Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Republican Reconstruction and Section Two of the Fourteenth Amendment

T IS WELL KNOWN that the Republicans intended to perpetuate their party's ascendency after the Civil War. ' Section Two of the Fourteenth Amendment2 was, of course, an important part of their plan. Where that particular section of the amendment should have fitted into the party's blueprint and how it was to do so, has not yet been adequately sketched. Specifically, then, this study will attempt to determine just what the framers of Section Two of the Fourteenth Amendment thought it would accomplish. The basic research source for such an inquiry is the Congressional Globe.3 It is not, however, the only source. For the era's general history is necessarily relevant to the study of the law which issued from it. To avoid repetition of abundantly available materials, however, a passing familiarity with that history will be assumed.4 Suffice it to say the Republicans built their hopes upon a projected coalition between their power in the North and the "loyal" votes in the South. Of course, the "loyal" Southern vote was to be drawn primarily from the approximately 650,000 adult, male freedmen living there. The nature of this relationship between the potential Negro vote in the South and Republican ascendancy will emerge more clearly as we progress. For it was the pivotal point around which much of the congressional debate over Section Two revolved. The debates on the subject, which eventually led to the section as it is in the amendment today, may be seen as expressed through four dimensions. The introduction of a bill allowing Negro suffrage in the District of Columbia precipitated the debate. Although the bill passed in the House, the Senate did not give it serious consideration during the Congress' first session. The second dimension of debate
Economic Analysis of Environmental Benefits of Integrated Pest Management

Abstract Public support for integrated pest management (IPM) is derived in part from concerns over food safety and the environment, yet few studies have assessed the economic value of health and environmental benefits of IPM. An approach is suggested for such an assessment and applied to the Virginia peanut IPM program. Effects of IPM on environmental risks posed by pesticides are assessed and society's willingness to pay to reduce those risks is estimated. The annual environmental benefits of the peanut IPM program are estimated at $844,000. The estimates of pesticide risks and willingness to pay can be applied elsewhere in economic assessments of IPM.
Multidetector cardiac tomography: a useful tool before cardiac resynchronization therapy.

BACKGROUND Left ventricular lead placement in a suitable coronary vein is a key determi-nant of responsiveness to cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT). Multidetector cardiac tomography (MDCT) is a non-invasive alternative to depict cardiac venous anatomy although coronary sinus (CS) retrograde venography (RV) is the gold standard. The aim of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of MDCT to determine the presence of CS tributaries before CRT. METHODS A retrospective analysis of 41 consecutive patients eligible to CRT was performed. MDCT was assessed in all patients before CRT and RV was achieved in 39 patients. Both methods evaluated the presence of the inferior interventricular vein (IIV), posterior vein (PV) and lateral main vein (LMV). CS ostium diameter and distance between the CS ostium and right atrium (RA) lateral wall were also measured. RESULTS The IIV was identified in 100% of MDCT and in 43.6% of RV. In comparison to RV, the MDCT's sensitivity to identify PV and LMV was 100% for both, kappa coefficient of 0.792 (CI 95% 0.46-0.93) and 0.69 (CI 95% 0.46-0.91), respectively. There was no significant difference between ischemic and non-ischemic patients regarding the presence of PV or LMV. Median CS antero-posterior diameter was 10.3 mm (IQR 7.5-13) and supero-inferior was 14.1 mm (IQR 11.5-17) (p < 0.01). A positive correlation (p < 0.001) between echocardiographic RA area and the distance from CS ostium to the RA lateral wall in the MDCT was observed. CONCLUSIONS MDCT is as accurate as RV to depict CS and its tributaries (IIV, PV, LMV), and it could be useful as a non-invasive technique before CRT.
A Decomposition Analysis of the Trend in UK Income Inequality

Post war Britain has experienced a number of dramatic demographic and social changes that have undoubtedly influenced the distribution of income. There has been a rise in the number of pensioners, whose incomes are relatively low, a considerable increase in the number of young and old households living on their own, and a remarkable expansion in the proportion of working wives. The potential importance of these structural changes suggests that their impact on the income distribution needs to be examined systematically before any attempt can be made to interpret the observed trend in overall income inequality >-adequately. The method usually adopted for this purpose attempts to create a comparable time series of distributions based on the structural characteristics pertaining in one particular year. For example, if we wished to investigate the effect of shifts in the age structure of the population, this approach would disaggregate the distribution in one year, tl, and estimate what the distribution would have been like if the age structure had been the same as that observed in some other year to, on the assumption that other distributional characteristics (such as ageincome differentials and inequality within age groups) remain invariant to this demographic change. The comparison between the actual distribution at t1 and the constructed distribution at t1 with to's age structure is taken to indicate the impact of changes in the age structure over the period concerned. This comparison can be presented in terms of quantile shares, summary measures of inequality or the entire Lorenz curves. This approach, known as 'shift-share analysis' or 'standardising' the inequality series (see Semple (I975), Love and Wolfson (I976), Dinwiddy and Reed (I977), Royal Commission (I977), Rowley and Henderson (I978), MacLeod and Horner (I980)), is perfectly adequate for simple and straightforward structural changes. When several changes are occurring simultaneously, however, it becomes difficult to identify the contribution of the individual factors, and to assess their relative importance to the overall trend in inequality. Furthermore, the combined impact of several structural influences will not in general sum up to the inequality change requiring explanation. ' The purpose of this paper is to propose an alternative method of analysing
[Kinetic analysis of glycine and glycylglycine absorption in rat small intestine in chronic experiment].

Kinetics of glycylglycine hydrolysis and absorption as well as that of free glycine absorption in isolated loop of the small intestine was studied in chronic experiments in two groups of rats. In the 1st group (n = 5), the isolated loop daily received for 1 or two hours a glucose load (25 mM), whereas in the 2nd group (n = 4)--a glutamic acid load (25 mM). The "true" values (i.e. corrected for the influence of the pre-epithelial layer) of the Michaelis constant for dipeptide transport were lower than those for the free glycine transport: 16 +/- 1.8 versus 36.3 +/- 3.7 mM (in the 1st group) and 15.9 +/- 2.2 versus 34.0 +/- 3.7 mM (in the 2nd group), whereas values of the maximal rate of active transport as calculated per 1 cm of the intestine length were, on the contrary, higher: 0.64 +/- 0.06 versus 0.42 +/- 0.10 mumol/(min.cm) 1st group and 0.86 +/- 0.13 versus 0.56 +/- 0.04 mumol/(min.cm) in the in the 2nd group. It has been shown that, under these conditions, regarded as the most physiological, over 90% of glycylglycine is absorbed via the peptide transport system. Only a small part of this dipeptide amount (less than 10%) splits during membrane hydrolysis with subsequent absorption of the derived glycine. It has also been found that glutamic acid solution as a regular substrate load is more effective (as compared with the glucose solution) in retarding the atrophic changes occurring in the isolated intestine loop and in preserving its structural and functional parameters on a higher level.
Pre-main-sequence isochrones – I. The Pleiades benchmark

We present a critical assessment of commonly used pre-main-sequence isochrones by comparing their predictions to a set of well-calibrated colour-magnitude diagrams of the Pleiades in the wavelength range 0.4 to 2:5 m. Our analysis shows that for temperatures less than 4000 K the models systematically overestimate the ux by a factor two at 0:5 m, though this decreases with wavelength, becoming negligible at 2:2 m. In optical colours this will result in the ages for stars younger than 10 Myr being underestimated by factors between two and three. We show that using observations of standard stars to transform the data into a standard system can introduce signicant errors in the positioning of pre-mainsequences in colour-magnitude diagrams. Therefore we have compared the models to the data in the natural photometric system in which the observations were taken. Thus we have constructed and tested a model of the system responses for the Wide-Field Camera on the Isaac Newton Telescope. As a benchmark test for the development of pre-main-sequence models we provide both our system responses and the Pleiades sequence.
Codetermination and personnel policies of German firms: the influence of works councils on turnover and further training

The paper analyses the contribution of works councils to the overall success of German firms during the last few decades. It is argued that a successful implementation of flexible specialization strategies is the cornerstone of German prosperity. The acquisition and effective utilization of firm-specific skills is a precondition of successful flexible specialization. Effective skill utilization itself needs cooperation between employers and employees in order to safeguard the specific investments of either side. Thus, the crucial question is whether the dual system of worker representation in Germany, and particularly the part of the works councils therein, is an efficient institution in the sense that it guarantees the necessary co-operation. In analysing the effects of works councils on personnel turnover and vocational training, we find the works councils to be organizationally efficient, i.e., they balance out employers' and employees' interests. The legal structure underlying the dual system is found.
Presence and expression of JCV early gene large T Antigen in the brains of immunocompromised and immunocompetent individuals

JC virus (JCV) is a polyomavirus that asymptomatically infects up to 80% of the worldwide human population and establishes latency in the kidney. In the case of host immunodeficiency, it can cause progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), which is a fatal demyelinating disease of the central nervous system. In an attempt to understand better PML pathogenesis and JCV infection, the presence of the JCV genome and expression of the early viral protein in the brain of deceased individuals, with and without HIV infection, was investigated. Sixty autopsy samples of brain tissues were collected from 15 HIV‐positive PML patients, 15 HIV‐positive patients with other neurological diseases, 15 HIV‐positive patients without neurological disorders, and 15 HIV‐negative individuals who died from diseases unrelated to the central nervous system. By means of specific Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction, the JCV genome was detected in 14 of 15 PML brains, three of 15 HIV‐positive brains (with and without neurological diseases), and 1 of 15 HIV‐negative brains. JCV genotyping was also performed. Expression of the early JCV protein T Antigen was verified by a specific immunohistochemistry assay, and it was found in the brain tissues from 12 PML cases and one case with other neurological disease. The data obtained demonstrate that infection of the brain with JCV can also be observed in the brains of HIV‐negative individuals, without neurological disorders. However, viral protein expression was limited to PML brains and to one brain from a patient with other neurological disease, suggesting that JCV can also be present in the brains of patients without PML. J. Med. Virol. 80:2147–2152, 2008. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The relative efficiency of commodity futures markets

The ability of futures markets to predict subsequent spot prices has been a controversial topic for a number of years. Empirical evidence to date is mixed; for any given market, some studies find evidence of efficiency, others of inefficiency. In part, these apparently conflicting findings reflect differences in the time periods analyzed and the methods chosen for testing. A limitation of existing tests is the classification of markets as either efficient or inefficient with no assessment of the degree to which efficiency is present. This article presents tests for unbiasedness and efficiency across a range of commodity and financial futures markets, using a cointegration methodology, and develops a measure of relative efficiency. In general, the findings suggest that spot and futures prices are cointegrated with a slope coefficient that is close to unity, so that the postulated long‐run relationship is accepted. However, there is evidence that the long‐run relationship does not hold in the short run; specifically, changes in the spot price are explained by lagged differences in spot and futures prices as well as by the basis. This suggests that market inefficiencies exist in the sense that past information can be used by agents to predict spot price movements. A measure of the relative degree of inefficiency (based on forecast error variances) is then used to compare the performance of different markets. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 19: 413–432, 1999
Valacyclovir as a Therapeutic Agent in Acute Retinal Necrosis: Two Case Reports

Introduction: Acute retinal necrosis (ARN) is a rare, rapidly progressive viral retinitis. The current standard of care for ARN consists of intravenous acyclovir for 5-10 days, followed by oral acyclovir for an additional 6-12 weeks. Valacyclovir has superior plasma bioavailability to acyclovir as an oral preparation. The aim of this study is to add to the evidence of treating ARN with valacyclovir with 2 additional cases.
FREQUENCY ASPECTS OF INFORMATION TRANSMISSION IN NETWORKS OF EQUITY MARKETS

The dating of cyclical phenomena in economies, such as business cycles, is at the core of economic policy research. Moreover, policy decisions which are due to affect interacting economies should take into account the economies' connectedness and synchronicity. The cross-country analysis of business cycles is conceptually close to the study of "contagion", focusing on determinants of an economy's susceptibility to, respectively responsibility for, shocks or more general spillover effects in both times of crisis and non-crisis. Our analysis is based on VAR models in stock index return series and forecast error variance decomposition, resulting in return-to-volatility spillovers. This methodology allows to identify a stock market's potential to act as a news disseminator, and we investigate frequency aspects of information transmission in a network of three Western equity markets: Dow Jones Industrial Average (New York), FTSE 100 (London) and Euro Stoxx 50 (euro area). We find evidence that the range of relevant frequencies has become narrower, which may have an explanation in terms of the increasing intensity of information exchange and shrinking holding times of stocks. Furthermore, we find that the U.S.~market is in anti-phase with the European markets, while the European markets are in phase.
Overall cardiovascular prognosis of isolated systolic hypertension, isolated diastolic hypertension and pulse pressure defined with home measurements: the Finn-home study

Objective: The overall cardiovascular prognosis of isolated systolic hypertension, isolated diastolic hypertension and pulse pressure defined with home blood pressure (BP) measurements remains unclear. Methods: A prospective nationwide study was initiated in 2000–2001 on 1924 randomly selected participants aged 44–74 years. We determined home and office BP at baseline and classified the individuals into four groups according to their home BP levels: normotension, isolated diastolic hypertension, isolated systolic hypertension and systolic–diastolic hypertension. The primary endpoint was incidence of a composite cardiovascular event. Results: After a median follow-up of 11.2 years, 236 individuals had suffered a cardiovascular event. In multivariable Cox proportional hazard models, the relative hazards and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for cardiovascular events were significantly higher in participants with isolated diastolic hypertension (relative hazard 1.95; 95% CI, 1.06–3.57; P = 0.03), isolated systolic hypertension (relative hazard 2.08; 95% CI, 1.42–3.05; P < 0.001) and systolic–diastolic hypertension (relative hazard 2.79; 95% CI, 2.02–3.86; P < 0.001) than in participants with normotension. Home (relative hazard 1.21; 95% CI, 1.05–1.40; P = 0.009 per 10 mmHg increase), but not office (relative hazard 1.10; 95% CI, 1.00–1.21, P = 0.06) pulse pressure, adjusted for mean arterial pressure, was an independent predictor of cardiovascular risk. Conclusion: Isolated diastolic and systolic hypertension defined with home measurements are associated with an increased cardiovascular risk. Close follow-up and possible treatment of these patients is therefore warranted. Home-measured pulse pressure is an independent predictor of cardiovascular events while office-measured pulse pressure is not, which fortifies the view that home BP provides more accurate risk prediction than office BP.
Mandibulofacial dysostosis in a patient with a de novo 2;17 translocation that disrupts the HOXD gene cluster

Treacher Collins syndrome (TCS) is the prototypical mandibulofacial dysostosis syndrome, but other mandibulofacial dysostosis syndromes have been described. We report an infant with mandibulofacial dysostosis and an apparently balanced de novo 2;17 translocation. She presented with severe lower eyelid colobomas requiring skin grafting, malar and mandibular hypoplasia, bilateral microtia with external auditory canal atreasia, dysplastic ossicles, hearing loss, bilateral choanal stenosis, cleft palate without cleft lip, several oral frenula of the upper lip/gum, and micrognathia requiring tracheostomy. Her limbs were normal. Chromosome analysis at the 600‐band level showed a 46,XX,t(2;17)(q24.3;q23) karyotype. Sequencing of the entire TCOF1 coding region did not show evidence of a sequence variation. High‐resolution genomic microarray analysis did not identify a cryptic imbalance. FISH mapping refined the breakpoints to 2q31.1 and 17q24.3‐25.1 and showed the 2q31.1 breakpoint likely affects the HOXD gene cluster. Several atypical findings and lack of an identifiable TCOF1 mutation suggest that this child has a provisionally unique mandibulofacial dysostosis syndrome. The apparently balanced de novo translocation provides candidate loci for atypical and TCOF1 mutation negative cases of TCS. Based on the agreement of our findings with one previous case of mandibulofacial dysostosis with a 2q31.1 transocation, we hypothesize that misexpression of genes in the HOXD gene cluster produced the described phenotype in this patient. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Multinationals' Political Activities on Climate Change

This article explores the international dimensions of multinationals' corporate political activities, focusing on an international issue—climate change—being implemented differently in a range of countries. Analyzing data from Financial Times Global 500 firms, it examines the influence on types and process of multinationals' political strategies, reckoning with institutional contexts and issue saliency. Findings show that the type of political activities can be characterized as an information strategy to influence policy makers toward market-based solutions, not so much withholding action on emission reduction. Moreover, multinationals pursue self-regulation, targeting a broad range of political actors. The process of political strategy is mostly one of collective action. International differences particularly surface in the type of political actors aimed at, with U.S. and Australian firms focusing more on nongovernment actors (voluntary programs) than European and Japanese firms. Influencing home-country (not host-country) governments is the main component of international political strategy on climate change.
The Big Society Debate: Is it a Panacea for Reducing the Impact of Welfare Cuts in Public Health?

The UK economy is in serious difficulties, notwithstanding some improvements in 2012. Pursuing a strategy of cuts, in order to reduce the deficit that the country faces, further benefit cuts are scheduled by HM Government, including cuts to the National Health Service. The concept of the ‘Big Society’ has been presented in order to alleviate the impact of the current fiscal crisis in public health. The authors explore the development of the concept of ‘Big Society’ and see its roots within 19th Century ideas of voluntarism and philanthropy. Although there is merit in the Big Society’s call for voluntary sector support, beyond the support provided by the State, the authors show that the reality of the Big Society is nonetheless flawed, and suggest that there is a need for mini-scale rather than macro-scale voluntarism and participation in civic society, a ‘Little Society’ rather than a big one.
Chronic nicotine modifies the effects of morphine on extracellular striatal dopamine and ventral tegmental GABA

Previously, we have shown that 7‐week oral nicotine treatment enhances morphine‐induced behaviors and dopaminergic activity in the mouse brain. In this study, we further characterized the nicotine‐morphine interaction in the mesolimbic and nigrostriatal dopaminergic systems, as well as in the GABAergic control of these systems. In nicotine‐pretreated mice, morphine‐induced dopamine release in the caudate putamen and nucleus accumbens was significantly augmented, as measured by microdialysis. Chronic nicotine treatment did not change basal extracellular concentrations of dopamine and its metabolites in the caudate putamen and nucleus accumbens, nor did it affect the rate of dopamine synthesis, as assessed by 3‐hydroxybenzylhydrazine dihydrochloride‐induced DOPA accumulation. GABAergic control of dopaminergic activity was studied by measuring extracellular GABA in the presence of nipecotic acid, an inhibitor of GABA uptake. Acute (0.3 mg/kg or 0.5 mg/kg i.p.) and chronic nicotine, as well as morphine (15 mg/kg s.c.) in control mice decreased nipecotic acid–induced increase in extracellular GABA in the ventral tegmental area/substantia nigra (VTA/SN). In contrast, in nicotine‐treated mice, morphine increased GABA levels in the presence of nipecotic acid. We did not find any alterations in GABAB‐receptor function after chronic nicotine treatment. Thus, our data show that chronic nicotine treatment sensitizes dopaminergic systems to morphine and affects GABAergic systems in the VTA/SN.