Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mass Communication Research at the Dawn of the 21st Century

This chapter reviews the current state of research according to dominant mass communication theories and lines of research. Theoretical perspectives addressed include agenda setting, framing, diffusion of innovations, gap hypotheses, third-person effects, cultivation, priming, social cognition, uses and gratifications, and critical/cultural studies. Prominent lines of research falling within or between these perspectives include media portrayals, media constructions, health issues, newer technologies, cultural maintenance and change, children and media, and political communication. The perspectives reflect different beliefs as to the roles of the audience, media, and society. Some emphasize purposeful individual selection and use, whereas others stress the power of media to influence societal directions and audience beliefs. Investigations reflect both differences and commonalities in assumptions and approaches. Regardless of discipline, concentration, or perspective, however, the expansive research in these areas suggests that mass communication researchers are on a productive path toward understanding how media affect and fit within the lives of people and societies.
Co-present photo sharing on mobile devices

The paper reports a mobile application that allows users to share photos with other co-present users by synchronizing the display on multiple mobile devices. Various floor control policies (software locks that determine when someone can control the displays) were implemented. The behaviour of groups of users was studied to determine how people would use this application for sharing photos and how various floor control policies affect this behaviour. Explicit policies was shown to be the best strategy for structured presentations, but when all locks were removed, the users created a new form of social interaction which seemed to be a more compelling use of the technology than the original, intended, application.
Blood Pressure of Sinoaortic-Denervated Dogs Is Not Increased by Cardiac Denervation

Abstract Although blood pressure rises markedly after acute sinoaortic denervation, animals with chronic sinoaortic denervation have normal or only slightly elevated mean arterial pressures. The present study was performed to determine whether reflexes from cardiac receptors exert antihypertensive effects and thereby lower blood pressure in animals with chronic sinoaortic denervation. We made multiple measurements of blood pressures in dogs with chronic sinoaortic denervation before and after their hearts were denervated surgically. Mean arterial pressure after cardiac denervation (100.3 ± 4.2 mm Hg) was not significantly different from the mean pressures recorded before cardiac denervation in these sinoaortic-denervated dogs (104.8 ± 3.1 mm Hg). Also, mean heart rate after cardiac denervation (107.4 ± 5.5 beats/min) did not differ significantly from the mean heart rate recorded before cardiac denervation (107.2 ± 5.9 beats/min). Cardiac denervation did, however, appear to reduce the lability of both blood pressure and heart rate in sinoaortic-denervated dogs. We conclude that cardiac receptors are not responsible for maintaining arterial pressure within essentially normal limits in animals with chronic sinoaortic denervation.
Polo-like Kinase 1 Facilitates Chromosome Alignment during Prometaphase through BubR1*

Plk1, an evolutionarily conserved M phase kinase, associates with not only spindle poles but also kinetochores during prometaphase. However, the role of Plk1 at kinetochores has been poorly understood. Here we show that BubR1 mediates the action of Plk1 at kinetochores for proper chromosome alignment. Our results show that BubR1 colocalizes with Plk1 at kinetochores of unaligned chromosomes and physically interacts with Plk1 in prometaphase cells. Down-regulation of Plk1 by small interfering RNA abolished the mobility-shifted, hyperphosphorylated form of BubR1 in the prometaphase-arrested cells. In addition, BubR1 was phosphorylated by Plk1 in vitro at two Plk1 consensus sites in the kinase domain of BubR1. The add-back of either wild-type BubR1 or BubR1 2E, in which the two Plk1 phosphorylation sites were replaced by glutamic acids, but not that of BubR1 2A, an unphosphorylatable mutant, rescued the chromosome alignment defects in BubR1-deficient cells. Moreover, when both Plk1 and BubR1 were down-regulated, the add-back of BubR1 2E, but not that of wild-type BubR1, rescued the chromosome alignment defects. These results taken together suggest that Plk1 facilitates chromosome alignment during prometaphase through BubR1.
Receptivity is a polarity dependent special function of hormonally regulated uterine epithelial cells

Useful knowledge of the mechanisms which regulate ovoreceptivity and implantation remains elusive in spite of increasing efforts to apply the technology of biochemistry and to a lesser extent, cellular and molecular biology to the analysis of the problem. Existing models used to analyze interactions of the blastocyst and endometrial cells of the uterus have been unable to account for nongenotypic embryonic losses, particularly those following in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer.
Guest Editorial: Toward Commercial Applications of Affective Computing

AFFECTIVE computing has come a longway from its humble beginnings. Starting with a seminal paper by Rosalind Picard [1], it has evolved into an interdisciplinary field with its own IEEE Transactions and numerous special issues in other journals. One of the main goals of affective computing is to create machines which can adapt to users’ emotions in order to produce more natural and efficient interaction [2]. Emotion recognition is thus a central component of the field, and is based on a variety of measurements (facial expressions, speech, gait patterns, physiology, eye tracking. . .) that are analyzed using advanced pattern recognition techniques [3], [4]. Furthermore, researchers and entrepreneurs have identified countless possible applications of affect-aware technology, from health and driver monitoring [5] to exercise [6] and computer game adaptation [7]. However, although great scientific advances have been made and many applications have been proposed, only few robust implementations have been presented or validated, and commercial adoption of affect-aware technology has been marginal. One rare example of a successful application is the smile detector used in digital cameras to automatically take pictures when the subject is smiling. This weak adoption of the technology can be attributed to several unsolved challenges in the domain of affective computing. While the accuracy and robustness of affect recognition has made great advances, it is still not clear how to respond to recognized affective states (e.g., how to provide feedback in a vehicle if the driver is stressed or tired). State-of-the-art machines that respond to recognized states generally do so using very simple if-then rules, and little work has been done on how a machine can effectively modify a user’s affective state or how it can show empathy toward the user given many possible actions, user-specific preferences, and potentially unreliable affect recognition. Furthermore, it is often unclear whether the expected user state has been achieved and whether it could have been reached more efficiently. Finally, very few affective computing methods are suitable for the noisy, unpredictable situations that occur outside the laboratory. Without addressing these issues, it is nearly impossible to efficiently close the affective ‘loop’ and show a measurable, commercially attractive benefit of affective computing.
An Inexact Hybrid Generalized Proximal Point Algorithm and Some New Results on the Theory of Bregman Functions

We present a new Bregman-function-based algorithm which is a modification of the generalized proximal point method for solving the variational inequality problem with a maximal monotone operator. The principal advantage of the presented algorithm is that it allows a more constructive error tolerance criterion in solving the proximal point subproblems. Furthermore, we eliminate the assumption of pseudomonotonicity which was, until now, standard in proving convergence for paramonotone operators. Thus we obtain a convergence result which is new even for exact generalized proximal point methods. Finally, we present some new results on the theory of Bregman functions. For example, we show that the standard assumption of convergence consistency is a consequence of the other properties of Bregman functions, and is therefore superfluous.
Robotic testing of proximal tibio‐fibular joint kinematics for measuring instability following total knee arthroplasty

Pain secondary to instability in total knee arthroplasty (TKA) has been shown to be major cause of early failure. In this study, we focused on the effect of instability in TKA on the proximal tibio‐fibular joint (PTFJ). We used a robotics model to compare the biomechanics of the PTFJ in the native knee, an appropriately balanced TKA, and an unbalanced TKA. The tibia (n = 5) was mounted to a six‐degree‐of‐freedom force/torque sensor and the femur was moved by a robotic manipulator. Motion at the PTFJ was recorded with a high‐resolution digital camera system. After establishing a neutral position, loading conditions were applied at varying flexion angles (0°, 30°, and 60°). These included: internal/external rotation (0 Nm, ±5 Nm), varus/valgus (0 Nm, ±10 Nm), compression (100 N, 700 N), and posterior drawer (0 N, 100 N). With respect to anterior displacement, external rotation had the largest effect (coefficient = 0.650; p < 0.0001). Polyethylene size as well as the interaction between polyethylene size and flexion consistently showed substantial anterior motion. Flexion and mid‐flexion instability in TKA have been difficult to quantify. While tibio‐femoral kinematics is the main aspect of TKA performance, the effects on adjacent tissues should not be overlooked. Our data show that PTFJ kinematics are affected by the balancing of the TKA. © 2010 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 29:47–52, 2011
Becoming Serpent: Mapping Coils of Paranoia in a Neocolonial Security State

What follows is a feminist, decolonial experiment to map the un/settling circulation of paranoia – how it is done, what it does, what it could do – as a response to contemporary expressions of US white supremacy. Drawing on participant observation, interviewing, scientific artifacts, reflexive journaling, and a public art project, I explore a burgeoning form of pre-emptive psy to capture ‘the prodrome’ – a stage-cum-population-cum-figure of pre-psychosis at the center of a transnational program of research that has become increasingly dominated by the US since the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting of December 2012. I argue that this nascent, contested, and accelerating movement is enacting a contemporary transition from societies of ‘discipline’ to those of ‘control’. I describe how the cogs of this movement (nets, borderguards, custody, and search) allow it to oscillate between quotas and calculators, feeding itself with its own risk factors. These cogs suggest the workings of a molar assemblage driven by a paranoia – a dis-ease of white supremacy, as emerging from a colonial desire-to-know that entangles with a fear of ‘regressing’. Thus, the prodromal machine is a peculiar form of a ‘state machine of capture’ that works as a checkpoint of psycurity – my term for an abstract machine that directs paranoia to hide as reasonable suspicion, to predict the future, to brand threatening bodies, and to grow through fear, thereby making up the undulating coils of a neocolonial security state. I then undertake a ‘reparative reading’ of psycurity by staging an encounter between the prodrome and Coatlicue – a Mesoamerican goddess of the serpent – in order to reclaim the etymological roots of paranoia as a sense of something beside-the-mind, turning my gaze toward the colonial milieu in which this potential was (is) darkened and divided by a Science that claims an unadulterated access to the truth. In response, I place a psychometric ancestor of the prodrome (Magical Ideation) into an artistic adventure (Missed Connections) to ‘re-turn’ its radical potential. Asking what might happen if we treated the prodrome as more-than-human participation, with hesitation, and as a mystery Missed Connections decomposes ‘the prodrome’, shape-shifting the ‘problem’ and ‘solution’ of pre-emptive psy into something about the craft of making (magical) spaces. Overall doing a method that can best be described as a magical ideation that witnesses our participatory relation with the world, welcomes otherworldly encounters, and experiments with imagination, this project changes the shape of the problem of white supremacy into one of collective paranoia – suggesting a different kind of response/ability for the present political moment.
Doppler flow and echocardiography in functional cardiac insufficiency: assessment of nisoldipine therapy. Results of the DEFIANT-II Study. The DEFIANT-II Research Group.

AIMS A multicentre, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was conducted in 542 patients, randomized 7-10 days after myocardial infarction, to study the effect of nisoldipine coat-core (nisoldipine-CC) on exercise after 6 months. Secondary endpoints included exercise-induced ischaemia, left ventricular function measured by Doppler echocardiography, adverse cardiac events and clinical outcome. METHODS AND RESULTS Patients had reduced left ventricular ejection fraction between 25 and 50%, but no heart failure. Exercise time was not different in the two groups. Nisoldipine-CC prolonged time to 1 mm ST deviation (P = 0.03). There was an effect of nisoldipine-CC of +3.6 cm.s-1 on early peak velocity (P = 0.01) and of -6.2 ms on isovolumic relaxation time (P = 0.005), but no effects on left ventricular volumes or ejection fraction. There was a trend towards reduced mortality (one death in the nisoldipine-CC group vs seven in the placebo group. P < 0.07) and the combined end-point of mortality and cardiac events (P = 0.09). Peripheral oedema occurred in 49 patients assigned to nisoldipine-CC and two assigned to placebo (P < 0.001). There were no differences in non-cardiac events. CONCLUSIONS Nisoldipine-CC did not improve exercise time but increased time to 1 mm ST deviation, and improved diastolic left ventricular function. It is safe and well tolerated in post-infarction patients with impaired left ventricular function.
Defective mucosal T cell death is sustainably reverted by infliximab in a caspase dependent pathway in Crohn’s disease

Background and aims: To verify whether targeting defective mucosal T cell death underlies the sustained therapeutic benefit of infliximab in Crohn’s disease, we explored its in vivo proapoptotic effect after 10 weeks of treatment, and its in vitro killing activity on lamina propria T cells (LPT) and peripheral blood T cells (PBT), both isolated from Crohn’s disease patients. Methods: Endoscopic intestinal biopsies were collected from 10 Crohn’s disease patients (six steroid refractory and four fistulising) before and after three consecutive infusions of infliximab, administered at week 0, 2, and 6 in a single intravenous dose (5 mg/kg), and from 10 subjects who proved to have functional diarrhoea. Apoptosis was determined in vivo by TUNEL assay, and in vitro by fluorescein isothiocyanate-annexin V/propidium iodide staining on LPT and PBT from Crohn’s disease patients cultured with infliximab. The effect of the broad caspase inhibitor Z-VAD-FMK and the neutralising anti-Fas antibody ZB4 was tested in vitro on LPT and PBT treated with infliximab. Caspase-3 activity was determined by immunoblotting. Results: In Crohn’s disease patients, infliximab treatment induced a sustained LPT apoptosis, still evident four weeks after the last infusion. In vitro infliximab induced death of LPT from Crohn’s disease patients occurred via apoptosis rather than necrosis. LPT showed a higher susceptibility to infliximab induced apoptosis than PBT in Crohn’s disease patients. The signalling pathway underlying the restoration of infliximab induced LPT apoptosis occurred via the caspase pathway but not Fas-Fas ligand interaction in Crohn’s disease. Conclusions: These findings demonstrate that apoptosis is the major mechanism by which infliximab exerts its killing activity on LPT in Crohn’s disease. The sustained LPT proapoptotic action of infliximab, which extends far beyond its circulating half life, may be responsible for the sustained remission induced in Crohn’s disease patients by infliximab retreatment.
Analysis of calpain-3 protein in muscle biopsies of different muscular dystrophies from India

Background & objectives: Calpain-3, a Ca2+-dependent protease has been implicated in the pathology of neuromuscular disorders (NMDs). The current study aimed to analyze calpain-3 expression in cases diagnosed as muscular dystrophy from the Indian population. Methods: Calpain-3 Western blot analysis in muscle biopsies of immunohistochemically confirmed cases of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) (n=10), dysferlinopathy (n=30) and sarcoglycanopathy (n=8) was carried out. Calpain-3 Western blotting was also used in a blinded study to identify cases of calpain-3 deficiency in 28 NMD patients with potential muscular dystrophy. Results: Calpain-3 appeared as a full length 94 kDa band with an autolytic product (~60 kDa) on Western blots with antibody NCL-CALP-12A2 (Ab-2). Eight of the 10 DMD samples showed absence of 94 kDa band but presence of 60 kDa band while one case of sarcoglycanopathy showed absence of both. Twenty one of the 30 dysferlinopathy samples showed both bands while six showed only the 60 kDa band and three showed absence of both. In the blinded study, five NMD cases with potential muscular dystrophy that showed complete absence of both bands in retrospect exhibited clinical features of limb girdle muscular dystrophy 2A (LGMD2A). Interpretation & conclusions: While the study revealed a consistent pattern of calpain-3 in DMD, one sarcoglycanopathy and three dysferlinopathy samples exhibited secondary reduction in calpain-3. It was recognized that both calpain-3 bands should be considered to confirm calpain deficiency. Further, western blot offers an economical and fast preliminary screening method for LGMD2A especially in cases of complete absence of calpain-3 prior to conclusive diagnosis by genetic testing.
Evolutionary and socio-cultural influences on feelings and attitudes towards nature: a cross-cultural study

ABSTRACT Mounting environmental issues have prompted reconsideration of the human–nature relationship. Accordingly, attitudes to nature, as an important dimension of human–nature interactions, have become a research focus. How feelings and attitudes towards nature are influenced by evolutionary and social-cultural constructions, and whether there is variation between different cultural groups, demands more attention. Using a survey of visitors to two very different National Parks, the New Forest National Park, England and Jiuzhaigou Scenic Area, China, this paper shows that of nationality and living environment, differences between the two nationalities were significant in respect of both attitudes and feelings. Specifically, it demonstrates that the biophilia thesis, which purports that people have an innate and a genetically inherited need for affiliation with nature, is influenced by their socio-cultural environment, in particular their national culture, but also by their current living place. The study contributes to our understanding of sustainable tourism in natural areas.
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND TEACHERS

Education is a constructive process. It is a life - long process that starts from birth and continues till death. According to Dewey Education is the development if all those capacities in the individual which will enable him to control his environment and fulfill his responsibilities. Education is a bipolar process.A school is a miniature society. In educational process teacher plays a vital role. It is found from the research that teacher plays a vital role in the students' educational outcomes (Anderson, 2004). Today's world is becoming more andmore faster and competitive. Teachers are becoming one of the vital components of teaching learning process. Teachers are the builders of future citizen of the nation.A teacher is responsible for the whole development of the student. Teachers have to face different situation in the classroom. In such case they not only manage their own emotions but also control the situation of the class. A person who knows and manage his own feelings well and who deals effectively other people feelings- that is emotional intelligence. The only way to manage emotions is emotional intelligence. Therefore, emotional intelligence, of teachers is very important. So this study describes about the importance of emotional intelligence for teachers to become successful in teaching.
A Simulation for Synthetic Aperture Radar with Digital Beam-Forming in Elevation

In conventional SAR system high azimuth resolution and wide swath width are parameters that can not be improved simultaneously. A High-Resolution Wide-Swath (HRWS) Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) system was design to reconcile those two contradictory requirements. In the paper presented is a simulation of the HRWS SAR system including some of possible system failures and nonidealities of system components. The goal of the simulation is the evaluation of the influence of distortions and failures and prediction of the systems performance in elevation.
Dine or dash? Turbulence inhibits blue crab navigation in attractive–aversive odor plumes by altering signal structure encoded by the olfactory pathway

SUMMARY Blue crabs can distinguish and navigate to attractive (food) odors even when aversive odors (injured crab metabolites) are released nearby. Blue crabs in these conditions detect the aversive odor and avoid it, but find the attractive source with nearly the same success rate as when the attractive source is presented alone. Spatially and temporally distinct odor filaments appear to signal to foragers that the two odor sources are not co-located, and hence navigating to the attractive odor entails an acceptable risk of predation. However, environmentally produced turbulence suppresses tracking by homogenizing the two odors; blue crabs fail to track to the attractive source when the aversive source is present, even though turbulence does not substantially inhibit tracking to the attractive source alone. Removal of sensory input from aesthetascs on the antennules, but not chemosensors on the legs, rescues navigation to attractive–aversive dual plumes in turbulent conditions. These results suggest that mixing in the natural environment may amplify the effects of predators by suppressing tracking to food odors when aversive cues are present, and that the olfactory pathway mediates the response.