Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Sensitive Period for the Impact of Hearing Loss on Auditory Perception

Manipulations of the sensory environment typically induce greater changes to the developing nervous system than they do in adulthood. The relevance of these neural changes can be evaluated by examining the age-dependent effects of sensory experience on quantitative measures of perception. Here, we measured frequency modulation (FM) detection thresholds in adult gerbils and investigated whether diminished auditory experience during development or in adulthood influenced perceptual performance. Bilateral conductive hearing loss (CHL) of ≈30 dB was induced either at postnatal day 10 or after sexual maturation. All animals were then trained as adults to detect a 5 Hz FM embedded in a continuous 4 kHz tone. FM detection thresholds were defined as the minimum deviation from the carrier frequency that the animal could reliably detect. Normal-hearing animals displayed FM thresholds of 25 Hz. Inducing CHL, either in juvenile or adult animals, led to a deficit in FM detection. However, this deficit was greater for juvenile onset hearing loss (89 Hz) relative to adult onset hearing loss (64 Hz). The effects could not be attributed to sensation level, nor were they correlated with proxies for attention. The thresholds displayed by CHL animals were correlated with shallower psychometric function slopes, suggesting that hearing loss was associated with greater variance of the decision variable, consistent with increased internal noise. The results show that decreased auditory experience has a greater impact on perceptual skills when initiated at an early age and raises the possibility that altered development of CNS synapses may play a causative role.
Ageing is a drag: Projecting labour force participation in New Zealand

This Analytical Note explores the effect of the ageing New Zealand population and the business cycle on the outlook for the labour force participation rate.These factors are important for understanding the level of maximum sustainable employment in the economy. Labour force participation is influenced by a variety of structural factors. For example, an ageing population may result in a lower aggregate labour force participation rate, because older people tend to participate less. Labour force participation is also influenced by cyclical factors. For example, a strengthening economy encourages more workers to enter the labour force. We find that labour force participation is mildly pro-cyclical in New Zealand. This suggests that monetary policy has a small influence on the participation rate, through an encouraged worker effect. The participation rates of young people and people near retirement age appear the most sensitive to business cycle fluctuations. Our analysis suggests that the aggregate participation rate is likely to remain broadly flat out to 2035, as an ageing population offsets further increases in the participation of women and older people. We expect the aggregate participation rate to increase further if participation by women aged 24-54 and people aged 55 and above increases at a greater pace than over the past decade. Alternatively, if participation rates of women and older workers have peaked, an ageing population will reduce the aggregate participation rate over time.
Does licensing promote innovation?

ABSTRACT We analyse the impact of licensing on the equilibrium amount of cost-reducing innovation under several licensing mechanisms in the case of a duopoly model with heterogeneous firms. Under a wide class of licensing mechanisms, we find that as product substitutability increases, the possibility of higher innovation under licensing compared to no licensing decreases. Therefore, firms’ heterogeneity is crucial to assess whether licensing incentivizes or not R&D cost-reducing investments.
The Unpast: Elite Violence and Social Control in Brazil, 1954–2000

Portuguese and Brazilian slave-traders shipped an estimated four million slaves to Brazil, in contrast to the 500,000 slaves that English vessels brought to America. With such a vast number in servitude in Brazil, controlling them became of primary importance. The Unpast: Elite Violence and Social Control in Brazil, 1954-2000 documents that the brutal methods used on plantations led directly to the phenomenon of Brazilian death squads. The Unpast examines how and why, after the abolition of slavery, elites in Brazil imported new methods to kill, torture, or disfigure dissidents and the poor to maintain dominance. Bringing a critical-historical analysis to events following the 1954 suicide of President Getulio Vargas, R.S. Rose takes the reader along a fifty-year path that shaped a nation's morals. He covers the misunderstood presidency of Joao Goulart; the overthrow of his government by a U.S. assisted military; the appalling dictatorship that followed; the efforts to rid the countryside of troublemakers; and the ongoing attempt to cleanse the urban environment of the needy, an endeavor that produced 32,675 victims in just two Brazilian states. The Unpast is the largest and most comprehensive study of suspected death-squad victims ever undertaken. It concludes with the sobering observation that nothing has really changed in present-day Brazil since the end of slavery in 1888. The Unpast is an expose of practices and attitudes in Latin America's largest country toward the poor, who - like slaves before them - are considered human rubbish worthy of anything to keep them under control. R.S. Rose is a visiting professor in history at the Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil.
Induced differentiation of avian myeloblastosis virus-transformed myeloblasts: phenotypic alteration without altered expression of the viral oncogene

Cells of a clone of avian myeloblastosis virus-transformed myeloblasts were induced to differentiate to adherent myelomonocytic cells by treatment with lipopolysaccharide. These adherent cells were subcultured and maintained as a line for more than 6 months with lipopolysaccharide present. Cells of this line were induced to differentiate to nondividing macrophage-like cells by the addition of the tumor promoter 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate. In this way, the following homogeneous cell populations representing three distinct stages of myeloid differentiation were obtained: I, actively dividing myeloblasts that grew in suspension: II, actively dividing adherent cells; and III, fully differentiated nondividing cells resembling macrophages. When the expression of v-myb (the oncogene of avian myeloblastosis virus) was examined in cells of these three differentiation stages, it was found that the protein encoded by v-myb (p45v-myb) continued to be synthesized in similar quantities and showed no obvious alteration (assessed by partial proteolytic digestion and two-dimensional gel electrophoresis) during differentiation. These results show that cells transformed by v-myb can be induced to differentiate without affecting the expression of v-myb and imply that, during differentiation, the effect of v-myb is suppressed by a mechanism other than altered expression of the oncogene.
Cross-sectional returns predictability for emerging market banks: A study on Indian banking system

Abstract Using Indian bank-level data, we examine the cross-sectional returns predictability for banking stocks in view of the distinct industry parameters prevalent in the financial services space. We find the existence of abnormal returns in banking stocks. We also observe that the celebrated Fama–French (1992) 3-factor model could not explain the abnormal returns, primarily due to very high leveraged banks’ balance sheets. Thus, we extend the Fama–French 3-factor model and Carhart 4-factor model alongside bank-specific conditioning information in the form of asset quality variables, operational efficiency variables and solvency variables to articulate the existence of abnormal returns. With the inclusion of conditioning information, the study predictability of abnormal returns improved significantly.
Contribution of Acute-Phase Proteins and Cardiovascular Risk Factors to Erythrocyte Aggregation in Normolipidemic and Hyperlipidemic Individuals

Summary Background. Numerous studies have demonstrated that elevated concentrations of acute-phase proteins affect red blood cell (RBC) aggregation. Plasma lipids and lipoproteins were also shown to be correlated with RBC aggregation in hypercholesterolemia. However, whether acute-phase proteins promote RBC hyperaggregation in hyper-lipidemic patients is unknown. The main objective of the study was to identify the impact of acute-phase proteins such as fibrinogen (Fib), haptoglobin (Hp), ceruloplasmin (Cp), α1-acid glycoprotein (AGP), α1-antitrypsin (AT), immunoglobulin G (IgG), and albumin (Alb) on RBC aggregation in 35 hyperlipidemic patients. The influence of these proteins in 32 normolipidemic subjects was also determined. Methods and Results. RBC aggregation parameters reflecting the kinetics of rouleau formation and the adhesive strength between RBCs were measured by laser reflectometry. Multivariate forward stepwise linear regression analyses were performed to study the relationship between RBC aggregation and these acute-phase proteins, total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), high (HDL-C) and low (LDL-C) density lipo-protein cholesterol, age, gender, body mass index (BMI), mean blood pressure (Mpressure), and smoking habit. The kinetics of rouleau formation was positively correlated with the linear combination of IgG and Hp (r = 0.76, p <0.0001) in hyperlipidemic patients, whereas IgG, smoking, AGP and gender were significant independent predictors in healthy subjects (r = 0.79, p <0.0001). The correlations obtained for the models predicting the adhesive strength between RBCs were 0.69 in patients (Alb, HDL-C, IgG, p <0.002) and 0.71 in healthy individuals (AGP, BMI, p <0.0001). Conclusion. This study suggests that acute-phase proteins such as IgG, Hp, AGP and Alb influence significantly and in an independent way the level of RBC aggregation. The close association between RBC aggregation and cardiovascular risk factors further strengthens its clinical importance.
Systemic right-to-left shunts, ischemic brain lesions, and persistent migraine activity

Objective: To assess whether migraine in the general population is associated with increased risk of systemic right-to-left shunts (RLS) and whether RLS are associated with increased prevalence of brain infarcts and persistent recurrence of migraine attacks at older age. Methods: Brain MRI and transcranial Doppler with air contrast in 166 unselected migraineurs (mean age ± SD 56 ± 7.7 years; 70% women; n = 96 migraine with aura) and 69 controls (mean age ± SD 55 ± 7.6 years; 65% women) from the general population. Results: Participants with migraine with aura more frequently had Valsalva-induced RLS (60%), in particular large-sized, compared to controls (42%; odds ratio [OR] 2.1; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.1–3.9; p = 0.02) and participants with migraine without aura (40%; OR 2.3; 95% CI 1.2–4.3; p = 0.01). They also more frequently had spontaneous RLS (35%) than participants with migraine without aura (17%; OR 2.6; 95% CI 1.3–5.6; p = 0.01) but not compared to controls (26%; OR 1.6; 95% CI 0.8–3.1; p = 0.2). Participants with migraine with aura and spontaneous RLS more frequently had persistent migraine activity (85%) than participants with migraine without spontaneous RLS (63%; OR 3.4; 95% CI 1.2–10.1; p = 0.03). Nine percent of participants with RLS had silent posterior circulation infarcts compared to 3% of participants without RLS (OR 2.8; 95% CI 0.9–9.3; p = 0.08), independent of migraine status. RLS were not associated with white matter lesions. Conclusions: RLS are more prevalent in migraineurs with aura but do not explain the increased prevalence of silent posterior circulation infarcts or white matter lesions in migraineurs. Spontaneous RLS are associated with persistent migraine.
Parsing Heterogeneous Striatal Activity

The striatum is an input channel of the basal ganglia and is well known to be involved in reward-based decision making and learning. At the macroscopic level, the striatum has been postulated to contain parallel functional modules, each of which includes neurons that perform similar computations to support selection of appropriate actions for different task contexts. At the single-neuron level, however, recent studies in monkeys and rodents have revealed heterogeneity in neuronal activity even within restricted modules of the striatum. Looking for generality in the complex striatal activity patterns, here we briefly survey several types of striatal activity, focusing on their usefulness for mediating behaviors. In particular, we focus on two types of behavioral tasks: reward-based tasks that use salient sensory cues and manipulate outcomes associated with the cues; and perceptual decision tasks that manipulate the quality of noisy sensory cues and associate all correct decisions with the same outcome. Guided by previous insights on the modular organization and general selection-related functions of the basal ganglia, we relate striatal activity patterns on these tasks to two types of computations: implementation of selection and evaluation. We suggest that a parsing with the selection/evaluation categories encourages a focus on the functional commonalities revealed by studies with different animal models and behavioral tasks, instead of a focus on aspects of striatal activity that may be specific to a particular task setting. We then highlight several questions in the selection-evaluation framework for future explorations.
Reproductive health knowledge and practices among junior secondary school grade one students in Enugu State: threat to achieving millennium development goals in Nigeria.

OBJECTIVE This was designed to provide background information for the implementation of family life and HIV/AIDS education in post primary schools in the Enugu State. METHODS A cross sectional survey of the reproductive health knowledge and practices of 412 junior secondary school pupils from 12 schools in Enugu State, Nigeria was undertaken using a uniform set of structured self-administered questionnaire. RESULTS The results revealed that while the pupils demonstrated fair knowledge of human biology, they lacked knowledge of self-protective mechanisms as it related to sexual health. About (50%) of the participants reported that they have had sex, at the age of less than 11 years when they must have been in the primary school and most (89.3%) at age 11-14 years. Half (50.9%) of the respondents hold the belief that a girl would not get pregnant in her first sexual encounter. Statistically more of those who have ever had sex were betrayed this ignorance (p = 0.004). The boys were less certain about what constitutes the wrong ideas about reproductive health systems than the girls (p = 0.042). In the same vein, there was a difference (p < 0.0001) in the proportion of the rural residents, vis-a-vis their urban counterparts that could correctly identify the wrong ideas about human reproduction. CONCLUSION This situation urgently calls for concerted efforts at addressing the poor reproductive health knowledge of these sexually active young people, for the millennium development goals (MDGs) target to be realized in Nigeria.
Chorology and taxonomic issues of Taraxacum danubium and Taraxacum tortilobum (section Erythrosperma), new species to the Polish flora

In the past 20 years, the interest in Taraxacum has considerably increased among Polish botanists, however, with the exception of marsh dandelions (Taraxacum section Palustria), the taxonomy and chorology of this group are still poorly examined. In 2012, comprehensive taxonomicchorological studies on Taraxacum sect. Erythrosperma were launched in Poland. T. danubium and T. tortilobum, species previously unknown in Poland, were identified during this research. We found that these rare dandelion species occur in Poland regionally. Karyological analysis showed the triploid chromosome number (2n = 3x = 24) in both taxa. Current research results also suggest that the previously mentioned diploid T. erythrospermum does not occur in Poland.
Rapidly Induced Wound Ethylene from Excised Segments of Etiolated Pisum sativum L., cv. Alaska: II. Oxygen and Temperature Dependency.

Wound-induced ethylene synthesis by subapical stem sections of etiolated Pisum sativum L. , cv. Alaska seedlings, as described by Saltveit and Dilley (Plant Physiol 1978 61: 447-450), was half-saturated at 3.6% (v/v) O(2) and saturated at about 10% O(2). Corresponding values for CO(2) production during the same period were 1.1% and 10% O(2), respectively. Anaerobiosis stopped all ethylene evolution and delayed the characteristic pattern of wound ethylene synthesis. Exposing tissue to 3.5% CO(2) in air in a flow-through system reduced wound ethylene synthesis by 30%. Enhancing gas diffusivity by reducing the total pressure to 130 mm Hg almost doubled the rate of wound ethylene synthesis and this effect was negated by exposure to 250 mul liter(-1) propylene. Applied ethylene or propylene stopped wound ethylene synthesis during the period of application, but unlike N(2), no lag period was observed upon flushing with air. It is concluded that the characteristic pattern of wound-induced ethylene synthesis resulted from negative feedback control by endogenous ethylene.No wound ethylene was produced for 2 hours after excision at 10 or 38 C. Low temperatures prolonged the lag period, but did not prevent induction of the wound response, since tissue held for 2 hours at 10 C produced wound ethylene immediately when warmed to 30 C. In contrast, temperatures above 36 C prevented induction of wound ethylene synthesis, since tissue cooled to 30 C after 1 hour at 40 C required 2 hours before ethylene production returned to normal levels. The activation energy between 15 and 36 C was 12.1 mole kilocalories degree(-1).
Evaluation of 5-(11)C-methyl-A-85380 as an imaging agent for PET investigations of brain nicotinic acetylcholine receptors.

UNLABELLED Central nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) represent major neurotransmitter receptors responsible for various brain functions, and changes in the density of nAChRs have recently been reported in several neurodegenerative diseases. Visualization of nAChRs in human brain has thus been of great interest, and the development of radiopharmaceuticals for the imaging and quantitative assessment of central nAChRs has been desired. In this study, we synthesized 5-(11)C-methyl-3-(2-(S)-azetidinylmethoxy)pyridine (5MA), a derivative of 3-(2-(S)-azetidinylmethoxy)pyridine (A-85380) (11)C-methylated at position 5 of the pyridyl fragment, and evaluated its potential for investigating central nAChRs by PET. METHODS (11)C-5MA was synthesized by the incorporation of (11)C-methyl iodide into 5-butylstannyl A-85380, using a Pd-catalyzed coupling reaction. The affinity of 5MA for central nAChRs was measured by displacement of (-)-(3)H-cytisine from binding sites in rat cortical membranes. The biodistribution of (11)C-5MA was determined with mice. PET studies were performed on rhesus monkeys with a high-resolution PET scanner for animals. RESULTS The overall synthesis time was 60 min from the end of radionuclide production, and the radiochemical yield, after purification by high-performance liquid chromatography, was 30%. The radiochemical purity of the product was >99%, with a specific radioactivity of >36 GBq/ micro mol. In vitro receptor-binding assays demonstrated that 5MA has a high, selective binding affinity for nAChRs, being approximately 1.5-fold higher than that of A-85380, 3.5-fold higher than that of (-)-cytisine, and 10-fold higher than that of (-)-nicotine. The distribution studies in mice showed that the brain uptake of (11)C-5MA was profound. Regional cerebral distribution studies in mice demonstrated that the accumulation of (11)C-5MA was consistent with the density of nAChRs, with the highest uptake observed in the thalamus, a moderate uptake in the cortex and striatum, and the lowest uptake in the cerebellum. Furthermore, preinjection of nAChR-binding ligands, (-)-nicotine and (-)-cytisine, reduced the uptake of (11)C-5MA in brain regions of high uptake in the untreated experiment. PET imaging studies with (11)C-5MA in rhesus monkeys demonstrated clear images consistent with the distribution of nAChRs in the brain. CONCLUSION These results suggest that (11)C-5MA is a potential PET radiopharmaceutical for nuclear medical studies of nAChRs in the brain.
Uncertainties in Global Economic Policy and Nigerias Export Earnings

Article History This study examined the contemporaneous effect of global economic policy uncertainty on Nigeria’s export earnings, using Nigerian data that spans from 1997 to 2016. The theoretical framework relied on the contemporaneous theory of external vulnerability, which posits that macroeconomic shocks from dominant economies could be transferred to lesser dominant economies through international linkages of global economies and financial market. To achieve objective, this study employed the ARDL and GARCH estimation techniques, to estimate the effect of global economic policy uncertainty on Nigeria’s export earnings. The results revealed the adverse effect of global economic policy uncertainty on Nigeria’s export earnings, affirming the vulnerability of Nigeria’s export earnings to external shocks. The practical implication of the finding is that developing economies could insulate their domestic macroeconomic environment from external shocks by diversifying their economies. Importantly, Nigeria should increase diversification of her export base as a coping strategy for protecting against the contemporaneous effect of global economic uncertainties. Contribution/Originality: The study contributes to existing literature focusing on export earnings, which is a major source of vulnerability to external shocks in Nigeria. The use of global economic policy uncertainty index appears novel, compare to previous studies that use global output and inflation.
Insulin Sensitivity Decreases with Obesity, and Lean Cats with Low Insulin Sensitivity are at Greatest Risk of Glucose Intolerance with Weight Gain

This study quantifies the effects of marked weight gain on glucose and insulin metabolism in 16 cats which increased their weight by an average of 44.2% over 10 months. Significantly, the development of feline obesity was accompanied by a 52% decrease in tissue sensitivity to insulin and diminished glucose effectiveness. In addition, glucose intolerance and abnormal insulin response occurred in some cats. An important finding was that normal weight cats with low insulin sensitivity and glucose effectiveness were at increased risk of developing impaired glucose tolerance with obesity. High basal insulin concentrations or low acute insulin response to glucose also independently increased the risk for developing impaired glucose tolerance. Male cats gained more weight relative to females and this, combined with their tendency to lower insulin sensitivity and higher insulin concentrations, may explain why male cats are at greater risk for diabetes. Results suggest an underlying predisposition for glucose intolerance in some cats, which is exacerbated by obesity. These cats may be more at risk of progressing to overt type 2 diabetes mellitus.