Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Determination of the behavior and performance of commercial Li-Ion pouch cells by means of isothermal calorimeter

In this experiment-based research, there is an attempt to determine the evolution of surface temperature distribution, thermal behaviour and performance of a battery cell at the same time. The pouch type commercial test cell has a 13Ah capacity and Lithium Titanate Oxide (LTO) based anode. Temperatures on the surface of the cell are measured using contact thermocouples. Additionally, the heat flux is simultaneously measured with the isothermal calorimeter. This heat flux measurement is used for determining the heat generation inside the cell. Consequently, the important performance constituent of the battery cell efficiency is calculated. Those are accomplished at different temperature levels (0°C and 25°C) of continuous constant current 1C charge and discharge. Also, the maximal increase in the battery temperature over the cell surface is found on the battery cell surface. The heat flow calibration and experimentation for calorimetric measurement are deliberated. The experimental procedure is a very precise determination of the heat generation and the efficiency of the battery cell.
Isolation and Characterization of Proline Peptidase Mutants of Salmonella typhimurium

The proline requirement of Salmonella typhimurium strain proB25 can be satisfied by either of the peptides Leu-Pro or Gly-Pro-Ala. A mutant derivative of strain proB25 isolated by penicillin selection in medium containing Leu-Pro as proline source fails to use either Leu-Pro or Gly-Pro-Ala as a source of proline. This strain is a double mutant that lacks two aminoacyl-proline-specific peptidases. One of these enzymes (peptidase Q) catalyzes the rapid hydrolysis of Leu-Pro but does not hydrolyze Gly-Pro-Ala or poly-l-proline. Mutations at a site (pepQ) near metE lead to loss of this activity. The other peptidase (peptidase P) catalyzes the hydrolysis of Gly-Pro-Ala and poly-l-proline but is only weakly active with Leu-Pro as substrate. This enzyme is similar to aminopeptidase P previously described in Escherichia coli (16). Mutations at a locus (pepP) near serA lead to loss of this enzyme.
Novel miniature antenna for biomedical sensors

A miniaturized antenna design is proposed in this paper with size of 3.5 × 3.5 × 1.5 mm3 for biomedical sensors at low frequency, in low GHz range. The antenna's performance was studied on a layered tissue model, consisting of skin and fat layers. High and low dielectric constant substrates, Alumina 99.5% and Roger RT 5880, were used to observe to what extent the resonance frequency shifts to lower values. The antenna is linear polarized with low cross polarization, broadside radiation and gain higher than −10 dBi.
Financial Crisis and Asian Real Estate Securities Market Interdependence: Some Additional Evidence

This paper investigates empirically the changes in long‐run relationship and short‐term linkage among the US, UK and eight Asian real estate securities markets before, during, and after the 1997–1998 Asian financial crisis as well as in the most recent period. Using a combination of Johansen linear cointegration, Bierens nonlinear cointegration, Granger causality tests, variance decomposition analysis and volatility spillover methodology, our results indicate that the degree of market interdependence in Asian real estate securities markets appears to have become stronger in the long run and short term since the Asian financial crisis. Further, this market interdependence seems to be on a rising trend ten years after the Asian financial crisis. This stronger market relationship between the Asian and US markets implies a portfolio combination of these markets is less likely to provide diversification benefit in the form of minimum risk. One important lesson to learn from our study is that portfolio managers should constantly review their international diversification models and strategies with respect to the constituent markets because of possible changes in market interdependence triggered by a major crisis.
Case studies on real options

This paper presents major insights gained from actual, practical cases of real option applications in cooperation with Shell group planning. The main interest of Shell was to conduct a number of exploratory studies on the use of option pricing theory in capital budgeting decisions. The studies were part of a group planning program to adapt existing and to develop new techniques for strategic decision-making.
Occurrence of primarily noninducible atrioventricular nodal reentry tachycardia after radiofrequency delivery in the slow pathway region during empirical slow pathway modulation

The first‐line therapy for atrioventricular nodal reentry tachycardia (AVNRT) is catheter‐based slow pathway modulation. If AVNRT is not inducible during an electrophysiological study, an empirical slow pathway modulation (ESPM) may be considered in patients with dual atrioventricular nodal physiology and/or a typical electrocardiogram (ECG).
A Meta-Analysis of the Union-Nonunion Wage Gap

The authors use meta-regression analysis, a new method for synthesizing empirical results reported in the economic literature, to corroborate and extend H. Gregg Lewis's landmark 1986 research on the union-nonunion wage gap. Analyzing 152 observations from 114 studies, they investigate how different model specifications, data sets, and variable definitions can affect the estimates of the wage gap. An important finding is that many adjustments for differences among studies, such as the use of actual or weekly earnings rather than logarithmic wages, are themselves time-dependent. The authors' annual estimates of the union-nonunion wage gap for 1967–79 vary directly with the national unemployment rate and range from 8.9% to 12.4%, lower than Lewis's range of 9.6% to 16.4%.
The Effect of Taking Paid Employment During Term-time on Students' Academic Studies

The trend for students to combine work and study has been increasing rapidly over recent years. This has raised the question as to whether the students' studies will be adversely affected by their part-time employment. A survey of 359 students at Manchester Metropolitan University was carried out in March 2000. The results indicate that more students are working compared to survey results from one year earlier. There are adverse effects on study in the form of missed lectures, and students' perceptions are that coursework grades are lower than they would have been had they not been working. Nevertheless, students highlight the benefits of working, which are not only monetary but include the development of skills, greater understanding of the world of business and an increase in confidence, all of which are advantageous to their studies, both at the present time and in the future.
Enhancement of axonal regeneration of retinal ganglion cells in adult rats by etomidate: involvement of protein kinase C.

PURPOSE To investigate the effect of etomidate (ET) on axonal regeneration of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) in adult rats. METHODS The optic nerve was transected intraorbitally at 1 mm from the optic disc, and an autologous peripheral nerve was transplanted onto the ocular ON stump in adult rats. Then the animals were treated with ET, Gö6976, ET combined with Gö6976, phorbol-12-myristate-13-acetate (PMA), or ET combined with PMA. Four weeks after grafting, the number of regenerating RGCs labeled retrogradely with neuronal retrograde tracer was counted in all animals, and the activity of membrane protein kinase C (mPKC) and cytoplasmic PKC (cPKC) was measured in ET-treated animals. RESULTS The number of regenerating RGCs significantly increased when the dose of ET was increased from 2 mg/kg to 6 mg/kg, whereas the ratio of mPKC activity to cPKC activity significantly decreased in ET-treated animals. Gö6976, a potent conventional PKC inhibitor, also significantly increased the number of regenerating RGCs. However, the number of regenerating RGCs in animals treated with Gö6976 alone was significantly lower than in those treated with ET at 6 mg/kg. Combined treatment with ET at 6 mg/kg and Gö6976 did not increase the number of regenerating RGCs. In contrast, PMA, a potent PKC activator, partially abolished the positive effect of ET on the axonal regeneration of axotomized RGCs. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that ET promotes axonal regeneration of RGCs in adult rats, in part by inhibiting conventional PKC.
Ligninolytic enzyme production in selected sub‐tropical white rot fungi under different culture conditions

Lignin peroxidase (LiP), manganese peroxidase (MnP) and laccase activities in selected sub‐tropical white rot fungal species from Zimbabwe were determined. The enzyme activities were assayed at varying concentrations of C, N and Mn2+. Manganese peroxidase and laccase activities were the only expressed activities in the fungi under the culture conditions tested. Trametes species, T. cingulata, T. elegans and T. pocas produced the highest manganese peroxidase activities in a medium containing high carbon and low nitrogen conditions. High nitrogen conditions favoured high manganese peroxidase activity in DSPM95, L. velutinus and Irpex spp. High manganese peroxidase activity was notable for T. versicolor when both carbon and nitrogen in the medium were present at high levels. Laccase production by the isolates was highest under conditions of high nitrogen and those conditions with both nitrogen and carbon at high concentration. Mn2+ concentrations between 11–25 ppm gave the highest manganese peroxidase activity compared to a concentration of 40 ppm or when there was no Mn2+ added. Laccase activity was less influenced by Mn2+ levels. While some laccase activity was produced in the absence of Mn2+, the enzyme levels were higher when Mn2+ was added to the culture medium.
The role of tourism employment in poverty reduction and community perceptions of conservation and tourism in southern Africa

High-end ecotourism operations in African protected areas often claim to share the benefits of ecotourism with surrounding rural communities through employment as well as “trickle down” effects of revenues that result from such operations. The receipt of benefits from ecotourism is also claimed to promote an appreciation of biological diversity and conservation in surrounding communities. In practice, these claimed benefits can be challenging to measure and no multi-country study has attempted to assess the efficacy of these claims across a variety of circumstances. This study assessed various impacts of ecotourism employment at study sites in Botswana, Malawi and Namibia. Analysis of household income, social welfare impacts and the number of people indirectly affected by ecotourism employment indicates that rural communities are moving towards an engagement with the market economy as a result of ecotourism operations. Monthly income from ecotourism employment was shown to enable households to invest in assets, education and “luxury” goods, which improved financial security and social welfare in remote, rural areas. A thorough analysis of the various factors impacting attitudes towards conservation and tourism showed that ecotourism employment positively affects attitudes, though level of education showed the largest impact.
miR‐25 targets TNF‐related apoptosis inducing ligand (TRAIL) death receptor‐4 and promotes apoptosis resistance in cholangiocarcinoma

It has been established that microRNA expression and function contribute to phenotypic features of malignant cells, including resistance to apoptosis. Although targets and functional roles for a number of microRNAs have been described in cholangiocarcinoma, many additional microRNAs dysregulated in this tumor have not been assigned functional roles. In this study, we identify elevated miR‐25 expression in malignant cholangiocarcinoma cell lines as well as patient samples. In cultured cells, treatment with the Smoothened inhibitor, cyclopamine, reduced miR‐25 expression, suggesting Hedgehog signaling stimulates miR‐25 production. Functionally, miR‐25 was shown to protect cells against TNF‐related apoptosis‐inducing ligand (TRAIL)‐induced apoptosis. Correspondingly, antagonism of miR‐25 in culture sensitized cells to apoptotic death. Computational analysis identified the TRAIL Death Receptor‐4 (DR4) as a potential novel miR‐25 target, and this prediction was confirmed by immunoblot, cell staining, and reporter assays. Conclusion: These data implicate elevated miR‐25 levels in the control of tumor cell apoptosis in cholangiocarcinoma. The identification of the novel miR‐25 target DR4 provides a mechanism by which miR‐25 contributes to evasion of TRAIL‐induced cholangiocarcinoma apoptosis. (HEPATOLOGY 2012)
Managing Markets for Public Service: The Role of Mixed Public–Private Delivery of City Services

The privatization experience of U.S. municipalities shows declining use of complete contracts and a dramatic rise in mixed public/private delivery (joint contracting) of city services. Our analysis shows city managers have recognized the need to move beyond a simple dichotomy between market delivery and public planning to an approach that balances concerns with efficiency, market management and citizen satisfaction. New public management stresses the importance of competition and efficiency, transaction costs economics emphasizes the challenges of contract management, and new public service gives primary concern to citizen engagement; but city managers see the need to balance all three. We use probit and generalized estimation models to analyze International City County Management Association (ICMA) data for 1992, 1997 and 2002, and show the evolution of a middle position where city managers integrate markets with public delivery and give greater attention to citizen satisfaction in the service delivery process.
L'algorithme d'échange en optimisation convexe

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. L’algorithme d’échange en optimisation convexe Claude Carasso
Is Fragmented Financing Bad for Your Health?

Americans finance health care through a variety of private insurance plans and public programs. This organizational fragmentation could threaten continuity of care and adversely affect outcomes. Using a large sample of veterans who were eligible for mixtures of Veterans Health Administration- and Medicare-financed care, we estimate a system of equations to account for simultaneity in the determination of financing configuration and the probability of hospitalization for an ambulatory care sensitive condition. We find that a change of one standard deviation in financing fragmentation increases the risk of an adverse outcome by one-fifth.
Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome: imprinting in clusters revisited.

Genomic imprinting, a process that causes genes to be expressed according to their parental origin, affects a minority of human genes, probably less than 1,000. Nevertheless, this class of epigenetic modification acts on many genes with critical roles in growth and development, and disordered imprinting is implicated in genetic disease and in many cancers. Various theories have been proposed to explain the evolution of imprinting in mammals. The most popular is the Haig parental conflict model, which holds that imprinting evolved as a result of opposing interests of the maternal and paternal genomes. Thus, in polygamous species, paternally derived genes will favor fetal growth at the expense of depleting maternal resources and disadvantaging further offspring. In contrast, the maternal genes will oppose the paternal effect and conserve resources to ensure the fitness of the mother and future offspring. This model predicts that although paternally expressed imprinted genes should promote growth, maternally expressed genes should have opposite effects. Many, but not all, imprinted genes identified to date conform to these predictions (1). The mechanisms by which imprinting is established and maintained are the subject of intense investigation (2). The process must involve a reversible epigenetic marking, and a number of features of imprinted genes have been described. Thus, differential methylation of maternal and paternal alleles is a major characteristic of imprinted genes, and defects in methylation processes (e.g., methyltransferase deficiency) disrupt normal genomic imprinting. Parental allele-specific alterations in the chromosome environment of imprinted genes are revealed by the presence of asynchronous DNA replication and differences in chromatin structure and modification (e.g., histone acetylation). A striking feature of imprinted genes in mammals is their tendency to cluster in the genome. The arrangement of coordinately or oppositely imprinted genes within a cluster offers insights into the mechanisms by which cells establish and maintain appropriate imprints on functionally related genes. Here, we discuss the organization and function of a major imprinted gene cluster, occurring on human chromosome 11p15.5, that has been implicated in the imprinting disorder Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome (BWS) and in a variety of human cancers including Wilms’ tumor (3, 4). Because the regulation of imprinted genes in the homologous region in the mouse (distal region of chromosome 7) is broadly conserved between mice and humans, experiments in mice have complemented molecular analyses of BWS pathology and have contributed greatly to our current knowledge of mammalian genomic imprinting mechanisms. In this review, we consider the mechanisms and role of genomic imprinting in human development and in BWS pathogenesis, drawing on research on the human and the mouse clusters of imprinted genes.
Gentrification and the Right to the City: Community Conflict and Casinos

ABSTRACT: Henri Lefebvre’s right to the city concept is increasingly used to challenge the development prerogatives associated with neoliberal development. These challenges are more common as gentrification becomes a global urban strategy. This article is an empirical investigation that examines competing claims to community legitimacy and authenticity in a conflict over gentrification in a Philadelphia neighborhood. This conflict emerged in Fishtown when long-time established residents went head to head with upper-income gentrifiers over the location of a casino in the neighborhood. Place-based identities and the temporal connection individuals had to Fishtown contributed to the differences in perspectives on the costs and benefits of the casino and on the legitimacy of long-time residents versus newcomers to be representative voices on behalf of Fishtown. The findings illuminate problems in applying the right to the city to neighborhood struggles when communities are divided over what constitutes a benefit to the community. The right to the city may not be a universal claim, particularly within a neoliberal urban context.
First-episode major depression in adolescents. Affective, cognitive and endocrine characteristics of risk status and predictors of onset.

BACKGROUND There is little information on whether patterns of steroids precede and are associated with depressive onset. AIMS To establish whether there is an association between salivary cortisol and/or dihydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) levels and depression independent of psychosocial risk. METHOD Two subgroups of adolescents in the community at high (n = 181) and low (n = 65) risk for psychopathology were interviewed for recent psychiatric disorder at entry and again at 12 months. Salivary samples (08.00 and 20.00 h) for hormone estimations and self-reports on current mood and cognitive style were obtained at both assessments. RESULTS Neither hormone was associated with risk status, current mood or cognitive style at entry. Of 31 onsets of major depression that occurred over the next 12 months, 30 came from the high-risk group but were not associated with any particular pattern of risk. Increased negative mood and feelings and DHEA (08.00 h) hypersecretion at entry were associated with subsequent major depression. CONCLUSIONS Both negative mood and feelings and alterations in adrenal steroid function precede the onset of first-episode major depression in adolescents. Variation in levels of hormones may arise from more distal origins than recent life events and current ongoing difficulties.
Corticospinal neurons with branching axons to the dorsal column nuclei in the monkey

Previous work in cats has shown that cells of origin of the corticospinal tract give rise to collateral branches to the dorsal column nuclei (DCN). The present experiments were performed in monkeys (Macaca fascicularis) in which 2% fast blue and 2% diamidino yellow were delivered to infiltrate the dorsolateral funiculus at levels between C2 and C6 and the cuneate nucleus on the same side. Retrograde labelling in the cortex allows simultaneous visualizaion of three classes of neurons: corticospinal tract (CST) neurons, corticocuneate tract (CCT) neurons, and double‐labelled neurons. The morphological features and distribution of CST and CCT neurons are similar to those previously reported from investigations based mainly upon the retrograde transport of horseradish peroxidase (HRP). CST neurons occur in layer V in the pre‐ and postcentral gyri, except for the lateral part (face representation), in the supplementary motor and sensory cortex, and in SII. CCT neurons are present in layer V largely in the postcentral gyrus and in SII. Double‐labelled neurons are present wherever CST and CCT neurons are found. Reconstruction and quantitative data from the pericentral corted show that up to 60% of CCT neurons are double‐labelled and are found predominantly in areas 1 and 2, and that their perikarya are in the size range of the larger CCT neurons.
Indices for Working Land Conservation: Form Affects Function

Using environmental indices (EIs) to rank applications for enrollment in conservation programs is becoming common practice. However, there is little guidance on how it should be done. The indices adopted by existing programs have often been linear, using weighted averages of environmental parameters without explicit consideration of whether they represent a reliable preference ordering on environmental states. Our article investigates society's weights for addressing multiple resource concerns 2and how functional forms of EIs can influence program outcomes. We propose a means by which preference weights are observed from policymaker actions. Weights for multiple resource concerns are determined and combined with biophysical crop simulation data to create an environmental index (EI) for crop rotations. This index is developed using alternative function forms to score conservation efforts on working cropland and to measure their effect on program outcomes. Copyright 2006, Oxford University Press.
Generationen- oder Parteienkonflikt? Eine empirische Analyse der deutschen Hochschulausgaben

Abstract Using a panel of west German states (Länder) for the period 1985 to 2002 we analyse potential effects of demographic change and political constellations on higher education spending, as suggested by recent literature on the political economy of the determination of public expenditures. We find empirical evidence for the hypothesis of a negative relationship between demographic aging and higher spending on public education. In contrast to the hypothesis of the classical partisan theory that implies higher public expenditures under leftist parties, we find that governments under conservative parties or a coalition between social democrats and conservatives spend more on public higher education than governments run by the social-democratic party alone.