Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Arterial Stiffness and Endothelial Function in Patients With &bgr;-Thalassemia Major

Background—Increased iron store has been linked to risk of cardiovascular disease. Structural alterations of arteries in &bgr;-thalassemia major patients and in vitro functional disturbance of vascular endothelial cells by thalassemic serum have been described. We sought to determine whether arterial stiffness and endothelial function are altered in vivo. Methods and Results—Thirty thalassemia patients (16 male) aged 22.2±7.4 years were recruited. Left ventricular (LV) mass and function were assessed echocardiographically. Carotid and brachioradial artery stiffness was assessed by stiffness index and pulse-wave velocity (PWV), respectively. Brachial artery endothelial function was assessed by vascular response to reactive hyperemia (flow-mediated dilation [FMD]) and sublingual glyceryl trinitrate. These indexes were compared with those of 30 age- and sex-matched controls. None of the patients had LV systolic or diastolic dysfunction. When compared with controls, patients had greater absolute (113.8±38.0 versus 109.0± 32.6 g, P =0.04) and indexed (82.4±17.5 versus 66.7±12.7 g/m2, P <0.001) LV mass, carotid artery stiffness index (8.1±3.5 versus 5.5±1.6, P <0.001), and brachioradial PWV (8.9±2.4 versus 7.9±1.7 m/s, P = 0.03). Their FMD was impaired (3.5±3.3% versus 8.8±3.9%, P <0.001), whereas glyceryl trinitrate– mediated dilation was preserved (17.9±7.6% versus 16.3±6.1%, P =0.40). Both stiffness index and PWV correlated inversely with magnitude of FMD (r =−0.40, P =0.03;r =−0.41, P =0.03) and positively with indexed LV mass (r =0.50, P =0.005;r =0.40, P =0.027). Nonetheless, no significant correlation existed between ferritin level and carotid stiffness, PWV, or FMD. Conclusions—Increased arterial stiffness, endothelial dysfunction, and LV hypertrophy occur in patients with &bgr;-thalassemia major, which may result in reduction of mechanical efficiency of the heart.
Development and Evaluation of an Educational Intervention Program for Pre-professional Adolescent Ballet Dancers

The purpose of this investigation was to develop, implement, and evaluate a theoretically based nutritional education intervention through a DVD lecture series (three 30-minute classes) in summer intensive programs for pre-professional, adolescent ballet dancers. Objectives of this intervention program were to increase knowledge of basic sports nutrition principles and the Female Athlete Triad and promote self-efficacy for adopting healthier dietary habits. Dancers ranging from 13 to 18 years old who were attending summer intensive programs affiliated with professional ballet companies were recruited. Group One (n = 231) participated in the nutrition education program, while Group Two the control participants (n = 90) did not. Assessments of the participants’ dietary status consisted of a demographic questionnaire, a Sports Nutrition Knowledge and Behavior Questionnaire, and a Food Frequency Questionnaire. The intervention group was assessed at baseline, immediately post-program, and at six weeks post-program. The control group was assessed at baseline and at six weeks post-baseline. The intervention program was effective at increasing nutrition knowledge, perceived susceptibility to the Female Athlete Triad, and self-efficacy constructs. Improvements in dietary in-take were also observed among intervention group participants. To improve overall health and performance nutrition education should be incorporated into the training regimens of adolescent dancers. This potentially replicable DVD-based program may be an effective, low-cost mechanism for doing that.
Understanding Gestures in Multimodal Human Computer Interaction

In recent years because of the advances in computer vision research, free hand gestures have been explored as a means of human-computer interaction (HCI). Gestures in combination with speech can be an important step toward natural, multimodal HCI. However, interpretation of gestures in a multimodal setting can be a particularly challenging problem. In this paper, we propose an approach for studying multimodal HCI in the context of a computerized map. An implemented testbed allows us to conduct user studies and address issues toward understanding of hand gestures in a multimodal computer interface. Absence of an adequate gesture classification in HCI makes gesture interpretation difficult. We formalize a method for bootstrapping the interpretation process by a semantic classification of gesture primitives in HCI context. We distinguish two main categories of gesture classes based on their spatio-temporal deixis. Results of user studies revealed that gesture primitives, originally extracted from weather map narration, form patterns of co-occurrence with speech parts in association with their meaning in a visual display control system. The results of these studies indicated two levels of gesture meaning: individual stroke and motion complex. These findings define a direction in approaching interpretation in natural gesture-speech interfaces.
Building Institutions to Manage Local Resources: An Empirical Investigation

The lack of well-defined property rights causes the Tragedy of the Commons. Transferring common property to local communities for management has become the primary prescription for eliminating the incentives driving the Tragedy. Building community institutions to manage local resources is a critical component of the recent emphasis on "sustainable development. " Despite substantial theoretical consideration of indigenous community resource management, there is little empirical evidence on the efficacy of government initiated, community institutions. This paper uses variation in the timing of implementation of a massive institutional reform in Nepal to identify the impact of newly created community user groups on household forest use. Transferring forest property to local user groups substantially reduces household resource extraction.
Community Capacity Building for Better Water Catchment Management Outcomes Using Popular Education Approaches

In this paper we reflect on two different approaches to community engagement in natural resource management using water management as an example. We first define two approaches - the currently widely used ‘educare’ approach based on the learner being ‘educated’ and contrast this method with the ‘educere’ approach which seeks to build on learners’ experiences as the basis for engagement in resource management. We use our research in water management planning as examples in our reflections.
Construction of a Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 Mutant with Only a Three-Nucleotide Change in the Branchpoint Region of the Latency-Associated Transcript (LAT) and the Stability of Its Two-Kilobase LAT Intron

ABSTRACT Previous studies using a eukaryotic expression system indicated that the unusual stability of the latency-associated transcript (LAT) intron was due to its nonconsensus branchpoint sequence (T.-T Wu, Y.-H. Su, T. M. Block, and J. M. Taylor, Virology, 243:140-149, 1998). The present study investigated the role of the branchpoint sequence in the stability of the intron expressed from the herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) genome and the role of LAT intron stability in the HSV-1 life cycle. A branchpoint mutant called Sy2 and the corresponding rescued viruses, SyRA and SyRB, were constructed. To preserve the coding sequence of the immediate early gene icp0, which overlaps with the branchpoint region of the 2-kb LAT, a 3-nucleotide mutation into the branchpoint region of the 2-kb LAT was introduced, resulting in a branchpoint that is 85% identical to the consensus intron branchpoint sequence of eukaryotic cells. As anticipated, there was a 90- to 96-fold reduction in 2-kb LAT accumulation following productive infection in tissue culture and latent infection in mice with Sy2, as determined by Northern blot analysis. These results clearly suggest that the accumulation of the 2-kb intron in tissue culture and in vivo is, at least in part, due to the nonconsensus branchpoint sequence of the LAT intron. Interestingly, a failure to accumulate LAT was associated with greater progeny production of Sy2 at a low multiplicity of infection (0.01) in tissue culture, but not in mice. However, the ability of mutant Sy2 to reactivate from trigeminal ganglia (TG) derived from latently infected mice was indistinguishable from that of wild-type virus, as assayed in the mouse TG explant reactivation system.
TESTOSTERONE DEPRESSES INNATE AND ACQUIRED RESISTANCE TO TICKS IN NATURAL RODENT HOSTS: A FORCE FOR AGGREGATED DISTRIBUTIONS OF PARASITES

The effects of testosterone on acquired resistance to ticks, Ixodes ricinus, in their natural rodent hosts (voles, Clethrionomys glareolus, and wood-mice, Apodemus sylvaticus) were investigated by manipulating testosterone levels and exposing the hosts to repeated tick infestations. Testosterone reduced both innate and acquired resistance to tick feeding. During primary infestations, attachment rates were higher on rodents with high testosterone levels than on oil-implanted controls. Successive infestations on voles were accompanied by a decrease in tick feeding success and survival, but this decrease was significantly greater in ticks fed on control voles than in those fed on voles implanted with testosterone. When reduced feeding success had been induced, either by vaccination with tick salivary gland extract or by 4 successive infestations, implantation with testosterone partially reversed the acquired resistance. These effects of testosterone will generate heterogeneities within the rodent population with respect to tick distribution and microparasite transmission. The lowest innate and acquired resistance to tick feeding occurs in that fraction of the host population, i.e., sexually active males, most actively involved in the transmission of both Babesia microti and Borrelia burgdorferi s.l.
Technology Alliance Portfolios and Financial Performance: Value-Enhancing and Cost-Increasing Effects of Open Innovation*

Firms increasingly adopt an open innovation model in which they rely on technology alliances to complement and supplement their internal innovation efforts. Although previous studies provide in-depth insight into the impact of technology alliances on the innovation performance, they remain relatively silent on how technology alliances eventually influence the financial performance of the firm. The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a conceptual framework that disentangles both the value-enhancing and cost-increasing effects of technology alliances on financial performance. The model was tested with a sample of 305 Belgian manufacturing firms. Combining data from the Belgian Community Information Survey (CIS IV) database and the BELFIRST database, structural equation analyses were conducted on the connection among technology alliance portfolio diversity, product innovation performance, and financial performance. This study's data provide empirical confirmation for the assumption of existing research that technology alliance portfolio diversity has an indirect positive impact on financial performance via increased product innovation performance. However, a direct cost-increasing effect of technology alliance portfolio diversity on financial performance is observed. Moreover, the structural equation analyses suggest that, in the short-term, the direct cost-increasing effect of technology alliance portfolio diversity exceeds the indirect value-generating effect of technology alliances. These findings contribute to the current research on open innovation in two important ways. First, these results support the open innovation model by illuminating the interconnectedness between internal and external innovation strategies. In particular, technology alliance portfolio diversity has a positive impact on internal innovation efforts, which increases product innovation performance. Second, the findings complement the focus of existing open innovation research on the value-generating properties of technology alliances, directing attention to the cost-increasing effects of such collaborative strategies. On a managerial level, these findings suggest that, when making technology alliance decisions, managers not only should consider the potential benefits of such collaborative strategies but also should take into account the additional costs of intensifying the technology alliance portfolio.
Morphometric changes of sensorimotor structures in focal dystonia

Idiopathic cervical dystonia (CD) and benign essential blepharospasm (BEB) are the most common forms of focal dystonia. Previous autopsy and imaging studies suggested that these disorders are not accompanied by structural brain abnormalities. However, recent brain voxel‐based morphometry (VBM) studies of these conditions suggest that there actually may be changes in gray matter. The objective of this stdy was to detect possible gray matter abnormalities in patients with CD and BEB using VBM and to compare the results between the two conditions and with age‐ and gender‐matched controls. High‐resolution MRI was employed to evaluate healthy controls and individuals with BEB and CD. Eleven BEB, 9 CD, and 14 healthy control subjects were imaged. VBM revealed alterations of gray matter structures involved in sensorimotor processing in the individuals with focal dystonia. In CD subjects there was increased gray matter in the thalamus, caudate head bilaterally, superior temporal lobe, and left cerebellum, while gray matter was decreased in the putamen bilaterally. BEB subjects had increased gray matter in the caudate head and cerebellum bilaterally as well as decrease in the putamen and thalamus bilaterally. These findings strongly underline the recent notion that idiopathic focal dystonias might have a detectable structural correlate. They also demonstrate structural similarities of the investigated focal dystonias, possibly reflecting a shared common pathophysiological origin. © 2007 Movement Disorder Society
Differentiated mTOR but not AMPK signaling after strength vs endurance exercise in training‐accustomed individuals

The influence of adenosine mono phosphate (AMP)‐activated protein kinase (AMPK) vs Akt‐mammalian target of rapamycin C1 (mTORC1) protein signaling mechanisms on converting differentiated exercise into training specific adaptations is not well‐established. To investigate this, human subjects were divided into endurance, strength, and non‐exercise control groups. Data were obtained before and during post‐exercise recovery from single‐bout exercise, conducted with an exercise mode to which the exercise subjects were accustomed through 10 weeks of prior training. Blood and muscle samples were analyzed for plasma substrates and hormones and for muscle markers of AMPK and Akt‐mTORC1 protein signaling. Increases in plasma glucose, insulin, growth hormone (GH), and insulin‐like growth factor (IGF)‐1, and in phosphorylated muscle phospho‐Akt substrate (PAS) of 160 kDa, mTOR, 70 kDa ribosomal protein S6 kinase, eukaryotic initiation factor 4E, and glycogen synthase kinase 3α were observed after strength exercise. Increased phosphorylation of AMPK, histone deacetylase5 (HDAC5), cAMP response element‐binding protein, and acetyl‐CoA carboxylase (ACC) was observed after endurance exercise, but not differently from after strength exercise. No changes in protein phosphorylation were observed in non‐exercise controls. Endurance training produced an increase in maximal oxygen uptake and a decrease in submaximal exercise heart rate, while strength training produced increases in muscle cross‐sectional area and strength. No changes in basal levels of signaling proteins were observed in response to training. The results support that in training‐accustomed individuals, mTORC1 signaling is preferentially activated after hypertrophy‐inducing exercise, while AMPK signaling is less specific for differentiated exercise.
The Interday and Intraday Patterns of the Overnight Market: Evidence from an Electronic Platform

This paper examines the interday and intraday dynamics of the euro area overnight money market on the basis of an original set of market activity and liquidity proxies constructed from both pre- and post-trade data. The empirical literature provides extensive evidence supporting the rejection of the martingale hypothesis both between days and within days, primarily for interest rates and volatility. We extend this analysis and investigate the seasonality of market activity and liquidity in a market dominated by utilitarian traders. We provide evidence that the Eurosystem's operational framework and calendar effects cause the observed regular patterns. We additionally show that utilitarian trading intensifies at the turn of the reserve maintenance period. The increased uncertainty associated with greater information asymmetry between market participants when reserve requirements become binding lead to a deterioration of market liquidity. Our analysis additionally turns out to be sensitive to the implementation in March 2004 of structural changes to the operational framework and to the more frequent occurrence of fine-tuning operations since October 2004. JEL Classification: E43, E58, C22, C32
The Impact of Market Timing on Canadian and U.S. Firms' Capital Structure

This paper studies the impact of market timing on Canadian firms' capital structure and makes a comparison with U.S. firms. There is no evidence that market timing affects Canadian firms' capital structure in the same manner as it affects their U.S. counterparts. The effect of past equity issues on Canadian firms' capital structure is transitory. Canadian firms adjust at a faster rate toward the leverage target than U.S. firms. These results challenge the generality of the market-timing theory of capital structure.
What does it take to resolve relationships and to identify species with molecular markers? An example from the epiphytic Rhipsalideae (Cactaceae).

UNLABELLED PREMISE OF THE STUDY The Cactaceae are a major New World plant family and popular in horticulture. Still, taxonomic units and species limits have been difficult to define, and molecular phylogenetic studies so far have yielded largely unresolved trees, so relationships within Cactaceae remain insufficiently understood. This study focuses on the predominantly epiphytic tribe Rhipsalideae and evaluates the utility of a spectrum of plastid genomic regions. • METHODS We present a phylogenetic study including 52 of the 53 Rhipsalideae species and all the infraspecific taxa. Seven regions (trnK intron, matK, rbcL, rps3-rpl16, rpl16 intron, psbA-trnH, trnQ-rps16), ca. 5600 nucleotides (nt) were sequenced per sample. The regions used were evaluated for their phylogenetic performance and performance in DNA-based species recognition based on operational taxonomic units (OTUs) defined beforehand. • KEY RESULTS The Rhipsalideae are monophyletic and contain five clades that correspond to the genera Rhipsalis, Lepismium, Schlumbergera, Hatiora, and Rhipsalidopsis. The species-level tree was well resolved and supported; the rpl16 and trnK introns yielded the best phylogenetic signal. Although the psbA-trnH and trnQ-rps16 spacers were the most successful individual regions for OTU identification, their success rate did not significantly exceed 70%. The highest OTU identification rate of 97% was found using the combination of psbA-trnH, rps3-rpl16, trnK intron, and trnQ-rps16 as a minimum possible marker length (ca. 1660 nt). • CONCLUSIONS The phylogenetic performance of a marker is not determined by the level of sequence variability, and species discrimination power does not necessarily correlate with phylogenetic utility.
Foreign Bank Entry and Bank Performance in Poland: Questions of Efficiency and Stability

Using Poland as an example, the paper analyses the impact of foreign capital inflow on banking sector with regard to bank efficiency. The main research question is whether ownership structure plays a significant role for bank strategies, profitability and long-term stability of the banking market. The paper concentrates on analysing bank operational efficiency using ratio analysis and DEA models: balance sheet based and revenue based. Analysing performance of banks operating in Poland, the Authors use balance-sheet data of 50 largest Polish banks, comprising app. 90% of total banking assets for the period 1998-2007. The aim is to compare the recent Polish data with those of other countries, identifying factors which determine the efficiency of foreign and domestic banks. At the end, the paper tries to address the long-term challenges posed by the global banking crisis.
Leptin resistance in diet‐induced obesity: the role of hypothalamic inflammation

The consumption of Western diets, high in sugar and saturated fat, is a crucial contributor to the alarming incidence of obesity and its associated morbidities. These diets have been reported to induce an inflammatory response in the hypothalamus, which promotes the development of central leptin resistance and obesity. This inflammatory signalling involves dynamic changes in the expression and activity of several mediators of the innate immune system, including toll‐like receptor 4, IκB kinase‐β/nuclear factor‐κB, c‐Jun N‐terminal kinase, suppressor of cytokine signalling 3 and pro‐inflammatory cytokines, as well as the induction of endoplasmic reticulum stress and autophagy defect. Although the exact cellular mechanisms remain incompletely understood, recent evidence suggests that the inflammatory response is at least mediated by interactions between neurons and non‐neuronal cells such as microglia and astrocytes. Current evidence of the contribution of each inflammatory mediator to leptin resistance and diet‐induced obesity (DIO), including their reciprocal interactions and cell‐type‐specific effects, is reviewed and integrated in a conceptual model. Based upon this model and pharmacological intervention studies, several inflammatory mediators are proposed to be promising therapeutic targets for the treatment of DIO.
Down to Earth: Applying Business Principles to Environmental Management

Preface Acknowledgements 1. The Environment as a Business Problem 2. Environmental Product Differentiation 3. Managing Competitors 4. Reducing Costs within the Firm 5. Redefining Markets 6. Managing Risk and Uncertainty 7. Integrating Environment and Business Practice: Information, Incentives, Institutions 8. The Future of Environmental Management Appendix-Basic Approaches to Environmental Management Index About the Author