Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An in situ hybridization, molecular biological and immunohistochemical study of hepatitis delta virus in woodchucks

The presence of hepatitis delta virus genomic RNA and hepatitis delta antigen was investigated in woodchuck liver and extrahepatic tissues by in situ hybridization using synthetic radiolabeled probes, Northern‐blot analysis and immunohistochemical staining for hepatitis delta antigen. Hepatitis D virus RNA and hepatitis delta antigen were detected in the nuclei of infected hepatocytes but in none of the other tissues examined. Northern‐blot analysis of total cell RNA confirmed these findings and revealed a series of hepatitis D virus transcripts, including full‐length genomic RNA and dimers and trimers of hepatitis D virus RNA that may represent replicative intermediates. Use of single‐stranded probes showed genome‐size monomers and dimers to be both of genomic and antigenomic polarity, although dimers were found to be predominantly antigenomic. These findings document the strict hepatotropism of hepatitis D virus and support the rolling‐circle model of genome replication for this unique, defective RNA virus.
PART OF A SPECIAL ISSUE ON SEXUAL PLANT REPRODUCTION Stamen development and winter dormancy in apricot (Prunus armeniaca)

† Background and Aims In temperate woody perennials, flower bud development is halted during the winter, when the buds enter dormancy. This dormant period is a prerequisite for adequate flowering, is genetically regulated, and plays a clear role in possibly adapting species and cultivars to climatic areas. However, information on the biological events underpinning dormancy is lacking. Stamen development, with clear differentiated stages, appears as a good framework to put dormancy in a developmental context. Here, stamen developmental changes are characterized in apricot (Prunus armeniaca) and are related to dormancy. † Methods Stamen development was characterized cytochemically from the end of August to March, over 4 years. Developmental changes were related to dormancy, using the existing empirical information on chilling requirements. † Key Results Stamen development continued during the autumn, and the flower buds entered dormancy with a fully developed sporogenous tissue. Although no anatomical changes were observed during dormancy, breaking of dormancy occurred following a clear sequence of events. Starch accumulated in particular places, pre-empting further development in those areas. Vascular bundles developed and pollen mother cells underwent meiosis followed by microspore development. † Conclusions Dormancy appears to mark a boundary between the development of the sporogenous tissue and the occurrence of meiosis for further microspore development. Breaking of dormancy occurs following a clear sequence of events, providing a developmental context in which to study winter dormancy and to evaluate differences in chilling requirements among genotypes.
The relationship between school lunch attendance and the food intakes of French schoolchildren aged 3–17 years

Abstract Objective Recently, school meal composition regulations have been implemented in France in order to improve the nutritional status of children. The present study investigated the link between school lunch attendance and the food intakes of schoolchildren aged 3–17 years. Design Second French cross-sectional dietary survey (2006–2007). Eating frequencies were assessed for twenty-four food groups with a 7 d food record. Eating locations were recorded for main meals. Food group intakes at weekday lunches were compared for the school canteen and for other locations. The children’s overall dietary intake was compared based on school lunch attendance. Setting Mainland France. Subjects Schoolchildren aged 3–17 years (n 1068). Results Lunchtime food intake differed between the school canteen and other locations. Some intakes at school canteens were more in accordance with the regulations (more fruit and vegetables, fish and dairy products, and less sandwiches, soft drinks, chocolate and confectionery), whereas others highlighted needs for improvement (more sweet biscuits and pastries, ice cream and dairy desserts, pizzas and salty pastries). Many of these differences were also observed in the children’s overall diet: children regularly attending school lunches ate more mashed fruit, fish and sweet biscuits or pastries, and less sandwiches and soft drinks. The link between school lunch attendance and overall diet was less pronounced in secondary-school children. Conclusions School canteen attendance is associated with both potentially beneficial and deleterious differences in the lunchtime and overall diets of French children. These findings are important to consider when setting national regulations for school meal composition.
A Study of the Metabolites of Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury and Selected Amino Acids in the Liver Using Microdialysis during Transplantation

Background. Preservation and ischemia-reperfusion injury still impact the outcome of orthotopic liver transplantation. The authors used microdialysis with a view to monitoring its effect on graft function. Methods. A microdialysis catheter was inserted into the graft immediately after reperfusion and perfused with an isotonic solution for 48 hr. Metabolites of the ischemia-reperfusion injury and selected amino acids were studied. There were 18 patients, with a median age of 52 years (range, 38–62 years), 8 of whom were men. Lactate, pyruvate, glycerol, and glucose levels were measured. In addition, alanine, arginine, citrulline, &ggr;-aminobutyric acid (GABA), glutamate, glutamine, glycine, and taurine were determined. Results. All grafts functioned well. High lactate, pyruvate, and glycerol levels were observed in the immediate postoperative period. These showed a significant rapid decrease and stabilized to baseline levels. Alanine, glutamate, GABA, and taurine levels declined significantly to baseline values. Arginine levels were low immediately postreperfusion and then increased, reaching significantly higher values beyond 19 hr. Conclusions. These data may represent “normal” changes seen in the immediate posttransplant period because all grafts functioned well. Two important metabolic fates of arginine in the liver are in the detoxification of ammonia by means of the urea cycle, and in the synthesis of nitric oxide (NO). Low extracellular arginine may reflect influx of the amino acid into hepatocytes, resulting in formation of NO in the presence of inducible NO synthase or conversion to ornithine in the presence of arginase in the urea cycle. As the organ stabilizes, restriction of arginine uptake may give rise to the observed increase in extracellular arginine.
NIMBY, CLAMP, and the Location of New Nuclear‐Related Facilities: U.S. National and 11 Site‐Specific Surveys

Public and political opposition have made finding locations for new nuclear power plants, waste management, and nuclear research and development facilities a challenge for the U.S. government and the nuclear industry. U.S. government‐owned properties that already have nuclear‐related activities and commercial nuclear power generating stations are logical locations. Several studies and utility applications to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission suggest that concentrating locations at major plants (CLAMP) has become an implicit siting policy. We surveyed 2,101 people who lived within 50 miles of 11 existing major nuclear sites and 600 who lived elsewhere in the United States. Thirty‐four percent favored CLAMP for new nuclear power plants, 52% for waste management facilities, and 50% for new nuclear laboratories. College educated, relatively affluent male whites were the strongest CLAMP supporters. They disproportionately trusted those responsible for the facilities and were not worried about existing nuclear facilities or other local environmental issues. Notably, they were concerned about continuing coal use. Not surprisingly, CLAMP proponents tended to be familiar with their existing local nuclear site. In short, likely CLAMP sites have a large and politically powerful core group to support a CLAMP policy. The challenge to proponents of nuclear technologies will be to sustain this support and expand the base among those who clearly are less connected and receptive to new nearby sites.
Review on Group B Streptococcal Infection

Streptococcus Agalactiae is a gram-positive group B beta-hemolytic streptococcus (GBS) that causes invasive disease, primarily in pregnant women and their newborn infants. In 1935, Lancefield and Hare reported on Group B Streptococcus as a cause of puerperal infection. However concern regarding GBS infection diminished, because of the greater pathogenicity of Group A Streptococcus that was described in the same studies. Clinical research regarding GBS infection only resumed during the 1960s. Streptococci are identified as group B because of their Abstract Group B streptococcal (GBS) infections cause significant morbidity and mortality in the newborn population of the western countries. Since 1990, the focus of group B streptococcus (GBS) disease research has shifted to prevention. Intrapartum chemoprophylaxis is well proven to be cost-effective in the prevention of early onset GBS infection. In 1996, a consensus guideline on the "Prevention of Perinatal Group B Streptococcal Disease" was published in 1996, by the collaboration of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). In recent 10 years, there are enormous ongoing studies leading to new insight in epidemiology, bacteriology, treatment and different preventive strategies of GBS infection. Vaccine development has yielded encouraging result on phase I human trial, demonstrating high immunogenicity and good tolerance when monovalent vaccine was given to women of reproductive age. Development of multivalent conjugated vaccine efficacious against major serotypes causing clinical disease, will be the next goal of effective prevention that may decrease use of antibiotic prophylaxis and to offer protection to a larger population including pregnant mothers and their babies, and also to the high risk elderly. Active research comparing the "universal cultures-based" vs "risksbased" screening strategies for intrapartum chemoprophylaxis is actively ongoing. These enormous upcoming data will lead to further refinement of current consensus guidelines.
Evaluating and Developing a Multidimensional, Dispositional Measure of Appraisal

Although theories of stress have emphasized the critical role of the appraisal process, the use of dispositional measures of appraisal have not been readily investigated. Using a large multiethnic sample, we examined the factorial validity and dimensionality of a dispositional version of the Stress Appraisal Measure (SAM; Peacock & Wong, 1990). Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses resulted in a 4-factor representation of dispositional appraisal fitting better than its originally proposed 6-factor representation. This 4-factor model was invariant across gender groups. Although the 6-factor model purported to measure 3 dimensions of primary appraisal and 3 dimensions of secondary appraisal, these factors were found to be highly unstable and had questionable internal consistency. In contrast, the more parsimonious 4-factor solution identified 4 relative distinct and reliable scales of appraisal: 3 primary (Challenge, Threat, and Centrality) and 1 secondary (Resources). These findings suggest that meaningful dispositional dimensions of appraisal can be derived and incorporated into trait–state models of the stress process.
Recombinant natural killer enhancing factor augments natural killer cytotoxicity

Natural killer enhancing factor (NKEF) was originally identified and studied because of its ability to enhance NK cytotoxicity in vitro. After cloning the two genes responsible for NKEF proteins, NKEF‐A and ‐B, we found that they belong to a newly described and highly conserved antioxidant gene family. We have now produced recombinant proteins of both genes and used them to test for their ability to promote NK cytotoxicity. Although recombinant NKEF (rNKEF)‐A and ‐B have similar levels of antioxidant function, only the reduced form of rNKEF‐A can enhance NK cytotoxicity. These results indicate that both the antioxidant and NK‐enhancing functions of rNKEF‐A and ‐B probably involve the cysteine residues of the proteins but are mediated by separate domains of the molecules. We pretreated both effector cells and target cells to investigate which population was influenced by rNKEF‐A, and determined that the protein must be present during the cytotoxicity assay to enhance the activity. Despite the similarities between NK cytotoxicity and lymphokine‐activated killer (LAK) cytotoxicity, rNKEF‐A is not effective in augmenting LAK cytotoxicity. Therefore, rNKEFs can be useful tools in not only protecting cells from oxidative damage, but also in selectively promoting NK cytotoxicity against certain tumor cells.
A Logarithmic Safety Staffing Rule for Contact Centers with Call Blending

We consider large contact centers that handle two types of jobs – inbound and outbound – simultaneously, a process commonly referred to as call blending. Inbound work arrives to the system according to an exogenous arrival process, whereas outbound work is generated by the contact center. We assume that there is an infinite supply of outbound work to process, and that inbound calls are prioritized over the outbound calls. We propose a logarithmic safety staffing rule, combined with a threshold control policy, ensuring that agents’ utilization is very close to one at all times, but that there are practically always idle agents present. Specifically, we prove that it is possible to have almost all inbound calls answered immediately upon their arrival, in addition to satisfying a target long-run throughput rate of outbound calls, with at most a negligible proportion of those calls dropped. Simulation experiments demonstrate the effectiveness and accuracy of our analysis.
To Zap Or Not to Zap: a Study of the Determinants of Channel Switching During Commercials

We present a conceptual framework to describe the commercial zapping phenomenon and use it to identify factors that influence channel switching during commercials. Drawing on previous research, published reports of practitioner gut feel, interventions used by advertisers to reduce channel switching, and proprietary studies reported in the published literature, we describe how these variables might potentially affect the decision to zap a commercial. We use a latent class approach to model the impact of the identified factors on two aspects of the switching decision-whether or not a commercial is zapped (modeled with a binary logit model) and, conditional on a zap having taken place, the number of seconds that the commercial was watched before being zapped (modeled within the proportional hazards framework). The model is estimated on telemeter data on commercial viewing in two categories (spaghetti sauce and window cleaners) obtained from a single-source, household scanner panel. The results from the empirical analysis show that households can be grouped into two segments. The first, which consists of about 35% of households in the sample, is more zap-prone than the second. For this"zapping segment, " the probability of zapping a commercial is lower for households who make more purchases in the product category. Also, zapping shows a J-shaped response to previous exposures to the commercial, with the associated zapping elasticity reaching its minimum value at around 14 exposures and increasing rapidly thereafter. This finding suggests that advertisers should be cautious not to use media schedules that have excessive media weight or that emphasize frequency over reach. We found that zapping probabilities for ads aired around the hour and half-hour marks to be significantly higher than for other pod locations. Based on these results, we argue that prices for advertising pods located around the hour/half-hour marks should be between 5% to 33% lower than those in the remaining portion of the program. We explore the impact of advertising content on zapping and find that the presence of a brand differentiating message in a commercial causes a statistically significant decrease in zapping probabilities. While the magnitude of this effect is small, the finding suggests that it may be helpful to include qualitative variables in future models of advertising response. We propose the expected proportion of time that an ad is watched as a benchmark to compare 15-second and 30-second ad formats from a zapping standpoint. We found no significant differences between the two formats on this dimension. Our analysis also shows that, due to the impact of previous exposures on zapping, the use of 15-second ads runs a greater risk of reaching the threshold exposure level beyond which zapping probabilities start to increase. This implies that while managers must be cognizant of the risks of overexposure for any ad, it is especially important in the case of the shorter, 15-second ad format.
Efficiency of the Slovak Commercial Banks Applying the DEA Window Analysis

: The aim of this paper is to estimate the efficiency of the Slovak commercial banks employing the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) window analysis approach during the period 2003-2012. The research is based on unbalanced panel data of the Slovak commercial banks. Undesirable output was included into analysis of banking efficiency. It was found that most efficient banks were Postovabanka, UniCredit Bank and Istrobanka in CCR model and the most efficient banks were Slovenskasporitelna, Istrobanka and UniCredit Bank in BCC model. On contrary, the lowest efficient banks were found Privatbanka and CitiBank. We found that the largest banks in the Slovak banking market were lower efficient than medium-size and small banks. Results of the paper is that during the period 2003-2008 the average efficiency was increasing and then during the period 2010-2011 the average efficiency decreased as a result of financial crisis.
Synergistic neuroprotective effect via simian lentiviral vector‐mediated simultaneous gene transfer of human pigment epithelium‐derived factor and human fibroblast growth factor‐2 in rodent models of retinitis pigmentosa

We previously demonstrated that a new lentiviral vector derived from nonpathogenic simian immunodeficiency virus (SIVagm) was efficient and safe for long‐lasting retinal gene transfer, and that it provided the significant therapeutic effect of expressing human pigment epithelium‐derived factor (hPEDF) in Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) rats. In the present study, to obtain a more pronounced outcome, we assessed the potential synergistic effect of the simultaneous gene transfer of hPEDF and human fibroblast growth factor‐2 (hFGF‐2) by improved third‐generation SIV on RCS rats and retinal degeneration slow (rds) mice, because the former targets the primary neurons, including photoreceptor cells (PCs), whereas the latter is effective for targeting secondary neural cells, including Muller cells.
Specifying the relations between affect and heavy alcohol use among young adults.

Current reformulations of the tension reduction hypothesis posit that only a subset of vulnerable individuals are at risk for drinking in response to negative affect. To further specify this model, this study examined the types of mood and social contexts under which affect and alcohol use are associated. Participants were 74 college students who completed repeated assessments of mood, alcohol use, friendship quality, and social support. A complex pattern of findings supported the moderating influences of gender, friendship factors, and the timing of behavior (i.e., weekends vs. weekdays) on the relation between affect and alcohol use. Young adults with less intimate and supportive friendships, as compared with their peers, showed risk for greater drinking following relative elevations in sadness and hostility. Such drinking episodes, in turn, predicted subsequent elevations in these same negative moods the following week. Gender differences in such a cyclical pattern of affect and alcohol use were found to vary across differing emotional experiences. Recommendations for a more refined theory of affect and alcohol use are discussed.
Modeling Seepage into Heated Waste Emplacement Tunnels in Unsaturated Fractured Rock

Predicting the amount of water that may seep into waste emplacement tunnels (drifts) is important for assessing the performance of the proposed geologic repository for high‐level radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The repository will be located in thick, partially saturated fractured tuff that—for the first several hundred years after emplacement—will be heated to above‐boiling temperatures as a result of heat generation from the decay of radioactive waste. Heating of rock water to above‐boiling conditions induces water saturation changes and perturbs water fluxes that affect the potential for water seepage into drifts. We describe numerical analyses of the coupled thermal‐hydrological (TH) processes in the vicinity of waste emplacement drifts, evaluate the potential of seepage during the heating phase of the repository, and discuss the implications for the performance of the site. In addition to the capillary barrier at the rock‐drift interface—independent of the thermal conditions—a second barrier exists to downward percolation at above‐boiling conditions. This barrier is caused by vaporization of water in the fractured rock overlying the repository. A TOUGH2 dual‐permeability simulation model was developed to analyze the combined effect of these two barriers; it accounts for all relevant TH processes in response to heating, while incorporating the capillary barrier condition at the drift wall. Model results are presented for a variety of simulation cases that cover the expected variability and uncertainty of relevant rock properties and boundary conditions.