Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Metabolic effects and the methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) polymorphism associated with neural tube defects in southern Brazil.

BACKGROUND The importance of metabolic factors in neural tube defects (NTDs) has been the focus of many investigations. Several authors have suggested that abnormalities in homocysteine metabolism, such as hyperhomocysteinemia, folate deficiency, and low vitamin B12, may be responsible for these malformations and that both nutritional factors and genetic abnormalities are associated with them. METHODS We conducted a case-control study to investigate the influence of biochemical and genetic factors in NTDs in infants in southern Brazil. Levels of folate, vitamin B12, total homocysteine (t-Hcy) and the 677C>T and 1298A>C polymorphisms of the MTHFR gene were analyzed in 41 NTD child-mother pairs and 44 normal child-mother control pairs. RESULTS Subjects in the case group had a higher mean blood folate level than those in the control group. The level of vitamin B12 was lower in mothers in the NTD group than in control mothers (p = 0.004). The level of t-Hcy was not different in the two groups, but t-Hcy and vitamin B12 were correlated (p = 0.002). There was no difference in the genotype distribution for 677C>T and 1298A>C polymorphisms of MTHFR in the case and control pairs. The level of t-Hcy was correlated with 677TT. CONCLUSIONS Despite the small sample in this study, we suggest that low vitamin B12 and, consequently, hyperhomocysteinemia are important risk factors for NTDs in our population.
In vivo gastric detection of α‐synuclein inclusions in Parkinson's disease

α‐Synuclein inclusions have been identified in the brain and some parts of the enteric nervous system in Parkinson's disease cases. We aimed to assess these inclusions in gastric mucosa samples from patients with symptomatic Parkinson's disease. Random biopsies were performed by gastroscopy in 28 patients with Parkinson's disease and in 29 age‐ and sex‐matched controls. Gastroscopy was performed to start enteral levodopa (l‐dopa) therapy in cases and for diagnostic purposes in controls (gastroesophageal reflux, anemia, and abdominal pain were the main indications). The clinical definition of cases and controls was made a priori. Six controls had data suggestive of “mild presymptomatic parkinsonism”. Biopsy specimens were immunostained for α‐synuclein. The neuropathological diagnosis was established post hoc. No differences were found in the baseline characteristics of the groups. Positive fibers for the α‐synuclein protein were observed in 17 of 28 (60.7%) Parkinson's disease patients, 1 of 23 controls (4.3%), and 1 of 6 (16.7%) cases of incident “mild presymptomatic parkinsonism. ” Neuropathological diagnosis based on α‐synuclein immunostaining showed a sensitivity of 85% (95% confidence interval [CI] 62.1‐96.8), specificity of 95% (95% CI 76.2‐99.9) and area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUC) of 0.90 (95% CI 0.80‐1.00). No adverse events occurred. Detection of α‐synuclein inclusions in the gastric mucosa is a useful and safe tool providing in vivo evidence of the underlying neurodegenerative peripheral involvement linked to Parkinson's disease. Further studies are warranted to determine its pathophysiological implications. © 2014 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society
Haemophilus influenzae release histamine and enhance histamine release from human bronchoalveolar cells

Haemophilus influenzae (H. influenzae), Streptococcus pneumoniae (S. pneumoniae) and Branhamella catarrhalis (B. catarrhalis) are often found in the lower respiratory tract of patients with chronic bronchitis. Earlier studies have shown that bacteria induce mediator release from human basophils and parenchymal lung mast cells. In this study the capability of bacteria to trigger or potentiate histamine release from superficially located mast cells in the airway epithelium was studied in cell suspensions obtained by bronchoalveolar lavage in patients with chronic bronchitis (CB). In approximately half of the patients H. influenzae and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) were found to trigger histamine release, whereas no response was obtained by S. pneumoniae or B. catarrhalis. The mediator release was caused by a non‐IgE‐dependent mechanism. At lower concentrations of H. influenzae causing no histamine release the bacterium was found to enhance IgE‐mediated histamine release triggered by anti‐IgE antibody. The synergy was more pronounced in patients with CB than in controls. Since H. influenzae is found in the lower respiratory tract of the patients but not in normal individuals, the infection here may via histamine release lead to harmful effects on the airways of importance for precipitation and exacerbation of chronic bronchitis.
Update on the profile of the EUSTAR cohort: an analysis of the EULAR Scleroderma Trials and Research group database

Objectives Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a rare disease requiring multicentre collaboration to reveal comprehensive details of disease-related causes for morbidity and mortality. Methods The European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) Scleroderma Trials and Research (EUSTAR) group initiated a database to prospectively gather key data of patients with SSc using a minimal essential dataset that was reorganised in 2008 introducing new items. Baseline visit data of patients who were registered between 2004 and 2011 were analysed using descriptive statistics. Results In June 2011, 7655 patients (2838 with diffuse cutaneous (dc) and 4481 with limited cutaneous (lc) SSc who fulfilled the American College of Rheumatology diagnostic criteria had been registered in 174 centres, mainly European. The most prominent hallmarks of disease were Raynaud's phenomenon (96.3%), antinuclear antibodies (93.4%) and a typical capillaroscopic pattern (90.9%). Scleroderma was more common on fingers and hands than on any other part of the skin. Proton pump inhibitors (65.2%), calcium channel blockers (52.7%), and corticosteroids (45.3%) were most often prescribed. Among the immunosuppressant agents, cyclophosphamide was used more often in dcSSc than in lcSSc. Conclusions The EUSTAR database provides an abundance of information on the true clinical face of SSc that will be helpful in improving the classification of SSc and its subsets and for developing more specific therapeutic recommendations.
The far right as social movement

ABSTRACT The literature on the far right is trying to connect with social movement studies. Scholars from different social scientific backgrounds are increasingly acknowledging that extra-parliamentary grassroots activism is part of the alliance and conflict structure of nativist collective actors. The recent rise in far-right street politics – or, precisely, its re-emergence with seemingly different clothes – should encourage the study of the inter-relations between party and non-party collective actors. As a case in point, the far right not only includes political parties geared towards elections and public office but also social movements or ‘networks of networks’ that aim to mobilise public support, and a conglomeration of subcultural groups and groupuscules. By putting forward a three-part metric to analyse mobilisation factors at the macro, meso, and micro levels, this piece and the Special Issue it introduces bring the (inter-)relations between far-right parties, movements, and subcultures frontstage, and elaborate on nativist collective action across different arenas of contention.
Ultrasound guided FNA of thyroid performed by cytopathologists enhances Bethesda diagnostic value

Ultrasound (US) guided fine needle aspiration (FNA) biopsy of thyroid are examined and reported by cytopathologists based usually on The Bethesda System for Reporting Thyroid Cytopathology (BTC) regardless of the procedure's performers. This study is designed to determine whether there is any performer‐dependent difference.
[Effect of age on body composition in healthy Beijing women].

OBJECTIVE To observe the effect of age and menstrual status on body composition in healthy Beijing women. METHODS We measured body composition with dual-energy X-ray (GE Lunar Prodigy) in 316 healthy Beijing females aged 20 to 74 years (5-7 cases per age). Parameters provided by the software were as following: total body bone mineral content, lean mass, fat mass and fat percentage (%fat). Local regions measured included arm, leg, trunk, android region and gynoid region. Body mass index (BMI), fat mass index (FMI), free fat mass index (FFMI) and A/G were calculated. Volunteers were assigned to 6 groups according age by every ten years a group. RESULTS BMC peaked during the 4th decade, LM peaked during the 5th decade, with a decline of 18.1% and 5.2% respectively at age 74 years. Total body fat mass and %fat showed a general increase with aging throughout the studied age range. Total body fat mass increased from 16+/-5 kg at age 20-29 years to 24+/-6 kg at age 70-74 years, while %fat increased from 31.3% to 39.5%. All local region %fat increased with aging at different extents. Android region %fat showed the largest raise extent (32.2%). BMI increased gradually from 21.1 kg/m2 at age 20-29 years to 26.1 kg/m2 at age 70-74 years. FMI changed more obviously than FFMI. A/G increased from 0.85 at age 20-29 years to 1.02 at age 70-74 years. Different menstrual status in women of 40-59 years had obvious effect on A/G and BMC (P<0.05), while it had no significant effect on BMI, body weight and waist circumference (P>0.05). CONCLUSIONS Aging and menstrual status have evident effect on body composition distribution in healthy Beijing women.
The impact of the psychological contract, justice and individual differences: nurses take it personally when employers break promises.

AIM To explore affective and attitudinal outcomes of aspects of the psychological contract, organizational justice and negative affectivity in nursing. BACKGROUND Job satisfaction, mental health and commitment to organizations and the nursing profession is important for nurse retention. The psychological contract and organizational justice are related constructs that have been linked to these outcomes, as has the characteristic of negative affectivity. Rarely have the relationships between these concepts and outcomes been examined. DESIGN Cross-sectional data were collected during November, 2007. METHOD Survey data collected on Registered Nurses and midwives from a large metropolitan hospital in Australia (n = 193, after removing missing cases and outliers) were analysed using structural equation modelling. The model used self-report measures of psychological contract obligations, fulfilment and breach, organizational justice and negative affectivity as predictors of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, career commitment and psychological distress. RESULTS Goodness-of-fit statistics confirmed a well-fitting model. The model explained 49%, 29%, 60% and 47% of the variance in psychological distress, job satisfaction, organizational commitment and career commitment respectively. CONCLUSION Findings support the influence of the psychological contract, fairness and individual differences on outcomes important to nurse retention. Keeping promises is more important than making promises that cannot be kept. The results support a discrepancy mechanism underlying fulfilment and breach. The impact of breach suggests that nurses take breach personally, whereas fulfilment may represent a global evaluation of discrepancies. Ultimately, fulfilling, rather than making promises, keeps nurses happy.
Energy and rate modeling of data download over LTE with respect to received signal characteristics

Estimating energy consumption and data rate in LTE networks is a critical issue for some recently proposed applications such as collaborative Internet access and energy-aware cellular data scheduling. In this study, after collecting data via empirical measurements, we provide realistic modeling with respect to LTE signal parameters such as RSRP, RSRQ and SINR. We applied various regression methods after careful data analysis and appropriate transformations to avoid biased estimations. We provide several formulas for energy and throughput estimations, and analyze their goodness of fit values. Resulting models could be utilized in current applications as well as they would provide a benchmark to compare energy efficiency of new studies in the context of upcoming 5G networks and beyond.
Modeling the Cross Section of Stock Returns Using Sensible Models in a Model Pool

Abstract An increase in the number of asset pricing models intensifies model uncertainties in asset pricing. While a pure “model selection” (singling out a best model) can result in a loss of useful information, a full “model pooling” may increase the risk of including noisy information. We make a trade-off between the two methods and develop a new two-step trimming-then-pooling method to forecast the joint distributions of asset returns using a large pool of asset pricing models. Our method allows investors to focus on certain regions of the distributions. In the first step, we trim the uninformative models from a pool of candidates, and in the second step, we pool the forecasts of the surviving models. We find that our method significantly enhances portfolio performance and predicts downside risk precisely, and the improvements are mainly due to trimming. The pool of sensible models becomes larger when focusing on extreme events, responds rapidly to rising uncertainty, and reflects the magnitude of factor premiums. These findings provide new insights into asset pricing model evaluation.
Individual Lawyers, the SEC Revolving Door, and Comment Letters

Government officials, advocacy groups, and the business press have raised concerns that former SEC employees may continue to influence the SEC after leaving the agency. Using a hand-collected database of lawyers who represent firms in responding to SEC comment letters, we examine the determinants of hiring a former SEC lawyer, and their impact on firms’ resistance to the SEC comment letter process and on long-run outcomes. Relative to matching firms that involve only non-SEC lawyers, we find that firms that involve former SEC lawyers in responding to SEC comment letters have lower compliance costs in the short run, but have more adverse accounting and shareholder outcomes in the long run. Our main results are driven largely by lawyers who had left the SEC more recently and are therefore more likely to be able to influence former colleagues still working at the agency.
Assessing the Effects of the Smartphone as a Learning Tool on the Academic Achievement of School-Based Agricultural Education Students in Louisiana

The purpose of this preexperimental study was to determine the effects of a blended learning environment on school-based agricultural education students’ ability to identify 30 species of trees by leaves. Louisiana agriculture teachers were recruited based on district policy regarding whether students could use smartphones for learning in the classroom. The treatment group utilized smartphone technology to aid in the identification of tree species, while the comparison group utilized traditional, printed materials. All students were taught via guided inquiry and engaged in multiple formative assessments during the course of the research study. No statistically significant differences were found between the groups on the posttest tree leaf identification. It is recommended that future research be conducted over a longer duration of time to better measure long-term performance and learning gains. Further, more research should be conducted to determine if motivational differences exist based on utilizing smartphones for learning. Teachers who desire to incorporate the smartphone into blended learning environments can do so without diminishing student achievement.
Defining thresholds for critical ischemia by using near-infrared spectroscopy in the adult brain.

OBJECT Signal changes in adult extracranial tissues may have a profound effect on cerebral near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) measurements. During carotid surgery NIRS signals provide the opportunity to determine the relative contributions from the intra- and extracranial vascular territories, allowing for a more accurate quantification. In this study the authors applied multimodal monitoring methods to patients undergoing carotid endarterectomy and explored the hypothesis that NIRS can define thresholds for cerebral ischemia, provided extracranial NIRS signal changes are identified and removed. Relative criteria for intraoperative severe cerebral ischemia (SCI) were applied to 103 patients undergoing carotid endarterectomy. METHODS One hundred three patients underwent carotid endarterectomy. An intraoperative fall in transcranial Doppler-detected middle cerebral artery flow velocity (%deltaFV) of greater than 60% accompanied by a sustained fall in cortical electrical activity were adopted as criteria for SCI. Ipsilateral frontal NIRS recorded the total difference in concentrations of oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin (Total deltaHb(diff)). Interrupted time series analysis following clamping of the external carotid artery (ECA) and the internal carotid artery (ICA) allowed the different vascular components of Total deltaHb(diff) (ECA deltaHb(diff) and ICA deltaHb(diff)) to be identified. Data obtained in 76 patients were deemed suitable. A good correlation between %deltaFV and ICA deltaHb(diff) (r = 0.73, p < 0.0001) was evident. Sixteen patients (21%) fulfilled the criteria for SCI. All patients who demonstrated an ICA deltaHb(diff) of greater than 6.8 micromol/L showed SCI, and in two patients within this group nondisabling watershed infarction developed, as seen on postoperative computerized tomography scans. No patient with an ICA deltaHb(diff) less than 5 micromol/L exhibited SCI or suffered a stroke. Within the resolution of the criteria used an ICA deltaHb(diff) threshold of 6.8 micromol/L provided 100% specificity for SCI, whereas an ICA deltaHb(diff) less than 5 micromol/L was 100% sensitive for excluding SCI. When Total deltaHb(diff) was used without removing the ECA component, no thresholds for SCI were apparent. CONCLUSIONS Carotid endarterectomy provides a stable environment for exploring NIRS-quantified thresholds for SCI in the adult head.
Is there stability underneath health risk resilience in Hong Kong inbound tourism?

ABSTRACT The impacts of health crises on tourism demand vary according to the crises’ magnitude, causes, and recoverability. In some cases, the effects of these unexpected incidents have been severe. This study investigates the underlying stability of Hong Kong’s inbound tourism during three phases of health events. Data on 14 market sources for Hong Kong tourism are compared and the results discussed. Specific examinations suggest that travel from India, the U.S., the U.K., Indonesia, and the Philippines are, somewhat, less influenced by health crises in Hong Kong. Men, unmarried travelers, non-working vacationers, and repeat visitors display resilient tendencies. Expenditure tends to decrease during crises, although lengths of stay tend to increase. The inclusion of three types and phases of health crisis events and their effects on inbound travel markets suggest that the impacts of health crisis events differ according to the profile of health crisis. Implications and suggestions for future studies are discussed.
Rhesus Cytomegalovirus Particles Prevent Activation of Interferon Regulatory Factor 3

ABSTRACT One of the most important innate host defense mechanisms against viral infection is the induction of interferon (IFN)-stimulated genes (ISGs). Immediately upon entry, viruses activate interferon-regulatory factor 3 (IRF3), as well as nuclear factor κB (NF-κB), which transactivate a subset of ISGs, proinflammatory genes, as well as IFN genes. Most large DNA viruses exhibit countermeasures against induction of this response. However, whereas human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) inhibits IFN-dependent induction of ISGs, IFN-independent induction of ISGs is observed both in the presence and, even moreso, in the absence of viral gene expression. Rhesus CMV (RhCMV) is an emerging animal model for HCMV sharing important similarities in primary structure, epidemiology, and pathogenesis. To determine whether RhCMV would similarly induce ISGs, we performed DNA microarray and quantitative PCR analysis of ISG expression in rhesus fibroblasts infected with RhCMV or HCMV. In contrast to HCMV, however, RhCMV did not induce expression of ISGs or proinflammatory genes at any time after infection. Moreover, dimerization and nuclear accumulation of IRF3, readily observed in HCMV-infected cells, was absent from RhCMV-infected cells, whereas neither virus seemed to activate NFκB. RhCMV also blocked IRF3 activation by live or UV-inactivated HCMV, suggesting that RhCMV inhibits viral IRF3 activation and the resultant ISG induction with extraordinary efficiency. Since infection during inhibition of protein expression by cycloheximide or inactivation of viral gene expression by UV treatment did not trigger IRF3 activation or ISG expression by RhCMV, we conclude that RhCMV virions contain a novel inhibitor of IFN-independent viral induction of ISG expression by IRF3.
THE INVENTOR'S PERSPECTIVE ON CONDITIONS FOR RADICAL INNOVATIONS IN FREIGHT TRANSPORTATION: CASE STUDIES FROM FRANCE AND GERMANY

Radical innovations are an important driver to achieve sustainability in transportation. Against this background, in the article, we investigate how current innovation conditions influence radical innovation activities in reality. Based on literature related to the Multi-Level Perspective and the National Innovative Capacity, we conducted interviews with the inventors of radical innovations for freight transportation in France and Germany to elaborate national specificities and commonalities. Our main findings are: first, the innovation conditions are ambiguous for radical innovations: on the one hand essential input factors for radical innovations are given. On the other hand, we identified many mechanisms that protect the status quo. Second, the innovation determinants for innovation conditions, the mechanisms of positive and hindering influences, are similar in France and Germany. However, nation-specific determinants are at the micro level: the management skills of the inventors and the business culture.JEL Codes: O31, O33