Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Application of Extra Sensing by Stochastic-Modeled Secondary Users Over a Medium-Traffic Network

Status changing of the primary user and the number of secondary users (SUs) are crucial issues for designing a reliable cognitive radio network. In this paper, a medium-traffic primary network is assumed when SUs are stochastically distributed over an area around a secondary base station. By using cooperative spectrum sensing over Rayleigh-faded sensing and imperfect reporting channels, we propose an extra sensing part within the transmission phase of the secondary network in which only some SUs (called sensing SUs) participate in sensing. Although the extra sensing may suffer from interference by transmitting SUs, we show that the total transmission throughput of the system can be improved significantly due to better quality of the detection. Moreover, we reveal that involving all SUs in the extra sensing part does not necessarily increase the total throughput of the system.
Insulin Receptor Substrate 3 (IRS-3) and IRS-4 Impair IRS-1- and IRS-2-Mediated Signaling

ABSTRACT To investigate the roles of insulin receptor substrate 3 (IRS-3) and IRS-4 in the insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) signaling cascade, we introduced these proteins into 3T3 embryonic fibroblast cell lines prepared from wild-type (WT) and IRS-1 knockout (KO) mice by using a retroviral system. Following transduction of IRS-3 or IRS-4, the cells showed a significant decrease in IRS-2 mRNA and protein levels without any change in the IRS-1 protein level. In these cell lines, IGF-1 caused the rapid tyrosine phosphorylation of all four IRS proteins. However, IRS-3- or IRS-4-expressing cells also showed a marked decrease in IRS-1 and IRS-2 phosphorylation compared to the host cells. This decrease was accounted for in part by a decrease in the level of IRS-2 protein but occurred with no significant change in the IRS-1 protein level. IRS-3- or IRS-4-overexpressing cells showed an increase in basal phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase activity and basal Akt phosphorylation, while the IGF-1-stimulated levels correlated well with total tyrosine phosphorylation level of all IRS proteins in each cell line. IRS-3 expression in WT cells also caused an increase in IGF-1-induced mitogen-activated protein kinase phosphorylation and egr-1 expression (∼1.8- and ∼2.4-fold with respect to WT). In the IRS-1 KO cells, the impaired mitogenic response to IGF-1 was reconstituted with IRS-1 to supranormal levels and was returned to almost normal by IRS-2 or IRS-3 but was not improved by overexpression of IRS-4. These data suggest that IRS-3 and IRS-4 may act as negative regulators of the IGF-1 signaling pathway by suppressing the function of other IRS proteins at several steps.
A Ka-band narrow bandpass filter using LTCC technology

A Ka-band low-temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) narrow bandpass filter (BPF) is presented first. This BPF shows a very narrow 3 dB fractional bandwidth of 4.5% centered at 28.7 GHz. The advantages of multilayered LTCC technology such as high integration and vertical stacking capabilities were employed to design a three-dimensional interdigital end-coupled embedded microstrip narrow BPF. The difficulties in controlling the precise distance between two adjacent resonators in LTCC end-coupled BPF were overcome by locating the resonators on different layers. The measured insertion loss is 3 dB at 28.7 GHz.
Review and critical discussion of assumptions and modelling options to study the spread of the bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV) within a cattle herd

SUMMARY Relevance of epidemiological models depends on assumptions on the population structure and dynamics, on the biology of the host–parasite interaction, and on mathematical modelling. In this paper we reviewed published models of the bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV) spread within a herd. Modelling options and assumptions on herd dynamics and BVDV transmission were discussed. A cattle herd is a population with a controlled size. Animals are separated into subgroups according to their age or their physiological status inducing heterogeneity of horizontal transmission. Complexity of models results from: (1) horizontal and vertical virus transmission, (2) birth of persistently infected animals, (3) excretion by transiently and persistently infected animals. Areas where there was a lack of knowledge were identified. Assumptions on the force of infection used to model the horizontal virus transmission were presented and discussed. We proposed possible ways of improving models (e.g. force of infection, validation) and essential model features for further BVDV models.
EFL Teachers’ Perceptions on Supervision Program as a Tool to Develop Teachers’ Professionalism

Teachers hold a very crucial role in education. Students’ success in academic life is very much influenced by teachers’ quality. One of the ways applied by most schools in Indonesia to assure their teachers quality is by conducting supervision program at the end or in the middle of semester. This study investigated teachers’ perception on the effectiveness of supervision program in relation to their professional development. This qualitative case study involved 4 EFL teachers teaching at various school levels; elementary school, junior high school and senior high school. The data were collected through interview and document analysis. The result of data analysis revealed that teachers hold positive attitude toward supervision program in helping them develop their professionalism in teaching. Schools need to maintain supervision program to make sure their teachers are well prepared in performing their duty. The participating teachers suggested for its meaningfulness, supervision program should be well designed. Teachers being observed and supervisor should have the same educational background.
Task Variety in Professional Service Work: When It Helps and When It Hurts

In a wide range of professional service firms, individuals perform a variety of tasks which are highly cognitive and knowledge intensive yet repetitive in nature, providing significant opportunities for learning. In addition, individuals in such environments tend to enjoy considerable discretion in managing when and how they perform their tasks. In light of these observations, we investigate task allocation and timing strategies that may enhance or inhibit learning and productivity for professional service workers. Specifically, we focus on the role of task variety. We use a detailed dataset of 3273 coronary artery bypass surgeries in a private European hospital over 7 years to examine the effect of concurrent and non‐concurrent exposure to task variety on learning and productivity on a focal task. We find that while concurrent exposure to variety has a positive impact on focal productivity, non‐concurrent exposure to variety has a negative impact on it. Our results also suggest that short‐term exposure to variety amplifies these relationships.
Increase in Terminal Restriction Fragments of Bacteroidetes-Derived 16S rRNA Genes after Administration of Short-Chain Fructooligosaccharides

ABSTRACT It is well known that short chain fructooligosaccharides (scFOS) modify intestinal microbiota in animals as well as in humans. Since most murine intestinal bacteria are still uncultured, it is difficult for a culturing method to detect changes in intestinal microbiota after scFOS administration in a mouse model. In this study, we sought markers of positive change in murine intestinal microbiota after scFOS administration using terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) analysis, which is a culture-independent method. The T-RFLP profiles showed that six terminal restriction fragments (T-RFs) were significantly increased after scFOS administration. Phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA partial gene sequences of murine fecal bacteria suggested that four of six T-RFs that increased after scFOS administration were derived from the 16S rRNA genes of the class Bacteroidetes. Preliminary quantification of Bacteroidetes by real-time PCR suggests that the 16S rRNA genes derived from Bacteroidetes were increased by scFOS administration. Therefore, the T-RFs derived from Bacteroidetes are good markers of change of murine intestinal microbiota after scFOS administration.
Differential toxicity of leaf litter to dipteran larvae of mosquito developmental sites.

The relative toxicity of leaf litter to nematocerous dipteran larvae characteristic of mosquito developmental sites was investigated. Culicidae, Chironomidae, and Simuliidae taxa originating from alpine hydrosystems were tested together with two laboratory nonindigenous culicid taxa. Bioassays indicate that ingestion of 10-month-old decaying leaves from Alnus glutinosa, Populus nigra, and Quercus robur by larvae is more deleterious for Aedes aegypti, A. albopictus, Culex pipiens, Simulium variegatum, and Chironomus annularius than for A. rusticus. Histopathological observations reveal that the midgut epithelium is the main target organ of the toxic effect of dietary leaf litter, which appears to be stronger than that of previously reported tannic acid. There is a general response of the nematocerous larval midgut epithelium to dietary tannins-phenolic compounds: clear cells of the anterior midgut showing symptoms of intoxication before dark cells of the posterior midgut.
Pengaruh Rasio Keuangan Early Warning System terhadap Tingkat Solvabilitas Perusahaan Asuransi Jiwa Syariah Periode 2010-2013

The purpose of this research is to investigate the influence of liquidity ratio, retention, expense ratio, and the size of the company to the company’s solvability rate that proxied by the ratio of risk-based capital (RBC). Samples of thr research was sharia life insurance companies that publish financial statements in 2010-2013. There were 40 samples in this research by using purposive sampling method. This research is a quantitative research. This research uses multiple linear regression. The results of this research shows that the expense ratio give significant affect to solvability rate of sharia life insurance company with a significance value of less than 0.05. While the liquidity ratio, the ratio of own retention and company size does not affect the company's solvability rate. The Advice given to investors who would buy insurance products do not need to pay attention to the liquidity ratio, and the size of the company's own retention in assessing the solvability rate of sharia life insurance company's as the third ratio did not affect the solvability rate. The Suggestions for the company is to maximize premiums in order to cover expenses due to the company expense ratio affect the solvency rate.
Economic order quantity models with upstream partial trade credit and downstream full trade credit

Abstract Traditional EOQ models are assumed that it is upstream full trade credit and down steam partial trade credit. In most business transactions, this assumption is debatable. In this note, this paper establishes a new EOQ model under two levels of trade credit, in which the supplier offers to the retailer a partial trade credit period for payments even if the order quantity is less than W, and simultaneously the retailer in turn provides a full trade credit period to its customers. Furthermore, we assume that the trade credit period (N) offered by the retailer to the customers is less than or equal to the trade credit period (M) offered by the supplier. And the retailer starts earning revenue from time N to time (T + N), not from time 0 to time T. Six theorems are developed to determine retailer’s optimal ordering policies and numerical examples are given to illustrate these theorems.
A settings tracking and providing scheme for differential protection based on machine learning

With the extensive use of differential protection in micro-grid, the demand for online obtaining the settings becomes more urgent than the process in the past. This paper proposes a new differential protection scheme for micro-grid where a settings tracking and providing scheme is implemented to acquire the latest enabled protection settings by tracking multiple setting group control block (SGCB) class services. A machine learning technique is implemented to assist classifier in identifying the most relevant electrical features which are required for the fault detection and to establish the best efficient differential protection strategy to micro-grid. A practical case study has successfully verified the adaptability and practicability of the micro-grids protection scheme where statistical classifier will make a decision based on protection settings and differential features.
Apoptosis of bile duct epithelial cells in hepatic allograft rejection

Liver biopsy remains the ‘gold standard’ for monitoring rejection in liver transplant patients. Portal inflammation, bile duct damage and endothelialitis are recognized features of hepatic allograft rejection. The pathogenesis of the bile duct injury during rejection, however, remains unclear. To define the mechanism of bile duct damage, we studied the light‐ and electronmicroscopic appearance of hepatic tissue from selected patients in whom allograft failure was solely due to rejection. Of the 25 orthotopic liver transplant rejection cases examined, 17 were mild, seven were moderate and one was severe rejection. Light microscopy examination of the damaged bile duct epithelium revealed evidence of apoptosis which was confirmed by electronmicroscopy. Furthermore, there appeared to be a positive correlation between the grade of rejection and the number of apoptotic cells. Also included in the study were 13 cases of chronic active hepatitis and 10 normal livers which showed the least apoptotic cells. We conclude that the identification of apoptotic cells in damaged bile ducts in allograft biopsies might be helpful in the diagnosis of rejection and in assessment of the severity of rejection.
Impact of electronic word-of-mouth communication on building brand equity: an Indonesian perspective

The objective of this study is to develop a model of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) communication. We examine the effect of consumers' restaurant experience (CREp) and country of origin (COO) on eWOM and the effect that eWOM and COO have on brand equity. We survey 360 diners in restaurants in Indonesia in which we get 323 usable responses and analyse the data with Tobit regressions. We find that CREp and COO have a significantly positive effect on eWOM and eWOM and COO have a significantly positive effect on brand equity.
Education for Sustainable Development: Emerging Themes from Adopters of a Declaration

Universities that sign the Talloires Declaration signify their commitment to education for sustainable development. This research explores whether the signification is a strategic desire to be seen to be doing the right thing, or a genuine commitment to enhancing sustainability and helping the environment. This semi-structured interview research involves communication with the sustainability managers in the majority of Talloires signified universities in Australia. Since Australia has a comparably high rate of commitment to the Talloires Declaration, the findings represent rich and deep insight into reasons and motivations that can inform the adoption process around the world. Applying institutional theory and related concepts of structuration, isomorphism, and signaling, the findings are analyzed to reveal the range of environmental initiatives and the underlying explanation of themes. Current strategies and future directions for universities are indicated. Findings are that higher education is a key mechanism in business and society for finding and harnessing knowledge-based solutions. The challenge is that institutionalization has created resistance to change through coercive, normative, and mimetic isomorphism, along with rhetoric. Structuration factors should be considered in the context of making positive changes for sustainability in the university sector.
The Open Innovation Model of Coaching Interaction in Organisations for Sustainable Performance within the Life Cycle

Organizations need innovation to be competitive and sustainable on their marketplace. Sustainable performance is an important precondition for growth and development. In spite of a body of literature, non-financial factors of sustainable performance remain an open issue. Coaching has gained considerable attention in the business world for its impact on sustainable performance. The current research investigates the use of coaching interaction to facilitate organizational sustainable growth and development in the context of Miller and Friesen’s five stage life-cycle model. The expert opinion survey is chosen as a central method of research. The questionnaire is developed on the literature review that is focused on the drivers for sustainable development throughout the life cycle, and the features of coaching that accelerate these driving forces. Fifteen experts took part in the survey conducted from November 2017 to January 2018. The results are estimated by considering the competence coefficient for each expert. The findings led to creation of an open innovation model, which displays relationships between the appropriate coaching forms and types and the organizational life cycle stages. The developed model enables choosing the optimal way of coaching delivery at any life cycle stage. This model is particularly valuable for the coaching support programs.
A rating prediction method for e-commerce application using ordinal regression based on LDA with multi-modal features

This paper presents a new method for rating prediction in e-commerce, which uses ordinal regression based on linear discriminant analysis (LDA) with multi-modal features. In order to realize accurate recommendation in e-commerce, the proposed method estimates each user's rating for target items. Note that we define the rating as “the degree of preference for each item by a user. ” For estimating the target user's preference of each item from the past ratings of other items, the proposed method performs training from pairs of “ratings of items” and their feature vectors using ordinal regression based on LDA. Furthermore, in this approach, new features are obtained by applying canonical correlation analysis (CCA) to textual and visual features extracted from review's texts and images on the Web, respectively. Therefore, higher performance of the rating prediction can be realized by our method than that when using single kind of features. Experimental results obtained by applying the proposed method to an actual movie data set, which has been provided by SNAP, show the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Technological and Probiotic Traits of the Lactobacilli Isolated From Vaginal Tract of the Healthy Women for Probiotic Use

Background For biotechnological application, selected lactic acid bacteria strains belonging to the genera Lactobacillus (Lb) are proposed as an alternative to the antibiotics for the prevention and treatment of urogenital tract infections. Objectives Isolating and selecting vaginal lactobacilli strains for probiotic use based on their technological and probiotic aptitudes. Materials and Methods The vaginal isolates were examined for their essential characteristics as the potential probiotic such as low pH tolerance, bile-salt and simulated human intestinal fluid (SIF) resistance, adhesion to the vaginal epithelial cells (VECs), aggregation and coaggregation, surface hydrophobicity, antimicrobial activity, acid production, antibiotic resistance, and resistance to spermicides. The best strain was identified by PCR. Results From 70 lactobacilli isolates and according to the 16 rDNA sequences, isolates B6 and B10 showed the closest homology (99%) to the Lb. gasseri and Lb. plantarum respectively. They produced hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), tolerant to acid, bile, simulated human intestinal fluid, present a strong adhesion, highest percentages of aggregation, and antibacterial activity. These strains are resistant to the spermicide and actively acidify the growth medium. Conclusions Strains Lb. plantarum B10 and Lb. gasseri B6 have a strong potential probiotic confirming their value as a tool for prevention against urinary and vaginal infections.
Intraspinal micro stimulation generates locomotor-like and feedback-controlled movements

Intraspinal microstimulation (ISMS) may provide a means for improving motor function in people suffering from spinal cord injuries, head trauma, or stroke. The goal of this study was to determine whether microstimulation of the mammalian spinal cord could generate locomotor-like stepping and feedback-controlled movements of the hindlimbs. Under pentobarbital anesthesia, 24 insulated microwires were implanted in the lumbosacral cord of three adult cats. The cats were placed in a sling leaving all limbs pendent. Bilateral alternating stepping of the hindlimbs was achieved by stimulating through as few as two electrodes in each side of the spinal cord. Typical stride lengths were 23.5 cm, and ample foot clearance was achieved during swing. Mean ground reaction force during stance was 36.4 N, sufficient for load-bearing. Feedback-controlled movements of the cat's foot were achieved by reciprocally modulating the amplitude of stimuli delivered through two intraspinal electrodes generating ankle flexion and extension such that the distance between a sensor on the cat's foot and a free sensor moved back and forth by the investigators was minimized. The foot tracked the displacements of the target sensor through its normal range of motion. Stimulation through electrodes with tips in or near lamina IX elicited movements most suitable for locomotion. In chronically implanted awake cats, stimulation through dorsally located electrodes generated paw shakes and flexion-withdrawals consistent with sensory perception but no weight-bearing extensor movements. These locations would not be suitable for ISMS in incomplete spinal cord injuries. Despite the complexity of the spinal neuronal networks, our results demonstrate that by stimulating through a few intraspinal microwires, near-normal bipedal locomotor-like stepping and feedback-controlled movements could be achieved.
Mechanical signaling through the cytoskeleton regulates cell proliferation by coordinated focal adhesion and Rho GTPase signaling

The notion that cell shape and spreading can regulate cell proliferation has evolved over several years, but only recently has this been linked to forces from within and upon the cell. This emerging area of mechanical signaling is proving to be wide-spread and important for all cell types. The microenvironment that surrounds cells provides a complex spectrum of different, simultaneously active, biochemical, structural and mechanical stimuli. In this milieu, cells probe the stiffness of their microenvironment by pulling on the extracellular matrix (ECM) and/or adjacent cells. This process is dependent on transcellular cell–ECM or cell–cell adhesions, as well as cell contractility mediated by Rho GTPases, to provide a functional linkage through which forces are transmitted through the cytoskeleton by intracellular force-generating proteins. This Commentary covers recent advances in the underlying mechanisms that control cell proliferation by mechanical signaling, with an emphasis on the role of 3D microenvironments and in vivo extracellular matrices. Moreover, as there is much recent interest in the tumor–stromal interaction, we will pay particular attention to exciting new data describing the role of mechanical signaling in the progression of breast cancer.