Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Age-related Yields of Mouse Sperm and Oocytes

Title: Genetically modified animals, in particular mice, are unique mutants with a major scientific potential. Cryopreservation of pre-implantation embryos or of spermatozoa is a common approach to protect those lines against loss or to archive them. Prerequisite to take a mutant line out of a breeding nucleus is the cryopreservation of a sufficient number of samples and a powerful quality assessment. Background: Several common protocols to cryopreserve spermatozoa and subsequently to forward these to an in vitro-fertilization under standardized conditions are published using donors of a strictly limited age-span. In practice, several limitations happen frequently for those approaches, e.g. the availability of genetically modified males, in particular if a line is in an experimental use or the mutation leads to restrictions. Female donors are often received from external sources and are subsequently not available before weaning. They are subject of several delays to induce an early superovulation. The aim of this report is to study the suitable age span of sperm and oocyte donors. Methods and Findings: A total of 441 GM sperm donors and the production of wild type oocytes with the genetic backgrounds BALB/c, C57BL/6N, and DBA/2 were investigated. The quality was assessed with simple, but purposive scores. Polynomial statistical analyses investigating increasing and decreasing yields show that the age of sperm-donors can be extended to ten months; the suitable age of oocyte donors is strain specific up to twelve weeks. Conclusions: The extended age spans demonstrated allow a more flexible use of donors and contribute subsequently to the 3Rs.
An approach based on ranking elements to form supply clusters in water supply networks as a support to vulnerability assessment

We propose an approach as a support to the vulnerability analysis of Water Supply Networks (WSNs). The method is based on graph measurements such as the relative importance (ranking) and the degree of the vertices of a graph. We calculate an index taking into account both measurements and, which represents the topological vulnerability of the network. The index gives information about the accessibility and exposure in case of external threats or hazards. In addition, we divided the network into clusters by the spectral clustering algorithm taking into account the vulnerability index. This division allows characterizing the water supply network into small sub-networks and simplifying the security analysis.
Asymmetry of Line Profiles of Stellar Oscillations Measured by Kepler for Ensembles of Solar-like Oscillators: Impact on Mode Frequencies and Dependence on Effective Temperature

Oscillation properties are usually measured by fitting symmetric Lorentzian profiles to the power spectra of Sun-like stars. However, the line profiles of solar oscillations have been observed to be asymmetrical for the Sun. The physical origin of this line asymmetry is not fully understood; though, it should depend on the depth dependence of the source of wave excitation (convective turbulence) and details of the observable (velocity or intensity). For oscillations of the Sun, it has been shown that neglecting the asymmetry leads to systematic errors in the frequency determination. This could subsequently affect the results of seismic inferences of the solar internal structure. Using light curves from the Kepler spacecraft, we have measured mode asymmetries in 43 stars. We confirm that neglecting the asymmetry leads to systematic errors that can exceed the 1σ confidence intervals for seismic observations longer than one year. Therefore, the application of an asymmetric Lorentzian profile should be favored to improve the accuracy of the internal stellar structure and stellar fundamental parameters. We also show that the asymmetry changes sign between cool Sun-like stars and hotter stars. This provides the best constraints to date on the location of the excitation sources across the Hertzsprung–Russel diagram.
A control oriented model design of heart assistant devices

Abstract As a treatment option for patients with end-stage heart failure, mechanical circulatory support systems maintain the blood circulation in the human body. For biventricular assistance or for pediatric patients, paracorporeal pulsatile blood pumps are used. Mobile driving units are available which offer more quality of life to the patients. Automatic control is used to match the pump output to the metabolic needs and to operate the blood pumps as gently as possible. This paper treats the approach of modeling for the EXCOR system (Berlin Heart, Germany). The EXCOR system is a pneumatically driven extracorporeal assist device which allows one-sided and two-sided heart support. Main goal of the modeling was not to simulate the process as accurately as possible. Rather, the resulting model is intended to be the basis for subsequent controller design. Therefore this paper points to problems, which have to be taken into account if the resulting model should be used in practical applications. For this reason several models for different purposes were developed. This article treats mainly the open-loop-control design, but the considerations can be extended to closed-loop-control. The results are currently used to synthesize a robust, efficient control for the EXCOR system.
Emulation of the World Wide Web

The evaluation of multicast methodologies is a confusing quandary. After years of technical research into the Ethernet, we demonstrate the study of A* search, which embodies the important principles of algorithms. In this position paper we introduce an analysis of context-free grammar (Deas), which we use to show that multicast applications can be made read-write, flexible, and real-time. Keywords-emulation; www; Deas; multicast application
The Success Factors of Running Scrum: A Qualitative Perspective

Scrum—Agile programming—is getting more attention in Software Engineering practices. Many software projects began with small and were not certain about the requirements until projects have completed; this makes Scrum more appropriate than other development methodologies. This paper reintroduced Scrum from qualitative perspective by applying ethnography and in-depth interview to two different types of project teams to articulate what the success factors are for running Scrum framework. It clearly demonstrated how qualitative research could help in disclosing the essence of facts during the Scrum adaptation in depth. It also articulated how these successful factors mutually affect to one another from System Dynamics perspective and to give further recommendations to Scrum teams and those who tend to apply Scrum development methodology.
Towards a human resources management approach in supply chain management

Supply chain management (SCM) has grown as a discipline since the field attracted attention in the 1980s. However, it is observed that effective implementation of SCM is limited because the current focus is too task-based and information-centric. The concept is often conflated, in practice, with subcontractor management, where numerical flexibility is pertinent. At the same time, consideration of human resources management (HRM) in SCM has been limited. Strategic fit within supply chains tends to emphasise taskbased numerical flexibility, rather than genuine consideration and development of human resources. On the other hand, HRM has, until recently, rarely taken into account interorganisational characteristics that typify the construction industry. Therefore, this research intends to plug the gap by examining the use of human resources in construction supply chains, with a view of developing good practice for HRM in construction SCM. To achieve this, a two-phase research methodology comprising a scoping phase and case study phase will be ensued.
Nutrients, Nutraceuticals and Bioactive Properties of Multi-Whole Grain Mix for Drink and Porridge

Whole grains are reported to be rich in nutrients, nutraceuticals and have number of health beneficial effects. A convenient multi-whole grain mix for the preparation of a drink or porridge was formulated by using cereals, millets, pulses and nuts. Particle size was mostly of 180-250 microns (52%). Amylograph characteristics like GT, PV, HPV, CPV were 82 Â° C, 285BU, 310BU, and 605BU, respectively were ideal for drink. The mix was found to be rich in carbohydrate, protein, fibre and calorie. The 100g of the mix had nutraceuticals like carotenoids (290Âµg), I³-tocopherol (4.6mg), I±-tocopherol (1.5mg), and polyphenols-soluble, bound and total (94,132 and 226mg GA Eq.). Bioactive properties like vitamin E activity, free radical scavenging activity, total antioxidant activity and starch digestibility were 2.6i. u. , 153mg catechin.Eq./100g, 17mg Tocopherol equivalent and 61.8%. Mix was sensorily acceptable in the form of drink and porridge and can be used as an ideal nutritious food for all age group.
Immigrant Heterogeneity and the Earnings Distribution in the United Kingdom and United States: New Evidence from a Panel Data Quantile Regression Analysis

In this paper we use a relatively new panel data quantile regression technique to examine native-immigrant earnings differentials 1) throughout the conditional wage distribution, and 2) controlling for individual heterogeneity. No previous papers have simultaneously considered these factors. We focus on both women and men, using longitudinal data from the PSID and the BHPS. We show that country of origin, country of residence, and gender are all important determinants of the earnings differential. For instance, a large wage penalty occurs in the U.S. among female immigrants from non-English speaking countries, and the penalty is most negative among the lowest (conditional) wages. On the other hand, women in Britain experience hardly any immigrant-native wage differential. We find evidence suggesting that immigrant men in the U.S. and the U.K. earn lower wages, but the most significant results are found for British workers emigrating from non-English speaking countries. The various differentials we report in this paper reveal the value of combining quantile regression with controls for individual heterogeneity in better understanding immigrant wage effects.
Public Capital and Aggregate Growth in the United States: Is Public Capital Productive?

This paper deals with the empirical relationships between public capital and aggregate economic growth in the United States, and in particular the question of whether or not public capital is productive. It develops a theoretical framework which allows for full consideration of feedback among variables without imposing a priori dynamic structural constraints. Parameter estimates are obtained through a VARMA model. This approach departs from the current literature, which relies on a single equation approach to estimate production functions and implicitly assumes the absence of feedback relations. In this paper estimates for the period 1956-1989 suggest that public capital has a substantial effect on production as well as on private capital formation and on labor. Furthermore, decisions on public capital seem to follow a policy rule that relates the current stock of public capital positively with lagged output and negatively with lagged labor. Our results are shown to be compatible with different specifications of production functions, in which public capital mayor may or may not be present. Therefore, current interpretations of the importance of the effects of public capital in terms of the size of the estimated parameters in a production function framework are not conclusive.
Development of a 20 Degrees of Freedom Kid Sized Humanoid Platform with Vision

A humanoid robot is a robot which has anatomy similar to the human body. They are becoming increasingly popular as research platforms, and are well suited for real world applications due to the ease with which humans perform arbitrary tasks in versatile environments. Progress of humanoid robotics is, however, inhibited due to a shortage of affordable platforms with diverse capabilities. In this work, we present a prototype of GATIK-II, a KidSize humanoid robot. This robot prototype is the second in the GATIK series of humanoid robots, and has been developed with sufficient power and capabilities so as to be employed for various applications. It has autonomous capabilities and can effectively function in a foreign environment by employing a HaViMo vision module and inertial measurement units. Alternatively, it can also be controlled in real time and via an android based mobile phone, thus exhibiting semi-autonomous mode of operation.
Effects of temperature and feeding regime on compensatory growth of rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss

Feeding regime of ad libitum feeding or three or six days of deprivation between feeding periods was randomly assigned to 30 juvenile rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss, (18.56 42.99 g) held at two different temperatures, 17 °C and 20.5 °C. Cycles of feeding and deprivation were continued for 56 days, and weight and length of fish were measured weekly. At the termination of the experiment, the fish were killed, eviscerated, and weight of carcass, visceral fat, liver, stomach and stomach contents were recorded. Rainbow trout starved for three days between feedings and held at 17 °C and both food deprived groups at 20.5 °C were able to show full growth compensation and reached similar weight and length as the control fish at the end of the experiment. Fish intermittently starved for six days at 17 °C, on the other hand, could show only partial growth compensation and their weight and length differed significantly from the control group. The fish were able to compensate trough increased food consumption rather than increased feed efficiency (FE), and showed greater specific growth rate (SGR) during feeding. Intermittent feeding regime did not cause severe morphological changes, but the amount of visceral fat was higher in control fish compared to the starvation groups. Also temperature had an effect on the visceral fat percentage, which was higher among all the feeding groups held at 20.5 °C. The results in the present experiment were somewhat masked by relatively large inter-individual variation, but indicated that rainbow trout are able to recover from moderate food deprivation, also when subjected to slightly higher temperature than optimal. Intermittent feeding regime could be introduced in fish farms if more flexible feeding schedule with fewer feeding events was desirable. Also by finding optimal conditions in rainbow trout culture the efficiency and productivity could be increased along with reduction in the amount of feed waste. Reducing feed waste could in turn help to reduce the leaching of nitrogenous and phosphorous material into the environment.
Gender Inequality and Language Reflections in African Indigenous Languages: Comparative Cases from IsiZulu and Kiswahili

‘A movie starring Ben Stiller, got laughs nationwide for presenting a main character, who was a male nurse. The fact that a male pursuing a career in nursing still seems laughable shows how ingrained some gender roles still are’ (Herzfeld & Hamburg 2000). Using Bonilla-Silver’s (2006) framework, which has four components but in this particular study only three components will be considered: naturalization, minimization, and culture will be applied, authors have adopted the documentary research method to discuss and reflect on gender inequality in IsiZulu and Kiswahili as African indigenous languages. Also, the paper discusses how IsiZulu and Kiswahili languages enhance such inequality through words or phrases. The paper concludes with recommendations for reducing if not entirely eradicating gender inequalities in both languages. The paper advances that the desired change among members of society can only take place through provision of adequate knowledge and information. This in turn might help females and males to be persuaded, motivated and inspired to engage in cultural and social principles that enhance gender equalities. Thus, the method and messages of enhancing gender equality among female(s) and male(s) are of utmost importance.
Investigating the Relationship between Talent Management Strategy and Career Path of Principals of Schools in Shahr-e-Kord

The aim of the present study is to investigate the relationship between talent management strategy and career path in principals of schools in Shahr-e-Kord. The study is a descriptive-correlational one and its population includes all principals of high schools in Areas 1 and 2 of Shahr-e-Kord equal as 103 individuals in the academic year 2014-2015. A number of 81 principals were selected as participants via the simple random sampling and using Chochrane’s formula. To measure talent management, the Sweem standard questionnaire and to measure career path, the Schaufeli standard questionnaire were used. The reliability coefficients for the questionnaires were calculated using Chronbach’s alpha coefficients as 0.85 and 0.84 respectively. Data analysis was conducted using Pearson correlation coefficient and regression coefficient by SPSS. The results indicated that talent management strategy has a positive and significant correlation with principals’ career path of principals of schools in Shahr-e-Kord. In addition, there is a direct and significant correlation between components of communication, performance management, training the staff and in acknowledgment of individuals with career path.
Research on the Quality of Service of Docker Container based on the Linux Control Group

Container, such as Docker, is becoming more and more popular in recent years in cloud computing area. More and more people started using container as their choice to run services on the cloud. While containers are just like processes on the Linux, in fact, so it is quite difficult to do resource management like traditional virtual machine does. To meet different demands of cloud users in using cloud computing resources under the cloud computing environment, especially disk I/O resource, an effective disk I/O QoS (Quality of Service) for Docker or some other container-based cloud computing technique should be used. Thus, we designed dDiskQoS, a solution to do disk I/O QoS for container-based cloud computing technique, which can effectively manage and control disk I/O traffic. The key idea of dDiskQoS is to leverage the advantage of Linux cgroups technique and implement a multi-weighted algorithm to satisfy the disk I/O requirements from both time-sensitive containers and big data throughput containers. The evaluations show that the solution can meet the demands of different scenarios while accepting different parameters, to guarantee system efficiency. Additionally, there is very small overhead in loading our QoS solution. With dDiskQoS, operators can keep more containers running in one host, which will certainly save the cost and energy.
Bonding of cholesterol oxides to functionalised multiwalled carbon nanotubes for in-vitro biosensor application

MWCNTs (multiwalled carbon nanotubes) were synthesized by chemical vapour deposition (CVD) and functionalised using Hcl and HNO3 at 80 °C. Their FTIR spectra revealed the characteristic peaks for carboxylic acid and alcoholic groups. Both unfunctionalized (MWCNTs) and functionalised multiwalled carbon nanotubes ( f-MWCNTs) were reacted with cholesterol oxidase using 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl) carbodimide and Nhydroxyl sulfo-succinimide.But bonding with cholesterol oxidase was established only with f- MWCNTs. Cholesterol oxidase bonded to f-MWCNTs was tested for cholesterol sensing using cyclic voltametry. It established interaction of cholesterol with cholesterol oxidase bonded to f- MWCNTs. Hence cholesterol oxidase bonded to f-MWCNTs could be a novel in-vitro cholesterol sensor in hyper lipidemia
Potential Impact of Talbina on Pituitary-Adrenal-Gonadal Disorders in Hypothyroid Adult Female Rats

Hypothyroidism can impair pituitary-gonadal-adrenal function in adult female rats. Purpose: This study is designed to investigate the possible ameliorating effect of talbina on pituitary-gonadal-adrenal disorders as well as the oxidative stress which induced by hypothyroidism in adult female rats. Methods: Adult female albino rats were divided into 4 groups; Euthyroid intact control group, Euthyroid group orally administered talbina (100 mg.kg-1.day-1), hypothyroid group (received daily 5.0 mg kg-1 NeoMercazole®,) and hypothyroid +talbina group (orally co- administered 5.0 mg.kg-1 plus 100 mg.kg-1 talbina). Treatment with talbina started after one month from hypothyroid induction for consecutive 30 days. Results revealed that NeoMercazole® exhibited a state of hypothyroidism, induced significant depletion in serum estradiol; follicle-stimulating hormone levels in contrast a significant elevation in corticosterone and prolactin, elevation in serum extracellular regulate kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) and evoked an oxidative stress status by elevating serum 8-hydroxy guanosine which initiated apoptosis by elevating serum apoptotic marker Caspase-3, with respect to control group. The treatment with talbina showed a significant ameliorative effect, which reversed the exacerbated effect of hypothyroidism by alleviating the disruption of thyroid, gonadal and adrenal functions and enhanced the protection against oxidative stress and apoptosis. Conclusion: these results evidenced that talbina acted on multi arrays for protecting the physiological functions against hypothyroid adverse impact.
Transient liquid-phase infiltration of aluminum alloys

The ability to fabricate direct aluminum metal parts using Solid Freeform Fabrication (SFF) processes would create tremendous opportunities because of their combination of high strength, corrosion resistance, and high thermal and electrical conductivity. This has been achieved by combination of 3D Printing, a SFF process, and Transient Liquid-phase Infiltration (TLI) technique. Green parts of desired shape and complexity can be directly made from a CAD model by 3D Printing process using pure aluminum powder. It is then densified near full density using TLI, which is a capillary induced infiltration process that uses an infiltrant similar to the powder material, but containing a melting point depressant, usually some common alloying element. This thesis is focused on later. Densification of aluminum powder metal parts by infiltration is very difficult because of presence of thick, dense natural oxide skin on the surface of both infiltrant melt and powder skeleton, which prevents wetting. The problem is even worse in the case of SFF processes where there is no mechanical breakage of oxide layer, which generally occurs during mechanical compaction in conventional powder metallurgy processes. This necessitates a controlled furnace atmosphere with better control of oxygen content in the work zone for processing of the parts. A gettering system has been designed using aluminum as getter charge, which removes oxygen from the gas inflow before entering the work zone and ensures cleaner furnace atmosphere. A dipping mechanism has been developed using ceramic foam filter, which mechanically break the thick oxide layer present on the surface of the infiltrant melt, and filters out clean liquid melt for infiltration. The problem of wetting was solved using a wetting agent, magnesium, in the infiltrant melt. It enhances wetting by chemically breaking the oxide skin on the powder surface. Magnesium being more reactive than aluminum preferentially reacts with oxygen and reduces aluminum oxide breaking its skin from the powder surface. Successful infiltration of 1" tall sample has been achieved with infiltrant containing 1113 % Si and 2-4 % Mg. Microstructure study, compositional analysis and mechanical testing were done to characterize the infiltrated parts. Infiltrated parts with density up to 95% of theoretical density have been achieved. The infiltrated parts have hardness comparable to similar aluminum alloys Thesis Supervisor: Emanuel M. Sachs Title: Fred Fort Flowers and Daniel Flowers Professor of Mechanical Engineering