Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Improvement of Chloride Transport Defect by Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone (GnRH) in Cystic Fibrosis Epithelial Cells

Cystic fibrosis (CF), the most common autosomal recessive disease in Caucasians, is due to mutations in the CFTR gene. F508del, the most frequent mutation in patients, impairs CFTR protein folding and biosynthesis. The F508del-CFTR protein is retained in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and its traffic to the plasma membrane is altered. Nevertheless, if it reaches the cell surface, it exhibits a Cl− channel function despite a short half-life. Pharmacological treatments may target the F508del-CFTR defect directly by binding to the mutant protein or indirectly by altering cellular proteostasis, and promote its plasma membrane targeting and stability. We previously showed that annexine A5 (AnxA5) directly binds to F508del-CFTR and, when overexpressed, promotes its membrane stability, leading to the restoration of some Cl− channel function in cells. Because Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone (GnRH) increases AnxA5 expression in some cells, we tested it in CF cells. We showed that human epithelial cells express GnRH-receptors (GnRH-R) and that GnRH induces an AnxA5 overexpression and an increased Cl− channel function in F508del-CFTR cells, due to an increased stability of the protein in the membranes. Beside the numerous physiological implications of the GnRH-R expression in epithelial cells, we propose that a topical use of GnRH is a potential treatment in CF.
Managing contested spaces: Public managers, obscured mechanisms and the legacy of the past in Northern Ireland

Societies emerging from ethno-political and inter-communal conflict face a range of complex problems that stem directly from the recent lived experience of bloodshed and injury, militarisation, securitisation and segregation. As institutional agents in such an environment, public managers perform the dual role of both interpreting public policy and implementing it within a politically contested space and place. In this article, we address how managers cope with the outworking of ethno-nationalist conflict and peace building within government processes and policy implementation and contend this is a subject of emerging concern within the wider public administration, urban studies and conflict literature. Using data from a witness seminar initiative on the Northern Ireland conflict transformation experience, we explain how public sector managers make sense of their role in post-agreement public management and highlight the importance of three identified mechanisms; ‘bricolage’, ‘diffusion’ and ‘translation’ in the management of public sector organisations and urban spaces in a context of entrenched conflict and an uncertain path to peace.
Linking resilience and organizational commitment: does happiness matter?

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose and empirically test a model that examines subjective well-being (SWB) components (affect balance and life satisfaction, colloquially referred to as “happiness”), as the intervening variables between resilience and organizational commitment (OC), drawing on appraisal theory and job demands‒resources model. Design/methodology/approach Based on an employee sample (n=345) from Indian organizations, this study uses structural equation modeling to confirm the differential mediating mechanism for OC dimensions. Findings The results suggest that resilience can create a pathway for positive emotions and increase life satisfaction, which, in turn, can help an employee to stick to the organization. Notably, findings indicate that affect balance fully mediates the linkages between resilience and affective commitment, whereas life satisfaction fully mediates the relationship between resilience and continuance commitment. Practical implications Besides making useful contributions to the concerned literature, the findings also have useful messages for managers and organizations trying to develop a committed workforce by building employee resilience. Originality/value Although previous studies have supported the relationship between resilience and OC, to date, no study has analyzed the motivational and cognitive process through which resilience relates to each dimension of OC (i.e. affective, normative and continuance).
Blast-Associated Shock Waves Result in Increased Brain Vascular Leakage and Elevated ROS Levels in a Rat Model of Traumatic Brain Injury

Blast-associated shock wave-induced traumatic brain injury (bTBI) remains a persistent risk for armed forces worldwide, yet its detailed pathophysiology remains to be fully investigated. In this study, we have designed and characterized a laboratory-scale shock tube to develop a rodent model of bTBI. Our blast tube, driven by a mixture of oxygen and acetylene, effectively generates blast overpressures of 20–130 psi, with pressure-time profiles similar to those of free-field blast waves. We tested our shock tube for brain injury response to various blast wave conditions in rats. The results show that blast waves cause diffuse vascular brain damage, as determined using a sensitive optical imaging method based on the fluorescence signal of Evans Blue dye extravasation developed in our laboratory. Vascular leakage increased with increasing blast overpressures and mapping of the brain slices for optical signal intensity indicated nonhomogeneous damage to the cerebral vasculature. We confirmed vascular leakage due to disruption in the blood-brain barrier (BBB) integrity following blast exposure. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels in the brain also increased with increasing blast pressures and with time post-blast wave exposure. Immunohistochemical analysis of the brain sections analyzed at different time points post blast exposure demonstrated astrocytosis and cell apoptosis, confirming sustained neuronal injury response. The main advantages of our shock-tube design are minimal jet effect and no requirement for specialized equipment or facilities, and effectively generate blast-associated shock waves that are relevant to battle-field conditions. Overall data suggest that increased oxidative stress and BBB disruption could be the crucial factors in the propagation and spread of neuronal degeneration following blast injury. Further studies are required to determine the interplay between increased ROS activity and BBB disruption to develop effective therapeutic strategies that can prevent the resulting cascade of neurodegeneration.
Extract Partial Discharge signal using wavelet for on-line measurement

In on-line PD measurement, de-noising Partial Discharge (PD) signal from noisy environment with acceptable performance indices and also with minimum time cost is a major challenge. In this paper a new approach based on wavelet thresholding is proposed for de-noising on-line PD signal. This method first applied on two different type PD signals with White Gaussian Noise (WGN) and simulation results shows that new threshold function give better performance with less computing time as compare to other existing de-noising technique. Finally, a field detected signal is tested and the de-noised signal indicates that method is effective and efficient for this application also.
Stressors in the Lives of Teachers in the Mahikeng Area, South Africa

Abstract This paper reports on the stress educators are experiencing in Middle and Secondary Schools in the Mafikeng Region, a district in South Africa. Data was collected by visiting all the schools from five clusters. A standardised questionnaire (ASSET) was used to determine the causes of stress in the lives of educators. A theoretical and quantitative investigation was done. A total number of 955 educators are employed in the secondary and middle schools in the five clusters. A questionnaire was distributed to each of these teachers. Nine factors contributing to teachers’ stress were identified, with a cumulative variance of sixty- eight percent. These factors are: managerial practices, relationship with work, causes of stress, career opportunities, job dissatisfaction, work success, leadership and management, remuneration and communication. Results in this study suggest that there is a direct link between these factors and the stress levels experience. More specifically two factors causing stress that were not previously identified by other researchers namely, communication and career opportunities were recognised whilst it was found that ill-discipline is not regarded as a crucial factor in causing teacher stress. The recommendations made on suggested ways of preventing and managing teacher’s stress concerned two main points namely, recognising teachers’ professional status and attending to their personal and academic development.
Tanshinone IIA Increases the Bystander Effect of Herpes Simplex Virus Thymidine Kinase/Ganciclovir Gene Therapy via Enhanced Gap Junctional Intercellular Communication

The bystander effect is an intriguing phenomenon by which adjacent cells become sensitized to drug treatment during gene therapy with herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase/ganciclovir (HSV-tk/GCV). This effect is reported to be mediated by gap junctional intercellular communication (GJIC), and therefore, we postulated that upregulation of genes that facilitate GJIC may enhance the HSV-tk/GCV bystander effect. Previous findings have shown Tanshinone IIA (Tan IIA), a chemical substance derived from a Chinese medicine herb, promotes the upregulation of the connexins Cx26 and Cx43 in B16 cells. Because gap junctions are formed by connexins, we hypothesized that Tan IIA might increase GJIC. Our results show that Tan IIA increased GJIC in B16 melanoma cells, leading to more efficient GCV-induced bystander killing in cells stably expressing HSV-tk. Additionally, in vivo experiments demonstrated that tumors in mice with 10% HSV-tk positive B16 cells and 90% wild-type B16 cells became smaller following treatment with the combination of GCV and Tan IIA as compared to GCV or Tan IIA alone. These data demonstrate that Tan IIA can augment the bystander effect of HSV-tk/GCV system through increased gap junction coupling, which adds strength to the promising strategy that develops connexins inducer to potentiate the effects of suicide gene therapy.
Social tourism as a modest, yet sustainable, development strategy: policy recommendations for Greece

ABSTRACT Recent findings from social tourism research and evidence from its practice have shown that social tourism has multiple benefits, both for individual participants and host-communities within destinations. The latter in particular have been acknowledged by the European Union and have been included in its recent sustainable tourism policy. Yet, there are a limited number of studies that have attempted to explicate the close linkages between social tourism and sustainable development, and to inform public policy. This paper aims to do so with specific reference to Greek social tourism programmes. Drawing upon development theory, specifically sustainable development, and sustainable tourism research in particular, the study builds an argument for the potential of social tourism to act as a stabilising force in the Greek tourism system, contributing to the achievement of sustainability outcomes for host-communities. In doing so, the paper makes tangible policy recommendations, which are also timely, given the current socioeconomic environment that has been shaped in Greece, across Europe, and elsewhere, since the 2008 crisis.
Effects of transcranial direct current stimulation on the working memory of post-stroke people: an integrative review

Background: Stroke is a chronic disease that is becoming more common in all the world causing damage to people affected, for instance, cognitive deficits. The Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) is a form of treatment that modulates specific areas of the nervous system. Objective: The objective of this integrative review was to analyze the effectiveness of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) on the working memory (WM) in post-stroke patients. Method: This review included articles that analyzed the effects of tDCS on human beings with a diagnosis of stroke and used as outcomes: verbal, visual, spatial or auditory WM. The assessment of studies elegibility was performed by two independent researchers from 8 databases: Cochrane Library via Wiley CENTRAL, PubMed, LILACS, SCIELO, Web of Science, Scopus, CINAHL and PEDro following PRISMA guideline. Results: Three articles were included in the qualitative synthesis presenting a total of 66 participants (32 male and 34 female), 36 ischemic stroke and 30 hemorrhagic stroke with an average time of 42 days. Interventions were done on the areas F3/F4 (dorsolateral part of the prefrontal cortex) and T3/T4 (temporal anterior lobe) with 2mA current intensity for 30 minutes duration. The outcomes analyzed: verbal, visual, spatial, and auditory WM showed significant improvements after the use of tDCS. Conclusion: The limitations of this review were study designs, number of participants, lack of standardized interventions and short period of follow-up. tDCS showed satisfactory results on the WM of post-stroke individuals, but it is needed to be cautious due to the methodological quality of the articles. It is registered in the Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews PROSPERO with registration number CDR42016048050.
Effects of a Single Foot Rot Incident on Weight Performance of Feedlot Steers

Abstract Feedlot performance records from the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center feedlot for 1993 through 2000 were analyzed to evaluate the impact of foot rot on ADG and total days on feed. Records from the original pool of 36,755 bull, steer, and heifer calves were sorted so that only steers that had a single foot rot incidence and no other morbidities were included in the data set (7,100 steers). To roughly pattern these data to industry production practices, time of foot rot insult during feeding was divided into 3 production periods: starting (0 to 60 d), growing (61 to 120 d), and finishing (121 d to harvest). Records were evaluated to determine which limb was more likely to be affected with foot rot. A total of 459 (6.5%) steers were treated for a single foot rot incident. The ADG for cattle not affected by foot rot was 1.30 kg. For cattle experiencing a single foot rot incident, the ADG was 1.27 kg (P = 0.03). The production period of foot rot onset impacted both ADG and total days on feed. Steers diagnosed with foot rot during the starting period gained 0.032 kg/d more (P = 0.083) than non-affected steers. Steers diagnosed in the growing and finishing periods gained 0.009 and 0.049 kg/d less than non-affected cattle (P = 0.438 and P
SUZAKU OBSERVATIONS OF THE CIRCINUS GALAXY

We report Suzaku observations of the active, Compton-thick Circinus galaxy. Observations were obtained with both the X-ray imaging spectrometer (XIS) and the hard X-ray detector (HXD). Below 10 keV, the nuclear spectrum is dominated by radiation reflected from cold dense gas of high column density, while above 13 keV the radiation is directly transmitted nuclear emission seen through a column density of ≃4 × 1024 cm−2 . In the 0.2–10 keV band, the XIS spectrum is contaminated at 5% level by the brightest off-nuclear source in Circinus, but drops to 1% in the 5–10 keV band and is negligible at higher energies. We find no significant evidence for variability in the hard (>12 keV) emission. Circinus is marginally detected with the HXD/GSO in the 50–100 keV band at 2. 5σ level. We model the 3–70 keV band XIS+PIN spectra with four components: the Compton transmitted nuclear emission, the reflected nuclear emission, a soft power law (representing a combination of scattered nuclear emission, extended emission, and contamination by sources in the galaxy below a few keV), and emission lines. The hard nuclear power law is found to have a photon index Γh ≃ 1.6, very similar to the soft power law. The high-energy cutoff is EC ≃ 49 keV. These results agree with those from BeppoSAX. An extrapolation of this model up to the GSO band shows good agreement with the GSO spectrum and supports our detection of Circinus up to ≃100 keV.
Random walks on colored graphs: analysis and applications

This thesis introduces a model of a random walk on a colored undirected graph. Such a graph has a single vertex set and distinct sets of edges, each of which has a color. A particle begins at a designated starting vertex and an infinite color sequence is specified. At time the particle traverses an edge chosen uniformly at random from those edges of color incident to the current vertex. The first part of this thesis addresses the extent to which an adversary, by choosing the color sequence, can affect the behavior of the random walk. In particular, we consider graphs that are covered with probability one on all infinite sequences, and study their expected cover time in the worst case over all color sequences and starting vertices. We prove tight doubly exponential upper and lower bounds for graphs with three or more colors, and exponential bounds for the special case of two-colored graphs. We obtain stronger bounds in several interesting special cases, including random and repeated sequences. These examples have applications to understanding how the entries of the stationary distributions of ergodic Markov chains scale under various elementary operations.
The Schedulability of Deadline-ordered Service Disciplines

| In a deadline-ordered service discipline, packets are assigned transmission deadlines and are transmitted in increasing order of deadlines. Diierent deadline-ordered service disciplines are distinguished by how they deene deadlines. One of the more diicult analytical problems one faces when designing a new deadline-ordered service discipline is to prove that one can bound the end of transmission times of packets relative to their assigned deadlines, which we call schedulability. We show that, no matter how one deenes deadlines, there is a simple schedulability condition for deadline-ordered service disciplines. This schedu-lability condition is necessary and suucient for preemptive deadline-ordered service disciplines and, for a server that allows the presence of non real-time packets (i.e., packets with no deadlines), it is also necessary and suucient for non-preemptive deadline-ordered service disciplines. We also address the schedulability problem of arbitrary scheduling policies and show the optimality of deadline-ordered scheduling. To show how our results simplify schedulability determination, we use them to prove the known schedula-bility conditions of VirtualClock, PGPS, Stop-and-Go, and Delay-EDD, and to prove the necessary schedulability condition of VirtualClock.
University of Massachusetts Amherst

This paper examines the effects of risk aversion on compliance choices in markets for pollution control. A firm’s decision to be compliant or not is independent of its manager’s risk preference. However, noncompliant firms with risk averse managers will have lower violations than otherwise identical firms with risk neutral managers. The violations of noncompliant firms with risk averse managers are independent of differences in their benefits from emissions and their initial allocations of permits if and only if their managers’ utility functions exhibit constant absolute risk aversion. However, firm-level characteristics do impact violation choices when managers have coefficients of absolute risk aversion that are increasing or decreasing in profit levels. Finally, in the equilibrium of a market for emissions rights with widespread noncompliance, risk aversion is associated with higher permit prices, better environmental quality, and lower aggregate violations.
Victim age and capital sentencing outcomes in North Carolina (1977–2009)

Abstract Age is prominent among theories of criminology and victimology. It is less conspicuous in punishment theory, despite its emphasis in retributive theory and lawmaking. The present study evaluated competing ‘years of life lost’ and ‘vulnerable victim’ hypotheses to examine the influence of victim age in capital sentencing decisions. Using case file data on the population of capital murder trials in the State of North Carolina (1977–2009), our findings produce mixed results. Our quantitative analyses suggest that death sentences are significantly less likely in direct proportion to victim age. Killers of elderly victims are less likely to receive the death penalty; conversely, the odds of a death sentences are slightly greater for killers of child victims. Supplementary qualitative analyses suggest that while many child and elderly victims were not per se ‘vulnerable,’ a substantial subset of each clearly were treated as such. We discuss implications for vulnerable victim research and the role of quasi-legal factors in case outcomes.
Exploring the effects of a ‘new’ listing of a UNESCO World Heritage Site: the case of Singapore Botanic Gardens

ABSTRACT This study examines how the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Heritage Site (WHS) listing impacts on push-pull factors, satisfaction and revisit intention. Data were collected on visitors to the Singapore Botanic Gardens before and after the WHS listing was awarded. The pre-listing and post-listing samples were compared and results revealed significant differences between the samples. Differences were observed for the importance of various push and pull factors as well as satisfaction and revisit intention. This study provides researchers and practitioners with greater insight into the effects of the WHS listing and recommends potential strategies for future marketing communications.
Cytotoxic Interactive Effects of Dentin Bonding Components on Mouse Fibroblasts

Previous studies have shown a wide range of pulpal reactions to dentin bonding systems and a poor correlation between in vitro and in vivo toxicity of dentin bonding agents. Because dentin bonding agents are composed of multiple components which may diffuse through dentin, we hypothesized that these components may cause cytotoxicity through interactive (synergistic) effects. We investigated the cytotoxicities of four dentin bonding components-HEMA, Bis-GMA, TEGDMA, and UDMA-and interactive effects for three binary combinations of the dentin bonding components-HEMA and Bis-GMA, Bis-GMA and TEGDMA, and TEGDMA and UDMA. Cytotoxicities to Balb/c 3T3 mouse fibroblasts were measured by the MTT assay. Concentrations which caused 50% toxicity compared with controls (TC50 values) were compared, and the interactive effects were determined by evaluation of the differences between observed and expected MTT activities of the cells. The ranks of toxicity of the dentin bonding components in terms of TC50 values were as follows: Bis-GMA > UDMA > TEGDMA >>> HEMA (least toxic) after 24- and 72-hour exposures. As binary combinations, the three combinations of dentin bonding components interacted in three ways—synergism, additivism, and antagonism-which were influenced by the concentrations of both components. The longer period of exposure resulted in a significant increase in the cytotoxicity of the dentin bonding components and combinations. The findings indicate that both exposure time and the interactions between the dentin bonding components may be important parameters in determining the cytotoxicity of dentin bonding agents in vivo.