Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Isoflurane Activates Intestinal Sphingosine Kinase to Protect against Renal Ischemia–Reperfusion-induced Liver and Intestine Injury

Background:Renal ischemia–reperfusion injury (IRI) is a major cause of acute kidney injury and often leads to multiorgan dysfunction and systemic inflammation. Volatile anesthetics have potent antiinflammatory effects. We aimed to determine whether the representative volatile anesthetic isoflurane protects against acute kidney injury–induced liver and intestinal injury and to determine the mechanisms involved in this protection. Methods:Mice were anesthetized with pentobarbital and subjected to 30 min of left renal ischemia after right nephrectomy, followed by exposure to 4 h of equianesthetic doses of pentobarbital or isoflurane. Five hours after renal IRI, plasma creatinine and alanine aminotransferase concentrations were measured. Liver and intestine tissues were analyzed for proinflammatory messenger RNA (mRNA) concentrations, histologic features, sphingosine kinase-1 (SK1) immunoblotting, SK1 activity, and sphingosine-1-phosphate concentrations. Results:Renal IRI with pentobarbital led to severe renal, hepatic, and intestinal injury with focused periportal hepatocyte vacuolization; small-intestinal apoptosis; and proinflammatory mRNA up-regulation. Isoflurane protected against renal IRI and reduced hepatic and intestinal injury via induction of small-intestinal crypt SK1 mRNA, protein and enzyme activity, and increased sphingosine-1-phosphate. We confirmed the importance of SK1 because mice treated with a selective SK inhibitor or mice deficient in the SK1 enzyme were not protected against hepatic and intestinal dysfunction with isoflurane. Conclusions:Isoflurane protects against multiorgan injury after renal IRI via induction of the SK1/sphingosine-1-phosphate pathway. Our findings may help to unravel the cellular signaling pathways of volatile anesthetic-mediated hepatic and intestinal protection and may lead to new therapeutic applications of volatile anesthetics during the perioperative period.
Identification of central nervous system neurons that innervate the bladder body, bladder base, or external urethral sphincter of female rats: A transneuronal tracing study using pseudorabies virus

Transneuronal tracing techniques were used to identify the putative spinal and brainstem neurons involved in continence and voiding in the female rat. Pseudorabies virus, Bartha's K strain, was injected into either the external urethral sphincter, the bladder base, or the bladder body. After 3–5 days, the rats were perfused with fixative, and virus‐labelled cells were identified by using immunohistochemistry. External urethral sphincter (EUS) injections resulted in labelling of pudendal motoneurons in the dorsolateral nucleus of L6. Putative spinal interneurons were found in the medial cord from T13 to S1 and in the lateral gray of T13–L2 and L5–S1. After both bladder base and bladder body injections, the majority of pseudorabies virus‐labelled cells were found in the lateral gray and medial cord of L6–S1. A number of those found in the intermediolateral cell column resembled the parasympathetic preganglionic neurons; the remaining neurons in the lateral and medial gray were presumed to be interneurons. Very few pseudorabies virus‐labelled cells were found rostral to T10. In the brainstem, transneuronally labelled cells were found in the parapyramidal medullary reticular formation, Barrington's nucleus, raphe magnus, raphe pallidus, subcoeruleus pars alpha, locus coeruleus, the A5 noradrenergic cell group, and ventromedial periaqueductal gray after all injection sites. Pseudorabies virus‐labelled cells were also seen in the forebrain following the longest survival times; areas consistently labelled included the lateral hypothalamus, the parvocellular region of the paraventricular nucleus, and the medial preoptic area. These studies indicate that there is a substantial overlap of central nervous system neurons that innervate the EUS and the bladder in the female. J. Comp. Neurol. 389:584–602, 1997. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Update on the prevalence of serum antibodies (IgG and IgM) to adeno‐associated virus (AAV)

In view of presumed non‐pathogenicity, tumor suppressive properties, and site‐specific integration of the viral genome the human parvovirus, adeno‐associated virus (AAV) has gained great interest as a gene transduction vector. Data on the seroprevalence of antibodies to AAV vary between reports, probably due to the different serological methods used. In order to understand better the immune response to AAV during natural infection, sera from different age groups and various geographical regions were compared for AAV antibodies using an ELISA. The data show that the prevalence of antibodies to AAV is similar in Europe (Germany, France, and Switzerland), Brazil, and Japan, indicating worldwide infection. It was confirmed that infection takes place during childhood. However, declining seropositivity thereafter and a second increase of seropositivity after 30 years of age suggests reinfection or reactivation of latent virus in particular as the prevalence of IgM antibodies in adults is relatively high. Furthermore, pregnant women were found to be significantly more frequently seropositive than non‐pregnant controls, hinting at a reactivation of persistent AAV (up to 80% of women carry AAV in genital tissue) in specific hormonal conditions, e.g., pregnancy. Cross‐reaction of serum antibodies with the different AAV types (defined by complement fixation) was observed by ELISA and neutralization tests confirming earlier results. The results suggest an unstable AAV antibody response allowing lifelong reinfection or reactivation of persisting virus possibly due to partial immunotolerance after an infection in utero, at delivery or during early infancy. J. Med. Virol. 59:406–411, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Predictors of early mortality after acute ischaemic stroke.

BACKGROUND The study set out to identify clinical, laboratory and radiological predictors of early mortality after an acute ischaemic stroke (AIS) and to analyse medical and neurological complications that caused death. METHODS A total of 479 consecutive patients (mean age 63+/-14 years) with AIS underwent stroke examination and treatment. Examination included clinical evaluation, laboratory tests, and brain CT and/or MRI. Follow-up data at 30 days were available for 467 patients (93%) who were included in the present analysis. RESULTS The median National Institute of Health Stroke Study (NIHSS) score on admission was 6. A total of 62 patients (13%) died within 30 days. The cause of death was the initial event in 43 (69%), pneumonia in 12 (19%), intracerebral haemorrhage in 9 (15%), recurrent stroke in 6 (10%), myocardial infarction in 2 (3%), and cancer in 1 (2%) of the patients. In univariate comparisons, advanced age (p<0.001), hypertension (p=0.013), coronary disease (p=0.001), NIHSS score (p<0.001), undetermined stroke etiology (p=0.031), relevant co-morbidities (p=0.008), hyperglycemia (p<0.001), atrial fibrillation (p<0.001), early CT signs of ischemia (p<0.001), dense artery sign (p<0.001), proximal vessel occlusion (p<0.001), and thrombolysis (p=0.008) were associated with early mortality. In multivariate analysis, advanced age (HR=1.12; 95% CI 1.05-1.19; p<0.001) and high NIHSS score on admission (HR=1.15, 95% CI 1.05-1.25; p=0.002) were independent predictors of early mortality. CONCLUSIONS We report 13% mortality at 30 days after AIS. More than two thirds of the deaths are related to the initial stroke. Advanced age and high NIHSS score are the only independent predictors of early mortality in this series.
Relação entre Saliência de Stakeholders e Desempenho Financeiro

Entender a relacao entre a gestao de stakeholders e o desempenho organizacional permitiria aos gestores alocar, de forma mais eficiente, os recursos da empresa, priorizando os stakeholders mais importantes para o crescimento organizacional. Com vistas a contribuir com essa questao, este estudo objetiva analisar a relacao entre a saliencia do stakeholder e o desempenho financeiro da empresa. O modelo de saliencia embasa-se na percepcao dos gestores quanto a tres atributos dos stakeholders : poder, legitimidade e urgencia. A amostra e composta por 108 empresas brasileiras que fizeram ofertas publicas de acoes nos anos de 2003 a 2013. Os dados foram coletados dos prospectos definitivos publicados pelas empresas e do banco de dados da Economatica®. Os procedimentos metodologicos foram realizados em duas etapas, sendo a primeira de analise de conteudo e a segunda de teste da relacao saliencia-desempenho por meio da correlacao de Pearson e de modelos de regressao multipla. Os resultados mostram evidencias de uma relacao positiva e significante da saliencia dos stakeholders cliente e funcionario com o desempenho financeiro de longo prazo. Como contribuicao, esse estudo testa, empiricamente, a relacao entre a saliencia e o desempenho financeiro no contexto brasileiro.
Teaching Humanism

As the “passion that animates authentic professionalism,” humanism must be infused into medical education and clinical care as a central feature of medicine’s professionalism movement. In this article, we discuss a current definition of humanism in medicine. We will also provide detailed descriptions of educational programs intended to promote humanism at a number of medical schools in the United States (and beyond) and identify the key factors that make these programs effective. Common elements of programs that effectively teach humanism include: (1) opportunities for students to gain perspective in the lives of patients; (2) structured time for reflection on those experiences; and (3) focused mentoring to ensure that these events convert to positive, formative learning experiences. By describing educational experiences that both promote and sustain humanism in doctors, we hope to stimulate the thinking of other medical educators and to disseminate the impact of these innovative educational programs to help the profession meet its obligation to provide the public with humanistic physicians.
Exploiting the shared neighborhood to improve the quality of social community detection

The structure of community represents the latent social context of user activities and has important implementations in the field of collaborative filtering in recommendation systems, in particular; when the recommended items can be inferred based on all users' interests within a community. The important issue when there are some social networks which have no ability to division due to high connectivity among their nodes leads to overlapping communities. In this paper, we try to improve the quality of communities which created from social relations networks that have relatively cohesive connectivity. The adjacency matrix was created using direct friends and friend of a friend (FOAF) to identify the communities of friends using PAM (Partitioning Around Medoid) clustering algorithm. Experimentally, three datasets have been used as test bed for our proposed method: Delicious1, Lastfm2 and ego-Facebook3 datasets. For the performance evaluation purpose, the results obtained by proposed method are compared with results of Gephi, standard graph visualization software, using the association measure Cramer's V. Eventually, taking into consideration the direct friends and FOAF in the social graph rather than only direct friends show improvement in the quality of communities which is nearly comparable to that of Gephi. Furthermore, it is arguable to say that the outlier nodes have been mitigated as well, which represent users who are almost separate from their communities.
The electrophysiology of the somatic muscle cells of Ascaris suum and Ascaridia galli

The electrophysiological properties of the bag region of the somatic muscle cells of Ascaris suum and Ascaridia galli were studied using intracellular techniques. For Ascaris muscle cells, the mean resting membrane potentials at 20 and 37°C were −29·9 and −33·8 mV respectively, and the average input conductance was 2·12 μS. For the muscle cells of A. galli similar values were obtained. For example, the mean input conductance of these cells was 2·84 μS at 20°C. Healthy Ascaris muscle cells at near physiological temperatures show both spontaneous depolarizing and hyperpolarizing activity and, in cells close to the nerve cords, rhythmic large amplitude (approximately 30 mV) action potentials are observed. Such action potentials, which are very sensitive to temperature variations, originate in the muscle cells. In contrast the muscle cells of Ascaridia are quiescent. The rhythmic action potentials of Ascaris are resistant to tetrodotoxin (TTX) (≤ 10−6 M), verapamil (10−4 M) and cinnarizine (10−4 M), but are blocked irreversibly by 22, 23 dihydroavermectin B1a (10−7 to 5 × 10−6 M). GABA, and the GABAA receptor agonists, muscimol and isoguvacine, hyperpolarize and increase the input conductance of both Ascaris and Ascaridia muscle cells. The antagonists+bicuculline and picrotoxin were not effective in modulating the spontaneous hyper polarizations of Ascaris muscle cells, and picrotoxin (10−4 M) was not effective in altering the response to GABA (5 × 10−6 M). The significance of the results is discussed briefly.
HMGA2: A Potential Biomarker Complement to P53 for Detection of Early-stage High-grade Papillary Serous Carcinoma in Fallopian Tubes

Before high-grade papillary serous carcinoma (HG-PSC) becomes invasive, it is believed to be a poorly defined short-lived precursor lesion. A recent characterization of serous tubal intraepithelial carcinoma (STIC) and of the p53 signature suggested that HG-PSC may follow a stepwise progression on cellular and molecular levels. High-mobility group AT-hook 2 (HMGA2), an oncofetal protein, is overexpressed in ovarian cancer. To test whether HMGA2 can be another valuable marker for STIC, we examined HMGA2 expression in 3 groups of patients: (1) 24 patients with STIC and its invasive counterpart, HG-PSC of the fallopian tubes, (2) 24 patients with HG-PSC of the ovaries but without STIC (positive control), and (3) 30 patients with cancer and normal fallopian tubes (negative control). We found that HMGA2 was overexpressed in 75% of patients with STIC, was coexpressed with p53 in more than 50% of patients, and was completely negative in the secretory cells of the 30 patients with normal fallopian tubes. Among 7 patients with cells negative for p53 staining, HMGA2 was positive in 5; among 6 patients whose tumor cells were negative for HMGA2 in STIC, 3 were positive for HMGA2 in the invasive component; about 70% of invasive HG-PSC tumor cells were immunoreactive for both HMGA2 and TP53. In invasive carcinoma, HMGA2 overexpression was correlated with p53 (r=0.45), indicating the role of HMGA2 in p53 mediated tumor progression. Our findings of immunoreactivity for HMGA2 may lead to a novel, useful biomarker to complement p53 in the detection of early-stage serous carcinoma.
Steroid concentrations in isolated theca and granulosa layers of preovulatory follicles during the ovulatory cycle of the domestic hen.

The purpose of the present investigation was to measure the concentrations of progesterone (P4), testosterone (T) and estradiol-17 beta (E2) in isolated theca and granulosa layers of the five preovulatory follicles of the domestic hen. The largest follicle (F1), the second largest (F2), third largest (F3), fourth largest (F4) and fifth largest (F5) follicles were removed at 24, 18, 12, 6 and 2 h before the expected ovulation. Theca and granulosa layers were isolated and P4, T, E2 and protein concentrations determined. Protein concentrations of the granulosa and theca layers increased 5- and 15-fold, respectively, during the five ovulatory cycles prior to ovulation. As the follicle approached ovulation, there was a linear decrease in E2 concentration of the theca layer with the most significant decrease (P less than 0.001) occurring between 24 and 18 h of the ovulatory cycle. In the F3 and F4 theca layers, there was a significant increase (P less than 0.005) in E2 at 6 h of the ovulatory cycle. Fluctuations in T concentrations in theca and granulosa layers were similar. There was a significant increase (P less than 0.05) in T in both layers of the F2, F3 and F4 follicles at 6 h followed by a decrease (P less than 0.005) in the theca layers at 2 h of the ovulatory cycle. The P4 concentration of the granulosa layer increased gradually during follicular maturation, with the greatest increase occurring in the F2 and F1 granulosa layers between 18 and 12 h of the ovulatory cycle. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Audit Committee Characteristics and Financial Statement Comparability

Financial statement comparability enables weighing the similarities and differences in financial performance between firms. Prior studies mainly focus on the role of accounting standards in the production of comparability, but the role of economic agents has been largely overlooked. We find that a firm's audit committee size and financial expertise affect its financial statement comparability. Financial information tends to be more comparable among industry peers when audit committees are larger and more members have financial and accounting expertise. The effect of audit committee expertise on comparability is stronger for firms with less independent and smaller boards, for firms with non-Big 4 auditors and for firms with CEOs serving as the chairperson of the boards.
Efficacy of Music Therapy in the Treatment of Behavioral and Psychiatric Symptoms of Dementia

BackgroundMusic therapy (MT) has been proposed as valid approach for behavioral and psychologic symptoms (BPSD) of dementia. However, studies demonstrating the effectiveness of this approach are lacking. ObjectiveTo assess MT effectiveness in reducing BPSD in subjects with dementia. MethodFifty-nine persons with dementia were enrolled in this study. All of them underwent a multidimensional assessment including Mini Mental State Examination, Barthel Index and Neuropsychiatry Inventory at enrolment and after 8, 16, and 20 weeks. Subjects were randomly assigned to experimental (n=30) or control (n=29) group. The MT sessions were evaluated with standardized criteria. The experimental group received 30 MT sessions (16 wk of treatment), whereas the control group received educational support or entertainment activities. ResultsNPI total score significantly decreased in the experimental group at 8th, 16th, and 20th weeks (interaction time× group: F3, 165=5.06, P=0.002). Specific BPSD (ie, delusions, agitation, anxiety, apathy, irritability, aberrant motor activity, and night-time disturbances) significantly improved. The empathetic relationship and the patients' active participation in the MT approach, also improved in the experimental group. ConclusionsThe study shows that MT is effective to reduce BPSD in patients with moderate-severe dementia.
Critical Discourse Analysis Of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s Address at the UN Security Council

The study aims to present an analysis of Z.A Bhutto’s historic address delivered at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on December 15, 1971. The study attempts to focus on analyzing the persuasive strategies used in his speech. Critical Discourse Analysis and Content Analysis have been used to evaluate the importance of his discursive and socio-political views in his speech. The study is also focused on the analysis of ideology, power relations and socio-political aspects of Bhutto’s address at UNSC.
Identification of a Putative Salmonella enterica Serotype Typhimurium Host Range Factor with Homology to IpaH and YopM by Signature-Tagged Mutagenesis

ABSTRACT The genetic basis for the host adaptation of Salmonellaserotypes is currently unknown. We have explored a new strategy to identify Salmonella enterica serotype Typhimurium (S. typhimurium) genes involved in host adaptation, by comparing the virulence of 260 randomly generated signature-tagged mutants during the oral infection of mice and calves. This screen identified four mutants, which were defective for colonization of only one of the two host species tested. One mutant, which only displayed a colonization defect during the infection of mice, was further characterized. During competitive infection experiments performed with the S. typhimurium wild type, the mutant was defective for colonization of murine Peyer's patches but colonized bovine Peyer's patches at the wild-type level. No difference in virulence between wild type and mutant was observed when calves were infected orally with 1010 CFU/animal. In contrast, the mutant possessed a sixfold increase in 50% lethal morbidity dose when mice were infected orally. The transposon in this mutant was inserted in a 2.9-kb pathogenicity islet, which is located between uvrB andyphK on the S. typhimurium chromosome. This pathogenicity islet contained a single gene, termed slrP, with homology to ipaH of Shigella flexneri andyopM of Yersinia pestis. These data show that comparative screening of signature-tagged mutants in two animal species can be used for scanning the S. typhimurium genome for genes involved in host adaptation.
Country institutional profiles: evidence from Colombian software exporters

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how the perceived institutional environment of Colombian internationally operating small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the software industry comes to determine their performance. Design/methodology/approach The research applies regression modelling to a sample of 43 internationally operating Colombian SMEs in the software development industry, collected via an online survey. Findings The results indicate that the normative dimension of the institutional environment comes to determine the export performance of the SMEs. Conversely, the cognitive and regulatory dimensions of the institutional forces do not have a significant effect. Research limitations/implications The cross-sectional nature of the survey tool, the single industry and the single country context place limitations on the generalisability of the results across different industry and country contexts. Practical implications The results highlight the need for entrepreneurship-friendly norms and values in the context of internationalising SMEs in Latin America. Governments should focus on the development and promotion of international entrepreneurs that inspire and serve as role models for other entrepreneurs rather than concentrate on the creation of regulatory frameworks and the provision of knowledge of how to start and manage risk for the internationalising SME. Originality/value The study is one of the first to apply the Busenitz et al. (2000) scale on the institutional country profile to real entrepreneurs. Previous studies have mainly applied the framework to a sample of students or officers assigned to US embassies. Besides Renko et al.’s (2009) conference paper, ours is the first one that links the country institutional profile to the performance of internationalising software firms and, especially, in the context of a Latin American country. The study, therefore, attempts to contribute to a better understanding of how a country’s institutional environment impacts the performance of internationalising SMEs.