Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hippocampal epileptogenesis in animal models of mesial temporal lobe epilepsy with hippocampal sclerosis: The importance of the “latent period” and other concepts

Prolonged chemoconvulsant‐induced status epilepticus in rats has long been promoted as an animal model of mesial temporal lobe epilepsy with hippocampal sclerosis, under the assumption that these animals involve: (1) pathology similar to that of the human neurologic condition; (2) a seizure‐free, “preepileptic” latent period of several weeks duration after injury, during which a secondary epileptogenic process gradually develops; and (3) a chronic epileptic state in which the hippocampus, in general, and the dentate gyrus, in particular, becomes a source of the spontaneous behavioral seizures that define these animals as “epileptic. ” Retrospective analysis suggests that all of these assumptions are in doubt. Neuropathologic studies have shown that prolonged status epilepticus causes greater extrahippocampal than hippocampal damage, and does not produce classic hippocampal sclerosis. In vivo electrophysiologic studies suggest that the hippocampus of these animals may not be “epileptic. ” Most importantly, studies using continuous video monitoring to detect spontaneous behavioral seizures indicate that these rats become epileptic soon after insult, before any delayed secondary processes have time to develop. High mortality, significant variability, and the lack of an extended “therapeutic window” after brain injury suggest the need to develop animal models that more closely resemble the human neurologic condition.
Corporate Investment Behaviour and Monetary Policy: Evidence from Firm-level Data for Malaysia

Abstract Using a panel data-set of over 900 listed firms in Malaysia for the period 1991–2010, this paper examines the empirical evidence on the credit channel of the monetary transmission mechanism within the framework of corporate investment. The results suggest that monetary policy significantly impacts the firms' access to external finance during times of increasing interest rates, in particular, bank-dependent firms are the most vulnerable firms. The firms' investment sensitivity on external financing explains the relatively underdeveloped capital market and the prominent role played by the banking sector for capital allocation in the Malaysian economy. Internal finance is more important for high leverage firms during tight liquidity conditions.
Local food festivals in Northeast Iowa communities: A visitor and economic impact study

A way to enhance the benefits of tourism is to expand the economic linkages by increasing the amount of local food used in the industry. In this respect, rural communities are using food festivals to promote local commodities. This study, utilizing a questionnaire-based survey, analyses travel motivations of visitors and assesses the economic impact of 11 community-based food festivals in Northeast Iowa (from May to October 2005). IMPLAN Input–Output Model was utilized to assess the economic impact of these local food festivals. The total economic impact of visitors (n = 22,806) in local food festivals in terms of sales is almost $2.6 million; in terms of personal income is $1.4 million; and in terms of employment is 51 jobs. The study also found that festival participants were middle aged, college graduates, affluent, and day trippers. They were primarily motivated to specifically attend the festivals, which they learned about primarily by word of mouth. Festivals visitor spending patterns were similar but rather distinct from heritage visitors.
In vitro and in vivo effects of the probiotic Escherichia coli strain M-17: immunomodulation and attenuation of murine colitis

We examined the in vitro and in vivo effects of a probiotic, Escherichia coli strain M-17 (EC-M17), on NF-κB signalling, cytokine secretion and efficacy in dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)-induced murine colitis. NF-κB signalling was assessed using an NF-κB luciferase reporter cell line that was stimulated with TNF-α (100 ng/ml). p65 Nuclear binding and cytokine secretion (TNF-α, IL-1β and IL-6) were evaluated using a RAW 264·7 macrophage cell line that was exposed to lipopolysaccharide (LPS; 5 μg/ml). Mice were administered vehicle, EC-M17, metronidazole, or EC-M17 plus metronidazole for 13 d. During the final 6 d, mice also received 2 % DSS. Parameters evaluated included disease activity index (DAI), histology, myeloperoxidase and NF-κB p65. EC-M17 dose dependently inhibited TNF-α-induced NF-κB signalling. At 5 × 109 colony-forming units/ml, EC-M17 inhibited NF-κB by >95 %. LPS-induced nuclear p65 binding was significantly inhibited (78 %; P < 0·05) in RAW 264·7 macrophages at 1 × 108 colony-forming units/ml. EC-M17 also inhibited (by >90 %) the LPS-induced secretion of TNF-α, IL-1β and IL-6. In mice with DSS-induced colitis, EC-M17, metronidazole, and EC-M17 plus metronidazole significantly reduced DAI and colonic histology scores. Both EC-M17 and metronidazole reduced colonic IL-12, IL-6, IL-1β and interferon-γ. The combination of EC-M17 plus metronidazole resulted in more substantial cytokine reductions than were found with either treatment alone, and combination therapy significantly (P < 0·05 in both cases) reduced IL-1β compared with EC-M17 and colonic histology scores compared with metronidazole. Alone, and in combination with metronidazole, EC-M17 improved murine colitis, probably due to an inhibitory effect on NF-κB signalling.
Not Getting Burned: The Importance of Fire Prevention in Forest Management

We extend existing stand-level models of forest landowner behavior in the presence of fire risk to include the level and timing of fuel management activities. These activities reduce losses if a stand ignites. Based on simulations, we find the standard result that fire risk reduces the optimal rotation age does not hold when landowners use fuel management. Instead, the optimal rotation age rises as fire risk increases. The optimal planting density decreases. The level of intermediate fuel treatment, but not its timing, is sensitive to the magnitude of fire risk. Cost-sharing is shown to be an effective instrument for encouraging fuel treatment. (JEL Q23)
Understanding Usda Corn and Soybean Production Forecasts: Methods, Performance and Market Impacts Over 1970-2004

The purpose of this report is to improve understanding of USDA crop forecasting methods, performance and market impact. A review of USDA's forecasting procedures and methodology confirmed the objectivity and consistency of the forecasting process over time. No changes in methodology occurred in 2004. Month-to-month changes in corn and soybean production forecasts from 1970 through 2004 indicated little difference in magnitude and direction of monthly changes over time. USDA production forecast errors were largest in August and smaller in subsequent forecasts. There appeared to be no trend in the size or direction of forecast errors over time. On average, USDA corn production forecasts were more accurate than private market forecasts over 1970-2004, with the exception of August forecasts since the mid-1980s. The forecasting comparisons for soybeans were somewhat sensitive to the measure of forecast accuracy considered. One measure showed that private market forecasts were more accurate than USDA forecasts for August regardless of the time period considered. Another measure showed just the opposite. As the growing season progresses the difference in the results across the two measures of forecast accuracy diminished, with USDA forecast errors in soybeans about equal to or smaller than private market errors. USDA corn production forecasts had the largest impact on corn futures prices in August and recent price reactions have been somewhat larger than historical reactions. Similar to corn, USDA soybean production forecasts had the largest impact on soybean futures prices in August with recent price reactions appearing somewhat larger than in the past. Overall, the analysis suggests that over the long-run the USDA performs reasonably well in generating crop production forecasts for corn and soybeans.
THE DURATION OF EFFECT OF CENTRIFUGE CONCENTRATED INTRAVITREAL TRIAMCINOLONE ACETONIDE

Purpose: To estimate the duration of activity for intravitreal triamcinolone injected with a new technique using centrifuge concentration (Centrifuge concentrated IntraVitreal Triamcinolone, C-IVT). Methods: All injections were performed by a single surgeon (M.D.O.) using a 30-gauge needle. A vial of Triesence (triamcinolone; Alcon Laboratories, Fort Worth, TX) was drawn into a 1-mL syringe and the plunger cut off. The contents were spun in a centrifuge, and a second plunger was placed. Records of all patients receiving C-IVT with 0.05 mL or 0.1 mL from January 1, 2009, through December 31, 2009, were retrospectively reviewed. Results: Eighty-four injections from 69 eyes of 57 patients were included. Sixty-nine injections from 54 eyes of 44 patients received 0.05 mL of C-IVT, whereas 15 injections from 15 eyes of 13 patients received 0.1 mL of C-IVT. Triamcinolone acetonide was still visualized in the vitreous on an average of 5.0 ± 2.4 months (median 5 months) after 0.05 mL of C-IVT and 8.3 ± 4.0 months (median 8 months) after 0.1 mL of C-IVT during follow-up visits. The longest duration recorded was 14 months for the 0.05-mL group and 18 months for the 0.l-mL group. Conclusion: The C-IVT results in a long duration of effect that seems to be greater than previously published techniques. It may be considered for patients requiring chronic steroid therapy, in which the benefits of long-term intravitreal steroids are believed to outweigh their risk.
Sparse Data Driven Mesh Deformation

Example-based mesh deformation methods are powerful tools for realistic shape editing. However, existing techniques typically combine all the example deformation modes, which can lead to overfitting, i.e., using an overly complicated model to explain the user-specified deformation. This leads to implausible or unstable deformation results, including unexpected global changes outside the region of interest. To address this fundamental limitation, we propose a sparse blending method that automatically selects a smaller number of deformation modes to compactly describe the desired deformation. This along with a suitably chosen deformation basis including spatially localized deformation modes leads to significant advantages, including more meaningful, reliable, and efficient deformations because fewer and localized deformation modes are applied. To cope with large rotations, we develop a simple but effective representation based on polar decomposition of deformation gradients, which resolves the ambiguity of large global rotations using an as-consistent-as-possible global optimization. This simple representation has a closed form solution for derivatives, making it efficient for our sparse localized representation and thus ensuring interactive performance. Experimental results show that our method outperforms state-of-the-art data-driven mesh deformation methods, for both quality of results and efficiency.
Automatically enhancing CityGML LOD2 models with a corresponding indoor geometry

The international standard CityGML defines five levels of detail (LODs) for 3D city models, but only the highest of these (LOD4) supports modelling the indoor geometry of a building, which must be acquired in correspondingly high detail and therefore at a high cost. Whereas simple 3D city models of the exterior of buildings (e.g. CityGML LOD2) can be generated largely automatically, and are thus now widely available and have a great variety of applications, similarly simple models containing their indoor geometries are rare. In this paper we present two contributions: (i) the definition of a level of detail LOD2+, which extends the CityGML LOD2 specification with indoor building geometries of comparable complexity to their exterior geometries in LOD2; and more importantly (ii) a method for automatically generating such indoor geometries based on existing CityGML LOD2 exterior geometries. We validate our method by generating LOD2+ models for a subset of the Rotterdam 3D data set and visually comparing these models to their real counterparts in building blueprints and imagery from Google Street View and Bing Maps. Furthermore, we use the LOD2+ models to compute the net internal area of each dwelling and validate our results by comparing these values to the ones registered in official government data sets.
Various Concepts of Hysteresis Applied in Economics

Different types of hysteresis are applied in order to describe persistence phenomena in micro- and macroeconomics. On the microeconomic level sunk adjustment costs generate "genuine" hysteresis where temporary exogenous shocks lead to switches between different "branches" of an entire input-output-relation (i.e. "multibranch non-linearity"). The shape of the hysteresis loop changes when an adequate aggregation towards a macroeconomic relation is conducted over heterogeneous micro elements. Hysteresis-relations are based on a local structural instability in the case of a branch-to-branch-transition. However, the persistence characteristics of first order difference (differential) equations with unit (zero) roots--which are based on a global indifference-instability--are in economics commonly labeled as "hysteresis" as well. Copyright 2002 by Blackwell Publishers Ltd
A New Estimation Approach for Combining Epidemiological Data From Multiple Sources

We propose a novel two-step procedure to combine epidemiological data obtained from diverse sources with the aim to quantify risk factors affecting the probability that an individual develops certain disease such as cancer. In the first step, we derive all possible unbiased estimating functions based on a group of cases and a group of controls each time. In the second step, we combine these estimating functions efficiently to make full use of the information contained in data. Our approach is computationally simple and flexible. We illustrate its efficacy through simulation and apply it to investigate pancreatic cancer risks based on data obtained from the Connecticut Tumor Registry, a population-based case–control study, and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System which is a state-based system of health surveys. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.
Controlling complex policy problems: A multimethodological approach using system dynamics and network controllability

Abstract Notwithstanding the usefulness of system dynamics in analysing complex policy problems, policy design is far from straightforward and in many instances trial-and-error driven. To address this challenge, we propose to combine system dynamics with network controllability, an emerging field in network science, to facilitate the detection of effective leverage points in system dynamics models and thus to support the design of influential policies. We illustrate our approach by analysing a classic system dynamics model: the World Dynamics model. We show that it is enough to control only 53% of the variables to steer the entire system to an arbitrary final state. We further rank all variables according to their importance in controlling the system and we validate our approach by showing that high ranked variables have a significantly larger impact on the system behaviour compared to low ranked variables.
Chronic renal allograft dysfunction.

The major causes of renal transplant loss are death from vascular, malignant or infectious disease, and loss of the allograft from chronic renal dysfunction associated with the development of graft fibrosis and glomerulosclerosis. Chronic allograft nephropathy (CAN) is the histologic description of the fibrosis, vascular and glomerular damage occurring in renal allografts. Clinical programs rely on monitoring change in serum creatinine for identification of patients at risk of CAN, but this change occurs late in the course of the disease, and underestimates the severity of pathologic change. CAN has several causes: ischemia-reperfusion injury, ineffectively or untreated clinical and subclinical rejection, and superimposed calcineurin inhibitor nephrotoxicity, exacerbating pre-existing donor disease. Once established, interstitial fibrosis and arteriolar hyalinosis lead to progressive glomerulosclerosis over the subsequent years. There have been a number of approaches to treatment aimed at reducing the impact of CAN, mostly centered around avoidance of calcineurin inhibitors through their elimination in all, or just selected, patients. These immunosuppression strategies combine corticosteroids with azathioprine or mycophenolate mofetil, and/or sirolimus and everolimus. Late identification of CAN in individual patients has meant that strategies for intervening to prevent chronic renal allograft dysfunction and subsequent graft loss tend to be "too little and far too late. "
Regulation of the chromaffin granule aggregating activity of annexin I by phosphorylation.

Annexin I (lipocortin I) binds to secretory granule membranes and promotes their aggregation in a Ca(2+)-dependent manner [Creutz, C. E. , et al. (1987) J. Biol. Chem. 262, 1860-1868; Drust, D. S. , & Creutz, C. E. (1988) Nature 331, 88-91]. It is also phosphorylated on serine residues when bovine chromaffin cells are stimulated to secrete [Michener, M. L. , et al. (1986) J. Biol. Chem. 261, 6548-6555], suggesting phosphorylation may be involved in modulating the function of annexin I. We report here that phosphorylation of the N-terminal tail by protein kinase C strongly inhibits the ability of annexin I to aggregate chromaffin granules by increasing the calcium requirement 4-fold. This inhibition was readily reversed when the protein was dephosphorylated by protein phosphatase 2A. The inhibition was not due to inability of phosphorylated annexin I to bind to chromaffin granules, since the phosphorylated form bound to the granule membrane at slightly lower levels of calcium than the native form. The phosphorylated annexin I also bound to 20% phosphatidylserine/80% phosphatidylcholine vesicles at lower Ca2+ levels than the native form. The inhibitory effect of phosphorylation on the granule aggregating activity of annexin I was found to be amplified by an unusual mechanism: The phosphorylated form inhibited the activity of the unphosphorylated form. The possible importance of the regulation of annexin I activity by phosphorylation in exocytosis is discussed.
Market reaction to temporary liquidity crises and the permanent market impact

We study the relaxation dynamics of the bid-ask spread and of the midprice after a sudden, large variation of the spread, corresponding to a temporary crisis of liquidity in a double auction financial market. We find that the spread decays very slowly to its normal value as a consequence of the strategic limit order placement of liquidity providers. We consider several quantities, such as order placement rates and distribution, that affect the decay of the spread. We measure the permanent impact both of a generic event altering the spread and of a single transaction and we find an approximately linear relation between immediate and permanent impact in both cases.
Comparison of ultrasonography, CT angiography, and digital subtraction angiography in severe carotid stenoses

Digital subtraction angiography (DSA) is considered to be the ‘gold standard’ for confirmation of severe (70–99%) stenoses of internal carotid arteries (ICAs). However, it is associated with a risk of complications. The aim of this study was to assess the accuracy of ultrasonography (US), computed tomographic angiography (CTA), and their combined use for the detection and quantification of severe carotid stenoses, when compared with DSA. Severe ICA stenoses were diagnosed by US in a set of 29 patients. All patients also underwent CTA and DSA. Sensitivity, specificity, positive (PPV), negative predictive values (NPV), and Pearson's correlation coefficient were used in the evaluation of the percentage of stenosis results. Homogeneity χ2 test was applied when assessing statistical significance. Severe stenosis was diagnosed in 34 ICAs. Two ICAs with uninterpretable CTA finding were excluded. The number of ICAs with stenoses 70–99%/<70%– US 32/0; CTA 29/3; US + CTA 29/3; DSA 24/8. Pearson's correlation coefficient – US 0.601; CTA 0.725; US + CTA 0.773. Sensitivity/specificity/PPV/NPV – US 1.0/0.75/0.75/xxx; CTA 1.0/0.844/0.828/1.0; US + CTA 1.0/0.844/0.828/1.0. Homogeneity χ2 test results – US, P = 0.002; CTA, P = 0.098; US + CTAG, P = 0.098. US in combination with CTA can be used for relatively secure diagnostics of severe ICA stenoses. Thus, invasive DSA can be avoided in a substantial number of patients.
Bacterias solubilizadoras de fosfato y sus potencialidades de uso en la promoción del crecimiento de cultivos de importancia económica

Most tropical and subtropical soils are deficient in P bioavailable, so the use of plant growth promoting bacteria, mainly phosphate solubilizing, can reduce the use of chemical fertilizers. The aim of this paper is to provide a current overview about the representative genus and mechanisms of action of phosphate solubilizing bacteria (BSF), and to study the potential of isolated promise in economically important crops. The use of bacterial genera with the greatest potential for use as Pseudomonas and Bacillus joined isolates promising Azospirillum and Herbaspirilum in crops such as rice and coffee would reduce long-term use of chemicals in agriculture and develop agronomic strategies that preserve the environment. The success of these bacterial inoculants depends on the selection of efficient strains native soil type, its ability to colonize the rhizosphere and maintain biological activity.
Oxidant Injury in PC12 Cells—A Possible Model of Calcium “Dysregulation” in Aging: II. Interactions with Membrane Lipids

Abstract: In a model recently developed to study the parameters altering vulnerability to oxidative stress, it was shown via image analysis that H2O2‐exposed PC12 cells exhibited increased levels of intracellular Ca2+ (baseline), decreases in K+‐stimulated Ca2+ levels (peak), and decreased poststimulation Ca2+ clearance (recovery). The present experiments were performed to determine if the response patterns in these parameters to oxidative stress would be altered after modification of membrane lipid composition induced by incubating the PC12 cells with 660 µM cholesterol (CHL) in the presence or absence of 500 µM sphingomyelin (SPH) before low (5 µM) or high (300 µM) H2O2 exposure. Neither CHL nor SPH had synergistic effects with high concentrations of H2O2 on baseline. However, CHL in the presence or absence of SPH reversed the effect of low concentrations of H2O2 on baseline. SPH decreased significantly the cell's ability to clear excess Ca2+ in the presence or absence of H2O2 and increased significantly the level of conjugated dienes (CDs). It is surprising that in the cells pretreated with CHL, the CD levels were not significantly different from controls. However, in the presence of SPH, the effects of CHL on CDs were altered. These results suggest that the ratios of membrane lipids could be of critical importance in determining the vulnerability to oxidative stress and Ca2+ translocation in membranes. This may be of critical importance in aging where there is increased membrane SPH and significant loss of calcium homeostasis.