Integrating Image Analysis and Machine Learning for Moisture Prediction and Appearance Quality Evaluation: A Case Study of Kiwifruit Drying Pretreatment.

The appearance of dried fruit clearly influences the consumer's perception of the quality of the product but is a subtle and nuanced characteristic that is difficult to quantitatively measure, especially online. This paper describes a method that combines several simple strategies to assess a suitable surrogate for the elusive quality using imaging, combined with multivariate statistics and machine learning. With such a convenient tool, this study also shows how one can vary the pretreatments and drying conditions to optimize the resultant product quality. Specifically, an image batch processing method was developed to extract color (hue, saturation, and value) and morphological (area, perimeter, and compactness) features. The accuracy of this method was verified using data from a case study experiment on the pretreatment of hot-air-dried kiwifruit slices. Based on the extracted image features, partial least squares and random forest models were developed to satisfactorily predict the moisture ratio (MR) during drying process. The MR of kiwifruit slices during drying could be accurately predicted from changes in appearance without using any weighing device. This study also explored determining the optimal drying strategy based on appearance quality using principal component analysis. Optimal drying was achieved at 60 °C with 4 mm thick slices under ultrasonic pretreatment. For the 70 °C, 6 mm sample groups, citric acid showed decent performance.

The Application of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data in the Food Industry.

Over the past few decades, the food industry has undergone revolutionary changes due to the impacts of globalization, technological advancements, and ever-evolving consumer demands. Artificial intelligence (AI) and big data have become pivotal in strengthening food safety, production, and marketing. With the continuous evolution of AI technology and big data analytics, the food industry is poised to embrace further changes and developmental opportunities. An increasing number of food enterprises will leverage AI and big data to enhance product quality, meet consumer needs, and propel the industry toward a more intelligent and sustainable future. This review delves into the applications of AI and big data in the food sector, examining their impacts on production, quality, safety, risk management, and consumer insights. Furthermore, the advent of Industry 4.0 applied to the food industry has brought to the fore technologies such as smart agriculture, robotic farming, drones, 3D printing, and digital twins; the food industry also faces challenges in smart production and sustainable development going forward. This review articulates the current state of AI and big data applications in the food industry, analyses the challenges encountered, and discusses viable solutions. Lastly, it outlines the future development trends in the food industry.

The importance of outlier rejection and significant explanatory variable selection for pinot noir wine soft sensor development.

Sensory attributes are essential factors in determining the quality of wines. However, it can be challenging for consumers, even experts, to differentiate and quantify wines' sensory attributes for quality control. Soft sensors based on rapid chemical analysis offer a potential solution to overcome this challenge. However, the current limitation in developing soft sensors for wines is the need for a significant number of input parameters, at least 12, necessitating costly and time-consuming analyses. While such a comprehensive approach provides high accuracy in sensory quality mapping, the expensive and time-consuming studies required do not lend themselves to the industry's routine quality control activities. In this work, Box plots, Tucker-1 plots, and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) score plots were used to deal with output data (sensory attributes) to improve the model quality. More importantly, this work has identified that the number of analyses required to fully quantify by regression models and qualify by classification models can be significantly reduced. Based on regression models, only four key chemical parameters (total flavanols, total tannins, A520nmHCl, and pH) were required to accurately predict 35 sensory attributes of a wine with R2 values above 0.6 simultaneously. In addition, for classification models to accurately predict 35 sensory attributes of a wine at once with prediction accuracy above 70%, only four key chemical parameters (A280nmHCl, A520nmHCl, chemical age and pH) were required. These models with reduced chemical parameters complement each other in sensory quality mapping and provide acceptable accuracy. The application of the soft sensor based on these reduced sets of key chemical parameters translated to a potential reduction in analytical cost and labour cost of 56% for the regression model and 83% for the classification model, respectively, making these models suitable for routine quality control use.

Application of Three-Dimensional Digital Photogrammetry to Quantify the Surface Roughness of Milk Powder.

The surface appearance of milk powders is a crucial quality property since the roughness of the milk powder determines its functional properties, and especially the purchaser perception of the milk powder. Unfortunately, powder produced from similar spray dryers, or even the same dryer but in different seasons, produces powder with a wide variety of surface roughness. To date, professional panelists are used to quantify this subtle visual metric, which is time-consuming and subjective. Consequently, developing a fast, robust, and repeatable surface appearance classification method is essential. This study proposes a three-dimensional digital photogrammetry technique for quantifying the surface roughness of milk powders. A contour slice analysis and frequency analysis of the deviations were performed on the three-dimensional models to classify the surface roughness of milk powder samples. The result shows that the contours for smooth-surface samples are more circular than those for rough-surface samples, and the smooth-surface samples had a low standard deviation; thus, milk powder samples with the smoother surface have lower Q (the energy of the signal) values. Lastly, the performance of the nonlinear support vector machine (SVM) model demonstrated that the technique proposed in this study is a practicable alternative technique for classifying the surface roughness of milk powders.

Defining cardiac cell populations and relative cellular composition of the early fetal human heart.

While the adult human heart is primarily composed of cardiomyocytes, fibroblasts, endothelial and smooth muscle cells, the cellular composition during early development remains largely unknown. Reliable identification of fetal cardiac cell types using protein markers is critical to understand cardiac development and delineate the cellular composition of the developing human heart. This is the first study to use immunohistochemistry (IHC), flow cytometry and RT-PCR analyses to investigate the expression and specificity of commonly used cardiac cell markers in the early human fetal heart (8-12 post-conception weeks). The expression of previously reported protein markers for the detection of cardiomyocytes (Myosin Heavy Chain (MHC) and cardiac troponin I (cTnI), fibroblasts (DDR2, THY1, Vimentin), endothelial cells (CD31) and smooth muscle cells (α-SMA) were assessed. Two distinct populations of cTnI positive cells were identified through flow cytometry, with MHC positive cardiomyocytes showing high cTnI expression (cTnIHigh) while MHC negative non-myocytes showed lower cTnI expression (cTnILow). cTnI expression in non-myocytes was further confirmed by IHC and RT-PCR analyses, suggesting troponins are not cardiomyocyte-specific and may play distinct roles in non-muscle cells during early development. Vimentin (VIM) was expressed in cultured ventricular fibroblast populations and flow cytometry revealed VIMHigh and VIMLow cell populations in the fetal heart. MHC positive cardiomyocytes were VIMLow whilst CD31 positive endothelial cells were VIMHigh. Using markers investigated within this study, we characterised fetal human cardiac populations and estimate that 75-80% of fetal cardiac cells are cardiomyocytes and are MHC+/cTnIHigh/VIMLow, whilst non-myocytes comprise 20-25% of total cells and are MHC-/cTnILow/VIMHigh, with CD31+ endothelial cells comprising ~9% of this population. These findings show distinct differences from those reported for adult heart.

Assessing and Quantifying the Surface Texture of Milk Powder Using Image Processing.

Milk powders produced from similar spray dryers have different visual appearances, while the surface appearance of the powder is a key quality attribute because the smoothness of the milk powder also affects flowability and handling properties. Traditionally quantifying this nuanced visual metric was undertaken using sensory panelists, which is both subjective and time consuming. Therefore, it is advantageous to develop an on-line quick and robust appearance assessment tool. The aim of this work is to develop a classification model which can classify the milk powder samples into different surface smoothness groups. This work proposes a strategy for quantifying the relative roughness of commercial milk powder from 3D images. Photogrammetry equipment together with the software RealityCapture were used to build 3D models of milk powder samples, and a surface normal analysis which compares the area of the triangle formed by the 3 adjacent surface normals or compares the angle between the adjacent surface normals was used to quantify the surface smoothness of the milk powder samples. It was found that the area of the triangle of the smooth-surface milk powder cone is smaller than the area of the triangle of the rough-surface milk powder cone, and the angle between the adjacent surface normals of the rough-surface milk powder cone is larger than the angle between the adjacent surface normals of the smooth-surface milk powder cone, which proved that the proposed area metrics and angle metrics can be used as tools to quantify the smoothness of milk powder samples. Finally, the result of the support vector machine (SVM) classifier proved that image processing can be used as a preliminary tool for classifying milk powder into different surface texture groups.

Lateral entorhinal cortex lesions impair both egocentric and allocentric object-place associations.

During navigation, landmark processing is critical either for generating an allocentric-based cognitive map or in facilitating egocentric-based strategies. Increasing evidence from manipulation and single-unit recording studies has highlighted the role of the entorhinal cortex in processing landmarks. In particular, the lateral (LEC) and medial (MEC) sub-regions of the entorhinal cortex have been shown to attend to proximal and distal landmarks, respectively. Recent studies have identified a further dissociation in cue processing between the LEC and MEC based on spatial frames of reference. Neurons in the LEC preferentially encode egocentric cues while those in the MEC encode allocentric cues. In this study, we assessed the impact of disrupting the LEC on landmark-based spatial memory in both egocentric and allocentric reference frames. Animals that received excitotoxic lesions of the LEC were significantly impaired, relative to controls, on both egocentric and allocentric versions of an object-place association task. Notably, LEC lesioned animals performed at chance on the egocentric version but above chance on the allocentric version. There was no significant difference in performance between the two groups on an object recognition and spatial T-maze task. Taken together, these results indicate that the LEC plays a role in feature integration more broadly and in specifically processing spatial information within an egocentric reference frame.

Effects of Morphology on the Bulk Density of Instant Whole Milk Powder.

The chemical and physical properties of instant whole milk powder (IWMP), such as morphology, protein content, and particle size, can affect its functionality and performance. Bulk density, which directly determines the packing cost and transportation cost of milk powder, is one of the most important functional properties of IWMP, and it is mainly affected by physical properties, e.g., morphology and particle size. This work quantified the relationship between morphology and bulk density of IWMP and developed a predictive model of bulk density for IWMP. To obtain milk powder samples with different particle size fractions, IWMP samples of four different brands were sieved into three different particle size range groups, before using the simplex-centroid design (SCD) method to remix the milk powder samples. The bulk densities of these remixed milk powder samples were then measured by tap testing, and the particles' shape factors were extracted by light microscopy and image processing. The number of variables was decreased by principal component analysis and partial least squares models and artificial neural network models were built to predict the bulk density of IWMP. It was found that different brands of IWMP have different morphology, and the bulk density trends versus the shape factor changes were similar for the different particle size range groups. Finally, prediction models for bulk density were developed by using the shape factors and particle size range fractions of the IWMP samples. The good results of these models proved that predicting the bulk density of IWMP by using shape factors and particle size range fractions is achievable and could be used as a model for online model-based process monitoring.

National survey of pharmacists, intern pharmacists and pharmacy students in Australia: the nature and extent of stress and well-being.

OBJECTIVES: A national survey of the Australian pharmacy workforce was conducted to determine the extent to stress experienced, the extent to which it is work-related, how stress is managed, the barriers to getting help and how well prepared the workforce is for stressful situations. There were three objectives: provision of guidance on possible interventions; provision of a baseline for further studies; and provision of information to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Authority (AHPRA). METHODS: An online survey incorporating the 10-item Perceived Stress Scale was developed, piloted and launched in October 2016. Pharmacy-related organisations alerted their members to the voluntary survey. Popular pharmacy social media was used. Responses were analysed using SPSS and Excel. The a priori for significance was P < 0.05. KEY FINDINGS: In relation to the nature and extent of stress in the workforce and work-life balance, information provided by 1246 respondents out of a workforce of 29 819 revealed high levels of stress (PSS-10 score 20.1 ± 7.3), with those under 30 years of age and/or with 10 years or less in the pharmacy workforce reporting the highest levels. Just under half the respondents reported dissatisfaction with their work-life balances. CONCLUSIONS: Workplace stress is high, particularly among younger members of the workforce. Professional pharmacy associations, schools of pharmacy at Australian universities and AHPRA have been alerted to this issue. The survey should be repeated reasonably soon to determine if any of the key characteristics have changed, particularly if interventions are made to reduce the occurrence of workplace-related stress.

Expression and localisation of thymosin beta-4 in the developing human early fetal heart.

BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to investigate the expression and localisation of thymosin ß4 (Tß4) in the developing human heart. Tß4 is a cardioprotective protein which may have therapeutic potential. While Tß4 is an endogenously produced protein with known importance during development, its role within the developing human heart is not fully understood. Elucidating the localisation of Tß4 within the developing heart will help in understanding its role during cardiac development and is crucial for understanding its potential for cardioprotection and repair in the adult heart. METHODS: Expression of Tß4 mRNA in the early fetal human heart was assessed by PCR using both ventricular and atrial tissue. Fluorescence immunohistochemistry was used to assess the localisation of Tß4 in sections of early fetal human heart. Co-staining with CD31, an endothelial cell marker, and with myosin heavy chain, a cardiomyocyte marker, was used to determine whether Tß4 is localised to these cell types within the early fetal human heart. RESULTS: Tß4 mRNA was found to be expressed in both the atria and the ventricles of the early fetal human heart. Tß4 protein was found to be primarily localised to CD31-expressing endothelial cells and the endocardium as well as being present in the epicardium. Tß4-associated fluorescence was greater in the compact layer of the myocardial wall and the interventricular septum than in the trabecular layer of the myocardium. CONCLUSIONS: The data presented illustrates expression of Tß4 in the developing human heart and demonstrates for the first time that Tß4 in the human heart is primarily localised to endothelial cells of the cardiac microvasculature and coronary vessels as-well as to the endothelial-like cells of the endocardium and to the epicardium.

Soluble ADAM33 initiates airway remodeling to promote susceptibility for allergic asthma in early life.

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory airways disease that usually begins in early life and involves gene-environment interactions. Although most asthma exhibits allergic inflammation, many allergic individuals do not have asthma. Here, we report how the asthma gene a disintegrin and metalloprotease 33 (ADAM33) acts as local tissue susceptibility gene that promotes allergic asthma. We show that enzymatically active soluble ADAM33 (sADAM33) is increased in asthmatic airways and plays a role in airway remodeling, independent of inflammation. Furthermore, remodeling and inflammation are both suppressed in Adam33-null mice after allergen challenge. When induced in utero or added ex vivo, sADAM33 causes structural remodeling of the airways, which enhances postnatal airway eosinophilia and bronchial hyperresponsiveness following subthreshold challenge with an aeroallergen. This substantial gene-environment interaction helps to explain the end-organ expression of allergic asthma in genetically susceptible individuals. Finally, we show that sADAM33-induced airway remodeling is reversible, highlighting the therapeutic potential of targeting ADAM33 in asthma.

Human endothelial and foetal femur-derived stem cell co-cultures modulate osteogenesis and angiogenesis.

BACKGROUND: A dynamic vasculature is a prerequisite for bone formation where the interaction of bone cells and endothelial cells is essential for both the development and the healing process of bone. Enhanced understanding of the specific mediators involved in bone cell and endothelial cell interactions offers new avenues for skeletal regenerative applications. This study has investigated the osteogenic and angiogenic potential of co-cultures of human foetal diaphyseal or epiphyseal cells with human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) in the presence and absence of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) supplementation. METHODS: Early osteogenic activities of the co-cultures (± VEGF) were assessed by alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity. Osteogenic and angiogenic gene expression was measured using quantitative polymerase chain reaction. An ex vivo organotypic embryonic chick (E11) femur culture model was used to determine the osteogenic effects of VEGF as determined using micro-computed tomography (µCT) and Alcian blue/Sirius red histochemistry and immunocytochemistry for expression of CD31. RESULTS: ALP activity and gene expression of ALP and Type-1 collagen was enhanced in foetal skeletal/HUVECs co-cultures. In foetal diaphyseal/HUVECs co-cultures, VEGF reduced the levels of ALP activity and displayed a negligible effect on von Willebrand factor (vWF) and VEGF gene expression. In contrast, VEGF supplementation was observed to significantly increase FLT-1 and KDR gene expression in co-cultures with modulation of expression enhanced, compared to VEGF skeletal monocultures. In the organotypic chick model, addition of VEGF significantly enhanced bone formation, which coincided with elevated levels of CD31-positive cells in the mid-diaphyseal region of the femurs. CONCLUSION: These studies demonstrate a differential skeletal response of early foetal skeletal cells, when co-cultured with endothelial cells and the potential of co-culture models for bone repair. The differential effect of VEGF supplementation on markers of angiogenesis and osteogenesis in co-cultures and organ cultures, demonstrate the importance of the intricate temporal coordination of osteogenic and angiogenic processes during bone formation and implications therein for effective approaches to bone regenerative therapies.

Selective lesions of the cholinergic neurons within the posterior pedunculopontine do not alter operant learning or nicotine sensitization.

Cholinergic neurons within the pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus have been implicated in a range of functions, including behavioral state control, attention, and modulation of midbrain and basal ganglia systems. Previous experiments with excitotoxic lesions have found persistent learning impairment and altered response to nicotine following lesion of the posterior component of the PPTg (pPPTg). These effects have been attributed to disrupted input to midbrain dopamine systems, particularly the ventral tegmental area. The pPPTg contains a dense collection of cholinergic neurons and also large numbers of glutamatergic and GABAergic neurons. Because these interdigitated populations of neurons are all susceptible to excitotoxins, the effects of such lesions cannot be attributed to one neuronal population. We wished to assess whether the learning impairments and altered responses to nicotine in excitotoxic PPTg-lesioned rats were due to loss of cholinergic neurons within the pPPTg. Selective depletion of cholinergic pPPTg neurons is achievable with the fusion toxin Dtx-UII, which targets UII receptors expressed only by cholinergic neurons in this region. Rats bearing bilateral lesions of cholinergic pPPTg neurons (>90% ChAT+ neuronal loss) displayed no deficits in the learning or performance of fixed and variable ratio schedules of reinforcement for pellet reward. Separate rats with the same lesions had a normal locomotor response to nicotine and furthermore sensitized to repeated administration of nicotine at the same rate as sham controls. Previously seen changes in these behaviors following excitotoxic pPPTg lesions cannot be attributed solely to loss of cholinergic neurons. These findings indicate that non-cholinergic neurons within the pPPTg are responsible for the learning deficits and altered responses to nicotine seen after excitotoxic lesions. The functions of cholinergic neurons may be related to behavioral state control and attention rather than learning.

Regionally-derived cell populations and skeletal stem cells from human foetal femora exhibit specific osteochondral and multi-lineage differentiation capacity in vitro and ex vivo.

BACKGROUND: Adult skeletal stem cells (SSCs) often exhibit limited in vitro expansion with undesirable phenotypic changes and loss of differentiation capacity. Foetal tissues offer an alternative cell source, providing SSCs which exhibit desirable differentiation capacity over prolonged periods, ideal for extensive in vitro and ex vivo investigation of fundamental bone biology and skeletal development. METHODS: We have examined the derivation of distinct cell populations from human foetal femora. Regionally isolated populations including epiphyseal and diaphyseal cells were carefully dissected. Expression of the SSC marker Stro-1 was also found in human foetal femora over a range of developmental stages and subsequently utilised for immuno-selection. RESULTS: Regional populations exhibited chondrogenic (epiphyseal) and osteogenic (diaphyseal) phenotypes following in vitro and ex vivo characterisation and molecular analysis, indicative of native SSC maturation during skeletal development. However, each population exhibited potential for induced multi-lineage differentiation towards bone (bone nodule formation), cartilage (proteoglycan and mucopolysaccharide deposition) and fat (lipid deposition), suggesting the presence of a shared stem cell sub-population. This shared sub-population may be comprised of Stro-1+ cells, which were later identified and immuno-selected from whole foetal femora exhibiting multi-lineage differentiation capacity in vitro and ex vivo. CONCLUSIONS: Distinct populations were isolated from human foetal femora expressing osteochondral differentiation capacity. Stro-1 immuno-selected SSCs were isolated from whole femora expressing desirable multi-lineage differentiation capacity over prolonged in vitro expansion, superior to their adult-derived counterparts, providing a valuable cell source with which to study bone biology and skeletal development.

A kinetic model of municipal sludge degradation during non-catalytic wet oxidation.

Wet oxidation is a successful process for the treatment of municipal sludge. In addition, the resulting effluent from wet oxidation is a useful carbon source for subsequent biological nutrient removal processes in wastewater treatment. Owing to limitations with current kinetic models, this study produced a kinetic model which predicts the concentrations of key intermediate components during wet oxidation. The model was regressed from lab-scale experiments and then subsequently validated using data from a wet oxidation pilot plant. The model was shown to be accurate in predicting the concentrations of each component, and produced good results when applied to a plant 500 times larger in size. A statistical study was undertaken to investigate the validity of the regressed model parameters. Finally the usefulness of the model was demonstrated by suggesting optimum operating conditions such that volatile fatty acids were maximised.

Long-range evolutionary constraints reveal cis-regulatory interactions on the human X chromosome.

Enhancers can regulate the transcription of genes over long genomic distances. This is thought to lead to selection against genomic rearrangements within such regions that may disrupt this functional linkage. Here we test this concept experimentally using the human X chromosome. We describe a scoring method to identify evolutionary maintenance of linkage between conserved noncoding elements and neighbouring genes. Chromatin marks associated with enhancer function are strongly correlated with this linkage score. We test >1,000 putative enhancers by transgenesis assays in zebrafish to ascertain the identity of the target gene. The majority of active enhancers drive a transgenic expression in a pattern consistent with the known expression of a linked gene. These results show that evolutionary maintenance of linkage is a reliable predictor of an enhancer's function, and provide new information to discover the genetic basis of diseases caused by the mis-regulation of gene expression.

RBFOX2 protein domains and cellular activities.

RBFOX2 (RNA-binding protein, Fox-1 homologue 2)/RBM9 (RNA-binding-motif protein 9)/RTA (repressor of tamoxifen action)/HNRBP2 (hexaribonucleotide-binding protein 2) encodes an RNA-binding protein involved in tissue specific alternative splicing regulation and steroid receptors transcriptional activity. Its ability to regulate specific splicing profiles depending on context has been related to different expression levels of the RBFOX2 protein itself and that of other splicing regulatory proteins involved in the shared modulation of specific genes splicing. However, this cannot be the sole explanation as to why RBFOX2 plays a widespread role in numerous cellular mechanisms from development to cell survival dependent on cell/tissue type. RBFOX2 isoforms with altered protein domains exist. In the present article, we describe the main RBFOX2 protein domains, their importance in the context of splicing and transcriptional regulation and we propose that RBFOX2 isoform distribution may play a fundamental role in RBFOX2-specific cellular effects.

BRCA1 EXON 11, a CERES (composite regulatory element of splicing) element involved in splice regulation.

Unclassified variants (UV) of BRCA1 can affect normal pre-mRNA splicing. Here, we investigate the UV c.693G>A, a "silent" change in BRCA1 exon 11, which we have found induces aberrant splicing in patient carriers and in vitro. Using a minigene assay, we show that the UV c.693G>A has a strong effect on the splicing isoform ratio of BRCA1. Systematic site-directed mutagenesis of the area surrounding the nucleotide position c.693G>A induced variable changes in the level of exon 11 inclusion/exclusion in the mRNA, pointing to the presence of a complex regulatory element with overlapping enhancer and silencer functions. Accordingly, protein binding analysis in the region detected several splicing regulatory factors involved, including SRSF1, SRSF6 and SRSF9, suggesting that this sequence represents a composite regulatory element of splicing (CERES).

MicroRNA-146a regulates human foetal femur derived skeletal stem cell differentiation by down-regulating SMAD2 and SMAD3.

MicroRNAs (miRs) play a pivotal role in a variety of biological processes including stem cell differentiation and function. Human foetal femur derived skeletal stem cells (SSCs) display enhanced proliferation and multipotential capacity indicating excellent potential as candidates for tissue engineering applications. This study has examined the expression and role of miRs in human foetal femur derived SSC differentiation along chondrogenic and osteogenic lineages. Cells isolated from the epiphyseal region of the foetal femur expressed higher levels of genes associated with chondrogenesis while cells from the foetal femur diaphyseal region expressed higher levels of genes associated with osteogenic differentiation. In addition to the difference in osteogenic and chondrogenic gene expression, epiphyseal and diaphyseal cells displayed distinct miRs expression profiles. miR-146a was found to be expressed by human foetal femur diaphyseal cells at a significantly enhanced level compared to epiphyseal populations and was predicted to target various components of the TGF-ß pathway. Examination of miR-146a function in foetal femur cells confirmed regulation of protein translation of SMAD2 and SMAD3, important TGF-ß and activin ligands signal transducers following transient overexpression in epiphyseal cells. The down-regulation of SMAD2 and SMAD3 following overexpression of miR-146a resulted in an up-regulation of the osteogenesis related gene RUNX2 and down-regulation of the chondrogenesis related gene SOX9. The current findings indicate miR-146a plays an important role in skeletogenesis through attenuation of SMAD2 and SMAD3 function and provide further insight into the role of miRs in human skeletal stem cell differentiation modulation with implications therein for bone reparation.