Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Materiality of Absence: Organizing and the case of the incomplete cathedral

This study explores the role of absences in making organizing possible. By engaging with Lefebvre’s spatial triad as the interconnections between conceived (planned), perceived (experienced through practice) and lived (felt and imagined) spaces, we challenge the so-called metaphysics of presence in organization studies. We draw on the insights offered by the project of construction of Siena Cathedral during the period 1259–1357 and we examine how it provided a space for the actors involved to explore their different (civic, architectural and religious) intentions. We show that, as the contested conceived spaces of the cathedral were connected to architectural practices, religious powers and civic symbols, they revealed the impossibility for these intentions to be fully represented. It was this impossibility that provoked an ongoing search for solutions and guaranteed a combination of dynamism and persistence of both the material architecture of the cathedral and the project of construction. The case of Siena Cathedral therefore highlights the role of absence in producing organizing effects not because absence eventually takes form but because of the impossibility to fully represent it.
Higher TNF-α, IGF-1, and Leptin Levels are Found in Tasters than Non-Tasters

Taste perception is controlled by taste cells that are present in the tongue that produce and secrete various metabolic hormones. Recent studies have demonstrated that taste receptors in tongue, gut, and pancreas are associated with local hormone secretion. The aim of this study was to determine whether there is a link between taste sensitivity and levels of circulating metabolic hormones in humans and whether taste sensitivity is potentially related to peripheral metabolic regulation. Thirty-one subjects were recruited and separated into tasters and non-tasters based on their phenol thiocarbamide (PTC) bitter taste test results. Fasting plasma and saliva were collected and levels of hormones and cytokines were assayed. We observed significant differences in both hormone levels and hormone-body mass index (BMI) correlation between tasters and non-tasters. Tasters had higher plasma levels of leptin (p = 0.05), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) (p = 0.04), and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) (p = 0.03). There was also a trend toward increased IGF-1 levels in the saliva of tasters (p = 0.06). We found a positive correlation between plasma levels of glucose and BMI (R = 0.4999, p = 0.04) exclusively in non-tasters. In contrast, plasma C-peptide levels were found to be positively correlated to BMI (R = 0.5563, p = 0.03) in tasters. Saliva TNF-α levels were negatively correlated with BMI in tasters (R = −0.5908, p = 0.03). Our findings demonstrate that there are differences in circulating levels of leptin, TNF-α, and IGF-1 between tasters and non-tasters. These findings indicate that in addition to the regulation of food consumption, taste perception also appears to be tightly linked to circulating metabolic hormone levels. People with different taste sensitivity may respond differently to the nutrient stimulation. Further work investigating the link between taste perception and peripheral metabolic control could potentially lead to the development of novel therapies for obesity or Type 2 diabetes.
Intergenerational relationship quality across three generations.

OBJECTIVES Studies of intergenerational relationship quality often include one or two generations. This study examined within-family differences and similarities or transmission of positive and negative relationship quality across three generations. METHOD Participants included 633 middle-aged individuals (G2; 52% women, ages 40-60 years), 592 of their offspring (G3; 53% daughters; ages 18-41 years), and 337 of their parents (i.e., grandparents; G1; 69% women; ages 59-96 years). RESULTS Multilevel models revealed differences and similarities in relationship quality across generations. The oldest generation (G1) reported greater positive and less negative quality relationships than the middle (G2) and the younger (G3) generations. There was limited evidence of transmission. Middle-aged respondents who reported more positive and less negative ties with their parents (G1) reported more positive and less negative ties with their own children (G3). Grandmother (G1) reports of more positive relationship quality were associated with G3 reports of more positive relationship quality with G2. DISCUSSION Findings are consistent with the intergenerational stake hypothesis and only partially consistent with the theory of intergenerational transmission. Overall, this study suggests that there is greater within-family variability than similarities in how family members feel about one another.
Role of TRPV1 Channels in Ischemia/Reperfusion-Induced Acute Kidney Injury

Objectives Transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) -positive sensory nerves are widely distributed in the kidney, suggesting that TRPV1-mediated action may participate in the regulation of renal function under pathophysiological conditions. Stimulation of TRPV1 channels protects against ischemia/reperfusion (I/R)-induced acute kidney injury (AKI). However, it is unknown whether inhibition of these channels is detrimental in AKI or not. We tested the role of TRPV1 channels in I/R-induced AKI by modulating these channels with capsaicin (TRPV1 agonist), capsazepine (TRPV1 antagonist) and using Trpv1−/− mice. Methods and Results Anesthetized C57BL/6 mice were subjected to 25 min of renal ischemia and 24 hrs of reperfusion. Mice were pretreated with capsaicin (0.3 mg/kg body weight) or capsazepine (50 mg/kg body weight). Capsaicin ameliorated the outcome of AKI, as measured by serum creatinine levels, tubular damage,neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) abundance and Ly-6B.2 positive polymorphonuclear inflammatory cells in injured kidneys. Neither capsazepine nor deficiency of TRPV1 did deteriorate renal function or histology after AKI. Measurements of endovanilloids in kidney tissue indicate that 20-hydroxyeicosatetraeonic acid (20-HETE) or epoxyeicosatrienoic acids (EETs) are unlikely involved in the beneficial effects of capsaicin on I/R-induced AKI. Conclusions Activation of TRPV1 channels ameliorates I/R-induced AKI, but inhibition of these channels does not affect the outcome of AKI. Our results may have clinical implications for long-term safety of renal denervation to treat resistant hypertension in man, with respect to the function of primary sensory nerves in the response of the kidney to ischemic stimuli.
People are people, but technology is not technology

Ubiquitous computing is about more than having multiple computers in our environment; it is also about computers venturing into completely new environments. In this paper, we examine the impact of computers in the developing world and look at why most interventions to date have failed to address the key needs of the users and their context. Through an analysis of existing software design techniques, and various case studies, we propose a new model for software creation, which we believe will address the issue of creating technologies for developing world nations.
LSIS at SemEval-2016 Task 7: Using Web Search Engines for English and Arabic Unsupervised Sentiment Intensity Prediction

In this paper, we present our contribution in SemEval2016 task7 1 : Determining Sentiment Intensity of English and Arabic Phrases, where we use web search engines for English and Arabic unsupervised sentiment intensity prediction. Our work is based, first, on a group of classic sentiment lexicons (e.g. Sen-timent140 Lexicon, SentiWordNet). Second, on web search engines' ability to find the co-occurrence of sentences with predefined negative and positive words. The use of web search engines (e.g. Google Search API) enhance the results on phrases built from opposite polarity terms.
Independent Components Analysis by Direct Entropy Minimization

Abstract : This paper presents a new algorithm for the independent components analysis (ICA) problem based on efficient entropy estimates. Like many previous methods, this algorithm directly minimizes the measure of departure from independence according to the estimated Kullback-Leibler divergence between the joint distribution and the product of the marginal distributions. We pair this approach with efficient entropy estimators from the statistics literature. In particular, the entropy estimator we use is consistent and exhibits rapid convergence. The algorithm based on this estimator is simple, computationally efficient intuitively appealing, and outperforms other well known algorithms. In addition, the estimator's relative insensitivity to outliers translates into superior performance by our ICA algorithm on outlier tests. We present favorable comparisons to the Kernel ICA, FASTICA JADE, and extended Infomax algorithms in extensive simulations.
Phonological awareness in preschool age children with developmental disabilities

Reading skills are critically important for a child’s development and continued growth in school. The home and school literacy experiences of children who have developmental disabilities have been found to be qualitatively different from the experiences of their same age peers without disabilities. In addition to access to instruction, a number of intrinsic factors including cognitive ability, receptive language and expressive speech skills have been suggested as factors that may place children with developmental disabilities at a greater risk for limited development of reading skills. Currently, little is understood about how children who have developmental disabilities and may have limitations in productive speech learn to read. This study identifies key intrinsic and extrinsic factors that are related to the development of phonological awareness in 42 children between 4 years and 5 years 9 months of age with developmental disabilities and a range of speech abilities. Aims of this project were to 1systematically assess children’s intrinsic factors of speech ability, receptive and expressive language and vocabulary, cognitive skills and phonological awareness to determine key intrinsic factors related to phonological awareness and 2describe the extrinsic factors of home literacy experience and preschool literacy instruction provided to children. Children were found to have frequent and positive home literacy experiences. No significant correlations between speech ability and frequency of shared reading experiences were found. Parents reported low levels of preschool literacy instruction. Significant correlations were found between instruction in decoding and word recognition and children’s sound-symbol awareness. Correlations were found between the use of technology and media and Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) and children’s speech ability. Positive, significant relationships were found between phonological awareness and all direct assessment measures of developmental skill, speech ability and early reading skills but were not found between phonological awareness and home or school literacy experiences. Speech ability did not predict a significant amount of variance in phonological awareness skill beyond what would be expected by cognitive development, receptive language and orthographic knowledge. This study provides important implications for practitioners and researchers alike concerning the factors related to early reading development in children with limited speech ability. INDEX WORDS: Developmental disability, preschool, reading, phonological awareness, augmentative and alternative communication PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS IN PRESCHOOL AGE CHILDREN WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITES
Detection of small moving objects using a moving camera

In recent years, various background subtraction methods have been proposed and used in vision systems for moving object detection and tracking from moving cameras; however, most of them have difficulty in handling small and distant objects in complicated non-flat scenes. This paper presents a robust method to effectively segment moving objects from videos, captured by a camera on a moving platform. In our approach, a two-level registration is applied to estimate the effect of camera motion for motion compensation. After motion estimation and extraction of potential foreground pixels by Gaussian mixture model, noisy result is refined using component based and pixel based methods the latter of which uses the hidden markov model (HMM) for classifying pixels. Finally, foreground objects are tracked by a particle filter to exploit the temporal coherence of foreground motion and improve the detection accuracy through time. Experimental results show that our method outperforms competing methods for detecting moving objects in complex environments.
Parenting a second time around: The strengths and challenges of Indigenous grandparent caregivers

Background: There is a lack of knowledge and research of Indigenous grandparents rearing grandchildren. A burgeoning area of research, the literature only includes studies conducted from the year 2002 and onwards. In order to minimize the burdens that Indigenous grandparents encounter when assuming this role, a greater understanding of this population is crucial. This scoping review was GrandFamilies Vol. 4(1), 2017 77 undertaken to gain insight into and generate awareness of this population, specifically concerning their needs and experiences. Methods: Sixteen databases were searched, including two medical databases and 14 social science databases. A total of 92 titles and abstracts were independently reviewed. Of these, 36 full-text articles were retrieved; 31 articles met the inclusion criteria and were reviewed. Findings: Four major themes were identified: (1) The historical context of Indigenous peoples and how this has affected families; (2) The context of caregiving and government policies as they relate to Indigenous grandparents raising their grandchildren; (3) The physical and mental health of the grandparents; and (4) Informal social support.
Strong Fault-Tolerance: Parallel Routing in Star Networks with Faults

We study the strong fault-tolerance for the star networks. Let G be a network in which all nodes have degree d. We say that G is strongly fault-tolerant if it has the following property: let Gf be a copy of G with at most d - 2 faulty nodes removed, then for any pair of non-faulty nodes u and v in Gf, there is a container of width t between u and v, where t is the minimum of degree of u and degree of v in Gf. We show that the star networks are strongly fault-tolerant and develop an algorithm that constructs a maximum width container of nearly optimal length in a star network with faults. Our algorithm requires no prior knowledge for the faulty nodes and runs in optimal time.
Levels of Recent Union Formation: Six European Countries Compared

We offer a comparison between the age profiles of risks of formation of marital and non-marital unions in Russia, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Italy. We show that there is considerable variability across these populations in the level and age pattern of union-entry risks, ranging (i) from the high and early risks in Russia to the slow and late entries in Italy, and (ii) from an emphasis on marriage in Russia, Poland, Italy, and particularly Romania, to the dominant role of cohabitation reported for Bulgaria. Some of this mostly re-iterates known features (like the patterns for Italy), but they are displayed with unusual clarity in the comparative framework, which also highlights unusual patterns like those for Bulgaria. We cannot see much commonality in union-entry risks among ex-communist countries.
Complexity in Speciation : Effects of disasters on adaptive radiation in a Dual Phase Evolution model

Changes in landscape structure can greatly affect biological evolution, but the role of such changes in generating macroscopic patterns is still poorly understood [1]. Recent studies suggest that principal processes in species evolution in landscapes are an instance of a mechanism observed in a wide range of complex systems, which we have termed Dual Phase Evolution (DPE) ([2], [3], [6]). Here, we investigate whether mass extinctions induce DPE in a simulation model of adaptive radiation.
Quality specifications for B-type natriuretic peptide assays.

BACKGROUND The objective of this report is to improve the quality of immunochemical measurements of B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) and its N-terminal propeptide (NT-proBNP). The recommendations proposed are intended for use by manufacturers of commercial assays, by clinical laboratories using those assays, by clinical trial groups and research investigators, and by regulatory agencies, such as the United States Food and Drug Administration. METHODS A group of cardiac biomarker experts reviewed and abstracted the scientific literature to provide recommendations pertaining to the quality specifications for BNP/NT-proBNP assays. RESULTS The evidence-based recommendations encourage manufacturers to endorse and consistently follow the proposed recommendations; encourage that all package inserts for BNP/NT-proBNP immunoassays include uniform information on assay design, preanalytical performance characteristics, analytical performance characteristics, and clinical performance; and encourage regulatory agencies to adopt a minimal and uniform set of criteria for manufacturers to provide when seeking clearance for new and/or improved assays. CONCLUSIONS These recommendations address the use of BNP and NT-proBNP as cardiac biomarkers and not their physiologic and/or pathophysiologic relevance.
Prevalence and correlates, diagnostic classification, psychological vulnerability factors, and functions of non-suicidal self-injury among university students: a mixed-method analysis.

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI)—the deliberate destruction of one’s own body tissue without lethal intent—is a growing public health concern. Chapter 1 serves as a comprehensive guide for practitioners working with youth, and Chapter 2 presents the current research investigating multiple aspects of NSSI within a treatment-seeking university population. Objectives: Study 1 (n = 128) examined the prevalence and correlates of NSSI (Aim 1), assessed for NSSI disorder (Aim 2), and investigated anxiety sensitivity and distress tolerance as potential psychological vulnerability factors for NSSI (Aim 3). Study 2 (n = 7) applied qualitative methodology to explore the lived experiences of students who self-injure (Aim 4). Results: Forty-eight students (37.5%) endorsed lifetime NSSI, and 9.4% of the overall sample met full DSM-5 criteria for NSSI disorder. As predicted, lifetime NSSI was associated with visiting self-harm websites, knowledge of peer/family NSSI, history of abuse/assault, and lower capacity to tolerate distress. Contrary to prediction, anxiety sensitivity was not significantly higher among individuals with a history of NSSI, although the data revealed a trend in this direction. Discussion: NSSI is a prevalent, impairing, and isolating behavior associated with emotional distress and interference in functioning. Yet, to date, no empirically-supported treatments for NSSI exist. Further research is needed to identify underlying vulnerability factors for NSSI that could serve as treatment targets. The role of anxiety in the onset and maintenance of NSSI remains an important area of scientific inquiry. Future research is needed to identify prevention strategies and interventions for treating NSSI to effectively reduce the prevalence and impact of this silent epidemic.
Image denoising using learned dictionary based on double sparsity model

A novel image denoising algorithm is proposed. We introduce a new effective scheme to train a redundant dictionary from the noisy image itself. The scheme combines the double sparsity model and the zero-tree structure in the wavelet domain. The training vectors are constructed by regrouping the wavelet coefficients of high-frequency subbands in the same orientation across different scales. This scheme overcomes the limit on the input signal dimension as well as the over-fitting problem. We demonstrate the potential of this denoising algorithm with several experiments. The performance of our approach is competive to some state of the art denoising methods in some cases.
Effects of oral vitamin C supplementation on oxidative stress and inflammation status in haemodialysis patients.

BACKGROUND There is increasing evidence for the presence of oxidative stress and vitamin C deficiency in dialysis patients. Limited data, however, are available regarding the effects of vitamin C supplementation on oxidative stress and inflammation markers in such patients. METHODS We ran a prospective, randomized, open-label trial to assess the effects of oral vitamin C supplementation (250 mg three times per week) for 2 months on well-defined oxidative and inflammatory markers in 33 chronic haemodialysis (HD) patients. RESULTS Normalization of plasma total vitamin C and ascorbate levels by oral vitamin C supplementation did not modify plasma levels of carbonyls, C-reactive protein and albumin, or erythrocyte concentrations of reduced and oxidized glutathione. CONCLUSION Short-term oral vitamin C supplementation did not modify well-defined oxidative/antioxidative stress and inflammation markers in HD patients. Whether a higher oral dose or the intravenous route can modify these markers remains to be determined.
Health activism against barriers to indigenous health in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract Racism and government policies of colonisation and assimilation contribute to the disproportionate burden of disease carried by indigenous people globally. In colonial contexts such as Aotearoa New Zealand, these inequities are routinely monitored but governments believe economic growth and better lifestyles will resolve the issues. Stop Institutional Racism (STIR), a group of health activists, is challenging this dominant discourse and building a boutique social movement to transform racism within the New Zealand public health sector. Central to the work of STIR is partnership between indigenous and non-indigenous practitioners underpinned by Te Tiriti o Waitangi – the founding document of the colonial state of New Zealand. This paper reflects on STIR organisational processes and political achievements to date. We have worked towards mobilising the public health sector, re-energising the conversation around racism and strengthening the capacity and evidence base of the sector around key sites of racism and anti-racism praxis. This paper will be of interest to others within the global public health community who are looking for new collective ways to organise and challenge entrenched inequities.