Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Soluble ST2 correlates with some indicators of right ventricular function in hypertensive heart failure

Purpose ST2 receptor, which is a member of the Toll-like/interleukin-1 (IL-1) receptor family, has been found to be increased in the serum of patients 1 day after myocardial infarction. Several other studies have shown that soluble ST2 levels correlate with severity of heart failure (HF), left ventricular ejection fraction, creatinine clearance, B-type natriuretic peptide and C-reactive protein, and are predictors of mortality in HF. Most of these studies were not only limited to ischemic heart disease but also concentrated on left-sided HF. We therefore decided to study the relationship between soluble ST2 and some markers of right ventricular (RV) function in a cohort of hypertensive HF subjects. Patients and methods This is a prospective cohort study of hypertensive HF patients presenting to the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Abuja, over a 12-month period. ST2 was measured in plasma sample by the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method. Right ventricular diameters in diastole (RVDD) and right atrial area (RAA) were obtained on echocardiography, while right ventricular systolic pressure (RVSP) was estimated from echocardiography by the addition of the pressure gradient between the right ventricle and right atrium (RA) to the pressure in the RA. Results There was a significant correlation between RVSP and soluble ST2 (t=0.75, p<0.0001), RVDD (t=0.28, p=0.004) and RAA (t=0.46, p=0.002). Conclusion In a cohort of hypertensive HF subjects, soluble ST2 correlates significantly with RVSP, RVDD and RAA.
From ‘the best kept company secret’ to a more proficient structure of employee representation: The role of EWC delegates with a managerial background

This article is a longitudinal case study that demonstrates how company middle managers acting as European works council (EWC) delegates are well placed to represent the interests of the wider workforce. Contrary to widely held assumptions about the role of management on EWCs, namely that such delegates represent nothing more than the ‘managerial capture’ of this European institution, the article exemplifies such delegates as possessing skills sets which incorporate communication, organization, strategy, assertiveness, tact and diplomacy that can benefit the EWC. The delegates in this study developed both solidarity and a shared sense of identity among employees that spanned national borders; delegates also influenced both company policy and strategy. Ultimately these delegates operating in a strictly non-unionized IT company helped transform the company EWC from its initial description as ‘the best kept company secret’ into a more purposeful structure of employee representation.
Direct measurement of carrier profiles in operating sub-30-nm N-MOSFETs

We directly evaluated the carrier profile in an operating sub-30-nm n-MOSFET for the first time. The revealed channel profile, including the halo implant covered by the depletion layer, was utilized to increase the n-MOSFET current to 870 muA/mum Idsat at 100 nA/mum Ioff for Vdd = 1 V at Lpoly = 26 nm
Consumers' Information-Gathering Behavior and the Structure of Distribution Channels

Consumers gather information about quality either by prepurchase investigation—search, or by actual trial consumption—experience. Search is more likely for goods bought infrequently, or for which search costs are low, or the quality is highly uncertain. Experience is more likely under the opposite conditions. Classification of goods as either search goods or experience goods corresponds in detail to longstanding classifications in the marketing literature such as "shopping" goods versus "convenience" goods, and Aspinwall's "yellow" and "red" categories. Consumers' information-gathering behavior determines to some degree the appropriate physicaldistribution paths and methods of sales promotion.
The race for pace: inhibitors and accelerators – developing the first product in new science-based companies

Previous literature on product development in the field of biotechnology has not focused on how a product is moved from step to step. Thus, insight into issues of crises and managerial choices in the process has not been provided. This paper gets down to the bench-level of bio-entrepreneurship by studying the challenges involved in developing the first product in a company. Through case studies built on personal interviews, an understanding of how entrepreneurs overcome inhibitors in the product development process by matching external opportunities with internal needs is developed. Three types of inhibitors emerge from the data: 'Internal management - difficulties in coordinating R&D', 'External management - failing relationships' and 'Science - cost of novelty'. Ways of overcoming these types of inhibitors are also categorised, and the typology created is illustrated through a new conceptual model.
Conservation of Expression and N-Terminal Sequences of the Pasteurella haemolytica 31-Kilodalton andPasteurella trehalosi 29-Kilodalton Periplasmic Iron-Regulated Proteins

ABSTRACT This study examined the conservation of expression of a 31-kDa iron-regulated protein by serotypes of Pasteurella haemolytica and Pasteurella trehalosi associated with pasteurellosis of cattle and sheep. A polyclonal antibody prepared against the purified 31-kDa periplasmic iron-regulated protein fromP. haemolytica serotype A1 showed that all P. haemolytica serotypes expressed similar 31-kDa proteins with identical N-terminal sequences, whereas P. trehalosiserotypes expressed immunologically different 29-kDa proteins with a different N-terminal sequence. Antibody to the 31-kDa iron-regulated protein was a useful tool to distinguish similarities and differences of the iron-regulated proteins of P. haemolytica andP. trehalosi.
Irreversible binding to the receptor of bacteriophages T5 and BF23 does not occur with the tip of the tail

Treatment of purified tails of bacteriophage T5 with 0.05% sodium dodecyl sulfate specifically removed pb2, a protein of 108,000 molecular weight (108K), from the tail. Although these tails were devoid of the single straight tail fiber, they still inhibited adsorption of T5 to Escherichia coli cells. Reconstitution of these tails with pb2 increased the efficiency of inhibition of T5 adsorption. Treatment of tails with 0.1% sodium dodecyl sulfate removed, in addition to pb2, a protein of 67K from phage T5 and one of 60K from phage BF23. These tails failed to inhibit phage adsorption, and no reconstitution was achieved. Reconstitution of T5 tails with pb2 from BF23, and of BF23 tails with pb2 from T5, did not alter the host receptor specificity of the tails. Binding of untreated T5 tails to small FhuA receptor particles revealed that binding occurred with the conical part of the tail and that pb2 was most likely released from the tail upon binding. From these results and from recent observations with T5-BF23 hybrid phages (K.J. Heller, Virology 139:11-21, 1984), we conclude that the receptor-binding proteins of T5 and BF23 are the 67K and 60K proteins, respectively, and that they are not located at the tip of the tail but rather at or near the site where the straight tail fiber is attached to the conical part of the tail.
Inter- and intraobserver variability of CT measurements obtained after endovascular repair of abdominal aortic aneurysms.

OBJECTIVE Important decisions are made on the basis of CT angiographic measurements of aneurysm size obtained after endovascular abdominal aortic aneurysm repair; however, little is known about the variability of these measurements. We evaluated the variability of CT angiographic measurements of aneurysm size obtained after endovascular abdominal aortic aneurysm repair. MATERIALS AND METHODS Thirty CT angiographic data sets were randomly chosen from 91 sets, including preoperative, postoperative, and follow-up CT images. All images were obtained according to a standardized acquisition protocol. On a workstation, three parameters were measured: maximum aneurysm diameter, maximum aneurysm cross-sectional area, and aneurysm volume. All data sets were measured twice by two investigators in a random order. The difference of each pair of measurements was plotted against the mean value. The mean difference and its standard deviation were calculated with a repeatability coefficient. RESULTS The intraobserver repeatability coefficient for observer 1 was 3.8 mm for diameter, 201.7 mm(2) for cross-sectional area, and 5.6 mL for volume. For observer 2, these figures were 3.0 mm, 219.0 mm(2), and 8.1 mL, respectively. The interobserver repeatability coefficients were 3.9 mm, 236.2 mm(2), and 10.3 mL. CONCLUSION Determination of the repeatability coefficient of aneurysm size measurements obtained after endovascular abdominal aortic aneurysm repair provides a good description of precision.
Flexibility and Rigidity in Crisis Management and Learning at Swedish Public Organizations

Abstract To date the relationship between crises, organizational crisis management, and learning has been understudied. In an effort to broaden theoretical understandings of the relation between crisis and learning, this article analyses the crisis management and learning processes of two public organizations during a sequence of two failures. A framework of rigidity versus flexibility in response is utilized in the analysis. The findings are discussed in relation to their implications for the nexus between crisis and learning. The study concludes by raising four hypotheses for further research.
Rethinking Leviathan : the eighteenth-century state in Britain and Germany

Introduction: Rethinking Leviathan Explaining Variation in Early Modern State Structure: The Cases of England the German Territorial States The Army and the State in Britain and Germany during the Eighteenth Century Reasonable Aims of Civil Society: Concerns of the State in German Political Theory in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries Eighteenth-Century Britain: In Search of the State and Finding the Quarter Sessions Servants of the Public-Servants of the Crown: Officialdom of Eighteenth-Century English Central Government The Prussian Bureaucracy Reconsidered The State in Germany: A Non-Prussian View Government and Administration: Everyday Politics in the Holy Roman Empire The State and the Poor: Eighteenth-Century England in European Perspective Manners and the Eighteenth-Century State: The Case of the Unsociable Englishman A Monument to Frederick the Great: Architecture, Politics, and the State in Late Eighteenth-Century Prussia Reform Absolutism and the Codification of Law: The Genesis and Nature of the Prussian General Code (1794) Codification, Consolidation, and Parliamentary Statute
Chlamydia Heat Shock Protein 60 Induces Trophoblast Apoptosis through TLR412

Intrauterine infection affects placental development and function, and subsequently may lead to complications such as preterm delivery, intrauterine growth retardation, and preeclampsia; however, the molecular mechanisms are not clearly known. TLRs mediate innate immune responses in placenta, and recently, TLR2-induced trophoblast apoptosis has been suggested to play a role in infection-induced preterm delivery. Chlamydia trachomatis is the etiological agent of the most prevalent sexually transmitted bacterial infection in the United States. In this study, we show that in vitro chlamydial heat shock protein 60 induces apoptosis in primary human trophoblasts, placental fibroblasts, and the JEG3 trophoblast cell line, and that TLR4 mediates this event. We observed a host cell type-dependent apoptotic response. In primary placental fibroblasts, chlamydial heat shock protein 60-induced apoptosis was caspase dependent, whereas in JEG3 trophoblast cell lines it was caspase independent. These data suggest that TLR4 stimulation induces apoptosis in placenta, and this could provide a novel mechanism of pathogenesis for poor fertility and pregnancy outcome in women with persistent chlamydia infection.
Accounting for Defect Characteristics in Empirical Studies of Software Testing

Software testing is an indispensable activity in quality assurance and an enduring topic of research. For decades, researchers have been inventing new and better techniques to test software. However, no testing technique will ever be a panacea for all software defects. Therefore, while researchers should continue to develop new testing techniques, they also need to deeply understand the abilities and limitations of existing techniques, the ways they complement each other, and the trade-offs involved in using different techniques. This work contends that researchers cannot sufficiently understand software testing without also understanding software defects. This work is the first to show that simple, automatically-measurable characteristics of defects affect their susceptibility to detection by software testing. Unlike previous attempts to characterize defects, this work offers a characterization that is objective, practical, and proven to help explain why some defects and not others are detected by testing. More importantly, this work shows that researchers can and should account for defect characteristics when they study the effectiveness of software-testing techniques. An experiment methodology is presented that enables experimenters to compare the effectiveness of different techniques and, at the same time, to measure the influence of defect characteristics and other factors on the results. The methodology is demonstrated in a large experiment in the domain of graphical-user-interface testing. As the experiment shows, researchers who use the methodology will understand what kinds of defects tend to be detected by testing and what testing techniques are better at detecting certain kinds of defects. This information can help researchers develop more effective testing techniques, and it can help software testers make better choices about the testing techniques to use on their projects. As this work explains, it also has the potential to help testers detect more defects, and more important defects, during regression testing.
Stock Prices' Variability around Earnings Announcement Dates at Karachi Stock Exchange

The purpose of this study is to investigate how earnings announcement event affects stock returns at Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE). For this purpose we use the KSE-100 Index as our sample. We use the CAR Analysis to analyze the impact of earnings announcement over the stock returns around announcement dates. Our results suggest that KSE experiences abnormal stock returns around earnings announcement dates for the overall market and for different categories which indicate that efficient market hypothesis does not hold in Pakistani market and point out the presence of informational dissemination inefficiencies in the market.
The informational content of article publication: the case of twin stocks

This study investigates the mispricing of Royal Dutch and Shell Transport stocks documented in the literature. It is found that the actual market co-movement of the two companies' stocks has gradually become asymptotic to its theoretical counterpart subsequent to the publication of empirical studies that investigated the mispricing phenomenon. These findings imply that market participants incorporate published academic studies into their learning curve. However, it took nine years to rectify the mispricing problem, a fact that seems inconsistent with market efficiency, where information should be reflected immediately in stock prices.
Retracted Article: Pericyte-mediated vasoconstriction underlies TBI-induced hypoperfusion

OBJECTIVES Endothelin-1 is a 21-amino acid peptide that together with specific receptors, A (ETrA) and B (ETrB) is induced following traumatic brain injury (TBI) and has been closely linked to regulation of cerebral vasospasm, oxidative stress, and hypoperfusion. Specific endothelin receptor antagonists have been shown to ameliorate early evidence of neuronal cell injury, activation of microglial cells, and hypoperfusion following TBI. The exact mechanism involved in TBI-induced hypoperfusion is still unclear; however, it is thought that endothelin-1 engagement of ETrA is primarily responsible for changes in blood flow. In this study we question the role of the microvascular pericyte in endothelin-1-mediated pathophysiology in TBI. METHODS Pericyte expression of endothelin-1, ETrA, and ETrB was examined in primary culture and in sham and impacted rat brain. Adult male rats were also given intracerebroventricular injections of ETrA (BQ-123) before being subjected to TBI using a closed head acceleration impact model. RESULTS Primary pericytes express both endothelin-1 and its receptors ETrA and ETrB. Following TBI, the number of alpha-smooth muscle actin (SMA) positive pericytes located in microvessels is significantly increased by 4 hours post-traumatic impact. Increases in pericyte expression of alpha-SMA correlated with evidence of a reduction in both arteriolar and capillary diameter. Capillary endothelin-1, ETrA, and ETrB transcript and protein was also increased. Increased endothelin-1 expression was seen by 2-4 hours post-impact. Upregulation of receptors was observed by 4-8 hours and maximum by 24 hours. ETrA antagonists decreased the number of alpha-SMA(+) pericytes as well as changes in microvascular diameter. CONCLUSION These results suggest that decreased vasoconstriction following TBI may be due to an endothelin-1-induced pericyte-mediated regulation of microvessel blood flow following TBI. Furthermore, results suggest that ETrA antagonists ameliorate trauma induced hypoperfusion, in part, by inhibiting endothelin-1-mediated upregulation of alpha-SMA in pericytes.
Are State Tax Amnesty Programs Associated with Financial Reporting Irregularities?

This article investigates the relation between state tax amnesties and financial reporting irregularities. State tax amnesty programs, which potentially signal a lax regulatory enforcement environment, provide a unique setting in which to examine the effects of state tax authorities on non-tax financial reporting behavior. The results suggest that firms headquartered in states offering a tax amnesty program are more likely to begin engaging in a financial reporting irregularity during the amnesty period. Furthermore, the results show that the observed increase in financial reporting irregularities occurs only during periods of repeat, not initial, amnesty programs. These findings suggest state tax amnesties have previously unexplored adverse effects on managers’ behavior.
Atypical Work Hours and Metabolic Syndrome Among Police Officers

ABSTRACT This study examined whether atypical work hours are associated with metabolic syndrome among a random sample of 98 police officers. Shift work and overtime data from daily payroll records and reported sleep duration were obtained. Metabolic syndrome was defined as elevated waist circumference and triglycerides, low HDL cholesterol, hypertension, and glucose intolerance. Multivariate analysis of variance and analysis of covariance models were used for analyses. Officers working midnight shifts were on average younger and had a slightly higher mean number of metabolic syndrome components. Stratification on sleep duration and overtime revealed significant associations between midnight shifts and the mean number of metabolic syndrome components among officers with less sleep (p = .013) and more overtime (p = .007). Results suggest shorter sleep duration and more overtime combined with midnight shift work may be important contributors to the metabolic syndrome.
The changing relationship between the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have been bedeviled since their common creation over how to define their areas of specialized competence and how to interact in areas of overlapping jurisdiction. The multiple shocks that have destabilized the global economy over the last two decades have stimulated the Bank and Fund to alter fundamentally their programs and approaches, often without fully taking into account their relation to the work of the other Bretton Woods agency. The Fund's traditional focus on short-term stabilization, correcting external account imbalances, and fighting inflation, contrasted with the World Bank's provision of long-term funds for investment in capital-intensive projects. But more recently, with the establishment of the IMF's Extended Fund Facility and the Bank's structural adjustment lending, both institutions share the objective of adjustment with growth, and each claims some responsibility for an extremely wide range of policy instruments. The new Structural Adjustment Facility, in particular, has the potential to link more tightly decision-making on Fund stand-by arrangements and Bank structural adjustment lending, increasing the probability of new forms of cross-conditionality—termed here consultative cross-conditionality, interdependent cross-conditionality, and indirect financial linkage. The Bank and Fund need to find ways to better delineate and manage their new relationship. Problems that should be addressed to do so include proper modes of collaboration between Bank and Fund staff, issue specialization, the avoidance of piling on excessively detailed performance requirements, and decisions on ineligibility. Enhanced cooperation between the Bank and Fund can not only produce more coherent adjustment programs, but can also help to mobilize other sources of official and private capital.
Staging experience, valuing authenticity: Towards a market perspective on territorial development

Drawing on particular socio-economic theories, this paper discusses the implications for regional studies of the experience economy approach through the broader question of market valuation. Different forms of market construction are identified and compared with regard to distinct models of regional development. It is observed that most of established territorial innovation models give prominence to a technical form of market valuation driven by technological change, by localized innovative production and by the mobility of goods and services. Conversely, experiential valuation primarily points to alternative models of development focusing on the local capacity to set attractive and engaging stages and to exploit consumer mobility. While the former models have mainly been applied to export-based manufacturing, the latter have essentially been applied to leisure, entertainment and tourism activities. The second part of the paper discusses the limits of technical as well as experiential market valuation in the case of the Swiss watchmaking industry. In such a case, experience in consumption and technology in production appears as strategic economic resources but what is primarily valued is authentic watchmaking. Authenticity is regarded as a third possible form of market valuation revealing specific socio-economic and territorial dynamics. The paper finally argues that market valuation should be considered as a key issue for future understandings of economic and territorial development.
Phenibut dependence

Phenibut is a γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) agonist designed and used as an anxiolytic in Russia. In Western countries, phenibut is not a registered medication but is available through online stores as a supplement. We present a case of a patient who used phenibut to self-medicate anxiety, insomnia and cravings for alcohol. While phenibut was helpful initially, the patient developed dependence including tolerance, significant withdrawal symptoms within 3–4 h of last use and failure to fulfil his roles at work and at home. He finally sought medical assistance in our addictions clinic. We have gradually, over the course of 9 weeks, substituted phenibut with baclofen, which has similar pharmacological properties, and then successfully tapered the patient off baclofen. This required approximately 10 mg of baclofen for each gram of phenibut.