Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Immune Tolerance to Apoptotic Self Is Mediated Primarily by Regulatory B1a Cells

The chronic autoimmune inflammatory diseases, systemic lupus erythematosus and Sjogren’s syndrome, develop when tolerance to apoptotic cells (ACs) is lost. We have previously reported that this tolerance is maintained by innate-like, IL-10 secreting regulatory B cells. Two questions remained. First, do these regulatory B cells belong predominantly to a single subset of steady-state B cells and second, what is their specificity? We report here that innate-like B cells with markers characteristic for B1a cells (CD43+veCD19hiCD5+veIgMhiIgDlo) constitute 80% of splenic and 96% of peritoneal B cells that respond to ACs by secreting IL-10. AC responsive B1a cells secrete self-reactive natural antibodies (NAbs) and IL-10, which is augmented by toll-like receptor (TLR) 7 or TLR9 stimulation. In so doing, they both accelerate the clearance of dying cells by macrophages and inhibit their potential to mount proinflammatory immune responses. While B1a cells make prolonged contact with ACs, they do not require TIM1 or complement to mediate their regulatory function. In an animal model of neural inflammation (experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis), just 105 activated B1a B cells was sufficient to restrain inflammation. Activated B1a B cells also induced antigen-specific T cells to secrete IL-10. Hence, regulatory B1a cells specifically recognize and augment tolerance to apoptotic self via IL-10 and NAbs; but once activated, can also prevent autoimmune mediated inflammation.
Balancing Home and Employment: Stress Reported by Social Services Staff

The paper aims to contribute to an understanding of how stress from the combined responsibilities of home and employment varies according to the family circumstances and employment characteristics of women and men. For women, family responsibilities are associated with shorter hours of employment and lower occupational achievement, whereas for men, marriage is a career asset. Yet the reason for women's underachievement is disputed: some researchers claim that women's part-time work in low-paid, low-status jobs represent women's voluntary choice. Others argue that women's employment options are constrained by their domestic responsibilities; and that reducing hours of work and modifying career aspirations may represent one way of balancing home and employment so as to minimise stress. Data are used from the National Institute of Social Work (NISW) Workforce Survey of over 1000 women and men in four broad types of work in the social service departments of five English local authorities. Information is available on staff's perception of stress from combining paid and unpaid roles. We examine whether there are gender differences in reported stress among those who have structurally similar domestic circumstances; whether gender differences in stress can be explained in terms of occupational segregation and hours of employment; and whether the lower stress reported by part-time employees is independent of family responsibilities and type of occupation. A key concern is to assess whether part-time employment enables women with family responsibilities to avoid high levels of stress. There was increased stress on those staff with dependent children or with informal caring commitments. Men reported higher stress than women, irrespective of family circumstances, but the difference disappeared once account was taken of type of work and hours. Family responsibilities and employment characteristics had independent effects on stress levels. Type of work, in terms of level of responsibility, had more influence on stress than hours worked. Among full-time non-manual staff, women with family responsibilities experienced more stress than equivalent men, suggesting that women's occupational advancement is achieved at greater cost in terms of stress than men's.
The Apoptogenic Toxin AIP56 Is Secreted by the Type II Secretion System of Photobacterium damselae subsp. piscicida

AIP56 (apoptosis-inducing protein of 56 kDa) is a key virulence factor of Photobacterium damselae subsp. piscicida (Phdp), the causative agent of a septicaemia affecting warm water marine fish species. Phdp-associated pathology is triggered by AIP56, a short trip AB toxin with a metalloprotease A domain that cleaves the p65 subunit of NF-κB, an evolutionarily conserved transcription factor that regulates the expression of inflammatory and anti-apoptotic genes and plays a central role in host responses to infection. During infection by Phdp, AIP56 is systemically disseminated and induces apoptosis of macrophages and neutrophils, compromising the host phagocytic defence and contributing to the genesis of pathology. Although it is well established that the secretion of AIP56 is crucial for Phdp pathogenicity, the protein secretion systems operating in Phdp and the mechanism responsible for the extracellular release of the toxin remain unknown. Here, we report that Phdp encodes a type II secretion system (T2SS) and show that mutation of the EpsL component of this system impairs AIP56 secretion. This work demonstrates that Phdp has a functional T2SS that mediates secretion of its key virulence factor AIP56.
What Are the Origins of Political Trust?

Popular trust in political institutions is vital to democracy, but in post-Communist countries, popular distrust for institutions is widespread, and prospects for generating increased political trust are uncertain given disagreements over its origins. Cultural theories emphasizing exogenous determinants of trust compete with institutional theories emphasizing endogenous influences, and both can be further differentiated into micro and macro variants. Competing hypotheses drawn from these theories are tested using data from 10 post-Communist countries in Eastern and Central Europe and the former Soviet Union. Aggregate data on economic and political performance are combined with survey data on interpersonal and political trust, political socialization experiences, and individual evaluations of national performance. Results strongly support the superiority of institutional explanations of the origins of political trust, especially micro-level explanations, while providing little support for either micro-cultural or macro-cultural explanations. This encourages cautious optimism about the potential for nurturing popular trust in new democratic institutions.
Towards the Legal Recognition and Governance of Forest Ecosystem Services in Mozambique

Within the context of Mozambique, this paper examines the state of forest ecosystem services, the dependency of the population on these systems for their well-being, if an adaptive governance regime is being created which will ensure the resilience of the forest ecosystem services including the legal framework, the institutions operating within this framework, the tools available and their functioning, and how cooperative governance is operating.
Is Farmland As Good As Gold

An analysis of Canadian farmland risk and its return on investment shows that a Farmland Real Estate Investment Trust (F-REIT) and gold would have significantly enhanced portfolio performance over the past 35 years. Investors who desire low-risk portfolios would not have benefited from an F-REIT or gold investment. However, investors in the medium-risk category could have improved the financial performance of their portfolios by including an F-REIT investment rather than gold. The financial gains from F-REIT result from a level of risk that is lower than gold, REITs, and stocks, an expected yield that is greater than for bonds, and a low correlation with other financial asset returns.
First-price auctions with resale and with outcomes robust to bid disclosure

Although there exists a pure separating equilibrium of the two-bidder first-price auction with resale when the bids are kept secret, the ratchet effect prevents the existence of such an equilibrium if the bidders are heterogeneous and the bids are fully disclosed. Nevertheless, we construct a behavioral equilibrium under full disclosure that is equivalent to the pure separating equilibrium under no disclosure. Thus, if the bidders follow this equilibrium, the choice of the disclosure regime does not affect the final allocation of the item nor the expected payoffs. Copyright (c) 2010, RAND.
Does Taxation on Banks Tax Bank Borrowers? Evidence from the Tokyo Bank Tax Experiment

We investigate the economic impacts of bank taxation on the value of banks and that of borrowing firms, exploiting the surprise announcement of a tax by the Tokyo metropolitan government as a natural experiment. We find that the tax announcement had broad effects on the share prices of banks, although the effects are stronger for a subset of soon-to-be taxed banks. However, the adverse effects of the tax on bank borrowers, although statistically significant, turn out to be quantitatively small (a half of the effects on bank share prices). These results suggest that the adverse economic consequence of bank taxation is felt primarily on banks themselves.
Survivin and Telomerase Expression in the Uterine Cervix of Women With Human Papillomavirus-Induced Lesions

Introduction: Infection by human papillomavirus is the most important risk factor in the pathogenesis of uterine cervical cancer. The aims of this study were to evaluate the expression of survivin protein and telomerase enzyme in samples of uterine cervix from women with human papillomavirus-induced lesions and to determine the relationship between survivin and telomerase expression and the different grades of cervical squamous intraepithelial neoplasia and invasive cervical carcinoma. Methods: Biopsy samples from the uterine cervix of 105 women aged 18 to 80 years were analyzed. The patients were divided into 5 groups: WN group, 20 patients without neoplasia; CIN-1 group, 24 patients with grade 1 cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN), grade 1; CIN-2 group, 20 patients with CIN grade 2; CIN-3 group, 24 patients with CIN, grade 3; and ICC group, 17 patients with invasive cervical carcinoma. Human papillomavirus detection, telomerase activity, and survivin expression were assessed using polymerase chain reaction (PCR), real-time PCR (RT-PCR), and immunochemistry, respectively. Results: There was a significant increase in the expression of telomerase and survivin associated with the severity of the lesion. Conclusions: The results suggest that mechanisms that promote both cell proliferation (telomerase activity) and cell survival (survivin expression) are active in cervical cancer and its precursor lesions. There was a negative correlation between survivin expression and the number of PCR cycles necessary to detect telomerase activity in the total sample, achieving statistical significance in patients in the CIN-3 group.
Improving parent knowledge about antibiotics: a video intervention.

OBJECTIVE To determine whether an educational video could improve parent knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors about the appropriate use of oral antibiotics. STUDY DESIGN A randomized, controlled trial was conducted in an urban primary care clinic and a suburban pediatric practice. Parents were randomly assigned to the intervention or control groups. Parents in the intervention group were asked to view a 20-minute video, specifically developed for this project, over a 2-month period, and given a brochure about antibiotics. Parent knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors were assessed at the time of enrollment and then by telephone 2 months later. RESULTS A total of 193 (94%) of 206 parents completed the study. The groups were equivalent with respect to all important baseline characteristics. No differences were found for adjusted posttest means between the intervention and control groups for knowledge, beliefs, or behavior. For example, the intervention group scored 8.04 on the knowledge questionnaire (11 true-false questions), compared with 7.82 for the control group. Subgroup analysis, based on site of enrollment, indicated that families in the intervention group from the primary care urban clinic improved their knowledge score (6.03 to 6.92) and were more likely to report that there were problems with children receiving too many antibiotics (intervention 67% vs control 34%). CONCLUSION Overall, this video had only a modest effect on parent knowledge, beliefs, and self-reported behaviors regarding oral antibiotics. We believe that any campaign promoting the judicious use of oral antibiotics must use a multifaceted approach and target both parents and physicians.
Housing, housing assistance and social cohesion

This paper is based on a review and reflection of relevant literature. This positioning paper is the first report of a project funded by AHURI which fills a part of the gap in knowledge about the linkages between housing, housing assistance and social cohesion. It explores the relevance of the social cohesion concept for housing policy and practice in Australia, develops a conceptual framework for understanding these linkages, explores the indicators which have been used to measure some of these linkages, and indicates how the empirical part of the research will proceed. This paper is based on a review and reflection of relevant literature.
Strategies of Effective New Product Team Leaders

Most leaders of new product teams are aware of the complexity of the problem they confront and the changes that must occur before cross-functional teamwork can accelerate new product development processes. Most know, for instance, that promoting cross-functional thinking, collaborative decision making, and concurrent organization of new product workflow are advantageous. Only a select few, however, consistently act on these insights and affect meaningful changes. The differences between more and less effective leaders lies less in what they espouse or profess and more in the process by which they learn and form new visions and develop new ways of defining their behaviors.
Think Tanks and the Web: Measuring Visibility and Influence

On trouve, dans la littérature, plusieurs études qui évaluent l’influence des groupes de réflexion; toutefois, à ce jour, peu de chercheurs se sont penchés sur l’impact en ligne des activités de recherche des groupes de réflexion. Quand on évalue l’influence de ces groupes sur le Web, il est important de distinguer d’une part la popularité d’un groupe de réflexion en politiques publiques et d’autre part sa pertinence dans ce domaine. Dans cette étude, nous mesurons comment les internautes établissent la fiabilité de ce type d’information offerte sur Internet. Grâce à l’analyse d’hyperliens, nous mesurons donc l’impact de la popularité sur Internet et la pertinence des groupes de réflexion dans cinq domaines : les politiques sociales, la péréquation, les changements climatiques, l’énergie propre et la recherche de la paix.
The asymptotic likelihood of agreement between plurality and condorcet outcomes

This article deals with collective decision making by voting procedures in living systems at the levels of groups, organizations, societies, or supranational systems. General principles are outlined which permit the determination of the likelihood of agreement, and disagreement, between plurality and Condorcet outcomes when system size is large, for any number of alternatives in virtually any culture. A method is developed which ascertains, for any number of alternatives, the system in which the likelihood of plurality/Condorcet disagreement reaches a maximum. The hypothesis that an inverse relation exists between the probability of plurality distortion and the probability of the paradox of voting is disproved. Methodological issues arising from previous work are considered.
Beyond tuition fees? The legacy of Blair’s government to higher education

Although the famous Blair mantra ‘education, education, education’ was applied by his government mainly to the compulsory education sector, there was no shortage of initiatives in Higher Education (HE). The scene was set by the Dearing Report in 1997 which effectively determined the direction of Blair’s first term. The second term enabled Blair to pursue further an agenda of public sector reform, yet the simultaneous commitment to market principles of choice and diversity and to social inclusion created major tensions and dilemmas. Funding the expanded HE was the stimulus which led to Dearing, and has continued to be the major challenge of the ten‐year period.
Detection of hepatitis B virus infection: A systematic review.

AIM To review published methods for detection of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. METHODS A thorough search on Medline database was conducted to find original articles describing different methods or techniques of detection of HBV, which are published in English in last 10 years. Articles outlining methods of detection of mutants or drug resistance were excluded. Full texts and abstracts (if full text not available) were reviewed thoroughly. Manual search of references of retrieved articles were also done. We extracted data on different samples and techniques of detection of HBV, their sensitivity (Sn), specificity (Sp) and applicability. RESULTS A total of 72 studies were reviewed. HBV was detected from dried blood/plasma spots, hepatocytes, ovarian tissue, cerumen, saliva, parotid tissue, renal tissue, oocytes and embryos, cholangiocarcinoma tissue, etc. Sensitivity of dried blood spot for detecting HBV was > 90% in all the studies. In case of seronegative patients, HBV DNA or serological markers have been detected from hepatocytes or renal tissue in many instances. Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay and Chemiluminescent immunoassay (CLIA) are most commonly used serological tests for detection. CLIA systems are also used for quantitation. Molecular techniques are used qualitatively as well as for quantitative detection. Among the molecular techniques version 2.0 of the CobasAmpliprep/CobasTaqMan assay and Abbott's real time polymerase chain reaction kit were found to be most sensitive with a lower detection limit of only 6.25 IU/mL and 1.48 IU/mL respectively. CONCLUSION Serological and molecular assays are predominant and reliable methods for HBV detection. Automated systems are highly sensitive and quantify HBV DNA and serological markers for monitoring.
Middle Management’s Strategic Influence and Organizational Performance

This study investigated relationships between middle managers’ formal position, their strategic influence and organizational performance. Among the 259 middle managers represented in the study, managers with formal positions in boundary–spanning sub–units reported higher levels of strategic influence activity than others. At the organizational level of analysis, the study found that firm performance was associated with more uniform levels of downward strategic influence, and more varied levels of upward influence among middle management cohorts. The findings suggest that middle managers’ strategic influence arises from their ability to mediate between internal and external selection environments. In addition, positive effects on organizational performance appear to depend on: (1) whether the overall pattern of upward influence is conducive to shifts in the network centrality of individual managers; and (2) whether the pattern of downward influence is consistent with an appropriate balance between the organization’s need for control and flexibility.
Solution structure of villin 14T, a domain conserved among actin‐severing proteins

The solution structure of the N‐terminal domain of the actin‐severing protein villin has been determined by multidimensional heteronuclear resonance spectroscopy. Villin is a member of a family of actin‐severing proteins that regulate the organization of actin in the eukaryotic cytoskeleton. Members of this family are built from 3 or 6 homologous repeats of a structural domain of approximately 130 amino acids that is unrelated to any previously known structure. The N‐terminal domain of villin (14T) contains a central β‐sheet with 4 antiparallel strands and a fifth parallel strand at one edge. This sheet is sandwiched between 2 helices on one side and a 2‐stranded parallel β‐sheet with another helix on the other side. The strongly conserved sequence characteristic of the protein family corresponds to internal hydrophobic residues. Calcium titration experiments suggest that there are 2 binding sites for Ca2+, a stronger site near the N‐terminal end of the longest helix, with a Kd of 1.8 ± 0.4 mM, and a weaker site near the C‐terminal end of the same helix, with a Kd of 11 ± 2 mM. Mutational and biochemical studies of this domain in several members of the family suggest that the actin monomer binding site is near the parallel strand at the edge of the central β‐sheet.
Yb-Doped Aluminophosphosilicate Laser Fiber

By using modified chemical vapor deposition system combined with chelate precursor doping technique, we report on the fabrication and characterization of Yb-doped aluminophosphosilicate (Al2O3-P2O5-SiO2) laser fiber. Based on a master oscillator power amplifier laser setup and pumped directly by 976 nm laser diodes, 3.1 kW laser at ~1064 nm was achieved with a slope efficiency of 78.4%. Benefiting from codoped Al and P, the laser output power showed no evidence of roll-over. The linear fitting of the output power versus the pump power shows the potentiality for further power scaling. The results indicate that chelate precursor doping technique is a competitive method for rare-earth-ion-doped fiber preform fabrication, and aluminophosphosilicate host material has potentiality to develop multi-kW level laser fibers.
Private and Public Real Estate: What Is the Link?

Equity investments in commercial real estate are made through private transactions or public markets. Private and public investments include core real estate—the passive management of existing income generating properties—as well as value-added and opportunistic investments that focus on the active development of existing and new properties. Both forms of investment provide exposure to the same property market. Yet by conventional measures, public and private investments offer surprisingly different return and risk profiles. In this article, the authors focus on equity investment in core real estate in the U.K. market, analyzing data spanning more than two decades. They demonstrate a strong link between the returns to public and private real estate by correcting for appraisal smoothing and for the lead–lag relationship between public and private returns. They also discuss how real estate risk changes over longer horizons. In particular, the correlation between private and public returns strengthens as the investment horizon increases. These results have important implications for both risk management and asset allocation. As an example, they illustrate how the diversification benefits of real estate depend on the investment horizon and the amount of leverage employed.