Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Between the State and the Market

This article brings together two research traditions: social movement theory and theories of corporate social responsibility. The study is an attempt to widen the perspective on the relationship between a business/business sector and its external stakeholders in order to include social movements. We depart from a three-part model of political opportunity structures, including state, cultural and economic opportunity structures. In order to illustrate our model, the article is centred on the case of the Swedish animal rights movements’ political pressure on domestic fur-farming. The animal rights movement has had considerable success by engaging with a relatively open cultural opportunity structure, winning a framing war in regard to the moral issues raised. Despite the fur industry’s attempts to counter-mobilize, the animal rights movement has found a hearing in formal political channels and has achieved considerable success. However, since the movement is faced with an economic opportunity structure that is not vulnerable to the demands of stakeholders, and where there is great inconsistency between the interests of the industry and the demands of the stakeholders, it is not surprising that the farmers have been non-compliant.
The Effect of Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol on the Extinction of an Adverse Associative Memory

The cannabinoid Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC) is currently being employed or tested for a number of therapeutic uses. Cannabinoid CB1 receptors are critically involved in adverse memory extinction. It is not known whether an unintended effect of Δ9-THC is increased extinction rates of adverse memories. We therefore tested the effect of Δ9-THC on adverse memory extinction using an auditory-stimulus/foot shock paradigm. We found that repeated administration of a high dose of Δ9-THC over 6 days retarded extinction compared with controls. This is in contrast to other reports and might be a result of endocannabinoid signalling dysfunction due to cannabinoid receptor densensitization.
$R$-transforms for Sobolev $H^2$-metrics on spaces of plane curves

We consider spaces of smooth immersed plane curves (modulo translations and/or rotations), equipped with reparameterization invariant weak Riemannian metrics involving second derivatives. This includes the full $H^2$-metric without zero order terms. We find isometries (called $R$-transforms) from some of these spaces into function spaces with simpler weak Riemannian metrics, and we use this to give explicit formulas for geodesics, geodesic distances, and sectional curvatures. We also show how to utilise the isometries to compute geodesics numerically.
Judgment of Covariation by Social Perceivers

Knowledge about relationships between events is a critical aspect of human knowledge. Knowing whether events are related, and how strongly they are related, enables individuals to explain the past, control the present, and predict the future. Consequently people's ability to judge covariations between events is of central importance to a number of psychological theories. In 1967 Peterson and Beach reviewed people's ability to use correlational concepts, as part of a paper on "Man as an intuitive statistician. " At the time of their review, studies on this topic were few in number and not very definitive in the information they provided. Since that time a sizable body of research on intuitive covariation concepts has developed. A substantial amount of research indi
Organisations' conversations in social media: applying dialogue strategies in times of crises

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to develop and test a theoretical framework, grounded in managerial and organisational theories of dialogue, through which organisations can take decisions in relation to the most appropriate crisis response strategies for handling social media stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach – The theoretical framework is developed through a conceptual analysis of literature on dialogue, social media and crisis communication. The theoretical framework is then tested in eight different international organisations experiencing a crisis. For each case, different web contents, such as organisations' status updates/posts, links, videos published on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, were analysed using a rhetorical research approach. Findings – The analysed organisations apply different online dialogue strategies according to crisis types and in combination with specific crisis response strategies. Most of the organisations investigated carry on those dialogue strategies suitable to d.
Going to the doctor with enhancement in mind – An ethnographic study of university students’ use of prescription stimulants and their moral ambivalence

Abstract Aims: With this article, we aim to use students’ moral ambivalence towards prescription stimulants and the doctor’s who prescribe them to problematize the distinction between enhancement and treatment. We do this by investigating a case in which students obtain legitimate prescriptions for (covert) enhancement purposes. Methods: The study is based on ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews with 20 university students from multiple universities in New York City, from which the case is drawn. Findings: Three main themes were identified in the analysis. “The doctor prescribed them” illustrates how these students use doctors as easy access to study drugs, and legitimize their use of stimulants because they were prescribed. The second theme, “A good cause”, shows that the purpose is what counts as a measure for whether stimulant use is considered morally acceptable or not. The third theme, “Being responsible” refers to how they regard themselves as responsible stimulant users, particularly when not following the doctor’s directions. Conclusions: Through an ethnographic approach, we gain a more nuanced understanding of non-medical stimulant use that takes into account the context in which it occurs. We suggest that students’ moral ambivalence reflects the increasingly blurred boundaries between what is considered treatment and enhancement in contemporary society.
On the vortical motions in the Black Sea obtained by the 3-D hydrothermodynamical numerical model

Some results of simulation of the Black Sea cir- culation with consideration of forcing of different averaged wind types by using 3-D prognostic baroclinic model are pre- sented. The results allow us to consider all depth of the sea basin consisting of some relatively homogeneous sub-layers. Within each of them general circulation processes practically do not change by depth, but essentially change from layer to layer. Such character of changeability interpreted by us as a steepness of the Black Sea general circulation takes place in majority cases of climatic atmospheric wind forcing. In the present paper results are analyzed on an example of forcing of January atmospheric cyclonic vortex with 250 km diam- eter. Under such forcing the Ekman surface layer of 12 m thickness is created. The cyclonic vortex formed in the east part of the Black Sea, which is Taylor-Proudman potential vortex with vertical cylindrical configuration, is described in detail. The vertical distribution of vortex characteristics are given in figures: Brunt-V ¨ ais¨ alfrequency and Richardson number taken near the vortex wall with maximal velocity. The viable vortexes are characterized by introduced the uni- versal Reynolds number Re • .
A case for adapting and applying continuance theory to education: understanding the role of student feedback in motivating teachers to persist with including digital technologies in learning

In New Zealand schools, the adoption and persistent use of digital tools to aid learning is a growing but uneven, trend, often linked to the practices of early adopters and/or robust wifi infrastructure. The Technology Adoption Model is used internationally to gauge levels of uptake of technological tools, particularly in commerce and also in education. However, this model is inadequate when it is used to attribute reasons for teachers adopting technologies for learning. This article offers an alternative view to understanding why teachers continue using digital technologies for learning. It focuses on the role of student voice and teachers’ pedagogical purposes as motivators, even when teachers have technological hurdles to overcome. The article engages with continuance theory as a lens for understanding these motivations via a qualitative thematic analysis of Moodle postings made by a 2012 cohort of initial teacher education students. The intention is to signpost ideas that might better explain teachers’ continued use of digital technologies in classrooms even if conditions for use are not optimal.
Cultural Differences and the Education of Black Children: An Alternative Model for Program Development.

Recently a group of black social scientists, after examining the deleterious effects traditional labeling practices have had upon the educational careers of black youngsters, recommended that ". schools which accept black children as pupils must be prepared to . adapt. to [life] styles, language and [modes of] learning peculiar to the black community. "1/ These social scientists, following a growing trend in educational circles, recognize that the major shortcomings of our attempts to educate black youngsters center around the inability (and unwillingness) to accept that these children are culturally different from white children. Their thinking reflects a new conception of the black child in interaction with the school and its peculiar cultural milieu. This conception, though not yet fully elaborated, holds that black children mature in communities that are culturally different from the communities of the majority population. The experiences through which the black child develops his sense of self, his social orientation and his world view are provided by institutions (such as family, religion) whose characters, structures and functions are very often unique to the black community. The school, on the other hand, reflects the culture of the wider society and is often unaccommodative to the culturally different black youngsters. Indeed, not only are these cultural differences
'Dad says I'm tied to a shooting star!' Grounding (research on) British expatriate belonging

This paper analyses one British woman's everyday practices of belonging as she negotiates expatriate life in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. In doing so, it responds to widespread calls to ground research on processes of transnationalism and diaspora by drawing on eighteen months of ethnographic research and adopting a three-stranded analytical framework to reflect ont he significance of domesticity, intimacy and foreignness in expatriate belonging. The author focuses on a single research subject to draw attention to a particular British expatriate experience otherwise neglected in migration research and the paper resonates with theoretical literatures aiming to challenge the binary divisions of geographies of belonging, including attachment/detachment.
The Na‐G Ion Channel Is Transcribed from a Single Promoter Controlled by Distinct Neuron‐ and Schwann Cell‐Specific DNA Elements

Abstract : Na‐G is a putative sodium (or cationic) channel expressed in neurons and glia of the PNS, in restricted neuronal subpopulations of the brain, and in several tissues outside the nervous system, like lung and adrenal medulla. To analyze the mechanisms underlying tissue‐specific expression of this channel, we isolated the 5′ region of the correspsonding gene and show that Na‐G mRNA transcription proceeds from a single promoter with multiple initiation sites. By transgenic mice studies, we demonstrate that 600 bp containing the Na‐G proximal promoter region and the first exon are sufficient to drive the expression of a β‐galactosidase reporter gene in neurons of both CNS and PNS, whereas expression in Schwann cells depends on more remote DNA elements lying in the region between ‐6,500 and ‐1,050 bp upstream of the main transcription initiation sites. Crucial elements for lung‐specific expression seem to be located in the region between ‐1,050 and ‐375 bp upstream of the promoter. Using in vivo footprint experiments, we demonstrate that several sites of the Na‐G proximal promoter region are bound specifically by nuclear proteins in dorsal root ganglion neurons, as compared with nonexpressing hepatoma cells.
Progesterone alleviates hypoxic-ischemic brain injury via the Akt/GSK-3β signaling pathway

This aim of this study was to investigate whether progesterone (PROG) alleviates the neuronal apoptosis in neonatal rats with hypoxic-ischemic (HI) brain damage through the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt/glycogen synthase kinase-3β (GSK-3β) signaling pathway. A total of 96 newborn Wistar rats aged 7 days were randomly divided into four groups: sham surgery, HI, drug prevention (PROG) and Akt inhibitor groups. HI animal models were established by a conventional method. All animals were sacrificed 24 h after hypoxia. Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the distribution and expression of phosphorylated Akt (p-Akt) and the GSK-3β proteins in the brain, and western blot analysis was used to determine the p-Akt and GSK-3β protein contents. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was also used to determine the GSK-3β content of the brain tissue, and flow cytometry was used to evaluate the apoptosis rate of neural cells. The expression of p-Akt protein was reduced in the brain tissues of the HI group, whereas GSK-3β expression was increased. In addition, the GSK-3β content of the brain and the neuronal apoptosis rate were significantly increased. PROG pre-treatment increased p-Akt expression, decreased GSK-3β expression and GSK-3β content, and also reduced neuronal apoptosis. Following administration of the Akt inhibitor wortmannin, p-Akt expression decreased, GSK-3β expression increased, and the GSK-3β content and neuronal apoptosis rate significantly increased (P<0.05). In conclusion, PROG activates the PI3K/Akt/GSK-3β pathway to promote Akt activation, enhance p-Akt expression and inhibit GSK-3β expression, thereby inhibiting neuronal apoptosis, alleviating HI brain injury and inducing a cerebroprotective effect.
‘When You're Trying Something on You Picture Yourself in a Place Where They are Playing This Kind of Music’ — Musically Sponsored Agency in the British Clothing Retail Sector

Despite the philosophical tradition from Plato onward, sociologists have not yet explored in full music's role as an active ingredient in social formation. This project has been left to environmental psychologists and market researchers who are more interested in ‘what’ music can cause than in exploring its mechanisms of operation and the implications of these mechanisms for the constitution of social agency. This paper draws upon ethnographic research in and around High Street retail outlets to examine music's role in shaping consumer agency – in-store conduct, purchase behaviour subjectivity, identity. Exploring music in this way illuminates the interface of material culture, social action and subjectivity. Music is used by retailers to signal target clientele and brand image and to structure the temporal dimensions of the retail to environment over the day, week and year. It is also used to structure in-store conduct. It is more important in relation to younger shoppers and to ‘browsers’. Some stores rely upon unacknowledged skill of sales assistants, who often act as ambassador users of store products, to make and implement local music policies. Music provides contextualization cues that may structure in-store subjectivity and clients' orientations to themselves as consumers and to goods on display. The heightened degree of aesthetic reflexivity exhibited by younger shoppers may be part of a transformation of the processes in and through which agency is produced and reproduced, one that is linked to an ascendancy of commercial control over agency's constitution.
A computer vision system for automated container code recognition

—Container code examination is an essential step in the container flow management. To date, this step is mostly achieved by human visual inspections, which are however time-consuming and error-prone. We hence propose a new computer vision system for automated container code recognition. The proposed system consists of model construction and code recognition stages. In the model construction stage, we first incorporate a locally thresholding method with prior knowledge of code character geometry to segment the code characters, including English characters A-Z and numeric characters 0-9, from a training set of container images. With the segmentation results of each character, we subsequently construct its Eigen-feature model using the principal component analysis (PCA). In the recognition stage, the code characters are firstly segmented from the given container image. Each segmented character is then recognized by finding the best matched Eigen-feature model that maintains the minimal PCA reconstruction error of the character appearance. Experiments showed that the proposed method achieved the code recognition with a high recognition rate and little recognition time for each image automatically. Overall, our proposed system has great potential for improving the efficiency of container terminals as well as enhancing the container management.
Design of cocktail peptide vaccine against Cytomegalovirus infection

Objective(s): Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV) remains a major morbidity and mortality cause in immuno suppressed patients. Therefore, significant effort has been made towards the development of a vaccine. In this study, the expression of the pp65 and gB fusion peptides and Fc domain of mouse IgG2a as a novel delivery system for selective uptake of antigens by antigen-presenting cells (APCs) in Pichia pastoris yeast system were studied. Materials and Method: In this study, four immune dominant sequences in pp65 protein and 3 immuno dominant sequences in gB protein were selected according to literature review. Peptide linker -GGGGS- was used for construction of fusion peptide. This fusion peptide was cloned in the pPICZαA expression vector and transfected into P. pastoris host cells. Results: Dot blot and sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) techniques showed that a high level of pp65-gB-Fc fusion peptide was expressed. Conclusion: This CMV pp65-gB-Fc fusion peptide could be a promising candidate for the development of a novel peptide vaccine.
Evaluating of Wearable User Interfaces: How to Simulate a Primary Manual Task?

We introduce an apparatus capable of simulating real-world primary tasks typically encountered in wearable computing. The apparatus allows for controlled and reproducible primary task simulations in laboratory experiments while retaining the properties of wearable computers being used in mobile environments different from the desktop. The paper discusses the construction of the so-called HotWire apparatus including available software. The software helps to conduct user interface studies with the HotWire where the application domains' primary task is characterized by manual work. Moreover, we provide guidance on how the HotWire can be used by researchers for their own studies on wearable user interfaces and dual-task interaction design.
Ribbon Tile Invariants from the Signed Area

Ribbon tiles are polyominoes consisting of n squares laid out in a path, each step of which goes north or east. Tile invariants were first introduced by the second author (2000, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc.352, 5525? 5561), where a full basis of invariants of ribbon tiles was conjectured. Here we present a complete proof of the conjecture, which works by associating ribbon tiles with certain polygons in the complex plane, and deriving invariants from the signed area of these polygons.
Socioeconomic status and fertility : Insights from historical transitions in Europe and North America

One of the major demographic changes during the past 200 years is the emergence of the twochild norm as part of the creation of the modern family. While we know a great deal about the timing of the fertility transition in different regions, we know much less about specific features and causes. The aim of this paper is to use longitudinal micro-level data for seven local populations in Europe and North America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to study the relationship between socioeconomic status and fertility before, during and after the transition. Using the same analytical model allows us not only to test hypotheses about the reversal of class differences, but also to address possible determinants of fertility decline more generally. More specifically we look at the development of socioeconomic differences in marital fertility and relate it to common theories on fertility behavior as adjustment and innovation processes. Our results do not provide strong support for the hypothesis of high fertility among the upper classes in pretransitional society, but support the idea that they acted as forerunners in the transition by being early in reducing their fertility. Besides this regularity, the patterns of class differences in fertility varied a great deal between populations, pointing to the importance of local contextual factors. Preliminary work, please do not cite. Paper for the annual meeting of the Economic History Association, Washington, DC, September 20-22 2013. This work is part of the project “Towards the modern family. Socioeconomic stratification, family formation and fertility in a historical perspective”, funded by the Swedish Research Council.
The Majority of 9,729 Group A Streptococcus Strains Causing Disease Secrete SpeB Cysteine Protease: Pathogenesis Implications

ABSTRACT Group A streptococcus (GAS), the causative agent of pharyngitis and necrotizing fasciitis, secretes the potent cysteine protease SpeB. Several lines of evidence suggest that SpeB is an important virulence factor. SpeB is expressed in human infections, protects mice from lethal challenge when used as a vaccine, and contributes significantly to tissue destruction and dissemination in animal models. However, recent descriptions of mutations in genes implicated in SpeB production have led to the idea that GAS may be under selective pressure to decrease secreted SpeB protease activity during infection. Thus, two divergent hypotheses have been proposed. One postulates that SpeB is a key contributor to pathogenesis; the other, that GAS is under selection to decrease SpeB during infection. In order to distinguish between these alternative hypotheses, we performed casein hydrolysis assays to measure the SpeB protease activity secreted by 6,775 GAS strains recovered from infected humans. The results demonstrated that 84.3% of the strains have a wild-type SpeB protease phenotype. The availability of whole-genome sequence data allowed us to determine the relative frequencies of mutations in genes implicated in SpeB production. The most abundantly mutated genes were direct transcription regulators. We also sequenced the genomes of 2,954 GAS isolates recovered from nonhuman primates with experimental necrotizing fasciitis. No mutations that would result in a SpeB-deficient phenotype were identified. Taken together, these data unambiguously demonstrate that the great majority of GAS strains recovered from infected humans secrete wild-type levels of SpeB protease activity. Our data confirm the important role of SpeB in GAS pathogenesis and help end a long-standing controversy.