Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Improving the differentiation of hiPSC into cardiomyocytes as 3D aggregates through modulation of mechanical and chemical factors

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) remain a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide leading to a massive and irreversible loss of cardiomyocytes (CM). Differentiating CM from human pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC-CM) offers an exciting new treatment option for such diseases. However, to enable the application of this technology, an extensive supply of hiPSC-CM is required. Herein, a 3D differentiation protocol for generation of hiPSC-CM as 3D aggregates was implemented in stirred tank bioreactors (STB). The 2D monolayer protocol for cardiac differentiation of hiPSC established by our group was transferred to a 3D culture format using STB, yielding 0.09 of CM differentiation efficiency and 63 % of cells expressing Sirpα/β. Beating hiPSC-CM aggregates were observed by day 8 and from day 6 of the culture cells expressed CM-specific genes (TNNT2, MYH6 and MYH7 ). A metabolic analysis indicated a shift from glycolysis to a more oxidative metabolism, by the time spontaneous beating started. In addition, 24% of αSMA positive cells were found on hiPSC-CM aggregates by day 15 indicating the presence of other cell types on the aggregates. Aiming at optimizing the differentiation process, the impact of critical process parameters including aggregation method, culture medium and CHIR99021 concentration on CM differentiation yields and purity was evaluated in three different hiPSC lines. The best performing condition was aggregation in dynamic culture, using mTeSR1 medium and 12 μM of CHIR99021, in hiPSC-3. Although, CM differentiation was achieved in all tested conditions, the results suggest that it is hiPSC line dependent.
Effects of Horning and Rubbing Behavior by Bison (Bison Bison) on Woody Vegetation in a Tallgrass Prairie Landscape

-Horning and rubbing behaviors of American bison (Bison bison) and their effects on woody vegetation were investigated for 2 yr on a herd of 300+ animals reintroduced to a 1973-ha tallgrass prairie site in Oklahoma. Horning and rubbing activity was significantly higher in summer than in other seasons. Whether this increase was associated with rut, shedding of winter pelage, insect harassment, or a combination of these factors was unclear; however, these behaviors did have measurable impacts on the woody vegetation of the area. Bison injury to trees was minimal, although one willow (Salix nigra) was uprooted and killed during the study, and several other trees were seriously damaged. Bison horning had the greatest effect on saplings and shrubs, killing or severely damaging 4% of the woody plants documented within the study area and causing moderate injury to 13% and light injury to 12%. Bison showed a strong preference for small willows, killing or severely damaging 17% of the saplings and shrubs of this species during the study. Bison also used artificial, man-made objects present on the landscape such as utility poles and fenceposts. Results suggest that horning and rubbing by bison, along with fire and drought, may have influenced the historical distribution of woody vegetation in prairie environments.
Studies on Communities of Endophytic Actinomycetes from Rice and Their Antipathogenic Activities In vitro

This is the first report of filamentous actinobacteria isolated from surface-sterilized root and leave tissues of healthy rice plants. The isolation, characterization and analysis of the populations of endophytic actinomycetes were carried out on four rice cultivars in Panyu district and Wushan district in Guangdong province, South China. For all the different rice cultivars from the two sites, most endophytic actinomycetes is Streptomyces, among which Streptomycetes griseofuscus constitute the preponderant actinomycetes accounting for 36.1% to 69%. The distributions of endophytic actinomycetes in roots and leaves were different, some were organ-specific. More diverse endophytic actinomycetes were isolated from roots than from leaves. The diversity of the endophytic actinomycetes in Wushan was less than that in Panyu. The alkaline soil in Panyu is better for the growth and colonization of actionmycetes. The results suggested that differences in chemical composition of soil could influence the endophytic microbial communities of rice plants. More diverse endophytic actinomycetes were isolated from poor-growing seedlings and susceptible rice cultivars than from the disease-resistant counterparts. Endophytic actinomycetes have been successfully re-isolated after rice seedings inoculation. Streptomyces griseofuscus could not only colonize on interior and exterior of the rice roots but on the stem and leaves as observed with scanning electron microscopy. In the dual culture and activities detection of the metabolites, 50% of all the isolated endophytic actinomycetes showed antagonistic to rice pathogens. Streptomyces griseofuscus, the greatest part of all the antagonistic communities, reached 55.4% of all the active actinomycetes. These active endophytes inside the plants have intimate correlation with their host, they may play an important role in the development,physiology and defense-response of rice.
Exploring the Predictive Role of E-Learning Readiness and E-Learning Style on Student Engagement

The aim of this study was to determine the factors predicting student engagement. The sample of the study consisted of 527 students from Karabuk University Distance Education Center. Independent variables of the study were e-learning style and online learning readiness. The data were analyzed using the stepwise multiple regression analysis. The findings revealed that students, who set a learning goal, can manage their time in line with this goal, put effort, organize their learning considering their needs, pay attention to learning situations or the learning object, prefer to work with visual elements, enjoy doing research, can remember easily and study with visuals that facilitate retrieval, prefer to work independently, take responsibility for their learning, and believe in their learning ability, have higher levels of engagement.
Cognitive Consistency, Signal Extraction, and Macroeconomic Persistence

A guiding principle for the adaptive learning approach of bounded rationality is “cognitive consistency,” which requires that learning agents be no more knowledgeable than real-life economists. Much of current research falls short of satisfying this principle because agents are often assumed to observe the true state vector of the economy. In this paper we propose a method of learning that better satisfies this requirement. We assume agents observe the same information as econometricians: they cannot observe fundamental shocks and they only observe a finite sample of past endogenous variables. Under this assumption, agents must extract information from historical data using statistical techniques. The learning dynamics are considerably di↵erent from those under full information learning. In a new Keynesian model, limited information learning generates empirically plausible levels of information persistence that a standard learning model cannot produce.
Inequality and growth, the road ahead Setting up a Voluntary Solidarity Fund

“One needs not be altruistic to support policies that will improve the income of poor and middle classes. Everyone will win because these policies are essential to make possible a more vigorous, supportive and sustainable economic growth” (Lagarde, 2015). This is how Christine Lagarde, in her speech during les Grandes Conférences Catholiques 17 June 2015 in Brussels, addressed the issue of rising inequality. Inequality has become a phenomenon of widespread concern as it has increased within most advanced, emerging and developing countries. It has recently received considerable attention from academics, politicians and economists. President Obama called widening income inequality the “defining challenge of our time” (Obama, 2013).
PRODUCTION OF CONDENSIBLE VAPOURS FROM MONOTERPENE OXIDATION

Concurrently with greenhouse gases, humankind has been emitting aerosol particles and their precursors into the atmosphere. These solid or liquid particles, tiny enough to float in the air, cause adverse health effects as well as a net cooling effect on the Earth’s climate, counteracting part of the warming caused by greenhouse gases. The magnitude of this effect is uncertain, leading to uncertainties in projections of future climate. One of the main causes for the uncertainty is our lacking knowledge of the natural, pre-industrial aerosol particles. A major source of aerosol particles is the oxidation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). VOCs are emitted into the atmosphere in large quantities, with biogenic emissions dominating globally over anthropogenic ones. In the atmosphere, VOCs such as monoterpenes, the main group of VOCs emitted by the boreal forests, undergo oxidation reactions, producing vapours of lower volatility. Part of the products condense on pre-existing aerosol particles, or may even form new particles altogether. The conversion of monoterpenes into condensible vapours is the main topic of this thesis. In this thesis, I aimed to 1) determine which oxidants are important for monoterpene oxidation in the context of new particle formation, 2) quantify the volatilities of a group of VOC oxidation products, highly oxygenated organic molecules (HOMs), and 3) develop new data analysis methods to gain new insights into the formation of condensible vapours. To address these aims, I utilized mass spectrometric methods for measuring VOCs and their oxidation products, in both field and laboratory conditions. First, we found that oxidation of monoterpenes by the hydroxyl radical was likely very important for the growth of newly formed particles. Our results also suggest that multi-generation oxidation reactions are important. Second, we found that monoterpene-derived HOMs are predominantly of low volatility, though also semi-volatile behavior was observed when the HOMs contained eight or less oxygen atoms. Our estimates for the volatilities lie between earlier parametrizations and recent computations. Finally, we developed a new data analysis method for mass spectrometric measurements, based on a novel factorization technique. Our method efficiently uses the high resolution information in the measured spectra, avoiding many of the time consuming and subjective procedures commonly used. It also allowed us to separate new HOM formation processes that could not be found using traditional methods.
Evaluation of aminocyclopyrachlor applied alone and in combination with registered herbicides for crop tolerance and weed control in wild blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium Ait.).

The pyrimidine herbicide aminocyclopyrachlor was evaluated for crop tolerance and weed control in wild blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium Aiton). Preemergence applications of aminocyclopyrachlor at a rate of 50 g a.i. ha-1 did not reduce aboveground blueberry biomass, yield potential, or final yield, and this rate appears safe for use in wild blueberry. Preemergence applications of aminocyclopyrachlor at a rate of 100 g a.i. ha-1 reduced aboveground blueberry biomass, but yield potential and final yield were only reduced significantly at application rates of 200 and 400 g a.i. ha-1. Preemergence applications of aminocyclopyrachlor at a rate of 100 g a.i. ha-1 effectively suppressed Euthamia graminifolia (L.) Nutt. , and further evaluation of aminocyclopyrachlor to identify safe application timings and rates in wild blueberry is warranted. Aminocyclopyrachlor applied as a directed spot spray provided good control of several herbaceous and woody perennial weeds, and this use pattern could provide an alternative management option for many perennial weeds in wild blueberry.
A Structural Analysis of Vacancy Referrals with Imperfect Monitoring and Sickness Absence

In many OECD countries unemployment insurance agencies send out job vacancy referrals (VRs) to unemployment benefit recipients. Refusals to apply for VRs are sanctioned with temporary benefit reductions. In this paper we study the impact of VRs and sanctions on unemployed workers’ job search behavior, accounting for the possibility that workers may report sick to avoid sanctions. We develop a structural job search model that incorporates VRs, sanctions and sick reporting. We estimate our model using German administrative data from social security records that are linked to caseworker records on VRs, sick reporting and sanctions. Based on the estimated model we study a range of counterfactual policy scenarios. We find that increasing sanction enforcement reduces reservation wages, thereby leading to a higher job finding rate. Increasing the VR rate, in contrast, leads to higher reservation wages by raising the option value of search, but nevertheless elevates the job finding rate by increasing the job offer frequency. According to our estimates 9.2% of sick reports among unemployed workers are induced by VRs. We find substantial heterogeneity in the effects of eliminating VR induced sick reporting on job search outcomes. Effects are modest for around 75% of the population. For the remaining 25% of unemployed workers shutting down VR induced sick reporting reduces the mean unemployment duration by one week and a day.
Experimental Evidence on Misguided Learning

We test experimentally the theory of misguided learning formulated by Heidhues et al. (2018). The model predicts the behavior of an agent who has a biased perception of his ability and is learning about an unknown, decision-relevant parameter. We use a novel experimental design to demonstrate that the learning process of an overconfident agent differs significantly from that of an unbiased agent. In a dynamic setting, the overconfident agent repeatedly takes suboptimal actions, misinterprets the output and forms erroneous beliefs about the unknown parameter. We provide the first empirical evidence that giving a biased agent the opportunity to experiment and acquire new information is not only ineffective, but in some cases counterproductive.
Top Incomes and the Measurement of Inequality: A Comparative Analysis of Correction Methods using EU, US and Egyptian Survey Data

It is sometimes observed and frequently assumed that top incomes in household surveys worldwide are poorly measured and that this problem biases the measurement of income inequality. This paper tests this assumption and compares the performance of reweighting and replacing methods designed to correct inequality measures for income biases generated by unit or item non-response. The European Union’s Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), the United States’ Current Population Survey (US-CPS) and the Egyptian Household Income, Expenditure and Consumption Survey (EG-HIECS) are used as prototypes of vastly different data sets. Results indicate that survey response probability is negatively associated to income per capita thereby confirming that unit or item non-response bias the measurement of income inequality. When using reweighting methods, the higher the level of geographical disaggregation the lower the estimated bias of the Gini. Middle levels of geographical disaggregation are found to perform better than hyper aggregation or hyper disaggregation. When using replacing methods, the Pareto coefficient is sensitive to the cut-off point of the distribution. The use of Pareto distributions results in larger corrections as compared to the use of generalized beta distributions but the difference is not very large.
Sources of Income Inequality in China: Individual’s Effort or Circumstances?

Our study examines the extent to which the dynamics of income inequality in contemporary China is driven by individual’s effort and circumstances at the national and regional levels. The framework we use is inequality of opportunity. Under this framework, the factors contributing to income inequality are categorized into either circumstances or effort. No existing Chinese datasets, however, has sufficient information for examining the contribution of inequality of opportunity to the variation of inequality over time. To circumvent this issue, we make use of information in cross-regional variation in development and inequality. Our data come from the China Family Panel Study, which contains 33,600 individual observations for years 2010 and 2012. Our empirical analysis allows zero-income observations using a hurdle model, parameterizes and estimates the heteroskedasticity —the indirect effect of circumstances— through maximum likelihood estimation (MLE), and implements the Shapley decomposition to identify the contribution of each circumstance and effort to income inequality respectively. We find that at the national level, inequality of opportunity accounts for around 31% in 2010 and 43% in 2012, a higher figure than U.S. and most Latin American countries. At the regional level, as we move from low-income regions to high-income ones, inequality of effort decreases significantly while the level of inequality of opportunity increases slightly, with a net effect of small total income inequality.
Effects of cadmium on hepatopancreatic antioxidant enzyme activity in a freshwater crab Sinopotamon yangtsekiense

To explore the effects of cadmium (Cd 2+ ) exposure on the antioxidant enzyme activity of the hepatapancreas, freshwater crabs Sinopotamon yangtsekiense were exposed to Cd 2+ (7.25 mg/L, 14.5 mg/L, 29 mg/L, 58 mg/L, 116 mg/L) for 24, 48, 72 and 96 hours. The activities of antioxidant enzymes were investigated including superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPX), GSSG-reductase (GR) and glutathione S-transferase (GST), and the GPX/SOD, GR/GPX, CAT/SOD ratios, as indicators of antioxidant properties. Results showed that the activities of SOD, CAT and GPX increased initially and decreased subsequently, but GR and GST activities remained almost unchanged. The changes in antioxidant ratios of GPX/SOD, GR/GPX and CAT/SOD indicated that, following the increase of concentration of Cd 2+ and duration of treatment, significant cellular injuries were caused in the hepatapancreas of S.yangtsekiense due to the oxidative stress. We conclude that the changes of the indicators (SOD, CAT, GPX as well as GPX/SOD, GR/GPX, CAT/SOD ratios) may exquisitely reflect the oxidative stress in an aquatic animal induced by Cd 2+ and the toxicity of it.
Inflation at risk from Covid-19

The pandemic has increased downside tail risks in advanced economies (AEs), while it has increased both downside and upside tail risks in emerging market economies (EMEs). The collapse in output and oil prices, on balance, increases downside inflation risks. Recent exchange rate depreciations increase upside risks to inflation in EMEs. Tighter financial conditions raise both downside and upside risks. In AEs, the increase in downside risks is more prominent.
An Assessment of Wealth Taxes in a Joint Income-Wealth Perspective

Many researchers and policymakers have made strong arguments for broadening the taxes on wealth and its returns. Although the theoretical literature on (optimal) wealth taxation is growing, there exists a large void in empirical research. This paper addresses this void by analysing the redistributive and budgetary impact of wealth taxes in six European countries using the perspective of the joint distribution of income and wealth. We use data from the Eurosystem Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) and EUROMOD. We show that existing wealth taxes do not achieve any significant redistribution. Although they are in most cases strongly progressive, the low redistributive effect is mainly due to their small size. Moreover, there is a lack of neutrality in the tax system with regard to the source from which households draw their financial living standard: income or wealth. Hence, existing wealth taxes score badly on both vertical and horizontal equity grounds.
The Effect of Audit Quality, Firm Size, and Financial Expert CEO to Earnings Management in Indonesian Manufacturing Industry

This study aims to empirically examine the effect of audit quality, firm size, and financial expert CEO to earnings management in the Indonesian manufacturing industry. The sample is manufacturing firms listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange with the study period 2012-2017. Data obtained from Data Stream and IDX website. The proxy used to calculate earnings management is discretionary accruals (DAC) by modified Jones model (1991), audit quality is categorized into audits by Big 4 auditor and Non Big 4 auditor, measurement of firm size by calculating natural logarithm (ln) on total assets, and financial expert CEO which is differentiated into financial expert CEO and not financial expert CEO. Using fixed effect panel regression, this research finds that there is a significant negative effect of audit quality to earnings management, no significant positive but negative effect on firm size to earnings management, and no significant effect of financial expert CEO to earnings management.
Distributed Fault Accommodation for a Class of Interconnected Nonlinear Systems with Event-Triggered Inter-Communications

In this paper, the distributed fault accommodation problem is studied for a class of interconnected nonlinear systems with event-triggered control and inter-subsystem communications. Each subsystem is subject to potential faults resulting from the local dynamics and/or transmitted from neighboring subsystems. The time periods before and after the fault detection in each subsystem are considered and corresponding event-triggered controllers are proposed, where the neural network based adaptive approximation technique is used to estimate the fault effect online. The closed-loop stability of the interconnected system with the proposed event-triggered fault accommodation controllers is rigorously analyzed.
The Education-Innovation Gap

This paper studies the dissemination of frontier knowledge through higher education. Applying natural language processing (NLP) techniques to the text of 1.7M university course syllabi and 20M academic articles, we construct the “education-innovation gap,” a measure of a syl-labus’s distance from frontier knowledge. Using this measure, we document four new facts. First, courses differ greatly in their education-innovation gap, even after controlling for ﬁeld, course-level
ASSESSMENT OF NUTRITIVE VALUE OF COMMIPHORA SWYNNERTONII AND ITS EFFECTS ON CHOLESTEROL LEVELS IN RATTUS RATTUS

Experimental studies to determine the chemical composition of the Commiphora swynnertonii as well as its effect in plasma cholesterol levels and weight changes in Rattus rattus. A total of 24 rats were used in the dose and time dependent experiments of resin, C. swynnertonii at (0 mg/kg, 50 mg/kg, 100 mg/kg and 200 mg/kg) on daily basis for 21 days. Six samples of root and stem bark were used in the proximate, selected minerals and heavy metals analysis by using AOAC (1995). Weekly weight measurement and plasma cholesterol levels were evaluated for each R. rattus. The results showed that the roots and stem bark of C. swynnertonii had significant difference in chemical composition (p < 0.05). Among the minerals analyzed Magnesium was the most abundant (996.30-1810.01 mg/100g). This plant was found to contain high fibre and carbohydrates. Results shows higher concentration of lead in stem bark (0.25 ppm) than in the root (<0.01 ppm) and the concentration of cadmium in the root and stem bark 0.01 ppm and 0.001 ppm respectively and for mercury the concentration was < 0.01 ppm for both roots and stem bark. There were significant differerence (p < 0.05) on cholestrol level and weight between the treated and the control groups. Commiphora swynnertonii resin lowered cholesterol level by 54%, 76% and 79% and weight changes by 18%, 31% and 23% for the exposed rats at concentrations of 50 mg/kg, 100 mg/kg and 200 mg/kg respectively and at the higher doses showed side effect including diarrhoea and death. Based on the results, C. swynnertonii has shown potential important medicinal plant as it contain some anti-cholesterol properties reduces weight and induces diarrhoea even at low doses. ii