Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Transforming Growth Factor-β3 (TGF-β3) Knock-in Ameliorates Inflammation Due to TGF-β1 Deficiency While Promoting Glucose Tolerance*

Background: The mammalian TGF-β homologues have highly conserved heterologous motifs that are believed to impart isoform-specific functions. Results: Exchange of TGF-β1 ligand for TGF-β3 in a mouse reveals functional redundancies/differences in cell signaling. Conclusion: TGF-β1 and TGF-β3 are only partially interchangeable. Significance: These findings have relevance for therapeutic approaches aimed at targeting the TGF-β pathway in disease conditions. Three homologues of TGF-β exist in mammals as follows: TGF-β1, TGF-β2, and TGF-β3. All three proteins share high homology in their amino acid sequence, yet each TGF-β isoform has unique heterologous motifs that are highly conserved during evolution. Although these TGF-β proteins share similar properties in vitro, isoform-specific properties have been suggested through in vivo studies and by the unique phenotypes for each TGF-β knock-out mouse. To test our hypothesis that each of these homologues has nonredundant functions, and to identify such isoform-specific roles, we genetically exchanged the coding sequence of the mature TGF-β1 ligand with a sequence from TGF-β3 using targeted recombination to create chimeric TGF-β1/3 knock-in mice (TGF-β1Lβ3/Lβ3). In the TGF-β1Lβ3/Lβ3 mouse, localization and activation still occur through the TGF-β1 latent associated peptide, but cell signaling is triggered through the TGF-β3 ligand that binds to TGF-β receptors. Unlike TGF-β1−/− mice, the TGF-β1Lβ3/Lβ3 mice show neither embryonic lethality nor signs of multifocal inflammation, demonstrating that knock-in of the TGF-β3 ligand can prevent the vasculogenesis defects and autoimmunity associated with TGF-β1 deficiency. However, the TGF-β1Lβ3/Lβ3 mice have a shortened life span and display tooth and bone defects, indicating that the TGF-β homologues are not completely interchangeable. Remarkably, the TGF-β1Lβ3/Lβ3 mice display an improved metabolic phenotype with reduced body weight gain and enhanced glucose tolerance by induction of beneficial changes to the white adipose tissue compartment. These findings reveal both redundant and unique nonoverlapping functional diversity in TGF-β isoform signaling that has relevance to the design of therapeutics aimed at targeting the TGF-β pathway in human disease.
Effects of experiential elements on experiential satisfaction and loyalty intentions: a case study of the super basketball league in Taiwan

As the change of economical environment, customers consume sometimes merely for fun, joy and pleasure instead of problems solving or specific product function. For consumers, sports performance means more than competition, but the entertainment, excitement and wonderful memories. For most sport leagues, attracting customers to watch the live games can contribute a lot to revenues. The spectators of sport games are motivated by entertainment, thus sport leagues can focus on the experiential elements to maintain satisfied and loyal customers to increase revenues. In consequence, the purpose of this study is to explore the influence of experiential elements, such as surprise, participation and immersion on experiential satisfaction and loyalty intentions, and propose a model to depict the structural relationship among the experiential processes. This study collected 452 samples on basketball games, and the model reached an adequate fit. Managerial implications and future research directions are also provided.
The risk-adjusted performance of responsible investment funds in South Africa

Empirical evidence shows that the phenomenon of responsible investing (RI) is gradually moving from a fringe investment strategy to a mainstream consideration in the global investment arena (Knoll, 2002:681; Schueth, 2003:189). Responsible investing essentially refers to a set of approaches which include moral as well as environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) considerations along with conventional financial criteria in decisions regarding the selection, retention and realisation of particular investments (Mansley, 2000:3).
Factors affecting instructors' willingness and expectation of future participation in farmer internet literacy training

This study explores temporary instructor’s willingness and performance expectation of future participation in Farmers internet literacy training (FILT). Specifically, the relationships among enthusiasm for teaching, teaching performance, and self-efficacy of temporary instructors hired to teach in FILT are examined. The study investigated 80 valid samples. The study results, based on temporary instructors’ experiences included for analyses, revealed the effects of enthusiasm for teaching on teaching performance, self-efficacy of teaching on performance expectation of future teaching, and teaching performance at present on self-efficacy of teaching. Key words: Teaching performance, self-efficacy of teaching, enthusiasm for teaching, willingness for future participation.
Dividend Changes and Security Prices

This paper analyzes the effect of unexpected dividend changes on the values of common stock, preferred stock, and bonds. Two potential effects are identified: a wealth transfer effect and a signalling effect. Previous studies have shown that positive (negative) dividend change announcements produce positive (negative) common stock price changes. Whereas these findings have been attributed to the signalling aspect of dividends, they are also consistent with the wealth transfer hypothesis. Based on the announcement day returns of common and preferred stock and bond holders, it is demonstrated that the primary factor influencing security returns in response to dividend changes is market signalling. A wealth transfer effect is not necessarily ruled out, but if it exists it is dominated by the signalling effect. FINANCIAL DECISIONS MAY HAVE at least two distinct effects on the distribution of total firm value among different classes of securities. First, if claim holders are inadequately protected by me-first rules, a financing decision may result in wealth transfers among different classes of securities. Second, if the market possesses imperfect information, a financing decision may signal information to the market concerning firm value and thereby influence the values of all security classes. Many recent empirical studies have demonstrated that a significantly positive relationship exists between the direction of dividend changes and announcement day common stock returns. In each case, the authors attribute this relationship to the information conveyed to the market in dividend change announcements. However, this relationship is also consistent with the hypothesis that dividend changes, under certain conditions, may result in wealth transfers between debt and equity holders. In this study, the information and wealth transfer effects are discussed as they pertain to dividend payments, and the influence of dividend decisions on the value of different security classes is investigated empirically.
Resolution of ray-finned fish phylogeny and timing of diversification

Ray-finned fishes make up half of all living vertebrate species. Nearly all ray-finned fishes are teleosts, which include most commercially important fish species, several model organisms for genomics and developmental biology, and the dominant component of marine and freshwater vertebrate faunas. Despite the economic and scientific importance of ray-finned fishes, the lack of a single comprehensive phylogeny with corresponding divergence-time estimates has limited our understanding of the evolution and diversification of this radiation. Our analyses, which use multiple nuclear gene sequences in conjunction with 36 fossil age constraints, result in a well-supported phylogeny of all major ray-finned fish lineages and molecular age estimates that are generally consistent with the fossil record. This phylogeny informs three long-standing problems: specifically identifying elopomorphs (eels and tarpons) as the sister lineage of all other teleosts, providing a unique hypothesis on the radiation of early euteleosts, and offering a promising strategy for resolution of the “bush at the top of the tree” that includes percomorphs and other spiny-finned teleosts. Contrasting our divergence time estimates with studies using a single nuclear gene or whole mitochondrial genomes, we find that the former underestimates ages of the oldest ray-finned fish divergences, but the latter dramatically overestimates ages for derived teleost lineages. Our time-calibrated phylogeny reveals that much of the diversification leading to extant groups of teleosts occurred between the late Mesozoic and early Cenozoic, identifying this period as the “Second Age of Fishes. ”
PlayLab Cph. design and use of public play-grounds in urban green spaces

3 Resume 5 Background 10 The importance of playgrounds in urban green spaces 10 The users: Children and accompanying adults 11 Aim of the thesis 11 Research questions 12 Introduction 13 Public outdoor playgrounds and their history 13 Different types of public outdoor playgrounds 13 Public outdoor playgrounds and critical voices 15 Children’s play and development 16 Playground design research 17 Research gaps 18 Evidence‐based playground design 18 Space for play and PlayLab Cph 19 Theoretical framework 20 Behaviour settings 20 Affordances 20 Applying the theoretical framework 21 Methods and materials used in the PhD thesis 22 1. PlayLab Cph 22 1a PlayLab Cph – the relation to evidence‐based design 23 1.b The evidence‐based design of the PlayLab Cph 24 1.c Post‐occupancy‐evaluation of the PlayLab Cph 25 2. Multiple case study 25 2.a Multiple case study – the relation to evidence‐based design 25 2.b Case selection 26 2.c Questionnaire survey 27 2.d Observation studies 29 2.e Processing and analysing data 30
Food and health inequalities: the challenge for sustaining just consumption

Recent evidence on the relationship between socio-economic status, diet and health is examined in relation to inequalities and sustainable consumption, focusing on UK experiences and some elements of state response. Work on food and nutritional inequality has traditionally been located within public health, though policy usually focuses on individual agency. Contemporary demand for more sustainable patterns of (food) consumption pose potential challenges, particularly if sourcing “local” and/or organically produced food be the main response, since this strategy, itself problematic, may be more expensive and/or inaccessible. Nevertheless, emerging evidence that low-income consumers desire and aspire to sustainable, better food, healthier for the environment, local communities and themselves, is discussed, along with policy and research challenges. †Submitted as part of special issue of Local Environment on environmental justice, drawing on papers at an ESRC/NERC meeting in UEA, July 2006.
The Effects of Policy, Institutions and Geography on Economic Growth in Africa: An Econometric Study Based on Cross-Section and Panel Data

This paper use both single period cross-section data as well as panel data for the period 1970 to 1990 (largely obtained from version 6.1 of the Penn World Tables) to identify the determinants of Africa's growth in per capita GDP, as well as to evaluate the empirical relevance of recent contributions that stresses the potential importance of geographical vs institutional factors in Africa's growth. The paper further contributes by making use of recent cross-country data on institutional quality and geographical characteristics of African countries. To address the danger of using an inappropriate estimation method, a number of estimation methods was used, namely OLS, LAD, GLS-random effects, fixed effects as well as a dynamic GMM-estimator. The results confirmed that the more efficient and dynamic GMM-estimator is superior and that controlling for unobserved heterogeneity, dynamic effects and endogeneity of the regressors is important. It is concluded that there is conditional convergence in Africa, and that literacy, investment, FDI and urban agglomeration have a significant positive effect on GDP per capita growth in Africa. Growth is negatively affected by government expenditure, settler mortality, malaria, landlockedness and landarea. These results support Acemoglu et al.'s (2001) 'reversal of fortune' thesis, namely that settler mortality is inversely related to economic growth. It further suggests that it is not one of either institutions or geography that are more important than the other, but rather that geography may have an important impact on institutions. The robust finding that the incidence of malaria has a particularly large impact on economic growth in Africa supports this conclusion. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Business Group Affiliation, Firm Governance, and Firm Performance: Evidence from China and India

This study seeks to understand how business group affiliation, within firm governance and external governance environment affect firm performance in emerging economies. We examine two aspects of within firm governance – ownership concentration and board independence. Using archival data on the top 500 Indian and Chinese firms from multiple data sources for 2007, we found that group affiliated firms performed worse than unaffiliated firms, and the negative relationship was stronger in the case of Indian firms than for Chinese firms. We also found that ownership concentration had a positive effect on firm performance, while board independence had a negative effect on firm performance. Further, we found that group affiliation – firm performance relationship in a given country context was moderated by ownership concentration. This study utilizes an integration of agency theory with an institutional perspective, providing a more comprehensive framework to analyze the CG problems, particularly in the emerging economy firms. Empirically, our findings support, as well as contradict, some of the conventional wisdom, and suggest useful avenues for future research. This study shows that reforms in general and CG reforms in particular are effective in emerging economies, which is an encouraging sign for policy makers. However, our research also suggests that it may be time for India and China to stop the encouragement for the empire building through group formation in the corporate world. For practioners, our findings suggest that firms need to balance the need for oversight with the need for advice, while selecting independent directors.
Comparison of four enzyme immunoassays for detection of immunoglobulin M antibodies against rubella virus

We evaluated four tests for the detection of rubella virus-specific immunoglobulin M antibodies. Primarily, consecutive serum samples were tested by two different assays. Selected panels of sera from patients with proven or likely recent rubella and false-positive and true-negative results in the two primary assays were further tested with two recently developed, fully automated techniques. The four tests were comparable in overall accuracy, but their dynamic ranges may differ considerably. Ways to optimize the predictive values are discussed. We conclude that automated assays may be used without causing significant changes in diagnostic accuracy or distortions in notifications of the incidence of rubella compared with the use of established tools.
Are PAC Contributions and Lobbying Linked? New Evidence from the 1995 Lobby Disclosure Act

This paper uses newly available data from the 1995 Lobby Disclosure Act to assess the argument that PAC contributions are used to gain access to legislators. First, we find a much stronger connection between lobbying and campaign contributions than previous statistical research has revealed—groups that have both a lobbyist and a PAC account for 70 percent of all interest group expenditures and 86 percent of all PAC contributions. Second, we find that groups that engage in relatively large amounts of lobbying-and therefore presumably have a high demand for access—allocate their campaign contributions differently than groups that do not. Groups that emphasize lobbying pay more attention to members' positions of power inside Congress, and less attention to members' electoral circumstances, than other groups. Groups that emphasize lobbying also appear to be more bipartisan and less ideological than other groups, giving more equally to both parties and more broadly across the ideological spectrum.
Trade and the location of industries in the OECD and European Union

Trade and location theory identifies forces that could lead to locational dispersion (comparative advantage) or locational concentration (scale economies) in the face of globalizing markets, each with different consequences for specialization and the adjustment costs associated with integration. However, these forces can play themselves out in very complex ways if locational change principally affects intermediate production. Moreover, effects of history may be important, if locational patterns which exist prior to integration reflect either strong external economies or, as we argue, strong institutionalized capacities to respond to more open markets. This could especially be the case in the context of Europe, whose territories are generally less specialized than the states of the USA. To see how these different effects are operating today, empirical measurement is required. Using a data set which allows changes in locational distribution of manufacturing industries in the OECD to be measured, we show that Europe does not seem to be 'Americanizing' its economic geography. Many sectors are actually spreading out in Europe, implying that the effects of history have remained strong up to this point. Specialization increases are weak in most European economies as well. The OECD has a more complex picture of spread and concentration. Some of the implications for further research on agglomeration, intra-industry trade, and integration are brought out in the conclusion. Copyright 2002, Oxford University Press.
Singular trajectories of driftless and control-affine systems

We establish generic properties for singular trajectories, first for driftless, and then for control-affine systems, extending results of [17], [16]. We show that, generically - for the Whitney topology - nontrivial singular trajectories are of minimal order and of corank one. As a consequence, if the number of vector fields of the system is greater than or equal to 3, then there exists generically no singular minimizing trajectory.
Aponecrosis: Morphological and biochemical exploration of a syncretic process of cell death sharing apoptosis and necrosis

A rat fibroblastic cell line (rat‐1/myc‐ER™) was treated with different concentration of Antimycin A, a metabolic poison that affects mitochondrial respiratory chain complex III. The modes of cell death were analyzed by time‐lapse videomicroscopy, in situ end‐labeling (ISEL) technique, and ultrastructural analysis. Intracellular ATP levels were also measured in order to detect whether the energetic stores were determinant for the type of cell death. It was found that while apoptosis was the prevalent cell death in the fibroblasts treated with low doses, 100 or 200 μM Antimycin A, a new type of cell demise that shared dynamic, molecular, and morphological features with both apoptosis and necrosis represents the most common cell death when the cells were exposed to high doses, 300 or 400 μM, of the hypoxic stimulus. This new type of cell death has been chimerically termed aponecrosis. The inhibition of caspase 3, an enzyme critical for the apoptotic DNA degradation, caused a clear shift from aponecrosis to necrosis in the cell culture, suggesting that this new type of cell death could account for an incomplete execution of the apoptotic program and the following degeneration in necrosis. After being treated with higher doses, i.e., 1000 μM Antimycin A, almost all of the cells died by true necrosis. The analysis of the cellular energetic stores showed that the levels of ATP were a primary determinant in directing toward active cell death (apoptosis), aponecrosis, or necrosis. We conclude that chemically induced hypoxia produces different types of cell death depending on the intensity of the insult and on the ATP availability of the cell, and that the classic apoptosis and necrosis may represent only two extremes of a continuum of intermediate forms of cell demise. J. Cell. Physiol. 182:41–49, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
On the dynamics of poverty and income inequality in US states

Purpose - This study seeks to provide answers to the following questions: Is there a relationship between poverty and income inequality in the short run/long run? Is the relationship unidirectional from income inequality to poverty as the previous studies assume, or is it bidirectional? Design/methodology/approach - The paper investigates the causality between income inequality and poverty within a multivariate framework using a panel data set of 50 US states over the period 1980 to 2004. Findings - The results reveal that a bidirectional relationship exists between poverty and income inequality both in the short run and in the long run. With respect to the short-run dynamics associated with poverty, both income inequality and the unemployment rate have a positive and statistically significant impact on poverty, a negative and statistically significant impact for real per capita personal income and level of education, while corruption is insignificant. In terms of the short-run dynamics associated with income inequality, poverty, the unemployment rate, real per capita personal income, and the level of education have a positive and statistically significant impact, while corruption has a statistically insignificant impact on income inequality. With regard to the long-run dynamics, the statistically significant error correction terms indicate the presence of a feedback relationship between poverty and income inequality. Originality/value - This study contributes to the existing empirical literature on several fronts. First, while previous studies rely on cross-country data, both the cross-sectional and time series variation of a panel data set of all 50 US states spanning the period 1980 to 2004 is exploited. Second, while the previous studies implicitly assume unidirectional causality from income inequality and poverty in their model specifications, the short-run and long-run causal dynamics between poverty and income inequality within a panel vector error correction model are explicitly examined.
A New Estimate of Transaction Costs

Transaction costs are important for a host of empirical analyses from market efficiency to international market research. But transaction costs estimates are not always available, or where available, are cumbersome to use and expensive to purchase. We present a model that requires only the time series of daily security returns to endogenously estimate the effective transaction costs for any firm, exchange, or time period. The feature of the data that allows for the estimation of transaction costs is the incidence of zero returns. Incorporating zero returns in the return-generating process, the model provides continuous estimates of average round-trip transaction costs from 1963 to 1990 that are 1.2% and 10.3% for large and small decile firms, respectively. These estimates are highly correlated (85%), with the most commonly used transaction cost estimators. Article published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Financial Studies in its journal, The Review of Financial Studies.