Milo Urban’s Journalist Writing and Memoirs on the Theme of the Holocaust (in Slovak literature)

The article discusses selected texts of different genres by Milo Urban (1904–1982). The first text level is represented by fragments from his memoirs written in the 1970s and only published in the 1990s. An analysis of Urban’s journalistic activities during the Second World War provides us with another point of view. The article wishes to show different language versions elaborated by one author when dealing with one particular historical moment (the solution of the Jewish question and the Holocaust). This points at a significant change in Urban’s attitude to historical tragedies of the 20th century, and raises the question about a personal tragedy of an individual as well as his ability to cope with guilt and responsibility.The article discusses selected texts of different genres by Milo Urban (1904–1982). The first text level is represented by fragments from his memoirs written in the 1970s and only published in the 1990s. An analysis of Urban’s journalistic activities during the Second World War provides us with another point of view. The article wishes to show different language versions elaborated by one author when dealing with one particular historical moment (the solution of the Jewish question and the Holocaust). This points at a significant change in Urban’s attitude to historical tragedies of the 20th century, and raises the question about a personal tragedy of an individual as well as his ability to cope with guilt and responsibility

A gazdasági válság hatása a vállalati stratégiákra – Magyar és szlovák tapasztalatok (Influence of the economic crisis on corporate strategy – Experiences in Hungary and Slovakia)

A tanulmány a jelenlegi gazdasági válság jellemzőit a vállalatok szintjén elemzi, továbbá vizsgálja annak következményeit a válság utáni lehetséges növekedésre. A tanulmány támaszkodik a nemzetközi szakirodalomban tárgyalt tapasztalatokra a válságokból való kilábalás példái alapján, amelyek a korábbi – 1980 és 2002 közötti – válságok során jelentkeztek. Magyarországi és szlovákiai empirikus vizsgálati tapasztalatok ismertetésére kerül sor arra vonatkozóan, hogy miként reagáltak a vállalatok a jelenlegi gazdasági recesszióra. A tanulmány elemzi a magyar és a szlovák vállalatok által a válság alatt követett stratégiák hatását a kereslet megélénkülése esetén adódó növekedési lehetőségek kihasználása szempontjából. A tanulmány illusztrációként bemutatja egy innovatív szlovákiai internetszolgáltató vállalat példáját. _______ The paper analyses the characteristics of the economic crisis at the level of companies, and the consequences for possibilities of growth after the crisis. The authors build on the experiences discussed in international literature concerning recovery after the previous crises between 1980 and 2002. The paper summarizes the empirical research findings on enterprise level reactions to the present economic recession. The focus of analysis is connected to the question of inluence of strategies on capabilities for realizing the growth options after the crisis. The paper – as an illustrative example – describes the strategic behaviour of an innovativ internet service company in Slovakia

Agyi receptor-rendszerek vizsgálata neurológiai kórképekben: speciális és hagyományos autoradiográfiás módszerek alkalmazása Parkinson-kórban, Alzheimer-kórban és az öregedés során = Brain receptor-systems in neurological disorders: special and conventional autoradiographic methods in investigation of Parkinson-disease, Alzheimer-disease and aging

Parkinson kórban a nucleus caudatusban a krónikus l-DOPA kezelésnek betudható csökkent dopamin D2/D3 receptor sűrűség mellett a receptor–G protein jelátvitel kontroll szinten marad, mely funkcionális kompenzáció megnyilvánulása lehet. A gyrus frontalis medialis és gyrus cinguli változatlan dopamin D2/D3 receptor denzitása és szenzitivitása alátámasztja a különböző agyi régiók eltérő mértékű érintettségét és az extrasztriatális tünetek fokozatos megjelenését a Parkinson kór progressziója során. Az új tipusú 125I-SD7015 CB1R ligand nagy érzékenységgel detektálta a CB1R sűrűségbeli különbségeket kontroll és Alzheimer kóros prefrontális minták között. Az Alzheimer kór (AK) korai stádiumaiban tapasztalt szignifikáns CB1R denzitás emelkedés a cannabinoid rendszer neurodegenerációra adott reaktív megnyilvánulása lehet, mely indokolja az AK Braak I-II neuropatológiai stádiumú agyminták kontrolltól különálló csoportba való sorolását. Az Alzheimer kóros prefrontális minták illetve Parkinson kóros putamen és nc caudatus minták esetében, a vizsgált betegségek végső stádiumaiban is ép CB1R populáció alternatív kezelési célpont lehet. Kálium-disztribuciós eljárással egyértelműen elkülöníthető az ischaemiás károsodást szenvedett agyterület az ép régióktól 100 µm vastagságú humán teljes hemispherium metszeteken. A módszer kombinálható a teljes féltekei autoradiográfiával és „térképként” szolgálhat a szomszédos agyterületekkel való összehasonlítás és agyszövet mintavétel során. | Despite the important reduction of dopamine (DA) D2/D3 binding sites in PD nucleus caudate, the increased sensitivity of the remained DA D2/D3 receptors maintains signal transduction effectiveness near to control levels, suggesting functional compensation of DA depletion. In PD middle frontal and cingulated gyrus DA D2/D3 receptor density and sensitivity were on control levels. This supports that dopaminergic neurotransmission of distinct PD brain regions is affected in different extent explaining the gradual appearance of extrastriatal symptoms during PD progression. The novel 125I-SD7015 radioligand (cannabinoid type-1 receptor - CB1R - agonist) detected with high precision CB1R density differences between control and AD prefrontal cortex specimens. In AD Braak I-II sample groups CB1R density was evidently above control levels, suggesting that Braak I-II samples should be studied separately from controls. During the whole progression of AD and PD CB1R densities in prefrontal cortex as well as putamen and nc caudate, respectively, remained on or above control levels showing that CB1R population could serve as alternative target for treatment. Potassium staining method unequivocally differentiated the infarcted brain areas from the intact regions in case of human whole hemisphere sections. This method can be combined with our autoradiographic techniques using whole hemisphere sections; this ’brainmap’ provides base of regional comparison and guide for targeted tissue sampling

Global Convergence of Arbitrary-Block Gradient Methods for Generalized Polyak-Łojasiewicz Functions

In this paper we introduce two novel generalizations of the theory for gradient descent type methods in the proximal setting. First, we introduce the proportion function, which we further use to analyze all known (and many new) block-selection rules for block coordinate descent methods under a single framework. This framework includes randomized methods with uniform, non-uniform or even adaptive sampling strategies, as well as deterministic methods with batch, greedy or cyclic selection rules. Second, the theory of strongly-convex optimization was recently generalized to a specific class of non-convex functions satisfying the so-called Polyak-{\L}ojasiewicz condition. To mirror this generalization in the weakly convex case, we introduce the Weak Polyak-{\L}ojasiewicz condition, using which we give global convergence guarantees for a class of non-convex functions previously not considered in theory. Additionally, we establish (necessarily somewhat weaker) convergence guarantees for an even larger class of non-convex functions satisfying a certain smoothness assumption only. By combining the two abovementioned generalizations we recover the state-of-the-art convergence guarantees for a large class of previously known methods and setups as special cases of our general framework. Moreover, our frameworks allows for the derivation of new guarantees for many new combinations of methods and setups, as well as a large class of novel non-convex objectives. The flexibility of our approach offers a lot of potential for future research, as a new block selection procedure will have a convergence guarantee for all objectives considered in our framework, while a new objective analyzed under our approach will have a whole fleet of block selection rules with convergence guarantees readily available

Pharmacological and Non-Pharmacological Recanalization Strategies in Acute Ischemic Stroke

According to the guidelines of the European Stroke Organization (ESO) and the American Stroke Association (ASA), acute stroke patients should be managed at stroke units that include well organized pre- and in-hospital care. In ischemic stroke the restoration of blood flow has to occur within a limited time window that is accomplished by fibrinolytic therapy. Newer generation thrombolytic agents (alteplase, pro-urokinase, reteplase, tenecteplase, desmoteplase) have shorter half-life and are more fibrin-specific. Only alteplase has Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for the treatment of acute stroke (1996). The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) trial proved that alteplase was effective in all subtypes of ischemic strokes within the first 3 h. In the European cooperative acute stroke study III trial, intravenous (IV) alteplase therapy was found to be safe and effective (with some restrictions) if applied within the first 3–4.5 h. In middle cerebral artery (MCA) occlusion additional transcranial Doppler insonication may improve the breakdown of the blood clot. According to the ESO and ASA guidelines, intra-arterial (IA) thrombolysis is an option for recanalization within 6 h of MCA occlusion. Further trials on the IA therapy are needed, as previous studies have involved relatively small number of patients (compared to IV trials) and the optimal IA dose of alteplase has not been determined (20–30 mg is used most commonly in 2 h). Patients undergoing combined (IV + IA) thrombolysis had significantly better outcome than the placebo group or the IV therapy alone in the NINDS trial (Interventional Management of Stroke trials). If thrombolysis fails or it is contraindicated, mechanical devices [e.g., mechanical embolus removal in cerebral ischemia (MERCI)- approved in 2004] might be used to remove the occluding clot. Stenting can also be an option in case of acute internal carotid artery occlusion in the future. An intra-aortic balloon was used to increase the collateral blood flow in the Safety and Efficacy of NeuroFlo(™) Technology in Ischemic Stroke trial (results are under evaluation). Currently, there is no approved effective neuroprotective drug

Importance Sampling for Minibatches

Minibatching is a very well studied and highly popular technique in supervised learning, used by practitioners due to its ability to accelerate training through better utilization of parallel processing power and reduction of stochastic variance. Another popular technique is importance sampling -- a strategy for preferential sampling of more important examples also capable of accelerating the training process. However, despite considerable effort by the community in these areas, and due to the inherent technical difficulty of the problem, there is no existing work combining the power of importance sampling with the strength of minibatching. In this paper we propose the first {\em importance sampling for minibatches} and give simple and rigorous complexity analysis of its performance. We illustrate on synthetic problems that for training data of certain properties, our sampling can lead to several orders of magnitude improvement in training time. We then test the new sampling on several popular datasets, and show that the improvement can reach an order of magnitude