Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The development of a rat in vitro model of spinal cord injury demonstrating the additive effects of rho and ROCK inhibitors on neurite outgrowth and myelination

It is currently thought that treatment for spinal cord injury (SCI) will involve a combined pharmacological and biological approach; however, testing their efficacy in animal models of SCI is time‐consuming and requires large animal cohorts. For this reason we have modified our myelinating cultures as an in vitro model of SCI and studied its potential as a prescreen for combined therapeutics. This culture comprises dissociated rat embryonic spinal cord cells plated onto a monolayer of astrocytes, which form myelinated axons interspaced with nodes of Ranvier. After cutting the culture, an initial cell‐free area appears persistently devoid of neurites, accompanied over time by many features of SCI, including demyelination and reduced neurite density adjacent to the lesion, and infiltration of microglia and reactive astrocytes into the lesioned area. We tested a range of concentrations of the Rho inhibitor C3 transferase (C3) and ROCK inhibitor Y27632 that have been shown to promote SCI repair in vivo. C3 promoted neurite extension into the lesion and enhanced neurite density in surrounding areas but failed to induce remyelination. In contrast, while Y27632 did not induce significant neurite outgrowth, myelination adjacent to the lesion was dramatically enhanced. The effects of the inhibitors were concentration‐dependent. Combined treatment with C3 and Y27632 had additive affects with an enhancement of neurite outgrowth and increased myelination adjacent to the lesion, demonstrating neither conflicting nor synergistic effects when coadministered. Overall, these results demonstrate that this culture serves as a useful tool to study combined strategies that promote CNS repair. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Exploring the performance of wheat production in India

Performance of Indian wheat production in terms of growth and instability was examined in the present study. Conventional techniques like compound annual growth rate and instability indices were used to analyse the production performance of the crop. With the implementation of All India Coordinated Wheat Improvement Project (AICWIP) during 1964-65, self-sufficiency status was achieved through the introduction of high yielding semi dwarf varieties so called green revolution technologies. Significant positive growth and low instability were noticed in area, production and productivity of wheat. The study indicates that yield growth surpassed the acreage growth and is attributed to the coordinated research and increase in area under irrigation. However, growth in acreage can be attributed to the rising MSP over years. Instability analysis indicated that wheat production is stable in the country. However, more efforts are needed to ensure food and nutritional security put forth by the burgeoning population.
Relationship Marketing results: proposition of a cognitive mapping model

Objetivo – This research sought to develop a cognitive model that expresses how marketing professionals understand the relationship between the constructs that define relationship marketing (RM). It also tried to understand, using the obtained model, how objectives in this field are achieved. Metodo – Through cognitive mapping, we traced 35 individual mental maps, highlighting how each respondent understands the interactions between RM elements. Based on the views of these individuals, we established an aggregate mental map. Fundamentacao teorica - The topic is based on a literature review that explores the RM concept and its main elements. Based on this review, we listed eleven main constructs. Resultados – We established an aggregate mental map that represents the RM structural model. Model analysis identified that CLV is understood as the final result of RM. We also observed that the impact of most of the RM elements on CLV is brokered by loyalty. Personalization and quality, on the other hand, proved to be process input elements, and are the ones that most strongly impact others. Finally, we highlight that elements that punish customers are much less effective than elements that benefit them. Contribuicoes – The model was able to insert core elements of RM, but absent from most formal models: CLV and customization. The analysis allowed us to understand the interactions between the RM elements and how the end result of RM (CLV) is formed. This understanding improves knowledge on the subject and helps guide, assess and correct actions.
Structural and Functional Analysis of Transmembrane Segment IV of the Salt Tolerance Protein Sod2*

Background: Sod2 is the salt tolerance protein of Schizosaccharomyces pombe. Results: Alanine scanning mutagenesis and structural analysis demonstrated that amino acids 144–147 are in an extended region of transmembrane segment IV and are critical for function. Conclusion: Mutations in transmembrane segment IV affect Sod2 cation transport. Significance: TM IV of Sod2 has conserved structures with other Na+/H+ exchangers important in salt tolerance. Sod2 is the plasma membrane Na+/H+ exchanger of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe. It provides salt tolerance by removing excess intracellular sodium (or lithium) in exchange for protons. We examined the role of amino acid residues of transmembrane segment IV (TM IV) (126FPQINFLGSLLIAGCITSTDPVLSALI152) in activity by using alanine scanning mutagenesis and examining salt tolerance in sod2-deficient S. pombe. Two amino acids were critical for function. Mutations T144A and V147A resulted in defective proteins that did not confer salt tolerance when reintroduced into S. pombe. Sod2 protein with other alanine mutations in TM IV had little or no effect. T144D and T144K mutant proteins were inactive; however, a T144S protein was functional and provided lithium, but not sodium, tolerance and transport. Analysis of sensitivity to trypsin indicated that the mutations caused a conformational change in the Sod2 protein. We expressed and purified TM IV (amino acids 125–154). NMR analysis yielded a model with two helical regions (amino acids 128–142 and 147–154) separated by an unwound region (amino acids 143–146). Molecular modeling of the entire Sod2 protein suggested that TM IV has a structure similar to that deduced by NMR analysis and an overall structure similar to that of Escherichia coli NhaA. TM IV of Sod2 has similarities to TM V of the Zygosaccharomyces rouxii Na+/H+ exchanger and TM VI of isoform 1 of mammalian Na+/H+ exchanger. TM IV of Sod2 is critical to transport and may be involved in cation binding or conformational changes of the protein.
Functional diversity and developmental changes in rat neuronal kainate receptors

1 Whole‐cell currents evoked by kainate and the GluR5‐selective agonist (RS)‐2‐amino‐3‐(3‐hydroxy‐5‐tertbutylisoxazol‐4‐yl)propanoic acid (ATPA) were used to compare the physiological properties of kainate receptors expressed by neurons from rat hippocampus, spinal cord and dorsal root ganglia. 2 In contrast to kainate, which evoked desensitizing currents with similar decay rates and steady‐state components in all three cell types, responses to ATPA were distinctly different in the three cell populations. Currents evoked by ATPA displayed a significant steady‐state component in hippocampal neurons, but decayed rapidly to baseline in dorsal root ganglion (DRG) cells. ATPA failed to evoke current in many of the spinal neurons. 3 ATPA caused steady‐state desensitization in DRG cells with an IC50 of 41 nm. Recovery from desensitization of DRG cell receptors by ATPA was significantly slower than for any previously described agonist. In contrast, hippocampal kainate receptors recovered from desensitization by ATPA within a few seconds. 4 Half‐maximal activation of kainate receptors in hippocampal neurons required 938 nm ATPA. In DRG cells treated with concanavalin A the EC50 for ATPA was 341 nm. ATPA evoked current in embryonic hippocampal neurons but with lower amplitude relative to kainate than in cultured postnatal neurons. 5 Collectively, these results highlight functional differences between neuronal kainate receptors that may reflect their distinct subunit composition and their diverse roles in synaptic transmission.
Managing Variation in Demand: Lessons from the UK National Health Service

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Managers within the U.S. healthcare system are becoming more aware of the impact of variation in demand on healthcare processes. The UK National Health Service provides a prime example of a system that has experienced the consequences when the issue is not dealt with satisfactorily, having suffered from excessive queues for a prolonged period. These delays are mostly caused by a lack of attention to variation and inappropriate responses to the queues, rather than a capacity shortage. A number of collaborative programs recently have come to grips with many of the causes of the queues in both elective care and emergency care. Although there are still areas that need large‐scale improvement, good progress has been made, especially within emergency care. The authors of this article have acted as technical advisors to a number of these improvement programs and have been able to document many of the practices that have helped to reduce or eliminate unnecessary queues and delays across the 200 sites in England that have 24‐hour emergency care facilities. Local program managers at these sites continuously reported progress for a period of 18 months. A number of important lessons for both the design and control of healthcare processes have emerged from the collaborative work. These lessons focus on understanding and measurement of demand, capacity planning, reduction of introduced variation, segmentation and streaming of work, process design, capacity yield management, and measurement of variation.
A Corpus-based Study on Figurative Language through the Chinese Five Elements and Body Part Terms

Using a corpus-based approach, this paper analyzes figurative language through observing the Chinese five elements ( 五行 ) of 金 'metal,' 木 'wood,' 水 'water,' 火 'fire' and 土 'earth. ' This work found that there are at least two types of figurative language in Mandarin Chinese - one of which occurs at the morphosyntactic level and the other occurs during the mappings between two domains (between the body part terms and these five elements). When the figurative uses of the co-occurring five elements with body part terms were tested in a psycholinguistic experiment composed of two groups of subjects (non-native and native speakers of Mandarin), a majority of the non-native speakers were unable to comprehend these figurative uses. This study attempts to prove that a linguistically-driven understanding of the five elements will be of great help to teaching or learning figurative language in a Mandarin L2 context.
Employer Brand of Choice: an employee perspective

This study seeks to contribute in the field of the ideal employer, by determining the Employer Brand of Choice and its core components. In doing so, a pilot study was initially conducted to delineate these components. Evidence from 896 working adults that participated in a field study support the multi-dimensionality of the construct Employer Brand of choice, highlighting the role of “Remuneration”, “Relationships”, “Opportunities for Self Development”, “Recognition”, and “Corporate Image”. These findings not only offer a concrete and holistic theoretical base of Employer Brand of Choice, but they can also serve as a managerial guide towards enhancing companies’ ability to attract, retain and motivate talented individuals.
Public attitudes to emergency medical services in Singapore: EMS day 2002.

INTRODUCTION In the year 2002, the Society for Emergency Medicine in Singapore Chapter of Paramedics organised the first emergency medical services (EMS) day, to educate the public about basic emergency response skills and to increase public awareness of the local EMS System. METHODS This was an observational, cross-sectional study. A survey was conducted to find out about the knowledge and attitudes of the public and paramedic volunteer instructors towards the local EMS System. RESULTS Two hundred and six (81.4 percent) out of 253 members of the public and 70 paramedics (100 percent) responded. For the public, the majority were females (86 percent), mean age (standard deviation [sd]) was 15.9 (7.9) years, range 11.0 to 67.0 years. For the paramedics, mean (sd) age was 26.6 (3.8) years. 61.9 percent were females. The public showed good knowledge of the emergency ambulance number and the indications for calling an ambulance. Public expectations of ambulance response times were significantly shorter than paramedics. They were also less comfortable with ambulance crews performing advanced life support interventions compared with the paramedics. CONCLUSION Continuing efforts should be made to increase public awareness of the EMS system as well as to manage public expectations regarding response times and the roles of paramedics. EMS day represents one such opportunity.
Exploring teachers’ career self-management. Considering the roles of organizational career management, occupational self-efficacy, and learning goal orientation.

ABSTRACT The current study examines how organizational career management – i.e. activities undertaken by schools in order to plan and manage teachers’ careers – relates to teachers’ career self-management – i.e. teachers steering their careers by means of searching for opportunities, networking, or seeking supervisory support. Moreover, it examines the mediating roles of occupational self-efficacy and learning goal orientation in this relationship. Mediation analysis in SPSS, using the PROCESS macro of survey data from 220 Dutch secondary school teachers, showed that positive relationships between organizational career management and career self-management were mediated by occupational self-efficacy and learning goal orientation.
Characteristics of Entisol Treated With Pulp Residue and Fertilizer in Eucalyptus Plantation

The purpose of this study was to identify, through multivariate analyzes, the physical and chemical characteristics of the soil that best explain the initial development of eucalyptus treated with limestone and lime sludge. This study was conducted in 2014 in the municipality of Três Lagoas (MS). Three treatments were experimented corresponding to the applications of (i) limestone, (ii) lime sludge, and (iii) control or application of neither limestone nor lime sludge. The principal components analysis identified that Group 1 assembling gravimetric moisture, hydrogen potential, calcium and aluminum and, Group 2 composed of contents of sand, clay, phosphorus and organic matter explained 54.96% of the total variability that showed higher discriminatory power of eucalyptus height and diameter variation at breast height. The treatment with limestone showed a contrast between high pH and high Ca content, but low levels of aluminum.
Weather Variability Affects Abundance of Larval Culex (Diptera: Culicidae) in Storm Water Catch Basins in Suburban Chicago

ABSTRACT Culex pipiens L. (Diptera: Culicidae) and Culex restuans Theobald are the primary enzootic and bridge vectors of West Nile virus in the eastern United States north of 36° latitude. Recent studies of the natural history of these species have implicated catch basins and underground storm drain systems as important larval development sites in urban and suburban locales. Although the presence of larvae in these habitats is well-documented, the influence of abiotic factors on the ecology of Culex larvae developing in them remains poorly understood. Therefore, we examined the effects of multiple abiotic factors and their interactions on abundance of Culex larvae in catch basins in the Chicago, IL, metropolitan area. Low precipitation and high mean daily temperature were associated with high larval abundance, whereas there was no correlation between catch basin depth or water depth and larval abundance. Rainfall was an especially strong predictor of presence or absence of larvae in the summer of 2010, a season with an unusually high precipitation. Regression tree methods were used to build a schematic decision tree model of the interactions among these factors. This practical, visual representation of key predictors of high larval production may be used by local mosquito abatement districts to target limited resources to treat catch basins when they are particularly likely to produce West Nile virus vectors.
The Dynamics of International Market Withdrawal

This study focuses on the decision-making process of international market withdrawal within the scope of international market portfolio management. A comparative study of eight withdrawal cases in four multinational firms results in a six-phased decision-making model that is driven by threat-rigidity behavior, failure-induced learning and political dynamics. Two types of international market withdrawal are identified. On the one hand, a tactical withdrawal is the outcome of threat-rigidity and exploitative learning at the level of executive management. A strategic withdrawal, on the other hand, is characterized by a process of failure-induced exploratory learning initiated by middle level challengers. In contrast to a tactical withdrawal, which remains an isolated decision and does not interfere with other international ventures of the business unit, a strategic withdrawal turns out to be a germ of strategic (re)orientation of the business unitâ€™s entire international market portfolio. Whether a market withdrawal turns out to be tactical or strategic ultimately depends on the autonomy, the amount and the relevance of challengersâ€™ market and business knowledge.
Myrosin Cell Development Is Regulated by Endocytosis Machinery and PIN1 Polarity in Leaf Primordia of Arabidopsis thaliana[W]

Endocytosis-dependent PIN1 localization in leaf primordia determines myrosin cell development specifically along leaf veins, protecting the plant transport system. Myrosin cells, which accumulate myrosinase to produce toxic compounds when they are ruptured by herbivores, form specifically along leaf veins in Arabidopsis thaliana. However, the mechanism underlying this pattern formation is unknown. Here, we show that myrosin cell development requires the endocytosis-mediated polar localization of the auxin-efflux carrier PIN1 in leaf primordia. Defects in the endocytic/vacuolar SNAREs (syp22 and syp22 vti11) enhanced myrosin cell development. The syp22 phenotype was rescued by expressing SYP22 under the control of the PIN1 promoter. Additionally, myrosin cell development was enhanced either by lacking the activator of endocytic/vacuolar RAB5 GTPase (VPS9A) or by PIN1 promoter-driven expression of a dominant-negative form of RAB5 GTPase (ARA7). By contrast, myrosin cell development was not affected by deficiencies of vacuolar trafficking factors, including the vacuolar sorting receptor VSR1 and the retromer components VPS29 and VPS35, suggesting that endocytic pathway rather than vacuolar trafficking pathway is important for myrosin cell development. The phosphomimic PIN1 variant (PIN1-Asp), which is unable to be polarized, caused myrosin cells to form not only along leaf vein but also in the intervein leaf area. We propose that Brassicales plants might arrange myrosin cells near vascular cells in order to protect the flux of nutrients and water via polar PIN1 localization.
Simple and efficient production of mice derived from embryonic stem cells aggregated with tetraploid embryos

Six newly derived hybrid mouse embryonic stem (ES) cell lines and two inbred ES cell lines were tested for their ability to produce completely ES cell‐derived mice by aggregation of ES cells with tetraploid embryos. Forty‐five ES cell‐tetraploid pups were generated from six hybrid ES cell lines and no pups from two inbred ES cell lines. These pups were found to have increased embryonic and placental weights than control mice. Twenty‐two pups survived to adulthood and produced normal offsprings, and the other 23 pups died of several reasons including respiratory distress, abdomen ulcer‐like symptoms, and foster failure. The 22 adult ES cell‐tetraploid mice were completely ES cell‐derived as judged by coat color and germline transmission, only two of them was found to have tetraploid component in liver, blood, and lung asanalyzed by microsatellite loci. Our data suggested that genetic heterozygosity is a crucial factor for postnatal survival of ES cell‐tetraploid mice, and tetraploid embryo aggregation using hybrid ES cells is a simple and efficient procedure for immediate generation of targeted mouse mutants from genetically modified ES cell clones, in contrast to the standard protocol, which involves the production of chimeras and several breeding steps. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 71: 154–158, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Kinetics and proposed mechanism of the reaction of an immunoinhibition, particle-enhanced immunoassay.

We report kinetic studies on the reaction of a latex agglutination immunoassay used to quantify phenytoin in serum. In this assay, polystyrene particles with a covalently attached analog of phenytoin react with an antiphenytoin monoclonal antibody to form light-scattering aggregates, with the rate of this reaction being decreased by addition of phenytoin from sample. In the absence of free (sample) phenytoin, this reaction did not exhibit a maximum rate of agglutination in the presence of excess antibody, i.e., an equivalence point. Furthermore, agglutination was inhibitable by free phenytoin even when the latter was added after agglutination of particles with antibody had begun. Most significantly, the immunoagglutination proceeded in an identical fashion with monovalent F(ab) fragment. These data are consistent with low-affinity immunospecific particle-antibody complexation, which then induces colloidal aggregation, without requiring immunospecific bridging by antibody molecules. The described mechanism is not generalizable to all latex agglutination immunoassays, although disturbance of colloidal stability may be a component in most assays.
Historically hottest summers projected to be the norm for more than half of the world’s population within 20 years

We project that within the next two decades, half of the world’s population will regularly (every second summer on average) experience regional summer mean temperatures that exceed those of the historically hottest summer, even under the moderate RCP4.5 emissions pathway. This frequency threshold for hot temperatures over land, which have adverse effects on human health, society and economy, might be broached in little more than a decade under the RCP8.5 emissions pathway. These hot summer frequency projections are based on adjusted RCP4.5 and 8.5 temperature projections, where the adjustments are performed with scaling factors determined by regularized optimal fingerprinting analyzes that compare historical model simulations with observations over the period 1950–2012. A temperature reconstruction technique is then used to simulate a multitude of possible past and future temperature evolutions, from which the probability of a hot summer is determined for each region, with a hot summer being defined as the historically warmest summer on record in that region. Probabilities with and without external forcing show that hot summers are now about ten times more likely (fraction of attributable risk 0.9) in many regions of the world than they would have been in the absence of past greenhouse gas increases. The adjusted future projections suggest that the Mediterranean, Sahara, large parts of Asia and the Western US and Canada will be among the first regions for which hot summers will become the norm (i.e. occur on average every other year), and that this will occur within the next 1–2 decades.