Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of mesenchymal stem cells on interleukin-1β-treated chondrocytes and cartilage in a rat osteoarthritic model

In the present study, the effects and mechanisms of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) on interleukin (IL)-1β-stimulated rat chondrocytes, as well as cartilage from a rat model of osteoarthritis (OA) induced by anterior cruciate ligament transection and medial meniscectomy were investigated. Confluent rat chondrocytes were treated with IL-1β (10 ng/ml), then cultured indirectly with or without MSCs at a ratio of 2:1. Total RNA and protein were collected at various time-points, and western blot and reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction analyses were used to investigate the expression of type II collagen (Col2), aggrecan, matrix metalloproteinase-13 (MMP-13) and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2). The activation of extracellular signal-regulated kinases 1/2 (ERK1/2), c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) p65 and inhibitory-κ-B-α (IκBα) were also assessed by western blotting. In addition, the in vivo effects of MSCs in a rat OA model were assessed by histology and western blot analysis. The results indicated that in vitro, IL-1β markedly upregulated the expression of MMP-13, COX-2, phosphorylated ERK1/2, JNK, p38 MAPK and NF-κB p65, and inhibited the expression of Col2, aggrecan and IκBα. Conversely, MSCs enhanced the expression of Col2, aggrecan and IκBα, and inhibited the expression of MMP-13 and NF-κB p65 in IL-1β-stimulated rat chondrocytes. In vivo histological and western blot analyses revealed analogous results to the in vitro findings. The results of the present study demonstrated that MSCs suppressed the inflammatory response and extracellular matrix degradation in IL-1β-induced rat chondrocytes, as well as cartilage in a osteoarthritic rat model, in part via the NF-κB signaling pathway.
The treatment of anomia using errorless learning

In the contemporary literature, errorless learning is thought to have benefits over more traditional trial-and-error methods. The most prominent investigations of errorless learning are those designed for rehabilitation of severe memory impairments, including numerous demonstrations of effective amelioration of word-finding difficulties (Baddeley & Wilson, 1994; Clare, Wilson, Breen, & Hodges, 1999; Clare et al., 2000; Evans et al., 2000). Despite this, there are very few reports on the application of purely errorless learning to people with aphasia (Fillingham, Hodgson, Sage, & Lambon Ralph, 2003). The aim of this study was to compare directly the efficacy of errorless and errorful learning in a case series of 11 aphasic people with pronounced word-finding difficulties. Previous studies of errorless learning and, more recently, studies of rehabilitation have suggested that cognition is an important factor for determining outcome (Helm-Estabrooks, 2002; Robertson & Murre, 1999). Therefore, a thorough language and neuropsychological assessment battery was completed with each participant. Naming therapy was carried out to contrast errorless and errorful therapy in a case series analysis. Errorless learning proved to be as effective as the more traditional, errorful approach in the majority of cases in terms of both immediate improvement and at follow up assessment. Without exception, the patients preferred the errorless learning therapy. Strikingly, it was found that language skill did not predict therapy outcome. Participants who responded better overall, had better recognition memory, executive/problem solving skills and monitoring ability. This replicates recent findings that frontal executive skills are crucial for rehabilitation (Robertson & Murre, 1999). Also, participants who did better at errorful treatment were those with the best working and recall memory, and attention. It is probable that these factors are essential cognitive components for providing effective monitoring and feedback systems to a more general learning mechanism. Department of Psychology, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL. E-mail: matt.lambon-ralph@man.ac. uk
Boosting Sensitivity in Liquid Chromatography–Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance–Tandem Mass Spectrometry for Product Ion Analysis of Monoterpene Indole Alkaloids

In metabolomics, the analysis of product ions in tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) is noteworthy to chemically assign structural information. However, the development of relevant analytical methods are less advanced. Here, we developed a method to boost sensitivity in liquid chromatography–Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance–tandem mass spectrometry analysis (MS/MS boost analysis). To verify the MS/MS boost analysis, both quercetin and uniformly labeled 13C quercetin were analyzed, revealing that the origin of the product ions is not the instrument, but the analyzed compounds resulting in sensitive product ions. Next, we applied this method to the analysis of monoterpene indole alkaloids (MIAs). The comparative analyses of MIAs having indole basic skeleton (ajmalicine, catharanthine, hirsuteine, and hirsutine) and oxindole skeleton (formosanine, isoformosanine, pteropodine, isopteropodine, rhynchophylline, isorhynchophylline, and mitraphylline) identified 86 and 73 common monoisotopic ions, respectively. The comparative analyses of the three pairs of stereoisomers showed more than 170 common monoisotopic ions in each pair. This method was also applied to the targeted analysis of MIAs in Catharanthus roseus and Uncaria rhynchophylla to profile indole and oxindole compounds using the product ions. This analysis is suitable for chemically assigning features of the metabolite groups, which contributes to targeted metabolome analysis.
High quality speech for laryngectomized persons

Each year throat cancer causes a large number of individuals to undergo a partial OI total laryngectomy resulting in the loss of normal speech. Many of these individuals utilize the ElectrolarynxTM, a battery-operated, hand-held device which, when held to the throat, creates sufficient turbulence to allow the user to produce low quality speech. This paper details the techniques that we use to recognize the speech output produced by laryngectomized persons using a modified Electrolarynx and synthesize high qualit speech using a miniaturized version of DECTALK J M. Our goal is to develop a Portable Real Time Speech System that can be attached to the user’s belt which will allow laryngectomized persons to produce high quality speech in real time. The hardware will include a 22 MIPS IX3000 RISC microprocessor, and a TMS 32OC30 digital signal processing chip.
On the Allocation of Time

We document for the US and Continental Europe that home–production time remained essentially flat during the last 50 years while changes in market time and leisure offset each other. We then focus on the US and France during 1970–2005 which are on the opposite sides of the spectrum: while US market time did not change much, French market time decreased most strongly. We document for the US and France that capital in home production and imputed labor productivities of home production have risen. We build a version of the growth model with capital in market and home production to account for the time allocation in both countries. We find that the interaction between taxes, home capital, and home–labor–augmenting technical change is crucial.
Quality of Professional Players’ Poker Hands Is Perceived Accurately From Arm Motions

In the card game of poker, players attempt to disguise cues to the quality of their hand, either by concealment (e.g., adopting the well-known, expressionless “poker face”) or by deception. Recent work, however, demonstrates that motor actions can sometimes betray intentions. The same action can have different movement dynamics depending on the underlying intention (Becchio, Sartori, & Castiello, 2010), and these subtle differences can be decoded by observers (Becchio, Manera, Sartori, Cavallo, & Castiello, 2012; Sartori, Becchio, & Castiello, 2011). Thus, professional poker players’ intentions may be visible from their actions while moving poker chips to place bets. Even though professional players may be able to regulate their facial expressions, their motor actions could betray the quality of their poker hand. In three studies, we tested this hypothesis by examining observers’ perceptions of poker-hand quality. We also examined individual differences in sensitivity to nonverbal behavior and potential diagnostic motor behaviors as cues to hand quality.
Video Segmentation Utilized in Visual Data Mining Applications

A novel approach utilized in video database objectbased queries is proposed. This new method segments an example video sequence into real world objects using a combination of color image segmentation techniques along with MPEG-1/2 motion vectors. First, the initial frame in the sequence undergoes a color/texture segmentation algorithm that divides the frame into homogenous regions of color and texture. Features extracted from the co-occurrence matrix provide the texture measurement utilized by this system. The MPEG-1/2 motion vectors are then exploited in predicting the objects of the next frame based on the initial frame’s segmentation. A robust technique for the identification of new objects as they enter the scene is proposed along with a measurement pertaining to the object segmentation accuracy is introduced. This new method has a host of visual data mining applications including image database retrieval and Internet image searches. This new algorithm is tested on various image sequences with segmentation results included.
Polarization effects on gate leakage in InAlN/AlN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistors

Lattice-matched InAlN/AlN/GaN high electron mobility transistors offer high performance with attractive electronic and thermal properties. For high-voltage applications, gate leakage currents under reverse bias voltages remain a serious challenge. This current flow is dominated by field enhanced thermal emission from trap states or direct tunneling. We experimentally measure reverse-bias gate leakage currents in InAlN/AlN/GaN transistors at various temperatures and find that the conventional trap-assisted Frenkel-Poole model fails to explain the experimental data. Unlike the non-polar semiconductors Si, Ge, large polarization-induced electric fields exist in III-nitride heterojunctions. When the large polarization fields are accounted for, a modified Frenkel-Poole model is found to accurately explain the measured data at low reverse bias voltages. At high reverse bias voltages, we identify that the direct Fowler-Nordheim tunneling mechanism dominates. The accurate identification of the gate leakage curren.
POPSTAR at RepLab 2013: Name Ambiguity Resolution on Twitter

Filtering tweets relevant to a given entity is an important task for online reputation management systems. This contributes to a reliable analysis of opinions and trends regarding a given entity. In this paper we describe our participation at the Filtering Task of RepLab 2013. The goal of the competition is to classify a tweet as relevant or not relevant to a given entity. To address this task we studied a large set of features that can be generated to describe the relationship between an entity and a tweet. We explored dierent learning algorithms as well as, dierent types of features: text, keyword similarity scores between enti- ties metadata and tweets, Freebase entity graph and Wikipedia. The test set of the competition comprises more than 90000 tweets of 61 entities of four distinct categories: automotive, banking, universities and music. Results show that our approach is able to achieve a Reliability of 0.72 and a Sensitivity of 0.45 on the test set, corresponding to an F-measure of 0.48 and an Accuracy of 0.908.
Shear banding, aging and noise dynamics in soft glassy materials

The ‘soft glassy rheology’ (SGR) model gives an appealing account of the flow of non-ergodic soft materials in terms of the local yield dynamics of mesoscopic elements. Newtonian, power-law, and yield-stress fluid regimes arise on varying a ‘noise temperature’, x. Here we extend the model, to capture the idea that the noise is largely caused by yield itself. The extended model can account for the viscosity-bifurcation and shear-banding effects reported recently in a wide range of soft materials. A variant model may shed light on shear banding and strain-rate hysteresis seen in glassy star polymer solutions.
Local peak valley co-occurrence patterns: A new feature descriptor for image retrieval

In this paper, we propose a novel feature extraction and retrieval technique for medical images. Our proposed technique (LPVCoP) extracts similarity between grayscale images by using the relationship between reference pixel and its surrounding neighbor pixels through peak/valley edges which are obtained by taking directional derivatives. LPVCoP uses the co-occurrence among the first-order directional derivatives of reference pixel and second neighborhood adjoining pixels. The working of the proposed technique has been checked by implementing it in MATLAB and verifying the result on Computer Tomography (CT) databases. The retrieval results of the proposed technique are compared with the existing technique of image retrieval in terms of average retrieval rate (ARR) and average retrieval precision (ARP). The retrieval results of the LPVCoP are better as compared to the existing techniquesfor image retrieval.
Robot Actors and Authoring Tools for Live Performance System

Recently, the robotics technologies are being used in the field of the performing art. As the motion of a humanoid robot motion is more sophisticated, the robot based performing art is became popular. In this paper, a low cost robot system for live performance is proposed. The proposed system includes the humanoid robot actors and authoring tools. The humanoid robot consists of several actuator modules and a control unit, and the authoring tools consist of the motion suit and motion editor software. The proposed system was utilized to a live performance and showed its potential possibility and usefulness.
A Solution of the All-Pairs Shortest Paths Problem on the Cell Broadband Engine Processor

SUMMARY The All-Pairs Shortest Paths (APSP) problem is a graph problem which can be solved by a three-nested loop program. The Cell Broadband Engine (Cell/B.E.) is a heterogeneous multi-core processor that offers the high single precision floating-point performance. In this paper, a solution of the APSP problem on the Cell/B.E. is presented. To maximize the performance of the Cell/B.E. , a blocked algorithm for the APSP problem is used. The blocked algorithm enables reuse of data in registers and utilizes the memory hierarchy. We also describe several optimization techniques for effective implementation of the APSP problem on the Cell/B.E. The Cell/B.E. achieves the performance of 8.45Gflop/s for the APSP problem by using one SPE and 50.6Gflop/s by using six SPEs.
Toward an Engaging Learning Experience for Students

Our research program explores the opportunities and challenges for engaging learning raised by emerging multiuser virtual environments such as Second Life and There. Students need an engaging learning environment that stimulates their self-efficacy and their outcome expectations. This paper focuses on exploratory research regarding students' preference to learn in a virtual world environment vs. classic text-based learning management systems. Three in-depth interviews were conducted with undergraduate students after using the virtual world called "There. " Our preliminary findings indicate that there is some preference for using virtual worlds over the learning management systems. However, there were some issues encountered that could hamper the use of virtual worlds for teaching college courses. This research contributes to the design and use of computer-support learning environments.
Hysteretic damping system parameter identification based on HABC-CS algorithm

Least squares estimate method in parameter identification of hysteretic damping system on the application of ubiquitous computing efficiency is not high, or complicated calculation, calculation accuracy is not high, there is always the problem such as error or error approximation ability is limited. Similar problem happened when inversion analysis of the defect is done in a component torsion wave propagation model, how to get these related parameters quickly and precisely with a good inversion algorithm is the main work we want to do. In this paper, an intelligent algorithm called HABC - CS algorithm is proposed. By introducing chaos search and bacterial foraging algorithm, adaptive probability of Boltzman, strengthen the ability of bacteria foraging behaviour, to speed up the global convergence of bees, improve the accuracy of solution to solve the existed problems of the least squares estimation method. Through the function test platform, the reliability of the HABC - CS algorithm is verified. And through the viscous damping system as an example, the Runge-Kutta algorithm is used to get the simulation data, and then the proposed algorithm is applied to identifying the parameters of hysteretic damping system. At last, the detailed process of parameter identification and the identification result of parameter identification of hysteretic damping system is given in this article.
Trusting the fair supervisor: the role of supervisory support in performance appraisals

Applying social exchange theory and organisational support theory to a performance appraisal context, we hypothesised that perceived supervisory support would mediate the relationships between both interpersonal and informational justice, and trust in the supervisor. The data were collected from 526 full-time working adults, who answered questions about the fairness of their organisation's current performance appraisal process. Using structural equation modelling, both calibration (n = 278) and cross-validation (n = 248) field samples showed that perceived supervisory support mediated the justice–supervisor trust relationships. Our findings suggest that perceived supervisory support serves as a mechanism through which perceptions of interpersonal and informational justice foster trust in supervisors. Implications for organisational practice and areas for future research are discussed.
Revisiting Perverse Effects on Exchange Rate Pass-Through

The effects of a change in the exchange rate on product prices are investigated using a static international duopoly model without product differentiation. A general condition is derived for perverse exchange rate pass-through assuming decreasing marginal costs for firms in two trading countries. The result is clarified on the basis of a new diagram for determining equilibrium supplies in the two countries.
Expedite feature extraction for enhanced cloud anomaly detection

Cloud computing is the latest trend in business for providing software, platforms and services over the Internet. However, a widespread adoption of this paradigm has been hampered by the lack of security mechanisms. In view of this, the aim of this work is to propose a new approach for detecting anomalies in cloud network traffic. The anomaly detection mechanism works on the basis of a Support Vector Machine (SVM). The key requirement for improving the accuracy of the SVM model, in the context of cloud, is to reduce the total amount of data. In light of this, we put forward the Poisson Moving Average predictor which is the core of the feature extraction approach and is able to handle the vast amount of information generated over time. In addition, two case studies are employed to validate the effectiveness of the mechanism on the basis of real datasets. Compared with other approaches, our solution exhibits the best performance in terms of detection and false alarm rates.
The Banality of Fraud: Re-Situating the Inside Counsel as Gatekeeper

In this article, the author provides a social-psychological explanation for why inside counsel (in-house or corporate counsel) may compromise their ethical obligations or professional duties and acquiesce in managerial misconduct, sometimes amounting to fraud. This social-psychological explanation focuses on the situation that inside counsel finds herself in (as mere employee, as faithful agent, and as team-player), as well as the cognition, incorporating recent psychology studies and recent theories (e.g., dual processing model of cognition) on how the human mind might resolve ethical dilemmas. It also critiques the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and the 2003 amendments to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct in their attempts to address this problem. Finally, it provides a possible solution to this problem based closely on its social-psychological diagnosis. The proposed solution includes: (i) public companies transferring the oversight of the corporate legal department to a committee of independent board members, (ii) the law guaranteeing whistleblower protection to inside counsel under Sarbanes-Oxley and, accordingly, permitting the disclosure of client confidences under any claim of retaliatory discharge; and (iii) public companies limiting ex ante the amount of equity investments that an inside lawyer may accept as compensation or, in the alternative, fashioning equity compensation in a manner that minimizes potential conflicts of interest. In analyzing the problem, it employs a narrative of the experience of Mark Belnick, former general counsel of Tyco, who was prosecuted and finally acquitted in New York on charges of falsification of business records.
Improved action and path synthesis using Gradient Sampling

Shortest paths generated through gradient descent on a value function have a tendency to chatter and/or require an unreasonable number of steps to synthesize. We demonstrate that the gradient sampling algorithm of [Burke, Lewis & Overton, 2005] can largely alleviate this problem. For systems subject to state uncertainty whose state estimate is tracked using a particle filter, we propose the Gradient Sampling with Particle Filter (GSPF) algorithm, which uses the particles as the locations in which to sample the gradient. At each step, the GSPF efficiently finds a consensus direction suitable for all particles or identifies the type of stationary point on which it is stuck. If the stationary point is a minimum, the system has reached its goal (to within the limits of the state uncertainty) and the algorithm naturally terminates; otherwise, we propose two approaches to find a suitable descent direction. We illustrate the effectiveness of the GSPF on several examples using the ROS and Gazebo robot simulation environment.
The role of wavelength and source in the search for sulfur-atom positions evaluated in two case studies: lysozyme at room temperature and cryo apocrustacyanin A1

Synchrotron radiation beamlines offer automated data collection with faster and larger detectors, a choice of wavelength(s), intense beams and fine collimation. An increasing output of protein crystal structures sustains an interest in streamlining data collection protocols. Thus, more and more investigators are looking into the use of the anomalous signal from sulfur to obtain initial phase information for medium-size proteins. This type of experiment ideally requires the use of synchrotron radiation, softer X-rays and cryocooling of the sample. Here the results are reported of an investigation into locating the weak, i.e. sulfur, anomalous scatterers in lysozyme using rotating anode or synchrotron radiation data recorded at room temperature. It was indeed possible to locate the sulfur atoms from a lysozyme crystal at room temperature. Accurate selection of images during scaling was needed where radiation damage effects were detected. Most interestingly, comparisons are provided of high-redundancy data sets recorded with synchrotron radiation at λ = 2.0 and 1.488 A, and with Cu Kα and Mo Kα radiation. Apocrustacyanin A1 was also investigated; from the results of a very high redundancy data collection using softer synchrotron X-rays and a cryo-cooled crystal, it was possible to find the sulfur atoms.