Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Study of apoptosis inducing activity of calprotectin on fibroblast cell

One of the prominent types of connective tissue cells is fibroblast that synthesizes and maintains the extracellular matrix of many animal tissues. Previous studies illustrated that calprotectin protein has different cytotoxicity effects on fibroblast cells. Calprotectin is abundant in the neutrophil cytosol; it has growth-inhibitory and apoptosis-inducing activities against various cell types such as tumor cells. The present study tries to introduce mechanism of growth inhibitory effect of calprotectin on human foreskin fibroblast cells (HFFF) and compare to etoposide (chemotherapy agent as control). Calprotectin was purified from human neutrophil by chromatography methods. HFFF cell lines were used, maintained in RPMI 1640 medium supplemented with 10% FCS in a humidified incubator (37 oC & 5% CO2). The HFFF cells were exposed to the different concentrations of calprotectin and etoposide for 24, 48 and 72 hours. Cell proliferation was assessed by using dimethylthiazol diphenyl tetrazolium bromide assay. Flow cytometric analysis was performed to evaluate the cytotoxic mechanism of calprotectin on HFFF cells. Our results revealed that calprotectin and etoposide induce growth inhibition of HFFF in dose- and time-dependent manners. Sensitivity of HFFF cells to cytotoxic effect of human calprotectin was highly remarkable. In addition, growth inhibitory effect of this cytotoxic agent mostly was governed through induction of apoptosis in the HFFF cells. Taken together, calprotectin not only has more potent anticancer activity in comparison with the etoposide, but it also is an apoptosis inducer that acts on the proliferation of normal cells like fibroblasts.
Does Irish education approach the meritocratic ideal - a logistic analysis

The conclusion that the Irish educational system is approaching the meritocratic ideal that was advanced by Greaney and Kellaghan (1984) is re-examined using the same data but a different methodology. A logistic regression model is used to measure the direct and indirect effects of social class, ability, type of school attended, and gender on the probability of remaining in the system at each transition. Exact occupational status scores and verbal reasoning test scores are used. It is found that, after controlling for ability, social class has a substantial and significant effect at each point up to and including the completion of second-level schooling, but not on entry to higher education. Gender has no significant effect, but the type of school attended has a large effect, after controlling for class and ability. Vocational school students are much more likely than their secondary school counterparts to drop out of school at each point of their educational careers.
Halobacterium sodomense sp. nov., a Dead Sea Halobacterium with an Extremely High Magnesium Requirement

A strain of Halobacterium was isolated from the Dead Sea. This isolate differs from the previously isolated halobacteria in (i) its requirement for sodium ions, which is lower than that of most other halobacteria (≥ 0.5 M), (ii) its requirement for divalent cations (Mg2+ or Ca2+), which is higher than that of most other halobacteria (optimal growth was obtained in the presence of 0.6 to 1. 2 M Mg2+), (iii) its requirement for either starch or clay minerals (bentonite) for growth in the standard growth medium used, and (iv) its synthesis of purple membrane at low oxygen tensions in the light. This organism has been designated Halobacterium sodomense sp. nov. The type strain is strain ATCC 33755.
Measurement and Prediction Method of Compressibility Factor at High Temperature and High Pressure

In order to get the compressibility factor of working fluid under different conditions, experimental measurement method of under high pressure and high temperature and data mining method were studied in this paper. Experimental measurement method based on real gas state equation and prediction method based on Least Squares Support Vector Machine were proposed. First, an experimental method for measuring at high temperature and high pressure was designed; in this method the temperature, pressure, and density (mass and volume) of corresponding state were measured and substituted into the actual gas equation of state, and then can be calculated. Meanwhile, in order to obtain continuous value in plane, Squares Support Vector Machines are introduced to establish the prediction model of . Take Hexamethyldisiloxane, for example; the experimental data of was obtained using the experimental method. Meanwhile the prediction model of , which can be used as calculation function of , was established based on those experimental data, and the ( : 500 K~800 K, : 1.3 MPa~2.25 MPa) was calculated by using this calculation function. By comparison with this published data, it was found that the average relative error was 2.14%.
A correlation between Bogue's equations and Taylor's procedure for the evaluation of crystalline phases in special class Portland oilwell cement clinker

The crystalline composition of Portland cement clinker is commonly established by Bogue's equations, which are based on a series of assumptions that seldom apply to oilwell cements. This is probably due to the presence of additional oxides and phase reconversion upon cooling of the clinker from the calcination temperature. Important differences are therefore observed between the numerical values yielded by the mathematical equations and image analysis quantification. In this study, the concentration of crystalline phases in oilwell cement was determined using Taylor's procedure, which consists in a system of linear equations corresponding to each one of the four main clinker phases. The results revealed an adequate relationship between this method and phase quantification by optical micrography, especially concerning the contents of aluminate and ferrite.
Evaluation of organochlorine pesticide residues and fipronil in Corumbataí river basin, Piracicaba, São Paulo, Brazil

–The basin of the Corumbatai despite their considerable state of preservation, as regards quantity and quality of water, deserves special attention since provide 100% of supply in the city of Piracicaba, SP and other municipalities. Furthermore, in these cities it's expressive the intensive use of land for sugar cane cultivation, where it is used, among other inputs, the pesticide fipronil. Despite the great importance of the basin for the region, there are few studies that demonstrate the impact of agriculture and intensive use of pesticides in water quality. Thus this study has as objective of the environmental monitoring in the basin of the Corumbatai, determining the occurrence of residues of the pesticides fipronil and a group of organochlorines (OCPs), which are: alachlor, chlordane, endosulfan, heptachlor and heptachlor epoxide, lindane, metolachlor and methoxychlor in waters from differents collection points, and validate the methodology for extraction and analysis by gas chromatography (GC-MS). The samples analyzed (40) presented levels of OCPs and fipronil lower than allowed by Brazilian legislation. Keywords––Corumbatai river basin, fipronil, GC-MS, organochlorines, pesticides
Raman Spectroscopy in Polymer Processing Technologies

Presented paper describes the application of Raman spectrometry in polymer processing technologies. Quick and reliable material identification is becoming and serrious issue in polymer processign technologies . Vibrational spectroscopy was long time used in polymer analysis. Preferred technique was the infrared spectroscopy (IR), but actual progress allows easy application of Raman spectroscopy and its main advantages. Raman spectroscopy detects vibrations that generate a change in the molecule's polarizability. The Raman effect arises when a photon is incident on a molecule and interacts with the electric dipole of the molecule. It is a form of electronic (more accurately, vibronic) spectroscopy, although the spectrum contains vibrational frequencies. Modern palm-sized Raman spectrometers allows simplified infield application. Quick online material identification on site is possible, or more specifical material characteristic is possible offline, when evaluating measured data with specialized software.
Title Communication at scale in a MOOC using predictive engagement analytics Permalink

When teaching at scale in the physical classroom or online classroom of a MOOC, the scarce resource of personal instructor communication becomes a differentiating factor between the quality of learning experience available in smaller classrooms. In this paper, through real-time predictive modeling of engagement analytics, we augment a MOOC platform with personalized communication affordances, allowing the instructional staff to direct communication to learners based on individual predictions of three engagement analytics. The three model analytics are the current probability of earning a certificate, of submitting enough materials to pass the class, and of leaving the class and not returning. We engineer an interactive analytics interface in edX which is populated with real-time predictive analytics from a backend API service. The instructor can target messages to, for example, all learners who are predicted to complete all materials but not pass the class. Our approach utilizes the state-of-the-art in recurrent neural network classification, evaluated on a MOOC dataset of 20 courses and deployed in one. We provide evaluation of these courses, comparing a manual feature engineering approach to an automatic feature learning approach using neural networks. Our provided code for the front-end and back-end allows any instructional team to add this personalized communication dashboard to their edX course granted they have access to the historical clickstream data from a previous offering of the course, their course’s daily provided log data, and an external machine to run the model service API.
Digestibility of calcium and digestible calcium from inorganic sources evaluated in swine by two methods

Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Departamento de Zootecnia, Viçosa, Minas Gerais, Brasil. Universidade Federal de São João Del Rei, Departamento de Zootecnia, São João del-Rei, Minas Gerais, Brasil. Universidade Federal do Recôncavo da Bahia, Centro de Ciências Agrárias, Ambientais e Biológicas, Cruz das Almas, Bahia, Brasil. 4 Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso, Departamento de Zootecnia, Sinop, Mato Grosso, Brasil. *Endereço para correspondência: zootecana@gmail.com
pronunciation instruction as an effective means for teaching stress

This study seeks to assess the efficacy of computer-based pronunciation instruction for enabling EFL learners in advanced English language classes at the university level to perceive and produce correct stress patterns. The study focuses on using the communicative approach in learning stress patterns which is based on providing meaningful, interactive, and authentic activities. The findings of the study reveal that computer-assisted pronunciation instruction is effective in improving the EFL learners’ ability to produce and perceive correctly different stress patterns in words, phrases, and sentences, and that students also have a positive attitude toward computer-assisted pronunciation instruction and activities.
Design and Implementation of Timeline Application for News Documents

Shaik, Mastan Vali. M.S., Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Wright State University, 2007. Design and Implementation of Timeline Application for News Documents. The growing News document archive emphasizes the need for efficient techniques to retrieve and visualize its content. We present a timeline based graphical interface for this purpose. The timeline is a graph of number of documents supporting association between entity (event, country, person, etc) etc and event (entity, country, person, etc) with respect to dates. The query is formulated based on entity, event, country, and person metadata extracted from the text of the News documents by analyzing the documents using proprietary name-entity recognizers. The timeline also provides a means to index and access relevant documents. Associations inferred on the basis of document-level metadata are not always correct in the presence of News documents with multiple News stories. The misassociations can be eliminated by requiring paragraph/sentence level co-occurrence of the corresponding phrases. Our refined timeline points are also annotated with cluster labels generated from headlines and sentences. We have decoupled document archive from the GUI by generating metadata for timelines offline, and provided two separate renderings of the timeline using Java and Adobe Flex.
An Efficient Fractal Video Sequences Codec with Multiviews

Multiview video consists of multiple views of the same scene. They require enormous amount of data to achieve high image quality, which makes it indispensable to compress multiview video. Therefore, data compression is a major issue for multiviews. In this paper, we explore an efficient fractal video codec to compress multiviews. The proposed scheme first compresses a view-dependent geometry of the base view using fractal video encoder with homogeneous region condition. With the extended fractional pel motion estimation algorithm and fast disparity estimation algorithm, it then generates prediction images of other views. The prediction image uses the image-based rendering techniques based on the decoded video. And the residual signals are obtained by the prediction image and the original image. Finally, it encodes residual signals by the fractal video encoder. The idea is also to exploit the statistical dependencies from both temporal and interview reference pictures for motion compensated prediction. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is consistently better than JMVC8.5, with 62.25% bit rate decrease and 0.37 dB PSNR increase based on the Bjontegaard metric, and the total encoding time (TET) of the proposed algorithm is reduced by 92%.
Transport properties of iron doped bismuth silicate glass ceramics

The glass ceramics of various compositions 60SiO2. (40- x)Bi2O3.xFe2O3 with x = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 were prepared by annealing the as prepared glasses at temperature ~50oC above the glass transition temperature (Tg), in the electrically heated furnace and then hold the temperature constant for one hour. The ac conductivity of different compositions of iron doped bismuth silicate glass ceramics were studied in the wide temperature range 533 K to 713 K and frequency range 10-1 Hz to 1MHz. The temperature and frequency dependent conductivity was found to obey Jonscher’s power law all the compositions and found to increase with increase in Fe2O3 content. Various parameters like dc conductivity ( dc s ), cross -over frequency ( H w ) and frequency exponent ( s ) were estimated from theoretical fitting of experimental data of ac conductivity with Jonscher’s power law, which showed very good agreement for all the compositions. Enthalpy to dissociate the cations from original site to a charge compensating center (Hf) and enthalpy of migration (Hm) had also been estimated. The conductivity data were analyzed in terms of different theoretical models to determine the possible conduction mechanism. Analysis of the conductivity data and the frequency exponent ‘ s ’ showed that the correlated barrier hopping of electrons between Fe2+ and Fe3+ ions in the glass ceramics was suitable to describe the conduction mechanism for ac conduction. The temperature dependent dc conductivity were analyzed using the theoretical variable range hopping model (VRH) proposed by Mott which describe the hopping conduction in disordered semiconducting glass in low temperature range. The various polaron hopping parameters were also calculated. Greave’s VRH model was found to be in good agreement with experimental data.
Enhancement of Dielectric Properties of Polyamide Enamel Insulation in High Voltage Apparatuses Used in Medical Electronics by Adding Nano Composites of SiO 2 and Al 2 O 3 Fillers

In recent days, there was a significant development on the electrical, thermal, mechanical, physical, chemical, magnetic and optical properties of the polyamide enamel, varnish and other insulating materials by the addition of nano fillers to it. Enamel was used in High Voltage Apparatuses used in Medical Electronics as insulation. Insulating materials determine the life time of the electrical apparatuses. The life time of the insulating materials was improved by the addition of nano fillers to it. Hence the life time of the electrical apparatuses was improved by the mixing of nano fillers to the enamel. In this research, the basic dielectric properties of the enamel and enamel mixed with nano composites of silica and alumina were analyzed and compared with each other. The addition of nano fillers has improved the quality factor and capacitance of the enamel. It was also observed that the addition of nano fillers has reduced the dissipation factor and dielectric losses of the enamel. Heat produced by the dielectric losses was also reduced by adding nano fillers to it.
Role of Genome based Tools in Environmental Microbiology

Genomic investigations into the diversity of environmental microbes are leading to insights into ecological dynamics, the evolution of new forms of biological systems, and the discovery of new functions that might be exploited for biotechnological and biomedical purposes. It is now clear that an understanding of the community structure, function and evolution of bacteria in their natural environments is required to meet the promise of microbial biotechnology. To meet these new challenges, microbiologists are applying the tools of genomics and related highthroughput technologies to both cultured microbes and environmental samples. This work will lead to new views on ecosystems and biological function together with the biotechnology enabled by this science.
Predicting Societal Corruption Across Time

Across cultures, corruption is widely thought to be a destructive social phenomenon. Despite considerable efforts to understand its causes, there are still gaps in our understanding of how country corruption levels change over time. This study provides new insights by comparing the influence of societal values, wealth and political institutions on corruption for 59 countries from 1980 to 2008. Results suggest that self-expression societal values, wealth, and government size separate those countries that are less corrupt from those that are more corrupt. However, within countries, only increasing wealth is related to decreasing corruption, and this relationship varies across countries. This finding suggests that cross-sectional analyses provide an inadequate understanding of the dynamics of corruption over time; and that attempting to import institutions or impose values from low-corruption countries onto high-corruption countries is unlikely to be an effective short-term corruption-reduction strategy.
Alcohol abuse and interventions strategies in Botswana and China: A preliminary study.

Alcohol abuse is a prevalent social problem in both Botswana and China. Research has shown that there are significant costs associated with alcohol abuse that impact on individual users, their families and the society as a whole. Despite the existing intervention strategies in the two countries, alcohol abuse and its related problems continue to escalate. Based on a review of the literature, this paper explores the extent and nature of alcohol abuse experienced in Botswana and China as well as the current strategies used to address alcohol abuse. The literature shows that in both Botswana and China there is a high rate of alcohol abuse, but relatively weak intervention strategies. As a result, this paper concludes by proposing a comparative study based on collaborative research into the strategies of addressing alcohol abuse in both countries with a view to informing public policy.
Teachers’ Perceptions of the Leadership Styles of Middle School Principals and Instructional Leaders

Grade inflation has been a "hot topic" in the higher education literature for some time now, due primarilyto conflicting interpretations of grade-change data. While definitions of grade inflation vary, most seemto indicate that inflation has occurred if a higher grade is awarded without a co-occurring increase instudent achievement, and is the outcome of decreased rigor in the assessment of student learning (seeBoretz 2004; Young and ERIC Clearinghouse on Higher Education 2003). Thus, the controversy is inregard to whether or not reported changes in GPA and grade distributions reflect instructor leniency.
Valued relations aggregation with the borda method

The Borda method is a well known method used to aggregate a profile of crisp binary relations into one weak order. We present a generalization of the Borda method, allowing it to aggregate a profile of valued relations. We give a characterisation of the Borda method in this context and we show some links with the PROMETHEE method.
The (Partisan) Role of the Press in Direct Democratic Campaigns: Evidence from a Swiss Vote on European Integration

This article analyzes the role of the press in direct democratic campaigns. The paper argues the press has a dual role: On news pages, newspapers ought to inform citizens about the issue positions and frames of the pro and con camps in a balanced way. In editorials, newspapers act as political advocates that promote their own issue frames and try to shape public opinion through vot- ing recommendations. Comparing the issue positions and frames in editorials and news reports in the run-up to the vote on the popular initiative ''Yes to Europe'' in Switzerland, this article shows that newspapers give similar visibility to the pro and con camps regardless of the papers' own edito- rial position. However, some newspapers favor issue frames that are in line with their editorial per- spectives. In conclusion, newspapers are more similar in news report content than in editorial views.
Tenure Dependence in Consumer-Firm Relationships: An Empirical Analysis of Consumer Departures from Automobile Insurance Firms

A typical pattern in markets featuring long-term consumer-firm relationships is for departure probabilities to decline with tenure. A crucial question is whether this actually implies increasing consumer preference for firms. If so, firms should actively try to convince consumers to remain through the early periods of the relationship and should enter new markets quickly. However, the pattern can also be explained by selection on unobserved heterogeneity. The challenge is to use the data available in these markets--generally details on the consumers of one firm--to distinguish between these explanations. I rely on individual price histories in auto insurance. Findings include an economically relevant level of both relationship effects and heterogeneity, but a much more important role for heterogeneity.