What comes first in sheltering needs? patterns of Colonias housing production

The communities along the US - Mexico border, although known for their isolation, poverty, and cultural homogeneity, have managed to provide a decent, affordable solution to the housing crisis in this region through self-build housing production. These communities are called Colonias, and were identified as peri-urban homesteads because of their location on the fringes of major cities. On the Texas southern border, Colonias have experienced explosive growth since the 1950s, particularly during the first half of the 1990s. Most borderlands are dominated by one ethnic and racial group; Hispanics are estimated to make up more than 95% of the population at the Texas southern border. For most, home ownership and better job opportunities provide the primary motive for moving to the borderlands. Affordability of land acquisition and convenient, yet often clouded, deeds make this goal feasible. This study explores housing production means in the Texas-Mexico border's Colonias scattered around the fringes of the city of Laredo, with an emphasis on incremental stages of progress in construction. The study investigated the residents' approach to self-build housing construction, the chronological phases, and the patterns of household preferences for prioritizing the spaces considered at each phase. The study utilized review of relevant literature, and empirical data gathered through surveys of residents of Webb County's Colonias in Texas. Questionnaires were distributed during two community meetings in Rio Bravo and Los Altos. From the study, conclusion regarding a housing model identifying the patterns of housing production was achieved. The study also addressed the fact that two-thirds of the housing was incrementally constructed through short-term and long-term periods, and provided policy recommendations for housing financing. In addition, the study emphasised that the majority of residents built one or two spaces as an initial "core house,” and employed further phases of construction throughout the years until completion

An investigation into the mechanisms of tissue factor-mediated apoptosis in endothelial cells

Cells are known to express and release tissue factor (TF) following activation. In addition, endothelial cells are capable of acquiring TF carried by circulating microvesicles. Accumulation of TF in the endothelium contributes to chronic pathological conditions including cardiovascular disease. The aim of this study was to investigate the mechanisms that regulate the release of TF within microvesicles. In addition, the effects of accumulation of TF on the mediators of cell proliferation and apoptosis were examined and the underlying mechanisms explored. Throughout this study, endothelial cells were transfected to express TF or, alternatively, incubated with TF-containing microvesicles to permit accumulation of TF within cells. Activation of PAR2 receptor in TF-bearing cells resulted in prolonged activation of p38 which was enhanced by preventing the phosphorylation of Ser253 within the cytoplasmic domain of TF through Ala-substitution. Moreover, the inhibition of p38α resulted in decreased Ser258 phosphorylation and increased TF release as microvesicles. Expression of wild-type TF or Asp253-substituted TF induced cell proliferation via a mechanism that involves the up-regulation of Cyclin D1. In contrast, increased cellular apoptosis was observed in cells expressing Ala253-substituted TF, but only following cell activation. The level of p53 protein, p53-phosphorylation at Ser33, p53 nuclear localisation and transcriptional activity, but not p53 mRNA, were increased in cells expressing the wild-type and Ala253-substituted TF. These observations were reversed by inhibition of p38α using either SB202190 or siRNA-mediated suppression. The expression of bax and p21 mRNA and Bax protein was also increased in cells expressing Ala253-substituted TF, but not in cells expressing wild-type TF. Inhibition of transcriptional activity of p53 with pifthrin-α or inhibition of p38α suppressed the expression of bax. These data suggest that the activation of endothelial cells expressing TF prolongs p38α activation which in turn phosphorylates TF at Ser258 and terminates TF release within microvesicles. This leads to the accumulation of TF within cells and can induce cell apoptosis. The mechanism of apoptosis is mediated via the activation of p38α which in turn phosphorylates p53 at Ser33 and stabilises p53 within the nucleus. This study has shown a mechanism associating increases in circulating TF-containing microvesicles with endothelial depletion and the progression of vascular disease

Semiclassical Hartree-Fock theory of a rotating Bose-Einstein condensation

In this paper, we investigate the thermodynamic behavior of a rotating Bose-Einstein condensation with non-zero interatomic interactions theoretically. The analysis relies on a semiclassical Hartree-Fock approximation where an integral is performed over the phase space and function of the grand canonical ensemble is derived. Subsequently, we use this result to derive several thermodynamic quantities including the condensate fraction, critical temperature, entropy and heat capacity. Thereby, we investigate the effect of the rotation rate and interactions parameter on the thermodynamic behavior. The role of finite size is discussed. Our approach can be extended to consider the rotating condensate in optical potential

Accumulation of tissue factor in endothelial cells induces cell apoptosis, mediated through p38 and p53 activation

We previously reported that high levels of tissue factor (TF) can induce cellular apoptosis in endothelial. In this study, TF-mediated mechanisms of induction of apoptosis were explored. Endothelial cells were transfected to express wild-type TF. Additionally, cells were transfected to express Asp253-substituted, or Ala253-substitued TF to enhance or prevent TF release respectively. Alternatively, cells were pre-incubated with TF-rich and TF-poor microvesicles. Cell proliferation, apoptosis and the expression of cyclin D1, p53, bax and p21 were measured following activation of cells with PAR2-agonist peptide. Greatest levels of cell proliferation and cyclin D1 expression were observed in cells expressing wild-type or Asp253-substituted TF. In contrast, increased cellular apoptosis was observed in cells expressing Ala253-substituted TF, or cells pre-incubated with TF-rich microvesicles. The level of p53 protein, p53-phosphorylation at ser33, p53 nuclear localisation and transcriptional activity, but not p53 mRNA, were increased in cells expressing wild-type and Ala253-substituted TF, or in cells pre-incubated with TF-rich microvesicles. However, the expression of bax and p21 mRNA, and Bax protein were only increased in cells pre-incubated with TF-rich microvesicle and in cells expressing Ala253-substituted TF. Inhibition of the transcriptional activity of p53 using pifithrin-α suppressed the expression of Bax. Finally, siRNA–mediated suppression of p38α, or inhibition using SB202190 significantly reduced the p53 protein levels, p53 nuclear localisation and transcriptional activity, suppressed Bax expression and prevented cellular apoptosis. In conclusion, accumulation of TF within endothelial cell, or sequestered from the surrounding can induce cellular apoptosis through mechanisms mediated by p38, and involves the stabilisation of p53

Opinion Analysis of Traveler Based on Tourism Site Review Using Sentiment Analysis

Technology development nowadays makes it easier for people to access information. One of them is to find information regarding a place. Many prospective visitors would read reviews from people who have visited a place to find out how they rate a place. Opinion on other people’s reviews is very influential in influencing others’ decisions in assessing a place they want to visit. Opinion analysis can be done by conducting a sentiment analysis of hotel customer reviews. The data used are traveler reviews of hotels in East Java on the Tripadvisor site. Traveler reviews data was taken by crawling on tourist sites, and the unstructured reviews data would be a preprocessing and weighted term from reviews using the TF-IDF method. The classification process is done using the support vector machine method to find opinions from traveler reviews, which are positive or negative. Based on the classification results, hotels that have the most positive sentiments in Surabaya are Harris Hotel Gubeng and Pop! Hotel Gubeng with the same number of reviews, 252 reviews. In comparison, hotels with the most positive sentiment in Malang are Harris Hotel Malang with 311 reviews. The opinion analysis results are expected to help the hotel manager evaluate and develop to increase the number of tourist visits

Circulating interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor receptor-1 predict resistance to therapy of typhoidal salmonellosis

Background: Typhoid fever, a food-borne disease caused by salmonella species, is a worldwide prevalent disease. In endemic areas, children are at highest risk owing to weaning from passively acquired maternal antibody and lack of acquired immunity. Several studies have been done to clarify the pathogenesis and underlying immune aspects of typhoid fever. Objective: Study the changes of some proinflammatory cytokines in plasma of children with typhoid fever. Study design: Thirty consecutive children admitted to Zagazig Fever Hospital with proven diagnosis of typhoid fever were included in the study. They were 20 males and 10 females, of ages ranging from 3 to 13 years. In addition, 10 age and sex matched healthy children served as a control group. A verbal consent was obtained from parent(s) of each child before inclusion to the study. All children were subjected to history taking, clinical examination, and routine investigations (CBC, ESR, CRP, Widal test and stool culture), as well as determination of serum interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor receptor-1 (TNF-R1), before and 5 days after start of treatment (for patients). Results: Twenty patients (66.7%) were responsive to therapy and 10 patients (33.3%) were resistant. Toxic look, constipation, high fever, splenomegaly, increased CRP and ESR were significantly presented in patients who displayed resistance to drug therapy. Both IL-6 and TNF-R1 plasma levels were significantly higher in patients than in control children, and in resistant cases than in responsive cases (before and 5 days after treatment). ESR and S. typhi H agglutination titre correlated significantly with plasma levels of IL-6 and TNF-R1, whereas S. typhi O agglutination titre and total leucocytic count did not. Conclusion: patients with typhoid fever resistant to combined therapy with chloramphenicol and co-trimoxazole have higher plasma levels of IL-6 and TNF-R1. Toxic look, constipation and splenomegaly may be considered as indicators of drug resistance.Keywords: salmonellosis - resistance to therapy – cytokinesEgypt J Pediatr Allergy Immunol 2010; 8(2): 55-5