Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Allogeneic donor peripheral blood “stem cell” apheresis: prospective comparison of two apheresis systems

BACKGROUND: Granulocyte–colony‐stimulating factor–mobilized peripheral blood stem cells, collected by white blood cell apheresis, are used for more than 80% of allogeneic and most autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantations. Optimal donor and recipient outcomes require maximized stem cell collection efficiency and minimized non–target cell contamination. Therefore, improved apheresis technology is desirable. The safety and feasibility of apheresis collections with the novel, electronics‐assisted apheresis system Spectra Optia v.5. 0 (CaridianBCT) were recently demonstrated. An unpublished optimization trial had furthermore determined that different settings than manufacturer‐installed default might result in improved apheresis yields.
Testosterone treatment alters melatonin concentrations in male patients with gonadotropin-releasing hormone deficiency.

Recently, we demonstrated that melatonin secretion is increased in untreated male patients with GnRH deficiency. As testosterone (T) can be aromatized to estradiol (E2), and both T and E2 increase during T enanthate treatment, we were interested in determining whether T treatment (when T and E2 levels were well matched with pubertal control values) has an effect on melatonin levels in these patients. We measured nocturnal serum melatonin levels during the administration of 250 mg testosterone enantale/month for 4 months in 12 male patients with idiopathic hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (IGD; n = 6) and delayed puberty (DP; n = 6). Serum samples for melatonin and LH determinations were obtained every 15 min from 1900-0700 h in a controlled light-dark environment. The results of melatonin profiles were compared with the pretreatment values in each group and with values obtained in six normal pubertal male controls. After 4 months of testosterone treatment, all patients attained normal serum testosterone (19.5 +/- 3.7 in IGD vs. 20.8 +/- 4.1 nmol/L in DP) and E2 levels (83 +/- 12 in IGD vs. 84 +/- 9 pmol/L in DP). Serum LH levels were suppressed in all patients during T treatment (0.12 +/- 0.1 in IGD vs. 0.12 +/- 0.2 IU/L in DP). Before T treatment, patient melatonin levels were greater than those in age-matched pubertal controls. Melatonin levels were equal in patients and controls when T and E2 levels were well matched. Mean (+/- SD) dark-time melatonin levels decreased from 286 +/- 23 to 157 +/- 36 pmol/L in IGD and from 217 +/- 32 to 133 +/- 47 pmol/L in DP (vs. 183 +/- 64 pmol/L in controls). The integrated melatonin values decreased to normal (from 184 +/- 16 to 102 +/- 21 in IGD and from 142 +/- 19 to 90 +/- 26 pmol/min.L x 10(3) in DP vs. 119 +/- 61 pmol/min.L x 10(3) in controls). The intraindividual variations in melatonin levels ranged from 7.2-14.5%. These data indicate that male patients with GnRH deficiency have increased nocturnal melatonin secretion. T treatment decreased melatonin secretion to normal levels. The results suggest that in GnRH-deficient male patients, sex steroids, rather than LH, modulate pineal melatonin in a reverse fashion.
Measurement of total body water by bioelectrical impedance in chronic renal failure.

OBJECTIVE Abnormalities of body hydration are common in patients with advanced chronic renal failure (CRF) and may be associated with important adverse clinical effects, even in the absence of clinical features of fluid retention or depletion. Bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) is a simple, non-invasive method of measuring body water content and thus could be of use in the management and study of patients with CRF. This study was performed to assess the ability of BIA to measure total body water (TBW) in patients with CRF. DESIGN TBW was measured by two different impedance systems, with comparison of the results with TBW determined by deuterium oxide dilution (D2O). SETTING Renal Unit, Leeds General Infirmary and Centre for Bone and Body Composition Research, University of Leeds, UK. RESULTS The range of the 95% limits of method agreement between BIA and D2O expressed as a percentage of the mean for the group was +/- 13.4% for the RJL 101A system and +/- 15.6% for the Holtain system in controls. For the whole CRF group the limits were moderately greater than controls at +/- 17.3% (RJL) and +/- 21.9% (Holtain). Analysis of subgroups of the CRF patients showed the smallest limits in those receiving peritoneal dialysis (+/- 15.5% RJL and 18.2% Holtain). Limits were greater for patients on haemodialysis (+/- 16.0% RJL and +/- 23.8% Holtain) and undialysed patients (+/- 20.1% and +/- 23.0%). CONCLUSIONS BIA is less accurate for the measurement of TBW in patients with CRF than in healthy subjects, though in some groups of patients the effect of CRF on the validity of this technique may be only mild. Abnormalities of reactance suggest that abnormal variability in the distribution of fluid between intra- and extracellular compartments is the major cause of reduced accuracy of TBW calculated by BIA in CRF patients.
Workers' Behavior and Labor Contract: An Evolutionary Approach

This article investigates the co-evolution of labor relationships and workers preferences. According to recent experimental economics findinggs on social preferences, the workforce is assumed to be heterogeneous. It is composed by both cooperative and non-cooperative workers. In addition, firms differ by the type of contract they offer (explicit or implicit). Finally, both the distribution of preferences and the degree of contractual completeness are endogeneized. Preferences evolve through a process of cultural transmission and the proportion of implicit contracts is driven by an evolutionary process. The complementarity between the transmission of cooperation and the implementation of implicit contracts leads to multiple equilibria which allow for path-dependence. This property is illustrated by the evolutions of American and Japanese labor contracts during the Twentieth century.
ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF IN-MIGRATING RETIREES ON LOCAL ECONOMIES

There is growing interest in the economic impact of retiree's consumption expenditures on the output, income, and employment of local and state economies. The purpose of the study is to present, analyze, and compare the economic impact of increased elderly in-migrant spending in nine counties in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. The economic impacts are calculated using an input-output model and survey data collected on elderly in-migrant spending in the nine counties. Although all nine counties experienced a substantial benefit from in-migrant spending, the benefit varied substantially among counties. The number of new jobs created in the county of residence as a result of retiree spending was estimated to range from one-half to one job per household. This is consistent with the findings of similar studies of the economic impact of retirees.
Effects of the European Union on Sub‐National Decision‐Making: Enhancement or Constriction?

Abstract It is commonly assumed that the European Union (EU) influences sub‐national authorities (SNAs), but it is not clear exactly to what extent and how it does this. Some scholars conclude that the EU strengthens SNAs (e.g. by funding), others claim that the EU weakens them (e.g. by rules). This article presents a theoretical framework in which various forms of enhancing and constraining effects are represented, and by which the empirical merits of the contesting points of view can be assessed. The research was conducted in two municipalities and one province in the Netherlands, by detailed study of their administrative practice. The research shows that the EU influences sub‐national decision making to a fairly large extent, that some of this influence can be concurrently constraining as well as enhancing and that the influence of the EU at the local level is predominantly enhancing and indirect, while at the provincial level it is predominantly constraining and direct.
Academic Identities and Policy Change in Higher Education

Part 1 Policy changes and assumptive worlds: the policy changes the enterprise initiative quality assurance policies institutional structures and assumptive worlds - changes and continuities. Part 2 Policy changes and academic identities: academic identity becoming an academic career development - teaching career development -research academics as managers policy change and the academic profession.
International Institutions and Socialization in Europe: Introduction and Framework

International institutions are a ubiquitous feature of daily life in many world regions, and nowhere more so than contemporary Europe. While virtually all would agree that such institutions matter, there is less agreement on exactly how they have effects. This special issue brings together European Union specialists and international relations theorists who address the latter issue. In particular, we explore the socializing role of institutions in Europe, with our central concern being to better specify the mechanisms of socialization and the conditions under which they are expected to lead to the internalization of new roles or interests. Drawing on a multifaceted understanding of human rationality, we consider three generic social mechanisms—strategic calculation, role playing, and normative suasion—and their ability to promote socialization outcomes within international institutions. This disaggregation exercise not only helps consolidate nascent socialization research programs in international relations theory and EU studies; it also highlights points of contact and potential synergies between rationalism and social constructivism.For comments on earlier versions, I am grateful to two anonymous referees, IO editors Lisa Martin and Thomas Risse, as well as to John Duffield, Alexandra Gheciu, Liesbet Hooghe, Peter Katzenstein, Ron Mitchell, Frank Schimmelfennig, Martha Snodgrass, and Michael Zürn. More generally, thanks are owed to all the project participants for numerous and valuable discussions on the themes addressed in this volume.
Intellectual capital disclosure in the context of corporate governance

The study uses content analysis to explore the relationship between board features, audit committee and ownership structures on intellectual capital (IC) disclosure whilst controlling for firm specific characteristics such as firm-size, profitability, leverage and type of auditor. This study also attempts to provide empirical evidence on the influence of corporate governance on voluntary IC information in a developing nation drawing from both the agency and institutional theories. It was found that ownership structure (family-controlled, government-owned and diffused ownership) and audit committee (size of audit committee and financial experts of audit committee members) are able to explain the behavioural practices of the voluntary disclosure of IC. Audit committee and ownership structure were found to influence IC disclosures, suggesting IC disclosures among Malaysian companies can be enhanced by incorporating such information in the corporate governance report. This paper also suggests that guidelines on IC disclosure can perhaps be initiated as a complement to the existing corporate governance report.
The Hotelling Valuation Principle: Evidence from the Six Super Majors

This paper applies the Hotelling Valuation Principle developed by Miller and Upton to the six super majors, multinational oil companies and extends their model by adding an explanatory variable as in world oil and gas inventory. The results do not support the Hotelling Valuation Principle and in fact the study finds that the in ground reserves of the six super majors are worth about twice as less as these same reserves once extracted. In addition, it is found that world stock effect has a significant impact on the value of oil and gas reserves and provides additional explanatory power to the Hotelling Valuation Principle.
Structuring International Joint Ventures: How Should Contractual Design Be Aligned with Environmental Conditions?

Using international equity joint ventures (IJVs) as the analytical setting, this study examines the configurations between a set of contractual completeness attributes and a set of environmental conditions: 1) Our analysis suggests that contingency coverage of an IJV contract increases as environmental dynamism, complexity, and hostility increase. Issue inclusiveness of an IJV contract increases along with environmental dynamism. Clause specificity of an IJV contract decreases when environmental dynamism and complexity heighten. 2) The above configurations between contractual design and environmental conditions are found to have a favorable influence on IJV performance in a host country.
Ease of doing business and FDI inflow to Sub‐Saharan Africa and Asian countries

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between factors that influence conducting business and the inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) to Sub‐Saharan African (SSA) and Asian countries.Design/methodology/approach – The factors of business climate defined by the World Bank in 2006 as ease of doing business were correlated with FDI flows to SSA and Asian countries.Findings – Two factors, “registering property” and “trading across borders”, were found to be related to FDI over all six years of the study (2000‐2005) for the combined sample. Also, several factors were found to be related to FDI received by SSA and Asian countries during various years.Research limitations/implications – A limitation of the study is that the sample included only SSA and Asian countries.Practical implications – The findings may help SSA and other countries to improve the business climate in terms of the factors of ease of doing business, in order to attract more FDI.Originality/value – The pape.
Political Corruption and Partisan Engagement: Evidence from Brazil

In long-standing democracies, the partisan attachments of most citizens are stable and not responsive to short-term political events. Recent studies from younger democracies, however, suggest that partisanship may be more malleable in these contexts. In this paper we develop hypotheses about how political corruption might affect voter attachment to the parties of corrupt officials or to the party system as a whole. Using data from an original survey experiment in Brazil, we show that prompts about political corruption shift patterns of partisan attachment for highly educated respondents – specifically, that corruption associated with one political party reduces nonpartisanship and significantly increases identification with other political parties. In contrast, we find that information on corruption has no consistent measurable effect on partisanship for less educated respondents. We conclude by discussing the implications of malleable partisanship for democratic accountability.
Corporate Payout Policy in Australia and a Test of the Life-Cycle Theory

We provide evidence on the frequency and size of corporate payouts by Australian firms, and test whether the life cycle theory explains Australian payout policies. Regular dividends remain the most popular mechanism for distributing cash to shareholders, despite a slight decline in the proportion of dividend payers since the relaxation of buy-back regulations in 1998. Off-market share buy-backs return the largest amount of cash to shareholders. Dividend paying firms are larger, more profitable, and have less growth options that non-dividend paying firms. Consistent with the life cycle theory, we observe a highly significant relation between the decision to pay regular dividends and the proportion of shareholders’ equity that is earned rather than contributed.
Requirement of cyclin D1 in mesangial cell mitogenesis.

Abstract. Hyperplasia of mesangial cells (MC) is a frequent finding in glomerulonephritis. The control and function of cyclin D1, a regulator of cell cycle progression, in MC proliferation in vivo and in vitro were investigated. In a rat model of mesangioproliferative glomerulonephritis, increases in the number of cyclin D1-positive MC nuclei were prominent on day 5 of the disease, preceding the peak of MC hyperplasia. In growth-arrested rat MC in culture, mitogenic stimulation with serum or platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) led to rapid increases in cyclin D1 protein expression. Transforming growth factor-beta1 inhibited PDGF induction of cyclin D1 protein at 12 h. In an examination of the subcellular distribution of cyclin D1, it was observed that stimulation of MC with PDGF for 6 h caused translocation of cyclin D1 from the cytoplasm into the nucleus. Coincubation with PDGF and transforming growth factor-beta1 completely inhibited this effect, without altering the cellular cyclin D1 protein abundance at that time point. To test whether reduction of cyclin D1 protein levels was sufficient to inhibit mitogenesis, MC were transfected with antisense oligonucleotides (ODN) complementary to rat cyclin D1 mRNA. Antisense ODN against cyclin D1 reduced the serum- or PDGF-induced protein expression of cyclin D1 to 27 or 10% of control levels, respectively. These inhibitory effects were correlated with diminished cyclin-dependent kinase 4 activity. Antisense ODN against cyclin D1 also decreased the PDGF-induced increase in p21(Waf-1) protein levels. The MC proliferation caused by serum or PDGF was markedly inhibited by antisense ODN against cyclin D1, as measured by [(3)H]thymidine uptake and cell counts. It is concluded that increased cyclin D1 protein expression of MC is required for MC proliferation. Targeting cyclin D1 expression may represent an effective means to inhibit MC proliferation in vitro and in vivo.
Greener Pastures and the Impact of Dynamic Institutional Preferences

Although institutional investors have a preference for large capitalization stocks, over time they have shifted their preferences toward smaller, riskier securities. These changes in aggregate preferences have arisen primarily from changes in the preferences of each class of institution, rather than changes in the importance of different classes. Evidence also suggests that recent growth in institutional investment combined with this shift in preferences helps explain why markets in general, and smaller stocks in particular, have exhibited greater firm-specific risk and liquidity in recent years. Additional analyses suggest that institutional investors moved toward smaller securities because such securities offer "greener pastures. " Copyright 2003, Oxford University Press.
The Economic Effects of a Borrower Bailout: Evidence from an Emerging Market

This paper studies the credit market implications and real effects of one the largest borrower bailout programs in history, enacted by the government of India against the backdrop of the 2008-2009 financial crisis. The study finds that the stimulus program had no effect on productivity, wages, or consumption, but led to significant changes in credit allocation and an increase in defaults. Post-program loan performance declines faster in districts with greater exposure to the program, an effect that is not driven by greater risk-taking of banks. Loan defaults become significantly more sensitive to the electoral cycle after the program, suggesting the anticipation of future credit market interventions as an important channel through which moral hazard in loan repayment is intensified.
Giving as Good as They Get? Organization and Employee Expectations of Ethical Business Practice

Corporate malpractice and malfeasance on an unprecedented scale have brought ethical issues to the fore and accentuated demands from activists, governments, and the public for greater corporate social responsibility (CSR). The predominant response of researchers and policymakers has been to focus on the external impact of business operations and the merits of regulation or persuasion in achieving more responsible practice in these areas. In this article, we focus on a less well explored aspect of CSR, namely the evaluation of an organization's CSR activities by its internal stakeholders (i.e., employees). Salient CSR literature is reviewed to differentiate between CSR and ethical business practice (EBP), conceptualizing the latter as the internal manifestation of CSR as represented by an organization's values and vision, strategy and policy, systems and procedures, and people management practices. This article assesses organizational espousal of EBP in three ways: how successfully it is communicated to employees, how closely espousal aligns with employee expectation, and how this evaluation impacts on employee commitment. Our research approach aligns with and extends previous work in this area that identifies the likelihood of a “false consensus bias” by managers in assuming congruence between organization espousal of EBP and employee expectation. A conceptual model is offered to explain possible employee responses to an organization's EBP. This relates organization espousal of EBP to employee assessment of its salience to identify three positions on commitment that employees can adopt - abrogated, continuance, and affective commitment - together with their likely behavioral implications. The analysis generates a series of research questions and related areas of exploration to empirically test the conceptual model.
Collaboration Processes and Institutional Structure: Reexamining the Black Box

Building on previous models of collaboration processes, this article expands and revises the antecedent-process-outcome framework used to explain collaboration. The article discusses why this framework needs to be expanded to include the element of institutional structure. We propose a modified framework to explain collaboration that includes a typology of citizen-based, agency-based, and mixed partnerships. Furthermore, the article draws from the expansive body of literature on watershed collaboration to propose additional antecedents that influence institutional structures and, in turn, alter the process patterns in the collaboration “black box. ”
Temporal Patterns of Mental Model Convergence: Implications for Distributed Teams Interacting in Electronic Collaboration Spaces

Objective: Our objective is to capture temporal patterns in mental model convergence processes and differences in these patterns between distributed teams using an electronic collaboration space and face-to-face teams with no interface. Background: Distributed teams, as sociotechnical systems, collaborate via technology to work on their task. The way in which they process information to inform their mental models may be examined via team communication and may unfold differently than it does in face-to-face teams. Method: We conducted our analysis on 32 three-member teams working on a planning task. Half of the teams worked as distributed teams in an electronic collaboration space, and the other half worked face-to-face without an interface. Results: Using event history analysis, we found temporal interdependencies among the initial convergence points of the multiple mental models we examined. Furthermore, the timing of mental model convergence and the onset of task work discussions were related to team performance. Differences existed in the temporal patterns of convergence and task work discussions across conditions. Conclusion: Distributed teams interacting via an electronic interface and face-to-face teams with no interface converged on multiple mental models, but their communication patterns differed. In particular, distributed teams with an electronic interface required less overall communication, converged on all mental models later in their life cycles, and exhibited more linear cognitive processes than did face-to-face teams interacting verbally. Application: Managers need unique strategies for facilitating communication and mental model convergence depending on teams’ degrees of collocation and access to an interface, which in turn will enhance team performance.