Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Consumer perceptions of environmentally and climatically significant food consumption - A focus group study in the Finnish context

Food consumption is one of the areas which have the biggest impact on the environment; a little less than 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and around 50 percent of eutrophication of all household consumption accounts for food in Finland. The importance of the sustainable decision-making of the consumers is especially highlighted in the food sector, where in contrast to other sectors, significant greenhouse gas emission reductions cannot be achieved just by applying low-carbon-technology; significant reductions can be achieved only by changing the dominant consumptions patterns and the food-related behaviour of the consumers. Previous studies show that the consumers communicate positive attitudes toward sustainable decision making and they seem to have a true concern about the global sustainability issues. Still, they are struggling to translate the attitudes into consumption behaviour. Thus, there seem to be a clear and widely acknowledged attitude-behaviour gap. This study aims to explain the barriers to environmentally significant behaviour by building understanding on consumer perceptions of environmentally and climatically significant food consumption by studying consumer perceptions of five focus groups. A theoretical framework of the pro-environmental consumer behaviours and the environmentally significant food consumption was created, which was later on reflected to the findings of the focus groups. Additionally, the future direction for climate communication of food was identified. Based on the empirical results, it can be concluded that the current level of knowledge of the consumers related to environmental and climatic considerations of food is very poor. The consumers seem to have both false assumptions and knowledge of the environmental impacts and the sources of food. Furthermore, the consumers seem not to consider climate change as one of the most important environmental issues and the concept is carbon footprint was very poorly known. The information asymmetry was recognized to be the most significant single barrier to closing the attitude-behaviour gap. It seems that there is an urgent need for a wide education scheme to correct the great information asymmetry.
Au/OmGnCG. Vol 27. No I. pp 3--21.1991 PrInted In Great Bnta,n

AbstradWe consider iterative algorithms of the form x:= f(x), executed by a parallel or distributed computing svstem. We first consider synchronous executions of such iierat,ons and study their communication requirements. as well as issues related to processor synchronization. We also discuss the parallelization of iterations of the Gauss-Seidel type. We then consider asynchronous implementations whereby each processor iterates on a different component of x. at its own pace. using the most recently received (but possibly outdated) information on the remaining components of x. While certain algorithms may fail to converge when Implemented asynchronously. a large number of positive convergence results is available. We classify asynchronous algorithms into three main categories. depending on the amount of asynchronism they can tolerate. and survey the corresponding convergence results. We also discuss issues related to their termination.
Bromido-1κBr-tricarbonyl-2κ3 C-(2η5-cyclopentadienyl)molybdenum(I)tungsten(I)(W—Mo)

The title compound, [WMoBr(C5H5)(CO)3], is built up from a pseudo-square-pyramidal piano-stool coordination around the Mo atom, the important geometry being Mo—W = 2.6872 (7) Å, W—Br = 2.5591 (9) Å and Mo—W—Br = 158.35 (3)°.
Helicobacter pylori Induces Interleukin-8 Secretion by Toll-Like Receptor 2- and Toll-Like Receptor 5-Dependent and -Independent Pathways

ABSTRACT Helicobacter pylori is an important human pathogen that causes gastritis and is strongly associated with gastric ulcers, gastric adenocarcinomas, and mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphomas. In response to H. pylori, interleukin-8 (IL-8) is secreted from host cells to attract components of the innate and adaptive immune systems to the site of infection. Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) and TLR5 have been shown to recognize H. pylori and to initiate signaling pathways that result in enhanced activation of NF-κB. Here, we evaluated the contribution of mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling pathways to TLR2-dependent and TLR5-dependent secretion of IL-8. Secretion of IL-8 from H. pylori-infected HEK293 cells was augmented by the expression of TLR2 or TLR5. While H. pylori infection resulted in the activation of ERK, JNK, and p38, the enhanced IL-8 secretion from TLR2- and TLR5-expressing cells coincided with increased p38 activation and phosphorylation of the transcription factor ATF2. When p38 activity was inhibited in TLR2- or TLR5-expressing cells, H. pylori-dependent IL-8 secretion returned to the level observed in infected parental HEK293 cells that did not express TLR2 or TLR5; inhibition of p38 had no effect on IL-8 secretion from infected parental HEK cells. In contrast, inhibition of JNK and/or ERK resulted in substantially less IL-8 secretion from infected cells, independent of TLR2 or TLR5 expression. Based on these data, we propose that H. pylori induces IL-8 secretion through a dual mechanism that includes a TLR2/5-independent component involving the activities of JNK and ERK and a TLR2/5-dependent component that requires p38 activity.
Cultural adaptation in translational research: Field experiences

The incrasse in the incidence of HIV/AIDS among minorities in the United States and in certain developing nations has prompted new intervention priorities, stressing the adaptation of efficacious interventions for diverse and marginalized groups. The experiences of Florida International University’s AIDS Prevention Program in translating HIV primary and secondary prevention interventions among these multicultural populations provide insight into the process of cultural adaptations and address the new scientific emphasis on ecological validity. An iterative process involvcing forward and backward translation, a cultural linguistic committee, focus group discussions, documentation of project procedures, and consultations with other researchers in the field was used to modify interventions. This article presents strategies used to ensure fidelity in implementing the efficacious core components of evidencebased interventions for reducing HIV transmission and drug use behaviors and the challenges posed by making cultural adaptation for participants with low literacy. This experience demonstrates the importance of integrating culturally relevant material in the translation process with intense focus on language and nuance. The process must ensure that the level of intervention is appropriate for the educational level of participants. Furthermore, the rights of participants must be protected during consenting procedures by instituting policies that recognize the socioeconomic, educational, and systemic pressures to participate in research.
Ethno mycological Notes on the Use of Polypore Fungi in Domestic Production of Alcoholic Beverages in Bulgaria

The usage of fungi in production of alcoholic beverages is known since time immemorial. The most popular knowledge at global scale indicates the use of yeasts in alcoholic fermentation for brewing and making of wine and brandy. World-wide known is also the traditional application of heartwoods for manufacturing barrels for colorization and maturation of alcoholic beverages. Bulgaria, as one of the Eastern European and Balkan countries, is not an exception in this respect and is known for its traditional production of wine and brandy named rakiya. The knowledge on usage of arboreal species for maturation of wine and rakiya was published in many Bulgarian ethno botanical sources and recently was summarized together with the data on improvement of the antioxidant capacities of brandy [1]. According to these authors, sometimes in domestic production wood and young branches of white and black mulberry (Morusalba L., Morusnigra L.) and black locust (Robiniapseudoacacia L.), as well as oak chips (from Quercusrobur L.) and more rarely chips of the smoke tree (Cotinuscoggygria Scop.) are used to color the rakiya.The development of some polypore fungi (Polyporaless.l.) on the wood of mulberry and oak trees is quite common. Therefore, we decided to check data on the use of these fungi in the maturation or coloration of the alcoholic beverages. The paper presents the results obtained from this search and is the first on the use of polypore fungi in the domestic production of rakiya in Bulgaria.
A High Throughput Technique for OFDM Systems

The traditional approach for MAC protocols (Medium Access Control) is to discard all packets involved in a collision and request their retransmission, which precludes high throughputs. However, since the signals associated to collisions have important information concerning the packets involved, with proper retransmissions we can efficiently resolve collisions. In this paper we propose a multipacket detection technique for OFDM schemes (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) that allows an efficient packet separation in the presence of collisions. This technique allows high throughputs, since the total number of transmissions can be equal to the number of packets involved in the collision. By using different interleavers for different retransmissions we can successfully separate packets involved in a collision even when the channel remains fixed for the retransmissions.
Identification of fifteen novel germline variants in the BRCA1 3′UTR reveals a variant in a breast cancer case that introduces a functional miR‐103 target site

Mutations in the BRCA1 gene confer a substantial increase in breast cancer risk, yet routine clinical genetic screening is limited to the coding regions and intron–exon boundaries, precluding the identification of mutations in noncoding and untranslated regions (UTR). As 3′UTR mutations can influence cancer susceptibility by altering protein and microRNA (miRNA) binding regions, we screened the BRCA1 3′UTR for mutations in a large series of BRCA‐mutation negative, population and clinic‐based breast cancer cases, and controls. Fifteen novel BRCA1 3′UTR variants were identified, the majority of which were unique to either cases or controls. Using luciferase reporter assays, three variants found in cases, c. *528G>C, c. *718A>G, and c. *1271T>C and four found in controls, c. *309T>C, c. *379G>A, c. *823C>T, and c. *264C>T, reduced 3′UTR activity (P < 0.02), whereas two variants found in cases, c. *291C>T and c. *1139G>T, increased 3′UTR activity (P < 0.01). Three case variants, c. *718A>G, c. *800T>C, and c. *1340_1342delTGT, were predicted to create new miRNA binding sites and c. *1340_1342delTGT caused a reduction (25%, P = 0.0007) in 3′UTR reporter activity when coexpressed with the predicted targeting miRNA, miR‐103. This is the most comprehensive identification and analysis of BRCA1 3′UTR variants published to date. Hum Mutat 33:1665–1675, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Shape representation in primate visual area 4 and inferotemporal cortex

The representation of contour shape is an essential component of object recognition, but the cortical mechanisms underlying it are incompletely understood, leaving it a fundamental open question in neuroscience. Such an understanding would be useful theoretically as well as in developing computer vision and Brain-Computer Interface applications. We ask two fundamental questions: “How is contour shape represented in cortex and how can neural models and computer vision algorithms more closely approximate this? ” We begin by analyzing the statistics of contour curvature variation and develop a measure of salience based upon the arc length over which it remains within a constrained range. We create a population of V4-like cells – responsive to a particular local contour conformation located at a specific position on an object’s boundary – and demonstrate high recognition accuracies classifying handwritten digits in the MNIST database and objects in the MPEG-7 Shape Silhouette database. We compare the performance of the cells to the “shape-context” representation (Belongie et al., 2002) and achieve roughly comparable recognition accuracies using a small test set. We analyze the relative contributions of various feature sensitivities to recognition accuracy and robustness to noise. Local curvature appears to be the most informative for shape recognition. We create a population of IT-like cells, which integrate specific information about the 2-D boundary shapes of multiple contour fragments, and evaluate its performance on a set of real images as a function of the V4 cell inputs. We determine the sub-population of cells that are most effective at identifying a particular category. We classify based upon cell population response and obtain very good results. We use the Morris-Lecar neuronal model to more realistically illustrate the previously explored shape representation pathway in V4 – IT. We demonstrate recognition using spatiotemporal patterns within a winnerless competition network with FitzHugh-Nagumo model neurons. Finally, we use the Izhikevich neuronal model to produce an enhanced response in IT, correlated with recognition, via gamma synchronization in V4. Our results support the hypothesis that the response properties of V4 and IT cells, as well as our computer models of them, function as robust shape descriptors in the object recognition process.
Ruin estimation in multivariate models with Clayton dependence structure

We consider the estimation of the ruin probability in a linear portfolio of insurance risk processes. We model the total claim amount of different business activities by compound Poisson processes. We allow for dependence of the components, which we model by a Lévy copula. We study in detail a Clayton-Pareto model as representative for a large claims model and a Clayton-exponential model as a small claims model. We compare the ruin probability in the Clayton dependence model with the corresponding independent and completely dependent models.
Early-Life Experience Reduces Excitation to Stress-Responsive Hypothalamic Neurons and Reprograms the Expression of Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone

Increased sensory input from maternal care attenuates neuroendocrine and behavioral responses to stress long term and results in a lifelong phenotype of resilience to depression and improved cognitive function. Whereas the mechanisms of this clinically important effect remain unclear, the early, persistent suppression of the expression of the stress neurohormone corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) in hypothalamic neurons has been implicated as a key aspect of this experience-induced neuroplasticity. Here, we tested whether the innervation of hypothalamic CRH neurons of rat pups that received augmented maternal care was altered in a manner that might promote the suppression of CRH expression and studied the cellular mechanisms underlying this suppression. We found that the number of excitatory synapses and the frequency of miniature excitatory synaptic currents onto CRH neurons were reduced in “care-augmented” rats compared with controls, as were the levels of the glutamate vesicular transporter vGlut2. In contrast, analogous parameters of inhibitory synapses were unchanged. Levels of the transcriptional repressor neuron-restrictive silencer factor (NRSF), which negatively regulates Crh gene transcription, were markedly elevated in care-augmented rats, and chromatin immunoprecipitation demonstrated that this repressor was bound to a cognate element (neuron-restrictive silencing element) on the Crh gene. Whereas the reduced excitatory innervation of CRH-expressing neurons dissipated by adulthood, increased NRSF levels and repression of CRH expression persisted, suggesting that augmented early-life experience reprograms Crh gene expression via mechanisms involving transcriptional repression by NRSF.
Cyber and Traditional Bullying Victimization as a Risk Factor for Mental Health Problems and Suicidal Ideation in Adolescents

Purpose To examine whether traditional and cyber bullying victimization were associated with adolescent's mental health problems and suicidal ideation at two-year follow-up. Gender differences were explored to determine whether bullying affects boys and girls differently. Methods A two-year longitudinal study was conducted among first-year secondary school students (N = 3181). Traditional and cyber bullying victimization were assessed at baseline, whereas mental health status and suicidal ideation were assessed at baseline and follow-up by means of self-report questionnaires. Logistic regression analyses were conducted to assess associations between these variables while controlling for baseline problems. Additionally, we tested whether gender differences in mental health and suicidal ideation were present for the two types of bullying. Results There was a significant interaction between gender and traditional bullying victimization and between gender and cyber bullying victimization on mental health problems. Among boys, traditional and cyber bullying victimization were not related to mental health problems after controlling for baseline mental health. Among girls, both traditional and cyber bullying victimization were associated with mental health problems after controlling for baseline mental health. No significant interaction between gender and traditional or cyber bullying victimization on suicidal ideation was found. Traditional bullying victimization was associated with suicidal ideation, whereas cyber bullying victimization was not associated with suicidal ideation after controlling for baseline suicidal ideation. Conclusions Traditional bullying victimization is associated with an increased risk of suicidal ideation, whereas traditional, as well as cyber bullying victimization is associated with an increased risk of mental health problems among girls. These findings stress the importance of programs aimed at reducing bullying behavior, especially because early-onset mental health problems may pose a risk for the development of psychiatric disorders in adulthood.
Inhibition of Fas receptor (CD95)-induced hepatic caspase activation and apoptosis by acetaminophen in mice.

The mechanism of liver cell injury induced by an overdose of the analgesic acetaminophen (AAP) remains controversial. Recently, it was hypothesized that a significant number of hepatocytes die by apoptosis. Since caspases have been implicated as critical signal and effector proteases in apoptosis, we investigated their potential role in the pathophysiology of AAP-induced liver injury. Male C3Heb/FeJ mice were fasted overnight and then treated with 500 mg/kg AAP. Liver injury became apparent at 4 h and was more severe at 6 h (plasma ALT activities: 4110 +/- 320 U/liter; centrilobular necrosis). DNA fragmentation increased parallel to the increase of plasma ALT values. At 6 h there was a 420% increase of DNA fragmentation and a 74-fold increase of terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick-end labeling (TUNEL)-positive cells located predominantly around central veins. However, the activity of the proapoptotic caspase-3 was not increased at any time after AAP. In contrast, injection of the anti-Fas antibody Jo-2 (positive control) caused a 28-fold increase of caspase-3 activity and severe DNA fragmentation before significant ALT release. Treatment with the caspase inhibitor ZVAD-CHF2 had no effect on AAP toxicity but completely prevented Jo-mediated apoptosis. In contrast, Jo-induced caspase activation and apoptosis could be inhibited by AAP treatment in a time- and dose-dependent manner. We conclude that AAP-induced DNA fragmentation does not involve caspases, suggesting a direct activation of endonucleases through elevated Ca2+ levels. In addition, electrophilic metabolites of AAP may inactivate caspases or their activation pathway. This indicates that AAP metabolism has the potential to inhibit signal transduction mechanisms of receptor-mediated apoptosis.
Performance and stability of communication networks via robust exponential bounds

A method for evaluating the performance of packet switching communication networks under a fixed, session-based, routing strategy is proposed. The approach is based on properly bounding the probability distribution functions of the system input processes. The suggested bounds which are decaying exponentials, possess three convenient properties. When the inputs to an isolated network element are all bounded, they result in bounded outputs and assure that the delays and queues in this element have exponentially decaying distributions. In some network settings, bounded inputs result in bounded outputs. Natural traffic processes can be shown to satisfy such bounds. Consequently, this method enables the analysis of various previously intractable setups. Sufficient conditions are provided for the stability of such networks, and derive upper bounds for the parameters of network performance are derived. >
NEGATIVE IMPACT OF FOREST DEGRADATION TO HERPETOFAUNA SPECIES RICHNESS IN KERINCISEBLAT NATIONAL PARK, SUMATRA* [Dampak Negatif dari Degradasi Hutan Terhadap Kekayaan Jenis Herpetofauna di Taman Nasional Kerinci Seblat, Sumatra]

Habitat loss and fragmentation are among the largest threats to herpetofauna diversity in tropical rain forest areas, including the rain forest in Kerinci Seblat National Park (KSNP). To measure the rate of negative impact to the herpetofauna population,fifteen survey sites with several degree of habitat disturbance were selected. Based on cluster analysis,15 survey sites were grouped into five distinct clusters, included low elevation forest group, high elevation group, swamp group, disturbed forest group and cultivated land group. Calculation of linier regression for four major (low elevation forest group, high elevation group, disturbed forest group and cultivated land group groups) showed that the rate of locally biodiversity losses were high (R2 > 0.7).
Sparse CCA via Precision Adjusted Iterative Thresholding

Sparse Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA) has received considerable attention in high-dimensional data analysis to study the relationship between two sets of random variables. However, there has been remarkably little theoretical statistical foundation on sparse CCA in high-dimensional settings despite active methodological and applied research activities. In this paper, we introduce an elementary sufficient and necessary characterization such that the solution of CCA is indeed sparse, propose a computationally efficient procedure, called CAPIT, to estimate the canonical directions, and show that the procedure is rate-optimal under various assumptions on nuisance parameters. The procedure is applied to a breast cancer dataset from The Cancer Genome Atlas project. We identify methylation probes that are associated with genes, which have been previously characterized as prognosis signatures of the metastasis of breast cancer.