143 research outputs found
Author Correction: Para-infectious brain injury in COVID-19 persists at follow-up despite attenuated cytokine and autoantibody responses (Nature Communications, (2023), 14, 1, (8487), 10.1038/s41467-023-42320-4)
No full textCorrection to: Nature Communications https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-42320-4, published online 22 December 2023.The author correction has been noted on the original BURA record at https://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/28104 .Correction to: Nature Communicationshttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-42320-4, published online 22 December 2023 The original version of this article omitted three members of the COVID-CNS Consortium. Alex Berry and Obioma Orazulume, who are from the ‘University College London, London, UK’, and Ian Galea, who is from the ‘University of Southampton, Southampton, UK’ were added to the list of COVID-CNS Consortium members. This has been corrected in both the PDF and HTML versions of the article
Long-term impact of investments in early schooling
Get PDFThis paper identifies the cumulative impact of early schooling investments on later schooling outcomes in the context of a developing country, using enrollment status and relative grade attainment (RGA) as short- and long-run measures of schooling. Using a child-level longitudinal dataset from rural Ethiopia, we estimate a dynamic conditional schooling demand function where the coefficient estimate on the lagged dependent variable captures the impact of all previous periods’ schooling inputs and resources. We find that this lagged dependent variable indicates a strong positive association between current and lagged schooling. Past history matters more for girls than boys and for children from higher-income households compared with the poor.panel data, Schooling, value-added,
The productivity effects of decentralized reforms - an analysis of the Chinese industrial reforms
Get PDFThe empirical literature on the effects of ownership has not distinguished between the effects of ownership and the effects of control. It has also generally ignored the dynamic effects of various ownership and control rights. Using a rich set of panel data about changes in China's state-owned enterprises, the author examines the static and dynamic effects of decentralizing ownership and control rights. He finds that productivity and growth rates improved significantly when reform improved the incentives for managers and employees to learn and to work hard - for example by decentralizing the rights to control wages, make production decisions, and appoint new managers. Increasing profit-retention rates and adopting performance contracts - conventionally viewed as the most important reforms for China's state enterprises - did not improve productivity much. Overall, decentralization accounted for a least 42 percent of productivity growth in Chinese state enterprises in the 1980s. Much of that gain came from improvements in the growth rate of productivity rather than in improved levels of productivity.Labor Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Public Health Promotion,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Municipal Financial Management
Bank privatization in Argentina : a model of political constraints and differential outcomes
Get PDFBased on results from country case studies, many researchers have claimed that political constraints affect bank privatization transactions, which in turn affect the post-privatization performance of the banking sector. But no study has either econometrically tested how political constraints affect bank privatization transactions or theretically modeled the privatization transaction. The authors present a simple theoretical framework that models the inherent tradeoffs faced by governments and potential buyers in privatization transactions involving banks. The potential buyer is concerned about the probability that the bank will remain solvent, about the profits it will earn after privatization, and about the price paid for the assets and liabilities. The government is concerned about the price received for the assets, about layoffs, and about service coverage after privatization. The evidence from bank privatization transactions in Argentina in the 1990s supports several of their theoretical predictions. In particular, provinces with highfiscal deficits were willing to accept layoffs and to guarantee a larger part of the privatized banks'portfolio in return for a higher price. The tequila crisis (Mexico's economic crisis in 1994-95) meant that politicians could protect fewer jobs and had to assume a greater share of their public banks'assets. Evidence of better performance at banks privatized after Mexico's crisis suggests that, by tying politicians'hands, the crisis may have brought unforeseen benefits. This conjecture awaits further empirical validation, but the authors hope that by explicitly incorporating the incentives politicians face, analysis can begin to address the question of why some privatizations succeed more than others.Economic Theory&Research,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management,Economic Theory&Research,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism
A Multivariate Surface-Based Analysis of the Putamen in Premature Newborns: Regional Differences within the Ventral Striatum
Get PDFMany children born preterm exhibit frontal executive dysfunction, behavioral problems including attentional deficit/hyperactivity disorder and attention related learning disabilities. Anomalies in regional specificity of cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical circuits may underlie deficits in these disorders. Nonspecific volumetric deficits of striatal structures have been documented in these subjects, but little is known about surface deformation in these structures. For the first time, here we found regional surface morphological differences in the preterm neonatal ventral striatum. We performed regional group comparisons of the surface anatomy of the striatum (putamen and globus pallidus) between 17 preterm and 19 term-born neonates at term-equivalent age. We reconstructed striatal surfaces from manually segmented brain magnetic resonance images and analyzed them using our in-house conformal mapping program. All surfaces were registered to a template with a new surface fluid registration method. Vertex-based statistical comparisons between the two groups were performed via four methods: univariate and multivariate tensor-based morphometry, the commonly used medial axis distance, and a combination of the last two statistics. We found statistically significant differences in regional morphology between the two groups that are consistent across statistics, but more extensive for multivariate measures. Differences were localized to the ventral aspect of the striatum. In particular, we found abnormalities in the preterm anterior/inferior putamen, which is interconnected with the medial orbital/prefrontal cortex and the midline thalamic nuclei including the medial dorsal nucleus and pulvinar. These findings support the hypothesis that the ventral striatum is vulnerable, within the cortico-stiato-thalamo-cortical neural circuitry, which may underlie the risk for long-term development of frontal executive dysfunction, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and attention-related learning disabilities in preterm neonates. © 2013 Shi et al
Environmental Effects on BDNF, its Detection and Use In Neuron Plasticity
No full textDisorders such as Depression and Anxiety have been shown to be directly linked to stress in the brain and the effects of chronic stress and how it sets the stage for depression and anxiety to start due to the lack of maintenance of the neurons allowing for it to progress. Specifically, the lack of being able to reorganize the neuron has been shown to allow for these disorders to develop quicker. It has been shown that this is linked to the lack of a protein produced in the brain called, brain derived neurotropic factor (BDNF). BDNF is a growth factor that is used by the cell's dendrites to enhance the survival of the Neuron cells. (Bathina and Das 1164-1178) The use of BDNF in both developmental treatments and therapy have been thoroughly documented and used from general inflammation to type 2 diabetes and general neurological disorders. BDNF in particular is very clinically important due to its large signaling cascades where a single action leads to hundreds of others such as how BDNF is attributed with making the neuron have more malleable plasticity. Its use in treatment is well known overall but its use in development isn't. We set up two populations of rat's in enriched and standard environments that were both under the same stressors, and then examined the BDNF levels in their prefrontal cortex and their hippocampus via a western blot. (More than 20 Blots) We were only able to detect BDNF once due to the nature of western blots, and due to this have started to set up a robust framework for western analysis of rat BDNF
Human retinoic acid–regulated CD161+ regulatory T cells support wound repair in intestinal mucosa
Get PDF\ua9 2018, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature America, Inc. Repair of tissue damaged during inflammatory processes is key to the return of local homeostasis and restoration of epithelial integrity. Here we describe CD161+ regulatory T (Treg) cells as a distinct, highly suppressive population of Treg cells that mediate wound healing. These Treg cells were enriched in intestinal lamina propria, particularly in Crohn’s disease. CD161+ Treg cells had an all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA)-regulated gene signature, and CD161 expression on Treg cells was induced by ATRA, which directly regulated the CD161 gene. CD161 was co-stimulatory, and ligation with the T cell antigen receptor induced cytokines that accelerated the wound healing of intestinal epithelial cells. We identified a transcription-factor network, including BACH2, RORγt, FOSL2, AP-1 and RUNX1, that controlled expression of the wound-healing program, and found a CD161+ Treg cell signature in Crohn’s disease mucosa associated with reduced inflammation. These findings identify CD161+ Treg cells as a population involved in controlling the balance between inflammation and epithelial barrier healing in the gut
Neither Scotland nor England : Middle Britain, c.850–1150
No full textIn and around the 870s, Britain was transformed dramatically by the campaigns and settlements of the Great Army and its allies. Some pre-existing political communities suffered less than others, and in hindsight the process helped Scotland and England achieve their later positions. By the twelfth century, the rulers of these countries had partitioned the former kingdom of Northumbria.
This thesis is about what happened in the intervening period, the fate of Northumbria’s political structures, and how the settlement that defined Britain for the remainder of the Middle Ages came about. Modern reconstructions of the era have tended to be limited in scope and based on unreliable post-1100 sources. The aim is to use contemporary material to overcome such limitations, and reach positive conclusions that will make more sense of the evidence and make the region easier to understand for a wider audience, particularly in regard to its shadowy polities and ecclesiastical structures.
After an overview of the most important evidence, two chapters will review Northumbria’s alleged dissolution, testing existing historiographic beliefs (based largely on Anglo-Norman-era evidence) about the fate of the monarchy, political community, and episcopate. The impact and nature of ‘Southenglish’ hegemony on the region’s political communities will be the focus of the fourth chapter, while the fifth will look at evidence for the expansion of Scottish political power. The sixth chapter will try to draw positive conclusions about the episcopate, leaving the final chapter to look in more detail at the institutions that produced the final settlement
Cerebral atrophy in mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer disease: rates and acceleration.
Get PDFOBJECTIVE: To quantify the regional and global cerebral atrophy rates and assess acceleration rates in healthy controls, subjects with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and subjects with mild Alzheimer disease (AD). METHODS: Using 0-, 6-, 12-, 18-, 24-, and 36-month MRI scans of controls and subjects with MCI and AD from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database, we calculated volume change of whole brain, hippocampus, and ventricles between all pairs of scans using the boundary shift integral. RESULTS: We found no evidence of acceleration in whole-brain atrophy rates in any group. There was evidence that hippocampal atrophy rates in MCI subjects accelerate by 0.22%/year2 on average (p = 0.037). There was evidence of acceleration in rates of ventricular enlargement in subjects with MCI (p = 0.001) and AD (p < 0.001), with rates estimated to increase by 0.27 mL/year2 (95% confidence interval 0.12, 0.43) and 0.88 mL/year2 (95% confidence interval 0.47, 1.29), respectively. A post hoc analysis suggested that the acceleration of hippocampal loss in MCI subjects was mainly driven by the MCI subjects that were observed to progress to clinical AD within 3 years of baseline, with this group showing hippocampal atrophy rate acceleration of 0.50%/year2 (p = 0.003). CONCLUSIONS: The small acceleration rates suggest a long period of transition to the pathologic losses seen in clinical AD. The acceleration in hippocampal atrophy rates in MCI subjects in the ADNI seems to be driven by those MCI subjects who concurrently progressed to a clinical diagnosis of AD
The Ghost of Patrick Geddes: Civics As Applied Sociology
Get PDFIn 1904 and 1905 Patrick Geddes (1905, 1906) read his famed, but today little-read, two-part paper, \'Civics: as Applied Sociology\', to the first meetings of the British Sociological Society. Geddes is often thought of as a \'pioneer of sociology\' (Mairet, 1957; Meller, 1990) and for some (eg Devine, 1999: 296) as \'a seminal influence on sociology\'. However, little of substance has been written to critically assess Geddes\'s intellectual legacy as a sociologist. His work is largely forgotten by sociologists in Britain (Abrams, 1968; Halliday, 1968; Evans, 1986). Few have been prepared to follow Geddes\'s ambition to bridge the chasm between nature and culture, environment and society, geography, biology and sociology. His conception of \'sociology\', oriented towards social action from a standpoint explicitly informed by evolutionary theory. A re-appraisal of the contemporary relevance of Geddes\'s thinking on civics as applied sociology has to venture into the knotted problem of evolutionary sociology. It also requires giving some cogency to Geddes\'s often fragmentary and inconsistent mode of address. Although part of a post-positivist, \'larger modernism\' Geddes remained mired in nineteenth century evolutionary thought and fought shy of dealing with larger issues of social class or the breakthrough work of early twentieth century sociology of Simmel, Weber and Durkheim. His apolitical notion of \'civics\' limits its relevance to academic sociology today.History of Sociology, Civics, Patrick Geddes, Scottish Generalism, Urban Sociology
- …
