Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intestinal adaptation is stimulated by partial enteral nutrition supplemented with the prebiotic short-chain fructooligosaccharide in a neonatal intestinal failure piglet model.

BACKGROUND Butyrate has been shown to stimulate intestinal adaptation when added to parenteral nutrition (PN) following small bowel resection but is not available in current PN formulations. The authors hypothesized that pre- and probiotic administration may be a clinically feasible method to administer butyrate and stimulate intestinal adaptation. METHODS AND MATERIALS Neonatal piglets (48 hours old, n = 87) underwent placement of a jugular catheter and an 80% jejunoileal resection and were randomized to one of the following treatment groups: control (20% standard enteral nutrition/80% standard PN), control plus prebiotic (10 g/L short-chain fructooligosaccharides [scFOS]), control plus probiotic (1 × 10(9) CFU Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG [LGG]), or control plus synbiotic (scFOS + LGG). Animals received infusions for 24 hours, 3 days, or 7 days, and markers of intestinal adaptation were assessed. RESULTS Prebiotic treatment increased ileal mucosa weight compared with all other treatments (P = .017) and ileal protein compared with control (P = .049), regardless of day. Ileal villus length increased in the prebiotic and synbiotic group (P = .011), regardless of day, specifically due to an increase in epithelial proliferation (P = .003). In the 7-day prebiotic group, peptide transport was upregulated in the jejunum (P = .026), whereas glutamine transport was increased in both the jejunum and colon (P = .001 and .003, respectively). CONCLUSIONS Prebiotic and/or synbiotic supplementation resulted in enhanced structure and function throughout the residual intestine. Identification of a synergistic prebiotic and probiotic combination may enhance the promising results obtained with prebiotic treatment alone.
Thaksinisation or managerialism? Reforming the Thai bureaucracy

Abstract This article analyses key elements of the Thaksin government's public sector reform program since 2001 in the context both of a longer history of public sector reform in Thailand, and of Thaksin's style of political rule. Carefully chosen instruments of new public management reform such as budgeting for results and performance management have been accompanied by an agenda of wholesale restructuring of the bureaucracy. However, these instruments do not include many familiar items of the public management reform agenda. The reforms are best viewed as part of a politicisation strategy aimed at asserting political control at the centre. Managerial reforms are being deployed to reshape the bureaucracy into an instrument of the Thaksin government's political program. In the process, the traditional power of the bureaucracy is being challenged and undermined. The long-term impact of the bureaucratic modernisation program on administrative performance is less certain.
The Parastatal Sector in Tanzania: Fiscal Impact, 1984-1995

The parastatal sector in Tanzania grew at a tremendous pace in the last three decades. An inventory of the sector done by the Parastatal sector Reform Commission in the early 1990s came up with a figure of 425 firms. The large number of firms is also reflected in the large proportion of gross capital formation and high share in waged - employment. The strength in numbers and level of investment has not been matched with a positive fiscal impact on the government sector. The parastatals have consumed a disproportionately huge portion of the government's financial resources. Apart from failing to generate surplus to be transferred to the government as dividends, it continued to receive subsidies and grants to extend is survival. Furthermore, it continued to enjoy high tax exemptions thus accentuating further the government budgetary problems. On the external sector, the parastatals have left the government with huge external debts that are yet to be settled. The study has basically established the magnitude of the net fiscal transfers from the government to the sector. The findings tend to provide a further justification on the action taken by the government to either privatize the solvent commercial firms or liquidate the insolvent ones or restructure and rationalize the quasi-government firms. It is concluded that the pace of closing the parastatals has to be expedited to avoid further depletion of the remaining resources. African Journal of Finance and Management Vol.9(1) 2000: 59-69
Sixteen Years' Surveillance of Surgical Sites in an Irish Acute-Care Hospital

Abstract Objective: To report a program of continuous surveillance of surgical-site infections (SSIs) using basic surveillance methods. Design: Analysis of routine prospective surveillance data. Setting: Two hospitals in Ireland (300 and 350 beds) that merged and moved to a new 650-bed hospital in 1987. Patients: 59,335 surgical sites of postoperative patients. Interventions: Surgical sites were surveyed by one infection control nurse and SSI rates were produced for selected operations and surgical services. The program was conducted in general accordance with the 1999 HICPAC guidelines, but differed in surveillance strategy. Operations were limited to two to three risk classifications, assigned by the infection control nurse. Results: The overall SSI rate was 4.5%, with 2.4% in clean surgery. Apart from increases in the 3rd, 4th, 13th, and 14th years, rates remained relatively stable during the 16 years. Few significant decreases in SSI rates in surgical services or specific operations were shown, apart from the following: vascular surgery, 8.1% to 5% between the first 8 years and the last 8 years; general surgery services, 9% to 5%, and gynecology, 15.8% to 1.7%, both in the first year compared with in subsequent years; and gastric operations, 21% to 4.3% between the first year and the second year. Organ/space infection was identified in 0.5% of 17,804 operations, including 0.4% meningitis after neurosurgical procedures, 3% graft infections after vascular bypass operations, and 0.2% intra-abdominal infections after abdominal surgery. Conclusions: With the use of basic principles of surveillance and modest resources, procedure-specific SSI rates were produced, with little significant change during the 16 years. Despite limitations in case-finding, risk stratification, feedback, and surveillance methods, the overall SSI rates were comparable with other published data.
Cell cycling in HIV infection: analysis of in vivo activated lymphocytes

Infection with HIV results in increased circulating levels of T lymphocytes expressing phenotypic markers of immune activation. In the present study, using three‐colour immunofluorescence, we examined the cell cycle status of these activated cells. Activated (HLA‐DR+ CD25+ and CD38+) CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes in peripheral blood were analysed for DNA content in 15 HIV + patients and 10 healthy age‐ and sex‐matched control subjects. As expected, all HIV+ patients had elevated percentage levels of activated CD4+ HLA‐DR+, CD4+ CD25+ CD8+ HLA‐DR+ CD8+ CD25+ and CD8+ CD38+ T lymphocytes compared with control subjects (P<0.001 for all). Percentage levels of CD4+ HLA‐DR+ and CD8+ HLA‐DR+ T lymphocytes in the ‘proliferative’(S‐G2M) phase of the cell cycle were also higher in the HIV+” patients compared with controls (P<0.001 for both). The percentage levels of proliferative CD4+ CD25+ CD8+ CD25+ and CD8+ CD38+ lymphocytes were, however, similar in HIV+ patients and controls, indicating that the proliferative fraction of cells in vivo was confined to the HLA‐DR+ subset and absent from the CD25+ and CD38+ populations. Four HIV+ patients had grossly elevated levels of CD8+ lymphocytes which were CD38+(>95%) and confined to the pre‐G0‐G1 phase of the cell cycle, suggesting these may be cells committed to apoptosis. These observations indicate an increase in the proliferative capacity of HLA‐DR+ T lymphocytes in HIV infection in vivo. The reduced DNA content in other populations (e.g. CD38+ CD8+ lymphocytes) of some patients with advanced HIV disease suggests that these cells are apoptotic. Thus our results define both proliferative and apoptotic processes as a spectrum of activation‐related events in HIV infection.
Leveraging human capital and value creation by combining HRM and KM initiatives

Knowledge Management (KM) is typically defined as the holistic combination of measures for managing people, processes and technology. However, most of the KM literature focuses on the technology part, and the explicit integration of Human Resource Management (HRM) into KM initiatives is seldom examined. Thus, shedding light on how HRM practices combined with KM initiatives leverage the firm's human capital and create value is our major aim. Drawing on the Resource-Based View of the firm (RBV), and combining the advances of the KM and HRM literature, this paper proposes a model for leveraging human capital and value creation by combining HRM and KM initiatives.
Producers' Yield and Yield Risk: Perceptions versus Reality and Crop Insurance Use

Using survey data from 258 Illinois corn farmers, we investigate the relationship between subjective and objective yield measures and their effect on the use of crop insurance. Our findings show that producers view themselves as better than average with respect to yields and in terms of their variability, and that over- and underconfidence also influence their use of crop insurance. The effects are not symmetric, overconfidence is primarily reflected in the larger-than-average yield, while underconfidence emerges mainly in the larger-than-average variability. Crop insurance use is further affected by risk preferences and county yield variability.
Conservation Partnerships and Biodiversity Governance: Fulfilling Governance Functions through Interaction

Over the last decades, new governance mechanisms such as partnerships have been increasingly accepted as instruments for sustainable development. This article contributes to an improved understanding of the contributions of partnerships, and their interactions with and consequences for intergovernmental regimes. It answers the question to what extent the roles of international intersectoral partnerships in biodiversity governance can be assessed using a positive, negative, or utilitarian qualification. To answer this question, the article develops and applies a methodology to analyze the governance functions that partnerships fulfill, and the institutional interaction (in terms of content, discourses, and rules) between the partnerships and intergovernmental regimes. Two case studies are analyzed: the Great Apes Survival Project (GRASP), and the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF), which works on biodiversity hotspots. Contrary to most partnerships, these conservation partnerships do not use the market as a steering mechanism for sustainable development, but focus on enhancing international policy processes. The article concludes that the partnerships reinvent biodiversity policy and politics, which is necessary to improve the effectiveness of the biodiversity governance system, and that they complement intergovernmental regimes, albeit with varying effectiveness. Recommendations are developed for governments to strategically enhance public–private interaction.
Antagonistic effect of the Ainu-selected traditional beneficial plants on the transformation of an aryl hydrocarbon receptor.

UNLABELLED Transformation of an aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is the initial step to express the multiple toxicity of halogenated and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (HAHs and PAHs) including dioxins. Therefore, it has been suggested that suppression of the transformation induced by HAHs and PAHs leads to reduce their toxicological effects. In this study, the antagonistic effect of 110 indigenous plants (192 plant parts) used as medicine and/or food by the Ainu on the 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD)-induced AhR transformation was investigated. Of these, a stalk of Aralia elata (Miq.) Seemann and a bark of Fraxinus mandshurica Rupr. var. japonica Maxim. exhibited the strong antagonistic effect in a dose-dependent manner. An antioxidative activity and polyphenol content were also measured, and the strong correlation (r= 0.96) between these two parameters could be confirmed. However, correlation coefficients of the antagonistic effect of 192 extracts compared to their antioxidative activity and polyphenol content were 0.17 and 0.20, respectively. These results suggest that the Ainu-selected traditional beneficial plants are useful source for findings of novel AhR antagonists, and the antagonistic activity of these plants may be independent on their antioxidative activity and polyphenol content. PRACTICAL APPLICATION Our findings lead to discovery of the valuable plants used by the Ainu and the novel active compounds useful for human's life, and furthermore, may contribute to the development of new medicines and functional foods.
Immediate Early Gene Expression in the Rat Brain during Ethanol Withdrawal

The temporal and spatial expression of three immediate early genes was investigated at the level of both mRNA and protein in the brains of rats undergoing ethanol withdrawal. Animals were made dependent by chronic vapor inhalation. All animals showed behavioral signs of withdrawal between 8 and 17 h after removal from ethanol vapor. A large, transient increase in the expression of whole brain c-fos, c-jun, and zif/268 mRNA was observed 12 h after withdrawal, and expression of their protein products was detected 15 to 24 h after withdrawal. Spatial variation in the expression of each protein was detected. All three proteins were present in the cerebral cortex, the olfactory bulb, the inferior colliculus, the granular cell layer of the cerebellum, and in the brain stem, but only C-JUN and ZIF/268 were detected in the hippocampus of animals undergoing withdrawal without overt seizures. C-FOS was detected in the hippocampus only in animals with overt seizures. These data reveal a complex pattern of immediate early gene expression during ethanol withdrawal, which may be associated with changes in neuronal plasticity and/or cell repair.
β‐Catenin Signaling Promotes Proliferation of Progenitor Cells in the Adult Mouse Subventricular Zone

The subventricular zone (SVZ) is the largest germinal zone in the mature rodent brain, and it continuously produces young neurons that migrate to the olfactory bulb. Neural stem cells in this region generate migratory neuroblasts via highly proliferative transit‐amplifying cells. The Wnt/β‐catenin signaling pathway partially regulates the proliferation and neuronal differentiation of neural progenitor cells in the embryonic brain. Here, we studied the role of β‐catenin signaling in the adult mouse SVZ. β‐Catenin‐dependent expression of a destabilized form of green fluorescent protein was detected in progenitor cells in the adult SVZ of Axin2‐d2EGFP reporter mice. Retrovirus‐mediated expression of a stabilized β‐catenin promoted the proliferation of Mash1+ cells and inhibited their differentiation into neuroblasts. Conversely, the expression of Dkk1, an inhibitor of Wnt signaling, reduced the proliferation of Mash1+ cells. In addition, an inhibitor of GSK3β promoted the proliferation of Mash1+ cells and increased the number of new neurons in the olfactory bulb 14 days later. These results suggest that β‐catenin signaling plays a role in the proliferation of progenitor cells in the SVZ of the adult mouse brain.
Determinants of UAE Voters’ Preferences for Federal National Council Candidates

The purpose of this study was to explore the voting behavior in United Arab Emirates by asking 1,800 citizens about which criteria they used to vote for a particular candidate in the past Federal National Council elections. Using descriptive statistics, the study showed that although patron-client networks played a role in voter's preferences — as existing literature about Middle East voters’ behavior has established — they were superseded by personal attributes and the impact of candidates’ campaigns. Emiratis voted for candidates based on three groups of factors, namely: 1) personal characteristics of the candidate including: public speaking skills, political experience, age, gender and educational level; 2) impact of a candidate's campaign including electoral promises and content of the campaign; and 3) patron-client networks including having personal and kinship relationship with candidate. The study showed that religious, political, and personal appearance factors were insignificant.
A rapid quantitative D-dimer assay at admission correlates with the severity of community acquired pneumonia

Previous research has shown a link between infectious inflammatory processes and hemostatic abnormalities. No data exist, however, on whether coagulation markers correlate with the severity of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) at admission. We conducted a prospective, observational study in an Emergency Medicine Department of a primary care hospital. Sixty-eight patients admitted with CAP were included. Blood samples were collected at admission and assayed for D-dimer levels. D-dimers were correlated with the Pneumonia Patient Outcome Research Team (PORT) score and Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II score on admission, with length of hospital stay, number of organ failures, time to defervescence and hospital mortality. D-dimer levels were positively correlated with the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II score (r = 0.44, P = 0.0002), the PORT score (r = 0.36, P = 0.002) and the length of hospital stay (r = 0.24, P = 0.046). Mean D-dimer levels of patients for whom hospitalization is recommended, according to PORT guidelines, were significantly higher than D-dimer levels of patients for whom hospitalization is not recommended (1.47 ± 1.05 μg/ml and 0.71 ± 0.79 μg/ml respectively; P = 0.006). The correlation between D-dimer levels and time to defervescence, development of organ system failure and outcome was not statistically significant. We conclude that D-dimer levels at admission may predict the severity of CAP.
Postnatal Growth of the Human Temporal Bone

Recent interest in cochlear implantation for children has made it important to understand how postnatal growth of the ear will affect such devices. In this study, the postnatal growth of the labyrinth, middle ear, and mastoid was measured in three dimensions using radiographic and temporal bone data. Measurements were made from histologic sections of 48 temporal bones from children and compared to adult temporal bones. Radiographic measurements were made from 253 sets of skull radiographs of children and compared to adult skull series. In the three dimensions measured, there was no postnatal growth of the labyrinth and little variation in size between individuals. Measurements of the middle ear showed greater variation between individuals than measurements of the inner ear, but growth only in the distance from stapes footplate to the tympanic membrane. The mastoid showed growth in all three dimensions: length, width, and depth. The pattern of growth for mastoid length and width appears to follow a double logistic model, with differences between males and females. The growth in mastoid depth is smaller and appears to follow a single exponential curve. The implications for cochlear implantation in children are discussed.
DYNAMICS OF SPATIAL EXPLOITATION: A METAPOPULATION APPROACH

ABSTRACT. In this paper we present a bioeconomic model of a harvesting industry operating over a heterogeneous environment comprised of discrete biological populations interconnected by dispersal processes. The model generalizes the Gordon [1954]/Smith [1968] model of open‐access rent dissipation by accounting for intertemporal and spatial “Ricardian” patterns of exploitation. This model yields a simple, but insightful, framework from which one can investigate factors that contribute to the evolution of resource exploitation patterns over space and time. For example, we find that exploitation patterns are driven by biological and fleet dispersal and biological and economic heterogeneity. We conclude that one cannot really understand the biological processes operating in an exploited system without knowing as much about the harvesting system as about the biological system.
Process Monitoring the Inactivation of Ricin and Model Proteins by Disinfectants Using Fluorescence and Biological Activity

It is important to develop rapid and reliable processes to monitor the decontamination of toxins released to the environment. The inactivation of the protein toxin ricin by the disinfectants bleach (sodium hypochlorite) and monochloramine was measured by the effect on mammalian cell cytotoxicity. The effect of the disinfectants on the native fluorescence (due mainly to tryptophan and to a lesser extent tyrosine) of ricin was also measured in parallel. Reactions of the disinfectants resulted in a decrease in the native fluorescence that was measured in real time in a noninvasive manner. We compared the inactivation of two well‐characterized model enzymes to the behavior of ricin. The model enzymes studied were lysozyme, a small basic enzyme stabilized with internal disulfide bonds, and heart‐muscle‐type lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), a large protein composed of four subunits. The biological activities of the model enzymes were measured in parallel with their fluorescence. Gel electrophoresis showed a large number of modifications of the proteins caused by the disinfectants reflected in changes in mobility and the formation of higher‐order aggregates. Size‐exclusion chromatography showed that the disinfectants did not break down the subunit structure of ricin but instead resulted in an increased size and heterogeneity of the protein. Size‐exclusion chromatography of LDH indicated that the subunits were dissociated and that higher‐order aggregates were also formed. Bleach caused a rapid inactivation of biological activity correlated with a rapid decrease in the fluorescence. Monochloramine required much higher concentrations for significant effects and the kinetics of the reactions were slow, with half‐life values of the decrease on the order of minutes. Each protein showed individual differences in responses to the disinfectants, but there was a consistent correlation between the loss of fluorescence and the decrease in biological activity. These results indicate that the monitoring the fluorescence is a useful process with limitations that can be used to monitor the inactivation of toxins using disinfectants.
Faults tolerant control of wind turbine based on Laguerre model predictive compensator

In this paper fault tolerant control is performed to counterbalance actuators' faults in wind turbines using model predictive control (MPC). Laguerre MPC parameterization is used in order to improve the numerical conditioning of the MPC optimization problem. Faults in the actuators for blade pitching and generator torque control are considered. For each fault, a step of fault detection and estimation is done followed by fault compensation. The pitch fault is characterized by a change in the actuator dynamics and is therefore estimated using a Kalman-like observer. Then, MPC compensator is employed to calculate the input that minimizes the difference between the defected sensor (for which the model is estimated using the observer) and the nominal situation (without fault). The formulation of Laguerre MPC for fault compensation is provided. The generator torque fault is an offset fault and is estimated based on the discrepancy between the measured value and the set-point. Correction of this fault is done by feed forward control. The implementation of the combined estimation and Laguerre MPC compensator and the feed forward control were found to offer a good online estimation and compensation of the fault under realistic fault scenarios in the wind turbine benchmark.