Search results for: audiovisual translation

Authors: Cristian Soitu, Alexander Feuerborn, Cyril Deroy, Alfonso Castrejon-Pita, Peter R. Cook, Edmond J. Walsh

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Microfluidics now stands as an academically mature technology after a quarter of a century research activities have delivered a vast array of proof of concepts for many biological workflows. However, translation to industry remains poor, with only a handful of notable exceptions – e.g. digital PCR, DNA sequencing – mainly because of biocompatibility issues, limited range of readouts supported or complex operation required. This technology exploits the domination of interfacial forces over gravitational ones at the microscale, replacing solid walls with fluid ones as building blocks for cell micro-environments. By employing only materials used by biologists for decades, the system is shown to be biocompatible, and easy to manufacture and operate. The method consists in displacing a continuous fluid layer into a pattern of isolated chambers overlaid with an immiscible liquid to prevent evaporation. The resulting fluid arrangements can be arrays of micro-chambers with rectangular footprint, which use the maximum surface area available, or structures with irregular patterns. Pliant, self-healing fluid walls confine volumes as small as 1 nl. Such fluidic structures can be reconfigured during the assays, giving the platform an unprecedented level of flexibility. Common workflows in cell biology are demonstrated – e.g. cell growth and retrieval, cloning, cryopreservation, fixation and immunolabeling, CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing, and proof-of-concept drug tests. This fluid-shaping technology is shown to have potential for high-throughput cell- and organism-based assays. The ability to make and reconfigure on-demand microfluidic circuits on standard Petri dishes should find many applications in biology, and yield more relevant phenotypic and genotypic responses when compared to standard microfluidic assays.

Keywords: fluid walls, micro-chambers, reconfigurable, freestyle

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Authors: Mansoureh Karimollahi, Mehriar Adrmohammadi, Mohsen Mohammadi

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Introduction: Patient satisfaction with nursing care is considered as an important indicator of the quality and effectiveness of the health care system, and improving the quality of care is not possible without paying attention to the opinions and expectations of patients. Considering that the scales for assessing satisfaction with nursing care in our country are not comprehensive and measure very few areas, therefore, in this study, psychometrically, the Persian version of the Newcastle Nursing Care Satisfaction Scale was used in patients hospitalized in the wards. Internal medicine and general surgery were discussed. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 200 patients admitted to the surgery and internal departments of hospitals affiliated to Ardabil University of Medical Sciences. The Newcastle nursing care satisfaction scale was used for the first time in Iran in comparison with the good nursing care scale from the patients' point of view to evaluate the criterion validity. The Newcastle nursing care satisfaction scale was used after translation, validity, and reliability. Results: The level of satisfaction of patients and the experience of patients with nursing care was at a favorable level, respectively, with an average of 111.8 ± 14.2 and 69.07 ± 14.8. Total CVI was estimated at 0.96 for the experience section, 0.95 for the satisfaction section, and 0.96 for the whole scale. The index (CVR) was also 0.95 for the experience section, 0.95 for the satisfaction section, and 0.95 for the whole scale. Criterion validity was also estimated using 0.725 correlation. The validity of the construct was also confirmed using the goodness of fit index (X2=1932/05, p=0.013, KMO=0.913). Convergent validity was estimated at 0.99 in the experience subscale and 0.98 in the satisfaction subscale. . The overall reliability in the experience subscale and satisfaction subscale was 94%, 92%, and 98%, respectively, which indicated the acceptable reliability of the questionnaire. Conclusion: The Persian version of the Newcastle nursing care satisfaction scale as a comprehensive tool that can be easily completed by patients and is easy to interpret, has good validity and reliability and can be used in patient care centers, in departments Surgery, and internal medicine are recommended.

Keywords: psychometrics, Newcastle nursing care satisfaction scale, nursing care satisfaction, general surgery department

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Authors: Aliya Sekenova, Vyacheslav Ogay

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The derivation of human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from somatic cells by direct reprogramming opens wide perspectives in the regenerative medicine. It means the possibility to develop the personal and, consequently, any immunologically compatible cells for applications in cell-based therapy. The purpose of our study was to develop the technology for the production of NK cells from T cell-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (TiPSCs) for subsequent application in adoptive cancer immunotherapy. Methods: In this study iPSCs were derived from peripheral blood T cells using Sendai virus vectors expressing Oct4, Sox2, Klf4 and c-Myc. Pluripotent characteristics of TiPSCs were examined and confirmed with alkaline phosphatase staining, immunocytochemistry and RT-PCR analysis. For NK cell differentiation, embryoid bodies (EB) formed from (TiPSCs) were cultured in xenogeneic serum-free medium containing human serum, IL-3, IL-7, IL-15, SCF, FLT3L without using M210-B4 and AFT-024 stromal feeder cells. After differentiation, NK cells were characterized with immunofluorescence analysis, flow cytometry and cytotoxicity assay. Results: Here, we for the first time demonstrate that TiPSCs can effectively differentiate into functionally active NK cells without M210-B4 and AFT-024 xenogeneic stroma cells. Immunofluorescence and flow cytometry analysis showed that EB-derived cells can differentiate into a homogeneous population of NK cell expressing high levels of CD56, CD45 and CD16 specific markers. Moreover, these cells significantly express killing activation receptors such as NKp44 and NKp46. In the comparative analysis, we observed that NK cells derived using feeder-free culture system have more high killing activity against K-562 tumor cells, than NK cells derived by feeder-dependent method. Thus, we think that our obtained data will be useful for the development of large-scale production of NK cells for translation into cancer immunotherapy.

Keywords: induced pluripotent stem cells, NK cells, T cells, cell diffentiation, feeder cell-free culture system

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Authors: Nathenal Thomas

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In the food chain and in many other agricultural products, corn, also known as maize, which goes by the scientific name Zea mays subsp, is a widely produced agricultural product. Corn has the highest adaptability. It comes in many different types, is employed in many different industrial processes, and is more adaptable to different agro-climatic situations. In Ethiopia, maize is among the most widely grown crop. Small-scale corn farming may be a household's only source of food in developing nations like Ethiopia. The aforementioned data demonstrates that the country's requirement for this crop is excessively high, and conversely, the crop's productivity is very low for a variety of reasons. The most damaging disease that greatly contributes to this imbalance between the crop's supply and demand is the corn disease. The failure to diagnose diseases in maize plant until they are too late is one of the most important factors influencing crop output in Ethiopia. This study will aid in the early detection of such diseases and support farmers during the cultivation process, directly affecting the amount of maize produced. The diseases in maize plants, such as northern leaf blight and cercospora leaf spot, have distinct symptoms that are visible. This study aims to detect the most frequent and degrading maize diseases using the most efficiently used subset of machine learning technology, deep learning so, called Image Processing. Deep learning uses networks that can be trained from unlabeled data without supervision (unsupervised). It is a feature that simulates the exercises the human brain goes through when digesting data. Its applications include speech recognition, language translation, object classification, and decision-making. Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) for Image Processing, also known as convent, is a deep learning class that is widely used for image classification, image detection, face recognition, and other problems. it will also use this algorithm as the state-of-the-art for my research to detect maize diseases by photographing maize leaves using a mobile phone.

Keywords: CNN, zea mays subsp, leaf blight, cercospora leaf spot

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Authors: Vishal Raj, Noorhan Abbas

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Ambiguity in NLP (Natural language processing) refers to the ability of a word, phrase, sentence, or text to have multiple meanings. This results in various kinds of ambiguities such as lexical, syntactic, semantic, anaphoric and referential am-biguities. This study is focused mainly on solving the issue of Lexical ambiguity. Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD) is an NLP technique that aims to resolve lexical ambiguity by determining the correct meaning of a word within a given context. Most WSD solutions rely on words for training and testing, but we have used lemma and Part of Speech (POS) tokens of words for training and testing. Lemma adds generality and POS adds properties of word into token. We have designed a novel method to create an affinity matrix to calculate the affinity be-tween any pair of lemma_POS (a token where lemma and POS of word are joined by underscore) of given training set. Additionally, we have devised an al-gorithm to create the sense clusters of tokens using affinity matrix under hierar-chy of POS of lemma. Furthermore, three different mechanisms to predict the sense of target word using the affinity/similarity value are devised. Each contex-tual token contributes to the sense of target word with some value and whichever sense gets higher value becomes the sense of target word. So, contextual tokens play a key role in creating sense clusters and predicting the sense of target word, hence, the model is named Contextual SenSe Model (CSM). CSM exhibits a noteworthy simplicity and explication lucidity in contrast to contemporary deep learning models characterized by intricacy, time-intensive processes, and chal-lenging explication. CSM is trained on SemCor training data and evaluated on SemEval test dataset. The results indicate that despite the naivety of the method, it achieves promising results when compared to the Most Frequent Sense (MFS) model.

Keywords: word sense disambiguation (wsd), contextual sense model (csm), most frequent sense (mfs), part of speech (pos), natural language processing (nlp), oov (out of vocabulary), lemma_pos (a token where lemma and pos of word are joined by underscore), information retrieval (ir), machine translation (mt)

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Authors: Constance Singo, Choja Oduaran

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Child mental disorders are strongly associated with different forms of challenges, including behavioural problems. The burden of care for children with a mental disorder is high and put primary caregivers, parents in particular, at risk of poor mental wellbeing. Understanding the experience of parents of children with mental disorders is crucial to developing a relevant intervention to assist them to attain optimal mental wellbeing. The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of parents of children with conduct disorder by focussing on the psychological and social stress experience of the parents in raising and caring for their children with conduct disorder. A qualitative research approach, using in-depth interview was utilized in this study. Purposive and snowballing sampling techniques were used to select 9 parents of children with conduct disorder in Thulamela Municipality, Limpopo Province of South Africa. Participants comprising of 2 males and 7 females aged between 30 years and 49 years were interviewed individually at scheduled appointment in-home setting. Interviews were conducted in both English and Setswana language. Data collected in Setswana language were translated to English by 'expert in language translation'. Ethical approval was obtained from appropriate authority before data collection. Thematic analysis was conducted to analyse the collected data. The findings identified anger, fear, depressive symptoms, denial, and suicidal ideation as predominant psychological experiences of the parents. Furthermore, deteriorated interpersonal relationships with family and community members, financial stress, and stigma emerged as social problems being the experience of the parents. It was concluded that parents of children with conduct disorder are highly traumatized by the challenges of caring for their children. We recommend professional engagement in terms of counselling service to support the parents. There is also a need for massive enlightenment programmes for members of the community in order to support the parents of children with child mental disorders.

Keywords: conduct disorder, parents, psychosocial experiences, South Africa

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Authors: Zhala Ahmad, Zainab Lazim, Haider Hamzah

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Bacterial resistance is a pressing global health issue, with multidrug-resistant (MDR), extensively drug-resistant (XDR), and pandrug-resistant (PDR) strains to pose a serious threat. In this context, researchers are investigating effective, safe, and affordable metabolites to combat these pathogens. This study focuses on gum essential oil (GEO) extracted from Pistacia atlantica and its activity and the mechanism of action against XDR Gram-negative Acinetobacter baumannii. GEO was extracted by hydrodistillation and analyzed using GC-MS. Eleven A. baumannii isolates were collected from the ward environment of Burn and Plastic Surgery Hospital in Al Sulaymaniyah City, Iraq. They were identified using the VITEK 2 system, 16S rRNA gene, and confirmed with the blaₒₓₐ₋₅₁ gene; A. baumannii ATCC 19606 was used as a reference strain. The isolates were identified as resistant to twelve different antibiotics spanning six distinct antibiotic classes while showing susceptibility to tetracycline and trimethoprim. Over 40 chemical constituents were detected in the gum's essential oils, with α-pinene being the most abundant. GEO was found to inhibit the growth of A. baumannii isolates; the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of GEO was 2.5 µl/ml. GEO induced protein leakage, phosphate, and potassium ion efflux, distorted cell morphology, and cell death in the tested bacteria. GEO exhibited bacterial clearance and anti-adhesion activity using Band-Aids. This study's findings suggest that GEO could be used as a potential alternative treatment for infectious diseases caused by XRD pathogens, shedding further light on the importance of GEO in biomedical applications. Future studies must focus on generating clinically feasible sources of GEO for testing in small animal models before proceeding to human trials, ensuring safe and effective translation from the laboratory to the clinic.

Keywords: antibiotic resistance, Acinetobacter baumannii, essential oils, Pistacia atlantica, alpha-pinene

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Authors: Jaidev Tripathy

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A human generation’s lifestyle, behaviors, habits, and actions are governed heavily by homogenous mindsets. But the current scenario is witnessing a rapid gap in this homogeneity as a result of an intervention, or rather, the dominance of the digital revolution in the human lifestyle. The current mindset for mass production, employment, multi-tasking, rapid involvement, and stiff competition to stay above the rest has led to a major shift in human consciousness. Architecture, as an entity, is being perceived differently. The screens are replacing the skies. The pace at which operation and evolution is taking place has increased. It is paradoxical, that time seems to be moving faster despite the intention to save time. Parallelly, there is an evident shift in architectural typologies spanning across different generations. The architecture of today is now seems influenced heavily from here and there. Mass production of buildings and over-exploitation of resources giving shape to uninspiring algorithmic designs, ambiguously catering to multiple user groups, has become a prevalent theme. Borrow-and-steal replaces influence, and the diminishing depth in today’s designs reflects a lack of understanding and connection. The digitally dominated world, perceived as an aid to connect and network, is making humans less capable of real-life interactions and understanding. It is not wrong, but it doesn’t seem right either. The engagement level between human beings and the built environment is a concern which surfaces. This leads to a question: Does human engagement drive architecture, or does architecture drive human engagement? This paper attempts to relook at architecture's capacity and its relativity with pace to influence the conscious decisions of a human being. Secondary research, supported with case examples, helps in understanding the translation of human engagement with the built environment through physicality of architecture. The procedure, or theme, is pace and the role of slowness in the context of human behaviors, thus bridging the widening gap between the human race and the architecture themselves give shape to, avoiding a possible future dystopian world.

Keywords: junkspace, pace, perception, slowness

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Authors: Mehar Fatima

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This study intends to make analysis of Emotional Intelligence (EI) in the process of pedagogy and look into its repercussions in different educational institutions including school, college, and university in the capital state of India, Delhi in 2015. Field of education is a complex area with challenging issues in a modern society. Education is the breeding ground for nurturing human souls, and personalities. Since antiquity, man has been in search of truth, wisdom, contentment, peace. His efforts have brought him to acquire these through hardship, evidently through the process of teaching and learning. Computer aids and artificial intelligence have made life easy but complex. Efficient pedagogy involves direct human intervention despite the flux of technological advancements. Time and again, pedagogical practices demand sincere human efforts to understand and improve upon life’s many pragmatic concerns. Apart from the intense academic scientific approaches, EI in academia plays a vital role in the growth of education, positively achieving national progression; ‘pedagogy of pragmatic purpose.’ Use of literature is found to be one of the valuable pragmatic tools of Emotional Intelligence. This research examines the way literature provides useful influence in building better practices in teaching-learning process. The present project also scrutinizes various pieces of world literature and translation, incorporating efforts of intellectuals in promoting comprehensive amity. The importance of EI in educational arena with its pragmatic uses was established by the study of interviews, and questionnaire collected from teachers and students. In summary the analysis of obtained empirical data makes it possible to accomplish that the use Emotional Intelligence in academic scenario yields multisided positive pragmatic outcomes; positive attitude, constructive aptitude, value-added learning, enthusiastic participation, creative thinking, lower apprehension, diminished fear, leading to individual as well as collective advancement, progress, and growth of pedagogical agents.

Keywords: emotional intelligence, human efforts, pedagogy, pragmatic concerns

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Authors: Sasha Mullally

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This paper investigates the transnational circulation of European Nordic ideas about and programs for manual education and training over the decades spanning the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Based on the unexamined but voluminous correspondence (English-language) of Otto Salomon, an internationally famous education reformer who popularized a form of manual training called "slöjd" (anglicized as "sloyd"), this paper examines it's circulation and translation across global cultures. Salomon, a multilingual promoter of new standardized program for manual training, based his curricula on traditional handcrqafts, particularly Swedish woodworking. He and his followers claimed that the integration of manual training and craft work provided primary and secondary educators with an opportunity to cultivate the mental, but also the physical, and tangentially, the spiritual, health of children. While historians have examined the networks who came together in person to train at his slöjd school for educators in western Sweden, no one has mapped the international community he cultivated over decades of letter writing. Additionally, while the circulation of his ideas in Britain and Germany, as well as the northeastern United States has been placed in a broader narrative of "western" education reform in the Progressive or late Victorian era, no one has examined the correspondence for evidence of the program's wider international appeal beyond Europe and North America. This paper fills this gap by examining the breadth of his reach through active correspondence with educators in Asia (Japan), South America (Brazil), and Africa (South Africa and Zimbabwe). As such, this research presents an opportunity to map the international communities of education reformers active at the turn of the last century, compare and contrast their understandings of and interpretations of "holistic" education, and reveal the ways manual formation was understood to be foundational to the healthy development of children.

Keywords: history of education, history of medicine and psychiatry, child health, child formation, internationalism

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Authors: Kevin Syam, Devendra K. Chauhan, Mandeep Singh Dhillon

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Background: The posterior horn of medial meniscus (PHMM) is a secondary stabilizer against anterior translation of tibia. Cadaveric studies have revealed increased strain on the ACL graft and greater instrumented laxity in Posterior horn deficient knees. Clinical studies have shown higher prevalence of radiological OA after ACL reconstruction combined with menisectomy. However, functional outcomes in ACL reconstructed knee in the absence of Posterior horn is less discussed, and specific role of posterior horn is ill-documented. This study evaluated functional and radiological outcomes in posterior horn preserved and posterior horn sacrificed ACL reconstructed knees. Materials: Of the 457 patients who had ACL reconstruction done over a 6 year period, 77 cases with minimum follow up of 18 months were included in the study after strict exclusion criteria (associated lateral meniscus injury, other ligamentous injuries, significant cartilage degeneration, repeat injury and contralateral knee injuries were excluded). 41 patients with intact menisci were compared with 36 patients with absent posterior horn of medial meniscus. Radiological and clinical tests for instability were conducted, and knees were evaluated using subjective International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) score and the Orthopadische Arbeitsgruppe Knie score (OAK). Results: We found a trend towards significantly better overall outcome (OAK) in cases with intact PHMM at average follow-up of 43.03 months (p value 0.082). Cases with intact PHMM had significantly better objective stability (p value 0.004). No significant differences were noted in the subjective IKDC score (p value 0.526) and the functional OAK outcome (category D) (p value 0.363). More cases with absent posterior horn had evidence of radiological OA (p value 0.022) even at mid-term follow-up. Conclusion: Even though the overall OAK and subjective IKDC scores did not show significant difference between the two subsets, the poorer outcomes in terms of objective stability and radiological OA noted in the absence of PHMM, indicates the importance of preserving this important part of the meniscus.

Keywords: ACL, functional outcome, knee, posterior of medial meniscus

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Authors: Carmen Pena-Díaz

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Linguistic and cultural difficulties regarding the access and use of public services, as well as facilitating communication at all levels, are problems which have not yet been tackled by authorities in Spain. In fact, linguistic and cultural issues are often not recognised as an integral part of migratory movements or social integration. While professionals of interlinguistic and intercultural communication (translators, interpreters, mediators) know that language and culture are key components to achieve immigrant integration and consolidate a truly multilingual society, policymakers at local, national, or supranational levels do not always seem aware of the risks and costs of not providing interpreting and translation services, particularly those affecting the health of users. Regarding the services currently used to cover the communication-related needs between the non-Spanish speaking population and healthcare professionals, evidence proves that there are no effective provisions for communication problems at present in Spanish hospitals. An example that suggests the poor management of the situation in relation to the migrants’ access to public healthcare is the fact that relying on a family member (often a minor) in medical consultations is one of the main practices that affects communication. At present, most medical professionals will explain that in their consultations with migrants who do not speak Spanish, they ask them to bring along a family member or friend who speaks Spanish. In fact, an abundant body of literature describes situations in which family members, children, friends, or anyone who speaks or understands a language helps to break language barriers in hospitals, not only in Spain. It is not difficult to see the problems this may cause, from ethical issues to comprehension problems and misunderstandings. This paper will present the results of Narrative Inquiry from a sample of eight clinicians about their perceptions and experiences using child language brokers in their appointments with non-Spanish speaking families. The main aim is to collect information about child language brokering as recalled and perceived by clinicians who present CLB as a routine practice and express their concerns and worries about using children to convey negative news to their parents or family members.

Keywords: child language brokering, community interpreting, healthcare, PSIT

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Authors: Hilal Al Shamsi, Abdullah Almutairi

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Introduction: As primary healthcare centres play an important role in implementing Saudi Arabia’s health strategy, this paper offers a review of publications on the quality of the country’s primary health care. With the aim of deciding on solutions for improvement, it provides an overview of healthcare quality in this context and indicates barriers to quality. Method: Using two databases, ProQuest and Scopus, data extracted from published articles were systematically analysed for determining the care quality in Saudi primary health centres and obstacles to achieving higher quality. Results: Twenty-six articles met the criteria for inclusion in this review. The components of healthcare quality were examined in terms of the access to and effectiveness of interpersonal and clinical care. Good access and effective care were identified in such areas as maternal health care and the control of epidemic diseases, whereas poor access and effectiveness of care were shown for chronic disease management programmes, referral patterns (in terms of referral letters and feedback reports), health education and interpersonal care (in terms of language barriers). Several factors were identified as barriers to high-quality care. These included problems with evidence-based practice implementation, professional development, the use of referrals to secondary care and organisational culture. Successful improvements have been implemented by other systems, such as mobile medical units, electronic referrals, online translation tools and mobile devices and their applications; these can be implemented in Saudi Arabia for improving the quality of the primary healthcare system in this country. Conclusion: The quality of primary health care in Saudi Arabia varies among the different services. To improve quality, management programmes and organisational culture must be promoted in primary health care. Professional development strategies are also needed for improving the skills and knowledge of healthcare professionals. Potential improvements can be implemented to improve the quality of the primary health system.

Keywords: quality, primary health care, Saudi Arabia, health centres, general medical

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Authors: Arvind Aggarwal

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We have developed a comprehensive global healthcare delivery System based on information technology. It has medical consultation system where a virtual consultant can give medical consultation to the patients and Doctors at the digital medical centre after reviewing the patient’s EMR file consisting of patient’s history, investigations in the voice, images and data format. The system has the surgical operation system too, where a remote robotic consultant can conduct surgery at the robotic surgical centre. The instant speech and text translation is incorporated in the software where the patient’s speech and text (language) can be translated into the consultant’s language and vice versa. A consultant of any specialty (surgeon or Physician) based in any country can provide instant health care consultation, to any patient in any country without loss of time. Robotic surgeons based in any country in a tertiary care hospital can perform remote robotic surgery, through patient friendly telemedicine and tele-surgical centres. The patient EMR, financial data and data of all the consultants and robotic surgeons shall be stored in cloud. It is a complete comprehensive business model with healthcare medical and surgical delivery system. The whole system is self-financing and can be implemented in any country. The entire system uses paperless, filmless techniques. This eliminates the use of all consumables thereby reduces substantial cost which is incurred by consumables. The consultants receive virtual patients, in the form of EMR, thus the consultant saves time and expense to travel to the hospital to see the patients. The consultant gets electronic file ready for reporting & diagnosis. Hence time spent on the physical examination of the patient is saved, the consultant can, therefore, spend quality time in studying the EMR/virtual patient and give his instant advice. The time consumed per patient is reduced and therefore can see more number of patients, the cost of the consultation per patients is therefore reduced. The additional productivity of the consultants can be channelized to serve rural patients devoid of doctors.

Keywords: e-health, telemedicine, telecare, IT-based healthcare

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Authors: Surbhi Surbhi, Andrea Erni, Gunter Meister, Harold Cremer, Christophe Beclin

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MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short 20-23 nucleotide long non-coding RNAs; there are 2605 miRNA in humans and 1936 miRNA in mouse in total (miRBase). The nervous system expresses the most abundant miRNA and most diverse. MiRNAs play a role in many steps during neurogenesis, like cell proliferation, differentiation, neural patterning, axon pathfinding, etc. Moreover, in vitro studies suggested a role in the regulation of local translation at the synapse, thus controlling neuronal plasticity. However, due to the specific structure of miRNA molecules, an in-vivo confirmation of the general role of miRNAs in the control of neuronal plasticity is still pending. For example, their small size and their high level of sequence homology make difficult the analysis of their cellular and sub-cellular localization in-vivo by in-situ hybridization. Moreover, it was found that only 40% of the expressed miRNA molecules in a cell are included in RNA-Induced Silencing Complexes (RISC) and, therefore, involved in inhibitory interactions while the rest is silent. Definitively, the development of new tools is needed to have a better understanding of the cellular function of miRNAs, in particular their role in neuronal plasticity. Here we describe a new technique called in-vivo AGO-APP designed to investigate miRNA expression and function in-vivo. This technique is based on the expression of a small peptide derived from the human RISC-complex protein TNRC6B, called T6B, which binds all known Argonaute (Ago) proteins with high affinity allowing the efficient immunoprecipitation of AGO-bound miRNAs. We have generated two transgenic mouse lines conditionally expressing T6B either ubiquitously in the cell or targeted at the synapse. A comparison of the repertoire of miRNAs immuno-precipitated from mature neurons of both mouse lines will provide us with a list of miRNAs showing a specific activity at the synapse. The physiological role of these miRNAs will be subsequently addressed through gain and loss of function experiments.

Keywords: RNA-induced silencing complexes, TNRC6B, miRNA, argonaute, synapse, neuronal plasticity, neurogenesis

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Authors: Dorottya Horváth, Andras Lang, Diana Varro-Horvath

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This research activity and study is part of a major research effort to gain an integrative, neuropsychological, and personality psychological understanding of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and thus improve the specification of diagnostic and therapeutic care. In the past, the neuropsychology section has investigated working memory, executive function, attention, and behavioural manifestations in children. Currently, we are looking for personality psychological protective factors for ADHD and its symptomatic exacerbation. We hypothesise that secure attachment, adaptive emotion regulation, and high resilience are protective factors. The aim of this study is to measure and report the results of a Hungarian sample of the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire for Children (CERQ-k) because before studying groups with different developmental differences, it is essential to know the average scores of groups with neurotypical devel-opment. Until now, there was no Hungarian version of the above test, so we used our own translation. This questionnaire has been developed to assess children's thoughts after experiencing negative life events. It consists of 4-4 items per subscale, for a total of 36 items. The response categories for each item range from 1 (almost never) to 5 (almost always). The subscales were self-blame, blaming others, acceptance, planning, positive refocusing, rumination or thought-focusing, positive reappraisal, putting into perspective, and catastrophizing. The data for this study were collected from 120 children aged 9-14 years. It was analysed using descriptive statistical analysis, where the mean and standard deviation values for each age group, as well as the Cronbach's alpha value, were significant in testing the reliability of the questionnaire. The results showed that the questionnaire is a reliable and valid measuring instrument also on a Hungarian sample. These developments and results will allow the use of a version of the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire for children in Hungarian and pave the way for the study of different developmental groups such as children with learning disabilities and/or with ADHD.

Keywords: neurotypical development, emotion regulation, negative life events, CERQ-k, Hungarian average scores

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Authors: German Hernandez-Alonso, Antonio Lazcano, Arturo Becerra

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Until today, viruses remain controversial and poorly understood; about their origin, this problem represents an enigma and one of the great challenges for the contemporary biology. Three main theories have tried to explain the origin of viruses: regressive evolution, escaped host gene, and pre-cellular origin. Under the perspective of the escaped host gene theory, it can be assumed a cellular origin of viral components, like protein RNA-binding domains. These universal distributed RNA-binding domains are related to the RNA metabolism processes, including transcription, processing, and modification of transcripts, translation, RNA degradation and its regulation. In the case of viruses, these domains are present in important viral proteins like helicases, nucleases, polymerases, capsid proteins or regulation factors. Therefore, they are implicated in the replicative cycle and parasitic processes of viruses. That is why it is possible to think that those domains present low levels of divergence due to selective pressures. For these reasons, the main goal for this project is to create a catalogue of the RNA-binding domains found in all the available viral proteomes, using bioinformatics tools in order to analyze its evolutionary process, and thus shed light on the general virus evolution. ProDom database was used to obtain larger than six thousand RNA-binding domain families that belong to the three cellular domains of life and some viral groups. From the sequences of these families, protein profiles were created using HMMER 3.1 tools in order to find distant homologous within greater than four thousand viral proteomes available in GenBank. Once accomplished the analysis, almost three thousand hits were obtained in the viral proteomes. The homologous sequences were found in proteomes of the principal Baltimore viral groups, showing interesting distribution patterns that can contribute to understand the evolution of viruses and their host-virus interactions. Presence of cellular RNA-binding domains within virus proteomes seem to be explained by closed interactions between viruses and their hosts. Recruitment of these domains is advantageous for the viral fitness, allowing viruses to be adapted to the host cellular environment.

Keywords: bioinformatics tools, distant homology, RNA-binding domains, viral evolution

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Authors: H. Haseena Banu, D. Karthick, R. Stalin, E. Nandha Kumar, T. P. Sachidanandam, P. Shanthi

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Background of the study: Type 2 diabetes is emerging as the predominant metabolic disorder in the world among adults characterized mainly by the resistance of the insulin sensitive tissues towards insulin followed by the decrease in the insulin secretion. The treatment for this disease usually involves treatment with oral synthetic drugs which are known to cause several side effects. Therefore, identification of new biomarkers as therapeutic target is the need of the hour. miRNAs are small, non–protein-coding RNAs that negatively regulate gene expression by promoting degradation and/or inhibit the translation of target mRNAs and have emerged as biomarkers in predicting diabetes mellitus. Objective of the study: To elucidate the therapeutic role of gallic acid in modulating the alterations in glucose metabolism induced by miRNAs 194 and 135a in Type 2 diabetic rats. Materials and Methods: T2D was induced in rats by feeding them with a high fat diet for 2 weeks followed by intraperitoneal injection of 35 mg/kg/body weight (b.wt.) of streptozotocin. Microarrays were used to assess the expression of miRNAs in control, diabetic and gallic acid treated rats. Gene expression studies were carried out by RT PCR analysis. Results: Forty one miRNAs were differentially expressed in Type 2 diabetic rats. Among these, the expression of miRNA 194 was significantly decreased whereas miRNA 135a was significantly increased in Type 2 diabetic rats. The glucose metabolism was also altered significantly in skeletal muscle of Type 2 diabetic rats. Conclusion: T2D is associated with alterations in the expression of miRNAs in skeletal muscle. Both these miRNAs 194 and 135a play an important role in glucose metabolism in skeletal muscle of diabetic rats. Gallic acid effectively ameliorated the alterations in glucose metabolism. Hence, both these miRNAs can serve as biomarkers and therapeutic targets in diabetes mellitus. The study also establishes the role of gallic acid as therapeutic agent. Acknowledgment: The financial assistance provided in the form of ICMR women scientist by ICMR DHR INDIA is gratefully acknowledged here.

Keywords: gallic acid, high fat diet, type 2 diabetes mellitus, miRNAs

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Authors: Lienjang Zeite

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Over the past few years, Turkish and Indian series have been distributed worldwide to countless households and have found ardent followers across different age group. The series have captured numerous hearts. Turkish and Indian series have become not only one of the best means of entertainment and relaxation but also a platform to learn and appreciate shared emotions and social messages. The popularity of the series has created a kind of interest in representing human emotions and stories like never before. The demands for such series have totally shifted the entertainment industry at a new level. The interest and vibe created by the series have had impacts on various departments spanning from technology to the fashion industry and it has also become the bridge to connect viewers across the globe. The series have amassed avid admirers who find solace in the beautiful visual representations of human relationships whether it is of lovers, family or friendship. The influence of Turkish and Indian series in many parts of the world has created a cultural phenomenon that has taken viewers beyond cultural and language differences. From China to Latin America, Arab countries and the Caucasus region, the series have been accepted and loved by millions of viewers. It has captivated audiences ranging from grandmothers to teenagers. Issues like language barrier are easily solved by means of translation or dubbing making it easier to understand and enjoy the series. Turkey and India are two different countries with their own unique culture and traditions. Both the countries are exporters of series in large scale. The series function as a platform to reveal the plots and shed lights on characters of all kinds. Both the countries produce series that are more or less similar in nature. However, there are also certain issues that are shown in different ways and light. The paper will discuss how emotions are represented in Turkish and Indian series. It will also discuss the ways the series have impacted the art of representing emotions and characters in the digital era. The representation of culture through Turkish and Indian series will be explored as well. The paper will also locate the issue of gender roles and how relationships are forged or abandoned in the series. The issue of character formation and importance of moral factors will be discussed. It will also examine the formula and ingredients of turning human emotions and characters into a much loved series.

Keywords: characters, cultural phenomenon, emotions, Turkish and Indian series

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Authors: Lim Pey Huan

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In the second half of the 19th century, Vietnam has long been influenced by Han culture, so there are many similarities in religion and folk beliefs. Even after the acceptance process of the Catholic Church introduced from Europe is quite similar. Therefore, in the spiritual life of Vietnamese civil society, Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, Islam, and folk beliefs can be said to be the main trend, but in the twentieth century, two indigenous new religions were born: Caodai and He Hao Jiao, both of which are produced and developed in the south, each of which has millions of believers and become important Vietnamese religions. Their political participation has a major impact on the development of the Republic of Vietnam, and their fate is also in the north and south. Significant changes have taken place after reunification. Caodai was later approved by the colonial authorities and became the third largest religion in Vietnam. The teachings of Caodai teach the ideas of the major religions of the world. The classics used in the teachings also contain important theories of various religions, with particular emphasis on the comprehensiveness of the three sects of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. The obvious manifestation lies in the interpretation of the important proposition of 'opening the three religions and returning to the five branches.' The full name of Caodaism is 'Da Dao San Qi Pu Du Gao Tai Jiao'. This name coincides with the 'Longhua Club' and the 'San Qi Mo Jie' idea and the consistent central idea. The emerging road of Caodai advocates to lead the sentient beings back to their original missions; the sentient beings will be centered on people, and the nature of the talks is nothing more than the original mission and standard. There are many opinions about the introduction of Caodaism into southern Vietnam. Caodai believers believe that Caodaism is an emerging new religion in Vietnam. If we further explore the teachings and religious rituals of Caodai, it is not difficult to find that many Chinese sects have been introduced to Vietnam. Some of the colors can be discussed from the spread and influence of Congenital Road in Vietnam. This article will present the author's analysis of the actual process of tutoring in Vietnam's Caodai, and then compare it with the consistent religious experience, trying to explore the Yi-Kuan-Tao and consistent Yi-Kuan-Tao rituals, religious organization, religious teachings, religious life care, and Funeral rituals and other comparative studies.

Keywords: Vietnam, Caodaism, Yi-Kuan-Tao, religious rituals

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Authors: Dejen Alemu, Murray E. Jennex, Temtim Assefa

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Agriculture is the mainstay of the Ethiopian economy; however, the sector is dominated by smallholder farmers resulting in land fragmentation and suffering from low productivity. Due to these issues, much effort has been put into the transformation of the sector to bring about more sustainable rural economic development. Technological advancements have been applied for the betterment of farmers resulting in the design of tools that are potentially capable of supporting the agricultural sector; however, their use and relevance are still alien to the local rural communities. The notion of the creating, capturing and sharing of knowledge has also been repetitively raised by many international donor agencies to transform the sector, yet the most current approaches to knowledge dissemination focus on knowledge that originates from the western view of scientific rationality while overlooking the role of indigenous knowledge (IK). Therefore, in agricultural knowledge management system (KMS) development, the integration of IKS with scientific knowledge is a critical success factor. The present study aims to contribute in the discourse on how to best integrate scientific and IK in agricultural KMS development. The conceptual framework of the research is anchored in concepts drawn from the theory of situated learning in communities of practice (CoPs): knowledge brokering. Using the KMS development practices of Ethiopian agricultural transformation agency as a case area, this research employed an interpretive analysis using primary and secondary qualitative data acquired through in-depth semi-structured interviews and participatory observations. As a result, concepts are identified for understanding the integration of the two major knowledge systems (i.e., indigenous and scientific knowledge) and participation of relevant stakeholders in particular the local farmers in agricultural KMS development through the roles of extension agent as a knowledge broker including crossing boundaries, in-between position, translation and interpretation, negotiation, and networking. The research shall have a theoretical contribution in addressing the incorporation of a variety of knowledge systems in agriculture and practically to provide insight for policy makers in agriculture regarding the importance of IK integration in agricultural KMS development and support marginalized small-scale farmers.

Keywords: communities of practice, indigenous knowledge, knowledge management system development, knowledge brokering

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Authors: Arij Yehya, Suhaila Ghuloum, Abdlmoneim Abdulhakam, Azza Al-Mujalli, Mark Opler, Samer Hammoudeh, Yahya Hani, Sundus Mari, Reem Elsherbiny, Ziyad Mahfoud, Hassen Al-Amin

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Introduction: The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) is a valid instrument developed by Kay and colleagues6 to assess symptoms of patients with schizophrenia. It consists of 30 items that factor the symptoms into three subscales: positive, negative and general psychopathology. This scale has been translated and validated in several languages. Objective: This study aims to determine the validity and psychometric properties of the Arabic version of the PANSS. Methods: A standardized translation and cultural adaptation method was adopted. Patients diagnosed with schizophrenia (n=98), according to psychiatrist’s diagnosis based on DSM-IV criteria, were recruited from the Psychiatry Department at Rumailah Hospital, Qatar. A first rater confirmed the diagnosis using the Arabic version of Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI 6). A second and independent rater-administered the Arabic version of PANSS. Also, a control group (n=101), with no history of psychiatric disorder was recruited from the family and friends of the patients and from primary health care centers in Qatar. Results: There were more males than females in our sample of patients with schizophrenia (68.9% and 31.6%, respectively). On the other hand, in the control group the number of females outweighed that of males (58.4% and 41.6% respectively). The scale had a good internal consistency with Cronbach’s alpha 0.91. There was a significant difference between the scores on the three subscales of the PANSS. Patients with schizophrenia scored significantly higher (p<.0001) than the control subjects on subscales for positive symptoms 20.01(SD=7.21) and 7.30(SD=1.38), negative symptoms 18.89(SD=8.88) and 7.37(SD=2.38) and general psychopathology 34.41 (SD=11.56) and 16.93 (SD=3.93), respectively. Factor analysis and ROC curve were carried out to further test the psychometrics of the scale. Conclusions: The Arabic version of PANSS is a reliable and valid tool to assess both positive and negative symptoms of patients with schizophrenia in a balanced manner. In addition to providing the Arab population with a standardized tool to monitor symptoms of schizophrenia, this version provides a gateway to compare the prevalence of positive and negative symptoms in the Arab world which can be compared to others done elsewhere.

Keywords: Arabic version, assessment, diagnosis, schizophrenia, validation

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Authors: Jiaxin Chen

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Translations have been labeled as more simplified than non-translations, featuring less diversified and more frequent lexical items and simpler syntactic structures. Such simplified linguistic features have been identified in other bilingualism-influenced language varieties, including non-native and learner language use. Therefore, it has been proposed that translation could be studied within a broader framework of constrained language, and simplification is one of the universal features shared by constrained language varieties due to similar cognitive-physiological and social-interactive constraints. Yet contradicting findings have also been presented. To address this issue, this study intends to adopt Shannon’s entropy-based measures to quantify complexity in language use. Entropy measures the level of uncertainty or unpredictability in message content, and it has been adapted in linguistic studies to quantify linguistic variance, including morphological diversity and lexical richness. In this study, the complexity of lexical and syntactic choices will be captured by word-form entropy and pos-form entropy, and a comparison will be made between constrained and non-constrained language use to test the simplification hypothesis. The entropy-based method is employed because it captures both the frequency of linguistic choices and their evenness of distribution, which are unavailable when using traditional indices. Another advantage of the entropy-based measure is that it is reasonably stable across languages and thus allows for a reliable comparison among studies on different language pairs. In terms of the data for the present study, one established (CLOB) and two self-compiled corpora will be used to represent native written English and two constrained varieties (L2 written English and translated English), respectively. Each corpus consists of around 200,000 tokens. Genre (press) and text length (around 2,000 words per text) are comparable across corpora. More specifically, word-form entropy and pos-form entropy will be calculated as indicators of lexical and syntactical complexity, and ANOVA tests will be conducted to explore if there is any corpora effect. It is hypothesized that both L2 written English and translated English have lower entropy compared to non-constrained written English. The similarities and divergences between the two constrained varieties may provide indications of the constraints shared by and peculiar to each variety.

Keywords: constrained language use, entropy-based measures, lexical simplification, syntactical simplification

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Authors: Yee-Seul So, Guiseppe Ianiri, Alex Idnurm, Yong-Sun Bahn

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Tor1 is a serine/threonine protein kinase that is widely conserved across eukaryotic species. Tor1 was first identified in Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a target of rapamycin (TOR). The TOR pathway has been implicated in regulating cellular responses to nutrients, proliferation, translation, transcription, autophagy, and ribosome biogenesis. Here we identified two homologues of S. cerevisiae Tor proteins, CNAG_06642 (Tor1) and CNAG_05220 (Tlk1, TOR-like kinase 1), in Cryptococcus neoformans causing a life-threatening fungal meningoencephalitis. Both Tor1 and Tlk1 have rapamycin-binding (RB) domains but Tlk1 has truncated RB form. To study the TOR-signaling pathway in the fungal pathogen, we attempt to construct the tor1Δ and tlk1Δ mutants and phenotypically analyze them. Although we failed to construct the tor1Δ mutant, we successfully construct the tlk1Δ mutant. The tlk1Δ mutant does not exhibit any discernable phenotypes, suggesting that Tlk1 is dispensable in C. neoformans. The essentiality of TOR1 is independently confirmed by constructing the TOR1 promoter replacement strain by using a copper transporter 4 (CTR4) promoter and the TOR1/tor1 heterozygous mutant in diploid C. neoformans strain background followed by sporulation analysis. To further analyze the function of Tor1, we construct TOR1 overexpression mutant using a constitutively active histone H3 in C. neoformans. We find that the Tor1 overexpression mutant is resistant to rapamycin but the tlk1Δ mutant does not exhibit any altered resistance to rapamycin, further confirming that Tor1, but not Tlk1, is critical for TOR signaling. Furthermore, we found that Tor1 is involved in response to diverse stresses, including genotoxic stress, oxidative stress, thermo-stress, antifungal drug treatment, and production of melanin. To identify any TOR-related transcription factors, we screened C. neoformans transcription factor library that we constructed in our previous study and identified several potential downstream factors of Tor1, including Atf1, Crg1 and Bzp3. In conclusion, the current study provides insight into the role of the TOR signaling pathway in human fungal pathogens as well as C. neoformans.

Keywords: fungal pathogen, serine/threonine kinase, target of rapamycin, transcription factor

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Authors: Vaidehi Murarka, Sneha Mehta, Dishant Upadhyay

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Our project topic is “Alphabet Recognition using pixel probability distribution”. The project uses techniques of Image Processing and Machine Learning in Computer Vision. Alphabet recognition is the mechanical or electronic translation of scanned images of handwritten, typewritten or printed text into machine-encoded text. It is widely used to convert books and documents into electronic files etc. Alphabet Recognition based OCR application is sometimes used in signature recognition which is used in bank and other high security buildings. One of the popular mobile applications includes reading a visiting card and directly storing it to the contacts. OCR's are known to be used in radar systems for reading speeders license plates and lots of other things. The implementation of our project has been done using Visual Studio and Open CV (Open Source Computer Vision). Our algorithm is based on Neural Networks (machine learning). The project was implemented in three modules: (1) Training: This module aims “Database Generation”. Database was generated using two methods: (a) Run-time generation included database generation at compilation time using inbuilt fonts of OpenCV library. Human intervention is not necessary for generating this database. (b) Contour–detection: ‘jpeg’ template containing different fonts of an alphabet is converted to the weighted matrix using specialized functions (contour detection and blob detection) of OpenCV. The main advantage of this type of database generation is that the algorithm becomes self-learning and the final database requires little memory to be stored (119kb precisely). (2) Preprocessing: Input image is pre-processed using image processing concepts such as adaptive thresholding, binarizing, dilating etc. and is made ready for segmentation. “Segmentation” includes extraction of lines, words, and letters from the processed text image. (3) Testing and prediction: The extracted letters are classified and predicted using the neural networks algorithm. The algorithm recognizes an alphabet based on certain mathematical parameters calculated using the database and weight matrix of the segmented image.

Keywords: contour-detection, neural networks, pre-processing, recognition coefficient, runtime-template generation, segmentation, weight matrix

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Authors: Sultan Samah A. Alenezi

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Many EFL teachers are eager to look into the best way to suit the needs of their students in EFL writing courses. Numerous studies suggest that online blogging may present a social interaction opportunity for EFL writing students. Additionally, it can foster peer collaboration and social support in the form of scaffolding, which, when viewed from the perspective of socio-cultural theory, can boost social support and foster the development of students' writing abilities. This idea is based on Vygotsky's theories, which emphasize how collaboration and social interaction facilitate effective learning. In Saudi Arabia, students are taught to write using conventional methods that are totally under the teacher's control. Without any peer contact or cooperation, students are spoon-fed in a passive environment. This study included the cognitive processes of the genre-process approach into the EFL writing classroom to facilitate the use of internet blogging in EFL writing education. Thirty second-year undergraduate students from the Department of Languages and Translation at a Saudi college participated in this study. This study employed an action research project that blended qualitative and quantitative methodologies to comprehend Saudi students' perceptions and experiences with internet blogging in an EFL process-genre writing classroom. It also looked at the advantages and challenges people faced when blogging. They included a poll, interviews, and blog postings made by students. The intervention's outcomes showed that merging genre-process procedures with blogging was a successful tactic, and the Saudi students' perceptions of this method of online blogging for EFL writing were quite positive. The socio-cultural theory constructs that Vygotsky advocates, such as scaffolding, collaboration, and social interaction, were also improved by blogging. These elements demonstrated the improvement in the students' written, reading, social, and collaborative thinking skills, as well as their positive attitudes toward English-language writing. But the students encountered a variety of problems that made blogging difficult for them. These problems ranged from technological ones, such sluggish internet connections, to learner inadequacies, like a lack of computer know-how and ineffective time management.

Keywords: blogging, process-gnere approach, saudi learenrs, writing quality

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Authors: Daniela Brioschi, Rovilson Mafalda, Silvia Titotto

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In the present days, packages are considered a fundamental element in the commercialization of products and services. A good package is capable of helping to attract new customers and also increasing a product’s purchase intent. In this scenario, packaging design emerges as an important tool, since products and design of their packaging are so interconnected that they are no longer seen as separate elements. Packaging design is, in fact, capable of generating desire for a product. The packaging market for cosmetics, especially makeup market, has also been experiencing an increasing level of sophistication and requirements. Considering packaging represents an important link of communication with the final user and plays a significant role on the sales process, it is of great importance that packages accomplish not only with functional requirements but also with the visual appeal. One of the possibilities for the design of packages and, in this context, packages for make-up, is the bioinspired design – or biomimicry. The bio-inspired design presents a promising paradigm for innovation in both design and sustainable design, by using biological system analogies to develop solutions. It has gained importance as a widely diffused movement in design for environmentally conscious development and is also responsible for several useful and innovative designs. As eye mascara packages are also part of the constant evolution on the design for cosmetics area and the traditional packages present the disadvantage of product drying along time, this project aims to develop a new and innovative package for this product, by using a selected bioinspired design methodology during the development process and also suitable computational tools. In order to guide the development process of the package, it was chosen the spiral methodology, conceived by The Biomimicry Institut, which consists of a reliable tool, since it was based on traditional design methodologies. The spiral design comprises identification, translation, discovery, abstraction, emulation and evaluation steps, that can work iteratively as the process develops as a spiral. As support tool for packaging, 3D modelling is being used by the software Inventor Autodesk Inventor 2018. Although this is an ongoing research, first results showed that spiral methodology design, together with Autodesk Inventor, consist of suitable instruments for the bio-inspired design process, and also nature proved itself to be an amazing and inexhaustible source of inspiration.

Keywords: bio-inspired design, design methodology, packaging, cosmetics

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Authors: Kevin Kellner, Nga Lao, Orla Coleman, Paula Meleady, Niall Barron

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Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells are the prominent cell line used in biopharmaceutical production. To improve yields and find beneficial bioprocess phenotypes genetic engineering plays an essential role in recent research. The miR-23 cluster, specifically miR-24 and miR-27, was first identified as differentially expressed during hypothermic conditions suggesting a role in proliferation and productivity in CHO cells. In this study, we used sponge decoy technology to stably deplete the miRNA expression of the cluster. Furthermore, we implemented the CRISPR/Cas9 system to knockdown miRNA expression. Sponge constructs were designed for an imperfect binding of the miRNA target, protecting from RISC mediated cleavage. GuideRNAs for the CRISPR/Cas9 system were designed to target the seed region of the miRNA. The expression of mature miRNA and precursor were confirmed using RT-qPCR. For both approaches stable expressing mixed populations were generated and characterised in batch cultures. It was shown, that CRISPR/Cas9 can be implemented in CHO cells with achieving high knockdown efficacy of every single member of the cluster. Targeting of one miRNA member showed that its genomic paralog is successfully targeted as well. The stable depletion of miR-24 using CRISPR/Cas9 showed increased growth and specific productivity in a CHO-K1 mAb expressing cell line. This phenotype was further characterized using quantitative label-free LC-MS/MS showing 186 proteins differently expressed with 19 involved in proliferation and 26 involved in protein folding/translation. Targeting miR-27 in the same cell line showed increased viability in late stages of the culture compared to the control. To evaluate the phenotype in an industry relevant cell line; the miR-23 cluster, miR-24 and miR-27 were stably depleted in a Fc fusion CHO-S cell line which showed increased batch titers up to 1.5-fold. In this work, we highlighted that the stable depletion of the miR-23 cluster and its members can improve the bioprocess phenotype concerning growth and productivity in two different cell lines. Furthermore, we showed that using CRISPR/Cas9 is comparable to the traditional sponge decoy technology.

Keywords: Chinese Hamster ovary cells, CRISPR/Cas9, microRNAs, sponge decoy technology

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Authors: Samane Eftekhari Ranjbar

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Diabetes mellitus, a metabolic disorder characterized by elevated blood glucose levels, ranks among the leading causes of adult mortality. This study investigates the impact of an eight-week high-intensity interval training (HIIT) program combined with sodium nitrite supplementation on TNF- α, MURF1, and PI3K in a type 2 diabetes rodent model. Elevated TNF-α levels have been associated with insulin resistance, while MURF1 and PI3K play roles in muscle atrophy and insulin signaling pathways, respectively. In this experimental study, 15 eight-week-old rats from the Sara Laboratory Center in Tabriz were assigned to one of five groups: healthy control, diabetic control, diabetic with sodium nitrite supplementation, diabetic with eight weeks of intermittent exercise, and diabetic with eight weeks of interval training plus sodium nitrite supplementation. The HIIT protocol was designed to span eight weeks, with five weekly sessions at specified intensities and durations. Sodium nitrite, known for its vasodilatory and cytoprotective properties, was administered via injection. The findings revealed that the HIIT program and sodium nitrite supplementation influenced the examined biomarkers. ANOVA test outcomes indicated statistically significant differences in TNF- α (P=0.001), MURF1 (P=0.001), and PI3K (P=0.001) concentrations among the various groups. The healthy control group exhibited substantially decreased TNF- α, and MURF1 levels, as well as elevated PI3K levels compared to the diabetic control group. The exercise group, in conjunction with sodium nitrite supplementation, demonstrated a significant rise in PI3K levels (P=0.001) and a decline in TNF- α levels (P=0.018) relative to the diabetic control group. These results suggest that the combined intervention may help improve insulin sensitivity and reduce inflammation. However, MURF1 levels, which are related to muscle atrophy, showed no significant difference (P=0.24). In conclusion, in type 2 diabetic rats, an eight-week high-intensity interval training program with sodium nitrite supplementation does not affect MURF1 levels but does influence PI3K and TNF- α levels. This combination may hold potential for improving insulin sensitivity and reducing inflammation in type 2 diabetes patients, warranting further investigation and potential translation to human clinical trials.

Keywords: high-intensity interval training, sodium nitrate supplementation, type 2 diabetes, tumor necrosis factor-alpha, phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase, muscle RING-finger protein-1

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Authors: Angela Maria Fenu

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The aim of this study was to better characterize the nature of word association responses in people with aphasia. The participants selected for the experimental group were 4 individuals with mild Broca’s aphasia. The control group consisted of 51 cognitively intact age- and gender-matched individuals. The participants were asked to perform a word association task in which they had to say the first word they thought of when hearing each cue. The cue words (n= 16) were the translation in Italian of the set of English cue words of a published study. The participants from the experimental group were administered the word association test every two weeks for a period of two months when they received speech-language therapy A combination of analytical approaches to measure the data was used. To analyse different patterns of word association responses in both groups, the nature of the relationship between the cue and the response was examined: responses were divided into five categories of association. To investigate the similarity between aphasic and non-aphasic subjects, the stereotypy of responses was examined.While certain stimulus words (nouns, adjectives) elicited responses from Broca’s aphasics that tended to resemble those made by non-aphasic subjects; others (adverbs, verbs) showed the tendency to elicit responses different from the ones given by normal subjects. This suggests that some mechanisms underlying certain types of associations are degraded in aphasics individuals, while others display little evidence of disruption. The high number of paradigmatic associations given in response to a noun or an adjective might imply that the mechanisms, largely semantic, underlying paradigmatic associations are relatively preserved in Broca’s aphasia, but it might also mean that some words are more easily processed depending on their grammatical class (nouns, adjectives). The most significant variation was noticed when the grammatical class of the cue word was an adverb. Unlike the normal individuals, the experimental subjects gave the most idiosyncratic associations, which are often produced when the attempt to give a paradigmatic response fails. In turn, the failure to retrieve paradigmatic responses when the cue is an adverb might suggest that Broca’s aphasics are more sensitive to this grammatical class.The findings from this study suggest that, from research on word associations in people with aphasia, important data can arise concerning the specific lexical retrieval impairments that characterize the different types of aphasia and the various treatments that might positively influence the kinds of word association responses affected by language disruption.

Keywords: aphasia therapy, clinical linguistics, word-association behaviour, mental lexicon

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