Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Null Mutations at the p 66 and Bradykinin 2 2 Receptor Loci Induce Divergent Phenotypes in 3 the Diabetic Kidney

37 Candidate genes have been identified that confer increased risk for diabetic 38 glomerulosclerosis (DG). Mice heterozygous for the Akita (Ins2) diabetogenic 39 mutation with a second mutation introduced at the bradykinin 2 receptor (B2R) locus, 40 express a disease phenotype that approximates human DG. Src homology 2 domain 41 transforming protein 1 (p66) controls mitochondrial metabolism and cellular responses 42 to oxidative stress, aging and apoptosis. We generated p66-null Akita mice to test 43 whether inactivating mutations at the p66 locus will rescue kidneys of Akita mice from 44 disease-causing mutations at the Ins2 and B2R loci. Here we show null mutations at the 45 p66 and B2R loci interact with the Akita (Ins2) mutation, independently and in 46 combination, inducing divergent phenotypes in the kidney. The B2R mutation induces 47 detrimental phenotypes, as judged by increased systemic and renal levels of oxidative 48 stress, histology and urine albumin excretion, whereas the p66-null mutation confers a 49 powerful protection phenotype. To elucidate the mechanism(s) of the protection 50 phenotype, we turned to our in vitro system. Experiments with cultured podocytes 51 revealed previously unrecognized crosstalk between p66 and the redox sensitive 52 transcription factor p53 that controls hyperglycemia-induced ROS metabolism, 53 transcription of p53 target genes (angiotensinogen, angiotensin II type-1 receptor; bax) 54 angiotensin II generation and apoptosis. RNA-interference targeting p66 inhibits all of 55 the above. Finally, protein levels of p53 target genes were upregulated in kidneys of 56 Akita mice, but unchanged in p66-null Akita mice. Taken together, p66 is a potential 57 molecular target for therapeutic intervention in DG. 58
The Volatility and Density Prediction Performance of Alternative GARCH Models

This study compares the volatility and density prediction performance of alternative GARCH models with different conditional distribution specifications. The conditional residuals are specified as normal, skewed-t or compound Poisson (jump) distribution based upon a non-linear and asymmetric GARCH (NGARCH) model framework. The empirical results for the S&P 500 and FTSE 100 index returns suggest that the jump model outperforms all other models in terms of both volatility forecasting and density prediction. Nevertheless, the superiority of the non-normal models is not always significant and diminished during the sample period on those occasions when volatility experiences an obvious structural change.
Developing a measure of competitive advantage

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to attempt to develop a measure of competitive advantage by identifying a stipulative definition, composing an operational definition and constructing a measurement variable. Design/methodology/approach – The paper undertakes critical literature review, cognitive interviews as well as a pilot and full study, which were carried out by applying a cross-sectional, self-administered e-mail survey with questionnaire in a fillable text-processing file, in order to develop a valid and reliable measure of competitive advantage. Findings – The results have led to the identification of a conceptually robust stipulative definition, the composition of a comprehensive operational definition and the construction of a qualified variable, making the development of a valid and reliable measure of competitive advantage possible. Research limitations/implications – The newly developed measure of competitive advantage, exempt from past conceptual problems, could be used for valid measur.
On the impact of trade openness on growth: further evidence from OECD countries

This study attempts to examine empirically the implications of the degree of openness for total and individual factor productivity growth in a group of 19 OECD countries over the last three decades. The study combines both time series and cross-sectional data. The model employed is a generalization of the commonly used, growth-accounting model based on the concept of an aggregate production function in which the rate of economic growth is a function of capital and labour accumulation and total factor productivity. It is explicitly assumed that total factor productivity depends, in turn, upon the rate of export expansion. The model is then estimated using the random coefficients approach. While results generally indicate that the relative importance of trade openness on economic growth varies significantly across countries, they also indicate that the role of capital and labour accumulation in fostering economic growth varies with the degree of openness, cross-sectionally as well as across time.
Pricing Interest Rate Options in a Two-Factor Cox–Ingersoll–Ross model of the Term Structure

Solutions are presented for prices on interest rate options in a two-factor version of the Cox-Ingersoll-Ross model of the term structure. Specific solutions are developed for caps on floating interest rates and for European options on discount bonds, coupon bonds, coupon bond futures, and Euro-dollar futures. The solutions for the options are expressed as multivariate integrals, and we show how to reduce the calculations to univariate numerical integrations, which can be calculated very quickly. The two-factor model provides more flexibility in fitting observed term structures, and the fixed parameters of the model can be set to capture the variability of the term structure over time. Article published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Financial Studies in its journal, The Review of Financial Studies.
Financial permeation as a role of microfinance: has microfinance actually been a viable financial intermediary for helping the poor?

This article represents a valuable contribution to the existing literature on the relationship between financial sector growth – specifically, of microfinance institutions (MFIs) – and poverty levels in developing countries. We propose a concept termed herein financial permeation to describe how expanding financial activity affects low-income households; just as water permeates dry sand, an increase in the use of and access to financial services may spread more money among the poor, meeting their credit needs and improving their levels of well-being. Another feature of the presented study is that it is among the first to apply the logit transformation to the poverty ratio, thereby eliminating some of the problems of standard regression models. We measure financial permeation by applying three indicators related to MFIs and use panel data for 76 developing countries from the period 1995 to 2008. We find that financial permeation has a statistically significant and robust effect on reducing the poverty ratio.
Introducing the Natural Switching Surface for reference frame systems: Three-phase boost PFCs

This paper presents the boundary control of three-phase boost rectifiers, bringing unprecedented dynamic response to reference frame based systems. A novel approach using the Natural Switching Surface (NSS) in the normalized αβ domain is introduced, providing superior dynamic performance and low input harmonic distortion. The derivation of the natural trajectories in the aforementioned domain is first performed to gain insight into the behavior of the system, yielding a generalized analysis that is valid for any possible combination of converter parameters. The target operating trajectory produced by the varying references is also described and characterized. Based on the previous analysis, the control laws that rule the behavior of the active rectifier are proposed, achieving constant-frequency operation as part of the control scheme. The resulting strategy provides excellent transient behavior, reverting to steady state in a few switching cycles when the PFC is subject to sudden load disturbances. Experimental and simulation results of a small scale 50W converter are presented to verify the enhanced properties of the NSS.
Estimating Implied Default Probabilities and Recovery Values: The Case of Greece During the 2010 European Debt Crisis

This paper develops a framework to estimate implied recovery values and risk-neutral default probability term-structures from sovereign bond prices. The model is applied to Greek bonds during the European debt crisis of 2010. In April and May 2010, the probability of a Greek default quickly rises from 5% to 40%. On Monday 10 May 2010, after EU finance ministers, the ECB and the IMF agree on a EUR 750 billion EU-wide rescue package, the default probability drops instantaneously below 10%. The implied recovery value remains between 40 and 60 cents on the euro and does not get revised materially during this period.
Nudging the digital pirate: Piracy and the conversion of pirates to paying customers

Hashim, Matthew J. Ph.D., Purdue University, December 2011. Nudging the Digital Pirate: Piracy and the Conversion of Pirates to Paying Customers. Major Professors: Karthik N. Kannan and Jackie M. Rees Ulmer. Digital piracy is a significant source of concern facing software developers, music labels, and movie production companies. The current legal and technological strate­ gies for mitigating the piracy problem have been largely unsuccessful, as firms continue to invest in litigation and digital rights management technologies to thwart piracy. Their e↵orts are quickly defeated by hackers and pirates, motivating the behavioral approach taken in this dissertation. In Chapter 2, we consider the common argument from digital media producers and government entities that there are victims of piracy, whereas pirates may perceive their actions to be victimless. Because of the victimless view, in certain circumstances, perceived moral obligations may become important determinants of piracy behavior. In particular, we theorize that attitudes and social norms could influence perceptions of moral obligation as a consequence of the desire to rationalize unethical behavior. We also identify circumstances under which exoge­ nous nudging from a software company can influence the impact of perceived moral obligations on intentions to pirate. Initial purchase and piracy conversion settings are compared to document when the salient constructs become relevant to the potential pirate. In Chapter 3, we explore the role of information targeting and its e↵ect on coor­ dination in a multi-threshold public goods game. We consider four treatments, three in which we give feedback about other member’s contributions to a subsample of group members, and another treatment in which feedback is not provided at all. Our three information treatments vary in whom receives the information, which can be given randomly, to those whose contributions are below the average of their group,
Determinants of Firm Workplace Health and Safety and Claims Management Practices

The authors examine workplace health and safety practices and workers' compensation claim management at some 450 Quebec firms in 1995. An analysis controlling for factors such as firm size and risk of injury finds that experiencerated employers—those whose workers' compensation insurance premiums were tied to their own injury rates—were more likely than non-experience-rated employers to implement measures to prevent workplace injury and disease. They also were more likely to engage in aggressive claims management, that is, practices for reducing compensation costs by means other than disease and injury prevention, such as hastening the injured worker's rehabilitation and challenging claims. These dual efforts appear to have resulted in a reduction in injury claims. There is also evidence of a systematic relationship between wages and compensation cost reduction strategy, with high-wage firms more likely than low-wage firms to emphasize improvement of health and safety over claims management.
Can Social Protection Work in Africa? Evidence on the Impact of Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme on Food Security, Assets and Incentives

This paper evaluates a large social protection program in rural Ethiopia, the Productive Safety Nets Programme (PSNP). The effectiveness of the PSNP is of interest because the program was implemented at scale in one of Africa’s poorest countries, with limited physical and communications infrastructure, and scarce administrative resources. We estimate the impact of the PSNP on food security, assets, and disincentives for work and private transfers from 2006-2008 using covariate nearest neighbor matching estimators. We test for heterogeneity in program impacts by estimating average impacts on all beneficiaries, dosage effects on those receiving high levels of transfers, and incremental impacts on households that also received complementary transfers intended to boost agricultural investment. We find that the PSNP has modest average impacts, improving food security, increasing growth in livestock holdings and improving households’ ability to raise funds in an emergency. Program impacts on asset accumulation are greater when higher levels of transfers are received and when participants have access to the PSNP and complementary agricultural services. Ethiopia’s experience suggests that it is possible to implement large social protection in Africa, but that impacts depend on infrastructure, administrative and design constraints.
Asymptomatic Bacteriuria among Pregnant Women Attending a Tertiary Care Hospital

Asymptomatic bacteriuria is defined as persistently and actively multiplying bacteria in significant numbers i.e. 10 5 bacteria per milliliter within the urinary tract without any obvious symptoms (Rajashekar et al., 2013). Urinary tract infection affects all age groups, but women particularly pregnant are more susceptible than men, due to short urethra, easy contamination of urinary tract with fecal flora and various other reasons (Kalantar et al., 2008). As many as 50–80% of women in the general population acquire at least one UTI during their lifetime and 20-30% of women have recurrent episodes (Rahim et al., 2008). ASB is a major risk factor for developing symptomatic urinary tract infections during pregnancy, and may be associated with adverse effects on maternal and foetal health (Fidelis et al., 2015). Significant bacteriuria is defined as the presence of 1,00,000 or more colony forming units (CFU) per ml of urine. Kass first introduced the concept of significant bacteriuria in an attempt to negate the problem of growing contaminants. Though Kass definition of significant bacteriuria retains its general usefulness, there are clinical situations where counts between 10 3 – 10 5 CFU/ml may be significant (Najar et al., 2009). Urine culture is the gold standard screening technique for bacteriuria during pregnancy. The most common infecting International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 6 Number 3 (2017) pp. 523-529 Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas. com
Evaluative Directions for the World Bank Group's Safeguards and Sustainability Policies

The financial and food crises are reminders of the growing challenges countries face in sustaining economic growth and lifting the living standards of the poor. Equally, the emerging impacts of global warming on natural disasters and on agriculture are warning signs of the urgency to care for the environment and society. Recent global experience in the financial and environmental arenas demonstrates clearly the need to put in place and enforce regulatory frameworks that balance costs and benefits, both private and social. In this context, the crucial questions in the recent evaluation by the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) of the World Bank Group's safeguards and sustainability policy framework concern the effectiveness of the instrument in mitigating adverse environmental and social impacts of development programs, and suggesting ways to improve the results. IEG's evaluation covered projects approved from FY1999 to FY2008. During this period, social and environmental effects were significant in half of World Bank projects 1,402 with commitments of $109 billion; 88 percent of projects financed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) 1,662 with commitments of $35 billion; and 217 guarantees by the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). The main thrust of the evaluation findings is that the World Bank Group's safeguards and sustainability policies have helped avoid or mitigate large-scale social and environmental risks in the projects it financed, but many projects with substantial environmental and social impacts remain of concern primarily because of inadequate supervision and follow-up.
Price transmission in the milk sectors of Poland and Hungary

Rapid and thorough changes have recently taken place in the dairy supply chain in the whole of Central and Eastern Europe. Growing concerns have been expressed that these changes may negatively affect farmers' relative position vis-a-vis the downstream industry, owing to market power exercised by the latter. This article investigates the price transmission mechanism in two countries from the region, Poland and Hungary, and contrasts the results with dairy market organisations specific to these countries. Using cointegrated vector autoregression and controlling for potential structural breaks, it is shown that Polish milk prices, unlike Hungarian ones, are characterised by short-term and long-term asymmetries. We discuss a number of potential explanations for these results, and consider, among others, differences between the dairy chain structures and the role of FDI.
PENGARUH MOTIVASI DAN LINGKUNGAN KERJA TERHADAP KINERJA KARYAWAN

Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui pengaruh motivasi dan lingkungan kerja terhadap kinerja karyawan PT. Aqua Tirta Investama di Klaten. Variabel penelitian ini terdiri dari variabel bebas yaitu motivasi (X 1 ) dan lingkungan kerja (X 2 ) serta variabel terikat yaitu kinerja karyawan (Y). Metode pengumpulan data yang digunakan adalah metode kuesioner (angket) dan dokumentasi. Metode analisis data yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah metode analisis deskripsi persentase dan regresi linier berganda. Berdasarkan hasil penelitian diperoleh persamaan regresi linier berganda ? = 23,857 + 0,180 X 1 + 0,94 X 2. Dengan menggunakan SPSS 16 Hasil Hipotesis uji F menunjukkan F hitung = 16.646 dengan nilai signifikansi = 0,000 < 0,05 yang berarti H3 yang berbunyi “Ada pengaruh signifikan motivasi dan lingkungan kerja terhadap kinerja karyawan PT. Aqua Tirta Investama di Klaten” diterima. Sedang dari uji Hipotesis secara parsial (uji t) diperoleh t hitung dari variabel motivasi sebesar 2.169, t hitung variabel lingkungan kerja sebanyak 2.207 dimana probabilitas lebih kecil dari 0,05 maka hipotesis diterima. Koefisien determinasi (Adjusted R 2 ) sebesar 0,376, hal ini berarti 37,6% kinerja karyawan PT. Aqua Tirta Investama dipengaruhi oleh motivasi dan lingkungan kerja, sedangkan sisanya dipengaruhi oleh variabel lain yang berada di luar variabel yang diteliti dalam penelitian ini.
Systematic Pathogenesis and Replication of Avian Hepatitis E Virus in Specific-Pathogen-Free Adult Chickens

ABSTRACT Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is an important human pathogen. Due to the lack of a cell culture system and a practical animal model for HEV, little is known about its pathogenesis and replication. The discovery of a strain of HEV in chickens, designated avian HEV, prompted us to evaluate chickens as a model for the study of HEV. Eighty-five 60-week-old specific-pathogen-free chickens were randomly divided into three groups. Group 1 chickens (n = 28) were each inoculated with 5 × 104.5 50% chicken infectious doses of avian HEV by the oronasal route, group 2 chickens (n = 29) were each inoculated with the same dose by the intravenous (i.v.) route, and group 3 chickens (n = 28) were not inoculated and were used as controls. Two chickens from each group were necropsied at 1, 3, 5, 7, 10, 13, 16, 20, 24, 28, 35, and 42 days postinoculation (dpi), and the remaining chickens were necropsied at 56 dpi. Serum, fecal, and various tissue samples, including liver and spleen samples, were collected at each necropsy for pathological and virological testing. By 21 dpi, all oronasally and i.v. inoculated chickens had seroconverted. Fecal virus shedding was detected variably from 1 to 20 dpi for the i.v. group and from 10 to 56 dpi for the oronasal group. Avian HEV RNA was detected in serum, bile, and liver samples from both i.v. and oronasally inoculated chickens. Gross liver lesions, characterized by subcapsular hemorrhages or enlargement of the right intermediate lobe, were observed in 7 of 28 oronasally and 7 of 29 i.v. inoculated chickens. Microscopic liver lesions were mainly lymphocytic periphlebitis and phlebitis. The lesion scores were higher for oronasal (P = 0.0008) and i.v. (P = 0.0029) group birds than for control birds. Slight elevations of the plasma liver enzyme lactate dehydrogenase were observed in infected chickens. The results indicated that chickens are a useful model for studying HEV replication and pathogenesis. This is the first report of HEV transmission via its natural route in a homologous animal model.
Women and Sport in Scandinavia: Policy, Participation and Representation

Throughout the 20th century women have gradually gained access to sporting activities but it is only in recent decades that they have become widely represented in the decision-making bodies of sport. How can we account for this development and the weak position of women in sport? The perspective in this article is historical and three levels of explanation are considered. To what extent can the developments be explained as the result of public policy, the organization and policy of the voluntary associations and federations and by the action or predispositions of (groups of) women themselves. The article presents an overview of the state of the art in the research on women and sport in Scandinavia in the sense that new data have been collected and existing research and writings are being reviewed. By questioning central myths about sport and politics, and about the roles women play, it is shown that the role of women in sports is related bom to gaining access to the sporting activities per se and to the fora where decisions are being made, and that this access has been hampered as well as facilitated by government policies and policies of associations and interest organizations of the sports world. Government policies, however, cannot account for the remarkable changes in physical participation and democratic representation of women in sports which has taken place during the past century. The policies of the voluntary sports associations and federations are of greater importance. But the key to the understanding is found among the women themselves. So it is argued that physical performance and involvement in management and decision-making are dependent not only on formal structures and the policies of governments and interest organizations, but to a large extent upon the way in which women see themselves. This argumentation rests on the available data and a critical reading of the literature and research on women and sport in Scandinavia.