showing 36 of ~574560 from 574555 documents
The Challenging Riddle about the Janus-Type Role of Hsp60 and Related Extracellular Vesicles and miRNAs in Carcinogenesis and the Promises of Its Sol…
2021
Hsp60 is one of the most ancient and evolutionarily conserved members of the chaperoning system. It typically resides within mitochondria, in which it contributes to maintaining the organelle’s proteome integrity and homeostasis. In the last few years, it has been shown that Hsp60 also occurs in other locations, intracellularly and extracellularly, including cytosol, plasma-cell membrane, and extracellular vesicles (EVs). Consequently, non-canonical functions and interacting partners of Hsp60 have been identified and it has been realized that it is a hub molecule in diverse networks and pathways and that it is implicated, directly or indirectly, in the development of various pathological co…
The impact of the coronavirus crisis on European societies. What have we learnt and where do we go from here? – Introduction to the COVID volume
2021
The coronavirus pandemic, which first impacted European societies in early 2020, has created a twofold crisis by combining a health threat with economic turmoil. While the crisis has affected all European societies very significantly, its impact varies across countries, social groups, and societal domains. In an effort to provide a first overview of the effect of the coronavirus crisis, in this editorial we discuss contributions of 58 papers published as part of this special issue. These early research papers illustrate the varied impact of the pandemic on various areas of social life. The first group of studies in this special issue analyzes the effect of the pandemic on social inequalitie…
Impeller optimization in crossflow hydraulic turbines
2021
Crossflow turbines represent a valuable choice for energy recovery in aqueducts, due to their constructive simplicity and good efficiency under variable head jump conditions. Several experimental and numerical studies concerning the optimal design of crossflow hydraulic turbines have already been proposed, but all of them assume that structural safety is fully compatible with the sought after geometry. We show first, with reference to a specific study case, that the geometry of the most efficient impeller would lead shortly, using blades with a traditional circular profile made with standard material, to their mechanical failure. A methodology for fully coupled fluid dynamic and mechanical …
Air traffic and contrail changes during COVID-19 over Europe: A model study
2021
The strong reduction of air traffic during the COVID-19 pandemic provides a test case for the relation between air traffic density, contrails, and their radiative forcing of climate change. Air traffic and contrail cirrus changes are quantified for a European domain for March to August 2020 and compared to the same period in 2019. Traffic data show a 72 % reduction in flight distance compared with 2019. This paper investigates the induced contrail changes in a model study. The contrail model results depend on various methodological details tested in parameter studies. In the reference case, the reduced traffic caused an even stronger reduction in contrail length, partly because the w…
Constraints on the Coupling between Axionlike Dark Matter and Photons Using an Antiproton Superconducting Tuned Detection Circuit in a Cryogenic Penn…
2021
We constrain the coupling between axionlike particles (ALPs) and photons, measured with the superconducting resonant detection circuit of a cryogenic Penning trap. By searching the noise spectrum of our fixed-frequency resonant circuit for peaks caused by dark matter ALPs converting into photons in the strong magnetic field of the Penning-trap magnet, we are able to constrain the coupling of ALPs with masses around $2.7906-2.7914\,\textrm{neV/c}^2$ to $g_{a\gamma}< 1 \times 10^{-11}\,\textrm{GeV}^{-1}$. This is more than one order of magnitude lower than the best laboratory haloscope and approximately 5 times lower than the CERN axion solar telescope (CAST), setting limits in a mass and cou…
Towards CCTV-aware Routing and Navigation for Privacy, Anonymity, and Safety - Feasibility Study in Jyväskylä
2021
AbstractIn order to withstand the ever-increasing invasion of privacy by CCTV cameras and technologies, on par CCTV-aware solutions must exist that provide privacy, safety, and cybersecurity features. We argue that a first important step towards such CCTV-aware solutions must be a mapping system (e.g., Google Maps, OpenStreetMap) that provides both privacy and safety routing and navigation options. Unfortunately, to the best of our knowledge, there are no mapping nor navigation systems that support CCTV-privacy and CCTV-safety routing options. At the same time, in order to move the privacy vs. safety debate related to CCTV surveillance cameras from purely subjective to data-driven and evide…
Diels–Alder reaction of β-fluoro-β-nitrostyrenes with cyclic dienes
2021
The Diels–Alder reaction of β-fluoro-β-nitrostyrenes with cyclic 1,3-dienes was investigated. A series of novel monofluorinated norbornenes was prepared in up to 97% yield. The reaction with 1,3-cyclohexadiene permits the preparation of monofluorinated bicyclo[2.2.2]oct-2-enes. The kinetic data of the reactions with 1,3-cyclopentadiene and 1,3-cyclohexadiene were used to calculate activation parameters. Furthermore, the synthetic utility of the cycloadducts obtained was demonstrated.
Voluntary Private Investments Role in Pension System in Latvia
2021
Pension systems have become one of the main priorities for the national governments. Developed countries population is getting older by putting the pressure on the state budgets and work age people tax load. The current pension system in Latvia performs according to regulation of state compulsory unfunded pension scheme since 1996 and regulation of the state funded or accumulated pension scheme since 2001. The third pension system pillar is private voluntary pension schemes realized in form of people contributions into pension funds and life insurance policies. Aim of the research – deeper analyses of voluntary private investments as the pension system part and its development challenges in…
Papilla preservation periodontal surgery in periodontal reconstruction for deep combined intra-suprabony defects. Retrospective analysis of a registr…
2021
Background Suprabony defects are the most prevalent defects and there is very little evidence on their treatment. This study aims to assess the effectiveness of papilla preservation periodontal surgery in the periodontal reconstruction of combined deep intra-suprabony defects. Material and Methods 20 patients with combined intrabony and supra-alveolar deep periodontal defects treated by papilla preservation periodontal surgery were analyzed. Defects were treated with enamel matrix derivate plus xenograft. Clinical recordings made before surgery and at 12 months. Results Papilla preservation periodontal surgery showed significant PPD reduction (4.4 ± 1.46 mm; p<0.001), clinical attachment ga…
Regional Development: The Importance of the Involvement of Inhabitants and Innovative Approaches in Management
2021
Innovation and an innovative approach in management, education and leadership have been changing over decades, according to the dynamic world we are living in. Changes start at an individual level, with the personality, and only those who have changed themselves can start to lead others towards global change. The Latvian National Development Plan defined aspects of polycentric development for all the regions of Latvia. Each region has resources, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, but human resources are the most important resource for change, creative ideas and sustainable development. The education system changes very slowly, from lecture learning to a more inclusive ‘learni…
Salivary Testosterone and Cortisol as Biomarkers for the Diagnosis of Sarcopenia and Sarcopenic Obesity in Community-Dwelling Older Adults
2021
Nowadays, the appearance of sarcopenia (S) or sarcopenic obesity (SO) is related to aging. According to the criteria of the European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People (EWGSOP), the feasibility of using salivary cortisol and testosterone levels was analyzed as diagnostic biomarkers of S or SO. One hundred and ninety non-institutionalized people aged &ge
MĪLENBAHA-ENDZELĪNA LATVIEŠU VALODAS VĀRDNĪCĀ IEKĻAUTĀS BĀRTAS IZLOKSNES LEKSIKAS VISPĀRĪGS RAKSTUROJUMS
2021
This article gives an insight into the vocabulary of one of the sub-dialects of the Central dialect of the Latvian language – namely, the sub-dialect spoken in Bārta, a place in South-Western Kurzeme. The focus of the article is on those lexical units of the Bārta sub-dialect that are included in one of the most important works of Latvian linguistics – the Latvian Language Dictionary (1923–1932) and it’s Appendix (1934–1946), compiled and published by Kārlis Mīlenbahs, Jānis Endzelīns and Edīte Hauzenberga. The material analyzed here is taken from the electronic version of the Latvian Language Dictionary (www.tezaurs.lv/mev). The vocabulary of the Bārta sub-dialect is represented there by a…
Zero-shot Semantic Segmentation using Relation Network
2021
Zero-shot learning (ZSL) is widely studied in recent years to solve the problem of lacking annotations. Currently, most studies on ZSL are for image classification and object detection. But, zero-shot semantic segmentation, pixel level classification, is still at its early stage. Therefore, this work proposes to extend a zero-shot image classification model, Relation Network (RN), to semantic segmentation tasks. We modified the structure of RN based on other state-of-the-arts semantic segmentation models (i.e. U-Net and DeepLab) and utilizes word embeddings from Caltech-UCSD Birds 200-2011 attributes and natural language processing models (i.e. word2vec and fastText). Because meta-learning …
Effect of Polarity of Solvent on Silanization of Halloysite Nanoclay Using (3-Glycidyloxy propyl) Trimethoxy Silane
2021
Abstract: The grafting of silane groups on clay surfaces has been recently investigated in order to fabricate versatile compounds with new potential applications in materials science and ecological engineering. This work explored the influence of variety of solvents with variable polarity on the silanization of halloysite nanoclay (HNT) surface by (3-Glycidyloxy propyl) trimethoxy silane. To this purpose, the functionalization of HNT by 3-Glycidyloxypropyltrimethoxysilane (GOPTMS) has been conducted in Ethanol (polar protic solvent), Tetrahydrofuran (THF) and Acetonitrile (polar aprotic solvents), and Hexane, 1,4-Dioxane and Toluene (non polar solvents). The silane grafted materials were ch…
Customer Views on Problems of Internet Shopping Using Mobile Devices: Results of Recent Survey
2021
Recent developments of information technologies have supported fast development of Internet shopping worldwide and also using mobile devices. Internet shopping creates convenience for customers, bigger selection of goods and services from one side, but also creates several challenges for companies as well as some problems for companies and customers from the other side. Active research on different aspects is done by businesses, academic researchers alone and in co-operation of business and academic researchers. The aim of research is to find recent ideas of customers on Internet shops and problems raised in Internet shopping using mobile devices and to compare the results with other countr…
Ecological correlates of Spanish preschoolers’ physical activity and sedentary behaviours during structured movement sessions
2021
From an ecological perspective that understands health behaviours to be the result of interactions between personal, psychosocial and environmental factors, different authors have described patterns and correlations between physical activity (PA) and sedentary behaviours (SB) in physical education (PE). However, to our knowledge there have been no systematic evaluations of the PA levels and patterns during structured movement sessions in preschool children in Spain. Therefore, the aims of this study were: (a) to identify the individual, social and environmental factors that influence PA levels and patterns during structured movement sessions; (b) to assess PA and SB levels during these ses…
Material Deprivation: a Case of Latvia
2021
Material deprivation has recently gained prominence as a topic of debate as its proliferation is raising throughout Europe in particular in the countries hit hardest by financial and economic turbulences what leads to the gap in material deprivation levels throughout Europe. The aim of the study is to analyze material deprivation in the regions of Latvia. Research methods used in preparation of the paper: scientific publication and previous conducted research results analysis, analysis of anonimised data of EU-SILC survey results and European Central Bank conducted survey on Household income and expenses survey results, results are compared with the results of other EU countries. Survey ano…
Caged Dexamethasone/Quercetin Nanoparticles, Formed of the Morphogenetic Active Inorganic Polyphosphate, are Strong Inducers of MUC5AC
2021
Inorganic polyphosphate (polyP) is a widely distributed polymer found from bacteria to animals, including marine species. This polymer exhibits morphogenetic as well as antiviral activity and releases metabolic energy after enzymatic hydrolysis also in human cells. In the pathogenesis of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the platelets are at the frontline of this syndrome. Platelets release a set of molecules, among them polyP. In addition, the production of airway mucus, the first line of body defense, is impaired in those patients. Therefore, in this study, amorphous nanoparticles of the magnesium salt of polyP (Mg-polyP-NP), matching the size of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, were pr…
Soil is the best testifier of the diachronous dawn of the Anthropocene
2021
Humans act at worldwide scale as a growing geomorphic agent since mid‐Holocene (8,200–4,200 y BP) through the pervasive impacts of domestication, deforestation, agriculture, urbanization, and mining. The concept of Anthropocene has been introduced exactly to indicate the timespan in which humans have joined with other natural forces in impacting the outermost shell of the planet and the biosphere. Soils, which are the Earth's skin, are sensitive archives of any major human‐induced local to global change. Especially when buried, soils can permanently preserve the primordial traces of a significant impact of man on the environment, which occurred at different times and rates in different area…
Filifactor alocis and Tumor Necrosis Factor-Alpha Stimulate Synthesis of Visfatin by Human Macrophages
2021
There is little known about the effect of the periodontopathogen Filifactor alocis on macrophages as key cells of the innate immune defense in the periodontium. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of F. alocis and additionally of the pro-inflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF&alpha
Web searches for anxiolytic drugs during the COVID-19 outbreak in the USA
2021
Several lines of evidence attest that the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is accompanied by a vast array of physiological problems in the community.1 Since the emergence or magnification of anxiety disorders in the general population has also been suggested during the COVID-19 outbreak,2 we aimed to provide further insights on this matter by performing an electronic search in Google Trends (Google Inc, Mountain View, CA, USA), using the terms corresponding to the most common anxiolytic medicines used in the USA (ie, ‘Alprazolam’, ‘Diazepam’, ‘Lorazepam’, and ‘Clonazepam’) along with their brand names (‘Xanax’, ‘Valium’, ‘Ativan’, and ‘Klonopin’, respectively), and setti…
Emotions and Activity Recognition System Using Wearable Device Sensors
2021
Nowadays machines have become extremely smart, there are a lot of existing services that seemed to be unexpectable and futuristic decades or even a few years ago. However, artificial intelligence is still far from human intelligence, machines do not have feelings, consciousness, and intuition. How can we help machines to learn about human feelings and understand their needs better? People take their devices wherever they go, what can devices tell us about their owners? Personal preferences and needs are dependent on emotional and situational contexts. Therefore, emotional and activity aware gadgets would be more intuitive and provide more appropriate information to users. Contemporary weara…
Combining Deroofing with LAight® Therapy for Long-Term Disease Control of Hurley Stage II Hidradenitis Suppurativa: Case Report
2021
There is an increasing consensus that the treatment of Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) significantly varies with the degree of inflammation and that treatment according to guidelines is not always successful. Here, we report the case of a 31-year-old male with widespread, highly inflammatory Hurley Stage II HS in multiple locations who failed to respond to any kind of established medical treatment, including biologics. As an alternative approach, Ustekinumab was maintained, and additionally the patient was treated with LAight therapy, a combination of intense pulsed light and radiofrequency. After 10 sessions, deroofing of multiple lesions was performed in a two-step process. After a few week…
Effects of Two Months of Very Low Carbohydrate Ketogenic Diet on Body Composition, Muscle Strength, Muscle Area, and Blood Parameters in Competitive …
2021
Background: Ketogenic diet (KD) is a nutritional approach that restricts daily carbohydrates, replacing most of the reduced energy with fat, while maintaining an adequate quantity of protein. Despite the widespread use of KD in weight loss in athletes, there are still many concerns about its use in sports requiring muscle mass accrual. Thus, the present study sought to investigate the influence of a KD in competitive natural body builders. Methods: Nineteen volunteers (27.4 ±
The Essential Oil Compositions of Three Teucrium Taxa Growing Wild in Sicily: HCA and PCA Analyses
2021
The chemical composition and the qualitative and quantitative variability of the essential oils of three taxa belonging to the Teucrium genus were studied. The investigated taxa, that grow wild in Sicily, were Teucrium flavum L. (section Chamaedrys (Mill.) Scheb.), Teucrium montanum and Teucrium capitatum L. of section Polium (Mill.) Scheb. Essential oils were extracted by hydrodistillation and analyzed by GC-MS. In total, 74 compounds were identified. Sesquiterpene hydrocarbons were found to be the main group for T. flavum (48.3%). T. capitatum consisted essentially of monoterpene hydrocarbons (72.7%), with &alpha
Aircraft-based observation of meteoric material in lower-stratospheric aerosol particles between 15 and 68° N
2021
We analyse aerosol particle composition measurements from five research missions between 2014 and 2018 to assess the meridional extent of particles containing meteoric material in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS). Measurements from the Jungfraujoch mountaintop site and a low-altitude aircraft mission show that meteoric material is also present within middle- and lower-tropospheric aerosol but within only a very small proportion of particles. For both the UTLS campaigns and the lower- and mid-troposphere observations, the measurements were conducted with single-particle laser ablation mass spectrometers with bipolar-ion detection, which enabled us to measure the chemical c…
Municipal Integrated Coastal Management Facilitation in Latvia: Piloting Public Multi-Thematical Monitoring
2021
This paper contains a pilot study on coastal values and potential means of determining and characterising them in the terms of coastal planning and management. The research case study took place in the coastal region of North East Latvia – in the municipality of Salacgriva. The municipality coast is very diverse: coastal access, landscape and the whole biogeography is changing very much along the whole 54 km, being also rich in various natural and cultural heritage assets. Such great coastal variety in the limits of one administrative territory does require very selective governance approaches and dynamic management to be realized by local administration, which has very limited necessary ca…
Importance of Webpage Content and Design for Higher Education Export
2021
Higher education export is gaining more and more importance taking into account international competition, the benefits offered by the industry and demographic changes in many countries – the number of local students is reducing due to low birth rates and extensive emigration of young people. There are many academic publications on several aspects related to higher education export. The aim of research is to analyse foreign students’ evaluation on the importance of different organisations’ (universities, agencies dealing with higher education export, ministries) webpage content and design for higher education export. Research methods used: scientific literature review analysis, evaluation o…
RNN- and LSTM-Based Soft Sensors Transferability for an Industrial Process
2021
The design and application of Soft Sensors (SSs) in the process industry is a growing research field, which needs to mediate problems of model accuracy with data availability and computational complexity. Black-box machine learning (ML) methods are often used as an efficient tool to implement SSs. Many efforts are, however, required to properly select input variables, model class, model order and the needed hyperparameters. The aim of this work was to investigate the possibility to transfer the knowledge acquired in the design of a SS for a given process to a similar one. This has been approached as a transfer learning problem from a source to a target domain. The implementation of a transf…
rac-11-Selena-12,13-diazabicyclo[10.3.0]pentadeca-10a(13a),12-dien-1-ol
2021
The title compound, C12H20N2OSe, crystallizes in strands of enantiomeric molecules connected via O—H...N hydrogen bonds. There are only slight deviations from an ideal gauche conformation in the decamethylene chain, indicating just a little strain.
Femtosecond‑LASIK outcomes using the VisuMax®‑MEL® 80 platform for hyperopia and hyperopic astigmatism refractive surgery
2021
The present study evaluated the efficacy, the safety and the predictability of the Femtosecond laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis (Femto-LASIK) procedure for hyperopia and hyperopic astigmatism. We retrospectively analyzed the postoperative 12-month evolution of 593 eyes with hyperopia and hyperopic astigmatism that underwent Femto-LASIK treatment. The procedure was predictable and effective. No eye lost 2 lines of corrected distance visual acuity (CDVA), demonstrating a safety profile of the procedure. Nine percent of the eyes gained at least one line of CDVA. The accuracy of the spherical equivalent after 12 months was 74% within ±1.0 diopter (D) of emmetropia. The refractive outcomes …
Family Context Assessment in Middle Childhood: A Tool Supporting Social, Educational, and Public Health Interventions
2021
Quality of the family context has an important role in the physical and mental health of children
COVID 19-Induced Smell and Taste Impairments: Putative Impact on Physiology
2021
This article is part of the Research Topic "The Tribute of Physiology for the Understanding of COVID-19 Disease".; International audience; Smell and taste impairments are recognized as common symptoms in COVID 19 patients even in an asymptomatic phase. Indeed, depending on the country, in up to 85-90% of cases anosmia and dysgeusia are reported. We will review briefly the main mechanisms involved in the physiology of olfaction and taste focusing on receptors and transduction as well as the main neuroanatomical pathways. Then we will examine the current evidences, even if still fragmented and unsystematic, explaining the disturbances and mode of action of the virus at the level of the nasal …
How Social Media Affect Youth Civic Participation in China
2021
This study is focused on social media in China and its influence on youth civic participation. In China, a trend of increasing usage of social media platforms has been observed, in particularly WeChat, Weibo, QQ, Douyin, and Meitu. The aim of this research is to explore the link between the use of these social media platforms and civic participation among the youth in China, specifically, whether social media platforms have positive effect on encouragement of youth civic participation. The use of social media platforms is measured by the number of social media accounts, the duration of usage of these accounts, and the average time spending on social media accounts weekly, while civic partic…
Childhood maltreatment, personality vulnerability profiles, and borderline personality disorder symptoms in adolescents.
2021
AbstractAdverse childhood experiences are significant risk factors in the development of adolescent borderline personality disorder symptoms (BPDs). Theorists have posited that two personality vulnerabilities factors, self-criticism and dependency, may inform our understanding of this relationship. However, no research has examined the associations between early negative experiences, personality vulnerabilities, and adolescent BPDs. The current study aimed to identify profiles of dependency and self-criticism to examine the associations of these profiles with cumulative forms of childhood maltreatment (CM) and BPDs as well as to explore the mediating and moderating role of vulnerable person…
The Blue Flag Programme AS Pro-Environmental Behaviour Instrument for Coastal Destinations: Towards Municipal Coastal Governance and Communication
2021
The research focuses on evaluation of the Blue Flag programme implementation in Latvia since the year 1998, when the programme’s operations started. It includes analysis and an overview of both the national and local level impacts and the results of the programme implementation. With regard to national level, approach and experience, the overview focuses on effectiveness and the role of the Blue Flag programme as a supporting instrument for successful implementation of environmental legislation. This programme is also analysed as a communication instrument in promoting environmental policies within 500 km long of coastline areas, which in Latvia are announced the national interest territori…