Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Escherichia coli regulatory protein MetJ binds to a tandemly repeated 8bp palindrome

Site‐directed oligonucleotide mutagenesis has been used to isolate thirty four new mutants in the regulatory region of the Escherichia coliK12 gene, metF. The mutants include single base pair (bp) substitutions and insertions, double bp substitutions and one 7bp deletion. The effects of these and another five previously described mutants on the transcriptional regulation of metF have been analysed by using a metF′‐lac'Z fusion in a low copy‐number plasmid. These data, and those obtained from DNAse protection studies using pure MetJ with wild‐type and mutant metF operator DNA, show that the metF operator is comprised of five tandem 8bp repeat units that overlap the ‐10 region of the metF promoter. In the presence of the co‐repressor S‐adenosylmethionine, the DNAse protection studies yielded dissociation constants of 150nM and 300 nM for the interaction of MetJ with repeat units 1 to 4 and repeat unit 5, respectively. In the absence of co‐repressor, the dissociation constants obtained for these interactions are four to five times greater. It is proposed that regulation at the metF operator requires four molecules of MetJ dimer to bind to the five 8bp repeat units to form a tandem, overlapping array. Interactions between MetJ molecules make an essential contribution to the stability of this protein‐DNA complex.
Proteome study of colorectal carcinogenesis

Development of cancer is a complex process involving multiple changes in gene expression. To unravel these alterations, a proteome approach aimed at the identification of qualitative and quantitative changes in protein composition, including their post‐translational modifications, attracts great attention. Our study was focused on the identification of proteins whose amount is altered in the course of malignant transformation of colon mucosa. Proteins extracted from tissue specimens or cell lysates were separated by two‐dimensional gel electrophoresis (2‐DE). Comparative analyses of 2‐DE protein patterns were done using computerized image analysis. Selected proteins exhibiting statistically significant abundance alterations comparing healthy and diseased tissues were identified by mass spectrometry. Globally, we have found 57 proteins that exhibited either a significant decrease or increase in amount in pathological tissues, and 18 of these were annotated by mass spectrometry. The alterations in the expression of nine proteins were common for both precancerous and neoplastic tissues suggesting their role in colon tumorigenesis. The epithelial origin of all identified spots was checked in two cell lines Caco‐2 and DLD‐1 originating from well‐differentiated and poorly differentiated colon carcinoma, respectively.
Current Situation and Re-understanding of Syndrome and Formula Syndrome in Chinese Medicine

The relationship between disease, syndrome and formula is thought to be one of the most significant problems in TCM clinical and basic practice. Syndrome is not only the core of TCM basic theory and syndrome differentiation, but also the bridge linking disease and formula, the essence of which is a classification according to subjective symptom and objective sign collected by physician through inspection, auscultation-olfaction, interrogation and palpation. In China, further researches on the standardization and clarifying essence of syndromes were carried out in recent decades. The research work mainly consists of diagnostic criteria, distribution, evolutional laws, and biological basis of syndrome. However, it is found out that syndrome is relatively generous, vague, uncertain and abstractive, which has brought great difficulties to the clinical and scientific research of syndrome standardization. Based on clinical practice for years, we learned the TCM literature of past dynasties systematically and excavated the TCM basic theory thoroughly. Consequently, we found that formula syndrome, reserved in TCM classics, is a special theory system in diagnosis and treatment, which is another bridge linking disease and formula in TCM. Syndrome and formula syndrome are closely related but completely different, which are the core of two characteristic inheritance veins respectively in TCM. Further researches on formula syndrome mainly includes: a) study on diagnostic criteria of formula syndrome; b) study on distribution rules of formula syndrome of certain disease; c) study on the change rules of herb syndrome on the basis of formula syndrome; d) study on combined prescription rules; e) study on dynamic evolution laws of formula syndrome. Carrying out the researches of formula syndrome of certain disease is beneficial to grasp the characteristics of formula syndrome and treatment rules of disease.
The single queue switch

In this paper we introduce a new approach to ATM switching. We propose an ATM switch architecture which: uses only a single shift-register-type buffering element to store and queue the cells; and within the same physical queue switches the cells by organizing them in logical queues destined to different output lines. The buffer is also a sequencer which allows flexible ordering the cells in each logical queue to achieve any appropriate scheduling algorithm. This switch is proposed for use as the building block of large-scale multi-stage ATM switches and as the scheduler/controller for the RAM-based switches. The single queue switch implements output queueing and performs full buffer sharing. The hardware complexity is low. The number of input and output lines can vary independently without affecting the switch core. The size of the buffering space can be increased by simply cascading the buffering elements to each other.
Case series report of a linezolid-containing regimen for extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis.

OBJECTIVE To determine whether linezolid is safe and well tolerated in the treatment of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB). MATERIALS AND METHODS The was conducted in a specialized tuberculosis ward for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) on the Chest Service of Bellevue Hospital Center, which is a 768-bed public hospital in New York City. Seven patients with confirmed MDR-TB or XDR-TB who were still culture positive despite appropriate directly observed therapy were treated with a regimen containing linezolid and at least one other active agent. RESULTS The linezolid-containing regimen led to sustained negative conversion of sputum cultures and radiographic improvement in all patients. Long-term therapy (longest duration of therapy, 28 months) was well tolerated in most patients. Neutropenia developed in three patients, but was reversible, and peripheral neuropathy developed in two patients. CONCLUSIONS Linezolid remains a promising possible addition to our therapeutic armamentarium against XDR-TB. Linezolid is associated with side effects that can be adequately managed. Further studies to define the mechanism of action and optimum dose should be performed.
The East Boston Memory Test: a clinical screening measure for memory impairment in the elderly.

Comparisons between the East Boston Memory Test (EBMT), a brief verbal memory measure used in epidemiological studies with dementia, selected Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised (WMS-R) subtests, and the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) were investigated with 23 geriatric patients diagnosed with dementia. Significant correlations between the EBMT and WMS-R verbal subtests were predicted and occurred (r = .42 to .64). A five minute EBMT recall correlated most highly with the WMS-R Logical Memory subtests. The sensitivity of the EBMT in detecting cognitive impairment was investigated and compared with the sensitivity of the MMSE. The EBMT correctly classified 78% of subjects, compared to a 70% correct classification rate with the MMSE. Implications of these findings and suggestions for future research directions are discussed.
Early and Late Complications after Hepatic Arterial Port-a-Cath Implantation in the Treatment of Hepatic Metastasis from Colorectal Cancer

Background and Aim: In metastatic colorectal cancer, in the last 10 years, hepatic arterial infusion (HAI) was proposed as an alternative using various chemotherapy agents. The insertion of a port-a-cath in the hepatic artery is needed and there are various methods to do that, from classical to interventional approach. Patients and Methods: Patients were selected with metastatic colorectal cancer with inoperable liver metastasis only and were treated with oxaliplatin HAI, combined with systemic intravenously chemotherapy. The port-a-cath insertion was done using the classical approach in the same surgical time with the subclavicular vein port insertion. Results: Thirty-two patients were treated. During our experience we did not encounter intra-operative complications. Among the immediate post-operative complications mainly consisted of metabolic complications (6.2%) and infection was the most common late complication (9.4%). In one case we removed the port-a-cath, thus the patient was not able to continue the treatment. Conclusion: When talking about the safety of the procedure, we didn’t find it to be more at risk for the patients compared to the literature. Even though the antibiotic prophylaxis is done regularly, the risk of infection remains, especially as a late complication.
Age-related changes in the central visual field for short-wavelength-sensitive pathways.

The sensitivity of short-wavelength-sensitive (SWS) cone pathways throughout the central 30-deg visual field was determined in both eyes of 62 normal volunteers between the ages of 20 and 72 years. We found an average SWS cone pathway sensitivity decrease with age of approximately 0.15 log unit per decade. The sensitivity reduction was approximately linear, with a slightly larger decrease beyond the age of 50 years. The age-related SWS cone pathway sensitivity reductions also became larger as a function of increasing stimulus eccentricity. Measurements of ocular-media absorption characteristics in each eye revealed that 30-40% of the age-related sensitivity loss could be attributed to reductions in transmission of short-wavelength light by the ocular media. After corrections for preretinal media transmission loss, the decrease in the sensitivity of SWS cone pathways with age was approximately 0.09 log unit per decade. This age-related loss is greater than age-related sensitivity decreases in the middle-wavelength-sensitive and/or long-wavelength-sensitive cones (approximately 0.06 to 0.07 log unit per decade). In the age group older than 60 years, there was an inverse relationship between media-corrected SWS cone pathway sensitivity and media absorption characteristics (i.e., media-corrected SWS cone pathway sensitivity was higher in eyes with lower media transmission of short wavelengths). This relationship was not so evident for younger subjects. A similar inverse relationship between transmission loss in the ocular media and SWS cone pathway sensitivity was found between left and right eyes of the same individual. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Reproducibility of Ventilatory Parameters, Dynamic Hyperinflation, and Performance in the Glittre-ADL Test in COPD Patients

ABSTRACT Background: This study aimed to investigate the reproducibility of the ventilatory parameters and dynamic hyperinflation (DH) induced by the Glittre ADL-test (TGlittre) in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients. Methods: Twenty-three patients with COPD underwent anthropometry, spirometry, TGlittre (TGlittre1 and TGlittre2) and pre- and post-test slow vital capacity. During the tests the ventilatory response was evaluated. Results: Regarding the TGlittre reproducibility, 87% of patients had a better performance in TGlittre2, and reduced on average 0.34 minute ± 0.62 (p = 0.01) from TGlittre1 time to TGlittre2, showing a learning effect of 6.34%. The difference average between tests was correlated with the time spent in TGlittre1 (r = −0.52; p < 0.05). The TGlittre time was statistically reproducible (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.97; p < 0.001). Final ventilation parameters and their variations presented low-to-high reproducibility, except respiratory rate. The DH was similar (p > 0.05) in both tests, with low reproducibility in percentage, while in liters it was not reproducible. Conclusions: The TGlittre time and ventilatory parameters are reproducible, while DH is variable in COPD patients. A 6−7% learning effect was shown, and it is recommended to perform two tests.
Design-space exploration for the Kulisch accumulator

Floating-point sums and dot products accumulate rounding errors that may render the result very inaccurate. To address this, Kulisch proposed to use an internal accumulator large enough to cover the full exponent range of floating-point. With it, sums and dot products become exact operations. This idea failed to materialize in general purpose processors, as it was considered to slow and/or too expensive in terms of resources. It may however be an interesting option in recon-figurable computing, where a designer may use use smaller, more resource-efficient floating-point formats, knowing that sums and dot products will be exact. Another motivation of this work is that these exact operations, contrary to classical floating point ones, are associative, which enables better compiler optimizations. This work therefore compares, in the context of modern FPGAs, several implementations of the Kulisch accumulator: three proposed by Kulisch, and two novel ones. These architectures are implemented in a VivadoHLS-compliant C++ generator that is fully customiz-able. Comparisons targeting Xilinx's Kintex 7 FPGAs show improvement over Kulisch' proposal in both area and speed. In single precision, compared with a naive use of classical operators , the proposed accumulator runs at similar frequency, consumes 10x more resource in single precision, but reduces the overall latency of a large dot product by 25x while vastly improving accuracy.
Roles of Vaccinia Virus Genes E3L and K3L and Host Genes PKR and RNase L during Intratracheal Infection of C57BL/6 Mice

ABSTRACT The importance of the 2′-5′ oligoadenylate synthetase (OAS)/RNase L and double-stranded RNA (dsRNA)-dependent protein kinase (PKR) pathways in host interferon induction resulting from virus infection in response to dsRNA has been well documented. In poxvirus infections, the interactions between the vaccinia virus (VV) genes E3L and K3L, which target RNase L and PKR, respectively, serve to prevent the induction of the dsRNA-dependent induced interferon response in cell culture. To determine the importance of these host genes in controlling VV infections, mouse single-gene knockouts of RNase L and PKR and double-knockout mice were studied following intratracheal infection with VV, VVΔK3L, or VVΔE3L. VV caused lethal disease in all mouse strains. The single-knockout animals were more susceptible than wild-type animals, while the RNase L−/− PKR−/− mice were the most susceptible. VVΔE3L infections of wild-type mice were asymptomatic, demonstrating that E3L plays a critical role in controlling the host immune response. RNase L−/− mice showed no disease, whereas 20% of the PKR−/− mice succumbed at a dose of 108 PFU. Lethal disease was routinely observed in RNase L−/− PKR−/− mice inoculated with 108 PFU of VVΔE3L, with a distinct pathology. VVΔK3L infections exhibited no differences in virulence among any of the mouse constructs, suggesting that PKR is not the exclusive target of K3L. Surprisingly, VVΔK3L did not disseminate to other tissues from the lung. Hence, the cause of death in this model is respiratory disease. These results also suggest that an unanticipated role of the K3L gene is to facilitate virus dissemination.
Validity of Calibrated Photoluminescence Lifetime Measurements of Crystalline Silicon Wafers for Arbitrary Lifetime and Injection Ranges

We investigate the validity of calibrated photoluminescence lifetime measurements of crystalline silicon wafers for arbitrary lifetime and injection ranges. Absolute lifetime images are obtained from steady-state photoluminescence measurements by relating the photoluminescence signal to the excess carrier density. Since the luminescence signal is expected to be related to the integral of the depth distribution of the excess carrier density, an adequate calibration of the luminescence signal requires a secondary method which yields the integral of the depth distribution of the excess carrier density in absolute units. In this paper, we investigate the applicability of steady-state photoconductance measurements for the calibration of the photoluminescence signal. We derive a generalized relation linking the photoluminescence signal with the excess carrier density, considering the impact of an inhomogeneous carrier concentration profile. We experimentally verify the impact of the carrier distribution on the photoluminescence calibration by investigating two silicon wafers with different electronic bulk properties. Finally, we propose an iterative correction procedure reducing the deviations due to an inhomogeneous carrier density profile of calibrated photoluminescence-based lifetime measurements significantly.
Crystal structure of thioredoxin peroxidase from aerobic hyperthermophilic archaeon Aeropyrum pernix K1

Introduction. The peroxiredoxin (Prx) constitutes a family of antioxidant proteins that act as peroxidases that reduce hydrogen peroxide and alkyl peroxide to water and the corresponding alcohol, respectively. Prxs participate in the antioxidative mechanism called the “thioredoxin system. ” The typical 2-Cys Prxs have two conserved redox-active cysteines: the peroxidatic cysteine and the resolving cysteine. The peroxidase reaction results in an intersubunit disulfide bond between these redox-active cysteines concomitant with the reduction of peroxide substrate. The tertiary structures for Prxs from several sources have been reported, distinct quaternary structures, for example, monomer, dimer, and toroid-shaped decamer, being observed depending on the subtype and redox state. However, the tertiary structure of a hyperthermophilic Prx has not been reported to date. We previously identified the genes for thioredoxin peroxidase, thioredoxin, and thioredoxin reductase in the genome of Aeropyrum pernix K1, which lives at the highest temperature among the aerobic organisms whose genome sequences are available. We presented the first evidence of a set of proteins involved in the thioredoxin system in archaea by confirming the activity. Mutational analyses of thioredoxin peroxidase from A. pernix K1 (ApTPx) showed that peroxidatic Cys50 and resolving Cys213 form an intersubunit disulfide bond upon oxidation and that another cysteine residue (Cys207) is not essential for the peroxidase function. Although we had proposed a ring structure consisting of eight subunits, we found a fivefold axis and five twofold axes in a crystal of ApTPx (C207S mutant) in a later study. This suggested that the overall structure of ApTPx consists of decameric ring, which is homologous to Prxs from human, Salmonella typhimurium, and Crithidia fasciculate. In this article, we describe the tertiary structure of a selenomethionine derivative of the C207S mutant of ApTPx (SeC207S) in the reduced form determined at 2.0-Å resolution. We also discuss the characteristic features of this hyperthermostable Prx protein.
Diagnostic Occlusion and Clinical Management of Latent Hyperphoria

Occasionally in patients who have symptoms suggestive of a vertical heterophoria no deviation is found, even on careful examination. Six days of occlusion have been recommended for uncovering such “latent” vertical deviations. We investigated prolonged monocular occlusion (Part I) and found that vertical deviations of varying amounts manifested on symptomatic and asymptomatic subjects. Thus, results of prolonged occlusion can be difficult to interpret. Nonadaptive vertical vergence systems have been implicated in development of symptoms. Therefore, it may be that diagnostic monocular occlusion is not appropriate unless patients have symptoms of vertical imbalance. We used (24 h) occlusion and associated phoria measurements (Part II) to determine vertical prism prescriptions which eliminated symptoms of seven symptomatic patients who did not show significant vertical heterophoria on routine clinical testing. We present data and case reports which elucidate the efficacy of this procedure
Complex compensation of coupled line structures in inhomogeneous media

This paper presents a novel method for the compensation of unequal phase velocities of coupled line structures in inhomogeneous media. By means of a rigorous scattering parameter analysis, ideal values for compensating impedances, connected in series to one or several ports of the coupler, are found. It is shown that, by properly choosing the values of the impedances’ real and imaginary part, perfect isolation can theoretically be obtaind at any frequency. Simulation and measurements are compared to previously published results, demonstrating the advantage of this novel approach.
The role of the pathologist in the individualisation of therapy in patients with breast cancer

The diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer has rapidly evolved over the past 20 years. Starting in the 1980s, there have been important alterations in the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer, having an important impact on the diagnostic procedure employed by pathologists. Numerous studies in recent years have identified many prognostic and predictive factors for breast cancer. Most of them have been determined pathohistologically, which resulted in a large responsibility for pathologists, therefore the pathologist has become a key person in a multidisciplinaty team of breast cancer and the person very responsible for the implementation of specific individual therapy.
Combined Circumferential and Longitudinal Left Ventricular Systolic Dysfunction in Patients with Asymptomatic Aortic Stenosis

Early detection of left ventricular (LV) systolic dysfunction is pivotal in the management of patients with aortic stenosis (AS). LV circumferential and/or longitudinal shortening may be impaired in these patients despite LV ejection fraction is preserved. We focused on prevalence and factors associated with combined impairment of circumferential and longitudinal shortening (C&L) in asymptomatic AS patients.
Formación de las capacidades de creación de conocimiento y flexibilidad organizativa en empresas de alta tecnología

A partir de los avances en la investigacion en Direccion Estrategica de Recursos Humanos, Teoria de los Recursos y Capacidades, Gestion del Conocimiento y Flexibilidad Organizativa, este trabajo desarrolla las bases para clarificar, ordenar y entrelazar los mecanismos intermedios que explican la relacion entre las practicas de recursos humanos y los resultados empresariales. Para ello, se argumenta y sintetiza un modelo que recrea el proceso formativo de las capacidades organizativas, y, posteriormente, se aplica pormenorizadamente a las capacidades de creacion de conocimiento y flexibilidad organizativa, como punto de partida para la eficiente gestion de las capacidades organizativas.