Freire re-viewed

The work of Paulo Freire is associated with themes of oppression and liberation, and his critical pedagogy is visionary in its attempts to bring about social transformation. Freire has created a theory of education that embeds these issues within social relations that center around both ideological and material domination. In this review essay, Sue Jackson explores three books: Freire’s final work Pedagogy of Indignation; Cesar Augusto Rossatto’s Engaging Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of Possibility, which attempts to engage Freire’s pedagogy of possibility; and C.A. Bowers and Frederique Apffel-Marglin’s edited collection Re-thinking Freire, which asks readers to reconsider Freire’s work in light of globalization and environmental crises. Jackson questions the extent to which Freire’s pedagogical approaches are useful to educators as well as to “the oppressed,” and whether challenges to re-think Freire can lead to new kinds of critical pedagogies

Precomputing Process Noise Covariance for Onboard Sequential Filters

Process noise is often used in estimation filters to account for unmodeled and mismodeled accelerations in the dynamics. The process noise covariance acts to inflate the state covariance over propagation intervals, increasing the uncertainty in the state. In scenarios where the acceleration errors change significantly over time, the standard process noise covariance approach can fail to provide effective representation of the state and its uncertainty. Consider covariance analysis techniques provide a method to precompute a process noise covariance profile along a reference trajectory, using known model parameter uncertainties. The process noise covariance profile allows significantly improved state estimation and uncertainty representation over the traditional formulation. As a result, estimation performance on par with the consider filter is achieved for trajectories near the reference trajectory without the additional computational cost of the consider filter. The new formulation also has the potential to significantly reduce the trial-and-error tuning currently required of navigation analysts. A linear estimation problem as described in several previous consider covariance analysis publications is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the precomputed process noise covariance, as well as a nonlinear descent scenario at the asteroid Bennu with optical navigation

Vascular Insulin Resistance May Contribute to Health Disparities in People from the Rio Grande Valley

Microvascular blood flow (MBF) increases postprandially in skeletal muscle in response to insulin to aid in myocyte glucose delivery. This MBF response is considered a measure of vascular insulin resistance and can be impaired with altered meal composition, obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), and insulin resistance. Current studies indicate this MBF response to a mixed meal challenge (MMC) may identify vascular insulin resistance before typically-presenting serum biomarkers of insulin resistance, as it displays more sensitivity than when using an oral glucose challenge (OGC). However, it is unknown if healthy adults residing in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV), an area with a 3x higher prevalence of T2DM vs the national average, demonstrate impaired MBF responses similar to those seen in overt insulin resistance. PURPOSE: To determine microvascular responses in apparently healthy individuals of the RGV between OGC and MMC. METHODS: 17 healthy participants from the RGV (age 25±6 yrs, BMI 25±3 kg/m2, fat mass % 29±9%, and android fat % 31±10.4%) without hypertension, T2DM, or dyslipidemia were administered a MMC and OGC on two separate occasions. Forearm skeletal muscle MBF (measured as acoustic intensity/second (AI/s)) was recorded pre- and 1-hour postprandial via contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEU). RESULTS: MMC pre- vs. post-prandial demonstrated a 0.59 fold reduction (1.6101 vs. 0.6548 AI/s, 95% CI [-.2871, 3.5073] and [0.887, 1.2209], respectively). OGC pre- vs. post-prandial MBF had a 0.18 fold reduction (1.6734 vs. 1.3693 AI/s, 95% CI [.3755, 2.9714] and [.4725, 2.2661], respectively). MBF in skeletal muscle demonstrated no significant difference between MMC and OGC groups (Mean square= 2.378, F(1, 48) = .320, p = 0.574). CONCLUSION: Unlike healthy Caucasians, apparently healthy residents of the RGV display impaired microvascular responses to MMC, similar to using an OGC, suggesting early vascular insulin resistance. As this population displays significant health disparities for chronic diseases such as T2DM, obesity, and Alzheimer’s, it is plausible that early vascular insulin resistance noted in this population significantly contributes to the increased incidence of these chronic diseases. Additional research is needed to identify mechanisms explaining this population\u27s etiology of impaired MBF responses and vascular insulin resistance

A review of cytokine-based pathophysiology of Long COVID symptoms

The Long COVID/Post Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC) group includes patients with initial mild-to-moderate symptoms during the acute phase of the illness, in whom recovery is prolonged, or new symptoms are developed over months. Here, we propose a description of the pathophysiology of the Long COVID presentation based on inflammatory cytokine cascades and the p38 MAP kinase signaling pathways that regulate cytokine production. In this model, the SARS-CoV-2 viral infection is hypothesized to trigger a dysregulated peripheral immune system activation with subsequent cytokine release. Chronic low-grade inflammation leads to dysregulated brain microglia with an exaggerated release of central cytokines, producing neuroinflammation. Immunothrombosis linked to chronic inflammation with microclot formation leads to decreased tissue perfusion and ischemia. Intermittent fatigue, Post Exertional Malaise (PEM), CNS symptoms with "brain fog," arthralgias, paresthesias, dysautonomia, and GI and ophthalmic problems can consequently arise as result of the elevated peripheral and central cytokines. There are abundant similarities between symptoms in Long COVID and myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). DNA polymorphisms and viral-induced epigenetic changes to cytokine gene expression may lead to chronic inflammation in Long COVID patients, predisposing some to develop autoimmunity, which may be the gateway to ME/CFS

Adaptations to tree-gouging in the anterior masticatory apparatus of marmosets (callithrix) [abstract]

Although all genera of Callitrichinae engage in exudativory to some degree, marmosets (Callithrix, Cebuella) take advantage of exudates to the greatest extent. To facilitate exudate feeding, marmosets use their anterior teeth to gouge holes in bark and actively stimulate gum flow. As such, their anterior mandibular teethpossess specialized adaptations such as thickened labial enamel. Marmosets alsoshow masticatory features that facilitate increased gape, but do not appear to generate relatively large bite forces during gouging. However, even without increased bite force the anterior teeth of gougers likely experience different loading patternscompared to non-gouging platyrrhines. Specifically, one might expect that theanterior teeth and symphysis of marmosets are adapted to accommodate relatively high stresses linked to dissipating forces from yield-resistant and tough tree barks. This study uses histological data from thin- sectioned teeth, microCT data of jaws and teeth, and macroscale tests of simulated symphyseal loads to compare the micro- and macro-architecture of the anterior masticatory apparatus in Callithrix and Saguinus (as well as the outgroup Saimiri). Callithrix differs from the other genera in that its canine enamel possesses a much higher degree of decussation, and its anterior tooth roots are larger relative to alveolar bone volume. However, simulated jaw loading suggests a reduced ability to withstand external forces in the marmoset symphysis. The contrast between increased load-resistance ability in the anterior dentition versus relatively reduced symphyseal strength suggests both a potentially complex loading environment during gouging and a mosaic pattern of dentofacial adaptations to this derived biting behavior

Novel approach to semi-supervised relation extraction in medical language

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 67-69).We address the problem of weakly-supervised relation extraction in hospital discharge summaries. Sentences with pre-identified concept types (for example: medication, test, problem, symptom) are labeled with the relationship between the concepts. We present a novel technique for weakly-supervised bootstrapping of a classifier for this task: Groundtruth Budgeting. In the case of highly-overlapping, self-similar datasets as is the case with the 2010 i2b2/VA challenge corpus, the performance of classifiers on the minority classes is often poor. To address this we set aside a random portion of the groundtruth at the beginning of bootstrapping which will be gradually added as the classifier is bootstrapped. The classifier chooses groundtruth samples to be added by measuring the confidence of its predictions on them and choosing samples for which it has the least confident predictions. By adding samples in this fashion, the classifier is able to increase its coverage of the decision space while not adding too many majority-class examples. We evaluate this approach on the 2010 i2b2/VA challenge corpus containing of 477 patient discharge summaries and show that with a training corpus of 349 discharge summaries, budgeting 10% of the corpus achieves equivalent results to a bootstrapping classifier starting with the entire corpus. We compare our results to those of other papers published in the proceedings of the 2010 Fourth i2b2/VA Shared-Task and Workshop.by Russell J. Ryan.M.Eng

Cardiovascular Responses Differ Between Different Orders of Upper- and Lower-Body Resistance Exercise

Upper-body resistance exercise (RE) induces different cardiovascular responses compared to lower-body RE. However, combination of upper- and lower-body RE with different orders on cardiovascular responses are unclear. PURPOSE: To evaluate the effects of different orders of upper-and lower-body RE on cardiovascular responses in active men. METHODS: Thirteen active men (22±2 years old) participated in the study. Heart rate (HR), systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP), cardiac output (CO), stroke volume (SV), and total peripheral resistance (TPR) were assessed at rest, 15-20 (R1), and 25-30 (R2) minutes after performing upper- and lower-body RE (UL) or lower- and upper-body RE (LU) for 3 sets of 10 repetitions at 75% 1-repetition maximum with 90-second and 2-minute rests between sets and exercises, respectively. The upper-body RE consisted of pulldown and chest press while lower-body RE consisted of knee extension and knee flexion. A repeated measures ANOVA was used to evaluate the conditions (UL, LU) across time (rest, R1, R2) on cardiovascular responses. RESULTS: There were time-by-condition interactions (p\u3c0.05) for CO and SV such that CO was significantly elevated at R1 and R2 after UL and LU compared to rest while UL had higher CO compared to LU at R1 (UL: rest: 5.68±0.99 L/min; R1: 9.09±1.44 L/min; R2: 7.65±1.87 L/min; and LU: rest: 5.55±0.78 L/min; R1: 8.14±1.65 L/min; R2: 7.23±1.76 L/min). SV was significantly increased after UL at R1 compared to rest and LU (UL: rest: 85.2±16.5 ml/beat; R1: 90.9±14.3 ml/beat; R2: 81.8±18.8 ml/beat; and LU: rest: 84.7±12.7 ml/beat; R1: 83.0±13.9 ml/beat; R2: 78.6±16.2 ml/beat). TPR was significantly (p\u3c0.001) reduced at R1 and R2 compared to rest after UL and LU with greater reduction after UL compared to LU (UL: rest: 0.96±0.27 mmHg•min/L; R1: 0.53±0.16 mmHg•min/L; R2: 0.68±0.22 mmHg•min/L; and LU: rest: 1.03±0.33 mmHg•min/L; R1: 00.67±0.26 mmHg•min/L; R2: 0.77±0.26 mmHg•min/L). HR was significantly (p\u3c0.001) increased at R1 and R2 after UL and LU compared to rest. Systolic BP was significantly (p=0.026) decreased after LU at R1 compared to rest and R2. However, there was no change for diastolic BP. CONCLUSION: These data suggest that UL significantly increases cardiac output and stroke volume than LU which means different orders of RE change cardiovascular responses

Effects of early gestation GH administration on placental and fetal development in sheep.

Ovine GH (oGH) is synthesized in placental tissue during maximal placental growth and development. Our objectives were to localize oGH mRNA in the placenta, and study the impact of exogenous GH on twin pregnancies during the normal window (35-55 days of gestational age; dGA) of placental expression. In situ hybridization localized oGH mRNA in uterine luminal epithelium but not in tissues of fetal origin. While maternal GH and IGF-I concentrations were increased (