Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparative Analysis of Risk Measures: France and the United States

EMPIRICAL TESTS of the now famous but still controversial market model, specified in [17, 18], have been generated quite extensively in the United States. This--simple single-index model has recently been applied and empirically tested in foreign capital markets in Europe [15, 22], Japan [11] and probably is being tested in numerous other environments. Indeed, Solnik has extended the concept to a world capital market structure [23, 24]. The purpose of this paper is to examine, on a comprehensive basis, the market model for the French Stock market (the Paris Bourse) and to compare on an exact basis our results with equivalent U.S. studies. In so doing, we will examine data for 316 common stocks traded continuously on the Bourse for the period January 1, 1964 to November 30, 1971 (approximately eight years). In addition, we examine briefly the price index behavior of two "minor" data bases consisting of 35 industry groupings and 9 large sector groups. The market index utilized is the Campagnie des Agents de Change (C.A.C.) market value weighted index consisting of 430 stocks. ' In our analysis, we utilize rate of return data for weekly, monthly, and in some cases quarterly intervals. The rate of return for French stockholders is of the form,
Experimental study of thrombogenicity and foreign body reaction induced by heparin-coated coronary stents.

BACKGROUND Results of recent randomized clinical trials have revealed a significant reduction in angiographic restenosis rate when adjunctive stenting was performed after conventional coronary balloon angioplasty. The thrombogenicity of metal stents, however, remains a concern. In the present study, we compare the thrombogenicity of heparin-coated coronary stents with that of bare metallic coronary stents. METHODS AND RESULTS Thrombogenicity of metallic coronary stents (four heparin-coated and eight bare stents) was studied in a rat arteriovenous shunt model with the use of 125I-labeled fibrinogen and 51Cr-labeled platelets. Total clot weight after 30-minute follow-up was significantly lower in the heparin-coated stents compared with the bare stents (8.1 +/- 3.7 versus 25.8 +/- 4.6 mg; P < .001). Relative 125I and 51Cr activities in the stents were significantly higher in the bare stents than in the heparin-coated stents (125I, 1.03 +/- 0.43 versus 0.18 +/- 0.04, P = .003; 51Cr, 17.5 +/- 6.8 versus 4.4 +/- 1.0, P = .004). Subsequently, heparin-coated and bare stents were randomly implanted in the right coronary artery of 20 domestic pigs. Angiographic parameters were similar between both groups at baseline and after 6-week follow-up. Morphometry also did not show a significant difference in lumen area (bare, 1.03 +/- 0.83 mm2; heparin-coated, 1.12 +/- 0.73 mm2; P = NS) or neointimal hyperplasia (bare, 1.01 +/- 0.81 mm2; heparin-coated, 1.21 +/- 0.57 mm2; P = NS). CONCLUSIONS Heparin coating of metallic coronary stents decreases their thrombogenicity but does not improve late vessel patency and neointimal hyperplasia at follow-up in a porcine coronary model.
A Human Nuclear Shuttling Protein That Interacts with Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Matrix Is Packaged into Virions

ABSTRACT Active nuclear import of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) preintegration complex (PIC) is essential for the productive infection of nondividing cells. Nuclear import of the PIC is mediated by the HIV-1 matrix protein, which also plays several critical roles during viral entry and possibly during virion production facilitating the export of Pr55Gag and genomic RNA. Using a yeast two-hybrid screen, we identified a novel human virion-associated matrix-interacting protein (VAN) that is highly conserved in vertebrates and expressed in most human tissues. Its expression is upregulated upon activation of CD4+ T cells. VAN is efficiently incorporated into HIV-1 virions and, like matrix, shuttles between the nucleus and cytoplasm. Furthermore, overexpression of VAN significantly inhibits HIV-1 replication in tissue culture. We propose that VAN regulates matrix nuclear localization and, by extension, both nuclear import of the PIC and export of Pr55Gag and viral genomic RNA during virion production. Our data suggest that this regulatory mechanism reflects a more global process for regulation of nucleocytoplasmic transport.
A Slotted Frequency-Hopped Multiple-Access Network with Packet Combining

A frequency-hopped spread-spectrum (FH/SS) packet radio network is considered. Instead of discarding the received packets which were unsuccessfully decoded, the receiver keeps and combines the different received copies of the same packet to improve the throughput and reduce the delay necessary to transmit a packet successfully. It is shown that the throughput is substantially increased over a similar system where the uncorrectable packets are discarded. This system is equivalent to a fast frequency-hopped system where the diversity level is adapted according to the channel conditions. Reed-Solomon (RS) codes are used for error correction and detection.
Functional Activity of Matrix Metalloproteinases 2 and 9 in Tears of Patients With Glaucoma.

Purpose To evaluate the differential expression of tear matrix metalloproteinases (MMP) 2 and 9 in of patients with various forms of glaucoma. Methods Tear samples were collected with a Schirmer's strip from 148 eyes of 113 patients (medically naïve patients with primary open-angle [POAG] or angle closure glaucoma [PACG] and those with pseudoexfoliation syndrome [PXF] or glaucoma [PXG]). These were compared to patients undergoing cataract surgery (controls) for this cross-sectional study. Functional activities of tear MMP-9 and MMP-2 were analyzed by gelatin zymography. Tenon's capsules (n = 15) were harvested from the inferior quadrant in those undergoing cataract surgery and protein expression of MMP-9 was analyzed by immunohistochemistry (IHC). Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) stress-induced effects on in vitro activities of MMP-9 in human trabecular meshwork (HTM) cells were analyzed. Results The MMP-9 activity in tears was increased significantly in POAG, (n = 27), PACG (n = 24), and PXF (n = 40) eyes compared to controls (n = 35), and was increased significantly in eyes with glaucoma compared to moderate/severe glaucoma (P < 0.001). The MMP-9 expression was significantly lower in PXG (n = 22) eyes. Immunohistochemistry of Tenon's capsule revealed increased expression of MMP-9 in primary glaucoma eyes. Increased MMP-9 activity was seen in in vitro by gelatin zymography and was confirmed by Western and immunofluorescent assay on HTM upon 800 and 1000 μM H2O2-induced stress for 2 to 3 hours with approximately 80% cell death. Conclusions Increased tear MMP-9 activity in early glaucoma and pseudoexfoliation syndrome suggesting activation of extracellular matrix (ECM) degradation can be used as a tear-based predictive biomarker. Decreased expression in advanced stages suggests exhaustion of the degradation response.
Product Choice and Market Competition: The Case of Multiproduct Electronic Plants in Taiwan

We examine the strategies of multiproduct plants in the Taiwanese electronics sector by introducing two new measures of product dissimilarity to capture the technological gaps of product pairs within the plant. The plant-level index is used to analyze product mix decisions of plants. We find that plants whose products have large technological gaps are more likely to give up product lines. The product-level index is used to show that, with increased competition, multiproduct plants exit markets where production technologies are farthest away from their core products and they also perform better than plants that continue to produce a wider range of products.
The Impact of the Sense of Security from Crime on Residential Property Values in Brazilian Metropolitan Areas

Using a hedonic residential rent model for Brazil's metropolitan areas calibrated with microdata from Brazil's annual household survey, this study estimates that increasing the sense of security in the home by one standard deviation would increase average home values by R$1,513 (US$757), or about US$13. 6 billion if applied to all 18.0 million households in the study area. The principal components analysis of sense of security and crime victimization variables indicates that higher-income households feel more secure from crime in the home, even though theft and robbery victimization rise with household income and rent level. Higher levels of home protection measures by higher-income households partially explain this result.
Service Quality

Abstract This paper discusses controversial methodological issues in service quality research, particularly in the field of tourism and hospitality. These are illustrated by a review of recent academic discourses and by the lessons of an exploratory study of visitors' quality perceptions of tourism service providers on two European peripheral destinations. Based on the practical, conceptual and methodological lessons of this project, it is argued that service quality research has drifted into a risky territory, by constructing its own reality, rather than describing it. In the light of the discussion, it is suggested to fulfil the long claimed (but never completed) neo-service paradigm shift and to move from provider- to customer-orientation in service research.
Theorizing Implementation of Public Management Policy Reforms: A Case Study of Strategic Planning and Programming in the European Commission

As a measure to rectify the European Commission's “management deficit,” the institution's authorities decided to introduce new forms of commission-wide strategic planning and programming in 2000. Drawing on semistructured interviews with Commission officials, this article tracks the key turning points, trajectories, and outcomes of events within the implementation stage of this part of the Commission managerial reform. As an instrumental case study, the article begins to theorize the process of implementing public management policy change. Major conceptual issues addressed include how reform decisions serve to activate the social mechanism of actor certification and how actor conduct amplifies such certification. Actor certification provides a link from reform choices to organizational change. In this respect and others, the research argument contrasts and integrates social theory mind-sets deriving from institutionalism and social interactionism (processualism) in line with research trends in historical sociology, organization science, and public management.
Outcomes for community health nursing practice.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to develop an easy, practical list of outcomes amenable to community health nursing interventions. This study sought to answer the following question: What outcomes are sensitive to nursing interventions in the community health setting? SUMMARY BACKGROUND DATA Nursing literature discusses many client outcomes. However, available outcome lists are not always sensitive to nursing interventions by community health nurses. Nurses need a precise list to measure client outcomes resulting from contact between nurses and clients in a variety of community health settings. METHODS AND SUBJECTS The study used a modified Delphi technique to ensure adequate response from the subjects. Initially, focus groups generated items for the Delphi questionnaires. Using items from the focus groups, the researchers developed three rounds of questionnaires. In each round, nurses stated a level of agreement with each item as an outcome for community health nurses. Twenty-two community health nurses in one Southeastern state participated in four focus groups. One hundred fifty-two community health nurses returned round 1 questionnaires, 68 nurses returned round 2 questionnaires, and 48 nurses returned round 3 questionnaires. RESULTS The researchers grouped the outcomes into four domains: client's psychosocial components of care, client's physiologic components of care, nursing intervention/implementation components of care, and environmental/community safety components of care. CONCLUSIONS The findings produced an easy, practical list of 48 nursing outcomes for use in decision making and research by community health nurses in all settings.
The Goals of U.S. Agricultural Policy: A Mechanism Design Approach

This article examines motivations underlying the government's choice of alternative policy mechanisms for subsidizing agriculture. Optimal policies are analyzed for three government objectives: one where the government wishes to ensure a minimum level of net income for all farmers, a second where the government's only concern is to transfer income from consumers and taxpayers to the farm sector, and a final “augmented” income-transfer objective. The analysis offers an explanation for agricultural policy mechanisms that involve overproduction by high-cost producers, relative to a free-market equilibrium. Such a distortion might arise from the existence of nonmarket values for the production of relatively high-cost farmers in the government's objective. Copyright 2000, Oxford University Press.
A dileucine motif in its cytoplasmic domain directs β-catenin-uncoupled E-cadherin to the lysosome

The E-cadherin-catenin complex regulates Ca2+-dependent cell-cell adhesion and is localized to the basolateral membrane of polarized epithelial cells. Uncoupling β-catenin from E-cadherin by deletion or substitution mutations causes accumulation of these proteins in intracellular compartments, including the trans-Golgi network and early endosomes, and degradation in lysosomes. Expression of a dominant-negative dynamin did not change the pattern of the mutant E-cadherin localization, indicating that the endocytosis of the protein from the cell surface does not contribute significantly to the accumulation of the protein in the intracellular compartments. Alternatively, E-cadherin lacking its entire cytoplasmic domain (tail-less E-cadherin) was detected on the surface of cells and targeted to the basolateral membrane. We found that 20 amino acid residues within the juxtamembrane region contain the signal responsible for intracellular accumulation and the lysosomal targeting of E-cadherin. A dileucine motif within this region seems crucial, because substitution of these residues to alanines resulted in efficient surface expression of the protein. The tail-less E-cadherin construct and the dileucine-substitution construct were detected on the basolateral membranes. Thus, the dileucine motif of E-cadherin is not required for its basolateral targeting.
Owner-Managers and the Practice of Strategic Management

The distinction between management of operational effectiveness and strategic management has been a core belief of much management literature. Operational management is concerned with the ongoing activities of the business in relation to existing products or services and in respect of existing markets. Strategic management, in contrast, is concerned with the future success of the business and may entail major changes in the benefits to be offered customers, in organizational capacity, and in competitive posture. The application of strategic management to small firms can be seen as posing particular challenges. This can be inferred from, for example, the organizational studies of Mintzberg (1979) who has argued that the typical owner-managers of small businesses, especially entrepreneurial ones, manage in quite a different way from the methods indicated by the strategic planning literature. Such businesses are governed, it is said, using more personal and arbitrary forms of control. However useful these arguments have been to the progress of understanding small businesses in the past, the time is fast approaching (and perhaps has arrived already) when this kind of argument is becoming fruitless and sterile. In this article it is assumed we now need to understand whether and how managers in small businesses have taken up the language and practice of planning and strategic analysis, and we need to understand with what results these have been taken up. At the heart of the article is the analysis of the results of a survey of owner-managers and other managers. The article is concluded with a look at the implications of the findings.
Ambiguous Results in Functional Neuroimaging Data Analysis Due to Covariate Correlation

In this note we draw attention to a source of potential ambiguity in functional neuroimaging results when data analysis is based on the resolution of a linear model. This ambiguity arises whenever there exists correlation between the model covariates. A single-subject PET activation experiment helps to illustrate to what extent correlation can affect statistical results interpretation, possibly leading to misinterpretation of part of the activation pattern. This note is intended to clarify this point and to suggest the use of a simple and well-known procedure to deal with these situations. In the Appendix, we suggest a convenient mathematical formulation for statistical tests particularly useful in such cases.
Murine Coronavirus Induces Type I Interferon in Oligodendrocytes through Recognition by RIG-I and MDA5

ABSTRACT The murine coronavirus mouse hepatitis virus (MHV) induced the expression of type I interferon (alpha/beta interferon [IFN-α/β]) in mouse oligodendrocytic N20.1 cells. This induction is completely dependent on virus replication, since infection with UV light-inactivated virus could no longer induce IFN-α/β. We show that MHV infection activated both transcription factors, the IFN regulatory factor 3 (IRF-3) and nuclear factor κB (NF-κB), as evidenced by phosphorylation and nuclear translocation of IRF-3 and an increased promoter binding activity for IRF-3 and NF-κB. Furthermore, the cytoplasmic pattern recognition receptor retinoic acid-inducible gene I (RIG-I) was induced by MHV infection. Knockdown of RIG-I by small interfering RNAs blocked the activation of IRF-3 and subsequent IFN-α/β production induced by MHV infection. Knockdown of another cytoplasmic receptor, the melanoma-differentiation-associated gene 5 (MDA5), by small interfering RNAs also blocked IFN-β induction. These results demonstrate that MHV is recognized by both RIG-I and MDA5 and induces IFN-α/β through the activation of the IRF-3 signaling pathway. However, knockdown of RIG-I only partially blocked NF-κB activity induced by MHV infection and inhibition of NF-κB activity by a decoy peptide inhibitor had little effect on IFN-α/β production. These data suggest that activation of the NF-κB pathway might not play a critical role in IFN-α/β induction by MHV infection in oligodendrocytes.
Queuing Model as a Technique of Queue Solution in Nigeria Banking Industry

The study of “Queuing model as a Technique of Queue solution in Nigeria Banking Industry” was carried out. The obvious cost implications of customers waiting range from idle time spent when queue builds up, which results in man-hour loss, to loss of goodwill, which may occur when customers are dissatisfied with a system. However, in a bid to increase service rate, extra hands are required which implies cost to management. The onus is then on the management to strike a balance between the provision of a satisfactory and reasonable quick service and minimizing the cost of such service. Thus, the management should evaluate performance of different queuing structures and strike a middle ground between cost on one hand and benefits of improved service on the other hand, which is the main thrust of this study. Therefore, this study attempts to look at the problem of long queues in blanks, why bank managers find it difficult to eliminate queues and the effect of queuing model as a technique of queue solution in Nigerian Banking Industry. Descriptive research method was employed in carrying out the study at United Bank for African Pie. , Gariki Branch, Enugu, through observation, interview and questionnaire administration. The variables measured include arrival rate ( ) and service rate ( ) . They were analyzed for simultaneous efficiency in customer satisfaction and cost minimization through the use of a multi-channel queuing model, which were compared for a number of queue performances such as; the average number of customers in the queue and in the system, average time each customer spends in the queue and in the system and the probability of the system being idle. It was discovered that, using a three-server system was better than a 2-server or 4-server systems in terms of the performance criteria used and the study inter-alia recommended that, the management should adopt a three-server model to reduce total expected costs and increase customer satisfaction. Keywords: Queuing Model, Queue Solution, Banking Industry
Sudden Stops in Capital Inflows and the Design of Exchange Rate Regimes

A two sector small open economy model developed by Corden (1991, 2002) is used to analyse the impact of sudden stops in capital inflows on an internal and external equilibrium and to explore the merits of disposing of the nominal exchange rate as policy tool in rectifying real exchange rate misalignments. It is shown how the economy's sectoral demand properties determine the extent of recession associated with real exchange rate adjustment that is neither engineered by nominal exchange rate changes nor brought about by a decline in nontraded goods prices. The conclusion is drawn that, when deciding on the design of exchange rate regimes, the structural characteristics of the economy ought to be considered so as to appropriately strengthen its capacity to cope with shocks in the form of negative swings in capital inflows.
Contextual Models of Urban House Prices: A Comparison of Fixed- and Random-Coefficient Models Developed by Expansion

AbstractContextual quantitative models are receiving considerable attention in the geographic literature in the form of models developed by the “expansion method. ” The majority of these models have involved the expansion of the fixed part of the model and are in many cases equivalent to standard ANOVA and ANCOVA procedures. Models from a “multilevel perspective,” in which the expansion takes place in the random part of the model, have also been developed. Although these two methods converge conceptually, major differences in the form of the models can be specified and estimated. This paper develops contextual models of house prices using both approaches. We argue that varying-parameter multilevel models, which recognize that houses are nested within districts, are preferable to the usual single-level, fixed-coefficient models. We illustrate both approaches with data on house prices in London.
Team Payroll, Competitive Balance, and Team Performance in the Japan Professional Baseball League: A Study using 1993-2004 Panel Data

This research aimed to explore how a team payroll has an effect on team performance as measured by the winning percentage using panel data of the Japan Professional Baseball League; separately for each of the Central and the Pacific Leagues. The major finding is that a team payroll has a remarkably positive impact on the outcomes of Pacific League team performance; however it has none on central League teams. The reason why such different results are brought about is that the popularity of the Central League decreases the incentive to allocate the resource of teams efficiently with an objective of win maximization.