Neuroplasticity: A Key Player in the Antidepressant Action of Chinese Herbal Medicine

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a systematic medicine. It provides alternative strategies for the treatment of depression with its clinical experience, comprehensive diagnosis, and treatment theory. Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) is the major form of TCM prescription, and numerous CHMs have been demonstrated to possess remarkable antidepressant-like properties. A diversity of mechanisms have been implicated in CHM-associated antidepressant property. This paper reviewed the neuroplastic mechanisms underlying the antidepressant actions of CHM, finding that CHM repairs neuroplasticity by improving neurogenesis, neurotrophic factors, synaptic spine morphology, cell signaling, glutamatergic system, monoamine neurotransmitters, and neural apoptosis. CHM thereby exerts an antidepressant effect, attempting to offer a better understanding of the mechanisms implicated in TCM-related antidepressant-like efficacy and laying a foundation for the scientific evaluation and development of TCM in treating depression.

Mapping Meta-Therapy in Voice Interventions onto the Rehabilitation Treatment Specification System

Meta-therapy refers to the clinical dialogue via which direct and indirect voice treatments are introduced and discussed, and which helps build a useful conceptual framework for voice therapy. Meta-therapy was idiosyncratically defined in previous work. However, the current colloquial narrative of meta-therapy is not standardized or specific enough to be reliably taught, rigorously studied, or clinically delivered with high fidelity. Therefore, this article uses a standard framework (the Rehabilitation Treatment Specification System or RTSS) to further articulate and operationalize meta-therapy in vocal rehabilitation. Meta-therapy's conceptual framework generally aligns with the RTSS's treatment theory and associated concepts; e.g., the treatment component and its underlying ingredients, mechanisms of action, and target. Because the treatment theories in meta-therapy most frequently involve mechanisms of action related to information processing, they primarily map onto the RTSS's Representations treatment components. The treatment targets in meta-therapy are often focused on changes in the patient's cognitions, knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, intentions, and/or awareness regarding voice-related modifications. The ingredients in meta-therapy are frequently clinician actions conveying information with the goal of appropriately shaping the patient's mental representations, and are delivered with verbal cues, stories, analogies, etc. This manuscript provides specific examples of how meta-therapy is applied in clinical voice practice. Considerations for future investigation of meta-therapy are proposed.

The XXI international scientific and practical conference “Metallurgy: technologies, innovations, quality”

Results of the XXI International scientific and practical conference “Metallurgy: technologies, innovations, quality” presented, devoted to the 90-th anniversary of SibGIU, which took place on October 23–24, 2019, at the SibGIU site (Novokuznetsk). The work of the conference was organized in the frame of plenary session and sessions of the following sections: fundamental research; theory, simulation and technology of metallurgical processes; theory and technology of metal materials processing; foundry; metal forming; thermal treatment; theory and technology of welding processes; powder metallurgy and composition materials and coatings; heat- and mass-transfer in metallurgical processes and facilities; resources- and energy saving; ecology and wastes utilization. Scientists-metallurgists and specialists took part in the conference, representing 80 education and research organizations, industrial plants from 40 cities of Russia, China, Japan, Great Britain, Germany, Brazil, Austria, Israel, Poland, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia. 160 reports were received by the organization committee of the conference. The review of the reports, devoted to solving of scientific and application tasks in the area of ferrous metallurgy that arose the highest attention of the conference participants.

INVESTIGATION OF ROBOTIC BRACES OF PATIENTS WITH IDIOPATHIC SCOLIOSIS (IS) — REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE AND DESCRIPTION OF A NOVEL BRACE

Idiopathic scoliosis (IS) is a complex three-dimensional (3D) deformity. The non-operative treatments for IS have been developed for a long time. According to current studies, hard braces are more effective than soft braces for the treatment of scoliosis. Though current braces are proved to be effective for the treatment of IS, there are several shortcomings needed to be overcome: (i) Braces cannot realize precise control over a specific vertebra. (ii) Braces affect cardiopulmonary efficiency (braces limit maximal exercise performance). (iii) The brace is not modulated based on user’s needs. (iv) Braces, including motions during eating, tying shoes, sitting, and standing. (v) Braces apply forces on skin, which causes pain, skin breakdown, and abnormal deformation of bone. In order to solve these boring problems of the current braces, this paper proposed a new intelligent robotic spine brace based on the principle of human biomechanics, three point pressure treatment theory and parallel mechanism theory. This novel brace can offer 3D active dynamic adjustable corrective forces for the treatment of IS and some experiments are employed for verifying the effect of the proposed brace.

Description of vowel in the first grammatical work of Tamil and Arabic: A contrastive analysis

Tolkāppiyam and Al-Kitāb, these two grammatical texts are belonging to two different languages Tamil and Arabic. Tamil is a Dravidian family and Arabic is a Semitic family with different writing systems (Tamil-left to right; Arabic-right to left). These two grammatical texts are written in different historical period, Tolkāppiyam written in BC 300 and Al-Kitāb written in AD 800. Both are describes the vowels of respective language through different phonetic features. The main aim of this paper is to evaluate and analyze the articulatory treatment of vowels in the perspective of first grammatical work of respective languages. The first section of the paper is evaluating the articulatory treatment, theory, classification and phonetic frameworks of vowels in respective grammars, and the second section analyzing in contrastive and describes the commonness and differences between these two texts. This section finds out the commonness in the following features: articulatory treatment, descriptive and use of technical terms etc. The differences are found in the following features: order of the description of speech sounds, method of classification of vowels etc. ---AbstrakTolkāppiyam dan Al-Kitab adalah dua teks gramatikal yang menggunakan dua bahasa yang berbeda, yakni Tamil dan Arab. Ditinjau dari aspek rumpun bahasa, Tamil merupakan keluarga bahasa Dravida, sedangkan Arab adalah keluarga bahasa Semit. Sistem penulisan kedua bahasa itu berbeda bahasa Tamil memiliki sistem penulisan dari arah kiri ke kanan; sedankgan bahasa Arab memakai sistem penulisan dari arah kanan ke kiri. Kedua teks tata bahasa itu ditulis dalam periode sejarah yang berbeda, Tolkāppiyam ditulis dalam SM 300 dan Al-Kitab yang ditulis dalam AD 800. Keduanya menunjukkan vokal bahasa masing-masing, melalui fitur fonetik yang berbeda. Tujuan utama dari artikel ini adalah untuk mengevaluasi dan menganalisis cara artikulasi vokal dalam perspektif tata bahasa, bahasa itu. Bagian pertama dari tulisan ini mengevaluasi cara artikulasi, teori, klasifikasi dan kerangka fonetik yang menunjukkan bunyi-bunyi vokal dalam tata bahasa masing-masing, dan bagian analisis kedua dilakukan tinjauan aspek kontrastif dan menggambarkan secara umum persamaan dan perbedaan antara dua teks tersebut. Pada kesempatan ini dipaparkan secara umum beberapa fitur antara lain: cara artikulasi, deskripsi dan penggunaan istilah teknis. Bertumpu kepeda beberapa fitur itu terdapat perbedaan yang ditemukan dalam fitur itu, yaknit: urutan deskripsi suara pidato, metode klasifikasi vokal dan beberapa fitur lainnya.DOI: 10.15408/al-turas.v23i1.4808

Law as an extrinsic responsivity factor: What’s just is what works!

If criminologists and psychologists have studied practitioners’ ethics, they have not integrated the legal system into offender treatment theory. Offender treatment models have, moreover, not taken stock of the Legitimacy of Justice and the Self-Determination literatures, according to which people comply more substantively, and for longer periods of time, with decisions that are made fairly, and respect individuals’ agency. It is generally assumed that despite modern mass managerial and punitive probation, practitioners and their institutions have retained their original well-meaning ethos. In this article, it is suggested that law as a system ought to be integrated into a new subdivision of the Responsivity principle: ‘Extrinsic- Responsivity’. It is further argued that it is high time for probation staff and institutions to lose their untouchable status and be subjected to legal scrutiny and procedural constraints.