Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Germline loss of PKM2 promotes metabolic distress and hepatocellular carcinoma

In this study, Dayton et al. generated mice lacking PKM2, an isoform of pyruvate kinase, and found that, over time, the mice develop a metabolic syndrome that leads to spontaneous hepatocellular carcinomas (HCCs). These results provide new insights into the role of PKM2 in the regulation of systemic metabolic homeostasis and inflammation.
Rapid detection of DNA sequence variants by conformation-sensitive capillary electrophoresis.

The identification of novel sequence variants, which may be either disease-causing mutations or silent polymorphisms, in large numbers of samples is becoming the rate-limiting step in associating diseases with specific genes. This is particularly true in light of the imminent arrival of the complete reference sequence of the human genome. A number of techniques have been developed to analyze DNA samples for sequence variants rapidly. We describe a new technique, capillary-based conformation-sensitive gel electrophoresis (capillary CSGE) that transfers mutation detection from acrylamide gel to capillary electrophoresis. Capillary CSGE was able to detect 7/7 short insertion/deletions and 16/22 base substitutions in a series of random single-nucleotide polymorphisms and known variants in the lipoprotein lipase and BRCA2 genes. This technique has the potential to screen many megabases of DNA in a single day.
Virulence Factor Gene Profiles of Escherichia coli Isolates from Clinically Healthy Pigs

ABSTRACT Nonpathogenic, intestinal Escherichia coli (commensal E. coli) supports the physiological intestinal balance of the host, whereas pathogenic E. coli with typical virulence factor gene profiles can cause severe outbreaks of diarrhea. In many reports, E. coli isolates from diarrheic animals were classified as putative pathogens. Here we describe a broad variety of virulence gene-positive E. coli isolates from swine with no clinical signs of intestinal disease. The isolation of E. coli from 34 pigs from the same population and the testing of 331 isolates for genes encoding heat-stable enterotoxins I and II, heat-labile enterotoxin I, Shiga toxin 2e, and F4, F5, F6, F18, and F41 fimbriae revealed that 68.6% of the isolates were positive for at least one virulence gene, with a total of 24 different virulence factor gene profiles, implying high rates of horizontal gene transfer in this E. coli population. Additionally, we traced the occurrence of hemolytic E. coli over a period of 1 year in this same pig population. Hemolytic isolates were differentiated into seven clones; only three were found to harbor virulence genes. Hemolytic E. coli isolates without virulence genes or with only the fedA gene were found to be nontypeable by slide agglutination tests with OK antisera intended for screening live cultures against common pathogenic E. coli serogroups. The results appear to indicate that virulence gene-carrying E. coli strains are a normal part of intestinal bacterial populations and that high numbers of E. coli cells harboring virulence genes and/or with hemolytic activity do not necessarily correlate with disease.
Synthesizing a giant literature: a narrative of quantitative evidence on causes and consequences of financial sector development

The aim of this synthesis paper is to provide a narrative to the empirical findings of the comprehensive literature review concerning the quantitative effects of financial development on economic growth and employment and various determinants of financial sector development. The literature review has been restricted mostly to high-quality academic research that focus on developing countries over the period of 1960-2012. Due to data constraints, this review also includes cross-country analysis, where developed and developing countries are stacked together. The main findings include (i) a positive relationship between financial development and economic growth and employment subject to a number of qualifications, (ii) a complicated relationship of regulations and supervision with financial sector development and (iii) a positive relationship between enabling institutional environment and financial sector development. This review also clarifies some missing avenues in the literature and provides a number of suggestions for future work.
Cloning of the syrian hamster p53 gene: Structural and functional characterization of the upstream promoter region

We isolated the p53 gene from Syrian hamster embryo cells by cosmid cloning procedures. The organization of the hamster p53 gene was similar to that of other mammalian p53 genes; it had 11 exons, a noncoding exon 1, and a long intron 1 (about 6.5 kb). The upstream p53 promoter was isolated, and the nucleotide sequence of a region encompassing 694 bp upstream from the exon/intron 1 boundary plus the first 6 nt of intron 1 was determined. This genomic region was highly homologous to those of mice and humans but contained a repetitive element not present in either species. Sequence comparisons with the murine and human promoters revealed the presence of similar transcription‐factor binding motifs mapping within a 431‐bp Sacl‐Pstl fragment. Transient transfection assays of primary Syrian hamster embryo cells and neoplastic cell lines with recombinant constructs in which the Sacl‐Pstl fragment was placed upstream of a bacterial chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) gene revealed the efficient expression of CAT activity. Primer extension analyses identified several putative transcription initiation sites within the p53 upstream promoter, the strongest of which was located 315 bp upstream from the exon/intron 1 junction and about 30 bp upstream from the region encompassing the regulatory motifs. ©1994 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Use of azithromycin for the treatment of Campylobacter enteritis in travelers to Thailand, an area where ciprofloxacin resistance is prevalent.

We evaluated the use of azithromycin (500 mg) or ciprofloxacin (500 mg) daily for 3 days for the treatment of acute diarrhea among United States military personnel in Thailand. Stool cultures were obtained and symptoms were recorded on study days 0, 1, 2, 3, and 10. Campylobacter species were the most common pathogen isolated (44 isolates from 42 patients). All Campylobacter isolates were susceptible to azithromycin; 22 were resistant to ciprofloxacin. Among the 42 patients with campylobacter infection, there were 2 clinical and 6 bacteriologic treatment failures in the ciprofloxacin group and no treatment failures in the azithromycin group (P = .021 for bacteriologic failures). Overall, azithromycin was as effective as ciprofloxacin in decreasing the duration of illness (36.9 hours vs. 38.2 hours, respectively) and the number of stools (6.4 vs. 7.8, respectively). Among those not infected with Campylobacter species (n = 30), the duration of illness was 32.9 hours vs. 20.7 hours (P = .03) for the azithromycin and ciprofloxacin groups, respectively. Azithromycin is superior to ciprofloxacin in decreasing the excretion of Campylobacter species and as effective as ciprofloxacin in shortening the duration of illness. Azithromycin therapy may be an effective alternative to ciprofloxacin therapy in areas where ciprofloxacin-resistant Campylobacter species are prevalent.
Clinical assessment in juvenile dermatomyositis

Juvenile dermatomyositis (JDM) is a multisystem inflammatory disease of unknown etiology that affects primarily the skin and muscles. Although the prognosis of JDM has improved considerably in the last three decades, a number of patients may develop irreversible damage due to the disease activity or its treatment. This damage may cause permanent disability and affect the quality of life of patients and their families. In the clinical management of patients with JDM, there is, therefore, the need of monitoring the level of disease activity, the accrual of organ damage, and the impact of the illness on patients' daily living. A reliable assessment of these different aspects of disease requires the availability of well-designed and standardized clinical tools. In the recent years, there has been increasing collaborative effort to devise new assessment measures and these measures have been included into disease activity and damage core sets of outcome variables that have been developed through international consensus. In addition, preliminary definitions of clinical improvement for patients with JDM and other idiopathic inflammatory myopathies have been created. In this review, the latest advances in the development of standardized instruments for the clinical assessment of JDM patients are illustrated and the recent international efforts that have led to the development of core sets of outcome measures and to preliminary definitions of improvement for JDM clinical trials are summarized.
Unemployment, poverty and economic growth in Nigeria

Abstract Aim/purpose – This study investigates the links between unemployment, poverty and economic growth in Nigeria between the periods, 1985-2015. Design/methodology/approach – The paper employed the Augment Dickey Fuller test for unit root test, Johansen cointegration for cointegration, Ganger causality for causality test and Error Correction Model to establish the short-run links between the variables. Findings – The unit root test result revealed that the variables trend with time indicating their failure of integration at level. However, they were found to be stationary at first difference. The causality result revealed that there is no causal relationship between unemployment, poverty and growth in Nigeria. Similarly, the cointegration results showed that there is no long-run relationship between unemployment, poverty and economic growth in Nigeria. The short-run parameter estimates indicated that unemployment has a negative and significant relationship with growth. However, the coefficient of the interaction between unemployment and poverty is positive and significant at the conventional level. Research implication/limitations – This study suggest that the output growth in the country will occur even if there are poor people as defined in absolute terms. The economy will still expand even if the number of poor people increases. This is also the case in the short run, revealing that the economy has grown even though over the years, the numbers of poor people have increased. Thus, there is a need for stable macroeconomic policies that would ensure equal distribution of income so that the poor also benefits from the country’s growth. Originality/value/contribution – This study empirically examines the contribution of output growth towards employment generation and poverty reduction using data sets from the Central Bank of Nigeria, National Bureau of Statistics and World Bank.
Systemic Policy Approaches for Cross-cutting Issues

Lead Authors: Babatunde Joseph Abiodun (University of Cape Town), Giovanna Armiento (Agenzia nazionale per le nuove tecnologie, l’energia e lo sviluppo economico sostenibile), Rob Bailey (Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs), Elaine Baker (GRID-Arendal at the University of Sydney), Kathryn Jennifer Bowen (Australian National University), Irene Dankelman (Radboud University), Riyanti Djalante (United Nations University – Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability), Monica Dutta (TERI), Fintan Hurley (Institute of Occupational Medicine), Maria Jesus Iraola (University of Uruguay), Rakhyun E. Kim (Utrecht University), Richard King (Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs), Andrei Kirilenko (University of Florida), Oswaldo dos Santos Lucon (Sao Paulo State Environment Secretariat), Katrina Lyne (James Cook University), Diego Martino (AAE Asesoramiento Ambiental Estratégico and ORT University), Ritu Mathur (TERI), Gavin Mudd (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology), Sebastian Sewerin (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich), Tim Stephens (University of Sydney), Patricia Schwerdtle (Monash University), Joni Seager (Bentley University), Laura Wellesley (Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs), Caradee Y. Wright (Medical Research Council of South Africa)
Different Mechanism of Transmission Efficiency in Unmyelinated Nerve Fiber Primary Afferent Synapses

Abstract-Generally,the bursting firing pattern of action potential has higher transmission efficiency compared with the consecutive firing pattern in the same average frequency condition.Recently,some articles about the synapse short-term plasticity have shown that there are different mechanism to form short-term plasticity in different presynaptic firing frequency condition probably.This makes us to question whether there are different transmission efficiency between presynaptic bursting firing pattern and consecutive firing pattern in different frequency. To answer the questions above, a biophysical mode lof synaptic transmission were constructed.Thesimulative data and the experimental data were compared by employed the coefficient of variation (CV) and mutual information (MI) as indexes,The analysis result indicated that there were different transmission efficiency between presynaptic bursting firing pattern and consecutive firing pattern in different frequency condition. Moreover, we speculate that there are different decisive mechanism of synaptic transmission in different presynaptic firing frequency condition.We speculate that the consecutive firng pattern has higher transmission efficiency when the average frequency is below the 4Hz , which is due to the deactiving of the N-methyl-D-aspartate(NMDA) receptor, the bursting firng pattern has higher transmission efficiency when the average frequency is above the 10Hz , which is due to the co-activing of the a-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA) and NMDA receptors.
Asymmetric Impacts of Oil Price Shocks on Malaysian Economic Growth: Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag Approach

This empirical study intends to examine the behavior of oil price on Malaysian economic growth whether nonlinearity implies. The dynamic models of Linear and Nonlinear Autoregressive Distribution Lags (ARDL and NARDL) are used to estimate the models. The study used annual data over the period of 1975 to 2015. The study used the real Malaysian spot oil price (Miri) as oil price unlike. The results from linear model revealed that oil price positively increase economic growth both in the short-run and the long-run. To achieve our objective, the NARDL estimator was used to detect the impact of positive and negetive changes in oil price. The results reveal that there is nonlinear relation among the variables in the long-run relationship as the evidence of cointegration was found. Increases in oil price boosts economic growth positively while a decrease in oil price is not as indicate insignificant. The error correction term confirms the results as indicate negative, significant and less than 1 percent. That is the speed of adjustment after the oil price shock. The results have important policy implications, exposed that the impacts of oil price changes (positive and negative) are not necessarily equal.
Methodiek schoolverlatersinformatiesysteem 1998

Dit werkdocument gaat in op de methodiek die in het uitvoeringsjaar 1998 is gehanteerd binnen het schoolverlatersonderzoek zoals dat door het ROA wordt uitgevoerd. Dit betreft de enquetes Registratie van Uitstroom en Bestemming van Schoolverlaters (RUBS), HBO-Monitor en WO-Monitor. Sinds 1996 is het ROA-schoolverlatersonderzoek in vergaande mate geintegreerd. Hierdoor is een vergelijkbaar systeem ontstaan, het Schoolverlatersinformatiesysteem (SIS) genoemd, met gegevens over schoolverlaters uit vrijwel het gehele secundair en tertiair onderwijs. In het kader van het onderzoek binnen dit informatiesysteem zijn onder andere het rapport Schoolverlaters tussen onderwijs en arbeidsmarkt 1998 en een bijbehorende bijlage Statistische Bijlage gepubliceerd. Daarnaast is er een specifieke rapportage verschenen over de arbeidsmarktpositie van de afgestudeerden van het HBO. De lerarenopleidingen zullen in een aparte rapportage worden behandeld. Voor de afgestudeerden van het kunstvakonderwijs verschijnt in de loop van 2000 ook een specifiek rapport. Tevens zullen de belangrijkste resultaten van de WO-Monitor in een landelijke rapportage worden gepresenteerd. Naast de hierboven genoemde schoolverlatersonderzoeken zijn in 1998 enkele, in 1997 gestarte, ''pilot''-onderzoeken voortgezet. Dit betreft enquetes onder schoolverlaters van de Beroepsbegeleidende leerweg (BBL) en ex-cursisten van het Voortgezet Algemeen Volwassenen Onderwijs (VAVO). Er is eveneens een eenmalige enquete verricht onder ex-cursisten van de basiseducatie (BE). Hierover zal in aparte rapportages zowel methodologisch als inhoudelijk verslag worden gedaan.
Comparison of the Korean and US Stock Markets Using Continuous-Time Stochastic Volatility Models

We estimate three continuous-time stochastic volatility models following the approach by Ait-Sahalia and Kimmel (2007) to compare the Korean and US stock markets. To do this, the Heston, GARCH, and CEV models are applied to the KOSPI 200 and S&P 500 Index. For the latent volatility variable, we generate and use the integrated volatility proxy using the implied volatility of short-dated at-the-money option prices. We conduct MLE in order to estimate the parameters of the stochastic volatility models. To do this we need the transition probability density function (TPDF), but the true TPDF is not available for any of the models in this paper. Therefore, the TPDFs are approximated using the irreducible method introduced in Ait-Sahalia (2008). Among three stochastic volatility models, the Heston model and the CEV model are found to be best for the Korean and US stock markets, respectively. There exist relatively strong leverage effects in both countries. Despite the fact that the long-run mean level of the integrated volatility proxy (IV) was not statistically significant in either market, the speeds of the mean reversion parameters are statistically significant and meaningful in both markets. The IV is found to return to its long-run mean value more rapidly in Korea than in the US. All parameters related to the volatility function of the IV are statistically significant. Although the volatility of the IV is more elastic in the US stock market, the volatility itself is greater in Korea than in the US over the range of the observed IV.
Notice of RetractionPhylogeny of Cladosporium and Its Allied Genera

The study was designed for understanding the phylogenetic relationships among some species of Cladosporium and its allied genera Cercospora, Passalora, Ramularia, Pseudocercospora and Phaeoramularia based on 18S rDNA sequences. 11 strains of Cladosporium species were analyzed with 19 species of these allied genera obtained from GenBank. The phylogenetic dendrogram implies that the relationships between Cercospora, Passalora and Ramularia were the closest, and their relationship with Pseudocercospora was fairly close. While the relationships between Cladosporium, Phaeoramularia and the above genera were much distant.
Allogeneic transplantation using CD34+ selected peripheral blood progenitor cells combined with non‐mobilized donor T cells for refractory severe aplastic anaemia

Allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplantation is curative for severe aplastic anaemia (SAA) unresponsive to immunosuppressive therapy. To reduce chronic graft‐versus‐host disease (GVHD), which occurs more frequently after peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) transplantation compared to bone‐marrow transplantation (BMT), and to prevent graft rejection, we developed a novel partial T‐cell depleted transplant that infuses high numbers of granulocyte colony‐stimulating factor‐mobilized CD34+ selected PBSCs combined with a BMT‐equivalent dose of non‐mobilized donor T‐cells. Fifteen patients with refractory SAA received cyclophosphamide, anti‐thymocyte globulin and fludarabine conditioning, and were transplanted with a median 8 × 106 CD34+ cells/kg and 2 × 107 non‐mobilized CD3+ T‐cells/kg from human leucocyte antigen‐matched sibling donors. All achieved sustained engraftment with only two developing acute and two developing chronic GVHD. With a 3·5‐year median follow‐up, 86% of patients survived and were transfusion‐independent. When compared to a retrospective cohort of 56 bone‐marrow failure patients that received the identical transplant preparative regimen and GVHD prophylaxis with the exception that the allograft contained unmanipulated PBSCs, partial T‐cell depleted transplant recipients had delayed donor T‐cell chimerism and relative reduction of 75% in the incidence of acute grade II‐IV GVHD (13% vs. 52%; P = 0·010) and of 82% in chronic GVHD (13% vs. 72%; P = 0·0004). In multivariate analysis, partial T‐cell depleted transplants remained significantly associated with a reduced risk of GVHD. In conclusion, for patients with refractory SAA, this novel transplant strategy achieves excellent engraftment and survival when compared to unmanipulated PBSC transplants and dramatically reduces the incidence of both acute and chronic GVHD.
Compartment syndrome causes systemic inflammation in a rat.

AIMS Compartment syndrome results from increased intra-compartmental pressure (ICP) causing local tissue ischaemia and cell death, but the systemic effects are not well described. We hypothesised that compartment syndrome would have a profound effect not only on the affected limb, but also on remote organs. METHODS Using a rat model of compartment syndrome, its systemic effects on the viability of hepatocytes and on inflammation and circulation were directly visualised using intravital video microscopy. RESULTS We found that hepatocellular injury was significantly higher in the compartment syndrome group (192 PI-labelled cells/10(-1) mm(3), standard error of the mean (sem) 51) compared with controls (30 PI-labelled cells/10(-1) mm(3), sem 12, p < 0.01). The number of adherent venular white blood cells was significantly higher for the compartment syndrome group (5 leukocytes/30s/10 000 μm(2), sem 1) than controls (0.2 leukocytes/30 s/10 000 μm(2), sem 0.2, p < 0.01). Volumetric blood flow was not significantly different between the two groups, although there was an increase in the heterogeneity of perfusion. CONCLUSIONS Compartment syndrome can be accompanied by severe systemic inflammation and end organ damage. This study provides evidence of the relationship between compartment syndrome in a limb and systemic inflammation and dysfunction in a remote organ. Cite this article: Bone Joint J 2016; 98-B:1132-7.