Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gaining and Losing Respect of the New Zealand Public: Adidas' 2011 Rugby World Cup Jersey Pricing Crisis

2 Dedication 4 Acknowledgments 5 1.0 Chapter one: Introduction 14 1.1 Overview of the thesis 15 2.0 Chapter two: Literature review 18 2.1 Sponsorship 18 2.1.1 The importance of sponsorship 18 2.1. 2 What is sponsorship? 19 2.1. 3 The objectives of sponsorship 19 2.1. 4 Goodwill 20 2.1. 5 Positive brand image, reputation, and image transfer 21 2.1. 6 Commercial objectives: Purchasing fan Merchandise 23 2.2 Determinants of an effective sponsorship 24 2.2.1 Fan identification 24 2.2.2 Fan involvement 25 2.2. 3 National identity and national brands 27 2.2. 4 Congruence between the sponsor and the sport or team 28 3.0 Co-branding 29 3.1 What is a co-brand? 29 3.2 From Sponsorship to Co-brands 29 4.0 Respect 30 4.1 Relevance of respect in Everyday life 31 4.2 What is respect? 31 4.3 Respectful behaviours 32
Pharmacokinetic interactions among major bioactive components in Radix Scutellariae via metabolic competition

Baicalein (B), wogonin (W) and oroxylin A (OA) are major components in Radix Scutellariae with similar pharmacokinetic properties. Due to the co‐presence of these three flavones in herbal formulations for Radix Scutellariae, they are likely consumed together. The aim of this study is to investigate whether the pharmacokinetics of individual flavones is influenced by each other and the underlying mechanism of the interaction. Various systems were utilized in the current study including a rat in vivo study, a Caco‐2 cell monolayer model and a rat in situ single‐pass intestinal perfusion as well as in vitro enzymatic kinetics studies. The B, W and OA given singly as well as in a mixture were administered and the corresponding pharmacokinetic parameters were calculated and compared. After co‐administration of the three flavones to rats, OA absorption increased significantly in comparison with when OA was administered alone. Mechanistic studies on the Caco‐2 cell monolayer and rat in situ single‐pass intestinal perfusion models revealed that co‐administration of B, W and OA could significantly enhance their absorption and decrease the extent of phase II metabolism. Further in vitro enzymatic study and a transport study in transfected MDCK cells revealed that metabolic competition rather than membrane transporters might contribute to the pharmacokinetic interactions. The co‐presence of multiple active components would result in metabolic interactions, which may induce further changes in pharmacodynamics. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The c‐mos proto‐oncogene protein kinase turns on and maintains the activity of MAP kinase, but not MPF, in cell‐free extracts of Xenopus oocytes and eggs.

During studies of the activation and inactivation of the cyclin B‐p34cdc2 protein kinase (MPF) in cell‐free extracts of Xenopus oocytes and eggs, we found that a bacterially expressed fusion protein between the Escherichia coli maltose‐binding protein and the Xenopus c‐mos protein kinase (malE‐mos) activated a 42 kDa MAP kinase. The activation of MAP kinase on addition of malE‐mos was consistent, whereas the activation of MPF was variable and failed to occur in some oocyte extracts in which cyclin A or okadaic acid activated both MPF and MAP kinase. In cases when MPF activation was transient, MAP kinase activity declined after MPF activity was lost, and MAP kinase, but not MPF, could be maintained at a high level by the presence of malE‐mos. When intact oocytes were treated with progesterone, however, the activation of MPF and MAP kinase occurred simultaneously, in contrast to the behaviour of extracts. These observations suggest that one role of c‐mos may be to maintain high MAP kinase activity in meiosis. They also imply that the activation of MPF and MAP kinase in vivo are synchronous events that normally rely on an agent that has still to be identified.
Inactivation of aconitase in yeast exposed to oxidative stress

Inactivation of aconitase by oxidative stress was analyzed under the in vivo and in situ conditions of yeast cells. Treatment of yeast cells with paraquat caused a specific inactivation of aconitase without affecting the activity of other citric acid cycle enzymes. Addition of copper plus ascorbic acid to permeabilized yeast cells also inactivated aconitase, but did not affect other TCA cycle‐related enzymes. Inactivation of aconitase was suggested to be due to the superoxide and hydroxyl radicals produced from the reaction of 02 with paraquat and by Fenton reaction with copper and ascorbic acid under the in vivo and in situ conditons of yeast, respectively. Citrate the substrate of aconitase effectively protected aconitase from the oxidative inactivation. Toxicity of oxygen to yeast cells can be explained by the specific inactivation of aconitase by oxygen radicals. Increased concentrations of citrate can act as a defense mechanism against oxidative inactivation of aconitase under the exposure of aerobically grown yeast to oxidative stress.
Bacteriocuprein superoxide dismutases in pseudomonads

Two new instances of the rare bacteriocuprein form of superoxide dismutase have been discovered in Pseudomonas diminuta and P. maltophilia. Each species contains a manganese superoxide dismutase as well. Eight other strains of Pseudomonas and Xanthomonas spp. lacked bacteriocupreins and contained either a manganese or an iron superoxide dismutase. Native molecular weights and isoelectric points were determined for all these bacterial dismutases. A monospecific polyclonal antibody was prepared against the bacteriocuprein from Photobacterium leiognathi; it was not cross-reactive with the bacteriocuprein from either Pseudomonas strain. Bacteriocupreins have previously been identified in only two procaryotes, P. leiognathi and Caulobacter crescentus. The discovery of the Pseudomonas bacteriocupreins reveals a broader distribution, raising the possibility that bacteriocupreins are a continuous line of descent among procaryotes and not isolated evolutionary occurrences, as previous data suggested.
Standardization and Integration in Robotics: Case of Virtual Reality Tools

Robotics needs realistic simulators and environments to display not only physical interactions between robots and the environment, but also more and more complex processes. Sensing procedures, communications and other processes like cognitive reasoning may be first run on adapted and competitive simulation platforms to deal with optimal design. Virtual reality (VR) left the ghetto of visual rendering tool to become a more complete mean to handle basic simulation problems and to enable aggregation of complex functions for complex interactions. VR and robotics have met through Teleoperation. Historically, the first teleoperation systems were used as interfaces to control remotely robots by providing input tools and sensory feedback information. With technological improvements, VR shifted to be the main kernel for first, studies on advanced robotics systems studies like bio-inspired robots behavior, multi-robot systems, etc., and second, to provide advanced multi-modal interfaces for real time interactions with a useful level of abstraction. We present in this paper some basic robotics problems and the way VR can solve them. The first part of this paper discuss about the benefits of standardization and VR for complex robots systems. Then, we present some existing solutions and we analyze their drawbacks and advantages. Finally, we introduce an application where we take advantage of those features, in terms of efficiency in the development cycle and of reusability.
Wideband RFID Tag Antenna for Metallic Surfaces Using Proximity-Coupled Feed

A low-cost, wideband patch antenna for radio frequency identification tags mountable on metallic surfaces is presented. A novel proximity-coupled feed structure, in which the direction of the microstrip feed line is parallel to that of the resonant length of the radiating patch and one end of the feed line is shorted to the ground, is proposed to perform simple and wideband impedance matching between the antenna and tag chip without any additional matching networks. The proposed design is verified by simulation and measurement. The measured 3-dB return-loss bandwidth is about 49 MHz, which totally covers the 26-MHz bandwidth requirement in North America. The measured read range is about 8.9 m when the tag antenna is mounted on a metal plate with a size of 200 × 200 mm2.
Robust speech-based happiness recognition

This paper presents a robust happiness recognition system. The system consists of a happiness recognition module and a noise suppression module. In the happiness recognition module, we present an emotion feature set comprising Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs), the subband powers, spectral centroid, spectral spread, spectral flatness, RSS, pitch and energy. The proposed feature set is fed into a probability product support vector machine for happiness recognition. In real world applications, the speech received are often exposed to noise, thus prone to reducing the recognition rate. We propose a noise suppression method using subspace based method. A gain function estimation method is used for time domain constrained (TDC) based subspace speech enhancement. The optimal Lagrange multiplier of the gain function will be estimated in accordance with signal to noise ratio (SNR) of the noisy speech. The proposed happiness recognition system has been tested using a large number of noisy speech utterances with a 34% equal error rate.
Partisanship and Purse Strings: a Research Note On Sharkansky

I _HIS NOTE reports research undertaken in an attempt to shed additional light on the budgetary process at the state level. Although many essays on the state political arena deal with the relationship between executive and legislative power, only a few studies address this relationship as it applies to the budgetary process. Perhaps the best known in Sharkansky's "Agency Request, Gubernatorial Support, and Budget Success in State Legislatures. "1 Sharkansky suggests that the role of the state legislature in budgeting is a docile one with legislators tending to look to the governor for leadership. Other studies support this conclusion.2 There is some variation among states, however, and Sharkansky's attempt to explain this variation is unsuccessful. For example, he looks at environmental factors in an effort to explain the variation in the gubernatorial-legislative relationship. He suggests that a positive correlation between the governor's recommendation and the legislature's appropriation indicates "rapport," i.e., the legislature is following the governor's lead. But when Sharkansky analyzes the relationship between selected politico-social-environmental factors and "rapport," none of the variables correlate highly enough to be of consequence.3 We feel that Sharkansky's research, while making a significant contribution to executive-legislative relations at the state level, neglects to consider a potentially important factor: the partisan relationship between the governor and the legislature. Many students of legislative behavior have noted the importance of partisan considerations in the budgetary process.4 Substantively, then, Sharkansky has missed an important relationship in the budgetary process: the majority-minority status of the governor's legislative party.
The Influence of Market Conditions on Event-Study Residuals

Abstract This paper presents evidence that the mean-adjusted returns and raw-market returns models are misspecified when the event under investigation occurs during either bull or bear markets. To demonstrate this phenomenon, simulation techniques as well as an actual event are employed to examine the reliability of four different return-generating models. When the event occurs during a bull (bear) market, both the mean-adjusted and raw-market returns models produce upwardly (downwardly) biased positive (negative) abnormal returns. This results in statistically significant cumulative abnormal returns over selected preevent and postevent intervals. In contrast, both the market-adjusted and single-index models show far less evidence of any unusual price activity over these same intervals.
Public Policy and Extended Families

How are resources allocated within extended families in developing economies? This question is investigated using a unique social experiment: the South African pension program. Under that program the elderly receive a cash transfer equal to roughly twice the per capita income of Africans in South Africa. The study examines how this transfer affects the labor supply of prime-age individuals living with these elderly in extended families. It finds a sharp drop in the working hours of prime-age individuals in these households when women turn 60 years old or men turn 65, the ages at which they become eligible for pensions. It also finds that the drop in labor supply is much larger when the pensioner is a woman, suggesting an imperfect pooling of resources. The allocation of resources among prime-age individuals depends strongly on their absolute age and gender as well as on their relative age. The oldest son in the household reduces his working hours more than any other prime-age household member.
Whither the Pivot? Alternative U.S. Strategies for Responding to China's Rise

U.S. strategists have generated a torrent of diverse ideas for how America should respond to the ascent of China. Consideration of the full range of strategic options available to future presidents broadly offers a means of forecasting whether Sino-American relations will evolve in an amicable or antagonistic direction. This article identifies six prospective choices of U.S. strategy toward China, each advancing unique assumptions of Chinese ambitions and capabilities, and appropriate means for checking them. While diverse in tactics, all are nevertheless united in a deeply embedded suspicion of China's long-term intentions and a commitment to thwarting any challenge to American preeminence in Asia. As tensions with China escalate, the United States will likely opt for provocative strategies that emphasize a strengthened military footprint and seek assurances of Beijing's peaceful intentions by pushing for democratization in China and pressing for its further integration in the liberal world order.
Experiments with Multicomputer LU-decomposition

We present a new concurrent LU‐decomposition algorithm based on implicit pivoting of both rows and columns. This algorithm is, to a large extent, independent of the distribution of the matrix over the concurrent processes. As a result, it can be used in programs with dynamically varying data distributions. Another advantage is that most pivoting strategies are easily incorporated. We also introduce two new, intrinsically concurrent, pivoting strategies: multirow and multicolumn pivoting. With this program, we study the performance of concurrent LU‐decomposition as a function of data distribution and pivoting strategy. We show that LU‐decomposition with some pivoting strategies is both faster and numerically more stable than LU‐decomposition without pivoting. Experimental evidence on the Symult 2010 and the iPSC/2 shows that, for performance considerations, pivoting is equivalent to randomizing the data distribution.
Magnetic targeted drug delivery carriers encapsulated with pH-sensitive polymer: synthesis, characterization and in vitro doxorubicin release studies

Abstract Targeted and efficient delivery of drug to tumor is one of the crucial issues in cancer therapy. In this work, we have successfully designed and prepared the pH-sensitive magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) as targeted anticancer drug carriers, in which the MNPs were coated by poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) and the obtained PAA@MNPs exhibited a size within 100 nm, good stability, and superparamagnetic responsibility (Ms 45.97 emu/g). Doxorubicin (DOX) can be successfully loaded onto MNPs via electrostatic interaction, and the drug loading content and loading efficiency are 26.4 and 88.1%, respectively. Moreover, the release studies showed that the drug-loaded carriers (MNPs-DOX) had excellent pH sensitivity, 75.6% of the loaded DOX was released at pH 4.0 within 48 h. Importantly, MTT assays in HUVEC and MCF-7 cells demonstrated that MNPs-DOX exhibited high anti-tumor activity, while the PAA@MNPs were practically nontoxic. Thus, our results revealed that PAA@MNPs would be a competitive candidate for biomedical application and MNPs-DOX could be used in targeted cancer therapy.
Absent Mandate: Canadian Electoral Politics in an Era of Restructuring Harold D. Clarke, Jane Jenson, Lawrence LeDuc and Jon H. Pammett 3d ed.; Vancouver: Gage, 1996, pp. xi, 196

It is revealing because it opens to view political reasoning as a dynamic process, changing through time, responsive to events that occur over time. The rolling cross-section has, of course, become the methodological signature of Johnston and his colleagues. The rolling cross-section is a design uniquely suited to the study of campaign turning points and, in yet another variation on the adage that chance favours the prepared mind, they have had the great good fortune to focus on election campaigns ideally suited to their sampling strategy. In the superb study of the 1988 election (Richard Johnston, Andre Blais, Henry E. Brady and Jean Crete, Letting the People Decide [Montreal: McGillQueen's University Press, 1992]), it was the Free Trade debate. Here it is Pierre Trudeau's "Egg Roll" speech. It could be argued that charting the swirls of opinion stirred up by campaign-unique events reduces political science, which avowedly aims to be nomothetic, to history, which properly is idiographic. The objection would be foolish from either perspective. It is a treat to see how a systematic account can be given of politics' constitutive characteristic—contingency. The avoidance of false antinomies is no less welcome. Just because their approach is dynamic, the authors fashion an account fitting the exercise of judgmental priors in the fashion of political psychology together with the use of short-run strategic information in the style of rational choice. They show, among other things, that it is precisely people with the least information about politics who are most likely to take account of strategic information in the form of polls. There is an irony here worth consideration for the theory of rational choice. One part of the argument is not as clearly expressed as it might have been. Johnston, Blais, Gidengil and Nevitte reject the "low information rationality" hypothesis which, they assert, claims that poorly informed voters are able to deduce political conclusions as efficiently from their "feelings" as well-informed voters can from the combined set of their feelings and their more crystallized and consistent "ideas. " It cannot be a surprise that this claim proves to be false, since no one ever has supposed it to be true. The less politically aware can compensate for shortfalls in information by taking advantage of politically relevant likes and dislikes, just as a person can compensate for a broken leg by taking advantage of crutches. But in saying that a person can compensate by using crutches, there is no suggestion that one can thereby run just as fast as a person with two good legs. Ditto for low-information voters. Political science, if it is to make progress, must approximate science in at least one respect. Each generation of researchers must see farther than the generation before them. But this requires, perhaps especially in the quantitatively advanced fields of political science, imagination or rigour. This is a study with a rare combination of both.
A three-dimensional dynamic posture prediction model for in-vehicle seated reaching movements: development and validation

A three-dimensional dynamic posture prediction model for simulating in-vehicle reaching movements is presented. The model employs a four-segment 7-degrees-of-freedom linkage structure to represent the torso, clavicle and right extremity. It relies on an optimization-based differential inverse kinematics to estimate a set of four weighting parameters that quantify a timeconstant, inter-segment motion apportionment strategy. In the development 100 seated reaching movements performed by 10 subjects towards five in-vehicle targets were modelled, resulting in 100 sets of weighting Statistical analysis was then conducted to relate these parameters to and individual attributes. In the validation phase, the generalized model, parameter values statistically synthesized, was applied to novel data sets 700 different reaching movements (towards different targets and/or by subjects). The results demonstrated the model's ability to generate close in prediction: the overall mean time-averaged error in joint angle 5.2°, and the median was 4.7°, excluding reaches towards two extreme targets which modelling errors were excessive). The model's general success in and its unique characteristics led to implications with regard to the and underlying control strategies of human reaching movements.
Comparison of Photosynthetic Activities in Triazine-Resistant and Susceptible Biotypes of Chenopodium album

Abstract Triazine-resistant and susceptible Chenopodium album plants were grown at low and at high light irradiances. At the lower light irradiance the dry matter production of the resistant and the susceptible plants were almost similar. At the higher irradiance the resistant biotype had a significantly lower production. Fluorescence studies showed that the photochemical yield and the photosystem II electron transport rate were lower in the resistant biotype. It could be demonstrated in intact leaves that the lower productivity of the resistant biotype is caused by a higher sensitivity to photoinhibition. However, when studying effects of photoinhibition on electron flow and photophosphorylation in isolated thylakoids of the two biotypes, no significant differences between resistant and susceptible plant materials were observed. It is suggest ed that the difference between resistant and susceptible biotypes connected with processes protective against photoinhibition in intact leaves, are lost during the isolation of thylakoids.
Per sub-block equalization and channel estimation for next generation handheld DVB

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems may experience significant intercarrier interference (ICI) when used in doubly selective channels (time- and frequency-selective), particularly when large OFDM blocks are employed in order to achieve a high spectral efficiency. In this paper we recall a technique to mitigate ICI by splitting equalization at the receiver in two parts. A first pre-equalizer operates on sub-blocks of the received OFDM block with the aim of minimizing ICI, while a second, conventional equalizer adjusts phases on a per-subcarrier basis after OFDM demodulation. Moreover, we propose an estimation of channel parameters needed for equalization based on a superimposed pseudo-noise (PN) sequence method. Performance of the proposed receiver is evaluated for a possible extension of the new digital video broadcasting DVB-T2 standard to an handheld version (DVB-NGH). We show that bit error rate targets after channel decoding can be met at up to twice the speed of a conventional OFDM receiver, depending on channel dispersion.