Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Estat de la qüestió de l'educació comparada: paradigmes, avanços i impassos

Cet article tente de bâtir une reflexion sur l'etat de la question de l'education comparee. L'auteur se propose seulement de developper un ensemble d'incertitudes, de preoccupations et d'interrogations liees a la tâche comparative en education. En fait, l'article se divise en trois parties, a peine liees entre elles, qui tentent d'apporter differentes solutions. La premiere partie est consacree a l'identification des raisons fondamentales pour lesquelles l'education comparee jouit d'une nouvelle popularite, que ce soit dans les milieux politiques ou scientifiques, et souligne l'importance et les dangers de ce phenomene. La deuxieme partie se centre sur l'effort de comprehension des elements qui emergent dans l'oeuvre au sein de la redefinition du domaine de l'education comparee, et prend comme point de reference les quatre points suivants: les sytemes dans les ecoles; les structures des agents; les idees dans les discours; et les faits politiques. Finalement, la troisieme partie est un appendice qui a pour seule et unique intention d'appliquer certaines des reflexions anterieures au niveau Europeen et qui tente de montrer l'interet d'une Europe en tant qu'objet de comparatisme en education.
Homeostasis Model Assessment Is More Reliable Than the Fasting Glucose/Insulin Ratio and Quantitative Insulin Sensitivity Check Index for Assessing Insulin Resistance Among Obese Children and Adolescents

Objective. Simple fasting methods to measure insulin resistance, such as the homeostasis model assessment (HOMA), fasting glucose/insulin ratio (FGIR), and quantitative insulin sensitivity check index (QUICKI) methods, have been widely promoted for adult studies but have not been evaluated formally among children and adolescents. The aim of this study was to compare the HOMA, FGIR, and QUICKI methods for measuring insulin resistance, expressed by oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) results, among obese children and adolescents. Methods. Fifty-seven pubertal obese children and adolescents (30 girls and 27 boys; mean age, 12.04 ± 2.90 years; mean BMI: 29.57 ± 5.53) participated in the study. All participants underwent an OGTT. Blood samples were obtained 0, 30, 60, 90, and 120 minutes after oral glucose administration for glucose and insulin measurements, and 2 separate groups were studied, according to the presence or absence of insulin resistance. HOMA, FGIR, and QUICKI methods were studied for validation of insulin resistance determined with the OGTT for these groups. Results. The groups consisted of 25 obese children and adolescents with insulin resistance (14 girls and 11 boys; mean age: 12.88 ± 2.88 years; mean BMI: 31.29 ± 5.86) and 32 subjects without insulin resistance (16 girls and 16 boys; mean age: 11.38 ± 2.79 years; mean BMI: 28.23 ± 4.94). There were significant differences in the mean HOMA (6.06 ± 4.98 and 3.42 ± 3.14, respectively) and QUICKI (0.313 ± 0.004 and 0.339 ± 0.004, respectively) values between the 2 groups. Sensitivity and specificity calculations based on insulin resistance with receiver operating characteristic curve analysis indicated that HOMA had high sensitivity and specificity for measuring insulin resistance. Conclusions. As a measure of insulin resistance among children and adolescents, HOMA is more reliable than FGIR and QUICKI. The present HOMA cutoff point for diagnosis of insulin resistance is 3.16. The HOMA cutoff point of >2.5 is valid for adults but not for adolescents.
Visual Attention, Color Processing and Physiological Measure Differences in Males and Females with Substance Abuse and Opiate Addiction

Visual Attention, Color Processing and Physiological Measure Differences in Males and Females with Substance Abuse and Opiate Addiction Jo Ann Petrie Department of Psychology, BYU Doctor of Philosophy A biological marker of the addictive state would be a major breakthrough in objectively assessing the efficacy of treatment outcomes. Given its role in the mesolimbic system and drug reward, most biological marker studies for addiction focus on measures related to dopamine (DA). Dopamine is also implicated in some disorders of visual attention and plays a modulatory role in the processing of color in the retinal DA pathway. For example, visual processing in the retina has been shown to co-vary with DA levels during cocaine withdrawal. In this electroencephalographic (EEG) study, we studied event related potentials (ERPs) and reaction time (RT) in opiate addicts—recruited from a community-based high intensity residential substance abuse and detoxification treatment program—and their ageand gendermatched controls. Using a visual color recognition Go/NoGo task with three similar blocks, participants responded in each block to a “Relevant” stimulus of one of three randomlypresented Red, Green or Blue light stimuli as instructed, while ignoring the other two “Irrelevant” stimuli. This simple task produced robust ERPs that were well-differentiated in the visual evoked potentials (VEPs) obtained by the Relevant stimulus compared to the VEPs from Irrelevant distractor stimuli. P300 ERP amplitudes from the color recognition task were significantly higher in males than females. Similar results were obtained with the frontal late positive (LP) potentials (i.e., 700 msec after stimulus onset), which occurred 200-300 msec after the average participant response/ RT. While there were no significant RT differences between controls and addicts in the task, male controls had significantly greater P300 and LP potentials than female controls, suggesting sex differences in visual color processing. However, there were also significant differences in P300 amplitudes male controls and addiction participants—suggesting a difference in retinal DA production in opiate addiction. Further to the hypothesis of sex differences in visual color processing, P300s and LPs were not significantly different in female controls compared to female addicts. Changing the color wavelength of the Relevant stimulus did not significantly affect ERPs in males or females, controls or addicts at P300 but did at LP, particularly when the color blue was relevant. These findings suggest that there are significant sex differences in retinal DA production for opiate addicts and controls in visual processing for a simple Go/NoGo color recognition task.
Instant user interfaces: repurposing everyday objects as input devices

Dedicated input devices are frequently used for system control. We present Instant User Interfaces, an interaction paradigm that loosens this dependency and allows operating a system even when its dedicated controller is unavailable. We implemented a reliable, marker-free object tracking system that enables users to assign semantic meaning to different poses or to touches in different areas. With this system, users can repurpose everyday objects and program them in an ad-hoc manner, using a GUI or by demonstration, as input devices. Users tested and ranked these methods alongside a Wizard-of-Oz speech interface. The testers did not show a clear preference as a group, but had individual preferences.
HYPE with stochastic events

The process algebra HYPE was recently proposed as a fine-grained modelling approach for capturing the behaviour of hybrid systems. In the original proposal, each flow or influence affecting a variable is modelled separately and the overall behaviour of the system then emerges as the composition of these flows. The discrete behaviour of the system is captured by instantaneous actions which might be urgent, taking effect as soon as some activation condition is satisfied, or non-urgent meaning that they can tolerate some (unknown) delay before happening. In this paper we refine the notion of non-urgent actions, to make such actions governed by a probability distribution. As a consequence of this we now give HYPE a semantics in terms of Transition-Driven Stochastic Hybrid Automata, which are a subset of a general class of stochastic processes termed Piecewise Deterministic Markov Processes.
Tight-frame iterative

Purpose: To investigate tight-frame based iterative reconstruction (TFIR) technique for spectral breast computed tomography (CT) using fewer projections while achieving greater image quality. Methods: The experimental data were acquired with a fan-beam breast CT system based on a cadmium zinc telluride photon-counting detector. The images were reconstructed with a varying number of projections using the TFIR and ﬁltered backprojection (FBP) techniques. The image quality between these two techniques was evaluated. The image’s spatial resolution was evaluated using a high-resolution phantom, and the contrast to noise ratio (CNR) was evaluated using a postmortem breast sample. The postmortem breast samples were decomposed into water, lipid, and protein contents based on images reconstructed from TFIR with 204 projections and FBP with 614 projections. The volumetric fractions of water, lipid, and protein from the image-based measurements in both TFIR and FBP were compared to the chemical analysis. Results: The spatial resolution and CNR were comparable for the images reconstructed by TFIR with 204 projections and FBP with 614 projections. Both reconstruction techniques provided accurate quantiﬁcation of water, lipid, and protein composition of the breast tissue when compared with data from the reference standard chemical analysis. Conclusions: Accurate breast tissue decomposition can be done with three fold fewer projection images by the TFIR technique without any reduction in image spatial resolution and CNR. This can result in a two-third reduction of the patient dose in a multislit and multislice spiral CT system in addition to the reduced scanning time in this system. © 2013 American Association of Physicists in Medicine . [http://dx.doi. org/10.1118/1.4790468]
Transmit Power Allocation for Physical Layer Security in Cooperative Multi-Hop Full-Duplex Relay Networks

In this paper, we consider a transmit power allocation problem for secure transmission in multi-hop decode-and-forward (DF) full-duplex relay (FDR) networks, where multiple FDRs are located at each hop and perform cooperative beamforming to null out the signal at multiple eavesdroppers. For a perfect self-interference cancellation (PSIC) case, where the self-interference signal at each FDR is completely canceled, we derive an optimal power allocation (OPA) strategy using the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions to maximize the achievable secrecy rate under an overall transmit power constraint. In the case where residual self-interferences exist owing to imperfect self-interference cancellation (ISIC), we also propose a transmit power allocation scheme using the geometric programming (GP) method. Numerical results are presented to verify the secrecy rate performance of the proposed power allocation schemes.
Risk Assessment of Cascading Outages: Methodologies and Challenges

Cascading outages can cause large blackouts, and a variety of methods are emerging to study this challenging topic. The Task Force on Understanding, Prediction, Mitigation, and Restoration of Cascading Failures, under the IEEE PES Computer Analytical Methods Subcommittee (CAMS), seeks to consolidate and review the progress of the field towards methods and tools of assessing the risk of cascading failure. This paper discusses the challenges of cascading failure and summarizes a variety of state-of-the-art analysis and simulation methods, including analyzing observed data, and simulations relying on various probabilistic, deterministic, approximate, and heuristic approaches. Limitations to the interpretation and application of analytical results are highlighted, and directions and challenges for future developments are discussed.
The normativity of nature: morality, variability and kinship in the gamete exchange

The thesis examines the conditions under which nature is normatively performed in Argentinean fertility clinics. Looking at the use of donated gametes as one particularly telling assisted procreation practice hailed as de-naturalising, even more than ‘conventional’ in vitro fertilisation, the ‘facts of life’, the thesis explores the extent to which ‘nature’ may still be implicated in donor conception. This overarching question is answered through the focus on three key problems. These are, first, the attempt to produce exchanges of reproductive material as moral, non-economic exchanges; second, the effort taken to produce physical coherence between parents and donor children; and, third, the endeavour to ensure that the population comes out as naturally varied given that this is prescribed by the healthiness of genetic variation. In dealing with these three sets of issues, the analyses presented in this thesis prove that in Argentine fertility medicine nature is normatively enacted, materialised as a construct that guides how medicine is performed, while producing as its results the nature of individuals and populations as pertaining to abstract and concrete kinds. These kinds encompass, in the former case, the donor and the recipient, the sibling, the offspring, and the fertility doctor, while the latter refers to the normative enforcement of a certain version of Argentine Whiteness, as a concrete kind which is preserved and prioritised. The thesis subscribes epistemologically and methodologically to the studies of science and technology, from whom it takes an interest in the material workings of science, and with which it shares an understanding of reality as enacted in sociomaterial arrangements that include the agency of humans and nonhumans. Looking at such investments, and making use of the notion of normativity, the thesis makes a contribution to the study of kinship and reproductive technologies from a material perspective.
Effect of 8-Br cGMP on aqueous humor dynamics in monkeys.

PURPOSE To evaluate the effect of 8-bromo cGMP (Br cGMP) on aqueous humor flow rate and outflow facility in monkey eyes. METHODS. Aqueous humor flow rate was measured fluorophotometrically after topical, intracameral, or intravitreal administration of Br cGMP in one eye and normal saline in the other eye. Outflow facility was determined by two-level constant pressure perfusion after intracameral bolus injection of Br cGMP in one eye and Bárány's solution in the other eye. RESULTS Aqueous humor flow rate decreased by 15% to 20% after intravitreal administration of 10 or 30 micrograms of Br cGMP. There was no flow response to smaller or larger intravitreal doses nor to drugs administered via other routes. Outflow facility increased by 25% to 30% after intracameral infusion of 100 or 300 < gm > g Br cGMP, but not after smaller doses. CONCLUSIONS cGMP may be involved in the regulation of aqueous humor formation and outflow facility and their responses to pharmacologic agents.
Optimizing Query execution over Linked Data

— Linked open data also known as web of linked data is a globally distributed database. The four fold increase in the use of linked open data shows its need in the future. This linked data can be queried with SPARQL protocol and RDF query language also known as SPARQL. Various optimization techniques have been proposed but just a couple implemented as yet. In this paper two most feasible query optimization methods are proposed. Solution one is applying federation and query rewriting. Solution two is expressing the RDF structure as a context graph and pruning intermediate results based on probability or selectivity of the result. The paper gives a brief understanding for both solutions.
Porcine Tissue-Specific Regulatory Networks Derived from Meta-Analysis of the Transcriptome

The processes that drive tissue identity and differentiation remain unclear for most tissue types. So are the gene networks and transcription factors (TF) responsible for the differential structure and function of each particular tissue, and this is particularly true for non model species with incomplete genomic resources. To better understand the regulation of genes responsible for tissue identity in pigs, we have inferred regulatory networks from a meta-analysis of 20 gene expression studies spanning 480 Porcine Affymetrix chips for 134 experimental conditions on 27 distinct tissues. We developed a mixed-model normalization approach with a covariance structure that accommodated the disparity in the origin of the individual studies, and obtained the normalized expression of 12,320 genes across the 27 tissues. Using this resource, we constructed a network, based on the co-expression patterns of 1,072 TF and 1,232 tissue specific genes. The resulting network is consistent with the known biology of tissue development. Within the network, genes clustered by tissue and tissues clustered by site of embryonic origin. These clusters were significantly enriched for genes annotated in key relevant biological processes and confirm gene functions and interactions from the literature. We implemented a Regulatory Impact Factor (RIF) metric to identify the key regulators in skeletal muscle and tissues from the central nervous systems. The normalization of the meta-analysis, the inference of the gene co-expression network and the RIF metric, operated synergistically towards a successful search for tissue-specific regulators. Novel among these findings are evidence suggesting a novel key role of ERCC3 as a muscle regulator. Together, our results recapitulate the known biology behind tissue specificity and provide new valuable insights in a less studied but valuable model species.
Pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic evaluation of sitagliptin plus metformin

Importance of the field: Type 2 diabetes is an increasingly prevalent disease resulting from various complex combinations of defects in insulin secretion and insulin action. Adequate blood glucose control is necessary to minimize complications. DPP IV inhibitors (sitagliptin, vildagliptin, saxagliptin) offer new options for combined pharmacological therapy. Areas covered in this review: An extensive literature search was performed to analyze the potential pharmacokinetic (PK) and pharmacodynamic (PD) interactions between metformin (first-line drug for the management of type 2 diabetes) and sitagliptin (first commercialized DPP IV inhibitor). Metformin and sitagliptin may be administered together, either separately or in fixed-dose combination. What the reader will gain: Updated information about PK/PD data on metformin alone, sitagliptin alone and sitagliptin plus metformin. Metformin and sitagliptin are not prone to PK drug–drug interactions. Their co-administration, either separately or in a fixed-dose combination, improves blood glucose control more potently than either compound separately, without hypoglycemia and without increasing metformin-related gastrointestinal side effects. Take home message: The combination sitagliptin plus metformin may be used as a first- or second-line therapy in the management of type 2 diabetes.
Nucleosome‐induced neutrophil activation occurs independently of TLR9 and endosomal acidification: Implications for systemic lupus erythematosus

The nucleosome is a major autoantigen known to activate PMN in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). TLR9 recognizes bacterial and even mammalian DNA under certain circumstances. Nevertheless, the role of TLR9 in SLE development is still unclear. Since nucleosomes are composed of DNA, we investigated whether TLR9 is required for nucleosome‐induced PMN activation. Isolated neutrophils were cultured with nucleosomes, plasma from lupus patients and other stimuli in the presence/absence of various inhibitors. Cells were analyzed by flow cytometry, ELISA and confocal microscopy. We found that nucleosomes circulating in lupus plasma induce the secretion of pro‐inflammatory cytokines by PMN. Nucleosomes activate human PMN independently of unmethylated CpG sequences in nucleosomal DNA, leading to IL‐8/IL‐6/TNF secretion and CD11b up‐regulation. Nucleosomes accumulate in the cytoplasm of PMN upon endocytosis, induce TLR9 up‐regulation and act synergistically with TLR9 ligands. Nucleosome‐induced activation was not inhibited by polymyxin B (PB), chloroquine (CQ), ammonium chloride (AC) or a TLR9 antagonist. Moreover, both PMN isolated from WT and TLR9‐KO mice were activated by nucleosomes, as detected by MIP‐2 secretion and CD11b up‐regulation. Activation occurred therefore independently of endotoxins, endosomal acidification, TLR9 and CpG motifs. TLR9 may thus be differently required in the triggering of nucleosome‐induced innate immunity and anti‐nucleosome B‐cell autoimmunity.
High‐Resolution Printing of 3D Structures Using an Electrohydrodynamic Inkjet with Multiple Functional Inks

Electrohydrodynamic-inkjet-printed high-resolution complex 3D structures with multiple functional inks are demonstrated. Printed 3D structures can have a variety of fine patterns, such as vertical or helix-shaped pillars and straight or rounded walls, with high aspect ratios (greater than ≈50) and narrow diameters (≈0.7 μm). Furthermore, the formation of freestanding, bridge-like Ag wire structures on plastic substrates suggests substantial potentials as high-precision, flexible 3D interconnects.
Enhanced induction of anti-tumor CTLs in vitro by a lentivirus-transduced dendritic cell vaccine expressing secondary lymphoid tissue chemokine and mucin 1.

AIMS Dendritic cell (DC)-based cancer immunotherapy requires an immunogenic tumor associated antigen (TAA) and an effective strategy for its presentation to lymphocytes. Here, we explored whether transduction of DCs with lentiviruses (LVs) expressing a fusion protein of secondary lymphoid tissue chemokine (SLC) and mucin 1 (MUC1) could stimulate antigen-specific cytotoxic T cells (CTLs) to human cancer cells in vitro. MATERIALS AND METHODS HLA-A2+ peripheral blood monocyte-derived DCs were transduced with recombinant lentiviruses LV at different multiplicities of infection (MOI), and MUC1, SLC or SLC-MUC1 mRNA and protein were detected by RT-PCR and Western blotting, respectively. Transduction efficiencies and phenotypes of DCs were evaluated by flow cytometry. Induction of T lymphocyte proliferation by DCs was examined with a Cell Count Kit-8 (CCK-8). CTL activities against tumor cells were analyzed by lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) cytotoxicity and enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISPOT) assays. RESULTS Stable expression of MUC1, SLC and SLC-MUC1 was obtained in DCs transduced with recombinant LVs, and the transduction efficiencies were dose-dependent. Transduction with LVs did not appreciably change the DC phenotype. CTL induced by LV MUC1 DCs potently and specifically lysed the HLA-A2+, MUC1+colon cancer cell line HCT-116. Moreover, this cytolytic activity against HCT-116 was enhanced with CTL stimulated by LV SLC-MUC1 DCs. CONCLUSIONS DCs transduced with MUC1 could induce effective cytolytic activity against tumor cells in an antigen-specific and HLA-restricted fashion in vitro, and SLC promoted MUC1-specific anti-tumor activity. The transduction of DCs with LV SLC- MUC1 may be a promising strategy in DC-based cancer immunotherapy.
Impact of Big Five Personality Traits on Job Performance

This study examines the mediating role of multidimensional organizational commitment concept in determining the relationship between Big Five personality traits and job performance. A conceptual framework has been developed with multidimensional organizational commitment as a mediating variable linking the personality-performance relationship. It is hypothesized that affective commitment will mediate the relationship between extraversion and job performance. Affective commitment will also mediate the relationship between conscientiousness and job performance. It is also hypothesized that continuance commitment will mediated the relationship between neuroticism and job performance. Theoretical implications are discussed.