Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characterization of the Functional Epitope on the Urokinase Receptor

The high affinity interaction between the serine protease urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA) and its glycolipid-anchored receptor (uPAR) represents one of the key regulatory steps in cell surface-associated plasminogen activation. On the basis on our crystal structure solved for uPAR in complex with a peptide antagonist, we recently proposed a model for the corresponding complex with the growth factor-like domain of uPA (Llinas et al. (2005) EMBO J. 24, 1655-1663). In the present study, we provide experimental evidence that consolidates and further develops this model using data from a comprehensive alanine scanning mutagenesis of uPAR combined with low resolution distance constraints defined within the complex using chemical cross-linkers as molecular rulers. The kinetic rate constants for the interaction between pro-uPA and 244 purified uPAR mutants with single-site replacements were determined by surface plasmon resonance. This complete alanine scanning of uPAR highlighted the involvement of 20 surface-exposed side chains in this interaction. Mutations causing ΔΔG ≥ 1 kcal/mol for the uPA interaction are all located within or at the rim of the central cavity uniquely formed by the assembly of all three domains in uPAR, whereas none are found outside this crevice. Identification of specific cross-linking sites in uPAR and pro-uPA enabled us to build a model of the uPAR·uPA complex in which the kringle domain of uPA was positioned by the constraints established by the range of these cross-linkers. The nature of this interaction is predominantly hydrophobic and highly asymmetric, thus emphasizing the importance of the shape and size of the central cavity when designing low molecular mass antagonists of the uPAR/uPA interaction.
Psychological and dietary treatments of binge eating disorder: conceptual implications.

OBJECTIVE The authors review the available literature on psychological and dietary treatment approaches for binge eating disorder (BED). METHODS Studies were grouped according to psychological versus dietary approaches to BED. Studies were reviewed in terms of general implications, but particular emphasis was placed on drop-out rates, abstinence from binge eating, and weight loss. RESULTS Drop-out rates from psychological or dietary approaches to treatment averaged 20% and the presence of binge eating did not confer a greater risk of drop-out among obese individuals. Both psychological and dietary approaches to treatment produced abstinence rates from binge eating of approximately 50% at the 12-month follow-up. Both psychological and dietary approaches show modest efficacy of short-term weight loss, but these effects are generally not sustained in long-term follow-up assessments. DISCUSSION Psychological and dietary approaches to BED treatment show reasonable efficacy in binge eating reduction, but limited efficacy in weight loss. These findings are discussed in terms of the validity of the BED construct and the need for more psychopathology studies of BED.
What Do Campaign Contributions Buy? Deciphering Causal Effects of Money and Votes

In the 1987-1988 election cycle, political action committees (PACs) spent $176.6 million on candidates who competed for a seat in the House of Representatives. What do PACs buy when contributing this money? If campaign contributions are rational allocations of a contributor's income, campaign expenditures could increase both the probability that the contributor's preferred candidate is elected, and the likelihood that, if elected, the candidate will vote in the interest of the contributor. Most studies do not find that incumbents' expenditures have a significant positive effect on the number of votes incumbents receive [11; 14; 15; 17; 29]. The evidence that contributions influence congressional votes is mixed. Most studies find weak or no support for this hypothesis. For example, Kau, Rubin and Keenan [17] find that contributions from businesses mattered in only two of the eight votes they analyzed. Others argue that campaign expenditures play no important role in the voting decision of congressmen [5; 9; 12; 31]. The lack of finding of significant effects of money on votes has been explained with the need for "better models to explain campaign contributions" [5]. However, the theoretical developments of, for example, Ben-Zion and Eyton [4], Bental and Ben-Zion [3], and Baron [2], have not been incorporated in the empirical analysis of the effect of campaign contributions on the voting behavior of legislators. Empirical models that test this relationship must allow for the endogeneity of campaign contributions, for the dichotomous nature of the dependent vote variable and the nonnegativity constraint of campaign contributions. Most empirical work in this area utilize models that do not incorporate these restrictions. In this study, I plan to incorporate these aspects of the data generating process into a more detailed model of the effects of campaign contributions on congressional votes. Of all the reported empirical studies on this issue, only Chappell [5] uses a model which can properly assess the impact of money on votes. Chappell finds that campaign contributions do not affect votes in Congress when his more detailed econometric technique is used. The best test of the theory results if votes have a clear economic payoff to contributors, benefits of the votes are concentrated and costs are
Evaluation of rationality of promotional drug literature using World Health Organization guidelines

Objectives: The study was aimed to evaluate collected drug promotional brochures for accuracy, consistency, and validity of the information presented in it, using World Health Organization (WHO) criteria for ethical medicinal drug promotion. Drug promotional brochures were evaluated for the type of claims and pictorial content presented in it and for references cited in support of these claims. Material and Methods: This observational, cross-sectional study was conducted in the outpatient department of Government Medical College and Hospital, Nagpur, India. In addition to the fulfillment of “WHO criteria, 1988,” we examined 513 promotional brochures for the type of claims and pictorial content presented in it and references quoted in support of claims to check their retrievability, type, and authenticity. Results: None of the promotional literature fulfilled all WHO criteria. Majority (92%) brochures claimed about the efficacy of product, and a few about safety (37.8%). Out of 1003 references given in support of various claims, 84.4% were from journals and only 28.5% were validly presented researches. Brochures presenting irrelevant pictures were 41.3%, whereas brief prescription information (BPI) of the promoted drug was given only by 8.8% brochures. Conclusion: Pharmaceutical industries did not follow the WHO guidelines while promoting their products, thus aiming to satisfying their commercial motive rather than fulfill the educational aspect of promotion.
Fiscal Policy Measures and Balance of Payments in Nigeria

The paper investigates fiscal policy measures and balance of payments in Nigeria. The main objective of this study is to examine the extent to which fiscal policy measures have influenced the BOP position in Nigeria during the period under study. The study utilized aggregate annual data from 1980 to 2012. The data was analyzed with the co-integration/ ECM method. The major findings are: the test for stationary using Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) showed that all the variables were not stationary in levels but were stationary in first difference. The Johansen-Juselius co-integration techniques were employed in testing for long run equilibrium relationship among the variables and the results indicated that co-integrating relationship was found among the variables. The parsimonious ECM result reveals that about 80% of the systematic variation in the dependent variable (BOP) is explained by the three independent variables which are Government Expenditure (GXP) and Government Tax Revenue (GTR) and Government Debt (GTD). Furthermore, the result revealed that government tax revenue has positive and significant effect on BOP in Nigeria, while government expenditure and debt have negative and significant impact on BOP in Nigeria based on the magnitude and the level of significance of the coefficient and p-value. The result also reveals that there is long run relationship between fiscal policy and BOP, as evidenced by the ECM. From the result so far, it is obvious that fiscal policy measures are effective in achieving a favorable balance of payments in Nigeria. The paper concluded that the success of fiscal policy in promoting favorable BOP depends on the level of public revenue available, the direction of public expenditure and its implementation. On the basis of the findings, we recommend amongst others that expansionary fiscal policy measures should be encouraged as they play vital role for the growth of the BOP in Nigeria. Also export promotion and import substitution strategies to increase the non-oil exports in order to achieve a favorable BOP in order to achieve a favorable BOP.
Macrophage Infiltration and Smooth Muscle Cells Content Associated With Haptoglobin Genotype in Human Atherosclerotic Carotid Plaques

We assessed the association between the haptoglobin (Hp) genotype and 2 common indicators of atherosclerotic plaque instability: macrophage infiltration and the smooth muscle cell (SMC) content. A total of 70 consecutive patients who underwent carotid endarterectomy were included in the study. For immunohistochemical study the anti-CD68 and anti-a-actin antibodies were used on adjacent serial sections; 36 plaques from patients with the Hp 1-1 or 2-1 genotype and 34 plaques from patients with the Hp 2-2 genotype were analyzed. The macrophage content (CD68+) was significantly higher in the Hp 2-2 group compared with that in the Hp 1-1 or 2-1 group (P < .001). In plaques from patients with diabetes, the SMC content was significantly lower in the Hp 2-2 group (P = .034). Carotid plaques from diabetic patients with Hp 2-2 genotype had higher macrophage infiltration and lower SMC content. Both parameters are indicators of atherosclerotic plaque instability.
Myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein induces experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis in the "resistant" Brown Norway rat: disease susceptibility is determined by MHC and MHC-linked effects on the B cell response.

Experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) induced by active immunization with the myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG) is an Ab-mediated, T cell-dependent autoimmune disease that replicates the inflammatory demyelinating pathology of multiple sclerosis. We report that disease susceptibility and severity are determined by MHC and MHC-linked effects on the MOG-specific B cell response that mediate severe clinical EAE in the EAE-resistant Brown Norway (BN) rat. Immunization with the extracellular domain of MOG in CFA induced fulminant clinical disease associated with widespread demyelination and with an inflammatory infiltrate containing large numbers of polymorphonuclear cells and eosinophils within 10 days of immunization. To analyze the effects of the MHC (RT1 system) we compared BN (RT1 n) rats with Lewis (LEW) (RT1 l) and two reciprocal MHC congenic strains, LEW.1N (RT1n) and BN.1L (RT1 l). This comparison revealed that disease severity and clinical course were strongly influenced by the MHC haplotype that modulated the pathogenic MOG-specific autoantibody response. The intra-MHC recombinant congenic strain LEW.1R38 demonstrated that gene loci located both within the centromeric segment of the MHC containing classical class I and class II genes and within the telomeric RT1.M region containing the MOG gene are involved in determining Ab production and disease susceptibility. This study indicates that the current T cell-centered interpretation of MHC-mediated effects on disease susceptibility must be reassessed in multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases in which autoantibody is involved in disease pathogenesis.
Predictors of Proximal Neoplasia in Patients Without Distal Adenomatous Pathology

BACKGROUND:Previous colorectal cancer screening studies have observed that some patients may have advanced proximal neoplasia without distal findings. Since these studies have included only gender, age, and family history as risk factors, they are limited in their ability to identify predictors of isolated proximal neoplasia.METHODS:Data were collected from the charts of 1,988 patients who presented for colonoscopy. Information gathered included endoscopic findings, histology, known risk factors for colorectal neoplasia, and smoking pattern. Our main outcome was the presence of proximal adenomatous neoplasia in patients who had no distal adenomas. We defined significant neoplasia as adenocarcinoma, high-grade dysplasia, villous polyps, adenomas 1 cm or greater or more than two adenomas of any size.RESULTS:Fifty-five patients had isolated significant proximal neoplasia that would have been missed on a flexible sigmoidoscopy. While patients older than 60 yr had a greater risk for this neoplasia (odds ratio = 3.01: 95% CI = 1.66–4.23; p < 0.001), those who took a daily aspirin had a reduced risk (OR = 0.60; 95% CI = 0.30–0.88; p < 0.05). A family history of colorectal cancer increased the patient's risk of having any adenomas (OR = 2.01; 95% CI = 1.33–3.40; p < 0.01) or villous tissue (OR = 2.03; 95% CI = 1.27–3.51; p < 0.05) in the proximal colon without distal findings. Smoking was associated with an increased risk of large (> 1 cm) isolated proximal tubular polyps (OR = 2.71; 95% CI = 1.64–4.46; p < 0.01) as well as isolated significant proximal neoplasia (OR = 2.30; 95% CI = 1.59–3.31; p < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS:Age greater than 60 yr, a history of at least 10 pack-years of smoking, and a family history of colorectal cancer increased the risk of finding significant proximal polyps in patients without distal pathology.
An evaluation of the difficulties and attitudes mental health professionals experience with people with personality disorders.

INTRODUCTION Working with people with a personality disorder (PD) can arouse strong feelings, and cause difficulties as well as different attitudes among mental health workers (MHWs). While attitudes towards people with PD and the difficulties experienced by MHWs have been previously investigated, the reciprocal relationship between the two has not been thoroughly investigated. AIM/QUESTION This study aims to investigate (1) affective reactions of MHWs to people with personality disorders, (2) the difficulties that MHWs experience while working with these patients, (3) their attitudes towards these patients, and (4) the interaction between these variables. METHOD The data for this study were collected through a Personal Information Questionnaire, the Difficulty of Working with Personality Disorders Scale and the Attitudes towards Patients with Personality Disorders Scale from 332 MHWs from several mental health clinics in Turkey, all of whom were experienced in working with people with PD. RESULTS The results indicate that the participants described 'difficulty in forming a relationship, understanding the client, and establishing cooperation' among the primary reasons of difficulties. This study also shows that there is a strong relationship between MHWs' feelings of boredom/discontent, guilt/pity and a tendency to display positive behaviours/an inability of establishing borders against people with PD. DISCUSSION The findings of this study imply that the level of education, expertise, psychotherapy treatment and clinical supervision of MHWs all affect perceived difficulties and attitudes towards people with PD. It is also noted that among nurses, a higher level of education results in reduced experience of difficulties while working with patients with PD. IMPLICATION FOR PRACTICE The results foreground the need for specific skills to be developed in MHWs through theoretical training, case-focused supervision and receiving personal psychotherapy for MHWs.
Context-dependent utility overrides absolute memory as a determinant of choice

A core problem of decision theories is that although decisionmakers’ preferences depend on learning, their choices could be driven either by learned representations of the physical properties of each alternative (for instance reward sizes) or of the benefit (utility and fitness) experienced from them. Physical properties are independent of the subject’s state and context, but utility depends on both. We show that starlings’ choices are better explained by memory for context-dependent utility than by representations of the alternatives’ physical properties, even when the decisionmakers’ state is controlled and they have accurate knowledge about the options’ physical properties. Our results support the potential universality of utility-driven preference control.
Economic Conditions and the Vote for Incumbent Parties in Russia, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic from 1990 to 1996

An American political scientist employs regional electoral, economic, and demographic data across several transition countries—Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Czech Republic, and Russia—to examine the effects of economic conditions on the electoral fortunes of thirty-two incumbent political parties in ten parliamentary elections. “Primary Incumbents” and “Other Incumbents” are distinguished in order to analyze how the “Degree of Incumbency” affects the relationship between economic conditions and election results for these two different types of incumbents in post-communist countries. The article points to new questions and methods for examining multiparty elections as well as for the relationship between economic conditions and voting outcomes.
Defining and Activating the Role of Department Chair as Instructional Leader

With strong connection to schoolwide policy and vision and to the realities of the daily life of teachers and students, the department chair is uniquely positioned to play an important role in advancing instructional effectiveness (Printy, 2008; Weller, 2001). This article provides an in-depth look at the efforts of three urban comprehensive high schools to revision the role of department chair as instructional leader. The case studies identify building a shared vision, trust, role clarity, professional development, modeling, and application as critical elements of leadership development. The article defines the role of department chair as instructional leader and examines the effects of efforts to strengthen this role. Findings suggest that department chairs found their new role to be motivating and enriching, but significant training and reshaping of school norms were needed to provide the skills and legitimacy for them to lead instructional improvement in their departments.
Modified dynamic programming based unit commitment technique

This paper represents a modified dynamic programming solution to the unit commitment (UC) problem. The UC is a complex decision-making process because of multiple constraints which may not be violated while finding the optimal or suboptimal commitment schedule. There are many methods to solve the UC problem gradually. So, before we present our method, we will show the drawbacks of the standard dynamic programming methods which use general purpose optimization techniques to the UC problem. The priority list method, the lagrange relaxation and the mixed integer linear programming (MILP) are possible to apply to a real power system for performing the unit commitment. However, by using these methods, we could not get an optimal solution but only a suboptimal silution. Therefore we propose to get an optimal solution by using dynamic programming. Performing dynamic programming takes a lot of simulation time, so it is not optimal to use in a real power system for performing the unit commitment. Therefore, we need a modified dynamic programming method to satisfy both the simulated and the real power system to get the optimal solution. For those not familiar with UC problem, we introduce the constraints, production cost and start-up cost. The goal of the objective function is in cost minimization, so we use the economic dispatch using the lambda iteration method when we calculate the production costs. Finally, we compare the UC solution by using both methods.
The value of aspiration cytologic examination of the breast a statistical review of the medical literature

The decision to perform surgery in patients with a breast mass usually is made on the basis of combined diagnostic information, with fine‐needle aspiration cytologic examination (FNAC) playing a central role. To determine and compare the quality of FNAC of the breast, a search was performed of the English literature for articles with quantitative information about their results. Twentynine such articles, containing 31,340 aspirations, were identified and summarized. Required data were extracted from these articles. These numbers were analyzed with the use of a two‐by‐four contingency table to relate the FNAC result (definitely malignant, suspect, benign, or unsatisfactory cytologic material) with the final diagnosis (malignant or benign breast disease). Test characteristics such as sensitivity, specificity, and the likelihood ratios for the four different FNAC results were derived for each study and compared. There was a striking difference between studies with regard to the probability of a particular FNAC upshot (e.g., in patients with breast cancer, the chance of obtaining definitely malignant cytologic material ranged from 0.35 to 0.92), the sensitivity (range, 0.65 to 0.98), the specificity (range, 0.34 to 1.0), and likelihood ratios. In the opinion of the authors, it is virtually impossible to infer general test characteristics of FNAC of the breast from the medical literature because of differences in methods and different biases. At best, the maximum attainable performance of this test can be described. For the development of a policy for breast mass management, the local test characteristics of this highly operator‐dependent test should be established.
Kinematics of the Thoracic T10–T11 Motion Segment: Locus of Instantaneous Axes of Rotation in Flexion and Extension

The purpose of this study was to determine the locations and loci of instantaneous axes of rotation (IARs) of the T10–T11 motion segment in flexion and extension. An anatomically accurate three-dimensional model of thoracic T10–T11 functional spinal unit (FSU) was developed and validated against published experimental data under flexion, extension, lateral bending, and axial rotation loading configurations. The validated model was exercised under six load configurations that produced motions only in the sagittal plane to characterize the loci of IARs for flexion and extension. The IARs for both flexion and extension under these six load types were directly below the geometric center of the moving vertebra, and all the loci of IARs were tracked superoanteriorly for flexion and inferoposteriorly for extension with rotation. These findings may offer an insight to better understanding of the kinematics of the human thoracic spine and provide clinically relevant information for the evaluation of spinal stability and implant device functionality.