Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Special Issue on Corporate Transformation in the People's Republic of China: The Institutional Effects on Strategic Alliance Partner Selection in Transition Economies: China vs. Russia

China and Russia represent major economies in transition from command economies, yet their paths to the market have differed greatly. Their divergent approaches have helped create distinct institutional environments. This study focuses on a particularly important strategic decision firms face-alliance partner selection. The study's results suggest that China's more stable and supportive institutional environment has helped Chinese firms take a longer-term view of alliance partner selection, focusing more on the potential partner's intangible assets along with technological and managerial capabilities. In contrast, the less stable Russian institutional environment has influenced Russian managers to focus more on the short term, selecting partners that provide access to financial capital and complementary capabilities so as to enhance their firms' ability to weather that nation's turbulent environment. This study contributes to knowledge about the influence of the institutional environment on alliance partner selection decisions for firms domiciled in transition (and emerging) economies.
Evidence for a context-sensitive word retrieval disorder in a case of nonfluent aphasia

We describe a patient (BM) with nonfluent aphasia who presents with sparse, fragmented spontaneous speech but normal or near-normal performance on standard naming tasks. However, more detailed investigation revealed some unusual features to BM's naming: On a task involving repeated naming of a small set of targets, his performance degenerated when the targets were semantically blocked, particularly at fast rates of presentation. This semantic blocking effect was not observed in an analogous wordpicture matching task. Also, it was not present on a task where a set of words had to be named repeatedly in a fixed, predictable sequence. Finally, a fluent aphasic patient who presented with a classic “output” anomia failed to show the semantic blocking and predictability effects. It is suggested that BM suffers from a context-sensitive word retrieval disorder. The disorder is attributed to a difficulty in modulating activation within the lexical network. Implications for nonfluent aphasia, as well as for models of lexical retrieval, are discussed.
Phylogenetic relationships within Diadasia, a group of specialist bees.

We estimated phylogenetic relationships among species of the bee genus Diadasia, a group of new world, specialist bees. We sequenced approximately 2 kb of the mitochondrial genes cytochrome oxidase subunit I and II and tRNA leucine and approximately 1 kb of the nuclear gene elongation factor 1-alpha for 24 North American Diadasia species, 4 South American species, and five outgroup genera. Parsimony analyses of the two data sets were highly congruent. A combined analysis produced a well-resolved phylogenetic hypothesis that supported the monophyly of Diadasia, but not that of traditional subgenera: Diadasia s. str. was paraphyletic in all analyses. With one exception, the North and South American species formed separate clades, supporting previous hypotheses that two lineages of Diadasia have dispersed from South to North America: a more recent dispersal of D. ochracea and an older dispersal of the ancestor to all other North American species. Different species of Diadasia specialize on pollen from at least five different plant families; the phylogeny presented here, along with known host affinities, indicates that host-switching has been rare.
The Gα subunit BCG1, the phospholipase C (BcPLC1) and the calcineurin phosphatase co‐ordinately regulate gene expression in the grey mould fungus Botrytis cinerea

The Gα subunit BCG1 is essential for pathogenicity of the grey mould fungus Botrytis cinerea. Several processes such as the transition from primary infection to secondary invasive growth and the production of the phytotoxin botrydial are regulated by BCG1 via a cAMP‐independent pathway. Our recent finding that the botrydial biosynthesis genes belong to the group of Ca2+/calcineurin‐dependent genes suggested for the first time a connection between this Gα subunit and the calcineurin signalling pathway. To investigate whether this co‐regulation of genes by BCG1 and calcineurin is a common feature, a cDNA macroarray approach was used to compare the gene expression pattern of the wild‐type and the Δbcg1 mutant, non‐treated or treated with the calcineurin inhibitor cyclosporin A. We identified three sets of genes whose expression was regulated either by both BCG1 and calcineurin, or only by one of them. Among the BCG1/calcineurin‐co‐regulated genes, we found a new gene cluster coding for a yet unknown polyketide secondary metabolite. Furthermore, we show for the first time in a phytopathogenic fungus that the phospholipase C (BcPLC1) is a component of the BCG1‐ and calcineurin‐dependent signalling pathway as several BCG1‐ and calcineurin‐dependent genes were downregulated in bcplc1 knock‐down mutants.
A Focus on the Diagnosis of Early Rheumatoid Arthritis

Nowadays it is worldwide accepted that early diagnosis and early treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) can improve the prognosis in most of patients. In this way, the 2010 ACR/EULAR Rheumatoid Arthritis classification criteria have shown to be more sensitive than the ACR 1987 criteria and include better patients with early RA. Other important point to focus on is to identify predictive factors for outcome, in order to propose a more aggressive treatment for early RA patients who could develop a persistent and/or erosive disease. The presence of Rheumatoid Factors (RF) and Anticitrullinated peptides antibobies (ACPA), as well as the duration of the disease at the time of diagnosis, are independent risk factors for the development of erosive RA. As for imaging, both traditional X-ray and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) highlight respectively the Rapid Radiological Progression (RRP) and the presence of bone edema which are associated to a more aggressive disease. In the last years, the musculoskeletal ultrasonography (MSUS) has emerged as a useful imaging technique since it allows to identify synovitis and bone alteration earlier than the radiological examination. Interating clinical, serological and imaging data the clinician can define the effective disease activity of each patient.
Relationship of Molecular Size of rIn:rCn (Poly I:C) to Induction of Interferon and Host Resistance

Summary Preparations of high molecular weight rIn:rCn were exposed to sonic radiation. A decrease in the average molecular weight of the polynucleotide complexes after treatment was accompanied by an exponential decrease in viscosity of the preparation, an increase in the sensitivity of the polynucleotide complex to degradation by pancreatic ribonuclease, a decrease in the thermal transition midpoint, and a decrease in the hyperchromicity observed during thermal transition. The lower molecular weight rIn:rCn complexes were tested for their capacity to induce interferon in rabbits and resistance against VSV infection in cell culture and PVM infection in mice. Sonic-treated preparations of rIn:rCn reduced to an average molecular weight of approximately 4.6 × 105 were markedly reduced in capacity to protect mice against PVM infection, compared with untreated rIn:rCn preparations containing complexes having an average molecular weight of approximately 7.8 × 106. The capacity of sonic-treated rIn:rCn to induce production of rabbit interferon and resistance to virus infection in cell culture was more resistant to molecular weight reduction. Significant decrease in activity was observed in rIn:rCn fractions with approximate molecular weights less than 1.2 × 105.
Knowledge and Practice of Emergency Contraception Among Female Undergraduates in South Eastern Nigeria

Background: Unintended pregnancy remains a major challenge to the reproductive health of women especially in the developing countries. It is a major reason for unsafe abortion, a major contributor to maternal mortality. Aim: This study was designed to assess the knowledge and practice of emergency contraception among female non-medical undergraduates. Subjects and Methods: In this cross sectional observational study, 675 female non medical undergraduates were interviewed using pretested semi structured questionnaire to assess their knowledge and experience with emergency contraception. Data was analysed using SPSS version 17 (SPSS, Chicago, IL, USA). Data were presented as percentages and tables. Associaton between variables was tested using the χ2 test. Results: Only 51.6% (348/675) of the respondents reported knowledge of emergency contraception. Being sexually active, use of regular family planning methods and having an extra risk for unintended pregnancy were factors that significantly influenced knowledge. Only 45.7% (159/348) knew the correct methods (Postinor-2, combined oral contraceptive and intra uterine contraceptive device), 37.9% (132/348) practiced any method with about half of them using the correct methods. Conclusions: There is poor basic knowledge of emergency contraception among these female undergraduates in south eastern Nigeria. A sizeable number of them depend on unconventional methods for emergency contraception. We recommend the introduction of formal lessons on emergency contraception and other reproductive health issues into the Nigerian undergraduate curriculum.
The Histone-Like Nucleoid Structuring Protein (H-NS) Is a Repressor of Vibrio cholerae Exopolysaccharide Biosynthesis (vps) Genes

ABSTRACT The capacity of Vibrio cholerae to form biofilms has been shown to enhance its survival in the aquatic environment and play important roles in pathogenesis and disease transmission. In this study, we demonstrated that the histone-like nucleoid structuring protein is a repressor of exopolysaccharide (vps) biosynthesis genes and biofilm formation.
Glutamate‐mediated influx of extracellular Ca2+ is coupled with reactive oxygen species generation in cultured hippocampal neurons but not in astrocytes

Generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in brain tissue leads to neurodegeneration. The major source of ROS is the mitochondrial respiratory chain. We studied regulation of Ca2+ level, mitochondrial potential, and ROS generation in defined mixed hippocampal cell cultures exposed to glutamate (100 μM). Recordings were made from individually identified astrocytes and neurons to compare the physiologic responses in both cell types. Neurons identified by synaptotagmin immunoreactivity were characterized functionally by the fast Ca2+ increase with K+ (50 mM) stimulation, and the astrocytes identified by glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) staining had the functional characteristic of a transient Ca2+ peak in response to ATP (10 μM) stimulation. We found that the glutamate‐mediated Ca2+ response in neurons is due largely to influx of extracellular Ca2+. This is consistent with our finding that in cultured hippocampal neurons, stores depending on the activity of the sarcoendoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ ATPase (SERCA) pump had a low Ca2+ content, regardless of whether the neurons were challenged or not with K+ before applying the SERCA inhibitor cyclopiazonic acid (CPA). Astrocytes displayed a large CPA‐mediated Ca2+ response, indicating a high level of Ca2+ load in the stores in astrocytes. Importantly, the rise in ROS generation due to glutamate application was cell‐type specific. In neurons, glutamate induced a marked rise in generation of ROS, but not in astrocytes. In both astrocytes and neurons, the mitochondrial potential was increased in response to glutamate challenge. We conclude that in neurons, Ca2+ influx accounts for the increased ROS generation in response to glutamate. This might explain the high vulnerability of neurons to glutamate challenge compared to the vulnerability of astrocytes. The high resistance of astrocytes is accompanied by an efficient downregulation of cytosolic Ca2+, which is not found in neurons. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Additive Intraocular Pressure-Lowering Effects of Ripasudil with Glaucoma Therapeutic Agents in Rabbits and Monkeys

Ripasudil hydrochloride hydrate (K-115), a specific Rho-associated coiled-coil containing protein kinase (ROCK) inhibitor, is developed for the treatment of glaucoma and ocular hypertension. Topical administration of ripasudil decreases intraocular pressure (IOP) by increasing conventional outflow through the trabeculae to Schlemm's canal, which is different from existing agents that suppress aqueous humor production or promote uveoscleral outflow. In this study, we demonstrated that ripasudil significantly lowered IOP in combined regimens with other glaucoma therapeutic agents in rabbits and monkeys. Ripasudil showed additional effects on maximum IOP lowering or prolonged the duration of IOP-lowering effects with combined administration of timolol, nipradilol, brimonidine, brinzolamide, latanoprost, latanoprost/timolol fixed combination, and dorzolamide/timolol fixed combination. These results indicate that facilitation of conventional outflow by ripasudil provides additive IOP-lowering effect with other classes of antiglaucoma agents. Ripasudil is expected to have substantial utility in combined regimens with existing agents for glaucoma treatment.
A novel intuitionistic fuzzy similarity measure based on double sequence by using modulus function with application in pattern recognition

Abstract In the field of pattern recognition, clustering is used to group the data into different clusters based on the similarity among them. There are a number of clustering techniques developed in the past using different distance/similarity measure. Due to the high versatility in data, researchers have used various distance measure like Hamming distance, Euclidean distance etc. to solve the clustering problems. In this paper, we proposed a novel similarity measure based on the double sequence space and modulus function. Also, to handle the uncertainty of data, Atanassov intuitionistic fuzzy set were used. Experimental simulation is performed on the real-world problems viz. car data and medical diagnosis problems and shows that the results are outperformed.
Evidence for the early onset of gingival inflammation following short-term plaque accumulation.

AIM A study was undertaken to examine cytokine markers in gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) during the early stages of plaque accumulation. METHODS A panel of five subjects with good oral hygiene went without brushing for 1 or 3 days, after which GCF samples were taken by placing paper strips into the gingival margins of the maxillary premolars and first molar for 30 s. GCF flow rates were determined with a Periotron instrument (Oraflow, Inc., Plainview, New York), and neutrophils (polymorphonuclear leukocytes) were determined as myeloperoxidase activity. Interleukin-1b (IL-1b) and IL-8 were eluted from the paper strips and assayed with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) systems. RESULTS The plaque index rose to 2.7 +/- 0.2 (mean +/- SE) after 3 days without brushing, and the GCF flow rate increased to 146.8% of baseline. PMN and IL-8 concentrations fell but, when corrected for dilution as a result of increased GCF flow, were not statistically different from baseline. IL-1b was slightly elevated after 1 day, and increased to 223.8 +/- 54.3% (from 6.8 +/- 1.7 to 13.8 +/- 3.6 pg/30 s; p = 0.04) after 3 days of plaque accumulation. Resumption of tooth brushing led to a return of IL-1b to baseline (109.1% after 2 days of brushing). When subjects rinsed with 0.12% chlorhexidine during the 3-day no-brushing period, the increases in plaque index, GCF flow rates and IL-1b release rates did not occur. CONCLUSIONS The results indicate that IL-1b release rates increase in the GCF after 3 days of plaque accumulation, before any clinical signs of inflammation appear.
A lack of self-consciousness in autism.

OBJECTIVE This study investigated self-consciousness in autism. METHOD An incidental memory task was conducted on 18 adults with high-functioning autism and 18 normal comparison subjects. Three kinds of orienting questions (phonological, semantic, and self-referent, i.e., "Does the word describe you? ") were asked about target words (adjectives for personality traits) in order to induce different types of processing. This was followed by an unexpected recognition test. RESULTS While semantic processing resulted in better memory than phonological processing in both groups, self-referent processing yielded better memory performance than semantic processing in the comparison group but not in the autistic group. CONCLUSIONS The results suggest deficits in self-consciousness in individuals with autism.
from Collagen-Induced Arthritis Receptor Ligands Protect DBA/1LacJ Mice MHC Class II Derived Recombinant T Cell

OffnerEdward F. Rosloniec, Gregory G. Burrows and HalinaSubramanian, Corwyn Hopke, Arthur A. Vandenbark, Jianya Huan, Laurie J. Kaler, Jeffery L. Mooney, Sandhyahttp://www.jimmunol.org/content/180/2/1249J Immunol€2008; 180:1249-1257; ;Referenceshttp://www.jimmunol.org/content/180/2/1249.full#ref-list-1This article cites 70 articles, 28 of which you can access for free at: Subscriptionshttp://jimmunol.org/subscriptionsInformation about subscribing to The Journal of Immunology is online at: Permissionshttp://www.aai. org/ji/copyright.htmlSubmit copyright permission requests at: Email Alertshttp://jimmunol.org/cgi/alerts/etocReceive free email-alerts when new articles cite this article. Sign up at:
Common sense approaches to urinary biomarker study design.

Since ancient times, physicians have studied the properties of urine to provide clues to the nature of the their patients’ maladies. For example, ancient physicians knew that urine from patients with diabetes is sweet to the taste. The discoveries of such properties were obviously made before disease mechanisms were understood. In modern times, clinicians have added many measurements of urinary composition to provide data for clinical decision-making, relying on growing knowledge of physiology and pathophysiology to identify candidate chemical biomarkers that have been validated for clinical use. Now, aided by methods capable of quantifying thousands of proteins in a urine sample, urinary biomarker discovery has gone “open loop,” allowing the identity of urine proteins that have no known relation to a disease as potential biomarkers for that disease. In such studies, correlation is sought rather than causation. Although this open-loop approach has great promise for accelerated urine biomarker discovery, the lack of connection to pathophysiologic knowledge is a significant limitation. The shift to an open-loop (“unbiased”) approach has been driven largely by the development of modern mass spectrometry techniques that are capable of identifying and quantifying proteins and peptides in large numbers.1 Indeed, recent studies from various laboratories identified more than 1000 proteins present in various biochemical fractions of urine, including urinary exosomes (for a listing of urinary proteins, go to “Urinary Exosome Protein Database” via any internet search engine). 2–6 At this point, organizations such the Human Kidney and Urine Proteome Project7 and the European Network for Urine and Kidney Proteomics8 have assembled largely for the purpose of promoting efforts in urinary protein biomarker discovery, and articles addressing various aspects of urinary biomarker discovery have been published. It can only be a short time before large-scale studies evaluating the efficacy of new candidate urinary …
Quantifying the intra‐ and extravascular contributions to spin‐echo fMRI at 3 T

Functional MRI (fMRI) by means of spin‐echo (SE) techniques provides an interesting alternative to gradient‐echo methods because the contrast is based primarily on dynamic averaging associated with the blood oxygenation level‐dependent (BOLD) effect. In this article the contributions from different brain compartments to BOLD signal changes in SE echo planar imaging (EPI) are investigated. To gain a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms that cause the fMRI contrast, two experiments are presented: First, the intravascular contribution is decomposed into two fractions with different regimes of flow by means of diffusion‐weighting gradient schemes which are either flow‐compensated, or will maximally dephase moving spins. Second, contributions from the intra‐ and extravascular space are selectively suppressed by combining flow‐weighting with additional refocusing pulses. The results indicate two qualitatively different components of flowing blood which contribute to the BOLD contrast and a nearly equal share in functional signal from the intra‐ and extravascular compartments at TE ≈ 80 ms and 3 T. Combining these results, there is evidence that at least one‐half of the functional signal originates from the parenchyma in SE fMRI at 3 T. The authors suggest the use of flow‐compensated diffusion weighting for SE fMRI to improve the sensitivity to the parenchyma. Magn Reson Med 52:724–732, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Clinical Pharmacist Driven Impact towards Intensive Monitoring and Reporting of Adverse Drug Events in Psychiatric Patients

Background: Drugs are used for the well-being of an individual but apart from its effectiveness many adverse effects are observed. Antipsychotics are the mainstay of treatment for psychotic disorders. Most of the first generation and to a lesser degree second generation antipsychotic agents are associated with ADEs like extra pyramidal symptoms (EPS), sedation and anti-cholinergic side effects. Method: This study was conducted at a tertiary care hospital. Informed consent was obtained from patients care takers. Patients aged ≥18 years of either gender admitted to psychiatry department were included in the study. Patients on OPD basis, emergency, ICUs and special population were excluded. The main objective of the study was to estimate the incidence of ADEs and evaluate ADEs based on various parameters like demographics, drug class implicated, individual drug implicated, organ system affected, and analysis of ADEs (causality, severity and preventability). Result: A total of 58 patients were enrolled into the study. Out of them, 32 patients experienced 90 ADEs. The incidence rate was found to be 55.17%. Male (65.51%) preponderance was observed over females (34.48%). Benzodiazepine was reported to be one of the major drug class implicated in which Lorazepam accounted for 36.51% ADEs. CNS was one of the most prominent systems affected due to ADEs. Conclusion: The fact goes undenied, psychiatric patients are prone towards adverse events, the only good that could be done to these subjects is try avoiding and minimizing the events. This could be possible only by thorough monitoring of such cases. Our results showed incidence rate of 79.31%. This incidence rate could be minimized by the presence of a clinical Pharmacist for better treatment and creating awareness of the medicines to the patients.