Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DDSolver: An Add-In Program for Modeling and Comparison of Drug Dissolution Profiles

In recent years, several mathematical models have been developed for analysis of drug dissolution data, and many different mathematical approaches have been proposed to assess the similarity between two drug dissolution profiles. However, until now, no computer program has been reported for simplifying the calculations involved in the modeling and comparison of dissolution profiles. The purposes of this article are: (1) to describe the development of a software program, called DDSolver, for facilitating the assessment of similarity between drug dissolution data; (2) to establish a model library for fitting dissolution data using a nonlinear optimization method; and (3) to provide a brief review of available approaches for comparing drug dissolution profiles. DDSolver is a freely available program which is capable of performing most existing techniques for comparing drug release data, including exploratory data analysis, univariate ANOVA, ratio test procedures, the difference factor f1, the similarity factor f2, the Rescigno indices, the 90% confidence interval (CI) of difference method, the multivariate statistical distance method, the model-dependent method, the bootstrap f2 method, and Chow and Ki’s time series method. Sample runs of the program demonstrated that the results were satisfactory, and DDSolver could be served as a useful tool for dissolution data analysis.
Customer Mistreatment, Employee Health, and Job Performance

The current study examined employee outcomes associated with customer mistreatment, conceptualizing customer mistreatment as signaling failure regarding employees’ pursuit of task and social goals at work. We argue that employees make internal attributions when experiencing customer mistreatment and are likely to engage in rumination because of this perceived goal failure. The goal of this article was to test this conceptualization and examine the outcomes of customer mistreatment–induced rumination as well as emotional labor strategies as potential protective mechanisms against customer mistreatment. Findings from time-lagged data collected from 737 call-center customer representatives indicated that cognitive rumination mediated the relationship between customer mistreatment and supervisor-rated job performance, customer-directed sabotage, employee well-being, and emotional exhaustion. The second mediator, social sharing of negative events, mediated the relationship between customer mistreatment and emotional exhaustion only. As expected, cognitive rumination was positively related to customer sabotage and emotional exhaustion and negatively related to job performance and well-being. Social sharing of negative events was positively related to both well-being and emotional exhaustion. Finally, we found that deep acting, but not surface acting, buffered the effects of customer mistreatment on cognitive rumination and social sharing. Limitations, future research directions, and managerial implications are discussed.
Thermoelastic Damping in the Size-Dependent Microplate Resonators Based on Modified Couple Stress Theory

The dynamic properties and behaviors of microplate resonators have been experimentally shown to be size dependent. The thermoelastic damping plays an important role on the inherent energy dissipation of the microplate resonators. Based on the modified couple stress theory, the size-dependent thermoelastic damping in microplate resonators is investigated. The governing equation of motion is derived by using Hamilton principle. The thermoelastic damping is obtained via solving the heat diffusion equation. The presented results of thermoelastic frequencies have a good agreement with the reported values. The result shows that the size effect has significant impact on the thermoelastic damping when the plate thickness has a similar value to the material length scale parameter. It demonstrates that the thermoelastic damping can be suppressed and the quality factor can be enlarged as the material length scale parameter increases. The quality factor is improved by several orders of magnitude as the representative temperature drops from 500 to 80 K. However, the size-dependent quality factor at 400 K is larger than that at 293 K when the thickness of the plate has a similar value of the material length scale parameter. In addition, the differences among different plate materials are small, as the plate thickness is less than the characteristic thickness. However, those gaps become larger when the characteristic thickness is overtaken.
Determination of sRNA Expressions by RNA-seq in Yersinia pestis Grown In Vitro and during Infection

Background Small non-coding RNAs (sRNAs) facilitate host-microbe interactions. They have a central function in the post-transcriptional regulation during pathogenic lifestyles. Hfq, an RNA-binding protein that many sRNAs act in conjunction with, is required for Y. pestis pathogenesis. However, information on how Yersinia pestis modulates the expression of sRNAs during infection is largely unknown. Methodology and Principal Findings We used RNA-seq technology to identify the sRNA candidates expressed from Y. pestis grown in vitro and in the infected lungs of mice. A total of 104 sRNAs were found, including 26 previously annotated sRNAs, by searching against the Rfam database with 78 novel sRNA candidates. Approximately 89% (93/104) of these sRNAs from Y. pestis are shared with its ancestor Y. pseudotuberculosis. Ninety-seven percent of these sRNAs (101/104) are shared among more than 80 sequenced genomes of 135 Y. pestis strains. These 78 novel sRNAs include 62 intergenic and 16 antisense sRNAs. Fourteen sRNAs were selected for verification by independent Northern blot analysis. Results showed that nine selected sRNA transcripts were Hfq-dependent. Interestingly, three novel sRNAs were identified as new members of the transcription factor CRP regulon. Semi-quantitative analysis revealed that Y. pestis from the infected lungs induced the expressions of six sRNAs including RyhB1, RyhB2, CyaR/RyeE, 6S RNA, RybB and sR039 and repressed the expressions of four sRNAs, including CsrB, CsrC, 4.5S RNA and sR027. Conclusions and Significance This study is the first attempt to subject RNA from Y. pestis-infected samples to direct high-throughput sequencing. Many novel sRNAs were identified and the expression patterns of relevant sRNAs in Y. pestis during in vitro growth and in vivo infection were revealed. The annotated sRNAs accounted for the most abundant sRNAs either expressed in bacteria grown in vitro or differentially expressed in the infected lungs. These findings suggested these sRNAs may have important functions in Y. pestis physiology or pathogenesis.
Topographically modified surfaces affect orientation and growth of hippocampal neurons

Extracellular matrix molecules provide biochemical and topographical cues that influence cell growth in vivo and in vitro. Effects of topographical cues on hippocampal neuron growth were examined after 14 days in vitro. Neurons from hippocampi of rat embryos were grown on poly-L-lysine-coated silicon surfaces containing fields of pillars with varying geometries. Photolithography was used to fabricate 1 µm high pillar arrays with different widths and spacings. ßIII-tubulin and MAP-2 immunocytochemistry and scanning electron microscopy were used to describe neuronal processes. Automated two-dimensional tracing software quantified process orientation and length. Process growth on smooth surfaces was random, while growth on pillared surfaces exhibited the most faithful alignment to pillar geometries with smallest gap sizes. Neurite lengths were significantly longer on pillars with the smallest inter-pillar spacings (gaps) and 2 µm pillar widths. These data indicate that physical cues affect neuron growth, suggesting that extracellular matrix topography may contribute to cell growth and differentiation. These results demonstrate new strategies for directing and promoting neuronal growth that will facilitate studies of synapse formation and function and provide methods to establish defined neural networks.
How to improve the performance of browsers with NVRAM

NVRAM provides the opportunities to improve the performance of applications as well as system software. In this paper, schemes for improving the user-perceived performance of browsers by using NVRAM are presented. We first define the user-perceived performance of browsers as two metrics: browser launch time and page loading time. The browser launch time could be minimized by caching the displayed frame buffer data in the fast NVRAM and thus reducing the I/O and processing time required for browser launch. The page loading time could be also reduced by preloading the web pages that can be revisited soon in the NVRAM. Through implementation on open source browser, we show that our schemes significantly improve both the browser launch time and the page loading time.
Psycho-educational groupwork for detained offender patients: understanding mental illness

Psycho-education for patients suffering from psychiatric disorders is seen as a key element in the goal of recovery. The present study examined the usefulness of a groupwork cognitive behavioural psycho-educational intervention for patients in a high-security hospital. Thirty-one patients with a primary diagnosis of mental illness completed a group patients entitled: ‘Understanding Mental Illness’ which promotes awareness of descriptions of illness and strategies for managing symptoms. The SCQ and CORE-OM were administered pre- and post-group, measures to monitor relapse and behavioural change were also included. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants and their feedback was examined using content analysis. Themes from interviews indicated that patients reported a number of benefits. Formal measures used as indices of ‘change’ failed to yield clear improvements in self-reported functioning. However, the majority of patients engaged in further psychological work, which is cautiously interpreted as a trend in the direction of openness to engagement.
Creation of Norms for the Purpose of Global Talent Management

Personality scores were used to construct three databases of global norms. The composition of the three databases varied according to percentage of cases by global region, occupational group, applicant status, and gender of the job candidate. Comparison of personality scores across the three norms databases revealed that the magnitude of the effect of composition was small, indicating that composition, as measured, had no practical significance on the personality scores. Fit ratios and rankings from a case study of high-performing individuals from diverse cultures were used to further illustrate the results. These findings suggest that a common, or global, set of norms could be used for cross-cultural comparisons, an approach that can be refined over time by the results of validity studies on samples of culturally diverse individuals.
Embracing Opportunism in the Selection of Priority Conservation Areas

There has been much written of the vagaries and shortcomings of the current global protected-areas network (e.g., Bibby et al. 1992; Rodrigues et al. 2004). A history of protected-area establishment for reasons other than nature conservation has produced a global protected-areas network that is biased toward infertile or rugged landscapes that are not economically valuable for production (Pressey 1994). Consequently, many areas of high priority for nature conservation are located on unprotected private lands (Knight 1999). This disparity between the intention and practice of protected-area selection (Pressey et al. 1993), the deepening environmental crisis (Vitousek et al. 1997), and the woefully inadequate resources committed to nature conservation (Courrier 1992) have furthered the development and application of systematic techniques for the selection of priority conservation areas. These techniques are said to take selection of nature conservation areas “beyond opportunism,” toward scientific defensibility and greater effectiveness (Pressey et al. 1993). The push for the improvement and widespread adoption of systematic techniques has been driven largely by the recognition that the ways in which areas for nature conservation were identified in the past were largely opportunistic. Protected areas were predominantly established on “worthless lands” (Pressey et al. 1996), where the opportunity costs of setting aside land for nature conservation were minimal (Balmford & Whitten 2003). Scientifically defensible techniques were seen as the panacea for this problem of poorly targeted nature-conservation efforts; accordingly, computer-based techniques have become the mainstay of area-selection approaches because protected-area networks designed solely by experts tend to be highly biased toward the experts’ best-known
Standard Deviation Normalized Summed Squared Difference for Image Registration

This paper suggests a new method for image registration, based on a new similarity measure, the standard deviation normalized summed squared difference. Such a similarity measure is explicitly defined on the effective overlap between two images, and the image registration is fulfilled by searching for a global minimum peak of this measure over the entire parameter space. Conceptually the suggested method differs from traditional ones in requiring "zero" image pre- processing like image content dependent or optical system specified spatial windowing, frequency filtering, salient feature detection, or intensity normalization. Without any prior knowledge and image pre-processing, experimental results on a dataset of 90 image pairs with various application backgrounds as well as imaging conditions show a 100% success ratio by our suggestion, which is superior to widely recommended methods of SIFT- stitching (44.4%), linear phase cross-correlation (60%), normalized cross-correlation (54.4%), and some recently top-ranked market products (≈74%).
Older Women's Bodies and the Self: The Construction of Identity in Later Life*

Laura Hurd Clarke Cet article etudie les difficiles et souvent conflictuelles relations entre l'image de soi d'une femme âgee et son corps vieillissant. Se fondant sur les donnees d'entrevues semi-structurees avec 22 femmes âgees de 61 a 92 ans, l'auteure examine l'influence de la perte de la perception de l'aspect esthetique et celle de la deterioration de la sante et des capacites fonctionnelles sur le sentiment d'identite d'une femme âgee. Elle commente aussi l'experience du corps des femmes en tant qu'a la fois masque et prison du soi et degage le defi de l'image reflechie que se fait une femme de l'idee d'etre jeune « de l'interieur ». This paper explores the uneasy and often conflicted relationship between an older woman's sense of self and her aging body. Using data from semi-structured interviews with 22 female participants aged 61 to 92 years, the paper examines the influence of the loss of perceived physical attractiveness and the deterioration of health and functional abilities on an older woman's sense of identity. The paper discusses the women's experience of the body as both mask and prison of the self and elucidates the challenge of the reflected image to a woman's sense of being youthful on the “inside. ”
Barriers to teachers using digital texts in literacy classrooms

In many accounts of school literacy teaching and learning, there are claims that young people's familiarity with digital texts (ICTs) could provide teachers with opportunities to plan exciting and innovative activities. It would seem, however, that despite intensive research and exemplary practices over the last 20 years, the infiltration of ICTs into literacy classrooms is not widespread. This paper reports on one study where teachers discussed, argued and thought about their uses of digital texts in their classrooms. It provides some insight into the reasons why literacy teachers do not engage with digital texts as part of their everyday literacy activities. It also shows teachers using institutional and societal discourses about the value of students' home experiences to their schooling, the production of digital texts for presentation of print-based work and the importance of technical knowledge about computers and new technologies, to describe and in part to overcome the barriers to using new technologies in their literacy classrooms.
Thermal Manipulation during Embryogenesis Has Long-Term Effects on Muscle and Liver Metabolism in Fast-Growing Chickens

Fast-growing chickens have a limited ability to tolerate high temperatures. Thermal manipulation during embryogenesis (TM) has previously been shown to lower chicken body temperature (Tb) at hatching and to improve thermotolerance until market age, possibly resulting from changes in metabolic regulation. The aim of this study was to evaluate the long-term effects of TM (12 h/d, 39.5°C, 65% RH from d 7 to 16 of embryogenesis vs. 37.8°C, 56% RH continuously) and of a subsequent heat challenge (32°C for 5 h at 34 d) on the mRNA expression of metabolic genes and cell signaling in the Pectoralis major muscle and the liver. Gene expression was analyzed by RT-qPCR in 8 chickens per treatment, characterized by low Tb in the TM groups and high Tb in the control groups. Data were analyzed using the general linear model of SAS considering TM and heat challenge within TM as main effects. TM had significant long-term effects on thyroid hormone metabolism by decreasing the muscle mRNA expression of deiodinase DIO3. Under standard rearing conditions, the expression of several genes involved in the regulation of energy metabolism, such as transcription factor PGC-1α, was affected by TM in the muscle, whereas for other genes regulating mitochondrial function and muscle growth, TM seemed to mitigate the decrease induced by the heat challenge. TM increased DIO2 mRNA expression in the liver (only at 21°C) and reduced the citrate synthase activity involved in the Krebs cycle. The phosphorylation level of p38 Mitogen-activated-protein kinase regulating the cell stress response was higher in the muscle of TM groups compared to controls. In conclusion, markers of energy utilization and growth were either changed by TM in the Pectoralis major muscle and the liver by thermal manipulation during incubation as a possible long-term adaptation limiting energy metabolism, or mitigated during heat challenge.
Fast Convex Optimization Algorithms for Exact Recovery of a Corrupted Low-Rank Matrix

This paper studies algorithms for solving the problem of recovering a low-rank matrix with a fraction of its entries arbitrarily corrupted. This problem can be viewed as a robust version of classical PCA, and arises in a number of application domains, including image processing, web data ranking, and bioinformatic data analysis. It was recently shown that under surprisingly broad conditions, it can be exactly solved via a convex programming surrogate that combines nuclear norm minimization and `1-norm minimization. This paper develops and compares two complementary approaches for solving this convex program. The first is an accelerated proximal gradient algorithm directly applied to the primal; while the second is a gradient algorithm applied to the dual problem. Both are several orders of magnitude faster than the previous state-of-the-art algorithm for this problem, which was based on iterative thresholding. Simulations demonstrate the performance improvement that can be obtained via these two algorithms, and clarify their relative merits.
Profiling the Chinese manager: exploring dimensions that relate to leadership

Purpose – This paper explores the leadership profile of managers in China and in so doing identifies demographics factors that shape perceptions of what makes an excellent Chinese leader.Design/methodology/approach – Summated scales for the importance of Excellent Leader (EL), Personal Qualities (PQ), Managerial Behaviour (MB), Organisational Demands (OD) and Environmental Influences (EI) were developed using most of the items categorised by Selvarajah et al. and several other items rated highly in this study. A structural model was constructed to explain the relationship in excellence in leadership.Findings – The structural model confirmed that managerial behaviour was the most important construct determining leadership in China and that even with the changes in the political and social systems in the last 60 years, the Chinese belief in Confucianism is highly valued.Practical implications – China is undergoing dramatic changes and understanding China within a changing cultural context is important to in.
“I have it just like you do”: voices of HIV-negative partners in serodifferent relationships receiving primary care at a public clinic in San Francisco

HIV transmission among serodifferent couples has a significant impact on incidence of HIV worldwide. Antiretroviral interventions (i.e., preexposure prophylaxis, post-exposure prophylaxis, and treatment as prevention) are important aspects of comprehensive prevention and care for serodifferent couples. In this study, HIV-negative members of serodifferent couples were interviewed using open-ended questions to explore their health-care needs, perceptions of clinic-based prevention services, and experience of having an HIV-infected partner. Analysis of interviews with 10 HIV-negative partners revealed the following themes: (1) health needs during joint medical visits; (2) sexual risk reduction strategies; (3) relationship dynamics; and (4) strategies for coping. This study elucidated relationship, health and health care factors that might affect development and implementation of clinic-based prevention interventions for HIV serodifferent couples. The findings point to possible relationship-centered recommendations for health-care providers who serve HIV-affected couples in clinical settings.
Private Dreams and Public Expectations

This article explores morality and contradictions in Swedish political discussions between 1899 and 1939 concerning lotteries in general and the state lottery in particular. The seemingly narrow debates on lotteries reflected general dilemmas of the emerging modern consumer and welfare society. In order to balance economic value against the perceived lack of moral and social values, politicians were forced to define and redefine the concept of lottery. They also tried to handle the contradictions it presented. This article first argues that a paradoxical change occurred in the understanding of lottery in relation to modernity. Politicians redefined lottery as a modern consumer practice during this period. Lottery is then investigated as a means of envisaging the future. In the practice of playing the lottery, the community’s planning for the future and the individual’s dreams about his or her own future had come into conflict. A proposed solution to this was to let the lottery finance the general pension insurance. The contradictions between backwardness and progress, individualism and collectivism or hedonistic dreaming and rational calculations were not solved, but this article suggests that these notions may not have been as incompatible in practice as in theory.
Voltage saturation anti-windup for harmonic controllers in multiple reference frames

The output voltage references in grid connected Voltage Source Converters must be limited according to the available dc voltage to avoid over-modulation and windup of the current controllers. This may be especially critical for Active Power Filters (APFs), since uncontrolled over-modulation can cause unintended harmonics in the output voltage and interfere with the harmonic compensation. This paper presents an anti-windup mechanism for harmonic current controllers in Multiple Reference Frames (MFRs), which prevents controller windup. The proposed method extends the harmonic compensation capability by allowing operation of each harmonic controller into the non-linear modulation region. This is achieved by selective conditional integration of the errors in each reference frame. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed anti-windup mechanism.