Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CD90 (Thy-1)-positive selection enhances osteogenic capacity of human adipose-derived stromal cells.

BACKGROUND Stem cell-based bone tissue engineering with adipose-derived stromal cells (ASCs) has shown great promise for revolutionizing treatment of large bone deficits. However, there is still a lack of consensus on cell surface markers identifying osteoprogenitors. Fluorescence-activated cell sorting has identified a subpopulation of CD105(low) cells with enhanced osteogenic differentiation. The purpose of the present study was to compare the ability of CD90 (Thy-1) to identify osteoprogenitors relative to CD(105). METHODS Unsorted cells, CD90(+), CD90(-), CD105(high), and CD105(low) cells were treated with an osteogenic differentiation medium. For evaluation of in vitro osteogenesis, alkaline phosphatase (ALP) staining and alizarin red staining were performed at 7 days and 14 days, respectively. RNA was harvested after 7 and 14 days of differentiation, and osteogenic gene expression was examined by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. For evaluation of in vivo osteogenesis, critical-sized (4-mm) calvarial defects in nude mice were treated with the hydroxyapatite-poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) scaffold seeded with the above-mentioned subpopulations. Healing was followed using micro-CT scans for 8 weeks. Calvaria were harvested at 8 weeks postoperatively, and sections were stained with Movat's Pentachrome. RESULTS Transcriptional analysis revealed that the CD90(+) subpopulation was enriched for a more osteogenic subtype relative to the CD105(low) subpopulation. Staining at day 7 for ALP was greatest in the CD90(+) cells, followed by the CD105(low) cells. Staining at day 14 for alizarin red demonstrated the greatest amount of mineralized extracellular matrix in the CD90(+) cells, again followed by the CD105(low) cells. Quantification of in vivo healing at 2, 4, 6, and 8weeks postoperatively demonstrated increased bone formation in defects treated with CD90(+) ASCs relative to all other groups. On Movat's Pentachrome-stained sections, defects treated with CD90(+) cells showed the most robust bony regeneration. Defects treated with CD90(-) cells, CD105(high) cells, and CD105(low) cells demonstrated some bone formation, but to a lesser degree when compared with the CD90(+) group. CONCLUSIONS While CD105(low) cells have previously been shown to possess an enhanced osteogenic potential, we found that CD90(+) cells are more capable of forming bone both in vitro and in vivo. These data therefore suggest that CD90 may be a more effective marker than CD105 to isolate a highly osteogenic subpopulation for bone tissue engineering.
Affordances of school grounds for children's outdoor play and environmental learning

Children's outdoor play in school grounds is a fundamental component of their environmental learning because it creates meaningful, enduring environmental connections and increases children's performances. However, the extent of children's engagement in outdoor play and the way they can learn through play is strongly influenced by the physical and social contexts of school grounds. Adults and schools, have often overlooked the values of outdoor play for learning that takes place outside the classroom. Thus, many schools are designed without considering children? s needs and desires. The spaces in schools are shaped with mediocre design standards and school grounds are not recognised as essential to a school? s mission or curriculum. This study explores the factors that influence children's play behaviour patterns and the actualisation of affordances in school grounds, and the connection with children's conception of ideal school grounds for outdoor play and environmental learning. This study was conducted with children (n=80) and teachers (n=71) at two primary schools in the state of Johor, Malaysia. Data on the children's behavioural and perceptual responses were elicited using five methods: walkabout interview and mapping, photography, drawing, preference survey and survey questionnaire. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Rasch Model, and spatial and content analysis. The results revealed different play behaviour patterns and preferences among children regarding the use of school grounds during non-formal and informal learning sessions. The differences that were identified were influenced by the degree of functionality, attractiveness, aesthetic quality, comfortability, accessibility and safety of the school ground environments. The findings of the actualisation of affordances and children? s conceptions of ideal school grounds suggest that children desire school ground environments that meet their physical, communal, emotional and educational needs. These findings contribute to a better understanding of children's interaction with and perceptions of their school grounds environment, and highlight the importance of such environments in promoting outdoor play and environmental learning.
ACE Gene I/D Polymorphism and Obesity in 1,574 Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Association between ACE gene I/D polymorphism and the risk of overweight/obesity remains controversial. We investigated the possible relationship between ACE gene I/D polymorphism and obesity in Chinese type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients. In this study, obesity was defined as a body mass index (BMI) value ≥ 25 kg/m2 and subjects were classified into 4 groups (lean, normal, overweight, and obese). PCR (polymerase chain reaction) was used to detect the ACE gene I/D polymorphism in T2DM patients. Metabolic measurements including blood glucose, lipid profile, and blood pressure were obtained. Frequencies of the ACE genotypes (DD, ID, and II) were not significant among the 4 groups of BMI-defined patients (P = 0.679) while ACE II carriers showed higher systolic blood pressure (SBP) and pulse pressure (PP) (all P < 0.050). Hyperglycemia, hypertension, and dyslipidemia in these T2DM patients were found to be significantly associated with BMI. In conclusion, the relationship of ACE gene I/D polymorphism with obesity is insignificant in Chinese patients with T2DM. SBP and PP might be higher in the ACE II carriers than in the DD and ID carriers.
Unions, Performance-Related Pay and Procedural Justice: the Case of Classroom Teachers

Performance-related pay (PRP) and performance management (PM) are now a part of the organizational landscape that unions face in the UK’s public services. While PRP and PM threaten the scope of traditional union bargaining activities, they simultaneously offer a new role to unions as providers of ‘procedural justice services’ to both union members and employers. We explore the case of the introduction of these systems for classroom teachers in England and Wales as a means of testing this idea. Our survey evidence shows that classroom teachers experiencing the introduction of PRP have expressed a strong demand for such services from the teachers’ unions. Further, analysis of the PRP implementation process for classroom teachers indicates that the teachers’ unions have progressively assumed a ‘procedural justice role’ since its introduction. Union action in this regard has led to substantial modification over time of classroom teachers’ PRP and PM. These changes have addressed many of the concerns of teachers, have created a new institutional role for the relevant unions, and may permit the systems to avoid the operational difficulties they have experienced elsewhere in the UK’s public services.
A tentative replica study of the glass transition

In this paper we propose a method aiming at a quantitative study of the glass transition in a system of interacting particles. In spite of the absence of any quenched disorder, we introduce a replicated version of the hypernetted chain equations. The solution of these equations, for hard or soft spheres, signals a transition to the glass phase at reasonable values of the density, and finds a nice form for the correlations in the glass phase. However, the predicted value of the energy and specific heat in the glass phase are wrong, calling for an improvement of this method.
Driving behavior interaction with ACC: results from a Field Operational Test in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands, a field operational test was conducted in 2006 to assess the impact of two advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), namely adaptive cruise control (ACC) and lane departure warning (LDW) systems. The research goal was to estimate the effects of these systems on road capacity, safety and emissions. In this paper we focus on the interaction between driver and ACC system using the data from this FOT. It is found that drivers choose headway settings according to their manual driving behavior. Moreover, they often keep the system deactivated under dense traffic conditions. It is also observed from the data that the system, once de-activated, either automatically or manually, needs some time to become again active. These findings imply that, even with 100% cars on the road equipped with ACC, manual driving behavior will still be a determinant factor.
Health economics made easy: guiding the initiated and uninitiated

For many years it was a challenge in teaching health economics to find a textbook that exactly fits the needs of a class, not least because the needs of student are so diverse. To an extent, this remains the case despite the appearance of several new and useful contributions in the last few years. At times it seemed like cable television – lots of choices, but nothing that is quite what you want. Cullis and West (1979) worked well for many groups, but was allowed to get out of date, and went out of print for several years. McGuire et al. (1988) was a good option for people with a background in economics, and provided a comprehensive treatment of the subject, but generated antibodies in the student new to the subject. Gavin Mooney (1992) targeted several books to the interested lay reader, but these lacked the rigour needed for the more serious student. Before going further, I must declare an interest since the second edition of the textbook by Barbara McPake and me (2008) has recently been published. It competes directly with some of the other texts discussed below, but for obvious reasons is not reviewed. A difficulty facing authors of textbooks in health economics is the (at least perceived) difference in the appropriate applications of economics to health care depending on the health system involved. In some ways this makes no sense, since economic principles are universal, and the choices and dilemmas differ more in degree than in type, but as with any social science, the development of ideas and approaches depends on the main issues that are perceived
The Great Leap: Driving Innovation From the Base of the Pyramid

As multinationals unrelentingly seek new growth to satisfy shareholders, they increasingly hear concerns from many quarters about environmental degradation, labor exploitation, cultural hegemony and local autonomy. What is to be done? Must corporations' thirst for growth and profits serve only to exacerbate the antiglobalization movement? On the contrary, the authors say, a solution to this dilemma does exist. Companies can generate growth and satisfy social and environmental stakeholders through a "great leap" to the base of the economic pyramid, where 4 billion people aspire to join the market economy for the first time. This is not a question simply of doing the right thing in order to lift people out of poverty ? although that will surely be a result of the leap the authors have in mind. From a senior executive's point of view, it's a matter of finding the most exciting growth markets of the future. It is also where the technologies that are needed to address the social and environmental challenges associated with economic growth can best be developed. The authors illustrate their point with examples of companies that are already profitably disrupting such industries as telecommunications, consumer electronics and energy production.
A Smart High Accuracy Silicon Piezoresistive Pressure Sensor Temperature Compensation System

Theoretical analysis in this paper indicates that the accuracy of a silicon piezoresistive pressure sensor is mainly affected by thermal drift, and varies nonlinearly with the temperature. Here, a smart temperature compensation system to reduce its effect on accuracy is proposed. Firstly, an effective conditioning circuit for signal processing and data acquisition is designed. The hardware to implement the system is fabricated. Then, a program is developed on LabVIEW which incorporates an extreme learning machine (ELM) as the calibration algorithm for the pressure drift. The implementation of the algorithm was ported to a micro-control unit (MCU) after calibration in the computer. Practical pressure measurement experiments are carried out to verify the system's performance. The temperature compensation is solved in the interval from −40 to 85 °C. The compensated sensor is aimed at providing pressure measurement in oil-gas pipelines. Compared with other algorithms, ELM acquires higher accuracy and is more suitable for batch compensation because of its higher generalization and faster learning speed. The accuracy, linearity, zero temperature coefficient and sensitivity temperature coefficient of the tested sensor are 2.57% FS, 2.49% FS, 8.1 × 10−5/°C and 29.5 × 10−5/°C before compensation, and are improved to 0.13%FS, 0.15%FS, 1.17 × 10−5/°C and 2.1 × 10−5/°C respectively, after compensation. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed system is valid for the temperature compensation and high accuracy requirement of the sensor.
Serum/Plasma MicroRNAs as Biomarkers for HBV-Related Hepatocellular Carcinoma in China

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a group of small RNAs with a fundamental role in the regulation of gene expression. These RNAs have been shown to participate in various cellular and physiological processes, including cellular development, apoptosis, proliferation, and differentiation. Aberrant expression of several miRNAs was found to be involved in a large variety of neoplasms, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Previous studies have shown the existence of a large amount of stable miRNAs in human serum/plasma, which laid the foundation for studying the role of serum/plasma miRNAs in the diagnosis and prognosis of HCC. Here, we review the recent progress in research on serum miRNAs as biomarkers for HCC in Chinese patients.
RECURRENT NEURAL NETWORKS FOR SUB-OPTIMAL MULTIUSER DETECTION

This paper explores the use of recurrent neural networks for sub-optimal detection in code division multiple access systems. Research has shown that detectors based on the Hopfield recurrent neural network suffer from localized optimization. The basic Hopfield model is reviewed and we illustrate its use as a multiuser receiver. We investigate the use of stochastic methods to achieve a global minimum solution. A stochastic Hopfield network that employs a probabilistic firing mechanism is proposed for multiuser detection. The performance of the proposed model is investigated via simulation with respect to common linear detectors.
A Survey of Enterprise Software Development Risks in a Flat World

COTS-based development and global delivery are two major disrupters in modern software development arena. Economic benefits offered by these disrupters cannot be neglected by organizations of any size. Unfortunately, alongside these benefits are several risk factors, which if ill-managed can cost the organizations both in terms of revenue and time. At Infosys, one of India's leading software services organizations, built upon global delivery model we conducted a study by interviewing representatives from 23 projects to identify risks pertinent to COTS-based development in a global setting. We found 6 frequently occurring risks that will be summarized in this paper.
Link-time optimization techniques for eliminating conditional branch redundancies

Optimizations performed at link time or directly applied to final program executables have received increased attention in recent years. This work discusses the discovery and elimination of redundant conditional branches in the context of a link-time optimizer, an optimization that we call conditional branch redundancy elimination (CBRE). Our experiments show that around 20% of conditional branches in a program can be considered redundant because their outcomes can be determined from a previous short dynamic execution frame. Then, we present several CBRE algorithms targeted at optimizing away these redundancies. Our results show that around 5% of the conditional branch redundancy detected can indeed be eliminated, which translates into execution time reductions of around 4%. We also give accurate measures of the impact of applying CBRE in code growth.
Identifying anomalies in network traffic using hybrid Intrusion Detection System

The most important purpose of intrusion detection system is to identify attacks against information systems. It is a security method attempting to identify various attacks. In this paper, we used IDEVAL data set on this dataset we detect attacks using Snort and some anomaly based statistical algorithms and also we create a program in which there is no need to train the data again and again. Normally data from IDEVAL dataset has to be trained each time when simulation is started which take some extra time but in our proposed scheme we will try train the data only once.
A wide stopband s-band bandpass filter with metamaterial units embedded

In this paper, a S-band bandpass filter was proposed with stopband performance enhanced by metamaterial units, complementary split ring resonators (CSRRs). This filter was composed by multiple stepped impedance resonators which made first spurious peak appear at frequency about four times the operation frequency. The CSRRs were then used to suppress the spurious band by embedding them in the input and output lines. Measured results accord well with the simulated results, showing good performance of the filter.
Changes in the relationship between child support payments and offspring educational attainment 1979-1988.

This paper examines the effects of child support payments on the educational attainment of young adults in the US over the 1980s. Its major objectives is to investigate why child support has a much larger positive effect on childrens educational attainment than other sources of income. The authors compare data between the 1979 and 1988 CPS Child Support Settlements to assess the impact of the improvements in the child support enforcement system which should have increased the proportion of reluctant payers among fathers paying support over this period. They test the hypotheses that the magnitudes of both the negative effect of living in a single-parent family and the positive effect of child support income on educational attainment decreased over time. Their results suggest if anything that the former increased over time whereas the latter decreased. These findings are consistent with the interpretation that the impact of child support on childrens educational attainment represents in part aspects of the father-child relationship. (authors)
A time varying ARMAX speech modeling with phase compensation using glottal source model

This paper presents new speech analysis method based on a glottal-ARMAX (autoregressive and moving average exogenous) model with phase compensation. A glottal-ARMAX model consists of two kinds of inputs: glottal source model excitation and a white Gaussian input, and a vocal tract ARMAX model. The proposed method can simultaneously estimate the glottal source model and vocal tract ARMAX model parameters pitch synchronously. In this method, ARMAX identification using a modified MIS (model identification system) method is adopted to estimate the ARMAX parameters, and the hybrid approach of the genetic algorithm (GA) and simulated annealing (SA) is employed to efficiently solve the non-linear simultaneous optimization of both parameters. Furthermore, phase compensation using an all-pass filter is introduced within a generation loop in the GA method in order to compensate phase distortion. Experiments using synthetic speech and natural speech demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed method.
Automatic power load event detection and appliance classification based on power harmonic features in nonintrusive appliance load monitoring

Home electrical power monitoring plays an important role in reducing energy usage, and non-intrusive appliance load monitoring (NIALM) techniques are the most effective approach for estimating the electrical power consumption of individual appliances. Power load events detection is one of the most important steps in these techniques. This paper presents an automatic power load event detection method: edge symbol detector (ESD) for NIALM. The new transient detection approach can help the system locate all the load events (switch on and switch off) precisely. A modified power appliance classification technique based on power harmonic features and support vector machine (SVM), with higher recognition accuracy and faster computational speed, is also discussed. The experimental results of the new load events detection and classification technique are presented with promising results.
Monte Carlo study of apparent magnetoresistance mobility in nanometer scale metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors

This paper investigates the mobility extraction from channel magnetoresistance, which is widespreading as a powerful experimental method to study transport in short gate devices. A fully self-consistent Monte Carlo device simulator is used to simulate the influence of a transverse magnetic field on electron transport in nanometer scale devices. After validation on a simple silicon magnetic sensor, the method is applied to the simulation of the channel magnetoresistance of nanoscale double gate metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors. Apparent magnetoresistance mobilities μMR are extracted from channel resistance variation with the applied magnetic field, using a measurement-inspired extraction method. The simulated temperature trends obtained by simulation are consistent with experimental data. As experimentally observed elsewhere, the extracted apparent mobility decreases with the shrinking of the channel length. No additional scattering mechanism specific to short channel devices was needed t.
Reduced order bilinear time invariant systems using singular perturbation

Model order reduction of bilinear time invariant systems based on H∞ norm or least upper bound of difference equation is presented in this paper. The difference equation of the bilinear time invariant system is presented as error transfer function between full order and reduced order of the bilinear time invariant system. The proposed method is graphically easier than using alteration of Hankel singular values. The least upper bound of the error transfer function and H∞ norm of difference bilinear system are a function of controllability gramian. In this paper, the reduced bilinear system is carried out by using singular perturbation method. The numerical simulation results are given to clarify the proposed method for selection of reduced order bilinear time invariant system.