Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Polycentric Development and the Role of Urban Polycentric Planning in China’s Mega Cities: An Examination of Beijing’s Metropolitan Area

An emerging polycentric spatial structure in China’s mega cities has been confirmed in the literature, but few studies have addressed the linkage between the change in spatial structure and urban development policies. Using Beijing as a case study, this paper examines the role of urban polycentric planning in the polycentric evolution process from a morphological perspective. We observed that urban polycentric planning significantly promoted the emergence of a polycentric urban form in Beijing’s metropolitan area from 2001 to 2010. Firstly, most of the planned subcenters were identified as real employment subcenters by a relative threshold method in 2001 and 2010 and comprised the majority of the employment subcenters. Secondly, the planned subcenters significantly increased their employment share and influence on employment and population distribution from 2001 to 2010, and their performances referring to these aspects were much better than the unplanned subcenters. Thus, our findings provide evidence that changes in urban spatial structure can be strongly affected by urban development policies, although it is determined by market forces in theory.
Past, Present, and Future of Dynamic Kidney and Liver Preservation and Resuscitation

The increased demand for organs has led to the increased usage of “higher risk” kidney and liver grafts. These grafts from donation after circulatory death or expanded criteria donors are more susceptible to preservation injury and have a higher risk of unfavorable outcomes. Dynamic, instead of static, preservation could allow for organ optimization, offering a platform for viability assessment, active organ repair and resuscitation. Ex situ machine perfusion and in situ regional perfusion in the donor are emerging as potential tools to preserve and resuscitate vulnerable grafts. Preclinical findings have ignited clinical organ preservation research that investigates dynamic preservation, its various modes (continuous, preimplantation) and temperatures (hypo‐, sub, or normothermic). This review outlines the current status of dynamic preservation of kidney and liver grafts and describes ongoing research and emerging clinical trials.
Estimates of the Daily Phase and Amplitude of the Endogenous Component of the Circadian Rhythm of Core Temperature in Sedentary Humans Living Nychthemerally

Fifteen healthy female subjects were studied for eight days while living conventionally. Subjects were free to choose the ways they spent their time within a framework of regular times of retiring and rising; in practice, much of the waking time was spent in sedentary activities. Nine of the subjects were aware of the natural light-dark cycle, this approximating to a 12:12 L:D schedule at the time of year when the study took place. Before the study, subjects were assessed for their degree of "morningness" by questionnaire; throughout the study, they wore a rectal probe, and an activity meter on their non-dominant wrist. The timing (phase) and amplitude of the circadian rectal temperature rhythm were assessed on each day by cosinor analysis as well as by a me thod based on visual inspection of the data. These two parameters were also assessed after the temperature data for each day had been "purified" by a number of methods. From these results it was possible to investigate the effect of purification upon the amplitude of the circadian rhythm of temperature. Also, the day-by-day variability of phase, and the relationship between morningness and phase, were compared using these methods of phase estimation, and using cross-correlation between data sets from adjacent days; in all cases, raw and purified temperature data were used. There was a significantly greater amount of daily variation in phase using purified rather than raw data sets, and this difference was present with all methods of purification as well as with all methods for estimating phase. Purifi cation decreased the amplitude of the circadian temperature rhythm by about 30%. Finally, there was a significant correlation between the morningness score of the subjects and the phase of the circadian temperature rhythm, the phase becoming earlier with increasing morningness; when this relationship was re-examined using purified data, it became more marked. These results reflect the masking effects exerted upon raw temperature data by lifestyle. The extent to which the purification methods enable the endogenous component of a circadian rhythm – and, by implication, the output of the endogenous circadian oscillator – to be estimated in subjects living normally is addressed.
1,3-Dialkyltriazenes: reactive intermediates and DNA alkylation.

The reactions of calf thymus (ct) DNA with 1,3-dimethyltriazene (DMT), N-methyl-N-nitrosourea (MNU), 1,3-diethyltriazene (DET), N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea (ENU), and 1-ethyl-3-methyltriazene (MET) were studied as a function of concentration of the alkylating agents, of various buffers, and of ionic strength. The amount of alkylation at the 7- and O6-positions of guanine increased linearly with dose over a 10-fold concentration range. The slopes of the DMT and MNU curves were identical as were those of DET and ENU. These data suggest that both types of compounds alkylate DNA via a similar intermediate, presumably the corresponding alkanediazonium ion. MET methylates and ethylates DNA, the amount of each product being a function of the competitive formation of the two diazonium ions possible from MET. The MET product ratios could be reproduced by an appropriate mixture of DET and DMT. The alkylation of DNA by DMT and by MET is very sensitive to ionic strength, to the nature of the buffer, and to the identity of the salt used to balance ionic strength. In general, the reaction is favored by low ionic strength, by amine rather than oxy acid buffers, and by doubly charged inert anions. The alkylation of DNA is inversely proportional to the logarithm of the ionic strength over a wide range. The mutagenic activity of triazenes in Salmonella typhimurium is correlated very well with the ability of the triazenes to form adducts, particularly O6-guanine adducts. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Study on Road Network Traffic Coordination Control Technique With Bus Priority

On the basis of distributed traffic control framework, fuzzy theory, and artificial neural networks technique, the road network traffic intelligent coordination control technique with bus priority was proposed. The whole road network was regarded as a large-scale system, and the subsystems were the intersections. Multiphase intelligent signal controller that controlled its own traffic and cooperated with its neighbors was installed at each intersection. By exchanging information collected from its social vehicle detectors and the bus detection and location devices, and cooperating with adjacent signal controllers, social vehicle coordination and bus priority in the whole road network were realized. Bus priority module, green observation module, and phase switch module comprised the hard core of the controller. In each module, the fuzzy rule base system was designed in detail. To improve the control system's robusticity, the fuzzy relations of the three modules were implemented by one neural network. The target of this proposed method was to maximize the possibility for vehicles to depart from the upstream intersection, and the traveling bus nearby the local intersection to pass the local intersection without stoppage while the utility efficiency of the green signal time was at a relatively high level. The actual application shows that the proposed method can decrease the average vehicle delay and average travel time effectively.
Tourism attractiveness in Italy. Some empirical evidence comparing origin-destination flows.

This paper aims to model tourism attractiveness for the 20 Italian regions by using interregional tourist flows. This comparing some modelling approach often used when origin-destination flows data are available. To this purpose we consider the Italian domestic tourism flows and a wide range of determinants within the theoretical framework referring to the destination competitiveness theories. Using the same set of covariates (selected from Istat and Enac), we propose a comparison between the Gravity model (commonly used in tourism research) and the Bradley Terry modelling approach (to date not yet used for tourism). In particular, for the Gravity model the bilateral flows (between two regions) are directly proportional to the regions’ economic masses and inversely proportional to the distance between them, whilst in the Bradley-Terry framework, the regional tourism attractiveness is an unobservable variable that has to be scaled in a continuum on the basis of the results of multiple assessments between pairs of competitor regions. Furthermore, if the Gravity model take into account also the internal flows (on the same region), the Bradley Terry model do not consider them to model attractiveness. Consequently, different model specifications are needed and different empirical findings are obtained. Strengths and weaknesses of both modelling approaches will be analysed and explained.
Plasmodium chabaudi chabaudi (AS): inflammatory cytokines and pathology in an erythrocytic-stage infection in mice.

We have sought to characterize Plasmodium chabaudi chabaudi infection in mice for use as a model for malaria pathology. Different mouse strains vary in their susceptibility to the erythrocytic stages of this parasite and this is manifested not only in the outcome of infection (survival versus death) but also by differences in the numbers of circulating parasites at the peak of infection. We have shown that regardless of final outcome, both resistant and susceptible mice exhibit other parameters of disease such as loss in body weight and anemia. By contrast, other parameters such as hypothermia appear more severe in susceptible mice. The severe symptoms coincide with high levels of inflammatory cytokines in the circulation of susceptible mice, not seen in H-2-matched resistant mice. However, levels of mRNA for the same cytokines, measured in the spleen of the same mice was not significantly different between the two strains. Neutralization of IFN-gamma in vivo led to an increase in parasitemia, in both susceptible and resistant mice, but did not affect the final outcome of disease. Indeed, symptoms were exacerbated in the absence of IFN-gamma, presumably because of larger numbers of circulating parasites. These data suggest that IFN-gamma does not directly contribute to the lethal outcome of infection in susceptible strains of mice.
Real time analysis of social media data to understand people emotions towards national parties

Social media has given new way of communication technology for people to share their opinions, interest, sentiments. Huge amount of unstructured data is generated from social media like Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, which is repository of useful insights. Analytics can be applied to extract various useful insights form this. Main objective of this paper is to extract the knowledge from large social media data, identify the people sentiments and behavior to make cognizant decisions. Effective sentiment analysis of people emotions is necessary for complex topics like politics, government, present trends and healthcare. These objective are achieved by real time retrieval of twitter data and perform sentiment analysis. It helps to classify emotions of the people are positive, negative, happy, sad or neutral towards national parties of India (BJP and INC). Considering people emotions, parties can identify their weakness and look after improvement to fulfill society needs and work towards satisfying people requirements. Using text mining and unsupervised lexical method classified tweets related to these parties to identify people emotions for the parties.
An analysis of the impact servant leadership has on staff retention in elementary schools

A successful superintendent once shared that, according to his research, the primary reason people remain with a company or a school is they enjoy those with whom they work. The second reason they stay? They enjoy those for whom they work. These kinds of leaders stand out in the crowd. They inspire people to work harder and improve themselves. People stay at the company or school because of them. Initially, this dissertation began as a mixed-methodology study and emerged to be qualitative in nature. The study focuses on two styles of effective leadership— transformational and servant—and whether one style has a greater impact on staff retention in elementary schools. Given the percentage of teachers who leave the profession and the impact that loss has on student achievement, elementary principals need to know effective leadership styles and how the role of the principal impacts school climate, job satisfaction, and, ultimately, staff retention. Using two Likert-scale surveys, elementary teachers determined whether their principals led with tendencies toward transformational or servant leadership. The teachers then responded to open-ended questions and personal interviews to determine the reasons behind their desire to remain at their current schools. All particiants perceived their principals to lead with more of a servant leadership style than a transformational style. This led to the focus of the study shifting from a comparison of two styles to honing in on only servant leadership. The qualitative data revealed that the elementary principals can encourage staff members to remain at their schools by focusing on building relationships with others, supporting them, and being an effective communicator. Trust was also identified as a key component on how those relationships are built and sustained. Trust was also tied to how effective the support and communication was between the teacher and principal.
Mechanism of ADP Ribosylation Factor-stimulated Phosphatidylinositol 4,5-Bisphosphate Synthesis in HL60 Cells*

Phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PI(4,5)P2) is required both as a substrate for the generation of lipid-derived second messengers as well as an intact lipid for many aspects of cell signaling, endo- and exocytosis, and reorganization of the cytoskeleton. ADP ribosylation factor (ARF) proteins regulate PI(4,5)P2 synthesis, and here we have examined whether this is due to direct activation of Type I phosphatidylinositol 4-phosphate (PIP) 5-kinase or indirectly by phosphatidate (PA) derived from phospholipase D (PLD) in HL60 cells. ARF1 and ARF6 are both expressed in HL60 cells and can be depleted from the cells by permeabilization. Both ARFs increased the levels of PIP2 (PI(4,5)P2, PI(3,5)P2, or PI(3,4)P2 isomers) at the expense of PIP when added back to permeabilized cells. The PIP2 could be hydrolyzed by phospholipase C, identifying it as PI(4,5)P2. However, the ARF1-stimulated pool of PI(4,5)P2 was accessible to the phospholipase C more efficiently in the presence of phosphatidylinositol transfer protein-α. To examine the role of PLD in the regulation of PI(4,5)P2 synthesis, we used butanol to diminish the PLD-derived PA. PI(4,5)P2 synthesis stimulated by ARF1 was not blocked by 0.5% butanol but could be blocked by 1.5% butanol. Although 0.5% butanol was optimal for maximal transphosphatidylation, PA production was still detectable. In contrast, 1.5% butanol was found to inhibit the activation of PLD by ARF1 and also decrease PIP levels by 50%. Thus the toxicity of 1.5% butanol prevented us from concluding whether PA was an important factor in raising PI(4,5)P2 levels. To circumvent the use of alcohols, an ARF1 point mutant was identified (N52R-ARF1) that could selectively activate PIP 5-kinase α activity but not PLD activity. N52R-ARF1 was still able to increase PI(4,5)P2 levels but at reduced efficiency. We therefore conclude that both PA derived from the PLD pathway and ARF proteins, by directly activating PIP 5-kinase, contribute to the regulation of PI(4,5)P2 synthesis at the plasma membrane in HL60 cells.
A Wireless Ballistocardiographic Chair

This paper presents a wireless ballistocardiographic chair developed for the Proactive Health Monitoring project in the Institute of Signal Processing. EMFi sensors are used for BCG measurement and IEEE 802.15. 4 RF link for radio communication between the chair and a PC. The chair measures two BCG signals from the seat and the backrest and a rough ECG signal from the armrests of the chair. The R-spike of the ECG signal can be used as a synchronisation point to extract individual BCG cardiac cycles. Also, two developed methods for extracting BCG cycles without using a reference ECG signal are presented and compared
Sodium and potassium intakes among US adults: NHANES 2003-2008.

BACKGROUND The American Heart Association (AHA), Institute of Medicine (IOM), and US Departments of Health and Human Services and Agriculture (USDA) Dietary Guidelines for Americans all recommend that Americans limit sodium intake and choose foods that contain potassium to decrease the risk of hypertension and other adverse health outcomes. OBJECTIVE We estimated the distributions of usual daily sodium and potassium intakes by sociodemographic and health characteristics relative to current recommendations. DESIGN We used 24-h dietary recalls and other data from 12,581 adults aged ≥20 y who participated in NHANES in 2003-2008. Estimates of sodium and potassium intakes were adjusted for within-individual day-to-day variation by using measurement error models. SEs and 95% CIs were assessed by using jackknife replicate weights. RESULTS Overall, 99.4% (95% CI: 99.3%, 99.5%) of US adults consumed more sodium daily than recommended by the AHA (<1500 mg), and 90.7% (89.6%, 91.8%) consumed more than the IOM Tolerable Upper Intake Level (2300 mg). In US adults who are recommended by the Dietary Guidelines to further reduce sodium intake to 1500 mg/d (ie, African Americans aged ≥51 y or persons with hypertension, diabetes, or chronic kidney disease), 98.8% (98.4%, 99.2%) overall consumed >1500 mg/d, and 60.4% consumed >3000 mg/d-more than double the recommendation. Overall, <2% of US adults and ~5% of US men consumed ≥4700 mg K/d (ie, met recommendations for potassium). CONCLUSION Regardless of recommendations or sociodemographic or health characteristics, the vast majority of US adults consume too much sodium and too little potassium.
ACTIVE Na+-, Cl-- AND HCO3--DEPENDENT ACID EXTRUSION IN ATLANTIC COD RED BLOOD CELLS IN WINTER ACTIVATED BY HYPERCAPNIA

The relationship between intracellular pH (pHi) and extracellular pH (pHe) was investigated in red blood cells from the Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) in carbon dioxide/bicarbonate-buffered salines. In summer animals (August/September), similar transmembrane distribution ratios of chloride ([Cl-]i/[Cl-]e=rCl-) and protons ([H+]e/[H+]i=rH+) suggested a passive Donnan distribution of these ions across the red blood cell membrane at pHe 6.7­8.4. In winter animals (February/March), a marked discrepancy occurred between rH+ and rCl- at low pHe values. The pronounced increase in rH+ resulted in significantly higher pHi values compared with those of red blood cells from summer animals and at pHe 6.7 pHi exceeded pHe by 0.3 units. The increases in rH+ values were completely abolished by cyanide and 2,4-dinitrophenol. The high disequilibrium rH+ values were sodium-, chloride- and bicarbonate-dependent. During hypercapnic acidosis, proton equivalents were extruded from the red blood cell. The resulting high rH+ values were accompanied by a reduced chloride shift into the red blood cell and a ouabain-insensitive net sodium influx. The net sodium influx into red blood cells from winter animals was significantly reduced in the presence of DIDS (4,4'-diisothiocyanatostilbene-2,2'-disulphonic acid). The results suggest the activation of a Na+-dependent Cl-/HCO3-exchanger at low pHe in the red blood cells of the Atlantic cod in winter.
Tissue Distribution of Amphotericin B Lipid Complex in Laboratory Animals *

Abstract— Amphotericin B lipid complex (ABLC), under development for the treatment of serious fungal disease, is not a true liposome but a complex of amphotericin B, dimyristoyl phosphatidylcholine and dimyristoyl phosphatidylglycerol with a particle size range of 1·6–6·0 μm. Tissue distribution of ABLC was determined in mice and rats after i.v. or i.p. administration. ABLC resembles typical liposomal preparations with amphotericin B concentrating in the reticuloendothelial system. After a single i.v. treatment with ABLC, amphotericin B was present in high concentrations in liver, lung and spleen of mice and rats while plasma levels were consistently low. Mouse liver contained 48% of the administered dose 1 h after treatment and always contained the largest amount of amphotericin B after ABLC treatment. In mice treated once daily for 7 consecutive days with 10 mg kg−1 ABLC, liver amphotericin B concentration reached 377 μg g−1. Tissue concentrations of amphotericin B were substantially lower when ABLC was given i.p. instead of i.v. with reticuloendothelial tissues containing 2‐ to 7‐fold more after i.v. treatment. Animals treated with 10 mg kg−1 ABLC for 14 consecutive days showed no overt signs of toxicity and had only transient changes in liver and kidney function after treatment.
Early growth and cardiovascular disease

Ten years ago studies in Britain showed for the first time that people who had low birth weight were at increased risk of coronary heart disease and the disorders related to it: stroke, non-insulin dependent diabetes, raised blood pressure, and the metabolic syndrome.1-3 In a study of 16 000 men and women born in Hertfordshire death rates from coronary heart disease fell twofold between those at the lower and upper ends of the birth weight distribution. In groups investigated clinically the prevalence of non-insulin dependent diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance fell threefold. Such findings led to the “fetal origins hypothesis”, which states that cardiovascular disease and non-insulin dependent diabetes originate through adaptations that the fetus makes when it is undernourished.4 These adaptations, which include slowing of growth, permanently change the structure and function of the body. Recently, associations between low birth weight and later disease have been widely replicated in studies in Europe and the USA.5-7 These studies have also confirmed that the associations are not the result of confounding variables, such as low socioeconomic status and smoking, which act in postnatal life. Influences that act in postnatal life do, however, add to the effects of low birth weight. For example, the highest prevalence of non-insulin dependent diabetes is found in people who had low birth weight but were obese as adults.2 Replication of the associations between low birth weight and later disease in large studies such as the American nurses’ study has been possible because most adults are able to discover their birth weights from parents …