Search results for "Issues"
showing 10 items of 669 documents
The Datafication of Hate: Expectations and Challenges in Automated Hate Speech Monitoring.
2020
Laaksonen, S-M.; Haapoja, J.; Kinnunen, T., Nelimarkka, M. & Pöyhtäri, R. (2020, accepted). . Frontiers in Big Data: Data Mining and Management / Critical Data and Algorithm Studies. doi:10.3389/fdata.2020.00003 Hate speech has been identified as a pressing problem in society and several automated approaches have been designed to detect and prevent it. This paper reports and reflects upon an action research setting consisting of multi-organizational collaboration conducted during Finnish municipal elections in 2017, wherein a technical infrastructure was designed to automatically monitor candidates' social media updates for hate speech. The setting allowed us to engage in a 2-fold investiga…
Collective agency and the concept of ‘public’ in public involvement: A practice-oriented analysis
2016
Background Public involvement activities are promoted as measures for ensuring good governance in challenging fields, such as biomedical research and innovation. Proponents of public involvement activities include individual researchers as well as non-governmental and governmental organizations. However, the concept of ‘public’ in public involvement deserves more attention by researchers because it is not purely theoretical: it has important practical functions in the guidance, evaluation and translation of public involvement activities. Discussion This article focuses on collective agency as one property a public as a small group of participants in a public involvement activity could exhib…
From Online Role-Play to Written Argumentation
2010
This chapter reports on a teaching experiment conducted during a blended learning course in social work in a Finnish university of applied sciences (polytechnic). The aim was to investigate how students’ multidimensional understanding of social problems could be fostered. As argumentative methods, the study used writing tasks, online role-play, and drama work. The data consisted of essays written by 65 students (experimental group 29; controls 36) in each of three phases, plus online discussions. The essays were based on 1) the students’ personal experiences, 2) general facts, and 3) a fictional case taken from the online role-play. Varying the focus of the writing task affected students’ s…
The effects of alpha-cypermethrin exposure on biochemical and redox parameters in pregnant rats and their newborns
2016
IF 2.388; International audience; Pyrethroid insecticides are extensively used in agriculture and in household activities. During pregnancy, they might affect maternal metabolic status and there after fetal development. In this work, we studied metabolic and redox effects of low dose alpha-cypermethrin exposure in pregnant rats and their offspring. The diet containing alpha cypermethrin at 0.02 mg/kg/day was consumed during the entire gestation. Plasma biochemical parameters as well as liver lipid and oxidative stress markers were determined. Our results showed that alpha-cypermethrin induced an increase in body weight and in plasma glucose and lipid levels, as well as in plasma aspartate a…
Evidence for hypothalamic ketone bodies sensing: impact on food intake and peripheral metabolic responses in mice
2016
Monocarboxylates have been implicated in the control of energy homeostasis. Among them, the putative role of ketone bodies produced notably during high-fat diet (HFD) has not been thoroughly explored. In this study, we aimed to determine the impact of a specific rise in cerebral ketone bodies on food intake and energy homeostasis regulation. A carotid infusion of ketone bodies was performed on mice to stimulate sensitive brain areas for 6 or 12 h. At each time point, food intake and different markers of energy homeostasis were analyzed to reveal the consequences of cerebral increase in ketone body level detection. First, an increase in food intake appeared over a 12-h period of brain keton…
Defining substance use disorders: do we really need more than heavy use?
2013
Aims: The aim of the study was to explore whether the concept of heavy substance use over time can be used as definition of substance use disorder. Methods: Narrative review. Results: Heavy use over time clearly underlies the neurobiological changes asso- ciated with current thinking of substance use disorders. In addition, there is evidence that heavy use over time can explain the majority of social problems and of burden of disease (morbidity and mortality). A definition of substance use disorders via heavy use over time would avoid some of the problems of current conceptualizations, for instance the cultural specificity of concepts such as loss of control. Finally, stressing the continuu…
Large-scale proteomic identification of S100 proteins in breast cancer tissues
2010
Abstract Background Attempts to reduce morbidity and mortality in breast cancer is based on efforts to identify novel biomarkers to support prognosis and therapeutic choices. The present study has focussed on S100 proteins as a potentially promising group of markers in cancer development and progression. One reason of interest in this family of proteins is because the majority of the S100 genes are clustered on a region of human chromosome 1q21 that is prone to genomic rearrangements. Moreover, there is increasing evidence that S100 proteins are often up-regulated in many cancers, including breast, and this is frequently associated with tumour progression. Methods Samples of breast cancer t…
The emergence of Vibrio pathogens in Europe : ecology, evolution, and pathogenesis (Paris, 11-12th March 2015)
2015
Global change has caused a worldwide increase in reports of Vibrio-associated diseases with ecosystem-wide impacts on humans and marine animals. In Europe, higher prevalence of human infections followed regional climatic trends with outbreaks occurring during episodes of unusually warm weather. Similar patterns were also observed in Vibrio-associated diseases affecting marine organisms such as fish, bivalves and corals. Basic knowledge is still lacking on the ecology and evolutionary biology of these bacteria as well as on their virulence mechanisms. Current limitations in experimental systems to study infection and the lack of diagnostic tools still prevent a better understanding of Vibrio…
Methods of in vitro toxicology
2002
In vitro methods are common and widely used for screening and ranking chemicals, and have also been taken into account sporadically for risk assessment purposes in the case of food additives. However, the range of food-associated compounds amenable to in vitro toxicology is considered much broader, comprising not only natural ingredients, including those from food preparation, but also compounds formed endogenously after exposure, permissible/authorised chemicals including additives, residues, supplements, chemicals from processing and packaging and contaminants. A major promise of in vitro systems is to obtain mechanism-derived information that is considered pivotal for adequate risk asses…
Distributions of oxygen, nutrient, and metabolic waste concentrations in multicellular spheroids and their dependence on spheroid parameters.
1991
The distribution of oxygen, nutrients and metabolic wastes in multicellular tumor spheroids and its dependence on the parameters characterizing the spheroid (i.e., spheroid geometry, diffusivity, and consumption/production rates of biological substances) have been investigated by a theoretical analysis: 1. Parameter dependence is qualitatively demonstrated and visualized. 2. Reduction of the number of variables by specific coordinate transformations made it possible to generate nomograms from which concentration distributions for any choice of parameter values may easily be obtained. In particular, these nomograms may also be used for estimating concentration profiles of metabolic waste pro…