Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Diabetic nephropathy: the role of inflammation in fibroblast activation and kidney fibrosis

Kidney disease associated with diabetes mellitus is a major health problem worldwide. Although established therapeutic strategies, such as appropriate blood glucose control, blood pressure control with renin–angiotensin system blockade, and lipid lowering with statins, are used to treat diabetes, the contribution of diabetic end-stage kidney disease to the total number of cases requiring hemodialysis has increased tremendously in the past two decades. Once renal function starts declining, it can result in a higher frequency of renal and extra-renal events, including cardiovascular events. Therefore, slowing renal function decline is one of the main areas of focus in diabetic nephropathy research, and novel strategies are urgently needed to prevent diabetic kidney disease progression. Regardless of the type of injury and etiology, kidney fibrosis is the commonly the final outcome of progressive kidney diseases, and it results in significant destruction of normal kidney structure and accompanying functional deterioration. Kidney fibrosis is caused by prolonged injury and dysregulation of the normal wound-healing process in association with excess extracellular matrix deposition. Kidney fibroblasts play an important role in the fibrotic process, but the origin of the fibroblasts remains elusive. In addition to the activation of residential fibroblasts, other important sources of fibroblasts have been proposed, such as pericytes, fibrocytes, and fibroblasts originating from epithelial-to-mesenchymal and endothelial-to-mesenchymal transition. Inflammatory cells and cytokines play a vital role In the process of fibroblast activation. In this review, we will analyze the contribution of inflammation to the process of tissue fibrosis, the type of fibroblast activation and the therapeutic strategies targeting the inflammatory pathways in an effort to slow the progression of diabetic kidney disease.
Touch Memories and the Influence of Gender

ABSTRACT The way we perceive and experience touch is a first step in understanding how touch influences design and designers. Early memories of touch were explored among male and female design students taking classes at a large US metropolitan university. Male and female students were compared in terms of recall of what was touched and how it felt. Response categories of what was touched were similar between males and females, although contexts and exposures differed. Specific sensations were analyzed and categorized. Results pointed to the influence of a gender discourse within a culture that takes place in defining touch experiences more than differences arising from being male or female. Experiences of touch need to be expanded, made explicit, and understood in terms of design and creativity.
The relationship between burnout and job satisfaction among physical education teachers: a multivariate approach

The present study examined the multivariate relationship between job satisfaction and burnout, experienced by Greek physical education school-based teachers. The sample consisted of 175 physical education teachers, from primary and secondary education. The Maslach Burnout Inventory (Maslach and Jackson, 1986) and the Employee Satis faction Inventory (Koustelios and Bagiatis, 1997) used to assess burnout and job satis faction respectively. Canonical correlation analysis revealed a negative multivariate relationship between the two constructs (r c =.61). Canonical loadings indicate that job satisfaction is primarily affected by ‘job itself’ followed by ‘supervision’ and ‘working conditions’, whereas burnout is affected by ‘personal accomplishment’ and ‘emotional exhaustion’. Intrinsic aspects of job satisfaction seemed to correlate stronger to burnout than the extrinsic.
Persuading the Persuaders: Presidential Speeches and Editorial Opinion

Presidential public relations activities, especially national public addresses, are a crucial part of presidential leadership strategies. Although much work has focused on the relationship between presidential speeches and the public, less is known about how presidential public activity is conveyed to the public through the mass media. This study attempts to explain variation in editorial coverage and assessment of presidential speeches using a variety of "environmental," ideological, and political factors, such as economic indicators, partisan bias, and popular and elite support. The speeches used were State of the Union messages from 1970 to 1995. The media surveyed were a sample of masthead editorials from a wide range of American newspapers. Environmental factors had no impact, indicating that editorials on the State of the Union message are not influenced by the "real" state of the Union. Partisan bias, such as editorial endorsement of the President or his party, was found to be an important factor i.
Without touch, without seeing. Children playing with the Continuator, a virtual musician.

Abstract What happens when young children play with a virtual musician ? The relationships between children and new technologies is a relevant topic in the field of music education (Webster 2002; Folkestad et al. 1998; Bamberger 2003) as well as in the field of psychological sciences (Turkle 1996, De Kerckhove 1991, Kenway, J. & Bullen 2004). However, only a few studies have considered the "nature" of the interaction between children and musical machine. A research project is carrying out dealing with the interaction between children and the Continuator, an innovative musical system elaborated at the SONY-Computer Science Laboratory in Paris, able to learn and produce music in the same style as the human playing the keyboard, like in a sound mirror (Pachet 2003). The results of the experiments carried out with children to 3-5 year old have shown that the Continuator, or other similar interactive reflective systems (IRMS), is able to develop interesting child/machine interaction and creative musical process in young children, thanks above all to its capacities to replicate the musical style and evolve in organic fashion (Pachet & Addessi 2004; Addessi & Pachet 2005; Carlotti et. al. 2004). A new experiment was carried out to observe in what way this system can be used in classroom music education, with little group of children (kindergartner).
A comparison of human and computer recognition accuracy for children's speech

Several studies have shown that automatic speech recognition error rates are greater for children’s speech than for adult’s speech. Investigations have demonstrated that word recognition error rates increase as age decreases, and that recognition performance for children’s speech is more sensitive to bandwidth reduction, compared with adult speech. This paper presents the results of experiments to measure human recognition performance for children’s speech. The paper compares human and machine recognition performance on the same children’s speech data. It is shown that human recognition performance for children’s speech exhibits similar effects of age and bandwidth to those observed for automatic systems. The results suggest that effects of age and bandwidth on automatic speech recognition accuracy are due to properties of children’s speech rather than artifacts of the technology
Salmonella Enteritidis in chicken carcasses and giblets in Southern Chile.

BACKGROUND Gastroenteritis caused by Salmonella spp. is mainly related to the consumption of undercooked chicken meat or raw poultry products. The objective of this study was to assess the occurrence of Salmonella spp. in chicken carcasses and giblets commercialized in Southern Chile (Valdivia city). METHODOLOGY A total of 560 samples were collected from four supermarkets and one poultry products dealer, during two periods (autumn-winter and spring-summer periods), and analysed for Salmonella using standard bacteriological procedures. RESULTS Five out of 280 analyzed carcasses (1.8%) and one out of 280 (0.4%) chicken giblets were Salmonella positive. The isolation frequency of Salmonella spp. considering the total samples analyzed was 1.1%. Salmonella Enteritidis was the only serotype isolated. No significant differences (P > 0.05) in the isolation rates between the autumn-winter and spring-summer periods were found. CONCLUSION Salmonella Enteritidis was isolated in low frequency from chicken carcasses and giblets commercialized in Southern Chile (Valdivia city); however, in spite of the low frequency of contaminated samples, this kind of food could be a potential vehicle of Salmonella infection to humans.
Us and Them

This article explores the conflict that emerged during the work of university researchers, education consultants, and district multishareholder teams engaged in a partnership for school reform. The authors draw on analysis of naturally occurring talk and other data collected over 2 years to explore the presence of conflict between a multishareholder team and a group of consultants during a 4-day learning lab. Investigation shows how discursive practices produce, reproduce, and transform the group over time, ultimately leading to the collaboration necessary for implementation of the reform plan. The authors elaborate on two main discursive practices: (a) the juxtaposing and problematizing of behavior, positioning participants' group membership in relation to the speaker, and (b) the use of certain pronouns. Analysis informs educational leaders working in multishareholder teams by illustrating discursive practices that might facilitate and hinder collaboration among different shareholders.
Walking as Spiritual Practice: The Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela

This article examines the experiences of pilgrims walking to the shrine of St James in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. It argues that walking is a social practice operating at the nexus between body and self. Pilgrims do not generally regard walking as a spiritual practice at the journey's outset. They do, however, develop a deep awareness of the multiple effects of walking as they progress along the route. Pilgrims report a variety of techniques in relation to their walking including using rhythm, `being' in the moment and narrating. Various social borders also establish a space for self-reflection that is both individualistic as well as marked by wider social meanings. Walking is thus simultaneously a bodily, social and spiritual practice.
Evaluating an Individually Self-Administered Generic Teamwork Skills Training Program Across Time and Levels

The authors employed a longitudinal quasi-experimental design to examine individual- and team-level outcomes associated with an individually delivered, technology-based (CD) training program aimed at developing generic teamwork skills. Data were collected from 54 members of 8 trained and 8 quasi-control MBA student teams who competed in a business simulation. At the individual level of analysis, trained members exhibited higher teamwork knowledge scores and peer ratings of teamwork behaviors than did members of quasi-control teams. At the team level of analysis, trained teams exhibited increasingly improved performance over time relative to quasi-control teams. Additionally, team processes mediated the relationship between teamwork training and team performance. The authors discuss implications for the use of technology-based teamwork training programs and identify promising areas of future research.
Rockfalls: predicting high‐risk behaviour from beliefs

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to gain an understanding of the public's beliefs, attitudes and knowledge regarding rockfalls, and to see whether these variables could predict whether a person is likely to enter high‐risk rockfall areas.Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire was developed to measure beliefs (informed by the health belief model), knowledge, and previous behaviour in relation to rockfalls. Questions were also included to measure attitudes regarding rockfall caution signs. In total, 138 members of the general public completed the questionnaire.Findings – High‐risk behaviour was more likely if the person was male and if the person had the belief that sign‐posted high‐risk areas were not dangerous. Further, believing that the sign‐posted areas were not dangerous was more likely among people who held negative attitudes towards cautionary signs; specifically, these participants were more likely to doubt the validity of the warning signs.Research limitations/implications – The resea.
Pain During Venous Cannulation.

BACKGROUND The pain of venous puncture for the cannulation of peripheral veins is disturbing to many patients. This is the first clinical trial of the efficacy of local anesthesia in comparison to placebo (no pretreatment) in a control group, as a function of the size of the cannula. METHODS A randomized, controlled trial of fully factorial design was performed to study pain during venipuncture after local anesthesia either with intra - dermally injected lidocaine or with a vapocoolant spray, in comparison to placebo. A standardized protocol was used for structured communication with the patient to provide the greatest feasible degree of patient blinding (trial registration number DRKS00010155). The primary endpoints were the subjective discomfort of the patient during preparation and puncture of a vein of the dorsum of the hand, assessed on a numerical rating scale (NRS) from 0 (no discomfort) to 10 (unbearable discomfort), and the rate of unsuccessful puncture. RESULTS The intention-to-treat analysis of all 450 patients revealed that the reported degree of pain during venipuncture depended to a large extent on the caliber of the chosen venous cannula. For a 17-gauge (17G) cannula, both the vapocoolant spray (NRS = 2.6 ± 1.3) and lidocaine (NRS = 3.5 ± 2.2) lessened the discomfort due to venipuncture compared to control treatment (5.0 ± 1.5). The effect of vapocoolant spray compared to the control was both clinically relevant and statistically significant (p < 0.0001). When a smaller 20G cannula was used, however, vapocoolant spray improved discomfort by only 0.8 NRS points, which, though still statistically significant (p = 0.0056), was no longer clinically relevant. The rate of unsuccessful puncture was higher after lidocaine pretreatment (12.7%) than after either vapocoolant spray (4.7%; p = 0.0066) or no pretreatment (4.0%; p = 0.0014). CONCLUSION Local anesthesia can be recommended before venipuncture only if a large cannula is used (e.g., ≥ 17G). Vapocoolant spray may be at least as useful as lidocaine injection; it prevents pain to a similar extent and is associated with a lower rate of unsuccessful puncture.
The effect of reflective discussions following inquiry‐based laboratory activities on students' views of nature of science

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Social justice and the philosophical foundations of critical peace education: Exploring Nussbaum, Sen, and Freire

The purpose of this paper is to philosophically explore a ‘realization-focused’ capabilities theory of social justice, as articulated by AmartyaSen and Martha Nussbaum, as foundational to a theory of critical peace education. Paulo Freire’s philosophy of critical pedagogy has had and continues to have a profound influence on the theory and practice of peace education. It is argued that the basic premises of Freire’s philosophy point to a realization-focused theory of justice and can serve as a robust organizing foundation for critical peace education theory and practice. This conclusion constitutes a hypothesis that calls for further research.
Digital privacy: Replacing pedestrians from Google Street View images

Given the lack of modern techniques to ensure the digital privacy of individuals, we want to pave the way for a new approach to make pedestrians in cityscape images anonymous. To address these concerns, we propose an automated method to replace any unknown pedestrian with another one which is extracted from a controlled and authorized dataset. The techniques used up to now to make people anonymous are based mainly on the blurring of people's faces, but even so it is possible to trace the identity of the subject starting from his clothing, personal items, hairstyle, the place and time where the photo was taken. The proposed method aims to make the pedestrians completely anonymous, and consists of four phases: firstly we identify the area where the pedestrian is located, we separate the pedestrian from the background, we select the most similar pedestrian from a controlled dataset and subsequently we substitute it. Our case study is Google Street View because it is one of the online services which suffers most from this kind of privacy issues. The experimental results show how this technique can overcome the problems of digital privacy with promising results.
In-Group or Out-Group Extemity: Importance of the Threatened Social Identity

Some researchers have found that out-group members are responded to more extremely than in-group members; others have found the reveres. The pre authors hypothesized that when importance of group membership was low, out-group extremity would be observed. That is, when the target's actions have few or no implications for the perceive's identity, out-group extremity will occur. In-group extremity was expected when perceivers are high in identification with the in-group. The presence of a threat to one's identity was predicted to intensity the in-group extremity effect for highly identified persons only Evaluations of a loyal or disloyal in-group or out-group member were made by highly identified or weakly identified in-group participants under threatening or nonthreatening conditions. The results confirmed the predicted pattern of effects. Implications for sports spectators and other self-selected group members are discussed.
Mislocalization and degradation of human P23H-rhodopsin-GFP in a knockin mouse model of retinitis pigmentosa.

PURPOSE To engineer a knockin mouse model that can be used to monitor the effects of treatments on degradation and mislocalization of proline-to-histidine change at codon 23 (P23H) rhodopsin, a common cause of autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa (ADRP). The goal was to introduce a gene that expressed rhodopsin at low levels to avoid rapid retinal degeneration, and with a readily visible tag to make it easy to distinguish from wild type rhodopsin. METHODS One copy of the endogenous mouse rhodopsin gene was replaced with a mutant human rhodopsin gene that encodes P23H-rhodopsin fused to enhanced green fluorescent protein (GFP) at its C terminus. The gene includes a LoxP site in the sequence corresponding to the 5'-untranslated region, which greatly reduces translation efficiency. Characterized are the resulting heterozygous and homozygous P23H-hRho-GFP mouse lines for mRNA and protein expression, P23H-rhodopsin localization in rod cells, effects on visual function, and retinal degeneration. RESULTS The retinas of heterozygous P23H-hRho-GFP mice are morphologically and functionally very similar to those of wild type mice, and they display little cell death over time. P23H-hRho-GFP mice transcribe the knockin gene as efficiently as the endogenous mouse allele, but they contain much less of the protein product than do knockin mice expressing nonmutant hRho-GFP, indicating that substantial degradation of P23H-rRho-GFP occurs in mouse rod cells. The remaining P23H-hRho-GFP mislocalizes to the inner segment and outer nuclear layer, with only approximately 20% in rod outer segments. CONCLUSIONS P23H-hRho-GFP mice provide a valuable tool for evaluating the efficacy of potential therapies for ADRP that influence the levels or localization of P23H-rhodopsin.
The Influence of Metacognitive Training on Preservice Elementary Teachers’ Conceptions of Nature of Science

This study assessed the influence of training in, and use of, metacognitive strategies on the development of prospective elementary teachers’ views of nature of science (NOS). Participants were 49 students (92% female) enrolled in two sections of an elementary science methods course. The sections were randomly assigned to an intervention group and a comparison group. Students in both groups were engaged with explicit‐reflective NOS instruction, which focused on the empirical, tentative, theory‐driven, inferential, and creative NOS. Additionally, students in the intervention group received instruction in, and used, three metacognitive strategies during their engagement with thinking about NOS. The Views of Nature of Science Questionnaire—Form C and the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory were respectively used to assess participants’ views of NOS and metacognitive awareness at the beginning and conclusion of the study. Data analyses indicated that significantly more students in the intervention group explicated more informed views of the target aspects of NOS. Moreover, these substantial changes were coupled with significantly increased Metacognitive Awareness Inventory scores for the intervention group participants. The results point to a relationship between improved metacognitive awareness and the development of informed understandings of NOS.