Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Natural Killer Cells Improve Hematopoietic Stem Cell Engraftment by Increasing Stem Cell Clonogenicity In Vitro and in a Humanized Mouse Model

Cord blood (CB) is increasingly used as a source of hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) for transplantation. Low incidence and severity of graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) and a robust graft-versus-leukemia (GvL) effect are observed following CB transplantation (CBT). However, its main disadvantages are a limited number of HSC per unit, delayed immune reconstitution and a higher incidence of infection. Unmanipulated grafts contain accessory cells that may facilitate HSC engraftment. Therefore, the effects of accessory cells, particularly natural killer (NK) cells, on human CB HSC (CBSC) functions were assessed in vitro and in vivo. CBSC cultured with autologous CB NK cells showed higher levels of CXCR4 expression, a higher migration index and a higher number of colony forming units (CFU) after short-term and long-term cultures. We found that CBSC secreted CXCL9 following interaction with CB NK cells. In addition, recombinant CXCL9 increased CBSC clonogenicity, recapitulating the effect observed of CB NK cells on CBSC. Moreover, the co-infusion of CBSC with CB NK cells led to a higher level of CBSC engraftment in NSG mouse model. The results presented in this work offer the basis for an alternative approach to enhance HSC engraftment that could improve the outcome of CBT.
The Evolving Nature of Branding: Consumer and Managerial Considerations

This paper is primarily a review of the brand literature and has two aims. The first is to bring together two separate streams of literature: (1) the literature about brand concepts developed by management and (2) the literature about brand images developed by consumers. Doing so clarifies the nature of the dual processes of corporations creating and communicating brand concepts to consumers who then form brand images in memory. The second aim is to examine the dynamic nature of brands in terms of changing brand strategy and increasing consumer sophistication.
Detailed phase function of comet 28P/Neujmin 1

In 2000, comet 28P/Neujmin 1 was an ideal candidate for a phase function study: during its April opposition it reached a phase angle of α = 0.8◦, and previous observations at similar heliocentric distances (r ≥ 4 AU) indicated that the comet was likely to be inactive. We observed this comet using ESO’s NTT and 2.2m telescopes at La Silla, on 6 epochs from April to August 2000, covering α = 0.8–8◦. These data were combined with a large set of data from 1985 to 1997. In order to disentangle the rotation effects from the phase effects, we obtained complete rotation coverage at opposition, providing us with a lightcurve template. We have obtained an improved rotation period of 12.75 ± 0.03 hrs, with a full amplitude of ∆m = 0.45 ± 0.05 mag, which yields an axis ratio lower limit of 1.51 ± 0.07. For each subsequent epochs, we have obtained enough rotation coverage to re-synchronize the lightcurve fragments with the template, and determine the magnitude change caused by the phase function. The average colours of the nucleus, V −R = 0.454± 0.050, and R− I = 0.413± 0.050, are similar with those of D-type asteroids and other comet nuclei. The phase function obtained for the nucleus has a linear slope of 0.025 ± 0.006 mag deg−1, less steep than that of the mean C-type asteroids.
Encountering gate oxide breakdown with shadow transistors to increase reliability

Device scaling has enabled continuous performance increase of integrated circuits. However, severe reliability and yield concerns are arising against the background of nanotechnology. Tradition-ally, most causes and countermeasures were solely considered manufacturing issues, but lately, we have seen a shift towards op-erational reliability issues. Though, besides intense research on soft-errors and system-level approaches very little effort is put into low-level design solutions in order to enhance lifetime reliability. Hence, we demonstrate that redundant transistor insertion does im-prove system reliability significantly as regards Time-Dependent Dielectric Breakdown (TDDB). Furthermore, we introduce an al-gorithm which identifies the transistors being most vulnerable to TDDB. Subsequently, redundant transistors (called shadow transis-tors) are inserted at the previously identified instances. Lastly, we argue for applying high threshold voltage devices for the redundant transistors. Finally, we present results for a set of benchmark cir-cuits and prove the combined approach successful. The enhanced designs were on average 41.8% more reliable compared to the ini-tial designs in respect of TDDB at the price of moderately in-creased power consumption and delay.
Extended K-Anonymity Models Against Attribute Disclosure

p-sensitive k-anonymity model has been recently defined as a sophistication of k-anonymity. This new property requires that there be at least p distinct values for each sensitive attribute within the records sharing a combination of key attributes. However, as shown in this paper, it may not protect sensitive information in some way. In this paper, we empirically investigate two enhanced k-anonymity models. Instead of publishing original specific sensitive attributes, the new models publish the categories that the sensitive values belong to. We propose a top-down approach to implement two enhanced models and show in the comprehensive experimental evaluations that the two new introduced models are practical in terms of effectiveness and efficiency.
BBS Sentiment Classification Based on Word Polarity

Sentiment classification is an applied technology with great significance. It can help people find right reviews in a more efficient way. In this paper, we present a novel efficient method for BBS sentiment classification. Through extracting sentiment-bearing words from WordNet using the maximum entropy, a ranking criterion based on a function of the probability of having Polarity or not is introduced. The words with polarity are selected as features, which are processed with SVM classifier at the following step. The experimental results show that our method achieves high performance.
Complete Genome Sequence of the Novel Temperate Clostridium difficile Phage phiCDIF1296T

ABSTRACT Clostridium difficile contains many integrated and extrachromosomal genetic elements. In this study, we determined, annotated, and analyzed the complete genome of the C. difficile bacteriophage phiCDIF1296T using single-molecule real-time sequencing technology. To our knowledge, this represents the largest genome (131 kb) of a temperate C. difficile phage recognized so far.
Caching Mechanisms Cache Granularity Cache Coherence Cache Replacement

The wireless networks have become an integral component of the modern communication infrastructure. Database applications in wireless devices are of special interest to us in this paper. They are different from traditional clientserver database applications due to low bandwidth in the wireless environment and frequent disconnects from the server. Hence, efficiently caching some of the elements that are frequently required by the mobile device can save the scarce resources and give better response time for the client application. Many mechanisms have been published in research to address parts of the problem. In this paper, we analyze various caching mechanisms for mobile devices with the emphasis on critiquing the assumptions made in various schemes. We compare these techniques based on their strengths and weaknesses. This paper presents a comprehensive summary of work done in mobile database caching area.
The American Corporation Today

Not since Edward Mason's groundbreaking book, The Corporation in Modern Society has there been a broad survey of the contemporary large business corporation. This book fills that need. Carl Kaysen has assembled a group of experts who examine the many aspects of the corporation including its historical evolution, its relation to the law, its financing, its contribution to technology, its role as employer, race and gender issues within it, its role as political actor, and even how it has become an architectural patron. The many voices within the book also debate the question of deregulation and possible dangers that could result from an abuse of corporate power. The book will be the new standard on the American corporation on which future studies will build.
Optimization of dairy cattle feed by nonlinear programming

This paper discusses bi-criteria models for animal diet formulation for different stages of livestock. In the first phase of work, linear models (LP) are formulated for minimum cost and maximum shelf life feed. In the second phase of the work, stochastic programming models (SP) are developed to include nutrient variability in the diet models. Besides the standard problem of livestock feed at minimum costs, these models also determines better shelf quality meal for different stages of livestock.
A Better Global Progressive Register Allocator

We present an improvement to the simultaneous heuristic allocator component of the global progressive register allocator described in our previous work [Koes06]. Our improved allocator decomposes the control flow graph into linear traces which are allocated in the same manner as a single basic block. We investigate two methods for handling the control flow within the traces both of which produce better quality allocations than the simultaneous heuristic allocator.
Formation and destruction of the Eratosthenes Seamount, Eastern Mediterranean Sea, and implications for collisional processes

The first of two tectonic-oriented objectives during Leg 160 in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea (April‐May, 1995) was concerned with study of processes of genesis and incipient collision of the Eratosthenes Seamount, a substantial crustal feature, with the active margin of the Eurasian plate to the north, represented by southern Cyprus. The upper part of the Eratosthenes Seamount (upper several hundred meters) was found to include both shallow- and deep-water carbonates dating back to preAptian time (Early Cretaceous). Shallow-water platform carbonate deposition, similar to that of the onshore Levant continental margin to the east (part of the North African plate), was followed by submergence to bathyal depths in the Late Cretaceous to middle Eocene, punctuated by depositional and tectonic hiatuses. Tectonic uplift (~1 km) was followed by shallow-water carbonate deposition in the Miocene. The platform was subaerially exposed during the Messinian desiccation crisis. During the early Pliocene, the platform subsided to bathyal depths associated with localized accumulation of limestone debris flows. Subsidence accelerated in the late Pliocene‐early Pleistocene. Interpretation of site-survey seismic data suggests that the base of the northern slope of the Eratosthenes Seamount is in the processes of detachment to form an allochthonous thrust slice, with implications for the formation of on-land melange terrains. Comparisons can be made with the collapse, high-angle faulting, and partial subduction of the mainly igneous Daisha Seamount in the Japan trench, and counterparts in the Mariana and Izu-Bonin fore-arcs, and elsewhere. The break-up of the Eratosthenes Seamount was achieved by loading-related flexural subsidence, accompanied by high-angle normal faulting, which may have exploited pre-existing structural weaknesses. Subsidence of the Eratosthenes Seamount was synchronous with rapid surface uplift of the over-riding plate, represented by the late Pliocene‐mid-Pleistocene uplift of the Troodos ophiolite and i ts sedimentary cover. The flexural and isostatic effects of sediment loading and flooding of the Mediterranean Sea after the Messinian also influenced subsidence of the Eratosthenes Seamount, to some extent. The ultimate fate of the Eratosthenes Seamount is likely to be preservation as allochthonous slices, mainly limestone, within a subduction-accretion complex, forming part of a collisional suture zone. Accretionary units similar to the Eratosthenes Seamount are indeed found within the Tethyan orogenic belt to the north, in areas including Turkey and Greece.
Self-organizing segmentation for house object

Clustering is the basic and first step of a process in many different fields. Clustering has been researched for many years. K-means clustering method is one of famous algorithms. However it cannot determine how many clusters are needed. This algorithm overcomes a disadvantage of other clustering algorithms. This paper presents a new method. Our algorithm can choose clustering number automatically.
Genetic algorithm-based multi-objective optimisation and conceptual engineering design

In this paper we present a genetic algorithm based system for conceptual engineering design. First, we present a method based on preference relations for transforming non-crisp (qualitative) relationships between objectives in multi-objective optimisation into quantitative attributes (numbers). This is integrated with two multiobjective genetic algorithms: weighted sums GA and a method for combining the Pareto method with weights. Examples of preference relations application together with traditional genetic algorithms are also presented. A further method for dynamical inclusion and modification of extra constraints (not included in the mathematical model of the system) via scenarios is presented. Its use is discussed and potential applications indicated. Finally, some future work paths are mentioned.
From Neural Stem Cells to Children: Secreted Phosphoprotein 1 in Lead Neurotoxicity

Lead (Pb) exposure in the earliest stages of neurodevelopment leads to lasting deficits in cognitive function and behavior. Neural stem cells (NSCs) are multipotent stem cells and the first cells of the central nervous system, but little is known of their molecular response to Pb exposure. We exposed human NSCs to 1μM Pb for 24 hours and performed RNA sequencing. 16 of 19 differentially expressed transcripts are upregulated, and of these 10 are known targets of NRF2, the master transcriptional regulator of the cellular antioxidant response. One of the top Pb-induced genes, Secreted Phosphoprotein 1 (SPP1), was not a previously known NRF2 target. We show SPP1 is induced following activation of NRF2 by other known activators and by knockdown of its negative regulator KEAP1. In addition, the induction of SPP1 by Pb was attenuated after siRNA-mediated knockdown of NRF2. We identified a putative Antioxidant Response Element in the SPP1 promoter and confirmed its function by Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) of NRF2. To further investigate the role of SPP1 in neurodevelopment, we examined SPP1 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in a longitudinal birth cohort of infants profiled at 24 months for the mental and psychomotor development indices (MDI and PDI, respectively) of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. Sixteen single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in and near SPP1 were tested for main effect and effect modification. For main effect on MDI, eight SNPs are associated at p<0.05, but none pass multiple testing correction. In PDI analyses, SNP rs4693923 shows statistically significant effect modification on the PDI response to second trimester Pb exposure. A-allele carriers of this SNP show a positive correlation between Pb exposure and PDI, which is not seen among GG homozygotes. Together our studies show SPP1 is a novel target of NRF2 and suggest a critical role for SPP1 in modulating prenatal Pb neurotoxicity.
Electoral Engineering: Voting Rules and Political Behavior

From Kosovo to Kabul, the last decade witnessed growing interest in ? electoral engineering? Reformers have sought to achieve either greater government accountability through majoritarian arrangements or wider parliamentary diversity through proportional formula. Underlying the normative debates are important claims about the impact and consequences of electoral reform for political representation and voting behavior. The study compares and evaluates two broad schools of thought, each offering contracting expectations. One popular approach claims that formal rules define electoral incentives facing parties, politicians and citizens. By changing these rules, rational choice institutionalism claims that we have the capacity to shape political behavior. Alternative cultural modernization theories differ in their emphasis on the primary motors driving human behavior, their expectations about the pace of change, and also their assumptions about the ability of formal institutional rules to alter, rather than adapt to, deeply embedded and habitual social norms and patterns of human behavior.
Prediction of insolvency in non-life insurance companies using support vector machines, genetid algorithms and simulated annealing

In this paper we propose an approach to predict insolvency of non-life insurance companies based on the applications of Support Vector Machines (SVMs), hybridized with two global search heuristics: a Genetic Algorithm (GA) and a Simulated Annealing (SA). A SVM is used to classify firms as failed or non-failed, whereas a GA and a SA are used to perform on-line feature selection in the ratios space of the SVM, in order to improve its performance. We use general financial ratios and also other specific ratios which have been proposed for evaluating insolvency of insurance sector. In the simulations section, we compare the performance of the GA and SA as part of the proposed algorithm. The results obtained with both techniques show that the proposed algorithm can be a useful tool for parties interested in evaluating insolvency of non-life insurance firms.
Monocular vision-based global localization using position and orientation of ceiling features

This study presents an upward-looking camera-based global localization scheme using the position and orientation of ceiling features. If the robot pose is unknown, the region-based ceiling features from the current image are matched to a pre-built feature map from the RBPF-based SLAM process. Then, the candidate areas of the real robot pose are set around the matched features. The candidates are represented by two spots for the features having both position and orientation, while by a circle if they have only position. Finally, the real robot pose is determined at the intersection point. The candidate areas are realistically modeled by applying the observation error, and useless candidates are significantly reduced by considering the feature orientation. Several experiments in real environments validated the effectiveness of the proposed global localization scheme.
Pipelined SHA-3 Implementations on FPGA: Architecture and Performance Analysis

Efficient and high-throughput designs of hash functions will be in great demand in the next few years, given that every IPv6 data packet is expected to be handled with some kind of security features. In this paper, pipelined implementations of the new SHA-3 hash standard on FPGAs are presented and compared aiming to map the design space and the choice of the number of pipeline stages. The proposed designs support all the four SHA-3 modes of operation. They also support processing of multiple messages each comprising multiple blocks. Designs for up to a four-stage pipeline are presented for three generations of FPGAs and the performance of the implementations is analyzed and compared in terms of the throughput/area metric. Several pipeline designs are explored in order to determine the one that achieves the best throughput/area performance. The results indicate that the FPGA technology characteristics must also be considered when choosing an efficient pipeline depth. Our designs perform better compared to the existing literature due to the extended optimization effort on the synthesis tool and the efficient design of multi-block message processing.
Min-cost live webcast under joint pricing of data, congestion and virtualized servers

Live video webcast streams the same live content from its source to a large number of Internet clients through CDN networks, and may consume large volumes of traffic and contribute significantly to Internet congestion during popular events such as the FIFA World Cup. A fair pricing scheme to charge webcast operators should take into account the total amount of data transferred in the network, the cost of running virtualized server instances on the selected CDN edge locations, as well as the potential congestion level the webcast may impose on the underlying Internet. In this paper, we propose a comprehensive pricing model for video webcast operators based on all of the above factors. In particular, we model the congestion level of the webcast as the sum of bandwidth-delay products on all links in the formed video distribution overlay, which indicates the total number of “waiting packets” occupying the Internet. Under such a pricing model, we formulate the min-cost webcasting via at least k CDN servers as a problem we call “k-Node-Weighted Steiner Tree”, for which we give the first polynomial-time approximation scheme with an approximation ratio of O(ln n), where n is the number of participating clients. By relaxing the pricing and cost model, we point out the relationship of the special cases of problem with a number of famous problems including Uncapacitated Facility Location problem(UFL) and Node-Weighted Steiner Tree problem(NWST). We verify the effectiveness of our algorithm at reducing the cost of live webcast based on real delay traces collected from PlanetLab and the Seattle project with pricing parameters synthesized from Amazon Web Service.
The take-up of the unemployment insurance in France

A significant share of the unemployed workers do not register at the national unemployment agency, preventing them from receiving job search assistance and financial compensation when eligible. In this thesis, we measure the registration rates in France and provide theoretical and empirical elements to explain this behaviour. The analysis roots in the rational choice framework in the sense that eligible job seekers claim if gains, monetary or not, outweigh costs associated with participation. Following the take-up literature, we consider monetary incentives, imperfect information about entitlement, administrative barriers and stigma. To highlight the endogenous link between benefits take-up and job search activity, and to distinguish temporary from permanent non take-up, we propose a job search model wherein the worker needs to exert a claiming effort to be insured. Using both surveys and matched administrative data, we conduct a duration analysis and structural estimations. Quick returns to employment and frictions in the claiming process explain low take-up rates. We also tackle the behaviour of registered unemployed workers with respect to job search assistance. We use the 2001 reform, which made job search assistance an integral part of the French unemployment insurance. We examine whether workers who were registered at the time of the reform decided or not to enter in the new system We find a significant, but small, non take-up rate and evidence of self-selection. Stigma, informational issues and expectation of a short unemployment spell are found to explain non participation, but these effects are not high enough to prevent participation for most of the workers