Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
INSPIRE study: Does stress management improve the course of inflammatory bowel disease and disease‐specific quality of life in distressed patients with ulcerative colitis or crohn's disease? A randomized controlled trial

Background: The use of stress management psychotherapy is hypothesized to produce greater improvement in disease course and disease‐specific quality of life (IBDQ) compared to usual medical care alone in patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) or Crohn's disease (CD) showing high levels of stress (based on the Perceived Stress Questionnaire [PSQ]). Methods: Fifty‐eight patients with UC and 56 patients with CD who had experienced continuous disease activity or had relapsed over the previous 18 months, with an activity index for UC or CD ≥4, a PSQ ≥60, and without serious psychiatric disorders or other serious medical conditions were randomized to receive either treatment as usual (TAU) or TAU plus stress management psychotherapy. Psychotherapy consisted of three group sessions (psychoeducation, problem‐solving, relaxation) and 6–9 individual sessions based on cognitive behavior therapy‐related methods with 1–3 booster sessions at 6 and 12 months follow‐up. Gastroenterologists blinded to intervention group assessed disease activity and course at baseline and at 3, 6, 12, and 18 months. Patients completed the IBDQ at baseline, 6, 12, and 18 months. Results: The intervention did not improve disease or reduce relapse; however, it increased the IBDQ score (P = 0.009, mean differences 16.3 [SD 6.1]). On analysis of UC and CD separately, improvement of IBDQ was only found in the UC group. Conclusions: Stress management psychotherapy does not appear to improve disease course or reduce relapse in patients with IBD. It might improve quality of life, particularly in patients with UC. (Inflamm Bowel Dis 2011;)
Boundary spanning and gatekeeping roles of UK audit committees

Post-financial crisis, audit committee (AC) reforms are proposed to improve the quality of financial reporting. †† The editorial process for this paper was undertaken by Pauline Weetman, former ABR editor. This paper's empirical contribution is to investigate the extent to which ACs and audit committee chairs (ACCs) engage with chief financial officers (CFOs) and audit partners (APs) across a range of 32 financial reporting issues. It is the first large-scale survey of interactions to move beyond the micro-CFO/AP dyad and to distinguish the individual ACC from the AC group. While 37% of the 5445 reported discussions involve all three key individuals together with the full AC, 35% involve neither the AC nor the ACC and the ACC acts without the full AC in a significant minority of cases. The parties reported to be involved are similar across the three respondent groups but vary with financial reporting issue, company size and audit firm size. The paper's theoretical contribution is to interpret the evidence using the concepts of boundary spanning and gatekeeping roles. The research reveals incomplete levels of AC and ACC engagement with financial reporting issues. Findings have implications for policy-makers regarding the role, influence and effectiveness of the AC in financial reporting matters. Directions for future research are identified.
Collaboration between schools and community education agencies in tackling social exclusion

This paper describes the nature of the joint initiatives taking place between primary and secondary schools in Scotland and community education providers in local authorities and the voluntary sector, as reported on by the schools themselves. It details the characteristics of the relatively few schools which had strong links with their communities in terms of provision, collaboration and participation in decision making. Ten case-study schools and a detailed comparison of practice are used to illustrate the variety of approaches to collaboration found among them. Differences are explained not only in terms of the actors’ perceptions of the purposes of the collaboration, the values inherent in such perceptions, the conditions under which collaboration took place and the practices in operation but also in more analytic terms of institutional boundaries and pedagogic purpose. It is suggested that this analysis will help plot various models of collaborative practice and provide a useful way of interrogating the multifaceted strands of social inclusion policy.
The Losses Realized in Bank Failures

This paper examines the losses realized in bank failures. Losses are measured as the difference between the book value of assets and the recovery value net of the direct expenses associated with the failure. The author finds the loss on assets is substantial, averaging 30 percent of the failed bank's assets. Direct expenses associated with bank closures average 10 percent of assets. An empirical analysis of the determinants of these losses reveals a significant difference in the value of assets retained by the FDIC and similar assets assumed by acquiring banks. Copyright 1991 by American Finance Association.
MARKET BEHAVIOR IN A CLEARING HOUSE

One of the most fundamental market mechanisms is the clearing house, where orders are accumulated over time and the market is cleared periodically. The issue addressed in this study is the statistical behavior of the market under this neutral mechanism in the framework of a tractable stochastic model which captures the underlying uncertainties and indivisibilities in the demand and supply schedules. Applying renewal theory, we derive closed-form results for the behavior of prices and quantities, and pursue the implications of the possibility of no-trade and the multiplicity of market-clearing prices.
Avoiding Sural Nerve Injuries during Percutaneous Achilles Tendon Repair

Background Sural nerve injury is a reported risk during percutaneous repair of the Achilles tendon. Hypothesis Exposure of the sural nerve during percutaneous repair can minimize the risk of nerve injury. Study Design Case control study; Level of evidence, 3. Methods The authors retrospectively examined the results of 84 patients who were treated for acute Achilles tendon rupture at 2 different hospitals. Both hospitals used the same percutaneous repair technique, except that the sural nerve was exposed in the 38 patients (mean age, 38 years; range, 23-68 years) of one hospital; the nerve was not exposed in the 46 patients (mean age, 42 years; range, 24-71 years) of the other hospital (the nonexposure group). Results All patients recovered and returned to work after 44 days (range, 5-202 days). All patients returned to their previous sports levels within 1 year. On the 100-point Hannover Achilles Tendon Score, the mean score was 81 points (range, 44-100 points). The overall incidence of sural nerve related complications was 18%. All sural nerve lesions occurred in the nonexposure group. In the total study population, there were 3 cases of deep vein thrombosis, 1 rerupture, and 1 case of infection. Conclusion Sural nerve injuries can be minimized during surgery by carefully placing the stab incisions to expose the nerve so as to avoid it during repair. If the sural nerve is exposed, percutaneous repair of the ruptured Achilles tendon is a safe and reliable method of treating Achilles tendon ruptures.
Hypertonicity Is Involved in Redirecting the Aquaporin-2 Water Channel into the Basolateral, Instead of the Apical, Plasma Membrane of Renal Epithelial Cells*

In renal collecting ducts, vasopressin increases the expression of and redistributes aquaporin-2 (AQP2) water channels from intracellular vesicles to the apical membrane, leading to urine concentration. However, basolateral membrane expression of AQP2, in addition to AQP3 and AQP4, is often detected in inner medullary principal cells in vivo. Here, potential mechanisms that regulate apical versus basolateral targeting of AQP2 were examined. The lack of AQP2–4 association into heterotetramers and the complete apical expression of AQP2 when highly expressed in Madin-Darby canine kidney cells indicated that neither heterotetramerization of AQP2 with AQP3 and/or AQP4, nor high expression levels of AQP2 explained the basolateral AQP2 localization. However, long term hypertonicity, a feature of the inner medullary interstitium, resulted in an insertion of AQP2 into the basolateral membrane of Madin-Darby canine kidney cells after acute forskolin stimulation. Similarly, a marked insertion of AQP2 into the basolateral membrane of principal cells was observed in the distal inner medulla from normal rats and Brattleboro rats after acute vasopressin treatment of tissue slices that had been chronically treated with vasopressin to increase interstitial osmolality in the medulla, but not in tissues from vasopressin-deficient Brattleboro rats. These data reveal for the first time that chronic hypertonicity can program cells in vitroand in vivo to change the insertion of a protein into the basolateral membrane instead of the apical membrane.
Traffic of Human α-Mannosidase in Plant Cells Suggests the Presence of a New Endoplasmic Reticulum-to-Vacuole Pathway without Involving the Golgi Complex1[W]

Noncanonical protein traffic from the endoplasmic reticulum to the vacuole may bypass the Golgi complex altogether. The transport of secretory proteins from the endoplasmic reticulum to the vacuole requires sorting signals as well as specific transport mechanisms. This work is focused on the transport in transgenic tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) plants of a human α-mannosidase, MAN2B1, which is a lysosomal enzyme involved in the turnover of N-linked glycoproteins and can be used in enzyme replacement therapy. Although ubiquitously expressed, α-mannosidases are targeted to lysosomes or vacuoles through different mechanisms according to the organisms in which these proteins are produced. In tobacco cells, MAN2B1 reaches the vacuole even in the absence of mannose-6-phosphate receptors, which are responsible for its transport in animal cells. We report that MAN2B1 is targeted to the vacuole without passing through the Golgi complex. In addition, a vacuolar targeting signal that is recognized in plant cells is located in the MAN2B1 amino-terminal region. Indeed, when this amino-terminal domain is removed, the protein is retained in the endoplasmic reticulum. Moreover, when this domain is added to a plant-secreted protein, the resulting fusion protein is partially redirected to the vacuole. These results strongly suggest the existence in plants of a new type of vacuolar traffic that can be used by leaf cells to transport vacuolar proteins.
Identification of haptic based guidance in low visibility conditions

This thesis presents identification of abstracted dynamics of haptic based human control policies and human responses in guiding/following using hard reins in low visibility conditions. The extracted haptic based guidance policies can be implemented on a robot to guide a human in low visibility conditions like in indoor fire-fighting, disaster response, and search and rescue. Firstly, the thesis presents haptic based guidance in Human-human interactions. The control policies were modeled by a simple linear Auto-Regressive model (AR). It was found that the guiding agent’s control policy can be modeled as a 3rd order predictive AR system and the human follower can be modeled as a 2nd order reactive AR system. Secondly, the human follower’s dynamics were modeled by a time varying virtual damped inertial system to understand how trust in the guider is reflected by physical variables. Experimental results on human trust showed that the coefficient of virtual damping is most sensitive to the follower’s trust. Thirdly, the thesis evaluates human-robot interactions when the control policy identified from human guiders was implemented on a planar 1-DoF robotic arm to perturb the blindfolded subjects’ most dominant arm to guide them to a desired position in leftward/rightward directions. Experiments were carried with naive and trained subjects. Humans’ behavior in leftward/rightward movements are asymmetric for naive subjects and symmetric for trained subjects. Moreover, it was found that naive subjects elicit a 2nd order reactive behavior similar to human demonstration experiments. However, trained subjects developed a 2nd
The role of innovation in bilateral OECD trade performance

This paper tests an empirical model of the determinants of bilateral OECD trade, with particular emphasis on the role of innovation. Variation in the relationship across countries and sectors is analysed; two innovation proxies and actual data on innovations are used. A positive relationship is found between relative innovation and bilateral trade performance at an aggregate level, and for a number of manufacturing sectors. Sectors are also categorized as either net users or producers of innovations; differences in innovation appear to have more of an impact on trade performance for the net producers of innovations than the net users of innovations.
Competition among the elites, property rights protection and economic performance

In this paper, a model is built that investigates how competition among elites interacts with property rights protection for the middle class, and how they influence economic performance, when this interaction is taken into account. It is shown that when property rights of the middle class are less protected, there is more competition among the elites. Therefore, in some circumstances, economic performance improves despite insecure property rights. On the other hand, however, when there exists strong competition among the elites, property rights protection for the middle class decreases. Hence, under some conditions, economic performance worsens even though the competition is high. Furthermore, the paper provides an explanation for why regulation of entry is commonplace around the world.
Perceptions of health professionals on subcutaneous hydration in palliative care: A qualitative study

Background: Evidence indicates that hypodermoclysis is as safe and effective as intravenous rehydration in the treatment of the symptomatology produced by mild to moderate dehydration in patients for whom oral route administration is not possible. However, the knowledge about the use of the subcutaneous hydration and its correlates is still limited. Aim: To explore the perceptions, attitudes and opinions of health professionals in palliative care on the administration of subcutaneous hydration. Design: This is a qualitative focus group study with health professionals of palliative care. Four focus groups were carried out until data saturation. A qualitative content analysis was performed. Setting/participants: A total of 37 participants, physicians and nurses, were recruited from different services of palliative care in Spain. Results: In all, 856 meaning units were identified, from which 56 categories were extracted and grouped into 22 sub-themes, which were distributed among four themes: ‘factors which influence the hydration decision’, ‘factors related to the choice of the subcutaneous route for hydration’, ‘the subcutaneous hydration procedure’ and ‘performance guidelines and/or protocols’. Conclusions: Variables which most often influence the use of subcutaneous route to hydration are those that are linked to the characteristics of the patient, the team and the family, and other like the context and professionals’ subjective perceptions about this medical practice.
No-Help-Wanted Signs and the Duration of Job Search

In standard job search models, the increased duration ofjob search in recessions is the result of workers' failure to perceive the downward shift of the wage offer distribution they face. ' An alternative explanation, offered by Okun (I98I), argues that the increase in 'no-help-wanted signs', i.e. zero wage offers, in recessions raises workers' optimal duration of search. Since the increased duration of job search is explained without reference to faulty wage expectations, unemployment does not automatically return to the natural rate as workers recognise the new wage offer distribution. The effect of an increase in no-help-wanted signs (a reduction in the probability of receiving a nonzero wage offer) on the duration of search in sequential job search models is ambiguous in general (Barron, I 975). This paper seeks to discover conditions under which such an increase raises the optimal duration of job search. For this purpose, a simple job search model with no-help-wanted signs is developed in the next section.2 Section II shows that, if the distribution of wage offers is log concave, the optimal duration of job search rises with increases in no-help-wanted signs. Other circumstances that yield this result are also examined. The final section contains concluding remarks.
Evaluation of Poly (Glycerol-Adipate) Nanoparticle Uptake in an In Vitro 3-D Brain Tumor Co-Culture Model

Despite the inherent problems associated with in vivo animal models of tumor growth and metastases, many of the current in vitro brain tumor models also do not accurately mimic tumor-host brain interactions. Therefore, there is a need to develop such co-culture models to study tumor biology and, importantly, the efficacy of drug delivery systems targeting the brain. So far, few investigations of this nature have been published. In this paper we describe the development of a new model system and its application to drug delivery assessment. For our new model, a co-culture of DAOY cell brain tumor aggregates and organo-typic brain slices was developed. Initially, the DAOY aggregates attached to cerebellum slices and invaded as a unit. Single cells in the periphery of the aggregate detached from the DAOY aggregates and gradually replaced normal brain cells. This invasive behavior of DAOY cells toward organotypic cerebellum slices shows a similar pattern to that seen in vivo. After validation of the co-culture model using transmission electron microscopy, nanoparticle (NP) uptake was then evaluated. Confocal micrographs illustrated that DAOY cells in this co-culture model took up most of the NPs, but few NPs were distributed into brain cells. This finding corresponded with results of NP uptake in DAOY and brain aggregates reported elsewhere.
A Note on the Hyperlinks of Major Eurasian Cities

ities throughout history have emerged and increased their economic, cultural, and political stature based on the number and extent of their linkages to other places. In early history, cities were located at the mouths or intersections of rivers or where land routes and rivers juxtaposed. Later with improved and faster means of transportation, especially railroads and motor roads and later airlines, the urban networks and urban hinterlands expanded. Continued advances in transportation and communication have augmented the population bases and economic, political, and cultural functions of existing cities. And they also have led to the appearance of new generations of city clusters and systems at the national and regional levels. What we are witnessing today in the urban world (half of the Earth’s population lives in cities) in many regions of the planet are new urban geographies and geometries or networks. These are “electronic” linkages and they are connecting old and new, large and small, cities (Dodge, 2001; Hargittai and Centeno, 2001; Castells, 2002; Hanley, 2002; Simmie and Lever, 2002; van der Wusten, 2002). These linkages are attributed to advances in ICT (information and communication technologies) and they form the backbone of information economies (Janelle and Hodge, 2000; Lorentzon, 2000; Wheeler et al., 2000; Wilson and Corey, 2000). 2 These specific technologies include the telephone and fax machine, but also the Internet, including WWW (World Wide Web) resources, file transfers, chatrooms, and databases. Internet technologies transmit data files, maps, documents, images, texts, and visual materials instantly. Most parts of the world have been affected by the wired and wireless (cellular/mobile phone) innovations in ICT during the past decade. Few large cities in the world have not been linked or wired, at least to some extent. But the extent of those electronic networks and linkages are far from uniform. Large cities, especially national and regional capitals, would be places possessing the most linkages (Townsend, 2001; Zook, 2001). An examination of these urban linkages or ICT networks in any country or region would demonstrate the degree to which these places are linked to others, either on a global or regional scale (Brunn and Dodge, 2001; Brunn et al., 2002). In a Eurasian context, we can obtain a reading of the diffusion of Internet technologies by considering the number of webpages or hyperlinks for major cities. Data sources that provide the number of webpages or websites for any major city can be obtained by using one of several search engines.3 By entering a key word into a search engine, that is, a city or city and
Retinopathy of prematurity: an epidemic in the making.

OBJECTIVE To explore the etiology, incidence and methods to prevent and treat severe retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), which is rapidly becoming a threat to the vision of babies in areas of the world where increasing numbers of premature babies are surviving. DATA SOURCES The data used in this review were mainly from Medline and PubMed published in English. The search term was "retinopathy of prematurity and premature birth". STUDY SELECTION We discuss the historical perspectives, prevalence and incidence, classification and treatment methods of ROP in premature babies. RESULTS Peripheral retinal ablation for eyes with severe ROP can help prevent progression to blindness and several large clinical trials have shown the effectiveness of this treatment in high risk eyes. As a greater proportion of VLBW and ELBW babies survive, the population of babies at risk increases. In various regions of the world, different identification criteria are used to determine which babies are at risk of blindness in order to provide timely diagnostic examinations and treatment as needed. Methods for preventing ROP include better ante-natal and obstetric care leading to a reduction in the rate of prematurity, the use of ante-natal corticosteroids, and better neonatal care practices. Recent developments have indicated that management of oxygen supplementation is important for the prevention of severe ROP; however, there is not yet known what oxygen saturation target should be adopted. Sepsis increases severe ROP in very preterm infants. Genetic associations and a telemedicine approach may be explored to detect ROP. Treatment of anti-VEGF therapy are potentially useful in eyes with severe ROP, but long term effects are not yet known and such treatment should be used with great caution. CONCLUSIONS ROP is a potentially binding disease for premature babies which is becoming more prevalent with the development improving neonatal services in many countries in recent years. High priority should be placed on developing approaches to prevent ROP blindness by reducing preterm birth, improving care of premature babies in neonatal care units, and providing adequate ophthalmological services in those regions.