Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
α‐Adrenergic Receptors and 45Ca2+ Efflux in Arteries From Deoxycorticosterone Acetate Hypertensive Rats

Increased vascular sensitivity to catecholamines characterizes mineralocorticoid hypertension. The present study investigated three possible sites that may account for this abnormality: agonist affinity, Ca2+ release from intracellular stores, and Ca2+ sensitivity of the contractile proteins. Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats underwent uninephrectomy and were implanted subcutaneously with deoxycorticosterone acetate (DOCA; 200 mg/kg, 1% NaC10.2% KCl drinking water, 4–6 weeks). Control rats were sham treated. Helical strips of mesenteric arteries were placed in muscle baths for measurement of isometric force development. Although the ED50 for norepinephrine was significantly lower in arteries from DOCA rats (pD2, 8.21±0.15) than in those from sham controls (pD2, 7.24±0.11), agonist affinity, determined by partial blockade with phenoxybenzamine, did not differ between the two groups. In contrast, norepinephrine-stimulated 45Ca2+ efflux in the absence of extracellular Ca2+ was significantly greater in arteries from DOCA rats than in those from sham rats. In the presence of ryanodine to deplete intracellular Ca2+ stores, force development to Ca2+ was not different in saponin-permeabilized vessels from DOCA rats, indicating that the Ca2+ sensitivity of the contractile proteins was not altered in DOCA hypertension. We conclude that increased vascular sensitivity to norepinephrine in mineralocorticoid hypertension is related to increased release of Ca2+ from a subcellular store and not to changes in agonist affinity or to the contractile protein interaction. Based on previous reports, it is likely that this abnormality reflects a postreceptor change in signal transduction, but there is also evidence to suggest that an increase in the number of α-adrenergic receptors may be involved.
Scaling Up Impact on Nutrition: What Will It Take?1234

Despite consensus on actions to improve nutrition globally, less is known about how to operationalize the right mix of actions—nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive—equitably, at scale, in different contexts. This review draws on a large scaling-up literature search and 4 case studies of large-scale nutrition programs with proven impact to synthesize critical elements for impact at scale. Nine elements emerged as central: 1) having a clear vision or goal for impact; 2) intervention characteristics; 3) an enabling organizational context for scaling up; 4) establishing drivers such as catalysts, champions, systemwide ownership, and incentives; 5) choosing contextually relevant strategies and pathways for scaling up, 6) building operational and strategic capacities; 7) ensuring adequacy, stability, and flexibility of financing; 8) ensuring adequate governance structures and systems; and 9) embedding mechanisms for monitoring, learning, and accountability. Translating current political commitment to large-scale impact on nutrition will require robust attention to these elements.
Putting practice into policy: reconfiguring questions of consumption and climate change

Understanding how societies change is core business for the social sciences and there is no shortage of theories about how transitions come about. Despite this reservoir of ideas, efforts to promote more sustainable patterns of consumer behaviour draw upon a remarkably narrow range of conceptual resources. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the potential and the relevance of paradigms that lie outside the dominant discourses and traditions of economics and psychology. The method is to detail the implications of a handful of key propositions anchored in a ‘strong’ interpretation of practice theory. By organising this discussion around an invented conversation between a fictional policy-maker and an equally fictional social scientist, the paper explores further questions regarding the role of social theory and evidence in contemporary policy.
La tecnología educativa y la didáctica: un debate vigente

Hoy, al estudiar el campo de la tecnología educativa podemos reconocer nuevas definiciones y conceptualizaciones que revelan confrontaciones profundas en torno a las prácticas de la enseñanza, inscriptas sin lugar a duda en el terreno de la pedagogía y con resignificación directa en las políticas educativas.
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow? Undocumented Settlers and Immigration Reform

This paper explores interview data collected on undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Central America during the summer of 1986 in San Diego, California and Dallas, Texas. Its purpose is to examine a principal underlying assumption of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, that undocumented immigrants who are not eligible for the legalization program will return to their country of origin; and to indicate problems created by the legislation which may require further legislation. The data examined indicate that the distinction between a migrant and a settler is not easily drawn. The January 1, 1982 cut-off date for the legalization program does not correspond to residence intentions or concerns found among the Mexican and Central American interviewees. It is questionable whether the interviewees' decisions about returning to their countries of origin will be affected by their lack of participation (either willingly or by exclusion) in the legalization program.
Ad Hoc Voluntary Organizations: Devices for Spontaneous Political Actions

for functional or corporate representation in advisory and executive bodies, and association representatives participate in regular arrangements of negotiations and agreements with governments. The trends reflected in these studies are of practical and political importance. They represent perhaps the most spectacular changes of the interrelations between public and private spheres in our time. Theoretically, the emphasis on institutionalized cooperation has demonstrated the weakness of many previously well established concepts ; e.g.,the &dquo;pressure group&dquo; concept and the understanding of group activities as para-political phenomena. We have seen that many private organizations act as regular agents in the decision-making and policy-making processes: the formal responsibilities often bestowed upon them and the authority delegated to them make even the drawing of distinctions between public and private activities difficult. Easy as it is to demonstrate that previous analyses fit poorly with the present realities, studies of the conditions under which one pattern or another prevail need considerable
The Antecedents of Indonesian Buyer Trust in Social Commerce: from an Attribution Theory Perspective

With the advancement of information technology, many innovations have emerged from the development of the Internet, including online shopping and social commerce. However, online consumers constantly experience some degree of uncertainty, such as potentially untrustworthy sellers, difficult transaction processes, and unknown new technologies and goods. Trust addresses the problem of risks in these uncertain situations. This study uses attribution theory to investigate the trust of Indonesian consumers in individual sellers. This trust is proposed to be determined by the congruence between buyer–seller personality and online servicescapes in the context of social commerce. Findings and contributions of this study are discussed as well.
Spirituality and Health: What We Know, What We Need to Know

Spirituality and religion have been seen as beneficial, harmful, and irrelevant to health. We examine the recent research on this topic. We focus on (a) defining spirituality and religion both conceptually and operationally; (b) the relationships between spirituality/religion and health; and (c) priorities for future research. Although the effect sizes are moderate, there typically are links between religious practices and reduced onset of physical and mental illnesses, reduced mortality, and likelihood of recovery from or adjustment to physical and mental illness. The three mechanisms underlying these relationships involve religion increasing healthy behaviors, social support, and a sense of coherence or meaning. This research is based on religion measures, however, and it should be emphasized that spirituality may be different.
Mammary Type I Deiodinase Is Dependent on the Suckling Stimulus: Differential Role of Norepinephrine and Prolactin.

Mammary deiodinase type I (M-D1) is present only during lactation and exhibits a clear direct correlation with lactation intensity (size of litters). The present work shows that M-D1 is suckling dependent and that intervals between suckling periods no longer than 12 h are essential to maintain this activity. Moreover, we find that with only 15 min of resuckling in 12-h nonsuckled mothers, the 50% decrease in both M-D1 messenger RNA and enzymatic activity could be restored to control values. This restorative effect by suckling may involve pre- and posttranscriptional mechanisms in which norepinephrine and PRL play important roles. Norepinephrine elicits a potent stimulatory effect on M-D1 messenger RNA and enzyme activities, whereas PRL only increases M-D1 activity and may modulate the enzyme response to norepinephrine. Oxytocin and GH had no effect. These data suggest that the adrenergic nervous system and PRL could directly participate in mammary energetic expenditure, regulating the local T3 supply.
Political and legal issues arising out of recent tribunals of inquiry

BACKGROUND The tribunal of inquiry was one of the last UK legislative contributions to the legal heritage of Ireland, prior to the establishment of the Irish Free State. Just over eight months separated the passing of the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act, 1921 and the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921. This last minute, legal legacy has experienced an erratic, uneasy and high profile relationship with the Irish political system throughout the 1990's. The device, designed to investigate matters of "urgent public importance," has fluctuated dramatically in terms of its popularity. At the beginning of the decade the tribunal of inquiry was heralded by the Taoiseach of the day, Charles J. Haughey as, "the most open, authoritative, independent and comprehensive manner available under the laws of this country, [to establish] the truth of the allegations to which I have referred. " However, after the now notorious Beef Tribunal, the tribunal of inquiry suffered a dramatic decline in popularity. This dissatisfaction can be attributed to several . factors. First, that Tribunal took over three years to deliver its report. Second, seven different applications for judicial review were made to the High Court and Supreme Court. These contributed to delays and fuelled a perception of the tribunal process as being "bogged down in legal challenge and mired in incidental detail. " Third, the expense of the Beef Tribunal was controversial, costing approximately £20 million. Finally, the Beef Tribunal failed to reach a clear result in the form of punishment, condemnation OT significant policy change.
Narrative Analysis—Or Why (and How) Sociologists Should Be Interested In Narrative

In this paper I explore the questions of why and how sociologists should be interested in narrative. The answer to the first question is straightforward: Narrative texts are packed with sociological information, and a great deal of our empirical evidence is in narrative form. In an attempt to answer the second question, I look at definitions of narrative, distinguishing narrative from non-narrative texts. I highlight the linguistic properties of narrative and illustrate modes of analysis, paying close attention to both the structural properties of the text and its subtle linguistic nuances. I guide the reader through a detailed analysis of a short narrative text. I show how linguistics and sociology interplay at the level of a text.
Collusion-resistant intentional de-synchronization for digital video fingerprinting

A powerful class of attacks in multimedia fingerprinting is known as collusion attacks, where a clique of colluders, each having a copy of the same multimedia content with different fingerprint, combine their copies to form a colluded copy. In this paper, we propose a countermeasure against collusion attacks for digital video: pseudo-random intentional de-synchronization techniques. Each user's copy of video is slightly pseudo-randomly changed (de-synchronized) in such a way that these changes will not be noticeable for an individual copy, but will be significant enough to produce perceptual artifacts when multiple copies are combined (e.g., via averaging, replacement attacks, etc.). To achieve this task, we propose several novel effective techniques, including constrained random temporal and spatial sampling. We discuss feasibility issues and limitations of video de-synchronization, and present several examples.
Extracting High-Level Intuitive Features (HLIF) for Classifying Skin Lesions Using Standard Camera Images

High-level intuitive features (HLIF) that measure asymmetry of skin lesion images obtained using standard cameras are presented. These features can be used to help dermatologists objectively diagnose lesions as cancerous (melanoma) or benign with intuitive rationale. Existing work defines large sets of low-level statistical features for analysing skin lesions. The proposed HLIFs are designed such that smaller sets of HLIFs can capture more deterministic information than large sets of low-level features. Analytical reasoning is given for each feature to show how it aptly describes asymmetry. Promising experimental results show that classification using the proposed HLIF set, although only one-tenth the size of the existing state-of-the-art low-level feature set, labels the data with better or comparable success. The best classification is obtained by combining the low-level feature set with the HLIF set.
A Hierarchical Technique for Constructing Efficient Declustering Schemes for Range Queries

Multi-disk systems, coupled with declustering schemes, have been widely used in various applications to improve I/O performance by enabling parallel disk accesses. A declustering scheme determines how data blocks should be placed among multiple disks to maximize the parallelism. We focus on the problem of declustering grid-structured multidimensional data with the objective of reducing the response time for range queries. Because of the combinatorial nature of the problem, it is not computationally feasible to perform an exhaustive search for the best scheme for large values of M (the number of disks). In this paper, we present an efficient technique for building good-performance declustering schemes for large values of M, based on known good declustering schemes for small values of M. We analyze the performance of the declustering schemes generated by this hierarchical technique, giving tight bounds on their query response times. For example we show, in two dimensions, that using optimal declustering schemes for M1 and M2 disks we can construct a scheme for M1 × M2 disks whose response time, expressed in terms of the maximum number of data blocks to be retrieved from any of the disks, is at most five more than the optimal response time. Our technique generalizes to any value of M in two dimensions and selected values of M in higher dimensions. We also present simulation results to show the effectiveness of these schemes in practice.
Interleukin-4 and melatonin ameliorate high glucose and interleukin-1β stimulated inflammatory reaction in human retinal endothelial cells and retinal pigment epithelial cells

Purpose We aimed to evaluate the effects of two immune regulatory factors, interleukin-4 (IL-4) and melatonin, on several inflammatory mediators that are involved in inflammation and angiogenesis in diabetic retinopathy (DR), in high glucose or interleukin-1β (IL-1β) induced primary human retinal endothelial cells (RECs) and human retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells. Methods Human RECs and RPE cells were cultured in 30 mM D-glucose or 10 ng/ml IL-1β, with or without the presence of 40 ng/ml IL-4 or 100 μM melatonin. The mRNA and protein levels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), intercellular cell adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1), matrix metalloproteinases 2 (MMP2), and matrix metalloproteinases 9 (MMP9) were measured using real-time PCR and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), respectively. Results High glucose and IL-1β induced the expression of VEGF, ICAM-1, MMP2, and MMP9 in human RECs and RPE cells. IL-4 and melatonin downregulated the expression of VEGF, ICAM-1, MMP2, and MMP9 induced by high glucose and IL-1β. Conclusions Our results demonstrated that IL-4 and melatonin inhibited inflammation and angiogenesis triggered by high glucose and IL-1β, which suggests that these immune regulatory factors may be of potential therapeutic value in DR.
Enhancing Retailer-Consumers Relationship through Everyday Sustainability: McDonald's in Italy

The chapter aims at investigating the effects that the Communication of Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability exerts on consumers’ perception considering the fast food industry in Italy. the McDonald’s case study has been developed through managerial interviews and formal documents analysis in order to report on its strategies for CSR activities implementation and their communication in Italy. Moreover, through surveys conducted in Italy, the case study has been tested on a particular group of young consumers Generation Z less influenced by the past McDonald’s activity in order to demonstrate how communications of sustainability are better believed and perceived, when a brand has a long tradition of misperceptions.
Scenario-oriented design for single-chip heterogeneous multiprocessors

Single-chip heterogeneous multiprocessors (SCHMs) are arising to meet the computational demands of portable and handheld devices. These computing systems are not fully custom designs traditionally targeted by the design automation community, general-purpose designs traditionally targeted by the computer architecture community, nor pure embedded designs traditionally targeted by the real-time community. An entirely new design philosophy will be needed for this hybrid class of computing. The programming of the device will be drawn from a narrower set of applications with execution that persists in the system over a longer period of time than for general-purpose programming. However, the devices will still be programmable, not only at the level of the individual processing element, but across multiple processing elements and even the entire chip. The design of other programmable single chip computers has enjoyed an era where the design tradeoffs could be captured in simulators such as SimpleScalar and performance could be evaluated to the SPEC benchmarks. Motivated by this, we describe new benchmark-based design strategies for SCHMs which we refer to as scenario-oriented design. We include an example and results
Who's the Boss? Parents' Failed Attempts to Influence the Outcomes of Conflicts between their Children

Using home observations of 40 families with two preschoolaged children, we examined sibling conflicts in which parents intervened and yet the outcomes were discordant with their positions. Our specific interest was to discover the processes by which young children influenced the outcome of these conflicts. We found that in 30 percent of conflicts in which parents became involved, the outcome of the conflict was discordant with the parents' position. In such conflicts children were more engaged (such conflicts were nearly twice as long) and justified their positions more often while ignoring their opponents less often than in conflicts that ended in accord with their parents' positions. Three patterns by which parents failed in their attempts to influence the outcome of sibling conflicts were identified: cases where parents Persevered (48%), Abandoned (29%), or Changed (24%) their initial position. We argue that conflicts in which parents Changed positions provide the clearest example of sophisticated bidirectional processes of conflict resolution by all family members.
Small Antenna With a Coupling Feed and Parasitic Elements for Multiband Mobile Applications

A small antenna with coupling feed and parasitic elements for multiband application is proposed. The proposed antenna is small, low-profile, and suitable for multiband mobile applications. The coupling feed structure provides wideband characteristic to a planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA). There are two resonance modes at 0.8 GHz, and their current distributions are observed. Four resonance modes from high-order resonance modes and parasitic elements are designed to be at 1.7 GHz. The proposed antenna is able to support the GSM850/GSM900/DCS/PCS frequency band in 3:1 VSWR standard. The radiation efficiency and radiation patterns are presented to verify compatibility in mobile handset applications.
Hydration biomarkers in free-living adults with different levels of habitual fluid consumption

Little is known about the impact of habitual fluid intake on physiology. Specifically, biomarkers of hydration status and body water regulation have not been adequately explored in adults who consume different fluid volumes in everyday conditions, without prolonged exercise or environmental exposure. The purpose of the present study was to compare adults with habitually different fluid intakes with respect to biomarkers implicated in the assessment of hydration status, the regulation of total body water and the risk of kidney pathologies. In the present cross-sectional study, seventy-one adults (thirty-two men, thirty-nine women, age 25–40 years) were classified according to daily fluid intake: thirty-nine low drinkers (LD; ≤ 1·2 litres/d) and thirty-two high drinkers (HD; 2–4 litres/d). During four consecutive days, urinary parameters (first morning urine (FMU) on day 1 and subsequent 24 h urine (24hU) collections), blood parameters, and food and beverage intake were assessed. ANOVA and non-parametric comparisons revealed significant differences between the LD and HD groups in 24hU volume (1·0 (se 0·1) v. 2·4 (se 0·1) litres), specific gravity (median 1·023 v. 1·010), osmolality (767 (se 27) v. 371 (se 33) mOsm/kg) and colour (3·1 (se 0·2) v. 1·8 (se 0·2)). Similarly, in the FMU, the LD group produced a smaller amount of more concentrated urine. Plasma cortisol, creatinine and arginine vasopressin concentrations were significantly higher among the LD. Plasma osmolality was similar between the groups, suggesting physiological adaptations to preserve plasma osmolality despite low fluid intake. The long-term impact of adaptations to preserve plasma osmolality must be examined, particularly in the context of renal health.