Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adopting shared services in a public-sector organization

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to combine translation theory with aspects of socio‐technology and systems theory to study the adoption of shared services in a public‐sector organization. The paper aims to involve the process of translating the shared‐services idea in concert with people and policies, both in terms of inputs and outputs.Design/methodology/approach – An interpretive case‐study strategy was applied.Findings – The mutual impact of process, people, and policies shed light on what influences the adoption of the shared‐services idea. The translation process considers different people and policy aspects, transforming the idea into a specific configuration that reflects the organization's individual conditions.Research limitations/implications – The in‐depth case study enables better understanding of the adoption of shared services at an organizational level. The paper enriches previous research on the translation of management ideas. It is limited to the extent that it focuses on one part.
Hereditary pancreatitis: new insights into acute and chronic pancreatitis

Hereditary pancreatitis has recently emerged as an important pancreatic disease. Although relatively rare, this genetic disorder has provided major breakthroughs in our understanding of acute and chronic pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer. Furthermore, study of this disorder promises additional insights into the pathophysiology of human pancreatitis, new strategies for developing animal models of disease, and new therapies to treat or prevent acute and chronic pancreatitis. A review of recent findings and mechanisms of disease should benefit scientists who study the pancreas and physicians who care for individuals with pancreatitis. This report will focus on acute and chronic pancreatitis. The first family with hereditary pancreatitis was described by Comfort and Steinberg in 1952.1 Careful evaluation of four definite and two probably affected family members revealed an autosomal dominant inheritance pattern, onset of symptoms between five and 23 years, but no other “. earmarks which distinguish it from non-hereditary chronic relapsing pancreatitis”. These observations remain accurate with the caveat that penetrance, the fraction of patients with the mutation that eventually express the disease, is 80%. 2-6 Attacks of acute pancreatitis usually begin in childhood,7 but age of onset can range from infancy to the fifth or sixth decade of life. The acute attacks may vary from mild abdominal discomfort to severe life-threatening episodes with pancreatic necrosis, splenic vein thrombosis,8 pseudocysts,9 and death.3 10 Chronic pancreatitis follows recurrent attacks of acute pancreatitis with all of its common complications—unrelenting pain, parenchymal and ductal calcifications, duct distortion, fibrosis, maldigestion and diabetes mellitus.3-6 10 11 These features make hereditary pancreatitis indistinguishable from other causes of acute and chronic pancreatitis, save the relatively early age of onset, the autosomal dominant inheritance pattern and lack of other identifiable aetiologies. Many investigators pursued the aetiology of hereditary pancreatitis via access to hereditary pancreatitis …
Exchange rate volatility and bilateral agricultural trade flows: the case of the United States and OECD countries

This study documents the effect of exchange rate volatility and the real exchange rate on bilateral agricultural exports, imports and total trade (exports + imports) flows between the United States and OECD countries. The effect of exchange rate volatility is estimated both separately from and in combination with the real exchange rate. In addition, implementation of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and use of the Euro as a national currency (Euro) are included as dummy variables and their effects on trade flows are also determined. A panel data set, which contains 28 cross-sections and 1148 observations, is used for bilateral trade flows between the United States and OECD countries from 1970 to 2010. With an empirical model based on a gravity equation, the results show that exchange rate volatility and the real exchange rate have a statistically significant and negative effect on agricultural, non-agricultural and total exports, imports, and trade (exports +imports) flows. Exchange rate volatility is found to have a greater impact on the agricultural sector, while the real exchange rate has a greater impact on the non-agricultural sector. Effects of FTAs and the Euro are always positive, with FTAs having a greater impact on the agricultural sector and the Euro on the non-agricultural sector.
Holo-sterol Carrier Protein-2

Although sterol carrier protein-2 (SCP-2) stimulates sterol transfer in vitro, almost nothing is known regarding the identity of the putative cholesterol binding site. Furthermore, the interrelationship(s) between this SCP-2 ligand binding site and the recently reported SCP-2 long chain fatty acid (LCFA) and long chain fatty acyl-CoA (LCFA-CoA) binding site(s) remains to be established. In the present work, two SCP-2 ligand binding sites were identified. First, both [4-13C]cholesterol and 22-(N-(7-nitrobenz-2-oxa-1,3-diazol-4-yl)amino)-23,24-bisnor-5-cholen-3β-ol (NBD-cholesterol) binding assays were consistent with a single cholesterol binding site in SCP-2. This ligand binding site had high affinity for NBD-cholesterol, K d = 4.15 ± 0.71 nm. 13C NMR-labeled ligand competition studies demonstrated that the SCP-2 high affinity cholesterol binding site also bound LCFA or LCFA-CoA. However, only the LCFA-CoA was able to effectively displace the SCP-2-bound [4-13C]cholesterol. Thus, the ligand affinities at this SCP-2 binding site were in the relative order cholesterol = LCFA-CoA > LCFA. Second, 13C NMR studies demonstrated the presence of another ligand binding site on SCP-2 that bound either LCFA or LCFA-CoA but not cholesterol. Photon correlation spectroscopy was consistent with SCP-2 being monomeric in both liganded and unliganded states. In summary, both 13C NMR and fluorescence techniques demonstrated for the first time that SCP-2 had a single high affinity binding site that bound cholesterol, LCFA, or LCFA-CoA. Furthermore, results with 13C NMR supported the presence of a second SCP-2 ligand binding site that bound either LCFA or LCFA-CoA but not cholesterol. These data contribute to our understanding of a role for SCP-2 in both cellular cholesterol and LCFA metabolism.
Changing Boundaries: The Policies of Workfare in the U.S. and Europe

In recent decades, workfare-style policies have become part of the institutional architecture of welfare and labor market arrangements around the world. In this article, we offer a comparative, historical view of workfare's advance. Our analysis recognizes the complexity and diversity of what we call the “policies of workfare” and highlights the different paths through which these policies have developed in the U.S. and parts of Europe. We argue that it is necessary to look beyond familiar policy labels and language in order to consider workfare-style policies as part of a broader political project that is altering the boundary between the democratic welfare state and the market economy. We see workfare policies as boundary-changing, with potentially profound implications both for individuals disadvantaged by market arrangements and for societies seeking to grapple with the increasing instability and precariousness of work in the “new” economy.
Exchange Rate Dynamics and Monetary Fundamentals: A Cointegrated SVAR Approach for Nigeria

Are monetary fundamentals important determinants of the exchange rate behaviour in Nigeria? This article examines the validity of both short- and long-run versions of the monetary exchange rate model for the Nigerian naira–US dollar exchange rate from 1987:1 to 2011:4 within a cointegrated SVAR framework. Apart from the long-run relationship, the short-run contemporaneous interactions are examined for the monetary exchange rate model. The results show the existence of a unique long-run relationship between the exchange rate and monetary fundamental, which is theoretically consistent with the monetary model. The short-run evidence is not entirely consistent with the monetary exchange rate model, although the impulse response of the exchange rate to shocks in the monetary fundamentals mirrors the predictions of the monetary model. However, only the interest rate differential is significant and explains most of the variations in the nominal exchange rate in the short run.
Modelling time-varying conditional correlations in the volatility of Tapis oil spot and forward returns

This paper estimates the dynamic conditional correlations in the returns on Tapis oil spot and one-month forward prices for the period 2 June 1992 to 16 January 2004, using recently developed multivariate conditional volatility models, namely the Constant Conditional Correlation Multivariate GARCH (CCC–MGARCH) model of Bollerslev (1990), Vector Autoregressive Moving Average–GARCH (VARMA–GARCH) model of Ling and McAleer (2003), VARMA–Asymmetric GARCH (VARMA–AGARCH) model of Hoti et al. (2002), and the Dynamic Conditional Correlation (DCC) model of Engle (2002). The dynamic correlations are extremely useful in determining whether the spot and forward returns are substitutes or complements, which can be used to hedge against contingencies. Both the univariate ARCH and GARCH estimates are significant for spot and forward returns, whereas the estimates of the asymmetric effect at the univariate level are not statistically significant for either spot or forward returns. Standard diagnostic tests show that the AR(1)–GARCH(1, 1) and AR(1)–GJR(1, 1) specifications are statistically adequate for both the conditional mean and the conditional variance. The multivariate estimates for the VAR(1)–GARCH(1, 1) and VAR(1)–AGARCH(1, 1) models show that the ARCH and GARCH effects for spot (forward) returns are significant in the conditional volatility model for spot (forward) returns. Moreover, there are significant interdependences in the conditional volatilities between the spot and forward markets. The multivariate asymmetric effects are significant for both spot and forward returns. Overall the multivariate VAR(1)–AGARCH(1, 1) dominates its symmetric counterpart. The calculated constant conditional correlations between the conditional volatilities of spot and forward returns using CCC–GARCH(1, 1), VAR(1)–GARCH(1, 1) and VAR(1)–AGARCH(1, 1) are very close to 0.93. Virtually identical results are obtained when the three constant conditional correlation models are extended to include two lags in both the ARCH and GARCH components. Finally, the estimates of the two DCC parameters are statistically significant, which makes it clear that the assumption of constant conditional correlation is not supported empirically. This is highlighted by the dynamic conditional correlations between spot and forward returns, for which its sample mean is virtually identical to the computed constant conditional correlation, regardless of whether a DCC–GARCH(1, 1) or a DCC–GARCH(2, 2) is used. For these models, the dynamic conditional correlations are in the range (0.417, 0.993) and (0.446, 0.993), signifying medium to extreme interdependence. Therefore, the dynamic volatilities in the returns in Tapis oil spot and forward markets are generally interdependent over time. These findings suggest that a sensible hedging strategy would consider spot and forward markets as being characterized by different degrees of substitutability.
Two-Transmitter Two-Receiver Cooperative MAC Protocol: Cross-Layer Design and Performance Analysis

Cooperative diversity is a promising and practical technique for realizing spatial diversity through a virtual antenna array formed by multiple distributed antennas of different nodes. In this paper, we propose and evaluate a novel cooperative cross-layer medium access control (CC-MAC) protocol, which combines space-time coding and adaptive modulation at the physical layer and employs truncated automatic repeat request (ARQ) at the data-link layer. The transmitter's partner is selected in the previous hop, and the receiver invites a partner to participate in data reception in the current hop, and in this situation, a two-transmitter two-receiver model is constructed. Because distributed space-time coding is applied at the transmitting set (transmitter and its partner), cooperative diversity and coding gain can be obtained. Based on the instantaneous channel state measured at the receiver, an adaptive modulation scheme is adopted to improve the link throughput at the physical layer. In addition, the truncated ARQ scheme is employed to further enhance the throughput performance at the data-link layer. Furthermore, under different system models with or without the truncated ARQ scheme, performances of the average packet error rate (PER) and symbol error rate (SER) with multiple phase shift keying (M-PSK) modulation and multiple quadrature amplitude modulation (M-QAM) over Rayleigh fading channel are analyzed. Simulation results verify the correctness of the performance analysis and show that CC-MAC can significantly improve system throughput and energy efficiency compared with other transmission schemes.
Structural Insights for Design of Potent Spleen Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors from Crystallographic Analysis of Three Inhibitor Complexes

Spleen tyrosine kinase is considered an attractive drug target for the treatment of allergic and antibody mediated autoimmune diseases. We have determined the co‐crystal structures of spleen tyrosine kinase complexed with three known inhibitors: YM193306, a 7‐azaindole derivative and R406. The cis‐cyclohexyldiamino moiety of YM193306 is forming four hydrophobically shielded polar interactions with the spleen tyrosine kinase protein and is therefore crucial for the high potency of this inhibitor. Its primary amino group is inducing a conformational change of the spleen tyrosine kinase DFG Asp side chain. The crystal structure of the 7‐azaindole derivative bound to spleen tyrosine kinase is the first demonstration of a 2‐substituted 7‐azaindole bound to a protein kinase. Its indole‐amide substituent is tightly packed between the N‐ and C‐terminal kinase lobes. The co‐crystal structure of the spleen tyrosine kinase–R406 complex shows two main differences to the previously reported structure of spleen tyrosine kinase soaked with R406: (i) the side chain of the highly conserved Lys is disordered and not forming a hydrogen bond to R406 and (ii) the DFG Asp side chain is pointing away from and not towards R406. The novel protein–ligand interactions and protein conformational changes revealed in these structures guide the rational design and structure‐based optimization of second‐generation spleen tyrosine kinase inhibitors.
Pride and Prejudice: The Human Side of Incentive Theory

Many people are sensitive to social esteem, and their pride is a source of pro--social behavior. We present a game-theoretic model in which sensitivity to esteem varies across players and may depend on context as well players' beliefs about their opponents. For example, the pride associated with a generous image is greater when the player holding the image is in fact generous and believes the observers to be generous as well. The model can account both for the fact that players' behaviour sometimes depends on the opponents' unchosen options and for the prevalence of small symbolic gifts. Perhaps most importantly, the model offers an explanation for motivational crowding out: Control systems and pecuniary incentives may erode morale by signalling to the agent that the principal is not worth impressing.
Audit quality attributes of European Union supreme audit institutions

Purpose – To examine the enabling legislation of European Union (EU) member country supreme audit institutions (SAIs) for their accountability to parliament and independence from the executive arm of government.Design/methodology/approach – The sample comprises the SAIs of the 25 EU member countries and the European Court of Auditors. Data were collected on 30 accountability and independence issues directly from the enabling legislation of these SAIs.Findings – Results indicate that apart from a number of instances where the enabling legislation is silent, provisions generally provide for adequate independence of the SAIs from the executive arm of government. On the other hand, the provisions for the accountability of the SAIs to parliament are somewhat weaker.Research limitations/implications – If actual practice or convention does not reflect the literal interpretation and application of the enabling legislation, then SAIs may have more or less independence and/or accountability than suggested by the an.
Diurnally active rodents for laboratory research

Although inbred domesticated strains of rats and mice serve as traditional mammalian animal models in biomedical research, the nocturnal habits of these rodents make them inappropriate for research that requires a model with human-like diurnal activity rhythms. We conducted a literature review and recorded locomotor activity data from four rodent species that are generally considered to be diurnally active, the Mongolian gerbil (Meriones unguiculatus), the degu (Octodon degus), the African (Nile) grass rat (Arvicanthis niloticus), and the antelope ground squirrel (Ammospermophilus leucurus). Our data collected under 12-hour light/dark cycles confirmed and expanded the existing literature in showing that the activity rhythms of antelope ground squirrels and African grass rats are stronger and more concentrated in the light phase of the light/dark cycle than the activity rhythms of Mongolian gerbils and degus, making the former two species preferable and more reliable as models of consistent diurnal activity in the laboratory. Among the two more strongly diurnal species, antelope ground squirrels are more exclusively diurnal and have more robust activity rhythms than African grass rats. Although animals of these two species are not currently available from commercial suppliers, African grass rats are indigenous to a wide area across the north of Africa and thus available to researchers in the eastern hemisphere, whereas antelope ground squirrels can be found throughout much of western North America’s desert country and, therefore, are more easily accessible to North American researchers.
Learn to Classify and Count: A Unified Framework for Object Classification and Counting

In this paper, we focus on the problem of object classification and counting in natural scenes. The existing methods of instance detection can be utilized to classify and count. These works depend on the bounding box annotations, which requires time-consuming human labeling effort. Meanwhile, traditional methods of object counting are mostly based on the class-insensitive density map, therefore they are only able to count one specific category. We propose a unified framework for object classification and counting to overcome these drawbacks of existing works. We employ a two-stream convolutional neural network (CNN), which consists of classification and counting branches. Considering the correlation between classification and counting tasks, we propose a novel correlation loss function to coordinate representations learned by both two branches of network. Without hand-labeled bounding box annotations as supervision information, our end-to-end model can recognize the category of objects in the image and count object numbers per category. The proposed method is evaluated on PASCAL VOC 2007 dataset in multi-label classification and object counting tasks. We have achieved improved performance on both two tasks, which shows the effectiveness of our proposed method.
Countertransference Behavior and Alliance Quality as a Function of Therapist Self-Insight

v LIST OF TABLES vii LIST OF FIGURES viii CHAPTER I. TOWARDS AN UNDERSTANDING OF COUNTERTRANSFERENCE 1 Definitions of Countertransference 1 Types of Behaviors 3 CT Behavior and Therapy outcome and Process 6 CT Management 8 CT Management and CT Behaviors 11 CT Management and Therapy Outcome and Process 12 Specific Aims 14 II. METHOD 17 Participants 17 Treatment 18 Measures 19 Procedure 21 Data Analysis 22 III. RESULTS 24 Group Selection 24 Analyses 24 IV. DISCUSSION 27 BIBLIOGRAPHY 46
Cellular metabolism and oxidative stress as a possible determinant for longevity in small breed and large breed dogs

Among species, larger animals tend to live longer than smaller ones, however, the opposite seems to be true for dogs—smaller dogs tend to live significantly longer than larger dogs across all breeds. We were interested in the mechanism that may allow for small breeds to age more slowly compared with large breeds in the context of cellular metabolism and oxidative stress. Primary dermal fibroblasts from small and large breed dogs were grown in culture. We measured basal oxygen consumption (OCR), proton leak, and glycolysis using a Seahorse XF96 oxygen flux analyzer. Additionally, we measured rates of reactive species (RS) production, reduced glutathione (GSH) content, mitochondrial content, lipid peroxidation (LPO) damage and DNA (8-OHdg) damage. Our data suggests that as dogs of both size classes age, proton leak is significantly higher in older dogs, regardless of size class. We found that all aspects of glycolysis were significantly higher in larger breeds compared with smaller breeds. We found significant differences between age classes in GSH concentration, and a negative correlation between DNA damage in puppies and mean breed lifespan. Interestingly, RS production showed no differences across size and age class. Thus, large breed dogs may have higher glycolytic rates, and DNA damage, suggesting a potential mechanism for their decreased lifespan compared with small breed dogs.
An Optimized and Sensitive Pharmacokinetic Quantitative Method of Investigating Gastrodin, Parishin, and Parishin B, C and E in Beagle Dog Plasma using LC-MS/MS after Intragastric Administration of Tall Gastrodia Capsules

Gastrodia elata Blume, called Tianma in China, has been widely used to treat headaches, convulsions and epilepsy for thousands of years. In the present study, a series of optimizations were employed to develop a rapid, sensitive, and reliable high-performance liquid chromatography-triple quadrupole mass spectrometry method, which was then used for the simultaneous determination of gastrodin, parishin, parishin B, parishin C and parishin E in beagle dog plasma after intragastric administration of tall Gastrodia capsules (Tianma brand). The chromatographic separation was achieved on a C18 column with gradient elution by using a mixture of 0.4% formic acid aqueous solution and acetonitrile as the mobile phase at a flow rate of 0.15 mL/min. A tandem mass spectrometric detection was conducted using multiple-reaction monitoring (MRM) via electrospray ionization (ESI) source in negative ionization mode. Samples were pre-treated by a single-step protein precipitation with methanol, and bergenin was used as internal standard (IS). Under the optimized conditions, the lower limit of quantification (LLOQ) was 0.10 ng/mL for gastrodin, 0.40 ng/mL for parishin B, 0.02 ng/mL for parishin E and 0.20 ng/mL for parishin and parishin C, all of which previously were the highest levels of sensitivity. The methods were optimized for selectivity, calibration curves, accuracy and precision. Extraction recoveries, matrix effects and stability were within acceptable ranges. Pharmacokinetic parameters of the tested substances were also quantitatively determined. Finally, a possible metabolic pathway was induced based on correlations obtained from quantitative and qualitative data analysis in vivo.