Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Aegilops tauschii Accessions with Geographically Diverse Origin Show Differences in Chromosome Organization and Polymorphism of Molecular Markers Linked to Leaf Rust and Powdery Mildew Resistance Genes

Aegilops tauschii (2n = 2x = 14) is a diploid wild species which is reported as a donor of the D-genome of cultivated bread wheat. The main goal of this study was to examine the differences and similarities in chromosomes organization among accessions of Ae. tauschii with geographically diversed origin, which is believed as a potential source of genes, especially determining resistance to fungal diseases (i.e., leaf rust and powdery mildew) for breeding of cereals. We established and compared the fluorescence in situ hybridization patterns of 21 accessions of Ae. tauschii using various repetitive sequences mainly from the BAC library of wheat cultivar Chinese Spring. Results obtained for Ae. tauschii chromosomes revealed many similarities between analyzed accessions, however, some hybridization patterns were specific for accessions, which become from cognate regions of the World. The most noticeable differences were observed for accessions from China which were characterized by presence of distinct signals of pTa-535 in the interstitial region of chromosome 3D, less intensity of pTa-86 signals in chromosome 2D, as well as lack of additional signals of pTa-86 in chromosomes 1D, 5D, or 6D. Ae. tauschii of Chinese origin appeared homogeneous and separate from landraces that originated in western Asia. Ae. tauschii chromosomes showed similar hybridization patterns to wheat D-genome chromosomes, but some differences were also observed among both species. What is more, we identified reciprocal translocation between short arm of chromosome 1D and long arm of chromosome 7D in accession with Iranian origin. High polymorphism between analyzed accessions and extensive allelic variation were revealed using molecular markers associated with resistance genes. Majority of the markers localized in chromosomes 1D and 2D showed the diversity of banding patterns between accessions. Obtained results imply, that there is a moderate or high level of polymorphism in the genome of Ae. tauschii determined by a geographical origin, which we proved by cytogenetic and molecular markers analysis. Therefore, selected accessions might constitute an accessible source of variation for improvement of Triticeae species like wheat and triticale.
Predictors of Antipsychotic-Induced Weight Gain in First-Episode Psychosis: Conclusions From a Randomized, Double-Blind, Controlled Prospective Study of Olanzapine, Risperidone, and Haloperidol

Background: Antipsychotic-induced weight gain is one of the most distressing adverse effects being observed in recent times. Most studies have been limited by several confounders. Aim: To evaluate the predictors of antipsychotic-induced weight gain in drug-naive patients with first-episode psychosis treated with olanzapine, risperidone, or haloperidol and compare them with a healthy matched control group. Methods: Newly diagnosed patients with first-episode schizophrenia treated with antipsychotic medication-olanzapine, risperidone, or haloperidol-and matched healthy controls were followed for 6 weeks. Body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, and weight changes and proportions of subjects with more than 7% weight gain were calculated. The predictors of weight gain were explored. Results: Ninety-nine patients with first-episode schizophrenia and 51 healthy controls were examined. Waist circumference (r = −0.25; P < 0.01) and weight (r = −0.24; P < 0.01) at baseline in addition to the disease process (P < 0.001) as well as antipsychotic use (P < 0.001) were associated with greater increases in weight and BMI. Olanzapine (77%) had greater clinically significant weight gain as compared with risperidone (63%) and haloperidol (22%). Lower BMI at baseline and a diagnosis of undifferentiated schizophrenia were associated with antipsychotic-induced weight gain. Conclusions: The results confirm clinically significant and substantial weight gain induced by antipsychotic treatment in drug-naive patients with first-episode schizophrenia and identify several risk factors for weight gain such as lower BMI scores, use of olanzapine, and a diagnosis of undifferentiated schizophrenia.
Association of Endothelin-1 rs5370 G>T gene polymorphism with the risk of nephrotic syndrome in children

Background: Primary nephrotic syndrome (NS) is a common kidney disease in children. Objectives: The present study was aimed to investigate whether rs5370 G>T (lys198Asn) genetic variant of endothelin-1 (ET-1) is involved in the susceptibility to NS. Patients and Methods: This case-control study was performed on 138 patients with NS and 150 healthy children. Genomic DNA was extracted from whole blood using salting out method. Polymorphism of the ET-1 rs5370 G>T (lys198Asn) polymorphism detected by T-ARMS-PCR as well as PCR-RFLP method. Results: The results showed that the genotype and allelic frequencies of the ET-1 rs5370 G>T variant were not significantly different between cases and controls. Furthermore, subgroup analysis showed that rs5370 G>T variant was not associated with gender of patients. In NS patients the genotype was not associated with cholesterol, triglyceride, total protein and albumin levels. Conclusions: In conclusion, our findings indicate that ET-1 rs5370 G>T is not associated with NS. Further studies with larger sample sizes and different ethnicities are required to validate our findings.
Is morphoea caused by Borrelia burgdorferi? A review

The aetiology of morphoea and lichen sclerosus et atrophicus is still unknown. Since the detection of Borrelia burgdorferi (B. burgdorferi) as the causative agent of Lyme disease, there has been debate about a possible association between B. burgdorferi and morphoea. Initial serological and cultural studies showed controversial results. The introduction of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) initially suggested an association between B. burgdorferi and morphoea. We reviewed the literature on B. burgdorferi (specific serology, immunohistology, culture, lymphocyte stimulation and DNA detection by PCR) since 1983, using Medline and Current Contents. Histological and immunohistological detection of B. burgdorferi was reported in 0–40% (20 of 82) of the cases with morphoea and in 46–50% (17 of 36) of the cases with lichen sclerosus et atrophicus. Cultivation of spirochetes from lesional skin succeeded in five patients (five of 68) with morphoea, but failed in patients with lichen sclerosus et atrophicus. In Europe and Asia, serological detection of antibodies against B. burgdorferi was described in 0–60% (138 of 609) of patients with morphoea and in 19% (six of 32) in the U.S.A. For lichen sclerosus et atrophicus 0–25% of the published cases (three of 23) in Europe and Asia were seropositive. DNA from B. burgdorferi was detected by PCR in 0–100% (17 of 82) of the tissues of patients with morphoea in Europe and Asia, but not a single case among 98 patients was reported to be positive from the U.S.A. In Europe and Asia, borrelial DNA was detected in 0–100% (nine of 28) of the cases with lichen sclerosus et atrophicus, whereas in the U.S.A. none of 48 patients was positive. There are two possible explanations for these contradictory findings: the most likely is that B. burgdorferi is not a causative agent for morphoea. Another possible explanation could be that a subset of morphoea is caused by a special subspecies of B. burgdorferi that is present in Europe and Asia but does not occur in the U.S.A.
A pivotal role for endogenous TGF-β-activated kinase-1 in the LKB1/AMP-activated protein kinase energy-sensor pathway

TGF-β-activated kinase-1 (TAK1), also known as MAPKK kinase-7 (MAP3K7), is a candidate effector of multiple circuits in cardiac biology and disease. Here, we show that inhibition of TAK1 in mice by a cardiac-specific dominant-negative mutation evokes electrophysiological and biochemical properties reminiscent of human Wolff–Parkinson–White syndrome, arising from mutations in AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), most notably, accelerated atrioventricular conduction and impaired AMPK activation. To test conclusively the biochemical connection from TAK1 to AMPK suggested by this phenotype, we disrupted TAK1 in mouse embryos and embryonic fibroblasts by Cre-mediated recombination. In TAK1-null embryos, the activating phosphorylation of AMPK at T172 was blocked, accompanied by defective AMPK activity. However, loss of endogenous TAK1 causes midgestation lethality, with defective yolk sac and intraembryonic vasculature. To preclude confounding lethal defects, we acutely ablated floxed TAK1 in culture by viral delivery of Cre. In culture, endogenous TAK1 was activated by oligomycin, the antidiabetic drug metformin, 5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide riboside (AICAR), and ischemia, well established triggers of AMPK activity. Loss of TAK1 in culture blocked T172 phosphorylation induced by all three agents, interfered with AMPK activation, impaired phosphorylation of the endogenous AMPK substrate acetyl CoA carboxylase, and also interfered with activation of the AMPK kinase LKB1. Thus, by disrupting the endogenous TAK1 locus, we prove a pivotal role for TAK1 in the LKB1/AMPK signaling axis, an essential governor of cell metabolism.
Social Policy and Collective Action: Unemployed Workers, Community Associations, and Protest in Argentina

Unemployed and informal workers seem an unlikely source of large-scale collective action in Latin America. Since 1997, however, Argentina has witnessed an upsurge of protest and the emergence of unusually influential federations of unemployed and informal workers. To explain this puzzle, this article offers a policy-centered argument. It suggests that a workfare program favored common interests and identities on the part of unemployed workers and grassroots associations, allowing them to overcome barriers to collective action. State responses to demands for workfare benefits generated a pattern of protest and negotiation that strengthened those groups and dramatically expanded social policy.
The Association of Identifiable Intangible Assets Acquired and Recognised in Business Acquisitions with Postacquisition Firm Performance

This paper extends the literature evaluating accounting practices for identifiable intangible assets and considers whether the application of these accounting practices changed on transition to IFRS. It finds no evidence of identifiable intangible assets acquired and recognised in business acquisitions being associated with postacquisition firm performance or changes in postacquisition firm performance, either before or after transition to IFRS. This is inconsistent with the requirements of regulations such as IFRS 3 Business Combinations and IAS 38 Intangible Assets, and there is no empirical evidence supporting the present regulatory distinction between acquired and internally generated and revalued identifiable intangible assets.
Oregon's get tough sentencing reform: a lesson in justice system adaptation

Research Summary: Oregon's Measure 11, a mandatory minimum sentencing policy passed in 1994, had fewer negative system impacts than had been anticipated by many state and local criminal justice administrators, due largely to the fact that prosecutors exercised the discretion provided them under the law to selectively prosecute cases. Consequently, fewer Measure 11-eligible cases were sentenced under the relevant statues than before passage of the measure, and more were sentenced to lesser related offenses. At the same time, incarceration rates and sentence lengths increased for both Measure 11 and lesser related offenses. Trial rates increased for two years after Measure 11 took effect before reverting to previous levels. Policy Implications: The “unintended consequences” that Measure 11 produced should not have been unexpected. Our research indicates that the entire system will quickly adapt to mitigate the more draconian outcomes predicted by those who assume a simplistic implementation, which underscores the importance of understanding system dynamics and inter-relationships before implementing reform, as well as the pitfalls of designing legislation for either symbolic appeal or formal logic rather than for actual effect.
Controlled Induction of a Pseudarthrosis: A Study Using a Rodent Model

Objectives This study aimed to test the hypothesis that under standardized mechanical and biologic conditions, the process of indirect bone repair in a rodent species could be manipulated to form a reproducible, atrophic, fibrous pseudarthrosis. Design The model used comprised a mid-diaphyseal, transverse osteotomy in the rat femur, stabilized via a precision miniature external fixator, a constant axial fixation stiffness being defined by a specific frame geometry. Main Outcome Measurements The repair process for both 0.5-mm and 3.0-mm gap osteotomies was characterized using radiography, dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry, histologic assessment of standardized longitudinal sections, and postmortem mechanical testing. Results Healing of the defect was highly reproducible, bone union being attained at around 5 weeks postoperatively with a 0.5-mm gap. Increasing the gap width to 3.0 mm resulted consistently in a pseudarthrosis. Conclusion These two reproducible patterns of repair can now be used to elucidate the underlying molecular mechanisms controlling the extent and progression of connective tissue differentiation in indirect bone repair without the additional variable of a nonstandardized mechanical environment.
Identification of adopter categories for online banking in Turkey

This article reports the results of an investigation of demographic and lifestyle characteristics of adopters of online banking services in Turkey by using the Bass diffusion model. The results of multinominal logistic regression analysis suggest that there are significant differences both in demographic characteristics, such as age and gender, and psychographic characteristics, such as leadership, non-traditionalism, innovativeness, and practicality among the different adopter categories. Thus, new variables such as gender and lifestyle, which have not been investigated in the literature, could be introduced as segmentation variables to develop more effective marketing strategies tailored to each adopter category in online banking services.
IMPLEMENTING ORGANIZATIONAL REFORM STRATEGIES IN STATE GOVERNMENTS

This paper examines the implementation of organizational reform strategies in state governments. It uses national survey data to examine the implementation of twelve reforms strategies that cover three areas: workforce reduction, work redesign, and system change. The paper further tests the relationship between reform strategies, individual characteristics, and management factors. The management factors are based on objective state grading data in five areas: financial management, capital management, human resources management, information technology, and managing for results. The empirical findings show that while public managers tend to be conservative and cautious in the implementation of reform strategies, they are also likely to adopt a complete package of related reform strategies in their implementation plans, rather than a single effort. The findings also support the relationship between organizational reforms, the length of a public manager‟s tenure in government service, and the state‟s performance on capital management and information technology issues. Implications of the findings are presented in order to enhance future public management reform studies.
Heteroskedasticity in Stock Return Data: Volume versus GARCH Effects

This paper provides empirical support for the notion that autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity in daily stock return data reflects time dependence in the process generating information flow to the market. Daily trading volume, used as a proxy for information arrival time, is shown to have significant explanatory power regarding the variance of daily returns, which is an implication of the assumption that daily returns are subordinated to intraday equilibrium returns. Furthermore, autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity effects tend to disappear when volume is included in the variance equation. Copyright 1990 by American Finance Association.
Liquidity, Innovation and Growth

Many countries simultaneously suffer from high inflation, low growth and poorly developed financial sectors. In this paper, we integrate a microfounded model of money and finance into a model of endogenous growth to examine the effects of inflation on welfare, growth and the size of the financial sector. A novel feature is that the innovation sector is decentralized. Financial intermediaries arise endogenously to provide liquidity to this sector. Consistent with the data but in contrast to previous work, reducing inflation generates large growth gains. These large gains cannot be easily reproduced by imposing a cash-in-advance constraint in the innovation sector.
How Broad Should the Scope of Patent Protection Be

I explore the trade-off between a patent's length (that is, its lifetime) and its width (that is, its scope of coverage). A wider patent generally reduces the distortion of consumers' choices between the patented brand of the product and unpatented, lower-priced varieties sold by competitors but also permits higher prices, which increase (relative to profits) the deadweight losses from consumers switching consumption out of the product class. I show under what conditions infinitely lived but very narrowly focused patents are the socially efficient way to reward innovation and under what conditions very short-lived but very broad patents are optimal.
ALTA OR NLTA: WHAT'S IN THE NAME? LAND TENURE DILEMMA AND THE FIJI SUGAR INDUSTRY

Since 1997, the agricultural leases on Native land, issued under the 1976 Agricultural and Landlord Tenants Act (ALTA), began to expire. The sugar industry is the main commodity export earner for Fiji, directly contributing about 22% of the national GDP and supporting over 25% of the country's active labor force. Fiji exports 80% of its sugar production, earning on average of $250-300 million in foreign exchange annually. Several options have been suggested, including: non-renewal of leases, with the land reverting to Fijian owners; renewal of ALTA but with land rents pegged to the gross value of production instead of the unimproved capital value; sharecropping and contract wage arrangements; and abolishment of lease arrangement under ALTA with leases to be issued under an institutional arrangement guided by the Native Lands Trust Act (NLTA). The land tenure system adopted will have a significant impact not only on the efficiency of the sugar cane sector but also on Fiji's ability to meet its international obligations of sugar exports. This paper explores the land tenure dilemma facing Fiji today. It assesses the economic implications of the various forms of land lease system proposed. This analysis is carried out in terms of efficiency, equity, and risk sharing in the current preferential market access environment and under possible future world market conditions. Suggestions are made on institutional arrangements that could enhance efficiency in resource use and encourage sharing of production risks that arise due to variability in factor prices and climatic conditions as well as sugar prices.
Microbiological and immunological studies of adult periodontitis in patients with noninsulin-dependent diabetes mellitus.

The subgingival microflora and serum antibody response was examined in periodontitis patients with noninsulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM), impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), and normal glucose tolerance (NGT). The predominant cultivable microflora was determined for subgingival plaque sampled from two deep periodontal pockets in each of eight adult periodontitis patients with NIDDM. Indirect immunofluorescence for Bacteroides intermedius, Bacteroides gingivalis, and Haemophilus actinomycetemcomitans was used to examine these same samples as well as 186 additional subgingival plaque samples from 47 patients with moderate to severe generalized periodontitis including 25 subjects with NIDDM, six subjects with IGT, and 16 subjects with NGT. Serum antibody levels to 13 microorganisms including seven oral bacterial species and one nonoral control species were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) in 377 subjects including 84 normal subjects without periodontal disease, 112 normal subjects with periodontitis, 19 periodontally normal subjects with IGT, 65 periodontitis patients with IGT, 15 periodontally normal subjects with NIDDM, and 82 periodontitis patients with NIDDM. Three hundred eighty-two bacterial isolates were recovered from the eight patients. B. intermedius was the most frequently isolated microorganism constituting 16% of the total isolates followed by Wolinella recta and B. gingivalis, which each accounted for 13% of the total. Streptococcus sanguis was the most prevalent microorganism, which was found in 75% of the sites. Subgingival plaque samples examined by immunofluorescence demonstrate a high prevalence of black-pigmented Bacteroides and suggest that the proportion of B. gingivalis but not B. intermedius is higher in NIDDM with periodontitis than in other groups. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Activation of Human Oral Epithelial Cells by Neutrophil Proteinase 3 Through Protease-Activated Receptor-21

Proteinase 3 (PR3), a 29-kDa serine proteinase secreted from activated neutrophils, also exists in a membrane-bound form, and is suggested to actively contribute to inflammatory processes. The present study focused on the mechanism by which PR3 activates human oral epithelial cells. PR3 activated the epithelial cells in culture to produce IL-8 and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 and to express ICAM-1 in a dose- and time-dependent manner. Incubation of the epithelial cells for 24 h with PR3 resulted in a significant increase in the adhesion to neutrophils, which was reduced to baseline levels in the presence of anti-ICAM-1 mAb. Activation of the epithelial cells by PR3 was inhibited by serine proteinase inhibitors and serum. The epithelial cells strongly express protease-activated receptor (PAR)-1 and PAR-2 mRNA and weakly express PAR-3 mRNA. The expression of PAR-2 on the cell surface was promoted by PR3, and inhibited by cytochalasin B, but not by cycloheximide. PR3 cleaved the peptide corresponding to the N terminus of PAR-2 with exposure of its tethered ligand. Treatment with trypsin, an agonist for PAR-2, and a synthetic PAR-2 agonist peptide induced intracellular Ca2+ mobilization, and rendered cells refractory to subsequent stimulation with PR3 and vice versa. The production of cytokine induced by PR3 and the PAR-2 agonist peptide was completely abolished by a phospholipase C inhibitor. These findings suggest that neutrophil PR3 activates oral epithelial cells through G protein-coupled PAR-2 and actively participates in the process of inflammation such as periodontitis.