Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Legislative Bargaining and Decentralization * Evidence for 15 OECD Parliamentary Democracies

In this paper we investigate how particular configurations of the legislative affect the likelihood of a decentralization reform in Parliamentary democracies. We contend that the distribution of political power between central and regional authorities is an endogenous institution subject to political bargaining among the disciplined political parties that seat in the legislative. For that purpose we construct an index of the saliency of the decentralization dimension that reflects the distribution of parties’ preferences for decentralization weighted by legislative bargaining power. Our first hypothesis is that, holding constant structural determinants like inter‐regional inequality or ethno‐linguistic diversity greatly emphasized by previous research, the greater the legislative bargaining power of parties with decentralization demands the more likely decentralization reforms will occur. We also postulate a second hypothesis according to which the degree of polarization in Parliament in the traditional left‐right dimension conditions the ability of parties pushing for decentralization in Parliament to distort the distribution of political authority. We test our hypotheses for 15 OECD parliamentary democracies by using CMP data and the index of regional political power recently gathered by Hooghe et al (2008).
Racial microaggression experiences and coping strategies of Black women in corporate leadership.

The purpose of this study was to examine the experiences of racial microaggressions in the workplace and coping strategies of Black women managers in corporate American positions. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 Black women who had worked as senior-level corporate professionals, acknowledged that subtle racism exists in contemporary U.S. society, and had personal experiences of racism in the workplace. A phenomenological methodology was used to uncover the lived experiences of these women. Results yielded racial microaggression themes including environmental manifestations, stereotypes about Black women, assumed universality of the Black experience, invisibility and exclusion. Coping strategies included religion and spirituality, armoring, shifting, support networks, sponsorship and mentorship, and self-care. Directions for future research, clinical and theoretical implications of experiences of racial microaggressions, and coping strategies of professional Black women in corporate America are discussed.
Pseudocholinesterase Activity and Phenotypes in Mentally Ill Patients

Summary Pseudocholinesterase activities and phenotypes have been determined in 103 affectively ill patients, 168 schizophrenics and 73 Huntington's disease sufferers and compared with those of a sample of healthy controls. The distributions of phenotypes in the patient samples did not differ significantly from those of the controls. When corrections were made for sex, age and E1 phenotypes, the Huntington's disease patients showed a reduced level of cholinesterase activity. Normal levels were found in affective disorders and schizophrenia.
Treatment of Symptomatic Gastroesophageal Reflux Using the Angelchik™ Prosthesis

During the past 20 months, 28 patients with symptomatic gastroesophageal reflux were treated with the Angelchik™ antireflux prosthesis. The patients ranged in age from 12 to 75 years, with symptoms present from one to 24 years. Vigorous medical management had failed with all patients prior to surgery. Before operation, 28 of 28 patients had upper GI x-rays, 27 of 28 Bernstein esophagogastroscopy, 26 of 27 esophageal biopsy, eight of 28 Bernstein testing, and 24 of 28 lower esophageal sphincter pressure and motility. Eight patients had strictures requiring preoperative or postoperative dilatation. In four of 28 patients, a Nissen procedure had been previously done. In addition, two patients had metaplastic epithelium, and a single patient a previous Heller myotomy. Twenty-five of the 28 patients arc completely asymptomatic eight to 20 months after Angelchik insertion. Fifteen patients had surgery more than one year previously. There are no recurrent hiatal hernias. Endoscopy and biopsy reveal resolution or marked improvement in the esophagitis. Seven patients complained of transient dysphagia lasting up to three months. One patient has persistent “gas bloat” syndrome. There were no technical or perioperative complications. Trouble with the prosthesis occurred in two patients; in one, the prosthesis disrupted and fell into the pelvis, and in the other the prosthesis migrated into the mediastinum. LES pressures preoperatively were 6.17 ± 0.9 and 16.95 ± 1.76 mmHg for the 19 patients studied after operation. The limited sample of patients who were studied with preoperative and postoperative acid-reflux tests have all shown improvement in their score. The Angelchik prosthesis in this series has been safe, simple, and reproducible, and can eliminate the symptoms and signs of gastroesophageal reflux.
Zika virus: Global health challenge, threat and current situation

ZIKV has emerged as grave global health issue in the past few years. ZIKV was firstly isolated in 1947 from a rhesus sentinel monkey in the Zika forest in Uganda. It is usually transmitted by the bite of infected mosquitoes and infects skin fibroblasts, skin keratinocytes, etc. ZIKV until now was under reported because of its clinical similarity with the dengue and chikungunya. It is usually spread through the course of the sylvatic cycle. In this cycle, the virus or pathogen lifespan is spent between the wild animal and vectors. The intrinsic incubation period is not yet fully known but it is observed that the very first symptoms of ZIKV infection can appear or develop within 3–12 days of time period and usually subside within 7 days of time. There is a strong relationship between prenatal Zika virus infection and microcephaly; other serious brain anomalies to the infant or newborn are Guillain–Barré syndrome. To date no vaccines are available for ZIKV prevention hence only symptomatic treatment is recommended in infected patients. Usually ZIKV is detected by serologic (IgM ELISA), plaque reduction neutralization test (PRNT) along with in‐house” molecular techniques (RT‐PCR). ZIKV infection being imminent global health issue warrants strong protective measures to prevent it from becoming an epidemic. Early detection and prevention is the key to tackle this grave potential health hazard. J. Med. Virol. 89:943–951, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Perfusion CT of the brain: diagnostic approach for early detection of ischemic stroke.

PURPOSE To determine the value of perfusion computed tomography (CT) in a clinical study of patients with stroke and compare the results with single photon emission CT (SPECT) findings. MATERIALS AND METHODS Perfusion CT was performed within 6 hours of symptom onset in 32 patients with possible stroke. Cerebral blood volume (CBV), cerebral blood flow (CBF), and time to peak contrast material enhancement were calculated on the basis of the CT results. Cerebral SPECT was also performed in a subgroup of 18 patients. Perfusion CT and SPECT findings were compared in a lesion-by-lesion analysis. Perfusion CT results were compared with follow-up CT and magnetic resonance imaging findings. RESULTS Areas of reduced CBF were detected with the aid of perfusion CT in 25 of 28 patients with a proved infarct (sensitivity, 89%). The results of the CBF maps corresponded well to SPECT findings in 13 (81%) of 16 patients, but ischemia was located outside the scanning level in the other three patients and was therefore missed. Perfusion CT revealed various changes in CBF, CBV, and time to peak enhancement in ischemic territories. CONCLUSION Perfusion CT not only allows early detection of cerebral ischemia but also yields valuable information about the extent of perfusion disturbances.
Rollover Risk and Market Freezes

The crisis of 2007-09 has been characterized by a sudden freeze in the market for short-term, secured borrowing. We present a model that can explain a sudden collapse in the amount that can be borrowed against finitely-lived assets with little credit risk. The borrowing in this model takes the form of a repurchase agreement ("repo") or asset-backed commercial paper that has to be rolled over several times before the underlying assets mature and their true value is revealed. In the event of default, the creditors can seize the collateral. We assume that there is a small cost of liquidating the assets. The debt capacity of the assets (the maximum amount that can be borrowed using the assets as collateral) depends on the information state of the economy. At each date, in general there is either "good news" (the information state improves), "bad news" (the information state gets worse), or "no news" (the information state remains the same). When rollover risk is high, because debt must be rolled over frequently, we show that the debt capacity is lower than the fundamental value of the asset and in extreme cases may be close to zero. This is true even if the fundamental value of the assets is high in all states. Thus, a small change in information, as measured by a change in the fundamental value, can lead to a "market freeze. " Interpreted differently, the model explains why discounts in overnight repo borrowing, the so-called "haircuts," rose dramatically during the crisis for asset-backed securities with low credit risk once bad news about the underlying cash flows arrived.
Deformation by examples: a density flow approach

In this article, a shape transformation technique is introduced for deforming objects based on a given deformation example. The example consists of two reference shapes representing two different states of an object. The reference shapes are assumed to morph from one state to the other. The evolution between the two reference shapes determines the shape transformation function. Any given objects can then be deformed by the same transformation. A continuous 4D Radial Basis Function is used to construct a density flow field (an extension of the optical flow in computer vision) representing the shape transformation of the example in 3‐space. Objects embedded in the density flow field are deformed by moving vertices of the objects along the density flow vectors. Additional parameters are introduced to control the process of the deformation. This provides explicit control on the shape of the object obtained in the deformation process. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Renal Dysfunction Associated with Ciprofloxacin

We cared for a 64‐year‐old woman who experienced increased serum creatinine levels after 8 days of ciprofloxacin therapy. She had previously received a course of several antibiotics, including gentamicin. Renal function returned to normal 18 days after the ciprofloxacin was discontinued. This is the eighth reported case of nephrotoxicity associated with this agent. The mechanism and predisposing factors have not been defined.
Osteoclast-like cells in an in vitro model of bone destruction by rheumatoid synovium.

OBJECTIVE Osteoclasts may be involved in the process of rheumatoid bone destruction. To test this hypothesis, we developed an in vitro model of bone destruction by osteoclast-like cells derived from cultured rheumatoid synovial tissue without using any inducers. METHODS Synovial tissues were obtained from rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis patients and tissue pieces of about 2 mm(3) that contained synovial lining were cultured. Multinucleated cells derived from cultured synovial tissues were studied cytochemically and morphologically for osteoclast-specific markers. RESULTS Fibroblast-like and macrophage-like cells from the tissue pieces proliferated in the coexistence of lymphocytes. After 14 days of culture, multinucleated cells with tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase activity appeared. These cells expressed vacuolar H(+)-ATPase, the vitronectin receptor and cathepsin K. Although binding of (125)I-labelled salmon calcitonin was very low, the cells contained ringed structures of F-actin and showed strong bone-resorbing activity on ivory slices. Proliferation of macrophage-like cells and formation of multinucleated cells continued during 6 months of culture in the presence of fibroblast-like cells. The bone-resorbing activity of multinucleated cells derived from rheumatoid synovial tissue was much higher than that of cells from osteoarthritis synovial tissue, and was related to the disease activity of rheumatoid arthritis. CONCLUSION Our culture system reproduced in vitro the process of bone destruction by rheumatoid synovium, including the proliferation and fusion of precursor cells, polarization, activation and bone tissue resorption. This system may provide a tool for understanding the mechanisms of bone destruction in rheumatoid arthritis and for the development of new therapies to prevent bone destruction.
Induction of S-phase entry by E2F transcription factors depends on their nuclear localization

The E2F transcription factors are essential for regulating the correct timing of activation of several genes whose products are implicated in cell proliferation and DNA replication. The E2Fs are targets for negative regulation by the retinoblastoma protein family, which includes pRB, p107, and p130, and they are in a pathway that is frequently found altered in human cancers. There are five members of the E2F family, and they can be divided into two functional subgroups. Whereas, upon overexpression, E2F-1, -2, and -3 induce S phase in quiescent fibroblasts and override G1 arrests mediated by the p16INK4A tumor suppressor protein or neutralizing antibodies to cyclin D1, E2F-4 and -5 do not. Using E2F-1 and E2F-4 as representatives of the two subgroups, we showed here, by constructing a set of chimeric proteins, that the amino terminus of E2F-1 is sufficient to confer S-phase-inducing potential as well as the ability to efficiently transactivate an E2F-responsive promoter to E2F-4. We found that the E2F-1 amino terminus directs chimeric proteins to the nucleus. Surprisingly, a short nuclear localization signal derived from simian virus 40 large T antigen could perfectly substitute for the presence of the E2F-1 amino terminus in these assays. Thus, nuclearly localized E2F-4, when overexpressed, displayed biological activities similar to those of E2F-1. Furthermore, we showed that nuclear localization of endogenous E2F-4 is cell cycle regulated, with E2F-4 being nuclear in the G0 and early G1 phases and mainly cytoplasmic after the pRB family members have become phosphorylated. We propose a novel mechanism for the regulation of E2F-dependent transcription in which E2F-4 regulates transcription only from G0 until mid- to late G1 phase whereas E2F-1 is active in late G1 and S phases, until it is inactivated by cyclin A-dependent kinase in late S phase.
Congenital dislocation of the hip. The development of a regional service.

1. A scheme was started in 1960 with the object of ensuring that the hips of all babies born in the North-Eastern Region of Scotland were examined shortly after birth. 2. 1,671 children with suspected abnormalities have been seen during the ensuing ten years, and the findings are discussed. 3. Clinical examination is essential. Radiographic examination of the newborn is not necessary and may be misleading, but it does prove that some hips with limited abduction but no instability are in fact dislocated. 4. Treatment is not started when the diagnosis is made shortly after birth. The children are re-examined at three weeks, when spontaneous recovery has occurred in about half. The others, whether they show instability or only limitation of abduction of the hips, are treated in a simple splint until they are three months old. Any residual stiffness is an indication for further splintage. 5. The first radiographs are taken when the children are three months old, and no child is discharged until the radiographs show that the upper femoral epiphyses have appeared and are in normal position. 6. We appreciate that we are treating some children who would have recovered spontaneously, but we do not know how to distinguish them. There is no evidence that splintage harms a hip. 7. Eighty-six children (5 per cent of the total) needed operation usually because the diagnosis was missed at birth. 8. Children with familial joint laxity or genu recurvatum should be examined especially carefully for associated hip abnormality. 9. The incidence of abnormality of the hips at birth is about one in fifty live births.
Paraphilia‐Related Disorders—Common, Neglected, and Misunderstood

Although Freud’s‘ groundbreaking psychoanalytic formulations regarding normal and pathological infantile and childhood sexuality were central to his etiologic hypotheses regarding neurosis, we still lack a rigorous, data-based science of human sexual behaviors. Determining the prevalence, form, and frequency of sexual behaviors that are culturally proscribed is therefore a formidable undertaking. Paraphilias are a group of sexual impulse disorders currently characterized by four dimensional components: (1) sexual arousal to socially deviant or unconventional objects or situations, (2) a characteristic “intensity” to the arousal pattern, (3) an associated loss of impulse control or marked distress connected with the unconventional arousal and its intensity, and (4) a minimum duration of 6 months. In addition, paraphilias may interfere with human pairbonding (i.e., “the capacity for reciprocal affectionate sexual behavior”). ’ The commonly diagnosed paraphilias include exhibitionism, fetishism, frotteurism, pedophilia (including incest), sexual masochism, sexual sadism, transvestic fetishism, and voyeurism. The distinction between “normal” and “deviant” sexual behavior, largely determined by social, religious, and historical context and tradition, is one of the most salient defining characteristics of paraphilias. In my opinion, the dimension of social deviance leads to an unnecessarily exclusive taxonomic boundary for paraphilic disorders. Historically, this boundary has been crossed several times. For example, sexual behaviors once considered to be paraphilias (e.g., homosexuality) have been reclassified as nonpathological variants of human sexual expression. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in western Europe and the United States, masturbation, currently viewed as an
A large kindred with X‐linked neutropenia with an I294T mutation of the Wiskott‐Aldrich syndrome gene

X‐linked neutropenia (XLN, OMIM #300299) is a rare form of severe congenital neutropenia. It was originally described in a three‐generation family with five affected members that had an L270P mutation in the GTP‐ase binding domain (GBD) of the Wiskott‐Aldrich syndrome protein (WASP) [ Devriendt et al (2001) Nature Genetics, Vol. 27, 313–317 ]. Here, we report and describe a large three‐generation family with XLN, with 10 affected males and eight female carriers. A c.882T>C mutation was identified in the WAS gene, resulting in an I294T mutation. The infectious course is variable and mild in view of the profound neutropenia. In addition to the original description, low‐normal IgA levels, low to low‐normal platelet counts and reduced natural killer (NK)‐cell counts also appear as consistent XLN features. However, inverted CD4/CD8 ratios were not found in this family, nor were cases identified with myelodysplastic syndrome or acute myeloid leukaemia. Female carriers exhibited a variable attenuated phenotype. Like L270P WASP, I294T WASP is constitutively active towards actin polymerization. In conclusion, this largest XLN kindred identified to date provides new independent genetic evidence that mutations disrupting the auto‐inhibitory GBD of WASP are the cause of XLN. Reduced NK cells, low to low normal platelet counts and low to low‐normal IgA levels are also features of XLN.
Which patients to include in the analysis?

ntention-to-treat (ITT) analysis has become the accepted approach to analyzing data in clinical trials. Nevertheless, considerable uncertainty exists among researchers and users of the medical literature about what an ITT analysis actually means. This editorial will describe the ITT principle and reflect on situations in which adherence to the principle does not preclude postrandomization exclusions, a topic of considerable debate in studies of blood transfusion as evidenced by the recent letters from Vamvakas and Blumberg. Clinical trials that randomize patients to an experimental intervention or a control group do so to achieve prognostic balance—in the absence of intervention effects, patients in both groups will experience a similar rate of adverse events. Figure 1 shows a randomized trial in which 200 patients have been allocated to a surgical intervention or a medical control group. Forty percent of the medical patients suffer an adverse outcome compared to 24 percent in the surgical group (a 40% reduction in relative risk). Assuming no other methodologic problems, and ignoring the play of chance, this estimate reflects the true benefit of the intervention. Many things may happen, however, between randomization and outcome assessment. Patients might withdraw from the study, deteriorate and cross over to the other arm, fail to adhere to the allocated treatment, or suffer an event before receiving the intervention. Such circumstances demand considered decisions about how to treat events in the analysis.
Hyperosmotic Stress and Elevated pCO2 Alter Monoclonal Antibody Charge Distribution and Monosaccharide Content

Medium osmolality increases with pCO2 at constant pH. Elevated pCO2 and osmolality inhibit hybridoma growth to similar extents in both serum‐containing and serum‐free media. The combination of osmolality and elevated pCO2 synergizes to negatively impact cell growth. IgG2a glycosylation by hybridoma cells was evaluated under elevated pCO2 (to 250 mmHg pCO2) and/or osmolality (to 476 mOsm/kg). IgG2a site occupancy did not change significantly under any of the conditions studied, which is consistent with the robust glycosylation of other antibodies produced under various environmental stresses. However, changes were observed in the IgG2a charge distribution. Changes in the isoelectric point (pI) were greater under hyperosmotic stress, increasing by 0.32 and 0.41 pH units at 435 mOsm/kg in serum‐containing and serum‐free medium, respectively. Hyperosmotic stress also resulted in a concomitant increase in the heterogeneity of the charge distribution. The mean pI in serum‐containing medium decreased by 0.16 pH units at 250 mmHg pCO2 when osmolality was controlled at 320 mOsm/kg but increased by 0.20 pH units when the osmolality increased with pCO2 (195 mmHg pCO2–435 mOsm/kg). In serum‐free medium, elevated pCO2 did not alter pI, regardless of medium osmolality. In contrast to elevated osmolality at control pCO2, elevated pCO2 did not significantly alter the IgG2a charge heterogeneity under any of the conditions studied. The IgG2a was not sialylated, so sialylation changes were not responsible for changes in the charge distribution. IgG2a galactose content decreased with elevated osmolality, as a result of either elevated NaHCO3 or NaCl. However, when osmolality was controlled at elevated pCO2, the galactose content tended to increase. The mannose content decreased with increasing stress, while the fucose content remained relatively unchanged. It is likely that the observed increases in the pI of murine IgG2a were due to increased organellar pH, which is reflected by increased specific β‐galactosidase activity in the supernatant.