Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Triple Helix, Quadruple Helix and Quintuple Helix and How Do Knowledge, Innovation and the Environment Relate To Each Other?: A Proposed Framework for a Trans-disciplinary Analysis of Sustainable Development and Social Ecology

This article develops an inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary framework of analysis that relates knowledge, innovation and the environment (natural environments) to each other. For that purpose the five-helix structure model of the Quintuple Helix is being introduced. The Triple Helix model, designed by Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff (2000), focuses on the relations of universities, industry and governments. The Quadruple Helix (Carayannis & Campbell, 2009) blends in the perspective of a media-based and culture-based public. The Quintuple Helix finally frames knowledge and innovation in the context of the environment (natural environments). Therefore, the Quintuple Helix can be interpreted as an approach in line with sustainable development and social ecology. â€œEco-innovationâ€ and â€œeco-entrepreneurshipâ€ should be processed in such a broader understanding of knowledge and innovation.
Land Reform And Rural Well Being In The Republic Of Georgia: 1996-2003

Land reform was launched in the Republic of Georgia in 1992, about a year after the country gained its independence from the Soviet Union. While an impressive land individualization process has been in effect since then, the pace and the performance of this process are far from satisfactory. This is due to a combination of institutional and economic constraints. We use comparable survey data from 1996 and 2003 and show that the land reform has been progressing mainly through land leasing. This allows successful farm households to expand their farming operation and improve their well-being. Land documentation doesn’t seem to yield the expected results, and the blame may be on less than sufficient labor and credit opportunities. We conclude that there is scope for continuing the process of land reform in Georgia, but this has to be accompanied by measures to develop rural credit and labor markets.
The metabolism of berberine and its contribution to the pharmacological effects

Abstract Berberine, a bioactive alkaloid isolated from several herbal substances, possesses multiple pharmacological effects, including antimicrobial, antidiabetic, anticancer activities. Meanwhile, berberine undergoes extensive metabolism after oral administration which results in its extremely low plasma exposure. Therefore, it is believed that the metabolites of berberine also contribute a lot to its pharmacological effects. Along these lines, this review covers the metabolism studies of berberine in terms of its metabolic pathways and metabolic organs based on the identified metabolites, and it also covers the pharmacological activities of its active metabolites. In brief, the predominant metabolic pathways of berberine are demethylation, demethylenation, reduction, hydroxylation and subsequent conjugation in vivo. Active metabolites such as columbamine, berberrubine and demethyleneberberine also exhibit similar pharmacological effects by comparison with berberine, such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antitumor, antimicrobial, hepatoprotective, neuroprotective, hypolipidemic and hypoglycemic effects. Overall, berberine together with its metabolites formed the material basis of berberine in vivo.
The Competitive Performance of SMEs in the UK Clothing Industry

DR. ELIZABETH CHELL IS Professor of management at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, and was director, Small Business Research Centre, Salford University, England, when this paper was written. Dr. Jean Haworth was senior lecturer in the Department of Business and Management Studies, Salford university. This paper seeks to examine the strategic positioning of 25 small- to medium-sized clothing manuacturers within a 50-mile radius of Salford, in north-west England. The empirical investigation was supported by a research grant from the UK Economic and Social Research Council and began in 1987. By January 1989, each firm had been assessed in terms of its competitive environment, demand for product, financial position and strategy adopted. Two years later the firms were examined in respect of any chage in strategy, in employment, and in their perceived 'health'. The paper presents a framework for assessing the competitive position and strategic behaviour of the SME in a declining industry; the relationship between these factors and the consequent 'health' of the firm.
Evaluation of students.

Elementary Number Theory Prerequisites MATH 227 with grade of C or better. Students will learn of the role of number theory in the history of mathematics. Students will learn how to do number-theoretic proofs. Included among specific items they will be required to know are the following: 1. Finding the greatest common divisor and least common multiple of a pair of natural numbers, and finding the linear form of the greatest common divisor. 2. Prime factorization; 3. Solving linear congruences and systems of simultaneous linear congru-ences; 4. The theorems of Fermat, Wilson, and Euler; 5. Primitive roots modulo primes and prime powers; 6. Determining whether a quadratic congruence has solutions, and if so, finding them. Students will be graded on the basis of their performance on mid-term and final exams, plus presentation of solutions to assigned exercises in class. Each exam will include a proof.
Recruitment of MHC Class I Molecules by Tapasin into the Transporter Associated with Antigen Processing-Associated Complex Is Essential for Optimal Peptide Loading

The ER protein tapasin (Tpn) forms a bridge between MHC class I H chain (HC)/β2-microglobulin and the TAP peptide transporter. The function of this TAP-associated complex was unclear because it was reported that soluble Tpn that has lost TAP interaction would be fully competent in terms of peptide loading and Ag presentation. We found, however, that only wild-type human Tpn (hTpn), but not three soluble hTpn variants, a transmembrane domain point mutant of hTpn (L410→F), wild-type mouse Tpn, nor a mouse-human Tpn hybrid, fully up-regulated peptide-dependent Bw4 epitopes when expressed in Tpn-deficient . 220.B*4402 cells. Consistent with suboptimal peptide loading, the t1/2 of class I molecules was considerably reduced in the presence of soluble hTpn, hTpn-L410F, and murine Tpn. Furthermore, eluted peptide spectra and the class I-mediated inhibition of NK clones showed distinct differences to the hTpn transfectant. Only wild-type hTpn efficiently recruited HC and calreticulin (Crt) into complexes with TAP and endoplasmic reticulum p57 (ERp57). The L410F mutant was defective in TAP association, but bound to class I molecules, Crt, and ERp57. Mouse Tpn associated with human TAP and ERp57 on the one hand, and with HC and Crt on the other, but failed to recruit normal amounts of HLA class I molecules into the TAP complex. We conclude that the loading with peptides conferring high stability requires the Tpn-mediated introduction of HC into the TAP complex, whereas the mere interaction with Tpn is not sufficient.
Effects of different formulations of α-tocopherol acetate (vitamin E) on growth performance, meat quality and antioxidant capacity in broiler chickens

Abstract The objective of this study was to investigate and compare the effects of α-tocopherol acetate (vitamin E (VE)) and microencapsulated VE (MVE) on growth performance, meat quality and antioxidant capacity in broiler chickens. A total of 360 d-old broiler chicks were procured and randomly allocated into three groups with 6 replicates. Each replicate had 20 chickens. Chickens were fed with basal diets (CON group) or experimental diets supplemented with 20 mg/kg VE (VE group) or 20 mg/kg MVE (MVE group) for 42 d. The results showed that the MVE group had higher body weight gain (BWG) than the CON and VE groups, and higher gain/feed ratio (G/F ratio) than the CON group during the period of 22–42 d. During the whole experiment, a higher increase in BWG was found in the MVE group than the CON group. Chickens fed on diets supplemented with the VE or MVE had lower abdominal fat percentage, higher pH and antioxidant enzyme activity than the CON group in the breast meat. There was an increased tendency in the hepatic glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) enzyme activity of the VE and MVE groups than the CON group. The hepatic mitochondrial total antioxidant capacity and GSH-Px enzyme activity in the MVE group were higher than the CON group. Hepatic 2,2-dipheny-ʟ-picrylhydrazyl scavenging activity of the MVE group was higher than the CON group. These results suggested that the dietary addition of VE or MVE could improve breast meat quality in broilers. MVE supplementation may improve growth performance, hepatic mitochondrial antioxidant capacity and free radical scavenging capacity in chickens. In addition, dietary supplementation of MVE gave better broiler growth performance than VE.
Circadian expression of clock genes during ontogeny in the rat heart

Recent studies have suggested that peripheral tissues in mammals have an autonomous circadian oscillator driven by negative feedback loops consisting of periodical expression of clock genes. In the present study we investigated the mechanism that regulates circadian rhythms in mammalian peripheral tissues, and observed developmental aspects in circadian expression of clock genes in the heart of postnatal rats. Daily expression patterns of clock genes (rPer1, rPer2 and BMAL1) and a clock-controlled gene Dbp were examined by Northern blot analysis. Circadian expression of rPer1, BMAL1 and Dbp mRNAs started between postnatal day 2 (P2) and P5, but rPer2 mRNA did not show rhythmicity until P14. Rhythmic expression of other genes in the heart occurred even in the absence of rhythmic rPer2 expression. These findings suggest that in the rat heart, rhythmic expression of rPer2 was not essential to generate circadian rhythmicity at the early postnatal stage. Judging from mRNA rhythms in the heart, it was probably after P20 that rats established the mature circadian system controlling peripheral rhythms.
5 “S” and TQM status in Indian organizations

Purpose – Ho and Osada state that 5 “S” is the foundation for implementing total quality management (TQM) philosophy and also emphasize that 5 “S” is the primary driver for the success of TQM in any organization. Since the competitiveness of India has been ranked comparatively low worldwide, it shows that Indian organizations may be weak in implementing TQM. The purpose of this paper is to assess the status of TQM, quality tools and 5 “S” in Indian organizations and to study their relationship among three categories of organizations, i.e. “Large”, “Medium” and “Small”. Design/methodology/approach – This paper presents the status of 5 “S”, quality tools and TQM in Indian organizations based on 62 organizations.Findings – The paper reveals that 5 “S” performance has a direct bearing on the performance of TQM journey. There is a positive correlation among 5 “S” index, usage of quality tools and TQM index. The high 5 “S” index in “Large” category of organization has resulted in high‐TQM index in comparision to.
Modeling community support for a proposed integrated resort project

In recent years Mauritius has experienced a rapid increase in integrated resort developments, which have been intended to secure income from new tourism segments and to boost the local economy. Using data on the responses of residents of Le Morne, Mauritius, to a proposal to construct an integrated resort, this study develops and tests a model of community support for the proposed development. The structural model indicates that residents' satisfaction with their own community, their utilization of the resource base, their perceptions of the state of the local economy and their environmental attitudes are antecedents of their views about the costs and benefits of the project. Opinions about the benefits and costs of the project were also found to determine the level of community support. All factors in the model were found to be determinants of the perceived costs and benefits of the project, except for residents' perceptions of the impact of the development on their utilization of the resource base. The theoretical and managerial implications of the study are discussed. The most notable contribution of the study is its findings on the influence of residents' satisfaction with community services on their attitudes and support for tourism development.
Flat-Rate Taxes, Government Spending on Education, and Growth

We address three questions in this paper. First, what is the impact on growth of changes in flat-rate taxes when government spending on education affects private decisions to accumulate human capital? Second, are the growth effects negligible when we simultaneously change taxes and government spending on education? Third, what are the implications for time allocated to learning when we change taxes and spending? For an economy calibrated to the U.S. data along the lines of Lucas (1990), we find that the growth effects of changes in capital income tax rates are negligible despite the distortionary government spending; simultaneous changes in taxes and spending on education have modest effects on growth; and the learning time is unresponsive to changes in taxes. While the first two results are consistent with the U.S. data, the third one is not: during the 20th century, the learning time has increased dramatically along with taxes. (Copyright: Elsevier)
The CAPM Debate and the Logic and Philosophy of Finance

Finance, and particularly financial decision making, has much in common with the discipline of statistics and statistical decision theory. Both fields involve conceptual models and related methods by which to make numerical assessments that are meant to assist users to draw inferences about future states and to make choices between possible actions. In both fields, inferences and decisions are reached by implementing quantitative methods, and in both fields those methods require either empirical or subjective inputs (e.g., sample estimates of relevant input parameters or human estimates of the same sorts of variables). This is not merely saying that finance theory makes use of statistical theory. That is incidental, as is the fact that statistics now adopts the language and ideas of finance in some of its important applications. Rather, the point is that the two disciplines are fundamentally analogous in their purposes and construction. They differ markedly, however, in their states of philosophical introspection, as is natural given that finance arose as a field only in the 1960s or later, and has therefore had much less time to mature and look back at itself and its development in a critical philosophical way. A stark difference between the two fields is that in statistics there exists a formalized branch of enquiry called ‘the logic, methodology and philosophy of statistical inference and decision theory’, whereas in finance there is as yet no equivalent well-defined or orchestrated subfield. The philosophy of statistics is a highly developed discipline, built upon hundreds of papers and books, written by statisticians, logicians, philosophers of science and practitioners in applied fields (e.g., psychology, medicine, economics) since the early 1900s. All of the great names in statistical theory, including Karl Pearson, R. A. Fisher, Neyman, Savage, von Neumann and de Finetti, have contributed philosophically as well as technically to the field we know as statistics, and indeed virtually all of the empirical work that is done in finance today is licensed by one or other of these philosophers. Similarly, very influential modern statistical theorists such as Lindley, Kadane, Bernardo, Seidenfeld and Berger have contributed numerous papers and books to the big-picture philosophical issues in statistics. By comparison, the philosophy, logic and methodology of finance are yet to expressly emerge, or to obtain the overarching respect and influence that such work
Efficiency of the Banking Industry Structure in Korea

This paper analyzes whether the efficiency of the Korean banking industry has improved since the bank restructuring in 1997, and whether a bank with high efficiency has a larger market share. This paper uses an efficient structure hypothesis model to examine the relationship between the banks' efficiencies and their profitability. The data envelopment analysis method is applied to measure the efficiency and profitability of the banking industry in order to minimize possible bias due to the inflow of public funds for the bank consolidation. The two-step Heckman selection method is used to correct for survivorship bias in the model. The derived result indicates that banks with higher efficiencies tend to record higher profit. Moreover, higher pure technological efficiency and scale efficiency have a positive effect on a bank's market share and concentration.
Discrimination of frequency transitions by human infants.

Difference limens (DLs) for linear frequency transitions using a 1.0-kHz pulsed-tone standard were obtained from 6- to 9-month-old human infants in a series of three experiments. A repeating standard "yes-no" operant headturning technique and an adaptive staircase (tracking) procedure were used to obtain difference limens from a total of 71 infants. The DLs for 300-ms upward and downward linear frequency sweeps were approximately 3%-4% when the repeating standard was an unmodulated 1.0-kHz pulsed tone of 300-ms duration. These DLs for frequency sweeps were not significantly different from DLs for frequency increments and decrements using 330-ms pulsed tones [J. M. Sinnott and R. N. Aslin, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 78, 1986-1992 (1985)]. The DLs for frequency sweeps of 50 ms appended to the beginning or the end of a 250-ms unmodulated 1.0-kHz tone were approximately 6%-7%. This greater DL for brief frequency sweeps was confirmed by varying the duration but not the extent of the sweep. Finally, DLs were greater than 50% when the repeating standard was a 50-ms rising or falling frequency sweep appended to the beginning of a 250-ms unmodulated 1.0-kHz tone. These results suggest that rapid frequency transitions are much more difficult to discriminate from frequency transitions of the same category (rising or falling) than from either a frequency transition of the opposite category (falling or rising) or an unmodulated tone. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
The Impact of Mispricing and Asymmetric Information on the Price Discount of Private Placements of Common Stock

The price discount on privately placed stock is large and can vary substantially among firms. While earlier studies attribute price discounts on privately placed stock to illiquidity and costs of gathering information, we offer a more complete explanation. We find that firms exhibiting higher overvaluation have significantly larger price discounts in private stock sales. We also find that higher levels of asymmetric information about the issuing firm and about the stock market environment at the time of the private placement cause more pronounced discounts in the offer price. Our analysis also shows that post-issue abnormal returns following private placements are higher when discounts are less pronounced.
[Hemophagocytosis during multiple organ failure: M-CSF overproduction or viral reactivation?].

OBJECTIVE This study was aimed to assess the potential role of M-CSF and viral reactivation in the genesis of haemophagocytosis during the multiple organ failure (MOF) syndrome. METHODS Twenty-five patients (mean age: 60 +/- 16 years; Apache II: 23 +/- 5) sustaining MOF with an unexplained thrombocytopenia were studied. In each patient, a bone marrow aspirate, serum M-CSF concentration, and a virological examination (Herpes viruses) were obtained on admission. In addition, 20 patients (mean age: 57 +/- 15 years; Apache II: 24 +/- 7) with at least two organ failures but no thrombocytopenia constituted the control group. Circulating M-CSF levels and the frequency of virus reactivation were compared between groups. RESULTS Haemophagocytosis was diagnosed in 11/25 patients (44%). No viral reactivation was found. Serum M-CSF concentrations were higher in the presence of haemophagocytosis (699 +/- 242 vs 438 +/- 157 IU.mL-1; p < 0.05). Ferritin levels were also increased in the presence of a macrophage activation (3,258 +/- 2,807 vs. 520 +/- 280 mg.L-1; p < 0.0001). In contrast, both circulating M-CSF and ferritin levels were similar between thrombocytopenic patients with no hemophagocytosis and controls. CONCLUSIONS This study confirmed the high incidence of haemophagocytosis in critically ill patients sustaining MOF. In this setting, circulating M-CSF levels were markedly elevated, whereas no Herpes viruses reactivation was found.
Hydrodynamic simulation (computational fluid dynamics) of asymmetrically positioned tablets in the paddle dissolution apparatus: impact on dissolution rate and variability

The aim of this work was to investigate the dissolution rate from both the curved and planar surfaces of cylindrical compacts of benzoic acid, which were placed centrally and non‐centrally at the base of the vessel of the paddle dissolution apparatus. The effect of fixing the compacts to a particular position on the variability of dissolution results was also examined. In addition, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was used to simulate fluid flow around compacts in the different positions in the vessel, and the relationship between the local hydrodynamics in the region of the compacts and the dissolution rate determined. The dissolution rate was found to increase from the centre position to the off‐centre positions for each surface examined. There was a corresponding increase in maximum fluid velocities calculated from the CFD fluid flow simulations at a fixed distance from the compact. There was less variability in dissolution from compacts fixed to any of the positions compared with those that were not fixed. Fluid flow around compacts in different positions could be successfully modelled, and hydrodynamic variability examined, using CFD. The effect of asymmetric fluid flow was evident visually from the change in shape of the eroded compacts.
Color and optical properties of posterior composites under accelerated aging.

The color and optical properties of three anterior and four posterior composites were determined from reflection spectrophotometric data and Kubelka's equations. Samples were aged for 300 hours at 43•Ž, 90% relative humidity, intermittent water spray, and continuous exposure to a 2500 watt xenon light. After aging the composites were generally darker, more chromatic, and more opaque. Values of S (absorption coefficient) and K (scattering coefficient) increased and values of XI (infinite optical thickness) decreased. The light-cured composites were less stable than the chemically cured ones.
Farm choice between agri-environmental contracts in the European Union

The purpose of this paper is to analyse land allocation between competing agri-environmental contracts, taking into account institutional issues, the characteristics of the farm and farm household. Three types of agri-environmental contract are considered: a Biodiversity Protection Contract, a Landscape Management Contract and a Restriction on Intensive Practices Contract. The paper demonstrates that it is important to study the choices made between the different agri-environmental contracts. The reasons for this are that a unit of land can only be allocated to one contract (although the farm itself can choose to hold more than one contract) and the perceived relative marginal cost of a contract can change if the institutional setting, the farm household or the farm characteristics alter. The model uses a two-stage method. As a first stage, the probability of contract choice is determined. In the second stage these probabilities are linked to costs and the optimal contract choice is determined.