Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Blood and Marrow Neutrophils during Experimental Group B Streptococcal Infection: Quantification of the Stem Cell, Proliferative, Storage and Circulating Pools

Summary: In an attempt to explain the profound neutropenia and depletion of marrow neutrophil reserves observed in human and experimental group B streptococcal infection, we have studied the stem cell, proliferative, storage, and circulating neutrophil pools in groups of adult and neonatal rats inoculated with 3 × 106 type II group B streptococci/g body weight. At intervals after inoculation, animals were sacrificed and the unipotent granulocytic stem cells, (Colony Forming Units in culture, CFUC) from the femoral marrow were quantified. In addition, the total body neutrophil proliferative pool, neutrophil storage pool, circulating blood neutrophil concentration and blood immature to total neutrophil ratio were measured. Adult animals developed neutrophilia with a peak blood neutrophil concentration of 3.4 times control by 24 h after inoculation (P < 0.001). A left shift was seen in these mature animals as early as 2 h but by 24 h was no longer present. The neutrophil storage pool diminished to 65% of control by 15 h (P < 0.001) but then increased to exceed the control in all animals by 48 h (P < 0.01). The neutrophil proliferative pool did not change during infection in the adult animals, but CFUC increased to three times control 48 h after inoculation (P < 0.001) and returned to baseline by 72 h.The myeloid response of the neonatal rats was markedly different from that of the adults. Neonates developed profound neutropenia with an extreme left shift, exhaustion of the neutrophil storage pool (less than 10% of control by 15 h, P < 0.001), and diminution of the proliferative pool to 58% of control by 10 h (P < 0.05). In contrast to the adult animals, neonatal rats infected with group B streptococci failed to increase CFUC, and in fact a diminution of CFUC to 48% of control was seen by 15 h (P < 0.05). Speculation: When adults develop bacterial infection, they often demonstrate neutrophilia and a leukocyte left shift. We observed these findings in infected adult rats accompanied by a moderate, temporary diminution of storage neutrophils and by an elevation in granulocytic stem cells. The adult response enables the animal to deliver large numbers of neutrophils to the infected tissues. In contrast, infected neonates developed profound neutropenia, exhaustion of neutrophil reserves and decreased neutrophii production. The neonatal response results in diminished delivery of neutrophils to infected tissues and a marked increase in mortality. The decreased production of neutrophils accompanying neutrophil storage pool depletion and neutropenia in neonates may constitute a condition for which neutrophil transfusion may represent a reasonable therapeutic approach.
Evaluating the Quality of Open Data Portals on the National Level

Over the last few years, governments worldwide have started to develop and implement open data initiatives to enable the release of government data in open and reusable formats without restriction or charge for their use by society. As a result, a large number of open data repositories, catalogues and portals have been emerging in the world. The efficient development of open data portals makes it necessary to evaluate their quality systematic, in order to understand them better and assess the various types of value they generate. Citizens also expect data disclosed by official authorities to have quality in the sense that they are official data and therefore should be accurate and reliable. Consequently, the aim of this paper is to examine and compare the quality of these portals. For this purpose, a benchmarking framework is proposed and validated to evaluate the quality of open data portals on the national level. The results obtained show that the number of datasets online and the sophistication of open data portals and their functions differ, reflecting the lack of harmonization and the need for quality standards. In particular, the United Kingdom, India and the United States have published many datasets and launched advanced portals.
Driving and limiting factors in the farm management by young farmers in the context of survey research

The purpose of the study was to identify driving and limiting factors of farm management in a region of fragmented agriculture. The paper presents the results of the research conducted in the South-Eastern Poland (Macroregion of Malopolska and Pogorze). The survey was conducted in 2014 in the farms managed by young farmers, i.e. the benefi ciaries of the measure “Setting up of young farmers” from the RDP 2007–2013, with the use of a survey method with a questionnaire interview. The research was empirical, and its main goal was to present a case study of the farm management by young farmers in terms of specifi c management barriers. The results of the studies pointed to the fragmented agrarian structure as the one of the biggest barriers of the eff ective farm management. The young farmers pointed that fragmented agrarian structure signifi cantly impedes the purchase or lease of agricultural land, and the farm development in the same way. The survey pointed to the factors that contribute to the young farmers: the entrepreneurial attitude, activity and creativity, training, the management knowledge and better access to the Common Agricultural Policy instruments.
The Relationship between Corporate Governance, Capital Structure and Systematic Risk in those Firms Listed at Tehran's Stock Exchange

The goal of this study is to analyze the relation between corporate governance versus capital structure and systematic risk in the companies, which are accepted in Tehran Stock Exchangeby April 2011. To do so, the data of 81 firms was collected and the findings from the testing the hypotheses showed that 13 hypotheses(meaningful relation between institutional ownership and the costs of companies' accumulated yield – institutional ownership and debt costs – managerial ownership and costs of ordinary shares - managerial ownership and costs of accumulated yield - managerial ownership and costs of debts - family ownership and costs of ordinary shares - family ownership and costs of debts – percentage of unsalaried members of directing board and costs of debts – sameness of board of directors' chief and managing director and costs of accumulated yield) out of 18 hypotheses rejected and 5 hypotheses were confirmed (ownership concentration and costs of accumulated yield - percentage of unsalaried members of directing board and costs of accumulated yield - percentage of unsalaried members of directing board and costs of ordinary shared - percentage of unsalaried members of directing board and costs of debts - sameness of board of directors' chief and managing director and costs of ordinary shared - sameness of board of directors' chief and managing director and costs of accumulated yield. Also 4 hypotheses out of 6 regarding the main hypothesis are rejected (institutional ownership and systematic risk – managerial ownership and systematic risk - percentage of unsalaried members of directing board and systematic risk - sameness of board of directors' chief and managing director and systematic risk) and 2 hypotheses were confirmed (family ownership and systematic risk – ownership concentration and systematic risk).
Customer trust as mediator in the creation of customer relationship intention

Abstract As in all service industries, banks need to be able to provide their customers with personalized services in order to ensure that they build and maintain long-term relationships which are mutually beneficial. As such, banks must adopt a relational marketing approach based on effective communication and the building of trust with the current customers instead of focusing on acquiring new customers. The current research provides insights into how banks can build trust and maintain their relations with existing customers by testing several predictors of customer trust and customer relationship intention. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine economic content, resource content and social content as the predictors of trust and relationship intention, and trust as a predictor of relationship intention. In addition, this study also analyzes the role of trust in mediating among economic content, resource content, and social content as a predictor of relationship intention of state owned bank customers in East Java. The sample of the study is formed of 120 customers of three state-owned banks from East Java. The research variables consist of three exogenous variables: economic content, resource content, and social content. The endogenous variables are trust and relationship intention. The data was collected using a questionnaire with multiple items measured using Likert scales. The model was analyzed using SEM with AMOS version 18.0. The result shows that economic content, resource content and social content are positive and significant predictors of trust and relationship intention. The role of economic content, resource content, social content as direct predictors is higher than the mediating role of trust of state owned bank customers.
New Conceptual Coupling and Cohesion Metrics for Object-Oriented Systems

The paper presents two novel conceptual metrics for measuring coupling and cohesion in software systems. Our first metric, Conceptual Coupling between Object classes (CCBO), is based on the well-known CBO coupling metric, while the other metric, Conceptual Lack of Cohesion on Methods (CLCOM5), is based on the LCOM5 cohesion metric. One advantage of the proposed conceptual metrics is that they can be computed in a simpler (and in many cases, programming language independent) way as compared to some of the structural metrics. We empirically studied CCBO and CLCOM5 for predicting fault-proneness of classes in a large open source system and compared these metrics with a host of existing structural and conceptual metrics for the same task. As the result, we found that the proposed conceptual metrics, when used in conjunction, can predict bugs nearly as precisely as the 58 structural metrics available in the Columbus source code quality framework and can be effectively combined with these metrics to improve bug prediction.
Synopsis of the Report of the Second Task Force on Blood Pressure Control in Children.

A RTERIAL hypertension has a relatively low / \ prevalence in children compared with adults. A. \ . There are, nonetheless, a small number of children for whom the problem is clinically significant, and for their physicians guidelines on detection, evaluation, and treatment are of substantial importance. Moreover, since the essential hypertensive adults of tomorrow will emerge in large part from the normotensive, seemingly healthy children of today, it is important from a preventive medicine standpoint to begin thinking of hypertension as a risk factor in the pediatric age group, even before clinical manifestations of the disease become apparent. To meet these needs, Pediatrics recently published the "Report of the Second Task Force on Blood Pressure Control in Children — 1987. "' Since this journal is read primarily by pediatricians, awareness of this task force report and familiarity with its contents are likely to be low within the community of hypertension researchers and adult hypertension practitioners who ordinarily do not subscribe to Pediatrics. Therefore, we have prepared this synopsis to call attention to the existence of this report and to highlight some of the important points emphasized by the task force. This brief synopsis is not intended to take the place of the full report and should not be viewed as a comprehensive presentation of state-ofthe-art approaches to the detection, evaluation, and treatment of hypertension in children. Rather, it is hoped that through this synopsis the reader will become aware of the report, and should more information be desired, consult the full task force report.
Association of anti‐gangliosides antibodies and anti‐CMV antibodies in Guillain–Barré syndrome

Numerous types of infection were closely related to GBS, mainly including Campylobacter jejuni, Cytomegalovirus, which may lead to the production of anti‐gangliosides antibodies (AGA). Currently, although there are increased studies on the AGA and a few studies of anti‐CMV antibodies in GBS, the association between them remains poorly documented. Therefore, our research aims to analyze the correlation of anti‐CMV antibodies and AGA in GBS.
Value Based Customer Relationship Management and Satisfaction of Commercial Banks’ Account Holders in Kenya

Customer satisfaction is a dynamic parameter for measuring business organizational success. As a modern measure for service quality, it ensures investment in development of customer focused management strategies such as value based CRM. Globally, value based CRM has been applied in the banking sector to enhance service quality and the resultant customer satisfaction which increases competitiveness, customer retention, loyalty and profitability. Despite implementation of value based CRM programs by commercial banks to increase satisfaction of account holders, customers continue to be dissatisfied with banking services. Customized services, personalized communication and complainant management are value based challenges that commercial banks have to manage in order to remain profitable and competitive. The specific objective of this study was to establish the effect of value based CRM on satisfaction of commercial banks account holders in Kenya. This study covered all commercial banks registered by Central Bank of Kenya and focused on headquarters of the banks. A sample of 400 respondents was selected from a target population of 28,324,334 account holders. This study used multiple regression analysis to establish the relationship between study variables. The study established that value based CRM had a significant positive linear relationship explaining 40.9% (R2 = 0.409) variation in satisfaction of commercial banks account holders in Kenya. Based on the findings, the study recommends that commercial banks should invest more in value based CRM strategies such as customized products and services, personalized communication and complaint management because they have a significant effect on account holder satisfaction. This study, further recommends that commercial banks should address value based CRM challenges relating to service customization, personalized communication and complaint handling which significantly affect satisfaction with banking services and profitability.
Metastatic breast cancer survival according to HER 2 and Topo 2 a gene status

The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between amplification of HER2 (Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2) and Topo2a (topoisomerase 2a) and their influence on prognosis in metastatic breast cancer (MBC) patients. Amplification of both HER2 and Topo2a genes was determined by chromogenic in situ hybridization (CISH) in primary tumor tissue of 71 MBC patients. Starting point for follow-up was the time of diagnosis of metastatic disease. Although there was significant correlation between HER2 amplification and Topo2a alterations, Topo2a amplification was not strictly related to HER2 amplification. Follow-up of patients showed that there was no difference in MBC survival between HER2-nonamplified and HER2-amplified patients for subgroup as whole, but there was significant difference in MBC survival between patients with and without Topo2a amplification. HER2 amplification showed prognostic value in subgroups of patients, as well as Topo2a. Combination of these two genes with different status (nonamplified, amplified, coamplified) indicated that they might have additive effect. Also, it has been shown that Topo2a-amplified cases have poorer survival than Topo2a-nonamplified, when treated with CMF therapy. Topo2a amplification seems to be more promising biomarker of MBC survival, than HER2, and potential marker of resistance to CMF therapy.
Values in international political speeches: Investigating their production, content, madia coverage, and impact

The studies in this dissertation collectively show the inclusion and presence of values in international political speeches as well as their effects on citizens’ opinion. As this research path has not yet been explored by previous scholars, this dissertation fills in many gaps in research and contributes to communication science and particularly to the research areas of political communication, speech communication, and journalism.
Properties of the Stimulus Router System, a Novel Neural Prosthesis

Various types of neural prostheses (NPs) have been developed to restore motor function after neural injury. Surface NPs are noninvasive and inexpensive, but are often poorly selective, activating nontargeted muscles and cutaneous sensory nerves that can cause discomfort or pain. Implantable NPs are highly selective, but invasive and costly. The stimulus router system (SRS) is a novel NP consisting of fully implanted leads that ¿capture¿ and route some of the current flowing between a pair of surface electrodes to the vicinity of a target nerve. An SRS lead consists of a ¿pick-up¿ terminal that is implanted subcutaneously under one of the surface electrodes and a ¿delivery¿ terminal that is secured on or near the target nerve. We have published a preliminary report on the basic properties of the SRS [L. S. Gan , ¿A new means of transcutaneous coupling for neural prostheses,¿ IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng., vol. 54, no. 3, pp. 509-517, Mar. 2007]. Here, we further characterize the SRS and identify aspects that maximize its performance as a motor NP. The surface current needed to activate nerves with an SRS, was found to depend on the proximity of the delivery terminal(s) to the nerve, electrode configurations, contact areas of the surface electrodes and implanted terminals, and the distance between the surface anode and the delivery terminal.
Wildfire extent and severity correlated with annual streamflow distribution and timing in the Pacific Northwest, USA (1984–2005)

Climate change effects on wildfire occurrence have been attributed primarily to increases in temperatures causing earlier snowpack ablation and longer fire seasons. Variability in precipitation is also an important control on snowpack accumulation and, therefore, on timing of meltwater inputs. We evaluate the correlation of total area burned and area burned severely to snowmelt‐induced streamflow timing and total annual streamflow metrics across the Pacific Northwest region from 1984–2005. Principal component scores on total annual water year flow and date of 50th percentile flow (PC1T) in the Pacific Northwest were used as predictors of satellite‐inferred area burned and area burned severely in forested settings. Both annual area burned and burned severely are significantly correlated with mean annual flow and streamflow timing. PC1T alone explains 24% of the variability in annual area burned. Path analysis suggests that a substantial amount of the variability in annual area burned, previously attributed solely to temperature effects on melt timing, may be primarily driven by trends in precipitation and total annual streamflow. Principal component analysis scores on mean annual streamflow explain as much as 46% of the variability in annual area burned from 1984–2005. Thus, although streamflow timing may be a better single correlate of annual wildfire activity, timing is, in turn, strongly dependent on precipitation. These results suggest that recent fire activity in forests of this region are influenced more by precipitation variability than temperature‐induced shifts in snowmelt timing, with significant implications for our ability to predict wildfire activity in the future. Published 2011. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.
Executive Attributes, Director Attributes, and Firm Performance

This paper investigates the impact of individual executives and directors on firm performance. In the German two-tiered system of corporate governance the tasks of running and monitoring the firm can be clearly assigned to the members of the executive and the supervisory board. My study is based on a comprehensive panel data set of 889 German firms covering the period 1993-2011. I find that fixed effects of individual executives and directors are equally important in explaining firm performance and explain as much of the variation in firm performance as observable board, manager and firm characteristics. The results further indicate that transitions of former executives to the supervisory board are not a cause of concern for shareholders. Moreover, only the aggregate sum and not the dispersion of the executive and director fixed effects between or within the executive and supervisory boards has an impact on firm performance. As studies about the relation between board characteristics and firm performance implicitly assume a link between board characteristics and board actions, my results suggest that the inclusion of director fixed effects could be important for other topics in corporate finance as well. JEL Classification: G30, G34, J24, C23
CHARACTERIZATION OF POLY (LACTIC ACID) SYNTHESIZED VIA DIRECT POLYCONDENSATION WITH DIFFERENT TREATMENTS OF SnCl2 AS A CATALYST

Different treatments of SnCl2 were utilized as a catalysct to synthesize poly (lactic acid) through direct polycondensation in solution. These treatments were in (i) a hydrous form (SnCl2.2H2O), (ii) an anhydrous form (SnCl2) and (iii) an impregnated form (SnCl2/-Al2O3). The polycondensation was done at 138 0C and in nitrogen atmospheric with flow rate of 100 ml/min. L-lactic acid and a catalyst (1 wt. % of l-lactic acid) were mixed in solution of m-xylene and reacted in 500 ml flask. The maximum molecular weight (Mw) of obtained poly (lactic acid) was 104,392 Da after 72 hours with catalyst SnCl2/ -Al2O3. Grafting of obtained poly (lactic acid) chains into glycerol supported by hexametyl diisocyanate (HDMI) was successfully done. The grafted poly (lactic acid) had an average molecular weight three times higher than that of obtained poly (lactic acid). Infra-red spectra showed that the poly (lactic acid) can be produced using this synthesis technique and has molecular structure arranged mainly in amorphous phases. The maximum degree of crystallinity was found at 12.91% (DSC) or 14.56% (XRD) for obtained poly (lactic acid) with catalyst of SnCl2/ -Al2O3. These results showed that impregnation SnCl2 on -Al2O3 enhanced its performance to polymerize l-lactic acid and able to graft it into glycerol.