bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Dynamics of the Splenic Innate-like CD19+CD45Rlo Cell Population from Adult Mice in Homeostatic and Activated Conditions
Authors: de Andrés Belén , Prado Carmen , Palacios Beatriz , Alía Mario , Jagtap Sharmili , Serrano Natalia , Cortegano Isabel , Marcos Miguel Angel R. , Gaspar Maria Luisa 
Published: July 2012

Abstract
In the adult spleen, CD19+CD45R−/lo (19+45Rlo) lymphocytes of embryonic origin exist as a distinct population to that of the conventional B cell lineage. These cells display a plasmablast phenotype, and they spontaneously secrete IgG1 and IgA, whereas the bone marrow population of 19+45Rlo cells contains B1 progenitors. In this study, we show that 19+45Rlo cells are also present in Peyer’s patches and in the spleen throughout the life span of wild-type mice, beginning at postnatal day 7. Although this population is heterogeneous, the surface phenotype of most of these cells distinguishes them from follicular, transitional, marginal zone, and B1 cells. In CBA/CaHN mice, few 19+45Rlo cells were detected at postnatal day 7, and none was observed in the adult spleen. Splenic 19+45Rlo cells exhibited homeostatic BrdU uptake in vivo and actively transcribed cell cycle genes. When transferred to immunodeficient RAG2−/−γchain−/− recipient mice, 19+45Rlo cells survived and differentiated into IgG1– and IgA–plasma cells. Moreover, in vitro stimulation of splenic 19+45Rlo cells with LPS, CpG, BAFF/IL4, and CD40/IL4 induced cell proliferation, IgG1/IgA secretion and the release of IL-10, suggesting a potential immunoregulatory role for this subset of innate-like B cells.
A GpC-Rich Oligonucleotide Acts on Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cells To Promote Immune Suppression
Authors: Volpi Claudia , Fallarino Francesca , Bianchi Roberta , Orabona Ciriana , De Luca Antonella , Vacca Carmine , Romani Luigina , Gran Bruno , Grohmann Ursula , Puccetti Paolo , Belladonna Maria L. 
Published: July 2012

AbstractShort synthetic oligodeoxynucleotides (ODNs) rich in CpG or GpG motifs have been considered as potential modulators of immunity in clinical settings. In this study, we show that a synthetic GpC-ODN conferred highly suppressive activity on mouse splenic plasmacytoid dendritic cells, demonstrable in vivo in a skin test assay. The underlying mechanism involved signaling by noncanonical NF-κB family members and TGF-β–dependent expression of the immunoregulatory enzyme IDO. Unlike CpG-ODNs, the effects of GpC-ODN required TLR7/TRIF-mediated but not TLR9/MyD88-mediated events, as do sensing of viral ssRNA and the drug imiquimod. Induction of IDO by a GpC-containing ODN could also be demonstrated in human dendritic cells, allowing those cells to assist FOXP3+ T cell generation in vitro. Among potentially therapeutic ODNs, this study identifies GpC-rich sequences as novel activators of TLR7-mediated, IDO-dependent regulatory responses.
Type I Alveolar Epithelial Cells Mount Innate Immune Responses during Pneumococcal Pneumonia
Authors: Yamamoto Kazuko , Ferrari Joseph D. , Cao Yuxia , Ramirez Maria I. , Jones Matthew R. , Quinton Lee J. , Mizgerd Joseph P. 
Published: July 2012

AbstractPneumonia results from bacteria in the alveoli. The alveolar epithelium consists of type II cells, which secrete surfactant and associated proteins, and type I cells, which constitute 95% of the surface area and meet anatomic and structural needs. Other than constitutively expressed surfactant proteins, it is unknown whether alveolar epithelial cells have distinct roles in innate immunity. Because innate immunity gene induction depends on NF-κB RelA (also known as p65) during pneumonia, we generated a murine model of RelA mutated throughout the alveolar epithelium. In response to LPS, only 2 of 84 cytokine transcripts (CCL20 and CXCL5) were blunted in lungs of mutants, suggesting that a very limited subset of immune mediators is selectively elaborated by the alveolar epithelium. Lung CCL20 induction required epithelial RelA regardless of stimulus, whereas lung CXCL5 expression depended on RelA after instillation of LPS but not pneumococcus. RelA knockdown in vitro suggested that CXCL5 induction required RelA in type II cells but not type I cells. Sorted cell populations from mouse lungs revealed that CXCL5 was induced during pneumonia in type I cells, which did not require RelA. TLR2 and STING were also induced in type I cells, with RelA essential for TLR2 but not STING. To our knowledge, these data are the first direct demonstration that type I cells, which constitute the majority of the alveolar surface, mount innate immune responses during bacterial infection. These are also, to our knowledge, the first evidence for entirely RelA-independent pathways of innate immunity gene induction in any cell during pneumonia.
GB Virus C Envelope Protein E2 Inhibits TCR-Induced IL-2 Production and Alters IL-2–Signaling Pathways
Authors: Bhattarai Nirjal , McLinden James H. , Xiang Jinhua , Kaufman Thomas M. , Stapleton Jack T. 
Published: July 2012

Abstract
GB virus type C (GBV-C) viremia is associated with reduced CD4+ T cell expansion following IL-2 therapy and with a reduction in T cell activation in HIV-infected individuals. The mechanism(s) by which GBV-C might alter T cell activation or IL-2 signaling have not been studied. In this study, we assess IL-2 release, IL-2R expression, IL-2 signaling, and cell proliferation in tet-off Jurkat cells expressing the GBV-C envelope glycoprotein (E2) following activation through the TCR. TCR activation was induced by incubation in anti-CD3/CD28 Abs. IL-2 release was measured by ELISA, STAT5 phosphorylation was assessed by immunoblot, and IL-2Rα (CD25) expression and cell proliferation were determined by flow cytometry. IL-2 and IL-2Rα steady-state mRNA levels were measured by real-time PCR. GBV-C E2 expression significantly inhibited IL-2 release, CD25 expression, STAT5 phosphorylation, and cellular proliferation in Jurkat cells following activation through the TCR compared with control cell lines. Reducing E2 expression by doxycycline reversed the inhibitory effects observed in the E2-expressing cells. The N-terminal 219 aa of E2 was sufficient to inhibit IL-2 signaling. Addition of purified recombinant GBV-C E2 protein to primary human CD4+ and CD8+ T cells inhibited TCR activation-induced IL-2 release and upregulation of IL-2Rα expression. These data provide evidence that the GBV-C E2 protein may contribute to the block in CD4+ T cell expansion following IL-2 therapy in HIV-infected individuals. Furthermore, the effects of GBV-C on IL-2 and IL-2–signaling pathways may contribute to the reduction in chronic immune activation observed in GBV-C/HIV–coinfected individuals.
Globalization, Ethics, and Opportunism: A Confucian View of Business Relationships
Authors: Romar Edward J. 
Published: July 2012

Abstract:Opportunism impacts the behavior of firms in market situations where they purchase goods and services externally and create dependency relationships with other firms. Opportunism as a business issue is addressed in economics and marketing literature as an important factor in transaction cost analysis and market governance. Management and business ethics scholars, however, do not address this issue in depth, if at all.The recent bankruptcy of MCI WorldCom highlights some of the risks inherent in a world economy where customers and companies of one society are dependent upon the business practices of partner companies in other societies. Telecommunications customers and companies in Asia, Europe and other places, who depended upon MCI WorldCom for connections to North America, now have important areas of their business in jeopardy because of the uncertainty about the fate of a critical business partner.MCI WorldCom’s situation appears to be the result of an attempt to obtain personal gain, at the expense of others, by at least one senior manager. This is called opportunism. Williamson (1985) defined opportunism as “self-interest seeking with guile.” It can wreak havoc with companies, customers, stock markets and economies and is demonstrated regularly in press accounts of misstatements on financial reports and other ways senior managers use their positions to enhance their personal wealth and influence.This paper will focus on the ethical issues surrounding business relationships and how Confucianism, with its focus on trust, reciprocity and mutual benefit in relationships, can offer a moral foundation to the inter-firm arrangements that are so much a part of the contemporary business landscape.
Buy Bribes or Bye-Bye Bribes: The Future Status of Bribery in International Commerce
Authors: Weber James , Getz Kathleen 
Published: July 2012

Abstract:Bribery in international business has become a priority concern among business, government, and community leaders. While discussions among philosophers often emphasize the ethical justification for banning bribery, policy-makers around the world are challenging it on the basis of its effects for economic development. In this paper we define bribery, trace recent efforts by the public, private, and civil society sectors to curb it, and attempt to answer the question: Will bribery become less common?
Introduction: Ethical Responsibilities Regarding Drugs, Patents, and Health
Authors: Ryan Michael P. 
Published: July 2012

HIV/AIDS threatens international health on a scale never before seen in human history. Previous plagues and great epidemics, devastating though they were to imperial China, urbanizing Europe, and the colonizing Americas (McNeill 1998), were regionally contained. More than forty million people worldwide are HIV-positive: about half of them live in sub-Saharan Africa, where it apparently originated and where whole tribes and, indeed, most of the adult population of Botswana may very well die of the disease. (Joint UN/WHO 2004). India has another five million people who are HIV-positive, the largest number outside Africa. AIDS is spreading rapidly in China and devastating Thailand, a regional center for prostitution that spreads it further throughout the Asia-Pacific region. No part of the world is spared. The economic, social, and political impacts of this pandemic have only begun to be felt and to be considered.Modern technological and organizational capacities—jet aircraft and globetrotting business and tourist travelers—turned what would have been, in previous eras, an African regional problem into an international crisis and made AIDS exceedingly difficult to contain. Yet, the human technological and organizational capacity to confront the AIDS pandemic also makes this health crisis different from epidemics in earlier times. Medical science applied by pharmacological research has created drug therapies that can control the disease, that can not only stave off death but make productive life possible for many years. The challenge of AIDS could be met, many in the health community say, if it were not that the life-sustaining drugs are owned by private enterprises (Oxfam 2002). The doctors at Médicins Sans Frontières contend, “Patents are not god-given rights. They are tools invented to benefit society as a whole, not to line the pockets of a handful of multinational pharmaceutical companies” (MSF 2003: 2). “[T]he patent monopoly means that a higher price than necessary has to be paid for patented inventions. This is acceptable if this higher price is merely an inconvenience…. However, if the patented invention is essential (say, if it could prevent your untimely death from disease), then the price is more of a dilemma” (MSF 2003: 5). These and other critics declare that drug makers put profits ahead of people and accuse the governments that grant them patent-intellectual property rights, especially the U.S. government, of contributing to this moral bankruptcy.
Can Utilitarianism Be Distributive? Maximization and Distribution as Criteria in Managerial Decisions
Authors: Audi Robert 
Published: July 2012

ABSTRACT:Utilitarianism is commonly defined in very different ways, sometimes in a single text. There is wide agreement that it mandates maximizing some kind of good, but many formulations also require a pattern of distribution. The most common of these take utilitarianism to characterize right acts as those that achieve “the greatest good for the greatest number.” This paper shows important ambiguities in this formulation and contrasts it (on any plausible interpretation of it) with the kinds of utilitarian views actually defended by major proponents of utilitarianism. The aim is not to defend any of these views but to formulate them in a way that facilitates using them—or, more likely, some revised version suggested by the paper—in guiding decisions in business. The analysis provided here should also facilitate appraisal of utilitarianism, contribute to clarity in discussions of business ethics, and suggest a range of ethical standards that merit consideration for certain kinds of decision. If the results of the analysis are correct, a distributive reading of utilitarianism is at best misleading as a representation of its central thrust; it should not be described as the view that ethics calls for achieving “the greatest good for the greatest number”; and, understood as its major proponents take it, utilitarianism differs more from Kantian ethics than distributive readings imply and is more difficult to defend than it appears to be when viewed as intrinsically distributive.
Reluctant Guardians: The Moral Responsibility of Gatekeepers
Authors: Boatright John R. 
Published: July 2012

ABSTRACT:Intermediaries, such as accountants, lawyers, and bankers, are gatekeepers, which are parties whose cooperation is necessary for corporations to function and who, by withholding cooperation, are able to prevent significant corporate misconduct. The recent scandals at Enron and other corporations were due, in part, to failures by gatekeeper institutions. However, intermediaries exist primarily to provide for-fee services and not specifically to detect and deter misconduct. Insofar as these institutions are gatekeepers or guardians, they serve reluctantly. Hence the question: What is the responsibility of intermediaries to act as gatekeepers? This article argues that the appropriate moral, as well as legal, principle for justifying responsibility in a gatekeeper role is cost effectiveness. This conclusion is reached by means of a hypothetical exercise called the investors’ bargain in which investors—who bear the costs and receive the benefits of intermediaries’ gatekeeper role—are asked to choose the best means of protecting their interests.
Introduction to the Special Issue: Globalization as a Challenge for Business Responsibilities
Authors: Scherer Andreas Georg , Palazzo Guido , Matten Dirk 
Published: July 2012

ABSTRACTThis article assesses some of the implications of globalization for the scholarly debate on business ethics, CSR and related concepts. The argument is based, among other things, on the declining capacity of nation state institutions to regulate socially desirable corporate behavior as well as the growing corporate exposure to heterogeneous social, cultural and political values in societies globally. It is argued that these changes are shifting the corporate role towards a sphere of societal governance hitherto dominated by traditional political actors. This leads to a discussion of the ambivalent results of such a process for a responsible corporate role in a globalized world. While assessing the current reception these changes have received in the management literature, the contributions of the four articles in this Special Issue are framed and evaluated. The argument closes by highlighting avenues of future research on this new challenge.
From Implicit to Explicit Corporate Social Responsibility: Institutional Change as a Fight for Myths
Authors: Hiss Stefanie 
Published: July 2012

ABSTRACTThe focus of this paper is institutional change and the changing role of business in Germany. Back in the 1980s, the German institutional framework was characterized by implicit mandatory and obligatory regulations that set a clear context for responsible corporate behavior. Today, this framework has eroded and given way to a situation in which corporations explicitly and voluntarily take responsibility for social issues. This shift from implicit to explicit corporate social responsibility is an indication of a major institutional change epitomized by the deconstruction of ‘old’ and the reconstruction of ‘new’ institutions. In the course of this change, corporations, state actors, and civil society organizations compete for their ideas and interests in what we call a fight for myths. The paper traces this fight for myths and the changing understanding of corporate responsibility in Germany.
Ceramics and Polity in the Casas Grandes Area, Chihuahua, Mexico
Authors: Whalen Michael E. , Minnis Paul E. 
Published: July 2012

AbstractThe Medio period (ca. A.D. 1150–1475) at the primate center of Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico, is characterized by polychrome pottery with elaborate, finely painted designs. This originally was presumed to be the peak of an evolutionary sequence that began with coarse, simple decoration. New research and dating show that this was not the case. Instead, fine painting and an elaborate set of design motifs are added to the older, simpler style at about A.D. 1300. Both types of decoration are produced through the fourteenth century. The addition of the new style is coincident with the rise of Casas Grandes and was one part of a symbolic package that emphasized the prestige of the center. It is further argued that the collapse of the primate center in the fifteenth century saw the demise of its symbolism. The older and simpler part of the Medio period tradition, however, likely continued to be made at small, scattered post-Casas Grandes communities. These have been unrecognizable in surface surveys, as their sparse surface ceramic assemblages contain Medio period utilitarian wares. This has led to the supposition that the Casas Grandes area was abandoned after the fall of the primate center. This long-popular belief may be incorrect.
Strategy to Efficient Photodynamic Therapy for Antibacterium: Donor‐Acceptor Structure in Hydrogen‐Bonded Organic Framework
Authors: Zou Ying , Liu Hai‐Xiong , Cai Lei , Li Yu‐Hang , Hu Jiang‐Shan , Liu Chen , Liu Tian‐Fu 
Published: June 2024

AbstractWhile the construction of a donor‐acceptor (D‐A) structure has gained great attention across various scientific disciplines, such structures are seldomly reported within the field of hydrogen‐bonded organic frameworks (HOFs). Herein, a D‐A based HOF is synthesized, where the adjacent D‐A pairs are connected by hydrogen bonds instead of the conventionally employed covalent bonds. This structural feature imparts material with a reduced energy gap between excited state and triplet state, thereby facilitating the intersystem crossing (ISC) and boosting the generation rate of single oxygen (quantum yield = 0.98). Consequently, the resulting material shows high performance for antimicrobial photodynamic therapy (PDT). The impact of D‐A moiety is evident when comparing this finding to a parallel study conducted on an isoreticular HOF without a D‐A structure. The study presented here provides in‐depth insights into the photophysical properties of D‐A pair in a hydrogen‐bonded network, opening a new avenue to the design of innovative materials for efficient PDT.
Organic Visible‐Blind Ultraviolet Photodiodes and Pixel‐Array Imagers Based on [1]Benzothieno[3,2‐b]Benzothiophene (BTBT) Derivatives
Authors: Wang Wei , Deng Yujun , Sun Shuai , Galluzzi Massimiliano , Jiao Yang , Chu Paul K. , Li Zeren , Li Jia , Yao Jianquan 
Published: June 2024

AbstractVisible‐blind ultraviolet (VBUV) photodetectors are designed for UV detection without responding to visible light, thus having many applications in communications, flame detection, environment monitoring, and astronomy. Herein, an organic device concept based on the bulk heterojunction (BHJ) photodiode is presented for high‐performance VBUV photodetection and imaging. The BHJ, comprised of an organic electron donor, 2,7‐dioctyl[1]benzothieno[3,2‐b][1]benzothiophene (C8‐BTBT), and an electron acceptor, indene‐C60 bisadduct (ICBA), shows efficient generation and transport of free charges upon UV irradiation. The organic photodiode (OPD) delivers exceptional VBUV photodetection performance. At a low voltage of −0.5 V, the device exhibits a wide linear dynamic range of 98.15 dB. Furthermore, the OPD can detect ultra‐low light intensities down to 0.58 µW cm−2 with a high photoresponsivity of 0.12 A W−1 and specific detectivity of 2.75 × 1012 Jones. More importantly, by integrating the OPD with a readout integrated circuit, the pixel‐array organic VBUV imager is demonstrated to have high‐quality imaging capability. The results reveal a novel strategy to design VBUV photodetectors and imagers with balanced performance, cost, area, flexibility, and power consumption.
Effect of microwave frying on the physicochemical properties of palm olein and French fries
Authors: How Yu Hsuan , Nyam Kar Lin , Lee Xian Wei , Akanda Md Jahurul Haque , Tan Chin Ping 
Published: June 2024

AbstractThis study aimed to evaluate the effect of microwave power and duration on French fries using palm olein. The deep‐fat frying was served as a control. The microwave frying of French fries was conducted at low (100 W), medium (600 W), and high (1000 W) for 1, 3, and 5 min. The physicochemical properties of French fries and the quality of palm olein were analyzed. The French fries microwaved at 600 W for 3 min showed comparable hardness (300 g), cohesiveness (0.76), springiness (3.5 mm), adhesion (0.3 mJ), and water activity (0.88 Aw) to deep‐fat frying. The palm olein demonstrated lower peroxide and para‐anisidine values in microwave frying; while deep‐fat frying had lower total polar compounds in frying oil and lower oil content in oil extracted from French fries. Nevertheless, the high oxidation stability in terms of peroxide and para‐anisidine value in frying oil from microwave frying showed its potential as an alternative frying technique to deep‐fat frying.