Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Urban Question under Planetary Urbanization

In Le Droit a la Ville (1968), Lefebvre projects the urban trajectory of his day into the sci-fi imaginary of Isaac Asimov's remarkable Foundation series, recognizing the germ of ' Trantor' in our midst, the planet of 40 billion inhabitants where urbanization has reached its absolute maximum; all 75 million square miles of Trantor's land surface are a single city. In La Revolution Urbaine (1970), Lefebvre had already begun hinting at a new reality, not only an urban society, but of planetary urbanization. Today, four decades on, Asimov's extraterrestrial universe seems closer to home than ever, and closer to Lefebvre's own terrestrial prognostications: planetary urbanization is creating a whole new spatial world (dis)order. But how shall we reclaim the shapeless, formless and boundless metropolis as a theoretical object and political object of the progressive struggle? If the arena of politics has no discernible form, what would be the form of these politics? What, exactly, are urban politics? This article tries to rethink theoretically the urban question and the question of urban politics in our era of planetary urbanization, working through the political role of the urban in the light of recent ' Occupy' mobilizations.
Thyroid Hormone Economy in the Perinatal Mouse Brain: Implications for Cerebral Cortex Development

Thyroid hormones (THs, T4 and the transcriptionally active hormone T3) play an essential role in neurodevelopment; however, the mechanisms underlying T3 brain delivery during mice fetal development are not well known. This work has explored the sources of brain T3 during mice fetal development using biochemical, anatomical, and molecular approaches. The findings revealed that during late gestation, a large amount of fetal brain T4 is of maternal origin. Also, in the developing mouse brain, fetal T3 content is regulated through the conversion of T4 into T3 by type-2 deiodinase (D2) activity, which is present from earlier prenatal stages. Additionally, D2 activity was found to be essential to mediate expression of T3-dependent genes in the cerebral cortex, and also necessary to generate the transient cerebral cortex hyperthyroidism present in mice lacking the TH transporter Monocarboxylate transporter 8. Notably, the gene encoding for D2 (Dio2) was mainly expressed at the blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier (BCSFB). Overall, these data signify that T4 deiodinated by D2 may be the only source of T3 during neocortical development. We therefore propose that D2 activity at the BCSFB converts the T4 transported across the choroid plexus into T3, thus supplying the brain with active hormone to maintain TH homeostasis.
Unsupervised prominence prediction for speech synthesis

We propose an unsupervised prominence prediction method for expressive speech synthesis. Prominence patterns are learned by statistical analysis of prosodic features extracted from speech data. The advantages of our unsupervised datadriven prominence prediction include: easy adaptation to new speakers, speech styles, and even languages without requiring expert knowledge or complicated linguistic rules. In this approach, first, prominence predictive prosodic features are extracted at the foot level. Next, the extracted prosodic features are clustered, each cluster representing a prominence level. Based on just-noticeable-differences of prosodic features, the optimal number of perceptually distinct prominence levels is determined. Finally, the proposed prominence prediction is applied to prosody prediction for unit selection speech synthesis. Perceptual evaluation results show a preference for a 4-level unsupervised prominence prediction over a rule-based baseline in terms of naturalness and expressiveness of synthesized speech.
Shiga toxin production and translocation during microaerobic human colonic infection with Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O157:H7 and O104:H4

Haemolytic uraemic syndrome caused by Shiga toxin‐producing E. coli (STEC) is dependent on release of Shiga toxins (Stxs) during intestinal infection and subsequent absorption into the bloodstream. An understanding of Stx‐related events in the human gut is limited due to lack of suitable experimental models. In this study, we have used a vertical diffusion chamber system with polarized human colon carcinoma cells to simulate the microaerobic (MA) environment in the human intestine and investigate its influence on Stx release and translocation during STEC O157:H7 and O104:H4 infection. Stx2 was the major toxin type released during infection. Whereas microaerobiosis significantly reduced bacterial growth as well as Stx production and release into the medium, Stx translocation across the epithelial monolayer was enhanced under MA versus aerobic conditions. Increased Stx transport was dependent on STEC infection and occurred via a transcellular pathway other than macropinocytosis. While MA conditions had a similar general effect on Stx release and absorption during infection with STEC O157:H7 and O104:H4, both serotypes showed considerable differences in colonization, Stx production, and Stx translocation which suggest alternative virulence strategies. Taken together, our study suggests that the MA environment in the human colon may modulate Stx‐related events and enhance Stx absorption during STEC infection.
Characterization and Identification of MicroRNA Core Promoters in Four Model Species

MicroRNAs are short, noncoding RNAs that play important roles in post-transcriptional gene regulation. Although many functions of microRNAs in plants and animals have been revealed in recent years, the transcriptional mechanism of microRNA genes is not well-understood. To elucidate the transcriptional regulation of microRNA genes, we study and characterize, in a genome scale, the promoters of intergenic microRNA genes in Caenorhabditis elegans, Homo sapiens, Arabidopsis thaliana, and Oryza sativa. We show that most known microRNA genes in these four species have the same type of promoters as protein-coding genes have. To further characterize the promoters of microRNA genes, we developed a novel promoter prediction method, called common query voting (CoVote), which is more effective than available promoter prediction methods. Using this new method, we identify putative core promoters of most known microRNA genes in the four model species. Moreover, we characterize the promoters of microRNA genes in these four species. We discover many significant, characteristic sequence motifs in these core promoters, several of which match or resemble the known cis-acting elements for transcription initiation. Among these motifs, some are conserved across different species while some are specific to microRNA genes of individual species.
Validation of a Fluid–Structure Interaction Model of a Heart Valve using the Dynamic Mesh Method in Fluent

Simulations of coupled problems such as fluid–structure interaction (FSI) are becoming more and more important for engineering purposes. This is particularly true when modeling the aortic valve, where the FSI between the blood and the valve determines the valve movement and the valvular hemodynamics. Nevertheless only a few studies are focusing on the opening and closing behavior during the ejection phase (systole). In this paper, we present the validation of a FSI model using the dynamic mesh method of Fluent for the two-dimensional (2D) simulation of mechanical heart valves during the ejection phase of the cardiac cycle. The FSI model is successfully validated by comparing simulation results to experimental data obtained from in vitro studies using a CCD camera.
The implementation of ada 2005 synchronized interfaces in the GNAT compiler

One of the most important object-oriented features of the new revision of the Ada Programming Language is the introduction of Abstract Interfaces to provide a form of multiple inheritance. Ada 2005 Abstract Interface Types are akin to Java interfaces, and as such support inheritance of specification rather than inheritance of implementation. Ada 2005 interfaces apply as well to tasks and protected types, and provide a classification mechanism for concurrent programming that goes considerably beyond the capabilities of Java.This paper summarizes the implementation in the GNAT compiler of the various kinds of interfaces that relate to concurrent programming in Ada 2005 [1]. The implementation is efficient, and involves mostly modifications to the compiler front-end, with virtually minimal impact on run-time structures, beyond those that are in place to support regular interfaces. However, the implementation of interface operations as triggers in selective waits and asynchronous transfers of control proved to be surprisingly delicate and requires additional predefined primitive operations.
Analyzing the U.S. Senate in 2003: Similarities, Clusters, and Blocs

In this paper, we apply information theoretic measures to voting in the U.S. Senate in 2003. We assess the associations between pairs of senators and groups of senators based on the votes they cast. For pairs, we use similarity-based methods, including hierarchical clustering and multidimensional scaling. To identify groups of senators, we use principal component analysis. We also apply a discrete multinomial latent variable model that we have developed. In doing so, we identify blocs of cohesive voters within the Senate and contrast it with continuous ideal point methods. We find more nuanced blocs than simply the two-party division. Under the bloc-voting model, the Senate can be interpreted as a weighted vote system, and we are able to estimate the empirical voting power of individual blocs through what-if analysis.
Dissociation between spontaneous and reactive flexibility in early Parkinson's disease.

OBJECTIVE This study was designed to examine the relations between the severity of motor symptoms and impaired cognitive flexibility in Parkinson's disease. BACKGROUND Studies that examine cognitive flexibility in Parkinson's disease report conflicting results. We hypothesized that such inconsistency may reflect a differential pattern of impairment on tasks that measure spontaneous versus reactive flexibility. METHODS The performance of tasks requiring either spontaneous (Alternate Uses) or reactive (Wisconsin Card Sorting Test) cognitive flexibility was examined in newly diagnosed unmedicated patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease, as compared with age- and education-matched controls. The correlation between the degree of deficit and severity of motor symptoms was also examined. RESULTS Patients were significantly worse than controls in performing both types of tasks. The patients' performance on tasks of spontaneous reactivity was not correlated with the presence or severity of the motor signs and symptoms. However, only patients showing signs of bradykinesia were impaired on a measure of reactive cognitive flexibility and the degree of impairment was significantly correlated with the severity of bradykinesia. CONCLUSIONS These findings suggest that the dissociation between the two types of cognitive flexibility may reflect the differential involvement of the mesocortical and striatonigral dopaminergic circuits in the mediation of these tasks.
Tendencias del uso de drogas en la Ciudad de México: Encuesta de Estudiantes del 2009

SUMMARYIntroductionIn the course of the last three years, a wide range of epidemiologicalstudies related to drug use has been conducted, both at a nationaland international level. Talking about national studies in the field ofschool population, surveys have been conducted in the states of Colima,Nuevo Leon and Jalisco, as well as surveys in university population,among others. Regarding tobacco use, several studies were made andthey covered many cities of the country. About household surveys, thefifth National Addictions Survey (ENA) was carried out in 2008 and itprovided data at a national and state level. The Global Survey ofSmoking in Adults (GATS) was also made having nationwide coverage.In relation to tobacco use, the trend shows a decrease in the prevalenceof consumption. This is shown in ENA 2008 and GATS, as well asschool population studies in different states. For alcohol consumption,the situation is different; both for the prevalence and for the proportionof people who start its early consumption, significant increases havebeen reported throughout the country . Alcohol abuse remains constantand is similar between men and women. When considering the use ofillegal drugs, there is an overall increase. As for marijuana, dataindicates that its consumption has increased and that it remains as theprimary drug of use. However, the main increase is for inhalants,particularly among school population and especially in women. Forcocaine, data from United Nations shows a significant decrease in thesupply of this substance due to the increase of seizures. Data fromENA 2008 shows that the use of this drug has doubled between 2002and 2008. The United Nations report indicates that the increase in ourcountry is apparent until 2005 and since then it has been decreasing.Methamphetamine use remains low and it does not increase. Only inthe case of the population that goes to service centers for drug users, ahigh rate of consumption is found. Finally, the consumption of heroinand hallucinogens is low. Chihuahua remains as the state with themost problems in the use of heroine. Most recent surveys have allowedus to see, in general, some of the trajectories in adolescent mentalhealth, where sexual abuse is presented first in women, followed byADDH, then the consumption of legal drugs, antisocial behavior, useof inhalants and suicide attempt. Then drug consumption, marijuanaand cocaine. In men, the sequence is similar, although they face ADDHfirst and then sexual abuse. In this context, the objective of this study isto assess the prevalence of drug, alcohol and tobacco use, as well asconsumption trends in school population from 7
Effect of grape seed extract on the bond strength of bleached enamel.

OBJECTIVE This in vitro study assessed the neutralizing effect of grape seed extract (oligomeric proanthocyanidin complexes [OPCs]) on the bond strength of bleached enamel. MATERIALS AND METHODS Labial enamel surfaces of 70 extracted human maxillary central incisors were randomly divided into four groups based on the antioxidant used as follows: Group I (n=20): bleaching with 38% hydrogen peroxide gel for 10 minutes, without the use of an antioxidant; Group II (n=20): bleaching followed by the use of 10% sodium ascorbate solution; Group III (n=20): bleaching followed by the use of 5% proanthocyanidin solution; and Group IV (n=10): control group in which no bleaching was done. Groups I, II, and III were further subdivided into two subgroups of 10 teeth each, based on whether composite build-up was done immediately (subgroup A) or after a delay of 2 weeks (subgroup B) post bleaching. Shear bond strength of the specimens was tested under a universal testing machine. The data were tabulated and statistically analyzed. RESULTS Significantly higher shear bond strength values were observed in teeth treated with 10% sodium ascorbate (Group II) and 5% proanthocyanidin (Group III) as compared with the control group (Group IV). Among the antioxidants used, teeth treated with proanthocyanidin showed significantly higher shear bond strength values than those treated with sodium ascorbate. CONCLUSION It can be concluded that the use of grape seed extract prior to bonding procedures on bleached enamel completely neutralizes the deleterious effects of bleaching and increases the bond strength significantly.
Rearrangement of c‐myc, pim‐1 and Mlvi‐1 and trisomy of chromosome 15 in MCF‐ and moloney‐MuLV‐induced murine T‐cell leukemias

Provirus insertion near the c‐myc, pim‐1 or MIvi‐I genes occurred in 7 out of 59 virally induced T‐cell leukemias. C‐myc was exclusively rearranged in approximately 10% of MCF 247‐induced tumors while MIvi‐I was rearranged to a similar frequency in Molo‐ney‐virus‐induced lymphomas. Out of 25 karyotyped tumors, 9 (36%) showed trisomy of chromosome 15. Provirus insertion near c‐myc, pim‐I or MIvi‐I occurred both in diploid lymphomas and in tumors with trisomy 15. These results suggest that the molecular and cytogenetic changes observed in murine T‐cell leukemias are independent tumor‐associated events and that trisomy of chromosome 15 is a common tumor‐progression‐related event.
Relationship between leadership behaviors and performance: The moderating role of a work team's level of age, gender, and cultural heterogeneity

Purpose – In today's organizations, the heterogeneity of work teams is increasing. For example, members of work teams have different ages, genders, and/or cultural backgrounds. As a consequence, team leaders have to face the challenge of taking into account the various needs, values, and motives of their followers. However, there has been very little empirical research to test whether the influence of leadership behaviors on performance is moderated by facets of team heterogeneity. This paper aims to address this issue.Design/methodology/approach – The leadership behaviors of transactional and transformational leadership, laissez‐faire, consideration, and initiating structure, as well as three facets of heterogeneity (i.e. age, gender, and culture) were assessed in an empirical study based on a sample of n=283 members of German fire departments. These team members also provided self‐ratings for their performance.Findings – The results revealed that the relationship between three leadership behaviors (i.e.
Combining structure search and content search for the World-Wide Web

When searching information in the World-Wide Web (WWW), the currently available search engines typically return too many irrelevant addresses to their users. This is a deep and many-faceted issue and very hard to be generally solved. One of the current problems involved is that these search engines focus on content search and not on structure search as investigated in hypertext research. A prerequisite of full-fledged structure search would be that links are firstclass objects. This is obviously not the case for the representation of links in the WWW. So, we introduce a rudimentary form of structure search that is based upon content search. In our application of this approach to searching the WWW, we combine this kind of structure search with content search in a meta-search engine. In this way, we are able to reduce the number of irrelevant addresses returned. As a consequence, we propose this approach for searching the World-Wide Web.
Examining mentors' practices for enhancing preservice teachers' pedagogical development in mathematics and science

Mentoring is too important to be left to chance (Ganser, 1996), yet mentoring expertise of teachers varies widely, which may present inequities for developing preservice teachers' practices. Five factors for mentoring have been identified herein: personal attributes, system requirements, pedagogical knowledge, modelling, and feedback, and items associated with each factor have also been justified in context of the literature. An original, literature‐based survey instrument gathered 446 preservice teachers' perceptions of their mentoring for primary teaching. Data were analysed within the above‐mentioned five factors with 331 final‐year preservice teachers from nine Australian universities responding to their mentoring for science teaching and 115 final‐year preservice teachers from an urban university responding to their mentoring for mathematics teaching. Results indicated similar Cronbach alpha scores on each of the five factors for primary science and mathematics teaching; however percentages and mean scores on attributes and practices aligned with each factor were considerably higher for mentoring mathematics teaching compared with science teaching.
Long term neurological outcome of herpes encephalitis

Twenty eight children with herpes simplex encephalitis were followed up for a mean of 5.5 years. Two children died and 26 survived, of whom 16 were left with no neurological sequelae and 10 had persistent neurological sequelae. Mean (SD) Glasgow coma score was significantly lower in the patients with neurological sequelae (7.7 (1.5)) and the patients who died (4.5 (0.7)), compared with the patients without neurological sequelae (11 (1.7)).
Dissociable roles of the human somatosensory and superior temporal cortices for processing social face signals

Faces are multi‐dimensional stimuli bearing important social signals, such as gaze direction and emotion expression. To test whether perception of these two facial attributes recruits distinct cortical areas within the right hemisphere, we used single‐pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in healthy volunteers while they performed two different tasks on the same face stimuli. In each task, two successive faces were presented with varying eye‐gaze directions and emotional expressions, separated by a short interval of random duration. TMS was applied over either the right somatosensory cortex or the right superior lateral temporal cortex, 100 or 200 ms after presentation of the second face stimulus. Participants performed a speeded matching task on the second face during one of two possible conditions, requiring judgements about either gaze direction or emotion expression (same/different as the first face). Our results reveal a significant task–stimulation site interaction, indicating a selective TMS‐related interference following stimulations of somatosensory cortex during the emotional expression task. Conversely, TMS of the superior lateral temporal cortex selectively interfered with the gaze direction task. We also found that the interference effect was specific to the stimulus content in each condition, affecting judgements of gaze shifts (not static eye positions) with TMS over the right superior temporal cortex, and judgements of fearful expressions (not happy expressions) with TMS over the right somatosensory cortex. These results provide for the first time a double dissociation in normal subjects during social face recognition, due to transient disruption of non‐overlapping brain regions. The present study supports a critical role of the somatosensory and superior lateral temporal regions in the perception of fear expression and gaze shift in seen faces, respectively.
A new perspective on the functioning of the brain and the mechanisms behind conscious processes

An essential prerequisite for the development of a theory of consciousness is the clarification of the fundamental mechanisms underlying conscious processes. In this article I present an approach that sheds new light on these mechanisms. This approach builds on stochastic electrodynamics (SED), a promising theoretical framework that provides a deeper understanding of quantum systems and reveals the origin of quantum phenomena. I outline the most important concepts and findings of SED and interpret the neurophysiological body of evidence in the context of these findings, indicating that the functioning of the brain rests upon exactly the same principles that are characteristic for quantum systems. On this basis, I construct a new hypothesis on the mechanisms behind conscious processes and discuss the new perspectives this hypothesis opens up for consciousness research. In particular, it offers the possibility of elucidating the relationship between brain and consciousness, of specifying the connection between consciousness and information, and of answering the question of what distinguishes conscious processes from unconscious processes.