Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A single endotoxin injection in the rabbit causes prolonged blood vessel dysfunction and a procoagulant state

ObjectivesTo determine the duration of vascular blood vessel dysfunction and coagulation abnormalities after administration of endotoxin in a nonlethal septic rabbit model. DesignRandomized, controlled, interventional trial. SettingUniversity animal laboratory. SubjectsA total of 30 male New Zealand White rabbits, randomly assigned to one of two groups. InterventionsMale New Zealand White rabbits were randomly divided into control or lipopolysaccharide (LPS) (0.5 mg/kg iv bolus Escherichia coli endotoxin)-treated groups. Metabolic acidosis and coagulation activation confirmed the presence of septic shock. The abdominal aorta was removed at 24 hrs (day 1), day 5, or day 21 after LPS injection. Immunohistochemical staining for an endothelial cell marker (PECAM-1/CD31) was performed to assess endothelial injury. Endothelium-dependent vascular relaxation was analyzed by in vitro vascular reactivity studies. Responses to acetylcholine, to calcium ionophore (A-23187), and to sodium nitroprusside were studied. In addition, arterial blood samples were collected on day 1, day 5, and day 21 for measurement of clotting factors and tissue factor activity. Measurements and Main ResultsLPS injection resulted in endothelial injury, with loss of ∼25% of the endothelial area on day 5, which disappeared on day 21. LPS injection also caused a significantly reduced relaxation response to acetylcholine (44.9% ± 9.9% vs. 76.5% ± 5.4% for the control group;p < .005), which was restored on day 21. In contrast, vascular relaxation in response to A-23187 and sodium nitroprusside was not altered. A significant decrease in the platelet count was observed on day 1, associated with a decrease in factors II and V. On day 5, platelet count and factors II and V were corrected in conjunction with an elevated monocyte tissue factor activity in LPS-injected rabbits. On day 21, coagulation abnormalities were corrected. ConclusionsA single endotoxin injection in the rabbit was responsible for prolonged aortic endothelial cell dysfunction, as well as a prolonged procoagulant state. The latter is a potential trigger for disseminated intravascular coagulation. Importantly, these features are associated with normalization of conventional biological evidence of septic shock.
Influence of Dacron Tissue Thickness on the Performance of the Pintucci Biointegrable Keratoprosthesis: An In Vitro and In Vivo Study

Purpose. In 1979 Pintucci developed a biointegrable keratoprosthesis with polymethylmethacrylate optical cylinder integrated with a Dacron tissue-colonizable supporting element to avoid the complications caused by the interaction between the haptic element and the eye. The purpose of this article is to compare the colonization of three Dacron fabrics (thicknesses of 0.25 mm, 0.6 mm, and 1.4 mm) in vitro and in vivo to optimize the device performance. Methods. In vitro three different Dacron fabrics were cultured for 3 days with 3.5 × 10 5 human fetal lung fibroblasts and observed with a scanning electron microscope. In vivo three different Dacron fabrics were implanted on the sclera near the superior rectus insertion in the right eye of six albino rabbits and were observed after 4 days with light and scanning electron microscopy. Results. In the in vitro experiments, the cells were preserved and their structure was found to be normal. The 0.25-mm thick fabric was coated only on the surface, and the other fabrics were colonized in three dimensions. In the in vivo experiments, the 0.25-mm thick fabric appeared coated only on its surface. The other fabrics were three-dimensionally colonized and the Dacron filaments appeared embedded in neovascularized connective tissue with minimal foreign body reaction. The 1.4-mm thick colonized fabric showed a substantial loss of pliability. Conclusion. Given that the 0.25-mm thick fabric was coated only by connective tissue, that the 0.6-mm and 1.4-mm thick fabrics were perfectly colonized, and that the 1.4-mm thick fabrics showed a substantial loss of pliability, the 0.6-mm thick fabric haptic part of the Pintucci keratoprosthesis is preferred. For 19 years, the 0.6-mm Dacron fabric Pintucci keratoprosthesis was implanted in 159 eyes with good results, overcoming the apparently inseparable difficulties represented by mechanical anchorage and biointegrability of a keratoprosthesis.
Complications Related to Femoral Artery Access for Transcatheter Procedures

Percutaneous-based procedures continue to increase as endovascular techniques improve and provide a less morbid approach than the open vascular procedures. The most common complications associated with either cardiac interventions or peripheral interventions involve the access point of the procedure. The retrograde femoral access has and is currently the most frequently used arterial access. Vascular surgeons have been responsible for management of complications following femoral-based procedures and now are a significant contributor to catheter-based diagnostic and interventional procedures. This review provides in-depth review of the literature on specific complications encountered during percutaneous femoral artery puncture. This review includes access complications related to the method of obtaining access (ie, best pulse fluoroscopic guided), direction of access either retrograde or antegrade, risk factors and incidence of complications based on best literature sources, and management strategies for specific complications.
Islamic Banking System

Over the past decade the Islamic banking sector has grown steadily and rapidly globally, the multinational banks paid attention while the Islamic banking expanding out of Middle East and Asia Pacific into European and African markets. The difference between Islamic and conventional banking system is much more related to the product/service offering that based on philosophy of dealing with the money as an economical tool rather than a commodity and using the tool in the conscience of religion values.
The Balanced Scorecard: Judgmental Effects of Information Organization and Diversity

This paper examines the judgmental effects of the balanced scorecard. The balanced scorecard contains a large number of financial and nonfinancial performance measures divided into four categories. Based on judgment and decision making theory we examine whether the organization of the information and the diverse (common and unique) measures contained in the scorecard result in differences in managerial performance evaluation judgments. We find that relative performance evaluations are affected by organizing the measures into the balanced scorecard categories. Further, when scorecards for two divisions contain some common and some unique measures, performance evaluations are affected only by the common measures.
Determinants of accident proneness: a case-control study in railway workers.

BACKGROUND Accident proneness or workers who have more frequent occupational injuries is common but the role of occupational and individual factors has rarely been studied. AIM To assess the relationships of certain occupational and individual characteristics with frequency of occupational injuries. METHOD This case-control study included 1305 male workers with occupational injuries during 1999-2000 and 1305 controls from a railway company. A standardized questionnaire was completed by the occupational physician in the presence of the subject. The data were analysed using logistic regression. RESULTS Having more than one injury was associated with short service in the present job, younger age, sleep disorders, smoking, requesting a job change, physical disability and lack of physical activity. Safety training was negatively related to injury frequency. Short service in the present job was the only significant factor for single injuries. CONCLUSION This study identified a number of work and individual factors that predicted occupational injury frequency and may be useful in designing preventative measures. Occupational physicians could assist workers to be more aware of the risks and to find remedial measures.
The performance of socially responsible investment portfolios

A recent trends report estimates that the total value of US-domiciled assets under management using socially responsible investment (SRI) strategies is $6.57 trillion. This represents more than one out of every six dollars under professional management in the United States (Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment, 2014). In Europe, a recent report by the European Sustainable Investment Forum reports that the total value of European assets under management using SRI strategies is in excess of €6.9 trillion (Eurosif, 2014). Consequently, the importance of SRI to financial practitioners and academics is considerable. This thesis examines the performance, risk and exposures of US SRI indices, UK SRI equity funds (domestic and global) and US SRI funds (large cap, mid-small cap, balanced and bond) to investigate a number of issues relating to the performance of SRI portfolios. The work highlights the potential psychological returns which may be related to investing in SRI funds through shareholder activism and discusses the relationship between the potential risks and returns that are associated with this form of investing. The study finds that the requirement to screen can detrimentally affect the performance of SRI portfolios, but that these effects are more pronounced for UK funds which predominately employ negative screening techniques, than US SRI portfolios (indices and funds) which principally employ positive and restricted screening methodologies. The investigation also discovers that SRI portfolios with smaller investment choice, such as those that can only invest in the UK stock market are more affected by SRI screening than those with large investment universes such as global or US equity funds. This finding is consistent with the smaller investment universe of an SRI fund, making it more likely SRI screening will affect the fund’s performance and risk. Post screening, a fund manager may find it more difficult to purchase assets with the potential to provide a good return or to diversify risk effectively. SRI screening also affects the sector exposures, industry exposures, systematic risk and idiosyncratic risks of UK SRI funds, indicating that screening can result in SRI portfolios holding significantly different assets from conventional funds. In addition, the intensity with which a UK SRI fund screens is shown to significantly affect risk-adjusted performance. Importantly, this study also finds that US SRI funds are more likely to vote affirmatively with shareholder proposals which relate to social and environmental issues than their conventional counterparts and are more likely to vote against company management on these issues. This finding is consistent with SRI investors receiving a psychological return through the shareholder activism of SRI funds. Thesis Supervisor: Dr. Kevin Evans, Senior Lecturer
Strategic Trading with Naive Noise Traders

We investigate a dynamic model of speculative trading in which a naive noise trader is born each period who uses a simple strategy, whereas a rational informed investor maximizes her profits by strategically exploiting the successive noise trading over time. The model shows that the two types of traders will soon hold opposite views on whether the current price is high or low relative to its fundamental value. The informed trader simultaneously submits an "information trade" to exploit asymmetric information and an "arbitrage trade" to exploit heterogeneous beliefs between the two types every period. The heterogeneous beliefs render a unique source of liquidity, thus magnifying informed profits and the total trading volume. It is shown that a monopolistic informed trader may ride on noise trading in early periods to push the price away from its fundamental value, only to reap greater profits by her later arbitrage trades. Such strategic behavior in arbitrage, however, disappears under imperfect competition. Unlike previous models with exogenous noise (liquidity) trading, our model with endogenous noise trading can better explain the high trading volume phenomenon and the familiar U-shaped pattern in intraday transaction costs and price volatility.
Laboratory life. The social construction of scientific facts

supported by facts, he believed in the good of the inductive method in all walks of life. He put this to work in studies such as the influences of environment on parameters of behaviour of mice and men. He eventually succeeded in building up a Fondation Francaise pour l'Etude des Problmes Humains in occupied Paris from 1941 to 1944, for which he was much maligned after the liberation. Carrel's views on the ideal conditions for successful research, which arose from the very different situations he had found in France and in the U.S.A. , and which Dr. Malinin judiciously extends to our times, make equally useful reading. Except in this chapter and in the section on Carrel's "immortal" strain of fibroblasts in tissue culture, where the conclusion is, however, at variance with that of J. A. Witkowski ('Dr. Carrel's immortal cells', Med. Hist., 1980, 24: 129-142), the author hardly pushes his analysis further than did the shorter biography in English by W. S. and P. D. Edwards (1974) (which is not mentioned in the "Selected References"). Thus it may perhaps be regretted that Carrel's relationship to the views on science expressed simultaneously by his countrymen, Charles Robert Richet (winner of a medical Nobel Prize in 1914) and Lecomte du Noiy (of the Pasteur Institute) are omitted or only cursorily mentioned in the present volume. Lecomte du Nouy in fact claimed in the Introduction to owe his writing of Le temps et la vie (1936) to Carrel's stimulus. Neither is the reader introduced to, for example, Carrel's posthumously published Reflexions sur la conduite de la vie (1950). Scholars will miss more the absence of footnotes than the lack of biographical references to a number of persons introduced in this book. The easily understandable descriptions of complex technical aspects involved in Carrel's experimentation will, however, be appreciated. The book is nevertheless well worth reading by both active scientists and historians as a reminder of a man whose ideas were sometimes termed "visionary" and as a stimulant for future research into a captivating group of modern medical investigators. Ulrich Troehler Medico-Historical Library University of Basle
Internet auctions - popular and professional literature review

INTRODUCTION The Internet is shaping industries and changing business models. It is argued that companies that don't commit fully to this new world today will be left behind 1 and only companies that develop and implement entirely new business models will succeed 2. Unlike the real world, the diversity in shopping on the Internet lies not in the difference in selection but in the multiplicity of methods of purchasing. It's not a matter of what you want to buy, but how you want to buy it 3. The most noticeable and attention grabbing model is the rebirth of negotiated and auction pricing mechanism on the internet. It is interesting to note that whereas in 1992 Business Week 4 nominated the " no-hassle, no-dicker sales method " as one of the best ideas on 1992, in 1998 Business Week published an article titled " Goodbye to fixed pricing? " 5 and in 1999 declared that " online haggling is the hottest thing happening in e-commerce " 6. PricewaterhouseCoopers in their 'E-Business Technology Forecast' predicts that as more potential participants access the Web, the use of negotiated pricing mechanisms will grow and that the special-purpose technology available today to implement negotiated and auction pricing will be integrated into enterprise and specialty Web sites 7. Given the strong interest in online auctions, we found it useful to survey the popular and professional (but not academic) press regarding the commercial and cultural development of the auction phenomenon on the net. We believe that both academics and practitioners
Effect of pyramids on microorganisms

Investigations have been undertaken to find out if an enclosed pyramidal structure has any influence on the growth of microorganisms inside them, as claimed in legendary literature. Five models were used, four of them being pyramidal in shape and the fifth with a flat roof. The medium chosen was fresh unboiled milk. The control was the same milk sample kept in the open. Results subjected to statistical analysis indicate that there is a noticeable influence of the pyramidal shape on the rate of growth of microorganisms. Quantitative data have been supported by visual observations.
Parallel simulation of multiprocessor execution: implementation and results for simplescalar

In research that relies on simulation in order to predict and compare the performance of proposed computing architectures, multiprocessor simulations have inherent concurrency that can be exploited for parallelization in order to reduce the execution time for a simulation. This paper describes the initial experiences in first introducing multiprocessor simulation support for the detailed out-of-order target simulatorfiom the popular Simplescalar tool set, and then parallelizing the resulting simulator for execution on a multiprocessor host system. The extended simulator provides the basis for further detailed modeling of target systems with multiple out-of-order processors through parallel simulation on a multiprocessor host. For experiments conducted on a Sun Enterprise 3500 platform, the measured speedup for the initial version of the parallelized simulator reached 4.4 on 6processors for a selected application from the SPLASH-2 benchmark.
Differentiation of Th 1 and Th 2 Cells in Lymph Nodes and Spleens of Mice During Experimental Autoimmune Uveoretinitis

Purpose: Experimental autoimmune uveoretinitis (EAU) is a T-cell–mediated autoimmune disease that can be elicited in susceptible rodent strains by immunization with a retinal autoantigen, such as interphotoreceptor retinoid-binding protein (IRBP). In this study, we investigated whether there is a correlation between inflammation in the eye and T-helper (Th)1and Th2-type responses in the lymph nodes and the spleen after immunization of B10.A mice with IRBP.
Solitary metastasectomy in non-small cell lung cancer.

PURPOSE Stage IV disease at initial presentation ac-counts for approximately 41% of newly diagnosed cases with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Although the majority of these patients have disseminated metastatic disease at diagnosis, a small percentage of them are found to have a solitary site of extrathoracic metastasis. In addition, patients who have received surgical or multimodality treatment with curative intent may experience metachronous solitary distant recurrences during the natural course of their disease. Our aim was to review the possible role of surgical resection in the management of NSCLC with solitary hematogenous metastasis. METHODS We performed electronic literature search of PubMed, EMBASE and the Cochrane Library for articles in English using a number of key words. RESULTS All identified studies reported survival benefit for patients operated for their single metastatic lesion. Patients with metachronous disease had slightly better prognosis than those with synchronous metastatic lesions. We found no prospective randomized trials comparing surgical and non-surgical treatment modalities for NSCLC with solitary hematogenous metastasis. CONCLUSIONS Available evidence supports the presumption that in highly selected patients with isolated synchronous or metachronous hematogenous metastasis surgical resection as part of an aggressive approach positively affects patients' survival. Factors that are in favor of a satisfactory outcome include control of primary site, confirmed solitary metastatic disease, good performance status (PS), metachronous lesions and longer disease-free interval (DFI). Prospective randomized trials are necessary to provide stronger evidence. Finally, it is worth investigating the biology of these tumors presenting with single-site distant metastasis.
Adult rat cortical thickness changes across age and following adolescent intermittent ethanol treatment

Human studies have established that adolescence is a period of brain maturation that parallels the development of adult behaviors. However, little is known regarding cortical development in the adult rat brain. We used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and histology to assess the impact of age on adult Wistar rat cortical thickness on postnatal day (P)80 and P220 as well as the effect of adolescent binge ethanol exposure on adult (P80) cortical thickness. MRI revealed changes in cortical thickness between P80 and P220 that differ across cortical region. The adult P220 rat prefrontal cortex increased in thickness whereas cortical thinning occurred in both the cingulate and parietal cortices relative to young adult P80 rats. Histological analysis confirmed the age‐related cortical thinning. In the second series of experiments, an animal model of adolescent intermittent ethanol (AIE; 5.0 g/kg, intragastrically, 20 percent ethanol w/v, 2 days on/2 days off from P25 to P55) was used to assess the effects of alcohol on cortical thickness in young adult (P80) rats. MRI revealed that AIE resulted in region‐specific cortical changes. A small region within the prefrontal cortex was significantly thinner whereas medial cortical regions were significantly thicker in young adult (P80) AIE‐treated rats. The observed increase in cortical thickness was confirmed by histology. Thus, the rat cerebral cortex continues to undergo cortical thickness changes into adulthood, and adolescent alcohol exposure alters the young adult cortex that could contribute to brain dysfunction in adulthood.
Targeted delivery of protein and gene medicines through the blood–brain barrier

The development of biologic drugs (recombinant proteins, therapeutic antibodies, peptides, nucleic acid therapeutics) as new treatments of brain disorders has been difficult, and a major reason is the lack of transport through the blood–brain barrier (BBB) of these large molecule pharmaceuticals. Biologic drugs can be re‐engineered as brain‐penetrating neuropharmaceuticals using BBB molecular Trojan horse technology. Certain peptidomimetic monoclonal antibodies that target endogenous receptors on the BBB, such as the insulin or transferrin receptor, enable the re‐engineering of biologic drugs that cross the BBB.
Acquisition and Transmission of the Agent of Human Granulocytic Ehrlichiosis by Ixodes scapularis Ticks

ABSTRACT The purpose of the present study was to investigate the transmission of a human isolate of the agent of human granulocytic ehrlichiosis (HGE agent) from infected mice to larval ticks and to examine the population kinetics of the HGE agent in different stages of the tick life cycle. The HGE agent was quantitated by competitive PCR with blood from infected mice and with Ixodes scapularis ticks. The median infectious dose for C3H mice was 104 to 105 organisms when blood from an infected severe combined immunodeficient mouse was used as an inoculum. Uninfected larval ticks began to acquire infection from infected mice within 24 h of attachment, and the number of HGE agent organisms increased in larval ticks during feeding and after detachment of replete ticks. Molted nymphal ticks, infected as larvae, transmitted infection to mice between 40 and 48 h of attachment. Onset of feeding stimulated replication of the HGE agent within nymphal ticks. These studies suggest that replication of the HGE agent during and after feeding in larvae and during feeding in nymphs is a means by which the HGE agent overcomes inefficiencies in acquisition of infection by ticks and in tick-borne transmission to mammalian hosts.