Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Primary rat and mouse hepatic stellate cells express the macrophage inhibitor cytokine interleukin‐10 during the course of activation in vitro

Activation of local tissue macrophages (Kupffer cells) and of quiescent hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) to a myofibroblast phenotype are two key events in liver inflammation and fibrosis. It is known that products of activated macrophages may activate stellate cells. We have hypothesized that the products of activated HSCs may also modulate the activity of Kupffer cells. The cytokine interleukin‐10 (IL‐10), produced by lymphocytes and macrophages, has profound inhibitory actions on macrophages. Normal rat and mouse HSCs that differentiate in vivo and in vitro to activated myofibroblasts were isolated by enzyme perfusion and density centrifugation with or without centrifugal elutriation, confirmed by vitamin A autofluorescence and positive immunostaining for the myofibroblast markers desmin and smooth muscle actin (SMA). Conditioned media and lysates from these cells were found to down‐regulate lipopolysaccharide (LPS)‐induced tumor necrosis factor‐α (TNF‐α) secretion by the mouse macrophage line RAW 267.4. In highly purified preparations of rat HSCs, messenger RNA (mRNA) for IL‐10 was detected by reverse‐transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR), from the time of isolation to up to 120 days of culture on plastic. Long‐term cultures of unstimulated mouse HSCs secreted IL‐10 protein as detected by immunoblotting and specific enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). IL‐10 protein was undetectable by immunohistochemistry in mouse HSCs for the first 3 days in culture. After this, the percentage of IL‐10–positive cells increased to 45% at day 7 and 100% by day 14, and expression of IL‐10 continued in long‐term cultures of up to 120 days. The expression of IL‐10 by the stromal cells that govern the fibrotic process in the liver may have important implications for the regulation of inflammation and fibrosis in the liver.
An examination of middle manager innovation behaviors and institutional factors impact on organizational innovation in the USA and Mexico

EFFECTS OF MIDDLE MANAGEMENT INNOVATIVE BEHAVIOR: AN EXAMINATION OF INNOVATIVE BEHAVIORS AND INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS IMPACT ON ORGANIZATIONAL INNOVATION J. Lee Brown III Old Dominion University, 2012 Director: Dr. William Q. Judge Several scholars have suggested mid-level management is an important factor that explains strategic outcomes (Wooldridge, Schmidt, & Floyd, 2008), but little research has investigated how this relationship actually works in multiple institutional environments. The resource-based view of the firm argues that competitive advantage is a function of resource heterogeneity and immobility (Barney, 1991) and the discretionary decisions made by managers about resource creation, development, and allocation (Amit & Shoemaker, 1993). These boundedly-rational managers (Simon, 1957) make these decisions facing an uncertain and complex internal and external environment. Thus, this dissertation extends the current research by developing and testing a new comprehensive model of middle management innovative behavior and organizational innovation that contemporaneously incorporates the isomorphic pressures of the institutional environment; and subsequent impact on organizational performance. The extant literature on middle managers is reviewed and research gaps in the literature are identified. The resource-based view and institutional theory are used to develop nine hypotheses, which are empirically tested. Findings show that middle manager innovation behavior positively impacts organizational innovativeness. This study also shows a positive relationship between organizational innovativeness and organizational performance. The findings also breaks new ground by finding that organizational context, in terms of participatory decision­ making and organizational trust, is an important moderating factor that influences middle management's role in organizational innovation. This study also considers how the external environment influences innovation outcomes, and introduces the importance of subnational regions on organizational middle manager innovation behavior and organizational innovation. Results show that urbanized settings moderate the middle manager innovative behavior and organizational innovation relationship. However, the national context does not appear to systematically influence middle managers impact on organizational innovation. For practitioners, this study identifies specific mid-level managerial behavior that contributes to organizational innovation and the firm-, regional-, and national level variables that impact the mid-manager-organizational innovation relationship. Co-Directors of Advisory Committee: Dr. Lance Frazier Dr. Jose Luis Rivas
Isolation and molecular characterization of brain microvascular endothelial cells from human brain tumors

SummaryBrain tumor formation and growth is accompanied by the proliferation and infiltration of blood capillaries. The phenotypes of endothelial cells that make up capillaries are known to differ not only in the tissues in which endothelial cells are located but also as a result of the microenvironment to which they are exposed. For this reason, primary cultures of brain endothelial cells were isolated from human brain tumors removed by surgery and compared with cells from normal tissue. The primary confluent monolayers that grew out of isolated capillary fragments consisted of closely associated, elongated, fusiform-shaped cells. But brain tumor-derived endothelial cells in culture exhibited significantly less expression of endothelial-specific Factor VIII-related antigen compared with cells isolated from normal tissue. Cultured cells that exhibited binding of Ulex europaeus lectin were shown to take up Dil-Ac-Ldl and formed continuous monolayers that were joined together by tight junctions. The cells also exhibited characteristics of the cells of the brain microvasculature in vitro as seen by the presence of large numbers of mitochondria and few pinocytotic vesicles and by the absence of Weibel-Palade bodies within the cells. The expression of vascular cell adhesion molecule-1, E-Selectin, and the tight junction associated protein ZO-1 but not intercellular adhesion molecule-1 was demonstrated by immunohistological staining or reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction methodologies. Comparative studies of these endothelial cells with endothelial cells from normal tissue will be useful for determining and understanding how the blood-brain barrier differs and functions in tumor and healthy tissues and may lead to strategies for brain tumor therapeutic approaches.
No-reference image quality assessment through transfer learning

Transfer learning has emerged from recent years' great success of applying convolutional neural networks to object recognition tasks. In this work, we describe a transfer learning framework that learns an image quality estimator end-to-end in classification or regression. Experiments show this approach achieves state of the art performance on four publicly available image quality databases. Image quality is ignored in visual recognition challenges such as PASCAL VOC and ILSVRC. However, it poses a practical challenge to the design of robust vision applications. This work responds to such challenge without impacting the performance of recognition tasks.
IL‐5‐stimulated eosinophils adherent to periostin undergo stereotypic morphological changes and ADAM8‐dependent migration

IL‐5 causes suspended eosinophils to polarize with filamentous (F)‐actin and granules at one pole and the nucleus in a specialized uropod, the “nucleopod,” which is capped with P‐selectin glycoprotein ligand‐1 (PSGL‐1). IL‐5 enhances eosinophil adhesion and migration on periostin, an extracellular matrix protein upregulated in asthma by type 2 immunity mediators.
Long-range wireless sensor networks for geo-location tracking: Design and evaluation

Nowadays, a long-range data transmission is required in numerous Internet of Things (IoT) applications. This paper introduces a long-range Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) for geo-location tracking of mobile objects as one of the applications. In the proposed system, the geo-location information of moving objects is collected and sent over wireless networks with a reconfigured GPS and LoRa (Long Range) modules. This work presents the design of long-range WSN system and the prototype implementation. We implement multiple sensor nodes deployment, which move away from a static base station called dock. Further, the reliability of geo-location data collection and the quality of wireless communication are evaluated. The results from RSSI test show a high reliability of LoRa module as a transceiver for our targeted long-range geo-location tracking application.
Graduate students’ experiences with research ethics in conducting health research

Graduate students typically first experience research ethics when they submit their masters or doctoral research projects for ethics approval. Research ethics boards in Canada review and grant ethical approval for student research projects and often have to provide additional support to these novice researchers. Previous studies have explored curriculum content, teaching approaches, and the learning environment related to research ethics for graduate students. However, research does not exist that examines students’ actual experience with the research ethics process. Qualitative description was used to explore the research ethics review experience of 11 masters and doctoral students in health discipline programs. Data analysis revealed four themes: curriculum, supervisor support, the ethics application process, and students’ overall experience. The results of this research suggest ideas for enhancing curriculum, deepening students’ relationships with supervisors, and developing the role of research ethics boards to support education for novice researchers. This study contributes to comprehension of the research ethics experience for graduate students and what they value as new researchers.
Are polyploids really evolutionary dead-ends (again)? A critical reappraisal of Mayrose et al. ().

Throughout the past century, hybridization and polyploidization have variously been viewed as drivers of biodiversity (e.g. Arnold, 1997) or evolutionary noise, unimportant to the main processes of evolution (e.g. Stebbins, 1950; Wagner, 1970). Wagner (1970) argued that while polyploids have always existed, they have never diversified or played a major role in the evolution of plants, and that the study of polyploidy (as well as inbreeding, apomixis, and hybridization) has led researchers to be ‘carried away with side branches and blind alleys that go nowhere’. However, the use of molecular tools revolutionized the study of polyploidy, revealing that a given polyploid species often forms multiple times (reviewed in Soltis & Soltis, 1993, 1999, 2000, 2009). The realization that recurrent polyploidization from genetically differentiated parents is the rule that shattered the earlier perceptions of polyploids as genetically depauperate (Stebbins, 1950; Wagner, 1970). Because of multiple origins, polyploid species can maintain high levels of segregating genetic variation through the incorporation of genetic diversity from multiple populations of their diploid progenitors (e.g. Soltis & Soltis, 1993, 1999, 2000; Tate et al., 2005). Numerous studies have also shown that polyploid genomes are highly dynamic, with enormous potential for generating novel genetic variation (e.g. Gaeta et al., 2007; Doyle et al., 2008; Leitch & Leitch, 2008; Flagel & Wendel, 2009; Hawkins et al., 2009; Chester et al., 2012; Hao et al., 2013; Roulin et al., 2013). Furthermore, genomic studies have also revealed numerous ancient polyploidy events across the angiosperms (e.g. Vision et al., 2000; Bowers et al., 2003; Blanc &Wolfe, 2004; Paterson et al., 2004; Schlueter et al., 2004; Van de Peer & Meyer, 2005; Cannon et al., 2006; Cui et al., 2006; Tuskan et al., 2006; Jaillon et al., 2007; Barker et al., 2008, 2009; Lyons et al., 2008; Ming et al., 2008; Shi et al., 2010; Van de Peer, 2011; Jiao et al., 2012; McKain et al., 2012; Tayale & Parisod, 2013; reviewed in Soltis et al., 2009); all angiosperms have undergone at least one round of polyploidy (e.g. Jiao et al., 2011; Amborella Genome Consortium, 2013). Polyploidy is now viewed not as a mere side branch of evolution, but as a major mechanism of evolution and diversification.
The Effect of Teachers' Unions on Student Achievement: Evidence from Wisconsin's Act 10

This study examines the short-run impact of a weakening of teachers' unions on student achievement. In 2011, Wisconsin enacted the Budget Repair Bill, or Act 10, which significantly limited the power of teachers' unions in the state by restricting their fundraising abilities and limiting the scope of collective bargaining. Exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in the timing of exposure to Act 10 due to differences in the expiration dates of pre-existing collective bargaining agreements across school districts, I find that the law reduced average test scores on the state's standardized exam by approximately 20% of a standard deviation. Results from quantile regressions indicate that this effect was largely driven by declines in the lower half of the student achievement distribution. Lastly, the study explores plausible mechanisms behind the observed decline in achievement, and presents evidence that the law led to a significant increase in teacher turnover and a large reduction in teacher salaries.
Assisting Discovery in Public Health

Several public health (PH) researchers have lately been arguing that big data can play a profound role in scientific discovery. Leveraging the vast amount of population-level data collected by public agencies and other organizations, could lead to important discoveries that were not necessarily suspected to be true. However, they also warn about the pitfalls of data-driven discovery: The large amount of data can easily lead to information overload for the researchers. Additionally, data-driven studies that make a lot of tests in the search for important discoveries have the potential to lead to discoveries that seem important but are in fact random. We show that data-driven studies can be effective and yet avoid the potential pitfalls by keeping the researchers in the loop of the discovery process. To this end, we propose PHD; an interactive visual discovery system that allows public health researchers to gain interesting insights from large datasets. PHD generalizes the current workflow of PH researchers by facilitating the major analytics tasks involved in PH discovery, such as calculating important associations based on the standard notions of odds rations and confidence intervals, controlling for the effect of other variables and discovering interesting compounding effects. More importantly however, it leverages user interaction and the semantics of the domain to make sure that this workflow scales to large datasets, while avoiding information overload and random discoveries.
Performance analysis of a decode-and-forward cooperative relaying scheme for MIMO systems

A decode-and-forward cooperative relaying scheme where an NT-antenna source is assisted by several NT-antenna relays to forward its information to a ND-antenna destination is considered. Its symbol error rate (SER) and average transmit power per transmit antenna (ATPT) are derived and validated by computer simulations. Illustrative results over different network topologies show that the considered cooperative relaying scheme offers a significant performance improvement as compared to direct transmission and cooperative relaying without direct link under the same transmission power and bandwidth efficiency.
U.S. Worldwide Taxation and Domestic Mergers and Acquisitions

This study shows that domestic mergers and acquisitions (M&A) were inhibited by the U.S.’s worldwide tax policy on foreign-earned income. Double Irish structures, a complex web of subsidiaries that reduce foreign tax rates and therefore increase potential repatriation tax rates, are associated with lower levels of domestic M&A by U.S. firms. These results do not reflect a continuation of prior trends or declines in worldwide acquisitiveness and are robust to several econometric approaches. We suggest that the Double Irish variable mitigates a confounding effect in an alternative tax variable that clouds inferences in tests of repatriation taxes and domestic M&A.
The effects of religious freedom laws on employment, small-minority-owned businesses and minority populations

Twenty states have now passed religious freedom laws to protect religious practices and beliefs. While many individuals and groups believe these laws are necessary to protect them from government intervention that may take away their rights, there are others who fear that these laws can be used by businesses to discriminate against the LGBT community in the name of religion. In a recent case in Indiana, several large corporations voiced their dissent over the state’s impending religious freedom law, causing the Governor to sign a new version of the bill. The purpose of this paper is to determine how these religious freedom laws have affected employment, small-minority-owned businesses and minority populations. Using regression analysis it was found that county employment was not affected by these state laws but there were fewer Asian firms and fewer Hispanics in counties in states with these laws. Moreover, the African American population was larger in counties in states with such laws. To overcome the negative views and opinions associated with religious freedom laws, states with those laws may also need to pass laws that ban discrimination against the LGBT community.
Bcl10 Mediates Angiotensin II–Induced Cardiac Damage and Electrical Remodeling

Angiotensin (Ang) II is a potent mediator of both hypertension and cardiac damage; however, the mechanisms by which this occur remain unclear. B-cell lymphoma/leukemia 10 (Bcl10) is a member of the CBM signalosome, which links Ang II and nuclear factor-&kgr;B signaling. We hypothesized that Bcl10 is pivotal in the pathogenesis of Ang II–induced cardiac damage. Ang II infusion in mice lacking Bcl10 resulted in reduced cardiac fibrosis, less cellular infiltration, and improved arrhythmogenic electric remodeling, despite a similar degree of hypertension or cardiac hypertrophy. Adoptive transfer of bone marrow (BM), whereby Bcl10 knockout or wildtype BM was transferred to their opposite genotype recipients, revealed the dual importance of Bcl10 within both cardiac and immune cells. Loss of Bcl10 in cardiac cells resulted in reduced expression of genes important for the adhesion and recruitment of immune cells. In vitro experiments demonstrated that adhesion of monocytes to Ang II–treated endothelial cells also required Bcl10. Additionally, Bcl10 deficiency in macrophages reduced their intrinsic migratory ability. To address the role of BM-derived fibroblasts in the formation of cardiac fibrosis, we explored whether Bcl10 is also important for the infiltration of BM-derived (myo)fibroblasts into the heart. The transfer of green fluorescent protein positive wildtype BM into Bcl10 knockout recipient mice revealed a reduced number of noncardiac (myo)fibroblasts compared with those wildtype recipients. Our results demonstrate the significant role of Bcl10 in multiple cell types important for the generation of Ang II–induced cardiac damage and electric remodeling and may provide a new avenue for therapeutic intervention.
Managing the triple bottom line for sustainability: a case study of Argentine agribusinesses

Abstract Using surveys and interviews with Argentine agribusiness owners and managers, we examine the relative importance of economic, environmental, and social goals in their planning processes. While in one survey, respondents rate these three objectives as equally important, they also prioritize economic goals over environmental and social targets when assigning points based on the importance of decisions made for various sub-categories. Discussions of specific scenarios illuminate goal importance, but also demonstrate that perceived losses can be valuable for understanding how managers think about sustainability in terms of comparative economic gains, social relationships, and different social and economic outcomes. Subsequent analyses suggest that the three categories of the “triple bottom line” are overly rigid and cannot capture the integration among environmental, economic, and social aspects of sustainability. Given these findings, we suggest future directions for research on losses, time scales, and sustainability.
Distribution of neuropeptide FF‐like immunoreactivity in the brain of the lizard Gekko gecko and its relation to catecholaminergic structures

The present study provides a detailed description of the distribution of neuropeptide FF (NPFF)‐like immunoreactivity in the brain of the lizard Gekko gecko. NPFF is found to be involved in nociception, cardiovascular regulation, and endocrine function. Because of its known relationship with catecholamines in mammals, double staining with tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) antibodies was used to corroborate this for reptiles. The present study revealed that NPFF‐like‐immunoreactive (NPFF‐ir) cells and fibers were widely distributed throughout the brain. Major NPFF‐ir cell groups were observed in the diagonal band nucleus of Broca, hypothalamus, and dorsal horn of the spinal cord. Additional cells were found in the anterior olfactory nucleus, lateral and dorsal cortices, dorsolateral septum, and diencephalic intergeniculate leaflet formation. Dense plexuses of NPFF‐ir fibers were identified in the diagonal band nucleus of Broca, septum, preoptic and hypothalamic areas, isthmic region, ventrolateral tegmentum, solitary tract nucleus, and dorsolateral funiculus of the spinal cord. Extensive fiber staining also occurred in the nucleus accumbens and the midbrain tectum. Although an intimate relationship between NPFF‐ir and TH‐ir structures was obvious at many places in the brain, colocalization of these two substances was not observed. In conclusion, the distribution of NPFF in the brain of Gekko shares more features with anamniotes in terms of number of cell groups, more elaborate networks of fibers, and lack of colocalization with catecholamines than with mammals, suggesting a decrease in the distribution of this peptide in the latter vertebrate group. J. Comp. Neurol. 498:31–45, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Genetic Programming for Wireless Internet Access Point Configuration in a Small Pakistani Town

In this research paper a wireless internet access point configuration problem that may be adapted for a small Pakistani town is implemented. It is defined as a genetic programming problem for open ended simultaneous topology synthesis and parameter search through hybrid encoding for automated design applications. The software platform used is Visual Studio 6.0deg for developing/implementing C++ code and GraphWin/LEDAdeg for viewing evolved topological descriptions.
Silicides for Highly Integrated Memory and Logic Circuits

State of the art DRAM and logic processes widely make use of silicides formed by refractory metals like Ta, Mo, W, Ti, Co, or others. The methods for silicide formation range from sputtering, reaction with predeposited metal, to selective CVD deposition. The most common application of silicides in state of the art CMOS processes is to use them as a conducting layer that can withstand high temperature processes and that has a significantly lower sheet resistivity than doped mono or poly crystalline silicon. Besides their role as a temperature stable conductor silicides have further interesting properties when using them as a diffusion source for impurities to generate shallow junctions, or as an alternative gate material with a work function in the middle of the silicon band gap. Based on the example of the self aligned silicidation with titanium silicide the limitations of the state of the art technology will be shown and requirements for future applications will be discussed.