Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Effects of Clipping on Thoracic Sympathetic Nerve in Rabbits: Early and Late Histopathological Findings

Abstract Background The clipping of the thoracic sympathetic nerve, which has been a technique used for approximately the past 10 years, has rapidly become popular because of its “bring-back” claim. However, the information regarding the mechanism behind this claim is based on investigator’s comments and has not been proven by objective research, such as the histopathological examination of the clipped nerve and/or ganglion. We aimed to evaluate sympathetic regeneration and degeneration after clip removal. Methods The rabbits were divided into two groups with six rabbits per group. For the first group (group A), the sympathetic chain was clipped using two titanium clips, and a right thoracotomy was made at the T4 and T5 levels. For the second group (group B), the animals were also operated on, which was similar to the rabbits in group A. At the end of a 48-hour follow-up period, the clips were removed after a second operation. The rabbits in group B were followed for 45 days and sympathetic nerves were also examined histopathologically. Results In group A, hemorrhage, fibrinous material, polymorphonuclear leukocyte infiltration, and acute inflammation with fat necrosis were observed in and around the sympathetic ganglia and trunk. Loss of nuclei and vacuolization in some sympathetic ganglia cells were also observed. These findings demonstrated severe degeneration of the sympathetic ganglia and trunk. For group B, microscopic examination revealed a loss of sympathetic ganglion cells as well as fibrosis within and around the ganglia. No signs of regeneration were detected and the progression of nerve degeneration was observed. Conclusions The clips used in our study were shown to cause the degeneration of neural structures within 2 days. At the end of the 45 days following the removal of the clips, progressive, degenerative changes radiating along the axons of the sympathetic cells were seen.
Exploring Translation and Interpreting Hybrids. The Case of Sight Translation

This article reports on a comparative study of written translation and sight translation, drawing on experimental data combining keystroke logging, eye-tracking and quality ratings of spoken and written output produced by professional translators and interpreters. Major differences in output rate were observed when comparing oral and written modalities. Evaluation of the translation products showed that the lower output rate in the written condition was not justified by significantly higher quality in the written products. Observations from the combination of data sources point to fundamental behavioural differences between interpreters and translators. Overall, working in the oral modality seems to have a lot to offer in terms of saving time and effort without compromising the output quality, and there seems to be a case for increasing the role of oral translation in translator training, incorporating it as a deliberate practice activity.
Accounting Practice Harmony, Accounting Regulation and Firm Characteristics

Harmonization of accounting standards has been the subject of many initiatives taken at international, regional and national levels in recent years. Policy makers advancing this idea believe that accounting regulation harmony will lead to practice harmony. The literature in the area of accounting harmonization also generally relies on a similar belief. Comparing accounting regulations and accounting practices of two countries that are pursuing a program of harmonization, Australia and New Zealand, revealed some association between the levels of regulation harmony and practice harmony. Although this indicates that regulatory harmony can improve practice harmony, the association is ‘noisy’, suggesting that there are also other factors affecting practice harmony. Evidence adduced here shows that accounting practice harmony is also associated with firm‐specific characteristics.
Global networks, local cities

Cet article traite de la nature et de la composition des reseaux urbains. Il propose une definition operatoire pour un certain nombre de composants de base : reseaux d'organisations, reseaux de villes, noeuds, milieu urbain, systemes urbains. En repartissant ces elements sur deux niveaux, le global et le local, il est possible de classer les differentes configurations du developpement urbain et des structures urbaines en quatre types ideaux. Cette typologie s'appuie sur les criteres suivants : le degre d'integration locale et l'ouverture fonctionnelle des systemes urbains sur l'exterieur, ces derniers etant consideres comme les noeuds auto-organises de reseaux globaux.
Activist Funds, Leverage, and Procyclicality

We develop a dual-layered agency model to study blockholder monitoring by activist funds that compete for investor flow. Competition for flow affects the manner in which activist hedge funds govern as blockholders. In particular, funds inflate short-term performance by increasing payouts financed by (net) leverage, which discourages value-creating interventions in economic downturns due to debt overhang. Our theory links together the observed procyclicality of activist block formation with the documented effect of such funds on the leverage of their target companies. The model also generates new testable implications and reconciles seemingly contradictory empirical evidence regarding hedge fund activism.
Effects of hypobaric hypoxia exposure at high altitude on left ventricular twist in healthy subjects: data from HIGHCARE study on Mount Everest.

AIMS Previous studies investigating the effect of hypoxia on left ventricle focused on its global function, an approach that may not detect a selective dysfunction of subendocardial layers that are most sensitive to an inadequate oxygen supply. In the HIGHCARE study, aimed at exploring the effects of high altitude hypoxia on multiple biological variables and their modulation by an angiotensin receptor blocker, we addressed the effects of hypobaric hypoxia on both systolic and diastolic left ventricular geometry and function, focusing on echocardiographic assessment of left ventricle twist to indirectly examine subendocardial left ventricular systolic function. METHODS AND RESULTS In 39 healthy subjects, physiological and echocardiographic variables, including left ventricular twist and a simplified torsion-to-shortening ratio (sTSR), were recorded at sea level, at 3400 m, and at 5400 m altitude (Mount Everest base camp). Both left ventricular twist and sTSR were greater at 5400 m than at sea level (12.6° vs. 9.6° and 0.285 vs. 0.202, P < 0.05 for both), were linearly related to the reduction in arterial oxygen partial pressure (P < 0.01 for both), and were associated with significant changes in LV dimensions and contractility. No effects of angiotensin receptor blockade were observed on these variables throughout the study. CONCLUSION Our study, for the first time, demonstrates an increase in left ventricular twist at high altitude in healthy subjects exposed to high altitude hypoxia, suggesting the occurrence of subendocardial systolic dysfunction in such condition.
New Labour and the Reform of English Local Government, 1997–2007: Privatizing the Parts that Conservative Governments Could Not Reach?

Abstract This paper assesses the impact of a decade of New Labour reforms on English local government. It focuses on assessing the outcomes of three key areas of reform: policies intended to improve the performance of local government services; measures aimed at reviving local democracy; and significant ‘non-decisions’ made in relation to crucial aspects of central–local relations, particularly local government finance. It is argued that New Labour's modernization agenda, inspired by notions of ‘the Third Way’, has had greatest impact where it has gone with the grain of New Right reforms. As a result, the most distinctive impact of New Labour policy on English local government has been that it has succeeded where Conservative administrations had failed in implementing a distinctively New Right agenda for English local government.
Patient reported outcome measures in septorhinoplasty surgery.

INTRODUCTION Surgical procedures incorporating a cosmetic element such as septorhinoplasty and otoplasty are currently under threat in the National Health Service (NHS) as they are deemed to be procedures of 'limited clinical benefit' by many primary care providers. Patient reported outcome measures (PROMs), which assess the quality of care delivered from the patients' perspective, are becoming increasingly important in documenting the effectiveness of such procedures. METHODS The Rhinoplasty Outcomes Evaluation (ROE) questionnaire, a validated PROM tool, was used to assess patient satisfaction in 141 patients undergoing septorhinoplasty surgery over a 90-month period at the University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust. RESULTS Overall, 100 patients with a mean follow-up period of 36 months completed the study. The mean ROE score was 73.3%. In addition, 75% of patients questioned were happy with the final result of their operation and 83% would undergo the procedure again if required. These benefits occurred irrespective of age, sex and primary versus revision surgery, and were maintained for up to 71 months following surgery. CONCLUSIONS This study has shown that patients are generally satisfied with their functional and cosmetic outcomes following septorhinoplasty surgery. These results help support the case for septorhinoplasty surgery to continue being funded as an NHS procedure.
The Economic Effects of Taxing Capital Income

How should capital income be taxed to achieve efficiency and equity? In this detailed study, tax policy analyst Jane Gravelle brings together comprehensive estimates of effective tax rates on a wide variety of capital by type, industry, legal form, method of financing, and across time. These estimates are combined with a history and survey of issues regarding capital income taxation that are aimed especially at bringing the findings of economic theory and recent empirical research to nonspecialists and policymakers. Many of the topics treated have been the subject of policy debate and legislation over the last ten or fifteen years. Should capital income be taxed at all? And, if capital income is to be taxed, what is the best way to do it? Gravelle devotes two chapters to the first question, and then, in answer to the second question, covers a broad range of topics - corporate taxation, tax neutrality, capital gains taxes, tax treatment of retirement savings, and capital income taxation and international competitiveness. Gravelle also includes a comprehensive history of tax institutions and data on constructing effective tax rates that are not available elsewhere.
Longitudinal prediction of metabolic rate in critically ill patients.

BACKGROUND Indirect calorimetry is the criterion method for assessment of energy expenditure in critically ill patients but is decidedly uncommon. Thus, calculation methods proliferate. Even if indirect calorimetry is available, it usually is not repeated more than weekly on the same patient, creating potential for error. The purpose of the current study was to quantify estimation errors against indirect calorimetry measurements in critically ill patients over time. METHODS In mechanically ventilated, critical care patients, indirect calorimetry was used to measure resting metabolic rate for 7 days. Three estimation methods were compared with the cumulative measurement: the Penn State equations, the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) standard (25 kcal/kg body weight), and an extrapolated value based on the first measurement multiplied by 7 days. RESULTS The cumulative difference between measured resting metabolic rate and the rate predicted by the Penn State equations was -468 ± 642 kcal (-3.7% ± 5.1% of the measured value). The difference for the ACCP was smaller, but variation was much wider (-387 ± 1597 kcal or -2.2% ± 11.9% of the measured value). The extrapolated value was -684 ± 1731 kcal (-4.1% ± 11.4% of measured expenditure). CONCLUSION On average, the Penn State equations predict resting metabolic rate over time within 5% of the measured value. This performance is similar to the practice of making 1 measurement and extrapolating it over 1 week. The ACCP method has an unacceptably wide limit of agreement.
The Fine Science of Entrepreneurial Decision-Making

Entrepreneurship is recognized as being a key driver of economic growth, competitiveness and job creation as well as being central to the functioning of market economies (OECD, 1998). Despite this recognition, there remains much to be understood about the entrepreneurial process. Even a clear definition of the entrepreneur and entrepreneurship has eluded researchers until more recently. There is growing consensus among entrepreneurship scholars that entrepreneurship is ‘a field of business that seeks to understand how opportunities to create something new (e.g., new products or services, new markets, new production processes or raw materials, new ways of organizing existing technologies) arise and are discovered or created by specific persons, who then use various means to exploit or develop them, this producing a wide range of effects’ (Shane and Venkataraman, 2000, p. 218). Following this view, addressing the questions of why, when and how certain individuals identify and exploit these opportunities has become the focus for recent entrepreneurship research. This view of entrepreneurship puts human agency, and therefore the individual entrepreneur, at the centre stage of entrepreneurship research. A focus on the individual in entrepreneurship research is not new. The individual was very much the core of entrepreneurship research in the 1970s and more so in the 1980s, when we saw the development of a critical mass in the entrepreneurship field. A considerable body of work
A computable general equilibrium approach to the ex post evaluation of regional development agency policies

The book analyses the conception of economic development in modern regions, which has gone through a fundamental change since the early 1980s. Regions are today increasingly looked upon as independent market places that are connected via interregional and international trade and not as administrative units embodied in a national state. This chapter focuses on the computable general equilibrium approach to the ex post evaluation of regional development agency policies.
The Chinese stock exchange market: operations and efficiency

The Chinese stock market has developed rapidly since early 1990s, when the two stock exchanges, the Shanghai Securities Exchange and the Shenzhen Securities Exchange, were established. Until 2000, the number of listed domestic companies has reached over 1000, and market capitalization relative to GDP reached about 33.4%. As China joins WTO, the Chinese stock market will become a great concern of the global investors, and will play a more important role in the world economy. The purpose of this paper is to provide an up-to-data account of the Chinese stock exchange market and to test its efficiency. The daily data of the Shanghai Stock Exchange index and eight shares listed in the Shanghai Stock Exchanges are examined, for this purpose. The testing procedure involves three processes: (1) use the Durbin–Watson test, Durbin ‘h’ test, the Lagrange Multiplier test for autocorrelation to examine the assumption of the model that the successive occurrences are independent; (2) use the Dickey–Fuller tests for unit root to test the assumption that the occurrences are identically distributed; (3) use ARCH test to examine whether the residuals contain some hidden, possibly non-linear structure, and fit a GARCH-M(1,1) model to the first difference if the ARCH effect is found to be present in the share prices.
Destination Attributes' Evaluation, Satisfaction and Behavioural Intentions: a Structural Modelling Approach

This study aims at developing and testing a model integrating the associations among tourists' evaluation of destinations' attributes, overall satisfaction and behavioural intentions. The analysis is based on 923 observations collected in the Central Region of Portugal, where no investigation of this nature had been conducted before, and compares results regarding domestic versus international tourists. LISREL estimates provided strong support for the model. Some idiosyncrasies specific to each sample were found. This study represents an important contribution to the body of knowledge in the area of tourism destinations' management and marketing and suggests important implications to both practitioners and researchers. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Histone Deacetylase Inhibition Promotes Osteoblast Maturation by Altering the Histone H4 Epigenome and Reduces Akt Phosphorylation*

Background: Histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibition promotes bone formation in vitro via undefined epigenetic events. Results: Microarray and ChIP-Seq analyses revealed genomic areas where H4 acetylation is altered by HDAC inhibitors and identified differentially regulated genes. Conclusion: Suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid increases H4 acetylation and suppresses phosphorylation of insulin/Akt signaling mediators in osteoblasts. Significance: Epigenetic profiling is a powerful means to gain mechanistic insights into bone anabolic processes. Bone has remarkable regenerative capacity, but this ability diminishes during aging. Histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDIs) promote terminal osteoblast differentiation and extracellular matrix production in culture. The epigenetic events altered by HDIs in osteoblasts may hold clues for the development of new anabolic treatments for osteoporosis and other conditions of low bone mass. To assess how HDIs affect the epigenome of committed osteoblasts, MC3T3 cells were treated with suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid (SAHA) and subjected to microarray gene expression profiling and high-throughput ChIP-Seq analysis. As expected, SAHA induced differentiation and matrix calcification of osteoblasts in vitro. ChIP-Seq analysis revealed that SAHA increased histone H4 acetylation genome-wide and in differentially regulated genes, except for the 500 bp upstream of transcriptional start sites. Pathway analysis indicated that SAHA increased the expression of insulin signaling modulators, including Slc9a3r1. SAHA decreased phosphorylation of insulin receptor β, Akt, and the Akt substrate FoxO1, resulting in FoxO1 stabilization. Thus, SAHA induces genome-wide H4 acetylation and modulates the insulin/Akt/FoxO1 signaling axis, whereas it promotes terminal osteoblast differentiation in vitro.
Molecular mechanisms of sorafenib action in liver cancer cells

Sorafenib, a multikinase inhibitor, recently received FDA approval for the treatment of advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, as the clinical application of sorafenib evolves, there is increasing interest in defining the mechanisms underlying its anti-tumor activity. Considering that this specific inhibitor could target unexpected molecules depending on the biologic context, a precise understanding of its mechanism of action could be critical to maximize its treatment efficacy, while minimizing adverse effects. Two human HCC cell lines (HepG2 and Huh7), carrying different biological and genetic characteristics, were used in this study to examine the intracellular events leading to sorafenib-induced HCC cell-growth inhibition. Sorafenib inhibited cell growth in both cell lines in a dose- and time-dependent manner and significantly altered expression levels of 826 and 2011 transcripts in HepG2 and Huh7 cells, respectively. Genes functionally involved in angiogenesis, apoptosis, transcription regulation, signal transduction, protein biosynthesis and modification were predominantly upregulated, while genes implicated in cell cycle control, DNA replication recombination and repair, cell adhesion, metabolism and transport were mainly downregulated upon treatment. However, each sorafenib-treated HCC cell line displayed specificity in the expression and activity of crucial factors involved in hepatocarcinogenesis. The altered expression of some of these genes was confirmed by semiquantitative and quantitative RT-PCR and by western blotting. Many novel genes emerged from our transcriptomics analysis that had not previously been reported to be effected by sorafenib. Further functional analyses may determine whether these genes can serve as potential molecular targets for more effective anti-HCC strategies.
Fragmented QRS complex is a prognostic marker of microvascular reperfusion and changes in LV function occur in patients with ST elevation myocardial infarction who underwent primary percutaneous coronary intervention

The present study aimed to investigate the in-hospital and long-term prognostic value of fragmented QRS complex (fQRS) for microvascular reperfusion and changes in left ventricular (LV) function in patients with ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) who underwent primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). A total of 216 patients with STEMI undergoing primary PCI were included in the current study. Patients were divided into two groups based on the presence (n=126) or absence (n=90) of fQRS following electrocardiograms (ECGs) on admission. Following primary PCI and follow up, patients were divided into four groups based on new onset, resolution, persistence and absence of fQRS. Major adverse cardiac events were defined to include cardiovascular death, arrhythmia, heart failure, reinfarction and target vessel revascularization. The percentage of patients with heart failure and microvascular reperfusion differed significantly between the fQRS(+) and fQRS(−) groups. Levels of N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), Peak creatine kinase-MB (CK-MB) and Troponin I levels were observed to be significantly higher in the fQRS(+) group compared with the fQRS(−) group. In univariate logistic regression analysis, left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), NT-proBNP, Troponin I, Peak CK-MB and microvascular reperfusion were found to be associated with fQRS. Multivariate analysis identified that LVEF, NT-proBNP, Troponin I and microvascular reperfusion may be independent predictors of fQRS. The presence of fQRS was demonstrated to be associated with left ventricular dysfunction at follow up assessments. The presence of fQRS was not only significantly associated with myocardial microvascular reperfusion and left ventricular function, but was also a prognostic marker in STEMI.
Assessing screening quality in the CDC's Colorectal Cancer Screening Demonstration Program

Gaps in screening quality in community practice have been well documented. The authors examined recommended indicators of screening quality in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Colorectal Cancer Screening Demonstration Program (CRCSDP), which provided colorectal cancer screening and diagnostic services between 2005 and 2009 for asymptomatic, low‐income, underinsured, or uninsured individuals at 5 sites around the United States.
The Dynamics of Accelerated Learning

As accelerated programs are maturing in higher education, and populations of non-traditional learners are soaring nationwide as well as internationally, there is still quite some ambiguity regarding the rigor and validity of these programs. Opposing sounds mainly come from full time faculty, and administrators, due to insufficient familiarity with the different teaching concepts that intensive formats require, and erroneous perceptions about student populations in general. This paper examines the reasons for the continuing growth of accelerated programs in higher education, reviews the main concerns as well as the main advantages of intensive course formats, and presents some important prerequisites and considerations for successful teaching in these courses.