Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Industry sunk costs and entry dynamics

We explore an investment game where industry sunk costs provide anincentive for a firm to be a follower into the market as opposedto a leader. For some parameter values, every firm could have adominant strategy to wait, even though immediate entry is sociallyoptimal - this is a like prisoners' dilemma. In equilibrium, afirm is more likely to have a dominant strategy to wait with anincrease in the number of potential entrants. Finally, theequilibrium can display an entry cascade.
Clinical Study of the Laser Sheath for Lead Extraction: The Total Experience in the United States

BYRD, C.L. , et al.: Clinical Study of the Laser Sheath for Lead Extraction: The Total Experience in the United States. The laser sheath uses optical fibers, delivering pulsed ultraviolet excimer laser light, to vaporize fibrotic tissue binding intravenous cardiac leads to the vein or heart wall during lead extraction from the implant vein. The total investigational experience with laser sheaths is reported. During the period from October 1995 to December 1999, 2,561 pacing and defibrillator leads were treated in 1,684 patients at 89 sites in the United States with three sizes of laser sheath. Endpoints were complete removal of the lead, partial removal (leaving the tip behind), or failure (abandoning the lead, onset of complications, change to transfemoral or transatrial approach). Minimal follow‐up at 30 days was recorded. Of the leads, 90% were completely removed, 3% were partially removed, and the balance were failures. Major perioperative complications (tamponade, hemothorax, pulmonary embolism, lead migration, and death) were observed in 1.9% of patients with in hospital death in 13 (0.8%). Minor complications were seen in an additional 1.4% of patients. Multivariate analysis showed that implant duration was the only preoperative independent predictor of failure; female sex was the only multivariate predictor of complications. Success and complications were not dependent on laser sheath size. At follow‐up, various extraction related complications were observed in 2% of patients. The learning curve showed a trend toward fewer complications with experience. Lead extraction with the laser sheath can be safely practiced with high success rates. Success is independent of laser sheath size. Major complications can be expected in < 2% of patients, and occur more often during an investigator's early experience.
Quality of Life of Family Caregivers of Patients Undergoing Dialysis: A Literature Review

Introduction Dialysis is a long-term treatment for chronic kidney failure. Family caregivers play a significant role in the care of patients undergoing dialysis. The quality of life (QoL) of family caregivers is related to the quality of care provided to patients undergoing dialysis. Objectives This recent literature review aimed to synthesize the QoL experienced by caregivers of family members undergoing dialysis. Method This literature review employed four online databases, including SCOPUS, PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Web of Science. The extracted articles were further screened on the basis of the PRISMA guidelines. In this review, articles were selected on the basis of the following eligibility criteria: double-blind peer-reviewed articles, articles written in English language and published between 1 January 2013 and January 2023. This review used thematic synthesis. Results Four analytical themes emerged, including physical capacity, social relations, psychological state, and environment. All of these themes correspond to the dimensions of QoL. Conclusion The QoL of family caregivers of patients undergoing dialysis must be considered. A good QoL of these caregivers will improve the balance of life and further increase the ability and quality of care they provide for family members undergoing dialysis.
Victim identifiability, number of victims, and unit asking in charitable giving

This study examines the identifiable victim effect (being more willing to help an identified victim than an unidentified), the singularity effect (i.e., being more willing to help a single identified victim than a group of identified victims), and unit asking (first asking donors for their willingness to donate for one unit and then asking for donations for multiple units) in charitable giving. In five studies (N = 7996), we vary the level of identifiability, singularity, and group size. We find that unit asking is making people more sensitive to the number of people in need. Further, while the level of identifiability influences affective reactions, this effect does not extend to donations and, thus, is not affected by unit asking. We do, however, find an “emotion asking effect” where asking donors to rate their affect before donating increase donation levels (compared to donors asked to rate affect after). Emotion asking was attenuated when combined with unit asking.
3D human pose from silhouettes by relevance vector regression

We describe a learning based method for recovering 3D human body pose from single images and monocular image sequences. Our approach requires neither an explicit body model nor prior labelling of body pans in the image. Instead, it recovers pose by direct nonlinear regression against shape descriptor vectors extracted automatically from image silhouettes. For robustness against local silhouette segmentation errors, silhouette shape is encoded by histogram-of-shape-contexts descriptors. For the main regression, we evaluate both regularized least squares and relevance vector machine (RVM) regressors over both linear and kernel bases. The RVM's provide much sparser regressors without compromising performance, and kernel bases give a small but worthwhile improvement in performance. For realism and good generalization with respect to viewpoints, we train the regressors on images resynthesized from real human motion capture data, and test it both quantitatively on similar independent test data, and qualitatively on a real image sequence. Mean angular errors of 6-7 degrees are obtained - a factor of 3 better than the current state of the art for the much simpler upper body problem.
Influence of Weather Conditions in the Northwestern Russian Federation on Flax Fiber Characters According to the Results of a 30-Year Study

Weather has significant impact on plant growth and development. It is important to analyze the influence of changing climate conditions on the expression of plant agronomic characters. Two flax varieties were grown from 1987 to 2018 in the Northwest of Russia. Weather conditions and their influence on flax agronomic characters were analyzed using the variance and correlations analyses. Significant influence of conditions of a particular year on the manifestation of all evaluated characters was revealed. Starting from June, high temperatures accelerate plant development at all stages. Prolongation of the germination-flowering period is most important for improving fiber productivity, while fast ripening in hot weather after flowering is preferable for the formation of high-quality fiber. Such data give a possibility to predict the yield amount and quality. The use of weather conditions data also makes possible a comparison of the results obtained in different years. The suggested method of classifying meteorological conditions of a year can be used in other genebanks for systematizing and analyzing the results of crop evaluation in the field. The correlation analysis revealed 3 correlated pleiades, namely (1) of productivity, (2) of fiber quality and yield, and (3) of the growing season phase durations, the sums of active temperatures and precipitation during each period. The great influence of growing conditions on the economically valuable traits indicates the necessity of searching for genotypes with stable character manifestations for breeding new varieties with stable yields and good fiber quality.
Essential Role of MicroRNA-155 in Regulating Endothelium-Dependent Vasorelaxation by Targeting Endothelial Nitric Oxide Synthase

Nitric oxide generated by endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) plays an important role in maintaining cardiovascular homeostasis. Under various pathological conditions, abnormal expression of eNOS contributes to endothelial dysfunction and the development of cardiovascular diseases. A variety of pathological stimuli has been reported to decrease eNOS expression mainly through decreasing eNOS mRNA stability by regulating the binding of several cytosolic proteins to the cis-acting sequences within eNOS mRNA 3′ untranslated regions. However, the detailed mechanisms remain elusive. Because microRNAs inhibit gene expression through binding to the 3′ untranslated regions of their target mRNAs, microRNAs may be the important posttranscriptional modulators of eNOS expression. Here, we provided evidence that eNOS is a direct target of miR-155. Overexpression of miR-155 decreased, whereas inhibition of miR-155 increased, eNOS expression and NO production in human umbilical vein endothelial cells and acetylcholine-induced endothelium-dependent vasorelaxation in human internal mammary arteries. Inflammatory cytokines including tumor necrosis factor-&agr; increased miR-155 expression. Inhibition of miR-155 reversed tumor necrosis factor-&agr;–induced downregulation of eNOS expression and impairment of endothelium-dependent vasorelaxation. Moreover, we observed that simvastatin attenuated tumor necrosis factor-&agr;–induced upregulation of miR-155 and ameliorated the effects of tumor necrosis factor-&agr; on eNOS expression and endothelium-dependent vasodilation. Simvastatin decreased miR-155 expression through interfering mevalonate-geranylgeranyl-pyrophosphate-RhoA signaling pathway. These findings indicated that miR-155 is an essential regulator of eNOS expression and endothelium-dependent vasorelaxation. Inhibition of miR-155 may be a new therapeutic approach to improve endothelial dysfunction during the development of cardiovascular diseases.
Enhanced action of amphotericin B on Leishmania mexicana resulting from heat transformation

A comparative study of the effect of the polyene antibiotic amphotericin B (AmB) on the viability of Leishmania mexicana promastigotes before and after their transformation by heat into amastigotelike forms was carried out. The kinetics of cell death were followed by spectrofluorometry with the nucleic acid-binding compound ethidium bromide. It was found that the rapid killing effect that is exerted by AmB on Leishmania promastigotes was even faster after their transformation into amastigotelike forms. Binding studies of AmB to Leishmania membranes by circular dichroism indicated that heat transformation modified it from noncooperative to cooperative binding, decreasing the amount of antibiotic that bound to the membranes. Thus, the increased rate of ethidium bromide incorporation into transformed cells was not related either to the amount of AmB bound or to an increased amount of ergosterol in the membrane (the ergosterol/phospholipid ratio was four times smaller after heat shock). An increase in the Mg2+ content of the external aqueous solution was able to prevent the AmB-induced incorporation of ethidium bromide into Leishmania promastigotes to a greater extent (Ki = 13.8 mM) than it was into heat-transformed cells (Ki = 64 mM), suggesting that there were significant changes at the Leishmania cell surface on heat transformation. The significance of these results for understanding the mechanism of action of AmB on sensitive organisms is discussed.
Catechol-O-Methyltransferase val158met Genotype Affects Processing of Emotional Stimuli in the Amygdala and Prefrontal Cortex

Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) degrades the catecholamine neurotransmitters dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine. A functional polymorphism in the COMT gene (val158met) accounts for a fourfold variation in enzyme activity. The low-activity met158 allele has been associated with improved working memory but with higher risk for anxiety-related behaviors. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we assessed the effects of COMT genotype on brain activation by standardized affective visual stimuli (unpleasant, pleasant, and neutral) in 35 healthy subjects. The analysis of genotype effects was restricted to brain areas with robust activation by the task. To determine genedose effects, the number of met158 alleles (0, 1, or 2) was correlated with the blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) response elicited by pleasant or unpleasant stimuli compared with neutral stimuli. COMT genotype had no significant impact on brain activation by pleasant stimuli but was related to the neural response to unpleasant stimuli: reactivity to unpleasant stimuli was significantly positively correlated with the number of met158 alleles in the limbic system (left hippocampus, right amygdala, right thalamus), connected prefrontal areas (bilateral ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex), and the visuospatial attention system (bilateral fusiform gyrus, left inferior parietal lobule). Genotype explained up to 38% of interindividual variance in BOLD response elicited by unpleasant stimuli. We conclude that (1) genetic variations can account for a substantial part of interindividual variance in task-related brain activation and that (2) increased limbic and prefrontal activation elicited by unpleasant stimuli in subjects with more met158 alleles might contribute to the observed lower emotional resilience against negative mood states.
Bimetallic Co–Mn catalysts for synergistic enhancement of VOC gas-sensing performance of ZnO hierarchical nanostructures

The synergistic effect between bonding dissimilar metals is a very effective way to improve the performance of metal catalysts. In this work, we prepared a series of bimetallic co-doped ZnO hierarchical nanostructures by controlling Mn and Co contents. The gas-sensing properties of the sensors based on the bimetallic co-doped ZnO hierarchical nanostructures were studied systematically through different volatile organic compound (VOC) vapors for the temperature range from 160 to 400 °C. In the testing of normal butanol gas by the bimetallic co-doped ZnO sensor, its performance was tens of times higher than that of pure zinc oxide, and the response values to other VOCs tested were very low, which also indicates that the sensor has good selectivity. The promoted performance is attributed to the increase of adsorbed oxygen content on the surface of the sensor material due to the bimetallic synergistic enhancement effect. XPS spectra of O 1s region of the sensor show that the adsorbed oxygen content is 22.4%, which is higher than that of the pure ZnO (8.5%). The synergistic effect between bimetallic Mn and Co leads to electron enrichment on the surface of ZnO. Electron enrichment can not only promote the activation of ZnO, but also can help to improve the gas-sensing performance.
Foxo1 Links Hyperglycemia to LDL Oxidation and Endothelial Nitric Oxide Synthase Dysfunction in Vascular Endothelial Cells

OBJECTIVE Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death among people with diabetes. Generation of oxidized LDLs and reduced nitric oxide (NO) availability because of endothelial NO synthase (eNOS) dysfunction are critical events in atherosclerotic plaque formation. Biochemical mechanism leading from hyperglycemia to oxLDL formation and eNOS dysfunction is unknown. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We show that glucose, acting through oxidative stress, activates the transcription factor Foxo1 in vascular endothelial cells. RESULTS Foxo1 promotes inducible NOS (iNOS)-dependent NO-peroxynitrite generation, which leads in turn to LDL oxidation and eNOS dysfunction. We demonstrate that Foxo1 gain-of-function mimics the effects of hyperglycemia on this process, whereas conditional Foxo1 knockout in vascular endothelial cells prevents it. CONCLUSIONS The findings reveal a hitherto unsuspected role of the endothelial iNOS-NO-peroxynitrite pathway in lipid peroxidation and eNOS dysfunction and suggest that Foxo1 activation in response to hyperglycemia brings about proatherogenic changes in vascular endothelial cell function.
Transcriptomics analysis of the bovine endometrium during the perioestrus period

During the oestrous cycle, the bovine endometrium undergoes morphological and functional changes, which are regulated by alterations in the levels of oestrogen and progesterone and consequent changes in gene expression. To clarify these changes before and after oestrus, RNA-seq was used to profile the transcriptome of oestrus-synchronized beef heifers. Endometrial samples were collected from 29 animals, which were slaughtered in six groups beginning 12 h after the withdrawal of intravaginal progesterone releasing devices until seven days post-oestrus onset (luteal phase). The groups represented proestrus, early oestrus, metoestrus and early dioestrus (luteal phase). Changes in gene expression were estimated relative to gene expression at oestrus. Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) was used to identify canonical pathways and functional processes of biological importance. A total of 5,845 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified. The lowest number of DEGs was observed at the 12 h post-oestrus time point, whereas the greatest number was observed at Day 7 post-oestrus onset (luteal phase). A total of 2,748 DEGs at this time point did not overlap with any other time points. Prior to oestrus, Neurological disease and Organismal injury and abnormalities appeared among the top IPA diseases and functions categories, with upregulation of genes involved in neurogenesis. Lipid metabolism was upregulated before oestrus and downregulated at 48h post-oestrus, at which point an upregulation of immune-related pathways was observed. In contrast, in the luteal phase the Lipid metabolism and Small molecule biochemistry pathways were upregulated.
Carrier lifetime assessment in integrated Ge waveguide devices

Carrier lifetimes in Ge waveguides on Si are deduced from time-resolved pump-probe spectroscopy. For a 1 μm wide Ge waveguide, a lifetime of 1.6 ns is estimated for a carrier density of around 2×10<sup>19</sup>cm<sup>-3</sup>.
Palestinian Nursing Students’ Perspective of Clinical Decision-Making

Introduction One of the most important aspects of nursing education and practice is clinical decision-making (CDM), which is also crucial to clinical competency. Objective The study aimed to assess the CDM of undergraduate nursing students by using the CDM nursing scale. Method The study was cross-sectional and involved 315 nursing student participants. Data collection utilized the Clinical Decision-Making Scale, which comprises domains such as “canvassing of objectives and values,” “search for alternatives or options,” “evaluation and reevaluation of consequences,” and “search for information and unbiased assimilation of new information. ” Statistical analyses included Pearson correlation, ANOVA, and independent t-tests. Data collection occurred during the second semester of 2023. Results The results indicated that the mean age of the students was 21.69 (SD = 1.6) years. In terms of gender, the majority were males, constituting 216 (68.6%) of the participants. Among the participants, 105 (33.3%) were from the second year, 108 (34.3%) from the third year, and 102 (32.4%) from the fourth year. The analysis revealed that the average CDM score was 129.8 (SD = 17.5). Additionally, examination of the subscales of CDM showed that the highest subscale score was for “search for information and unbiased assimilation of new information” (M = 33.1, SD = 5.3), while the lowest subscale score was for “search for alternatives or options” (M = 31.8, SD = 6.0). Furthermore, the analysis demonstrated a significant difference between academic year level and the mean CDM scores (p < .05), along with a positive relationship between the CDM score and students’ age (r = .67, p = .001). Conclusion The findings revealed that nursing students exhibit a moderate level of CDM. Moreover, it was revealed that students’ CDM is influenced by both their age and academic year level.
Firearm Violence Exposure and Serious Violent Behavior

To estimate the cause-effect relationship between exposure to firearm violence and subsequent perpetration of serious violence, we applied the analytic method of propensity stratification to longitudinal data on adolescents residing in Chicago, Illinois. Results indicate that exposure to firearm violence approximately doubles the probability that an adolescent will perpetrate serious violence over the subsequent 2 years.
Using simulation to teach nursing students how to deal with a euthanasia request

Nursing students are confronted with euthanasia during their internship and certainly during their later career but they feel inadequately prepared in dealing with a euthanasia request. This study presents a simulation module focused on euthanasia and evaluates nursing students’ perceptions after they have completed the simulation practice. The ‘euthanasia module’ consisted of a preparatory online learning module, a good-practice video, an in-vivo simulation scenario, and a debriefing session. The module’s content was validated by four experts in end-of-life care. The module was completed by three groups of students from two different University Colleges (n = 17 in total). The students were divided into three groups: one with no previous simulation education experience, one with all students having previous experience, and another with a mix of experiences. After completing the entire module, each group had a discussion regarding their perceptions and expectations concerning this simulation module. Thematic content analysis was conducted on audio-recorded group interviews using NVIVO® software, involving initial open coding, transformation into specific themes and subthemes through axial coding, and defining core themes through selective coding, with data analysis continuing until data saturation was reached. Students generally found the online learning module valuable for background information, had mixed perceptions of the good-practice video, and appreciated the well-crafted scenarios with the taboo of euthanasia emerging during simulations, while the debriefing process was seen as enhancing clinical reasoning abilities. Students considered the simulation module a valuable addition to their education and nursing careers, expressing their satisfaction with the comprehensive coverage of the sensitive topic presented without sensationalism or taboos. This subject holds significance for nations with established euthanasia laws and those lacking such legal frameworks. The findings of this study can aid teachers in developing and accessing euthanasia simulation training programs, contributing to broader education’s emphasis on integrating euthanasia-related knowledge and skills.