Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Alkaline phosphatase isoenzymes in dialysis bone disease.

following four groups:' (a) Serogenetic neuritis (patients inadvertently vaccinated in spite of egg allergy); (b) anaphylactoid reaction (within hours after the vaccination in patients with no egg allergy); (c) Guillain-Barre-syndrome or encephalopathies (starting five days after influenza immunisation); (d) damage of sensory dermal nerves of the upper arm by jet injection.2 The incubation time of these neurological complications in our 11 published cases was always the first week after vaccination. ' Since anaphylactoid accidents may occur within 1 hour after the first immunisation, a toxic factor must be considered in the aetiology. Poser and Fowler' have stressed similarities between the Guillain-Barre syndrome and complications of serum sickness, which are manifestations of hypersensitivity. The pattern of the incubation time (peak in the second and third week) in the American cases follows mainly that known from serum polyneuritis. We therefore think a similar mechanism of hypersensitivity against components of the vaccine may work in these patients. The frequency of Guillain-Barre syndrome in the American data is disturbing (1 case per 100 000 vaccinees4). We calculated the risk as 1 neural complication per 0 7 and 1 3 million, respectively, distributed doses of two German influenza vaccines (period 1968-76). '
Evaluating the Usefulness of a Novel 10B-Carrier Conjugated With Cyclic RGD Peptide in Boron Neutron Capture Therapy

Background To evaluate the usefulness of a novel 10B-carrier conjugated with an integrin-binding cyclic RGD peptide (GPU-201) in boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT). Methods GPU-201 was synthesized from integrin-binding Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD) consensus sequence of matrix proteins and a 10B cluster 1, 2-dicarba-closo-dodecaborane-10B. Mercaptododecaborate-10B (BSH) dissolved in physiological saline and BSH and GPU-201 dissolved with cyclodextrin (CD) as a solubilizing and dispersing agent were intraperitoneally administered to SCC VII tumor-bearing mice. Then, the 10B concentrations in the tumors and normal tissues were measured by γ-ray spectrometry. Meanwhile, tumor-bearing mice were continuously given 5-bromo-2’-deoxyuridine (BrdU) to label all proliferating (P) cells in the tumors, then treated with GPU-201, BSH-CD, or BSH. Immediately after reactor neutron beam or γ-ray irradiation, during which intratumor 10B concentrations were kept at levels similar to each other, cells from some tumors were isolated and incubated with a cytokinesis blocker. The responses of the Q and total (= P + Q) cell populations were assessed based on the frequency of micronuclei using immunofluorescence staining for BrdU. Results The 10B from BSH was washed away rapidly in all these tissues and the retention of 10B from BSH-CD and GPU-201 was similar except in blood where the 10B concentration from GPU-201 was higher for longer. GPU-201 showed a significantly stronger radio-sensitizing effect under neutron beam irradiation on both total and Q cell populations than any other 10B-carrier. Conclusion A novel 10B-carrier conjugated with an integrin-binding RGD peptide (GPU-201) that sensitized tumor cells more markedly than conventional 10B-carriers may be a promising candidate for use in BNCT. However, its toxicity needs to be tested further.
An asymmetric dynamic conditional correlation analysis of linkages of European financial institutions during the Greek sovereign debt crisis

This article employs the asymmetric dynamic conditional correlation (DCC) model to assess impacts of the recent sovereign debt crisis on the time-varying correlations of five European financial institutions holding large amounts of Greek sovereign bonds (National Bank of Greece, BNP Paribas, Dexia, Generali, and Commerzbank). Contrary to the results of preceding studies, we find significant increases in the correlations between several combinations of the financial institutions’ stock returns after the inception of the sovereign debt crisis, indicating contagion effects. Moreover, our findings show that the parameter of the standardized negative residuals is statistically significant in the case of DCC estimates between two specific institutions. This suggests that the conditional correlation of stock returns between the two institutions is more significantly influenced by negative shocks than by positive innovations to return.
L'ajustement des salaires face aux chocs pétroliers et les réponses de la politique économique

The wage evolution for a small open economy is very important. A particularity of the Belgian wage formation process is the existence of an institutionalised price indexation system. The oil-shocks of the 70's revealed both the importance and the danger of this mechanism. Wage-earners retained their income while the share in national income of government and enterprises income diminished. This resulted in a strong fall in profitability and a loss in competitivity for the enterprises. By international standards wages are fairly rigid in Belgium, resulting in a slow recovery of profitability. The government has intervened in the wage formation process since the beginning of the 80‚s with aim of restoring enterprises competitiveness and government finances. Due to the wage-policy and to the evolution of macro-economic wage determinants, the wage share in value added has returned to what it was in the 60‚sand the early 70‚s. The 1989 Law to preserve Belgian's competitive's position provided the government with ways to intervene when the country's competitive position is in danger. This paper looks at these phenomena. In particular, the institutional framework for wage determination is described. The traditional macro-economic wage determinants (productivity, labour market tightness, taxes and prices) are analysed. The relative importance of each of these factors in explaining wage increases is calculated. Also some simulations with the macro-economic model Maribel II are represented . The effects of an oil-price increase accompanied by lower international growth and an increase world interest rates are studied. Attention id given to a possible policy reaction where the government neutralises the effects of the oil-price increase on the domestic price that is used for wage indexation. The outcome is that a large pert in the deterioration in the macro-economic indicators is neutralised in this way.
Sell-Side Analyst Bias When Investment Banks Have Privileged Access to the Board

Research on analyst bias typically identifies affiliation with reference to a subset of the mandates that could give rise to incentives for bias in a multifunction investment bank. This paper develops a new measure of affiliation based upon the UK practice of corporate broking. An advantage of this approach is that affiliation is no longer restricted to isolated equity issuance events as it is an ongoing activity. This research shows that prior US evidence regarding the “Global Settlement” is robust to this new measure and application in the United Kingdom rather than solely the United States. The paper uses a hazard rate methodology focusing on the timeliness of revisions to address selection bias concerns.
The (mis)Representation of Rural Deprivation

The authors consider the definition and measurement of deprivation and of rurality in the context of health-care research. Parallels are drawn between the methodological issues involved in the measurement of deprivation and of rurality. An empirical study of the South West of England reveals the extent of disagreement between standard rurality measures; in particular, the authors suggest that rural deprivation will be poorly represented by the conventional approaches. They argue for the development of new approaches to the measurement of deprivation in rural areas, in which advantage is taken of contemporary data sources.
Democracy in Decline

For almost a decade, Freedom House's annual survey has highlighted a decline in democracy in most regions of the globe. While some analysts draw upon this evidence to argue that the world has entered a "democratic recession," others dispute that interpretation, emphasizing instead democracy's success in maintaining the huge gains it made during the last quarter of the twentieth century. Discussion of this question has moved beyond disputes about how many countries should be classified as democratic to embrace a host of wider concerns about the health of democracy: the poor economic and political performance of advanced democracies, the new self-confidence and assertiveness of a number of leading authoritarian countries, and a geopolitical weakening of democracies relative to these resurgent authoritarians. In Democracy in Decline? , eight of the world's leading public intellectuals and scholars of democracy-Francis Fukuyama, Robert Kagan, Philippe C Schmitter, Steven Levitsky, Lucan Way, Thomas Carothers, and editors Larry Diamond and Marc F Plattner-explore these concerns and offer competing viewpoints about the state of democracy today. This short collection of essays is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the latest thinking on one of the most critical questions of our era.
Robust estimators in mixed errors-in-variables models

Traditional errors-in-variables (EIV) models are widely adopted in applied sciences. In practice, some of the columns of the coefficient matrix in EIV models may be known exactly. EIV models with exactly known columns are called mixed EIV (MEIV) models. Similar to EIV models, the MEIV models can be highly biased by gross error. This paper focuses on robust estimation in MEIV models. A new class of robust estimators, called robust weighted mixed total least squared (RWMTLS) estimators for the MEIV models by M-estimator and Lagrange multiplier method, is introduced. A simulated example is carried out to demonstrate the performance of the presented RWMTLS algorithm. The result shows that the RWMTLS algorithm can indeed resist gross error to achieve the reliable solution.
Agendas, alternatives, and public policies

1. How Does an Idea's Time Come? 2. Participants on the Inside of Government 3. Outside of Government, But Not Just Looking In 4. Processes: Origins, Rationality, Incrementalism, and Garbage Cans 5. Problems 6. The Policy Primeval Soup 7. The Political Stream 8. The Policy Window, and Joining the Streams 9. Wrapping Things Up 10. Some Further Reflections: New Case Studies Thoughts About the Modeling Appendix on Methods: The Interviews Coding Case Studies Noninterview Measures of Agenda Status.
Stk40 links the pluripotency factor Oct4 to the Erk/MAPK pathway and controls extraembryonic endoderm differentiation

Self-renewal and differentiation of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are controlled by intracellular transcriptional factors and extracellular factor-activated signaling pathways. Transcription factor Oct4 is a key player maintaining ESCs in an undifferentiated state, whereas the Erk/MAPK pathway is known to be important for ESC differentiation. However, the manner in which intracellular pluripotency factors modulate extracellular factor-activated signaling pathways in ESCs is not well understood. Here, we report identification of a target gene of Oct4, serine/threonine kinase 40 (Stk40), which is able to activate the Erk/MAPK pathway and induce extraembryonic–endoderm (ExEn) differentiation in mouse ESCs. Interestingly, cells overexpressing Stk40 exclusively contribute to the ExEn layer of chimeric embryos when injected into host blastocysts. In contrast, deletion of Stk40 in ESCs markedly reduces ExEn differentiation in vitro. Mechanistically, Stk40 interacts with Rcn2, which also activates Erk1/2 to induce ExEn specification in mouse ESCs. Moreover, Rcn2 proteins are specifically located in the cytoplasm of the ExEn layer of early mouse embryos. Importantly, knockdown of Rcn2 blocks Stk40-activated Erk1/2 and ESC differentiation. Therefore, our study establishes a link between the pluripotency factor Oct4 and the Erk/MAPK signaling pathway, and it uncovers cooperating signals in the Erk/MAPK activation that control ExEn differentiation.
Association of hematological indices with prediabetes: A cross-sectional study

Background Prediabetes is a condition that occurs when blood glucose levels are higher than normal, but not high enough to be classified as diabetes. Prediabetic people have an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Moreover Hyperglycemia has multiple effects on the hematological parameters. Objective To examine the association between hematological indices and anthropometric measurement, with prediabetes. Methods This cross-sectional study was conducted on 125 diabetics and 259 prediabetics in the 20–70 age range. They were selected by a convenience sampling method at the Taban Diabetes Center in 2015. An oral glucose tolerance test was performed for each participant who had never been diagnosed with diabetes. Participants were characterized as having prediabetes or diabetes according to American Diabetes Association criteria. The hematologic parameters were measured by using Sysmex-KX 21N analyzers. Data were analyzed by IBM-SPSS version 22 using independent-samples t-test, Mann-Whitney U test, and Pearson’s correlation coefficient at p<0.05. Results There was significant difference in mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCVH) (33.81±0.92 g/dL vs. 34.06±1.05 g/dL) between prediabetes patients and diabetes. There was not a statistically significant difference in the prediabetics’ hematological parameters, compared with the diabetics. In the prediabetic group, only the mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration was found to be negatively correlated with diastolic blood pressure (p=0.013) and FBS (p=0.026). Conclusion Hematological indices are important markers for the assessment of variations in size, number, and maturity of different blood cells. Hematological indices could be utile indicators of vascular complication and glycemic control in type 2 DM patients. Thus, they are important for the evaluation and early management of patients with per diabetes.
An evaluation of government-sponsored vocational training programmes for the unemployed in urban Russia

This is the first study on the effects of active labour market programs such as training in Russia. We use the data from the official unemployment register combined with information from the follow-up survey in a large industrial city in the year 2000. The method of propensity score matching was applied to learn whether participation in the training programmes increased the monthly salaries of participants. The findings suggest that individuals tend to benefit from the participation in the training programmes. However, one year later, this effect disappeared. Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.
Gender Differences in Verbal and Visuospatial Working Memory Performance and Networks

Background: Working memory (WM) has been a matter of intensive basic and clinical research for some decades now. The investigation of WM function and dysfunction may facilitate the understanding of both physiological and pathological processes in the human brain. Though WM paradigms are widely used in neuroscientific and psychiatric research, conclusive knowledge about potential moderating variables such as gender is still missing. Methods: We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the effects of gender on verbal and visuospatial WM maintenance tasks in a large and homogeneous sample of young healthy subjects. Results: We found significant gender effects on both the behavioral and neurofunctional level. Females exhibited disadvantages with a small effect size in both WM domains accompanied by stronger activations in a set of brain regions (including bilateral substantia nigra/ventral tegmental area and right Broca's area) independent of WM modality. As load and task difficulty effects have been shown for some of these regions, the stronger activations may reflect a slightly lower capacity of both WM domains in females. Males showed stronger bilateral intraparietal activations next to the precuneus which were specific for the visuospatial WM task. Activity in this specific region may be associated with visuospatial short-term memory capacity. Conclusion: These findings provide evidence for a slightly lower capacity in both WM modalities in females.
Afp14 is involved in regulating the length of Anti‐feeding prophage (Afp)

The anti‐feeding prophage (Afp), a phage‐tail‐like particle that causes cessation of feeding in the New Zealand grass grub, Costelytra zealandica, is encoded by 18 open reading frames (afp1–18). C‐terminal truncations of afp14 resulted in shortened Afp particles, suggesting that Afp14 is involved in Afp length determination. We constructed an Afp assembly system (afp1–18), wherein Afp14 was truncated after the N‐terminal 88 residues. This construct, when expressed in trans in Escherichia coli expressing a N‐terminal 98‐amino acid Afp14 construct, yielded fully assembled Afp but no assembled Afp was detected in the case of a N‐terminal 96‐amino acid Afp14 construct. These results suggested that the 98 N‐terminal, amino acid residues of Afp14 is crucial for the initiation of Afp assembly via baseplate formation. Trans‐based expression of wild‐type afp14 resulted in Afp particles of varying lengths, all of which were shorter than the wild‐type Afp particle. On the other hand, similar expression of Afp14 harboring a C‐terminal extension (KLLEH6) resulted in elongated Afp particles. This information, combined with bioinformatics data, allowed us to propose a model delineating the mechanism and role of Afp14 in the maturation of the Afp particle.
Determinants of International Insurers’ Participation in Foreign Non‐Life Markets

Mirroring the trend in the broader marketplace, the global insurance industry is steadily moving toward increased liberalization and deregulation. This study seeks to develop the first empirical model that examines the importance of foreign market characteristics as they relate to the participation of international insurers in the non-life business of those countries. The analysis reveals that market structure is an important factor in determining whether international insurers participate in a given foreign market. In addition, for markets that are not competitive, removing trade barriers would significantly improve the desirability of those countries as host markets. The results also suggest that countries with higher gross domestic product tend to attract more involvement from international insurers. While this research focuses on the markets of industrialized countries, the findings will provide significant implications for those emerging markets that have not yet collected relevant data on a number of the variables included in this study. Copyright 2003 The Journal of Risk and Insurance.
U.S. money demand: surprising cross-sectional estimates.

We estimate money demand functions using cross-sections of U.S. states over the period 1929-1990. We arrive at a number of interesting conclusions: First our estimates of the income elasticity lie between 1.3 and 1.5 significantly above one. Second money demand is a stable function over an impressive sample period 1929-1990. Third income per capita is a better scale variable than consumption. And finally after having been fairly constant between 1950 and 1980 the rate of technological progress (which determines the amount of money demanded for given incomes price levels and interest rates) accelerated substantially over the 1980s. (authors)
Derivative Evaluation Using Recombining Trees Under Stochastic Volatility

Heston (1993) presents a method to derive a closed-form solution for derivative pricing when the volatility of the underlying asset follows stochastic dynamics. His approach works well for European derivatives but, unfortunately, does not readily extend to the pricing of more complex contracts. In this paper we propose an alternative stochastic volatility model which retains many features of Heston model, but is better suited for an easy discretization through recombining trees, in the spirit of Nelson and Ramaswamy (1990). After having discussed the theoretical properties of the model we construct its discretized counterpart through a recombining multinomial tree. We apply the model to the USD/EURO exchange rate market, evaluating both American and barrier options.
Risk-Return of Belgian SRI Funds

We analyse the risk-return profile of Belgian SRI funds versus conventional investment funds. We apply a four-factor conditional Carhart model to establish whether there are significant differences in risk-return profile between an SRI portfolio and a conventional portfolio and test for learning effects in SRI funds. We show that there is no difference in risk-return profile between SRI and conventional funds. If return is not the problem, then what is it that limits the development of an SRI retail market in Belgium? We conclude with a short digression on this question.
The Pittsburgh STOP Program: Disseminating an Evidence-Informed Intervention for Low-Income Pregnant Smokers

Purpose. Prenatal smoking is a preventable risk factor for poor perinatal outcomes and is more prevalent in pregnant smokers of low socioeconomic status (SES). We describe the intervention model and factors associated with quitting from the Pittsburgh STOP Program, an evidence-informed dissemination intervention for low-SES pregnant smokers. Setting. STOP is delivered in community health care clinics serving economically disadvantaged women. Participants. Participants were 856 pregnant women who were current smokers (93%) and recent quitters (7%). Most were white (59%) or black (35%), single (74%), young (mean age = 25), and experiencing an unplanned pregnancy (84%); 90% were insured by Medicaid/uninsured. Methods. An evidence-informed intervention for community pregnant women was delivered individually in a single-group pre-post evaluation design. Measures were demographics, participation and retention, smoking status, satisfaction, and cost. Analyses included descriptive statistics and logistic regression. Results. Participants attended an average of 4.7 sessions. Dropout rate after the first session was 5%. Over 11% of smokers quit; 48% of preenrollment spontaneous quitters remained abstinent. Factors significantly associated with quitting included race, mother's age, nicotine dependence, and number of sessions attended. Limitations. STOP is a community program with self-selected participants and no control group. Conclusion. Low-income pregnant smokers will engage in an evidence-informed cessation program tailored for this group, with quit rates that compare to controlled research results. (Am J Health Promot 2011;25[5 Supplement]:S75-S81.)
Phased array systems for air, land and naval defence applications in Selex ES

After a brief recall of 3D Long Range phased array concepts, the focus is on the G-band multifunction radar systems and on the technological capabilities that the Land&Naval Division of Selex ES is developing by taking advantage of its Research and Development facilities. At the end, future trends about new challenging applications and technological issues are presented and discussed.