Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Regional 14CO2 Offsets in the Troposphere: Magnitude, Mechanisms, and Consequences

Radiocarbon dating methods typically assume that there are no significant tropospheric 14CO2 gradients within the low- to mid-latitude zone of the Northern Hemisphere. Comparison of tree ring 14C data from southern Germany and Anatolia supports this assumption in general but also documents episodes of significant short-term regional14CO2 offsets. We suggest that the offset is caused by an enhanced seasonal 14CO2 cycle, with seasonally peaked flux of stratospheric 14C into the troposphere during periods of low solar magnetic activity, coinciding with substantial atmospheric cooling. Short-term episodes of regional14CO2 offsets are important to palaeoclimate studies and to high-resolution archaeological dating.
Short peptides from leucyl-tRNA synthetase rescue disease-causing mitochondrial tRNA point mutations

Mutations in mitochondrial (mt) genes coding for mt-tRNAs are responsible for a range of syndromes, for which no effective treatment is available. We recently showed that the carboxy-terminal domain (Cterm) of human mt-leucyl tRNA synthetase rescues the pathologic phenotype associated either with the m.3243A>G mutation in mt-tRNALeu(UUR) or with mutations in the mt-tRNAIle, both of which are aminoacylated by Class I mt-aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (mt-aaRSs). Here we show, by using the human transmitochondrial cybrid model, that the Cterm is also able to improve the phenotype caused by the m.8344A>G mutation in mt-tRNALys, aminoacylated by a Class II aaRS. Importantly, we demonstrate that the same rescuing ability is retained by two Cterm-derived short peptides, β30_31 and β32_33, which are effective towards both the m.8344A>G and the m.3243A>G mutations. Furthermore, we provide in vitro evidence that these peptides bind with high affinity wild-type and mutant human mt-tRNALeu(UUR) and mt-tRNALys, and stabilize mutant mt-tRNALeu(UUR). In conclusion, we demonstrate that small Cterm-derived peptides can be effective tools to rescue cellular defects caused by mutations in a wide range of mt-tRNAs.
Facebook Me

ABSTRACT Within the user-generated content sites, the role and growth of social networking sites has been undeniably overwhelming. Social networking sites (SNS) generate millions of dollars in revenue and advertising, yet little is known about why college students join and participate in these sites, which allow users to create their own content or space. This study adopts survey methodology to investigate the influence of college students’ level of Internet self-efficacy, need to belong, need for cognition, and collective self-esteem on their attitude toward SNS. Internet self-efficacy, need to belong, and collective self-esteem all have positive effects on attitudes toward SNS. Furthermore, attitude toward SNS mediates the relationship between willingness to join SNS and (1) Internet self-efficacy and (2) need to belong, and the mediation is only partial between willingness to join and collective self-esteem. The author also draws managerial implications.
Human Semi-Supervised Learning

Most empirical work in human categorization has studied learning in either fully supervised or fully unsupervised scenarios. Most real-world learning scenarios, however, are semi-supervised: Learners receive a great deal of unlabeled information from the world, coupled with occasional experiences in which items are directly labeled by a knowledgeable source. A large body of work in machine learning has investigated how learning can exploit both labeled and unlabeled data provided to a learner. Using equivalences between models found in human categorization and machine learning research, we explain how these semi-supervised techniques can be applied to human learning. A series of experiments are described which show that semi-supervised learning models prove useful for explaining human behavior when exposed to both labeled and unlabeled data. We then discuss some machine learning models that do not have familiar human categorization counterparts. Finally, we discuss some challenges yet to be addressed in the use of semi-supervised models for modeling human categorization.
Adaptive Location Tracking by Kalman Filter in Wireless Sensor Networks

The increasing availability of ubiquitous, small, low-cost devices using wireless communications to build wireless sensor networks calls for autonomous solutions and algorithms capable of calculating the location where the information is gathered, processed, used. The requirements are particularly strict when sensor nodes are mobile; in fact, mobile applications demand more accurate locating and real time tracking, with limited impact on hardware complexity, network load and latency. Despite of remarkable research efforts put into this field by the scientific community, a common unique solution has not been adopted yet, due to the great variety of scenarios and application requirements. This paper focuses on the design and performance evaluation of Kalman filters for tracking a mobile target moving at low dynamics and for smoothing range estimations from noisy measurements. Some adaptive techniques to self-tune the filter and estimate the propagation model parameters are presented. One among the most promising adaptive algorithm presented is implemented in a real-life wireless sensor network test-bed including a mobile node. The resulting experimental results illustrate the benefits of this approach with respect to traditional multilateration based on least mean squares estimators.
Association of Serum Concentration of TNFR1 With All-Cause Mortality in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes and Chronic Kidney Disease: Follow-up of the SURDIAGENE Cohort

OBJECTIVE Renal dysfunction is a key risk factor for all-cause mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D). Circulating tumor necrosis factor receptor 1 (TNFR1) was recently suggested as a strong biomarker for end-stage renal failure in T2D. However, its relevance regarding all-cause death has yet to be conclusively established. We aimed to assess the prognostic value of serum TNFR1 concentration for all-cause death in T2D and diabetic kidney disease (DKD) from the SURDIAGENE (Survie, Diabete de type 2 et Genetique) study. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS A total of 522 T2D patients with DKD (estimated glomerular filtration rate [eGFR] <60 and/or urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio [uACR] >30 mg/mmol) were followed for a median duration of 48 months, and 196 deaths occurred. RESULTS Incidence rate (95% CI) for death increased as quartiles of TNFR1 concentration increased (first quartile: 4.7% patient-years [3.0–6.3%]; second quartile: 7.7% [5.4–10.0%]; third quartile: 9.3% [6.7–11.9%]; fourth quartile: 15.9% [12.2–19.5%]). In multivariate analysis taking age, diabetes duration, HbA1c, uACR, and eGFR into account, compared with the first quartile, patients from the fourth quartile had an adjusted hazard ratio for death of 2.98 (95% CI 1.70–5.23). The integrated discrimination improvement index was statistically significant when adding TNFR1 concentration to the UK Prospective Diabetes Study outcome equation (P = 0.031). CONCLUSIONS TNFR1 is a strong prognostic factor for all-cause mortality in T2D with renal dysfunction, and its clinical utility is suggested in addition to established risk factors for all-cause mortality.
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND ATTITUDE TO WORK OF NON-ACADEMIC STAFF OF TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS IN KWARA STATE, NIGERIA

Emotional Intelligence has become popular in the field of work and this makes it more imperative for a staff be it academic or non-academic to have the knowledge and perhaps have the skills of emotional intelligence before he or she can discharge his or her duty effectively. This singular reason inspired the researcher to investigate how level of emotional intelligence can influence attitude of non-academic staff of tertiary institutions in Kwara State to work. Descriptive survey was adopted for this study. All the Non-academic staff of the tertiary institutions in Kwara State constituted population for the study. Stratified was used to select three tertiary institutions in the state and in each of the institution 50 non-academic staff were randomly selected and the total number of 150 non-academic staff were selected as respondents in this study. Two instruments were used to obtain data from the respondents; the first was questionnaire titled emotional intelligence scale and the second instrument was attitude to work scale. These instruments were adapted from Rohana, Kamaruzaman and Zanarial (2009). The instruments were tested for the reliability and the reliability score of 0.88 and 0.75 were obtained for the two instruments respectively. Chi-square statistical analysis was used to test two hypotheses postulated for the study at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that level of emotional intelligence significantly influence the attitude to work of non-academic staff of tertiary institutions in Kwara State i.e. staff with high level of emotional intelligence have positive attitude to work. Also, the study revealed that working experience significantly influence level of emotional intelligence of non-academic staff of tertiary institutions in Kwara State. Based on these findings, the researcher therefore recommended that seminar and workshops should be constantly organized for non-academic staff of tertiary institutions to increase their level of emotional intelligence which will in turn develop their attitude to work and improve the productivity. Keywords: Emotional Intelligence; Attitude to work; Working Experience
The determinants of work autonomy and employee involvement: A multilevel analysis

Although the effects of work autonomy (WA) and employee involvement (EI) have been largely studied, their determinants, especially at the macro/institutional level, have attracted much less attention. To better understand (a) the extent to which WA and EI are distinct constructs and (b) the factors that explain their respective levels, this article uses the 2010 European Working Conditions Survey to build sound indexes of WA and EI, provide a picture of the level of both constructs in 33 European countries and analyse their predictors through a multilevel structural model. The results show that WA and EI differ in what concerns their macro-level but not micro-level predictors. Whereas union density and generalized trust strongly influence EI, only generalized trust impacts WA. Documenting that generalized trust as a macro-social trait is powerfully associated with organizational choices is a key contribution of the article.
Intrinsic image decomposition with non-local texture cues

We present a method for decomposing an image into its intrinsic reflectance and shading components. Different from previous work, our method examines texture information to obtain constraints on reflectance among pixels that may be distant from one another in the image. We observe that distinct points with the same intensity-normalized texture configuration generally have the same reflectance value. The separation of shading and reflectance components should thus be performed in a manner that guarantees these non-local constraints. We formulate intrinsic image decomposition by adding these non-local texture constraints to the local derivative analysis employed in conventional techniques. Our results show a significant improvement in performance, with better recovery of global reflectance and shading structure than by previous methods.
The makerspace experience and teacher professional development

This study explored the use of makerspaces as a professional development activity when examined through the analysis of qualitative data reflecting participant experience. The data were gathered in the course of a professional development opportunity at a university during a conference held on campus. The researchers wanted to select an innovative form of professional development for implementation within a traditional conference format. Both to match innovation and to accommodate a traditional time frame (one hour), the concept of makerspace was chosen. Multiple makerspace sessions were developed as professional development opportunities. The participant, practicing teachers would be experiencing the makerspace as if they were students. The research team wanted to explore the experiences and perceptions of the participants from multiple perspectives, including those who participated as learners and those who participated as facilitators, or leaders as termed in this article. A phenomenological approach was used to analyze data collected from three instruments: participant survey; leader reflection; and observer protocol. The data collected allowed researchers to observe a makerspace experience from multiple perspectives, thereby providing insight into the use of makerspaces as professional development and within the educational setting as a whole.
Imperceptible depth shifts for touch interaction with stereoscopic objects

While touch technology has proven its usability for 2D interaction and has already become a standard input modality for many devices, the challenges to exploit its applicability with stereoscopically rendered content have barely been studied. In this paper we exploit the properties of the visual perception to allow users to touch stereoscopically displayed objects when the input is constrained to a 2D surface. Therefore, we have extended and generalized recent evaluations on the user's ability to discriminate small induced object shifts while reaching out to touch a virtual object, and we propose a practical interaction technique, the attracting shift technique, suitable for numerous application scenarios where shallow depth interaction is sufficient. In addition, our results indicate that slight object shifts during touch interaction make the virtual scene appear perceptually more stable compared to a static scene. As a consequence, applications have to manipulate the virtual objects to make them appear static for the user.
A workflow mining approach for deriving software process models

Technical Skills • Programming Languages: Java, Javascript, C++, C, PL/SQL, XML, XSLT, HTML, Groovy, Scala, Pascal, Delphi, Prolog, Lisp, Assembler, Visual Basic, Perl, Shell, etc. • Component Architectures: Java EE (J2EE JEE6), OSGi /Equinox/Felix, Spring, Corba, Quasar • Java Libraries and Frameworks: Eclipse RCP, Eclipse RAP, Swing, Awt, JSF/Facelets, JavaFX, EJB 2. * 3. *, JMS, JAXB, XStream, Ant, Maven, JUnit, Mockito, Xerces, JGraph, GraphViz, yFiles, Velocity, etc. • Databases: Oracle, MySQL, MS-Access, HSQL, MS SQL Server, MongoDB, O/R Mapping (JPA, Hibernate, Oracle Toplink) • Application and Web Servers: JBoss, GlassFish, Apache Tomcat/HTTP, Oracle/BEA Weblogic, IBM Websphere, Jetty, IIS • Operating Systems: Windows 3. * 8, Linux, Unix • Office Software: MS-Office, MS-Visio, MS-Access, MS-Project, Lotus Notes, Google Software, OpenOffice • Tools: Enterprise Architect, Eclipse IDE and Eclipse RCP, MagicDraw, openArchitectureWare, Rational Suites, Together, Borland C++ Builder, Borland JBuilder, DELPHI, Microsoft Visual Studio, IntelliJ IDEA, JCreator, CVS, Subversion, Source Safe, Clear Case, Bugzilla, JIRA, Petri Net Editors, ARIS, ADONIS, MathCAD, LaTeX, etc.
The Blue-Coated Worker: A Sociological Study of Police Unionism.

Preface Acknowledgements Part I. Introduction and Historical Background: 1. Introduction to the study of police unionism 2. The history and structure of the Police Federation Part II. Police Attitudes to Unionism: 3. Policemen's evaluation of the Federation 4. Evaluation of specific Federation activities 5. Policemen's desire for unionism 6. The goals an institutionalisation of representation 7. the Federationists and the men 8. Attitudes to unionism outside the force Part III. The Police as an Occupation: 9. The background and initial orientation of policemen 10. Orientation to work 11. Police and outside society 12. Understanding police unionism a typology Part IV. Conclusions: 13. Conclusions and implications of the study Postscript and appendices Bibliography Index.
Nanostructured systems containing babassu (Orbignya speciosa) oil as a potential alternative therapy for benign prostatic hyperplasia

The oil of babassu tree nuts (Orbignya speciosa) is a potential alternative for treatment and prophylaxis of benign prostatic hyperplasia. Improved results can be obtained by drug vectorization to the hyperplastic tissue. The main objective of this work was the preparation and characterization of poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) nanoparticle and clay nanosystems containing babassu oil (BBS). BBS was extracted from the kernels of babassu tree nuts and characterized by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry as well as 1H and 13C nuclear magnetic resonance. BBS-clay nanosystems were obtained by adding polyvinylpyrrolidone, Viscogel B8®, and BBS at a 2:1:1 mass ratio and characterized by X-ray diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis, infrared spectroscopy, and laser diffraction. The PLGA-BBS nanoparticles were prepared by the precipitation-solvent evaporation method. Mean diameter, polydispersity, zeta potential, and scanning electron microscopic images of the nanosystems were analyzed. Thermogravimetric analysis showed successful formation of the nanocomposite. PLGA nanoparticles containing BBS were obtained, with a suitable size that was confirmed by scanning electron microscopy. Both nanostructured systems showed active incorporation yields exceeding 90%. The two systems obtained represent a new and potentially efficient therapy for benign prostatic hyperplasia.
Biventricular Pacing Has an Advantage over Left Ventricular Epicardial Pacing Alone to Minimize Proarrhythmic Perturbation of Repolarization

Introduction: Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) by simultaneous biventricular pacing is now widely accepted as a new therapeutic option for patients with severe congestive heart failure (CHF). Recent studies have shown comparable hemodynamic benefits of left ventricular (LV) pacing alone. The clinical usefulness of CRT, however, might be compromised by potential exaggeration of arrhythmogenic substrates through a modification of ventricular repolarization.
Cellular turnover at the chondro‐osseous junction of growth plate cartilage: Analysis by serial sections at the light microscopical level

In the distal hypertrophic cell zone of growth plate cartilage, the penetration of metaphyseal vascular endothelial cells is into the noncalcified territorial and pericellular matrices. Cellular mechanisms that promote metaphyseal vascularization are understood poorly, partly because no study has addressed the question of the time sequence of cellular interactions at the chondro‐osseous junction. The purpose of the present study is to make predictions about the relative and the real time duration of cellular events during vascular invasion, including an analysis of the time sequence of death of the terminal hypertrophic chondrocyte. The data from serial section analysis at the light microscopical level of tetracycline‐labeled growth plates indicate that death of the terminal hypertrophic chondrocyte occurs in discrete morphological stages characterized by rapid cellular condensation followed, within minutes, by endothelial cell penetration into the vacated lacuna. Cellular condensation lasts ∼45 min or 18% of the time a cell spends as a terminal chondrocyte. The data also demonstrate that chondrocytic death occurs prior to invasion by vascular endothelial cells and that the chondrocytic lacuna remains empty for as long as 15 min before an endothelial cell or blood vascular cell fills the space.
Real-Time Monocular Pose Estimation of 3D Objects Using Temporally Consistent Local Color Histograms

We present a novel approach to 6DOF pose estimation and segmentation of rigid 3D objects using a single monocular RGB camera based on temporally consistent, local color histograms. We show that this approach outperforms previous methods in cases of cluttered backgrounds, heterogenous objects, and occlusions. The proposed histograms can be used as statistical object descriptors within a template matching strategy for pose recovery after temporary tracking loss e.g. caused by massive occlusion or if the object leaves the camera’s field of view. The descriptors can be trained online within a couple of seconds moving a handheld object in front of a camera. During the training stage, our approach is already capable to recover from accidental tracking loss. We demonstrate the performance of our method in comparison to the state of the art in different challenging experiments including a popular public data set.
Treatment Of Waste Water From Food Industry Using Snail Shell

Waste water from a food- factory was characterized and treated using snail shell. The aim was to find out the effectiveness of snail shell as a coagulant in waste water treatment. The result of the parameter studied before and after treatment, shows a change in color from dark brown before treatment to light brown after treatment, there was reduction in turbidity values from 332 - 133NTU, conductivity 0.294 - 0.164mscm -1 , total suspended solids 0.814- 0.184mg/l, total dissolved solids, total solids from 15600- 15200mg/l and 15600.2-15200.2mg/l respectively. There was decrease in BOD and COD values from 29.27-19.77mg/l and 872- 215mg/l respectively while the DO value increase from 1.14 - 2.16mg/l. Phosphate was completely removed. From the results, it shows that snail shell is effective in the treatment of waste water treatment. (Report and Opinion. 2009;1(3):53-57). (ISSN: 1553-9873).
Axon Outgrowth Is Regulated by an Intracellular Purine-sensitive Mechanism in Retinal Ganglion Cells*

Although purinergic compounds are widely involved in the intra- and intercellular communication of the nervous system, little is known of their involvement in the growth and regeneration of neuronal connections. In dissociated cultures, the addition of adenosine or guanosine in the low micromolar range induced goldfish retinal ganglion cells to extend lengthy neurites and express the growth-associated protein GAP-43. These effects were highly specific and did not reflect conversion of the nucleosides to their nucleotide derivatives; pyrimidines, purine nucleotides, and membrane-permeable, nonhydrolyzable cyclic nucleotide analogs were all inactive. The activity of adenosine required its conversion to inosine, because inhibitors of adenosine deaminase rendered adenosine inactive. Exogenously applied inosine and guanosine act directly upon an intracellular target, which may coincide with a kinase described in PC12 cells. In support of this, the effects of the purine nucleosides were blocked with purine transport inhibitors and were inhibited competitively with the purine analog 6-thioguanine (6-TG). In PC12 cells, others have shown that 6-TG blocks nerve growth factor-induced neurite outgrowth and selectively inhibits the activity of protein kinase N, a partially characterized, nerve growth factor-inducible serine-threonine kinase. In both goldfish and rat retinal ganglion cells, 6-TG completely blocked outgrowth induced by other growth factors, and this inhibition was reversed with inosine. These results suggest that axon outgrowth in central nervous system neurons critically involves an intracellular purine-sensitive mechanism.