Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Actions, Beliefs and Feelings: an experimental study on Dynamic Psychological Games

The main goal of the paper is to study in an experimental setting the relations between actions and beliefs and those between actions and feelings (expressed in terms of belief-dependent motivations). Our experimental study goes three steps beyond the existing experimental literature: (a) we test players’behavior in a …nitely repeated game, in which we elicit beliefs at the beginning of each period; (b) we elicit players’sensitivity to feelings (as guilt aversion or reciprocity), in order to analyze the relationships between actions and feelings in a repeated setting; (c) because of the sensitivity elicitation method, we can study directly games with
NITRIC OXIDE INHIBITS CYCLIC AMP-DEPENDENT CFTR TRAFFICKING IN INTESTINAL EPITHELIAL CELLS

Nitric oxide is produced during intestinal inflammation and inhibits the epithelial responsiveness to cAMP-dependent secretagogues. The effect is presumably due to inhibition of activation of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR). However, since insertion of CFTR into the epithelial apical membrane is also a cAMP-dependent process, we tested the hypothesis that NO could inhibit cAMPdependent CFTR trafficking. SCBN intestinal epithelial cells were treated with forskolin to activate adenylate cyclase activity. The cells were fixed at various times and immunostained for CFTR. Some cells were pretreated with the nitric oxide donor, PAPA-NONOate, the protein kinase A inhibitor, H89, or the microtubule blocker, nocodazole. Cross sections of epithelial monolayers were then studied under fluorescence and the ratio of apical to basolateral CFTR immunoreactivity determined. Stimulation of adenylate cyclase activity caused an increase in the apical:basolateral ratio of CFTR within 30 seconds. This effect was transient and preceded changes in short circuit current in SCBN monolayers mounted in Ussing chambers. PAPANONOate, H89 and nocodazole all reduced forskolin-stimulated CFTR trafficking. The inhibitory effect of the NO donor was not affected by pretreatment with the guanylate cyclase inhibitor, ODQ. PAPA-NONOate reduced forskolin-stimulated increases in intracellular cAMP. The data suggest that a portion of the inhibitory effect of nitric oxide donors on cAMP-dependent chloride secretion is through the inhibition of cAMPdependent insertion of CFTR into the apical plasma membrane. These data provide insight into the mechanism of secretory dysfunction in inflammatory diseases of the gut where mucosal nitric oxide is elevated. NO and CFTR trafficking 3
Can hammerhead ribozymes be efficient tools to inactivate gene function?

In order to improve hammerhead ribozyme efficiency and specificity, we have analyzed, both in vitro and in vivo, the activity of a series of ribozyme/substrate combinations that have the same target sequence but differ in the length of the ribozyme/substrate duplex or in their structure, i.e., the total length of the RNA. In vitro, we have found that optimal kcat/Km (at 37 degrees C) is obtained when the ribozyme/substrate duplex has a length of 12 bases, which according to the base composition represents a calculated free energy of binding of -16 kcal/mol. We discuss the importance of this value for ribozyme specificity and present strategies that may improve it. Increasing the length of the duplex from 14 to 17 bases (from -19 to -26 kcal/mol) produces a reduced ribozyme activity which is probably due to a slower rate of product dissociation. In addition, inclusion of either the substrate or the ribozyme in a long transcript produces a reduction (10 fold) of the kcat/Km, probably because of a different accessibility of the target sequence. In vivo, the activity of the trans-acting ribozyme was extremely low and detected in only one case: with a ribozyme/substrate duplex length of 13 bases and with both ribozyme and substrate embedded in short RNAs expressed at a very high level. The similarity of the results obtained in vitro and in vivo indicates that it is possible to use an in vitro system to optimize ribozymes which are to be used in vivo. Satisfactory results were obtained in vivo only with cisacting ribozymes. Altogether these results suggest that the ribozyme/substrate hybridization step is the limiting step in vivo and therefore it is not clear if ribozymes represent an improvement over antisense RNAs.
Strategies and Policies for the Bioeconomy and Bio-Based Economy: An Analysis of Official National Approaches

The onset of formulating strategies and policies regarding the bioeconomy can be, at least partly, attributed to the publication of the policy agenda on the bioeconomy by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in 2009. The aim of this study is to analyze selected national strategies and policies regarding the development of a bioeconomy and to clarify similarities and differences between them. The article presents a comparative overview of the strategies and policies for developing a bioeconomy in the EU, USA, Canada, Sweden, Finland, Germany and Australia. The documents analyzed are in most cases national strategies or policies. The structures and aims of these documents vary and the analysis is further complicated by the terms “bioeconomy” and “bio-based economy” having as yet no clear definition, a point which is discussed in some depth in this article. In the documents analyzed, strategies and policies on how to promote the bioeconomy are often presented based on the prerequisites of the country in focus; the need for increased research, development and demonstrations in the area is thus particularly stressed. The main emphasis is often to enhance the economy of a nation and provide new employment and business possibilities, whereas the aspects of sustainability and resource availability are addressed only to a limited extent in many of the documents.
Information and the Cost of Capital

We investigate the role of information in affecting a firm's cost of capital. We show that differences in the composition of information between public and private information affect the cost of capital, with investors demanding a higher return to hold stocks with greater private information. This higher return arises because informed investors are better able to shift their portfolio to incorporate new information, and uninformed investors are thus disadvantaged. In equilibrium, the quantity and quality of information affect asset prices. We show firms can influence their cost of capital by choosing features like accounting treatments, analyst coverage, and market microstructure. Copyright 2004 by The American Finance Association.
The Jiang–Su algebra revisited

Abstract We give a number of new characterizations of the Jiang–Su algebra 𝒵, both intrinsic and extrinsic, in terms of C*-algebraic, dynamical, topological and K-theoretic conditions. Along the way we study divisibility properties of C*-algebras, we give a precise characterization of those unital C*-algebras of stable rank one that admit a unital embedding of the dimension-drop C*-algebra Z n, n+1, and we prove a cancellation theorem for the Cuntz semigroup of C*-algebras of stable rank one.
Do land reforms have adverse impacts on the livelihoods of poor land users? Evidence from the Nkoranza South Municipality, Ghana

Abstract Poverty reduction is the overarching goal of most development interventions in the developing world. From 2004, Ghana has been implementing a land reform policy/programme that seeks to improve tenure security and reduce poverty. The present study uses qualitative methods to analyse the extent to which land reforms are enabling or inhibiting poor land users in Ghana to exit poverty and improve their living standards. The study finds that Ghana’s land reform system redefines customary land governance resulting in a breakdown of the trusteeship ethos of the chieftaincy institution, increasing land sales, insecurity of land tenure for the poor and disappearing commons. These factors subsequently have adverse impacts on the ability of poor people to meet their livelihood needs. The study concludes that, for land reforms to work proactively for the poor, they must be pursued as part of broader, holistic and integrated development initiatives.
A Reverse Stroop Task with Mouse Tracking

In a reverse Stroop task, observers respond to the meaning of a color word irrespective of the color in which the word is printed—for example, the word red may be printed in the congruent color (red), an incongruent color (e.g., blue), or a neutral color (e.g., white). Although reading of color words in this task is often thought to be neither facilitated by congruent print colors nor interfered with incongruent print colors, this interference has been detected by using a response method that does not give any bias in favor of processing of word meanings or processing of print colors. On the other hand, evidence for the presence of facilitation in this task has been scarce, even though this facilitation is theoretically possible. By modifying the task such that participants respond to a stimulus color word by pointing to a corresponding response word on a computer screen with a mouse, the present study investigated the possibility that not only interference but also facilitation would take place in a reverse Stroop task. Importantly, in this study, participants’ responses were dynamically tracked by recording the entire trajectories of the mouse. Arguably, this method provided richer information about participants’ performance than traditional measures such as reaction time and accuracy, allowing for more detailed (and thus potentially more sensitive) investigation of facilitation and interference in the reverse Stroop task. These trajectories showed that the mouse’s approach toward correct response words was significantly delayed by incongruent print colors but not affected by congruent print colors, demonstrating that only interference, not facilitation, was present in the current task. Implications of these findings are discussed within a theoretical framework in which the strength of association between a task and its response method plays a critical role in determining how word meanings and print colors interact in reverse Stroop tasks.
Assessing Methods of Identifying Management Forecasts: CIG vs. Researcher Collected

This paper examines the characteristics of management forecasts available on Thomson First Call’s Company Issued Guidance (CIG) database relative to a sample of forecasts hand-collected through a search of company press releases. Due to the significantly lower cost of using CIG (relative to hand-collecting data), academics have increasingly relied on this database as a source of management forecasts. However, it is important for researchers to consider the properties of this database (such as coverage, accuracy, and breadth) when evaluating whether it is an appropriate data source for their study. Overall, our results suggest systematic differences between forecasts reported on CIG and forecasts gathered from company press releases. We suggest several sample criteria that will remove or mitigate these biases.
Investigating AGN heating in a sample of nearby clusters

We analyse those objects in the Brightest 55 sample of clusters of galaxies which have a short central cooling time and a central temperature drop. Such clusters are likely to require some form of heating. Where clear radio bubbles are observed in these clusters, their energy injection is compared to the X-ray cooling rate. Of the 20 clusters requiring heating, at least 14 have clear bubbles, implying a duty cycle for the bubbling activity of at least 70 per cent. The average distance out to which the bubbles can offset the X-ray cooling, r heat , is given by r heat /r cool = 0.86 ± 0.11 where r cool is defined as the radius as which the radiative cooling time is 3 Gyr. 10 out of 16 clusters have r hcat /r cool ? 1, but there is a large range in values. The clusters which require heating but show no clear bubbles were combined with those clusters which have a radio core to form a second subsample. Using r heat = 0.86r cool we calculate the size of an average bubble expected in these clusters. In five cases (3C129.1, A2063, A2204, A3112 and A3391) the radio morphology is bi-lobed and its extent similar to the expected bubble sizes. A comparison between the actual bubble size and the maximum expected if they were to offset the X-ray cooling exactly, R max , shows a peak at R bubble ∼ 0.7R max with a tail extending to larger R bubble /R max . The offset from the expected value of R bubble ∼ R max may indicate the presence of a non-thermal component in the innermost intracluster medium of most clusters, with a pressure comparable to the thermal pressure.
Evidence of a Cyclotron Feature in the Spectrum of the Anomalous X-Ray Pulsar 1RXS J170849–400910

We report the results of a long observation of the anomalous X-ray pulsar 1RXS J170849-400910 obtained with the BeppoSAX satellite in 2001 August. The best-fit phase-averaged spectrum was an absorbed power-law plus blackbody model, with a photon index of Γ ~ 2.4 and a blackbody temperature of kTbb ~ 0.4 keV. We confirm the presence of significant spectral variations with the rotational phase of the pulsar. In the spectrum corresponding to the rising part of the pulse, we found an absorption-like feature at ~8.1 keV (a significance of 4 σ), most likely due to cyclotron resonant scattering. The centroid energy converts to a magnetic field of 9 × 1011 and 1.6 × 1015 G in the case of electrons and protons, respectively. If confirmed, this would be the first detection of a cyclotron feature in the spectrum of an anomalous X-ray pulsar.
A history of an internet exchange point

In spite of the tremendous amount of measurement efforts on understanding the Internet as a global system, little is known about the 'local' Internet (among ISPs inside a region or a country) due to limitations of the existing measurement tools and scarce data. In this paper, empirical in nature, we characterize the evolution of one such ecosystem of local ISPs by studying the interactions between ISPs happening at the Slovak Internet eXchange (SIX). By crawling the web archive waybackmachine.org we collect 158 snapshots (spanning 14 years) of the SIX website, with the relevant data that allows us to study the dynamics of the Slovak ISPs in terms of: the local ISP peering, the traffic distribution, the port capacity/utilization and the local AS-level traffic matrix. Examining our data revealed a number of invariant and dynamic properties of the studied ecosystem that we report in detail.
The Language of Memory: Narrating Memories of Parents and Friends

The purpose of this study was to compare narrated memories of parents and friends, recounted by both males and females. A total of 177 Italian undergraduates were asked to recall and to write in detail one relevant memory regarding their relationship with either parents or friends during adolescence. Half of the participants wrote a narrative about parents and half about friends. Narratives were examined using both a content and a lexical linguistic method of analysis. The results showed that the language of memories was substantially influenced by the identity of the social partners that were part of the remembered events. In particular the ratio of negative emotion words to all words and the use of 'I' personal pronouns were higher when participants recounted memory narratives about parents rather than friends, and 'We' was used more in narratives about friends. Gender differences were found as well. The authors interpret the results as suggesting that the language of memory is affected by the type of interpersonal relationship that exists between the narrator and the other participants in the remembered events as well as by the gender of the narrator. In other words, memory narratives both reflect and are influenced by the relationships within which an individual is embedded.
Lie Groups

The theory of algebraic groups can be described as that part of the theory of Lie groups that can be developed using only polynomials (not convergent power series), and hence works over any field. Alternatively, it is the elementary part that doesn't require analysis. As we'll see, it does in fact capture an important part of the theory of Lie groups. Throughout this chapter, k D R or C. The identity component of a topological group G is denoted by G C. All vectors spaces and representations are finite-dimensional. In this chapter, reductive algebraic groups are not required to be connected. [Only a partial summary of this chapter exists. Eventually it will include an explanation of the exact relation between algebraic groups and Lie groups; an explanation of how to derive the theory of reductive Lie groups and their representations from the corresponding theory for real and complex algebraic groups; enough of the basic material to provide a complete independent introduction to the theory of Lie groups. ]
Improving Coverage-Based Localization of Multiple Faults Using Algorithms from Integer Linear Programming

Coverage-based fault localization extends the utility of testing from detecting the presence of faults to their localization. While coverage-based fault localization has shown good evaluation results for the single fault case, its ability to localize several faults at once appears to be limited. In this paper, we show how two partitioning procedures borrowed from integer linear programming can help improve the accuracy of standard coverage-based fault locators in presence of multiple faults by breaking down the localization problem into several smaller ones that can be dealt with independently. Experimental results suggest that our approach is indeed useful, the more so as its cost appears to be negligible.
Management of Osteoarthritis with Avocado/Soybean Unsaponifiables

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a painful and life-altering disease that severely limits the daily activities of millions of Americans, and it is one of the most common causes of disability in the world. With obesity on the rise and the world’s population living longer, the prevalence of OA is expected to increase dramatically in the coming decades, generating burdensome socioeconomic costs. This review summarizes current pharmaceutical, nonpharmaceutical, and prospective new treatments for OA, with primary focus on the dietary supplement avocado/soybean unsaponifiables (ASU). ASU modulates OA pathogenesis by inhibiting a number of molecules and pathways implicated in OA. Anticatabolic properties prevent cartilage degradation by inhibiting the release and activity of matrix metalloproteinases and increasing tissue inhibitors of these catabolic enzymes. ASU also inhibits fibrinolysis by stimulating the expression of plasminogen activator inhibitor. Anabolic properties promote cartilage repair by stimulating collagen and aggrecan synthesis via inhibition of inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin (IL)-1, IL-6, IL-8, tumor necrosis factor, ERK, and prostaglandin E2. Chondroprotective effects are mediated by correcting growth factor abnormalities, increasing TGF-β, and decreasing vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in synovial fluid. ASU also inhibits cholesterol absorption and endogenous cholesterol biosynthesis, which mediate reactive oxygen species pathology in chondrocytes. At the clinical level, ASU reduces pain and stiffness while improving joint function, resulting in decreased dependence on analgesics.
Comparison of Concordance Correlation Coefficient and Coefficient of Individual Agreement in Assessing Agreement

In method comparison and reliability studies, it is often important to assess agreement between multiple measurements made by different methods, devices, laboratories, observers, or instruments. For continuous data, the concordance correlation coefficient (CCC) is a popular index for assessing agreement between multiple methods on the same subject where none of the methods is treated as reference. Barnhart et al. (2007) proposed coefficient of individual agreement (CIA) to assess individual agreement between multiple methods for situations with and without a reference method extending the concept of individual bioe-quivalence from the FDA 2001 guidelines. In this paper, we propose a new CCC for assessing agreement between multiple methods where one of the methods is treated as reference. We compare the properties of the CCC and CIA and their dependency on the relative magnitude of between-subject variability and within-subject variability. The relationship between CCC and CIA as well as the impact of between-subject variability are presented algebraically and graphically. Several examples are presented to explain the interpretation of the CCC and CIA values.
Coordinating the service process of two business units towards a joint customer

This article presents a new theoretical framework for coordinating an inter-unit collaborative service process towards a joint customer. To guarantee the quality and the added value of the service offering for the end customer, the two business units should organise their work as cross-functional and cross-unit business processes. The common service process is itself presented as a central coordination mechanism. It defines how tasks and responsibilities are shared between the collaborating units. The framework presents the factors supporting cooperation between the units, the prerequisites of the common service process and the ways of coordinating inter-unit cooperation. The study applies a constructive action research approach and abductive reasoning to develop the new framework through a single-company longitudinal, qualitative case study that consists of three development projects. Business unit managers can use the new framework as an analytical tool for recognising potential factors supporting cooperation and coordination in their specific operating environments.
Direct observations of clear-sky aerosol radiative forcing from space during the Indian Ocean Experiment

This study presents the regional estimates of the seasonal and diurnal mean broadband (0.3–5.0 μm) clear-sky aerosol radiative forcing at the top of atmosphere (TOA) due to both the natural and the anthropogenic aerosols over the tropical Indian Ocean from 25°N to 25°S. We propose two new methods, the slope method and the differencing method, to obtain clear sky aerosol forcing from solely satellite measurements. The focus of the study is January to March 1997, 1998, and 1999. The TOA clear-sky aerosol forcing was obtained by integrating satellite data for aerosol optical depth (AOD) and the broadband radiation budget. Over 30,000 pixels were collocated to estimate that the diurnal and seasonal mean reflected broadband solar radiation at TOA increases by about 24 W m−2 per unit increase in AOD at the wavelength of 500 nm. The observed TOA clear-sky aerosol forcing varied between −4 and −14 W m−2 in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) and between 0 and −6 Wm−2 in the Southern Hemisphere. Assuming a ratio of surface to TOA clear-sky aerosol forcing of 3 which was observed over Kaashidhoo Climate Observatory (4.96°N, 73.46°E) during the same period [Satheesh and Ramanathan, 2000], this leads to a clear-sky aerosol forcing of −12 to −42 Wm−2 at the surface in the NH. The difference between the TOA forcing and the surface forcing is the atmospheric forcing. As a result, the atmosphere is subject to a large net forcing of about 8–28 Wm−2 in the NH, largely due to the presence of black carbon. Of equal importance is the fact that the Indian Ocean aerosols introduce a large interhemispheric gradient in the solar heating during the wintertime. The implications for climate and monsoonal circulation may be major and need to be explored with coupled model studies.