SIRIS-Lab/unlabelled-sti-corpus huggingface dataset:
Investigating the pharmacokinetic properties of toxic metals and heat shock proteins as risk factors in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Background: Exposure to toxic metals are proposed as risk factors for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Despite this, evidence remains mixed, with only evidence for lead exposure supported by recent meta-analysis. Many studies neglected that biomarkers may be affected by kidney and liver function. Additionally, the heat shock protein (HSP) response is triggered by toxic metal exposures, and there is evidence for altered HSP metabolism in ALS.  Methods: Using available samples (105 ALS cases, 307 controls), blood HSP’s and toxic metal exposures will be measured primarily in urine (inorganic Hg, lead, chromium, aluminium, selenium, zinc, cadmium, copper and manganese). Confounding variables such as kidney and liver function, and bone turnover will be measured. In addition, prospective recruitment of a further 100 cases and 100 controls will be carried out. For prospectively enrolees, repeat blood and urine samples will be taken three-monthly.  Statistical analysis: Multivariable logistic regression will be used to compare HSP’s at baseline, while Bayesian models will be used to model correlations between HSP’s and multiple toxic metals. Longitudinal trends will be modelled using Bayesian mixed effects models. Ordinary differential equations will be used to construct elimination kinetics models. Power calculations indicate 90% power to detect an odds ratio of 2.0 at baseline, and 87% to detect longitudinal differences in trend of 15% or more between cases and controls.  Impact: MetALS will employ new methodology to generate fresh insights into the role of toxic metals in ALS. MetALS will confirm or refute the finding of HSP’s as biomarkers in ALS, and provide the first insights into longitudinal behaviour of HSP’s as the disease progresses. MetALS will also provide the first combined study of both HSP’s and toxic metal exposure in an ALS cohort. These novel enquiries are expected to provide fresh insights into HSP’s and toxic metal metabolism in ALS.
Okishio Theory Revisited in the Light of ‘Axiomatic Externality’

It is well known that Nobuo Okishio played a central role in the world of mathematical Marxian economics. In this paper, we examine Okishio theory from a methodological perspective. Our focus is the “theoretical boundary” that separates the economic model from conditions “given from outside”. We demonstrate that Okishio’s theory could be “an open” system, but, actually, it only shows the Achilles heel of a capitalist economy. Nevertheless, bearing in mind that the accumulation of capital is at the heart of the workings of a capitalist system, and even if modern capitalism were to be financialised, Okishio’s theory should still provide us with a starting from which to think about this system, because it demonstrates capitalism’s essentially unstable character.
Heat insulation solar glass and application on energy efficiency buildings

Abstract Building integrated photovoltaics are among the best methods for generating power using solar energy. To promote and respond to the concept of BIPVs, this study developed a type of multi-functional heat insulation solar glass (HISG) that differs from traditional transparent PV modules, providing functions such as heat insulation and self-cleaning in addition to power generation. This study also made thorough preparations for the safety of future HISG installation on curtain walls in large-scale buildings. Furthermore, this study provides a comprehensive discussion regarding the energy-saving performance of HISG and relevant practical applications. Two experimental houses were constructed, which independently employed HISG and single-layer tempered glass. Taiwan's climate was adopted as the environmental condition for the experiment, and the effects of HISG and single-layer tempered glass on indoor temperature variation and the energy consumed by air conditioners and heaters were explored. Related software was also employed to simulate, compare, and verify HISG efficacy.
Disentangling the Dynamics of VOCs and VOIs during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Peru using Bayesian Phylogenetics

Abstract At over 0.6% of the population, Peru has the highest SARS-CoV-2 mortality rate in the world. Much effort to sequence genomes was done in this country since mid-2020. However, an adequate analysis of the dynamics of the variants of concern and interest (VOCIs) is missing. We performed Bayesian phylodynamic analyses using different sampling approaches to determine the origin of the VOCIs in Peru, as well as their population dynamics. The COVID-19 pandemic in Peru was characterized by three waves. We showed that Lambda emerged in Peru during the first wave (April-July, 2020) but it did not reach high frequencies until the second wave. Alpha and Gamma were imported to Peru between the first and second waves (October-December, 2020). The gamma variant reached Peru from Brazil, whereas Alpha arrived at Peru from the United Kingdom. Effective population size (Ne) and effective reproductive number (Rt) suggest that Lambda, followed by Gamma, dominated the second wave of COVID-19 in Peru whereas Alpha was not very prevalent. During this wave, Lambda dominated all the Peruvian regions except the Northeast, where Gamma dominated. Migration patterns of Lambda and Gamma between the Northeast and other regions indicate that the different VOCI prevalence in the Northeast was not due to the isolation of this region. Also, during the second wave, Mu and Delta arrived in Peru (February-May, 2021) from the USA and the United Kingdom, respectively. Mu never reached high Rt nor Ne; on the other hand, at the final of the second wave, Delta showed Rt values higher than other VOCIs, beginning to increase its Ne and replacing Lambda and Gamma. Finally, Omicron reached Peru just before the beginning of the third wave (October-December, 2021) from the USA. Omicron had a high Rt since its arrival to Peru, originating new lineages and rapidly increasing its Ne which caused the third wave. In summary, we were able to determine important patterns of virus dynamics in Peru using Bayesian Phylogenetics. Besides, we demonstrated that Bayesian phylodynamics with a portion of the available genomes were sufficient to reconstruct the COVID-19 pandemic in Peru.
High-resolution Holocene South American monsoon history recorded by a speleothem from Botuverá Cave, Brazil

Abstract A Holocene stalagmite from Botuvera Cave, southeastern Brazil was analyzed by LA-ICPMS for Mg/Ca, Sr/Ca, Ba/Ca. The observed variability in the record was demonstrated to be modulated by prior calcite precipitation, and, thus, is interpreted to reflect monsoon intensity. We find that the calcite δ18O is strongly correlated with Sr/Ca, indicating that atmospheric circulation over South America and monsoon intensity have been tightly correlated throughout most of the Holocene, both directly responding to solar precession. Comparison with other contemporaneous high-resolution hydroclimate records reveals that SAMS has shown a degree of complexity during the Holocene not previously detected, with periods where the South American Convergence Zone (SACZ) expanded to cover most of the South American sub-continent, and coincident with periods of low-SST in the north Atlantic. We also detect periods where rainfall amount in northeastern and southeastern Brazil are markedly anti-phased, suggesting a north-south migration of SACZ, which it appears to be mediated by solar irradiance. The high-resolution nature of our record allow us to examine the effect that Holocene climate anomalies had upon SAMS dynamics and hydroclimate in southeastern Brazil, in particular the 8.2 ka event and the Little Ice Age. In addition to confirm the internal structure of the events, we also detect the possible consequences of the climatic anomalies upon ocean–atmosphere interactions through its effects upon SAMS.
Bimetallic PdCu/SPCE non-enzymatic hydrogen peroxide sensors

Abstract Screen printed carbon electrodes (SPCE) were decorated with PdCu bimetallic alloys via a facile co-electrodeposition method to develop disposable non-enzymatic H2O2 sensors. The electrochemical performance of the biosensors was evaluated in terms of selectivity, sensitivity, and stability with a goal of demonstrating that employing a bimetallic PdCu non-enzymatic system can push forward the state of the art in hydrogen peroxide sensing. The physical characterization of the biosensors was conducted using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques. Sensors consisting of PdCu bimetals showed higher sensitivity than Pd/SPCE and Cu/SPCE electrodes toward H2O2. The fabricated PdCu/SPCE sensors showed a sensitivity of 396.7 μA mM−1 cm−2, a linear range from 0.5 mM to 11 mM, and a low limit of detection (0.7 μM) at the applied potential of −0.3 V. The use of relatively low working potential eliminated the interference effect of the common electroactive species (ascorbic acid, uric acid, and glucose) present in a real sample, which are usually a concern for non-enzymatic sensing systems. In addition, the high reproducibility (RSD = 2.5%), and excellent long term stability render PdCu/SPCEs as attractive materials for the construction of disposable enzyme-free H2O2 sensors.
Approaching Opponents and Leaving Supporters: Adjusting Physical Proximity to Reduce Cognitive Dissonance

In our study of cognitive dissonance 59 students adjusted their physical proximity with an opposing other to manage dissonance. Participants wrote a counterattitudinal essay (vs. proattitudinal), then each of them was told he/she had to discuss the topic with another student who was against the current topic (vs. in favor of). While the experimenter allegedly fetched the other student the participant set up the room by installing 2 chairs. The distance between the 2 chairs was used to measure the proximity with the other. The results showed that in the dissonance condition participants set greater physical proximity when the other disagreed with their initial attitude and less physical proximity when the other was supportive of their initial attitude. We suggest further research is conducted to confirm the use of proximity as a means of dissonance reduction.
Utilizing Creeks for Integrated Rural Coastal Development of Ilaje Area of Nigeria.

Rural communities in the country are blessed with resources which need to be exploited to achieve rural development. This study examines the Utilization of Creeks for Integrated Coastal Development of Ilaje Area of Nigeria. The primary goal of the study is to carry out inventory on creek resources and how best it could be utilized for Integrated Coastal Development of the study area. Questionnaires which include close and open ended questions were administered to elicit information from household heads in the study area. Stratified-random sampling technique was employed in the administration of questionnaires, and 5% sample was adopted for this study. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistical analysis method. Information gathered from the administration of questionnaires include: socio-economic characteristics of respondents, major uses of creeks, existing condition of the coastal area and infrastructural facilities in the study area among others. The study reveals the present level of creek utilization, poor fishing techniques, poor sources of water and navigation routes, and manual dredging among others. Based on the findings, it is recommended that government should employ the services of dredging companies to selected locations in the study area for dredging; this would increase the amount of sand turn over, thereby increasing revenue generated for local economic development. Periodic clearing of water weeds will also be of necessity, dredging and expansion of the creeks for navigation for modern boats and development of tourist and recreation centres will also enhance development of the area. Keywords: Coastal development, creeks, Ilaji, navigation and rural communities.
Valuable aromatics from stabilized lignins: towards an optimal and feasible continuous operation

Environmental concerns linked to society’s dependence on fossil resources have spurred an unprecedented search for sustainable processes, not only for energy but also for manufacturing chemicals and materials. Unfortunately, the low efficiency of emerging technologies based on renewable resources often hinders their profitability. Bloom Biorenewables Ltd maximizes the utilization of non-edible biomass using a novel stabilization strategy that prevents undesired degradation pathways during bio-refining. Pure fractions are stabilized, isolated and upgraded to products such as fragrances, textile fibres or bio-plastics. With a 10-fold yield increase compared to current solutions, lignin applications can drive rather than hinder the process’s techno-economic feasibility. Yet, catalytic lignin depolymerisation for the production of high value molecules represents the main bottleneck for scale-up and is currently limiting the company’s ability to respond to the increasing demand for lignin products.  LIGFLOW will develop an industry-compatible lignin depolymerisation process that paves the way for a continuous operation demonstrator. The main objectives are: 1) Transfer from batch to flow reactor; 2) Enable solvent recycling >90% and perform in situ catalyst regeneration; 3) Isolate and purify targeted products for distribution to key industrial partners; 4) Perform process modelling and life cycle assessment to achieve a full techno-economic and sustainability analysis of the resulting process. LIGFLOW’s results will unlock more profitable and sustainable production routes for biomass-derived aromatics. LIGFLOW also aligns with the MSCA Work Programme by building powerful and lasting synergies between the applicant’s expertise (lignin chemistry, flow reactors) and the host company (disruptive biomass upgrading technologies). Together with the company, the applicant will develop scientific, business and leadership skills to jumpstart her career in the bio-based industry.
What to Wear Against the Wear? Ceramics in Shoulder Arthroplasty: a Comparative Study

Introduction: Failure of the polyethylene glenoid component is the most common complication of Total Shoulder Arthroplasty (TSA) and accounts for a majority of the unsatisfactory results after this procedure. Nowadays, most of the shoulder prostheses consist of metal on polyethylene bearing components. Repetitive contact between the metal ball and the polyethylene socket produces progressive abrasion of the implant if the moving part is made of polyethylene. Its debris may then lead to an active osteolysis and implant loosening. Failure of the glenoid component is often manifested clinically by pain, loss of function, and the presence of a clunking noise and leads to revision surgery. The use of ceramic balls aims at the reduction of this phenomenon. In many studies regarding knee and hip replacement it has been shown that the use of ceramic on polyethylene is more beneficial in terms of polyethylene wear and failure, when compared to metal on polyethylene. This is to our knowledge the first study to address in direct comparison wear in both TSA and RTSA. Materials and methods: Two different wear tests were conducted in order to address both TSA and RTSA kinematics. Since up to day, there is no test standard for wear testing neither for TSA nor for RTSA a customised joint simulators were used to create worst-case scenarios motions in both cases. In the TSA testing setup, the orientation of the glenoid component and humeral component was chosen according to M. A. Wirth (2009) study but with the humeral component assembled inferiorly. For the RTSA the applied kinematics was based on a study of G. Kohut (2012) and ISO 14242-1 (2012) standard. Three articulating couples for each material were tested for both TSA and RTSA for total of 5 million cycles. Standard midterm gravimetric measurements were conducted at each 1 million cycles. Results: The tests are currently ongoing and all results will be presented during next ISTA meeting.
Cross-Lingual event-centric open analytics research academy

With a rapidly increasing degree of integration among the European countries, a rising number of events, such as Paris shootings and Brexit, strongly impact the European community and the European digital economy across language and country borders. This development results in a vast amount of event-centric multilingual information available from different communities in the news, on the Web and in social media. Cross-lingual technologies to efficiently access, analyse and interact with this information are of utmost importance for various stakeholder groups across Europe, including digital humanities, memory institutions, publishers, media monitoring companies and journalists.

The Cleopatra ITN offers a unique interdisciplinary and intersectoral research and training programme addressing these challenges. The main objectives are to: 1) Facilitate advanced cross-lingual processing of event-centric textual and visual information on a large scale; 2) develop innovative methods for efficient and intuitive user access and interaction with multilingual information; 3) facilitate large-scale analytics of multilingual event-centric information and cross-cultural studies; 4) educate a group of top-level scientists with unique interdisciplinary and intersectoral expertise in multilingual information science who will be enabled to take leading roles in research and industry in the future; and 5) establish an interdisciplinary curriculum for cross-lingual information analytics.

The main outcomes of Cleopatra include: 1) novel methods for event-centric cross-lingual processing; 2) highly innovative user interaction paradigms for multilingual information; 3) open large-scale data sets and software components for a variety of EU languages; and 4) an interdisciplinary curriculum and educational materials. Overall, Cleopatra will contribute to the European digital economy in several application domains and strengthen the European position in multilingual information science.
The impact of vegetation on humus formation and morphology of brown forest soils in coastal areas of the southeastern part of Russian far east

Specific features of brown forest soils (burozems, Cambisols) in coastal areas of the southeastern part of Russian Far East are discussed. It is shown that the color of the illuvial horizons in these soils depends on the character of vegetation; it is reddish brown under oak forests and dark gray under herb-shrub and post-pyrogenic communities. These soils combine the features shaped by the humus-accumulative and humus-illuvial processes. In the soils under oak forests, the humate-fulvate type of humus predominates; in the soils under herb-shrub and post-pyrogenic communities, the fulvate-humate humus is formed. The dynamics of humus and its separate fractions in the soil profiles control the morphochromatic differentiation of brown forest soils under different vegetation communities. In the soils under oak forests, the maximum precipitation of the aggressive fraction of fulvic acids (fraction FA-1a) in the illuvial-humus horizons coincides with the maximum concentration of oxalate-extractable iron oxides; these substances ensure the reddish brown color of the illuvial horizons in these soils. In the brown forest soils under herb-shrub and post-pyrogenic communities, the illuvial horizon is the zone of accumulation of not only the aggressive fraction of fulvic acids but also the second (Ca-bound) fractions of fulvic and humic acids ensuring the dark gray color of this horizon.
Proceedings of 6th International k 0-Users’ Workshop

The upcoming 32 papers in this issue of the Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry have been presented at the 6th International k0-Users’ Workshop at Hotel Gellert in Budapest 22–27 Sep, 2013. The conference was organized by k0 International Scientific Committee and by the Laboratory of Nuclear Analytical Chemistry at the Center for Energy Research at Budapest. Previous workshops in the series were held in Astene, Belgium (1992); Ljubljana, Slovenia (1996); Bruges, Belgium (2001); Funchal, Portugal (2005) and Belo Horizonte, Brazil (2009). Forty participating scientists from 13 different countries (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Morocco, Peru, Portugal, Slovenia, USA) from all five continents met in Budapest to discuss the latest developments in the field of k0-based Neutron Activation Analysis. At the beginning of the conference, a lifeachievement award was presented to Andras Simonits, one of the inventors of the k0 method. The papers were presented in the following sessions: Facilities, Prompt Gamma Activation Analysis, Methodological Developments, Software, Quality Assurance/Quality Control, New Nuclear Data, Special Session for Radioactive Targets, and Applications. A scientific visit was paid to the Budapest Research Reactor at the PGAA and at the NAA laboratories. The next, 7th k0-Users’ Workshop is expected to be held in Montreal, Canada in 2017. k0 International Scientific Committee (members active during the period of the organization of the conference)
Characterization of dendritic cells in lip and oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma

There may be differences in the antitumor immunity induced by dendritic cells (DCs) during the development of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) located in the lip rather than in the oral cavity. The aim of this study was to evaluate the number of immature and mature DCs in SCC and potentially malignant disorders of the oral cavity and lip.Immunohistochemistry was used to identify the number (cells/mm(2) ) of immature (CD1a(+) ) or mature (CD83(+) ) DCs in samples of oral cavity SCC (OCSCC) (n = 39), lip SCC (LSCC) (n = 23), leukoplakia (LK) (n = 21), actinic cheilitis (AC) (n = 13), and normal mucosa of the oral cavity (OC control, n = 12) and the lip (lip control, n = 11).The number of CD1a(+) cells tended to be higher in the OC control samples compared with the LK (P = 0.04) and OCSCC (P = 0.21). Unlike, this cell population was lower in the lip control than in AC or LSCC (P < 0.05). The number of CD83(+) cells was increased in the LSCC samples compared with the AC and lip control (P = 0.0001) and in OCSCC compared with both the LK (P = 0.001) and OC control (P = 0.0001) samples. LSCC showed an elevated number of CD1a(+) and CD83(+) cells compared with OCSCC (P = 0.03). The population of mature DCs was lower than the population of immature DCs in all of the tested groups (P < 0.05).There were a greater number of both mature and immature DC populations in the LSCC samples than in the OCSCC, which could contribute to establishing a more effective immune antitumor response for this neoplasm.
Monetary and fiscal policies' effect on agricultural growth: GMM estimation and simulation analysis

Abstract The concept of sustainable economic growth is closely linked with the agricultural growth. This is especially true in the context of under-developed countries. Pakistan is a typical under-developed country that has huge labor force employed in conventional rural economy and more than half of the population relies on agriculture for subsistence. The study examines the agricultural growth through developing a model using the data from agricultural sector of Pakistan for the period 1972–2010. The model is primarily based on input–output reduced form structural equations approach. It is then estimated by GMM, validated and used for deterministic simulation analyses. Finally the validated model is used to critically analyze the impact of fiscal, monetary and energy policies on the agricultural output. We conluded that recent fiscal and monetary policies should be continued, while the energy policy needs to be modified in order to improve the agricultural GDP and reduce the rural poverty situation in the country.