Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
In Vitro Differentiation of Human Bone Marrow Stem Cells into Retinal Pigment Epithelium

Introduction: Dysfunction, degeneration, and loss of retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells are prominent features of subtypes of retinitis pigmentosa (RP) which is a cause of visual disability. In this condition, there is progressive visual loss that often leads to blindness. A variety of therapeutic approaches to delay the degenerative process are under development, the most promising of which is the stem cell regenerative therapy. Stem cells are self-renewing cells capable of transdifferentiation into a number of cell lineages. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) represent a type of stem cell with remarkable proliferative, regenerative and transdifferentiation ability. Aim of the Work: The aim of this work was to evaluate the ability of bone marrow derived MSCs to differentiate into retinal pigmented epithelial cells in vitro as a step towards regeneration of degenerated retinal cells as in cases of retinitis pigmentosa. Patients and Methods: The present study was carried out on 20 bone marrow samples obtained from donors undergoing bone marrow aspirations, at EL-Maadi Military Hospital. 3 ml bone marrow were aspirated, mesenchymal stem cells were separated and induced to RPE lineage through culture in the presence of nicotinamide NIC and factors from the TGF-b superfamily (Activin A). The BMSC- derived pigmented-like cells were evaluated for the morphology, function, and marker expression of authentic RPE using RT-PCR for RPE65 mRNA. Results: Bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells in all samples demonstrated the morphologic characteristics as well as molecular markers of RPE cells after 8 weeks of culture with activin A and nicotinamide. Conclusion: In the present study, compelling evidences support the possibility of differentiation of bone marrow stem cells into retinal pigmented epithelial cells (RPE) which have the morphology, function, and marker expression of authentic RPE.
Aliasing Reduction for Gain Control with Critically Sampled Filter Banks

Applications of audio playback and communication often require the possibility to shape the signal spectra. This can easily be implemented in conjunction with audio coding techniques which are based on a spectral decomposition. Here, this can be accomplished by simply multiplying the decoded spectral components with different gain factors. However, since the transforms or filter banks used in coding produce a critically sampled representation, this can lead to undesirable non-compensated aliasing components in the resulting output signal. The gain factor dependent aliasing compensation technique presented in this paper reduces these effects in a very efficient way. The remaining aliasing components are almost as low as for the approximation of a non-critically sampled complex filter bank, while the new technique is of lower computational complexity and introduces less delay.
Impact of HDFS block size in MapReduce based segmentation and feature extraction algorithm

Apache Hadoop is one of the open source frameworks to process big data. Despite the huge success of Hadoop, it lacks in addressing many of the significant real world problems. And the inability to handle data dependencies efficiently is one of the major issues among those. This paper highlights the data dependency issue in Hadoop framework. This is done using a newly developed MapReduce based segmentation & feature extraction algorithm for very large data dependencies dataset. Data dependency is managed by the variation in HDFS block size. With smaller block size, having larger data dependency and greater parallelism the framework shows uncertain results. As block size is increased, that is by minimizing the data dependency the framework starts to show result stability against the loss of parallelism.
Reducing artifacts in JPEG decompression by segmentation and smoothing

The major artifacts of the JPEG compressed images are blocking and ringing, which are mainly due to the coarse quantization of low frequency and high frequency DCT components, respectively. At a very low bit rate, these artifacts might be rather disturbing to human eyes. While research for reduction of blocking effects has been relatively extensively conducted, little has been done for improving ringing. The latter is particularly dominant in document images, where sharp edges present commonly in text and graphics are more likely to be encountered. In this paper we propose an algorithm, which was designed mainly for ringing effects removal. The same principle can be also applied to reduce blocking effects.
Increased Thymic B Cells but Maintenance of Thymic Structure, T Cell Differentiation and Negative Selection in Lymphotoxin-α and TNF Gene-Targeted Mice

TNF, lymphotoxin (LT) and their receptors are expressed constitutively in the thymus. It remains unclear whether these cytokines play a role in normal thymic structure or function. We have investigated thymocyte differentiation, selection and thymic organogenesis in gene targeted mice lacking LTalpha, TNF, or both (TNF/LTalpha-/-). The thymus was normal in TNF/LTalpha-/- mice with regard to cell yields and stromal architecture. Detailed analysis of alphabeta and gammadelta T cell-lineage thymocyte subsets revealed no abnormalities, implying that neither TNF nor LT play an essential role in T cell differentiation or positive selection. The number and distribution of thymic CD11c+ dendritic cells was also normal in the absence of both TNF and LTalpha. A three-fold increase in B cell numbers was observed consistently in the TNF/LTalpha-/- thymus. This phenotype was due entirely to the LTalpha deficiency and associated with changes in the hemopoietic compartment, rather than the thymic stromal compartment of LTalpha-/- mice. Finally, specific Vbeta8+ T cell deletion within the thymus following intrathymic injection of staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB) was TNF/LT independent. Thus, despite the presence of these cytokines and their receptors in the normal thymus, there appears no essential role for either TNF or LT in development of organ structure or for those processes associated with T cell repertoire selection.
Employment Status and Income Generation Among Homeless Young Adults

This mixed-methods study identified correlates of unemployment among homeless young adults in five cities. Two hundred thirty-eight homeless young people from Los Angeles (n = 50), Austin (n = 50), Denver (n = 50), New Orleans (n = 50), and St. Louis (n = 38) were recruited using comparable sampling strategies. Multivariate logistic regression results indicate that homeless young adults were more likely to be unemployed if they had been on the streets longer, currently lived on the streets, earned an income from panhandling, and were addicted to drugs. Quantitative findings are expanded on with focus-group data from a group of homeless young people in Los Angeles regarding their challenges in locating and maintaining employment. Employment-related barriers for this population include prior homelessness, geographic transience, previous felonies, mental illness, and addiction. Findings suggest that homeless young adults’ employment status and use of specific income-generating activities may be influenced by demographic, environmental, and geographic contexts.
Cultural adaptation of a cognitive-behavioural intervention to improve adherence to antiretroviral therapy among people living with HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe: Nzira Itsva

Few evidence-based interventions to improve adherence to antiretroviral therapy have been adapted for use in Africa. We selected, culturally adapted and tested the feasibility of a cognitive-behavioural intervention for adherence and for delivery in a clinic setting in Harare, Zimbabwe. The feasibility of the intervention was evaluated using a mixed-methods assessment, including ratings of provider fidelity of intervention delivery, and qualitative assessments of feasibility using individual semi-structured interviews with counsellors (n=4) and patients (n=15). The intervention was feasible and acceptable when administered to 42 patients and resulted in improved self-reported adherence in a subset of 15 patients who were followed up after 6months.
Developmental Patterns and Interrelationships of Preschool Children's Print Awareness.

THE PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY was to examine patterns and interrelationships in the development of print awareness over the preschool years. Preschool children, ages three, four, and five years, were tested on three conventional reading readiness measures (letter naming, visual discrimination, and auditory discrimination) and two concept of reading measures (knowledge about the processes involved in using print and knowledge about the purposes of print). The mean performance of the three-year-olds indicated some proficiency on all measures. While these roots of print awareness were evident among three-year-olds, knowledge increased significantly from the beginning to the end of the preschool period, with five-year-olds performing significantly better than three-year-olds on all measures. A factor analysis produced a single factor, indicating a strong degree of unity among these skills and concepts. A scalogram analysis failed to reveal a fixed order in the acquisition of these proficiencies. The findings are interpreted as support for the hypothesis that preschool children simultaneously acquire both general and specific information about print in the world around them.
Acoustic cloaking theory

An acoustic cloak is a compact region enclosing an object, such that sound incident from all directions passes through and around the cloak as though the object was not present. A theory of acoustic cloaking is developed using the transformation or change-of-variables method for mapping the cloaked region to a point with vanishing scattering strength. We show that the acoustical parameters in the cloak must be anisotropic: either the mass density or the mechanical stiffness or both. If the stiffness is isotropic, corresponding to a fluid with a single bulk modulus, then the inertial density must be infinite at the inner surface of the cloak. This requires an infinitely massive cloak. We show that perfect cloaking can be achieved with finite mass through the use of anisotropic stiffness. The generic class of anisotropic material required is known as a pentamode material (PM). If the transformation deformation gradient is symmetric then the PM parameters are explicit, otherwise its properties depend on a stress-like tensor that satisfies a static equilibrium equation. For a given transformation mapping, the material composition of the cloak is not uniquely defined, but the phase speed and wave velocity of the pseudo-acoustic waves in the cloak are unique. Examples are given from two and three dimensions.
A brief review of scheduling algorithms of Map Reduce model using Hadoop

— Scheduling has been an active area of research in computing systems since their inception. Hadoop framework has become very much popular and most widely used in distributed data processing. Hadoop has become a central platform to store big data through its Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) as well as to run analytics on this stored big data using its MapReduce component. The main objective is to study MapReduce framework, MapReduce model, scheduling in hadoop, various scheduling algorithms and various optimization techniques in job scheduling. Scheduling algorithms of MapReduce model using hadoop vary with design and behaviour, and are used for handling many issues like data locality, awareness with resource, energy and time.
Defining Functional Occupational Groupings

Occupationally disaggregated manpower statistics are invaluable for economic analysis and manpower planning, but administrative occupational groupings are often inappropriate for these uses. Administrative occupational groupings are unreliably defined by subjective assessment of similarity of job types. Observations of mobility between 161 condensed KOS (Key Occupations for Statistical Purposes) from the 1975, 1977, 1979, 1981, and 1983 Labour Force Surveys input into an Intramax regionalisation procedure produce occupational groups defined by internal mobility relations. This is a repeatable and more reliable method for the definition of occupational groupings. The twenty-eight groupings produced by the procedure reveal some interesting and in some cases disturbing features of the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys and Department of Employment occupational groupings. The procedure could reasonably form the basis of a better administrative classification system incorporating the effects of structural changes in labour demand. Just like travel to work areas, functional occupations could be updated after each census.
Beyond Bag-of-Words: A New Distance Metric for Keywords Extraction and Clustering

Bag-of-Words (BoW) is a widely used model in a variety tasks in Natural Language Processing (NLP). However, this model does not consider any relations between words in the bag, which will bring about multiple problems in some NLP aspects. In this project, I proposed a framework for calculating pair-wise word relations within a bag, using both deterministic Wordnet database and stochastic context information. The final relation matrix could be viewed as both state transition matrix and inner product matrix, which will be helpful for both keywords abstraction and clustering tasks commonly seen in meta-search engines.
The H5N1 Influenza Virus NS Genes Selected after 1998 Enhance Virus Replication in Mammalian Cells

ABSTRACT The NS1A proteins of human influenza A viruses bind CPSF30, a cellular factor required for the processing of cellular pre-mRNAs, thereby inhibiting the production of all cellular mRNAs, including beta interferon mRNA. Here we show that the NS1A protein of the pathogenic H5N1 influenza A/Hong Kong/483/97 (HK97) virus isolated from humans has an intrinsic defect in CPSF30 binding. It does not bind CPSF30 in vitro and causes high beta interferon mRNA production and reduced virus replication in MDCK cells when expressed in a recombinant virus in which the other viral proteins are encoded by influenza A/Udorn/72. We traced this defect to the identities of amino acids 103 and 106 in the HK97 NS1A protein, which differ from the consensus amino acids, F and M, respectively, found in the NS1A proteins of almost all human influenza A virus strains. X-ray crystallography has shown that F103 and M106, which are not part of the CPSF30 binding pocket of the NS1A protein, stabilize the NS1A-CPSF30 complex. In contrast to the HK97 NS1A protein, the NS1A proteins of H5N1 viruses isolated from humans after 1998 contain F103 and M106 and hence bind CPSF30 in vitro and do not attenuate virus replication. The HK97 NS1A protein is less attenuating when expressed in a virus that also encodes the other internal HK97 proteins and under these conditions binds to CPSF30 to a substantial extent in vivo. Consequently, these internal HK97 proteins largely compensate for the absence of F103 and M106, presumably by stabilizing the NS1A-CPSF30 complex.
Bayesian Inference for Ordinal Data Using Multivariate Probit Models

Multivariate ordinal data arise in many areas of applications. This paper proposes new efficient methodology for Bayesian inference for multivariate probit models using Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques. The key idea for our approach is the novel use of parameter expansion to sample correlation matrices. We also propose methodology for model selection. Our approach is demonstrated through several real and simulated examples.
3D Imaging Camera for Gaming Application

We describe a camera which is designed as a novel user interface for gaming applications. Such a camera, developed and patented by 3DV Systems, is capable of separating objects in space or time, thus be an ideal tool for interfacing in free space gaming consoles or other gaming platforms by body or hand gestures only. The basic feature of such a camera is real time depth imaging by capturing the shape of a light-pulse front as it is reflected of a three dimensional object. This depth sensing is very versatile and may be applied to many fields, such as security, robotics and gestures recognition, to name a few. We describe the basic architecture and main building blocks of a high-speed depth camera, for real time gaming interfacing.
Self-adaptation Optical Effects in Photothermal Treatment of Skin Structures

Photothermal effects form basis for many uses of optical energy to treat various medical conditions. With an increase in the optical power density, thermally induced phase transitions and chemical transformations take place and the optical properties of the tissue are affected; as a result, local intensity may become non-linear with respect to the instantaneous incident power. These nonlinearities may profoundly affect resulting patterns of the light-tissue interaction; yet they are still poorly understood due to their complexity. In this work, we briefly review the state of the art of clinically relevant nonlinear light-tissue interactions. Then, we report on investigation of the role of opto-thermal nonlinearities in one particular important case: non-ablative fractional treatment of skin. We used the Er:glass laser emitting at the wavelength of 1540 nm, the wavelength mostly absorbed by water. We have shown that propagation of optical energy in the tissue as well as the resulting temperature and damage distributions are significantly influenced by the nonlinear effects. Moreover, the observed nonlinearities led to a self-adaptation phenomenon, manifesting itself in canalization of the optical propagation pathway. Such phenomena may be used to optimize photothermal procedures.
The Differential Role of Characteristics of Music on High- and Low-Involvement Consumers' Processing of Ads

This article examines the impact of two dimensions of music--its fit with the advertised message and its ties to past emotion-laden experiences (indexicality)--on low- and high-involvement consumers' ad processing. Previous research suggests that executional cues in an ad exert their influence primarily under conditions of low involvement in the form of peripheral-route processing. However this view may be overly simplistic. Certain executional cues may influence central-route (message-based) and peripheral (non-message-based) processing of both high- and low-involvement consumers; however, the direction of this influence may depend on both the specific characteristic of the cue and the level of consumer involvement. The results of this research generally are consistent with these expectations. Copyright 1991 by the University of Chicago.
What is societal impact of research and how can it be assessed? a literature survey

Since the 1990s, the scope of research evaluations becomes broader as the societal products outputs, societal use societal references, and societal benefits changes in society of research come into scope. Society can reap the benefits of successful research studies only if the results are converted into marketable and consumable products e.g., medicaments, diagnostic tools, machines, and devices or services. A series of different names have been introduced which refer to the societal impact of research: third stream activities, societal benefits, societal quality, usefulness, public values, knowledge transfer, and societal relevance. What most of these names are concerned with is the assessment of social, cultural, environmental, and economic returns impact and effects from results research output or products research outcome of publicly funded research. This review intends to present existing research on and practices employed in the assessment of societal impact in the form of a literature survey. The objective is for this review to serve as a basis for the development of robust and reliable methods of societal impact measurement.
Cheating on Proctored Tests: The Other Side of the Unproctored Debate

It is widely believed that cheating on unproctored Internet tests (UITs) is both pervasive and problematic for employment testing. Indeed, Chapman and Webster (2003) describe cheating as one of the most common reasons that human resource professionals are hesitant to implement this testing format. At this point, there is a dearth of studies addressing this topic and insufficient evidence for judging the utility of these tests. However, several recent studies have begun to address this issue and results indicate that cheating on unproctored tests may not be as pervasive as once thought for some types of tests (Arthur, Glaze, Villado, & Taylor, 2009; Nye, Do, Drasgow, & Fine, 2008). Nevertheless, a belief that cheating can and will occur on UITs remains. In this commentary, we wish to take issue with the view that proctored tests should be considered the ‘‘gold standard’’ for assessment. We believe that motivated test takers caneasily cheaton proctored tests. For example, in 2002, the Educational Testing Service discontinued the computerized administration of the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) in Asia after finding Web sites with answers to operational tests. More recently, Microsoft filed a lawsuit against Testking. com for selling questions from its licensure exams (Johnston, 2006). These examples provide compelling evidence that cheating on proctored tests is an important issue to consider when discussing the merits of proctored and unproctored tests.
Job satisfaction and emotional distress among nurses providing palliative care: Empirical evidence for an integrative occupational stress-model.

Lise Fillion, Isabelle Tremblay, Manon Truchon, and Denis Co te´Laval UniversityC. Ward Struthers and Re ´jeanne DupuisYork UniversityThis study tested an integrative occupational stress-model with a sample of209 palliative-care nurses who responded to a survey. Using two hierarchi-cal regression models, including the Job Demand-Control-Support model,the Effort-Reward Imbalance model, and speciÞc palliative care stressorsand resources, results showed that best predictors of job satisfaction werejob demand, effort, reward, and people-oriented culture, whereas best pre-dictors of emotional distress were reward, professional and emotional de-mands, and self-efÞcacy. Finally, using structural equation modeling, atwo-factor occupational stress-model was developed, distinguishing job de-mands and job resources. Results emphasize the importance of using com-prehensive and situation-speciÞc models to study stress in speciÞc workerpopulations, studying positive outcomes in stress research, and increasingjob resources at work to prevent stress.
SCTB: A Chinese Treebank in Scientific Domain

Treebanks are curial for natural language processing (NLP). In this paper, we present our work for annotating a Chinese treebank in scientific domain (SCTB), to address the problem of the lack of Chinese treebanks in this domain. Chinese analysis and machine translation experiments conducted using this treebank indicate that the annotated treebank can significantly improve the performance on both tasks. This treebank is released to promote Chinese NLP research in scientific domain.