Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
BeyondBosman: The European Union's Influence upon Professional Athletes' Freedom of Movement

The purpose of this article is to explain how the law of the European Union (EU) has revolutionized the freedom of professional athletes’ abilities to move from one club to another, and from one EU member state to another, in order to avail themselves of employment opportunities that come their way. The article also provides an assessment of the ongoing endeavours of sports organizations and the EU to forge a new working relationship in the wake of the Bosman ruling. Sports organizations want to establish an arrangement that will protect sport from the full rigours of EU law; but the EU is equally concerned with ensuring that fundamental, immutable principles of EU law are respected by clubs, governing bodies and other sporting organizations. One of the key principles that the EU regards as sacrosanct is the principle of the free movement of workers – the right for people to move from one member state to another in order to work – and it was issue that was at the heart of Belgian Football Association v. Bosman (hereafter ‘Bosman’) ([1996] All ER (EC) 97) Consequently the starting point for this article is the European Court of Justice’s ruling in Bosman, which heralded the demise of two of European football’s sacred cows–the transfer system and the player quota rules– as a consequence of the application of the laws on freedom of movement.
Novel Docosatrienes and 17S-Resolvins Generated from Docosahexaenoic Acid in Murine Brain, Human Blood, and Glial Cells

Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, C22:6) is highly enriched in brain, synapses, and retina and is a major ω-3 fatty acid. Deficiencies in this essential fatty acid are reportedly associated with neuronal function, cancer, and inflammation. Here, using new lipidomic analyses employing high performance liquid chromatography coupled with a photodiode-array detector and a tandem mass spectrometer, a novel series of endogenous mediators was identified in blood, leukocytes, brain, and glial cells as 17S-hydroxy-containing docosanoids denoted as docosatrienes (the main bioactive member of the series was 10,17S-docosatriene) and 17S series resolvins. These novel mediators were biosynthesized via epoxide-containing intermediates and proved potent (pico- to nanomolar range) regulators of both leukocytes reducing infiltration in vivo and glial cells blocking their cytokine production. These results indicate that DHA is the precursor to potent protective mediators generated via enzymatic oxygenations to novel docosatrienes and 17Sseries resolvins that each regulate events of interest in inflammation and resolution.
Efficient Multi-Point Transmission Scheme for HSDPA Networks

To meet the increasing demand for mobile broadband, multiple carrier features were subsequently introduced into UMTS Release-8 to Release-10. As a consequence, the UE capabilities of rejecting inter-stream interference have increased considerably. To fully utilize the UE capabilities and wireless resources, multi-point transmissions raised concerns in 3GPP High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) standardizing process. Multi-point transmission is a promising technique to increase both the average cell throughput and cell edge user throughput. A novel cooperative sector selection algorithm, which takes both channel condition and sector loading into consideration, and an adaptive precoding transmission scheme are proposed for HSPA multi-point transmission. Through the system level simulation, the proposed transmission scheme effectively outperforms the non-cooperative system and non-adaptive cooperative scheme on both the average sector throughput and sector-edge UEs' rates significantly.
Nominal and Interactive Groups: Effects of Preinstruction and Deliberations on Decisions and Evidence Recall in Complex Trials

Two studies assessed the effects of preinstruction on decision making in simulated civil trials. In Study 1, substantive instructions were presented before the evidence, after the evidence, before and after the evidence, or not at all to nominal jurors who did not deliberate and to interactive jurors who did deliberate. Preinstructed nominal jurors differentiated among the plaintiffs in awarding damages, whereas postinstructed nominal and interactive jurors did not. Group discussion and preinstruction augmented damage awards and improved recall of evidence only for preinstructed jurors. Study 2 suggested that substantive preinstruction engaged a proplaintiff bias when trial evidence was technically difficult but enhanced systematic processing when the evidence was presented in less complex language.
Two Sources Are Better Than One: The Effects of Ignoring One Message on Using a Different Message from the Same Source

Social interactions often involve attempts to deal with information that is known to be invalid while at the same time using information that is known to be valid. To explore this process, we compare the success of discounting when the source of the to-be-ignored message also provides valid information with a case in which the to-be-used and the to-be-ignored messages are provided by different sources. It is found that when attempting to ignore invalid messages, receivers tend to undermine the impact of the valid messages when both types of messages are attributed to the same source. This does not happen when the valid and invalid messages are attributed to different sources. The study explores several mechanisms that may lead to this effect. It appears that ignoring one message undermines receivers' ability to use another message from the same source because of the associative links that are formed between the valid and the invalid messages.
On ontology of research , development and innovation in Republic of Moldova

Building information systems supposes an unambiguous understanding of key terms and relations between them in the domain of interest. We consider the process of evaluating the research, development and innovation project proposals in Republic of Moldova and build an initial ontology of it with the goal to be useful to make available the use of software agents in the process of evaluation of proposals and their results.
A blind navigation system using RFID for indoor environments

A location and tracking system becomes very important to our future world of pervasive computing, where information is all around us. Location is one of the most needed information for emerging and future applications. Since the public use of GPS satellite is allowed, several state-of-the-art devices become part of our life, e.g. a car navigator and a mobile phone with a built-in GPS receiver. However, location information for indoor environments is still very limited. Several techniques are proposed to get location information in buildings such as using a radio signal triangulation, a radio signal (beacon) emitter, or signal fingerprinting. Using radio frequency identification (RFID) tags is a new way of giving location information to users. Due to its passive communication circuit, RFID tags can be embedded almost anywhere without an energy source. The tags stores location information and gives it to any reader that is within a proximity range which can be up to 10-15 meters for UHF RFID systems. We propose an RFID-based system for navigation in a building for blind people or visually impaired. The system relies on the location information on the tag, a userpsilas destination, and a routing server where the shortest route from the userpsilas current location to the destination. The navigation device communicates with the routing server using GPRS networks. We build a prototype based on our design and show some results. We found that there are some delay problems in the devices which are the communication delay due to the cold start cycle of a GPRS modem and the voice delay due to the file transfer delay from a MMC module.
Adaptive H∞ formation control for Euler-Lagrange systems by utilizing neural network approximators

Design methods of adaptive H∞ formation control of multi-agent systems composed of Euler-Lagrange systems by utilizing neural network approximators are presented in this paper. The proposed control schemes are derived as solutions of certain H∞ control problems, where estimation errors of tuning parameters, error terms in potential functions, and approximate and algorithmic errors in neural network estimation schemes are regarded as external disturbances to the process. It is shown that the resulting control systems are robust to uncertain system parameters and that the desirable formations are achieved asymptotically via adaptation schemes.
ANALYTICAL AND NUMERICAL STUDIES OF NATURAL CONVECTION ALONG DOUBLY INFINITE VERTICAL PLATES IN STRATIFIED FLUIDS

Results are presented from a series of analytical and numerical studies of buoyantly driven flows along heated vertical surfaces immersed in stably stratified fluids. Flows of the studied type are broadly represented in engineering and geophysical applications. First, the classical problem of one-dimensional natural convection flow along a heated wall is revisited for the case of a stably stratified ambient fluid. The study then focuses on laminar natural convection in a viscous stably stratified fluid resulting from temporally periodic variations in the wall surface temperature. Finally, scaling relationships are proposed for the turbulent convection flow along a heated wall and verified based on results of direct numerical simulations.
α-Synuclein-Dependent Calcium Entry Underlies Differential Sensitivity of Cultured SN and VTA Dopaminergic Neurons to a Parkinsonian Neurotoxin

Abstract Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a debilitating neurodegenerative disease characterized by a loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra (SN). Although mitochondrial dysfunction and dysregulated α-synuclein (aSyn) expression are postulated to play a role in PD pathogenesis, it is still debated why neurons of the SN are targeted while neighboring dopaminergic neurons of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) are spared. Using electrochemical and imaging approaches, we investigated metabolic changes in cultured primary mouse midbrain dopaminergic neurons exposed to a parkinsonian neurotoxin, 1-methyl-4-phenylpyridinium (MPP+). We demonstrate that the higher level of neurotoxicity in SN than VTA neurons was due to SN neuron-specific toxin-induced increase in cytosolic dopamine (DA) and Ca2+, followed by an elevation of mitochondrial Ca2+, activation of nitric oxide synthase (NOS), and mitochondrial oxidation. The increase in cytosolic Ca2+ was not caused by MPP+-induced oxidative stress, but rather depended on the activity of both L-type calcium channels and aSyn expression, suggesting that these two established pathogenic factors in PD act in concert.
Wnt1 regulates neurogenesis and mediates lateral inhibition of boundary cell specification in the zebrafish hindbrain

The formation of localised signalling centres is essential for patterning of a number of tissues during development. Previous work has revealed that a distinct population of boundary cells forms at the interface of segments in the vertebrate hindbrain, but the role of these cells is not known. We have investigated the function of the Wnt1 signalling molecule that is expressed by boundary and roof plate cells in the zebrafish hindbrain. Knockdown of wnt1 or of tcf3b, a mediator of Wnt signalling, leads to ectopic expression of boundary cell markers, rfng and foxb1.2, in non-boundary regions of the hindbrain. Ectopic boundary marker expression also occurs following knockdown of rfng, a modulator of Notch signalling required for wnt1 expression at hindbrain boundaries. We show that the boundary and roof plate expression of wnt1 each contribute to upregulation of proneural and delta gene expression and neurogenesis in non-boundary regions, which in turn blocks ectopic boundary marker expression. Boundary cells therefore play a key role in the regulation of cell differentiation in the zebrafish hindbrain. The network of genes underlying the regulation of neurogenesis and lateral inhibition of boundary cell formation by Wnt1 has a striking similarity to mechanisms at the dorsoventral boundary in the Drosophila wing imaginal disc.
Cross-monotonic cost-sharing methods for connected facility location games

We devise cost sharing methods for connected facility location games that are cross-monotonic, competitive and recover a constant fraction of the optimal cost.The novelty of this work is that we use randomized algorithms and that we share the expected cost among the participating users. We also provide a primal-dual cost sharing method for the connected facility location game with opening costs.
Surface-engineered bacterial cellulose as template for crystallization of calcium phosphate

Bacterial cellulose (BC), produced by Acetobacter xylinum, and cotton linters as reference were surface modified by ozone-induced graft polymerization of acrylic acid and used as a template for crystallization of calcium phosphate. The grafting was verified using attenuated total reflection-infrared radiation (ATR-IR) and electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis (ESCA). ATR-IR revealed an additional absorption band at 1700 cm−1, corresponding to the carbonyl group in polyacrylic acid. ESCA figures show, apart from the characteristic peaks for cellulose, additional peaks at 285 eV and 289 eV that correspond to groups in acrylic acid. The grafting yield is higher on cotton linters compared with BC, which most likely has to do with differences in crystallinity and reactivity of the different cellulose materials. No morphology difference directly caused by grafting could be seen with scanning electron microscopy (SEM), which might indicate that acrylic acid was grafted as a thin film on the surface of the cellulose micro fibrils. Calcium phosphate was formed on the surface-modified cellulose by first pre-soaking the materials in a saturated Ca(OH)2 and later in simulated body fluid (SBF). The atomic ratio of calcium phosphate was determined by ESCA to be about 1.5 for the different materials. Energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) was used to map and verify that the crystals were calcium phosphate. Secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) was also used to verify the presence of calcium phosphate complex onto BC. SEM images showed the difference in dimension, distribution and morphology of the crystals depending on the materials. Smaller and a greater number of crystals were obtained on the surface-modified BC and larger and fewer crystals on surface-modified cotton linters. Structural and grafting differences between the celluloses may lead to differences in nucleation sites and possibly differences in the morphology of the Ca-P crystals. The BC–calcium phosphate composite is expected to be useful as a scaffold for bone tissue regeneration.
Lifelong leukocyte telomere dynamics and survival in a free‐living mammal

Telomeres play a fundamental role in the maintenance of genomic integrity at a cellular level, and average leukocyte telomere length (LTL) has been proposed as a biomarker of organismal aging. However, studies tracking LTL across the entire life course of individuals are lacking. Here, we examined lifelong patterns of variation in LTL among four birth cohorts of female Soay sheep (Ovis aries) that were longitudinally monitored and sampled from birth to death. Over the first 4 months of life, there was within‐individual loss of LTL, consistent with findings in the human and primate literature, but there was little evidence of consistent LTL loss associated with age after this point. Overall, we observed only weak evidence of individual consistency in LTL across years and over the entire lifespan: Within‐individual variation was considerable, and birth cohorts differed markedly in their telomere dynamics. Despite the high levels of LTL variation within the lifetimes of individuals, there remained significant associations between LTL and longevity. Detailed analysis of the longitudinal data set showed that this association was driven by improved survival of individuals with longer LTL over the first 2 years of life. There was no evidence that LTL predicted survival in later adulthood. Our data provide the first evidence from a mammal that LTL can predict mortality and lifespan under natural conditions, and also highlight the potentially dynamic nature of LTL within the lifetimes of individuals experiencing a complex and highly variable environment.
A Model of Collaboration-based Reputation for the Social Web

In this paper we describe a generic approach to modeling user reputation in online social platforms based on an underlying model of collaboration. This distinguishes our approach from more conventional reputation models which are often based around ad-hoc activity metrics. We evaluate our model with respect to a conventional reputation model used by three social Q&A websites, each based on a different topical domain.
Clinical correlation of toxin and common antigen enzyme immunoassay testing in patients with Clostridium difficile disease

OBJECTIVES:The aim of the present study was to assess the correlation of Triage Micro Clostridium difficile Panel and toxin B cytotoxicity assay with the clinical diagnosis of C. difficile diarrhea.METHODS:The subjects evaluated were 98 patients with diarrhea for whom stool was submitted for testing for C. difficile. Clinical symptoms prompting evaluation, laboratory values, comorbid illness, and treatment outcomes that provided clinical insight into the etiology of the diarrhea were recorded. These data were then reviewed by two experienced clinical gastroenterologists who were blinded to the results of the Triage enzyme immunoassay and cytotoxin B assay. The final diagnosis of C. difficile diarrhea was based on the patient's clinical evaluation and symptoms, treatment, and subsequent outcome.RESULTS:Of 98 patients evaluated, 33 were diagnosed with C. difficile diarrhea by clinical criteria. The toxin B assay displayed 88% sensitivity and 100% specificity and positive predictive value. The toxin A component of the Triage Panel displayed 45% sensitivity but 98% specificity and 94% positive predictive value. The common antigen had 97% sensitivity and 95% negative predictive value. Among the 45 patients with only a common antigen detected, the most common diagnoses for diarrhea were chemotherapy-related, antibiotic-related diarrhea, and graft versus host disease.CONCLUSIONS:Our data show that both the Triage Micro C. difficile Panel and cytotoxin B for C. difficile have a high positive predictive value and negative predictive value for C. difficile diarrhea. The Triage Micro C. difficile Panel provides a reasonable alternative to the cytotoxin B assay in the assessment of clinically relevant C. difficile. The Triage Micro C. difficile Panel is less labor intensive and less expensive than cytotoxin B assay. The panel approach improves on the individual assay performances by increasing sensitivity and negative predictive value. When both common antigen and toxin A are positive, the likelihood of C. difficile diarrhea is high; conversely, when both results are negative, the likelihood of C. difficile diarrhea is low.
Multi-view twin support vector machines

Twin support vector machines are a recently proposed learning method for binary classification. They learn two hyperplanes rather than one as in conventional support vector machines and often bring performance improvements. Multiview learning is concerned about learning from multiple distinct feature sets, which aims to exploit distinct views to improve generalization performance. In this paper, we propose multi-view twin support vector machines by solving a pair of quadratic programming problems. This paper gives a detailed derivation of the Lagrange dual optimization formulation. The linear multi-view twin support vector machines are further generalized to the nonlinear case by the kernel trick. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed methods are effective.
Commercialization of nanotechnology products & services: A case study from the United Kingdom

This article aims to provide an insight into the commercialization process of new technologies.Nanotechnology is being heralded as a new technological paradigm that will profoundly influence all aspects of our lives over the coming decades.This research effort attempts to unravel the first signs of commercialization of this new technology in the United Kingdom and to highlight some important aspects of the commercialization process of nano-scale products and services.The commercialization process is poorly understood because of the embryonic state and loose definition of the technology (Libaers, et al, 2005), and previous studies have been based upon surveys and consultant reports only.In this paper, a number of important features and characteristics of the commercialization process are highlighted through organizational typology and the technological bases of the firms.The research includes a quantitative analysis of empirical data collected through bibliometric and patent data bases.
Impact of glutathione S-transferase gene deletion on early relapse in childhood B-precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES The glutathione-S-transferase (GST) polymorphism may affect the outcome of treatment of leukemia because GSTs play an important role in detoxifying the chemotherapeutic agents used to kill leukemia cells. However, results of previous reports have been controversial. This study was undertaken to clarify the influence of GST polymorphism on the outcome of childhood B-precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). DESIGN AND METHODS Eighty-two patients with childhood B-precursor ALL treated during 1988-1999 with our ALL protocol (median follow-up time 89.5 months, range 31 -169 months) were examined for GST gene patterns. The effect of GSTM1 and GSTT1 deletion genotypes on the clinical features and therapeutic results was analyzed. RESULTS All patients attained complete remission but 12 had an early relapse (within 30 months of the initiation of treatment). In univariate analysis, early relapse of ALL was correlated significantly with the presence of the t(9;22)(q34;q11) cytogenetic abnormality (p=0.0003), high white blood cell counts (p=0.015) and double null genotype (p=0.027). Multivariate analysis revealed that the GST double null genotype was the only significant independent predictor of early relapse (p=0.018). INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSIONS The simultaneous deletion of both the GSTM1 and GSTT1 genes is more predictive than any other parameter of early relapse of childhood B-precursor ALL.
The Shaping of Somali Society: Reconstructing the History of a Pastoral People, 1600-

Following in the scholarly tradition of E. Cerulli and I.M. Lewis, L.V. Cassanelli has written a noteworthy book on the historical development (1600-1910) of Somali society adapting to changing political, economic, and natural environments. As Cassanelli shows, most adaptive innovations were firmly rooted in traditional institutions enduring into the present. Thus Somali patterns of clan sociopolitical and pastoral economic organization are still very strong. And these conflict, in a socialist state, with policy for settling herders into agriculture with a collective order. Another fundamental part of the change depicted is the growth of Somali nationalism as a reaction to foreign economic and military contact.