bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Heme Oxygenase (HO)-1 Induction Prevents Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress-Mediated Endothelial Cell Death and Dysfunction
Authors: Agouni Abdelali , Maamoun Hatem , Zachariah Matshediso , Green Fiona 
Published: July 2019

Diabetes is intimately associated with cardiovascular complications. Much evidence highlighted the complex interplay between Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) stress and oxidative stress in the pathogenesis of diabetes. Hemeoxygenase-1 (HO-1) induction was shown to protect against oxidative stress in diabetes; however the underlying molecular mechanisms have not yet been fully elucidated. We aim in this project to test the hypothesis that HO-1 induction will protect against high glucose-mediated ER stress and oxidative stress in endothelial cells and will enhance cell survival.Endothelial cells were cultured in physiological or high concentrations of glucose in the presence of cobalt protoporphyrin 1X (CoPP, HO-1 inducer), 4-phenylbutyrate (PBA, chemical chaperone to inhibit ER stress) or vehicle. Then, ER stress response was assessed (PCR, western blot). The productions of ROS (flow cytometer) and NO (Griess assay) were analysed. Also, apoptosis and caspase 3/7 activity were assessed. High glucose treatment in cells increased protein and mRNA expression of several ER stress response markers (BIP, CHOP, ATF4) and enhanced ROS production in addition to reducing NO release. Interestingly, the pre-treatment of cells with PBA or CoPP significantly reduced high glucose-mediated ER stress and oxidative stress in cells. Also, cells incubated with high glucose had enhanced apoptosis, increased protein expression of cleaved PARP and caspase-7 in addition to enhanced caspases 3/7 activity while cells pre-treated with either PBA or CoPP were totally protected. The mRNA expression of inflammatory cytokine IL-6 was enhanced in cells incubated with high glucose while those pre-treated with PBA or CoPP were prevented.These results highlight the importance of oxidative stress both in initiating or maintaining ER stress response and in mediating ER stress-induced damage and cell death in endothelial cells. This work also underscores the therapeutic potential of HO-1 induction against hyperglycaemia-mediated endothelial dysfunction.
Antifolate Drug Resistance: Novel Mutations and Therapeutic Efficacy Study from Arunachal Pradesh, NE India
Authors: Mohapatra Pradyumna K , Sarma Nilanju P , Bansal Devendra , Bharti Praveen K , Singh Neeru , Sehgal Rakesh , Sultan Ali A , Mahanta Jagdeesh 
Published: July 2019

Malaria is a major public health concern in north east India with the preponderance of drug resistance strains. Till recently partner drug for Artemisinin Combination Therapy was Sulphadoxine Pyrimethamine. The antifolate drug resistance has been associated with the mutations at dihydropteroate synthase (dhps) and dihydrofolatereductase (dhfr) gene. The study was aimed to investigate the antifolate drug resistance at molecular level and therapeutic efficacy in 35 patients. Three novel point mutations were found in dhps gene with 10 haplotypes along with the already reported mutations. A single haplotype having quadruple mutation was found in dhfr gene. The study reports higher degree of antifolate drug resistance as evidenced by the presence of multiple point mutations in dhps and dhfr genes. The therapeutic efficacy revealed one early treatment failure and three late clinical failure. The findings of the study recommends to stop the use of SP as partner drug in malaria treatment for NE India.KeywordsPlasmodium falciparum, North East India, Drug resistance, therapeutic efficacy
Comparative Expression Profile of Organic Cation Transporters in Diabetes and Cancer: Effects of Metformin
Authors: Upadhyay Rohit , Triggle Christopher R , Ding Hong 
Published: July 2019

Background and AimOrganic cation transporters have critical role for absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination of many endogenous small organic cations as well as a wide array of drugs. These transporters act as uptake transporters (OCT1, OCT2, OCT3 and PMAT) or efflux transporters (MATE1 and MATE2) for cationic drugs including Metformin. PMAT, OCT1 and OCT3 are expressed in Intestine and may be involved in Intestinal transport of metformin. OCT1, OCT3 and MATE1 expression in liver may facilitate hepatic uptake of metformin. In Kidney OCT1, OCT2 and PMAT may act as influx transporter while MATE1 and MATE2 may act as efflux transporters. Metformin is the first line of drug for diabetes and may have beneficial effects in cancer treatment. Expression profile of metformin transporters may have crucial role in pharmacokinetics of the drug. At present there is very limited data for the expression of these transporters in different cell lines and db/db mice. No in-vitro data is present for comparative expression of these transporters in primary endothelial cells vs. cancerous cells and effect of high glucose/metformin treatment on the expression of drug transporters is still unknown. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the expression levels of OCT1, OCT2, OCT3, MATE1, MATE2 and PMAT in normal/cancerous cell lines as well as mice organs (intestine, liver and kidney) under normo/hyper-glycemic condition and low/high dosage of metformin treatment.Material and methodsDifferent cancerous/non-cancerous cell lines (HUVECs, MCF7, PA1, Huh7, HEK293T and MMECs) were cultured in normal/high glucose mediums and treated with low/high dosage of metformin for 7 days. Cells in early passages (P3 to P6) were used and experiments were replicated five times. Mice samples (liver, kidney and small intestine) were collected from wild type (C57BL/6J) and db/db mice after treatment with metformin for 6–8 weeks. Total RNA and proteins were isolated from cell line/mice organ samples and gene/protein expressions were estimated by using real-time PCR and western blotting. Gene expressions were leveled by the endogenous controls (beta-actin and GAPDH) and comparative CT values were estimated. Relative gene expressions were calculated through 2-(ΔΔCT) method. Western blot analysis was done after normalizing densitometry data of transporter proteins with endogenous control protein (β-actin or GAPDH).ResultsWe detected expression of all selected metformin transporters in endothelial cells and in majority of cancer cell lines. Comparative gene expressions of metformin transporters in all of the selected cell lines were estimated. The levels of OCT1/OCT2 expressions between non-cancerous/cancerous cell lines were significantly modulated (P
Criminalizing Domestic Violence in Qatar: A Case Study of Student Activism
Authors: Qureshi Tazeen , Al Rumaihi Shabeb , Al Thani Hessa , Al Ahbaby Fatma , Ashimi Suad , Rajah Shaikha Mansoor , Karimi Mujtaba Taimoor , Hamdi Yousef Zakaria , Al Sulaiti Jawaher 
Published: July 2019

Globally, gender based violence effects one out of every three women. Recently, the alarming rise in reported cases of domestic violence in Qatar has led to a national call to find an effective way to deal with the issue. This paper documents the efforts of a group of Qatar University students to do just that: draft legislation to criminalize domestic violence. The research project involves eight Qatar University male and female undergraduate students from five different countries (Bahrain, Pakistan, Egypt, Nigeria and Qatar), and three faculty members from different countries (Palestine, Egypt and Saudi Arabia).In order to determine the status of current societal and legal protection provided to victims of domestic violence, interviews were conducted with law enforcement authorities, judges, religious scholars/leaders, medical professionals and victims of domestic violence themselves. After analyzing the interviews, along with the official documentation provided by institutions (such as hospitals, police departments, and shelters) systematic weaknesses and legal loopholes were identified. A benchmarking of legislation in the Arab and Muslim world was then conducted in order to come up with a conceptual framework for a comprehensive protection system for female victims of domestic violence in Qatar.
Flight Scheduling in the Airspace
Authors: Msakni Mohamed Kais , Kharbeche Mohamed , Al-Salem Mohammed , Hammuda Abdelmagid 
Published: July 2019

This paper addresses an important problem in the aircraft traffic management caused by the rapid growth of air traffic. The air route traffic control center has to deal with different plans of airlines in which they specify a requested entry time of their aircraft to the airspace. Each flight has to be assigned to a track and a level in order to ensure the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) safety standards. When two flights are assigned to the same track and level, a minimum separation time has to be ensured. If this condition could not be satisfied, one of the flight will be delayed. This solution is undesirable for many reasons such as missing the connecting flight, decrease in the passengers' satisfaction, etc.The problem of track-level scheduling can be defined as follows. Given a set of flights, each flight has to be assigned to one track and one level. To ensure the separation time between two flights assigned to the same track and level, it is possible to delay the requested departure time of a flight. The objective is to minimize the overall flight delay.To deal with this problem, we propose a mixed integer programming formulation to find a flight plan that minimizes the objective function, while ensuring the FAA safety standards. In particular, this model considers an aircraft-dependent separation time: the separation time depends on the type of the aircraft assigned to the same track and level. However, some problems are too large to be solved in a reasonable time with the proposed model using a commercial solver. In this study, we developed a scatter search (SS) to deal with larger instances. SS is an evolutionary heuristic and the feature to be a problem-independent structure. This metaheuristic has been efficiently applied to a variety of optimization problems. Initially, SS starts with a set of solutions (reference set) that is constantly updated through two procedures (solution generation and combination) in the aim to produce high-quality solutions.In order to assess the quality of the exact method and the scatter search, we carried out an experimental study on a set of instances that are generated from a real case data. This includes small (80 to 120 flights), medium (200 to 220 flights), and large (400 to 420 flights) instances. The mathematical model has been solved using CPLEX 12.6 and the scatter search has been coded using C language under Microsoft Visual Studio v12 environment. The tests were conducted under a Windows 7 machine with an Intel Core i7 and 8 GB of RAM. The model was tested on each instance with 1 hour time limit. The results show that no instances have been solved to optimality. For small instances, the model and the scatter search provide comparable results; however, for medium and large instances, scatter search gives the best results.This conference was made possible by the UREP award [UREP 13 - 025 - 2 - 010] from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of The Qatar Foundation).
In-depth Analysis of Pedestrian Safety in the State of Qatar
Authors: Kharbeche Mohamed , Al Allaf Hana , Al-Khalifa Khalifa , Tarlochan Faris 
Published: July 2019

Pedestrian safety is of a serious concern as it includes children and the aged population. From the Global status report on road safety in 2015 by World Health Organization (WHO), it can be seen that pedestrian fatalities in the word is a serious issue and represents 31% of the total deaths. In the State of Qatar, the number of pedestrian fatalities and injuries in road accidents is decreasing over time due to the tremendous efforts done by the state. However, the overall share of the problem did not change significantly over the past ten years. Since pedestrians' movement is quite unpredictable, this makes them the most vulnerable road users. In Qatar, pedestrians held to 23.8% of the total deaths by road users in 2013.To tackle this problem, the development of a detailed data analysis is crucial and a major approach followed in attempting to solve existing pedestrian issues in the road system, in terms of evaluating the current pedestrian safety issues in the country. More specifically, we focus on the analysis of pedestrian fatalities, in an attempt to include the most critical situations of them all. The total number of pedestrian fatal accidents occurred between years 2011 and 2013 were 163 accidents. For the purpose of this research, 51 pedestrian accident sites were investigated, which included 53 fatal pedestrian accidents (Some accidents took place on the same road section). The goal of this field investigation is to come up with several possible reasons for the accidents taking place.After that, understanding the pedestrian laws is another important step where we discuss the existing 18 articles concerning the safety of pedestrians, and handling pedestrians safety either directly or indirectly.Finally, recommendations are presented in terms of the availability of pedestrian facilities in the roads under the study, where the fatal accidents took place. The importance of these facilities primarily is to protect citizens and residents from run-over pedestrian accidents and risks of crossing the street. The ranges of fatalities in each location vary from one to ten casualties. Besides each location, the total number of pedestrian deaths which occurred between years 2011–2013 is listed to show its severity. For each location, many recommendations were provided regarding crosswalks, speed humps/bumps, street lights, pedestrian footbridges, pedestrian fences and parking pots. In addition, reasons behind pedestrians not using the facilities are analyzed.This project was carried out by Qatar Road Safety Studies Center for the benefit of the General Traffic Police Department and under the sponsorship of ExxonMobil Qatar.
Translating Organizational Change: A Case Study of Transformation in Libyan Banking Sector
Authors: Alzawawi Bashir Salem 
Published: July 2019

In 2013, The Central Bank of Libya declared that all Libyan banking institutions must become ‘sharia compliant’ by 2015. Thus, Central Bank of Libya (2013) has formally introduce the Islamic banking and finance model to be compulsory for the first time. Indeed, many Libyan banking institutions especially public banks will go through different complex organizational change processes in order to be able to act the rules of the Islamic banking organizations. Therefore, it is expected that, the processes of building up such organizing procedures will not take any definitive patterns, either implicitly or explicitly as shown in much of organizational change literature. Furthermore, it is difficult to imagine how different actors work out how to develop and achieve transforming banking practices into a model that is consistent with the principles of sharia and its practical applications. Yet, this organizational phenomenon has attracted our attention and it becomes increasingly difficult to neglect further exploration and understanding of the manner in which such organizational change processes are constructed and translated within the context of this country. To achieve the above objective this study follows two influential theoretical concepts of organizational change. Change as fluxing reality (Tsoukas and Chia, 2002) embodied in process philosophy and a “translation” model (Czarniawska and Joerges, 1996). The latter is also referred to as “processual, networked” approach (Nicolini, 2010). Therefore, this study will adapt the two theoretical perceptions to explore and account for the translation of a broad organizational/societal programme into local forms of actions. Whilst, the former presents a contemporary ontological understanding on how social phenomenon such as organizations and change should be constructed and therefore understood (Collins, 2002, 2004), the latter will allow us to follow processual networked patterns of organizing in an attempt to understand different social and complex organizational aspects of constructing change processes. In doing so, this study will draw on three case studies from the banking sector in Libya and based on a qualitative, inductive approach it seeks to explore the complex dynamics of organizational change processes within the Libyan banking context. In particular, the study seeks to contribute to organization theory in three main areas (A) exploring the very nature of organizational change processes and how change is constructed and translated. (b) To illustrate how actors enable and/constrain the translation process itself and with what consequences. (c) To contribute to the sociology of translation by mapping out what actors do to translate the concept of Islamic banking and finance into everyday practices.
Experimenten in de civiele rechtspraak: over integrale kwaliteit en management van verwachtingen
Authors: van der Kraats Kim 
Published: July 2019

Experimenten in de civiele rechtspraak: over integrale kwaliteit en management van verwachtingen
In de civiele rechtspraak vindt momenteel een aantal experimenten plaats. Met deze experimenten wordt beoogd de civiele procedure voor natuurlijke personen sneller, goedkoper, eenvoudiger, laagdrempeliger en ook meer probleemoplossend te maken.Daarmee pogen ze met name de kwaliteitsaspecten van tijdigheid en toegankelijkheid van de civiele procedure te bevorderen. Er kleven echter ook risico’s aan op de kwaliteitsaspecten van waarheidsvinding en een eerlijk proces (met name rechtsgelijkheid).Het is belangrijk om wijzigingen in het procesrecht gepaard te laten gaan van een integrale kwaliteitstoets en om de rol en taak van de rechter (en de beperkingen die daarbij horen) scherp voor ogen te hebben en niet op voorhand teleurstelling te creëren door onrealistische verwachtingen te scheppen.
Het Wetsvoorstel Spoedwet KEI: een verruiming van regie van de rechter en de mogelijkheden rondom de mondelinge behandeling?
Authors: Ernste Pauline 
Published: July 2019

Het Wetsvoorstel Spoedwet KEI: een verruiming van regie van de rechter en de mogelijkheden rondom de mondelinge behandeling?
Op 26 maart 2019 is bij de Tweede Kamer het Wetsvoorstel Spoedwet KEI ingediend. Dit wetsvoorstel is een vervolg op de Wetgeving van 2016. Naast de intrekking van de verplichting tot digitaal procederen bij de rechtbanken Gelderland en Midden-Nederland treden met het Wetsvoorstel Spoedwet KEI ook enkele procesvernieuwende bepalingen uit de Wetgeving van 2016 in werking. Deze bepalingen zien op de regiefunctie van de rechter en de verruiming van de mogelijkheden tijdens de mondelinge behandeling. In deze bijdrage staan de wijzigingen rondom de regiefunctie van de rechter en de mondelinge behandeling centraal. Daarbij wordt een vergelijking gemaakt met het huidige procesrecht om de vraag te beantwoorden of van werkelijke procesvernieuwingen sprake is of meer van een codificatie van een in de procespraktijk ontwikkelde werkwijze.
Skateboarding y jóvenes en las calles de la ciudad de Xalapa, Veracruz.
Authors: Gonzalez Molohua Yolanda Francisca 
Published: July 2019

Este trabajo explica la práctica del Skateboarding, entre los grupos de jóvenes en la ciudad de Xalapa. A través de entrevistas a ejecutantes skaters se recupera información de este movimiento.Se expone la disertación para concebirlo entre deporte extremo y movimiento urbano juvenil, esto a partir de la participación de los promotores y de las características particulares de los jóvenes skaters; su organización, los espacios de práctica, sus habilidades sobre la patineta, sus prácticas culturales e identidad en relación al skateboarding, así como la difusión de sus actividades y los patrocinios. En Xalapa la práctica del skaters data de la década de los ochenta del siglo XX, sin embargo se visibilizó en la primera década del siglo XXI cuando fue recurrente apreciar a adolescentes de entre 12 y 20 años ejecutar trucos sobre la patineta en las calles de la ciudad, en parques y demás lugares públicos. Por lo ello en este artículo se precisa, un tipo de jóvenes, las relaciones que establecen entre sí y con los promotores así como el futuro del skateboarding en esta ciudad.
Prácticas sexuales y la visibilización del cuerpo en jóvenes estudiantes. Un dispositivo grupal de investigación-intervención educativa
Authors: Díaz Hurtado Ma. de la Luz Amalia 
Published: July 2019

Este artículo da cuenta del ejercicio de investigación-intervención educativa con jóvenes cuyas edades oscilan entre los 15 a 19 años y son estudiantes en el Nivel Medio Superior en la ciudad de Cuernavaca, Morelos, México. El periodo de trabajo fue de enero del 2014 a diciembre 2017, vía talleres semestrales durante tres años en dispositivo grupal. Es relevante mencionar que este proyecto se acompañó por las estrategias conceptuales y metodológicas del Proyecto Internacional de Investigación e Intervención Educativa (MEXESPARG). El trabajo grupal fue eje central de la investigación-intervención educativa, mediante el cual se despliegan las condiciones materiales y simbólicas que propiciaron un lugar de hospitalidad y posibilidades para la deconstrucción de la subjetividad de los jóvenes estudiantes. Así se reconfiguraron sentidos y referentes identitarios que constituyen su sexualidad atravesada por lo psíquico, fisiológico y social. En este artículo se presenta el análisis del decir de los jóvenes en la experiencia de la situación grupal, que dio pie a la emergencia de las vivencias de sus prácticas sexuales, sus implicaciones y el reconocimiento del cuerpo como superficie de inscripción de lo que se práctica en el acontecer de la vida contemporánea.
Size Switchable Nanoclusters Fueled by Extracellular ATP for Promoting Deep Penetration and MRI‐Guided Tumor Photothermal Therapy
Authors: Zhou Zhanwei , Liu Yadong , Zhang Minghua , Li Chenzi , Yang Ruoxi , Li Jing , Qian Chenggen , Sun Minjie 
Published: July 2019

AbstractProtein‐based theranostic agents (PBTAs) exhibit superior performance in the diagnosis and therapy of cancers. However, the in vivo applications of PBTA are largely limited by undesired accumulation, penetration, or selectivity. Here, an ATP‐supersensitive protein cluster is fabricated for promoting PBTA delivery and enhancing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)‐guided tumor photothermal therapy. Gd3+‐ and CuS‐coloaded small bovine serum albumin nanoparticles (GdCuB) are synthesized as the model protein with a size of 9 nm and are encapsulated into charge switchable polycations (DEP) to form DEP/GdCuB nanoclusters of 120 nm. In blood circulation, DEP/GdCuB significantly extends the half‐lifetime and thereby enhances the tumor accumulation of GdCuB. When the clusters reach the tumor site, the extracellular adenosine triphosphate (ATP) can effectively trigger the release of GdCuB, resulting in tumoral deep penetration as well as the activation of T1‐weighted MRI (r1 value switched from 2.8 × 10−3 to 11.8 × 10−3 m−1 s−1). Furthermore, this delivery strategy also improves the tumoral photothermal therapy efficacy with the MRI‐guided therapy. The study of ATP‐activated nanoclusters develops a novel strategy for tumor deep penetration and on/off imaging of PBTA by size switchable technology, and reveals the potential for MRI‐guided therapy of cancers.