Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Meloxicam inhibits fipronil‐induced apoptosis via modulation of the oxidative stress and inflammatory response in SH‐SY5Y cells

Oxidative stress and inflammatory responses have been identified as key elements of neuronal cell apoptosis. In this study, we investigated the mechanisms by which inflammatory responses contribute to apoptosis in human neuroblastoma SH‐SY5Y cells treated with fipronil (FPN). Based on the cytotoxic mechanism of FPN, we examined the neuroprotective effects of meloxicam against FPN‐induced neuronal cell death. Treatment of SH‐SY5Y cells with FPN induced apoptosis via activation of caspase‐9 and ‐3, leading to nuclear condensation. In addition, FPN induced oxidative stress and increased expression of cyclooxygenase‐2 (COX‐2) and tumor necrosis factor‐α (TNF‐α) via inflammatory stimulation. Pretreatment of cells with meloxicam enhanced the viability of FPN‐exposed cells through attenuation of oxidative stress and inflammatory response. FPN activated mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) and inhibitors of MAPK abolished FPN‐induced COX‐2 expression. Meloxicam also attenuated FPN‐induced cell death by reducing MAPK‐mediated pro‐inflammatory factors. Furthermore, we observed both nuclear accumulation of p53 and enhanced levels of cytosolic p53 in a concentration‐dependent manner after FPN treatment. Pretreatment of cells with meloxicam blocked the translocation of p53 from the cytosol to the nucleus. Together, these data suggest that meloxicam may exert anti‐apoptotic effects against FPN‐induced cytotoxicity by both attenuating oxidative stress and inhibiting the inflammatory cascade via inactivation of MAPK and p53 signaling. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Using Stable Isotopes to Assess the Bioavailability of Minerals in Food Fortification Programs

The fortification of various types of food with minerals is often undertaken without consideration of either their bioavailability or the potential nutrient-nutrient interactions resulting from their use. Stable isotopes provide a safe and accessible method of resolving these issues by providing the proper evidence in each case. They must be conducted according to strict safety and ethical guidelines and may be readily conducted in a field setting. Clinical studies in children enable researchers, policymakers, and food manufacturers to obtain the data necessary to determine the best way to fortify specific foods and beverages, in order to optimally enhance the nutritional health of growing children. We have shown the utility of this approach in studies in both developing countries and in the United States.
*Do Firms Increase Productivity in Order to Become Exporters?

Recent studies find that exporters are more productive than non-exporters and that entry into exporting does not increase firms' productivity. Thus, firms self-select into foreign markets. This paper examines productivity before entry into exporting. Using Chilean plant-level data, we find that productivity and investment increase before plants begin to export. Moreover, productivity of entrants to exporting, but not that of non-exporters and exporters, increases in response to increases in foreign income, before entry but not after that. The results suggest that the productivity advantage of future exporters may be the result of firms increasing their productivity in order to export. Copyright (c) Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the Department of Economics, University of Oxford, 2009.
Training‐induced changes of motor cortex representations in stroke patients

Objective– To study changes in motor cortex representations after a single session of physiotherapy in stroke patients. Methods– TMS mapping was used to evaluate the motor output map of the abductor pollicis brevis (APB) in both hemispheres. Stroke patients (4–8 weeks after the infarction) were studied prior to a training session aimed at improving dexterity and 1 h and 1 day after the training. Results– Prior to the training, the APB representation area in the affected hemisphere was significantly smaller than on the non‐affected side. After therapy, the cortical motor output to the paretic APB was significantly enlarged, and motor function was improved. One day later, these effects were partially reversed. Motor thresholds remained significantly increased in the affected hemisphere before and after the therapy. Conclusion– A single session of physiotherapy produces a use‐dependent enlargement of motor cortex representations paralleled by an improvement of motor function in stroke patients.
Environmental impacts of macroeconomic and sectoral policies

The papers in this volume examine in an integrated way the ecological and social impacts of structural adjustment programs and other macroeconomic policies, and attempt to incorporate this angle in the initial design of development policies. Due to the complexity of policy-environment interactions, this report takes an empirical, case-study oriented approach, including thorough reviews of current work both within and outside the World Bank. Specific case studies from Africa, Asia, and Latin America underscore the difficulties of developing a general methodology to trace the environmental impacts of policy reform, yet offer evidence that empirical work may help identify and deal with the most important potential environmental impacts. The report is organized in three broad sections: Chapters 2 to 6 deal with general links between the environment and economy-wide policies and broad development strategies. The next three papers deal with sector-specific environmental issues relating to trade, agriculture, and energy. The volume concludes with country case studies of Botswana and Costa Rica.
Understanding Falling Poverty in the Poorest Places: An Examination of the Experience of the Texas Borderland and Lower Mississippi Delta, 1990–2000

This study examines the structural changes that occurred between 1990 and 2000 in the two poorest regions in the United States—the Texas Borderland and the Lower Mississippi Delta—and analyzes the associations between these changes and the substantial reduction of poverty witnessed in these areas over the decade. Results show that both regions experienced noteworthy changes during the 1990s in the aggregate characteristics commonly associated with poverty. Further, results from multivariate models indicate that counties with high initial poverty rates saw poverty decline the most, with job growth and net in-migration contributing to this decline. Conversely, smaller declines in the population younger than age 15 and greater increases in the share of families headed by females were associated with lesser reductions in poverty over the decade. The results also reveal that the underlying mechanisms influencing the reduction of poverty differed between these regions in important respects. Increases in finance, insurance, and real estate employment and educational attainment were significantly less beneficial for the Borderland, whereas the growth of the minority population was linked to significantly better outcomes for that region in comparison to the Delta.
The Cultural Foundations of Family Business Management: Evidence from Ukraine

This study empirically examines what makes Ukrainian family-firm culture unique by comparing the values and beliefs of Ukrainian family-business members with that of professional bank managers within Ukraine. Morck and Yeung (2003) suggest that the implications of family business are especially relevant for former planned economies such as Ukraine in that government’s social policy on the encouragement or discouragement of privately-held sectors of the economy is yet to be fully formed. Ukraine’s future course in this regard is particularly sensitive as the pre-Soviet Ukrainian economy was almost entirely held in private hands while the Soviet-era economy was almost entirely state-controlled. Family-firm literature stresses the differences between family-firm and professional management in terms of culture, goal-setting, and strategy. Family-firm culture is said to be a resource leading to competitive advantage. This study is based on a survey comparing 76 family-firm members and 99 professional managers. Statistically significant differences between the culture of members of family-owned firms and professional managers were found within Ukraine. Family-firm membership had a significant effect in five culture constructs. We can conclude that differences in Power Distance, Social Cynicism, Social Flexibility, Spirituality and Fate Control describe fundamental aspects of family-firms in Ukraine and may possibly contribute to family-firm competitive advantage as discussed in management literature.
Analytical and Empirical Evidence of the Impact of Tax Rates on the Trade-off between Debt and Managerial Ownership

We show that, for a firm facing a high marginal tax rate, the benefit of using debt relative to managerial ownership to control agency costs increases at a decreasing rate. Debt and managerial stock ownership represent alternative mechanisms for reducing agency costs of the relationship between owner-investors and managers in firms. However, although debt and managerial ownership provide overlapping benefits, only debt can provide the differential benefit of reducing the firm's tax liability. While the tax benefit from using debt relative to managerial ownership to control agency conflicts is an increasing function of the firm's marginal tax rate, the decreased managerial ownership results in external investors bearing a larger part of the cost of debt that accrues to the firm. Effectively, for external investors, the relative cost of debt decreases at a decreasing rate when the marginal tax rate increases. Therefore, the trade-off between debt and managerial ownership predicted by the agency literature is expected to be strong at low marginal tax rates, but get progressively weaker at higher marginal tax rates. In this paper, we build an analytical model of this hypothesis and provide strong empirical evidence in its support. Our study contributes to a further understanding of how tax rates might affect the interaction of capital structure decisions with the incentive compatibility issues and corporate governance. The study also provides a basis for future studies to examine factors other than tax rates that differentially affect debt and managerial ownership costs.
Average employee tenure, voluntary turnover ratio, and labour productivity: evidence from Japanese firms

Using Japanese firms' data, this study shows that voluntary turnover ratio is negatively related to firm labour productivity. While recent studies have reported the negative influence of turnover on organizational performance (Kacmar et al., 2006; Shaw et al., 2005a), they analysed only US samples. Our study contributes to researchers' efforts to generalize the relationship between voluntary turnover and organizational performance. Turnover is detrimental to labour productivity as it reduces the stock of firm-specific human capital that a firm retains. Findings suggest that firm average employee tenure mediates the relationship between voluntary turnover and labour productivity.
Investigation of the correlation between diffuse infrared and ultrasound for transcranial ultrasound

Over the past two decades the feasibility for using transcranial ultrasound as both a therapeutic and diagnostic tool has been established. Various aberration-correction techniques have been proposed to achieve transcranial focusing, including computed tomography-derived model based corrections, ultrasound-derived model based corrections, magnetic resonance acoustic radiation force techniques, and techniques involving the invasive introduction of an acoustic source or receiver into the brain. Here, we investigate the correlation between transcranial infrared light (IR) and transcranial ultrasound, where we examine whether IR could be an indicator of any of the key acoustic properties that affect transcranial transmission (signal attenuation, speed of sound, and bone density). Nine human skull samples were utilized in the study. The interior of each sample was illuminated over its inner surface using a diffuse light source. Light transmitted to the outer surface was detected by a 3 mm diameter 940 nm infrared sensor. Acoustic measurements were likewise obtained in a water tank using a 12.7 mm diameter 1 MHz source and a needle hydrophone receiver. Results reveal a positive correlation between the acoustic time-of-flight and optical intensity (the correlation coefficient is between 0.5 and 0.9). Subsequent investigation shows this correlation to hold independent of the presence or absence of dura mater on the samples. Poor correlation is observed between acoustic amplitude and optical intensity (the correlation coefficient is between 0.1 and 0.7).
A Survey of Trade and Wage Inequality: Anomalies, Resolutions and New Trends

This paper surveys recent studies on trade and wage inequality. We first introduce some trade-based explanations for increased wage inequality. There are, however, a number of criticisms of this line of thought based on the "trade-wage inequality anomaly," the "price-wage anomaly," and the small volume of trade. Mainly due to these criticisms, trade-based explanations for rising wage inequality have been limited in the economic literature. Rather, the primary explanations for wage inequality have been based on skill-biased technological change. Some trade models, however, have weakened the above criticisms, and more economists now argue that the effect of trade, though relatively small compared to that of technological change, is more significant than generally believed. Finally, we attempt to link new trends in inequality, such as job polarization and within-group inequality, to the trade and wage inequality literature.
Disruption of Contactin 4 (CNTN4) results in developmental delay and other features of 3p deletion syndrome.

3p deletion syndrome is a rare contiguous-gene disorder involving the loss of the telomeric portion of the short arm of chromosome 3 and characterized by developmental delay, growth retardation, and dysmorphic features. All reported cases have involved, at a minimum, the deletion of chromosome 3 telomeric to the band 3p25.3. Despite the presence of several genes in this region that are involved in neural development, a causative relationship between a particular transcript and the observed clinical manifestations has remained elusive. We have identified a child with characteristic physical features of 3p deletion syndrome and both verbal and nonverbal developmental delay who carries a de novo balanced translocation involving chromosomes 3 and 10. Fine mapping of this rearrangement demonstrates that the translocation breakpoint on chromosome 3 falls within the recently identified minimal candidate region for 3p deletion syndrome and disrupts the Contactin 4 (CNTN4) mRNA transcript at 3p26.2–3p26.3. This transcript (also known as BIG-2) is a member of the immunoglobulin super family of neuronal cell adhesion molecules involved in axon growth, guidance, and fasciculation in the central nervous system (CNS). Our results demonstrate the association of CNTN4 disruption with the 3p deletion syndrome phenotype and strongly suggest a causal relationship. These findings point to an important role for CNTN4 in normal and abnormal CNS development.
Micro Pirani pressure sensor fabricated by inkjet printing of silver nanoparticles

This paper presents the first micro Pirani gauge fabricated by inkjet printing technology. The device consists in a thin film silver resistor printed on a flexible polyimide substrate. Its sensitivity range is 10-2 to 104 Pa when driven by a constant DC current. Compared to most micro Pirani gauges, the fabrication process is very simple and the printed pressure sensor delivers performances as good as the best reported gauges. This paper demonstrates through this application the potential of inkjet printing technology on flexible and low cost substrate for manufacturing small-sized physical sensors.
An analytical journey towards big data

Companies are realising the potential value of data to gain insight into their customers and the power of analytics to guide decision-making. While many firms have invested in data-intensive customer relationship management (CRM) systems to develop long-term relationships with customers, the advent of ‘big data’ has led to even more challenges as companies struggle to both develop analytical capabilities for existing data and integrate information from these new data sources into their CRM decisions. In this paper, we employ a case study approach to identify management challenges in creating a data-driven organisation that has aspirations to incorporate big data into decision-making. The firm is an international franchiser in the hospitality industry with a centralised CRM team and well-known brands. Management challenges are identified through elite interviews and are associated with a customer dimension, CRM process dimension, organisational alignment dimension, and CRM outputs dimension. An experiment with sentiment analysis of customer social media data is performed to illustrate the unique barriers to integrating unstructured data as one form of big data into the firm’s current decision-making paradigm.
FACTORS AFFECTING NEUTRON MEASUREMENTS AND CALCULATIONS Part E . Hydrogen Content in Granite

For evaluation of radiation doses from the atomic bomb at Hiroshima, many systematic measurements have been made of the residual activities of activation products in rocks and concrete. For the Motoyasu Bridge, which is located close to the bomb hypocenter, the depth profile of Eu was measured in a granite core (Hasai et al. 1987; Shizuma et al. 1997). In order to reproduce the depth profile of the activities, it is important to calculate the neutron scattering and absorption (Endo et al. 1999). In this section, the first result of hydrogen analysis by protonproton elastic recoil coincidence spectrometry for the granite samples is described.
Evaluation of Power System Flexibility

As the penetration of variable renewable generation increases in power systems worldwide, planning for the effects of variability will become more important. Traditional capacity adequacy planning techniques have been supplemented with integration studies, which have been carried out in power systems with high targets for renewable generation. These have highlighted the increased variability that a system may experience in the future. As system generation planning techniques evolve with the challenge of integrating variable generation, the flexibility of a system to manage periods of high variability needs to be assessed. The insufficient ramping resource expectation (IRRE) metric is proposed to measure power system flexibility for use in long-term planning, and is derived from traditional generation adequacy metrics. Compared to existing generation adequacy metrics, flexibility assessment is more data intensive. A flexibility metric can identify the time intervals over which a system is most likely to face a shortage of flexible resources, and can measure the relative impact of changing operational policies and the addition of flexible resources. The flexibility of a test system with increasing penetrations of variable generation is assessed. The results highlight the time horizons of increased and decreased risk associated with the integration of VG.
Investigation of Cordon Pricing in Budakeszi

This paper is about a theoretical investigation of a Congestion pricing system in the municipality of Budakeszi. Due to its special geographical background the city is heavily affected by congestion problems, produced by the high number of commuters passing through. This paper illustrates the usage of transport planning models as the Four Step Model to picture this situation and how this model can be used in the simulation of a theoretical congestion pricing system.Finally the utilities of different systems are investigated for the Budakeszi area.
Inhibition of progesterone secretion with trilostane for mid-trimester termination of pregnancy: randomized controlled trials.

BACKGROUND Progesterone is central to the maintenance of pregnancy, and is thus the ideal target for fertility regulation. Two mechanisms by which progesterone can be targeted are: receptor blockade and reduction of progesterone production through enzyme inhibition. Mifepristone, a receptor blocker, is usually given as 'pretreatment' prior to prostaglandin administration in mid-trimester termination of pregnancy (TOP). Unfortunately, there are difficulties accessing mifepristone in developing countries, and TOP is therefore performed using prostaglandins alone, which results in unacceptably long induction-to-abortion intervals. Trilostane is a 3beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase inhibitor which reduces progesterone production. In these mid-trimester studies it is evaluated as a method of pretreatment prior to misoprostol administration. METHODS Three consecutive randomized controlled trials comparing different trilostane regimens for pretreatment were performed. In study 1, trilostane was compared with placebo; in study 2, two doses of trilostane were compared (1080 mg and 720 mg); in study 3, the effect of adding danazol to trilostane as combination therapy was evaluated. The primary outcome in all the studies was the induction-to-abortion interval. Serum progesterone, estradiol and cortisol were measured serially during treatment. RESULTS In study 1, 48 women were randomized. The median induction-to-abortion interval was 9 h in the trilostane group and 18.5 h in the placebo group (P < 0.0001). Progesterone and estradiol production was significantly reduced in the women receiving trilostane, with maintenance of diurnal cortisol variation. Twenty-eight women were randomized in study 2, which demonstrated that there was no significant difference in the induction-to-abortion interval using 1080 mg and 720 mg trilostane when compared with the higher doses used in study 1. Study 3, in which 40 women were included, failed to show any additional benefit using combination therapy with danazol and trilostane. CONCLUSIONS Trilostane is an effective pretreatment agent in mid-trimester TOP.
TRADE UNION AVAILABILITY AND TRADE UNION MEMBERSHIP IN BRITAIN

The determinants of union availability and union membership are jointly estimated in a bivariate probit model, in which union availability at the workplace is regarded as a condition for the membership decision of an employee. A notable result concerns the impact of gender: being female significantly reduces the probability of having a recognized union to join, but has an insignificant impact on the likelihood of becoming a member when a union is available at work. The paper concludes also that the structural characteristics of jobs remain very important in the determination of union numbers. Copyright 1990 by Blackwell Publishers Ltd and The Victoria University of Manchester
A Positive Policy? Corporate Perspectives on Redundancy and Outplacement

The management of the job‐loss situation is becoming of central importance to top management and human resource executives in the current climate of redundancy. The current nature of severance packages and the provision of outplacement may be interpreted as a move towards normative practices within the policy making of many UK organizations. Reports on the results of a recent survey of over 600 UK organizations. The survey covered organizational perspectives on redundancies and the use of outplacement in the event of redundancy. The results indicated a change in corporate values in the 1990s. There appeared to be a move towards normative practices in the management of redundancy and in particular in the use of outplacement as a moderator of the potentially detrimental impact of the redundancy situation.