Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Neuronal calcium-binding proteins 1/2 localize to dorsal root ganglia and excitatory spinal neurons and are regulated by nerve injury

Significance Calcium-binding proteins (CaBPs) are key determinants of cellular functions, as well as useful anatomical markers for neural subpopulations. Here, we reveal the distribution and phenotypes of neurons expressing neuronal calcium-binding proteins 1 and 2 (NECAB1/2) in intact mouse dorsal root ganglia (DRGs) and spinal cord and after nerve injury using immunohistochemistry and the CLARITY method. In DRGs, NECAB1/2 are expressed in high numbers (∼70%) of all DRG neurons, including nociceptors. Axonal injury down-regulates NECAB2 in DRGs. In spinal cord, NECAB1/2 show a complementary distribution, mostly in excitatory neurons, and represent unique molecular markers for commissural neurons originally described by Ramón y Cajal. Our characterization of NECABs at the spinal level provides a basis for exploring their role in sensory functions, particularly pain. Neuronal calcium (Ca2+)-binding proteins 1 and 2 (NECAB1/2) are members of the phylogenetically conserved EF-hand Ca2+-binding protein superfamily. To date, NECABs have been explored only to a limited extent and, so far, not at all at the spinal level. Here, we describe the distribution, phenotype, and nerve injury-induced regulation of NECAB1/NECAB2 in mouse dorsal root ganglia (DRGs) and spinal cord. In DRGs, NECAB1/2 are expressed in around 70% of mainly small- and medium-sized neurons. Many colocalize with calcitonin gene-related peptide and isolectin B4, and thus represent nociceptors. NECAB1/2 neurons are much more abundant in DRGs than the Ca2+-binding proteins (parvalbumin, calbindin, calretinin, and secretagogin) studied to date. In the spinal cord, the NECAB1/2 distribution is mainly complementary. NECAB1 labels interneurons and a plexus of processes in superficial layers of the dorsal horn, commissural neurons in the intermediate area, and motor neurons in the ventral horn. Using CLARITY, a novel, bilaterally connected neuronal system with dendrites that embrace the dorsal columns like palisades is observed. NECAB2 is present in cell bodies and presynaptic boutons across the spinal cord. In the dorsal horn, most NECAB1/2 neurons are glutamatergic. Both NECAB1/2 are transported into dorsal roots and peripheral nerves. Peripheral nerve injury reduces NECAB2, but not NECAB1, expression in DRG neurons. Our study identifies NECAB1/2 as abundant Ca2+-binding proteins in pain-related DRG neurons and a variety of spinal systems, providing molecular markers for known and unknown neuron populations of mechanosensory and pain circuits in the spinal cord.
Innovation and Patentability Requirement in a Globalized World

One important element of a patent regime is the non-obviousness requirement, which captures the minimum improvement to the best patented technology a new invention is required to make in order for it to be patentable. We call it the required inventive step. We explore the implications of a patenting regime based on required inventive step, by incorporating such intellectual property protection considerations in the quality-improvement model of technology, trade and growth developed by Eaton and Kortum (European Economic Review 2001). In considering whether to increase the inventive step, policy-makers trade off the benefits of a higher rate of innovation against the loss of consumer surplus as patent-holders enjoy their monopoly pricing power for a longer duration on average. We first establish that there exists an optimal binding inventive step that maximizes country welfare under certain reasonable conditions. We then proceed to formulate an open-economy model, in which countries interact through cross-border trade and firms patent internationally. We focus on the central case that domestic goods and foreign goods are highly substitutable with each other so as to contrast with earlier work of Grossman and Lai (American Economic Review 2004), who analyzed international IPR issues under an alternative regime based on patent length protection and product innovation. We find that there exists a stable Nash equilibrium of the inventive-step-setting game between national governments that features over-protection of intellectual property from a global perspective. Moreover, country governments set higher inventive steps in the open-economy relative to the closed-economy benchmark. We discuss how these results relate to Grossman and Lai (2004). Of note, globalization in the form of reduced trade frictions leads countries to raise their equilibrium inventive steps. Consequently, globalization leads to higher equilibrium research intensities in all countries.
Control strategy for a snake-like robot based on constraint force and its validation

This paper is concerned with a method for the locomotion of a snake-like robot, and proposes a control strategy based on the friction force between its body and the ground for the robot. It is said that the locomotion of a snake utilizes the friction force between the body and the ground. Our concept of a control system design is that a control law should be based on the friction force as a real snake is. A three- link serial robot is considered as an experimental system, and its mathematical models, both the equation of motion of the robot and the friction, are derived by the projection method proposed by W. Blajer. A snake-like robot has holonomic and nonholonomic constraints. The advantage of the projection method is that it can deal with these different types of constraint simultaneously in the modeling process. The friction model is evaluated by the cost function of the control system design based on state dependent Riccati equations. As a result a derived control law takes the friction effect into account. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified and evaluated through some numerical simulations.
Information Production within the Venture Capital Market: Implications for Economic Growth and Development

I find venture capitalists’ (VCs’) information production activities help decrease uncertainty about asset valuations within public equity markets, resulting in price convergence within the cross-section of Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) that are backed by different classes of VCs and price convergence between VC and non-VC backed IPOs. These findings provide evidence that venture capital financing can be a component of an effective or efficient price discovery process within public equity markets that yields beneficial externalities in so far as the pricing of non-VC backed IPOs are concerned. Given a decrease in valuation uncertainty ultimately results in lower costs of capital for issuing firms, larger stock markets, and improvements in market liquidity or efficiency, empirical findings provide evidence that VCs’ information production activities are beneficial for economic growth and economic development (price discovery processes that induce efficient allocation of resources within stock markets).
Teleophthalmology with optical coherence tomography imaging in community optometry. Evaluation of a quality improvement for macular patients

Purpose To describe a quality improvement for referral of National Health Service patients with macular disorders from a community optometry setting in an urban area. Methods Service evaluation of teleophthalmology consultation based on spectral domain optical coherence tomography images acquired by the community optometrist and transmitted to hospital eye services. Results Fifty patients with suspected macular conditions were managed via telemedicine consultation over 1 year. Responses were provided by hospital eye service-based ophthalmologists to the community optometrist or patient within the next day in 48 cases (96%) and in 34 (68%) patients on the same day. In the consensus opinion of the optometrist and ophthalmologist, 33 (66%) patients required further “face-to-face” medical examination and were triaged on clinical urgency. Seventeen cases (34%) were managed in the community and are a potential cost improvement. Specialty trainees were supervised in telemedicine consultations. Conclusion Innovation and quality improvement were demonstrated in both optometry to ophthalmology referrals and in primary optometric care by use of telemedicine with spectral domain optical coherence tomography images. E-referral of spectral domain optical coherence tomography images assists triage of macular patients and swifter care of urgent cases. Teleophthalmology is also, in the authors’ opinion, a tool to improve interdisciplinary professional working with community optometrists. Implications for progress are discussed.
THEORETICAL MODEL OF THE IMPACT OF REGULATION ON THE QUALITY OF SERVICE

It is important to analyze theoretically the comparative static effects of changing parameters of the regulatory regime such as incentive power and time, and to see how the analysis depends on observability of various dimensions of quality. In this paper, we first review the theoretical literature on quality provision by unregulated and regulated monopolies. Then I present a theoretical model that studies how regulation affects quality provision by the firm. Finally, we also draw conclusions.
Board Independence, Ownership Structure, Audit Quality and Income Smoothing Activities: A Study on Malaysian Market

The 1997 economic crisis faced by many East Asian economies has generated a substantial amount of debate largely focused on issues such as the roles and functions of good corporate governance (CG). Lack of transparency has been singled out as the major culprit of the crisis and it has been alleged to cause management to indulge themselves in unhealthy activities such as income smoothing (IS) act. The paper extends Nasuhiyah, Hian, Soh and WEI (1994) by incorporating contextual variables that proxy for CG, ownership structure and audit quality. The empirical analysis is conducted on a sample of Bursa Malaysia listed companies for a period between 1991 and 2000. The main intention of taking this time span is to observe to what extend has previous business operations inculcated the feature of CG in the running of their companies' activities despite not being obligatory for them to uphold. The results showed that the existence of non-executive directors and the presence of brand name auditors to be significant in hindering the management from indulging in IS. The study opens the way for a richer understanding of the links among CG, ownership structure, audit quality and IS in Malaysia.
Essays on Competition in Electricity Markets

The rst chapter shows how technology decisions a ect entry in commodity markets with oligopolistic competition, like the electricity market. I demonstrate an entry deterrence e ect that works through cost uncertainty. Technology's cost uncertainty a ects spot market expected pro ts through forward market trades. Therefore, incentives to engage in forward trading shape rms' decisions on production technologies. I show that high-cost but low-risk technologies are adopted by risk-averse incumbents to deter entry. Strategic technology adoption can end in a equilibrium where highcost technologies prevail over low-cost but riskier ones. In the case of incumbents who are less risk-averse than entrants, entry deterrence is achieved by choosing riskier technologies. The main results do not depend on who chooses their technology rst. Chapter two examines the Chilean experience on auctions for long-term supply contracts in electricity markets from 2006 to 2011. Using a divisible-good auction model, I provide a theoretical framework that explains bidding behavior in terms of expected spot prices and contracting positions. The model is extended to include potential strategic behavior on contracting decisions. Empirical estimations con rm the main determinants of bidding behavior and show heterogeneity in the marginal cost of over-contracting depending on size and incumbency. Chapter three analyzes the lag in capacity expansion in the Chilean electricity market from 2000 to 2004. Regarded as a result of regulatory uncertainty, the role of delays in the construction of a large hydro-power plant has been overlooked by the literature. We argue that those delays postponed projected investment and gave
Improving Financial Reports by Revealing the Accuracy of Prior Estimates

Several researchers (e.g., Lundholm, 1999; Ryan, 1997; Petroni, et al, 2001) have proposed a reporting mechanism to enhance the reliability of estimates and other forward-looking information in the financial reporting process. Their proposal requires companies to report reconciliations of prior year estimates to actual realizations as supplemental information in their financial reports. Such disclosures would enable investors to distinguish between accurate and opportunistic reporting behavior, and arguably should create incentives for companies to accurately estimate in the first place. Our study provides evidence on these proposals to expand the reporting model. We develop predictions based on research in psychology and conduct an experiment within the context of an important intangible asset requiring estimation-software development costs. Our results show that the reporting mechanism proposed by Lundholm, Ryan, Petroni, and others is effective in communicating information about the accuracy of financial estimates. However, we find that all disclosures are not equally useful. The most-effective disclosures transparently describe the implications of misestimation (if any) on both the balance sheet and on earnings. Merely disclosing what the software development asset would have been (i.e., balance sheet effect only) under perfect foresight does not always lead investors to completely distinguish between accurate and opportunistic estimators. Our results also show that when the disclosures transparently describe the implications of misestimation, investors reward those who are accurate estimators but do not punish those who are inaccurate. We conclude that information about previous estimate accuracy is useful to investors, and that regulators should consider the transparency of disclosure formats, as all disclosures may not be equally effective in creating management incentives for accurate estimation. Further, the effectiveness of the proposed reporting mechanism for enhancing the reliability of financial reports appears to rest on the relative competitive advantage conferred upon firms that provide accurate estimates.
Web-Based Disclosure About Value Creation Processes: A Monitoring Perspective

Adopting a monitoring perspective, this study aims to explain how and why firms provide web-based disclosure about their value creation and its underlying processes. We rely on the balanced scoreboard approach to measure disclosure. Our results suggest that costs incurred by capital markets' participants as well as monitoring by the board and the media drive disclosure. Moreover, we argue and document that a firm's disclosure is actually a part of its governance configuration and influences some board processes.
Master Low-Power CMOS Differential LC-VCO and QVCO Design

This thesis presents a backgate coupled QVCO with current reused structure, and complementary cross-coupled differential Colpitts VCO and QVCO. The formally proposed QVCO not only dissipates significantly lower power but also improves 1/ƒ close-in phase noise, compared to the conventional QVCO. For verification of the suggested idea, the proposed QVCO designed for 2 GHz operation based on a 0.18-μm CMOS technology. Measurements show -102 and -124 dBc/Hz at 100-kHz and 1-MHz offset, respectively, while dissipating a total current of 1.74 mA from a 1.25-V supply. The latterly proposed VCO is substituted gm-boosted Colpitts oscillator for the cross-coupled N-MOS switching pair in the conventional complementary cross-coupled differential LC-VCO. By reducing of supply voltage and providing high negative conductance at the given current consumption, the proposed VCO is possible to make low power design. A 1.8-GHz VCO and P-QVCO, adopting the proposed topology, are implemented in 0.25-μm CMOS technology. From the measurement result, the fabricated VCO and QVCO shows phase noise of -116.8 and -117.7 dBc/Hz at 1-MHz offset while dissipating only 0.4 and 1.1 mA from 0.9-V supply, respectively.
The Determinants of Environmental Innovations and Patenting: Germany Reconsidered

This paper provides new evidence on the objectives and determinants of different types of innovations and patents, environmental as opposed to other innovations and patents, and different variants of environmental innovations and patents. We investigate how firm-specific and sector-specific driving forces differ by innovation type. Moreover, we outline the functions that different innovation types have for environmental and innovation policies. We find that eco-innovators put relatively more attention to cost reduction, in particular the reduction of energy and resource costs, compared to other innovators. Cost pressure and reliable, predictable and strict framework conditions of environmental policy turns out to be an important driver for more incremental, firm-level eco-innovations contributing to the diffusion of principally known technologies among firms. By contrast, more far-reaching patented eco-innovations are driven by the opportunity to create new markets and by government subsidies.
A promising timing strategy in equity markets

In a working paper, Jacobsen and Bouman (2001) claim that that the old stock market saying of “sell in May and go away but buy back by St. Leger Day” produces statistically significant profit when tested on a large database of equity market returns over the last decade, three decades, and even longer periods. In a recently published paper, Sullivan, Timmerman and White (2001) dismissed the statistical significance of this or any other calendar-based trading rule, attributing the reported test results to a large data mining exercise of the academic and financial communities. In this paper, we provide an out-of-sample test on the Bouman and Jacobsen strategy and conclude that the reported results are indeed statistically significant. In doing so we reintroduce a reliable index of capital returns on the Irish equity market maintained contemporaneously by the Irish Central Statistical Office (and its forerunner) since January 1934 which, in its early decades, displays markedly different statistical properties to both the US and UK equity markets of that time and equity market returns generally in recent decades. As a subsidiary exercise we reconsider the extensive literature on monthly seasonality in equity markets with this novel index. It is contended that the abnormally high returns frequently reported in January and April and occasionally in February and other months are perhaps more accurately and certainly more parsimoniously ascribed to the half-year effect captured in the old stock market adage.
LYMPHOID CELLULAR RESPONSES IN THE BLOOD AFTER IMMUNIZATION IN MAN

A combined morphological and metabolic study has been made of the lymphoid cells in the blood during the immune response in man. Similar changes were observed in both primary and secondary responses to a number of different microbial antigens. The cellular response involved an increase in numbers of three types of cell; hyperbasophilic medium lymphocytes, plasma cells, and large lymphoid cells. The large lymphoid cells were about 20 µ in diameter with large nuclei, prominent nucleoli, and an intensely basophilic cytoplasm with numerous polyribosomes. About 30% of these cells were in the DNA synthetic phase of cell growth. Electron microscopy has shown that many of the basophilic medium-sized cells have sufficient well-organized endoplasmic reticulum to be included in the plasma cell series. The hyperbasophilic cells labeled more heavily with tritiated uridine and tritiated leucine than the normal small and medium lymphocytes from the peripheral blood of patients not under antigenic stimulation. The evidence in this paper supports the argument that the atypical mononuclear cells first described by Türk and others in the blood of patients with infections are immunoblasts, plasma cells, and other reactive lymphoid cells representing a circulating population of lymphoid cells derived from lymphoid tissue responding to antigenic stimulation. The presence of such cells may be a valuable indication that an immunological reaction is in progress when direct proof is lacking.
Acinetobacter baumannii skin and soft-tissue infection associated with war trauma.

BACKGROUND Acinetobacter baumannii is usually associated with nosocomial pneumonia or bacteremia. Reports of A. baumannii skin and soft-tissue infection (SSTI) are uncommon. METHODS We performed a retrospective review of 57 inpatients admitted to a naval hospital ship and identified 8 patients with A. baumannii-associated SSTI. Demographic and clinical characteristics were compared between these patients and 49 patients with A. baumannii infections that were not SSTIs. We also reviewed 18 cases of A. baumannii-associated SSTI from the literature. RESULTS Our 8 cases of A. baumannii-associated SSTI were associated with combat trauma wounds. The median age of the patients was 26 years. Although not statistically significant, A. baumannii-associated SSTIs were more likely to be associated with gunshot wounds (75% vs. 55%) or external fixators (63% vs. 29%), compared with A. baumannii infections that were not SSTIs. Use of a central venous catheter and total parenteral nutrition was also more common for patients with SSTI. Our cases of A. baumannii-associated SSTI presented as cellulitis with a "peau d'orange" appearance with overlying vesicles and, when untreated, progressed to necrotizing infection with bullae (hemorrhagic and nonhemorrhagic). In our case series, all isolates were multidrug resistant, and clinical success was achieved for 7 of 8 patients with debridement and carbapenem therapy. CONCLUSIONS A. baumannii-associated SSTI is an emerging infection in patients who experience trauma. Clinicians should be aware of the potential role of A. baumannii as a multidrug-resistant pathogen causing hospital-acquired SSTI, particularly when associated with previous trauma or use of invasive devices. It should be suspected in patients who experience trauma and have edematous cellulitis with overlying vesicles. Early empirical coverage for drug-resistant species (e.g., with carbapenem therapy), combined with debridement, is usually curative.
CEGMA: a pipeline to accurately annotate core genes in eukaryotic genomes

MOTIVATION The numbers of finished and ongoing genome projects are increasing at a rapid rate, and providing the catalog of genes for these new genomes is a key challenge. Obtaining a set of well-characterized genes is a basic requirement in the initial steps of any genome annotation process. An accurate set of genes is needed in order to learn about species-specific properties, to train gene-finding programs, and to validate automatic predictions. Unfortunately, many new genome projects lack comprehensive experimental data to derive a reliable initial set of genes. RESULTS In this study, we report a computational method, CEGMA (Core Eukaryotic Genes Mapping Approach), for building a highly reliable set of gene annotations in the absence of experimental data. We define a set of conserved protein families that occur in a wide range of eukaryotes, and present a mapping procedure that accurately identifies their exon-intron structures in a novel genomic sequence. CEGMA includes the use of profile-hidden Markov models to ensure the reliability of the gene structures. Our procedure allows one to build an initial set of reliable gene annotations in potentially any eukaryotic genome, even those in draft stages. AVAILABILITY Software and data sets are available online at http://korflab.ucdavis. edu/Datasets.