Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Transurethral Pneumatic Cystolithotripsy: A Novel Approach.

OBJECTIVE Various endoscopic instruments used in treating renal stones have been used in managing bladder calculi. Our aim is to evaluate the use of transurethral ureteroscopic pneumatic cystolithotripsy for the management of large bladder calculi. PATIENTS AND METHODS In a retrospective study conducted between May 2005 and July 2011, 53 patients with solitary bladder stones were subjected to our technique, transurethral ureteroscopic pneumatic cystolithotripsy. The mean patient age was 54.3 years. The mean stone size was 4.8 cm. Diagnostic cystoscopy was performed first. A semirigid ureteroscope with a pneumatic probe was introduced through the cystoscope sheath, and pneumatic lithotripsy was performed. The cystoscope sheath works as a draining channel, allowing bladder evacuation. The bladder collapses over the stone and, subsequently, prevents stone migration, which shortens the lithotripsy's duration. Stone immobilization allows the transmission of full pneumatic power to the stone. The stone fragments were removed through periodic bladder irrigation using an Ellick evacuation-irrigation system, and a 16F Foley catheter was placed at the end of the procedure. RESULTS Our technique was effective in all cases, including stone-free bladders. No surgical complications were detected. The mean operative time was 83 ± 21.0 minutes, which is comparable to that of standard management. The mean duration of lithotripsy and evacuation was 29.7 ± 18.4 minutes. In the postoperative period, patients were followed up for 18 months, with no urethral stricture being reported in any case. CONCLUSION The transurethral ureteroscopic pneumatic cystolithotripsy procedure is a safe technique for the management of large bladder calculi. It allows the bladder to collapse over the stone, leading to stone immobilization and, subsequently, decreasing lithotripsy duration. Our procedure is associated with a minimal chance of postoperative urethral injury because all stone fragments are evacuated through the cystoscope sheath, without contact with the urethral urothelium.
Piecemeal microautophagy of the nucleus: Genetic and morphological traits

Nucleus-vacuole (NV) junctions are formed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae through interactions between Vac8 in the vacuole membrane and Nvj1 in the perinuclear ER. Upon starvation, vesicles containing part of the nucleus emanate from these contact sites and finally pinch off into invaginations of the vacuole. Due to its morphological similarity to microautophagy this process had been termed "piecemeal microautophagy of the nucleus" (PMN). We recently discovered that a number of ATG genes required for macroautophagy and micropexophagy are also required for PMN and accordingly named it micronucleophagy. Therefore, PMN represents a novel model system to investigate the functions of the highly conserved but poorly understood core autophagic apparatus. We here extend the morphological analysis of PMN using immunogold and freeze fracture electron microscopy.
The Financial Crisis and Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program: Their Impact on Fixed-Income Markets

The authors examine the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s (FDIC’s) Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program to determine the effectiveness of this government-sponsored solution for the recent banking crisis. They explore the impact of the program on the liquidity and credit crisis in the debt markets and the market value of the FDIC guarantee. They find a negative and significant two-day abnormal stock return of –1.53% around FDIC-backed debt issue dates, suggesting stockholders held pessimistic views on the future prospects of the banks. Bondholders reacted positively to the issuances, with a two-day excess return of 0.32%, confirming the positive liquidity and credit effects in the debt market. The authors also find a significant drop in yield spreads of AAA debt issues around the announcements of FDIC-guaranteed debt issues. Using multiple regressions, they confirm the drop in yield spreads of AAA financial bonds after the program started. Both findings suggest that the program effectively encouraged liquidity and confidence. Finally, FDIC-backed debt trades at a discount of 132 bps to nonguaranteed debt, implying that the guarantee is valuable.
Metabolic fate of [14C]‐glutamine in mouse cerebral neurons in primary cultures

The metabolic fate of L‐[14C]‐glutamine was followed in cerebral cortical neurons in primary cultures, a GABAergic preparation. Part of the glutamine was converted to GABA (0.3 nmol/min per mg protein), which is consistent with the presence of glutaminase and glutamate decarboxylase activity in the cells and with findings by other authors in vivo or in brain slices. However, an even larger part (1.8 nmol/min per mg protein) was converted to CO2 and succinate via an oxidative deamination to α‐ketoglutarate. This is not consistent with the concept that transfer of glutamine from astrocytes to neurons should replenish neuronal GABA stores quantitatively after release of GABA and its partial accumulation into astrocytes, but it is well compatible with the recent demonstration of a net glutamine uptake by the brain.
Interest group activity and long-run stock market performance

Abstract This paper provides evidence that interest group activity is negatively related to aggregate stock market performance. In particular, the findings imply that a one percent increase in the number of interest groups in a country is associated with a reduction in average annual stock market returns of roughly 2–5%, and a reduction in the volatility of annual stock returns of roughly 6–14%. In addition, the findings indicate that many of the same fundamentals that drive economic growth also explain stock market performance.
Frontex as Agency: More of the Same?

Abstract Building on the notion of ‘agencies’ as non-majoritarian instruments to professionalize (or ‘depoliticisize’) EU policy-making, this article examines whether the introduction of Frontex as an agency instrument in 2004 implied a major change in the management of the EU's border control compared to the earlier network. Even though formal evaluations have acknowledged the positive achievements of Frontex, this article questions whether those assessments actually helps us to understand better the added value of Frontex as agency. To do so, the article draws from a legitimacy-based model to assess the added value of the agency. Input and output legitimacy are being assessed through a number of accountability mechanisms. The model is applied to predecessor of Frontex (SCIFA + /PCU) and to Frontex. We conclude that the choice for the agency instrument was not sufficiently argued and that the design of Frontex hardly offers the advantages of the agency structure.
Corporate Real Estate Ownership and Productivity Uncertainty

This article empirically tests the relationship between corporate real estate (CRE) holdings and productivity risks of firms. Using a large sample of public listed U.S. firms for the period from 1984 to 2011, we show that CRE ownership is significantly and negatively correlated with productivity risks of firms. Firms with high‐productivity risk own less CRE assets. When testing dynamic changes to CRE holdings, we estimate a significant and positive elasticity of CRE investments of 5.2% in response to cash flow shocks. If the adjustment cost is high, high‐risk firms are expected to hold less CRE assets, so that they could reduce potential losses associated with CRE holdings when negative productive shocks occur.
WILLIAM GLADSTONE AND THE THEATRE

William Ewart Gladstone, four times prime minister (1868–74, 1880–5, 1886, and 1892–94), the “greatest colossus of the Victorian Age,” the most influential prime minister of the nineteenth century, and the Grand Old Man (G.O.M.) of British politics and statesmanship, seems an unlikely advocate for the theatre. Deeply religious, conservative, and serious, Gladstone is not easily imagined as an avid theatregoer. It is difficult to imagine him supporting the ephemeral, often subversive, and suggestive character of the theatre. And indeed, in his early years Gladstone despised the theatre and called it an “encouragement of sin. ” As prime minister, he was almost obsessed by a religious zeal; Richard Foulkes has noted that “Few, if any, prime ministers have carried out their role in making senior Church appointments as assiduously as Gladstone did. ” For members of Victorian Britain's Christian majority, the theatre was anathema and regarded as morally suspect. They were intensely suspicious and saw playgoing as a distraction from religion and as a promoter of frivolity, vanity, and female forwardness. They linked theatres to “prostitution, juvenile delinquency, idleness, drunkenness and frivolity. ” In fact, theatres were the “antithesis of the Victorian world view which prized respectability, gentility, decency, education and uplift. ” Until at least the later decades of the nineteenth century, theatre “was widely regarded as the lowliest of the arts, if one at all. ”
Differentiation in black education

Based on a graphical and statistical analysis of 1993 survey data, this article shows that educational inequalities among black school-age children were substantial and systematically associated with socio-economic status. Children of more affluent, better educated and metropolitan parents progressed better in schools, thus attaining higher levels of education, and also outperformed others who had progressed as far in terms of cognitive outcomes (measured by literacy and numeracy test scores). Thus, educational inequalities may become enduring, as the ability to benefit from education is usually transmitted across generations (better educated individuals obtain better jobs, and their children are again better educated). The abysmal educational quality of the largest part of the school system therefore has to be improved drastically, to allow poor children to overcome their socio-economic deficits and to benefit from education.
Psychological Distress and Its Demographic Associations in an Immigrant Population: Findings from the Israeli National Health Survey

Objective: This study compared psychological distress and its sociodemographic correlates in immigrant and veteran Israeli populations using data from the Israel National Mental Health Survey, the first nationwide study designed to estimate the prevalence rates of psychological distress and mental disorders in the Israeli adult population, which was carried out in 2003–2004, in conjunction with the World Mental Health survey initiative. Method: Personal interviews were held with 3906 veteran Israelis, 845 immigrants from the former Soviet Union (FSU) and 107 immigrants from other countries (all the immigrants immigrated after 1989). Psychological distress was measured on the General Health Questionnaire-12. Results: Psychological distress among FSU immigrants was significantly higher than among veteran Israelis and immigrants from elsewhere. FSU immigrants were almost twice as likely to report severe psychological distress. Factors associated with psychological distress were female gender, age above 50, being divorced/widowed, being secular, having higher education and being either unemployed or ‘not in workforce’. Conclusion: The results support the acculturation stress hypothesis as an explanation for psychological distress in immigrants only in immigrants from the FSU, indicating that policymakers should plan services and prevention programmes differentially for different immigrant populations.
“I Want to Help” versus “I Am Just Mad”

This study investigates the joint effects of affective commitment, feedback valence, and feedback use on customers’ willingness to give feedback following a service failure. Our findings reveal that customers who have high levels of affective commitment to a service firm exhibit both a strong motivation to help a firm improve its business and a great need to maintain positive relationships with the firm’s frontline employees. Therefore, affectively committed customers are more willing to help the firm by lodging complaints when such feedback is not used for employee evaluation purposes. In addition, driven by their strong motivation to help the firm, affectively committed customers are more willing to offer constructive suggestions than their counterparts with low levels of emotional attachment.
The “codification debate” revisited: a conceptual framework to analyze the role of tacit knowledge in economics

In the last years, a “codification debate” has developed among economists concerning the meaning and the empirical relevance of “tacit knowledge. ” As this debate seems to have reached an impasse, we suggest a solution to take it a step further that is based on a more precise definition of “tacit knowledge” and a clear conceptualization of codification. Moreover, as different types of tacit knowledge can be characterized, we also proceed to demonstrate that the issue of codifiability cannot be adequately addressed without accounting for these differences. Copyright 2007 , Oxford University Press.
Transcript-specific characteristics determine the contribution of endo- and exonucleolytic decay pathways during the degradation of nonsense-mediated decay substrates

Nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) controls gene expression by eliminating mRNAs with premature or aberrant translation termination. Degradation of NMD substrates is initiated by the central NMD factor UPF1, which recruits the endonuclease SMG6 and the deadenylation-promoting SMG5/7 complex. The extent to which SMG5/7 and SMG6 contribute to the degradation of individual substrates and their regulation by UPF1 remains elusive. Here we map transcriptome-wide sites of SMG6-mediated endocleavage via 3′ fragment capture and degradome sequencing. This reveals that endogenous transcripts can have NMD-eliciting features at various positions, including upstream open reading frames (uORFs), premature termination codons (PTCs), and long 3′ UTRs. We find that NMD substrates with PTCs undergo constitutive SMG6-dependent endocleavage, rather than SMG7-dependent exonucleolytic decay. In contrast, the turnover of NMD substrates containing uORFs and long 3′ UTRs involves both SMG6- and SMG7-dependent endo- and exonucleolytic decay, respectively. This suggests that the extent to which SMG6 and SMG7 degrade NMD substrates is determined by the mRNA architecture.
Geoengineering the Climate: History and Prospect 1

▪ Abstract Geoengineering is the intentional large-scale manipulation of the environment, particularly manipulation that is intended to reduce undesired anthropogenic climate change. The post-war rise of climate and weather modification and the history of U.S. assessments of the CO2-climate problem is reviewed. Proposals to engineer the climate are shown to be an integral element of this history. Climate engineering is reviewed with an emphasis on recent developments, including low-mass space-based scattering systems for altering the planetary albedo, simulation of the climate's response to albedo modification, and new findings on iron fertilization in oceanic ecosystems. There is a continuum of human responses to the climate problem that vary in resemblance to hard geoengineering schemes such as space-based mirrors. The distinction between geoengineering and mitigation is therefore fuzzy. A definition is advanced that clarifies the distinction between geoengineering and industrial carbon management. Asse.
Patient satisfaction and administrative measures as indicators of the quality of mental health care.

OBJECTIVE Although measures of consumer satisfaction are increasingly used to supplement administrative measures in assessing quality of care, little is known about the association between these two types of indicators. This study examined the association between these measures at both an individual and a hospital level. METHODS A satisfaction questionnaire was mailed to veterans discharged during a three-month period from 121 Veterans Administration inpatient psychiatric units; 5,542 responded, for a 37 percent response rate. These data were merged with data from administrative utilization files. Random regression analysis was used to determine the association between satisfaction and administrative measures of quality for subsequent outpatient follow-up. RESULTS At the patient level, satisfaction with several aspects of service delivery was associated with fewer readmissions and fewer days readmitted. Better alliance with inpatient staff was associated with higher administrative measures of rates of follow-up, promptness of follow-up, and continuity of outpatient care, as well as with longer stay for the initial hospitalization. At the hospital level, only one association between satisfaction and administrative measures was statistically significant. Hospitals where patients expressed greater satisfaction with their alliance with outpatient staff had higher scores on administrative measures of promptness and continuity of follow-up. CONCLUSIONS The associations between patient satisfaction and administrative measures of quality at the individual level support the idea that these measures address a common underlying construct. The attenuation of the associations at the hospital level suggests that neither type can stand alone as a measure of quality across institutions.
Relationship Between C-Reactive Protein and Physical Fitness, Physical Activity, Obesity and Selected Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Schoolchildren

Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the relation between C-reactive protein (CRP) with physical fitness, physical activity, obesity, and selected cardiovascular risk factors in school-children. Methods: Forty-four boy schoolchildren (mean ± SD: age 10.25 ± 0.75 years, height 144 ± 0.2 cm, body weight 46.1 5± 4.59 kg, body mass index 22.16 ± 2.16 kg/m2) voluntarily participated in this study. Physical fitness and physical activity were assessed using the 20-meter fitness test. Adiposity was estimated using body mass index. Blood samples were taken after an overnight fast and measured for CRP, LDL, HDL and cholesterol. Pearson’s correlation was calculated to determine the relations between these factors. Results: Mean (SD) CRP concentration was 1.07 (0.82) mg/l. A significant correlation was observed between CRP and VO2max (r=-0.45, P= 0.001), body mass index (r=0.55, P=0.000) and cholesterol (r=-0.35, P=0.04). No significant relation was found between CRP and physical activity, LDL and HDL (P> 0.05). Moreover, significant associations were observed between body mass index and VO2max (r=-0.33, P=0.02) and physical activity (r=-0.43, P=0.04). Conclusions: Body mass index was the most powerful predictor of serum concentrations of CRP in schoolchildren. It may be an important factor to control body weight to prevent an increase in serum CRP in children and to help the primordial prevention of chronic diseases.
Thioredoxin-2 Inhibits Mitochondria-Located ASK1-Mediated Apoptosis in a JNK-Independent Manner

Apoptosis signal-regulating kinase 1 (ASK1) mediates cytokines and oxidative stress (ROS)–induced apoptosis in a mitochondria-dependent pathway. However, the underlying mechanism has not been defined. In this study, we show that ASK1 is localized in both cytoplasm and mitochondria of endothelial cells (ECs) where it binds to cytosolic (Trx1) and mitochondrial thioredoxin (Trx2), respectively. Cys-250 and Cys-30 in the N-terminal domain of ASK1 are critical for binding of Trx1 and Trx2, respectively. Mutation of ASK1 at C250 enhanced ASK1-induced JNK activation and apoptosis, whereas mutation of ASK1 at C30 specifically increased ASK1-induced apoptosis without effects on JNK activation. We further show that a JNK-specific inhibitor SP600125 completely blocks TNF induced JNK activation, Bid cleavage, and Bax mitochondrial translocation, but only partially inhibits cytochrome c release and EC death, suggesting that TNF induces both JNK-dependent and JNK-independent apoptotic pathways in EC. Mitochondria-specific expression of a constitutively active ASK1 strongly induces EC apoptosis without JNK activation, Bid cleavage, and Bax mitochondrial translocation. These data suggest that mitochondrial ASK1 mediates a JNK-independent apoptotic pathway induced by TNF. To determine the role of Trx2 in regulation of mitochondrial ASK1 activity, we show that overexpression of Trx2 inhibits ASK1-induced apoptosis without effects on ASK1-induced JNK activation. Moreover, specific knockdown of Trx2 in EC increases TNF/ASK1-induced cytochrome c release and cell death without increase in JNK activation, Bid cleavage, and Bax translocation. Our data suggest that ASK1 in cytoplasm and mitochondria mediate distinct apoptotic pathways induced by TNF, and Trx1 and Trx2 cooperatively inhibit ASK1 activities.
Fiscal Policy in the New Neoclassical Synthesis

We analytically derive the cyclical effects of fiscal policy shocks in a New Neoclassical Synthesis model. Price stickiness has the consequence that a rise in government demand affects labor demand, while at the same time the usual wealth effect boosts labor supply. The strength of the demand effect depends on the response of the real interest rate governed by the monetary policy regime. When the central bank controls money growth, fiscal expansions are deflationary and might even be contractionary, whereas output, wages, and, inflation can increase when the rise in the real interest rate is dampened by an interest rate rule. However, price stickiness alone is not sufficient to explain a rise in consumption as predicted by Keynesian theory.
Determinants of School Attendance Among Migrant Children: Survey Evidence from China's Jiangsu Province

Across the developing world education is seen as a means of raising levels of everyday wellbeing and is being linked to improved measures of productivity and economic growth. This paper employs a household production function framework to examine the determinants of school attendance among migrant children using a unique dataset collected in China's Jiangsu province. The study finds that the main predictors of school attendance among migrant children in the sample were household income, mother's education, the length of residence of the child's mother in the city and whether both parents were working in the same city.
Knowledge networks and dynamic capabilities as the new regional policy milieu. A social network analysis of the Campania biotechnology community in southern Italy

A new definition of regional milieu is emerging from the recent innovation policy framework inspired by the notion of a ‘knowledge economy’. It is grounded in a theoretical context where the emphasis is on the interactive character of innovation, involving the sharing and exchange of different forms of knowledge among the actors. Identifying regional positioning within the global knowledge value chain is a current preoccupation of both policy and empirical research. This study tries to measure the degree of involvement of a (follower) regional community of biotechnology actors in the global knowledge value chain. It applies inductive research and exploratory case studies to analyse local relational behaviour within the knowledge network (KN) structure. Our description of a regional bio-community highlights the distinctiveness of regional knowledge in relation to the distribution of KN capabilities. The critical nodes in the KN structure are the intra-regional actors, represented by public basic research organizations. These actors bridge between local basic research groups and the international scientific community, although the ability of local actors to collaborate can affect the strength of the links among them. This aspect, which is not addressed by regional strategies, should be the focus of new regional policies.