Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Everyday resistance: exposing the complexities of participatory slum-upgrading projects in Nagpur

Abstract This paper exposes practices of informal, everyday resistance by slum-dwellers against the implementation of large-scale public housing projects in India. During the last few decades, various large-scale urban projects have been implemented in order to redevelop Indian cities. In these projects, the emphasis is on community participation. By focusing on the local level, we scrutinize how these projects are put into practice. Specifically, we look at how two slum communities react, contest and protest against the implementation of a large-scale public housing project. Using two case studies in Nagpur under the Basic Services to the Urban Poor—an overarching, nation-wide slum-upgrading scheme—this paper explores how standardized, participatory large-scale housing projects often clash with social realities on the ground, which results in various forms of everyday resistance and protest.
Postprandial recruitment of neutrophils may contribute to endothelial dysfunction Published, JLR Papers in Press, December 16, 2002. DOI 10.1194/jlr.M200419-JLR200

Atherosclerosis is a low-grade inflammatory disease involving leukocytes, lipids, and glucose leading to endothelial dysfunction. Since activation of neutrophils by triglycerides and glucose has been described in vitro, we hypothesized that the postprandial phase is an inflammatory state affecting leukocytes, possibly contributing to endothelial dysfunction. We measured postprandial blood leukocyte counts, cytokines, hydroperoxides (HPOs), and flow-mediated vasodilation (FMD) in eight healthy males (age 23 ± 2 years) after a FAT (50 g/m2) and GLUCOSE challenge (37.5 g/m2), a combination of both (MIXED test), and after WATER. All tests, except WATER, resulted in significantly impaired FMD (10% reduction) between t = 1 h and t = 3 h, accompanied by a significant increase of neutrophils (59% after FAT and 28% after GLUCOSE and MIXED), total plasma HPOs (15 to 31% increase), and plasma interleukin-8 (IL-8) (50–130% increase). WATER did not affect FMD, neutrophils, HPOs, or IL-8. Lymphocytes increased gradually in all tests (40–70% increase at t = 10 h compared with t = 0; P < 0.005), paralleling a gradual 3- to 5-fold interleukin-6 increase. Monocyte and erythrocyte counts did not change in any test. In conclusion, the neutrophil increment during postprandial lipemia and glycemia with concomitant IL-8 and HPO increases may contribute to endothelial dysfunction. Lymphocyte increment is a nonspecific diurnal process. Postprandial intravascular inflammatory changes may be relevant for the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis.
A Gender-Aware Integrated Macro-Micro Model for Evaluating Impacts of Policies on Poverty Reduction in Africa: The Case of South Africa

Most developing countries are pursuing a variety of macro policy reforms in pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and in the context of the IMFs Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility. Furthermore, they remain extremly vulnerable to macro shocks stemming from their dependency on primary commodity exports. These macro policies and shocks will have significant repercussions on the attainment of the MDGs, yet the standard economic toolbox is seriously lacking in tools to assess anything beyond their narrowest income and production impacts. We address this deficiency by integrating gender and household production into a macro-micro simulation model to analyse a variety of policy and shock scenarios. First, this allows us to analyse the distribution of the costs and benefits of macro shocks between women and men and to capture their impacts on household production and leisure, as women tend generally to be less educated, overworked, malnourished and more vulnerable to poverty than men. Second, gender differences and household production activities are likely to strongly condition the impacts of macro shocks on the rest of the economy – production, labour market, trade, etc. – and, consequently, on poverty itself, where gender equality is increasingly recognised as a prerequisite for poverty elimination. Third, as the standard representative household hypothesis fails to capture the substantial heterogeneity in income sources and consumption patterns among households within any given household category, the study integrates all the actual households from a nationally representative income and expenditure survey. This allows us to capture the interactions (direct and indirect) between individual households and the rest of the economy and to apply the full range of poverty and inequality indicators.
An efficient P2P searching and indexing strategy for multi-keyword query

Multi-keyword search in a P2P repository system based on DHT suffers from high traffic cost due to intersection operation of distributed inverted lists. Indexing by a set of keywords (term set) is one possible solution to reduce the cost. However, as the number of terms for each set increases, the number of possible term sets increases tremendously. Index pruning partly solves the problem, with the cost of reduced recall rate. In this paper, a multi-keyword search strategy for use with the term-set index pruning technique is proposed to increase recall rate, while retaining the same index size required for the case of a two-keyword search. Experimental result supports the predicted improvement.
The Immediate Analgesic Effect of Acupuncture for Pain: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Although acupuncture is gaining popularity for the treatment of nonspecific pain, the immediate analgesic effect of acupuncture has never been reviewed. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on disease-related pain to critically evaluate the immediate effect of acupuncture for pain relief. The PubMed and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials databases as well as three Chinese databases including the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang, and VIP platforms were searched through November 2016. The outcome was the extent of pain relief from baseline within 30 min of the first acupuncture treatment. We evaluated all RCTs comparing acupuncture with other interventions for disease-related pain. Real acupuncture showed statistically significantly greater pain relief effect compared to sham acupuncture (SMD, −0.56; 95% confidence interval [CI], −1.00 to −0.12; 9 RCTs) and analgesic injection (SMD, −1.33; 95% CI, −1.94 to −0.72; 3 RCTs). No serious adverse events were documented. Acupuncture was associated with a greater immediate pain relief effect compared to sham acupuncture and analgesic injections. Further RCTs with stricter design and methodologies are warranted to evaluate the immediate pain relief effect of acupuncture for more disease-related pain.
Heart-infiltrating and Peripheral T Cells in the Pathogenesis of Human Chagas' Disease Cardiomyopathy

Heart tissue destruction in chronic Chagas' disease cardiomyopathy (CCC), occurring in 30% of individuals chronically infected by the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, may be caused by autoimmune recognition of patients' heart tissue by a T cell rich inflammatory infiltrate. Recently, our group demonstrated that T cells infiltrating the heart of CCC patients crossreactively recognize cardiac myosin heavy chain and tandemly repetitive T. cruzi antigen B13, and possess an inflammatory T1 -type cytokine profile. Susceptibility factors leading 30% of infected patients to develop CCC, while the rest of the patients remain largely asymptomatic (ASY), are still obscure. We compared immunological phenotypes of CCC and ASY patients, who have distinct clinical outcomes despite bearing a similar chronic T. cruzi infection. Preliminary observations indicate that PBMC from CCC patients recognize a set of B13 and cardiac myosin epitopes distinct from that recognized by ASY patients. Moreover, the IFN-7 response of CCC patients is more intense than that of ASY, both at qualitative and quantitative levels. Taken together, results suggest that heart damage in Chagas' disease cardiomyopathy may be secondary to inflammatory cytokines and a delayed-type hypersensitivity process started and/or maintained by heart-crossreactive T cells. Furthermore, the distinct recognition repertoire and the high frequency of IFN-γ producing among CCC patients could be important factors leading to the differential development of CCC among T. cruzi infected individuals.
The increasing prevalence of hepatitis delta virus (HDV) infection in South London

On the basis of historical studies, hepatitis delta virus (HDV) infection is considered uncommon in the United Kingdom (UK) and mainly confined to intravenous drug users. In order to assess the current prevalence of HDV co‐infection in patients with chronic hepatitis B (HBV), a retrospective analysis was performed of 962 consecutive HBV‐infected adult patients referred to King's College Hospital between January 1st 2000 and March 31st 2006. The 82 subjects positive for HDV antibody (8.5%) had a similar age to those without HDV (median 36 years, interquartile range 30–47, vs. 35 years, 29–43). Excluding non‐UK residents, the prevalence of HDV Antibody was 7.1%. Most HDV‐infected subjects were born in regions where HDV is endemic, for example, Southern or Eastern Europe (28.1%), Africa (26.8%) or Middle‐East (7.3%). Forty one (50%) were considered to have acquired HDV infection via intra‐familial transmission but intravenous drug use was still a common route of transmission (24.4%). Comparing HBV/HDV co‐infected to HBV mono‐infected patients, a higher proportion were hepatitis C antibody positive (25.6% versus 3.8%; odds ratio 8.89, 95% confidence interval 4.4–17.9; P < 0.00001) and more had cirrhosis (26.8% vs. 12.9%; odds ratio 2.64, 95% confidence interval 1.55–4.49; P < 0.0001) but, despite this, the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma was similar (odds ratio 1.34, 95% confidence interval 0.62–2.91). Although HDV infection is reportedly declining in some endemic regions, our data demonstrate a high prevalence in South London. HDV co‐infection is associated with increased morbidity and patients with HBV should be tested for HDV infection. J. Med. Virol. 80:277–282, 2008. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Learning autoencoded radon projections

Autoencoders have been recently used for encoding medical images. In this study, we design and validate a new framework for retrieving medical images by classifying Radon projections, compressed in the deepest layer of an autoencoder. As the autoencoder reduces the dimensionality, a multilayer perceptron (MLP) can be employed to classify the images. The integration of MLP promotes a rather shallow learning architecture which makes the training faster. We conducted a comparative study to examine the capabilities of autoencoders for different inputs such as raw images, Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG) and normalized Radon projections. Our framework is benchmarked on IRMA dataset containing 14,410 x-ray images distributed across 57 different classes. Experiments show an IRMA error of 313 (equivalent to ≈ 82% accuracy) outperforming state-of-the-art works on retrieval from IRMA dataset using autoencoders.
A method for calculation of dose per unit concentration values for aquatic biota

A dose per unit concentration database has been generated for application to ecosystem assessments within the FASSET framework. Organisms are represented by ellipsoids of appropriate dimensions, and the proportion of radiation absorbed within the organisms is calculated using a numerical method implemented in a series of spreadsheet-based programs. Energy-dependent absorbed fraction functions have been derived for calculating the total dose per unit concentration of radionuclides present in biota or in the media they inhabit. All radionuclides and reference organism dimensions defined within FASSET for marine and freshwater ecosystems are included. The methodology has been validated against more complex dosimetric models and compared with human dosimetry based on ICRP 72. Ecosystem assessments for aquatic biota within the FASSET framework can now be performed simply, once radionuclide concentrations in target organisms are known, either directly or indirectly by deduction from radionuclide concentrations in the surrounding medium.
Rejecting the Constitution or the Market? Where does the Popular Resistance to European Integration Come From?

The French "non" in the referendum on the Constitutional Treaty in 2005 has brought the train of European integration to an unexpected stop. The rejection of the Constitution testifies to a gap between elite enthusiasm for further European integration and popular disenchantment that originated long before the referendums on the Constitutional Treaty. Why does European integration increasingly confront popular resistance? The answer given to this question relates not primarily to the economic payoffs and costs of European integration but rather to the normative implications of market liberalization. I argue, primarily with reference to France, that popular disenchantment and resistance reflect fears from ongoing economic changes which lead to a more and more direct exposure of people to market forces that escape political control.
Distinguishability of Discrete-Time Nonlinear Systems

This note considers the problem of identifying a discrete-time nonlinear system, within a finite family of possible models, from data sequences of a finite length. The problem is approached by resorting to the notion of output distinguishability. This amounts to asking whether output data sequences generated by different models can be distinguished from one another. A number of results are presented with examples. Connections with conditions for linear systems are established.
The Canadian University Selectivity Premium

This paper surveys the recent empirical literature on wage premium to university selectivity, and provides new evidence to this literature on a country such as Canada that has a distinct higher education system from those already analyzed. I estimate the wage premium to university selectivity using Canadian data and two popular methods to correct for non-random selection in universities of different quality: matching methods and instrumental variables (IV). I estimate a wage premium of 7% using the matching estimator, and a premium of 14.8% using the IV estimator for alumni of selective Canadian universities 4--6 years after graduation. My findings are in line with the literature on countries with a moderately differentiated higher education system that has low variation in tuition fees and is well supported by public funds.
The Size of Sites Containing SR Proteins in Human Nuclei: Problems Associated with Characterizing Small Structures by Immunogold Labeling

Some SR proteins are associated with eukaryotic transcripts as they move from synthetic sites (transcription “factories”), through downstream sites, to nuclear pores. Downstream sites can also be isolated as large nuclear ribonucleoprotein particles of ∼200 S (diameter ∼50 nm). In ultrathin sections of HeLa nuclei, indirect immunogold labeling with a specific antibody gives many small clusters of ∼10 gold particles (diameter 50–80 nm). We gauged errors in estimating the diameter of underlying structures marked by immunogold probes (lengths ∼20 nm). We examined systematically how probe dimensions affected cluster diameter. Probes contained one to three immunoglobulin molecules, sometimes a protein A molecule, and a gold particle of 5–15 nm. We found that (a) immunolabeling particles were tightly packed, (b) reducing particle size by 5 nm reduced cluster diameter by 10 nm, (c) reducing the number of immunoglobulins in the immunolabeling sandwich from three to two reduced cluster diameter by ∼4 nm, (d) replacing the last immunoglobulin in a sandwich with protein A increased diameter by ∼7 nm and led to a peripheral concentration of particles, and (e) increasing the number of layers in the sandwich increased sensitivity. Assuming that underlying structures had diameters of 50 nm, we find that errors ranged from −20% to + 50%.
Pratiques de la Responsabilité Sociale dans les entreprises marocaines cotées: analyse exploratoire sur la base du modèle quadridimensionnel de Carroll (1991).

Le present article traite le concept de la Responsabilite Sociale des Entreprises (RSE) dans le contexte marocain. L'objectif de cette etude est d'analyser la perception des cadres sur la responsabilite sociale des entreprises dans lesquelles ils travaillent. Pour ce faire, nous avons mene une enquete aupres de soixante-quatorze cadres marocains travaillant au sein des entreprises cotees. Les sujets ont ete sollicites par un courrier electronique, en leur envoyant un questionnaire qui se composait de 37 items presentes sous la forme d'une echelle de reponse a cinq points (echelle de Likert). Notre echelle de mesure a ete concue en s'appuyant sur le modele theorique de la responsabilite sociale de Carroll (1991). Les resultats de notre etude revelent deux constats, l'un, suggere que les cadres marocains travaillant au sein des entreprises cotees n'ont pas la meme perception sur la RSE, l'autre, met en exergue le fait que les entreprises qui operent dans le secteur des services se montent plus regardantes sur le respect des lois et des valeurs ethiques plus que les entreprises industrielles.
Early Changes in Kidney Function Predict Long-Term Chronic Kidney Disease and Mortality in Patients After Liver Transplantation

Background. Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a well-known complication after liver transplantation (LT) and is associated with increased mortality. The purpose of this study was to determine risk factors of advanced CKD and mortality after LT. Methods. Four hundred forty-five adult patients underwent LT between June 1990 and September 2007 and survived more than 1 month. Multivariate Cox regression analyses were performed for time to CKD stage 4 (glomerular filtration rate [GFR] ≤30 mL/min), time to chronic dialysis, and all-cause mortality. Several patient and disease characteristics were used as independent pre- and posttransplant variables. We specifically analyzed a drop more than or equal to 30% in the estimated GFR (eGFR) during the first year posttransplant. Results. Diabetes mellitus pretransplant and a drop more than or equal to 30% in the eGFR between 3 and 12 months predicted CKD stage 4 (odds ratio [OR] 4.1, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.9–5.4, P<0.001 and OR 16.1, 95% CI 5.9–44.5, P<0.0001, respectively), the need for chronic dialysis (OR 3.8, 95% CI 1.1–13.2, P=0.03 and OR 14.6, 95% CI 3.0–71.4, P<0.001, respectively), and all-cause mortality (OR 1.9, 95% CI 1.2–2.9, P=0.004 and OR 2.6, 95% CI 1.6–4.4, P<0.001, respectively), more than 1 year after LT. Conclusions. Diabetes mellitus pretransplant and a drop more than or equal to 30% in the eGFR within the first year are strong predictors of advanced CKD, chronic dialysis, and death more than 1 year after LT. These easily determined clinical variables define a population at risk for CKD who should be targeted for renal protection strategies.
Improvement of a genetic algorithm approach for the solution of vehicle routing problem with time windows

In this study, Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows (VRPTW) with known customer demands, a single depot and identical vehicles, is considered. Minimizing the total distance and the total waiting time of the vehicles are determined as objective functions for VRPTW which is capable to serve the customers in a prespecified time interval. A hybridized version of genetic algorithm which is a metaheuristic solution technique with constructive heuristic methods is proposed to produce effective solutions for VRPTW. By using sweep algorithm in initial population generation phase of genetic algorithm, it is planned to begin the search with high quality solution sets and in this way, get more feasible solutions faster. A benchmark problem in the literature is solved and obtained results are compared with the results of genetic algorithm with the nearest neighbor algorithm based algorithm. It is observed that the proposed genetic algorithm beginning with sweep based initial population generation algorithm reaches more effective solutions.
The Dissociation of Consonants and in the Phylogeny of Jarosław

This paper investigates the origins of the compositional principle in phonology. MacNeilage’s [12] “Frame/Content” theory is used as a point of departure. The paper presents a scenario in which stabilisation of production resulting from (1) auditory and tactile feedback gained during exploration of the articulatory space and (2) attempts at imitation of ambient sound structures played a crucial role in the process of digitisation of phonology. It is argued that, since acoustic correlates of individual articulatory gestures are always bundled in acoustic feedback, gesture bundles possibly corresponding to modern phonetic segments may have been used in the process of decomposition of CV structures into independent, re-combinable units.
An automatic camera calibration method using GPS-enabled mobile device

In our previous result, a GPS-enabled (global positioning system) device is incorporated into visual surveillance to provide a novel visual tracking service. A person carried such device can be tracked not only on a digital map, but also in the real-time camera image. However, the approach relies on a calibration method with five calibration points for transforming a GPS coordinate into an image coordinate. It is inconvenient to establish the calibration points. In this paper, an automatic calibration method is proposed to overcome the above drawback. Firstly, the operator in the real-time image is located by matching the GPS trace with those traces of moving objects. After the operator is located, five calibration points can be obtained from a series still-moving behavior. The experimental result shows that the accuracy of the automatic calibration is similar to that of manual calibration.
Femoral neck stress fractures

Fifty-four femoral neck stress fractures were studied prospectively to evaluate treatment methods. Fifty-four fractures in 49 patients were identified in a 4 year prospective study that included 1,049 stress fractures of all types. From our evaluation of treatment methods, a modification of existing classification systems was developed based on radiographic findings and treat ment. Differences from earlier studies were noted in racial diversity, in nonprogression of tension-side frac tures, and in return to function.
Prevention of the Ultraviolet B-Mediated Skin Photoaging by a Nuclear Factor κB Inhibitor, Parthenolide

The skin photoaging is characterized by keratinocyte hyperproliferation and degradation of collagen fibers, causing skin wrinkling and laxity and melanocyte proliferation that leads to pigmentation. UV is considered to be a major cause of such skin changes. It is well established that nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) is activated upon UV irradiation and induces various genes including interleukin-1 (IL-1), tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα), and matrix metalloprotease-1 (MMP-1). It is also known that basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) production is induced by UV and promotes the proliferation of skin keratinocytes and melanocytes. We found that UVB, IL-1, and TNFα induced NF-κB activation and then produced MMP-1 and bFGF in HaCaT keratinocytes and skin fibroblasts. In this experiment, we examined if parthenolide, an NF-κB inhibitor, could block the UVB-mediated skin changes. We found that parthenolide could effectively inhibit the gene expression mediated by NF-κB and the production of bFGF and MMP-1 from cells overexpressing p65, a major subunit of NF-κB. We also found that parthenolide could inhibit the UVB-induced proliferation of keratinocytes and melanocytes in the mouse skin. These findings suggest that NF-κB inhibitors should be useful for the prevention of skin photoaging.