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This study proposes a data-based strategy for prioritizing sewerage services and developing consumer-centric asset management systems. Sewerage systems are essential infrastructure, but resource-intensive, and governments have faced challenges due to limited budgets and aging facilities. Most countries are still in the early stages of adopting consumer-centric approaches. By using the mixed logit model, this study identified heterogeneous service preferences among consumers based on their priority for physical and social services. Groups who attributed their importance to physical services were more sensitive to sewerage bills; however, those who emphasized social services were more interested in water activity environment improvement and odor intensity reduction. This study also showed that people are willing to pay USD 10 for odor intensity reduction and USD 6 for water activities improvement on average, but those who prioritized sinkhole reduction and flood reduction answered less willingness to pay for each service improvement. Applying these heterogeneous service preferences to service improvement strategies can lead not only to higher consumer satisfaction and lower economic burden, but also to a deeper understanding of residents' willingness to pay for service improvement in certain service preference areas. Therefore, the results contribute to the development of sustainable asset management strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

N‐Acetylserotonin (NAS) is an intermediate in the melatonin biosynthetic pathway. We investigated the anti‐inflammatory activity of NAS by focusing on its chemical feature oxidizable to an electrophile. NAS was readily oxidized by reaction with HOCl, an oxidant produced in the inflammatory state. HOCl‐reacted NAS (Oxi‐NAS), but not NAS, activated the anti‐inflammatory nuclear factor erythroid 2‐related factor 2 (Nrf2)‐heme oxygenase (HO)‐1 pathway in cells. Chromatographic and mass analyses demonstrated that Oxi‐NAS was the iminoquinone form of NAS and could react with N‐acetylcysteine possessing a nucleophilic thiol to form a covalent adduct. Oxi‐NAS bound to Kelch‐like ECH‐associated protein 1, resulting in Nrf2 dissociation. Moreover, rectally administered NAS increased the levels of nuclear Nrf2 and HO‐1 proteins in the inflamed colon of rats. Simultaneously, NAS was converted to Oxi‐NAS in the inflamed colon. Rectal NAS mitigated colonic damage and inflammation. The anticolitic effects were significantly compromised by the coadministration of an HO‐1 inhibitor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dna2 can efficiently process 5′ flaps containing DNA secondary structure using coordinated action of the three biochemical activities: the N‐terminally encoded DNA‐binding activity and the C‐terminally encoded endonuclease and helicase activities. In this study, we investigated the cross talk among the three functional domains using a variety of dna2 mutant alleles and enzymes derived thereof. We found that disruption of the catalytic activities of Dna2 activated Dna2‐dependent checkpoint, residing in the N‐terminal domain. This checkpoint activity contributed to growth defects of dna2 catalytic mutants, revealing the presence of an intramolecular functional cross talk in Dna2. The N‐terminal domain of Dna2 bound specifically to substrates that mimic DNA replication fork intermediates, including Holliday junctions. Using site‐directed mutagenesis of the N‐terminal domain of Dna2, we discovered that five consecutive basic amino acid residues were essential for the ability of Dna2 to bind hairpin DNA in vitro. Mutant cells expressing the dna2 allele containing all five basic residues substituted with alanine displayed three distinct phenotypes: (i) temperature‐sensitive growth defects, (ii) bypass of S‐phase arrest, and (iii) increased sensitivity to DNA‐damaging agents. Taken together, our results indicate that the interplay between the N‐terminal regulatory and C‐terminal catalytic domains of Dna2 plays an important role in vivo, especially when cells are placed under replication stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Residential electricity load data can include numerous types of bad data, even clustered bad data, as they that are typically captured by simple measurement instruments. For example, in the case of a time-series of Not-a-Number (NaN) errors, the values before or next to a NaN may appear as the sum of actual values during the times of the NaN series. To utilize load data that includes such erroneous data for prediction or data mining analysis, customized detection and imputation should be conducted. This study proposes a new joint detection and imputation method for handling clustered bad data in residential electricity loads. Examples of these data are known invalid data points, such as consecutive NaN or zero values followed by or being ahead of an outlier. The proposed joint detection and imputation scheme first investigates the neighbors of the invalid data points, using probabilistic forecasting techniques. These techniques are implemented by the next valid neighbors to determine whether there is an anomaly or not. Then, adaptive imputations are applied on the basis of the detection, the candidate point should be imputed simultaneously or not. To assess the potential of the newly proposed scheme to characterize the clustered bad data, we analyzed the electricity loads of 354 households. Moreover, joint detection and imputations are conducted to test with the randomly injected synthesized clustered bad data (containing NaNs of various lengths) that is followed by the summation of the actual NaN values. The proposed scheme succeeded in detecting clustered bad data with an accuracy of 95.5% and a false alarm rate of 3.6% for all households in the dataset. Outlier detection-assisted imputation schemes are evaluated for NaNs with optional outliers. Results demonstrate that these schemes improve the overall accuracy significantly compared to schemes without outlier detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]