Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Nuclear retention of IL‐1α by necrotic cells: A mechanism to dampen sterile inflammation

Sterile inflammation is a host response to tissue injury that is mediated by damage‐associated molecular patterns released from dead cells. Sterile inflammation worsens damage in a number of injury paradigms. The pro‐inflammatory cytokine IL‐1α is reported to be a damage‐associated molecular pattern released from dead cells, and it is known to exacerbate brain injury caused by stroke. In the brain, IL‐1α is produced by microglia, the resident brain macrophages. We found that IL‐1α is actively trafficked to the nuclei of microglia, and hence tested the hypothesis that trafficking of IL‐1α to the nucleus would inhibit its release following necrotic cell death, limiting sterile inflammation. Microglia subjected to oxygen‐glucose deprivation died via necrosis. Under these conditions, microglia expressing nuclear IL‐1α released significantly less IL‐1α than microglia with predominantly cytosolic IL‐1α. The remaining IL‐1α was immobilized in the nuclei of the dead cells. Thus, nuclear retention of IL‐1α may serve to limit inflammation following cell death.
Molecular cloning and characterization of cDNA encoding cardosin B , an aspartic proteinase accumulating extracellularly in the transmitting tissue of Cynara cardunculus

Cardosins A and B are related aspartic proteinases from the pistils of Cynara cardunculusL. , whose milk-clotting activity has been exploited for the manufacture of cheese. Here we report the cloning of cardosin B cDNA and its organ, tissue and cytological localization. The cDNA-derived amino acid sequence has 73% similarity with that of cardosin A and displays several distinguishing features. Cardosin B mRNA was detected in young inflorescences but not in pistils of fully opened inflorescences, indicating that its expression is developmentally regulated. The proteinase, however, accumulates in the pistil until the later stages of floral development. Immunocytochemistry with a monospecific antibody localized cardosin B to the cell wall and extracellular matrix of the floral transmitting tissue. The location of cardosin B in the pistil is therefore clearly different from that of cardosin A, which was found at protein storage vacuoles of the stigmatic papillae and has been suggested to be involved in RGD-mediated proteolytic mechanisms. In view of these results the possible functions of cardosin B in the transmitting tissue are discussed.
Autologous Fat Grafting to the Reconstructed Breast: The Management of Acquired Contour Deformities

Background: Autologous fat grafting has become a workhorse for soft-tissue augmentation throughout the body. In the reconstructed breast, autologous fat grafting is a useful tool for managing secondary contour deformities. The authors have categorized these deformities into three types: type 1 deformities are step-off deformities between the chest wall/reconstructed breast interface, type 2 deformities result from intrinsic deficiencies within a flap such as fat necrosis, and type 3 deformities are the result of extrinsic factors such as postoperative irradiation. Methods: The authors conducted a detailed retrospective review of 110 patients who have received fat grafting to the reconstructed breast for the management of contour deformities. In addition, the authors reviewed the recent literature describing the use of autologous fat grafting to the breast. Particular attention has been placed on the concerns of oncologic surveillance in reconstructed breasts that have undergone fat grafting. Results: The authors have had relative success in the treatment of patients who will require postoperative irradiation and even those who have rippling surrounding an implant. Conclusions: Autologous fat grafting represents an important tool for the management of secondary contour deformities of the reconstructed breast. Fat grafting is a simple, safe, and effective treatment option, with low morbidity.
Measuring and understanding the engagement of Bangladeshi SMEs with sustainable and socially responsible business practices: an ISO 26000 perspective

Purpose - Drawing on the ‘ISO 26000: 2010 - Guidance on social responsibility’ handbook, this paper is aimed at investigating the extent to which Bangladeshi small and medium sized manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) are incorporating social responsibility (SR)/sustainability into their regular business activities. It is also aimed at providing insights into how Bangladeshi SME owner-managers perceive the concept of SR, and exploring the key drivers of and barriers to socially responsible and sustainable business practices. Design/methodology/approach - A mixed-method research was carried out in two sequential phases. During the first phase, 110 printed questionnaires (59 of which were eventually used) were distributed among the owner-managers of the selected SMEs. The second phase involved seven in-depth semi-structured interviews. Findings - The findings reconfirm the existence of the so called ‘attitude-behaviour’ gap. The barriers that hinder the sustainable engagement of SMEs include corruption, a weak regulatory environment, inefficient or ill-suited government and external support, and a lack of awareness of the environmental aspects of SR. In addition, this research reveals that Bangladeshi manufacturing SMEs do, to a certain degree, implement SR; only those few issues that suit the owner-managers’ personal motives are addressed, while many others (e.g. environmental issues) are neglected. Finally, it has been found that the business type and size, and the owner-managers’ educational attainments have no significant influence on the degree of adoption of socially responsible business practices by Bangladeshi manufacturing SMEs. Originality/value - This paper develops a tool suited to meaningfully assess the socially responsible and sustainable business activities of SMEs. By utilising the four key elements identified in ISO 26000—namely, labour practices, the environment, consumer issues, and community involvement and development—and by employing an innovative and effective technique, a sustainability score and implementation level were calculated quantitatively for the selected SMEs. The tool developed here can be used to study the sustainability related issues faced by SMEs based in other low-income developing countries.
An Exploratory Study on the Utilization and Management of Rangeland in Farming-Pastoral Ecotone After the Grazing-ban Policy:Based on The Field Study on Planned-grazing Pilot in Ningxia

Since the grazing ban was implemented over the arid poverty-stricken northwestern China in order to convert the process of rangeland degradation and desertification,the widespread violations by the peasants had been found as an open secret. It reached an impasse between the official policy paper and the covert illegal grazing and its sustainability was questioned. To break such an impasse,the grazing trial program was conducted in Yanchi County,which located in the Steppe-desert Ecotone,the eastern part of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. This field study was carried out on Yanchi grazing trial pilot,with 40 households in 8 natural villages and staff from relevant agencies interviewed. The grazing trial allowed peasants to graze on the rangeland according to a plan and community participation was introduced into the rangeland management mechanism. Peasants' behavior on sheep-raising,rangeland utilization and management had changed,and reached better comprehensive effects of grazingtrial than both traditional open access and grazing ban. It realized a sustainable approach taking account of the recovery of rangeland use right,rangeland conservation and peasants' livelihoods.It also suggested that community resource endowment,community elites,clear property rights,the institulization of rangeland management actions,the coordination of supervision with rewards and punishments from governments were the main contributors for successful community based natural resource management. Meanwhile,this community-based rangeland management provided new ideas on the solution to the Grazing-ban Impasse in Farming-Pastoral Regions. Policy makers should focus on both the rangeland conservation and peasants' livelihoods,the recovery of rangeland use right,the flexibility of planning,community participatory mechanism and livelihoods substitution alternatives. This article believes that grazing ban does have some positive effects on pasture conservation,but lacks of long-run sustainability. The solution to the grazingban impasse should resort to a more inclusive rangeland management institution. Such aninstitution must incorporate individual commitment and community efforts in a more comprehensive market framework,rather than simply external supervision and ecological compensation from governments.
Inequality and the erosion of trust among the poor: experimental evidence

This paper uses a subtle experimental treatment to examine how perceptions of income inequality affect generalized trust and the willingness to cooperate with others. It hypothesizes that inequality reduces pro-social attitudes mostly among low-income citizens, who are very sensitive to changes in their relative status. The results of the survey experiment suggest that perceiving the income distribution as more unequal has particularly detrimental effects on the pro-social attitudes of the poor, with potential implications for their ability to mobilize politically. The erosion of trust among the poor due to increases in income inequality may be an important mechanism hindering mobilization in favor of redistribution.
Third Parties, Violence, and Conflict Resolution

Although researchers know much about the causes of aggression, they know surprisingly little about how aggression leads to violence or how violence is controlled. To explore the microregulation of violence, we conducted a systematic behavioral analysis of footage from closed-circuit television surveillance of public spaces. Using 42 incidents involving 312 people, we compared aggressive incidents that ended in violence with those that did not. Behaviors of antagonists and third parties were coded as either escalating or conciliatory acts. Results showed that third parties were more likely to take conciliatory actions than to escalate violence and that this tendency increased as group size increased. This analysis revealed a pattern of third-party behaviors that prevent aggression from becoming violent and showed that conciliatory behaviors are more successful when carried out by multiple third parties than when carried out by one person. We conclude by emphasizing the importance of collective third-party dynamics in understanding conflict resolution.
Multiple hypothesis testing in genomics

This paper presents an overview of the current state of the art in multiple testing in genomics data from a user's perspective. We describe methods for familywise error control, false discovery rate control and false discovery proportion estimation and confidence, both conceptually and practically, and explain when to use which type of error rate. We elaborate on the assumptions underlying the methods and discuss pitfalls in the interpretation of results. In our discussion, we take into account the exploratory nature of genomics experiments, looking at selection of genes before or after testing, and at the role of validation experiments. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The multi‐dimensional nature of active coping: differential effects of effort and enhanced control on cardiovascular reactivity.

&NA; Some studies show that enhanced control increases cardiovascular reactivity; other studies show decreases. This disparity may be due to a confound: enhanced control may reduce reactivity, but effort accompanying active coping may increase it. The present study was designed to vary level of control and availability of active coping responses, while maintaining effort constant. Sixty female undergraduates performed word‐search puzzles while blood pressure and heart rate were monitored. They were divided into three groups: In condition 1, reinforcement was contingent on the subjects' performance only; in conditions 2 and 3, reinforcement was contingent on the joint performance of the subject and a poorly performing confederate. In condition 2, subjects could help their partners (active coping); in condition 3, they could not (passive coping). Effort was constant across groups. Cardiovascular responses were significantly greater in the passive coping condition than in the other two, indicating that with effort held constant, enhanced control diminishes reactivity.
P1 and N170 components distinguish human-like and animal-like makeup stimuli

This study used event-related potentials to investigate the sensitivity of P1 and N170 components to human-like and animal-like makeup stimuli, which were derived from pictures of Peking opera characters. As predicted, human-like makeup stimuli elicited larger P1 and N170 amplitudes than did animal-like makeup stimuli. Interestingly, a right hemisphere advantage was observed for human-like but not for animal-like makeup stimuli. Dipole source analyses of 130–200-ms window showed that the bilateral fusiform face area may contribute to the differential sensitivity of the N170 component in response to human-like and animal-like makeup stimuli. The present study suggests that the amplitudes of both the P1 and the N170 are sensitive for the mouth component of face-like stimuli.
Union responses to precarious workers: Italy and Spain compared

Transformations of European labour markets and welfare systems have deepened the problem of precarious work, leading trade unions to develop strategies to represent and organize the workers affected. We focus on Italy and Spain, two of the countries with the most precarious labour markets in Europe, and address the specificity and variety of union responses. We relate these responses to the different institutional contexts, including employment and welfare regulation, and the power resources unions can draw upon.
Changing trends in antimicrobial resistance of Salmonella enterica serovar typhi and salmonella enterica serovar paratyphi A in Chennai.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Chloramphenicol was considered the anti-microbial gold standard for typhoid treatment but, following the increasing worldwide frequency of antibiotic resistance, ciprofloxacin has been the mainstay of therapy since 1980. Recent studies have shown a shifting of susceptibility to conventional drugs like chloramphenicol, ampicillin and cotrimoxazole. The primary objective of the study was to evaluate the in vitro activity of chloramphenicol and other first-line drugs in comparison with cephalosporins and quinolones. MATERIALS AND METHODS Fifty isolates of Salmonella obtained from blood culture were subjected to serotyping at the Central Research Institute, Kasauli. Phage typing and biotyping was performed at the National Phage Typing Centre, New Delhi. Antibiotic sensitivity testing was carried out for 10 drugs by the Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method and minimum inhibitory concentration by broth microdilution for nalidixic acid, chloramphenicol, ciprofloxacin, ceftriaxone, cefixime and ofloxacin. Multi-drug-resistant (MDR) strains were checked for plasmid. RESULTS In the present study, 70 and 30% of the isolates were Salmonella enterica serovar typhi and paratyphi A, respectively. They were highly sensitive to chloramphenicol (86%), ampicillin (84%) and cotrimoxazole (88%). Highest sensitivity was seen for cephalosporins, followed by quinolones. Seventeen/21 (81%) and 100% of the Salmonella enterica serovar typhi strains belonged to E1 phage type and biotype 1, respectively. Antibiogram showed 2% of the strains to be sensitive to all the drugs tested and 12% were MDR and showed the presence of plasmids. CONCLUSION The study indicates reemergence of chloramphenicol-susceptible Salmonella enterica serovar typhi and paratyphi A isolates, a significant decline in MDR strains and high resistance to nalidixic acid. E1 phage type and biotype 1 are found to be most prevalent in Chennai, India.
Modeling human disease phenotype in model organisms: "It's only a model!".

A perspective by definition is a viewpoint. A viewpoint, like any other opinion, could be utterly erroneous. This perspective is meant to be provocative but not to lessen the accomplishments of the scientific community as a whole or belittle any particular field of science or investigators. Scientific discoveries are typically incremental, with various levels of increments. Often the significance of the discoveries remains unrecognized for many years if not decades, as was the case for the discovery of DNA by Friedrich Miescher in 1868.1 The significance of this discovery remained unappreciated for about 75 years, until simple and elegant experiments by Avery and subsequently by Hershey and Chase showed that DNA and not protein, as was commonly thought, was the genetic material.2,3 Our shortcomings in recognizing the significance of specific scientific discoveries should not deter us from Cartesian skepticism, which was pioneered by the Persian philosopher Ghazali and popularized by Rene Descartes' “I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am. ” An essential component of our academic society is the freedom to express viewpoints. Yet, personal opinions must not guide judgment on merits of the scientific discoveries and other peer-review matters. Science must be judged by the scientific standards of the time. It must not be judged by personal views. Scientific referees, like all judges, must be impartial and devoid of personal biases on rendering judgments. Accordingly, this viewpoint is simply that, a viewpoint. It is not indicative of the author's personal biases on any specific scientific discipline. The perspective is aimed to raise doubts, as doubt is an incentive to truth. ### Scene From “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” Sir Lancelot: Look, my liege! King Arthur: Camelot! Sir Galahad: Camelot! Sir Lancelot: Camelot! Patsy: It's only a model! King Arthur: Shh! The scene might be germane to research laboratories that aim to construct a …
Selective Hearing: Physician‐Ownership and Physicians’ Response to New Evidence

Physicians, acting in their role as experts, are often faced with situations where they must trade off personal and patient welfare. Physicians’ incentives vary based on the organizational environment in which they practice. We use the publication of a major clinical trial, which found that a common knee operation does not improve outcomes for patients with osteoarthritis, as an “informational shock” to gauge the impact of physicians’ agency relationships on treatment decisions. Using a 100% sample of procedures in Florida from 1998 to 2010, we find that publication of the trial reduced procedure volume, but the magnitude of the decline was smaller in physician-owned surgery centers. Incentives affected physicians’ reactions to evidence.
Developing a diagnostic model for estimating terrestrial vegetation gross primary productivity using the photosynthetic quantum yield and Earth Observation data

This article develops a new carbon exchange diagnostic model [i.e. Southampton CARbon Flux (SCARF) model] for estimating daily gross primary productivity (GPP). The model exploits the maximum quantum yields of two key photosynthetic pathways (i.e. C3 and C4) to estimate the conversion of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation into GPP. Furthermore, this is the first model to use only the fraction of photosynthetically active radiation absorbed by photosynthetic elements of the canopy (i.e. FAPARps) rather than total canopy, to predict GPP. The GPP predicted by the SCARF model was comparable to in situ GPP measurements (R2 > 0.7) in most of the evaluated biomes. Overall, the SCARF model predicted high GPP in regions dominated by forests and croplands, and low GPP in shrublands and dry‐grasslands across USA and Europe. The spatial distribution of GPP from the SCARF model over Europe and conterminous USA was comparable to those from the MOD17 GPP product except in regions dominated by croplands. The SCARF model GPP predictions were positively correlated (R2 > 0.5) to climatic and biophysical input variables indicating its sensitivity to factors controlling vegetation productivity. The new model has three advantages, first, it prescribes only two quantum yield terms rather than species specific light use efficiency terms; second, it uses only the fraction of PAR absorbed by photosynthetic elements of the canopy (FAPARps) hence capturing the actual PAR used in photosynthesis; and third, it does not need a detailed land cover map that is a major source of uncertainty in most remote sensing based GPP models. The Sentinel satellites planned for launch in 2014 by the European Space Agency have adequate spectral channels to derive FAPARps at relatively high spatial resolution (20 m). This provides a unique opportunity to produce global GPP operationally using the Southampton CARbon Flux (SCARF) model at high spatial resolution.
Neuroblastoma tumors with favorable and unfavorable outcomes: Significant differences in mRNA expression of genes mapped at 1p36.2

The distal part of 1p is frequently deleted in aggressive neuroblastoma, and the region is believed to harbor one or more tumor suppressor genes relevant to tumor development. To analyze differences among neuroblastoma tumors, an expression profile was established for the genes mapped within a previously described shortest region of overlap of deletions at 1p36.2. The gene expression levels were quantified by TaqMan real‐time (RT)‐PCR for 30 transcripts using 55 primary neuroblastoma tumors. Here we report on a significant decrease in gene expression of the genes RERE, PIK3CD, LZIC, PGD, and PEX14 and an increase of SLC2A5 when comparing tumors of favorable biology to Stage 4 neuroblastomas. When comparing 1p‐deleted tumors of all stages to tumors with an intact 1p, a significant difference at gene‐by‐gene level in TNFRSF9, RERE, PIK3CD, CLSTN1, CTNNBIP1, and CASZ1 was detected. A complete loss of expression could not be seen for any single gene analyzed. Several of the genes with diminished expression in unfavorable or 1p‐deleted tumors have functions that could contribute to tumor development. It is also possible that a combination of lowly expressed genes at 1p, rather than one single classical tumor suppressor gene, causes the unfavorable outcome associated with 1p‐deletion in neuroblastoma. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A picture of amputees and the prosthetic situation in Haiti

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to present the situation of Haitian amputees and to outline some of the major barriers in Haiti that prevent people from receiving prosthetic treatment. Method: Interviews were conducted with amputees throughout Haiti using a 42-question questionnaire. Additionally, interviews were conducted with traditional healers, health care workers, and leaders of handicap associations. Each interview was manuscripted and the data were subsequently coded and analysed in the USA. Results: There are three full-time prosthetic shops and two part-time prosthetic shops in Haiti, all of which are severely limited in the scope of services they are able to provide amputees due to insufficient supplies and inadequately trained personnel. Only 25% of the 164 amputees interviewed had ever had a prosthetic limb. Typically prosthetic treatment is inaccessible and unaffordable for amputees, which prevents many from seeking treatment. The most common cause of amputation in Haiti is infection, followed by motor vehicle accidents. Conclusion: There must be additional cooperation between Haitian patients, doctors, traditional healers, prosthetists, and government officials in order to provide more adequate prosthetic care. Prosthetic treatment in Haiti can be successful with cooperation of different entities, proper rehabilitation therapy, adequately trained personnel, and development of culturally appropriate limbs.