The InFile project: a crosslingual filtering systems evaluation campaign

International audienceThe InFile project (INformation, FILtering, Evaluation) is a cross-language adaptive filtering evaluation campaign, sponsored by the French National Research Agency. The campaign is organized by the CEA LIST, ELDA and the University of Lille3-GERiiCO. It has an international scope as it is a pilot track of the CLEF 2008 campaigns. The corpus is built from a collection of about 1,4 millions newswires (10 GB) in three languages, Arabic, English and French provided by Agence France Press (AFP) and selected from a 3 years period. The profiles corpus is made of 50 profiles from which 30 concern general news and events (national and international affairs, politics, sports...) and 20 concern scientific and technical subject

The Impact on Student Learning Outcomes and Mastery of the Unit when Guided Feedback is added to the Instructional Design

Providing feedback after an assessment is a method used to communicate to students that the desired learning outcomes of a unit taught have been met or not. Typically, feedback provided to students is brief and not integrated in the lesson plan. With the disruption that COVID-19 pandemic brought to teaching and learning in educational institutions during the 2020-2021 academic year, there was a gap in the learning outcomes being met by the majority of the students. In this Action Research, I investigated the role feedback had in achieving the desired learning outcomes and mastery of the unit by integrating Guided Feedback into my teaching strategy

Recruitment of ATG16L1 in response to dissipated proton gradients

Intracellular proton gradients are essential for eukaryotic life. Disruption of these gradients can signify the presence of damaged or infected compartments, requiring effective detection mechanisms. In response to proton gradient dissipation, cells rapidly target neutralised organelles with ubiquitin-like molecules, called ATG8s. This pathway – termed Conjugation of ATG8s to Single Membranes or CASM – depends on the recruitment of the key upstream regulator ATG16L1 to perturbed compartments, but the mechanism by which this occurs is unclear. In this thesis, ATG16L1 is shown to bind directly to an intracellular proton pump, called the vacuolar-type ATPase (V-ATPase). The interaction between the V-ATPase and ATG16L1 is regulated by changes in V- ATPase assembly and activity that occur in response to the disruption of transmembrane proton gradients. ATG16L1 recruitment was found to be mediated by the V1H V-ATPase subunit, and absence of this subunit abolishes CASM following ionophore drug treatment, influenza A virus infection and activation of the immune receptor STING. Unexpectedly, a neuronal isoform of V1H lacks a crucial component of the ATG16L1 binding site and was found to be associated with attenuated CASM in neurons. Finally, the V- ATPase/ATG16L1 complex was targeted pharmacologically using compounds designed to bind a key pocket of a V-ATPase-interacting domain of ATG16L1, illustrating how these new insights into CASM initiation can be harnessed experimentally. This thesis argues that the V-ATPase complex acts as an intracellular damage sensor, directly recruiting ATG16L1 through changes in assembly and state that are coupled to proton gradient integrity. This model of CASM initiation provides new mechanistic insight and uncovers new modes of spatiotemporal CASM regulation

Providing care for children: how service providers define and apply care in contemporary South Australia

While a wide array of service providers and academic scholars apply the use of “care” in their work, the concept of “care” itself remains largely undefined. This has widespread implications for applied work with children and young people (CYP), particularly since institutions such as schools and non-governmental organisations are increasingly being expected to care for or about children. In this paper, we use thematic analysis to report on interviews with representatives from four service providers and organisations responsible for the care of children. In our analysis, we explore both how care is defined by these organisations, and the implications for practice when working with CYP.Katie Barclay, Dee Michell and Clemence Du

Is more psychotherapy a dead horse? An essay on the (in)effectiveness of individual treatment for mental suffering

In the past decades, psychological and pharmacological treatment access has improved, but the prevalence of mental health conditions has nevertheless increased across all age groups, and particularly in young people. Recent reviews, taking biases and quality of included studies into account, confirm the relative ineffectiveness of individual psychotherapies for alleviating mental suffering. Many new forms of individual therapy have been developed since the 1970s, without resulting in improved rates of recovery from treatment. Various stakeholders keep advocating for more psychotherapy, but instead, we propose that more primary prevention strategies may be our best hope for reducing the burden of mental disorders

Impact of Vitamin D Supplementation on Arterial Vasomotion, Stiffness and Endothelial Biomarkers in Chronic Kidney Disease Patients

Background: Cardiovascular events are frequent and vascular endothelial function is abnormal in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). We demonstrated endothelial dysfunction with vitamin D deficiency in CKD patients; however the impact of cholecalciferol supplementation on vascular stiffness and vasomotor function, endothelial and bone biomarkers in CKD patients with low 25-hydroxy vitamin D [25(OH)D] is unknown, which this study investigated. Methods: We assessed non-diabetic patients with CKD stage 3/4, age 17–80 years and serum 25(OH)D ,75 nmol/L. Brachial artery Flow Mediated Dilation (FMD), Pulse Wave Velocity (PWV), Augmentation Index (AI) and circulating blood biomarkers were evaluated at baseline and at 16 weeks. Oral 300,000 units cholecalciferol was administered at baseline and 8-weeks. Results: Clinical characteristics of 26 patients were: age 50614 (mean61SD) years, eGFR 41611 ml/min/1.73 m2, males 73%, dyslipidaemia 36%, smokers 23% and hypertensives 87%. At 16-week serum 25(OH)D and calcium increased (43616 to 84629 nmol/L, p,0.001 and 2.3760.09 to 2.4260.09 mmol/L; p = 0.004, respectively) and parathyroid hormone decreased (10.868.6 to 7.464.4; p = 0.001). FMD improved from 3.163.3% to 6.163.7%, p = 0.001. Endothelial biomarker concentrations decreased: E-Selectin from 566662123 to 525662058 pg/mL; p = 0.032, ICAM-1, 3.4560.01 to 3.1061.04 ng/mL; p = 0.038 and VCAM-1, 54633 to 42633 ng/mL; p = 0.006. eGFR, BP, PWV, AI, hsCRP, von Willebrand factor and Fibroblast Growth Factor-23, remained unchanged. Conclusion: This study demonstrates for the first time improvement of endothelial vasomotor and secretory functions with vitamin D in CKD patients without significant adverse effects on arterial stiffness, serum calcium or FGF-23. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT0200571

Preparation of carbon nanotubes via chemical technique (modified Staudenmaier method)

The chemical method is one of the most promising routes for the production of multi-walled carbon nanotubes. In this study, multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were successfully synthesized by the modified Staudenmaier method. MWCNTs were synthesized using graphite powder at room temperature. This process does not utilize any metal catalyst. The prepared multi-walled carbon nanotubes were characterized for their crystalline, structural and thermal stability properties. The structural, crystalline and morphological characterization of The produced MWCNTs were performed by using scanning electron microscopy(SEM), transmission electron microscopy(TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis(TGA), Raman analysis, and atomic force microscopy( AFM). Crystallinity and graphitization degree was observed for the produced MWCNTs have a diameter of 13.1 nm. The yield is approximately 10% of the carbon source (graphite). Moreover, the obtained MWCNTs have high thermal stability and oxidation resistance lower than 401.80 °C. The present approach provides a simple low cost and easy method of MWCNTs synthesis

Cutaneous Leishmaniasis among Immigrants in Iraq

Background and objectives: To determine the incidence of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) in Al-Yarmouk teaching Hospital among immigrants who leave their own homes due to war and terrorism. Methodology: A retrospective survey was performed in the out patient clinic of Al-Yarmouk teaching Hospital.  All patients who presented with clinical features of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) at the dermatology department were enrolled in the study during the period from September 2014 to the end of June 2015 who were documented in the hospital's records which includes their address because an increasing number of cutaneous leishmaniasis was noticed. Compared to number of patients having cutaneous leishmaniasis during the period from September 2013 to the end of June2014.The provisional diagnosis of cutaneous leishmaniasis was dependant on clinical experience but biopsies were performed for questionable cases..Results: A total of 170 cutaneous leishmaniasis were diagnosed during the study period with the immigrants representing 70% of total cases.Compared to a total of 73 patients recorded for the same period of time during the previous year.The highest number of cases was recoded during February2015 , while the lowest number was recorded in December2014. Conclusions:An increasing number of cutaneous leishmaniasis ( CL ) was noticed among Iraqi immigrants due to their unhealthy and crowded environment where they were forced to live because of war and terrorism. Keywords: Cutaneous leishmaniasis, iraqi immigrants.