Bambo Can Go

The author analyses Tuwim’s Bambo, the Black Boy and tries to point to a number of interpretative paradoxes that have accumulated around its multiple readings. Particular attention is paid to the racial readings of the poem. What is more, the author discusses a variety of contemporary contexts in which the famous poem functions; these are often politically incorrect readings and interpretations which make no sense of the historical context in which the work was originally written. The article offers a detailed analysis of the origins of the poem and the circumstances in which found its way to the school primer. The poem is seen as expressing the need for accepting otherness and fighting cultural stereotypes.Zadanie „Stworzenie anglojęzycznych wersji wydawanych publikacji” finansowane w ramach umowy nr 948/P-DUN/2016 ze środków Ministra Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego przeznaczonych na działalność upowszechniającą naukę

Bilitranslocase and anthocyanins role in the gastrointestinal tract

Bilitranslocase (BTL) is a organic anion transporter expressed in liver and in several extra-hepatic tissues. This membrane protein transports different substrates as pyrrolic molecules, nucleotides, flavonoids. Anthocyanins, one of the most represented flavonoids class are known to have antioxidant activity. They act as anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer and anti-proliferative molecules by interfering with different intracellular pathways. Some chronic colon diseases results in an increase in the pro-inflammatory machinery that are associated with a 5-fold increased risk of developing colon cancer. The expression and the role of BTL in the gastrointestinal tract in normal and pathological condition, as well as its role as anthocyanins transporter in colon cancer cells will be take into account in Trans2care project

Distill-and-Compare: Auditing Black-Box Models Using Transparent Model Distillation

Black-box risk scoring models permeate our lives, yet are typically proprietary or opaque. We propose Distill-and-Compare, a model distillation and comparison approach to audit such models. To gain insight into black-box models, we treat them as teachers, training transparent student models to mimic the risk scores assigned by black-box models. We compare the student model trained with distillation to a second un-distilled transparent model trained on ground-truth outcomes, and use differences between the two models to gain insight into the black-box model. Our approach can be applied in a realistic setting, without probing the black-box model API. We demonstrate the approach on four public data sets: COMPAS, Stop-and-Frisk, Chicago Police, and Lending Club. We also propose a statistical test to determine if a data set is missing key features used to train the black-box model. Our test finds that the ProPublica data is likely missing key feature(s) used in COMPAS.Comment: Camera-ready version for AAAI/ACM AIES 2018. Data and pseudocode at https://github.com/shftan/auditblackbox. Previously titled "Detecting Bias in Black-Box Models Using Transparent Model Distillation". A short version was presented at NIPS 2017 Symposium on Interpretable Machine Learnin

Inoperosità : Exposing the Position of Employees and Customers in Unemployment-Related Management Literature

Regardless of our socio-juridical position in or outside of organisations, this much is certain: even if not formally employed, we all, Agamben’s Homo Sacer series and the bulk of his other texts imply, are subject to a violence that, if differentially, imprisons us in a world in which ‘work’ reigns supreme. But what precisely is ‘work’? And is there, in spite of our securing the necessities of life, still a viable ‘way out’? To probe these questions, I draw on Agamben, approaching ‘work’ in two distinct, wholly opposing ways. At base, echoing an ever-increasing appreciation of the salience of Agamben’s philosophy, I approach work, together with organisation (from ergon, meaning ‘work’), in terms of oikonomia and inoperosità. Oikonomia, as my object of criticism, refers to the immanent execution of an allegedly foundational, absolute power – be it God, the sovereign or the people. It is stylised as such a foundational power’s attendant secondary cause/power. Therefore, with oikonomia, life is transcendentally grounded, so that work’s oikonomic executioners – for instance, managers, functionaries and bureaucrats – justify themselves and act ‘vicariously’; they justify themselves and act as messengers, intermediaries or administrators of an archē that as such does not exist, but that they – to legitimise themselves – conjure up and produce, with work being in thrall to spectacularisation. In contrast to this, inoperosità is the antidote to oikonomia’s brutal encroachment. It refers to an exit from, and neutralisation of, oikonomia’s biopolitical grip on work. Management literature does not stand outside of oikonomia. Rather, as shown, it is often part and parcel thereof. With this in view, relying on a case study analysis of unemployment-related management texts, I provide a much-needed exposition of this literature’s oikonomic footing. This is done in three interrelated ways: first, the oikonomic position of employees and customers in these texts is expounded; second, contrary to received wisdom in the field of organisation studies, the possibility of thinking of organisation in terms of a language use that no longer corrals human beings into oikonomic positions is revealed; and third, a deposition/neutralisation of oikonomic language, implicit in the previous point, is performed, which is to say that this thesis is concerned with inoperosità not only in its content, but also its expression. Above all, it is this interleaving of the exposition (revealing) and ex-position (neutralisation) of language that is inoperosità. Hence, no longer an oikonomic potentiality to be or not to be actualised, work and organisation emerge as a potential in contact with the act; rather than being played off against one another, foundational power (potential) and immanent execution (act) are revealed as non-related and suspended, a testimony of this contactual non-relation/suspension being the core contribution of my thesis

Cannabis sativa and the endogenous cannabinoid system: therapeutic potential for appetite regulation

The herb Cannabis sativa (C. sativa) has been used in China and on the Indian subcontinent for thousands of years as a medicine. However, since it was brought to the UK and then the rest of the western world in the late 19th century, its use has been a source of controversy. Indeed, its psychotropic side effects are well reported but only relatively recently has scientific endeavour begun to find valuable uses for either the whole plant or its individual components. Here, we discuss evidence describing the endocannabinoid system, its endogenous and exogenous ligands and their varied effects on feeding cycles and meal patterns. Furthermore we also critically consider the mounting evidence which suggests non‐tetrahydrocannabinol phytocannabinoids play a vital role in C. sativa‐induced feeding pattern changes. Indeed, given the wide range of phytocannabinoids present in C. sativa and their equally wide range of intra‐, inter‐ and extra‐cellular mechanisms of action, we demonstrate that non‐Δ9tetrahydrocannabinol phytocannabinoids retain an important and, as yet, untapped clinical potential

Leveraging app relationships and distribution patterns to identify malicious software

Software distributors, such as the operators of online software repositories or stores, scan and analyze the software they host to flag potentially harmful applications (PHAs). The scans are typically performed offline and are based solely on app-level features and do not take into account structural relationships between different apps and devices. This disclosure describes an app ecosystem-based approach to detect PHAs via analysis of contextual information, such as app install statistics and installation distribution patterns. Relevant contextual information about each app obtained user permission is leveraged to build a machine learning pipeline to flag PHAs for further review. The ecosystem-based approach makes it difficult for malicious actors to evade detection. The techniques can be applied online at app install time and are complementary to detection mechanisms that involve direct analysis of apps

Mechanism of action of novel NO-releasing furoxan derivatives of aspirin in human platelets

1 Incorporation of a nitric oxide (NO)-releasing moiety in aspirin can overcome its gastric side effects. 2 We investigated the NO-release patterns and antiplatelet effects of novel furoxan derivatives of aspirin (B8 and B7) in comparison to existing antiplatelet agents. 3 Cyclooxygenase (COX) activity was investigated in purified enzyme using an electron paramagnetic resonance-based technique. Concentration–response curves for antiplatelet agents±the soluble guanylate cyclase inhibitor, ODQ (50 μM) were generated in platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and washed platelets (WP) activated with collagen using turbidometric aggregometry. NO was detected using an isolated NO electrode. 4 The furoxan derivatives of aspirin (B8, B7) and their NO-free furazan equivalents (B16, B15; all 100 μM) significantly inhibited COX activity (P<0.01; n=6) in vitro and caused aspirin-independent, cGMP-dependent inhibition of collagen-induced platelet aggregation in WP. B8 was more potent than B7 (PRP IC50=0.62±0.1 μM for B8; 400±89 μM for B7; P<0.0001. WP IC50s=0.6±0.1 and 62±10 μM, respectively). The NO-free furazan counterparts were less potent antiplatelet agents (WP IC50s=54±3 μM and 62±10 μM, respectively; P<0.0001, B8 vs B16). Of the hybrids investigated, only B8 retained antiplatelet activity in PRP. 5 NO release from furoxan–aspirin hybrids was undetectable in buffer alone, but was accelerated in the presence of either plasma or plasma components, albumin (4%), glutathione (GSH; 3 μM) and ascorbate (50 μM), the effects of which were additive for B7 but not B8. NO generation from furoxans was greatly enhanced by platelet extract, an effect that could largely be explained by the synergistic effect of intracellular concentrations of GSH (3 mM) and ascorbate (1 mM). 6 We conclude that the decomposition of furoxan–aspirin hybrids to generate biologically active NO is catalysed by endogenous agents which may instil a potential for primarily intracellular delivery of NO. The blunting of the aspirin effects of furoxan hybrids is likely to be due to loss of the acetyl moiety in plasma; the observed antiplatelet effects are thereby primarily mediated via NO release. Compounds of this class might represent a novel means of inhibiting platelet aggregation by a combination of NO generation and COX inhibition