Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Efficient Human Immunodeficiency Virus Replication Requires a Fine-Tuned Level of Transcription

ABSTRACT Transcription represents a crucial step in the life cycle of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and is highly regulated. Here we show that the strength of the viral long terminal repeat (LTR) promoter is optimized for efficient replication. Artificially increasing the rate of LTR-driven transcription was strongly detrimental for viral fitness, and HIV was able to regain replication capacity by selecting for variants with a weaker LTR. Strikingly, the strength of the evolved promoter was equivalent to that of the wild-type LTR.
PERSISTENT EHRLICHIA CHAFFEENSIS INFECTION IN WHITE-TAILED DEER

Four white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) were inoculated intravenously with a deer-origin isolate (15B-WTD-GA) of Ehrlichia chaffeensis. The course of infection was monitored using indirect fluorescent antibody (IFA), polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and culture over a 9 m period. All deer became rickettsemic within 24 days post inoculation (DPI), and all developed antibody titers >1:64 to E. chaffeensis by 17 DPI. Titers in all deer fell below 1:64 during 87 to 143 DPI. One deer exhibited a second period of seropositivity (peak titer of 1:256) from 207 to 271 DPI but was culture and PCR negative during this period. Rickettsemia was confirmed by reisolation of E. chaffeensis as late as 73 to 108 DPI in three deer. Positive PCR results were obtained from femur bone marrow of one deer and from rumenal lymph node of another deer at 278 DPI. None of the deer developed clinical signs, hematologic abnormalities, or gross or microscopic lesions attributable to E. chaffeensis. Two uninoculated control deer were negative on all tests through 90 DPI at which time they were removed from the study. Herein we confirm that white-tailed deer become persistently infected with E. chaffeensis, have initial rickettsemias of several weeks duration and may experience recrudescence of rickettsemia, which reaffirm the importance of deer in the epidemiology of E. chaffeensis.
Statistical–dynamical downscaling for wind energy potentials: evaluation and applications to decadal hindcasts and climate change projections

A statistical–dynamical downscaling (SDD) approach for the regionalization of wind energy output (Eout) over Europe with special focus on Germany is proposed. SDD uses an extended circulation weather type (CWT) analysis on global daily mean sea level pressure fields with the central point being located over Germany. Seventy‐seven weather classes based on the associated CWT and the intensity of the geostrophic flow are identified. Representatives of these classes are dynamically downscaled with the regional climate model COSMO‐CLM. By using weather class frequencies of different data sets, the simulated representatives are recombined to probability density functions (PDFs) of near‐surface wind speed and finally to Eout of a sample wind turbine for present and future climate. This is performed for reanalysis, decadal hindcasts and long‐term future projections. For evaluation purposes, results of SDD are compared to wind observations and to simulated Eout of purely dynamical downscaling (DD) methods.
Analysis of the Essential Functions of the C-terminal Protein/Protein Interaction Domain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae pol ε and Its Unexpected Ability to Support Growth in the Absence of the DNA Polymerase Domain*

As first observed by Wittenberg (Kesti, T., Flick, K., Keranen, S., Syvaoja, J. E., and Wittenburg, C. (1999)Mol. Cell 3, 679–685), we find that deletion mutants lacking the entire N-terminal DNA polymerase domain of yeast pol ε are viable. However, we now show that point mutations in DNA polymerase catalytic residues of pol ε are lethal. Taken together, the phenotypes of the deletion and the point mutants suggest that the polymerase of pol ε may normally participate in DNA replication but that another polymerase can substitute in its complete absence. Substitution is inefficient because the deletion mutants have serious defects in DNA replication. This observation raises the question of what is the essential function of the C-terminal half of pol ε. We show that the ability of the C-terminal half of the polymerase to support growth is disrupted by mutations in the cysteine-rich region, which disrupts both dimerization of the POL2 gene product and interaction with the essential DPB2 subunit, suggesting that this region plays an important architectural role at the replication fork even in the absence of the polymerase function. Finally, the S phase checkpoint, with respect to both induction ofRNR3 transcription and cell cycle arrest, is intact in cells where replication is supported only by the C-terminal half of pol ε, but it is disrupted in mutants affecting the cysteine-rich region, suggesting that this domain directly affects the checkpoint rather than acting through the N-terminal polymerase active site.
Antimicrobial Peptides Derived from Milk: A Review

Milk proteins provide a natural source of bioactive peptides with potential health benefits and applications in the food industry. The release of these peptides from milk proteins is achieved either by hydrolysis using digestive proteases or by lactic acid bacteria fermentation. Peptides, particularly those derived from milk proteins, can exert a wide range of nutritional, functional and biological activities. Bioactive peptides are inactive within the sequence of the parent protein molecule and can be liberated by gastrointestinal digestion of milk, fermentation of milk with proteolytic starter cultures or hydrolysis by proteolytic enzymes. They should be from 3 to 20 amino acids in size and many of them have multifunctional properties. Bioactive peptides have been isolated from several dairy products including cheese, kefir, milk, and yoghurt. Milk-derived peptides with antimicrobial activity have huge industrial potential, as they have the advantage of being derived from a safe and economical source. The aim of this review study is to introduce bioactive peptides with antimicrobial activities that have been produced from milk proteins.
A framework for multiscale and hybrid RKHS-based approximators

A generalized framework for deriving multiscale and hybrid functionally expanded approximators that are linear in the adjustable weights is presented. The basic idea here is to define one or more appropriate function spaces and then to impose a geometric structure on these to obtain reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces (RKHSs). The weight identification problem is formulated as a minimum norm optimization problem that produces an approximation network structure that comprises a linear weighted sum of displaced reproducing kernels fed by the input signals. Examples of the application of this framework are discussed. Results of numerical experiments are presented.
Injection of a porcine sperm factor triggers calcium oscillations in mouse oocytes and bovine eggs

Fertilization in mammals is associated with the generation of intracellular calcium ([Ca2+]i) oscillations. The site of, or mechanism(s) utilized by, the sperm to initiate and maintain these Ca2+ responses is not known. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that a factor from the sperm is capable, upon release into the oocyte's cytosol, of initiating oscillations. A sperm factor, prepared from porcine semen, was injected into mouse oocytes and bovine eggs that had been loaded with fura‐2 dextran, a fluorescent Ca2+ indicator. The resulting Ca2+ responses were monitored and compared to those characteristic of each species. Our results show that injection of sperm factor triggered long‐lasting [Ca2+]i oscillations, and that the observed patterns were species‐specific. In mouse oocytes, sperm factor‐induced [Ca2+]i rises exhibited high frequency, whereas in bovine eggs, Ca2+ responses were separated by long intervals. Further characterization of the sperm factor revealed that it was predominantly present in sperm preparations, that it contained a protein moiety, and that it was unlikely to be a protease. The intracellular Ca2+ channels/receptors through which the sperm factor‐mediated Ca2+ release was investigated by using heparin, a competitive inhibitor of the inositol 1,4,5 trisphosphate receptor (InsP3R), and ryanodine, which binds the ryanodine receptor (RyR). The sperm factor appeared to stimulate InsP3R, at least in mouse oocytes, because sperm factor‐induced oscillations were delayed or blocked in all oocytes by injection of heparin. RyR may be involved in the modulation of these oscillations, since addition of ryanodine modified Ca2+ responses to the sperm factor. The present results support the hypothesis that a factor from the sperm is involved in the generation of fertilization associated [Ca2+]i oscillations. Mol Reprod Dev 46:176–189, 1997. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
School-Based Adolescent Obesity Prevention Programming: Perceptions of School Personnel in Southern Appalachia

Objectives Coordinated School Health (CSH) is a systematic approach to improving the health and well-being of school-age children. It is recommended for its potential to promote healthy weight in adolescents through strategic programming. Resources and programming for adolescent obesity prevention varies among schools, thereby limiting the intended benefits of CSH. The purpose of this study was to understand gaps in schools’ approaches to healthy weight promotion and support for overweight/obese students. We evaluated perceptions of adolescent obesity and environmental factors and programs facilitating healthy weight in high schools in Appalachian Tennessee. Methods In 2012, 17 key school personnel from 5 randomly selected high schools were interviewed. Questions addressed their perceptions of adolescent obesity, school-based physical activity and nutrition programming, and support available to overweight/obese students. Thematic analysis was conducted to identify emerging themes. Results Participants consistently identified adolescent obesity and/or associated risk factors as major health problems within their schools. Barriers to physical activity and healthful eating were identified at multiple levels. Because of the sensitivity surrounding overweight/obesity, no particular programs or curricula targeted overweight/obese adolescents specifically, but they were available to all students. Support is not explicitly available; therefore, overweight/obese students must seek out these resources. Conclusions Findings suggest that although school personnel are concerned about the impact of adolescent obesity on health outcomes, there is wide variation across schools on the types and quality of programming available to address the issue. Results can be used to encourage school-based strengths and identify gaps in the CSH infrastructure in school systems.
Development of an ovarian cancer symptom index: Possibilities for earlier detection

G off et al are to be congratulated for initiating a discussion regarding the potential utility of unique patterns of nonspecific symptoms in alerting patients and their physicians to the possible presence of an ovarian malignancy. Although continuation of this effort should be encouraged, it is essential that this dialogue appreciates the critical distinction between establishing an earlier diagnosis of advanced disease versus the actual detection of earlystage ovarian cancer. Confirming the presence of advanced (stage III/IV) ovarian cancer at a timepoint several months before increasingly concerning symptoms would ultimately result in the initiation of a diagnostic evaluation may unquestionably permit patients to experience an earlier benefit from treatment (eg, the elimination of pain and an improved appetite), and therefore favorably impact the individual’s quality of life. However, existing knowledge of the profoundly complex biology of metastatic cancer, including the still poorly understood issues of the actions and interactions of multiple growth signals and factors, the process of tumor invasion, angiogenesis, and inherent or acquired antineoplastic agent sensitivity versus resistance (etc), makes it is extremely difficult to accept the conclusion suggested by the investigators that this truly unfortunate, but limited, delay in the initiation of efforts to favorably impact the clinical course of this malignancy will exert a major influence on the ultimate survival of the patient. Furthermore, although one must again note the laudable goals of this research, there is a genuine potential that if great care is not taken in discussing this hypothesis-generating data, some ovarian cancer patients may be left with the ‘‘impression,’’ in the current complete absence of any evidence-based data to support it, that if they had ‘‘only appreciated the symptoms they were experiencing were due to ovarian cancer,’’ or if they had ‘‘simply insisted on a diagnostic workup,’’ or if the ‘‘physician had simply been more conscientious’’ 3 or 6 months earlier when the symptoms were first noted, they would be ‘‘cured’’. It is not unreasonable to suggest that such an interpretation might lead to distressing feelings of personal guilt and/or external blame for her current situation, conclusions that would be neither objectively valid nor result in a favorable outcome.
Design of Novel Compact Coupled Microstrip Power Divider With Harmonic Suppression

A new microstrip power divider (PD) is proposed which consists of a pair of parallel coupled-lines (PCLs) on a defected ground, and its two outputs are connected by a resistor and a capacitor. The even/odd-mode analysis shows that the defected ground structure (DGS) etched on the ground plane of PCL is equivalent to a strong parallel resonance circuit in the case of even-mode, and a weak inductance in the case of odd-mode. So, this kind of additional reactance effect is used intentionally to design compact coupled microstrip PD with harmonic suppression. Also, the phase-delay through the PD is discussed, which is different from conventional one. A 0.9 GHz PD is developed and experimental results verify it has low insertion loss, good impedance matching and isolation. Furthermore, the third harmonic suppression of this PD is better than -35 dB and the overall area of divider is only 34% of the conventional case.
[Aspects of psychotherapies. Music therapy and its specificity].

Musicotherapy, associating art and science, concerns a sensorial approach, in a therapeutic aim, through sound and music, to psychological difficulties, of numerous somatic and psychosomatic troubles, as well as neurotic and psychotic disease. Music therapy is one of the art-therapy methods, all of them dealing with mediation in reference to Winnicott, leading the patients to active and creative participation and being most of the time shorter than classical verbal therapies. It may be considered as being related to the main theories of modern psychotherapies, and refers either to Psychoanalysis or to behaviour therapies, or to cognitive therapies, or to humanistic therapies . but, whatever its main basic theory, musicotherapy shows its specificity. Its specific features are: the variety and complexity of its techniques; the specificity of the therapeutic relation; patient, music, and therapist are united through a triangular relationship; transference is of a special quality; the way the therapist answers the patient and helps him may be either verbal or musical. Practising music and listening to music must not be considered as a therapy. Music is not therapeutic in itself. It becomes so when music is used in techniques organised in a therapeutic aim. Musicotherapy may be necessary for a patient who suffers, who asks to be helped and who finds through music a way of expression and communication. The therapeutic aim has nothing to do with musical training. Musicotherapy concerns children as well as adults and elderly people, but requires different techniques adapted to the category of patients. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Expression of B 7-1 and B 7-2 Costimulatory Molecules by Human Gastric Epithelial Cells Potential Role in CD 4 1 T Cell Activation during Helicobacter pylori Infection

Human gastric mucosal epithelial cells display class II MHC, the expression of which is increased during Helicobacter pylori infection. These observations suggest that the gastric epithelium may participate as antigen-presenting cells (APC) during local immune responses. The increase in class II MHC expression occurs in parallel with an elevation in gastric CD4 1 T cell numbers within and adjacent to the epithelium. Since the expression of either B7-1 (CD80) or B7-2 (CD86) on APC is required for the activation of T cells, it was important to establish human gastric epithelial cells expressed those surface ligands. The expression of B7-1 and B7-2 was detected on human gastric epithelial cell lines and freshly isolated epithelial cells from gastric biopsies with specific antibodies. B7-2 expression was higher than B7-1 at both protein and transcript levels and was increased after crosslinking class II MHC molecules on IFN g -treated epithelial cells and in cells pretreated with the combination of IFN g and H. pylori. Similarly, B7-2 expression was higher on gastric epithelial cells from H. pylori –infected tissues compared with those from uninfected specimens. To determine the function of these molecules on gastric epithelial cells, antibodies to B7-1 and B7-2 were shown to reduce the ability of the cells to stimulate alloreactive CD4 1 T cells. These observations are the first to demonstrate that B7-1 and B7-2 are expressed on mucosal epithelial cells in situ. Thus, the expression of B7-1 and B7-2 by epithelial cells may allow them to act as APC in regulating local responses such as those that occur during infection with H. pylori. ( J. Clin. Invest. 1997. 99:1628–1636.)
Data Recovery of Distributed Hash Table with Distributed-to-Distributed Data Copy

To realize huge-scale information services, many Distributed Hash Table (DHT) based systems have been proposed. For example, there are some proposals to manage item-level product traceability information with DHTs. In such an application, each entry of a huge number of item-level IDs need to be available on a DHT. To ensure data availability, the soft-state approach has been employed in previous works. However, this does not scale well against the number of entries on a DHT. As we expect 1010 products in the traceability case, the soft-state approach is unacceptable. In this paper, we propose Distributed-to-Distributed Data Copy (D3C). With D3C, users can reconstruct the data as they detect data loss, or even migrate to another DHT system. We show why it scales well against the number of entries on a DHT. We have confirmed our approach with a prototype. Evaluation shows our approach fits well on a DHT with a low rate of failure and a huge number of data entries.
Inflammatory prostaglandin E2 signaling in a mouse model of Alzheimer disease

There is significant evidence for a central role of inflammation in the development of Alzheimer disease (AD). Epidemiological studies indicate that chronic use of nonsteroidal anti‐inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) reduces the risk of developing AD in healthy aging populations. As NSAIDs inhibit the enzymatic activity of the inflammatory cyclooxygenases COX‐1 and COX‐2, these findings suggest that downstream prostaglandin signaling pathways function in the preclinical development of AD. Here, we investigate the function of prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) signaling through its EP3 receptor in the neuroinflammatory response to Aβ peptide.
Decision feedback equalization for MC-CDM with channel uncertainty

We address the problem of interference cancellation for MC-CDM when the channel is uncertain, i.e., not perfectly known. In contrast to the decision-directed schemes that iteratively improve a channel estimate, we study a simpler receiver that tries to allow for the uncertainty of a solely pilot-based estimate. For this, we first derive the optimal receiver for both OFDM and MC-CDM, which merges the two processing stages of channel estimation and data detection, and show that this receiver may be partitioned into a pilot-based channel estimator and a detector that incorporates the estimator's error covariance matrix. Such a decomposition suggests an error model on the basis of deriving a block decision feedback equalizer (BDFE) which utilizes the estimator's error covariance as a reliability information. Simulation results demonstrate the performance of the error-aware BDFE.
Cell Membrane and Volume Changes during Red Cell Development and Aging a

This paper provides a summary of our understanding of cell membrane and volume changes during red cell development and aging. Cytoskeletal structures which include microtubules and microfilaments appear to play key roles in the genesis of the anucleate reticulocyte from its nucleated precursor cell, as well as in the early stages of reticulocyte development. The maturation of reticulocyte into red cell is accompanied by marked changes in cell shape and extensive remodeling of the membrane skeleton, resulting in the mature red cell acquiring a highly deformable yet remarkably stable membrane. The volume and cell density heterogeneity seen for circulating red cells also appears to be the result of the membrane changes that occur during reticulocyte maturation. Following its genesis from reticulocyte, the mature red cell undergoes further membrane and volume changes during its life span of 120 days. While it is clear that surface area loss, decrease in cell volume and cell surface modifications leading to binding of immunoglobulins accompany red cell aging, the cardinal cellular modification responsible for the removal of senescent red cells from the circulation is yet to be defined.
CARDIOVASCULAR CHANGES ASSOCIATED WITH THERMAL POLYPNEA IN THE CHICKEN.

The effect of hyperthermia on the respiratory rate, cardiac output, blood pressure, arterial hematocrit, and the skin temperatures of the extremities of unanesthetized hens has been investigated. During hyperthermia, the respiratory rate increased to a maximal value and then declined. There was also an increase in cardiac output, followed by a decrease, but the peak cardiac output occurred at a rectal temperature which was significantly higher than that at which the peak respiratory rate was recorded. The increase in cardiac output was the result of an increase in both stroke volume and heart rate. The diminution of cardiac output seemed to be related to a decrease in the stroke volume at high levels of heart rate. The decrease in blood pressure and total peripheral resistance was attributed partly to an increased blood flow through the extremities.