Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Role of the capsule and the O antigen in resistance of O18:K1 Escherichia coli to complement-mediated killing

Epidemiological data show that O18:K1 Escherichia coli is a common cause of neonatal bacteremia and meningitis. These bacteria were capable of multiplying in the bloodstream of newborn rats and were resistant to the bactericidal effects of complement in the absence of specific antibodies. The roles played by the O antigen and the K antigen in complement resistance were analyzed by comparing the bactericidal effects of normal sera and of sera deficient in various complement components or in immunoglobulins. These sera were tested on O18:K1 bacteria and on mutants lacking either the lipopolysaccharide O antigen or the K1 capsular polysaccharide. In addition, O1:K1 cells, which can cause pyelonephritis but which are rare in newborn meningitis and which do not multiply in the bloodstream of newborn rats, were also examined. Different mechanisms of protection against the alternative and classical pathways were recognized: K1-positive cells were resistant to the bactericidal activity of sera deficient in classical complement pathway components, whereas K1-negative cells were sensitive to these sera. Based on these results and on those from complement fixation assays, the K1 sialic acid polysaccharide impedes the activation of, and thus protects the bacteria against, the alternative complement pathway. Not only the K1-negative mutant cells but also O1:K1 bacteria and mutants lacking the O18 oligosaccharide repeating units of the lipopolysaccharide were sensitive to the classical complement pathway. These bactericidal effects were observed even in the absence of specific antibodies. It is proposed that both the K1 capsule and the O18 oligosaccharide restrict antibody-independent classical pathway activation by shielding deeper structures on the cell membrane that are capable of activating this pathway.
A Quantum-Corrected Monte Carlo Study on Quasi-Ballistic Transport in Nanoscale MOSFETs

In this paper, the authors study a quasi-ballistic transport in nanoscale Si-MOSFETs based upon a quantum-corrected Monte Carlo device simulation to explore an ultimate device performance. It was found that, when a channel length becomes shorter than 30 nm, an average electron velocity at the source-end of the channel increases due to ballistic transport effects, and then, it approaches a ballistic limit in a sub-10-nm regime. Furthermore, the authors elucidated a physical mechanism creating an asymmetric momentum distribution function at the source-end of the channel and the influences of backscattering from the channel region. The authors also demonstrated that an electron injection velocity at a perfectly ballistic transport is independent of the channel length and corresponds well to a prediction from Natori's analytical model
Increased Frequency of CD8+ and CD4+ Regulatory T Cells in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia: Association with Disease Progression

Little is known regarding the immunobiology of regulatory T (Treg) cells in hematopoietic malignancies, particularly in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). In the present study, we showed that the frequencies of CD8+ and CD4+ Treg cells were significantly increased in progressive as compared with indolent CLL patients and normal subjects. Enriched CD4+ Treg cells induced a similar level of inhibition in polyclonally activated B cells and effector T cells from CLL patients and normal subjects. Our results suggest that the increase in circulating Treg cells may result in downregulation of tumor-specific immune response, leading to tumor expansion and disease progression.
Diagnosing HIV-Related disease

AbstractOBJECTIVE: To summarize current information on the relation between CD4 counts and the risk of different HIV-related diseases. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: MEDLINE search of English language articles between 1985 and 1996 using the medical subject heading (MeSH) term “CD4 lymphocyte count” and searches using key words of multiple HIV-related diseases were conducted. Some HIV-related diseases can be stratified to different CD4 count levels. Regardless of their CD4 count, HIV-infected patients are susceptible to sinusitis, Kaposi’s sarcoma, community-acquired pneumonia, and oral hairy leukoplakia. In advanced HIV, when CD4 is below 200/mm3, Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, toxoplasmosis, progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, Mycobacterium avium complex, molluscum contagiosum, and bacillary angiomatosis all increase in incidence. In very advanced HIV disease, when CD4 counts are below 50/mm3, patients are at risk of pseudomonas pneumonia, cytomegalovirus retinitis, central nervous system lymphoma, aspergillosis, and disseminated histoplasmosis.SummaryRegardless of their CD4 count, HIV-infected patients are susceptible to sinusitis, community-acquired pneumonia, oral hairy leukoplakia, Kaposi’s sarcoma, and HIV meningitis. Once their CD4 counts drop below 500/mm3, they are at risk of developing tuberculosis, thrush, herpes simplex, and herpes zoster. In advanced HIV, when their CD4 counts are below 200/mm3, PCP, coccidioidomycosis, bacillary angiomatosis, molluscum contagiosum, cryptococcal meningitis, toxoplasmosis, progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, Mycobacterium avium complex, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma all increase in incidence. In very advanced HIV, when their CD4 counts are below 50/mm3, they are at risk of pseudomonas pneumonia, CMV retinitis, CNS lymphoma, aspergillosis, and histoplasmosis. By appreciating these characteristic changes in disease incidence, and by knowing a patient’s CD4 count, clinicians should be better able to develop differential diagnoses and plans for diagnostic evaluation.
Swedish Tourism and Climate Change Mitigation: An Emerging Conflict?

Sweden has been one of the driving forces in establishing the new post‐Kyoto agreement of the European Union (EU), with the goal of achieving a 20% reduction of greenhouse gases by 2020 over the base year 1990. The Swedish national goal of emission reductions has been set even higher. Global tourism has recently been identified as an economic sector contributing significantly to emissions of greenhouse gases, particularly through transport, but there are as yet few comprehensive studies assessing its role in global warming on a national basis. In the light of this, this paper seeks to provide an estimate of emissions from tourism in Sweden, showing that these account for about 10% of Swedish emissions, and increase rapidly. National emission reduction goals are thus in stark contrast to emission growth in the tourism sector, but this is not addressed in the government's climate strategy. The paper concludes that it may be highly relevant for governments to consider emissions from tourism, and particularly aviation, in climate policy.
A Spatial Econometric Approach to Model Spillover Effects in Tourism Flows

The main purpose of this research is to investigate and estimate the spillover effects in inbound and domestic tourism flows to 341 cities in mainland China. In conjunction with this, the key determinants of tourism flows are also studied in the spatial econometric model. The results confirm the existence of spillover effects in both inbound and domestic tourism flows, and suggest that physical infrastructure factors, tourist attractions, and the SARS outbreak are significant determinants of inbound and domestic tourism flows. In addition, it is found that although the degree of openness to inbound tourists is important for inbound tourism flows, a city’s income is the key to enhancing domestic tourism flows. Significant differences in spillover effects and determinants of tourism flows are also discovered between cities in different regions.
EUTHYROID SICK SYNDROME IN CHILDREN WITH HODGKIN DISEASE

Euthyroid sick syndrome is related to profound changes in thyroid metabolism induced by nonthyroidal diseases. To determine whether children with newly diagnosed Hodgkin disease might present thyroid abnormalities and to establish their predictive value, the authors performed regular thyroid function testing. Seven children (5 M, 2 F) with a mean age of 10.4 years (range: 4.6-15 years) at diagnosis were studied for a period of 6.9 years (4.2-10.5 years). Five patients presented at diagnosis with euthyroid sick syndrome characterized by borderline low thyroxine circulating levels (T3 0.8-1.3 ng/mL, FT3 1.5-1.7 pg/mL) and mildly raised TSH (4.6-5 microU/mL). Thyroid function turned normal within 6 months of therapy. Subsequently, 3 children developed overt hypothyroidism (T4 35-40 ng/mL, FT4 2-7 pg/mL, TSH 5.5-11 microU/mL) requiring substitution therapy. Euthyroid sick syndrome was not associated with a poorer outcome in terms of survival or long-term thyroid consequences. Thyroid function testing should be performed routinely at diagnosis and thereafter in children with Hodgkin disease to detect subtle abnormalities.
THE SENSITIVITY OF THE PRIME RATE TO MONEY MARKET CONDITIONS

Commercial banking's institutional setting can make one bank's profits dependent upon the pricing strategies of its rivals. In this environment, widely disseminated prime rate quotes, loan contracts with “most-favored-customer” clauses, and rule-of-thumb pricing techniques can result in prime rate outcomes that jointly maximize banks' market values. In this paper the relationship between the prime and money market rates is examined over the last decade to determine if the prime rate behaves more like a competitive money market rate than an oligopolistic price.
Increased tumorigenesis of murine sarcoma virus (Moloney) by coinfection with Rauscher virus or by treatment with antilymphocyte serum.

Increased oncogenicity of murine sarcoma virus (Moloney) [MSV(M)] was observed to be associated with markedly lowered MSV(M) neutralizing antibody levels when 4- to 6-week-old BALB/c mice were preinfected 5 days earlier with Rauscher leukemia virus (RLV). Coinfection with RLV resulted in progressively growing tumors, metastases, and rapid deaths, in contrast to the high percentage of tumor regressions seen in mice given MSV(M) only. A similar effect on tumor size was obtained when mice were given multiple injections of heterologous antilymphocyte serum (ALS) rather than RLV. Mice treated with normal rabbit serum also developed tumors larger than those of controls given MSV(M) alone. However, these tumors eventually regressed while those of coinfected or ALS-treated mice continued to enlarge. Virus neutralization tests performed on sera collected 23 to 42 days after MSV(M) infection showed that serum from dually infected mice possessed very low levels of antibody toward MSV(M) in comparison to mice injected with MSV(M) alone. Determinations of IgG and IgM in the dually infected mice revealed levels equal to or above those of noninfected controls. It is proposed that suppression of antibody may contribute to the intensified growth of MSV(M)-induced tumors observed in these experiments.
Determinants of Funding Strategies and Actuarial Choices for Defined‐Benefit Pension Plans*

This paper examines the effects of firms' financial and pension profiles on their funding strategies and actuarial choices. The paper uses reports filed by individual pension plans with the Department of Labor under the requirements of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 for the analysis. Evidence reported in the paper shows that as firms become overfunded, they make conservative actuarial choices to avoid visibility costs, and that as firms become underfunded, they make liberal actuarial choices to avoid visibility costs. As the annual contributions increase relative to the permissible contribution ranges, firms make conservative actuarial choices to minimize penalties and maximize tax benefits. As the annual contributions decrease relative to the permissible contribution ranges, firms make liberal actuarial choices to minimize penalties and maximize tax benefits. The larger the profitability, cash flow from operations, and tax liability, and the smaller the debt of a firm, the higher the likelihood that the firm's managers will make conservative actuarial choices to maximize contributions. Conversely, the smaller the profitability, cash flow from operations, and tax liability, and the larger the debt of a firm, the higher the likelihood that the firm's managers will make liberal actuarial choices to minimize contributions. This evidence, which is consistent with the hypothesis of funding management, can aid the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in regulating the definedâ€ benefit pension plans more effectively and help plan beneficiaries to manage their retirement portfolios more efficiently. The debiasing method developed in the paper can provide investors and creditors with the tools to identify the discretionary components of pension liabilities and thereby value firms more efficiently.
The Development of Total Quality Management in the Personal Social Service: Realities, Limitations and Opportunities within the Modernising Agenda?

This paper considers the impact of quality approaches within the personal social services over the last decade. In particular it examines how applicable private sector approaches to quality, such as Total Quality Management, are in the public and personal social services. Both the hard and soft tools of Total Quality Management are critically considered in terms of their relevance and ability to modernise service provision. In the context of the managerial discourse presently dominating the public sector, it is argued that the hard tools of Total Quality Management, such as performance measurement and review, will only add to managerial control; whilst the soft tools of empowerment and cultural change will lose their critical effect. It is the contention of this paper that unless the current Labour government's Modernising Services Policy succeeds in democratising the process of developing quality then it will only add to the managerial agenda at the expense of improving service provision.
Market-based solutions: An appropriate approach to resolve environmental problems

It was the first time that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was founded in 1988, regarded climate change as a significant international political problem (O'Brien and Williams 2007). Over the next decades, environmentalist and policy makers have been applying many efficient ways to solve various environmental problems and have gained achievements. With the support of successful cases, this paper will focus on the market-based solutions and discuss its advantages compared with the conventional approach.
VoKA: Voronoi K-aggregation mechanism for privacy in location-based information systems

Location based information systems have shown a sustained growth trend in the last decade, thanks to the appearance of smartphones, capable of locating a user in real time and with great accuracy. Current users of mobile apps are normally sharing their location which is being stored by the service providers, either for internal use, to be sold later to third party companies, or to be released for public use as open data. The last two uses require the data to be stripped of information of individuals so it cannot allow identification; however, if the location is not altered sufficiently, it still could be used to find a single person. In the literature there are many location privacy protection mechanisms — LPPMs, usually expected to be applied on real time over the location information. This work introduces VoKA, a, offline privacy protection technique that focuses at the moment in which the data is released outside a protected environment, proposing a new aggregation mechanism based on Voronoi diagrams and K anonymity that preserves geographical value of the data like density and geographical distribution. The study uses Twitter data from the Lombardia area of Italy, and compares unaltered data, obfuscated data, grid-based aggregation and VoKA. Results show that VoKA can aggregate data in a more organic manner than grid-based data, and reduces the possibility to identify individuals compared to simple location obfuscation, in geostatistical analysis techniques like entropy and heatmap.
Hieracium subgen. Pilosella: pollen stainability in sexual, apomictic and sterile plants

Two pollen stainability tests (Alexander’s stain and acetocarmine) were used to detect differences in pollen viability of the sexual, apomictic and sterile plants of Hieracium subgen. Pilosella. In sexual taxa (Hieracium bauhini and H. densiflorum), the average stainability was 93.7–98.4%. Similarly high stainability (92.2–97.2%) was found in the apomictic Hieracium pilosellinum and in the majority of the apomictic populations (or plants) of the pentaploid and hexaploid H. bauhini. In some apomictic plants of Hieracium bauhini the average pollen stainability was 49.0–75.4%. The lowest pollen stainability was found in the sterile plants, i.e. the triploid H. pistoriense (33.6%) and the pentaploid H. brachiatum (29.6%).
Transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt in five children with cystic fibrosis: long-term results.

BACKGROUND/AIMS The aim of this study was to report results of TIPS (transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt) in 5 consecutive children with cystic fibrosis and monitor long-term follow-up results. METHODOLOGY Five cystic fibrosis patients with multinodular cirrhosis of the liver and complications of portal hypertension (repeated variceal bleeding refractory to endoscopic treatment) underwent TIPS creation. There were 3 males and 2 females aged 8 to 18 years (median 14 yrs), their weight range was 27-51 (median 40) kg. A routine TIPS technique was used. The patients were followed by ultrasonography. RESULTS The TIPS was successfully performed in all five patients. The mean portosystemic pressure gradient was reduced from 17 to 10 mmHg. There were no deaths related to the procedure. No clinical or laboratory signs of bleeding into the gastrointestinal tract were observed in any patient within the first 30 days following TIPS. There was recurrent bleeding 6 times and asymptomatic stenoses were revealed by ultrasonography 15 times during a follow-up period of 15-81 (median 70) months. All stenoses were successfully dilated. One patient had liver transplantation 15 months after TIPS. Two patients died 6.7 years and 4.5 years following the placement of TIPS due to respiratory insufficiency. CONCLUSIONS Symptomatic portal hypertension was successfully managed with TIPS in long-term follow-up; multiple reinterventions were required for shunt stenoses. TIPS served as a bridge to liver transplantation in one case.
UNDERCOVER POLICING, OVERSTATED CULPABILITY

This Article examines the legal doctrine of “sentencing manipulation,” a claim, raised at the time of sentencing, in which the defendant argues that undercover police officers purposefully encouraged him to commit particular criminal conduct in order to expose him to a higher, and often mandatory, punishment. Currently, the sentencing manipulation claim has no consistent animating theory nor uniform definition or procedural treatment. Based on traditional theories of punishment as well as the systemic interest in an accurate determination of a defendant’s culpability, this Article argues that inducements, used by undercover officers and their agents to encourage the suspect to commit particular criminal conduct, should be the central focus of a reformed sentencing manipulation doctrine. The sentencing manipulation doctrine as currently conceived fails to recognize the potential and problematic impact of police inducements on an assessment of a defendant’s culpability and reflects binary concerns of guilt versus innocence that, while perhaps appropriate for a claim made at trial, are inapposite for a claim made at the time of sentencing. In determining where to draw the line between police inducements that affect a defendant’s culpability and those that do not, this Article also suggests a new way to view police conduct — on a continuum ranging from conduct that “facilitated culpability” to conduct that “overstated culpability. ” A reformed doctrine of sentencing manipulation, as proposed by this Article, appropriately directs courts’ focus to inducements used by the police or their agents that result in the overstatement of a defendant’s culpability, and to offense conduct which should therefore be removed from the sentencing calculus.
Changes to automatic thoughts and dysfunctional attitudes in group CBT for depression

The present study sought to clarify the role of cognitive change in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) by examining the relationship between depression outcome and changes to automatic thoughts and dysfunctional attitudes at different points of therapy. Thirty patients suffering from Major Depression (MDD) or Dysthymia attended the 12 sessions of a group CBT program. Multiple regressions found total scores on the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire (ATQ) and cumulative change scores on the Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale (DAS) to predict scores on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) at later stages of therapy, though neither form of cognition was predictive from earlier stages of therapy. Only scores on the ATQ were significantly related to both cognitive and somatic subscales of the BDI, indicating that automatic thoughts are more directly related to cognitive change than dysfunctional attitudes. Overall findings suggest that significant reductions in both automatic thoughts and dysfunctional attitudes are related to non-clinical levels of depressive symptoms at the end of the treatment.
Photodegradation of FeDTPA in Nutrient Solutions. I. Effects of Irradiance, Wavelength, and Temperature

Irradiation of FeDTPA-containing nutrient solutions by a fluorescent plus incandescent light source resulted in the loss of both Fe-chelate and soluble Fe, the formation of a precipitate that was composed mostly of Fe, and a rise in pH. The rate of Fe-chelate photodegradation in solution increased with irradiance intensity and with solution temperature under irradiation, but irradiance had the greater effect. Fe-chelates absorb in the blue and UV regions of the spectrum. Removal of these wavelengths with a spectral filter eliminated photodegradation. Chemical name used: ferric diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (FeDTPA).
Agriculture and groundwater development in northern China: trends, institutional responses, and policy options

Despite the growing importance of groundwater in Chinese agriculture, there is a lamentable lack of systematic information on the groundwater economy, especially on the agricultural consequences of groundwater depletion. This paper makes an attempt to overcome this limitation with information and analysis on trends in the expansion of agricultural groundwater use, resource management challenges, and institutional and policy responses in the particular context of northern China. The results show that groundwater problems and their agricultural consequences in northern China are heterogeneous across space and changing rapidly over time. While the problems are serious, they do not present everywhere with the same severity. As result, policies for their solution should be clearly discriminatory and carefully targeted. Even targeted policies will be difficult to implement, and government has had little success in controlling the extraction of groundwater or protecting its quality with the many formal laws and regulations now in existence. In contrast, farmers have been responsive to increasing shortages. Individual farmers (i.e. the private sector) have taken control of most well and pump assets, developed groundwater markets, changed cropping patterns and adopted water savings technologies. While market forces and economic incentives can change use, public initiatives for agricultural groundwater regulation to balance short term economic efficiency with long resource sustainability are urgently needed.