Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinase Regulates the Induction of Long-Term Potentiation through Extracellular Signal-Related Kinase-Independent Mechanisms

Inhibitors of both phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3-kinase) and MAPK/ERK (mitogen-activate protein kinase/extracellular signal-related kinase) activation inhibit NMDA receptor-dependent long-term potentiation (LTP). PI3-kinase inhibitors also block activation of ERK by NMDA receptor stimulation, suggesting that PI3-kinase inhibitors block LTP because PI3-kinase is an essential upstream regulator of ERK activation. To examine this hypothesis, we investigated the effects of PI3-kinase inhibitors on ERK activation and LTP induction in the CA1 region of mouse hippocampal slices. Consistent with the notion that ERK activation by NMDA receptor stimulation is PI3-kinase dependent, the PI3-kinase inhibitor wortmannin partially inhibited ERK2 activation induced by bath application of NMDA and strongly suppressed ERK2 activation by high-frequency synaptic stimulation. PI3-kinase and MEK (MAP kinase kinase) inhibitors had very different effects on LTP, however. Both types of inhibitors suppressed LTP induced by theta-frequency trains of synaptic stimulation, but only PI3-kinase inhibitors suppressed the induction of LTP by high-frequency stimulation or low-frequency stimulation paired with postsynaptic depolarization. Concentrations of PI3-kinase inhibitors that inhibited LTP when present during high-frequency stimulation had no effect on potentiated synapses when applied after high-frequency stimulation, suggesting that PI3-kinase is specifically involved in the induction of LTP. Finally, we found that LTP induced by theta-frequency stimulation was MEK inhibitor insensitive but still PI3-kinase dependent in hippocampal slices from PSD-95 (postsynaptic density-95) mutant mice. Together, our results indicate that the role of PI3-kinase in LTP is not limited to its role as an upstream regulator of MAPK signaling but also includes signaling through ERK-independent pathways that regulate LTP induction.
Are Mining Exploration Stocks More Prone to Informed Trading than Mining Production Stocks?

This paper examines the level of informed trading in mining-exploration and production stocks listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. The probability of informed trading is higher in exploration stocks. However, this same pattern is detected in a sample of control-stocks matched by trading activity, suggesting that the difference in informed trading between production and exploration stocks reflects the impact of differences in trading activity documented in prior research. These results show that mining-exploration stocks experience the same level of informed trading as other less actively traded stocks in other industries.
Patch testing with a new fragrance mix detects additional patients sensitive to perfumes and missed by the current fragrance mix

The currently used 8% fragrance mix (FM I) does not identify all patients with a positive history of adverse reactions to fragrances. A new FM II with 6 frequently used chemicals was evaluated in 1701 consecutive patients patch tested in 6 dermatological centres in Europe. FM II was tested in 3 concentrations – 28% FM II contained 5% hydroxyisohexyl 3‐cyclohexene carboxaldehyde (Lyral®), 2% citral, 5% farnesol, 5% coumarin, 1% citronellol and 10%α‐hexyl‐cinnamic aldehyde; in 14% FM II, the single constituents' concentration was lowered to 50% and in 2.8% FM II to 10%. Each patient was classified regarding a history of adverse reactions to fragrances: certain, probable, questionable, none. Positive reactions to FM I occurred in 6.5% of the patients. Positive reactions to FM II were dose‐dependent and increased from 1.3% (2.8% FM II), through 2.9% (14% FM II) to 4.1% (28% FM II). Reactions classified as doubtful or irritant varied considerably between the 6 centres, with a mean value of 7.2% for FM I and means ranging from 1.8% to 10.6% for FM II. 8.7% of the tested patients had a certain fragrance history. Of these, 25.2% were positive to FM I; reactivity to FM II was again dose‐dependent and ranged from 8.1% to 17.6% in this subgroup. Comparing 2 groups of history – certain and none – values for sensitivity and specificity were calculated: sensitivity: FM I, 25.2%; 2.8% FM II, 8.1%; 14% FM II, 13.5%; 28% FM II, 17.6%; specificity: FM I, 96.5%; 2.8% FM II, 99.5%; 14% FM II, 98.8%; 28% FM II, 98.1%. 31/70 patients (44.3%) positive to 28% FM II were negative to FM I, with 14% FM II this proportion being 16/50 (32%). In the group of patients with a certain history, a total of 7 patients were found reacting to FM II only. Conversely, in the group of patients without any fragrance history, there were significantly more positive reactions to FM I than to any concentration of FM II. In conclusion, the new FM II detects additional patients sensitive to fragrances missed by FM I; the number of false‐positive reactions is lower with FM II than with FM I. Considering sensitivity, specificity and the frequency of doubtful reactions, the medium concentration, 14% FM II, seems to be the most appropriate diagnostic screening tool.
Voter Choice in Multi-Party Democracies: A Test of Competing Theories and Models

We contrast social-structural theories of voting behavior with spatial theories of voting behavior to explain voter choice in the Netherlands and Great Britain. We hypothesize that voting behavior is best explained by the spatial theory of voting. Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation is used to estimate multinomial probit (MNP) and multinomial logit (MNL) models of voter choice, for which we calculate Bayes factors for the purpose of model comparison. We find that the joint social-structural/spatial model is the best explanatory model in the Netherlands. Our results indicate that the MNP model outperforms the MNL model in our Dutch sample. In Great Britain, on the other hand, a purely spatial model is the best explanatory model, and our MNL model outperforms our MNP model. These results suggest the question of whether to employ MNL or MNP depends crucially on the data at hand.
Regrounding critical literacy : representation, facts and reality

A discussion of the pivotal theoretical and practical issue in the teaching of critical literacies: the relationship between representation and material social, economic and ecosystemic reality. The argument here is that models of critical literacy are contingent upon a principled and grounded pursuit of material social, economic and ecological realities 'outside' of textual representation per se.
Analyzing and managing risks – on the importance of gender differences in risk attitudes

Purpose –This paper seeks to show optimal strategies for firms to cope with analysis and management of risks. Design/methodology/approach - Empirical and experimental studies on gender differences in risk analysis and risk management are reported and assessed. Findings - Women appear less sensitive to probabilities and more pessimistic towards gains than men. In risk management, women seem to have a comparative advantage with respect to diversification and communication tasks. Research limitations/implications - Empirical testing of the hypothesis that mixed teams of senior managers optimize risk analysis and management is still missing. Deeper insights into the optimal structure of men's and women's cooperation with respect to risk analysis and management are missing. Practical implications - A well established cooperation of men and women at the senior management level appears recommendable for firms which strive for an optimization of their risk analysis and risk management. Furthermore, such cooperation is desirable with respect to a society's perspective. Originality/value - Identification of gender differences in risk analysis and management are pointed. Such differences matter since analysis and management of risk are decisive issues for firms.
Chondroprotective effect of high‐dose zoledronic acid: An experimental study in a rabbit model of osteoarthritis

To address the need to impact the subchondral bone‐articular cartilage interaction for the treatment of degenerative osteoarthritis (OA), bisphosphonates may be used as a means to inhibit the subchondral bone resorption. The purpose of the present study is to evaluate the chondroprotective effect of zoledronic acid (ZOL) in a model of OA. Eighteen adult male rabbits underwent an anterior cruciate ligament transection and were separated into two groups: ZOL group (n = 10) received 0.6 mg/kg intravenous injection of ZOL on day 1, 15, and 29 and placebo group (n = 8) received saline. The animals were euthanized at 8 weeks. Macroscopically, the ZOL group had significantly milder ulcerations, cartilage softening and fibrillation compared to the placebo group. Microscopically, morphology of the articular cartilage was better in the ZOL treated group compared with the placebo group, without complete disorganization in any section of the ZOL group. Furthermore, the chondrocytes in the ZOL treated group were mainly cloning, indicating cartilage repairing and regeneration process, while in the placebo group hypocellularity predominated. Additionally, subchondral necrosis was evident in some specimens of the placebo group. Zoledronic acid, in a high‐dose regimen, proved to be chondroprotective in a well‐established animal model of OA. © 2014 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 32:1646–1651, 2014.
Participation readiness at discharge from inpatient rehabilitation in children and adolescents with acquired brain injuries

Objective : To describe the extent of readiness for participation in home, school and community life at discharge from inpatient rehabilitation and selected factors associated with participation readiness in children and adolescents with acquired brain injuries. Methods : Staff from eight sites used retrospective review to complete a prototype clinical performance measure on up to 10 of their most recent discharges. Data were obtained on 65 children and adolescents, aged 6 months to 18 years (X = 9.5 years). The extent of participation readiness was analysed descriptively. Associations between selected variables and participation readiness were examined using correlation and multiple regression analyses. Results : Only 3-27% of the children were deemed ready for age-expected participation at discharge in 15 domains of home, school and community life. Social behavioural activity performance at discharge explained 74% of the variance associated with participation readiness at discharge. Conclusions : The low percentage of children deemed ready for age-expected participation has implications for post-discharge programming, since 82% of the children were discharged home. Participation readiness may not be an easily achievable goal or may not be fully addressed during inpatient rehabilitation. Preliminary findings suggest that social-behavioural activity performance is a key variable to be considered in efforts to promote participation readiness.
Computer Technology Acceptance Success Factors in Saudi Arabia: An Exploratory Study

Abstract The advent of computers and information technologies (IT) has been perhaps the single biggest drive impacting organizations during the past decades. IT acceptance that leads to adoption and use in the workplace is a necessary condition for effectiveness and competency in the information age. However, the literature suggests that there is a recognized rejection of these technologies in technologically advanced societies let alone in less technologically developed societies. As most technology is designed and produced in developed societies with their cultural values in mind, we would expect that there would be some social and cultural gap with less technologically developed societies. Failing to put the IT implementation process into the proper social context of economic, sociopolitical, and cultural dimensions can inhibit the success of the process and increase the risks of failure. This study, based on data from 1190 computer users in fifty six private and public organizations in Saudi Arabia, examines individual, technological, and organizational factors affecting computer acceptance as reflected in computer usage and user satisfaction. We contend that social and cultural influences could bridge the gap towards a better understanding of IT acceptance if certain "rational factors " are taken into account. The implications of findings for research and practice are discussed.
Structural Reforms and Macroeconomic Performance in the Euro Area Countries: A Model-Based Assessment

We quantitatively assess the macroeconomic effects of country-specific supply-side reforms in the euro area by simulating EAGLE, a multi-country dynamic general equilibrium model. We consider reforms in the labor and services markets of Germany (or, alternatively, Portugal) and the rest of the euro area. Our main results are as follows. First, a unilateral markup reduction by 15 percentage points in the German (Portuguese) labor and services market would induce an increase in the long-run German (Portuguese) output equal to 8.8 (7.8) percent. Second, cross-country coordination of reforms would add extra benefits to each region, by limiting the deterioration of relative prices and purchasing power that a country faces when implementing reforms unilaterally. In the long run German (Portuguese) output would increase by 9.2 (8.6) percent. Third, cross-country coordination would make the macroeconomic performance of the different regions more homogeneous, in terms of price competitiveness and real activity. Overall, our results suggest that while reforms implemented individually by each country in the euro area will produce positive effects, cross-country coordination produces larger and more evenly distributed (positive) effects.
Voting by Mail and Turnout in Oregon

In the most widely cited result on the turnout effects of voting by mail, Southwell and Burchett report that Oregon’s system increased turnout by 10 percentage points. We attempt to replicate this finding and extend the analysis to additional years to test whether the originally reported effect is due to the novelty of the first three voting by mail elections in 1995 and 1996. We are unable to reproduce earlier findings, either via replication or extending the time series to include 2010 electoral data. We find evidence for a novelty effect when all elections between 1960 and 2010 are included in our analysis, and a consistent impact of voting by mail on turnout only in special elections.
Catching up at the regional level

A convenient way to find out how things are going is by taking a look at your neighbours. In this paper we develop a method for the evaluation of regional economic performance based on an input-output (IO) framework. Once we defined economic criteria for measuring this performance, such as real GDP per worker or employment per output unit, we pick out the ''best'' performing region per sector. Taken together, they describe an optimal regional industrial structure for all sectors, a so called ''optimal'' input coefficients table. On the basis of this table, we will investigate the causes of regional convergence. Furthermore, this table will be used as a point of reference for economic policy makers at the regional level. Structural deviations from the ''optimal'' industrial structure may be reasons for policy action, so that the industrial structure can be evaluated in a normative way. In this paper, we investigate those deviations for 11 regions and 29 sectors in the Netherlands for the 1980-1992 period. The central focus is on the question how regional policy makers can improve regional economic performance by adjusting the regional industrial structure.
Construct Validity of the Miller Assessment for Preschoolers and the Pediatric Examination of Educational Readiness for Children

The purpose of this study was to investigate the construct validity of the Miller Assessment for Preschoolers (MAP) and the Pediatric Examination of Educational Readiness (PEER), two assessment tools that occupational therapists and physical therapists can use for early identification of children with developmental disabilities. The sample included 84 Israeli children who were tested on the MAP (42 children with pre-academic problems and 42 typically developing children), and 70 children who were tested on the PEER (35 children with pre-academic problems and 35 typically developing children). Out of this pool of subjects, 30 typically developing children and 30 children with pre-academic problems were tested on both tests and the results were used for additional data analysis. We found differences between the groups' MAP and PEER total scores as well as their developmental indices scores. Children with pre-academic problems scored lower. The supplementary behavioral observations of the tests yielded less definite results. A strong correlation existed between the total scores of the MAP and the PEER, and the total scores of the tests correlated significantly with each of the sub-scores of the other test. The findings support the construct validity of both tests, thereby suggesting that either test can be used to identify children with pre-academic problems.
STRUCTURAL AND ULTRASTRUCTURAL DATA ON SIDE EFFECTS OF CISPLATIN IN SPLEEN , KIDNEY AND LIVER OF RATS

Most of the cancer drugs used in chemotherapy induce strong immunosuppressive states and lymphotoxic effects, characterized especially by alterations of lymphoid tissues. Among alkylant anti-cancer drugs, the platinum compound Cisplatin is frequently used in chemotherapy of different cancer forms, because of their huge chemotherapeutic potential. Knowing the secondary effects of this antineoplastic agent on different organs has a significant role for establishing the treatment strategy. This should be adapted to organism’s response to the antitumor action and to the tolerance of different organs regarding the immunosuppressant state induced by the chemotherapy. Our structural and ultrastructural experimental investigations established that administration of this anticancer drug to rats in therapeutical doses induce lymphotoxicity, nephrotoxicity and hepatotoxicity. These effects were determined mainly by its antimitotic activity, correlated with drastic necrobiotic, necrotic and apoptotic effects.
Customer Engagement With Tourism Brands

Although customer engagement (CE) has emerged as a widely used term in many industries, including tourism and hospitality, academic research lacks a clear conceptualization and rigorous measurement of the construct. This study develops and validates a 25-item CE scale that comprises five factors: identification, enthusiasm, attention, absorption, and interaction. The scale, developed from a survey of hotel and airline customers, demonstrated strong psychometric properties across multiple samples and showed CE to exert a positive significant influence on behavioral intention of loyalty for both hotel and airline customers. The scale offers a framework for future empirical research in this increasingly important area, and it provides a useful tool for tourism practitioners to collect insights into customer psychological and behavioral connections with their brands beyond the service consumption experience.
The Effect of Reporting Frequency on the Timeliness of Earnings: The Cases of Voluntary and Mandatory Interim Reports

We examine whether financial reporting frequency affects the speed with which accounting information is reflected in security prices. For a sample of 28,824 reporting-frequency observations from 1950 to 1973, we find little evidence of differences in timeliness between firms reporting quarterly and those reporting semiannually, even after controlling for self-selection. However, firms that voluntarily increased reporting frequency from semiannual to quarterly experienced increased timeliness, while firms whose increase was mandated by the SEC did not. We conclude that there is little evidence to support the claim that regulation forcing firms to report more frequently improves earnings timeliness.
Contested Environmental Hazards and Community Conflict over Relocation.

The majority of the literature on contaminated communities indicates that environmental hazards lead to conflict and dissension. In this paper we examine the salient dimensions of conflict and factionalism in a rural Oklahoma community. The community is heavily contaminated from 80 years of commercial mining operations and was one of the first sites designated on the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund List in 1983. Despite two decades of remediation efforts, the community remains polluted with lead and other heavy metals. Based on in-depth interviews with community residents, observation, and document analysis, we find that the community has splintered into two competing groups over the environmental controversy. One faction of the community supports a federally sponsored relocation campaign, while the other has organized to oppose relocation. The results of our study indicate that the contentious split is centered around the ambiguity of harm associated with the contamination, conflicting economic concerns, and variations in community attachment.
Image Quality Assessment Guided Deep Neural Networks Training

For many computer vision problems, the deep neural networks are trained and validated based on the assumption that the input images are pristine (i.e., artifact-free). However, digital images are subject to a wide range of distortions in real application scenarios, while the practical issues regarding image quality in high level visual information understanding have been largely ignored. In this paper, in view of the fact that most widely deployed deep learning models are susceptible to various image distortions, the distorted images are involved for data augmentation in the deep neural network training process to learn a reliable model for practical applications. In particular, an image quality assessment based label smoothing method, which aims at regularizing the label distribution of training images, is further proposed to tune the objective functions in learning the neural network. Experimental results show that the proposed method is effective in dealing with both low and high quality images in the typical image classification task.