Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Electroactive Scaffolds to Improve Neural Stem Cell Therapy for Spinal Cord Injury

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a serious condition caused by damage to the spinal cord through trauma or disease, often with permanent debilitating effects. Globally, the prevalence of SCI is estimated between 40 to 80 cases per million people per year. Patients with SCI can experience devastating health and socioeconomic consequences from paralysis, which is a loss of motor, sensory and autonomic nerve function below the level of the injury that often accompanies SCI. SCI carries a high mortality and increased risk of premature death due to secondary complications. The health, social and economic consequences of SCI are significant, and therefore elucidation of the complex molecular processes that occur in SCI and development of novel effective treatments is critical. Despite advances in medicine for the SCI patient such as surgery and anaesthesiology, imaging, rehabilitation and drug discovery, there have been no definitive findings toward complete functional neurologic recovery. However, the advent of neural stem cell therapy and the engineering of functionalized biomaterials to facilitate cell transplantation and promote regeneration of damaged spinal cord tissue presents a potential avenue to advance SCI research. This review will explore this emerging field and identify new lines of research.
Improved Face Detection and Alignment using Cascade Deep Convolutional Network

Real-world face detection and alignment demand an advanced discriminative model to address challenges by pose, lighting and expression. Illuminated by the deep learning algorithm, some convolutional neural networks based face detection and alignment methods have been proposed. Recent studies have utilized the relation between face detection and alignment to make models computationally efficiency, however they ignore the connection between each cascade CNNs. In this paper, we propose an structure to propose higher quality training data for End-to-End cascade network training, which give computers more space to automatic adjust weight parameter and accelerate convergence. Experiments demonstrate considerable improvement over existing detection and alignment models.
Oral Antibiotic Bowel Preparation Significantly Reduces Surgical Site Infection Rates and Readmission Rates in Elective Colorectal Surgery.

OBJECTIVE To determine the relationship between oral antibiotic bowel preparation (OABP) and surgical site infection (SSI) rates in a national colectomy cohort. BACKGROUND OABP for elective colorectal surgery has fallen out of favor. Large cohort studies show that OABP is associated with a 50% reduction in SSI after colectomy. METHODS A retrospective analysis of the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program colectomy cohort from 2011 to 2012 was performed to examine the association between use of OABP and outcomes of SSI, length of stay (LOS), and readmission after elective colectomy. Univariate and multivariable analyses for SSI were performed. RESULTS The cohort included 8415 colorectal operations of which 5291 (62.9%) had a minimally invasive surgical (MIS) approach. Overall, 25.6% had no bowel preparation, 44.9% had mechanical bowel preparation (MBP) only, and 29.5% received OABP. The SSI rate was 11.1%, and it varied by preparation type: 14.9% no preparation, 12.0% MBP, and 6.5% OABP (P < 0.001). OABP group had significantly shorter hospital LOS: (median = 4, interquartile range: 3-6) versus other preparations (median LOS = 5) (P < 0.001). Readmission rates were lowest in OABP (8.1%) and highest in the no preparation group (11.8%). Multivariable logistic regressions found OABP associated with lower SSI [adjusted odds ratio (ORadj) = 0.46, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.36-0.59]. Stratified models found OABP protective for SSI for both open procedures (ORadj = 0.40, 95% CI: 0.30-0.53) and MIS procedures (ORadj = 0.48, 95% CI: 0.36-0.65). CONCLUSIONS OABP is associated with reduced SSI rates, shorter LOS, and fewer readmissions. Adoption of OABP before elective colectomy would reduce SSI without effecting LOS. The practice of MBP alone should be abandoned.
Can Managers Use Accruals Quality for Creating Investment Opportunity Set and Increasing Firm Value?

There were two main objectives of this research. Firstly, the researchers analyzed the impact of accruals quality and debt on firm value. Secondly, the researchers studied whether managers of a highly leveraged firm could use discretionary accruals for Investment Opportunity Set (IOS). The sample consisted of Indonesian manufacturing firms listed from 2013 to 2016. The researchers utilized Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) method and purposive sampling. The researchers find that accruals quality positively affects firm value. The results also suggestthat there are differences in accruals quality between highly leveraged and unleveraged firms. Furthermore, the results indicate that the more intensive the exploitation of accruals quality is, the greater the positive impact of such activity on firm value will be. Additionally, high-accrual leveraged firms borrow more debt than low-accrual unleveraged firms. Then, unleveraged firms have better accruals quality and cash flow, and highly leveraged firms have more significant accounts receivable and slightly better value of IOS. The findings suggest that managers of highly leveraged firms can use discretionary accruals to increase the value of IOS.
Characterization and Modeling of NBTI in Nanoscale UltraThin Body UltraThin Box FD-SOI MOSFETs

The negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) is investigated in ultrathin body ultrathin box (UTBB) fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) p-MOSFETs with zero back gate bias and small drain bias voltage. The threshold voltage shifts during stress at different temperatures and gate bias voltage conditions show that the NBTI is dominated by the trapping of holes in preexisting traps of the gate dielectric, while the recovery transient follows a logarithmic-like time dependence. Considering the hole-trapping/detrapping mechanisms, NBTI modeling has been proposed capturing the temperature and gate voltage dependence.
Strategic Alignment in SMEs: Strengthening Theoretical Foundations

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are a vital part of the global economy in that they compose the vast majority of all businesses worldwide. In spite of these firms’ importance, they remain understudied in strategic alignment research. In this paper, we consolidate and extend the IS literature on strategic alignment in SMEs. We develop a set of theoretical propositions that outline the ways in which SMEs’ unique characteristics affect their ability to achieve and sustain alignment between their IS/IT strategy and their overall business strategy. In some respects, SMEs can achieve and sustain alignment as larger firms do, while, in other respects, they differ noticeably. We ground each of our propositions in the dynamic capabilities framework to strengthen the theoretical foundations of strategic alignment research, particularly in SMEs. We discuss the implications of our propositions and note theoretical issues emerging from the study of strategic alignment in the SME context.
Big Five Predictors of Academic Achievement

A large-sample study (N = 717) is described in which two broad Big Five factor measures were compared with two narrow personality trait measures in the prediction of final grades in an undergraduate psychology course. The Big Five factors evaluated as predictors were Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience (or Intellect). The traits evaluated, which were constituents of the respective factors, were need for Achievement and need for Understanding. In each comparison, the lower level trait measure did better than its higher level factor measure in the prediction of course grades. We conclude that the aggregation of narrow trait measures into broad factor measures can be counterproductive from the points of view of both behavior prediction and behavior explanation.
Studies on antidiarrhoeal activity of an extract of wine from Jacquez grapes in mice

The present study was designed to verify the antidiarrhoeal effects of a lyophilized extract of wine from Jacquez grapes (Ord. Rhamnales; Fam. Vitaceae; Sp. Vitis aestivalis M.‐cinerea E. × Vitis vinifera L.), studying its influence on castor oil‐induced diarrhoea and enteropooling, and on gastrointestinal transit (measured by a charcoal marker) in mice. The pre‐treatment of the animals with the JWE (Jacquez wine extract) produced a significant inhibition against castor oil induced‐diarrhoea and intestinal fluid accumulation; furthermore the extract significantly decreased the propulsive movement of the charcoal meal. These findings suggest a potential benefical use of the JWE in the treatment of diarrhoeal diseases. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
THE DOWNSIDE OF BEING A FEMALE ENTREPRENEUR IN KIGALI, RWANDA

Contact:nsengasimon@yahoo.fr. The authors declare that they have no relevant or material financial interests that relate to the research described in this paper. Also, the authors declare that the submitted paper is their original work and that, upon publication, nothing contained in it will not constitute an infringement of any copyright. Paper received 27.11. 2017. Approved 23.12. 2017.This paper is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derives 3.0. License. This paper is published with Open Access at www.socioeconomica. info
Does chewing gum affect short-term memory?

Over the last 10 years there’s been a lot of research on whether there is a link between chewing gum and a higher cognitive function. Several different researches have showed that a significant affect exist whereas others have shown no such results. The purpose of this research is to get further results on the subject, by using word recall after verbally presenting the words. Repeated measures where used on a random group of volunteers from the age of 18. There short-term memory was tested in four different recall tests, where two were with chewing gum and two were without. The results didn’t show any statistically significant findings between chewing gums and an improvement in memory recall. Further testing needs to be done on the subject.
Stem cells: potency, plasticity and public perception *

Production of chimaeras with embryonal carcinoma and embryonic stem cells enabled a very thorough investigation of the potency of these cells in the mouse. Human embryonal carcinoma and embryonic stem cell differ from their murine counterparts in a number of respects and, for obvious reasons, their potency is more difficult to assess. Recently, findings attesting to a surprising degree of plasticity of cells from adults have begun to emerge, which, aside from offering a possible further route to stem cell therapy, raise intriguing questions about the importance of lineage in the process of cellular diversification. Biomedical research is widely perceived to be advancing too fast to allow proper consideration of the implications of its clinical applications. Whilst this was clearly not true in the case of human in vitro fertilization, it has some validity regarding stem cell therapy, even though many of the issues are common to both. Casual use of the term ‘embryo’ proved unhelpful in the past debate on whether research on early stages of human development should be permitted. Likewise, introduction of the term ‘therapeutic cloning’ has complicated the present one regarding extension of such research to stem cell therapy.
Boundary Conditions and Subgrid Scale Models for LES Simulation of Internal Combustion Engines

The implementation and the combination of advanced boundary conditions and subgrid scale models for Large Eddy Simulations are presented. The goal is to perform reliable cold flow LES simulations in complex geometries, such as cylinder engines. In the paper, an inlet boundary condition for synthetic turbulence generation is combined with a fully non reflecting Navier Stokes Characteristic Boundary Condition (NSCBC) for the outlet and with the local Dynamic Smagorinsky subgrid scale model, that is not included in the official distribution of OpenFOAM. Validation of the models has been performed separately on two steady state flow benches: a backward facing step geometry [1] and a simple IC engine geometry with one axed central valve [2]. The code developed has been included into a C++ library for multi-dimensional engine modeling based in the OpenFOAM Technology.
Minimal thyroid failure: effects on lipid metabolism and peripheral target tissues.

An increase in secretion of thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) is the earliest biochemical sign of impending thyroid failure. The decrease in free thyroxine (f T4) below a critical individual value (set point) produces an increase in TSH by a negative feedback mechanism. TSH increases in an exponential manner in comparison with the decrease in f T4: a decrease in f T4 by a factor of 2 leads to an increase in TSH by a factor of about 100. Therefore, measurement of TSH is much more sensitive for the detection of minimal thyroid failure than is measurement of the thyroid hormones.
Sustainability Reporting by Firms in the Nigerian Economy: Social versus Environmental Disclosure

Purpose: There is need for specialization on individual categories of sustainability information disclosure. & An attempt has been made in this study to make a comparison between the environmental and social categories of sustainability disclosure.Methodology: Guided by the G4 sustainability reporting guidelines, environmentally sensitive companies in the Nigerian economy were analyzed for 6 years (2009-2014). & Separate assessments and comparisons were made between environmental reporting and social reporting on the impact, influence and significance of their relationships using Stata13SE analytical tool.Findings: The results shows that firms performed better on social reporting than on environmental reporting in terms of higher sustainability disclosure rates and significant relationships.Research Implications: The current trend of reporting sustainability information disclosure under both social and environmental reporting is encouraging considering the fact that disclosure on sustainability issues in Nigeria is voluntary.Practical Implications: Firms in environmentally sensitive sectors are disclosing sustainability information than expected.Originality/Value: The uniqueness in comparing sustainability disclosures between environmental information and social information.
GRAIN: a computer program to calculate ancestral and partial inbreeding coefficients using a gene dropping approach.

GRain is freely available software intended to enable and promote testing of hypotheses with respect to purging and heterogeneity of inbreeding depression. The program is based on a stochastic approach, the gene dropping method, and calculates various coefficients from large and complex pedigrees. GRain calculates, together with the 'classical' inbreeding coefficient, ancestral inbreeding coefficients proposed by Ballou, (1997) J. Hered. , 88, 169 and Kalinowski et al., (2000) Conserv. Biol., 14, 1375 as well as an ancestral history coefficient (AHC ), defined here for the first time. AHC is defined as the number that tells how many times during pedigree segregation (gene dropping) a randomly taken allele has been in IBD status. Furthermore, GRain enables testing of heterogeneity and/or purging of inbreeding depression with respect to different founders/ancestors by calculating partial coefficients for all previously obtained coefficients.
Predictive control based selective harmonic elimination with low switching frequency for multilevel converters

This paper presents a new low switching frequency modulation technique for multilevel power converters. The proposed algorithm is based on model predictive control and uses the sliding discrete fourier transform to calculate harmonic components in real time in order to eliminate undesired harmonics at the output voltage. In this way the cost function of the predictive control can achieve similar results to traditional selective harmonic elimination, but without the need of off-line calculations and interpolation tables. The algorithm is executed online in real time, improving the dynamic performance of the system. In addition, no predefined switching patterns need to be designed, making the generalization for multilevel converters an easy task even for any modulation index or converters with different number of levels. Simulations results for three and seven level inverters are presented.
Specification and verification of quantitative properties : expressions, logics, and automata

La verification automatique est aujourd'hui devenue un domaine central de recherche en informatique. Depuis plus de 25 ans, une riche theorie a ete developpee menant a de nombreux outils, a la fois academiques et industriels, permettant la verification de proprietes booleennes - celles qui peuvent etre soit vraies soit fausses. Les besoins actuels evoluent vers une analyse plus fine, c'est-a-dire plus quantitative. L'extension des techniques de verification aux domaines quantitatifs a debute depuis 15 ans avec les systemes probabilistes. Cependant, de nombreuses autres proprietes quantitatives existent, telles que la duree de vie d'un equipement, la consommation energetique d'une application, la fiabilite d'un programme, ou le nombre de resultats d'une requete dans une base de donnees. Exprimer ces proprietes requiert de nouveaux langages de specification, ainsi que des algorithmes verifiant ces proprietes sur une structure donnee. Cette these a pour objectif l'etude de plusieurs formalismes permettant de specifier de telles proprietes, qu'ils soient denotationnels - expressions regulieres, logiques monadiques ou logiques temporelles - ou davantage operationnels, comme des automates ponderes, eventuellement etendus avec des jetons. Un premier objectif de ce manuscript est l'etude de resultats d'expressivite comparant ces formalismes. En particulier, on donne des traductions efficaces des formalismes denotationnels vers celui operationnel. Ces objets, ainsi que les resultats associes, sont presentes dans un cadre unifie de structures de graphes. Ils peuvent, entre autres, s'appliquer aux mots et arbres finis, aux mots emboites (nested words), aux images ou aux traces de Mazurkiewicz. Par consequent, la verification de proprietes quantitatives de traces de programmes (potentiellement recursifs, ou concurrents), les requetes sur des documents XML (modelisant par exemple des bases de donnees), ou le traitement des langues naturelles sont des applications possibles. On s'interesse ensuite aux questions algorithmiques que soulevent naturellement ces resultats, tels que l'evaluation, la satisfaction et le model checking. En particulier, on etudie la decidabilite et la complexite de certains de ces problemes, en fonction du semi-anneau sous-jacent et des structures considerees (mots, arbres.). Finalement, on considere des restrictions interessantes des formalismes precedents. Certaines permettent d'etendre l'ensemble des semi-anneau sur lesquels on peut specifier des proprietes quantitatives. Une autre est dediee a l'etude du cas special de specifications probabilistes : on etudie en particulier des fragments syntaxiques de nos formalismes generiques de specification generant uniquement des comportements probabilistes.
Tumor Necrosis Factor α-Induced E-selectin Expression Is Activated by the Nuclear Factor-κB and c-JUN N-terminal Kinase/p38 Mitogen-activated Protein Kinase Pathways*

E-selectin expression by endothelium is crucial for leukocyte recruitment during inflammatory responses. Transcriptional regulation of the E-selectin promoter by tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα) requires multiple nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) binding sites and a cAMP-responsive element/activating transcription factor-like binding site designated positive domain II (PDII). Here we characterize the role of the stress-activated family of mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinases in induced expression of this adhesion molecule. By UV cross-linking and immunoprecipitation, we demonstrated that a heterodimer of transcription factors ATF-2 and c-JUN is constitutively bound to the PDII site. TNFα stimulation of endothelial cells induces transient phosphorylation of both ATF-2 and c-JUN and induces marked activation of the c-JUN N-terminal kinase (JNK1) and p38 but not extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK1). JNK and p38 are constitutively present in the nucleus, and DNA-bound c-JUN and ATF-2 are stably contacted by JNK and p38, respectively. MAP/ERK kinase kinase 1 (MEKK1), an upstream activator of MAP kinases, increases E-selectin promoter transcription and requires an intact PDII site for maximal induction. MEKK1 can also activate NF-κB -dependent gene expression. The effects of dominant interfering forms of the JNK/p38 signaling pathway demonstrate that activation of these kinases is critical for cytokine-induced E-selectin gene expression. Thus, TNFα activates two signaling pathways, NF-κB and JNK/p38, which are both required for maximal expression of E-selectin.
Financing ARV drug manufacture in Zimbabwe : implications for technological capability upgrading and innovation for African local pharmaceutical production

Contemporary academic and professional discourses on local African pharmaceutical manufacture have concentrated on technology, technology transfer, economies of scale, human capital, and markets for drugs; neglecting the financing of working capital and capital investment and the role played by banks. When finance is discussed, it is not discussed in depth and it is divorced from innovation and complexities surrounding financing of local African pharmaceutical manufacture. In this study, I investigated the financing of antiretroviral drugs (ARY) manufacture in Zimbabwe focusing on sources of finance for working capital requirements and capital investment to import technology. I also investigated technological capabilities surrounding access to finance and loan origination at pharmaceutical companies and banks respectively. Using a case study approach and multiple methods for data collection, I interviewed over 50 respondents from three Zimbabwean pharmaceutical companies, nine commercial banks, and one regional financial institution in addition to local and regional pharmaceutical manufacturers and policy makers in 2011 . I used examination, tabulation, categorisation and testing of data using both quantitative and qualitative evidence for data analysis. In line with literature on Zimbabwean enterprise finance, banks provided working capital finance but not capital investment finance. Bank short-term finance in conformity with African finance literature was characterised by high interest rates, high interest spreads, and low lending. The politics of lending offered an additional explanation to adverse selection and moral hazard explanations for the low lending, high interest rates, and high interest spreads in Zimbabwe. Pharmaceutical companies financed capital investment and a portion of working capital with internal funds, compromising rapid technological capability upgrading and innovation. Dependence on internal resources to fund capital investment and technology imports was driven by lack of investment and project finance capability to access offshore loans; as local banks could not advance foreign currency long-term loans. The theoretical implications of this study paint to the need to unravel an African context of the finance and innovation nexus surrounding technological capability upgrading and innovation in local African pharmaceutical manufacture.