Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Role of Autocrine Motility Factor in Osteolytic Metastasis.

Abstract : Autocrine motility factor (AMF) is a l25kDa dimeric protein with two distinct functions: Intracellularly, it is an essential, ubiquitously expressed glycolytic enzyme. Extracellularly, it is also found in the circulation of patients with cancer, particularly with advanced, metastatic disease. Release of the extracellular form is by an unknown mechanism, but the factor binds to a known receptor with high affinity and has a number of effects, including stimulation of cell motility and differentiation of monocytic cells. We show here that AMF is a potent stimulator of the formation of osteoclasts, cells which resorb bone. The effect is species-specific by about lOOX between mouse and human AMFs and their receptors. The dose-response is bell-shaped with maximum effects at 1ng/m1. In vitro mouse AMF induces RANK ligand expression in a bone marrow stromal line. RANK ligand is the central regulator of osteoclast formation. Cells secreting mouse AMF formed tumors in the muscles of nude mice and caused several dramatic effects compared to equal-sized control tumors: 1) Systemically, AMF secretion caused severe weight loss (cachexia). 2) Locally, AMF stimulated formation of disorganized new bone between the tumor and the surface of the femur. The data suggest that AMF is a novel stimulator of local changes in bone during metastasis and may also be a systemic mediator of cachexia, a serious complication of neoplasia.
Corporate social responsibility as a means of marketing to and communicating with customers within stores: A case study of UK food retailers

In making the case for Corporate Social Responsibility the UK Government has argued that more transparency in the ways that companies address and manage environmental, economic and social issues can help improve relationships with employees, customers, and other stake holders (Department of Trade and Industry, 2004). The UK’s large food retailers are increasingly keen to report their commitment to CSR (Jones, et al., 2005) and while such reports can be accessed by various stake holders (Snider, et al., 2003) they are generally directed at share holders, investors, consumer pressure groups and policy makers rather than individual customers. This article offers a preliminary examination of the extent to which the UK’s major food retailers currently use CSR as a means of marketing to, and communicating with, customers whilst they are within their stores.
Is Innovation Persistent at the Firm Level? An Econometric Examination Comparing the Propensity Score and Regression Methods

At the macroeconomic level, the persistence of technological change allows sustainable growth. But do the innovations come from the same set of firms or from a continuous renewal of innovators? On this point, the assumptions underlying the endogenous growth models differ and innovation persistence at the macroeconomic level can be supported by different firm-level behavioural assumptions. The aim of this article is threefold. Firstly, we evaluate a measure of the degree of innovation persistence at the firm level. Secondly, we analyze the factors underpinning the innovation persistence by testing the theoretical explanations that have been proposed in the literature. Lastly, we examine the robustness of the standard econometric methods used in innovation economics. We show that the persistence of innovation is strong at the firm level and that the right theoretical modelling depends on the size of the firm. While the small firms reveals strong learning-by-doing effects in the production of innovation, the persistence of innovation in the large firms relies on the persistence of formal research and development investments.
The Needs and Financial Problems of Small and Rural Localities: The Case of West Virginia

The areas of Public Finance and Financial Management present potential problems for small and rural local governments. Responses from a survey of West Virginia local public officials were used to examine the severity of these two issues. Both issues were thought to be of equal importance Instead, the findings showed that Public Finance issues rated very high while Financial Management issues rated very low. Potential influences, such as type of locality, professionalism, and metropolitan area status, fail to explain the differences. Thus, it is concluded that for small and rural localities, Public Finance issues are more important than Financial Management issues.
Should We Stay or Should We Go? ‘Organizational’ Relational Identity and Identification in Social Venture Strategic Alliances

ABSTRACT In tackling some of society's most intractable problems, social ventures often engage in strategic alliances to overcome resource constraints and scale their solutions. While considerable research has focused on why strategic alliances are created, less attention has been focused on how they form and why they may (not) persist. Building on an identity-based perspective, this paper develops a theoretical model of strategic alliance development and change by explaining how, and with what results, leaders of social ventures influence the development of organizational identities within their own organizations and strategic alliance partner organizations. The model presented in this paper contributes to the identity literature by developing a cross-level model that explains how individual identities can facilitate the development of organizational identities and by extending the individual-level construct of relational identity to the organizational level by introducing the constructs of ‘organizational’ relational identity and identification. The model contributes to the social entrepreneurship and strategy literatures by suggesting that identity explanations may inform how strategic alliances are formed and why they may (not) persist.
Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization Agricultural Trade Liberalization and Downstream Market Power : The Ad Valorem Case

Exports of agricultural commodities to developed countries play a significant role in the economies of many developing countries. The elimination of import tariffs has the potential to benefit producers in the developing countries, but estimates of the extent of the gains from trade liberalization typically assume perfect competition. Significant concentration in the food processing and retailing sectors of the U.S. and the EU undermine the plausibility of this assumption in the case of agricultural trade, however. Sexton, Sheldon, McCorriston, and Wang (2007) develop a model of the effects of trade liberalization that accounts for the vertically-linked and concentrated characteristics of the developed countries’ food markets. Their analysis is limited to the case of a constant per unit tariff, however. In this paper, we extend the analysis of the effects of trade liberalization in the presence of downstream market power to the case of an ad valorem tariff, and we find important qualitative differences from the results for the unit tariff case.
Ethnic Niching in a Segmented Labour Market: Evidence from Spain*

Using the Spanish National Immigrant Survey (NIS-2007) we identify the ethnic niches where workers from five main immigrant communities concentrate. We then implement logit models in order to assess how structural factors and human and social capital variables affect the odds of working in these niches. We observe that the strong segmentation of the Spanish labour market strongly favours the concentration of immigrants in certain occupational niches. Nevertheless, variables related to human and social capital still play a significant role in the placement of immigrant workers in different niches, all of which are not equally attractive.
Vultures Circling Overhead: Does Short Selling Tell the Future?

This reports evidences a lead-lag relationship between securities which experience high levels of short-selling and those that do not. This is based on evidence that short-selling increases the speed with which information, especially negative information, is absorbed into prices. Previous literature mainly focuses on the presence of short-selling and its effect on prices. This study focuses on the magnitude of short-selling and finds a strong lead-lag relationship between returns of stocks that experience heavy short-selling compared to those that experience slight amounts. The relationship conforms to that of Chordia & Swaminthan’s (2000) speed adjustment hypothesis, in that it facilitates the imputation of common information. The relationship is strongest in small illiquid stocks where short-selling aids in the imputation of common information symmetrically and asymmetrically, and reduces as stocks become larger and more liquid. However in extremely volatile markets this relationship suffers. The relationship is robust to various factors including out of sample tests, accounting for size, and accounting for volume. Of note is the finding that short-selling aids in information imputation over-and-above the efficiency attributed to sophisticated investors. This indicates that market maker and uninformed short-sales add to the lead-lag effect.
Distortions to Agricultural Incentives in Ecuador

This is a product of a research project on Distortions to Agricultural Incentives, under the leadership of Kym Anderson of the World Bank’s Development Research Group. The authors are grateful for funding from World Bank Trust Funds provided by the governments of Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands (BNPP) and the United Kingdom DfID). We wish to thank helpful comments from Bruce Gardner, Marianne Kurzweil, Alberto Valdes and workshop participants. We are indebted to Kym Anderson for overall guidance and invaluable support during this study.
Covenants without the Sword: International Law and the Protection of Civilians in Times of War

Do the international laws of war effectively protect civilian populations from deliberate attack? In a statistical analysis of all interstate wars from 1900 to 2003 the authors find no evidence that signatories of The Hague or Geneva Conventions intentionally kill fewer civilians during war than do nonsignatories. This result holds for democratic signatories and for wars in which both sides are parties to the treaty. Nor do they find evidence that a state's regime type or the existence of ethnic or religious differences between combatants explains the variation in civilian targeting. They find strong support, however, for their theoretical framework, which suggests that combatants seek to kill enemy civilians when they believe that doing so will coerce their adversaries into early surrender or undermine their adversaries' war-related domestic production. The authors find that states fighting wars of attrition or counterinsurgency, states fighting for expansive war aims, and states fighting wars of long duration kill significantly more civilians than states in other kinds of wars.
Tampon Samplings With Longer Cervicovaginal Cell Exposures Are Equivalent to Two Consecutive Swabs for the Detection of High-Risk Human Papillomavirus

Background Self-sampling for human papillomavirus (HPV) is useful for triage of ASCUS Papanicolaou (Pap) smears. Tampons with 10-second cervicovaginal cell exposure can detect HPV but appear to be less efficient than two consecutive swabs. Goal The purpose of this study was to evaluate increased vaginal tampon exposures for detecting high-risk HPV. Study Design This longitudinal cohort study followed women who self-sampled weekly with tampons for progressively longer periods of time. A tampon was inserted for 10 seconds at the office visit and 1 hour, 4 hours, and overnight for the three subsequent home samples. Two concurrent swabs were used with each tampon sampling for contemporaneous comparisons. The MY09/MY11 PCR primer system with reverse line blot detection strips was used to detect 18 distinct high-risk HPV types. Results Of the 309 tampons and 618 swabs used at home, 83% were returned. Among normal women, the 10-second tampon detected fewer with normal histology and high-risk HPV than did its swabs (P = 0.0412), but the 1-hour, 4-hour, and overnight tampons had high-risk-HPV detection rates equal to their swabs. In women with CIN, all tampons and swabs equally identified those with high-risk HPV. Conclusion Self-sampling for HPV detection is acceptable, feasible, and technically accurate for both tampons with longer cervicovaginal exposures and swabs. The choice of technique is dependent on the woman, her culture, and her clinician.
High School Size, Organization, and Content: What Matters for Student Success?

In recent years, the large comprehensive high school has been a sub ject of growing c itique by researchers and reformers. "Factory model" schools have been criticized for their impersonal structures, fragmented curricula, segregated and unequal program options, and inability to respond effectively to student needs.1 Some studies have found that, other things equal, smaller schools appear to produce higher achievement, lower dropout rates, lower rates of violence and vandalism, more positive feelings about self and school, and more participation in school activities. These outcomes appear more pronounced for students who are traditionally lower achieving.2 In addi tion, the belief that large schools are necessarily more cost-effective has been challenged by studies finding equivalent operating costs and lower costs per graduate in smaller schools.3 However, there are competing findings about the effects of smaller schools for different groups of students and about the effects of school size and orga nizational features in diverse contexts. This review examines these findings across a wide range of studies over the last thirty years. We conclude that the influences of size appear to be mediated by other features of school organiza tions that are sometimes, but not always, associated with size, making the relationship between school size and many desired outcomes an indirect one. These other features are associated with aspects of school design, including how adults and students are organized to work together, the nature of the cur
Replication and Returns to Scale in Production

Abstract Replication alone does not yield a smooth constant-returns-to-scale production function as those usually assumed in the literature. However, such a function arises endogenously with replication, driven by profit-maximization, if the efficiency of the underlying production process varies with the intensity it is operated at, and reaches a maximum at a stationary point. The result applies when the number of production processes must be discrete, thus overcoming the so-called integer problem. When inputs are non-rival, public goods or generated by externalities, replication can lead to increasing or decreasing returns to scale.
Compilation and Binary Editing for Performance and Security

Traditionally, execution of a program follows a straight and inflexible path starting from source code, extending through a compiled executable file on disk, and culminating in an executable image in memory. This dissertation enables more flexible programs through new compilation mechanisms and binary editing techniques. To assist analysis of functions in binaries, a new compilation mechanism generates data representing control flow graphs of each function. These data allow binary analysis tools to identify the boundaries of basic blocks and the types of edges between them without examining individual instructions. A similar compilation mechanism is used to create individually relocatable basic blocks that can be relocated anywhere in memory at runtime to simplify runtime instrumentation. The concept of generating relocatable program components is also applied at function-level granularity. Through link-time function relocation, unused functions in shared libraries are moved to a section that is not loaded into the memory at runtime, reducing the memory footprint of these shared libraries. Moreover, function relocation is extended to the runtime where functions are continuously moved to random addresses to thwart system intrusion attacks. The techniques presented above result in a 74% reduction in binary parsing times as well as an 85% reduction in memory footprint of the code segment of shared libraries, while simplifying instrumentation of binary code. The techniques also provide a way to make return-oriented programming attacks virtually impossible to succeed.
Towards Hyperconnected Resource Requirements Planning

This paper focuses on Resource Requirements Planning (RRP) for hyperconnected supply chain. The objective is to enable Physical Internet (PI) Logistics Web actors to plan their resources effectively to be able to fulfill the demand in the forthcoming years. We first identify a lack of research literature about RRP for hyperconnected supply chains. We conclude from our literature review that the research efforts done by the PI community are focused on enabling the PI to become operational. But the PI community has not yet shown any interest in PI strategic planning. So, we position our research regarding the MRP II system's RRP, focusing on the strategic planning processes for production and capacity control. Therefore, from the lack of research literature about RRP for hyperconnected supply chains, and from the MRP II strategic planning methodology structure, we demonstrate the significant need to adapt this MRP II system's RRP to fit the hyperconnected supply chains requirements and so the PI requirements. Finally, we introduce a Physical Internet Resource Requirement Planning (PI-RRP) methodology corresponding to our research agenda guidelines. The development of this methodology will drive our futures researches.
Learning styles of undergraduate nutrition and dietetics students.

PURPOSE It has been identified that health science students, and in particular undergraduate nutrition and dietetics (N&D) students, have distinctive learning needs. The purpose of this study was to investigate the learning styles of undergraduate N&D students enrolled at a large Australian university. An awareness of the learning styles of undergraduate N&D students will assist university educators in providing appropriate learning opportunities and developing curricula to equip N&D graduates with the essential skills they need to work effectively in the modern practice environment. METHODS The Kolb Learning Style Inventory (K-LSI), Index of Learning Styles (ILS) and Success Types Learning Style Type Indicator (STLSTI) were distributed to 162 students enrolled in a Bachelor of Nutrition and Dietetics program at one metropolitan university. RESULTS One hundred twenty-nine questionnaires were returned, providing a response rate of 79.6%. The K-LSI showed that students were inclined toward converging (practical) and assimilating (reasoning) learning styles while the ILS identified the students as intuitive (innovative). The STLSTI results indicated an intraverted, sensing, feeling, judging approach to learning. CONCLUSIONS It is recommended N&D educators take into consideration the learning styles of dietetics students when developing curricula and evaluating teaching approaches. Analysis of learning styles can inform the planning, implementation, and assessment of teaching and learning activities to create effective learning environments, appropriate learning opportunities, and a contemporary curriculum for N&D students.
A Comparative Analysis of the Use of Microfinance and Formal and Informal Credit by Farmers in Less Developed Areas of Rural China

type="main"> Based on household survey data, this article shows that farmers' demand for credit in poor areas of rural China has increased significantly in recent years, and credits from various sources are used differently in production and consumption. For example, microfinance is used primarily in livestock and non-agricultural investments, formal credit is often used in crop production, and informal credit is largely used to meet farmers' consumption requirements. Developing a complementary system with various financial channels in rural China, particularly for non-governmental microfinance, is crucial for meeting farmers' rising demand for credit in both production and consumption.
Nine- to fourteen-year follow-up of implant treatment. Part III: factors associated with peri-implant lesions.

OBJECTIVE The aim of the present paper was to analyse, on patient and implant basis, factors related to peri-implant lesions. MATERIAL AND METHODS Two hundred and eighteen patients treated with titanium implants were examined for biological complications at existing implants 9-14 years after initial therapy. The effects of several potentially explanatory variables, both on patient and on implant levels, were analysed. RESULTS On the implant level, the presence of keratinized mucosa (p = 0.02) and plaque (p = 0.005) was associated with mucositis (probing depth > or =4 mm + bleeding on probing). The bone level at implants was associated with the presence of keratinized mucosa (p = 0.03) and the presence of pus (p < 0.001). On the patient level, smoking was associated with mucositis, bone level and peri-implantitis (p = 0.02, <0.001 and 0.002, respectively). Peri-implantitis was related to a previous history of periodontitis (p = 0.05). CONCLUSIONS Individuals with a history of periodontitis and individuals who smoke are more likely to develop peri-implant lesions.
The Evolution of Choice Policies in UK Housing, Education and Health Policy

Abstract Scholarship in social policy in recent years has examined how policy positions users in a range of roles, particularly most recently in terms of their roles as ‘choosers’ through the increased use of markets in welfare. This article considers how choice policies have positioned users since the creation of the modern welfare state, presenting a history of choice policies, but also a comparative examination of how they have differed in the UK between housing, education and healthcare. It concludes by suggesting that although approaches to choice vary considerably between the three public services examined, policy-makers often appear unaware of these differences, leading to mistaken assumptions that policies can be transferred or transplanted unproblematically.