Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Inflammatory and neuropathic cold allodynia are selectively mediated by the neurotrophic factor receptor GFRα3

Significance There are few effective treatments for chronic cold pain induced by tissue damage, nerve injury, or chemotherapeutic polyneuropathies. Here, we show that the specific artemin receptor, glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor family of receptors-α3, is absolutely required for injury-induced cold pain, and we show results of a specific transduction pathway that can be targeted selectively to treat cold pain. Tissue injury prompts the release of a number of proalgesic molecules that induce acute and chronic pain by sensitizing pain-sensing neurons (nociceptors) to heat and mechanical stimuli. In contrast, many proalgesics have no effect on cold sensitivity or can inhibit cold-sensitive neurons and diminish cooling-mediated pain relief (analgesia). Nonetheless, cold pain (allodynia) is prevalent in many inflammatory and neuropathic pain settings, with little known of the mechanisms promoting pain vs. those dampening analgesia. Here, we show that cold allodynia induced by inflammation, nerve injury, and chemotherapeutics is abolished in mice lacking the neurotrophic factor receptor glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor family of receptors-α3 (GFRα3). Furthermore, established cold allodynia is blocked in animals treated with neutralizing antibodies against the GFRα3 ligand, artemin. In contrast, heat and mechanical pain are unchanged, and results show that, in striking contrast to the redundant mechanisms sensitizing other modalities after an insult, cold allodynia is mediated exclusively by a single molecular pathway, suggesting that artemin–GFRα3 signaling can be targeted to selectively treat cold pain.
Accuracy and Speed in Computing the Chebyshev Collocation Derivative

We study several algorithms for computing the Chebyshev spectral derivative and compare their roundoff error. For a large number of collocation points, the elements of the Chebyshev differentiation matrix, if constructed in the usual way, are not computed accurately. A subtle cause is found to account for the poor accuracy when computing the derivative by the matrix-vector multiplication method. Methods for accurately computing the elements of the matrix are presented and we find that if the entries of the matrix are computed accurately, the roundoff error of the matrix-vector multiplication is as small as that of the transform-recursion algorithm.Furthermore, results of the CPU time usage are shown for several different algorithms for computing the derivative by the Chebyshev collocation method for a wide variety of two-dimensional grid sizes on both an IBM mainframe and a Cray 2 computer. We find that which algorithm is fastest on a particular machine depends not only on the grid size, but also on small.
Sources of Abnormal EEG Activity in Brain Infarctions

EEGs from 16 patients with stroke in three different stages of evolution were recorded. EEG sources were calculated every 0.39 Hz by frequency domain VARETA. The main source was within the delta band in 2 out of 4 chronic patients, and in 67% of the patients in the acute or subacute stages when edema (cytotoxic or vasogenic) was present. Moreover, all patients showed abnormal activity in the theta band. Sources of abnormal activity in cortical or corticosubcortical infarcts were located in the cortex, surrounding the lesion. At the site of the infarct, a decrease of EEG power was observed. Sources of abnormal theta power coincided with edema and/or ischemic penumbra.
Platelet Hyporeactivity in Very Low Birth Weight Neonates

Summary Very few studies have examined platelet function in very low birth weight (VLBW) preterm neonates, because of the relatively large volumes of blood required. In this study, platelet function in clinically stable VLBW neonates was examined by whole blood flow cytometry, which requires only 5 |jl1 of whole blood per assay. The following monoclonal antibodies were used: S12 (P-selectin-specific, reflecting a granule secretion), PAC1 (directed against the fibrinogen binding site exposed on the GPIIb-IIIa complex of activated platelets), F26 (directed against a conformational change in fibrinogen bound to the GPIIb-IIIa complex), and 6D1 (directed against the von Willebrand factor binding site on the GPIb-IX-V complex). VLBW neonates, like normal adults, did not have circulating activated platelets, as determined by the lack of binding of SI2, PAC1, and F26 in the absence of an added agonist. VLBW neonatal platelets were markedly less reactive than adult platelets to thrombin, ADP/epinephrine, and U46619 (a stable thromboxane A2 analogue), as determined by the extent of increase in the platelet binding of SI2, PAC1, and F26, and the extent of decrease in the platelet binding of 6D1. In summary, compared to adults, the platelets of VLBW neonates are markedly hyporeactive to thrombin, ADP/epinephrine and a thromboxane A2 analogue in the physiologic milieu of whole blood, as determined by: 1) the increase in platelet surface P-selectin; 2) the exposure of the fibrinogen binding site on the GPIIb-IIIa complex; 3) fibrinogen binding; and 4) the decrease in platelet surface GPIb. This platelet hyporeactivity may be a factor in the propensity of VLBW neonates to intraventricular hemorrhage. In addition to its previously defined use as a test of platelet hyperreactivity, the present study suggests that whole blood flow cytometry may be useful in the clinical assessment of platelet hyporeactivity.
Incentive Based Dimensions of Enterprise Risk Management

There has been a large and committed shift to converting corporate risk management programs into enterprise risk management (ERM) systems, but the ERM literature still lacks a clear and structured picture of the incentives/benefits of ERM. We provide a structured and substantiated way of conceptualizing ERM that captures and organizes the already existing discourse. We propose that there are essentially three dimensions of ERM: governance, integration, and strategy. In a further refinement, we propose a categorization of six underlying incentives for ERM: to, (i) achieve risk oversight, (ii) provide structure to the risk management system, (iii) increase organizational risk awareness, (iv) manage portfolios of risk, (v) develop strategy, and (vi) improve strategic decision-making.
Competitive-differential polymerase chain reaction for gene dosage estimation of erbB-1 (egfr), erbB-2, and erbB-3 oncogenes.

Increases in the average gene copy number (AGCN) of the erbB oncogenes, especially the erbB-2 gene, have been found in a variety of human cancers. Such information is useful with respect to prognosis of the disease. Poor reproducibility and DNA damage complicate quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based methods. Therefore, we describe a quantitative PCR method for the estimation of AGCN in the oncogenes erbB-1 (egfr), erbB-2, and erbB-3. The method comprises a competitive and differential PCR in a one-tube reaction (competitive-differential PCR, or cdPCR). Genomic sequences of the oncogene and the human beta-globin (HBB) reference gene and two competitors for the oncogene and reference gene were amplified with two primer pairs simultaneously. The competitors were chosen to be amplified with the same efficiency as the genomic sequences. Using this method, we confirmed egfr and erbB-2 amplification in cancer cell lines and tumor tissue, and we also detected erbB-3 amplifications. Furthermore, gene dosage decreases were detectable, e.g., an erbB-2 hemizygosity in MCF-7 cells. Thus, cdPCR facilitates the detection of both increases and decreases in AGCN with high reproducibility, sensitivity, and accuracy. This method is therefore suitable for clinical studies on erbB oncogene dosage deviations.
Fuzzy MCDM Approach for Make or Buy Decision Problem

Make or buy decision is one of the crucial issues faced by today’s organizations to cope with challenges in business environment such as intensified competitive environment, increased demand for complex product/services, environmental issues, and technological advancements. Make or buy decision plays an important role on the organizations’ success, by determining total costs, profitability, investment decisions, operational effectiveness, corporate strategy, customer services, flexibility, and core competency (Humphreys et al., 2000; Tayles & Drury, 2001; Moschuris; 2008). Makeor-buy decision requires consideration of a number of conflicting criteria ranging from strategic to operational, from technological to environmental, from quantitative to qualitative factors. This study proposes a systematic approach to make or buy decision problem by using multicriteria decision making methods under fuzzy environment. Specifically the study is conducted to support the management of a Turkish company operating in the wood building products sector on their decision over the make or buy problem of a new product. The proposed approach consists of mainly two stages. Market entry decision is evaluated in the first stage, make or buy decision is handled in the second stage. The first stage employs fuzzy simple additive weighting approach (SAW) while the second stage implements an integrated approach incorporating fuzzy SAW and fuzzy VIKOR methods. The chapter is organized as follows: Second section gives a literature review on the make-orbuy decision. The proposed approach to a real life make or buy decision is presented in the third section. This section also presents the results of the problem. Future works and conclusion are presented in the last two sections of the study.
MARKETING OF MUSHROOMS

The retail price of fresh mushrooms in Indian ranges from Rs.100/- to Rs.200/- per kg, depending upon the season. In summer months the prices are higher than in winter months due to the high cost of electricity for cooling. Prices are lower in winter due to arrival of mushrooms into the market from seasonal growers. Prices of mushrooms in the marriage season go as high as Rs.200. 00 per kg for a short period due to greater demand.
Basics of SPS power transmission from space

The Solar Power Satellite (SPS) presents some fascinating problems for engineers and scientists in many disciplines. Of particular interest to readers of this Newsletter are, of course, those concerned with the antenna and microwave aspects of SPS. Hence, this brief tutorial 6iscussion has beepnr epared to acquaintk nowledgeable readers with the fundamentals of power transfer through space by means oaf microwave beam.
Buccal bone plate remodeling after immediate implants with or without synthetic bone grafting and flapless surgery: a histomorphometric and fluorescence study in dogs.

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to evaluate the buccal bone plate remodeling after immediate implantation using the flapless approach with or without bone graft into the gap between the implant and the buccal bone. MATERIAL AND METHODS Eight dogs had the mandibular bicuspids extracted without flaps, and four implants were installed on each side, totaling eight implants per animal. Randomly, in one side, the implants were positioned at the bone crest level (equicrestal), and on the opposite side, the implants were positioned 2 mm subcrestal. All the implants were positioned 2.0 mm from the buccal bone plate (gap) and associated or not with grafting material. Therefore, the following treatments were performed: implants subcrestal test (SCTG) with bone graft and control (SCCG) without bone graft, and equicrestal test (ECTG) with bone graft and control (ECCG) without bone graft. One week following the surgeries, metallic prostheses were installed. Bone markers were administered 1, 2, 4, and 12 weeks after implant placement for fluorescence analysis. Ground sections were prepared from 12-week healing biopsies, and histomorphometry was performed. RESULTS The histomorphometric evaluation presents significant better results for the ECTG in the vertical crestal bone resorption, but the other parameters showed better results for the SCCG. The fluorescence evaluation in adjacent areas showed numerically different results between groups with a small decrease at 12 weeks, except for the SCCG, which was higher at this time. The distant area showed a continuous increase in the marked bone. CONCLUSION The equicrestally placed implants presented little or no loss of the buccal bone wall. The subcrestally positioned implants presented loss of buccal bone, regardless of the use of bone graft. However, the buccal bone was always coronal to the implant shoulder. Both the equicrestal and subcrestal groups were benefited in the early stages of bone healing as evidenced by the fluorescence analysis.
Multicentre survey to explore current survival of patients with acute myeloid leukaemia who failed induction chemotherapy

Acute myeloid leukaemia not responsive to first induction chemotherapy (PIF‐AML) still remains a challenge, and there are only few recent epidemiological data regarding the outcome of these patients. In this multicentre survey, we evaluate the prognosis and outcome of patients with PIF‐AML, who were diagnosed and treated in the last 5 yrs in four Italian institutions.
Women entrepreneurs’ legal position in relation to effecting communications and payments using mobile phones: A need for reform

The use of mobile phones for their communication and simple financial payments needs has been widely touted as capable of facilitating womenâ€™s development, by aiding women reduce the flexibility, mobility and time constraints they face in running their small businesses in addition to their responsibility of managing households. This dissertation explores how women in informal business in a small, urban fruits and vegetable market in Nairobi Kenya, use mobile phones to meet their communication and payment needs in both personal and business lives. While Mobile phones have been recommended for their catalytic role of in facilitating development for the poor and marginalised women, their adoption and use, as a means of empowering women poses challenges that the government through its sector regulators need to seriously consider. To start with, the people who stand to benefit most by use of mobile phone technology are women, the poor and the marginalised. These are the people who often face imbalances in economic terms, educational levels and bargaining power. They are especially vulnerable because the capacity of technology to facilitate their access to services lauded as capable of facilitating their development, presents opportunities and challenges in equal measure. A combination of mobile telephony and mobile payments now opens up business people large and small to unlimited possibilities. The dissertation sought to identify the benefits and the challenges that the women face in their use of mobile phones for communication. It raises issues of consumer protection as challenge for banking and communications regulators. It also delves into the benefits and challenges that use of basic mobiles payment services presents. It provides an overview of the applicable legal and regulatory framework and suggests pertinent issues that need reform. ,NORAD
Ischemia Imaging and Plaque Imaging in Diabetes: Complementary Tools to Improve Cardiovascular Risk Management

Cardiovascular disease is the most frequent cause of death and disability in diabetes, and the morbidity and mortality for coronary artery disease (CAD) in this population is two to four times higher than in nondiabetic subjects. Traditional risk factors do not fully explain the level of cardiovascular risk, and coronary disease events are often silent in diabetic patients. Thus, research has recently focused on improving the risk assessment of an individual patient with new tools in an effort to better identify subjects at highest risk and in need of aggressive management. Cardiovascular imaging has proven very helpful in this regard. Traditional methods to assess CAD are based on detection of obstructive luminal disease responsible for myocardial ischemia. However, acute coronary syndromes often occur in the absence of luminal stenoses. Hence, the utilization of imaging methodologies to visualize atherosclerosis in its presymptomatic stages has received mounting attention in recent years. In this article, we review the current literature on the utility of traditional imaging modalities for obstructive CAD (nuclear and echocardiographic stress testing) as well as atherosclerosis plaque imaging with carotid intima-media thickness and coronary artery calcium for risk stratification of diabetic patients.
The New Frontier of Mobile Communication Ethics

Mobile communication pertains to all receptive and expressive functions enabled by a smartphone, whereas mobile communication ethics encompasses communication motives and means and ends, which can all be viewed using ethical lenses (Johannsen, Valde & Whedbee, 2008) related to all cellphone applications. Additionally, mobile communication ethics may be more simply understood as a generic system of acceptable and unacceptable communication behaviors (Allen 1990), applicable to smartphone communications. Mobile communication ethics emerged as a branch of technoethics following the global diffusion of cell phones as communication affordances in the 1990s (Luppicini, 2008). As Tenner (1977) noted, new technology is often initially greeted with enthusiasm, as demonstrated in the initial euphoria expressed regarding the obvious merits of cellphone technology (Fox 2001; Nyri, 2005), until its dark side emerges much later (Tenner, 1977). Among the pioneers of cellphone ethics research are American authors Dr Joseph Coates and Dr Jennifer Jarrat (Coates & Jarrat, 1990), Dr James Katz of the University of Rutgers (Katz, 1999) and Dr Richard Ling of the University of IT Copenhagen (Ling, 1997). Whilst these pioneering scholars continue to dominate the mobile communication ethics research landscape, others most notably Dr Charles Ess of the University of Oslo (Ess, 2009) and Dr Naomi Baron of American University in Washington (Baron, 2008) have produced relevant research prolifically as emerging leaders in the new scholarly field.
Studenti svantaggiati e fattori di promozione della resilienza

Many studies showed the impact that the socio-economic context and students’ characteristics, such as gender and migratory background, have on mathematical performance. This situation poses a problem of equity of the educational system: some groups of young people are in fact disadvantaged for reasons independent of their commitment to the study. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the presence of factors on which teachers can intervene, allowing disadvantaged students to achieve excellence. The contribution aims to identify associated factors not only to compensate for the disadvantage associated with student background conditions, but to a real reversal of predictions in terms of skills acquired. The results show the impact that geographic membership, the socio-economic-cultural background of schools and families and gender, in their interaction, exert in defining situations of major disadvantage for students. At the same time, there is evidence for the protective role played by some teaching strategies, student self-beliefs, and other factors related to specific background situations.
Generating OER by Recording Lectures: A Case Study

The University of Vigo, Vigo, Spain, has the objective of making all the teaching material generated by its teachers freely available. To attain this objective, it encourages the development of Open Educational Resources, especially videos. This paper presents an experience of recording lectures and generating the corresponding videos as a step toward this objective. The core system used to record lectures is Opencast Matterhorn (free and open-source customizable software to support the management of educational audio and video content). This paper also focuses on the study and analysis of the students' experience of using recorded videos as support for their learning process. This case study was carried out in the Fall 2012 offering of the first-year Computer Architecture course in the University of Vigo's Telecommunication Technologies Engineering program. Finally, the paper addresses students' level of satisfaction with the recorded lectures and gives students' opinions on the use of these videos.
Accelerated ageing tests for predicting capacitor lifetimes

Being reliability critical components, and widely used in electronics today, electrolytic aluminum capacitors are one of the most likely components to fail under extreme working conditions. Therefore in safety critical applications, their lifetime prediction is of vital importance. The following paper analyses current prediction algorithms and offers an improved solution for capacitor lifetime prediction. The results are obtained from accelerated ageing tests and theoretical data obtained from calculi are compared to real world data obtained from measurements.
Developmental failure of hybrid embryos generated by in vitro fertilization of water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) oocyte with bovine spermatozoa

The developmental potential of inter‐species hybrid embryos produced by in vitro fertilization of in vitro matured buffalo oocytes with bovine spermatozoa was studied with a view to investigate pre‐implantation embryo development and its gross morphology, early embryonic gene expression, and embryonic genome activation. Fertilization events with both buffalo and cattle spermatozoa were almost similar. Overall fertilization rate with cattle spermatozoa was 78.4% was not significantly different from that of buffalo spermatozoa (80.2%). Initial cleavage rate between buffalo and hybrid embryo was also similar, and there was no significant difference in their developmental rate till 8‐cell stage (26.0 ± 4.1 vs. 24.3 ± 4.8). However, only 5.3% of hybrid embryos developed into blastocyst stage compared to 21.7% in buffalo. mRNA phenotyping of insulin‐like growth factor family (Insulin, insulin receptor, IGF‐I, IGF‐I receptor, IGF‐II, and IGF‐II receptor) and glucose transporter isoforms (GLUT‐I, II, III, IV) in hybrid embryos clearly showed that these molecules were not expressed after 8‐cell stage onward. Similarly, as observed in buffalo embryos, incorporation of 35S‐methionine and 3H‐uridine could not be observed in hybrid embryos from 8‐cell stage onward. This suggests that the maternal‐zygotic genome activation did not occur in hybrid embryos. Differential staining also showed that the blastomere stopped dividing after 8‐cell stage. Collectively, these parameters clearly showed that there was developmental failure of hybrid embryos. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 64: 360–368, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.