Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Estimating Labour Market Performance in Twenty-Three OECD Countries, 1980-2009

The purpose of this study is to estimate the relationship between various macroeconomic variables such as output and labour for the 1980-2009 period. In order to indicate the main components of economic growth, I firstly use an alternative growth accounting method, where physical capital accumulation, technological changes and several (un)employment rates are also taken into account. Thus, analysing time series panel data of the USA, the EU-15 and some OECD countries with the rolling regression method, this paper concludes that the link between labour and output has obviously and temporarily changed after the mid-1990s. Hence, results suggested that an increase in output gaps caused a lesser changes in (un)employment rates, which could determine the increasing role of other economic factors i.e. technology, the labour market and political institutions etc.
The Unconditional and Conditional Exchange Rate Exposure of U.S. Firms

We re-examine the relationship between exchange rate movements and firm value. We estimate the exchange rate exposure of publicly listed U.S. firms clustered into eleven industries. Using a panel approach, we uncover statistically significant and sizable unconditional exposure. We also examine the dynamics of exchange rate exposure modeled as a function of business cycle indicators and firm characteristics. We find that exposure varies over time with macroeconomic and financial variables and increases during economic contractions. Deviations from the unconditional measure of exposure driven by the macroeconomic variables are economically meaningful.
FOXP3 expression in cancer cells and anthracyclines efficacy in patients with primary breast cancer treated with adjuvant chemotherapy in the phase III UNICANCER-PACS 01 trial.

BACKGROUND Predictive markers of response to chemotherapy are lacking in breast cancer patients. Forkhead Box Protein 3 (FOXP3) is an anti-oncogene whose absence in cancer cells could confer resistance to DNA damaging agent. So we made the hypothesis that FOXP3 expression predicts the response to anthracyclines in breast cancer patients and that adjuvant chemotherapy adding taxanes to anthracyclines confers an overall survival (OS) benefit over anthracyclines alone, in patients with FOXP3-negative tumors. PATIENTS AND METHODS Expression of FOXP3 in cancer cells was evaluated by immunohistochemistry in tumor samples from 1097 patients who participated in the PACS01 randomized trial that evaluated in adjuvant setting the adjunction of docetaxel (Taxotere) to anthracyclines in patients with localized breast cancer. Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox regression model were used to assess OS according to the presence or absence of FOXP3 expression in tumor cells. RESULTS Four hundred and five tumors were found to express FOXP3 (37%). FOXP3 expression in breast cancer cells was associated with better OS (P = 0.003). Uni- and multivariate survival analyses according to treatment arm revealed that FOXP3 expression in breast cancer cells is independently associated with improved OS in patients treated with anthracycline-based adjuvant chemotherapy, but not in patients treated with sequential anthracycline-taxane. Moreover, in vitro experiments showed that FOXP3 induction in breast cancer cell lines using histone deacetylase inhibitor enhances anthracyclines efficacy. CONCLUSION FOXP3 expression in tumor cells may be an accurate predictive biomarker of anthracycline efficacy in breast cancer.
IS FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT GROWTH CONDUCIVE? NEW EVIDENCES FROM SUB-SAHARAN AFRICAN COUNTRIES, 1980-2005

The paper investigates the impact of FDI on economic growth for a panel of 39 Sub-Saharan African countries for the period 1980–2005 in an extended Cobb Douglas production function. Taking into account the possible existence of endogeneity in FDI modeling, the study employs both static and dynamic panel data estimates. Results from the analysis suggest that FDI is an important element in explaining economic performance of Sub Saharan African countries and appears to be of the same importance private investment. Moreover the study confirms the presence of important endogeneity and indirect effect through granger causality tests.
Economic Implications of Mexico's Sudden Demographic Transition

Mexico is in the midst of an unprecedented demographic transition that is changing the size and age structure of its population. The most salient demographic change—and clearly the precursor of most other demographic changes—is the abrupt decline in the country's fertility rate from 6.5 in the early 1970s to the current 2.2 mark, one of the fastest declines in the world. This dramatic reduction of fertility rates has created a “boom generation” that is currently in its prime working years and that will gradually age and retire. As Mexico experiences sub-replacement fertility rates over the next decades, old-age dependency ratios will escalate to unprecedented levels, carrying significant economic implications, both in Mexico and in the United States. After reviewing the economic literature on the link between demographics and economics, this paper attempts to shed some light on the relationship between Mexico's demographic patterns and economic development since 1950, offering possible explanations for the apparent lack of an expected connection. The paper then discusses the implications of Mexico's demographic projections on both sides of the border.
Relationship between serum HBsAg level, HBV DNA level, and peripheral immune cells in patients with chronic hepatitis B virus infection

Background The chronicity of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is attributed to inappropriate functioning of cell-mediated immunity. Besides the importance of measuring serum HBV DNA and HBV surface antigen (HBsAg) as markers of viral replication and exposure, respectively, studies regarding their influence on immune cell status in chronic HBV infection are still scarce. Because such studies of chronic HBV patients have not been reported for India, we attempted to evaluate the relationship between serum concentrations of HBsAg, HBV DNA, and percentage of immune cells in peripheral blood of Indian subjects with chronic HBV infection. Methods Thirty-one HbsAg-positive subjects were evaluated for serum HBe antigen (HBeAg), anti-HBe, and alanine transferase status by standard enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and biochemical procedures. Serum HBV DNA level was determined by real-time TaqMan® polymerase chain reaction assay. Serum HBsAg level was measured by a third-generation sandwich ELISA kit. Peripheral immune cell profiling was done by multifluorometric flow cytometry analysis, for which 21 healthy subjects were included as controls. Results The majority (93.5%) of the study subjects were HBeAg-negative and anti-HBeAg-positive. Mean viral load, HBsAg, and alanine transferase levels were 4.20 ± 1.96 log copies/mL, 5.98 ± 4.62 log IU/mL, and 74.5 ± 110 IU/mL, respectively. In comparison with controls, total T cell and cytotoxic T cell populations were significantly (P < 0.05) reduced in HBV-infected subjects, while the status of B cells, natural killer cells, T helper cells, and ratio of T helper to cytotoxic cells remained unaltered. Conclusion Suppression of the peripheral cytotoxic T cell population in chronic HBeAg-negative chronic HBV infection is influenced by increased viral load. Serum HBsAg concentration appeared independent of serum HBV DNA level and immune cell status. Nonelevation of natural killer cell and T helper cell numbers in subjects harboring lower to moderate HBV loads is further indicative of noninduction of innate as well as a coordinated adaptive immune response favoring chronicity of the disease.
Geneious Basic: An integrated and extendable desktop software platform for the organization and analysis of sequence data

Summary: The two main functions of bioinformatics are the organization and analysis of biological data using computational resources. Geneious Basic has been designed to be an easy-to-use and flexible desktop software application framework for the organization and analysis of biological data, with a focus on molecular sequences and related data types. It integrates numerous industry-standard discovery analysis tools, with interactive visualizations to generate publication-ready images. One key contribution to researchers in the life sciences is the Geneious public application programming interface (API) that affords the ability to leverage the existing framework of the Geneious Basic software platform for virtually unlimited extension and customization. The result is an increase in the speed and quality of development of computation tools for the life sciences, due to the functionality and graphical user interface available to the developer through the public API. Geneious Basic represents an ideal platform for the bioinformatics community to leverage existing components and to integrate their own specific requirements for the discovery, analysis and visualization of biological data. Availability and implementation: Binaries and public API freely available for download at http://www.geneious. com/basic, implemented in Java and supported on Linux, Apple OSX and MS Windows. The software is also available from the Bio-Linux package repository at http://nebc.nerc. ac.uk/news/geneiousonbl. Contact: peter@biomatters.com
Intronic MicroRNA (miRNA)

Nearly 97% of the human genome is composed of noncoding DNA, which varies from one species to another. Changes in these sequences often manifest themselves in clinical and circumstantial malfunction. Numerous genes in these non-protein-coding regions encode microRNAs, which are responsible for RNA-mediated gene silencing through RNA interference (RNAi)-like pathways. MicroRNAs (miRNAs), small single-stranded regulatory RNAs capable of interfering with intracellular messenger RNAs (mRNAs) with complete or partial complementarity, are useful for the design of new therapies against cancer polymorphisms and viral mutations. Currently, many varieties of miRNA are widely reported in plants, animals, and even microbes. Intron-derived microRNA (Id-miRNA) is a new class of miRNA derived from the processing of gene introns. The intronic miRNA requires type-II RNA polymerases (Pol-II) and spliceosomal components for their biogenesis. Several kinds of Id-miRNA have been identified in C elegans, mouse, and human cells; however, neither function nor application has been reported. Here, we show for the first time that intron-derived miRNAs are able to induce RNA interference in not only human and mouse cells, but in also zebrafish, chicken embryos, and adult mice, demonstrating the evolutionary preservation of intron-mediated gene silencing via functional miRNA in cell and in vivo. These findings suggest an intracellular miRNA-mediated gene regulatory system, fine-tuning the degradation of protein-coding messenger RNAs.
The origin and early evolution of metatherian mammals: the Cretaceous record

Abstract Metatherians, which comprise marsupials and their closest fossil relatives, were one of the most dominant clades of mammals during the Cretaceous and are the most diverse clade of living mammals after Placentalia. Our understanding of this group has increased greatly over the past 20 years, with the discovery of new specimens and the application of new analytical tools. Here we provide a review of the phylogenetic relationships of metatherians with respect to other mammals, discuss the taxonomic definition and diagnosis of Metatheria, outline the Cretaceous history of major metatherian clades, describe the paleobiology, biogeography, and macroevolution of Cretaceous metatherians, and provide a physical and climatic background of Cretaceous metatherian faunas. Metatherians are a clade of boreosphendian mammals that must have originated by the Late Jurassic, but the first unequivocal metatherian fossil is from the Early Cretaceous of Asia. Metatherians have the distinctive tightly interlocking occlusal molar pattern of tribosphenic mammals, but differ from Eutheria in their dental formula and tooth replacement pattern, which may be related to the metatherian reproductive process which includes an extended period of lactation followed by birth of extremely altricial young. Metatherians were widespread over Laurasia during the Cretaceous, with members present in Asia, Europe, and North America by the early Late Cretaceous. In particular, they were taxonomically and morphologically diverse and relatively abundant in the Late Cretaceous of western North America, where they have been used to examine patterns of biogeography, macroevolution, diversification, and extinction through the Late Cretaceous and across the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary. Metatherian diversification patterns suggest that they were not strongly affected by a Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution, but they clearly underwent a severe extinction across the K-Pg boundary.
Policing Economic Crime in Russia: From Soviet Planned Economy to Privatisation

In analyzing how economic crime was managed in Russia, from the Brezhnev era to the Yeltsin years, this book reveals the historical roots of the 'criminal problem' that has marked Russian politics since the late 1980s. During the closing decades of the Soviet regime, the daily struggle against shortages of goods and services precipitated a rapid increase in the black market and other underground practices, visible to all, but still deemed illegal. How did Soviet police officers and judges select the cases they dealt with on a daily basis? And how were the funds and manpower dedicated to combating 'economic crime' actually deployed? Law enforcement agencies also had to deal with the aftermath of Mikhail Gorbachev's liberal economic reforms. Russia's economy underwent far-reaching change, its judicial framework proved obsolete to combat the new challenges and its police woke up to the possibility of privatising or selling their professional knowhow. Drawing on first hand research and interviews with criminals and police officers, this scrupulous study investigates the changing nature of criminal law and policing before and after the fall of the Soviet state.
Estimating the Effects of Fiscal Policy in OECD Countries

This paper studies the effects of fiscal policy on GDP, prices and interest rates in 5 OECD countries, using a structural Vector Autoregression approach. Its main results can be summarized as follows: 1) The estimated effects of fiscal policy on GDP tend to be small: positive government spending multipliers larger than 1 tend to be the exception; 2) The effects of fiscal policy on GDP and its components have become substantially weaker over time; 3) Under plausible values of the price elasticity, government spending has positive effects on the price level, although usually small; 4) Government spending shocks have significant effects on the nominal and real short interest rate, but of varying signs; 5) In the post-1980 period, net tax shocks have positive short run effects on the nominal interest rate, and typically negative or zero effects on prices; 6) The US is an outlier in many dimensions; responses to fiscal shocks estimated on US data are often not representative of the average OECD country included in this sample.
Popular Images versus Self-Images of Science : Visual Representations of Science in Clipart Cartoons and Internet Photographs

Introduction The public image of almost anything is substantially a visual image. Public discourses are visually mediated, and for most people images sustain when words have long been forgotten. Visual images communicate more readily to the public than other media, and even the written or spoken word translate into visual images in the human imagination. Although it has become the subject of scholarly studies about science only recently, visualization has accompanied science at least since medieval times. Many alchemical texts and Renaissance textbooks of practical knowledge were packed with images, setting the stage for the later tradition of textbook illustrations. Late medieval attempts to classify knowledge were illustrated by woodcuts of the arts, thus establishing emblems of the disciplines. The front page of Renaissance science books typically presented a portrait of its author in his characteristic setting, on which later traditions of portraiture could draw. The satirical literature of the 15th and 16th centuries, which was richly illustrated with woodcuts, did not spare fields like alchemy, pharmacy, and astronomy, nor did the later genre paintings. All these images contributed essentially to the public image of science in their time, and continue to do so today. Any study of the contemporary public visual image of science is faced with two problems: the sheer mass of existing pictures, and the gap between pictures as the objects of a study and language as the medium of communicating that study. Margaret Mead and Rhoda Métraux in 1957 and David Chambers in 1983 avoided both problems by letting people, in the first case, describe in words and, in the second case, draw on paper what a typical scientist looks like. Such studies revealed many stereotypes, for example, “a man who wears a white coat and works in a laboratory [. ] is elderly or middle aged and wears glasses [. ] wear[s] a beard, may be unshaven and unkempt [. ] is surrounded by equipment [. ] and spends his days doing experiments”, is a loner with “no social life, no other intellectual interests, no hobbies or relaxations”, or associated the scientist with a magician, alchemist, and mad scientist. Another option is to focus on a defined set of images as Marcel LaFollette did for U.S. magazine illustrations and Peter Weingart for film, and then analyze their visual content according to chosen categories.
Genetic Relationship between Carcass Traits and Carcass Price of Korean Cattle

The objectives of this study were to estimate genetic parameters for the carcass price and carcass traits contributing to carcass grading and to investigate the influence of each carcass trait on the carcass price using multiple regression and path analyses. Data for carcass traits and carcass prices were collected from March 2003 to January 2009 on steers of Korean cattle raised at private farms. The analytical mixed animal model, including slaughter house-year-month combination, linear and quadratic slaughter age as fixed effects and random animal and residual effects, was used to estimate genetic parameters. The effects of carcass traits on the carcass price were evaluated by applying multiple regression analyses. Heritability estimates of carcass traits were 0.20±0.08 for carcass weight (CWT), 0.33±0.10 for back fat thickness (BFT), 0.07±0.05 for eye-muscle area (EMA) and 0.25±0.10 for marbling score (MS), and those of carcass prices were 0.21±0.10 for auction price per 1 kg of carcass weight (AP) and 0.13±0.07 for total price (CP). Genetic correlation coefficients of AP with CWT and MS were -0.35±0.29 and 0.99±0.04, respectively, and those of CP with CWT and MS were 0.59±0.22 and 0.39±0.29 respectively. If an appropriate adjustment for temporal economic value is available, the moderate heritability estimates of AP and CP might suggest their potential use as the breeding objectives for improving the gross incomes of beef cattle farms. The large genetic correlation estimates of carcass price variables with CWT and MS implied that simultaneous selection for both CWT and MS would be also useful in enhancing income.
A general model for the evolution of mutualisms

The evolution of mutualisms presents a puzzle. Why does selection favour cooperation among species rather than cheaters that accept benefits but provide nothing in return? Here we present a general model that predicts three key factors will be important in mutualism evolution: (i) high benefit to cost ratio, (ii) high within‐species relatedness and (iii) high between‐species fidelity. These factors operate by moderating three types of feedback benefit from mutualism: cooperator association, partner‐fidelity feedback and partner choice. In defining the relationship between these processes, our model also allows an assessment of their relative importance. Importantly, the model suggests that phenotypic feedbacks (partner‐fidelity feedback, partner choice) are a more important explanation for between‐species cooperation than the development of genetic correlations among species (cooperator association). We explain the relationship of our model to existing theories and discuss the empirical evidence for our predictions.
Correlation between myocardial enzyme serum levels and markers of inflammation with severity of coronary artery disease and Gensini score: A hospital-based, prospective study in Greek patients

Background Our objective was to associate serum levels of myocardial enzymes and inflammatory biomarkers with severity of coronary artery disease (CAD). Patients and methods 123 patients participated in our study, including 65 cases of acute myocardial infarction (MI), 27 cases of newly diagnosed CAD – without MI – and 31 controls. In all subjects, myocardial serum enzyme levels (creatine phosphokinase, aspartate aminotransferase, lactate dehydrogenase) and inflammatory indices (C-reactive protein, fibrinogen, white blood cells, and erythrocyte sedimentation rate) were measured. Patients were all submitted to coronary angiography and CAD severity was evaluated by Gensini score. Results Significant differences concerning enzyme serum levels and inflammatory indices were found to exist between the three study groups, being highest among patients with acute MI (p < 0.001). A significant association was demonstrated between Gensini score and serum enzyme levels as well as inflammatory biomarkers. Conclusions Our findings suggest that serum levels of myocardial enzymes and inflammatory indices correlate with CAD severity in Greek patients.
Chondro/Osteoblastic and Cardiovascular Gene Modulation in Human Artery Smooth Muscle Cells That Calcify in the Presence of Phosphate and Calcitriol or Paricalcitol

Vitamin D sterol administration, a traditional treatment for secondary hyperparathyroidism, may increase serum calcium and phosphorus, and has been associated with increased vascular calcification (VC). In vitro studies suggest that in the presence of uremic concentrations of phosphorus, vitamin D sterols regulate gene expression associated with trans‐differentiation of smooth muscle cells (SMCs) to a chondro/osteoblastic cell type. This study examined effects of vitamin D sterols on gene expression profiles associated with phosphate‐enhanced human coronary artery SMC (CASMC) calcification. Cultured CASMCs were exposed to phosphate‐containing differentiation medium (DM) with and without calcitriol, paricalcitol, or the calcimimetic R‐568 (10−11–10−7 M) for 7 days. Calcification of CASMCs, determined using colorimetry following acid extraction, was dose dependently increased (1.6‐ to 1.9‐fold) by vitamin D sterols + DM. In contrast, R‐568 did not increase calcification. Microarray analysis demonstrated that, compared with DM, calcitriol (10−8 M) + DM or paricalcitol (10−8 M) + DM similarly and significantly (P < 0.05) regulated genes of various pathways including: metabolism, CYP24A1; mineralization, ENPP1; apoptosis, GIP3; osteo/chondrogenesis, OPG, TGFB2, Dkk1, BMP4, BMP6; cardiovascular, HGF, DSP1, TNC; cell cycle, MAPK13; and ion channels, SLC22A3 KCNK3. R‐568 had no effect on CASMC gene expression. Thus, SMC calcification observed in response to vitamin D sterol + DM may be partially mediated through targeting mineralization, apoptotic, osteo/chondrocytic, and cardiovascular pathway genes, although some gene changes may protect against calcification. Further studies to determine precise roles of these genes in development of, or protection against VC and cardiovascular disease are required. J. Cell. Biochem. 111: 911–921, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.