Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Neuroanatomical relationships of substance P‐immunoreactive intrapulmonary C‐fibers and nicotinic cholinergic receptors

Previous studies have suggested that sensory mechanisms may be important components of addiction to, and withdrawal from, cigarette smoking. The sensory and respiratory responses to nicotine are mediated, in part, by bronchopulmonary C‐fiber afferents. Nicotine has a direct stimulatory effect on pulmonary sensory neurons, and nicotinic cholinergic receptors (nAChRs) composed of various combinations of α and β subunits are known to be present in pulmonary ganglia. At the subcellular level, however, little is known about expression of nAChRs on sensory fibers in the intrapulmonary airways. The present study was therefore designed to evaluate the expression of nAChRs on a subset of intrapulmonary sensory nerve endings known to exhibit immunoreactivity for substance P (SP). The presence of nAChR subunits was first confirmed at the mRNA and protein levels in rat lung tissues by using RT‐PCR and Western blot techniques. Then, double labeling of SP‐immunoreactive (‐IR) C‐fibers and different nAChR subunits was performed. α2, α3, α4, α5, α7, and β2 subunits were detected at all levels of the intrapulmonary airways; including bronchi, terminal and respiratory bronchioles, alveolar walls, and alveolar macrophages. None of the nAChR subunits studied was expressed by the SP‐IR C‐fibers. However, SP‐expressing C‐fibers were observed in close proximity to and intermingling with nAChR‐expressing airway epithelial cells. The close proximity of C‐fibers to nAChR‐expressing airway epithelial cells suggests that a component of nicotinic stimulation of SP‐IR C‐fiber afferents may be mediated by endogenous chemical substances released by nAChR‐expressing epithelial cells. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The Impact of Crime on Communities

CT: Current wisdom suggests that high or increasing crime levels make communities decline. Researchers usually translate decline to mean an increasing desire to move or higher actual mobility of residents; weaker attachments of residents to, and satisfaction with, their neighborhood; less local involvement; and lower house values. Empirical research confirms only some of this wisdom. Crime relates as expected to house prices, neighborhood satisfaction, and the desire to move. But research simultaneously suggests that crime neither spurs mobility nor necessarily decreases local involvement. Past research fails to differentiate the impacts of specific crime rates and does not examine impacts of static versus changing crime rates. This article examines impacts of past and changing crime levels on changes in relative house values and vacancy rates in Baltimore, Maryland, neighborhoods in the 1970s. The results reveal that different crimes influence different aspects of the housing market. Past and changing crime rates play roles in ecological transitions of neighbor-hoods. In keeping with the current findings of contingent impacts of racial change on mobility, I suggest that impacts of crime and related problems on neighborhood viability may be contingent on personal, historical, and locale-specific factors.
The Diversification Strategy of European Banks: Determinants and Effects on Efficiency and Profitability

The paper addresses the question of diversification in the banking sector. The need to look closely at the determining factors and economic effects of diversification in the financial sector stems from two main types of reasons. Firstly, banking diversification is taking on an increasingly important role, the magnitude of which is difficult to assess without first defining and classifying the main business areas of financial intermediation. Secondly, the expansion of banks' activity towards insurance services and the securities industry has important implications in terms of the concentration and stability of financial systems. The paper has two main aims. The first is to define the phenomenon of European banks' diversification more precisely, while at the same time mapping the considerable range of financial products and services with relation to the main business areas. The second aim is to analyse the economic factors which explain the European banks' diversification and at the same time to evaluate the main implications of this process in terms of concentration, profitability and efficiency. In line with this objective, attention will be turned to the distinction between external and internal factors guiding the activity choices of large European banks. Consideration will be given to the effects of the changes in the demand for financial services on banks' diversification. In examining the internal factors, we will consider economies of scale and scope as well as the effects of diversification on banks' overall efficiency. The comparative analysis between the European banking systems will be developed through the use of a number of databases such as "Bank Profitability" and "Ibca-Bankscope", while the analysis of the strategic behaviours of the Global Player will be developed using documentary material and annual reports.
Assimilation, labour market experience, and earnings profiles of temporary and permanent immigrant workers in germany

We test the assimilation hypothesis as initially proposed by Chiswick (1978) by making. use of a rich panel dataset for Germany which allows us to control for unobserved population heterogeneity and potential selectivity bias arising from an individual's re-migration decision and employment behaviour. To take into account the institutional aspects of the German guest-worker system we use information on an immigrant's expected duration of stay in Germany to distinguish between temporary and permanent migrants and to test for differences in earnings/experience profiles with respect to a foreigner's expected duration of stay. We find that years of schooling in Germany have a strong positive effect on earnings, that earnings/experience profiles of guest-workers differ by expected duration of stay, and that the renumeration of labour market experience in Germany is higher for natives than for most foreigners. The assimilation hypothesis is therefore not supported by the evidence for Germany.
Understanding and structuring NL descriptions: The case of 101 animals

Our premise is that an intelligent system should be able to structure all the information that can be obtained from natural language text, and it should do it in such a manner that the structured information be useful for further processing. This paper presents an experiment in structuring information from the natural language incomplete descriptions of 101 animals collected from a children's dictionary. The goal of this experiment is to use computational semantic analysis of the natural language descriptions-which are quite heavy in common sense knowledge-and to come up with a hierarchy of and similarities among the described animals, as well as flagging descriptions that are largely inconsistent with other information.
Factors of party system nationalization

This article uses a representative sample of elections held in 80 countries (1992–2012) for a statistical analysis of societal and institutional factors of party system nationalization. The analysis demonstrates that high degrees of political decentralization, such as in federations and devolved states, exert a strong negative effect on party system nationalization. However, in the long-term federalism can accommodate highly nationalized party systems. Another factor that strongly contributes to party system nationalization is a high quality of democracy. The degrees to which different varieties of electoral rules support party system nationalization are associated with a lack of incentives for cultivating the personal vote. Countries with large populations and societies divided along linguistic and/or religious lines tend to have party systems that are less nationalized, but these factors are not as important as institutional determinants. The impact of some of the factors is mitigated by party system fragmentation.
The Structure of Ownership and the Theory of the Firm

Provides a model that explains forms of business organizations in terms of ownership structure, on-the-job consumption preferences, and monitoring costs. The thesis of Berle and Means that the separation of ownership and control, or specialized ownership, which characterizes the modern corporation impairs the ability of the profit motive to encourage the most efficient use of resources is critiqued. The idealized owner-managed firm in economic theory operates as a profit-maximizing entity; nevertheless, this idealization rarely holds true for firms generally, even owner-managed ones. Real world businesses often permit on-the-job consumption by managers and employees. In competitive markets, this permitted consumption is traded for reduced monetary compensation. Because on-the-job consumption will take place only when off-the-job consumption would cost more, on-the-job consumption may not represent the dissipation of resources that critics of specialized ownership have contended. The problem of shirking is then taken up and it is shown that specialized ownership puts pressure on non-owner managers to reduce on-the-job consumption to levels even lower than in owner-managed firms. Value-maximizing ownership structure depends on ease of monitoring, desired scale of operations, and the managerial abilities of the potential firm owners. Finally, empirical data is presented against the alleged vacuum in control by owners and it is shown that due to management shareholdings, stock-based managerial income, and sizeable minority shareholdings in modern corporations, a strong linkage continues to exist between management and owner interests. (CAR)
The humanized anti-human AMHRII mAb 3C23K exerts an anti-tumor activity against human ovarian cancer through tumor-associated macrophages

Müllerian inhibiting substance, also called anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH), inhibits proliferation and induces apoptosis of AMH type II receptor-positive tumor cells, such as human ovarian cancers (OCs). On this basis, a humanized glyco-engineered monoclonal antibody (3C23K) has been developed. The aim of this study was therefore to experimentally confirm the therapeutic potential of 3C23K in human OCs. We first determined by immunofluorescence, immunohistochemistry and cytofluorometry analyses the expression of AMHRII in patient’s tumors and found that a majority (60 to 80% depending on the detection technique) of OCs were positive for this marker. We then provided evidence that the tumor stroma of OC is enriched in tumor-associated macrophages and that these cells are responsible for 3C23K-induced killing of tumor cells through ADCP and ADCC mechanisms. In addition, we showed that 3C23K reduced macrophages induced-T cells immunosuppression. Finally, we evaluated the therapeutic efficacy of 3C23K alone and in combination with a carboplatin-paclitaxel chemotherapy in a panel of OC Patient-Derived Xenografts. In those experiments, we showed that 3C23K significantly increased the proportion and the quality of chemotherapy-based in vivo responses. Altogether, our data support the potential interest of AMHRII targeting in human ovarian cancers and the evaluation of 3C23K in further clinical trials.
Early-stage finance and the role of external entrepreneurs in the commercialization of university-generated knowledge

The past decade has seen a plethora of policy initiatives that seek to bridge the chasm between investments in public R&D and its effective diffusion in society. This article uses a case study approach to explore and contrast the effectiveness of different entrepreneur models in financing and developing university spin-offs (USOs). The distinction between different entrepreneur models is based on whether the USOs are championed by university employees that seek to commercialize their own inventions or by external entrepreneurs who are not the original inventors but with acquired rights to develop and commercialize technology originating from university research. Our analysis show that external entrepreneurs have a different mind-set that makes them better equipped to deal with opportunities and obstacles related to financing and developing USOs. However, the development paths of USOs are embedded in a more complex web of path-dependent interactions, where the championship of the USO becomes interwoven with existing and emerging social relationships and opportunities, and challenges related to the technology that is commercialized.
18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography Findings of Pancreatic Hemangiopericytoma

A 42-year-old woman with a large pancreatic tumor had undergone 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (FDG PET/CT) imaging. Moderate metabolic activity was detected on the head of the pancreas. The tumor was resected and it was histopathologically diagnosed as malign pancreatic hemangiopericytoma (HPC). HPC is a rare soft tissue sarcoma. The tumor is considered aggressive with high rates of local recurrence and metastasis regardless the localization. Herein, we present the imaging characteristics of HPC with 18F-FDG PET/CT.
Turbulence, Heterogeneity and Earnings Inequality

There has been a well-documented increase in wage earnings inequality in the last two decades both in the United States as well as in other OECD economies. Moreover, this increase occurred not only across groups, but also within groups. There is also some evidence that this increase in inequality was accompanied by an increase in the pace of technological changes which require the learning of new skills, as well as by an increasese in occupational mobility.The question this paper asks is what are the consequences of (i) an increase in the depreciation rate of skills, or (ii) an increase in occupational mobility for wage earnings dispersion in an economy in which people learn new skills at different rates. To answer this question, a Ljungqvist and Sargent (1998) type of economy is modified to include two distinct populations. What distinguishes them is the rate at which they accumulate new skills while on the job. Skills are partly job specific, so if a particular job disappears, workers in that job experience a skill . When the rate at which skills depreciate, or occupational mobility, increase, there is an increase in the value of the ability to master new skills faster. In the context of a model calibrated to reproduce some statistics drawn from CPS and DWS data, such increases imply increases in inequality between fast learners and slow learners, but have little effect on withn-group inequality.
The Effects of Interest Rate Movements on Assets’ Conditional Second Moments

This paper investigates whether the short term interest rate may explain the movements observed in the conditional second moments of asset returns. The theoretical connections between these seemingly unrelated quantities are studied within the C-CAPM framework. Under the assumption that the product of the relative risk aversion coefficient and the marginal utility is monotonic in consumption, original results are derived that attest the existence of a relation between the risk-free rate and the conditional second moments. The empirical findings, involving 165 stock returns quoted at the NYSE, confirm that, at low frequencies, the interest rate is a determinant of the 165 conditional variances and 13530 conditional correlations.
Are Individual Preferences for Public Spending Consistent with Garp?

The aim of this paper is to test the consistency of individual preferences for publicly provided goods with utility maximisation hypothesis. For this purpose, we rely on the non-parametric revealed preference method. A budget game experiment was conducted on a large sample of Italian households in order to collect information about individual preferences for public expenditure programmes. We tested the cross sectional data on public expenditure/private goods choice for their consistency with GARP. The initial results on the complete sample gave some support to the rejection of utility maximisation paradigm. However, when we applied a hierarchical clustering procedure in order to take into account the heterogeneity of preferences across households, the results turned to be rather different: we found strong support for the utility maximisation hypothesis in almost all the clusters considered. Above all, we found that the revealed preference tests are sensitive to the degree of aggregation in the sample, in the sense that households with similar socio-demographic traits seem to make choices for public spending that are more consistent with revealed preference.
Risk taking in tournaments

Tournament theory provides important insights into organizational reward systems. It examines the incentive properties of reward systems based on rank‐order rather than absolute individual performance. Tournament theory may explain the pattern of managerial pay. It may also explain risk‐taking behavior by mutual fund managers. We use data from the PGA tour to examine the pattern of risk‐taking by professional golfers in an explicit tournament. The PGA tour provides a natural laboratory where such behavior can be studied. Our evidence shows that behavior by players in golf tournaments is consistent with the predictions of tournament theory.
Exchange Factors of the RasGRP Family Mediate Ras Activation in the Golgi*

H-Ras and N-Ras become activated both at the plasma membrane and in endomembrane structures such as the Golgi apparatus. This compartmentalized activation is relevant from a signaling standpoint, because effector molecules can become activated differently depending on the region of the cell where Ras proteins are activated. An unsolved question in this new regulatory mechanism is the understanding of how Ras proteins become activated in endomembranes. To approach this problem, we have studied the subcellular distribution and activities of a number of Ras guanosine nucleotide exchange factors. Our results indicate that Ras activation at the plasma membrane and endoplasmic reticulum is an unspecific process that can be achieved by most Ras activators. In contrast, GTP loading of Ras at the Golgi is only induced by members of the Ras guanosine nucleotide releasing protein family. In agreement with these observations, Ras guanosine nucleotide releasing proteins are the only Ras activators showing localization in the Golgi. These results indicate that the compartmentalized activation of effector pathways by Ras proteins depends not only on the specific localization of the GTPases but also in the availability of GDP/GTP exchange factors capable of activating Ras proteins in specific subcellular compartments.
Hepatic Bax Inhibitor-1 Inhibits IRE1α and Protects from Obesity-associated Insulin Resistance and Glucose Intolerance*

The unfolded protein response (UPR) or endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress response is a physiological process enabling cells to cope with altered protein synthesis demands. However, under conditions of obesity, prolonged activation of the UPR has been shown to have deteriorating effects on different metabolic pathways. Here we identify Bax inhibitor-1 (BI-1), an evolutionary conserved ER-membrane protein, as a novel modulator of the obesity-associated alteration of the UPR. BI-1 partially inhibits the UPR by interacting with IRE1α and inhibiting IRE1α endonuclease activity as seen on the splicing of the transcription factor Xbp-1. Because we observed a down-regulation of BI-1 expression in liver and muscle of genetically obese ob/ob and db/db mice as well as in mice with diet-induced obesity in vivo, we investigated the effect of restoring BI-1 expression on metabolic processes in these mice. Importantly, BI-1 overexpression by adenoviral gene transfer dramatically improved glucose metabolism in both standard diet-fed mice as well as in mice with diet-induced obesity and, critically, reversed hyperglycemia in db/db mice. This improvement in whole body glucose metabolism and insulin sensitivity was due to dramatically reduced gluconeogenesis as shown by reduction of glucose-6-phosphatase and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase expression. Taken together, these results identify BI-1 as a critical regulator of ER stress responses in the development of obesity-associated insulin resistance and provide proof of concept evidence that gene transfer-mediated elevations in hepatic BI-1 may represent a promising approach for the treatment of type 2 diabetes.
The impact of obesity surgery and the paradox of control: A qualitative study

In light of the failure of psychological approaches to obesity some clinicians and patients are turning to surgery. The present qualitative study aimed to explore patients’ experiences of having obesity surgery and in-depth interviews were carried out with 15 men and women, who had had surgery in the past four years. The data were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). The patients described their experiences in terms of four broad themes: personal weight histories; the decision-making process, which involved general motivations such as worries about health and specific triggers such as symptoms; the impact of surgery on eating behaviour and their relationship with food; the impact of weight loss on health status, self-esteem and relationships with others. The central theme of control permeated all areas of the interviews. The current clinical climate highlights the importance of self-control and patient choice as the path to patient empowerment. Obesity surgery illustrates that in contrast to this perspective, imposed control and limited choice can sometimes paradoxically result in a renewed sense of control.
Diagnosis of Coronary Arteries Stenosis Using Data Mining

Cardiovascular diseases are one of the most common diseases that cause a large number of deaths each year. Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) is the most common type of these diseases worldwide and is the main reason of heart attacks. Thus early diagnosis of CAD is very essential and is an important field of medical studies. Many methods are used to diagnose CAD so far. These methods reduce cost and deaths. But a few studies examined stenosis of each vessel separately. Determination of stenosed coronary artery when significant ECG abnormality exists is not a difficult task. Moreover, ECG abnormality is not common among CAD patients. The aim of this study is to find a way for specifying the lesioned vessel when there is not enough ECG changes and only based on risk factors, physical examination and Para clinic data. Therefore, a new data set was used which has no missing value and includes new and effective features like Function Class, Dyspnoea, Q Wave, ST Elevation, ST Depression and Tinversion. These data was collected from 303 random visitor of Tehran's Shaheed Rajaei Cardiovascular, Medical and Research Centre, in 2011 fall and 2012 winter. They processed with C4.5, Naïve Bayes, and k-nearest neighbour (KNN) algorithms and their accuracy were measured by tenfold cross validation. In the best method the accuracy of diagnosis of stenosis of each vessel reached to 74.20 ± 5.51% for Left Anterior Descending (LAD), 63.76 ± 9.73% for Left Circumflex and 68.33 ± 6.90% for Right Coronary Artery. The effective features of stenosis of each vessel were found too.