C57BL/6 (B6)-derived embryonic stem (ES) cells are not widely used to generate knockout mice despite the advantage of a well-defined genetic background because of poor developmental potential. We newly established serum- and feeder-free B6 ES cells with full developmental potential by using leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) and 6-bromoindirubin-3'-oxime (BIO), a glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK3)...

Added credits to the s∗ACM-ES algorithm. Section 1 Added references and clarified the motivation. Section 3 Added references. Abstract: The interest in accelerating black-box optimizers has resulted in several surrogate model-assisted version of the Covariance Matrix Adaptation Evolution Strategy, a state-of-the-art continuous black-box optimizer. The version called Surrogate CMA-ES uses Gaussi...

This paper formulates an edge-based smoothed point interpolation method (ES-PIM) for solid mechanics using three-node triangular meshes. In the ES-PIM, displacement fields are construed using the point interpolation method (polynomial PIM or radial PIM), and hence the shape functions possess the Kronecker delta property, facilitates the enforcement of Dirichlet boundary conditions. Strains are ...

There are tremendous theoretical, methodological and policy challenges in evaluating the impact of land-use change on the degradation of ecosystem services (ES) at the regional scale. This study addresses these challenges by developing an interdisciplinary methodology based on the Procedure for Ecological Tiered Assessment of Risk (PETAR). This novel methodology integrates ecological models wit...

Embryonic stem (ES) cells offer unprecedented opportunities for in vitro drug discovery and safety assessment of compounds. Cardiomyocytes derived from ES cells enable development of predictive cardiotoxicity models to increase the safety of novel drugs. Heterogeneity of differentiated ES cells limits the development of reliable in vitro models for compound screening. We report an innovative an...

This paper measured the value at risk (VaR) and expected shortfall (ES) of the US Treasury yield changes. The US Treasury yield data were tested and found to be not normally distributed. Consequently, the mixture normal model (MNM) was used to improve the delta normal VaR and ES measures. It performed extraordinarily well in all cases, based on bootstrapping and mean square error tests. In addi...

background: the failure of regeneration after spinal cord injury (sci) has been attributed to axonal demyelination and neuronal death. cellular replacement and white matter regeneration are both necessary for sci repair. in this study, we evaluated the co-transplantation of olfactory ensheathing cells (oec) and embryonic stem (es) cell-derived motor neurons (esmn) on contused sci. methods: oec ...

this paper presents future trends of urban wastes and their impacts on the environment of african cities using plausible mitigation scenarios. to accomplish this, an integrated dynamic model for urban waste flows was developed, tested, calibrated and validated. its parameter sensitivity was analyzed. using population projection up to 2052 with different levels of technological implementation, p...