Hidden Dynamics of Religion and Human Rights in Central and Eastern Europe

The relationship between human rights and religion cannot be seen as a relationship between two entirely distinct sets of values Human rights are deeply rooted in the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. However, throughout history religious institutions have interpreted human rights differently and have supported or hindered their implementation. This paper discusses the relationship between human rights and religion in the social and cultural matrix of post-communist Central and Eastern Europe. Our statistical analysis focuses on Hungary as an example of the region. In our view, the variations in the relationship between human rights and religion in Central and Eastern Europe are primarily determined by the region’s wounded collective identity and the resulting overriding national and state security needs. Politically and culturally, the region is characterized by its betweenness, embodied in centuries of vulnerability to the great powers. Therefore, the social status and political discourse of human rights and religion should be tied to this primary regional marker. While examining the relationship between religion and human rights, we should be aware that the primary relationship is between human rights and the collective identity of the nation-state and between religion and the identity of the nation-state

Telephone speech recognition via the combination of knowledge sources in a segmental speech model

The currently dominant speech recognition methodology, Hidden Markov Modeling, treats speech as a stochastic random process with very simple mathematical properties. The simplistic assumptions of the model, and especially that of the independence of the observation vectors have been criticized by many in the literature, and alternative solutions have been proposed. One such alternative is segmental modeling, and the OASIS recognizer we have been working on in the recent years belongs to this category. In this paper we go one step further and suggest that we should consider speech recognition as a knowledge source combination problem. We offer a generalized algorithmic framework for this approach and show that both hidden Markov and segmental modeling are a special case of this decoding scheme. In the second part of the paper we describe the current components of the OASIS system and evaluate its performance on a very difficult recognition task, the phonetically balanced sentences of the MTBA Hungarian Telephone Speech Database. Our results show that OASIS outperforms a traditional HMM system in phoneme classification and achieves practically the same recognition scores at the sentence level

Novel mechanisms of G-protein-coupled receptors functions: AT1 angiotensin receptor acts as a signaling hub and focal point of receptor cross-talk

AT1 angiotensin receptor (AT1R), a prototypical G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR), is the main receptor, which mediates the effects of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS). AT1R plays a crucial role in the regulation of blood pressure and salt-water homeostasis, and in the development of pathological conditions, such as hypertension, heart failure, cardiovascular remodeling, renal fibrosis, inflammation, and metabolic disorders. Stimulation of AT1R leads to pleiotropic signal transduction pathways generating arrays of complex cellular responses. Growing amount of evidence shows that AT1R is a versatile GPCR, which has multiple unique faces with distinct conformations and signaling properties providing new opportunities for functionally selective pharmacological targeting of the receptor. Biased ligands of AT1R have been developed to selectively activate the β-arrestin pathway, which may have therapeutic benefits compared to the conventional angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers. In this review, we provide a summary about the most recent findings and novel aspects of the AT1R function, signaling, regulation, dimerization or oligomerization and its cross-talk with other receptors, including epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptor, adrenergic receptors and CB1 cannabinoid receptor. Better understanding of the mechanisms and structural aspects of AT1R activation and cross-talk can lead to the development of novel type of drugs for the treatment of cardiovascular and other diseases. © 201

Gene up-regulation by DNA demethylation in 35S-gshI-transgenic poplars (Populus x canescens)

Gene expression levels of transgene 35S-gshI (γ-glutamylcysteine synthetase) cloned from E. coli, and the endogenous gene gsh1 of poplar (Populus x canescens) were upregulated by the DNA demethylating agent DHAC (5,6-dihydro-5'-azacytidine hydrochloride) (10-4 M for 7 days) in aseptic leaf discs cultures. Two 35S-gshI-transgenic (6lgl and 11ggs) and wild type (WT) poplar clones were used. The efficiency of gene upregulation was also analyzed under herbicide paraquat stress (4 x 10-7 M). Levels of gshI-mRNA and gsh1-mRNA were determined by RT-qPCR (reverse transcriptase quantitative PCR) after cDNA synthesis. For internal control, the constitutively expressed housekeeping poplar genes α-tubulin and actin were used, and the 2−HHCt method was applied for data analysis. In long term DHAC treatment (21 days), a morphogenetic response of de novo root development was observed on leaf discs in a wide concentration range of DHAC (10-8 to 10-6 M). Adventitious shoots (11ggs clone) also emerged from leaf discs after a combined treatment with DHAC (10-4 M) and paraquat (10-7 M). Shoots were dissected, rooted and transplanted in glass houses for further analyses for phytoremediation capacity. Since DNA methylation patterns are inherited (epigenetic memory), these poplar plants with increased gene expression levels of both transgene 35S-gshI and endogenous gene gsh1 provide novel plant sources for in situ application

Various robust search methods in a Hungarian speech recognition system

This work focuses on the search aspect of speech recognition. We describe some standard algorithms such as stack decoding, multi-stack decoding, the Viterbi beam search and an A* heuristic, then present improvements on these search methods. Finally we compare the performance of each algorithm, grading them according to their performance. We will show that our improvements can outperform the standard methods

Quinone binding site in a type VI sulfide:quinone oxidoreductase

Monotopic membrane-bound flavoproteins, sulfide:quinone oxidoreductases (SQRs), have a variety of physiological functions, including sulfide detoxification. SQR enzymes are classified into six groups. SQRs use the flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) cofactor to transfer electrons from sulfide to quinone. A type VI SQR of the photosynthetic purple sulfur bacterium, Thiocapsa roseopersicina (TrSqrF), has been previously characterized, and the mechanism of sulfide oxidation has been proposed. This paper reports the characterization of quinone binding site (QBS) of TrSqrF composed of conserved aromatic and apolar amino acids. Val331, Ile333, and Phe366 were identified near the benzoquinone ring of enzyme-bound decylubiquinone (dUQ) using the TrSqrF homology model. In silico analysis revealed that Val331 and Ile333 alternately connected with the quinone head group via hydrogen bonds, and Phe366 and Trp369 bound the quinones via hydrophobic interactions. TrSqrF variants containing alanine (V331A, I333A, F366A) and aromatic amino acid (V331F, I333F, F366Y), as well as a C-terminal alpha-helix deletion (CTD) mutant were generated. These amino acids are critical for quinone binding and, thus, catalysis. Spectroscopic analyses proved that all mutants contained FAD. I333F replacement resulted in the lack of the charge transfer complex. In summary, the interactions described above maintain the quinone molecule's head in an optimal position for direct electron transfer from FAD. Surprisingly, the CTD mutant retained a relatively high level of specific activity while remaining membrane-anchored. This is a unique study because it focuses on the QBS and the oxidative stage of a type VI sulfide-dependent quinone reduction

A középfokú oktatás diákságának társadalmi összetétele a 19. század első felében: a pozsonyi és kassai tankerület diákjai. (Az iskolázottság-kultúra-műveltség szerepe a városfejlődésben a 19. század első felében) = The social composition of students of secondary education in the first half of the 19-th. century

Kutatásunkban azt vizsgáltuk, hogy a 19. század első felének Magyarországán a városi lakosság, illetve annak különböző csoportjai milyen mértékben éltek a közép- és felsőfokú iskolázás lehetőségével, és hogyan alakult a városok kulturális vonzásának rádiusza a tanulók származáshelyi összetétele alapján. Ezek megválaszolásához hoztuk létre számítógépes adatbázisainkat, amelyek az egykori pozsonyi és kassai tankerület felsőbb, azaz közép- és felsőfokú iskoláinak anyakönyvi adatait tartalmazzák, három mintavételi időpontban. Az adatbázis közel 24.000 diák adatait tartalmazza. Az adatbázisok révén részletesen elemeztük a két tankerület iskoláinak diáklétszáma alakulását, osztályonkénti megoszlását, felekezeti arányaikat, lakóhelyi-területi származásukat, illetve a szülők társadalmi helyzetét. A két tankerület diákságának társadalmi összetétele, száma, illetve az iskolai osztályokban való eloszlása alapján az iskoláztatás szempontjából mutatkozó területi, regionális különbségekre, az egyes városok között jelentkező eltérésekre is sikerült rámutatnunk. | Our research concentrated on the various ways city dwellers belonging to different social strata used secondary and higher education in the first half of the 19-th century in Hungary. The first step was to define the role of cultural attraction Hungarian towns of the era played, basically by identifying students places of origin. We created a database of the original school registers which contained data of students attending secondary and higher education in the Pozsony and Kassa school districts. Our sample, nearly 24 000 students altogether, was taken from three decades in the first half of the 19-th century. With the help of our database we examined the changes in the number of students in the different classes of the schools in the two districts, together with their confessional composition, social background and place of origin. The changing number, social composition and 'class structure' of students made it possible to outline basic diffrerences among towns and regions as school towns and places of origin