Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Alliance Formation in the Midst of Market and Network: Insights From Resource Dependence and Network Perspectives

Alliances are often formed as a response to challenges from both market and social forces. Although the resource dependence logic posits that firms enter into alliances to stabilize resource flows between different markets and also to increase market power in their primary industry, it remains unclear whether the social power of firms, generated from alliance networks, may motivate firms to respond differently to the dependence logic of alliance formation. By incorporating social network theory, we argue that a firm’s social network advantages in the primary industry may serve as critical contingency conditions of the dependence logic. Analyses of firms in the U.S. computer industry from 1994 to 2007 suggest that a firm’s centrality advantage marginally reduces the positive effects of market dependencies on alliance formation, whereas a firm’s brokerage advantage enhances the market dependence effect.
Evolutionary origin of Tbr2-expressing precursor cells and the subventricular zone in the developing cortex.

The subventricular zone (SVZ) is greatly expanded in primates with gyrencephalic cortices and is thought to be absent from vertebrates with three-layered, lissencephalic cortices, such as the turtle. Recent work in rodents has shown that Tbr2-expressing neural precursor cells in the SVZ produce excitatory neurons for each cortical layer in the neocortex. Many excitatory neurons are generated through a two-step process in which Pax6-expressing radial glial cells divide in the VZ to produce Tbr2-expressing intermediate progenitor cells, which divide in the SVZ to produce cortical neurons. We investigated the evolutionary origin of SVZ neural precursor cells in the prenatal cerebral cortex by testing for the presence and distribution of Tbr2-expressing cells in the prenatal cortex of reptilian and avian species. We found that mitotic Tbr2(+) cells are present in the prenatal cortex of lizard, turtle, chicken, and dove. Furthermore, Tbr2(+) cells are organized into a distinct SVZ in the dorsal ventricular ridge (DVR) of turtle forebrain and in the cortices of chicken and dove. Our results are consistent with the concept that Tbr2(+) neural precursor cells were present in the common ancestor of mammals and reptiles. Our data also suggest that the organizing principle guiding the assembly of Tbr2(+) cells into an anatomically distinct SVZ, both developmentally and evolutionarily, may be shared across vertebrates. Finally, our results indicate that Tbr2 expression can be used to test for the presence of a distinct SVZ and to define the boundaries of the SVZ in developing cortices. J. Comp. Neurol. 524:433-447, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Strategies to Enhance Life Skills Education in High Schools: Eswatini Context

The youth in Eswatini are facing several challenges which require a comprehensive, coordinated, and multi-sectorial response from the government and other relevant stakeholders. Cases of high school dropout rate, HIV/AIDS prevalence, violence, drug and substance abuse, and poor academic performance, are on the rise in the country. The learners’ behaviours indicate inadequate knowledge of Life Skills Education which are indicators of ineffective implementation of the programme in high schools in Eswatini. This study was therefore, conducted to ascertain strategies which can be used to enhance Life Skills Education in high schools in the Shiselweni region of Eswatini. The study adopted a qualitative research approach using a multiple case study design. The theory which informed the study is the Targeting Life Skills Model by Hendricks (1998). The target population were Life Skills Education teachers and high school learners in the Shiselweni region. A purposive sample of three high schools in which the Life Skills Education programme was piloted in the region was selected. Data were collected using semi-structured interview guide and focus group discussion guide. Interviews were conducted with a total of nine learners whereas focus group discussions were carried out with twenty Life Skills Education teachers. Data was analysed using Thematic analysis. Findings revealed several factors as vital in enhancing Life Skills Education in high schools. These are: 1) making Life Skills Education examinable, 2) collaboration with parents and other schools, and 3) provision of needed resources such as adequate training of teachers, providing incentives, and provision of a variety of instructional materials. It was recommended that Life Skills Education should be considered as an examinable subject. Furthermore, teachers should be adequately trained on Life Skills Education and be provided with needed resources. Last but not least, parents should be sensitized on the importance of Life Skills Education. Keywords : Life skills, Life Skills Education, challenges, implementation. DOI : 10.7176/JEP/10-12-20 Publication date : April 30 th 2019
Combination of the CHARMM27 force field with united‐atom lipid force fields

Computer simulations offer a valuable way to study membrane systems, from simple lipid bilayers to large transmembrane protein complexes and lipid‐nucleic acid complexes for drug delivery. Their accuracy depends on the quality of the force field parameters used to describe the components of a particular system. We have implemented the widely used CHARMM22 and CHARMM27 force fields in the GROMACS simulation package to (i) combine the CHARMM22 protein force field with two sets of united‐atom lipids parameters; (ii) allow comparisons of the lipid CHARMM27 force field with other lipid force fields or lipid‐protein force field combinations. Our tests do not show any particular issue with the combination of the all‐atom CHARMM22 force field with united‐atoms lipid parameters, although pertinent experimental data are lacking to assess the quality of the lipid‐protein interactions. The conversion utilities allow automatic generation of GROMACS simulation files with CHARMM nucleic acids and protein parameters and topologies, starting from pdb files using the standard GROMACS pdb2gmx method. CMAP is currently not implemented. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2010
Late cardiovascular events after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation: a retrospective multicenter study of the Late Effects Working Party of the European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation

Long-term outcome after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation including late transplant-related events is of increasing interest. This study shows that long-term survivors after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation are likely to have an increased risk of premature cardiovascular accidents. See related perspective article on page 1132. Background Long-term outcome after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation including late transplant-related events is of increasing interest. The aim of this study was to evaluate the incidence of cardiovascular events after allogeneic HSCT and to search for their risk factors. Design and Methods This is a retrospective mutlicenter European Group of Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) analysis, including 548 long-term survivors treated in ten EBMT transplant centers, who underwent hematopoietic stem cell transplantation between 1990 and 1995 and survived ≥1 year after the transplant. All arterial events occurring after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (cerebral, coronary, peripheral) were reported. Results Twenty (3.6%) out of 548 patients had a cardiovascular event in at least one arterial territory. The median age at occurence of cardiovascular events was 54 years (range, 41–70). The cumulative incidence of a first arterial event 15 years after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation was 6% (95% CI, 3%–10%). The cumulative incidence for patients with a high global cardiovascular risk score, defined as having ≥50% of the risk factors (arterial hypertension, diabetes, dys-lipidemia, increased body-mass index, physical inactivity, smoking) was 17%, as compared to 4% in those with a low risk score. In multivariate analysis age older than 30 years at last follow-up, and a high global cardiovascular risk score were associated with, respectively, 6.4-fold and 9.8-fold increases in the risk of an arterial event. Conclusions Long-term survivors after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation are likely to have an increased risk of premature cardiovascular accidents.
Investigation of accommodative and binocular function in dyslexia

The visual correlates of dyslexia are the subject of controversy, and much evidence suggests that they may include some aspects of binocular and accommodative function. These factors were investigated in 43 control and 39 dyslexic children, who were matched for age, sex and performance intelligence quotient. The dyslexic group exhibited significantly lower positive and negative vergence reserves, and vergence instability when the eyes were dissociated at near. Their amplitudes of accommodation also were significantly reduced. However, other measures including dissociated and associated heterophoria and accommodative lag and facility were similar in both groups. The stability of motor ocular dominance, as assessed with a modified Dunlop test, was similar in both groups. The results of a simulated reading visual search task suggested that the vergence and accommodative dysfunction were not a major cause of the dyslexia. Further analyses, using reading‐age matched groups, suggested that these ocular motor correlates were not attributable to the better reading performance in the control group. The most likely remaining explanation is that they are, in most cases, non‐causal correlates of the dyslexia.
Cognitive and coping mechanisms in the interplay between intimate partner violence and depression

Abstract This study examined the association between intimate partner violence, maladaptive cognitive schemas, coping, and depression in a sample of 298 battered women. The results indicated that maladaptive cognitive schemas were associated with less use of primary and secondary engagement coping, and higher use of disengagement coping. In particular, cognitive schemas reflecting disconnection and rejection accounted for the association between psychological abuse and percentage of disengagement coping. In addition, disengagement coping partially mediated between cognitive schemas and depressive symptoms. Finally, the role of cognitive schemas as personal constraints that affect the choice of coping and the implications for interventions with victims are discussed.
Light‐induced suppression of nocturnal serotonin N‐acetyltransferase activity in chick pineal gland and retina: A wavelength comparison

Abstract: Effects of white and monochromatic (blue—434 nm, green—548 nm, and red—614 nm) lights on the nighttime retinal and pineal NAT activity were examined in chicks. The potency of the tested lights to suppress NAT activity was similar for the retina and pineal gland, with a following rank order: white > green > blue > red. The studied tissues of chick were far less sensitive to pulses of monochromatic light than the rat pineal gland. The potency of light to decrease pineal NAT activity of rat was: white > green >> blue > red. In chicks, the suppression of the nocturnal NAT activity produced by a short 5‐min pulse of monochromatic light was completely reversible in the pineal gland, and partially reversible in the retina. Our data suggest the existence of some differences between birds and mammals in terms of sensitivity and mechanisms involved in the light‐induced suppression of melatonin biosynthesis.
SHORT COMMUNICATION Chemical composition and biological activities of Iranian Achillea wilhelmsii L. essential oil: a high effectiveness against Candida spp. and Escherichia strains

In the case of Achillea wilhelmsii, 30 compounds were identified representing 94.48% of the total oil with a yield of 0.82% w/w. The major constituents of the oil were described as a-thujene (6.11%), a-pinene (5.11%), sabinene (5.23%), p-cymene (7%), 1,8-cineole (6%), linalool (10%), camphor (8.43%), thymol (18.98%) and carvacrol (20.13%). A. wilhelmsii oil exhibited higher antibacterial and antifungal activities with a high effectiveness against Escherichia coli and Candida albicans with the lowest minimum inhibitory concentration and minimum bactericidal concentration/minimum fungicidal concentration value (2 ^ 0.0–2 ^ 0.0 g/mL, 1 ^ 0.5–1 ^ 0.5 g/mL), respectively. Results showed that A. wilhelmsii oil exhibits a higher activity in each antioxidant system with a special attention for b-carotene bleaching test (IC50: 19mg/ mL) and reducing power (EC50: 10mg/mL). Antioxidant activity-guided fractionation of the oil was carried out by TLC-bioautography screening and fractionation resulted in the separation of main antioxidant compounds which were identified as thymol (65%) and carvacrol (19%). In conclusion, these results support the use of the essential oil and its main compounds for their antioxidant properties and antimicrobial activity.
Elevated serum levels of adiponectin in children, adolescents and young adults with type 1 diabetes and the impact of age, gender, body mass index and metabolic control: a longitudinal study.

OBJECTIVE Adiponectin plays an important role in pathophysiology of obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The aim of this study was to determine adiponectin concentrations in children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes in a longitudinal manner and to study the impact of age, gender, body mass index (BMI) and metabolic control. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS In this study, 88 children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes were followed longitudinally. At baseline and during follow-up, serum levels of adiponectin were measured by enzyme-linked immunoassay and correlated with clinical data, HbA1c and lipids. Healthy children (n = 259) were chosen as a control group. RESULTS Serum adiponectin levels were significantly higher in children with type 1 diabetes compared with healthy children (13.1 vs 9.1 microg/ml at baseline, P < 0.001). Adiponectin concentrations inversely correlated with BMI s.d. s (P < 0.001). No significant difference of adiponectin levels regarding gender, diabetes duration or HbA1c was seen. Adiponectin concentrations decreased in males with type 1 diabetes during puberty (P = 0.03) while there was no significant change in females. In a subgroup of patients with new onset type 1 diabetes, adiponectin concentrations were not different from adiponectin levels in control subjects but increased during follow-up (P = 0.007). Stepwise multiple regression analysis showed that most important predictors of adiponectin levels in type 1 diabetes at the end of the study were adiponectin concentration at baseline (beta = 0.574, P < 0.001) and BMI s.d. s (beta = -0.302, P = 0.001, r2 = 0.56). CONCLUSIONS Children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes have BMI-dependent elevated serum concentrations of adiponectin compared with healthy children.
Invasive Group B Streptococcal Disease in the Elderly, Minnesota, USA, 2003–2007

In Minnesota, incidence of invasive group B streptococcal disease was 3 times greater in older adults in long-term care facilities than in older adults in community settings (67.7/100,000 vs. 21.4/100,000) during 2003–2007. The overall case-fatality rate was 6.8%, and concurrent conditions were common among both groups.
Myocardial tissue damage in rabbits injected with group A streptococci, types M1 and M22. Role of bacterial immunoglobulin G‐binding surface proteins

Acute rheumatic fever (ARF) and acute poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis (APSGN), two important sequelae of streptococcal throat or skin infections, according to current concepts may be elicited by autoimmune mechanisms due to molecular mimicry between group A streptococci (GAS) and human tissue. In the case of APSGN, however, our experimental data have indicated that GAS immunoglobulin‐binding surface proteins (IgG BPs) might be of pathogenic significance by triggering anti‐IgG production and immune complex formation leading to renal damage. Thus, rabbits injected with IgG‐binding, as opposed to non‐binding, GAS strains were found to develop renal deposition of IgG and complement factor C3 and inflammatory and degenerative glomerular changes resembling the picture seen in APSGN. In the present study, cardiac tissue material from rabbits injected with GAS was investigated. After 8 or more weeks of intravenous (i.v.) injections, minimal changes were seen in those animals receiving an IgG non‐binding GAS strain, type T27, whereas those animals receiving either of two IgG‐binding GAS strains, types M1 or M22, developed strong inflammatory and degenerative myocardial changes accompanied by deposition of IgG and C3. Furthermore, on injecting rabbits with defined mutants of a type M22 strain, the development of myocardial tissue damage proved to be dependent on the presence of streptococcal IgG‐binding activity. Our results demonstrate that myocardial tissue changes may be induced in the rabbit by i.v. injection of whole heat‐killed GAS of at least two M serotypes. Conceivably, induction of immune complexes by bacterial IgG BPs may lead to myocardial deposition of IgG, in turn triggering a series of events, involving the complement system and proinflammatory cytokines, with resulting tissue damage. Though many virulence factors may be involved in the development of ARF and APSGN, and a given GAS strain will never cause both, our results may suggest a new pathogenetic mechanism common to these two major non‐suppurative complications.
Word Mapping and Executive Functioning in Young Monolingual and Bilingual Children

The effect of bilingualism on the cognitive skills of young children was investigated by comparing performance of 162 children who belonged to one of two age groups (approximately 3- and 4.5-year-olds) and one of three language groups on a series of tasks examining executive control and word mapping. The children were monolingual English speakers, monolingual French speakers, or bilinguals who spoke English and one of a large number of other languages. Monolinguals obtained higher scores than bilinguals on a receptive vocabulary test and were more likely to demonstrate the mutual exclusivity constraint, especially at the younger ages. However, bilinguals obtained higher scores than both groups of monolinguals on three tests of executive functioning: Luria's tapping task measuring response inhibition, the opposite worlds task requiring children to assign incongruent labels to a sequence of animal pictures, and reverse categorization in which children needed to reclassify a set of objects into incongruent categories after an initial classification. There were no differences between the groups in the attentional networks flanker task requiring executive control to ignore a misleading cue. This evidence for a bilingual advantage in aspects of executive functioning at an earlier age than previously reported is discussed in terms of the possibility that bilingual language production may not be the only source of these developmental effects.
Environmental Regulation and Innovation in Renewable Energy Technologies

This paper examines the impact of renewable energy support policies on patent applications in solar and wind power technologies. The analysis is conducted using policy data and patent data for a sample of 225 countries and territories between 1990 and 2011. The policy data allows distinguishing two dimensions of regulation, design and intensity and their effects on innovation. The patent data is based on the new Y02E system and covers the recent years with strong increases in patent activity. The results show that, first, more intense portfolios of renewable energy support policies increase patenting in solar- and wind-power-related technologies, and, second, that this inducement effect is strongest for public RD&D programs, greenhouse gas trading systems, and fiscal incentives. In contrast to previous studies, this paper does not find technology-specific differences in the effectiveness of policy instruments.
Testing Rubin’s Model 25 Years Later

Rubin sounded an alarm indicating that economic development practitioners were less than strategic in their economic development incentive adoption when he declared that developers “shoot anything that flies, claim anything that falls. ” This article builds on the work of those who have focused on the determinants of incentive adoption in three ways. First, relying on matched cases of survey respondents to the 1999 and 2004 International City/County Management Association Economic Development Survey improves on using a single survey. Second, unlike previous efforts that relied mostly on ordinary least squares estimators to predict the total number of approaches adopted, this article uses a count model and distinguishes between types of approaches. Finally, this article accounts for city- and state-level impacts. This article finds that economic development decision making is strategic, partly determined by state-level effects, and is dependent on the types of economic development practices.
Antioxidant and non‐toxic properties of Piper betle leaf extract: in vitro and in vivo studies

Piper betle leaves are used in folk medicine for the treatment of various disorders and is commonly chewed among Asians. The present study investigates the protective efficacy of P. betle leaf extract. The presence of the extract inhibited the radiation induced lipid peroxidation process effectively. This could be attributed to its ability to scavenge free radicals involved in initiation and propagation steps. Oral supplementation with extract (1, 5 and 10 mg/kg) was administered daily for 2 weeks to Swiss albino mice and the hepatic antioxidant status was analysed. The GSH content was enhanced and no appreciable change was found in the levels of oxidative damage in terms of lipid peroxidation. Also, the specific activity of SOD increased in a dose dependent manner. These factors indicate the elevation of antioxidant status in the animals. The effect on the glyoxalase system which is considered to be activated under stress conditions was also investigated. Our findings did not observe any significant change in gly I and gly II activities, implying a non‐stress condition after oral treatment of the extract. The present study indicates the antioxidant activity of P. betle leaf extract and its potential to elevate the antioxidant status. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Non-invasive detection of winding short-circuit faults in salient-pole synchronous machine

This study presents an analytical and experimental method for detecting internal turn-to-turn short circuits both in the rotor or in the stator in Salient-pole Synchronous Generator Machines (SSGM) connected to local power grid. Two main measurements are proposed to confirm or discard these electric faults: External Magnetic Flux Density (EMFD) and External Housing Vibrations (EHV). In the event of a short-circuit winding fault, a correlation between EMFD and EHV is confirmed. Furthermore, the electric power injection dependency is introduced in order to establish the validity range of this method. In this study, only non-invasive and on-line equipment are required to diagnose the SSGM. A diagnostic tool has been developed to show the viability of an operative wireless monitoring system in an industrial environment.