network, seems to be involved in the pathogenesis of this disease. Nonetheless, few data are available about the potentially involved cells. Natural killer cells (NK), are one of the most important subsets implicated in the IFN-γ network. The aim of this study was to assess NK cells, both in BAL and peripheral blood of 11 patients suffering from IPF (group A) with respect to 11 patients with other interstitial pneumonia (Group B). Our results did not show any statistically significant difference in NK percentage in BAL between group A and B. On the contrary, patients with IPF showed a higher percentage of NK cells (t = 2.41; p < .05) and absolute number of cells (t = 2.32; p < 0.05) in peripheral blood, as well as a strong positive correlation between circulating and BAL NK cells (r = .69; p <.05). This finding shows, for the first time, a relationship between peripheral and lung resident cell environments in humans suggesting a possible systemic involvements in the natural history of IPF.
The Review of the Effectivity of the Augmented Reality Experiential Marketing Tool in Customer Engagement

This research paper intends to discuss on how Augmented Reality Experiential Marketing is used to stay connected with customers more effectively with hi-technological equipment in associating the customer with a brand. Moreover, this paper pinpoints the advantages of using AREM to generate effective connection in gaining customersâ€™ attention. It will also highlight how AREM will attract possible prospects that will be beneficial for companies that need to grow in the market share. Aside from that, it also reflects the evolution of Virtual Reality to Augmented Reality, which has been further altered by marketers to Augmented Reality Experiential Marketing as an essential tool to sustain business in this current era.
Is it Mine? Hemispheric Asymmetries in Corporeal Self-recognition

The aim of this study was to investigate whether the recognition of self body parts is independent from the recognition of other people's body parts. If this is the case, the ability to recognize self body parts should be selectively impaired after lesion involving specific brain areas. To verify this hypothesis, patients with lesion of the right (right brain-damaged [RBD]) or left (left brain-damaged [LBD]) hemisphere and healthy subjects were submitted to a visual matching-to-sample task in two experiments. In the first experiment, stimuli depicted their own body parts or other people's body parts. In the second experiment, stimuli depicted parts of three categories: objects, bodies, and faces. In both experiments, participants were required to decide which of two vertically aligned images (the upper or the lower one) matched the central target stimulus. The results showed that the task indirectly tapped into bodily self-processing mechanisms, in that both LBD patients and normal subjects performed the task better when they visually matched their own, as compared to others', body parts. In contrast, RBD patients did not show such an advantage for self body parts. Moreover, they were more impaired than LBD patients and normal subjects when visually matching their own body parts, whereas this difference was not evident in performing the task with other people's body parts. RBD patients' performance for the other stimulus categories (face, body, object), although worse than LBD patients' and normal subjects' performance, was comparable across categories. These findings suggest that the right hemisphere may be involved in the recognition of self body parts, through a fronto-parietal network.
Development of a pneumatic artificial muscle based on biomechanical characteristics

This paper reports the development of a pneumatic artificial muscle based on biomechanical characteristics. A wearable device and a rehabilitation robot which assists a human muscle should have characteristics similar to those of human muscle. In addition, because the wearable device and the rehabilitation robot should be light, an actuator with a high power/weight ratio is needed. At present, the McKibben type is widely used as an artificial muscle, but in fact its physical model is highly nonlinear. Further, the heat and mechanical loss of this actuator are large because of the friction caused by the expansion and contraction of the sleeve. Therefore, the authors have developed an artificial muscle tube in which high strength Kevlar fiber has been built into the silicone tube. However, its contraction rate is smaller than actual biological muscles. In this study, an artificial muscle with a high contraction rate was developed by using natural latex rubber as the tube material. Since the elasticity of this material is smaller than that of silicone, characteristics similar to those of an actual muscle can be expected. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of this artificial muscle regarding its fundamental and biomechanical characteristics.
Tools for the Visualization of Definition Networks in Legal Contracts Research

This paper describes the development of prototype software-based tools for visualizing definitions within legal contracts. The tools demonstrate visualization techniques for enhancing the readability and comprehension of definitions and their associated characteristics. This contributes to more accurate and efficient drafting or reading of contracts through the exploration of the meaning and use of definitions including via word clouds, multilayer navigation, adjacency matrix and graph tree representations.
Beyond teleology: ancient mathematics and social history

The history and prehistory of the exact sciences has traditionally been the province of mathematicians, physicists and astronomers, using approaches that owe little to either history or archaeology (much less anthropology or linguistics). Such modes of analysis held as axiomatic the Platonic notion that mathematics was discovered rather than invented, and treated cultural variability in mathematics in terms of deviation from the ideal, which was held to reside in Western practice from Euclid onward. At best, the mathematics of ancient Near Eastern societies could be compared to the ‘Greek miracle’ by envisioning them as protoWestern, limited and tentative steps towards Truth, which could be treated in a handful of pages in history of mathematics textbooks.
Control of human articular chondrocyte differentiation by reduced oxygen tension

Cell number is often a limiting factor in studies of chondrocyte physiology, particularly for human investigations. Chondrocytes can be readily proliferated in monolayer culture, however, differentiated phenotype is soon lost. We therefore endeavored to restore normal phenotype to human chondrocytes after serial passage in monolayer culture by manipulating cell morphology and oxygen tension towards the in vivo state. Third passage cells were encapsulated in alginate and exposed to either 20% or more physiologic 5% oxygen tensions. To assess cell phenotype, gene expression was measured using TaqMan real‐time PCR. Encapsulated, primary chondrocytes cultured in 20% oxygen were used as a positive reference. Passaged human chondrocytes were fibroblastic in appearance and had lost normal phenotype as evidenced by a decrease in expression of collagen II, aggrecan, and sox9 genes of 66, 6, and 14 fold, respectively; with concomitant high expression of type I collagen (22 fold increase). A partial regaining of the differentiated phenotype was observed by encapsulation in 20% oxygen; however, even after 4 weeks, collagen II gene expression was not fully restored. Collagen II and aggrecan expression were increased, on average, 3 fold, in 5% oxygen tension compared to 20% cultures. Furthermore, matrix glycosaminoglycan (GAG) levels were significantly increased in reduced oxygen. In fact, after 4 weeks in 5% oxygen, encapsulated third passage cells had collagen II expression fully regained and aggrecan and sox9 levels actually exceeding primary cell levels in 20% oxygen. Our results show that the phenotype of serially passaged human articular chondrocytes is more fully restored by combining encapsulation with culture in more physiological levels of oxygen. Sox9, an essential transcription factor for chondrocyte differentiation is strongly implicated in this process since its expression was upregulated almost 27 fold. These findings have implications for the optimal conditions for the in vitro culture of chondrocytes. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Role-based access control for memory security on Network-on-Chips

Memory that storages key or security code and other sensitive data may be subject to unauthorized access on a Network-on-Chip. In order to respond to this threat, network security storage solution based on chip RBAC security model is proposed. The security manager assigns the roles to the application operations which run on the NoC. Different roles have different access rights, and security manager can dynamically configure roles and permissions. Hardware access control unit is embedded within the network interface which connects the memory. Access control unit can verify the legitimacy of access requests based on the role and the memory address, thereby preventing malicious operations reading and modifying sensitive data illegally. Experimental results show that the transmission delay caused by access control unit is small, and resource consumption is low.
W-band measurements of 100 /spl mu/m height micro-machined air-filled rectangular waveguides

The first S-parameter measurements of micro-machined 100 /spl mu/m high air-filled rectangular waveguides are reported, which have been performed at W-band using a specially designed test fixture connected to a standard vector network analyser. The results obtained show low loss and demonstrate propagation in TE/sub 10/ mode.
The fine structure of the lateral superior olivary nucleus of the cat

The synaptic organization of the lateral superior olivary nucleus of the cat was analyzed under the electron microscope. The predominant cell type, the fusiform cell, has dendrites that extend from opposite poles of the cell body toward the margins of the nucleus, where they terminate in spinous branches. The fusiform cells are contacted by three types of synaptic terminals that can be distinguished by the size and shape of their synaptic vesicles. The somatic and proximal dendritic surfaces are apposed by synaptic terminals containing small, flat synaptic vesicles. Further from the cell body, the dendrites form numerous synaptic contacts with terminals containing large round vesicles as well as with the terminals containing small, flat vesicles. The most distal dendritic branches and their spiny appendages appear to form synapses almost exclusively with the terminals with large, round vesicles. A relatively rare type of terminal that contains small, round vesicles may form synapses with either the somatic or dendritic surfaces. A few small cells are interspersed among the fusiform cells, but they are more commonly located around the margins of the nucleus. The small cells form few axosomatic contacts.
Les sources des hypertextes: une bibliographie commentée

Cette bibliographie fournit une liste commentee d'environ 150 articles concernant les hypertextes et les hypermedias. Cette bibliographie ou les articles sont classes selon des points-cles du domaine reflete la complexite actuelle du sujet: problemes non encore resolus, tentatives d'approches formelles dont aucune n'est une solution definitive; parallelement nombreux prototypes et systemes commerciaux
Modeling and rendering of gaseous phenomena using particle maps

Any modeling scheme for gaseous phenomena in graphics has to capture three aspects: the fuzzy geometry of the gas, the dynamics, characterized by the presence of vortices, and the interaction of light with the gaseous volume. We represent the gaseous volume as a particle system and apply vortex element methods (VEM) to model the dynamics. A Lagrangian formulation that is gridless and hence ideal for unbounded flows is used. A gridless approach to ray tracing the particle systems is developed using particle maps. These maps are used to estimate densities within a gaseous volume analogous to the way volume photon maps are used to estimate radiance during Monte Carlo ray tracing. A technique is proposed to merge particle and volume photon maps to obtain an effective method for simulating multiple scattering in a dynamic inhomogeneous participating medium. Our method for modeling and rendering gaseous phenomena is conceptually simple and grid free. Particle maps play an effective role, as the nearest neighbor information obtained during the rendering phase is exploited during the dynamics computation. We present results that demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.
The Pure Characteristics Discrete Choice Model with Application to Price Indices

In this paper we consider a class of discrete choice models in which consumers care about a finite set of product characteristics. These models have been used extensively in the theoretical literature on product differentiation, but have not as yet been translated into a form that is useful for empirical work. Most recent econometric applications of discrete choice models implicitly let the dimension of the characteristic space increase with the number of products. The models in this paper have very different theoretical properties. After developing those properties and comparing them to the properties of models where there is a taste for the product per se, we provide an algorithm for an estimator for the parameters of our model. In this version of the paper, we particularly consider how the modeling choices discussed in the paper affect the calculation of ideal consumer price indices, especially in the presence of new goods.
A Modulating Role for Antioxidants in Desiccation Tolerance1

Abstract Most organisms depend on the availability of water. However, some life-forms, among them plants and fungi, but very few animals, can survive in the desiccated state. Here we discuss biochemical mechanisms that confer tolerance to desiccation in photosynthetic and non-photosynthetic organisms. We first consider damage caused by water removal and point out that free radicals are a major cause of death in intolerant tissue. Free radicals impair metabolism and necessitate protection and repair during desiccation and rehydration, respectively. As a consequence, desiccation tolerance and prolonged longevity in the desiccated state depend on the ability to scavenge free radicals, using antioxidants such as glutathione, ascorbate, tocopherols and free radical-processing enzymes. Some ‘classic’ antioxidants may be absent in lower plants and fungi. On the other hand, lichens and seeds often contain secondary phenolic products with antioxidant properties. The major intracellular antioxidant consistently found in all life forms is glutathione, making it essential to survive desiccation. We finally discuss the role of glutathione to act as a signal that initiates programmed cell death. The failure of the antioxidant system during long-term desiccation appears to trigger programmed cell death, causing ageing and eventual death of the organism. In turn, this suggests that a potent antioxidant machinery is one of the underlying mechanisms of desiccation tolerance.
International Gender and Alcohol Research: Recent Findings and Future Directions

s international travel, migration, and mass media increase cross-national influences on alcohol use and alcohol-related problems, better understanding of the sociocultural influences on women’s and men’s drinking will become increasingly valuable for improving national and international efforts to reduce problems caused by alcohol consumption. This article summarizes international collaborative research con­ ducted during the past decade on gender-related influ­ ences on alcohol use, identifies future directions for research in this area, and suggests possible implications of this research for the development of more gendersensitive national and international alcohol policy.
Efficient Large-Scale Distributed Key Generation against Burst Interruption

A distributed key generation scheme allows the key servers to distributively share a secret key and then compute the corresponding public key. Canny and Sorkin (Canny and Sorkin, 2004) proposed a probabilistic threshold distributed key generation scheme that is suitable for the case that the number of key servers is large. The communication cost of their scheme is much less than that of previous schemes. Nevertheless, it is possible to improve their scheme in some aspects. In this paper we employ the randomness technique to cope with some problems encountered by their scheme. Our contribution is twofold. Firstly, our scheme is secure against a large cluster of dishonest key servers. Secondly, our scheme has better performance in some aspects. We support this point by a series of simulation experiments. As a result, our scheme and Canny and Sorkin’s scheme can be used in different situations.