Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interaction between lck and syk Family Tyrosine Kinases in Fcγ Receptor-initiated Activation of Natural Killer Cells (*)

Ligation of the FcγR on natural killer (NK) cells results in the tyrosine phosphorylation of multiple substrates critical for intracellular signaling and activation of NK cell effector functions. However, it remains unclear which nonreceptor protein-tyrosine kinases (PTK) participate in this process. In this report we demonstrate that FcγR ligation induced the tyrosine phosphorylation and increased the catalytic activities of both syk family PTKs, ZAP-70, and syk. The phosphorylation of ZAP-70 and syk was enhanced markedly by overexpression of wild-type lck but not by a kinase-inactive mutant, suggesting that early FcγR-initiated activation of lck results in the subsequent regulation of syk family PTKs. The regulatory interplay between src and syk family PTKs was emphasized further by the observation that lck overexpression enhanced the association of ZAP-70 with the ζ chain of the FcγR complex. Additional analyses indicated that lck induced the subsequent tyrosine phosphorylation of phospholipase C (PLC)-γ2. Interestingly, the regulatory effects of lck on ZAP-70, syk, and PLC-γ2 could not be replaced by overexpression of either fyn or src, demonstrating a selective role for lck in effectively coupling FcγR stimulation to critical downstream signaling events. Taken together, our results suggest not only that FcγR stimulation on NK cells is coupled to the intracellular activation of both ZAP-70 and syk, but that the src family member, lck, can selectively regulate this tyrosine kinase cascade.
[Comparison of stepwise and pulse induced cisplatin-resistant ovarian cancer cell sublines].

OBJECTIVE To investigate the mechanism responsible for acquired cisplatin resistance induced in human ovarian cancer cell lines by different methods. METHODS Two resistant cell lines, Skov3/CDDP-P and Skov3/CDDP-50, were established by pulse or stepwise exposures of ovarian cancer cell line Skov3 to cisplatin (CDDP) for 10-12 months with the drug sensitivity monitored by MTT test. The growth rate and cell cycle were compared. The intracellular drug concentration was measured by FACS after 1 hour incubation in 20 mumol/L ADM. The drug-resistance-associated genes: MDR1, MRP, LRP and GST-pi were monitored by RT-PCR and western blotting. RESULTS The resistance indexes (RI) of Skov3/CDDP-P and Skov3/CDDP-50 were 3.7 and 48.6 to cisplatin, 4.0 and 33.0 to Taxol, 2.2 and 7.3 to adriamycin, 1.5 and 3.4 to VP16, and the intracellular ADM concentration was lowered by 34.6% and 47.2% respectively. Both resistant cell lines grew slowly and exhibited changes in morphology and cell cycle. The expression of the resistance-associated genes MDR1, MRP and LRP was enhanced in both resistant cell lines. However, Skov3/CDDP-50 showed greater increase in MDR1 but Skov3/CDDP-P showed more in MRP. There were no significant changes in GST-pi expression either at mRNA or protein level. The TOPO II activity decreased slightly in both resistant cell lines. CONCLUSION Stepwise induction of cisplatin resistance in ovarian cancer is more readily acquired in which multiple drug-resistance-associated genes are involved.
Evolution of the Meaning of "Waters of the United States" in the Clean Water Act

This report outlines how the Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act of 2015 (BCTPAA) regulates the eligibility of covered trade agreements for expedited consideration, describes the operation of the statutory expedited procedures for considering implementing bills, and discusses how Congress may use the procedural mechanisms established by the act, as well as other pertinent rules of each chamber, to retain a substantial measure of control over legislation to implement covered trade agreements.
Comparison of Calcium- and Phosphorus‐Supplemented Soy Isolate Formula with Whey‐Predominant Premature Formula in Very Low Birth Weight Infants

In a random, controlled study of very low birth weight (VLBW) infants from 3 to 8 weeks of age, 17 infants were fed soy isolate formula supplemented with calcium (92 mg/kg/day), phosphorus (44 mg/kg/day), and vitamin D (500 IU/kg/day), and 15 were fed a new whey-predominant, low osmolality formula designed for small preterm infants. Mean birth weight (1,206 g, SD 178) and gestational age (30 weeks, SD 1.9) of the soy-fed group were not significantly different from the whey formula group (1,143 g, SD 158, and 30 weeks, SD 1.8, respectively). Caloric and protein intakes were not different between the formula groups throughout the study period. However, mean weight gain in g/kg/day was significantly greater for the whey formula group: 15.3 g, SD 2.5, vs. 11.3 g, SD 2.3, p < 0.0001. Serum protein and albumin were higher in the whey formula-fed group during the latter 2 weeks of the study (p < 0.05). The incidence of vomiting, gastric residual, abdominal distension, diarrhea, and constipation was low and not different between the two groups. No infant developed necrotizing entero-colitis. Serum calcium, phosphorus, alkaline phosphatase, 25-hydroxy vitamin D and parathyroid hormone were similar in both groups, and no infant developed radiographic evidence of rickets. Although soy isolate formula supplemented with calcium, phosphorus, and vitamin D was not associated with rickets, no fewer complications were observed with this lactose-free, low solute formula. Greater weight gain, serum protein and albumin concentrations, and caloric efficiency in the whey formula group indicate that this is a preferred formula for feeding VLBW infants. Soy formula, even when supplemented, should be used only when specific indications exist.
Market Sensing Capability and SMEs Performance: The Mediating Role of Product Innovativeness Success

The purposes of this study are: (1) to test the effect of market sensing capability on SMEs performance, both directly and indirectly (product innovativeness success as intervening variable); (2) to test the effect of entrepreneurial orientation on SMEs performance, both directly and indirectly (product innovativeness success as intervening variable); (3) to test the effect of market sensing capability on speed to market; and (4) to test the effect of speed to market on SMEs performance. This research sampled 168 SME owners or managers. This study uses Structural Equation Model to test the hypothesis and uses AMOS 21 in data analysis. The result of this study shows that entrepreneurial orientation and product innovativeness have positive and significant effect on SMEs performance but market sensing capability and speed to market have no significant effect. Market sensing capability has significant effect on speed to market and product innovativeness success but entrepreneurial orientation has no significant effect on product innovativeness success. Product innovation success becomes the best mediating variable of markets sensing capability on SMEs performance than entrepreneurial orientation on SMEs performance. The findings of this study provide two contributions to the entrepreneurship research. First, in the leather and furniture industry, the most important factor in achieving performance of SMEs is product innovation success. Second, entrepreneurial orientation is still predictive in improving performance.
Influence of Pasteurella haemolytica A1 crude leukotoxin on bovine neutrophil chemiluminescence

Pasteurella haemolytica A1 crude leukotoxin (25%, vol/vol) rapidly diminished the bovine neutrophil chemiluminescence response to opsonized zymosan. This inhibition was neither prevented nor reversed by 75 mM sucrose. Dilute leukotoxin did not directly stimulate neutrophil chemiluminescence nor did it alter the chemiluminescence response of the neutrophils to opsonized zymosan.
Redesigning Indian Ocean Fisheries Governance for 21st Century Sustainability

Goal 14 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals recognises the continued pressure on marine ecosystems and the need to implement performance based management arrangements for fisheries. Reformulating governance arrangements are prerequisites for achieving this: rectifying gaps while giving effect to existing hortatory obligations enable effective management decisions including for new and/or emerging issues such as climate change. This is particularly evident in the Indian Ocean, which is surrounded by developing states, and where the climate change impacts already evident. Indian Ocean fisheries governance arrangements are also imperfect: there is incomplete coverage of highly migratory species and high seas areas; and no one organisation where all relevant states share membership. Furthermore, the limited resources of developing coastal states restricts the ability to effectively understand and sustainably manage the resources. If developing coastal states are to meet 21st century challenges, governance arrangements must be modernised to address species, spatial and membership gaps while supporting the implementation of hortatory obligations and ocean-wide, cross-sectorial and cross-jurisdictional programs that: facilitate ocean-wide scientific monitoring of ecological processes and anthropogenic impacts, and enable integrated monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) of fishing with the adopted management measures to improve certainty of the management.
Adenovirus-mediated kallikrein gene delivery reverses salt-induced renal injury in Dahl salt-sensitive rats.

BACKGROUND The tissue kallikrein-kinin system has been shown to play a role in cardiac and renal functions. In this study, we investigated the ability of kallikrein gene delivery to reverse salt-induced cardiac hypertrophy and renal injury in Dahl salt-sensitive rats. METHODS Adenovirus harboring the human tissue kallikrein gene, Ad.CMV-cHK, was delivered intravenously into Dahl salt-sensitive rats suffering from hypertension, cardiac hypertrophy and renal damage induced by a high salt diet (4% NaCl) for four weeks. RESULTS Expression of human kallikrein mRNA was detected in rat kidney, heart, aorta and liver, and immunoreactive human kallikrein levels were measured in the serum and urine of rats receiving gene delivery. A single injection of Ad.CMV-cHK caused a significant reduction of blood pressure for more than two weeks. Kallikrein gene transfer caused left ventricular mass reduction and elevated glomerular filtration rate, renal blood flow, urinary excretion, urinary kinin, nitrite/nitrate content, cGMP and cAMP levels. Morphological investigations showed that kallikrein gene transfer caused a significant reversal in salt-induced tissue and organ damage. In the heart, cardiac hypertrophy and fibrosis were reduced, and in the kidney, both glomerular sclerotic lesions and tubular damage were reversed. CONCLUSIONS Adenovirus-mediated kallikrein gene delivery is effective in reversing salt-induced cardiac hypertrophy and renal injury in Dahl-salt sensitive rats.
The role of stress‐regulation genes in moderating the association of stress and daily‐life psychotic experiences

The interaction of single nucleotide polymorphisms with both distal and proximal environmental factors across the extended psychosis phenotype is understudied. This study examined (i) the interaction of relevant SNPs with both early‐life adversity and proximal (momentary) stress on psychotic experiences (PEs) in an extended psychosis sample; and (ii) differences between early‐psychosis and non‐clinical groups for these interactions.
Low Complexity Multiply-Accumulate Units for Convolutional Neural Networks with Weight-Sharing

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are one of the most successful machine-learning techniques for image, voice, and video processing. CNNs require large amounts of processing capacity and memory bandwidth. Hardware accelerators have been proposed for CNNs that typically contain large numbers of multiply-accumulate (MAC) units, the multipliers of which are large in integrated circuit (IC) gate count and power consumption. “Weight-sharing” accelerators have been proposed where the full range of weight values in a trained CNN are compressed and put into bins, and the bin index is used to access the weight-shared value. We reduce power and area of the CNN by implementing parallel accumulate shared MAC (PASM) in a weight-shared CNN. PASM re-architects the MAC to instead count the frequency of each weight and place it in a bin. The accumulated value is computed in a subsequent multiply phase, significantly reducing gate count and power consumption of the CNN. In this article, we implement PASM in a weight-shared CNN convolution hardware accelerator and analyze its effectiveness. Experiments show that for a clock speed 1GHz implemented on a 45nm ASIC process our approach results in fewer gates, smaller logic, and reduced power with only a slight increase in latency. We also show that the same weight-shared-with-PASM CNN accelerator can be implemented in resource-constrained FPGAs, where the FPGA has limited numbers of digital signal processor (DSP) units to accelerate the MAC operations.
Targeting efficiency of a mitochondrial pre‐sequence is dependent on the passenger protein.

The mitochondrial matrix enzyme manganese superoxide dismutase (SOD) of Saccharomyces cerevisiae is encoded in the nucleus. It is synthesized as a precursor with an NH2‐terminal extension of 26 amino acids which is cleaved off during import into the mitochondrion. Fusions between the NH2‐terminal 34 amino acids of SOD and the cytosolic proteins invertase of yeast and mouse dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) were tested for in vitro binding and import into mitochondria. Efficient translocation over the mitochondrial membranes takes place in the case of the SOD‐DHFR fusion. The SOD‐invertase fusion protein does not get translocated and binds to the organelle with only low efficiency. Yeast transformants harbouring the SOD‐invertase fusion gene accumulate approximately 95% of the hybrid protein in the cytosol. The remaining material is found in the interior of the mitochondrion, loosely attached to the inner membrane. We conclude that the pre‐sequence of SOD is able to deliver a passenger protein to the mitochondrion. The efficiency of protein delivery and translocation across the membrane is, however, influenced by the passenger protein.
Interrater Reliability of mHealth App Rating Measures: Analysis of Top Depression and Smoking Cessation Apps

Background There are over 165,000 mHealth apps currently available to patients, but few have undergone an external quality review. Furthermore, no standardized review method exists, and little has been done to examine the consistency of the evaluation systems themselves. Objective We sought to determine which measures for evaluating the quality of mHealth apps have the greatest interrater reliability. Methods We identified 22 measures for evaluating the quality of apps from the literature. A panel of 6 reviewers reviewed the top 10 depression apps and 10 smoking cessation apps from the Apple iTunes App Store on these measures. Krippendorff’s alpha was calculated for each of the measures and reported by app category and in aggregate. Results The measure for interactiveness and feedback was found to have the greatest overall interrater reliability (alpha=.69). Presence of password protection (alpha=.65), whether the app was uploaded by a health care agency (alpha=.63), the number of consumer ratings (alpha=.59), and several other measures had moderate interrater reliability (alphas>.5). There was the least agreement over whether apps had errors or performance issues (alpha=.15), stated advertising policies (alpha=.16), and were easy to use (alpha=.18). There were substantial differences in the interrater reliabilities of a number of measures when they were applied to depression versus smoking apps. Conclusions We found wide variation in the interrater reliability of measures used to evaluate apps, and some measures are more robust across categories of apps than others. The measures with the highest degree of interrater reliability tended to be those that involved the least rater discretion. Clinical quality measures such as effectiveness, ease of use, and performance had relatively poor interrater reliability. Subsequent research is needed to determine consistent means for evaluating the performance of apps. Patients and clinicians should consider conducting their own assessments of apps, in conjunction with evaluating information from reviews.
Performance comparison of target tracking algortihms in underwater environment

Target tracking is one the most fundamental elements of a radar system. The aim of target tracking is the reliable estimation of a targetpsilas true state based on a time history of noisy sensor observations. In real life, the sensor data may include substantial noise. This noise can render the raw sensor data unsuitable to be used directly. Instead, we must filter the noise, preferably in an optimal manner. For land, air and surface marine vehicles, very successful filtering methods are developed. However, because of the significant differences in the underwater propagation environment and the associated differences in the corresponding sensors, the successful use of similar principles and techniques in an underwater scenario is still an active topic of research. A comparative study of the effects of the underwater environment on a number of tracking algorithms is the focus of the present thesis. The tracking algorithms inspected are: the Kalman filter, the extended Kalman filter and the particle filter. We also investigate in particular the IMM extension to these filters. These algorithms are tested under two representative scenarios.
Cognitive functioning in chronic fatigue syndrome: a meta-analysis

Background Cognitive problems are commonly reported in persons with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and are one of the most disabling symptoms of this condition. A number of cognitive deficits have been identified, although the findings are inconsistent and hindered by methodological differences. The current study therefore conducted a meta-analysis of research examining cognitive functioning in persons with CFS in order to identify the pattern and magnitude of any deficits that are associated with this condition. Method A comprehensive search of the PubMed and PsycINFO databases for studies that examined cognitive functioning in CFS between 1988 and 2008 identified 50 eligible studies. Weighted Cohen's d effect sizes, 95% confidence intervals and fail-safe Ns were calculated for each cognitive score. Results Evidence of cognitive deficits in persons with CFS was found primarily in the domains of attention, memory and reaction time. Deficits were not apparent on tests of fine motor speed, vocabulary, reasoning and global functioning. Conclusions Persons with CFS demonstrate moderate to large impairments in simple and complex information processing speed and in tasks requiring working memory over a sustained period of time.
Romantic Relationship Stages and Social Networking Sites: Uncertainty Reduction Strategies and Perceived Relational Norms on Facebook

Due to their pervasiveness and unique affordances, social media play a distinct role in the development of modern romantic relationships. This study examines how a social networking site is used for information seeking about a potential or current romantic partner. In a survey, Facebook users (N=517) were presented with Facebook behaviors categorized as passive (e.g., reading a partner's profile), active (e.g., "friending" a common third party), or interactive (e.g., commenting on the partner's wall) uncertainty reduction strategies. Participants reported how normative they perceived these behaviors to be during four possible stages of relationship development (before meeting face-to-face, after meeting face-to-face, casual dating, and exclusive dating). Results indicated that as relationships progress, perceived norms for these behaviors change. Sex differences were also observed, as women perceived passive and interactive strategies as more normative than men during certain relationship stages.
Targeting the gut microbiota by dietary nutrients: A new avenue for human health

ABSTRACT The gut microbiota is a complex ecosystem consisted of trillions of microbes that have co-evolved with their host for hundreds of millions of years. During the last decade, a growing body of knowledge has suggested that there is a compelling set of connections among diet, gut microbiota and human health. Various physiological functions of the host, ranging from metabolic and immune regulation to nerve and endocrine development, are possibly mediated by the structural components of microbial cell or the products of microbial metabolism, which are greatly influenced by dietary macronutrients and micronutrients. Thus, governing the production and activity of these microbial-associated small molecules and metabolites through dietary intervention may provide promising strategies for the improvement of human health and disease. In this review article, we first provide an overview of current findings about the intimate interrelationships between diet and gut microbiota. We also introduce the physiological effects of some microbial-associated small molecules and metabolites on the host as well as the detailed signaling mechanisms.
Children's autobiographies of learning to write.

BACKGROUND Learning conceptions may be studied as specific implicit theories based on theory of mind. Previous studies suggest that a developmental shift from a direct implicit theory of learning to an interpretative one occurs during childhood. Here we explore the development of children's autobiographies of learning to write by adopting this framework. AIMS We aim to study children's autobiographical accounts of learning to write and whether these accounts change according to the mentioned developmental shift and sociocultural environment. SAMPLE Sixty children attending public schools in Argentina that were equally distributed according to school level (kindergarten, first grade, fourth grade) and sociocultural environment (middle and marginal). METHODS Children were interviewed individually at school and requested to write 'as you used to when you were just beginning to write'. This question was repeated for one-year-intervals until child's current age was reached; anticipation of writing next year was also requested. Children's responses were coded into descriptive categories. A multiple correspondence factorial analysis studied the relations among response categories, school grade and sociocultural environment. On the basis of these results, categories were ordered into a Guttman scale. RESULTS A developmental shift from a focus on isolated products to the integration of procedural and representational changes was evident. School grade and sociocultural environment were statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS Children's writing autobiographies show developmental differences that suit the shift from a direct to an interpretative theory of learning on the basis of hierarchical integration rather than conceptual replacement.
Molecular cloning and mapping of phenol degradation genes from Bacillus stearothermophilus FDTP-3 and their expression in Escherichia coli

Two genes of the meta pathway of phenol degradation were cloned from a phenol-utilizing strain of Bacillus stearothermophilus and were mapped by subcloning and by use of a Tn5 insertion mutation. They code for phenol hydroxylase and catechol 2,3-dioxygenase, respectively. The gene encoding catechol 2,3-dioxygenase, which is more thermostable than catechol 2,3-dioxygenase encoded by the other gene, shares rather limited homology with that from Pseudomonas putida.