Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Probing different perfluorocarbons for in vivo inflammation imaging by 19F MRI: image reconstruction, biological half‐lives and sensitivity

Inflammatory processes can reliably be assessed by 19F MRI using perfluorocarbons (PFCs), which is primarily based on the efficient uptake of emulsified PFCs by circulating cells of the monocyte–macrophage system and subsequent infiltration of the 19F‐labeled cells into affected tissue. An ideal candidate for the sensitive detection of fluorine‐loaded cells is the biochemically inert perfluoro‐15‐crown‐5 ether (PFCE), as it contains 20 magnetically equivalent 19F atoms. However, the biological half‐life of PFCE in the liver and spleen is extremely long, and so this substance is not suitable for future clinical applications. In the present study, we investigated alternative, nontoxic PFCs with predicted short biological half‐lives and high fluorine content: perfluorooctyl bromide (PFOB), perfluorodecalin (PFD) and trans‐bis‐perfluorobutyl ethylene (F‐44E). Despite the complex spectra of these compounds, we obtained artifact‐free images using sine‐squared acquisition‐weighted three‐dimensional chemical shift imaging and dedicated reconstruction accomplished with in‐house‐developed software. The signal‐to‐noise ratio of the images was maximized using a Nutall window with only moderate localization error. Using this approach, the retention times of the different PFCs in murine liver and spleen were determined at 9.4 T. The biological half‐lives were estimated to be 9 days (PFD), 12 days (PFOB) and 28 days (F‐44E), compared with more than 250 days for PFCE. In vivo sensitivity for inflammation imaging was assessed using an ear clip injury model. The alternative PFCs PFOB and F‐44E provided 37% and 43%, respectively, of the PFCE intensities, whereas PFD did not show any signal in the ear model. Thus, for in vivo monitoring of inflammatory processes, PFOB emerges as the most promising candidate for possible future translation of 19F MR inflammation imaging to human applications. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Comparative Study on the Larvicidal Activity of Drimane Sesquiterpenes and Nordrimane Compounds against Drosophila melanogaster til-til

Natural compounds from Drimys winteri Forst and derivatives exhibited larvicidal effects against Drosophila melanogaster til-til. The most active compound was isodrimenin (4). The highest lethal concentration to the larvae of D. melanogaster was 4.5 ± 0.8 mg/L. At very low concentrations drimenol (1), confertifolin (3), and drimanol (5) displayed antifeedant and larvae growth regulatory activity. The antifeedant results of nordrimanic and drimanic compounds were better in first instar larvae. The EC50 value of polygodial (2) was 60.0 ± 4.2 mg/L; of diol 15 45.0 ± 2.8 mg/L, and of diol 17 36.9 ± 3.7 mg/L, while the new nordrimane compound 12 presented a value of 83.2 ± 3.5 mg/L.
Hypersensitivity to carboplatin in children.

BACKGROUND Hypersensitivity reactions are rare but at times severe complications to cytostatic drugs. PROCEDURE The percentage of allergic reactions to carboplatin and their clinical features were evaluated in 185 children affected by different solid tumors and treated with etoposide-carboplatin chemotherapy. Allergic reactions that occurred during or immediately following etoposide infusion (5 cases, 2.8%) were excluded from the study. RESULTS Seventeen out of 185 patients (9.2%) suffered from allergic responses to carboplatin. The first of these occurred after an average of 10.1 courses (range, 1-23; median, 9). The risk calculated according to the number of courses is 2% at 6 courses, 11.3% at 12 courses, and 47% at more than 12 courses. CONCLUSIONS The high risk of allergic reactions to multiple courses of carboplatin should be kept in mind when developing treatment regimens that include the drug.
Applying real options theory to HRM: an empirical study of IT software firms in India

Environmental uncertainties can impact the market value of a firm's human assets both positively and negatively, and make return on human assets uncertain over time. However, the strategic human resource management (SHRM) literature has so far focused almost exclusively only on the upside value of human assets of a firm. Real options theory can provide the process heuristics as well as the economic logic for guiding investments in human assets to create sustainable market value for firms operating in uncertain environments. In spite of the growth in popularity of the real options approach, no meaningful progress, however, has been made towards application of this approach to HRM. This study, using data from 108 IT software development firms in India, seeks to address this gap and make three important contributions to the SHRM literature: (1) operationalise the concept of HR options by identifying the HR practices that possess option value; (2) investigate how use of HR options affects firm-level performance; and (3) develop and test a causal model that links the various types of HR options that firms use to exploit uncertainties faced by them with the firm-level operational and financial outcomes. The results support the central hypothesis of the article that use of HR options by firms operating in uncertain environments would have positive impact on their operational and financial performance. Significant differences were observed in the nature of linkages between different types of HR options used to address different types of uncertainties, and the operational and financial performance of the firm.
MANUFACTURING STRATEGY: AT THE INTERSECTION OF TWO PARADIGM SHIFTS

The concept of “manufacturing strategy” is still, in human terms, barely past adolescence. In years, it is younger than most of the MBAs who study it today. So it is not surprising that–like them–it has been undergoing almost continual growth and elaboration throughout its short life, as it tested itself against the real world and as that world evolved. Today it is facing perhaps the greatest challenge in its short history, as it finds itself in the crossfire of debates about core aspects of its two parent disciplines: manufacturing management and competitive strategy. This paper begins by briefly reviewing some of the key steps in the conceptual development of the manufacturing strategy paradigm, then describes the attacks now being directed at both the manufacturing management and the competitive strategy paradigms, and finally discusses the new perspectives that these two paradigm shifts are shedding on some familiar problems.
Option Backdating and Board Interlocks

We examine the role of board connections in explaining how the controversial practice of backdating employee stock options spread to a large number of firms across a wide range of industries. The increase in the likelihood that a firm begins to backdate stock options that can be explained by having a board member who is interlocked to a previously identified backdating firm is approximately one-third of the unconditional probability of backdating in our sample. Our analysis provides new insight into how boards function and the role that they play in providing managerial oversight and determining corporate strategy. The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org. , Oxford University Press.
Exploring family business succession in an integrative familiness transmission of capital model: a South African study

This study investigates how familiness could ensure successful transition of family-capital, by modelling the different evolutionary stages through which the transmission of capital takes place. The study is contextualised in South Africa, where more than half of listed businesses are family firms. The nurturing of family businesses in South Africa has been cited as an important aspect in the stimulation of the economy as well as the creation of enduring social stability. Results are reported from interviewing (n = 66) family executives, identifying salient variables influencing channels which depict important pathways in which reciprocal relationships are acted out. Resonating with previous studies the present study finds that successors observe a rich array of variables which influence transmission channels. This study makes a modest contribution to the literature of family business by conceptualising a model that explains the developmental stages of each generation succession. Even more so by interrogating factors conceptualised from a predominantly Western perspective, the study is a starting point for research investigating familiness in a developing country context.
Ex-Post Egalitarianism and Legal Justice

In any legal system, one finds numerous rules, practices, and constitutional provisions that are incompatible with utilitarian considerations. It is not merely utilitarianism that fails to explain a diverse range of rules and practices. Other theories that, like utilitarianism, involve ex ante considerations cannot explain them as well. There are two possible primary explanations for the prevalence of these nonutilitarian rules and practices: Kantian (deontological) explanations and a view we label ex post egalitarianism, which requires that the state decides on its action in an egalitarian manner ex post. Our approach allows for comparisons among different societies by giving meaning to statements like "Society A is more egalitarian than society B . " Furthermore, we show that the more egalitarian societies should also employ less extreme criminal law rules and should be more sensitive to various kinds of injustice, whether it is caused by individual wrongful behavior or by criminal law rules. Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.
Env-less endogenous retroviruses are genomic superspreaders

Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) differ from typical retroviruses in being inherited through the host germline and therefore are a unique combination of pathogen and selfish genetic element. Some ERV lineages proliferate by infecting germline cells, as do typical retroviruses, whereas others lack the env gene required for virions to enter cells and thus behave like retrotransposons. We wished to know what factors determined the relative abundance of different ERV lineages, so we analyzed ERV loci recovered from 38 mammal genomes by in silico screening. By modeling the relationship between proliferation and replication mechanism in detail within one group, the intracisternal A-type particles (IAPs), and performing simple correlations across all ERV lineages, we show that when ERVs lose the env gene their proliferation within that genome is boosted by a factor of ∼30. We also show that ERV abundance follows the Pareto principle or 20/80 rule, with ∼20% of lineages containing 80% of the loci. This rule is observed in many biological systems, including infectious disease epidemics, where commonly ∼20% of the infected individuals are responsible for 80% of onward infection. We thus borrow simple epidemiological and ecological models and show that retrotransposition and loss of env is the trait that leads endogenous retroviruses to becoming genomic superspreaders that take over a significant proportion of their host's genome.
Validation of the questionnaire for impulsive‐compulsive disorders in Parkinson's disease

As no comprehensive assessment instrument for impulse control disorders (ICDs) in Parkinson's disease (PD) exists, the aim of this study was to design and assess the psychometric properties of a self‐administered screening questionnaire for ICDs and other compulsive behaviors in PD. The Questionnaire for Impulsive‐Compulsive Disorders in Parkinson's Disease (QUIP) has 3 sections: Section 1 assesses four ICDs (involving gambling, sexual, buying, and eating behaviors), Section 2 other compulsive behaviors (punding, hobbyism, and walkabout), and Section 3 compulsive medication use. For validation, a convenience sample of 157 PD patients at 4 movement disorders centers first completed the QUIP, and then was administered a diagnostic interview by a trained rater blinded to the QUIP results. A shortened instrument (QUIP‐S) was then explored. The discriminant validity of the QUIP was high for each disorder or behavior (receiver operating characteristic area under the curve [ROC AUC]: gambling = 0.95, sexual behavior = 0.97, buying = 0.87, eating = 0.88, punding = 0.78, hobbyism = 0.93, walkabout = 0.79). On post hoc analysis, the QUIP‐S ICD section had similar properties (ROC AUC: gambling = 0.95, sexual behavior = 0.96, buying = 0.87, eating = 0.88). When disorders/behaviors were combined, the sensitivity of the QUIP and QUIP‐S to detect an individual with any disorder was 96 and 94%, respectively. Scores on the QUIP appear to be valid as a self‐assessment screening instrument for a range of ICDs and other compulsive behaviors that occur in PD, and a shortened version may perform as well as the full version. A positive screen should be followed by a comprehensive, clinical interview to determine the range and severity of symptoms, as well as need for clinical management. © 2009 Movement Disorder Society
‘Beards, scarves, halal meat, terrorists, forced marriage’: television industries and the production of ‘race’

This article considers the persistence of stereotypical representations of ‘race’ that appear in television in the West. According to a particular policy discourse, improving the on-screen representation of non-white groups is a matter of increasing the number of black and Asian folk working in the broadcasting industries – particularly at the senior management level. However, this article argues that the constant production of hegemonic images of ‘race’ cannot be tackled via recruitment measures alone. Adopting a ‘cultural industries’ approach to television production, the article uses an ethnographic study of British Asians working in the UK broadcasting industry to examine the conditions of production through which minority representations are created. By paying closer attention to the experience of cultural work, the article reveals how it is the increasingly commercialized cultures of production in television, constituted by the industry’s shift towards deregulation and neoliberal market models, that steers the work of Asian filmmakers and executives themselves into producing problematic, reductive representations of ‘race’.
Heat Waves and Cold Spells and their Effect on Mortality: an Analysis of Micro-data for the Netherlands in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Le changement a long terme des relations entre les variations temporelles de la mortalite et celles des temperatures offre une excellente occasion d’approfondir notre connaissance des consequences du changement climatique global pour la sante publique. La connaissance de ces changements a en meme temps une tres grande importance pour les historiens parce qu’elle fournit des informations pertinentes sur l’evolution du degre de vulnerabilite de la population face aux chocs externes tels que les vagues de chaleur ou de froid.Pour analyser cette association, nous avons utilise plus de 1,8 million de certificats de deces provenant de quatre des onze provinces neerlandaises et des donnees sur les temperatures moyennes quotidiennes de trois stations meteorologiques pour la periode 1855-1950. Le nombre quotidien des deces a ete modelise a l’aide d’un modele de regression binomiale negative avec des decalages du jour 1 jusqu’au jour 30. Le modele nous permet d’estimer simultanement les effets de periodes de froid et de chaleur, car les temperatures sont mesurees comme des deviations d’une temperature optimale pour laquelle la mortalite atteint son plus bas niveau. Nous avons adopte successivement deux approches pour analyser les relations entre la chaleur et le froid intenses et la mortalite : une premiere approche consiste a s’interesser a des annees caracterisees par des vagues de chaleur ou froid ; une seconde approche consiste a analyser l’association entre les temperatures et la mortalite pour tous les etes et hivers.Notre premier objectif etait de decouvrir si les effets des fluctuations de temperature varient par province, âge, sexe et classe sociale, et de voir si, a long terme, les changements des conditions de vie (qu’il s’agisse du travail, du logement [densite, chauffage], de l’alimentation, des transport, des vetements, etc.) ont diminue la vulnerabilite des divers groupes.Notre analyse a demontre qu’entre 1855 et 1950 la mortalite totale a connu un accroissement immediat lorsque la temperature grimpait au dessus de la temperature optimale. Cet effet etait presque le meme dans toutes les regions. On a observe en particulier des elevations de la mortalite 1-2 jours apres le debut de la hausse de la temperature et des effets tres forts 7-14 et 15-30 jours apres. Chez les enfants, autant les effets immediats que les effets retardes etaient les plus forts. Les ouvriers non qualifies ont subi plus que d’autres groupes les effets immediats et retardes de la chaleur. Au cours de la periode, on observe une diminution des effets immediats et retardes de la chaleur, en particulier des les annees 1900 et 1930. C’est particulierement la vulnerabilite des enfants et des ouvriers non qualifies par rapport a la chaleur qui s’est affaiblie apres 1930.
Information Environment and Investor Behavior

Market reactions to non-fundamental news (or no-news) reverse for extreme firm information environments. A one percentage increase in intangible returns for small firms (large firms) lead to a 2.33% decrease (0.70% increase) in monthly returns over the next 12months. The results are robust to firm characteristics adjustments, alternative measures of firm information environment and private information, idiosyncratic risk, and microstructure effects. The results are consistent with the cross-sectional findings of confirmation bias, where investors show stronger bias when the information environment is rich. We derive a model with confirmation bias that further explains the cross-sectional momentum pattern for the majority of firms in the market.
Quotes, Prices, and Estimates in a Laboratory Market

This study examines the behavior of laboratory markets in which two uninformed market makers compete to trade with heterogeneously informed investors. The data provide three main results. First, market makers set quotes to protect against adverse selection and to control inventory. Second, when investors are less wellinformed, their trades are less reliable measures of their information, and market makers respond to those trades with greater skepticism. Third, errors in market makers' reactions to trades cause the time-series behavior of quotes and prices to depend on the information environment in ways beyond those captured in extant theory. THEORETICAL MODELS PREDICT THE behavior of quotes and prices by imposing strict assumptions about agents' knowledge and beliefs. This study uses data from laboratory financial markets to show that these models can predict quotes and prices quite well in a setting in which these assumptions are not satisfied, and to demonstrate specific ways in which violations of these assumptions affect behavior. The study complements empirical research in market microstructure by observing dependent variables that cannot be observed in naturally occurring markets, as well as by controlling an independent variable-the information asymmetry between investors and market makers-which cannot be controlled in naturally occurring markets. The study complements previous experimental work by focusing on the ability of market microstructure theory to predict the process by which market-clearing prices arise. In contrast, most previous market experiments have focused primarily on the ability of rational expectations theories to predict the information content of the market-clearing prices ultimately attained (Plott and Sunder (1982, 1988), Copeland and Friedman (1987, 1991), Forsythe and Lundholm (1990), Lundholm (1991), O'Brien and Srivastava (1991), Bloomfield and Libby (1996), Bloomfield (1996)). The markets combine features of both "quote driven" and "order driven" markets (as defined in Madhavan (1992)). Data from the markets show that
Clostridium perfringens Epsilon-Toxin Increases Permeability of Single Perfused Microvessels of Rat Mesentery

ABSTRACT Epsilon-toxin, the primary virulence factor of Clostridium perfringens type D, causes mortality in livestock, particularly sheep and goats, in which it induces an often-fatal enterotoxemia. It is believed to compromise the intestinal barrier and then enter the gut vasculature, from which it is carried systemically, causing widespread vascular endothelial damage and edema. Here we used single perfused venular microvessels in rat mesentery, which enabled direct observation of permeability properties of the in situ vascular wall during exposure to toxin. We determined the hydraulic conductivity (Lp) of microvessels as a measure of the response to epsilon-toxin. We found that microvessels were highly sensitive to toxin. At 10 μg ml−1 the Lp increased irreversibly to more than 15 times the control value by 10 min. At 0.3 μg ml−1 no increase in Lp was observed for up to 90 min. The toxin-induced increase in Lp was consistent with changes in ultrastructure of microvessels exposed to the toxin. Those microvessels exhibited gaps either between or through endothelial cells where perfusate had direct access to the basement membrane. Many endothelial cells appeared necrotic, highly attenuated, and with dense cytoplasm. We showed that epsilon-toxin, in a time- and dose-dependent manner, rapidly and irreversibly compromised the barrier function of venular microvessel endothelium. The results conformed to the hypothesis that epsilon-toxin interacts with vascular endothelial cells and increases the vessel wall permeability by direct damage of the endothelium.
Toward a Theory of Agricultural Insurance

In this paper we develop a theory of crop insurance. We start by reaffirming the risk-spreading role of competitive crop insurance markets. It is argued, however, that once the problems of imperfect information are recognized, a competitive crop insurance market may not exist at all. Two candidates present themselves. First is market insurance with the public sector as a source of (costly) information gathering and dissemination, and second, is the direct provision of crop insurance by the public sector. We focus on the latter and develop a model of public insurance as a decentralized plan where the farmer determines factor utilization taking the insurance contract as given. In turn, the insurance agency, taking factor utilization as determined by the farmer, chooses the optimal contract so as to maximize the value of aggregate output in the economy.