Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Low-level laser irradiation induces in vitro proliferation of mesenchymal stem cells

ABSTRACT Objective: To evaluate the effect of low-level laser irradiation on the proliferation and possible nuclear morphological changes of mouse mesenchymal stem cells. Methods: Mesenchymal stem cells derived from bone marrow and adipose tissue were submitted to two applications (T0 and T48 hours) of low-level laser irradiation (660nm; doses of 0.5 and 1.0J/cm2). The trypan blue assay was used to evaluate cell viability, and growth curves were used to analyze proliferation at zero, 24, 48, and 72 hours. Nuclear alterations were evaluated by staining with DAPI (4'-6-diamidino-2-phenylindole) at 72 hours. Results: Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells responded to laser therapy in a dose-dependent manner. Higher cell growth was observed when the cells were irradiated with a dose of 1.0J/cm2, especially after 24 hours (p<0.01). Adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells responded better to a dose of 1.0J/cm2, but higher cell proliferation was observed after 48 hours (p<0.05) and 72 hours (p<0.01). Neither nuclear alterations nor a significant change in cell viability was detected in the studied groups. Conclusion: Low-level laser irradiation stimulated the proliferation of mouse mesenchymal stem cells without causing nuclear alterations. The biostimulation of mesenchymal stem cells using laser therapy might be an important tool for regenerative therapy and tissue engineering.
Covering and communication: The symbolism of dress among Muslim women

The role of clothing as a means of nonverbal, symbolic communication within Islamic societies plays a significant part in defining social roles and controlling space in the public domain. The current situations in specific countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt document various attempts by young women to carve out a legitimate public space, to protect themselves from abuse, and to satisfy their cultures’ expectations. The reflections of Muslim women in the U.S. on the issue of Islamic dress, obtained through in‐depth interviews, present further insights on the role of veiling within the lives of individual Muslim women.
There is a balm in gilead: black women and the black church as agents of a therapeutic community

The purpose of this essay is to contribute to the understanding that mental health problems are often endemic to the life experiences of Black women, and that the ways of womanists within the context of therapeutic Black churches can offer healing responses to problems that are occasioned primarily by the oppressive social infrastructures of racism, sexism, and classism. This paper will attempt to draw connections between the political, social, and economic contexts of Black women's lives and "dis-eased" states, and to promote an integrated understanding of the life and mental health experiences of "churched" African American womanists.
Characterization of Transfusion-Derived Iron Deposition in Childhood Cancer Survivors

Background: Childhood cancer survivors (CCS) receiving packed red blood cell (PRBC) transfusions may have increased risk for vital organ iron deposition causing serious late effects. Methods: This cross-sectional cohort study of a CCS cohort quantified organ iron content by magnetic resonance imaging. Iron status by serum markers and hemochromatosis gene mutation status were assessed. Results: Seventy-five patients who had received a range (0–392 mL/kg) of cumulative PRBC transfusion volumes were enrolled (median age 14 years, range 8–25.6 years at evaluation). Median follow-up time was 4.4 years, and median time since last transfusion was 4.9 years. Cancer diagnoses included acute lymphoblastic or myelogenous leukemia (ALL/AML; n = 33) and solid tumors (n = 42). Liver and pancreatic iron concentrations were elevated in 36 of 73 (49.3%) and 19 of 72 (26.4%) subjects, respectively. Cardiac iron concentration was not increased in this cohort. In multivariate analysis, cumulative PRBC volume (P < 0.0001) and older age at diagnosis (P < 0.0001) predicted elevated liver iron concentration. Conclusions: Iron overload (IO) may occur in children and adolescents/young adults treated for cancer and is associated with cumulative PRBC transfusion volume and age at diagnosis. Impact: These findings have implications for development of monitoring and management guidelines for cancer patients and survivors at risk for IO, exploration of the additive risk of liver/pancreatic damage from chemotherapeutic exposures, and health education to minimize further liver/pancreatic damage from exposures such as excessive alcohol intake and hepatotoxic medications. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 23(9); 1913–9. ©2014 AACR.
Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 Surveillance and Prevalence of Seasonal Influenza, Singapore

On April 25, 2009, Singapore implemented strict containment measures for pandemic (H1N1) 2009 with enhanced surveillance and hospital isolation. In the first month, seasonal influenza, predominantly virus subtype H3N2, was diagnosed for 32% of patients with acute febrile respiratory illness. Our findings underscore the high prevalence of seasonal influenza in Singapore.
Temperamental basis of sense of humor: Validating the state-trait-cheerfulness-inventory in Mainland China

Abstract This paper examined the reliability and validity of the State-Trait-Cheerfulness-Inventory (STCI) in Mainland China. The Chinese translation of the STCI-T<106i>, STCI-S<45i> and the Temporal Satisfaction with Life Scale (TSWLS) were administered to 476 university students (313 females, 157 males, 6 missing; 20.40 ± 1.35 years of age). Results showed that the STCI-T<106> and the STCI-S<45> had high Cronbach alphas ranging from 0.60 to 0.92 in Mainland China, and the factorial structures of the instruments were supported. The STCI-T<60> and STCI-S<30> were developed utilizing three criteria for the selection of items. Cronbach alphas were satisfactory ranging from 0.67 to 0.94. The factor structure of the items appeared to be highly generalizable in Mainland China. Joint factor analyses of the state and trait items yielded three factors (cheerfulness, seriousness and bad mood) both as traits and states with the homologous concepts positively correlated. As expected, cheerfulness correlated negatively with bad mood, and cheerfulness correlated negatively with state seriousness. Meanwhile, seriousness correlated positively with bad mood. Moreover, life satisfaction was related positively with cheerfulness and negatively with bad mood, and could be predicted by high cheerfulness and low bad mood. Applications of the STCI-T<60> and STCI-S<30> in the Chinese context and future research are discussed.
Incremental Learning of Concept Drift in Nonstationary Environments

We introduce an ensemble of classifiers-based approach for incremental learning of concept drift, characterized by nonstationary environments (NSEs), where the underlying data distributions change over time. The proposed algorithm, named Learn++. NSE, learns from consecutive batches of data without making any assumptions on the nature or rate of drift; it can learn from such environments that experience constant or variable rate of drift, addition or deletion of concept classes, as well as cyclical drift. The algorithm learns incrementally, as other members of the Learn++ family of algorithms, that is, without requiring access to previously seen data. Learn++. NSE trains one new classifier for each batch of data it receives, and combines these classifiers using a dynamically weighted majority voting. The novelty of the approach is in determining the voting weights, based on each classifier's time-adjusted accuracy on current and past environments. This approach allows the algorithm to recognize, and act accordingly, to the changes in underlying data distributions, as well as to a possible reoccurrence of an earlier distribution. We evaluate the algorithm on several synthetic datasets designed to simulate a variety of nonstationary environments, as well as a real-world weather prediction dataset. Comparisons with several other approaches are also included. Results indicate that Learn++. NSE can track the changing environments very closely, regardless of the type of concept drift. To allow future use, comparison and benchmarking by interested researchers, we also release our data used in this paper.
Seed Pubescence and Shape Modulate Adaptive Responses to Fire Cues

Post-fire recruitment by seeds is regarded as an adaptive response in fire-prone ecosystems. Nevertheless, little is known about which heritable seed traits are functional to the main signals of fire (heat and smoke), thus having the potential to evolve. Here, we explored whether three seed traits (pubescence, dormancy and shape) and fire regime modulate seed response to fire cues(heat and smoke). As a model study system, we used Helenium aromaticum (Asteraceae), a native annual forb from the Chilean matorral, where fires are anthropogenic. We related seed trait values with fitness responses (germination and survival) after exposure to heat-shock and smoke experimental treatments on seeds from 10 H. aromaticum wild populations. We performed a phenotypic selection experiment to examine the relationship of seed traits with post-treatment fitness within a population (adaptive hypothesis). We then explored whether fire frequency in natural habitats was associated with trait expression across populations, and with germination and survival responses to experimental fire-cues. We found that populations subjected to higher fire frequency had, in average, more rounded and pubescent seeds than populations from rarely burned areas. Populations with more rounded and pubescent seeds were more resistant to 80°C heat-shock and smoke treatments.There was correlated selection on seed traits: pubescent-rounded or glabrouscent-elongated seeds had the highest probability of germinating after heat-shock treatments. Seed pubescence and shape in H. aromaticum are heritable traits that modulate adaptive responses to fire. Our results provide new insights into the process of plant adaptation to fire and highlight the relevance of human-made fires as a strong evolutionary agent in the Anthropocene.
Quantitative assessment of spiritual capital in changing organizations by principal component analysis and fuzzy clustering

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the application of statistical tools and techniques for quantitative assessment of spiritual capital (SC) based on a questionnaire survey in the organizations which undergo large-scale organizational change projects. Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 65 individuals from three organizations were interviewed. The paper uses the 12 principles of transformation available to spiritual intelligence (referred to as SQ characteristics) to assess SC in a two-phase integrated algorithm of principal component analysis (PCA) and fuzzy clustering. Findings – The paper proposes a two-phase integrated algorithm. In the first phase, PCA is used to reduce the scores of items related to each of SQ characteristics and aggregate them into a single and unique measure. In the second phase, PCA is applied for total SQ quantification. For verification and validation, fuzzy clustering is employed along with PCA to cluster the people in the survey into different classes,.
A Survey on Audio Retrieval System forClassification

In today’s environment, most of the retrieval algorithms are textual based algorithm therefore we cannot able to make classification of musical instruments. In most of the retrieval system the classification can be done on the basis of term frequencies and use of snippets in any documents. Existing search engines (like Yahoo, Google, AltaVista etc.) make similarity search on the basis of Key-word and snippets, but sometimes user may not able to express the queries in words so we have to switch to audio retrieval system. In existing audio visual retrieval system,Content-Based retrieval systems user can enter any queries ranging from drawing sketch to sing a song or a video clip or set of images from some video short for a video retrieval. Which add more comprehensive approach for users to enter their queries . From [11]we can say that content-based retrieval system permits more tolerance towards erroneous queries, as in these systems queries contain more errors; so for such search keys similarity search based on approximate matching produce batter results compare to exact matching. In existingsystem, systems are classified based on audio object representation, indexing structure and retrieval technique used. In our proposed system we are extracting the sound by recognizing the timbre of sound. In many existing audio retrieval system we extract the features either by linear predictive code or by perceptual linear prediction. But in proposed system for extraction we use musical information retrieval toolbox (MIR toolbox) which is useful to find out audio descriptor by using hybrid selection method. After finding audio descriptor we identify the musical instruments with the help of vector quantization
Lateral Preferences in Adult Embracing: A Test of the “Hemispheric Asymmetry” Theory of Infant Cradling

Abstract Women's preference for cradling infants leftwardly has been proposed (Manning & Chamberlain, 1990, 1991) as resulting from the specialization of the right hemisphere for the perception and expression of emotion. On the basis of this theory, adult embracing, which has many features in common with infant cradling, should also show a leftward tendency. Lateral preferences in adult embracing were investigated in laboratory and natural observation studies. The results show that, as with infant cradling, lateral preferences in embracing predominate in women and are unrelated to handedness. However, the results of both studies show that men tend toward a preference to embrace rightwardly—the direction opposite from that predicted on the basis of a “hemispheric asymmetry” account of embracing.
Modeling the Influence of Local Environmental Factors on Malaria Transmission in Benin and Its Implications for Cohort Study

Malaria remains endemic in tropical areas, especially in Africa. For the evaluation of new tools and to further our understanding of host-parasite interactions, knowing the environmental risk of transmission—even at a very local scale—is essential. The aim of this study was to assess how malaria transmission is influenced and can be predicted by local climatic and environmental factors. As the entomological part of a cohort study of 650 newborn babies in nine villages in the Tori Bossito district of Southern Benin between June 2007 and February 2010, human landing catches were performed to assess the density of malaria vectors and transmission intensity. Climatic factors as well as household characteristics were recorded throughout the study. Statistical correlations between Anopheles density and environmental and climatic factors were tested using a three-level Poisson mixed regression model. The results showed both temporal variations in vector density (related to season and rainfall), and spatial variations at the level of both village and house. These spatial variations could be largely explained by factors associated with the house's immediate surroundings, namely soil type, vegetation index and the proximity of a watercourse. Based on these results, a predictive regression model was developed using a leave-one-out method, to predict the spatiotemporal variability of malaria transmission in the nine villages. This study points up the importance of local environmental factors in malaria transmission and describes a model to predict the transmission risk of individual children, based on environmental and behavioral characteristics.
Elaboration and empirical evaluation of the De Goede learning potential structural model

South Africa’s past has shaped the way Human Resource management should look to the future. South Africa has a history of racial discrimination that was lead by the Apartheid system. The effects of the past have left members of the previously disadvantaged group with underdeveloped job competency potential. This has subsequently led to adverse impact in valid, fair (in the Cleary sense of the term) strict-top-down selection. The fundamental cause of Black under-representation in higher level jobs is due to the legacy of the previous political dispensation. The root problem is that South Africa’s intellectual capital is not, and has not been, uniformly developed and distributed across races. The current situation must be dealt with not only as the situation could potentially become volatile, but also as it is simply the right thing to do. Those individuals from the previously disadvantaged group that have the potential to learn should be identified and subsequently developed. A need therefore exists in South Africa for a method to identify individuals who will gain maximum benefit from affirmative developmental opportunities, especially cognitively demanding development opportunities, and hence display a high potential to learn. A need in addition exist to arrange circumstances to optimise the prognosis that those identified with learning potential will successfully realise their potential. Learning performance is complexly determined. To successfully address the negative effects of the past in South Africa through affirmative development the determinants of learning performance need to be understood. Accelerated affirmative development will be effective to the extent to which a comprehensive understanding exists of the factors underlying learning performance and the manner in which they combine to determine learning performance. The primary objective of this study consequently was to expand on De Goede’s (2007) learning potential structural model. Non-cognitive factors were added to the De Goede (2007) learning potential structural model in order to gain a deeper understanding of the complexity underlying learning and the determinants of learning Stellenbosch University http://scholar.sun.ac.za
Contemporary Chinese Concepts of Fieldwork in Geographical Education

Fieldwork is largely absent from the mainstream geography curriculum in most Chinese secondary schools as a result of the time demands of the curriculum and the inexperience in fieldwork of most teachers. Some developments have occurred in the 'second class' or 'activity class' which provides opportunities for undertaking much more practical aspects of geography. This paper examines the nature of the 'second class' in the Chinese geography curriculum and presents examples of the approaches and investigations that are being promoted. Despite this development, though,it seems unlikely that fieldwork will assume a key position in geography in China.
Hunting for Conservation in the Papua New Guinea Highlands

The animals of the Papua New Guinea highlands are relatively defenceless. People not only value their meat, hunters sharing catch with kin, but also formally transact several creatures in the all-important socio-political exchanges that characterise their social life. The local sedentary population is dense, yet it has not hunted species to extinction regardless of their value and vulnerability to predation. This paper seeks an answer in the context of socio-political exchange values that inform social status. It uses data from a survey of animal skull trophies displayed in a sample of houses in the Was valley of the Southern Highlands Province to investigate connections between hunting and social standing - exchange status, kin group affiliation and age - with a view to elucidating tacit conservation behaviour which agencies concerned to protect biodiversity might profitably consider given current participatory rhetoric.
The Role of Script and Phonology in Lexical Representation

Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the role of script in lexical representation in bilinguals. The particular issue under investigation concerned the role of a script difference when the translations concerned are in all other respects identical. Does it provide a basis for the operation of unique functional entries in the lexicon, or is it, like case, treated as a pre-lexical attribute? The experiments contrasted the physically unrelated scripts used to depict Hindi and Urdu, North Indian languages which share a substantial vocabulary and which, with minor qualifications, are phonemically identical. The experiments used repetition effects in lexical decision and memory for language of presentation procedures, respectively, to assess the representational status of items common to the Hindi and Urdu vocabularies. Experiment 1 demonstrated that transfer is virtually complete between Hindi and Urdu translations, suggesting that the role of script is akin to that of case, and quite unlike phonology in its impact on lexical definition. Experiment 2 showed that whereas memory for language of presentation is reliable in tests involving language pairs such as Hindi and English, performance on this task is poor when script alone provides the distinguishing feature. Considered together, the results of the experiments are consistent with the proposition that when translations differ only with regard to script, a common lexical unit is involved in visual recognition and attribute retention. By implication, therefore, a morphophonemic distinction is a pre-requisite for the presence and use of distinct units for translations. The representational character of this interpretation was supported by the fact that complementary evidence was obtained from tasks involving qualitatively different retrieval processes.
The Transcription Factors Atf1 and Pcr1 Are Essential for Transcriptional Induction of the Extracellular Maltase Agl1 in Fission Yeast

The fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe secretes the extracellular maltase Agl1, which hydrolyzes maltose into glucose, thereby utilizing maltose as a carbon source. Whether other maltases contribute to efficient utilization of maltose and how Agl1 expression is regulated in response to switching of carbon sources are unknown. In this study, we show that three other possible maltases and the maltose transporter Sut1 are not required for efficient utilization of maltose. Transcription of agl1 was induced when the carbon source was changed from glucose to maltose. This was dependent on Atf1 and Pcr1, which are highly conserved transcription factors that regulate stress-responsive genes in various stress conditions. Atf1 and Pcr1 generally bind the TGACGT motif as a heterodimer. The agl1 gene lacks the exact motif, but has many degenerate TGACGT motifs in its promoter and coding region. When the carbon source was switched from glucose to maltose, Atf1 and Pcr1 associated with the promoters and coding regions of agl1, fbp1, and gpx1, indicating that the Atf1-Pcr1 heteromer binds a variety of regions in its target genes to induce their transcription. In addition, the association of Mediator with these genes was dependent on Atf1 and Pcr1. These data indicate that Atf1 and Pcr1 induce the transcription of agl1, which allows efficient utilization of extracellular maltose.