Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sulfation of Glycosaminoglycan Hydrogels Instructs Cell Fate and Chondral versus Endochondral Lineage Decision of Skeletal Stem Cells In Vivo

Exit from multipotency and lineage commitment of mesenchymal stroma cells (MSC) depends on microenvironmental cues from the stem‐cell niche but steering cell fate into the desired lineage in vivo remains a challenge. Increasing evidence suggests that glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) can be used to activate or sequester growth factors with the specific action depending on sulfation levels. It is postulated that differentially sulfated biomaterials can aid developmental lineage instruction of MSC to guide tissue morphogenesis in vivo. By application of a new injectable TGFβ‐loaded heparin‐PEG‐hydrogel the authors here gain the ability to control skeletal stem‐cell fate in vivo down the chondral versus the endochondral pathway depending on the sulfation status. High sulfation allows for long‐term TGFβ‐retention and silencing of Hedgehog‐, BMP‐, and WNT‐pathways installing prochondrogenic and antihypertrophic cues which permitted in vivo growth of permanent, collagen‐type‐II‐rich neocartilage with long‐term resistance to calcification and bone formation. Selective 6‐O/N‐desulfation of heparin supports Hedgehog/BMP/WNT‐signaling switching lineage commitment into endochondral differentiation with strong hypertrophic/osteogenic marker expression and tissue calcification. This work identifies GAG sulfation as a crucial niche instruction signal to determine the chondral stem‐cell fate via silencing of prohypertrophic pathways, providing the first proof‐of‐principle on how GAG modification‐patterns can determine cell lineage‐choice during tissue morphogenesis in vivo.
Human Herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) Encephalitis in a Non-Transplant Patient With Polymyositis

Human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) was initially labeled as a human B lymphotropic virus because it was isolated in patients diagnosed with lymphoproliferative disorders. There are two variants of HHV-6: HHV-6A and HHV-6B. A considerable majority of recorded primary infections and reactivation events are primarily due to HHV-6B. We report a case of HHV-6 encephalitis reactivation in a 75-year-old Caucasian diabetic female with a past medical history of polymyositis treated with prednisone for a long time who presented with generalized weakness and drowsiness. She developed her symptoms after contact with her grandchildren, who recently had viral-like symptoms treated with antibiotics. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain without contrast showed 14 mm high transverse relaxation time (T2)/fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) signal intensity focus on the left temporal lobe, suspicious for primary versus metastatic neoplasm. Cerebrospinal fluid analysis found that protein concentration was 75 mg/dl, glucose concentration 55 mg/dl, white blood cell count was 22/mm3, with a lymphocytic predominance. Meningitis/encephalitis polymerase chain reaction (PCR) panel detected HHV-6. She was discharged after treatment with ganciclovir for 14 days. It is crucial to recognize HHV-6 infections in immunocompromised patients who present with a T2/FLAIR signal intensity focus in the left temporal lobe. In a hospital setting, rapid HHV-6 encephalitis testing is important to make a correct diagnosis to avoid any delay to prevent further morbidity and mortality.
Evaluación del grado de competitividad de cinco empresas del sector lechero de Sincelejo, Colombia

The dairy agribusiness is struggling in the middle of competitive forces that affect their strategy and survival. Hence, they have to build sustainable competitive advantages to foster growth and development. Doing so, companies must create a baseline of its present and then, define the corresponding strategies. This document evaluates de degree of competitiveness of five dairy companies in Sincelejo, Colombia through a case study that applied a questionnaire inspired in the functional areas of the enterprise. The questionnaire inquired on elements in the following categories: production, marketing, finances, administration and human talent. We conclude that the level of competitiveness of the analyzed companies is low where the components of production, administration and human talent, have a better performance compared to marketing and finance.
Development of Optimal Control System for Air Separation Unit

In this paper, We described the method which developed the optimal control system for air separation unit to change production rates frequently and rapidly. Control models of the process were developed from actual plant data using subspace identification method which is developed by many researchers in resent years. The model consist of a series connection of linear dynamic block and static nonlinear block (Wiener model). The model is controlled by model based predictive controller. In MPC the input is calculated by on-line optimization of a performance index based on predictions by the model, subject to possible constraints. To calculate the optimal the performance index, conditions are expressed by LMI(Linear Matrix Inequalities). In order to access at the Bailey DCS system, we applied the OPC server and developed the Client program. The OPC sever is a device which can access Bailey DCS system.The Client program is developed based on the Matlab language for easy calculation,data simulation and data logging. Using this program, we can apply the optimal input to the DCS system at real time.
Electronic Instrument Handbook

Introduction to electronic instruments and measurements: calibration, traceability and standards electrical standards data acquisition transducers analogue to digital conversion signal sources microwave signal sources digital signal processors microprocessors power supplies user interfaces. Current and voltage measurement instruments: voltage, current and resistance instruments oscilloscopes power measurements. Signal and waveform generation instruments: oscillators pulse generators microsignals. Frequency and time measurement instruments: counters precision timers spectrum analyzers. Lightwave test and measurement instruments: lightwave signal sources lightwave signal analyzers lightwave component analyzers optical time domain reflectometers. Circuit element measurement instruments: impedance measuring semiconductor test instruments network analyzers. Digital domain instruments: logic analyzers protocol analyzers bit error rate. Microwave passive devices. Using electronic instruments: impedance considerations electrical inference electrical grounding distributed parameters and component considerations digital interface issues. Instruments in systems: introduction to instrument systems switches in an automated test system instrument system elements modular instruments. Software and connectivity for instrumentation: software and instrumentation distributed measurement network connections instrument drivers graphical user interfaces virtual instruments and software defined instruments. Distributed and networked instrumentation: smart sensors Internet.
Vocabulary Control in Nautical Information Resources

Abstract Nautical charts are an essential information resource for safe navigation. However, they are not only a useful resource for navigators; According to the International Hydrological Organization (IHO), they essentially fulfill two functions: 1) Maritime navigation, since most hydrographic services have the obligation to provide coverage of the nautical charts of their national waters, in all coastal waters, including major ports and smaller marinas of purely local interest. and 2) as a source of information, since national nautical charts present a detailed configuration of the seabed. Information on the shape of the seabed is required by a diversity of users in addition to navigators; for example, engineers interested in onshore construction, dredging contractors, oceanographers, defense agencies, coastal zone managers, etc. Traditionally, there are three essential elements that play an important role in information retrieval: title, author, and subject access point. Among the latter, one can distinguish indexing by natural language and by controlled vocabularies. The thematic access points, makes it easier for the user to search and retrieve all types of resources that satisfy their information needs. Traditionally in the processing of nautical charts the natural language is used predominantly, motivated by a lack of availability of a controlled vocabulary specific to the área in Spanish. The objective of this work is aimed at establishing the criteria for the construction of a controlled vocabulary in Spanish in the field of nautical charts.
Managing conflict and compatibility of use: A case study of stakeholder groups associated with blue crabs (Callinectes sapidus) in coastal North Carolina

Coastal zone management has become an increasingly important topic as coastal populations continue to grow and the numerous ocean and coastal uses associated with coastal development exert tremendous pressure on the marine environment and its resources. Marine spatial planning (MSP) is a process that can help direct when and where multiple coastal activities take place, and can also make areas of conflicting and compatible uses more visible to fisheries and coastal managers. Stakeholders in North Carolina are concerned about the sustainability of the economically and culturally significant blue crab fishery after significantly reduced landings during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Managers are currently exploring the relationships among stakeholder groups whose activities impact the blue crab including navigational dredgers, shrimp trawlers, commercial crab and oyster dredgers, and blue crab potters. Identifying conflicting interactions between blue crab potting and navigational dredging, shrimp trawling, and commercial crab and oyster dredging may improve management and add valuable information to marine spatial planning efforts in North Carolina’s coastal zone. Through 25 semi-structured interviews with fishermen (blue crab potters, shrimp trawlers, commercial crab and oyster dredgers), fisheries and coastal managers, and Army Corps of Engineers’ staff in cities and towns along the coast of North Carolina, this study examines how these stakeholder groups perceive crab potting to interact with navigational dredging, shrimp trawling, and commercial crab and oyster
Gendered Labor Market (dis)advantages in Nordic Welfare States. Introduction to the Theme of the Special Issue

Gender equality has been named as one of the normative foundations of Nordic wel- fare states. This is reflected in how, year after year, Nordic states rank among the most gender egalitarian countries in the world (see, e.g., World Economic Forum 2020). In Nordic countries, the state has been, and continues to be, a central actor in shaping women’s citizenship, labor market opportunities, and caring roles. Especially publicly funded welfare services and policies that facilitate the reconciliation of work and care have played a major part in advancing women’s labor market participation (see, e.g., Bergquist et al. 1999; Borchorst & Siim 2002; Ellingsæter & Leira 2006; Siim & Stoltz 2015). The institutional framework of Nordic welfare state policies has been central to what has been called the ‘social democratic public service route’ (Walby 2004). One of the important building blocks of gender equality has been the aim of making policies in Nordic countries ‘women-friendly’. More than 30 years ago, Helga Hernes (1987) identified the Nordic countries as ‘potentially women-friendly societies’. She characterized women-friendly societies as those that ‘would not force harder choices on women than on men’ (ibid., 15), particularly in relation to work and care. Hernes also envisaged that woman-friendliness should be achieved without increasing other forms of inequality, such as class or ethnicity-based inequalities among different groups of women.However, achieving gender equality in working life and the sort of women- friendliness that Hernes envisaged at the societal level has in many ways also proved to be challenging, as the ties between the state and gender equality goals are more complex than what they might seem at first glance. Gender disparities have proven persistent also within the Nordic context. When we issued a call for this special issue, we were interested in various forms of gendered labor market (dis)advantage in Nordic countries. Furthermore, we asked how gender segregation, welfare state policies, labor marketpolicies, and various labor market actors interact to produce, maintain, challenge, or change gender equality in the labor market in the Nordic countries and beyond. The five articles presented in this special issue address the issue of gendered labor market (dis)advantages in Nordic countries from several vantage points, focusing on both on ‘traditional’ questions, such as corporate power and sustainable employment, and ‘emerging’ questions such as intersectionality, gender culture, and aesthetic work.
Potential Effects of Resveratrol on Obesity Markers of Iraqi Women

Obesity is defined as a condition of chronic oxidative stress and chronic systemic inflammation, and it is associated with many health problems. Resveratrol is a polyphenolic compound noted to exert beneficial effects on various diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, atherosclerosis, diabetes mellitus, and nephropathy. The healthful effects of resveratrol are thought to be attributed to its antioxidant properties. In this interventional prospective randomized controlled trial, female patients diagnosed with obesity according to the WHO criteria and were randomly allocated to either control or resveratrol group. Resveratrol supplement showed a significant reduction in weight, body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC). From the above results, one can conclude that oral supplementation of resveratrol can improve Anthropometric parameters.
Validation of the Kazakh-language version of the World Health Organization's WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire on the quality of life among the elderly population of Aktobe city

Introduction: In Kazakhstan, as the phenomenon of population aging becomes more and more relevant, an increasing number of researchers in the field of medicine are studying health-related problems that arise at this age. During these studies, many scientists are wondering: how to accurately measure the quality of life of older people? In our country, the most used tools for conducting this assessment are the SF-36 questionnaire, while the widely used worldwide tools WHOQOL-100 and its short version WHOQOL-BREF are rarely evaluated and used in the Republic of Kazakhstan. Thus, the aim of this study was to determine the psychometric properties of the Kazakh-language version of the World Health Organization's Short Quality of Life Questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF) in a pilot study. Material and methods: The WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire was subjected to translation procedures according to the instructions of WHOQOL (WHO) and a pilot study was conducted in a group of elderly respondents (>60 years old) living in the city of Aktobe. The WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire consists of 26 questions, which are divided into 4 areas (physical health, emotional health, social factors, environment). The reliability and validity of the questionnaire was evaluated with the determination of the Alpha-Cronbach's index, as well as the assessment of the intra-class correlation (ICC). The statistical significance was set at 0.05. The software package SPSS v. 10.0 was used for the analysis. Results: The average age of the participants was 67.3±5.03 years, and the overall WHOQOL-BREF score was 76.02 ±11.86. Overall, 60% of the participants were women. The alpha values for each of the spheres and the overall index (>0.70) and the overall correlation of the elements were satisfactory. The confirmatory analysis of the intra-class correlation showed high ICC values (more than 0.74) for each of the spheres. Conclusion: The psychometric properties of the Kazakh version of WHOQOL-BREF were acceptable.
Some fear, more loathing? Threats and anxieties shaping protective gun ownership and gun carry in the U.S.

ABSTRACT Given notable recent spikes in gun purchases in the U.S., we revisit the ‘fear and loathing’ hypothesis of firearm demand by (1) establishing how crime/victimization fears are shaped by broader economic, cultural, and racial status anxieties (those emerging from group status threats [loathing]) and (2) illustrating how both fear and loathing matter for protective gun ownership and gun carry (among owners), and openness to future protective ownership among non-owners. Using data from a nationwide survey of adults in the U.S. (n = 2,262) collected in 2019, we find that fears of crime and victimization are often more strongly associated with status anxieties than with safety threats. Both status anxieties and victimization are associated with protective ownership and carry. Among non-owners, those higher in cultural anxiety are especially likely to be open toward future protective gun ownership. This study illustrates the multidimensional fear-guns link, wherein both status-related threats and victimization-related fears shape why individuals own guns, and how they use guns.
Retrograde melting in transition metal-silicon systems : thermodynamic modeling, experimental verification, and potential application

A theoretical framework is presented in this work for retrograde melting in silicon driven by the retrograde solubility of low-concentration metallic solutes at temperatures above the binary eutectic. High enthalpy of formation of point defects in silicon leads to retrograde solubility for a number of solutes, including many 3d transition metals. The Ni-Si system is used to demonstrate that in silicon under supersaturated conditions, such solutes precipitate out into liquid droplets. Synchrotron-based Xray Absorption Microspectroscopy measurements provide experimental confirmation of such phase transitions and the underlying thermodynamics. Finally, the potential for using retrograde melting to improve the electronic minority carrier lifetime of low quality silicon solar cell materials is considered. Thesis Supervisor: Tonio Buonassisi Title: Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Octave-Band Thresholds for Modeled Reverberant Fields

Auditory thresholds for 10 subjects were obtained for speech stimuli reverberation. The reverberation was produced and manipulated by 3-D audio modeling based on an actual room. The independent variables were octave-band-filtering (bypassed, 0.25 - 2.0 kHz Fc) and reverberation time (0.2- 1.1 sec). An ANOVA revealed significant effects (threshold range: -19 to -35 dB re 60 dB SRL).
Legal and illegal cartels in Germany between 1958 and 2004

This paper offers a new and broad insight into the landscape of German cartels, utilizing a unique dataset of all illegal horizontal cartels detected by the German Federal Cartel Office (FCO) between 1958 and 2004 and all legal cartels authorized during the same time period. We also provide the first comparison of legal and illegal cartels in Germany. Legal cartels tend to last longer and to have more members than illegal cartels, while there are little differences with respect to the industries involved. The construction industries are the most cartelized sectors in Germany (29.8% of all legal cartels, 43.2% of all illegal cartels) followed by manufacture of metals and machinery (21.9% of all legal cartels, 30.6% of all illegal cartels). How the number of cartel members affects the duration of cartels is ambiguous. Cartels with no more than 12 members tend to last longer than cartels with more than 12 members. However, cartels with 5 to 12 members also tend to last longer than cartels with less than 5 members.
Abnormal bile acid metabolism is an important feature of gut microbiota and fecal metabolites in patients with slow transit constipation

Destructions in the intestinal ecosystem are implicated with changes in slow transit constipation (STC), which is a kind of intractable constipation characterized by colonic motility disorder. In order to deepen the understanding of the structure of the STC gut microbiota and the relationship between the gut microbiota and fecal metabolites, we first used 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing to evaluate the gut microbiota in 30 STC patients and 30 healthy subjects. The α-diversity of the STC group was changed to a certain degree, and the β-diversity was significantly different, which indicated that the composition of the gut microbiota of STC patients was inconsistent with healthy subjects. Among them, Bacteroides, Parabacteroides, Desulfovibrionaceae, and Ruminiclostridium were significantly upregulated, while Subdoligranulum was significantly downregulated. The metabolomics showed that different metabolites between the STC and the control group were involved in the process of bile acids and lipid metabolism, including taurocholate, taurochenodeoxycholate, taurine, deoxycholic acid, cyclohexylsulfamate, cholic acid, chenodeoxycholate, arachidonic acid, and 4-pyridoxic acid. We found that the colon histomorphology of STC patients was significantly disrupted, and TGR5 and FXR were significantly downregulated. The differences in metabolites were related to changes in the abundance of specific bacteria and patients’ intestinal dysfunction. Analysis of the fecal genomics and metabolomics enabled separation of the STC from controls based on random forest model prediction [STC vs. control (14 gut microbiota and metabolite biomarkers)—Sensitivity: 1, Specificity: 0.877]. This study provided a perspective for the diagnosis and intervention of STC related with abnormal bile acid metabolism.
Use of Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation in Patients with Refractory Cardiac Arrest due to Severe Persistent Hypothermia: About 2 Case Reports and a Review of the Literature

We report the cases of two patients experiencing persistent severe hypothermia. They were 45 and 30 years old and had a witnessed cardiac arrest managed with mechanized cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) for 4 and 2.5 hours, respectively. Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation was used in both patients who fully recovered without any neurological sequelae. These two cases illustrate the important role of extracorporeal CPR (eCPR) in persistent severe hypothermia leading to cardiac arrest.