Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sugar Transport across the Peritubular Face of Renal Cells of the Flounder

The transport of some sugars at the antiluminal face of renal cells was studied using teased tubules of flounder (Pseudopleuronectes americanus). The analytical procedure allowed the determination of both free and total (free plus phosphorylated) tissue sugars. The inulin space of the preparation was 0.333 ± 0.017 kg/kg wet wt (7 animals, 33 analyses). The nonmetabolizable α-methyl-D-glucoside entered the cells by a carrier-mediated (phloridzin-sensitive), ouabain-insensitive process. The steady-state tissue/medium ratio was systematically below that for diffusion equilibrium. D-Glucose was a poor inhibitor of α-methyl-glucoside transport, D-galactose was ineffective. The phloridzin-sensitive transport processes of 2-deoxy-D-glucose,D-galactose,and 2-deoxy-D-galactose were associated with considerable phosphorylation. Kinetic evidence suggested that these sugars were transported in free form and subsequently were phosphorylated. 2-Deoxy-D-glucose accumulated in the cells against a slight concentration gradient. This transport was greatly inhibited by D-glucose, whereas α-methyl-glucoside and also D-galactose and its 2-deoxy-derivative were ineffective. D-Galactose and 2-deoxy-D-galactose mutually competed for transport; D-glucose, 2-deoxy-D-glucose, and α-methyl-D-glucoside were ineffective. Studies using various sugars as inhibitors suggest the presence of three carrier-mediated pathways of sugar transport at the antiluminal cell face of the flounder renal tubule: the pathway of α-methyl-D-glucoside (not shared by D-glucose); the pathway commonly shared by 2-deoxy-D-glucose and D-glucose; the pathway shared by D-galactose and 2-deoxy-D-galactose.
Group allocation: A novel fairness mechanism for on-chip network

Many researches focus on how to provide high performance for on-chip network. However, fewer papers have discussed fair resource allocation. In fact, global unfairness problem does exist in a network even if locally fair arbitration is adopted. In this paper, we propose Group Allocation to solve global unfairness problem. By controlling the timing to assert the allocation request, Group Allocation changes the service unit of allocation from packet to Group which takes one packet from every competing flow on an input port. In this way, router delivers one packet of every competing flow in an allocation round, so link bandwidth can be equally shared by competitors. Additionally, due to grouping, Group can be adjusted based on flow's competition automatically. Hence, Group Allocation can be applied to various traffic patterns without prior knowledge of traffic patterns. Simulation results show Group Allocation is able to allocate bandwidth evenly and incur less impact on performance. In hotspot traffic case, the standard deviation of accepted throughputs under Group Allocation is 5.5179∗10•6 flits/cycle and it is 0.0210 flits/cycle under round robin policy. It confirms Group Allocation reduces the difference of bandwidth usage among flows and allows resource allocation to be fair.
Developing New Capabilities across a Supplier Network through Boundary Crossing: A Case Study of a China-Based MNC Subsidiary and its Local Suppliers

Our nested case study shows how a China-based focal subsidiary of a Japanese MNC used various power bases to orchestrate a co-opetitive and diverse supplier ecosystem, and to drive cumulative cycles of collaborative capability development involving successive phases of capability gap articulation, evolution and institutionalization. All phases of capability development required the crossing of cognitive boundaries, which was facilitated by mutual engagement with boundary objects, and by common possession of generic background knowledge disseminated by the focal firm. The capability evolution phase also required the crossing of social and governance boundaries, which was supported and legitimized by shared framing assumptions about mutual benefit and continuous development, while the capability institutionalization phase also required the crossing of governance boundaries. Although the focal firm was open to suggestions for mutual benefit, it exercised unilateral control over design decisions, thereby pressurizing its suppliers to engage in capability development to meet specifications that they found arduous. Supplier diversity was a resource, and co-opetition a driving force for the discovery of solutions to manufacturability problems during the capability evolution phase, such that failure to develop requisite capabilities was uncommon.
Predicting Appearance from Measured Microgeometry of Metal Surfaces

The visual appearance of many materials is created by micro-scale details of their surface geometry. In this article, we investigate a new approach to capturing the appearance of metal surfaces without reflectance measurements, by deriving microfacet distributions directly from measured surface topography. Modern profilometers are capable of measuring surfaces with subwavelength resolution at increasingly rapid rates. We consider both wave- and geometric-optics methods for predicting BRDFs of measured surfaces and compare the results to optical measurements from a gonioreflectometer for five rough metal samples. Surface measurements are also used to predict spatial variation, or texture, which is especially important for the appearance of our anisotropic brushed metal samples. Profilometer-based BRDF acquisition offers many potential advantages over traditional techniques, including speed and easy handling of anisotropic, highly directional materials. We also introduce a new generalized normal distribution function, the ellipsoidal NDF, to compactly represent nonsymmetric features in our measured data and texture synthesis.
E-Mail Privacy in the Workplace

This study applied communication boundary management theory to examine employee responses to workplace e-mail monitoring. Specifically, a measure of perceived workplace e-mail privacy (PEP) was developed and fit to a model of antecedents and consequences. To accomplish this, the study used an online survey methodology to gather employee perceptions related to workplace e-mail monitoring. Results indicated that PEP is a two-dimensional construct capturing one’s proficiency at maintaining privacy and concerns about the organization’s ability to infringe on e-mail privacy. In support of the boundary management perspective, the data revealed that perceptions of workplace e-mail monitoring and PEP were related to the perceived quality of one’s workplace relationships, especially with top management.
‘It fitted in with our lifestyle’: an investigation into episodic volunteering in the tourism sector

Tourism organizations are dependent on volunteers to deliver visitor services. Evidence suggests that volunteering is changing with a decline in volunteer hours per head and a rise in episodic forms of volunteering. This paper uses data from interviews with both regular and episodic volunteers in tourism-related roles to examine how volunteering fits within their working and leisure lives and how and why they make time for volunteering. The findings reveal that episodic volunteers are still passionate about the activity, but have different motives from regular volunteers who are seeking an ongoing activity with social benefits. Episodic volunteers often make a bigger time commitment in the short term and these intense roles would be difficult to sustain regularly. However, the interviews also identify that episodic volunteers are regular volunteers at other organizations and vice versa. This paper concludes by calling for a portfolio approach to researching volunteers.
An Evaluation on Color Invariant Based Local Spatiotemporal Features for Action Recognition

Despite recent advances in the design of features to improve automated human action recognition, color information has so far been overlooked. Nevertheless, color has been proven an important element to the success of automated recognition of objects/scenes and segmentation. For object and scene recognition in static images, robustness to photometric variations has been achieved by describing local regions of spatial interest points in terms of color invariance properties. Such robustness was built on the dichromatic refection model proposed by Shafer. Thus, we extended the space-time interest point detector to incorporate color invariance properties in the feature extraction procedure. We were certain that color could contribute to the distictiveness of some classes. Additionally, in some cases, objects of interest are exhibited in a way that color appears as an essential element in describing the event. We evaluate the performance of the family of color-based STIPs in different application contexts: human actions from movies, violence and pornography. In the former, accuracy rates were improved in more than half of the action classes. In the pornography case, we found that the proposals are the best to increase reliability in critical applications such as digital forensics. Keywords-color invariants; spatiotemporal features; violence detection; pornography detection; human actions
On the need for scholarly practitioners in CPD.

The Institute of Medicine report on redesigning continuing professional development (CPD)1 concluded that CPD is broken and the science we rely on is underdeveloped and fragmented. This report calls attention to real and significant issues, but its diagnosis of the state of the CPD field is constrained by two questionable assumptions: (1) science is the source of knowledge and information that we as CPD practitioners need to improve our practice; and (2) researchers are the producers of the relevant knowledge and information, and practitioners are the consumers and users of those products. In this editorial I argue that CPD practitioners are a critically important component of the knowledge and information system that supports and informs research and practice in the CPD field. Practitioners can and do produce scientific knowledge, and in that capacity they serve as researchers. But practitioners are also the primary source of the practical craft knowledge that must be combined with scientific knowledge to guide effective CPD practice (for an excellent discussion of the increasing role of practitioners in knowledge production see Gibbons and colleagues2). To the extent that this practical knowledge can be more systematically produced, captured, and disseminated (ie, made more scholarly), practitioners can accelerate the development of the CPD knowledge base and advancement of the field. Before launching into the argument, two definitions. The first concerns what is our practice. In the absence of a consensus definition, I offer the following:
Optoelectronic controller for pulverized coal burner

Burning pulverized coal in power boilers causes considerable emission of atmospheric pollution. In order to decrease it, the combustion process itself has been modified, however at the cost of side effects like increased level of unburned coal particles in the ashes or increased corrosion. There are tens of burners in a single power boiler, emission level measurements are made in flue gas duct, so the control based on such averaged and heavily delayed values often results ineffective. The neural controller of the pulverized coal burner attempts to resolve these problems. The clue is utilization of fiber-optic system for monitoring chosen zone of flame developed in the department of electronics of technical university of Lublin. The article contains description of controlled system, optical fiber measurement system and the controller as well as some results obtained for an experimental burner.
From Local Similarity to Global Coding: An Application to Image Classification

Bag of words models for feature extraction have demonstrated top-notch performance in image classification. These representations are usually accompanied by a coding method. Recently, methods that code a descriptor giving regard to its nearby bases have proved efficacious. These methods take into account the nonlinear structure of descriptors, since local similarities are a good approximation of global similarities. However, they confine their usage of the global similarities to nearby bases. In this paper, we propose a coding scheme that brings into focus the manifold structure of descriptors, and devise a method to compute the global similarities of descriptors to the bases. Given a local similarity measure between bases, a global measure is computed. Exploiting the local similarity of a descriptor and its nearby bases, a global measure of association of a descriptor to all the bases is computed. Unlike the locality-based and sparse coding methods, the proposed coding varies smoothly with respect to the underlying manifold. Experiments on benchmark image classification datasets substantiate the superiority of the proposed method over its locality and sparsity based rivals.
Early differential diagnosis of multiple sclerosis using a new oligoclonal band test.

BACKGROUND Intrathecal IgG synthesis (ITGS), in conjunction with magnetic resonance imaging, can help in the early diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS). Recently, we developed a new oligoclonal IgG band (OCGB) test for ITGS detection that is more sensitive and easier to interpret than previously described methods. OBJECTIVE To assess the accuracy of a new OCGB detection test in the diagnosis of MS. DESIGN Prospective observational study. SETTING A hospital neurology department. Patients A total of 385 patients with various neurologic disorders. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES The sensitivity and specificity of the OCGB detection test for MS diagnosis. RESULTS Intrathecal IgG synthesis was found in 127 patients with MS (96.2%), 18 (35.3%) with central nervous system infections, and 1 with motor neuron disease. Two patterns reflected ITGS. One pattern, showing OCGBs restricted to cerebrospinal fluid, was predominantly found in MS. The other pattern, with OCGBs in serum and additional bands in cerebrospinal fluid, was mostly found in central nervous system infections. No patients with other inflammatory neurologic diseases showed ITGS. These patients frequently displayed a mirror pattern, with identical bands in serum and cerebrospinal fluid. Considering all patients, the sensitivity for the diagnosis of MS was 96.2%, and the specificity was 92.5%. Excluding infections, which usually do not present a differential diagnosis problem with MS, the sensitivity was still 96.2%, and the specificity increased to 99.5%. CONCLUSION The accuracy of this OCGB method reinforces the value of cerebrospinal fluid studies in the early differential diagnosis of MS.
Getting Grounded on Māori Research

This article offers a collaborative reflection on the processes and methods of conducting ethical, cultural and community-informed research among the indigenous Māori people of Aotearoa New Zealand. The study was conducted by an American researcher, mentored by a team of Māori and Pacific researchers from the community. Framed by the groundbreaking work of Linda Tuhiwai Smith and based on a study of Māori grandparents and grandchildren, this article offers reflections on issues of ethics and human subject protection, community context, research team, entrance into the community and closure. Conclusions are also offered as implications for future research and practice.
Recognition of Indian multi-oriented and curved text

In stylistic (artistic) documents text lines of a single page may have different orientations or the text lines may be curve in shape. As a result, it is difficult to detect the skew of such documents and hence character segmentation as well as recognition of such documents is a complex task. In this paper, we propose a novel scheme towards the recognition of Indian stylistic documents. Here, at first, using water reservoir concept based features the characters are segmented from stylistic documents without any skew correction. Next, individual characters are recognized. For recognition, contour distances of the outer contour points of the characters are calculated from the centroid. These contour distances are then arranged in a particular order to get size and rotation invariant feature. Finally, computing statistical feature on these arranged contour distances the input character is recognized.
High Quality Preschool Programs: What Would Vygotsky Say?

The paper considers the definition of high quality preschool from a Vygotskian perspective. Similarities and differences in the issues faced in Russia and those in the United States are discussed as background. Three major ideas are considered from the work of Vygotsky and of his students/colleagues, Daniel Elkonin and Alexander Zaporozhets. The first is the Cultural Historical paradigm as the basis for defining development, which emphasizes the importance of underlying cognitive and social-emotional competencies. The second is the idea of "Leading Activity" with dramatic play defined as the leading activity for preschool. The third is the idea of "amplification" or enrichment rather than acceleration of learning. The article ends with a definition of quality based on these three constructs.
The Effect of the Biology Critical Thinking Project on the Development of Critical Thinking.

This article describes the Biology Critical Thinking (BCT) project in which carefully designed activities for developing specific critical thinking skills are incorporated into the biology curriculum. The objectives were to find out whether the BCT project contributes to the development of critical thinking skills in various biological and nonbiological topics and how it affects students' biological knowledge and classroom learning environment. The study consisted of 678 seventh graders who were assigned randomly into two groups that studied the same seventh-grade biology textbook. Only one group, the experimental, completed the BCT activities. The results indicate that the students in the experimental group improved their critical thinking skills compared to their own initial level and compared to their counterparts in the control group. Improved critical thinking skills were observed in a new biological context and nonbiological everyday topics, suggesting generalization of thinking skills across domains. The experimental students scored significantly higher than the control on a knowledge test, suggesting that “knowledge of facts” as one educational goal and “learning to think” as another, need not conflict, but rather can interact with each other. Finally, the results show that BCT involvement decreased the frequency of teacher-centered teaching and enhanced student-centered, more active learning.
A global approach to identify differentially expressed genes in cDNA (two-color) microarray experiments

MOTIVATION Currently most of the methods for identifying differentially expressed genes fall into the category of so called single-gene-analysis, performing hypothesis testing on a gene-by-gene basis. In a single-gene-analysis approach, estimating the variability of each gene is required to determine whether a gene is differentially expressed or not. Poor accuracy of variability estimation makes it difficult to identify genes with small fold-changes unless a very large number of replicate experiments are performed. RESULTS We propose a method that can avoid the difficult task of estimating variability for each gene, while reliably identifying a group of differentially expressed genes with low false discovery rates, even when the fold-changes are very small. In this article, a new characterization of differentially expressed genes is established based on a theorem about the distribution of ranks of genes sorted by (log) ratios within each array. This characterization of differentially expressed genes based on rank is an example of all-gene-analysis instead of single gene analysis. We apply the method to a cDNA microarray dataset and many low fold-changed genes (as low as 1.3 fold-changes) are reliably identified without carrying out hypothesis testing on a gene-by-gene basis. The false discovery rate is estimated in two different ways reflecting the variability from all the genes without the complications related to multiple hypothesis testing. We also provide some comparisons between our approach and single-gene-analysis based methods. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
School Effectiveness in the Future: the empowerment factor

Abstract Most parents want more schooling for their children, and want this schooling to satisfy any unique needs that their children may possess. Quite naturally, school systems are having difficulty coping with these demands. Also, many issues are emerging in contemporary schools which are unique and difficult to resolve. Parents, teachers and the general public are being encouraged to become involved in school affairs in an effort to satisfy these new demands and to resolve difficult problems with minimal conflict. The professional literature on effective schooling indicates that a greater involvement of lay people on school management usually produces improvements in the cognitive and affective development of children. Consequently, school effectiveness in the future will be influenced by how successful school councils and governing bodies function. If parents, teachers and members of the public who become involved in school affairs do not receive adequate and on‐going in‐service training, school mana.
Erythrocyte sedimentation rate and C-reactive protein discrepancy and high prevalence of coronary artery abnormalities in Kawasaki disease.

BACKGROUND An outbreak of Kawasaki disease (KD) in Colorado between November, 1997, and June, 1998, provided the opportunity to study inflammatory indices and coronary artery abnormalities. METHODS Medical records of the 33 patients diagnosed with KD at The Children's Hospital during the outbreak were reviewed. Demographic and clinical information, C-reactive protein (CRP), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and echocardiogram results were recorded. Traditional abnormalities (dilatation, aneurysm, ectasia), as well as "prominence" of the coronary arteries were noted. RESULTS Twenty-five patients had CRP and ESR performed on the day of admission; 11 of 25 (44%) had a discrepancy between the height of the ESR and CRP values (high ESR and low CRP or low ESR and high CRP). The mean CRP was higher in patients who presented in <10 days than in patients who presented in > or =10 days: 13.9 mg/dl vs. 5.2 mg/dl (P = 0.01). The ESR value did not correlate with the day of illness. Age, gender or presence of coronary artery abnormalities did not correlate with the height of CRP or ESR elevation. Thirty percent of patients had at least one abnormality on their initial echocardiogram (dilatation, aneurysm, ectasia). An additional 24% of patients displayed prominence as the only finding on their initial echocardiogram. Of the 33 patients 7 (21.2%) had coronary artery aneurysms. CONCLUSIONS Many patients with KD have discrepancies in the degree of elevation of CRP and ESR. Physicians should consider obtaining both tests in patients with KD. This outbreak was associated with a high degree of coronary artery abnormalities. The finding of coronary artery prominence is an observation that deserves further study.