Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The role of creativity in entrepreneurship university courses

-Purpose The objective of this paper is to analyse the creativity level of business administration undergraduates who have attended an entrepreneurship seminar in contrast to those that have not. -Design/methodology/approach Using two samples of Spanish students, the factors that condition the creation of new start-ups are analysed. A survey following the creativity items from the Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory was employed for a start-up seminar students and a control sample. Non-parametric tests were carried out on the responses. -Findings Our results show that students’ entrepreneurial intentions are not conditioned by entrepreneurial courses, parental self-employment, or by their creativity level. However, there are differences in creativity level by genders for their future ability to start-up a company. -Practical implications There are no external constraints for not being an entrepreneur, who play a fundamental role in the future of a country and are a way to reduce current youth unemployment rates. Social and educational implications are also presented. -Originality/value The use of the Kirton’s Adaptation-Innovation (KAI) inventory as a proxy of creativity index is original in our research. Moreover, this study contributes to a better understanding of the factors to become an entrepreneur, through exposure to creativity, growing up around businesses and awareness of individual creativity index. Integration of university courses with entrepreneurship actions will be of interest to the society development.
Mekanisk analyse av kamaksling på en skipsmotor

This project is concerned with studying the dynamical behaviour of a mediumspeed diesel engine camshaft. As an important part of the reciprocal engine, the camshaft is subjected to increased loading due to the growing demand of higher engine performance. The time-varying forces which acts on the camshaft in operation give rise to oscillatory motion and these vibrations are important to account for in the overall mechanical analysis. The angular deflection of the camshaft is a key parameter in camshaft design as it affects the valve timings and hence the engine performance. The torsional vibration of camshaft is studied with special attention paid to the angular deflections. The camshaft is driven by the crankshaft through a two-stage gear drive. This gear drive has significant dynamic contributions to the camshaft performance and is included in the total model of the camshaft. The total model is spatially discretized as a multibody system with lumped masses and interconnecting idealised springs and dampers. An integration routine was written in Matlab to simultaneously solve the equations of motion based on the Newmark β-algorithms. The nonlinearities introduced to the systems by the time-varying stiffness and backlash in the gears required an iterative solving scheme to ensure equilibrium. One of the main goal of this thesis is to develop a dynamic simulation model and investigate to which extent the different mechanical systems on the engine needs to be included in order to get a sufficiently accurate simulation model. The dynamic response in the camshaft is found to be strongly dependent on the first natural frequency and the impulse loads introduced by the injection pumps. The results from the simulations must nonetheless be validated against physical testing before the accuracy of the model may be determined. The results were generally in concurrence with expectations and serves well as a starting point for more accurate simulation models.
Nathan Thomas Bartlett

While humans demonstrate sexually differentiated psychological and behavioural traits, such as aggression, there is a vast amount of within-sex variation for these traits. Further, the effect size of these sex differences is relatively small and there is a large amount of overlap between males and females on each measure. The mechanisms underlying these differences may operate, in part, prenatally. For neurodevelopment, estrogen serves to masculinize and defeminize the male brain. The aromatization hypothesis suggests that the conversion of testosterone to estrogen in the brain facilitates this process. Consequently, the degree of expression of Cyp19, the aromatase producing gene, may influence the extent to which the brain is sexually differentiated. This study assessed Cyp19 methylation levels to determine a general sex difference for the epigenetic marker and investigate the influence of the genes productivity on sex typical cognitive phenotypes. I hypothesized that males will have lower methylation levels, allowing for greater aromatase expression to masculinize and defeminize the brain. Thus, I also hypothesized that this difference would be reflected in the psychological measures, whereby lower methylation levels would be associated with more male-typical results. Aggression, mental rotation ability, and autism traits were assessed in 41 female and 36 male undergraduate psychology students, who also provided saliva samples for genomic processing. A sex difference in overall methylation levels was found, but this did not extend to the psychological measures. CYP19 METHYLATION AND SEX-TYPICAL PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAITS iii
Assessment of the acid phosphatase CP01850 from Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis in DNA and subunit vaccine formulations against caseous lymphadenitis

BA ABSTRACT The target cp1002_RS01850 from Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis was used to construct a DNA and recombinant subunit vaccine against caseous lymphadenitis. Recombinant protein rCP01850 was expressed in Escherichia coli using pAE vector, and DNA vaccine was engineered with pTARGET vector. BALB/c mice were divided in five groups containing eight animals each, inoculated with: pTARGET/cp01850 as DNA vaccine (G1); rCP01850 plus Al (OH) 3 as recombinant subunit vaccine (G2); pTARGET/cp01850 and a boost with rCP01850 plus Al (OH) 3 (G3); pTARGET (G4); or Al (OH) 3 (G5). Mice were inoculated and blood samples were collected on days 0, 21, and 42 for the analysis of total IgG, IgG1 and IgG2a by ELISA. In each group, five animals were challenged with Mic-6 C. pseudotuberculosis strain, and three were used for cytokine quantification by qPCR. Although no group has been protected by vaccines against lethal challenge, G2 showed an increase in the survival rate after challenge. Significantly higher levels of IL-4, IL-12, IFN-γ, total IgG, IgG1 and IgG2a were also detected for G2, evidencing a mixed Th1/Th2 immunological profile. In conclusion, despite no protection level provided by different vaccinal strategies using cp1002_RS01850 from C. pseudotuberculosis , G2 developed a Th1/Th2 immune response with an increase in survival
Embodied interactions for spatial design ideation: Symbolic, geometric, and tangible approaches

Vinayak. Ph.D., Purdue University, December 2015. Embodied Interactions for Spatial Design Ideation: Symbolic, Geometric, and Tangible Approaches. Major Professor: Karthik Ramani, School of Mechanical Engineering. Computer interfaces are evolving from mere aids for number crunching into active partners in creative processes such as art and design. This is, to a great extent, the result of mass availability of new interaction technology such as depth sensing, sensor integration in mobile devices, and increasing computational power. We are now witnessing the emergence of maker culture that can elevate art and design beyond the purview of enterprises and professionals such as trained engineers and artists. Materializing this transformation is not trivial; everyone has ideas but only a select few can bring them to reality. The challenge is the recognition and the subsequent interpretation of human actions into design intent. Taking inspiration and guidance from embodied interactions, our focus in this work is to design, develop, and evaluate interfaces and interaction techniques to support idea generation for the design of three-dimensional (3D) shapes. Grounded in the phenomenological tradition of philosophy, embodied interactions represent a general framework to understand the transformation of action into meaning – in our case, design intent. We present concrete instances of this framework by investigating symbolic, geometric, and tangible approaches for transforming human action into design intent. We begin with the symbolic transformation of action to intent by introducing shapegesture-context interplay (SGC-I), a framework that enables the expression of design intent in the virtual environment through a prescribed set of hand gestures combined with arm motion. Here, the main idea is to automatically deduce the nature and extent of geometric constraints by interpreting human gestures and motions in the context of a given modeling operation.
Impacts of the monolingual and bilingual dictionaries on the lexical errors committed by EFL learners in Hong Kong: a semantic analysis

Drawing upon semantic theories and concepts, including argument structure, componential analysis, descriptive meaning, and syntagmatic constraints, the present study analyses the four typical lexical errors committed by EFL learners in Hong Kong identified in a previous study conducted by Chan (TESOL Quarterly 44:295–319, 2010) and investigates whether the lexical information provided in monolingual and bilingual dictionaries alleviates or aggravates those four errors, respectively. The lexical information in monolingual dictionaries has been discovered to be efficacious in filling the gaps in learners’ lexical knowledge and assisting them in alleviating those errors, whilst that in bilingual dictionaries has been found to be capable of alleviating only the types of errors not influenced by the learners’ L1 but aggravating the errors influenced by the L1. The current study has provided pedagogical implications for the instruction of English vocabulary in the context of Hong Kong, albeit learners’ comprehension of the dictionary entries has to be investigated in the future to verify the findings of the study.
Antiestrogen Treatment of Breast Cancer: An Overview1

The nonsteroidal antiestrogen tamoxifen has emerged as a highly effective, nontoxic endocrine therapy for women with Stage IV and II estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer. Ta moxifen appears to act by blocking endogenous estrogen action at the target tissue level rather than by suppression of circulating estrogen levels. In a series of 113 consecutive, selected patients with Stage IV breast cancer, tamoxifen induced objective remissions in 50% lasting an average period of 21 + months and a median period of 16 months. These results are comparable to previous results with surgical hypophysectomy. Recent randomized studies comparing pharmacological doses of estrogen versus tamoxifen in postmenopausal women with Stage IV breast cancer have shown comparable results with these two treat ment modalities.
Indoor air quality assessment and its impact on health in context to the household conditions in Lucknow

To assess the indoor air quality of urban and rural houses of Lucknow region, the present study was conducted from November 2014 to October 2015. Concentrations of SO 2 , NO 2 , CO 2 , CO, NH 3 , H 2 S, PM 10 and PM 2.5 were measured in five urban and five rural houses. House selection was done after a questionnaire survey in two medical colleges. The average concentrations of PM 10 (280 and 315 µg m -3 ) and PM 2.5 (185 and 210 µg m -3 ) were highest in the winter season. Excessive consumption of crude fuel to combat cold conditions was associated with high particulate concentrations in rural houses. Smoking was observed as a common indoor habit. Skin irritation was a common symptom reported during rainy season whereas complaints of cataract, cough and sneezing were prevalent in winter season. Air quality index with respect to particulate concentration was predicted by three different methods and found to be poorest in rural houses during winter season with values 716.1, 457.0 and 7.427 respectively.
Photosystem I of the colonial alga Botryococcus braunii has an unusually large antenna size

45 Photosystem I (PSI) is an essential component of the photosynthetic apparatus of oxygenic 46 photosynthesis. While most of its subunits are conserved, recent data have shown that the 47 arrangement of the light-harvesting complexes (LHCI) differs substantially in different 48 organisms. Here we studied the PSI-LHCI supercomplex of Botryococccus braunii, a colonial 49 green alga with potential for lipid and sugar production, using functional analysis and single50 particle electron microscopy of the isolated PSI-LHCI supercomplexes complemented by 51 time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy in vivo. We established that the largest purified 52 PSI-LHCI supercomplex contains 10 LHCIs (~240 chlorophylls (Chls)). However, electron 53 microscopy evidenced heterogeneity in the particles and showed a total of 13 unique 54 binding sites for the LHCIs around the PSI core. Time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy 55 indicated that the PSI antenna size in vivo is even larger than that of the purified complex. 56 Based on the comparison of the known PSI structures, we propose that PSI in B. braunii can 57 bind LHCIs at all known positions surrounding the core. This organization maximizes the 58 antenna size while maintaining fast excitation energy transfer within the complex and thus 59 high trapping efficiency. 60 61
Ion Mobility-Mass Spectrometry Study of Folded Ubiquitin Conformers Induced By Treatment with cis -[Pd(en)(H 2 O) 2 ] 2+

Ion mobility-mass spectrometry is used to study the new conformers of bovine ubiquitin (Ub) and the palladium(II) binding sites after the incubation with cis -[Pd(en)(H 2 O) 2 ] 2+ where en = ethylenediamine. Palladium(II) complexes are potentially useful proteomic reagents because they selectively bind to the side groups of methionine and histidine and hydrolytically cleave the peptide bond. Incubating 1.0 mM solution of Ub with 10.0 molar excess of cis -[Pd(en)(H 2 O) 2 ] 2+ results with one to four Pd 2+ or Pd(en) 2+ being attached to intact Ub and two conformer families at each of the 4+ to 11+ charge states. The 4+ and 5+ species exhibit a compact form, which is also observed in untreated Ub, and a new highly folded conformer. The 6+ to 10+ exhibit an elongated form, also observed in Ub, and a new partially folded conformer. The new conformers are shown to be more stable if they contain at least one Pd 2+ , rather than all Pd(en) 2+ . IM-MS/ MS of [UbPd 2 en+5H] 9+ shows that both the partially folded and elongated conformers first lose the en ligand, followed by dissociating into product ions that indicate that Met1, Glu51/Asp52, His68, and Glu16 are binding sites for Pd 2+ . These results suggest that Pd 2+ is simultaneously binding to multiple side groups across different regions of Ub. This type of sequestering of Pd 2+ probably reduces the efficiency of Pd 2+ ions to selectively cleave Ub because it prevents Pd 2+ anchoring to only Met or His and to an adjacent backbone amide nitrogen and forming the “ activated complex ” necessary for specific peptide bond cleavage.
Gas Explosion Venting: Comparison of Square and Circular Vents

In vent design guides there is no reference to the shape of the vent, only to its geometrical area. This work was carried out on the commonly used circular and square vent shapes for the same geometrical area, in order to investigate whether vent shape was a significant parameter in vent design. The work was carried out in a 0.01 m3 cylindrical explosion vessel with an L/D of 2.8 with end wall ignition opposite the vent, which is close to the limit of applicability of US and European vent design guides for compact vessels. The vents were located on the centreline of the vessel and were compared under free venting conditions. The work was carried out for the most reactive gas mixtures of methane/air and ethylene/air. The impact of the vent shape was mainly on the external explosion and was significant at low Kv =V 2/3/Av, with a reduced overpressure for square vents of about 30%. The effect of the vent shape was greater for ethylene/air and occurred at all Kv tested from 3.6 to 10.9. There were two contributory factors to the effect, the change in the discharge coefficient of the vent with vent shape and the greater entrainment of external air into square jets, which caused the jet to spread faster and have lower flame speeds and lower external overpressures.
Transforming Growth Factor b 1 Is a Target for the von Hippel-Lindau Tumor Suppressor and a Critical Growth Factor for Clear Cell Renal Carcinoma 1

The von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) tumor suppressor gene is mutated in patients with VHL disease and in the majority of patients with sporadic clear cell renal carcinoma (RCC). Overexpression of transforming growth factor (TGF) b 1 has been observed in patients with several cancers, including RCCs, with serum and urine levels correlating inversely with prognosis. We have demonstrated that the VHL tumor suppressor gene product represses TGF- b 1 mRNA and protein levels ( ’ 3–4-fold) in 786-O RCC cells by decreasing the TGF- b 1 mRNA half-life. Exogenously added TGF- b 1 did not suppress the growth of 786-O cells in vitro , nor did the addition of neutralizing antibody (Ab) against TGF- b have any effect. Indeed, 786-O cells were found to express no TGF- b type II receptor protein, thus allowing them to escape from the negative growth control of TGF- b 1. In contrast to the in vitro data, neutralizing Ab to TGF- b inhibited tumorigenesis and, in some cases, regressed established 786-O tumors in athymic mice. Immunohistochemistry for von Willebrand’s factor revealed a 3–4-fold lower tumor microvessel count in the mice treated with TGF- b Ab compared to controls, suggesting that the Ab was inhibiting angiogenesis. Our findings indicate that TGF- b 1 is a novel target for the VHL tumor suppressor and that antagonizing its paracrine action may provide novel avenues for treatment of RCCs as well as other tumors that secrete TGF- b 1.
Antibiotic biogram of bacterial isolates among patients suspected of urinary tract infection

Resistant bacteria are emerging worldwide as a threat to favourable outcomes of treatment of common infections in community and hospital settings. Urinary tract, gastrointestinal and pyogenic infections are commonly caused by members of Enterobacteriaceae. A total of three hundred and seventy (370) urine samples from patients suspected of Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) at Rasheed Shekoni Specialist Hospital, Dutse, Nigeria, were collected and microbiologically analyzed. The prevalence of bacterial UTIs in the study population was determined (24.9%). The most prevalent isolates were Escherichia coli 39(42.2%) and Staphylococcus saprophyticus 26(28.3%) followed by K. pneumoniae 9(9.8%), P. vulgaris 9(9.8%), P. mirabilis 7(7.5%) and P. aeruginosa (2.2%) Statistical analysis using chi-square test had shown that there is no significant difference (p>0.05). In-vitro antibiotic susceptibility test have revealed that, almost all the isolates have relatively shown resistance to the tested antibiotics. Resistance to amoxicillin (AM), Augmentin (AU), Pefloxacin (PEF), and Sparfloxacin (SP) are the most common. It was concluded with the fact that E. coli and S. saprophyticus were the most prevalent pathogens of bacterial UTIs in the population; and Streptomycin (S), Gentimicin (CN), Ciproplaxacin (CPX), Rifampicin (RD), Levofloxacin (LEV), Norfloxacin (NB) and Erythromycin (E) are the most promising due to relatively low resistance pattern of the tested isolates to these antibiotics.
Energy efficiency, synchronization and power control for the implementation of cooperative communications in wireless sensor networks.

In this dissertation, we explore the energy efficiency and low complex implementation of cooperative schemes in wireless sensor networks. Considering the requirement on signal arrival time synchronization, we proposed a physical layer synchronization scheme for the distributed MISO cooperative communication in wireless sensor networks. The proposed scheme is adequate for the cooperative communication but introduces less complexity to the network design. It provides better BER performance in the existence of initial synchronization error. According to the simulation results, it is supposed to be practically implemented in the sensor nodes. Upon this assumption, optimal power allocation strategies for AF cooperative relaying scheme and distributed MISO cooperative scheme are proposed for cooperative communication in wireless sensor networks. With a given requirement on BER performance, they help to minimize the total transmit power in Rayleigh fading channel. Moreover, without direct link between the source and destination nodes, we proposed two energy efficient cooperative strategies to incorporate the AF cooperative relaying and distributed MISO cooperative schemes. A heuristic policy to select the cooperative nodes and choose the appropriate cooperative strategy is derived. Furthermore, we analyzed the energy efficiency of three error control protocols considering SISO AWGN for short distance communication and MISO Rayleigh fading for long distance communication. We proposed thresholds of the coding gain for various code rates to make the hybrid ARQ protocol more energy efficient.
1,25-Dihydroxyvitamin D 3 suppresses high glucose-induced angiotensinogen expression in kidney cells by blocking the NF- (cid:1) B pathway

1,25-Dihydroxyvitamin D 3 suppresses high glucose-induced angiotensinogen expression in kidney cells by blocking the NF- (cid:1) B pathway. Am J Physiol Renal Physiol 296: F1212–F1218, 2009. re-nin-angiotensin system (RAS) is a major mediator of renal injury in diabetic nephropathy. Our previous studies demonstrated that 1,25-dihy-droxyvitamin D 3 [1,25(OH) 2 D 3 ] plays a renoprotective role by suppress- ing the RAS, with renin and angiotensinogen (AGT) as the main targets. The mechanism whereby 1,25(OH) 2 D 3 transcriptionally suppresses renin gene expression has been elucidated; however, how vitamin D regulates AGT remains unknown. Exposure of mesangial cells or podocytes to high glucose (HG; 30 mM) markedly stimulated AGT expression. In mesangial cells, the stimulation was inhibited by 1,25(OH) 2 D 3 (20 nM) or NF- (cid:1) B inhibitor BAY 11–7082, suggesting the involvement of NF-(cid:1) B in HG-induced AGT expression and the interaction between 1,25(OH) 2 D 3 and NF- (cid:1) B in the regulation. Plasmid pNF- (cid:1) B-Luc luciferase reporter assays showed that 1,25(OH) 2 D 3 blocked HG-induced NF- (cid:1) B activity. EMSA and ChIP assays demonstrated increased p65/p50 binding to a NF- (cid:1) B binding site at (cid:2) 1734 in the AGT gene promoter upon high glucose stimulation, and the binding was disrupted by 1,25(OH) 2 D 3 treatment. Overexpression of p65/p50 overcame 1,25(OH) 2 D 3 suppression, and mutation of this NF- (cid:1) B binding site blunted 1,25(OH) 2 D 3 suppression of the promoter activity. In mice lacking the vitamin D receptor, AGT mRNA expression in the kidney was markedly increased compared with wild-type mice, and AGT induction in diabetic mice was suppressed by treatment with a vitamin D analog. These data indicate that 1,25(OH) 2 D 3 suppresses hyperglycemia-induced AGT expression by blocking NF- (cid:1) B-mediated pathway.