bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Pixel-Aware Deep Function-Mixture Network for Spectral Super-Resolution
Authors: Zhang Lei , Lang Zhiqiang , Wang Peng , Wei Wei , Liao Shengcai , Shao Ling , Zhang Yanning
Published: June 2020

Spectral super-resolution (SSR) aims at generating a hyperspectral image (HSI) from a given RGB image. Recently, a promising direction is to learn a complicated mapping function from the RGB image to the HSI counterpart using a deep convolutional neural network. This essentially involves mapping the RGB context within a size-specific receptive field centered at each pixel to its spectrum in the HSI. The focus thereon is to appropriately determine the receptive field size and establish the mapping function from RGB context to the corresponding spectrum. Due to their differences in category or spatial position, pixels in HSIs often require different-sized receptive fields and distinct mapping functions. However, few efforts have been invested to explicitly exploit this prior.To address this problem, we propose a pixel-aware deep function-mixture network for SSR, which is composed of a new class of modules, termed function-mixture (FM) blocks. Each FM block is equipped with some basis functions, i.e., parallel subnets of different-sized receptive fields. Besides, it incorporates an extra subnet as a mixing function to generate pixel-wise weights, and then linearly mixes the outputs of all basis functions with those generated weights. This enables us to pixel-wisely determine the receptive field size and the mapping function. Moreover, we stack several such FM blocks to further increase the flexibility of the network in learning the pixel-wise mapping. To encourage feature reuse, intermediate features generated by the FM blocks are fused in late stage, which proves to be effective for boosting the SSR performance. Experimental results on three benchmark HSI datasets demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method.
3D Crowd Counting via Multi-View Fusion with 3D Gaussian Kernels
Authors: Zhang Qi , Chan Antoni B.
Published: June 2020

Crowd counting has been studied for decades and a lot of works have achieved good performance, especially the DNNs-based density map estimation methods. Most existing crowd counting works focus on single-view counting, while few works have studied multi-view counting for large and wide scenes, where multiple cameras are used. Recently, an end-to-end multi-view crowd counting method called multi-view multi-scale (MVMS) has been proposed, which fuses multiple camera views using a CNN to predict a 2D scene-level density map on the ground-plane. Unlike MVMS, we propose to solve the multi-view crowd counting task through 3D feature fusion with 3D scene-level density maps, instead of the 2D ground-plane ones. Compared to 2D fusion, the 3D fusion extracts more information of the people along z-dimension (height), which helps to solve the scale variations across multiple views. The 3D density maps still preserve the 2D density maps property that the sum is the count, while also providing 3D information about the crowd density. We also explore the projection consistency among the 3D prediction and the ground-truth in the 2D views to further enhance the counting performance. The proposed method is tested on 3 multi-view counting datasets and achieves better or comparable counting performance to the state-of-the-art.
Exploiting Motion Information from Unlabeled Videos for Static Image Action Recognition
Authors: Zhang Yiyi , Niu Li , Pan Ziqi , Luo Meichao , Zhang Jianfu , Cheng Dawei , Zhang Liqing
Published: June 2020

Static image action recognition, which aims to recognize action based on a single image, usually relies on expensive human labeling effort such as adequate labeled action images and large-scale labeled image dataset. In contrast, abundant unlabeled videos can be economically obtained. Therefore, several works have explored using unlabeled videos to facilitate image action recognition, which can be categorized into the following two groups: (a) enhance visual representations of action images with a designed proxy task on unlabeled videos, which falls into the scope of self-supervised learning; (b) generate auxiliary representations for action images with the generator learned from unlabeled videos. In this paper, we integrate the above two strategies in a unified framework, which consists of Visual Representation Enhancement (VRE) module and Motion Representation Augmentation (MRA) module. Specifically, the VRE module includes a proxy task which imposes pseudo motion label constraint and temporal coherence constraint on unlabeled videos, while the MRA module could predict the motion information of a static action image by exploiting unlabeled videos. We demonstrate the superiority of our framework based on four benchmark human action datasets with limited labeled data.
Adaptive Unimodal Cost Volume Filtering for Deep Stereo Matching
Authors: Zhang Youmin , Chen Yimin , Bai Xiao , Yu Suihanjin , Yu Kun , Li Zhiwei , Yang Kuiyuan
Published: June 2020

State-of-the-art deep learning based stereo matching approaches treat disparity estimation as a regression problem, where loss function is directly defined on true disparities and their estimated ones. However, disparity is just a byproduct of a matching process modeled by cost volume, while indirectly learning cost volume driven by disparity regression is prone to overfitting since the cost volume is under constrained. In this paper, we propose to directly add constraints to the cost volume by filtering cost volume with unimodal distribution peaked at true disparities. In addition, variances of the unimodal distributions for each pixel are estimated to explicitly model matching uncertainty under different contexts. The proposed architecture achieves state-of-the-art performance on Scene Flow and two KITTI stereo benchmarks. In particular, our method ranked the 1st place of KITTI 2012 evaluation and the 4th place of KITTI 2015 evaluation (recorded on 2019.8.20). The codes of AcfNet are available at: https://github.com/youmi-zym/AcfNet.
Spherical Criteria for Fast and Accurate 360° Object Detection
Authors: Zhao Pengyu , You Ansheng , Zhang Yuanxing , Liu Jiaying , Bian Kaigui , Tong Yunhai
Published: June 2020

With the advance of omnidirectional panoramic technology, 360◦ imagery has become increasingly popular in the past few years. To better understand the 360◦ content, many works resort to the 360◦ object detection and various criteria have been proposed to bound the objects and compute the intersection-over-union (IoU) between bounding boxes based on the common equirectangular projection (ERP) or perspective projection (PSP). However, the existing 360◦ criteria are either inaccurate or inefficient for real-world scenarios. In this paper, we introduce a novel spherical criteria for fast and accurate 360◦ object detection, including both spherical bounding boxes and spherical IoU (SphIoU). Based on the spherical criteria, we propose a novel two-stage 360◦ detector, i.e., Reprojection R-CNN, by combining the advantages of both ERP and PSP, yielding efficient and accurate 360◦ object detection. To validate the design of spherical criteria and Reprojection R-CNN, we construct two unbiased synthetic datasets for training and evaluation. Experimental results reveal that compared with the existing criteria, the two-stage detector with spherical criteria achieves the best mAP results under the same inference speed, demonstrating that the spherical criteria can be more suitable for 360◦ object detection. Moreover, Reprojection R-CNN outperforms the previous state-of-the-art methods by over 30% on mAP with competitive speed, which confirms the efficiency and accuracy of the design.
Progressive Bi-C3D Pose Grammar for Human Pose Estimation
Authors: Zhou Lu , Chen Yingying , Wang Jinqiao , Lu Hanqing
Published: June 2020

In this paper, we propose a progressive pose grammar network learned with Bi-C3D (Bidirectional Convolutional 3D) for human pose estimation. Exploiting the dependencies among the human body parts proves effective in solving the problems such as complex articulation, occlusion and so on. Therefore, we propose two articulated grammars learned with Bi-C3D to build the relationships of the human joints and exploit the contextual information of human body structure. Firstly, a local multi-scale Bi-C3D kinematics grammar is proposed to promote the message passing process among the locally related joints. The multi-scale kinematics grammar excavates different levels human context learned by the network. Moreover, a global sequential grammar is put forward to capture the long-range dependencies among the human body joints. The whole procedure can be regarded as a local-global progressive refinement process. Without bells and whistles, our method achieves competitive performance on both MPII and LSP benchmarks compared with previous methods, which confirms the feasibility and effectiveness of C3D in information interactions.
EEMEFN: Low-Light Image Enhancement via Edge-Enhanced Multi-Exposure Fusion Network
Authors: Zhu Minfeng , Pan Pingbo , Chen Wei , Yang Yi
Published: June 2020

This work focuses on the extremely low-light image enhancement, which aims to improve image brightness and reveal hidden information in darken areas. Recently, image enhancement approaches have yielded impressive progress. However, existing methods still suffer from three main problems: (1) low-light images usually are high-contrast. Existing methods may fail to recover images details in extremely dark or bright areas; (2) current methods cannot precisely correct the color of low-light images; (3) when the object edges are unclear, the pixel-wise loss may treat pixels of different objects equally and produce blurry images. In this paper, we propose a two-stage method called Edge-Enhanced Multi-Exposure Fusion Network (EEMEFN) to enhance extremely low-light images. In the first stage, we employ a multi-exposure fusion module to address the high contrast and color bias issues. We synthesize a set of images with different exposure time from a single image and construct an accurate normal-light image by combining well-exposed areas under different illumination conditions. Thus, it can produce realistic initial images with correct color from extremely noisy and low-light images. Secondly, we introduce an edge enhancement module to refine the initial images with the help of the edge information. Therefore, our method can reconstruct high-quality images with sharp edges when minimizing the pixel-wise loss. Experiments on the See-in-the-Dark dataset indicate that our EEMEFN approach achieves state-of-the-art performance.
Annealing time effect on CIGS thin films
Authors: Matur Utku Canci , Baydoğan Nilgün
Published: June 2020

Chalcopyrite copper indium gallium (di)selenide (Cu(In, Ga)Se2 (CIGS)) thin film has been examined as an absorber layer for solar cells because of its suitable absorption value, stability and economy in manufacture. CIGS thin films belong to the I–III–VI2 group of the periodic table with the appropriate direct bandgap (1.5 eV). In this study, CIGS thin films were annealed at ∼200°C for four different annealing times (15, 30, 45 and 60 min) to investigate the effect of the annealing time on the crystalline structure and optical properties of CIGS thin films prepared by using the sol–gel dip-coating technique. CIGS thin films annealed at ∼200°C for 60 min were found to have the best structural and optical properties in this study. As the crystallite size increased with the rise in the annealing time, the lattice strain decreased, indicating the elimination of crystallite defects in the CIGS thin-film structure. Hence, the structural changes affected the optical properties slightly and the rise in the optical absorbance (A%) resulted in a decrease in the optical transmittance (T%).
Controllable crystallization by way of solvent engineering for perovskite solar cells
Authors: Cai Hongkun , Yang Jingtao , Ye Xiaofang , Su Jian , Ni Jian , Li Juan , Zhang Jianjun
Published: June 2020

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have attracted tremendous attention due to their rapid growth in efficiency and low cost. In this work, an effective perovskite material was developed by the interaction of chloride (Cl−) ions and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). Crystal nucleus formation was enhanced, and the crystallization was delayed by adding a moderate amount of chloride ions to the (FAPbI3)0.85(MAPbBr3)0.15solution while reducing the amount of DMSO properly. This helped expand the grain size while eliminating cracks and particles on the Cl-(FAPbI3)0.85(MAPbBr3)0.15perovskite film. The proposed PSCs were shown to exhibit high power conversion efficiency of 18% with negligible hysteresis.
Monetary Policy Expectations, Fund Managers, and Fund Returns: Evidence from China
Authors: Mallucci Enrico
Published: June 2020

Although many central banks in the 21st century have become more transparent, Chinese monetary policy communications have been relatively opaque, making it more difficult for financial market participants to make decisions that depend on the future path of interest rates. We conduct a novel systematic textual analysis of the discussion in the quarterly reports of China fund managers, from which we infer their near-term expectations for monetary policy. We construct an aggregate index of manager expectations and show that, as a forecast of Chinese monetary policy, it compares favorably with both market-based and model-based alternative projections. We find that expectations are more accurate for funds that commit more analytical resources, have higher management fees, and with stronger managerial educational background. We also show that fund managers act on these expectations, and that correctly anticipating shifts in Chinese monetary policy improves fund performance. Our results imply that manager skill is an important determinant of fund returns, providing the first evidence from China on a question for which studies of asset management in other countries have reached conflicting conclusions. economy.
İstanbul'un sosyal konut üretim alanlarından biri: Tuzla
Authors: BOZDOĞAN Ömer , DOLDUR Hüsniye
Published: June 2020

Konut sorunu, kırsal alanlardan şehirlere olan göçün yarattığı en temel sorunlardan biri olmuştur. Dünya genelinde şehirleşmenin yaygınlaşmasıyla daha büyük boyutlara varan bu sorunun çözümü için devletler çeşitli yöntemler geliştirmişlerdir. Geliştirilen yöntemlerden birisi de yoksul ve dar gelirli kesimleri konut sahibi yapmayı amaçlayan sosyal konut uygulamalarıdır. İlk olarak 19. yüzyılın sonlarında Avrupa’da başlayan bu uygulamalar, sonraki yıllarda diğer gelişmiş ülkelerde, 20. yüzyılın son çeyreğinden itibaren ise gelişmekte olan ülkelerde görülmeye başlanmıştır. Gelişmekte olan ülkeler kategorisinde yer alan Türkiye’deki ilk sosyal konut uygulamaları 1960’lı yıllarda başlamıştır. 1984 yılında ise Toplu Konut İdaresi’nin (TOKİ) kurulması ve 2000’li yıllarda kurumun yetkilerinin genişletilmesiyle sosyal konut çalışmaları günümüze kadar sürdürülmüştür. Türkiye’deki sosyal konut üretimine TOKİ dışında KİPTAŞ (İstanbul) ve PORTAŞ (Ankara) gibi bazı belediye kuruluşları da katkı sağlamışlardır. Çalışmada 5000’den fazla sosyal konuta sahip Tuzla İlçesindeki sosyal konut uygulamaları incelenmiştir. Bu uygulamaların Tuzla’da gerçekleştirilme nedenleri ve bu uygulamalar sonrasında mekânsal görünümde ortaya çıkan değişiklikler ele alınmıştır. Çalışmadaki temel veri kaynaklarını kamu kuruluşlarının hazırladığı rapor ve istatistikler yanında arazi çalışmaları, basılı ve görsel kaynaklar ve sosyal konut kullanıcılarıyla yapılan anketler oluşturmaktadır. Ayrıca haritanın hazırlanmasında ArcGIS 10.7 programı kullanılmıştır.
International Teachers Professional Developing: Blended Learning between Europe and Asia
Authors: Ginestie Jacques , Impedovo Maria Antonietta
Published: June 2020

Blended learning is one of the wider used instructional approaches to higher education for initial and continuing education. Blended education proposed between different international regions and countries is still scarce, especially involving developing countries. Specifically, we are interested to explore blended learning course for international teachers and teacher-educators professional learning. Some theoretical and operational principles to the design of blended learning are discussed in a socio-constructivist approach, followed by the description of a blended design in an international project. The paper goes in the direction to explore the potential for global collaboration and cooperative growth in blended learning.
Transformative Perceptions of In-Service Teachers towards STEM Education: The Vietnamese Case Study
Authors: Nguyen Hoai Nam , Le Xuan Quang , Nguyen Van Hien , Nguyen Van Bien , Nguyen Thi Thu Trang , Thai Hoai Minh , Le Hai My Ngan
Published: June 2020

Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education has attracted numerous concerns of scholars and governments. In order to implement the school curriculum on the approach of STEM education, the training of in-service teachers plays an important role. This study conducted the transformative perception of Vietnamese in-service teachers in secondary schools towards STEM education after they had participated in the teacher professional development program (TDP) on engineering designed-based approach hold on by the Second Upper Secondary Education Development Project 2. Having two separate online and offline phases, the course was designed under the format of TDP developed by Garet et al. In order to assess participants’ demographics and their perceptions on STEM education, the instrument was generated on the basis of modification from several previous studies upon engineering design-based learning and to adapt the theme of STEM content knowledge (CK) and STEM pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for in-service teachers. Full data sets were conducted with 150 participants from 11 provinces of Vietnam who had completed all surveys with the help of Google Form at the beginning and the end of TDP’s offline phase. The data were cleaned, then analyzed with SPSS version 20 to assure the validity and reliability. Findings from this study show the positive effectiveness and suitability of the course on the in-service teachers’ attitudes towards STEM education, which consequently allow to suggest the future similar courses design.
Predicting the Economic Development in Early Childhood Education: The Case of Four Federal Districts of Russia
Authors: Bedareva Larisa , Semionova Elena , Tokareva Galina
Published: June 2020

This paper provides a review of Russian and international studies devoted to early childhood education policies, substantiating the need to forecast the demand for preschool education. Data on 2008–2018 preschool education in Central, Ural, Northwestern, and Volga Federal Districts is analyzed, and predictions regarding the development of early childhood education in the specified regions are made, using Sergey Belyakov’s model, for the 2019–2031 period. The following indicators are forecasted for each region: the number of children aged 0–7; the number of preschool students; the ratio of potential enrollment to kindergarten capacity; the student–teacher ratio in kindergartens; and the demand for preschool teachers.
Two-parametric game-theoretic model of concession in communal heating
Authors: Khutoretskii Alexander , Nefedkin Vladimir
Published: June 2020

In this study, we propose to model the operation of a service concession arrangement in the economic area of municipal heat supply utilities. We offer a scheme of interaction between the concedent and concessionaire in this concessionary arrangement. Currently, the existing regulations regarding the temperature of coolant focusses on the daily average outdoor temperature, and the determination of a “normative” demand for heat energy. On any day of the heating period, this demand is a random variable, whose distribution can be described through the distribution of daily average air temperature.

In our model, heat energy is paid for at a fixed price, and the concessionaire pays a penalty for each unit of unsatisfied normative demand. The price and penalty values are the concession parameters, and are determined by the concedent. The concedent’s goal is to minimise the thermal energy cost; the concessionaire’s purpose is to maximise profit. The interaction is formalised as a two-move game model. First, the concedent determines the price and the value of the penalty. Then the concessionaire selects the capacity to be created. The concession’s parameters should be set so that the individual rationality and incentive compatibility conditions are met.

Our results prove the existence of Stackelberg equilibrium, and we derive the relevant formulas for computing its parameters. In equilibrium, the optimum capacity for the concessionaire provides a sufficient probability of meeting demand. The price of thermal energy is minimal under this condition. We also formulate a one-parameter model (thermal energy price as a parameter), which is based on a typical concession scheme. In the two-parameter model, the equilibrium capacity and price do not exceed the corresponding parameters of the one-parameter model. The main advantage of the two-parameter model is an “embedded” economic mechanism that prevents the concessionaire’s opportunistic behaviour. By contrast, in the one-parameter model there is no such mechanism.

The proposed approach can be applied to a concession for the production of any good or service, provided the concerned parties are interested in the availability and reliability of meeting a corresponding need, which may be described as a random variable. However, typical concession schemes do not penalise unsatisfied demand, so the implementation of our two-parametric model is possible only after modification of the pertinent concession legislation.
Dijital Çağda Kırgızistan’da Radyo Yayıncılığı
Authors: NARMAMATOVA Topchugul , ÇAKIR Hamza
Published: June 2020

Yeni iletişim teknolojilerinin gelişmesiyle birlikte son zamanlarda geleneksel kitle iletişim araçlarında önemli değişim ve dönüşümler yaşanmıştır. Özellikle de geleneksel medyanın internet aracılığıyla yeni medya ortamında yeniden üretilmesi, onun daha da etkin hale gelmesini sağlamıştır. İcat edildiği ilk yıllarda önemli ve etkili kitle iletişim aracı olarak nitelendirilen radyo yayıncılığı da yeni iletişim teknolojilerinin getirdiği değişimlere ayak uydurmaya başlamış ve hem karasal, hem uydu ve hem de dijital alanlarda yayına çıkmaya başlamıştır. Radyo yayıncılığının dijital alana geçmesi bir taraftan dinleyicilerin sayısını artırırken, diğer taraftan da dış ülkelerde yaşayan Kırgız vatandaşların ülkeleriyle ilgili haberlerden anlık haberdar olmalarına olanak sağlamıştır.Bu bağlamda Kırgızistan’da radyo yayıncılığının gelişimi, günümüzdeki durumu, dijital yayıncılığa geçiş süreci, günümüzde Kırgızistan’da yayın yapmakta olan karasal, uydu ve dijital radyo kanalları, onların gelişim perspektifleri hakkında bilgi verilmesi amaçlanmıştır. Araştırma sonuçlarına göre dijitalleşme sürecinin Kırgızistan’daki ulusal radyo kanallarını olumlu yönde etkilediği ortaya çıkmıştır.
“Recognizable” Textiles In Daily Practices Of The 16th-Century Florence
Authors:   Taras Shevchenko national University of Kyiv, Hotsalo Kateryna
Published: June 2020

The aim of the article is to shape the semiotic of textiles in the context of their use in various daily practices of the city of Florence during the 16th century. The article investigates the possibility of different representatives of the city to perceive fabrics as a symbol and the ability to identify different types of textiles “by eye”. It consists of three thematic sections. The first one dedicates to the study of those characteristics of textiles that were decisive in the formation of their semiotics. We have found that fabric materials and techniques were such characteristics. Since the creation of textiles was a complicated process, their function as a symbol of user’s status was extremely important. The second part devotes to those manufacturing processes within cities that facilitated exchange of technology and design of fabrics and, as a consequence, perception by users such a textile component as an ornament. The third part of the article deals with specific examples of the Florentine comprehension of certain fabrics. It draws attention to the way textiles are described in written sources. The various urban practices have made it possible for representatives of different segments of the population to be able to distinguish different types of textiles. Fabrics have become an additional way of identifying the status and origin of their user. The ornaments were also symbolic, depending on the materials used to make them. On the other hand, many city dwellers could not identify elements of most common fabric patterns and, therefore, could not perceive them as symbols.
Between The Sacred And The Decorative: Сhristian Iconography In The Sketches For "Lily" Decorative Panel By Mykhailo Zhuk
Authors:   Taras Shevchenko national University of Kyiv, Demchuk Stefaniia , Kizyma Yuliia ,   Taras Shevchenko national University of Kyiv
Published: June 2020

Mykailo Zhuk was a graphic artist and a writer who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of the early 20th century Ukrainian art. His artworks bear the mark of the in-depth reception of the Art Nouveau style. Although art historians who studied Zhuk’s early period (1904 - 1918) did mention the complex symbolism of his works (including that of the sketches for the floral panels which we shall examine), they avoided plunging deeper in the semantic interweaving he indulged himself in. Thus, this essay shall examine the two panels titled “Lilies”, which were treated mostly as ornamental works deprived of any hidden meaning. It seems that the formal and stylistic analysis should be complemented with the other methods. The iconographic analysis shall allow us to interpret Zhuk’s symbolic language and to discern different semantic layers, and the comparative historical analysis shall help to distinguish typical and individual features in Zhuk’s artworks, which, in its turn, shall allow us to put the artist's work within the pan-European artistic context.Images in Zhuk’s case were supplemented with texts. We could not avoid studying them along with the sketches for they contained the same motives as his graphic works. By means of content analysis we analysed how the artists addressed the image of lily and discovered the biblical bias of its representation in Zhuk’s texts and images. The iconography of the “Lilies”, we suggest, has no direct predecessors and is mainly based on the author’s interpretation of St. John’s Revelation or on works of his teacher at the Krakow Academy of Arts, Stanislaw Wyspiański. For Wyspiański used floral motifs on numerous occasions and experimented with the iconographic types of Virgin Mary in his monumental religious works.
Economics Requirements Among BSW Programs: An Underused Tool for Economic Justice
Authors: Yoon Intae , Kim Ga Ye
Published: June 2020

Most early social work programs in the 1920s and 1930s mandated that their students study economics. But what is the status of economics in social work education today? Since the Council on Social Work Education’s official accreditation for BSW programs started in 1974, no nationwide study has examined to date the place of economics in BSW education. This study was conducted to address the question by reviewing the liberal arts foundation requirements among all accredited BSW programs in the United States (N=532). Contrary to the early trend, almost three quarters of the programs (n=374) do not require their students to take any economics courses. The dearth of economics in BSW curricula may undermine the profession’s ability to ameliorate extreme economic inequality and financial incapability. We recommend that BSW programs use existing economics courses at their institutions and collaborate with economists to offer a customized economics course for BSW students.
Truth in Labeling? An Initial Evaluation of Associate in Social Work Programs
Authors: Rempel Rex J.
Published: June 2020

Although BSW programs have long accepted transfer students with associate degrees in human services, community colleges in the United States also offer associate in social work (ASW) degrees. Absent from the peer-reviewed literature, however, little is known about community colleges’ social work programs. They are unrecognized by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), and the validity of their claims to teach social work is untested. This research located 57 such programs and evaluated their ability to meet customary benchmarks for social work education. One- third of ASW program directors completed surveys about their programs, reportedly meeting 41% of select CSWE 2015 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards for BSW programs. This empirical study of community college programs suggests broader options for both students and colleges, challenges the consensus definition of social work education as beginning in baccalaureate studies, and raises concerns about unproven claims to teach social work.
Pranayama improves cardio-respiratory efficiency and physical endurance in young healthy volunteers
Authors: Satheesh Roosha , Bindu Chenmarathy Balakrishnan
Published: June 2020

Background: Pranayama involves manipulation of the breath, which is a dynamic bridge between body and mind. The aim of the study was to compare cardio respiratory parameters before and after pranayama practice and to correlate the changes in physical endurance with the changes in cardio-respiratory parameters.Methods: A quasi experimental study was conducted among 120 healthy students in the age group 18-25 years. These students were given pranayama practice for 30 minutes a day for 3 days in a week for 12 weeks. The subjects were assessed for various cardio-respiratory parameters like respiratory rate (RR), forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1), FEV1/FVC, peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) , breath holding time (BHT), Heart rate (HR), systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), hand grip and rate of oxygen uptake per minute (VO2max) before and after pranayama practice. Statistical analysis included descriptive statistics, paired t test and Pearson correlation.Results: There was a significant decrease in RR, HR, SBP and DBP after pranayama practice. BHT, FVC, FEV1, PEFR, hand grip and vo2 max were significantly increased after pranayama practice. Physical endurance is positively correlated with hand grip and heart rate.Conclusions: The results emphasis the health benefits of pranayama. Regular pranayama improves the cardiovascular efficiency and physical endurance. In spite of yogic training being not very vigorous, cardio-respiratory efficiency was found to increase. Pranayama practice can be advocated to improve cardio-respiratory efficiency for patients as well as healthy individuals.
Ultrasound-assisted transdermal delivery of alendronate for the treatment of osteoporosis
Authors: Li Baofeng , Huang Guiyun , Ma Zhenhe , Qin Shourong
Published: June 2020

The aim of the current research work was to develop sonophoresis-assisted transdermal patches for the treatment of osteoporosis. In the present investigation, we formulated alendronate-chitosan nanoparticles by ionotropic external gelation method. The prepared nanoparticles were found to be smooth and free-flowing. The optimized formulation showed 82.7% of drug release over a period of 12 hours with 99.54% EE, the particle size of 250 nm, PDI 0.22 and zeta potential of 28 mV. The solvent casting evaporation method was used for the development of the patches using HPMC as rate-controlling polymer and dibutyl phthalate as the plasticizer. The optimized patch formulation was found acceptable in terms of physical characteristics (appearance, thickness, folding endurance, weight variation, moisture loss and uptake). The drug content was found to be 99.66±0.9 % with 69.44% of drug permeation through the rat skin. The TP3 formulation had drug content of 99.96% which was the highest among all of the formulations and showed relatively controlled skin permeation of 69.44% over the period of 12 hours. Nearly six-time enhancement of bioavailability was observed when alendronate was used in the nanoparticulate form in transdermal patches used with sonophoresis. Over the period of seven days, the plasma calcium concentration in the rat model was decreased from 16 mg/dl to 4 mg/dl (4 times) in rat groups treated with the transdermal patches containing CS-ALN-NP while the concentration dropped only to 12 mg/dl in case of the transdermal patches containing pure Alendronate. These findings (enhanced skin permeation, enhanced bioavailability and suppression of the plasma calcium level) regarding the transdermal delivery system suggest a promising approach for the treatment of osteoporosis.
Neogambogic acid induces apoptosis of melanoma B16 cells via the PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway
Authors: Wu Chunlan , He Jin , Sun Zhimin , Tang Dongxin , Wen Changhui
Published: June 2020

Background: Neogambogic acid, as one of the main components of gamboge, exhibits high activities against various tumors. Objective: To explore the mechanism by which melanoma B16 cell apoptosis was induced by neogambogic acid. Methods: Melanoma B16 cells were treated with different concentrations of neogambogic acid solutions (0, 1.5, 3.0, 6.0 μM). The proliferation inhibition rate was measured by MTT assay. Cell morphology was observed by inverted microscope. Cell migration and invasion were tested by Transwell assay. Flow cytometry was performed to detect the apoptosis rate and cell cycle of B16 cells. The expressions of PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway-related proteins were detected by Western blot. Results: The proliferation inhibition rate of B16 cells significantly increased with rising neogambogic acid concentration (P<0.05). The invasive and migration capacities of B16 cells decreased significantly after treatment with neogambogic acid (P<0.05). The apoptosis rate also increased with rising concentration of neogambogic acid. After 24 h of treatment, the percentage of G0/G1 phase cells increased gradually as the neogambogic acid concentration rose, whereas those of S phase and G2/M phase cells decreased. With increasing concentration of neogambogic acid, the expressions of p-PI3K, p-Akt and p-mTOR proteins reduced in a time-dependent manner, but those of PI3K and Akt proteins remained basically unchanged. Conclusion: Neogambogic acid can inhibit the proliferation, invasion and migration of melanoma B16 cells and induce their apoptosis, which may be regulated via the PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway.
Minimization of Anthropogenic Impact on the Environment of Waste of Mining Complex by Recycling Them in the Soil Concrete Modified with Natural Zeolites
Authors: Konovalova N.A. , Dabizha O.N. , Pankov P.P. , Rush E.A.
Published: June 2020

The article considers the possibility of reduction of anthropogenic impact on ecosystems of various levels of waste of mining complex by their largetonnage direct using in the construction industry. The methods of utilization of waste crushed production modified with natural zeolites and stabilizing additive in the composition of soil concrete are studied. The chemical and phase compositions of the inital mineral raw materials and soil concrete based on them are studied by a complex of modern methods. Optimal mass fractions of clinoptilolite rock (5–15 wt. %) and a polymeric stabilizing additive (1 wt. %) allowing to obtain composites with a maximum strength grade of 100 (М 100) are established. The increase of strength characteristics of soil concrete modified with zeolite-containing rock is associated with an increase of their density by the presence of crystalline calcium and magnesium silicates in the structure as well as the filling of the interparticle space with mineral and polymer additives.
The Accumulation of Heavy Metals and 137Cs in Plant Products Grown on Radioactively Contaminated Chernozems of Tula Oblast
Authors: Shopina O.V. , Semenkov I.N. , Paramonova T.A.
Published: June 2020

The results of studies of three sites of agrocenoses are presented: wheat (seed cereals), soybeans (legumes) and legume-cereal (rumpgoatskin) perennial grass mixtures to identify the peculiarities of the transition of stable and radioactive pollutants (including substances of hazard classes 1 and 2 and 137Cs) in the system "agro-chernozems – agricultural plants" with soil testing and quality control of aerial and underground plant phytomass. In this radioactively contaminated area, the elemental composition of wheat, soybean, rump and goatskin does not differ from the composition of the corresponding species in the background. Legumes have an increased need for alkaline earth metals (Ca, Mg, Sr) and also contain more Ni and Mn, cereals – in Si. Within the studied part of Plavsky radioactive spot, the quality of agricultural products meets the relevant standards for the content of heavy metals and 137Cs.
Toxicological Assessment of the Impact of Metallurgical Industry Waste on the Environmental Properties of Light Gray Forest Soils
Authors: Stepanova L.P. , Pisareva A.V. , Tsukanavichute V.E.
Published: June 2020

A comprehensive assessment of the degree of degradation of light gray forest soils and their environmental sustainability to natural processes and regimes, anthropogenic stresses occurring in the soil profile is presented. Toxicological study shown soil conditions in the areas of technogenic impact of dump slag of industrial aluminum casting waste in the Oryol region. Studies of the impact of slag dumps on the environment, in particular the effect on soil, water and vegetation cover, are given.
Vozes em diálogo em documentos que tematizam a interiorização da UFPA
Authors: Azevêdo Maria da Conceição
Published: June 2020

Neste estudo, procuramos identificar os parceiros legítimos na implantação do Projeto de Interiorização da Universidade Federal do Pará, por meio da análise de documentos oficiais que tematizam o início desse processo, ocorrido em meados da década de 1980. Pretendemos recuperar, historicamente, as vozes desses parceiros num momento crucial para a constituição da UFPA. Nesse contexto, quem são os parceiros efetivos na instauração da proposta de interiorização? A gestão da UFPA, os professores, as comunidades amazônicas, os gestores públicos municipais, o governo da novíssima república? De quem são as vozes e de que modo ecoam nos textos que testemunham o início do processo de interiorização? Fundamentamo-nos teoricamente nas noções de vozes, contexto de produção (BRONCKART, 1999) e de gêneros do discurso (BAKHTIN, 2003). Constituem nosso corpus dois documentos oficiais relativos à interiorização: Pareceres 629/87 e 190/88 (MEC/CEF/SESu). Analisamos, pois, o gerenciamento de vozes na construção da enunciação nos textos em estudo, com a finalidade de identificar em que medida e de que modos as instâncias da enunciação categorizam a política responsável pela expansão dessa universidade no interior do estado.
“Pedagogia da Engenharia”: Brasília Arquitetada nos Jornais (1956-1960)
Authors: Dos Santos Michelle
Published: June 2020

O plano de trabalho “PEDAGOGIA DA ENGENHARIA”: BRASÍLIA ARQUITETADA NOS JORNAIS (1956-1960) tem por objetivos apresentar a nova capital como construção imaginária de múltiplos sentidos em parques gráficos, antes mesmo de sua inauguração em “concreto armado” no dia 21 de abril de 1960, e promover um debate que alargue as noções de arquitetura e engenharia, admitindo-as como expressões não apenas físicas, mas também narrativas, do poder e da simbologia de um povo, uma cidade ou regime político, considerando o estudo e análise de fontes jornalísticas produzidas à época da edificação de Brasília (1956-1960). Para tanto, utilizaremos os conceitos de cidade modernista e modernidade, de James Holston (1993) e Marshall Berman (2007), entre outros títulos acerca da historiografia da meta síntese de Juscelino Kubitschek. O procedimento metodológico está pautado na análise de bibliografias contemporâneas acerca da história da arquitetura e da engenharia, numa perspectiva diacrônica, que perpassa o Brasil e flana pelo mundo. Preliminarmente, concluiu-se que, em todo caso, dizer torna-se um fazer, e a “cidade letrada” é tão real quanto aquela erguida pelos candangos. A importância deste estudo para o campo literário é que inter-relaciona de modo teoricamente profícuo a pesquisa e o ensino, o jornalismo impresso e a história recente de nosso país.
O feio sacro na imagem de nossa senhora das dores
Authors: De Morais Aldilene Lopes
Published: June 2020

O presente trabalho busca realizar um estudo sobre o feio sacro, presente nas imagens cristãs, mais especificamente na imagem de Nossa Senhora das Dores, que se encontra no Museu de Arte Sacra de Bragança-Pará (MASB). A imagem da santaapresenta-se com o coração fora do corpo e cravejado de espadas. Busca-se, então, mostrar como se deu o culto mariano e a devoção ao coração deMaria no Medievo. Ao visualizarmos a iconografia da referida santa temos a sentimento de piedade e enternecimento. A imagem constitui-se como algo fora dos padrões do belo, dessa maneira, é considerada como feia. Nesta perspectiva, entender como a arte lidava com as concepções cristãs é relevante, visto que a Idade Média mostrou-se ser um período de intensa religiosidade. Buscamos entender também, como a feiúra podia ser considerada como algo bom, desde que causasse comoção e piedade. A imagem de santos com aspectos de sofrimento poderia causar brandura nos cristãos. Assim, nosso intuito nesse trabalho é entender o significado do coração cravejado e sobre o corpo da santa. Umberto Eco, LêniaMongelli e Yara Frateschi, JérômeBaschet e André Vauchez nos fornecerão amparo teórico para esse estudo.
O artigo definido em Trechos da Regra de S. Bento (XIV/ XV): uma abordagem filológica
Authors: Almeida Miguél Eugenio
Published: June 2020

Em Trechos da Regra de São Bento, selecionamos um corpus de 113 (cento e treze) ocorrências sobre o artigo definido e das combinações deste com as preposições. Os mesmos foram transcritos diplomaticamente por Bueno ((1941, p.48-52), da “Collecção de Inéditos portuguêzes dos séculos XIV e XV”, pub. por Fr. F. de S. Soaventura, t. I p.249-253. Destarte, verificamos a formação do artigo em questão compreendido no período do português arcaico. Assim, verificamos, por meio dos artigos ocorrentes, o processo de formação desses artigos pela passagem do latim para o português arcaico aplicando a base teórica da Filologia Portuguesa, principalmente. Esses artigos foram distribuídos nos seguintes tópicos: os artigos definidos isolados; os artigos implícitos formando as preposições por combinação; o artigo e a crase.
O não-absoluto do real: uma leitura de così è (se vi pare), de luigi pirandello
Authors: Serafim Lucas Sousa
Published: June 2020

Este texto tem a intenção de refletir os conceitos teóricos sobre a morte de deus, exposto pelo filósofo Friedrich Nietzsche em A Gaia Ciência – de que maneira suas nuances tocam na montagem de uma possível figuração da morte da Ciência e do Homem. Além disso, pretende observar como as teorias sobre linguagem do filósofo Michel Foucault contribuíram para este niilismo, uma vez que este seria o principal traço da condição humana. A reflexão proposta elucidar-se-á a partir da abordagem crítica do texto de teatro Così è (se vi pare), do autor italiano Luigi Pirandello – considerando as particularidades da obra dramatúrgica.
DENTRE PLANTAS E MULHERES – A PORTA DE ENTRADA DO UNIVERSO MÍSTICO E POÉTICO QUE ENVOLVE MULHERES EM SALVATERRA
Authors: Peixoto Lanna Beatriz Lima , Da Silveira Flávio Leonel Abreu
Published: June 2020

Neste trabalho apresentamos reflexões preliminares de um estudo sobre o universo mítico que envolve as mulheres e o feminino na região do Marajó. Apresentamos dados das primeiras duas viagens a campo, onde destacam-se duas mulheres em específico: dona Marta, no distrito de Joanes, e dona Joana, em uma comunidade quilombola, ambas localizadas no município de Salvaterra. Aqui, expomos alguns apontamentos suscitados pelo encontro com essas duas mulheres, de forma a pensarmos as suas experiências a partir do diálogo com uma bibliografia específica. A princípio a existência de um mote em comum auxiliou-nos a adentrarmos no universo de seus cotidianos e, mais diretamente de seus quintais, desde onde os saberes relacionados às plantas medicinais emergiram como a ponta de um novelo, que compreende memórias e os saberes em torno de práticas de cura, do xamanismo e do misticismo local, envolvendo, principalmente, a figura feminina que pretendemos abordar ao longo da discussão presente neste artigo.
TÉCNICAS E SABERES IMBRICADOS NA ARTE DA PESCA DE CURRAL EM UMA RESERVA EXTRATIVISTA MARINHA DA AMAZÔNIA
Authors: Do Nascimento Josinaldo Reis , Dias Eliza De Cássia Sousa , De Souza Terezinha De Jesus Lima , Cardoso Sergio Ricardo Pereira , Barboza Roberta Sá Leitão
Published: June 2020

Em Bragança (PA), nas comunidades litorâneas da RESEX Marinha Caeté-Taperaçu, conhecidas como vila dos Pescadores e vila do Bonifácio a pesca de curral é uma das principais atividades econômicas. Nesse sentido, a presente pesquisa investigou como os saberes-fazeres empregados na construção dos currais de pesca são repassados e valorizados ao longo do tempo. Para tal, foram aplicados formulários semiestruturados entre os pescadores de currais buscando compreender os saberes-fazeres usados na construção e implantação de currais de pesca, bem como as perspectivas destes curraleiros acerca desta atividade pesqueira. A iniciação na atividade ocorre ainda durante a infância, através dos pais. A socialização de saberes-fazeres de geração em geração através da vivência é característica básica dos saberes-fazeres tradicionais. A construção do curral de pesca é realizada em etapas, especialmente por pescadores peritos, contratados especificamente para este fim. O resultado mais preocupante observado está presente na própria fala dos pescadores sujeitos desta pesquisa, afirmando que a pesca de curral encontra-se em declínio em função da grande exploração de outras artes de pesca sobre os recursos pesqueiros do estuário, constatado pela diminuição da quantidade de peixes capturados no currais nos últimos anos.
AS CRIANÇAS RIBEIRINHAS E O RITO DO BANHO DE RIO
Authors: Farias Cristiane Do Socorro Gonçalves
Published: June 2020

Ao fazermos o percurso de um rio durante uma pesquisa podemos perceber a relação dos vários atores sociais com o meio no qual estão inseridos, aqui no caso, o rio e as matas. A presença das crianças é muito forte, principalmente na hora da brincadeira no rio, a hora do banho no rio. Não como um rito obrigatório, mas como algo que sempre acontece da mesma maneira, sem tornar-se obrigação para eles, um acontecimento natural.
Cotidiano dos "silêncios": momentos de plantio em agricultura familiar
Authors: Fernandes Daniel Dos Santos
Published: June 2020

Este vídeo mostra o cotidiano de uma família no trabalho agrícola e sua interação doméstica pelos “silêncios”. Em um dia do mês de novembro de 2016, a partir da lógica da agricultura familiar. O vídeo utiliza como campo os espaços da família Souza, momentos da mãe,dos filhos, do pai e dos primos. Situados na Vila de Areia Branca, município de Santa Izabel do Pará/Pará. Foi utilizada para a captura das imagens uma máquina SONY, modelo DSC - H50.Assista aqui.
Dia da Iluminação: uma relação entre a vida e a morte
Authors: Reis Maria Do Socorro B.
Published: June 2020

Este vídeo mostra a relação de uma família com o dia da iluminação (finados). Suas crenças relacionada com a morte e a vida. O que lhes remetem a anual visita a seus mortos e suas lembranças. Os fatos e costumes que entrelaçam, muitas vezes, um encontro familiar, raros em outros momentos do ano. Em dia do mês de novembro de 2016, a partir da lógica da crença sobre a morte e a vida. O vídeo utiliza como campo os espaços do cemitério, em momentos que a família do Sr. Antônio da Cunha Siqueira e seus parentes. Situado no antigo Cemitério Santa Rosa de Lima, no centro da cidade de Bragança, no Pará. Foi utilizado para a captura das imagens uma máquina CANON, modelo T3i.Assista aqui.