bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Structure of the bacterial flagellar hook cap provides insights into a hook assembly mechanism
Authors: Matsunami Hideyuki , Yoon Young-Ho , Imada Katsumi , Namba Keiichi , Samatey Fadel A. 
Published: November 2021

AbstractAssembly of bacterial flagellar hook requires FlgD, a protein known to form the hook cap. Symmetry mismatch between the hook and the hook cap is believed to drive efficient assembly of the hook in a way similar to the filament cap helping filament assembly. However, the hook cap dependent mechanism of hook assembly has remained poorly understood. Here, we report the crystal structure of the hook cap composed of five subunits of FlgD from Salmonella enterica at 3.3 Å resolution. The pentameric structure of the hook cap is divided into two parts: a stalk region composed of five N-terminal domains; and a petal region containing five C-terminal domains. Biochemical and genetic analyses show that the N-terminal domains of the hook cap is essential for the hook-capping function, and the structure now clearly reveals why. A plausible hook assembly mechanism promoted by the hook cap is proposed based on the structure.
The neural representation of absolute direction during mental navigation in conceptual spaces
Authors: Viganò Simone , Rubino Valerio , Buiatti Marco , Piazza Manuela 
Published: November 2021

AbstractWhen humans mentally “navigate” bidimensional uniform conceptual spaces, they recruit the same grid-like and distance codes typically evoked when exploring the physical environment. Here, using fMRI, we show evidence that conceptual navigation also elicits another kind of spatial code: that of absolute direction. This code is mostly localized in the medial parietal cortex, where its strength predicts participants’ comparative semantic judgments. It may provide a complementary mechanism for conceptual navigation outside the hippocampal formation.
Modulation of AggR levels reveals features of virulence regulation in enteroaggregative E. coli
Authors: Prieto Alejandro , Bernabeu Manuel , Sánchez-Herrero José Francisco , Pérez-Bosque Anna , Miró Lluïsa , Bäuerl Christine , Collado Carmen , Hüttener Mário , Juárez Antonio 
Published: November 2021

AbstractEnteroaggregative Escherichia coli (EAEC) strains are one of the diarrheagenic pathotypes. EAEC strains harbor a virulence plasmid (pAA2) that encodes, among other virulence determinants, the aggR gene. The expression of the AggR protein leads to the expression of several virulence determinants in both plasmids and chromosomes. In this work, we describe a novel mechanism that influences AggR expression. Because of the absence of a Rho-independent terminator in the 3′UTR, aggR transcripts extend far beyond the aggR ORF. These transcripts are prone to PNPase-mediated degradation. Structural alterations in the 3′UTR result in increased aggR transcript stability, leading to increased AggR levels. We therefore investigated the effect of increased AggR levels on EAEC virulence. Upon finding the previously described AggR-dependent virulence factors, we detected novel AggR-regulated genes that may play relevant roles in EAEC virulence. Mutants exhibiting high AggR levels because of structural alterations in the aggR 3′UTR show increased mobility and increased pAA2 conjugation frequency. Furthermore, among the genes exhibiting increased fold change values, we could identify those of metabolic pathways that promote increased degradation of arginine, fatty acids and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), respectively. In this paper, we discuss how the AggR-dependent increase in specific metabolic pathways activity may contribute to EAEC virulence.
An enhanced fluorescent probe through the strategy of using MgWO4 nanosheets to enhance terbium ion luminescence for highly sensitive and point-of-care visual quantitative testing of ciprofloxacin integrated with a low-cost smartphone-based platform
Authors: Zhang Jingfei , Zhang Yu , Shi Guoyue 
Published: November 2021

Schematic representation of the mechanism of Tb3+–MgWO4 enhanced fluorescent probe for point-of-care visual quantitative detection of ciprofloxacin using a smartphone-based portable platform.
Intramolecular G-quadruplex-hairpin loop structure competition of a GC-rich exon region in the TMPRSS2 gene
Authors: Sugimoto Wataru , Kinoshita Natsuki , Nakata Minori , Ohyama Tatsuya , Tateishi-Karimata Hisae , Nishikata Takahito , Sugimoto Naoki , Miyoshi Daisuke , Kawauchi Keiko 
Published: November 2021

We identified cytosine-rich regions adjacent to guanine-rich regions in the TMPRSS2 gene, which showed structural competition between a G-quadruplex and a hairpin loop. Furthermore, this competition significantly affected transcription efficiency.
Tailoring the capacitive performance of ZnCo2O4 by doping of Ni2+ and fabrication of asymmetric supercapacitor
Authors: Sandhiya M. , Kaviarasan G. , Santhoshkumar S. , Sathish M. 
Published: November 2021

The specific capacity of ZnCo2O4 tailored effectively by doping with Ni2+
Vena cava presents endothelial dysfunction prior to thoracic aorta in heart failure: the pivotal role of nNOS uncoupling/oxidative stress
Authors: Dardi Patrizia , Perazza Laís Rossi , Couto Gisele Kruger , Campos Gianne Paul , Capettini Luciano dos Santos Aggum , Rossoni Luciana Venturini 
Published: November 2021

Abstract
Arterial endothelial dysfunction has been extensively studied in heart failure (HF). However, little is known about the adjustments shown by the venous system in this condition. Considering that inferior vena cava (VC) tone could influence cardiac performance and HF prognosis, the aim of the present study was to assess the VC and thoracic aorta (TA) endothelial function of HF-post-myocardial infarction (MI) rats, comparing both endothelial responses and signaling pathways developed. Vascular reactivity of TA and VC from HF post-MI and sham operated (SO) rats was assessed with a wire myograph, 4 weeks after coronary artery occlusion surgery. Nitric oxide (NO), H2O2 production and oxidative stress were evaluated in situ with fluorescent probes, while protein expression and dimer/monomer ratio was assessed by Western blot. VC from HF rats presented endothelial dysfunction, while TA exhibited higher acetylcholine (ACh)-induced vasodilation when compared with vessels from SO rats. TA exhibited increased ACh-induced NO production due to a higher coupling of endothelial and neuronal NO synthases isoforms (eNOS, nNOS), and enhanced expression of antioxidant enzymes. These adjustments, however, were absent in VC of HF post-MI rats, which exhibited uncoupled nNOS, oxidative stress and higher H2O2 bioavailability. Altogether, the present study suggests a differential regulation of endothelial function between VC and TA of HF post-MI rats, most likely due to nNOS uncoupling and compromised antioxidant defense.
Friction behaviour between a laparoscopic grasper and the large intestine during minimally invasive surgery
Authors: Guo Yan , Cai Chengmo , Li Wei 
Published: November 2021

AbstractSlippage is a common phenomenon between laparoscopic graspers and tissues during minimally invasive surgery, which may lead to inefficient surgical operations, prolonged operation time, and increased patient suffering. The stability factors related to the friction behaviour between laparoscopic graspers and the large intestine, including bio‐surface liquids, pulling angle, and surface profile of graspers, were studied. The friction behaviour at the large intestine–grasper interface was tested using a UMT‐II tribometer under the conditions of clamping force of 1–4 N, sliding displacement of 15 mm, and sliding velocity of 2 mm/s to simulate the grasping and pulling operations of soft tissue. The results showed that the bio‐surface liquid (serum) of the large intestine significantly decreased the friction coefficient, thus reducing the grasping efficiency. A pulling angle of 15° could generate the peak frictional force and enhance the grasping stability. The frictional force increased with the ratio of the profile surface area of the grasper. These results demonstrate that the grasping stability can be improved by changing either the bio‐surface liquid condition or the pulling angle. In addition, a grasper with a larger profile surface area can also prevent slippage due to its significant influence on the pressure distribution and actual contact area for tissue retention.
Optimal starting frequency of three‐phase induction motor
Authors: Chen Haixu , Bi Chao 
Published: November 2021

AbstractIn its applications, the starting performance of a 3‐phase induction motor (IM) is very important. The starting torque of the motor should be as high as possible within the safe current range of the motor driver. In the study, the optimal frequency for motor starting is derived from the frequency characteristic of the IM. Through the analysis of the characteristics, the optimal frequency point can be found, which is able to generate the maximum torque per unit drive current. Both theoretical analysis and experiments show that the IM with the optimal starting frequency can generate the maximum torque for a given current. The traditional methods, such as soft‐start, can reduce the starting current, but at the expense of lowering starting torque. This starting technology can solve the problem caused by traditional methods, improve the starting performance of the motor system significantly, and lower the requirement for the current redundancy of the motor driver effectively.
Optimizing energy consumption patterns of smart home based on Sine Cosine Algorithm
Authors: Youssef Heba , Kamel Salah , Hassan Mohamed H. , Khan Baseem 
Published: November 2021

AbstractThis paper presents a new application of the sine cosine algorithm (SCA) to obtain optimal home energy management systems (HEMS) that use the load shifting strategy of demand side management (DSM) to optimize the energy consumption patterns of a smart home. It aims to manage the load demand in an efficient way to decrease electricity bills and peak to average ratio (PAR) while maintaining user comfort through coordination among home devices. In order to meet the load demand of electricity consumers, this study schedules the load on a day‐ahead and real‐time basis. The main objective of the paper is to help balance the load through ON‐peak hours and OFF‐peak hours. Three price signals, namely: real‐time pricing (RTP), time of use (TOU), and critical peak pricing (CPP), are used to evaluate the proposed algorithm. The results show that the electricity bill and PAR are minimized by up to 40% and 50%, respectively. The scheduling using coordination between devices in real‐time does not significantly impact the cost of electricity and the peak to average ratio.
Analysis for magnetic field disturbance of hybrid DC circuit breaker during breaking
Authors: Wu Sihang , Shen Hong , Qi Lei , Zhang Bei , Cui Xiang , Zhang Xiangyu , Wei Xiaoguang , Chen Longlong 
Published: November 2021

AbstractThe high current of hybrid DC circuit breaker (HCB) in the process of breaking generates strong transient magnetic field (MF), which may interfere with the normal operation of driver control units (DCUs). Therefore, the analysis for transient MF disturbance is of great significance. Due to the large space scale of HCB, with the large number of power electronic devices, the numerical calculation method has the disadvantages of large consumption of resources and slow calculation speed in solving the transient MF inside the HCB. In this study, the current generation mechanism of a 500 kV HCB is analysed, and the equivalent current path is obtained by considering the skin effect. Combined with the temporal and spatial distribution of transient current, the multi‐process transient equivalent model of transient MF calculation is established, and the model has the advantages of high precision and high speed. Then, the breaking experiment of HCB is carried out, and the transient MF near the DCU is measured. The experiment results verify the validity of the model. Furthermore, the disturbance of transient MF at the DCU of the transfer branch during breaking 25 kA current is analysed.
Comprehensive local control design for eliminating line resistance effect on power sharing degradation in DC microgrids
Authors: Li Fulong , Lin Zhengyu , Xu Haoge , Wang Fei 
Published: November 2021

AbstractIn droop‐controlled DC microgrids, parasitic resistances of long conductive lines introduce additional terms for the power calculation and impact the power sharing accuracy. This paper proposed a comprehensive local control design for enhancing power sharing accuracy and restoring DC bus voltage while increasing stability performance in DC microgrids. A passive controller is used in the primary control to ensure the sufficient bandwidth of controller in case of frequent operation modes alteration and voltage deviation in the DC microgrid. A concept of Virtual Negative Line Resistance (VNLR) is used in the secondary control layer to compensate the real line resistance such that line resistance no longer degrades power sharing accuracy. The common DC bus voltage needs to be monitored in the proposed secondary controller. Simultaneously, the common DC bus voltage can be restored as the designed value. The monitored DC bus voltage signal is filtered by a designed low‐pass filter such that mid‐high frequency dynamics can be decoupled between secondary controls and primary controls. Then the entire local control scheme relaxes three Degrees of Freedom (DoF) which can be used for upper layer controls. Finally, the proposed control method has been experimentally validated in a 50 V DC microgrid laboratory testing system.
Parametric Wald test for target detection with distributed MIMO radar in partially mixing homogeneous and non‐homogeneous environments
Authors: Zhu Lingxiao , Wen Gongjian , Liang Yuanyuan , Luo Dengsanlang , Song Haibo 
Published: November 2021

AbstractThis study focusses on the target detection problem in the distributed multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) radar. The observation environment is assumed to be partially homogeneous in one transmitter‐receiver path and simultaneously non‐homogeneous for different paths. By characterising the disturbance signals with a series of auto‐regressive (AR) processes, two parametric detectors based on the Wald test are developed. The first one utilises an iterative scheme to estimate the unknown parameters that were involved in the derivation, and the second one obtains these estimations sequentially. One of the most attractive features of the two distributed MIMO radar detectors is that they can be used in the presence/absence of the training data. More specifically, they can take advantage of the training data to boost the detection performances effectively even if the training data are very limited. The simulation results of several scenarios demonstrate the remarkable detection performances of authors’ proposed methods compared with that of the competitors. Furthermore, the amplitude estimation performances of the two detectors are evaluated via the corresponding Cramér–Rao bound (CRB).
PPDTS: Predicting potential drug–target interactions based on network similarity
Authors: Wang Wei , Wang Yongqing , Zhang Yu , Liu Dong , Zhang Hongjun , Wang Xianfang 
Published: November 2021

AbstractIdentification of drug–target interactions (DTIs) has great practical importance in the drug discovery process for known diseases. However, only a small proportion of DTIs in these databases has been verified experimentally, and the computational methods for predicting the interactions remain challenging. As a result, some effective computational models have become increasingly popular for predicting DTIs. In this work, the authors predict potential DTIs from the local structure of drug–target associations' network, which is different from the traditional global network similarity methods based on structure and ligand. A novel method called PPDTS is proposed to predict DTIs. First, according to the DTIs’ network local structure, the known DTIs are converted into a binary network. Second, the Resource Allocation algorithm is used to obtain a drug–drug similarity network and a target–target similarity network. Third, a Collaborative Filtering algorithm is used with the known drug–target topology information to obtain similarity scores. Fourth, the linear combination of drug–target similarity model and the target–drug similarity model are innovatively proposed to obtain the final prediction results. Finally, the experimental performance of PPDTS has proved to be higher than that of the previously mentioned four popular network‐based similarity methods, which is validated in different experimental datasets. Some of the predicted results can be supported in UniProt and DrugBank databases.
Neptune’s ring arcs from VLT/SPHERE-IRDIS near-infrared observations
Authors: Souami D. , Renner S. , Sicardy B. , Langlois M. , Carry B. , Delorme P. , Golaszewska P. 
Published: November 2021

Context. Neptune’s incomplete ring arcs have been stable since their discovery in 1984 by stellar occultation. Although these structures should be destroyed within a few months through differential Keplerian motion, imaging data over the past couple of decades have shown that these structures remain stable.
Aims. We present the first SPHERE near-infrared observations of Neptune’s ring arcs taken at 2.2 μm (broadband Ks) with the IRDIS camera at the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in August 2016.
Methods. The images were aligned using the ephemerides of the satellite Proteus and were suitably co-added to enhance ring and satellite signals.
Results. We analyse high-angular-resolution near-infrared images of Neptune’s ring arcs obtained in 2016 at the ESO VLT-UT3 with the adaptive-optics-fed camera SPHERE-IRDIS. We derive accurate mean motion values for the arcs and the nearby satellite Galatea. The trailing arcs Fraternité and Égalité have been stable since they were last observed in 2007. Furthermore, we confirm the fading away of the leading arcs Courage and Liberté. Finally, we confirm the mismatch between the arcs’ position and the 42:43 inclined and eccentric corotation resonances with Galatea, thus demonstrating that no 42:43 corotation model works to explain the azimuthal confinement of the arcs’ materiel.
Nystagmus: Diagnosis, Topographic Anatomical Localization and Therapy
Authors: Strupp Michael Leo , Straumann Dominik , Helmchen Christoph 
Published: November 2021

AbstractNystagmus is defined as rhythmic, most often involuntary eye movements. It normally consists of a slow (pathological) drift of the eyes, followed by a fast central compensatory movement back to the primary position (refixation saccade). The direction, however, is reported according to the fast phase. The cardinal symptoms are, on the one hand, blurred vision, jumping images (oscillopsia), reduced visual acuity and, sometimes, double vision; many of these symptoms depend on the eye position. On the other hand, depending on the etiology, patients may suffer from the following symptoms: 1. permanent dizziness, postural imbalance, and gait disorder (typical of downbeat and upbeat nystagmus); 2. if the onset of symptoms is acute, the patient may experience spinning vertigo with a tendency to fall to one side (due to ischemia in the area of the brainstem or cerebellum with central fixation nystagmus or as acute unilateral vestibulopathy with spontaneous peripheral vestibular
nystagmus); or 3. positional vertigo. There are two major categories: the first is spontaneous nystagmus, i.e., nystagmus which occurs in the primary position as upbeat or downbeat nystagmus; and the second includes various types of nystagmus which are induced or modified by certain factors. Examples are gaze-evoked nystagmus, head-shaking nystagmus, positional nystagmus, and hyperventilation-induced nystagmus. In addition, there are disorders similar to nystagmus, such as ocular flutter or opsoclonus. The most common central types of spontaneous nystagmus are downbeat and upbeat, infantile, pure torsional, pendular fixation, periodic alternating, and seesaw nystagmus. Many types of nystagmus allow a precise neuroanatomical localization: for instance, downbeat nystagmus, which is most often caused by a bilateral floccular lesion or dysfunction, or upbeat nystagmus, which is caused by a lesion in the midbrain or medulla. Examples of drug treatment are the use of
4-aminopyridine for downbeat and upbeat nystagmus, memantine or gabapentin for pendular fixation nystagmus, or baclofen for periodic alternating nystagmus. In this article we are focusing on nystagmus. In a second article we will focus on central ocular motor disorders, such as saccade or gaze palsy, internuclear ophthalmoplegia, and gaze-holding deficits. Therefore, these types of eye movements will not be described here in detail.
Entwicklung der körperlichen Leistungsfähigkeit bei
Kindern während der coronabedingten Einschränkungen im
Frühjahr/Sommer 2020
Authors: Fehr Ulrich , Strobl Helmut 
Published: November 2021

Zusammenfassung
Ziel der Studie Ziel der Studie ist die Untersuchung der Entwicklung der
körperlichen Leistungsfähigkeit von Kindern während der
coronabedingt eingeschränkten Bewegungsmöglichkeiten im
Frühjahr/Sommer 2020.
Methodik Die körperliche Leistungsfähigkeit von 131
Grundschulkindern der 2. Jahrgangsstufe wurde unmittelbar vor den
Schulschließungen am 16. März 2020 und nach dem Ende der
Sommerferien in Rheinland-Pfalz (Ende August) über den Deutschen
Motoriktest erhoben. Die Entwicklung im Beobachtungszeitraum wurde mittels
Varianzanalyse mit Messwiederholung analysiert.
Ergebnisse Unter Berücksichtigung der entwicklungsbedingt zu
erwartenden Veränderung wurde für die Gesamtstichprobe insgesamt
ein signifikanter Anstieg der körperlichen Leistungsfähigkeit
sowie des BMI nachgewiesen. In den Dimensionen Schnelligkeit und Ausdauer
entwickelten sich die Kinder schlechter als altersgemäß zu
erwarten. Der Anteil an übergewichtigen Kindern stieg von 17,7 auf
23,8% an.
Schlussfolgerung Die Ergebnisse schränken die vielfach formulierte
Befürchtung ein, die Corona-bedingten Einschränkungen im
Frühjahr/Sommer 2020 könnten negative Auswirkungen auf
die körperliche Entwicklung von Kindern haben. Die im kurzen
Beobachtungszeitraum diagnostizierten Entwicklungen bei BMI und Ausdauer sind
nach Ansicht der Autoren aber durchaus als Warnsignal zu verstehen.