Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reduced expression of the CXC chemokine hIRH/SDF‐1α mRNA in hepatoma and digestive tract cancer

We isolated human intercrine reduced in hepatomas (hIRH) as a mRNA whose expression was reduced in differential displays from human hepatocellular carcinoma. hIRH is equivalent to the α‐chemokine SDF‐1α/PBSF. We have previously demonstrated on Northern blot analysis that although hIRH mRNA expression is common in human normal tissues, it is absent from pre‐malignant colonic adenomas and from 27 human malignant cell lines. However, there are no reports on the mRNA status of hIRH in other human cancers. The present study was designed to investigate semi‐quantitatively the expression of hIRH/SDF‐1α mRNA in hepatocellular carcinoma and digestive tract cancers by reverse transcription‐polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR). The expression of hIRH/SDF‐1α in the majority of cancer tissues analyzed was markedly reduced compared with that in adjacent non‐cancer tissue. RT‐PCR was more sensitive than Northern blots in the detection of hIRH mRNA. The average (mean ± SE) tumor/normal (T/N) ratio determined by RT‐PCR was 0.40 ± 0.07 in 10 pairs of hepatoma, 0.38 ± 0.09 in 14 pairs of colon cancers, 0.43 ± 0.07 in 10 pairs of esophageal cancers and 0.70 ± 0.09 in 26 pairs of gastric cancers. As a control, the mean G3PDH T/N ratio was 1.16 ± 0.06. The distribution of T/N ratios was significantly different between gastric cancer and the other cancers, but there was no correlation between hIRH/SDF‐1α expression and clinico‐pathological characteristics in gastric cancer. Our findings demonstrate that hIRH/SDF‐1α expression is reduced in the majority of gastrointestinal tumors. Int. J. Cancer 73:656–662, 1997. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Osseointegration of Cementless Implants with Different Bisphosphonate Regimens

Some evidence suggests a daily dose of bisphosphonates improves fixation of cementless metal implants by enhancing osseointegration. Because the necessity of daily administration may result in suboptimal adherence to therapy, single- dose administration is desirable. We examined whether a dose-equivalent single injection of the nitrogen-containing bisphosphonate ibandronate is as effective as a daily injection in improving the osseointegrated surface and enhancing periprosthetic bone mineralization (bone volume to tissue volume) of cementless metal implants. Uncoated titanium and hydroxyapatite-coated titanium implants were surgically inserted into the femoral medullary canal of 55 female Sprague Dawley rats. The animals were randomly assigned subcutaneous treatments with 25 μg/kg body weight ibandronate per day, a dose-equivalent single injection of 28 × 25 μg/kg body weight, or saline solution for control. Histomorphometric evaluation revealed an enhanced osseointegrated surface for hydroxyapatite-coated implants in both treatment groups, but only for daily injections for uncoated titanium implants. Bone volume to tissue volume was improved in both treatment groups. Our results suggest that an equivalent-dose single injection of ibandronate is as effective as a daily dose in improving osseointegration and stabilization of hydroxyapatite-coated titanium implants in this rat model.
The integration of immigrant youth in friendship networks and school communities

The ability of school communities to develop successful integration strategies for youth from immigrant communities is of pressing concern. The goal of this dissertation is to explore how immigrant youth interact with their peers in friendship networks and school communities in order to inform efforts to promote the successful integration of immigrant youth in US schools. Data from the 1994-1995 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) are used in three separate studies to examine processes of integration. First, the integration of immigrant youth is analyzed at dyadic, network, and school levels. Second, exponential random graph modeling (ERGM) is used to examine how immigrant generation plays a role in friendship formation in 63 US schools. Third, cross-sectional ERGM and longitudinal stochastic actor-based models (SABM) are developed to examine how race, immigrant generation, spoken language, and social network processes give rise to youth friendship networks in one US school. Key findings are as follows: overall, evidence suggests signs of successful integration. First-generation youth are located only slightly on the margins while second-generation youth are located in positions of social advantage. Second, school contexts change the nature of friendship decision-making. Immigrant youth in more diverse schools are more likely to integrate through cross-group friendships, providing evidence for contact theory of intergroup relations. Third, while immigrant generation and spoken language emerge as salient predictors of friendship formation, other factors such as grade level, race/ethnicity, as well as social network processes remain the primary drivers of friendship formation. In the final chapter, an applied theory of immigrant integration in school settings grounded in theories of social structure is proposed. Together, the findings of this research will inform efforts to serve culturally and linguistically diverse youth in American schools and aim to help promote the integration of youth from immigrant communities.
Teh relative impact of trade libealization on developing conuntries.

Se reflexiona en este articulo sobre el costo real de la liberalizacion comercial. Los autores creen que es necesario rebajar las pretensiones enormemente exageradas de los beneficios del comercio. Ellos establecen que muy poco se ganaria si los paises ricos desmantelaran todas sus barreras a las exportaciones provenientes de paises en desarrollo. En efecto, muchos paises en desarrollo no se beneficiarian demasiado de un volumen de exportaciones fijo vendido a precios superiores a los del mercado; los terminos del intercambio empeorarian; y los subsidios a las exportaciones agricolas se perderian para siempre. Teniendo esto en mente, esos paises arriesgarian su estabilidad socio-politica como un resultado de grandes migraciones de la poblacion rural.
‘A most interesting chapter in the history of science’

There were three broad categories of academic responses to Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (Kinsey, Pomeroy and Martin, 1948): method; findings; and broader reflections on the book’s place in American social life and democracy. This article focuses primarily on archival academic responses to Kinsey’s work that appeared in the year following the book’s publication. Many academics agreed that some aspects of Kinsey’s method were flawed and that his interpretations sometimes overreached his raw data. Nonetheless, they also agreed that no one else had gathered such a diverse sampling of interviewees whose behaviors Kinsey could use to create new interpretive models of human sexuality. As Kinsey’s research was deliberately interdisciplinary, his research and statistical methodologies began to catch on in the human sciences and to encourage academics and intellectuals to rethink their human science practices. As academics reflected on the volume’s larger meaning in American life, several of them thought it exemplified the worst American values (emphases on money and size) while others saw the very existence of the Male volume as an excellent example of the ability of free citizens to pursue and to publish research on any topic. While members of the American intelligentsia championed the Male volume and its findings as democratic, the reception of Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin and Gebhard, 1953), published at an intense moment of the cold war, was viewed as a communist threat to American security for revealing the sexual secrets of the public.
Quantification of genes encoding resistance to aminoglycosides, 𝛃-lactams and tetracyclines in wastewater environments by real-time PCR

In this study real-time PCR assays, based on the LUX™-technique, were developed for quantification of genes mediating resistance to aminoglycosides [aac(6´′)-Ie + aph(2´′´′)], β-lactams (mecA), and tetracyclines (tetA and tetB), for use in wastewater environments. The developed assays were applied on DNA extracted from three wastewater-associated environments: soil from an overland flow area treating landfill leachates, biofilm from a municipal wastewater treatment plant, and sludge from a hospital wastewater pipeline. The highest concentration of all genes was observed in the hospital pipeline and the lowest in the overland flow system. TetA and aac(6´′)-Ie + aph(2´′´′) could be detected in all environments. The tetB gene was detected in the overland flow area and the hospital wastewater pipeline and mecA was detected in the wastewater treatment plant and the hospital pipeline. The developed LUX™ real-time PCR assays were shown to be fast and reproducible tools for detection and quantification of the four genes encoding antibiotic resistance in wastewater.
Dominant TEL1-hy Mutations Compensate for Mec1 Lack of Functions in the DNA Damage Response

ABSTRACT Eukaryotic genome integrity is safeguarded by two highly conserved protein kinases that are called ATR and ATM for humans and Mec1 and Tel1 for Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Although they share sequence similarities and substrates, these protein kinases perform different specialized functions. In particular, Mec1 plays a key role in the DNA damage checkpoint response, whereas Tel1 primarily is involved in telomere homeostasis, and its checkpoint function is masked by the prevailing activity of Mec1. In order to understand how this specificity is achieved, we searched for TEL1 mutations able to compensate for the lack of Mec1 functions. Here, we describe seven independent dominant TEL1-hy alleles that are able to suppress, to different extents, both the hypersensitivity to genotoxic agents and the checkpoint defects of Mec1-deficient cells. Most of these alleles also cause telomere overelongation. In vitro kinase activity was increased compared to that of wild-type Tel1 in the Tel1-hy385, Tel1-hy394, Tel1-hy680, and Tel1-hy909 variants, but its activity was not affected by the TEL1-hy184 and TEL1-hy628 mutations and was slightly reduced by the TEL1-hy544 mutation. Thus, the phenotypes caused by at least some Tel1-hy variants are not simply the consequence of improved catalytic activity. Further characterization shows that Tel1-hy909 not only can sense and signal a single double-stranded DNA break, unlike wild-type Tel1, but also contributes more efficiently than Tel1 to single-stranded DNA accumulation at double-strand ends, thus enhancing Mec1 signaling activity. Moreover, it causes unscheduled checkpoint activation in unperturbed conditions and upregulates the checkpoint response to small amounts of DNA lesions. Finally, Tel1-hy544 can activate the checkpoint more efficiently than wild-type Tel1, while it causes telomere shortening, indicating that the checkpoint and telomeric functions of Tel1 can be separable.
Legal Knowledge, Land Expropriation, and Agricultural Development in Rural China

By using household survey data, this paper examines the effect of legal knowledge, a proxy for farmersi¯ ability to protect their land, on agricultural development in rural China. The Ordinary Least Square (OLS) estimation results indicate that legal knowledge in a household raises agricultural production. Further, once the production effect of legal knowledge is controlled for, the objective measure of land expropriation has no production effect. These results survive for alternative measures of legal knowledge and subsample analysis. A two-stage least squares strategy further confirms that the effect of legal knowledge on farm production is causal. A preliminary channel analysis suggests that the impact of legal knowledge on farm production works mainly through farmyard manure investments and labor incentives.
Managers' leadership and critical care nurses' intent to stay.

BACKGROUND Cyclical fluctuations in turnover of critical care nurses are a large and complex problem. Managers' leadership characteristics may be a determinant of critical care nurses' intent to stay in the job. OBJECTIVE To examine the direct and indirect effects of nurse-managers' characteristics of power, influence, and leadership style on critical care nurses' intent to stay in the nurses' employment positions. METHODS The sample was 255 staff nurses in intensive care units at 4 urban hospitals. Established instruments with sound reliability and validity were used to assess the predictor, intervening, and outcome variables. Path analysis was used to examine the relationships in a conceptual model of intent to stay. RESULTS The model explained 52% of the variance in intent to stay, and managers' characteristics were significant at each stage. Managers' position power and influence over work coordination had a direct link to intent to stay; structuring expectations and consideration contributed indirectly through the variables of instrumental communication, autonomy, and group cohesion. Instrumental communication, autonomy, and group cohesion decreased job stress and thus increased job satisfaction. Job satisfaction was directly linked with intent to stay. CONCLUSIONS Inclusion of nurse-managers' characteristics explained more variance in intent to stay than did previous models. Managers with leadership styles that seek and value contributions from staff, promote a climate in which information is shared effectively, promote decision making at the staff nurse level, exert position power, and influence coordination of work to provide a milieu that maintains a stable cadre of nurses.
Pharmacogenomics: a new paradigm to personalize treatments in nephrology patients

Although notable progress has been made in the therapeutic management of patients with chronic kidney disease in both conservative and renal replacement treatments (dialysis and transplantation), the occurrence of medication‐related problems (lack of efficacy, adverse drug reactions) still represents a key clinical issue. Recent evidence suggests that adverse drug reactions are major causes of death and hospital admission in Europe and the United States. The reasons for these conditions are represented by environmental/non‐genetic and genetic factors responsible for the great inter‐patient variability in drugs metabolism, disposition and therapeutic targets. Over the years several genetic settings have been linked, using pharmacogenetic approaches, to the effects and toxicity of many agents used in clinical nephrology. However, these strategies, analysing single gene or candidate pathways, do not represent the gold standard, being the overall pharmacological effects of medications and not typically monogenic traits. Therefore, to identify multi‐genetic influence on drug response, researchers and clinicians from different fields of medicine and pharmacology have started to perform pharmacogenomic studies employing innovative whole genomic high‐throughput technologies. However, to date, only few pharmacogenomics reports have been published in nephrology underlying the need to enhance the number of projects and to increase the research budget for this important research field. In the future we would expect that, applying the knowledge about an individual's inherited response to drugs, nephrologists will be able to prescribe medications based on each person's genetic make‐up, to monitor carefully the efficacy/toxicity of a given drug and to modify the dosage or number of medications to obtain predefined clinical outcomes.
Place-based business models for resilient local economies: Cases from Italian slow food, agritourism and thealbergo diffuso

Purpose - This purpose of this paper is to introduce and analyze the concept of place-based business models, by which entrepreneurs use highly context-specific strategies and linkages to a “sense of place” as sources of value creation. To illustrate how place-based business models create unique value, case studies are reviewed from three sectors in Italy: Slow Food (Coop Italia and Eataly), agritourism (Spannocchia) and the Design/methodology/approach - This is a conceptual paper with case studies from qualitative data and external sources. Findings - The case studies demonstrate the value-creating potential of opportunities for the implementation of place-based business models. In contrast with conventional harm reduction perspectives, these models show how organizational contributions to local and regional resilience may also directly generate competitive advantage. The cases also illustrate challenges such as scaling up while maintaining authenticity, and coping with the public goods-nature of place-based resources. Originality/value - Conventional management theory and practice treat environmental context as a distraction from which the technical core of the organization must be protected. Place-based business models diverge from convention by using tight coupling with local context to create value, enhance local economic resilience and contribute to a “sense of place”.
Thromboembolism. A complication of weekly chemotherapy in the treatment of non‐Hodgkin's lymphoma

In a retrospective survey of 85 patients who received chemotherapy as treatment for non‐Hodgkin's lymphomas, the authors found that clinically apparent thromboembolic disorders occurred in four of 11 patients receiving weekly chemotherapy, and in none of 74 patients who were treated on less intensive schedules, suggesting that intensive weekly chemotherapy is thrombogenic. The possible mechanisms of this effect are discussed.
Transcranial doppler measurement of cerebral velocity indices as a predictor of preeclampsia.

OBJECTIVE We have previously shown that women with preeclampsia demonstrate cerebral hyperperfusion and abnormal cerebrovascular autoregulation. In the current study, we tested the hypothesis that abnormal cerebrovascular function can be detected before the clinical onset of preeclampsia. STUDY DESIGN Transcranial Doppler ultrasonography was performed for 166 women in the second trimester of pregnancy to measure peak, end-diastolic, and mean velocities in the middle cerebral arteries. Preeclampsia developed in 10 patients who were initially normotensive. In a nested case-controlled design, each patient with preeclampsia who was initially normotensive was matched for gestational age at the time of initial examination, maternal age, and parity with two pregnant women who remained normotensive and who were delivered at term. All measurements were performed with the subject in the left lateral position at baseline, during 5% carbon dioxide inhalation, and during a 2-minute isometric handgrip test. Blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen saturation, and end-tidal PCO (2) were recorded with each Doppler measurement. The mean pulsatility index, resistance index, and cerebral perfusion pressure at each time were calculated and compared. Statistical significance was set at a probability value of <. 05. RESULTS The studies were performed at 19 to 28 weeks of gestation. Preeclampsia developed an average of 13.6 +/- 1.0 weeks after the study. Baseline mean blood pressure and heart rate were similar, but middle cerebral arteries pulsatility and resistance indices were lower in the women with preeclampsia who were initially normotensive compared with the pregnant women who were normotensive (0.83 and 0.54 vs 0.73 and 0.50, respectively; P <.05). Both maneuvers caused a significant reduction in the pulsatility and resistance indices. With the use of baseline values as covariates, no significant differences were noted in the response to either carbon dioxide inhalation or handgrip between the group of women who remained normotensive and the group of women with preeclampsia who were initially normotensive. CONCLUSION Normotensive pregnant women who later have preeclampsia demonstrate lower baseline pulsatility and resistance indices but normal vasodilatory responses to challenge tests. These findings suggest that women who are destined to have preeclampsia experience cerebral hemodynamic changes that predate the development of overt preeclampsia symptoms.
Cutting Edge: Helicobacter pylori Induces Nuclear Hypersegmentation and Subtype Differentiation of Human Neutrophils In Vitro

Helicobacter pylori infects the human stomach and causes a spectrum of disease that includes gastritis, peptic ulcers, and gastric adenocarcinoma. A chronic, neutrophil-rich inflammatory response characterizes this infection. It is established that H. pylori stimulates neutrophil chemotaxis and a robust respiratory burst, but other aspects of this interaction are incompletely defined. We demonstrate here that H. pylori induces N1-like subtype differentiation of human neutrophils as indicated by profound nuclear hypersegmentation, a CD62Ldim, CD16bright, CD11bbright, CD66bbright, CD63bright surface phenotype, proinflammatory cytokine secretion, and cytotoxicity. Hypersegmentation requires direct neutrophil–H. pylori contact as well as transcription and both host and bacterial protein synthesis, but not urease, NapA, VacA, CagA, or CagT. The concept of neutrophil plasticity is new and, to our knowledge, these data are the first evidence that neutrophils can undergo subtype differentiation in vitro in response to bacterial pathogen infection. We hypothesize that these changes favor H. pylori persistence and disease.
Psychotherapists' dreams about their patients.

UNLABELLED This study examines therapists' dreams about their patients from the Jungian and the relational perspectives. Few clinical and empirical references to this subject are to be found in the literature. In the present study 31 dreams were collected from 22 therapists. Dreams were collected using anonymous self-report inventory. The research focused on three theoretical research questions: 1. What themes appear in the manifest content of therapists' dreams about their patients? 2. What contributions are made by Jungian interpretation of therapists' dreams about their patients? 3. To what extent are masochistic contents present in the manifest content of therapists' dreams about their patients? The first question was addressed using categorical content analysis of a) themes common to different dreams and b) pre-determined themes for all dreams. The third research question was addressed using Beck's (1967) 'Masochistic Dream' measure. RESULTS Among the themes common to different dreams were: therapist-patient role reversal; therapist and/or patient attends and remains in meeting, departs/doesn't depart; cancellation of therapy session; sexuality between therapist and patient; aggression; presence vs. absence; non-verbal relationship and communication; time; driving vs. stopping. With regard to pre-determined themes it was found that in 20 of the 31 dreams, the therapist had a negative experience and was characterized as vulnerable. Likewise it was found that 26 out of 31 dreams took place in either a) a street, a road, a route, a corridor; b) en route to somewhere; c) a therapy room and/or building; d) a house. With regard to the contribution of Jungian interpretations of the dreams it was found that 17 of the dreams had diagnostic and prognostic elements, 4 of which were initial dreams, 9 of them were compensatory dreams and in 14 it was found that the patient represents the shadow of the therapist. With regard to the third question it was found that 18 of the 31 dreams met Beck's (1967) criteria for masochistic dreams. The theoretical discussion examines the findings from a Jungian perspective, with an emphasis on also understanding the dream in terms of its expression of relational aspects of the therapist-patient relationship. The findings affirm the presence of the 'wounded healer' archetypes in therapists' dreams about their patients. The results of the study indicate that therapists' dreams about their patients can be a valuable tool for deepening understanding of the therapeutic relationship and process.