Cardiac progenitor cells. The matrix has you

Components of the cardiac extracellular matrix (ECM) are synthesized by residing cells and are continuously remodeled by them. Conversely, residing cells (including primitive cells) receive constant biochemical and mechanical signals from the ECM that modulate their biology. The pathological progression of heart failure affects all residing cells, inevitably causing profound changes in ECM composition and architecture that, in turn, impact on cell phenotypes. Any regenerative medicine approach must aim at sustaining microenvironment conditions that favor cardiogenic commitment of therapeutic cells and minimize pro-fibrotic signals, while conversely boosting the capacity of therapeutic cells to counteract adverse remodeling of the ECM. In this Perspective article, we discuss multiple issues about the features of an optimal scaffold for supporting cardiac tissue engineering strategies with cardiac progenitor cells, and, conversely, about the possible antifibrotic mechanisms induced by cell therapy

Women's Migration, Urban Poverty and Child Health in Rajasthan

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Random correspndences as bundles of random variables.

We prove results that relate random correspondences with their measurable selections, thus providing a foundation for viewing random correspondences as "bundles" of random variables.

The grammar of justification: the doctrines of Peter Martyr Vermigli and John Henry Newman and their ecumenical implications

This thesis analyzes the doctrines of justification in the Roman Catholic John Henry Newman (1801‐1890) and the Reformed Protestant Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499‐1562), examining their historical contexts and respective works. Recognition of their common concerns, common commitments, different commitments, and different conclusions provide insight into agreements and variences between Roman Catholics and Reformed Protestants in contemporary ecumenical dialogue. We conclude that many of the classic discrepencies between Roman Catholics and Reformed Protestants are not as irreconcilable as they may appear at first glance. We recognize, for example, a common commitment to union with Christ by the Holy Spirit, a union that imparts twofold righteousness by divine initiative. This righteousness grows in an internal habit of grace, producing virtue as it reaches toward holiness. Such works are a necessary part of justification, which pleases God and receives his favor in the form of rewards. Despite this convergence, however, some irreconcilable differences remain. Most fundamental is the question of justification’s formal cause, whether divine forgiveness is ultimately based upon an internal work of the Spirit or the forensic imputation of Christ’s righteousness. There is also the basic difference of how righteousness is appropriated, by means of faith alone through the sacrament of baptism. Finally, there is disagreement over perseverance of faith, whether Christians are eternally secure in their justification. In addition to advancing scholarship on several issues associated with Newman’s and Vermigli’s doctrines of justification and illuminating reasons and attendant circumstances for conversion across the Tiber, the overall conclusions of this study offer a broader range of soteriological possibilities to ecumenical dialogue among Roman Catholics and Protestants by clarifying the common ground to which both traditions may lay claim

On a Centrality Maximization Game

The Bonacich centrality is a well-known measure of the relative importance of nodes in a network. This notion is, for example, at the core of Google's PageRank algorithm. In this paper we study a network formation game where each player corresponds to a node in the network to be formed and can decide how to rewire his m out-links aiming at maximizing his own Bonacich centrality, which is his utility function. We study the Nash equilibria (NE) and the best response dynamics of this game and we provide a complete classification of the set of NE when m=1 and a fairly complete classification of the NE when m=2. Our analysis shows that the centrality maximization performed by each node tends to create undirected and disconnected or loosely connected networks, namely 2-cliques for m=1 and rings or a special "Butterfly"-shaped graph when m=2. Our results build on locality property of the best response function in such game that we formalize and prove in the paper.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figure

3-D Hand Pose Estimation from Kinect's Point Cloud Using Appearance Matching

We present a novel appearance-based approach for pose estimation of a human hand using the point clouds provided by the low-cost Microsoft Kinect sensor. Both the free-hand case, in which the hand is isolated from the surrounding environment, and the hand-object case, in which the different types of interactions are classified, have been considered. The hand-object case is clearly the most challenging task having to deal with multiple tracks. The approach proposed here belongs to the class of partial pose estimation where the estimated pose in a frame is used for the initialization of the next one. The pose estimation is obtained by applying a modified version of the Iterative Closest Point (ICP) algorithm to synthetic models to obtain the rigid transformation that aligns each model with respect to the input data. The proposed framework uses a "pure" point cloud as provided by the Kinect sensor without any other information such as RGB values or normal vector components. For this reason, the proposed method can also be applied to data obtained from other types of depth sensor, or RGB-D camera

Semantic Cross-View Matching

Matching cross-view images is challenging because the appearance and viewpoints are significantly different. While low-level features based on gradient orientations or filter responses can drastically vary with such changes in viewpoint, semantic information of images however shows an invariant characteristic in this respect. Consequently, semantically labeled regions can be used for performing cross-view matching. In this paper, we therefore explore this idea and propose an automatic method for detecting and representing the semantic information of an RGB image with the goal of performing cross-view matching with a (non-RGB) geographic information system (GIS). A segmented image forms the input to our system with segments assigned to semantic concepts such as traffic signs, lakes, roads, foliage, etc. We design a descriptor to robustly capture both, the presence of semantic concepts and the spatial layout of those segments. Pairwise distances between the descriptors extracted from the GIS map and the query image are then used to generate a shortlist of the most promising locations with similar semantic concepts in a consistent spatial layout. An experimental evaluation with challenging query images and a large urban area shows promising results

External Democracy Promotion in Time of Democratic Crisis: Linkage, Leverage, and Domestic Actors’ Diversionary Behaviours

Since the 1990s, the literature on External Democracy Promotion (EDP) expanded exponentially. Despite widely supported conclusions on EDP (in)effectiveness in fostering democratization and preventing democratic backsliding are still lacking, the literature has generated sophisticated explanations of these processes. Among them, Levitsky and Way’s (L&W’s) linkage and leverage theory stands out as one of the most influential. According to Tolstrup, however, their underestimation of domestic agency constitutes a crucial lacuna, which he proposes to fill through the concept of “Gatekeeping Elite” that underlines a significant impact of local actors on the linkage dimension and, consequently, on EDP (in)effectiveness. I believe that Tolstrup’s intuition can be further developed, expanding even more the explanatory power of L&W’s theory. I claim that domestic actors may exert a crucial influence also on the leverage dimension, thanks to “diversionary behaviours” that local elites may use to change external actors’ interests and preferences, persuading them to limit their democratizing pressures and thus reduce their own vulnerability to EDP processes. To assess the plausibility of this claim, I perform a congruence analysis on the recent and crucial case of autocratization in Serbia (EU candidate country), which is not fully explained by the aforementioned models.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio