Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characterization of intestinal gene expression profiles in Crohn's disease by genome‐wide microarray analysis

Background: Genome‐wide microarray expression analysis creates a comprehensive picture of gene expression at the cellular level. The aim of this study was to investigate differential intestinal gene expression in patients with Crohn's disease (CD) and controls with subanalysis of confirmed CD susceptibility genes, associated pathways, and cell lineage. Methods: In all, 172 biopsies from 53 CD and 31 control subjects were studied. Paired endoscopic biopsies were taken at ileocolonoscopy from five specific anatomical locations including the terminal ileum (TI) for RNA extraction and histology. The 41,058 expression sequence tags were analyzed using the Agilent platform. Results: Analysis of all CD biopsies versus controls showed 259 sequences were upregulated and 87 sequences were downregulated. Upregulated genes in CD included SAA1 (fold change [FC] +7.5, P = 1.47 × 10−41) and REGL (FC +7.3, P = 2.3 × 10−16), whereas cellular detoxification genes including‐SLC14A2 (FC‐2.49, P = 0.00002) were downregulated. In the CD TI biopsies diubiquitin (FC+11.3, P < 1 × 10−45), MMP3 (FC+7.4, P = 1.3 × 10−11), and IRTA1 (FC‐11.4, P = 4.7 × 10−12) were differentially expressed compared to controls. In the colon SAA1 (FC+6.3, P = 5.3 × 10−8) was upregulated and thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) (FC‐2.3, P = 2.7 × 10−6) was downregulated comparing noninflamed CD and control biopsies, and the colonic inflammatory CD signature was characterized by downregulation of the organic solute carriers‐SLC38A4, SLC26A2, and OST alpha. Of CD susceptibility genes identified by genome‐wide association scan IL‐23A, JAK2, and STAT3 were upregulated in the CD group, confirming the dysregulation of Th17 signaling. Conclusions: These data characterize the dysregulation of a series of specific inflammatory pathways highlighting potential pathogenic mechanisms as well as areas for translation to therapeutic targets. (Inflamm Bowel Dis 2010)
SAVING AND INVESTMENT: PARADIGMS, PUZZLES, POLICIES

The 1990s have seen a renewed interest in issues of capital accumulation and growth. New paradigms for saving, investment, and growth have been advanced to address theoretical and empirical puzzles and to guide the design of better policies. This paper provides a policy-oriented review of recent theoretical and empirical work on the determinants of saving and investment and on their links to growth. It takes stock of new findings as well as still unresolved questions and gives particular attention to empirical regularities and to the policy issues relevant to developing countries. Copyright 1996 by Oxford University Press.
The Role of Consumer Agency in the Globalization Process in Emerging Markets

In emerging markets, the main actors in the globalization process are widely considered to be governments and multinational corporations (MNCs). The authors examine the role of a key player that has largely been left out of the globalization debate—the consumer. Viewed through a lens of consumer agency, the authors outline important factors that influence whether new foreign goods that enter the marketplace are accepted, rejected, or transformed by consumers. This is investigated in the context of the Indian marketplace, an emerging market that has only recently had access to foreign goods. The authors’analysis suggests that consumers are not merely pawns of MNCs or governments. The framework developed to understand the complexities of consumer agency in an emerging market provides the first such effort to guide future empirical consumer globalization research.
Modeling the Price Dynamics of Co2 Emission Allowances

In this paper we analyze the short-term spot price behavior of carbon dioxide (CO2) emission allowances of the new EU-wide CO2 emissions trading system (EU ETS). After reviewing the stylized facts of this new class of assets we investigate several approaches for modeling the returns of emission allowances. Due to different phases of price and volatility behavior in the returns, we suggest the use of Markov switching and AR-GARCH models for stochastic modeling. We examine the approaches by conducting an in-sample and out-of-sample forecasting analysis and by comparing the results to alternative approaches. Our findings strongly support the adequacy of the models capturing characteristics like skewness, excess kurtosis and in particular different phases of volatility behavior in the returns.
Building activity and socio-economic change in inner Melbourne 1961–1981

Abstract The changing nature of the inner city of Australian metropolitan areas has been a topic of considerable interest in the past few years. In particular, there has been a marked change in the socio-economic characteristics of those resident in the inner city — a change which has reversed a feared trend toward the concentration of problem groups in the inner area. The nature of the social change being experienced has frequently been described as ‘gentrification’, a concept which attempts to encompass a range of outcomes in terms of socio-spatial change. However little attempt has been made to go beyond a simple description of the results of change. The present paper argues that in fact gentrification has been viewed much too simplistically, and that even if defined more comprehensively, only accounts for a portion of the observed outcomes. By examining physical as well as social change, and by using a more appropriate spatial scale, one which allows a great deal more detail, inner city change can be .
Clusterin (SGP‐2) Induction in Rat Astroglial Cells Exposed to Prion Protein Fragment 106–126

Prion‐related encephalopathies are characterized by the accumulation of an abnormal prion protein isoform (PrPSc) associated with neuronal degeneration and astrogliosis. The synthetic peptide homologous to PrP fragment 106–126 (PrP 106–126) induced in vitro neuronal apoptosis and glial proliferation. We used Northern blot analysis and the RNA polymerase chain reaction to assess the expression of several genes associated with programmed cell death and proliferation. Blots of total RNA extracted from neuronal and astroglial cells exposed to PrP 106–126 for between 1 h and 7 days were hybridized with probes recognizing c‐fos, c‐jun, c‐myc, p53, hsp‐70 and bcl‐2 mRNA. Except for a slight decrease in bcl‐2 mRNA in neuronal cells, no change in other transcripts was evident. Since clusterin (apolipoprotein J) mRNA levels are increased in prion‐related encephalopathies and clusterin immunoreactivity has been located in association with PrPSc in Gerstmann‐Sträussler‐Scheinker brain, the expression of clusterin was determined in neuronal and astroglial cells chronically exposed to PrP 106–126. Although the induction of clusterin has been involved in the apoptotic mechanism in other experimental conditions, its expression was unchanged in PrP 106–126‐treated neurons, while a three‐fold induction of clusterin mRNA was observed in astrocytes exposed to PrP 106–126. To investigate whether the clusterin up‐regulation was simply associated with the astroglial proliferative stimulus of PrP 106–126 or was specifically induced by the peptide, we measured clusterin expression in astrocytes cultured in fetal calf serum‐free medium and exposed to PrP 106–126 or fetal calf serum restoration. In this condition the PrP peptide, like fetal calf serum, increased the glial proliferation rate, but only PrP 106–126 doubled clusterin mRNA. The selectivity of this effect indicates that PrPSc is directly involved in the clusterin up‐regulation seen in prion‐related encephalopathies and is associated with astroglial cells.
Bootstrapping Confidence Intervals for Clinical Input Variable Effects in a Network Trained to Identify the Presence of Acute Myocardial Infarction

The artificial neural network has been successfully applied to a broad range of clinical settings (Widrow and Hoff 1960; Rumelhart et al. 1986; McClelland et al. 1988; Weigend et al. 1990; Hudson et al. 1988; Smith et al. 1988; Saito and Nakano 1988; Kaufman et al. 1990; Hiraiwa et al. 1990; Cios et al. 1990; Marconi et al. 1989; Eberhard et al. 1991; Mulsant and Servan-Schreiber 1988; Bounds et al. 1990; Yoon et al. 1989). Such a network has been adapted for use as an aid to the clinical diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction (Baxt 1990, 1991, 1992a; Harrison et al. 1991) (heart attack). Both initial retrospective and subsequent prospective studies have revealed that this network performed more accurately than either physicians or other electronic data processing technologies (Baxt 1990, 1991; Goldman et al. 1988). Since nonlinear artificial networks are known to be capable of identifying relationships between input data that are not apparent to human analysis (Weigend et al. 1990), one hope has been that the network could be utilized to identify relationships in clinical data that have not been revealed by previous study. The inherent problem in this hope has been the inability easily to identify how artificial neural networks derive their output. One indirect way that this can be approached is by the stepwise perturbation of isolated individual input variables across a large number of patterns coupled with an analysis of the effect this has on network output. Prior application of this analysis to the artificial neural network trained to identify the presence of acute myocardial infarction revealed that one could gain a
High end of life health care costs and hospitalization burden in inflammatory bowel disease patients: A population-based study

Background End of life (EOL) care is associated with greater costs, particularly for acute care services. In patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), EOL costs may be accentuated due to reliance on hospital-based services and expensive diagnostic tests and treatments. We aimed to compare EOL health care use and costs between IBD and non-IBD decedents. Methods We conducted a retrospective cohort study of all decedents of Ontario, Canada between 2010 and 2013 using linked health administrative data. IBD (N = 2,214) and non-IBD (N = 262,540) decedents were compared on total direct health care costs in the last year of life and hospitalization time during the last 90 days of life. Results During the last 90 days of life, IBD patients spent an average of 16 days in hospital, equal to 2.1 greater adjusted hospital days (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.5–2.8 days) than non-IBD patients. IBD diagnosis was associated with $7,210 CAD (95% CI $5,005 - $9,464) higher adjusted per-patient cost in the last year of life, of which 76% was due to excess hospitalization costs. EOL cost of IBD care was higher than 15 of 16 studied chronic conditions. Health care costs rose sharply in the last 90 days of life, primarily due to escalating hospitalization costs. Conclusions IBD patients spend more time in hospital and incur substantially greater health care costs than other decedents as they approach the EOL. These excess costs could be curtailed through avoidance of unnecessary hospitalizations and expensive treatments in the setting of irreversible deterioration.
Cytochrome P450‐catalysed reactive oxygen species production mediates the (−)schisandrin B‐induced glutathione and heat shock responses in AML12 hepatocytes

Sch B (schisandrin B), the most abundant dibenzocyclooctadiene lignan in Fructus schisandrae, can induce glutathione antioxidant and heat shock responses, as well as protect against oxidant‐induced injury in various tissues, including the liver in rodents and AML12 (alpha mouse liver 12) hepatocytes. (−)Sch B is the most potent stereoisomer of Sch B in its cytoprotective action on AML12 hepatocytes. To define the role of ROS (reactive oxygen species) arising from CYP (cytochrome P450)‐catalysed metabolism of (−)Sch B in triggering glutathione antioxidant and heat shock responses, the effects of a CYP inhibitor [ABT (aminobenzotriazole)] and antioxidants [DMTU (dimethylthiouracil) and TRX (trolox)] on (−)Sch B‐induced ROS production and associated increases in cellular GSH level, as well as Hsp25/70 (heat‐shock protein 25/70) production, were investigated in AML12 hepatocytes. The results indicated that (−)Sch B causes a dose dependent and sustained increase in ROS production over 6 h in AML12 hepatocytes, which was completely suppressed by pre‐/co‐treatment with ABT or DTMU/TRX. Incubation with (−)Sch B for 6 h caused optimal and dose‐dependent increases in cellular GSH level and Hsp25/70 production at 16 h post‐drug exposure in AML12 hepatocytes. These cellular responses were associated with protection against menadione‐induced apoptosis. Pre‐/co‐treatment with ABT or antioxidants completely abrogated the (−)Sch B‐induced glutathione antioxidant and heat shock responses, as well as protection against menadione‐induced apoptosis. Experimental evidence obtained thus far supports the causal role of ROS arising from the CYP‐catalysed metabolism of (−)Sch B in eliciting glutathione antioxidant and heat shock responses in AML12 hepatocytes.
An official American Thoracic Society Workshop report: obesity and asthma.

RATIONALE The developed world is currently facing an epidemic of obesity. With the increased prevalence of obesity has come the recognition that obesity is a risk factor for asthma. OBJECTIVES The purpose of this workshop was to bring together experts in the field of asthma, with experts in the field of obesity to review the current state-of-the-art knowledge regarding obesity and asthma, with the goal of furthering our understanding of the link between these two disease entities to help define important future directions for research. METHODS Speakers were invited to give presentations highlighting recent developments in their area of expertise that were related to obesity and lung disease. These presentations were followed by interactive discussion. A writing committee from among the participants produced a document summarizing the proceedings. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS The participants found that obesity was a risk factor for asthma in all demographic groups studied. Asthma in the obese may represent a unique phenotype of asthma, with more severe disease that does not respond as well to conventional therapy. Factors that could contribute to the pathogenesis of asthma in the obese include both mechanical factors and altered inflammation and immune responses related to the obese state. CONCLUSIONS There is an urgent need for research to better understand the mechanisms of asthma in the obese, and to develop new therapies specifically targeted to this unique patient population.
On Contingent Claims that Insure Ex-post Optimal Stock Market Timing

On Contingent Claims that Insure Ex-Post Optimal Stock Market TimingAuthor(s): M. Barry Goldman, Howard B. Sosin, Lawrence A. SheppSource: The Journal of Finance, Vol. 34, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings, Thirty-SeventhAnnual Meeting, American Finance Association, Chicago, Illinois, August 29-31, 1978 (May,1979), pp. 401-413Published by: Blackwell Publishing for the American Finance AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor. org/stable/2326979Accessed: 19/11/2010 16:19
Determination of copy number of c-Myc protein per cell by quantitative Western blotting.

The protooncogene c-Myc plays a key role in growth control, differentiation, and apoptosis. An abnormally high expression of c-myc has been found to be associated with many neoplasms. c-Myc gene expression is usually measured at the mRNA level. Few studies have been published on quantitative Myc protein determination. A major drawback of ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) methods is the uncertainty of the specificity of the antibody reaction. In contrast, antibody specificity can be easily controlled by Western/immunoblotting. Here we describe a method to quantify c-Myc protein in primary human IMR90 lung fibroblasts based on Western blotting. Using a high-resolution polyacrylamide gel, we were able to differentiate the cellular c-Myc protein (64 kDa) from a c-Myc internal standard (65 kDa). We determined both the total c-Myc protein content per cell and its distribution in the cytoplasmic and nuclear fractions. About 4000 c-Myc protein molecules were detected in the cytoplasmic fraction and 29,000 copies in the nuclear fraction for proliferating human lung fibroblasts IMR90. The ratio of nuclear (active) to cytoplasmic (inactive) c-Myc protein changed from 17:1 for proliferating cells to 2.5:1 for confluent cells.
Responses of Mastomys coucha, that have been infected with Brugia malayi and treated with diethylcarbamazine or albendazole, to re-exposure to infection

Abstract The responses of Mastomys coucha to re-exposure to infection with homologous infective larvae (L3) of Brugia malayi were investigated, after initial infections with the nematode had been treated subcutaneously for 5 days with diethylcarbamazine (DEC; 150 mg citrate/kg. day) or albendazole (ALB; 50 mg/kg. day). The parasite burdens, serum concentrations of IgG reacting with a soluble somatic extract of adult B. malayi (BmAS), and cytokine and lym phocyte-proliferative responses to filarial antigen (BmAS) or mitogen (concanavilin A or lipopolysaccharide) were studied. The results demonstrated, for the first time, that re-infection with L3 was only successful in the DEC-treated animals, not the ALB-treated ones. When the ALB-treated animals were re-exposed, interferon-γ production decreased, lymphocyte-proliferative responses either remained the same (with concanavilin A) or decreased (with BmAS), and concentrations of specific IgG decreased. When the DEC-treated animals were re-exposed, microfilaraemias re-appeared and, although production of interferon-γ decreased, there were no detectable lymphocyte proliferative responses, and concentrations of specific IgG remained unchanged. Taken together, the results indicate that, at least in the M. coucha model of human filariasis, ALB but not DEC treatment may help to prevent the development of re-infections.
PUBLISHING IN PROFESSIONAL ACCOUNTING JOURNALS: ACADEMIC INSTITUTIONAL PERFORMANCE 1987–96

Abstract There is considerable interest both in the publishing activities of academics and in the relevance of research to accounting practitioners. This study introduces a fresh perspective to the debate by examining the publishing performance of British academic institutions in professional journals over the period 1987 to 1996 and the possible influence of the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) on this performance. To carry out the research, an analysis was conducted of all articles attributed to academics and appearing in the journals of the five main professional bodies in Great Britain. Two measures of publication performance were used: volume, based on the total number of articles appearing in the period; and regularity, being the number of years in which members of staff of academic institutions appeared in print. The results indicate that a substantial proportion of the 750 articles published in the 10 year period can be attributed to a relatively small number of academic institutions. An examination of the 10 year period reveals that there was reduced publishing activity in professional journals in the year prior to the three RAEs and that activity did not subsequently return to its previous level. When the first five year period is compared to the second there is a decline in productivity and significant changes in the institutions appearing in the analysis. Although the data is fragile, there is no evidence that publishing in professional journals is associated with particularly high or low research ratings. It is noticeable, however, that the names of few of our leading institutions rarely appear in the professional journals.
The democracy of European fiscal consolidation: reform governments in Greece, Ireland and Italy

Are technocratic governments the reformers of last resort? And why are they appointed? Facing the ongoing European debt crisis, some countries choose to put technocrats into reform government offices, while others are able to reform their markets and fiscal structure within regularly elected governments. What differentiates these technocratic from non-technocratic governments in terms of origins and reform efforts? And are technocratic government compositions more able to implement complex market and fiscal reforms in a short period of time when facing difficult institutional settings? In order to answer these questions, this research follows an institutional approach along rational choice theory and the concept of varieties of capitalism. A comparative study of the political economy of Greece, Ireland and Italy examines the different underpinnings that build-up to these reform governments and shows how reform efforts and forms of reform governments, understood as being either partisan or non-partisan composed, vary between different varieties of capitalism. The findings provides evidence that the varieties of capitalism configuration, and the embedded features of economic and political institutions, influence the incentives for counties to appoint technocratic governments when facing an economic crisis, thus advancing an existing model that describes the likelihood of
Treatment of epilepsy by stimulation of the vagus nerve

We treated 14 patients with medically refractory partial seizures by stimulation of the vagus nerve in two single-blind pilot studies. Patients received stimulation through an implantable, programmable Neurocybernetic Prosthesis, consisting of a pulse generator and a lead-electrode assembly. The mean reduction in seizure frequency after 14 to 35 months of vagal stimulation was 46.6%. Of the 14 patients, five (35.7%) had a 50% or greater reduction in seizure frequency. Two patients, one of whom had had 10 to 100 seizures per day before stimulation, have been seizure-free for over 1 year. Adverse events were primarily limited to initial hoarseness and a tingling sensation at the electrode site in the neck when the device was activated. Most patients tolerated the device and stimulation well. There were no permanent adverse events. Some cases of medically refractory partial seizures are improved by vagal stimulation.
Liability dollarization, exchange market pressure and fear of floating: empirical evidence for Turkey

The objective of this article is to examine the relationship between liability dollarization and the Exchange Market Pressure (EMP) in Turkey within an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and Granger causality framework using monthly data from 1991:12 to 2006:08. The findings suggest that there exists a long-term equilibrium relationship between EMP and liability dollarization, where liability dollarization Granger causes EMP both in the short- and long-run, with no evidence of reverse causality. This suggests that the predominance of foreign currency liabilities in the banks’ balance sheets in Turkey induces a selling pressure in the exchange market as well as a fear of floating.