Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Simple Fabrication of Metal-Based Piezoelectric MEMS by Direct Deposition of $\hbox{Pb}(\hbox{Zr}, \hbox{Ti})\hbox{O}_{3}$ Thin Films on Titanium Substrates

Piezoelectric Pb(Zr, Ti)O3 (PZT) thin films were directly deposited on cantilever-shaped titanium substrates and evaluated for their piezoelectric properties and actuator performance. Because of the small difference in the thermal expansion coefficient between the PZT and the substrate, and the mitigation of the residual stress, large piezoelectric properties could be obtained for PZT/Ti unimorph actuators. X-ray diffraction measurements clearly revealed that the PZT thin films have a polycrystalline perovskite structure with a random orientation. Observations using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) demonstrated that PZT films, which were 3.8 mum thick, were densely deposited on Pt-coated Ti substrate without pores or cracks. The polarization-electric field (P- E) hysteresis of the PZT film clearly indicates ferroelectricity. The piezoelectric properties of the PZT films were evaluated from the tip displacement of PZT/Ti unimorph cantilevers. Simplified transverse piezoelectric coefficients (e31 * = d31/s11 E, where d31 and s11 E are piezoelectric coefficient and elastic compliance, respectively) were measured, which ranged from -3.6 to 4.3 C/m2 - about three times larger than those of the PZT thin films deposited on stainless-steel substrates. Measurement of resonant frequencies of the cantilevers shows a clear dependence on the cantilever length, which obeys the theoretical equation. This indicates that these cantilevers can be reliably applied as sensors and actuators in a resonance mode.
Associations between maternal weekly air pollutant exposures and low birth weight: a distributed lag non-linear model

When discussing the association between birth weight and air pollution, previous studies mainly focus on the maternal trimester-specific exposures during pregnancy, whereas the possible associations between birth weight and weekly-specific exposures have been largely neglected. We conducted a nested 1:4 matched case-control study in Jinan, China to examine the weekly-specific associations during pregnancy between maternal fine particulate matter (aerodynamic diameter < 2.5 μm, PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and sulfur dioxide (SO2) exposure and birth weight, which is under a representative scenario of very high pollution levels. Ambient air monitoring data from thirteen monitoring stations and daily mean temperature data for Jinan during 2013–2016 were continuously collected. Birth data were obtained from the largest maternity and child care hospital of this city during 2014–2016. Individual exposures to PM2.5, NO2, and SO2 during pregnancy were estimated using an inverse distance weighting method. Birth weight for gender-, gestational age-, and parity-specific standard score (BWGAP z-score) was calculated as the outcome of interest. Distributed lag non-linear models (DLNMs) were applied to estimate weekly-specific relationship between maternal air pollutant exposures and birth weight. For an increase of per inter-quartile range in maternal PM2.5 exposure concentration during pregnancy, the BWGAP z-score decreased significantly during the 27th–33th gestational weeks with the strongest association in the 30th gestational weeks (standard deviation units decrease in BWGAP z-score: −0.049, 95% CI: −0.080 −0.017, in three-pollutant model). No significant association between maternal weekly NO2 or SO2 BWGAP z-score was observed. In conclusion, this study provides evidence that maternal PM2.5 exposure during the 27th–33th gestational weeks may reduce the birth weight in the context of very high pollution level of PM2.5.
Molecular Cloning and Characterization of Multispecific Organic Anion Transporter 4 Expressed in the Placenta*

A cDNA encoding a novel multispecific organic anion transporter, OAT4, was isolated from a human kidney cDNA library. The OAT4 cDNA consisted of 2210 base pairs that encoded a 550-amino acid residue protein with 12 putative membrane-spanning domains. The amino acid sequence of OAT4 showed 38 to 44% identity to those of other members of the OAT family. Northern blot analysis revealed that OAT4 mRNA is abundantly expressed in the placenta as well as in the kidney. When expressed in Xenopus oocytes, OAT4 mediated the high affinity transport of estrone sulfate (K m = 1.01 μm) and dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (K m = 0.63 μm) in a sodium-independent manner. OAT4 also mediated the transport of ochratoxin A. OAT4-mediated transport of estrone sulfate was inhibited by several sulfate conjugates, such asp-nitrophenyl sulfate, α-naphthyl sulfate, β-estradiol sulfate, and 4-methylumbelliferyl sulfate. By contrast, glucuronide conjugates showed little or no inhibitory effect on the OAT4-mediated transport of estrone sulfate. OAT4 interacted with chemically heterogeneous anionic compounds, such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, diuretics, sulfobromophthalein, penicillin G, and bile salts, whereas tetraethylammonium, an organic cation, did not. OAT4 is the first member of the multispecific organic anion transporter family, which is expressed abundantly in the placenta. OAT4 might be responsible for the elimination and detoxification of harmful anionic substances from the fetus.
Primarily investigating into the relationship between talent management and knowledge management in business environment

Purpose: This paper aims to address concepts, visions and gaps in literature in the field of the relationship between talent management and knowledge management in business organisations. It also aims to develop a model for the relationship between talent management processes and knowledge management processes. This is because there are practical benefits for business organisations focused on developing knowledge and talents. Design/methodology/approach: This study takes on a detailed literature review of the relationship between talent and knowledge management in business organisations. Conclusion: The key conclusion for this research is that more research is required to examine further the relationship between talent management processes and knowledge management processes in the business environment. It also concludes that it is worth noting scholars' serious interest in attraction, development, and talent retention processes. Conversely, it also viewed that the majority of researchers in the field of knowledge management have focused on creation, application, knowledge storage, transfer and acquisition of knowledge. This research provides a comprehensive review of further research in selecting the common processes associated with talent management processes and knowledge management processes.
A Coupled Inductor Based High Boost Inverter with Sub-unity Turns-Ratio Range

Voltage source inverter cannot provide an output voltage higher than its input and needs a dead-time scheme for its switches to prevent dc-link short circuit due to spurious turn-on of switches by electromagnetic interference (EMI). Impedance source inverters have eliminated these disadvantages by providing boost functionality with improved EMI immunity. Coupled inductor-based impedance source inverters provided increased gain at the expense of increased coupled inductor turns-ratio. In this paper, a coupled inductor based high gain inverter is proposed, which achieves higher gain by increasing the coupled inductor turns-ratio (n = n2/n1) within a very narrow turns-ratio range of 0 ≤ n <; 1, which is a major improvement over the other coupled inductor based high boost impedance source inverters. The proposed inverter, named Improved Trans-Current-Fed Switched Inverter, is described along with its equivalent operating states and relation between its input and output variables are derived. The steady-state inverter waveforms are shown using PSpice simulations. The operation of the inverter is validated by the experimental results, which show strong correlation with the theoretical analysis. A 110-V RMS ac output is obtained from 26-V dc input using a coupled inductor with turns-ratio of 0.33 to demonstrate its high-boost operation.
Effects of Regulator of G Protein Signaling 19 (RGS19) on Heart Development and Function*

Wnt/Wg genes play a critical role in the development of various organisms. For example, the Wnt/β-catenin signal promotes heart formation and cardiomyocyte differentiation in mice. Previous studies have shown that RGS19 (regulator of G protein signaling 19), which has Gα subunits with GTPase activity, inhibits the Wnt/β-catenin signal through inactivation of Gαo. In the present study, the effects of RGS19 on mouse cardiac development were observed. In P19 teratocarcinoma cells with RGS19 overexpression, RGS19 inhibited cardiomyocyte differentiation by blocking the Wnt signal. Additionally, several genes targeted by Wnt were down-regulated. For the in vivo study, we generated RGS19-overexpressing transgenic (RGS19 TG) mice. In these transgenic mice, septal defects and thin-walled ventricles were observed during the embryonic phase of development, and the expression of cardiogenesis-related genes, BMP4 and Mef2C, was reduced significantly. RGS19 TG mice showed increased expression levels of brain natriuretic peptide and β-MHC, which are markers of heart failure, increase of cell proliferation, and electrocardiogram analysis shows abnormal ventricle repolarization. These data provide in vitro and in vivo evidence that RGS19 influenced cardiac development and had negative effects on heart function.
The return of the jedi: comparison of the outcomes of endolaser dacryocystorhinostomy and endonasal dacryocystorhinostomy

External dacryocystorhinostomy (DCR) is considered to be the gold standard treatment of primary acquired nasolacrimal duct obstruction. A better understanding of the endoscopic anatomy of the lacrimal sac has increased the success rate of endonasal DCR. Laser DCR has become popular in recent years and has a success rate comparable with those of other endonasal techniques. The aim of this study was to compare the surgical results of endonasal DCR (EDCR) and endonasal laser DCR (ELDCR).
Effect of minimum phase whitening filter in adaptive beamforming structure on fluctuating acoustic signal

This paper presents a favorable effect of minimum phase whitening (MPW) filter in adaptive beamforming structure on a fluctuating acoustic signal. When a MPW filter is applied in front of beamforming structure, it is found that performance in beamforming structure provides more noise reduction and also less fluctuation in a signal than performance in adaptive noise cancelling (ANC) structure. Furthermore, when MPW filter is applied to adaptive beamforming structure using adaptive finite impulse response (FIR) filter, it will be shown that front-end MPW filter as a whitened preprocessor to cascaded adaptive FIR filter gives further noise reduction by showing more effectively decreased performance in spectrum even in a nonstationary noise and also less fluctuation in the fluctuating signal by showing sharper shape in power spectrum in a frequency domain. Therefore, MPW filter could be used to adaptive beamforming structure as an effective preprocessor to reduce fluctuating behavior in nonstationary acoustic sound in a windy environment.
Characterization of two novel proteins, NgRH1 and NgRH2, structurally and biochemically homologous to the Nogo‐66 receptor

Nogo‐66 receptor (NgR) has recently been identified as the neuronal receptor of the myelin‐associated proteins Nogo‐A, oligodendrocyte protein (OMgp) and myelin‐associated glycoprotein (MAG), and mediates inhibition of axonal regeneration both in vitro and in vivo. Through database searches, we have identified two novel proteins (NgRH1 and NgRH2) that turned out to be homologous in their primary structures, biochemical properties and expression patterns to NgR. Like NgR, the homologues contain eight leucine‐rich repeats (LRR) flanked by a leucine‐rich repeat C‐terminus (LRRCT) and a leucine‐rich repeat N‐terminus (LRRNT), and also have a C‐terminal GPI signal sequence. Northern blot analysis showed predominant expression of NgRH1 and NgRH2 mRNA in the brain. In situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry on rat brain slices revealed neuronal expression of the genes. NgRH1 and NgRH2 were detected on the cell surface of recombinant cell lines as N‐glycosylated GPI anchored proteins and, consistent with other GPI anchored proteins, were localized within the lipid rafts of cellular membranes. In addition, an N‐terminal proteolytic fragment of NgR comprising the majority of the ectodomain was found to be constitutively secreted from cells. Our data indicate that NgR, NgRH1 and NgRH2 constitute a novel receptor protein family, which may play related roles within the CNS.
Physicians in long-term recovery who are members of alcoholics anonymous.

BACKGROUND There is little empirical literature on the experience in sobriety of long-term, committed members of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). OBJECTIVE Studies on the experience of long-term members, however, can yield a better understanding of the role of spirituality in AA membership, and how the program helps stabilize abstinence. METHODS We studied 144 physicians at a conference of doctors in AA. RESULTS Respondents had a mean period of sobriety of 140 months. Compared to normative populations, they scored higher on scales for depression and anxiety, and were more adherent to the spiritual character of AA, rather than a formally religious orientation. Those who reported "having a spiritual awakening" were more likely to "experience God's presence" on most days (81% vs. 19%) and were less likely to report craving for alcohol (21% vs. 41%) than those who did not. Respondents who had a history of being enrolled in State Physicians' Health Programs did not differ significantly on any of the aforesaid subjective variables from those who were not enrolled. CONCLUSION The experience of long-term AA members can be characterized in terms of abstinence, spirituality, and alcohol craving. SCIENTIFIC SIGNIFICANCE The study of long-term AA members can shed light on mechanisms of achieving abstinence in this fellowship.
Impact of Sociodemographic Case Mix on the HEDIS Measures of Health Plan Quality

Background.The widely used Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set (HEDIS) measures may be affected by differences among plans in sociodemographic characteristics of members. Objective.The objective of this study was to estimate effects of geographically linked patient sociodemographic characteristics on differential performance within and among plans on HEDIS measures. Research Design.Using logistic regression, we modeled associations between age, sex, and residential area characteristics of health plan members and results on HEDIS measures. We then calculated the impact of adjusting for these associations on plan-level measures. Subjects.This study included 92,232 commercially insured members with individual-level HEDIS data and an additional 20,615 members whose geographic distribution was provided. Measures.This study used 7 measures of screening and preventive services. Results.Performance was negatively associated with percent receiving public assistance in the local area (6 of 7 measures), percent black (5 measures), and percent Hispanic (2 measures) and positively associated with percent college educated (6 measures), percent urban (2 measures), and percent Asian (1 measure) after controlling for plan and product type. These effects were generally consistent across plans. When measures were adjusted for these characteristics, rates for most plans changed by less than 5 percentage points. The largest change in the difference between plans ranged from 1.5% for retinal exams for people with diabetes to 20.2% for immunization of adolescents. Conclusions.Performance on quality indicators for individual members is associated with sociodemographic context. Adjustment has little impact on the measured performance of most plans but a substantial impact on a few. Further study with more plans is required to determine the appropriateness and feasibility of adjustment.
Novel spoIIE Mutation That Causes Uncompartmentalized σF Activation in Bacillus subtilis

ABSTRACT During sporulation, Bacillus subtilis undergoes an asymmetric division that results in two cells with different fates, the larger mother cell and the smaller forespore. The protein phosphatase SpoIIE, which is required for activation of the forespore-specific transcription factor σF, is also required for optimal efficiency and timing of asymmetric division. We performed a genetic screen for spoIIE mutants that were impaired in sporulation but not σF activity and isolated a strain with the mutation spoIIEV697A. The mutant exhibited a 10- to 40-fold reduction in sporulation and a sixfold reduction in asymmetric division compared to the parent. Transcription of the σF-dependent spoIIQ promoter was increased more than 10-fold and was no longer confined to the forespore. The excessive σF activity persisted even when asymmetric division was prevented. Disruption of spoIIGB did not restore asymmetric division to the spoIIEV697A mutant, indicating that the deficiency is not a consequence of predivisional activation of the mother cell-specific transcription factor σE. Deletion of the gene encoding σF (spoIIAC) restored asymmetric division; however, a mutation that dramatically reduced the number of promoters responsive to σF, spoIIAC561 (spoIIACV233 M), failed to do so. This result suggests that the block is due to expression of one of the small subset of σF-dependent genes expressed in this background or to unregulated interaction of σF with some other factor. Our results indicate that regulation of SpoIIE plays a critical role in coupling asymmetric division to σF activation in order to ensure proper spatial and temporal expression of forespore-specific genes.
Global Commodity and Oil Price Movements, Macroeconomic Performance and Challenges for an Emerging Economy: The Indian Experience

Commodity and oil price fluctuations have significant bearing on domestic macroeconomic performance and macroeconomic policymaking of an emerging economy. The article explores the impact of non-energy commodity and oil price fluctuations on output, inflation and real exchange rate (RER) in India; and commodity and oil constituting sizeable imports. The empirical analysis carried out through vector error correction model (VECM) for the post-liberalization period 1991–2014 clearly points out that commodity and oil price shocks have a significant impact on the variation in output and prices accounting for RER adjustment and the role of a developed financial market (private credit). The RER adjusts to commodity and oil price shocks, accounting for foreign exchange reserves and financial markets (private credit). The impulse response functions indicate that one standard deviation shock in commodity and oil price persists for three to eight quarters over domestic prices and output. While these results point to lessening of commodity and oil imports through a series of medium and long-term structural-cum-policy reform measures, in the immediate, they also lend a role of intervention by monetary authority (central bank) in pursuit of inflation targeting. Conjointly, pursuance of countercyclical fiscal policy to stabilize domestic output and prices in short run are called for.
Effect of Reduced c‐Kit Signaling on Bone Marrow Adiposity

c‐Kit (CD117) is required for normal differentiation of osteoblasts from bone marrow stromal cells and for normal bone formation. Osteoblasts and adipocytes originate from a common progenitor cell, and a reciprocal relationship in differentiation of the two lineages is often observed. Therefore, the effects of abnormal c‐kit signaling on bone marrow adiposity and adipocyte precursor pool size were evaluated in mouse strains with loss of function mutations in kit receptor or kit ligand. Additionally, to determine whether short‐duration pharmacological disruption of kit signaling influences bone marrow adiposity, we administered the kit receptor antagonist gleevec (imatinib mesilate) for 1 week to middle aged (13‐month‐old) male rats known to have high levels of bone marrow fat. Compared to wild‐type littermates, adipocytes were absent and adipocyte precursors greatly reduced in bone marrow from kit receptor‐deficient KitW/W‐ν mice. Administration of secreted kit ligand to membrane‐associated kit ligand‐deficient KitSl/Sl‐d mice was ineffective in inducing bone marrow adipogenesis. These findings suggest that activation of kit receptor by the membrane‐associated form of kit ligand is required for kit signaling to promote bone marrow adipogenesis in mice. Rats treated with gleevec had lower adipocyte density compared to age‐matched controls, suggesting that kit signaling is required to maintain normal bone marrow adiposity. Taken together, our results indicate that c‐Kit signaling plays an important but previously unsuspected role in regulating bone marrow adiposity. Anat Rec, , 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Interaction of the lymphocyte-derived Epstein-Barr virus nuclear antigen EBNA-1 with its DNA-binding sites

The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) nuclear antigen EBNA-1 plays an integral role in the maintenance of latency in EBV-infected B lymphocytes. EBNA-1 binds to sequences within the plasmid origin of replication (oriP). It is essential for the replication of the latent episomal form of EBV DNA and may also regulate the expression of the EBNA group of latency gene products. We have used sequence-specific DNA-binding assays to purify EBNA-1 away from nonspecific DNA-binding proteins in a B-lymphocyte cell extract. The availability of this eucaryotic protein has allowed an examination of the interaction of EBNA-1 with its specific DNA-binding sites and an evaluation of possible roles for the different binding loci within the EBV genome. DNA filter binding assays and DNase I footprinting experiments showed that the intact Raji EBNA-1 protein recognized the two binding site loci in oriP and the BamHI-Q locus and no other sites in the EBV genome. Competition filter binding experiments with monomer and multimer region I consensus binding sites indicated that cooperative interactions between binding sites have relatively little impact on EBNA-1 binding to region I. An analysis of the binding parameters of the Raji EBNA-1 to the three naturally occurring binding loci revealed that the affinity of EBNA-1 for the three loci differed. The affinity for the sites in region I of oriP was greater than the affinity for the dyad symmetry sites (region II) of oriP, while the physically distant region III locus showed the lowest affinity. This arrangement may provide a mechanism whereby EBNA-1 can lowest affinity. This arrangement may provide a mechanism whereby EBNA-1 can mediate differing regulatory functions through differential binding to its recognition sequence.
L1 Graph Based Sparse Model for Label De-noising

The abundant images and user-provided tags available on social media websites provide an intriguing opportunity to scale vision problems beyond the limits imposed by manual dataset collection and annotation. However, exploiting user-tagged data in practice is challenging since it contains many noisy (incorrect and missing) labels. In this work, we propose a novel robust graph-based approach for label de-noising. Speciﬁ-cally, the proposed model is built upon (i) label smoothing via a visual similarity graph in a form of L 1 graph regulariser, which is more robust against visual outliers than the conventional L 2 regulariser, and (ii) explicitly modelling the label noise pattern, which helps to further improve de-noising performance. An efﬁcient algorithm is formulated to optimise the proposed model, which contains multiple robust L 1 terms in its objective function and is thus non-trivial to optimise. We demonstrate our model’s superior de-noising performance across the spectrum of problems from multi-class with label noise to real social media data with more complex multi-label structured label noise patterns.