Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Development of Esophageal Hypersensitivity Following Experimental Duodenal Acidification

OBJECTIVE:As visceral afferents from different regions of the gastrointestinal tract converge at the level of the spinal cord, we hypothesized that sensitization of one gut organ would induce visceral hypersensitivity in another gut organ, remote to the sensitizing stimulus.METHODS:Protocol 1: Eight healthy male volunteers, age 30 ± 8.2 yr, underwent three studies on different days. Esophageal pain thresholds (PT) were recorded at 10-min intervals prior to and for 2 h following a 30-min duodenal infusion of either 0.15 M hydrochloric acid (HCl), saline, or no infusion. Five subjects repeated the study to demonstrate reproducibility. Protocol 2: Esophageal evoked potentials (EEP) were studied in six subjects on two occasions prior to and 1 h after a 30-min duodenal infusion of 0.15 M HCl or saline.RESULTS:Protocol 1: After acid infusion, there were reproducible reductions in esophageal PT (ICC = 0.88), which were maximal at 110 min (15.05 ± 2.25 mA) (p < 0.002). Following saline infusion there was an increase in esophageal PT (ICC = 0.71), which was similar to the no-infusion condition (6.21 ± 1.54 mA vs 8.5 + 7.6 mA; p > 0.05). Protocol 2: Esophageal sensation scores increased (p= 0.02) after acid, but not after saline infusion (p= 0.1). A comparison of the latencies of EEP components prior to and following acid and saline infusion revealed a reduction in the N1 (p= 0.02) and P2 components (p= 0.04). CONCLUSION:This study provides the first objective evidence that duodenal acidification can induce esophageal hypersensitivity associated with changes in sensitivity of the central visceral pain pathway. As the esophagus was remote from the sensitizing stimulus, central sensitization of spinal dorsal horn neurons is likely to have contributed to these changes.
Cytokine Therapy

Cytokines are a unique class of intercellular regulatory proteins that play a crucial role in initiating, maintaining, and regulating immunologic homeostatic and inflammatory processes. Indeed, measurement of cytokine profiles in patients provides a useful indication of disease status. Due to their multiple functions, including regulatory and effector cellular function in many diseases, these molecules, their receptors, and their signal transduction pathways are promising candidates for therapeutic interference. The therapeutic administration of cytokines, modulation of cytokine action, or at times gene therapy is being used for a wide range of infectious and autoimmune diseases, in immunocompromised patients with AIDS, and in neoplasia.
Combination Treatment for Acute Depression Is Superior Only when Psychotherapy Is Added to Medication

Background: Although several forms of effective therapy exist for outpatients suffering from major depressive disorder, many patients do not profit from treatment. Combining psychotherapy and medication may be an effective strategy. However, earlier studies have rarely found a clear advantage for the combination. Where an advantage was found, a possible placebo effect of adding 2 types of treatment could not be ruled out as cause for the superior effect of the combination. Methods: A total of 353 patients were screened, of whom 193 were randomized over 4 conditions: nefazodone plus clinical management, interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT), the combination of the two or the combination of IPT and pill-placebo. All patients suffered from major depressive disorder and had a score of at least 14 on the 17-item Hamilton Rating Scale (HAMD). The patients were treated for 12–16 weeks. At baseline, at 6 weeks and on completion of treatment, ratings were performed by independent raters. The primary outcome measure was the HAMD, and the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) the secondary outcome measure. Results: Of the 193 patients included, 138 completed the trial. All treatments were effective. Using a random regression model, no differences between treatments were found on the HAMD. On the MADRS, however, the combination of medication with psychotherapy was more effective in reducing depressive symptoms compared to medication alone, but not to psychotherapy alone or IPT with pill-placebo. Conclusions: The results of this study yield support for the use of combining medication with psychotherapy instead of using medication only in the treatment of depressed outpatients. Combination treatment does not have an advantage over psychotherapy alone in the present study.
The Mid 1990s Peso Crisis in Mexico: An Application of the Girton-Roper Model

The Peso crisis is examined by using the exchange market pressure model (EMP) over the period 1971:1 - 1995:4. Different estimators are used to obtain robust results. Empirical findings indicate that an incrase in domestic credit, crisis dummy and inflation rates leads to outflows of foreign reserves and/or depreciation of the peso, while an incrase in foreign inflation and domestic income results in inflow of foreign reserves and appreciation of the peso. Sensitivity tests of the EMP to its composition between changes in exchange rate and foreign reserves, confirms that the Mexican economy absorbs the EMP through the loss of foreign reserves instead of the depreciation of the peso. This suggests that a fixed exchange rate regime is optimal for Mexico, and that timely external loans assistance from international institutions could have avoided the crisis. The later explains why Mexico recovered swiftly from the peso crisis after receiving external assistance.
Questions for Kaleckians

Two central facts about modern industrial economies are that productive processes (a) use produced inputs and (b) produce more than one kind of output. Yet the Kaleckian mark–up theory of pricing and of distribution, which purports to be empirically realistic and concerned with modern industrial economies, pays little or no attention is paid to these real world phenomena, it is found that a number of familiar Kaleckian constructions and claims are inappropriate or unjustified; a summary of the difficulties which arise will be found at the end of the article.
Regulation, Profits and Entry in the Television Broadcasting Industry

THE television broadcasting industry is similar to other oligopolistic industries in that in the absence of high barriers to entry, high profits among existing firms should cause new firms to enter the industry. On the other hand, it is different from oligopolistic manufacturing industries in that under current regulation by the Federal Communications Commission new firms can not enter any market without a license from the FCC and existing firms typically can not expand their quantity of output in response to rising demand. Once a television station is broadcasting the maximum number of hours per day and using a powerful transmitter to cover the largest area allowed in a particular market, it has no way to reach a larger potential audience. It can not legally build a second transmitter and simultaneously broadcast a second set of programs in the same market. On the other hand, of course, it can change the quality of its programs in order to attract a larger share of the available audience. Suppose we wish to predict whether a new station will enter a market where several stations are already broadcasting. One condition for new entry is that the potential station be able to obtain a license from the FCC. The lack of such a license is an absolute (legal) barrier to entry in any television market. This is an important consideration because the FCC determines in advance through an allocation table the maximum number of stations which shall be allowed in any market, and there are presently markets with no unused allocations available, and therefore no possibility of new entry into the market. Such markets include most of the largest io cities in the U.S. On the other hand, where barriers to entry are not too substantial, high profits should lead to new entry, particularly since existing firms can not increase the quantity of their output. A naive but still useful model of the broadcasting industry can be developed based on the assumption that each firm including any new entrant obtains an equal share of the market. Moreover, for the purpose of this model it is assumed that all firms have equal operating costs, viewing audience, revenue and profits. This model is naive because in reality in any market with four
Managing equal opportunities for women: sorting the friends from the foes

Employees working in Hong Kong were surveyed on their attitudes towards managing equal opportunities for women. Results indicate that gender is a better predictor of attitudes than work identity. Manager/employee work identity has an add-on moderating effect on some women-friendly policies but not on others. Out of seven women-friendly dimensions, women as managers are less receptive of only two: 'training and development' and 'positive equal opportunities'; men as managers, in contrast, are less resistant to 'training and development' and 'flexitime'. The findings suggest that there are three levels of gatekeeping: one, male employees; two, male managers; and three, female managers. We suggest that to help women employees break the glass ceiling, different organisational and societal change programmes are needed to target the different groups of gatekeepers.
Clinical and Environmental Isolates of Vibrio cholerae Serogroup O141 Carry the CTX Phage and the Genes Encoding the Toxin-Coregulated Pili

ABSTRACT We report sporadic cases of a severe gastroenteritis associated with Vibrio cholerae serogroup O141. Like O1 and O139 serogroup strains of V. cholerae isolated from cholera cases, the O141 clinical isolates carry DNA sequences that hybridize to cholera toxin (CT) gene probes. The CT genes of O1 and O139 strains are carried by a filamentous bacteriophage (termed CTX phage) which is known to use toxin-coregulated pili (TCP) as its receptor. In an effort to understand the mechanism of emergence of toxigenic O141 V. cholerae, we probed a collection of O141 clinical and environmental isolates for genes involved in TCP production, toxigenicity, virulence regulation, and other phylogenetic markers. The collection included strains isolated between 1964 and 1995 from diverse geographical locations, including eight countries and five U.S. states. Information collected about the clinical and environmental sources of these isolates suggests that they had no epidemiological association. All clinical O141 isolates hybridized to probes specific for genes encoding CT (ctx), zonula occludens toxin (zot), repetitive sequence 1 (RS1), RTX toxin (rtxA), the major subunit of TCP (tcpA), and the essential regulatory gene that controls expression of both CT and TCP (toxR). In contrast, all but one of the nonclinical O141 isolates were negative for ctx, zot, RS1, andtcpA, although these strains were positive forrtxA and toxR. The one toxigenic environmental O141 isolate was also positive for tcpA. Ribotyping and CT typing showed that the O141 clinical isolates were indistinguishable or closely related, while a toxigenic water isolate from Louisiana showed a distantly related ribotype. Nonclinical O141 isolates displayed a variety of unrelated ribotypes. These data support a model for emergence of toxigenic O141 that involves acquisition of the CTX phage sometime after these strains had acquired the pathogenicity island encoding TCP. The clonal nature of toxigenic O141 strains isolated from diverse geographical locations suggests that the emergence is a rare event but that once it occurs, toxigenic O141 strains are capable of regional and perhaps even global dissemination. This study stresses the importance of monitoringV. cholerae non-O1, non-O139 serogroup strains for their virulence gene content as a means of assessing their epidemic potential.
A preliminary investigation into the modeling and simulation of engagement decision-making processes and encumbrance

This research investigates the modeling and simulation of agent behavior to represent engagement choices made by the individual Soldier in the battlespace. We describe current and ongoing research including representation of stressors on a Soldier's perception, attention, psychomotor, physical, and cognitive abilities and potential methodologies to represent the impact of stressors on Soldier task performance.
Economies of Scale and Scope: A Cost Analysis of Municipal Solid Waste Services

The economics literature in municipal solid waste (MSW) markets is concerned primarily with demand-side issues and the associated policy implications. Few have studied the cost structure of this market, and none model the multiple product nature of MSW services. We argue that the production of MSW services has two major component–disposal and recycling, and that cost complementarities between the two activities may exist. Hence, we specify a multiple output cost structure, which models the relationship between recycling and disposal activity and investigates the extent of product-specific scale economies and overall scope economies in this market. (JEL R51, Q24)
Monopoly Power, Ownership Control, and Corporate Performance

The performance criterion receiving the closest attention in the literature on "managerialism" is the rate of return on stockholders' equity. It is argued here that of more immediate concern to the shareholder is the rate of return on his investment in the stock of the firm. The determinants of ex post stock return are examined for evidence of managerial discretion. When the means by which managerial discretion may be manifested is correctly specified, the results show that the decisions of executives of management-controlled firms have conflicted with the interests of these firms' shareholders. Shareholders of owner-controlled firms have been provided with a significantly higher rate of return than shareholders of management-controlled firms.
Autonomy in technology design

Issues of autonomy impact motivation, the user experience and even psychological wellbeing, yet many questions surrounding design for autonomy remain unanswered. This workshop will explore theory, issues and design strategies related to autonomy drawing on theoretical frameworks available in psychology and looking at autonomy from multiple levels. These include user autonomy within the context of software environments, technologies that increase autonomy in daily life, and how technologies might foster autonomy as a component of psychological development.
Growth in high-value agriculture in Asia and the emergence of vertical links with farmers.

1. Director, Markets, Trade, and Institutions Division, International Food Policy Research Institute. 2. Research Fellow, Markets, Trade, and Institutions Division, International Food Policy Research Institute. 3. Director, ILRI-IFPRI Joint Program on Livestock Market Opportunities and Senior Research Fellow, Markets, Trade, and Institutions Division, International Food Policy Research Institute. 4. Senior Research Assistant, Markets, Trade, and Institutions Division, International Food Policy Research Institute.
A Hierarchical Exercise Scale to Measure Function at the Advanced Activities of Daily Living (AADL) Level

Standard functional assessment instruments often fail to capture subtle impairment in community‐dwelling older persons. To create a scale to measure function at the Advanced Activities of Daily Living (AADL) level, we chose three questions to separate a community sample into four levels: frequent vigorous exercisers (8.0%), frequent long walkers (10.8%), frequent short walkers (23.7%), and nonexercisers (57.5%). These levels of exercise formed a hierarchical scale that correlated positively in a graduated manner with progressively advanced social activities of daily living, current health status, and mental health. At 1‐year follow‐up, 20% of persons declined in exercise level, 63% showed no change in exercise level, and 17% improved their exercise level. Changes in exercise level in both directions were associated with changes in mental health status. The Advanced Activities of Daily Living scale may be a sensitive measure of earlier functional decline, but longer follow‐up will be necessary to determine its clinical usefulness.
Unfinished sympathy : inducements and expectations of client organizations regarding agency work

This thesis aims to investigate the client organizations perspective regarding agency work in terms of offered inducements and expected agency worker contributions. By using the employee-organization relationship framework as proposed by Tsui, Pearce, Porter and Tripoli (1997), the assumption by Tsui and Wu (2005), that agency workers are either approached under the quasi-spot contract or the underinvestment approach and not under the mutual investment and overinvestment approach, is empirically investigated. By conducting semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire information is obtained by a sample of 8 direct supervisors and managers in three client organizations. The results of the performed analysis leads to a twofold conclusion: client organizations in this sample indeed handle the quasi-spot contract or the underinvestment approach for their agency workers. But the interviews also show that client organizations do not simply replace the traditional, commitment and loyalty based employment relationship with a purely economic exchange relationship. Instead, tenure and vocational qualification clearly affects the offered investments in and the expectations about agency workers. Agency workers are therefore not perceived and treated as a homogenous group.
Solubilization of the neutral and charged forms of 2,4,6-trichlorophenol by beta-cyclodextrin, methyl-beta-cyclodextrin and hydroxypropyl-beta-cyclodextrin in water.

The solubilities of the neutral and charged forms of 2,4,6-trichlorophenol (TCP) in beta-cyclodextrin (beta-CD) and two of its most used derivatives: methyl-beta-cyclodextrin (MCD) and hydroxypropyl-beta-cyclodextrin (HPCD) solutions were investigated. The three cyclodextrins were found to form 1:1 inclusion complexes. Binding constants estimated from an enhancement solubility method revealed that the stability of the complexes was dependent on the polarity of the compound and on the cyclodextrin used.In general, weaker binding constants were observed for TCP with beta-CD than with HPCD or MCD. The solubilization efficiencies towards TCP can be ranked in the following order: MCD > HPCD > beta-CD. For all cyclodextrins, the stability constant of neutral TCP (logK(ow)=3.85) was larger than that of charged TCP (logK(ow)=1.4). A precipitation occurred in TCP/beta-CD solution (around 10 g/l beta-CD concentration) at pH 3. However, this phenomenon is not observed for TCP/beta-CD solution at pH 8.8.
Knaves, knights or networks: which assumption of lecturer and manager motivation should underlie further education policy?

Julian Le Grand, a well-known economist, identifies two types of public sector employee: knights (with altruistic motives) and knaves (with self-interested motives). He argues that the quasi-market, predicated on the assumption of knavish behaviour (or agent self-interest), is the most effective way of directing school managers and teachers towards improving education outputs at lower unit cost. In this article, a review of the literature on the English post-incorporation further education quasi-market is undertaken (under the Conservative government [1993–1997], New Labour [1997–2010] and the Coalition government [2010–2014]) to assess if such a premise is correct. The conclusion from the review is that an over-focus on policy, premised on agent self-interest, effects limited improvements in the quality of education outputs and needs-based equity for disadvantaged students because such policy marginalises other motivational inputs, such as intrinsic motivation, professional values and tacit knowledge from the production process. The solution, much of the FE literature suggests, is the replacement of top-down policy with democratic local governance and participative leadership as a means of encouraging intrinsically motivated tutors and managers (or knights) to meet economic and social goals through the productive potential of learning cultures (or networks).
Speciation of gas-phase and fine particle emissions from burning of foliar fuels.

Fine particle matter with aerodynamic diameter <2.5 microm (PM2.5) and gas-phase emissions from open burning of six fine (foliar) fuels common to fire-prone U.S. ecosystems are investigated. PM2.5 distribution is unimodal within the 10-450 nm range, indicative of an accumulation mode. Smoldering relative to flaming combustion shows smaller particle number density per unit time and median size. Over 100 individual organic compounds in the primarily carbonaceous (>70% by mass) PM2.5 are chemically speciated by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. Expressed as a percent of PM2.5 mass, emission ranges by organic compound class are as follows: n-alkane (0.1-2%), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) (0.02-0.2%), n-alkanoic acid (1-3%), n-alkanedioic acid (0.06-0.3%), n-alkenoic acid (0.3-3%), resin acid (0.5-6%), triterpenoid (0.2-0.5%), methoxyphenol (0.5-3%), and phytosterol (0.2-0.6%). A molecular tracer of biomass combustion, the sugar levoglucosan is abundant and constitutes a remarkably narrow PM2.5 mass range (2.8-3.6%). Organic chemical signatures in PM2.5 from open combustion of fine fuels differ with those of residential wood combustion and other related sources, making them functional for source-receptor modeling of PM. Inorganic matter [PM2.5 - (organic compounds + elemental carbon)] on average is estimated to make up 8% of the PM2.5. Wavelength dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy and ion chromatography identify 3% of PM2.5 as elements and water-soluble ions, respectively. Compared with residential wood burning, the PM2.5 of fine fuel combustion is nitrate enriched but shows lower potassium levels. Gas-phase C2-C13 hydrocarbon and C2-C9 carbonyl emissions are speciated by respective EPA Methods T0-15 and T0-11A. They comprise mainly low molecular weight C2-C3 compounds and hazardous air pollutants (48 wt % of total quantified volatile organic carbon).
NEMO route optimization for aeronautical passenger communications

IETF has developed the NEtwork MObility Basic Support (NEMO BS) protocol to handle mobility of an entire mobile network. When used in Aeronautical Passenger Communications (APC), the NEMO BS and the existing route optimization (RO) schemes face some problems such as end-to-end delay, high signaling overhead or high load of the home agent. This paper presents a scheme named APCRO to optimize the route of NEMO especially for APC. The key points of our mechanism are to establish an Access Router (AR) to correspondent node (CN) RO scheme to optimize the path on the ground and to update the user's location by the home agent of the mobile router. The evaluation and the comparison with other mechanism illustrate the proposed scheme has the shortest end-to-end delay and smallest signaling overhead within the short-delayed schemes, so it is feasible and suitable for APC.
TİCARİ AÇIKLIK VE FİNANSAL GELİŞMENİN DOĞRUDAN YABANCI YATIRIMLAR ÜZERİNDEKİ ETKİSİ: OECD ÜLKELERİ ÜZERİNE DİNAMİK PANEL VERİ ANALİZİ

Bu calismanin amaci, 1996-2011 doneminde OECD ulkeleri icin ticari aciklik ve finansal gelismenin dogrudan yabanci yatirimlar uzerindeki etkisini ampirik olarak arastirmaktir. Lineer panel veri modelleri icin onerilen sistem GMM tahmincisi kullanilarak, ticari aciklik ve finansal gelisme degiskenlerinin uzun donemde dogrudan yabanci yatirimlar ile pozitif olarak iliskili oldugu belirlenmistir. Panel VAR modeline dayali Granger nedensellik test sonuclari ise bu degiskenlerden dogrudan yabanci yatirimlara dogru isleyen bir nedensellik tespit etmistir. Boylece, ampirik sonuclar OECD ulkelerinde ticari aciklik ve finansal gelismenin dogrudan yabanci yatirimlarin belirleyicileri oldugunu ortaya koymaktadir. Bu calisma, bazi politika cikarimlari sunabilmektedir.