Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hmgb3 Is Regulated by MicroRNA-206 during Muscle Regeneration

Background MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been recently involved in most of human diseases as targets for potential strategies to rescue the pathological phenotype. Since the skeletal muscle is a spread-wide highly differentiated and organized tissue, rescue of severely compromised muscle still remains distant from nowadays. For this reason, we aimed to identify a subset of miRNAs major involved in muscle remodelling and regeneration by analysing the miRNA-profile of single fibres isolated from dystrophic muscle, which was here considered as a model of chronic damage. Methodology/Principal Findings The miRNA-signature associated to regenerating (newly formed) and remodelling (resting) fibres was investigated in animal models of muscular dystrophies and acute damage, in order to distinguish which miRNAs are primary related to muscle regeneration. In this study we identify fourteen miRNAs associated to dystrophic fibres responsible for muscle regeneration and remodelling, and confirm over-expression of the previously identified regeneration-associated myomiR-206. In particular, a functional binding site for myomiR-206 was identified and validated in the 3′untranslated region (3′UTR) of an X-linked member of a family of sequence independent chromatin-binding proteins (Hmgb3) that is preferentially expressed in hematopoietic stem cells. During regeneration of single muscle fibres, Hmgb3 messenger RNA (mRNA) and protein expression was gradually reduced, concurrent with the up-regulation of miR-206. Conclusion/Significance Our results elucidate a negative feedback circuit in which myomiR-206 represses Hmgb3 expression to modulate the regeneration of single muscle fibres after acute and chronic muscle damage. These findings suggest that myomiR-206 may be a potential therapeutic target in muscle diseases.
Promoter Methylation in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma Cell Lines Is Significantly Different than Methylation in Primary Tumors and Xenografts

Studies designed to identify novel methylation events related to cancer often employ cancer cell lines in the discovery phase of the experiments and have a relatively low rate of discovery of cancer-related methylation events. An alternative algorithm for discovery of novel methylation in cancer uses primary tumor-derived xenografts instead of cell lines as the primary source of nucleic acid for evaluation. We evaluated DNA extracted from primary head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC), xenografts grown from these primary tumors in nude mice, HNSCC-derived cell lines, normal oral mucosal samples, and minimally transformed oral keratinocyte-derived cell lines using Illumina Infinum Humanmethylation 27 genome-wide methylation microarrays. We found >2,200 statistically significant methylation differences between cancer cell lines and primary tumors and when comparing normal oral mucosa to keratinocyte cell lines. We found no statistically significant promoter methylation differences between primary tumor xenografts and primary tumors. This study demonstrates that tumor-derived xenografts are highly accurate representations of promoter methylation in primary tumors and that cancer derived cell lines have significant drawbacks for discovery of promoter methylation alterations in primary tumors. These findings also support use of primary tumor xenografts for the study of methylation in cancer, drug discovery, and the development of personalized cancer treatments.
THE SUSTAINABILITY OF ASIAN WEALTH : An examination of the Asian Business Sector in the UK

The continued success of Asian entrepreneurs in the UK testifies to the sustainability of the Asian business community which appears to combine the dynamism of the free market with the dynamic, risk taking heroism of the entrepreneur. Asian wealth in the UK has become more diverse in terms of the type of entrepreneur and the types of business. It now crosses from first through to second and third generations. It spans manufacturing and services, entertainment and fashion, hotels and property, food and pharmaceuticals. Asian enterprises have attracted the attention of academics, policy makers and practitioners and are increasingly enjoying a higher profile in the popular press. Whilst recent studies highlight this growing importance, when charting the success of the Asian entrepreneur they tend to focus on the transformation from ‘rags to riches’ and the majority of studies concentrate on the characteristics of the owner, start up and the barriers to accessing finance. This study analyses the longer established, more successful enterprises of the Asian business community and seeks to draw out trends within this increasingly important sector of the economy and consider their economic sustainability. The study draws on data provided by the annual Asian wealth index which focuses on the 200 richest Asians in the UK. It analyses the wealth-generating capacity of this upper spectrum of the Asian business community through a comparative economic and sectoral analysis. The analysis suggests that the Asian business community has delivered significantly higher than average growth and that this growth has been driven by a shift towards higher value industrial sectors, questioning the extent to which the traditional stereotypes of the Asian entrepreneur, portrayed in the academic literature, maintain their value. For policy makers and the business support community the paper offers new insights into the economic nature of this growing business sector. The originality of the research process and data raises new issues in research into Asian entrepreneurship not just the UK. It thus offers significant challenges to the academic community.
The current trends and issues on ITS in Japan: Safety, energy and environment

Japan has been conducting ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) projects since mid 1980s aiming at safety and less congestion of road transportation. The car navigation systems, driver information systems, and ETC (Electronic Toll Collection) are already widespread, and large scale experiments on cooperative systems with road-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-vehicle communications for safety were conducted for near future introduction. The communication technologies are based on 5.8 GHz DSRC. In addition in a project aiming at energy saving and CO2 emission reduction, an automated truck platoon has been developed. One of the issues is low penetration of the safety-related systems.
The Black Hole

The following is a cue rundown descriptive analysis of John Barry's score to Walt Disney's The Black Hole. When I studied the score at Disney Studio in the spring of 1990, I did not have time to focus on each and every cue. In fact, my primary focus was on several favorite cues. I felt irresistibly drawn towards The Black Hole! This applies to the musical score, not so much to the movie itself that is an odd mixture of science fiction and Disney! When you see those Disney-cartoonish robots "Vincent" (voiced by Roddy McDowell) and "Bob" (voiced by Slim Pickens), you'll know what I mean. Anthony Perkins' wooden (two-dimensional) and Maximilian Schell's leaden (one-dimensional) acting did not help! However, I highly commend Disney for contracting John Barry to compose the interesting score (ala "Moonraker" in certain respects). John Barry's distinctive stylizations and signature (most film music fans can easily say of his scores, "Oh, yes, that sounds like John Barry! ") are evident here, including the rather leisurely, deliberate pacing of many of his cues, the eminence of soli eight horns in many passages, the use of celli underpinning, ostinati rhythms, etc. Many of Barry's cues have a tranquillo effect (evident especially in a romanticized way in "Somewhere In Time," a score and pic which were very appealing to women). Such cues can be characterized by some as "laid back music," or the Perry Como of film music! Most of Barry's output is not sophisticated or virtuosic (as, say, Korngold's music would be virtuosic), but it is nevertheless very appealing in its simplicity. It is not "busy" music. Yet it savors various instrumental lines that is quite satisfying to hear. In several cues here, the music is rather hypnotic, drawing you subtly into the situation or action of the scene. I am quite fond of John Barry's music, although he tends to lack the dark dramatic impact and romantic passion of, say, Bernard Herrmann's music. Again, it tends to be more "laid back. " Yet his style is quite unique and instantly recognizable. I am particularly fond of many of his cues for this Disney movie. Without his contribution (and Ellenshaw's), I feel the movie would've been sucked into the Black Hole of forgettable movies. Here are several Internet links about the movie that may interest a reader or two:
Determinants of Spillovers from Foreign Direct Investment through Backward Linkages

This study tests for the presence and determinants of vertical spillovers from FDI using a new firm level dataset from Lithuania. Taking into account econometric problems that may have biased results of earlier studies, it provides evidence of positive FDI spillovers occurring through backward linkages. In other words, the data indicate that firms in industries supplying sectors with greater multinational presence enjoy higher productivity. Further, the findings suggest that spillovers take place if backward linkages are associated with domesticmarket-oriented multinationals but not with those focused mainly on exporting. Similarly, positive spillovers are observed only in connection with partially-owned rather than fully-owned foreign projects. The data also indicate that the initial technological gap between foreign and domestic producers in sourcing sectors does not inhibit spillovers and that firms which possess limited exporting experience are more likely to benefit from backward linkages. There is no robust evidence of positive spillovers taking place through multinational presence in the same sector.
Intellectual Property and Standardization Committee Participation in the Us Modem Industry

The authors take a preliminary look at the interaction between patenting and standardization committee participation in the US modem industry. Both involve a much wider set of firms than the downstream modem manufacturers themselves. Not surprisingly, the two activities are highly correlated across firms. Using five-year periods, Granger causality tests show that while patenting is predicted by participation in earlier standardization meetings, meetings participation is not predicted by earlier patenting. The authors interpret these results as reflecting the timing of standard setting relative to innovation.
SUPREME: summary and publication of best practices in road safety in the member states

The SUPREME project aims to collect, analyse, summarise and publish best practices in road safety in the Member States of the European Union as well as in Switzerland and Norway, with a view to implementation in as many partner states as possible. By making the study results available to a broad target audience across Europe and thereby encouraging the take-up of successful strategies the project will contribute to reaching the 50% reduction target of road fatalities by the year 2010. The work is carried out by a comprehensive group of road safety institutions and experts, bringing along both excellence in the field and insight into specific conditions and institutional settings at the level of the 27 countries in the study area. The crucial task of the project lies with the sound identification of best practice from the vast amount of available measures. In order to facilitate this process, a set of tools for classification, selection and ranking of measures will be developed, along with guidelines for the assessment process at country level. Two separate handbooks will be provided, one for the European level (European institutions, international organisations, global industries) and one for the Country level (Ministries, regions, local level: stakeholders, policy makers, practitioners and the interested public). One of the first tasks in the project was the collection of information of potential best practice road safety measures. This was done by a questionnaire survey to all Member States and Norway and Switzerland. The aim of the presentation is to present the outcome of the SUPREME project and to give an overview about the final report and the delivered handbooks. This includes objectives, methods and results as well as the key success factors and potential implementation barriers.uThe target audiences of the project are decision and policy makers at all levels, from European to local, as well as the scientific community and practitioners in the field. Hence the European Transport Conference would be the ideal event to present this major European road safety project. For the covering abstract see ITRD E137145.
Agile Software Development Methods: Review and Analysis

Agile - denoting "the quality of being agile, readiness for motion, nimbleness, activity, dexterity in motion" - software development methods are attempting to offer an answer to the eager business community asking for lighter weight along with faster and nimbler software development processes. This is especially the case with the rapidly growing and volatile Internet software industry as well as for the emerging mobile application environment. The new agile methods have evoked substantial amount of literature and debates. However, academic research on the subject is still scarce, as most of existing publications are written by practitioners or consultants. The aim of this publication is to begin filling this gap by systematically reviewing the existing literature on agile software development methodologies. This publication has three purposes. First, it proposes a definition and a classification of agile software development approaches. Second, it analyses ten software development methods that can be characterized as being "agile" against the defined criterion. Third, it compares these methods and highlights their similarities and differences. Based on this analysis, future research needs are identified and discussed.
Dynamic effects of migrant remittances on growth : an econometric model with an application to mediterranean Countries

This paper builds a Keynesian type econometric model with a dynamic perspective and a sound theoretical basis, for investigating the impact of remittances on consumption, investment, imports and output. It estimates short and long-run multiplier effects of exogenous shocks of remittances, with data from five Mediterranean countries. The analysis reveals a uniform country performance of instability and uncertainty, with great temporal and inter-country fluctuations of remittance effects. The findings point to different inter-country priorities of remittance spending and to an asymmetric impact of remittance changes, in the sense that the good done to growth by rising remittances is not as great as the bad done by falling remittances.
TODE: An Ontology-Based Model for the Dynamic Population of Web Directories

aBstraCt In this chapter we study how we can organize the continuously proliferating Web content into topical categories, also known as Web directories. In this respect, we have implemented a system, named TODE that uses a Topical Ontology for Directories' Editing. First, we describe the process for building our ontology of Web topics, which are treated in TODE as directories' topics. Then, we present how TODE interacts with the ontology in order to categorize Web pages into the ontology's topics and we experimentally study our system's efficiency in grouping Web pages thematically. We evaluate TODE's performance by comparing its resulting categorization for a number of pages to the categorization the same pages display in the Google directory as well as to the categorizations delivered for the same set of pages and topics by a Bayesian classifier. Results indicate that our model has a noticeable potential in reducing the human-effort overheads associated with populating Web directories. Furthermore, experimental results imply that the use of a rich topical ontology increases significantly classification accuracy for dynamic contents.
Modelling Wages and Prices in Australia

This paper estimates a simultaneous-equation model of wages and prices for Australia, underpinned by a competing claims framework of imperfect competition. Two separate co-integrating relationships for wages and prices are identified by imposing the economic hypotheses implied by the theory. The steady-state relationships for wages and prices are then embedded in a parsimonious, dynamic wage-price model. The final model is both simple and parsimonious and able to describe the process of wage and price inflation in Australia
Private and quantum capacities of more capable and less noisy quantum channels

Two new classes of quantum channels, which we call more capable and less noisy, are introduced. The more capable class consists of channels such that the quantum capacities of the complementary channels to the environments are zero. The less noisy class consists of channels such that the private capacities of the complementary channels to the environment are zero. For the more capable class, it is clarified that the private capacity and quantum capacity coincide. For the less noisy class, it is clarified that the private capacity and quantum capacity can be single letter characterized.
Nonlinearities and the Order of Integration of Oil Prices

Abstract: Unit root tests are the starting point of most empirical time series research. This paper analyses the order of integration of oil prices taking into account the possibilities of nonlinearities in the deterministic components. Using an aggregate index for the price of oil, and applying Bierens (1997) unit root tests, we find that the hypothesis of a unit root process is rejected in favour of nonlinear trend stationarity of the price of crude oil. On the contrary, preliminary analysis using Ng and Perron (2001) and Kapetanios, Shin and Snell's (2003) tests, fail to reject the hypothesis of a unit root. Keywords: Unit Roots, Nonlinearities, Oil Price JEL Classification Number: C22, E39, Q43 1 . Introduction Oil prices have acquired increasing relevance in modern economics. This is not only because oil is the base chemical product for producing fuels, plastics, etc., but also because national income is heavily dependent on crude oil exports in many countries. Likewise, the relationship between oil prices and many other macroeconomic variables have promoted many lines of research. Following the influential work of Hamilton (1983), the most fruitful area of this research focuses on the connection between GDP and oil prices. Although the initial steps of this literature found that a linear negative relationship between oil prices and economic activity fits the data relatively well, empirical work soon turned attention to asymmetric adjustment of GDP to oil price shocks. The estimated linear model began to lose significance around the mid-1980s when the declines in oil prices had little effect in GDP. Based on the simple observation that oil prices have a larger impact on GDP in positive than negative fluctuations, alternative nonlinear models were proposed to
R-matrix calculations of low-energy electron collisions with methane

R-matrix calculations are performed for electron collision with CH4 at energies between 0.02 and 15 eV using a series of different ab initio models for both the target and the full scattering system. A target model similar to the standard multi-reference configuration interaction used in electronic structure calculations is found to give the best results. Results are presented for elastic scattering, with particular emphasis on the Ramsauer–Townsend miminum, and for rotational excitation, momentum transfer and electron impact dissociation. Extensive comparisons are made with previous studies.
Low-mass X-ray binaries in globular clusters: A new metallicity effect

Galactic Globular Clusters (GCs) containing bright X sources (L_x > 10^{36} erg/s), commonly associated with Low Mass X-Ray Binaries (LMXBs), are found to be significantly denser and more metal-rich than normal non-X-ray clusters both in the Galaxy and in M31. Within a framework where LMXBs in GCs are generated via tidal captures in high-density clusters and (2+1) encounters in low-density globulars, the higher incidence of LMXBs with increasing metallicity is shown to be {\it intrinsic} and not just a by-product of other effects. Two possible mechanisms are examined: the first one assumes a dependence of the cluster IMF on metallicity as recently published in the literature. The observed LMBXs, more frequently occurring in metal rich clusters, agrees with the predicted number of NS only if metallicity accounts for a minor contribution to the observed variation of the IMF slope. Other alternatives explored, such as the total variation of the observed IMF slopes is due to (a) just metallicity and (b) the combination of metallicity and position in the Galaxy lead to a clear-cut disagreement with the data. The second mechanism assumes that, at fixed cluster density, the rate of tidal captures depends on radius and mass of the capturing star. Based on standard stellar models, stars with higher metal content have wider radii and higher masses, hence the rate of tidal captures increases with increasing metallicity. From the order of magnitude computations made, this new effect by itself could explain the observed ratio of 4 between the frequencies of X-ray clusters in the metal-rich and metal-poor groups we observationally determined. However, there is no reason to exclude that both mechanisms can be at work.
Predicting Accruals based on Problems with Cash Flows

We construct empirical proxies for cash-flow timing and matching problems and provide evidence on the ability of this accrual generating factor to explain accruals. Researchers lament our meager understanding of the process that spawns accruals (Owens et al., 2013, Ball, 2013, McNichols, 2000). Our aim is to map the explanatory power boundaries demarcated by our current knowledge of the role of accruals—not to enter an empirical horse race. We produce three measures of cross-sectional variation in cash-flow problems: (1) negative serial correlation in cash flows (2) the predictive power of current cash flows for future cash flows, and (3) the relative explanatory power of two-year cash flows to one-year cash flows for returns. We find that the Jones-model r-squared increases significantly when cash-flow problems are incorporated and that these increases in explanatory power are larger than those produced by incorporating asymmetrically timely loss recognition into the Jones model (Ball and Shivakumar, 2005). We also show that the explanatory power of the Dechow and Dichev (2002) model increases significantly in subsamples exhibiting strong negative serial correlation in cash flows, suggesting that the explanatory power of this model is tied to its incorporation of cash-flow problems. Our results suggest a way to understand accruals at the firm-year level can be found via improved estimates of the transitory component in current operating cash flows. We thank participants in the Washington University in St. Louis accounting brown bag for comments.