Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of Microenvironment on Differentiation of Human Umbilical Cord Mesenchymal Stem Cells into Hepatocytes In Vitro and In Vivo

Human umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hUCMSCs) are considered to be an ideal cell source for cell therapy of many diseases. The aim of this study was to investigate the contribution of the microenvironment to the hepatic differentiation potential of hUCMSCs in vitro and in vivo and to explore their therapeutic use in acute liver injury in rats. We established a new model to simulate the liver tissue microenvironment in vivo using liver homogenate supernatant (LHS) in vitro. This induced environment could drive hUCMSCs to differentiate into hepatocyte-like cells within 7 days. The differentiated cells expressed hepatocyte-specific markers and demonstrated hepatocellular functions. We also injected hUCMSCs into rats with CCl4-induced acute hepatic injury. The hUCMSCs were detected in the livers of recipient rats and expressed the human hepatocyte-specific markers, suggesting that hUCMSCs could differentiate into hepatocyte-like cells in vivo in the liver tissue microenvironment. Levels of biochemistry markers improved significantly after transplantation of hUCMSCs compared with the nontransplantation group (P < 0.05). In conclusion, this study demonstrated that the liver tissue microenvironment may contribute to the differentiation of hUCMSCs into hepatocytes both in vitro and in vivo.
Non-myogenic Contribution to Muscle Development and Homeostasis: The Role of Connective Tissues

Skeletal muscles belong to the musculoskeletal system, which is composed of bone, tendon, ligament and irregular connective tissue, and closely associated with motor nerves and blood vessels. The intrinsic molecular signals regulating myogenesis have been extensively investigated. However, muscle development, homeostasis and regeneration require interactions with surrounding tissues and the cellular and molecular aspects of this dialogue have not been completely elucidated. During development and adult life, myogenic cells are closely associated with the different types of connective tissue. Connective tissues are defined as specialized (bone and cartilage), dense regular (tendon and ligament) and dense irregular connective tissue. The role of connective tissue in muscle morphogenesis has been investigated, thanks to the identification of transcription factors that characterize the different types of connective tissues. Here, we review the development of the various connective tissues in the context of the musculoskeletal system and highlight their important role in delivering information necessary for correct muscle morphogenesis, from the early step of myoblast differentiation to the late stage of muscle maturation. Interactions between muscle and connective tissue are also critical in the adult during muscle regeneration, as impairment of the regenerative potential after injury or in neuromuscular diseases results in the progressive replacement of the muscle mass by fibrotic tissue. We conclude that bi-directional communication between muscle and connective tissue is critical for a correct assembly of the musculoskeletal system during development as well as to maintain its homeostasis in the adult.
Coding via random convolution

A random convolution based coding theorem is developed under the framework of compressive sensing (CS). It states a signal can be exactly recovered from very few random convolution codes, when the signal has a sparse representation in some orthobasis which keeps small coherence with the Fourier basis. The theorem also shows the codes can be chosen at any fixed locations of the convolution outputs.
Visual attention models for producing high fidelity graphics efficiently

Despite the ready availability of modern high performance graphics cards, the complexity of the scenes being modelled and the realism required of the images means that rendering high fidelity computer images is still simply not possible in a reasonable, let alone real-time. Knowing that it is a human that will be looking at the resultant images can be exploited to significantly reduce the computation time required for high fidelity graphical images, for although the human visual system is good, it does have limitations. The key is knowing where the user will be looking in the image.This paper describes high level task maps and low level saliency maps. For a large number of applications, these visual attention models can indeed determine where the user will be looking in scene with high accuracy. This information is then used to selectively render different parts of a complex scene at different qualities. We show that viewers performing a known visual task within the environment consistently fail to notice the difference in rendering quality between benchmark high quality images and the selectively rendered images that were rendered at a fraction of the computational cost.
3D Model Retrieval Based on Weighted Matching Point

As collections of 3D content grown rapidly, the ability to perform fast and accurate retrieval from a database of models or the Internet has become a necessity. This paper proposed a weighted matching point retrieval method of the 3D model according to the characteristics of the contour images of projected 3D models. This algorithm extracts SIFT features from the 2D projections of the 3D model, and then using the weighted parameters trained with SIFT to measure the similarity of 3D models. By comparing with the performance of ray-based method and D2 shape distribution method and Zernike moment method on the PSB, the experiment results show that the method is stable, and has better retrieval performance.
PREVALENCE OF ATHEROSCLEROTIC PLAQUES IN AUTOPSY CASES WITH NONCARDIAC DEATH

Background and Objective: Ischemic heart disease (IHD) following atherosclerosis is the most common cause of cardiac deaths world wide. We aimed to investigate the pathologic features of atherosclerosis in non cardiac death cases to have an estimate of atherosclerosis prevalence in Mashad (North east of Iran). Patients and Methods : This descriptive (cross sectional) study was done, during October 2007 – March 2008, on 80 cadavers from 11 to 50 years old who had died of non cardiac causes and had no history of cardiac disease. After autopsy in forensic medical center, coronary arteries were removed and examined for atherosclerotic plaques. In case of a definite lesion, microscopic slides were also prepared. Otherwise, three random slides from each branch of coronary arteries were studied by a pathologist. Results: We found that 73.1% of men and 61.5% of women had at least one fibrofatty or advanced plaque in major coronary arteries. Atherosclerosis in 41.8% of men and 30.8% of women was in advanced form. Frequency of advanced atherosclerotic plaques progressed with age reaching a maximum of 78.5% by the age of 41-50 years. In addition, prevalence of plaques suddenly increased after second decade of life. Atherosclerotic plaques were most commonly found in left anterior descending artery (60%) followed by right coronary (50%) and left circumflex (42.5%) arteries. Conclusion: This study showed an unexpectedly high prevalence of atherosclerosis in this population. It highlights the importance of cardiovascular risk factor screening from early ages of third decade.
Evaluation of the Visibility of Vessel Movement Features in Trajectory Visualizations

There are many visualizations that show the trajectory of a moving object to obtain insights in its behavior. In this user study, we test the performance of three of these visualizations with respect to three movement features that occur in vessel behavior. Our goal is to compare the recently presented vessel density by Willems et al. [ WvdWvW09 ] with well‐known trajectory visualizations such as an animation of moving dots and the space‐time cube. We test these visualizations with common maritime analysis tasks by investigating the ability of users to find stopping objects, fast moving objects, and estimate the busiest routes in vessel trajectories. We test the robustness of the visualizations towards scalability and the influence of complex trajectories using small‐scale synthetic data sets. The performance is measured in terms of correctness and response time. The user test shows that each visualization type excels for correctness for a specific movement feature. Vessel density performs best for finding stopping objects, but does not perform significantly less than the remaining visualizations for the other features. Therefore, vessel density is a nice extension in the toolkit for analyzing trajectories of moving objects, in particular for vessel movements, since stops can be visualized better, and the performance for comparing lanes and finding fast movers is at a similar level as established trajectory visualizations.
Re‐examining the high‐density lipoprotein hypothesis

A low level of high‐density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL‐C) is an important cardiovascular risk factor, and is commonly seen in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. An inverse relationship between HDL‐C concentration and cardiovascular risk has been consistently shown in clinical and epidemiological studies. In the well‐known Framingham Heart Study, HDL‐C was found to be the best predictor of cardiovascular mortality. The recent Emerging Risk Factors Collaboration Study has also shown that the strong inverse association between the risk of coronary artery disease and HDL‐C levels remained even after adjusting for other lipid and non‐lipid risk factors. As a key independent cardiovascular risk factor, measurement of HDL‐C has been incorporated into the majority of the risk stratification models for prediction of cardiovascular risk. It has been estimated that cardiovascular risk decreases by approximately 2–3% per 1‐mg/dL increase in HDL‐C. In light of the strong experimental and epidemiological data supporting a protective role for HDL in atherosclerosis, substantial research efforts have been directed at developing strategies to harness the ‘atheroprotective’ function of HDL, and raising HDL‐C has become a potential therapeutic target over the past decade.
The Evaluations of Thai Poetry Translator to English with Prosody Keeping

Poetry Machine Translator is problematic area challenging. It is very important that output of poetry translation should still be poetry. Thai Poetry is composed with sets of syllables. Those rhymes, existing from stanzas, lines and the text in paragraph of the poetry, may not represent the complete syntax. Evaluation of translation will show the quality of translator but Evaluation is still a research topic in itself. This researchwill focus on the Thai poetry type "Klonn-Pad" and aim to translate into English keeping terms of prosody. The results of translation between Forward and Backward translation will be compared by BLEU (Bilingual Evaluation Understudy) metric and METEOR (Metric for Evaluation of Translation with Explicit Ordering). Prosody keeping will be check by Error percentage of prosody rule. The prosody error checking separate to Check line length (Number of syllable) and Check Rhyme (Relation of phonetic). The original (Thai) language L1 translates to the target language L2. The result of Forward is L2out and the result of Backward is L1out. The BLEU score of Forward (L2out) equaled 0.751, Backward (L1out) equaled 0.885. The METEOR score of Forward (L2out) Precision equaled 0.863, Recall equaled 0.791 and F-Measure equaled 0.840. For Backward (L1out) Precision equaled 0.850, Recall equaled 0.863 and F-Measure equaled 0.856. Check line length correctness of Forward (L2out) equaled 0.875, Backward (L1out) equaled 1. Check Rhyme correctness of Forward (L2out) equaled 0.857, Backward (L1out) equaled 0.643. Based on this study, it can be concluded that the Thai poetry machine translators with Poetry's dictionary and Tuning Module can provide the good result. Thus, it is necessary and reasonable that Synonyms
A Graphical Model for Context-Aware Visual Content Recommendation

Existing recommender systems provide an elegant solution to the information overload in current digital libraries such as the Internet archive. Nowadays, the sensors that capture the user's contextual information such as the location and time are become available and have raised a need to personalize recommendations for each user according to his/her changing needs in different contexts. In addition, visual documents have richer textual and visual information that was not exploited by existing recommender systems. In this paper, we propose a new framework for context-aware recommendation of visual documents by modeling the user needs, the context and also the visual document collection together in a unified model. We address also the user's need for diversified recommendations. Our pilot study showed the merits of our approach in content based image retrieval.
Working P a ~ E R 9402 Auctions with Budget-constrained Buyers: a Nonequivalence Result Introduction

Anecdotal evidence of concern about the limited financial resources of small firms abounds in government auctions. Recent empirical work also provides evidence of the importance of capital constraints. In this paper, we show that the first-price sealed-bid auction yields higher expected revenue than the second-price sealed-bid auction if buyers face wealth constraints. Differences in the extent to which wealth constraints bind in the different auction formats generate the revenue nonequivalence. clevelandfed.org/research/workpaper/index.cfm
RAS-Models: A Building Block for Self-Healing Benchmarks

To evaluate the efficacy of self-healing systems a rigorous, objective, quantitative benchmarking methodology is needed. However, developing such a benchmark is a non-trivial task given the many evaluation issues to be resolved, including but not limited to: quantifying the impacts of faults, analyzing various styles of healing (reactive, preventative, proactive), accounting for partially automated healing and accounting for incomplete/imperfect healing. We posit, however, that it is possible to realize a self-healing benchmark using a collection of analytical techniques and practical tools as building blocks. This paper highlights the flexibility of one analytical tool, the Reliability, Availability and Serviceability (RAS) model, and illustrates its power and relevance to the problem of evaluating self-healing mechanisms/systems, when combined with practical tools for fault-injection.
Evolution of Efficient Gait with Humanoids using Visual Feedback

In this paper we present the autonomous, walking humanoids Priscilla, ELVIS and ELVINA and an experiment using evolutionary adaptive systems. We also present the anthropomorphic principles behind our humanoid project and the multistage development methodology. The adaptive evolutionary system used is a steady state evolutionary strategy running on the robot’s onboard computer. Individuals are evaluated and fitness scores are automatically determined using the robots onboard digital cameras and near-infrared range sensor. The experiments are performed in order to optimize a by hand developed locomotion controller. By using this system, we evolved gait patterns that locomote the robot in a straighter path and in a more robust way, than the previously manually developed gait did.
Atrial fibrillation, ischaemic heart disease, and the risk of death in patients with heart failure.

AIMS Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a risk factor for death in patients with a myocardial infarction, but highly variable results are reported in patients with heart failure. We studied the prognostic impact of AF in heart failure patients with and without ischaemic heart disease. METHODS AND RESULTS During a period of 2 years, 3587 patients admitted to hospital because of heart failure were included in this study. All patients were examined by echocardiography and the presence of AF was recorded. Follow-up was available for 8 years. Twenty four percent of those discharged alive from hospital had AF. After 4 and 8 years of follow-up, mortality was higher in patients with AF than in patients without, 56 vs. 52% and 77 vs. 73%, respectively. Cox multivariable regression analysis showed a small but significant importance of AF for long-term mortality [hazard ratio (HR) 1.12, 95% confidence limits (CI), 1.02-1.23, P=0.018]. There was a significant interaction between the importance of AF and the presence of ischaemic heart disease (P=0.034). In patients with AF at the time of discharge and ischaemic heart disease, HR was 1.25 (95% CI: 1.09-1.42) and P<0.001; in patients with AF at discharge and without ischaemic heart disease, HR was 1.01 (95% CI: 0.88-1.16) and P=0.88. CONCLUSION AF is associated with increased risk of death only in patients with ischaemic heart disease. This finding may explain the variable results of studies of the prognosis associated with AF in heart failure.
Potential of Tourism Sector in Italy as a Means of Entrepreneurship and Growth for Italian Companies

The objectives of this chapter are twofold. First, to verify whether the tourism sector may be considered a means of entrepreneurship and growth for Italian companies, and second, to identify the key drivers within the tourism consumption trend, as a consequence of changes in the environment. Italy is universally renowned for its strong vocation for tourism. The Italian tourism sector is one of the most important to the Italian economy, thanks to the richness of the country’s resources. The market seems to be particularly susceptible to external pushes linked to the socio-demographic, cultural, political and economic context, which impact on to the tastes and desires of individuals. The chapter is structured as follows. The second section analyzes the theoretical background of the topic. The third section outlines the main focus of the chapter. The fourth section presents future research directions for this topic. Finally, the fifth section presents the conclusion of the study.
Multi-agent based information access services for condition monitoring in process automation

This paper studies issues concerning the application of goal-oriented information agents to condition monitoring tasks in process automation. In the presented approach, an agent-based information access layer is operating as a mediator for various types of process-related information. The agent system may be seen as an active partner for human users in this information intensive application domain. In the future, more and more automation related information will be available in electronic form. Physical sensors provide not only measurements but also reliability information, and numerous configuration details are available in electronic form. The challenge is to integrate as much of the available information as possible, and to automate the processing of this information to enable easy decision-making for end users.
Conflicts of Interest and Governance Mechanisms in Italian Local Public Utilities

Stemming from different theoretical perspectives the article examines the conflicts of interest arising among the actors (citizens, local governments, private shareholders, service providers) that at various levels are involved in local public utilities governance systems. The main results of a multiple case study analysis on 10 Italian listed local public utilities are summarized. Different and coexisting situations of conflicts of interest among multiple principals and agents are identified. In this context, governance mechanisms (e.g., the board of directors) have different roles and functions and may prevent and mitigate such conflicts. However, our findings suggest that the ownership structure influences board composition and functioning and that higher numbers of independent directors do not necessarily mean “actual” board independence. The article contributes to the debate on conflicts of interest and governance mechanisms in local public utilities.
A Redesigned Geoscience Content Course's Impact on Science Teaching Self-efficacy Beliefs

Many future elementary science teachers have never been exposed to constructivist-based science instruction as recommended by national and state science standards. A constructivist-based course format asserts that the construction of knowledge arises from interactions among students, activities that link prior conceptions to new experiences, and hands-on and investigative learning activities. This study indicates that a science content course for preservice teachers can be designed and implemented with constructivist teaching practices. When education majors have experiences with inquiry-based instructional methods in a content-based course, their preparation as future teachers of science is benefited. The constructivist framework of the course appeared to have an impact on the future teachers' beliefs about their ability to teach science effectively. The key findings of the study indicate that the modeling of effective instruction, exposure to science standards, overviews of the nature of science, and practical experiences with school-based curricular activities serve to improve the educational experiences and self-efficacy beliefs of the preservice teachers.
NEK2 serves as a prognostic biomarker for hepatocellular carcinoma

Never in mitosis gene A (NIMA)-related kinase 2 (NEK2) is a microtubule-associated protein that regulates spindle assembly in human cells and is overexpressed in various malignancies. However, the role of NEK2 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains undetermined. We performed RNA-seq of the HCC cell line SMMC-7721 and the normal liver cell line HL-7702 using the Ion Proton System. NEK2 expression was detected using quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction in two cell lines and 5 matched HCC and adjacent non-tumorous liver tissues. The correlation between survival and NEK2 expression was analyzed in 359 patients with HCC using RNASeqV2 data available from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) website (https://tcga-data.nci.nih.gov/tcga/). The expression of NEK2, phospho-AKT and MMP-2 was evaluated by immunohistochemistry in 63 cases of HCC and matched adjacent non-tumorous liver tissues. Relationships between protein expression and clinicopathological parameters were assessed, and the correlations between NEK2 with phospho-AKT and MMP-2 expressions were evaluated. A total of 610 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were revealed in the transcriptome comparison, 297 of which were upregulated and 313 were downregulated in HCC. NEK2, as the most obviously different DEG in cells and tissues from the RNA-seq data, was listed as an HCC candidate biomarker for further verification. NEK2 was overexpressed in HCC cells and tissues (P=0.002, P=0.013) and HCC patients with a high expression of NEK2 had a poor prognosis (P=0.0145). Clinical analysis indicated that the overexpression of NEK2 in HCC was significantly correlated with diolame complete (P<0.001), tumor nodule number (P=0.012) and recurrence (P=0.004). NEK2 expression was positively correlated with the expression of phospho-AKT (r=0.883, P<0.01) and MMP-2 (r=0.781, P<0.01). Overexpression of NEK2 was associated with clinicopathological characteristics and poor patient outcomes, suggesting that NEK2 serves as a prognostic biomarker for HCC. Alteration of NEK2 protein levels may contribute to invasion and metastasis of HCC, which may occur through activation of AKT signaling and promotion of MMP-2 expression.
An Unsupervised Method for Detecting Grammatical Errors

We present an unsupervised method for detecting grammatical errors by inferring negative evidence from edited textual corpora. The system was developed and tested using essay-length responses to prompts on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). The errorrecognition system, ALEK, performs with about 80% precision and 20% recall.