Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
In vitro effect of carprofen and meloxicam on the conductance and permeability to mannitol and the histologic appearance of the gastric mucosa of dogs.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effects of carprofen and meloxicam on conductance and permeability to mannitol and on the histologic appearance of sections of canine gastric mucosa. SAMPLE Gastric mucosa from 6 mature mixed-breed dogs. PROCEDURES Sections of gastric mucosa were mounted in Ussing chambers, and carprofen (40 or 400μg/mL [CAR40 and CAR400, respectively]), meloxicam (8 or 80μg/mL [MEL8 and MEL80, respectively]), or no drug (controls) was added to the bathing solution. For all sections, conductance was calculated every 15 minutes for 240 minutes and flux of mannitol was calculated for 3 consecutive 1-hour periods; histologic examination was performed after the experiment. The area under the conductance-time curve for each chamber was calculated. Values of conductance × time, flux of mannitol, and the frequency distribution of histologic findings were analyzed for treatment effects. RESULTS For CAR400- and MEL80-treated sections, conductance X time was significantly higher than that for control and MEL8-treated sections. The effect of CAR40 treatment was not different from that of any other treatment. Over the three 1-hour periods, mannitol flux increased significantly in MEL80-, CAR40-, and CAR400-treated sections but not in MEL8- treated or control sections. Major histologic changes including epithelial cell sloughing were limited to the CAR400-treated sections. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE In the gastric mucosa of dogs, carprofen and meloxicam increased in vitro conductance and permeability to mannitol. At a concentration of 400 μg/mL, carprofen caused sloughing of epithelial cells. Carprofen and meloxicam appear to compromise gastric mucosal integrity and barrier function in dogs.
International Exploitation of Domestic R&D Exploration: New Insights from Russian Manufacturing Firms

In this paper, we approach R&D cooperation and international market expansion from an exploration-exploitation perspective and look how various domestic R&D partners affect international market expansion activities in Russian firms. Our findings, based on a data survey of 206 manufacturing companies, show that different partners affect differently when it comes to market expansion and that their effect depends on a number of things such as the proximity of the international market. Using the exploration-exploitation approach, we are able to explain the phenomenon in more detail and so contribute to the existing international business and innovation management literature.
The SchauinslandCO 2 record : 30 years of continental observations and their implications for the variability of the European CO 2 budget

[1] Since 1972, the German Environment Agency (UBA) has been measuring continuously CO2 concentration at Schauinsland station (southwest Germany, 1205 m asl). Because of its vicinity to biogenic and anthropogenic sources and sinks, the Schauinsland CO2 record shows considerable variability. In order to remove these disturbances and derive the large-scale representative ‘‘background’’ CO2 level for the respective area (southwest Germany) we perform rigorous data selection based on wind speed and time of day. During the past 30 years, the selected CO2 mixing ratios increased by 1.47 ppm per year, following the mean trend in midlatitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. The average seasonal cycle (peak to peak) amplitude has decreased slightly from 13.8 ± 0.6 ppm in the first decade (1972–1981) to 12.8 ± 0.7 ppm in the last two decades (1982–2001). This is opposite to other northern latitude sites and is attributed to the decrease of fossil fuel CO2 emissions in the catchment area (southwest Germany and France) and its respective change in the seasonal variation. Except for May and June, monthly mean CO2 mixing ratios at Schauinsland are higher by up to 8 ppm if compared to marine boundary layer air, mainly as a consequence of fossil fuel CO2 emissions in Europe. The CO2 measurements when combined with continuous Rn observations at the same site allow an estimate of the net CO2 flux in the catchment area of Schauinsland: Mean seasonal fluxes compare very well with estimates from a processoriented biosphere model (SIB-2) as well as from an inverse modeling approach [Peylin et al., 2000]. Annual CO2 fluxes vary by more than a factor of 2, although anthropogenic fossil fuel CO2 emissions show interannual variations of only about 10%. The major part of the variability must therefore be associated to interannual changes of biospheric uptake and release, which are on the order of the total fossil fuel emissions in the same area. This has to be taken into account when reliably quantifying and verifying the long-term carbon balance and emission reduction targets in the European Union.
Regulation of neutrophil-derived IL-8: the role of prostaglandin E2, dexamethasone, and IL-4.

Historically, the neutrophil has been perceived as a terminally differentiated leukocyte with limited ability to produce de novo proteins. Furthermore, in the context of acute inflammation the activated neutrophil has been appreciated only for its ability to release various proteases, reactive oxygen, and arachidonic acid metabolites. Recently, the neutrophil has been shown to have the capacity to produce a number of cytokines that may be instrumental in orchestrating the progression of acute inflammation to a more chronic and specific immune response. These cytokines include IFN-alpha, M-CSF, G-CSF, TNF, IL-1, and IL-6. Our laboratory and others have shown that neutrophils produce IL-8 in response to LPS or a phagocytic challenge. Although these studies have shown the induction of IL-8 from polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN), relatively little is known regarding the regulation of PMN-derived IL-8. Because PMN and monocytes share the same stem cell, and monocyte-derived IL-8 is regulated by prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), glucocorticoids (dexamethasone; DEX) and the T-Lymphocyte-derived IL-4, we postulated that PMN-derived IL-8 production may be regulated in a similar manner. To test this hypothesis, PMN were isolated (> 99% pure) from peripheral blood and cultured in media with 5% FCS in the presence or absence of LPS (10 ng/ml; a concentration of LPS that induced the half-maximal production of PMN-derived IL-8) and in the presence or absence of DEX (10(-6) M to 10(-10) M), PGE2 (10(-6) M to 10(-10) M), or IL-4 (100 ng/ml to 100 pg/ml). PMN-derived IL-8 was measured using a specific sandwich ELISA. DEX and IL-4 in the presence of LPS were found to inhibit PMN-derived IL-8 in both a dose- and time-dependent fashion. DEX and IL-4 in concentrations of 10(-6) M and 10 ng/ml resulted in maximal inhibition of LPS-induced PMN-derived IL-8, respectively. Moreover, both DEX and IL-4 administration could be delayed 4 hr post-stimulation with LPS and result in significant suppression of PMN-derived IL-8. Interestingly, in contrast to the regulation of monocyte-derived IL-8 by PGE2, PGE2 treatment of PMN failed to inhibit the generation of LPS-induced IL-8. Northern blot analysis of steady-state IL-8 mRNA demonstrated that both DEX and IL-4 treatment of PMN resulted in a 40 and 52% reduction in LPS-stimulated PMN-derived IL-8 mRNA, respectively. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Pseudoaminopterin syndrome: Clinical report with new characteristics

Fetuses exposed to aminopterin during the 8th–9th week of development may show aminopterin embryophathy (AE). Surviving children have a specific phenotype that includes unusual face, skull, and skeletal abnormalities. Fraser et al. [Fraser et al. (1987); Clin Genet 32:28–34] described two children with multiple malformations characteristic of the aminopterin syndrome but without history of exposure to aminopterin in the mothers and suggested that this represents a new syndrome, the aminopterin syndrome‐like sine aminopterin (ASSA) syndrome. Here we describe a 9‐year‐old girl, born to unaffected first cousin parents. She has short stature, microcephaly, broad forehead with high hair implantation; sparse and fine hair, areas of alopecia; arched eyebrows with upturned hair, synophris; ocular hypertelorism, epicanthal folds, palpebral ptosis; oligodontia; low‐set and small ears with hypoplasia of antihelices; brachydactyly, clinodactyly of both 4th and 5th fingers; hypoplasia of the 4th metacarpal and clinodactyly of the 4th and 5th toes; overlap of the second over the third toe; bilateral hip luxation; patent foramen ovale; left posterior diaphragmatic hernia, absence of spleen and horseshoe kidney. She, her mother and her brother have a karyotype of 46,XX, with an inv(9)(p12q13) polymorphism. Although this patient has some characteristics did not described before in patients with ASSA such as, palpebral ptosis, oligodontia, left posterior diaphragmatic hernia, absence of spleen, and horseshoe kidney, her phenotype strongly suggest she has the pseudoaminopterin syndrome. However, we do not exclude the possibility that this is a different condition not described previously. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Accounting narratives’ characteristics and firm performance in the MD&As of listed Italian companies

The objective of this research is to investigate the textual construction of annual reports (MDA b) wording structure. Tests are made to measure the level of readability and wording construction of the MD&A of 40 listed companies. Results indicate that narratives are assessed as difficult to read independently of firm financial performance opening interpretations about how much attention is given to writing style in the reporting process. On the other hand, less performers seem using positive words in excess, giving too much positive colouration to their messages which may open way to several questions about intentional choice of texts and financial performance.
The Effect of Audit Specialists on the Informativeness of Discretionary Accruals

Prior literature finds evidence that clients of industry specialists have a lower level of discretionary accruals compared with nonspecialists. This finding suggests that industry specialists constrain the use of discretionary accruals. In addition to opportunistic reasons, however, managers also can use discretionary accruals to make earnings more informative. We examine the market pricing of discretionary accruals of clients of specialist and nonspecialist auditors. If industry specialists constrain opportunistic discretionary accruals but allow informative discretionary accruals, we expect a stronger relation between discretionary accruals and returns for clients of specialists. We use two different analyses based on Subramanyam (1996) and Tucker and Zarowin (2006) to investigate this issue. We find no evidence that the discretionary accruals of clients of industry specialists are more informative or more value relevant, although we do find that clients of specialists have more informative nondiscretionary accruals.
Learning and Extracting Finite State Automata with Second-Order Recurrent Neural Networks

We show that a recurrent, second-order neural network using a real-time, forward training algorithm readily learns to infer small regular grammars from positive and negative string training samples. We present simulations that show the effect of initial conditions, training set size and order, and neural network architecture. All simulations were performed with random initial weight strengths and usually converge after approximately a hundred epochs of training. We discuss a quantization algorithm for dynamically extracting finite state automata during and after training. For a well-trained neural net, the extracted automata constitute an equivalence class of state machines that are reducible to the minimal machine of the inferred grammar. We then show through simulations that many of the neural net state machines are dynamically stable, that is, they correctly classify many long unseen strings. In addition, some of these extracted automata actually outperform the trained neural network for classification of unseen strings.
Forest ecosystems of temperate climatic regions: from ancient use to climate change.

871 I. 871 II. 874 III. 875 IV. 878 V. 882 884 References 884 SUMMARY: Humans have long utilized resources from all forest biomes, but the most indelible anthropogenic signature has been the expanse of human populations in temperate forests. The purpose of this review is to bring into focus the diverse forests of the temperate region of the biosphere, including those of hardwood, conifer and mixed dominance, with a particular emphasis on crucial challenges for the future of these forested areas. Implicit in the term 'temperate' is that the predominant climate of these forest regions has distinct cyclic, seasonal changes involving periods of growth and dormancy. The specific temporal patterns of seasonal change, however, display an impressive variability among temperate forest regions. In addition to the more apparent current anthropogenic disturbances of temperate forests, such as forest management and conversion to agriculture, human alteration of temperate forests is actually an ancient phenomenon, going as far back as 7000 yr before present (bp). As deep-seated as these past legacies are for temperate forests, all current and future perturbations, including timber harvesting, excess nitrogen deposition, altered species' phenologies, and increasing frequency of drought and fire, must be viewed through the lens of climate change.
Beneficial effects of diminished production of hydrogen sulfide or carbon monoxide on hypertension and renal injury induced by NO withdrawal

Whether NO, carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen sulfide (H2S) compensate for each other when one or more is depleted is unclear. Inhibiting NOS causes hypertension and kidney injury. Both global depletion of H2S by cystathionine γ‐lyase (CSE) gene deletion and low levels of exogenous H2S cause hypertension. Inhibiting CO‐producing enzyme haeme oxygenase‐1 (HO‐1) makes rodents hypersensitive to hypertensive stimuli. We hypothesized that combined inhibition of NOS and HO‐1 exacerbates hypertension and renal injury, but how combined inhibition of NOS and CSE affect hypertension and renal injury was unclear.
Do High‐Technology Exports Cause More Technology Spillover in China?

The volume of China's high-technology exports has grown sharply since the implementation of its export promotion strategy “Revitalizing Trade through Science and Technology” in 1999. This paper investigates whether technology spillover effects are greater for high-technology exports than for primary manufactured goods exports. We present a generalized multi-sector spillover model to identify both between-spillover effects from exports towards non-exporters and within-spillover effects among export sectors. Using panel data for 31 provinces in China over the period from 1998 to 2005, we find that although high-technology export sectors have higher productivity compared with other sectors, this productivity advantage does not lead to technology spillover to both domestic sectors and other export sectors, and export technology spillover mainly derives from traditional export sectors rather than high-technology export sectors. As such findings can be largely attributed to the fact that China's high-technology exports depend significantly on processing trade by foreign-invested firms, policy implications are discussed in relation to how to best promote the role of China's high-technology exports during economic expansion.
Infectious pathogens and bronchiolitis outcomes

Bronchiolitis is a common early childhood illness and an important cause of morbidity, it is the number one cause of hospitalization among US infants. Bronchiolitis is also an active area of research, and recent studies have advanced our understanding of this illness. Although it has long been the conventional wisdom that the infectious etiology of bronchiolitis does not affect outcomes, a growing number of studies have linked specific pathogens of bronchiolitis (e.g., rhinovirus) to short- and long-term outcomes, such as future risk of developing asthma. The authors review the advent of molecular diagnostic techniques that have demonstrated diverse pathogens in bronchiolitis, and they review recent studies on the complex link between infectious pathogens of bronchiolitis and the development of childhood asthma.
Technological Regimes and Sectoral Patterns of Innovative Activities

This paper focuses on the relationships between observed patterns of innovative activities within a sector and the related context and underlying microeconomic processes that might account for them. It claims that there are some invariant features (with respect to relative prices and incentives mechanisms) of learning and knowledge accumulation that greatly affect the rate and structure of innovative activity. These features are different across sectors. The paper proposes that the specific pattern of innovative activity of a sector can be explained as the outcome of different technological regimes that are implied by the nature of technology and knowledge. The notion of technological regime provides a synthetic representation of some of the most important economic properties of technologies and of the characteristics of the learning processes that are involved in innovative activities. Copyright 1997 by Oxford University Press.
Safety and efficacy of electrocautery scalpel utilization for skin opening in neurosurgery

Diathermy is used widely in neurosurgical procedures, mainly for subcutaneous and deeper layers dissection. The use on scalp and skin of other body parts has been precluded by the fear of scar formation and wound dehiscence. One-hundred-and-seventy-seven skin incisions for neurosurgical procedures have been performed using the micro-needle electrocautery scalpel (MES) and the steel scalpel. The elements in this study included: electrocautery generator unit, cutting mode, power, waveform, size and shape of the MES, depth of the incision, the speed of the electrode movement through tissue, amount of blood loss, physical inspection of the wound edges and wound complication. Patients tolerated the procedures well, with no increased risk from the use of the MES. Only two incisions had wound infection and dehiscence. All other patients had usual wound healing. Time taken during skin opening was significantly shorter when using the MES. Blood loss during skin opening was three to five times less when the micro-needle electrocautery scalpel was used. The MES is both safe and useful in neurosurgical procedures. The findings of this study recommend the use of the MES in all neurosurgical procedures, especially when blood loss has significant importance, such as in paediatric cases.
New Proxy Signcryption Scheme with DSA Verifier

Proxy signcryption scheme is the combination of proxy signature and encryption. This paper presents a new publicly verifiable, proxy signcryption scheme where authentication, signature and confidentiality are achieved through an unsecured channel such as an open computer network and the Internet. The proposed scheme proved to overcome the weaknesses of the schemes known before. The proposed scheme is based on the work of Shin DSA verifiable singncryption, Gamage et al, Zhang Zhang, and Qingkuan Dong, proxy signcryption schemes. In these schemes the connection between sender and proxy needed a secure channel otherwise proxy is not protected from the originator. The new algorithm is more strong and robust, can give complete protection of proxy against the originator, and is DSA verifiable as indicated by the numerical examples in this paper
Determinants of audit time as a proxy of audit quality

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine auditor‐ and auditee‐related factors that determine audit time, as a proxy of audit quality. The issue of audit quality is of particular significance, while companies in Europe move towards adoption of international accounting standards.Design/methodology/approach – The paper compares the actual audit hours for corporate audits of listed companies with a minimum prescribed by the Supervisory Council of the Hellenic Institute of Certified Auditors (known in Greek with the acronym SOEL). The data used are from the period immediately preceding the implementation of SOEL's minimum audit time criteria.Findings – An “audit effort” ratio calculated as actual hours to minimum hours prescribed is found to bear a positive correlation with company size and gearing, and is also significantly higher for companies audited by large multinational audit firms and for companies that seek equity finance. A proportion of audits is found to have been conducted at less than the.
Credibility and Nominal Debt: Exploring the Role of Maturity in Managing Inflation

The role of debt maturity in managing the government's incentives to use opportunistic inflation to reduce the ex post real value of its nominal liabilities is explored. The maturity structure of government debt is shown to be a powerful instrument for affecting the time profile of the inflation tax base and, hence, for mitigating the distortions introduced by time inconsistency on taxation policies. The nature of the optimal policy is shown to be heavily dependent on the type of precommitment enjoyed by policymakers.
The Effects of Cultural Distance, Free Trade Agreements, and Protectionism on Perceived Export Barriers

ABSTRACT This article addresses the questions as to whether cultural distance and a free trade agreement with a trade bloc, as well as protectionism, have an impact on perceived external export barriers. The evaluation of a mail survey of chief executive officers from 459 Norwegian companies shows that protectionism has a strong significant effect on the level of perceived external export barriers. The cultural distance to the export markets has only a small effect, while the free trade agreement with the European Union has no effect.
Wars, Guns, and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places

In "Wars, Guns and Votes", award-winning author Paul Collier investigates the violence and poverty in the countries at the bottom of the world economy that are home to a billion people. A highly-regarded economist and expert on developing countries, Collier argues that the spread of elections and peace settlements in the world's most volatile countries may lead eventually to a brave new democratic world. In the meantime, though, nasty and protracted civil wars, military coups, and failing economies will plague the bottom billion - unless national sovereignty is curtailed and economic disciplines introduced.Through innovative research and astute analysis, Collier provides an eye-opening assessment of the ethnic divisions and insecurity in the developing countries of Africa, Latin America, and Asia where the democratic process so often fails. There have been many policy failures by the United States, the UK and other developed countries since the end of the Cold War, especially the reliance on pre-emptive military intervention, but Collier insists that these problems can and will be rectified. He persuasively outlines what must be done to bring long-term peace and stability.
The consequences of information asymmetry, task and environmental uncertainty on budget participation: evidence from Malaysian managers

The role of external and internal contextual variables that affect managerial participation in the budgetary process are not well understood, particularly managerial participation in manufacturing firms. By adopting a contingency approach, this study is trying to contribute to the existing literature by incorporating information asymmetry, perceived environmental uncertainty and task uncertainty (analysability and variety) as key factors to budget participation. A survey method through structured questionnaire was employed. There are a total of 77 respondent managers. Multiple regression analysis was conducted and the study found that task variety is significantly related to participation. However, information asymmetry, task analysability and perceived environmental uncertainty are not significantly related to budgetary participation.