Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Murine NK cell allospecificity-1 is defined by inhibitory ligands.

Hemopoietic allografts of normal and neoplastic origin are subject to NK cell-mediated resistance in mice. Susceptibility to this resistance is controlled by MHC-linked genes in a recessive manner. Several distinct specificities could be postulated to explain the strain-dependent pattern of resistance. These presumptive specificities for recognition are H-2 haplotype dependent, but the correspondence is not one-to-one. For example, resistance of H-2d or H-2b/d host to H-2 b graft operationally defines specificity-1, establishing its link with haplotype H-2b. To examine the molecular basis of specificity-1, spontaneous Dd-loss mutant clones were isolated from H-2b/d and H-2d hemopoietic cell lines, i.e., 416B of (C57BL/6 x DBA/2)F1 (B6D2F1) origin and L1210 of DBA/2 origin, both of which lack specificity-1. The expression of specificity-1 in the mutant clones was examined in vivo and in vitro. The results indicate that Dd-loss clones of 416B and L1210 lines express specificity-1. These data suggest that murine NK cell allospecificity-1 is defined primarily by the absence of the Dd molecule or other class I molecules sharing the protective motifs; no H-2b-associated genes play a relevant role. This conclusion is consistent with the missing self hypothesis of NK cell reactivity, and is in agreement with the observation that lysis of B6 targets by B6D2F1 NK cells is mediated mostly by cells that express Ly-49A and/or Ly-49G2.
Drug delivery systems against leishmaniasis? Still an open question.

BACKGROUND Leishmania amastigotes live inside resident macrophages in different anatomic sites. Their hidden location is responsible for impairing the accession of therapeutic drugs. Drug delivery systems (DDSs) should allow the adverse effects caused by problematic routes of administration to be avoided as well as enhancing the antileishmanial activity and reducing the toxicity of the medication. However, after 30 years of research in the field, and since leishmaniasis is mostly a disease affecting the poorest populations, currently AmBisome is the only DDS used against the visceral form, and most experimental development only relates to parenteral administration. OBJECTIVE We critically review the main DDSs designed against the different clinical forms of leishmaniasis. METHODS A literature search was performed on PubMed and through Google. CONCLUSIONS On reviewing the experimental and clinical therapeutic performance of former and current DDSs and considering the main obstacles to be overcome, we discuss how nanomedicine can contribute to the development of new and more efficient strategies.
The roles of tacit knowledge and OCB in the relationship between group‐based pay and firm performance

Researchers have suggested various mechanisms through which group-based pay may affect firm performance, but few have provided direct empirical field tests of these mechanisms. In this paper, we argue that group-based pay systems lead to more organisational citizenship behaviours (OCB) and facilitate the sharing and creation of tacit knowledge among core employees. OCB and tacit knowledge in turn enhance firm performance. Regression results show that group-based pay is positively related to firm performance and that the relationship is partially mediated by core employees' OCB. We discuss implications for compensation theory and research.
Foreign Direct Investment, Financial Development, and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Arab Countries

The emerging literature on foreign direct investment (FDI) now stipulates that FDI’s positive impact on growth depends on absorptive capacities. Prime among these capacities is financial development. The paper provides support to this thesis in the context of the Arab countries whose financial system is predominantly bank-based. It finds that Arab FDI will have a favorable effect on growth if interacted with financial variables at a given threshold level of development. It also finds that in reform countries FDI could Granger cause financial development. The conclusions that emerge from the paper are that domestic financial reforms should precede policies promoting FDI, investment measures should enhance the environment for all investors—foreign and domestic alike—and liberal commercial policies should be designed as initial measures to attract FDI.
What Factors Influence the Structure of the State Income Tax?

This article contributes to a small body of literature that examines empirically the factors affecting the structure of state income taxes. We assume vote-maximizing politicians who are potentially influenced by information spillovers from other states in the spirit of yardstick competition. A number of nominal provisions of the income tax are considered in the empirical analysis, including earned income tax credits, top bracket rates, exemptions, and income thresholds. Politicians manipulate these and other structural features of the income tax to garner votes. The results yield no evidence of yardstick competition in the setting of income tax policy, regardless of how we define neighbors. Political factors like single-party control affect the choice of some tax provisions. Demographic factors play a mixed role; in particular, characteristics of the low-income population are seldom associated with provisions that benefit these particular groups.
Isolation of a GPD gene from Debaryomyces hansenii encoding a glycerol 3‐phosphate dehydrogenase (NAD+)

A gene homologous to GPD1, coding for glycerol‐3‐phosphate dehydrogenase (sn‐glycerol 3‐phosphate: NAD+ oxidoreductase, EC 1.1.1.8), has been isolated from the halophilic yeast Debaryomyces hansenii by complementation of a Saccharomyces cerevisiae gpd1Δ mutant. DNA sequencing of the complementing genomic clone indicated the existence of an open reading frame encoding a protein with 369 amino acids. Comparative analysis of the deduced amino acid sequence showed high similarity to homologous genes described for other eukaryotic GPD enzymes. The sequence has been submitted to the GenBank database under Accession No. AY333427. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Nurses and Internet health information: a questionnaire survey.

AIM This paper is a report of a study to identify the extent of postgraduate nursing students' information literacy skills in relation to electronic media and health information and barriers to accessing this information. BACKGROUND The Internet is a key source of information for a significant group of patients. However, there is evidence of quality issues with some Internet health information sites. Nurses need to be aware of the range and quality of online health information so as to assist patients and families to locate and evaluate relevant and current information. METHOD A questionnaire designed to collect quantitative and qualitative data was posted to a convenience sample of all students enrolled in a postgraduate nursing programme in December 2005. The response rate was 55.1% or 123 responses. RESULTS Most respondents had Internet access at home and work and believed that access to online health information resources had improved their practice. However, some had difficulties in accessing computers at work and insufficient time to search for online health information. Concern was expressed about the quality of online information, but the majority of respondents did not assess patient use. Frequent users of online resources were more likely to assess patient use. CONCLUSION The development of nursing competencies in accessing and using online resources is a key precursor to supporting patients and families' use of the medium. Access to Internet resources at work, along with training and time for searching, is necessary for the development of skills enabling effective use of information technology.
Happiness in Eastern Europe

This paper analyses the determinants of happiness in seven Eastern European transition countries during the early phase of economic transition. The analysis of representative survey data in an ordered logit model shows that those core socio-demographic and economic variables known to be relevant from studies on the US and Western European countries have a similar impact on happiness in Eastern Europe. In addition, rural dwellers and church goers experience greater life-satisfaction. Aggregate unemployment can explain more of the crosscountry variation in happiness than income per capita.
Beyond promiscuity: mate-choice commitments in social breeding

Obligate eusociality with distinct caste phenotypes has evolved from strictly monogamous sub-social ancestors in ants, some bees, some wasps and some termites. This implies that no lineage reached the most advanced form of social breeding, unless helpers at the nest gained indirect fitness values via siblings that were identical to direct fitness via offspring. The complete lack of re-mating promiscuity equalizes sex-specific variances in reproductive success. Later, evolutionary developments towards multiple queen-mating retained lifetime commitment between sexual partners, but reduced male variance in reproductive success relative to female's, similar to the most advanced vertebrate cooperative breeders. Here, I (i) discuss some of the unique and highly peculiar mating system adaptations of eusocial insects; (ii) address ambiguities that remained after earlier reviews and extend the monogamy logic to the evolution of soldier castes; (iii) evaluate the evidence for indirect fitness benefits driving the dynamics of (in)vertebrate cooperative breeding, while emphasizing the fundamental differences between obligate eusociality and cooperative breeding; (iv) infer that lifetime commitment is a major driver towards higher levels of organization in bodies, colonies and mutualisms. I argue that evolutionary informative definitions of social systems that separate direct and indirect fitness benefits facilitate transparency when testing inclusive fitness theory.
Property Developers and Urban Adaptation: Conceptual and Empirical Perspectives on Governance

Adaptation to climate change in urban areas requires public and private actors to engage in governance of complex problems in conditions of uncertainty. The property development ‘industry’ consists of diverse private actors with considerable financial, political or technical resources. However, there is no empirical research to date on the potential contribution of these actors, and particularly property developers, to climate adaptation, in terms of their preferences, capabilities and perceptions. This article reports on findings from a survey of, and discussions with, Australian property developers, their representative industry bodies, and technical and advisory service providers to developers. Amongst other themes, we focus here on: participation and capacity; effectiveness of current polices; risks and opportunities; and cost-sharing considerations as perceived by these groups. Results indicate that developers and their interest groups are seeking greater levels of participation and joint decision-making in public-adaptation policy and its implementation. The results also suggest that while developers and their service providers recognise a shift towards greater levels of responsibility and cost sharing for adaptation, perceptions of operational ambiguities and financial risks hinder progress in this area. Given this, the authors point to the need to further examine the potential of new deliberative arenas that can balance and complement existing regulatory controls in the governance of urban adaptation.
Price Reversals, Bid-Ask Spreads, and Market Efficiency

Abstract We examine the behavior of common stock prices after a large change in price occurs during a single trading day and find evidence that the stock market appears to have overreacted, especially in the case of price declines; however, the magnitude of the overreaction is small compared to the bid-ask spreads observed for the individual stocks in the sample. We interpret this finding as being consistent with a market that is efficient after transactions costs are considered.
Effect of voxel size and partial volume effect on accuracy of tooth volumetric measurements with cone beam CT.

analysing the effect of voxel size on accuracy of three-dimensional reconstructions with cone beam CT (CBCT) in 2012 Dentomaxillofacial Radiology . 1 The authors found that the tooth volumes were underestimated by CBCT 200 m m and 300 m m voxel sizes compared with CBCT 76 m m voxel size or micro-CT 41 m m voxel size groups. The cause was inferred as the partial volume effect (PVE). However, our studies showed that, with increase in scanning voxel size, the in vitro volume measurements of teeth tended to be overestimated. 2
Energy-efficient HTTP Adaptive Streaming with Anticipated Channel Throughput Prediction in Wireless Networks

Exploiting predicted channel information and designing energy efficient content delivery protocols has started to draw attention, which is referred to as predictive, anticipatory, or context-aware resource allocation. In this paper, we investigate how predicted user rates can be exploited for streaming on-demand mobile video with dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP(DASH). Specifically, we propose an edge-cloud assisted framework for prediction based DASH streaming; For optimal prediction scenario, we propose a lightweight algorithm to solve it; For imperfect prediction scenario, we model uncertainty in predicted user rates and propose a chance constraint programming method to dynamically allocate the risks, optimize QoE and system efficiency; For the multi-user scenario, we propose a quality-level-aware throughput gain maximization method to improve the network efficiency, fairness and QoE for all users under different prediction error variances; Simulation studies show that our method has a better performance than traditional methods in terms of average QoE, fairness and energy efficiency.
[High vaccination coverage of the National Immunization Programme in the Netherlands].

OBJECTIVE To describe vaccination coverage of the National Immunization Programme (NIP) in the Netherlands for the years 2006-2008. DESIGN Descriptive, retrospective. METHOD Vaccination coverage was determined per vaccination and birth cohort based on data from the vaccination-registration system 'Praeventis'. This new system enables more accurate testing for compatibility with NIP guidelines. Furthermore, it was determined on an individual level whether the desired vaccination status was reached before a certain target age (1, 2, 5 or 10 years). RESULTS In the final year reported, all national vaccination percentages came up to the WHO standards. Vaccination coverage for babies ranged from 94.5% for diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus and polio (DTaP-IPV) to 96.0% for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR). The coverage for toddlers and school-aged children was over 90% for each of the vaccinations. In 5 of the 12 Dutch provinces and 128 of the 443 municipalities, one or more vaccination percentages were below the standard of 90%. Vaccination coverage for the second MMR vaccination and for hepatitis B vaccination in children of whom one or both parents were born in a country where the incidence of hepatitis B is higher than average, was relatively low (92.5% and 90.7%, respectively). CONCLUSION Vaccination coverage in the Netherlands is high. In general, vaccination coverage for toddlers and school-aged children requires extra attention. This applies in particular to the second MMR vaccination and to vaccination in children of whom one or both parents were born in a country where the incidence of hepatitis B is higher than average.
A LOOK AT SOCIAL JUSTICE

The use of a dispositional framework in the preparation of teachers, especially one that attends to issues of social justice, has generated considerable debate of late. In this article, the author argues that assessing teacher candidates’ dispositions related to social justice is both reasonable and defensible. She explains why social justice matters in teacher education, provides a definition of the term dispositions and discusses why programs of teacher education must attend to them, and gives examples of practices used at one institution to assess teacher candidates’ dispositions related to social justice to illustrate that such assessment can be done in a fair and principled manner. The author concludes that underlying the dispositions debate is an all-out war to define the goals of public education, the role of teachers, the nature of knowledge, and conceptions of learning, teaching, and learning to teach.
Enhanced Lung Injury and Delayed Clearance of Pneumocystis carinii in Surfactant Protein A-Deficient Mice: Attenuation of Cytokine Responses and Reactive Oxygen-Nitrogen Species

ABSTRACT Surfactant protein A (SP-A), a member of the collectin family, selectively binds to Pneumocystis carinii and mediates interactions between pathogen and host alveolar macrophages in vitro. To test the hypothesis that mice lacking SP-A have delayed clearance of Pneumocystis organisms and enhanced lung injury, wild-type C57BL/6 (WT) and SP-A-deficient mice (SP-A−/−) with or without selective CD4+-T-cell depletion were intratracheally inoculated with Pneumocystis organisms. Four weeks later, CD4-depleted SP-A-deficient mice had developed a more severe Pneumocystis infection than CD4-depleted WT (P. carinii pneumonia [PCP] scores of 3 versus 2, respectively). Whereas all non-CD4-depleted WT mice were free of PCP, intact SP-A−/− mice also had evidence of increased organism burden. Pneumocystis infection in SP-A-deficient mice was associated histologically with enhanced peribronchial and/or perivascular cellularity (score of 4 versus 2, SP-A−/− versus C57BL/6 mice, respectively) and a corresponding increase in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) cell counts. Increases in SP-D content, gamma interferon, interleukin-4, interleukin-5, and tumor necrosis factor alpha in BAL fluid occurred but were attenuated in PCP-infected SP-A−/− mice compared to WT mice. There were increases in total BAL NO levels in both infected groups, but nitrite levels were higher in SP-A−/− mice, indicating a reduction in production of higher oxides of nitrogen that was also reflected in lower levels of 3-nitrotyrosine staining in the SP-A−/− group. We conclude that despite increases in inflammatory cells, SP-A-deficient mice infected with P. carinii exhibit an enhanced susceptibility to the organism and attenuated production of proinflammatory cytokines and reactive oxygen-nitrogen species. These data support the concept that SP-A is a local effector molecule in the lung host defense against P. carinii in vivo.
Monetary policy under a New Keynesian perspective

This thesis studies monetary policy in a dynamic general equilibrium framework with nominal price rigidities. It analyses monetary policy in a non-linear environment and explores issues concerning optimal monetary policy. The introductory chapter sets out the motivation of the thesis and puts it into the framework of the existing literature. Chapter 2 provides a New Keynesian framework to study the interaction among oil price volatility, firms' pricing behaviour and monetary policy. We show that when oil is difficult to substitute in production, firms find optimal to charge higher relative prices as a premium in compensation for the risk that oil price volatility generates on their marginal costs. Chapter 3 uses the model laid out chapter 2 to investigate how monetary policy should react to oil shocks. The main result is oil price shocks generate a trade-off between inflation and output stabilisation when oil has low substitutability in production. Therefore it becomes optimal to the monetary authority to react partially to oil shocks and some inflation is desirable. In chapter 4 we extend a New Keynesian model considering preferences that exhibit intertemporal non-homotheticity. We show that under this framework the intertemporal elasticity of substitution becomes state dependent, which induces asymmetric shifts in aggregate demand in response to monetary policy shocks In chapter 5 we extend the New Keynesian Monetary Policy literature relaxing the assumption that decisions are taken by a single policymaker, considering instead a Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) whose members have different preferences between output and inflation stabilisation. We show that under this framework, the interest rate behaves non-linearly upon the lagged interest rate and expected inflation.
Has the NAO Audited Risk Transfer in Operational Private Finance Initiative Schemes?

The government's main justification for using private finance is that it provides value for money by transferring project risks to the private sector. However, of the 622 PFI deals signed by October 2007, the National Audit Office (NAO) has examined the relationship between risk transfer and risk premiums in only three. The government's justification for the policy is largely unevaluated and unscrutinized by Parliament, raising wider issues of public accountability for public expenditure.
Of Belts and Ladders: State Policy and Uneven Regional Development in Post-Mao China

Abstract This paper investigates the driving forces that have brought about recent changes in China's regional development. I review the dramatic shifts in development philosophy during the post-Mao period, and discuss the role of Western neoclassical theories in influencing state regional policy and their relevance in predicting patterns of regional development in China. In contrast to the Maoist period, Chinese development philosophy since the late 1970s has emphasized efficiency rather than equity, and open-door rather than self-reliance. The regional policy that ensued has favored the eastern region and selected coastal provinces and cities. Despite this spatially biased regional policy, the literature has observed a decline in regional inequality in China. The empirical analysis in this paper resolves this paradox by investigating changes in uneven development at multiple scales of resolution. Specifically, inter-provincial inequality declined because a new growth corridor emerged along the southern .
Vasoactive peptides and their receptors.

Peptides act as vasoconstrictors (for instance angiotensins, vasopressin) or vasodilators (the kinins, the neurokinins), both through direct activation of specific receptors in the vascular smooth muscles or indirectly through the release of other endogenous inhibitors of the vascular tone. Kinins and neurokinins as well as their multiple receptors have been analyzed in the present study to assess the possible contributions of peptides to vasodilatation. Kinin receptors, B1 and B2, have been characterized, using new selective agonists and antagonists. B1 and B2 receptors appear to present in endothelium (B2) and in smooth muscles (B2, B1) of a variety of isolated vessels of the dog and the rabbit, where they subserve both stimulatory and inhibitory effects. Vasodilator inhibitory mechanisms depend on the release of the endothelium-relaxing factor and/or of prostanoids from the endothelium or the smooth muscles, especially in the dog renal vessels, where both B1 and B2 receptors appear to be involved in causing vasodilatation. B2 receptors have also been shown to activate cardiovascular reflexes through a direct action on sensory fibers or on reflexogenic areas of the epicardium. Three types of receptors for neurokinins, namely NK-1, NK-2 and NK-3, have been identified by the use of naturally occurring peptides and of some analogues that act as selective agonists of a single receptor type. NK-1 receptors (particularly sensitive to substance P) have been shown to be present in endothelia where they promote the release of the endothelium relaxing factor, while NK-2 receptors (sensitive to neurokinin A) are found in the pulmonary artery of the rabbit and act directly to contract the smooth muscle. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)