Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Discussion of the Dynamic Illegible “E” Test: A New Method of Screening for Aminoglycoside Vestibulotoxicity

Although aminoglycoside antibiotics have been successful in controlling infections, the side effects of these drugs include vestibulotoxicity that can be irreversible. In a patient with intact visual and proprioceptive systems, the effects can be compensated for, but in a patient with impairment of one of these systems, loss of vestibular function can be devastating. There is little if any agreement in the literature about how to monitor patients undergoing therapy with these drugs. A reading test is described. It uses the ability of the vestibulo-ocular reflex to stabilize an image during head movement. The test is quantified using change in visual acuity with head movement to monitor damage to the vestibular system. Patients with loss of vestibular function are incapable of performing the test. Some evidence points to the test being more sensitive than standard caloric irrigations. We propose that it be used to monitor patients receiving aminoglycoside antibiotics.
Role of GATA factor Nil2p in nitrogen regulation of gene expression in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

We have identified the product of the NIL2 gene of Saccharomyces cerevisiae which contains a zinc finger region highly homologous to those of the GATA factors Gln3p and Nil1p as an antagonist of Nil1p and to a lesser extent of Gln3p. The expression of many nitrogen-regulated genes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae requires activation by GATA factor Gln3p or Nil1p and is prevented by the presence of glutamine in the growth medium. Disruption of NIL2 results in a great increase in the expression of NIL1 and of GAP1, the structural gene for the general amino acid permease, in glutamine-grown cells in response to activation by Nil1p. The primary effect of the elimination of Nil2p appears to be an increase in the intracellular level of Nil1p, which in turn is responsible for increased expression of GAP1. Experiments using an artificial UAS (upstream activating site) consisting of three GATAAGATAAG sites revealed that Nil2p exerts its effect by competing primarily with Nil1p and less effectively with Gln3p for these sites. Apparently, the principal role of Nil2p is to prevent activation of transcription by Nil1p unless Nil1p has been converted to a more active state by the absence of glutamine and glutamate.
Developing Treatments of Persistent Persecutory Delusions: The Impact of an Emotional Processing and Metacognitive Awareness Intervention

Worry has been implicated in increasing the levels of distress associated with persecutory delusions. It may partly cause this distress via the impediment of emotional processing of upsetting experiences. The clinical implication is that enhancing emotional processing of paranoid experiences will reduce distress. We therefore piloted a new brief intervention-the Emotional Processing and Metacognitive Awareness (EPMA)-on 12 patients with persistent persecutory delusions. The intervention was predominately influenced by written emotional disclosure and lasted for three sessions. The delusions were assessed at baseline, preintervention and postintervention and during a one-month follow-up. It was found that EPMA particularly reduced levels of delusion distress, and this was maintained at follow-up. The effect sizes were large but were likely overestimated given the absence of a control group and assessments that were not blind. These preliminary findings suggest that simply encouraging patients to talk, in the right way, about their delusions can be beneficial.
Purification and Characterization of PCR-Inhibitory Components in Blood Cells

ABSTRACT In a recent study, immunoglobulin G in human plasma was identified as a major inhibitor of diagnostic PCR (W. Abu Al-Soud, L. J. Jönsson, and P. Rådström. J. Clin. Microbiol. 38:345–350, 2000). In this study, two major PCR inhibitors in human blood cells were purified using size exclusion and anion-exchange chromatographic procedures. Based on N-terminal amino acid sequencing and electrophoretic analysis of the purified polypeptides, hemoglobin and lactoferrin were identified as PCR-inhibitor components in erythrocytes and leukocytes, respectively. When different concentrations of hemoglobin or lactoferrin were added to PCR mixtures of 25 μl containing 10 different thermostable DNA polymerases and 1 ng of Listeria monocytogenes DNA as template DNA, AmpliTaq Gold, Pwo, and Ultma were inhibited in the presence of ≤1.3 μg of hemoglobin and ≤25 ng of lactoferrin, while rTth and Tli were found to resist inhibition of at least 100 μg of hemoglobin. In addition, the quantitative effects of seven low-molecular-mass inhibitors, present in blood samples or degradation products of hemoglobin, on real-time DNA synthesis of rTth using the LightCycler Instrument were investigated. A reaction system based on a single-stranded poly(dA) template with an oligo(dT) primer annealed to the 3′ end was used. It was found that the addition of 0.25 to 0.1 mg of bile per ml, 2.5 mM CaCl2, 0.25 mM EDTA, 5 μM FeCl3, and 0.01 IU of heparin per ml reduced the fluorescence to approximately 76, 70, 46, 17, and 51%, respectively. Finally, the effects of nine amplification facilitators were studied in the presence of hemoglobin and lactoferrin. Bovine serum albumin (BSA) was the most efficient amplification facilitator, so that the addition of 0.4% (wt/vol) BSA allowed AmpliTaq Gold to amplify DNA in the presence of 20 instead of 1 μg of hemoglobin and 500 instead of 5 ng of lactoferrin. Including 0.02% (wt/vol) gp32, a single-stranded-DNA binding protein, in the reaction mixture of AmpliTaq Gold was also found to reduce the inhibitory effects of hemoglobin and lactoferrin.
Efficiency in the cake-eating problem with quasi-geometric discounting

This paper shows that any equilibrium allocation in the cake-eating problem with quasi-geometric discounting is not Pareto efficient. However, efficiency can be established by introducing a planner who controls the initial endowment and makes transfers over time. It is shown than any Pareto efficient allocation can be supported by a perfect equilibrium with transfers.
Managing Public Perceptions of Risk on Construction and Engineering Projects: How to Involve Stakeholders in Business Decisions

Abstract While the construction industry has developed sound technical skills in dealing with risk, its ability to deal with the human perceptions of construction risk is less well developed. This in turn has often led to irrational reactions to even the most innocuous development proposals. The implicit question which now faces every construction organisation is not just whether it is managing its risks effectively but also, whether it is managing its wider responsibility to society and whether it is communicating this effectively. It is in this context that this paper critically analyses traditional technocratic approaches to risk management in the construction industry. It argues that a new approach is needed which recognizes the social, political, psychological and cultural complexity of risk. A case study is presented to show how this can be achieved in practice using a new multimedia risk management system called ROMS (http://www.risk-opportunity.com).
Hybrid Regimes and Oligopolies of Violence in Africa: Expectations on Security Provision "From Below"

The contribution by Volker Boege, Anne Brown, Kevin Clements and Anna Nolan questions the underlying assumptions of the mainstream discourse on fragile states, and rightly so. It is obvious that the conventional perception of fragile states can become an obstacle to the maintenance of peace and development instead of forming the basis of long-term peacebuilding, particularly when state-building has become a blue-print approach to ‘reconstructing’ a country along the lines of the ‘Westphalian’ state. At first I was hesitant to comment upon this paper because I share most of its analysis. However, on closer inspection, I became interested in doing two things: First, I want to add more details on the specific situation in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in the security sector – which, as the ideal-type location of the monopoly of force/violence and security provision for its citizens, is often used to assess, and re-build, state performance. Yet what do such security sectors actually look like? Who are the relevant security actors? I would argue that outside assistance needs to be based on much better, locally-grounded analysis. Second, I need to “water down” the wine offered by the authors in terms of alternative approaches, i.e. fostering hybrid solutions. On the basis of the realities of sub-Saharan Africa such solutions are in danger of bringing on more of the same – neopatrimonial instability and inefficiency – unless they are carefully monitored.
Nicotinic Acid Decreases Apolipoprotein B100-Containing Lipoprotein Levels by Reducing Hepatic Very Low Density Lipoprotein Secretion through a Possible Diacylglycerol Acyltransferase 2 Inhibition in Obese Dogs

Apolipoprotein B100 (apoB100) is an essential component of very low density lipoprotein (VLDL) and low-density lipoprotein (LDL), both independent markers of cardiovascular risk. Nicotinic acid (NA) is an efficacious drug for decreasing VLDL and LDL, but the underlying mechanisms are unclear. For this purpose, six obese insulin-resistant dogs were given 350 mg/day of NA for 1 week and then 500 mg/day for 3 weeks. Turnover of apoB100-containing lipoproteins was investigated using stable isotope-labeled tracers. Multicompartmental modeling was used to derive kinetic parameters before and at the end of NA treatment. Hepatic diacylglycerol acyltransferase 2 (DGAT2), microsomal triglyceride transfer protein (MTP), hepatic lipase (HL), and adipose lipoprotein lipase (LPL) mRNA expression was also determined. NA treatment decreased plasma triglyceride (TG) (p < 0.001), VLDL-TG (p < 0.05), total cholesterol (p < 0.0001), and LDL cholesterol (p < 0.05), whereas plasma nonesterified fatty acids were unchanged. The decrease in VLDL-apoB100 concentration (p < 0.001) was the result of a lower absolute production rate (APR) (p < 0.001), despite a moderate decrease (p < 0.05) in fractional catabolic rate (FCR). LDL-apoB100 concentration was reduced (p < 0.05), an effect related to a decrease in LDL APR (p < 0.05) and no change in FCR. NA treatment reduced DGAT2 expression (p < 0.05), whereas MTP, HL, and LPL expression was unchanged. Our results suggest that NA treatment reduced VLDL and LDL concentration as a consequence of a decrease in VLDL production.
The European Union's Democratic Conditionality and Domestic Politics in Slovakia: The Me ) iar and Dzurinda Governments Compared

THE PROCESS OF MONITORING CANDIDATE COUNTRIES for EU membership has in the past decade become much stricter than ever before, compared with previous enlargements, in terms not only of the scope but also the specificity of conditionality demands. This is evident with respect to both economic and political conditions, but it is the latter which is particularly visible and which has a wider significance for European integration. For the EU has moved resolutely down the path of high as well as low politics and, thereby, into areas traditionally regarded as internal to states. This is demonstrated most recently by the debate, and also controversy, over a formal commitment on human rights. It is also clear that the EU has moved beyond conditions of formal democracy to those pertaining to substantive democracy or qualitative conditions such as the role of political parties and political participation, the independence of the media and an active civil society as well as human and minority rights. ' While there has been a general growth of conditionality on the part of international organisations (IOs) in the 1990s, the EU has been at the forefront in pushing both the political and economic versions of this. Some other IOs have been advocates of particular aspects of substantive democracy, like the Council of Europe (COE) over human rights and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) over minority rights as well as fair and free elections, while others, like NATO, have remained committed to more formal requirements (in its case, civilian control over the military and the existence of a constitutional state). The EU, however, has developed an ever more extensive portfolio of conditionality demands and increasingly so in recent years. It has elaborated on and added to the original Copenhagen criteria set out in 1993.2 The reasons for this trend are several-the end of the Cold War and hence of the predominance of security concerns over democracy promotion; the EU's own political dynamic in a federalising direction; and, in particular, the awareness in Brussels of the various problems of accommodating so many still unconsolidated new democracies from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) with their communist legacies.
Self-assessment of pubertal stage in overweight children.

OBJECTIVE For those with normal body habitus, self-assessments have been reported to yield Tanner stage ratings similar to those found by actual examinations. Little is known about whether such self-assessments are accurate in obese children. We therefore determined the reliability of Tanner stage self-assessments in both nonobese and obese children. METHODS We studied 244 children age 6 to 12 years, 135 girls and 109 boys, 41% of whom were obese (body mass index > or =95th percentile for age and gender). Girls rated both breast and pubic hair development and boys rated pubic hair development using a standardized series of drawings accompanied by explanatory text. After self-ratings were completed, a pediatric endocrinologist or trained nurse practitioner who was blinded to subjects' self-ratings examined each subject. RESULTS Self-ratings of breast Tanner stage were concordant with actual stage in 48%, overestimated in 25%, and underestimated in 27% of nonobese girls. By contrast, breast Tanner stage was overestimated by 38% of obese girls and was underestimated by only 12%. On average, obese girls overestimated actual Tanner breast stage by 0.47 +/- 0.9 stages. Pubic hair ratings were largely concordant with actual pubic hair stage in both obese and nonobese girls. Both nonobese and obese boys significantly overestimated actual Tanner pubic hair stage, by 0.51 +/- 1.1 stages and 0.31 +/- 0.8 stages, respectively. CONCLUSIONS We conclude that, in children 6 to 12 years of age, self-assessment cannot be used to determine reliably the breast Tanner stage of obese girls or the pubic hair stage of boys.
Belief Asymmetry and Gains from Acquisitions

The divergence of opinion 'premium hypothesis', developed by Miller [Miller, E. , 1977. Risk, uncertainty, and divergence of opinion. Journal of Finance 32, 1151-1168], predicts that the price of a stock is set by optimistic investors when belief asymmetry about its value is high. We examine whether this hypothesis can explain gains to acquiring firms. We find a significant positive relation between belief asymmetry and announcement returns to acquiring firms bidding for unlisted targets after accounting for various firm and deal characteristics. Yet, acquirers subject to high (low) belief asymmetry experience negative (no) abnormal returns in the post-acquisition period. Our evidence suggests that, in the presence of high belief asymmetry, optimistic investors overreact around acquisition announcements involving private targets that on average signal strong potential for value creation. This leads acquiring firms' prices to overshoot in the short-run and experience sharp corrections subsequently.
Mindfulness in Occupational Therapy Education

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to explore the value of mindfulness and its role in occupational therapy education. The plethora of research on mindfulness-based stress reduction programs has shown consistent and positive results to enhance quality of life in clinical and nonclinical populations. Offering students the opportunities to learn and experience mindfulness could lead to enhanced self-awareness and care, focus and empathy, and a decrease of client judgment enhancing the success of clinical interventions.
Start Up and Sustainability: Marketisation and the Social Enterprise Investment Fund in England

Abstract Since the end of the last century governments in many western welfare regimes have been keen to promote the marketisation of public service delivery. This requires changes in the supply of, and demand for, alternative providers in this market, and in particular for many governments this has included third sector providers. This article examines the attempt by the UK Labour government to promote the supply of social enterprises in the market for health and social care services in England, through the Social Enterprise Investment Fund (SEIF), introduced in 2007. The article reports on research evaluating the effectiveness of the SEIF, employing a ‘theories of change’ approach, drawing on a mix of administrative and survey data, qualitative interviews and case studies. The research found that although the SEIF had significant benefits in supporting the start up and growth of organisations, its contribution to their longer-term sustainability was more mixed as most were dependent on grants as a main source of income and were not in a position to compete for public sector contracts. This suggests that there may be limits to the role that public investment can play in such market making.
Identification of Seed Gall Nematodes of Agronomic and Regulatory Concern with PCR-RFLP of ITS1.

A molecular analysis of eight described species of seed gall nematode, along with six undescribed isolates from different hosts, has revealed a strong association between nucleotide sequence polymorphism and host status. Each anguinid nematode associated with a unique host produced a unique PCR-RFLP pattern for the ITS1 region. Anguina species that had been synonymized in the past, Anguina agrostis, A. funesta, and A. wevelli (Afrina wevelli), were readily discriminated. Two undescribed species from northern New South Wales and southeastern South Australia, reported to be vectors of Rathyaibacter toxicus in the disease called ''floodplain staggers,'' were differentiated by a single restriction enzyme, and both could be separated easily from A. funesta, the vector of R. toxicus in annual ryegrass toxicity. Other species differentiated in this study include A. agropyronifloris, A. graminis, A. microlaenae, A. pacificae, and undescribed species from host species Dactylis glomerata, Agrostis avenacea, Polypogon monospeliensis, Stipa sp. , Astrebla pectinata, and Holcus lanatus. Phylogenetic analysis of the ITS1 region suggests that considerable anguinid genetic diversification has accompanied specialization on different host species.
Is there a bigger and better future for employer branding? Facing up to innovation, corporate reputations and wicked problems in SHRM

Employer branding is becoming an increasingly important topic for research and practice in multinational enterprises (MNEs) because it plays directly into their corporate reputation, talent management and employee engagement agendas. In this paper, we argue that the potential effects of employer branding have yet to be fully understood because current theory and practice have failed to connect this internal application of marketing and branding to the key reputational and innovation agendas of MNEs, both of which are at the heart of another strategic agenda – effective corporate governance. However, these agendas are characterised by ‘wicked problems’ in MNEs, which have their origins in competing logics in strategic human resource management (SHRM). These problems need to be articulated and understood before they can be addressed. This paper proceeds by (1) setting out a definition and model of employer branding and how it potentially articulates with corporate governance, innovation and organisational reputations, (2) discussing and analysing the ‘wicked problems’ resulting from the sometimes contradictory logics underpinning innovation and corporate reputations and SHRM in MNEs and (3) evaluating the potential of employer branding as a contribution to the third SHRM approach – HR strategy-in-action – as a way of resolving three particularly wicked problems in MNEs. We conclude with some ideas for research and practice on the future for employer branding.
Neuropeptide Y signaling in the central nucleus of amygdala regulates alcohol-drinking and anxiety-like behaviors of alcohol-preferring rats.

BACKGROUND The neuropeptide Y (NPY) system of the central nucleus of amygdala (CeA) has been shown to be involved in anxiety and alcoholism. In this study, we investigated the molecular mechanisms by which NPY in the CeA regulates anxiety and alcohol drinking behaviors using alcohol-preferring (P) rats as an animal model. METHODS Alcohol-preferring rats were bilaterally cannulated targeting the CeA and infused with artificial cerebrospinal fluid (aCSF) or NPY. Alcohol drinking and anxiety-like behaviors were assessed by the 2-bottle free-choice paradigm and light/dark box (LDB) exploration test, respectively. The levels of NPY and related signaling proteins were determined by the gold immunolabeling procedure. The mRNA levels of NPY were measured by in situ RT-PCR. Double-immunofluorescence labeling was performed to observe the colocalization of NPY and Ca(2+)/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase IV (CaMK IV). RESULTS We found that NPY infusion into the CeA produced anxiolytic effects, as measured by the LDB exploration test, and also decreased alcohol intake in P rats. NPY infusion into the CeA significantly increased levels of CaMK IV and phosphorylated cAMP responsive element-binding (pCREB) protein and increased mRNA and protein levels of NPY, but produced no changes in protein levels of CREB or the catalytic alpha-subunit of protein kinase A (PKA-Calpha) in the CeA. We also observed that alcohol intake produced anxiolytic effects in P rats in the LDB test and also increased NPY expression and protein levels of pCREB and PKA-Calpha without modulating protein levels of CREB or CaMK IV, in both the CeA and medial nucleus of amygdala. In addition, we found that CaMK IV-positive cells were co-localized with NPY in amygdaloid structures of P rats. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that NPY infusion may increase the expression of endogenous NPY in the CeA, which is most likely attributable to an increase in CaMK IV-dependent CREB phosphorylation and this molecular mechanism may be involved in regulating anxiety and alcohol drinking behaviors of P rats.