Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of 1918 PB1-F2 Expression on Influenza A Virus Infection Kinetics

Relatively little is known about the viral factors contributing to the lethality of the 1918 pandemic, although its unparalleled virulence was likely due in part to the newly discovered PB1-F2 protein. This protein, while unnecessary for replication, increases apoptosis in monocytes, alters viral polymerase activity in vitro, enhances inflammation and increases secondary pneumonia in vivo. However, the effects the PB1-F2 protein have in vivo remain unclear. To address the mechanisms involved, we intranasally infected groups of mice with either influenza A virus PR8 or a genetically engineered virus that expresses the 1918 PB1-F2 protein on a PR8 background, PR8-PB1-F2(1918). Mice inoculated with PR8 had viral concentrations peaking at 72 hours, while those infected with PR8-PB1-F2(1918) reached peak concentrations earlier, 48 hours. Mice given PR8-PB1-F2(1918) also showed a faster decline in viral loads. We fit a mathematical model to these data to estimate parameter values. The model supports a higher viral production rate per cell and a higher infected cell death rate with the PR8-PB1-F2(1918) virus. We discuss the implications these mechanisms have during an infection with a virus expressing a virulent PB1-F2 on the possibility of a pandemic and on the importance of antiviral treatments.
Understanding the Role of the Football Manager in Britain and Ireland: A Weberian Approach

Abstract Using semi-structured tape-recorded interviews with twenty-two players and eighteen managers, this paper utilizes the work of Max Weber in exploring the role of the manager in professional football (soccer). More specifically, Weber's writings on legitimate authority are used to explore traditional aspects of the role of the contemporary football manager. The findings highlight the lack of formal management training and the widespread assumption within football that previous playing experience is sufficient preparation for entry into management. While many aspects of the management of football clubs have involved increasing professionalization and bureaucratization, the role of the manager has proved remarkably resistant to these processes. The authority of the football manager continues to be based on traditional forms of authoritarianism and this allows managers an unusually high degree of autonomy in defining their own role and places few constraints on the appointment of their support staff.
Manual for ZO version 2 . 3

ZO is a computer program that carries out simulation and/or enumeration analysis of graphs with given degrees. It is also possible to fix the number of mutual ties in a digraph and to restrict the analysis to connected graphs. The program can be run as a stand-alone program, or from within the StOCNET environment. ∗I am grateful to Peter Boer and Mark Huisman for their cooperation in the development of the StOCNET program. Authors’ address: Tom Snijders, ICS, Department of Sociology, Grote Rozenstraat 31, 9712 TG Groningen, The Netherlands, t.a. b.snijders@rug.nl.
IPO Underpricing, Post-Listing Liquidity, and Information Asymmetry in the Secondary Market ♣

Using a ten-year sample of IPOs undertaken on Euronext with various mechanisms, our study examines the relationship between initial returns and post-listing liquidity, and tests whether it is influenced by ownership structure and information asymmetry. According to most of our findings, post-listing liquidity is positively related to initial underpricing, but we fail to prove that this relation is formed through ownership dispersion. It is more likely attributable to the interest underpriced stocks generate. Information asymmetry is negatively linked to the level of initial underpricing, suggesting that more public information is produced on more underpriced IPOs.
Effective Population Size and the Efficacy of Selection on the X Chromosomes of Two Closely Related Drosophila Species

The prevalence of natural selection relative to genetic drift is of central interest in evolutionary biology. Depending on the distribution of fitness effects of new mutations, the importance of these evolutionary forces may differ in species with different effective population sizes. Here, we survey population genetic variation at 105 orthologous X-linked protein coding regions in Drosophila melanogaster and its sister species D. simulans, two closely related species with distinct demographic histories. We observe significantly higher levels of polymorphism and evidence for stronger selection on codon usage bias in D. simulans, consistent with a larger historical effective population size on average for this species. Despite these differences, we estimate that <10% of newly arising nonsynonymous mutations have deleterious fitness effects in the nearly neutral range (i.e., −10 < Nes < 0) in both species. The inferred distributions of fitness effects and demographic models translate into surprisingly high estimates of the fraction of “adaptive” protein divergence in both species (∼85–90%). Despite evidence for different demographic histories, differences in population size have apparently played little role in the dynamics of protein evolution in these two species, and estimates of the adaptive fraction (α) of protein divergence in both species remain high even if we account for recent 10-fold growth. Furthermore, although several recent studies have noted strong signatures of recurrent adaptive protein evolution at genes involved in immunity, reproduction, sexual conflict, and intragenomic conflict, our finding of high levels of adaptive protein divergence at randomly chosen proteins (with respect to function) suggests that many other factors likely contribute to the adaptive protein divergence signature in Drosophila.
An investigation into the role of human capital competences and their pay-off

In this paper, the role of three different types of competences in the labour market for higher education graduates is investigated. The article distinguishes discipline‐specific competences, general academic competences and management competences, the first being an example of competences acquired at school, which are of direct use in the labour market, the second being a type of competences also acquired in school, but which fulfil an indirect role by facilitating the acquisition of new competences after graduation from school, and the third, management competences, being an example of competences acquired mainly in a working context and, like discipline‐specific competences, being of direct use in that context. This paper shows that, first, the level of discipline‐specific competences obtained in higher education offers a comparative advantage for graduates working inside the own discipline‐specific domain, and therefore has a pay‐off for those graduates who are able to find a job in this domain; second, the management competences are valued in the labour market but seem to be more likely acquired in a working context than in higher education, and third, the general academic competences acquired in higher education do not pay off directly, but have a significant supportive role when learning competences that have a direct pay‐off in the labour market, like management competences, but are more likely acquired outside education.
Agriculture and the Economic Transformation of Ethiopia

Economic development transforms an economy from one that is largely agricultural to one that is largely manufacturing and services. Since agriculture currently dominates Ethiopia's economy and employment, however, there is an issue as to what its role should be in getting from here to there. In the normal process of economic growth, non-agricultural sectors grow more rapidly than the agricultural sector. The slower growth of agriculture, its relative decline, concern about the difficulty of modernizing agriculture and pessimism about the potentials for technological change in agriculture suggest to some that agriculture should not be given priority for scarce resources in the interests of rapid overall growth. There is substantial evidence, however, that raising agricultural productivity is possible and that agricultural growth plays a key role in economic growth, particularly in low income countries. Moreover, the Government of Ethiopia is committed to rapid growth of agriculture as a means of accelerating the economic transformation and reducing poverty. This paper examines the implications of this commitment to both growth and reduction in poverty, analyzes the progress underway, and diagnoses the critical elements of change in policy required to reach the objectives. Combining a review of experiences of other developing countries with an analysis of growth multipliers for Ethiopia, the paper argues that a high rate of agricultural growth has far-reaching positive implications for increasing employment and accelerating poverty reduction. High agricultural growth also helps avoid the creation of megacities with large slum populations. In order to achieve this rapid agricultural growth with positive economy-wide linkages, however, it is necessary to engage middle farmers, large enough to adopt new technologies and produce significant marketed surpluses, but small and numerous enough to have spending patterns that drive a vibrant rural non-farm sector. Finally, public and private investments in road, electricity and telecommunications are also needed to reduce marketing costs and enable growth in rural market towns and secondary cities, and provide social services to rural people. Maintaining a growth rate in agricultural GDP of six percent would provide enough employment growth to contribute to rapid economic transformation of the economy and rapid decline in poverty. Given the low level of crop yields relative to those of other countries with comparable resources, and relative to best farmers and experiment stations, a high rate of growth in agricultural productivity appears to be feasible. Current government policies are generally consistent with attaining continued high agricultural growth rates. However, reforms are needed to accelerate growth in seed production and distribution, and to improve fertilizer distribution and to accelerate growth in fertilizer use.
Collection for Tropical Crop Sugarcane Analysis and Functional Annotation of an Expressed Sequence Tag

References http://genome.cshlp. org/content/13/12/2725.full. html#ref-list-1 This article cites 47 articles, 20 of which can be accessed free at: License Commons Creative http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/. described at a Creative Commons License (Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License), as ). After six months, it is available under http://genome.cshlp. org/site/misc/terms.xhtml first six months after the full-issue publication date (see This article is distributed exclusively by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press for the
Asymptotic optimality of a cross-validatory predictive approach to linear model selection

In this article we study the asymptotic predictive optimality of a model selection criterion based on the cross-validatory predictive density, already available in the literature. For a dependent variable and associated explanatory variables, we consider a class of linear models as approximations to the true regression function. One selects a model among these using the criterion under study and predicts a future replicate of the dependent variable by an optimal predictor under the chosen model. We show that for squared error prediction loss, this scheme of prediction performs asymptotically as well as an oracle, where the oracle here refers to a model selection rule which minimizes this loss if the true regression were known.
Stochastic Modeling of Electricity and Related Markets

The markets for electricity, gas and temperature have distinctive features, which provide the focus for countless studies. For instance, electricity and gas prices may soar several magnitudes above their normal levels within a short time due to imbalances in supply and demand, yielding what is known as spikes in the spot prices. The markets are also largely influenced by seasons, since power demand for heating and cooling varies over the year. The incompleteness of the markets, due to nonstorability of electricity and temperature as well as limited storage capacity of gas, makes spot-forward hedging impossible. Moreover, futures contracts are typically settled over a time period rather than at a fixed date. All these aspects of the markets create new challenges when analyzing price dynamics of spot, futures and other derivatives.
Cognitive and attentional functioning in adolescents and young adults with Tetralogy of Fallot and d-transposition of the great arteries

The objective of this study is to investigate cognitive and attentional function in adolescents and young adults with operated congenital heart disease. Previous research has indicated that children with congenital heart disease have deficits in broad areas of cognitive function. However, less attention has been given to survivors as they grow into adolescence and early adulthood. The participants were 18 non-syndromic adolescents and young adults with tetralogy of Fallot and d-transposition of the great arteries that required cardiac surgery before the age of 5 years, and 18 healthy, unaffected siblings (11–22 years of age for both groups). Cases with congenital heart disease and their siblings were administered Wechsler Intelligence scales and reported attention problems using the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessments. Cases were compared to both healthy siblings and established norms. Cases performed significantly lower than siblings on full scale IQ and processing speed, and significantly lower than norms on perceptual reasoning. Cases also reported more attention problems compared to both siblings and norms. Effect sizes varied with medium-to-large effects for processing speed, perceptual reasoning, working memory, and attention problems. Findings suggest that neurocognitive function may continue to be affected for congenital heart disease survivors in adolescence and young adulthood, and that comparisons to established norms may underestimate neurocognitive vulnerabilities.
The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies

In this provocative and broad-ranging work, a distinguished team of authors argues that the ways in which knowledge  scientific, social and cultural  is produced are undergoing fundamental changes at the end of the twentieth century. They claim that these changes mark a distinct shift into a new mode of knowledge production which is replacing or reforming established institutions, disciplines, practices and policies. Identifying a range of features of the new moder of knowledge production  reflexivity, transdisciplinarity, heterogeneity  the authors show the connections between these features and the changing role of knowledge in social relations. While the knowledge produced by research and development in science and technology (both public and industrial) is accorded central concern, the authors also outline the changing dimensions of social scientific and humanities knowledge and the relations between the production of knowledge and its dissemination through education. Placing science policy and scientific knowledge in its broader context within contemporary societies, this book will be essential reading for all those concerned with the changing nature of knowledge, with the social study of science, with educational systems, and with the relations between R&D and social, economic and technological development.
Apoptosis and apoptosis related gene expression in normal conjunctiva and pterygium

BACKGROUND Pterygium is a relatively common eye disease in the tropics whose aetiology and pathogenesis remain uncertain. As such, interest has focused on understanding the underlying mechanism of pterygia development. METHODS 15 specimens of pterygia from 15 eyes were examined, together with normal conjunctival tissue from the same eyes for the pattern of gene expression of genes associated with the induction or repression of apoptosis (p53, bcl-2, and bax). In addition, the samples directly for apoptotic cells were examined by the terminal deoxynucleotide transferase (TdT) mediated nick end labelling (TUNEL) methodology. RESULTS In pterygia specimens apoptotic cells were found mainly confined to the basal layer of cells of the epithelial layer, situated immediately adjacent to the fibrovascular support layer. These cells were shown to express significant levels of p53 and bax, as well as the apoptosis inhibiting protein bcl-2. In contrast, normal conjunctival specimens displayed no bcl-2 expression and apoptotic cells were seen throughout the entire width of the epithelial layer, coupled with high levels of bax expression. CONCLUSION These results support a model whereby pterygia development is a result of disruption of the normal process of apoptosis occurring in the conjunctiva.
Operationalizing the Product Space: A Road Map to Export Diversification

Much of industrial development is a gradual and path-dependent process. Countries move from the products that they already produce to others that are similar, in terms of capital requirements, knowledge and skills. Not all the feasible new products however contribute in the same way to aggregate value added and growth. A key challenge along the diversification process is the identification of those sectors and goods that are feasible and at the same time have a higher potential to sustain economic development. This paper proposes a methodology that operationalizes the notion of product space, developed by Hausmann and Klinger (2007), Hausmann et al. (2007), and Hidalgo et al. (2007), in order to assist countries to identify those new products that could augment aggregate value using the existing productive capabilities embedded in the current production structure.
Frequency of Debris Disks around Solar-Type Stars: First Results from a Spitzer MIPS Survey

We have searched for infrared excesses around a well-defined sample of 69 FGK main-sequence field stars. These stars were selected without regard to their age, metallicity, or any previous detection of IR excess; they have a median age of ~4 Gyr. We have detected 70 μm excesses around seven stars at the 3 σ confidence level. This extra emission is produced by cool material (<100 K) located beyond 10 AU, well outside the "habitable zones" of these systems and consistent with the presence of Kuiper Belt analogs with ~100 times more emitting surface area than in our own planetary system. Only one star, HD 69830, shows excess emission at 24 μm, corresponding to dust with temperatures ≳300 K located inside of 1 AU. While debris disks with Ldust/L⋆ ≥ 10-3 are rare around old FGK stars, we find that the disk frequency increases from 2% ± 2% for Ldust/L⋆ ≥ 10-4 to 12% ± 5% for Ldust/L⋆ ≥ 10-5. This trend in the disk luminosity distribution is consistent with the estimated dust in our solar system being within an order of magnitude greater or less than the typical level around similar nearby stars. Although there is no correlation of IR excess with metallicity or spectral type, there is a weak correlation with stellar age, with stars younger than a gigayear more likely to have excess emission.
CD4+CD25highCD127low Regulatory T Cells in Peripheral Blood Are Not an Independent Factor for Chronic Graft-versus-Host Disease after Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplantation

Background. The therapeutic efficacy of allogeneic hemopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) largely relies on the graft-versus-leukemia (GVL) effect. Uncontrolled graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) is a feared complication of HSCT. Regulatory T cells (Treg) are a subset of CD4+ T-helper cells believed to maintain tolerance after HSCT. It remains unclear whether low peripheral blood Treg have an impact on the risk for acute (aGVHD) and chronic GVHD (cGVHD). Methods. In this paper we enumerated the CD4+CD25highCD127low Treg in the peripheral blood of 84 patients after at least 150 days from HSCT and in 20 healthy age-matched controls. Results. Although similar mean lymphocyte counts were found in patients and controls, CD3+CD4+ T-cell counts were significantly lower in patients. Patients also had significantly lower Treg percentages among lymphocytes as compared to controls. Patients with cGVHD had even higher percentages of Treg if compared to patients without cGVHD. In multivariate analysis, Treg percentages were not an independent factor for cGVHD. Conclusions. This paper did not show a relation between deficient peripheral blood Treg and cGVHD, therefore cGVHD does not seem to occur as a result of peripheral Treg paucity.
Is There More than Milk? The Impact of Heifer International’s Livestock Donation Program on Rural Livelihoods: Preliminary Findings from a Field Experiment in Zambia

This study evaluates the impact of Heifer International’s livestock donation program in the Copperbelt Province in Zambia. Using a panel data of 300 households and 4 survey rounds, this analysis assesses the impact of dairy cow, meat goat, and draft cattle donation programs on poverty and food security measures. The impact on consumption expenditures and livestock revenue are estimated with a difference-in-difference method, and the impact on dairy/meat consumption frequency is estimated with a pooled poisson regression. A probit model is used to estimate the effects on subjective measures of poverty and food security. Results show that the impact of the program has increased significantly over time and animal recipients are relatively feeling better. By the fourth round, all animal recipients have seen a significant increase in consumption expenditure, livestock revenue, and frequency of dairy/meat consumption. However, no significant impact exists on household asset ownership and growth. Although all the animal recipients have increased milk consumption, meat consumption has gone up among the goat beneficiaries only. While all three animal species contribute to increase consumption expenditures among animal recipients, only the draft cattle and dairy cow programs help increase revenue from livestock products. Likewise, the meat goat and dairy cow programs have contributed to food security through improved dietary diversity.