Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The chromosomal relBE2 toxin–antitoxin locus of Streptococcus pneumoniae: characterization and use of a bioluminescence resonance energy transfer assay to detect toxin–antitoxin interaction

Proteic toxin–antitoxin (TA) loci were first identified in bacterial plasmids, and they were regarded as involved in stable plasmid maintenance by a so‐called ‘addiction’ mechanism. Later, chromosomally encoded TA loci were identified and their function ascribed to survival mechanisms when bacteria were subjected to stress. In the search for chromosomally encoded TA loci in Gram‐positive bacteria, we identified various in the pathogen Streptococcus pneumoniae. Two of these cassettes, sharing homology with the Escherichia coli relBE locus were cloned and tested for their activity. The relBE2Spn locus resulted to be a bona fide TA locus. The toxin exhibited high toxicity towards E. coli and S. pneumoniae, although in the latter, the chromosomal copy of the antitoxin relB2Spn gene had to be inactivated to detect full toxicity. Cell growth arrest caused by expression of the relE2Spn toxin gene could be reverted by expression of the cognate antitoxin, relB2Spn, although prolonged exposition to the toxin led to cell death. The pneumococcal relBE2Spn locus is the first instance of a chromosomally encoded TA system from Gram‐positive bacteria characterized in its own host. We have developed a bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET) assay to detect the interactions between the RelB2Spn antitoxin and the RelE2Spn toxin in vivo. This technique has shown to be amenable to a high‐throughput screening (HTS), opening new avenues in the search of molecules with potential antibacterial activity able to inhibit TA interactions.
Fever and infection in leukemic patients. A study of 494 consecutive patients

All of the febrile episodes occurring in 494 adults with acute leukemia were reviewed. There were an average of 2.39 febrile episodes per patient and the patients spent 28% of their days in the hospital with fever. Sixty‐four percent of the febrile episodes were due to infection. The most common types of infection were disseminated infection and pneumonia, which together accounted for 69% of the total episodes of documented infection. The etiologic agent was identified in 73% of the documented infections and gram‐negative bacilli were responsible for the great majority. The most common gram‐negative bacilli causing infection were Escherichia coli, Klebsiella spp. and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. During the course of their leukemia, 31% of the patients had repeated episodes of infection caused by the same organism and 13% had repeated FUO's. Fever occurred most often when the patients had neutropenia (less than 500/mm3). The fatality rate from septicemia decreased from 84% in 1966 to 44% in 1972. The fatality rate for major infections caused by gram‐positive cocci was 16%, for gram‐negative bacilli was 37% and for fungi was 86%. Although infection remains a serious problem in leukemia patients, considerable progress has been made.
Phosphorylation of Human CDC25B Phosphatase by CDK1-Cyclin A Triggers Its Proteasome-dependent Degradation*

In eukaryotes the activity of CDK1 (CDC2), a cyclin-dependent kinase that initiates the structural changes that culminate in the segregation of chromosomes at mitosis, is regulated by the synergistic and opposing activities of a cascade of kinases and phosphatases. Dephosphorylation of threonine 14 and tyrosine 15 of CDK1 by the CDC25 phosphatases is a key step in the activation of the CDK1-cyclin B protein kinase. Little is currently known about the role and the regulation of CDC25B. Here we reportin vitro and in vivo data that indicate that CDC25B is degraded by the proteasome. This degradation is dependent upon phosphorylation by the CDK1-cyclin A complex but not by CDK1-cyclin B. These results indicate that CDK1-cyclin A phosphorylation targets CDC25B for degradation and that this might be an important component of cell cycle regulation at the G2/M transition.
Development of a drug-disease simulation model for rituximab in follicular non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

AIM Rituximab has dramatically improved the survival of patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (NHL), but the dosing regimen currently used should be optimized. However, the concentration-effect relationship of rituximab has never been described by pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic (PK-PD) modelling, precluding the simulation of new dosing regimens. The aim of this study was to develop a PK-PD model of rituximab in relapsed/resistant follicular NHL (FL). METHODS A model describing the relationship between rituximab concentrations and progression-free survival (PFS) was developed using data extracted from the pivotal study, which evaluated 151 relapsed/resistant FL patients. The influence of FCGR3A genetic polymorphism on the efficacy of rituximab was quantified using data from 87 relapsed/resistant FL patients. The predictive performance of the model was analysed using two independent datasets: a study that evaluated rituximab combined with chemotherapy [rituximab, cyclophosphamide, vincristine, adriamycin and prednisone (R-CHOP)] in 334 relapsed/resistant FL patients and a study that evaluated rituximab monotherapy in 47 asymptomatic FL patients with known FCGR3A genotype. RESULTS For R-CHOP, observed and model-predicted PFS (90% confidence interval) at 24 months were 0.50 and 0.48 (0.40, 0.56), respectively, for the observation arm, and 0.62 and 0.59 (0.50, 0.65), respectively, for the rituximab maintenance arm. For rituximab monotherapy, observed and predicted PFS at 24 months were 0.67 and 0.63, respectively, for FCGR3A-V/V patients, and 0.41 and 0.36 (0.25, 0.49), respectively, for FCGR3A-F carriers. CONCLUSIONS Our model provides a satisfactory prediction of PFS at 24 months. It can be used to simulate new dosing regimens of rituximab in populations of FL patients and should improve the design of future clinical trials.
When the Money Runs Out

We examine the medium-term effects of a two-year cash transfer program targeted to adolescent girls and young women. Significant declines in HIV prevalence, teen pregnancy, and early marriage among recipients of unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) during the program evaporated quickly two years after the cessation of transfers. However, children born to UCT beneficiaries during the program had significantly higher height-for-age z-scores at follow-up. On the other hand, conditional cash transfers (CCTs) offered to out-of-school females at baseline produced a large increase in educational attainment and a sustained reduction in the total number of births, but caused no gains in health, labor market outcomes, or empowerment. Our findings point to both the promise and the limitations of cash transfer programs for sustained gains in welfare among young women.
Frequency of different blood groups and its association with BMI and blood pressure among the female medical students of Faisalabad.

OBJECTIVE To determine the frequency of different blood groups among female medical students and to find the association of blood groups and body mass index with blood pressure. METHODS This cross-sectional study was performed at the University Medical and Dental College, Faisalabad, Pakistan, from March to April 2016, and comprised female medical students. Participants were divided into groups on the basis of their ABO blood groups and on body mass index criteria. Blood groups were determined by simple conventional slide method. Blood pressure was estimated by manual auscultatory technique with a mercury sphygmomanometer. Data was analysed usingSPSS20. RESULTS There were 145 students with an overall mean age of18.4±0.75 years (range: 17-23 years). Blood group B was the predominant group 65(44.8%). Besides, 130(89.6%) subjects were rhesus positive and 23(53%) subjects of blood group O were pre-hypertensive. Multiple regression analysis indicated significant positive association of blood group O with both systolic and diastolic blood pressure (p=0.002, 0.001). However, subsequent logistic regression showed significant association only with diastolic blood pressure (p=0.001). Relative risk of pre-hypertension for obese (p=0.001) was greater than non-obese subjects. Body mass index was significantly associated with both systolic and diastolic blood pressure (p=0.004, 0.042). CONCLUSIONS Blood group B was the most common blood group. Blood group O was associated with diastolic pre-hypertension, while body mass index was associated with both systolic and diastolic pre-hypertension.
Sexual dysfunction and physicians' perception in medicated patients with major depression in Taiwan

Although prevalent during antidepressant treatment, sexual dysfunction (SD) is frequently ignored by both physicians and patients in Asia. In spite of impact of SD on medicated patients with major depression, sexual issues and illness remain a forbidden topic for most Asian people. The aims of this study were to: (1) estimate the prevalence of SD among stable outpatients taking different antidepressants in Taiwan; (2) investigate the factors related to SD; (3) compare physician‐perceived with patient‐reported prevalence rates of antidepressant‐associated SD; and (4) study the differences of SD among antidepressant subgroups. In this cross‐sectional observational study, 125 medicated patients with major depression were recruited. Patients were assessed using the Changes in Sexual Functioning Questionnaire (CSFQ), Taiwanese Depression Questionnaire (TDQ), Quality of Life Index (QOL), and neuroticism scores in the Maudsley Personality Inventory (MPI). Sixty‐two physicians completed the Physician Antidepressant Experience Questionnaire. The estimated prevalence rate of SD was 53.6% (95% CI = 44.9–62.3%) in medicated patients with major depression. There were no significant differences in prevalence rate of SD among different antidepressants. The SD subgroup had poorer quality of life and lower moods than the non‐dysfunction subgroup. An underestimation of the prevalence of SD by physicians was noted. Because antidepressant‐associated SD is highly prevalent and seriously underestimated by physicians, greater physicians' recognition and better patients' education are imperative when prescribing antidepressants. Depression and Anxiety. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Effect of fall in crude oil price on stock indices and exchange rates of India and China.

The present study makes an attempt to investigate the effect of sharp continuous falling crude oil prices on stock market indices and exchange rates of India and China. The period of the study spans from July 2009 to May 2016. Multivariate cointegration techniques along with vector error correction mechanism, impulse response functions are employed in this empirical research
Generations of migration : schooling, youth & transnationalism in the Philippines

The Philippines is one of the world’s largest ‘sending communities’ for international labour migrants, with roughly 10% of the population ‘absent’ due to emigrations associated with permanent relocation or short-term contract work. Anthropologists studying Filipino migrations have often focussed on the migrants themselves, and particularly their experiences of diaspora and transnationalism in the present; this thesis instead looks at the perspectives of those who remain in the Philippines, particularly the children and young people who are affected by labour migration, and who often consider working overseas as part of their own futures. The thesis investigates children’s and young people’s social lives in the province of Batangas, exploring their labour practices, kinship relations and, most importantly, their education and schooling. Findings are based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in two educational institutions: a public secondary school in a small rural village, and a private vocational college in a larger ‘peri-urban’ town. Research was primarily conducted with children and young people who attended the school or college, as well as their teachers, families and communities. I argue that understandings of the purpose and practice of schooling have become thoroughly entwined with the transnational economies of labour migration and remittances. This process has generated or contributed to wide-ranging cultural vocabularies for talking about and acting on the future and the potential of young people, which encompass idioms pertaining to the moral value of children, concepts of movement and mobility, indebtedness across intergenerational relations, and the ‘domestication’ of external or foreign sources power. My conclusions contribute to anthropologies of childhood and youth, critical analysis of the articulation of schooling and labour, theories of global capitalism and transnationalism, and themes within the wider ethnographic study of the Philippines and Southeast Asia.
Characteristic Mode Based Tradeoff Analysis of Antenna-Chassis Interactions for Multiple Antenna Terminals

The design of multiple antennas in compact mobile terminals is a significant challenge, due to both practical and fundamental design tradeoffs. In this paper, fundamental antenna design tradeoffs of multiple antenna terminals are presented in the framework of characteristic mode analysis. In particular, interactions between the antenna elements and the characteristic modes and their impact on design tradeoffs are investigated in both theory and simulations. The results reveal that the characteristic modes play an important role in determining the optimal placement of antennas for low mutual coupling. Moreover, the ability of antenna elements to localize the excitation currents on the chassis can significantly influence the final performance. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, a dual-band, dual-antenna terminal is designed to provide an isolation of over 10 dB for the 900 MHz band without additional matching or decoupling structures. A tradeoff analysis of bandwidth, efficiency, effective diversity gain and capacity is performed over different antenna locations. Finally, three fabricated prototypes verify the simulation results for representative cases.
Population-Based Hematologic and Immunologic Reference Values for a Healthy Ugandan Population

ABSTRACT To assess the validity of the reference values for hematologic and immunologic indices currently used in Africa, we evaluated blood samples from 3,311 human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-negative Ugandans aged 1 week to 92 years. Erythrocyte, hemoglobin, and hematocrit levels and mean corpuscular volume all significantly increased with age (P < 0.001) and were independent of gender until the age of 13 years, after which the levels were higher in males than in females (P < 0.001). White blood cell, neutrophil, lymphocyte, basophil, and monocyte counts significantly declined with age until the age of 13 years (P < 0.001), with no differences by gender, while platelet counts declined with age (P < 0.001) and showed differences by gender only among adults older than age 24 years. CD4+- and CD8+-cell counts declined with age until the age of 18 years; thereafter, females had higher counts than males. The absolute values for many of these parameters differed from those reported for populations outside Africa, suggesting that it may be necessary to develop tables of reference values for hematologic and immunologic indices specific for the African population. This may be particularly important with regard to CD4+-cell counts among children because significant differences in absolute and percent CD4+-cell counts exist between the values for Western populations and the values for the population evaluated in our study. These differences could influence the decision to initiate antiretroviral therapy among children infected with HIV.
Symmetry-aware Sparse Voxel DAGs (SSVDAGs) for compression-domain tracing of high-resolution geometric scenes

Voxelized representations of complex 3D scenes are widely used to accelerate visibility queries in many GPU rendering techniques. Since GPU memory is limited, it is important that these data structures can be kept within a strict memory budget. Recently, directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) have been successfully introduced to compress sparse voxel octrees (SVOs), but they are limited to sharing identical regions of space. In this paper, we show that a more efﬁcient lossless compression of geometry can be achieved while keeping the same visibility-query performance. This is accomplished by merging subtrees that are identical through a similarity transform and by exploiting the skewed distribution of references to shared nodes to store child pointers using a variabile bit-rate encoding. We also describe how, by selecting plane reﬂections along the main grid directions as symmetry transforms, we can construct highly compressed GPU-friendly structures using a fully out-of-core method. Our results demonstrate that state-of-the-art compression and real-time tracing performance can be achieved on high-resolution voxelized representations of real-world scenes of very different characteristics,
Conceptualizing, Validating, and Managing Brand Equity for Tourist Satisfaction

The purpose of this study was to examine the roles of four distinct aspects of brand equity—perceived quality, brand awareness, brand loyalty, and brand image—in tourism satisfaction with regard to Taiwanese night markets. Regression analysis and structural equation models were used to test the hypotheses for a sample of 348 foreign tourists with experience in night market tourism. The results indicate that perceived quality is positively related to brand awareness, whereas brand awareness is positively related to brand loyalty and brand image. This finding confirms the positive relationship between brand loyalty/image and tourist satisfaction. The empirical evidence of the Sobel test following Baron and Kenny’s procedure supports the multiple mediation effects of brand awareness on perceived quality and brand loyalty/image and indicates that brand loyalty/image mediates the effects of brand awareness and satisfaction.
"Inextricably Linked": Shared Governance and Academic Freedom.

Critics of shared governance argue that changing conditions in higher education and increasing demands from the public for accountability require substantially new approaches to institutional governance. Many of these critics contend that a more hierarchical corporate model of management must replace the long-established collegial model of shared governance enunciated in the AAUP’s 1966 Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities if our institutions of higher learning are to fulfill their mission and serve the public interest effectively.
Clinical and epidemiological characteristics of acute respiratory virus infections in Vietnamese children

SUMMARY Information about viral acute respiratory infections (ARIs) is essential for prevention, diagnosis and treatment, but it is limited in tropical developing countries. This study described the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of ARIs in children hospitalized in Vietnam. Nasopharyngeal samples were collected from children with ARIs at Ho Chi Minh City Children's Hospital 2 between April 2010 and May 2011 in order to detect respiratory viruses by polymerase chain reaction. Viruses were found in 64% of 1082 patients, with 12% being co-infections. The leading detected viruses were human rhinovirus (HRV; 30%), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV; 23·8%), and human bocavirus (HBoV; 7·2%). HRV was detected all year round, while RSV epidemics occurred mainly in the rainy season. Influenza A (FluA) was found in both seasons. The other viruses were predominant in the dry season. HRV was identified in children of all age groups. RSV, parainfluenza virus (PIV) 1, PIV3 and HBoV, and FluA were detected predominantly in children aged <6 months, 6–12 months, 12–24 months, and >24 months, respectively. Significant associations were found between PIV1 with croup (P < 0·005) and RSV with bronchiolitis (P < 0·005). HBoV and HRV were associated with hypoxia (P < 0·05) and RSV with retraction (P < 0·05). HRV, RSV, and HBoV were detected most frequently and they may increase the severity of ARIs in children.
Human Resource Management Practices and Performance: A General Systems Perspective

This thesis consists of three essays on strategic human resource management (SHRM) based on general systems theory. The first essay introduces a systems perspective on SHRM, the second essay applies the feedback concept, and the third essay considers implementing human resource management (HRM) practices as adaptive systems. The three essays suggest that general systems theory extends the SHRM literature by considering antecedents, processes, and consequences of HRM in modern organizations. In the first essay, I review the SHRM literature and identify four traditions in SHRM studies (economic, psychological, sociological, and critical perspectives). I propose a systems perspective on SHRM as an effort to provide an integrative framework for the field. The framework based on general systems theory also directs research efforts to focus on under-studied areas in SHRM. I further identify fundamental principles, or grand propositions, in the HRM systems perspective, as a potential basis for evaluating the HRM systems perspective in future studies. In the second essay, causality between HRM practices and organizational performance is examined. Previous researchers have questioned whether the association between high performance work systems (HPWS) and organizational performance indicates causality. This study takes a general systems theory approach to explain why performance could affect HPWS as well as the reverse. The causal associations between HPWS and performance are tested using a large longitudinal dataset with three time points. Past HPWS positively contributes to later productivity, and the positive link between past productivity and later HPWS is also found. The reciprocal relationship suggests that SHRM theories need to be extended by considering productivity as an antecedent to as well as an outcome of HRM investment. The third essay investigates the longitudinal relationship between HPWS and productivity over a six-year period. This study suggests that the implementation of HRM practices is an adaptive process. Latent growth modeling analyses reveal that the intercept of HRM practices positively affects the slope of productivity. Continuous increases in HRM investments are not necessary to maintain productivity gains, and the data also did not support the pernicious “Red Queen” effect whereby continuous improvements in productivity required continuous increases in HRM investments. Establishment size and age moderate these effects in theoretically important ways.