Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Achieving Organisational Objectives through Human Resource Management Practices

The concerns of human resource management in the organization, is to optimize organizational performance through planned employees satisfaction. Thus achieving organisation’s objectives depends largely on employees’ attitude and behaviours. In this study, relations between selected human resource management practices and organizational objectives were investigated among 201 employees of the Nigeria brewery. Various statistical analytical procedures were applied to validate the samples and address the study’s objectives. Results show that HRM practices is significantly associated with achieving organizational objectives. It also shows that, improving the quality of work induces certain behaviours in the employee who is a source of competitive advantage for the organization. Keywords : Organisational objectives, human resource management, employee behaviours, performance, Nigeria.
Operation and Control of a Hybrid Seven-Level Converter

This paper introduces a novel hybrid seven-level converter that is based on the upgrade of the five-level active neutral-point-clamped converter concept and is suitable for high-power applications. The paper provides a comprehensive analysis for the operation of the converter. Based on the analysis, a space vector modulation (SVM)-based switching strategy that takes advantage of redundant switching vectors of the SVM strategy to counteract the voltage drift phenomenon of the proposed converter is proposed. The limit to the range of operation of the seven-level converter based on the proposed SVM strategy is also presented. It is shown that the ability to stabilize the dc-link capacitor voltages and the per-phase flying capacitors is a function of the converter operating indices, i.e., the load power factor and modulation index. The salient feature of the proposed SVM-based control strategy is that it enables proper operation of the converter with no requirements for additional controls or auxiliary power circuitry, within the specified range of operation. Performance of a converter under various operating conditions, based on the proposed SVM strategy, in the MATLAB/Simulink environment, is evaluated and experimentally demonstrated.
TOWARDS INDIRECT TISSUE SCAFFOLD FABRICATION VIA ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING AND HYDROXYAPATITE MINERALIZATION

Unlike traditional stochastic scaffold fabrication techniques, additive manufacturing (AM) can be used to create tissue-specific three-dimensional scaffolds with controlled porosity and pore geometry. Directly fabricating scaffolds through AM methods is limited because of the relatively few biocompatible materials available for processing in AM machines. To alleviate these material limitations, an indirect fabrication method is proposed. Specifically, the authors investigate the use of Fused Deposition Modeling to fabricate scaffold patterns of varied pore size and geometry. The scaffold patterns are then mineralized with a biocompatible ceramic (hydroxyapatite). A heat treatment is then used to pyrolyze the pattern and to sinter the thin ceramic coating. The result is a biocompatible ceramic scaffold composed of hollow tubes, which may promote attachment of endothelial cells and vascularization [1]. In this paper, the authors explore the scaffold pattern fabrication and mineralization processes. Two scaffold pattern materials are tested [acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and investment cast wax (ICW)] to determine which material is the most appropriate for scaffold mineralization and sintering. While the ICW could not be thoroughly mineralized despite a sodium hydroxide surface treatment, the ABS patterns were successfully mineralized following an oxygen plasma surface treatment. A 0.004 mm mineral coating was found on the ABS patterns that featured a strut offset of 0.3 mm, which is in the range of appropriate pore size for bone tissue engineering [2].
Clonal Population of Adult Stem Cells: Life Span and Differentiation Potential

Adult stem cells derived from bone marrow, connective tissue, and solid organs can exhibit a range of differentiation potentials. Some controversy exists regarding the classification of mesenchymal stem cells as bona fide stem cells, which is in part derived from the limited ability to propagate true clonal populations of precursor cells. We isolated putative mesenchymal stem cells from the connective tissue of an adult rat (rMSC), and generated clonal populations via three rounds of dilutional cloning. The replicative potential of the clonal rMSC line far exceeded Hayflick's limit of 50–70 population doublings. The high capacity for self-renewal in vitro correlated with telomerase activity, as demonstrated by telomerase repeat amplification protocol (TRAP) assay. Exposure to nonspecific differentiation culture medium revealed multilineage differentiation potential of rMSC clones. Immunostaining confirmed the appearance of mesodermal phenotypes, including adipocytes possessing lipid-rich vacuoles, chondrocytes depositing pericellular type II collagen, and skeletal myoblasts expressing MyoD1. Importantly, the spectrum of differentiation capability was sustained through repeated passaging. Furthermore, serum-free conditions that led to high-efficiency smooth muscle differentiation were identified. rMSCs plated on collagen IV-coated surfaces and exposed to transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1) differentiated into a homogeneous population expressing α-actin and calponin. Hence, clonogenic analysis confirmed the presence of a putative MSC population derived from the connective tissue of rat skeletal muscle. The ability to differentiate into a smooth muscle cell (SMC) phenotype, combined with a high proliferative capacity, make such a connective tissue-derived MSC population ideal for applications in vascular tissue construction.
Research into the Potential to Adapt and Establish of the invasive Asian Tiger Mosquito Aedes (Stegomyia) albopictus (SKUSE)

There is general agreement that the former (breeding) macrohabitat of the Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus (synonym: Stegomyia albopicta) has been described as phytotelmata in the forested areas of Southeast Asia, however, this has changed in the last four decades as it has adapted to more urban areas and antrotelmata. Capable of producing eggs with a certain dry resistance as well as cold hardiness, populations of Ae. albopictus became distributed around the globe. The invasion of the Ae. albopictus across all over the world is thought to be the most rapid spread of any insect species in the last four decades in tropical, subtropical and temperate climate zones. In addition, Ae. albopictus is a potential vector for at least 27 viruses as well as for several parasites and plays a major role in the global transmission of dengue virus and chikungunya virus; and its contribution to the rapid spread of zika virus is currently under investigation. Therefore, this species is considered a serious threat to public health worldwide. This work broaches the issue of three investigations about the potential to adapt and establish stabile populations of the invasive Asian tiger mosquito Ae. albopictus. As a result of these investigations, a high potential for this species to become a threat to public health in many more countries, especially in temperate climatic zones, can be seen. Due to the fact on the one hand that Ae. albopictus can gain fitness advantages due to misapplied vector control measures and on the other hand of the high epigenetically adaptation potential, it is in summary recommended to focus further research on the development of vaccinations for viruses and other pathogens. By doing so, citizens will be protected without putting ecosystems and their services in danger and it is the even more economic solution.
Effects of Arfaptin 1 on Guanine Nucleotide-dependent Activation of Phospholipase D and Cholera Toxin by ADP-ribosylation Factor*

Arfaptin 1, a ∼39-kDa protein based on the deduced amino acid sequence, had been initially identified in a yeast two-hybrid screen using dominant active ARF3 (Q71L) as bait with an HL-60 cDNA library. It was suggested that arfaptin 1 may be involved in Golgi functions, since the FLAG-tagged protein was associated with Golgi membranes when expressed in COS-7 cells and could be bound to Golgi in vitro in an ADP-ribosylation factor (ARF)- and GTPγS-dependent, brefeldin A-inhibited fashion. Arfaptin 2, found in the same two-hybrid screen as arfaptin 1, is 60% identical in amino acid sequence and may or may not have an analogous function. We now report some effects of arfaptin 1 on ARF activation of phospholipase D and cholera toxin ADP-ribosyltransferase. Arfaptin 1 inhibited activation of both enzymes in a concentration-dependent manner and was without effect in the absence of ARF. Two ARF1 mutants that activated the toxin, one lacking 13 N-terminal amino acids and the other, in which 73 residues at the N terminus were replaced with the analogous sequence from ARL1, were not inhibited by arfaptin, consistent with the conclusion that arfaptin interaction requires the N terminus of ARF. This region has also been implicated in phospholipase D activation, but whether the two proteins interact with the same structural elements in ARF remains to be determined. Arfaptin inhibition of the action of ARF5 and ARF6 was less than that of ARF1 and ARF3; its effects were less on nonmyristoylated than myristoylated ARFs. Arfaptin effects on guanine nucleotide binding by ARFs were minimal whether or not a purified ARF guanine nucleotide-exchange protein was present. These findings indicate that arfaptin acts as an inhibitor of ARF actions in vitro, raising the possibility that it has a similar rolein vivo.
Zone 2 Flexor Tendon Repair in Young Children: A Comparative Study of Four-Strand Versus Two-Strand Repair

This study compares the active ranges of finger motion and rupture rates of two-strand and four-strand repairs in zone 2 flexor tendon lacerations in young children. A total of 29 patients (under the age of 4 years) with 32 flexor tendon lacerations in zone 2 were evaluated. The injured tendons were randomly repaired with either two-strand or four-strand modified Strickland techniques. At a mean follow-up period of 11 months, the mean total active motion of interphalangeal joints was 156° in the two-strand and 158° in the four-strand group. According to the Strickland original method, this means an average of 89% (range 57–100%) of normal function in the two-strand and 90% (range 60–100%) in the four-strand group. There were no ruptures of the four-strand repairs, but one two-strand repair failed within 3 weeks of the repair. Statistically, we were not able to show any significant difference in the active ranges of finger motion achieved with two-strand and four-strand repairs.
cystatins: protein inhibitors of cysteine proteinases

The iast decade has witnessed enormous progress of protein inhibitors of cysteine proteinases concerning their structures, functions and evolutionary relationships. Although they differ in their molecular properties and biological distribution, they are structurally related proteins. All three inhibitory families, the stetins, the cystatins and the kininogens, are members of the same superfamily. Recently determined crystal structures of chicken cystatin and human stefin B established a new mechanism of interaction between cysteine proteinases and their inhibitors which is fundamentally different from the standard mechanism for serine proteinases and their inhibitors.
Electromagnetic detection of dielectric scatterers using phaseless synthetic and real data and the memetic algorithm

Phaseless data are used to evaluate the application of an electromagnetic inverse-scattering-based procedure for the detection of cylindrical inhomogeneities, which are schematized as multilayer infinite dielectric cylinders with elliptic cross sections. The electromagnetic inverse problem is recast as a global optimization problem and iteratively solved by an efficient memetic algorithm, which combines deterministic and stochastic concepts. Moreover, a recursive analytical procedure is used for the forward-scattering computation. The possibility of localizing and reconstructing the scatterers by using phaseless input data, which would greatly simplify the design of the imaging apparatus, is evaluated both with reference to synthetically produced data and by means of experimental data obtained by a microwave tomograph.
Health Resources in a 200,000 Urban Indian Population Argues the Need for a Policy on Private Sector Health Services

Background: There are limited primary data on the number of urban health care providers in private practice in developing countries like India. These data are needed to construct and test models that measure the efficacy of public stewardship of private sector health services. Objective: This study reports the number and characteristics of health resources in a 200 000 urban population in Pune. Materials and Methods: Data on health providers were collected by walking through the 15.46 sq km study area. Enumerated data were compared with existing data sources. Mapping was carried out using a Global Positioning System device. Metrics and characteristics of health resources were analyzed using ArcGIS 10.0 and Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, Version 16.0 software. Results: Private sector health facilities constituted the majority (424/426, 99.5%) of health care services. Official data sources were only 39% complete. Doctor to population ratios were 2.8 and 0.03 per 1000 persons respectively in the private and public sector, and the nurse to doctor ratio was 0.24 and 0.71, respectively. There was an uneven distribution of private sector health services across the area (2-118 clinics per square kilometre). Bed strength was forty-fold higher in the private sector. Conclusions: Mandatory registration of private sector health services needs to be implemented which will provide an opportunity for public health planners to utilize these health resources to achieve urban health goals.
Inhibition of growth hormone release in humans by somatostatin.

ABSTRACT Synthetic (linear) somatostatin (SRIF, somatotropin-release inhibiting factor) abolished the elevation of serum GH concentration induced in normal human subjects by the administration of L-dopa and arginine. Within the dose used (250 μg, iv and 500 μg constant infusion) somatostatin. did not inhibit the rise in circulating PRL normally observed with arginine infusion nor did it modify basal levels of serum GH, TSH, PRL, FSH and LH.
An analysis of AERONET aerosol absorption properties and classifications representative of aerosol source regions

[1] Partitioning of mineral dust, pollution, smoke, and mixtures using remote sensing techniques can help improve accuracy of satellite retrievals and assessments of the aerosol radiative impact on climate. Spectral aerosol optical depth (τ) and single scattering albedo (ωo) from Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) measurements are used to form absorption (i.e., ωo and absorption Angstrom exponent (αabs)) and size (i.e., extinction Angstrom exponent (αext) and fine mode fraction of τ) relationships to infer dominant aerosol types. Using the long-term AERONET data set (1999–2010), 19 sites are grouped by aerosol type based on known source regions to (1) determine the averageωo and αabs at each site (expanding upon previous work), (2) perform a sensitivity study on αabs by varying the spectral ωo, and (3) test the ability of each absorption and size relationship to distinguish aerosol types. The spectral ωo averages indicate slightly more aerosol absorption (i.e., a 0.0 < δωo ≤ 0.02 decrease) than in previous work, and optical mixtures of pollution and smoke with dust show stronger absorption than dust alone. Frequency distributions of αabs show significant overlap among aerosol type categories, and at least 10% of the αabs retrievals in each category are below 1.0. Perturbing the spectral ωo by ±0.03 induces significant αabs changes from the unperturbed value by at least ∼±0.6 for Dust, ∼±0.2 for Mixed, and ∼±0.1 for Urban/Industrial and Biomass Burning. The ωo440nm and αext440–870nmrelationship shows the best separation among aerosol type clusters, providing a simple technique for determining aerosol type from surface- and future space-based instrumentation.
Cost analysis with input extension in time optimal control

Due to the popularity of the input redundant systems, this paper focused on the problem of input extension which concerns about the effect of adding new input redundancy into a controllable system. According to the time optimal control problem, such effect is evaluated by the optimal time. Based on the assumption of the existence and uniqueness of the optimal control, this paper proves that the more input redundancy a system possesses the less time is needed to drive it from a same initial state to the origin point if at least one redundant input channel is not an idle channel. Moreover, the normality of the extended optimal control problem will guarantee that all of the input redundant channels will be used to short the optimal time. Finally, two numerical examples are deployed to demonstrate the main results in this paper.
Two-dimensional MMSE channel estimation for OFDM systems with transmitter diversity

A two-dimensional pilot-symbol aided (2-D PSA) channel estimation technique for coherent orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) systems with transmitter diversity is proposed. The 2-D PSA channel estimator and the corresponding orthogonality condition of the set of pilot symbols are derived under minimum mean-square error (MMSE) criterion for OFDM systems with transmitter diversity. The proposed estimator is shown to be accurate and effective for tracking variations of channels between multiple transmitter antennas and receiver antennas.
A Comparative Study of Operating Angle Optimization of Switched Reluctance Motor with Robust Speed Controller using PSO and GA

This paper’s focus is in reducing the torque ripple and increasing the average torque by optimizing switching angles of 8/6 switched reluctance motor while implementing a robust speed controller in the outer loop. The mathematical model of the machine is developed and it is simulated using MATLAB/Simulink. An objective function and constraints are formulated and Optimum turn-on and turn-off angles are determined using Particle swarm optimization and Genetic Algorithm techniques. The novelty of this paper lies in implementing sliding mode speed controller with optimized angles. The results from both the optimization techniques are then compared with initial angles with one of them clearly being the better option. Speed response is compared with PID controller.
Merger dynamics: Using system dynamics for the conceptual integration of a fragmented knowledge base

Purpose – Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) have drawn the attention of researchers for several decades. Many studies have investigated the factors apparently influencing the success of an M&A deal, leading to an extensive, yet extremely fragmented body of knowledge. Although the logical quest for integration has been expressed by several authors, in most cases investigations focus only on details of M&As. The aim of this paper is to offer a different way of synthesis that allows testing well‐established theories of post‐merger integration processes. Design/methodology/approach – With the help of a literature‐based system dynamics (SD) model, the paper opens up a new perspective on the organizational processes occurring during post‐merger integration. Particular emphasis is put on the investigation of capability transfer, the change of corporate culture, and the employees' perception of the integration process. Findings – The model‐based analysis delivers explanations for the contradicting results of many empirical studies, based on the structural integration of a broad body of knowledge and the analysis of simulation runs. The paper suggests that SD models may be used as a means to achieve a more consistent conceptual integration than usual “theoretical frameworks” can provide. Research limitations/implications – Since the model is primarily based on theoretical ideas, an empirical validation of results seems most critical. Additionally, the linkage to organizational performance measures may need additional modelling effort. Practical implications – The paper demonstrates the various interrelationships between organizational capabilities, culture, and employee commitment of two merging companies. Originality/value – The paper is one of the few that strives for an integrated perspective on post‐merger phenomena.
Carotenoids as Potential Antioxidant Agents in Stroke Prevention: A Systematic Review

Stroke and other cerebrovascular diseases are among the most common causes of death worldwide. Prevention of modifiable risk factors is a cost-effective approach to decrease the risk of stroke. Oxidative stress is regarded as the major flexible operative agent in ischemic brain damage. This review presents recent scientific advances in understanding the role of carotenoids as antioxidants in lowering stroke risk based on observational studies. We searched Medline using the following terms: (Carotenoids [MeSH] OR Carotenes [tiab] OR Carotene [tiab] OR “lycopene [Supplementary Concept]” [MeSH] OR lycopene [tiab] OR beta-Carotene [tiab]) AND (stroke [MeSH] OR stroke [tiab] OR “Cerebrovascular Accident” [tiab] OR “Cerebrovascular Apoplexy” [tiab] OR “Brain Vascular Accident” [tiab] OR “Cerebrovascular Stroke” [tiab]) AND (“oxidative stress” [MeSH] OR “oxidative stress”[tiab]). This search considered papers that had been published between 2000 and 2017. Recent studies indicated that high dietary intake of six main carotenoids (i.e., lycopene, <- and®-carotene, lutein, zeaxanthin, and astaxanthin) was associated with reduced risk of stroke and other cardiovascular outcomes. However, the main mechanism of the action of these nutrients was not identified, and multiple mechanisms except antioxidant activity were suggested to be involved in the observed beneficial effects. The dietary intake of six major carotenoids should be promoted as this may have a substantial positive effect on stroke prevention and stroke mortality reduction.
Linear relations between proton current and pH gradient in bacteriorhodopsin liposomes.

The dependence of proton movement across the membrane of bacteriorhodopsin liposomes on the pH gradient was investigated. Under the appropriate experimental conditions, endogenous proton (or hydroxyl) leakage, proton movement catalyzed by protonophore or nigericin, and light-driven proton translocation depend linearly on the pH gradient. This justifies the use of linear proton flux vs. protonmotive force relations in a recent mosaic thermodynamic description of ion translocation in bacteriorhodopsin liposomes [Westerhoff, H. V. , Scholte, B. J., & Hellingwerf, K. J. (1979) Biochim. Biophys. Acta 547, 544-560]. Since bacteriorhodopsin liposomes are a model system for all biological energy transducing systems in which proton pumps are involved, these findings also explain linear relations between proton flux and protonmotive force observed in and postulated for those systems. In cases where the membrane potential is not clamped at a low value, an initial phase of rapid proton movement occurs, followed by a phase of slower proton movement. The rate of proton movement during the slow phase is again linear with the pH gradient. Such a linear relation is not observed for the fast phase. Since the rapid proton movement phase is also observed in liposomes without bacteriorhodopsin, it is not due (only) to dissociation of scalar protons from bacteriorhodopsin. We suggest that during the initial phase of proton movement, the proton flux is not yet electrically compensated by the fluxes of other ions.