Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Expression of Constitutive Nitric Oxide Synthase Isoforms in Varicose Vein Wall; Preliminary Results

There are conflicting findings in literature about the structural changes of the primary varicose veins. NO (a potent vasodilatator) is synthesized by nitric oxide synthase (NOS). From 3 known NOS isoforms the two are constitutional: eNOS (endothelial NOS) and nNOS (neuronal NOS). 10 varicose and 10 control vein samples were processed by standard light microscopy and immuno-histochemica techniques using rabbit polyclonal antibodies against eNOS and nNOS. Antibodies expression was evaluated semiquantitatively and proved morphometrically by 2D-image analysis. total area of NOS isoforms expressions was determined by color analysis and color digital subtraction. The results showed discontinuous and significantly lower expression of both NOS isoforms the in the tunica media of varicose veins compared with the control group. For the statistical analysis the unpaired t-test was used. Our results suppose lower NO levels in varicose vein wall, deducing that varicose dilatation is due to other mechanism, and they contradict the results of previously published similar works.
[Gene expression in obese patients with non-alcoholic steatohepatitis].

UNLABELLED Although the molecular basis for the pathophysiology of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is poorly understood, we evaluate the hepatic gene expression of cytokines, chemokines, cell receptors, growth factors, intracellular transducers and extracellular communication proteins in liver tissue of obese patients (with and without NASH), and we determine the specific intrahepatic gene expression profiles associated with histological severe NASH.Thirty-eight obese patients with BMI > 35 were analyzed, who underwent bariatric surgery. Biopsy specimen samples were snap-frozen in liquid nitrogen. Hepatic gene expression was determined in liver biopsy specimens from 3 groups: a) obese patients without NASH (n = 12); b) patients with NASH without fibrosis (n = 13); and c) patients with NASH and fibrosis (n = 13). Genes were considered to be expressed differentially in NASH only if there was a greater than 2-fold difference in abundance of mRNA when compared with each of the control group. These results were confirmed by real-time PCR. Fourteen genes were differentially expressed (10 overexpressed and 4 underexpressed) in patients with NASH. Genes that were significantly overexpressed included prohibitin, TNF, TNF RI (p55), MCSF, R2-TRAIL, b1-CTGF, FGF, VEGF, and BIGH3OBR. Insulin growth factor-1, insulin growth factor-2, interleukin-2 and tyrosine-receptor were underexpressed in NASH patients. IN CONCLUSION 1. The obese patients with NASH without fibrosis show an overexpression of proinflammatory and proapoptotic genes. Also, the NASH patients with fibrosis show an overexpression of fibrogenic genes, including the leptin receptor Ob-Rb.2. The up-regulated gene expression of prohibitin suggests mitochondrial dysfunction in NASH patients.
Sex Role Orientation and Structural Correlates

This paper examines female and male sex role orientation, with emphasis on the structural correlates of sex role attitudes. Based on a random sample of college students, the data on roles of both sexes along four dimensions of sex role orientation reveal that women more than men are nontraditional in sex role ideologies. Structural characteristics such as socio-economic status of parents, demographic and family composition predict more of the variation in the sex role orientation of men than of women. For women, the processes through which attitudes emerge may be related to exposure to nontraditional standards and values rather than related to the effect of their structural characteristics while men are influenced by structural characteristics. These data suggest a role sharing model for women, where opportunities and responsibilities between the sexes are shared, but for men, the data support a degree of sex role differentiation.
On the Scope and Methods of Cross-Cultural Research

Abstract Reflexions sur la portee et les methodes des recherches interculturelles. — Les recherches interculturelles peuvent servir differents buts: certaines visent a etablir des lois psychologiques generales, d'autres cherchent a delimiter la part de generalite et de variabilite culturelle propres a certaines caracteristiques psychologiques donnees. Quel que soit le but d'une recherche interculturelle, il est essentiel de partir d'un schema conceptuel adequat. Les A. critiquent le schema traditionnel, propose par Whiting: il faut concevoir un reseau d'interrelations beaucoup plus complexe que celui qu'on utilise dans les etudes consacrees au probleme des rapports entre culture et personnalite. Mais comme il est pratiquement impossible, pour le moment, de tenir compte d'un reseau d'une telle complexite, il est plus fructueux d'etudier des liaisons plus limitees. Plusieurs types de problemes methodologiques sont examines en detail. Tout d'abord, les problemes relatifs aux categories descriptives: celles q.
Coherent electron cooling proof of principle instrumentation design

The goal of the Coherent Electron Cooling Proof-of-Principle (CeC PoP) experiment being designed at RHIC is to demonstrate longitudinal (energy spread) cooling before the expected CD-2 for eRHIC. The scope of the experiment is to longitudinally cool a single bunch of 40 GeV/u gold ions in RHIC. This paper will describe the instrumentation systems proposed to meet the diagnostics challenges. These include measurements of beam intensity, emittance, energy spread, bunch length, position, orbit stability, and transverse and temporal alignment of electron and ion beams.
The Religious Content of Ethnic Identities

The religious dimensions of ethnic identities have been under-theorized. In contemporary industrial societies there is a tendency to characterize religiously demarcated groups as ‘really’ ethnic.This article suggests that the religious content of ethnic boundaries may be more important than might initially be assumed. A religious identification may have specific religious content and assumptions that may cause it to operate in different ways from other identities. Even if identities do not seem primarily religious per se, they may have latent religious dimensions that can become reactivated. Whilst identity conflicts and other social struggles may stimulate the return of the religious, once reactivated, the religious dimensions of identity may take on a logic of their own.Therefore, the article argues that in many contexts there is a two-way relationship between religion and ethnicity. Each can stimulate the other, rather than religion simply playing a supporting role to the ethnic centrepiece.
Pigeon Homing: Does Early Experience Determine what Cues are Used to Navigate?

To test the hypothesis that early experience might determine the nature of the cues used to navigate, homing pigeons were made anosmic by nerve section before they could experience the natural odours in the region of the loft. They were allowed to make free flights and trained by flock releases with intact controls. Next they were tested and compared with intact controls as well as birds made temporarily anosmic just before the experiment. Initial orientation and homing performance of the experimental birds were very poor and showed that the pigeons were unable to acquire an alternative mechanism of navigation.
Linear-Vection Chronometry along Spinal and Sagittal Axes in Erect Man

The present study investigates the onset latencies for linear vection along both the spinal and the sagittal axis in erect human adults. For each axis, both directions have been investigated (upward vs downward, forward vs backward). The vection-onset latency is thought to be shortened by the decrease of the conflict between visual and vestibular afferents. Since this sensory conflict can be presumed to be more important in the horizontal sagittal axis than in the vertical spinal one, the vection-onset latencies have been hypothesised to be longer in the former case than in the latter. Additionally, since the magnitude of this sensory conflict can be presumed to be the same between the two opposite directions within each axis, the vection-onset latencies have been expected not to vary between directions within each axis. The results confirm both these hypotheses.
Partialed products are interactions; partialed powers are curve components.

The fact that simple (zero-order) correlations of products (XZ) and powers (X, X*) with other variables (Y) are not invariant over linear transformations of their constituents (X, Z) has led to confusion and anxiety about their use as independent variables in the representation of interactions and curve components in general multiple regression/correlation analysis. This article demonstrates that when their constituents are linearly partialed out, products and powers are invariant with regard to both their correlations and tests of significance; further, their raw score regression coefficients are simply rescaled. Partialed products and powers are not subject to constraints of orthogonality, level of scaling, or whether data arise from experiments or observational studies.
Unpredicted Pitch Modulates Beta Oscillatory Power during Rhythmic Entrainment to a Tone Sequence

Extracting temporal regularities in external stimuli in order to predict upcoming events is an essential aspect of perception. Fluctuations in induced power of beta band (15–25 Hz) oscillations in auditory cortex are involved in predictive timing during rhythmic entrainment, but whether such fluctuations are affected by prediction in the spectral (frequency/pitch) domain remains unclear. We tested whether unpredicted (i.e., unexpected) pitches in a rhythmic tone sequence modulate beta band activity by recording EEG while participants passively listened to isochronous auditory oddball sequences with occasional unpredicted deviant pitches at two different presentation rates. The results showed that the power in low-beta (15–20 Hz) was larger around 200–300 ms following deviant tones compared to standard tones, and this effect was larger when the deviant tones were less predicted. Our results suggest that the induced beta power activities in auditory cortex are consistent with a role in sensory prediction of both “when” (timing) upcoming sounds will occur as well as the prediction precision error of “what” (spectral content in this case). We suggest, further, that both timing and content predictions may co-modulate beta oscillations via attention. These findings extend earlier work on neural oscillations by investigating the functional significance of beta oscillations for sensory prediction. The findings help elucidate the functional significance of beta oscillations in perception.
Wideband Measurement of the Phase Deviation and Time-Domain Response of an Open Fire

This letter presents an extension of the free-space method for the dielectric characterization of Eucalypt litter fire using the measured transmission phase shift of a propagating signal over a frequency range of 5–40 GHz. This method is especially suitable for a broadband, routine, nonintrusive, and accurate evaluation of fire dielectric properties from the measured transmission coefficient (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${S}_{21}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>). A 72 cm <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times $ </tex-math></inline-formula> 47 cm rectangular brick burning area prepared with Eucalypt ground litter was equipped with four K-type thermocouples at different heights to measure flame temperatures, which ranged from 283–865 K. The measured phase shift of an electromagnetic signal transmitted through the Eucalypt fire varied from 12.2 to −166.7° at 5.35 and 39.74 GHz. From this phase shift, the calculated real part of the relative permittivity of the fire was between 0.877 and 1, with the imaginary part from 0.02 to 0.09. The relative permittivity of less than unity confirms the formation of plasma in the combustion zone of fire, and shows good agreement with previous research. However, in this letter, the combustion zone region is defined with significantly higher accuracy, and characteristics are evaluated over a much broader frequency range. The extracted parameters are important for understanding of the reaction of electromagnetic waves in wildfire environments and can be used to design radar systems for forest fire detection.
Robustness to additive noise of locally-normalized cepstral coefficients in speaker verification

In this paper the performance of a new feature set, Locally Normalized Cepstral Coefficients (LNCC) is evaluated for a speaker verification task with short testing utterances in additive noise. The results presented here show that LNCC outperforms baseline MFCC features when SNR is lower than 15 dB. The average relative reduction in EER achieved by LNCC is 33%. The use of LNCC in combination with spectral subtraction provides a reduction in EER averaging 18% when compared to MFCC features also with spectral subtraction. In addition, sub-band LNCC is proposed to improve the estimation of noise energy and hence the effectiveness of spectral subtraction. When compared with MFCC features, the use of sub-band LNCC led to greater reductions in EER than LNCC with non-stationary noise.
The molecular genetics of cognition: dopamine, COMT and BDNF

The important contribution of genetic factors to the development of cognition and intelligence is widely acknowledged, but identification of these genes has proven to be difficult. Given a variety of evidence implicating the prefrontal cortex and its dopaminergic circuits in cognition, most of the research conducted to date has focused on genes regulating dopaminergic function. Here we review the genetic association studies carried out on catechol‐O‐methyltransferase (COMT) and the dopamine receptor genes, D1, D2 and D4. In addition, the evidence implicating another promising candidate gene, brain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in neuropsychological function, is assessed. Both the COMT val158met polymorphism and the BDNF val66met variant appear to influence cognitive function, but the specific neurocognitive processes involved continue to be a matter of debate. Part of the difficulty is distinguishing between false positives, pleiotropy and the influence of a general intelligence factor, g. Also at issue is the complexity of the relevant neuromolecular pathways, which make the inference of simple causal relationships difficult. The implications of molecular genetic cognitive research for psychiatry are discussed in light of these data.
False Memory Syndrome: A Feminist Philosophical Approach

In this essay, I attempt to outline a feminist philosophical approach to the current debate concerning (allegedly) false memories of childhood sexual abuse. Bringing the voices of feminist philosophers to bear on this issue highlights the implicit and sometimes questionable epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical-political commitments of some therapists and scientists involved in these debates. It also illuminates some current debates in and about feminist philosophy.
Old Tricks in a New Era: Self-Censorship in Indonesian Journalism

Abstract Even though Indonesia has entered a new era of democracy and press freedom, self-censorship still exists in the professional practice of many Indonesian newspaper journalists. Indonesia has a long history of censorship, particularly pressure from the government encouraging journalists to self-censor their work. As such, self-censorship has been encouraged and promoted through the institutionalised and internalised values of many Indonesian newspaper publications. Through interviews with journalists who work for new and re-established newspapers in Indonesia, this article will explain how the practice has evolved, and how it persists today. While the main agent of pressure during Indonesia's New Order regime was the government, today the owners of newspapers are powerful figures who exert their influence and hinder the autonomy of Indonesian journalists.
Insulin-Like Growth Factor-2 Is Induced Following 5-Aminolevulinic Acid-Mediated Photodynamic Therapy in SW620 Human Colon Cancer Cell Line

The IGF system is a family of polypeptide growth factors, which plays a significant role in the development and growth of many cells. Dysregulation of insulin-like growth factors and their pathway components has been connected with essential tumor properties, such as tumor cell proliferation, antiapoptotic properties, invasive behavior and chemotherapy resistance. However, the effects of photodynamic therapy (PDT), one of the cancer treatment methods for the regulation of the IGF signaling pathway, are still unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the expression of IGF-2 after 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA)-mediated-PDT in SW620 human colorectal cancer cells with evaluation of cell proliferation and apoptosis and to determine the effects of PDT on the IGF-2 receptor (IGF-2R), IGF-2 binding protein-1 (IGF-2BP-1) and the proapoptotic protein, BAX. Cells were treated with 5-aminolevulinic acid and its methyl ester. Changes of the expression and concentration of IGF-2 before and after treatment were assayed by immunocytochemistry, Western blot and ELISA. We found that IGF-2 was significantly overexpressed in the SW620 cell line, while its receptor and binding protein-1 were not significantly changed. Within this study, we would like to suggest that IGF-2 contributes to the effects of PDT and that its expression will influence post-PDT efficacy.
Internet Appendix for : “ Are there too many safe securities ? Securitization and the incentives for information production ”

We now consider several extensions to the baseline model presented in the main text and discuss several historical episodes where markets for near-riskless securities shut down. First, in Section A.1 we explicitly add asset pooling to the model, which allows us to contrast securitization markets to the market for long-term corporate bonds. Next, in Section A.2 we add aggregate risk to the model. In Section A.3 we examine the magnitude of the welfare improvements from the planner’s intervention and provide an upper bound on magnitude of these improvements. In Section B, we relax the assumption that the payoffs on loan pools are binary. Once we allow for continuously distributed payoffs, originators find it optimal to issue debt that is relatively low-risk and informationally insensitive, but not completely risk-free. Section B also shows that we can dispense with the simplifying assumption that the informed can short debt. Instead, the adverse selection discount on risky debt stems from the fact that informed investors choose to purchase some fraction of debt in the primary market at t = 1. Because informed investors will opportunistically sell risky debt backed by bad loan pools at t = 2, debt trades at a discount at t = 2. And because the uninformed are still the marginal debt investors at t = 1, this adverse selection discount is reflected in prices t = 1. In equilibrium, informed investors choose an optimal portfolio, adjusting their primary market purchases of debt and equity so that the scarcity returns on equity equal the adverse selection trading profits on risky debt. Finally, Section C discusses several historical episodes where markets for near-riskless securities shut down.
Low complexity on-line video summarization with Gaussian mixture model based clustering

Techniques of video summarization have attracted significant research interests in the past decade due to the rapid progress in video recording, computation, and communication technologies. However, most of the existing methods analyze the video in an off-line manner, which greatly reduces the flexibility of the system. On-line summarization, which can progressively process video during video recording, is then proposed for a wide range of applications. In this paper, an on-line summarization method using Gaussian mixture model is proposed. As shown in the experiments, the proposed method outperforms other on-line methods in both summarization quality and computational efficiency. It can generate summarization with a shorter latency and much lower computation resource requirements.
Social inclusion and the information poor

The evidence for and nature of world poverty are examined, and their incidence in the UK and more specifically Glasgow demonstrated. This is then developed into a discussion of the meaning of and implications for information deprivation within the context of the developing information society and knowledge economy. UK Government initiatives to eliminate social exclusion are examined and the pivotal role of libraries and of the library and information profession in co‐operation are discussed. Some specific initiatives for virtual universities and libraries are put forward.
Saccharomyces cerevisiae TORC1 Controls Histone Acetylation by Signaling Through the Sit4/PP6 Phosphatase to Regulate Sirtuin Deacetylase Nuclear Accumulation

The epigenome responds to changes in the extracellular environment, yet how this information is transmitted to the epigenetic regulatory machinery is unclear. Using a Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast model, we demonstrate that target of rapamycin complex 1 (TORC1) signaling, which is activated by nitrogen metabolism and amino acid availability, promotes site-specific acetylation of histone H3 and H4 N-terminal tails by opposing the activity of the sirtuin deacetylases Hst3 and Hst4. TORC1 does so through suppression of the Tap42-regulated Sit4 (PP6) phosphatase complex, as sit4Δ rescues histone acetylation under TORC1-repressive conditions. We further demonstrate that TORC1 inhibition, and subsequent PP6 activation, causes a selective, rapid, nuclear accumulation of Hst4, which correlates with decreased histone acetylation. This increased Hst4 nuclear localization precedes an elevation in Hst4 protein expression, which is attributed to reduced protein turnover, suggesting that nutrient signaling through TORC1 may limit Hst4 nuclear accumulation to facilitate Hst4 degradation and maintain histone acetylation. This pathway is functionally relevant to TORC1 signaling since the stress sensitivity of a nonessential TORC1 mutant (tco89Δ) to hydroxyurea and arsenic can be reversed by combining tco89Δ with either hst3Δ, hst4Δ, or sit4Δ. Surprisingly, while hst3Δ or hst4Δ rescues the sensitivity tco89Δ has to low concentrations of the TORC1 inhibitor rapamycin, sit4Δ fails to do so. These results suggest Sit4 provides an additional function necessary for TORC1-dependent cell growth and proliferation. Collectively, this study defines a novel mechanism by which TORC1 suppresses a PP6-regulated sirtuin deacetylase pathway to couple nutrient signaling to epigenetic regulation.
Bullying: Short-Term and Long-Term Effects, and the Importance of Defiance Theory in Explanation and Prevention

Abstract Bullying is often followed by short-term and long-term undesirable psychosocial consequences. Both victims and perpetrators of bullying tend to have high numbers of physical and psychological symptoms. In order to prevent bullying and its aversive results, it is important to formulate and test theories of bullying. This article investigates the usefulness of defiance theory in the explanation of the bullying of siblings in families and peers in schools. Questionnaires were completed by 182 children aged 11 to 12 in ten primary schools in Nicosia, Cyprus. We followed a vignette-based methodology to investigate children's defiant behavior. Children were given a hypothetical scenario—in which the perpetrator is sanctioned by the parents—and were then asked questions that aimed to investigate defiant or compliant reactions to the sanctions imposed. The type of child in the vignette was experimentally manipulated so that children could make inferences regarding his/her intentionality of wrongdoing. The results indicate that defiance theory is useful in explaining bullying behavior. The main implication from our research is that defiance theory can assist teachers and practitioners in implementing whole-school restorative justice approaches to reduce bullying in schools.