Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Barriers and Facilitators to Work Success for Veterans in Supported Employment: A Nationwide Provider Survey

Objective: Veterans with mental illness are at serious risk for poor work outcomes and career stagnation. Supported employment (SE) is an evidence based model of vocational services that assists persons with mental illness to obtain competitive employment. The purpose of this study was to gain a rich understanding of barriers and facilitators to competitive work success from the perspective of a nationwide sample of Department of Veteran Affairs SE staff, supervisors, and managers. Methods: This study utilized a mixed methods approach in which 114 SE personnel completed an online questionnaire consisting of a survey of work barriers and facilitators; open ended questions elicited additional factors impacting the work success. Descriptive statistics characterized work factors, and an emergent open coding approach identified qualitative themes describing other key elements influencing employment. Results: The most prominent work facilitators were motivation, job match, the assistance of SE services, and self-confidence. The highest rated barriers were psychological stress and a range of health-related problems. Qualitative findings revealed additional areas impacting work success, notably, a lack of resources, the capacity of frontline staff to form strong relationships with Veterans and employers, the ability of staff to adapt and meet the multi-faceted demands of the SE job, and the need for additional staff and supervisor training. The impact of employer stigma was also emphasized. Conclusions: An array of elements influencing work success at the level of the Veteran, staff, SE program, and the employer were recognized, suggesting several implications for VA services.
A Simple Way to Synthesize Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles in Air Atmosphere: Iron Ion Concentration Effect

We have synthesized iron oxide nanoparticles in air atmosphere by coprecipitation. The ratio of was fixed at 2/3. The total amount of iron ions in the solution was varied from 250 mmol to 12.5 mmol. X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns showed the characteristic peaks of iron oxide phases. We observed that the crystallinity reduced and particle sizes calculated from XRD patterns decreased as the iron ion concentration in the solution decreased. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy analysis exhibited the Fe-O vibration band at 560-580 confirming the iron oxide formation. The mean physical sizes obtained from a transmission electron microscope are around 8 nm. According to the magnetic measurements, all samples are superparamagnetic at room temperature showing an increase in saturation magnetization up to 63.71 emu/g. Magnetic sizes of the particles vary from 7.45 nm to 4.88 nm with the change of iron ion concentration.
Noise Reduction Methods for Distantly Supervised Biomedical Relation Extraction

Distant supervision has been applied to automatically generate labeled data for biomedical relation extraction. Noise exists in both positively and negatively-labeled data and affects the performance of supervised machine learning methods. In this paper, we propose three novel heuristics based on the notion of proximity, trigger word and confidence of patterns to leverage lexical and syntactic information to reduce the level of noise in the distantly labeled data. Experiments on three different tasks, extraction of protein-protein-interaction, miRNA-gene regulation relation and protein-localization event, show that the proposed methods can improve the F-score over the baseline by 6, 10 and 14 points for the three tasks, respectively. We also show that when the models are configured to output high-confidence results, high precisions can be obtained using the proposed methods, making them promising for facilitating manual curation for databases.
Biocompatibility and Systemic Safety of a Novel Implantable Annuloplasty Ring for the Treatment of Mitral Regurgitation in a Minipig Model

Prosthetic annuloplasty rings are a common treatment modality for mitral regurgitation, and recently, percutaneous implantation techniques have gained popularity due to their favorable safety profile. Although in common use, biocompatibility of annuloplasty rings has been reported only sparsely in the literature, and none of these reports used the percutaneous technique of implantation. We report on the biocompatibility and the systemic safety of a novel transcatheter mitral valve annuloplasty ring (AMEND™) in 6 minipigs. This device is composed of a nitinol tube surrounded by a braided polyethylene terephthalate fabric tube. The device produced no adverse inflammatory response, showing gradual integration between the metal ring and the fabric by normal host fibrocellular response, leading to complete neoendocardium coverage. There was no evidence for adverse reactions, rejection, or intolerance in the valvular structure. In 2 animals, hemopericardium resulted from the implantation procedure, leading to right-sided cardiac insufficiency with pulmonary edema and liver congestion. The findings reported herein can serve as a case study for the expected healing pathology reactions after implantation of transcatheter mitral valve annuloplasty rings.
Effect of Retin a (tretinoin) on skin wound healing in dogs

Retinoids are widely used in different dermal pathologies. The objective of this study is to determine the effect of retinA in enhancing wound healing in skin of dogs. Eight local breed's dogs weighting from 7 to 10 kg were used in this study. By aseptic technique a 15 cm vertical incision was done in the left flank and then closed by simple interrupted pattern by (2/0) silk. The animals were divided into two equal groups; the first one was treated with 0.5 mg Retin-A cream twice daily for three weeks. Biopsies were taken at 7th and 21 st days.
Development of subsystem of accommodation to faults for dead reckoning system of autonomous underwater vehicles

This paper is dedicated to developing of new method of synthesis of subsystem of accommodation to continuous faults for dead reckoning system (DRS) of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV). Proposed method consists of three basic stages. On the first step, the problem of detection and localization of faults through the use of kinematic model of AUV and special data fusion from its navigation sensors is solved. On the second stage, the task of identification of fault values is solved by the introduction of additional observers with feedback by residual signals. In the third stage additional signals, compensating the faults are formed in the respective control channels of AUV. The advantage of proposed method is simplicity of realization and high precision of compensation of the revealed faults in the conditions of uncertainty and essential variability of parameters of environment. The results of mathematical simulation is fully confirmed the efficiency and high performance of the proposed method.
IDS CRITERIA FOR ENHANCED SECURITY OVER CLOUD

: Intrusion Detection Systems are being used in every software whether it is web based or not. But application of IDS in public networks such as cloud, grid computing has many applications and has been proven to be boon. The application of IDS is used in creating an alarming system for the networks so that security measures can be applied to prevent the possible loss of data and avoiding non functioning systems. Because of the enhanced technology there are many ways of the hacking and compromising any networked system has been evolved and causing huge loses. Since direct application of security methods affects the performance of the system heavily, therefore application of IDS is increasing widely. Since IDS can be applied on gateways therefore a quick and better alarming system can be created which will prompt the administrators to apply security techniques to avoid the problems. In this work, different IDS mechanisms have been studied and list of possible criteria has been enlisted to provide IDS over the cloud. This work also proposes to take one of the IDS mechanisms to study the criteria of IDS, their behaviours, advantages and possible alarming for Cloud.
Economic effects of Ohio's smoke-free law on Kentucky and Ohio border counties

Objective To determine if the Ohio statewide smoke-free law is associated with economic activity in Ohio or Kentucky counties that lie on the border between the two states. In November 2006, Ohio implemented a comprehensive statewide smoke-free law for all indoor workplaces. Design A feasible generalised least squares (FLGS) time series design to estimate the impact of the Ohio smoke-free law on Kentucky and Ohio border counties. Setting Six Kentucky and six Ohio counties that lie on the border between the two states. Subjects All reporting hospitality and accommodation establishments in all Kentucky and Ohio counties including but not limited to food and drinking establishments, hotels and casinos. Main outcome measures Total number of employees, total wages paid and number of reported establishments in all hospitality and accommodation services, 6 years before Ohio's law and 1 year after. Results There is no evidence of a disproportionate change in economic activity in Ohio or Kentucky border counties relative to their non-border counterparts. There was no evidence of a relation between Ohio's smoke-free law and economic activity in Kentucky border counties. The law generated a positive influence on wages and number of establishments in Ohio border counties. The null result cannot be explained by low test power, as minimum changes necessary in the dependent variables to detect a significant influence are very reasonable in size. Conclusions Our data add to the large body of evidence that smoke-free laws are neutral with respect to the hospitality business across jurisdictions with and without laws.
Competitive interaction of Seven in absentia homolog‐1A and Ca2+/calmodulin with the cytoplasmic tail of group 1 metabotropic glutamate receptors

Group 1 metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluR1 and mGluR5) are coupled to inositol trisphosphate/Ca2+ signaling via G proteins and play an important role in excitatory synaptic transmission. To explore the regulation of group 1 mGluR function, we applied the yeast two‐hybrid system using the intracellular carboxy‐terminal domain of group 1 mGluRs (group 1 ct‐mGluRs) and attempted to identify novel protein–protein interactions of group 1 mGluRs.
High-throughput phenotyping of above and below ground elements of plants using feature detection, extraction and image analysis techniques

4 Introduction . 5 Results . 9 Discussion . 13 Materials and Methods . 17 Conclusion . 19 References . 20 CHAPTER 3: ABOVE GROUND PHENOTYPING . 23 Fast, automated identification of tassels: Bag-of-features, graph algorithms and high throughput computing . 23 Abstract . 23 Introduction . 24 Methods . 28 Workflow Deployment . 35 Conclusion . 42 References . 43 CHAPTER 4: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS . 45. 23 Introduction . 24 Methods . 28 Workflow Deployment . 35 Conclusion . 42 References . 43 CHAPTER 4: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS . 45
New Evidence on Initial Transition from Career Job to Retirement in Japan

The interval in time between leaving a career job and exit from the labor force is especially long for Japanese employees. We examine determinants of post-career work arrangements from two perspectives: work status and the route to a second job. We show that these determinants differ between male and female workers and that the customary function of career employers to place their workers in a second job has declined since the middle of the 1990s.
Auto-coding implementation of Model Predictive Control with application to flight control

This paper describes an implementation of Model Predictive Control (MPC) in Simulink, using only built-in blocks. This enables the use of Matlab's Real-Time Workshop automatically to generate implementation code for an embedded processor. Experimental results are presented using MPC for control of an aircraft model in a wind tunnel. The blocks-only implementation is achieved by expressing an interior-point optimisation as a sequence of operations on a stored solution. A limitation of existing MPC implementations is that the on-line optimisation demands a complex, sometimes nondeterministic algorithm, making it impossible to verify the resulting software for safety critical applications such as flight control. The approach introduced in this paper permits automatic code generation and a route to verifiable MPC software.
A New Approach to Feature-based Test Suite Reduction in Software Product Line Testing

In many cases, Software Product Line Testing (SPLT) targets only the selection of test cases which cover product features or feature interactions. However, higher testing efficiency can be achieved through the selection of test cases with improved fault-revealing capabilities. By associating each test case a priority-value representing (or aggregating) distinct criteria, such as importance (in terms of fault discovered in previous test campaigns), duration or cost, it becomes possible to select a feature-covering test suite with improved capabilities. A crucial objective in SPLT then becomes to identify a test suite that optimizes reaching a specific goal (lower test duration or cost), while preserving full feature coverage. In this paper, we revisit this problem with a new approach based on constraint optimization with a special constraint called GLOBAL CARDINALITY and a sophisticated search heuristic. This constraint enforces the coverage of all features through the computation of max flows in a network flow representing the coverage relation. The computed max flows represent possible solutions which are further processed in order to determine the solution that optimizes the given objective function, e.g., the lowest test execution costs. Our approach was implemented in a tool called Flower/C and experimentally evaluated on both randomly generated instances and industrial case instances. Comparing Flower/C with MINTS (Minimizer for Test Suites), the State-Of-the-Art tool based on an integer linear formulation for performing similar test suite optimization, we show that our approach either outperforms MINTS or has comparable performance on random instances. On industrial instances, we compared three distinct models of Flower/C (using distinct global constraints) and the one mixing distinct constraints showed excellent performances with high reduction rates. These results opens door to an industrial adoption of the proposed technology. Keywords—Test suite reduction; multi-criteria test suite optimization; software product line testing; feature coverage
Structural and functional studies of retroviral RNA pseudoknots involved in ribosomal frameshifting: nucleotides at the junction of the two stems are important for efficient ribosomal frameshifting.

Ribosomal frameshifting, a translational mechanism used during retroviral replication, involves a directed change in reading frame at a specific site at a defined frequency. Such programmed frameshifting at the mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV) gag‐pro shift site requires two mRNA signals: a heptanucleotide shifty sequence and a pseudoknot structure positioned downstream. Using in vitro translation assays and enzymatic and chemical probes for RNA structure, we have defined features of the pseudoknot that promote efficient frameshifting. Heterologous RNA structures, e.g. a hairpin, a tRNA or a synthetic pseudoknot, substituted downstream of the shifty site fail to promote frameshifting, suggesting that specific features of the MMTV pseudoknot are important for function. Site‐directed mutations of the MMTV pseudoknot indicate that the pseudoknot junction, including an unpaired adenine nucleotide between the two stems, provides a specific structural determinant for efficient frameshifting. Pseudoknots derived from other retroviruses (i.e. the feline immunodeficiency virus and the simian retrovirus type 1) also promote frameshifting at the MMTV gag‐pro shift site, dependent on the same structure at the junction of the two stems.
A Linearized Tunable Single Bandpass Microwave Photonic Filter

In this letter, a tunable single bandpass microwave photonic filter (MPF) with an improved spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) based on a phase-shifted fiber Bragg grating (PS-FBG) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. A phase-modulated double-sideband (DSB) signal is sent to a PS-FBG; when one of the sidebands falls in the notch of the reflection band of the PS-FBG, the reflected signal is converted to an intensity-modulated single-sideband (SSB) signal which leads to a single passband of the MPF. By tuning the wavelength of the optical carrier, the center frequency of the passband can be tuned correspondingly. The SFDR is improved by employing polarization mixing technique in a LiNbO3 phase modulator and a polarization diversity receiver. Experimental results show that the passband width and the frequency-tunable range of the single bandpass MPF are 80 MHz and 5.5 GHz, respectively. An SFDR improvement of 13.1 dB is successfully achieved.
Caffeine induces matrix metalloproteinase‐2 (MMP‐2) and MMP‐9 down‐regulation in human leukemia U937 cells via Ca2+/ROS‐mediated suppression of ERK/c‐fos pathway and activation of p38 MAPK/c‐jun pathway

Caffeine attenuated invasion of human leukemia U937 cells with characteristic of decreased protein expression and mRNA levels of matrix metalloproteinase‐2 (MMP‐2) and MMP‐9. Down‐regulation of MMP‐2 and MMP‐9 in U937 cells was abrogated by abolishment of caffeine‐elicited increase in intracellular Ca2+ concentration and ROS generation. Pretreatment with BAPTA‐AM (Ca2+ chelator) and N‐acetylcysteine (ROS scavenger) abolished caffeine‐induced ERK inactivation and p38 MPAK activation. Moreover, caffeine treatment led to MAPK phosphatase‐1 (MKP‐1) down‐regulation and protein phosphatase 2A catalytic subunit (PP2Ac) up‐regulation, which were involved in cross‐talk between p38 MAPK and ERK. Transfection of constitutively active MEK1 or pretreatment with SB202190 (p38 MAPK inhibitor) restored MMP‐2 and MMP‐9 protein expression in caffeine‐treated cells. Caffeine treatment repressed ERK‐mediated c‐Fos phosphorylation but evoked p38 MAPK‐mediated c‐Jun phosphorylation. Knock‐down of c‐Fos and c‐Jun by siRNA reflected that c‐Fos counteracted the effect of c‐Jun on MMP‐2/MMP‐9 down‐regulation. Taken together, our data indicate that MMP‐2/MMP‐9 down‐regulation in caffeine‐treated U937 cells is elicited by Ca2+/ROS‐mediated suppression of ERK/c‐Fos pathway and activation of p38 MAPK/c‐Jun pathway. J. Cell. Physiol. 224: 775–785, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Endothelial and metabolic disorders in adolescence: low birth weight is not an isolated risk factor

Abstract Background: Low birth weight (LBW) seems to be a determining factor for many cardiovascular diseases in adult life. Objectives: The objectives of this study were to investigate the occurrence of metabolic syndrome (MetS) and endothelial dysfunction in adolescents with LBW and compare them with subjects with normal birth weights (NBW). Methods: This retrospective cohort study evaluated 172 adolescents (86 in each group) aged 10–20 years, who were born in a reference maternity hospital. The following criteria were adopted: International Diabetes Federation parameters for the diagnosis of MetS and flow-mediated brachial artery dilatation for endothelial dysfunction. Student’s t-test or Mann-Whitney tests were used for continuous variables (depending on the normality of distribution evaluated by the Shapiro-Wilk test), and the Fisher exact test was used for categorical variables. The significance level was determined at 0.05. Results: MetS was present in three cases of LBW and in four cases of NBW (p=0.70). The number of components of the syndrome was, on average, 0.6 and 0.5 in LBW and NBW, respectively (p=0.77). Endothelial dysfunction occurred in 25 (29.1%) cases of LBW and in 31 (36.1%) cases of NBW (p=0.33). Conclusion: LBW did not represent a risk factor in the occurrence of MetS or endothelial dysfunction in adolescence.
An investigation of the potential interrelationships between the coping-values of entrepreneurs and the developmental stages of their businesses

Many authors advocate the benefits of deepened insight to be gained from contextualisation. Some of them highlight the need for multi-level research as a method to identify interrelationships across research focus areas to contextualise findings. The entrepreneurial business development phenomenon, as a social ecosystem, seems to be no different. This research supports this view. Applying research of an integral nature, the research seeks to gain deepened insight into the forces that contribute to the complex processes of the entrepreneurial business development phenomenon. This research explores the contextual interrelationship between the objective developmental stage of the entrepreneurial business and the subjective coping-value profile of the entrepreneur. The important role of the entrepreneurial business in any economy is generally accepted. Furthermore, the crucial importance of understanding the dynamics of the successful transition of entrepreneurial business from early-stage towards established business has been highlighted as a key concern of any government or stakeholder responsible for the well-being of their citizens. The successful transition from early-stage entrepreneurial business to established medium, largersized entrepreneurial business is complex. Various authors have observed that only a few entrepreneurs seem to be successful in developing their business ventures. They observed that successes in entrepreneurial business seem to consist of two key elements, being the success of the business venture and the extent that this is aligned with the entrepreneur’s intent. Therefore, this research study holds the view that it is improbable to explain entrepreneurial business development independent from the context of the entrepreneur’s intent. With an observed need to contextualise the relationship between the subjective intent of the entrepreneur and the objective developmental stage of the business venture, the aim of the research is to explore the value proposition of integral research as a utility to operationalise the processes to gain deepened insight into subjective and objective interrelationships. The research considers some basic principles in the application of an integral approach. This is followed by the identification of theoretical models on subjective and objective elements that offer utility to explore the subject field of entrepreneurial business development through an integral approach, in order to gain contextual insight. The study frames these theoretical models in the context of the entrepreneurial business development ecosystem, proposing a framework to guide the application of an integral approach to gain deepened insight into entrepreneurial business development. The remainder of the research explores the practical application of the proposed framework, using sample data collected on entrepreneurial businesses. Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za