Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Local status and power in area-based health improvement partnerships

Area-based initiatives have formed an important part of public policy towards more socio-economically deprived areas in many countries. Co-ordinating service provision within and across sectors has been a common feature of these initiatives. Despite sustained policy interest in area-based initiatives, little empirical work has explored relations between area-based initiative providers, and partnership development within this context remains under-theorised. This article addresses both of these gaps by exploring partnerships as a social and developmental process, drawing on concepts from figurational sociology to explain how provider relations develop within an area-based initiative. Qualitative methods were used to explore, prospectively, the development of an area-based initiative targeted at a town in the north west of England. A central finding was that although effective delivery of area-based initiatives is premised on a high level of co-ordination between service providers, the pattern of interdependencies between providers limits the frequency and effectiveness of co-operation. In particular, the interdependency of area-based initiative providers with others in their organisation (what is termed here as ‘organisational pull’) constrained the ways in which they worked with providers outside of their own organisations. ‘Local’ status, which could be earned over time, enabled some providers to exert greater control over the way in which provider relations developed during the course of the initiative. These findings demonstrate how historically constituted social networks, within which all providers are embedded, shape partnership development. The theoretical insight developed here suggests a need for more realistic expectations among policymakers about how and to what extent provider partnerships can be managed.
Multiple cis elements and GATA factors regulate a cuticle collagen gene in Caenorhabditis elegans

The cuticle of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is a specialized extracellular matrix whose major component is collagen. Cuticle collagens are encoded by a large multigene family consisting of more than 150 members. Cuticle collagen genes are expressed in epidermis (hypodermis) and may be stage‐specific or cyclically expressed. We identified cuticle collagen genes as transcriptional targets of the DBL‐1 TGF‐β‐related signaling pathway. These studies prompted us to investigate the cis‐regulatory sequences required for transcription of one of the target genes, col‐41. We generated reporter constructs that reproduce stage‐ and tissue‐specific expression of fluorescent markers. We identify four conserved sequence elements that are required for transcription of reporters. Finally, we provide evidence that col‐41 expression is controlled by a sequence element containing two GATA sites and by the epidermal GATA transcription factors ELT‐1 and ELT‐3. genesis 53:278–284, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
University of Groningen Productivity spillovers of organization capital

Investments in organization capital increase productivity of not just the investing firm but could also spillover to other firms—similar to investments in research and development. Recent evidence at the industry and economy level suggests such spillovers could be important. In this paper, we fail to find evidence of knowledge spillovers from organization capital that increase the productivity or market valuation of technologically similar manufacturing firms in the US. This lack of evidence at the firm-level suggests caution is in order at the more aggregate level, where spillover channels are harder to identify convincingly.
In vivo interactions of cadmium with copper, zinc and iron.

The chemical similarities between copper, zinc, and cadmium led to the speculation that there existed a copper component of cadmium toxicity in addition to the previously shown zinc component. Cadmium was found to be toxic to chicks at dietary levels of 25 to 400 ppM in a copper- and iron-deficient diet. The toxicity resulted in a reduced growth rate, mortality, microcytic hypochromic anemia, and atony and elongation of the gizzard. The growth depression and gizzard abnormality were corrected by increased dietary zinc. The mortality was reversed by added copper indicating that the speculation which prompted the study was valid. Increased dietary iron partially corrected both the mortality and the growth depression, indicating a previously unsuspected iron component of cadmium toxicity. 13 references, 6 tables.
Growth hormone and the maintenance of adult bone mineral density

Growth hormone serves many important functions in man. It influences carbohydrate, lipid and protein metabolism, regulates the secretion and action of a variety of other hormones, and interacts with the immune system. Its most studied role, however, as its name implies, is the orchestration of longitudinal growth, which occurs predominantly at the epiphyseal plate. Here, GH acts both directly and indirectly, through the systemic and local production of IGF‐I (Isaksson et al., 1987). A separate role for the GH/IGF‐I axis in the maintenance of normal bone mineral density (BMD) after epiphyseal closure is also apparent and is an area of active clinical investigation. In this review, we examine the effects of GH on mature bone, summarize the findings of studies on the skeletal effects of GH in adults, and consider the potential use of GH as an anabolic agent in the treatment of osteoporosis.
Two oppositely oriented arrays of low‐affinity recognition sites in oriC guide progressive binding of DnaA during Escherichia coli pre‐RC assembly

The onset of chromosomal DNA replication requires highly precise and reproducible interactions between initiator proteins and replication origins to assemble a pre‐replicative complex (pre‐RC) that unwinds the DNA duplex. In bacteria, initiator protein DnaA, bound to specific high‐ and low‐affinity recognition sites within the unique oriC locus, comprises the pre‐RC, but how complex assembly is choreographed to ensure precise initiation timing during the cell cycle is not well understood. In this study, we present evidence that higher‐order DnaA structures are formed at oriC when DnaA monomers are closely positioned on the same face of the DNA helix by interaction with two oppositely oriented essential arrays of closely spaced low‐affinity DnaA binding sites. As DnaA levels increase, peripheral high‐affinity anchor sites begin cooperative loading of the arrays, which is extended by sequential binding of additional DnaA monomers resulting in growth of the complexes towards the centre of oriC. We suggest that this polarized assembly of unique DnaA oligomers within oriC plays an important role in mediating pre‐RC activity and may be a feature found in all bacterial replication origins.
The Dynamics of the roo Transposable Element In Mutation-Accumulation Lines and Segregating Populations of Drosophila melanogaster

We estimated the number of copies for the long terminal repeat (LTR) retrotransposable element roo in a set of long-standing Drosophila melanogaster mutation-accumulation full-sib lines and in two large laboratory populations maintained with effective population size ∼500, all of them derived from the same isogenic origin. Estimates were based on real-time quantitative PCR and in situ hybridization. Considering previous estimates of roo copy numbers obtained at earlier stages of the experiment, the results imply a strong acceleration of the insertion rate in the accumulation lines. The detected acceleration is consistent with a model where only one (maybe a few) of the ∼70 roo copies in the ancestral isogenic genome was active and each active copy caused new insertions with a relatively high rate (∼10−2), with new inserts being active copies themselves. In the two laboratory populations, however, a stabilized copy number or no accelerated insertion was found. Our estimate of the average deleterious viability effects per accumulated insert [E(s) < 0.003] is too small to account for the latter finding, and we discuss the mechanisms that could contain copy number.
A Study of Identification and Achievement Profiles of Performance Task-Identified Gifted Students over 6 Years

This study examined the trend of identification and achievement patterns of performance task-identified students over a span of 6 years (2000–2005), in comparison to profiles of students who were identified exclusively through traditional ability and achievement tests. The study findings suggested that the performance-based protocols were consistent across time in locating a higher percentage of low-income and minority students, as well as female students for gifted programs; a higher percentage of students with uneven verbal-nonverbal strengths were performance task-identified students also. Performance task-identified students scored significantly lower than traditionally identified students on both the English and math portions of the state assessment test for multiple years; however, the performance differences on state assessments were small, rendering small effect sizes.
Paliperidone: quo vadis?

Paliperidone, the 9‐hydroxy metabolite of risperidone, was approved on 20 December, 2006 by the US Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of schizophrenia. It is also being tested for the treatment of bipolar mania. An on‐line query of http://www.pubmed. gov and http://www.clinicaltrials. gov for ‘paliperidone’ and ‘9‐hydroxy‐risperidone’ was done, along with an examination of poster presentations at scientific meetings held in 2006. Three 6‐week pivotal clinical trials of paliperidone extended‐release at fixed doses ranging from 3 to 15 mg administered orally once daily in the treatment of acute schizophrenia demonstrated superior efficacy to placebo. A favourable tolerability profile was also evidenced, except for prolactin elevation and dose‐related extra‐pyramidal effects. A relapse prevention study provides evidence of superiority of paliperidone over placebo in the maintenance of response. Safety has also been assessed in patients with schizophrenia who are 65 years or older. At present there are no studies available that are powered to directly compare paliperidone to other second‐generation antipsychotics, including risperidone. With the impending availability of oral risperidone as a generic medication, cost of oral paliperidone will likely become a significant obstacle to its use.
Does Primary Biliary Cirrhosis in Men Differ from Primary Biliary Cirrhosis in Women?

Primary biliary cirrhosis is infrequently diagnosed in men, so that the clinical, biochemical and histopathological spectrum of this disease in men has not been evaluated. Therefore, we studied 30 men who had a histological diagnosis of primary biliary cirrhosis and had positive tests for antimitochondrial antibodies. Five patients had no hepatobiliary symptoms, and two of these patients had neither biochemical nor histological evidence of cholestasis. These 30 male patients' findings were compared with the findings in 30 age‐matched women who also had primary biliary cirrhosis and antimitochondrial antibodies. Six of these patients were asymptomatic. Clinical findings and symptomatic status, in addition to biochemical and histopathological features, were generally similar in both male and female patients. The possible significance of higher serum alkaline phosphatase activities and lower frequency of occurrence of piecemeal necrosis in men with primary biliary cirrhosis, as compared with women, requires further study.
On the micro-to-macro limit for first-order traffic flow models on networks

Connections between microscopic follow-the-leader and macroscopic fluid-dynamics traffic flow models are already well understood in the case of vehicles moving on a single road. Analogous connections in the case of road networks are instead lacking. This is probably due to the fact that macroscopic traffic models on networks are in general ill-posed, since the conservation of the mass is not sufficient alone to characterize a unique solution at junctions. This ambiguity makes more difficult to find the right limit of the microscopic model, which, in turn, can be defined in different ways near the junctions. In this paper we show that a natural extension of the first-order follow-the-leader model on networks corresponds, as the number of vehicles tends to infinity, to the LWR-based multi-path model introduced in [4,5].
Incremental stability of spatiotemporal delayed dynamics and application to neural fields

We propose a Lyapounov-Krasovskii approach to study incremental stability in spatiotemporal dynamics with delays and their capability to be entrained by a periodic input. We then focus on delayed neural fields, which describe the spatiotemporal evolution of neuronal activity. We provide an explicit condition, involving the slope of the activation functions and the strength of coupling, under which delayed neural fields are incrementally stable regardless of communication delays. We finally show how this approach can be used to draw frequency profiles of neuronal populations.
Programming-conditions solutions towards suppression of retention tails of scaled oxide-based RRAM

We investigate the impact of pulse programming conditions on data-retention of 40nm × 40nm TiN\HfO2\Hf RRAM devices, focusing on the failure of tail bits. We demonstrate that retention loss tail bit is not due to out diffusion of filament constituents but by low activation-energy (Ea~0.5eV) diffusing species, which are understood as metastable Oxygen (O)-ions in the neighborhood of the conductive-filament constriction. In order to minimize their impact, effective programming pathways are demonstrated, as the low-Ea population is better reduced by (i) using longer Write pulses rather than higher current-pulse amplitudes, and/or by (ii) using shorter reset pulse prior to Write set.
Recurrent respiratory depression after total intravenous anaesthesia with propofol and alfentanil

Since first commented upon by Lamarche in 1984, several cases of recurrent respiratory arrest after alfentanil infusions have been reported. In all these cases the alfentanil infusions have been used to supplement conventional anaesthetic techniques with nitrous oxide and/or inhalational agents and in most cases rather high total alfentanil doses have been administered. We have seen two cases of severe recurrent respiratory depression in healthy patients after relatively minor procedures performed under total intravenous anaesthesia with propofol–alfentanil infusions, air–oxygen ventilation and muscle relaxation, where the alfentanil doses administered were quite small. These cases are presented in detail and compared within a tabulated presentation with the earlier published cases of alfentanil‐related recurrent respiratory depression.
Synaptic Mechanisms Underlying Functional Dichotomy between Intrinsic-Bursting and Regular-Spiking Neurons in Auditory Cortical Layer 5

Corticofugal projections from the primary auditory cortex (A1) have been shown to play a role in modulating subcortical processing. However, functional properties of the corticofugal neurons and their synaptic circuitry mechanisms remain unclear. In this study, we performed in vivo whole-cell recordings from layer 5 (L5) pyramidal neurons in the rat A1 and found two distinct neuronal classes according to their functional properties. Intrinsic-bursting (IB) neurons, the L5 corticofugal neurons, exhibited early and rather unselective spike responses to a wide range of frequencies. The exceptionally broad spectral tuning of IB neurons was attributable to their broad excitatory inputs with long temporal durations and inhibitory inputs being more narrowly tuned than excitatory inputs. This uncommon pattern of excitatory–inhibitory interplay was attributed initially to a broad thalamocortical convergence onto IB neurons, which also receive temporally prolonged intracortical excitatory input as well as feedforward inhibitory input at least partially from more narrowly tuned fast-spiking inhibitory neurons. In contrast, regular-spiking neurons, which are mainly corticocortical, exhibited sharp frequency tuning similar to L4 pyramidal cells, underlying which are well-matched purely intracortical excitation and inhibition. The functional dichotomy among L5 pyramidal neurons suggests two distinct processing streams. The spectrally and temporally broad synaptic integration in IB neurons may ensure robust feedback signals to facilitate subcortical function and plasticity in a general manner.
The Adenovirus E 1 b 55 K / E 4 orf 6 Complex Induces Degradation of the Bloom Helicase during Infection

The adenovirus (Ad) E1b55K and E4orf6 gene products assemble an E3 ubiquitin ligase complex that promotes degradation of cellular proteins. Among the known substrates are p53 and the Mre11-Rad50-Nbs1 (MRN) complex. Since members of the RecQ helicase family function together with MRN in genome maintenance, we investigated whether adenovirus affects RecQ proteins. We show that Bloom helicase (BLM) is degraded during adenovirus type 5 (Ad5) infection. BLM degradation is mediated by E1b55K/E4orf6 but is independent of MRN. We detected BLM localized at discrete foci around viral replication centers. These studies identify BLM as a new substrate for degradation by the adenovirus E1b55K/E4orf6 complex.
CLIMATE-CHANGE STUDIES IN THE MAYA AREA

The series of papers on climate change published in this issue are the result of the symposium “Environmental Change in Mesoamerica: Physical Forces and Cultural Paradigms in the Preclassic to Postclassic,” held at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in March 2000 in Philadelphia. The authors bring their expertise in paleoclimatological studies to bear on the Maya Lowlands and Highlands from the beginning of the Holocene to the Postclassic and modern times. The studies reveal that climate has changed during the past 4,000 years to a considerable degree that correlates in a reasonable way with archaeological periodizations. Several climate-change models are presented as an effort to understand better past cultural and natural events.
State educational policy and curriculum: The case of Palestinian Arabs in Israel

abusaad@bgu.ac. il The state educational system in Israel reflects the declared character of the state as a ‘Jewish state’, and, consequently, the deep inter-group divisions in society, including a large Palestinian Arab minority. This study demonstrates how Israeli educational policy and curriculum are designed to support the Jewish nation-building project. As such, they silence the Palestinian Arab narrative while reshaping regional history for both Jewish and Arab students to fit the Zionist narrative. Furthermore, Israeli educational policy has played an essential role in consigning Palestinian Arabs to the social, economic and political margins of Israeli society.
Algebraic length distribution of sequence duplications in whole genomes

The field of comparative genomics relies upon inference of neutrality or selection from sequence conservation. Recent studies of exactly-conserved sequences have revealed an anomalous, algebraic distribution of conserved sequence lengths that is inconsistent with standard models of neutral evolution based solely on local mutation. It has been proposed that linkage contributes to the shape of this anomalous distribution. Here we identify, for a variety of species, all ‘maximal’ repeats, direct or reverse-complement, within a chromosomal or whole-genome sequence of a single genome. For a set of maximal repeats of a given nucleotide length L, we report that the number of elements in the set F(L) typically exhibits an algebraic tail. We propose a method based on a cost function that allows us to analyze this distribution and estimate the range over what the distribution is most likely to be well-approximated a power law. We find that the range is proportional to the genome size and that although the power-law exponent differs between species, it falls chiefly within a relatively narrow range of values. A sharp cut-off in the power-law regime is observed for some genomes that turns out to coincide with a peak in contig lengths and therefore can be attributed to artifacts of genome assembly, leading to a prediction that the extent of the power-law regime will increase as assemblies are improved. The typical algebraic behavior of length-frequency distribution is the most remarkable observation emerging from our analysis. The algebraic form of the empirical distribution of duplication lengths characterized here suggests that recombination events might as a general rule involve transfer of chunks of sequence with an algebraic length distribution. It also places strong constraints on any model of genome evolution. The observation of an algebraic distribution of exactly-duplicated sequence lengths within a genome is a direct demonstration of the net impact of linkage on genome evolution, and is consistent with the proposal that linkage contributes to the anomalous distribution of strongly-conserved sequence lengths.
ANALYSIS OF ACOUSTIC EMISSION ON SURFACE ROUGHNESS DURING END MILLING

This paper discusses the findings on the analysis of surface roughness with the acoustic emission (AE) produced during end milling process. Different parameters were chosen for each experiment, namely cutting speed, feed rate and depth of cut. All data collected from the AE sensor were captured using AEW in software and later analysed in MATLAB software. Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) method was used for data analysis to convert time domain into frequency domain signal, allowing the RMS, amplitude and frequency to be calculated. The results indicate that the most influential parameter to the surface roughness are firstly feed rate, followed by cutting speed, and finally depth of cut. It is found that as cutting speed increases, the surface roughness decreases with a higher amplitude of RMS signal. In case of increasing feed rate, the surface roughness increases with a higher amplitude of RMS signal. Lastly, increasing the depth of cut shows negligible effect towards the surface roughness and amplitude of RMS. The result have shown that the AE components responded effectively to the changes of occurrences in milling process with respect to specimen’s surface roughness.
Ovariectomy Stimulates Hepatic Fat and Cholesterol Accumulation in High-fat Diet-fed Rats

Abstract This study was designed to determine how estrogens withdrawal during a high-fat (HF) diet regimen affects liver triacylglycerol (TAG) and cholesterol accumulation. Female Sprague-Dawley rats were submitted to a HF (42% energy as fat) or a standard (SD) diet for 6 weeks before being either ovariectomized (Ovx) or sham operated (Sham). Thereafter, Ovx and Sham rats were kept on the same diet for another 6 weeks leading to euthanasia. Liver TAG content was increased (p<0.01) in Ovx rats but not by the HF diet alone. However, the combination of HF diet and Ovx resulted in a greater liver TAG accumulation (p<0.06) than that observed in Ovx-SD/SD. Measurement of molecular markers of liver lipid metabolism revealed an increase in transcripts of markers of lipid oxidation (CPT-1 and PGC1; p<0.05) in rats fed the HF diet. This increase was, however, substantially less if HF fed rats were Ovx. Liver total cholesterol levels were increased (p<0.01) only in the Ovx-HF/HF rats while plasma cholesterol levels were increased in Ovx-SD/SD and in SHAM-HF/HF and Ovx-HF/HF rats. Transcripts of molecular markers of cholesterol metabolism suggest that biliary acids synthesis (CYP7a-1) was reduced in Ovx-SD/SD and Sham-HF/HF rats and even more so in Ovx-HF/HF rats. It is concluded that the effects of a HF diet on liver TAG accumulation are especially observed in Ovx rats possibly through a reduction in hepatic lipid oxidation. The combination of Ovx and HF diet also acts synergistically to favor liver cholesterol accumulation.