Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Extracellular K+ dependence of inward rectification kinetics in human left ventricular cardiomyocytes.

BACKGROUND In human ventricular cells, the inwardly rectifying K+ current (IK1) is very similar to that of other mammalian species, but detailed knowledge about the K+-dependent distribution of open and blocked states during rectification and about the K+-dependent modulation of inactivation on hyperpolarization is currently lacking. METHODS AND RESULTS We used the whole-cell patch-clamp technique to record IK1 in myocytes isolated from subendocardial layers of left ventricular septum from patients with nonfailing hearts with aortic stenosis and cardiac hypertrophy who were undergoing open-heart surgery. Outward currents were very small at voltages positive to the reversal potential but increased at high external [K+]. Chord conductance measurements and kinetic analyses allowed us to estimate the proportion of channels in the open state and of those showing either slow unblock or instantaneous unblock (the so-called slow or instantaneous "activation") on hyperpolarization: the distribution in the individual states was dependent on external [K+]. The proportion of channels unblocking slowly was greater than that of channels unblocking instantaneously on hyperpolarization from the plateau voltage range. Hence, because of the previously reported link between the presence of highly protonated blocking molecules and slow unblock kinetics, it is suggested that high cellular concentrations of spermine may account for the low outward current density recorded in these cells. The current decrease observed on extended hyperpolarization was significantly relieved by an increase in external [K+]. CONCLUSIONS The pattern of IK1 current alterations observed in the present model of human ventricular hypertrophy might favor enhanced excitability and underlie ventricular arrhythmias, possibly via increased intracellular polyamine levels.
The Significance of Gender in Phenomenological Nursing Research

The aim of this paper is to discuss in the light of phenomenological philosophy, whether it can be argued that men and women have different lifeworlds and how this may legitimize the segregation of men and women in empirical nursing research. We analyzed peer- reviewed papers from 2003-2012 and scrutinized the arguments used for dividing men and women into separate groups in empirical nursing studies based on phenomenology. We identified 24 studies using gender segregation and posed the following questions: 1. What is the investigated phenomenon as explicated by the authors? 2. What arguments do the authors use when dividing participants into gender specific groups? The analysis showed that a variety of phenomena were investigated that were all related to a specific medical condition. None appeared to be gender-specific, though the authors argued for a sole focus on either women or men. The most common argument for segregating men and women were reference to earlier studies. A few studies had references to methodology and/or philosophy as argument for a segregation of men and women. Arguments for gender segregation in empirical nursing studies based on a phenomenological approach tend to build on the conviction that experiences of health related phenomena are gendered. However, it seems to be difficult to identify conclusive arguments for this division within phenomenological philosophy. Therefore we recommend that segregation should be used with caution. Otherwise other research approaches may be more suitable.
Effect of Tai Chi in adults with rheumatoid arthritis.

for psoriasis near HLA-C in Chinese patients with psoriasis. Br J Dermatol 2003;148:418–23. 7. Asumalahti K, Laitinen T, Itkonen-Vatjus R et al. A candidate gene for psoriasis near HLA-C, HCR (Pg8), is highly polymorphic with a disease-associated susceptibility allele. Hum Mol Genet 2000; 9:1533–42. 8. Capon F, Allen MH, Ameen M et al. A synonymous SNP of the corneodesmosin gene leads to increased mRNA stability and demonstrates association with psoriasis across diverse ethnic groups. Hum Mol Genet 2004;13:2361–8. 9. Orru S, Giuressi E, Carcassi C, Casula M, Contu L. Mapping of the major psoriasis-susceptibility locus (PSORS1) in a 70-kb interval around the corneodesmosin gene (CDSN). Am J Hum Genet 2005; 76:164–71.
Learning through laughing: an ‘African-American’ singer with ‘Japanese soul’ and the possibility of a new subjectivity in Japan

In this article, we argue that laughter can be a catalyst in learning about a new subjectivity – simultaneously African-American and Japanese – by analyzing an audience’s initial reaction to Jero, a young ‘African-American’ singer wearing hip hop attire who sings enka, a genre of music that is considered the ‘heart and soul of Japan’. Using television clips uploaded to YouTube and the viewers’ comments left on the sites as data, we analyze the audience’s laughter and amazement, followed by the question, ‘Why? ’ and explanation of his background. Drawing on Hervé Varenne’s argument that learning occurs when we acknowledge our ignorance and seek to change it, we argue that the laughter marks their ignorance of such subjectivity, followed by learning as to why such subjectivity is possible. Challenging hegemonic behavior in daily life is often considered ‘bad sport’ and thus difficult. While involving complex relations of power of consumer-performer relations and authenticator-authenticated relations as well as a problematic race-talent link, we suggest that learning-through-laughing may be a new field worth exploring as an effective strategy for social change.
Quinolones: Action and Resistance Updated

The quinolones trap DNA gyrase and DNA topoisomerase IV on DNA as complexes in which the DNA is broken but constrained by protein. Early studies suggested that drug binding occurs largely along helix-4 of the GyrA (gyrase) and ParC (topoisomerase IV) proteins. However, recent X-ray crystallography shows drug intercalating between the -1 and +1 nucleotides of cut DNA, with only one end of the drug extending to helix-4. These two models may reflect distinct structural steps in complex formation. A consequence of drug-enzyme-DNA complex formation is reversible inhibition of DNA replication; cell death arises from subsequent events in which bacterial chromosomes are fragmented through two poorly understood pathways. In one pathway, chromosome fragmentation stimulates excessive accumulation of highly toxic reactive oxygen species that are responsible for cell death. Quinolone resistance arises stepwise through selective amplification of mutants when drug concentrations are above the MIC and below the MPC, as observed with static agar plate assays, dynamic in vitro systems, and experimental infection of rabbits. The gap between MIC and MPC can be narrowed by compound design that should restrict the emergence of resistance. Resistance is likely to become increasingly important, since three types of plasmid-borne resistance have been reported.
The combined bowling rate as a measure of bowling performance in cricket

A single measure that can be used to assess the performance of bowlers in cricket is defined. This study shows how it can be used to rank bowlers. The performance of bowlers is generally measured by using three different criteria, i.e. the average number of runs conceded per wicket taken (A), the economy rate (E), which is the average number of runs conceded per over bowled, and the strike rate (S), which is the average number of balls bowled per wicket taken. Each of these is important in its own right. The average (A) is normally used to rate bowlers. This classification is however not very accurate as it does for example not take into account how many overs have been bowled. Two bowlers might have the same average but one may be more economical than the other. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a single measure that takes the full performance of a bowler into account. The combined bowling rate CBR = 3/[1/A + 1/E + 1/S] is defined for this purpose and is used to rate bowlers. A classification scheme . with ten classes according to which bowlers can be classified is given. The best bowlers are those who fall in class one.
Homologous VapC Toxins Inhibit Translation and Cell Growth by Sequence-Specific Cleavage of tRNAfMet

ABSTRACT Type II toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems play a critical role in the establishment and maintenance of bacterial dormancy. They are composed of a protein toxin and its cognate protein antitoxin. They function to regulate growth under conditions of stress, such as starvation or antibiotic treatment. As cellular proteases degrade the antitoxin, which normally binds and neutralizes the toxin, this frees the toxin to act on its cellular targets and arrest bacterial growth. TA systems are of particular concern in regard to pathogenic organisms, such as nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi), as dormancy may lead to chronic infections and failure of antibiotic treatment. Many targets of VapC toxins have not been identified, to date, and this knowledge is crucial to understanding how toxins control the establishment and maintenance of bacterial dormancy. Accordingly, we characterized the target specificity of the VapC toxins from the two paralogous NTHi vapBC TA systems. RNA sequencing and Northern blot analysis revealed that VapC1 and VapC2 cleave tRNAfMet in the anticodon loop. Overexpression of tRNAfMet suppresses VapC toxicity, suggesting that translation inhibition results from the depletion of tRNAfMet. These experiments also identified base pairs in the tRNAfMet anticodon stem that play a key role in VapC-specific cleavage of the tRNA. Together these findings suggest the potential for NTHi VapC1 and VapC2 to induce dormancy by sequence-specific cleavage of tRNAfMet. IMPORTANCE Bacterial persistence is a significant concern in regard to pathogenic organisms, such as nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae, as it can result in recurrent and chronic infections. Toxin-antitoxin systems can lead to persistence by causing bacteria to enter a slow-growing state that renders them antibiotic tolerant. Type II toxin components affect a wide variety of bacterial targets in order to elicit dormancy, and for many toxin-antitoxin systems, these mechanisms are not well understood. Thus, in order to understand how vapBC toxin-antitoxin systems cause dormancy, it is crucial to investigate the substrate specificity of VapC toxins. This study identifies the target of the VapC1 and VapC2 toxins from NTHi and takes important steps toward understanding the specificity of these toxins for their tRNA target.
Dynamic Differential Location Privacy with Personalized Error Bounds

Location privacy continues to attract significant attentions in recent years, fueled by the rapid growth of locationbased services (LBSs) and smart mobile devices. Location obfuscation has been the dominating location privacy preserving approach, which transforms the exact location of a mobile user to a perturbed location before its public release. The notion of location privacy has evolved from user-defined location kanonymity to two statistical quantification based privacy notions: geo-indistinguishability and expected inference error. The former promotes differential location privacy but does not protect location against inference attacks of Bayesian adversary with using prior information, whereas the latter promotes the background inference resilient location privacy but does not guarantee differential location privacy with respect to geo-indistinguishability. In this paper we argue that geo-indistinguishability and expected inference error are two complementary notions for location privacy. We formally study the relationship between two privacy notions. By leveraging this relationship and a personalized error bound, we can effectively combine the two privacy notions. We develop PIVE, a two-phase dynamic differential location privacy framework. In Phase I, we take into account the user-defined inference error threshold and the prior knowledge about the user’s location to determine a subset of locations as the protection location set for protecting the actual location by increasing adversary’s expected location inference error. In Phase II, we generate pseudo-locations (i.e., perturbed locations) in the way that achieves differential privacy over the protection location set. This two-phase location obfuscation is constructed dynamically by leveraging the relationship between two privacy notions based on adversary’s current prior information and user-specific privacy requirements on different locations and at different times. Experiments with real-world datasets demonstrate that our PIVE approach effectively guarantees the two privacy notions simultaneously and outperforms the existing mechanisms in terms of adaptive privacy protection in presence of skewed locations and computation efficiency.
Computational analysis optimizes the flow cytometric evaluation for lymphoma

Although many clinical laboratories are adopting higher color flow cytometric assays, the approach to optimizing panel design and data analysis is often traditional and subjective. In order to address the question “What is the best flow cytometric strategy to reliably distinguish germinal center B‐cell lymphoma (GC‐L) from germinal center hyperplasia (GC‐H)? ” we applied a computational tool that identifies target populations correlated with a desired outcome, in this case diagnosis.
Cytoarchitecture and ultrastructure of neural stem cell niches and neurogenic complexes maintaining adult neurogenesis in the olfactory midbrain of spiny lobsters, Panulirus argus

New interneurons are continuously generated in small proliferation zones within neuronal somata clusters in the olfactory deutocerebrum of adult decapod crustaceans. Each proliferation zone is connected to a clump of cells containing one neural stem cell (i.e., adult neuroblast), thus forming a “neurogenic complex. ” Here we provide a detailed analysis of the cytoarchitecture of neurogenic complexes in adult spiny lobsters, Panulirus argus, based on transmission electron microscopy and labeling with cell‐type‐selective markers. The clump of cells is composed of unique bipolar clump‐forming cells that collectively completely envelop the adult neuroblast and are themselves ensheathed by a layer of processes of multipolar cell body glia. An arteriole is attached to the clump of cells, but dye perfusion experiments show that hemolymph has no access to the interior of the clump of cells. Thus, the clump of cells fulfills morphological criteria of a protective stem cell niche, with clump‐forming cells constituting the adult neuroblast's microenvironment together with the cell body glia processes separating it from other tissue components. Bromodeoxyuridine pulse‐chase experiments with short survival times suggest that adult neuroblasts are not quiescent but rather cycle actively during daytime. We propose a cell lineage model in which an asymmetrically dividing adult neuroblast repopulates the pool of neuronal progenitor cells in the associated proliferation zone. In conclusion, as in mammalian brains, adult neurogenesis in crustacean brains is fueled by neural stem cells that are maintained by stem cell niches that preserve elements of the embryonic microenvironment and contain glial and vascular elements. J. Comp. Neurol. 519:2283–2319, 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Low Speed Laser Welding of Aluminium Alloys Using Single-Mode Fiber Lasers

Laser welding of aluminium alloys is an important industrial technology and yet many challenges still lie ahead. Laser welding studies were reported almost within two years since the first laser was invented in 1960. However, practical metal seam welding was not feasible until the early 1970s when multi-kilowatt, continuous wave CO2 lasers were developed to allow for deep penetration keyhole welding (Duley, 1999). Unfortunately, the application for deep penetration welding of aluminium was limited due to its very high reflectivity at the relatively long wavelength (10.6 micron) of CO2 lasers. Flash-pumped Nd:YAG lasers with a 1.06 micron wavelength were not suitable due to their low power and extremely poor efficiency at the time. Since the 1980s, high power seam welding of carbon steels using multi-kilowatt CO2 lasers has become a regular industrial practice, in particular in the automotive industry. In the mid 1990s, diode pumped Nd:YAG lasers were developed that offered kilowatt power and high efficiency. As a result, aluminium laser welding became more feasible because the beam absorption of aluminium alloys at 1.06 micron is three times as much as it is at 10.6 micron. Nevertheless, the poor beam quality and high cost of diodepumped Nd:YAG lasers still hinders their acceptance in industry. In the early 2000s, with the arrival of single-mode and multi-mode high power fiber lasers at a 1.075 micron wavelength, along with excellent beam quality and low maintenance cost, the expectation was that the advantage of laser welding aluminium components could be better realized. The requirement of very high laser power for aluminium welding is not only due to its high reflectivity and high heat conductivity. Aluminium has been known to be one of the most challenging metals to weld successfully (Mandal, 2002). Other factors affecting the weld quality of aluminium alloys include different kinds of porosity formation, hot tearing, solidification cracking, oxide inclusions and loss of alloying elements. It has been found that weld porosities can be significantly suppressed at high welding speeds. In order to maintain a stable keyhole at high speeds, very high laser power is needed. What has been less explored is the reason why the welding process becomes less stable and prone to defects as the speed is reduced. There are many applications where high speed welding is not suitable. With the expansion of modern miniaturized consumer products, the weld path can be short and with intricate shapes. High welding speed may not be effective due to the short paths and constant accelerations and decelerations required to follow the path precisely. One such 3
Mesure de l’utilité attachée aux états de santé : valorisation de l’index d’utilité EQ-5D et évolution de l’échelle actuelle en France

In cost-utility analysis results are often processed in terms of QALY (Quality Adjusted Life Year). The duration of a given health state is weighted with a coefficient calculated based on its associated quality of life. Using such an indicator assumes two things: knowing the health state of the patient and the utility level associated to that state. In this purpose preference-based indexes have been developed. The EQ-5D is one of the most frequently used indexes. It has been developed and validated in many countries, including France, but the French utility function has not been calculated. This function gives a weight to each health state taking into account the local populations’ preferences. In absence of set of national population-based utility weights, a foreign value-set is used. However preferences for different heath states may not necessarily be all-purpose. Several studies have backed up this assumption pointing out that utilities function estimated in different countries could present some differences. Thus, utility values should be developed locally. The dissertation has several objectives: to provide a value-set for the EQ-5D health states in the French context, to develop a revised version of the EQ-5D with 5 levels for each dimension and to test a new valuation method called Scoring.
Modeling the Conditional Distribution of Daily Stock Index Returns: An Alternative Bayesian Semiparametric Model

This article introduces a new family of Bayesian semiparametric models for the conditional distribution of daily stock index returns. The proposed models capture key stylized facts of such returns, namely, heavy tails, asymmetry, volatility clustering, and the “leverage effect. ” A Bayesian nonparametric prior is used to generate random density functions that are unimodal and asymmetric. Volatility is modeled parametrically. The new model is applied to the daily returns of the S&P 500, FTSE 100, and EUROSTOXX 50 indices and is compared with GARCH, stochastic volatility, and other Bayesian semiparametric models.
Threshold effects of inflation on economic growth in selected African regional economic communities: Evidence from a dynamic panel threshold modeling

The objective of this study is to estimate inflation threshold and examine its impact on the inflation-growth nexus in selected African regional economic communities. While a number of empirical studies exist in this area for developing countries, they bundle up countries from Asia, Africa and Latin America which do not have the same inflation experiences. This study therefore focuses on Africa. However, since African regional groupings themselves have different inflation experiences, non-linearity in the relationship between inflation and growth is explored within each grouping separately. The study uses dynamic panel threshold modeling recently suggested by Kremer et al. (2013) which extends the non-dynamic panel threshold model of Hansen (1999) and the cross-sectional threshold model of Caner and Hansen (2004). The results indicate that the estimated inflation threshold is different across the regional economic communities. Nonlinearity in inflation-growth nexus seems to hold in CEMAC, COMESA and SADC while it is questioned in WAEMU and WAMZ. For CEMAC, COMESA and SADC, the findings indicate that inflation above the threshold is harmful to growth. Some correlations are established in this study but further analysis is needed to suggest a policy
The Proteasome-associated Protein Ecm29 Inhibits Proteasomal ATPase Activity and in Vivo Protein Degradation by the Proteasome*

Background: Ecm29 binds to proteasome holoenzyme, but its physiological role is poorly understood. Results: Deletion of Ecm29 rescues proteasomal degradation defects in vivo and increases proteasomal ATPase activity. Conclusion: Ecm29 is an inhibitor of the proteasome in vivo. Significance: Ecm29 functions in part by preventing activity of proteasomes that do not pass quality control. Several proteasome-associated proteins regulate degradation by the 26 S proteasome using the ubiquitin chains that mark most substrates for degradation. The proteasome-associated protein Ecm29, however, has no ubiquitin-binding or modifying activity, and its direct effect on substrate degradation is unclear. Here, we show that Ecm29 acts as a proteasome inhibitor. Besides inhibiting the proteolytic cleavage of peptide substrates in vitro, it inhibits the degradation of ubiquitin-dependent and -independent substrates in vivo. Binding of Ecm29 to the proteasome induces a closed conformation of the substrate entry channel of the core particle. Furthermore, Ecm29 inhibits proteasomal ATPase activity, suggesting that the mechanism of inhibition and gate regulation by Ecm29 is through regulation of the proteasomal ATPases. Consistent with this, we identified through chemical cross-linking that Ecm29 binds to, or in close proximity to, the proteasomal ATPase subunit Rpt5. Additionally, we show that Ecm29 preferentially associates with both mutant and nucleotide depleted proteasomes. We propose that the inhibitory ability of Ecm29 is important for its function as a proteasome quality control factor by ensuring that aberrant proteasomes recognized by Ecm29 are inactive.