Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stadium Architecture and Urban Development from the Perspective of Urban Economics.

A range of econometric studies suggest that neither major sports events nor related new stadium construction typically have any appreciable effect on income or employment at municipal scale. However, one important issue has long been ignored in the literature: architectural quality. At present, international stadium architecture is gaining markedly in significance. New stadia are intended to serve as visiting cards for their hometowns and to accelerate urban (re)development. This article discusses the current transition in international stadium architecture and demonstrates important trends, such as the use of iconic elements, by means of selected examples. We provide an overview of the first evidence for the welfare effects of the built environment as well as of expected stadium-related social costs and benefits. The article also reviews the first empirical evidence for the impact of a stadium at neighborhood scale. Unconventional stadium architecture is recommended as a means of either supporting area rehabilitation or amplifying the image and spending effects produced by professional sports. Copyright (c) 2010 The Authors. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research(c) 2010 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Colloids and Surfaces B : Biointerfaces 1 Effects of temperature and PEG grafting density on the translocation of PEGylated nanoparticles across asymmetric lipid membrane

Plasma membrane internalization of nanoparticles (NPs) is important for their biomedical applications such as drug-delivery carriers. On one hand, in order to improve their half-life in circulation, PEGylation has been widely used. However, it may hinder the NPs’ membrane internalization ability. On the other hand, higher temperature could enhance the membrane permeability and may affect the NPs’ ability to enter into or exit from cells. To make full use of their advantages, we systematically investigated the Colloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces 3 effects of temperature and PEG density on the translocation of PEGylated nanoparticles across the plasma asymmetric membrane of eukaryotic cells, using near-atom level coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations. Our results showed that higher temperature could accelerate the translocation of NPs across membranes by making lipids more disorder and faster diffusion. On the contrary, steric hindrance effects of PEG would inhibit NPs’ translocation process and promote lipids flip-flops. The PEG chains could rearrange themselves to minimize the contacts between PEG and lipid tails during the translocation, which was similar to ‘snorkeling effect’. Moreover, lipid flipflops were affected by PEGylated density as well as NPs’ translocation direction. Higher PEG grafting density could promote lipid flip-flops, but inhibit lipid extraction from bilayers. The consequence of lipid flip-flop and extraction was that the membranes got more symmetric.
Crisis económica, confianza y capital social

La crisis economica ha supuesto un punto de inflexion en las trayectorias de mejora de numerosos paises e individuos que han sufrido en estos anos importantes perdidas economicas y de empleo. En muchos casos en los que las expectativas favorables se han truncado la confianza en las instituciones se ha reducido. Este estudio analiza las consecuencias que la crisis esta teniendo sobre distintas dimensiones del capital social, proponiendo una vision multidimensional de este concepto. Por una parte, analiza su vertiente economica con la metodologia elaborada por los autores, actualizando las series de capital social Fundacion BBVA-Ivie para los paises de la OCDE, Espana, sus comunidades autonomas y provincias. Por otra, considera la participacion civica, la confianza en personas e instituciones y la densidad de las redes sociales, analizando los cambios en estas dimensiones del capital social con datos del Eurobarometro. El volumen muestra que los resultados economicos influyen en muchas dimensiones de capital social, las relacionadas con el nivel de actividad y otras como la confianza en las instituciones publicas. Al defraudarse las expectativas de mejora material como consecuencia de la crisis, la reputacion de las instituciones publicas se ha resentido y la disposicion a cooperar se ha reducido. En cambio, otras dimensiones del capital social, como la confianza interpersonal, la participacion civica o la densidad de las redes sociales han resistido mejor. Esta publicacion continua la linea de investigacion del Ivie y la Fundacion BBVA dedicada al estudio del papel de los activos inmateriales en el desarrollo socioeconomico. El publico en general, estudiosos de la economia, sociologos y politologos encontrara en ella un analisis riguroso de efectos de la crisis distintos de los frecuentemente analizados, pero muy relevantes para comprender la profundidad de la misma y los obstaculos a los que se enfrenta la recuperacion.
The pattern of deaths in road traffic crashes in Sindh, Pakistan

The objectives of this study were to examine the pattern and magnitude of deaths in road traffic crashes (RTCs) in Sindh province of Pakistan. This cross-sectional study used data obtained from government documents and content analysis of daily newspapers' reports on incidents of deaths in RTCs. Results showed that the total annual number of RTCs, fatal RTCs and deaths in RTCs were 2272 (±293), 1104 (±89) and 1321 (±136) respectively. On average, there were four deaths per day in RTCs. The victims were 85% male and the majority were between 15 and 49 years of age. Pedestrians, passengers, motorcyclists and drivers were most commonly the victims. Deaths in RTCs were double in rural areas compared to urban areas. The most common causes of fatal RTCs were by being hit by a vehicle, breakdown and collision of motor vehicles and speeding. The frequent involvement of the men of working age in RTCs may have serious social and economic implications; therefore, the prevention of RTCs, as far as possible, is imperative.
Identification of key genes and pathways for peri-implantitis through the analysis of gene expression data

The present study attempted to identify potential key genes and pathways of peri-implantitis, and to investigate the possible mechanisms associated with it. An array data of GSE57631 was downloaded, including six samples of peri-implantitis tissue and two samples of normal tissue from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. The differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in the peri-implantitis samples compared with normal ones were analyzed with the limma package. Moreover, Gene Ontology annotation and the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analyses for DEGs were performed by DAVID. A protein-protein interaction (PPI) network was established using Cytoscape software, and significant modules were analyzed using Molecular Complex Detection. A total of 819 DEGs (759 upregulated and 60 downregulated) were identified in the peri-implantitis samples compared with normal ones. Moreover, the PPI network was constructed with 413 nodes and 1,114 protein pairs. Heat shock protein HSP90AA1 (90 kDa α, member 1), a hub node with higher node degrees in module 4, was significantly enriched in antigen processing, in the presentation pathway and nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain (NOD)-like receptor-signaling pathway. In addition, nuclear factor-κ-B1 (NFKB1) was enriched in the NOD-like receptor-signaling pathway in KEGG pathway enrichment analysis for upregulated genes. The proteasome is the most significant pathway in module 1 with the highest P-value. Therefore, the results of the present study suggested that HSP90AA1 and NFKB1 may be potential key genes, and the NOD-like receptor signaling pathway and proteasome may be potential pathways associated with peri-implantitis development.
The impact of snares on the continuity of adolescent-onset antisocial behaviour: A test of Moffitt’s developmental taxonomy

Moffitt’s dual typology of ‘life-course persistent’ and ‘adolescence limited’ offending has received extensive empirical attention, but the extent to which the antisocial behaviour of adolescence limited offenders is constrained to adolescence is relatively under-examined. Using data from the Australian Mater University Study of Pregnancy and its Outcomes, we explore Moffitt’s concept of snares, or those factors that may lead to an adolescent persisting in antisocial behaviour such as drug addiction, educational failure, and contact with the justice system. The Mater University Study of Pregnancy and its Outcomes is a longitudinal study of mother–child dyads from the pre-natal stage to 21 years of age. Findings show that one-third of individuals identified as having an adolescent onset of antisocial behaviour persisted with this antisocial behaviour as young adults. This continuity can, in part, be explained by snares and the research suggests that reducing exposure to snares may lead to less antisocial behaviour in adulthood.
Locally Discriminative Coclustering

Different from traditional one-sided clustering techniques, coclustering makes use of the duality between samples and features to partition them simultaneously. Most of the existing co-clustering algorithms focus on modeling the relationship between samples and features, whereas the intersample and interfeature relationships are ignored. In this paper, we propose a novel coclustering algorithm named Locally Discriminative Coclustering (LDCC) to explore the relationship between samples and features as well as the intersample and interfeature relationships. Specifically, the sample-feature relationship is modeled by a bipartite graph between samples and features. And we apply local linear regression to discovering the intrinsic discriminative structures of both sample space and feature space. For each local patch in the sample and feature spaces, a local linear function is estimated to predict the labels of the points in this patch. The intersample and interfeature relationships are thus captured by minimizing the fitting errors of all the local linear functions. In this way, LDCC groups strongly associated samples and features together, while respecting the local structures of both sample and feature spaces. Our experimental results on several benchmark data sets have demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Tubular reabsorption of calcium in normal and hypercalciuric subjects

Tubular reabsorption and excretion of calcium were studied at different levels of filtered calcium by means of calcium infusion in normal and hypercalciuric subjects and in patients with idiopathic nephrolithiasis. Calcium reabsorption and excretion rose linearly with filtered load and in no case was a maximum tubular reabsorptive capacity for calcium reached. No decrease in tubular reabsorption of calcium was found in hypercalciuric as compared with normocalciuric subjects, and no difference in tubular reabsorption was found between patients with idiopathic nephrolithiasis and normal subjects. Calcium excretion and reabsorption calculated from the endogenous creatinine clearance during calcium infusion were virtually identical with the corresponding values calculated from the inulin clearance.
A Low-Cost, Portable, High-Throughput Wireless Sensor System for Phonocardiography Applications

This paper presents the design and testing of a wireless sensor system developed using a Microchip PICDEM developer kit to acquire and monitor human heart sounds for phonocardiography applications. This system can serve as a cost-effective option to the recent developments in wireless phonocardiography sensors that have primarily focused on Bluetooth technology. This wireless sensor system has been designed and developed in-house using off-the-shelf components and open source software for remote and mobile applications. The small form factor (3.75 cm × 5 cm × 1 cm), high throughput (6,000 Hz data streaming rate), and low cost ($13 per unit for a 1,000 unit batch) of this wireless sensor system make it particularly attractive for phonocardiography and other sensing applications. The experimental results of sensor signal analysis using several signal characterization techniques suggest that this wireless sensor system can capture both fundamental heart sounds (S1 and S2), and is also capable of capturing abnormal heart sounds (S3 and S4) and heart murmurs without aliasing. The results of a denoising application using Wavelet Transform show that the undesirable noises of sensor signals in the surrounding environment can be reduced dramatically. The exercising experiment results also show that this proposed wireless PCG system can capture heart sounds over different heart conditions simulated by varying heart rates of six subjects over a range of 60–180 Hz through exercise testing.
Prevalence of Zinc Deficiency in 3-18 Years Old Children in Shiraz-Iran

Background Zinc is an essential trace element with a prominent role in human nutrition. Zinc deficiency has been linked to growth retardation, hypogonadism in males, and lack of sexual development in females. It ranges from 50% in sub-Saharan Africa to 5% in high income countries. The aim of this study is to evaluate the prevalence of zinc deficiency in healthy children in Shiraz, southern Iran. Methods In this study, 902 children aged 3-18 years old were randomly sampled for serum zinc level. Age, sex, weight, height, BMI, stunting and wasting indices were also recorded. With atomic absorption spectrophotometry method, the serum level of zinc less than 70 µg/dL was considered as deficient. Results Mean serum level of zinc was 122.3±55 µg/dL. The prevalence of zinc deficiency was 7.9%. There was no relationship among serum zinc level and age, sex, height, weight or BMI, but mild wasting (weight for age) and mild stunting (height for age) were significantly more prevalent among zinc deficient children compared to children with normal or high level of zinc. Conclusion Zinc deficiency in Shiraz is not as prevalent as other areas of Iran. It was significantly more frequent among stunted and wasted (malnourished) children. Difference in soil zinc level, recent wide prescription of zinc supplements by pediatricians and especial pattern of nutrition, considered as possible factors responsible for lower prevalence of zinc deficiency in Shiraz, deserve more investigations.
Antiviral and Antitumor Activity of Licorice Root Extracts.

BACKGROUND In the search for anti-viral and antitumor substances from natural resources, antiviral and antitumor activities of licorice root extract and purified ingredients were investigated. MATERIALS AND METHODS Viability of cells was determined by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide method. Antiviral activity was quantified by the selectivity index, defined as the ratio of the 50% cytotoxic concentration (CC50) to the 50% effective concentration against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or herpes simplex virus (HSV)-infected cells (EC50). The tumor specificity was calculated by the ratio of CC50 against human normal oral cells to that against human oral squamous cell carcinoma cell lines. Licorice flavonoids and lower molecular polyphenols were subjected to quantitative structure-activity relationship analysis. RESULTS Alkaline extract of licorice root had higher anti-HIV activity than did water extracts, confirming our previous reports. On the other hand, water extract, especially the flavonoid-rich fraction, had higher anti-HSV activity than did the alkaline extract. The flavonoid-rich fraction was more cytotoxic against human oral squamous cell carcinoma cell lines compared to normal oral cells, suggesting their tumor-specific cytotoxicity. CONCLUSION The present study suggests that water and alkaline extracts of licorice root exert different mechanisms of actions against these two viruses. Physicochemical properties, rather than the category of compounds, may be important in determining their anti-HSV activity.
Extent of Pontine Pyramidal Tract Wallerian Degeneration and Outcome After Supratentorial Hemorrhagic Stroke

Background and Purpose Pyramidal tract Wallerian degeneration has been detected on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as T2-weighted high-intensity areas. We analyzed the relation between the extent of brain stem Wallerian degeneration and activities of daily living (ADL) after supratentorial hemorrhagic stroke. Methods Twenty-six patients with supratentorial hemorrhage were examined on the coronal T2-weighted image of the pons 3 months or later after stroke, and the percentage of Wallerian degeneration in the pons was calculated. The patients were divided into three groups. In group A (n=6), MR films were taken 3 to 6 months from the onset, and the ADL assessment was done within 2 months from the MRI. In group B (n=ll), MR films were taken 3 to 6 months from the onset, and the ADL assessment was done within 10 months from the MRI (mean, 15.5 months from the onset). In group C (n=9), MR films were taken after 10 to 17 months (mean, 12.0 months) from the ictus, and the ADL assessment was done simultaneously. Barthel Index score was used for quantitative ADL assessment. Results All patients showed various degrees of pontine pyramidal tract Wallerian degeneration associated with capsular involvement by the hematoma. In group A, the percentage of degeneration did not correlate with the Barthel Index score (r=.2101, P=.6895). An inverse relation between percentage of degeneration and Barthel Index score was seen in groups B (r=.7354, P=.0099) and C (r=.888, P=.0014). In groups B and C, Wallerian degeneration was higher in patients with Barthel scores less than 60 (P=.005). Conclusions The extent of pontine Wallerian degeneration on MRI 3 months or later after the stroke correlated with the patient's Barthel Index score 1 year after the stroke.
Mode of delivery directs the phagocyte functions of infants for the first 6 months of life

Factors that direct the immune responsiveness of the newborn beyond the immediate post‐natal period are not known. We investigated the influence of mode of delivery and type of feeding on the phagocyte activity during the first 6 months of life. Sixty‐four healthy infants (34 delivered vaginally and 30 by elective Caesarean section) were studied at birth and at the ages of 2 and 6 months. Phagocyte functions were studied by measuring the chemiluminescence (CL) activity of whole blood and isolated leucocytes and by investigating the expression of phagocyte receptors (FcγRI (CD64), FcγRII (CD32), FcγRIII (CD16), CR1 (CD35), CR3 (CD11b) and FcαR (CD89)) on neutrophils, monocytes and eosinophils by using receptor‐specific MoAbs and immunofluorescence flow cytometry. Infants born by elective Caesarean section had significantly higher CL activity than those delivered vaginally during the entire 6‐month follow up. In addition, infants who received formula feeds had significantly higher CL activity at 6 months of age and higher expression of FcγRI‐, Fcα‐ and CR3‐receptors on neutrophils than infants exclusively breast‐fed. We suggest that stress reaction associated with labour influences the phagocytic activity measured in the cord blood but later during infancy the intraluminal antigens, gut microflora and diet, become important determinants in immune programming of human individuals.
Hope and Education: The Role of the Utopian Imagination

1. Hope and its Significance for Education 2. Utopianism as a Vocabulary of Hope 3. Utopianism and Education: The Legacy of Thomas More 4. Utopian Realism and a Third Way for Education 5. Utopian Educational Management and Leadership 6. Deliberative Democracy and Utopian School Governance 7. A Utopian Cultural Core Curriculum 8. Putting Hope Back into Education
Risk-aware SLA negotiation

In order to assure Quality of Service (QoS) connectivity, Network Service Providers (NSPs) negotiate Service Level Agreements (SLAs). However, a committed SLA might fail to respect its QoS promises. In such a case, the customer is refunded. To maximize their revenues, the NSPs must deal with risks of SLA violations, which are correlated to their network capacities. Due to the complexity of the problem, we first study a system with one NSP provider and give a method to compute its risk-aware optimal strategy using (max, +)-algebras. Using the same method, we study the case where two NSPs collaborate and the case where they compete, and we derive the Price of Anarchy. This method provides optimal negotiation strategies but, when modeling customers' reaction to SLA failure, analytical results do not hold. Hence, we propose a learning framework that chooses the NSP risk-aware optimal strategy under failures capturing the impact of reputation. Finally, by simulation, we observe how the NSP can benefit from such a framework.
Excavating the meaning of information and communication technology use amongst South African university students : a critical discourse analysis

This thesis examines what Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) mean to South African university students and how these meanings form the basis of technological identities. It explores the relationships between these meanings and identities and the possibilities and opportunities that they create or limit. The motivation for this research arose from a national survey of students' access to and use of ICTs for learning within the higher education sector (Czerniewicz and Brown 2009b, p44). In this research project, students' disposition towards ICT was overwhelmingly positive and the majority made use of ICTs in some way for their learning. On the surface, it appeared that students thought ICTs were essential, and a positive benefit to their learning. However, this thesis looks beyond what students are saying about ICTs to how they are saying it, in a bid to determine what underlies these seemingly positive dispositions. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) was carried out on responses to open-ended survey questions from 807 students drawing on Fairclough's dimensions of discourse (Fairclough 2001) and Gee's concepts of D(d)iscourses and Conversations (Gee 2005) to determine the different technological identities expressed by university students'. Four key concepts – meaning, identity, power and context – form the central tools of the analytical process. The range of Discourses uncovered in this study shows that whilst students are adopting the positive expressions of the digital elite with regards to ICTs their Discourses are complex and often contradictory, reinforcing power, domination and interests of certain students at the expense of others. Common technological identities were associated with the dominant Discourses of Globalization, Learning, Determinism and Liberation which were shown to have a bearing on students' current and potential future uses of ICTs for learning. The study is located in the realm of social studies of Information Systems (IS) and adopts a critical theory lens. Meanings of ICTs are examined within the historical and cultural context of students’ experiences. In doing this I critique the opinion that technology is automatically a necessary and good tool for societal and educational change and seek to use the knowledge created from the research as a catalyst for change by giving voice to marginalized student groups