Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Role of caspase-3/E-cadherin in helicobacter pylori-induced apoptosis of gastric epithelial cells

This study was designed to investigate the role of caspase-3/E-cadherin in Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) -induced gastric epithelial apoptosis in cells, animal models and clinical gastritis patients. In cultured gastric mucosal epithelial cells, gastric glandular epithelial cells and C57BL/6 mice, H. pylori infection significantly induced apoptosis of gastric epithelial cells, down-regulated full-length E-cadherin and Bcl-2 expression, and up-regulated cleaved-caspase-3, E-cadherin/carboxy-terminal fragment 3 and Bax expression. Z-DEVD-FMK, an inhibitor of caspase-3, attenuated the effect of H. pylori. E-cadherin overexpression significantly inhibited the apoptosis of GES-1 and SGC-7901 cells induced by the H. pylori. The results from clinical studies also showed down-regulation of E-cadherin, up-regulation of cleaved-caspase-3 expression and increased apoptosis in gastric tissues from gastritis patients with H. pylori infection. These results suggest that the caspase-3/E-cadherin pathway is involved in the apoptosis of gastric epithelial cells induced by H. pylori.
The Relationship of Receptivity to Change to Personal Characteristics and Organizational Perceptions of Teachers in Small Schools.

ABSTRACT The entire population of teachers (N=132) in 10 small schools (fewer than 350 students grades 7-12) and 17 other secondary teachers involved in innovative projects were surveyed by questionnaire to examine personal and organizational factors that explain teachers' receptivity to change. Both groups responded to scales of receptivity to change, power, and personality, as well as to demographic items. Discriminant analysis showed innovators were more receptive, experimenting, professionally active, and had a higher sense of power. Multiple regression identified variables predictive of receptivity. Female or male teachers with high receptivity were experimenting, group-identified, relaxed, and trusting. They differed from innovators in their uncertainties about principal support and their power to influence school decision-making. Results suggested that it may be possible to manipulate personal and contextual variables associated with receptivity in order to encourage teachers to assume the risks of change. (Author/BRR)
Organizational aspects of clusters : continuity, promiscuity, competition

Strategic Management is a set of managerial decisiollS and actions to help achieve corporate objectives that ',determine the long-run performance of a corporatioll ill its relation to the company's environment. The 'interdisciplinary ;zature of the field of strategic management is reflected in the wide range of academic disciplines of the staff members such as business administration. economics. political sciences. engineering sciences. psychology. alld sociology, The research activities of the Departmentfocus primarily on large and European-based imematiollal firms. The changing European environment. internationalisation processess. networking between firms and between firms and governme/Us. as well as technological change are major and recurring themes in this research. In order to grasp the highly volatile reality behind these developmencs. research projects are conducted in a broad and imer disciplinary manner. The general research lheme is elaborated along three lines of partly overlapping sub-themes. although each research theme builds on the other: (a) strategic grammar. (b) strategic choice and (c) strategic action. Each research theme builds on the other. More precise statements on the interaction and feed-back between I? rammar. choice and action in the European' context is the ultimate aim of this long term research programme. The interface first line research_ In this research theme: it is explicitly tried to incegrate analytical concepts coming from the various disciplines_ This implies also that the problems to the integration of functional areas of management are considered. Important approaches are: the transaction cost and agency approach. bargaining and game theory, institutional economics, international regime analysis. given analysis a methodological as a conceptual scrutinising the various used
Stability Improvement of Distributed Power Generation Systems with an LCL-Filter Using Gain Scheduling Based on Grid Impedance Estimations

This paper proposes a gain scheduling method that improves the stability of grid-connected systems employing an LCL-filter. The method adjusts the current controller gain through an estimation of the grid impedance in order to reduce the resonance that occurs when using an LCL-filter to reduce switching harmonics. An LCL-filter typically has a frequency spectrum with a resonance peak. A change of the grid-impedance results in a change to the resonant frequency. Therefore an LCL-filter needs a damping method that is applicable when changing the grid impedance for stable system control. The proposed method instantaneously estimates the grid impedance and observes the resonant frequency at the same time. Consequently, the proposed method adjusts the current controller gain using a gain scheduling method in order to guarantee current controller stability when a change in the resonant frequency occurs. The effectiveness of the proposed method has been verified by simulations and experimental results.
Enhancement in production of erythromycin by Saccharopolyspora erythraea by the use of suitable industrial seeding-media

Background and purpose of the study: There is no report on the effect of seeding-medium ingredients on Saccharopolyspora erythraea growth and erythromycin production. In this study, the enhancing effects of seeding-media which have been used routinely for screening, isolation or identification of actinomycetes, on Saccharopolyspora erythraea growth and erythromycin production were investigated. Methods: The control medium contained soybean meal, glucose, glycerol, (NH4)2SO4 and CaCO3 as the major constituents and several media (I, II, III, ISP2, ISP3 and ISP4) were used for production of the antibiotic. Concentrations of biomass and erythromycin were measured by spectrophotometry, HPLC and bioassay methods and the effects of the composition of seeding media on pH were also determined. Results: The concentration of erythromycin in medium II was 2.71g/l (1.33 times more than that of the control medium) and trends in production were: medium II > ISP4 = ISP2 = Control > ISP2 = Control = ISP3 > ISP3 = medium III = medium I. In the media containing starch and casein, the hyphae of S. erythraea were star-shaped and much branched. Major conclusion: By virtue of other technical and economical characteristics of the seeding media used for erythromycin production, it is concluded that medium II is the best seeding medium formulation for erythromycin in comparison to others.
Availability and fractionation of Cu, Pb and Zn in an acid soil from Galicia (NW Spain) amended with municipal solid waste compost

The potential availability and chemical fractionation of trace elements in soil after compost addition was studied in a laboratory incubation. An acid agricultural soil, developed on biotitic schists, was amended with two rates of a municipal solid waste compost (3% and 6% weight) or lime (2.5 g CaCO3 kg-1, calculated to raise soil pH to values close to those of the compost-amended soil), and incubated in the laboratory for five months. Compost addition increased the availability of Cu, Pb and Zn (measured in DTPA extract) with respect to the control, whereas lime reduced it. Compost amendment increased soil total Cu, Pb and Zn concentrations, and their chemical distribution, assessed by means of the BCR (Bureau Communautaire de Reference) fractionation scheme, was different for each element. Compost addition increased Pb in the reducible (iron oxide-bound) fraction, Cu in the organic and iron oxide fractions, and Zn in the soluble and reducible fractions. Lime did not change the fractionation or total concentrations of the metals analysed. The most problematic element in the compost-amended soil from an environmental point of view is Zn, because it was found in highly mobile forms, while for Cu and Pb this risk is low.
An expert/expert-locating system based on automatic representation of semantic structure

The expert/expert-locator (EEL) pairs requests for technical information with appropriate technical organizations in a large research and development company. The system automatically constructs a semantic space of organizations and terms, using a statistical matrix decomposition technique (singular value decomposition) to represent semantic similarity present in large text sources. In EEL, organizations are characterized by their documents. Using these documents as input, the analysis simultaneously fits organizations and the terms they use into the same 100-dimensional space. Similarity among organizations is determined by their overall pattern of term usage. Users' requests are processed and also fit into the high-dimensional space. The similarities between the request all organizational objects in the space are computed, and the most similar organizations are returned to the user. It is shown that this technique is superior to keyword matching. <<ETX>>
Depth of field : discursive design research through film

This article is about the role of film in interaction and product design research with technology, and the use of film in exploring and explaining emerging technologies in multiple contexts. We have engaged in a reflective design research process that uses graphical, audiovisual, and time-based media as a tool, a material and a communicative artefact that enables us to approach complex, obscure and often invisible emerging technologies. We give a discursive account of how film has played an intricate role in our design research practice, from revealing the materiality of invisible wireless technology, to explaining complex technical prototypes, to communicating to a public audience through online films that may fold broader social and cultural discourses back into our design research process. We conclude by elaborating on discursive design approaches to research that use film as a reflective and communicative medium that allows for design research to operate within a social and cultural frame.
Constituency and Dependency Parsers Evaluation Evaluación de analizadores de constituyentes y de dependencias

Resumen: El presente trabajo muestra la evaluacion cuantitativa y cualitativa de un grupo de analizadores de constituyentes y de dependencias con el objetivo de ser usados en el desarrollo de una metrica automatica basada en conocimiento para evaluar la salida de sistemas de traduccion automatica. Primero se describe la metodologia seguida en ambos tipos de evaluacion y a continuacion se muestran los resultados obtenidos y las conclusiones alcanzadas. Palabras clave: Analizador de dependencias, analizador sintactico, evaluacion cualitativa, evaluacion cuantitativa, analisis de errores linguisticos
MODELLING OF AUDITING BUSINESS OLIGOPOLY FACTORS

The article analyses relevant manifestations of the audit market oligopoly. Previous as well as statistical research allows making conclusion that a lot of markets in Lithuania have very little equal participants and can be described as the areas and markets of oligopolic activities. These include telecommunication service, pharmaceutical trade, fuel, public purchase, and public administration. Mathematically oligopoly is most often defined using so called the ration of four enterprise concentration. If four biggest enterprises control more than 40 percent of production in the economy sector it is considered that the oligopoly exists in the sector. The paper analyses the following questions to acknowledge hypotheses: Ho – the current structure of audit market could pose a systematic business risk and alternative H1: (1) Can the current structure of the audit market pose a systematic business risk? (2) How to increase the dynamism of the audit market and to provide conditions for the small and medium enterprises to be more actively involved in the audit market segment of big enterprises? (3) How should the fair competition related oligopoly problem be solved? (4) What circumstances would allow the radical change of tendencies? The qualitative and quantitative analysis of oligopolic factors in the audit market has been performed. On the basis of the analysis the business risk model has been made. After applying business risk model to the management of oligopoly, „systematic audit enterprises“ would be limited in the entire audit market, and small and medium enterprises could act in the conditions of fair competition. Results: formulated significant exogenic and endogenic systematic business risks of oligopoly
Agroecological Zones Simulator (AZS) : A component based, open-access, transparent platform for climate change - crop productivity impact assessment in Latin America

The Agro-ecological Zones Simulator (AZS) is a platform for data and models sharing for scientists and policy makers, facilitating the analysis of climate change impacts and the identification of possible response strategies through a comprehensive regional-level analysis comprised of: (i) Geo-referenced climate, soil and terrain data, combined into a land resources database;(ii) Crop suitability assessment and land productivity of cropping systems; (iii) Procedures for calculating the potential agronomically attainable yield; (iv) Procedures for computing actual yields as limited by water availability and management, biotic and abiotic factors; and (v) Selected agricultural production systems with defined input and management relationships, crop-specific environmental requirements and adaptability characteristics. The software core of the platform is given by an instance of the BioMA platform. The platform facilitates the evaluation of the impacts of projected changes in temperature, precipitation and evaporative demands on crop growth and function, including investigations of adaptation potentials by means of management optimization and use of available or improved crop varieties. Simulations are performed using modelling solutions based on extensible, multi-model components for crop growth and development, soil water dynamics, biotic (e.g., diseases) and abiotic (e.g., ozone concentration, frost events) stressors, hourly and daily weather variable generation, automatic management practices, and with a generic component implementing different approaches for crop suitability. The inclusion of biotic and abiotic factors in modelling solutions allows for explicit computations of changing pressures on crops under a changing climate, increasing the realism of the modeled systems. AZS is currently operational for Latin America and Caribe; it was recently used by the World Bank’s Agriculture and Rural Development of Latin America for the analysis of climate change impacts on four major crops: wheat, maize, rice and soybean. The results of those simulations and analysis are presented as a first application of the AZS platform.
Determination of urinary trans,trans-muconic acid reference values in the general Tunisian population Détermination des valeurs de référence de l'acide trans,trans-muconique urinaire chez la population générale tunisienne

We wish to determine the urinary trans,trans-muconic acid refer- ence values in the Tunisian general population, and evaluate the impact of several factors (age, gender, tobacco…) on these reference values. Urine sam- ples were collected from 182 healthy Tunisian subjects who had not been occupationally exposed to benzene. This determination was performed by solid phase extraction sampling technique together with high performance liq- uid chromatography-photodiode array detector. Trans,trans-muconic values ranged from 0.003 to 0.618 mg/g creatinine, the 95% reference interval was: 0.004-0.36, and the 90% confidence interval of the upper reference limit was: 0.24-0.62 mg/g creatinine. Urinary trans,trans-muconic levels were signifi- cantly higher among smokers. Significant differences were also observed for the < 20 and the ≥ 40 age groups. As a result urinary trans,trans-muconic background levels allow the biomonitoring of workers occupationally exposed to benzene at levels as low as 0.5 ppm. Age and tobacco, but not gender may affect the trans,trans-muconic reference values.
Airborne Bacterial Communities of PM2.5 in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Megalopolis, China as Revealed by Illumina MiSeq Sequencing: A Case Study

ABSTRACTBacteria are ubiquitous and abundant in the atmosphere and some of them are potential pathogens known to cause diseases or allergies in humans. However, the quantities and compositions of total airborne bacterial community and their relationships with environmental factors remain poorly investigated. Here, a case study of the total airborne bacteria of PM2.5 collected at six cities in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) megalopolis, China were profiled using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and Illumina MiSeq (PE300) sequencing. qPCR results showed the high abundance of total airborne bacteria of PM2.5 in BTH, ranging from 4.82 × 104 ± 1.58 × 103 to 2.64 × 105 ± 9.63 × 104 cell m–3 air, and averaged 1.19 × 105 cell m–3 air. The six PM2.5 samples were classified into three groups. Proteobacteria, Cyanobacteria, Actinobacteria and Firmicutes were the four dominant phyla of PM2.5. 18 common potential pathogens with extremely low percentage (3.61%) were observed, which were dominated by Enterococcus faecium and Escherichia coli. Plants and soil are probably the main sources of bacteria in PM2.5, as suggested by the high percentages of Chloroplast, plant-associated bacteria (e.g., Rhizobiales and Sphingomonadales) and soil-inhabiting bacteria (e.g., Burkholderiales and Pseudomonadales). Variation partitioning analysis (VPA) indicated that the atmospheric pollutants explained the most of the variation (31.90%) in community structure of PM2.5, followed by meteorological conditions (15.73%) and the chemical compositions of PM2.5 (11.32%). The case study furthers our understanding of the diversity and composition of airborne bacterial communities of PM2.5 in BTH, and also identified the main factors shaping the bacterial communities.
Piezoelectric Melt-Spun Textile Fibers: Technological Overview

Piezoelectricity was first described by the Curie brothers in the late 1800s. The first mate - rials investigated were natural materials such as bone and wood and single crystals such as quartz. Then in 1946 it was discovered that BaTiO 3 ceramic can be made piezoelectric through a poling process. This was followed by the discovery of lead zirconate titanate solid solutions (PZT) in 1954 of very strong lead effects which is still widely used in piezoelectric applications. In 1969, Kawai discovered large piezoelectricity in elongated and poled films of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) opening the way for research into piezoelectric polymers. Piezoelectric polymers exhibit low density and excellent sensi tivity and are mechanically tough and respond better to fatigue situations. Since 2010, research has focused on the production of melt-spun piezoelectric textile fibers, with the aim of integrating sensing/energy-harvesting capabilities into smart textile structures. In this chapter, a technological overview of the state-of-the-art research into piezoelectric, melt-spun, textile fibers will be presented. The methods used for the characterization of the fibers will also be discussed with special concentration on the electric response of the fibers after mechanical stimulation.
Working consumers: the next step in marketing theory?

In marketing and consumer research, consumers have been increasingly theorized as producers. However, these theorizations do not take all facets of consumers’ productive role into account. This paper mobilizes both post-Marxist economics and post-Maussian socioeconomics to develop the concept of working consumer. This concept depicts consumers who, through their immaterial labour, add cultural and affective value to market offerings. In so doing consumers increase the value of market offerings, although they usually work at the primary level of sociality (interpersonal relationships) and are therefore beyond producers’ control. However, given certain conditions, companies capture such a value when it enters the second level of sociality (the market). The concept of the working consumer summarizes and enriches extant approaches to consumer (co)production, while challenging widespread developments, such as the service-dominant (SD) logic of marketing, which try to create/construct an ethereal marketscape in which consumers and producers live in harmony.
EFFECTS OF ABIOTIC FACTORS ON GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF CACAO SEEDLINGS

Cacao, one of the world’s most important perennial crops, is almost exclusively explored for chocolate manufacturing. Most cacao varieties belong to three groups: Criollo, Forastero and Trinitario that vary according to morphology, genetic and geographical origins. It is cropped under the shade of forest trees or as a monocrop without shade. Seedlings initially show an orthotropic growth with leaf emission relatively independent of climate. The maturity phase begins with the emission of plagiotropic branches that form the tree crown. At this stage environmental factors exert a large influence on plant development. Growth and development of cacao are highly dependent on temperature, which mainly affects vegetative growth, flowering and fruit development. Soil flooding decreases leaf area, stomatal conductance and photosynthetic rates in addition to inducing formation of lenticels and adventitious roots. For most genotypes drought resistance is associated with osmotic adjustment. Cacao produces caulescent flowers, which begin dehiscing in late afternoon and are completely open at the beginning of the following morning releasing pollen to a receptive stigma. Non pollinated flowers abscise 24-36 h after anthesis. The percentage of flowers setting pods is in the range 0.5 5%. The most important parameters determinants of yield are related to: (i) light interception, photosynthesis and capacity of photoassimilate distribution, (ii) maintenance respiration and (iii) pod morphology and seed fermentation, events that can be modified by abiotic factors. Cacao is a shade tolerant species, in which appropriate shading leads to relatively high photosynthetic rates, growth and seed yield. However, heavy shade reduces seed yield and increases incidence of diseases; in fact, cacao yields and light interception are tightly related when nutrient availability is not limiting. High production of non-shaded cacao requires high inputs in protection and nutrition of the crop. Annual radiation and rainfall during the dry season explains 70% of the variations in annual seed yields.