Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Betanin, a beetroot component, induces nuclear factor erythroid-2-related factor 2-mediated expression of detoxifying/antioxidant enzymes in human liver cell lines

Our recent study has shown that beetroot juice protects against N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDEA)-induced liver injury and increases the activity of phase II enzymes, suggesting the activation of the nuclear factor erythroid-2-related factor 2 (Nrf2)–antioxidant response element (ARE) pathway. The aim of the present study was to further explore the mechanism of the activity of beetroot by evaluating the cytoprotective effects of its major component. The influence of betanin (BET) on the activation of Nrf2 and the expression of GSTA, GSTP, GSTM, GSTT, NQO1 and HO-1 was assessed in two hepatic cell lines: non-tumour THLE-2 and hepatoma-derived HepG2 cell lines. The level of the tumour suppressor p53 in both cell lines and the methylation of GSTP in HepG2 cells were also evaluated. Treatment of both cell lines with 2, 10 and 20 μm of BET resulted in the translocation of Nrf2 from the cytosol to the nucleus. The mRNA and nuclear protein levels of Nrf2 and the binding of Nrf2 to ARE sequences were increased only in the THLE-2 cells and were accompanied by the phosphorylation of serine/threonine kinase (AKT), c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK). BET also significantly increased the mRNA and protein levels of GSTP, GSTT, GSTM and NQO1 in these cells. Conversely, besides the translocation of Nrf2 from the cytosol to the nucleus, BET did not modulate any of the other parameters measured in the HepG2 cells. BET did not change the methylation of GSTP1 in these cells either. These results indicate that BET through the activation of Nrf2 and subsequent induction of the expression of genes controlled by this factor may exert its hepatoprotective and anticarcinogenic effects. Moreover, the activation of mitogen-activated protein kinases may be responsible for the activation of Nrf2 in the THLE-2 cells.
A parallel compliant meso-manipulator for finger rehabilitation treatments: Kinematic and dynamic analysis.

A parallel and flexible meso-manipulator for finger rehabilitation treatments is presented in this paper. The work deals with the study of a meso-robotpsilas kinematic and dynamic peculiar behavior, aimed at allowing its application to muscular activity and tendon tension, in those patients with even a partial lack of the fingers functionality, for instance due to a stroke. As a result of its structural compliance, the meso-manipulator results particularly suitable for a rehabilitative application: after having coupled the manipulator to a common cloth-glove joined to the mobile platform of the robot, the patientpsilas finger can be driven to the required movement. As external loads can also be imposed to the involved tendons, the realized motion parts performed by the robot and by the patient can be quantified. In this way, the surgeon can constantly monitor the therapy trend, but also the patient has an objective quantification of his/her improvement.
The pragmatics of and-conjunctions: the non-narrative cases

Utterances of and-conjunctions can communicate a wide range of relationships between the states of affairs described by their conjuncts. They share these possib ilitie with their juxtaposed counterparts, but there are also some quite strong constraints on their interpretation which do not arise for the juxtaposed cases. Focussing in particular on a range of little discussed cases in which temporal sequencing is not at issue, we attempt a relevancetheoretic pragmatic account of the interpretations that do arise, and an explanation of the nonoccurrence of the others.
Between teachers’ perceptions and civic conceptions: lessons from three Israeli civics teachers

Abstract Building on sociocultural theories of teaching and learning, rooted in constructivist traditions, this study examined the teaching of civics in relation to contextual sociocultural factors in the Israeli educational system. The study focused on ways in which three civics teachers conceptualized and framed notions of good citizenship in relation to the teaching of the civics subject matter, and on the ways in which such notions manifest in their planned teaching. The main finding points to how the teachers framed their civics lessons in a manner that was in congruence with their perceptions of their students’ approaches to citizenship. Thus, the study reaches the conclusion that teachers’ perceptions are a key element in framing and conceptualizing civics lessons, resulting in a reality in which students from different backgrounds may experience significant differences in their orientation to the notion of good citizenship, limiting their exposure to multiple views.
Evaluation of Diversity Antenna Designs Using Ray Tracing, Measured Radiation Patterns, and MIMO Channel Measurements

This paper presents an evaluation of the MIMO performance of three candidate antenna array designs, each embedded within a PDA footprint, using indoor wideband channel measurements at 5.2 GHz alongside channel simulations. A channel model which employs the plane-wave approximation was used to combine the embedded antenna radiation patterns of the candidate devices obtained from far-field pattern measurements and multipath component parameters from an indoor ray-tracer. The 4-element candidate arrays were each constructed using a different type of antenna element, and despite the diverse element directivities, pattern characteristics, and polarization purities, all three devices were constructed to fully exploit diversity in polarization, space, and angle. Thus, low correlation and high information theoretic capacity was observed in each case. A good match between the model and the measurements is also demonstrated, especially for MIMO subsets of identically or orthogonally polarized linear slot antennas. The interdependencies between the channel XPD, directional spread and pathloss, and the respective impact on channel capacity are also discussed in this paper.
On the invariance of speech percepts

A fundamental question in the study of speech is about the invariance of the ultimate percepts, or features. The present paper gives an overview of the noninvariance problem and offers some hints towards a solution. Examination of various data on place and voicing perception suggests the following points. Features correspond to natural boundaries between sounds, which are included in the infant’s predispositions for speech perception. Adult percepts arise from couplings and contextual interactions between features. Both couplings and interactions contribute to invariance. But this is at the expense of profound qualitative changes in perceptual boundaries implying that features are neither independently nor invariantly perceived. The question then is to understand the principles which guide feature couplings and interactions during perceptual development. The answer might reside in the fact that: (1) adult boundaries converge to a single point of the perceptual space, suggesting a context-free central reference; (2) this point corresponds to the neutral vocoid, suggesting the reference is related to production; (3) at this point perceptual boundaries correspond to the natural ones, suggesting the reference is anchored in predispositions for feature perception. In sum, perceptual invariance seems to be grounded on a radial representation of the vocal tract around a singular point at which boundaries are context-fee, natural and coincide with the neutral vocoid.
Do We Need Entity-Centric Knowledge Bases for Entity Disambiguation?

Entity Disambiguation has been studied extensively in the last 10 years with authors reporting increasingly well performing systems. However, most studies focused on general purpose knowledge bases like Wikipedia or DBPedia and left out the question how those results generalize to more specialized domains. This is especially important in the context of Linked Open Data which forms an enormous resource for disambiguation. However, the influence of domain heterogeneity, size and quality of the knowledge base remains largely unanswered. In this paper we present an extensive set of experiments on special purpose knowledge bases from the biomedical domain where we evaluate the disambiguation performance along four variables: (i) the representation of the knowledge base as being either entity-centric or document-centric, (ii) the size of the knowledge base in terms of entities covered, (iii) the semantic heterogeneity of a domain and (iv) the quality and completeness of a knowledge base. Our results show that for special purpose knowledge bases (i) document-centric disambiguation significantly outperforms entity-centric disambiguation, (ii) document-centric disambiguation does not depend on the size of the knowledge-base, while entity-centric approaches do, and (iii) disambiguation performance varies greatly across domains. These results suggest that domain-heterogeneity, size and knowledge base quality have to be carefully considered for the design of entity disambiguation systems and that for constructing knowledge bases user-annotated texts are preferable to carefully constructed knowledge bases.
Request-based gossiping

By the distributed averaging problem is meant the problem of computing the average value of a set of numbers possessed by the agents in a distributed network using only communication between neighboring agents. Gossiping is a well-known approach to the problem which seeks to iteratively arrive at a solution by allowing each agent to interchange information with at most one neighbor at each iterative step. Crafting a gossiping protocol which accomplishes this is challenging because gossiping is an inherently collaborative process which can lead to deadlock unless careful precautions are taken to ensure that it does not. In this paper we present three gossiping protocols. We show by example that the first can deadlock. While the second cannot, it requires a degree of network-wide coordination which may not be possible to secure in some applications. The third protocol uses only local information, is guaranteed to avoid deadlock, and requires fewer transmissions per iteration than standard broadcast-based distributed averaging protocols.
Policy Rules for In ation Targeting ¤

Policy rules that are consistent with ination targeting are examined in a small macroeconometric model of the US economy. We compare the properties and outcomes of explicit instrument rules as well as targeting rules.  The latter, which imply implicit instrument rules, may be closer to actual operating procedures of ination-targeting central banks. We nd that ination forecasts are central for good policy rules under ination targeting. Some simple instrument and targeting rules do remarkably well relative to the optimal rule; others, including some that are often used as representing ination targeting, do less well.
Use of online crowdsourcing platforms for gambling research

Abstract Crowdsourcing platforms like Amazon’s Mechnical Turk and Crowdflower have been touted to be a cost-effective way to collect large amounts of behavioural data. Across four large-n studies, gambling-related behaviours, tendencies and traits among participants in these labour markets were examined. In Studies 1 and 2, both conducted on Crowdflower, problem gamblers (as measured by the benchmark Problem Gambling Severity Index) comprised 24.5% and 21.9% of participants, respectively. In Study 3, conducted on Mechanical Turk, problem gamblers comprised 9.0% of participants. In Study 4, a two-wave longitudinal study conducted on Crowdflower, problem gamblers comprised 13.5% of participants in wave one and 14.8% of participants in wave two. In Studies 2 and 3, strong convergent associations were demonstrated across various measures of problem gambling tendencies and general gambling involvement. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that gambling was associated with personality traits (impulsivity, sensation-seeking, self-control), risk attitudes, affect, and behavioural risk-taking consistent with previous research. In Study 4, it was demonstrated that measures of problem gambling have acceptable test-retest reliability. Online crowdsourcing platforms appear to offer access to samples with remarkably high proportions of problem gamblers. However, this characteristic means that such samples are not necessarily representative of gambling tendencies among more general populations.
Prototype magnetorheological fluid damper for active vibration control system

Purpose: The paper presents a concept of a system for isolation from external vibration sources with use of a magnetorheological (MR) dampers. Design/methodology/approach: Results of experimental studies of a prototype magnetorheological damper at various magnitudes of control current and the manner of modelling electromagnetic phenomena occurring in the damper are presented in this paper. The effect of magnetic field on magnetorheological fluid is modelled by the finite element method. The mathematical model of the system as well as the damper model are outlined along with the relevant control facilities. Numerical simulations were carried out for an exemplary excitation. Findings: The elaborated damper and applied control algorithms substantially influences the values for velocities and accelerations. Incorporation of a controllable damper into the stabilization system significantly decreases displacements of the mass to be stabilized being the results of shocks and bumps caused by excitations w(t) as compared to similar displacement of the same mass when only a passive damper was used. Research limitations/implications: For the future research it is necessary to improve characteristics of elaborated damper in order to improve its efficiency. Practical implications: Many mechanical systems should separate from sources of vibrations. The active or semiactive vibration control systems offer a number of advantages as compared with passive systems so that better efficiency of vibration damping is assured. Originality/value: The paper presents new concept of vibration damper with magnetorheological fluids and way of its application in industrial practice.
Disequilibrium and Loss of Narrative Coherence in Identity Construction: A Piagetian Perspective on Trauma in Adolescent Victims of Sexual Abuse

Previous authors have presented contradictory views of trauma as either the over- or under-elaboration of experience. This article provides a new theoretical perspective on trauma by incorporating Piagetian constructivism. On a theoretical level, it argues that both forms of narrative disruption following a traumatic episode are not contradictory. Rather, both over- and under-elaboration indicate disequilibrium and loss of narrative coherence in the construction of personal identity. Results are presented from an empirical study of the autobiographies of 15 adolescent victims (between the ages of 12 and 17) of sexual assault. Participants were enrolled in the initial stage of a psychotherapeutic treatment program for abuse in Santiago, Chile, at the time of study. Analysis of participant autobiographies reveals multiple forms of disorganization. The majority of adolescent narratives referred to predominance of traumatic experiences, whereas a small number of cases excluded traumatic experiences altogether. Discussion of study results shows that both forms of narrative disorganization indicate disequilibrium and loss of narrative coherence. Piagetian constructivist theory provides insight into this phenomenon by supporting and advancing understandings of trauma from a constructivist perspective. Implications for therapeutic treatment of sexual abuse, which may help generate clinical guidelines, are presented.
Mereogeometries: A Semantic Comparison

We compare several geometrical theories based on mereology (mereogeometries) in a unified framework. Most theories in this area lack in formalization and this prevents any systematic logical analysis. We overcome this problem by isolating a common domain in R and, selecting natural interpretations, we use this framework to show several interdependencies among primitive relations of these theories. We conclude that, for dimension n ≤ 3 and with some additional assumptions, most of the theories considered are equivalent in the provided interpretation.
Applying time-dependent variance-based global sensitivity analysis to represent the dynamics of an agent-based model of land use change

The growing body of knowledge on modeling land use systems points to epistemic uncertainty as one of the challenging obstacles in development and application of agent-based models (ABMs). To decrease outcome uncertainty, sensitivity analysis (SA) is performed as part of model verification and validation. Oftentimes, however, it is inadequately addressed, partly because of the lack of tools and techniques that focus on an explicit evaluation of ABM dynamics. The nonlinear processes, inherent in such models, necessitate longitudinal SA with time path investigation of input–output relationships of endogenous variables. In response to the outlined deficiencies, this study investigates the potential of time-dependent global sensitivity analysis (time-GSA) in examining the dynamics of outcome uncertainty of a simple ABM of land use change. Specifically, we apply first and total order sensitivity indices to decompose variance of output landscape fragmentation, apportioned to model inputs for multiple time steps and multiple realizations of the ABM. We focus the analysis on selected complex systems characteristics including preference uncertainty, path dependence, access to information, and magnitude of interactions and feedbacks. We conclude that the factor sensitivity measures vary significantly during model execution. Consequently, a static snapshot of ABM sensitivity, taken at the end of the simulation, is inadequate when deciding on factor prioritization and reduction. Assuming that ABM dynamics is a result of factor interaction, we observe a distinct time lag of nonlinearity, which unfolds after the formation of the seeds of development. Therefore, we argue for further application of time-GSA in ABM as one of the visual quantitative techniques contributing to evaluation of ABM nonlinearity.
Altered LINE-1 Methylation in Mothers of Children with Down Syndrome

Down syndrome (DS, also known as trisomy 21) most often results from chromosomal nondisjunction during oogenesis. Numerous studies sustain a causal link between global DNA hypomethylation and genetic instability. It has been suggested that DNA hypomethylation might affect the structure and dynamics of chromatin regions that are critical for chromosome stability and segregation, thus favouring chromosomal nondisjunction during meiosis. Maternal global DNA hypomethylation has not yet been analyzed as a potential risk factor for chromosome 21 nondisjunction. This study aimed to asses the risk for DS in association with maternal global DNA methylation and the impact of endogenous and exogenous factors that reportedly influence DNA methylation status. Global DNA methylation was analyzed in peripheral blood lymphocytes by quantifying LINE-1 methylation using the MethyLight method. Levels of global DNA methylation were significantly lower among mothers of children with maternally derived trisomy 21 than among control mothers (P = 0.000). The combination of MTHFR C677T genotype and diet significantly influenced global DNA methylation (R2 = 4.5%, P = 0.046). The lowest values of global DNA methylation were observed in mothers with MTHFR 677 CT+TT genotype and low dietary folate. Although our findings revealed an association between maternal global DNA hypomethylation and trisomy 21 of maternal origin, further progress and final conclusions regarding the role of global DNA methylation and the occurrence of trisomy 21 are facing major challenges.
Biochemical dissection of AP-1 recruitment onto Golgi membranes

Recruitment of the Golgi-specific AP-1 adaptor complex onto Golgi membranes is thought to be a prerequisite for clathrin coat assembly on the TGN. We have used an in vitro assay to examine the translocation of cytosolic AP-1 onto purified Golgi membranes. Association of AP-1 with the membranes required GTP or GTP analogues and was inhibited by the fungal metabolite, brefeldin A. In the presence of GTP gamma S, binding of AP-1 to Golgi membranes was strictly dependent on the concentration of cytosol added to the assay. AP-1 recruitment was also found to be temperature dependent, and relatively rapid at 37 degrees C, following a lag period of 3 to 4 min. Using only an adaptor-enriched fraction from cytosol, purified myristoylated ARF1, and Golgi membranes, the GTP gamma S-dependent recruitment of AP-1 could be reconstituted. Our results show that the association of the AP-1 complex with Golgi membranes, like the coatomer complex, requires ARF, which accounts for the sensitivity of both to brefeldin A. In addition, they provide the basis for a model for the early biochemical events that lead to clathrin-coated vesicle formation on the TGN.
Adaptation of melodic intonation therapy to Spanish: a feasibility pilot study

ABSTRACT Background: Although the effectiveness of melodic intonation therapy (MIT) has been demonstrated in poststroke aphasia, its use in Spanish-speaking countries is practically nonexistent, primarily due to the therapy not having been adapted to Spanish. Aims: To develop a Spanish version of MIT and to evaluate its feasibility in patients with nonfluent aphasia after an ischemic stroke. Methods & Procedures: The study was performed in two phases: the first phase involved creation of a Spanish adaptation of MIT; the second phase consisted of a pilot intervention study to analyse its feasibility for use with Spanish patients with poststroke nonfluent aphasia. We recruited patients with aphasia due to a first ischemic stroke more than 6 months before inclusion in the study and who had received a standard programme of conventional language therapy after the stroke. The duration of the MIT was 18 sessions performed over a 6-week period. Each session lasted 30 min per patient and was performed by a language-experienced therapist previously trained in MIT. We used the communicative activity log (CAL) questionnaire and the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (BDAE) as instruments to measure the change in the communication skills experienced by the patients. Outcomes & Results: Ten patients were screened and evaluated by a specialist in neuropsychology, and only four met the study criteria. After the therapy, three of the four patients demonstrated improved BDAE results, increasing from an average of 18–36; the CAL average increased from 48.75 to 51.25. These scores were not significant because of the small sample size. Conclusions: We have developed a Spanish version of MIT that is feasible for use with patients with poststroke nonfluent aphasia and that shows a trend towards speech improvement. Further prospective studies to evaluate its potential efficacy are needed.