Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Severe evolution of chronic hepatitis C in renal transplantation: a case control study.

BACKGROUND To evaluate the impact of kidney transplantation on histopathological progression of hepatitis C virus (HCV)-related liver disease. METHODS In a retrospective study, 28 HCV-positive renal transplant patients, who underwent two sequential liver biopsies with a mean of 7.1+/-4.0 years, were compared with 28 matched immunocompetent controls. RESULTS According to the Metavir score, the initial and final activity scores (from 0 to 3) increased from 0.2+/-0.4 to 1.4+/-1.1 (P<0.001) and those of fibrosis (from 0 to 4) from 0.5+/-0.5 to 2.0+/-1.4 (P<0.001) in the transplanted group, respectively, whereas the respective differences were not significant in the control group. The yearly progression rate of activity and fibrosis was significantly higher in the renal transplant group as compared with the immunocompetent group: 0.26+/-0.41 vs 0.01+/-0.19 (P<0.01) and 0.26+/-0.35 vs 0.05+/-0.21 (P<0.03), respectively. Twenty (71.5%) and 14 (50.0%) of the renal allograft recipients had activity and fibrosis progression as compared with four (16%) (P<0.001) and four (16%) (P<0.01) in immunocompetent patients; six kidney recipients (21.4%) evolved to cirrhosis vs only one in the control group (3.6%) (P=0.07). Liver-related mortality was significantly higher during the follow-up period in renal transplant patients than in the control group (10 vs 0%) (P<0.05). CONCLUSION Using conventional immunosuppressive regimen, renal transplantation is associated with a more severe evolution of chronic hepatitis C as compared with HCV-infected immunocompetent subjects. Thus, the histopathological evaluation should be performed and anti-viral therapy discussed before renal transplantation.
Sources of Firm Performance Differences in the US Food Economy

Researchers in economics and strategy have long been interested in understanding the determinants of firm performance. We apply the relatively novel approach of hierarchical linear modelling (HLM) to a large panel of food economy firms to shed new light on the long-standing debate about the relative importance of industry, corporate parent and business unit effects on firm profits. Our results suggest that business unit and corporate effects are more relevant than industry effects in explaining firm performance differences in the food economy. In addition, we also explore the effect of specific strategic factors on performance within each level of analysis. In particular, we find that business-segment size, industry barriers to entry, corporate diversification, R&D intensity, capital intensity and resource availability are significant predictor variables that explain firm performance differences. Given the relatively important role of corporate effects and the positive influence of corporate strategic variables on business unit performance, our findings suggest that the environment provided by corporate parents significantly affects business unit profitability. In other words, corporate strategy does matter and thus should continue to draw attention from scholars interested in explaining profitability in the food economy.
Is there a retirement consumption puzzle in Japan? Evidence based on panel data on households in the agricultural sector

Taking advantage of annual panel data on farm households collected by the Statistical Survey on Farm Management and Economy, this paper investigates whether a retirement consumption puzzle can be observed in Japan and, given that this is the case, what the reasons are. Our long-run panel data allow us to examine the behavior of households whose head actually retired during the observation period. Our analysis shows that households’ expenditure does decline after the retirement of the household head. What is more, changes in family size or other demographic factors appear to only marginally account for the expenditure decline upon retirement. Changes in life-style/preferences after retirement also do not appear to fully explain the expenditure decline, since the decline in expenditure is strongly correlated with the magnitude of the decline in income. Further, we find that the expenditure decline is larger for households with smaller net financial assets, which implies that part of the income-expenditure correlation around retirement is probably due to unanticipated negative income shocks. However, our analysis also implies that the consumption decline at retirement in Japan cannot be explained completely without the presence of myopic households or households that lacked discipline, which contradicts the assumptions of the LC/PIH.
Enhancement of Rostral Ventrolateral Medulla Neuronal Nitric-Oxide Synthase–Nitric-Oxide Signaling Mediates the Central Cannabinoid Receptor 1-Evoked Pressor Response in Conscious Rats

Our recent studies implicated brainstem GABAergic signaling in the central cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1R)-mediated pressor response in conscious rats. Given the well established link between neuronal nitric-oxide synthase (nNOS)/nitric oxide (NO) signaling and GABAergic transmission in brainstem cardiovascular regulating areas, we elucidated the role of nNOS-generated NO in the central CB1R-elicited pressor response. Compared with vehicle, intracisternal (i.c.) microinjection of the CB1R agonist (R)-(+)-[2,3-dihydro-5-methyl-3[(4-morpholinyl)methyl]pyrrolo[1,2,3-de]-1,4-benzoxazinyl]-(1-naphthalenyl) methanone mesylate (WIN55212-2) (15 μg/rat) significantly enhanced nNOS phosphorylation as well as the total nitrate and nitrite content in the rostral ventrolateral medulla (RVLM) at 5, 10, and 30 min, which paralleled the elicited pressor response. These findings were corroborated by: 1) the parallel dose-related increases in blood pressure and RVLM-NO levels, measured in real time by in vivo electrochemistry, elicited by intra-RVLM WIN55212-2 (100, 200, or 300 pmol /80 nl; n = 5) in conscious rats; and 2) the significantly higher phosphorylated nNOS (p-nNOS) levels in the WIN55212-2-injected RVLM compared with the contralateral RVLM. Subsequent neurochemical studies showed that WIN55212-2 (15 μg/rat i.c.) significantly increased the number and percentage of neurons immunostained for nNOS (nitroxidergic neurons) and c-Fos (marker of neuronal activity) within the RVLM. The increases in blood pressure and the neurochemical responses elicited by intracisternal WIN55212-2 were attenuated by prior central CB1R blockade by N-(piperidin-1-yl)-5-(4-iodophenyl)-1-(2,4-dichlorophenyl)-4-methyl-1H-pyrazole-3-carboxamide (AM251; 30 μg/rat i.c.) or selective nNOS inhibition by Nω-propyl-L-arginine (1 μg/rat i.c.). These findings implicate RVLM p-nNOS/NO signaling as a molecular mechanism in the central CB1R-evoked pressor effect in conscious rats.
Infant gaze, head, face and self-touch at 4 months differentiate secure vs. avoidant attachment at 1 year: A microanalytic approach

The study attempted to distinguish avoidant vs. secure infants at 1 year from 4-month infant behavior only, during a face-to-face play interaction with the mother. Thirty-five 4-month-old infants were coded second by second for infant gaze, head orientation, facial expression and self-touch/mouthing behavior. Mother behavior was not coded. At 1 year, 27 of these infants were classified as secure (B), and 8 as avoidant (A) attachment in the Ainsworth Strange Situation. Compared with the B infant, the future A infant spent less time paying ‘focused’ visual attention (a look of a minimum 2 seconds duration) to the mother's face. Only if the A infant engaged in self-touch/mouthing behavior did its focused visual attention match that of the B. Markovian t to t+1 transition matrices then showed that both for future A and for future B infants, focused visual attention on the mother constrained the movements of the head to within 60 degrees from center vis-à-vis, defining head/gaze co-ordination within an attentional-interpersonal space. However, infant maintenance of head/gaze co-ordination was associated with self-touch/mouthing behavior for the A infant but not the B. Positive affect was associated with a disruption of head/gaze co-ordination for the A but not the B. Whereas the B had more variable facial behavior, potentially providing more facial signaling for the mother, the A had more variable tactile/mouthing behavior, changing patterns of self-soothing more often. Thus, infants classified as A vs. B at 12 months showed different behavioral patterns in face-to-face play with their mothers as early as 4 months.
Kalman filtering with state equality constraints

Kalman filters are commonly used to estimate the states of a dynamic system. However, in the application of Kalman filters there is often known model or signal information that is either ignored or dealt with heuristically. For instance, constraints on state values (which may be based on physical considerations) are often neglected because they do not fit easily into the structure of the Kalman filter. A rigorous analytic method of incorporating state equality constraints in the Kalman filter is developed. The constraints may be time varying. At each time step the unconstrained Kalman filter solution is projected onto the state constraint surface. This significantly improves the prediction accuracy of the filter. The use of this algorithm is demonstrated on a simple nonlinear vehicle tracking problem.
Data duplication: an imbalance problem ?

The task of finding duplicate records in large databases has long been an area of active research in the data-mining community. The gravity of the problem posed by duplicate “contamination” of the data has rarely been addressed directly, however, with more efforts being directed at the related problem of class imbalance. We consider the consequences of duplicate presence on the quality of classifiers learnt with such data, emphasizing that contamination rates among the training and test collections may be considerably different. The discussion is supported by experiments using the spam-detection task as an example where dealing with varying degrees of duplication is commonplace. Our results indicate the generally detrimental effect of duplicate presence on classification accuracy, but also demonstrate that, for classifiers such as Naive Bayes Perceptron with Margins, duplicate rates need to be rather high to be truly harmful.
New techniques for analysing RNA structure

Acknowledgement I would like to thank my supervisor Vincent Moulton for many interesting discussions and ideas, for giving me the opportunity to travel and meet interesting people and collaborators, and for introducing me to the field of RNA. I would also like to thank all my coworkers; David Ardell for helpful advice and discussions and for taking over the load of being my supervisor; Sverker Ed-vardsson for his interesting ideas and advice on snoRNA fishing; Paul Gardner for fruitful discussions and advice on various aspects of RNA; Mats Gustafsson for his enthusiasm and many interesting and fruitful discussions; Anthony Poole for his biological knowledge in general, his advice on snoRNAs in particular, and for valuable proofreading of this thesis; Tore Samuelsson for his supervision and advice in the beginning of my PhD studies. I would also like to show my gratitude to Robert Giegrich and Peter Stadler for letting me come and visit their respective laboratories. I am grateful to all my colleagues at LCB for making my work place an interesting and inspiring environment. In particular, I would like to thank my room mates, Johan Kåhrström and Alice Lesser, for many interesting discussions. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends for their support, in particular Pontus Freyhult for his always available computer support, advice on programming , and proofreading of selected parts of this thesis.
Image Fusion With Convolutional Sparse Representation

As a popular signal modeling technique, sparse representation (SR) has achieved great success in image fusion over the last few years with a number of effective algorithms being proposed. However, due to the patch-based manner applied in sparse coding, most existing SR-based fusion methods suffer from two drawbacks, namely, limited ability in detail preservation and high sensitivity to misregistration, while these two issues are of great concern in image fusion. In this letter, we introduce a recently emerged signal decomposition model known as convolutional sparse representation (CSR) into image fusion to address this problem, which is motivated by the observation that the CSR model can effectively overcome the above two drawbacks. We propose a CSR-based image fusion framework, in which each source image is decomposed into a base layer and a detail layer, for multifocus image fusion and multimodal image fusion. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed fusion methods clearly outperform the SR-based methods in terms of both objective assessment and visual quality.
The Drosophila insulin receptor activates multiple signaling pathways but requires insulin receptor substrate proteins for DNA synthesis

The Drosophila insulin receptor (DIR) contains a 368-amino-acid COOH-terminal extension that contains several tyrosine phosphorylation sites in YXXM motifs. This extension is absent from the human insulin receptor but resembles a region in insulin receptor substrate (IRS) proteins which binds to the phosphatidylinositol (PI) 3-kinase and mediates mitogenesis. The function of a chimeric DIR containing the human insulin receptor binding domain (hDIR) was investigated in 32D cells, which contain few insulin receptors and no IRS proteins. Insulin stimulated tyrosine autophosphorylation of the human insulin receptor and hDIR, and both receptors mediated tyrosine phosphorylation of Shc and activated mitogen-activated protein kinase. IRS-1 was required by the human insulin receptor to activate PI 3-kinase and p70s6k, whereas hDIR associated with PI 3-kinase and activated p70s6k without IRS-1. However, both receptors required IRS-1 to mediate insulin-stimulated mitogenesis. These data demonstrate that the DIR possesses additional signaling capabilities compared with its mammalian counterpart but still requires IRS-1 for the complete insulin response in mammalian cells.
Mycoplasma pneumoniae Infection Affects the Serum Levels of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor and Interleukin-5 in Atopic Children

Purpose Previous studies have outlined mechanisms by which Mycoplasma pneumonia (M. pneumonia) infection may promote allergic lung inflammation and airway remodeling, and increasing evidence from human studies suggests that atypical bacterial infections contribute to asthma exacerbation, chronic asthma, and disease severity with changes in cytokine expression. The present study evaluated changes in serum levels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and interleukin (IL)-5 in atopic children with Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia. Methods We recruited a total of 72 children with pneumonia. The patients were divided into 4 groups: atopic children with M. pneumonia pneumonia (group I, n=24), non-atopic children with M. pneumonia pneumonia (group II, n=23), atopic children with viral pneumonia (group III, n=13), and non-atopic children with viral pneumonia (group IV, n=12). Serum levels of IL-5, IL-13, VEGF, and tumor necrosis factor-α were measured at admission and at recovery using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. Results Serum levels of VEGF and IL-5 were elevated in group I compared with the other groups at both admission phase and clinical recovery phase. In group I, serum levels of VEGF and IL-5 were higher at recovery phase than at admission phase (VEGF: 1,102.2±569.4 vs. 874.9±589.9 pg/mL, respectively; IL-5: 150.5±63.9 vs. 120.2±46.7 pg/mL, respectively). Conclusions The serum levels of VEGF and IL-5 were more increased in atopic children with M. pneumonia pneumonia than in the other groups. In this group, the serum levels of VEGF and IL-5 were more increased at recovery phase than at admission phase. The results of this study suggest that increases in VEGF and IL-5 may contribute to the development of hypersensitivity during M. pneumonia infection. These cytokines may act through their respective pro-inflammatory pathways to aggravate the allergic status and induce airway hypersensitivity during M. pneumonia pneumonia in atopic children.
Fresh Fish Markets in Oman

Abstract Previous studies have indicated serious impacts of current market organization on the distribution of fresh fish and consequently on the prevalent pricing system leading to high inter-regional price differences and lack of market integration. The primary area of inquiry in this study relates to market integration as a proxy for spatial pricing efficiency. The Law of One Price (LOP) analysis was used to test whether prices in pairs of markets are integrated through transfer costs or not. The findings of this study have practical policy implications indicating that the current marketing system for fish in Oman is not supporting a fair distribution of returns from fisheries operations to all participants in the sector.
The Hollywood War Machine: U.S. Militarism and Popular Culture

CONTENTS Preface Chapter One: Media Culture in the Imperial System Chapter Two: Militarism in American Popular Culture Chapter Three: War and Cinema: The Historical Legacy Chapter Four: The Vietnam Syndrome: Politics and Cinema Chapter Five: Recycling the Good War Chapter Six: Cinematic Warfare in the New World Order Chapter Seven: Hollywood After 9/11
Testing consumers' asymmetric reaction to wealth changes

This study contains several tests to show that individuals overreact to negative wealth changes, relative to positive wealth changes. This asymmetry, that is found using micro data, suggests that economists should not treat symmetrically the relation between economic variables (consumption for instance) and wealth in their models when wealth decreases. We find that this asymmetry increases with age and picks at retirement.
Chronic cocaine exposure in the fetal rhesus monkey: consequences for early development of dopamine neurons

The effects of cocaine on the development of neurons containing tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) were investigated in fetal rhesus macaques. Pregnant monkeys were treated with cocaine 3 mg/kg or saline i.m. , four times a day from day 18 of pregnancy until days 40 or 60. Cocaine concentration in plasma from females thus treated was approximately 800 ng/ml 10–20 min following injection. At the time of C-section, plasma levels of cocaine in fetal blood were 231 +/- 70 ng/ml. The brains from 40 and 60 d old fetuses were examined using immunocytochemistry and in situ hybridization. The appearance of neurons containing TH by day 40 of gestation was not different between control and cocaine-treated fetal monkeys. In both groups (N = 3 each) TH-IR neurons and TH mRNA were located in the mesencephalon and dorsal hypothalamus by day 40, and fiber projections extended to the developing striatum. Also in the day 60 fetuses, the TH-IR neurons were distributed similarly in both groups (N = 5 each), but the TH mRNA content, measured by quantitative in situ hybridization, was reduced in the substantia nigra (SN) and ventral tegmental area (VTA) after cocaine treatment. These data suggest that exposure to cocaine in fetal life does not affect the development of TH or the expression of its mRNA on day 40 of gestation. By day 60, however, the expression of TH mRNA was significantly reduced. This latter effect can be explained by reduced dopamine synthesis in the cocaine-treated fetuses.
Evolution of Copper Transporting ATPases in Eukaryotic Organisms

Copper is an essential nutrient for most life forms, however in excess it can be harmful. The ATP-driven copper pumps (Copper-ATPases) play critical role in living organisms by maintaining appropriate copper levels in cells and tissues. These evolutionary conserved polytopic membrane proteins are present in all phyla from simplest life forms (bacteria) to highly evolved eukaryotes (Homo sapiens). The presumed early function in metal detoxification remains the main function of Copper-ATPases in prokaryotic kingdom. In eukaryotes, in addition to removing excess copper from the cell, Copper-ATPases have another equally important function - to supply copper to copper dependent enzymes within the secretory pathway. This review focuses on the origin and diversification of Copper ATPases in eukaryotic organisms. From a single Copper ATPase in protozoans, a divergence into two functionally distinct ATPases is observed with the evolutionary appearance of chordates. Among the key functional domains of Copper-ATPases, the metal-binding N-terminal domain could be responsible for functional diversification of the copper ATPases during the course of evolution.
The Genome of the African Trypanosome Trypanosoma brucei

African trypanosomes cause human sleeping sickness and livestock trypanosomiasis in sub-Saharan Africa. We present the sequence and analysis of the 11 megabase-sized chromosomes of Trypanosoma brucei. The 26-megabase genome contains 9068 predicted genes, including ∼900 pseudogenes and ∼1700 T. brucei–specific genes. Large subtelomeric arrays contain an archive of 806 variant surface glycoprotein (VSG) genes used by the parasite to evade the mammalian immune system. Most VSG genes are pseudogenes, which may be used to generate expressed mosaic genes by ectopic recombination. Comparisons of the cytoskeleton and endocytic trafficking systems with those of humans and other eukaryotic organisms reveal major differences. A comparison of metabolic pathways encoded by the genomes of T. brucei, T. cruzi, and Leishmania major reveals the least overall metabolic capability in T. brucei and the greatest in L. major. Horizontal transfer of genes of bacterial origin has contributed to some of the metabolic differences in these parasites, and a number of novel potential drug targets have been identified.
An Absolute Bound for the Size of Diophantine m-Tuples

Abstract A set of m positive integers is called a Diophantine m -tuple if the product of its any two distinct elements increased by 1 is a perfect square. We prove that if { a , b , c } is a Diophantine triple such that b >4 a and c >max{ b 13 , 10 20 } or c >max{ b 5 , 10 1029 }, then there is unique positive integer d such that d > c and { a , b , c , d } is a Diophantine quadruple. Furthermore, we prove that there does not exist a Diophantine 9-tuple and that there are only finitely many Diophantine 8-tuples.
Assessing the Catalyst and the Barriers to Rural Community Based Telecentre Usage

The success of telecentre implementation along the developing countries depends largely on identifying the factors that may spur or hinder users’ acceptance and use. The federal government in Nigeria projected that by the end of the year 2011; telecentre would be established in the entire country. However, despite this projection, limited empirical studies were conducted regarding the acceptance and use of telecentre in various communities in Nigeria. This research aimed at assessing the catalyst and obstacles regarding the telecentre usage. A total of 313 questionnaires were retrieved from the adopters and non adopters of telecentre in two communities of North East Geopolitical Zone of Nigeria. The finding shows positive correlation between the awareness of telecentre services with usage. Also, from the findings, the major barrier to the effective use of telecentre was attributed to the lack of awareness of services offered by the telecentre.