Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Industries in the United States with Airborne Beryllium Exposure and Estimates of the Number of Current Workers Potentially Exposed

Estimates of the number of workers in the United States occupationally exposed to beryllium were published in the 1970s and 1980s and ranged from 21,200 to 800,000. We obtained information from several sources to identify specific industries with beryllium exposure and to estimate the number of current workers potentially exposed to beryllium. We spoke with representatives from the primary beryllium industry and government agencies about the number of exposed workers in their facilities. To identify industries in the private sector but outside the primary industry, we used data from the Integrated Management Information System (IMIS), which is managed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and the Health Hazard Evaluation program of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. We used IMIS data from OSHA inspections with a previously developed algorithm to estimate the number of potentially exposed workers in nonprimary industries. Workers potentially exposed to beryllium included 1500 current employees in the primary beryllium industry and 26,500 individuals currently working for the Department of Energy or the Department of Defense. We identified 108 four-digit Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) categories in which at least one measurement of airborne beryllium was ≥ 0.1 μ g/m3. Based on the subset of 94 SIC categories with beryllium ≥ 0.1 μ g/m3, we estimated 26,400 to 106,000 workers may be exposed in the private sector (outside the primary industry). In total, there are as many as 134,000 current workers in government and private industry potentially exposed to beryllium in the United States. We recommend that the results of this study be used to target at-risk audiences for hazard communications intended to prevent beryllium sensitization and chronic beryllium disease.
Control of Manipulator Using Pneumatic Muscles for Enhanced Safety

Safety of humans who work with robots is an important issue. Many studies have addressed related methods, but fundamental limits to meet safety requirements have been encountered owing to the absence of compliance in robot actuators. Pneumatic muscle (PM) is considered to be a basic actuator and offers the advantage of intrinsic elasticity to achieve joint compliance. In this paper, joint compliance actuated by PM is actively utilized to enhance human safety during collisions. To this end, the authors present a novel approach to control compliance and associated positions independently with no cross-performance effects using PMs. The proposed method is verified by experiments using a physical robot. In addition, methods to decrease damage from collisions between robots and humans due to operational faults are evaluated through experiments. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by measuring the impact impulse in collisions.
[Thoracoscopic interventions in deformities of the thoracic spine].

AIM OF THE STUDY We prospectively studied 9 patients with deformities of the thoracic spine who underwent thoracoscopic surgery to critically evaluate the benefits and limitations of thoracoscopy. METHODS Seven patients with deformities of the thoracic spine (5 scoliosis, 2 kyphosis) underwent a thoracoscopic release and posterior correction and fusion in a single stage. In one case of a crankshaft-phenomenon a thoracoscopic epiphyseodesis und in another case of a posttraumatic kyphosis a thoracoscopic instrumentation and fusion were performed. The average age was 21 years, the follow-up was 18 months with a minimum of 12 months. The perioperative data including complications were collected and a radiographic analysis concerning curve correction was carried out. RESULTS The scoliotic curves measured preoperatively 84 degrees on average with a Cobb angle of 62 degrees on the traction films and were corrected by 57% to averagely 36 degrees at follow-up. In the two cases of Scheuermann kyphosis a preoperative kyphosis of 94 degrees respectively 82 degrees was corrected to 52 degrees respectively 58 degrees. Between 4 and 5 discs were excised with an average operative time of 160 min and a blood loss of 380 ml. A conversion to open thoracotomy was not necessary in any case. There were no intraoperative neurovascular complications. CONCLUSIONS Thoracoscopic procedures in deformities of the thoracic spine are technically demanding; however, it is a minimally invasive procedure with a reduced approach-related morbidity compared to open thoracotomy. The indications for a thoracoscopic release are rigid kyphosis and scoliosis with rigid curves between 80 and 90 degrees Cobb angle in which an anterior correction and instrumentation alone is not considered.
Rapid Identification of Major Escherichia coli Sequence Types Causing Urinary Tract and Bloodstream Infections

ABSTRACT Escherichia coli sequence types (STs) 69, 73, 95, and 131 are collectively responsible for a large proportion of E. coli urinary tract and bloodstream infections, and they differ markedly in their antibiotic susceptibilities. Here, we describe a novel PCR method to rapidly detect and distinguish these lineages. Three hundred eighteen published E. coli genomes were compared in order to identify signature sequences unique to each of the four major STs. The specificities of these sequences were assessed in silico by seeking them in an additional 98 genomes. A PCR assay was designed to amplify size-distinguishable fragments unique to the four lineages and was validated using 515 E. coli isolates of known STs. Genome comparisons identified 22 regions ranging in size from 335 bp to 26.5 kb that are unique to one or more of the four predominant E. coli STs, with two to 10 specific regions per ST. These regions predominantly harbor genes encoding hypothetical proteins and are within or adjacent to prophage sequences. Most (13/22) were highly conserved (>96.5% identity) in the genomes of their respective ST. The new assay correctly identified all 142 representatives of the four major STs in the validation set (n = 515), with only two ST12 isolates misidentified as ST95. Compared with MLST, the assay has 100% sensitivity and 99.5% specificity. The rapid identification of major extraintestinal E. coli STs will benefit future epidemiological studies and could be developed to tailor antibiotic therapy to the different susceptibilities of these dominant lineages.
Scenario Analysis for Water Resources in Response to Land Use Change in the Middle and Upper Reaches of the Heihe River Basin

Water availability is at the core of sustainable socioeconomic development and ecological conservation along with global climate and land use changes, especially in the areas that experience water problems. This study investigated the impacts of land use change on surface runoff and water yield with scenario-based land use change in the upper and middle reaches of the Heihe River Basin, the second largest inland river basin in the arid region of northwestern China. Firstly, three land use structure scenarios were established, with different water utilization ratio levels (low-level, middle-level and high-level water utilization ratios). Then the spatial pattern of land uses was simulated with the Dynamic of Land System (DLS). Thereafter, the simulated land use data were used as the input data to drive the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model, keeping other input data unchanged to isolate the land use change impacts on surface runoff and water yield. The results showed that the forestland and grassland will expand along with the increase in water utilization ratio. The quick-response surface runoff would decrease significantly due to forest and grassland expansion, which may cause an overall decreasing trend of the water yield. This indicated the unreasonable allocation of water resources may exert negative impacts on the water yield even if the water utilization ratio is increased; therefore, water resources should be reasonably allocated for different land use demand, which is critical for sustainable development. The results of this study will be informative to decision makers for sustainable water resource and land management when facing land use change and an increasing demand for water resources in the Heihe River Basin.
Browse‐and‐Switch: Retail‐Online Competition under Value Uncertainty

Although online shopping is becoming popular, consumers who are unsure about whether to buy a product may find it advantageous to visit a brick‐and‐mortar retail store to first examine the product before purchasing it. But, after browsing at the store, consumers have the option of switching to an e‐tailer to purchase the item at a cheaper price rather than buying at the store. Recent business press refers to this browse‐and‐switch behavior as “showrooming,” and attributes to it the declining profits of brick‐and‐mortar retailers. To study the effect of the browse‐and‐switch option on retail and online pricing strategies and profits, we analyze a stylized economic model that incorporates uncertainty in consumers' valuation of the product, captures the heterogeneity among consumers in their inclination to purchase online, and permits product returns. We consider various equilibrium scenarios for different combinations of consumer shopping behaviors, characterize the parameter ranges for each scenario, and demonstrate that browse‐and‐switch behavior can indeed occur under equilibrium. Our analysis further shows that the option for consumers to browse‐and‐switch intensifies competition, reducing the profits for both firms.
Tracking the Prevalence of Transmitted Antiretroviral Drug-Resistant HIV-1: A Decade of Experience

Summary: Transmitted resistance to antiretroviral drugs in acute and early HIV-1 infection has been well documented, although overall trends vary depending on geography and cohort characteristics. To describe the changing pattern of transmitted drug-resistant HIV-1 in a well-defined cohort in New York City, a total of 361 patients with acute or recent HIV-1 infection were prospectively studied over a decade (1995-2004) with respect to HIV-1 genotypes and longitudinal T-cell subsets and HIV-1 RNA levels. The prevalence of overall transmitted resistance changed from 13.2% to 24.1% (P = 0.11) during the periods 1995 to 1998 and 2003 to 2004. Nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor resistance prevalence increased significantly from 2.6% to 13.4% (P = 0.007) during the same periods, whereas prevalence of multidrug-resistant virus shifted from 2.6% to 9.8% (P = 0.07) but did not achieve statistical significance. A comparable immunologic and virologic response of appropriately treated individuals was observed regardless of viral drug susceptibility status, suggesting that initial combination therapy guided by baseline resistance testing in the case of acute and early infection may result in a favorable treatment response even in the case of a drug-resistant virus. These data have important implications for selection of empiric first-line regimens for treatment of acutely infected antiretroviral-naive individuals and reinforce the need for baseline resistance testing in acute and early HIV-1 infection.
Towards a strategic framework for changing corporate culture

It is now widely accepted that if a corporation is to remain competitive and viable it must be able to regularly and routinely change various aspects of its culture. The question is, how is it to do this and what conceptual and managerial processes are likely to be involved? This paper identifies some of the major focuses of concern in a strategy for organization cultural change. It discusses how these might be integrated in a way that will help people to ‘think culturally’ about strategy and to ‘think strategically’ about culture.
Protein Disulfide Bond Formation in the Cytoplasm during Oxidative Stress*

The majority of disulfide-linked cytosolic proteins are thought to be enzymes that transiently form disulfide bonds while catalyzing oxidation-reduction (redox) processes. Recent evidence indicates that reactive oxygen species can act as signaling molecules by promoting the formation of disulfide bonds within or between select redox-sensitive proteins. However, few studies have attempted to examine global changes in disulfide bond formation following reactive oxygen species exposure. Here we isolate and identify disulfide-bonded proteins (DSBP) in a mammalian neuronal cell line (HT22) exposed to various oxidative insults by sequential nonreducing/reducing two-dimensional SDS-PAGE combined with mass spectrometry. By using this strategy, several known cytosolic DSBP, such as peroxiredoxins, thioredoxin reductase, nucleoside-diphosphate kinase, and ribonucleotide-diphosphate reductase, were identified. Unexpectedly, a large number of previously unknown DSBP were also found, including those involved in molecular chaperoning, translation, glycolysis, cytoskeletal structure, cell growth, and signal transduction. Treatment of cells with a wide range of hydrogen peroxide concentrations either promoted or inhibited disulfide bonding of select DSBP in a concentration-dependent manner. Decreasing the ratio of reduced to oxidized glutathione also promoted select disulfide bond formation within proteins from cytoplasmic extracts. In addition, an epitope-tagged version of the molecular chaperone HSP70 forms mixed disulfides with both β4-spectrin and adenomatous polyposis coli protein in the cytosol. Our findings indicate that disulfide bond formation within families of cytoplasmic proteins is dependent on the nature of the oxidative insult and may provide a common mechanism used to control multiple physiological processes.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EFFICIENCY WAGES AND PRICE INDEXATION IN A NOMINAL WAGE CONTRACTING MODEL

This paper examines how a link between efficiency wages and price indexation can arise in a simple nominal wage contracting model. We show that, the more elastic the workeri¯s effort is with respect to real wages, the looser the optimal linkage of nominal wages is to the price level. This is simply because, as the workeri¯s effort becomes more sensitive to real wages, the output-stabilizing indexing scheme has to make nominal wages less dependent on the price level, thereby delegating firms more flexibility for adjusting the output level. As long as efficiency wages as an incentive device work well in the economy, our result may help explain the recent decline in the share of U.S. union contracts adjusting to a cost of living index.
Persistent activation of pancreatic stellate cells creates a microenvironment favorable for the malignant behavior of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most common malignant tumors with poor prognosis due to extremely high malignancy, low rate of eligibility for surgical resection and chemoradiation resistance. Increasing evidence indicate that the interaction between activated pancreatic stellate cells (PSCs) and PDAC cells plays an important role in the development of PDAC. By producing high levels of cytokines, chemotactic factors, growth factors and excessive extracellular matrix (ECM), PSCs create desmoplasia and a hypoxic microenvironment that promote the initiation, development, evasion of immune surveillance, invasion, metastasis and resistance to chemoradiation of PDAC. Therefore, targeting the interaction between PSCs and PDAC cells may represent a novel therapeutic approach to advanced PDAC, especially therapies that target PSCs of the pancreatic tumor microenvironment.
Tolerance to Daytime Sedative Effects of H1 Antihistamines

Sedation is the principal side effect of firstgeneration H1 antihistamines, and recent studies have suggested that this side effect should limit the clinical application of these drugs. The sedative effect also underlies the use of these first-generation drugs as nonprescriptive remedies for insomnia. In both cases, the potential for tolerance to the sedative effect of these drugs is an important issue for which there are few objective data. In the study reported here, 15 healthy men age 18 to 50 years received either diphenhydramine 50 mg or placebo twice a day for 4 days in a randomized, double-blind, crossover trial design. Dependent measures included objective and subjective assessments of sleepiness and computer-based tests of psychomotor performance. Both objective and subjective measures of sleepiness showed significantly higher levels on day 1 for diphenhydramine compared to placebo. By day 4, however, levels of sleepiness on diphenhydramine were indistinguishable from placebo. Similarly, diphenhydramine produced significant impairment of performance that was completely reversed by day 4. These data provide the first objective confirmation that tolerance develops to the sedative effect of a prototypical first-generation H1 antihistamine, diphenhydramine. On this dosing regimen, tolerance was complete by the end of 3 days of administration. While other antihistamines and dosing regimens may differ, these results suggest that tolerance to the sedation produced by these drugs develops with remarkable rapidity.
How Much Does Country Matter?

Industrial organization economics and resource-based views of the firm have disagreed over what matters most to profitability for more than 60 years. Until recent variance decomposition studies started trying to determine the relative importance of industry, corporate parent, and business segment on profitability, little research had been done to investigate the extent to which difference in countries could explain the variation in industry performance. This study explores variation in high-tech industry performance, with particular interest in the relative effects of country versus industry for four country classes and eight geographic regions. A variance components model revealed that while country dominated high-tech industry performance in the developed countries and geographic regions North America, South America, All America, Western Europe, and All Europe, industry factors played a role in the development of high-tech industries worldwide. We also found that the effects of industry contributed substantially to the performance of high-tech industry when there was sustainable investment and innovation, especially in newly industrializing economies, large less-developed countries, and Southeast Asia.
The Firm as an Institution: Recent Evolution in the Contractual Perspective

The aim of this paper is to clarify the connection between types of firms and types of assumptions about the information structure. Building on the role of information structure, notions of the firm as an organisation have been put forward which suggest that the firm can assume an alternative (to the market) coordinating role in conditions of contractual incompleteness. A comparison (and opposition) between two recent approaches to the theory of the firm as an organisation seems to suggest that different notions of incomplete contracts imply substantial differences in terms of the meaning of a Pareto-efficiency improvement, of the role to assign to vertical integration, and of the determinants of the dimension of the firm.
Ljudski Resursi U Funkciji Društveno-Ekonomskog Razvoja (Human Resources in the Function of Socio-Economic Development)

People are the foundation on which the economy builds and develops, therefore it is necessary to develop their knowledge, skills and competencies and raise them to a higher intellectual level. Human resources management is performed on an individual level (by raising the level of human knowledge, skills and competences) and organizational level (by raising the level of organizational knowledge through the collaboration of employees). The paper presents an individual approach to managing human resources by raising their professional and emotional intelligence, and organizational approach by encouraging the collaborative climate among employees and also the application of network technologies.Through the application of the VAICTM method, the results of intellectual capital efficiency of the Croatian economy in the year period from 2003 to 2009 are presented in the paper.
Clinical Correlates of Methylphenidate Blood Levels

The clinical correlates of methylphenidate blood levels in hyperactive children and normal adults were examined in five studies. Although occasional correlations between blood levels and neuroendocrine response were noted within subjects along the pharmacokinetic time profile of the drug, no significant associations were found between blood levels and clinical response in behavioral measures or laboratory tests of attention or activity. It is unlikely that routine methylphenidate blood level determinations will become a part of the routine clinical management of hyperactive children.
Modeling Open-Set Spoken Word Recognition in Postlingually Deafened Adults after Cochlear Implantation: Some Preliminary Results with the Neighborhood Activation Model

Hypotheses Do cochlear implants provide enough information to allow adult cochlear implant users to understand words in ways that are similar to listeners with acoustic hearing? Can we use a computational model to gain insight into the underlying mechanisms used by cochlear implant users to recognize spoken words? Background The Neighborhood Activation Model has been shown to be a reasonable model of word recognition for listeners with normal hearing. The Neighborhood Activation Model assumes that words are recognized in relation to other similar-sounding words in a listener's lexicon. The probability of correctly identifying a word is based on the phoneme perception probabilities from a listener's closed-set consonant and vowel confusion matrices modified by the relative frequency of occurrence of the target word compared with similar-sounding words (neighbors). Common words with few similar-sounding neighbors are more likely to be selected as responses than less common words with many similar-sounding neighbors. Recent studies have shown that several of the assumptions of the Neighborhood Activation Model also hold true for cochlear implant users. Methods Closed-set consonant and vowel confusion matrices were obtained from 26 postlingually deafened adults who use cochlear implants. Confusion matrices were used to represent input errors to the Neighborhood Activation Model. Responses to the different stimuli were then generated by the Neighborhood Activation Model after incorporating the frequency of occurrence counts of the stimuli and their neighbors. Model outputs were compared with obtained performance measures on the Consonant-Vowel Nucleus-Consonant word test. Information transmission analysis was used to assess whether the Neighborhood Activation Model was able to successfully generate and predict word and individual phoneme recognition by cochlear implant users. Results The Neighborhood Activation Model predicted Consonant-Vowel Nucleus-Consonant test words at levels similar to those correctly identified by the cochlear implant users. The Neighborhood Activation Model also predicted phoneme feature information well. Conclusion The results obtained suggest that the Neighborhood Activation Model provides a reasonable explanation of word recognition by postlingually deafened adults after cochlear implantation. It appears that multichannel cochlear implants give cochlear implant users access to their mental lexicons in a manner that is similar to listeners with acoustic hearing. The lexical properties of the test stimuli used to assess performance are important to spoken-word recognition and should be included in further models of the word recognition process.